If Redhat is able to gain OEM deals and support contracts, the revenue from the shipping product becomes insignificant. This allows them to ship it for near free, to allow home users to play around with it and become more familiar with their variant. In corporations choosing Linux (if it comes to that), they'll be pressured to choose Redhat. I mean, if your users are more comfortable with it, why choose another distribution...
It IS the Microsoft business plan, and it worked really well. There is a KEY different. If LSB takes off, even without Redhat support, then supporting Linux requires making your code work in TWO environments that are largely similar.
While Redhat may become the new Microsoft, free software makes it surprisingly MORE difficult to embrace and extend. Proprietary extensions would be interesting, but open source purists could include any missing libraries in their distributions of software, and it would be easy to write PURE opensource software that would run on the proprietary Linux versions...
As far as Corel... don't be shocked to see Redhat buy Corel, hostile or otherwise. Even with Corel's stock runup, their capitalization of $600m would be an easy buy for Redhat.
Redhat can also buy up to 10%-15% without notifying the SEC, that should be enough to get a board seat, and possibly enough to launch a takeover attempt. It would be interesting, because making Wordperfect Office for Linux proprietary to Redhat would insure that businesses that are using Linux on desktops would have to use Redhat.
With a cheap Linux, a vendor that wants to make a better GNU platform would have trouble being profitable. This platform would only appeal to geeks (who download, not buy the OS), and makes it difficult to compete. By makings the OS free (cost wise), it moves the competition to applications that are specific to your distribution...
I think that we are about to see a fork in the platform... Redhat is going to make a play to be a proprietary Linux. We'll see what this does to the community.
However, if he continued to misbehave, and it was realized that it was him, he will no doubt be convicted of a felony. It sounds as though a flame-war (not police business) escalated into threats of physical violence. That IS the police's business.
This should serve as a lesson to everyone. Your free speach is limited from using fighting words. Physical threats over the computer CAN be criminal if they are believed to be real.
If you use USENET to harass others and threaten others, you are STILL subject to the extension of the law. This is not a regulation of cyberspace, this is the existing regime to protect victims being applied to the Internet. This is in no ways unreasonable.
If he hadn't made any physical threats, nothing would have come from this. This serves as a lesson: use free speach for rational discourse, or irrational insults, but when you cause fear in others, you have overstepped your bounds as an honest citizen using free speach to a potentially dangerous individual intent on harming otehrs.
For the first time, we're seeing governments act intelligently. They don't know what is happening with the Internet, so they are taking a wait and see attitude. Catalogs had the opportunity to eliminate Brick-and-Mortar, they didn't.
A long-term decision would be unwise. Nobody knows what the future will bring for Cyberspace, and decisions can always be reversed. A 1.5 year decision is unlikely to be revisited until it is time to discuss an exemption. This allows the WTO to revisit the issue as the transistions are taking place.
In the long run, the Internet MAY make sales/VAT taxes irrelevant as geography becomes silly. On the other hand, if localities eliminate the tax advantage of E-businesses by eliminating VAT/sales taxes, then we may see a long term vision which involves both brick-and-mortar and E-businesses. The WTO is wise to take a wait and see approach.
You're making one HUGE mistake in evaluating his ruling. It is NOT illegal to have a monopoly. It is NOT illegal to compete as disgustingly as you can to get that monopoly. Once you have a monopoly, you can even charge high prices. However, you CANNOT act terribly competitively once you get that monopoly.
You cannot use your status as a monopoly to kill competition. That is what the law says, and that is what he found that Microsoft did (so his finding of fact is a pretty safe guess). You cannot use a monopoly to try to establish another monopoly.
Basically, under Anti-trust law, your monopoly may be a cash cow, but you can't do much with it, because anti-trust law serves to protect competitors that will help customers.
Microsoft was allowed to release Internet Explorer. They could probably give it away free, although that might have been considered dumping (but dumping requires P MC, not P AC, so unless you can prove a marginal cost for distributing another version of i.e., you can't prove dumping. Basically, according to economics, there are times you should take a loss on a product, but you should never set production so that you are losing money on a particular unit, just overall, i.e., high fixed costs) but probably not.
Had Microsoft included IE on Windows and Office CDs, they probably would have been okay, although it would have violated anti-trust laws. However, by requiring customers to install IE, it potentially hurt them, because they lost an option and got nothing.
Companies are welcome to bundle, but once you have a monopoly, you play by different rules.
Imagine a small tow, with a few market, and only 2 roads in. Imaging that both roads are owned by he owner of the market and they are toll roads. If he jacked up the cost of bringing food in for suppliers going anywhere but his store, that would be antitrust violations, because it would prevent the market from competing assuming there were sufficient barriers to entry to build another road.
However, if two market owners each owned a road, they could be as disgusting as they want as long as they didn't collaborate. Customers would be better served with a dozen suppliers, but there will be competition, because each owner will try to undercut the other. If the owners collaborate to rip off the customers, then that would be illegal collusions.
If the market owner owned all the roads and charged rediculous tolls, he would be entitled to that. As long as he didn't use his monopoly to try to steal another monopoly (the grocery markets), he can profit from his monopoly. If he threatens unions or businesses that are trying to build a third road that he will starve them out while they try to build it, that would be erecting a barrier to entry to protect his monopoly. If he sat there as a fat cat making profits, and when the new toll road owners tried to make the same profits dropped prices to compete, then the market would be working as it should. If he dropped his road maintenance to a loss to drive out competition (so he could jack his prices up), he would then be breaking the law.
You can compete as much as you want. However, as a monopolist, you can not use that monopoly as unfair leverage. You can profit all you want, but you have to fight competition when it arrives fairly. You can't use your existing monopoly to destroy others.
Contrary to popular belief, free software does not solve everything... I hope you don't place the graphic libraries under to GPL... you'll have an interesting thing getting games...
More importantly, what are you going to do with a gaming console's source code? I think video games are safe as a proprietary market, because tehre is no advantage to source access in it. People don't need/want the ability to modify and release the gaming OS/games, they want to be entertained cheaply. Different market...
(But Dreamcast doesn't have a good web server is NOT a selling point...)
Maybe someone should tell the patentholder and Microsoft. If nothing else, that would break his patent. Unfortunately, I don't know what his patent is for, so it may not be sufficient...
This is unfortunant, because this is the patent system breaking down. The idea behind the patent system is that, to encourage individuals to publish their knowledge and advance the nation's technology base, we grant them a short term monopoly. The old 17 year (at one point I think it was shorted) patent was a short period of time in the lifetime of an invention, but the new 20 year from time of filing period is sometimes too long.
For computer technology, 20 years is silly. For this, it is rediculous. Society gets NOTHING from this publishing. Wow, you mean in 2019 we can all use, royalty free, windowing for fixing dates? Freaking retarded. Any invention that is of short useful duration (less than the patenting time) should not be eligable for patenting. They should have to protect it via trade secret. Society gets nothing.
I wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure that someone did something similar to deal with a 1 byte year (that would have a problem at the end of the decade) and will be able to show prior art. I'm sure that some has written SOMETHING that interprets certain 2 digit dates as 19xx and others as 20xx, so this isn't new and novel...
The patent system is not a bad idea, it is just being implemented poorly. We aren't getting benefits out of patent protection. I think that patent protection is fundamentally a good thing, but it should be reserved for REALLY new and novel ideas, not obvious, stupid ones.
Now, you wouldn't be asking a company to release very private information the is crucial to their business's ability to survive... I mean, you wouldn't be suggesting that Loki should release information that would benefit their competitors, would you?:)
Whether they are selling or not, Loki has a strong disincentive to release the number. If they are selling like mad, the numbers will bring competitors into the market (draw some Supply and Demand lines...:) ), if they are selling lousy, letting the competition know this would allow them to avoid a dead market, which would be bad... If Loki decides to escape to another market, they'll let their competition collapse into their market.
I'm willing to bet that that sales are strong for the following reasons:
1. Community - Linux users (not the programmers, they guys who are standing on the shoulders of giants) like to support companies supporting Linux. It seems like their way of giving back, which I think is terrific.
2. Low competition... as fun as Xtetris is, Loki faces minimal competition, even if the market is small...
3. Market is larger than numbers dictate... while Linux is a tiny % of desktops, it is a much larger percentage of "useful" desktops. My grandparents aren't going to buy any game, whether it works on their system or not. I would say that the average Linux user (or rather, type of user that would run Linux) buys 5 times as many games as the average user. If this is true, than if Loki can suck up the money that would otherwise go for games for the Win98 partition, the potential market is HUGE.
4. Pent-up demand
i.e. You're damned right, they can't give that information away, it would be like giving away the keys to the kingdom. I mean, that would be like someone giving the source code to... oh wait...:)
Good luck Loki! Visionaries deserve their piece of the action.
FreeBSD is interesting, because to an end-user, it is a similar option to Linux. The key difference that I can see, is that FreeBSD has a more "professional" background and Linux has the "hacker community" background.
Unfortunantly for FreeBSD, a bunch of hackers wrote an OS is a much more compelling story than a bunch of pros released their source code.
However, like the GNU/Linux controversy, most FreeBSD/Linux boxes are largely made up of GNU software to complete the set, or other open source projects. Until recently, there were no relavent commercial applications.
FreeBSD/Linux should compete at being the best free OS to run the free tools and applications, and we'll see whether the hacker approach or the BSD approach wins. Ironically, FreeBSD seems to be getting more hacker support as Linux goes maintstream, and Linux is picking up corporate/professional programming from the Red Hat IPO and other stuff.
I think that as long as FreeBSD makes cross compiling trivial, there is no reason for FreeBSD and Linux to not fill different niches based on what you need out of your kernel.
I'm glad to see FreeBSD get publicity. A world in which only Linux existed would be horrible. Despite what most people say here, a Linux monopoly would encourage sitting on our laurels... The "we can beat Microsoft" and "us vs. the world" mentalities are what is fueling the constand innovation that we are seeing...
Who knows, maybe we'll see a BSD-based Mac Client base dominate the pc market, linux-based Internet appliances take the rest of the former PC market, and Linux and the BSDs and Linux face off in the server market, each server their niche...
Kinda of ironic that we keep going back to this older model, huh? (Not that modern UNIX designs resemble the old onesin anything but the interface anyway)... Maybe the researchers actually got something write...
We just gotta ditch the old school interface idea... you know, where the user interface is designed to hurt the user...
Alex M.C.S.E. trying to pick up Linux as fast as I can... but I've been trying for years, so words of encouragement are a plus
Actually, they don't issue more stock, because that would dilute (and devalue) the stock base, which would not be in the interest of the company. Instead, they issue and retire 1 share of stock, paying the employee the difference. This has a few advantages:
1. No commissions 2. No dilution of stock base 3. Nothing to report. The company merely records the cost of the exercizing against their cash on hand, but it doesn't touch their profits (because it isn't an expense, and it definitely isn't an operating expense).
This is completely retarded, because as the author states, stock options are part of salary. Without them, companies would have to pay higher salaries. Elimination of stock options might make sense. It would separate capital from wages, and it would force companies, even with high flying stock prices, to pay market wages.
Companies could issue the equivalent of stock options... i.e. you get bonuses equal to the change in stock price... but that would be wages, and would therefore be accounted normally.
This is how the corporate accounting rules work. They don't make any sense. There is a push to make stock option gains come on the company expense reports. It will probably happen. However, until then, Microsoft is following standard accounting rules.
However, as usual, Microsoft is doing a few shady things to exploit the system more than usual. Every tech company has HUGE stock options, the difference is the Microsoft plays more games then the rest.
Stocks are screwy anyway. According to economic theory, a stock's price = present value(future dividends), when in reality, there are no dividends because the tax structure makes capital gains taxed less. As a result, all earnings are returned and reinvested, making the company more valuable. However, because of the lack of dividends, the stock market has these problems.
Placing dividend income at (or below) the capital gains rate would fix the problems. It would force dividends to be paid giving stocks real values. Sure they would be based upon future earnings, but those earnings would start to come on established companies like Microsoft. Also, if cash on hand went to paying dividends, large companies wouldn't have nearly infinite revenue. Basically, profits go to the owners. However, by a shell game, instead of going to the owner, they are used to buy other companies, which increases the share price the amount that the dividend should (in theory).
This encourages the merger mania sweeping this country. A large, wealthy company with huge profits has 3 options: 1) Pay dividends 2) Buy companies 3) Pay dividends with stock buy backs
Dividends are out of the question for tax reasons. Three can cause trouble if it looks like you are paying a dividend (i.e., if Microsoft made %3 percent of it's share price in profits, they buy back 3% of the stock, which means that everyone's stock goes up that value, this continues until their are very few stock holders because the rest sold them back), however, this can cause suspicion as tax fraud. The resulting option is buying companies (or building internal divisions). Either way, a large company is forced to grow beyond it's optimal size, because real profits are out of the question.
Of course, if it grows beyond its means, diminishing returns kick in, growth drops, and the stock collapses... What a way to run an economy.
Of course they have a right to demand that, and you have a right to laugh at them. Haven't you ever been in a store with voluntary surveys? They could make it mandatory, but the lost sales would cost them.
The problem with the current scheme is the lack of an identity system. Personal information should be stored on your machine in an interchangable format, and you should be able to negotiate the exchange.
The problem is that http was NEVER designed for what we are doing, and provides all sorts of information automatically. The solution is to change the code. We need to design a system by which information isn't traded unnecessarily, perhaps going through random anonymous proxies for our NATed (untracable) IP addresses to hide this information. All information requested of you should be negotiated.
i.e. If the store demanded you fill out the survey to enter, you'd leave. If they instead offered you a 20% discount, you'd probably stay. The problem is that these companies can extract the information secretly for free, so the databases of information are free profit for them. They should "pay" you a fair market value for your information (which might be the free software), and then they are free to do what they please.
The problem is not the exchange, the problem is that it is behind the scenes. We need to develop a scheme that puts the power in the client, not the server.
It doesn't sound like RealNetworks is actually doing anything bad... just moronic.
Adjusting the program to users based upon their data is a Good Thing(tm), it allows more knowledgable people to access more features. As they use the app more (aquiring more files) more features. Should this be server driven? No, that should be kept internal. I'm assuming it is, otherwise it is moronic, not dangerous.
As far as aggregate users, that's fine. It lets them store information on people and figure out what people are doing with their software.
It sounds like they are doing things fine, but that their press handling flubbed up. Before we jump on them, we should learn if they are actually storing this information about people and making it available, or if they store the information so the ads are tailored towards people. We can't have it both ways. We can't demand that everything be free (free beer), ad driven, and then demand that they not store information.
In the real world, information like this is always available. The problem is that online we can store it all. In a CD store, people can see you buying CDs... In the online world, logging is automatic.
Also, with the CDDB thing, it sounds like they are doing the right thing to protect peoples' privacy. i.e. they aren't allowing CDDB to rob the privacy of the Jukebox users. As long as they aren't abusing the info (which should be independantly confirmed), there is no problem.
I'm assuming that there are consumer advocates who certify privacy issues. They should be brought in to independantly confirm that everything is Kosher.
Okay, I'll preface this by saying that during the 3rd season, I saw a ST:TNG rerun at 10 PM. I started watching them daily. After a few weeks, I learned when the show was on, and started watching the new shows. I still watched the reruns until I had seen them all. I then remembered seeing an early ST:TNG epsiode with my father, but not really appreciating it... ST:IV is the first movie that I remember seeing in theaters (although I didn't remember the movie itself...), so I've subconsciously been destined to love Star Trek.
I now love watching TOS reruns, terrific trash Sci-fi, which I love.
Now, what made ST so cool was the story lines. When DS9 came out, I thought they show kicked ass. I loved the political intrigue and back dealing. Unfortunantly, the nature of the story was for Sisko to tackle the station and bring everything into line. This of course would mitigate the intrigue, and should have led to the end of the show. Instead the contrived war kicked in and I was turned off to the show.
Voyager was stupid from the beginning. The characters simply didn't interest me, and after a few weeks, I stopped.
The reason ST:TNG was so good, IMHO, is that it was a new show to stand on its own, with the advantages of being Trek. Because ST fans would watch it, the show could afford to spend a few episodes building up the characters without jumping into an action show. This is a tremendous advantage a new Trek show would get, they are guaranteed 4-6 weeks before needing to produce. For that reason, I think they Paramount should start Trek shows midseason with months of hype so that we all look foward to it, and they need to produce a handful of epsiodes before getting a long break to figure out how to bring the show into season 2.
One area that I felt wasn't developed is the Federation as a real, livable, world. We've seen snippets of Star Fleet Command (ST:VI), and a scene of the council (ST:IV), but no attempts to really flesh out the universe.
A Star Fleet Academy show would have the potential to do so. If you pick your characters right, you could show the Federation in a new light. Essentially, the way ST:TNG was about ideal humans, ST:SFA (can I be the first to coin the acryonym?) would be about "ideal college" kids. In an era when young people are under siege and society doesn't know what to do, Paramount could display idealist youngsters. Instead of stupid romance/dumb stuff (Star Trek: 90210 would be HORRIBLE), they could focus on people whose ambitions can put on the line and whose desires are noble. By showing this side of people, much could be accomplished. This would, in my opinion, be a Good Thing.
There are not enough current events and dillemmas to run two shows. As a result, concentrating on one would allow solid storylines. Unfortunantly, Berman couldn't experiment even if he wanted to. Destroying Star Trek to the fans would hut financially for no reason, so as a large franchise, there is limited flexibility. A ST:SFA accademy would be low risk, but it could be solid.
Shrug, I really liked Wesley Crusher. As a middle school student, an intelligent teenager getting an opportunity to excel was an inspiration to me. A SFA series would be like that on steroids.
Just please, no Space Camp ripoffs of them launching into space to fight the Borg...:)
It seems to me that freedom would imply choices... "Requiring" something does not imply freedome. You have a right to vote, but you don't have soldiers at your door rounding you up to the voting booths. In the free speach vain, you also have the right to shut up (something that I'm sure most/.ers don't know ).
If free software is a better development model, than one would expect it to compete on its own merits, not expecting government requirements. We complain about Microsoft only providers (of which I am currently one of them, any talented Linux administrators in the Boston area looking for work? ), but this seems just as bad.
On the otherhand, if the French government wants the ability to examine and repair code, then requiring vendors to supply it seems reasonable, and forces Microsoft and other proprietary vendors to yield their secrets or the market. Either way, this is an interesting position for a government official to take. What comes of it will be interesting to watch.
Money these days comes from ad revenue and e-commerce (actually selling REAL stuff, Oh My God!), not proprietary software. With the exception of OSes, Databases, and Office Suites, there is no money anywhere, and it looks like Sun is making Office Suites a non-revenue application... we'll see how long before Linux brings OS prices down... Databases, I expect them to be the last to fall...
As an MCSE, NT and Linux user, Computer Engineer, and part time Network Consultant, I get this a lot from various people.
Win 95/98 are not secure. There was no attempt to add security for them. They were designed as a stand alone OS to run simple applications. If you want security, use a network operating system.
Now, the argument that Linux is better than 95 is pretty impressive, I mean, I would expect a clone of a industrial strength operating system used in expensive engineering workstations and server implementations to beat a simple GUI overhaul for a DOS based system. Comparing Linux and Unix to Win95 is silly. The only reason the comparison makes sense is that Linux is inexpensive enough (yes free, for people without high speed connectings it is effectively ~$50) to compete in consumer space if the features are there.
Why does NT a more fair comparison. If you are running either Win95/98/NT/2K, the reason (probably, I'll never ignore insanity as the reason) is to run Win32 applications. WinNT is the more powerful operating system for Win32 applications. Therefore, if you aren't using one of the funky consumer driven features of Win9x, you would be running NT if security or performance mattered.
In 95/98, the goal is for the operating system to support the one to a few users that use the system. Security like that isn't considered, because it isn't designed for an environment with multiple users.
NT on the workstation level is a reasonable comparison with Linux. NT on the server level is a reasonable comparison with Linux, NetWare, and commercial Unix. Linux is not a fair comparison with Win95. Linux is a workstation OS designed to run powerful processes on a machine. 95 is a consumer operating system designed to reach market and get sales. NT is designed for real environments where these issues matter. Anyone with the capability and interest to run Linux is probably deciding between NT and Linux. Most people that are considering Linux know that NT exists. Also, 95/Linux is never the comparison, because the main reason to run 95 over NT is games and other software/hardware support... I've never found anything that only will run under Win95 and Linux, but not NT.
Actually, a signature need not be your name scribbled down. Illiterate people without penmanship skills could just mark with an X. The concept of a signature is that there was an intent to sign. i.e. if I seal a deal with a handshake, it is the same, you seal a deal to confirm that everyone is on board.
The signature provides a record of sorts, which is why it became common.
A digital signature is NOT a human signature encoded. I worked on a paper compiling the laws on digital signatures, technologies involved, and applications. Some of our ideas were really cool, but I doubt will ever see the light of day because they protect users with a free market approach. Feel free to check out my group's paper if you're interested: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6.805/student-papers /fall98-papers/identity/linked-white-paper.html
Anyway, the way it works does not depend upon anyone be trusted with the key. The private key is generated by you and (in theory) known only to you, but in practice, it is known to your computer and further encrypted with a password that you supply.
Now, everybody knows how Public Key Encryption works, right?
Say I have a Message in Clear-Text (M), a Private Key (K) and a Public Key (P).
If you send me a message, you encrypt it with my public key that everyone can know, we don't care.
D(C, P) = M and the message is recovered. With this method, anyone can read it, but if you know my public key, you can confirm that it was sent by me since only I have my private key. Now, in practice we'll use a cryptographic hash of a small size (128 bits makes forgery next to impossible... you want to try 2^128 variations on a message to convey the meaning you want until the hashes match?!?!?)
alternatively you have an equation that inputs M, P, and CH and determines if it is valid. Zero knowledge proofs can extend this concept, but I won't pretend to understand them.
Basically, the idea is that by attaching a few bytes at the end of a message, other people can determine that it was send by you.
Now, when you get a digitally signed document, you usually have a HUGE attachment, why? Well, the problem with the digital signature is the public key.
i.e. Alice receives a signed message from Bob, how does she get his Public key? More importantly, how to we get the public keys securely so nobody can spoof them?
i.e. Say that Slashdot.org decides to be a Certificate Authority (the keys to this scheme), and offers to stores keys. How does Alice know that the Public key listed for Bob is real and not someone pretending to be slashdot, or Bob, etc.
Here is the approach. I connect to a CA and create a new Private Key, Public Key combo. I send the Public Key to the CA, signed by my private key. They confirm that the Public Key matches the signed copy, and authenticate it. They then issue me a digital certificate which includes my information (ideally, when they are real, confirmed by me in person, but for now, just via e-mail for simple gee I have a certification certificates, but expect real authentication), my public key, and it is signed by the CA. If you trust the CA (set in your software) then you can trust the public key because the CA authenticated it.
Now this gets really interesting when CA Trust hierarchies get involved. i.e. slashdot the CA isn't trusted by default, so they work with a better known VA, say VeriSign who verifies their procedures. VeriSign then signs their certificate with authoritization. So, you get my certificate, signed by slashdot, signed by VeriSign, and if you allow VeriSign to sign for others... you get the idea...
Again the situation can bring the power to you. The premise of our paper is the notion of unbundled digital identities.
In the Real World, to buy alcohol I show a drivers license, which includes my picture (authentication) as well as address, DL# (SSN in some states), my age, the fact that I drive, etc., etc. This is a lot of information. We don't worry about it now because nobody at the liquor store is recording it. Digital Information, however, is almost always stored.
What we were working on was a procedure by which you can confirm to say a liquor store (it's unfortunant, but the main uses we found for it was booze and porn) that I am >=21, and nothing else, as well as ways to prevent people from trading certificates.
Check out the paper if you'd like and tell me what you think. It's long, feel free to skim it. We entered it for a legal conference, which accepted it, but we had a paperwork situation as it was over the summer and everyone was gone. The version for the legal conference is only 12 pages and gives you a background on the idea, the full paper has a LOT of info, including current laws on Electronic Signatures and Digital Signatures (VERY different). 12 pages, in rtf format: http://web.mit.edu/covell/www/digid12.rtf
I guess the real question is the SMP support... I mean, what if I want to put my aLinux rectangle down and use both hands...
Hell, if a friend comes over and uses his hands, how well does the aLinux implementation scale to 4 hands and beyond... I believe Sun has a aSolaris implementation where the racks are so spread out that 256 hands can work on it simulatenously...
If Linux is not adequate for your needs, then you should consider another (or additional) operating system. This is a web site for "News for Nerds," and people can post what they thing is appropriate for this forum.
This attitude that "Linux rules! I can't do X on Linux, so X sucks" is completely rediculous. If Linux is not adequate for your needs, then that is your issue not ours.
Every operating system has it's advantages and disadvantages. Quicktime is a pretty open standard, available on the vast majority of computer systems. If yours is not one of them, then that is your limitation.
Alternatively, do what those of us that want to run *nix apps that are available for Linux and Windows apps do, run NT and Linux. Either run Linux in VMWare, or set up a second box. There are a plethora of Xservers for NT, some commercial, some freeware. That way, you can run all applications.
You could run a VMWare session with Win95/98/NT, which would give your more application options. However, please don't extrapolate that because you use Linux and that many others use Linux that everyone here can only use Linux.
An operating system is a tool, it runs applications. If your operating system lacks applications that you want to run, it is time to come up with an alternative plan of action.
I'm certain that one day, Linux will have loads of applications, be as easy to use as Windows, and reliably, and the applications will run as reliably as Win32 apps (meaning, not very well), in the mean time, realize the Unix has been used for 30 years, and X for 15 years, but neither was designed as a desktop system. It's great that we have one, but it lacks full desktop support. Accept the limitations, don't force other to conform.
Linux (at least on my School's AFS system) has lots of great commercial engineering tools, because it is Unix-like enough to run them. I can't get them for NT. However, for streaming video, mainstream environments are where it is at.
If you want to do everything, get multiple systems. If you wish to do everything easily, pipe them into the same machine. If not, keep your issues to yourself, and don't demand that amusing links not be shown here because you choose to limit your options.
Okay, enough Microsoft Bashing. Microsoft considers their OS code the Crown Jewels, (as does just about everyone) not the API. The API is published. Using the published API, one could write an implementation for DirectX for any platform.
Also, Microsoft and Apple have a symbiotic relationship. Apple gets Microsoft Apps on their platform, and Microsoft gets to wave Apple around and say (look, we have a competitor, see).
Furthermore, as Microsoft's "investment" in Apple (non-voting, non-convertable, non-useful preferred stock, gee, Apple drops a lawsuit, and Microsoft pays $150m for a worthless piece of paper and several software pledges) demonstrates, Apple has something on them. Apple probably has enough leverage to get Microsoft to work with them to get the new version specs out earlier.
If not, Apple could start working with the developer SDKs to know the interface, and start writing their own implementation. Even if the new libraries open up for Apple 6 months after Microsoft, that's about the same time that games come out requiring the new version. With DirectX, porting times could drop from a year to a matter of weeks to a few months, with appropriate beta testing still needed of course.
Basically, the law covers binaries and machine readable instructions. The reason for this is that books are a sacred cow, and if the gov't went after books, the whole scheme would collapse.
Arguing the source code = free speach is an interesting but unclear argument. A cryptographic binary would clearly not be speach, so it could be regulated as a munition. However, the source code is readily compilable into that executable, so where is the distinction? That is the argument for the regulation of machine readable code. Allowing source code as speach but not binaries would be ludicrous.
However, a book with algorithms in it is clearly not excryption for a computer, is it? Regulating a book is dangerous, and the courts protect "the press" really well. If someone was to stand on a soap box explaining encryption, the government would have a difficult time censoring him (legally), and when it is put into a book, they have the same issues. However, in a machine readable format, it can be argued that it is the same as the binary, and electronic data is less protected in the courts than press/speach (see the laws regulating television and radio).
What makes this interesting is that the justification for radio/tv restrictions was that the radio spectrum was a public good with limited capacity, so it was necessary to insure that it was used for the good of the people, while speach and the press are unlimited... i.e. my printing a newspaper doesn't prevent you from doing so, but if I grab the last channel, you're SOL
Unfortunantly, this screwy standard was appearing to be applied to the Internet, afterall, it applied to cable which was not using a public good (although as regulated monopolies...), but the courts are realizing that the Internet appears to be the extreme of the speach/press, where everyone can publish and not get in the way of others.
The current US restrictions, while well intentioned, are a little silly. However, contrary to what/.'s thing, there is no limitation on key sizes domestically.
The reason for the 128 bit limit is that it is good enough to prevent cracking with current technology, and we like our current 128-bit algorithms. In a few years, when it is insufficient, we'll move to 256 bit keys with the algorithms modified appropriately. I've used 1024-bit keys, but those are usually only used in less secure algorithms, so they are about the same to crack as a 128 bit.
The US Government was well intentioned, as encrypted data made a HUGE different during WWII. Right now, encryption is pretty well known, and there is nothing unique in the US right now. The US Gov't should concentrate on getting a Quantum Computer instead of this nonsense.
The encryption limits are a red herring. Everyone knows that they are retarded, but it allows negotiation. It is VERY important to US Software firms, but they are making several other demands, more H-1B Visas, no Net taxes, etc. As a result, this makes a nice bargaining tool, and the Administration is able to give in to their demands slowly. As a result, they hold on to their cards as long as possible.
The problem with game programming, is that much of the code is related to grpahics and sound. This is not possible to do universally. There are two ways to do this.
1. Program to the metal This way, you write code the directly manipulates the hardware and provides the fastest possible speed. The drawback is that you now have code that is specific to one video card/sound card. Basically, you write your own procedures for sending the assembly code via interupts. This is the old way. Remember DOS games where you would select your sound card from a list? The list was REALLY small until manufacturers released useful APIs for programming to their cards. 2. Use an API that encapsulates the hardware This is the DirectX/OpenGL/Glide approach. (Yes Glide is 3dfx specific, but it still abstracts the hardware, and you could write a glide driver for anything, and I believe that there is one for the TNT2). This requires that manufacturers provide the implementation for the API for their hardware. i.e. you decide what to do, the implementation deals with the hardware side. This is how modern games are made. The problem with a unidersal code approach to games is the API. Without a standard API, you need to write all the graphics and sound code specific to the machine. Because of different capabilities between platforms, attempting to use universal approaches won't yield optimum performance. In Computer Science, we worry about the Theta or Big-O running time, and ignore the constants. This is fine for scientific algorithms, but not for games. In games, a Theta(n) game will be much better than a Theta(2n) game, and therefore, the hardware must be used to the max. In a scientific algorithm, we don't care. We worry if processing more elements increases exponentially (i.e. 1 year for X, 10 years for X+1!!!), not if it increases the time from 1 year to 2, because we just buy multiple machines and divide up the task until we are satisfied with the time requirements.
Games are a different breed of applications, with a different set of rules than traditional programming.
Alex M. Hochberger Computer Science and Engineering MIT '01
Apple really needs to get it's act together in terms of supporting gaming. I don't know the state of OpenGL support, but I'm sure that it is reasonably solid. Unfortunantly, OpenGL is only part of the solution.
Apple should negotiate with Microsoft to include an Apple implementation of the DirectX API. That would make porting games to the Macintosh relatively simple. While the DirectX API may not be amazing, it is programmed to, so an implementation on any operating system makes porting games easier. As long as any assembly language is well contained within modules and abstracted, reimplementing those procedures shouldn't be too difficult.
Additionally, Apple should work on a better gaming API than DirectX, and make it available for Win95/98/NT. Even if it uses DirectX through a wrapper for some parts, if a superior API existed that would compile for Win32 and MacOS, developers would write to it. This would prevent Macintosh from playing second fiddle to Windows.
I'm hoping that with MacOS X, this situtation is resolved in a manner that makes cross platform games easier to develop. That would improve Apple's position in the home market.
Improving Apple in the business world is another story, but would involve working with Sun to make AWT not suck...
Apple really needs to get it's act together in terms of supporting gaming. I don't know the state of OpenGL support, but I'm sure that it is reasonably solid. Unfortunantly, OpenGL is only part of the solution.
Apple should negotiate with Microsoft to include an Apple implementation of the DirectX API. That would make porting games to the Macintosh relatively simple. While the DirectX API may not be amazing, it is programmed to, so an implementation on any operating system makes porting games easier. As long as any assembly language is well contained within modules and abstracted, reimplementing those procedures shouldn't be too difficult.
Additionally, Apple should work on a better gaming API than DirectX, and make it available for Win95/98/NT. Even if it uses DirectX through a wrapper for some parts, if a superior API existed that would compile for Win32 and MacOS, developers would write to it. This would prevent Macintosh from playing second fiddle to Windows.
I'm hoping that with MacOS X, this situtation is resolved in a manner that makes cross platform games easier to develop. That would improve Apple's position in the home market.
Improving Apple in the business world is another story, but would involve working with Sun to make AWT not suck...
Companies do realize that there are different segments of the Internet community, but they don't really pay attention to that when making statements. This foolishness will hurt them in the long run.
Linux users are technically savvy users. I'm not discussing someone's mother who uses their linux box, but real users, who read Linux sites.
These users, by and large, distrust commercial entities. This is the younger, hot-headed Linux crowd. Those of us who work with Enterprise systems that include Linux among a suite of operating systems are not distrustful of commercialization of Linux, because we view it as another tool, one we like, but still a tool.
This press release was an example of bad PR. Referring to themselves as a marker leader for Open Source news is a double edged sword. Business people like leaders, because leaders are more likely to prosper. However, Linux depends upon a grass-roots user base, largely young users (I'd guess that over 75% are ages 15-25) who don't like businesses snatching up Linux.
However, as a company trying to make money off Linux news, who is your target market? Is your target market free software zealots who will only use truly free software? Is it users who take pride in Linux being free (like beer, I have a misguided friend, IMHO, who is a dedicated Linux user with no qualms about closed-source code who never compiles his own code)? Or is it IT people who use Linux professionally and have no qualms about purchasing software for business use on a Linux system?
I would suggest that the latter is your focus group as a corporation. These users are not going to be swayed by a dumb sounding press release (that will catch eyes). The additional user group that this appeals to are people like my boss, a non-technical guy who is interested in technology. Market leader in Open Source appeals to him, as he is interested in Linux, and he is going to be drawn to a site like this. These are the types of viewer who will influence buying decisions, and are the people that advertisers will seek out.
By making the page more corporate, merely by issuing this press release, they make the site more valuable to to advertisers by switching the demographics from younger home users, to those interested in pushing Linux into enterprise environments.
While the press release sounded moronic, I think that it will have a positive influence on the site from a business perspective, even if it seems less "Linux"-like... It's funny how much Linux has changed since I first played around with it a few years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
If Redhat is able to gain OEM deals and support contracts, the revenue from the shipping product becomes insignificant. This allows them to ship it for near free, to allow home users to play around with it and become more familiar with their variant. In corporations choosing Linux (if it comes to that), they'll be pressured to choose Redhat. I mean, if your users are more comfortable with it, why choose another distribution...
It IS the Microsoft business plan, and it worked really well. There is a KEY different. If LSB takes off, even without Redhat support, then supporting Linux requires making your code work in TWO environments that are largely similar.
While Redhat may become the new Microsoft, free software makes it surprisingly MORE difficult to embrace and extend. Proprietary extensions would be interesting, but open source purists could include any missing libraries in their distributions of software, and it would be easy to write PURE opensource software that would run on the proprietary Linux versions...
As far as Corel... don't be shocked to see Redhat buy Corel, hostile or otherwise. Even with Corel's stock runup, their capitalization of $600m would be an easy buy for Redhat.
Redhat can also buy up to 10%-15% without notifying the SEC, that should be enough to get a board seat, and possibly enough to launch a takeover attempt. It would be interesting, because making Wordperfect Office for Linux proprietary to Redhat would insure that businesses that are using Linux on desktops would have to use Redhat.
With a cheap Linux, a vendor that wants to make a better GNU platform would have trouble being profitable. This platform would only appeal to geeks (who download, not buy the OS), and makes it difficult to compete. By makings the OS free (cost wise), it moves the competition to applications that are specific to your distribution...
I think that we are about to see a fork in the platform... Redhat is going to make a play to be a proprietary Linux. We'll see what this does to the community.
Alex
However, if he continued to misbehave, and it was realized that it was him, he will no doubt be convicted of a felony. It sounds as though a flame-war (not police business) escalated into threats of physical violence. That IS the police's business.
This should serve as a lesson to everyone. Your free speach is limited from using fighting words. Physical threats over the computer CAN be criminal if they are believed to be real.
If you use USENET to harass others and threaten others, you are STILL subject to the extension of the law. This is not a regulation of cyberspace, this is the existing regime to protect victims being applied to the Internet. This is in no ways unreasonable.
If he hadn't made any physical threats, nothing would have come from this. This serves as a lesson: use free speach for rational discourse, or irrational insults, but when you cause fear in others, you have overstepped your bounds as an honest citizen using free speach to a potentially dangerous individual intent on harming otehrs.
For the first time, we're seeing governments act intelligently. They don't know what is happening with the Internet, so they are taking a wait and see attitude. Catalogs had the opportunity to eliminate Brick-and-Mortar, they didn't.
A long-term decision would be unwise. Nobody knows what the future will bring for Cyberspace, and decisions can always be reversed. A 1.5 year decision is unlikely to be revisited until it is time to discuss an exemption. This allows the WTO to revisit the issue as the transistions are taking place.
In the long run, the Internet MAY make sales/VAT taxes irrelevant as geography becomes silly. On the other hand, if localities eliminate the tax advantage of E-businesses by eliminating VAT/sales taxes, then we may see a long term vision which involves both brick-and-mortar and E-businesses. The WTO is wise to take a wait and see approach.
You're making one HUGE mistake in evaluating his ruling. It is NOT illegal to have a monopoly. It is NOT illegal to compete as disgustingly as you can to get that monopoly. Once you have a monopoly, you can even charge high prices. However, you CANNOT act terribly competitively once you get that monopoly.
You cannot use your status as a monopoly to kill competition. That is what the law says, and that is what he found that Microsoft did (so his finding of fact is a pretty safe guess). You cannot use a monopoly to try to establish another monopoly.
Basically, under Anti-trust law, your monopoly may be a cash cow, but you can't do much with it, because anti-trust law serves to protect competitors that will help customers.
Microsoft was allowed to release Internet Explorer. They could probably give it away free, although that might have been considered dumping (but dumping requires P MC, not P AC, so unless you can prove a marginal cost for distributing another version of i.e., you can't prove dumping. Basically, according to economics, there are times you should take a loss on a product, but you should never set production so that you are losing money on a particular unit, just overall, i.e., high fixed costs) but probably not.
Had Microsoft included IE on Windows and Office CDs, they probably would have been okay, although it would have violated anti-trust laws. However, by requiring customers to install IE, it potentially hurt them, because they lost an option and got nothing.
Companies are welcome to bundle, but once you have a monopoly, you play by different rules.
Imagine a small tow, with a few market, and only 2 roads in. Imaging that both roads are owned by he owner of the market and they are toll roads. If he jacked up the cost of bringing food in for suppliers going anywhere but his store, that would be antitrust violations, because it would prevent the market from competing assuming there were sufficient barriers to entry to build another road.
However, if two market owners each owned a road, they could be as disgusting as they want as long as they didn't collaborate. Customers would be better served with a dozen suppliers, but there will be competition, because each owner will try to undercut the other. If the owners collaborate to rip off the customers, then that would be illegal collusions.
If the market owner owned all the roads and charged rediculous tolls, he would be entitled to that. As long as he didn't use his monopoly to try to steal another monopoly (the grocery markets), he can profit from his monopoly. If he threatens unions or businesses that are trying to build a third road that he will starve them out while they try to build it, that would be erecting a barrier to entry to protect his monopoly. If he sat there as a fat cat making profits, and when the new toll road owners tried to make the same profits dropped prices to compete, then the market would be working as it should. If he dropped his road maintenance to a loss to drive out competition (so he could jack his prices up), he would then be breaking the law.
You can compete as much as you want. However, as a monopolist, you can not use that monopoly as unfair leverage. You can profit all you want, but you have to fight competition when it arrives fairly. You can't use your existing monopoly to destroy others.
Alex
Contrary to popular belief, free software does not solve everything... I hope you don't place the graphic libraries under to GPL... you'll have an interesting thing getting games...
More importantly, what are you going to do with a gaming console's source code? I think video games are safe as a proprietary market, because tehre is no advantage to source access in it. People don't need/want the ability to modify and release the gaming OS/games, they want to be entertained cheaply. Different market...
(But Dreamcast doesn't have a good web server is NOT a selling point...)
Maybe someone should tell the patentholder and Microsoft. If nothing else, that would break his patent. Unfortunately, I don't know what his patent is for, so it may not be sufficient...
Alex
This is unfortunant, because this is the patent system breaking down. The idea behind the patent system is that, to encourage individuals to publish their knowledge and advance the nation's technology base, we grant them a short term monopoly. The old 17 year (at one point I think it was shorted) patent was a short period of time in the lifetime of an invention, but the new 20 year from time of filing period is sometimes too long.
For computer technology, 20 years is silly. For this, it is rediculous. Society gets NOTHING from this publishing. Wow, you mean in 2019 we can all use, royalty free, windowing for fixing dates? Freaking retarded. Any invention that is of short useful duration (less than the patenting time) should not be eligable for patenting. They should have to protect it via trade secret. Society gets nothing.
I wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure that someone did something similar to deal with a 1 byte year (that would have a problem at the end of the decade) and will be able to show prior art. I'm sure that some has written SOMETHING that interprets certain 2 digit dates as 19xx and others as 20xx, so this isn't new and novel...
The patent system is not a bad idea, it is just being implemented poorly. We aren't getting benefits out of patent protection. I think that patent protection is fundamentally a good thing, but it should be reserved for REALLY new and novel ideas, not obvious, stupid ones.
Alex
Now, you wouldn't be asking a company to release very private information the is crucial to their business's ability to survive... I mean, you wouldn't be suggesting that Loki should release information that would benefit their competitors, would you? :)
:) ), if they are selling lousy, letting the competition know this would allow them to avoid a dead market, which would be bad... If Loki decides to escape to another market, they'll let their competition collapse into their market.
:)
Whether they are selling or not, Loki has a strong disincentive to release the number. If they are selling like mad, the numbers will bring competitors into the market (draw some Supply and Demand lines...
I'm willing to bet that that sales are strong for the following reasons:
1. Community - Linux users (not the programmers, they guys who are standing on the shoulders of giants) like to support companies supporting Linux. It seems like their way of giving back, which I think is terrific.
2. Low competition... as fun as Xtetris is, Loki faces minimal competition, even if the market is small...
3. Market is larger than numbers dictate... while Linux is a tiny % of desktops, it is a much larger percentage of "useful" desktops. My grandparents aren't going to buy any game, whether it works on their system or not. I would say that the average Linux user (or rather, type of user that would run Linux) buys 5 times as many games as the average user. If this is true, than if Loki can suck up the money that would otherwise go for games for the Win98 partition, the potential market is HUGE.
4. Pent-up demand
i.e. You're damned right, they can't give that information away, it would be like giving away the keys to the kingdom. I mean, that would be like someone giving the source code to... oh wait...
Good luck Loki! Visionaries deserve their piece of the action.
Alex
FreeBSD is interesting, because to an end-user, it is a similar option to Linux. The key difference that I can see, is that FreeBSD has a more "professional" background and Linux has the "hacker community" background.
Unfortunantly for FreeBSD, a bunch of hackers wrote an OS is a much more compelling story than a bunch of pros released their source code.
However, like the GNU/Linux controversy, most FreeBSD/Linux boxes are largely made up of GNU software to complete the set, or other open source projects. Until recently, there were no relavent commercial applications.
FreeBSD/Linux should compete at being the best free OS to run the free tools and applications, and we'll see whether the hacker approach or the BSD approach wins. Ironically, FreeBSD seems to be getting more hacker support as Linux goes maintstream, and Linux is picking up corporate/professional programming from the Red Hat IPO and other stuff.
I think that as long as FreeBSD makes cross compiling trivial, there is no reason for FreeBSD and Linux to not fill different niches based on what you need out of your kernel.
I'm glad to see FreeBSD get publicity. A world in which only Linux existed would be horrible. Despite what most people say here, a Linux monopoly would encourage sitting on our laurels... The "we can beat Microsoft" and "us vs. the world" mentalities are what is fueling the constand innovation that we are seeing...
Who knows, maybe we'll see a BSD-based Mac Client base dominate the pc market, linux-based Internet appliances take the rest of the former PC market, and Linux and the BSDs and Linux face off in the server market, each server their niche...
Kinda of ironic that we keep going back to this older model, huh? (Not that modern UNIX designs resemble the old onesin anything but the interface anyway)... Maybe the researchers actually got something write...
We just gotta ditch the old school interface idea... you know, where the user interface is designed to hurt the user...
Alex
M.C.S.E. trying to pick up Linux as fast as I can... but I've been trying for years, so words of encouragement are a plus
Actually, they don't issue more stock, because that would dilute (and devalue) the stock base, which would not be in the interest of the company. Instead, they issue and retire 1 share of stock, paying the employee the difference. This has a few advantages:
1. No commissions
2. No dilution of stock base
3. Nothing to report. The company merely records the cost of the exercizing against their cash on hand, but it doesn't touch their profits (because it isn't an expense, and it definitely isn't an operating expense).
This is completely retarded, because as the author states, stock options are part of salary. Without them, companies would have to pay higher salaries. Elimination of stock options might make sense. It would separate capital from wages, and it would force companies, even with high flying stock prices, to pay market wages.
Companies could issue the equivalent of stock options... i.e. you get bonuses equal to the change in stock price... but that would be wages, and would therefore be accounted normally.
Alex
This is how the corporate accounting rules work. They don't make any sense. There is a push to make stock option gains come on the company expense reports. It will probably happen. However, until then, Microsoft is following standard accounting rules.
However, as usual, Microsoft is doing a few shady things to exploit the system more than usual. Every tech company has HUGE stock options, the difference is the Microsoft plays more games then the rest.
Stocks are screwy anyway. According to economic theory, a stock's price = present value(future dividends), when in reality, there are no dividends because the tax structure makes capital gains taxed less. As a result, all earnings are returned and reinvested, making the company more valuable. However, because of the lack of dividends, the stock market has these problems.
Placing dividend income at (or below) the capital gains rate would fix the problems. It would force dividends to be paid giving stocks real values. Sure they would be based upon future earnings, but those earnings would start to come on established companies like Microsoft. Also, if cash on hand went to paying dividends, large companies wouldn't have nearly infinite revenue. Basically, profits go to the owners. However, by a shell game, instead of going to the owner, they are used to buy other companies, which increases the share price the amount that the dividend should (in theory).
This encourages the merger mania sweeping this country. A large, wealthy company with huge profits has 3 options:
1) Pay dividends
2) Buy companies
3) Pay dividends with stock buy backs
Dividends are out of the question for tax reasons. Three can cause trouble if it looks like you are paying a dividend (i.e., if Microsoft made %3 percent of it's share price in profits, they buy back 3% of the stock, which means that everyone's stock goes up that value, this continues until their are very few stock holders because the rest sold them back), however, this can cause suspicion as tax fraud. The resulting option is buying companies (or building internal divisions). Either way, a large company is forced to grow beyond it's optimal size, because real profits are out of the question.
Of course, if it grows beyond its means, diminishing returns kick in, growth drops, and the stock collapses... What a way to run an economy.
We need tax AND accounting reform.
Alex
Of course they have a right to demand that, and you have a right to laugh at them. Haven't you ever been in a store with voluntary surveys? They could make it mandatory, but the lost sales would cost them.
The problem with the current scheme is the lack of an identity system. Personal information should be stored on your machine in an interchangable format, and you should be able to negotiate the exchange.
The problem is that http was NEVER designed for what we are doing, and provides all sorts of information automatically. The solution is to change the code. We need to design a system by which information isn't traded unnecessarily, perhaps going through random anonymous proxies for our NATed (untracable) IP addresses to hide this information. All information requested of you should be negotiated.
i.e. If the store demanded you fill out the survey to enter, you'd leave. If they instead offered you a 20% discount, you'd probably stay. The problem is that these companies can extract the information secretly for free, so the databases of information are free profit for them. They should "pay" you a fair market value for your information (which might be the free software), and then they are free to do what they please.
The problem is not the exchange, the problem is that it is behind the scenes. We need to develop a scheme that puts the power in the client, not the server.
Alex
It doesn't sound like RealNetworks is actually doing anything bad... just moronic.
Adjusting the program to users based upon their data is a Good Thing(tm), it allows more knowledgable people to access more features. As they use the app more (aquiring more files) more features. Should this be server driven? No, that should be kept internal. I'm assuming it is, otherwise it is moronic, not dangerous.
As far as aggregate users, that's fine. It lets them store information on people and figure out what people are doing with their software.
It sounds like they are doing things fine, but that their press handling flubbed up. Before we jump on them, we should learn if they are actually storing this information about people and making it available, or if they store the information so the ads are tailored towards people. We can't have it both ways. We can't demand that everything be free (free beer), ad driven, and then demand that they not store information.
In the real world, information like this is always available. The problem is that online we can store it all. In a CD store, people can see you buying CDs... In the online world, logging is automatic.
Also, with the CDDB thing, it sounds like they are doing the right thing to protect peoples' privacy. i.e. they aren't allowing CDDB to rob the privacy of the Jukebox users. As long as they aren't abusing the info (which should be independantly confirmed), there is no problem.
I'm assuming that there are consumer advocates who certify privacy issues. They should be brought in to independantly confirm that everything is Kosher.
Alex
Okay, I'll preface this by saying that during the 3rd season, I saw a ST:TNG rerun at 10 PM. I started watching them daily. After a few weeks, I learned when the show was on, and started watching the new shows. I still watched the reruns until I had seen them all. I then remembered seeing an early ST:TNG epsiode with my father, but not really appreciating it... ST:IV is the first movie that I remember seeing in theaters (although I didn't remember the movie itself...), so I've subconsciously been destined to love Star Trek.
:)
I now love watching TOS reruns, terrific trash Sci-fi, which I love.
Now, what made ST so cool was the story lines. When DS9 came out, I thought they show kicked ass. I loved the political intrigue and back dealing. Unfortunantly, the nature of the story was for Sisko to tackle the station and bring everything into line. This of course would mitigate the intrigue, and should have led to the end of the show. Instead the contrived war kicked in and I was turned off to the show.
Voyager was stupid from the beginning. The characters simply didn't interest me, and after a few weeks, I stopped.
The reason ST:TNG was so good, IMHO, is that it was a new show to stand on its own, with the advantages of being Trek. Because ST fans would watch it, the show could afford to spend a few episodes building up the characters without jumping into an action show. This is a tremendous advantage a new Trek show would get, they are guaranteed 4-6 weeks before needing to produce. For that reason, I think they Paramount should start Trek shows midseason with months of hype so that we all look foward to it, and they need to produce a handful of epsiodes before getting a long break to figure out how to bring the show into season 2.
One area that I felt wasn't developed is the Federation as a real, livable, world. We've seen snippets of Star Fleet Command (ST:VI), and a scene of the council (ST:IV), but no attempts to really flesh out the universe.
A Star Fleet Academy show would have the potential to do so. If you pick your characters right, you could show the Federation in a new light. Essentially, the way ST:TNG was about ideal humans, ST:SFA (can I be the first to coin the acryonym?) would be about "ideal college" kids. In an era when young people are under siege and society doesn't know what to do, Paramount could display idealist youngsters. Instead of stupid romance/dumb stuff (Star Trek: 90210 would be HORRIBLE), they could focus on people whose ambitions can put on the line and whose desires are noble. By showing this side of people, much could be accomplished. This would, in my opinion, be a Good Thing.
There are not enough current events and dillemmas to run two shows. As a result, concentrating on one would allow solid storylines. Unfortunantly, Berman couldn't experiment even if he wanted to. Destroying Star Trek to the fans would hut financially for no reason, so as a large franchise, there is limited flexibility. A ST:SFA accademy would be low risk, but it could be solid.
Shrug, I really liked Wesley Crusher. As a middle school student, an intelligent teenager getting an opportunity to excel was an inspiration to me. A SFA series would be like that on steroids.
Just please, no Space Camp ripoffs of them launching into space to fight the Borg...
It seems to me that freedom would imply choices... "Requiring" something does not imply freedome. You have a right to vote, but you don't have soldiers at your door rounding you up to the voting booths. In the free speach vain, you also have the right to shut up (something that I'm sure most /.ers don't know ).
If free software is a better development model, than one would expect it to compete on its own merits, not expecting government requirements. We complain about Microsoft only providers (of which I am currently one of them, any talented Linux administrators in the Boston area looking for work? ), but this seems just as bad.
On the otherhand, if the French government wants the ability to examine and repair code, then requiring vendors to supply it seems reasonable, and forces Microsoft and other proprietary vendors to yield their secrets or the market. Either way, this is an interesting position for a government official to take. What comes of it will be interesting to watch.
Money these days comes from ad revenue and e-commerce (actually selling REAL stuff, Oh My God!), not proprietary software. With the exception of OSes, Databases, and Office Suites, there is no money anywhere, and it looks like Sun is making Office Suites a non-revenue application... we'll see how long before Linux brings OS prices down... Databases, I expect them to be the last to fall...
Alex
As an MCSE, NT and Linux user, Computer Engineer, and part time Network Consultant, I get this a lot from various people.
Win 95/98 are not secure. There was no attempt to add security for them. They were designed as a stand alone OS to run simple applications. If you want security, use a network operating system.
Now, the argument that Linux is better than 95 is pretty impressive, I mean, I would expect a clone of a industrial strength operating system used in expensive engineering workstations and server implementations to beat a simple GUI overhaul for a DOS based system. Comparing Linux and Unix to Win95 is silly. The only reason the comparison makes sense is that Linux is inexpensive enough (yes free, for people without high speed connectings it is effectively ~$50) to compete in consumer space if the features are there.
Why does NT a more fair comparison. If you are running either Win95/98/NT/2K, the reason (probably, I'll never ignore insanity as the reason) is to run Win32 applications. WinNT is the more powerful operating system for Win32 applications. Therefore, if you aren't using one of the funky consumer driven features of Win9x, you would be running NT if security or performance mattered.
In 95/98, the goal is for the operating system to support the one to a few users that use the system. Security like that isn't considered, because it isn't designed for an environment with multiple users.
NT on the workstation level is a reasonable comparison with Linux. NT on the server level is a reasonable comparison with Linux, NetWare, and commercial Unix. Linux is not a fair comparison with Win95. Linux is a workstation OS designed to run powerful processes on a machine. 95 is a consumer operating system designed to reach market and get sales. NT is designed for real environments where these issues matter. Anyone with the capability and interest to run Linux is probably deciding between NT and Linux. Most people that are considering Linux know that NT exists. Also, 95/Linux is never the comparison, because the main reason to run 95 over NT is games and other software/hardware support... I've never found anything that only will run under Win95 and Linux, but not NT.
Actually, a signature need not be your name scribbled down. Illiterate people without penmanship skills could just mark with an X. The concept of a signature is that there was an intent to sign. i.e. if I seal a deal with a handshake, it is the same, you seal a deal to confirm that everyone is on board.
s /fall98-papers/identity/linked-white-paper .html
The signature provides a record of sorts, which is why it became common.
A digital signature is NOT a human signature encoded. I worked on a paper compiling the laws on digital signatures, technologies involved, and applications. Some of our ideas were really cool, but I doubt will ever see the light of day because they protect users with a free market approach. Feel free to check out my group's paper if you're interested:
http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6.805/student-paper
Anyway, the way it works does not depend upon anyone be trusted with the key. The private key is generated by you and (in theory) known only to you, but in practice, it is known to your computer and further encrypted with a password that you supply.
Now, everybody knows how Public Key Encryption works, right?
Say I have a Message in Clear-Text (M), a Private Key (K) and a Public Key (P).
If you send me a message, you encrypt it with my public key that everyone can know, we don't care.
E(M, P) = C (Cypher Text)
I then take the Cypher Text,
D(C, K) = M
and only I have the message.
However, PKI has another feature, authentication.
Okay, let's try the following:
E(M, K) = C (Message + Private Key -> Cypher Text)
D(C, P) = M and the message is recovered. With this method, anyone can read it, but if you know my public key, you can confirm that it was sent by me since only I have my private key. Now, in practice we'll use a cryptographic hash of a small size (128 bits makes forgery next to impossible... you want to try 2^128 variations on a message to convey the meaning you want until the hashes match?!?!?)
Where: H1 and H2 are related hashing functions...
H1(M, K) = CH1 (Cypher-hash)
H2(M, P) = CH2 Confirm(CH1, CH2) = true
alternatively you have an equation that inputs M, P, and CH and determines if it is valid. Zero knowledge proofs can extend this concept, but I won't pretend to understand them.
Basically, the idea is that by attaching a few bytes at the end of a message, other people can determine that it was send by you.
Now, when you get a digitally signed document, you usually have a HUGE attachment, why? Well, the problem with the digital signature is the public key.
i.e. Alice receives a signed message from Bob,
how does she get his Public key? More importantly, how to we get the public keys securely so nobody can spoof them?
i.e. Say that Slashdot.org decides to be a Certificate Authority (the keys to this scheme), and offers to stores keys. How does Alice know that the Public key listed for Bob is real and not someone pretending to be slashdot, or Bob, etc.
Here is the approach. I connect to a CA and create a new Private Key, Public Key combo. I send the Public Key to the CA, signed by my private key. They confirm that the Public Key matches the signed copy, and authenticate it. They then issue me a digital certificate which includes my information (ideally, when they are real, confirmed by me in person, but for now, just via e-mail for simple gee I have a certification certificates, but expect real authentication), my public key, and it is signed by the CA. If you trust the CA (set in your software) then you can trust the public key because the CA authenticated it.
Now this gets really interesting when CA Trust hierarchies get involved. i.e. slashdot the CA isn't trusted by default, so they work with a better known VA, say VeriSign who verifies their procedures. VeriSign then signs their certificate with authoritization. So, you get my certificate, signed by slashdot, signed by VeriSign, and if you allow VeriSign to sign for others... you get the idea...
Again the situation can bring the power to you. The premise of our paper is the notion of unbundled digital identities.
In the Real World, to buy alcohol I show a drivers license, which includes my picture (authentication) as well as address, DL# (SSN in some states), my age, the fact that I drive, etc., etc. This is a lot of information. We don't worry about it now because nobody at the liquor store is recording it. Digital Information, however, is almost always stored.
What we were working on was a procedure by which you can confirm to say a liquor store (it's unfortunant, but the main uses we found for it was booze and porn) that I am >=21, and nothing else, as well as ways to prevent people from trading certificates.
Check out the paper if you'd like and tell me what you think. It's long, feel free to skim it. We entered it for a legal conference, which accepted it, but we had a paperwork situation as it was over the summer and everyone was gone. The version for the legal conference is only 12 pages and gives you a background on the idea, the full paper has a LOT of info, including current laws on Electronic Signatures and Digital Signatures (VERY different). 12 pages, in rtf format:
http://web.mit.edu/covell/www/digid12.rtf
Alex
I guess the real question is the SMP support... I mean, what if I want to put my aLinux rectangle down and use both hands...
Hell, if a friend comes over and uses his hands, how well does the aLinux implementation scale to 4 hands and beyond... I believe Sun has a aSolaris implementation where the racks are so spread out that 256 hands can work on it simulatenously...
Alex
If Linux is not adequate for your needs, then you should consider another (or additional) operating system. This is a web site for "News for Nerds," and people can post what they thing is appropriate for this forum.
This attitude that "Linux rules! I can't do X on Linux, so X sucks" is completely rediculous. If Linux is not adequate for your needs, then that is your issue not ours.
Every operating system has it's advantages and disadvantages. Quicktime is a pretty open standard, available on the vast majority of computer systems. If yours is not one of them, then that is your limitation.
Alternatively, do what those of us that want to run *nix apps that are available for Linux and Windows apps do, run NT and Linux. Either run Linux in VMWare, or set up a second box. There are a plethora of Xservers for NT, some commercial, some freeware. That way, you can run all applications.
You could run a VMWare session with Win95/98/NT, which would give your more application options. However, please don't extrapolate that because you use Linux and that many others use Linux that everyone here can only use Linux.
An operating system is a tool, it runs applications. If your operating system lacks applications that you want to run, it is time to come up with an alternative plan of action.
I'm certain that one day, Linux will have loads of applications, be as easy to use as Windows, and reliably, and the applications will run as reliably as Win32 apps (meaning, not very well), in the mean time, realize the Unix has been used for 30 years, and X for 15 years, but neither was designed as a desktop system. It's great that we have one, but it lacks full desktop support. Accept the limitations, don't force other to conform.
Linux (at least on my School's AFS system) has lots of great commercial engineering tools, because it is Unix-like enough to run them. I can't get them for NT. However, for streaming video, mainstream environments are where it is at.
If you want to do everything, get multiple systems. If you wish to do everything easily, pipe them into the same machine. If not, keep your issues to yourself, and don't demand that amusing links not be shown here because you choose to limit your options.
Alex
Okay, enough Microsoft Bashing. Microsoft considers their OS code the Crown Jewels, (as does just about everyone) not the API. The API is published. Using the published API, one could write an implementation for DirectX for any platform.
Also, Microsoft and Apple have a symbiotic relationship. Apple gets Microsoft Apps on their platform, and Microsoft gets to wave Apple around and say (look, we have a competitor, see).
Furthermore, as Microsoft's "investment" in Apple (non-voting, non-convertable, non-useful preferred stock, gee, Apple drops a lawsuit, and Microsoft pays $150m for a worthless piece of paper and several software pledges) demonstrates, Apple has something on them. Apple probably has enough leverage to get Microsoft to work with them to get the new version specs out earlier.
If not, Apple could start working with the developer SDKs to know the interface, and start writing their own implementation. Even if the new libraries open up for Apple 6 months after Microsoft, that's about the same time that games come out requiring the new version. With DirectX, porting times could drop from a year to a matter of weeks to a few months, with appropriate beta testing still needed of course.
Alex
Basically, the law covers binaries and machine readable instructions. The reason for this is that books are a sacred cow, and if the gov't went after books, the whole scheme would collapse.
/.'s thing, there is no limitation on key sizes domestically.
Arguing the source code = free speach is an interesting but unclear argument. A cryptographic binary would clearly not be speach, so it could be regulated as a munition. However, the source code is readily compilable into that executable, so where is the distinction? That is the argument for the regulation of machine readable code. Allowing source code as speach but not binaries would be ludicrous.
However, a book with algorithms in it is clearly not excryption for a computer, is it? Regulating a book is dangerous, and the courts protect "the press" really well. If someone was to stand on a soap box explaining encryption, the government would have a difficult time censoring him (legally), and when it is put into a book, they have the same issues. However, in a machine readable format, it can be argued that it is the same as the binary, and electronic data is less protected in the courts than press/speach (see the laws regulating television and radio).
What makes this interesting is that the justification for radio/tv restrictions was that the radio spectrum was a public good with limited capacity, so it was necessary to insure that it was used for the good of the people, while speach and the press are unlimited...
i.e. my printing a newspaper doesn't prevent you from doing so, but if I grab the last channel, you're SOL
Unfortunantly, this screwy standard was appearing to be applied to the Internet, afterall, it applied to cable which was not using a public good (although as regulated monopolies...), but the courts are realizing that the Internet appears to be the extreme of the speach/press, where everyone can publish and not get in the way of others.
The current US restrictions, while well intentioned, are a little silly. However, contrary to what
The reason for the 128 bit limit is that it is good enough to prevent cracking with current technology, and we like our current 128-bit algorithms. In a few years, when it is insufficient, we'll move to 256 bit keys with the algorithms modified appropriately. I've used 1024-bit keys, but those are usually only used in less secure algorithms, so they are about the same to crack as a 128 bit.
The US Government was well intentioned, as encrypted data made a HUGE different during WWII. Right now, encryption is pretty well known, and there is nothing unique in the US right now. The US Gov't should concentrate on getting a Quantum Computer instead of this nonsense.
The encryption limits are a red herring. Everyone knows that they are retarded, but it allows negotiation. It is VERY important to US Software firms, but they are making several other demands, more H-1B Visas, no Net taxes, etc. As a result, this makes a nice bargaining tool, and the Administration is able to give in to their demands slowly. As a result, they hold on to their cards as long as possible.
The problem with game programming, is that much of the code is related to grpahics and sound. This is not possible to do universally. There are two ways to do this.
1. Program to the metal
This way, you write code the directly manipulates the hardware and provides the fastest possible speed. The drawback is that you now have code that is specific to one video card/sound card. Basically, you write your own procedures for sending the assembly code via interupts. This is the old way. Remember DOS games where you would select your sound card from a list? The list was REALLY small until manufacturers released useful APIs for programming to their cards.
2. Use an API that encapsulates the hardware
This is the DirectX/OpenGL/Glide approach. (Yes Glide is 3dfx specific, but it still abstracts the hardware, and you could write a glide driver for anything, and I believe that there is one for the TNT2).
This requires that manufacturers provide the implementation for the API for their hardware. i.e. you decide what to do, the implementation deals with the hardware side.
This is how modern games are made.
The problem with a unidersal code approach to games is the API. Without a standard API, you need to write all the graphics and sound code specific to the machine. Because of different capabilities between platforms, attempting to use universal approaches won't yield optimum performance.
In Computer Science, we worry about the Theta or Big-O running time, and ignore the constants. This is fine for scientific algorithms, but not for games. In games, a Theta(n) game will be much better than a Theta(2n) game, and therefore, the hardware must be used to the max. In a scientific algorithm, we don't care. We worry if processing more elements increases exponentially (i.e. 1 year for X, 10 years for X+1!!!), not if it increases the time from 1 year to 2, because we just buy multiple machines and divide up the task until we are satisfied with the time requirements.
Games are a different breed of applications, with a different set of rules than traditional programming.
Alex M. Hochberger
Computer Science and Engineering
MIT '01
Apple really needs to get it's act together in terms of supporting gaming. I don't know the state of OpenGL support, but I'm sure that it is reasonably solid. Unfortunantly, OpenGL is only part of the solution.
Apple should negotiate with Microsoft to include an Apple implementation of the DirectX API. That would make porting games to the Macintosh relatively simple. While the DirectX API may not be amazing, it is programmed to, so an implementation on any operating system makes porting games easier. As long as any assembly language is well contained within modules and abstracted, reimplementing those procedures shouldn't be too difficult.
Additionally, Apple should work on a better gaming API than DirectX, and make it available for Win95/98/NT. Even if it uses DirectX through a wrapper for some parts, if a superior API existed that would compile for Win32 and MacOS, developers would write to it. This would prevent Macintosh from playing second fiddle to Windows.
I'm hoping that with MacOS X, this situtation is resolved in a manner that makes cross platform games easier to develop. That would improve Apple's position in the home market.
Improving Apple in the business world is another story, but would involve working with Sun to make AWT not suck...
Alex
Apple really needs to get it's act together in terms of supporting gaming. I don't know the state of OpenGL support, but I'm sure that it is reasonably solid. Unfortunantly, OpenGL is only part of the solution.
Apple should negotiate with Microsoft to include an Apple implementation of the DirectX API. That would make porting games to the Macintosh relatively simple. While the DirectX API may not be amazing, it is programmed to, so an implementation on any operating system makes porting games easier. As long as any assembly language is well contained within modules and abstracted, reimplementing those procedures shouldn't be too difficult.
Additionally, Apple should work on a better gaming API than DirectX, and make it available for Win95/98/NT. Even if it uses DirectX through a wrapper for some parts, if a superior API existed that would compile for Win32 and MacOS, developers would write to it. This would prevent Macintosh from playing second fiddle to Windows.
I'm hoping that with MacOS X, this situtation is resolved in a manner that makes cross platform games easier to develop. That would improve Apple's position in the home market.
Improving Apple in the business world is another story, but would involve working with Sun to make AWT not suck...
Alex
Companies do realize that there are different segments of the Internet community, but they don't really pay attention to that when making statements. This foolishness will hurt them in the long run.
Linux users are technically savvy users. I'm not discussing someone's mother who uses their linux box, but real users, who read Linux sites.
These users, by and large, distrust commercial entities. This is the younger, hot-headed Linux crowd. Those of us who work with Enterprise systems that include Linux among a suite of operating systems are not distrustful of commercialization of Linux, because we view it as another tool, one we like, but still a tool.
This press release was an example of bad PR. Referring to themselves as a marker leader for Open Source news is a double edged sword. Business people like leaders, because leaders are more likely to prosper. However, Linux depends upon a grass-roots user base, largely young users (I'd guess that over 75% are ages 15-25) who don't like businesses snatching up Linux.
However, as a company trying to make money off Linux news, who is your target market? Is your target market free software zealots who will only use truly free software? Is it users who take pride in Linux being free (like beer, I have a misguided friend, IMHO, who is a dedicated Linux user with no qualms about closed-source code who never compiles his own code)? Or is it IT people who use Linux professionally and have no qualms about purchasing software for business use on a Linux system?
I would suggest that the latter is your focus group as a corporation. These users are not going to be swayed by a dumb sounding press release (that will catch eyes). The additional user group that this appeals to are people like my boss, a non-technical guy who is interested in technology. Market leader in Open Source appeals to him, as he is interested in Linux, and he is going to be drawn to a site like this. These are the types of viewer who will influence buying decisions, and are the people that advertisers will seek out.
By making the page more corporate, merely by issuing this press release, they make the site more valuable to to advertisers by switching the demographics from younger home users, to those interested in pushing Linux into enterprise environments.
While the press release sounded moronic, I think that it will have a positive influence on the site from a business perspective, even if it seems less "Linux"-like... It's funny how much Linux has changed since I first played around with it a few years ago.