I don't understand this attitude. The employees and IBM are entered into a business agreement. At any time, either can negotiate the payment. Either can decide to no longer continue the agreement at any time. Where's the unlevel playing field?
The unlevel playing field is that any given employee can leave IBM, and IBM will contine just fine. At the same time, IBM can fire someone, who, depending on the job market, may end up losing their house, car and going into bankruptcy.
I don't like the idea that as individuals we lose a lot of freedom because another "individual" decides if we can eat or not.
Please, explain what the affected IBM employees can do besides suck up the pay cut? Some can and will leave. Will all of them be able to? No, and that's the reality of it; some are now getting a paycut because a petty company broke fair labor laws and got smacked for it.
Marx was right about the owners of capital having most of the power; I don't agree with his solution to the problem, but to say there's nothing unequal is not looking at reality.
Managers are the ones that force others to work overtime; they themselves rarely work overtime anyway. Also, remember that a manager is also the President, VP, etc. If they choose to work overtime for no more money, let them.
The free market only works if everyone is on a level playing field. The employees of IBM and IBM itself are far from being on a level playing field.
This does sound like a slap in the face, but the first slap was by the employees -- suing your employer (or anyone) "means war".
No, the first slap was IBM breaking the law by classifying employees as exempt when they were not. The employees are totally in the right here, and IBM 100% on the wrong side.
Companies like to claim exempt vs. non-exempt is a "gray area." Its only gray when you're trying to screw your employees out of overtime pay.
My personal belief is that salary pay should be made illegal except for strickly management positions. That would solve this problem nicely.
The issue is that IE6 allowed people to use the strict rendering with out truly strictly rendering stuff. When IE7 was released that was more strict, it broke a lot of pages that assumed that strict worked because IE6 worked.
You mean it now correctly implemented the standard, and the web devs that didn't actually follow the standard even though they tried to tell the browser they were got burned.
I have to agree with you. If you have people sending lots of short, one line emails, its probably time to implement an IM solution.
This works well, because it will keep emails to the more complex subjects, and I also personally liked it because answering the phone is much more intrusive than answering an IM.
IIRC, it was whatever hardware you purchased the OEM license with. With XP, that could simply be a mouse. With Vista I think they changed this, you'll have to check their site for details.
The theory is that people that use Linux in school will likely want to use it at home and later in work, which would hurt sales. Even if that's not true, it doesn't harm them to give licenses away, and they perceive a benefit.
When I work for charity, I can't sit at home and enjoy a movie. That hurts.
It is not realistic to expect a group of sociopaths to willingly subject themselves to a higher standard of scrutiny and accountability compared to the rest of the population.
I certainly find it reasonable. The idea being that if said scrutiny was in place, it would discourage sociopaths from taking the job at all.
In fact, we have ample evidence that they feel they are less accountable for their actions than the people they represent. If your objective is to turn a bright light on a bunch of cockroaches, you don't let the cockroaches write the rule book on how light switches operate.
If a majority of people felt as I did, I think they'd be compelled to writing the law as we want.
It is however realistic to expect that surveillance technology will one day become so cheap and unobtrusive that absolutely everyone is subjected to the same set of rules: i.e. no privacy whatsoever.
The technology has nothing to do with my point; it could be used to remove everyone's privacy, I was just advocating that we don't let it be used that way, unless you're talking about the "cockroaches."
This isn't a free meal for a homeless guy. This is akin to Madonna tossing the homeless guy a free copy of her latest CD.
So schools don't need OSes for their computers? Huh.. pretty neat.
It costs microsoft nothing, they get a tax writeoff
The same can be said for free support given by RedHat to a school, should they choose to do so. Does that invalidate the gesture? Also, last I checked, sending someone to teach does in fact cost something.
it's either useless to the target demographic
You may not like Windows or Office, but that does not make them useless. Or are you claiming they're giving the licenses to schools with no computers?
will perpetuate microsoft's monopoly
Its a business move, no one will argue that. They ARE still allowed to try and make money you know. No one is forcing schools to accept the offer, they aren't breaking any laws.
Being a monopoly is not evil unto itself, its how they use it. They aren't doing anything dirty or underhanded here, and certainly any Linux company could do the same. They're allowed to try to keep their position as long as doing so isn't abusing their monopoly status.
later charge them their left nut.
You can see the future now? At any rate, no one involved will be forced to continue using MS software. There's no legal way to do so, and I haven't heard of any stipulation in the deal that says the recipient must buy an upgrade later.
Indeed. But it was well worth it, although I think my graduating year (2001) was the one they switched to Java. Hopefully the focus didn't change, just the tools.
Of course many people (including employers) seem to know RIT and have good thoughts about it, so to me that's worth it.
And yes, still paying for it also, although its technically rolled up into my mortgage now.
OEMs are supposed to be for system builder, its a reseller license. It also ties the copy of the software to that particular machine forever. OEMs also only get a disk and key.
Retail versions come will full retail packaging, and you can erase the software from one computer and install it on another.. which is why the price is a bit higher.
I'm not sure how the OEM versions on pricegrabber work; I imagine that you can install it once on a computer, and that's it, you can't install it to another computer, even if you erase the first installation without violating the license.
Nope, you're wrong. Its counting kernel versions from the NT line. Win9x/ME don't factor in at all. Win2k was kernel 5.0, XP was 5.1, Vista is 6 (I think win2k8 will be 6.x), so 7 would be the next major kernel version.
Well, as always, I suspect it depends on the school. I'd like to think my CS degree from RIT is worth more than one from Devry..
My suggestion would be only get into CS if you truely love programming, and view the money as nice bonus. Well, at least that's how you'll get better developers IMO.
No, I read the original article on snapper. The lowering of quality was directly related to Walmarts demand to sell for lower prices. It said nothing about making more mowers at current cost.
Also, instead of having say three mowers in 20 different independent stores, they can have 60 mowers at one Sears / Kmart location. Also, they can increase production while keeping the cost the same. What they wanted to avoid was increasing production while lowering quality (i.e., by cutting corners on materials, QC, etc).
I don't understand this attitude. The employees and IBM are entered into a business agreement. At any time, either can negotiate the payment. Either can decide to no longer continue the agreement at any time. Where's the unlevel playing field?
The unlevel playing field is that any given employee can leave IBM, and IBM will contine just fine. At the same time, IBM can fire someone, who, depending on the job market, may end up losing their house, car and going into bankruptcy.
I don't like the idea that as individuals we lose a lot of freedom because another "individual" decides if we can eat or not.
Please, explain what the affected IBM employees can do besides suck up the pay cut? Some can and will leave. Will all of them be able to? No, and that's the reality of it; some are now getting a paycut because a petty company broke fair labor laws and got smacked for it.
Marx was right about the owners of capital having most of the power; I don't agree with his solution to the problem, but to say there's nothing unequal is not looking at reality.
Managers are the ones that force others to work overtime; they themselves rarely work overtime anyway. Also, remember that a manager is also the President, VP, etc. If they choose to work overtime for no more money, let them.
The free market only works if everyone is on a level playing field. The employees of IBM and IBM itself are far from being on a level playing field.
This does sound like a slap in the face, but the first slap was by the employees -- suing your employer (or anyone) "means war".
No, the first slap was IBM breaking the law by classifying employees as exempt when they were not. The employees are totally in the right here, and IBM 100% on the wrong side.
Companies like to claim exempt vs. non-exempt is a "gray area." Its only gray when you're trying to screw your employees out of overtime pay.
My personal belief is that salary pay should be made illegal except for strickly management positions. That would solve this problem nicely.
Correct, but I'd rather teach people to use a format other people can readily use rather than require recipients to jump through hoops.
I know, I can't expect people to have a PDF reader on their workstation already. I just give them something that works.
What would you do if a terrorist bombed Microsoft headquarters tomorrow?
Um, nothing different, because the software I have will continue to work, and MS does have their source code backed up offsite.
The issue is that IE6 allowed people to use the strict rendering with out truly strictly rendering stuff. When IE7 was released that was more strict, it broke a lot of pages that assumed that strict worked because IE6 worked.
You mean it now correctly implemented the standard, and the web devs that didn't actually follow the standard even though they tried to tell the browser they were got burned.
Huh? What finacial harm? If you want to put IE into standards mode, it requires a 10 second configuration change.
I have to agree with you. If you have people sending lots of short, one line emails, its probably time to implement an IM solution.
This works well, because it will keep emails to the more complex subjects, and I also personally liked it because answering the phone is much more intrusive than answering an IM.
I think the point was that they aren't making any kind of profit at all.
IIRC, it was whatever hardware you purchased the OEM license with. With XP, that could simply be a mouse. With Vista I think they changed this, you'll have to check their site for details.
The theory is that people that use Linux in school will likely want to use it at home and later in work, which would hurt sales. Even if that's not true, it doesn't harm them to give licenses away, and they perceive a benefit.
When I work for charity, I can't sit at home and enjoy a movie. That hurts.
No it doesn't, or you wouldn't do it.
I have to add a fucking tag to say I'm compliant? That's insane
If you read the article, you'd see that <DOCTYPE> is exactly the same kind of thing. Did you complain when DOCTYPE was added?
It is not realistic to expect a group of sociopaths to willingly subject themselves to a higher standard of scrutiny and accountability compared to the rest of the population.
I certainly find it reasonable. The idea being that if said scrutiny was in place, it would discourage sociopaths from taking the job at all.
In fact, we have ample evidence that they feel they are less accountable for their actions than the people they represent. If your objective is to turn a bright light on a bunch of cockroaches, you don't let the cockroaches write the rule book on how light switches operate.
If a majority of people felt as I did, I think they'd be compelled to writing the law as we want.
It is however realistic to expect that surveillance technology will one day become so cheap and unobtrusive that absolutely everyone is subjected to the same set of rules: i.e. no privacy whatsoever.
The technology has nothing to do with my point; it could be used to remove everyone's privacy, I was just advocating that we don't let it be used that way, unless you're talking about the "cockroaches."
This isn't a free meal for a homeless guy. This is akin to Madonna tossing the homeless guy a free copy of her latest CD.
So schools don't need OSes for their computers? Huh.. pretty neat.
It costs microsoft nothing, they get a tax writeoff
The same can be said for free support given by RedHat to a school, should they choose to do so. Does that invalidate the gesture? Also, last I checked, sending someone to teach does in fact cost something.
it's either useless to the target demographic
You may not like Windows or Office, but that does not make them useless. Or are you claiming they're giving the licenses to schools with no computers?
will perpetuate microsoft's monopoly
Its a business move, no one will argue that. They ARE still allowed to try and make money you know. No one is forcing schools to accept the offer, they aren't breaking any laws.
Being a monopoly is not evil unto itself, its how they use it. They aren't doing anything dirty or underhanded here, and certainly any Linux company could do the same. They're allowed to try to keep their position as long as doing so isn't abusing their monopoly status.
later charge them their left nut.
You can see the future now? At any rate, no one involved will be forced to continue using MS software. There's no legal way to do so, and I haven't heard of any stipulation in the deal that says the recipient must buy an upgrade later.
All acts of charity are acts of selfishness. Would you donate time / money to any cause if it caused you some kind of pain or made you feel bad?
Sounds like a homeless guy demanding new clothes and a place to sleep in addition to the free meal.
Indeed. But it was well worth it, although I think my graduating year (2001) was the one they switched to Java. Hopefully the focus didn't change, just the tools.
Of course many people (including employers) seem to know RIT and have good thoughts about it, so to me that's worth it.
And yes, still paying for it also, although its technically rolled up into my mortgage now.
No, because its pretty clearly marked.
OEMs are supposed to be for system builder, its a reseller license. It also ties the copy of the software to that particular machine forever. OEMs also only get a disk and key.
Retail versions come will full retail packaging, and you can erase the software from one computer and install it on another.. which is why the price is a bit higher.
I'm not sure how the OEM versions on pricegrabber work; I imagine that you can install it once on a computer, and that's it, you can't install it to another computer, even if you erase the first installation without violating the license.
Why should we give up our privacy though? I'm all in favor of different rules for our "leaders."
Nope, you're wrong. Its counting kernel versions from the NT line. Win9x/ME don't factor in at all. Win2k was kernel 5.0, XP was 5.1, Vista is 6 (I think win2k8 will be 6.x), so 7 would be the next major kernel version.
I think you mean $257. No need to inflate the price by 60%.
Well, as always, I suspect it depends on the school. I'd like to think my CS degree from RIT is worth more than one from Devry..
My suggestion would be only get into CS if you truely love programming, and view the money as nice bonus. Well, at least that's how you'll get better developers IMO.
No, I read the original article on snapper. The lowering of quality was directly related to Walmarts demand to sell for lower prices. It said nothing about making more mowers at current cost.
Also, instead of having say three mowers in 20 different independent stores, they can have 60 mowers at one Sears / Kmart location. Also, they can increase production while keeping the cost the same. What they wanted to avoid was increasing production while lowering quality (i.e., by cutting corners on materials, QC, etc).
Hmm, ok. I thought the WSUS got its updates from WU. Thanks for clearing that up.
I thought updates published on WU affected home users as well. Am I missing something?