Note though that in theory Microsoft (for example) could well charge for their Free software. The law doesn't say it should be monetarily free, just that there has to be full (and free) access to its source code (I assume everyone and their dog should know the difference between free and Free by now)
This may be a moot point in practice, but if software companies were pushed like this, it might once again become normal practice (like it was, to some extent, before late 70s?)
QWest (formerly known as US Worst), Denver, 512 kbps down (nominal), usually 40-50kBps actual (not too rare to see it go up to full 64 kbytes, especially with multiple connections). 30$ mont (20$ for cheesy 'modem-like' semi-dial-up) plus ISP (which need not be QWest... a definite plus over cable options here).
I propose a compromise between 'president' and 'elected'. Let's just say he was "erected" (this would be good term for the current vice president as well wouldn't it?)
However, the real question will still be "who will be paying for it"? Sure, eskimos in Greenland and nomads in the middle of Sahara would like to make phone calls. But there just isn't big enough and/or rich enough (wealth x numbers) user base to ever make it profitable on its own (there are airline passengers, but it's easier to build a dedicated system like some other poster explained... perhaps ships might need it, but that's hardly a huge market segment either)
Cell phones can take the cream, build the networks in densely populated areas, and satellite phones have the niches outside. The problem is that cheaper system gets better customers base, while the expensive one gets left-overs.
Of course, if US government can afford to have such a system for their total communication needs, kudos for them. Just doesn't look like it'd be feasible on 'pure' commercial corporate basis.
In fact, this reminds me of "mobile web will remove the need for fixed lines" thing some people believe. Each system has its own benefit, and for fixed lines it's practically unlimited bandwidth without (overly) complex hardware (both compared to cellular networks). So, if it's ok that you usually don't have to be mobile yourself, it makes sense to have your home system connected through fixed lines, not mobile network. Why on earth would you waste your money (and radio frequency resources etc etc) to do almost the same thing (but not quite as well), paying much more? On the other hand, in those cases where you do need to move, it should be quite ok to have secondary 'backup' mobile system to use, to complement the 'main' system. Might be the same for satellite phones, then... If the astronomic hardware costs don't kill it before.
Well... The first guy was wrong in assuming Mhz == CPU power, but claiming that just having tag '64-bit' means twic the power is as misleading. Alpha (that really has more power) doesn't benefit all _that_ much from 64-bit registers, since applications tend to use 32-bit data (exception; floating point stuff). In addition pentia/clone-systems haven't had 32-bit memory subsystems for years...
There's really no shortcut in measuring performance.
Him saying that C++ losing ground to Java statement doesn't mean _he_ implies Java to be better as a language, he's just stating a fact
(or rather observation)?
It all depends. If the regulated price still is potentially profitable it would seem possible production would be added. It's also likely that there are benefits in producing larger quantities of energy, but apparently the problem is the threshold (big investment for new power plant means the profit gain is not big enough to offset that etc).
Also... Of course power companies cry foul for price regulations, but perhaps their claims should be taken with grain of salt too?
Depends. Used to be that in many european universities researchers did own the inventions (I know that was the case in finnish universities at least) and universities seldom (if ever) filed for patents. Unfortunately those universities are probably going to follow US lead and try to grab money by patents more aggressively.
Whether companies would develop open standards really depends on what they're aiming at. Designing a truly open (non-patented) new file format for audio/video file transfer might make lots of sense for big ISPs (AOL etc); they aren't in file format design business. It might benefit them indirectly. Same applies to many other open standards.
I guess there are parallels for open sourcing things; depending on what code is for, it may or may not be possible/useful to open source it.
Just a quick note; yes, London (esp. City) is sickeningly expensive, but that doesn't mean other cities/countries in Europe are very expensive. Think of London (or UK in general?) as California of western Europe.
Well, on IT-sector, I'd also add that all Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland) should be fine too. No need to know a single word of local language to be able to work, especially if you live in one of the larger cities.
Well, it shouldn't be _more_ difficult for americans to get work permit in EU countries than in other countries; point is that all citizens of one EU country should be considered same as 'local' citizens of another EU country.
So, EU favours EU citizens about the same way USA favours its citizens as far as I know?
Well, traditionally big media companies (book publishers, mostly, but lately also Disney and others) have succesfully lobbied lawmakers to extend duration of copyrights when important ones would end otherwise (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck etc. probably will never become PD if the copyright extension schemes continue like they have so far).
We already have copyright to protect the actual implementation; for some other stuff trademarks can be useful as well. There's really no need for patenting; why should there be monopolies for ideas? It should be enough to protect the implementation.
A comparison: what if book authors could patent their 'intellectual property'? Certain plots could be patented (patent for 'butler as the murdererer' anyone?). Big publishing houses could start hoarding literature patents, and only authors under their wings would be able to write best-selling books. Newspapers would have to use lots of money to license catchy headlines (patent for headlines that use only words that begin with the same letter? patent on headlines that use double-meanings of words or phrases?)
Why is it that even though pro-patent people talk about intellectual property, they don't really compare software to culture, arts or other forms of non-physical production, but to physical engineering? (for which patents were designed in the first place)
Probably depends on definition of 'long term'. Most/many open source companies haven't really been public for long enough to allow evaluating long term performance.
As to profitability of Open Source, I thought S.u.S.E has been profitable? (of course one company Open-Source-all-Profitable makes not, but as an example?)
Some banks do offer better Internet banking service to slightly-off-mainstream people. For example, Merita Bank (www.merita.fi, biggest bank in Sweden & Finland) recommends using "Netscape 4, Explorer 4 / 5, Amiga IBrowse 1.2 or iNETtv" (last one being an embedded system similar to WebTV).
I've been reasonably happy with bank's web service (although other kinds of services suck, probably because it's the biggest fish in the small pond). Just goes to show how much attitude dicates things; they've had the service available for years (same for all finnish banks actually I think). Of course, without internet-banking, it would be slightly difficult for me to use my account from USA now...:-)
This is not meant as a flame, but many people feel quite strongly AGAINST using MDI (ie. internal frames). It would be nice if there was (is?) a possibility to use either MDI or multiple windows.
But that's assuming the only way to profit would be to have government-mandated feodalistic IP-system. Not only have inventors often other (additional, often) goals than money making, usually inventors should be able to make money using their inventions, even if there's no strong-handed regulation for so-called IP.
I agree with what you are saying, but the original poster seemed to say that they are from completely unrelated field, not CS people with no experience.
Not that those farmers etc. couldn't possibly learn things, but if they were into CS stuff, why haven't they studied it?
But doesn't that cause problems for people behind nazi firewalls? (some companies seem to think anything going ports other than 80 and perhaps 8080 is inherently dangerous and ought to be blocked). ... and yes, this happens...:-(
And how much money did this 'poor old lady' earn by suing? (um, how much did her lawyers earn might be a better question but...).
In most other countries the amount would have been equal to estimated damages (and medical costs etc), not some percentage of profit (size of company, stock value, whatever).
Punitive damages seem to be one of those anglo-american inventions that are not widely used in rest of the world... And it's kind of hard to understand that even if punitive damages are used, why are they handed to suing party as kind of a bonus, instead of, say, being given to a volunteer organizations or funds ("McDonals Fund for Healing Coffee Burns?"), or, god help, used for filling the bottomless government coffins.:-)
("thanks to coffee-burnt-genitals-of-an-old-lady law suit, budget surplus doubled!").
No. He is not trying to single out specific readers, he wants to prevent them from altering and then broadcasting that modified message. Specifically, what Deja is doing is something not allowed by the implicit 'agreement' posters & Usenet news system have (like n+1 people have already pointed out, do read their posts). By same token, your posting does constitute an agreement for Slashdot to distribute your post unaltered. Also, quoting your post is allowable under fair use provided, provided your text is not altered.
The fact is, right now paper-based documents (books, magazines) have superior user interface (even plain printouts, compared to normal CRT display). Before that changes, there won't be paperless society, not even paperless office.
Well. The time it takes for a typical application to load is comparable to time it takes to JIT the classes referred to (although, only provided JIT doesn't try to do the most expensive optimizations -- true for current JITs as far as I know). It's possible either to postpone JITting and/or only JIT certain critical parts of code (something HotSpot does), or to cache optimized class code (not sure if that's done by JVMs, but would a nice idea).
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This may be a moot point in practice, but if software companies were pushed like this, it might once again become normal practice (like it was, to some extent, before late 70s?)
QWest (formerly known as US Worst), Denver, 512 kbps down (nominal), usually 40-50kBps actual (not too rare to see it go up to full 64 kbytes, especially with multiple connections). 30$ mont (20$ for cheesy 'modem-like' semi-dial-up) plus ISP (which need not be QWest... a definite plus over cable options here).
I propose a compromise between 'president' and 'elected'. Let's just say he was "erected" (this would be good term for the current vice president as well wouldn't it?)
Cell phones can take the cream, build the networks in densely populated areas, and satellite phones have the niches outside. The problem is that cheaper system gets better customers base, while the expensive one gets left-overs.
Of course, if US government can afford to have such a system for their total communication needs, kudos for them. Just doesn't look like it'd be feasible on 'pure' commercial corporate basis.
In fact, this reminds me of "mobile web will remove the need for fixed lines" thing some people believe. Each system has its own benefit, and for fixed lines it's practically unlimited bandwidth without (overly) complex hardware (both compared to cellular networks). So, if it's ok that you usually don't have to be mobile yourself, it makes sense to have your home system connected through fixed lines, not mobile network. Why on earth would you waste your money (and radio frequency resources etc etc) to do almost the same thing (but not quite as well), paying much more? On the other hand, in those cases where you do need to move, it should be quite ok to have secondary 'backup' mobile system to use, to complement the 'main' system. Might be the same for satellite phones, then... If the astronomic hardware costs don't kill it before.
There's really no shortcut in measuring performance.
Him saying that C++ losing ground to Java statement doesn't mean _he_ implies Java to be better as a language, he's just stating a fact (or rather observation)?
Also... Of course power companies cry foul for price regulations, but perhaps their claims should be taken with grain of salt too?
Whether companies would develop open standards really depends on what they're aiming at. Designing a truly open (non-patented) new file format for audio/video file transfer might make lots of sense for big ISPs (AOL etc); they aren't in file format design business. It might benefit them indirectly. Same applies to many other open standards.
I guess there are parallels for open sourcing things; depending on what code is for, it may or may not be possible/useful to open source it.
And I thought that "but everyone else is stealing too" argument was a pretty weak one, usually used by young kinds?
Just a quick note; yes, London (esp. City) is sickeningly expensive, but that doesn't mean other cities/countries in Europe are very expensive. Think of London (or UK in general?) as California of western Europe.
Well, on IT-sector, I'd also add that all Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland) should be fine too. No need to know a single word of local language to be able to work, especially if you live in one of the larger cities.
So, EU favours EU citizens about the same way USA favours its citizens as far as I know?
Well, traditionally big media companies (book publishers, mostly, but lately also Disney and others) have succesfully lobbied lawmakers to extend duration of copyrights when important ones would end otherwise (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck etc. probably will never become PD if the copyright extension schemes continue like they have so far).
A comparison: what if book authors could patent their 'intellectual property'? Certain plots could be patented (patent for 'butler as the murdererer' anyone?). Big publishing houses could start hoarding literature patents, and only authors under their wings would be able to write best-selling books. Newspapers would have to use lots of money to license catchy headlines (patent for headlines that use only words that begin with the same letter? patent on headlines that use double-meanings of words or phrases?)
Why is it that even though pro-patent people talk about intellectual property, they don't really compare software to culture, arts or other forms of non-physical production, but to physical engineering? (for which patents were designed in the first place)
As to profitability of Open Source, I thought S.u.S.E has been profitable? (of course one company Open-Source-all-Profitable makes not, but as an example?)
I've been reasonably happy with bank's web service (although other kinds of services suck, probably because it's the biggest fish in the small pond). Just goes to show how much attitude dicates things; they've had the service available for years (same for all finnish banks actually I think). Of course, without internet-banking, it would be slightly difficult for me to use my account from USA now... :-)
This is not meant as a flame, but many people feel quite strongly AGAINST using MDI (ie. internal frames). It would be nice if there was (is?) a possibility to use either MDI or multiple windows.
But that's assuming the only way to profit would be to have government-mandated feodalistic IP-system. Not only have inventors often other (additional, often) goals than money making, usually inventors should be able to make money using their inventions, even if there's no strong-handed regulation for so-called IP.
I agree with what you are saying, but the original poster seemed to say that they are from completely unrelated field, not CS people with no experience.
Not that those farmers etc. couldn't possibly learn things, but if they were into CS stuff, why haven't they studied it?
Yeah, it really seems libraries are covering the butts... and boobs and all that, I guess. What a waste.
But doesn't that cause problems for people behind nazi firewalls? (some companies seem to think anything going ports other than 80 and perhaps 8080 is inherently dangerous and ought to be blocked).
... and yes, this happens... :-(
And how much money did this 'poor old lady' earn by suing? (um, how much did her lawyers earn might be a better question but...). :-)
("thanks to coffee-burnt-genitals-of-an-old-lady law suit, budget surplus doubled!").
In most other countries the amount would have been equal to estimated damages (and medical costs etc), not some percentage of profit (size of company, stock value, whatever).
Punitive damages seem to be one of those anglo-american inventions that are not widely used in rest of the world... And it's kind of hard to understand that even if punitive damages are used, why are they handed to suing party as kind of a bonus, instead of, say, being given to a volunteer organizations or funds ("McDonals Fund for Healing Coffee Burns?"), or, god help, used for filling the bottomless government coffins.
No. He is not trying to single out specific readers, he wants to prevent them from altering and then broadcasting that modified message. Specifically, what Deja is doing is something not allowed by the implicit 'agreement' posters & Usenet news system have (like n+1 people have already pointed out, do read their posts). By same token, your posting does constitute an agreement for Slashdot to distribute your post unaltered. Also, quoting your post is allowable under fair use provided, provided your text is not altered.
The fact is, right now paper-based documents (books, magazines) have superior user interface (even plain printouts, compared to normal CRT display). Before that changes, there won't be paperless society, not even paperless office.
Well. The time it takes for a typical application to load is comparable to time it takes to JIT the classes referred to (although, only provided JIT doesn't try to do the most expensive optimizations -- true for current JITs as far as I know). It's possible either to postpone JITting and/or only JIT certain critical parts of code (something HotSpot does), or to cache optimized class code (not sure if that's done by JVMs, but would a nice idea).