I'm not saying the inventor should have gotten it all, or that the company did anything wrong. I'm asking about the *balance* between labor and capital, as the title indicates. I have a question that might indicate that better:
Under what situation would a (rational) company compensate their employed scientists with a percentage of rights?
Clearly the answer is "When they have to in order to secure the employment of said scientists". That might happen with an exceptional scientist, if their were a shortage of scientists in a particular field. Or it might happen if scientists collectively bargained (like doctors and lawyers, in case you think only wrench monkeys belong to unions.
Suppose a songwriter writes the lyrics for a song used in a movie soundtrack. Computing his percentage is done all the time, even though it's objectively impossible to say what % that's worth. The creative unions have minimums, so that even if their members are crappy negotiaters, they can still reap some value from their work.
I have read Atlas Shrugged, and enjoyed it a lot at the time. In a pure libertarian sense, nothing went wrong in this case - the scientist signed a contract, the company abided by that contract, nothing done was illegal or even improper.
However, that should not prevent an honest discussion of what *should* have happened. Perhaps Universities should hold discussions with scientists on how to get the most for their work. Perhaps professional societies should press for different contract language with employers. There are a lot of changes that could be made, even without government intervention, that might for better contracts and better science.
"I mean that was what they were paying you for in the first place."
Lots of professionals are able to hold on to a piece of their work, even if they did it under contract/salary. Think Hollywood, songwriters, photographers, some journalists, etc. Why couldn't it be different for scientists? No Reason! It would be trivial to arrange for a few percent royalty on Patents developed. Many universities operate this way with an 80%university/20%researcher split.
Yes, it is after the fact in this case. But it also serves as a valuable "heads-up" regarding what scientists and engineers should look out for when they take a job.
This reminds me of Kary Mullis who invented PCR. His company was sold for $700M on the basis of that invention, he got a $10K bonus.
Scientists should unionize - they typically so involved in their work that they end up getting the *shaft* monetarily, while MBA monkeys soak up all the profits.
Mozilla doesn't need to displace IE on windows. Instead, it will gain a foot-hold on windows-free, dedicated purpose "thin-clients". As these gain a foothold as a cheap alternative for the corporate-computing masses, Mozilla becomes a natural tool for developers to use to build applications for those boxes.
"Wah, it takes years to design a decent font, wah, you smart coders have dissed designers too long, wah, now we've taken away fonts for your precious linux."
I guess they're right - most designers do suck. However, through the beauty of software, all it takes is one good one to get off their duff and write a font. Microsoft's withdrawl of their fonts may be just the impetus that some smart, underapreciated typographer needs to get started on winning the fame and fortune they deserve.
I suppose in your world all innovation is produced by dedicated amateurs - since no business is going to spend money innovating just so their competitors can steal their stuff. No investor is going to put money into a new idea just to let others steal it.
So that limits inventions to stuff that can be done by an individual or small group with minimal resources. Pretty bleak world.
At first I thought - wow, cool spy shit, then I remembered that I could probably buy one if I wanted to. Big reminder that we are actually living in 2002.
That's what most slashdotters are missing. Dell's not going to "make" printers - they're just going to rebrand someone elses printers, prolly Lexmarks.
Dell doesn't make their own laptops, they don't even design them. The laptops are designed and manufactured for Dell for a Taiwanese company. Dell just adds distribution, marketing, and support. For that matter, from what I hear, HP buys the print heads for all of its ink-jets from Cannon - even HP doesn't make its own printers.
It's easier to think of this situation as Kmart refusing to sell Kmart branded oven-mitts to Target. What does Target care? They'll just buy the oven-mitts direct from the manufacturer and attach their own name to them.
Oh, and BTW, does anyone have any question about the outcome in a battle of HP vs Dell?
My basic theory of UI is that if it's the person's job to do something, then you can expect them to "RTFM". But if they're doing it for recreation, you should expect them to want to put in the minimal effort possible. As far as the Tivo goes, I can imagine one in the not too distant future that responds easily to voice commands. For a consumer product, that level of simplicity is what we as designers/engineers should strive for.
However, The problem with starting out with the conceptual, is that students may miss an understanding of what a computer can actually do. Truly understanding things conceptually (rather than just repeating concepts for a test) usually requires quite a bit of experience.
The best programming class I ever took was actually an electronics class, where the final project was to build a working computer (which would even record and play back sound) out of a Motorola 68000 chip. That taught me most of the assembly I ever need to use, but also gave me a deep understanding of how computers actually work which is useful for everything from writing algorithms to basic Systems administration.
Slashdot Mirror
If it runs nuclear simulations, why is it called Blue Gene? Maybe because Blue Nuke just doesn't have the same ring?
What kind of scientists do you suggest?
Psychologists - Starve to death, but leave excellent documentation of the experience.
Organic Chemists - build homemade reactor to convert tree sap into TNT, cause large periodic explosions until they are rescued.
Nuclear Physicists - Would cause even bigger explosions, but lack the proper infrastructure.
Theoretical physicists - dismiss building a raft as trivial.
Software Engineers - Useless without coffee. In fact, useless altogether on desert island.
Evolutionary Biologists - Decide to stay and watch the ants.
"(one clock != mechanized greek civilization != "ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology" ;^)"
Undoubtedly true, however, the fact this knowledge once existed in the ancient world, and then disapeared, is very interesting.
I'm not saying the inventor should have gotten it all, or that the company did anything wrong. I'm asking about the *balance* between labor and capital, as the title indicates. I have a question that might indicate that better:
Under what situation would a (rational) company compensate their employed scientists with a percentage of rights?
Clearly the answer is "When they have to in order to secure the employment of said scientists". That might happen with an exceptional scientist, if their were a shortage of scientists in a particular field. Or it might happen if scientists collectively bargained (like doctors and lawyers, in case you think only wrench monkeys belong to unions.
Suppose a songwriter writes the lyrics for a song used in a movie soundtrack. Computing his percentage is done all the time, even though it's objectively impossible to say what % that's worth. The creative unions have minimums, so that even if their members are crappy negotiaters, they can still reap some value from their work.
I have read Atlas Shrugged, and enjoyed it a lot at the time. In a pure libertarian sense, nothing went wrong in this case - the scientist signed a contract, the company abided by that contract, nothing done was illegal or even improper.
However, that should not prevent an honest discussion of what *should* have happened. Perhaps Universities should hold discussions with scientists on how to get the most for their work. Perhaps professional societies should press for different contract language with employers. There are a lot of changes that could be made, even without government intervention, that might for better contracts and better science.
"I mean that was what they were paying you for in the first place."
Lots of professionals are able to hold on to a piece of their work, even if they did it under contract/salary. Think Hollywood, songwriters, photographers, some journalists, etc. Why couldn't it be different for scientists? No Reason! It would be trivial to arrange for a few percent royalty on Patents developed. Many universities operate this way with an 80%university/20%researcher split.
Yes, it is after the fact in this case. But it also serves as a valuable "heads-up" regarding what scientists and engineers should look out for when they take a job.
This reminds me of Kary Mullis who invented PCR. His company was sold for $700M on the basis of that invention, he got a $10K bonus.
Scientists should unionize - they typically so involved in their work that they end up getting the *shaft* monetarily, while MBA monkeys soak up all the profits.
Mozilla doesn't need to displace IE on windows. Instead, it will gain a foot-hold on windows-free, dedicated purpose "thin-clients". As these gain a foothold as a cheap alternative for the corporate-computing masses, Mozilla becomes a natural tool for developers to use to build applications for those boxes.
"I wish I could do that, I'd hang on the ceiling at the White House...."
Terrorist Alert! Terrorist Alert! Somebody go find John Ashcroft!
"But what really changes? It just a bunch of tech doodads. "
Sure, but once those technical doodads can do everything you can do... You're out of work.
"Wah, it takes years to design a decent font, wah, you smart coders have dissed designers too long, wah, now we've taken away fonts for your precious linux."
I guess they're right - most designers do suck. However, through the beauty of software, all it takes is one good one to get off their duff and write a font. Microsoft's withdrawl of their fonts may be just the impetus that some smart, underapreciated typographer needs to get started on winning the fame and fortune they deserve.
I suppose in your world all innovation is produced by dedicated amateurs - since no business is going to spend money innovating just so their competitors can steal their stuff. No investor is going to put money into a new idea just to let others steal it.
So that limits inventions to stuff that can be done by an individual or small group with minimal resources. Pretty bleak world.
Sorry, but this thing just never could have been invented in California.
At first I thought - wow, cool spy shit, then I remembered that I could probably buy one if I wanted to. Big reminder that we are actually living in 2002.
Yales "security" here is pretty laughable. They should be as embaressed as Princeton.
Got to agree with most of your post, especially the part about the sexes not working together.
mod parent up!
That's what most slashdotters are missing. Dell's not going to "make" printers - they're just going to rebrand someone elses printers, prolly Lexmarks.
Dell doesn't make their own laptops, they don't even design them. The laptops are designed and manufactured for Dell for a Taiwanese company. Dell just adds distribution, marketing, and support. For that matter, from what I hear, HP buys the print heads for all of its ink-jets from Cannon - even HP doesn't make its own printers.
It's easier to think of this situation as Kmart refusing to sell Kmart branded oven-mitts to Target. What does Target care? They'll just buy the oven-mitts direct from the manufacturer and attach their own name to them.
Oh, and BTW, does anyone have any question about the outcome in a battle of HP vs Dell?
My basic theory of UI is that if it's the person's job to do something, then you can expect them to "RTFM". But if they're doing it for recreation, you should expect them to want to put in the minimal effort possible. As far as the Tivo goes, I can imagine one in the not too distant future that responds easily to voice commands. For a consumer product, that level of simplicity is what we as designers/engineers should strive for.
What would Microsoft pay to buy up an exclusive right to use all of the Linux distributions? Maybe $1B is on the low end?
That's right, baby. Visit your ATM infrequently, withdraw a lot of cash, pay for stuff with said cash. Privacy maintained.
Meaning much less extraneous noise when the sub's trying to watch for leakage.
However, The problem with starting out with the conceptual, is that students may miss an understanding of what a computer can actually do. Truly understanding things conceptually (rather than just repeating concepts for a test) usually requires quite a bit of experience.
The best programming class I ever took was actually an electronics class, where the final project was to build a working computer (which would even record and play back sound) out of a Motorola 68000 chip. That taught me most of the assembly I ever need to use, but also gave me a deep understanding of how computers actually work which is useful for everything from writing algorithms to basic Systems administration.
Not a butt pirate either.