I don't think it is at all outrageous. It is the same as signing an NDA or an employment that contains a trade secrets clause.
The information is potentially very valuable to competitors, so he has been asked not to discuss it in public. It is in both his best interests and the company's to keep that information secret, considering that both parties have the potential to make oodles of money from it.
You are right that there is often a strong correlation between popularity and quality. In the case of iPod, I think there generally is a strong correlation. Nothing in this world is black and white though (except iPhones, which are available in black and white).
Your example of Windows XP is the obvious counter-example. Although it is still much better than Vista in many ways, I don't think it holds its own against Mac OS X.
I've used Windows since 1988 and switched to a Mac at home last November. I much prefer my Mac now to my PC. Maybe that opinion will change after 20 years using Mac OS. We shall see, but right now it's not looking good for Vista.
From where the rest of the world is standing, the iPod is still leaps and bounds better than a Zune. I have NEVER even seen a Zune out in the real world, but I see iPods every day.
Every single Apple product is better than it's Microsoft/PC counterpart. Mac OS X is better than Vista. iPod is better than Zune. MacBook Pro even runs Windows faster than a comparable PC laptop. The iMac is just pure industrial design brilliance (although I do like the Dell XPS One a fair bit too).
Face it, the rest of the world is just playing the Catchup-to-Apple game.
As for the iPhone, it is game changing. It has never been easier for a mobile software developer to get his content to users.
I tried doing games for other phones before, but it was very difficult to get the game into user's hands. I will gladly pay 30% to Apple for their App Store service. Mobile providers won't give you that deal for traditional mobile publishing.
I was working on a project with a Korean developer who got homesick and decided to return to Korea in the middle of the project. My manager didn't bother to change the schedule for such a small thing as losing 50% of the manpower on the project.
On top of that, after the other developer left, I discovered that most of the code he wrote was completely non-functional garbage. There was one server-side database class that he claimed was complete, but all the SQL queries read "select 1"!
I put in 70+ hours a week for about 3 months, rewrote a lot of his code, and managed to keep all the deadlines.
Then when I asked how they were planning to reward me for my efforts, I was met with the statement that "ThE compAny doesn't pay overtime". Sure fine...then what are you planning to do instead of pay overtime? The response was that because I was already the highest paid member of the team, that they couldn't afford to pay me any bonus or give me any extra time off. WTF?
I gave my notice and got the hell out of there three months before the project was finished. That's the first time I have ever left a project in the middle, and I don't regret it for even a second. I only wish I had left the project in a worse state. Since I left the project in a decent state, they won't feel much pain at my departure.
ThE compAny is definitely one to avoid if you value your free time, or if you at least want to get paid fairly for your time.
My new boss has the policy that "Every hour worked is an hour compensated." That's a policy I can live much more peacefully with.
Very interesting. Without realizing it, you have illustrated the very point that this story aims to make.
Your assumption that a computer can only ever deal with two-state logic is a by-product of the fact that you have only seen that sort of logic used to create an electronic computer. This limits your thinking.
You simply cannot conceive of a tri-state logic computer until you conceive of it (or someone else tells you about it). Even if there are problems in computer science that you could easily solve using a tri-state logic based computer, you will be completely unable to come up with these solutions because your thinking is limited by two-state logic.
The same thing is being suggested for programming languages. It may be that some human language has an interesting way of describing or thinking about a particular problem. With study, perhaps one or more of these languages would yield a useful counterpart in a programming language. If these languages disappear, then we'll never know. The chances may be slim, but slim is better than none.
There's a theory that describes how language places limitations on thinking, but I can't recall the name right now. It's quite an interesting topic.
Not so. While the reverse is true, copyright also covers (amongst other things) the production of derivative works.
True, I went a bit far there. Direct copying is not the only form of copyright infringement.
As you suggest, the question of "what's derivative" is valid. However, if this case sets the precedent that you can't take a story concept, change the names, change the dialogue, change the imagery, etc., then I think we are going to see a hell of a lot of new copyright infringement cases.
The fallout in the romance novel industry alone would be devestating!
WW is suing for copyright infringement. You cannot copyright storylines. You cannot copyright concepts or single words such as abomination. The combination of a bunch of similarities is not copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is word-for-word copying of exact text or note-for-note copying of music, etc.
Copying a bunch of ideas is not copyright infringement.
It may be disappointing that Sony chose to so closely mirror WoD, but I don't think any case for copyright infringement can be made unless Underworld actually contains directly identical dialogue or imagery.
Using a domain-specific language to describe data or code is incredibly useful. Sometimes it makes more sense for that language to be interpreted at runtime and sometimes it makes more sense for that language to be interpreted at compile time and to generate code.
As an example, let's say that you have an text based format that describes dialog box layout and controls.
A typical design patterns solution might be to create an Interpreter for the file and read it in at runtime and then build the dialog box on the fly.
A code generation solution would read the file and generate code that calls the appropriate windowing routines to create the required dialog. This code would be compiled along with the rest of the application.
The code-generated solution will be much faster since there is no parsing overhead at runtime. The design patterns solution will be more flexible since dialogs can be changed without recompiling.
If you need that flexibility, then fine. If you don't, then why pay the price for it?
And anyway, since design patterns are just useful solutions to common problems, I would say that code generation certainly qualifies as a design pattern.
I suppose we have to keep in mind that this too is only a theory, and while it's possible everything was made to work smoothly from the beginning (on the whole) I'm more comfortable with the idea that somebody's looking in from time to time. ---------- I'm more comfortable with that idea too, but being more comfortable should have nothing to do with it. Wouldn't you rather just know the truth even if it's less comforting?
Not that we know what the truth is yet, but why settle for less than the truth?
Of course, even if we do find "the truth", only a small percentage of the population will bother to consider its merit, and an even smaller percentage will believe it.
Re:Can't find SPEC results at spec.org for Apple??
on
G5 Benchmark Roundup
·
· Score: 1
Dell doesn't have to supply the library to you. The companies making software would be the ones springing for this cost if they wanted the improved performance.
If Adobe decided to link against the MicroQuill library, then PhotoShop would probably get faster too. And the $1200 cost wouldn't be noticeable by the end user.
There's nothing wrong with compiling benchmarks using optimized libraries, as long as that fact is revealed. The benchmark code was not hand-optimized to give a better score. It was optimized using a library that would improve performance of most applications.
I don't believe that there is "a comparable hard drive-based SAN". If there is, I want to know about it!
They are different types of devices and have different power requirements. If you have the type of application that requires RAM-SAN levels of IO performance, getting the power for it is unlikely to be your biggest expense.
We met with a rep for the RAM-SAN last month, and will probably be getting a trial unit in a couple of months.
Like you said though, the heat must be incredible. Break out the marshmallows.
Dynamic typing: object identifiers don't have types, but object instances do.
x = new Circle();...
x = new Donkey();
The object identifier, x, doesn't have an inherent type. It can refer to any object. Some C/C++ programmers think of it kind of like a void* -- it can refer to anything.
In this case a Circle object is created and assigned to it. Later on, the same object identifier, x, is used to refer to a new Donkey object.
What I can't figure out is why anyone would be surprised that a computer capable of many millions of instructions per second is able to handle a paltry 50 static requests per second.
It's only circular reasoning if I accept your position that the license and sale are the same, which I do not.
I'm saying that the license "transaction" does not possess the same attributes as a sale, and therefore is not the same. Why doesn't it possess the same attributes? Because you and I, as licensee and licensor, have agreed that doesn't.
You, as the licensee, have agreed to give up certain rights, which you are freely allowed to do. In return, I allow you to use my product, in perpetuity, or until you violate any other terms of the license.
I can see quite clearly from your posts that you do not think that a person should have the right to give up ownership, particularly if a transaction is largely equivalent to a sale.
If I sign a prenuptial agreement, I give up rights. If I ask you to punch me in the head, I give up rights. There are many ways to give up my legal rights.
I don't see any reason, therefore, that the courts, should be able to tell me that I can't give up the right to own something just because I've paid money to use it.
It amazes me that so many authors, such as Mr. Connell, who are self-proclaimed "experts", expect their technology-savvy readers to just accept whatever ideas they spew out without question.
If you pay for a program, you pay for the binary. You now own a program that will perform to the specified dimensions. You do NOT own the source.
In fact, with many EULAs, you do not even OWN the binary. You simply own the right to USE the binary for a prescribed period of time. Sometimes this right is granted "in perpetuity", so it is, in effect, similar to ownership.
I remember the days when "product placement" meant that products were used as background and filler elements. They were still visible, but they weren't the focus of a scene.
These days it's blantant and in-your-face. It's disgusting. I already pay to see the movie. Then they show me ads and trailers. And to top it off, I end up watching a 90 minute ad rather than a movie.
I fully expect to see James Bond drinking a Coke in the upcoming "Buy Another Day" movie. He'll pick up the can, turn to the camera, they'll get a tight zoom on him as he takes a swing and then he'll say something like:
"The only thing I don't like shaken is my Coke. It's the Real Thing."
Re:Files in acrobat format are just artwork.
on
Adobe Gets Hit By DMCA
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Also, AFAIK there's no way to extract a font from a PDF.
Actually, it is quite easy if you know how to parse the PDF file format.
I recently wrote a PDF parser and viewer, and I have some test/debug code in the program that dumps each font on a page to a separate file.
If I place any of these font files in my Windows font folder, I can use them in any other program.
I'm not aware, however, of any programs written with the explicit purpose of extracting fonts.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think it is at all outrageous. It is the same as signing an NDA or an employment that contains a trade secrets clause.
The information is potentially very valuable to competitors, so he has been asked not to discuss it in public. It is in both his best interests and the company's to keep that information secret, considering that both parties have the potential to make oodles of money from it.
Interesting that speaking obvious truth gets you modded as a Troll.
You are right that there is often a strong correlation between popularity and quality. In the case of iPod, I think there generally is a strong correlation. Nothing in this world is black and white though (except iPhones, which are available in black and white).
Your example of Windows XP is the obvious counter-example. Although it is still much better than Vista in many ways, I don't think it holds its own against Mac OS X.
I've used Windows since 1988 and switched to a Mac at home last November. I much prefer my Mac now to my PC. Maybe that opinion will change after 20 years using Mac OS. We shall see, but right now it's not looking good for Vista.
Anyway, that's my opinion. YMMV.
Enjoy your little fantasy land.
From where the rest of the world is standing, the iPod is still leaps and bounds better than a Zune. I have NEVER even seen a Zune out in the real world, but I see iPods every day.
Every single Apple product is better than it's Microsoft/PC counterpart. Mac OS X is better than Vista. iPod is better than Zune. MacBook Pro even runs Windows faster than a comparable PC laptop. The iMac is just pure industrial design brilliance (although I do like the Dell XPS One a fair bit too).
Face it, the rest of the world is just playing the Catchup-to-Apple game.
As for the iPhone, it is game changing. It has never been easier for a mobile software developer to get his content to users.
I tried doing games for other phones before, but it was very difficult to get the game into user's hands. I will gladly pay 30% to Apple for their App Store service. Mobile providers won't give you that deal for traditional mobile publishing.
I hear ya brotha!
I just got out of somE compAny two months ago.
I was working on a project with a Korean developer who got homesick and decided to return to Korea in the middle of the project. My manager didn't bother to change the schedule for such a small thing as losing 50% of the manpower on the project.
On top of that, after the other developer left, I discovered that most of the code he wrote was completely non-functional garbage. There was one server-side database class that he claimed was complete, but all the SQL queries read "select 1"!
I put in 70+ hours a week for about 3 months, rewrote a lot of his code, and managed to keep all the deadlines.
Then when I asked how they were planning to reward me for my efforts, I was met with the statement that "ThE compAny doesn't pay overtime". Sure fine...then what are you planning to do instead of pay overtime? The response was that because I was already the highest paid member of the team, that they couldn't afford to pay me any bonus or give me any extra time off. WTF?
I gave my notice and got the hell out of there three months before the project was finished. That's the first time I have ever left a project in the middle, and I don't regret it for even a second. I only wish I had left the project in a worse state. Since I left the project in a decent state, they won't feel much pain at my departure.
ThE compAny is definitely one to avoid if you value your free time, or if you at least want to get paid fairly for your time.
My new boss has the policy that "Every hour worked is an hour compensated." That's a policy I can live much more peacefully with.
That episode was the first thing that came to my mind too!
Outer Limits - Stream of Consciousness episode
Very interesting. Without realizing it, you have illustrated the very point that this story aims to make.
Your assumption that a computer can only ever deal with two-state logic is a by-product of the fact that you have only seen that sort of logic used to create an electronic computer. This limits your thinking.
You simply cannot conceive of a tri-state logic computer until you conceive of it (or someone else tells you about it). Even if there are problems in computer science that you could easily solve using a tri-state logic based computer, you will be completely unable to come up with these solutions because your thinking is limited by two-state logic.
The same thing is being suggested for programming languages. It may be that some human language has an interesting way of describing or thinking about a particular problem. With study, perhaps one or more of these languages would yield a useful counterpart in a programming language. If these languages disappear, then we'll never know. The chances may be slim, but slim is better than none.
There's a theory that describes how language places limitations on thinking, but I can't recall the name right now. It's quite an interesting topic.
Anyone?
This article indicates that under Debain 2.2, the Linux kernel contains approximately 1.8 million lines of code.
Counting potatoes: The size of Debian 2.2
Darl is therefore saying that well over half over Linux source code belongs to SCO.
This is just so hilariously funny and tragically sad at the same time that I can't decide how to react.
Not so. While the reverse is true, copyright also covers (amongst other things) the production of derivative works.
True, I went a bit far there. Direct copying is not the only form of copyright infringement.
As you suggest, the question of "what's derivative" is valid. However, if this case sets the precedent that you can't take a story concept, change the names, change the dialogue, change the imagery, etc., then I think we are going to see a hell of a lot of new copyright infringement cases.
The fallout in the romance novel industry alone would be devestating!
WW is suing for copyright infringement. You cannot copyright storylines. You cannot copyright concepts or single words such as abomination. The combination of a bunch of similarities is not copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is word-for-word copying of exact text or note-for-note copying of music, etc.
Copying a bunch of ideas is not copyright infringement.
It may be disappointing that Sony chose to so closely mirror WoD, but I don't think any case for copyright infringement can be made unless Underworld actually contains directly identical dialogue or imagery.
Using a domain-specific language to describe data or code is incredibly useful. Sometimes it makes more sense for that language to be interpreted at runtime and sometimes it makes more sense for that language to be interpreted at compile time and to generate code.
As an example, let's say that you have an text based format that describes dialog box layout and controls.
A typical design patterns solution might be to create an Interpreter for the file and read it in at runtime and then build the dialog box on the fly.
A code generation solution would read the file and generate code that calls the appropriate windowing routines to create the required dialog. This code would be compiled along with the rest of the application.
The code-generated solution will be much faster since there is no parsing overhead at runtime. The design patterns solution will be more flexible since dialogs can be changed without recompiling.
If you need that flexibility, then fine. If you don't, then why pay the price for it?
And anyway, since design patterns are just useful solutions to common problems, I would say that code generation certainly qualifies as a design pattern.
I suppose we have to keep in mind that this too is only a theory, and while it's possible everything was made to work smoothly from the beginning (on the whole) I'm more comfortable with the idea that somebody's looking in from time to time.
----------
I'm more comfortable with that idea too, but being more comfortable should have nothing to do with it. Wouldn't you rather just know the truth even if it's less comforting?
Not that we know what the truth is yet, but why settle for less than the truth?
Of course, even if we do find "the truth", only a small percentage of the population will bother to consider its merit, and an even smaller percentage will believe it.
Dell doesn't have to supply the library to you. The companies making software would be the ones springing for this cost if they wanted the improved performance.
If Adobe decided to link against the MicroQuill library, then PhotoShop would probably get faster too. And the $1200 cost wouldn't be noticeable by the end user.
There's nothing wrong with compiling benchmarks using optimized libraries, as long as that fact is revealed. The benchmark code was not hand-optimized to give a better score. It was optimized using a library that would improve performance of most applications.
I don't believe that there is "a comparable hard drive-based SAN". If there is, I want to know about it!
They are different types of devices and have different power requirements. If you have the type of application that requires RAM-SAN levels of IO performance, getting the power for it is unlikely to be your biggest expense.
We met with a rep for the RAM-SAN last month, and will probably be getting a trial unit in a couple of months.
Like you said though, the heat must be incredible. Break out the marshmallows.
How about:
...
Dynamic typing: object identifiers don't have types, but object instances do.
x = new Circle();
x = new Donkey();
The object identifier, x, doesn't have an inherent type. It can refer to any object. Some C/C++ programmers think of it kind of like a void* -- it can refer to anything.
In this case a Circle object is created and assigned to it. Later on, the same object identifier, x, is used to refer to a new Donkey object.
I believe you shoppa.
What I can't figure out is why anyone would be surprised that a computer capable of many millions of instructions per second is able to handle a paltry 50 static requests per second.
It's only circular reasoning if I accept your position that the license and sale are the same, which I do not.
I'm saying that the license "transaction" does not possess the same attributes as a sale, and therefore is not the same. Why doesn't it possess the same attributes? Because you and I, as licensee and licensor, have agreed that doesn't.
You, as the licensee, have agreed to give up certain rights, which you are freely allowed to do. In return, I allow you to use my product, in perpetuity, or until you violate any other terms of the license.
I can see quite clearly from your posts that you do not think that a person should have the right to give up ownership, particularly if a transaction is largely equivalent to a sale.
If I sign a prenuptial agreement, I give up rights. If I ask you to punch me in the head, I give up rights. There are many ways to give up my legal rights.
I don't see any reason, therefore, that the courts, should be able to tell me that I can't give up the right to own something just because I've paid money to use it.
Since you asked. It differs because the company can revoke your right to possess and use said item, since it does, in fact, not belong to you.
From the user's point of view, you probably won't notice any difference unless you violate some term of the license.
Maybe some day a court will rule that this difference is unfair, and will make it illegal.
You're correct that some provisions of EULAs can't always been enforced, and are often illegal.
However, the non-ownership clause isn't illegal. Think of it as a lease.
Considering he is not advocating Open Source, his choice of article title:
"All Source Code Should Be Open"
is most unfortunate, as it only serves to stir up constroversy where there is none.
Well said. I couldn't agree more.
It amazes me that so many authors, such as Mr. Connell, who are self-proclaimed "experts", expect their technology-savvy readers to just accept whatever ideas they spew out without question.
If you pay for a program, you pay for the binary. You now own a program that will perform to the specified dimensions. You do NOT own the source.
In fact, with many EULAs, you do not even OWN the binary. You simply own the right to USE the binary for a prescribed period of time. Sometimes this right is granted "in perpetuity", so it is, in effect, similar to ownership.
Very nice response. In fact, pretty much point-for-point what I was just going to write!
His analogies are all extremely poor.
I remember the days when "product placement" meant that products were used as background and filler elements. They were still visible, but they weren't the focus of a scene.
These days it's blantant and in-your-face. It's disgusting. I already pay to see the movie. Then they show me ads and trailers. And to top it off, I end up watching a 90 minute ad rather than a movie.
I fully expect to see James Bond drinking a Coke in the upcoming "Buy Another Day" movie. He'll pick up the can, turn to the camera, they'll get a tight zoom on him as he takes a swing and then he'll say something like:
"The only thing I don't like shaken is my Coke. It's the Real Thing."
Also, AFAIK there's no way to extract a font from a PDF.
Actually, it is quite easy if you know how to parse the PDF file format.
I recently wrote a PDF parser and viewer, and I have some test/debug code in the program that dumps each font on a page to a separate file.
If I place any of these font files in my Windows font folder, I can use them in any other program.
I'm not aware, however, of any programs written with the explicit purpose of extracting fonts.