A company should really research the terms of the license, of a product they are using, but perhaps they just hope that people won't notice... After all, it is easy money, if no one finds out.
Are you kidding me? Nothing is easy money in the software industry these days! The barrier to entry is high enough that it's next to impossible not to use open source, and adhering to the terms of the license will drive your stock price down to zero. It's not hard to see why some companies see subverting the GPL as the most rational option (although outsourcing to India is a close second).
I'd omit anything that is difficult to explain from your resume. In fact, instructor for the resume writing class I went to advised me not to include a job history going back more than 10-15 years, since it leads to age discrimination (yes, this means you need to omit your graduation date as well). Managers are only going to glance at your resume for 20-30 seconds, just looking for any reason to reject it.
Why was this modded as flamebait? Age discrimination certainly exists. (perhaps for a good reason?)
P.P.S. I'd sure like to figure out a way to make the word liberal lose its negative connotation...
"Liberal" doesn't have a negative connotation in Canada. It is simply the name of a political party. (And its connotation depends on the current public opinion of that party.)
This is the only way we'll be able to compete in hand to hand combat with the robots that we'll assuredly create and be forced to fight against in the near future.
Hey, why is this modded funny? Shouldn't it be insightful?
I.e., please spare me the stupidity of "what if I want to wait for a fix for an outdated version of IE instead of downloading the existing free upgrade?" You'd be just as vulnerable if you absolutely didn't want to upgrade from an ancient version of Mozilla. Which _did_ have a few exploits, in spite of being OSS.
*Current* versions of Mozilla routinely crash my browser when I view pages with various form elements. This is really annoying, because when I develop a web page, I have to test it not just on IE6, but on multiple versions of Mozilla to see if any of them are likely to crash.
Yeah... of all the sections of the patriot act, it's so great that they struck down that one. Because if there's one freedom I cherish, it's the freedom to promote terrorism.
I don't mean to nitpick, but he is proposing acquiring a degree in Engineering/CS, not IT. CS is more than managing computer systems and even programming. At least I hope so, for I'm studying it with no intention of becoming a "programmer."
That was one of those posts that fits the mould of an insightful comment, except it isn't really. Oh I see... you're young and idealistic and studying CS in school. In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Maybe the PTO should subject pending patent applications to a public comment period, in which other people can submit examples of prior art to show that the patent application is either not new or obvious. If it happened, you'd have public interest groups like the EFF monitoring patent applications as they get published and finding the prior art that the PTO misses.
That's an excellent suggestion. Right now it seems that you can file a submarine patent and delay publishing it indefinitely. I wonder why the patent office doesn't do this already.
Does anyone aside from the usual conspiracy nuts know why?
In other news,/. readers cheer on Semen Network's lawsuit against the RIAA for having used Kazaa Lite, despite the fact that many of them have used that same software. "It's not hypocracy," one reader explained. "Kazaa Lite is like 3 P2P clients ago. No one uses that any more."
Perhaps IBM or another large player could get some key software patents and only allow their use in GPLed software.
Perhaps IBM will amass millions of submarine patents, simultaneously contribute infringing code into Linux, and then save up for the day when Linux is deployed on the desktop. Then they can sue *everybody* (and have more of a case than SCO).
In all honesty, I think that something like this is a bad idea because it relieves governments of the responsibility of making currency that is hard to counterfeit. Sooner or later, someone hardcore (probably a crime ring) with their own equipment will come along and duplicate poorly designed currency, making a whole bunch of fake currency that is undetectable.
If counterfeiting photocopiers were illegal, only criminals would have counterfeiting photocopiers?
The really good developers I know who have gotten laid off in the last couple months haven't been having and problems finding new work. I have a couple friends who have commented lately about how they expected it to be hard and in the process of looking started being a lot more picky, because things weren't as bad as they'd heard.
Yes and no. It's true that there's no lack of jobs for good people. (It's also hard to find good people because you have to wade through piles of dreck to find them.) But if you have a job now and you quit, expect to take a pay cut in the next one. And expect to work 60 hours a week with no promise of a $1 billion IPO.
Here's a suggestion... could/. start searching its own archive of comments to detect the karma whoring trolls? You know the ones who search through previous stories on the same subject and repost any highly rated comments verbatim.
-a
Re:Yes, but measuring webserver market share is ha
on
2003: Year of Apache
·
· Score: 1
Web server market share is a funny thing. Do you count the total number of webservers, or just domains?
Defining "market share" of a free program is a funny thing anyway. Market share would probably normally be measured as a fraction of total $$$. So maybe it should be "user share" instead.
Yep -the kid did the equivalent of a farting noise in the classroom. That is objectionable behavior - so some disciplinary action is reasonable - but suspension?
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but these days they suspend kids from school for using nail clippers or for playing cops and robbers in the schoolyard.
-a
Re:Proud to be a Heretic!
on
What You Can't Say
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Things you can't say, hmm? Ironic that this should be slashdotted, since./ is more-or-less the last bastion of the kind of free-speech, open-debate that exists. /. is a bastion of free speech? You have got to be kidding me. You may be able to say things here that you couldn't say elsewhere, but there is plenty of stuff for which the converse is true./. just has its own unique set of heresies and if you go against them, you will be modded down. Surely modding down is a form of censorship. (Also, even if you are not modded down, you will not be modded up, so that's indirect censorship.)
On another note, I thought the theme of article was interesting, but not all the ideas were fully thought through. For example:
A lot of my friends are starting to have children now, and they're all trying not to use words like "fuck" and "shit" within baby's hearing, lest baby start using these words too. But these words are part of the language, and adults use them all the time. So parents are giving their kids an inaccurate idea of the language by not using them. Why do they do this? Because they don't think it's fitting that kids should use the whole language. We like children to seem innocent.
That's a rather tenuous conclusion. Actually, the reason we shelter our children is that they are not mature enough to understand discretion. E.g. I wouldn't care if my kids learned the words "fuck" and "shit", but they don't have the discretion not to use them in church.
And then people would be forced to actually read the book. The horror!
Of course, then they'll just start pirating the book as well. I wonder if Tolkien would have still written it if he didn't think he could make any money off it. (In the liner notes of the authorized edition, he is quite vocal in asking for copyright extension.)
Oh yeah, and the Red Book had a huge effect too. Notice how nothing suggested in it was ever done?
Personally, I like a government that moves very slowly. The liberals win a huge majority and yet do very little. Compare that to George Bush, who wins by a coin flip and then proceeds to alienate the world, invade Iraq, and push a radical Christian agenda. No, I'll take good old ineffective government any day.
So you can't see how saying one thing is flamebait, but saying the opposite is not? Example: You're a moron. You're no moron. It also depends on your audience. Saying "Abortion is murder" at a pro-choice meeting might well be flamebait, but saying it at a pro-life meeting certainly is not.
The amusing thing to me is when you point out that two popular/. opinions are mutually incompatible and someone is always quick to point out how that proves that/. is not a monoculture and different people have different opinions. Of course, posts that disagree with either one of those contradictory opinions will still most likely be modded either troll or flamebait.
'The movie industry, he said, has to ask itself what the music industry should have asked years ago: 'Why do they want to steal from us?' The answer, he said, is simple: 'Because you won't sell them what they want.'
This is BS, and so is your explanation. The problem is this: most teenagers lack the sense of ethics that tells them not to steal stuff. When they get older they get a better sense of perspective and they realize that it's not worth stealing unless you can embezzle $200k from the company's pension fund.
When I was a teen, I had the motive to rip off music, but not the means/opportunity to do it on a large scale. Nowadays, they do. And furthermore, this no longer seems to be something that most people grow out of. The demographic for piracy creeps upward.
Hehe... interesting how this got chosen for the insightful mod rather than the parent. That's the whole point. $50 might sound like gouging to us, but in Japan everything is 3 times as expensive. They make higher salaries too.
Microsoft's fear is that a large camera or MP3 player manufacturer 'gets it wrong' and MS is blamed for things not working correctly. MS then has to invest in a work-around, handle patches, bad press etc..
You might want to take the MS spin with a grain of salt. I am sure they are just doing it to get some revenge on the OSS groups who have implemented Samba et al.
Slashdot Mirror
A company should really research the terms of the license, of a product they are using, but perhaps they just hope that people won't notice...
After all, it is easy money, if no one finds out.
Are you kidding me? Nothing is easy money in the software industry these days! The barrier to entry is high enough that it's next to impossible not to use open source, and adhering to the terms of the license will drive your stock price down to zero. It's not hard to see why some companies see subverting the GPL as the most rational option (although outsourcing to India is a close second).
-a
I'd omit anything that is difficult to explain from your resume. In fact, instructor for the resume writing class I went to advised me not to include a job history going back more than 10-15 years, since it leads to age discrimination (yes, this means you need to omit your graduation date as well). Managers are only going to glance at your resume for 20-30 seconds, just looking for any reason to reject it.
Why was this modded as flamebait? Age discrimination certainly exists. (perhaps for a good reason?)
-a
P.P.S. I'd sure like to figure out a way to make the word liberal lose its negative connotation...
"Liberal" doesn't have a negative connotation in Canada. It is simply the name of a political party. (And its connotation depends on the current public opinion of that party.)
-a
This is the only way we'll be able to compete in hand to hand combat with the robots that we'll assuredly create and be forced to fight against in the near future.
Hey, why is this modded funny? Shouldn't it be insightful?
-a
I.e., please spare me the stupidity of "what if I want to wait for a fix for an outdated version of IE instead of downloading the existing free upgrade?" You'd be just as vulnerable if you absolutely didn't want to upgrade from an ancient version of Mozilla. Which _did_ have a few exploits, in spite of being OSS.
*Current* versions of Mozilla routinely crash my browser when I view pages with various form elements. This is really annoying, because when I develop a web page, I have to test it not just on IE6, but on multiple versions of Mozilla to see if any of them are likely to crash.
-a
Yeah... of all the sections of the patriot act, it's so great that they struck down that one. Because if there's one freedom I cherish, it's the freedom to promote terrorism.
-a
I don't mean to nitpick, but he is proposing acquiring a degree in Engineering/CS, not IT. CS is more than managing computer systems and even programming. At least I hope so, for I'm studying it with no intention of becoming a "programmer."
That was one of those posts that fits the mould of an insightful comment, except it isn't really. Oh I see... you're young and idealistic and studying CS in school. In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about.
-a
Maybe the PTO should subject pending patent applications to a public comment period, in which other people can submit examples of prior art to show that the patent application is either not new or obvious. If it happened, you'd have public interest groups like the EFF monitoring patent applications as they get published and finding the prior art that the PTO misses.
That's an excellent suggestion. Right now it seems that you can file a submarine patent and delay publishing it indefinitely. I wonder why the patent office doesn't do this already.
Does anyone aside from the usual conspiracy nuts know why?
-a
Sharman->Sherman ...
/. readers cheer on Semen Network's lawsuit against the RIAA for having used Kazaa Lite, despite the fact that many of them have used that same software. "It's not hypocracy," one reader explained. "Kazaa Lite is like 3 P2P clients ago. No one uses that any more."
Sherman->Serman
In other news,
-a
Perhaps IBM or another large player could get some key software patents and only allow their use in GPLed software.
Perhaps IBM will amass millions of submarine patents, simultaneously contribute infringing code into Linux, and then save up for the day when Linux is deployed on the desktop. Then they can sue *everybody* (and have more of a case than SCO).
Just the conspiracy nut in me...
-a
In all honesty, I think that something like this is a bad idea because it relieves governments of the responsibility of making currency that is hard to counterfeit. Sooner or later, someone hardcore (probably a crime ring) with their own equipment will come along and duplicate poorly designed currency, making a whole bunch of fake currency that is undetectable.
If counterfeiting photocopiers were illegal, only criminals would have counterfeiting photocopiers?
-a
Thanks for the non-sequitor. FYI, I put very little faith in resumes.
-a
The really good developers I know who have gotten laid off in the last couple months haven't been having and problems finding new work. I have a couple friends who have commented lately about how they expected it to be hard and in the process of looking started being a lot more picky, because things weren't as bad as they'd heard.
Yes and no. It's true that there's no lack of jobs for good people. (It's also hard to find good people because you have to wade through piles of dreck to find them.) But if you have a job now and you quit, expect to take a pay cut in the next one. And expect to work 60 hours a week with no promise of a $1 billion IPO.
-a
Here's a suggestion... could /. start searching its own archive of comments to detect the karma whoring trolls? You know the ones who search through previous stories on the same subject and repost any highly rated comments verbatim.
-a
Web server market share is a funny thing. Do you count the total number of webservers, or just domains?
Defining "market share" of a free program is a funny thing anyway. Market share would probably normally be measured as a fraction of total $$$. So maybe it should be "user share" instead.
-a
Why? Because speak freely does voice over IP with hard encryption. I don't know of any other VoIP product that does that.
What the hell is hard encryption? Is that the same as strong encryption?
-a
Is it just me or is SCO going out of their mind? This is getting insane.
In for a penny, in for a pound. What reason do they have not to go after Google?
-a
Yep -the kid did the equivalent of a farting noise in the classroom. That is objectionable behavior - so some disciplinary action is reasonable - but suspension?
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but these days they suspend kids from school for using nail clippers or for playing cops and robbers in the schoolyard.
-a
Things you can't say, hmm? Ironic that this should be slashdotted, since
On another note, I thought the theme of article was interesting, but not all the ideas were fully thought through. For example:
That's a rather tenuous conclusion. Actually, the reason we shelter our children is that they are not mature enough to understand discretion. E.g. I wouldn't care if my kids learned the words "fuck" and "shit", but they don't have the discretion not to use them in church.
-a
And then people would be forced to actually read the book. The horror!
Of course, then they'll just start pirating the book as well. I wonder if Tolkien would have still written it if he didn't think he could make any money off it. (In the liner notes of the authorized edition, he is quite vocal in asking for copyright extension.)
-a
Oh yeah, and the Red Book had a huge effect too. Notice how nothing suggested in it was ever done?
Personally, I like a government that moves very slowly. The liberals win a huge majority and yet do very little. Compare that to George Bush, who wins by a coin flip and then proceeds to alienate the world, invade Iraq, and push a radical Christian agenda. No, I'll take good old ineffective government any day.
-a
So you can't see how saying one thing is flamebait, but saying the opposite is not?
/. opinions are mutually incompatible and someone is always quick to point out how that proves that /. is not a monoculture and different people have different opinions. Of course, posts that disagree with either one of those contradictory opinions will still most likely be modded either troll or flamebait.
Example:
You're a moron.
You're no moron.
It also depends on your audience. Saying "Abortion is murder" at a pro-choice meeting might well be flamebait, but saying it at a pro-life meeting certainly is not.
The amusing thing to me is when you point out that two popular
-a
'The movie industry, he said, has to ask itself what the music industry should have asked years ago: 'Why do they want to steal from us?' The answer, he said, is simple: 'Because you won't sell them what they want.'
This is BS, and so is your explanation. The problem is this: most teenagers lack the sense of ethics that tells them not to steal stuff. When they get older they get a better sense of perspective and they realize that it's not worth stealing unless you can embezzle $200k from the company's pension fund.
When I was a teen, I had the motive to rip off music, but not the means/opportunity to do it on a large scale. Nowadays, they do. And furthermore, this no longer seems to be something that most people grow out of. The demographic for piracy creeps upward.
-a
then gouge the Japanese for $50 to buy it.
Hehe... interesting how this got chosen for the insightful mod rather than the parent. That's the whole point. $50 might sound like gouging to us, but in Japan everything is 3 times as expensive. They make higher salaries too.
-a
Microsoft's fear is that a large camera or MP3 player manufacturer 'gets it wrong' and MS is blamed for things not working correctly. MS then has to invest in a work-around, handle patches, bad press etc..
You might want to take the MS spin with a grain of salt. I am sure they are just doing it to get some revenge on the OSS groups who have implemented Samba et al.
-a