Chapter
6
1) You have been asked by the manager of software
development to lead a small group of software developers in an attempt to reengineer
the latest release of the software by your leading competitor. The goal of the
group is to identify features that could be implemented into the next few
releases of your firm software. You are told that the group would relocate from
the united states to the island of Antigua, in the carreibbean sea, to “reduce
the risk the group being destructed by the daily pressures associated with
developing fixes and enhancements with the current software release.” What sort
of legal and/or ethical questions might be raised by the reengineering effort?
Would you consider
taking this position?
Answer: Reengineering is a process of software
development which is done to improve the maintainability of a software system and in technical definition it is the
examination and alteration of a system to reconstitute it in a new form. Does the
reengineering really worth for the time and effort and does relocating is necessary. For me I consider taking that position because
it is an opportunity to show our skills and gain knowledge from it.
2) You have procrastinated to long and now your
final paper for your English course is due in just 5 days- right in the middle
of the final exam week! The paper counts for half your grade for the term and
would probably take you atleast 20hrs. Of research and write. Your roommate, an
English major with a 3.8GPA, has suggested 2 options. (1) he will write an
original paper for you for $100, or (2) he will show you 2 of 3 “paper mill”
websites, from which you can download a paper for less than $35. You wanted to
do the right thing, but writing the paper will take away from the time you have
available to study for your final exam in 3 other courses. What would you do?
Answer: In the two option that’s being suggested by
my roommate I will not choose any of them. For me, I would rather do the right
thing than downloading the research paper that he/she wanted me to do and I will
not also let him/her to right my research paper. I manage my time to accomplish
my research paper.
3) You are beginning to feel very uncomfortable in
your new position as a computer hardware salesperson for a firm that is the
major competitor of your previous employer. Today for the second time, someone
has mentioned to you how valuable it would be to know what the marketing a new
product development plans whereof your ex-employer. You stated that you are an
able to discuss such information under the non disclosure contract signed with
your former employer, but you know your response did not satisfy your new
co-workers. You fear that the pressure to reveal information about the plans of
your former company is only going to increase over the next few weeks. What do
you do?
Answer: As an ex-employee in the other company it is
the right thing to do for not giving the information. I will also explain to my
co-worker that the information I have is still confidential and covered by the Trade
Secret Law which state that Trade secret law is a branch of intellectual
property law that is concerned with the protection of proprietary information
against unauthorized commercial use by others. In the United States,
misappropriation of trade secrety is is forbidden by the Uniform Trade Secrets
Act (UTSA) and the Economic Espionage Act of 1996
4) You have been asked to lead your company’s new
competitive intelligence organization. What would you do to ensure that members
of the new organization obey applicable law and the companys’ own ethical
policies.
Answer: As a leader to ensure that the member of my
new company organization obey the applicable law and company ethical policies I
will conduct training for them and I will discuss also the punishment in every disobedient
and unethical works in my company.
5) You are the vice president for software
development at a small, private firm. Sales of your firms products have been
strong, but you recently detected a patent infringement by one of your larger
competitors. Your in-house legal stuff has identified 3 options: (1) ignore the
infringement out of fear that your larger competitor will file numerous
countersuits; (2) threaten to file suite, but try to negotiate an out-of-court
settlement of an amount of money.
Answer: In
the option given, I will choose second option “threaten to file suite, but try
to negotiate an out court settlement of an amount of money. And as a vice
president I will not consider such thing that is being done without the consent
of the inventor. And Patent
infringement is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a
patented invention, or importing into the United States a product covered by a
claim of a patent without the permission of the patent owner.
Chapter
7
1. Apple Guidelines for App Approval
Apple’s App Store has been a huge success ever since
it was launched in 2008. As of the end of 2010, the app store offered more than
250, 000 applications available for sale to owners of apple, iPhone, iPad and
iPod devices, with more than 6.5 Billion downloads since it opened.
Before software applications can be solved throught
the App Store, they must go through a review process. Apple has been accused by
some of using clandestine and capricious rules to reject some programs and thus
blocking them from reaching the very large and growing market of iPhone, iPad,
and iPod touch users. One application developer complained: “ if you submit an
app, you have no idea whats going to happen. You have no idea it’s going to be
approved or if it’s going to be disapproved.” The developers of an app called
“South Park” complained that their app was rejected because the content was
deemed “potentially offensive ,” even though episodes of the award-winning
animated sitcom are available at the Apple iTunes Store. In September 2010, after more than two
years of complains, apple finally provided applications developers the
guidelines it uses to review software.
Most guidelines seem to be aimed at ensuring that
Apple users can only access high quality and non-controversials Apps from its
Apps Store. Some of the Apple guidelines are clear and their rationale is easy
to understand, such as “ apps that rapidly drain the device’s battery or
generate excessive eat will be rejected.” However, other guidelines are unclear
and highly subjective, such as “ we will reject apps for any content or
behavior that we believe is over the line.” What line, you ask? Well, as a
Supreme Court Justice once said ,“ I’ll know it when i see it. ‘ and we think
that you will also know it when you cross it. (“ I know it when I see it” was
the phrase used by U.S Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his
ability to recognize rather than to provide a precise definition of hard core
pornography and his opinion in the cae Jacobellis v. Ohio in 1964.)
The electronic frontier foundation believes that
while the guidelines are helpful, in some cases apple is defining the content
of third-party software and placing limits on what is available to customers of
Apple’s App Store.
By way of comparison, Google places few restrictions
and developers of software for its competing Android Marketplace. However,
there have been many low-quality applications offered to Android Marketplace
customers, including some that include unwanted malware. Indeed by early 2011,
google had pulled 21 Android applications from its Android Marketplace because,
once downloaded, the applications not only stole users’ information and device
data but also created a back door for even more harmful attacks. Apple’s
decision to finally share applications guidelines may have been an attempt to
combat the rapidly increasing popularity the android. It may also have been a
response to a U.S Federal Trade Commissions investigations of a complaint for
Adobe concerning Apples banning of the flash software from devices that run
using Apple’s iOS operating system (Adobe Flash player is a browser-based
applications that runs in many computer hardware/ operating system combination
and support the viewing of called “rich, expressive applications,” content, the
videos across screens and browsers .)
Discussion Questions:
1. Should Apple conduct extensive screening of Apps
before they are allowed to be sold on the App Store? Why or why not?
Answer: Yes, the apple should conduct extensive
screening for their apps before they sold it in the app’s store to avoid
harmful apps that can give chances to the malware and other viruses to attack
the apple products.
2. Do research to determine the current status of
the FCC investigatin of Apple for banning use of the Adobe Flash software and
devices that use the iOS operating system.
Answer: Adobe's Flash Surrender Proves Steve Jobs
And Apple Were Right All Along With HTML5
This article is the fifth in a series, “The Future
of Apple,” designed to give investors appropriate insights on
the future of the iconic company. After the passing of Steve Jobs,
investors face uncertainty in shares of Apple (AAPL). Will the stock next
hit $100 or $1,000?
The fifth article in this series was scheduled to
provide more evidence of why patents will help Apple make billions from Google Android. In view of the breaking news on Flash, this
article has taken precedence. The previously scheduled article will now
be the sixth article in this series.
Flash is a multimedia platform produced by Adobe (ADBE). Flash has been the standard for adding
video, interactivity, and animation to websites. It has been widely
accepted that Flash enriches the web experience for the user.
The popularity of Flash is obvious from the
following statistics produced by Adobe:
98% of enterprises rely on Flash Player.
85% of the most used sites use Flash.
75% of web video is viewed using Flash Player.
70% of web games are made in Flash.
In 2010, Steve Jobs had the courage to question the
applicability of the Flash technology going forward. Jobs made waves and
enemies when he banned Flash from use on all iOS devices. iOS is the
operating system from Apple. Jobs was almost unanimously criticized by
the industry.
Jobs took a big risk banning Flash, which also
precluded users of Apple devices from seeing video and animation on most sites.
Steve Jobs championed an alternate technology called
HTML5. Revisiting an open memo that Jobs wrote is instructive. Here
is the memo.
Thoughts on Flash
Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact,
we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was
their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new
Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the
company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer
desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the
companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and
Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the
two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac
users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that
there are few joint interests.
I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s
Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do
not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our
decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our
App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that
we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is
true. Let me explain.
First, there’s “Open”.
Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They
are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future
enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this
does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and
available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.
Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the
operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly
believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than
use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards.
Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations
of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by
Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics,
typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser
plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards
committee, of which Apple is a member. Apple even creates open standards for
the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created
WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the
Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted.
Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM
(Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web
browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit
technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.
3. What do you think of Apple’s guidelines that say
it will reject an App for any content or behavior that they believe is over the
line? Could such statement be construed as a violation of the developer’s
freedom of speech? Why or why not?
Answer: For me that statement doesn’t violate
the developer freedom of speech because the statement can have different
meaning. Maybe the meaning of the over the line are those words that is not
good or bad.
