This isn't about music. Music recordings represented as 1's and 0's have been around for years. This isn't about mp3's. mp3 is just a file format and it is destined to be outdated very soon and replaced with something even better. This isn't about copyright either.
This is really about a complete shift of power from the few to the many.
Information is power. He who controls the information has power. Even with today's internet where the average person has a louder voice then at any time in the history of mankind, a small group still controls access to the information. With some many people talking at once, its hard to find what you are looking for. Many of us rely on other's to silence all but what we are trying to find. It doesn't matter where the content ultimately resides if you have to go through a centrally controlled choke point, the information filter, the search engine.
The information internet is not a web, its more like a pyramid. No matter where you happen to be, in the quest for information, you will eventually travel up to the top of the pyramid to one of the search engines. It then filters out all but what it wants you to see. You have no way of knowing what you're missing.
Now we have napster and its clones. The central information filter has been removed from the equation. Instead of the large centralized indexes, you have small distributed indexes.
Like most countries, US law works only because of the effectiveness of individual court cases. If mp3.com screws up, you sue them and the problem is solved. 1 case. 1 solution. Now distribute mp3.com across 10,000 people in 100 countries. 1 case. 1 solution. 9,999 to go.
By removing centralized control of information, you are also removing centralized responsibility for that information. The mere existence of software like napster in some ways erodes the fundamental balance of power in business, government, and law.
Do you think anyone is going to stand for this? Do you think anyone is going to stand for you thinking for yourself? The government protects you from yourself. Businesses tell you what you want and what you don't want. Do you think they will sit by and let you turn them off? This is just the beginning, possibly, of the end.
Has there ever been a tale of government or corporate oppression that didn't start with people thinking for themselves?
MS is found guilty of bundling. Government says, "Stop that!" Hardware makes say, "Uh, yeah, stop that!" MS says "Okay.;-)"
Everyone says, "Hey, didn't we tell you to stop?" MS responds, "Yes, and we did." "Then why are you bundling IE?" asks the government. With a sly smile, MS responds, "Its not bundled, its integrated."
In unison, the entire industry shouts, "What's the difference?!" Unfazed, MS responds, "I don't know, you tell me." "Uh, well, um... we'll get back to you."
The government sues, "wins", then asks "Now what?" In the face of immanent breakup, MS responds by proclaiming, "The best is yet to come."
Meanwhile, in Redmond, the following conversation was taking place... "Have the marketing guys got it together yet?" "Yes, we're ready regardless of what happens. If they break us up, we release the source to everything but Win2k. It will only be a matter of days before the hackers exploit all the security holes and thousands of companies, and the government itself, will be faced with either replacing all their software, retraining their staff, and hiring competent admins, or upgrading to win2k. We estimate that 50% will upgrade in the first 2 months, another 20% in the next 6. We estimate a 25-30% loss." "And if the don't break us up?" "The slpashscreens have been removed from all our MS Office apps and the all references to Office have been replaced with Win2k Office. Our marketing guys should be ready to roll with the new campaign within a couple of hours after the announcement."
There have also been rumors of what sounds like laughing emanating from the MS's Redmond compound.
My first reaction to seeing this interview was "What on earth could this guy have to say that's worth reading?" Then I read that allgore2000.com uses linux and then I at least could guess at the purpose of the interview. I'm guessing that the point of the interview was to find out whether the use of linux on a presidential campaign website had any significance. By the answers to the questions, its obvious that it doesn't.
Am I the only one that is not the least bit surprised?
This interview seems like a fishing expidition hoping to catch some deeper meaning that just isn't there. Ben Green seems to at least have some basic common sense and realizes the binefits of using linux. Does that make him special? I don't think so, at least not in the big picture.
In my opinion, which operating system a website uses is irellevant. If you are going to conduct a slashdot related interview someone involved in presidential politics, why interview someone who's day to day activities are no different than thousands of other people behind thousands of other websites? Ben Green is doing nothing special.
I personally do not see the point of interviewing "admins" because quite frankly, while it is news for nerds, it isn't exactly stuff that matters. At the end of an admin interview, you can either guess that the guy has some common sense (he likes linux) or he doesn't.
I really wish slashdot would concentrate on the stuff that matters. If you are going to interview someone in presidential politics about internet related things, find someone who isn't going to say stuff we already know. How many more times do we need to pat ourselves on the back and parade yet another peron through an interview so they can say linux is a good thing?
Despite Sun's claim that their high-end servers are highly reliable and built with redundant components, customers report that failures in service processors, controllers, processor cards, and other components have caused entire production systems to fail.
Since when does MS make controllers, processor cards, and other hardware components? What does any of this have to do with Windows?
Do they really think the average person who reads the dot-truth.com site is dumb enough not to notice that this is not a fair comparison? Can't MS do better than this?
Slashdot Mirror
This is really about a complete shift of power from the few to the many.
Information is power. He who controls the information has power. Even with today's internet where the average person has a louder voice then at any time in the history of mankind, a small group still controls access to the information. With some many people talking at once, its hard to find what you are looking for. Many of us rely on other's to silence all but what we are trying to find. It doesn't matter where the content ultimately resides if you have to go through a centrally controlled choke point, the information filter, the search engine.
The information internet is not a web, its more like a pyramid. No matter where you happen to be, in the quest for information, you will eventually travel up to the top of the pyramid to one of the search engines. It then filters out all but what it wants you to see. You have no way of knowing what you're missing.
Now we have napster and its clones. The central information filter has been removed from the equation. Instead of the large centralized indexes, you have small distributed indexes.
Like most countries, US law works only because of the effectiveness of individual court cases. If mp3.com screws up, you sue them and the problem is solved. 1 case. 1 solution. Now distribute mp3.com across 10,000 people in 100 countries. 1 case. 1 solution. 9,999 to go.
By removing centralized control of information, you are also removing centralized responsibility for that information. The mere existence of software like napster in some ways erodes the fundamental balance of power in business, government, and law.
Do you think anyone is going to stand for this? Do you think anyone is going to stand for you thinking for yourself? The government protects you from yourself. Businesses tell you what you want and what you don't want. Do you think they will sit by and let you turn them off? This is just the beginning, possibly, of the end.
Has there ever been a tale of government or corporate oppression that didn't start with people thinking for themselves?
MS is found guilty of bundling. Government says, "Stop that!" Hardware makes say, "Uh, yeah, stop that!" MS says "Okay. ;-)"
Everyone says, "Hey, didn't we tell you to stop?" MS responds, "Yes, and we did." "Then why are you bundling IE?" asks the government. With a sly smile, MS responds, "Its not bundled, its integrated."
In unison, the entire industry shouts, "What's the difference?!" Unfazed, MS responds, "I don't know, you tell me." "Uh, well, um... we'll get back to you."
The government sues, "wins", then asks "Now what?" In the face of immanent breakup, MS responds by proclaiming, "The best is yet to come."
Meanwhile, in Redmond, the following conversation was taking place... "Have the marketing guys got it together yet?" "Yes, we're ready regardless of what happens. If they break us up, we release the source to everything but Win2k. It will only be a matter of days before the hackers exploit all the security holes and thousands of companies, and the government itself, will be faced with either replacing all their software, retraining their staff, and hiring competent admins, or upgrading to win2k. We estimate that 50% will upgrade in the first 2 months, another 20% in the next 6. We estimate a 25-30% loss." "And if the don't break us up?" "The slpashscreens have been removed from all our MS Office apps and the all references to Office have been replaced with Win2k Office. Our marketing guys should be ready to roll with the new campaign within a couple of hours after the announcement."
There have also been rumors of what sounds like laughing emanating from the MS's Redmond compound.
Am I the only one that is not the least bit surprised?
This interview seems like a fishing expidition hoping to catch some deeper meaning that just isn't there. Ben Green seems to at least have some basic common sense and realizes the binefits of using linux. Does that make him special? I don't think so, at least not in the big picture.
In my opinion, which operating system a website uses is irellevant. If you are going to conduct a slashdot related interview someone involved in presidential politics, why interview someone who's day to day activities are no different than thousands of other people behind thousands of other websites? Ben Green is doing nothing special.
I personally do not see the point of interviewing "admins" because quite frankly, while it is news for nerds, it isn't exactly stuff that matters. At the end of an admin interview, you can either guess that the guy has some common sense (he likes linux) or he doesn't.
I really wish slashdot would concentrate on the stuff that matters. If you are going to interview someone in presidential politics about internet related things, find someone who isn't going to say stuff we already know. How many more times do we need to pat ourselves on the back and parade yet another peron through an interview so they can say linux is a good thing?
Since when does MS make controllers, processor cards, and other hardware components? What does any of this have to do with Windows?
Do they really think the average person who reads the dot-truth.com site is dumb enough not to notice that this is not a fair comparison? Can't MS do better than this?