In the early 1990's, a number of universities, research institutions and other entities had source code licenses with major unix vendors: SCO, Dynix, Amdahl, Sun [Solaris], SVR4... etc - most of the source code to these operating systems was floating around the underground community (e.g. SunOS 4.1.3). Not surprising that it is happening with Windows.
I can't believe that in all the commentary so far that someone hasn't suggested you tie it to the customer's business interests/needs ? Are we all a bunch of technical engineers that don't know anything about commercial realities ? What kind of business are your customers in, and what kind of applications are important to them ? Is it sending large JPEG images to production houses ? Is it delivering software releases ? Is it video conferencing ? For all of the technical wizardly, all I can see is a lot of commercial ineptitude!
You're just repeating FUD and not learning from history. All of your arguments were once applicable to some previous generation of workers and technology. Maybe my terminology is not correct, but the principle standards.
Programming is a relatively low skilled job. Requirements engineering, design and high level project management are not. Expect the latter to stay here, but the former to go away.
I know people will argue against that definition, but remember that history shows it to be true: manufacturing was once considered a skilled job (e.g. part/machine production, assembly, etc) - yet it gradually became automated or low skilled.
However, within this there is an element of globalisation happening where some high level job will move overseas, simply a result of other countries moving up in the world (e.g. India is becoming [gradually] a somewhat first world country).
I don't have the answers entirely, but in the context of blue collar work and manufacturing, pretty much the same retort was given as you give: "what new jobs", yet they do come along, and also it requires the governments, institutions, professions and universities to play a role in supporting new training and everything else.
The reality is that outsourcing is good for the economy over the long run - low paid, low skilled jobs are moved elsewhere, and the economy focuses on new jobs. We've all heard these arguments in terms of blue collar work ("car manufacturing, etc"), yet the demand for information technology workers filled the gap.
The same goes for what's happening now: in the long run it will be good. The danger is in the short run: sudden loss of jobs without the ability to restructure could be damaging.
"The initial OSDA Initiative resources are a group of documents providing suggested variations to employment contracts that would allow employees to develop Open Source software without encumbrance from their employer, where there is no conflict of interest."
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/index.htm l
- - -
Here's the relevant section on rights management:
Article 12 Obligations concerning Rights Management Information
(1) Contracting Parties shall provide adequate and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly performing any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right covered by this Treaty or the Berne Convention:
(i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information without authority;
(ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast or communicate to the public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. People say "adopt DMCA style laws". The fact is that these laws (now enacted by the US, EU and other countries) are the result of the WIPO Internet Copyright Treaties agreeded upon in the late 1990's (1998 if I remember correctly).
What this means is that these countries long ago signed up to the treaty, it just takes a few years for legislative changes to be introduced and have effect.
There's a technological issue that people here do not understand entirely. Google and search engine's are easily first generation web content organisation and navigation tools. Where they fail is that they are not inherently embedded into everything we do: it's a deskbar, toolbar or external web page.
Microsoft is pulling the same strategy as it did with IE, i.e. trying to embed it into the operating system. This is actually a legitimate technical direction, so long as they really _do_ embed it, and it's not just a half-assed attempt to dominate the market.
In the same way, if Google doesn't succesfully embed itself into applications and so on, then someone else will take this market direction and google will lose.
Despite it's flaws, the patent system is here exactly to help stop big companies walking over new/unknown companies that may have invented new technology. You're suggesting that simply because we haven't heard of them makes it dubious ? Let me name a couple of thousand unknown inventors who came up with something new...
The argument that Slashdot and Google can be liable is easy. It's a well known fact that these circumstances (when article put on slashdot, or the google logo) do cause unreasonably high levels of traffic that would not have been caused otherwise. Google and slashdot have a duty upon them to make sure their actions do not disrupt another party: in this case they do. Should anyone lose money as a result of one of these events, I think they'd stand a good chance of claiming damages against slashdot or google.
If the idea is to negative the whole iTunes/Pepsi thing, then the call to action should be about a protest to _not_ cash back any tunes. This way, both Pepsi and iTunes find it to be a failed advertising exercise and it can only help the competition of other services.
I'm thinking this is for Canon to target the camera at a specific market where legal evidenciary issues come into play: crime scenes, insurance, autopsy, etc. This is likely not to be a feature that will appear for most consumer products.
What it really shows is more about how the professional film camera market is facing realistic competition from digital cameras.
Can anyone cite cases where referring to "Super Bowl" has landed anyone in legal trouble ? It seems absurd that you're not able to "fair use" the trademark by using the term "Super Bowl". I think the recommendation of the law firm is stepping over the mark and it's advice is overly restrictive.
Monolithic complexity usually expands out to less cohensive and decoupled forms. With mobile phones for example, we think that a kind of "personal area network" will happen so you do have separate devices (bare gsm phone, pda, game-boy, headphones, mic, watch, etc) that provide the same functions, yet are interconnected wirelessly: this means that the same complexity exists in the system, yet the user sees it another way.
Same happened for computers and software (monolothic mainframe applications -> distributed desktop applications).
Perfect advice. I would only qualify that by suggesting that there are opportunities in IP other than being a lawyer. For example, a licesing executive, a para-legal, etc. You don't need to do a full law degree, you can (at least, here in the UK) take a masters in IP that is designed for people with technical / non-law backgrounds. Otherwise, I agree with all of your comments as I have already taken a masters in IP at Queen Mary.
It's a free market: advertising space is available to anyone, whether they have vested interests or are for/against an issue. Equally, anyone can buy television or newspaper space to do the same thing.
I don't see that there are any "rights" problems here ? If you had an opposing view, you too could have purchase keywords for the hutton case.
Irrespective of who purchased those keywords, Google is always going to serve up pageranked results for "objective" results, or return collective links to press coverage from google news.
If you have a problem, purchase keywords at other search engines. You can argue that Google has a dominant position and therefore subject to anti-trust concerns, but as it returns pageranked results, it's hard to see how this argument is sustainable.
The opinion of the professional societies (IEEE, IEE and others) is that yes, outsourcing is causing higher unemployment, however outsourcing is happening all around the place in other industries as well.
However, it opens opportunities: because there's always a need for the top end in the chain: the high level design, negotiating requirements with customers, project management, research and development and feasibility, etc.
So while a lot of the low end work is moving out, professionals should seek to work at the higher end of the scale, and be remunerated appropriately.
What this means is that whether you get a CS or EE degree doesn't matter. What matters is what work you start in, and how you apply that degree. Either degree can take you many places.
It can take a long time: couple of hundred interviews even. We're not in dot.com anymore so you need to reset your expectations.
Unless you can see that a certain type of technology is in demand, and thus getting a certification will help, don't bother. Make it clear that as with previous experience, you're dynamic enough to take on the work, and certify on your own (part time): prospective employer is going to like that.
Some of us Engineers work with RTOS all the time, not just for fun-and-dandy projects, for for multi-million dollar outcomes. Consensus is that Linux is not good enough. QNX, VRTX, VxWorks etc are still the preferred choices, but everyone admits that Linux is getting there. Most of us don't hang out on slashdot, yet many Linux zealots do: you don't get a good opinion here.
Here's the more interesting question: What is Apple doing for the 20 year celebration ? Do they have any special product launches or other activities organised ? Can we expect a surprise on January 24 ?
The 44 kHz (IIRC) sampling frequency of a CD means that you can actually record signals with frequencies as high has 22 kHz (half the sampling frequency -- that's a methematical theorem about the discrete Fourier transform).
You mean the Nyquist sampling theorem: it applies as a general principle to the sampling of any signal, you need to sample at twice the rate to be able to provide an accurate reproduction.
Slashdot Mirror
In the early 1990's, a number of universities, research institutions and other entities had source code licenses with major unix vendors: SCO, Dynix, Amdahl, Sun [Solaris], SVR4
I can't believe that in all the commentary so far that someone hasn't suggested you tie it to the customer's business interests/needs ? Are we all a bunch of technical engineers that don't know anything about commercial realities ? What kind of business are your customers in, and what kind of applications are important to them ? Is it sending large JPEG images to production houses ? Is it delivering software releases ? Is it video conferencing ? For all of the technical wizardly, all I can see is a lot of commercial ineptitude!
Did you hear me ?
Good to know that Linux wins on technical merit and avoids the kind of gimmicks used by other big name software vendors
You're just repeating FUD and not learning from history. All of your arguments were once applicable to some previous generation of workers and technology. Maybe my terminology is not correct, but the principle standards.
Programming is a relatively low skilled job. Requirements engineering, design and high level project management are not. Expect the latter to stay here, but the former to go away.
I know people will argue against that definition, but remember that history shows it to be true: manufacturing was once considered a skilled job (e.g. part/machine production, assembly, etc) - yet it gradually became automated or low skilled.
However, within this there is an element of globalisation happening where some high level job will move overseas, simply a result of other countries moving up in the world (e.g. India is becoming [gradually] a somewhat first world country).
I don't have the answers entirely, but in the context of blue collar work and manufacturing, pretty much the same retort was given as you give: "what new jobs", yet they do come along, and also it requires the governments, institutions, professions and universities to play a role in supporting new training and everything else.
The reality is that outsourcing is good for the economy over the long run - low paid, low skilled jobs are moved elsewhere, and the economy focuses on new jobs. We've all heard these arguments in terms of blue collar work ("car manufacturing, etc"), yet the demand for information technology workers filled the gap.
The same goes for what's happening now: in the long run it will be good. The danger is in the short run: sudden loss of jobs without the ability to restructure could be damaging.
"The initial OSDA Initiative resources are a group of documents providing suggested variations to employment contracts that would allow employees to develop Open Source software without encumbrance from their employer, where there is no conflict of interest."
http://www.sage-au.org.au/osda/
I have checked my facts.
- - -
Here is the treaty, it was agreed upon in 1996.
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/index.ht
- - -
Here's the relevant section on rights management:
Article 12
Obligations concerning Rights
Management Information
(1) Contracting Parties shall provide adequate and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly performing any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right covered by this Treaty or the Berne Convention:
(i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information without authority;
(ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast or communicate to the public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.
- - -
Here's the list of contracting parties:
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/documents/pdf/s
There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. People say "adopt DMCA style laws". The fact is that these laws (now enacted by the US, EU and other countries) are the result of the WIPO Internet Copyright Treaties agreeded upon in the late 1990's (1998 if I remember correctly).
What this means is that these countries long ago signed up to the treaty, it just takes a few years for legislative changes to be introduced and have effect.
There's a technological issue that people here do not understand entirely. Google and search engine's are easily first generation web content organisation and navigation tools. Where they fail is that they are not inherently embedded into everything we do: it's a deskbar, toolbar or external web page.
Microsoft is pulling the same strategy as it did with IE, i.e. trying to embed it into the operating system. This is actually a legitimate technical direction, so long as they really _do_ embed it, and it's not just a half-assed attempt to dominate the market.
In the same way, if Google doesn't succesfully embed itself into applications and so on, then someone else will take this market direction and google will lose.
Despite it's flaws, the patent system is here exactly to help stop big companies walking over new/unknown companies that may have invented new technology. You're suggesting that simply because we haven't heard of them makes it dubious ? Let me name a couple of thousand unknown inventors who came up with something new
The argument that Slashdot and Google can be liable is easy. It's a well known fact that these circumstances (when article put on slashdot, or the google logo) do cause unreasonably high levels of traffic that would not have been caused otherwise. Google and slashdot have a duty upon them to make sure their actions do not disrupt another party: in this case they do. Should anyone lose money as a result of one of these events, I think they'd stand a good chance of claiming damages against slashdot or google.
If the idea is to negative the whole iTunes/Pepsi thing, then the call to action should be about a protest to _not_ cash back any tunes. This way, both Pepsi and iTunes find it to be a failed advertising exercise and it can only help the competition of other services.
I'm thinking this is for Canon to target the camera at a specific market where legal evidenciary issues come into play: crime scenes, insurance, autopsy, etc. This is likely not to be a feature that will appear for most consumer products.
What it really shows is more about how the professional film camera market is facing realistic competition from digital cameras.
Can anyone cite cases where referring to "Super Bowl" has landed anyone in legal trouble ? It seems absurd that you're not able to "fair use" the trademark by using the term "Super Bowl". I think the recommendation of the law firm is stepping over the mark and it's advice is overly restrictive.
Monolithic complexity usually expands out to less cohensive and decoupled forms. With mobile phones for example, we think that a kind of "personal area network" will happen so you do have separate devices (bare gsm phone, pda, game-boy, headphones, mic, watch, etc) that provide the same functions, yet are interconnected wirelessly: this means that the same complexity exists in the system, yet the user sees it another way.
Same happened for computers and software (monolothic mainframe applications -> distributed desktop applications).
Perfect advice. I would only qualify that by suggesting that there are opportunities in IP other than being a lawyer. For example, a licesing executive, a para-legal, etc. You don't need to do a full law degree, you can (at least, here in the UK) take a masters in IP that is designed for people with technical / non-law backgrounds. Otherwise, I agree with all of your comments as I have already taken a masters in IP at Queen Mary.
This will be perfect for home detention and other forms of restraint systems. Linux as a tool to enforce sentences!
It's a free market: advertising space is available to anyone, whether they have vested interests or are for/against an issue. Equally, anyone can buy television or newspaper space to do the same thing.
I don't see that there are any "rights" problems here ? If you had an opposing view, you too could have purchase keywords for the hutton case.
Irrespective of who purchased those keywords, Google is always going to serve up pageranked results for "objective" results, or return collective links to press coverage from google news.
If you have a problem, purchase keywords at other search engines. You can argue that Google has a dominant position and therefore subject to anti-trust concerns, but as it returns pageranked results, it's hard to see how this argument is sustainable.
The opinion of the professional societies (IEEE, IEE and others) is that yes, outsourcing is causing higher unemployment, however outsourcing is happening all around the place in other industries as well. However, it opens opportunities: because there's always a need for the top end in the chain: the high level design, negotiating requirements with customers, project management, research and development and feasibility, etc. So while a lot of the low end work is moving out, professionals should seek to work at the higher end of the scale, and be remunerated appropriately. What this means is that whether you get a CS or EE degree doesn't matter. What matters is what work you start in, and how you apply that degree. Either degree can take you many places.
It can take a long time: couple of hundred interviews even. We're not in dot.com anymore so you need to reset your expectations.
Unless you can see that a certain type of technology is in demand, and thus getting a certification will help, don't bother. Make it clear that as with previous experience, you're dynamic enough to take on the work, and certify on your own (part time): prospective employer is going to like that.
Some of us Engineers work with RTOS all the time, not just for fun-and-dandy projects, for for multi-million dollar outcomes. Consensus is that Linux is not good enough. QNX, VRTX, VxWorks etc are still the preferred choices, but everyone admits that Linux is getting there. Most of us don't hang out on slashdot, yet many Linux zealots do: you don't get a good opinion here.
Here's the more interesting question: What is Apple doing for the 20 year celebration ?
Do they have any special product launches or other activities organised ? Can we expect a surprise on January 24 ?
The 44 kHz (IIRC) sampling frequency of a CD means that you can actually record signals with frequencies as high has 22 kHz (half the sampling frequency -- that's a methematical theorem about the discrete Fourier transform).
You mean the Nyquist sampling theorem: it applies as a general principle to the sampling of any signal, you need to sample at twice the rate to be able to provide an accurate reproduction.