Really the civil system should sicken most Americans, who have this ridiculous idea that the world should be fair.
Is it fair if some billionaire grabs his secretary's tits and has to pay her $5 million, but some other woman gets raped in the streets by some poor scumbag and doesn't get a penny? Person A gets maimed by terrorism and doesn't get a penny, person B does, hires a lawyer, and gets awarded $450 million. The whole system is ridiculous.
Oh Jesus. And now we hear from the hippy-communist faction.
Your assertion that you have some "right" to do whatever you want with someone else's ideas, information, or invention is just that - an assertion. It does not flow from any first principle. In other words, what moral or rational basis do you use to argue that if a company spends e.g. $1 billion dollars developing a cure for some disease that you have the "right" to just steal their formula and start cranking out cheap copies?
Sometimes the pendulum does swing too far the other way, e.g. government force used to protect inane technical copyright protection. However, the idea of some sorts (not what we have today, mind you - I'll agree there) of IP and copyright protection make sense and have a rational and moral component whether you dirty fucking hippies like it or not.
According to your "logic" anything a company invents that consumers want (and make dominant by choosing to purchase it) apparently becomes government property? Sweet!
Antitrust law is a joke unless applied to government granted monopolies or monopolies over scarce physical resources. The idea of applying it to intellectual property is logically inconsistent and is basically communistic. "You came up with this idea we really like, it now belongs to us in that we can dictate what you do with it".
I was going to ask the same question. I could research it, but that would be like researching whether the MPAA or RIAA was behind some new piece of copyright legislation - i.e. pointless..."of course they are".
I challenge that assertion. Pick two groups. Group A is some radomly selected set of engineers (meaning mostly male), Group B is hand-picked to be a rainbow coalition. You're going to get just as different a set of backgrounds, opinions, strengths, weaknesses, etc... from the first group, at least when it comes to the science of engineering. Everybody has a unique set of experiences, gender or race is only one factor and it's far from the most important in engineering.
Now, in other areas the cultural differences _will_ be different enough that it can make a difference. If I was putting together a marketing or sales team, for example, diversity would most certainly be important.
You're confusing bad engineering (not taking into account who will be using the product) with some imagined benefit from having a rainbow coalition of engineers. Specifically in the area of hardware engineering and software engineering, it gets less and less meaningful the more technical the field. Web design? Knock youtself out, you probably want to get some different input. Software engineering or electrical engineering? You're kidding yourself.
More importantly, you're just as likely to get radically different ideas from two people who went to different schools as you are from a man or a woman _when it comes to the science of engineering_. You're looking at the wrong thing. Different backgrounds, experiences, and educational grounding are far more important than imagined uniqueness because of meaningless physical differences.
Ahh, yeah, the old "diverse ideas" chestnut. So amusing. I mean, if you have slightly darker skin, lighter skin, have tits, have testicles, etc... you're really going to bring new approaches to the SCIENCE of computing.
Your argument has some modest merit in the domain of e.g. marketing, entertainment, etc... but absolutely none in engineering. And yes, men know what women want in terms of engineered products, the same thing women want. And you ask real people what they want in study/focus groups anyway, it's not like you can't just, I don't know, ask a woman what she wants in a product?
The fact is that your race or sex is meaningless in engineering. By all means use diverse recruitment policies and spread your net as wide as you can to find talent. But this idea that somehow a pair of tits by itself will bring some new, insightful ideas to the engineering world is nonsensical.
Huh? What are you gibber-jabbering about? Your employer pays you money, it's yours. Your employer allocates time from your workday, or lends you a computer to use to do development - that's his. Your point is nonsensical.
As for what you think, it's irrelevant. Case law disagrees with you.
What does the Union have to do with anything? He was not a contractor, and he provided the software for use by his employer of his own free will. He also worked overtime on it of his own free will.
The problem with what you're proposing is fairly obvious and its implications are the reason he can't win. I could go work for some company as a salaried employee and develop some new piece of software for them. They start using it, so I really work overtime on it and make it really efficient and it becomes a critical part of my employer's business.
Cha-ching. Now I quit, and claim ownership of the software and basically blackmail my employer to pay for something that was developed at least partially on his resources. I can rake him over the coals now because he's dependent on my support of the software that I developed while I was in his employ, but which magically he now doesn't own. The idea is just ridiculous.
No, he wouldn't have rights to it. What's especially damning in this case is he developed it for use _by his employer_. He provided it for use at work and it was used in the normal working duties of those at work. It's not like he developed some totally unrelated software on his own and now his employer wants to claim it. This is ticketing software for use in a law enforcement domain, which is exactly where he worked and exactly what the software was used for.
In more complex cases (say he developed some kind of RSS aggregator or something unrelated to his job) the case may be more complicated. Most tech company work contracts specifically say they own anything you develop, or can at least lay claim to it. Even without this he's in a bad situation because he used some work time and work resources to do it.
Most work contracts for technical companies already stipulate this, I'm surprised you didn't know that. Now in terms of case law in the off chance that your contract _doesn't_ include this proviso, I'm not 100% sure what the precedent is. I am sure that since he used some work time and resources he's simply screwed.
It doesn't matter if they paid him for it. Suppose this was a software company, instead, and they had specifically assigned him the sole task of developing this software. He decides to spend every waking minute working on it for 6 months, and ends up spending more of his own time on it than his employer's. Does that mean he suddenly owns it? The idea is riduculous.
He developed an application that he then provided for use by his employer. He used company resources to develop it, and _chose_ to work unpaid overtime to develop it (what software person hasn't done that?). His chances of winning this are approximately 0.0%. Any other outcome would basically be ridiculous and would have a massive impact on every software or hardware employer out there. It would be untenable.
No, they would own the code that he contributed though. The fact is that if I choose to work overtime on a project that's used by my employer, that's my problem. I can't go back and whine that I spent countless hours of my own time working on it. He's doubly damned because there were people actually using the product at his workplace.
If the piece of work had been totally unrelated to his job (e.g. he developed an image manipulation program) he may have at least a glimmer of an argument. As it is, he's totally screwed and has no hope of winning this.
Why is this even a controversy? The minute they provided him with any resource to work on it (work time, computer, etc...) it became theirs. This is not open to discussion.
In fact, in most cases if the work is any any way related to his work domain it's theirs even if they _didn't_ provide any resources, or at least they have a strong case to argue this.
He's wasting his time and the court's time, he can't win.
I'm sure he's much abashed at learning that the "average Christian" is actually very much a theological scholar. I must confess I didn't know that either!
I'm joking, of course. You're simply wrong. Pick out the average Christian and they won't have even considered most of this crap, they just know they love "Jebus" and they have to because otherwise they go to Hell.
BTW, some of these hypothetical differences sound like they could be from Moromons. You do know that Mormons are not Christians, right? Their beliefs don't invalidate any of his points.
Incorrect. The obvious difference is that he's not claiming to know the answers. I can point and laugh at how silly any organized religion is(*) and I don't feel the need to tell them the way it "really" was, unlike any other religious crackpot. I just say "fuck if I know, we have good theories starting at about 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang (another theory, mind you), but we really don't know the deeper truths and maybe never will".
Arrogance is thinking you know the answers, not laughing at how stupid those who think they do are.
(*) - the more organized and ritualistic a religion, the more coda it has, the more retarded the person who believes it. So on the top of the religious totem pole are the "I beleive there's some organizing Spirit/God/whatever, but don't believe anything specific". At the bottom are the crackpots with all kinds of obscure, weirdo beliefs.
Case 1: "You've subscribed to the idiotic opinions of...".
Case 2: "You specifically stated 'Durr, I believe I was raped by a space alien 2 minutes ago in the bathroom!'"
Now, case one is ad hominem. Case 2, assuming the person _literally_ said that, is an attach against the person's credibility, and personally I would lend it weight. Say, for example, the person was at a symposium trying to argue for the truth of Alien abduction - this kind of insane rambling pretty much seals it that he's full of crap.
Slashdot fell for what? The only thing Slashdot "falls for" is _any_ chance to bash Microsoft or DRM and any chance to prop up Linux.
What you're seeing on this article is common sense. Even if she got to work at 4am and browsed hardcore bestiality porn for 4 hours before work there's no reason to put her through this. It's ridiculous, it's Kafka-esque. If she browsed porn at work and it can be proven, simply fire her. See how easy that was?
Congratulations! You've won the "filthy SlashDot Geeky Dweeb of the Day" award! You managed to find an excuse to bash Microsoft on a completely unrelated topic about malicious prosecution!
Expect your prize in 5 to 7 days via US mail. Don't worry, we know your address, we have ISP logs showing you've downloaded 23 different Linux OS install CDs in the last month, and have visited eHarmony an average of 53 times a day.
The only solution for _anyone_ who works with kids and computers after this ruling is to simply refuse to be involved with any sort of computing on the Internet where children are involved. Anything else is clearly suicidal and you're insane if you even put yourself in a place to face that kind of liability.
Seriously, were I a computing teacher right now the first thing I would do is go to work and unplug the network cables from every single computer in the computer lab. If your employers balk simply quit. Is your $30k job worth a potential felony? We know she won't go to prison for the alarmist 40 years mentioned, but even what's already happened to her has ruined her career completely.
I believe in none of those things but will point out that pure Buddhism contains no real mystical elements, it was more of a philosophy than a religion in most senses.
Unfortunately it has largely been corrupted to be synonomous with Tibetan Buddhism which adds all the mystical mumbo-jumbo. Buddha's points about Karma, for example, are far more subtle than the traditional understanding, and literal reincarnation was not part of it.
I believe in the right of someone to "own" content they have created to the extent that I can't just download it and use it without paying "because I want to".
So if there was a "perfect" DRM scheme that let me do whatever the hell I wanted with content that I pay for, I would have no problem with DRM whatsoever. Unfortunately, this is intrinsically impossible.
Not being a SlashNerd, I still don't hate DRM as some kind of moral evil. I just don't buy it unless I can crack it, it's as simple as that.
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Is it fair if some billionaire grabs his secretary's tits and has to pay her $5 million, but some other woman gets raped in the streets by some poor scumbag and doesn't get a penny? Person A gets maimed by terrorism and doesn't get a penny, person B does, hires a lawyer, and gets awarded $450 million. The whole system is ridiculous.
Your assertion that you have some "right" to do whatever you want with someone else's ideas, information, or invention is just that - an assertion. It does not flow from any first principle. In other words, what moral or rational basis do you use to argue that if a company spends e.g. $1 billion dollars developing a cure for some disease that you have the "right" to just steal their formula and start cranking out cheap copies?
Sometimes the pendulum does swing too far the other way, e.g. government force used to protect inane technical copyright protection. However, the idea of some sorts (not what we have today, mind you - I'll agree there) of IP and copyright protection make sense and have a rational and moral component whether you dirty fucking hippies like it or not.
Antitrust law is a joke unless applied to government granted monopolies or monopolies over scarce physical resources. The idea of applying it to intellectual property is logically inconsistent and is basically communistic. "You came up with this idea we really like, it now belongs to us in that we can dictate what you do with it".
"Oooh, they're a convicted monpolist this just cannot stand!".
It's so very dramatic. Unfortunately, all it means is a whole lot of...nothing.
I was going to ask the same question. I could research it, but that would be like researching whether the MPAA or RIAA was behind some new piece of copyright legislation - i.e. pointless..."of course they are".
Now, in other areas the cultural differences _will_ be different enough that it can make a difference. If I was putting together a marketing or sales team, for example, diversity would most certainly be important.
More importantly, you're just as likely to get radically different ideas from two people who went to different schools as you are from a man or a woman _when it comes to the science of engineering_. You're looking at the wrong thing. Different backgrounds, experiences, and educational grounding are far more important than imagined uniqueness because of meaningless physical differences.
Your argument has some modest merit in the domain of e.g. marketing, entertainment, etc... but absolutely none in engineering. And yes, men know what women want in terms of engineered products, the same thing women want. And you ask real people what they want in study/focus groups anyway, it's not like you can't just, I don't know, ask a woman what she wants in a product?
The fact is that your race or sex is meaningless in engineering. By all means use diverse recruitment policies and spread your net as wide as you can to find talent. But this idea that somehow a pair of tits by itself will bring some new, insightful ideas to the engineering world is nonsensical.
Good God, are you that clueless? Linux gets hacked all the time. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Linux_ha cked_more_often_than_Windows/0,130061733,139116229 ,00.htm
As for what you think, it's irrelevant. Case law disagrees with you.
The problem with what you're proposing is fairly obvious and its implications are the reason he can't win. I could go work for some company as a salaried employee and develop some new piece of software for them. They start using it, so I really work overtime on it and make it really efficient and it becomes a critical part of my employer's business.
Cha-ching. Now I quit, and claim ownership of the software and basically blackmail my employer to pay for something that was developed at least partially on his resources. I can rake him over the coals now because he's dependent on my support of the software that I developed while I was in his employ, but which magically he now doesn't own. The idea is just ridiculous.
In more complex cases (say he developed some kind of RSS aggregator or something unrelated to his job) the case may be more complicated. Most tech company work contracts specifically say they own anything you develop, or can at least lay claim to it. Even without this he's in a bad situation because he used some work time and work resources to do it.
He developed an application that he then provided for use by his employer. He used company resources to develop it, and _chose_ to work unpaid overtime to develop it (what software person hasn't done that?). His chances of winning this are approximately 0.0%. Any other outcome would basically be ridiculous and would have a massive impact on every software or hardware employer out there. It would be untenable.
If the piece of work had been totally unrelated to his job (e.g. he developed an image manipulation program) he may have at least a glimmer of an argument. As it is, he's totally screwed and has no hope of winning this.
In fact, in most cases if the work is any any way related to his work domain it's theirs even if they _didn't_ provide any resources, or at least they have a strong case to argue this.
He's wasting his time and the court's time, he can't win.
Or maybe you think the idea that the Earth is 14k years old is something that should be considered, too?
I'm joking, of course. You're simply wrong. Pick out the average Christian and they won't have even considered most of this crap, they just know they love "Jebus" and they have to because otherwise they go to Hell.
BTW, some of these hypothetical differences sound like they could be from Moromons. You do know that Mormons are not Christians, right? Their beliefs don't invalidate any of his points.
Arrogance is thinking you know the answers, not laughing at how stupid those who think they do are.
(*) - the more organized and ritualistic a religion, the more coda it has, the more retarded the person who believes it. So on the top of the religious totem pole are the "I beleive there's some organizing Spirit/God/whatever, but don't believe anything specific". At the bottom are the crackpots with all kinds of obscure, weirdo beliefs.
Case 1: "You've subscribed to the idiotic opinions of
Case 2: "You specifically stated 'Durr, I believe I was raped by a space alien 2 minutes ago in the bathroom!'"
Now, case one is ad hominem. Case 2, assuming the person _literally_ said that, is an attach against the person's credibility, and personally I would lend it weight. Say, for example, the person was at a symposium trying to argue for the truth of Alien abduction - this kind of insane rambling pretty much seals it that he's full of crap.
What you're seeing on this article is common sense. Even if she got to work at 4am and browsed hardcore bestiality porn for 4 hours before work there's no reason to put her through this. It's ridiculous, it's Kafka-esque. If she browsed porn at work and it can be proven, simply fire her. See how easy that was?
Expect your prize in 5 to 7 days via US mail. Don't worry, we know your address, we have ISP logs showing you've downloaded 23 different Linux OS install CDs in the last month, and have visited eHarmony an average of 53 times a day.
Seriously, were I a computing teacher right now the first thing I would do is go to work and unplug the network cables from every single computer in the computer lab. If your employers balk simply quit. Is your $30k job worth a potential felony? We know she won't go to prison for the alarmist 40 years mentioned, but even what's already happened to her has ruined her career completely.
Unfortunately it has largely been corrupted to be synonomous with Tibetan Buddhism which adds all the mystical mumbo-jumbo. Buddha's points about Karma, for example, are far more subtle than the traditional understanding, and literal reincarnation was not part of it.
So if there was a "perfect" DRM scheme that let me do whatever the hell I wanted with content that I pay for, I would have no problem with DRM whatsoever. Unfortunately, this is intrinsically impossible.
Not being a SlashNerd, I still don't hate DRM as some kind of moral evil. I just don't buy it unless I can crack it, it's as simple as that.