Slashdot Mirror

Umair writes "The Red Herring's got an article by me about the economics of file-sharing, which argues that the music industry should provide insurance...against itself. This is because the contract listeners sign with labels is risky - it lets labels shirk on their end of the bargain. That's why file-sharing isn't just 'theft', it's risk-sharing. The original, longer, version of the paper is here, which argues that this a situation economists call double moral hazard."

bemis writes "Red Herring is running an article about Gnutella and how its success may ultimately cripple it ... also covers the background for the uninitiated (like much of the 'management-types' that read RedHerring) of Gnutella, and Nullsoft itself." The article covers a lot of ground and is worth a read.

bemis writes "Red Herring is running an article about Gnutella and how its success may ultimately cripple it ... also covers the background for the uninitiated (like much of the 'management-types' that read RedHerring) of Gnutella, and Nullsoft itself." The article covers a lot of ground and is worth a read.

Anonymous Coward writes " New York Times story (free registration required) - the lead paragraph: 'SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) - In the latest chapter in the legal battle between two rival software titans, a federal judge on Tuesday reinstated an order forcing Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) to change software based on the Java programming language created by Sun Microsystems Inc.'" And as long as we're talking about Sun, check this Red Herring Story headlined "IBM wants to kick Sun butt." Whoa, baby! They play rough in the big leagues, don't they?

Lazzaro writes "Red Herring has an interview with the VC Firm that's funding Cygnus, the last paragraph quotes the VC as listing Cygnus along with a few other companies in their portfolio, and saying "most of these companies will go public in the next six months"." There definitely will be a wave of open source IPOs in the next year. The questions are who? (Red Hat and Cygnus are prime candidates despite the fact that neither is saying anything) and others like VA who are up front that going public is their future. And the other question is when.

Simon Janes writes "The Red Herring is running an article this Sept on Transmeta called Stalking Transmeta. They were making up their "Herring 100" and rumors started coming out again about Transmeta so they had to investigate. They learned, nothing. :)"

Microsoft has had a busy day. Having a suit against them thrown out, attempting to use the VBI for their own good, and being written about in a fascinating Red Herring article. Read more... A Texas judge has dismissed the suit the State of Texas brought against Microsoft last year, a suit that attacked Microsoft for its ultra-secretive non-disclosure agreements.
Also, Microsoft is in talks with several TV content partners to discuss how the vertical blanking interface (a way of transmitting data through television signals, at about 9600bps, by my calculations) wil be used. Sounds as if exclusive content enhancment services will be available only to Win98 and WebTV users.
Finally, an amusing but fascinating article talks about how Microsoft is 'a good monopoly'. Aside from the obvious errors (I'm sure Microsoft forced SCO to include code in their OS to make it incompatible with Windows...). I particularly enjoyed the part about 'increasing returns', a concept that can be applied in other places besides economics, and one that I've been studying for a long while...

Redherring has a historical review of the markets that Microsoft tried to dominate... but failed. Unix and NetWare outnumber NT by 5 to 1, MSN did not become the dominant Internet provider, WebTV is somewhat of a flop, and Java (the other technology NASA actually uses) is extremely popular despite Microsoft's disparaging it. Meanwhile Alex St John proud architect of that abomination DirectX, explains why Microsoft chose it as API... The article in the print edition says: "What happens when folks such as ATI and nVidia, who never manage to make a working driver -- even when they are supplied with a DDK, sample code, and a testing procedure -- take it upon themselves to make up their own OGL drivers? BOOM! That's what." Perhaps it's got something to do with the whole driver running at ring 0? I wonder why those clever folks at the GGI-project decided to put the least stuff possible in kernel mode... perhaps security? Ah, yes, I forgot, they did not implement the first idea that gelled in their station-wagons. The article goes on to state that "The day Microsoft encounters a major competitor whose strength arises from the community of game developers is the day game developers will get Microsoft's full, undivided attention.": divide and conquer!

Finally, when confronted with a new threat, the best strategy to keep your sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers is to frighten them. Somehow I'm not losing any sleep about security issues that others might add...

Redherring has a historical review of the markets that Microsoft tried to dominate... but failed. Unix and NetWare outnumber NT by 5 to 1, MSN did not become the dominant Internet provider, WebTV is somewhat of a flop, and Java (the other technology NASA actually uses) is extremely popular despite Microsoft's disparaging it. Meanwhile Alex St John proud architect of that abomination DirectX, explains why Microsoft chose it as API... The article in the print edition says: "What happens when folks such as ATI and nVidia, who never manage to make a working driver -- even when they are supplied with a DDK, sample code, and a testing procedure -- take it upon themselves to make up their own OGL drivers? BOOM! That's what." Perhaps it's got something to do with the whole driver running at ring 0? I wonder why those clever folks at the GGI-project decided to put the least stuff possible in kernel mode... perhaps security? Ah, yes, I forgot, they did not implement the first idea that gelled in their station-wagons. The article goes on to state that "The day Microsoft encounters a major competitor whose strength arises from the community of game developers is the day game developers will get Microsoft's full, undivided attention.": divide and conquer!

Finally, when confronted with a new threat, the best strategy to keep your sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers is to frighten them. Somehow I'm not losing any sleep about security issues that others might add...