Isaac Asimov wrote more than one story about a "MultiVac" type computer that controlled society. The idea was that if you modelled the social and psychological behavior of every person on earth, on the computer, the computer would predict events like murders up to a week before it actually happened. This would allow for the dispatchment of police to keep the to-be murderer in custody until well after the date of the crime he was to commmit.
On an interesting side note, the story I have in mind ended with the computer trying to kill itself. Knowing everything kind of sucks.
This all sounds good, but does anyone really believe that the computer industry will truly embrace a trend that reduces their profits? Granted, companies like Netscape have been forced in the past to give away their software, but remember that Netscape's true profit base has always been in their server software, which remains highly priced. High-end server applications will certainly never be free, and I suspect that as Linux becomes standardized, client applications will also begin to be charged. It IS possible to distribute Linux applications without source (as many companies such as id Software do, for good reason). After gaining favor with the rapidly growing Linux user-base, companies will probably begin shifting over to commercial products once again... after all, the most important goal of any company is money for the board and shareholders - the idealist that support "open source" will not last long is such an environment unless they make concessions.
Must every industry company force people to pay for overpriced products? Intel obviously doesn't like the fact that you can get a 450 mhz chip for less than the ~$500 they charge for the P2... you can get a Celeron 300a for $90. Now they're releasing their equally over-priced "Pentium 3", a terribly misleading name given that it's not a 7th generation chipset (like the K7 is). Thank God for AMD....
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Isaac Asimov wrote more than one story about a "MultiVac" type computer that controlled society. The idea was that if you modelled the social and psychological behavior of every person on earth, on the computer, the computer would predict events like murders up to a week before it actually happened. This would allow for the dispatchment of police to keep the to-be murderer in custody until well after the date of the crime he was to commmit.
On an interesting side note, the story I have in mind ended with the computer trying to kill itself. Knowing everything kind of sucks.
This all sounds good, but does anyone really believe that the computer industry will truly embrace a trend that reduces their profits?
Granted, companies like Netscape have been forced in the past to give away their software, but remember that Netscape's true profit base has always been in their server software, which remains highly priced. High-end server applications will certainly never be free, and I suspect that as Linux becomes standardized, client applications will also begin to be charged. It IS possible to distribute Linux applications without source (as many companies such as id Software do, for good reason). After gaining favor with the rapidly growing Linux user-base, companies will probably begin shifting over to commercial products once again... after all, the most important goal of any company is money for the board and shareholders - the idealist that support "open source" will not last long is such an environment unless they make concessions.
Must every industry company force people to pay for overpriced products? Intel obviously doesn't like the fact that you can get a 450 mhz chip for less than the ~$500 they charge for the P2... you can get a Celeron 300a for $90. Now they're releasing their equally over-priced "Pentium 3", a terribly misleading name given that it's not a 7th generation chipset (like the K7 is). Thank God for AMD....