I've been in a number of companies where the larger competitor uses an event (like an hiring an ex. employee) as a method for discovery about their competitor.
This is also a very typical abuse of the courts for trademark cases. They go to court under the guise of protecting their trademark and require in their discovery the financial records of their competitor.
Every single company I've worked for has been sued by a competitor. In each instance, they drop the case right after my employer submitted their discovery.
On an individual level:
The best weapon I've ever seen is vacation time. This takes a little planning, but it's absolutely the best way to control crazy situations like this.
The idea is to have a few days of vacation/personal time available to take right after you submit your resignation. If the employer is being an ass, take them. If the employer is being nice, make sure your stuff is being transferred to others and come in and out as you please during your "vacation".
I knew one guy who gave his two weeks notice the day before his two week vacation. Employer totally deserved it and there was nothing they could say or do.
Then there's the business aspect... you've just finished alienating all of your "Plays for Sure" licensees, now you're going to alienate all of your Windows Mobile licensees?
Yes indeed they are. The most recent example is "Plays for Sure." At some point, Microsoft PHB's decide their customers can't do a good enough job so they do it themselves. This thinking is front-loaded with so much hubris that it is downright funny.
Then again, humility is not a desirable trait for any PHB/executive.
This is what happens when the belief that markets should be less regulated is not examined carefully. We've had decades of blind faith regarding the miraculous powers of capitalism and it seems to me there's little to show for it.
Are societies as a whole better off with _less_ regulated markets? Yes. There is however a huge category of desirable elements in a society that are actually harmed under capitalism.
I keep having this strange dream where most of the governments of the industrialized nations got tired of the myriad of problems they have when one connects a relatively anonymous PC to the Internet and decided to do something like mount a smart card module on a motherboard to generate a unique, verifiable signature (among other things) for each pc.
1. Anyone with half a brain new this was coming. 2. No doubt there are *lots* of exploits waiting to be found. This is a Microsoft OS after all. Microsoft's core strength is Marketing and general amoral anything-goes business practices certainly not operating systems. 3. This is all very temporary. As Tivo's smart card/signed OS has shown Microsoft the way to maintaining their artificially high price for an operating system and subsequent inflated hardware prices.
It makes me so sad to see stories like this tagged with "haha." There is such a small number of people that understand the implications of DRM and the ultimate harm to all that they are simply marginalized as "nut jobs/OSS holy warriors."
The last laugh absolutely, positively, is Microsoft's and the broader special interests they serve.
Since this is the slashdot echo chamber, go about your business being morally outraged and doing nothing.
Now the slashdot echo chamber will have a moment of self-satisfaction while more theft, more corporate domination and fraud at the expense of consumers and entrepreneurs.
Most importantly: We don't have to get out of our chairs and participate in our political system to make the government we want. Woohoo!
Oracle has one kind of customer, MySQL has another kind of customer.
Just a guess, but I'll go out on a limb and state that any hopes MySQL had in wooing really pricey billable hour customers is evaporating. Even if I'm wrong, the mood at MySQL has probably been a little less happy when they figured out Oracle was going after the top of the consulting/support dollars.
There's still *so* much they have to offer for businesses willing to pay. They just need to keep at it and understand that Oracle won't be the first company to do this to them. Microsoft will surely follow with some kind of crazy scheme. They have to at some point as their arrangement with Novell suggests they need to at least appear as if they have something like OSS to offer.
The logical next step is to allow only hardware and partial-hardware players. Correct. Welcome to trusted platform computing. It's coming and Microsoft will be forcing it down your throat. See WMP 10's drm, Vista's DRM. Tip of the iceberg.
f the keys are truly embedded in the "trusted" ASIC: Making custom chips is expensive Wrong wrong wrong! It's called a smart card module. A surface mount is simply another package.
If the keys are somehow individualized to each computer.... Smart card modules that are actually microprocessor are specifically designed for this kind of activity and very difficult to compromise.
The smart card module will make it sufficiently difficult to freely copy digital content very few will do it. That's the objective, not 100% air-tight DRM.
This is hardly a freedom of speech issue when the content in question is username/pwds. It would be if it were "billy-bob gates suckx and makes bad products..."
The more effective approach is to build the business case against choosing godaddy in the future. Nothing hurts them more than a shot in the pocketbook.
Personally, I question the wisdom of going with a company the size of godaddy to begin with. But that's me.
There is a standard not surprisingly formulated by VISA/MC/Europay callled EMV. It's not perfect, but it's very good. You'll notice not one peep out of financial institutions about switching to EMV while the rest of the world makes the transition albeit slowly.
One of the problems with it from the American Fascist perspective is it implements some security features that would change the way they collect data about idividual banking activities. Spying on your citizens on a national scale is tricky IT business and changing your data collection tools a real PITA. Oh, and the bank regulators won't force the banks into more security so we all lose.
I work in a small win32 shop and even we won't consider it for another couple of years.
The alternative my PHB is actually considering deploying 2003 server as a desktop. If you are used to thinking that Microsoft is very good stuff and find Vista generally bad, this kind of bizarre thinking takes hold. It is safe to assume that vista adoption is a forgone conclusion.
I make a decent wage babysitting Microsoft stuff. I specifically don't advocate any platform at work. That's my bosses decision. Though, if we switched to Linux I'm positive we'd do a whole lot less babysitting.
You are forgetting the role of propaganda in influencing opinion and perceptions.
Nevermind science! Say it enough times and make sure people can hear it and it will at the bare minimum exert influence on the debate. The propaganda keeps the facts in check for as long as possible. Americans rush to invade Iraq by actually weighing the dis-jointed propaganda that was spoonfed to them is living proof of this.
Free is a very serious issue for text book companies too. In both cases, there is so much money to be made that muddying the debate you look like a fool actually advocating the old-fashioned scientific ideal. Colleges that do research long ago quit pursuing the ideal in exchange for fancy equipment they feed companies of all stripes science to do with as they please.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there are many corporations where the chairman and ceo are separate.
Furthermore: 1. The shares of stock in a corporation that have the ability to vote is usually a separate class of stock. Please examine your stock certificates carefully! 2. Major chunks of voting blocks of stock are held by select few in the average corporation. General meetings are practically meaningless. 3. Corporate charters typically forbid the collection of more than a meaningless block of voting shares. Certainly not enough to control a seat on a board. 4. Finally, a corporation that actually would cede control to public markets is the surest sign of an imminent valuation death spiral. This is one reason insider trading is followed so closely.
Textbook examples of corporate governance are that. They have nothing to do with real life. Sadly, you and the moderators believe that's how it actually works.
Most board members are chosen by the CEO. So, chances are excellent they don't want to report to an underling at the board meeting.
One of the major misconceptions most people have is they assume "the board" keeps the CEO in line. That's the exception, not the rule. It's a club people.
Bush won the election because Kerry was a wishy-washy asshole. It's that simple.
Go ahead just invalidate some of the most important policies and procedures that are supposed to make this government/society work by reducing the issue to a simple matter of personal opinion.
Nevermind the rule of law. Nevermind procedures that are the outcome of the rule of law. "I say it, therefore it is!"
The casual attitude the parent and moderators take is the rule of Despots not a Democracy.
This is what is happening in the world of GPL 3, when looking in from the sidelines. GPL 3 are the silky bonds that when all is said and done, could bind us tighter than any EULA developed by Microsoft
Clearly you need to examine the issues much closer. One important example that needs to be examined carefully is Tivo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization This is a novel form of theft that made GPL V2 meaningless. Maybe you've heard about Novell and their "innovative" end-run around the GPL? GPL V3 is required to close the loopholes that opportunistic asshats have opened. There will probably be a GPL V4 as other "innovations" are discovered in the GPL.
Attempting to marginalize free (as in freedom) software benefits no one. I would argue it actually reduces innovation and overall public benefit that computers/software bring to a society.
I'm bedazzled by the sheer ignorance displayed in this thread.
First of all, the rest of the world is already using a pretty secure standard for two-factor authentication called EMV. It's all there, smart card vendors support the standard, card manufacturing plants can produce EMV cards, banking software supports it.
Second RSA IS NOT cost effective in banking. Nevermind the logistics and cost of replacing lost RSA fobs, RSA will use the opportunity to ream the bank an extra-large you-know-what. Where else are you going to go?
It is pretty much always the case, the gov't will own the source on this one for many reasons.
1. Body of Employee Law Since most employer/employee law leaves no room for interpreting "spare time" vs. "work time" other than how much money you have to lawyer-up he'll lose on this one because he'll run out of money defending his position.
2. Body of State/Fed Law I know the Feds have a policy whereby they own the source on things written for them. It would not surprise me to hear this used as the "authority" whereby the code is taken.
What's sad is the guy has committed career suicide at this point and, if he hasn't already blown a bunch of money lawyering-up for the pricipal/principal(sp?) that this is his code.
Developers please note: This kind of theft of useful code/ideas is SOP in public service. If you have a great idea, develop it on your own time and find a completely unrelated avenue to promoting it. GPL is one way to go about this.
As someone with personal experience in the area of gov't contracts, there is no way on dog's green earth this guy is going to get anything but a "don't call us we'll call you" from the Fed's.
What most citizens fail to comprehend is the contracts for things already supplied in very large quantities to the Fed's don't change. They don't until enough moral/political outrage is generated from a given situation that "something must be done!" In the meantime, you get no straight answers from anyone anywhere on the Fed's side.
He may have a great product, but this is where business acumen is important. The guy has two practical options from a business perspective: 1. License the technology for pennies on the dollar to the guys already supplying armor to the DOD and then get screwed by them because they know they didn't pay the guy enough to lawyer-up for the battle to establish the obvious years later. This is a classic move in big-business. Buy innovaters then put their innovations on the shelf where they are "safe."
2. Find other markets. One I'm sure would have some interest is the stunts industry in the U.S. If I still rode mtn bikes, I'd look into this to protect my old bones on some of my favorite descents. (The ones that haven't been lawyered away that is) Meanwhile, find a federal contractor who is powerful enough to run at whoever is providing armor now. It'll take 10 years to get a single purchase order, but maybe by the time the guy's grandchildren are running the company they'll be protecting soldiers.
In case you didn't know Tivo is at least one of the parties to blame for starting a GPL V3 by creating a novel way to simultaneously privatize a Linux-based OS and keep it out of the hands of hackers. It's called tivoization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization and it's a novel form of theft.
Slashdot Mirror
I bet there's no way for an uploader to declare their content advert-free.
No one saw this coming? Free is not a business model.
I've been in a number of companies where the larger competitor uses an event (like an hiring an ex. employee) as a method for discovery about their competitor.
This is also a very typical abuse of the courts for trademark cases. They go to court under the guise of protecting their trademark and require in their discovery the financial records of their competitor.
Every single company I've worked for has been sued by a competitor. In each instance, they drop the case right after my employer submitted their discovery.
On an individual level:
The best weapon I've ever seen is vacation time. This takes a little planning, but it's absolutely the best way to control crazy situations like this.
The idea is to have a few days of vacation/personal time available to take right after you submit your resignation. If the employer is being an ass, take them. If the employer is being nice, make sure your stuff is being transferred to others and come in and out as you please during your "vacation".
I knew one guy who gave his two weeks notice the day before his two week vacation. Employer totally deserved it and there was nothing they could say or do.
Then there's the business aspect... you've just finished alienating all of your "Plays for Sure" licensees, now you're going to alienate all of your Windows Mobile licensees?
Yes indeed they are. The most recent example is "Plays for Sure." At some point, Microsoft PHB's decide their customers can't do a good enough job so they do it themselves. This thinking is front-loaded with so much hubris that it is downright funny.
Then again, humility is not a desirable trait for any PHB/executive.
is this example right here.
b urns.htm
This is what happens when the belief that markets should be less regulated is not examined carefully. We've had decades of blind faith regarding the miraculous powers of capitalism and it seems to me there's little to show for it.
Are societies as a whole better off with _less_ regulated markets? Yes. There is however a huge category of desirable elements in a society that are actually harmed under capitalism.
This guy is on the right track! http://www.thesimpsons.com/bios/bios_townspeople_
to the phrase "largest enterprise clients."
I keep having this strange dream where most of the governments of the industrialized nations got tired of the myriad of problems they have when one connects a relatively anonymous PC to the Internet and decided to do something like mount a smart card module on a motherboard to generate a unique, verifiable signature (among other things) for each pc.
Just a dream though...
1. Anyone with half a brain new this was coming.
2. No doubt there are *lots* of exploits waiting to be found. This is a Microsoft OS after all. Microsoft's core strength is Marketing and general amoral anything-goes business practices certainly not operating systems.
3. This is all very temporary. As Tivo's smart card/signed OS has shown Microsoft the way to maintaining their artificially high price for an operating system and subsequent inflated hardware prices.
It makes me so sad to see stories like this tagged with "haha." There is such a small number of people that understand the implications of DRM and the ultimate harm to all that they are simply marginalized as "nut jobs/OSS holy warriors."
The last laugh absolutely, positively, is Microsoft's and the broader special interests they serve.
Since this is the slashdot echo chamber, go about your business being morally outraged and doing nothing.
Now the slashdot echo chamber will have a moment of self-satisfaction while more theft, more corporate domination and fraud at the expense of consumers and entrepreneurs.
Most importantly: We don't have to get out of our chairs and participate in our political system to make the government we want. Woohoo!
Oracle has one kind of customer, MySQL has another kind of customer.
Just a guess, but I'll go out on a limb and state that any hopes MySQL had in wooing really pricey billable hour customers is evaporating. Even if I'm wrong, the mood at MySQL has probably been a little less happy when they figured out Oracle was going after the top of the consulting/support dollars.
There's still *so* much they have to offer for businesses willing to pay. They just need to keep at it and understand that Oracle won't be the first company to do this to them. Microsoft will surely follow with some kind of crazy scheme. They have to at some point as their arrangement with Novell suggests they need to at least appear as if they have something like OSS to offer.
The logical next step is to allow only hardware and partial-hardware players.
Correct. Welcome to trusted platform computing. It's coming and Microsoft will be forcing it down your throat. See WMP 10's drm, Vista's DRM. Tip of the iceberg.
f the keys are truly embedded in the "trusted" ASIC: Making custom chips is expensive
Wrong wrong wrong! It's called a smart card module. A surface mount is simply another package.
If the keys are somehow individualized to each computer....
Smart card modules that are actually microprocessor are specifically designed for this kind of activity and very difficult to compromise.
The smart card module will make it sufficiently difficult to freely copy digital content very few will do it. That's the objective, not 100% air-tight DRM.
This is hardly a freedom of speech issue when the content in question is username/pwds. It would be if it were "billy-bob gates suckx and makes bad products..."
The more effective approach is to build the business case against choosing godaddy in the future. Nothing hurts them more than a shot in the pocketbook.
Personally, I question the wisdom of going with a company the size of godaddy to begin with. But that's me.
There is a standard not surprisingly formulated by VISA/MC/Europay callled EMV. It's not perfect, but it's very good. You'll notice not one peep out of financial institutions about switching to EMV while the rest of the world makes the transition albeit slowly.
One of the problems with it from the American Fascist perspective is it implements some security features that would change the way they collect data about idividual banking activities. Spying on your citizens on a national scale is tricky IT business and changing your data collection tools a real PITA. Oh, and the bank regulators won't force the banks into more security so we all lose.
Seriously.
I work in a small win32 shop and even we won't consider it for another couple of years.
The alternative my PHB is actually considering deploying 2003 server as a desktop. If you are used to thinking that Microsoft is very good stuff and find Vista generally bad, this kind of bizarre thinking takes hold. It is safe to assume that vista adoption is a forgone conclusion.
I make a decent wage babysitting Microsoft stuff. I specifically don't advocate any platform at work. That's my bosses decision. Though, if we switched to Linux I'm positive we'd do a whole lot less babysitting.
You are forgetting the role of propaganda in influencing opinion and perceptions.
Nevermind science! Say it enough times and make sure people can hear it and it will at the bare minimum exert influence on the debate. The propaganda keeps the facts in check for as long as possible. Americans rush to invade Iraq by actually weighing the dis-jointed propaganda that was spoonfed to them is living proof of this.
Free is a very serious issue for text book companies too. In both cases, there is so much money to be made that muddying the debate you look like a fool actually advocating the old-fashioned scientific ideal. Colleges that do research long ago quit pursuing the ideal in exchange for fancy equipment they feed companies of all stripes science to do with as they please.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there are many corporations where the chairman and ceo are separate.
Furthermore:
1. The shares of stock in a corporation that have the ability to vote is usually a separate class of stock. Please examine your stock certificates carefully!
2. Major chunks of voting blocks of stock are held by select few in the average corporation. General meetings are practically meaningless.
3. Corporate charters typically forbid the collection of more than a meaningless block of voting shares. Certainly not enough to control a seat on a board.
4. Finally, a corporation that actually would cede control to public markets is the surest sign of an imminent valuation death spiral. This is one reason insider trading is followed so closely.
Textbook examples of corporate governance are that. They have nothing to do with real life. Sadly, you and the moderators believe that's how it actually works.
They are paid to manage IT, not run a company. It's a big leap from one to the other.
Most board members are chosen by the CEO. So, chances are excellent they don't want to report to an underling at the board meeting.
One of the major misconceptions most people have is they assume "the board" keeps the CEO in line. That's the exception, not the rule. It's a club people.
people who can cope with a wide variety of problem inside and outside their area of expertise
They much more likely to find innovative solutions (though not "pretty" ones) and be innovators.
If they can't protect their market position, they won't make the investment. It has nothing to do with how many people's lives may be extended.
This is how deregulated industries benefit consumers. Ohh wait...
Bush won the election because Kerry was a wishy-washy asshole. It's that simple.
Go ahead just invalidate some of the most important policies and procedures that are supposed to make this government/society work by reducing the issue to a simple matter of personal opinion.
Nevermind the rule of law. Nevermind procedures that are the outcome of the rule of law. "I say it, therefore it is!"
The casual attitude the parent and moderators take is the rule of Despots not a Democracy.
This is what is happening in the world of GPL 3, when looking in from the sidelines. GPL 3 are the silky bonds that when all is said and done, could bind us tighter than any EULA developed by Microsoft
Clearly you need to examine the issues much closer. One important example that needs to be examined carefully is Tivo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization This is a novel form of theft that made GPL V2 meaningless. Maybe you've heard about Novell and their "innovative" end-run around the GPL? GPL V3 is required to close the loopholes that opportunistic asshats have opened. There will probably be a GPL V4 as other "innovations" are discovered in the GPL.
Attempting to marginalize free (as in freedom) software benefits no one. I would argue it actually reduces innovation and overall public benefit that computers/software bring to a society.
I'm bedazzled by the sheer ignorance displayed in this thread.
First of all, the rest of the world is already using a pretty secure standard for two-factor authentication called EMV. It's all there, smart card vendors support the standard, card manufacturing plants can produce EMV cards, banking software supports it.
Second RSA IS NOT cost effective in banking. Nevermind the logistics and cost of replacing lost RSA fobs, RSA will use the opportunity to ream the bank an extra-large you-know-what. Where else are you going to go?
Funny how this is being introduced now.
/. won't lift a finger to slow this one down. This is one of those times I wish you all would.
An incredible coincidence that the Democrats control the Senate and House now. ("control" being very loosley defined in the sentence)
Sad, especially since the legions of
It is pretty much always the case, the gov't will own the source on this one for many reasons.
1. Body of Employee Law
Since most employer/employee law leaves no room for interpreting "spare time" vs. "work time" other than how much money you have to lawyer-up he'll lose on this one because he'll run out of money defending his position.
2. Body of State/Fed Law
I know the Feds have a policy whereby they own the source on things written for them. It would not surprise me to hear this used as the "authority" whereby the code is taken.
What's sad is the guy has committed career suicide at this point and, if he hasn't already blown a bunch of money lawyering-up for the pricipal/principal(sp?) that this is his code.
Developers please note: This kind of theft of useful code/ideas is SOP in public service. If you have a great idea, develop it on your own time and find a completely unrelated avenue to promoting it. GPL is one way to go about this.
As someone with personal experience in the area of gov't contracts, there is no way on dog's green earth this guy is going to get anything but a "don't call us we'll call you" from the Fed's.
What most citizens fail to comprehend is the contracts for things already supplied in very large quantities to the Fed's don't change. They don't until enough moral/political outrage is generated from a given situation that "something must be done!" In the meantime, you get no straight answers from anyone anywhere on the Fed's side.
He may have a great product, but this is where business acumen is important. The guy has two practical options from a business perspective:
1. License the technology for pennies on the dollar to the guys already supplying armor to the DOD and then get screwed by them because they know they didn't pay the guy enough to lawyer-up for the battle to establish the obvious years later. This is a classic move in big-business. Buy innovaters then put their innovations on the shelf where they are "safe."
2. Find other markets. One I'm sure would have some interest is the stunts industry in the U.S. If I still rode mtn bikes, I'd look into this to protect my old bones on some of my favorite descents. (The ones that haven't been lawyered away that is) Meanwhile, find a federal contractor who is powerful enough to run at whoever is providing armor now. It'll take 10 years to get a single purchase order, but maybe by the time the guy's grandchildren are running the company they'll be protecting soldiers.
In case you didn't know Tivo is at least one of the parties to blame for starting a GPL V3 by creating a novel way to simultaneously privatize a Linux-based OS and keep it out of the hands of hackers. It's called tivoization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization and it's a novel form of theft.
The summary is propaganda at best.