Honestly, having spent a lot on the SCO yahoo finance board (and having made a good bit of change shorting SCO stock) I can say that the willful ignorance on the part of a lot of SCO investors about the strength of the case was mind boggling. Most of those investors deserved the losses they suffered.
There's nothing wrong with the court system. Justice prevailed. Yes, it took longer than many people would have liked, but that's because care had to be taken. It is much better to take time and get things right than to make decisions too quickly and get them wrong. If the danger is that a company like SCO can drag things out, well, in the end that's really not much of a danger. They still lost.
No, the people to blame for this are SCO's stock holders. In the end, this lawsuit was driven buy the hoards of people who bought up their stock in hopes of a big pay out from IBM and Novell. They should have done their homework and forced the company that *they* owned to concentrate on delivering actual products. Those stock holders are the ones who paid for all those scummy lawyers, not us. So see? It all worked out in the end.
It is very likely that if they don't have source code, there is some sort of agreement that holds the source code in escrow in case the company goes out of business. (I worked for a company that did exactly this.) It is also very likely that there are programmers running around that have left SCO who could be hired as contractors. (This is exactly what I did when I left that company...I became a contractor at one of their customers.)
They would have no need to actually buy SCO and in fact might be better off if SCO went under.
That is extremely doubtful. 99% of the time, you would not do that. It isn't like we used to run to the library every time we wondered, say, who "sarah palin" was. (Top search for 2008.) In most cases, we just remained ignorant.
That is not true. Speaking as someone who ran a search for employees, I can say categorically that "hobby" work that was interesting, and could be described to an adequate level of detail, directly counted for a couple of people we hired. In one case it was work that wasn't on the resume because "it was just a hobby".
As an interviewer, I certainly expect claims to be "backed up", but this means that the interviewee can talk in great detail about what exactly they did, not that they have it attached to a job. I've seen far too many resumes that said something like "developed network protocol using C" only to have it turn out that the guy worked on a team of fifty that did that, and all that he actually did himself was read the docs for ten minutes.
In my mind, hobbies count double, because if someone is doing technical work in their spare time, it shows a deeper interest in technology than someone who does things only for pay.
A retailer I worked for (which I won't name but its sells cookware and likes the color green) did exactly this, and also tracked how likely customers were to go into a store after receiving a catalog. If they saw you going to a store over and over, you'd continue to get catalogs despite never buying from them. All it took was the zipcode captured "for demographic purposes...to see where we might want to open a new store!"
I've been doing that manually with my Windows box for five years because Windows XP is shit for dealing with docks, and have yet to have anything break. When does this "wear and tear" cut in?
It depends on the genre. Games like "Everyday Shooter" or "World of Goo" can be developed like that. A game like GTA IV or Fallout 3 quite simply cannot.
It is a lot easier to connect my laptop to my 23" monitor than it is to take a desktop into a meeting to take notes or put a desktop in my backpack to take home to use while watching TV.
Oh, I agree. I downloaded a Diablo II crack, for instance, because their damn copy protection refused to let me play the game I'd purchased! But overriding someone's stupidity after having paid is vastly different from thinking you have the right to just take their stuff without paying.
You completely miss the point. There is a vast difference between someone letting you use their work for free of their own free will and taking their work against their will.
To create a "major" game takes about $5 million. Most of that money goes to salaries. (Look at the credits screen of your average game and then multiply that by their salaries for about a year.)
Where do you propose the money to pay those people come from?
What business model do you propose that lets people play the games they want to play and gives the people who actually creates those games the cash they need to live?
Slashdot Mirror
There is no flaw. It's well known that thinking burns calories. Q.E.D.
Honestly, having spent a lot on the SCO yahoo finance board (and having made a good bit of change shorting SCO stock) I can say that the willful ignorance on the part of a lot of SCO investors about the strength of the case was mind boggling. Most of those investors deserved the losses they suffered.
There's nothing wrong with the court system. Justice prevailed. Yes, it took longer than many people would have liked, but that's because care had to be taken. It is much better to take time and get things right than to make decisions too quickly and get them wrong. If the danger is that a company like SCO can drag things out, well, in the end that's really not much of a danger. They still lost.
No, the people to blame for this are SCO's stock holders. In the end, this lawsuit was driven buy the hoards of people who bought up their stock in hopes of a big pay out from IBM and Novell. They should have done their homework and forced the company that *they* owned to concentrate on delivering actual products. Those stock holders are the ones who paid for all those scummy lawyers, not us. So see? It all worked out in the end.
It is very likely that if they don't have source code, there is some sort of agreement that holds the source code in escrow in case the company goes out of business. (I worked for a company that did exactly this.) It is also very likely that there are programmers running around that have left SCO who could be hired as contractors. (This is exactly what I did when I left that company...I became a contractor at one of their customers.)
They would have no need to actually buy SCO and in fact might be better off if SCO went under.
That is extremely doubtful. 99% of the time, you would not do that. It isn't like we used to run to the library every time we wondered, say, who "sarah palin" was. (Top search for 2008.) In most cases, we just remained ignorant.
That is not true. Speaking as someone who ran a search for employees, I can say categorically that "hobby" work that was interesting, and could be described to an adequate level of detail, directly counted for a couple of people we hired. In one case it was work that wasn't on the resume because "it was just a hobby".
As an interviewer, I certainly expect claims to be "backed up", but this means that the interviewee can talk in great detail about what exactly they did, not that they have it attached to a job. I've seen far too many resumes that said something like "developed network protocol using C" only to have it turn out that the guy worked on a team of fifty that did that, and all that he actually did himself was read the docs for ten minutes.
In my mind, hobbies count double, because if someone is doing technical work in their spare time, it shows a deeper interest in technology than someone who does things only for pay.
A retailer I worked for (which I won't name but its sells cookware and likes the color green) did exactly this, and also tracked how likely customers were to go into a store after receiving a catalog. If they saw you going to a store over and over, you'd continue to get catalogs despite never buying from them. All it took was the zipcode captured "for demographic purposes...to see where we might want to open a new store!"
Do they?
Clearly non-removable batteries has done nothing to hurt iPod sales despite the constant complaints here.
I've been doing that manually with my Windows box for five years because Windows XP is shit for dealing with docks, and have yet to have anything break. When does this "wear and tear" cut in?
I did something very similar. I called to complain about my sound card not working. Turned out I had the speakers plugged into line-in.
I AGREE but I think you need to CALM DOWN. People here mostly ALREADY AGREE and YELLING IS JUST ANNOYING.
How can it be a woman? You said "What's *he* wearing" and "*he* says something ordinary like"...
To add to that: lots of PC games are ported to consoles, and consoles these days usually have around 256 MB.
It depends on the genre. Games like "Everyday Shooter" or "World of Goo" can be developed like that. A game like GTA IV or Fallout 3 quite simply cannot.
No it isn't. Microsoft doesn't want anyone using IE 6.
Congratulations. You just proved that no one can ever make a profit in a completely free market.
Classic economics says that things are priced what people are willing to pay for them, and are not based on how much the cost to make.
As long as people are willing to pay 10 cents per text, that's how much carriers will charge, regardless of how many there are.
True. On the other hand, you can now stream Netflix movies on your Tivo. I'm not sure why anyone would prefer a Wii over a Tivo...
Real geeks use 1920x1200 displays to make 20 xterm screens visible simultaneously.
It is a lot easier to connect my laptop to my 23" monitor than it is to take a desktop into a meeting to take notes or put a desktop in my backpack to take home to use while watching TV.
A copy of Tux Racer.
Oh, I agree. I downloaded a Diablo II crack, for instance, because their damn copy protection refused to let me play the game I'd purchased! But overriding someone's stupidity after having paid is vastly different from thinking you have the right to just take their stuff without paying.
You completely miss the point. There is a vast difference between someone letting you use their work for free of their own free will and taking their work against their will.
To create a "major" game takes about $5 million. Most of that money goes to salaries. (Look at the credits screen of your average game and then multiply that by their salaries for about a year.)
Where do you propose the money to pay those people come from?
What business model do you propose that lets people play the games they want to play and gives the people who actually creates those games the cash they need to live?
It may not be "stealing", but it is still unethical. It is wanting to get the results of someone else's labor for free.