Everytime this appears we get a bunch of "we'll show them posters" threatening all kinds of interesting punishments. Forget it.
If/When the law passes each attempt to hack into their computers for any reason will be met with the recently passes "capital crime" of hacking punishment.
You are an individual. They are a corporation. You are a terrorist. They are protecting the rights of American copyright holders. You will get 5 - 25 years. They will get new releases on how good a job they are doing stopping these kids from stealing their products. They donate large sums of money to congress. You are listed as a non-voting demographic. [Better than opposition party or extremist, you are a non-entity.]
I will be surprised if this makes the nightly news anywhere. They want this to be a non-story and will pay plenty to keep it that way. Any story that does arise will be spinning the "protecting America against copyright theft."
If you really want to do something, take five minutes, right now and FAX your representatives [You could try email. Are they any better at reading them today than last year?].
Be polite, be firm and be specific. DMCA got passed because many people expected someone else(our representatives) to see the lunacy in the approach. This just proves we can never underestimate the ability of smart people to do dumb things with the right incentive.
There are lots of things that could be done to convince Microsoft that this is a really bad idea.
Yes there are, and this would be the ideal time for them to happen. Then the PR machine would roll... "Would you trust your business to..." "Do you want your government run by..." "This is what you can look forward to as a Window's user when you work with Linux..."
They have millions to spend on spin and are waiting for their "Rodney King" moment.
We have to be at our absolute best. Showing the business world that we can them in any mixture of Linux/Windows/MAC/UNIX/MVS, that meets their business needs. That the Linux community are the technologists who can improve the business model while reducing costs.
Laptops or tablets are a better option. I am an avid Palm fan/user however I also take a tablet (paper kind) to meetings. The limitations of writing and size are too great given the current level of technology. I read ebooks on my palm but I don't think a set of textbooks would be practical.
On the other hand, many people are going too high end. Forget gaming or graphics, etc. This is school. Text editing, note taking, paper writing, math solving (3 R's type work). How about new "older" versions of machines. Under-powered for today's executives but more than enough for this type of work. Even a "skinny" Linux capable of running KDE/GNOME and Open Office would give them a heck of a boost. (I said Linux because of the legal issues of attempting to outfit them with win98 and cost)
Too often I see these fail because everyone wants to supply a machine for the minority (1ghz+ processor, 256meg of ram and 40 gig hard drive. If the kids want to learn to code, or extend the power of what they are doing, that is fine, but we need a product for the masses. How about a 333mhx, 128 meg of memory, 4 gig hard drive, and modem/Ethernet card running at 800x600. It would seem someone could produce such a laptop that was shock resistant for under $500 a piece and still make money. This is so far off bleeding edge, offices are probably using them for door stops.
By the way, I used my laptop as this example(IBM 1400I) which does 80% of what I need to do as a developer (mail, documentation, notes, etc). I even manage a couple of games. These kids would be hard pressed to use this to its potential.
Come on laptop producers. Step up and take the challenge. How about making $12 on 10,000 machines instead of $100 on a 1000?
Quality is important, but how we use software is more important in our buying decision. They made a good point that given the plus side of the equation, most software is worth what you pay for it. Otherwise, people would not buy it.
Quality however is not free and the consumer must, in almost all business equations pay for it. In the case of dropping a Space Shuttle on Atlanta, our willingness to pay for additional quality controls is going to be much higher than testing a text editor.
Using the automotive analogy, I want my car to go 250,000 miles without any upkeep (oil changes, filters, etc.) The diffence in the engineering is that no one considers the auto example reasonable but they do with software for which they are paying 1/20th the price.
Your example is too simplistic for the issues that must be resolved. Instead, consider:
Motherboard "A" works fine with SoundX soundcard VideoV video card. You (the consumer) hear about the new VideoVx with 3 trillion instructions per second it makes quake look like a movie.
Now you install the new card VideoVx. After doing so, the system crashes. You pull out the sound card and everything is fine.
Now who is at fault? The Video card maker:
Do we force every hardware update to be backwards compatible with every combination of hardware? The Sound Card maker:
VideoVx was not even available when SoundX was created. Do we force every hardware maker to test and supply fixes for every new piece of hardware made available everyday?
The mother board maker:
They let the hardware conflict in some fashion or the system would not have died? Picture the permutations of hardware that would need to be tested to ensure that every possible combination of sound, video, cd, dvd, scanner, camera, hard drive, chipset, bios and operating system worked in any combination.
The OS supplier:
Face it, they did not prevent the interaction that allowed the failure. Of course, everyone was using them as stated, this specific combination however was not forseen when you bought the OS two years ago.
People keep mentioning architects/structural engineers/etc. Consider building a bridge where the materials changed four times a year. Would you know that mixing bolts of MaterialX with sleeves of material "Z" were an issue until a reaction (created by runoff from the surface of the road) happened? Of course not, nor do we expect them too.
This is why new materials are so slow to move into construction. We cannot afford to have buildings fall down.
"Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy, which the National Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates has cost the music business $4.2 billion in lost revenue last year. "
This is like Greenhouse gas, we all know its out there we just disagree on how much. $4.2 Billion? Not 6? or 3.1 or 2.8 or... Please this is an unmeasurable number.
With most papers owned or tied directly to the RIAA or MPAA we can expect more "advertising" and less objective news like this. Now Grandma will be out there saying how we need to do somthing about the kids today, stealing from the record companies.
My prediction...look for EULAs on CDs, DVDs and e-books.
Having done several of these, as your first project, with deep pockets and a compressed do date, you are going to have problems. Major, miss the date, lose your job type problems if you attempt to remote source it.
Oversea outsourcing has problems beyond the traditional remote support. I have and continue to be a strong proponent of remote support. You get the benefit of hiring expertise that may not want to locate near you. For example, I work remotely for clients where the cost of living is easily three times what I pay here. And they do not offer three times the compensation. It sounds like that is what you are after. A win-win.
Here are just some of the issues: - Time zones are more than inconvenient. If a question does not get answered by 8 a.m. , it will sit until the next day. Picking up the phone sounds easy, but will not be. How many issues can pile up before the communication is complete or they stop asking and just begin assuming? Who gets to call meetings and who attends? As the person leading the project, are you ready to work day and night? Team, status, and planning meetings need to be held with everyone so when?
- Code is not code. Simply put, cultural differences create issues in code. If you wish to own the code when you are done, both parties need to understand what is acceptable standards and what will happen with code that needs to be reworked (do you still pay while they rewrite it?). Standards for names, fields, tables, access types, how and what type of inheritance is allowed, etc. Assuming they will be coding in English (yes, you do need to make it a requirement), unless you all agree (or they have worked extensively in the US), someone will be rewriting the code. Or you will need to look at it like generated code. It does the job, but you never want to maintain it.
- Cultures different. As Americans, we tend to be naive in the assumption of cultural neutrality. And while many organizations do their best to be neutral, language continues to be a barrier. Consider how difficult it can be to understand someone with a varied US dialect. Add the phone, email, and 5,000 miles and a simple statement "You wish the account number removed, no?" takes on a whole new meaning. My unscientific number of 30 -40% redundant communication will work to minimize these types of issues. Some companies put an American in charge from your side. You work through them and they make sure the details get hammered out with the team. This helps a little, but sounds a lot better than it works in practice. I was approached by a company to have mine work as that front. I passed when I saw the only difference was I would now have all the issues the client had, plus my own.
- What if it fails? This is the one that can be a stickler. Suppose you are being told that your project is on schedule and all the areas are coming together. The status reports look good and the code is getting delivered right up to the point everything stops. What are you going to do? While this problem exists in many contractor type arrangements, these folks are overseas in a country where use of the legal system is unknown. I hate to say it, but at least here you can sue someone if for nothing else but to get the code that was created.
At this point, I foresee a number of people reaching for the "reply - he's a bigot button." Hardly. These are business decisions and people make them from the cost/benefit. Often the price appears cheaper, because the assumption is made that given any programmer "X" they will generate lines of code "Y" and the result will be the same. That is not the case and is simple as the difference between hiring a person out of school and one with 10 years experience. The both know C++ so the results will be the same, correct?
Finally, consider the current economy. You did not say where you are, but I am willing to bet you could get the project staffed locally (or even US remote) for less TCO than you think. If they insist you use off shore help, then research carefully and find out the number of oversea projects done by the firm managed from the US. Of that total, how many were on time and on budget when complete. Then contact those customers and get their input. If their references are not glowing consider what the unhappy customers would be saying.
You may be the one that kicks the trend. However, I would be careful about putting your career on the line for it.
I wonder if MS will continue to use the leverage of DMCA to ensure SAMBA's demise. A great product is about to meet the MS giant if the DOJ settles like it appears it wants to.
Great job folks. I hope we get to see new releases for years to come and I do not mean to rain on your parade. Instead I wish to remind everyone what is at stake in this.
a long-awaited privacy bill Wednesday that would allow U.S. businesses to share information about customers
Would this qualify as an oxymoron? Exactly how does releasing my private information qualify as privacy? Have these people ever opened a dictionary? Mr. & Mrs. Public would be up in arms if then knew they leaders were voting to allow their credit card companies access to their medical records. If you are sick isn't there a good chance you may miss a payment? Further, if you have a genetic pre-disposition to a disease, regardless of whether you have it, your employer should know, shouldn't they?
A group of business leaders from high-tech firms said the bill struck the right balance between consumers and businesses
A "group of business leaders". Would this be the same group being paid to collate and distribute this data? Or perhaps, the people that want the data? In either case, at least they are honest enough to admit the public is either in the dark or against it. [Okay, that is my spin... ]
I'll predict a much greater level of Internet usage with these privacy policies in place," Boucher said. Amazing is that as a republican, who should be for more local government and smaller federal government, we have instead the rider that states this will override more restrictive local laws. Even more amusing (frightening?) is his biography which lists him as "a leading architect of federal policy for the Internet." I am really pressed to put some type of sarcasm here, but nothing I could say would be more foolish than his statement.
I know I make this pitch every time one of these things get started, but contact your representatives. House of Representatives Senators
And please remember: Be concise, polite, and on paper (fax may even be better as it is not double processed through the mail). In addition, CC the letter to your local newspaper's letter to the editor and you may as well try their email address. (But remember the study done last year, most representatives do not read emails)
My favorite: "My main objection is that tickets are continuing to be issued before I have an opportunity to adjust my speed based on the first ticket," said Miriam Balutis of Arlington, who was cited for four camera-captured violations in one week -- but did not receive any tickets for a month. This "strongly suggests that deterrence is not the goal of this program."
Is it a monetary incentive for the cities? Probably, but so what? If you are caught speeding or running a red light, you did the crime, stop whining about it. As for the "Balutis Judicial System", using this logic, I should be able to rob banks until I am convicted on the first one. Further, you cannot hold any of the robberies between the first and when I was arrested against me. I did not have time to "adjust my behavior based on the arrest."
Then we have the "police were not there" group. Following their logic we should prevent the introduction of video taped evidence of the robbery because the police were not there to actually witness the event. Where do they find people with such a poor grasp of logic and how do they always manage to get press?
Technology is going to be misused, but this is not such a case. The people who are getting caught are guilty, even by their own admission.
If they wish to make the argument, it was not them, or the machine was incorrect, etc. that would be fine. But "it's not fair?" Give me a break.
While it would be beneficial to force such an account, it is on this same ground that we constantly roast MS. Forced software upgrades under the auspices of improved security, stability, etc.
Consulting with dozens of corporations, I have seen many run old versions of anything from compilers to CICS regions to security patches. Sometimes for business reasons (cost) and sometimes for compatibility (upgrading to a current version causes incompatibility with their client's software). Whether we consider them legitimate, the business does and it is critical that we not add to the issues of OSS adoption.
While Jon was speaking in general terms, and the devil is in the details, his idea does have merit. The implementation would need to allow for the positive acceptance of risk by the software user. If I have a specific need to run netSecsoftXYZ beyond its expiration, I should be able to do so without it shutting down. In addition, I should not need to recompile or reboot to continue operating with the existing version. In this way, I acknowledge that I am running an older version at "my risk." The responsibility for my choice would then be placed with the organization.
This does leave the potential for abuse. However, we cannot avoid the potential misuse of something to halt its development. Just as we want to be able to make backups even if the device could be used to illegally copy software.
In the long run, the number of people impacted is so small, companies do not care.
It pisses off the company's current staff With the mood in America (200,000+ layoffs) the employer / employee relationship is such that many people feel this way without a draconian employer. In addition, software patents have the potential to make a company millions. Open sourcing the work prevents that.
It hurts the company when it's recruiting Rarely. While I have seen loved postings about striking paragraphs and rewriting lines, they were apparently dealing with rookies. Unless you have a skill that cannot be gotten elsewhere you are not worth the headache. Making the comments, or striking paragraphs telegraphs the kind of player you are going to be. Nothing forces you to take a job, but nothing forces them to hire you either. (Patent=$millions)
It discourages staff from furthering their knowledge and experience. They want you to get the training, but they expect it to be put to work for them. Two questions to ask of the people you work with: 1-How many have heard of Slashdot? 2-How many know what open source software is and how it is developed? The number of people impacted by such an approach is so small that it just does not matter.
I'm amazed this company has the balls to treat it staff so badly. Let's face it, treating your most valuable employees as little more than street urchins, turning away potentially brilliant hires because they refused to be shackled 24/7 and discouraging your employees from broadening their programming horizons and skills is incredibly short-sighted
Okay, real cynical time... Yes it is short sighted. I completly agree and they probably would if they appraise it from a people perspective. However, they do not care. Your knowledge is only good for the technology you are producing. (Patent=$millions again) It is becoming very common for companies to buy tech knowledge. Move to XYZ? Hire XYZ programmers, who are probably young and thus cheap. Moving to PDQ? Lose the XYZ folks unless they can come up to speed without much help. Otherwise, use them until the new system is in.
When I negotiate with a client, I tell them up front, their goal should be to get rid of contractors as quickly as possible. Use us for knowledge transfer and to backfill while your people get up to speed on the technology.
Lets use a simple example... In your quest for a PhD you find a way to ship packets at twice the speed currently thought possible with a minor software upgrade at the switch.
Your school thanks you, because most PhD work belongs to them. (Check ALL the papers you signed when applying) Your employer thanks you, because all the work for hire belongs to them. The lawyers love or hate you depending on which side of the fence they are on.
In the end, you are hosed pretty good. These things can happen without evil intent, but you are still in trouble once your name is on the line.
Tell them to read everything carefully and if they are in doubt, call a lawyer. $200 now beats thousands later.
Not being on the inside of Loki, I can only guess, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt that they believed "this" was the month that would pull them out of it.
Not being able to live without two paychecks merely identifies the level of risk you are willing to accept. I have worked for clients with 90+ day payment cycles, so my level of risk is higher. The Loki people apparently were far less risk adverse than either of us. Maybe they wanted it to work and saw a big pay day if they could just pull it off in the end.
Or if you want to be cynical, consider people buy lottery tickets too. Which leads to my favorite bumper sticker: Lotteries are a tax on people bad at math. But people well educated, well rounded and grounded people do it anyway.
I have been telecommuting for over three years. Forget the advice you are getting here, most of it is wrong. Even with a T1 or better you are not going to get any type of lost time guarantee. The absolute best deal I have seen is some percentage of line cost returned after an extended (as defined by the contract) outage.
Every deal is unique and residential customers are so far down the line as to be without any hope(I have dealt with Bell Atlantic, Verizon, and Bell South). My favorite comment was from the Bell South rep who, when I could only connect to the office at 13k, told me that they only guarantee 9600 baud on a residential phone line and anything better was just lucky. (It relates back to fax machines of all things.)
While that was a residential line, a business less promises faster service, rarely anything else. If you are a large company, you get very fast service and little downtime because of a service level agreement(SLA) and the ability to backbone with other choices. As a single telecommuter, you have no clout and most local service has no alternate carrier so they know you cannot leave. Feel free to write to the public utilities commission or whatever your state supports. They will tell you that under the connection agreement, there is nothing they can do.
Yes - it sucks. No - it's not fair. As the attorney for Verizon told me - they don't care. Tough to argue when they are willing to admit they could care less about what you like or don't. You could always try a two way satellite link. But that will cost you about $80/month to use as a backup and VPN is a real issue.
Most of us work with this hardware every day, and are well aware it is toxic in many forms. Unlike televisions (which should also be included), people tend to have at least one computer or more per person. (I have three in my house, ten+ if you include machines I have upgraded from)
Adding, $5, $10, or even $20 to a system is not going to kill us. However, I would want it to be used directly for the recycling of the machines and everyone (business and individual) alike must pay at point of purchase. The fact that a company buys 1000+ boxes, is no reason for a discount on recycling. By putting it at point of purchase, we can still donate boxes, etc. without having to worry about the charity paying the fee.
In addition, we should be able to put the stuff at the curb with the other recyclables. Who would spend $100 shipping back a PIII three years from now? It would end up hidden in the dumpster.
Finally, my favorite statement was: "the high-tech industry hasn't done nearly enough and foists costs onto consumers that should be picked up by the manufacturers themselves" There are no zero return business costs anymore. NONE, ZERO, zilch,/dev/null. Everything gets passed to the consumer because, well... we consume.
There is a lot of good feedback here. Some of it written in the best prose I have seen in a while. Almost every entry had something great in it.
You began your entry with: In an effort to improve my coding skills, what are Slashdot readers' biggest pet peeves when it comes to software?
First and foremost, remember you are writing code. Some of it will be great. A lot of it will be mediocre, dull, or poor. The biggest mistakes I see in developers, even "old" developers is an inability to admit they created something poorly. Part of it is pride, and part of it is the desire to avoid "fixing it".
If you wish to be at the leading edge, get over the emotion. We are not calling your children ugly or discussing the virtue of your mother. It is code. Look for people to criticize and complain, bitch and moan. Then decide if they are right, or if you took a new direction on purpose. (Hey, someone thought Open office should open all the applications at one time.)
Stand up and get out more. Hermits are unwilling to run an idea by anyone because they take everything personally. So they code, and code, and code and then we refit, retrofit, and enhance afterwards. Talk your boss into putting a white board in the aisle and run coding decisions, access questions, and design considerations past anyone willing to stick their head out. You will get garbage and gems. However, you will get more to think about and that will certainly improve your coding. (Especially if someone points out that opening all the office applications at once may be an issue.)
[BTW - I picked on open office because it is an issue that has been beaten to death. Some would say this horse was whipped to death only to have us start on it's children.;-) I strongly recommend everyone try the most recent stable version of Open Office. You may be very surprised, what OSS can get you.]
Sourceforge has been a strong supporter of OSS for some time and I believe I understand the issues with leaving a project without any activity alive forever.
My concern is the potential loss of projects that could occur if under the terms SF sells or dissolves. Without a reasonable recourse (even if SF has the best of intentions today), we would have people keeping copies of entire projects waiting for the current or future SF organization to decide to kill off project XX. Then how would the rest of us find it later? (SFapster?)
While it is certainly their right, as they own the machines, part of their popularity has been the ability for projects to get slow starts, have long development cycles, and even close but still have the code around in the event it is ever needed.
Perhaps it has been unrealistic to expect any company to absorb the cost of potentially the largest change management system on the planet for free. However, the also fostered that idea.
While people will argue it is not a big deal, it will be when they need to exercise the right to kill projects and do so without notification.
Perhaps a alternate solution would be a source forge front page notification of "projects about to be killed unless we hear someone is willing to own it." At least there is a possibility someone would see it before the "messenger of death" strikes.
A poor example: if I were convicted of embezzling $1 million from a bank, and donated $100,000 to re-elect the prosecutor. It would be fair for the judge to question a surprisingly light sentence offered in a plea bargain.
While it is not illegal, it is the reason for the Turney Act. If it can be shown they were using their money to influence the outcome of the penalty phase of the trial, the judge must consider it before accepting the agreement. In fact, it would be a reason to force the government to go back and renegotiate, or if the judge considered any outcome between the parties tainted, she could enforce her own.
Based on past statements from her, I question if this formality has any influence at all. But, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. It is not a perfect system, but it is a second check of the process.
Interestingly I make my living providing this type of support to organizations. So here is my standard lead in... "There is no silver bullet." Okay, it is cliché, but it is so for a reason. No product does everything for everyone all the time. Those that get close are often ineffective because the overhead of running them is unexpected costs (system resources, training, or response time).
Are you planning to retrain your team to the tool and language of choice? Have you prepared for the cost and lost time due to incorporating a new tool and language? Are you prepared for the "first timer" punishment or will you be bringing in experts? Do you know how to tell if they are experts? Can you identify the difference between a consultant and contractor?
You mention support for multiple-inheritance. Some people argue that if it exists in an application you did not understand what you were doing. Are they correct? How would you know? "portable (at compile-time) across various platforms." Do you know which platforms? Across Linux, SUN, and AIX will be a different list than across Windows, AS400 and MVS. Support for "advanced error handling" and "advanced object oriented design". How would that differ from "standard" version? Does your organization understand how to weigh these features against their long term support and run time costs?
My experience has been when people ask questions like this, the building is on fire, and they hope someone will have a "tool" to fix a project that is 15 months behind schedule and $3 million over budget. Even if that does not describe you today, it may in 24 months. Determine your project feature needs, consider where you want to be in 5 years, look at the resources (people, $$$, hardware, software) in both cost and availability. These determine your potential for success. Then try to match products against the project.
If this describes your organization and you are taking this approach I strongly advise reading Rapid Development : Taming Wild Software Schedules It will provide the hard data to show your organization why you cannot tool out of a project issue.
When the time comes to choose a tool, the significant key is choose something that does not lock you in to anything. As you saw in your initial scoping of products, something will always be better in one product over another. Just avoid the position that a tool vendor must survive for your company to survive.
"Should the US prohibit the export of high-encryption software? Here is a case where the default values (40 bit) clearly helped recover valuable information from a system."
If the US could somehow ensure that we were the only ones who provided encryption, this may be an argument on national security bounds. However, we cannot.
If anything, all of this talk about encryption has provided criminals with the knowledge that we can eventually break in. Even if that were not the case, better encryption is available in any of over a hundred countries, many with little concern for US regulations. I believe 128-bit encryption has been freely available for years, provided by companies outside the US.
We need freely available encryption of every higher levels to stay ahead of our enemies (and some would argue our friends). Consider it only took five days to break the 40-bit encryption. How long would it take someone to brute force his or her way into a financial institution? Banks, trading firms; electronic merchants, etc. are and or should be constantly upgrading their security and encryption levels.
Encryption should be viewed like a car. A car has very powerful, valuable, perhaps even essential uses. Unfortunately, people can use cars to rob, kidnap, and murder. Still, we allow and even encourage access to cars because the benefits far outweigh the problems that periodically occur.
I'm wondering why both VM's can't be included in a distro and allowing the end user to select the one he/she wishes to compile into the kernel? Are the two implementations THAT mutually exclusive?
The issue appears to fall into the simplicity of installation. Yes, we could have both sent, but one will need to be the default or we make all users recompile the kernel. That would really sound bad from a PR perspective.
BTW, this kind of bashing between the high priests of Linux is not good. You can bet your bottom dollar that MS is going to use this conflict to fuel their propaganda machine, saying Linux is a fractious OS run by a bunch of young upstarts who can't agree on anything.
This issue has to do with the public nature of open source. I am certain MS has people on the mailing lists (as does every competitor), so the message would get out. With billions to spend on advertising, even an non-issue can be made one.
I hope people are able to understand that disagreement, consensus and resolution are part of what keeps OSS healthy. We do not have a single point of failure in leadership and that is a very good thing. If we all blindly followed Linus, we would sound like zealots and the competition would focus on that.
I am sorry they will allow requestors to delete their own postings. While we might wish it otherwise, 10, 20, 50 years later, this may be the real historical value. To purge, seems the equivalent of having a letter to the editor removed from newspaper archives.
To those who feel like "they are walking around with their baby picture stapled to their forehead", we all mature. What I thought at 20, 30, and 40 show how I grew. What other archive in human history can provide the transitional opinions, discussions, and outright imbecilic flames wars?
While we would hate to have someone pull out our post in support of the flat earth theory, to act as though we all believed the earth was round is rewriting history. Convenient for us, but misleading to the future.
The question now becomes, what happens after Google and Slashdot, when the archive is tera-bytes large? Will it take 100 years for the next conversion?
I worked for one of the top three Global IT consulting firms and after 11 years as a consultant went to a smaller company and finally started my own. The numbers you are throwing out are dependent on so many things, and you are new so the pessimist in me say you are probably going to learn an unfortunate lesson.
[Assuming you live in the United States...]
First, incorporating for $100 is not going to happen. While IANAL or accountant, just filing the paperwork in the US costs that much. Then of course, you have corporate taxes and foreign corporation filings in the event you incorporate in a state like Delaware, but chose to work in say Maryland. These folks get paid even if you do not. Yep, zero income still pays the taxman. Most states have a minimum corporate tax.
Talk to an accountant, have them work the numbers for you and help you decide. Also question the need for incorporation. This used to be done by small businesses to protect the owner's assets. In many states, they have fixed that loophole so if you screw up someone's system, incorporation will not protect you, but the fact you have no money may. This is also the reason many companies will not take on small contracting firms. If the people at the firm completely screw up they have no recourse.
As for your offers, first and foremost payrate is an arbitrary word. Billable rate is what you care about. This is the $$$ per hour, job, project, etc. a corporation will pay for you to be there. If you do not know your billable rate, the numbers are absolutely meaningless (and many would argue are meant to be that way). Consider that a company may be billed $100/hour, would you expect to get $86 under option 2? Unless you know they pay $100 for your services, the company could tell you the payrate is $84/hour (payrate being the amount after expenses and profit are taken).
That out of the way, I want to take you through the three you have listed:
1)Corp to Corp (100% payrate) - I do not understand this one. If you get 100% how are the people who placed you getting paid? My guess is payrate and billable rates are in no way related. Remember all expenses are probably yours. That means when a client asks you to fly to California tomorrow, the $2200 ticket may be yours to pay for. Even your own expenses: both sides of social security, Medicare, health insurance, life insurance, etc.
Understand what you are responsible for. Also remember you will need to cover those months you do not have a contract. $50/hour sounds good while you are making it, but it is $10/hour if you only work four-months in five.
(2)Independent Contractor (86% payrate) This is a pretty good rate. Actually it is a nearly unbelievable rate, because the firm needs at least 16% in most states to break even when you consider taxes, etc. Heck they lose 10% on federal taxes alone, plus they need sales reps, office space, and a profit. Here, they are getting 14%, which makes this a little, difficult to believe I would say. However, it is not impossible. If you have a specialized skill they may pay you this rate just to have the skill or they may use your work as a means to put more people at the site. A lost leader is not out of the question. Like option 1, know what you are expected to pay for.
(3) W2 Employee (62% payrate and a moderate weekly expense stipend). Moderate weekly stipend? What does that mean? The IRS sets the per diems by city each year. If you are not getting expenses covered at 100% then expect per diem. If it is less than that (see the IRS website for per Diem amounts, question it. As for being an employee in general, I would think hard about this one. What does being an employee provide you besides a lower income? I wish it was not true, but job security at any place is pretty much a myth. I have seen places lay off employees while keeping consultants and contractors.
As for what is deductible, get a receipt for everything from your computer to gas in your car. Get one of those books from an office supply place and track the mileage and usage daily, same with expenses. Setup a simple spreadsheet and hang onto every receipt for at least three years. If you are going to have a "home office" make it one. That means it cannot double for something else. People will tell you this is a sure sign for the IRS to audit, but if you are using it as a home office, you have no concerns. If it is your bedroom with a computer desk...
As for how to run it as a business, consider the differences between a contractor and a consultant. A consultant adds value. They bring more to the table than is being asked, they lead and are looked up to while offering constructive input. They know when to be quiet and that in the end, they are paid to do a job even if they do not agree with the approach. In the end, you must get the job done. Any of my clients can get in touch with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Do you need to be this way? No, but I just watched employees and every other consultant get dumped from a client where I still sit. Why? I believe it is because I get the job done without complaint or hassle. Day, night or weekend.
When you do leave, either on your own or because you time is up: Smile, and thank them for the wonderful opportunity. No one said this would be a long-term relationship and this helps ensure you can come back at the next opportunity.
Finally, this is a good question in a bad place (and I wish I had a better place to send you). We all have opinions but remember with free advice you get what you pay for and here there is little to prove I am not a 14-year-old who got my computer three weeks ago. If you are going to do this on your own (and I have found it very rewarding), remember the famous words "Here lies a man smart enough to hire people who knew more than he did". There is no substitute for a good accountant and lawyer. However, I will add that big and good are not the same. Do your research there too.
I stick with one, or in some cases two. The basic reasons are:
Common understanding by Developers- while I know a variety of languages, the next person probably does not. Nor can I expect to know all those that someone else might. Limiting choices provides a means to decide if an individual has the skills necessary to participate and to introduce training.
Resource Consumption- Each transition of languages, one to the next and back is resource consumptive. This tends to make applications with multiple languages more expensive (CPU, Memory, and response time) over single languages.
Developer Time- Very similar to machine resource, multiple languages tend to be more difficult to debug and more difficult to maintain. As developers now tend to be the most expensive part of a project, this can have a real impact on the budget
All that being said, there can be very good reasons to use multiple languages. Some languages have inherited limitations that would make a secondary option worthwhile. However, that needs to be weighed against the prior notes to ensure we are getting something for the extra effort.
Finally, all language transitions should be completely encapsulated. While a good idea regardless, try to make it as easy as possible replace a unit and especially to replace it without requiring changes to everyone calling it.
Slashdot Mirror
Everytime this appears we get a bunch of "we'll show them posters" threatening all kinds of interesting punishments. Forget it.
If/When the law passes each attempt to hack into their computers for any reason will be met with the recently passes "capital crime" of hacking punishment.
You are an individual. They are a corporation.
You are a terrorist. They are protecting the rights of American copyright holders.
You will get 5 - 25 years. They will get new releases on how good a job they are doing stopping these kids from stealing their products.
They donate large sums of money to congress. You are listed as a non-voting demographic. [Better than opposition party or extremist, you are a non-entity.]
I will be surprised if this makes the nightly news anywhere. They want this to be a non-story and will pay plenty to keep it that way. Any story that does arise will be spinning the "protecting America against copyright theft."
If you really want to do something, take five minutes, right now and FAX your representatives [You could try email. Are they any better at reading them today than last year?].
Be polite, be firm and be specific. DMCA got passed because many people expected someone else(our representatives) to see the lunacy in the approach. This just proves we can never underestimate the ability of smart people to do dumb things with the right incentive.
Here are the contacts:
Senate Locator
House of Representative Locator
Do it now
There are lots of things that could be done to convince Microsoft that this is a really bad idea.
Yes there are, and this would be the ideal time for them to happen. Then the PR machine would roll...
"Would you trust your business to..."
"Do you want your government run by..."
"This is what you can look forward to as a Window's user when you work with Linux..."
They have millions to spend on spin and are waiting for their "Rodney King" moment.
We have to be at our absolute best. Showing the business world that we can them in any mixture of Linux/Windows/MAC/UNIX/MVS, that meets their business needs. That the Linux community are the technologists who can improve the business model while reducing costs.
Laptops or tablets are a better option. I am an avid Palm fan/user however I also take a tablet (paper kind) to meetings. The limitations of writing and size are too great given the current level of technology. I read ebooks on my palm but I don't think a set of textbooks would be practical.
On the other hand, many people are going too high end. Forget gaming or graphics, etc. This is school. Text editing, note taking, paper writing, math solving (3 R's type work). How about new "older" versions of machines. Under-powered for today's executives but more than enough for this type of work. Even a "skinny" Linux capable of running KDE/GNOME and Open Office would give them a heck of a boost. (I said Linux because of the legal issues of attempting to outfit them with win98 and cost)
Too often I see these fail because everyone wants to supply a machine for the minority (1ghz+ processor, 256meg of ram and 40 gig hard drive. If the kids want to learn to code, or extend the power of what they are doing, that is fine, but we need a product for the masses. How about a 333mhx, 128 meg of memory, 4 gig hard drive, and modem/Ethernet card running at 800x600. It would seem someone could produce such a laptop that was shock resistant for under $500 a piece and still make money. This is so far off bleeding edge, offices are probably using them for door stops.
By the way, I used my laptop as this example(IBM 1400I) which does 80% of what I need to do as a developer (mail, documentation, notes, etc). I even manage a couple of games. These kids would be hard pressed to use this to its potential.
Come on laptop producers. Step up and take the challenge. How about making $12 on 10,000 machines instead of $100 on a 1000?
Quality is important, but how we use software is more important in our buying decision. They made a good point that given the plus side of the equation, most software is worth what you pay for it. Otherwise, people would not buy it.
Quality however is not free and the consumer must, in almost all business equations pay for it. In the case of dropping a Space Shuttle on Atlanta, our willingness to pay for additional quality controls is going to be much higher than testing a text editor.
Using the automotive analogy, I want my car to go 250,000 miles without any upkeep (oil changes, filters, etc.) The diffence in the engineering is that no one considers the auto example reasonable but they do with software for which they are paying 1/20th the price.
Your example is too simplistic for the issues that must be resolved. Instead, consider:
Motherboard "A" works fine with SoundX soundcard VideoV video card. You (the consumer) hear about the new VideoVx with 3 trillion instructions per second it makes quake look like a movie.
Now you install the new card VideoVx. After doing so, the system crashes. You pull out the sound card and everything is fine.
Now who is at fault?
The Video card maker:
Do we force every hardware update to be backwards compatible with every combination of hardware?
The Sound Card maker:
VideoVx was not even available when SoundX was created. Do we force every hardware maker to test and supply fixes for every new piece of hardware made available everyday?
The mother board maker:
They let the hardware conflict in some fashion or the system would not have died? Picture the permutations of hardware that would need to be tested to ensure that every possible combination of sound, video, cd, dvd, scanner, camera, hard drive, chipset, bios and operating system worked in any combination.
The OS supplier:
Face it, they did not prevent the interaction that allowed the failure. Of course, everyone was using them as stated, this specific combination however was not forseen when you bought the OS two years ago.
People keep mentioning architects/structural engineers/etc. Consider building a bridge where the materials changed four times a year. Would you know that mixing bolts of MaterialX with sleeves of material "Z" were an issue until a reaction (created by runoff from the surface of the road) happened? Of course not, nor do we expect them too.
This is why new materials are so slow to move into construction. We cannot afford to have buildings fall down.
"Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy, which the National Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates has cost the music business $4.2 billion in lost revenue last year. "
This is like Greenhouse gas, we all know its out there we just disagree on how much. $4.2 Billion? Not 6? or 3.1 or 2.8 or... Please this is an unmeasurable number.
With most papers owned or tied directly to the RIAA or MPAA we can expect more "advertising" and less objective news like this. Now Grandma will be out there saying how we need to do somthing about the kids today, stealing from the record companies.
My prediction...look for EULAs on CDs, DVDs and e-books.
Having done several of these, as your first project, with deep pockets and a compressed do date, you are going to have problems. Major, miss the date, lose your job type problems if you attempt to remote source it.
Oversea outsourcing has problems beyond the traditional remote support. I have and continue to be a strong proponent of remote support. You get the benefit of hiring expertise that may not want to locate near you. For example, I work remotely for clients where the cost of living is easily three times what I pay here. And they do not offer three times the compensation. It sounds like that is what you are after. A win-win.
Here are just some of the issues:
- Time zones are more than inconvenient. If a question does not get answered by 8 a.m. , it will sit until the next day. Picking up the phone sounds easy, but will not be. How many issues can pile up before the communication is complete or they stop asking and just begin assuming? Who gets to call meetings and who attends? As the person leading the project, are you ready to work day and night? Team, status, and planning meetings need to be held with everyone so when?
- Code is not code. Simply put, cultural differences create issues in code. If you wish to own the code when you are done, both parties need to understand what is acceptable standards and what will happen with code that needs to be reworked (do you still pay while they rewrite it?). Standards for names, fields, tables, access types, how and what type of inheritance is allowed, etc. Assuming they will be coding in English (yes, you do need to make it a requirement), unless you all agree (or they have worked extensively in the US), someone will be rewriting the code. Or you will need to look at it like generated code. It does the job, but you never want to maintain it.
- Cultures different. As Americans, we tend to be naive in the assumption of cultural neutrality. And while many organizations do their best to be neutral, language continues to be a barrier. Consider how difficult it can be to understand someone with a varied US dialect. Add the phone, email, and 5,000 miles and a simple statement "You wish the account number removed, no?" takes on a whole new meaning. My unscientific number of 30 -40% redundant communication will work to minimize these types of issues.
Some companies put an American in charge from your side. You work through them and they make sure the details get hammered out with the team. This helps a little, but sounds a lot better than it works in practice. I was approached by a company to have mine work as that front. I passed when I saw the only difference was I would now have all the issues the client had, plus my own.
- What if it fails? This is the one that can be a stickler. Suppose you are being told that your project is on schedule and all the areas are coming together. The status reports look good and the code is getting delivered right up to the point everything stops. What are you going to do? While this problem exists in many contractor type arrangements, these folks are overseas in a country where use of the legal system is unknown. I hate to say it, but at least here you can sue someone if for nothing else but to get the code that was created.
At this point, I foresee a number of people reaching for the "reply - he's a bigot button." Hardly. These are business decisions and people make them from the cost/benefit. Often the price appears cheaper, because the assumption is made that given any programmer "X" they will generate lines of code "Y" and the result will be the same. That is not the case and is simple as the difference between hiring a person out of school and one with 10 years experience. The both know C++ so the results will be the same, correct?
Finally, consider the current economy. You did not say where you are, but I am willing to bet you could get the project staffed locally (or even US remote) for less TCO than you think. If they insist you use off shore help, then research carefully and find out the number of oversea projects done by the firm managed from the US. Of that total, how many were on time and on budget when complete. Then contact those customers and get their input. If their references are not glowing consider what the unhappy customers would be saying.
You may be the one that kicks the trend. However, I would be careful about putting your career on the line for it.
I wonder if MS will continue to use the leverage of DMCA to ensure SAMBA's demise. A great product is about to meet the MS giant if the DOJ settles like it appears it wants to.
Great job folks. I hope we get to see new releases for years to come and I do not mean to rain on your parade. Instead I wish to remind everyone what is at stake in this.
a long-awaited privacy bill Wednesday that would allow U.S. businesses to share information about customers
Would this qualify as an oxymoron? Exactly how does releasing my private information qualify as privacy? Have these people ever opened a dictionary? Mr. & Mrs. Public would be up in arms if then knew they leaders were voting to allow their credit card companies access to their medical records. If you are sick isn't there a good chance you may miss a payment? Further, if you have a genetic pre-disposition to a disease, regardless of whether you have it, your employer should know, shouldn't they?
A group of business leaders from high-tech firms said the bill struck the right balance between consumers and businesses
A "group of business leaders". Would this be the same group being paid to collate and distribute this data? Or perhaps, the people that want the data? In either case, at least they are honest enough to admit the public is either in the dark or against it. [Okay, that is my spin... ]
I'll predict a much greater level of Internet usage with these privacy policies in place," Boucher said.
Amazing is that as a republican, who should be for more local government and smaller federal government, we have instead the rider that states this will override more restrictive local laws. Even more amusing (frightening?) is his biography which lists him as "a leading architect of federal policy for the Internet." I am really pressed to put some type of sarcasm here, but nothing I could say would be more foolish than his statement.
I know I make this pitch every time one of these things get started, but contact your representatives.
House of Representatives
Senators
And please remember: Be concise, polite, and on paper (fax may even be better as it is not double processed through the mail). In addition, CC the letter to your local newspaper's letter to the editor and you may as well try their email address. (But remember the study done last year, most representatives do not read emails)
My favorite: "My main objection is that tickets are continuing to be issued before I have an opportunity to adjust my speed based on the first ticket," said Miriam Balutis of Arlington, who was cited for four camera-captured violations in one week -- but did not receive any tickets for a month. This "strongly suggests that deterrence is not the goal of this program."
Is it a monetary incentive for the cities? Probably, but so what? If you are caught speeding or running a red light, you did the crime, stop whining about it. As for the "Balutis Judicial System", using this logic, I should be able to rob banks until I am convicted on the first one. Further, you cannot hold any of the robberies between the first and when I was arrested against me. I did not have time to "adjust my behavior based on the arrest."
Then we have the "police were not there" group. Following their logic we should prevent the introduction of video taped evidence of the robbery because the police were not there to actually witness the event. Where do they find people with such a poor grasp of logic and how do they always manage to get press?
Technology is going to be misused, but this is not such a case. The people who are getting caught are guilty, even by their own admission.
If they wish to make the argument, it was not them, or the machine was incorrect, etc. that would be fine. But "it's not fair?" Give me a break.
While it would be beneficial to force such an account, it is on this same ground that we constantly roast MS. Forced software upgrades under the auspices of improved security, stability, etc.
Consulting with dozens of corporations, I have seen many run old versions of anything from compilers to CICS regions to security patches. Sometimes for business reasons (cost) and sometimes for compatibility (upgrading to a current version causes incompatibility with their client's software). Whether we consider them legitimate, the business does and it is critical that we not add to the issues of OSS adoption.
While Jon was speaking in general terms, and the devil is in the details, his idea does have merit. The implementation would need to allow for the positive acceptance of risk by the software user. If I have a specific need to run netSecsoftXYZ beyond its expiration, I should be able to do so without it shutting down. In addition, I should not need to recompile or reboot to continue operating with the existing version. In this way, I acknowledge that I am running an older version at "my risk." The responsibility for my choice would then be placed with the organization.
This does leave the potential for abuse. However, we cannot avoid the potential misuse of something to halt its development. Just as we want to be able to make backups even if the device could be used to illegally copy software.
In the long run, the number of people impacted is so small, companies do not care.
It pisses off the company's current staff
With the mood in America (200,000+ layoffs) the employer / employee relationship is such that many people feel this way without a draconian employer. In addition, software patents have the potential to make a company millions. Open sourcing the work prevents that.
It hurts the company when it's recruiting
Rarely. While I have seen loved postings about striking paragraphs and rewriting lines, they were apparently dealing with rookies.
Unless you have a skill that cannot be gotten elsewhere you are not worth the headache. Making the comments, or striking paragraphs telegraphs the kind of player you are going to be. Nothing forces you to take a job, but nothing forces them to hire you either. (Patent=$millions)
It discourages staff from furthering their knowledge and experience.
They want you to get the training, but they expect it to be put to work for them. Two questions to ask of the people you work with: 1-How many have heard of Slashdot? 2-How many know what open source software is and how it is developed? The number of people impacted by such an approach is so small that it just does not matter.
I'm amazed this company has the balls to treat it staff so badly. Let's face it, treating your most valuable employees as little more than street urchins, turning away potentially brilliant hires because they refused to be shackled 24/7 and discouraging your employees from broadening their programming horizons and skills is incredibly short-sighted
Okay, real cynical time... Yes it is short sighted. I completly agree and they probably would if they appraise it from a people perspective. However, they do not care. Your knowledge is only good for the technology you are producing. (Patent=$millions again) It is becoming very common for companies to buy tech knowledge. Move to XYZ? Hire XYZ programmers, who are probably young and thus cheap. Moving to PDQ? Lose the XYZ folks unless they can come up to speed without much help. Otherwise, use them until the new system is in.
When I negotiate with a client, I tell them up front, their goal should be to get rid of contractors as quickly as possible. Use us for knowledge transfer and to backfill while your people get up to speed on the technology.
Lets use a simple example... In your quest for a PhD you find a way to ship packets at twice the speed currently thought possible with a minor software upgrade at the switch.
Your school thanks you, because most PhD work belongs to them. (Check ALL the papers you signed when applying) Your employer thanks you, because all the work for hire belongs to them. The lawyers love or hate you depending on which side of the fence they are on.
In the end, you are hosed pretty good. These things can happen without evil intent, but you are still in trouble once your name is on the line.
Tell them to read everything carefully and if they are in doubt, call a lawyer. $200 now beats thousands later.
Not being on the inside of Loki, I can only guess, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt that they believed "this" was the month that would pull them out of it.
Not being able to live without two paychecks merely identifies the level of risk you are willing to accept. I have worked for clients with 90+ day payment cycles, so my level of risk is higher. The Loki people apparently were far less risk adverse than either of us. Maybe they wanted it to work and saw a big pay day if they could just pull it off in the end.
Or if you want to be cynical, consider people buy lottery tickets too. Which leads to my favorite bumper sticker: Lotteries are a tax on people bad at math. But people well educated, well rounded and grounded people do it anyway.
Perhaps a Loki lurker would care to comment.
I have been telecommuting for over three years. Forget the advice you are getting here, most of it is wrong. Even with a T1 or better you are not going to get any type of lost time guarantee. The absolute best deal I have seen is some percentage of line cost returned after an extended (as defined by the contract) outage.
Every deal is unique and residential customers are so far down the line as to be without any hope(I have dealt with Bell Atlantic, Verizon, and Bell South). My favorite comment was from the Bell South rep who, when I could only connect to the office at 13k, told me that they only guarantee 9600 baud on a residential phone line and anything better was just lucky. (It relates back to fax machines of all things.)
While that was a residential line, a business less promises faster service, rarely anything else. If you are a large company, you get very fast service and little downtime because of a service level agreement(SLA) and the ability to backbone with other choices. As a single telecommuter, you have no clout and most local service has no alternate carrier so they know you cannot leave. Feel free to write to the public utilities commission or whatever your state supports. They will tell you that under the connection agreement, there is nothing they can do.
Yes - it sucks. No - it's not fair. As the attorney for Verizon told me - they don't care. Tough to argue when they are willing to admit they could care less about what you like or don't. You could always try a two way satellite link. But that will cost you about $80/month to use as a backup and VPN is a real issue.
Most of us work with this hardware every day, and are well aware it is toxic in many forms. Unlike televisions (which should also be included), people tend to have at least one computer or more per person. (I have three in my house, ten+ if you include machines I have upgraded from)
/dev/null. Everything gets passed to the consumer because, well... we consume.
Adding, $5, $10, or even $20 to a system is not going to kill us. However, I would want it to be used directly for the recycling of the machines and everyone (business and individual) alike must pay at point of purchase. The fact that a company buys 1000+ boxes, is no reason for a discount on recycling. By putting it at point of purchase, we can still donate boxes, etc. without having to worry about the charity paying the fee.
In addition, we should be able to put the stuff at the curb with the other recyclables. Who would spend $100 shipping back a PIII three years from now? It would end up hidden in the dumpster.
Finally, my favorite statement was:
"the high-tech industry hasn't done nearly enough and foists costs onto consumers that should be picked up by the manufacturers themselves" There are no zero return business costs anymore. NONE, ZERO, zilch,
There is a lot of good feedback here. Some of it written in the best prose I have seen in a while. Almost every entry had something great in it.
;-) I strongly recommend everyone try the most recent stable version of Open Office. You may be very surprised, what OSS can get you.]
You began your entry with: In an effort to improve my coding skills, what are Slashdot readers' biggest pet peeves when it comes to software?
First and foremost, remember you are writing code. Some of it will be great. A lot of it will be mediocre, dull, or poor. The biggest mistakes I see in developers, even "old" developers is an inability to admit they created something poorly. Part of it is pride, and part of it is the desire to avoid "fixing it".
If you wish to be at the leading edge, get over the emotion. We are not calling your children ugly or discussing the virtue of your mother. It is code. Look for people to criticize and complain, bitch and moan. Then decide if they are right, or if you took a new direction on purpose. (Hey, someone thought Open office should open all the applications at one time.)
Stand up and get out more. Hermits are unwilling to run an idea by anyone because they take everything personally. So they code, and code, and code and then we refit, retrofit, and enhance afterwards. Talk your boss into putting a white board in the aisle and run coding decisions, access questions, and design considerations past anyone willing to stick their head out. You will get garbage and gems. However, you will get more to think about and that will certainly improve your coding. (Especially if someone points out that opening all the office applications at once may be an issue.)
[BTW - I picked on open office because it is an issue that has been beaten to death. Some would say this horse was whipped to death only to have us start on it's children.
Sourceforge has been a strong supporter of OSS for some time and I believe I understand the issues with leaving a project without any activity alive forever.
My concern is the potential loss of projects that could occur if under the terms SF sells or dissolves. Without a reasonable recourse (even if SF has the best of intentions today), we would have people keeping copies of entire projects waiting for the current or future SF organization to decide to kill off project XX. Then how would the rest of us find it later? (SFapster?)
While it is certainly their right, as they own the machines, part of their popularity has been the ability for projects to get slow starts, have long development cycles, and even close but still have the code around in the event it is ever needed.
Perhaps it has been unrealistic to expect any company to absorb the cost of potentially the largest change management system on the planet for free. However, the also fostered that idea.
While people will argue it is not a big deal, it will be when they need to exercise the right to kill projects and do so without notification.
Perhaps a alternate solution would be a source forge front page notification of "projects about to be killed unless we hear someone is willing to own it." At least there is a possibility someone would see it before the "messenger of death" strikes.
A poor example: if I were convicted of embezzling $1 million from a bank, and donated $100,000 to re-elect the prosecutor. It would be fair for the judge to question a surprisingly light sentence offered in a plea bargain.
While it is not illegal, it is the reason for the Turney Act. If it can be shown they were using their money to influence the outcome of the penalty phase of the trial, the judge must consider it before accepting the agreement. In fact, it would be a reason to force the government to go back and renegotiate, or if the judge considered any outcome between the parties tainted, she could enforce her own.
Based on past statements from her, I question if this formality has any influence at all. But, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. It is not a perfect system, but it is a second check of the process.
[IANAL--YMMV]
Interestingly I make my living providing this type of support to organizations. So here is my standard lead in... "There is no silver bullet." Okay, it is cliché, but it is so for a reason. No product does everything for everyone all the time. Those that get close are often ineffective because the overhead of running them is unexpected costs (system resources, training, or response time).
Are you planning to retrain your team to the tool and language of choice? Have you prepared for the cost and lost time due to incorporating a new tool and language? Are you prepared for the "first timer" punishment or will you be bringing in experts? Do you know how to tell if they are experts? Can you identify the difference between a consultant and contractor?
You mention support for multiple-inheritance. Some people argue that if it exists in an application you did not understand what you were doing. Are they correct? How would you know? "portable (at compile-time) across various platforms." Do you know which platforms? Across Linux, SUN, and AIX will be a different list than across Windows, AS400 and MVS. Support for "advanced error handling" and "advanced object oriented design". How would that differ from "standard" version? Does your organization understand how to weigh these features against their long term support and run time costs?
My experience has been when people ask questions like this, the building is on fire, and they hope someone will have a "tool" to fix a project that is 15 months behind schedule and $3 million over budget. Even if that does not describe you today, it may in 24 months. Determine your project feature needs, consider where you want to be in 5 years, look at the resources (people, $$$, hardware, software) in both cost and availability. These determine your potential for success. Then try to match products against the project.
If this describes your organization and you are taking this approach I strongly advise reading Rapid Development : Taming Wild Software Schedules It will provide the hard data to show your organization why you cannot tool out of a project issue.
When the time comes to choose a tool, the significant key is choose something that does not lock you in to anything. As you saw in your initial scoping of products, something will always be better in one product over another. Just avoid the position that a tool vendor must survive for your company to survive.
"Should the US prohibit the export of high-encryption software? Here is a case where the default values (40 bit) clearly helped recover valuable information from a system."
If the US could somehow ensure that we were the only ones who provided encryption, this may be an argument on national security bounds. However, we cannot.
If anything, all of this talk about encryption has provided criminals with the knowledge that we can eventually break in. Even if that were not the case, better encryption is available in any of over a hundred countries, many with little concern for US regulations. I believe 128-bit encryption has been freely available for years, provided by companies outside the US.
We need freely available encryption of every higher levels to stay ahead of our enemies (and some would argue our friends). Consider it only took five days to break the 40-bit encryption. How long would it take someone to brute force his or her way into a financial institution? Banks, trading firms; electronic merchants, etc. are and or should be constantly upgrading their security and encryption levels.
Encryption should be viewed like a car. A car has very powerful, valuable, perhaps even essential uses. Unfortunately, people can use cars to rob, kidnap, and murder. Still, we allow and even encourage access to cars because the benefits far outweigh the problems that periodically occur.
I'm wondering why both VM's can't be included in a distro and allowing the end user to select the one he/she wishes to compile into the kernel? Are the two implementations THAT mutually exclusive?
The issue appears to fall into the simplicity of installation. Yes, we could have both sent, but one will need to be the default or we make all users recompile the kernel. That would really sound bad from a PR perspective.
BTW, this kind of bashing between the high priests of Linux is not good. You can bet your bottom dollar that MS is going to use this conflict to fuel their propaganda machine, saying Linux is a fractious OS run by a bunch of young upstarts who can't agree on anything.
This issue has to do with the public nature of open source. I am certain MS has people on the mailing lists (as does every competitor), so the message would get out. With billions to spend on advertising, even an non-issue can be made one.
I hope people are able to understand that disagreement, consensus and resolution are part of what keeps OSS healthy. We do not have a single point of failure in leadership and that is a very good thing. If we all blindly followed Linus, we would sound like zealots and the competition would focus on that.
I am sorry they will allow requestors to delete their own postings. While we might wish it otherwise, 10, 20, 50 years later, this may be the real historical value. To purge, seems the equivalent of having a letter to the editor removed from newspaper archives.
To those who feel like "they are walking around with their baby picture stapled to their forehead", we all mature. What I thought at 20, 30, and 40 show how I grew. What other archive in human history can provide the transitional opinions, discussions, and outright imbecilic flames wars?
While we would hate to have someone pull out our post in support of the flat earth theory, to act as though we all believed the earth was round is rewriting history. Convenient for us, but misleading to the future.
The question now becomes, what happens after Google and Slashdot, when the archive is tera-bytes large? Will it take 100 years for the next conversion?
I worked for one of the top three Global IT consulting firms and after 11 years as a consultant went to a smaller company and finally started my own. The numbers you are throwing out are dependent on so many things, and you are new so the pessimist in me say you are probably going to learn an unfortunate lesson.
[Assuming you live in the United States...]
First, incorporating for $100 is not going to happen. While IANAL or accountant, just filing the paperwork in the US costs that much. Then of course, you have corporate taxes and foreign corporation filings in the event you incorporate in a state like Delaware, but chose to work in say Maryland. These folks get paid even if you do not. Yep, zero income still pays the taxman. Most states have a minimum corporate tax.
Talk to an accountant, have them work the numbers for you and help you decide. Also question the need for incorporation. This used to be done by small businesses to protect the owner's assets. In many states, they have fixed that loophole so if you screw up someone's system, incorporation will not protect you, but the fact you have no money may. This is also the reason many companies will not take on small contracting firms. If the people at the firm completely screw up they have no recourse.
As for your offers, first and foremost payrate is an arbitrary word. Billable rate is what you care about. This is the $$$ per hour, job, project, etc. a corporation will pay for you to be there. If you do not know your billable rate, the numbers are absolutely meaningless (and many would argue are meant to be that way). Consider that a company may be billed $100/hour, would you expect to get $86 under option 2? Unless you know they pay $100 for your services, the company could tell you the payrate is $84/hour (payrate being the amount after expenses and profit are taken).
That out of the way, I want to take you through the three you have listed:
1)Corp to Corp (100% payrate) - I do not understand this one. If you get 100% how are the people who placed you getting paid? My guess is payrate and billable rates are in no way related. Remember all expenses are probably yours. That means when a client asks you to fly to California tomorrow, the $2200 ticket may be yours to pay for. Even your own expenses: both sides of social security, Medicare, health insurance, life insurance, etc.
Understand what you are responsible for. Also remember you will need to cover those months you do not have a contract. $50/hour sounds good while you are making it, but it is $10/hour if you only work four-months in five.
(2)Independent Contractor (86% payrate) This is a pretty good rate. Actually it is a nearly unbelievable rate, because the firm needs at least 16% in most states to break even when you consider taxes, etc. Heck they lose 10% on federal taxes alone, plus they need sales reps, office space, and a profit. Here, they are getting 14%, which makes this a little, difficult to believe I would say. However, it is not impossible. If you have a specialized skill they may pay you this rate just to have the skill or they may use your work as a means to put more people at the site. A lost leader is not out of the question. Like option 1, know what you are expected to pay for.
(3) W2 Employee (62% payrate and a moderate weekly expense stipend). Moderate weekly stipend? What does that mean? The IRS sets the per diems by city each year. If you are not getting expenses covered at 100% then expect per diem. If it is less than that (see the IRS website for per Diem amounts, question it. As for being an employee in general, I would think hard about this one. What does being an employee provide you besides a lower income? I wish it was not true, but job security at any place is pretty much a myth. I have seen places lay off employees while keeping consultants and contractors.
As for what is deductible, get a receipt for everything from your computer to gas in your car. Get one of those books from an office supply place and track the mileage and usage daily, same with expenses. Setup a simple spreadsheet and hang onto every receipt for at least three years. If you are going to have a "home office" make it one. That means it cannot double for something else. People will tell you this is a sure sign for the IRS to audit, but if you are using it as a home office, you have no concerns. If it is your bedroom with a computer desk...
As for how to run it as a business, consider the differences between a contractor and a consultant. A consultant adds value. They bring more to the table than is being asked, they lead and are looked up to while offering constructive input. They know when to be quiet and that in the end, they are paid to do a job even if they do not agree with the approach. In the end, you must get the job done. Any of my clients can get in touch with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Do you need to be this way? No, but I just watched employees and every other consultant get dumped from a client where I still sit. Why? I believe it is because I get the job done without complaint or hassle. Day, night or weekend.
When you do leave, either on your own or because you time is up: Smile, and thank them for the wonderful opportunity. No one said this would be a long-term relationship and this helps ensure you can come back at the next opportunity.
Finally, this is a good question in a bad place (and I wish I had a better place to send you). We all have opinions but remember with free advice you get what you pay for and here there is little to prove I am not a 14-year-old who got my computer three weeks ago. If you are going to do this on your own (and I have found it very rewarding), remember the famous words "Here lies a man smart enough to hire people who knew more than he did". There is no substitute for a good accountant and lawyer. However, I will add that big and good are not the same. Do your research there too.
Common understanding by Developers- while I know a variety of languages, the next person probably does not. Nor can I expect to know all those that someone else might. Limiting choices provides a means to decide if an individual has the skills necessary to participate and to introduce training.
Resource Consumption- Each transition of languages, one to the next and back is resource consumptive. This tends to make applications with multiple languages more expensive (CPU, Memory, and response time) over single languages.
Developer Time- Very similar to machine resource, multiple languages tend to be more difficult to debug and more difficult to maintain. As developers now tend to be the most expensive part of a project, this can have a real impact on the budget
All that being said, there can be very good reasons to use multiple languages. Some languages have inherited limitations that would make a secondary option worthwhile. However, that needs to be weighed against the prior notes to ensure we are getting something for the extra effort.
Finally, all language transitions should be completely encapsulated. While a good idea regardless, try to make it as easy as possible replace a unit and especially to replace it without requiring changes to everyone calling it.