The nascent internet industry (yes, it's still very young) as well as application development in general is NOT a mature industry as were textiles.
Don't be so quick to cede entire industries, writing them off as "discards". India's getting the business for TWO reasons, cheap labor and EDUCATED labor. It's no secret that the American education system is, shall we say, lacking in almost every regard except being flush with funding. We may be losing the industry simply because they are better at it, not just cheaper.
Sorry, but the Senate is not currently Republican.
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HomeSec In the News
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· Score: 2
And won't be until January when the new Senate is sworn in.
And when the bill is finally voted on in the Senate, it will include plenty of Democrats voting for it:
In Wednesday's initial roll calls, the Senate voted 89-8 to end procedural delays. Though opponents will have other chances to slow the bill, the one-sided vote signaled that senators realized it was now politically impossible to kill it.
The Senate then voted 50-47 to kill a Democratic version of the bill that gave additional protections to workers.
Circumventing attacks technologically is a good thing.
But stopping Congress from passing bad laws is equally as important. Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation and help build a lobbying group that can defend our rights. Her's more info about what your money can do for all of us.
I looked at the pictures of that oven. Given that it looks like the front of that cast iron beast probably gets hot enough to fry an Pentium 4, why would you want this thing in your kitchen? Especially in summer?
I can imagine friends, lounging in the kitchen while you're baking something, someone leans against your new AGA stove and gets the AGA logo branded on their ass.:)
Jon Katz - Missing since July 10th, 2002
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Superhero Smackdown
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· Score: 2
According to Slashdot's archives, he hasn't posted since July 10th, 2002.
That said, I googlized and couldn't begin to find a homepage for him. Nor anything recent he published.
Sorry to say (and this is not a flame) but the name Novell brings up connotations of losses in the server OS market, losses in the office suite market, etc. Too bad MySQL will now be associated with it.
Maybe you're right, they need better marketing. And I'll start with the suggestion of a name change. Call it: Improvell!
Writing your Congressman/woman/Senator helps on issues, but if you notice, bills that get passed usually have big lobbys behind them (special interests).
I'm a paying member myself and I would strongly encourage you to join also. Unfortunately, it's a fact in today's politics, money talks. Let your dollars start squawking.
Twice in the same day we've had examples of our digital freedoms under siege (see this morning's discussion).
Help make the EFF as strong a lobby as the NRA and this stuff will be stop! Gunowners protect the tools (guns) they think help keep them free. We should too.
Why would I directly contribute to a guy/gal that likely voted for this crap act anyway?
No, I think the EFF's lobbying efforts are much more effective.
Did you ever notice how the NRA gets its point across very nicely? Because hunters pool their dollars and go through a single voice. Let's let the EFF rival the NRA in clout.
Of course government is one of the largest players in the economy. But that is not necessarily an inherit assumption in a truly free market economy. You are correct. We ARE trying to write governments out of the economic script for many the causes you listed:
What has happened is that one of the major customers of groupware products has realised that it is now cheaper to contract out for their own solution than to buy in from external suppliers, and so this is what they are doing. You can't assume that this project is going to be cheaper than buying outright Outlook licenses. How can you predict in advance, and with a straight face, that a government-sponsored development contract is going to end up costing less PER GOVERNMENT SEAT than buying Outlook? You can't.
all it is is a new competitor The German goverment is not simply a new competitor. It is a nation state with taxable authority and virtually unlimited resources compared to a private company, even one the size of Microsoft.
(the German goverment is) probably one of the least risk-averse (customers) -- it doesn't matter to them if the project succeeds or fails And herein lies one of the largest problems. The German government may not care whether the project succeeds or fails, BECAUSE it is not spending its own money. A private company makes decision BASED UPON RISK for the proper allocation of fiscal resources. An entity that doesn't take risk into account, like the government in your example, is extremely vunerable to boondoggles.
Consider them as the largest non-profit organization, in effect a charity dedicated to the advancement of the country as a whole The Germany government is neither a non-profit, nor a charitable entity. Its funding does not come from the voluntary contributions of its citizens, but from forced taxation. And if you don't consider it forced, try NOT paying your taxes for a few years and see what force is applied to "induce" your charitable contribution to the government.
No sense in arguing the moderation of my original post. This crowd can't see past their Open Source fanaticism to hold a fair minded discusion on economics. And I'm a big supporter of Linux and the like. I was just pointing out that government subsidy of open source software can have distortions in private markets.
You're confusing them "paying" for this development with private market investments in technology.
Yes, the German government is "paying" (actually, their taxpayers are) and in a case like this it is called a "subsidy." They are subsidizing the production of software that will compete against software being produced privately.
As for the duty of any government to spend money thoughtfully, spending money in a market already well-developed is NOT very thoughtful.
And, by making it open source, they may in fact scare off private companies that may have written a "better" groupware package for KDE and charge consumers for it. By building this package, the German government may be stifling that development.
I'm sorry to see that so many/.ers can't see the economic reasons for keeping government out of private markets whenever possible. I'm not saying the German government is any worse than say, the American or Canadian government. I'm pointing out that in this one case, you've got a nation-state building something it plans to distribute freely that will compete with products that private market workers and investors are making a living from.
It is directly aimed at replacing Windows and Outlook/Exchange by giving the German government an effective countersource for this software. Standing alone, that is not bad - iff, they kept the software to themselves.
Your sophistry aside, by NOT going for a closed-source solution and introducing the software into the public domain as Open Source, the German government is entering into a competitive arena currently being served (for the most part in businesses and governments) by software created by private companies.
Economically, it is an unnecessary intrusion into the private market.
And by simply pointing out that governments have done this for years does not excuse this fact.
I'm no big fan of Microsoft, but does anyone else find it disturbing that a nation state is "ordering" development of software that it knows will directly compete with that provided by the private sector (aka, MS Office, Corel, etc.)?
Smells like an unfair subsidy to the German software industry, even though the eventual product will be open source.
Patenting an online auction in my mind is akin to patenting the idea a selling milk in refrigerated display cases, ie,
This patent is for a system that creates a refrigerated marketplace for milk using a refrigerator in a store. The patent also covers the use of a payment-processing service to allow purchasers to pay for the goods.
I mean, where's the creativity that patents are supposedly supposed to protect? In my mind, virtually any business transaction can be ported to the internet. It would be like someone patenting sales calls over a telephone when telephones were first invented.
Slashdot Mirror
The nascent internet industry (yes, it's still very young) as well as application development in general is NOT a mature industry as were textiles.
Don't be so quick to cede entire industries, writing them off as "discards". India's getting the business for TWO reasons, cheap labor and EDUCATED labor. It's no secret that the American education system is, shall we say, lacking in almost every regard except being flush with funding. We may be losing the industry simply because they are better at it, not just cheaper.
And won't be until January when the new Senate is sworn in.
And when the bill is finally voted on in the Senate, it will include plenty of Democrats voting for it:
In Wednesday's initial roll calls, the Senate voted 89-8 to end procedural delays. Though opponents will have other chances to slow the bill, the one-sided vote signaled that senators realized it was now politically impossible to kill it.
The Senate then voted 50-47 to kill a Democratic version of the bill that gave additional protections to workers.
From this article.
But then after complaining about Liberal being equated with a host of slurs, you insinuate a few of your own about the Conservative label.
Conservatism
Please, if you're going to gripe about labels, at least don't engage in the behaviour yourself.
Are these things recyclable? If so, toss them in the bin.
Circumventing attacks technologically is a good thing.
But stopping Congress from passing bad laws is equally as important. Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation and help build a lobbying group that can defend our rights. Her's more info about what your money can do for all of us.
I looked at the pictures of that oven. Given that it looks like the front of that cast iron beast probably gets hot enough to fry an Pentium 4, why would you want this thing in your kitchen? Especially in summer?
I can imagine friends, lounging in the kitchen while you're baking something, someone leans against your new AGA stove and gets the AGA logo branded on their ass.
According to Slashdot's archives, he hasn't posted since July 10th, 2002.
That said, I googlized and couldn't begin to find a homepage for him. Nor anything recent he published.
This to me is a primary example of the sometimes dichtomous nature between was is legal and what is ethical.
Is what these business professionals done legal? Probably.
Is it ethical? Absolutely not. Otherwise, why hide the email's worm nature in the EULA?
I know there are those that are going to say, "Hey, you had the opportunity to read the EULA, you didn't, and you clicked it anyway."
But caveat emptor, though a fact of life, does not exempt the screwer from his reponsibility of what he did to the screwee.
May be legal. But in my mind, definitely not ethical.
Sorry to say (and this is not a flame) but the name Novell brings up connotations of losses in the server OS market, losses in the office suite market, etc. Too bad MySQL will now be associated with it.
Maybe you're right, they need better marketing. And I'll start with the suggestion of a name change. Call it: Improvell!
The movie Runaway
If you read the article, the question is, do ostriches find overweight, middle-aged men with belly-button lint hair sexy?
Writing your Congressman/woman/Senator helps on issues, but if you notice, bills that get passed usually have big lobbys behind them (special interests).
Topics like these are OUR special interest and we have a lobby for it, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
I'm a paying member myself and I would strongly encourage you to join also. Unfortunately, it's a fact in today's politics, money talks. Let your dollars start squawking.
Here's a great link: EFF legal actions You'll see how your contributions can actually help.
Twice in the same day we've had examples of our digital freedoms under siege (see this morning's discussion).
Help make the EFF as strong a lobby as the NRA and this stuff will be stop! Gunowners protect the tools (guns) they think help keep them free. We should too.
Why would I directly contribute to a guy/gal that likely voted for this crap act anyway?
No, I think the EFF's lobbying efforts are much more effective.
Did you ever notice how the NRA gets its point across very nicely? Because hunters pool their dollars and go through a single voice. Let's let the EFF rival the NRA in clout.
It be great if more /.ers would join in and earmark the donations!
I just joine and put my money where my mouth, err, keyboard is. EFF now has an additional $65 to help fight this crap.
Money got this law passed and money will make it go away.
Counter the RIAA's dollars by making a contribution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and earmark the donation for fighting the DMCA.
Take some of that money you're saving by not buying CD's and poney it up to those than can help.
No sense in arguing the moderation of my original post. This crowd can't see past their Open Source fanaticism to hold a fair minded discusion on economics. And I'm a big supporter of Linux and the like. I was just pointing out that government subsidy of open source software can have distortions in private markets.
You're confusing them "paying" for this development with private market investments in technology.
Yes, the German government is "paying" (actually, their taxpayers are) and in a case like this it is called a "subsidy." They are subsidizing the production of software that will compete against software being produced privately.
As for the duty of any government to spend money thoughtfully, spending money in a market already well-developed is NOT very thoughtful.
And, by making it open source, they may in fact scare off private companies that may have written a "better" groupware package for KDE and charge consumers for it. By building this package, the German government may be stifling that development.
I'm sorry to see that so many /.ers can't see the economic reasons for keeping government out of private markets whenever possible. I'm not saying the German government is any worse than say, the American or Canadian government. I'm pointing out that in this one case, you've got a nation-state building something it plans to distribute freely that will compete with products that private market workers and investors are making a living from.
Read one of Friedman's speeches on market distortions for a good view of this.
It is directly aimed at replacing Windows and Outlook/Exchange by giving the German government an effective countersource for this software. Standing alone, that is not bad - iff, they kept the software to themselves.
Your sophistry aside, by NOT going for a closed-source solution and introducing the software into the public domain as Open Source, the German government is entering into a competitive arena currently being served (for the most part in businesses and governments) by software created by private companies.
Economically, it is an unnecessary intrusion into the private market.
And by simply pointing out that governments have done this for years does not excuse this fact.
I'm no big fan of Microsoft, but does anyone else find it disturbing that a nation state is "ordering" development of software that it knows will directly compete with that provided by the private sector (aka, MS Office, Corel, etc.)?
Smells like an unfair subsidy to the German software industry, even though the eventual product will be open source.
But am I missing something?
Patenting an online auction in my mind is akin to patenting the idea a selling milk in refrigerated display cases, ie,
This patent is for a system that creates a refrigerated marketplace for milk using a refrigerator in a store. The patent also covers the use of a payment-processing service to allow purchasers to pay for the goods.
I mean, where's the creativity that patents are supposedly supposed to protect? In my mind, virtually any business transaction can be ported to the internet. It would be like someone patenting sales calls over a telephone when telephones were first invented.