People are only uncomfortable with CVT's because they are not used to them. If they were more effective, they'd be more common and more people would be just fine with using one.
I 100% agree, and acknowledge your facts.
However, consumers are really really weird. Cheddar is naturally white. We add Anatto in order to make it look orange. Cheddar manufacturers do not do this for any other reason than people expect cheddar to be orange.
Sure, they could all just change, and make white cheddar the "real" cheddar, but if you do so, you risk alienating consumers, and losing out to your competition.
Hydrostatic transmissions sure are nice technology, basically a pair of swash-plate compressors coupled together. I am not exactly an expert on the method, but I think they are rather slow-reacting. Works well for heavy machinery, not so well for cars with fast load changes on the transmission.
I asked a friend about this when I found out about CVTs to begin with.
He responded that people are weirded out by engines sitting at a single rev point (the optimal point) and find it difficult to gauge their speed without the changing rev noises from the engine.
Recently, Nissan's Altima has offered a CVT, but if you watch one of the commercials, the engine simply does a constant rev-line upwards. This is not the most efficient way to use a CVT, but again... people are uncomfortable with it sitting at a single rev-line.
In the case of hobbyist software 1) there is no sale of goods and no contract (an open source license is not a contract)...
An open source license is a contract. Purchasing a candy bar in a store involves a contract. (In Germany, it involves three contracts.)
The reason why free software is not subject to the conditions of this suit, is that one is primarily liable for returning the cost of the software purchased.
As there is no cost in the free product, one can evaluate its fitness without any risk. Typically, for a commercial product, one is not able to run any tests or evaluations of the software prior to purchase.
He is also perfectly within his rights to sue the university for developing and using a derivative in the first place if he never granted them a license.
The likelihood of that actually succeeding is pretty low, considering he was the one actually developing the derivative.
What something is "named" has nothing to do with what it is. In this case, someone may create a contract with someone that declares them a contractor, but functionally makes them an employee. Such a person is an employee.
This individual appears to have been hired directly as an employee to do this work. The work for hire doctrine in any common law country should full cover this situation as the most basic of cases.
Is it possible to do two distinct forks simultaneously, if you're the one doing the coding on both forks? Couldn't your employer argue that your contributions to the personal fork are inevitably derived from the code you wrote for their fork? And if you write your fork first, and then soon thereafter write the employer's fork, isn't the employer's fork inevitably derived from your personal fork, since you wrote both?
I think a single person simultaneously (or even with weeks) writing both forks is a bad idea, at least from a legal "who owns this code" standpoint.
Following this suggestion is asking for legal troubles.
It's difficult to separate when you're validly allowed to develop for the open fork, and the employment fork.
However, if you want massive legal bills, this could work exactly the way you're describing it.
I don't think there is a judge alive who would honor any submarine copyright-transfer terms of an employment contract, so unless he transferred them to the University with an intent to do so, he still owns the original works up to that first day of employment. The university cannot simply usurp his copyrights on the original works by employing him.
Pre-disclaimer: This is all US Law, based on limited knowledge of facts, and is not legal advice. Consult a lawyer.
No, they don't own any of the original copyright.
This person was hired specifically to do this coding, and as a direct employee, this is one of the simplest cases of work for hire, and no contract terms are needed at all. All his work done in the scope of that employment is the property of the University. Full stop.
Oddly enough, just like you can get hearsay by quoting yourself, you as employee are not the same as you prior to employment.
There are now two owners of copyright to the work. The coder, and the employer.
Coder is perfectly within his rights to take the work as it stood before being hired and forking from there, and distributing that to the world.
He is not within his rights to take the work at any point after that, and distributing it to the world. (Even if the code was GPL licensed in the first place.)
It should be mentioned that the stable libration points for geostationary satellites are earth-relative (105 deg west, 75 deg east) and are not the same as the Sun-Earth lagrange points (such as those occupied by SOHO and other observation satellites).
Forgive my ignorance in these highly technical matters, but when exactly did we start sending up Small Or Home Office satellites?
I always wondered what that particular SOHO meant. Drove me nuts because I heard of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory first.
Apple does not even make proprietary Verizon or Sprint iPhones to serve the US cell market of 3 overlapping monopolies, they run on AT&T only in the US because it's the only US carrier that is compatible with the world.
Hahahaha. The iPhone is only on ATT because ATT paid apple the most for the privilege. T-Mobile also uses GSM but like Sprint they're too small to pay the proper bribes. but by the time the ATT contract runs out with Apple I'm sure Verizon will have ponied up the right payoff to get the iphone on their network.
In Germany the iPhone is only available on the T-Mobile network.
The only other thing is to look out for sociopaths. Don't assume everybody you work with has a perfect personality. In practice a great many do not. I can't help you deal with these people. Sometimes they are hard to spot.
I've noticed that if someone at first glance seems to be perfect, it's likely because they're acting, and if they're acting, they're being sociopathic. The "superficially charming" feature is the biggest thing that I latch on to. If they aren't just superficially charming, and are great people for real, then typically they will forgive the initial skepticism.
I recommend trusting the people who are most likely to admit flaws.
The has been cases of Privative software stealing code from GPL projects, where the GPL won and this guys had to either arrange a settlement or release their code to be GPL compliant.
As well, some of the private software violators have simply folded due to public pressure.
But there has not been A SINGLE CASE of infringing GPL code loosing a legal battle.
There have been cases where GPL code has been found to contain code that was not validly contributed, either because of legal reasons of people adding the code when they weren't supposed to, or when said code was done essentially for hire resulting in a "taint".
However, due to the open source nature, this code has typically been yanked as soon as possible, and replaced with reengineered code.
Really? I thought it was " Jobs' " was the correct possessive (example) of anything ending in "s".
[facepalm] How do people get through elementary school without learning this? That form is correct only for *plurals* ending in "s". The possessive of Jobs is indeed Jobs's. The possessive of lawyers is lawyers'. An exception is made for words ending in a "z" sound, as that is rather hard to pronounce.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm It appears the first rule is consistency. I agree with the apostrophe "s" for names ending in "s", as that is how their are pronounced, and like a good descriptive linguist, I ascribe to following the actual speech rather than arbitrary rules. However, the arbitrary rules (the same ones that dictate the spelling "mnemonic") are such as they are.
As another note, what exception are you even talking about in this matter for words ending in a "z" sound? "Lawyers" ends in a/z/, "Hippos" ends in a/z/, "Leaves" ends in a/z/, "Dads" ends in a/z/. Yet, "Laughs" ends in/s/, "Hats" ends in/s/. In fact, the only words that end in/s/ instead of/z/ in the regular plural, and singular possessive are those that end in an unvoiced plosive.
Flash is just another layer of middleware which is not necessary and ultimately just gets in the way. It gives quick results but the true headaches are borne by the users and also by developers down the road once you are locked-in to using Flash and want to do something that it doesn't yet support.
I most strenuously object! I have quite never received a base of code from a prior developer, which hath any problems upon the maintenance thereof. All bases of code which hath been purveyed upon me for continued development have been of only the utmost caliber, and utilizing only the most well supported of libraries of code. Why I have never once met upon any problem with obsolescence, deprecation or forced engagement of any libraries of code.
I perchance believe that thine own opinion doth preclude any earnest representation of factual statements in this endeavor and I, with only the most honest of politeness, do request that thou recusest thineself from this most honest of discussions.
Seriously, since I disabled plug-ins Safari doesn't crash or freeze every day. In fact it's now so rare that I'm actually shocked when it happens. Adobe let all their non-Windows software rot away and can't be bothered to code properly, so screw them.
HOLY CRAP!
I haven't been on any of my macs in a long time (my primary crashed and died, and the other one is 9 years old), but suddenly, now, all of my problems with web browsing make sense...
While I understand that genotype and phenotype can be different, on a large statistical scale those phenotypical features that are governed by genotype become apparent, and can be selectively applied.
The idea that until we had Mendelian genetics we didn't practice "genetic engineering" in artificial selection is, in my opinion, a dim view; the same that purposes that people simply forgot that the Earth was round after the Greeks proved it.
They may not have understood the actual mechanism, but they still understood descent with modification. When Darwin proposed the Origin of Species there was no question as to his premise of "decent with modification"... it is perhaps the single greatest known fact of evolution.
I suppose it is all about where one chooses to draw the semantic lines. I don't see an actual knowledge of the mechanisms as absolutely necessary to the process of genetic engineering... mechanical and electrical engineers did a lot of work without understanding what they were really working with.
Civil engineers on occasion still dig trenches. (in German, I'd say "let a trench be dug," and it sounds fine, but in English it sounds like I'm being a pompous bitch.)
Just because it's not the "high brow" version, or bleeding edge version, doesn't mean it doesn't qualify.
Artificial selection is simply a tool of genetic engineering. And considering the differences between Maize and its closest cousin Teosintes; round-up ready crops are insignificantly different.
So, in theory, there could be places where even saying "ask a lawyer" would be interpreted as "legal advice" and thus punishable.
That'd make for a really interesting court case though
DA: "I will show, that Snow Girl gave John Doe legal advice by recommending Dewey, Screwem & Howe." Judge: "Are you shitting me?" DA: "No, it's right here in section 4: Any kind of legal advice or suggestions may only be given by a lawyer, and Snow Girl clearly suggested that John Doe whould consult this law firm."
Meh... I'm not going to say it's impossible, because some Bar associations actually appear to be that anal.
Like the Bar association who sued a father for representing his disabled son, because the son had obtained the age of majority. (They argued, the son was old enough now to disqualify for parental representation, you know... ignoring the fact that the father had a full and legal guardianship for the son.)
There really is a good reason why even when giving the simplest of advice people with any legal knowledge have to plaster all over it "this is not legal advice".
As to getting in trouble for referring someone to a lawyer? I think the Judge would take a dim view on the case from the onset (like you so eloquently put: "You're shitting me."), and usually when something like that would happen, I'd expect someone to need cold hard explicit law and fact on their side... with no technicalities.
To play devil's advocate here, a tiger represents millions of years of predatory evolution, yet we can still hunt it to extinction. Just because nature's been doing this a lot longer then we have doesn't mean its aims are the same as ours.
When you're talking about evolution on the scale of millions of years, there's a selective pressure not to kill everything else around you. GE crops have no such incentive, and could quite possibly be extremely hard on the soil. Planting crops without regard to the needs of the soil is what led to the dust bowl.
Of course, it's more than likely anything we create will be able to perform its intended function fairly well, but be utterly unable to cope with any other situation and quickly die out. I don't imagine we'd create anything highly adaptable, that's nature's thing.
Like Corn/Maize... which can't propagate without human intervention. If we disappeared, the first generation of corn would overseed the soil, and each kernel would compete against all the others to grow, and result in each one starving out.
We don't need GMO to make plants that are "utterly unable to cope with any other situation".
Some laws already are passed as if they were diffs. Although, we do a poor job of keeping version histories navigable such as they are on Wikipedia, but a recording agency could conceivably keep track of the legal text that way.
Common forms are to underline text that is being added, and strike-through indicating text that will be deleted.
For instance, scroll down to "Sec 4. Section 13-2319": the original bullet "E." has been struck through, and replaced with "F."
Slashdot Mirror
And the military industrial complex would be dismantled, removing the troops we have stationed over seas.
I see a worth in us providing security to other countries with specific arraignments. For example, Japan, Korea, Taiwan.
I also see a worth in us keeping stations strategically around the world, because our security and defense is a world-wide matter any more.
On the other hand, I really do not see a need for us to be contributing nearly 50% of the world's entire military spending...
People are only uncomfortable with CVT's because they are not used to them. If they were more effective, they'd be more common and more people would be just fine with using one.
I 100% agree, and acknowledge your facts.
However, consumers are really really weird. Cheddar is naturally white. We add Anatto in order to make it look orange. Cheddar manufacturers do not do this for any other reason than people expect cheddar to be orange.
Sure, they could all just change, and make white cheddar the "real" cheddar, but if you do so, you risk alienating consumers, and losing out to your competition.
Hydrostatic transmissions sure are nice technology, basically a pair of swash-plate compressors coupled together. I am not exactly an expert on the method, but I think they are rather slow-reacting. Works well for heavy machinery, not so well for cars with fast load changes on the transmission.
I asked a friend about this when I found out about CVTs to begin with.
He responded that people are weirded out by engines sitting at a single rev point (the optimal point) and find it difficult to gauge their speed without the changing rev noises from the engine.
Recently, Nissan's Altima has offered a CVT, but if you watch one of the commercials, the engine simply does a constant rev-line upwards. This is not the most efficient way to use a CVT, but again... people are uncomfortable with it sitting at a single rev-line.
What? Duct tape isn't acceptable?
Only in Minnesota, via the Media Access Control Governed by Yearly Visioning in Elastic Restraints Act.
In the case of hobbyist software ...
1) there is no sale of goods and no contract (an open source license is not a contract)
An open source license is a contract. Purchasing a candy bar in a store involves a contract. (In Germany, it involves three contracts.)
The reason why free software is not subject to the conditions of this suit, is that one is primarily liable for returning the cost of the software purchased.
As there is no cost in the free product, one can evaluate its fitness without any risk. Typically, for a commercial product, one is not able to run any tests or evaluations of the software prior to purchase.
He is also perfectly within his rights to sue the university for developing and using a derivative in the first place if he never granted them a license.
The likelihood of that actually succeeding is pretty low, considering he was the one actually developing the derivative.
Namely, he gave implicit permission.
*facepalm*
While I understand the idea of copyrights not being bogus.
There is a legal framework, which we are dealing with.
That legal framework describes ownership of interests to distribute a work.
Actually, there are numerous incorporeal/non-physical interests that can be transfered and traded, and IP rights are not the only ones.
Real property oddly enough functionally amounts to a set of interests and rights rather than the actual property itself.
Contractors are not employees.
And East Germany was a democratic republic.
What something is "named" has nothing to do with what it is. In this case, someone may create a contract with someone that declares them a contractor, but functionally makes them an employee. Such a person is an employee.
This individual appears to have been hired directly as an employee to do this work. The work for hire doctrine in any common law country should full cover this situation as the most basic of cases.
Is it possible to do two distinct forks simultaneously, if you're the one doing the coding on both forks? Couldn't your employer argue that your contributions to the personal fork are inevitably derived from the code you wrote for their fork? And if you write your fork first, and then soon thereafter write the employer's fork, isn't the employer's fork inevitably derived from your personal fork, since you wrote both?
I think a single person simultaneously (or even with weeks) writing both forks is a bad idea, at least from a legal "who owns this code" standpoint.
Following this suggestion is asking for legal troubles.
It's difficult to separate when you're validly allowed to develop for the open fork, and the employment fork.
However, if you want massive legal bills, this could work exactly the way you're describing it.
I don't think there is a judge alive who would honor any submarine copyright-transfer terms of an employment contract, so unless he transferred them to the University with an intent to do so, he still owns the original works up to that first day of employment. The university cannot simply usurp his copyrights on the original works by employing him.
Pre-disclaimer: This is all US Law, based on limited knowledge of facts, and is not legal advice. Consult a lawyer.
No, they don't own any of the original copyright.
This person was hired specifically to do this coding, and as a direct employee, this is one of the simplest cases of work for hire, and no contract terms are needed at all. All his work done in the scope of that employment is the property of the University. Full stop.
Oddly enough, just like you can get hearsay by quoting yourself, you as employee are not the same as you prior to employment.
There are now two owners of copyright to the work. The coder, and the employer.
Coder is perfectly within his rights to take the work as it stood before being hired and forking from there, and distributing that to the world.
He is not within his rights to take the work at any point after that, and distributing it to the world. (Even if the code was GPL licensed in the first place.)
Forgive my ignorance in these highly technical matters, but when exactly did we start sending up Small Or Home Office satellites?
I always wondered what that particular SOHO meant. Drove me nuts because I heard of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory first.
Apple does not even make proprietary Verizon or Sprint iPhones to serve the US cell market of 3 overlapping monopolies, they run on AT&T only in the US because it's the only US carrier that is compatible with the world.
Hahahaha. The iPhone is only on ATT because ATT paid apple the most for the privilege. T-Mobile also uses GSM but like Sprint they're too small to pay the proper bribes. but by the time the ATT contract runs out with Apple I'm sure Verizon will have ponied up the right payoff to get the iphone on their network.
In Germany the iPhone is only available on the T-Mobile network.
The only other thing is to look out for sociopaths. Don't assume everybody you work with has a perfect personality. In practice a great many do not. I can't help you deal with these people. Sometimes they are hard to spot.
I've noticed that if someone at first glance seems to be perfect, it's likely because they're acting, and if they're acting, they're being sociopathic. The "superficially charming" feature is the biggest thing that I latch on to. If they aren't just superficially charming, and are great people for real, then typically they will forgive the initial skepticism.
I recommend trusting the people who are most likely to admit flaws.
The has been cases of Privative software stealing code from GPL projects, where the GPL won and this guys had to either arrange a settlement or release their code to be GPL compliant.
As well, some of the private software violators have simply folded due to public pressure.
But there has not been A SINGLE CASE of infringing GPL code loosing a legal battle.
There have been cases where GPL code has been found to contain code that was not validly contributed, either because of legal reasons of people adding the code when they weren't supposed to, or when said code was done essentially for hire resulting in a "taint".
However, due to the open source nature, this code has typically been yanked as soon as possible, and replaced with reengineered code.
[facepalm] How do people get through elementary school without learning this? That form is correct only for *plurals* ending in "s". The possessive of Jobs is indeed Jobs's. The possessive of lawyers is lawyers'. An exception is made for words ending in a "z" sound, as that is rather hard to pronounce.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm It appears the first rule is consistency. I agree with the apostrophe "s" for names ending in "s", as that is how their are pronounced, and like a good descriptive linguist, I ascribe to following the actual speech rather than arbitrary rules. However, the arbitrary rules (the same ones that dictate the spelling "mnemonic") are such as they are.
As another note, what exception are you even talking about in this matter for words ending in a "z" sound? "Lawyers" ends in a /z/, "Hippos" ends in a /z/, "Leaves" ends in a /z/, "Dads" ends in a /z/. Yet, "Laughs" ends in /s/, "Hats" ends in /s/. In fact, the only words that end in /s/ instead of /z/ in the regular plural, and singular possessive are those that end in an unvoiced plosive.
Flash is just another layer of middleware which is not necessary and ultimately just gets in the way. It gives quick results but the true headaches are borne by the users and also by developers down the road once you are locked-in to using Flash and want to do something that it doesn't yet support.
I most strenuously object! I have quite never received a base of code from a prior developer, which hath any problems upon the maintenance thereof. All bases of code which hath been purveyed upon me for continued development have been of only the utmost caliber, and utilizing only the most well supported of libraries of code. Why I have never once met upon any problem with obsolescence, deprecation or forced engagement of any libraries of code.
I perchance believe that thine own opinion doth preclude any earnest representation of factual statements in this endeavor and I, with only the most honest of politeness, do request that thou recusest thineself from this most honest of discussions.
Seriously, since I disabled plug-ins Safari doesn't crash or freeze every day. In fact it's now so rare that I'm actually shocked when it happens. Adobe let all their non-Windows software rot away and can't be bothered to code properly, so screw them.
HOLY CRAP!
I haven't been on any of my macs in a long time (my primary crashed and died, and the other one is 9 years old), but suddenly, now, all of my problems with web browsing make sense...
Granted his grammar is poor and he does ramble but his main point (which he takes forever to get to) is simple and worth taking note of:
Actually, as a linguist, his Grammar is perfectly fine... his spelling however is not.
Advice from someone who requires horizontal scrolling to read the text they're quoting? I don't think so.
Cyanide and Happiness Webcomic Link
(This comic is Safe For Work, but many if not most of their comics are not, and some of their advertising is not either... you have been warned.)
While I understand that genotype and phenotype can be different, on a large statistical scale those phenotypical features that are governed by genotype become apparent, and can be selectively applied.
The idea that until we had Mendelian genetics we didn't practice "genetic engineering" in artificial selection is, in my opinion, a dim view; the same that purposes that people simply forgot that the Earth was round after the Greeks proved it.
They may not have understood the actual mechanism, but they still understood descent with modification. When Darwin proposed the Origin of Species there was no question as to his premise of "decent with modification"... it is perhaps the single greatest known fact of evolution.
I suppose it is all about where one chooses to draw the semantic lines. I don't see an actual knowledge of the mechanisms as absolutely necessary to the process of genetic engineering... mechanical and electrical engineers did a lot of work without understanding what they were really working with.
Civil engineers on occasion still dig trenches. (in German, I'd say "let a trench be dug," and it sounds fine, but in English it sounds like I'm being a pompous bitch.)
Just because it's not the "high brow" version, or bleeding edge version, doesn't mean it doesn't qualify.
Artificial selection is simply a tool of genetic engineering. And considering the differences between Maize and its closest cousin Teosintes; round-up ready crops are insignificantly different.
So, in theory, there could be places where even saying "ask a lawyer" would be interpreted as "legal advice" and thus punishable.
That'd make for a really interesting court case though
DA: "I will show, that Snow Girl gave John Doe legal advice by recommending Dewey, Screwem & Howe."
Judge: "Are you shitting me?"
DA: "No, it's right here in section 4: Any kind of legal advice or suggestions may only be given by a lawyer, and Snow Girl clearly suggested that John Doe whould consult this law firm."
Meh... I'm not going to say it's impossible, because some Bar associations actually appear to be that anal.
Like the Bar association who sued a father for representing his disabled son, because the son had obtained the age of majority. (They argued, the son was old enough now to disqualify for parental representation, you know... ignoring the fact that the father had a full and legal guardianship for the son.)
There really is a good reason why even when giving the simplest of advice people with any legal knowledge have to plaster all over it "this is not legal advice".
As to getting in trouble for referring someone to a lawyer? I think the Judge would take a dim view on the case from the onset (like you so eloquently put: "You're shitting me."), and usually when something like that would happen, I'd expect someone to need cold hard explicit law and fact on their side... with no technicalities.
To play devil's advocate here, a tiger represents millions of years of predatory evolution, yet we can still hunt it to extinction. Just because nature's been doing this a lot longer then we have doesn't mean its aims are the same as ours.
When you're talking about evolution on the scale of millions of years, there's a selective pressure not to kill everything else around you. GE crops have no such incentive, and could quite possibly be extremely hard on the soil. Planting crops without regard to the needs of the soil is what led to the dust bowl.
Of course, it's more than likely anything we create will be able to perform its intended function fairly well, but be utterly unable to cope with any other situation and quickly die out. I don't imagine we'd create anything highly adaptable, that's nature's thing.
Like Corn/Maize... which can't propagate without human intervention. If we disappeared, the first generation of corn would overseed the soil, and each kernel would compete against all the others to grow, and result in each one starving out.
We don't need GMO to make plants that are "utterly unable to cope with any other situation".
As a recently passed example, example: the full-text of SB-1070.
Some laws already are passed as if they were diffs. Although, we do a poor job of keeping version histories navigable such as they are on Wikipedia, but a recording agency could conceivably keep track of the legal text that way.
Common forms are to underline text that is being added, and strike-through indicating text that will be deleted.
For instance, scroll down to "Sec 4. Section 13-2319": the original bullet "E." has been struck through, and replaced with "F."