This was an interesting exercise in fantasy. I wonder how close they will be? I actually hadn't heard of some of this technology (Holographic memory?) and some of it I had just heard the barest of theoretic ideas (Like opticalelectronics). I am surprized that they did not mention Quantum computing, but from what I have heard I guess that it is more than 10 years out. They did not mention removable storage.. I would be inerested to see where that is going. They overstated the problems with current computers (The CPU does not actually spend a full two thirds of its time waiting for data from memory), but overall a good read.
Hummm... Can you define Linux without the term UNIX? (i.e., in what way is Linux more than simply a rehash of a 30
year old idea?)
I'm not flaming you. I'm just pointing out that immitation is an easy trap to fall into.
I understand where you are going with this, but at the same time, I don't know that it is necesary to define Linux without using UNIX. When designing the OS, I see Linus as having two choices. He could develop a UI from scratch, which would have taken a very long time and detracted from what he proably saw as the real work of kernel implmentation. Or he could use the existing UNIX UI, most which was already written and just needed porting, and was small and simple as befits an OS "in development". It also had the advantage of being something that most of his fellow developers were familiar with. It is largely possible, in current distros of Linux, to ignore that UI. The members of the Gnome foundation would like to (I think) make it completely possible to ignore that UI. Linux is UNIX-like only insomuch as that was the interface Linus chose to bolt on. Look at Mac OS X. It is UNIX, yet I would not call it UNIX-like. The key here is to make Linux better. If that means borrowing from the good ideas of Microsoft, fine. If it means creating entirely new ideas, fine too. I am sure that if the members of the Gnome foundation intend to succeed, they will have to do both.
I have to say that I was totally confused for a moment as to why diallowing VPNs would affect your ability to setup more than one computer on the Net. If anyone is interested, Wingate is pretty good proxy software for MS Windows, and Tucows has a nuber of other. *nix of course has internal support for this knid of stuff.
The problem is that I don't think he has any middle ground. They are right next to Jr High School. The choices seem to boil down to:
1. Find some sort of censoring solution (I would lean toward staff monitoring. Even a dumb person is generally smarter than even a smart piece of software).
2. Have no internet access.
3. Have uncensored access and run... down walk. to court the first time something happens. (and soemthing will happen. Either an overhormoned kid is going to risk all and get caught on a porn site, or an overhormoned adult is going to surf porn and be seen by a kid. Even if everyone is perfectly angelic, some over protective parent is going to just object on principle.)
How is this much different from the old system in which researchers produced potentially flawed technology and biased research in the name of tenure and standing? Academic institutions have always been very politicly and econmically motivated places, it is just that htth were previously "donated" to by large companies and the government rather than working in active partnerships. While certainly there is a paradim shift here, I do not think it as servere as is made out in this article. We are simply seeing a formalization of relationships and conditions that have exist for a long time.
I disagree, black boxes are not bad, they are bad for you. Some people (I am not one of them) like black boxes. Some people SHOULD have black boxes whether they like them or not (I a specifically refering to a gentleman who singlehandedly ruined his Windows install 6 TIMES in a 4 MONTH period at my previous place of employ using the same piece of software. I would have liked to give him a box so black it used ROM for it's OS and apps, but I digress). At any rate, I don't think a black box is being suggested here (for one thing Gnome's source is freely available so it couldn't be to black a box), but rather an interface laid over the standard tools to make them eaiser for those who prefer a "black box" to use the system. You can edit text files to your heart's content, you just don't HAVE to.
As soon as you standardize enough stuff like that, you end up with one system with one set of programs, and then *gasp* you're no better than those other proprietary systems. UNIX has a beauty in the way it is.
How does it affect the overall power of the system to have one command do the same thing in every app on the system? How does it affect the overall power of the system to make that command a default standard for all systems? MOST people are used to crtl-c being "cut". Make that a standard. Now, when I sit down at a system I can rely on ctrl-c implenmenting a "cut" function. My productivity increases because I don't have to figure out a new command syntax on every app on every system I might work on. "But.." you say, "I was ctrl-c to be copy, and ctrl-s to be cut, because 's' makes me think of scissors." OK, no one is saying that they will take out your ability to change the default, just that it might be a bit easier to have a default (a universal default) to deviate from. If you want to change all of your personal systems so that ctrl-alt-shift-3 is "cut", that's fine. Even then, if you tell me that ctrl-alt-shift-3 is "cut" on your system, at least I can count on that working throughout your system. Now if you want to cofigure you systems so that a diffent combination of keys causes "cut" on every piece of software on your machine... Well, that seems pretty silly to me. The "cut" example is obviuosly over simplified, but I think that is possible to come up with a set of default standards that "power users" can then deviate from if they choose.
I'm thinking of taking as much original UNIX source as I can find, maybe even taking the kernel source out of the Lions book, and writing a new UNIX system - sans graphical interface. Pure and simple command-line bliss. You get yer sh, csh, ksh, vi, troff, lpr, etc. to work with. That sounds like a system I could handle.
Have fun! I rather like graphics. I do most of my adminstration from the command line, but games, the web, and even word processing would really suffer.
I don't think Microsoft was the best OS provider or that they are now. They earned a Monopoly by becoming IBM's "official provider" (piggy backing on an older monopoly), and now keep their dominance because everyone is used to using them and they have application dominance (We have by far the largest market share therefore everyone writes apps for us, thus allowing us to hold onto market share). Don't misunderstand me, Mircosoft's products are rarely terrible. They do a reasonably competant job and let inertia and marketing do the rest. I just put a fresh Mandrake 7.0 install on my box at home. It was easier than installing Windows. It recognised all of my hardware without any effort on my part, and would have chosen packages and even fdisked my hard drive for me if I had let it. It boots into a GUI logon screen and has gui tools to control every aspect of the system. It is as easy as Windows. There are three things that will prevent it from taking over much market share from MS.
1) It is as easy as Windows, but it is different. Unless someone writes a window manager that not only is as easy as MS Windows, but actually behaves in almost exactly the same manner alot of people are just going to say "Why should I learn something new? Sure this is easy, but it is easier still just to use what I already know."
2) It is not made by Microsoft. There is a large percentage of the population that takes the attitude "Better the evil I know, than the risk of worse." Whether they like MS or not, people are comfortable with them. A better, but untried (to them) system will be ignored, it could be even more trouble.
3) Apps. This is improveing but slowly. Many vendors take the "Let's see how this comes out" attitude. Of course everytime a vendor says that s/he is weaking the chance of success (One application may nmot make or break an OS, but what about a hundred or a thousand vendors saying "let's see how this plays out." Collectively they have just taken a huge hand in the decision just by doing nothing).
Don't misunderstand me here. I am not saying that MS makes the worst software in the world, nor that Linux is the best software... just that MS's status now puts automatic barriers to entry in front of any new player. The same is true of Coke. Hell, in some parts of the country (US) "Coke" is synonymous (sp?) with "carbonated beverage". It is tough to break through that kind of mindshare. I prefer lots of beverages to Coke, but I drink more Coke than I do anything except water. Why? When I walk into into a store anywhere in the country (the world really), I can get a Coke. I like Coke well enough... It is sufficent... I know I can get it. Hence I drink a lot of it.
What about DeCSS? I tend to agree that Napster lacks much of a leagal stance in it's defense. I think it is a crappy example, and much prefer DeCSS. This is software that was developed for fair use purposes,and no one, not even the MPAA with all of it's money, has yet proven even a single instance of it being used for piracy. The intent is to supress it because it has the potential ro aide in piracy, even though that is neither its only, nor its intended, nor indeed its primary use. Napster is certainly morally ambigous, but Jon Johansen believed he was doing nothing save helping other enjoy movies that they had purchased the right to watch. He faced (and may still face, I don't know) CRIMINAL charges for this afrontery to societies mores.
Re:The above comment missed the point
on
Hacker Crackdown?
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· Score: 1
You are properly versed in the laws of war by the army. They are pretty straight-forward and common sense. They boil down to "don't shoot non-combatants and "don't cause unnecesary suffering." Ot carry forward the Few Good Men analogy, the Marines were still convict of "Conduct Unbecomeing" even though they had only followed orders. It is still a violation of UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military's version of criminal law.) to stuff a sock down someone's throat and shave his head, no matter WHO told you to it.
His bed actually. I recently read a biography of him. It is easilly argueable that he committed suicide due to depression over his "treatments" for Homosexuality though. The British government apparently tried to "cure" his "disease" using drugs that would make electrocution thearpy look humane. The side affects included an increase in his already existant clinical depression and a shattering of his previously robust phyisical health (In his youth he had been an Olympic class runner, by the time of his death he was apparently sickly from the drugs.)
I think the general arguement in favor of distributed computing in a businees environment is cost. It is cheaper to get several computers that can all run Microsoft Office themselves than one comuter that can run a dozen instances of a word processor , and terminals for everyone. Additionally, as users started to aquire home systems, they became more used to Microsoft OS's and thus more productive in a Microsoft environment (not to mention less whiny. Until recently we had a few Unix workstations left, and everyone complained incessently when they had to use them. Even in X. The fact that it looks and acts like Windows was insufficent. They thought Unix was hard to use, so it was hard to use. Reality has a hard time replaceing a good delution in some people.)
I'm not 100% sure about this, but I don't think you can be jailed for revealing secret information that you are not supposed to have access too, unless you stole it. In other words, if I am given top secret information, and I reveal it, I am in trouble. If you steal top secret information and reveal it, you are in trouble. If I am given top secret information, leave it at your house, and you reveal it, I am in trouble. You aren't eaxctly on the government's happy list either, but I don't think you can actually be arrested. You never signed the security documents that I did, and never agreed to keep this information to yourself. You have nothing binding you to keep "secret" information secret other than patriotism or loyalty to your friend.
Same with trade secrets (here I am positive). If I reveal a trade secret (which CSS is), and I neither signed an NDA, nor stole the secret, I can reveal it all I want. If a Microsoft employee that I know leaves the source code to Windows ME at my house, I can publish it. My friend will likely be a bit miffed, but MS can't do anything (other than being more careful of who they hire in the future) unless the work is copyrighted. CSS is not copyrighted. The difficulty here is DCMA which turns these rules on their ears. The court's decsion on the Constitutionality of DCMA (or at least this part of it) is what will decide this case in the end. (IANAL)
CompUSA has them minus the blue light (It does have a red light that brightens when you move it.) Fairly inexpensive (Much less than the Mac mouse, and even cheaper that MS), and very nice. Bought one for my GF and now I want one. (too bad it only has two buttons, but i can make do)
Speaking of sharing... I can't help noticeing that this is the EXACT SAME ARTICLE. You'd think they could at least change a few words to make it look like they did some analysis
did this require? I mean this sounds great and all, but if you have to have a household OC3 to use it, than there isn't a whole lot of practical use for it.
X servers are extremely useful tools. In addition to allowing local execution of X11 programs you can run from any Unix server. For instance, the CAD software my company uses is not avaialable for the Mac, but it is avaialable for Solaris. An X server would allow us to use Mac's as CAD machines, running the software on a Sparc. We do something similar with a Windows X Server right now. Because OS X has a Unix base though, this X server will also run native X apps.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of "It is unlike Intel to try to compete in an already crowded and very risky market." They usually prefer to play it safe. It is not that I dislike competiton, I simply don't see the attraction of this market for so many companies. As of yet every attempt has met with somewhere between little and no success, yet companies keep throwing out products, seemingly convined that since THIS box is from {insert company name here}, it WILL succeed. I do rather like Intel's ploy of selling to ISP's and web portals though... It may work... Just seems sort of unlike Intel.
Actually, no I don't. I was using "we" as in the human race in general... Surely we must all benefit from Microsoft's glorious innovation. Or maybe I was being sarcastic
What sets this apart from the other net appliances out there? It uses Linux (which is cool), but other thna that (and a few others also fit that statement), it is yet another "almost computer". Why is Intel getting into this crowded market one has to wonder?
I read just today that Microsoft is plannig to implement P3P in the next version of I.E.. Link is here. I am so glad that they value our privacy enough to protect it with a discredited standard. Luckilly I am sure they will find some way to change it and make it even "better" than it already is... We are so lucky.
This article was Linux magazine months ago. It's a pretty good interview, don't get me wrong, but isn't that an awful lot of lag time? It was an interesting read though. I particular;y like the Apatchy history stuff. It was interesting to see how much of what I'd heard about the history was actually true.
I'd sooner see more protection for consumers, and less for companies than vice versa. Very few companies are in any immediate danger of going out of business because of consumer piracy, yet companies act very much as if this issue couls sink them. The most serious and costly piracy is non-consumer commercial piracy commited in countries that have no copyright laws at all, or by indiviauals who will ignore any existing laws anyway. The purpose of laws like the DCMA is to control consumers... customers... the people these businesses are supposed to serve.
IANAL of course, but it looks to me like this is a patent for a centralized client server system. The links on the client are supposed to refer to some centralized "system". The web is distributed. This link takes you to my website on a completely different network, different "system", than you started (Here of course). Unless you call the entire Internet a "system" (I suppose you could, but I think that it would have a hard time in court), this patent does not seem to apply.
Slashdot Mirror
This was an interesting exercise in fantasy. I wonder how close they will be? I actually hadn't heard of some of this technology (Holographic memory?) and some of it I had just heard the barest of theoretic ideas (Like opticalelectronics). I am surprized that they did not mention Quantum computing, but from what I have heard I guess that it is more than 10 years out. They did not mention removable storage.. I would be inerested to see where that is going. They overstated the problems with current computers (The CPU does not actually spend a full two thirds of its time waiting for data from memory), but overall a good read.
Hummm... Can you define Linux without the term UNIX? (i.e., in what way is Linux more than simply a rehash of a 30 year old idea?)
I'm not flaming you. I'm just pointing out that immitation is an easy trap to fall into.
I understand where you are going with this, but at the same time, I don't know that it is necesary to define Linux without using UNIX. When designing the OS, I see Linus as having two choices. He could develop a UI from scratch, which would have taken a very long time and detracted from what he proably saw as the real work of kernel implmentation. Or he could use the existing UNIX UI, most which was already written and just needed porting, and was small and simple as befits an OS "in development". It also had the advantage of being something that most of his fellow developers were familiar with. It is largely possible, in current distros of Linux, to ignore that UI. The members of the Gnome foundation would like to (I think) make it completely possible to ignore that UI. Linux is UNIX-like only insomuch as that was the interface Linus chose to bolt on. Look at Mac OS X. It is UNIX, yet I would not call it UNIX-like. The key here is to make Linux better. If that means borrowing from the good ideas of Microsoft, fine. If it means creating entirely new ideas, fine too. I am sure that if the members of the Gnome foundation intend to succeed, they will have to do both.
I have to say that I was totally confused for a moment as to why diallowing VPNs would affect your ability to setup more than one computer on the Net. If anyone is interested, Wingate is pretty good proxy software for MS Windows, and Tucows has a nuber of other. *nix of course has internal support for this knid of stuff.
The problem is that I don't think he has any middle ground. They are right next to Jr High School. The choices seem to boil down to:
1. Find some sort of censoring solution (I would lean toward staff monitoring. Even a dumb person is generally smarter than even a smart piece of software).
2. Have no internet access.
3. Have uncensored access and run... down walk. to court the first time something happens. (and soemthing will happen. Either an overhormoned kid is going to risk all and get caught on a porn site, or an overhormoned adult is going to surf porn and be seen by a kid. Even if everyone is perfectly angelic, some over protective parent is going to just object on principle.)
How is this much different from the old system in which researchers produced potentially flawed technology and biased research in the name of tenure and standing? Academic institutions have always been very politicly and econmically motivated places, it is just that htth were previously "donated" to by large companies and the government rather than working in active partnerships. While certainly there is a paradim shift here, I do not think it as servere as is made out in this article. We are simply seeing a formalization of relationships and conditions that have exist for a long time.
I disagree, black boxes are not bad, they are bad for you. Some people (I am not one of them) like black boxes. Some people SHOULD have black boxes whether they like them or not (I a specifically refering to a gentleman who singlehandedly ruined his Windows install 6 TIMES in a 4 MONTH period at my previous place of employ using the same piece of software. I would have liked to give him a box so black it used ROM for it's OS and apps, but I digress). At any rate, I don't think a black box is being suggested here (for one thing Gnome's source is freely available so it couldn't be to black a box), but rather an interface laid over the standard tools to make them eaiser for those who prefer a "black box" to use the system. You can edit text files to your heart's content, you just don't HAVE to.
As soon as you standardize enough stuff like that, you end up with one system with one set of programs, and then *gasp* you're no better than those other proprietary systems. UNIX has a beauty in the way it is.
How does it affect the overall power of the system to have one command do the same thing in every app on the system? How does it affect the overall power of the system to make that command a default standard for all systems? MOST people are used to crtl-c being "cut". Make that a standard. Now, when I sit down at a system I can rely on ctrl-c implenmenting a "cut" function. My productivity increases because I don't have to figure out a new command syntax on every app on every system I might work on. "But.." you say, "I was ctrl-c to be copy, and ctrl-s to be cut, because 's' makes me think of scissors." OK, no one is saying that they will take out your ability to change the default, just that it might be a bit easier to have a default (a universal default) to deviate from. If you want to change all of your personal systems so that ctrl-alt-shift-3 is "cut", that's fine. Even then, if you tell me that ctrl-alt-shift-3 is "cut" on your system, at least I can count on that working throughout your system. Now if you want to cofigure you systems so that a diffent combination of keys causes "cut" on every piece of software on your machine... Well, that seems pretty silly to me. The "cut" example is obviuosly over simplified, but I think that is possible to come up with a set of default standards that "power users" can then deviate from if they choose.
I'm thinking of taking as much original UNIX source as I can find, maybe even taking the kernel source out of the Lions book, and writing a new UNIX system - sans graphical interface. Pure and simple command-line bliss. You get yer sh, csh, ksh, vi, troff, lpr, etc. to work with. That sounds like a system I could handle.
Have fun! I rather like graphics. I do most of my adminstration from the command line, but games, the web, and even word processing would really suffer.
I don't think Microsoft was the best OS provider or that they are now. They earned a Monopoly by becoming IBM's "official provider" (piggy backing on an older monopoly), and now keep their dominance because everyone is used to using them and they have application dominance (We have by far the largest market share therefore everyone writes apps for us, thus allowing us to hold onto market share). Don't misunderstand me, Mircosoft's products are rarely terrible. They do a reasonably competant job and let inertia and marketing do the rest. I just put a fresh Mandrake 7.0 install on my box at home. It was easier than installing Windows. It recognised all of my hardware without any effort on my part, and would have chosen packages and even fdisked my hard drive for me if I had let it. It boots into a GUI logon screen and has gui tools to control every aspect of the system. It is as easy as Windows. There are three things that will prevent it from taking over much market share from MS.
1) It is as easy as Windows, but it is different. Unless someone writes a window manager that not only is as easy as MS Windows, but actually behaves in almost exactly the same manner alot of people are just going to say "Why should I learn something new? Sure this is easy, but it is easier still just to use what I already know."
2) It is not made by Microsoft. There is a large percentage of the population that takes the attitude "Better the evil I know, than the risk of worse." Whether they like MS or not, people are comfortable with them. A better, but untried (to them) system will be ignored, it could be even more trouble.
3) Apps. This is improveing but slowly. Many vendors take the "Let's see how this comes out" attitude. Of course everytime a vendor says that s/he is weaking the chance of success (One application may nmot make or break an OS, but what about a hundred or a thousand vendors saying "let's see how this plays out." Collectively they have just taken a huge hand in the decision just by doing nothing).
Don't misunderstand me here. I am not saying that MS makes the worst software in the world, nor that Linux is the best software... just that MS's status now puts automatic barriers to entry in front of any new player. The same is true of Coke. Hell, in some parts of the country (US) "Coke" is synonymous (sp?) with "carbonated beverage". It is tough to break through that kind of mindshare. I prefer lots of beverages to Coke, but I drink more Coke than I do anything except water. Why? When I walk into into a store anywhere in the country (the world really), I can get a Coke. I like Coke well enough... It is sufficent... I know I can get it. Hence I drink a lot of it.
I can't resist... They do, Ibelive they call them sights.
What about DeCSS? I tend to agree that Napster lacks much of a leagal stance in it's defense. I think it is a crappy example, and much prefer DeCSS. This is software that was developed for fair use purposes,and no one, not even the MPAA with all of it's money, has yet proven even a single instance of it being used for piracy. The intent is to supress it because it has the potential ro aide in piracy, even though that is neither its only, nor its intended, nor indeed its primary use. Napster is certainly morally ambigous, but Jon Johansen believed he was doing nothing save helping other enjoy movies that they had purchased the right to watch. He faced (and may still face, I don't know) CRIMINAL charges for this afrontery to societies mores.
You are properly versed in the laws of war by the army. They are pretty straight-forward and common sense. They boil down to "don't shoot non-combatants and "don't cause unnecesary suffering." Ot carry forward the Few Good Men analogy, the Marines were still convict of "Conduct Unbecomeing" even though they had only followed orders. It is still a violation of UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military's version of criminal law.) to stuff a sock down someone's throat and shave his head, no matter WHO told you to it.
His bed actually. I recently read a biography of him. It is easilly argueable that he committed suicide due to depression over his "treatments" for Homosexuality though. The British government apparently tried to "cure" his "disease" using drugs that would make electrocution thearpy look humane. The side affects included an increase in his already existant clinical depression and a shattering of his previously robust phyisical health (In his youth he had been an Olympic class runner, by the time of his death he was apparently sickly from the drugs.)
I think the general arguement in favor of distributed computing in a businees environment is cost. It is cheaper to get several computers that can all run Microsoft Office themselves than one comuter that can run a dozen instances of a word processor , and terminals for everyone. Additionally, as users started to aquire home systems, they became more used to Microsoft OS's and thus more productive in a Microsoft environment (not to mention less whiny. Until recently we had a few Unix workstations left, and everyone complained incessently when they had to use them. Even in X. The fact that it looks and acts like Windows was insufficent. They thought Unix was hard to use, so it was hard to use. Reality has a hard time replaceing a good delution in some people.)
I'm not 100% sure about this, but I don't think you can be jailed for revealing secret information that you are not supposed to have access too, unless you stole it. In other words, if I am given top secret information, and I reveal it, I am in trouble. If you steal top secret information and reveal it, you are in trouble. If I am given top secret information, leave it at your house, and you reveal it, I am in trouble. You aren't eaxctly on the government's happy list either, but I don't think you can actually be arrested. You never signed the security documents that I did, and never agreed to keep this information to yourself. You have nothing binding you to keep "secret" information secret other than patriotism or loyalty to your friend.
Same with trade secrets (here I am positive). If I reveal a trade secret (which CSS is), and I neither signed an NDA, nor stole the secret, I can reveal it all I want. If a Microsoft employee that I know leaves the source code to Windows ME at my house, I can publish it. My friend will likely be a bit miffed, but MS can't do anything (other than being more careful of who they hire in the future) unless the work is copyrighted. CSS is not copyrighted. The difficulty here is DCMA which turns these rules on their ears. The court's decsion on the Constitutionality of DCMA (or at least this part of it) is what will decide this case in the end. (IANAL)
CompUSA has them minus the blue light (It does have a red light that brightens when you move it.) Fairly inexpensive (Much less than the Mac mouse, and even cheaper that MS), and very nice. Bought one for my GF and now I want one. (too bad it only has two buttons, but i can make do)
Speaking of sharing... I can't help noticeing that this is the EXACT SAME ARTICLE. You'd think they could at least change a few words to make it look like they did some analysis
did this require? I mean this sounds great and all, but if you have to have a household OC3 to use it, than there isn't a whole lot of practical use for it.
X servers are extremely useful tools. In addition to allowing local execution of X11 programs you can run from any Unix server. For instance, the CAD software my company uses is not avaialable for the Mac, but it is avaialable for Solaris. An X server would allow us to use Mac's as CAD machines, running the software on a Sparc. We do something similar with a Windows X Server right now. Because OS X has a Unix base though, this X server will also run native X apps.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of "It is unlike Intel to try to compete in an already crowded and very risky market." They usually prefer to play it safe. It is not that I dislike competiton, I simply don't see the attraction of this market for so many companies. As of yet every attempt has met with somewhere between little and no success, yet companies keep throwing out products, seemingly convined that since THIS box is from {insert company name here}, it WILL succeed. I do rather like Intel's ploy of selling to ISP's and web portals though... It may work... Just seems sort of unlike Intel.
Actually, no I don't. I was using "we" as in the human race in general... Surely we must all benefit from Microsoft's glorious innovation.
Or maybe I was being sarcastic
What sets this apart from the other net appliances out there? It uses Linux (which is cool), but other thna that (and a few others also fit that statement), it is yet another "almost computer". Why is Intel getting into this crowded market one has to wonder?
I read just today that Microsoft is plannig to implement P3P in the next version of I.E.. Link is here. I am so glad that they value our privacy enough to protect it with a discredited standard. Luckilly I am sure they will find some way to change it and make it even "better" than it already is... We are so lucky.
This article was Linux magazine months ago. It's a pretty good interview, don't get me wrong, but isn't that an awful lot of lag time? It was an interesting read though. I particular;y like the Apatchy history stuff. It was interesting to see how much of what I'd heard about the history was actually true.
I'd sooner see more protection for consumers, and less for companies than vice versa. Very few companies are in any immediate danger of going out of business because of consumer piracy, yet companies act very much as if this issue couls sink them. The most serious and costly piracy is non-consumer commercial piracy commited in countries that have no copyright laws at all, or by indiviauals who will ignore any existing laws anyway. The purpose of laws like the DCMA is to control consumers... customers... the people these businesses are supposed to serve.
IANAL of course, but it looks to me like this is a patent for a centralized client server system. The links on the client are supposed to refer to some centralized "system". The web is distributed. This link takes you to my website on a completely different network, different "system", than you started (Here of course). Unless you call the entire Internet a "system" (I suppose you could, but I think that it would have a hard time in court), this patent does not seem to apply.