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I humbly submit my own science-fiction-like vision of computing--not in ten years, but substantially in the future: http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/fiction/hardware_guy/ Admittedly, this is mostly for fun (and to make some other points) and not to answer the specific question.

My most comprehensive article on the issues is:

http://praxagora.com/andyo/professional/community_author_collaboration.html

Much more for the curious at:

http://www.praxagora.com/community_documentation/

At FLOSS Manuals (http://flossmanuals.net/), where I volunteer, we're filling the gap with well-organized writing projects combining peer review from the public with experts from various free software packages. There's a very active mailing list and a lot of highly praised output on the web site.

(I may go back to one of the articles cited in the posting and add this comment to it.)

My most comprehensive article on the issues is:

http://praxagora.com/andyo/professional/community_author_collaboration.html

Much more for the curious at:

http://www.praxagora.com/community_documentation/

At FLOSS Manuals (http://flossmanuals.net/), where I volunteer, we're filling the gap with well-organized writing projects combining peer review from the public with experts from various free software packages. There's a very active mailing list and a lot of highly praised output on the web site.

(I may go back to one of the articles cited in the posting and add this comment to it.)

Andy Oram, an editor at O'Reilly, wrote this essay on Wolfram Alpha and how it fits (or doesn't fit) into the "tech-splicing" revolution:

Results from Wolfram Alpha: All the Questions We Ever Wanted to Ask About Software as a Service

(Disclaimer: Andy is my editor. But it's a good article; check it out.)

I wouldn't be at all surprised if various governments actually tried prohibiting some (lawfully prohibited) uses of encryption for private citizens.

France placed restrictions on encryption from 1990 to 1999. At various times it was either illegal to use encryption, the encryption was limited to 40-bits or some other breakable level, or you had to place the key in escrow with a third party to allow the government access on demand.

http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/ar/crypto_model.html
http://www.euronet.nl/~rembert/echelon/maginot.html

You might also read up on the "Clipper chip" proposals that failed in the United States under the Clinton administration. There have been other proposals since then, including some by McCain. Restrictions on encryption is a never-ending battle.

Do-It-Yourself Documentation? Research Into the Effectiveness of Mailing List\s (August 19, 2006)

Rethinking Community Documentation (July 6, 2006)

Splitting Books Open: Trends in Traditional and Online Technical Documentation (September 23, 2004)

Japan - Bullet Train
Everywhere else - Choo - Choo's

Japan - 100 mbps for $36/mo.
Everywhere else - You get the idea...

Oh, wait.... Americans still think their VGA camera phones are bad ass! :-D

Stephen Talbott offers an excellent treatment of this subject in the 23rd chapter of his freely available book The Future Does Not Compute. The book is out of print, but was published by O'Reilly.

Stephen Talbott offers an excellent treatment of this subject in the 23rd chapter of his freely available book The Future Does Not Compute. The book is out of print, but was published by O'Reilly.

Before 1999:
As in the United States, France has long classified encryption as a military or dual-use technology, and accordingly restricted its export. It received special treatment in a small flourish appended to the 20-page telecommunications law of December 29, 1990. Article 28 of this law required government permission for any use of encryption.
No immediate action was taken on what the French refer to as "the December 29 law," but six years later a more comprehensive bill was passed. This July 26, 1996 law specifies that users of secret keys must store them with organizations that will furnish them to government officials as needed for crime-fighting purposes, a plan commonly known as "trusted third parties" or (in the United States) as "key escrow," "key recovery," or "government access to keys."
Original article

At this moment France has changed his mind and has raised 40-bit level to 128 bits on civil encryption.

to the courts.

Remembering that most lawyers and judges are not all that knowledgable about programming, SCO could use 80 lines of plagerism to claim that there is a much deeper pattern of copying and paraphrasing going on (disregarding the fact that the vast majority of kernel contributers have had no access to propietary kernel code of any type). And the courts are influenced by the political environment of the time.

I've begun to view the underlying issue here as not one of SCO's ownership of particular code, but more an issue of ownership in general. There is a school of thought that believes that ownership is a neccessary aspect of all things and that things (objects, ideas, actions) only have value if they are paid for. This philosophy has been touted by such notables as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush and his father. For the user base of GNU/Linux to not see this lawsuit as the beginning of yet another battle in the struggle to curtail the free distribution of ideas (source code are ideas) among men and women would be a mistake. If SCO were to convince the court that the 80 lines of code somehow bestowed upon the Linux kernen a taint (trade secrets) that cannot be removed, then the court may be conned into believing that the kernel is in part owned by SCO and that the distribution of the code and/or binaries should be accompanied by the paying of royalty. In addition, there has been an increasing attitude towards Free Software and Open Sourse that these ideas somehow endanger the economy of the United States (ask around, you'll see what I mean).

The difficulties that Free Software and Open Source Software pose to implementation of manditory DRM (censorship )is interpeted as a threat to not only to the distributers of movies and music but also to the political and law enforcement industries that see media as a way to shape the opinions, ideas and beliefs of the American citizenry. For an example we need only to look at the media coverage of the 2000 presidential election results and the lack of criticism over the courts refusal to mandate a meaningful recount and the subsequent appointment of a George W. Bush by 5 Supreme Court Justices.

An other example would be the casting of the DeCSS code as a "piracy tool" by virtually every news source covering the dispute, when in fact, DVDs can and are pirated without the use of the DeCSS code by software that incorporates licensed code provided by the DVD makers (Expert Guides' DVD Copy. There has been little noise from the MPAA over this tool or software like it, and no mention of such software in media coverage of the DeCSS case.

If the courts are affected by a political stance that views Free Software as somehow being "bad" (for the economy, for national security, etc), then this case is not about 80 lines of code, but about Free Software in general. If the case is decided in favor of SCO, the court may decide on a remedy that is not as simple as removing the offending code.

--ptw

You just shouldn't worry about what damned fools think about you.

Many of us aren't as dogmatic as that and/or we're capable of dragging our dogmas out for amusement purposes but know how to stow it away under our seat when it's time for the plane to land.

The concept of 'online community' needs a lot more examination than it's ever received. The 'gee whiz' days when articles and interviews in Mondo 2000 magazine seemed fresh and new, and that there was a 'revolution' in human relations happening have now passed.

One of the books that I feel does the best job of debunking the concept of an 'Online Community' is 'The Future Does Not Compute Transcending the Machines in Our Midst' by Stephen L. Talbott. It was published by O'Reilly & Associates back in 1995. Talbot is one of the long term employees at O'Reilly, he's a senior editor (or was in 1995). In the book he talks about the newness and idealism, and drags out quotes from some of the most starry-eyed idealists, in the end debunking much of their hype. It's a must-read that almost nobody who has read.

Wow, I just did a search to find a good citation of Talbott's book and discovered that the full text is available online here for free. Everybody check it out. Hopefully, ummm, the fact that it's available for free online won't reduce it's credibility. It's easy these days to download something and stow it away and forget to ever read it.

Anyhow, don't sweat it that a gathering of the detris of the old battles of Microsoft vs. Macintosh, Microsoft vs. OS/2, Microsoft vs. Amiga, etc. etc. consider you a shill for not sharing their pathological hatred of the company. Their 'side' in the battle of the titans 'lost' and they'll never get over it. It's a shame that they chose Linux as their gathering place, cuz it's so cool otherwise.