Re:What can be done about terrorism?
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More On Tragedy
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Vivian
The sad truth is, the Israelis gained their country by conquest, and by driving out the indigenous population. The Palestinians would like to have their country back. That is the basis for the conflict. It is not clear to me why the United States or any other Western country has any rational basis (beyond an emotional sympathy for the Jewish people) for supporting either side in this conflict.
From the Arabs' point of view, the history of Palestine since the end of the first world war is the story of invasion and occupation by people from the West - first the British, and then the (mostly European) Jews, supported by the US. I for one can no longer see why their view is not essentially correct.
Still, his blatant campaign to give a few trillion dollars to those who need it least bothers me deeply.
Bush will not give any money to the wealthy. He will merely refrain from taking money from them which is already theirs. It's not a trivial distinction.
The state should take (via taxation) only what is needed to carry out its legitimate functions - and not a penny more. Anything more is a kind of theft. And this is still true no matter how rich or poor the taxpayers are.
Transferring wealth from the rich and successful to the poor or middle class is not one of those legitimate functions.
I think a future where citizenship entitles one to a shell account with 10 megs of hard drive is not all that impossible.
I can't disagree with this - that is, such a future is very possible. But to me it is very undesirable.
If we are truly entering an Information Age, then state ownership and state provision of the means of information is nothing less than cyber-Communism. Let the market work and it will drive down the cost and increase the availability of the relevant technology (as it has done with the automobile, telephone, radio, and television).
"If the internet was accessible through public kiosks... and everyone would be allocated personal space..." this would *not* change the entry cost; it would only change who pays the cost. Whoever (presumably the state) provides these "public kiosks" and "personal space" would pay the entry cost, instead of the user paying the cost.
The internet is not just an idea; it is an idea that is implemented on a particular hardware and software substrate. Routers cost money; fiber costs money; disk space costs money; memory costs money; and software costs money (the Open Source phenomonon to the contrary notwithstanding). So the entry cost *is* inherent to the internet, no matter how you shift the cost around.
Be careful what you wish for, because he who pays the piper calls the tune. Or in this case, he who pays the entry cost controls the pipe. There ain't no such thing as a free Internet.
It is important to distinguish between the OS as a technical entity and as a commercial entity (a product). As a technical entity, one can reasonably exclude (for example) the graphical shell. But if you tried to ship a consumer OS without one, the consumers in your target market would certainly regard it as crippled. As a technical definition, I would say that the operating system is the minimal set of interrelated software components which do two things:
Manage the available hardware resources in order to make the system usable for the user; and
Provide a common set of services for application programs to use.
This definition would include the following components in the OS:
The kernel
The device drivers
The network protocol stack (unless it is a stand-alone machine)
The shell
By "the shell" I simply mean at least one mechanism for the user to launch applications. It can be a command-line shell or a graphical shell, but if there is no shell at all, the system is unusable (excluding embedded systems, of course). This definition excludes all sorts of things commonly included in most OS products such as text editors, compilers, linkers, PPP dialers, web browsers, etc. All of these things are applications in the technical sense that each runs in its own process in user space. But they are applications also in the sense that they are particular uses of the computer which a particular user may or may not need, whereas the OS includes that functionality which must be there for any of the applications to run.
I think it's a fundamental injustice to hold a company to a different set of rules because it has a high market share. Then I recommend that you run for Congress and try to repeal the Sherman act. In the meantime, it is the law of the land, and I applaud Justice and the court for applying that law fairly to a case which, as far as I can see, is precisely the situation the law is meant for. I am a lifelong conservative Republican and I believe in limited government; but I also believe that once the law is established, it is to be obeyed. If Microsoft has broken the law, they should be held accountable.
Like some others here, I find it hard to believe that you can say that Microsoft "acquired their position by developing products their customers want and marketing them effectively" - IF you have read and understood Jackson's Findings of Fact. It is clear to me from the finding that Judge Jackson has a very clear and deep understanding of both the technical and economic issues involved. The finding is a veritable primer on the interplay among technology, protocols, interfaces, standards, and the marketplace; and by understanding these things in such depth, Jackson has been able to see clearly (and to explain in his finding) exactly how Microsoft has abused its monopoly power to crush its competitors and harm consumers. You need to remember that under U.S. antitrust law, Microsoft has, as a monopoly, a different set of obligations and a different standard to meet. Practices which might be legal for other companies are not legal for a monopoly. So even if Microsoft "has done nothing that other companies don't do", it is not just that they are better at it - for them (as a monopoly) it is illegal.
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The sad truth is, the Israelis gained their country by conquest, and by driving out the indigenous population. The Palestinians would like to have their country back. That is the basis for the conflict. It is not clear to me why the United States or any other Western country has any rational basis (beyond an emotional sympathy for the Jewish people) for supporting either side in this conflict.
From the Arabs' point of view, the history of Palestine since the end of the first world war is the story of invasion and occupation by people from the West - first the British, and then the (mostly European) Jews, supported by the US. I for one can no longer see why their view is not essentially correct.
The state should take (via taxation) only what is needed to carry out its legitimate functions - and not a penny more. Anything more is a kind of theft. And this is still true no matter how rich or poor the taxpayers are.
Transferring wealth from the rich and successful to the poor or middle class is not one of those legitimate functions.
If we are truly entering an Information Age, then state ownership and state provision of the means of information is nothing less than cyber-Communism. Let the market work and it will drive down the cost and increase the availability of the relevant technology (as it has done with the automobile, telephone, radio, and television).
"If the internet was accessible through public kiosks ... and everyone would be allocated personal space..." this would *not* change the entry cost; it would only change who pays the cost. Whoever (presumably the state) provides these "public kiosks" and "personal space" would pay the entry cost, instead of the user paying the cost.
The internet is not just an idea; it is an idea that is implemented on a particular hardware and software substrate. Routers cost money; fiber costs money; disk space costs money; memory costs money; and software costs money (the Open Source phenomonon to the contrary notwithstanding). So the entry cost *is* inherent to the internet, no matter how you shift the cost around.
Be careful what you wish for, because he who pays the piper calls the tune. Or in this case, he who pays the entry cost controls the pipe. There ain't no such thing as a free Internet.
As a technical entity, one can reasonably exclude (for example) the graphical shell. But if you tried to ship a consumer OS without one, the consumers in your target market would certainly regard it as crippled.
As a technical definition, I would say that the operating system is the minimal set of interrelated software components which do two things:
- Manage the available hardware resources in order to make the system usable for the user; and
- Provide a common set of services for application programs to use.
This definition would include the following components in the OS:- The kernel
- The device drivers
- The network protocol stack (unless it is a stand-alone machine)
- The shell
By "the shell" I simply mean at least one mechanism for the user to launch applications. It can be a command-line shell or a graphical shell, but if there is no shell at all, the system is unusable (excluding embedded systems, of course).This definition excludes all sorts of things commonly included in most OS products such as text editors, compilers, linkers, PPP dialers, web browsers, etc. All of these things are applications in the technical sense that each runs in its own process in user space. But they are applications also in the sense that they are particular uses of the computer which a particular user may or may not need, whereas the OS includes that functionality which must be there for any of the applications to run.
I think it's a fundamental injustice to hold a company to a different set of rules because it has a high market share.
Then I recommend that you run for Congress and try to repeal the Sherman act. In the meantime, it is the law of the land, and I applaud Justice and the court for applying that law fairly to a case which, as far as I can see, is precisely the situation the law is meant for. I am a lifelong conservative Republican and I believe in limited government; but I also believe that once the law is established, it is to be obeyed. If Microsoft has broken the law, they should be held accountable.
Like some others here, I find it hard to believe that you can say that Microsoft "acquired their position by developing products their customers want and marketing them effectively" - IF you have read and understood Jackson's Findings of Fact. It is clear to me from the finding that Judge Jackson has a very clear and deep understanding of both the technical and economic issues involved. The finding is a veritable primer on the interplay among technology, protocols, interfaces, standards, and the marketplace; and by understanding these things in such depth, Jackson has been able to see clearly (and to explain in his finding) exactly how Microsoft has abused its monopoly power to crush its competitors and harm consumers. You need to remember that under U.S. antitrust law, Microsoft has, as a monopoly, a different set of obligations and a different standard to meet. Practices which might be legal for other companies are not legal for a monopoly. So even if Microsoft "has done nothing that other companies don't do", it is not just that they are better at it - for them (as a monopoly) it is illegal.