Demand, yes, but they don't have the right to make that decision for the company. For instance, I demand that Canadian Tire give me free gasoline and auto parts. But that won't make a difference to what they actually do.
They should if a significant portion of their customer base is going to switch to another company if they don't.
Could be, but *should* is different from *must*, and I don't think the, roughly, 0.0001% of Microsoft's customer base is a significant portion. More computer users may demand it, but most of them already use Linux, so can hardly be considered a Microsoft customer.
As KFC's 11 herbs and spices go (sorry for the mixup), why would they tell? So other companies can use the *same* 11 herbs and spices to make the *same* chicken? Unless there was some serious health risk, they have no reason to reveal it even if 99% of their customers wanted to switch, and even then they would probably be as vague as possible.
Microsoft does reveal bits of their source to companies that are charged with evaluating the secureness of the code, but that is to put aside security concerns while not revealing the secrets.
I meant for companies, not consumers. Consumers have no right to say if a company should open their source. You don't ask KFC to reveal their "seven herbs and spices" do you? Well, maybe you do, but they don't have to tell you, nor should they. How else would they have a competitive advantage (real or perceived)?
Interestingly you mention it's not a free market when there are obstacles. It is true that we don't like obstacles in a free market, but the government creates the obstacles every day by issuing patents (among other things). The fact is that there would be little incentive to be innovative if there was no opportunity of significant profit once everybody takes your hard-payed-for research and builds on it.
Open source is a kind of voluntary waiving of the patent system, and we may like it that way, but that doesn't mean it's right for every company.
That's not Microsoft's business practice and probably never will be. Just because we like the idea of open source, doesn't mean everybody does. Microsoft can make more money by hiding its source and not allowing modification, so they can pay their developers more, and so on and so on. Just let it be. Those that prefer the closed source model can go there and the rest can go open source...who says everything has to use the same model? It's a free market society (in North America at least), and there are no laws against it.
I guess Bell Canada, Rogers, Cogeco, etc... are all guilty too. Without their networks, we couldn't do it. Bell's got all phone line and satellite (for internet) in Canada, Rogers and Cogeco (and some other smaller ones) have all the cable networks. There are a bunch of wireless networks too, but they're relatively small. They're going after the people with money of course.
I think that this court case has less to do with appointing blame than determining if the ISP (in most cases the first line of defense -- users are connected to them), should be doing something to prevent this illegal activity. In some ways, they are responsible for what their users do, in others they are definitely not. That is what the court will decide.
I wonder how many ISPs have built these rules into the user's contract, unloading the blame to them explicitly. That would protect the ISP. They'd probably still be required to hand over their logs when requested, but at least they wouldn't be responsible for the user's actions.
I think you've confused copyright with patent. If you patent something you get a limited time monopoly, and you may only patent unique inventions, not "logical next steps."
With copyright, anything I create is automatically my own (including this), and may not be copied without my consent and/or citation for at least 50 years after my death. The US has toyed with public domain for copyrights, but that certainly was not the original intent (and was a bad idea imho).
It is, however, a lot more difficult to prove copyright infringement since two similar works could be created by separate people who have never met or had anything to do with the other.
IANAL, but I think patent infringement is more black and white (assuming the patent was properly issued). If it bears enough similarity to the patented invention, it is infringing...unless, possibly, the second inventor can prove it was a logical next step of something else in the public domain (though I don't know about this).
The ones I'm blaming is those that complain about their job being outsourced who haven't been productive themselves. And I'm not really even blaming them...just telling them to quit whining and deal with the reality of the much tougher world we have.
I too am from Canada, going to University of Waterloo, haven't even started third year yet and I'm already making what would be $40K (were I working the whole year). Maybe there was a bit of luck, perhaps the employer willing to take a risk since I'm relatively cheap to them, or some other factor that makes me differ from someone with a degree -- but surely you don't think I'm more valuable without a degree. The fact that every employer I've had has absolutely loved me (according to what they say) should speak for something I'm doing right though eh?
There is indeed an adjustment period as technology changes. But that is always good. It progresses us a society. It's horrible for ppl that want job security, but if you wanted that you'd have picked a career that would be guaranteed not to be phased out in the next 30-40 years (there aren't many left, btw). All I want to see is less whining and more action.
I happen to have concrete plans...but I'm not going to tell everybody about them. I need to compete as well you know.
You seem to have stopped reading at that point is my guess. My very next words were: "That would be ideal...but"
That should make you think I felt there was something lacking from that ideal, don't you think?
I'd also like to point out that I am not, nor have I ever been, in any way associated with MIT and I take that suggestion as an insult. I am a University of Waterloo student in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Half the stuff you said in your post made absolutely no sense to me.
One other thing, when I said the ratio of pay was 2:1, I was throwing a theoretical number out there...I did NOT say "the ratio of pay is..." I said "it would even be feasible if..." (or something to that effect). Please read more carefully.
I'm all for the market economy. The government isn't there to get you a job...it's there to create and enforce the laws, without which there could be no market. There is absolutely no reason why the global economy is bad...it just makes things more difficult -- which is a good thing in the end.
I didn't say it'd be easy. But with enough work it can happen. This isn't the 20th century any more...everything is harder now.
If I did have an idea on improving productivity for myself, don't you think I'd use it myself instead of telling the world? I'm speaking abstractly for a reason.
What makes us worth more? Better quality, better innovation, and higher productivity. At least that would be ideal...unfortunately most of us programmers have completely forgotten market economics. I swear, the next time I see someone sitting on their fat ass at work doing nothing (which is what they've done all week) and complaining about how they're being outsourced to India I'm gonna scream.
The fact is, it would cost more to go to India, China, whatever...the labour is cheaper, but there are a lot of other factors that make it more expensive...but if we aren't being as efficient as we should be, there comes a point when two Indian workers at half the price are more valuable.
Same goes for IT departments. There is no way IBM can do things more cheaply/quickly being the monolith corporation that it is than a localized IT department at peak efficiency. The problem is, and I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but a lot of IT workers have gotten lazy and are not being productive enough to warrant their high salaries.
That said, most CS students from MIT, UW, whatever don't want to do that sort of work...it's a waste of our talent and an insult. We are much better used in a highly innovative field...so why didn't they just get a coop/intern to do it? Who knows, but my guess is, they didn't have any qualified applicants who wanted to do it.
My point? Quit whining about outsourcing and go make yourself too valuable to BE outsourced!
Goes to show that Linux is still by geeks for geeks
I'd like to point out that a) CVS is not a Linux thing...it is commonly used in windows as well, and b) it is a programmer's tool (read geek tool), so your average joe doesn't really need to know what it is.
However, I agree with you in principle. Linux users (including myself) are very guilty of not explaining things in terms others can understand. Why is this? I have two theories on this:
we are too lazy to bother, instead saying things like RTFM. The unfortunate thing is that the manual is BY geeks FOR not necessarily so geeky geeks, but is virtually unusable for the lay-person, or
(and this isn't me I hope) we don't want the average user to start using Linux for fear that it will somehow contaminate this great thing we have and we might actually have to start supporting these people...something that is insulting to these ppl who will clearly never have real jobs (not with that attitude anyways). I have seen a lot of people like this, and, as I say, I hope I'm not one of them.
That said, Concurrent Version System (CVS) is basically a tool that keeps one copy of files that can easily be downloaded, modified, and uploaded to a large pool of people over a network and, ideally, if more than one person modifies a file, it will merge those changes correctly (this doesn't always work properly, but is much easier than doing it manually). If someone introduces an error, it also keeps information required to back out any changes and then you'll have your old, working copy again.
While this doesn't seem incredibly new, it is an interesting use of CVS to keep backups. Nobody ever said CVS HAS to be for source code.
Presumably this high performance brake system, the gyroscope and all the other sensors will be able to adjust the position of the rider so that he/she will not be thrown off. It's not that hard for it to say "oh, well, the thing is tipping forward, better level off, or since the brake is being applied, perhaps tip back a bit."
As far as stopping distance, I'm sure they will have applied ABS ideas to the system so that it should be able to stop in a relatively short distance. Remember this thing is going to weigh a helluva lot less than a car, so it should be able to stop a LOT quicker in most situations.
There may also be a training period to get used to the new controls/riding style, but that's no different from any other vehicle. You don't just hand the kid the keys to the porsche and say "go to it."
While these are perfectly valid concerns and I'd like to see proof that they've been dealt with, I do think they are incredibly easy to address.
The advantages over a motorcycle? Smaller, lighter, more stylish, and A LOT better fuel efficiency (not that bikes were bad, but this will be better).
I look forward to seeing this thing if it ever gets produced for the mass market...I think it's very cool.
Sure it's great when you know the employment will be short term, but if you're looking for a career job, I don't think it's very fair.
Also, we have the right to ask why we were fired, but there is no implied obligation other than basic courtesy for the employer to provide an answer.
We then have the right to sue for wrongful dismissal if we feel the reasoning was unjust, at which point the employer will be required to explain his/her reasons. This may not get your job back, but should provide a decent severance package. Besides, do you really want to work for someone who would do this?
Sure the employer could lie and make it hard to win the case, but it seems to me that a) that's what lawyers are for, and b) purgery has much more severe consequences than wrongful dismissal.
In my experience with the latest Firebird release, it does seem to kill onclick popups while the page is loading and allow them afterward. It does the same thing with onmouseover too, which probably isn't desirable.
But all the timed ones and such are blocked...so not ALL popups are A-Okay once the page has loaded (unless you want to suggest that a timed event represents a not-completely-loaded page).
Interestingly the latest release of Firebird fails on both of the onmouseover tests. Perhaps the Mozilla people made a conscious choice to allow it, anybody know?
In Canada we have these things called rights. We have the right to be told why we are being fired and to fight it if it is unjust, particularly if the employer has asked you to do something illegal or "immoral" -- it works in the military too. Btw, don't ask me to define immoral, I'm not a lawyer, but illegal would include the scenario in question.
We also have responsibilities. We have the responsibility to fulfill our contract, whatever that says, whether it's 2 weeeks notice or whatever, but I've never heard of anyone being legally bound to a job for life.
Of course, we could always just do like Office Space and stop going...but that's not very Canadian now is it?
Illegal as hell, but in the meanwhile they're unemployed and the DA is telling them that the charges probably won't be filed since they it's a "she said, he said" situation.
Seems to me you have to given a reason if you are fired. What the hell's he/she gonna write? "Failed to vote the way I wanted." Come on...let's be realistic here.
While I like the internet voting idea for weather/transportation/convenience, as Canadians we are entitled to up to 3 consecutive hours off work in order to vote. You have to ask for it in advance, but it is your constitutional right. So that argument has no grounds....
I totally agree with everything you're saying here. MY only objection to what he wrote was that it had a somewhat derogatory (or mocking) tone to it (slight, but there). Perhaps that's what MS was reacting to, I don't know. When he says "even MS wants Macs" it sounds to me like "Here's this software giant and they don't even use their own product -- they use the competitor's" Which is total bullshit, since MS and Apple aren't competitors in every sense of the word...they even work together on some things. Nevertheless, the derogatory tone isn't what MS wants around there, esp. being voice publicly -- and as a temp in the copy shop, he's as expendable as a kleenex.
They could have handled the situation differently, but they chose to fire him, which may have been a mistake, but entirely within their rights. I don't see what the fuss is about. I'm sure this sort of thing happens every day.
how do you know there's such an NDA? You're hypothesizing it.
You are right, I have no idea, but I find it impossibly hard to believe MS would hire ANYONE (even a janitor) w/o having them sign an NDA. They may be excessively paranoid, but that's their perogative. Every company I've ever worked for (from government, small tech business, large tech corporation) has asked me to sign an NDA, there's no reason in my mind to believe MS is any different.
If there is such an agreement and employees aren't aware of it, then MS has a far worse problem.
Also true. However, since he'd have to SIGN the agreement, I would guess he knows it exists. If he didn't read it, then I'm sorry, but TS for him. If his temp agency signed it for him (citing any documents he signed for them -- I have no idea if this would be legal, just hypothesizing again), then it was their responsibility to let him know his rights and responsibilites.
I wouldn't consider the location of the copy shop a "leak"
The key word there is I. Microsoft is not you.
I still think they'd be better served suppressing the leak and giving a warning, but perhaps they feel the fear is a better motivator for others in the future.
Be that as it may, that is the path MS has chosen to take. Perhaps they feel that someone prone to releasing this sort of information is a high risk for leaking actual useful information and not even know it. Perhaps they felt that this being a relatively benign leak, they were safest to let him go before he leaked something else which would, once he was fired, be spread all over the media. This being benign, doesn't matter if it gets spread. If as an ex-employee he leaks more confidential information MS will sue the pants off him -- and with damn good reason.
NDA's often stipulate penalties.
Perhaps this one did (if indeed there was one), and perhaps that was the penalty stipulated. I agree it's safer to go with the spirit of the agreement than the letter...and if this had been a high level exec or a veteran employee that only slipped up this once, they might have let it go. But this guy was a temp worker. They had no idea if he was prone to do this sort of thing again, and they didn't want to take the risk.
MS may be overly paranoid, but that is their right. Quite frankly, I don't blame them with all use open source geeks (and other very good competitors) out here trying to take them down.
I don't think it matters that the particular information given out here wasn't, in your mind, confidential. It will have been outlined in his NDA what is and is not appropriate. If he violates his NDA in any form, he should be let go, or what the hell point is there in having an NDA.
Little things like this may be fine for small businesses, as long as there is relatively little competition and it looks like it will remain that way in the long run. When you are a massive corporation like MS with competitors everywhere trying to *steal* your market share, everything that goes on at your site STAYS at your site.
Those of us that are taking Microsoft's side here are not doing so for the sake of supporting Microsoft. We are supporting an important part of business operations.
They simply can't take risks here. If they allow this leak, they set a precedent for someone to go one step further, and that would set precedent until the NDA is nothing more than a useless piece of paper. Better to be harsh and set the line in a clear and distinct place.
Perhaps this guy should have left his digital camera at home and brought along his brain
Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?
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C# 2.0 Spec Released
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Wow, I don't know where to begin.
First of all, engineers don't do, care, or even think about software development. In an area where we care (computer science), we wouldn't even consider C# -- if our faculty had signed that deal there would have been riots (okay, whatever us geeks do instead of riot, I don't know, we'd frag them or something).
All computer scientists (at UW anyways) would object to the "close enough" comment. We are not in any way engineers, nor would we want to be.
In the school of computer science, we are not taught languages except as tools to teach more important concepts, as the parent of the parent suggests. Okay, there is one introductory course which you can skip just in case you haven't used the language (Java) that they want to use in the next few classes -- cuz they don't want to waste time on language specifics, so that still fits the statement.
Engineers do not develop software, they don't care about the higher comments. Teaching them C# is, I'm guessing, simply to a) give them an idea of how software works so they know what the hardware needs to do, and b) appease MS so they can get some $$$
Software Engineers are an exception. They are a hybrid of engineer and computer scientist. They have no one faculty, and they are not taught C# (yet). They don't actually matter anyways.
Clients might not give a shit...but it's up to you to point out issues of usabilty and Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act compliance standards.
I fully agree here. At work we are creating a JSP web application that must be section 508 compliant for sale to the U.S. government. We are actively supporting IE5+, NS6+, Mozilla, and Opera. Increasingly, however, we have to treat IE as a special case since it just doesn't do what it's supposed to when we use the standards.
If we ignore the standards and treat IE as the standard, we run severe risks of not being section 508 compliant.
Forms are another big thing that are quite annoying with IE. Many secure sites, or in general web applications don't handle forms well at all in IE when you hit back or forward. Everybody else handles things quite handily, but not IE.
To top it all off, IE has this awful idea of an error page to display. It looks like shit, is totally useless to the user, and doesn't tell the developer what is going wrong. What the hell is wrong with displaying the intended error page from the server? I can't even use the thing anymore...so I don't. The odd time I have to load it up I am reminded of how useless it is and I wonder how so many people out there can stand to look at the thing.
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They should if a significant portion of their customer base is going to switch to another company if they don't.
Could be, but *should* is different from *must*, and I don't think the, roughly, 0.0001% of Microsoft's customer base is a significant portion. More computer users may demand it, but most of them already use Linux, so can hardly be considered a Microsoft customer.
As KFC's 11 herbs and spices go (sorry for the mixup), why would they tell? So other companies can use the *same* 11 herbs and spices to make the *same* chicken? Unless there was some serious health risk, they have no reason to reveal it even if 99% of their customers wanted to switch, and even then they would probably be as vague as possible.
Microsoft does reveal bits of their source to companies that are charged with evaluating the secureness of the code, but that is to put aside security concerns while not revealing the secrets.
Interestingly you mention it's not a free market when there are obstacles. It is true that we don't like obstacles in a free market, but the government creates the obstacles every day by issuing patents (among other things). The fact is that there would be little incentive to be innovative if there was no opportunity of significant profit once everybody takes your hard-payed-for research and builds on it.
Open source is a kind of voluntary waiving of the patent system, and we may like it that way, but that doesn't mean it's right for every company.
That's not Microsoft's business practice and probably never will be. Just because we like the idea of open source, doesn't mean everybody does. Microsoft can make more money by hiding its source and not allowing modification, so they can pay their developers more, and so on and so on. Just let it be. Those that prefer the closed source model can go there and the rest can go open source...who says everything has to use the same model? It's a free market society (in North America at least), and there are no laws against it.
I think that this court case has less to do with appointing blame than determining if the ISP (in most cases the first line of defense -- users are connected to them), should be doing something to prevent this illegal activity. In some ways, they are responsible for what their users do, in others they are definitely not. That is what the court will decide.
I wonder how many ISPs have built these rules into the user's contract, unloading the blame to them explicitly. That would protect the ISP. They'd probably still be required to hand over their logs when requested, but at least they wouldn't be responsible for the user's actions.
With copyright, anything I create is automatically my own (including this), and may not be copied without my consent and/or citation for at least 50 years after my death. The US has toyed with public domain for copyrights, but that certainly was not the original intent (and was a bad idea imho).
It is, however, a lot more difficult to prove copyright infringement since two similar works could be created by separate people who have never met or had anything to do with the other.
IANAL, but I think patent infringement is more black and white (assuming the patent was properly issued). If it bears enough similarity to the patented invention, it is infringing...unless, possibly, the second inventor can prove it was a logical next step of something else in the public domain (though I don't know about this).
I too am from Canada, going to University of Waterloo, haven't even started third year yet and I'm already making what would be $40K (were I working the whole year). Maybe there was a bit of luck, perhaps the employer willing to take a risk since I'm relatively cheap to them, or some other factor that makes me differ from someone with a degree -- but surely you don't think I'm more valuable without a degree. The fact that every employer I've had has absolutely loved me (according to what they say) should speak for something I'm doing right though eh?
There is indeed an adjustment period as technology changes. But that is always good. It progresses us a society. It's horrible for ppl that want job security, but if you wanted that you'd have picked a career that would be guaranteed not to be phased out in the next 30-40 years (there aren't many left, btw). All I want to see is less whining and more action.
I happen to have concrete plans...but I'm not going to tell everybody about them. I need to compete as well you know.
That should make you think I felt there was something lacking from that ideal, don't you think?
I'd also like to point out that I am not, nor have I ever been, in any way associated with MIT and I take that suggestion as an insult. I am a University of Waterloo student in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Half the stuff you said in your post made absolutely no sense to me.
One other thing, when I said the ratio of pay was 2:1, I was throwing a theoretical number out there...I did NOT say "the ratio of pay is..." I said "it would even be feasible if..." (or something to that effect). Please read more carefully.
I'm all for the market economy. The government isn't there to get you a job...it's there to create and enforce the laws, without which there could be no market. There is absolutely no reason why the global economy is bad...it just makes things more difficult -- which is a good thing in the end.
If I did have an idea on improving productivity for myself, don't you think I'd use it myself instead of telling the world? I'm speaking abstractly for a reason.
What makes us worth more? Better quality, better innovation, and higher productivity. At least that would be ideal...unfortunately most of us programmers have completely forgotten market economics. I swear, the next time I see someone sitting on their fat ass at work doing nothing (which is what they've done all week) and complaining about how they're being outsourced to India I'm gonna scream.
The fact is, it would cost more to go to India, China, whatever...the labour is cheaper, but there are a lot of other factors that make it more expensive...but if we aren't being as efficient as we should be, there comes a point when two Indian workers at half the price are more valuable.
Same goes for IT departments. There is no way IBM can do things more cheaply/quickly being the monolith corporation that it is than a localized IT department at peak efficiency. The problem is, and I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but a lot of IT workers have gotten lazy and are not being productive enough to warrant their high salaries.
That said, most CS students from MIT, UW, whatever don't want to do that sort of work...it's a waste of our talent and an insult. We are much better used in a highly innovative field...so why didn't they just get a coop/intern to do it? Who knows, but my guess is, they didn't have any qualified applicants who wanted to do it.
My point? Quit whining about outsourcing and go make yourself too valuable to BE outsourced!
I'd like to point out that a) CVS is not a Linux thing...it is commonly used in windows as well, and b) it is a programmer's tool (read geek tool), so your average joe doesn't really need to know what it is.
However, I agree with you in principle. Linux users (including myself) are very guilty of not explaining things in terms others can understand. Why is this? I have two theories on this:
That said, Concurrent Version System (CVS) is basically a tool that keeps one copy of files that can easily be downloaded, modified, and uploaded to a large pool of people over a network and, ideally, if more than one person modifies a file, it will merge those changes correctly (this doesn't always work properly, but is much easier than doing it manually). If someone introduces an error, it also keeps information required to back out any changes and then you'll have your old, working copy again.
While this doesn't seem incredibly new, it is an interesting use of CVS to keep backups. Nobody ever said CVS HAS to be for source code.
As far as stopping distance, I'm sure they will have applied ABS ideas to the system so that it should be able to stop in a relatively short distance. Remember this thing is going to weigh a helluva lot less than a car, so it should be able to stop a LOT quicker in most situations.
There may also be a training period to get used to the new controls/riding style, but that's no different from any other vehicle. You don't just hand the kid the keys to the porsche and say "go to it."
While these are perfectly valid concerns and I'd like to see proof that they've been dealt with, I do think they are incredibly easy to address.
The advantages over a motorcycle? Smaller, lighter, more stylish, and A LOT better fuel efficiency (not that bikes were bad, but this will be better).
I look forward to seeing this thing if it ever gets produced for the mass market...I think it's very cool.
Sure it's great when you know the employment will be short term, but if you're looking for a career job, I don't think it's very fair.
Also, we have the right to ask why we were fired, but there is no implied obligation other than basic courtesy for the employer to provide an answer.
We then have the right to sue for wrongful dismissal if we feel the reasoning was unjust, at which point the employer will be required to explain his/her reasons. This may not get your job back, but should provide a decent severance package. Besides, do you really want to work for someone who would do this?
Sure the employer could lie and make it hard to win the case, but it seems to me that a) that's what lawyers are for, and b) purgery has much more severe consequences than wrongful dismissal.
But all the timed ones and such are blocked...so not ALL popups are A-Okay once the page has loaded (unless you want to suggest that a timed event represents a not-completely-loaded page).
Interestingly the latest release of Firebird fails on both of the onmouseover tests. Perhaps the Mozilla people made a conscious choice to allow it, anybody know?
We also have responsibilities. We have the responsibility to fulfill our contract, whatever that says, whether it's 2 weeeks notice or whatever, but I've never heard of anyone being legally bound to a job for life.
Of course, we could always just do like Office Space and stop going...but that's not very Canadian now is it?
Seems to me you have to given a reason if you are fired. What the hell's he/she gonna write? "Failed to vote the way I wanted." Come on...let's be realistic here.
Also true in Canada. We have to ask for it, but we are constitutionally allowed up to 3 consecutive hours. Should be ample time.
While I like the internet voting idea for weather/transportation/convenience, as Canadians we are entitled to up to 3 consecutive hours off work in order to vote. You have to ask for it in advance, but it is your constitutional right. So that argument has no grounds....
and get that finger out of your ear! You don't know where it's been!
They could have handled the situation differently, but they chose to fire him, which may have been a mistake, but entirely within their rights. I don't see what the fuss is about. I'm sure this sort of thing happens every day.
What applies at your company doesn't neccesarily apply at MS, so don't try to make a parallel as far as what was in YOUR NDA.
You are right, I have no idea, but I find it impossibly hard to believe MS would hire ANYONE (even a janitor) w/o having them sign an NDA. They may be excessively paranoid, but that's their perogative. Every company I've ever worked for (from government, small tech business, large tech corporation) has asked me to sign an NDA, there's no reason in my mind to believe MS is any different.
If there is such an agreement and employees aren't aware of it, then MS has a far worse problem.
Also true. However, since he'd have to SIGN the agreement, I would guess he knows it exists. If he didn't read it, then I'm sorry, but TS for him. If his temp agency signed it for him (citing any documents he signed for them -- I have no idea if this would be legal, just hypothesizing again), then it was their responsibility to let him know his rights and responsibilites.
I wouldn't consider the location of the copy shop a "leak"
The key word there is I. Microsoft is not you.
I still think they'd be better served suppressing the leak and giving a warning, but perhaps they feel the fear is a better motivator for others in the future.
Be that as it may, that is the path MS has chosen to take. Perhaps they feel that someone prone to releasing this sort of information is a high risk for leaking actual useful information and not even know it. Perhaps they felt that this being a relatively benign leak, they were safest to let him go before he leaked something else which would, once he was fired, be spread all over the media. This being benign, doesn't matter if it gets spread. If as an ex-employee he leaks more confidential information MS will sue the pants off him -- and with damn good reason.
NDA's often stipulate penalties.
Perhaps this one did (if indeed there was one), and perhaps that was the penalty stipulated. I agree it's safer to go with the spirit of the agreement than the letter...and if this had been a high level exec or a veteran employee that only slipped up this once, they might have let it go. But this guy was a temp worker. They had no idea if he was prone to do this sort of thing again, and they didn't want to take the risk.
MS may be overly paranoid, but that is their right. Quite frankly, I don't blame them with all use open source geeks (and other very good competitors) out here trying to take them down.
Little things like this may be fine for small businesses, as long as there is relatively little competition and it looks like it will remain that way in the long run. When you are a massive corporation like MS with competitors everywhere trying to *steal* your market share, everything that goes on at your site STAYS at your site.
Those of us that are taking Microsoft's side here are not doing so for the sake of supporting Microsoft. We are supporting an important part of business operations.
They simply can't take risks here. If they allow this leak, they set a precedent for someone to go one step further, and that would set precedent until the NDA is nothing more than a useless piece of paper. Better to be harsh and set the line in a clear and distinct place.
Perhaps this guy should have left his digital camera at home and brought along his brain
First of all, engineers don't do, care, or even think about software development. In an area where we care (computer science), we wouldn't even consider C# -- if our faculty had signed that deal there would have been riots (okay, whatever us geeks do instead of riot, I don't know, we'd frag them or something).
All computer scientists (at UW anyways) would object to the "close enough" comment. We are not in any way engineers, nor would we want to be.
In the school of computer science, we are not taught languages except as tools to teach more important concepts, as the parent of the parent suggests. Okay, there is one introductory course which you can skip just in case you haven't used the language (Java) that they want to use in the next few classes -- cuz they don't want to waste time on language specifics, so that still fits the statement.
Engineers do not develop software, they don't care about the higher comments. Teaching them C# is, I'm guessing, simply to a) give them an idea of how software works so they know what the hardware needs to do, and b) appease MS so they can get some $$$
Software Engineers are an exception. They are a hybrid of engineer and computer scientist. They have no one faculty, and they are not taught C# (yet). They don't actually matter anyways.
I fully agree here. At work we are creating a JSP web application that must be section 508 compliant for sale to the U.S. government. We are actively supporting IE5+, NS6+, Mozilla, and Opera. Increasingly, however, we have to treat IE as a special case since it just doesn't do what it's supposed to when we use the standards.
If we ignore the standards and treat IE as the standard, we run severe risks of not being section 508 compliant.
Forms are another big thing that are quite annoying with IE. Many secure sites, or in general web applications don't handle forms well at all in IE when you hit back or forward. Everybody else handles things quite handily, but not IE.
To top it all off, IE has this awful idea of an error page to display. It looks like shit, is totally useless to the user, and doesn't tell the developer what is going wrong. What the hell is wrong with displaying the intended error page from the server? I can't even use the thing anymore...so I don't. The odd time I have to load it up I am reminded of how useless it is and I wonder how so many people out there can stand to look at the thing.