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Comment More of an interface than something for apps (Score 1) 232

I've had an LG G Watch R for a little over a month now and quite like it. I don't use it to run apps per se, but it is a good interface to the phone. Anything on Android that would cause a notification will appear on the watch, and I can dismiss them as needed. Of course, it doesn't replace the phone, but 9 times out of 10 I just want to see the notice not actually do anything. I review it here if you are interested: http://www.adventuresinoss.com...

Comment Use a two-part scheme (Score 1) 208

This is what I have done: 1) create a document with all sensitive information (passwords, account numbers, etc.) 2) encrypt it with the keys of two tech-savvy friends 3) e-mail the file to two non-tech-savvy friends with instructions to send it to the people in step 2 upon my death I'm not sure what you would do if you don't have enough friends (grin) but this seems to be a pretty simple and robust solution for my needs.

Comment Waiting for free digital copies with book purchase (Score 1) 259

I read a lot, but I don't own an eBook reader specifically because of the DRM. When I buy a physical book it's mine to keep, sell or share. The "Animal Farm" fiasco with the original Kindle scared me off investing on any eBooks, at least while the price point is so close to a paper book. Sell me a $25 book in eBook format for $1 and I'll live with the DRM. Sell me one for $23.95 and no deal. What I am waiting for is an eBook vendor to follow the lead of the Blu-ray/DVD industry and include a digital copy along with the physical one. If I could pay $25 for a hardback *and* get a digital copy I'd be there in an instant.
Open Source

OpenNMS Celebrates 10 Years 37

mjhuot writes "Quite often is it claimed that pure open source projects can't survive, much less grow and create robust code. One counter example of this is OpenNMS, the world's first enterprise-grade network management application platform developed under the open source model. Registered on 30 March 2000 as project 4141 on Sourceforge, today the gang threw a little party, with members virtually attending from around the world. With the right business savvy and a great community, it is possible to both remain 100% free and open source while creating enough value to make a good living at it."
Technology

Submission + - OpenNMS celebrates 10 years! (adventuresinoss.com)

mjhuot writes: Quite often is it claimed that pure open source projects can't survive, much less grow and create robust code. One counter example of this is OpenNMS, the world first enterprise grade network management application platform developed under the open source model.

Registered on 30 March 2000 on Sourceforge as project 4141, today the gang threw a little party, with members virtually attending from around the world.

With the right business savvy and a great community, it is possible to both remain 100% free and open source while creating enough value to make a good living at it.

Comment Open Source is a Meritocracy (Score 2, Insightful) 641

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and open source is definitely not a democracy. Democracies have the potential to devolve into rule by the mob. In the open source projects I am involved with, influence is based on merit. Those people who do the most work get to, ultimately, make the most decisions.

This doesn't mean that the casual user should have no input. But eventually someone has to make a decision: left vs. right, red vs. blue, etc. The beauty of open source is that if you don't like it, you can change it.

Comment Work for Hire (Score 1) 447

As a person who runs an open source company, the first sentence "Why do people think they own code just because they've paid for it?" caught my eye. The reason most companies think they own code is that 99% of the contracts I read have a "work for hire" clause. This means that as a contractor you sign away the same rights that employees do. You come up with a patentable idea on company time? They own it. You write code? They own it. Open source presents an interesting problem. Quite often in the same contracts they have clauses against distribution of the work for hire. I spend quite a bit of time lining out those paragraphs before I sign such a contract. There are no inalienable "developer rights" that need to be asserted. Quite simply this is a case of contract law. If you want to retain the ownership of your code, don't sign a contract that gives it away. Heck, it worked for Bill Gates.

Comment Re:You don't know they are in violation (Score 1) 204

You obviously misunderstood my earlier post.

In this case we have serious concerns about the behavior of a particular company, Cittio. Perhaps these concerns are unfounded, but my question was to ask for advice concerning how to go about, perhaps, getting rid of these concerns. The GPL is a license based on copyright law, and thus doesn't even take affect until a "copy" is distributed, so of course Cittio is under no legal obligation to reveal how they are using OpenNMS until they actually provide the code.

Now, I should note that they have configured a demo system for this client to use on the client's hardware. While I am most definitely not a lawyer, that could be construed as "distribution", although it could be argued that no ownership has changed hands. In any case, the fact that their use of OpenNMS was not clearly disclosed (as is recommended by the GPL Violations Vendor FAQ) was enough to cause us some concern. If there is nothing to hide, why not be up front about it?

This happened right after we received a query from a Cittio software engineer looking to compile one of our GPL'd libraries. Now, if they are truly using OpenNMS in an unmodified fashion, why the question? Can't they just use OpenNMS as distributed? Again, there is probably a simple answer, but I am at a loss as to how to get it.

It seems that your recommendation (along with many others) is to just forget about it or to hire a lawyer. Neither is very useful to me.

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