[HN Gopher] AT&T lawyer stopped Plan 9 release CD with songs by ...
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AT&T lawyer stopped Plan 9 release CD with songs by Lou Reed,
Debbie Harry
Author : asjo
Score : 417 points
Date : 2022-06-25 17:19 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tuhs.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tuhs.org)
| james_in_the_uk wrote:
| Alternative headline: Insufficiently clear IP releases mean AT&T
| not willing to take risk of distributing copyrighted music just
| to pad out a CD-ROM.
| lukeh wrote:
| Yeah, I kinda agree here. Music licensing is complex and also
| likely unfamiliar to AT&T's lawyers. It's not unusual for
| signed musicians to be not 100% across their obligations on
| both the master and publishing sides (not saying that this was
| necessarily the case here, of course). At the very least even
| if the master was cleared, AT&T would likely have needed to pay
| mechanical royalties to the artists' PROs or publishers.
| jonahx wrote:
| I feel like part of the story is missing, or I am missing
| something... why couldn't they just confirm the releases?
| blihp wrote:
| The lawyer didn't care... they just used their power to block
| the release. Since it wasn't something that mattered to them,
| they likely never gave it a second thought. This isn't terribly
| uncommon (it's not just an issue with lawyers, but with any
| corporate gatekeeper) in the business world.
| jonahx wrote:
| So there was no mechanism to appeal the decision, presumably?
| Lawyer says "nope", gives bullshit reason, and that's it?
| Nothing further to be done?
| salmo wrote:
| Usually you _can_ , but it better be worth it. You'll have
| to get an officer to say they're willing to accept the risk
| with a high level legal counsel.
|
| If you tossed this idea up to that level, you'd piss the
| officer off for wasting his time and burn the relationship
| with the lawyer.
|
| Also, this team was pretty infamous at that point for not
| playing nice with the corporate structure (eg naming the OS
| Plan 9). Sure, they were rockstars to nerds, but Unix, etc.
| never made Bell/AT&T real money. Wasn't their fault, but
| they never got internal clout and were just a small, weird
| group in a giant company.
| dleslie wrote:
| Probably not, no; because to cross the corporate power
| broker is to invite their wrath. It will make future asks
| of them impossible, or at least costly.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yeah I am doubting this too. The lawyer identifies a potential
| legal problem (clearances) that would have been trivial to
| solve. For about $50 you can file a copyrighted work with the
| librarian of Congress and get an officially USA-branded
| certificate of copyright ownership, and it only takes a couple
| of weeks. This is a norm in the creative industry because if
| you have filed your copyrighted work and it is later infringed,
| you can claim punitive damages as well as recoup your loss.
| morcheeba wrote:
| I read it as not a clearance problem, but that the lawyer
| didn't know who Lou Reed and Debbie Harry were and didn't
| want to release music from some randos the developers had
| found.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yeah, because actual randos could be people doing cover
| versions of music they don't own. But one could respond to
| this with 'they're successful recording artists, I can get
| the documentation you need right away.'
| Isamu wrote:
| I don't think you have experienced the politics of high level
| executives in mega corporations. This is exactly the most
| plausible part of the story. Some legal executive likely
| jumped to some conclusion before talking to Rob to get all
| the facts, and didn't want to walk back his position because
| he is so much more important than the tiny Unix group that it
| was easier to just kill it.
|
| Remember Plan9 was not going to make money enough for any
| executive to care.
| [deleted]
| mdrzn wrote:
| "The Plan 9 CD-ROM needed about 100MB for the full distribution,
| if that."
|
| I have no idea what they are talking about, what Plan 9 is, what
| is being distributed, why is AT&T involved, etc. Read the whole
| first post, still have no clue.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Here's a handy guide to uncovering such information for
| yourself, and being able to write a TIL rather than an IHNFC:
|
| TUHS is The Unix Heritage Society mailing list, which might
| offer you some cues as to context. There's a link at the top-
| right of the submitted link:
|
| https://www.tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/
|
| Rob Pike is Kind of A Big Deal in Unix, C (he's the Pike in
| Kernighan and Pike, a/k/a _The UNIX Programming Environment_ (h
| ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unix_Programming_Environme...)
| ) The Go programming language, and a thing called Plan 9.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Pike
|
| Plan 9 From Outer Space was a so utterly bad it's ... well,
| just _bad_ ... 1957 science fiction film.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space
|
| Plan 9 from Bell Labs appropriated the name from the film for
| an operating system building on Pike's (and others') earlier
| experience developing Unix.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs
|
| You can download and install Plan 9 OS if you like:
| https://plan9.io/plan9/
|
| Ten Thousand: https://xkcd.com/1053/
| [deleted]
| WalterBright wrote:
| When I developed the first native C++ compiler around 1987, I
| thought I'd better check with AT&T's lawyers if I could:
|
| 1. sell a C++ compiler
|
| 2. call it C++
|
| Their lawyer was very nice, and said sure. He also laughed and
| said he appreciated that I was the only one who bothered to ask.
| donarb wrote:
| I recall that Microsoft's Visual C++ user license had a clause
| that forbid you from creating a C++ compiler with it.
| eschneider wrote:
| I believe that was for your protection.
| bluedino wrote:
| Sounds like a challenge
| dylan604 wrote:
| Here, hold my beer!
|
| or
|
| Hide and watch!
| WalterBright wrote:
| More sales for Zortech C++!
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Not a silly question at all, though. The situation isn't the
| same with Java, where expensive approval is needed before you
| can call your solution a JVM.
|
| The Kaffe VM, for instance, is careful to show a disclaimer:
| _technically, Kaffe is not Java_. [0][1]
|
| [0] http://www.kaffe.org/
|
| [1] https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/433377/
| benjamoon wrote:
| I didn't do anything as amazing as you did, but in about 1999 I
| made a website with a nav menu "inspired" by the then current
| Microsoft website nav (it was all vbscript dhtml and I
| basically copy and pasted it from the ms site). I emailed them
| to check it was ok to copy their nav (it wasn't even a
| commercial project so I don't know why I was so polite), but
| they replied and they were really nice. They said they
| encourage "engineers" to create new things rather than copy,
| but anything I needed from their site I could take and then a
| load of links to dhtml resources in case I wanted to build my
| own. I wonder if you did that now would you just get a response
| from their legal team?
| rkuykendall-com wrote:
| One of the first things I ever did with significant
| complexity in HTML was stealing the Apple.com Nav bar. When
| you're just starting out, that is a challenge all it's own!
| WalterBright wrote:
| P.S. Bjarne Stroustrup and especially Andrew Koenig were super
| nice and supportive of my efforts in those days. The nascent
| C++ community was very welcoming.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And yours was a huge improvement over 'cfront'!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cfront
|
| vs
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Mars
|
| Did you get into trouble because of the Zorland joke?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Zorland was a mistake. Philippe was well within his rights
| to threaten a lawsuit over it.
| jhgb wrote:
| > I was the only one who bothered to ask.
|
| Was it necessary to ask? Unless C++ is patented and you live in
| a place where software patents are actually a thing, what could
| prevent you from writing your own implementation of something?
| WalterBright wrote:
| I had no idea what IP rights AT&T held over it. There was no
| way I was going to invest blood, sweat, and tears in
| developing a C++ compiler only to get sued over it.
|
| Besides, it was polite to ask.
| cgriswald wrote:
| In the early internet days, when I was young and learning HTML,
| the book I used to learn recommended _asking permission_ to
| link to a website. I thought that was weird, but I was a rule
| follower then. So I, a kid, sent a message to the 'webmaster'
| of a local government site and dutifully asked permission to
| link to their home page.
|
| The said no.
|
| If I'm ever a super-villain, I'm using this as my origin story.
| jhgb wrote:
| > the book I used to learn recommended asking permission to
| link to a website. I thought that was weird
|
| You thought correctly. You should have read a book written by
| someone smarter. Imagine a world where you'd have to ask book
| writers if you're allowed to cite or to refer to their books
| in yours.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| It easy to say that in hindsight but it wasn't that unusual
| of advice _in the early days_ of the web (which is when the
| GP is describing).
|
| The web (and internet as a whole) was a very different
| playground to what it is now. In fact you only have to look
| at how trusting early internet protocols were and all the
| bolted on hacks we've needed since to see the change (eg
| SMTP, FTP etc all have security as an afterthought).
| WalterBright wrote:
| On the other hand, I've consistently found you can often get
| what you want just by asking for it. A lot of people seem
| unwilling to do this.
| zarmin wrote:
| On the other other hand, ask for forgiveness not
| permission.
| WalterBright wrote:
| More than one person has come to me with a story that
| they'd developed a side project without notifying their
| employer, and now that it was done and they were
| distributing it were worried their employer was going to
| claim ownership.
|
| I didn't have anything helpful to say. I've done side
| projects when I was working for Big Corps, but in every
| case notified management beforehand and got a written ok.
| Never had any trouble with it. When I've accepted job
| offers, I'd also provide a list of projects that were
| mine and had them sign off on it as a condition of
| employment. Never encountered any resistance to that,
| either.
|
| But these poor people were sweating bullets imagining all
| the bad consequences of their employer finding out.
|
| Just ask, in advance. If you're a valuable employee,
| they'll say ok. Never heard of one saying no. And they'll
| appreciate that you asked instead of sneaking around.
|
| But be careful not to use company equipment.
| foobarian wrote:
| It's complicated. If your contract says you can't do it,
| that means there is a legal path toward stopping you if
| someone bothers. That means someone has to care enough,
| which means that as long as you don't piss anyone off and
| don't get too much press you'll be fine. If you ask, it
| is in nobody's interest to say yes especially lawyers.
| WalterBright wrote:
| And yet I never had any trouble getting a 'yes'. One of
| those companies was Boeing - as big and bureaucratic as
| they get.
| mhaberl wrote:
| Doesn't it bother you that you have to ask some manager
| if you can do something (a side project) in your free
| time?
|
| It sounds as you are their slave, and not an employee who
| works x hours per month for y amount of money.
|
| Imagine a baker that has to ask the boss if he/she can
| bake a loaf of bread at home
| usrn wrote:
| I've just been accumulating all my contributions for when
| I quit or come up with a good enough alias to contribute
| them under.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Doesn't it bother you that you have to ask some manager
| if you can do something (a side project) in your free
| time?
|
| Not at all. A salaried position comes with more open-
| ended expectations than an hourly position.
|
| Besides, why the resistance to simply asking making it
| open and honest and the boundaries clear? My agreements
| on those things tended to be 2 or 3 sentences. I'd sign
| it, I'd get a veep to sign it, make a copy, and file it
| away.
|
| It's just good business to do such things.
| dtech wrote:
| Do you also ask them for permission when you want to go
| biking? Visit your mother? Throw a party? Draw a picture?
| Contribute to an open-source project? Smoke a cigarette?
| Build a gadget? Buy a house? Have a child?
|
| What an employee does in their own time is 0 business of
| the employer, none of the above is different from the
| others in kind.
| sriram_malhar wrote:
| Oh come on. That's certainly not what Walter was
| implying. It is any project that may have a potential
| current or future overlap with the company's plans or
| products.
| tuxie_ wrote:
| I'm also surprised at how natural people talk about that,
| like it's totally ok your employer "owns" your free time.
| topkai22 wrote:
| If that baker intends to sell that bread they also may
| run afoul of non competes.
|
| See https://www.eater.com/2017/10/13/16459044/non-
| competes-chefs...
| tuxie_ wrote:
| It's their free time, they can do whatever they want with
| it. If there is something unlawful or disloyal well then
| you deal with that situation, but you can't tell someone
| "I will tell you what you can do in your free time just
| in case you may do something I don't like".
|
| Also, let's be honest, how much harm can a 1 person
| project do to a multi billion corp? It's a fallacy.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Well I had kind of the reverse situation: I wanted to
| contribute to Cygwin, owned by RedHat. RedHat would not
| accept my contributions unless I got a signed release
| from my employer, IBM at the time. Well I tried to get
| this signed release, but all I got was the run-around.
| Nobody would bother taking the risk. It's one of the
| reasons I left.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's a good reason to leave, if the separate project is
| important to you.
| AndrewDavis wrote:
| Or, ensure that it is in your contract eliminating the
| need to ask.
|
| For example my employment contract states (I'm
| paraphrasing), anything I do outside of work I own
| copyright on. And anything I do for work is owned by
| work.
| starfallg wrote:
| It really depends on the organisation, but from my
| observation (I, myself, never developed any side projects
| worth releasing so this is based on what others did),
| most large organisations are not like that. Legal and HR
| specifically are very risk averse, so permission is
| usually denied by default, unless there is a overriding
| benefit to the company (or someone else to take the hit
| when things go wrong, a very cynical take I know).
|
| Ethically speaking, I would think that as a principle,
| employees should never agree to ask the employer for
| permission to do things in their own time, for their own
| purposes, outside of the area of the business. Employees
| are just that, employees, not indentured servants. There
| are duties owed by employee to employer (and vice-versa)
| but this should not be one of them.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Just ask, in advance. If you're a valuable employee,
| they'll say ok. Never heard of one saying no. And they'll
| appreciate that you asked instead of sneaking around
|
| Yahoo told me I couldn't participate in the Netflix
| recommendation challenge (not that I would have done
| well), and then 6 months later praised another Yahoo
| employee who did well in it. #notstillbitter
| egorfine wrote:
| Have you got that "no" in written?
| toast0 wrote:
| It was in writting, yes. I don't think I still have
| access to it: I don't keep archives of employer email,
| but I did use yahoo-inc email from mail.yahoo.com, as was
| allowed and sometimes encouraged, from time to time, and
| continue to have some access to old work emails through
| that; this chain of mail could be in there, but I'm not
| going to look for the same reason I haven't purged all
| that. It's too much effort and I don't care enough.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yah, you have good cause to be bitter about that.
| hollerith wrote:
| The decisionmaker who praised is probably different from
| the one who told you no.
| tombert wrote:
| I might not have been a valuable employee, but I tried
| making a Plex clone in my free time when I was at Apple,
| asked if I could open source it, went all the way to the
| VP of tech to ask permission, just to be uncerimoniously
| told that it was not allowed, because they "really wanted
| me to be fully focused on Apple".
|
| I'm not sure I agree at all that they'll say "ok" just
| because you're a valuable employee; I think you might
| have gotten lucky at your BigCorps.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Apple will be Apple.
|
| But there are lots of other places to be.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I always refer to the Apple=>Woz=>HP story where Woz went
| to his employer 3 separate times to seek their blessing
| and receiving an a-okay each time that his involvement
| with Apple was not going to be contested by HP.
|
| DOH!
| WalterBright wrote:
| One of the reasons why Woz is a smart cookie. Think of
| all the problems Apple could have had if he didn't.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Woz is an absolute hero of mine, and if you're reading HN
| and he's not a hero of yours, then, boy, I don't know.
| zarmin wrote:
| How about, thoroughly read your employment agreement (and
| everything you sign).
|
| > Just ask, in advance. If you're a valuable employee
|
| That is a massive, massive if.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I do. Every word.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Everybody should. The number of times I _would_ have been
| bitten if not for my bad habit of reading 'standard'
| contracts before signing them can't be counted on one
| hand any more.
| krick wrote:
| Yeah, well, no. Realistically no one ever will fight or
| most likely even decline a good job offer over a typical
| employment contract, and no employer will ever change a
| typical employment contract specially for you, _unless_
| you are somehow preemptively assumed to be a very
| valuable employee, in which case you are most likely
| being hired for some very high-level (like, executive)
| position, so your contract isn 't "typical" to start
| with. And this is far less likely than actually becoming
| a valuable employee just by doing your quite ordinary job
| for a few years.
|
| You might as well recommend fighting over your gym
| membership contract, of a bank contract, or a telecom
| operator contract. Right, it's your free choice, uh-huh.
| Either you accept it as is, or you go fuck yourself and
| workout at home, without internet, looking for a job
| where you'll be paid in cash (which also is far from
| being common). Again, _unless_ you are preemptively
| perceived to be a very special customer (i.e. "expected
| to bring in a lot of money"), in which case your contract
| probably isn't typical to start with. And it is most
| likely your lawyer who negotiates over it for you anyway.
| flir wrote:
| I must have had half a dozen contracts tweaked over the
| course of my career. Small things, of course, like making
| IP rights more explicit and changing notice periods. I
| can assure you I'm not that valuable. Weird.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Saying a contract is "non-negotiable" is just another
| negotiating tactic. They're all negotiable.
| WalterBright wrote:
| How do you explain that I've negotiated lots of these
| "take it or leave it" contracts?
|
| The only contracts you can't negotiate are government job
| contracts and union jobs. Which is one reason I'm not
| interested in either of those job categories.
|
| > bank contract
|
| Haha, I once negotiated a large loan from my bank at an
| interest a full percent below their official floor. I'm
| not even very good at negotiating, some people I know are
| much better.
|
| > telecom contract
|
| Have you ever said the magic words: "that sounds high,
| can I get this for a lower price?" The salesmen _are_
| allowed to negotiate. The initial price they quote you is
| the sucker price.
|
| Every time I've been to the dealer for car work, all I
| have to do is balk at the quote and 10% comes right off.
|
| This is not a special skill. Anybody can do it. Fer
| gosh's sake, you're _expected_ to negotiate.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| I wonder if there is more than one country in the world
| where it's possible for companies to own their workers
| like this.
|
| In Germany for example you can't give away the copyright
| on something you wrote as a person. The only thing you
| can waive is the distribution part of your copyrighted
| works.
|
| What you do outside your work hours is only subject to
| the law, not an employee.
| tuxie_ wrote:
| This doesn't stop companies from putting it in their
| contacts to scare you though. I worked at a FAANG in
| Berlin and that clause was _the_ reason I almost don't
| sign.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| It's a little more nuanced than that. Developing home
| nuclear reactors is an example where the approach might
| not benefit society at large.
|
| Edit: Comment is off-topic but I've heard this phrase so
| many times it's triggering.
| [deleted]
| strix_varius wrote:
| I would generally say, "ask for forgiveness not
| permission if you'll be fine walking back your decision
| later."
|
| Forgiveness often makes sense at work, at least for
| software engineers, and for modest decisions. Do things
| the way you think is best instead of getting blocked for
| weeks looking for permission. If, later on, someone comes
| knocking and wanting to change it, fine, whatever.
|
| However, taking the "forgiveness" route with more
| important / harder to change / expensive things - like
| building some addition to your house, building a software
| business separate your software job - is a recipe for
| disaster.
| [deleted]
| megablast wrote:
| Thanks for all the examples.
| tialaramex wrote:
| It definitely doesn't hurt to ask questions, even if you
| don't always get answers
|
| Many years ago I asked my employer why my salary was lower
| than the contractually agreed minimum salary for 21 year
| olds in their organisation. I never received a reply but I
| _did_ receive a raise and pay backdated to the point where
| I was hired.
|
| Years before that I asked my bank why I can't just use all
| the ATMs since they all have money in them and they're all
| connected to the same network. I never received a reply but
| some years later the ATMs were indeed all usable (of
| course, subsequently many began to charge money for
| withdrawals, so it's still worth going to the "right" ATM
| if you care)
|
| More recently I asked my bank if they can avoid giving me a
| contactless capable credit card when they issue new cards.
| At first they said this was impossible, but when time came
| to renew my card and I mentioned being disappointed that it
| would now be contactless, the call taker said actually she
| can do that, she'll cancel the renewed card she's just had
| issued and send me one without contactless, but it will
| take a few days.
|
| That card expired, and a few months ago I received its
| automatic replacement, this time it does have the
| contactless logo like all the others, but it came with a
| slim "Contactless-less" sheet explaining that the bank
| noticed I don't want a contactless card and have told this
| card not to allow contactless transactions despite the logo
| however, it _is_ actually a contactless card and so if I
| change my mind I can just call the bank and activate the
| contactless feature.
|
| [ You might wonder why I don't want a contactless card.
| Contactless credit cards can OK modestly sized payments
| based on proximity, which is convenient but clearly poses a
| risk of fraud I don't want. My phone is also capable of
| proximity based transactions, but it is _not_ limited to
| some arbitrary size of transaction and I need to explicitly
| _unlock_ it to allow the transaction. So, the phone "is"
| my credit card for the purposes of routine transactions,
| but it has better security. ]
| exabrial wrote:
| I'd read up on how the protocol works... There could be a
| live "relay" attack available , but it's not like someone
| could just swipe your butt and make a bunch of cloned
| cards. The magstripe is more of a hazard than anything
| else as it the numbers on the front un-encrpyted.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I'm aware in considerable detail how EMV works, both for
| wired and wireless transactions. This was a choice made
| in light of my understanding of how flawed the technology
| is.
|
| See Ross Anderson's extensive material (sorry there's a
| lot of _other_ stuff in here too) at Light Blue
| Touchpaper (a reference to Cambridge University 's
| traditional colour and the instructions on fireworks):
|
| https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Years before that I asked my bank why I can't just use
| all the ATMs since they all have money in them and
| they're all connected to the same network. I never
| received a reply but some years later the ATMs were
| indeed all usable (of course, subsequently many began to
| charge money for withdrawals, so it's still worth going
| to the "right" ATM if you care)
|
| This happened not because of you asking but simply
| because the banks figured out that they only need one ATM
| in a certain region for all of the banks.
|
| Never mind the subsequent service level reduction.
| GeertB wrote:
| In particular, if you're developing Free Software or Open
| Source Software, and a company wants to hire you, it is
| _expected_ that they're OK with you continuing to do so. If
| any contract says otherwise, explain that you need to keep
| doing what you're doing in order to stay at the level of
| expertise that you're at. If a future employer would not
| agree for you to keep doing that, you shouldn't sign.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's best to write down what you expect and get agreement
| on important matters like this.
| basicplus2 wrote:
| I find that if you simply change the wording of their
| contract to what you are happy with, initial all your
| changes, sign all pages, sign it, photocopy it, and send
| it in, nobody rejects it.
|
| Later when they try to hold you to the original contract,
| you simply ask them for the contract you signed..
|
| This has worked for me everytime :)
| dottedmag wrote:
| Wait until contracts start to come in DocuSign, where the
| only thing you can do is to scribe something obscene
| instead of a signature.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is _no way_ I will every use DocuSign. Think about
| it: the chances in the longer term of DocuSign being
| hacked approach '1', and that means that everybody that
| ever uploaded their signature to that site runs the risk
| of having other documents signed with that signature
| without the recourse that it wasn't them uploading their
| sig to some online service.
|
| And then there is this:
|
| https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/
| com...
| abawany wrote:
| Remember that some contracts protect against this
| intrinsically by stating that no amendments beyond those
| stated in print are valid.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Just line that clause out.
| arcastroe wrote:
| I loled. But genuinely curious. Is this tongue in cheek,
| or is it sound?
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I can't see any reason why that change wouldn't be
| invalid if others are. (Though it's probably good to
| bring it up explicitly so there are no surprises for
| anyone.)
| WalterBright wrote:
| That's why both parties have to initial such changes.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's sound. Lining out things and initial and counter-
| initial makes it legal. Done that many times.
| [deleted]
| arghwhat wrote:
| Note that not notifying the other party of changes could
| possibly be construed as fraud, depending on what legal
| system you are under.
|
| But even when notified of the changes, the other party is
| quite likely to accept reasonable changes when they have
| a fully signed copy, as it is more convenient than
| pushing back...
| tialaramex wrote:
| If they don't want the signed contract back, that's the
| first time I've seen it. Every employer I worked for
| wanted the contract back with a signature. Newer ones
| were OK with an electronic (not digital, just pixels
| instead of ink) signature but they all wanted a
| signature.
|
| When they get the modified contract back that's their
| notification of your adjusted terms. Is it polite to ask
| them to print a modified contract? Yes. But it may not
| always be practical.
|
| [This is not legal advice, duh]
|
| Because employer/ employee is asymmetric (unless you're
| literally hired by an individual) my understanding is
| that it is good sense for them to _prefer_ your amended
| contract if the terms you wanted are acceptable, because
| the law in many places says if you have a take-it-or-
| leave-it contract then the person in the "take it or
| leave it" position, here the employee, is entitled to
| interpret any ambiguous provisions in the most
| advantageous way. Having amended the contract, you are
| now on equal footing with the employer and any remaining
| ambiguity is resolved equitably which means less risk of
| nasty surprises for them.
| arghwhat wrote:
| They of course need the signed contract back - all
| parties need a copy with all necessary signatures.
|
| My point is that you should _not_ sneak in changes with
| the signature. If the contract is changed, you should
| notify the parties of the changes, not pretend you just
| signed their copy. If you do not notify them, it might be
| seen as an attempt to trick the other parties.
|
| How that would play out depends on your local legal
| system, with options ranging from "too bad", "contract or
| clause invalidated or reverted", all the way to
| "prosecuted for fraud".
|
| "Your should just have expected me to have changed the
| contract and compared it with the previous version to
| find all the changes!" is not an argument that would get
| court approval up here...
| effingwewt wrote:
| Still boggles my mind reading things like this- so cool to hear
| origin stories from the horse's mouth, so to speak. But if he
| hadn't been nice what would have happened?
|
| I'm sad to imagine the future we are headed towards where only
| new technologies are worked on, just to get the patents and sit
| on them, while everything pre-existing is deprecated and
| abandoned. Microsoft's embrace extend extinguish works eerily
| well.
|
| Do you think we are headed in a better direction now? Or is it
| simply different?
|
| I remember working with ATT in the late 90's when it was ATT
| broadband. They were still using green screen computer terminal
| windows for everything and were trying to get a GUI off the
| ground. Everything was alt and tab to switch windows etc, no
| mouse support! Into the mid 2000's! This was done by getting
| regular employees to try and cobble something together. The
| miraculous thing was that they pulled it off. Just took them a
| few years longer than it should have. ATT 'corporate' was known
| for being every bit the tv trope of a big business back then.
|
| I remember seeing early builds and laughing it was so bad. ATT
| in particular was very much stuck in its ways as a corporation
| and was not inclined to change even the most broken of things.
|
| When it finally rolled out it was such a mess. All the IT
| people could do was wince. Everyone but the people who mattered
| saw it coming. They hired some firm to re-do it all. That
| happened who knows how many times within just a few years after
| that. Went from refusing to update to doing it constantly and
| always breaking things.
|
| I must say it was pretty insane watching $12k long distance
| bills from calls to, for instance India, get re-rated to
| several dollars.
|
| Wondered how accurate the accounting could possibly be with so
| many inaccurate and fungible dollar amounts floating around.
|
| Edit to add- years later I was working as an HVAC service
| technician and had to do some work at cell phone towers, server
| locations (wasn't really server farms back then), and phone
| agent locations for all cell phone carriers in Albuquerque, NM.
|
| It felt surreal to see bow fast and far the companies had
| gotten in only a few short years. Companies (especially ATT)
| that couldn't figure out basic things about computers were at
| the cutting edge of like all the technology they used. ACs were
| top of the line Lieberts, they had _all_ proprietary software
| on everything. The super remote cell phone towers had AC,
| power, storage, and communications redundancy. Their security
| had been beefed up to top tier. Contractors all needed top tier
| security clearance now.
|
| I don't know if it was the Kevin Mitnick generation of phone
| phreaks, hackers, and social engineering, or the world in
| general, or a change in CEO but it was kind of like watching
| the titanic become some super-advanced space-faring time-
| warping ship.
|
| That had kinda given me hope that- damn, maybe we can enter the
| new age jumping in with both feet. As a kid it felt like
| progress had been so slow!
| WalterBright wrote:
| > But if he hadn't been nice what would have happened?
|
| I would have tried to negotiate a deal. If that failed, I
| would have abandoned making a C++ compiler.
|
| Consider that at the time C++ and ObjectiveC were neck and
| neck, judging by the message volume on newnews. I rejected
| doing O-C because Stepstone demanded royalties for
| implementing it.
|
| When Zortech C++ was released, an inexpensive native C++
| compiler that was well-adapted to the 16 bit DOS model, C++
| took off, and O-C sputtered and died. If AT&T had also
| demanded royalties, C++ would have been a failure, as cfront
| was not very practical.
|
| 90% of programming in those days was done on DOS, and Zortech
| C++ was top of the heap. If I may say so, Zortech C++ gave
| C++ the critical mass it needed to surge ahead.
|
| My partner made the mistake of telling Eugene Wang of Borland
| how well ZTC++ was selling, and from the look on Eugene's
| face I knew we'd made a big mistake. Borland did an abrupt
| change in direction and went all in on Turbo C++. And the
| rest, as they say, is history. Microsoft also soon abandoned
| its object extensions to C and went with C++.
| skissane wrote:
| > Microsoft also soon abandoned its object extensions to C
| and went with C++.
|
| Anyone have any info on what those abandoned Microsoft
| extensions were?
| WalterBright wrote:
| I heard it was called "C*". But I've never been able to
| find out more about it. Just that a Redmondian told me
| that Zortech's success caused them to abandon it.
| Probably it was in the very early stages.
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| Thank you for giving these details. I feel like AI is the
| next step in some kind of implementation war after
| languages and then browsers.
| ianai wrote:
| Does C++ have much of an AI/ML implementation? I saw
| something recently about the language missing a good
| AI/ML framework since there was no way to do proper
| differentiation (might be the wrong term, sorry).
| rawbot wrote:
| dlib is pretty good: http://dlib.net/
| doovd wrote:
| This doesn't make much sense, for two reasons: 1. Various
| ML libraries are implemented in C++ and have wrappers for
| respective interpreted languages. 2. Given higher-level
| languages can do auto-diff, c++ as a lower-level language
| is likely to be able to do it (and it can).
|
| It just doesn't have as popular libraries such as
| python/R etc given the latter are far easier to work with
| + lower barriers for entry.
| umanwizard wrote:
| PyTorch is written in C++ and has a C++ API (although the
| most famous API is -- as the name suggests -- the Python
| one).
| chiph wrote:
| My graphics class instructor was Jack Bresenham. The class
| was given in Borland's Turbo Pascal, but I asked for
| permission to write my code in the then-new Turbo C++
| (since Jack knew C, I was sure he'd allow it).
|
| It came time to demo our work. Everyone else's code ran at
| least 5 times faster than mine. How could this be? Well,
| the Turbo C++ compiler was on the "immature" side at that
| time and produced really inefficient binaries. While the
| Borland Pascal compiler was mature and created code that
| ran really quite fast. Lesson learned. :)
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| That's what you get for not having the foresight to pick
| the compiler written by the guy who would go on to create
| C# and TypeScript [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Hejlsberg
| ncmncm wrote:
| That compiler got template support very, very late, and
| conforming support much later than that.
| chiph wrote:
| My C# story: We were a Visual Basic 6 shop, writing COM+
| components being called by classic ASP pages. Microsoft
| .NET had just been announced and we spent some time doing
| an evaluation between it and Java (JSPs and Beans) - our
| brand new CTO was concerned about Microsoft technology
| being a monoculture and felt that Java would allow us to
| pick from several competing vendors so we could be using
| the best of breed[0].
|
| We spent several months doing a technical comparison. And
| in the final meeting they went around the room getting
| opinions from everyone. All but one chose .NET (the
| dissenter was: "Whatever you think, boss"). The CTO said
| "That settles it. We're going with Java."[1]
|
| So we spent hundreds of thousands on Oracle database
| licenses (because if you're changing languages, might as
| well change databases too, right?) and consultants to
| write a prototype. When they were done, it scaled to a
| grand total of _two_ concurrent users on the fastest
| Compaq servers we had. While our existing VB code was
| serving about _two hundred_. Again, mature technology vs.
| immature technology.
|
| I've been a big fan of C# since then. While I think the
| latest changes to the language and runtime are mostly eye
| candy (how hard is it to have a Main method, really?)
| there's some good stuff in there (I spent some time
| looking at System.Threading.Channels recently)
|
| [0] The idea isn't bad, but what happens in practice is
| you get about 2 top-tier vendors and a bunch of also-
| rans.
|
| [1] When choosing a technology stack, the CTO will pick
| what they want and everyone else's opinions are
| secondary. I think this must be a corollary to the "When
| a business moves, it's always closer to the CEO's house"
| rule.
| vkazanov wrote:
| Optimising compiler is not the same business as a
| language implementation :-) related but not the same at
| all
| effingwewt wrote:
| Man, it really is history. Crazy to think had things been a
| little different how different would things be today. If
| kid me knew one day I'd run across this in an online forum
| I don't think I'd have believed it.
|
| As others said- thanks for sharing the insights, made my
| week.
| bombcar wrote:
| The refusal to open-license Minix is another one that has
| had major repercussions.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, that was a giant mistake. But you have to keep in
| mind that there was already a deal with Prentice-Hall at
| that point and re-negotiating that to open sourcing it
| may well have been prohibitively costly for Tanenbaum /
| VU.
| bombcar wrote:
| I don't even really think it was a mistake, it's just
| that it indirectly caused linux. Of course the Hurd being
| a Turd helped there, too.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's the Butterfly Effect, for sure.
| foobarian wrote:
| What do you mean by "trying to get a GUI off the ground?" Was
| it that ATT corp IT was trying to deploy a windowing OS onto
| employees' computers? Or that they were developing a
| graphical OS a la Plan9 and failing?
| dekhn wrote:
| One of my favorite tech books is 'The Idea Factory' which
| covers various periods of innovation at (AT&T) Bell Labs,
| including the creation of the first real cell phone
| technology.
|
| When I first got Pacific Bell (now part of AT&T) DSL in
| California in the early 2000s, it was run by a seperate
| division of the company, "Emerging Products Division". i
| always assumed that was because the traditional side of
| PacBell just didn't get digital at all and the leadership
| kept them apart to avoid the innovator's dilemma.
| effingwewt wrote:
| Definitely going to give that a read. Now that you both
| mention it, many BigCo's did have fragmented segments back
| then, were I suppose now everything is helmed by the head
| (Alphabet/Google).
|
| Maybe it was some kind of turning point. Also about that
| time did CEO age drop through the floor? They went from all
| being ancient to mostly 40 and under somewhere along the
| line.
|
| Thanks for the book suggestion!
| gumby wrote:
| > When I first got Pacific Bell (now part of AT&T) DSL in
| California in the early 2000s, it was run by a seperate
| division of the company, "Emerging Products Division". i
| always assumed that was because the traditional side of
| PacBell just didn't get digital at all and the leadership
| kept them apart to avoid the innovator's dilemma.
|
| This technique had previously been used by IBM to the the
| PC out: they built a whole division from scratch in Boca
| Raton away from the IBM mother ship in NY
| ianai wrote:
| I definitely wish more recent tech had gone the
| standardized way similar to how IBM standardized computer
| building. We're into four decades of being able to build
| PCs from customized/off the shelf parts because IBM
| didn't go the "make it impossible"/proprietary route.
| gumby wrote:
| Actually that credit goes to COMPAQ. IBM used commodity
| parts to save money but it was COMPAQ who famously cloned
| the BIOS a and made IBM-alikes against IBM's wishes.
|
| But by then the cat was out of the bag: IBM tried to
| achieve a proprietary beachhead with Micro Channel (and
| OS/2) but that added value for IBM, not the customer.
| com2kid wrote:
| Don't forget that Microsoft maintained momentum in this
| area. MS loved having open standards because it let MS
| pit OEMs against each other, causing hardware prices to
| drop while Windows license prices stayed the same.
| flir wrote:
| This is why at one point all the big players in open
| source were hardware manufacturers. The software tries to
| commoditize the hardware, and the hardware tries to
| commoditize the software.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I asked a (great) boss I had once if we should get the legal
| department's opinion on something very minor. They had a great
| response, which was that nothing-- unless absolutely necessary by
| policy or significant risk-- should ever be given to them unless
| we wanted to wait 6 months for them to tell us "no".
|
| YMMV based on the nature of issues your legal folks have to deal
| with on a regular basis. In our case, anything outside of
| standard contract review they had a reputation of being a
| nightmare to deal with.
| mynameishere wrote:
| The legal department is useful if your boss wanted to scuttle
| something.
|
| https://dilbert.com/strip/1993-01-31
| iasay wrote:
| That sounds like our purchasing department. AWS always gets
| business first now because we don't have to raise a PO
| bombcar wrote:
| And now you know how AWS works and makes their money.
| boondaburrah wrote:
| similarly, webapps have eaten desktop software because you
| don't have to raise a ticket with IT to get approval for a
| software install.
| james_in_the_uk wrote:
| If you are doing something that isn't significantly risky and
| isn't identified by policy as likely to give rise to a
| significant risk, then you don't need to ask a company lawyer.
|
| If you ask them anyway, it might take a while to get a reply,
| because they'll be prioritising significant risks.
| ellyagg wrote:
| But then they also say no.
| james_in_the_uk wrote:
| Yes we have a special protocol for time-wasters ;)
| ineedasername wrote:
| There are plenty of things short of _significant_ risk that
| would be useful to have a professional legal opinion on.
|
| You are also making the faulty assumption that policy has
| sufficient coverage to avoid ambiguities and cover all
| events. It doesn't. Something not particularly risky, not
| covered by policy, but touching on a legal matter are not
| uncommon.
|
| Your comment is rather strange in fact given the actual
| linked article's example.
| lostgame wrote:
| I was happy to read[0] that the OS was indeed named after the so-
| bad-it's-good cult film 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'.
|
| [0] http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/plan9.html
| dagurp wrote:
| What's plan 9?
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >What's plan 9?
|
| The sibling comment gave a good answer.
|
| But don't take their word (or Wikipedia's, for that matter) for
| it.
|
| Go ahead and install[0] it yourself.
|
| I'd recommend a VM.
|
| [0] https://plan9.io/plan9/
| drybjed wrote:
| You can also watch an excellent series of videos[1] from the
| adventuresin9[2] YouTube channel, showcasing the Plan 9
| system itself (based on 9front fork) and its capabilities.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7qFfPYl0t8Cq7auyblZqxA
| /vid...
|
| [2]: https://youtube.com/adventuresin9
| jacquesm wrote:
| In a nutshell: an iterative improvement on the UNIX concept of
| everything is a file. In UNIX everything is a file unless it
| isn't (a device, for instance, which just _looks_ like a file
| but does not behave as such), in plan 9 that is so cleanly
| implemented that you can run one window manager inside another
| (and if you want while using the CPU resources of yet another
| machine) without losing stride.
| msla wrote:
| The OS the people who created Unix did after they'd decided
| that networked workstations with high-resolution graphics
| displays and mice were the way the future would look. In some
| ways, it's a cleaned-up Unix, and in others, it's a different
| design, based more around computers on a LAN sharing resources
| than than terminals connecting to a central system.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs
| masswerk wrote:
| Kudos for providing an answer (also a very good short answer)
| instead of simply downvoting a question!
| anarchy89 wrote:
| Anyone know what the file format they used was?
| pdw wrote:
| It must have been an early version of AAC. Bell was involved
| with that. And another message in the thread claims "the early
| versions of the audio compression stuff were not quite is good
| as the later versions (which became apples stuff)"
| Maursault wrote:
| Regarding the early formats' fidelity, the defense Napster
| should have won with was that the plaintiff's assumption that
| digital copies _were any good_ was false. The mp3s in
| question were barely broadcast quality, thus sharing low
| bitrate mp3 was not any different from sharing recordings of
| broadcast radio, a legal activity.
| tkhattra wrote:
| see this 1995 Wired interview with ken thompson -
| https://www.wired.com/1995/08/thompson-4/.
| MisterTea wrote:
| PAC - Perceptual Audio Coder
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_Audio_Coder
|
| https://marc.info/?l=9fans&m=111558697616455&w=2
| Bayart wrote:
| I wish I was as cool as Rob Pike.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| People questioning whether the lawyer really had the power to
| block this don't know how legal departments in big corporations
| work, as others have pointed out.
|
| A lawyer usually cannot get in trouble for saying No. They can
| only get in trouble for saying Yes. They feel they're doing their
| jobs by saying No and they'll also use the phrase "out of an
| abundance of caution."
|
| The lawyer's supervisor is _very_ rarely going to overrule him or
| her and say Yes. They will just say "it's their case, they're in
| charge." They defer to each other that way.
|
| This probably seems excessively cynical to you. Indeed it doesn't
| always turn out this way. Sometimes rationality prevails.
| tgv wrote:
| It's called liability, isn't it? Lawyers only go out of their
| way to rationalize something when it's deemed profitable.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| The question that should be asked is not "can we do this?" but
| "what do we need to do to make this happen?"
| s3ctor8 wrote:
| This holds true for a number of situations where approval is
| required. For me it's particularly helpful when looking for
| IT/Information Security approval. "What actions/precautions
| do you recommend I take, so that you will approve this when
| you are asked to (and we are implementing a secure
| solution)?"
| userbinator wrote:
| _A lawyer usually cannot get in trouble for saying No. They can
| only get in trouble for saying Yes. They feel they 're doing
| their jobs by saying No and they'll also use the phrase "out of
| an abundance of caution."_
|
| Hence why the phrase "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than
| permission" exists.
| [deleted]
| tlrobinson wrote:
| I've found good corporate lawyers will summarize the risks of
| taking some action and ask you (or higher up leadership) to
| weight those against the business case for taking said action.
| dekhn wrote:
| Agreed, I worked with some very good lawyers at Google who
| understood the technical details and the context outside of
| corporate/industry. It wasn't always default 'no', especially
| if you knew how to ask the questions properly. It was default
| 'maybe and here's why'.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| In fact, I was in Google Patent Litigation, and that's
| largely where that came from.
|
| But you're right: you have to prepare the ground very
| carefully when you ask for legal advice. If you just ask
| out of the blue "can we do this?" you're asking for
| trouble.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| Agreed. When I deal with our legal counsel, I often try to
| draw him out to determine how I need to prioritize my team's
| work. Generally he declines to give me any firm yes or no,
| and just tells me where he sees risks.
| [deleted]
| duxup wrote:
| The few times I was involved in "we should ask legal"
| situations and it wasn't the most obvious yes... I just checked
| out after that as some legal drone always came back with some
| "no" and sometimes some really wonky situations they made up
| that frankly read more like some random internet legal expert
| rather than someone with training.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Yes, indeed. I could tell a great story, but just doing that
| would _itself_ violate a No some lawyer gave me.
| ncmncm wrote:
| That "no" probably expired a long time ago. Another lawyer
| would be able to tell you.
|
| Often enough, only specific trade secrets get long-term
| protection.
|
| Non-commissioned crewmen on board ships conducting
| classified missions, not themselves cleared, can usually
| say everything they did; it was the officers'
| responsibility to keep them from knowing any classified
| details.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Thanks for the (mostly irrelevant to this case) details,
| but I can't divulge the reason for the No, and I do
| suspect it would still apply.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _A lawyer usually cannot get in trouble for saying No. They
| can only get in trouble for saying Yes._
|
| This. AND: There's seldom if ever much near-term _personal_
| upside for the lawyer, just downside if things go wrong --- and
| lawyers are a natural target for business people to point the
| fingers at if things do go wrong, because they 're of different
| tribes.
|
| Warren Buffett's longtime business partner Charlie Munger
| famously said, "Never a year passes but I get some surprise
| that pushes a little further my appreciation of incentive
| superpower. * * * Never, ever, think about something else when
| you should be thinking about the power of incentives." [0]
|
| That said, _good_ business lawyers think of themselves as kinda
| being business people with legal training, assessing _all_ the
| relevant risks and making recommendations for the business. (I
| tell my students: Try to think as though you were the CEO --
| but remember that you 're not.)
|
| https://perma.cc/LNG7-JG6Y.
| Beldin wrote:
| That comment about the stack of CDs mysteriously disappearing
| right from under the presenter's nose while he kept on fiddling
| with his slides is hilarious.
| sovietswag wrote:
| lol "the presenter".... who was Ken Thompson
| wiredfool wrote:
| Would you trust one of those CDs?
| pmarreck wrote:
| This is a literal tragedy
| [deleted]
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Because it just ain't right burning a CD ROM and not filling it
| up
| choppaface wrote:
| "And that, my friends, is why MP-3 took off instead of the far
| better follow-on system we were on the cusp of getting out the
| door."
|
| I dunno, maybe the technical problem from the beginning was
| distribution and installs and not actually compression. Maybe
| lawyers suck, but maybe Plan 9 was actually more for
| entertainment than anything else.
| antonvs wrote:
| I rolled my eyes at that quote. People always have excuses for
| not finishing something.
| nailer wrote:
| There was also VQF from Yamaha, people seriously had discussions
| on whether MP3 or VQF would become the dominant format.
|
| Oh also Fraunhofer uploaded the mp3 source to the ISO website for
| years with no license, let the community build on it for years (I
| feel like they knew) and then asked everyone for a minimum of 10K
| USD.
| RajT88 wrote:
| VQF was indeed better. Smaller files, same fidelity.
|
| I cannot remember all of them now, but there was a few like
| that.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Fun fact: Apple's CoreAudio to this day can't output MP3. It
| can read it fine just not write it. :)
| astrange wrote:
| The iTunes MP3 encoder is really bad, so nobody should want
| it to.
| bitwize wrote:
| Even Bill Gates knows you let people pirate the product first,
| then squeeze them for license fees.
| overeater wrote:
| This stories reminds me of the times before tech dominance, when
| programmers and innovators needed to get permission to do almost
| anything. Tech people were not allowed to run companies, or even
| manage people -- you needed MBAs for that.
|
| Anything "disruptive" would be immediately shut down and
| threatened from the dominant industry. Anti-societal violence in
| video games were under constant protest (like the original Grand
| Theft Auto, or Mortal Kombat), and don't even think about trying
| to start a business like Uber or Spotify.
|
| New file formats could be immediately crushed by IP concerns.
| Even web pages posting content about circumventing current
| systems or linking to sites like that were targeted. If you
| weren't a big player, you didn't have any way to accept money
| (besides asking people to mail you checks).
|
| While tech is seen as too powerful now, I think it's at least
| nice that we no longer have the anxiety that plagued any idea or
| project in the past. You don't have to worry about going to jail
| for programming crypto code, or be unable to find a hosting
| provider for your website that shows scraped public data.
| justinclift wrote:
| > we no longer have the anxiety that plagued any idea or
| project in the past.
|
| __cough__ Patents __cough__.
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