Yes, I agree completely, as long as we're talking about a privately-owned web site. (A government sponsored web site would probably need to follow different rules.)
Let whoever owns the web site make up the rules concerning who gets to participate and how. They'll find out soon enough if their business model will work or not...
What's ironic is that this is a no win situation for everyone involved. Employees work long hours for no extra pay, but the company also loses because studies have shown that after a certain number of hours per week (around 60 if I remember correctly) weekly productivity actually starts to decline as fatigue sets in and people start making dumb mistakes.
The net result is that working more than about 60 hours per week actually makes things progessively worse.
Trade is supposed to be about give and take. You give something and you get something in return.
If Indians do programming work for Americans, what do they want in return? Dollars of course, but somewhere down the line that has to translate back into American goods or services. What exactly is it that Indians want in the way of American goods and services?
One question this story has me asking is how do *they* (the powers that be) plan on distinguishing legal and illegal downloads?
If the music industry plans on selling music online, and at the same time on prosecuting those who don't download through authorized dealers, how do plan on distinguishing an mp3 file that was illegally downloaded from one that was legally downloaded?
As I recall, Esther Dyson proposed that each individual could set whatever price they desired for being interrupted.
Setting a prohibitively high price would effectively block out all spam.
The idea sounds good, but getting it implemented on a massive scale would be very difficult, for the same reasons that micropayment systems (another good idea) have never really yet caught on.
Talking to a lawyer is good advice. Depending on what kind of contract the person's signed, any programs he writes on the side might belong to his employer no matter what he does.
Assuming that one's allowed to work on the side, my advice is to steer clear of writing programs that could potentially compete with those of one's employer. For example, if your job is creating financial software, then doing games on the side shouldn't ever pose a problem (and vice versa).
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Yes, I agree completely, as long as we're talking about a privately-owned web site. (A government sponsored web site would probably need to follow different rules.)
...
Let whoever owns the web site make up the rules concerning who gets to participate and how. They'll find out soon enough if their business model will work or not
What's ironic is that this is a no win situation for everyone involved. Employees work long hours for no extra pay, but the company also loses because studies have shown that after a certain number of hours per week (around 60 if I remember correctly) weekly productivity actually starts to decline as fatigue sets in and people start making dumb mistakes.
The net result is that working more than about 60 hours per week actually makes things progessively worse.
Trade is supposed to be about give and take. You give something and you get something in return.
If Indians do programming work for Americans, what do they want in return? Dollars of course, but somewhere down the line that has to translate back into American goods or services. What exactly is it that Indians want in the way of American goods and services?
One question this story has me asking is how do *they* (the powers that be) plan on distinguishing legal and illegal downloads?
If the music industry plans on selling music online, and at the same time on prosecuting those who don't download through authorized dealers, how do plan on distinguishing an mp3 file that was illegally downloaded from one that was legally downloaded?
As I recall, Esther Dyson proposed that each individual could set whatever price they desired for being interrupted.
Setting a prohibitively high price would effectively block out all spam.
The idea sounds good, but getting it implemented on a massive scale would be very difficult, for the same reasons that micropayment systems (another good idea) have never really yet caught on.
Talking to a lawyer is good advice. Depending on what kind of contract the person's signed, any programs he writes on the side might belong to his employer no matter what he does.
Assuming that one's allowed to work on the side, my advice is to steer clear of writing programs that could potentially compete with those of one's employer. For example, if your job is creating financial software, then doing games on the side shouldn't ever pose a problem (and vice versa).