People value what they spend time doing more than what they don't? Social scientists have been saying that for a long time before IKEA existed. It's why organizations ask you to do something small for them - such as tell your friends about a fundraiser - because you will value the org more because you did something yourself (and probably do more in the future.)
Quoting: 'The major advantages that boxed set or download games have had over browser-based games are local storage and direct access to the graphics and audio engines. Those barriers are being smashed apart by HTML5.... Especially for MMO game developers
I agree with the comment on the advantages, and think those advantages aren't going to go away until really fast internet is available cheaply. Until then, doing everything in the cloud and pushing reams of data over wire is a serious limitation to broader acceptance.
What I do see is a shift in how games are played - which is moving to a very different way of developing the gaming experience. Gaming initially was a solitary experience - everything you needed was contained in a box and you played when and where you wanted. As the method of playing began to change to more tram and multiplayer games how the gaming experience was delivered began to change. That change is still underway, and is driving the move to browser-based games Because that technology can deliver the desired experience in a satisfying manner. It's not the technology, but the gaming experience, that is driving the change. technology may limit the speed of the change; but it is not driving the change. If gamers did not move to more multi-player games the technological advances would have no impact on gaming.
You could argue that without the technological advances the gaming experience wouldn't change, which is true; but without the demand of rteh new experience technology alone would not bring it about. There is a reason people still play cards and chess in person - it delivers the desired experience even if it is centuries old technology.
With a few modifications your moronic plan might work:
They should abolish income taxes (too easy for the rich to dodge) and do it all via sales tax.
Sales tax is a lot harder to cheat than income tax and having a simple tax system will save a lot of money in itself.
Not really - what do you tax - the sales price or the value, such as the MSRP? People would just use creative ways to delink the selling "price" from the revenue received for big ticket purchases.
Because it is anti-competitive. Unless the device manufacturers want their PCs and mainboards to be barred from being sold in the EU, they better find a way to make Linux installation possible.
Sure - make the key available and then Linux can be modified to perform the same boot loading procedure as Windows. Problem solved - it's then up to the Linux community to come up with appropriate changes to the code.
And why it is inherently flawed. Making separate LVs just protects the stockholders and management from having to report when things go wrong (SPVs). It does not protect the citizens impacted by the damaged economy, or say, the Tokyo residents downwind from the plant. This is how "limited liability" is being used to destroy modern society.
I disagree - limited liability is what helped make modern society - if any enterprise was liable for any amount of damages it may (or may not) have caused no one would put any of their capital at risk. The last organization to do that, that I can recall, was LLoyd's, and they've backed away from the "shirt off your back" approach as well.
Instead, how about we do not allow banks to become too big to fail or power plants to become so powerful they can make large areas uninhabitable forever?
Sure. I'm all for letting corporations, no matter how big, fail; and not building Chernobyl style reactors.
It comes across as Shatner trolling the audience, which for those who recognize it for that, is hilarious.
Shatner? Trolling? If he was, he left out one key fact that made ST better - SW ignored basic physics. Whenever a space craft passed the Death Star, it cast a shadow. In a vacuum. Shadows in a vacuum. Come on, at least get some of the science right.
Unfortunately, things do not always go according to plan and your experience seems somewhat lacking in that department. How about I compromise and say that you are free to build all the nuclear plants you like, as long as the technology is deemed safe enough that you can actually get private insurance companies (without government intervention) to cover for potential accidents?
Actually there is a solution for that - separate the nukes into individual stand alone corporate entities and insure what you can. If things go wrong - and the chances of that are really small, relative to the perceived risk, your only exposure is to the total value of the plant. (Unless you live nearby). Companies do that all the time with far greater risk exposure.
Studies based on retrospective chart reviews often come up with bizarre correlations. Take autism and vaccinations, or acetaminophen and Type I diabetes for example.
Well, it's not that the correlation is bizarre as much as the idiots who confuse correlation with causation. But I do agree with your statement about the value of the data - it's only a stood as the data entry. Given the issues many hospitals / physicians / etc have with bad coding (and thus actually getting paid) there will be many problems with the data. Still, it would be nice to be able to try to see if wellness programs actually reduce the incident of specific health issues and the cost of health care.
People don't understand how fast a snapping turtle can move, how far it can stretch out or the biting force.
They assume all turtles are harmless, that is until they are bit by one. Just some stats, they can whip their head around quickly, extend it approximately 75% the length of their body and can snap a broom stick in half with their bite.
True. When I was younger, we would occasionally catch them; the problem was not so much the catching but the "what do we do now?"
Just to clarify, ICD-10 is maintained by the WHO. The clinical modifications to the ICD-10 in the USA are known as "US ICD-10 CM".
Yes, they are very stupid
However, from an epidemiological standpoint, having better information about the causes of health problems will allow better study of cause and effect relationships between wellness and disease, for example. Even if it is a pain to implement (there must be a code for that).
I know that in USA there is a concept of "Free speech!" and some people are willing to chant about that like a mantra. In most of Europe, we don't think that everything that comes out of your mouth is sacred. For example, the constitution of my country doesn't contain anything about "Free speech" but instead states that people have the "freedom of opinion, expression and assembly". That is because we think that we want to punish pricks like in this story but we still want to prevent government from squashing unwanted political movements, etc... So, our constitution protects civil rights in a way that doesn't much apply to cases like this. Sure, you can use the slippery slope fallacy, but history shows that it hasn't realized here any more than it has in the USA (despite the "free speech" law).
Actually, our Constitutional guarantee of free speech is more complicated - it is designed to prevent the government from prior restraint of speech. It does not absolve anyone of any responsibility for the consequences of their exercising their right to free speech. The courts have distinguished political from commercial speech - in that commercial speech can be regulated without violating people's rights. For example, you can't make medical claims for product without FDA approval. It also means the right *not* to speak - so a Jehovah's Witness can't be required to say the pledge of allegiance (although I also believe that is protected under freedom of religion grounds). Other amendments protect the right to assemble, petition government, etc.
We chose those protections based on our experience with British Kings, and they've worked pretty well for us. There are cultural differences between the US and Europe, despite a common heritage; and each culture has its own unique challenges. The French, perhaps because of their "we're all French and share a common culture" viewpoint, wrestle with the influx of Muslims and cultural mores different from the "French." The right to express an opinion that runs counter to the cultural norm does not always get governmental protection despite the constitutional guarantee of it.
You make some good points. Rather than quote and respond I'll try to highlight what I see as your main point:
1. No one may want to work on the code given the complexity and / or copyright assignment requirements. True, and if that is the case then L-N will gain nothing. There may be, however, companies that would use the code internally and not had ego give anything back, so there is an upside to making it available.
2. Using the code will require highly skilled coders who generally are expensive. True. It remains to be seen if they will find any use for the code. Which also address the "bug fix" and " odd feature" - if it take time to really learn the code what incentive is there to simply do bug fixes unless the code provides some useful benefit for you? As your say, people don't simply migrate to OSS because it is OSS.
3. The agreement was written by L-N's lawyers and favors L-N. Certainly. When my lawyer draws up an agreement I expect it to favor me as well. It's a negotiation starting point. No one is forcing anyone to accept L-N's offer.
4. L-N wants to profit from any additions. No surprise, they are a for - profit company; which is not an evil thing. Even RedHat has an assignment of copy right for some products - they want similar things as L-N in such cases.
5. Assigning the copyright prevents the original author from reusing his or her code. True, which is why I suggested a licensing back to the author unlimited, perpetual rights to use the code he or she contributes.
6. Many projects don't require copyright assignment. Sure. Some do, some don't. Some license allow incorporation of code in proprietary systems, some don't. We get to pick and chose which ones we use. If a particular code base's licensing terms are not agreeable to us we simply can not use the software. No one is under any obligation to use a specific license for their code unless they chose to crept the license.
7. Change the goals. Why? L-N has a set of goals - they will either accomplish them or not. If the rules are too onerous people will not play. It's a simple choice. This is a business decision, not a religious one.
In the end, L-N can chose whatever license they want and people can decide to accept it or not use the code. It's really quite simple. You'd think with the uproar over L-N's terms they were stealing something form somebody. They're not. They simple have put forth an offer that each person can decide if it's worth the cost. Whether or not they "get" open source is irrelevant to how they release their code.
People will argue that it's not "open source" but like any religious argument it is a colossal waste of time.
Unfortunately, we weren't given the whole story here. Over on lwn, Perens was similarly taken to task over the terms, and here's his response:
When you are working with a company as large as that (LN is a big division of huge Elsevier) with as many separate stake-holders in legal, management, etc., it's always a negotiation. That's what I could get.
There are plenty of posts pointing out how one-sided and/or vague this "covenant" is, and how hard it will be to actually enforce. He also admits in one reply that their lawyer, not him, wrote the license, which explains a lot.
I can understand his position - after all, it creates a job for him, so he has to advocate for it. But the terms suck.
Interesting thread - do there also seems to be some support for his position.
As with any contract negotiation (and I've done a few although IANAL) you carve out a set of terms that is agreeable to all sides - no one generally gets everything they want. In this case, L-N has made an offer to the OOS community - which each individual developer can accept or reject.
No one really loses under that model - if they don't like the terms simply don't submit any code modifications. I'd say they'v even gained - they can modify the code for their own use without having to give up the copyright - something not available before.
As I said, an unlimited, non-exclusive irrevocable license to any code they submit allows them the freedom to do what they want to with their own code as well.
Now if you look at things like the redistributables from Microsoft or Apple, there are WAY more than 100 licenses in there, and yet you don't see the problems you allude to. (The h.264 decoders are a good example - over 1,000 licensees, and yet this doesn't cause a problem for either company when they do a bug fix - they don't have to go to each licensor and say "please, pretty please, let me mod this file that you didn't write").
But if they mod a licensed file then it becomes an issue - which is what they want to avoid and exactly my point; with copyright assignment they don't have that.
We don't need demonstrations that require us to accede to the law firm of Ben Dover and Phil McCavity. We have plenty of examples of win-win between business and open source. Apple continues to contribute to BSD. Google, Facebook, etc., continue to contribute to Linux. Redhat contributes to a LOT of projects. They're the face of the win-win model, not some obscure company that says "if you don't assign your copyrights to us, then it's not worth it to us."
Like OpenOffice is preferred over LibreOffice? Nah... Let's not forget how EGCS was so successful a fork of a stagnant GCC codebase that eventually it became GCC, or how Firefox was a fork of the Mozilla suite... vi vs vim, emacs vs xemacs, the many MANY linux distro forks, rogue vs hack vs nethack, XFree86 vs Xorg, SSH vs OpenSSH, AT&T Unix to... well, you get the point:-)
OpenOffice did just fine with copyright assignment until Oracle bought Sun and, with the uncertainty around what they planned to do with it, the developers decided to fork it. Oracle's essentially killed their development of OO which helped LO as well. So, it seems the copyright assignment can work just fine.
As for Apple, BSD has a very different licensing structure - and that there are no viable alternatives to Apple's BSD/OSX combination shows that a well managed, even if it has OS roots, project is preferable to a hodgepodge of OS versions of the same thing.
Even Redhat has copyright assignment requirements for some projects.
Heck, even the FSF requires it.
I'm not buying it, and judging from other people's comments, there are plenty of others who feel the same way. It has nothing to do with Lexus-Nexus, and everything to do with "this doesn't make sense." It's not an anti-business stance - just a "hey, e have no problems with you using it, but you don't own it."
Also, what if the original authors wanted to contribute their code to a GPLv2 or BSD project? They can't, since they were stupid enough to lock themselves into the AGPL by assigning their copyrights.
I guess we'll just have to disagree on wether it makes sense. I think it does in this situation, you clearly don't. As for your final comment, my suggestion if licensing back rights to use the code solves that issue while maintaining the goal of one entity to control the copyright.
Since Lexus - Nexus would not own all of the software it would make a sale of the company or rights to the product very complicated.
Look around outside the open-source world. Most software that you buy is written by businesses that don't own all the rights to the code - they license various code libraries, data, etc.
People distribute commercial Java products - they certainly don't own all the copyrights to Java. People distribute commercial programs that run under Windows - they certainly don't own all the copyrights to the redistributables that came with their compiler, or the class libraries they licensed from 3rd parties.
True, but in those cases there generally are several distinguishing features from the L-N example:
There is a limited set of licenses that need to be acquired from a small set of companies - not the potential hundreds that would arise from an OSS project - a license would be needed even for a minor bug fix.
The licensed code is often distinct from the original code although it may be distributed with it, whereas L-N would have one main codebase containing almost all of the licensed code.
Here's a thought - try switching your argument around - "would it be unreasonable for Lexus-Nexus to get a grant from the developer for an unlimited, non-exclusive license to use and resell his or her code?"
Really, what is so "wrong" or "complicated" about that? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Why, in the Open Source world, do people suggest we just bend over when someone asks for a copyright assignment? Are we *that* needy of validation that we'll just give it up for the asking?
I don't think it is a workable solution - the added burden on L-N to try to manage all the licenses would probably make it easier to forgo open sourcing their codebase. Given two reasonable solutions, one which I think is achievable while the other is not makes me prefer the achievable one.
That's not to say your concept is unreasonable - I just don't think it is practical.
I don't think it's being needy - rather it is an opportunity to create a win-win situation *and* demonstrate that open source can be a viable commercial business model that benefits the community and the company.
Finally, anyone who doesn't like the convent is free to either not participate, or fork the code under the GPL; although in this case I think a fork would be rather useless since the L-N version is likely to be the preferred version.
In general, companies want to be able to enforce the copyright of the entire product. It is possible that a company could be convinced to join the scheme as you propose it, but the risk and legal load for the company are appreciably higher than what I have proposed, so the company would have to be expecting to get a lot from the community in order to justify that. I'm not sure the balance would work for the company.
I agree - having multiple dual licensing agreements to maintain and ensure you don't violate any terms would be a nightmare. Since Lexus - Nexus would not own all of the software it would make a sale of the company or rights to the product very complicated.
That said, would it be unreasonable for Lexus - Nexus to grant the developer an unlimited, non-exclusive license to use and resell his or her code? That way, L-N would retain ownership but the original author could still benefit from their contribution. While most code would probably be too specific to really be valuable on it's own, it would avoid the situation where someone creates something that has application elsewhere but now no longer owns it and thus can't use it. While they could use it in another OSS project under terms of the GPL, if they ever decided to commercialize their code in a proprietary manner they conceivably could not due to copyright law.
I'm wondering whether there was a deeper purpose to importing counterfeited equipment. If such could be successfully sold into government operations, it could then be used for backdoors if it had been outfitted with modified ICs designed to support that. That the importer was in Virginia normally would not be too important, but Virginia and Maryland being prime areas for government installations makes it more suspicious, if they were going to pose as a local supplier. Then, by cutting their price on bids below normal competitors, they could steer their equipment into specific departments.
If espionage was your goal, this was a poor way to do it. You *never* want to give the target any reason to suspect you, selling counterfeits is one way to risk getting caught. Let's assume someone has the skills to put a trap door in the software. Rather than put out fakes, take some of the real stuff, compromise it, and sell it through a front company on the cheap. Your target *thinks* they are getting a good deal, the stuff is real so no one suspects it, and you have your in. After a while - fold the front company - which wouldn't surprise anyone since they probably wondered how you could sell it for so cheap. Lather, Rinse, repeat.
I'm not saying this was or wasn't an attempt at espionage; but if it was it was rather clumsy and poorly thought out.
intended for others. I have a full name @mac/@me account and my wife has a full name @gmail.com and I assume these people chose 1stnameLastname+1 account names making it very easy for their friends and business acquaintances to wrongly send us their email instead. I've gotten sensitive business information, invitations to exclusive events (unfortunately in the UK so I can't attend) . My wife has had an interesting time unintentionally following the life of a New York mover and shaker.
We don't know the real recipients actual email addresses so we can't warn them and have to read our own email to find out if it is intended for us or not so we can't help but read their email. Interesting conundrum.
This research result is not at all surprising- it is the same thing, just at a bigger scale and deliberate.
I have a similar problem from time to time with my gmail account. In addition to your comments, some people seem to think that first.last and firstlast at gmail are different email addresses, as a result I periodically get emails for people who screwed up signing up for an online account, and since the company gladly accepted any email address as unique as long as it didn't match an existing one, signed me up.
When it obviously an error I replay saying - pops wrong person. All but one generally reply with a thanks. There was though, one luser who insisted *he* had the right email address and went so far as to suggest, when I asked him to simply verify the address with the person (it was a small private school), I change *my* gmail account because he *knew* his emails were going through. So, off to junk went any emails from his domain, since I learned a long time ago that stupid was unfixable. I figured sooner or later the real recipient would miss something important and fix the problem. Eventually, the emails stopped coming, so i guess he figured it out.
RICO has been used to charge groups of people who are involved in a crime - including those who ordered the comes but did not commit them - hence the racketeering moniker. While it aims at traditional mob related activities; it was not necessarily intended to only be used that way. rather, it allows increased penalties for multiple crimes, seizure of assets and civil recovery by victims. Given the nature of some computer crimes, RICO seems a reasonable tool to use against computer criminals. As side effect of RICO is it puts a lot of pressure on defendant sot settle because of the extra penalties it applies if convicted.
'If something as appallingly stupid as the fax machine can live on, it makes you wonder how we make progress at all. Old habits die hard. It just goes to show you: Bad technology generally isn't the problem; it's the people who persist in using that technology rather than embracing far superior alternatives.'"
Alternatively, the "far superior alternatives" aren't; it's the people who persist in thinking technology, because it is new, is automatically far superior.
I'll grant that much of what is faxed could be handled via email, but faxes have some advantages:
Security - a dedicated fax machine with a secure line makes it a lot easier to control confidential material; and ensure it is destroyed, than if it is emailed; or put on a server for ftp.
Fax machines are cheaper to use and set up than a PC with an internet connection.
You don't have to do much truing to make someone comfortable with sending a fax.,/P>
Fax is basically set and forget - no need to scan, name files, attach to an email, send, delete originals, etc. For some cases, people's time is more valuable to be used messing with emails.
People still send paper copies as well - a much older, but still very useful, technology as well.
The problem is, letters are easy and cheap to deliver. Hell, they can even be sorted and router automatically almost end-to-end. Parcels, however, cannot. Every bit of handling, sorting, etc is done pretty much by hand (with the possible exception of tracking). Normally, high volumes of high-margin mail would subsidise parcel rates, but this is no longer the case, hence the current problem.
Not true - the front and backed (pickup and deliver) are labor intensive but the actual transit is pretty well automated - FedEx/UPS use very sophisticated software and conveyors to automatically route packages from one plane to the next. They even do it for the USPS - who no longer fly their own planes. 3D barcodes contain the needed information and are scanned automatically. Packages are weighed and measured to know how hard and where to push them off one belt to the next. humans only need to handle the problems like a broke package or one that falls off the belt by accident.
USPS real problems are that we have this quaint notion that it should cost the same to send a letter no matter what it costs to deliver it; people want a local post office so Congress keeps them open (that is changing); and bulk mail is being replaced by email an online catalogues. As result they have high costs and lowering revenues to deal with.
Personally, I see the USPS as a good fit for the last mile pickup and delivery of residential packages for FedEx/UPS/DHL et.al. - they have a regular enough load to make daily trips worth while - unlike package delivery companies that might have to make 3 costly trips to deliver to a home. If they could come up with a cost effective model for getting packages to the USPS it could save the USPS and reduce costs for the package delivery firms as well.
if Google doesn't like CDN's rules they can leave.
Facebook was "invited" to leave if they didn't change their rules. They changed their rules. It was shortly after Canada refused to back down that the EU decided to do the same thing.
I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a caveat in the law allowing voluntarily providing the information.
You might want to look at "contracts of adhesion", aka "standard contracts" , "boilerplate" or "take-it-or-leave-it" contracts. The law is different (and this also applies in the US) - ALL clauses in such contracts are always to be interpreted in the other party's favor, and the party cannot give up their statutory rights.
Google is wrong with their policy, plain and simple, and that's why there is so much push-back.
While I agree that Google is wrong; I don't agree with the sentiment that changing their policy is the only course of action. They can simply end providing service in CDN. I think that would be a stupid thing to do, but it is within Google's rights to decide what and where they will provide services.
If Google decides to offer services in CDN then they must comply with CDN law - if they decide to leave then there's nothing CDN can do about it.
The challenge, not just for Google, but for all companies, is how to deal with the non-territorial nature of data. If a company is compelled by a court to reveal information they have, even if it protected in the jurisdiction of the person whose data it is, they are in a tough spot; my guess is they give it up.
True, but Google is under no obligation to provide services to people who don't provide the requested information.
Yes, they are. As you said, if they don't like Canada, they can kindly shutter their buildings and leave the fucking country. There are two parts to PIPEDA. The first is that a corporation cannot do ANYTHING with any information collected about a person unless that person has SIGNED a form indicating approval for that EXACT use. The second is that business cannot refuse to do business with somebody who doesn't want to "voluntarily" share personal information. You might be fine with BestBuy and such requiring (oh, sorry, you doublethink'd "require" into "mandatory request") you to turn over your email, phone number, and address in order to buy a cable, but in Canada we put a stop to that retarded practice. Storer have tried to skirt it "We need that information for our service of contacting you for recalls!" "I don't want that service" "It's mandatory!" it didn't go well for them.
And that's my point - they either comply with the law or stop providing services in CDN. If they decide to pull out, that's their choice.
Slashdot Mirror
People value what they spend time doing more than what they don't? Social scientists have been saying that for a long time before IKEA existed. It's why organizations ask you to do something small for them - such as tell your friends about a fundraiser - because you will value the org more because you did something yourself (and probably do more in the future.)
Quoting: 'The major advantages that boxed set or download games have had over browser-based games are local storage and direct access to the graphics and audio engines. Those barriers are being smashed apart by HTML5. ... Especially for MMO game developers
I agree with the comment on the advantages, and think those advantages aren't going to go away until really fast internet is available cheaply. Until then, doing everything in the cloud and pushing reams of data over wire is a serious limitation to broader acceptance.
What I do see is a shift in how games are played - which is moving to a very different way of developing the gaming experience. Gaming initially was a solitary experience - everything you needed was contained in a box and you played when and where you wanted. As the method of playing began to change to more tram and multiplayer games how the gaming experience was delivered began to change. That change is still underway, and is driving the move to browser-based games Because that technology can deliver the desired experience in a satisfying manner. It's not the technology, but the gaming experience, that is driving the change. technology may limit the speed of the change; but it is not driving the change. If gamers did not move to more multi-player games the technological advances would have no impact on gaming.
You could argue that without the technological advances the gaming experience wouldn't change, which is true; but without the demand of rteh new experience technology alone would not bring it about. There is a reason people still play cards and chess in person - it delivers the desired experience even if it is centuries old technology.
With a few modifications your moronic plan might work:
They should abolish income taxes (too easy for the rich to dodge) and do it all via sales tax.
Sales tax is a lot harder to cheat than income tax and having a simple tax system will save a lot of money in itself.
Not really - what do you tax - the sales price or the value, such as the MSRP? People would just use creative ways to delink the selling "price" from the revenue received for big ticket purchases.
Sure - make the key available
Good luck with that. If the key is available, malware installers can trick the end user into entering it as a prerequisite to see dancing bunnies.
You can't fix stupid.
Because it is anti-competitive. Unless the device manufacturers want their PCs and mainboards to be barred from being sold in the EU, they better find a way to make Linux installation possible.
Sure - make the key available and then Linux can be modified to perform the same boot loading procedure as Windows. Problem solved - it's then up to the Linux community to come up with appropriate changes to the code.
And why it is inherently flawed. Making separate LVs just protects the stockholders and management from having to report when things go wrong (SPVs). It does not protect the citizens impacted by the damaged economy, or say, the Tokyo residents downwind from the plant. This is how "limited liability" is being used to destroy modern society.
I disagree - limited liability is what helped make modern society - if any enterprise was liable for any amount of damages it may (or may not) have caused no one would put any of their capital at risk. The last organization to do that, that I can recall, was LLoyd's, and they've backed away from the "shirt off your back" approach as well.
Instead, how about we do not allow banks to become too big to fail or power plants to become so powerful they can make large areas uninhabitable forever?
Sure. I'm all for letting corporations, no matter how big, fail; and not building Chernobyl style reactors.
It comes across as Shatner trolling the audience, which for those who recognize it for that, is hilarious.
Shatner? Trolling? If he was, he left out one key fact that made ST better - SW ignored basic physics. Whenever a space craft passed the Death Star, it cast a shadow. In a vacuum. Shadows in a vacuum. Come on, at least get some of the science right.
PS: Enterprise was the best ST of the bunch.
Unfortunately, things do not always go according to plan and your experience seems somewhat lacking in that department. How about I compromise and say that you are free to build all the nuclear plants you like, as long as the technology is deemed safe enough that you can actually get private insurance companies (without government intervention) to cover for potential accidents?
Actually there is a solution for that - separate the nukes into individual stand alone corporate entities and insure what you can. If things go wrong - and the chances of that are really small, relative to the perceived risk, your only exposure is to the total value of the plant. (Unless you live nearby). Companies do that all the time with far greater risk exposure.
Studies based on retrospective chart reviews often come up with bizarre correlations. Take autism and vaccinations, or acetaminophen and Type I diabetes for example.
Well, it's not that the correlation is bizarre as much as the idiots who confuse correlation with causation. But I do agree with your statement about the value of the data - it's only a stood as the data entry. Given the issues many hospitals / physicians / etc have with bad coding (and thus actually getting paid) there will be many problems with the data. Still, it would be nice to be able to try to see if wellness programs actually reduce the incident of specific health issues and the cost of health care.
People don't understand how fast a snapping turtle can move, how far it can stretch out or the biting force. They assume all turtles are harmless, that is until they are bit by one. Just some stats, they can whip their head around quickly, extend it approximately 75% the length of their body and can snap a broom stick in half with their bite.
True. When I was younger, we would occasionally catch them; the problem was not so much the catching but the "what do we do now?"
Just to clarify, ICD-10 is maintained by the WHO. The clinical modifications to the ICD-10 in the USA are known as "US ICD-10 CM". Yes, they are very stupid
However, from an epidemiological standpoint, having better information about the causes of health problems will allow better study of cause and effect relationships between wellness and disease, for example. Even if it is a pain to implement (there must be a code for that).
I know that in USA there is a concept of "Free speech!" and some people are willing to chant about that like a mantra. In most of Europe, we don't think that everything that comes out of your mouth is sacred. For example, the constitution of my country doesn't contain anything about "Free speech" but instead states that people have the "freedom of opinion, expression and assembly". That is because we think that we want to punish pricks like in this story but we still want to prevent government from squashing unwanted political movements, etc... So, our constitution protects civil rights in a way that doesn't much apply to cases like this. Sure, you can use the slippery slope fallacy, but history shows that it hasn't realized here any more than it has in the USA (despite the "free speech" law).
Actually, our Constitutional guarantee of free speech is more complicated - it is designed to prevent the government from prior restraint of speech. It does not absolve anyone of any responsibility for the consequences of their exercising their right to free speech. The courts have distinguished political from commercial speech - in that commercial speech can be regulated without violating people's rights. For example, you can't make medical claims for product without FDA approval. It also means the right *not* to speak - so a Jehovah's Witness can't be required to say the pledge of allegiance (although I also believe that is protected under freedom of religion grounds). Other amendments protect the right to assemble, petition government, etc.
We chose those protections based on our experience with British Kings, and they've worked pretty well for us. There are cultural differences between the US and Europe, despite a common heritage; and each culture has its own unique challenges. The French, perhaps because of their "we're all French and share a common culture" viewpoint, wrestle with the influx of Muslims and cultural mores different from the "French." The right to express an opinion that runs counter to the cultural norm does not always get governmental protection despite the constitutional guarantee of it.
You make some good points. Rather than quote and respond I'll try to highlight what I see as your main point:
1. No one may want to work on the code given the complexity and / or copyright assignment requirements. True, and if that is the case then L-N will gain nothing. There may be, however, companies that would use the code internally and not had ego give anything back, so there is an upside to making it available.
2. Using the code will require highly skilled coders who generally are expensive. True. It remains to be seen if they will find any use for the code. Which also address the "bug fix" and " odd feature" - if it take time to really learn the code what incentive is there to simply do bug fixes unless the code provides some useful benefit for you? As your say, people don't simply migrate to OSS because it is OSS.
3. The agreement was written by L-N's lawyers and favors L-N. Certainly. When my lawyer draws up an agreement I expect it to favor me as well. It's a negotiation starting point. No one is forcing anyone to accept L-N's offer.
4. L-N wants to profit from any additions. No surprise, they are a for - profit company; which is not an evil thing. Even RedHat has an assignment of copy right for some products - they want similar things as L-N in such cases.
5. Assigning the copyright prevents the original author from reusing his or her code. True, which is why I suggested a licensing back to the author unlimited, perpetual rights to use the code he or she contributes.
6. Many projects don't require copyright assignment. Sure. Some do, some don't. Some license allow incorporation of code in proprietary systems, some don't. We get to pick and chose which ones we use. If a particular code base's licensing terms are not agreeable to us we simply can not use the software. No one is under any obligation to use a specific license for their code unless they chose to crept the license.
7. Change the goals. Why? L-N has a set of goals - they will either accomplish them or not. If the rules are too onerous people will not play. It's a simple choice. This is a business decision, not a religious one.
In the end, L-N can chose whatever license they want and people can decide to accept it or not use the code. It's really quite simple. You'd think with the uproar over L-N's terms they were stealing something form somebody. They're not. They simple have put forth an offer that each person can decide if it's worth the cost. Whether or not they "get" open source is irrelevant to how they release their code.
People will argue that it's not "open source" but like any religious argument it is a colossal waste of time.
Unfortunately, we weren't given the whole story here. Over on lwn, Perens was similarly taken to task over the terms, and here's his response:
There are plenty of posts pointing out how one-sided and/or vague this "covenant" is, and how hard it will be to actually enforce. He also admits in one reply that their lawyer, not him, wrote the license, which explains a lot.
I can understand his position - after all, it creates a job for him, so he has to advocate for it. But the terms suck.
Interesting thread - do there also seems to be some support for his position.
As with any contract negotiation (and I've done a few although IANAL) you carve out a set of terms that is agreeable to all sides - no one generally gets everything they want. In this case, L-N has made an offer to the OOS community - which each individual developer can accept or reject.
No one really loses under that model - if they don't like the terms simply don't submit any code modifications. I'd say they'v even gained - they can modify the code for their own use without having to give up the copyright - something not available before.
As I said, an unlimited, non-exclusive irrevocable license to any code they submit allows them the freedom to do what they want to with their own code as well.
Now if you look at things like the redistributables from Microsoft or Apple, there are WAY more than 100 licenses in there, and yet you don't see the problems you allude to. (The h.264 decoders are a good example - over 1,000 licensees, and yet this doesn't cause a problem for either company when they do a bug fix - they don't have to go to each licensor and say "please, pretty please, let me mod this file that you didn't write").
But if they mod a licensed file then it becomes an issue - which is what they want to avoid and exactly my point; with copyright assignment they don't have that.
We don't need demonstrations that require us to accede to the law firm of Ben Dover and Phil McCavity. We have plenty of examples of win-win between business and open source. Apple continues to contribute to BSD. Google, Facebook, etc., continue to contribute to Linux. Redhat contributes to a LOT of projects. They're the face of the win-win model, not some obscure company that says "if you don't assign your copyrights to us, then it's not worth it to us."
Like OpenOffice is preferred over LibreOffice? Nah... Let's not forget how EGCS was so successful a fork of a stagnant GCC codebase that eventually it became GCC, or how Firefox was a fork of the Mozilla suite ... vi vs vim, emacs vs xemacs, the many MANY linux distro forks, rogue vs hack vs nethack, XFree86 vs Xorg, SSH vs OpenSSH, AT&T Unix to ... well, you get the point :-)
OpenOffice did just fine with copyright assignment until Oracle bought Sun and, with the uncertainty around what they planned to do with it, the developers decided to fork it. Oracle's essentially killed their development of OO which helped LO as well. So, it seems the copyright assignment can work just fine.
As for Apple, BSD has a very different licensing structure - and that there are no viable alternatives to Apple's BSD/OSX combination shows that a well managed, even if it has OS roots, project is preferable to a hodgepodge of OS versions of the same thing.
Even Redhat has copyright assignment requirements for some projects.
Heck, even the FSF requires it.
I'm not buying it, and judging from other people's comments, there are plenty of others who feel the same way. It has nothing to do with Lexus-Nexus, and everything to do with "this doesn't make sense." It's not an anti-business stance - just a "hey, e have no problems with you using it, but you don't own it." Also, what if the original authors wanted to contribute their code to a GPLv2 or BSD project? They can't, since they were stupid enough to lock themselves into the AGPL by assigning their copyrights.
I guess we'll just have to disagree on wether it makes sense. I think it does in this situation, you clearly don't. As for your final comment, my suggestion if licensing back rights to use the code solves that issue while maintaining the goal of one entity to control the copyright.
Look around outside the open-source world. Most software that you buy is written by businesses that don't own all the rights to the code - they license various code libraries, data, etc.
People distribute commercial Java products - they certainly don't own all the copyrights to Java. People distribute commercial programs that run under Windows - they certainly don't own all the copyrights to the redistributables that came with their compiler, or the class libraries they licensed from 3rd parties.
True, but in those cases there generally are several distinguishing features from the L-N example:
There is a limited set of licenses that need to be acquired from a small set of companies - not the potential hundreds that would arise from an OSS project - a license would be needed even for a minor bug fix.
The licensed code is often distinct from the original code although it may be distributed with it, whereas L-N would have one main codebase containing almost all of the licensed code.
Here's a thought - try switching your argument around - "would it be unreasonable for Lexus-Nexus to get a grant from the developer for an unlimited, non-exclusive license to use and resell his or her code?"
Really, what is so "wrong" or "complicated" about that? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Why, in the Open Source world, do people suggest we just bend over when someone asks for a copyright assignment? Are we *that* needy of validation that we'll just give it up for the asking?
I don't think it is a workable solution - the added burden on L-N to try to manage all the licenses would probably make it easier to forgo open sourcing their codebase. Given two reasonable solutions, one which I think is achievable while the other is not makes me prefer the achievable one.
That's not to say your concept is unreasonable - I just don't think it is practical.
I don't think it's being needy - rather it is an opportunity to create a win-win situation *and* demonstrate that open source can be a viable commercial business model that benefits the community and the company.
Finally, anyone who doesn't like the convent is free to either not participate, or fork the code under the GPL; although in this case I think a fork would be rather useless since the L-N version is likely to be the preferred version.
In general, companies want to be able to enforce the copyright of the entire product. It is possible that a company could be convinced to join the scheme as you propose it, but the risk and legal load for the company are appreciably higher than what I have proposed, so the company would have to be expecting to get a lot from the community in order to justify that. I'm not sure the balance would work for the company.
I agree - having multiple dual licensing agreements to maintain and ensure you don't violate any terms would be a nightmare. Since Lexus - Nexus would not own all of the software it would make a sale of the company or rights to the product very complicated.
That said, would it be unreasonable for Lexus - Nexus to grant the developer an unlimited, non-exclusive license to use and resell his or her code? That way, L-N would retain ownership but the original author could still benefit from their contribution. While most code would probably be too specific to really be valuable on it's own, it would avoid the situation where someone creates something that has application elsewhere but now no longer owns it and thus can't use it. While they could use it in another OSS project under terms of the GPL, if they ever decided to commercialize their code in a proprietary manner they conceivably could not due to copyright law.
I'm wondering whether there was a deeper purpose to importing counterfeited equipment. If such could be successfully sold into government operations, it could then be used for backdoors if it had been outfitted with modified ICs designed to support that. That the importer was in Virginia normally would not be too important, but Virginia and Maryland being prime areas for government installations makes it more suspicious, if they were going to pose as a local supplier. Then, by cutting their price on bids below normal competitors, they could steer their equipment into specific departments.
If espionage was your goal, this was a poor way to do it. You *never* want to give the target any reason to suspect you, selling counterfeits is one way to risk getting caught. Let's assume someone has the skills to put a trap door in the software. Rather than put out fakes, take some of the real stuff, compromise it, and sell it through a front company on the cheap. Your target *thinks* they are getting a good deal, the stuff is real so no one suspects it, and you have your in. After a while - fold the front company - which wouldn't surprise anyone since they probably wondered how you could sell it for so cheap. Lather, Rinse, repeat.
I'm not saying this was or wasn't an attempt at espionage; but if it was it was rather clumsy and poorly thought out.
Dude, that doesn't explain the original idea.
You do realize that when you buy a share at the NYSE, none of that money goes to the company, right?
While that is generally true, that is not always the case. First, a company can buy and sell shares it holds; or issue more shares to raise cash.
intended for others. I have a full name @mac/@me account and my wife has a full name @gmail.com and I assume these people chose 1stnameLastname+1 account names making it very easy for their friends and business acquaintances to wrongly send us their email instead. I've gotten sensitive business information, invitations to exclusive events (unfortunately in the UK so I can't attend) . My wife has had an interesting time unintentionally following the life of a New York mover and shaker.
We don't know the real recipients actual email addresses so we can't warn them and have to read our own email to find out if it is intended for us or not so we can't help but read their email. Interesting conundrum.
This research result is not at all surprising- it is the same thing, just at a bigger scale and deliberate.
I have a similar problem from time to time with my gmail account. In addition to your comments, some people seem to think that first.last and firstlast at gmail are different email addresses, as a result I periodically get emails for people who screwed up signing up for an online account, and since the company gladly accepted any email address as unique as long as it didn't match an existing one, signed me up.
When it obviously an error I replay saying - pops wrong person. All but one generally reply with a thanks. There was though, one luser who insisted *he* had the right email address and went so far as to suggest, when I asked him to simply verify the address with the person (it was a small private school), I change *my* gmail account because he *knew* his emails were going through. So, off to junk went any emails from his domain, since I learned a long time ago that stupid was unfixable. I figured sooner or later the real recipient would miss something important and fix the problem. Eventually, the emails stopped coming, so i guess he figured it out.
RICO has been used to charge groups of people who are involved in a crime - including those who ordered the comes but did not commit them - hence the racketeering moniker. While it aims at traditional mob related activities; it was not necessarily intended to only be used that way. rather, it allows increased penalties for multiple crimes, seizure of assets and civil recovery by victims. Given the nature of some computer crimes, RICO seems a reasonable tool to use against computer criminals. As side effect of RICO is it puts a lot of pressure on defendant sot settle because of the extra penalties it applies if convicted.
'If something as appallingly stupid as the fax machine can live on, it makes you wonder how we make progress at all. Old habits die hard. It just goes to show you: Bad technology generally isn't the problem; it's the people who persist in using that technology rather than embracing far superior alternatives.'"
Alternatively, the "far superior alternatives" aren't; it's the people who persist in thinking technology, because it is new, is automatically far superior.
I'll grant that much of what is faxed could be handled via email, but faxes have some advantages:
Security - a dedicated fax machine with a secure line makes it a lot easier to control confidential material; and ensure it is destroyed, than if it is emailed; or put on a server for ftp.
Fax machines are cheaper to use and set up than a PC with an internet connection.
You don't have to do much truing to make someone comfortable with sending a fax.,/P>
Fax is basically set and forget - no need to scan, name files, attach to an email, send, delete originals, etc. For some cases, people's time is more valuable to be used messing with emails.
People still send paper copies as well - a much older, but still very useful, technology as well.
The problem is, letters are easy and cheap to deliver. Hell, they can even be sorted and router automatically almost end-to-end. Parcels, however, cannot. Every bit of handling, sorting, etc is done pretty much by hand (with the possible exception of tracking). Normally, high volumes of high-margin mail would subsidise parcel rates, but this is no longer the case, hence the current problem.
Not true - the front and backed (pickup and deliver) are labor intensive but the actual transit is pretty well automated - FedEx/UPS use very sophisticated software and conveyors to automatically route packages from one plane to the next. They even do it for the USPS - who no longer fly their own planes. 3D barcodes contain the needed information and are scanned automatically. Packages are weighed and measured to know how hard and where to push them off one belt to the next. humans only need to handle the problems like a broke package or one that falls off the belt by accident.
USPS real problems are that we have this quaint notion that it should cost the same to send a letter no matter what it costs to deliver it; people want a local post office so Congress keeps them open (that is changing); and bulk mail is being replaced by email an online catalogues. As result they have high costs and lowering revenues to deal with.
Personally, I see the USPS as a good fit for the last mile pickup and delivery of residential packages for FedEx/UPS/DHL et.al. - they have a regular enough load to make daily trips worth while - unlike package delivery companies that might have to make 3 costly trips to deliver to a home. If they could come up with a cost effective model for getting packages to the USPS it could save the USPS and reduce costs for the package delivery firms as well.
Facebook was "invited" to leave if they didn't change their rules. They changed their rules. It was shortly after Canada refused to back down that the EU decided to do the same thing.
You might want to look at "contracts of adhesion", aka "standard contracts" , "boilerplate" or "take-it-or-leave-it" contracts. The law is different (and this also applies in the US) - ALL clauses in such contracts are always to be interpreted in the other party's favor, and the party cannot give up their statutory rights.
Google is wrong with their policy, plain and simple, and that's why there is so much push-back.
While I agree that Google is wrong; I don't agree with the sentiment that changing their policy is the only course of action. They can simply end providing service in CDN. I think that would be a stupid thing to do, but it is within Google's rights to decide what and where they will provide services.
If Google decides to offer services in CDN then they must comply with CDN law - if they decide to leave then there's nothing CDN can do about it.
The challenge, not just for Google, but for all companies, is how to deal with the non-territorial nature of data. If a company is compelled by a court to reveal information they have, even if it protected in the jurisdiction of the person whose data it is, they are in a tough spot; my guess is they give it up.
Yes, they are. As you said, if they don't like Canada, they can kindly shutter their buildings and leave the fucking country. There are two parts to PIPEDA. The first is that a corporation cannot do ANYTHING with any information collected about a person unless that person has SIGNED a form indicating approval for that EXACT use. The second is that business cannot refuse to do business with somebody who doesn't want to "voluntarily" share personal information. You might be fine with BestBuy and such requiring (oh, sorry, you doublethink'd "require" into "mandatory request") you to turn over your email, phone number, and address in order to buy a cable, but in Canada we put a stop to that retarded practice. Storer have tried to skirt it "We need that information for our service of contacting you for recalls!" "I don't want that service" "It's mandatory!" it didn't go well for them.
And that's my point - they either comply with the law or stop providing services in CDN. If they decide to pull out, that's their choice.