Bottom line - even WITHOUT a non-compete agremente, they might stop him from working there - conversely, even WITH a non-compete agreement, he may be aloud to work there.
It's really tricky. If there's specialized knowledge involved may matter more than the presense of some silly paperwork. From the link I posted...
MANY EMPLOYERS follow simple rules of thumb when considering hiring an employee of a competitor: If the employee has no non-compete agreement, they can put the employee to work in any capacity, no matter how similar to the former job. If the employee has a non-compete, however, he or she cannot be hired. But as many recent lawsuits have shown, both of these "rules" can be wrong.
Even though Bill Redmond had no non-compete with Pepsico, for example, an Illinois federal court enjoined him for five months from performing particular kinds of work for the Gatorade/Snapple division of Quaker Oats. ... As the court said in Pepsico, in certain cases, for the employee to function in the new position without using secrets learned in the old, "he would have to have an uncanny ability to compartmentalize information;" otherwise "he would necessarily be making decisions about [the new company's products] by relying on his knowledge of [the former company's] secrets. n4 Use or disclosure of secrets in such cases is "inevitable."
Pepsico, 54 F3d 1269-70.
... By contrast, even though Walter Slijepcevich had a one-year non-compete agreement with Caremark mail order prescriptions, the same court that had entered an injunction barring Redmond's proposed activities refused to enforce the non-compete, saying "the knowledge Slijepcevich gained at Caremark . . . comes 'within the realm of general skills and knowledge which he was free to take and use in later pursuits.'" n5
Borland claims that in the past 30 months, Microsoft has hired 34 of the ailing software developer's key employees by offering "large signing bonuses of several millions of dollars and other incentives," according to the suit.
This included Borland's VP of R&D Paul Gross, and
Anders
Hejlsberg (chief architect of Delphi).
Back in those days, Borland went after Microsoft, not the little guy.
Is this a differce in the times, or are the specifics of the situations different?
Amusing how the little puffs of steam coming off the ship on the video look like video-game-explosion-effects too, and not what Hollywood would show for a crashing rocket.
With a proprietary vendor, if their product is using patented or copyrighted components, you won't even know until they have to stop using the system. At least with Linux all the code is out there for people to see, so if it has infringing components they will be noticed and corrected early.
What we learned from SCO is
IBM will stand by Linux's IP
HP will stand by Linux's IP
Despite Linux being a "unix clone", even the owners of Unix can't find infringing IP.
I'd love to hear of Microsoft's source code surviving such an audit to insure it doesn't infringe.
Set up my wireless access point as a deliberatelly unprotected box and watched packets fly by my router... Seems one of my neighbors was quite into high-bandwidth images and videos - guess he had a script or something to make downloading faster.
Pretty effective denial of service attack on the WiFi access point.
His rates for various sized banners (pg 11) range from $10 - $120 CPM. Let's say, an average of $30. e runs 1-6 banners on some pages, so lets guess an average of 3. He has over 50 million impressions/month (pg 1 of his media kit). Very roughly, that's
(50MM imp/mo) * $100 CPM * (1M/1000IMP) = about 50M / year.
Super rough guesses like that make it seem to me Tomshardware is bigger than CraigsList's $25MM estimate. - though no doubt someone'll correct me in my math.
That could be a fun project.../.ing his physical mail box with beer:)
If we (/.) did this, I kinda wonder how many guinnesses we could get him -- and if we'd be invited to the party to drink it.
However, things went as they did, and Linux prospered. The success has resulted in fame and also material rewards for rewards, including money. One of the first rewards wasn't money, but virtual beer. You may have heard the expression, since it is still used somewhat, but these days it is just a general good wish phrase. Originally, it had a very concrete meaning. Two guys from Oxford, England, calling themselves the Oxford Beer Trolls, wanted to buy Linus some beer, but since it was impractical to move either themselves, Linus, or the beer physically around, they asked me to receive the money via mail, and buy Linus beer with it, and that's what happened. So, virtual beer really means money, preferably money sent to me.
Interestingly, this was one of the first ways Linus was paid:
From
a former office-mate of Linus's...
However, things went as they did, and Linux prospered. The success has resulted in fame and also material rewards for rewards, including money. One of the first rewards wasn't money, but virtual beer. You may have heard the expression, since it is still used somewhat, but these days it is just a general good wish phrase. Originally, it had a very concrete meaning. Two guys from Oxford, England, calling themselves the Oxford Beer Trolls, wanted to buy Linus some beer, but since it was impractical to move either themselves, Linus, or the beer physically around, they asked me to receive the money via mail, and buy Linus beer with it, and that's what happened. So, virtual beer really means money, preferably money sent to me.
That sounded too harsh.... I bought support from Linux vendors before - because that is an easy-to-identify value-add that saves time==money.
And agreed, I'd buy Linus a drink - but more because I'd be interested to hear his thoughts than for creating a nice alternative to BSD.
I admit that the Linux kernel hackers are making significant advances beyond what OS's used to be. But these technologies - like all technologies - really are maturing and becoming more and more commodity-like as time moves forward.
Personally, I'd rather pay/donate/whatever for these guys to make _new_ advances.
A C compiler, relational databse, and OS are such mature technology, I don't see paying much more for them than I would a screwdriver, 2x4, or plastic bag.
New stuff -- facial-expression-recognition-input-devices, 3D heads up displays, a computer that understands my mood -- that's what I'd be happy to pay for (open source or not).
Ray Kurzweil has made some pretty well thought through
predictions
that by 2030 a $1000 computer will be far more powerful than the human brain.
By the end of the century, he predicts a typical computer will have more computation power than _all_ human brains put together.
If these trends continue, we're in for a very intereseting time.
And Ray isn't just any old crackpot. He has a good track record at not just forseeing the future, but executing well on it - he's responsible for the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition....
End just as importantly, Debian Stable has been the one distro I could count on to have all the security patches and _only_ the security patches so I didn't have to mess with any incompatable changes in any libraries affecting my stuff. IMHO, Debian Stable has been the lowest maintanence OS I've ever encountered.
Tell that to Cognos, who lost the lawsuit with Timeline eventhough it was Microsoft that had the infringing code.
What you say aobut the vendor being responsible would only be true if the infringing vendor had sublicing rights. In Microsoft's case, they didn't:
for more info...
Microsoft originally licensed the patents with the understanding that it would be able to sublicense the patents to their customers and to third party software developers who use Microsoft software and tools. Microsoft intended to provide this sublicense to its customers for free to ensure that the patent claims didn't directly affect customers. Microsoft sources told me that for this privilege, the company paid substantially more than other vendors for its license, although the exact figure isn't public. Microsoft filed suit against Timeline shortly after signing the license agreement in June 1999 because Timeline claimed that Microsoft didn't have the sublicensing rights. See the Microsoft PressPass article at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/jul9 9/timelinepr.asp for additional information about the suit Microsoft filed against Timeline. In December 2002, the Seattle Supreme Court ruled in favor of Timeline on this matter.
On, and once again I'd like to state the need for a third-party source-code auditing service that the large auditing company could provide to make sure that software (both open source and commercial) doesn't infringe on other people's copyrights and patents.
It's concerning to me how many people may be using illegal software from closed souorce vendors who stole source code from other projects. I would hate to build a business on a software package only to later have the vendor discontinue support because he got caught for having illegally stolen copyrighted software and incorporated it in his work.
With open source, I can feel pretty safe - based on the many eyes who see the check-in comments, someone would complain if they saw their stolen code. With proprietary software, I probably wouldn't even have a way of knowing until my vendor gets shut down.
Even more that Eolas, the
Timeline
patents that Microsoft infringed upon cost Cognos 1.75 million just because Cognos used Microsoft's infringing components.
I hope Munich carefully audits all of Microsoft's source code before deploying it as well.
Slashdot Mirror
And The link to the article on noncompetes quoted in the previous article.
Bottom line - even WITHOUT a non-compete agremente, they might stop him from working there - conversely, even WITH a non-compete agreement, he may be aloud to work there.
It's really tricky. If there's specialized knowledge involved may matter more than the presense of some silly paperwork. From the link I posted...
Back in those days, Borland went after Microsoft, not the little guy.
Is this a differce in the times, or are the specifics of the situations different?
Amusing how the little puffs of steam coming off the ship on the video look like video-game-explosion-effects too, and not what Hollywood would show for a crashing rocket.
What we learned from SCO is
IBM will stand by Linux's IP
HP will stand by Linux's IP
Despite Linux being a "unix clone", even the owners of Unix can't find infringing IP.
I'd love to hear of Microsoft's source code surviving such an audit to insure it doesn't infringe.
Set up my wireless access point as a deliberatelly unprotected box and watched packets fly by my router... Seems one of my neighbors was quite into high-bandwidth images and videos - guess he had a script or something to make downloading faster. Pretty effective denial of service attack on the WiFi access point.
Yeah, those Dell, Hewelett and Packard guys were sure slakers.
His rates for various sized banners (pg 11) range from $10 - $120 CPM. Let's say, an average of $30. e runs 1-6 banners on some pages, so lets guess an average of 3. He has over 50 million impressions/month (pg 1 of his media kit). Very roughly, that's
(50MM imp/mo) * $100 CPM * (1M/1000IMP) = about 50M / year.
Super rough guesses like that make it seem to me Tomshardware is bigger than CraigsList's $25MM estimate. - though no doubt someone'll correct me in my math.
After making X millions, you got to find something interesting to do - and in the business world, an IPO is one of those interesting things.
Personally, it seems to me they still enjoy their jobs; so I don't see this happening anytime before all the key employees are in their 60s.
That could be a fun project... /.ing his physical mail box with beer :)
If we (/.) did this, I kinda wonder how many guinnesses we could get him -- and if we'd be invited to the party to drink it.
Interestingly, this was one of the first ways Linus was paid for Linux: From a former office-mate of Linus's...
Interestingly, this was one of the first ways Linus was paid: From a former office-mate of Linus's... However, things went as they did, and Linux prospered. The success has resulted in fame and also material rewards for rewards, including money. One of the first rewards wasn't money, but virtual beer. You may have heard the expression, since it is still used somewhat, but these days it is just a general good wish phrase. Originally, it had a very concrete meaning. Two guys from Oxford, England, calling themselves the Oxford Beer Trolls, wanted to buy Linus some beer, but since it was impractical to move either themselves, Linus, or the beer physically around, they asked me to receive the money via mail, and buy Linus beer with it, and that's what happened. So, virtual beer really means money, preferably money sent to me.
And agreed, I'd buy Linus a drink - but more because I'd be interested to hear his thoughts than for creating a nice alternative to BSD.
I admit that the Linux kernel hackers are making significant advances beyond what OS's used to be. But these technologies - like all technologies - really are maturing and becoming more and more commodity-like as time moves forward.
A C compiler, relational databse, and OS are such mature technology, I don't see paying much more for them than I would a screwdriver, 2x4, or plastic bag.
New stuff -- facial-expression-recognition-input-devices, 3D heads up displays, a computer that understands my mood -- that's what I'd be happy to pay for (open source or not).
If these trends continue, we're in for a very intereseting time.
And Ray isn't just any old crackpot. He has a good track record at not just forseeing the future, but executing well on it - he's responsible for the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition....
Software too. Used to be you had to pay for an OS, or a C compiler, etc. Now $0 is a fair price.
There are /. readers with more than 9 friends! Wow.
income > $500000/yr
interests: guns, animals, investing
He claims to actually received invitations to hunting exotic animal safaris; high-class escort services, etc.
End just as importantly, Debian Stable has been the one distro I could count on to have all the security patches and _only_ the security patches so I didn't have to mess with any incompatable changes in any libraries affecting my stuff. IMHO, Debian Stable has been the lowest maintanence OS I've ever encountered.
Of course Miguel could fork it, create a company called Yimian, and Sun would have to buy him again.
The beauty of open source.
Things I want in my phone:
rsync my text-file-phone-book with my desktop.
cron / at as a reminder service.
scp my voicemails and photos and text messages to&from my desktop.
If I can do all that, I'm getting one. Otherwise, I agree, what's the point.
What you say aobut the vendor being responsible would only be true if the infringing vendor had sublicing rights. In Microsoft's case, they didn't: for more info...
It's concerning to me how many people may be using illegal software from closed souorce vendors who stole source code from other projects. I would hate to build a business on a software package only to later have the vendor discontinue support because he got caught for having illegally stolen copyrighted software and incorporated it in his work.
With open source, I can feel pretty safe - based on the many eyes who see the check-in comments, someone would complain if they saw their stolen code. With proprietary software, I probably wouldn't even have a way of knowing until my vendor gets shut down.
I hope Munich carefully audits all of Microsoft's source code before deploying it as well.