So, is Ray "subject to a pending sanctions motion", and if so, what does that mean anyway?
There is a link to the term "pending sanctions motion"; if you follow the link you can read all about it. They made a motion to withdraw their own case, and joined it with a motion for "discovery sanctions" against Mrs. Lindor and myself. The motion was based on nothing but lies. It is still pending. Our Rule 11 motion against them is strictly based on the fact that their motion for "discovery sanctions" was based on nothing but lies, so the 2 motions are closely interrelated.
I am not a lawyer but my understanding that amicus curiae briefs came from parties not directly involved with the case but are very rarely neutral.
Of course you are correct, UF. If the amicus curiae felt 'neutral' on the subject, why would they be filing a brief? We were not asking to be appointed judge; we were submitting a brief which would help the Court see why the plaintiffs were dead wrong.
The FSF's centerpiece, the GPL, depends wholly on copyright for enforcement.
So saying that the FSF has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights" clearly demonstrates either a lack of research, a lack of understanding, or a lack of honesty on the part of the RIAA's lawyers.
I agree with the first sentence of your comment. As to the second sentence, I question your use of the word "or". The correct word should be "and". With that minor correction.... respect.
The FSF's centerpiece, the GPL, depends wholly on copyright for enforcement.
So saying that the FSF has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights" clearly demonstrates either a lack of research, a lack of understanding, or a lack of honesty on the part of the RIAA's lawyers.
Picky picky.
The truth has never been seen as an obstacle by the RIAA's lawyers.
depends on what the job duties are. And maybe that's something that remains undefined. In any event I'm glad there was at least one place on the internet where both sides of the question were aired. It seems that everywhere else Tim O'Reilly's benediction appears to have been accepted as gospel.
What I love about Slashdot is we don't need no orthodoxy here.
I think you can understand technology enough to be an effective CTO without being a hands-on tech guy yourself.
He's demonstrated by his history that he "gets it", so let's hope he does a good job here too.
I share your hope, and I think enough of Tim O'Reilly that I value his opinion. But I really wonder about it, too.
I think you're neglecting the fact that the IT field itself is still extremely immature; I'd guess it will take at least a few more career-generations to reach the state where IT people are supervised exclusively by IT people.
Yes I suppose you're right. But the question remains -- and I don't pretend to know the answer -- whether this particular job would more properly have gone to someone who actually has a tech background.
I don't think the analogy is good. Being a dishwasher is a relatively simple task that does not require years of study and experience. Being a good technologist is complex, and takes a lot of time to develop. I know because I picked up how to wash dishes pretty quickly, but couldn't code my way out of a paper bag.
If you're managing a group of people, such as engineers, you don't have to be a better engineer than the people working for you, you just have to know enough so that the engineers can do their jobs.
Well you need to know enough to get the best people, to know if they're doing things right, etc.
If I have a trial which hinges on DNA evidence I don't hire a DNA expert, I hire a lawyer who in turn hires and manages all the experts needed for the legal case.
Correct, but the lawyer would not supervise the DNA expert.
If the CTO is a techie and makes a suggestion on applying technology to health care or finance, would his opinion be worthless because he's not a doctor or accountant?
It well might be.
The CTO is not a tech job, it is a director's job. Setting direction for the broad application of technology does not necessarily require an intimate knowledge of how the technology works.
You may be right. We don't really know what the job is. But I thought it was the job of the president to set the direction, and the job of the CTO to implement it. If he's going to implement tech policy he should know technology.
It is not fallacy in his thinking it is ambition. O'Reilly is putting himself out there as someone who can be trusted by this new CTO for calming down the hordes of geeks out there who have experience dealing with CTO folk who do not know an IP packet from a ZIP drive. Seriously as someone who has been in multiple startups with good and bad CTO folk the best ones imho are always those who retired from a tech job and than got an MBA later in life not the MBA who learns tech on the job.
Very, very interesting. So you're saying Mr. O'Reilly may not be exactly on the sidelines as a disinterested observer.
I'm a lawyer. No way on God's green earth would I work under the supervision of a non-lawyer.
Isn't the law fundamentally different from technology?
Yes it is. Lawyers specialize in law. Technologists specialize in technology. But they are also alike in that they can both be very complex, and require vast amounts of study and experience.
I find a great deal of irony in your original post and this reply, because while you are obviously a lawyer, your original post demonstrates *exactly* the behaviors I believe are the full requirements I would expect from a great tech executive or politician.
First, you obviously read a tech article on your own, in your free time, displaying interest. Second, you formed an opinion. Third, you reformed your opinion based on a respected expert. Fourth, and most importantly, you went to a large community of experts (to varying degrees) in order to modify your opinion with the input of people with a greater professional interest in the subject than your own.
In all seriousness, Mr. Beckerman, despite being a lawyer and not a professional technologist, you would make a better CTO (or politician) than the vast majority of the rest of us. I would even venture to say that technologists shouldn't be forming large policies for as diverse and large an organization as the federal government. They are more likely to have biases and pay less attention to technologies they are less familiar with through professional experience.
As a side note, if you could chair the FCC or hop on in some tech position at the FTC, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you very much for your kind words. And I did indeed do the things you said I did (read a tech article, form an opinion, reform my opinion based on a respected expert, and go to a large community containing many experts to further modify my opinion). But I would not feel qualified to supervise those experts. I would like to learn from them, yes. I would like them to learn from me, yes. But I would not want to tell them how to do their jobs.
It's not about how 'technical' the management chain is (I've seen some huge screwups because the management was highly technical, just didn't really understand the business well enough to co-ordinate the implementation of systems that actually did what the business needed, rather than doing what was technically a good system. Just practically wrong). It's how generally savvy the manager is.
I'm not saying that technical knowledge is the only component of being a good technology leader. Being a good manager consists of many qualities. But to me, one of the qualities in being a "savvy" technology leader is to have a true understanding of the technology.
The problem with this is non-tech savvy CTOs invariably hires the wrong advisors, consultants, employees under him/her. So then the entire IT department is staffed by incompetent people. You need someone with current tech knowledge but with the ability to manage and make decisions. The ability to manage means that the person has the insight to know when to delegate and not get wrapped up in the details. To say that a non-technical person is better at making management decisions is patently false.
Exactly my thinking. If I may analogize, once again, to my own field, in the legal profession, one of the most important professional tasks a senior lawyer performs for his or her clients is to hire, and retain, the right kind of junior lawyers to work on their matters, and to get rid of those who can't be trusted to provide superior legal skills and judgment. Only a lawyer, and only a good lawyer, could possibly make that call. There are plenty of people walking around in the legal field, who look and talk like good lawyers, who are absolute zeroes (in fact I've met a disproportionately large number of them since I began fighting the RIAA).
In the tech world, there are plenty of people with astounding skills who would not exactly make the best impression on the average person walking by. But a real programmer, and only a real programmer, would recognize their true worth. And there are also plenty of people in the information technology field who can create the appearance of being good without being good. If it were my company, I would want someone presiding over the process who really, really knows the difference.
My boss doesn't know anywhere near as much about technology as I do but -- and this is the crucial bit -- he trusts my opinions and my judgment.
Which is very nice for you, but it's only nice for the company if the tech people in your company
(a) are always right about everything (b) are never wrong about anything, (c) have nothing left to learn, (d) need no leadership or guidance, and (e) are all well qualified to perform their tasks.
Personally, if I were a shareholder in such a company, I would rather have someone in charge of technology who actually is a technologist, who understands what technologists do, and can understand their problems, limitations, challenges, and abilities, and who can separate the wheat from the chaff -- i.e. recognize which employees or prospective hires are the real thing and which are BS artists.
This gentlemen lacks the academic credentials, actual work experience in a nuts-and-bolts IT role, and the track record of success in such a role to be an effective leader in this appointment. Bachelor of Arts? Masters in Public Policy? Please.
The idea that managers in one field (ie healthcare) can be interchanged into another (ie IT) is a myth. It's a bush-league mistake and one that is very costly and damaging.
And one that is probably at the root of much of what is wrong in American business, today. Professional managers whose primary area of expertise is making themselves look good.
You want a technology-AWARE person. Someone who's been in the field, and done some hardcore programming, network design, or a combination of tech skills and project management/people management combined with a tech background. Ultimately, the CTO/CIO is a manager that comes FROM a tech background, not moves TO one.
That last part highlights my issue with this guy.
The reason you were modded down as 'flamebait', is because this place is crawling with "non-technical mgt. idiots", & you were/are COMPLETELY correct about them. They are threatened by anyone that knows more than they do and that can expose them for the MBA bearing fakes they really are, as far as the art & science of computing. I too agree, that the "company will go down the tubes" with a blind-man @ the wheel (in other words, someone running the show in a company that deals in tech, but has NO tech under his skills belt whatsoever) & the entire nation of the United States has fallen victim to these "slogan spouting rats" that have no clue/idea whatsoever in the areas they are "leading" & thus they make HUGE mistakes, because they have no inkling of what's going on. I suppose it sort of "boils down" to something like this - I personally most certainly wouldn't want to go to a surgeon that had never performed surgery for instance, and I don't think anyone sane would either.
I agree with you. I don't think a person not trained in technology should be supervising in the field of technology. It is a profession, and should be accorded the dignity of a profession. No lawyer can be supervised by a non-lawyer; no doctor can be supervised by a non-doctor; no technologist can be supervised by a non-technologist.
But what I'm trying to understand is this: if O'Reilly is wrong, why is he wrong?
Don't you work for non-lawyers all the time? They defer to you because you -are- a lawyer, but I think you might have to rescind your comment:)
I do IT, and not everyone in the chain of command knows more than I do about IT. They do know more about other things, like management, or sales, or marketing. My job in IT is to enable them to do their jobs, and so I have to know a little bit about their job, and they have to know a little bit about mine, but that's all.
If we were to live in some upside down world where we demanded everyone paying us had to know more about what we're doing than we do, no one would get anything done. Why are they paying you if they know more than you?
And this applies to you too, Ray. Your clients pay you, or your firm, or however you have it set up, and they don't know nearly as much as you do. If they did, they wouldn't be paying you.
My clients pay me; they do not "supervise" me. When I did work under supervision (1974-1983) it was the supervision of people who did exactly what I did but had been doing it longer. That is the only kind of supervision I could accept. It was one of the main reasons I went into a "profession".
I consider information technology a profession, and entitled to the same level of respect and dignity. If you know what you are doing and have someone "supervising" who doesn't fully grasp what is going on, and doesn't understand where you are coming from, it is degrading, insulting, and counterproductive.
I've seen this at a lot of organizations, the CIO is invariable a non-techie hired on for his skills at schmoozing management than any tech knowledge. Management find real techies a threat as they might get found out. They mostly spend their time quoting the tech press and spouting phrases like 'integrated innovation' and 'empowerment'. The top man specifically hires people dumber then him, else they could be as threat to his job. In turn the CTO hires someone even dumber than he is, and so on down the line. If something 'technical' comes along they hire in a 'consultant', fire him and take credit for his work. Of course any real in-house techies have to be transferred before they figure out just how stupid the CIO really is. So you end up with a business where the longest serving employee has been there less then ten months. Eventually the company goes down the tubes...
I can't believe your comment got a downward moderation as "flamebait"; I think it deserves to "+5 Insightful". I've even reproduced it on my blog here.
Slashdot Mirror
So, is Ray "subject to a pending sanctions motion", and if so, what does that mean anyway?
There is a link to the term "pending sanctions motion"; if you follow the link you can read all about it. They made a motion to withdraw their own case, and joined it with a motion for "discovery sanctions" against Mrs. Lindor and myself. The motion was based on nothing but lies. It is still pending. Our Rule 11 motion against them is strictly based on the fact that their motion for "discovery sanctions" was based on nothing but lies, so the 2 motions are closely interrelated.
I am not a lawyer but my understanding that amicus curiae briefs came from parties not directly involved with the case but are very rarely neutral.
Of course you are correct, UF. If the amicus curiae felt 'neutral' on the subject, why would they be filing a brief? We were not asking to be appointed judge; we were submitting a brief which would help the Court see why the plaintiffs were dead wrong.
from the summary this looks like its high praise coming from the RIAA
Yes. I like to think of it that way.
The FSF's centerpiece, the GPL, depends wholly on copyright for enforcement. So saying that the FSF has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights" clearly demonstrates either a lack of research, a lack of understanding, or a lack of honesty on the part of the RIAA's lawyers.
I agree with the first sentence of your comment. As to the second sentence, I question your use of the word "or". The correct word should be "and". With that minor correction.... respect.
The FSF's centerpiece, the GPL, depends wholly on copyright for enforcement. So saying that the FSF has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights" clearly demonstrates either a lack of research, a lack of understanding, or a lack of honesty on the part of the RIAA's lawyers.
Picky picky.
The truth has never been seen as an obstacle by the RIAA's lawyers.
depends on what the job duties are. And maybe that's something that remains undefined. In any event I'm glad there was at least one place on the internet where both sides of the question were aired. It seems that everywhere else Tim O'Reilly's benediction appears to have been accepted as gospel.
What I love about Slashdot is we don't need no orthodoxy here.
I think you can understand technology enough to be an effective CTO without being a hands-on tech guy yourself. He's demonstrated by his history that he "gets it", so let's hope he does a good job here too.
I share your hope, and I think enough of Tim O'Reilly that I value his opinion. But I really wonder about it, too.
Time will tell.
I think you're neglecting the fact that the IT field itself is still extremely immature; I'd guess it will take at least a few more career-generations to reach the state where IT people are supervised exclusively by IT people.
Yes I suppose you're right. But the question remains -- and I don't pretend to know the answer -- whether this particular job would more properly have gone to someone who actually has a tech background.
I don't think the analogy is good. Being a dishwasher is a relatively simple task that does not require years of study and experience. Being a good technologist is complex, and takes a lot of time to develop. I know because I picked up how to wash dishes pretty quickly, but couldn't code my way out of a paper bag.
Yeah, but NYCL, many of us would work under you. You've got a reputation for being of the right mind, even though you're not a geek per se.
Well I did attend Bronx High School of Science, and use pocket protectors.
If you're managing a group of people, such as engineers, you don't have to be a better engineer than the people working for you, you just have to know enough so that the engineers can do their jobs.
Well you need to know enough to get the best people, to know if they're doing things right, etc.
If I have a trial which hinges on DNA evidence I don't hire a DNA expert, I hire a lawyer who in turn hires and manages all the experts needed for the legal case.
Correct, but the lawyer would not supervise the DNA expert.
If the CTO is a techie and makes a suggestion on applying technology to health care or finance, would his opinion be worthless because he's not a doctor or accountant?
It well might be.
The CTO is not a tech job, it is a director's job. Setting direction for the broad application of technology does not necessarily require an intimate knowledge of how the technology works.
You may be right. We don't really know what the job is. But I thought it was the job of the president to set the direction, and the job of the CTO to implement it. If he's going to implement tech policy he should know technology.
It is not fallacy in his thinking it is ambition. O'Reilly is putting himself out there as someone who can be trusted by this new CTO for calming down the hordes of geeks out there who have experience dealing with CTO folk who do not know an IP packet from a ZIP drive. Seriously as someone who has been in multiple startups with good and bad CTO folk the best ones imho are always those who retired from a tech job and than got an MBA later in life not the MBA who learns tech on the job.
Very, very interesting. So you're saying Mr. O'Reilly may not be exactly on the sidelines as a disinterested observer.
I'm a lawyer. No way on God's green earth would I work under the supervision of a non-lawyer.
Isn't the law fundamentally different from technology?
Yes it is. Lawyers specialize in law. Technologists specialize in technology. But they are also alike in that they can both be very complex, and require vast amounts of study and experience.
I find a great deal of irony in your original post and this reply, because while you are obviously a lawyer, your original post demonstrates *exactly* the behaviors I believe are the full requirements I would expect from a great tech executive or politician. First, you obviously read a tech article on your own, in your free time, displaying interest. Second, you formed an opinion. Third, you reformed your opinion based on a respected expert. Fourth, and most importantly, you went to a large community of experts (to varying degrees) in order to modify your opinion with the input of people with a greater professional interest in the subject than your own. In all seriousness, Mr. Beckerman, despite being a lawyer and not a professional technologist, you would make a better CTO (or politician) than the vast majority of the rest of us. I would even venture to say that technologists shouldn't be forming large policies for as diverse and large an organization as the federal government. They are more likely to have biases and pay less attention to technologies they are less familiar with through professional experience. As a side note, if you could chair the FCC or hop on in some tech position at the FTC, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you very much for your kind words. And I did indeed do the things you said I did (read a tech article, form an opinion, reform my opinion based on a respected expert, and go to a large community containing many experts to further modify my opinion). But I would not feel qualified to supervise those experts. I would like to learn from them, yes. I would like them to learn from me, yes. But I would not want to tell them how to do their jobs.
It's not about how 'technical' the management chain is (I've seen some huge screwups because the management was highly technical, just didn't really understand the business well enough to co-ordinate the implementation of systems that actually did what the business needed, rather than doing what was technically a good system. Just practically wrong). It's how generally savvy the manager is.
I'm not saying that technical knowledge is the only component of being a good technology leader. Being a good manager consists of many qualities. But to me, one of the qualities in being a "savvy" technology leader is to have a true understanding of the technology.
The problem with this is non-tech savvy CTOs invariably hires the wrong advisors, consultants, employees under him/her. So then the entire IT department is staffed by incompetent people. You need someone with current tech knowledge but with the ability to manage and make decisions. The ability to manage means that the person has the insight to know when to delegate and not get wrapped up in the details. To say that a non-technical person is better at making management decisions is patently false.
Exactly my thinking. If I may analogize, once again, to my own field, in the legal profession, one of the most important professional tasks a senior lawyer performs for his or her clients is to hire, and retain, the right kind of junior lawyers to work on their matters, and to get rid of those who can't be trusted to provide superior legal skills and judgment. Only a lawyer, and only a good lawyer, could possibly make that call. There are plenty of people walking around in the legal field, who look and talk like good lawyers, who are absolute zeroes (in fact I've met a disproportionately large number of them since I began fighting the RIAA).
In the tech world, there are plenty of people with astounding skills who would not exactly make the best impression on the average person walking by. But a real programmer, and only a real programmer, would recognize their true worth. And there are also plenty of people in the information technology field who can create the appearance of being good without being good. If it were my company, I would want someone presiding over the process who really, really knows the difference.
Is it possible you were confusing Tim O'Reilly with Bill O'Reilly? Tim O'Reilly is a good guy.
My boss doesn't know anywhere near as much about technology as I do but -- and this is the crucial bit -- he trusts my opinions and my judgment.
Which is very nice for you, but it's only nice for the company if the tech people in your company
(a) are always right about everything
(b) are never wrong about anything,
(c) have nothing left to learn,
(d) need no leadership or guidance, and
(e) are all well qualified to perform their tasks.
Personally, if I were a shareholder in such a company, I would rather have someone in charge of technology who actually is a technologist, who understands what technologists do, and can understand their problems, limitations, challenges, and abilities, and who can separate the wheat from the chaff -- i.e. recognize which employees or prospective hires are the real thing and which are BS artists.
Are you sure? Would you work under someone who had an MBA, was a pre-law, and was responsible for the legal department at a largish company?
N.F.W.
This gentlemen lacks the academic credentials, actual work experience in a nuts-and-bolts IT role, and the track record of success in such a role to be an effective leader in this appointment. Bachelor of Arts? Masters in Public Policy? Please. The idea that managers in one field (ie healthcare) can be interchanged into another (ie IT) is a myth. It's a bush-league mistake and one that is very costly and damaging.
And one that is probably at the root of much of what is wrong in American business, today. Professional managers whose primary area of expertise is making themselves look good.
You want a technology-AWARE person. Someone who's been in the field, and done some hardcore programming, network design, or a combination of tech skills and project management/people management combined with a tech background. Ultimately, the CTO/CIO is a manager that comes FROM a tech background, not moves TO one. That last part highlights my issue with this guy.
And that is my issue with this guy.
The reason you were modded down as 'flamebait', is because this place is crawling with "non-technical mgt. idiots", & you were/are COMPLETELY correct about them. They are threatened by anyone that knows more than they do and that can expose them for the MBA bearing fakes they really are, as far as the art & science of computing. I too agree, that the "company will go down the tubes" with a blind-man @ the wheel (in other words, someone running the show in a company that deals in tech, but has NO tech under his skills belt whatsoever) & the entire nation of the United States has fallen victim to these "slogan spouting rats" that have no clue/idea whatsoever in the areas they are "leading" & thus they make HUGE mistakes, because they have no inkling of what's going on. I suppose it sort of "boils down" to something like this - I personally most certainly wouldn't want to go to a surgeon that had never performed surgery for instance, and I don't think anyone sane would either.
I agree with you. I don't think a person not trained in technology should be supervising in the field of technology. It is a profession, and should be accorded the dignity of a profession. No lawyer can be supervised by a non-lawyer; no doctor can be supervised by a non-doctor; no technologist can be supervised by a non-technologist.
But what I'm trying to understand is this: if O'Reilly is wrong, why is he wrong?
Don't you work for non-lawyers all the time? They defer to you because you -are- a lawyer, but I think you might have to rescind your comment :)
I do IT, and not everyone in the chain of command knows more than I do about IT. They do know more about other things, like management, or sales, or marketing. My job in IT is to enable them to do their jobs, and so I have to know a little bit about their job, and they have to know a little bit about mine, but that's all.
If we were to live in some upside down world where we demanded everyone paying us had to know more about what we're doing than we do, no one would get anything done. Why are they paying you if they know more than you?
And this applies to you too, Ray. Your clients pay you, or your firm, or however you have it set up, and they don't know nearly as much as you do. If they did, they wouldn't be paying you.
My clients pay me; they do not "supervise" me. When I did work under supervision (1974-1983) it was the supervision of people who did exactly what I did but had been doing it longer. That is the only kind of supervision I could accept. It was one of the main reasons I went into a "profession".
I consider information technology a profession, and entitled to the same level of respect and dignity. If you know what you are doing and have someone "supervising" who doesn't fully grasp what is going on, and doesn't understand where you are coming from, it is degrading, insulting, and counterproductive.
I've seen this at a lot of organizations, the CIO is invariable a non-techie hired on for his skills at schmoozing management than any tech knowledge. Management find real techies a threat as they might get found out. They mostly spend their time quoting the tech press and spouting phrases like 'integrated innovation' and 'empowerment'. The top man specifically hires people dumber then him, else they could be as threat to his job. In turn the CTO hires someone even dumber than he is, and so on down the line. If something 'technical' comes along they hire in a 'consultant', fire him and take credit for his work. Of course any real in-house techies have to be transferred before they figure out just how stupid the CIO really is. So you end up with a business where the longest serving employee has been there less then ten months. Eventually the company goes down the tubes ...
I can't believe your comment got a downward moderation as "flamebait"; I think it deserves to "+5 Insightful". I've even reproduced it on my blog here.