Re: Segment management auto clause

"Richard Foote" <richard.foote_at_bigpond.com> wrote in message
> >
> > Incidentally, had it not been for one or other of my esteemed colleagues
> > complaining to Oracle about my website, my full set of test results
would
> > currently be available for inspection and rebuttal. But I can't publish
> what
> > isn't mine, so if I have to remain silent on the details, it
nevertheless
> > remains the case that in test after test, ASSM has provided either
> > negligible advantage, no advantage whatsoever, or significant
> > disadvantage... so I know where I believe the balance to be.
> >
>
> OK, you've really got my interest here !!
>
> What was the complaint ?

I have no idea. It was made 'anonymously', and I wasn't informed of the specifics.

>
> I left Oracle right in the middle of all this but my understanding was
(and
> I admit I could be completely wrong) that you published Oracle course
> materials on your web-site (naughty)

An earlier site had the course LABS and SOLNS scripts, after having sought permission to host them from someone I thought was in a position to grant it or not, on the grounds that copying the lot to 15 floppy disks for students to take home [which I believe they are entitled to do] at the end of each course was getting to be a right PITA). When it was made clear that that person did not have authority to grant such permission, it came down immediately. Many months later, the new site went up (and a certain manager in Melbourne was informed about it at the time, and asked to veto it if she thought it inappropriate). That site (ie, the one complained about) had nothing but my own work on it, so in the specific case, the suggestion that it contained Oracle's material is completely wrong. I was careful about that, second time round and all.

>and that your writings were based in
> very large part on the course materials, to the point that the chapters
were
> even identical (naughty).

If you mean that what I wrote (ie, the content of chapters) was what was in the course material, then that's completely wrong. Yes, my chapter headings corresponded to the course material chapters. But the contents of those chapters was not lifted from anywhere, but worked out (with demos and so forth) ab initio ...to the point where, infamously, I initially wrote that FGAC was something to do with VPD (or as it was still called then 'FGS'), before I realised my mistake.

I also believe that no matter how dire some of Oracle's training material might be from time to time, they don't actually write stuff and present it in a completely random order (Performance Tuning 9.2 aside). Therefore, the order in which they present stuff has a certain logic to it, and if my own stuff followed that same order, it was in large part because the logic underpinning that order was inescapable.

I could have done a DBA Fundamentals set of notes starting with Automatic Undo, and then ending with what an Instance is, but somehow that doesn't seem to 'work' for me (or for anyone else)!

>If not, then why the hell should Oracle close down
> the web-site and what difference would the word of your unfortunate
"dobber"
> make ?

Why would anyone want to make an anonymous complaint about it in the first place? But they knew who to ring in the HR department, and I suspect accordingly it could only have been one of about 4 people, and all on the inside. It's a bit like someone wanting to claim that I was 'thick' with Steve Adams and sold him privileged, insider, information.... which was as complete a piece of untruth as I've ever heard.

In discussions, they particularly disliked my opening phrase in the 9i New Features material that 'server manager is dead'. They thought this flippant and lowered the esteem of the product in people's eyes. They also claimed that a competitor could use the material as a means of offering cheap Oracle training (like, the contents of the local Dymocks bookshelves couldn't be put to the same use?). They then said that because I was known to be an Oracle employee, but that some of what I'd written was critical of some Oracle features (ASSM springs to mind as an example!), this was not good, and might leave the Corporation open to legal action from a customer who'd taken my advice. [And the fact that I wasn't merely spouting a party line about wonderful new features etc etc kind of gives the game away about how much of this stuff I'd lifted from the training materials].

They then dropped all those arguments and merely argued that anything I wrote whilst in their employ was their copyright. Somehow, newsgroup postings didn't count (I specifically checked that one).

>
> Are you also saying that you can't have a play with Oracle and posting any
> findings or experiment results here, Oracle won't let you ? Please tell me
> you're kidding right ?

I can play, and I can post here. But if I do research and write it up, that's their copyright, and I'm not allowed to publish it. I guess I can get away with a simple 'here's a bit of SQL, and here are the results', but I don't want to push it much further than that. The entire newsgroup exception was a bit of a mystery to me, given the waving of the specific clause in my employment contract that gives them ownership of *everything* I write whilst in their employ, but I'm not going to test the exception to the point that it's withdrawn.

>
> If so, ever though of leaving ?
>

You might very well think that, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Rgds
HJR Received on Thu May 15 2003 - 08:07:48 CDT