So enlighten me. How, precisely, does the executive branch of the US government overturn a case? I don't know about you, but I read "Appeals Court" in the summary, which is probably still judges left over from the Clinton presidency.
If they are starting from someone else's code base, I'm betting it's PostgreSQL. It seems to me they've always had a soft spot for it.
Re:Quality of work goes down the toilet
on
Dial U for Union
·
· Score: 2
So perhaps the conclusion
we should draw is that the union has little bearing on this?
Of course, since there is no behemoth union covering the tech sector, they do not have this effect. They'd have to exist first. What the existence of said union would do is exacerbate the problem.
And yes, poor management is also responsible for the promotion of incompetents. If management does too much of this, the company will suffer, and the market will take care of it. With a union's seniority rules in place, however, you can have the best or the worst management in place and it won't matter; you'll still promote idiots.
Basically, you are arguing that since these problems already exist, you might as well throw a union in there. That's a silly argument to mine that says a union will make these problems worse.
I don't want to say that unions are meant for unskilled
people only, because you have teacher's unions, etc.
Teachers' unions (and I'm speaking of the NEA, the behemoth here in the US) can be the worst. First of all, they certainly aren't getting done what they supposedly exist to do -- getting teachers paid more. My hunch is that they actually are keeping salaries down by not allowing school districts to evaluate teachers and introduce competition. Really, all the NEA does is work to maintain the public education monopoly, claiming they're fighting "for the children".
Teachers are professionals, should be treated as such, and should not be forced to be unionized to get a job. Perhaps then we can start paying the good ones what they're worth.
Re:People don't normally know their history
on
Dial U for Union
·
· Score: 2
Of course, the norwegian law sucks in the way that in some professions you are automatically a union-member,
and the union provides funds for the election-campaign of the Labour-party in Norway.
That's right -- I forgot about this particular point. Unions are the crutch of the left wing here in the US, and I sure as heck don't want a dime of my paycheck going to prop them up. (It already does, through weird subsidies paid through taxes, but I am continually trying to get that changed.)
Quality of work goes down the toilet
on
Dial U for Union
·
· Score: 3
A union is the last thing tech workers need. The sector is already swamped with substandard workers who command ridiculous salaries and benefits for the work they do. Unions will just make it so that employers can't fire those who don't do their work, and have to promote the clueless because of seniority. No thanks; I prefer to work in a world where I get rewards based on my performance.
There are Linux game publishers out there. If their unit sales numbers were comparable to numbers for Windows games, then you'd see more publishers writing to Linux.
All the petitions in the world can't make an unprofitable situation profitable.
You're quite correct that I haven't used it to meet a deadline like you describe. That is probably because my employers have always trusted me to set my own schedule, and I make sure I do it right. Part of doing it right for me is staying far away from the Microsoft Incompatible Dependency Suite.
Actually, that is a pretty interesting philosophy... I like it, and not just because of sadistic tendencies.:-)
Think about it:
People learn first-hand what happens under the hood.
The lack of any kind of visually impressive positive feedback will guarantee that the really bad programmers with a serious lack of dedication never come back.
The apparently inexplicable things the machine does when you do something wrong will guarantee that those with some dedication but poor understanding will never come back.
You are left with those who are really good programmers at heart, understand what they do, and are strongly dedicated to doing it. Ergo, fewer programmers, better programmers, more money to go around to less people, six figure salaries to all and real productivity. Oh, and Windows eventually goes away too.:-)
I suppose VB would be good for teaching what people have to do in the real world when their language isn't up to the task at hand, and vendors have to invent new and strange things to give programmers the features they want. VB feels so hacked-together it's not even funny.
Besides, if we went by "widely-used" to decide what to teach new programmers, we'd all still be using COBOL.:-)
The solution here would seem to be that eventually brains would win out and companies would see that the loss leader subscription model is really pretty stupid. Unfortunately, there are a lot of googly-eyed execs who have fallen in love with the concept of instead of customers paying once, they pay forever... problem is, they don't stop to think that in the tech industry, forever is a very short time indeed. Short enough that they very well could make less on hardware+subs than on hardware alone.
Incidentally, I'd bet these are the same breed of people whose Internet strategy was "we want to be the Amazon.com of dust bunnies!". But since they are actually bringing in at least a few dollars, unlike the ones who came before, they are taken seriously.
Why are these companies getting away with this!?!?
Because the market is letting them. The consumer base has spoken with their dollars, and they've said that this sort of setup works just great for them.
If change is to come, it needs to come in the form of an alternative that consumers like better, or for the consumer base to decide that this sort of scheme makes the product worth less than what they paid -- and they'll abandon the idea wholesale.
When you sell to non-geeks, geek concerns fall by the wayside. Geeks are still a minority (and probably always will be).
That behavior is expected, though, since sawfish does not support multiple heads.
Hope something changes in that arena. I can't take GNOME seriously at work until it does. After I begged for three heads for so long, I'd have a hard time if the boss came by and only one of the three monitors was lit up:-)
The original poster was talking about government regulation on labor-relations bits and pieces -- pay, hours, etc. Your reply talks about exposure to chemicals that can disfigure, cause cancer, etc., and access to information about said items.
It is a far different thing to make sure someone knows whether something is going to kill or maim them or not than it is to legislate a business owner to pay someone a certain way. The first is about information that really should be in the employee's hands. The second is about the government restricting the employer's freedom to hire who he wants at wages that he feels are fair pay for the job.
What is this mysterious "kernel" package I keep hearing about? Have we finally come into the new world order where all operating systems run on one kernel that does not need a name? God bless America, I knew we'd standardize someday.
Note: this post is sarcastic, just in case you're wondering.
Because this is Slashdot. What, you didn't sign the pledge to commit yourself to Linux and your undying love of the GPL when you joined? Conform... conform...:-)
You're the original author of GoodForNothing, so you can do whatever the hell you want with it, plain and simple. There are a few companies that do this for their business model -- release the same code both GPLd and proprietary so they can appease zealots^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H gain support from Linux folk and make money at the same time. (Of course, they must get copyright assignment on any outside contributions in order to keep doing this.)
OpenSSH won't stand in your way in this scheme. It's licensed under the BSD license.
Just curious, why? I personally like public domain a bit more than GPL myself, but I'm also some kind of
nut.
Greetings from a fellow nut.:-)
I'd probably go PD myself, too, but there's the thorny issue of protecting oneself from people who think that gifts of code should be warranted. Being paranoid about that sort of thing, I'm shooting for an X license (is it just me, or does anyone else think the BSD license has some problems with grammar and punctuation?)
But never is a really long time... copyright does eventually expire
Copyright is also a really long time. I can't recall the specifics offhand, but 50 years floats to the forefront as a minimum. There's also some stickiness about renewals and rights to survivors and the like.
Slashdot Mirror
So enlighten me. How, precisely, does the executive branch of the US government overturn a case? I don't know about you, but I read "Appeals Court" in the summary, which is probably still judges left over from the Clinton presidency.
You can get more information on Daniel's undertaking at his page about it.
If they are starting from someone else's code base, I'm betting it's PostgreSQL. It seems to me they've always had a soft spot for it.
Of course, since there is no behemoth union covering the tech sector, they do not have this effect. They'd have to exist first. What the existence of said union would do is exacerbate the problem.
And yes, poor management is also responsible for the promotion of incompetents. If management does too much of this, the company will suffer, and the market will take care of it. With a union's seniority rules in place, however, you can have the best or the worst management in place and it won't matter; you'll still promote idiots.
Basically, you are arguing that since these problems already exist, you might as well throw a union in there. That's a silly argument to mine that says a union will make these problems worse.
Teachers' unions (and I'm speaking of the NEA, the behemoth here in the US) can be the worst. First of all, they certainly aren't getting done what they supposedly exist to do -- getting teachers paid more. My hunch is that they actually are keeping salaries down by not allowing school districts to evaluate teachers and introduce competition. Really, all the NEA does is work to maintain the public education monopoly, claiming they're fighting "for the children".
Teachers are professionals, should be treated as such, and should not be forced to be unionized to get a job. Perhaps then we can start paying the good ones what they're worth.
That's right -- I forgot about this particular point. Unions are the crutch of the left wing here in the US, and I sure as heck don't want a dime of my paycheck going to prop them up. (It already does, through weird subsidies paid through taxes, but I am continually trying to get that changed.)
A union is the last thing tech workers need. The sector is already swamped with substandard workers who command ridiculous salaries and benefits for the work they do. Unions will just make it so that employers can't fire those who don't do their work, and have to promote the clueless because of seniority. No thanks; I prefer to work in a world where I get rewards based on my performance.
Petition, schmetition.
There are Linux game publishers out there. If their unit sales numbers were comparable to numbers for Windows games, then you'd see more publishers writing to Linux.
All the petitions in the world can't make an unprofitable situation profitable.
You're quite correct that I haven't used it to meet a deadline like you describe. That is probably because my employers have always trusted me to set my own schedule, and I make sure I do it right. Part of doing it right for me is staying far away from the Microsoft Incompatible Dependency Suite.
Actually, that is a pretty interesting philosophy... I like it, and not just because of sadistic tendencies. :-)
Think about it:
People learn first-hand what happens under the hood.
The lack of any kind of visually impressive positive feedback will guarantee that the really bad programmers with a serious lack of dedication never come back.
The apparently inexplicable things the machine does when you do something wrong will guarantee that those with some dedication but poor understanding will never come back.
You are left with those who are really good programmers at heart, understand what they do, and are strongly dedicated to doing it. Ergo, fewer programmers, better programmers, more money to go around to less people, six figure salaries to all and real productivity. Oh, and Windows eventually goes away too. :-)
Sigh, what a world that would be...
I suppose VB would be good for teaching what people have to do in the real world when their language isn't up to the task at hand, and vendors have to invent new and strange things to give programmers the features they want. VB feels so hacked-together it's not even funny.
Besides, if we went by "widely-used" to decide what to teach new programmers, we'd all still be using COBOL. :-)
Seems to me Python would be a much better fit as a learning language.
And I just want to say -- why not?
One need not love the GPL or Linux to appreciate and advocate open source or free software.
Tim seems to have a knack for calling controversial folk to the mat. Remember Bezos and one-click?
The solution here would seem to be that eventually brains would win out and companies would see that the loss leader subscription model is really pretty stupid. Unfortunately, there are a lot of googly-eyed execs who have fallen in love with the concept of instead of customers paying once, they pay forever... problem is, they don't stop to think that in the tech industry, forever is a very short time indeed. Short enough that they very well could make less on hardware+subs than on hardware alone.
Incidentally, I'd bet these are the same breed of people whose Internet strategy was "we want to be the Amazon.com of dust bunnies!". But since they are actually bringing in at least a few dollars, unlike the ones who came before, they are taken seriously.
Let it take its course; it'll go away soon. :-)
Because the market is letting them. The consumer base has spoken with their dollars, and they've said that this sort of setup works just great for them.
If change is to come, it needs to come in the form of an alternative that consumers like better, or for the consumer base to decide that this sort of scheme makes the product worth less than what they paid -- and they'll abandon the idea wholesale.
When you sell to non-geeks, geek concerns fall by the wayside. Geeks are still a minority (and probably always will be).
Hope something changes in that arena. I can't take GNOME seriously at work until it does. After I begged for three heads for so long, I'd have a hard time if the boss came by and only one of the three monitors was lit up :-)
I have the same problem. In addition, if I start it up in multihead mode I get just a desktop on monitor #1.
I stopped using xin a long time ago because netscape won't run with it between a C3D and a PGX32, and there are odd color issues.
OK, I'll elaborate...
The original poster was talking about government regulation on labor-relations bits and pieces -- pay, hours, etc. Your reply talks about exposure to chemicals that can disfigure, cause cancer, etc., and access to information about said items.
It is a far different thing to make sure someone knows whether something is going to kill or maim them or not than it is to legislate a business owner to pay someone a certain way. The first is about information that really should be in the employee's hands. The second is about the government restricting the employer's freedom to hire who he wants at wages that he feels are fair pay for the job.
Hence, strawman.
Strawman. That's all I've got to say here.
What is this mysterious "kernel" package I keep hearing about? Have we finally come into the new world order where all operating systems run on one kernel that does not need a name? God bless America, I knew we'd standardize someday.
Note: this post is sarcastic, just in case you're wondering.
Because this is Slashdot. What, you didn't sign the pledge to commit yourself to Linux and your undying love of the GPL when you joined? Conform... conform... :-)
You're the original author of GoodForNothing, so you can do whatever the hell you want with it, plain and simple. There are a few companies that do this for their business model -- release the same code both GPLd and proprietary so they can appease zealots^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H gain support from Linux folk and make money at the same time. (Of course, they must get copyright assignment on any outside contributions in order to keep doing this.)
OpenSSH won't stand in your way in this scheme. It's licensed under the BSD license.
Greetings from a fellow nut. :-)
I'd probably go PD myself, too, but there's the thorny issue of protecting oneself from people who think that gifts of code should be warranted. Being paranoid about that sort of thing, I'm shooting for an X license (is it just me, or does anyone else think the BSD license has some problems with grammar and punctuation?)
Copyright is also a really long time. I can't recall the specifics offhand, but 50 years floats to the forefront as a minimum. There's also some stickiness about renewals and rights to survivors and the like.