On the 30th... the news anchors at WBZ-TV Boston joked about getting an extra second of sleep from the leap second. Actually, since Midnight GMT is at the start of their broadcast, they got an extra second on-the-air.
See, C-SPAN gets its material primarily from government sources. However, the fact they're adding a C-SPAN bug and transmitting it to you means it's theirs to put a copyright on. If you want to make your own newscast with congressional footage, you have to either find the C-Band feed that C-SPAN gets, or ask C-SPAN if you could use theirs. (C-SPAN loves getting their bug out everywhere though, so they usually let people have what they want.)
There is an Office of the President Elect funded by the federal budget (for every change of power since the 1960s) currently under the GSA. Obama right now has no power when it comes to laws, but the office is a launching pad for press events so Obama can announce what he will do the moment he goes into power. Executive branch political appointees need to be hired in advance, and some have stock-market moving potential so it's better the news come out slowly than all at once.
If you get work of the federal government from the government, there's no copyright and you can republish as will, or even make a derivative work.
If you make a derivative work, such as adding a C-SPAN logo, or translating the file into a new format, you own the copyright on it. Don't like it? Go get the work from the government yourself and make your own.
Since the Office of the President Elect (web address: Change.gov) is a federal government office, anything it produces is automatically in the public domain.
But here's the problem with Lessig and company... it costs money to mount a video service, especially something that would be as popular as this is. If The Mozilla Foundation (main funder: Google) is willing to convert and host the videos, then the most likely could get the source from the governement. If they're complaining to YouTube (owner: Google) to change their ways, then they're just biting the hand that feeds them.
Second if you haven't signed a contract that gives your intellectual property / inventions / authorship / works to the University then you own it, plain and simple. You as an individual have to willingly and explicitly relinquish your rights, they can't just take them.
Contracts don't have to be signed. If you cash a check, and the university says the reason they gave you the money was to buy the rights, you're going to have to prove otherwise.
The default assumptions are that if you're paid as an employee (IRS form W-2 sent to you at the start of a new year) or using their resources such as computers and office space then you are writing a work-for-hire and they own the copyright.
If you are being paid as a contractor (IRS form 1099) and using your own equipment and place to generate the software, then you own the copyright and are licensing a copy to them.
Of course, this can be changed by a specific agreement.
Bottom line: If you plan on keeping any rights, make sure there's a document that says so. If you can't come to an agreement, don't take the job.
Software is in a race towards zero, as all IP does when there's no copyright-holding monopoly to pay. Support is becoming increasingly less needed.
Hardware always has value, especially hardware designed to go with the open software. See Asterisk. Services, even just a steady data stream, has value, see TiVo.
Dell's obligation ends when they ship the computer. If they can prove they did that, the money belongs to them.
Our OP's problem is that he didn't get the computer, but the APO is a best-effort no-insurance delivery service, so he's out a computer.
The liability is with the APO, but they can't be sued because they're the government. So, if he paid with a money order or wire transfer, he's SOL. (APO really shouldn't be trusted with things as expensive as new laptops... this is why.)
However, the major credit card companies want to encurage spending, so they'll provide the insurance and pay this one off under their "0 Fraud Liability" claims if they can't get Dell to.
Radio music royalties are on a per-listener-per-play basis... based on survey approximations for the listener count. Populartity of the station times number of times the track played times the number of pennies equals the money owed. So, Sirius and XM save nothing in this department, there's still the same number of ears listening to roughly the same music.
However, you don't need a DJ for each channel at all times (and DJs can do about 10 hours a day of airtime thanks to voice tracking, the process of introducing a song but not listening to it) but you do need a Program Director to supervise the music decisions, plus the engineering staff to make the electronics work so the stream stays on the air. Merging two into one means you can let half of those people go.
Take for example XM's POTUS '08, a news station focused on the election, and Sirius' Indie Talk, a talk station... they merged into POTUS, keeping the main part of the stronger brand. 3 out of the 5 full-time POTUS '08 personalties went away, as did most of the part time players. Only two weekday talk shows from Indie Talk survived, one in part because the also has a comedy show on another channel. The station is now often pre-empted on the weekends for sports coverage.
Interestingly though... pop music didn't merge. Sirius Hits 1 is still seperate from XM 20 on 20. Early 2000s to now pop did, XM Hitlist and Sirius's Boombox turned into Pop2K. Since Boombox had no DJs, and Hitlist did, the Hitlist airstaff is the Pop2k airstaff until at least the end of their contracts.
Another thing that only halfway merged was sports... the main sportstalk station on both services is called Mad Dog Radio... but on Sirius you hear the station ID as such, on XM you still hear the "XM SportsNation Update" reflecting the former channel name because they still have to produce seperate updates. The sports news segments during non-game-times are heavy on mentioning what games are coming up, and those are accompanied by a mention of what channel the game will air on. With the sports channel blocks different on each service, they'd rather not have mention two numbers.
There's more DJ's than before, but that's because contracts didn't expire on merger day. There were plenty of un-DJed hours to fill, and they've gotta pay the DJs anyway, so they might as well put them to use.
Bottom line: About a third of Sirius and XM's content-making staff lost their jobs the day after Veteran's Day. The executive staff was already trimmed back in the spring when the deal closed... most of XM's execs were out. This company is saving money by operating as one... although it's going to take a while.
A dream situation would be to end the XM/Sirius simulacasting and have close to 400 unique channels worth of space up there, but the problem is every reciever would have to be updated to catch both services. However, that's not going to happen for 10 to 15 years because car makers build radios in bulk and need the designes well in advance, plus you've got to get the existing radios off the road or replaced.
When you have close to 200 niche music channels but only the budget to run 100 of them, you're going to end up with a lot of people who lose their channel and are rightfully upset.
AT&T's unlimited data plan is $20/month for Edge and $30/month for 3G. I have no idea where you are getting $60/month from.
Depends on what you're connecting. AT&T charges different rates for cell phones, smart phones (usually defined by having a full keyboard), and teathered computers. Unless your smartphone has an app that gets the station you want to stream, you're going to need a computer to download web radio, and that's going to need the $60 plan.
Clear Channel and CBS Radio have iPhone apps, but those are stations filled with commerical breaks, and they can target ads to your IP address based on your listening habits. How is that better?
It most likely got stolen by a corrupt employee on its way to you. Dell thinks you got it and won't send another one, so the place to take this is your credit card's fraud resolution process, who will most likely eat the loss.
I have just one modification to that plan. Raise the gas tax slowly but surely with a nice defined timetime attached. People can't afford to buy new cars right away, but if it becomes clear that we're going to have $6/gallon gas in 2016, that's going to sell a whole lot of hybrids, and create a ready market for the electric vehicles once battery technology improves.
Here's the backup to that. The first PC cost about $10,000 and did a fraction of what today's $1,000 can do.
So, why is a car that's only five times more expensive than a typical GM car being singled out? Telsa's stated goal is to ramp up production to become a mainstream vendor, and they're doing a whole lot better than the Chevy Volt vaporware. They're more worthy of federal investment than GM.
And furthermore, as the #2 query of the day Google must have decided it was time update the search results, and now you just get coverage of the hack, not the hack itself.
marginal cost (I'm not entirely familiar with the term, but it appears to be approximately the cost of manufacture).
Marginal cost is the cost of making the next one of whatever you're selling. In software, this is a little tricky because the raw material cost of the next copy is bandwidth or the CD/DVD media. The marginal cost of the first copy is the big one... it absorbs all the cost of development.
So, in this way of analysis, software companies take a big loss developing the software, then can make it back by selling enough copies, then can afford to make it near-free because the sales are pure profit.
First off... everybody, mod parent up! We've got an OP who's willing to play with us commenters!
Anyway, if I'm reading you correctly, you're talking "vendor lock-in" meaning the risk that there's a risk that a developer might want you to pay for something you don't really want or need in order to continue to get what you do want and need. The problem is, that exists in the open world just as much as it does in the commerical world.
I think you've already found it the case here. The open version has been abandoned by the developers and consultants... they're now selling a commerical closed-source enterprise edition. Don't like where the new version went, you're free to pick up the OSS version and do your own development. Isn't that why you wanted an open solution?
What? Can't afford the developemnt talent to fork developement? Suddenly that closed-source product doesn't seem like such a bad deal now.
There isn't always a perfect answer. Sometimes you have to go with the best available despite the fact it isn't perfect.
It kinda sounds like the OP is willing to pay for project work, which is therefore not free. The OP appears to simply want work done with, or rather on, software that's OSI compliant.
But why does he want that? If he's willing to pay for implementation, he ought to be willing to pay the developers too. If he wants an open source product so he can add his own extentions, wait a second, he's going to have to pay for development there too. If he doesn't want to do anything to the software, then why does he need the code?
Slashdot Mirror
Free services come with TOS... I think you want QOS.
On the 30th... the news anchors at WBZ-TV Boston joked about getting an extra second of sleep from the leap second. Actually, since Midnight GMT is at the start of their broadcast, they got an extra second on-the-air.
Technically, not quite.
See, C-SPAN gets its material primarily from government sources. However, the fact they're adding a C-SPAN bug and transmitting it to you means it's theirs to put a copyright on. If you want to make your own newscast with congressional footage, you have to either find the C-Band feed that C-SPAN gets, or ask C-SPAN if you could use theirs. (C-SPAN loves getting their bug out everywhere though, so they usually let people have what they want.)
There is an Office of the President Elect funded by the federal budget (for every change of power since the 1960s) currently under the GSA. Obama right now has no power when it comes to laws, but the office is a launching pad for press events so Obama can announce what he will do the moment he goes into power. Executive branch political appointees need to be hired in advance, and some have stock-market moving potential so it's better the news come out slowly than all at once.
If you get work of the federal government from the government, there's no copyright and you can republish as will, or even make a derivative work.
If you make a derivative work, such as adding a C-SPAN logo, or translating the file into a new format, you own the copyright on it. Don't like it? Go get the work from the government yourself and make your own.
Since the Office of the President Elect (web address: Change.gov) is a federal government office, anything it produces is automatically in the public domain.
But here's the problem with Lessig and company... it costs money to mount a video service, especially something that would be as popular as this is. If The Mozilla Foundation (main funder: Google) is willing to convert and host the videos, then the most likely could get the source from the governement. If they're complaining to YouTube (owner: Google) to change their ways, then they're just biting the hand that feeds them.
No, but when you're working for someone, their lawyer will tell you what the terms of your employment are. You're free to take them or leave.
He talked to one who works for his university. The lawyer told him the answer he didn't want to hear. He's coming to Slashdot for a pity party.
Second if you haven't signed a contract that gives your intellectual property / inventions / authorship / works to the University then you own it, plain and simple. You as an individual have to willingly and explicitly relinquish your rights, they can't just take them.
Contracts don't have to be signed. If you cash a check, and the university says the reason they gave you the money was to buy the rights, you're going to have to prove otherwise.
The default assumptions are that if you're paid as an employee (IRS form W-2 sent to you at the start of a new year) or using their resources such as computers and office space then you are writing a work-for-hire and they own the copyright.
If you are being paid as a contractor (IRS form 1099) and using your own equipment and place to generate the software, then you own the copyright and are licensing a copy to them.
Of course, this can be changed by a specific agreement.
Bottom line: If you plan on keeping any rights, make sure there's a document that says so. If you can't come to an agreement, don't take the job.
Software is in a race towards zero, as all IP does when there's no copyright-holding monopoly to pay. Support is becoming increasingly less needed.
Hardware always has value, especially hardware designed to go with the open software. See Asterisk. Services, even just a steady data stream, has value, see TiVo.
Dell's obligation ends when they ship the computer. If they can prove they did that, the money belongs to them.
Our OP's problem is that he didn't get the computer, but the APO is a best-effort no-insurance delivery service, so he's out a computer.
The liability is with the APO, but they can't be sued because they're the government. So, if he paid with a money order or wire transfer, he's SOL. (APO really shouldn't be trusted with things as expensive as new laptops... this is why.)
However, the major credit card companies want to encurage spending, so they'll provide the insurance and pay this one off under their "0 Fraud Liability" claims if they can't get Dell to.
Radio music royalties are on a per-listener-per-play basis... based on survey approximations for the listener count. Populartity of the station times number of times the track played times the number of pennies equals the money owed. So, Sirius and XM save nothing in this department, there's still the same number of ears listening to roughly the same music.
However, you don't need a DJ for each channel at all times (and DJs can do about 10 hours a day of airtime thanks to voice tracking, the process of introducing a song but not listening to it) but you do need a Program Director to supervise the music decisions, plus the engineering staff to make the electronics work so the stream stays on the air. Merging two into one means you can let half of those people go.
Take for example XM's POTUS '08, a news station focused on the election, and Sirius' Indie Talk, a talk station... they merged into POTUS, keeping the main part of the stronger brand. 3 out of the 5 full-time POTUS '08 personalties went away, as did most of the part time players. Only two weekday talk shows from Indie Talk survived, one in part because the also has a comedy show on another channel. The station is now often pre-empted on the weekends for sports coverage.
Interestingly though... pop music didn't merge. Sirius Hits 1 is still seperate from XM 20 on 20. Early 2000s to now pop did, XM Hitlist and Sirius's Boombox turned into Pop2K. Since Boombox had no DJs, and Hitlist did, the Hitlist airstaff is the Pop2k airstaff until at least the end of their contracts.
Another thing that only halfway merged was sports... the main sportstalk station on both services is called Mad Dog Radio... but on Sirius you hear the station ID as such, on XM you still hear the "XM SportsNation Update" reflecting the former channel name because they still have to produce seperate updates. The sports news segments during non-game-times are heavy on mentioning what games are coming up, and those are accompanied by a mention of what channel the game will air on. With the sports channel blocks different on each service, they'd rather not have mention two numbers.
There's more DJ's than before, but that's because contracts didn't expire on merger day. There were plenty of un-DJed hours to fill, and they've gotta pay the DJs anyway, so they might as well put them to use.
Bottom line: About a third of Sirius and XM's content-making staff lost their jobs the day after Veteran's Day. The executive staff was already trimmed back in the spring when the deal closed... most of XM's execs were out. This company is saving money by operating as one... although it's going to take a while.
A dream situation would be to end the XM/Sirius simulacasting and have close to 400 unique channels worth of space up there, but the problem is every reciever would have to be updated to catch both services. However, that's not going to happen for 10 to 15 years because car makers build radios in bulk and need the designes well in advance, plus you've got to get the existing radios off the road or replaced.
CNN? I think the OP already found his audience. More geeks get their news here than there.
Moto RAZRs since the beginning have had an XM Streaming subscription app with about 25 channels, that's still alive today.
When you have close to 200 niche music channels but only the budget to run 100 of them, you're going to end up with a lot of people who lose their channel and are rightfully upset.
AT&T's unlimited data plan is $20/month for Edge and $30/month for 3G. I have no idea where you are getting $60/month from. Depends on what you're connecting. AT&T charges different rates for cell phones, smart phones (usually defined by having a full keyboard), and teathered computers. Unless your smartphone has an app that gets the station you want to stream, you're going to need a computer to download web radio, and that's going to need the $60 plan. Clear Channel and CBS Radio have iPhone apps, but those are stations filled with commerical breaks, and they can target ads to your IP address based on your listening habits. How is that better?
It most likely got stolen by a corrupt employee on its way to you. Dell thinks you got it and won't send another one, so the place to take this is your credit card's fraud resolution process, who will most likely eat the loss.
I have just one modification to that plan. Raise the gas tax slowly but surely with a nice defined timetime attached. People can't afford to buy new cars right away, but if it becomes clear that we're going to have $6/gallon gas in 2016, that's going to sell a whole lot of hybrids, and create a ready market for the electric vehicles once battery technology improves.
Here's the backup to that. The first PC cost about $10,000 and did a fraction of what today's $1,000 can do.
So, why is a car that's only five times more expensive than a typical GM car being singled out? Telsa's stated goal is to ramp up production to become a mainstream vendor, and they're doing a whole lot better than the Chevy Volt vaporware. They're more worthy of federal investment than GM.
Your name should be all over the code you write... In the comments/remarks as defined by whatever language you're using.
And furthermore, as the #2 query of the day Google must have decided it was time update the search results, and now you just get coverage of the hack, not the hack itself.
marginal cost (I'm not entirely familiar with the term, but it appears to be approximately the cost of manufacture).
Marginal cost is the cost of making the next one of whatever you're selling. In software, this is a little tricky because the raw material cost of the next copy is bandwidth or the CD/DVD media. The marginal cost of the first copy is the big one... it absorbs all the cost of development.
So, in this way of analysis, software companies take a big loss developing the software, then can make it back by selling enough copies, then can afford to make it near-free because the sales are pure profit.
First off... everybody, mod parent up! We've got an OP who's willing to play with us commenters!
Anyway, if I'm reading you correctly, you're talking "vendor lock-in" meaning the risk that there's a risk that a developer might want you to pay for something you don't really want or need in order to continue to get what you do want and need. The problem is, that exists in the open world just as much as it does in the commerical world.
I think you've already found it the case here. The open version has been abandoned by the developers and consultants... they're now selling a commerical closed-source enterprise edition. Don't like where the new version went, you're free to pick up the OSS version and do your own development. Isn't that why you wanted an open solution?
What? Can't afford the developemnt talent to fork developement? Suddenly that closed-source product doesn't seem like such a bad deal now.
There isn't always a perfect answer. Sometimes you have to go with the best available despite the fact it isn't perfect.
It kinda sounds like the OP is willing to pay for project work, which is therefore not free. The OP appears to simply want work done with, or rather on, software that's OSI compliant.
But why does he want that? If he's willing to pay for implementation, he ought to be willing to pay the developers too. If he wants an open source product so he can add his own extentions, wait a second, he's going to have to pay for development there too. If he doesn't want to do anything to the software, then why does he need the code?