Who else has published this news? I'm all for it if it's true, because it has the potential to immensely increase visibility for the Creative Commons project. I'd just like to see some other sources for verification.
As far as the direct impact of Wikipedia's usability from a sharing-of-content perspective, I don't really see it making a huge difference. I'm not a lawyer, though, and haven't spent time comparing the two licensing models in detail. Anyone care to comment?
Are you suggesting that some profitable new market will emerge from FOSS users that will convince Apple to change its sales strategy to target "people who don't want to pay for things" as opposed to "people to pay a premium for higher end products"?
No, I'm suggesting that Apple might change its sales strategy to support people who don't mind paying for things (i.e. buying the iPhone in the first place) but want a choice in telco carriers.
Without a service subsidy (and it is a subsidy, even if AT&T is paying Apple rather than the customer), can you imagine a scenario where the iPhone would cost $399 unlocked? Does it look like any other new $399 phones? Which $399 phones have 8GB of RAM and a large touch screen?
So a little healthy competition in service subsidy rates from multiple carriers wouldn't be good for Apple? They could put their weight behind "preferred carriers" this way.
The only phones I can see that are comparable hardware wise with the iPhone are high end phones from Nokia, HTC and others which cost around $800. Sure you might be able to find a discounted model that has been around for a year (and has already made its "new" profit) and has an upfront subsidy that reduces the price to the consumer, but there are no $399 touch screen wireless computers that can be manufactured new at a profit. Apple is clearly getting AT&T to subsidize the cost of hardware for consumers.
Refer again to competition among wireless providers, and combine it with the prospect of a more open platform for developers. If Carrier X developed a set of value-added solutions centered around the iPhone, and hence landed more iPhone customers, that carrier would have a definite financial interest in either supporting their existing subsidies to Apple or even increasing them. I know of many cases where certain wireless providers offer specialized services on their networks.
That being the case, how will Apple be convinced by a surge of interest behind making it easier to cheat the company out of its AT&T subsidy and destroying its bargaining chip with service providers? I'm sure you're all about freedom, but how is it you expect Apple to be persuaded here?
I don't have all the answers here, but I do know that consumers want more choices. We'll have to see how everything plays out.
Thank heavens we have a ton of security firms who make a living finding holes in both open and closed source software and publishing the results. Of course, their work is just a bit easier if the source is available, and it's just slightly easier to write a patch that solves the problem;). I guess my main point is this: it isn't just the average user who looks at the source code for high-profile projects.
A well-organized project centered around the unlock software, with a large community base, might help persuade Apple that their heart (read: business interests) wouldn't be in the right place if they continued to resist such trends.
Files sent to a mobile are relatively small now. My home computer had 64 MB of RAM in it several years ago, as well.
On a different point, with all the news going around about ISPs screwing around with P2P traffic, how long before some wireless ISP comes out with a fantastic data plan, but starts choking off protocols as they see fit?
Competition will eventually result in much broader availability of "unlimited" data plans for mobile devices, the same way competition allows MetroPCS to thrive in several major metro markets offerings unlimited local and long distance calling for $50 a month.
My cat crapped in the litter box about half an hour ago. We'd better be careful to carefully consider the implications of this statistically correlated data and guard against its improper release and use!
Quoth the poster: While this is yet another technical issue with the ISS, when will this end? I am all for the space program, but there have been some major issues lately.
Yet another round of bugs were discovered in several major operating systems and userland packages. I'm all for operating systems, user software, and advances in computing technology. but there have been some major issues lately. I vote we give up and go back to the abacus and using smoke signals to communicate.
Why depend on Fortune 500 companies to provide large volumes of data to researchers? They provide data comprised of alphanumeric character sequences, punctuation, etc, right? There's a better way that provides that plus a more complete representation of the entire character set! Every UNIX-based machine comes with a built in data generator:/dev/random
(depending on your machine, your mileage may vary with the quality of the data).
This is kinda like saying security researchers are to blame for discovering and publishing weaknesses in software. Responsible citizens just pretend everything is fine and wait for someone really bad to discover the same weaknesses and exploit them. Because it's so much easier chasing down criminals than it is to fix problems in the first place by adopting better security practices. I guess we could just arrest all researchers who publicize uncomfortable truths. What's the number to Adobe's legal department? I'm sure they still have a few district attorneys on speed dial...
You've got it all wrong... "Goolgle" is clearly evil, since whoever they are, they're obviously trying to get rich quick on typos made by the most awesome company on the planet (Google).
Google would never stoop to such measures, another example shining example of why "Google" ne "evil"
If companies don't do a thorough enough job of sanitizing statistical data before releasing it, they have to be prepared to deal with the consequences. I'm all for maintaining research access to large volumes of real-world data, but it does need to be obtained through responsible channels.
All that said, I think an interesting question is: How can we build systems that appropriately compensate companies for access to their data, with strict enforcement of measures designed to thwart misuse of the data? Posters above have given links to research that provides frameworks for making sure data is safe for release; how would a good wrapper for such a system work to incorporate rewards for companies who participate?
All humor aside, kinda makes one wonder how long draconian enforcement measures would last in Canada if (a) this sort of garbage became law, and (b) average Canadians started getting hurt by the consequences of something as simple as making a personal backup of something covered under the legislation. My bet is: not nearly as long as we in America have tolerated incidents of similar severity, but I could be very sadly mistaken. For now there's always the optimistic view, right? Time will tell, I suppose.
A you saying it's entirely possible that in the very near future Canadians might start envying American digital rights liberties? I think my head is going to explode...
This is why it's destructive to classify people based on some perceived innate intelligence or lack thereof.
I couldn't possibly agree more. My parents, and most of the adults in my life significant to my formative years, never made any assumptions regarding what I was or wasn't capable of. They did encourage me to view any challenge as a game, and rewarded me with a lot of positive support when I figured something out. I grew up in the 80's on PBS, with shows like Nova that sparked tons of curiosity about the world around me. My parents encouraged me to read as much as possible, and talked to me regularly about what I had read. They never said, "Oh, that book is a little ahead of you right now" or other such nonsense. I was never told I couldn't do something, so I wound up able to do a lot more than most of my peers at times. My father gave me an AT&T PC-6300 as kid, with a DOS command reference, GW-BASIC programmer's guide, and C compiler/programmer's guide. He told me if I wanted more software, I could just learn how to write it myself, so I did:). A couple of years later, I discovered the world of BBSes and things evolved rather exponentially from there.
In my opinion, a parent's role in fostering a thirst for knowledge and a creative outlook on life cannot be stressed enough. Now I'm "all grown up" and married, trying for a child of my own. I sincerely hope to be at least half the positive influence my parents were when it comes to learning and exploration of the amazing universe we live in.
Thank you for your feedback, sir!:) I think democracy takes time to germinate and grow. My hope is that as nations and their respective component societies become ever more densely interconnected, the notions of free thought and expression, democratic representation, etc will firmly take root in places where these views are presently not the norm. We're seeing it happen in the populace at large in China. Unfortunately, what little *real* press available to the civilian community regarding Chinese government responses to "anti-government views" are pretty depressing. I believe there are direct parallels in Iraqi affairs, admittedly with a much more violent tone. The Iraqi people are much earlier in the steps toward democracy; they're basically starting over from scratch infrastructure-wise, while trying to hold on to cultural views that they've held for thousands of years. The results are frequently pretty ugly.
I think it bears remembering that the circumstances leading up to America's Revolutionary War, as chaotic as we may think it was with the harshly opposing views held by Loyalists and those who wished to form a new nation, pale in comparison to the radical differences in views among cultures in the Middle East (although significant foreign influence from other European nations was a major factor during the Revolutionary War as well). All things change in time, when the time is right for a society. I don't think it's really possible to predict when that time will be with respect to large-scale change when it comes to any particular ethnic group, nation, etc. We in America have a hard enough time figuring out what's going on at home, let alone overseas in a culture most people barely understand at all, so I understand the frustration people feel with our present status in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some would say I'm an optimist for saying that things always work out right in the end, but I'm really expressing the view that certain trends are inevitable, if you give things enough time to evolve. I try to focus on doing my own job well, living a decent life, and helping what I can help. It's all I can do.
Admittedly, my post is very Navy-cetric when it comes to personnel operations in the field (or on the seas, as it were). We have some groups that operate much more independently, making tactical decisions at a lower level (i.e. SEAL and SWIC teams), but it's not the norm for most of the Navy. I do maintain that in the field immediate flexibility on the part of any operator (whatever his/her decision making capabilities may be) combined with basic combat tools is, in many cases, more important than having the latest information technology resources available. Just having enough warm bodies to provide adequate coverage for any mission is probably the single most important factor.
This is exactly right, in my opinion. It's the reason we have huge numbers of active duty Navy personnel serving on the ground as members of Marine Corp and Army units as Individual Augmentees. The requirement for a large number of highly trained boots on the ground is absolute.
Slashdot Mirror
I had mis-clicked the link to the blog post, so I missed the verifying link :). Video verification, no less...
Who else has published this news? I'm all for it if it's true, because it has the potential to immensely increase visibility for the Creative Commons project. I'd just like to see some other sources for verification.
As far as the direct impact of Wikipedia's usability from a sharing-of-content perspective, I don't really see it making a huge difference. I'm not a lawyer, though, and haven't spent time comparing the two licensing models in detail. Anyone care to comment?
Are you suggesting that some profitable new market will emerge from FOSS users that will convince Apple to change its sales strategy to target "people who don't want to pay for things" as opposed to "people to pay a premium for higher end products"?
No, I'm suggesting that Apple might change its sales strategy to support people who don't mind paying for things (i.e. buying the iPhone in the first place) but want a choice in telco carriers.
Without a service subsidy (and it is a subsidy, even if AT&T is paying Apple rather than the customer), can you imagine a scenario where the iPhone would cost $399 unlocked? Does it look like any other new $399 phones? Which $399 phones have 8GB of RAM and a large touch screen?
So a little healthy competition in service subsidy rates from multiple carriers wouldn't be good for Apple? They could put their weight behind "preferred carriers" this way.
The only phones I can see that are comparable hardware wise with the iPhone are high end phones from Nokia, HTC and others which cost around $800. Sure you might be able to find a discounted model that has been around for a year (and has already made its "new" profit) and has an upfront subsidy that reduces the price to the consumer, but there are no $399 touch screen wireless computers that can be manufactured new at a profit. Apple is clearly getting AT&T to subsidize the cost of hardware for consumers.
Refer again to competition among wireless providers, and combine it with the prospect of a more open platform for developers. If Carrier X developed a set of value-added solutions centered around the iPhone, and hence landed more iPhone customers, that carrier would have a definite financial interest in either supporting their existing subsidies to Apple or even increasing them. I know of many cases where certain wireless providers offer specialized services on their networks.
That being the case, how will Apple be convinced by a surge of interest behind making it easier to cheat the company out of its AT&T subsidy and destroying its bargaining chip with service providers? I'm sure you're all about freedom, but how is it you expect Apple to be persuaded here?
I don't have all the answers here, but I do know that consumers want more choices. We'll have to see how everything plays out.
Thank heavens we have a ton of security firms who make a living finding holes in both open and closed source software and publishing the results. Of course, their work is just a bit easier if the source is available, and it's just slightly easier to write a patch that solves the problem ;). I guess my main point is this: it isn't just the average user who looks at the source code for high-profile projects.
Followed by a spike in iPod sales the following week.
Could we also safely say "followed by a spike in Zune returns the following week" ???
A well-organized project centered around the unlock software, with a large community base, might help persuade Apple that their heart (read: business interests) wouldn't be in the right place if they continued to resist such trends.
Too much work to add characters in the right places. I've got a surefire method for implementing iPlayer in Perl:
#!/usr/bin/perl
system 'iplayer';
Files sent to a mobile are relatively small now. My home computer had 64 MB of RAM in it several years ago, as well.
On a different point, with all the news going around about ISPs screwing around with P2P traffic, how long before some wireless ISP comes out with a fantastic data plan, but starts choking off protocols as they see fit?
Competition will eventually result in much broader availability of "unlimited" data plans for mobile devices, the same way competition allows MetroPCS to thrive in several major metro markets offerings unlimited local and long distance calling for $50 a month.
My cat crapped in the litter box about half an hour ago. We'd better be careful to carefully consider the implications of this statistically correlated data and guard against its improper release and use!
Quoth the poster: While this is yet another technical issue with the ISS, when will this end? I am all for the space program, but there have been some major issues lately.
Yet another round of bugs were discovered in several major operating systems and userland packages. I'm all for operating systems, user software, and advances in computing technology. but there have been some major issues lately. I vote we give up and go back to the abacus and using smoke signals to communicate.
Why depend on Fortune 500 companies to provide large volumes of data to researchers? They provide data comprised of alphanumeric character sequences, punctuation, etc, right? There's a better way that provides that plus a more complete representation of the entire character set! Every UNIX-based machine comes with a built in data generator: /dev/random
(depending on your machine, your mileage may vary with the quality of the data).
This is kinda like saying security researchers are to blame for discovering and publishing weaknesses in software. Responsible citizens just pretend everything is fine and wait for someone really bad to discover the same weaknesses and exploit them. Because it's so much easier chasing down criminals than it is to fix problems in the first place by adopting better security practices. I guess we could just arrest all researchers who publicize uncomfortable truths. What's the number to Adobe's legal department? I'm sure they still have a few district attorneys on speed dial...
Goolgle != evil
You've got it all wrong... "Goolgle" is clearly evil, since whoever they are, they're obviously trying to get rich quick on typos made by the most awesome company on the planet (Google).
Google would never stoop to such measures, another example shining example of why "Google" ne "evil"
If companies don't do a thorough enough job of sanitizing statistical data before releasing it, they have to be prepared to deal with the consequences. I'm all for maintaining research access to large volumes of real-world data, but it does need to be obtained through responsible channels.
All that said, I think an interesting question is: How can we build systems that appropriately compensate companies for access to their data, with strict enforcement of measures designed to thwart misuse of the data? Posters above have given links to research that provides frameworks for making sure data is safe for release; how would a good wrapper for such a system work to incorporate rewards for companies who participate?
It's worth referencing this recent /. article on a similar topic. Wonder how many parallels or ideas we can draw from both...
The real coming out party ...
I didn't know CalDav swung that way. You never can tell these days...
All humor aside, kinda makes one wonder how long draconian enforcement measures would last in Canada if (a) this sort of garbage became law, and (b) average Canadians started getting hurt by the consequences of something as simple as making a personal backup of something covered under the legislation. My bet is: not nearly as long as we in America have tolerated incidents of similar severity, but I could be very sadly mistaken. For now there's always the optimistic view, right? Time will tell, I suppose.
A you saying it's entirely possible that in the very near future Canadians might start envying American digital rights liberties? I think my head is going to explode...
This is why it's destructive to classify people based on some perceived innate intelligence or lack thereof.
:). A couple of years later, I discovered the world of BBSes and things evolved rather exponentially from there.
I couldn't possibly agree more. My parents, and most of the adults in my life significant to my formative years, never made any assumptions regarding what I was or wasn't capable of. They did encourage me to view any challenge as a game, and rewarded me with a lot of positive support when I figured something out. I grew up in the 80's on PBS, with shows like Nova that sparked tons of curiosity about the world around me. My parents encouraged me to read as much as possible, and talked to me regularly about what I had read. They never said, "Oh, that book is a little ahead of you right now" or other such nonsense. I was never told I couldn't do something, so I wound up able to do a lot more than most of my peers at times. My father gave me an AT&T PC-6300 as kid, with a DOS command reference, GW-BASIC programmer's guide, and C compiler/programmer's guide. He told me if I wanted more software, I could just learn how to write it myself, so I did
In my opinion, a parent's role in fostering a thirst for knowledge and a creative outlook on life cannot be stressed enough. Now I'm "all grown up" and married, trying for a child of my own. I sincerely hope to be at least half the positive influence my parents were when it comes to learning and exploration of the amazing universe we live in.
If you support this sort of action, please take the time to contact EMI with your opinion:
EMI Group Limited
27 Wrights Lane
London
W8 5SW
Tel: +44 (0)20 7795 7000
Maybe try Google.ru? Perhaps they haven't, ahem... filtered their directory content as comprehensively (cue the obligatory Soviet Russia jokes)...
Thank you for your feedback, sir! :) I think democracy takes time to germinate and grow. My hope is that as nations and their respective component societies become ever more densely interconnected, the notions of free thought and expression, democratic representation, etc will firmly take root in places where these views are presently not the norm. We're seeing it happen in the populace at large in China. Unfortunately, what little *real* press available to the civilian community regarding Chinese government responses to "anti-government views" are pretty depressing. I believe there are direct parallels in Iraqi affairs, admittedly with a much more violent tone. The Iraqi people are much earlier in the steps toward democracy; they're basically starting over from scratch infrastructure-wise, while trying to hold on to cultural views that they've held for thousands of years. The results are frequently pretty ugly.
I think it bears remembering that the circumstances leading up to America's Revolutionary War, as chaotic as we may think it was with the harshly opposing views held by Loyalists and those who wished to form a new nation, pale in comparison to the radical differences in views among cultures in the Middle East (although significant foreign influence from other European nations was a major factor during the Revolutionary War as well). All things change in time, when the time is right for a society. I don't think it's really possible to predict when that time will be with respect to large-scale change when it comes to any particular ethnic group, nation, etc. We in America have a hard enough time figuring out what's going on at home, let alone overseas in a culture most people barely understand at all, so I understand the frustration people feel with our present status in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some would say I'm an optimist for saying that things always work out right in the end, but I'm really expressing the view that certain trends are inevitable, if you give things enough time to evolve. I try to focus on doing my own job well, living a decent life, and helping what I can help. It's all I can do.
Admittedly, my post is very Navy-cetric when it comes to personnel operations in the field (or on the seas, as it were). We have some groups that operate much more independently, making tactical decisions at a lower level (i.e. SEAL and SWIC teams), but it's not the norm for most of the Navy. I do maintain that in the field immediate flexibility on the part of any operator (whatever his/her decision making capabilities may be) combined with basic combat tools is, in many cases, more important than having the latest information technology resources available. Just having enough warm bodies to provide adequate coverage for any mission is probably the single most important factor.
This is exactly right, in my opinion. It's the reason we have huge numbers of active duty Navy personnel serving on the ground as members of Marine Corp and Army units as Individual Augmentees. The requirement for a large number of highly trained boots on the ground is absolute.
That's okay about the antenna... I pay for a premium cable package that only my wife ever watches. Funny, eh?