Have you ever downloaded and watched HD movies off Usenet or torrent sites? These are typically 4-8GB for 720p, and 8-16GB for 1080p. The quality is in no way anywhere as bad or low-def as DVD, and most viewers will probably never notice the difference between these compressed files and the full Blu-ray versions, unless they watch them simultaneously side-by-side. If you have an HD set, these downloads are well worth it compared to plain DVD. Even when I have the chance to download the full Blu-ray, I opt for the compressed file.
The best thing of course would be to have a choice! I still think the old Russian AllOfMP3 site set the standard for media webshops in that regard: a choice of compression rates and file formats, or the raw uncompressed file, priced by the MB. I'd like online movie stores to offer downloads in formats suitable for portable players, DVD, HDTV (720p and 1080p), with or without compression, etc. And of course, no DRM and download to own. If they offer that, I'd stop bothering with Usenet or torrents, and I'd happily pay close to the full price for movies ($20-25).
So how do you propose to make large companies pay attention to their bad behavior?
Have the state levy a heavy fine.
Which is an approach that potentially rewards large companies for bad behavior.
No. Instead of awarding punitive damages, the state levies a heavy fine for the same amount.
Agreed but you don't seem to have a very clear idea of what reasonable might be. A $50,000 fine to McDonalds is not a punishment.
So fine them more if they deserve it. The point is not the amount of the fine, but who gets the money.
Agreed but you don't seem to have a very clear idea of what reasonable might be. A $50,000 fine to McDonalds is not a punishment.
The point is to punish, not to enrich either the claimant or the state. If someone benefits, I would rather see it go to the state who will use it for the good of us all (or at least the same "good" they spend other taxes on), rather than some random guy who "got lucky" having an accident. Especially if that guy is a two bit patent troll.
How about reforming the law to do away with the moronic idea of awarding "punitive damages", or whatever it is called in cases like these, to claimants? In some countries, like the one I live in, payments to claimants are pretty much limited to actual damages and legal fees, maybe with a small bit added on top for things like mental anguish or redress. That lady who sued McDonalds over scalding coffee should at most have gotten her medical and legals bills refunded, with perhaps a couple thousand thrown in for her trouble. That's what she'd get over here (and if I remember correctly, that's what she originally sued McD for). Make no mistake though, actual damages in case of severe injuries can run into millions as well... but we do not reward people for a bit of bad luck or for finding some obscure legal technicality that does not affect anyone. Slipping on the pavement in front of a fancy restaurant should not turn into a windfall, neither should this new form of patent trolling.
If a claimant can prove actual damages caused by improper patent marking, then by all means should they be able to sue for these damages. And if another company has been naughty and put incorrect markings on their products, they should received reasonable punishment. Some of these amounts sound excessive, and in any case, they should be treated as fines and go to the state, not to some random claimant.
What exactly can we learn from slums? Recycling is good? Waste not want not? We already know that, and we even have a pretty good grasp of how to do it, but we don't... because we don't have to, as you say.
It's not always greener to endlessly recycle either, and to keep stuff going beyond its useful life, the way they do in the slums. Better to have modern, fast, energy efficient trains than one ancient diesel with passengers hanging off the sides. Better to replace your crappy old car with a new one that pollutes less and uses less than half of the energy to run. Better to figure out how to build comfortable and energy efficient housing than to recycle your wood and steel into uncomfortable shacks. People in slums don't do any of that, not because they are stupid or because it makes no sense, but simpy because they have no options. We do. I bet there are a few clever tricks being cooked up in the slums, but I seriously doubt that those have great relevance for us. A bit like the advise given by the homeless guy in "The day after tomorrow", to stuff newspapers into your clothes to help you keep warm. Seriously, I think we can do better than that, for ourselves as well as for people living in those slums today.
I fully agree that we too will have to learn to live by necessities rather than wants, but I would counter the article with the statement that there is nothing the slums can teach us about future urban living... except that we had best make sure our future isn't all slums. Noble savages die very, very young...
Any virtual environment or even chat systems support virtual rape by way of emotes. The article even cites a rape case that took place in a text-based MMO.
Exactly, and just as I predicted. Child abuse and kiddie porn should be added as a clause to Godwin's law when it comes to legislative discussions: sooner or later someone is going to bring up "The Children" to defend their side of the argument.
Nothing wrong with private corporations in health care. The market works fine when it is allowed to work. Of course, if you want universal healthcare, you have to socialise some of it.
It's funny, but the USA with the 'all private' (but certainly not free market) health care and my country with its socialised health care suffer from the same problem: a small-ish cartel of insurers calling the shots. This leads to ever-increasing premiums and a nightmare of bureaucracy to account for every penny spent.
Obama's plan is not going to solve the problem; it will likely make things worse. What you need to do is break the hegemony of the insurers, and kick them back into their kennel where they belong: providing insurance, nothing more, on a truly free market. And we in NL need to do the same. The previous minister for health care tried to open up the market to European insurers, but the Dutch insurance companies made sure that this plan never came to light.
Or rather: "Don't be afraid to fail". My more entrepreneurial friends all have had several failures, but most decided to stick with trying out their new ideas. Some managed at some point to turn one of their ideas into small but successful businesses. On the other hand, I have had several ideas for a business, but I have never had the inclination, energy or guts to put any of them into practise, thinking "that idea isn't good enough...". In other words, afraid to fail.
Another thing to remember is: "don't be afraid to think big" (or fail big, perhaps). Apple, McDonalds, Google, Dell and others have grown from small enterprises into big corporations. Some of that is luck, being at the right place at the right time and all that, but not all of it. And there are many similar small successes that have failed to cross over into the big time, or failed to even try.
You are right, it is too often used as a mantra, the silver bullet response. Just like ESSA, 'pick low-hanging fruit', 'buy, not build' and crap like that. And these bits of wisdom are crap, if you merely turn them into guiding dogmas.
One thing I've learned while working on innovative stuff is that the real trick isn't knowing to fail early, it's knowing how and when to do so. To fail early effectively you have to be able to recognise failure, or you'll end up keeping failure alive for too long, or perhaps prematurely kill a fledgling success. And when you do fail, don't just kill the project and bury it out back, learn from your failure.
Um...whether you think global warming is bullshit or not, why would you want to halt carbon dioxide reduction policies?
It depends on what those policies look like. I can think of a few proposals that will seriously hurt certain industries (and I don't mean oil industries).
Personally I don't believe in man-made global warming. But that's all it is, a belief. I'm no expert, but I am enough of a scientist to be fairly certain that the experts aren't certain on this either, and that the climate debate has very little to do with science. It's more like a religion, on both sides.
Even so, I support certain measures such as research into viable alternative energy sources, including nuclear and fusion, or energy-saving technology. Those seem like clear winners no matter what side you are on: cleaner air, less money spent on fuel, lower CO2 emissions, less dependency on import of fossil fuels, high-tech research and production jobs, etc. I'll tell you what is not effective: plowing another trillion dollars into Africa, as proposed in Kopenhagen. What the hell was that about?
Burdened by management? Interestingly, the success of Apple's products is often attributed to design decisions that have been directly influenced by Jobs. One article even went so far as to state that Apple designs for a single tarket market: "Steve Jobs"; success in other markets follows from that.
Nokia is a winner if you just want a phone, but come to think of it, I don't use my iPhone to make calls all that much. I do use it for many other things on the go, "fluff" like: agenda, tasks, notes, google, traffic info, email, train schedules, navigation, booking cinema tickets, paying for public parking (yes, ThereIsAnAppForThat), messaging, reading news, etc, etc. The iPhone is the first smart phone (of the ones I've tries) that actually makes all of those tasks quick and practical. So well in fact that, when seated at my desktop computer, I still prefer to use the iPhone app over the full-size web browser
Don't forget the physical aspects either. The iPhone's GUI is succesful partly because the phone has an exceptionally good touch screen. And I don't mean multi-touch or pinch zooming, I mean a screen that registers touches and gestures accurately, so that the interface is easy to use even with fat fingers. Show me another phone that I can operate (even quickly type an SMS) one-handed using the thumb of the hand holding the phone... My message to manufacturers of competing phones would be: don't skimp on the screen!
In the real world, Nokia might be the one to talk about, but even so, its share is far from "world domination"
And yet, the iPhone is the phone that everyone is talking about. New phones are being touted as "iPhone killers", not "Blackberry killers" or "Android killers". When it comes to usability and design, the iPhone is the yardstick that other phones are being measured against. In that sense, it does dominate the market... or at least the marketing.
Interestingly, authorities of many countries were already contemplating the use of these machines, but they have been succesfully opposed in most cases by privacy advocates and sensible politicians. Then, some guy with a half baked explosive just happens to slip through security on a flight to the US, and suddenly all proposals for full body scans sail through with no opposition whatsoever. Coincidence? Perhaps... but if it turns out to be more than just that, I will not be surprised at all.
Why is it worse for kids to be forced through this scanner than it would be for adults? I'm not saying it's a good thing, on the contrary, but I fail to see the "next level shit" distinction in case of children.
But then, I remember a time when such pictures would hardly draw any comment, and could commonly be seen in family photo albums. That was before we were somehow conditioned to believe that we were dealing with a lot more than just the handful of sick deviants that is actually out there, and before we got used to explode in a combination of outrage, embarrasment and disgust whenever we are confronted with such images, however innocent and regardless of context.
If you're not going to read the article, at least glance at the summary:
Starting on Feb. 15, Windows 7 RC will display notices every few hours that the machine will periodically shut down beginning on March 1
So, you get a 15 day advance warning for the impending shutdowns. Also, Microsoft has mentioned earlier, on several occasions, that this was eventually going to happen with the RC version. It's only fair: you can try it for free, but you have to pay to keep using it. Not different from any other nagware.
I wear glasses, but I find that most 3d glasses (including Imax glasses and the Avatar ones) fit comfortably over my own pair, which admittedly are fairly small.
What do you pay for glasses? Since you will not using these TV specs all the time, you can use cheaper lenses without all those fancy coatings, and more importantly you can get a cheap-ass frame. And you don't need to get the prescription exactly right either if you do not watch 3d for more than 3 hours or so. $50 should be enough for that.
That's a good example... now that almost all movies on DVD or Blu-ray offer 5.1, and we've figured out how to get pretty good sound quality from small speakers, people are installing surround systems en masse. More and more people are opting for a Home Theatre rather than just having a TV in the living room.
Maybe 3d will go the same way. Unlike most other movies that tried 3d in the past, Avatar used the technology to good effect. If more content follows, and more programming is made available over the air, perhaps people will pick it up, since the technology is not as cumbersome as before. Especially if it's optional: either watch the same content in 2d, or put on the glasses and watch 3d. One thing that has advanced a bit is the technology used for the glasses. Circular polarisation (probably not usable for TV, but maybe dual beamers...), shutter glasses that are actually comfortable to wear, or Infitec glasses, which might be usable with televisions but are hideously expensive. I found all of these to be perfectly comfortable to wear even for an extended period of time.
It seems every little crappy program or tool these days wants to install their own "helper" thingy, either hidden or in the task bar. I wish all software companies would be a little more responsible about the cruft they load our computers down with. 5 Simple rules: - only run stuff in the background if there's a good reason for the job to run continuously. - for stuff that doesn't need to run all the time (and checking for updates most definitely belongs in this category), perform the task(s) when the associated program itself starts. - if it runs in the background, it goes on the task bar (so we know it's there) - if it runs at startup, there's a simple way (config setting) to disable it. - if running at startup is disabled but the job is essential for the associated program, the job is started automatically when the program is launched.
They'll go after the original developer, not directly after users of the software except as a scare tactic (SCO, which didn't work).
Yes they will. And they have. And they've won. Pay up, or stop using it and pay damages. Scare tactic? That worked very well in the case of Blackboard for example, that is, until they lost their case.
You think a closed source license gives you indemnification against lawsuits? Then I suggest to read that license again.
The license isn't the whole story in court, especially if you've bought the software in good faith from a reputable firm, instead of downloading it from some random guy on the Internet. The difference is that we might only be forced to stop using the software in a reasonable timeframe in this case, and we get to sue the vendor for damage in that case, no matter what the license says. If however an IP owner decides to sue us over closed software licensed from a software vendor, the lawyers at least assure us that said person will be squashed like a bug in court.
This is the unwritten rule in lawsuits: you go after the first person with money in the chain. And in case of software, we try and make sure that there is another entity with money between us and potential claimants.
An interesting approach, but what does it mean for liability?
My client (a large multinational) has changed its stance on open source from "no way" to "we're lovin' it!" Of course our lawyers have had a few things to say about that, but not regarding the terms of the typical OSS license, which they claim is specific enough to hold up in a reasonable court.
The real issue is being held liable for IP infringement. If Microsoft is being sued for violating some patent in Word and ordered to stop selling it, it means very little to us. Not our problem. However, if someone finds out that some bit of OSS violates their IP and knows that we use that software, they'll sue us. We then have 3 options: pay (on the other party's terms), stop using that software immediately, or go to court. None of these are very attractive choices.
Sadly we have prior experience with this sort of lawsuit. Our current policy regarding OSS is that it cannot be used in mission-critical situations unless there is a drop-in replacement, or a workaround can be developed quickly.
Try videoconferencing with 20 people dialling in from 6 locations with breakout sessions, or holding a "bazaar"-style seminar with walk-in sessions, or inviting people from outside the company. Videoconferencing doesn't cut it in those situations, but a virtual office might.
But, you are absolutely right in that one should not try to duplicate videoconferences or teleconferences using something like Second Life, there's no point. It does have its place though. And interestingly, the group dynamics in virtual meetings are very different from videoconferences or face-to-face meetings. Again, there are benefits to that in certain situations.
True, but you touch on an important practical point: you have to go in and check. I can't judge the quality of a raid leader from the fact that they have downed Mork the Farty 20 times in a row with no wipes; I'd have to hop on his raid and see how they actually perform. Perhaps the raid leader is rather poor in reality, and it's a group leader giving the orders, and a team member who cools off budding conflicts, with the raid leader being little more than responsible for the loots and invites (come to think of it, I know a few managers who manage little more than "loots and invites").
So, to qualify my earlier statement a little: I know from experience that the good raid leaders I have raided with posess strong leadership qualities. Even so, that might not necessarily translate to being good business leaders, but at least you know the potential is there in their personalities.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you ever downloaded and watched HD movies off Usenet or torrent sites? These are typically 4-8GB for 720p, and 8-16GB for 1080p. The quality is in no way anywhere as bad or low-def as DVD, and most viewers will probably never notice the difference between these compressed files and the full Blu-ray versions, unless they watch them simultaneously side-by-side. If you have an HD set, these downloads are well worth it compared to plain DVD. Even when I have the chance to download the full Blu-ray, I opt for the compressed file.
The best thing of course would be to have a choice! I still think the old Russian AllOfMP3 site set the standard for media webshops in that regard: a choice of compression rates and file formats, or the raw uncompressed file, priced by the MB. I'd like online movie stores to offer downloads in formats suitable for portable players, DVD, HDTV (720p and 1080p), with or without compression, etc. And of course, no DRM and download to own. If they offer that, I'd stop bothering with Usenet or torrents, and I'd happily pay close to the full price for movies ($20-25).
Have the state levy a heavy fine.
No. Instead of awarding punitive damages, the state levies a heavy fine for the same amount.
So fine them more if they deserve it. The point is not the amount of the fine, but who gets the money.
The point is to punish, not to enrich either the claimant or the state. If someone benefits, I would rather see it go to the state who will use it for the good of us all (or at least the same "good" they spend other taxes on), rather than some random guy who "got lucky" having an accident. Especially if that guy is a two bit patent troll.
How about reforming the law to do away with the moronic idea of awarding "punitive damages", or whatever it is called in cases like these, to claimants? In some countries, like the one I live in, payments to claimants are pretty much limited to actual damages and legal fees, maybe with a small bit added on top for things like mental anguish or redress. That lady who sued McDonalds over scalding coffee should at most have gotten her medical and legals bills refunded, with perhaps a couple thousand thrown in for her trouble. That's what she'd get over here (and if I remember correctly, that's what she originally sued McD for). Make no mistake though, actual damages in case of severe injuries can run into millions as well... but we do not reward people for a bit of bad luck or for finding some obscure legal technicality that does not affect anyone. Slipping on the pavement in front of a fancy restaurant should not turn into a windfall, neither should this new form of patent trolling.
If a claimant can prove actual damages caused by improper patent marking, then by all means should they be able to sue for these damages. And if another company has been naughty and put incorrect markings on their products, they should received reasonable punishment. Some of these amounts sound excessive, and in any case, they should be treated as fines and go to the state, not to some random claimant.
What exactly can we learn from slums? Recycling is good? Waste not want not? We already know that, and we even have a pretty good grasp of how to do it, but we don't... because we don't have to, as you say.
It's not always greener to endlessly recycle either, and to keep stuff going beyond its useful life, the way they do in the slums. Better to have modern, fast, energy efficient trains than one ancient diesel with passengers hanging off the sides. Better to replace your crappy old car with a new one that pollutes less and uses less than half of the energy to run. Better to figure out how to build comfortable and energy efficient housing than to recycle your wood and steel into uncomfortable shacks. People in slums don't do any of that, not because they are stupid or because it makes no sense, but simpy because they have no options. We do. I bet there are a few clever tricks being cooked up in the slums, but I seriously doubt that those have great relevance for us. A bit like the advise given by the homeless guy in "The day after tomorrow", to stuff newspapers into your clothes to help you keep warm. Seriously, I think we can do better than that, for ourselves as well as for people living in those slums today.
I fully agree that we too will have to learn to live by necessities rather than wants, but I would counter the article with the statement that there is nothing the slums can teach us about future urban living... except that we had best make sure our future isn't all slums. Noble savages die very, very young...
Any virtual environment or even chat systems support virtual rape by way of emotes. The article even cites a rape case that took place in a text-based MMO.
Exactly, and just as I predicted. Child abuse and kiddie porn should be added as a clause to Godwin's law when it comes to legislative discussions: sooner or later someone is going to bring up "The Children" to defend their side of the argument.
Nothing wrong with private corporations in health care. The market works fine when it is allowed to work. Of course, if you want universal healthcare, you have to socialise some of it.
It's funny, but the USA with the 'all private' (but certainly not free market) health care and my country with its socialised health care suffer from the same problem: a small-ish cartel of insurers calling the shots. This leads to ever-increasing premiums and a nightmare of bureaucracy to account for every penny spent.
Obama's plan is not going to solve the problem; it will likely make things worse. What you need to do is break the hegemony of the insurers, and kick them back into their kennel where they belong: providing insurance, nothing more, on a truly free market. And we in NL need to do the same. The previous minister for health care tried to open up the market to European insurers, but the Dutch insurance companies made sure that this plan never came to light.
Or rather: "Don't be afraid to fail". My more entrepreneurial friends all have had several failures, but most decided to stick with trying out their new ideas. Some managed at some point to turn one of their ideas into small but successful businesses. On the other hand, I have had several ideas for a business, but I have never had the inclination, energy or guts to put any of them into practise, thinking "that idea isn't good enough...". In other words, afraid to fail.
Another thing to remember is: "don't be afraid to think big" (or fail big, perhaps). Apple, McDonalds, Google, Dell and others have grown from small enterprises into big corporations. Some of that is luck, being at the right place at the right time and all that, but not all of it. And there are many similar small successes that have failed to cross over into the big time, or failed to even try.
You are right, it is too often used as a mantra, the silver bullet response. Just like ESSA, 'pick low-hanging fruit', 'buy, not build' and crap like that. And these bits of wisdom are crap, if you merely turn them into guiding dogmas.
One thing I've learned while working on innovative stuff is that the real trick isn't knowing to fail early, it's knowing how and when to do so. To fail early effectively you have to be able to recognise failure, or you'll end up keeping failure alive for too long, or perhaps prematurely kill a fledgling success. And when you do fail, don't just kill the project and bury it out back, learn from your failure.
It depends on what those policies look like. I can think of a few proposals that will seriously hurt certain industries (and I don't mean oil industries).
Personally I don't believe in man-made global warming. But that's all it is, a belief. I'm no expert, but I am enough of a scientist to be fairly certain that the experts aren't certain on this either, and that the climate debate has very little to do with science. It's more like a religion, on both sides.
Even so, I support certain measures such as research into viable alternative energy sources, including nuclear and fusion, or energy-saving technology. Those seem like clear winners no matter what side you are on: cleaner air, less money spent on fuel, lower CO2 emissions, less dependency on import of fossil fuels, high-tech research and production jobs, etc. I'll tell you what is not effective: plowing another trillion dollars into Africa, as proposed in Kopenhagen. What the hell was that about?
Burdened by management? Interestingly, the success of Apple's products is often attributed to design decisions that have been directly influenced by Jobs. One article even went so far as to state that Apple designs for a single tarket market: "Steve Jobs"; success in other markets follows from that.
It takes some getting used to, I suppose (it did for me). And for some people, physical keyboards just work better.
Nokia is a winner if you just want a phone, but come to think of it, I don't use my iPhone to make calls all that much. I do use it for many other things on the go, "fluff" like: agenda, tasks, notes, google, traffic info, email, train schedules, navigation, booking cinema tickets, paying for public parking (yes, ThereIsAnAppForThat), messaging, reading news, etc, etc. The iPhone is the first smart phone (of the ones I've tries) that actually makes all of those tasks quick and practical. So well in fact that, when seated at my desktop computer, I still prefer to use the iPhone app over the full-size web browser
Don't forget the physical aspects either. The iPhone's GUI is succesful partly because the phone has an exceptionally good touch screen. And I don't mean multi-touch or pinch zooming, I mean a screen that registers touches and gestures accurately, so that the interface is easy to use even with fat fingers. Show me another phone that I can operate (even quickly type an SMS) one-handed using the thumb of the hand holding the phone... My message to manufacturers of competing phones would be: don't skimp on the screen!
And yet, the iPhone is the phone that everyone is talking about. New phones are being touted as "iPhone killers", not "Blackberry killers" or "Android killers". When it comes to usability and design, the iPhone is the yardstick that other phones are being measured against. In that sense, it does dominate the market... or at least the marketing.
Interestingly, authorities of many countries were already contemplating the use of these machines, but they have been succesfully opposed in most cases by privacy advocates and sensible politicians. Then, some guy with a half baked explosive just happens to slip through security on a flight to the US, and suddenly all proposals for full body scans sail through with no opposition whatsoever. Coincidence? Perhaps... but if it turns out to be more than just that, I will not be surprised at all.
Why is it worse for kids to be forced through this scanner than it would be for adults? I'm not saying it's a good thing, on the contrary, but I fail to see the "next level shit" distinction in case of children.
But then, I remember a time when such pictures would hardly draw any comment, and could commonly be seen in family photo albums. That was before we were somehow conditioned to believe that we were dealing with a lot more than just the handful of sick deviants that is actually out there, and before we got used to explode in a combination of outrage, embarrasment and disgust whenever we are confronted with such images, however innocent and regardless of context.
So, you get a 15 day advance warning for the impending shutdowns. Also, Microsoft has mentioned earlier, on several occasions, that this was eventually going to happen with the RC version. It's only fair: you can try it for free, but you have to pay to keep using it. Not different from any other nagware.
I wear glasses, but I find that most 3d glasses (including Imax glasses and the Avatar ones) fit comfortably over my own pair, which admittedly are fairly small.
What do you pay for glasses? Since you will not using these TV specs all the time, you can use cheaper lenses without all those fancy coatings, and more importantly you can get a cheap-ass frame. And you don't need to get the prescription exactly right either if you do not watch 3d for more than 3 hours or so. $50 should be enough for that.
That's a good example... now that almost all movies on DVD or Blu-ray offer 5.1, and we've figured out how to get pretty good sound quality from small speakers, people are installing surround systems en masse. More and more people are opting for a Home Theatre rather than just having a TV in the living room.
Maybe 3d will go the same way. Unlike most other movies that tried 3d in the past, Avatar used the technology to good effect. If more content follows, and more programming is made available over the air, perhaps people will pick it up, since the technology is not as cumbersome as before. Especially if it's optional: either watch the same content in 2d, or put on the glasses and watch 3d. One thing that has advanced a bit is the technology used for the glasses. Circular polarisation (probably not usable for TV, but maybe dual beamers...), shutter glasses that are actually comfortable to wear, or Infitec glasses, which might be usable with televisions but are hideously expensive. I found all of these to be perfectly comfortable to wear even for an extended period of time.
It seems every little crappy program or tool these days wants to install their own "helper" thingy, either hidden or in the task bar. I wish all software companies would be a little more responsible about the cruft they load our computers down with.
5 Simple rules:
- only run stuff in the background if there's a good reason for the job to run continuously.
- for stuff that doesn't need to run all the time (and checking for updates most definitely belongs in this category), perform the task(s) when the associated program itself starts.
- if it runs in the background, it goes on the task bar (so we know it's there)
- if it runs at startup, there's a simple way (config setting) to disable it.
- if running at startup is disabled but the job is essential for the associated program, the job is started automatically when the program is launched.
They'll go after the original developer, not directly after users of the software except as a scare tactic (SCO, which didn't work).
Yes they will. And they have. And they've won. Pay up, or stop using it and pay damages. Scare tactic? That worked very well in the case of Blackboard for example, that is, until they lost their case.
The license isn't the whole story in court, especially if you've bought the software in good faith from a reputable firm, instead of downloading it from some random guy on the Internet. The difference is that we might only be forced to stop using the software in a reasonable timeframe in this case, and we get to sue the vendor for damage in that case, no matter what the license says. If however an IP owner decides to sue us over closed software licensed from a software vendor, the lawyers at least assure us that said person will be squashed like a bug in court.
This is the unwritten rule in lawsuits: you go after the first person with money in the chain. And in case of software, we try and make sure that there is another entity with money between us and potential claimants.
An interesting approach, but what does it mean for liability?
My client (a large multinational) has changed its stance on open source from "no way" to "we're lovin' it!" Of course our lawyers have had a few things to say about that, but not regarding the terms of the typical OSS license, which they claim is specific enough to hold up in a reasonable court.
The real issue is being held liable for IP infringement. If Microsoft is being sued for violating some patent in Word and ordered to stop selling it, it means very little to us. Not our problem. However, if someone finds out that some bit of OSS violates their IP and knows that we use that software, they'll sue us. We then have 3 options: pay (on the other party's terms), stop using that software immediately, or go to court. None of these are very attractive choices.
Sadly we have prior experience with this sort of lawsuit. Our current policy regarding OSS is that it cannot be used in mission-critical situations unless there is a drop-in replacement, or a workaround can be developed quickly.
Try videoconferencing with 20 people dialling in from 6 locations with breakout sessions, or holding a "bazaar"-style seminar with walk-in sessions, or inviting people from outside the company. Videoconferencing doesn't cut it in those situations, but a virtual office might.
But, you are absolutely right in that one should not try to duplicate videoconferences or teleconferences using something like Second Life, there's no point. It does have its place though. And interestingly, the group dynamics in virtual meetings are very different from videoconferences or face-to-face meetings. Again, there are benefits to that in certain situations.
True, but you touch on an important practical point: you have to go in and check. I can't judge the quality of a raid leader from the fact that they have downed Mork the Farty 20 times in a row with no wipes; I'd have to hop on his raid and see how they actually perform. Perhaps the raid leader is rather poor in reality, and it's a group leader giving the orders, and a team member who cools off budding conflicts, with the raid leader being little more than responsible for the loots and invites (come to think of it, I know a few managers who manage little more than "loots and invites").
So, to qualify my earlier statement a little: I know from experience that the good raid leaders I have raided with posess strong leadership qualities. Even so, that might not necessarily translate to being good business leaders, but at least you know the potential is there in their personalities.