It surprises me that one man can change the license of everyone else's contributions!!
Not that I think this is a bad thing. But my contributions to wikipedia belong to me. And I licensed them to wikimedia foundation under a specific license, which (as far as I can tell) does NOT permit some arbitrary person (Jimbo) free reign to license it to others under whatever license he wants.
All I really want for Christmas is an MP3 setup where several tech podcasts per day get downloaded automatically onto an MP3 player, and I carry it to my mini-van and listen to geek stuff on my hour-plus commute every day instead of mindless music.
being too lazy to look into it, I have remained MP3-playerless to date (even though our household has at least 6). Who wants to set this up for me. Pay ya.
The facts are that you probably aren't licensed to use the code.
Reality in business is that businesses take risks every day. Smart risks are part of business. As an employee, your duty is to make sure that management is aware of the risks, and is making a conscious risk/cost assessment (that is, the probabilistic cost of the risk, vs. the cost to mitigate the risk - i.e. re-write the software).
Realistically, the chances of getting penalized using merely 200 lines of code that was published so freely is probably minimal, so possibly not worth the costs to re-write.
You can let your management know that you have ethical concerns, and if they are growing their business based on theft, you have a problem with that, but really the question for management is one of weighted risk vs. mitigation.
Well, aside from simply correcting the misstatement of their informal motto, I was trying to make the point that "do no evil" states an absolute - not one single evil thing. Don't be evil is more of a scale: On a scale of good vs. evil, don't be evil. You can be good. You can be right in the middle. Just don't be evil. And an occasional evil deed (given that in reality, deeds are not always so clear-cut binary), will not tip the scales to the corporation "being evil".
This is, of course, why one keeps multiple screen names or places passwords on things that he doesn't want the world to see.
No, in the scenario I posed, the person was ok about releasing the information that was linked by screen name. The private information was linked by correlation of which movies were reviewed.
most people underestimate the ease of correlating supposedly anonymized data, as has been shown time and time again.
If you rate a handful of movies on ImDB, under the persona "MyNickname12345" and that can be traced to your personal MySpace page, you have made that choice. No problem.
If you then submit 100 movie ratings to Netflix, assuming that it is PRIVATE information that will not be linked back to you, and then Netflix releases the data to the public, now the 100 movies can be correlated to you, and your name can be revealed. Researchers have shown how PRIVATE DATA released to the public can be linked to already public information. PROBLEM!
Also, doing drugs won't stop you from being President these days, saying the wrong thing 20 years ago will.
Yeah, and funny thing, Slashdot-savvy college kids are willingly handing over their college term papers to services that archive them FOREVER, and without protest. You guys should be expressing outrage at this, like those high school kids in McLean Virginia who go to trial in January!
I totally agree. With Google, you do not control the flow of information. With your own URL, you do. (as others have suggested, make sure that your URL's don't inadvertently reveal more information that they can follow and find out additional information.)
Just consider what could happen if you let Google determine what information is discovered. For one, it could reveal more information about you than you care to reveal. Secondly, it could reveal information written by others which may or may not be about you - and totally outside your control. When you look at it, it might be flattering. When your prospective employer looks at it, it could have since been changed, and could now be insulting.
One URL can be used to represent all of your online work - like an online portfolio page - (since you can link to other work, and give more detailed explanation and background.) For instance, "On this site, I was responsible for all the graphics and the backend database design" or "This client was a particular challenge because they have a large, demanding client, forcing us to rework the design many times." Or whatever.
Or you can use multiple URL's on your resume if you feel that the URL in itself conveys some meaningful information. Perhaps you want to emphasize the quantity of sites you have worked on. Or perhaps you want to show that your work is on the site of a fortune 500 company, or whatever. Still, remember, once someone ELSE's URL is on your paper resume' (or in email), you have lost control. So if you list www.somesiteyoureproudof.com and then the new owner of the site changes it to Goatse.cx, (or made it look lame in some other way), you've only brought it onto yourself.
Cmon! Maybe *your* computer didn't have a hard drive when you were 3 (in 1990), but computers most certainly had hard drives in 1990! The first computer I worked on, in 1973, had a hard drive. And I was older than 3, so I remember quite well!
I'm actually thrilled that there's a language that tells you what it really thinks, instead of hiding it behind some rounding. Virtually every other language will store it as described, but report it differently. I've had to troubleshoot problem where these rounding errors were disguised and summed thousands of times and becomes significant (See the movie "Office Space"), and they're a bear to track down, especially when the language lies to you.
If the publisher chooses not to conform to this license, then it becomes in breach of copyright (as the works on Wikipedia are covered by copyright law, they're simply globally available on a license backed up by copyright law).
That's all fine and good. But the owner of the copyright is a collection of anonymous donors. Is some guy named 63.233.10.12 and some other guy named PediaMan2435 going to sue Wiley to assert their copyrights? Sure, they license their work to the Wikipedia Foundation (or whatever the legal name is), but do they license the right to enforce and sue based on THEIR works? I think not.
The flaw in your logic is that most companies, when escorting you out, will still pay out a two-week period, effectively giving you a two-week vacation. It's just a smart thing to avoid litigation.
To apply the same logic from an employees' perspective, as you are attempting, you'd quit effective immediately, but show up to work for the next two weeks and work without pay.
When deciding whether to terminate someone immediately or let them serve out their two weeks, obviously there's an issue of trust (and as you said, they could have already taken stuff). But it's ALSO an issue (more importantly) of the perception of the SURVIVORS.
By escorting someone out, it could be an intentional signal to the other employees that you take this rivalry seriously. Or by letting them work the two weeks, it could be a signal that you are employee-friendly and there are no hard feelings. But the main concern really needs to be about how the remaining employees feel. There should be little concern about how the departing employee feels - except that it's often not a good idea to make enemies.
If you can accurately claim to be the author of the US government standard cryptographic hash, you get to charge pretty much whatever you want in consulting fees.
I don't think the parent was talking about putting privately-funded research into the public domain; the issue is research funded with public monies, by the NIH.
I would hope that non-US researchers would be subject to similar laws. Otherwise, we (the US) is giving away research that we paid for, while other countries could be hiding the results of their research. I'm all for helping the 3rd world researchers, but I don't think it's right to give away a competitive advantage to other world powers unless it's an even playing field, do you?
That said, I hope that ALL publicly funded research (regardless of who funds it) gets freely published to everyone for the benefit of all mankind.
Debating whether it makes sense for the government to be funding research is an entirely different can of worms. Personally, I think less is better. (Less taxes, less government research, etc.) Return the tax money to the corporations and let them perform research!
Yes it does if you have served for more than 6 years as president you can not serve as vice president.
So does that mean that a president who has served for more than 6 years cannot hold any of these positions?
Vice President, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security.
Wow, mod parent down. The article gave ONE example (Red-Blue-Green), but as was mentioned elsewhere, the original study had a variety of colors, and different monkeys chose different initial preferences. It was a science article in the New York Times, which glossed over some facts. See the original study to understand why the parent's "blue hypothesis" should not be considered a factor.
Slashdot Mirror
the only thing that changed was the number! I'm not sure if I should be flattered or mad!
Not that I think this is a bad thing. But my contributions to wikipedia belong to me. And I licensed them to wikimedia foundation under a specific license, which (as far as I can tell) does NOT permit some arbitrary person (Jimbo) free reign to license it to others under whatever license he wants.
being too lazy to look into it, I have remained MP3-playerless to date (even though our household has at least 6). Who wants to set this up for me. Pay ya.
I assume the ! means Not.
So "Not do not evil" ???
Maybe it's misspelled, Homer. Maybe it's supposed to be donut evil.
Reality in business is that businesses take risks every day. Smart risks are part of business. As an employee, your duty is to make sure that management is aware of the risks, and is making a conscious risk/cost assessment (that is, the probabilistic cost of the risk, vs. the cost to mitigate the risk - i.e. re-write the software).
Realistically, the chances of getting penalized using merely 200 lines of code that was published so freely is probably minimal, so possibly not worth the costs to re-write.
You can let your management know that you have ethical concerns, and if they are growing their business based on theft, you have a problem with that, but really the question for management is one of weighted risk vs. mitigation.
Well, aside from simply correcting the misstatement of their informal motto, I was trying to make the point that "do no evil" states an absolute - not one single evil thing. Don't be evil is more of a scale: On a scale of good vs. evil, don't be evil. You can be good. You can be right in the middle. Just don't be evil. And an occasional evil deed (given that in reality, deeds are not always so clear-cut binary), will not tip the scales to the corporation "being evil".
Not to be too pedantic, but the actual informal motto is "Don't be evil". It has more to do with how they are, not what they do.
most people underestimate the ease of correlating supposedly anonymized data, as has been shown time and time again.
If you rate a handful of movies on ImDB, under the persona "MyNickname12345" and that can be traced to your personal MySpace page, you have made that choice. No problem.
If you then submit 100 movie ratings to Netflix, assuming that it is PRIVATE information that will not be linked back to you, and then Netflix releases the data to the public, now the 100 movies can be correlated to you, and your name can be revealed. Researchers have shown how PRIVATE DATA released to the public can be linked to already public information. PROBLEM!
Just consider what could happen if you let Google determine what information is discovered. For one, it could reveal more information about you than you care to reveal. Secondly, it could reveal information written by others which may or may not be about you - and totally outside your control. When you look at it, it might be flattering. When your prospective employer looks at it, it could have since been changed, and could now be insulting.
One URL can be used to represent all of your online work - like an online portfolio page - (since you can link to other work, and give more detailed explanation and background.) For instance, "On this site, I was responsible for all the graphics and the backend database design" or "This client was a particular challenge because they have a large, demanding client, forcing us to rework the design many times." Or whatever.
Or you can use multiple URL's on your resume if you feel that the URL in itself conveys some meaningful information. Perhaps you want to emphasize the quantity of sites you have worked on. Or perhaps you want to show that your work is on the site of a fortune 500 company, or whatever. Still, remember, once someone ELSE's URL is on your paper resume' (or in email), you have lost control. So if you list www.somesiteyoureproudof.com and then the new owner of the site changes it to Goatse.cx, (or made it look lame in some other way), you've only brought it onto yourself.
Cmon! Maybe *your* computer didn't have a hard drive when you were 3 (in 1990), but computers most certainly had hard drives in 1990! The first computer I worked on, in 1973, had a hard drive. And I was older than 3, so I remember quite well!
If you want to really cheat the buyer, sell them your lifetime votes for a million dollars. Then kill yourself. That'll teach 'em.
To apply the same logic from an employees' perspective, as you are attempting, you'd quit effective immediately, but show up to work for the next two weeks and work without pay.
By escorting someone out, it could be an intentional signal to the other employees that you take this rivalry seriously. Or by letting them work the two weeks, it could be a signal that you are employee-friendly and there are no hard feelings. But the main concern really needs to be about how the remaining employees feel. There should be little concern about how the departing employee feels - except that it's often not a good idea to make enemies.
Seriously, silly article, your post was right on.
I was going for funny too! ("wow mod parent down")
That said, I hope that ALL publicly funded research (regardless of who funds it) gets freely published to everyone for the benefit of all mankind.
Debating whether it makes sense for the government to be funding research is an entirely different can of worms. Personally, I think less is better. (Less taxes, less government research, etc.) Return the tax money to the corporations and let them perform research!
Vice President, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security.
See Presidential Line of Succession
If not, then why can we have foreign-born people in these positions?
Wow, mod parent down. The article gave ONE example (Red-Blue-Green), but as was mentioned elsewhere, the original study had a variety of colors, and different monkeys chose different initial preferences. It was a science article in the New York Times, which glossed over some facts. See the original study to understand why the parent's "blue hypothesis" should not be considered a factor.