You're right. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be like that. I'm merely making an observation here that it could be more dangerous than most people realise.
And I'm certainly not against Linux or the philosophy behind it!
But, we must be realistic. Linux IS being used more frequently in commercial ways now than before when it was mostly a university/non-profit/private thing. (ok, i'm generalising, but you know what I mean).
Hence you enter the business world... and I'm afraid it means that Linux will have to play the game differently and take more care about legal issues and consequences. I agree that the SCO thing is bad... very bad.. and shouldn't happen. But this is the real world.... it is imperfect and Linu(s)(x) should be ready for it.
Either you have a decent system where coders are protected against misbehaving users/competitors and you try to capture the commercial market (and let us be honest, we want Linux to grab a bit of market share of Windows, as is being done now). Or, you do not protect coders and just keep on working as before, but then I see no other alternative than to remain a system that cannot be commercially used, unless the business world (and SCO) suddenly decides to play it more fairly.
I know. It is a dim view of the world...but maybe more realistic... Linux simply isn't untouchable anymore... how much we would like it to be the ideal community it was before... it is confronted with other forces now... I'm not saying I have an answer... I'm just saying we need to think about this...
You are correct of course that you did nothing wrong. But having to prove that in court can cost huge amounts of money. Let's say as an European I'm sued in the USA for infringement on someone's rights, the legal bill is very substantial: - foreign attorney's - foreign payments of fee's - another legal system with different habits which would only add to the expenditure in this case because you need more counseling - maybe even travel or plane ticket to be in court in person - time you need to spend on this -....
I'm just guessing right now, but I think you can see my point that it could be an expensive venture. Since you do not have the protection of a legal entity as a company (inc., ltd.,...) your own personal assets can be at risks to defend yourself...
Maybe the only solution is that Linus founds a non-profit company, and all the developers become unpaid workers at this company so that they at least benefit from the protection of such a organisation
You are indeed correct that writing and attributing the code is of course the fact that could get you in trouble. Whether or not you sign a document. As you said it is only easier to find you (which is more or less uncomfortable), but the real difference is also that your signature of the DCO makes you vow that you are responsible for the code, that the code is yours in the making. If another party thinks this is not the case, they can also attack you on specifically that: the fact that you knowingly lied about the contents of the code... I would think this is an additional disadvantage...
Apparantly the GPL does metion that the author does not guarantee the software. But, alitigator can still sue you, and lose... but the legal costs are still there...
Although I'm not an expert in law (and certainly not US law since I live in the EU with different laws regarding to this), my gut feeling says I would never, never, nerver ever sign a document like that even if my work would be 100% original and not copied.
Just the mere fact that you sign a document that proves you wrote part of the Linux code, makes you liable for litigation. If any company thinks its rights are violated by a Linux component they can easily sue the contributors of this (and more) components personally. Given the track record of US litigation, I would never sign it.
Signing the document means that the author of the code will have to seek expenive legal support in case a lawsuit is started. Even if he can prove in court the code is original and written by himself, the bill for legal advice can be quite substanstial. If an author programmed in his spare time, this means he personally is liable... personally as in 'with your own personal assets'...
As an employee of a software firm (or worker at any other firm), your work is done "acting as a part of the company". Hence the company itself and not the individual employee is (financially) responsible for his/her mistakes. In case of litigation the company will have to seek legal council and incurr the damages. In my country the company could try to sue the employee for the incurred damages afterwards, but it will have to prove very extensively that the employee made very serious professional errors. And even then, companies rarely do so.
But a private author is personally responsible with his own assets (wage, house, car,...) for any damages. Since most of the programmers probably do not have their assets split between their personal property and some form of 'company property' this might get dangerous. Please excuse me for not knowing the correct legal terms for 'private property' and property as part of an "inc." or "ltd.".
A bit more expensive than other solutions, but very handy is the smallest VAIO notebook from Sony, the TR-Series. It is a Windows XP computer, which can almost fit in your pocket...
And this while every graphic designer knows that Verdana 10pt is one of the most easy to read fonts, both on paper and screen. (That is why so many websites use it as font.)
Sybase has a database application programming system called PowerBuilder. It uses compiled programs, datawindows and relies heavily on SQL scripting. Although I'm not very fond of the application programming part of the system, I do like the simple SQL editor that is included with it. It can connect to all databases (with plugins) and ODBC sources. Features a very nice 'white blank page' SQL editor screen that highlights key SQL keywords (a bit like the IDE of VisualBasic) and offers very easy data viewing and manipulation.
I tried products like TOAD and Aqua Data Studio, but found these to be very restrictive and a lot more difficult for easy queries and result editing. I do not recommend it here for you, but is there anybody out there that knows about an SQL editor that can connect to all these databases and is as simple, yet more powerfull than PowerBuilder? (And features Unicode support:-) ?)
The oldest monitor lying around at home is the original monitor that came with an Apple IIe. At that time (80's) it had a fairly nice design. It had a composite (banana?) video-in connector and hence was actually a TV monitor.
I can imagine shooting at ducks with sizes that approach real-life (scale 1:1) on this plasma is fun, since no real animals are killed. But, wouldn't the blast from your gun damage the plasma? Or is it bullet-proof too?
When logging in this morning on our company network, I noticed that Windows Messenger (the more polite version of MSN messenger with Exchange IM functionality) was also banned.
I replaced it with Group Policy software installation by the new Windows Messenger 5.0 Client that can be found on the Microsoft website. After that both Exchange IM and MSN IM worked.
Well, as far as I know the most spoken language on the planet is Chinese (with all its different dialects)... not English... So I suggest the US and EU should standardise on Chinese then.:-)
In the previous comments, a lot of people made the argument that NASA costs to much for the results it achieves. I don't have an opinion on this, since I do not know all the facts. There are important factors to consider though if you want to have an opinion on this.
A BBC program (I think) recently touched on the fact that the Shuttle has been made a lot larger (and hence more expensive) than originally designed by NASA because the Pentagon wanted the craft to be able to launch heavier (military spy)satellites, and apparantly the Shuttle also harbours some other non-specified defense technology. I lost the name and original air date of this program, but you can trust me on this.:-) I may believe previous writers that NASA is too large/bureaucratic/whatever/..., but not all blame for the Shuttle program should be laid on NASA. The Pentagon also has a responsibility here.
NASA's budget may be huge... but its total budget is only as large as three DAYS of budget of the Pentagon... Maybe the US government should change something there, and jumpstart the space program: exploring space instead of other countries...
Before I get flamed, please consider this: Let's admit it, ONE of the reasons why the US likes the Army is because it generates jobs, not only directly (soldiers) but also indirectly in the defense contrators that supply the Army. The Army has a huge impact on the US economy. I can understand that the US doesn't want to cut the budget, certainly not in economic troubled times.
Changing the budget from the Pentagon to NASA would have the advantage that have all those clever defense contractors and engineers work for benevolant technologies (hopefully) for the benefit of all mankind. At the same time the effect to the US economy and workforce would be limited... In the long run new technologies and discoveries could even strenghten the economy.
Is this a troll or for real? All car makers to my knowledge do this BTO...
I know that all large European car makers are doing this already. My VW Golf that I bought last year was custom made, as are most VW's that you buy. You have 4 basic trims (Base, Comfortline, Highline and Trendline) and you can add options, features, colors (inside and outside), fabrics,... like you wish. These trim levels are even not decided by VW, but by the importer in each country. A Base model in Belgium does not have traction control, in Germany that is standard on all Golf's.
Only very few cars of the VW/Audi group are built by order of the factory, and most of these company ordered cars end up in the showroom to give the public a general idea of what is available. Often you get even a discount on those models because they are not 100% configured to your own wishes....
Volkswagen has a "car configurator" on their website that can make thousands of possible Golf configurations.
Do you really mean you cannot order your own car in the USA? I'm stunned... I thought buying stock cars was almost impossible these days...
Although I agree with some statements of the writer and I'm flattered he uses my native Dutch to prove his point, I don't think he choose a correct example.
The sentence "ik rook 2 pakjes per dag... niet" is the literal translation of the Wayne's World "I smoke 2 packs per day..NOT" that he is referring to. The Dutch construction of this sentence is as wrong as the Wayne's World English one. It should indeed be "Ik rook *geen* 2 pakjes per dag" or "I do *not* smoke 2 packs per day".
You can, however, put the punchline at the end of the sentence in Dutch if you say "Ik rook *die* 2 pakjes per dag niet.", or meaning a bit astonished and dismissive "I do *not* smoke *those* 2 packs per day."
By the way, if the previous writer knew that difference still by heart, he must have had a very good knowledge op Dutch... so this is not intended as a negative comment:-) Goed gedaan!
Installl Messenger mandatory and lock it down
on
Blocking MSN Messenger?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I did the exact opposite at our company.
I used group policy software distribution to force the install of Windows Messenger on all computers. Windows Messenger is a slightly different version than MSN Messenger but it can also connect to the IM system of Exchange. We use that in house as our instant messaging system.
When once installed you can use Group Policies to lock the Windows messenger down. With registry keys embedded in the policies you can disable file transfer, video chat and even outside communications (to the internet, not intranet) of the client.
We disabled file transfer to avoid viruses slipping in via this way.
If I am correct you can even set Windows messenger to have priority on MSN messenger, thus disabling the MSN version. In this way you should have full control over the IM system. Check the knowledge base and technet for the necessary info. If necessary, contact me.
Same here: continuous operation of a graphite Airport at home for 2 years now without a hitch. 4 clients attached mixed Mac/WinXP on a cable modem. I bought another graphite and snow Airport for the office, and they all worked flawlessly.
I don't know about PPC but it certainly ran on Alpha. I once saw NT running on the booth of DEC on a local trade show... was really fast.. as you might have expected. And it ran Ms Office (in an emulation layer)!:-)
On a Sony VAIO FX205K (european Model) you can hear the NIC card buzz (or maybe CPU?) when large quantities of data are copied over the network (e.g. a 200MB file)...
Since the PC has a TFT screen and an external power supply, I doubt that these have anything to do with it...
In Europe at least (don't know about the States) we have ski resorts that use a special Swatch watch that has an RFID chip inside. The system for the ski resorts is provided by Skidata. (www.skidata.com) The system is also used to protect garages,...
In many electronics do-it-yourself magazines you can find schematics for RFID readers that can connect to an electric door using cheap parts. The watches cost about 45 USD maximum. And kids will love the designs...
Since the watches are read from a distance, there is a large chance that your 8-year-old won't even notice that the watch is the key to the door.... Good luck! Please let us know what you eventually choose!
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You're right. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be like that. I'm merely making an observation here that it could be more dangerous than most people realise.
:-)
And I'm certainly not against Linux or the philosophy behind it!
But, we must be realistic. Linux IS being used more frequently in commercial ways now than before when it was mostly a university/non-profit/private thing. (ok, i'm generalising, but you know what I mean).
Hence you enter the business world... and I'm afraid it means that Linux will have to play the game differently and take more care about legal issues and consequences. I agree that the SCO thing is bad... very bad.. and shouldn't happen. But this is the real world.... it is imperfect and Linu(s)(x) should be ready for it.
Either you have a decent system where coders are protected against misbehaving users/competitors and you try to capture the commercial market (and let us be honest, we want Linux to grab a bit of market share of Windows, as is being done now). Or, you do not protect coders and just keep on working as before, but then I see no other alternative than to remain a system that cannot be commercially used, unless the business world (and SCO) suddenly decides to play it more fairly.
I know. It is a dim view of the world...but maybe more realistic... Linux simply isn't untouchable anymore... how much we would like it to be the ideal community it was before... it is confronted with other forces now... I'm not saying I have an answer... I'm just saying we need to think about this...
Ps. I'm not a coder myself
You are correct of course that you did nothing wrong. But having to prove that in court can cost huge amounts of money. Let's say as an European I'm sued in the USA for infringement on someone's rights, the legal bill is very substantial: ....
...) your own personal assets can be at risks to defend yourself...
- foreign attorney's
- foreign payments of fee's
- another legal system with different habits which would only add to the expenditure in this case because you need more counseling
- maybe even travel or plane ticket to be in court in person
- time you need to spend on this
-
I'm just guessing right now, but I think you can see my point that it could be an expensive venture. Since you do not have the protection of a legal entity as a company (inc., ltd.,
Maybe the only solution is that Linus founds a non-profit company, and all the developers become unpaid workers at this company so that they at least benefit from the protection of such a organisation
Jeroen,
You are indeed correct that writing and attributing the code is of course the fact that could get you in trouble. Whether or not you sign a document. As you said it is only easier to find you (which is more or less uncomfortable), but the real difference is also that your signature of the DCO makes you vow that you are responsible for the code, that the code is yours in the making. If another party thinks this is not the case, they can also attack you on specifically that: the fact that you knowingly lied about the contents of the code... I would think this is an additional disadvantage...
Apparantly the GPL does metion that the author does not guarantee the software. But, alitigator can still sue you, and lose... but the legal costs are still there...
Although I'm not an expert in law (and certainly not US law since I live in the EU with different laws regarding to this), my gut feeling says I would never, never, nerver ever sign a document like that even if my work would be 100% original and not copied.
...) for any damages. Since most of the programmers probably do not have their assets split between their personal property and some form of 'company property' this might get dangerous. Please excuse me for not knowing the correct legal terms for 'private property' and property as part of an "inc." or "ltd.".
Just the mere fact that you sign a document that proves you wrote part of the Linux code, makes you liable for litigation. If any company thinks its rights are violated by a Linux component they can easily sue the contributors of this (and more) components personally. Given the track record of US litigation, I would never sign it.
Signing the document means that the author of the code will have to seek expenive legal support in case a lawsuit is started. Even if he can prove in court the code is original and written by himself, the bill for legal advice can be quite substanstial. If an author programmed in his spare time, this means he personally is liable... personally as in 'with your own personal assets'...
As an employee of a software firm (or worker at any other firm), your work is done "acting as a part of the company". Hence the company itself and not the individual employee is (financially) responsible for his/her mistakes. In case of litigation the company will have to seek legal council and incurr the damages. In my country the company could try to sue the employee for the incurred damages afterwards, but it will have to prove very extensively that the employee made very serious professional errors. And even then, companies rarely do so.
But a private author is personally responsible with his own assets (wage, house, car,
Well, If you are planning to do all that, I would at a touch screen LCD instead of normal buttons. Nicer design... :-)
Good Luck!
A bit more expensive than other solutions, but very handy is the smallest VAIO notebook from Sony, the TR-Series. It is a Windows XP computer, which can almost fit in your pocket...
C'mon man... I was just kidding... Do you really need to mod this down... Sigh...
Linux:Apple::VW:BMW :-)
And this while every graphic designer knows that Verdana 10pt is one of the most easy to read fonts, both on paper and screen. (That is why so many websites use it as font.)
Sybase has a database application programming system called PowerBuilder. It uses compiled programs, datawindows and relies heavily on SQL scripting. Although I'm not very fond of the application programming part of the system, I do like the simple SQL editor that is included with it. It can connect to all databases (with plugins) and ODBC sources. Features a very nice 'white blank page' SQL editor screen that highlights key SQL keywords (a bit like the IDE of VisualBasic) and offers very easy data viewing and manipulation.
I tried products like TOAD and Aqua Data Studio, but found these to be very restrictive and a lot more difficult for easy queries and result editing. I do not recommend it here for you, but is there anybody out there that knows about an SQL editor that can connect to all these databases and is as simple, yet more powerfull than PowerBuilder? (And features Unicode support :-) ?)
When I was playing with video camera's and a Panasonic 'digital' video editing board, I used the Apple as a monitor of my incoming video signal.
Ten years later the thing still works, but not used anymore.
I can imagine shooting at ducks with sizes that approach real-life (scale 1:1) on this plasma is fun, since no real animals are killed. But, wouldn't the blast from your gun damage the plasma? Or is it bullet-proof too?
If I remember correctly you need Windows 2000 SP3 or Windows XP to get it to work. Works perfectly here for all clients with XP SP1 and 2000 SP4
I replaced it with Group Policy software installation by the new Windows Messenger 5.0 Client that can be found on the Microsoft website. After that both Exchange IM and MSN IM worked.
Well, as far as I know the most spoken language on the planet is Chinese (with all its different dialects)... not English... So I suggest the US and EU should standardise on Chinese then. :-)
In the previous comments, a lot of people made the argument that NASA costs to much for the results it achieves. I don't have an opinion on this, since I do not know all the facts. There are important factors to consider though if you want to have an opinion on this.
:-) I may believe previous writers that NASA is too large/bureaucratic/whatever/..., but not all blame for the Shuttle program should be laid on NASA. The Pentagon also has a responsibility here.
A BBC program (I think) recently touched on the fact that the Shuttle has been made a lot larger (and hence more expensive) than originally designed by NASA because the Pentagon wanted the craft to be able to launch heavier (military spy)satellites, and apparantly the Shuttle also harbours some other non-specified defense technology. I lost the name and original air date of this program, but you can trust me on this.
NASA's budget may be huge... but its total budget is only as large as three DAYS of budget of the Pentagon... Maybe the US government should change something there, and jumpstart the space program: exploring space instead of other countries...
Before I get flamed, please consider this: Let's admit it, ONE of the reasons why the US likes the Army is because it generates jobs, not only directly (soldiers) but also indirectly in the defense contrators that supply the Army. The Army has a huge impact on the US economy. I can understand that the US doesn't want to cut the budget, certainly not in economic troubled times.
Changing the budget from the Pentagon to NASA would have the advantage that have all those clever defense contractors and engineers work for benevolant technologies (hopefully) for the benefit of all mankind. At the same time the effect to the US economy and workforce would be limited... In the long run new technologies and discoveries could even strenghten the economy.
"So, what else should we say, this is really the Sahnestuck of Superlatives. I get tears in my eyes..."
Now the Sahnestuck is still a problem, but it is indeed a word consisting of
"Sahne" = Cream
Stuck = Piece
Cream is the final topping on the pie, so you could freely translate this by "the cherry on the pie"...
In total we get:
"So, what else should we say, this is really the superlative of the proverbial cherry on the pie. I get the tears in my eyes"
I know that all large European car makers are doing this already. My VW Golf that I bought last year was custom made, as are most VW's that you buy. You have 4 basic trims (Base, Comfortline, Highline and Trendline) and you can add options, features, colors (inside and outside), fabrics, ... like you wish. These trim levels are even not decided by VW, but by the importer in each country. A Base model in Belgium does not have traction control, in Germany that is standard on all Golf's.
Only very few cars of the VW/Audi group are built by order of the factory, and most of these company ordered cars end up in the showroom to give the public a general idea of what is available. Often you get even a discount on those models because they are not 100% configured to your own wishes....
Volkswagen has a "car configurator" on their website that can make thousands of possible Golf configurations.
Do you really mean you cannot order your own car in the USA? I'm stunned... I thought buying stock cars was almost impossible these days...
The sentence "ik rook 2 pakjes per dag... niet" is the literal translation of the Wayne's World "I smoke 2 packs per day..NOT" that he is referring to. The Dutch construction of this sentence is as wrong as the Wayne's World English one. It should indeed be "Ik rook *geen* 2 pakjes per dag" or "I do *not* smoke 2 packs per day".
You can, however, put the punchline at the end of the sentence in Dutch if you say "Ik rook *die* 2 pakjes per dag niet.", or meaning a bit astonished and dismissive "I do *not* smoke *those* 2 packs per day."
By the way, if the previous writer knew that difference still by heart, he must have had a very good knowledge op Dutch... so this is not intended as a negative comment :-) Goed gedaan!
I used group policy software distribution to force the install of Windows Messenger on all computers. Windows Messenger is a slightly different version than MSN Messenger but it can also connect to the IM system of Exchange. We use that in house as our instant messaging system.
When once installed you can use Group Policies to lock the Windows messenger down. With registry keys embedded in the policies you can disable file transfer, video chat and even outside communications (to the internet, not intranet) of the client.
We disabled file transfer to avoid viruses slipping in via this way.
If I am correct you can even set Windows messenger to have priority on MSN messenger, thus disabling the MSN version. In this way you should have full control over the IM system. Check the knowledge base and technet for the necessary info. If necessary, contact me.
Same here: continuous operation of a graphite Airport at home for 2 years now without a hitch. 4 clients attached mixed Mac/WinXP on a cable modem. I bought another graphite and snow Airport for the office, and they all worked flawlessly.
I don't know about PPC but it certainly ran on Alpha. I once saw NT running on the booth of DEC on a local trade show... was really fast.. as you might have expected. And it ran Ms Office (in an emulation layer)! :-)
Since the PC has a TFT screen and an external power supply, I doubt that these have anything to do with it...
In many electronics do-it-yourself magazines you can find schematics for RFID readers that can connect to an electric door using cheap parts. The watches cost about 45 USD maximum. And kids will love the designs...
Since the watches are read from a distance, there is a large chance that your 8-year-old won't even notice that the watch is the key to the door.... Good luck! Please let us know what you eventually choose!