Yeah, 'cause deregulation ALWAYS works. Yes, it works in some areas of the market.
"But what is there stopping someone from making their own, new ISP that does not prioritize certain traffic?"
The costs of starting a new telecommunications provider are huge. You would have to lay in all your own fibre-optic cable and build a new infrastructure from scratch. Face it: The costs of making a new ISP are so immense that only someone like Google or Yahoo would be able to do it, and even then it would be VERY risky. So you're stuck with the ones you have: Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Time-Warner, etc, and in Canada, I have Bell or Rogers. Because new competition is virtually impossible, they have no reason not to charge more & in new ways.
If I had a way to buy music online with no DRM and no credit card (I don't have one), on any platform (i.e. Linux), I would. But I don't. That said, I personally don't download illegally much anyways, because it eats up my connection. So I end up going to Best Buy, and buying CDs.
I agree. If we rant and rave enough, steve Ballmer will run away into the hole in the wall and curl up and die. [/sarcasm]
I do actually agree, but Microsoft isn't going away anytime soon. Face the faccts: Microsoft will be here for some time, and we need to hold out for as long as possible, but there's not really much we can do to make a difference.
This saves money, but there is a more important thing. Let me rephrase the summary (my additions are in brackets):
The 700 MHz spectrum could give birth to the much-anticipated third pipe, but the [nefarious] phone and cable lobbyists are currently pressuring the FCC to sell [evil] companies like AT&T and Verizon our airwaves -- in a flawed auction process -- so they can [greedily] hoard this valuable spectrum and stifle heroic competitive alternatives to their networks. Google[, the hero of the day,] and other [righteous] would-be providers are not taking it lying down. They [justly] want the FCC to mandate that whoever wins the auction be required to sell access to those airwaves, at wholesale prices, to anyone wanting to provide broadband Internet service[ for the common good]. They also want anonymous auctions to prevent the giant[, venomous] incumbents from manipulating the results against [the heroic ]small players (as they have done in the past)[, who are helplessly struggling to protect themselves from this menace].
Google is being the good guys so everyone likes them (and also possibly for other reasons).
1: No DRM
2: Not made by Microsoft (just kidding, although that is a factor for some people)
3: No DRM
Yeah, it might be a bit harder to set up. That's obviously a downside. On the other hand, you can rip all your DVD, no problem, without Windoze being mean. His complaints about rippng DVDs being illegal are invalid because:
a) If you're watching them on Linux, (in US) you're already breaking the law.
b) I bought the DVD at my local Best Buy, and I'm not giving it to other people, so I'll do what I want with it.
Yes, Point b) might not be exactly legal, but you see where I'm coming from. Also: MythTV has seperate front- and back- ends, so you can stream media to other parts of the house.
No, I'm being a realist: Software development goes better when you have people working on it full-time, and people need money to buy food, pay rent, etc. People can't work on something fulltime when they aren't being paid, because they need income. Firefox being given money means that they can:
a) hire fulltime developers
b) pay for commercial marketing (in addition to the free grassroots marketing they get for having a better product)
c) pay operating expenses (eg servers, bandwidth, etc)
IIRC, Firefox gets ~$50 * 10^6 (US) from Google every year because of stuff like that, and while I'd like there to be an option for that, having a steady supply of money from Google with which to pay developers results in a higher quality app. I'd rather have a high-quality (FLOSS) alternative to the dreaded Internet Exploder than not being able to set a default search provider for the address bar*.
*NOTE: I don't actually know if you can or not; Google works for me so I've never investigated it.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe something a little like this?
Sharing.... That's because you're a Communist! I bet you even use that illegal hacker operation system, Lunix!
Patent rants in 5..4..3..2..1..
Yeah, 'cause deregulation ALWAYS works. Yes, it works in some areas of the market.
"But what is there stopping someone from making their own, new ISP that does not prioritize certain traffic?"
The costs of starting a new telecommunications provider are huge. You would have to lay in all your own fibre-optic cable and build a new infrastructure from scratch. Face it: The costs of making a new ISP are so immense that only someone like Google or Yahoo would be able to do it, and even then it would be VERY risky. So you're stuck with the ones you have: Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Time-Warner, etc, and in Canada, I have Bell or Rogers. Because new competition is virtually impossible, they have no reason not to charge more & in new ways.
No, you just need to encode it as part of the sequence.
The ferrousness of the situation?
But, going to Best Buy is fun, because they leave their display laptops out with FULL ROOT ACCESS!
If I had a way to buy music online with no DRM and no credit card (I don't have one), on any platform (i.e. Linux), I would. But I don't. That said, I personally don't download illegally much anyways, because it eats up my connection. So I end up going to Best Buy, and buying CDs.
If you can't do it from the command line, you shouldn't do it at all! Who needs pictures, anyways?
And, of course, by RAID 0, I mean RAID 1. Must click 'Preview' next time.
Perhaps a Post-It note on the monitor to remind myself.
Raid 0 won't protect you, man!
(E)scape (M)eta (A)lt (C)ontrol (S)hift
I agree. If we rant and rave enough, steve Ballmer will run away into the hole in the wall and curl up and die. [/sarcasm]
I do actually agree, but Microsoft isn't going away anytime soon. Face the faccts: Microsoft will be here for some time, and we need to hold out for as long as possible, but there's not really much we can do to make a difference.
The 700 MHz spectrum could give birth to the much-anticipated third pipe, but the [nefarious] phone and cable lobbyists are currently pressuring the FCC to sell [evil] companies like AT&T and Verizon our airwaves -- in a flawed auction process -- so they can [greedily] hoard this valuable spectrum and stifle heroic competitive alternatives to their networks. Google[, the hero of the day,] and other [righteous] would-be providers are not taking it lying down. They [justly] want the FCC to mandate that whoever wins the auction be required to sell access to those airwaves, at wholesale prices, to anyone wanting to provide broadband Internet service[ for the common good]. They also want anonymous auctions to prevent the giant[, venomous] incumbents from manipulating the results against [the heroic ]small players (as they have done in the past)[, who are helplessly struggling to protect themselves from this menace].
Google is being the good guys so everyone likes them (and also possibly for other reasons).
1: No DRM
2: Not made by Microsoft (just kidding, although that is a factor for some people)
3: No DRM
Yeah, it might be a bit harder to set up. That's obviously a downside. On the other hand, you can rip all your DVD, no problem, without Windoze being mean. His complaints about rippng DVDs being illegal are invalid because:
a) If you're watching them on Linux, (in US) you're already breaking the law.
b) I bought the DVD at my local Best Buy, and I'm not giving it to other people, so I'll do what I want with it.
Yes, Point b) might not be exactly legal, but you see where I'm coming from. Also: MythTV has seperate front- and back- ends, so you can stream media to other parts of the house.
We ALL know that the people who use CVS and SVN are version control Nazis!
A new standard that will unify ALL the others... where have we heard this before?
No, I'm being a realist: Software development goes better when you have people working on it full-time, and people need money to buy food, pay rent, etc. People can't work on something fulltime when they aren't being paid, because they need income. Firefox being given money means that they can:
a) hire fulltime developers
b) pay for commercial marketing (in addition to the free grassroots marketing they get for having a better product)
c) pay operating expenses (eg servers, bandwidth, etc)
d) other things I haven't thought of...
IIRC, Firefox gets ~$50 * 10^6 (US) from Google every year because of stuff like that, and while I'd like there to be an option for that, having a steady supply of money from Google with which to pay developers results in a higher quality app. I'd rather have a high-quality (FLOSS) alternative to the dreaded Internet Exploder than not being able to set a default search provider for the address bar*.
*NOTE: I don't actually know if you can or not; Google works for me so I've never investigated it.
In Soviet Russia, Firefox keeps tabs on YOU!
In Soviet Russia, satellite watches YOU!
Er, wait a minute....
Well, that's the way they like to do things at NASA.
Yeah, but they might be useless because you touched them with your cellphone.
No way, dude. Apple pie is where it's at.
That's not a cache, and it definitely NOT +1 informative. Goatse Troll!