I rather doubt that. I've seen generic COM errors bubble up to.NET; there'd be nothing preventing Microsoft from doing the same. You'd get more of the same however; this function, every function, throws Exception! Or perhaps InteropException!
True the framework is huge in and of itself, and it is built on top of the Win32 - partially. (They're working to rewrite the portions of the Win32 API still directly used and will be for some time. Not ALL of the.NET Framework is a proxy for the Win32 API, however.) So now - take this huge framework, where objects work closely with other objects and consider the number of exceptions that would have to be handled by "Hello World."
*shrug* I won't argue it. I believe all pertinent points are covered by the interview I linked to above.
Are a pain in the ass and bring little real benefit to the table?
Even if you rethrow, come on. If this is that big of a deal to you then add them yourself. Write a compiler preparser that will ensure you have caught and dealt with required exceptions. There's plenty of sample source available for such a tool and for all the bruhaha about them not being in C#, you'd think it would already exist.
This interview has some wonderful explanations as to why they are not included.
Security is one concern but I'm not all that concerned about a DNS host of repute moving a pointer without my permission.
Fine tuning the settings could possibly be another reason but most smaller sites (anything less than say, eBay, Google, Microsoft, Slashdot) can get by without much specific configuration.
...until it just plain become a huge PITA with little return.
I can't think of a reason to host your own corporate DNS. For personal DNS - i.e. you browsing the web, etc., you can control timeouts and your queries are processed much faster - but for corporate DNS, outsource it.
Be afraid of free though. Free generally means no guarantee. Of course NetSol hosts one of the root servers so I guess you'd expect their data lines to be fairly redundant.
We currently use UltraDNS (http://www.ultradns.net). They've been fantastic and have a terrific interface for making changes. Requires some knowledge but we've *never* had a DNS problem since switching two years ago.
As someone with more than $400.00 spent in the iTunes store legalizing my collection of MP3s I have two words for ANYONE who thinks I'll pay more for a digital copy than a physical copy.
BLOW ME.
The physical copy doesn't come with restraints. I can play it anywhere, anytime. I can rip it to OGG, MP3, whatever I want, and take the results with me wherever I want, and I'm happy.
I put up with the DRM in iTunes only because it is a convenience that is also *CHEAP*.
You start charging more, the convenience goes away, and I'll either a) steal my music or b) buy the CD.
Yea, it seems that on every question they forgot the "..I have permission." argument. As I noted in my comments to them a great deal of the code posted on the web is done so with minor requirements for use. "Name in comments acknowledging source of code." For books you might find "Name in the about box acknowledging source of code." Some are posted as is.
The crux of it is that most folks post code to a public repository because they want other people to critique and use it. If they didn't want others to critique and use it... wait, why did they post it?
A great deal of the code that I have in my library consists of acknowledgement requirements. None of it is fancy stuff, it's all easily rewritable, and I understand how it works, but... how many times do you want to write a AmountToWords function for printing checks anyway?
"The Massachusetts system mixes databases from the IRS and Customs, along with state motor vehicle, incorporation and professional licensing records. The state tax agency says it uses other databases, but won't name them."
I'm sorry - why won't you name them? One, you work for ME. Two, the majority of the time a government agency won't specify something it is because they shouldn't be doing what they are.
THAT statement worries me more than the rest of the article in its entirety. The government should be completely transparent at all times to the citizen, at least in civil matters. (Military, et al, would be excepted in certain circumstances.)
Grah. That's okay. The TIA database that's running will pick this post up and flag me as a dissident. When the time comes I'll disappear like the rest...
Someone else said they had GUID based protection but as far as I could tell that's complete bull.
I purchased TurboTax in January while I was on the road. I installed it onto my laptop and put all the preliminary information in place. February 2 my state was ready for download and purchase and I received my second mortgage statement so I installed TurboTax onto my desktop, moved the file over, purchased and downloaded TurboTax State, efiled, and had my refund on February 6th from the state and February 9th from the Federal.
No protection on TurboTax on either Federal or State that I saw.
As for Quicken I've been using it since Quicken for DOS and I've yet to see copy protection on it. The downloadable trials have protection on them ala you can purchase it; and the Quicken Basic version comes with the ability to upgrade to Deluxe by purchasing a key from Intuit, but I've never had a problem with copy protection.
I think in THAT arena it would be suicide. If I lost a computer and had to fight a software company to get my finances back I'd be ticked.
They are a company whose job it is to make money. At least they haven't stooped to suing people randomly, like the makers of ScummVM or... God, whatever else.
The email address to email to is pr@lucasarts.com. Send them a polite, well worded, well thought out email. If your intent is to help get Sam and Max 2 published then you'll be polite. Any other actions will simply irritate LucasArts.
As well, another poster mentioned a console port. I would most certainly purchase a console port of an adventure game - of all the PC games out there the generally simple interface of the adventure game would work wonderfully well!
It's BSD, Frans meant for it to be usable by others. It's GPL but not assigned to the FSF, you'll never get any help.
I wager that open source developers, when combined under the banners of all open source licenses, become one of the largest special interest groups in the technological community.
As a SIG we wield considerable power; consider the power such groups hold in the United States Congress. Consider - would you want your name to villified online for stealing code when it is common to search the Internet for an applicant's name now? What about those companies that practice peer interviews prior to hiring?
Companies are likely to want to minimize their legal exposure as well. If your boss or shareholders know that someone has stolen code and that a controversy surrounds that code, there is a good chance the code thief will suffer from a lost job.
But these things can only happen if we act in concert; as a unified group that is capable of taking action and responsible for the actions it takes. Someone here posted that vigilante justice was the answer and in a way it is. The rule of governments are held only because the entire population does not rise up against them. Mob rule. In our situation we'll find little help for the common developer whose license has been violated... except from ourselves.
Slashdot, kuro5hin, Groklaw... these are three shining examples of what we can do as a community.
...unbiased. She has asked that IBM provide the "approximately 232 products" and the source logs for them, as well as email and memos pertaining to them. She's basically allowing SCO to go diving for the information that they are after.
However, this is discovery and not trial so items obtained during discovery don't seem to always be admissable. It simply seems that Judge Wells is doing her best judicial duty to ensure that there can be no claim of mistrial due to denied evidence.
As well SCO has quite a ballgame ahead of them. The items requested from them were quite numerous and it seems that Judge Wells doesn't buy the "we can't specify it because it would violate agreements" argument that they are bandying about. (See item #5 on the order itself; where the code was distributed, to whom, and under what agreements.)
The end result is this order seems better for SCO than IBM, but then again SCO couldn't get much lower on hope than they were. I disagree with the allowance of the requested versions of Dynix and AIX and all source code for them -- perhaps I should simply sue Microsoft and insinuate that they have some of my code in their product. While I admire the discovery must be broad... that seems to be a bit too broad.
SCO wants to subpoena 7200 witnesses. Holy Christ. How, when, why? That many witnesses? Tell me there'd be some sort of expedited process to get the questions SCO is seeking answered -- that seems ludicrous, especially in light of the fact that SCO has repeatedly altered its complaints.
I also laugh at "considering SCO's good faith effort." What? WHAT? And THANK GOD she muzzled McBridge and his cronies. I just hope that she doesn't start putting the remainder of the case under seal so as to prevent the rest of us from knowing what's going on. You know SCO will suggest it at least once.
...you mean that allowing your personal bias to influence your writing isn't allowed?
That must be why most newspapers are considered liberal or conservative. That must be why LinuxInsider always prints the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That must be why the 1st Amendment specifically addresses the right of the *press.* Revealing that interpreting facts is an absolute sure makes me feel better. Think of all those guilty people on death row who are now MOST UNDOUBTEDLY guilty!
The problem is that nothing is entirely factual. Given a set of facts different people will see them different ways. That interpretation of the facts is what's known as journalism in this case. Kyle Bennett published what he thought was the truth. I hadn't even read the OCP article before the Slashdot mention of the 1st set of letters and I'm of the opinion that Infinium Labs is a bunch of slimeballs trying to make a buck off a scam.
So as for justification, there is none. There is only interpretation and acceptance. And God help us all that litigation is how companies live and die in the United States of America.
I'd like to see the correspondence with Microsoft in this case. The wxWindows, er, wxWidgets team seemed to think it was a better idea to cooperate - forcing would be to actually sue them and deliver a, what was it, 75 page explanation?
The team would've won the trademark suit IMHO, but IANAL and the SCO case should've been about finance fraud a long time ago - so take my opinion with a grain of salt. In any case as a cross platform UI toolkit the name fits better.
As it is perhaps this took place as a polite exchange. Especially considering that the wxWidgets team had to know the groundswell of support they would have if Microsoft DID force the issue. There's nothing wrong with a company asking someone to do something; there's only something wrong with that when they sue someone to force them to do something that's inane.
Flamebait Disclaimer: I use Microsoft products as much in a day as I use Linux. I use what's best for the job at the time I need it done. I'm not screaming that people are being hypocrites; I'm saying that the situation might very well be completely different than what this article seems to assume.
The only time Microsoft will truly piss me off is when they decide to go after Mono. That will have me up in arms whether it's effective or not.
Anyway my agreement has two bearings on your situation. First is that all of my inventions that bear relevancy to my company's business is theirs. Anything created on company time is theirs. Anything created with company resources is theirs.
I don't work for a "consulting firm"; I work for an insurance company whose products and services are well defined. I don't mind the restrictions they placed on me.
I'm also not allowed to compete against my employer in the markets they inhabit for a period of up to 6 months past termination of my employment, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. This includes working for another company in my same field for the most part, although they have limitations set out such that I can see working successfully in technology. (Their non compete is basically a no contact with possible customers more than a "don't compete with us.")
I gave up an additional year on my non compete (18 months total) so that I could have an overarching exception created to the entire agreement for my Mom's company. She happens to do work in the exact same field as I do (it's why I'm a pretty decent programmer to have on board for this company; I grew up with the industry, helping her, etc.). So now the company actually gets two boosts. I'm lead developer so I can try out ideas I have with my Mom's company because she's smaller and more flexible, and when those ideas pan out I can bring them into our company with added knowledge.
Too true. If a simple letter littered with blatant lies and outrageous claims can be accepted by Congress at face value without any fact checking done then we are in serious trouble.
The most ironic thing is that IBM makes a great deal more money off their hardware and consulting (read: services) division than their Linux division. To quote from their recent SEC filing they "had more than $17 billion in services signing."
Hard numbers from their 4th Quarter: Global Services division produced $11.4 billion (including maintenance). Hardware was at $9.1 billion. Revenues from software were $4.3 billion.
Software is nothing in the grand scheme of technology. Implementing that software through knowledge of hardware and software and the business environment it is being deployed in is everything.
Continuing on that trend and to reiterate a point made in many prior posts: this is a global economy. Software production is being outsourced from the United States regularly; I wouldn't be surprised to hear the same in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom to some extent. Many of us fear for our jobs, ultimately, but customization of open source software is still required in many cases. As well simply having a brain on our shoulders can help us accurately deploy a system - even if the software is designed by someone else.
The end point is again, simple. Software is nothing in the great world of business technology. It used to be a primary revenue creator but that stopped when technology became prominent in all walks of life, and more people became familiar with all of its aspects.
1. I was working on the development database but my boss needed a quick count of a number of checks so I opened a new window (Query Analyzer for SQL Server) to the production database and gave him his count. I then proceeded to finish what I was doing on development... without switching windows back to the development server.
TRUNCATE TABLE Checks
TRUNCATE isn't a logged option but thankfully Log Explorer Pro from Lumigent can retrieve truncated data if you move fast enough. As well we had a backup that wasn't so very old handy. Out of 1.3 million checks we only lost 34000, but I was so stressed out.
2. Way, way, way back when we had just gotten a new Dell server. I was showing an interviewee the server who I had found out I had known when I was younger. So, joking around I said, "Want to see a hot swap of a drive?" He was like, heh, that'd be cool. So I pulled the drive out of the RAID 5 array. Alarm klaxons started going off from inside the machine, I swear. I stuffed the drive back in but even though the drive officially -was- hot swap we hadn't purchased the high end Dell with an array controller that could dynamically rebuild the data. We'd gotten the cheap version. 8 hours later - with the machine beeping constantly at us - the rebuild was done.
3. This one's not mine but a guy I work with. I had asked him to migrate some databases to a backup server so he set up a DTS job to do the migration. Unfortunately he did two things wrong: the destination was the same server as the source, our primary production machine, and he set the DTS process to execute nightly instead of once. We ended up filling 300Gb of drive space and not having a clue as to what happened to cause it. When we found it we were giggling (it is funny:)) but beating ourselves in the head.
4. Another one that's not mine. New network administrator was installing Windows NT 4.0 (this was ~6 years back? Roughly?). He was complaining about it taking forever to install and I asked him what he was doing. "Well, shit, NT has like 35 disks man." I asked him why he wasn't installing off the CD and he just hung up on me. He didn't know the NT CD would allow you to do that.:)
5. On a similar vein my original boss when I started here was I thought a technical God. It's fun to see how that belief fades over time. In my case he was showing me how to install Netware 3.12 and configure it the way he wanted it to be configured. He sent me off on my own the next week to install a new office. The week at home I had burned all the Netware 3.12 files to a CD so I wouldn't have to cart around all those floppies. Apparently the load time off CD blew my boss out of the water because he didn't believe I'd installed the server already when he called to see how things were progressing.
6. I'm walking my COO through hooking up a new modem in our Kansas City office. He's getting mad at me and asking me if I know what I'm doing because we can't get a response from the modem. (I'm working blind over the phone.) I had asked him earlier if he had hooked up all the cables like they were to the old one and he had indicated that he did. Finally I said, "Look, don't take this the wrong way but let's check the cabling. You should have a phone cable to the wall, a power cable to the power, and an interface cable to the computer. These should all be coming from the modem." He had forgotten to hook up the RS-232 cable. To this day I razz him about modems telepathically communicating with machines.
7. My CEO is one of the brightest people I've ever met in my life and has my eternal respect for his intelligence and moral integrity. He called me and indicated he couldn't print. I told him to not get insulted but I was going to start with the basics. "Is the printer plugged in?" "Yes." "Is the power on?" "Thanks Brian, I'll call you if I have any more problems."
8. I had just come off the road from setting up our Texas operations - a 4 mont
Why? I mean, who cares? If the developer of the game earns a bit more because Puma paid them then more power to them -- I hope your mind is strong enough that you can shrug off this sort of thing and make an independent decision.
If not then you're already adrift in a world of advertising whoredom aren't you?
...goes public instead can't Microsoft simply begin buying shares of Google to gain "ownership" of the company? Or, worse yet, Microsoft can simply make an offer that's really a damned good offer and the shareholders of Google - who will not be as staunch on the ethical grounds of "Don't sell obnoxious ads" and "Don't do something just to do it" and "Money is nice, but not everything." - will approve the merger with Microsoft?
At least when you're a private firm these things are controlled by the vision of a few people who agree on things and a not a fractured group who are, for the most part, out to make a buck.
..when so many corporations own patents on so many intangible things that a corporate dynasty like IBM can bring anyone in the world to their knees financially.
Even foreign governments.
Intellectual property in all of its various forms is being abused by the corporate world - both friends and foes of Linux and otherwise. The madness is the laws supporting this behavior continue to pass, bypassing the individual and wholeheartedly supporting the corporation.
Isn't the government supposed to be working for us? Aren't our rights supposed to be first and foremost in their minds? There is a balance to be maintained, and our rights are not unlimited, but more and more across the entire globe the individual is lost.
Not to be funny but has anyone considered the implications of all these recent intellectual property rights and how it seems more and more that we're being pushed into the draconian future of Johnny Mnemonic and Shadowrun? The only way you get information is to steal it. The only way for another corporation to get information is to hire you to steal it.
I grow more and more distressed at the world my son will grow up in, the conditions he will consider normal, the laws he will break just by trying to think.
Graphics and glitz aren't everything. Gameplay and community can more than make up for graphics; they can make a game positively addicting and mind smashing.
I sure as hell remember playing Wasteland better than Deus Ex -- and Deus Ex was a fantastic game. People who think graphics and looks are everything are the same ones who bitch about a game being boring.
Not to mention that constantly upping the requirements on models, textures, and effects simply drives development time through the roof for content alone.
It's 8:13 AM, I'm "supposed" to be at work at 8:00 AM. I'm sitting here in my underwear at home reading Slashdot before I even bother taking a shower.
Then again I work until whatever time is required when a project is due and my boss knows that I'll bust my balls when it's needed.
I could work in a structured environment like that if I was required to, but I wouldn't put in the extra effort. If 1 minute late gets me written up, then 1 minute late clocking out would too. 8 hours, get up and go.
..what geeks are still working at SCO? What do THEY have to say about all this nonsense? What do they feel is the right or wrong answer? More importantly, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL WORKING THERE?
The easy solution to SCO is for each and every individual working there who has a clue to find a job elsewhere. I think enough of us are managers to help that happen.
This bullshit has to stop, and stop soon. All this is doing to me is demonstrating how ludicrous the entire market is if SCO can get away with this. Imagine if they did this against Microsoft -- Microsoft would smack them down so fast it's not even funny.
Slashdot Mirror
I rather doubt that. I've seen generic COM errors bubble up to .NET; there'd be nothing preventing Microsoft from doing the same. You'd get more of the same however; this function, every function, throws Exception! Or perhaps InteropException!
.NET Framework is a proxy for the Win32 API, however.) So now - take this huge framework, where objects work closely with other objects and consider the number of exceptions that would have to be handled by "Hello World."
True the framework is huge in and of itself, and it is built on top of the Win32 - partially. (They're working to rewrite the portions of the Win32 API still directly used and will be for some time. Not ALL of the
*shrug* I won't argue it. I believe all pertinent points are covered by the interview I linked to above.
Are a pain in the ass and bring little real benefit to the table?
Even if you rethrow, come on. If this is that big of a deal to you then add them yourself. Write a compiler preparser that will ensure you have caught and dealt with required exceptions. There's plenty of sample source available for such a tool and for all the bruhaha about them not being in C#, you'd think it would already exist.
This interview has some wonderful explanations as to why they are not included.
Heh.
:)
That was actually a lot of fun.
Thanks!
Security is one concern but I'm not all that concerned about a DNS host of repute moving a pointer without my permission.
Fine tuning the settings could possibly be another reason but most smaller sites (anything less than say, eBay, Google, Microsoft, Slashdot) can get by without much specific configuration.
--T
...until it just plain become a huge PITA with little return.
I can't think of a reason to host your own corporate DNS. For personal DNS - i.e. you browsing the web, etc., you can control timeouts and your queries are processed much faster - but for corporate DNS, outsource it.
Be afraid of free though. Free generally means no guarantee. Of course NetSol hosts one of the root servers so I guess you'd expect their data lines to be fairly redundant.
We currently use UltraDNS (http://www.ultradns.net). They've been fantastic and have a terrific interface for making changes. Requires some knowledge but we've *never* had a DNS problem since switching two years ago.
--T
As someone with more than $400.00 spent in the iTunes store legalizing my collection of MP3s I have two words for ANYONE who thinks I'll pay more for a digital copy than a physical copy.
BLOW ME.
The physical copy doesn't come with restraints. I can play it anywhere, anytime. I can rip it to OGG, MP3, whatever I want, and take the results with me wherever I want, and I'm happy.
I put up with the DRM in iTunes only because it is a convenience that is also *CHEAP*.
You start charging more, the convenience goes away, and I'll either a) steal my music or b) buy the CD.
Either way they fuck themselves.
Yea, it seems that on every question they forgot the "..I have permission." argument. As I noted in my comments to them a great deal of the code posted on the web is done so with minor requirements for use. "Name in comments acknowledging source of code." For books you might find "Name in the about box acknowledging source of code." Some are posted as is.
The crux of it is that most folks post code to a public repository because they want other people to critique and use it. If they didn't want others to critique and use it... wait, why did they post it?
A great deal of the code that I have in my library consists of acknowledgement requirements. None of it is fancy stuff, it's all easily rewritable, and I understand how it works, but... how many times do you want to write a AmountToWords function for printing checks anyway?
"The Massachusetts system mixes databases from the IRS and Customs, along with state motor vehicle, incorporation and professional licensing records. The state tax agency says it uses other databases, but won't name them."
I'm sorry - why won't you name them? One, you work for ME. Two, the majority of the time a government agency won't specify something it is because they shouldn't be doing what they are.
THAT statement worries me more than the rest of the article in its entirety. The government should be completely transparent at all times to the citizen, at least in civil matters. (Military, et al, would be excepted in certain circumstances.)
Grah. That's okay. The TIA database that's running will pick this post up and flag me as a dissident. When the time comes I'll disappear like the rest...
Someone else said they had GUID based protection but as far as I could tell that's complete bull.
I purchased TurboTax in January while I was on the road. I installed it onto my laptop and put all the preliminary information in place. February 2 my state was ready for download and purchase and I received my second mortgage statement so I installed TurboTax onto my desktop, moved the file over, purchased and downloaded TurboTax State, efiled, and had my refund on February 6th from the state and February 9th from the Federal.
No protection on TurboTax on either Federal or State that I saw.
As for Quicken I've been using it since Quicken for DOS and I've yet to see copy protection on it. The downloadable trials have protection on them ala you can purchase it; and the Quicken Basic version comes with the ability to upgrade to Deluxe by purchasing a key from Intuit, but I've never had a problem with copy protection.
I think in THAT arena it would be suicide. If I lost a computer and had to fight a software company to get my finances back I'd be ticked.
They are a company whose job it is to make money. At least they haven't stooped to suing people randomly, like the makers of ScummVM or ... God, whatever else.
The email address to email to is pr@lucasarts.com. Send them a polite, well worded, well thought out email. If your intent is to help get Sam and Max 2 published then you'll be polite. Any other actions will simply irritate LucasArts.
As well, another poster mentioned a console port. I would most certainly purchase a console port of an adventure game - of all the PC games out there the generally simple interface of the adventure game would work wonderfully well!
It's BSD, Frans meant for it to be usable by others.
It's GPL but not assigned to the FSF, you'll never get any help.
I wager that open source developers, when combined under the banners of all open source licenses, become one of the largest special interest groups in the technological community.
As a SIG we wield considerable power; consider the power such groups hold in the United States Congress. Consider - would you want your name to villified online for stealing code when it is common to search the Internet for an applicant's name now? What about those companies that practice peer interviews prior to hiring?
Companies are likely to want to minimize their legal exposure as well. If your boss or shareholders know that someone has stolen code and that a controversy surrounds that code, there is a good chance the code thief will suffer from a lost job.
But these things can only happen if we act in concert; as a unified group that is capable of taking action and responsible for the actions it takes. Someone here posted that vigilante justice was the answer and in a way it is. The rule of governments are held only because the entire population does not rise up against them. Mob rule. In our situation we'll find little help for the common developer whose license has been violated... except from ourselves.
Slashdot, kuro5hin, Groklaw... these are three shining examples of what we can do as a community.
"Some code" meaning the source code control logs and "approximately 232 versions" of Dynix and AIX.
Boggle at the pure amount of information that is.
#include "IANAL.H"
...unbiased. She has asked that IBM provide the "approximately 232 products" and the source logs for them, as well as email and memos pertaining to them. She's basically allowing SCO to go diving for the information that they are after.
However, this is discovery and not trial so items obtained during discovery don't seem to always be admissable. It simply seems that Judge Wells is doing her best judicial duty to ensure that there can be no claim of mistrial due to denied evidence.
As well SCO has quite a ballgame ahead of them. The items requested from them were quite numerous and it seems that Judge Wells doesn't buy the "we can't specify it because it would violate agreements" argument that they are bandying about. (See item #5 on the order itself; where the code was distributed, to whom, and under what agreements.)
The end result is this order seems better for SCO than IBM, but then again SCO couldn't get much lower on hope than they were. I disagree with the allowance of the requested versions of Dynix and AIX and all source code for them -- perhaps I should simply sue Microsoft and insinuate that they have some of my code in their product. While I admire the discovery must be broad... that seems to be a bit too broad.
SCO wants to subpoena 7200 witnesses. Holy Christ. How, when, why? That many witnesses? Tell me there'd be some sort of expedited process to get the questions SCO is seeking answered -- that seems ludicrous, especially in light of the fact that SCO has repeatedly altered its complaints.
I also laugh at "considering SCO's good faith effort." What? WHAT? And THANK GOD she muzzled McBridge and his cronies. I just hope that she doesn't start putting the remainder of the case under seal so as to prevent the rest of us from knowing what's going on. You know SCO will suggest it at least once.
Talonius
...you mean that allowing your personal bias to influence your writing isn't allowed?
That must be why most newspapers are considered liberal or conservative. That must be why LinuxInsider always prints the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That must be why the 1st Amendment specifically addresses the right of the *press.* Revealing that interpreting facts is an absolute sure makes me feel better. Think of all those guilty people on death row who are now MOST UNDOUBTEDLY guilty!
The problem is that nothing is entirely factual. Given a set of facts different people will see them different ways. That interpretation of the facts is what's known as journalism in this case. Kyle Bennett published what he thought was the truth. I hadn't even read the OCP article before the Slashdot mention of the 1st set of letters and I'm of the opinion that Infinium Labs is a bunch of slimeballs trying to make a buck off a scam.
So as for justification, there is none. There is only interpretation and acceptance. And God help us all that litigation is how companies live and die in the United States of America.
*spits on SCO and Infinium*
I'd like to see the correspondence with Microsoft in this case. The wxWindows, er, wxWidgets team seemed to think it was a better idea to cooperate - forcing would be to actually sue them and deliver a, what was it, 75 page explanation?
The team would've won the trademark suit IMHO, but IANAL and the SCO case should've been about finance fraud a long time ago - so take my opinion with a grain of salt. In any case as a cross platform UI toolkit the name fits better.
As it is perhaps this took place as a polite exchange. Especially considering that the wxWidgets team had to know the groundswell of support they would have if Microsoft DID force the issue. There's nothing wrong with a company asking someone to do something; there's only something wrong with that when they sue someone to force them to do something that's inane.
Flamebait Disclaimer: I use Microsoft products as much in a day as I use Linux. I use what's best for the job at the time I need it done. I'm not screaming that people are being hypocrites; I'm saying that the situation might very well be completely different than what this article seems to assume.
The only time Microsoft will truly piss me off is when they decide to go after Mono. That will have me up in arms whether it's effective or not.
Anyway my agreement has two bearings on your situation. First is that all of my inventions that bear relevancy to my company's business is theirs. Anything created on company time is theirs. Anything created with company resources is theirs.
I don't work for a "consulting firm"; I work for an insurance company whose products and services are well defined. I don't mind the restrictions they placed on me.
I'm also not allowed to compete against my employer in the markets they inhabit for a period of up to 6 months past termination of my employment, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. This includes working for another company in my same field for the most part, although they have limitations set out such that I can see working successfully in technology. (Their non compete is basically a no contact with possible customers more than a "don't compete with us.")
I gave up an additional year on my non compete (18 months total) so that I could have an overarching exception created to the entire agreement for my Mom's company. She happens to do work in the exact same field as I do (it's why I'm a pretty decent programmer to have on board for this company; I grew up with the industry, helping her, etc.). So now the company actually gets two boosts. I'm lead developer so I can try out ideas I have with my Mom's company because she's smaller and more flexible, and when those ideas pan out I can bring them into our company with added knowledge.
Too true. If a simple letter littered with blatant lies and outrageous claims can be accepted by Congress at face value without any fact checking done then we are in serious trouble.
The most ironic thing is that IBM makes a great deal more money off their hardware and consulting (read: services) division than their Linux division. To quote from their recent SEC filing they "had more than $17 billion in services signing."
Hard numbers from their 4th Quarter: Global Services division produced $11.4 billion (including maintenance). Hardware was at $9.1 billion. Revenues from software were $4.3 billion.
Software is nothing in the grand scheme of technology. Implementing that software through knowledge of hardware and software and the business environment it is being deployed in is everything.
Continuing on that trend and to reiterate a point made in many prior posts: this is a global economy. Software production is being outsourced from the United States regularly; I wouldn't be surprised to hear the same in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom to some extent. Many of us fear for our jobs, ultimately, but customization of open source software is still required in many cases. As well simply having a brain on our shoulders can help us accurately deploy a system - even if the software is designed by someone else.
The end point is again, simple. Software is nothing in the great world of business technology. It used to be a primary revenue creator but that stopped when technology became prominent in all walks of life, and more people became familiar with all of its aspects.
--Brian
1. I was working on the development database but my boss needed a quick count of a number of checks so I opened a new window (Query Analyzer for SQL Server) to the production database and gave him his count. I then proceeded to finish what I was doing on development... without switching windows back to the development server.
:)) but beating ourselves in the head.
:)
TRUNCATE TABLE Checks
TRUNCATE isn't a logged option but thankfully Log Explorer Pro from Lumigent can retrieve truncated data if you move fast enough. As well we had a backup that wasn't so very old handy. Out of 1.3 million checks we only lost 34000, but I was so stressed out.
2. Way, way, way back when we had just gotten a new Dell server. I was showing an interviewee the server who I had found out I had known when I was younger. So, joking around I said, "Want to see a hot swap of a drive?" He was like, heh, that'd be cool. So I pulled the drive out of the RAID 5 array. Alarm klaxons started going off from inside the machine, I swear. I stuffed the drive back in but even though the drive officially -was- hot swap we hadn't purchased the high end Dell with an array controller that could dynamically rebuild the data. We'd gotten the cheap version. 8 hours later - with the machine beeping constantly at us - the rebuild was done.
3. This one's not mine but a guy I work with. I had asked him to migrate some databases to a backup server so he set up a DTS job to do the migration. Unfortunately he did two things wrong: the destination was the same server as the source, our primary production machine, and he set the DTS process to execute nightly instead of once. We ended up filling 300Gb of drive space and not having a clue as to what happened to cause it. When we found it we were giggling (it is funny
4. Another one that's not mine. New network administrator was installing Windows NT 4.0 (this was ~6 years back? Roughly?). He was complaining about it taking forever to install and I asked him what he was doing. "Well, shit, NT has like 35 disks man." I asked him why he wasn't installing off the CD and he just hung up on me. He didn't know the NT CD would allow you to do that.
5. On a similar vein my original boss when I started here was I thought a technical God. It's fun to see how that belief fades over time. In my case he was showing me how to install Netware 3.12 and configure it the way he wanted it to be configured. He sent me off on my own the next week to install a new office. The week at home I had burned all the Netware 3.12 files to a CD so I wouldn't have to cart around all those floppies. Apparently the load time off CD blew my boss out of the water because he didn't believe I'd installed the server already when he called to see how things were progressing.
6. I'm walking my COO through hooking up a new modem in our Kansas City office. He's getting mad at me and asking me if I know what I'm doing because we can't get a response from the modem. (I'm working blind over the phone.) I had asked him earlier if he had hooked up all the cables like they were to the old one and he had indicated that he did. Finally I said, "Look, don't take this the wrong way but let's check the cabling. You should have a phone cable to the wall, a power cable to the power, and an interface cable to the computer. These should all be coming from the modem." He had forgotten to hook up the RS-232 cable. To this day I razz him about modems telepathically communicating with machines.
7. My CEO is one of the brightest people I've ever met in my life and has my eternal respect for his intelligence and moral integrity. He called me and indicated he couldn't print. I told him to not get insulted but I was going to start with the basics. "Is the printer plugged in?" "Yes." "Is the power on?" "Thanks Brian, I'll call you if I have any more problems."
8. I had just come off the road from setting up our Texas operations - a 4 mont
Why? I mean, who cares? If the developer of the game earns a bit more because Puma paid them then more power to them -- I hope your mind is strong enough that you can shrug off this sort of thing and make an independent decision.
If not then you're already adrift in a world of advertising whoredom aren't you?
...goes public instead can't Microsoft simply begin buying shares of Google to gain "ownership" of the company? Or, worse yet, Microsoft can simply make an offer that's really a damned good offer and the shareholders of Google - who will not be as staunch on the ethical grounds of "Don't sell obnoxious ads" and "Don't do something just to do it" and "Money is nice, but not everything." - will approve the merger with Microsoft?
At least when you're a private firm these things are controlled by the vision of a few people who agree on things and a not a fractured group who are, for the most part, out to make a buck.
Exchange 2003 requires Active Directory, quite an undertaking in an organization of your size.
I would investigate the repercussions of that requirement before moving forward with any other research or comparisons.
..when so many corporations own patents on so many intangible things that a corporate dynasty like IBM can bring anyone in the world to their knees financially.
Even foreign governments.
Intellectual property in all of its various forms is being abused by the corporate world - both friends and foes of Linux and otherwise. The madness is the laws supporting this behavior continue to pass, bypassing the individual and wholeheartedly supporting the corporation.
Isn't the government supposed to be working for us? Aren't our rights supposed to be first and foremost in their minds? There is a balance to be maintained, and our rights are not unlimited, but more and more across the entire globe the individual is lost.
Not to be funny but has anyone considered the implications of all these recent intellectual property rights and how it seems more and more that we're being pushed into the draconian future of Johnny Mnemonic and Shadowrun? The only way you get information is to steal it. The only way for another corporation to get information is to hire you to steal it.
I grow more and more distressed at the world my son will grow up in, the conditions he will consider normal, the laws he will break just by trying to think.
Talonius
..buzz off.
Graphics and glitz aren't everything. Gameplay and community can more than make up for graphics; they can make a game positively addicting and mind smashing.
I sure as hell remember playing Wasteland better than Deus Ex -- and Deus Ex was a fantastic game. People who think graphics and looks are everything are the same ones who bitch about a game being boring.
Not to mention that constantly upping the requirements on models, textures, and effects simply drives development time through the roof for content alone.
Talonius
It's 8:13 AM, I'm "supposed" to be at work at 8:00 AM. I'm sitting here in my underwear at home reading Slashdot before I even bother taking a shower.
Then again I work until whatever time is required when a project is due and my boss knows that I'll bust my balls when it's needed.
I could work in a structured environment like that if I was required to, but I wouldn't put in the extra effort. If 1 minute late gets me written up, then 1 minute late clocking out would too. 8 hours, get up and go.
It's all in the relationship.
..what geeks are still working at SCO? What do THEY have to say about all this nonsense? What do they feel is the right or wrong answer? More importantly, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL WORKING THERE?
The easy solution to SCO is for each and every individual working there who has a clue to find a job elsewhere. I think enough of us are managers to help that happen.
This bullshit has to stop, and stop soon. All this is doing to me is demonstrating how ludicrous the entire market is if SCO can get away with this. Imagine if they did this against Microsoft -- Microsoft would smack them down so fast it's not even funny.