I had this exact problem, and I had the exact same idea (1/2 time for 1/2 pay). I found a better solution:
Take some time off, put your email on auto-reply and don't look at a screen for a few weeks (2 minimum). No pager, no mobile phone, nothing. Read some good books (ex: "Organizing Genius" by: Warren Bennis), travel, whatever. As long as you re-engage your brain and come back motivated.
Repeat this every 3-4 months and you'll be golden.
Gracenote's patent blurb is below. I'm wondering what happens if a company releases software under the GPL but then they turn around and patent the activity that the software provides. Freedb was derived in part from CDDB, but it sounds like Gracenote may have the patent on the technology. W/O paying royalties could freedb get in trouble?
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METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR FINDING APPROXIMATE MATCHES IN DATABASE
U.S. Patent No. 6,061,680, issued May 9, 2000, relates to a method used to find title and track information in a database by calculating approximate length information based on the number and length of tracks on a recording.
Why are you poking around on their site(s) looking for security problems? They aren't your client; you have no right (or duty) to attempt to exploit ANY problem that they have. Doing so may violate the company's rights, leaving you open to legal action.
Most definetly! Buy the binary, keep the source. That way if the vendor goes belly up you can be rest-assured that your application won't die along with the vendor.
I'd imagine that the vast majority of customers out there don't want to mess with the source at all. Just because the have the ability to tweat the code doesn't mean that they necessarily will. I think that I'd be correct to assume that if a customer has the technical ability to tweak the code they won't be the type of customer that will typically call tech support.
With all those machines you could just pull the dead ones out of service and leave them there until you wanted to do periodic maintenance (at which time you simply yank out the dead ones, replace them, flip on the power switch and walk away). Assuming you've got some clever auto-assimilation software you may not even need to configure the box manually.
AMD is a smaller, more nimble company than Intel; it is easier for them to adopt new manufacturing processes (or new anything for that matter). As long as AMD doesn't outgrow itself it should be able to beat Intel to the punch quite often.
You can make "Linux" into almost anything that you want given you have enough patience. Yes, but once you do you need to make the source open to anyone (including competitors) and many companies aren't willing to take that risk. When companies are creating general-purpose software (like a Linux distribution or an office suite) they can afford to open source it. There will be a broad enough population of users who will be able to look at the code and make useful contributions back to the greater community. The population of these types of users are much smaller for dedicated devices (like a set-top box) _and_ software fixes are much harder to implement so going open-source shifts from being a benefit to being a liability.
Using excess HDTV bandwidth is exactly the same thing that current cable providers are doing with traditional cable systems. IMHO this isn't a bad thing as it is adding value to something that would otherwise go wasted AND it gives consumers more options.
It sounds like the situation is already settled. Be admits wrongdoing and promises (and acts) on making ammends, Bruce doesn't persue litigation. Everyone is happy, no blood was shed.
The fact that the market is going down should be very important to a large number of "nerds". I can't tell you how many of my peers have a vested (no pun intended) interest in the strength of "The Market". Between stock option grants and such, a large number of people that have worked very hard to create a number of great products and contributions to the Internet (and Linux) community are now facing a very large change in their financial situation. Honestly, I'd imagine that aside from the religious few (who somehow decided to go into computers/technnology to work for free) the vast majority of us went into it because we could get paid (usually more than the average white collar worker) to do what we love. While we may like to give the finger to corporate america, ultimatly large corrections in the market will not help us (nerds) in any way. This shakedown can/will prevent a large number of smaller (possibly innovative) companies from getting funding. Furthermore, as companies that we like (VA, Red Hat, Caldera, Be, etc.) continue to loose market value (in massive ways), people may start to turn toward less volatile sources (Microsoft) of software and technology. Food for thought...
The ability to mount, unmount, rename and remount a given filesystem on the fly is what is really useful to me. Combined with a disk partitioning utility of some sort, an admin has alot of control over their system. The system can grow organically over time and can be expanded without interruption.
The Linux vs. GNU/Linux naming debate is much more than an a disagreement over names. Rather, it strikes at the heart of what we hope to defend by advocating software that is "free".
Essentially, if I modify your source or use portions of it in another project, must I give credit to you by way of incorporating your name (or some other entity) with the name of my program? This is essentially what Richard Stallman is advocating with the GNU/Linux brand. I doubt that Mr. Stallman would advocate this across the board (ie for all free software). Doing so would set a dangerous precedent. In this day and age, where free software is in the limelight and more and more developers are using free software, requiring a particular naming convention across the board would not be good.
To give weight to my argument, I look toward the GNU General Public License and Copyleft to find anything regarding naming conventions for modified or incorporated code. I find none. On the other hand, however, I find that ample latitude is given to individuals and organizations to modify and re-use free software. The only stipulation that is placed on such code is that it must remain under the GPL (which, in itself doesn't cover naming conventions).
So, is it time to update the GPL (which was last modified in June 1991) or time to decide that the GPL doesn't cover naming conventions (thereby dropping the GNU/Linux debate)?
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I had this exact problem, and I had the exact same idea (1/2 time for 1/2 pay). I found a better solution:
Take some time off, put your email on auto-reply and don't look at a screen for a few weeks (2 minimum). No pager, no mobile phone, nothing. Read some good books (ex: "Organizing Genius" by: Warren Bennis), travel, whatever. As long as you re-engage your brain and come back motivated.
Repeat this every 3-4 months and you'll be golden.
Gracenote's patent blurb is below. I'm wondering what happens if a company releases software under the GPL but then they turn around and patent the activity that the software provides. Freedb was derived in part from CDDB, but it sounds like Gracenote may have the patent on the technology. W/O paying royalties could freedb get in trouble?
--
METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR FINDING APPROXIMATE MATCHES IN DATABASE
U.S. Patent No. 6,061,680, issued May 9, 2000, relates to a method used to find title and track information in a database by calculating approximate length information based on the number and length of tracks on a recording.
Why are you poking around on their site(s) looking for security problems? They aren't your client; you have no right (or duty) to attempt to exploit ANY problem that they have. Doing so may violate the company's rights, leaving you open to legal action.
hehe that was my thought too.
Most definetly! Buy the binary, keep the source. That way if the vendor goes belly up you can be rest-assured that your application won't die along with the vendor.
I'd imagine that the vast majority of customers out there don't want to mess with the source at all. Just because the have the ability to tweat the code doesn't mean that they necessarily will. I think that I'd be correct to assume that if a customer has the technical ability to tweak the code they won't be the type of customer that will typically call tech support.
With all those machines you could just pull the dead ones out of service and leave them there until you wanted to do periodic maintenance (at which time you simply yank out the dead ones, replace them, flip on the power switch and walk away). Assuming you've got some clever auto-assimilation software you may not even need to configure the box manually.
AMD is a smaller, more nimble company than Intel; it is easier for them to adopt new manufacturing processes (or new anything for that matter). As long as AMD doesn't outgrow itself it should be able to beat Intel to the punch quite often.
Isn't that the point?
Of course, by the time it drops through our atmosphere there won't be that much of it left to do much harm.
You can make "Linux" into almost anything that you want given you have enough patience. Yes, but once you do you need to make the source open to anyone (including competitors) and many companies aren't willing to take that risk. When companies are creating general-purpose software (like a Linux distribution or an office suite) they can afford to open source it. There will be a broad enough population of users who will be able to look at the code and make useful contributions back to the greater community. The population of these types of users are much smaller for dedicated devices (like a set-top box) _and_ software fixes are much harder to implement so going open-source shifts from being a benefit to being a liability.
Using excess HDTV bandwidth is exactly the same thing that current cable providers are doing with traditional cable systems. IMHO this isn't a bad thing as it is adding value to something that would otherwise go wasted AND it gives consumers more options.
It sounds like the situation is already settled. Be admits wrongdoing and promises (and acts) on making ammends, Bruce doesn't persue litigation. Everyone is happy, no blood was shed.
The fact that the market is going down should be very important to a large number of "nerds". I can't tell you how many of my peers have a vested (no pun intended) interest in the strength of "The Market". Between stock option grants and such, a large number of people that have worked very hard to create a number of great products and contributions to the Internet (and Linux) community are now facing a very large change in their financial situation. Honestly, I'd imagine that aside from the religious few (who somehow decided to go into computers/technnology to work for free) the vast majority of us went into it because we could get paid (usually more than the average white collar worker) to do what we love. While we may like to give the finger to corporate america, ultimatly large corrections in the market will not help us (nerds) in any way. This shakedown can/will prevent a large number of smaller (possibly innovative) companies from getting funding. Furthermore, as companies that we like (VA, Red Hat, Caldera, Be, etc.) continue to loose market value (in massive ways), people may start to turn toward less volatile sources (Microsoft) of software and technology. Food for thought...
The ability to mount, unmount, rename and remount a given filesystem on the fly is what is really useful to me. Combined with a disk partitioning utility of some sort, an admin has alot of control over their system. The system can grow organically over time and can be expanded without interruption.
The Linux vs. GNU/Linux naming debate is much more than an a disagreement over names. Rather, it strikes at the heart of what we hope to defend by advocating software that is "free".
Essentially, if I modify your source or use portions of it in another project, must I give credit to you by way of incorporating your name (or some other entity) with the name of my program? This is essentially what Richard Stallman is advocating with the GNU/Linux brand. I doubt that Mr. Stallman would advocate this across the board (ie for all free software). Doing so would set a dangerous precedent. In this day and age, where free software is in the limelight and more and more developers are using free software, requiring a particular naming convention across the board would not be good.
To give weight to my argument, I look toward the GNU General Public License and Copyleft to find anything regarding naming conventions for modified or incorporated code. I find none. On the other hand, however, I find that ample latitude is given to individuals and organizations to modify and re-use free software. The only stipulation that is placed on such code is that it must remain under the GPL (which, in itself doesn't cover naming conventions).
So, is it time to update the GPL (which was last modified in June 1991) or time to decide that the GPL doesn't cover naming conventions (thereby dropping the GNU/Linux debate)?