Back when I got my mortgage, a normal fixed-rate loan required 20% down. So the low-down-payment mortgage insanity has trickled up to giant investment firms too, eh? Not a good sign.
I've never done this before on Slashdot, but this time I feel the need to break this question down into much smaller pieces.
"maybe everyone has a software project in them"
But not everyone grasps the logic required to convert an idea to machine executable software. Sometimes they are actually thinking of a business process that only humans can execute, and even then the process is not necessarily cost effective.
"googling doesn't find me anything similar"
Are you entirely sure you're searching the right terms? Unfortunately, jargon varies widely, from whatever language you may describe as human.
"but I can design and QA"
QA ability is always debatable, but design is something you can prove. So PROVE it. That's what flowcharts, mock-ups, psuedo-code, UML, and visual prototyping are for. Even something as dumb as PowerPoint/Impress can be used to fake a UI design. Static web sites can be made to prototype UI for a more complex web application. If you can't do some combination of those in your design, in a way that programmers will understand, you don't really know that it will work as software.
"I'd happily learn to code"
Again, prove it. CODE IT. If it doesn't work out, ask for help AFTER you try, not before.
"getting to a good standard would take me years"
It takes longer than a lifetime in some cases. I know professional programmers (making "the big bucks") that haven't yet achieved "a good standard." If it compiles, runs, and meets internal business requirements, there's such a thing as good enough.
"by which time I would be bored of the project"
Really?? Then maybe this idea isn't so great after all. If this is true, why would it be worth your money to hire a coder, or fool volunteers into getting bored for you?
"I set up a project on SourceForge"
NO!!! Do NOT further pollute SourceForge with a project you're not willing to see through to the logical end, on your own. Search for projects that haven't been updated for a year or longer. There's already far too many. Get to functional (it doesn't have to be great, just functional) first. Then it might be worth sharing.
"Should I try a rent-a-coder type of site and outsource the work"
Is it worth the money to you? Then yes, pay other people for it. Just make sure they give you all the licensing rights, which may cost you more in the end. Otherwise, you'll end up with a lot of nice code that you don't really own, even though you "paid" for it. People tend to forget that paying for programming labor and paying for copyright are two different things.
"I think the project could be worth something"
Yes it could be, if you're willing to implement it until it is functional. Otherwise, it's worthless, to you and everyone else.
"cover said outsource costs"
If you're not willing to cover these costs on your own, and assume all the risk, I doubt it's worthwhile.
"I've worked in the software industry for over ten years, and I'm confident that it's a fairly simple idea"
My luddite cousin has too. I still help him find the ON button. Working near software development is not proof of knowing anything about it.
"what are next steps?"
You said you can design, so Design. That should always be the first step, even if you can code well. You have to know the target before you can reach it, by any means. Get as far as you can with design alone, and the next specification steps should fall naturally from there.
I've used both a Xincom XC-DPG502 and a Linksys RV016, each to load-balance a bonded T1 line (3/3Mbps) with a cable line (10/1Mbps). Past use also involved a flaky DSL line (office was too far from colo, 768/384Kbps). The Linksys always fared much better than the Xincom, though I wish Linksys would impement some kind of small-table DNS support. The Xincom supports loop-back DNS for about 5 IPs, which is good enough for us, but its flaky DHCP made it completely unusable.
The Linksys has some very nice per-port load balancing rules that make traffic shaping by protocol very easy. I wish they would bring out an all-gigabit model. Right now we're also testing a Gigabit Dual-WAN Netgear FVS336G for the SSL VPN capability, and that seems very promising.
Or am I completely misunderstanding the net neutrality issue?
No, it seems to me you understand it perfectly. However TFA seems to be blurring the lines between net neutrality and treating traffic differently. Here is the main technical problem that TFA ignores entirely, and it is the central problem that network neutrality seeks to resolve: QoS and filtering aren't just applied to protocols and ports -- they are applied to individual IP Addresses, and to suppress new services!
I'm perfectly happy to give VoIP ports a higher priority QoS than file transfers, which tend to be more "bursty" anyway. I just don't think the ISP has the right to determine that VoIP connections to Vonage or Skype have higher priority than connections to my freebie/personal SIP/VoIP service. If no one on my route is currently using VoIP, there's no reason my BitTorrents should be going any slower. If the ISP had provisioned their networks properly, there's no reason any service should ever be going slower, when I'm not maxing out my personal bandwidth allocation!
The TFA is willfully ignorant about all the central problems with the way ISPs configure their filters and their network asynchronous transfers, which favor particular host-protocol combinations, not just individual protocols and ports. And when they do configure QoS, they do so to limit or segregate the customers, NOT to provide better service, unless a specific QoS toll is being paid by their "preferred" customers.
There has to be some money link between Richard Bennett and the incumbents -- this is just too obvious an oversight to not be intentional.
We supposedly have Truth in Advertising laws already on the books, but super-fast, all-you-can-eat, Internet connections are still being advertised. I'd start by applying the existing law to those claims.
It wouldn't do any good, because of the weasel words in the advertisements....What they say is true, even though they don't tell you all the truth.
Very good points. Unfortunately, the legal reality also keeps plainly false advertisements from being pulled off the air. If you read the laws about false advertising, apparently you can only take a company to court about plainly false advertising if you are a competitor in the same field. In some states, "aggrieved consumers" can bring false advertising claims to court, but that is only if you they dumb enough to buy the false product first, and companies often get around class action suits by satisfying consumers on a one-off basis, or just dominating them each with legal muscle.
In the case of ISPs, and most modern media industries, consolidation has lead to Trust relationships (we have laws against those too, but our lobby-puppet politicians never enforce them), where "competitors" will rarely sue each other over their lies. You tend to get broadly accepted industry-wide lies, out of the current enforcement system. It gets to the point where the consumers are just expected to know that they are being lied to. The important thing is that you are lied to consistently, by all competitors in a given industry.
While we're listing books, I have to add 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins.
I have to admit, I was leaning already, but this book is really the best call to arms to Agnostics, to become full-fledged Atheists, that I have read so far. He does things like establish why all God theories are either statistically improbable in the absurd, or just useless circular logic. He establishes why other far-fetched theories, like intelligent life in other parts of the Universe, are statistically probable, especially in comparison. Even if you don't like the way he writes, it's full of references to other great books, writers, and ideas -- he liberally references other great writers like Douglas Adams and Carl Sagan. In general, Richard Dawkins offers a unique and interesting view of history, and the bibliography makes a great reading list, no matter which way your religious leanings sway.
Mod parent up. A new "cyber-defense branch" is a valid answer to this new type of warfare. The NSA can't fill this role -- it is too strictly defined by secrecy. Part of warfare is calling the attackers out to the international public -- there's no other way to get international support for counter-attacks. The NSA is just too hidden for that. Obviously, the CIA can't fill the role for the same reasons. None of the existing military branches really fit the job.
Traditionally, the armed forces are separated by attack mediums or "turfs". Air force is obviously in the air, Navy is in the water, Army takes the land. The Marines seemed to bridge the water-land gap early on, though now they seem like some weird hybrid that is most defined by their crazy proud human-shield machismo. They all have devolved into overlapping hybrids by now, to varying degrees, but they are still defined by their central turf.
It makes sense that a new turf requires a new branch -- for now let's call them Infosec (I know, it's taken, but cyber-blah just makes me think of a bunch of half-skinned Arnie Terminators wandering around using IE). It makes sense to overlap efforts a bit (beneficial competition), but Infosec should definitely be the first stop at the Pentagon for any big network hacking jobs.
Reminds me of Barack Obama's proposition for a Federal CTO. I wonder if he's thinking of adding a similar position to the Pentagon as well?
Trademark is a form of consumer protection that really lies outside this discussion. It's not so much a "right" as a consumer "convenience". That's why I think trademarks should never be allowed to contain real/dictionary words -- that destroys any real consumer benefit.
Patents and Copyrights are based on this line in Article I U.S. Constitution:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
Patents on drugs and other technology tend to extend beyond a single market generation -- a couple of years for drugs, and about 5 years for computer technologies, for example. So those don't fit the "limited times" standard at all.
Copyright lives well past a full market generation (about 30 years), and even past the author's lifetime. Journalism has an even shorter market lifespan -- it goes from current events to history within 5-10 years. Congress keeps extending Copyright so much, and so retroactively, that evidence of any "limited times" there is absent. "Limited times" does NOT mean "for as long as the Disney company wants to control Mickey Mouse"!
Any form of limited monopoly like this should be granted solely to the creators -- "to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;". The monopoly should not extend to any licensee -- no sponsor corporation nor post-invention customer should be extended the creators' monopoly rights. The monopoly only applies to the creator, the human, and that doesn't give them the right to sell their IP product to only one buyer. In fact "the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" prohibits them from granting this right to anyone else -- it's *exclusive*! Additionally, the creator should be able to pull out of any license contract where the licensee can't prove that they are providing correct compensation.
Fix these problems, and you fix most of the problems with IP law, that actually stifle "the progress of science and useful arts". In general, the "progress" requirement needs to be hewed to more closely. The current process should be abolished, if only because it goes directly against this requirement in its current form.
Definitions & Axioms: Invented. Well you have to start somewhere, so yes the starting point is "invented", but I would posit that a really good starting point relates to some irreducible aspect of physical reality, and that aspect is often "discovered". This middle-ground between fabrication and observation varies by Axiom, and I believe it is a good basis for comparing the value of different Axioms.
Theorems: Discovered. Agreed.
Proofs: Invented. This is another area where I would say there is more middle-ground to cover. Just as Axioms can be based on irreducible physical principals that are "discovered", Proofs can also be so complete as to defy any concept of "invention", and at least border on discovery, of pre-existing natural laws. Some Proofs are merely complete "enough", so that extension to base discovery is not fruitful enough to matter. I.E. Conversion of Pi to a rational constant, beyond a given significant digit, is not useful for manufacture of small objects, where precision is inconsequential, like a frisbee. That doesn't make Pi itself an invention, even though the useful (rough) conversions of Pi to rational values could each be considered inventions. Again, I think proof completeness could also be a measure of its relation of invention versus discovery, on some grand scalar between the two. I would tend to find the Proofs that border on discovery more valuable, but that judgement naturally varies by individual measures, such as use value in economics.
I could have said you have 3 cents. But there is no such thing as 3 cents. 3 cents is an idea, an abstraction. It is not a concrete thing in the real world. Your "abstract" analogy has a few problems.
1. The 3 cents you mention are real. They are physical minted objects.
2. You are talking about human abstractions more associated with sociology and economics, not mathematics. Depending on the physical qualities of the cents, they may be worth far more to a coin collector. "Value" is a very different basis for abstraction than "1".
3. All communication is abstraction.
You are writing in ASCII and/or Unicode right now -- how can it NOT be an abstraction? That has nothing to do with whether the basis of mathematical principals are "invented" by humans that happen to be able to figure out ways other humans will believe the same things, or "discovered" and then interpreted into human languages. In this case, because human abstraction of external and internal principals are innately confused, the term Mathematics is used for both the "invented" form of communication, and the "discovery" which is being communicated.
Just because all communication is "abstract" doesn't mean the whole universe is made-up! If that was the case, the only possible God is the one in your own head.
mathematics is an abstract concept similar to language. I'm glad you brought up language. I was going to go the other way based on that, and say that original question implies the wrong assumptions to start with, because it ignores the important aspect of communicating discovery. Mathematics is a special language we use to describe those discoveries that can be expressed in numerals or metrics. Therefore I say mathematics is "discovered", just as science is "discovered", even though we also use special scientific jargon to describe some of those discoveries as well. Just because the method used to communicate a discovery is "invented", doesn't mean the discovery itself is also an invention.
I'm glad you brought that up! There are a few different matrices already, and Barack Obama tops them all, in my biased opinion:
http://www.techpresident.com/ TechPresident grades on Internet policy: Barack Obama: A- Hillary Clinton: B- John McCain: C+
http://www.popularmechanics.com/geekthevote08 No real grading system here, but just look at the thorough policy statements by Barack Obama. One easy chart to look at is the policies that each candidate DID NOT ADDRESS: Barack Obama: -1 = Firearms Hillary Clinton: -2 = Firearms, Environment John McCain: -4 = Auto, Infrastructure, Science/Education, Space
http://election2008.aaas.org/comparisons/ No direct grading system here either, but they provide a nice breakdown of all the major Science and Technology policy areas.
I too was really disappointed that sen. Obama didn't take the opportunity to say on the record that racism is racism and that black people shouldn't behave in a racist manner either. Uh, did you watch/listen to the same speech I did?!?
He said exactly that -- that the bitter racism, from either side, is not productive. He just pointed out that entirely *ignoring* existing resentment isn't productive either. It's useful to examine the roots of all resentment, on all sides, and to work on the core issues that cause those resentments. That's the only way we will ever really solve the core problems, that underlie these false (but not baseless) resentments.
He also happened to point out how the politicians of the last few decades, Repubican neo-cons in particular, have exploited racism on both ends to accomplish their real goals -- which can be summarized as setting the Corporation above the Worker, in all senses. They channeled all that racist fear, hostility, and knee-jerk reaction into votes. Yes, they are an equal opportunity exploiter, but that's not to say that they're not also racist. The Republican majority today is all based on the "Southern Strategy", from Nixon on. It was continued by sustaining the same fears that the white majority had back then -- that somehow a gain in the black community is automatically a loss for the white community. That has never been true.
The politics of fear all fail to acknowledge an important truth: that helping your neighbor -- by whatever label of race, creed, or color -- is almost always a help to yourself. When you raise the bottom of society, all of society rises with it. The main failing of Republican politics, in the past few decades, has been to overlook that truth, and to exploit their more ignorant constituents, who never had any opportunity to learn that truth in their lifetimes. I think in that speech, Barack Obama proved that he is the one candidate who can raise America out of its long ignorance. John McCain, in his appeals to the religious right, the neo-cons, and the old Republican guard of Southern Strategists, has already proven to be the exact opposite kind of politician -- he is much more likely to keep us in ignorance, as long as it is politically expedient.
Barack Obama is the one candidate with the guts to come out and say what we were all already thinking, and even provided some hints, on how to escape our long-held ignorance.
OTOH if Obama manages to get gov. Richardson as his vp., candidate, that would definitely make it a tougher choice. Then does Richardson's recent announcement, of his endorsement for Barack Obama, sway you yet?
John McCain is the *ONLY Candidate* (of the three) who can claim "IANAL". You think this is really a qualification? That someone involved in writing new laws, has not had to prove he is familiar with EXISTING law? In some sense, that's all a legal bar exam proves -- grounding in existing law.
All that proves about John McCain is that he is MORE likely swayed by false politics, not grounded in the reality of an existing legal framework. I think a Civil Law and Constitutional Law expert is much more likely to do exactly what I want in office -- to protect the existing rights of ALL Americans, even at the expense of political expediency. That makes Barack Obama the ONLY candidate with qualified experience, in my book. Warmongering, Senate back-rubbing, or Lobby appeal experience are all counter to the main experiences I want in the White House.
I would think IT workers would somewhat follow the video games industry. I haven't done any official polling, but my more-than-general sense is that the video game industry majority is behind Barack Obama. Hillary is on the air, along with the rest of the religious right (remember that John McCain is now their first choice), blaming the gaming industry for all the ills of society, any time it is politically expedient. It makes sense, because the general lack of parenting skills today are caused by those same lax tendencies, that their own generations helped to foster.
The worst thing I've ever heard Barack Obama say about video games is that *parents should learn when to tell their kids to put them down*. He dared to say that other priorities, like school, should come first! A lot of knee-jerk reactionaries in game politics, who still support Obama mind you, try to take offense to some hidden "association between video games and slacking". But let's be honest here -- what he said was no worse than prior generations telling parents to "turn the television off until the homework is done". Yes, that seems rather obvious minimal parenting skills now, but it was a big deal for a time. Video games are the new primary form of entertainment for children, and thus should be considered secondary to priorities like education. He dared to blame lax parenting, instead of an easily targeted "evil new media" industry! In my mind, that makes him the only candidate worth supporting, for IT, gamers... or anyone who isn't an idiotic, "blame everyone else first", negligent parent.
Unfortunately, idiot parents are probably a much bigger constituency than we are. If anecdotal evidence in the movie theaters holds (who the heck in their right mind brings their pre-teen to a horror movie in a public theater??), they have us beat in numbers, by far.
You shouldn't have wasted your limited capacities on responding to me. Spoken like a true troll. I'm quaking. Really.
Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution protects INVENTORS, not innovators. Patents are FOR INVENTIONS. I'm sure it does. The fact that the work "invention" does not in itself infer any novelty, or even any function in the real world, is quite fitting with the current crop of patents.
On definitions, the source you chose sucks. If you want to quote Schumpeter or Adam Smiths' definitions that would be helpful. Or Utterback, or Christensen, or Rogers etc.. They all link innovation to commercialization (whereas invention is not). I'm not impressed by name dropping. Give me a link, a book title, a page, a direct quote -- SOMETHING USEFUL. You have proven nothing, except that you think you're above the conversation you're currently engaging in. I think you already proved yourself wrong, on that count.
I don't quite care what these people say. The basic fact is that a patent, as currently defined by the USPTO, is supposed to be novel, not merely marketable. In fact, there are many patented "inventions" which never come to market, because the patent holder is a just troll who never bothers to produce anything real, and just threatens to sue any one else who tries. The current patent system encourages this hide-and-snipe behavior, in how it is currently enforced. Legal settlement money is currently much easier to get, than earned profits from a real product. That is certainly not "innovative".
My only point was that you can't take the "profiteering" out of "innovation". And my point is that the current system, and its encouragement of patent trolls, certainly does take the "innovation" out of "profiteering".;)
I doubt they have forgotten it -- it's just not pertinent. You can "invent" something without it being novel, innovative, useful, or even real. Pick up a dictionary sometime.
The majority of definitions of "innovation" involve introducing of a product into a market, so by definition profiteering is coincident with innovation. Oh, there's nothing innovative about profiteering -- I'm quite sure it's been done since the beginning of human kind. We're not talking about "majority of definitions" for anything here. We're talking about legal definitions of patents. Again, you really do need to pick up a dictionary:
I mean innovation here as a combination of "novel" and "introduction", in the form of a patent or product (which can be mutually exclusive). Bringing something to market is not part of the dictionary definition of "innovation", nor are they part of the legal definition for "patentable". I think you're talking about "marketing", which is all most patent filers are really good at anyway, so the confusion is understandable.
You really seem to be in the wrong discussion altogether. Go back to your MBA studies please. Nothing to see here.
Using number of papers published to measure the quality of research is about as effective as using KLOCs to measure the quality of code. That seems to be a false equality, you're making there. Academic papers generally don't get counted, or even make it through the process of peer review, unless they offer some novel information or analysis. Lines of Code have no such requirement.
Why do you have such an interest in defending big pharma profiteering, from monopoly patents, if valid research funding alternatives exist, and are already proven successful? Why are patents always the default? Please substantiate that view for me. I don't understand it at all, especially given the current state of "innovation", especially in the U.S.A. If you call proliferation of sexual enhancement drugs a primary measure of "innovation", well that may change things a bit, I guess.
Name one drug developed as a direct result of purely academic research. That's like saying "name one food product that was brought to market as a result of purely academic research." By their nature, academics aren't interested in bringing ANYTHING to market directly. That is always done through some form of private sector partnerships.
"Public sector research spending almost equals private sector spending, and publicly funded researchers generate a disproportionate share of the papers published in relevant fields (Stephan 1996)."
To me, that sounds like if the Government just doubled medical research spending, and allowed the researchers to cover the side that the private sector is covering right now (clinical trials and production), we might have more pharmaceutical innovation than we do now, and we wouldn't be wasting money on advertising involving CG surfers in wheat fields, or ruthless corporate profiteering at the expense of international AIDS victims.
I would rather spend that tax money, than the hidden tax I'm paying now, on my wife's monopoly encumbered prescriptions. I would rather have that money go directly to the researchers, and not some big pharma fat cat, that doesn't know the difference between an MRI and an SSRI.
I think it would be a far simpler solution if patent examiners just enforced the rules already in place, that is you aren't allowed to patent ideas. Right thought, wrong rule. The rule that applies to software is that you can't patent writing -- only Copyright applies there. You could keep it a Trade Secret, which would be dumb for writing, because that would mean not releasing it in any form. The only place where using Trade Secret on writing is for internal-only business uses, nothing you are trying to make direct profit on. Really, the only reason to keep it secret is because you're doing something illicit with it -- that's why internal documents tend to come out only during corruption scandals. You can't patent visual art, sound, video, or any other interpreted medium either. You can patent new paints, new speaker technology, and new light emitter technology; but that's not the same as patenting a video of you painting your cat.
The courts tried to equate software to the machine that the software runs on -- a mistake easily addressed by any expert in the CS field. They aren't experts, and they were fooled. It is the computer machine that PROCESSES the software, that creates the possibility for all tasks that can ever run on it. Software is just the language that the machine interprets into action -- just like the recipe that a cook interprets into actual food. Or like the math equation that the mathematician (pre WWII some mathematicians were officially called "computers") applies useful real-world values to.
You can't patent humans, even though they're just processors -- too much "prior art" laying around. Just because you can patent a machine, that doesn't mean you can patent all the software that ever runs on it. The machine itself is the only thing that's truly novel. Everything else is about as novel as the "violets are blue" valentine you wrote recently, that doesn't even compile (she hated it).
Feel free to insert some blurb about people's good nature, goodness, good intentions and whatever else you think they work for other than the money. There's no need for that. Government already directly funds most novel research for new drugs and treatments, via grants and other direct funding. Monopolies and easy corporate profiteering aren't the only ways to satisfy basic greed -- they're just the easiest.
Taking away monopolies just forces everyone to compete on a cost and business intelligence basis. If you need government thugs and lawyers to make your business profitable, you probably don't belong in business.
I mean, if we get rid of drug patents, AIDS research isn't going to go away, but there's sure going to be a lot less of it.
Can you be sure of that? Most basic medical research is financed with government funds. Excellent point. I don't understand why people don't realize that innovation often arises more quickly without profiteering involved. Corporate profits often just add to the net costs to society. Government grants of temporary monopolies are given way too freely, without real in-depth consideration of what society loses in the process. Here's a good posting from a great economist I found on the subject -- Dean Baker, now writes "Beat the Press" for the American Prospect:
You don't even have to go to the extreme of big pharma and software patent trolls to question the value of trading societal benefits for temporary monopoly.
Just look at how Alexander Graham Bell swindled us all (with the admitted help of his patent examiner!). The AT+T monopoly is coming back to haunt us again, in the Internet age. Government needs to realize that if you allow a monopoly to stick around too long, it zombifies -- it's nearly impossible to kill it. I fully expect to see Walt Disney's head on a robot body become president, and immortal owner of all things Mickey Mouse, within my lifetime. Bubble Billy Gates will be his Vice President -- he's Vice President every year, since the Government runs on Microsoft patented processes. "Limited times" indeed...
We would never see this day without the European Commisions sticking to their principals.
It's too bad the U.S.A. can't get the hint. Oh yeah, I forgot... moneyed institutions have more "free speech" and "political will" than regular people in the great USoA. Corporations are considered the same as "people" here. It seems like I read a term in the dictionary once, about a form of government where corporations have unequal decision making power, over individuals, in all government policies and decisions. Oh yeah, now I remember! I think it was "fascism"! Where else have I heard that word used for a government....?
Choosing to ignore your old code just because you're friendly to the open source community isn't necessarily hypocrisy, sometimes it's the only rational business decision. I wasn't speaking about the relative costs of each archive type (public vs. private) at all. I was just pointing out that it seems hypocritical to benefit so much from a system that you are not willing to contribute to, whenever the opportunity arises. IBM benefits financially from OSS, so any expenditure in contributing back to OSS could be seen as returning the favor. It could also be seen as a marketing cost, since it obviously has more to do with long-term industry good will than "the short-term bottom line".
I look forward to hearing more about IBM's "rational business decision" in any case. I find it funny that so many people are defending the decision before it's even made public. The term "rational" requires factual substantiation, not hyperbole. The term "hypocrite" has no such requirement.;)
Because in real world companies exist to make money, not please OSS crowd. Yes, but when a big chunk of that money is made based on products *provided by the OSS crowd*, doesn't the opinion of that "crowd" become important? Marketing is a huge factor in making money, and public perception is a big part of that.
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AIG's assets are collateral and the loan is 11%+.
Back when I got my mortgage, a normal fixed-rate loan required 20% down. So the low-down-payment mortgage insanity has trickled up to giant investment firms too, eh? Not a good sign.
I've never done this before on Slashdot, but this time I feel the need to break this question down into much smaller pieces.
"maybe everyone has a software project in them"
But not everyone grasps the logic required to convert an idea to machine executable software. Sometimes they are actually thinking of a business process that only humans can execute, and even then the process is not necessarily cost effective.
"googling doesn't find me anything similar"
Are you entirely sure you're searching the right terms? Unfortunately, jargon varies widely, from whatever language you may describe as human.
"but I can design and QA"
QA ability is always debatable, but design is something you can prove. So PROVE it. That's what flowcharts, mock-ups, psuedo-code, UML, and visual prototyping are for. Even something as dumb as PowerPoint/Impress can be used to fake a UI design. Static web sites can be made to prototype UI for a more complex web application. If you can't do some combination of those in your design, in a way that programmers will understand, you don't really know that it will work as software.
"I'd happily learn to code"
Again, prove it. CODE IT. If it doesn't work out, ask for help AFTER you try, not before.
"getting to a good standard would take me years"
It takes longer than a lifetime in some cases. I know professional programmers (making "the big bucks") that haven't yet achieved "a good standard." If it compiles, runs, and meets internal business requirements, there's such a thing as good enough.
"by which time I would be bored of the project"
Really?? Then maybe this idea isn't so great after all. If this is true, why would it be worth your money to hire a coder, or fool volunteers into getting bored for you?
"I set up a project on SourceForge"
NO!!! Do NOT further pollute SourceForge with a project you're not willing to see through to the logical end, on your own. Search for projects that haven't been updated for a year or longer. There's already far too many. Get to functional (it doesn't have to be great, just functional) first. Then it might be worth sharing.
"Should I try a rent-a-coder type of site and outsource the work"
Is it worth the money to you? Then yes, pay other people for it. Just make sure they give you all the licensing rights, which may cost you more in the end. Otherwise, you'll end up with a lot of nice code that you don't really own, even though you "paid" for it. People tend to forget that paying for programming labor and paying for copyright are two different things.
"I think the project could be worth something"
Yes it could be, if you're willing to implement it until it is functional. Otherwise, it's worthless, to you and everyone else.
"cover said outsource costs"
If you're not willing to cover these costs on your own, and assume all the risk, I doubt it's worthwhile.
"I've worked in the software industry for over ten years, and I'm confident that it's a fairly simple idea"
My luddite cousin has too. I still help him find the ON button. Working near software development is not proof of knowing anything about it.
"what are next steps?"
You said you can design, so Design. That should always be the first step, even if you can code well. You have to know the target before you can reach it, by any means. Get as far as you can with design alone, and the next specification steps should fall naturally from there.
I've used both a Xincom XC-DPG502 and a Linksys RV016, each to load-balance a bonded T1 line (3/3Mbps) with a cable line (10/1Mbps). Past use also involved a flaky DSL line (office was too far from colo, 768/384Kbps). The Linksys always fared much better than the Xincom, though I wish Linksys would impement some kind of small-table DNS support. The Xincom supports loop-back DNS for about 5 IPs, which is good enough for us, but its flaky DHCP made it completely unusable.
The Linksys has some very nice per-port load balancing rules that make traffic shaping by protocol very easy. I wish they would bring out an all-gigabit model. Right now we're also testing a Gigabit Dual-WAN Netgear FVS336G for the SSL VPN capability, and that seems very promising.
No, it seems to me you understand it perfectly. However TFA seems to be blurring the lines between net neutrality and treating traffic differently. Here is the main technical problem that TFA ignores entirely, and it is the central problem that network neutrality seeks to resolve: QoS and filtering aren't just applied to protocols and ports -- they are applied to individual IP Addresses, and to suppress new services!
I'm perfectly happy to give VoIP ports a higher priority QoS than file transfers, which tend to be more "bursty" anyway. I just don't think the ISP has the right to determine that VoIP connections to Vonage or Skype have higher priority than connections to my freebie/personal SIP/VoIP service. If no one on my route is currently using VoIP, there's no reason my BitTorrents should be going any slower. If the ISP had provisioned their networks properly, there's no reason any service should ever be going slower, when I'm not maxing out my personal bandwidth allocation!
The TFA is willfully ignorant about all the central problems with the way ISPs configure their filters and their network asynchronous transfers, which favor particular host-protocol combinations, not just individual protocols and ports. And when they do configure QoS, they do so to limit or segregate the customers, NOT to provide better service, unless a specific QoS toll is being paid by their "preferred" customers.
There has to be some money link between Richard Bennett and the incumbents -- this is just too obvious an oversight to not be intentional.
Very good points. Unfortunately, the legal reality also keeps plainly false advertisements from being pulled off the air. If you read the laws about false advertising, apparently you can only take a company to court about plainly false advertising if you are a competitor in the same field. In some states, "aggrieved consumers" can bring false advertising claims to court, but that is only if you they dumb enough to buy the false product first, and companies often get around class action suits by satisfying consumers on a one-off basis, or just dominating them each with legal muscle.It wouldn't do any good, because of the weasel words in the advertisements....What they say is true, even though they don't tell you all the truth.
In the case of ISPs, and most modern media industries, consolidation has lead to Trust relationships (we have laws against those too, but our lobby-puppet politicians never enforce them), where "competitors" will rarely sue each other over their lies. You tend to get broadly accepted industry-wide lies, out of the current enforcement system. It gets to the point where the consumers are just expected to know that they are being lied to. The important thing is that you are lied to consistently, by all competitors in a given industry.
While we're listing books, I have to add 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins.
I have to admit, I was leaning already, but this book is really the best call to arms to Agnostics, to become full-fledged Atheists, that I have read so far. He does things like establish why all God theories are either statistically improbable in the absurd, or just useless circular logic. He establishes why other far-fetched theories, like intelligent life in other parts of the Universe, are statistically probable, especially in comparison. Even if you don't like the way he writes, it's full of references to other great books, writers, and ideas -- he liberally references other great writers like Douglas Adams and Carl Sagan. In general, Richard Dawkins offers a unique and interesting view of history, and the bibliography makes a great reading list, no matter which way your religious leanings sway.
Mod parent up. A new "cyber-defense branch" is a valid answer to this new type of warfare. The NSA can't fill this role -- it is too strictly defined by secrecy. Part of warfare is calling the attackers out to the international public -- there's no other way to get international support for counter-attacks. The NSA is just too hidden for that. Obviously, the CIA can't fill the role for the same reasons. None of the existing military branches really fit the job.
Traditionally, the armed forces are separated by attack mediums or "turfs". Air force is obviously in the air, Navy is in the water, Army takes the land. The Marines seemed to bridge the water-land gap early on, though now they seem like some weird hybrid that is most defined by their crazy proud human-shield machismo. They all have devolved into overlapping hybrids by now, to varying degrees, but they are still defined by their central turf.
It makes sense that a new turf requires a new branch -- for now let's call them Infosec (I know, it's taken, but cyber-blah just makes me think of a bunch of half-skinned Arnie Terminators wandering around using IE). It makes sense to overlap efforts a bit (beneficial competition), but Infosec should definitely be the first stop at the Pentagon for any big network hacking jobs.
Reminds me of Barack Obama's proposition for a Federal CTO. I wonder if he's thinking of adding a similar position to the Pentagon as well?
Trademark is a form of consumer protection that really lies outside this discussion. It's not so much a "right" as a consumer "convenience". That's why I think trademarks should never be allowed to contain real/dictionary words -- that destroys any real consumer benefit.
Patents and Copyrights are based on this line in Article I U.S. Constitution:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html
Patents on drugs and other technology tend to extend beyond a single market generation -- a couple of years for drugs, and about 5 years for computer technologies, for example. So those don't fit the "limited times" standard at all.
Copyright lives well past a full market generation (about 30 years), and even past the author's lifetime. Journalism has an even shorter market lifespan -- it goes from current events to history within 5-10 years. Congress keeps extending Copyright so much, and so retroactively, that evidence of any "limited times" there is absent. "Limited times" does NOT mean "for as long as the Disney company wants to control Mickey Mouse"!
Any form of limited monopoly like this should be granted solely to the creators -- "to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;". The monopoly should not extend to any licensee -- no sponsor corporation nor post-invention customer should be extended the creators' monopoly rights. The monopoly only applies to the creator, the human, and that doesn't give them the right to sell their IP product to only one buyer. In fact "the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" prohibits them from granting this right to anyone else -- it's *exclusive*! Additionally, the creator should be able to pull out of any license contract where the licensee can't prove that they are providing correct compensation.
Fix these problems, and you fix most of the problems with IP law, that actually stifle "the progress of science and useful arts". In general, the "progress" requirement needs to be hewed to more closely. The current process should be abolished, if only because it goes directly against this requirement in its current form.
1. The 3 cents you mention are real. They are physical minted objects.
2. You are talking about human abstractions more associated with sociology and economics, not mathematics. Depending on the physical qualities of the cents, they may be worth far more to a coin collector. "Value" is a very different basis for abstraction than "1".
3. All communication is abstraction.
You are writing in ASCII and/or Unicode right now -- how can it NOT be an abstraction? That has nothing to do with whether the basis of mathematical principals are "invented" by humans that happen to be able to figure out ways other humans will believe the same things, or "discovered" and then interpreted into human languages. In this case, because human abstraction of external and internal principals are innately confused, the term Mathematics is used for both the "invented" form of communication, and the "discovery" which is being communicated.
Just because all communication is "abstract" doesn't mean the whole universe is made-up! If that was the case, the only possible God is the one in your own head.
I'm glad you brought that up! There are a few different matrices already, and Barack Obama tops them all, in my biased opinion:
http://www.techpresident.com/
TechPresident grades on Internet policy:
Barack Obama: A-
Hillary Clinton: B-
John McCain: C+
http://www.popularmechanics.com/geekthevote08
No real grading system here, but just look at the thorough policy statements by Barack Obama. One easy chart to look at is the policies that each candidate DID NOT ADDRESS:
Barack Obama: -1 = Firearms
Hillary Clinton: -2 = Firearms, Environment
John McCain: -4 = Auto, Infrastructure, Science/Education, Space
http://election2008.aaas.org/comparisons/
No direct grading system here either, but they provide a nice breakdown of all the major Science and Technology policy areas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU
He said exactly that -- that the bitter racism, from either side, is not productive. He just pointed out that entirely *ignoring* existing resentment isn't productive either. It's useful to examine the roots of all resentment, on all sides, and to work on the core issues that cause those resentments. That's the only way we will ever really solve the core problems, that underlie these false (but not baseless) resentments.
He also happened to point out how the politicians of the last few decades, Repubican neo-cons in particular, have exploited racism on both ends to accomplish their real goals -- which can be summarized as setting the Corporation above the Worker, in all senses. They channeled all that racist fear, hostility, and knee-jerk reaction into votes. Yes, they are an equal opportunity exploiter, but that's not to say that they're not also racist. The Republican majority today is all based on the "Southern Strategy", from Nixon on. It was continued by sustaining the same fears that the white majority had back then -- that somehow a gain in the black community is automatically a loss for the white community. That has never been true.
The politics of fear all fail to acknowledge an important truth: that helping your neighbor -- by whatever label of race, creed, or color -- is almost always a help to yourself. When you raise the bottom of society, all of society rises with it. The main failing of Republican politics, in the past few decades, has been to overlook that truth, and to exploit their more ignorant constituents, who never had any opportunity to learn that truth in their lifetimes. I think in that speech, Barack Obama proved that he is the one candidate who can raise America out of its long ignorance. John McCain, in his appeals to the religious right, the neo-cons, and the old Republican guard of Southern Strategists, has already proven to be the exact opposite kind of politician -- he is much more likely to keep us in ignorance, as long as it is politically expedient.
Barack Obama is the one candidate with the guts to come out and say what we were all already thinking, and even provided some hints, on how to escape our long-held ignorance. OTOH if Obama manages to get gov. Richardson as his vp., candidate, that would definitely make it a tougher choice. Then does Richardson's recent announcement, of his endorsement for Barack Obama, sway you yet?
http://news.google.com/news?q=Bill+Richardson+endorses+Barack+Obama&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&hl=en&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=1&ct=title
All that proves about John McCain is that he is MORE likely swayed by false politics, not grounded in the reality of an existing legal framework. I think a Civil Law and Constitutional Law expert is much more likely to do exactly what I want in office -- to protect the existing rights of ALL Americans, even at the expense of political expediency. That makes Barack Obama the ONLY candidate with qualified experience, in my book. Warmongering, Senate back-rubbing, or Lobby appeal experience are all counter to the main experiences I want in the White House.
I would think IT workers would somewhat follow the video games industry. I haven't done any official polling, but my more-than-general sense is that the video game industry majority is behind Barack Obama. Hillary is on the air, along with the rest of the religious right (remember that John McCain is now their first choice), blaming the gaming industry for all the ills of society, any time it is politically expedient. It makes sense, because the general lack of parenting skills today are caused by those same lax tendencies, that their own generations helped to foster.
The worst thing I've ever heard Barack Obama say about video games is that *parents should learn when to tell their kids to put them down*. He dared to say that other priorities, like school, should come first! A lot of knee-jerk reactionaries in game politics, who still support Obama mind you, try to take offense to some hidden "association between video games and slacking". But let's be honest here -- what he said was no worse than prior generations telling parents to "turn the television off until the homework is done". Yes, that seems rather obvious minimal parenting skills now, but it was a big deal for a time. Video games are the new primary form of entertainment for children, and thus should be considered secondary to priorities like education. He dared to blame lax parenting, instead of an easily targeted "evil new media" industry! In my mind, that makes him the only candidate worth supporting, for IT, gamers... or anyone who isn't an idiotic, "blame everyone else first", negligent parent.
Unfortunately, idiot parents are probably a much bigger constituency than we are. If anecdotal evidence in the movie theaters holds (who the heck in their right mind brings their pre-teen to a horror movie in a public theater??), they have us beat in numbers, by far.
I don't quite care what these people say. The basic fact is that a patent, as currently defined by the USPTO, is supposed to be novel, not merely marketable. In fact, there are many patented "inventions" which never come to market, because the patent holder is a just troll who never bothers to produce anything real, and just threatens to sue any one else who tries. The current patent system encourages this hide-and-snipe behavior, in how it is currently enforced. Legal settlement money is currently much easier to get, than earned profits from a real product. That is certainly not "innovative". My only point was that you can't take the "profiteering" out of "innovation". And my point is that the current system, and its encouragement of patent trolls, certainly does take the "innovation" out of "profiteering".
I doubt they have forgotten it -- it's just not pertinent. You can "invent" something without it being novel, innovative, useful, or even real. Pick up a dictionary sometime. The majority of definitions of "innovation" involve introducing of a product into a market, so by definition profiteering is coincident with innovation. Oh, there's nothing innovative about profiteering -- I'm quite sure it's been done since the beginning of human kind. We're not talking about "majority of definitions" for anything here. We're talking about legal definitions of patents. Again, you really do need to pick up a dictionary:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
I mean innovation here as a combination of "novel" and "introduction", in the form of a patent or product (which can be mutually exclusive). Bringing something to market is not part of the dictionary definition of "innovation", nor are they part of the legal definition for "patentable". I think you're talking about "marketing", which is all most patent filers are really good at anyway, so the confusion is understandable.
You really seem to be in the wrong discussion altogether. Go back to your MBA studies please. Nothing to see here.
Why do you have such an interest in defending big pharma profiteering, from monopoly patents, if valid research funding alternatives exist, and are already proven successful? Why are patents always the default? Please substantiate that view for me. I don't understand it at all, especially given the current state of "innovation", especially in the U.S.A. If you call proliferation of sexual enhancement drugs a primary measure of "innovation", well that may change things a bit, I guess.
From "Innovation Policy and the Economy"
By National Bureau of Economic Research, Adam B. Jaffe,
1. Publicly Funded Science and the Productivity of the Pharmaceutical Industry
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Nc33ZS5nRa0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=%22Cockburn%22+%22Publicly+Funded+Science+and+the+Productivity+of+the+...%22+&ots=N1utQNJYDg&sig=MLe5lcdxHdictvZVzvraJWWx4m4#PPA2,M1
"Public sector research spending almost equals private sector spending, and publicly funded researchers generate a disproportionate share of the papers published in relevant fields (Stephan 1996)."
To me, that sounds like if the Government just doubled medical research spending, and allowed the researchers to cover the side that the private sector is covering right now (clinical trials and production), we might have more pharmaceutical innovation than we do now, and we wouldn't be wasting money on advertising involving CG surfers in wheat fields, or ruthless corporate profiteering at the expense of international AIDS victims.
I would rather spend that tax money, than the hidden tax I'm paying now, on my wife's monopoly encumbered prescriptions. I would rather have that money go directly to the researchers, and not some big pharma fat cat, that doesn't know the difference between an MRI and an SSRI.
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue32/Baker32.htm
The courts tried to equate software to the machine that the software runs on -- a mistake easily addressed by any expert in the CS field. They aren't experts, and they were fooled. It is the computer machine that PROCESSES the software, that creates the possibility for all tasks that can ever run on it. Software is just the language that the machine interprets into action -- just like the recipe that a cook interprets into actual food. Or like the math equation that the mathematician (pre WWII some mathematicians were officially called "computers") applies useful real-world values to.
You can't patent humans, even though they're just processors -- too much "prior art" laying around. Just because you can patent a machine, that doesn't mean you can patent all the software that ever runs on it. The machine itself is the only thing that's truly novel. Everything else is about as novel as the "violets are blue" valentine you wrote recently, that doesn't even compile (she hated it).
Taking away monopolies just forces everyone to compete on a cost and business intelligence basis. If you need government thugs and lawyers to make your business profitable, you probably don't belong in business.
The Reform of Intellectual Property
Dean Baker (Center for Economic and Policy Research, USA)
The Reform of Intellectual Property
You don't even have to go to the extreme of big pharma and software patent trolls to question the value of trading societal benefits for temporary monopoly.
Just look at how Alexander Graham Bell swindled us all (with the admitted help of his patent examiner!). The AT+T monopoly is coming back to haunt us again, in the Internet age. Government needs to realize that if you allow a monopoly to stick around too long, it zombifies -- it's nearly impossible to kill it. I fully expect to see Walt Disney's head on a robot body become president, and immortal owner of all things Mickey Mouse, within my lifetime. Bubble Billy Gates will be his Vice President -- he's Vice President every year, since the Government runs on Microsoft patented processes. "Limited times" indeed...
We would never see this day without the European Commisions sticking to their principals.
It's too bad the U.S.A. can't get the hint. Oh yeah, I forgot... moneyed institutions have more "free speech" and "political will" than regular people in the great USoA. Corporations are considered the same as "people" here. It seems like I read a term in the dictionary once, about a form of government where corporations have unequal decision making power, over individuals, in all government policies and decisions. Oh yeah, now I remember! I think it was "fascism"! Where else have I heard that word used for a government....?
I look forward to hearing more about IBM's "rational business decision" in any case. I find it funny that so many people are defending the decision before it's even made public. The term "rational" requires factual substantiation, not hyperbole. The term "hypocrite" has no such requirement.