You haven't won. You've merely gotten out of the immediate battleground, and are ignoring the War.
Part of TT's point is that Big Media is exerting too much control over the news. No matter how good someone may be at making decisions, feed them defective information and the 'perfectly made' decisions based on that information will be defective, too. For instance, your neighbors, your zoning board, voters, etc.
I just did click on the link. I'll be honest and admit that I skimmed most of it, but I did read carefully the paragraph at the bottom about X.
>still theoretically possible for some of these attacks to work against X but in practice it's highly unlikely.
and goes on a bit about how and why it would be much harder to mount a successful shatter attack against X. In other posts of mine, critical of the "Windows done right" concept, I maintain that Windows may well be broken at the architectural level, not just the implementation. This is a piece of such an argument. Design for features without regard for security is another.
Someone else already said that router manufacturers compete on features, and security is one of these features. So yes, they will, as much as the market forces them.
First off, I am not an employee or stockholder of Netgear, etc.
But I like my Netgear FR114P. I bought it a little over a year ago, because I saw the Internet becoming a nastier and more hostile place, and didn't feel I had the time to exercise the necessary due diligence to keep a software firewall safe. It has Stateful Packet Inspection and some pretty flexible firewall rules, as well as the normal router-box features. I have already blocked all outgoing port 25 connections from my LAN, except from my mail hub, as well as the NetBIOS ports. I suppose with a little more effort I could change port 25 into a point-to-point from my mail hub to my ISP's relay.
This box could do what you want. It's the 'by default' that's missing.
I suspect the other necessary detail would be for DHCP (or PPPoE) to send a mail relay IP, just like it sends DNS and NTP, today. I'm setting up Kerberos at home now, and have set up DNS TXT records to identify that, so that technique could be used, too. Or for that matter, an internal-side MX record. It's all just client-side stitching.
By policy, Adelphia isn't just 'off by default', it's just plain 'off'. Their more recent Terms Of Service specify that customers may operate 'no servers of any kind.' I don't know how much of this they actually enforce, though I've heard they block incoming ports 25 and 80. Personally I'm surprised they don't just block all incoming SYN packets. These folks are least-common-denominator types, why should they spend any money to accomodate anything else? Don't forget the roots of cable Internet providers - cable TV. I suspect that they think of the Internet as 'millions of web channels' plus email. From what I understand, even Adelphia's 'business plan' has the same TOS, they just add some service guarantees, (their) server-side stuff, etc.
So I'll take your simple 'off by default' proposal, and tell you exactly what would be implemented - OFF!
As for the 'get another ISP' argument, when cable is your only broadband option, you can't do much else but check DSLReports monthly to see if it's available yet (no, not yet) in your neighborhood. I'd take the bandwidth drop in a heartbeat, to get true Internet service.
By the time the THIRD antitrust suit make it through the courts, BSD truly will be dead, and Linux along with it. Well, not really dead, they'll be back in University labs and on hobbyists PCs.
The patent lawsuits haven't even started yet, but the chilling effects already have, and MORE places than just HP.
Oh, one other place BSD and Linux will be - China. People gripe about Government interfering with Business, well Business interfering with Government is even worse. In the long run, the present trend of entrenching Business' IP rights will do nothing more than push innovation overseas. To ameliorate US concerns, I expect China to develop domestic and export standards. The export products will be a capability subset of the domestic products, not because of any silly defense concerns, but because of our IP laws. Their domestic market will be big enough to keep Red Flag running Samba 4, as well as still purchasing a healthy amount of Microsoft products - in those roles where 100% compatability with the rest of the world is essential. We lose.
I know you don't have to clone, but cloning can necessarily force you closer to the line.
Unfortunately, the USPTO uses mostly their own records for a prior art search. I've personally seen cases where searching a patent database turns up nothing, only to look in IEEE publications and find it immediately. Perhaps the USPTO does search IEEE publications for electronics, but *how many* open source projects would they need to search to check as part of a software patent?
Also unfortunately, it's very difficult, lengthy, and costly to overturn a patent.
No, Linux doesn't depend on Mono. But if we're not careful, newbie Linux may well. Even today, it's getting tough to have newbie Linux without GNOME or KDE. Many, many new capabilities are being done in GNOME-flavor and KDE-flavor. Neither of the above is usually only harder to find, especially in gui form, as they are frequently text-only.
Stopping me? Time and skill. Skill shouldn't be a stopper, but I don't have time. So it's really time.
It's why Miguel Icaza scares the living daylights out of me. I first got peripherally involved with GNOME as I was exiting using OS/2, since the O in GNOME stood for Object. At the time it seemed to me that KDE was clearly chasing Windows.
Then I found that the GNOME mantra was, "Windows done right." IMHO it's quite possible that Windows just might be architecturally broken, and not possible to "do right" at all. The rash of exploits indicates that security played no part in the base architecture, and efforts to retrofit it have trod a wide, meandering line between compatibility and security.
Try to clone something, even "do it right," and you're going to be risking patent lawsuites. The push to Mono scares me even more, since they're approaching Microsoft's crown-jewels-to-be. What's worse is that the patent process is SO SLOW that Mono may be violating a patent application today, but nobody will know until the patent issues and someone gets served. IMHO, Mono is a "Come stop me!" challenge to Microsoft. I can't imagine them not obliging, and just hope Mono isn't too big a pinch point to Linux when it happens.
As for "Windows done right," I just wish the Linux community hadn't set its sights so low. Amiga was out there, the OS/2 WPS was out there, BE/OS was out there. I know the target market was/is to get people to migrate from Windows. A "compatibility crippler" from something better would have sufficed.
But Microsoft does more than pretend that IE is part of the OS, they actually have integrated it... more than is wise. That's WHY IE bugs have become so bad - is because subverting the browser gives deeper OS access than if it were simply a browser.
As for the Taurus audio, I have to at least partly agree that the thing is proprietary as all get-out. For those that don't own one, the Taurus audio is a big oval, instead of the compact rectangle that is standard. Mine (1999, 2nd hand company car) has provisions for a CD player in the trunk, though I have no idea if the connector is 'standard' or not. Why have I never thought to check google on this before now? I checked the local junkyard years ago, and they wanted $200 for the unit. (Just checked google, the junkyard was a bargain.)
Perhaps one of our bigger enemies in "the browser wars," cloaking as the other guy.
So let's pretend that Mozilla/Firefox/Opera all together get 75% share, but 90% of them are cloaking as IE. To the folks gathering statistics, Mozilla/Firefox/Opera will still appear to have a paltry 6-7% market share, not worth messing with. IE will still appear to dominate.
The same argument is made about WINE, and was made about WinOS2.
But too much Windows integration is one reason why IE is such a security nightmare. With that level of integration, gaining control of the browser pretty much means gaining control of the OS with that user's rights. In the case of Win9X that's complete, and in the case of NT-family that usually means admin, which is just about the same thing.
I suspect integrating a browser with the OS can be done, but to do it the way MS did, but safely, would be incredibly difficult. Sandboxing for the web would be appropriate, but might impose too much of a performance hit to use for browsing local files. OTOH, not sandboxing local files opens yet another vector for attack - getting 0wn3d for browsing a malicious file you downloaded.
But if you don't run as root, many things can be done to prevent a machine from becoming a zombie. If you run as root, all of that is pretty easily circumvented.
I fear Lindows, because it's basic installation is 'run as root' in order to simplify things. IMHO this is no better than Win9X or WinNT with the first/prime user set up as Admin, and perhaps worse because new Lindows users will be even more ignorant that they were on Windows. They will be more susceptible to human-engineering attacks because they'll have less experience, and because they think they're getting better security just by moving away from Windows.
IMHO, Lindows should have set up root and a default user, and a bunch of sudo gui programs to admin the box. The default user should have been a random name, with the installation option to change to a user-chosen name. Then use the autologin feature of gdm/kdm/xdm so the system boots to a ready-to-just-use state.
Next thought... Include something like pam_usb hooked into the sudo, and include a USB memory key. The installation process sets up the key, and then you plug it in to administer the box. Make the user aware that the key IS the security, and not to leave it just plugged in. Possibly even limit the admin that can be done while the network is up. Include a sticky hook so it can be stored on the system.
A few years back I bought a brand new, 15 year old IBM keyboard for around $20. (original, sealed, old box) I wish I'd bought more, because nothing beats the feel of the old IBM keyboards.
IMHO, you've almost cast it into a 'DMCA or die' type of argument, or at least 'DMCA or 40% drop in profits.'
Also IMHO, it's a function of MBAs who barely know squat about their companies' products getting into the top echelons. Movie execs who know money, not movies. Music execs who know money, not music. execs who know money, not . In this specific instance, it's Lexmark execs, who know money, not printers.
I can think of two correct ways to handle this situation: Get better at producing cartridges, so they don't have to hide behind the DMCA to sell their own, or: Move upstream, making laser printers and color laser printers cheaper/bettter so I become a customer of them, instead of inkjets. Then think about dyesub, and other technologies that deliver something of value to the customer, instead of trying to force the customer to pay more.
A quick search on google showed nothing newer than late Feb 2003, when Lexmark won the first round. Knowing nothing more, I'd guess that the Lexmark decision has not been reversed, and StorageTek is merely the second to hop on the bandwagon.
If you can't compete, legislate your competition away.
The real fact that the software industry has to face up to is that it's not an industry. They're really not manufacturing software. They've had two decades of selling software as if it were a durable good, not I.P. Of course in recent years they've joined the ??AA in trying to make software, along with music and video, a strange sort of hybrid durable good with I.P. aspects to it.
This latter model is really scary, because they sell it to you as if it were a durable good, yet you don't really own it, because it's I.P. and they specify the ways you may use it.
Either it's a durable good, you buy it, you own it... Or it's I.P. and the so-called durable good is media-only, replacable for cost-of-media, only.
IMHO, they've only been getting away with 'manufacturing software' because we've been on the front of the curve. Even now MS is finding that it's own worst enemy is its own installed base of 'durable bits' that customers see no need to upgrade, because it does what they need.
Yet at the same time, we haven't figured out how to turn software into a service model. I suspect a large part of the reason is that remnants of the manuracturing model blow the service model out of the water, here in the transition time.
Dude, I have over 25 years into engineering. It has had its ups and downs, but I'd do it again. My son is getting set to go to college, and my wife (Yes, I have one of those, as well as a son, and a daughter, too.) and I have encouraged him to follow his muse. (Though not to ignore money completely, you gotta eat.)
I simply HAD to become an engineer, not much choice in the matter. I was fiddling with things before I could read, and didn't stop after I learned.
One year at the ISSCC I attended and evening session about the Future of Engineers, and left partway through the Q&A. Leaving, I bumped into Dick Foss, and we spoke about the session. My question - how many of the engineers got there from the hobby, and how many for the money. (This was in the dot-com days.) His take - as an employer he looked for applicante who had an outside interest in electronics that led them into the field.
I have one copy of Windows PowerDVD, which came bundled with either the motherboard or DVD drive I bought at the time. (1.5 years ago)
I'm buying some more hardware this month, and it will include a bundled DVD player, but not PowerDVD. But I can pick up PowerDVD for only $2 or $3, and probably will. Then I can install both, and use the one I like better. $3 isn't too much to throw away, if the no-cost bundled player is better.
I wonder how much PowerDVD for Linux will cost? That's the other side of buying Linux software, having to pay 2-10X the price of the same/equivalent Windows software. Or at least paying Windows list price, while most Windows software gets sold at some decent discount. Pay? Yes. Pay slightly more? Maybe. Pay much more? No.
Just out of curiousity, how do they respond to moving your hours to the early side? If you've come in late, and are staying late, then you're there when the boss leaves, and look good.
OTOH, during the Summer I like to get in by 7:00+/-, and out correspondingly early. So odds are good I see others heading to a meeting somewhere, and I'm heading out the door. Actually, I'm getting no flack at all for it, so any very slight unease I may feel isn't enough to stop me.
IIRC, in "The Rolling Stones" Heinlein had the kids doing the laundry by putting it in the airlock and venting. With any foreign material thus dessicated, give the clothes a brushing to get the dust out, and bring them back in. Details not mentioned, you might have to swing them in a circle to get the dust moving away from the clothing, and you'd want to pre-warm things before exposing them to moist (breathable) air, or they'd ice up and be wet once warm.
Last I heard, there were millions of millionaires in the US. They're the target market. Assume only 1% of them would like to go into space, and that you could launch 1 a day on average, that keeps you in business for about 27 years. Hopefully in those 27 years, they'll have brought the costs down enough so that/. geeks could go, even once in a lifetime. Then there'd always be newly-minted millionaires and repeat-visit millionaires.
Once proven safe, I'm sure there'd be no shortage of customers for something SO exotic.
Besides the 200 mile club for entertainment, and besides looking out the windows and mingling with the other orbital elite, I would hope that the hotel would have one empty module with padded walls. Someplace to FLY. (OK, drift/bounce in freefall)
Which brings up the next thoughts... Let a dance troup develop something in that empty module, and televise it. Let artists be there, look out the windows, etc, and translate their new experiences into canvas, music, sculpture, etc. Hold a peace conference, with a different perspective on the matter. Moviemaking, one-up "The Uranus Experiment"
Slashdot Mirror
You haven't won. You've merely gotten out of the immediate battleground, and are ignoring the War.
Part of TT's point is that Big Media is exerting too much control over the news. No matter how good someone may be at making decisions, feed them defective information and the 'perfectly made' decisions based on that information will be defective, too. For instance, your neighbors, your zoning board, voters, etc.
I just did click on the link. I'll be honest and admit that I skimmed most of it, but I did read carefully the paragraph at the bottom about X.
>still theoretically possible for some of these attacks to work against X but in practice it's highly unlikely.
and goes on a bit about how and why it would be much harder to mount a successful shatter attack against X. In other posts of mine, critical of the "Windows done right" concept, I maintain that Windows may well be broken at the architectural level, not just the implementation. This is a piece of such an argument. Design for features without regard for security is another.
Someone else already said that router manufacturers compete on features, and security is one of these features. So yes, they will, as much as the market forces them.
First off, I am not an employee or stockholder of Netgear, etc.
But I like my Netgear FR114P.
I bought it a little over a year ago, because I saw the Internet becoming a nastier and more hostile place, and didn't feel I had the time to exercise the necessary due diligence to keep a software firewall safe.
It has Stateful Packet Inspection and some pretty flexible firewall rules, as well as the normal router-box features.
I have already blocked all outgoing port 25 connections from my LAN, except from my mail hub, as well as the NetBIOS ports. I suppose with a little more effort I could change port 25 into a point-to-point from my mail hub to my ISP's relay.
This box could do what you want. It's the 'by default' that's missing.
I suspect the other necessary detail would be for DHCP (or PPPoE) to send a mail relay IP, just like it sends DNS and NTP, today. I'm setting up Kerberos at home now, and have set up DNS TXT records to identify that, so that technique could be used, too. Or for that matter, an internal-side MX record. It's all just client-side stitching.
By policy, Adelphia isn't just 'off by default', it's just plain 'off'. Their more recent Terms Of Service specify that customers may operate 'no servers of any kind.' I don't know how much of this they actually enforce, though I've heard they block incoming ports 25 and 80. Personally I'm surprised they don't just block all incoming SYN packets. These folks are least-common-denominator types, why should they spend any money to accomodate anything else? Don't forget the roots of cable Internet providers - cable TV. I suspect that they think of the Internet as 'millions of web channels' plus email. From what I understand, even Adelphia's 'business plan' has the same TOS, they just add some service guarantees, (their) server-side stuff, etc.
So I'll take your simple 'off by default' proposal, and tell you exactly what would be implemented - OFF!
As for the 'get another ISP' argument, when cable is your only broadband option, you can't do much else but check DSLReports monthly to see if it's available yet (no, not yet) in your neighborhood. I'd take the bandwidth drop in a heartbeat, to get true Internet service.
By the time the THIRD antitrust suit make it through the courts, BSD truly will be dead, and Linux along with it. Well, not really dead, they'll be back in University labs and on hobbyists PCs.
The patent lawsuits haven't even started yet, but the chilling effects already have, and MORE places than just HP.
Oh, one other place BSD and Linux will be - China. People gripe about Government interfering with Business, well Business interfering with Government is even worse. In the long run, the present trend of entrenching Business' IP rights will do nothing more than push innovation overseas. To ameliorate US concerns, I expect China to develop domestic and export standards. The export products will be a capability subset of the domestic products, not because of any silly defense concerns, but because of our IP laws. Their domestic market will be big enough to keep Red Flag running Samba 4, as well as still purchasing a healthy amount of Microsoft products - in those roles where 100% compatability with the rest of the world is essential. We lose.
I know you don't have to clone, but cloning can necessarily force you closer to the line.
Unfortunately, the USPTO uses mostly their own records for a prior art search. I've personally seen cases where searching a patent database turns up nothing, only to look in IEEE publications and find it immediately. Perhaps the USPTO does search IEEE publications for electronics, but *how many* open source projects would they need to search to check as part of a software patent?
Also unfortunately, it's very difficult, lengthy, and costly to overturn a patent.
No, Linux doesn't depend on Mono. But if we're not careful, newbie Linux may well. Even today, it's getting tough to have newbie Linux without GNOME or KDE. Many, many new capabilities are being done in GNOME-flavor and KDE-flavor. Neither of the above is usually only harder to find, especially in gui form, as they are frequently text-only.
Stopping me? Time and skill. Skill shouldn't be a stopper, but I don't have time. So it's really time.
Beware monsters from the ID!!!
(Not ID Software, and the lameness filter wouldn't let me SHOUT!)
Two unfortunate answers, here:
Yes, the html is valid and the browser fails, but the browser is IE6, so it IS correct.
No, the html is valid and the browser doesn't fail, but the browser is not IE6, so it doesn't matter whether it is correct, or not.
If anything is going to change the playing field with browsers, it's the web-aware cell phone.
It's why Miguel Icaza scares the living daylights out of me. I first got peripherally involved with GNOME as I was exiting using OS/2, since the O in GNOME stood for Object. At the time it seemed to me that KDE was clearly chasing Windows.
Then I found that the GNOME mantra was, "Windows done right." IMHO it's quite possible that Windows just might be architecturally broken, and not possible to "do right" at all. The rash of exploits indicates that security played no part in the base architecture, and efforts to retrofit it have trod a wide, meandering line between compatibility and security.
Try to clone something, even "do it right," and you're going to be risking patent lawsuites. The push to Mono scares me even more, since they're approaching Microsoft's crown-jewels-to-be. What's worse is that the patent process is SO SLOW that Mono may be violating a patent application today, but nobody will know until the patent issues and someone gets served. IMHO, Mono is a "Come stop me!" challenge to Microsoft. I can't imagine them not obliging, and just hope Mono isn't too big a pinch point to Linux when it happens.
As for "Windows done right," I just wish the Linux community hadn't set its sights so low. Amiga was out there, the OS/2 WPS was out there, BE/OS was out there. I know the target market was/is to get people to migrate from Windows. A "compatibility crippler" from something better would have sufficed.
But Microsoft does more than pretend that IE is part of the OS, they actually have integrated it ... more than is wise. That's WHY IE bugs have become so bad - is because subverting the browser gives deeper OS access than if it were simply a browser.
As for the Taurus audio, I have to at least partly agree that the thing is proprietary as all get-out. For those that don't own one, the Taurus audio is a big oval, instead of the compact rectangle that is standard. Mine (1999, 2nd hand company car) has provisions for a CD player in the trunk, though I have no idea if the connector is 'standard' or not. Why have I never thought to check google on this before now? I checked the local junkyard years ago, and they wanted $200 for the unit. (Just checked google, the junkyard was a bargain.)
Perhaps one of our bigger enemies in "the browser wars," cloaking as the other guy.
So let's pretend that Mozilla/Firefox/Opera all together get 75% share, but 90% of them are cloaking as IE. To the folks gathering statistics, Mozilla/Firefox/Opera will still appear to have a paltry 6-7% market share, not worth messing with. IE will still appear to dominate.
The same argument is made about WINE, and was made about WinOS2.
But too much Windows integration is one reason why IE is such a security nightmare. With that level of integration, gaining control of the browser pretty much means gaining control of the OS with that user's rights. In the case of Win9X that's complete, and in the case of NT-family that usually means admin, which is just about the same thing.
I suspect integrating a browser with the OS can be done, but to do it the way MS did, but safely, would be incredibly difficult. Sandboxing for the web would be appropriate, but might impose too much of a performance hit to use for browsing local files. OTOH, not sandboxing local files opens yet another vector for attack - getting 0wn3d for browsing a malicious file you downloaded.
But if you don't run as root, many things can be done to prevent a machine from becoming a zombie. If you run as root, all of that is pretty easily circumvented.
Didn't know that, hope 'run at root' really is gone, forever.
I fear Lindows, because it's basic installation is 'run as root' in order to simplify things. IMHO this is no better than Win9X or WinNT with the first/prime user set up as Admin, and perhaps worse because new Lindows users will be even more ignorant that they were on Windows. They will be more susceptible to human-engineering attacks because they'll have less experience, and because they think they're getting better security just by moving away from Windows.
IMHO, Lindows should have set up root and a default user, and a bunch of sudo gui programs to admin the box. The default user should have been a random name, with the installation option to change to a user-chosen name. Then use the autologin feature of gdm/kdm/xdm so the system boots to a ready-to-just-use state.
Next thought... Include something like pam_usb hooked into the sudo, and include a USB memory key. The installation process sets up the key, and then you plug it in to administer the box. Make the user aware that the key IS the security, and not to leave it just plugged in. Possibly even limit the admin that can be done while the network is up. Include a sticky hook so it can be stored on the system.
Does Linspire run users as root?
Saw one at Staples this weekend for $9.88.
A few years back I bought a brand new, 15 year old IBM keyboard for around $20. (original, sealed, old box) I wish I'd bought more, because nothing beats the feel of the old IBM keyboards.
IMHO, you've almost cast it into a 'DMCA or die' type of argument, or at least 'DMCA or 40% drop in profits.'
Also IMHO, it's a function of MBAs who barely know squat about their companies' products getting into the top echelons. Movie execs who know money, not movies. Music execs who know money, not music. execs who know money, not . In this specific instance, it's Lexmark execs, who know money, not printers.
I can think of two correct ways to handle this situation: Get better at producing cartridges, so they don't have to hide behind the DMCA to sell their own, or: Move upstream, making laser printers and color laser printers cheaper/bettter so I become a customer of them, instead of inkjets. Then think about dyesub, and other technologies that deliver something of value to the customer, instead of trying to force the customer to pay more.
A quick search on google showed nothing newer than late Feb 2003, when Lexmark won the first round. Knowing nothing more, I'd guess that the Lexmark decision has not been reversed, and StorageTek is merely the second to hop on the bandwagon.
If you can't compete, legislate your competition away.
The real fact that the software industry has to face up to is that it's not an industry. They're really not manufacturing software. They've had two decades of selling software as if it were a durable good, not I.P. Of course in recent years they've joined the ??AA in trying to make software, along with music and video, a strange sort of hybrid durable good with I.P. aspects to it.
This latter model is really scary, because they sell it to you as if it were a durable good, yet you don't really own it, because it's I.P. and they specify the ways you may use it.
Either it's a durable good, you buy it, you own it...
Or it's I.P. and the so-called durable good is media-only, replacable for cost-of-media, only.
IMHO, they've only been getting away with 'manufacturing software' because we've been on the front of the curve. Even now MS is finding that it's own worst enemy is its own installed base of 'durable bits' that customers see no need to upgrade, because it does what they need.
Yet at the same time, we haven't figured out how to turn software into a service model. I suspect a large part of the reason is that remnants of the manuracturing model blow the service model out of the water, here in the transition time.
Dude, I have over 25 years into engineering. It has had its ups and downs, but I'd do it again. My son is getting set to go to college, and my wife (Yes, I have one of those, as well as a son, and a daughter, too.) and I have encouraged him to follow his muse. (Though not to ignore money completely, you gotta eat.)
I simply HAD to become an engineer, not much choice in the matter. I was fiddling with things before I could read, and didn't stop after I learned.
One year at the ISSCC I attended and evening session about the Future of Engineers, and left partway through the Q&A. Leaving, I bumped into Dick Foss, and we spoke about the session. My question - how many of the engineers got there from the hobby, and how many for the money. (This was in the dot-com days.) His take - as an employer he looked for applicante who had an outside interest in electronics that led them into the field.
Isn't that best for any field, to do you calling?
I have one copy of Windows PowerDVD, which came bundled with either the motherboard or DVD drive I bought at the time. (1.5 years ago)
I'm buying some more hardware this month, and it will include a bundled DVD player, but not PowerDVD. But I can pick up PowerDVD for only $2 or $3, and probably will. Then I can install both, and use the one I like better. $3 isn't too much to throw away, if the no-cost bundled player is better.
I wonder how much PowerDVD for Linux will cost?
That's the other side of buying Linux software, having to pay 2-10X the price of the same/equivalent Windows software. Or at least paying Windows list price, while most Windows software gets sold at some decent discount.
Pay? Yes. Pay slightly more? Maybe. Pay much more? No.
Just out of curiousity, how do they respond to moving your hours to the early side? If you've come in late, and are staying late, then you're there when the boss leaves, and look good.
OTOH, during the Summer I like to get in by 7:00+/-, and out correspondingly early. So odds are good I see others heading to a meeting somewhere, and I'm heading out the door. Actually, I'm getting no flack at all for it, so any very slight unease I may feel isn't enough to stop me.
IIRC, in "The Rolling Stones" Heinlein had the kids doing the laundry by putting it in the airlock and venting. With any foreign material thus dessicated, give the clothes a brushing to get the dust out, and bring them back in. Details not mentioned, you might have to swing them in a circle to get the dust moving away from the clothing, and you'd want to pre-warm things before exposing them to moist (breathable) air, or they'd ice up and be wet once warm.
Last I heard, there were millions of millionaires in the US. They're the target market. Assume only 1% of them would like to go into space, and that you could launch 1 a day on average, that keeps you in business for about 27 years. Hopefully in those 27 years, they'll have brought the costs down enough so that /. geeks could go, even once in a lifetime. Then there'd always be newly-minted millionaires and repeat-visit millionaires.
Once proven safe, I'm sure there'd be no shortage of customers for something SO exotic.
Besides the 200 mile club for entertainment, and besides looking out the windows and mingling with the other orbital elite, I would hope that the hotel would have one empty module with padded walls. Someplace to FLY. (OK, drift/bounce in freefall)
Which brings up the next thoughts...
Let a dance troup develop something in that empty module, and televise it.
Let artists be there, look out the windows, etc, and translate their new experiences into canvas, music, sculpture, etc.
Hold a peace conference, with a different perspective on the matter.
Moviemaking, one-up "The Uranus Experiment"