How Does Boies Get Away With This?
on
SCO News Roundup
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· Score: 1
I think that Boise and his firm may be violating the ethics rules:
New York Ethics rules:
DR 5-103 Avoiding Acquisition of Interest in Litigation.
A. A lawyer shall not acquire a proprietary interest in the . . . subject
matter of litigation he or she is conducting for a client, except . . .:
2. . . . a reasonable contingent fee in a civil case.
EC 5-7 . . . Although a contingent
fee arrangement gives a lawyer a financial interest in the outcome of litigation,
a reasonable contingent fee is permissible in civil cases because it may be the
only means by which a non-lawyer can obtain the services of a lawyer of his or her
choice. But a lawyer, who is in a better position to evaluate a cause of action,
should enter into a contingent fee arrangement only in those instances where the
arrangement will be beneficial to the client.
This deal is a long way from the traditional contingent fee, which is one-third of the recovery, if (and only if) the client wins and collects.
High-end computer systems may surpass the computational ability of the standard human brain within 20 years.
I have been reading about AI for almost 40 years. It has always been 20, 30 or 40 years in the future. I think it is only fair to assume that it will always be 20 years in the future.
This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"
I agree with the parent post. I would install Mozilla 1.4 or Netscape 7.1.
If you install Moz 1._ (or Firebird for that matter) you must install Java 1.4.2 from Sun.com separately. Also, if you want a spellschecker, that must be installed separately.
Netscape 7.1, which is Moz 1.4 in drag comes bundled with Java, other plugins and a spellchecker. Unfortunately, 7.1 will be the last Netscape.
I love moz and have used it for about 18 months. But you have to be willing to take a little brain damage to install it and keep it updated.
"Just because we can't test/prove something doesn't make it fringe science."
Ideas that cannot be empirically tested may be true, but they are not Science. They may be religion, art, philosophy or other intellectual activities, but they are not Science. The difference between Science and other intellectual activities is that in Science theories are the subject of experimental tests.
As of now, string theory is a mathematical formalism that may or may not bear any resemblance to reality. When it produces results that can be tested by experiment, it will be science. But not until that day.
The first time I used a computer was 1971, when I was a student at the University of Michigan. The air Force had just bought them a brand new IBM 360/67 with 1.5 Megs of RAM for $14 Million. You could submit programs in batch mode via punch cards or use the computer in time sharing mode via terminals.
Some of the terminals were based on IBM selectrics, and they were pretty sweet. You could type on them as on a regular selectric typewriter.
Most of them were teletypes. Model 33 IIRC. The teletypes were nasty. The keys had about a half inch of travel and they had to be pushed down all the way to work, which took considerable force. Touch typing was out of the question. You only used those things for very breif edits.
IIRC, some bigwig at Google said that he wanted lower power processors that waste less power. His reason was that high electricity costs were a much bigger business issue for them than processor speeds.
After last weeks Northeastern Blackout, there will be increased focus on electricity supplies and uses. There is a federal law (IIRC, the Energy Policy Act of 1992?) that allows the Federal Government to regulate all kinds of house hold uses of energy and water.
This is where the low flush toilet came from. I think they have the power to ban incandecent light bulbs, but they havent used it yet. Surely, they have the power to limit power consumption by PC's, or can obtain it.
Perhaps the Feds can force the chip makers to restore cooler to Gilder's triad of faster, cooler, cheaper.
Unfortunately, its crap. There aren't enough teen-age text messagers in the US to kill a box office like that. I guess they are going to have to look for another villan
They would do well to start by looking in a mirror. The movies they are pushing right now are unwatchable glub.
The software . . . can keep track of every card played, amounts bet, and even tell the difference between your drink, napkin, cards, chips, and ashtrays.
Do all of you geeks really think that this system has solved all of the AI problems that must be solved to make it work? Does any one smell at least a faint whiff of barnyard stuff here?
BTW, why would you want to go to someplace that thinks its ideal customer is not only inummerate, but also drunk? I really don't get it.
"If the law of the land says that you have a right to do something, then nothing and nobody can take that right away from you. Ever. Even if you sign a piece of paper saying you have given up that right, in the eyes of the law you still have that right. This is what that catch-all phrase "Your statutory rights are not affected" means."
IAAL and I can not make any sense out of this statement. Any right may be waived.
The most sacrosanct of our rights under the United States Constitution, such as the requirement for a search warrant may be waived. Waivers of constitutional rights must be "knowing," "intentional," and "voluntary." But they are not invalid.
Waivers of other statutory rights may or may not be valid depending on time, circumstance, and procedure. There is no law that makes all waivers invalid. Furthermore I do not believe that there is anything in the copyright law (17 USC) that limits the ability of any copyright owner to waive rights under that law.
Bottom line. A copyright owner may waive copyrights by any action (or omission) that is sufficent to waive any ordinary property right, including written instrument, oral contract or conduct.
IAAL, but I am not a copyright guru. I think that there are some misconceptions floating around that I should comment on.
No court conducts a general review and commentary on any document (law, contract, what have you) that is part of a case before it. The court will review those portions of the document that are relevant to the case in front of it and will neither review nor comment on other portions that are not at issue in that case.
In this case the issue that IBM raised is whether SCO lost its right to prevent third parties from copying, distributing, modifying, or running Linux by releasing Linux under the GPL. The court can and will answer this question without worrying about whether any other clause of the GPL, say the limitation of damages clause, is valid in another context.
Now I do not know if every clause of the GPL is valid or if it will work in the way that St. Stallman wants it to work in every conceivable situation. But, if software licenses mean anything, then at the very least IBM's claim (if I have correctly understood and described it above) ought to be sustained. Other portions of the GPL may not work, but I do not think that they at issue in this case.
" I claim to own the rights to Windows and sell 1,000,000 licenses, it doesn't validate any claim."
No. But, you have committed fraud.
Go directly to Jail, Do not collect $200 for passing Go.
Ignore the other guy. Lawyers cost money and for the most part they are not worth it. M. Dipierro has the right analysis. Check the the copyright registry. The odds are that the stuff they could find when they shut down got sold to a liquidator for ten cents on the dollar and the lawyers, accountants and bankers have closed their files, written off the account and been laid off themselves. Most likley no one will give a damn unless you start to make real money, in which case they will be all over you, but, so what, you will be making real money and you will be able to make a deal. OTOH if you don't make money no one will bother you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I checked this list and could find nothing older than seven years, and those machines were in the 300's. The oldest in the top 100 was six years old and it was 81st, and a Cray, BTW.
One of the few advantages of being an old fart, is that you get to write comments like this one. I have been reading about computers and robots for almost 50 years now, and the one thing that has been constant is that some AI researcher is always predicting that within the next 50 years computers would be able to think as well as or better than men and that robots would be perfected that would take over all of the jobs. Needless to say (but I will say it anyway), it hasn't happened yet.
I will belive in AI when I own a computer that is smart enough to tell me to "get that lame Micro$oft crap off of my g--d--n hard drive or I won't work for you anymore."
IIRC, in the original I, Robot, published in the late 1940's, Asimov had the date of the first real robot with a as being in the 1990's.
SCO is selling something that it does not have. This has to be a violation of various laws aginst unfair and deceptive trade practices and there must be a lawyer who will represent defrauded customers everywhere in a class action against these dingbats.
Of course, first they would have to find a client who bought one of these worthless pieces of paper:-)
Slashdot Mirror
I think that Boise and his firm may be violating the ethics rules:
New York Ethics rules:
DR 5-103 Avoiding Acquisition of Interest in Litigation.
A. A lawyer shall not acquire a proprietary interest in the . . . subject matter of litigation he or she is conducting for a client, except . . .
2. . . . a reasonable contingent fee in a civil case.
EC 5-7 . . . Although a contingent fee arrangement gives a lawyer a financial interest in the outcome of litigation, a reasonable contingent fee is permissible in civil cases because it may be the only means by which a non-lawyer can obtain the services of a lawyer of his or her choice. But a lawyer, who is in a better position to evaluate a cause of action, should enter into a contingent fee arrangement only in those instances where the arrangement will be beneficial to the client.
This deal is a long way from the traditional contingent fee, which is one-third of the recovery, if (and only if) the client wins and collects.
Where do you find $7/hr secretaries? Please let me know as I need to hire one. All the secretaries around here want $3K/mo + health insurance.
I have been reading about AI for almost 40 years. It has always been 20, 30 or 40 years in the future. I think it is only fair to assume that it will always be 20 years in the future.
Maybe it would not be such a bad thing if the internet were to die. We would all have to go back to work. It would probably jump start the economy.
This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"
Charles Dickens,
Bleak House Chapter I
I agree with the parent post. I would install Mozilla 1.4 or Netscape 7.1.
If you install Moz 1._ (or Firebird for that matter) you must install Java 1.4.2 from Sun.com separately. Also, if you want a spellschecker, that must be installed separately.
Netscape 7.1, which is Moz 1.4 in drag comes bundled with Java, other plugins and a spellchecker. Unfortunately, 7.1 will be the last Netscape.
I love moz and have used it for about 18 months. But you have to be willing to take a little brain damage to install it and keep it updated.
Ever hear of atonal music?
Yup. And I have also heard of Giant Shrimp.
The best work about the English Civil War and the Restoration was written almost 250 years ago by the great Scottish philospher David Hume. The relevant volumes are available in paperback for $10 each: History of England: Volume V, The first two Stuarts and History of England: Volume VI, The last Stuarts and the Glorious Revolution.
For those of you who do not wish to read 18th century prose (which I find delicious, but some of you may think is too much work) try A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714 (Penguin History of Britain Series, No 6) by Mark Kishlansky. Avoid the Stone book which is crippled by the author's marxist commitments.
The English Civil War was a key event in American History also. the connections are explained by Kevin Phillips in The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America
"Do you think MS doesn't even use their own software?"
Yes.
"Just because we can't test/prove something doesn't make it fringe science."
Ideas that cannot be empirically tested may be true, but they are not Science. They may be religion, art, philosophy or other intellectual activities, but they are not Science. The difference between Science and other intellectual activities is that in Science theories are the subject of experimental tests.
As of now, string theory is a mathematical formalism that may or may not bear any resemblance to reality. When it produces results that can be tested by experiment, it will be science. But not until that day.
The first time I used a computer was 1971, when I was a student at the University of Michigan. The air Force had just bought them a brand new IBM 360/67 with 1.5 Megs of RAM for $14 Million. You could submit programs in batch mode via punch cards or use the computer in time sharing mode via terminals. Some of the terminals were based on IBM selectrics, and they were pretty sweet. You could type on them as on a regular selectric typewriter. Most of them were teletypes. Model 33 IIRC. The teletypes were nasty. The keys had about a half inch of travel and they had to be pushed down all the way to work, which took considerable force. Touch typing was out of the question. You only used those things for very breif edits.
IIRC, some bigwig at Google said that he wanted lower power processors that waste less power. His reason was that high electricity costs were a much bigger business issue for them than processor speeds.
After last weeks Northeastern Blackout, there will be increased focus on electricity supplies and uses. There is a federal law (IIRC, the Energy Policy Act of 1992?) that allows the Federal Government to regulate all kinds of house hold uses of energy and water.
This is where the low flush toilet came from. I think they have the power to ban incandecent light bulbs, but they havent used it yet. Surely, they have the power to limit power consumption by PC's, or can obtain it.
Perhaps the Feds can force the chip makers to restore cooler to Gilder's triad of faster, cooler, cheaper.
Unfortunately, its crap. There aren't enough teen-age text messagers in the US to kill a box office like that. I guess they are going to have to look for another villan
They would do well to start by looking in a mirror. The movies they are pushing right now are unwatchable glub.
Do all of you geeks really think that this system has solved all of the AI problems that must be solved to make it work? Does any one smell at least a faint whiff of barnyard stuff here?
BTW, why would you want to go to someplace that thinks its ideal customer is not only inummerate, but also drunk? I really don't get it.
Pathetic Earthlings!
All Your Box Are Belong to US
Stockbrokers call this kind of move a Pump and Dump
Sucker
"If the law of the land says that you have a right to do something, then nothing and nobody can take that right away from you. Ever. Even if you sign a piece of paper saying you have given up that right, in the eyes of the law you still have that right. This is what that catch-all phrase "Your statutory rights are not affected" means."
IAAL and I can not make any sense out of this statement. Any right may be waived.
The most sacrosanct of our rights under the United States Constitution, such as the requirement for a search warrant may be waived. Waivers of constitutional rights must be "knowing," "intentional," and "voluntary." But they are not invalid.
Waivers of other statutory rights may or may not be valid depending on time, circumstance, and procedure. There is no law that makes all waivers invalid. Furthermore I do not believe that there is anything in the copyright law (17 USC) that limits the ability of any copyright owner to waive rights under that law.
Bottom line. A copyright owner may waive copyrights by any action (or omission) that is sufficent to waive any ordinary property right, including written instrument, oral contract or conduct.
IAAL, but I am not a copyright guru. I think that there are some misconceptions floating around that I should comment on.
No court conducts a general review and commentary on any document (law, contract, what have you) that is part of a case before it. The court will review those portions of the document that are relevant to the case in front of it and will neither review nor comment on other portions that are not at issue in that case.
In this case the issue that IBM raised is whether SCO lost its right to prevent third parties from copying, distributing, modifying, or running Linux by releasing Linux under the GPL. The court can and will answer this question without worrying about whether any other clause of the GPL, say the limitation of damages clause, is valid in another context.
Now I do not know if every clause of the GPL is valid or if it will work in the way that St. Stallman wants it to work in every conceivable situation. But, if software licenses mean anything, then at the very least IBM's claim (if I have correctly understood and described it above) ought to be sustained. Other portions of the GPL may not work, but I do not think that they at issue in this case.
.....?
" I claim to own the rights to Windows and sell 1,000,000 licenses, it doesn't validate any claim." No. But, you have committed fraud. Go directly to Jail, Do not collect $200 for passing Go.
Ignore the other guy. Lawyers cost money and for the most part they are not worth it. M. Dipierro has the right analysis. Check the the copyright registry. The odds are that the stuff they could find when they shut down got sold to a liquidator for ten cents on the dollar and the lawyers, accountants and bankers have closed their files, written off the account and been laid off themselves. Most likley no one will give a damn unless you start to make real money, in which case they will be all over you, but, so what, you will be making real money and you will be able to make a deal. OTOH if you don't make money no one will bother you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I checked this list and could find nothing older than seven years, and those machines were in the 300's. The oldest in the top 100 was six years old and it was 81st, and a Cray, BTW.
One of the few advantages of being an old fart, is that you get to write comments like this one. I have been reading about computers and robots for almost 50 years now, and the one thing that has been constant is that some AI researcher is always predicting that within the next 50 years computers would be able to think as well as or better than men and that robots would be perfected that would take over all of the jobs. Needless to say (but I will say it anyway), it hasn't happened yet.
I will belive in AI when I own a computer that is smart enough to tell me to "get that lame Micro$oft crap off of my g--d--n hard drive or I won't work for you anymore."
IIRC, in the original I, Robot, published in the late 1940's, Asimov had the date of the first real robot with a as being in the 1990's.
SCO is selling something that it does not have. This has to be a violation of various laws aginst unfair and deceptive trade practices and there must be a lawyer who will represent defrauded customers everywhere in a class action against these dingbats.
Of course, first they would have to find a client who bought one of these worthless pieces of paper:-)
Don't worry. I can't spell English, either