Dickinson likes to congratulate himself about how well his agency is doing. But there actually are objective indications of the performance of his agency.
Many companies submit the same patent to European and the US patent offices. In my experience, the USPTO just rubber stamps them. The European patent examiners frequently make insightful technical comments, point at related prior art, and narrow claims considerably. The European patent offices also have largely refused to broaden notions of patentability in areas like business methods, biology, and software without explicit legislative direction.
Republicans often like to claim that the EPA or other federal agencies are bureaucracies out of control. I think the USPTO is a much clearer example of a bureaucracy that makes policy without much oversight, and people like Dickinson are responsible. The kind of intellectual pollution the USPTO creates will stifle innovation and US competitiveness for decades to come.
Of course, none of this is surprising giving Dickinson's legal background. The benefits of the patent system that Dickinson has seen throughout his career are the ability to extract big legal fees from patent disputes among large corporations.
I think the USPTO should be run by people with creative engineering backgrounds, not by lawyers. Engineers should become politically more active to fill such posts with people who actually have first hand experience with innovation and creativity. If we leave it to law school graduates to run these kinds of institutions, we shouldn't be surprised at the results. So, get politically active: that's the only way this is going to change.
It is generally better to add RAM as RAM on the main bus of the computer. That way, you have a lot more flexibility for how to use the extra memory: you can use it for caching, for applications, or as a RAM disk.
Note that RAM contents already survive reboots; it's the operating system that erases it (some systems take advantage of this fact for fast reboots). If you need power failure protection, you can also back up RAM that sits on the bus with batteries.
So, I think this card is a kludge, something that gives people a quick fix solution to a performance problem. For a quick fix, however, I would prefer a self-contained external box with a SCSI interface.
Quantum computers don't compute anything different from regular computers, they just do it faster. But speed isn't really the limitation for returning meaningful results: our processors are plenty fast. And if speed were the limitation, there is plenty of room left in current systems using parallelism and FPGAs.
The question is what to search for: what constitutes meaningful answers to a query. Once we figure that out, then we can worry about speed.
I suspect the big issue will be whether the company can get these non-standard layers integrated into normal semiconductor fab processes. They sound very optimistic, but I wouldn't be--the obstacles may be less technological and more social in nature.
Furthermore, in order to catch on, the product has to be compatible with existing systems and be either a lot faster, significantly cheaper, and/or come in much higher capacities; otherwise, they are not going to catch up with the economies of scale of flash memory. If they can do that, I think there is a market: non-volatile, fast storage is useful in more and more applications.
(As an aside, they are not talking about optical storage, they are talking about taking advantage of electrical properties of materials that are ordinarily used for optical storage.)
I agree with your points, but I wanted to point out that this whole notion of "more severe" and "more extreme" is spin by Microsoft's PR machine; they are trying to paint people suggesting a breakup as "extremist" and they are trying to position their completely ineffectual regulatory proposal as a "middle of the road compromise".
Of course, in reality, the only thing that can realistically change their monopolistic practices is a market driven approach, and that means putting Microsoft's application division on equal footing with others--i.e., a breakup. Their regulatory proposal isn't just less severe, it's ineffectual and useless--it's just business as usual.
The point of the suit is roughly to accomplish what RMS is after.
However simply "requiring" Microsoft to do those things isn't going to work: Microsoft would always be able to weasel out of things by saying "but of course we published everything", and before that is sorted out in court, the point would be moot.
Splitting the company up accomplishes the same effect through market mechanisms: if Microsoft-OS and Microsoft-Apps are different companies, Microsoft-OS doesn't benefit from creating "internal" APIs.
If not all of RMS's concerns are addressed by the split-up, he should come up with more market-based mechanisms for achieving his goals, because there is a general feeling that regulatory mechanisms would simply be ineffective.
The license isn't about instilling a sense of "pride", it's about making sure that you know how to operate your equipment safely, legally, and without interfering with other people.
For anybody technically inclined (like most people on/.), it shouldn't be hard. If you need your ego stroked, you can still feel satisfied that for the population at large, it's probably a non-trivial test.
Well, and obviously, UNIX and Linux are obsolete--after all, WebTV and Windows have all the graphics, web access, and multimedia anybody could ever want, right?
In any case, as soon as you travel outside an urban area, cell phones stop working, but there are often ham radio operators around.
Obviously, there are network effects at work here as well: the more people use ham radio, the more fun it is, so sign up...
This might be a good time to remind people to get their amateur radio license. The test is really simple.
What are the benefits? Well, it's a good way to communicate, even in out of the way places, and it's free. There are lots of nifty things you can do with digital transmissions in the amateur radio band. And people learn about interference as part of the reading material (useful for computer folks who may not be aware of the interference they are causing).
Amateur radio is one of the last refuges on the spectrum that is non-commercial and it needs new participants, or else it will slowly be taken over by commercial interests. And the digital aspects of amateur radio need new people to bring better technology and new ideas to them.
So, go out and get your license. You can get started at the ARRL web site. A reasonable handheld transmitter/receiver will cost you under $200 and is a good way to get started. For the test itself, you won't need more than a $20 book.
Take a look at the operating system and OS-related project list at http://www.tunes.org/Review/OSes.html
AtheOS looks like yet another C/C++-based, Windows-desktop-like operating system and GUI. Do we really need any more of those? Do we really need any more operating systems in C/C++ at all given that we already have dozens, with just about all permutations of the different GUI, API, extensibility, real-time, and kernel designs you can imagine?
Even if someone wants to "implement an operating system", it seems like there are a lot more useful and innovative directions to go into. There are a bunch of kernels that already take care of all the drivers and hardware interfaces, including Linux, *BSD, Fluke OS, Mach, etc. On top of those, people can build just about any OS they might want to. Build an open source Java-based OS, contribute to the Express SML-based OS, help create a standalone system based on the Linux kernel and CMU Lisp or Squeak, help create a free version of Plan 9, etc.
Which is better? Depends on what you want to do with them, what your preferences are, what kind of style you prefer, etc.
Comparing operating systems in this way is largely pointless. It presupposes that there is an optimal choice that everybody should agree on, and that's probably the biggest problem in the computer industry. Systems like Windows and MacOS wouldn't be such a nuisance if they weren't trying to take over the world. At 20-30% market share each, they'd be fine. At 90% market share, any operating system inhibits innovation and deprives many people of finding the optimal tool for their specific needs.
As long as you do business with a company, they may keep your records on-line. So, as long as you use Napster, they would be able to keep your information. In some European countries, there have, in fact, been requirements proposed along the lines of the PPI proposal: no anonymous use of Internet resources at all.
Besides, the EU laws on records probably don't apply to companies operating entirely outside Europe; whether Europeans submit their personal information to such companies is up to them.
The RIAA can not completely control the distribution of music online without controlling the distribution of ALL music online.
Sounds like that's the best outcome they can hope for: not only do they maximize revenue from their own content, they also suppress the competition. You can bet that the RIAA is going to push hard for any legislation that achieves both of those goals.
If you think it can't happen, think again. Many countries have taxes on blank tapes and media, which are distributed then to established artists. The very folks who would use blank media, new artists with no revenue streams or recordings, have to subsidize their commercial counterparts.
Peer-to-peer sharing does not guarantee anonymity. Quite to the contrary: ISPs know better than anybody else who you are, since you pay them, and they can track in detail where you connect, what you do, etc.
The most likely outcome is that with systems like Gnutella in existence, ISPs will be required by law to keep detailed records, there will be sting operations, and people will get identified through their IP addresses.
The next stage of retreat is to go to something like AT&T's Crowds system, but most likely, if you participate in that kind of system at all, you'll simply be considered guilty by default. Ditto for Freenet.
Compared to on-the-air broadcasting and interactions in the real world, just about anything on the Internet can be tracked, logged, and analyzed with exquisite accuracy.
There are only limited things users can do. You can exchange information with people you know through cryptographic channels (arguably, fair use), and steganography will provide some way for some information to get out. But widespread anonymous file sharing ala Napster and Gnutella will likely be a transient phenomenon.
I'm not sure whether PPI has multiple inconsistent positions, but their "third way proposal" found here does not talk about outlawing Napster, it talks about creating more accountability.
I'm not sure I like it, but it seems at least more rational.
Certain companies let users do the testing, and often also do a significant part of the maintenance/bug fixing, and then they make you pay for the next upgrade where they incorporate those fixes. That's one of the reasons why open source software makes economic sense: you only pay for the bug fixes you need (with your time or consulting dollars), and only once.
I think most of the potential Eiffel users have already adopted Java: they are both safe, object-oriented languages. Each language has some features that the other lacks, but on balance, I think Java meets the needs of developers a lot better.
I also think the Eiffel design contains some serious technical blunders. Within the Eiffel family, I'd say people are better off using GNU Sather.
I don't have anything against commercial software developers or commercial software development. And having dinner with Stallman is, well, an experience, but you might as well take it with a sense of humor. Jobs, Gates, Ellison, and Meyer don't exactly sound like pleasant, well-adjusted individuals to have dinner with either.
My attitude towards open source software and proprietary, closed source software is that the proprietary software simply makes no sense in the long run in a free market. I believe that the cost structure for software is such that the only rational thing for end users is to collaborate and share development costs, cutting out the middlemen. There might be other vehicles for accomplishing that kind of collaboration, but open source software seems to work particularly well because of its low overhead and simple adoption.
To me, all the current software empires are short term aberrations and market failures that have no place in a free market. The high profits they manage to make ("disequillibrium wages") are themselves evidence for that view.
I think the sooner companies realize the basic facts about the economics of software, the better. In the long run, good, solid businesses to be in are software-related service businesses, hardware businesses that manage to increase their profits through software that is synergistic with what they sell, and entertainment/personal service businesses that use (free) software to drive customers to them. And I think, despite all the rhethoric, that's roughly what Stallman is saying as well.
My economic analysis might, of course, be wrong. But, then, who knows, it might be right, too.
You don't have to fix it yourself; you can contract out on an as-needed basis, or you can take out a maintenance and support contract.
Overall, you are still a lot better off than with commercial software. If your need is pressing, you can pay the extra money and get the fix as soon as possible, an option you don't have with most commercial software (and if you do, you are at the mercy of a single company). If you go for a more leisurely maintenance contract, you'll still get the fix roughly at the same time as any commercial vendor would release an upgrade.
And no matter which maintenance option you choose, you won't be paying for your own fix over and over and over again. Once your problem has been solved, you'll get future upgrades for free.
You are attacking a straw man; I made no claims about "the heart of the project" or "the majority of lines".
But, if you are familiar with the cost structure of commercial software development, the long term cost of a software project is often in the testing, maintenance, and bug fixes, not in the initial writing of the bulk of the code.
Of course, users also end up contributing lots of bug reports and suggestions for enhancements to commercial vendors. But that's only adding insult to injury, because they end up paying for intellectual property that they themselves, rather than the vendor, created.
Meyer is really no different from a lot of other people who pushed technically interesting ideas that failed to catch on widely. When Java came out, lots of other people (Smalltalk, Inferno, etc.) stood up and said "why not us?". With Linux succeeding, the folks who developed AIX, AT&T Research UNIX, SCO UNIX, and others have been bellyaching. And with the success of Windows, there are some people who have been doing somthing about it (Linux, GTK, KDE, etc.), and there are others who have mainly been whining and marketing (OS/2, commercial UNIX vendors, etc.). The only difference is that, for some reason, Meyer gets more of a platform to speak from.
Eiffel failed to catch on widely, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere. Rather than insulting more and more people, it would be good for Meyer to go back and see where he didn't meet the needs of his potential user community. Unlike what he claims, people in industry are very concerned with quality and methodology. It's just that his tools and methodology failed to meet their needs.
As for open source software, that does have something to do with the success of new tools and languages: most people who make these decisions are simply not going to build a product based on a language that comes from a small vendor. They would be betting many man-years of effort on the success of that one small vendor and be at the complete mercy of that company's future pricing policies and responsiveness.
The two realistic options anybody wanting to popularize a new language has are to open source a usable implementation or to work early towards creating a standard and getting multiple vendors to provide implementations. Eiffel did neither, and so it wasn't a very attractive choice (the fact that many people perceived it to contain some real technical blunders didn't help either). That is perhaps the first lesson would-be language vendors should understand.
Meyer's whole argument is based on the premise that free software is something cooked up by a bunch of people with a hatred of commercial software. And his attitude becomes crystal clear in his own dalliance with free software. What he doesn't get is that at the heart of free software is the contributions of lots of people. Users choose free software over commercial software, and users test that software and contribute bug fixes.
I think the following paragraph sums it up; Meyer writes:
ISE's own experience with free software has included both kinds. Recently, we have had more than our share of the second; we have had to cancel one major project, and reengineer a product completely, after wasting many person-months and disappointing customers, because of the deficiencies of two separate GNU products (the GCC compiler for Windows and the editor under GTK). In both cases the scenario was the same: fixes to well-known bugs being promised and promised again; everyone waiting for months and months, until it becomes clear that nothing will happen; in the end, having to write off all the affected developments. Since no one is in charge, and you didn't pay for the products, there is no one to blame.
Obviously, he doesn't understand that free software isn't a gift from God, it's a collaborative process. Rather than cancelling his projects, he should have fixed whatever he perceived to be wrong with those tools and submitted the fixes to the free software community. Whatever he thought was wrong couldn't have taken his people more than than a few months.
He says he is looking for someone to "blame". He gets that with commercial software. Other people, however, want to get a product out and are looking for an opportunity to fix things, and that's what open source software gives them.
awful web design = failure
on
Boo No More
·
· Score: 2
Maybe this is a sign of a more general trend. But the web design on boo.com was so awful that they probably weren't even in the running to begin with. They violated most rules of good web design: they had high bandwidth requirements, popped up a fixed size window, and left useless windows stranded.
The current system of using host names in URLs on the Internet is not well suited to the needs of the WWW. It was expedient and manageable for the initial growth, but now we need something better.
This is probably the beginning of the current centralized naming system. People can set up name resolution on their own computers any way they like. If.GOD becomes popular, people will add it to their name resolvers so that they can resolve URLs that refer to it.
You are probably also going to see little programs that make it easier to reconfigure name resolution statically or even on the fly. In fact, ActiveX components or VBScript "attachments" may be ever so helpful to users to do this automatically.
The main constraint is that if users see a URL, they probably want to be able to resolve the host name to something that exists (but not always--I'd be happy never to resolve the advertisers). That will mean that in the short run, there will remain a core set of name servers that everybody will refer to.
In the long run, browsers will probably almost exclusively use search engines to locate pages, the location bar will disappear, companies will use registered trademarks in ads to allow consumers to locate them ("look us up on the web under FooBar(TM)"), and URLs themselves will be replaced by something location independent. And the dealing in.com domain names will look like tulip mania in retrospect. At least we can hope.
A darker possibility is that, in the process of migrating to a URL-less world, the ISPs will take over name resolution and locating content for you entirely so that you only get to see the pages they want. And it may also be more difficult to get personal or other oddball pages into the directories people will be using.
I don't care as much about what Disney or Time-Warner/AOL do with their content. I consider most of it trash, and the more they charge for it and the less accessible they make it, the better, as far as I'm concerned. In the long run, I think they are going to price themselves out of the market if alternatives are allowed to exist.
What is important to me is that open content formats continue to be available freely and widely, so that alternative, free, open media and productions can prosper. With digital recording and PC-based audio and video production, a lot of really good content (concerts, theater, etc.) produced by non-profits and non-professionals is going to find its way onto the Internet, as long as the means for recording distributing that content remain open and affordable. Unfortunately, there are some restrictions already (MP3 players, for example, can't copy even free content); this is where we need to be vigilant.
Now, there is one exception where I think fair use provisions for media are really important even when it comes to the bogus content the big media companies are producing: news and other politically related media. It is really important to be able to call these organizations on the factual and logical errors they make. If they get to control who views their content, and when, and how, critics can be prevented from accessing it at all, or be kept from analyzing it carefully.
Of particular concern to us should also be what happens once the written word is customarily consumed using digital devices. The comments of the industry specifically talk about books; with DMCA, access to written materials by critical voices may become difficult, or, worse yet, different individuals may be shown different content altogether without even knowing it. That, too, is a good reason to be concerned about the DMCA and similar efforts even though, as far as the money making media are concerned, many of us couldn't care less what kinds of restrictions Disney puts on the latest Tarzan video.
Slashdot Mirror
Many companies submit the same patent to European and the US patent offices. In my experience, the USPTO just rubber stamps them. The European patent examiners frequently make insightful technical comments, point at related prior art, and narrow claims considerably. The European patent offices also have largely refused to broaden notions of patentability in areas like business methods, biology, and software without explicit legislative direction.
Republicans often like to claim that the EPA or other federal agencies are bureaucracies out of control. I think the USPTO is a much clearer example of a bureaucracy that makes policy without much oversight, and people like Dickinson are responsible. The kind of intellectual pollution the USPTO creates will stifle innovation and US competitiveness for decades to come.
Of course, none of this is surprising giving Dickinson's legal background. The benefits of the patent system that Dickinson has seen throughout his career are the ability to extract big legal fees from patent disputes among large corporations.
I think the USPTO should be run by people with creative engineering backgrounds, not by lawyers. Engineers should become politically more active to fill such posts with people who actually have first hand experience with innovation and creativity. If we leave it to law school graduates to run these kinds of institutions, we shouldn't be surprised at the results. So, get politically active: that's the only way this is going to change.
Note that RAM contents already survive reboots; it's the operating system that erases it (some systems take advantage of this fact for fast reboots). If you need power failure protection, you can also back up RAM that sits on the bus with batteries.
So, I think this card is a kludge, something that gives people a quick fix solution to a performance problem. For a quick fix, however, I would prefer a self-contained external box with a SCSI interface.
The question is what to search for: what constitutes meaningful answers to a query. Once we figure that out, then we can worry about speed.
Furthermore, in order to catch on, the product has to be compatible with existing systems and be either a lot faster, significantly cheaper, and/or come in much higher capacities; otherwise, they are not going to catch up with the economies of scale of flash memory. If they can do that, I think there is a market: non-volatile, fast storage is useful in more and more applications.
(As an aside, they are not talking about optical storage, they are talking about taking advantage of electrical properties of materials that are ordinarily used for optical storage.)
Of course, in reality, the only thing that can realistically change their monopolistic practices is a market driven approach, and that means putting Microsoft's application division on equal footing with others--i.e., a breakup. Their regulatory proposal isn't just less severe, it's ineffectual and useless--it's just business as usual.
However simply "requiring" Microsoft to do those things isn't going to work: Microsoft would always be able to weasel out of things by saying "but of course we published everything", and before that is sorted out in court, the point would be moot.
Splitting the company up accomplishes the same effect through market mechanisms: if Microsoft-OS and Microsoft-Apps are different companies, Microsoft-OS doesn't benefit from creating "internal" APIs.
If not all of RMS's concerns are addressed by the split-up, he should come up with more market-based mechanisms for achieving his goals, because there is a general feeling that regulatory mechanisms would simply be ineffective.
For anybody technically inclined (like most people on /.), it shouldn't be hard. If you need your ego stroked, you can still feel satisfied that for the population at large, it's probably a non-trivial test.
In any case, as soon as you travel outside an urban area, cell phones stop working, but there are often ham radio operators around.
Obviously, there are network effects at work here as well: the more people use ham radio, the more fun it is, so sign up...
What are the benefits? Well, it's a good way to communicate, even in out of the way places, and it's free. There are lots of nifty things you can do with digital transmissions in the amateur radio band. And people learn about interference as part of the reading material (useful for computer folks who may not be aware of the interference they are causing).
Amateur radio is one of the last refuges on the spectrum that is non-commercial and it needs new participants, or else it will slowly be taken over by commercial interests. And the digital aspects of amateur radio need new people to bring better technology and new ideas to them.
So, go out and get your license. You can get started at the ARRL web site. A reasonable handheld transmitter/receiver will cost you under $200 and is a good way to get started. For the test itself, you won't need more than a $20 book.
AtheOS looks like yet another C/C++-based, Windows-desktop-like operating system and GUI. Do we really need any more of those? Do we really need any more operating systems in C/C++ at all given that we already have dozens, with just about all permutations of the different GUI, API, extensibility, real-time, and kernel designs you can imagine?
Even if someone wants to "implement an operating system", it seems like there are a lot more useful and innovative directions to go into. There are a bunch of kernels that already take care of all the drivers and hardware interfaces, including Linux, *BSD, Fluke OS, Mach, etc. On top of those, people can build just about any OS they might want to. Build an open source Java-based OS, contribute to the Express SML-based OS, help create a standalone system based on the Linux kernel and CMU Lisp or Squeak, help create a free version of Plan 9, etc.
Comparing operating systems in this way is largely pointless. It presupposes that there is an optimal choice that everybody should agree on, and that's probably the biggest problem in the computer industry. Systems like Windows and MacOS wouldn't be such a nuisance if they weren't trying to take over the world. At 20-30% market share each, they'd be fine. At 90% market share, any operating system inhibits innovation and deprives many people of finding the optimal tool for their specific needs.
Besides, the EU laws on records probably don't apply to companies operating entirely outside Europe; whether Europeans submit their personal information to such companies is up to them.
Sounds like that's the best outcome they can hope for: not only do they maximize revenue from their own content, they also suppress the competition. You can bet that the RIAA is going to push hard for any legislation that achieves both of those goals.
If you think it can't happen, think again. Many countries have taxes on blank tapes and media, which are distributed then to established artists. The very folks who would use blank media, new artists with no revenue streams or recordings, have to subsidize their commercial counterparts.
The most likely outcome is that with systems like Gnutella in existence, ISPs will be required by law to keep detailed records, there will be sting operations, and people will get identified through their IP addresses.
The next stage of retreat is to go to something like AT&T's Crowds system, but most likely, if you participate in that kind of system at all, you'll simply be considered guilty by default. Ditto for Freenet.
Compared to on-the-air broadcasting and interactions in the real world, just about anything on the Internet can be tracked, logged, and analyzed with exquisite accuracy.
There are only limited things users can do. You can exchange information with people you know through cryptographic channels (arguably, fair use), and steganography will provide some way for some information to get out. But widespread anonymous file sharing ala Napster and Gnutella will likely be a transient phenomenon.
I'm not sure I like it, but it seems at least more rational.
Certain companies let users do the testing, and often also do a significant part of the maintenance/bug fixing, and then they make you pay for the next upgrade where they incorporate those fixes. That's one of the reasons why open source software makes economic sense: you only pay for the bug fixes you need (with your time or consulting dollars), and only once.
I also think the Eiffel design contains some serious technical blunders. Within the Eiffel family, I'd say people are better off using GNU Sather.
My attitude towards open source software and proprietary, closed source software is that the proprietary software simply makes no sense in the long run in a free market. I believe that the cost structure for software is such that the only rational thing for end users is to collaborate and share development costs, cutting out the middlemen. There might be other vehicles for accomplishing that kind of collaboration, but open source software seems to work particularly well because of its low overhead and simple adoption.
To me, all the current software empires are short term aberrations and market failures that have no place in a free market. The high profits they manage to make ("disequillibrium wages") are themselves evidence for that view.
I think the sooner companies realize the basic facts about the economics of software, the better. In the long run, good, solid businesses to be in are software-related service businesses, hardware businesses that manage to increase their profits through software that is synergistic with what they sell, and entertainment/personal service businesses that use (free) software to drive customers to them. And I think, despite all the rhethoric, that's roughly what Stallman is saying as well.
My economic analysis might, of course, be wrong. But, then, who knows, it might be right, too.
Overall, you are still a lot better off than with commercial software. If your need is pressing, you can pay the extra money and get the fix as soon as possible, an option you don't have with most commercial software (and if you do, you are at the mercy of a single company). If you go for a more leisurely maintenance contract, you'll still get the fix roughly at the same time as any commercial vendor would release an upgrade.
And no matter which maintenance option you choose, you won't be paying for your own fix over and over and over again. Once your problem has been solved, you'll get future upgrades for free.
But, if you are familiar with the cost structure of commercial software development, the long term cost of a software project is often in the testing, maintenance, and bug fixes, not in the initial writing of the bulk of the code.
Of course, users also end up contributing lots of bug reports and suggestions for enhancements to commercial vendors. But that's only adding insult to injury, because they end up paying for intellectual property that they themselves, rather than the vendor, created.
Eiffel failed to catch on widely, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere. Rather than insulting more and more people, it would be good for Meyer to go back and see where he didn't meet the needs of his potential user community. Unlike what he claims, people in industry are very concerned with quality and methodology. It's just that his tools and methodology failed to meet their needs.
As for open source software, that does have something to do with the success of new tools and languages: most people who make these decisions are simply not going to build a product based on a language that comes from a small vendor. They would be betting many man-years of effort on the success of that one small vendor and be at the complete mercy of that company's future pricing policies and responsiveness.
The two realistic options anybody wanting to popularize a new language has are to open source a usable implementation or to work early towards creating a standard and getting multiple vendors to provide implementations. Eiffel did neither, and so it wasn't a very attractive choice (the fact that many people perceived it to contain some real technical blunders didn't help either). That is perhaps the first lesson would-be language vendors should understand.
I think the following paragraph sums it up; Meyer writes:
Obviously, he doesn't understand that free software isn't a gift from God, it's a collaborative process. Rather than cancelling his projects, he should have fixed whatever he perceived to be wrong with those tools and submitted the fixes to the free software community. Whatever he thought was wrong couldn't have taken his people more than than a few months.
He says he is looking for someone to "blame". He gets that with commercial software. Other people, however, want to get a product out and are looking for an opportunity to fix things, and that's what open source software gives them.
Maybe this is a sign of a more general trend. But the web design on boo.com was so awful that they probably weren't even in the running to begin with. They violated most rules of good web design: they had high bandwidth requirements, popped up a fixed size window, and left useless windows stranded.
This is probably the beginning of the current centralized naming system. People can set up name resolution on their own computers any way they like. If .GOD becomes popular, people will add it to their name resolvers so that they can resolve URLs that refer to it.
You are probably also going to see little programs that make it easier to reconfigure name resolution statically or even on the fly. In fact, ActiveX components or VBScript "attachments" may be ever so helpful to users to do this automatically.
The main constraint is that if users see a URL, they probably want to be able to resolve the host name to something that exists (but not always--I'd be happy never to resolve the advertisers). That will mean that in the short run, there will remain a core set of name servers that everybody will refer to.
In the long run, browsers will probably almost exclusively use search engines to locate pages, the location bar will disappear, companies will use registered trademarks in ads to allow consumers to locate them ("look us up on the web under FooBar(TM)"), and URLs themselves will be replaced by something location independent. And the dealing in .com domain names will look like tulip mania in retrospect. At least we can hope.
A darker possibility is that, in the process of migrating to a URL-less world, the ISPs will take over name resolution and locating content for you entirely so that you only get to see the pages they want. And it may also be more difficult to get personal or other oddball pages into the directories people will be using.
What is important to me is that open content formats continue to be available freely and widely, so that alternative, free, open media and productions can prosper. With digital recording and PC-based audio and video production, a lot of really good content (concerts, theater, etc.) produced by non-profits and non-professionals is going to find its way onto the Internet, as long as the means for recording distributing that content remain open and affordable. Unfortunately, there are some restrictions already (MP3 players, for example, can't copy even free content); this is where we need to be vigilant.
Now, there is one exception where I think fair use provisions for media are really important even when it comes to the bogus content the big media companies are producing: news and other politically related media. It is really important to be able to call these organizations on the factual and logical errors they make. If they get to control who views their content, and when, and how, critics can be prevented from accessing it at all, or be kept from analyzing it carefully.
Of particular concern to us should also be what happens once the written word is customarily consumed using digital devices. The comments of the industry specifically talk about books; with DMCA, access to written materials by critical voices may become difficult, or, worse yet, different individuals may be shown different content altogether without even knowing it. That, too, is a good reason to be concerned about the DMCA and similar efforts even though, as far as the money making media are concerned, many of us couldn't care less what kinds of restrictions Disney puts on the latest Tarzan video.