Re: http://www.hjrdba.com/

[Disclaimer: what follows is mostly conjecture. I don't know the particulars of this case any more than the next person reading this thread. I liked the hjrdba site and the information provided therein.]

Nuno Souto wrote:
>
> Ditto. Once again Oracle shooting themselves in the foot for the sake
> of some nebulous "copyright issue" crap.

Again? When did this happen previously?

> Well done, Mr Oracle: upset those who use your product and those who
> support it.

Would you prefer to have Oracle sued when Howard makes a mistake and publishes erroneous information? It may not have happened, but the possibility clearly existed.  

> > regularly to find the new or upgrade release. Howard has done a
> > wonderful job.
>
> Indeed.

Agreed. It was clearly a labor of love and a beneficial one at that. However, if you think for a second that any other large tech company would act any differently, you're sorely mistaken. All such companies have a very careful QA process for releasing documentation to the public. Howard's site bypassed that process, and therefore left the company exposed to any possible mistake he might make. Now, Howard's a very smart guy, and he very rarely makes mistakes, but he's also human.

I would also be willing to bet that Australian laws are not much different than the rest of the world in this respect. For instance, if you worked for Intel in the US and invented a new chip, guess who owns the patent? Right, Intel, not you. Is that fair? Absolutely. If you think you could have invented that chip without all the capital outlay that Intel provided you as an employee (computers, labs, documentation, fellow employees, telephones, healthcare, whatever), then you should have quit your job and done it on your own. Then the patent is all yours.

A site like Howard's wouldn't be much different. Howard, by virtue of being an Oracle employee, is privy to vast amounts of information not available to the general public. He has free access to Oracle University materials, free access to other Oracle-employed experts, internal Oracle-only documentation, and gets to hone his skills on Oracle's nickel as an instructor. Clearly, Howard's writings (though insightful and original) directly benefitted from his status as an Oracle employee. Could he have produced those same writings had he not been employed by Oracle? Maybe, but that's a tough one to prove. So yes, Oracle owns what he's produced, as well they should.

It's a shame that all the personal time he spent on the site is now lost.

Regards,
Sean

[My views do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.] Received on Fri May 03 2002 - 11:02:22 CDT