Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this isn't going to be a Bad Thing for Linux/Open Source/GNU/SAMBA/Wine/etc., the list goes on and on. What I am saying is that I am highly skeptical that MS planned this whole event simply to take down Open Source....
... I was under the understanding that they didn't tamper with anything, just copied it. I don't think they edited MS source code at all, just "stole" it per se, and sent it off to Russia or wherever it was...
That's a little bit of a negative/conspiracy theory view. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for pessimism/big brother/conspiracy theories, but only when truly applicable, and in this case only pessimism is applicable.
I highly doubt this was Microsoft's "plan".... I don't think they "planned" to get "hacked" to take down Linux... for one thing, taking down Linux is a ridiculous thing to say, as so many people around the world use it, and the source code is free, so it will never really die short of a 1984-ish world. As for this "plan", while it may have the positive side of Msft by allowing them to legally beat down various open source groups, it has the negative side affect of unbelieavably bad press.
Hopefully Slashdot readers understand computers okay at least, okay enough to know that CBS/ABC/CNN coverage of this story was a joke at best. You know how they say that the media aims at a 3rd/4th grade level? I thinkt his time they outdid themselves, got it all the way down to 1st grade.... it's sooo sad....... anyway, if you're average Joe Bloggs here, uses a windows computer for email and MS word and surfing, doesn't know a bit from a byte.... and you see "Microsoft Hacked" as a headline, chances are you're gonna go "Ugh, I thought they were smart computer people? But somebody hacked them, that means they aren't so smart".... and while Joe Bloggs will still buy windows unless a more viable alternative then Linux comes out (don't get me wrong, Linux is fully viable for people like you and me, just not for Joe Bloggs, unless he has a friend like you or me), this particular Joe Bloggs will now likely look at any other "tertiary" software that has an MS label with a slightly less favorable look.
Essentially it hurts their brand name a bit. And after all, in this capitalist paradise it's brand names like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and even Microsoft that are really worth money... I'm too lazy to hunt it down, but a little bit ago I saw something on CNN about a british museum of brand names or something, apparently the "big" ones (Coke, Microsoft, ec.) are worth $50-80 billion or something like that. And Microsoft's brand name just lost a little bit of value to the Joe Bloggs of the world....
Pretty cool idea, almost blow-my-mind insightful, although not quite...
I'm hoping that the problem isn't quite is grim as you portray it. You show it as a very computer "If A, then must not have B" thing going on here..... I'm thinking that it might be possible to balance the two if you add in a third element, something that sooo many people seem to be lacking these days... just a touch of common sense.
Really, take it on a case-by-case issue. Yes it sometimes sounds good to make huge generalizations and sweeping "always" and "never" statements, but it's often better to look at specific occasions. Examples:
Big Brother wants to install telescreens in all rooms of all households, all cars, and all public places (read 1984, but the quickest summary I could give is telescreen=two way television, effectively, or radio at least)... my personal stance on this issue would be on the side of Privacy.
Big Brother wants to collect info to accurately be able to tax us in a manner that is fair. I'd side on the side of "Open Source", so to speak.... although "Open Information" might be a better name for it at the level we're talking about it...
Company wants to keep source code private.... I'd side on "Privacy", as the company has that right, but also push big time "Open Source/Information" as much as I can for myself and any like-minded people elsewhere in the world, in hopes of making products that are cooler, better, and free-er then those of company (i.e. Microsoft vs. Linux, duh duh duh).
Well, enough said. Yes, you can't clamor for both privacy and open source at the same time, fair enough. However, a balance can be maintained where you say "Yes, MS has rights to privacy if they want, but I have the right to say I like open source and want to go out and make Linux, but I myself have the right for privacy when it comes to certain aspects of my personal life".... i.e. I believe in free source code, but not necessarily big brother and telescreens and every bit of info being "free".
Really now.... I can see how, well, extreme Microsoft will be in beating down people who have anything that even claims to be Microsoft code. But we knew that before this whole event anyway, it's not as if anything has changed.
That, and how are they going to know who has it? It's almost like being as naive as those who think hackers are watching them all the time. Chances are they aren't, and if you take appropriate precautions you know they aren't (or can't)... that and the whole hackers vs. crackers thing, blah blah blah...
Point being, how would they KNOW if 5,000 people manage to download it from some anonymous FTP before that FTP is beaten down? Would they be able to track down all of them? Remember... I believe it's FreeNet, that British thing that is the uncentralized thing where every participant is a server..... the theory being that there's no way to take it down, unlike Napster where you just have to hit the center server.
In fact, that's the same thing as the inspiration for the internet (as opposed to Al Gore... sorry for the pres hit, hehe, I actually like Gore, more then Bush at least).... the internet was originally made as protection from the Cold War. No Such Agency and Big Brother have had computers for many many years, and they did have a communication network even back in 50s/60s... trouble was, it had one centralized server and a bunch of dummies... in a nuclear war, if the big server is hit the dummies are useless, military communication is crippled and the USA is dogmeat to those dirty communists. Anwyay, to defend from this the internet was created, thinking that since everything hooked up is basically a server, if one participant is fried the rest are still up, okay, and can communicate.
Now I'm not saying to go out and get MS source code. I'm not saying I would either. I'm just asking, will they really be able to tell about all the people who did, and get them so royally legally fried? I'm not asking about whether they have the legal rights, but if it's computer-ly possible.... as thinking about it off the top of my head I don't think it really would be.... if a couple thousand + people download it (and they will if it's ever released), it'll be a pain to get them ALL in trouble. I sure hope Big Brother isn't THAT big, yet at least...
While some of your objections are relevant, there is a bigger issue at stake in my mind. I congratule whoever this judge is for simply NOT being an idiot when it concerns computers. It's about time, and I'll tell you what scares me:
Okay, the next president will end up appointing 3-4 supreme court justices most likely. We already have a relatively conservative court, a la Reagan. If we get G.W. as president the court will be soooo extremely anal retentive for the next 30 years that things will be ugly. Think DMCA. I wouldn't be surprised if they make it illegal to link to copyrighted material or crap like that. 9 old white men who know nothing about computers scare the crap out of me. The fact that there are some judges who at least sort of get what's happening is very good news.
And it's more then copyrights. It's the whole globalization of the world due to the internet. Imagine, for example, if a French citizen who is physically located (legally) in Britain, using a computer owned by a Chinese company to download from a server located in the US a certain file that is illegal in the US, France and China but not in Britain. What happens?
And of course, non computer issues are important too. Abortion will come back, as well as some other things. Basically the fact that some judges aren't stupid is good. And if G.W. is elected and the Bush supreme court starts making *ahem* stupid declarations I'll have to seriously consider leaving this country. Very scary stuff.
"...but because a school of 4000 students served by a single T1 can simply not handle the traffic that Napster tends to bring..."
Heh, yeah I hail from Corvallis, Oregon, the wonderful home of OSU (Oregon State University), which was, to my knowledge, the very first university ever to ban Napster, and it banned it not for copyrights but due to bandwidth. The article is up on CNet somewhere I believe if you search for "OSU +Napster" or something to that affect.
"In this day, when character depth and plot twists, Lucas gives us one sided characters, as well as one sided good guys/bad guys..."
In all fairness, look at, well, almost any Hollywood production. They're all considerably worse then Star Wars Ep 1. While I'm not saying Ep 1 was great, you seem to be implying that in this day and age, characters have depth and movies have plots. I'd personally guess that, at the MOST, 1 movie comes out of Hollywood, per year, that is worth watching. At all. That has any plot, any interesting characters, anything that doesn't make it predictable, stereotypical, or just plain awful. So while Ep 1 wasn't great, you can't say it was "worse" then average. Because average is pretty crappy.
And that's why I watch mostly cool foreign flicks and weird low budget things. Like Pi: The Movie:). (Visit www.pithemovie.com).
... that at $599, not including any monitor or speakers (as you're supposed to hook it up to your home entertainment system, i.e. TV), that chances are anybody, especially a Linux geek, would be better off getting a real computer (either by putting it together, getting it from some discount place, whatever).... even now it can be done for $599, and prices are only going down, so by the time this thing comes out $599 will be too high of a price. Only real possible use I see for it is for people who just aren't that comfortable with computers but still want DVDs, MP3s, etc., and want it mixed together with their whole home entertainment system. Also, I'm willing to bet that the audience I mentioned is the very sales target of this ZapStation thing, and that the target is NOT geeks.
That quote about "If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure" is NOT Al Gore. It's instead the incredibly bright Dan Quayle. Al Gore may be many things (such as boring), but he is not stupid. Or at least not quite that stupid. That would be Dan Quayle.
For another Dan Quaylism, try this: "I want to be Robin to George Bush's Batman". Heh.... also, while at a Latin America Conference Quayle commented that "I am sorry that I am unable to speak to you in your native language of Latin, as I dropped it after entering law school". I have 5 pages of Quaylisms, and trust me that quote you have is Quayle, NOT Gore.
For some reason, the public still respects Microsoft. Well, not the monopoly part, but the software part. It's us wacky Linux-users with our long crazy hair (well some of us) and yada yada who rant about how Microsoft is bad. I think it'd be good if somebody did a very professional compilation of all the *crap* Microsoft has done, and then how they try to deny it, delay fixing it, etc., and then use it to show that Microsoft really isn't such a good thing. Oh, and somebody should modify that script that was out way back when Microsoft set up their "unhackable" server that made it so being on the site accessed their server over and over again (thus making tons of bandwidth, and the Microsoft server ended up crashing a lot, in case you forgot) so that it accesses Hotmail instead. That would make my day.
Well.... it is true that you make some valid points. However, I know that it can't be quite as bad as the War on Drugs thing. For one thing, drugs are physical, and this data isn't. The government has more physical control then internet control. They still have (potentially) a lot of net control. However, my personal plan is to set up my own frickin "net" without anybody except my friends and family and those I trust (and not even all of my friends/family/"those I trust").
That'll be nice..... by myself a couple big servers, a variety of boxes, hook em up..... have to get rich first though. Oh well.
As for the file swapping, at least the swapping (so far) is MP3s and ROMs and "warez". I personally have no interest in anything that ends in a "z", so warez is out for me. ROMs I do download and have for years, for nostalgic purposes. But I haven't downloaded for any console newer than the SNES. I'm mostly an Apple II/NES/Genesis/other neat old console type of guy. ROMNet will be kind of neat, and I might download it, but maybe not.
You know, the funny thing is I still haven't downloaded Napster. Period. I don't know why. Just haven't bothered. I don't maintain to large of an MP3 collection, namely because my tastes conflict with those of most people. I bet if I did a search for "Benny Goodman" I'd be more likely to find "Britney Spears". I'm not even kidding.
I did search for good old Benny on a friends Napster once a while ago and found about two dozen, which was more then I expected. But I didn't need any of them. I do fine with my CD collection the way it is.
Hopefully, instead of a war on swapping, the companies will be forced to lower the prices of CDs to a more reasonable level (3-5$ range). As for ROMs, eventually (if not already) the companies aren't going to *care* about the old systems. They'll care about Dreamcasts and Dolphins and PS2s and whatnot, but emulating those is tough in the first place. So I don't really care.
Well enough ranting for now. Point is, I don't think the issue is quite as bad as you painted it, but it is still quite bad. If file swapping is somehow outlawed over the net, then I'll just boycott the whole frickin internet.
>You have to be 17 (legally) to see and R rated movie You are failing to see the (important) point that not all "Sexual content" in videogames is "rated R". R rating usually implies at least some nudity. I have a game on the Dreamcast called "Soul Calibur". The case says it has sexual content. However, unless there is a secret I don't know about, there is no nudity: just tons of really frickin tight costumes. However, that's really only a PG13 rating, or at least IMHO.
Same with a lot of the violence in videogames. This isn't a matter of the dreaded "R" rating (which I disagree with anyway, but that's another story). It's a matter of people freaked out about stuff like school violence, and thinking that censorship and stopping videogames somehow helps. I'd personally prefer for some sort of aptitude and matury tests, rather then all these age based things in society. Albeit I'm prolly biased, as I'm still underaged, but you know, the logic really isn't that flawed.
Personally I wish it was applied to voting too. However, I do realize that that would be hypocritical, unconstitutional, and unDemocratic, so practically and ethically I'm not for it. However, I do know a lot of older-then-18 people who I sure wish couldn't vote. Thankfully most of them don't (low voter turnouts)...
However, actual tests, rather then age restrictions, on things like weapons, violent content, and even sexual content makes a lot of sense (please no sick jokes on sex tests. Dear god no sick jokes). Sooooo... feel free and respond and flame away....
While I'm not arguing with you on the price issue, there is one more critical fact that most people miss: the gas companies are huge. Very very very big. And they don't want to go out of business.
Did you know that the technology exists for hydroelectric cars? It does. In fact, several hundred hydroelectric cars exist.... in Japan. Guess who owns the copyright to that technology in the US? Chevron!
To make a long story short, the gas companies don't want us to use alternate forms, cause it puts them outta business. I could list hundreds of conspiracy theories, but instead read The Illuminatus trilogy and come up with them yourself, because I need to go to bed.
Sheesh, I don't get why so many people whine and complain about bitrates and CD quality and digital sound and all sorts of mumbo jumbo when, in general, musically, these people lack the ear for it to make a difference!
Think about it - the large majority of MP3s traded are either a) popular crap (and in my opinion, no matter how many bits you got going Backstreet Boys is going to suck), or b) weird old stuff (which is probably stolen from tape, record, or TV as it is, making the quality kind of doubtable).
Personally, I listen to jazz/swing, classical, and other weird stuff. But, with the occasional exception of napster, you don't find those MP3s on the net. Search for Benny Goodman and you'll be more likely to find Britney Spears. It's pretty bad. So, given the music (if it can be called that) being traded, and the people trading it, I think that relative quality of a couple of this and that isn't important at all.
That being said, this new format does look pretty cool. But people have to stop being so anal retentive about little numbers and bitrates when they aren't even going to be able to tell the difference themselves....
(Disclaimer - I'm not trying to say people are stupid. A lot of them are, but not everybody. I'm not insulting the average/.er - I'm insulting the average pimple-faced, lazy AOL user who uses the letter 'z' more then the letter 'e'. And they think they're cool because they spout technical jargon about bitrates and stuff when they're trading 'N sync or some other new crap and they don't know a frickin thing about music, them or the groups they listen to. On that note, I've been thinking of writing a computer program that pumps out "Boy band" music. It's actually really simple - pick an easy key (concert B flat anyone?), set it in with a I-IV-V chord progression, make it be a set baseline, a drummer that just subdivides and OCCASIONALLY throw in some 2 against 3, then make up a boring and repetitive melody that fits to the chords, then swap the melody between whiny crappy guitars and vocalists. As for the lyrics, just take all the current boy group songs, stick em together and put it through Bable. The trickiest part would be getting the lyrics and the melody to match, syllable and pronunciation wise. But all in all, not that hard - and the fact that a computer program COULD be written to pump out the crap that's making millions in todays society is what proves to me that it really isn't music. So anyway, if you ARE a fan of Backstreet boys or something, I hope I've thoroughly offended you. Read whatever I happen to post next, I'm sure we'll be good friends:).
Sheesh, when will you Clinton-hating (and for that matter, any-president-hating) people learn. The pres doesn't have that much power! Read the constitution. Clinton is especially crippled, with a minority congress and a bit of low popularity due to Lewinsky and Co. As for all of your other problems with clinton (the suspicious deaths and such), I have two things for that: 1) mostly a load of crap, and 2) anything that isn't a load of crap is something that ALL politicians do (which is true of Lewinsky as well... even FDR had his own intern:).
However, I do like the fact that you're looking for conspiracies. That's healthy. You're just looking in the wrong place. Politicians are too public, too obvious, and too short-termed (pres only has 8 years...) to really be involved in a massive conspiracy. I'd look at the NSA if I was you - that is the group that we know next-to-nothing about. The one that is supposed to guarantee national security at any price necessary. And honestly, with the exception of this nuclear loss fiasco, I'm of the opinion that the NSA must be doing a pretty good job. Think about it - how many radicals and fundamentalists are there who hate the US? There are so many middle eastern fanatics who are more then willing to sacrifice there lives to hurt the US, and these people have guns, bombs, and possibly even nukes (nuclear data is one thing, but have you ever looked into how many nuclear DEVICES are missing? it's very scary...). And there are, of course, home-bred wackos - those good old fashioned US citizens who like to blow up government buildings for some reason or another. Between all these people, I'm honestly surprised that more buildings aren't blown up! The NSA must actually be doing a decent job. (BTW, clue for the clueless - NSA = National Security Agency).
Oh, and if you want a laugh, visit www.nsa.gov. It's absolutely HILARIOUS! There is an NSA faq and everything!
You want to know what will happen to the net? Then look at TV. Honestly. They both started on the same educational ideal (well actually the net first started military, but its public release was to the universities for educational purposes). With TV, people thought everybody could see and hear the greatest operas, plays, and cultural events in there own living room. And what has come of this? Advertising, advertising, advertising.... that and the quality of the programs themselves are way down. Have you watched much TV lately? I can count the number of shows I consider "good" on one hand, and even then, they're good in the kind of crappy funny way.
And the same thing is happening to the net. What people initially thought would be a way for everybody to access all the wisdom of everybody else has turned into so much else. The omnipresent ad banners are just.... hideous. And the ad banners are just the beginning. All of these.com IPOs are pretty ridiculous as well. All in all, it's the same thing all over again.
Now I'm not preaching against capitalism. I just thing that capitalism shouldn't necessarily be strictly applied to mediums of communication. Both TV and the Net would be sooooo much better without it.
Nice idea. I've even thought about stuff like this, and taking it one step further. Remember that old Doom as a System Administration tool thing a while back? Well, imagine taking the Doom engine and mixing it with *nix and the internet so that you ARE some Doom-ish dude, and your computer and the whole of the net is represented in a Doom engine. For the purposes of running programs you'd have a HUD (Heads Up Display) that could have command line or X-windows access as necessary.
But anyway, before I get *too* off topic, you have to realize a couple of things. Firstly, even if we did get a square mile or something to stash the server on that was independent of any nation, chances are that still most of the citizens would live in other nations. Therefore, as people, each citizen would be governed by the laws of whatever country they are in. And, to make matters worse, assuming that this new Internation has citizens hailing from multiple nations, that means that the different citizens of the net will be affected by different laws, in addition to whatever regulations the net enforces on itself.
Basically, I think this whole issue needs a bit of simplification, just like almost everything else in this world could use. Instead of declaring indepdence, a multi-national organization (a la UN) should be set up whose sole purpose is to deal with the regulation of the internet and negotiation between the net and nations in concerns to people, say, selling child pornography to the US from a site in Syria or something. It wouldn't be as complex as a nation, and wouldn't have all the ugly implications, but it would allow for the net to get some decent and sensible regulation (and not over-regulation), and it would also help the net deal with varying countries and cultures.
Oh, one more thing about your Net-nation. When I first read it, the idea did strike me as kind of neat, but as I said above, a little unrealistic. However, then I realized one hilarious and sad fact: AOL users are the most prevalent net users.... that means that this new "nation" would have a massive majority of AOL citizens, which AOL could herd into "voting" whatever way they want, yada yada..... and in general the AOL citizens would be idiots. The only reason you (yes you! and anybody else, for that matter) enjoy using the net is because of the extreme factionalism (look it up! or figure it out...) present in it. I don't ever have to go to AOL.com. I don't have to deal with AOL users, and I set my email to gag all stuff I get from them. I don't have to visit MSN.com. I don't have to allow some porno-sicky to vote in some sort of cyber-election that would affect me. All in all, the net is full of unsavory and plain stupid characters and such, and I'm glad that all I have to deal with are the ones I want. Not that I'm saying that/. is *that* intelligent, but hey... it's still better then AOL:).
Right now they are breaking every copyright law in the book by allowing those posts to stay up. This is NOT a free speech issue.
Actually, it is. You see, what gives Microsoft the right to put, on the web, an entire copyrighted thing on the net protected only by "Clickwrap", and then trying to claim protection on it. Especially since it's a modification on an open source protocol, and since it helps the Win monopoly.
The content of many of those posts is copyrighted. What is someone posted an entire novel? It would be removed in a second.
You are right there, and it's because of the fact that you say some correct things that I bothered to reply. Yes, that one post that has the whole contents might be slightly innapropriate. But then again, so is Microsoft's method of distribution of the info, and their objectives of posting the info.
These posts aren't being removed because slashdot wants to drag this out and throw some mud on Microsoft.
Slashdot is, in a sense, fighting for survival and integrity here. They want to maintain a non-censorship thing, and keep posted what they believe is okay to be posted. To do so, that requires a fight with Microsoft. And they have a massively larger budget then Slashdot. Therefore, Slashdot's only real hope in this legal battle is to turn it into a PR issue.
All MS is asking is for you guys to respect their copyrights. Is that so hard?
For one thing, I'd like to see MS respect the copyrights of other people. Half of their stuff that they "innovated" is in fact, stolen. But oh well. As for us respecting THEIR copyrights, as the letter that Slashdot is sending to Microsoft, tell me how the posting of those things harms Microsoft? Other then hurting their monopolistic feelings. A freaking three year old could click through their agreement, and the whole click-wrap thing is pretty controversial.
I know copyright laws go against your Linux/communist agenda, but these laws are what America was built upon.
Now this is one of your greatest errors. I love capitalism. However, as I have explained before, this is a real world, not a idealistic Civ2 world, and capitalism must be regulated. The "laissez-faire" capitalism of the era between 1875-1900 truly shafted millions of Americans and Immigrants, causing the one of the largest gaps between rich and poor ever.
Without them, many great products would never have been created such as the car, light bulb, telephone...and Windows 98. That's right, Windows 98 is a great product. Anyone who says otherwise is a pro-Linux zealot or a fool.
Ooooooh so wrong. Okay, you really should know who invented the light bulb. And you should also know that good old Thomas Edison didn't develop it with the help of a massive corporation. In fact, more likely then not, he would have been hindered. Same really goes for the telephone, the TV, the car, etc. As for Win98..... my god. Okay, I won't go through the whole schpiel, because anybody who would agree with me already knows it and anybody who wouldn't agree with me won't listen, but Win98 ain't the best thing around. However, I'm more concerned with your last comment saying that anybody who disagrees with your comment on Windows being great is either a "pro-Linux zealot or a fool". The fool part doesn't bother me so much, it's the pro-Linux *zealot* that caught my attention. You see, this is the general issue that Linux users need to fight: most other people (like those lovely Win98 users) think we're crazy zealots. Or something along those lines. If we ever want Linux to succeed, we've got to improve our own image as being not so bad.
Well, that's just my two cents anyway. And I'm sorry in advance for feeding the trolls.
Call me crazy, but if this all comes together, it might be one big K.O. for Microsoft. Think about it: between the government suit, the apparent *nix advantage in the 64bit chip area, and the fact that Linux and other non-MS things are starting to succeed more, this all might come together and, well.... BOOM.
[ As for the Microsoft break up... I don't understand how this country of our rampantly embraces capitalism and then scowls at the outcome of it's behavior. Microsoft is the american dream, my friends, it's the bullshit we're filled with from Day 1 and "taught" to "respect". ]
BZZZZZ!!! Nope. Okay, you need to study up on history. It's truly fascinating how much one can understand the present by learning about the past.
Okay, let's go back to the Industrial Revolution, between Lincoln and TR. The North won the civil war, and the Union was preserved. Then, America took off in the industrial mode, moving west, doing tons of things, yada yada. However, it wasn't all happy for everybody. In fact, it was only happy for very very few people. You see, the gap between the rich and the poor was huge. Almost all the cash was in the hands of a few, with the rest of the workers and such being royally shafted.
Thus were born the trusts. The steel trusts, the railroad trusts, etc. And of course, the "money trust", aka J.P. Morgan. In case you don't know what a trust is, think monopoly. Think Microsoft:).
Now then, during this period of about 1875-1900, the US had what is known as a "Laissez-faire" capitalistic system of economy, as opposed to the increasingly regulated capitalism of the modern US. "Laissez-faire" is French, and it basically means "hands off" (laissez=leave, faire=to do... study a frickin language if you haven't already, it will enrich your life). This is the true unenforced capitalism that you think is the American dream.
You are wrong there as well. The American Dream consists of the belief that it is easy to move through the social ladder of the US. As in, you can move in from wherever as a poor immigrant, and if you work hard and such, you will be able to work up and become successful. In fact, the trusts formed by the laissez faire capitalism destroyed this dream. You moved in and got a job as a worker for a company where you lived in a company apartment, bought food from a company store, etc. Your life was owned by the company, and you were basically gouged by all the trusts.
Okay, still reading? Good. Well, I'm not gonna go full out on a history lesson here, but trust me man, of all the classes to sleep through history is not one of them. Neither is a language (I advise spanish, or possibly french). But remember that this country DOESN'T embrace capitalism (it's been regulated ever since the trust-busting days of Teddy Roosevelt), and MS pretty much represents the opposite of the American Dream (as in, success for all, not big time success for one stupid dork).
I've said it before and I'll say it again: people don't know that there is stuff out there better then MS. They may sort of know MS is a jerk in terms of being a company, and buying out other companies and such, but all they hear about Linux is from Linux fanatics who immediately castrate them when they hear that they use Win95 or something. And if they use AOL, my GOD they're in for it.
You see, the problem is that the large majority of computer users who could benefit from a *nix switch (which, IMHO, is almost everybody.... the large number of choices between distros makes it possible to find ones that run easy, or ones that are tech crazy, etc.... the only possible problem is getting somebody to install it for them, and that isn't always an issue) feel that they don't really need it. Windows does what they need, and they accept crashes as part of daily life. People are absolutely amazed when I tell them my Linux box has been going for two and a half years without a single system crash (SYSTEM crash, not Netscape crash... fortunately those are easy to fix though). Many people have heard about Linux, but don't really register that it's *FREE*, *OPEN-SOURCE*, and has a lot of free and open source programs with it too that do games, word processing, whatever. And people don't realize that the quality of MS products is truly unacceptably low. MS is great at marketing and business (i.e. beating the crap out of competitors), but not so strong in the software department.
Except your mother is your mother, and this friend I'm talking about is a teenager. And is decently skilled in computers, while no offense, chances are your mother just emails and plays freecell and surfs. Wordproccesses, too, I guess.
I know this person well enough to know that they could benefit from the free software and power and stability of a Linux box. Your mother is probably happy with windows, and a lot of people out there are and should be. However, I'm worried about the current generation of youth who are growing up on windows.
Slashdot Mirror
True enough true enough, I'm just saying your initial post made it sound like they planned this, and I doubt that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this isn't going to be a Bad Thing for Linux/Open Source/GNU/SAMBA/Wine/etc., the list goes on and on. What I am saying is that I am highly skeptical that MS planned this whole event simply to take down Open Source....
... I was under the understanding that they didn't tamper with anything, just copied it. I don't think they edited MS source code at all, just "stole" it per se, and sent it off to Russia or wherever it was...
That's a little bit of a negative/conspiracy theory view. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for pessimism/big brother/conspiracy theories, but only when truly applicable, and in this case only pessimism is applicable.
I highly doubt this was Microsoft's "plan".... I don't think they "planned" to get "hacked" to take down Linux... for one thing, taking down Linux is a ridiculous thing to say, as so many people around the world use it, and the source code is free, so it will never really die short of a 1984-ish world. As for this "plan", while it may have the positive side of Msft by allowing them to legally beat down various open source groups, it has the negative side affect of unbelieavably bad press.
Hopefully Slashdot readers understand computers okay at least, okay enough to know that CBS/ABC/CNN coverage of this story was a joke at best. You know how they say that the media aims at a 3rd/4th grade level? I thinkt his time they outdid themselves, got it all the way down to 1st grade.... it's sooo sad....... anyway, if you're average Joe Bloggs here, uses a windows computer for email and MS word and surfing, doesn't know a bit from a byte.... and you see "Microsoft Hacked" as a headline, chances are you're gonna go "Ugh, I thought they were smart computer people? But somebody hacked them, that means they aren't so smart".... and while Joe Bloggs will still buy windows unless a more viable alternative then Linux comes out (don't get me wrong, Linux is fully viable for people like you and me, just not for Joe Bloggs, unless he has a friend like you or me), this particular Joe Bloggs will now likely look at any other "tertiary" software that has an MS label with a slightly less favorable look.
Essentially it hurts their brand name a bit. And after all, in this capitalist paradise it's brand names like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and even Microsoft that are really worth money... I'm too lazy to hunt it down, but a little bit ago I saw something on CNN about a british museum of brand names or something, apparently the "big" ones (Coke, Microsoft, ec.) are worth $50-80 billion or something like that. And Microsoft's brand name just lost a little bit of value to the Joe Bloggs of the world....
Pretty cool idea, almost blow-my-mind insightful, although not quite...
I'm hoping that the problem isn't quite is grim as you portray it. You show it as a very computer "If A, then must not have B" thing going on here..... I'm thinking that it might be possible to balance the two if you add in a third element, something that sooo many people seem to be lacking these days... just a touch of common sense.
Really, take it on a case-by-case issue. Yes it sometimes sounds good to make huge generalizations and sweeping "always" and "never" statements, but it's often better to look at specific occasions. Examples:
Well, enough said. Yes, you can't clamor for both privacy and open source at the same time, fair enough. However, a balance can be maintained where you say "Yes, MS has rights to privacy if they want, but I have the right to say I like open source and want to go out and make Linux, but I myself have the right for privacy when it comes to certain aspects of my personal life".... i.e. I believe in free source code, but not necessarily big brother and telescreens and every bit of info being "free".
Really now.... I can see how, well, extreme Microsoft will be in beating down people who have anything that even claims to be Microsoft code. But we knew that before this whole event anyway, it's not as if anything has changed.
That, and how are they going to know who has it? It's almost like being as naive as those who think hackers are watching them all the time. Chances are they aren't, and if you take appropriate precautions you know they aren't (or can't)... that and the whole hackers vs. crackers thing, blah blah blah...
Point being, how would they KNOW if 5,000 people manage to download it from some anonymous FTP before that FTP is beaten down? Would they be able to track down all of them? Remember... I believe it's FreeNet, that British thing that is the uncentralized thing where every participant is a server..... the theory being that there's no way to take it down, unlike Napster where you just have to hit the center server.
In fact, that's the same thing as the inspiration for the internet (as opposed to Al Gore... sorry for the pres hit, hehe, I actually like Gore, more then Bush at least).... the internet was originally made as protection from the Cold War. No Such Agency and Big Brother have had computers for many many years, and they did have a communication network even back in 50s/60s... trouble was, it had one centralized server and a bunch of dummies... in a nuclear war, if the big server is hit the dummies are useless, military communication is crippled and the USA is dogmeat to those dirty communists. Anwyay, to defend from this the internet was created, thinking that since everything hooked up is basically a server, if one participant is fried the rest are still up, okay, and can communicate.
Now I'm not saying to go out and get MS source code. I'm not saying I would either. I'm just asking, will they really be able to tell about all the people who did, and get them so royally legally fried? I'm not asking about whether they have the legal rights, but if it's computer-ly possible.... as thinking about it off the top of my head I don't think it really would be.... if a couple thousand + people download it (and they will if it's ever released), it'll be a pain to get them ALL in trouble. I sure hope Big Brother isn't THAT big, yet at least...
While some of your objections are relevant, there is a bigger issue at stake in my mind. I congratule whoever this judge is for simply NOT being an idiot when it concerns computers. It's about time, and I'll tell you what scares me:
Okay, the next president will end up appointing 3-4 supreme court justices most likely. We already have a relatively conservative court, a la Reagan. If we get G.W. as president the court will be soooo extremely anal retentive for the next 30 years that things will be ugly. Think DMCA. I wouldn't be surprised if they make it illegal to link to copyrighted material or crap like that. 9 old white men who know nothing about computers scare the crap out of me. The fact that there are some judges who at least sort of get what's happening is very good news.
And it's more then copyrights. It's the whole globalization of the world due to the internet. Imagine, for example, if a French citizen who is physically located (legally) in Britain, using a computer owned by a Chinese company to download from a server located in the US a certain file that is illegal in the US, France and China but not in Britain. What happens?
And of course, non computer issues are important too. Abortion will come back, as well as some other things. Basically the fact that some judges aren't stupid is good. And if G.W. is elected and the Bush supreme court starts making *ahem* stupid declarations I'll have to seriously consider leaving this country. Very scary stuff.
"...but because a school of 4000 students served by a single T1 can simply not handle the traffic that Napster tends to bring..."
Heh, yeah I hail from Corvallis, Oregon, the wonderful home of OSU (Oregon State University), which was, to my knowledge, the very first university ever to ban Napster, and it banned it not for copyrights but due to bandwidth. The article is up on CNet somewhere I believe if you search for "OSU +Napster" or something to that affect.
"In this day, when character depth and plot twists, Lucas gives us one sided characters, as well as one sided good guys/bad guys..."
In all fairness, look at, well, almost any Hollywood production. They're all considerably worse then Star Wars Ep 1. While I'm not saying Ep 1 was great, you seem to be implying that in this day and age, characters have depth and movies have plots. I'd personally guess that, at the MOST, 1 movie comes out of Hollywood, per year, that is worth watching. At all. That has any plot, any interesting characters, anything that doesn't make it predictable, stereotypical, or just plain awful. So while Ep 1 wasn't great, you can't say it was "worse" then average. Because average is pretty crappy.
And that's why I watch mostly cool foreign flicks and weird low budget things. Like Pi: The Movie :). (Visit www.pithemovie.com).
... that at $599, not including any monitor or speakers (as you're supposed to hook it up to your home entertainment system, i.e. TV), that chances are anybody, especially a Linux geek, would be better off getting a real computer (either by putting it together, getting it from some discount place, whatever).... even now it can be done for $599, and prices are only going down, so by the time this thing comes out $599 will be too high of a price. Only real possible use I see for it is for people who just aren't that comfortable with computers but still want DVDs, MP3s, etc., and want it mixed together with their whole home entertainment system. Also, I'm willing to bet that the audience I mentioned is the very sales target of this ZapStation thing, and that the target is NOT geeks.
That quote about "If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure" is NOT Al Gore. It's instead the incredibly bright Dan Quayle. Al Gore may be many things (such as boring), but he is not stupid. Or at least not quite that stupid. That would be Dan Quayle.
For another Dan Quaylism, try this: "I want to be Robin to George Bush's Batman". Heh.... also, while at a Latin America Conference Quayle commented that "I am sorry that I am unable to speak to you in your native language of Latin, as I dropped it after entering law school". I have 5 pages of Quaylisms, and trust me that quote you have is Quayle, NOT Gore.
For some reason, the public still respects Microsoft. Well, not the monopoly part, but the software part. It's us wacky Linux-users with our long crazy hair (well some of us) and yada yada who rant about how Microsoft is bad. I think it'd be good if somebody did a very professional compilation of all the *crap* Microsoft has done, and then how they try to deny it, delay fixing it, etc., and then use it to show that Microsoft really isn't such a good thing. Oh, and somebody should modify that script that was out way back when Microsoft set up their "unhackable" server that made it so being on the site accessed their server over and over again (thus making tons of bandwidth, and the Microsoft server ended up crashing a lot, in case you forgot) so that it accesses Hotmail instead. That would make my day.
Well.... it is true that you make some valid points. However, I know that it can't be quite as bad as the War on Drugs thing. For one thing, drugs are physical, and this data isn't. The government has more physical control then internet control. They still have (potentially) a lot of net control. However, my personal plan is to set up my own frickin "net" without anybody except my friends and family and those I trust (and not even all of my friends/family/"those I trust").
That'll be nice..... by myself a couple big servers, a variety of boxes, hook em up..... have to get rich first though. Oh well.
As for the file swapping, at least the swapping (so far) is MP3s and ROMs and "warez". I personally have no interest in anything that ends in a "z", so warez is out for me. ROMs I do download and have for years, for nostalgic purposes. But I haven't downloaded for any console newer than the SNES. I'm mostly an Apple II/NES/Genesis/other neat old console type of guy. ROMNet will be kind of neat, and I might download it, but maybe not.
You know, the funny thing is I still haven't downloaded Napster. Period. I don't know why. Just haven't bothered. I don't maintain to large of an MP3 collection, namely because my tastes conflict with those of most people. I bet if I did a search for "Benny Goodman" I'd be more likely to find "Britney Spears". I'm not even kidding.
I did search for good old Benny on a friends Napster once a while ago and found about two dozen, which was more then I expected. But I didn't need any of them. I do fine with my CD collection the way it is.
Hopefully, instead of a war on swapping, the companies will be forced to lower the prices of CDs to a more reasonable level (3-5$ range). As for ROMs, eventually (if not already) the companies aren't going to *care* about the old systems. They'll care about Dreamcasts and Dolphins and PS2s and whatnot, but emulating those is tough in the first place. So I don't really care.
Well enough ranting for now. Point is, I don't think the issue is quite as bad as you painted it, but it is still quite bad. If file swapping is somehow outlawed over the net, then I'll just boycott the whole frickin internet.
Same with a lot of the violence in videogames. This isn't a matter of the dreaded "R" rating (which I disagree with anyway, but that's another story). It's a matter of people freaked out about stuff like school violence, and thinking that censorship and stopping videogames somehow helps. I'd personally prefer for some sort of aptitude and matury tests, rather then all these age based things in society. Albeit I'm prolly biased, as I'm still underaged, but you know, the logic really isn't that flawed.
Personally I wish it was applied to voting too. However, I do realize that that would be hypocritical, unconstitutional, and unDemocratic, so practically and ethically I'm not for it. However, I do know a lot of older-then-18 people who I sure wish couldn't vote. Thankfully most of them don't (low voter turnouts)...
However, actual tests, rather then age restrictions, on things like weapons, violent content, and even sexual content makes a lot of sense (please no sick jokes on sex tests. Dear god no sick jokes). Sooooo... feel free and respond and flame away....
While I'm not arguing with you on the price issue, there is one more critical fact that most people miss: the gas companies are huge. Very very very big. And they don't want to go out of business.
Did you know that the technology exists for hydroelectric cars? It does. In fact, several hundred hydroelectric cars exist.... in Japan. Guess who owns the copyright to that technology in the US? Chevron!
To make a long story short, the gas companies don't want us to use alternate forms, cause it puts them outta business. I could list hundreds of conspiracy theories, but instead read The Illuminatus trilogy and come up with them yourself, because I need to go to bed.
*ahem* read what I post. I'm saying it's something common with all politicians - liberal AND conservative.
Sheesh, I don't get why so many people whine and complain about bitrates and CD quality and digital sound and all sorts of mumbo jumbo when, in general, musically, these people lack the ear for it to make a difference!
Think about it - the large majority of MP3s traded are either a) popular crap (and in my opinion, no matter how many bits you got going Backstreet Boys is going to suck), or b) weird old stuff (which is probably stolen from tape, record, or TV as it is, making the quality kind of doubtable).
Personally, I listen to jazz/swing, classical, and other weird stuff. But, with the occasional exception of napster, you don't find those MP3s on the net. Search for Benny Goodman and you'll be more likely to find Britney Spears. It's pretty bad. So, given the music (if it can be called that) being traded, and the people trading it, I think that relative quality of a couple of this and that isn't important at all.
That being said, this new format does look pretty cool. But people have to stop being so anal retentive about little numbers and bitrates when they aren't even going to be able to tell the difference themselves....
(Disclaimer - I'm not trying to say people are stupid. A lot of them are, but not everybody. I'm not insulting the average /.er - I'm insulting the average pimple-faced, lazy AOL user who uses the letter 'z' more then the letter 'e'. And they think they're cool because they spout technical jargon about bitrates and stuff when they're trading 'N sync or some other new crap and they don't know a frickin thing about music, them or the groups they listen to. On that note, I've been thinking of writing a computer program that pumps out "Boy band" music. It's actually really simple - pick an easy key (concert B flat anyone?), set it in with a I-IV-V chord progression, make it be a set baseline, a drummer that just subdivides and OCCASIONALLY throw in some 2 against 3, then make up a boring and repetitive melody that fits to the chords, then swap the melody between whiny crappy guitars and vocalists. As for the lyrics, just take all the current boy group songs, stick em together and put it through Bable. The trickiest part would be getting the lyrics and the melody to match, syllable and pronunciation wise. But all in all, not that hard - and the fact that a computer program COULD be written to pump out the crap that's making millions in todays society is what proves to me that it really isn't music. So anyway, if you ARE a fan of Backstreet boys or something, I hope I've thoroughly offended you. Read whatever I happen to post next, I'm sure we'll be good friends :).
Sheesh, when will you Clinton-hating (and for that matter, any-president-hating) people learn. The pres doesn't have that much power! Read the constitution. Clinton is especially crippled, with a minority congress and a bit of low popularity due to Lewinsky and Co. As for all of your other problems with clinton (the suspicious deaths and such), I have two things for that: 1) mostly a load of crap, and 2) anything that isn't a load of crap is something that ALL politicians do (which is true of Lewinsky as well... even FDR had his own intern :).
However, I do like the fact that you're looking for conspiracies. That's healthy. You're just looking in the wrong place. Politicians are too public, too obvious, and too short-termed (pres only has 8 years...) to really be involved in a massive conspiracy. I'd look at the NSA if I was you - that is the group that we know next-to-nothing about. The one that is supposed to guarantee national security at any price necessary. And honestly, with the exception of this nuclear loss fiasco, I'm of the opinion that the NSA must be doing a pretty good job. Think about it - how many radicals and fundamentalists are there who hate the US? There are so many middle eastern fanatics who are more then willing to sacrifice there lives to hurt the US, and these people have guns, bombs, and possibly even nukes (nuclear data is one thing, but have you ever looked into how many nuclear DEVICES are missing? it's very scary...). And there are, of course, home-bred wackos - those good old fashioned US citizens who like to blow up government buildings for some reason or another. Between all these people, I'm honestly surprised that more buildings aren't blown up! The NSA must actually be doing a decent job. (BTW, clue for the clueless - NSA = National Security Agency).
Oh, and if you want a laugh, visit www.nsa.gov. It's absolutely HILARIOUS! There is an NSA faq and everything!
You want to know what will happen to the net? Then look at TV. Honestly. They both started on the same educational ideal (well actually the net first started military, but its public release was to the universities for educational purposes). With TV, people thought everybody could see and hear the greatest operas, plays, and cultural events in there own living room. And what has come of this? Advertising, advertising, advertising.... that and the quality of the programs themselves are way down. Have you watched much TV lately? I can count the number of shows I consider "good" on one hand, and even then, they're good in the kind of crappy funny way.
And the same thing is happening to the net. What people initially thought would be a way for everybody to access all the wisdom of everybody else has turned into so much else. The omnipresent ad banners are just.... hideous. And the ad banners are just the beginning. All of these .com IPOs are pretty ridiculous as well. All in all, it's the same thing all over again.
Now I'm not preaching against capitalism. I just thing that capitalism shouldn't necessarily be strictly applied to mediums of communication. Both TV and the Net would be sooooo much better without it.
Nice idea. I've even thought about stuff like this, and taking it one step further. Remember that old Doom as a System Administration tool thing a while back? Well, imagine taking the Doom engine and mixing it with *nix and the internet so that you ARE some Doom-ish dude, and your computer and the whole of the net is represented in a Doom engine. For the purposes of running programs you'd have a HUD (Heads Up Display) that could have command line or X-windows access as necessary.
But anyway, before I get *too* off topic, you have to realize a couple of things. Firstly, even if we did get a square mile or something to stash the server on that was independent of any nation, chances are that still most of the citizens would live in other nations. Therefore, as people, each citizen would be governed by the laws of whatever country they are in. And, to make matters worse, assuming that this new Internation has citizens hailing from multiple nations, that means that the different citizens of the net will be affected by different laws, in addition to whatever regulations the net enforces on itself.
Basically, I think this whole issue needs a bit of simplification, just like almost everything else in this world could use. Instead of declaring indepdence, a multi-national organization (a la UN) should be set up whose sole purpose is to deal with the regulation of the internet and negotiation between the net and nations in concerns to people, say, selling child pornography to the US from a site in Syria or something. It wouldn't be as complex as a nation, and wouldn't have all the ugly implications, but it would allow for the net to get some decent and sensible regulation (and not over-regulation), and it would also help the net deal with varying countries and cultures.
Oh, one more thing about your Net-nation. When I first read it, the idea did strike me as kind of neat, but as I said above, a little unrealistic. However, then I realized one hilarious and sad fact: AOL users are the most prevalent net users.... that means that this new "nation" would have a massive majority of AOL citizens, which AOL could herd into "voting" whatever way they want, yada yada..... and in general the AOL citizens would be idiots. The only reason you (yes you! and anybody else, for that matter) enjoy using the net is because of the extreme factionalism (look it up! or figure it out...) present in it. I don't ever have to go to AOL.com. I don't have to deal with AOL users, and I set my email to gag all stuff I get from them. I don't have to visit MSN.com. I don't have to allow some porno-sicky to vote in some sort of cyber-election that would affect me. All in all, the net is full of unsavory and plain stupid characters and such, and I'm glad that all I have to deal with are the ones I want. Not that I'm saying that /. is *that* intelligent, but hey... it's still better then AOL :).
Right now they are breaking every copyright law in the book by allowing those posts to stay up. This is NOT a free speech issue.
Actually, it is. You see, what gives Microsoft the right to put, on the web, an entire copyrighted thing on the net protected only by "Clickwrap", and then trying to claim protection on it. Especially since it's a modification on an open source protocol, and since it helps the Win monopoly.
The content of many of those posts is copyrighted. What is someone posted an entire novel? It would be removed in a second.
You are right there, and it's because of the fact that you say some correct things that I bothered to reply. Yes, that one post that has the whole contents might be slightly innapropriate. But then again, so is Microsoft's method of distribution of the info, and their objectives of posting the info.
These posts aren't being removed because slashdot wants to drag this out and throw some mud on Microsoft.
Slashdot is, in a sense, fighting for survival and integrity here. They want to maintain a non-censorship thing, and keep posted what they believe is okay to be posted. To do so, that requires a fight with Microsoft. And they have a massively larger budget then Slashdot. Therefore, Slashdot's only real hope in this legal battle is to turn it into a PR issue.
All MS is asking is for you guys to respect their copyrights. Is that so hard?
For one thing, I'd like to see MS respect the copyrights of other people. Half of their stuff that they "innovated" is in fact, stolen. But oh well. As for us respecting THEIR copyrights, as the letter that Slashdot is sending to Microsoft, tell me how the posting of those things harms Microsoft? Other then hurting their monopolistic feelings. A freaking three year old could click through their agreement, and the whole click-wrap thing is pretty controversial.
I know copyright laws go against your Linux/communist agenda, but these laws are what America was built upon.
Now this is one of your greatest errors. I love capitalism. However, as I have explained before, this is a real world, not a idealistic Civ2 world, and capitalism must be regulated. The "laissez-faire" capitalism of the era between 1875-1900 truly shafted millions of Americans and Immigrants, causing the one of the largest gaps between rich and poor ever.
Without them, many great products would never have been created such as the car, light bulb, telephone...and Windows 98. That's right, Windows 98 is a great product. Anyone who says otherwise is a pro-Linux zealot or a fool.
Ooooooh so wrong. Okay, you really should know who invented the light bulb. And you should also know that good old Thomas Edison didn't develop it with the help of a massive corporation. In fact, more likely then not, he would have been hindered. Same really goes for the telephone, the TV, the car, etc. As for Win98..... my god. Okay, I won't go through the whole schpiel, because anybody who would agree with me already knows it and anybody who wouldn't agree with me won't listen, but Win98 ain't the best thing around. However, I'm more concerned with your last comment saying that anybody who disagrees with your comment on Windows being great is either a "pro-Linux zealot or a fool". The fool part doesn't bother me so much, it's the pro-Linux *zealot* that caught my attention. You see, this is the general issue that Linux users need to fight: most other people (like those lovely Win98 users) think we're crazy zealots. Or something along those lines. If we ever want Linux to succeed, we've got to improve our own image as being not so bad.
Well, that's just my two cents anyway. And I'm sorry in advance for feeding the trolls.
Call me crazy, but if this all comes together, it might be one big K.O. for Microsoft. Think about it: between the government suit, the apparent *nix advantage in the 64bit chip area, and the fact that Linux and other non-MS things are starting to succeed more, this all might come together and, well.... BOOM.
Well at least, I hope so :).
[ As for the Microsoft break up ... I don't understand how this country of our rampantly embraces capitalism and then scowls at the outcome of it's behavior. Microsoft is the american dream, my friends, it's the bullshit we're filled with from Day 1 and "taught" to "respect". ]
BZZZZZ!!! Nope. Okay, you need to study up on history. It's truly fascinating how much one can understand the present by learning about the past.
Okay, let's go back to the Industrial Revolution, between Lincoln and TR. The North won the civil war, and the Union was preserved. Then, America took off in the industrial mode, moving west, doing tons of things, yada yada. However, it wasn't all happy for everybody. In fact, it was only happy for very very few people. You see, the gap between the rich and the poor was huge. Almost all the cash was in the hands of a few, with the rest of the workers and such being royally shafted.
Thus were born the trusts. The steel trusts, the railroad trusts, etc. And of course, the "money trust", aka J.P. Morgan. In case you don't know what a trust is, think monopoly. Think Microsoft :).
Now then, during this period of about 1875-1900, the US had what is known as a "Laissez-faire" capitalistic system of economy, as opposed to the increasingly regulated capitalism of the modern US. "Laissez-faire" is French, and it basically means "hands off" (laissez=leave, faire=to do... study a frickin language if you haven't already, it will enrich your life). This is the true unenforced capitalism that you think is the American dream.
You are wrong there as well. The American Dream consists of the belief that it is easy to move through the social ladder of the US. As in, you can move in from wherever as a poor immigrant, and if you work hard and such, you will be able to work up and become successful. In fact, the trusts formed by the laissez faire capitalism destroyed this dream. You moved in and got a job as a worker for a company where you lived in a company apartment, bought food from a company store, etc. Your life was owned by the company, and you were basically gouged by all the trusts.
Okay, still reading? Good. Well, I'm not gonna go full out on a history lesson here, but trust me man, of all the classes to sleep through history is not one of them. Neither is a language (I advise spanish, or possibly french). But remember that this country DOESN'T embrace capitalism (it's been regulated ever since the trust-busting days of Teddy Roosevelt), and MS pretty much represents the opposite of the American Dream (as in, success for all, not big time success for one stupid dork).
I've said it before and I'll say it again: people don't know that there is stuff out there better then MS. They may sort of know MS is a jerk in terms of being a company, and buying out other companies and such, but all they hear about Linux is from Linux fanatics who immediately castrate them when they hear that they use Win95 or something. And if they use AOL, my GOD they're in for it.
You see, the problem is that the large majority of computer users who could benefit from a *nix switch (which, IMHO, is almost everybody.... the large number of choices between distros makes it possible to find ones that run easy, or ones that are tech crazy, etc.... the only possible problem is getting somebody to install it for them, and that isn't always an issue) feel that they don't really need it. Windows does what they need, and they accept crashes as part of daily life. People are absolutely amazed when I tell them my Linux box has been going for two and a half years without a single system crash (SYSTEM crash, not Netscape crash... fortunately those are easy to fix though). Many people have heard about Linux, but don't really register that it's *FREE*, *OPEN-SOURCE*, and has a lot of free and open source programs with it too that do games, word processing, whatever. And people don't realize that the quality of MS products is truly unacceptably low. MS is great at marketing and business (i.e. beating the crap out of competitors), but not so strong in the software department.
Well, just my two cents.
Except your mother is your mother, and this friend I'm talking about is a teenager. And is decently skilled in computers, while no offense, chances are your mother just emails and plays freecell and surfs. Wordproccesses, too, I guess.
I know this person well enough to know that they could benefit from the free software and power and stability of a Linux box. Your mother is probably happy with windows, and a lot of people out there are and should be. However, I'm worried about the current generation of youth who are growing up on windows.