My.mp3.com only allows people to access their own music collections. The purpose of Napster, on the other hand, is to allow people to share music. From a legal perspective these are two very different things.
It wasn't that long ago that the whole concept of using a VCR to record tv broadcasts for later viewing was challenged for (gasp!) copyright infringment. In that case it was the VCR manufacturers who were being accused, and it took a couple years (and several appeals) for the courts to rule that consumers can legally record programs for their own personal use.
It seems to me that the current dispute between the RIAA and my.mp3.com is a similar argument. In both cases the argument was about who controls the use of the material. This is not a distribution issue - because my.mp3.com is not (legally speaking) distributing the material as long as they provide reasonable means to limit access to the material. They simply supply a storage mechanism.
The difference today is that the VCR manufacturers were large companies who had the financial means to fight it out in court. Mp3.com needs to find some wealthy friends - fast!
Napster, on the other hand, is a whole different ballgame...
/Don
Re:Reliability issues galore!
on
Laptop Lojack?
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· Score: 1
GPS has problems working in heavily forested areas, so I can't imagine that it would be useful inside a structure (such as a building or tunnel). The beacon idea seems better, but the transmitter would require a reasonable amount of power (1 KWatt ?) as well as a reasonable antenna to provide useful range.
You have been an advocate for Open Source for several years now, and probably know as much about the history of the movement as anyone. What, in your opinion, is the biggest mistake the the Open Source community has made? Is there anything that we should be doing differently right now?
I'm not a big fan of either the Maine or New York proposals, but as a father of two pre-schoolers I am very interested in how to make sure that my kids have as many educational opportunities as possible. I feel that knowledge of how to use a computer is going to be essential for my kids' future success in the job market, so I'm making sure that they have access to computers even at the young age of three. But will all of the children in my kids' school have this same opportunity?
It's no big deal for my kids to have a computer, because I had an old P100 system in the basement gathering dust (it runs Reader Rabbit just fine). Not evey family in my community is so well off, however. How do we make sure that all of the kids in my town have easy access to computers? And how do we make sure that they are encouraged to take advantage of those opportunities?
Installing a few computers in the high school, or the public library, is not the answer. Neither is giving every child a laptop and saying "use it." The answer is a well thought out plan. Are Maine and New York doing this?
If we can come up with a way to provide kids with a good background in how to use computers (which does not necessarily mean programming) then that would be a good thing. Simply providing them with computers is not, in itself, a solution to anything. And nobody would be proposing to spend all of this money unless it was suppose to accomplish something, right?
Will the number of security threats increase as more things are connected to the network? Are the designers of Internet appliances making the same security-related mistakes as traditional computer designers? Should I be worried about someone breaking in to my HP printer? north.coaster
The BBC article is a little vague about what these systems are going to used for, and that's an important issue. One would hope that the schools have more ambitious plans than just "surfing the web". Is there an adequate amount of educational software available for Linux?
This brings up the issue of compatibility with the computers that the students use at home. Again, web surfing is a no brainer, but what about other software packages? Are the kids going to be fighting with the same portability issues that drive us "big people" crazy?
Don't get me wrong, I like this idea. But as a parent of two little kids I can't help but think about these issues.
To be fair, some of the items that are mentioned weren't invented by Xerox (the mouse, for example). Xerox is trying to market the more recent ones. They have an agreement with 3M, for example, to co-develop electronic paper. For another view on Xerox "Fumbling the Future", see the book "Dealers of Lightning : Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age" by Michael A. Hiltzik. Among other things, this book points out that Xerox has easily recouped it's investiment in PARC through it's profits on laser printers. Hiltzik also tried to sort the truth from the myth about what really happened when Steve Jobs visited PARC. Note that I work for Xerox (though not at PARC) so I may be biased.
I view these management methodologies sort of like I view the toolbox that I keep in my garage - there are a lot of tools there, but for most projects I rarely need to use them all.
If your projects are always on time and within budget, then you may not need any of these tools. On the other hand, if your projects are sometimes late, over budget, out of resources, or out of control (in general) then some of these tools might be worth looking at.
Regarding implementation, the biggest barrier is peoples' resistance to change. Many people will recognize that there is a problem, but they are reluctant to support culture/process changes that require a change in what they themselves do. It's always someone else who has the problem. This is especially true with managers, who recognize that their sucess in the current paradigm may not transfer to a new one.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that the current dispute between the RIAA and my.mp3.com is a similar argument. In both cases the argument was about who controls the use of the material. This is not a distribution issue - because my.mp3.com is not (legally speaking) distributing the material as long as they provide reasonable means to limit access to the material. They simply supply a storage mechanism.
The difference today is that the VCR manufacturers were large companies who had the financial means to fight it out in court. Mp3.com needs to find some wealthy friends - fast!
Napster, on the other hand, is a whole different ballgame...
I suggest that a different approach is needed.
You have been an advocate for Open Source for several years now, and probably know as much about the history of the movement as anyone. What, in your opinion, is the biggest mistake the the Open Source community has made? Is there anything that we should be doing differently right now?
It's no big deal for my kids to have a computer, because I had an old P100 system in the basement gathering dust (it runs Reader Rabbit just fine). Not evey family in my community is so well off, however. How do we make sure that all of the kids in my town have easy access to computers? And how do we make sure that they are encouraged to take advantage of those opportunities?
Installing a few computers in the high school, or the public library, is not the answer. Neither is giving every child a laptop and saying "use it." The answer is a well thought out plan. Are Maine and New York doing this?
If we can come up with a way to provide kids with a good background in how to use computers (which does not necessarily mean programming) then that would be a good thing. Simply providing them with computers is not, in itself, a solution to anything. And nobody would be proposing to spend all of this money unless it was suppose to accomplish something, right?
I'm running Netscape 4.71 on NT and have no problems with /. It sounds like you have a config problem. /Don
Will the number of security threats increase as more things are connected to the network? Are the designers of Internet appliances making the same security-related mistakes as traditional computer designers? Should I be worried about someone breaking in to my HP printer? north.coaster
The BBC article is a little vague about what these systems are going to used for, and that's an important issue. One would hope that the schools have more ambitious plans than just "surfing the web". Is there an adequate amount of educational software available for Linux?
This brings up the issue of compatibility with the computers that the students use at home. Again, web surfing is a no brainer, but what about other software packages? Are the kids going to be fighting with the same portability issues that drive us "big people" crazy?
Don't get me wrong, I like this idea. But as a parent of two little kids I can't help but think about these issues.
/Don
To be fair, some of the items that are mentioned weren't invented by Xerox (the mouse, for example). Xerox is trying to market the more recent ones. They have an agreement with 3M, for example, to co-develop electronic paper. For another view on Xerox "Fumbling the Future", see the book "Dealers of Lightning : Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age" by Michael A. Hiltzik. Among other things, this book points out that Xerox has easily recouped it's investiment in PARC through it's profits on laser printers. Hiltzik also tried to sort the truth from the myth about what really happened when Steve Jobs visited PARC. Note that I work for Xerox (though not at PARC) so I may be biased.
I view these management methodologies sort of like I view the toolbox that I keep in my garage - there are a lot of tools there, but for most projects I rarely need to use them all.
If your projects are always on time and within budget, then you may not need any of these tools. On the other hand, if your projects are sometimes late, over budget, out of resources, or out of control (in general) then some of these tools might be worth looking at.
Regarding implementation, the biggest barrier is peoples' resistance to change. Many people will recognize that there is a problem, but they are reluctant to support culture/process changes that require a change in what they themselves do. It's always someone else who has the problem. This is especially true with managers, who recognize that their sucess in the current paradigm may not transfer to a new one.