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Berners-Lee Speaks Out Against DRM, Advocates Net Neutrality 187

Posted by Zonk on Thursday March 01, 2007 @06:07PM from the papa-don't-speak-i'm-in-trouble dept.

narramissic writes "Speaking before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee advocated for net neutrality, saying that the Web deserves 'special treatment' as a communications medium to protect its nondiscriminatory approach to content. Berners-Lee's more controversial statements came on the topic of DRM, in which he suggested that instead of DRM, copyright holders should provide information on how to legally use online material, allowing users the opportunity 'to do the right thing.' This led to an odd exchange with Representative Mary Bono who compared Berner-Lee's suggestion to 'having a speed limit but not enforcing the speed limit.'"

Submission + - Biggest computing disaster ever

Submitted by

xiox

on Thursday March 01, 2007 @05:49PM

xiox writes: "Private Eye magazine contains a comprehensive report detailing the horrifying background to the wasting of £12.4 billion of public money on an unnecessary and useless central bureaucratic computer system for the UK's National Health Service. This could have paid for 26,000 doctors over 10 years. While the full report is not available online, NHS Blog Doctor details some of the findings.

Those of us working within the NHS have long been aware of the futility and waste of this IT system. The details that emerge from the Private Eye report reveal a tale of incompetence and greed that beggars belief. Incompetence on the part of the government, and greed on the part of some of the contractors, two of whom are named by the report. Both made personal profits of over £20 million on the back of inflated share sales and illusory profits generated by Enron style accounting.
"

Comparison of Working at the 3 Big Search Giants 179

Posted by Zonk on Saturday February 17, 2007 @02:46PM from the searching-for-some-free-sushi dept.

castironwok writes "Finally, everything you've ever wanted to know about being an employee at Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Tastyresearch describes his (or her) past few years interning and working at the three companies. Things I didn't know from before: Bill Gates wears old shoes, Google's internal security watches you like a hawk, the office styles of each company, and how to fill your suitcase with Google T-shirts. He calls the few select companies the 'prestigious internship circle', noting 'once you have worked at one, it's a lot easier to get into another'."

Submission + - Is Delphi the next Database dev platform.. again?

Submitted by santakrooz on Saturday February 17, 2007 @02:20PM

santakrooz writes: Delphi's always been known as a solid database application development platform, it just had it's 12th birthday on Valentines day, and now the Delphi guys are coming up with a completely new database architecture. The interesting thing is that it's backward compatible, insanely extensible, single sourced between .NET and Wintel native code, and... and written completely in Delphi. Ok I know Delphi's written in Delphi and there are "wow" apps out there written in Delphi like Skype that Delphi guys always like to mention, there was a loosely supported Linux version, so my question is, what can't you do in Delphi? Or a better question is... what have Slashdot readers written in Delphi?

Submission + - Nenest Web Application Framework

Submitted by

Tony Y.

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @02:04PM

Tony Y. writes: "Nenest (http://www.nenest.com) is a web platform which enables anyone to create online software support databases. Users use Nenest Form Builder to create online forms, then use those form to collect, organize and store data. Those data can be secure for internal employees or members accessing only; or published to public by using social networking tools, including RSS feeds, Digg, del.icio.us and Sphere."

Submission + - BSD Stackable Filesystem Series I

Submitted by

jasonrfink00

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @03:19AM

jasonrfink00 writes: "Nice beginning article of a promising BSD series: The nullfs filesystem is a passthrough filesystem. When nullfs is mounted it — literally copies the filesystem transaction. If a file is deleted, nullfs simply transmits the information down to the lower filesystem. Conversely, if a file is created, it does the same and tacks on all of the data needed for the filesystem underneath. Why is that a good thing? Where did nullfs come from and why?. What else, if anything, is it good for? The series focuses on where nullfs comes from, how it can be leveraged, a code walk and a skeloten implementation (nearly a blind copy). link."

Submission + - Estimating custom software development cost

Submitted by GL82 on Saturday February 17, 2007 @02:49AM

GL82 writes: As a student studying CS right now, we came across the subject of estimating software development cost. Out of curiosity, what kind of methods (eg. function points, use case points, COCOMO, and others) do you or your company used to estimate the cost required to develop the software for your clients (after you have complete a fairly comphrensive specification)? My question is directed toward custom software development, but methods for development of software product is also welcome. Also, how well does your method works? If you found out later that your number are way far, then what techniques do you use when re-negotiating with your clients about the pricing or scope of the projects?

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