Then again, it's impossible to do plenty of fair use things without breaking the law. Need a backup of your favourite CD for when it gets scratched? Oh no you can't! That DVD? Forget it.
Welcome to the free market - enjoy your stay. And don't get caught.
the devices are considered the better choice in a country that is not inclined to grant working visas to foreigners
That's misguided and inaccurate. If you meet the criteria of having a 3 or 4 year degree, and a company values you enough to sponsor you, you can get a working visa.
Always remember, work visa arrangements between countries are reciprocal. If you find it hard to get a visa for Japan, chances are Japanese people find it much harder to get a visa for your country.
Oh, and if you want a job wiping up after old people, I'm sure the Ministry of Immingration will make an exception for you.
When I had this problem it came down to this - if the skills you are using do not fall within the remit of your job description, it is impossible for your employer to claim copyright on the things you make as long as you can show that company resources (including time) were not used in the production of the whatever it is.
Copyright and authorship in the UK have to be handed over in writing unless it is specifically detailed in your contract that you must hand over copyright/authorship. IANAL, so I asked a CS Masters student friend who is. Well actually he's a trained solicitor but he likes IP law like a rottweiler likes small animals!
In your case, your potential employers are already alerted to this contentious area of IP rights, and therefore wish to capitalize on it. Which sucks. BUT the way I got around authorship/copyright disputes was to come to an agreement after identifying these skills to the company that I release all code I write for the company (coding is not my job, I am an e-Commerce analyst) under the good 'ol GPL.
That way the company gets the source code which to some extent futureproofs me leaving and I get to be the principle maintainer.
The apps that I wrote were very specialised and probably not of wide interest (unless you deal with GXS HSE and TRADACOMS EDI files), so to be honest the apps are of little use to the wider community. However my boss has read the GPL and understands it's implications, so in theory as long as the company doesn't want to sell the apps on at a profit - in which case get a profitshare agreement, or arrange a stipend for work produced outside company time - then it's a win-win situation. This is of course assuming that the things you're making are software.
At my present company, I work with a guy who has only ever worked for the same company - he likes to think of himself as an "executive" even though he is in charge of a subsidiary e-trading platform within the company.
He thinks that the development side should all be done in India. He thinks technical knowledge is unnecessary. Of course as a consequence he always falls over when anyone asks anything remotely technical and has a huge problem saying "I don't know the answer to that question".
I am the opposite. I know the technology. I don't care all that much for the industry (retail) sector we deal with.
I was just given a thousand GBP bonus for a piece of specialised software I wrote for the company (took 4 days) which could never have been written in India because they just don't know the business well enough. By the time they've understood the requirements definition to the degree that we need, we've already spent endless amounts of time explaining the nature of the problem.
What I'm getting at is two things:
1. There is definitely money in writing specialist software for people who understand business problems.
2. These kinds of problems cannot be outsourced easily because they are very business specific.
I can write more software in my spare time and will get more bonuses (if I don't get the bonuses, I'll stop writing them!).
"however they expressed concern about the continuing drop in unearned revenue"
Isn't that the same as saying:
"however they expressed concern about the continuing rise in earned revenue"
Wow. I don't like the company but I'd like to share their FD's revenue concerns.
If you keep the penny,
on
Perens on Patents
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
.. you can't have the currant bun.
This is what companies have to realise about software patents.
Check an EULA or a shrink-wrap license and the gist of it is that you have no recourse to anyone if the software fails or deletes all your data. You buy the software "as is". But if you want people to pay for software, there has to be some sort of recourse - you can't just expect people to pay money and get shoddy software and just move along quietly (and not derive their own solution to the problem), while the company gets to ringfence it's IP (which was probably derived from a cross-patent anyway). It's just not on.
And yet that's exactly what we've been getting. By just building a GUI widget on many platforms you are already liable to historic patents. And more importantly - you are not allowed to claim it "unfit for purpose" or even fix it!!!
I really think the message should be clear to software companies that want to enforce patents on software (sorry for the caps) -
IF YOU WANT TO PATENT YOUR STUFF, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT FIRST!
Grrr. I think I need a nice cuppa tea to calm me down.
Looks more like an X-Wing to me ...
on
The Star Wars Car
·
· Score: 2, Funny
A very small red X-wing. In a box. I see lots of these on the Internet though - they are very popular on overstreched websites.
At first, I thought something had burnt out. The battery wouldn't recharge and when I plugged it in the mains nothing happened. It sounds simple now, but even the repair shop said it was the motherboard and wanted GBP250 to fix it.
Eventually, something gave, a dry contact touched and I managed to get the thing powered up again. Identified the problem as the adapter and went about getting a new one. After several calls to IBM, giving them the model numnber which didn't appear to exist in their catalogue, a chap with a German sounding name was put in charge of my case. The laptop was outside warranty but only just, and I was in a different country to where I bought it (Japan). Apparently, IBM Japan build their own models which can be completely different (and usually better spec'd). "Is my experience representative of the quality of IBM's products?" was the question I put to the German. "No, but we don't really know what model it is. We know it's the i1800 i-Series but in the UK, that's a midrange computer not a laptop!". "OK" I said, "I don't need any parts for the laptop only the adapter. It's a figure of eight... " "FIGURE OF EIGHT?!?!" he says "We can't sell those in the UK - they're not even in the catalogue!"
This goes on for about 2 days (I was a student) and after A LOT of online research I found that a figure of eight cord adapter set was available after all under a different product number. If I quote one number, it's not available. If I quoted another number, which referred to exactly the same product, then for GBP50, the adapter was mine.
This was my first experience of IBM's product number madness - the same product has different numbers according to where it's being sold and which package or set it's part of!
Moral: The German guy was as confused as me. He conceeded that with IBM parts doing your homework is the only way, because they sure as hell don't have a clue!
To dream up technical solutions (OK, ideas) for human problems? Is it to do with the US's yearning to regain it's position on the top of the technology R&D tree?
Doesn't this latest research grant smack of a Bush-backed "We want an all-encompassing system to catch bad people. Oh and we reckon stenography is the answer too."
> Other countries a little slow on the start of the revolution have already been forced to improve workers rights, for example, look at Japan.
I too, agree with everything you've said apart from this.
Workers rights during a boom are not such an issue - when everyone's making money, there's no need to unionize. If you're talking about the official "abolition" of the six day week in Japan, then that was not at the behest of the workers but in response to the lack of money being spent on leisure in Japan.
Even now, if a typical Japanese worker had their way, they'd work Saturdays too (many still do anyway). If you don't know why they'd want to do that, then you're not familiar enough with Japan to comment on it's workers rights.
Masayoshi Son (Softbank CEO) was the golden child of Japan's brief Internet boom, and was very quickly derided afterwards by the Japanese technology press.
Of Korean extraction (?) - a gaijin - and with a technical background, it's good too see someone like him get the last laugh over the Japanese oligopolies like NTT and KDDI.
Isn't it amazing how seriously slashot readers really don't take.NET?
60 posts talking about a Microsoft fledgling technology here says so much more than 300 slashbots flaming each other on the other "Microsoft's New Core OS Team Learning from Linux" thread.
Microsoft is a smart company. No really, they must be. If you have shed loads of money, you can pay lots of smart people enough money to make them work hard enough to roll out products which will do something "acceptably well" at worst, "reasonably well" at best. That can't be denied because of the number of users Microsoft has. Yes, there's smart people who use Microsoft technology too.
Microsoft has recognised our strengths so I think it's time to acknowledge what Microsoft does well. The opening flames on the Server CE technology could be turned another way - isn't the MSSQL Server code ripe for an overhaul like someone going at it like a hatchet to make it run on embedded/compact devices?
The zealots don't do us any good. It slows Linux adoption and makes us look like nutters. And there are quiteafew smart Linux people who like.NET as well.
"J2EE is a triumph of interoperability over productivity. The.net framework is the triumph of productivity over interoperability."
I've no idea where I heard this, but it's the truest thing I've heard yet about the competing platforms.
BTW, Visual Studio.net is the dev IDE for.net, Eclipse is the dev IDE for J2EE - the difference is that one is free and open the other isn't. That doesn't mean one is better for making programs than the other though.
Myth: It's better to provide a framework for lots of people to solve lots of problems than to solve only one problem well.
I won't mention Microsoft's is the only widely distributed development 'Framework' there is. Then again if it's really as nebulous and unuseable as the slashbots think, why has it already been ported to BSD and Linux in it's original form and::mono:: respectively already...
Slashdot Mirror
The site admins just finish blowing out the candles, and slashdot blows out the server.
...
Our work is done here
dance, move in any direction, display videos and answer questions
My local copper just sits in his panda car eating donuts.
Then again, it's impossible to do plenty of fair use things without breaking the law. Need a backup of your favourite CD for when it gets scratched? Oh no you can't! That DVD? Forget it.
Welcome to the free market - enjoy your stay. And don't get caught.
You can handcrank your Gameboy, recharge your cellphone or pda (even grandpa),
My grandpa is cranky enough already without needing me to handcrank him.
the devices are considered the better choice in a country that is not inclined to grant working visas to foreigners
That's misguided and inaccurate. If you meet the criteria of having a 3 or 4 year degree, and a company values you enough to sponsor you, you can get a working visa.
Always remember, work visa arrangements between countries are reciprocal. If you find it hard to get a visa for Japan, chances are Japanese people find it much harder to get a visa for your country.
Oh, and if you want a job wiping up after old people, I'm sure the Ministry of Immingration will make an exception for you.
Just something to consider when trying to distinguish between hobbyists and career programmers.
Zaphod is played by Sam Rockwell
Is he going to feign an English accent, pretend to be Scottish or just forget the origins of the book and use his native Californian accent?
Odds are on the last one I think.
When I had this problem it came down to this - if the skills you are using do not fall within the remit of your job description, it is impossible for your employer to claim copyright on the things you make as long as you can show that company resources (including time) were not used in the production of the whatever it is.
Copyright and authorship in the UK have to be handed over in writing unless it is specifically detailed in your contract that you must hand over copyright/authorship. IANAL, so I asked a CS Masters student friend who is. Well actually he's a trained solicitor but he likes IP law like a rottweiler likes small animals!
In your case, your potential employers are already alerted to this contentious area of IP rights, and therefore wish to capitalize on it. Which sucks. BUT the way I got around authorship/copyright disputes was to come to an agreement after identifying these skills to the company that I release all code I write for the company (coding is not my job, I am an e-Commerce analyst) under the good 'ol GPL.
That way the company gets the source code which to some extent futureproofs me leaving and I get to be the principle maintainer.
The apps that I wrote were very specialised and probably not of wide interest (unless you deal with GXS HSE and TRADACOMS EDI files), so to be honest the apps are of little use to the wider community. However my boss has read the GPL and understands it's implications, so in theory as long as the company doesn't want to sell the apps on at a profit - in which case get a profitshare agreement, or arrange a stipend for work produced outside company time - then it's a win-win situation. This is of course assuming that the things you're making are software.
What have my martial arts skills got to do with this being a tecchie forum?
And what's it got to do with the wwmx project?
Is that you Uncle Bubba? Have you been drinking ralgex again?
because it's written in .NET (probably C#). Oh yeah, and at Slashdot, we don't like either .NET or Microsoft.
Even when they do "impressive" stuff.
He thinks that the development side should all be done in India. He thinks technical knowledge is unnecessary. Of course as a consequence he always falls over when anyone asks anything remotely technical and has a huge problem saying "I don't know the answer to that question".
I am the opposite. I know the technology. I don't care all that much for the industry (retail) sector we deal with.
I was just given a thousand GBP bonus for a piece of specialised software I wrote for the company (took 4 days) which could never have been written in India because they just don't know the business well enough. By the time they've understood the requirements definition to the degree that we need, we've already spent endless amounts of time explaining the nature of the problem.
What I'm getting at is two things:
2. These kinds of problems cannot be outsourced easily because they are very business specific.
I can write more software in my spare time and will get more bonuses (if I don't get the bonuses, I'll stop writing them!).
"however they expressed concern about the continuing drop in unearned revenue"
Isn't that the same as saying:
"however they expressed concern about the continuing rise in earned revenue"
Wow. I don't like the company but I'd like to share their FD's revenue concerns.
.. you can't have the currant bun.
This is what companies have to realise about software patents.
Check an EULA or a shrink-wrap license and the gist of it is that you have no recourse to anyone if the software fails or deletes all your data. You buy the software "as is". But if you want people to pay for software, there has to be some sort of recourse - you can't just expect people to pay money and get shoddy software and just move along quietly (and not derive their own solution to the problem), while the company gets to ringfence it's IP (which was probably derived from a cross-patent anyway). It's just not on.
And yet that's exactly what we've been getting. By just building a GUI widget on many platforms you are already liable to historic patents. And more importantly - you are not allowed to claim it "unfit for purpose" or even fix it!!!
I really think the message should be clear to software companies that want to enforce patents on software (sorry for the caps) -
IF YOU WANT TO PATENT YOUR STUFF, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT FIRST!
Grrr. I think I need a nice cuppa tea to calm me down.
A very small red X-wing. In a box. I see lots of these on the Internet though - they are very popular on overstreched websites.
At first, I thought something had burnt out. The battery wouldn't recharge and when I plugged it in the mains nothing happened. It sounds simple now, but even the repair shop said it was the motherboard and wanted GBP250 to fix it.
... " "FIGURE OF EIGHT?!?!" he says "We can't sell those in the UK - they're not even in the catalogue!"
Eventually, something gave, a dry contact touched and I managed to get the thing powered up again. Identified the problem as the adapter and went about getting a new one. After several calls to IBM, giving them the model numnber which didn't appear to exist in their catalogue, a chap with a German sounding name was put in charge of my case. The laptop was outside warranty but only just, and I was in a different country to where I bought it (Japan). Apparently, IBM Japan build their own models which can be completely different (and usually better spec'd). "Is my experience representative of the quality of IBM's products?" was the question I put to the German. "No, but we don't really know what model it is. We know it's the i1800 i-Series but in the UK, that's a midrange computer not a laptop!".
"OK" I said, "I don't need any parts for the laptop only the adapter. It's a figure of eight
This goes on for about 2 days (I was a student) and after A LOT of online research I found that a figure of eight cord adapter set was available after all under a different product number. If I quote one number, it's not available. If I quoted another number, which referred to exactly the same product , then for GBP50, the adapter was mine.
This was my first experience of IBM's product number madness - the same product has different numbers according to where it's being sold and which package or set it's part of!
Moral: The German guy was as confused as me. He conceeded that with IBM parts doing your homework is the only way, because they sure as hell don't have a clue!
as an excuse to automatically screen US-inbound emails and then levy an extortionate fee to process a vistors' visa?
Or do you think all of the emails will just go somewhere else instead?
To dream up technical solutions (OK, ideas) for human problems? Is it to do with the US's yearning to regain it's position on the top of the technology R&D tree?
Doesn't this latest research grant smack of a Bush-backed "We want an all-encompassing system to catch bad people. Oh and we reckon stenography is the answer too."
Absolutely. I was dismayed to find that this Christmas I really couldn't afford the set I actually wanted to get for my godson.
Seriously there really is much to be said for gaining widespread popularity by discounting to maintain a matured market.
> Other countries a little slow on the start of the revolution have already been forced to improve workers rights, for example, look at Japan.
I too, agree with everything you've said apart from this.
Workers rights during a boom are not such an issue - when everyone's making money, there's no need to unionize. If you're talking about the official "abolition" of the six day week in Japan, then that was not at the behest of the workers but in response to the lack of money being spent on leisure in Japan.
Even now, if a typical Japanese worker had their way, they'd work Saturdays too (many still do anyway). If you don't know why they'd want to do that, then you're not familiar enough with Japan to comment on it's workers rights.
Masayoshi Son (Softbank CEO) was the golden child of Japan's brief Internet boom, and was very quickly derided afterwards by the Japanese technology press.
Of Korean extraction (?) - a gaijin - and with a technical background, it's good too see someone like him get the last laugh over the Japanese oligopolies like NTT and KDDI.
Isn't it amazing how seriously slashot readers really don't take .NET?
.NET as well.
60 posts talking about a Microsoft fledgling technology here says so much more than 300 slashbots flaming each other on the other "Microsoft's New Core OS Team Learning from Linux" thread.
Microsoft is a smart company. No really, they must be. If you have shed loads of money, you can pay lots of smart people enough money to make them work hard enough to roll out products which will do something "acceptably well" at worst, "reasonably well" at best. That can't be denied because of the number of users Microsoft has. Yes, there's smart people who use Microsoft technology too.
Microsoft has recognised our strengths so I think it's time to acknowledge what Microsoft does well. The opening flames on the Server CE technology could be turned another way - isn't the MSSQL Server code ripe for an overhaul like someone going at it like a hatchet to make it run on embedded/compact devices?
The zealots don't do us any good. It slows Linux adoption and makes us look like nutters. And there are quite a few smart Linux people who like
Hehe. I didn't think you were making comments on the relative merits. You mentioned J2EE - a .NET competing product so I compared them in a soundbite.
The Eclipse bit was to address the other poster who mentioned it (why I've no idea).
"J2EE is a triumph of interoperability over productivity. The .net framework is the triumph of productivity over interoperability."
.net, Eclipse is the dev IDE for J2EE - the difference is that one is free and open the other isn't. That doesn't mean one is better for making programs than the other though.
I've no idea where I heard this, but it's the truest thing I've heard yet about the competing platforms.
BTW, Visual Studio.net is the dev IDE for
Myth: It's better to provide a framework for lots of people to solve lots of problems than to solve only one problem well.
::mono:: respectively already ...
I won't mention Microsoft's is the only widely distributed development 'Framework' there is. Then again if it's really as nebulous and unuseable as the slashbots think, why has it already been ported to BSD and Linux in it's original form and
My organisation is an order, statement and invoice processing/clearing company ($5bn worth of transactions a year) and our database is 100GB.
The largest in the survey is 30GB.
Is my organisation the new record holder?