While this was just a kid trying to steal some software, it's clearly a symptom of a MUCH bigger problem. Now is the time to act on this sort of potential, before the full scope of ramifications become clear.
1) We must legislate mandatory copy-protection into all commercial software. Perhaps all software, in fact. 2) All storage devices most especially portable ones, must have a double license verification check on all copy operations. If you copy a file from one device (a computer) to another (an iPod), _both_ devices must independently verify the vailidity of copying/running that software on both machines, through a central license authority. 3) Legislation must be introduced to require all new file formats to incorporate licensing checks. "Free" files (however you want to interpret free) must be so marked within the file. 4) All new applications will be required to write only in approved licenseable formats. Within five years after the introduction of these formats, new pplications should no longer read old pre-license formats. 5) Hardware must be legally required to support this licensing and copy-protection scheme. All non-compliant hardware will have to be turned into the appropriate depots for disposal, after a similar 'sunset' period (five years again, perhaps).
Only in this way can we foster software innovation, encourage development, and drive technology forward. Guaranteeing security for developers in this was is a necessity, and the only way we can prevent computer piracy.
Arresting criminals doesn't work--if it did, we wouldn't have crime anymore! What we have to do is eliminate any possibility of crimes being committed in the first place, at any cost.
Normally I can let the "Linux/Unix" equivalencies go past without commenting. However in this case, the very discussion is about something that differs substantially between Linux and Unix. How???
1) DOCUMENTATION!!! All Unix implementations (Solaris, HPUX, AIX, etc. etc.) come with complete, comprehensive, current documentation. Linux documentation is unfortunately still a bad joke. This makes for enormous problems when configuring the system.
2) Built-in tools. Admitedly most of the Unix vendors can control their hardware which makes configuring it much easier, but consider Solaris/X86 (RIP) vs. the ugly mess of trying to get RedHat 7.x up and running. Actually, there are only a few things in RH that are particularly bad, such as XFree86. Of course, that's Someone Else's Program, so they're more or less stuck with how it works (badly!).
3) Consistency/standards. Unix works in a fairly consistent way. Applications don't always follow the same way. Example: How many applications that require a daemon started at boottime put a script directly into rc2.d instead of init.d? Or just start the daemon, ignoring start/stop flags? TOO many, that's for sure!
I could keep going, but this is already dangerously close to a 'what's wrong with Linux' rant, and I don't want to get into that just now. It's good, but it's not there yet and IT'S NOT UNIX!
I didn't see anything about how useless computers were in this article. Rather, how they were potentially squeezing out the most basic and fundamental parts of childhood--colouring, learning to write, playing with blocks, basic math (WITHOUT a calculator!), and so forth.
The point is well taken--education shouldn't be about teaching one item to the exclusion of all others, _especially_ at the early levels. Furthermore, kids won't be able to avoid computers--they're everywhere these days. Spending six hours a day at school without them isn't going to stunt their 'digital growth' in the least, but it _may_ make them more rounded (and better educated) individuals, who understand the importance of an apostrophe.
'Tain't R&D. It's marketing and management. R&D does what they're told, but all the good R&D folks I can think of know perfectly well how stupid this is.
Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do to keep your job. (i.e. until a better one is available, or at least a less sleazy one)
This technology won't affect telecommuting much. High speed internet access has had _some_ effect, but not nearly as much as you might think. Basically, it seems to get chopped down like this:
1) Consider the number of people whose jobs can effectively be done remotely.
2) Take the subset of those people who (a) want to telecommute, and (b) honestly know (or believe) that they can effectively work from home.
3) Take from that group, the further subset who have managers which will _let_ them work from home.
There are not nearly as many people who fall into category (1) as we're led to believe. Most of us need some sort of day to day interaction to get our jobs done. The number of people who meet all three criteria are remarkably small. If technology triples the number of people who have the potential to work from home, it's not going to make a substantial increase in the percentage of people who actually do so. It's more of a societal and work-structure cause, rather than a technological limitation.
OK, first of all the '...people convicted of theft..." comment is a non sequitor. It matters not a bit how they have (or have not) been punished to judge the punishment in this case.
Secondly, all I can say about your 'insensitivity' comment is, "been there, done that." A close friend in university was 'sentenced' to 100 hours of community service (in her fourth year of honours biochemistry!) because like every other student in the department, she had an illegal key to the front door of the building. Fair? No. But she survived, and so did I as I spent many of those 100 hours with her. As for the monetary fine, I just (today!) paid a fine for $150 because after getting off the subway on my way home, I threw out my ticket before leaving the station!!! Is THAT fair? Not bloody likely! However, it happened.
I know these aren't the same amounts, and that they didn't happen at the same time, and that one of them didn't even happen to me, and it's a weak comparison. The philosophy is similar though: In all of these cases, someone (me, my friend, McOwen) violated the letter of the law, regardless of the spirit. In McOwen's case, he could have potentially spend half of his life in jail! THAT is why I say that a minor financial penalty and a minor community service duty and no criminal record is a slap on the wrist.
What he was charged with was outrageous, and I would have been the first to scream it from the rooftops. BUT...
1) He didn't lose that job--he resigned. (He lost his next job as a result, something I consider reprehensible, if not illegal on the company's part)
2) Legal fees? They settled, and he was going to be represented by the EFF, I believe. In this case, I don't think he was out of pocket for the whole event.
3) Let's not forget that no matter how harmless it is, he did use the computers in a manner that his employer didn't approve.
My point was that he could have been nailed to the cross, and wasn't. Once the suit was in place, there was very little chance of him getting a lesser penalty than what he achieved. All things considered, not bad.
Hacking in??? What version of the case did you read?!
He installed unauthorised and inappropriate software. Same thing could have happened if he'd installed Quake, but only played it during off hours.
Regardless of the end goal (research?), SETI is effectively entertainment software from the client side. It serves no useful function for the company whose machines he ran it on.
He deserved and got a slap on the wrist. Not a bad settlement all round.
You're absolutely right. In this case, export restrictions _did_ make the encryption breakable.
However, I have to ask: Does it matter? On the one hand, none of this was discovered until after the fact. Yeah it's evidence, but rather than collecting evidence for (failed in this case) crimes that have already been committed, we should be stopping crime. I don't see how stronger or weaker encryption would have made any difference there.
Or taken from another angle, 40-bit encryption was perfectly sufficient because it did the job--it kept the information out of the wrong hands until after the attack. That the attack was unsuccessful is irrelevant. All they can do now is prosecute someone who was planning on being dead already.
"HP board of directors take my advice. Dump Fiorina and sell that stupid aircraft she bought with your money..."
Best damned thinking I've read on/. in a while. Bravo!
Carly had a great track record when she first came to HP, but she has done nothing but damage to that fine company. How much money did they spend to come up with a whole new logo that looks almost exactly like the old one (except that it's a bit squished now, and says, "invent")? TOO DAMNED MUCH!
Putting an engineer in charge of a company like HP might be untenable, but for Gods' sake, at least get a business manager who knows which end of a screwdriver to hold!
I've considered the population density argument in the past, and still think it's a red herring--even you agree that public transport makes good sense in cities.
But how big does a city need to be to have an effective transportation system? Sure, Chicago and New York are (apparently) excellent. So is the Bay Area. LA's system isn't that great, though--certainly not for an urban area of its size and population. I lived in San Diego for two years, and their transit system would be an embarassment for a city 1/3 the size! Boulder, the 'pride and joy of alternate transportation,' has a decent system. Not great, but decent.
Note that all of these comparisons are based on the opinion of a Canadian--not of a European.
I think that the biggest reason public transit won't work in the US is that people don't _want_ it to work (and don't want to put money into it, and...); and the biggest reason that people don't want it to work is that they're put off by the current, dysfunctional systems.
Unfortunately, this is a fact of life in North America. (Canada is a bit better than the US, but not enough so) Public transport is awkward, unwieldy, and slow, so not many people take it--and of course then it doesn't get funding to improve.
Where I'm living now (Calgary, AB) transit is quite good. If you work downtown, you'll most likely take the train in, with 65% of the core working population. That's some effective use of public transport! Unfortunately, not many cities are this good.
Ah, the classic American attitude. "They'll pry my car keys from my cold, dead fingers."
Here's a thought: These cars would be centrally controlled, meaning they could be electric or hybrid vehicles which steer themselves, instead of monster SUVs or badly tuned '72 Datsuns driven by psychopaths and invalids.
Or in other words,
"Why are most AMERICANS so hung up on their cars?"
. 1. Does that m[e]an public libraries cant lend copies Yes, this is exactly what it means.
1.a Does this mean you can['t] lend CD Again, exactly right--assuming I correctly interpreted "can" as a typo.
2. As I understand, we Are allowed to make a copy for ourselves. According to US and international law, yes. According to this license "agreement," no.
This license is currently illegal. Either it's going to be ruled invalid, or the law will be changed to accomodate it. I hope for the former, but expect the latter.
We all read the article here a few days ago, right? Philips is starting to vigorously defend their trademarks and such on CDDA, logos, and so forth. I believe that CD (Compact Disc) is also a Philips-owned name, and these THINGS don't comply at all! The fact that their FAQ section calls them CDs repeatedly should be enough to get their asses into court.
Nope. I disagree. If Roxio told Gracenote to stick it, then Gracenote would have beaten them into the ground in court. It does not often matter in court who is right, just who wins. Furthermore, "winning" in many cases (and this one would most likely have been one) consists entirely of whoever is left standing the longest.
Roxio like any other company has a responsibility to themselves to survive[1]. They probably wouldn't have if they had continued to refuse Gracenote's overtures.
[1] A company's responsibility to survive is arguably their single most important one--certainly it's the most important responsibility to themselves. I would argue that their responsibility to not harm society or the planet is a greater responsibility, but that's a very huge and not straightforward argument.
"It is currently unknown if light is a wave or a particle..."
That's a bit of a harsh overstatement, or perhaps a misstatement.
It would be more accurate to say that waves or particles are fairly irrelevant and incorrect descriptions of what an electron (or anything on that scale) actually "is," HOWEVER are very good descriptors of its behaviour in different cases or equations.
Oh, come on. So Roxio let you down--let's not forget that it was Gracenote that they caved in to, and that Gracenote is the entity that locked down the database.
Don't slam Roxio too hard--they're little more than a middleman who tried to fight and backed down when they saw the writing on the wall. Save your venom for Gracenote.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that it doesn't matter. It does--especially a hard science degree. However, most of the ways that it does matter aren't going to be duplicated by a piece of paper from a degree mill, and it _is_ possible to get as far without a degree at all. The real question is whether you're better off spending four years in school and two years getting back into the marketplace, or spending six years working.
First some background. I have a degree in organic chemistry, and made the jump to computers because the opportunity was there. My salary has since doubled (in three years), I'm heading towards a senior consulting role, my company is paying for 4-5 courses/year (actually eight this year, but it was an exceptional year), and the sky is the limit from my point of view.
Computing is still a field where a degree isn't mandatory. It's possible to get by (and even thrive) on determination and ability, if you're willing to work hard at it. Having a degree is better than not, and having a computing degree is better than another one, but nothing will preclude you from going as far as you want with one caveat--grad school. (more in a minute on that)
As far as the "fast track degrees," if it's the sort that I'm thinking of ("Start A New And Rewarding Career In Computers In Your Spare Time!!!!!") then don't bother! Nobody in their right mind takes them seriously. If you want some paper, take vendor courses and exams and become a "certified" Sun/HP/Linux/Whatever admin. If you can put that on your resume', it'll show more prominently than a degree from Bob's Computer College and Used Car Sales.
The one case where a degree is almost critical is if you want to go on to get a Master's or Doctorate. The problem there is again that a degree from one of these colleges isn't going to help much.
If you feel the need for a degree (and there are very good reasons for it), then take a deep breath, pull out your chequebook, and spend four years at it.
As far as I can tell, you've completely missed two salient points.
1) OS/2. The UI stomped all over Windows (3.1 or later on, 95). It was simply better in all respects. It was also no 'heavier' than Win95--IBM was just more honest about the requirements.
OS/2 failed for the simple reason of incompetent marketing, and nothing else.
2) "...or a facsimile..." WRONG! You're right that people are interested in applications rather than OSes, but something with similar functionality will not convince someone to change--it has to have the same UI and the (nearly) identical usability items. If it works 10x better than Excel but looks utterly unfamiliar, then it won't get used by more than a tiny percent of the marketplace. Maybe three years ago, but not now.
"To be really illegal, Sony would have to claim that the PS2 works with all music CDs..."
Ah, there's the crux of it.
If they produce something that has the "CD/Digital Audio" it MUST either support (for playback) or conform to (for the media) the Red Book standard.
If their player doesn't play redbook audio discs, then it's not a CD player. If their discs don't play on a standard-supporting player, then they're not CD/Digital Audio format discs.
The true legal question is this: If a disc is labelled as a "CD" but doesn't say "CD/Digital Audio," then will the customer's percecption of it as a (normal, 'real') CD open Sony (or whoever) up to legal attack? It should, if there's any justice.
"...with few, if any of them, actually auditing the code for security holes before installing it to protect their mission-critical data."
While I agree with your post, you bring up an interesting point here. The huge benefit of open source (being able to read/audit/modify the code) is almost completely untapped by nearly all of the people who actually use it day-to-day.
BUT, I can audit code by proxy. I know that there are people auditing and rewriting the code, and by following the newsgroups (etc.), I can see if they've come up with anything crucial. It's not perfect, but it _is_ a form of code audit.
Of course, this isn't going to stand up to a complex conspiracy, but I just don't see that being too big of a concern.
Slashdot Mirror
While this was just a kid trying to steal some software, it's clearly a symptom of a MUCH bigger problem. Now is the time to act on this sort of potential, before the full scope of ramifications become clear.
1) We must legislate mandatory copy-protection into all commercial software. Perhaps all software, in fact.
2) All storage devices most especially portable ones, must have a double license verification check on all copy operations. If you copy a file from one device (a computer) to another (an iPod), _both_ devices must independently verify the vailidity of copying/running that software on both machines, through a central license authority.
3) Legislation must be introduced to require all new file formats to incorporate licensing checks. "Free" files (however you want to interpret free) must be so marked within the file.
4) All new applications will be required to write only in approved licenseable formats. Within five years after the introduction of these formats, new pplications should no longer read old pre-license formats.
5) Hardware must be legally required to support this licensing and copy-protection scheme. All non-compliant hardware will have to be turned into the appropriate depots for disposal, after a similar 'sunset' period (five years again, perhaps).
Only in this way can we foster software innovation, encourage development, and drive technology forward. Guaranteeing security for developers in this was is a necessity, and the only way we can prevent computer piracy.
Arresting criminals doesn't work--if it did, we wouldn't have crime anymore! What we have to do is eliminate any possibility of crimes being committed in the first place, at any cost.
Normally I can let the "Linux/Unix" equivalencies go past without commenting. However in this case, the very discussion is about something that differs substantially between Linux and Unix. How???
1) DOCUMENTATION!!! All Unix implementations (Solaris, HPUX, AIX, etc. etc.) come with complete, comprehensive, current documentation. Linux documentation is unfortunately still a bad joke. This makes for enormous problems when configuring the system.
2) Built-in tools. Admitedly most of the Unix vendors can control their hardware which makes configuring it much easier, but consider Solaris/X86 (RIP) vs. the ugly mess of trying to get RedHat 7.x up and running. Actually, there are only a few things in RH that are particularly bad, such as XFree86. Of course, that's Someone Else's Program, so they're more or less stuck with how it works (badly!).
3) Consistency/standards. Unix works in a fairly consistent way. Applications don't always follow the same way. Example: How many applications that require a daemon started at boottime put a script directly into rc2.d instead of init.d? Or just start the daemon, ignoring start/stop flags? TOO many, that's for sure!
I could keep going, but this is already dangerously close to a 'what's wrong with Linux' rant, and I don't want to get into that just now. It's good, but it's not there yet and IT'S NOT UNIX!
I didn't see anything about how useless computers were in this article. Rather, how they were potentially squeezing out the most basic and fundamental parts of childhood--colouring, learning to write, playing with blocks, basic math (WITHOUT a calculator!), and so forth.
The point is well taken--education shouldn't be about teaching one item to the exclusion of all others, _especially_ at the early levels. Furthermore, kids won't be able to avoid computers--they're everywhere these days. Spending six hours a day at school without them isn't going to stunt their 'digital growth' in the least, but it _may_ make them more rounded (and better educated) individuals, who understand the importance of an apostrophe.
'Tain't R&D. It's marketing and management. R&D does what they're told, but all the good R&D folks I can think of know perfectly well how stupid this is.
Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do to keep your job. (i.e. until a better one is available, or at least a less sleazy one)
This technology won't affect telecommuting much. High speed internet access has had _some_ effect, but not nearly as much as you might think. Basically, it seems to get chopped down like this:
1) Consider the number of people whose jobs can effectively be done remotely.
2) Take the subset of those people who (a) want to telecommute, and (b) honestly know (or believe) that they can effectively work from home.
3) Take from that group, the further subset who have managers which will _let_ them work from home.
There are not nearly as many people who fall into category (1) as we're led to believe. Most of us need some sort of day to day interaction to get our jobs done. The number of people who meet all three criteria are remarkably small. If technology triples the number of people who have the potential to work from home, it's not going to make a substantial increase in the percentage of people who actually do so. It's more of a societal and work-structure cause, rather than a technological limitation.
OK, first of all the '...people convicted of theft..." comment is a non sequitor. It matters not a bit how they have (or have not) been punished to judge the punishment in this case.
Secondly, all I can say about your 'insensitivity' comment is, "been there, done that." A close friend in university was 'sentenced' to 100 hours of community service (in her fourth year of honours biochemistry!) because like every other student in the department, she had an illegal key to the front door of the building. Fair? No. But she survived, and so did I as I spent many of those 100 hours with her. As for the monetary fine, I just (today!) paid a fine for $150 because after getting off the subway on my way home, I threw out my ticket before leaving the station!!! Is THAT fair? Not bloody likely! However, it happened.
I know these aren't the same amounts, and that they didn't happen at the same time, and that one of them didn't even happen to me, and it's a weak comparison. The philosophy is similar though: In all of these cases, someone (me, my friend, McOwen) violated the letter of the law, regardless of the spirit. In McOwen's case, he could have potentially spend half of his life in jail! THAT is why I say that a minor financial penalty and a minor community service duty and no criminal record is a slap on the wrist.
Charged, yes. Convicted, no.
What he was charged with was outrageous, and I would have been the first to scream it from the rooftops. BUT...
1) He didn't lose that job--he resigned. (He lost his next job as a result, something I consider reprehensible, if not illegal on the company's part)
2) Legal fees? They settled, and he was going to be represented by the EFF, I believe. In this case, I don't think he was out of pocket for the whole event.
3) Let's not forget that no matter how harmless it is, he did use the computers in a manner that his employer didn't approve.
My point was that he could have been nailed to the cross, and wasn't. Once the suit was in place, there was very little chance of him getting a lesser penalty than what he achieved. All things considered, not bad.
Hacking in??? What version of the case did you read?!
He installed unauthorised and inappropriate software. Same thing could have happened if he'd installed Quake, but only played it during off hours.
Regardless of the end goal (research?), SETI is effectively entertainment software from the client side. It serves no useful function for the company whose machines he ran it on.
He deserved and got a slap on the wrist. Not a bad settlement all round.
You're absolutely right. In this case, export restrictions _did_ make the encryption breakable.
However, I have to ask: Does it matter? On the one hand, none of this was discovered until after the fact. Yeah it's evidence, but rather than collecting evidence for (failed in this case) crimes that have already been committed, we should be stopping crime. I don't see how stronger or weaker encryption would have made any difference there.
Or taken from another angle, 40-bit encryption was perfectly sufficient because it did the job--it kept the information out of the wrong hands until after the attack. That the attack was unsuccessful is irrelevant. All they can do now is prosecute someone who was planning on being dead already.
"HP board of directors take my advice. Dump Fiorina and sell that stupid aircraft she bought with your money..."
/. in a while. Bravo!
Best damned thinking I've read on
Carly had a great track record when she first came to HP, but she has done nothing but damage to that fine company. How much money did they spend to come up with a whole new logo that looks almost exactly like the old one (except that it's a bit squished now, and says, "invent")? TOO DAMNED MUCH!
Putting an engineer in charge of a company like HP might be untenable, but for Gods' sake, at least get a business manager who knows which end of a screwdriver to hold!
Stronger than all of the above:
Jon Katz steganography.
I've considered the population density argument in the past, and still think it's a red herring--even you agree that public transport makes good sense in cities.
But how big does a city need to be to have an effective transportation system? Sure, Chicago and New York are (apparently) excellent. So is the Bay Area. LA's system isn't that great, though--certainly not for an urban area of its size and population. I lived in San Diego for two years, and their transit system would be an embarassment for a city 1/3 the size! Boulder, the 'pride and joy of alternate transportation,' has a decent system. Not great, but decent.
Note that all of these comparisons are based on the opinion of a Canadian--not of a European.
I think that the biggest reason public transit won't work in the US is that people don't _want_ it to work (and don't want to put money into it, and...); and the biggest reason that people don't want it to work is that they're put off by the current, dysfunctional systems.
Unfortunately, this is a fact of life in North America. (Canada is a bit better than the US, but not enough so) Public transport is awkward, unwieldy, and slow, so not many people take it--and of course then it doesn't get funding to improve.
Where I'm living now (Calgary, AB) transit is quite good. If you work downtown, you'll most likely take the train in, with 65% of the core working population. That's some effective use of public transport! Unfortunately, not many cities are this good.
Ah, the classic American attitude. "They'll pry my car keys from my cold, dead fingers."
Here's a thought: These cars would be centrally controlled, meaning they could be electric or hybrid vehicles which steer themselves, instead of monster SUVs or badly tuned '72 Datsuns driven by psychopaths and invalids.
Or in other words,
"Why are most AMERICANS so hung up on their cars?"
. 1. Does that m[e]an public libraries cant lend copies
Yes, this is exactly what it means.
1.a Does this mean you can['t] lend CD
Again, exactly right--assuming I correctly interpreted "can" as a typo.
2. As I understand, we Are allowed to make a copy for ourselves.
According to US and international law, yes. According to this license "agreement," no.
This license is currently illegal. Either it's going to be ruled invalid, or the law will be changed to accomodate it. I hope for the former, but expect the latter.
We all read the article here a few days ago, right? Philips is starting to vigorously defend their trademarks and such on CDDA, logos, and so forth. I believe that CD (Compact Disc) is also a Philips-owned name, and these THINGS don't comply at all! The fact that their FAQ section calls them CDs repeatedly should be enough to get their asses into court.
I hope.
Nope. I disagree. If Roxio told Gracenote to stick it, then Gracenote would have beaten them into the ground in court. It does not often matter in court who is right, just who wins. Furthermore, "winning" in many cases (and this one would most likely have been one) consists entirely of whoever is left standing the longest.
Roxio like any other company has a responsibility to themselves to survive[1]. They probably wouldn't have if they had continued to refuse Gracenote's overtures.
[1] A company's responsibility to survive is arguably their single most important one--certainly it's the most important responsibility to themselves. I would argue that their responsibility to not harm society or the planet is a greater responsibility, but that's a very huge and not straightforward argument.
"It is currently unknown if light is a wave or a particle..."
That's a bit of a harsh overstatement, or perhaps a misstatement.
It would be more accurate to say that waves or particles are fairly irrelevant and incorrect descriptions of what an electron (or anything on that scale) actually "is," HOWEVER are very good descriptors of its behaviour in different cases or equations.
Oh, come on. So Roxio let you down--let's not forget that it was Gracenote that they caved in to, and that Gracenote is the entity that locked down the database.
Don't slam Roxio too hard--they're little more than a middleman who tried to fight and backed down when they saw the writing on the wall. Save your venom for Gracenote.
"You're listening to WKRC in Cincinnati, my children. Let your soul be soothed by the mellow sounds of Venus."
Probably not many would remember that, but it struck me as funny.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that it doesn't matter. It does--especially a hard science degree. However, most of the ways that it does matter aren't going to be duplicated by a piece of paper from a degree mill, and it _is_ possible to get as far without a degree at all. The real question is whether you're better off spending four years in school and two years getting back into the marketplace, or spending six years working.
First some background. I have a degree in organic chemistry, and made the jump to computers because the opportunity was there. My salary has since doubled (in three years), I'm heading towards a senior consulting role, my company is paying for 4-5 courses/year (actually eight this year, but it was an exceptional year), and the sky is the limit from my point of view.
Computing is still a field where a degree isn't mandatory. It's possible to get by (and even thrive) on determination and ability, if you're willing to work hard at it. Having a degree is better than not, and having a computing degree is better than another one, but nothing will preclude you from going as far as you want with one caveat--grad school. (more in a minute on that)
As far as the "fast track degrees," if it's the sort that I'm thinking of ("Start A New And Rewarding Career In Computers In Your Spare Time!!!!!") then don't bother! Nobody in their right mind takes them seriously. If you want some paper, take vendor courses and exams and become a "certified" Sun/HP/Linux/Whatever admin. If you can put that on your resume', it'll show more prominently than a degree from Bob's Computer College and Used Car Sales.
The one case where a degree is almost critical is if you want to go on to get a Master's or Doctorate. The problem there is again that a degree from one of these colleges isn't going to help much.
If you feel the need for a degree (and there are very good reasons for it), then take a deep breath, pull out your chequebook, and spend four years at it.
As far as I can tell, you've completely missed two salient points.
1) OS/2. The UI stomped all over Windows (3.1 or later on, 95). It was simply better in all respects. It was also no 'heavier' than Win95--IBM was just more honest about the requirements.
OS/2 failed for the simple reason of incompetent marketing, and nothing else.
2) "...or a facsimile..." WRONG! You're right that people are interested in applications rather than OSes, but something with similar functionality will not convince someone to change--it has to have the same UI and the (nearly) identical usability items. If it works 10x better than Excel but looks utterly unfamiliar, then it won't get used by more than a tiny percent of the marketplace. Maybe three years ago, but not now.
"To be really illegal, Sony would have to claim that the PS2 works with all music CDs..."
Ah, there's the crux of it.
If they produce something that has the "CD/Digital Audio" it MUST either support (for playback) or conform to (for the media) the Red Book standard.
If their player doesn't play redbook audio discs, then it's not a CD player. If their discs don't play on a standard-supporting player, then they're not CD/Digital Audio format discs.
The true legal question is this: If a disc is labelled as a "CD" but doesn't say "CD/Digital Audio," then will the customer's percecption of it as a (normal, 'real') CD open Sony (or whoever) up to legal attack? It should, if there's any justice.
"...with few, if any of them, actually auditing the code for security holes before installing it to protect their mission-critical data."
While I agree with your post, you bring up an interesting point here. The huge benefit of open source (being able to read/audit/modify the code) is almost completely untapped by nearly all of the people who actually use it day-to-day.
BUT, I can audit code by proxy. I know that there are people auditing and rewriting the code, and by following the newsgroups (etc.), I can see if they've come up with anything crucial. It's not perfect, but it _is_ a form of code audit.
Of course, this isn't going to stand up to a complex conspiracy, but I just don't see that being too big of a concern.