> If it's OSS code that I need to improve for a > client's benefit, of course it doesn't belong > to either of us - it belongs to the original author.
Actually if doesn't matter if you're improving OSS code or writing from scratch, the code still belongs to the client. However if the original OSS code is used under a copyleft license like GPL the owner of the modifications is required to also release the modifications under the same copyleft license.
The distinction is that the original author of the unmodified OSS code cannot turn around and incorporate your modification into his/her codebase and license it to someone else under different terms.
Also, the GPL does not actually require you to release your modifications, it just restricts you from releasing the modification under any other terms than the GPL. I.e. you can keep the modification to your self or release them under GPL, but you cannot sell them.
I was 18 when I first given the key(board) to an HP Bobcat (68020 based UNIX workstation) called mit-hamlet. That was pre-DNS, so to access a host you either needed to know its IP address or have it listed in your local hosts files. Some people used to collect host files, merge them together and then put the "master" host file on an FTP site for other to download. Thus the convention of pre-pending your site to the hostname to avoid name conflicts.
Question: There's a cabin in the woods, a table in the middle of the cabin, a bucket of water on a table, a fire burning in the fireplace, and it's raining outside. How do you boil the water?
Answer: Take the bucket off the table and put it in the fireplace.
Question: There's a cabin in the woods, a table in the middle of the cabin, a bucket of water on the floor, a fire burning in the fireplace, and it's raining outside. How do you boil the water?
Answer: Put the bucket of water on the table, thus reducing it to a problem already solved.
Well if you look at this from Novell's prospective; they're trying to build a brand.
For the industry at large and for the consumer choice is ultimately a good thing, but
for any particularly company trying to build a brand, choice can dilute the
brand.
1) They got tried and tested file, print, directory, and groupware services (including mail, calendar and secure IM services) - that's probably 50% of the windows server market right there
2) They got good security and infrastructure management offerings. Microsoft can't even compete in this category.
3) They got an enterprise class J2EE / Web Services platform from their SilverStream acquisition. (that's the other 50% of the windows market)
4) They have their own linux distro now from SUSE
5) They have a Linux on the desktop offering from Ximian
6) They have a world class distribution, partners program and support organization with over a decade of experience.
7) They've got a good core system integration group from CTP
8) And they are trying to replicate the success of the Certified Netware Enginneer with the new Certified Linux Engineer program. (MSCE was a complete rip off of the NE program)
Only one problem, they have managed to screw up every acquisition they did in the 90's.
Please Novell, don't screw this one up. We're counting on you.
Re:Netcraft confirms: TiVo is Dying
on
TiVo Will Die
·
· Score: 1
Market share does not equal number of customers.
At one time the Ford Model T literally represented half of all the automobiles on the planet. I think it's safe to say that Ford's market share has declined steadily since then, but I don't see anyone dumping the Ford stock just yet.
TiVo subscribership has been steadily increasing and the rate of increase has also been increasing. However the PVR market is now increasing even faster than TiVo subscribers, that sounds like a market taking off to me.
I've known about JRIES for over a year now. I certainly have my concerns about it's ultimate effectiveness, but privacy and security are not among my concerns.
On the privacy front, JRIES is an investigative support tool. What that practically means is that the whole system and all the data in the system is centered around currently active investigations. Also, the only data in the system is data relative to those active investigations. So unlike the MATRIX, data mining is not at all possible, or even feasible Groove would choke and die long before it could transfer that much data.
On the security front, Groove has some pretty smart guys behind it. Ray Ozzie knows his shit and hires people who know their shit. But beyond that, the intel guys got their hands deep enough into JRIES to keep the whole system pretty closed. Even through it's SBU level, I'm not sure they let anyone touch the system without at least SECRET level clearance. Notice there are currently only 1000 users across 100 different agencies. This is not a web page they put up and gave access to everyone. Finally, Groove and the whole system is nicely compartmentalized, which means access to the system, doesn't mean access to all data; you only get access to investigations that you're a part of.
This project still has long way to go IMHO to be a truly effective horizontal information sharing network, but in terms of incorporating practices consistent with privacy and restricting the data and it use to legitimate law enforcement they've done some good work.
Well it's not that simple.
In reality engineers, particularly engineers with international work experience make a very good living in India relative to the cost of living. So despite the fact that you would be paid less in absolute dollars, you could most certainly greatly increase your standard of living vs. the US.
For example software engineers in India make about 1/4 to 1/6 that of an enginneer in the US. But at the same time a nice dinner out will cost you $1-3, or 1/10 to 1/20 what it'll cost in the US. How many engineers in the US do you know with a driver and a full time maid? It's not that uncommon in India.
I'm Northern-European American and my wife is Indian and we've seriously looked at living in India, and not for economic reasons, but the economics of it are not unappealing.
Only big gothca is retirement planning. It's hard to earn in Ruppees and plan for retirement in US Dollars.
I always enjoy the moment in history when theory becomes practice.
1904 Einstein predicts the energy released from nuclear fission (E=MC^2). ~1938 first atom split, the equation was correct.
FM radio was therorized for many years, but until Amstrong came up with his Phase Lock Loop none could make an FM radio capable of broadcasting more than about a hundred feet.
CDMA has been around for a while too, Qualcomm doesn't own the pattent on it, just some techniques for practically implementing it which wasn't possible until microprocessor and DSP technology got sufficientlt small and powerful to fit in a cell phone.
This is the difference between science and engineering and I think it's very fitting that an engineering journal (that's the last E in IEEE) is pointing out that a bit of science has finally become interesting to a rather large group of engineers.
I'd like to point out the content of section "73.9008 Interim Approval of Authorized Digital Output Protection Technologies and Authorized Recording Methods", which sets forth the very open and very public process of getting your favorite "digital output protection technology" and/or "recording method" authorized.
Unlike DVD and other digital media formats which may use only those copy protection technologies approved by the content owner with the broadcast flag the FCC as reserved to themselves the right to authorize copy protection technologies.
This means that Tivo can build their DTV receiver anyway they want so long as they can get the copy protection mechanism authorized by the FCC (section 73.9008 also covers what the FCC may consider in making this determination).
So if you want to get control of your TV back make sure an open source copy protection technology is approved by the FCC and only buy tuners that implement that technology.
This could be a golden opportunity to get a decent open source digital rights management system widely adopted.
Abstinence isn't a vote.
--Jerry
Re:This idea is genius.
on
MIT Everyware
·
· Score: 1
I don't think MIT has much to worry about. I went to MIT and I did 60% of my learning outside the formal class structure. Any universities in the world could replicate the MIT courseware, but that doesn't replicate MIT.
Throughout history the great universities have mainly been concentrations of people, skills and equipement around particular academic areas. The size and quality of that concentration is what differenciates one university from another, not the courseware.
As long as MIT maintain itself as such a concentration it will continue to attract people seeking to learn in the best environment available.
Slashdot Mirror
> If it's OSS code that I need to improve for a
> client's benefit, of course it doesn't belong
> to either of us - it belongs to the original author.
Actually if doesn't matter if you're improving OSS code or writing from scratch, the code still belongs to the client. However if the original OSS code is used under a copyleft license like GPL the owner of the modifications is required to also release the modifications under the same copyleft license.
The distinction is that the original author of the unmodified OSS code cannot turn around and incorporate your modification into his/her codebase and license it to someone else under different terms.
Also, the GPL does not actually require you to release your modifications, it just restricts you from releasing the modification under any other terms than the GPL. I.e. you can keep the modification to your self or release them under GPL, but you cannot sell them.
I was 18 when I first given the key(board) to an HP Bobcat (68020 based UNIX workstation) called mit-hamlet. That was pre-DNS, so to access a host you either needed to know its IP address or have it listed in your local hosts files. Some people used to collect host files, merge them together and then put the "master" host file on an FTP site for other to download. Thus the convention of pre-pending your site to the hostname to avoid name conflicts.
Prof. Joe Weizenbaum used to tell this joke to his intro programming students.
Question: There's a cabin in the woods, a table in the middle of the cabin, a bucket of water on a table, a fire burning in the fireplace, and it's raining outside. How do you boil the water?
Answer: Take the bucket off the table and put it in the fireplace.
Question: There's a cabin in the woods, a table in the middle of the cabin, a bucket of water on the floor, a fire burning in the fireplace, and it's raining outside. How do you boil the water?
Answer: Put the bucket of water on the table, thus reducing it to a problem already solved.
Well if you look at this from Novell's prospective; they're trying to build a brand. For the industry at large and for the consumer choice is ultimately a good thing, but for any particularly company trying to build a brand, choice can dilute the brand.
Michaela Draganska Assistant Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business has done some interesting research on how Too Much Choice Can Hurt Brand Performance .
Novell has got a great position.
1) They got tried and tested file, print, directory, and groupware services (including mail, calendar and secure IM services) - that's probably 50% of the windows server market right there
2) They got good security and infrastructure management offerings. Microsoft can't even compete in this category.
3) They got an enterprise class J2EE / Web Services platform from their SilverStream acquisition. (that's the other 50% of the windows market)
4) They have their own linux distro now from SUSE
5) They have a Linux on the desktop offering from Ximian
6) They have a world class distribution, partners program and support organization with over a decade of experience.
7) They've got a good core system integration group from CTP
8) And they are trying to replicate the success of the Certified Netware Enginneer with the new Certified Linux Engineer program. (MSCE was a complete rip off of the NE program)
Only one problem, they have managed to screw up every acquisition they did in the 90's.
Please Novell, don't screw this one up. We're counting on you.
Market share does not equal number of customers.
At one time the Ford Model T literally represented half of all the automobiles on the planet. I think it's safe to say that Ford's market share has declined steadily since then, but I don't see anyone dumping the Ford stock just yet.
TiVo subscribership has been steadily increasing and the rate of increase has also been increasing. However the PVR market is now increasing even faster than TiVo subscribers, that sounds like a market taking off to me.
I've known about JRIES for over a year now. I certainly have my concerns about it's ultimate effectiveness, but privacy and security are not among my concerns.
On the privacy front, JRIES is an investigative support tool. What that practically means is that the whole system and all the data in the system is centered around currently active investigations. Also, the only data in the system is data relative to those active investigations. So unlike the MATRIX, data mining is not at all possible, or even feasible Groove would choke and die long before it could transfer that much data.
On the security front, Groove has some pretty smart guys behind it. Ray Ozzie knows his shit and hires people who know their shit. But beyond that, the intel guys got their hands deep enough into JRIES to keep the whole system pretty closed. Even through it's SBU level, I'm not sure they let anyone touch the system without at least SECRET level clearance. Notice there are currently only 1000 users across 100 different agencies. This is not a web page they put up and gave access to everyone. Finally, Groove and the whole system is nicely compartmentalized, which means access to the system, doesn't mean access to all data; you only get access to investigations that you're a part of.
This project still has long way to go IMHO to be a truly effective horizontal information sharing network, but in terms of incorporating practices consistent with privacy and restricting the data and it use to legitimate law enforcement they've done some good work.
Well it's not that simple. In reality engineers, particularly engineers with international work experience make a very good living in India relative to the cost of living. So despite the fact that you would be paid less in absolute dollars, you could most certainly greatly increase your standard of living vs. the US. For example software engineers in India make about 1/4 to 1/6 that of an enginneer in the US. But at the same time a nice dinner out will cost you $1-3, or 1/10 to 1/20 what it'll cost in the US. How many engineers in the US do you know with a driver and a full time maid? It's not that uncommon in India. I'm Northern-European American and my wife is Indian and we've seriously looked at living in India, and not for economic reasons, but the economics of it are not unappealing. Only big gothca is retirement planning. It's hard to earn in Ruppees and plan for retirement in US Dollars.
So does anyone know of any SIP gateways out there that are suitable for a home or SOHO application.
It would be cool if this phone could be made to work with Vonage or simillar service like that.
I always enjoy the moment in history when theory becomes practice.
1904 Einstein predicts the energy released from nuclear fission (E=MC^2). ~1938 first atom split, the equation was correct.
FM radio was therorized for many years, but until Amstrong came up with his Phase Lock Loop none could make an FM radio capable of broadcasting more than about a hundred feet.
CDMA has been around for a while too, Qualcomm doesn't own the pattent on it, just some techniques for practically implementing it which wasn't possible until microprocessor and DSP technology got sufficientlt small and powerful to fit in a cell phone.
This is the difference between science and engineering and I think it's very fitting that an engineering journal (that's the last E in IEEE) is pointing out that a bit of science has finally become interesting to a rather large group of engineers.
Thanks for the pointer.
I'd like to point out the content of section "73.9008 Interim Approval of Authorized Digital Output Protection Technologies and Authorized Recording Methods", which sets forth the very open and very public process of getting your favorite "digital output protection technology" and/or "recording method" authorized.
Unlike DVD and other digital media formats which may use only those copy protection technologies approved by the content owner with the broadcast flag the FCC as reserved to themselves the right to authorize copy protection technologies.
This means that Tivo can build their DTV receiver anyway they want so long as they can get the copy protection mechanism authorized by the FCC (section 73.9008 also covers what the FCC may consider in making this determination).
So if you want to get control of your TV back make sure an open source copy protection technology is approved by the FCC and only buy tuners that implement that technology.
This could be a golden opportunity to get a decent open source digital rights management system widely adopted.
Abstinence isn't a vote.
--Jerry
I don't think MIT has much to worry about. I went to MIT and I did 60% of my learning outside the formal class structure. Any universities in the world could replicate the MIT courseware, but that doesn't replicate MIT. Throughout history the great universities have mainly been concentrations of people, skills and equipement around particular academic areas. The size and quality of that concentration is what differenciates one university from another, not the courseware. As long as MIT maintain itself as such a concentration it will continue to attract people seeking to learn in the best environment available.