Why does free software need to be marketed? I see a few reasons at the moment. (I'm sure others will fill in the rest.)
First, unless corporations can be convinced that "Free Software" or "Open Source" software is a viable alternative, there's a much slimmer chance that programmers can get paid for writing said software, which means a programmer also has to spend time at a paid job. More time on a paid job means less time devoted to writing free software.
Second, the general public should be made aware that alternatives to commercial software exist. Not only does this give free software substance--numbers for people to look at--but it also draws new talent in. More programmers makes for more options for users of free software. Consider that just because one is a hacker doesn't necessarily mean one knows about Linux. (I know from experience!)
Finally, there's the issue of getting commercial applications to talk to free software--something that won't happen without numbers behind us. Ideally, all software would be open source and free, but that's prob'ly not going to happen soon. So in the interim, we might as well have commercial apps which work in our open OS of choice. Or plugins that work with our free software. It's much less of a headache that way. Remember, kids: buggy Linux kernels never crash, they just panic.
That's all I can think of right now. Any other takers?
Although several of my non-hacker friends tend to get really scared of RMS' phrasing (see the essay entitled Why Software Should Not Have Owners for an example of something that made at least three people uneasy), I find it somewhat ironic that they respond better to the idea of a "free software" movement rather than an "open source" movement. Next on the agenda: dig up some of ESR's stuff to show them.
Naturally, the immediate utility of open source is to hackers who want to tinker with the functionality of a program. (Which would indirectly benefit ordinary consumers who would get products with fewer "features" and more features.) As for the ordinary person? The price matters more than a few tens of thousands of lines of C++.
At least the corporations respond better to the idea of "open source."
Absolutely right! A vital part of the Microsoft strategy is to set the playing field (preferably to one in which they already have made inroads), narrowing the focus of their "attack."
This dovetails nicely with another of their strategies: controlling standards. If all parties implicitly agree that the playing field is what Microsoft says it is (static web pages, or what-have-you), MS can create proprietary protocols and extensions (oooh, especially the extensions!) that outperform (at least initially) the competing ones (usually the de facto standard), or merely provide more Microsoft-only features.
If MS leverages their narrow playing field by marketing the benefits of their extensions to consumers and corporations, they can take the battle away from any product that doesn't use their technologies. And they've got plenty of strategic partnerships (read: drone corporations) to give their extensions universal presence.
Yet another danger of nominating a single metric as the crux of the entire debate.
Consider me guilty (by association) of using a PDA to remember things I should. I use my Palm III (nicknamed "Erwin") to remember all my appointments and obligations, as I'm sure many of you out there do. Currently, it is also storing various bits and pieces of ideas I have from time to time.
End result? I can't remember even the next day's schedule. Memories? Sure, I have them. (And I can recall them easily.) But I have no sense of temporal "location" anymore. ("What day is it, anyway?")
How long until PDA's like this start collecting not only my schedule and the ideas I come up with on the spur of the moment, but also the encounters in a day (like the above-mentioned "Factoid") and perhaps even the quirks of personality? How long until I (or anyone) become dependent on it? (Will I refer to my Palm 2K to find out if I like to use parentheses? Perhaps on the basis of past usage?)
...And if we ever get widely-used PDA's that are wired for the Internet, there's also the possibility that the above-mentioned encounters will occur between devices, and not humans.
Yes, using a PDA has made my life a lot less stressful, as I haven't missed any appointments or events in the past few months, with minimal effort. ("Did I remember to pack Erwin? Yes? Good...") It is a bit more to carry, but I usually don't carry much else anyway. Doubtless, future devices will become much less obtrusive.
Unfortunately (fortunately, maybe?) I doubt the GPL will be invoked at all here. If Microsoft's aim is to remove one possible equivalence with Windows (cloned Java support + MS extras) from non-MS OS'es, they'll simply force Transvirtual to stop releasing their portion of the source under the GPL. (Unless, of course, the GPL has a clause somewhere which prevents changing the license.) Since according to the Kaffe FAQ, Transvirtual actually holds the copyrights to most of the source, this would effectively kill Open-Sourced Kaffe.
In any case, I seriously doubt Microsoft will allow any of its "improvements" to Kaffe to be open-sourced. The aim of giving a language/protocol/device Windows-specific features is to give Windows a bigger feature set than competing OS'es, and if Linux et al. get these features through Kaffe, Windows gets no edge. It's not like Microsoft to throw money at a project for the general good.:P
I doubt the coffers have run dry yet.:) If I were AOL at this point, the only things stopping me from buying Apple outright would be:
a) Fear of the DOJ. b) Worries about short-term losses from Apple. c) The fact that I could probably buy whoever buys Apple.
-W-
Linux IS mentioned...
on
Digital VCRs
·
· Score: 1
...Although it's only mentioned in passing:
Thanks to the Linux operating system, the platform TiVo runs on, and a development called "QuickView" from hard disk maker Quantum, the hard disk in TiVo can read and write simultaneously.
What I'm wondering is whether the simultaneous read/write is mostly due to Linux or to that "QuickView" thing. I'm sure this could be useful in other streaming-media environments, too...
An article in Business Week (May 31, 1999), of all places, has the following to say about Echelon:
"Encryption is no guarantee of privacy either. The NSA, which is bigger than the Central Intelligence Agency and runs Echelon from its headquarters at Ft. Mead, MD., has little trouble unscrambling messages encoded with most commercial encryption software. With a little more time, NSA can probably break 'crypto' schemes with so-called Keys almost 1,000 bits long, says Lisa S. Dean, vice-president for technology at the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation..."
I'm assuming they're talking about asymmetric ciphers here. However, if these numbers are to be believed, it does seem to imply that 1024-bit keys are on the verge of being vulnerable to attacks currently used in Echelon. So strong-er encryption (namely longer keys, as suggested above) would be advisable for anyone worried about Echelon.:) Do it before they get their hands on a Beowulf cluster. Of Crays.
Hmm, I wonder why the U.S. government has banned the export of strong encryption... 8)
Output of M-x spook (for the Echelon folks):
South Africa Clinton supercomputer kibo Legion of Doom PLO Serbian cracking terrorist colonel [Hello to all my fans in domestic surveillance] North Korea Ft. Meade fissionable ammunition
That's actually a fairly accurate description of the chip in question--at least AFAIK. The most promising feature of this chip may be the ability to emulate various architectures at speeds comparable to hard-wired versions of the same. John Dvorak of PC Magazine has this to say about Transmeta's "Neon" chip. From the article it's not really clear if the chip is also low-power, but there's no doubt that Transmeta's working on the low-power angle as well. Since the rumors state that the chip will operate using microcode as a basis, I'm assuming it'll be almost completely programmable--though it's beyond me as to whether or not the chip will be directly programmable by users. If it is, it'll be a fun toy.:)
And just for a little levity here, you can find more non-information on the Transmeta home page. View the source for some nonexistent hidden messages.
...the license that requires the Linux source code to be kept freely available to the general public has never been tested in court.
Is this true? (I'm sure some of you out there know the answer for sure, and I don't mean just ESR and RMS!)
If so, one way to look at it would be to say that it's completely unenforceable, to the extent to which violations aren't even followed up in court.
Another interpretation would be to say that it's one of the most perfectly enforced licenses in existence--so daunting that nobody's ever really tried to violate it.:)
On the one hand, the IPO might sweep Red Hat away from the interests of the Open Source community. There are any number of ways this could happen, from the (unlikely, in my mind) scenario in which Microsoft or (gasp!) AOL buys it out somewhere down the line, to the fact that the shareholders will have a good deal of say in what the company does. (If you've ever seen Meet Joe Black you know what I mean.) It is a (distant) possibility that we could have another Microsoft on our hands, although Red Hat's dependence on the Open Source community for support (in both code and publicity) would seem to preclude that.
On the other hand, Red Hat currently already has investors. Commercial investors, no less, whose funds are powering projects under the Red Hat. By threatening to withhold funds, they could conceivably change the way the company operates in a way that reminds me of the popular view of a company's Board. So far, I haven't seen this happening, though please feel free to offer examples! Doubtless something (fear of M$, maybe?) is motivating these investors to pump money into Red Hat as-is. Whatever this something is, there is the question of whether or not it will motivate the individual stockholders who are likely to be attracted to an IPO.
Doubtless, an enormous influx of money will be generated by this IPO. With the current media interest in Linux, I'd be surprised if it's not widely publicized in more mainstream news channels (CNN?), drawing investors to it. More investors means more money, and more money means Open Source developers who get paid--at least in theory. However, there remains the question of whether stockholders will continue to keep their hands off Red Hat's Open Source-ness.
And on the gripping hand, the IPO may be a milestone, but it may not mean anything in the long-term forecast. Maybe countless others (I'm watching, VA!) will follow if the waters are right. Or maybe Red Hat will go bottom-up. Just because Red Hat is a Really Cool Company(TM) doesn't necessarily mean that it'll stay afloat in the long run. Perhaps after all is said and done, we'll end up right back where we started, minus Red Hat.
As the old saying goes, Every 3.5" double-sided, high-density floppy has a sliding cover.
Seriously, though... That's an interesting idea. I've got a Palmpilot Pro, I can dig up one of those old Xerox optical mice, and I can prob'ly learn the SDK for Palmpilot...
As noted above, one has to wonder exactly what license Apple's leaning toward. I noticed that the article says "open source" as opposed to "Open Source," implying (to me, at least) that they're not going to strictly follow the Open Source Definition--though the media's never been sensitive to such nuances before.
All the discussion about whether or not the codecs will be released may end up being moot if Apple decides to ignore Bruce Perens' definition in favor of, say, Al Gore's definition. An overly restrictive license could discourage application development on traditionally "open" platforms, such as Linux...
Though one might argue that any source is better than no source at all.:)
Sometimes I look at the news and shake my head in wonder... That's one reason I don't watch TV anymore.:)
Why do issues like this always end in an attempt to blame as many people as possible? Sure, there's always the argument that if you nail whoever started the whole mess, the circumstances will change. But, assuming these people are successful in their crusade, the only change I believe we'd see would be in the pockets of the plaintiffs...
If the movie companies are forced to pay, they'll pay--I'd guess it'd be a drop in the bucket for 'em... And then they'll go back to earning money--likely through more films like those in question. And once the money's changed hands, I sincerely doubt the parents of the deceased could care less.
And don't even get me started on the issue of whether or not the films are actually at fault. There's already a healthy discussion going on about that...
Hopefully, I'm completely wrong about these people, and they're doing it to wreak vengeance on those who they feel are at fault--not for the money. But among other things I've learned in the Big Blue Room, I've learned cynicism...
Currently I'm in college, so I guess I should speak up.:)
The only real material benefit to me so far has been the free Internet connection--sound familiar? That, in exchange for all that free time I should be spending on Linux and C++...
In terms of intellectual matters, I don't think most geeks _need_ college. However, it's a really neat way to meet people and get exposure to new ideas. If you're lucky, you might find other geeks to hang out with.
Additionally, a CS degree must be worth _something_ out in the Big Blue Room... I don't know of any classes here that would be useful^H^H^H^H^H^Hinteresting to a computer geek (save for Biomolecular Computing--which I'm taking, of course), but I'm sure someday I'll find a use for the diploma...
Well, I'm interested in this (even though I've got three postponed midterms tomorrow). So I've modified the Javascript so that it searches the keyspace of the "password" field until it matches "http://" as the first seven characters of either decoded array. At that point, it puts both the key and the resultant URL in text boxes and keeps looking until it's exhausted the keyspace.
The character set I'm using consists of ASCII 32-126, inclusive. Anything else would be hell to type in on the keyboard.;) I'm using Tim Pierce's suggestion of "hackercollection" as the login, so I only have to work with the password.
Yes, it's slow. Yes, it's inefficient. But I've just gotten the partial C translation from Tester's post, and I'm going to work on putting all of this in good ol' C.
If this particular search doesn't work, I can just modify the schtuff to additionally search the "login" keyspace. But I _really_ don't wanna do that... (14 more characters to deal with! ACK!)
If I find anything, I'll post again to this thread...
Slashdot Mirror
Why does free software need to be marketed? I see a few reasons at the moment. (I'm sure others will fill in the rest.)
First, unless corporations can be convinced that "Free Software" or "Open Source" software is a viable alternative, there's a much slimmer chance that programmers can get paid for writing said software, which means a programmer also has to spend time at a paid job. More time on a paid job means less time devoted to writing free software.
Second, the general public should be made aware that alternatives to commercial software exist. Not only does this give free software substance--numbers for people to look at--but it also draws new talent in. More programmers makes for more options for users of free software. Consider that just because one is a hacker doesn't necessarily mean one knows about Linux. (I know from experience!)
Finally, there's the issue of getting commercial applications to talk to free software--something that won't happen without numbers behind us. Ideally, all software would be open source and free, but that's prob'ly not going to happen soon. So in the interim, we might as well have commercial apps which work in our open OS of choice. Or plugins that work with our free software. It's much less of a headache that way. Remember, kids: buggy Linux kernels never crash, they just panic.
That's all I can think of right now. Any other takers?
-W-
Although several of my non-hacker friends tend to get really scared of RMS' phrasing (see the essay entitled Why Software Should Not Have Owners for an example of something that made at least three people uneasy), I find it somewhat ironic that they respond better to the idea of a "free software" movement rather than an "open source" movement. Next on the agenda: dig up some of ESR's stuff to show them.
Naturally, the immediate utility of open source is to hackers who want to tinker with the functionality of a program. (Which would indirectly benefit ordinary consumers who would get products with fewer "features" and more features.) As for the ordinary person? The price matters more than a few tens of thousands of lines of C++.
At least the corporations respond better to the idea of "open source."
-W-
Absolutely right! A vital part of the Microsoft strategy is to set the playing field (preferably to one in which they already have made inroads), narrowing the focus of their "attack."
This dovetails nicely with another of their strategies: controlling standards. If all parties implicitly agree that the playing field is what Microsoft says it is (static web pages, or what-have-you), MS can create proprietary protocols and extensions (oooh, especially the extensions!) that outperform (at least initially) the competing ones (usually the de facto standard), or merely provide more Microsoft-only features.
If MS leverages their narrow playing field by marketing the benefits of their extensions to consumers and corporations, they can take the battle away from any product that doesn't use their technologies. And they've got plenty of strategic partnerships (read: drone corporations) to give their extensions universal presence.
Yet another danger of nominating a single metric as the crux of the entire debate.
(Remember IE!)
-W-
Consider me guilty (by association) of using a PDA to remember things I should. I use my Palm III (nicknamed "Erwin") to remember all my appointments and obligations, as I'm sure many of you out there do. Currently, it is also storing various bits and pieces of ideas I have from time to time.
End result? I can't remember even the next day's schedule. Memories? Sure, I have them. (And I can recall them easily.) But I have no sense of temporal "location" anymore. ("What day is it, anyway?")
How long until PDA's like this start collecting not only my schedule and the ideas I come up with on the spur of the moment, but also the encounters in a day (like the above-mentioned "Factoid") and perhaps even the quirks of personality? How long until I (or anyone) become dependent on it? (Will I refer to my Palm 2K to find out if I like to use parentheses? Perhaps on the basis of past usage?)
...And if we ever get widely-used PDA's that are wired for the Internet, there's also the possibility that the above-mentioned encounters will occur between devices, and not humans.
Yes, using a PDA has made my life a lot less stressful, as I haven't missed any appointments or events in the past few months, with minimal effort. ("Did I remember to pack Erwin? Yes? Good...") It is a bit more to carry, but I usually don't carry much else anyway. Doubtless, future devices will become much less obtrusive.
Intriguing, yes?
-W-
Unfortunately (fortunately, maybe?) I doubt the GPL will be invoked at all here. If Microsoft's aim is to remove one possible equivalence with Windows (cloned Java support + MS extras) from non-MS OS'es, they'll simply force Transvirtual to stop releasing their portion of the source under the GPL. (Unless, of course, the GPL has a clause somewhere which prevents changing the license.) Since according to the Kaffe FAQ, Transvirtual actually holds the copyrights to most of the source, this would effectively kill Open-Sourced Kaffe.
In any case, I seriously doubt Microsoft will allow any of its "improvements" to Kaffe to be open-sourced. The aim of giving a language/protocol/device Windows-specific features is to give Windows a bigger feature set than competing OS'es, and if Linux et al. get these features through Kaffe, Windows gets no edge. It's not like Microsoft to throw money at a project for the general good. :P
-W-
I doubt the coffers have run dry yet. :) If I were AOL at this point, the only things stopping me from buying Apple outright would be:
a) Fear of the DOJ.
b) Worries about short-term losses from Apple.
c) The fact that I could probably buy whoever buys Apple.
-W-
What I'm wondering is whether the simultaneous read/write is mostly due to Linux or to that "QuickView" thing. I'm sure this could be useful in other streaming-media environments, too...
-W-
An article in Business Week (May 31, 1999), of all places, has the following to say about Echelon:
I'm assuming they're talking about asymmetric ciphers here. However, if these numbers are to be believed, it does seem to imply that 1024-bit keys are on the verge of being vulnerable to attacks currently used in Echelon. So strong-er encryption (namely longer keys, as suggested above) would be advisable for anyone worried about Echelon. :) Do it before they get their hands on a Beowulf cluster. Of Crays.
Hmm, I wonder why the U.S. government has banned the export of strong encryption... 8)
Output of M-x spook (for the Echelon folks):
South Africa Clinton supercomputer kibo Legion of Doom PLO Serbiancracking terrorist colonel [Hello to all my fans in domestic
surveillance] North Korea Ft. Meade fissionable ammunition
-W-
That's actually a fairly accurate description of the chip in question--at least AFAIK. The most promising feature of this chip may be the ability to emulate various architectures at speeds comparable to hard-wired versions of the same. John Dvorak of PC Magazine has this to say about Transmeta's "Neon" chip. From the article it's not really clear if the chip is also low-power, but there's no doubt that Transmeta's working on the low-power angle as well. Since the rumors state that the chip will operate using microcode as a basis, I'm assuming it'll be almost completely programmable--though it's beyond me as to whether or not the chip will be directly programmable by users. If it is, it'll be a fun toy. :)
And just for a little levity here, you can find more non-information on the Transmeta home page. View the source for some nonexistent hidden messages.
-W-
From the article:
Is this true? (I'm sure some of you out there know the answer for sure, and I don't mean just ESR and RMS!)
If so, one way to look at it would be to say that it's completely unenforceable, to the extent to which violations aren't even followed up in court.
Another interpretation would be to say that it's one of the most perfectly enforced licenses in existence--so daunting that nobody's ever really tried to violate it. :)
Better than the law of gravity, that...
-W-
As usual, this isn't a one-sided issue.
On the one hand, the IPO might sweep Red Hat away from the interests of the Open Source community. There are any number of ways this could happen, from the (unlikely, in my mind) scenario in which Microsoft or (gasp!) AOL buys it out somewhere down the line, to the fact that the shareholders will have a good deal of say in what the company does. (If you've ever seen Meet Joe Black you know what I mean.) It is a (distant) possibility that we could have another Microsoft on our hands, although Red Hat's dependence on the Open Source community for support (in both code and publicity) would seem to preclude that.
On the other hand, Red Hat currently already has investors. Commercial investors, no less, whose funds are powering projects under the Red Hat. By threatening to withhold funds, they could conceivably change the way the company operates in a way that reminds me of the popular view of a company's Board. So far, I haven't seen this happening, though please feel free to offer examples! Doubtless something (fear of M$, maybe?) is motivating these investors to pump money into Red Hat as-is. Whatever this something is, there is the question of whether or not it will motivate the individual stockholders who are likely to be attracted to an IPO.
Doubtless, an enormous influx of money will be generated by this IPO. With the current media interest in Linux, I'd be surprised if it's not widely publicized in more mainstream news channels (CNN?), drawing investors to it. More investors means more money, and more money means Open Source developers who get paid--at least in theory. However, there remains the question of whether stockholders will continue to keep their hands off Red Hat's Open Source-ness.
And on the gripping hand, the IPO may be a milestone, but it may not mean anything in the long-term forecast. Maybe countless others (I'm watching, VA!) will follow if the waters are right. Or maybe Red Hat will go bottom-up. Just because Red Hat is a Really Cool Company(TM) doesn't necessarily mean that it'll stay afloat in the long run. Perhaps after all is said and done, we'll end up right back where we started, minus Red Hat.
As the old saying goes,
Every 3.5" double-sided, high-density floppy has a sliding cover.
-W-
Why? It's the "because I can" factor at work. :)
:)
Seriously, though... That's an interesting idea. I've got a Palmpilot Pro, I can dig up one of those old Xerox optical mice, and I can prob'ly learn the SDK for Palmpilot...
Maybe it can be a summer project.
-W-
As noted above, one has to wonder exactly what license Apple's leaning toward. I noticed that the article says "open source" as opposed to "Open Source," implying (to me, at least) that they're not going to strictly follow the Open Source Definition--though the media's never been sensitive to such nuances before.
All the discussion about whether or not the codecs will be released may end up being moot if Apple decides to ignore Bruce Perens' definition in favor of, say, Al Gore's definition. An overly restrictive license could discourage application development on traditionally "open" platforms, such as Linux...
Though one might argue that any source is better than no source at all. :)
-W-
Sometimes I look at the news and shake my head in wonder... That's one reason I don't watch TV anymore. :)
Why do issues like this always end in an attempt to blame as many people as possible? Sure, there's always the argument that if you nail whoever started the whole mess, the circumstances will change. But, assuming these people are successful in their crusade, the only change I believe we'd see would be in the pockets of the plaintiffs...
If the movie companies are forced to pay, they'll pay--I'd guess it'd be a drop in the bucket for 'em... And then they'll go back to earning money--likely through more films like those in question. And once the money's changed hands, I sincerely doubt the parents of the deceased could care less.
And don't even get me started on the issue of whether or not the films are actually at fault. There's already a healthy discussion going on about that...
Hopefully, I'm completely wrong about these people, and they're doing it to wreak vengeance on those who they feel are at fault--not for the money. But among other things I've learned in the Big Blue Room, I've learned cynicism...
-W-
Currently I'm in college, so I guess I should speak up. :)
The only real material benefit to me so far has been the free Internet connection--sound familiar? That, in exchange for all that free time I should be spending on Linux and C++...
In terms of intellectual matters, I don't think most geeks _need_ college. However, it's a really neat way to meet people and get exposure to new ideas. If you're lucky, you might find other geeks to hang out with.
Additionally, a CS degree must be worth _something_ out in the Big Blue Room... I don't know of any classes here that would be useful^H^H^H^H^H^Hinteresting to a computer geek (save for Biomolecular Computing--which I'm taking, of course), but I'm sure someday I'll find a use for the diploma...
-W-
-W-
Well, I'm interested in this (even though I've got three postponed midterms tomorrow). So I've modified the Javascript so that it searches the keyspace of the "password" field until it matches "http://" as the first seven characters of either decoded array. At that point, it puts both the key and the resultant URL in text boxes and keeps looking until it's exhausted the keyspace.
;) I'm using Tim Pierce's suggestion of "hackercollection" as the login, so I only have to work with the password.
The character set I'm using consists of ASCII 32-126, inclusive. Anything else would be hell to type in on the keyboard.
Yes, it's slow. Yes, it's inefficient. But I've just gotten the partial C translation from Tester's post, and I'm going to work on putting all of this in good ol' C.
If this particular search doesn't work, I can just modify the schtuff to additionally search the "login" keyspace. But I _really_ don't wanna do that... (14 more characters to deal with! ACK!)
If I find anything, I'll post again to this thread...
Good luck, everyone!
--W