I humbly submit my own science-fiction-like vision of computing--not in ten years, but substantially in the future:
http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/fiction/hardware_guy/
Admittedly, this is mostly for fun (and to make some other points) and not to answer the specific question.
It is not enough to recruit experts (with or without pay) to write,
because they can't keep up with changes--I found that out working on
books about Linux at O'Reilly. But it is not enough to ask the
community to contribute micro-documents--that causes everything comes
out disorganized and of wildly varying quality.
At FLOSS Manuals (http://flossmanuals.net/), where I volunteer, we're
filling the gap with well-organized writing projects combining peer
review from the public with experts from various free software
packages. There's a very active mailing list and a lot of highly
praised output on the web site.
(I may go back to one of the articles cited in the posting and add
this comment to it.)
There have been uncountable cases affecting Copyright, and even a long posting has to be selective. But the Sonny Bono act actually receives a lot of attention in my posting; you would have more reason to complain about something else. The Sonny Bono act was the subject of the Eldred case that Lessig led. But my article left it up to readers with an interest in copyright to make the connection themselves; the important topic is not a particular law but the public domain as one part of the copyright regime, which is what I talked about.
The NY report called on the new committee to consider costs, so it's worth a mention. The general view is that switching to a new platform and office suite entails training costs, but they're paid back over about five years. On the other hand, government agencies are likely to license open source systems and pay for support, instead of using free-as-in-beer versions. But once again, Microsoft is forcing people to switch to new versions of their software, which leads to training costs.
So far as bandwidth usage goes, it's worth looking at the data exchanged in most office environments. Most office workers are using incredibly bloated formats, sending word processing and spreadsheet documents around in email. As they move to wikis or other light-weight collaborative tools, data transmissions will go down. Ajax is making a lot of application developers think about how to cut down bandwidth requirements. People do love video, but that's still not central to office work.
I wonder whether free software may actually be more widespread already than the "senior IT managers" believe. That's an old trend, according to the word on the street, that its sneaks in among the lower-level staff first. Maybe the stealth approach is no longer necessary.
I also wonder whether the difference between the actual expected users (73%) and what the same people think will be the users (60%) reflects FUD. Even when using it themselves, they don't believe it will be as widespread as it will. But on the other hand, we don't know what the exact questions were.
One angle no one on this thread has explored yet is why Groove could create such a sophisticated (whether or not you like using it) product and integrate it tightly with Office in the first place.
Groove started out supporting Microsoft products, like so many new companies, simply because of their market dominance (so far as I could tell--I didn't confirm this impression with the Ozzies or anyone else). They started in pre-.NET days.
But they quickly found, as.NET ramped up, that they could develop components very quickly and meld them with Office pretty seamlessly.
So.NET paid off for them, and their contributions to Office made them attractive first for Microsoft collaboration, then Microsoft investment, and now...this.
I think open source advocates had better learn (although I won't say you should necessarily do what the Mono team is doing) from what.NET's has achieved. It makes Microsoft more flexible, and in its own unique way, to some extent open. See my article on the O'Reilly Network on the topic:
Applications, User Interfaces, and Servers in the Soup
.
In particular, I'd like to know where those applications were running. Did they allow communications only among systems running Windows? Were they for the LAN (an easier environment to program for and administer) or the Internet?
What I find interesting about this algorithm is that it is applied individually by each node; there seems to be no need for nodes to share data over some complicated protocol as in many distributed systems. Yet (I think we can believe Clarke) this change improves response time through the system as a whole. It's a validation of the basic Freenet model of systems acting alone but providing a service greater than the sum of its parts.
What I find interesting about this algorithm is that it is applied individually by each node; there seems to be no need for nodes to share data over some complicated protocol as in many distributed systems. Yet (I think we can believe Clarke) this change improves response time through the system as a whole. It's a validation of the basic Freenet model of systems acting alone but providing a service greater than the sum of its parts.
While I worked some on this O'Reilly's open book policy and am proud to see it growing, I also should admit for historical accuracy that the Linux Network Administrator's Guide started as an LDP project. I made a deal with Olaf Kirch, the first author: O'Reilly would put in a lot of editing and production work and donate it all back to the free version of the book, and in return we'd publish it. The license has changed over time, but the book started out open and has remained that way. Nevertheless, I and the rest of the company invested a lot of time and money into making it a strong, professional text.
I never felt that SysAdmin was the right place for TPJ articles. The typical system administrator writes scripts to parse logfiles and such; he or she has no need for the envelope-pushing, clever techniques promoted by TPJ. TPJ was a wonderful journal with high standards for content and editing (and layout, back when it was a stand-alone publication). I miss it. Incidentally, I still like SysAdmin too.
Perhaps a technical solution like the Internet2's QBone Scavenger Service can relieve the problem without limits imposed by administrators (although these administrators certainly have a right to impose limits). QBSS is like running nice(1) on Unix: you declare that you're not in a big hurry to get your data and that your traffic can be fit in around more important traffic. Of course, it requires end-user cooperation, but most users of file-sharing apps are capable of respecting the network and making a compromise.
There ought to be a place in hell for the chutspah of the companies that complain municipalities are unfair competition. The vast majority of cities and towns who create their own networks do so because the regular ILECs and cable vendors offer patently outrageous prices, or refuse to enter the market at all. When a forward-thinking city leader finally starts up a municipal network, the companies often sue so that they can wait and take their own sweet time about picking up the plum of an exclusive network.
Now that I've gotten that of my chest, I do believe that cities should be careful about funding (not using municipal bonds, for instance) and do a few other things to insure they are fair. I have written about the movement in the article Echo of the TVA Comes Over Municipal Data Networks. There have been several court cases brought in various states by telephone and cable companies; they've been resolved in different directions and the whole legal ground is unclear.
Here's an example of where averages mislead. The interesting thing about color is not the average, but the contrast between colors. Trust me; I'm renovating my house right now. Or trust anybody who's stared too much at the sun.
This offers a welcome relief after the defamation ruling in Victoria, Australia (http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story/ 0,2000024981,20261845,00.htm) that says anyone anywhere in the world can download material and sue you in their local jurisdiction.
The California case doesn't deal with jurisdiction, but it offers some blanket protectio
Ah, yes, another committee, the ever-present ICANN solution. Another layer to bang your head against, to negotiate with for months, to lose or dilute your suggestions...this is the public's compensation for losing any input into real power and decision-making.
Of course it has always been problematic to count votes from a general, world-wide population. An organization with a public role doesn't necessarily need a one-person-one-vote sort of democracy to be accountable. But when the people who try to hold ICANN accountable have been rigorously excluded from the beginning (breaking through only occasionally such as in the election of Auerbach), we have to fight against removing the few processes that may promote accountability.
And what about the possibility of using even RF patents to enforce digital rights management, which several people have raised before? (For instance, see http://www.oreilly.com/news/oram_patents_1001.html .
Since several posters have suggested that academic environments are actually open to peer-to-peer (however they might define it), I should give some meta-information about this speech. The organizers of the panel explicitly told me in advance that the audience would have prejudices against the whole P2P concept because of bandwidth issues around file-sharing. The reports of other people on the panel (which were very good) confirmed that there's an assumption at many colleges that P2P==file-sharing and that it's just a problem, not an opportunity. (As some posters point out, there may be split between researchers and people responsible for day-to-day operations, too.) My speech was specifically directed at overcoming that prejudice (although, nevertheless, I see some people giving me flack for spreading the prejudice, ho-hum).
This post, as I interpret it, is a description of how current networks have weaknesses and vulnerabilities that lead responsible people to have doubts about opening them up further through P2P. That's a useful point that perhaps I should have said in the speech. But I did lay out at the start: "these systems have created all kinds of new problems."
So I appreciate Twylite's points, except when they get twisted into a critique by unnecessarily placing issues in opposition to each other (for instance, presenting IPv6 as a threat to security instead of an issue to pursue in addition to security).
Slashdot Mirror
I humbly submit my own science-fiction-like vision of computing--not in ten years, but substantially in the future: http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/fiction/hardware_guy/ Admittedly, this is mostly for fun (and to make some other points) and not to answer the specific question.
My most comprehensive article on the issues is:
http://praxagora.com/andyo/professional/community_author_collaboration.html
Much more for the curious at:
http://www.praxagora.com/community_documentation/
At FLOSS Manuals (http://flossmanuals.net/), where I volunteer, we're filling the gap with well-organized writing projects combining peer review from the public with experts from various free software packages. There's a very active mailing list and a lot of highly praised output on the web site.
(I may go back to one of the articles cited in the posting and add this comment to it.)
There have been uncountable cases affecting Copyright, and even a long posting has to be selective. But the Sonny Bono act actually receives a lot of attention in my posting; you would have more reason to complain about something else. The Sonny Bono act was the subject of the Eldred case that Lessig led. But my article left it up to readers with an interest in copyright to make the connection themselves; the important topic is not a particular law but the public domain as one part of the copyright regime, which is what I talked about.
The NY report called on the new committee to consider costs, so it's worth a mention. The general view is that switching to a new platform and office suite entails training costs, but they're paid back over about five years. On the other hand, government agencies are likely to license open source systems and pay for support, instead of using free-as-in-beer versions. But once again, Microsoft is forcing people to switch to new versions of their software, which leads to training costs.
So far as bandwidth usage goes, it's worth looking at the data exchanged in most office environments. Most office workers are using incredibly bloated formats, sending word processing and spreadsheet documents around in email. As they move to wikis or other light-weight collaborative tools, data transmissions will go down. Ajax is making a lot of application developers think about how to cut down bandwidth requirements. People do love video, but that's still not central to office work.
It may work best for prior art, resembling one of the systems discussed in the article.
http://www.bitdefender.com/VIRUS-1000058-en--Backd oor.IRC.Snyd.A.html
Naturally, they are promoting their software as protection.
It would also be interesting to know how much heat is generated by the absorbtion of the light. How does this compare to electrical units' heat?
I wonder whether free software may actually be more widespread already than the "senior IT managers" believe. That's an old trend, according to the word on the street, that its sneaks in among the lower-level staff first. Maybe the stealth approach is no longer necessary.
I also wonder whether the difference between the actual expected users (73%) and what the same people think will be the users (60%) reflects FUD. Even when using it themselves, they don't believe it will be as widespread as it will. But on the other hand, we don't know what the exact questions were.
Groove started out supporting Microsoft products, like so many new companies, simply because of their market dominance (so far as I could tell--I didn't confirm this impression with the Ozzies or anyone else). They started in pre-.NET days.
But they quickly found, as .NET ramped up, that they could develop components very quickly and meld them with Office pretty seamlessly.
So .NET paid off for them, and their contributions to Office made them attractive first for Microsoft collaboration, then Microsoft investment, and now...this.
I think open source advocates had better learn (although I won't say you should necessarily do what the Mono team is doing) from what .NET's has achieved. It makes Microsoft more flexible, and in its own unique way, to some extent open. See my article on the O'Reilly Network on the topic:
Applications, User Interfaces, and Servers in the Soup
.
In particular, I'd like to know where those applications were running. Did they allow communications only among systems running Windows? Were they for the LAN (an easier environment to program for and administer) or the Internet?
What I find interesting about this algorithm is that it is applied individually by each node; there seems to be no need for nodes to share data over some complicated protocol as in many distributed systems. Yet (I think we can believe Clarke) this change improves response time through the system as a whole. It's a validation of the basic Freenet model of systems acting alone but providing a service greater than the sum of its parts.
Sorry, I lost track of where I was. This post was meant to go under a different story.
What I find interesting about this algorithm is that it is applied individually by each node; there seems to be no need for nodes to share data over some complicated protocol as in many distributed systems. Yet (I think we can believe Clarke) this change improves response time through the system as a whole. It's a validation of the basic Freenet model of systems acting alone but providing a service greater than the sum of its parts.
While I worked some on this O'Reilly's open book policy and am proud to see it growing, I also should admit for historical accuracy that the Linux Network Administrator's Guide started as an LDP project. I made a deal with Olaf Kirch, the first author: O'Reilly would put in a lot of editing and production work and donate it all back to the free version of the book, and in return we'd publish it. The license has changed over time, but the book started out open and has remained that way. Nevertheless, I and the rest of the company invested a lot of time and money into making it a strong, professional text.
I never felt that SysAdmin was the right place for TPJ articles. The typical system administrator writes scripts to parse logfiles and such; he or she has no need for the envelope-pushing, clever techniques promoted by TPJ. TPJ was a wonderful journal with high standards for content and editing (and layout, back when it was a stand-alone publication). I miss it. Incidentally, I still like SysAdmin too.
Perhaps a technical solution like the Internet2's QBone Scavenger Service can relieve the problem without limits imposed by administrators (although these administrators certainly have a right to impose limits). QBSS is like running nice(1) on Unix: you declare that you're not in a big hurry to get your data and that your traffic can be fit in around more important traffic. Of course, it requires end-user cooperation, but most users of file-sharing apps are capable of respecting the network and making a compromise.
Now that I've gotten that of my chest, I do believe that cities should be careful about funding (not using municipal bonds, for instance) and do a few other things to insure they are fair. I have written about the movement in the article Echo of the TVA Comes Over Municipal Data Networks. There have been several court cases brought in various states by telephone and cable companies; they've been resolved in different directions and the whole legal ground is unclear.
Here's an example of where averages mislead. The interesting thing about color is not the average, but the contrast between colors. Trust me; I'm renovating my house right now. Or trust anybody who's stared too much at the sun.
This offers a welcome relief after the defamation ruling in Victoria, Australia (http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story
The California case doesn't deal with jurisdiction, but it offers some blanket protectio
Of course it has always been problematic to count votes from a general, world-wide population. An organization with a public role doesn't necessarily need a one-person-one-vote sort of democracy to be accountable. But when the people who try to hold ICANN accountable have been rigorously excluded from the beginning (breaking through only occasionally such as in the election of Auerbach), we have to fight against removing the few processes that may promote accountability.
And what about the possibility of using even RF patents to enforce digital rights management, which several people have raised before? (For instance, see http://www.oreilly.com/news/oram_patents_1001.html .
Since several posters have suggested that academic environments are actually open to peer-to-peer (however they might define it), I should give some meta-information about this speech. The organizers of the panel explicitly told me in advance that the audience would have prejudices against the whole P2P concept because of bandwidth issues around file-sharing. The reports of other people on the panel (which were very good) confirmed that there's an assumption at many colleges that P2P==file-sharing and that it's just a problem, not an opportunity. (As some posters point out, there may be split between researchers and people responsible for day-to-day operations, too.) My speech was specifically directed at overcoming that prejudice (although, nevertheless, I see some people giving me flack for spreading the prejudice, ho-hum).
So I appreciate Twylite's points, except when they get twisted into a critique by unnecessarily placing issues in opposition to each other (for instance, presenting IPv6 as a threat to security instead of an issue to pursue in addition to security).