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Admin
That sucked.
Paging @algorythmics
Admin
This article does need some love, am I right?
Admin
Indeed it needed at least 20%more innuendo.
Admin
How's that legal anyway?
Admin
Because college typically melees you assign copyright and ownership of all course work to the school.
That makes it legal, but doesn't make it ethical.
Admin
You spelled sauce wrong.
Admin
Seems a good way to prepare developers for life in the real world - the only thing that does not match the way most companies seem to work is the vastly generous deadlines.
Admin
Actually no, at least not at the University I work at. There students own the rights to their work. Dr. Wanker would have faced some strict sanctions, and the students could have prosecuted.
As far as requiring the purchase of FAP for the course...that's a perfectly legal and normal thing. No different than universities requiring ownership of a computer and M$-Office.
Oh wait.. I mis-spelled Dr. Wanker's name -- oh wait I did it again.
Admin
Except that a computer and Office can have uses outside of the university. That framework... Not so much.
Admin
you would be a lucky exception then. this exact thing happened to me in college here and when i complained to the department chair (and later the dean) about it the response i got was "So? it's not like you own your coursework. your coursework belongs to the university to use as we see fit"
my response of "So why are you letting Professor A (for arsehole) rip out my name and more importantly CLAIM IT AS HIS ORIGINAL WORK‽" was met with: "Next appointment!"
Admin
Well, at least the business student is off to a great start as a PM.
I once heard at my college (some crappy no-name 2-year thing, don't hate) that one of our professors would have the final for a network engineering class be to create a document for creating a network with hubs/switches/etc. for a small business. He was also a consultant on the side... rumor was that he'd take the best proposal, change the names around and present it to his client.
I do recall hearing that he also would ask some of the better students to assist him part-time for some money, so it wasn't all bad, and he really was a nice guy who knew his stuff.
Admin
ummmm
that's not nice, no matter how you slice it.
Admin
In my uni they didn't disguise the fact they were ripping you off with your coursework. I remember one assignment being something like "medical image processing and analysis for diagnosis in hospital XXX").
At least they were honest I suppose.
Admin
This may be recent but I did s really quicky survey of a few major U.S. universities and while there are notable exceptions (including where I did my graduate work), for the most part rights to work done by students as part of a class is owned by those students. There are cases where universities allow the students to sign away their rights as a condition of enrolling and, as I said there are notable exceptions but the prevailing wind in the U.S. at least seems to b student ownership.
Admin
I'm pretty sure that's the precise definition of plagiarism (a major no-no for professors), and had you taken it to the media, the Dean's reaction might have changed. Of course, you might want to wait until you have diploma in hand before spilling the beans...
Admin
Don't like that analogy. No different than requiring the purchase of a professor written course pack to take the class.
Admin
for mine:
i was not impressed, but i was also uninterested in going to another university (as any other one would have been far more expensive and i already knew that the important part ten years down the line would be that i had the diploma, not who gave it to me)
Admin
i never did take it to the media for a couple of reasons
Admin
My uni did not require me to sign away any rights. In the ones around where I lived, students might take their coursework and start companies based on it. If the uni owned the rights, it might be a little awkward. But sometimes the professors also join those startups.
Admin
I don't know does not all that different from when professors in every other discipline require you to buy the book, they just happen to have authored to use as the class text.
Its an old game. They write books that are of little interest even to others in the field as they don't really offer any new insights, data, etc; and than create a market for it by forcing their students to buy it. If they are lucky they can make some more junior professors or instructors use it as well for their classes; if the book is target for 100/200 level courses that get passed around the department.
In the end its enough they can be certain of selling a run of 500 copies or so over the course of a few semesters and its a nice little supplemental income stream for them.
Admin
their prof sounded like a real jerk. off.
Admin
This was a great front page adaptation. The names were even consistent the whole freakin' way through the article!
Admin
My synopsis: The professor created an ivory tower framework that is almost unusable. Then he made the students buy licenses for his framework (personal enrichment); treated them as slaves to develop a product for free (personal enrichment); then sold the product to the university (more personal enrichment).
One hundred percent greed, and a pathetic excuse for a human being.
The nastiest part is making them buy licenses to use his software for his development project. Shades of Ayn Rand...
Admin
Opposite of what happened for me.
I was given free reign.
I contacted a company that provided a framework for phone VOIP software.
They gave me a free limited use license.
I did hardly any work to get it off the ground.
I credited their software in my thesis, and wrote up a 5 page document full of BS.
No one could make any practical use of what I developed.
(It was a "text-based" RPG that was interacted with through VOIP.
Admin
I actually looked into that issue a few weeks ago for unrelated reasons - I don't believe the copyrights can be given away - the students own the work by the very fact that they created it. Some schools require you to give them some rights, but IIRC you can't take all of them, so they can't claim they created it.
I could be completely wrong of course.
Admin
I guess it was really hard to do with Dr. Wa
ncker. Heh, heh... hard.This whole article reminds me of something I've already posted on the old forums.
Admin
No, the nastiest part was giving them a "C", calling it “sloppy and an embarrassment to FAP", then stealing it.
Admin
Dismissing them from college for that? Isn't that a lawyer's wet dream?
Oh, I forget about the shitty US American law system where your coffers essentially determine the amount of justice you get.
Admin
as far as i know they didn't actually do anything other than make it known that he was not welcome anymore... as i said he never tried to sign up for more classes.
no idea if he took it to court or not. if he did i'm positive h would have gotten a private settlement rather than have the uni risk it getting to court.
Admin
Is there a place where that isn't true?
Admin
Our system is "loser pays". With the caveat that the amount the loser has to pay in legal costs has to be reasonable. This means that you can't waltz in with a 30 man lawyer team for something like "he scratched my car" and expect to be reimbursed fully by the losing party.
Admin
But...you're still a loser. Not that I don't think there's a lot to be said about loser pays rules. But there are drawbacks, too. My point was completely orthogonal to who pays.
Admin
I must've somehow erred in the meaning of "coffers". It doesn't mean "wads of money"?
And money doesn't have to do with payment? Then what IS your point if you weren't talking about my point?
In fact, if you weren't replying to my point where was your point in making a point in the first place?
Admin
It's originally a chest for keeping money.
You said that having more money meant you could win. And I wondered where that wasn't the case. And you brought up loser pays. Which is, OK, not completely orthogonal, but not really the same as being able to win a lawsuit or whatever.
I was replying to your point.
Admin
If you're not allowed to pile on lawyers in order to frighten your opponent into submitting then you stand way better chances than otherwise.
Admin
True, but if you pile on lawyers you're still more likely to win. We already have lots of lawsuits where the plaintiff doesn't risk any money because the lawyers take the case on contingency.
Admin
Also, some states allow the plaintiff to include reasonable legal fees in their claim for damages.
Admin
I highly doubt that more lawyers make a case more winnable, unless it's a highly complex matter (like something concerning tax laws).
Admin
Depends on the case. In general, having a larger legal team means more people with slightly different experience, looking at the case from somewhat different angles. That increases the odds that a specific law, case precedent, or loophole won't be overlooked.
Admin
There's also the opposite effect. You get so much input that you're unable to commit to a coherent strategy.
Admin
That was so cringe-inducing to read that I can barely even remember WTF the WTF was supposed to be.
Admin
Almost anything involving "law" is highly complex. Especially once you start getting lawyers involved.
Admin
Generally when you have a legal team, you put an individual in charge. Someone has to head up the team and give it some direction.
Admin
Sophistry,
Admin
In theory.
Generally when you have a developer team, you put an individual in charge. Someone has to head up the team and give it some direction.
And what was this website's topic again? :stuck_out_tongue:
Admin
No, just a better understanding of law than you, apparently.
Admin
We've had worse... [image]
Admin
I'm not sure that saying "everything is complex" is such a useful qualifier.
Admin
Probably because you're less familiar with courts and how they deal with the law.
Admin
My only experience with this sort of thing was my Databases class.
There's some organization that tracks Hurricane statistics like high water marks and how far inland the water went... Our Final was to be broken into three-man teams and make a working web interface for displaying/searching all of this data. I don't know if the org ended up using any of our solutions, but they were upfront about it and the org actually came into the class a couple times to discuss requirements they had. Overall a very enriching class, and it didn't feel like anyone got ripped off. Cheap/free labor, probably, but there's no way I would've had that learning experience otherwise, and ultimately felt like I just finished an internship...