Live data from Hacker News

An apology to open source

chartjs.org

191–200 of 259 posts

Re: An apology to open source

#192
post #136
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IP of my final year (UK) university project belongs to the University not me, and not to the company that was sponsoring me for my final year.

That just shows how ridiculous the laws in UK/US are. Around here, what you're describing would be expressly against the law.

I think it's about the same thing in Sweden (the student has the rights).

At the sime time, there are two different rights; copyright and "usage right" (not sure if that last thing is translated correctly), which means that you own the stuff you've created, but you can transfer the right of using it to someone else.

Re: An apology to open source

#193
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nick's words: It had been my final year university project I had been working on for a couple of months

Often that means that the university claims rights in the IP produced, certainly [way back] when I matriculated it was required of all students to sign a waiver giving rights to the Uni for any works created whilst being a student. The first I heard about it was at the matriculation table when I'd already gone up. Perhaps this sort of thing doesn't happen elsewhere or as been deemed inappropriate.

It does happen in most US universities, but it's not something you normally ask about.

Re: An apology to open source

#194
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Highcharts in a commercial inhouse project and can confirm it's awesome, well documented, with a ton of examples and the guy is very responsive to support queries. Well worth the few quid asked for commercial use. Also, it uses SVG and is therefore suitable for PDF conversion (which Canvas is not). Have a play: http://www.highcharts.com/demo/

I can also confirm that highcharts is awesome.

I can also confirm that highcharts is awesome (support, documentation,..)

Re: An apology to open source

#195
post #29

An open note to Nick's Employers - 1) If you are a technology company, this is Harakiri ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku ). You are alienating every developer who is worth her salt. If you have a recruiting arm, and they are trying to recruit, god be with them. Ofcourse, you think people will never come to know, but this has the potential to be a good story and press will pick it up. I will not be surprised if…

Reality check: the HN echo chamber isn't the world, not even the programming world. This is a totally minor matter that most people (even most programmers, even most programmers in the startup scene) will never hear about and forget quickly if they do.

Re: An apology to open source

#196
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? I employ PhD students to work on commercial products and there is a strict rule in the university that any work done by the student is owned by the student. We are granted an irrevocable, fully transferable licence to use their work, but the student is not locked out from doing whatever they like with the stuff that they did. I'd be surprised if that was not the same for undergraduates - although I am a…

In North America, that is an atypical arrangement. Here in Canada, Waterloo is unique for being one of the few (only?) schools that doesn't claim IP ownership. My university (Manitoba) does, although it is negotiable and for commercially sponsored projects the sponsoring company generally owns the IP. EDIT: From personal experience, I can also tell you that IP policies are less clear at the undergraduate level around…

In California it is more complicated. First there is copyright law -- students and academic personal manual employees own their copyright. The Education code limits how public university students may share notes (a matter of conduct, not copyright). Non-academic personal manual appointments have copyright owned by the university. Students who are not also otherwise employed by the University would own their patents (subject to any details of their non-university employment agreement). Anyone employed by the university (student, academic or staff) get to keep a cut of their patents; but have to share it with the university.

I was pretty sure this policy of students/academics own their own copyright but share in patents was the standard in United States higher education.

Re: An apology to open source

#197
post #164

Some alternative JavaScript charting libraries... * Highcharts JS ( http://www.highcharts.com/ ) * Flot ( http://www.flotcharts.org/ ) * NVD3 ( http://nvd3.org/ ) * morris.js ( http://www.oesmith.co.uk/morris.js/ ) * Rickshaw ( http://code.shutterstock.com/rickshaw/ ) * jqPlot ( http://www.jqplot.com/ ) * gRaphaël ( http://g.raphaeljs.com/ ) * YUI charts ( http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/charts/ ) * Polychart.js ( htt…

Impressive list! Is there any charting library out there which still supports IE6/IE7?

Flot does with an JS backfill for canvas for IE. Probably some of the others do too with the same.

Re: An apology to open source

#198
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I have been working for Rails shop that did exactly this. I wasn't able to do anything, not even in my spare time, to contribute to open-source projects or do other work. The other work I can understand, because I could help a competitor for an example. But that they owned ownership for every line of code written by me, even on my time off, was killing my inspiration.

>But that they owned ownership for every line of code written by me, even on my time off, was killing my inspiration. Where were you working? That's definitely not how US ip-law operates.

Yes, yes it can. It all depends on the contract you sign. At present, it seems as if most tech shops allow you to moonlight on your own boxes. But I've looked over company policies which were "we own your brainz". HP circa 2006 was one of those, iirc.

Re: An apology to open source

#199
post #29

An open note to Nick's Employers - 1) If you are a technology company, this is Harakiri ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku ). You are alienating every developer who is worth her salt. If you have a recruiting arm, and they are trying to recruit, god be with them. Ofcourse, you think people will never come to know, but this has the potential to be a good story and press will pick it up. I will not be surprised if…

I've worked at many companies who claim to "support" FOSS, without ever contributing. What that really means is that they support getting free software. Take + no give = parasite, end of story.

My old job used their "Open software initiative" as a feel-good marketing pitch. Translated, it means "We charge you to install stuff we got for free." All of our clients couldn't tell the difference and their one experience with FOSS is paying money to get a (bad) install.

I don't know what's worse, the abuse of the spirit of FOSS or the bad taste left in our client's mouths.

Re: An apology to open source

#200

Some alternative JavaScript charting libraries... * Highcharts JS ( http://www.highcharts.com/ ) * Flot ( http://www.flotcharts.org/ ) * NVD3 ( http://nvd3.org/ ) * morris.js ( http://www.oesmith.co.uk/morris.js/ ) * Rickshaw ( http://code.shutterstock.com/rickshaw/ ) * jqPlot ( http://www.jqplot.com/ ) * gRaphaël ( http://g.raphaeljs.com/ ) * YUI charts ( http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/charts/ ) * Polychart.js ( htt…

I looked at and played with many of those and I would strongly recommend Flot over all of them. https://code.google.com/p/flot/ Their site isn't sexy, but the code is solid and very easy to work with. EDIT: Their site was updated and looks pretty good now. http://www.flotcharts.org/

I use flot on one of my sites. It's nice, I only have positive things to say about it. Especially if you are still using something like openflashchart I recommend taking the time to switch over, it doesn't take long at all.
Post reply on HN