Right now, the wolves (black-hats) have two real advantages over the shepherds (white-hats). The first is that there are just too many damned sheep in the fold for the shepherds to keep track of, and the second is that the sheep farmers are too busy competing with each other to collaborate the way the wolves do.
This is a baby step towards eliminating two of those. The most important one is that although most folks don't have their ports locked down or update, they do have anti-virus software installed. So by teaming with McAfee to make an anti-trojan solution, a lot more computers are going to be able to be protected, and it'll really take the teeth out of a DDOS attack.
The second baby step is that by collaborating, the shepherds can now do a better job of keeping tabs on the wolves. It's only a baby step; this looks like it's just an ordinary corporate alliance, not a sign of genuine teamwork. But it's a start, and really cuts into the black-hats' current advantages.
My mother made the same complaint. She was a touch-typist, after all, and hated having to move her hands away from the keyboard to use the fscking mouse.
All we need to do is feed Hal's responses back into Eliza, and Eliza's responses back into Hal, and train Hal to be a perverted psychiatrist a lot more quickly than these researchers are doing the job.:)
"The question is wether this bandwagon is capable of carrying a Giant that huge."
Actually, the Giant will be helping to carry Linux, so it's not a case of the bandwagon carrying the Giant -- because, once they adopt Linux, they also become contributors.
The bandwagon grows because of people adopting it, not in spite of it.:)
...the real problem was that it was a great idea without a market. Basically, the folks doing the market research didn't do their jobs right, or like the analysts in the dot-com craze of the past couple of years, led themselves to believe that the old rules didn't apply.
The real problem is that Bluetooth has a range of only about 10m. In one famous example, an expo was supposed to have wired an entire building with Bluetooth. They put the access points in the ceiling. The problem was, the ceiling was over 10m high! So it was a bust.
The criticism of the article that the two products have different uses makes sense, because Bluetooth isn't being "beaten" by 802.11. 802.11 has an actual use, a market, and products people want to buy. If Bluetooth dies, it'll be because it died on its own, without help or hindrance from 802.11.
Cable companies have monopolies in their particular service areas. So what's going on is that there aren't 6 or 7 companies. There's one company, and it's going under.
It's not a "nice to be in Canada" thing if you're in Canada, and your cable company chose/was bought out by @Home. And it's not nice to be in America where your only cable service provider chose/was bought out by @Home.
A lot of people are going to lose their cablemodems in both countries because of this, with no alternative except DSL.
I think a subtle point you miss here is that nowadays children ARE more computer literate in the sense that they know how to use a computer to do things for themselves. The difference with these children is that they will be Linux-literate instead of Windows-literate.
Think about it. A big reason why I use Windows today is because I grew up using DOS. If I'd grown up using Linux and StarOffice, I'd probably be using Linux today as my main OS.
The biggest problem I have with talking about Linux to most people is that they've never even seen it, much less used it. It puts them at a disadvantage, and since most folks like to pretend they know everything on the 'net, they certainly can't admit they're at a disadvantage.;)
These kids are going to grow up knowing better. And they're going to wonder why all these people bothered to pay money for office and OS software that was dramatically inferior to the free stuff.
"I'd love to sign up for this, but we're not close enough yet. To succeed, we must do what AMD does - be better and cheaper."
Although AMD is having problems, because they don't have that one other bit in place: They can't sell it. They couldn't sell water to a man with a bag of gold dying of thirst in the desert. And that's why Intel's still raping them in the OEM market.
Fortunately, this is not a problem Sun has -- otherwise, Java wouldn't be where it is today.
"Ugh, this is getting so tired. XP CAN run Java. In fact, in can run the MS JVM if you download and install it. It can run any JVM you want that you download and install."
You're missing the point: Mom & Pop modem-user don't have the time or the energy to download a Java VM. It's going to piss them off.
Your argument is just as lame as the Microsoft's argument that including IE withe OS wouldn't affect Netscape: "Oh, people can still download Netscape if they want to! We're not doing anything!"
The difference is that this time, people will blame Microsoft. And they'll be right to do so.
I enjoy an occasional game and REALLY don't want to keep a Windows box around just for that...
So go grab a Playstation 2 or Nintendo Gamecube when their prices drop. I've found it's more fun to play games that I can play with up to three of my friends in the same room than it is to play multiplayer over the 'net anyhow. It's also nice to be able to play on a big-screen TV set.
Another neat thing about consoles is that they're easy to pack up and take to a friend's place as well.
Microsoft leaving Java out of XP doesn't hurt Java.
It hurts Microsoft.
EVERYTHING that is happening in software engineering, everything new and bold and adventurous, is happening in Java. From where I sit here in San Diego, Java is simply taking over. The problem is this: Java isn't just a web page scripting language any more. And because of its structure, it's very easy to write compiler tools for it. As a result, all kinds of nifty new extensions (such as AspectJ) are being applied to it. Even the hardware industry -- including the embedded hardware industry -- is going all over it.
The reason for the above craziness is simple -- Java has features people have been trying to put into languages for years, but unlike those languages, it actually had a marketing push behind it.
Java is no longer Sun's alone. Java is the industry's. And Microsoft's abandoning Java just means that Microsoft has further detached themselves from everything innovative happening in the industry.
Even Apple figured this out. Witness OS X.
By crippling XP so that it can't run Java, they're making the same mistake IBM made when they crippled the PS/2 so that it couldn't use ISA cards, or when GM installed "planned obsolesence" and got waxed by the Japanese in the 80's, or when DEC's president decided he'd rather fly his plane than talk to IBM execs about an OS for their new "PC" dealy-bopper.
DEC is gone. GM is still suffering (although the new attitude at Cadillac shows hope). IBM had to reinvent themselves.
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot, and in the same way others have done in the past. They've forgotten that they only succeed as long as they serve their customers, and that their customers do not exist to serve them.
It's one of the classic blunders. Like trying to win a land war in Asia.;)
1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was
awarded $780,000.00 by a jury of her peers after
breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was
running amok inside a furniture store.
The owners of the store were understandably
surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving
tyke was Ms. Robertson's son.
2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles
won $74,000.00 and medical expenses when his neighbor
ran over his hand over with a Honda Accord.
Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice someone was at
the wheel of the car whose hubcap he was trying to steal.
3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol
Pennsylvania was exiting a house he finished robbing
by way of the garage. He was not able to get the
garage door to go up, the automatic door opener was
malfunctioning. He couldn't reenter the house because
the door connecting the house and garage locked when
he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, so
Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for
eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found,
and a large bag of dry dog food.
This upset Mr. Dickson, so he sued the homeowner's
insurance company claiming the situation caused him
undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of
half a million dollars and change.
4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas
was awarded $14,500.00 and medical expenses after
being bitten on the buttocks by his next door
neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in it's
owner's fenced in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The
award was less than sought after because the jury
felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams
who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to
pay Amber Carson of Lancaster Pennsylvania
$113,500.00 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink
and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor
because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30
seconds earlier during an argument.
6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware
successfully sued the owner of a night club in a
neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom
window to the floor and knocked out her two front
teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to
sneak through the window in the lady's room to avoid
paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded
$12,000.00 and dental expenses.
The "coffee was unreasonably hot" argument is a good argument on the surface, and is probably what resulted in the ruling. I was aware of the degree of damage the coffee did to her when I posted that. I still think it's debatable, but I'm willing to drop that example.
The potential failure of that one example, however, does NOT invalidate the general principle. Finding a four-leaf clover doesn't mean that there aren't a whole lot of three-leaf clovers out there.
You and I both know that even today there are plenty of lawsuits filed against corporations simply because people can do so, and have good enough odds of walking away with a huge amount of someone else's money with very little risk. People don't like admitting their own fault, and corporations look like they're made of money, so it's easy to file a lawsuit.
It's just that in this case, the opposite extreme has occurred -- the DMCA has made a low-risk opportunity for corporations to muscle around scientists and engineers.
Fortunately, the EFF is not letting this attempt stand.
The problem is we've had too many multi-million-dollar judgments against corporations because some loon spilled coffee on her lap or because some idiot couldn't read the Surgeon General's Warning. These are cases where the individuals themselves were the ones who should have been held accountable, but the corporations ended up getting the blame.
As a result, corporations bend over backwards to cover their own asses in these cases with all kinds of legalese. The DMCA, the Felten case, Sklyarov, and all of this nonsense are a result of this; since individuals have gotten judgments they didn't deserve, corporations have been able to get more protection than they really needed.
It's not just "Oooh, evil corporations are taking over everything!" Individual citizens failed to be accountable for their own actions, and convinced uneducated juries that the world owed them a living. As a result, companies have gone ape-shit to try to protect themselves, and now this practice has gotten out of hand.
There's a historical cause behind what we're seeing today. It isn't "us" against "them."
It's also not a zero-sum game, where one group gains freedoms at the expense of others.
I don't think Java will ever completely take over C/C++, simply because the hardware accessibility just isn't in Java and you need it when programming an OS.
Yes, but that's simply because it lacks the libraries for it. There's nothing keeping Java from having those libraries, either; it can work just as well as target-system-compiled code as byte-compiled code.
Stop bathing. Learn a new love for limburger cheese, raw garlic and onions. Keep a bowl of durians nearby as a snack.
When everyone moves out, take over their cubicles.
Re:How is it different from "The Bazaar?"
on
Mob Software
·
· Score: 2
Your post is terribly underrated, and mine is terribly overrated.
Thanks for pointing that out. I re-read the article, and you're right -- this is a truly enriching read. It's the sort of thing where even if you disagree with it, you're enriched just for thinking about what he addresses.
Re:How is it different from "The Bazaar?"
on
Mob Software
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
``"Let's have a whole bunch of people try real hard for a real long time, and eventually all the (rockets/software) that doesn't work will explode, leaving us with stuff that works".
``Oh golly.''
Yes, but ya know...that's really what happens -anyhow-! That's the engineering process in a nutshell. There's a great book called "Design Paradigms" by Henry Petroski that covers, essentially, the history of bridge building. And with each new bridge-building process, there's at least one spectactular failure and one spectacular success. And although the book focuses on the difference between good engineering and bad, reading it, you realize that that statement is not a prescription for how engineering happens, but a description of how it happens.
We keep building bridges until one breaks. Then, we find a new principle.
THIS is why I read slashdot!!!
on
Mob Software
·
· Score: 4, Funny
"The builders shared a set of principles--the common pattern language."
Slashdot is, in its own, chaotic way, from the folks posting "goatse.cx" links to the helpful mirror-site posters, from the "Frist prost!" guys up to folks like Perens and Carmack, the place where engineering minds of many feathers come together, and as a group, we are able to keep in touch not just with news, culture, and technology, but to keep in touch with a common understanding and culture.
I'm about halfway through it now. Only reason I'm posting now is because I have a problem resisting the temptation to post as fast as I can.:)
But I'm absolutely enthralled by reading this. I'm at work, I should be working, but...I can't. I'm glued to this. Breathed, whether he wants to be or not, is forever an icon of what the 80's were to me...or more appropriately, of what the 80's weren't. They weren't silly, they weren't fun, they weren't lying in the dandelion patch.
If this interview were a slashdot post, I'd post beneath it saying, "Mod this up! +1, Insightful" as some of us are wont to do.:)
It's great to hear from the guy. Now pardon me while I go back and read more...:)
Slashdot Mirror
Right now, the wolves (black-hats) have two real advantages over the shepherds (white-hats). The first is that there are just too many damned sheep in the fold for the shepherds to keep track of, and the second is that the sheep farmers are too busy competing with each other to collaborate the way the wolves do.
This is a baby step towards eliminating two of those. The most important one is that although most folks don't have their ports locked down or update, they do have anti-virus software installed. So by teaming with McAfee to make an anti-trojan solution, a lot more computers are going to be able to be protected, and it'll really take the teeth out of a DDOS attack.
The second baby step is that by collaborating, the shepherds can now do a better job of keeping tabs on the wolves. It's only a baby step; this looks like it's just an ordinary corporate alliance, not a sign of genuine teamwork. But it's a start, and really cuts into the black-hats' current advantages.
Ugh... that was NOT an image I needed in my head...
My mother made the same complaint. She was a touch-typist, after all, and hated having to move her hands away from the keyboard to use the fscking mouse.
All we need to do is feed Hal's responses back into Eliza, and Eliza's responses back into Hal, and train Hal to be a perverted psychiatrist a lot more quickly than these researchers are doing the job. :)
Good point. And then there's this comment:
:)
"The question is wether this bandwagon is capable of carrying a Giant that huge."
Actually, the Giant will be helping to carry Linux, so it's not a case of the bandwagon carrying the Giant -- because, once they adopt Linux, they also become contributors.
The bandwagon grows because of people adopting it, not in spite of it.
...the real problem was that it was a great idea without a market. Basically, the folks doing the market research didn't do their jobs right, or like the analysts in the dot-com craze of the past couple of years, led themselves to believe that the old rules didn't apply.
The real problem is that Bluetooth has a range of only about 10m. In one famous example, an expo was supposed to have wired an entire building with Bluetooth. They put the access points in the ceiling. The problem was, the ceiling was over 10m high! So it was a bust.
The criticism of the article that the two products have different uses makes sense, because Bluetooth isn't being "beaten" by 802.11. 802.11 has an actual use, a market, and products people want to buy. If Bluetooth dies, it'll be because it died on its own, without help or hindrance from 802.11.
...we have the same situation here.
Cable companies have monopolies in their particular service areas. So what's going on is that there aren't 6 or 7 companies. There's one company, and it's going under.
It's not a "nice to be in Canada" thing if you're in Canada, and your cable company chose/was bought out by @Home. And it's not nice to be in America where your only cable service provider chose/was bought out by @Home.
A lot of people are going to lose their cablemodems in both countries because of this, with no alternative except DSL.
I think a subtle point you miss here is that nowadays children ARE more computer literate in the sense that they know how to use a computer to do things for themselves. The difference with these children is that they will be Linux-literate instead of Windows-literate.
;)
Think about it. A big reason why I use Windows today is because I grew up using DOS. If I'd grown up using Linux and StarOffice, I'd probably be using Linux today as my main OS.
The biggest problem I have with talking about Linux to most people is that they've never even seen it, much less used it. It puts them at a disadvantage, and since most folks like to pretend they know everything on the 'net, they certainly can't admit they're at a disadvantage.
These kids are going to grow up knowing better. And they're going to wonder why all these people bothered to pay money for office and OS software that was dramatically inferior to the free stuff.
Yup. Guilty as charged.
"As to your point, though, Mom & Pop don't give a rat's ass about Java."
They do when they surf to their favorite web pages, and things don't work.
"I'd love to sign up for this, but we're not close enough yet. To succeed, we must do what AMD does - be better and cheaper."
Although AMD is having problems, because they don't have that one other bit in place: They can't sell it. They couldn't sell water to a man with a bag of gold dying of thirst in the desert. And that's why Intel's still raping them in the OEM market.
Fortunately, this is not a problem Sun has -- otherwise, Java wouldn't be where it is today.
"Ugh, this is getting so tired. XP CAN run Java. In fact, in can run the MS JVM if you download and install it. It can run any JVM you want that you download and install."
You're missing the point: Mom & Pop modem-user don't have the time or the energy to download a Java VM. It's going to piss them off.
Your argument is just as lame as the Microsoft's argument that including IE withe OS wouldn't affect Netscape: "Oh, people can still download Netscape if they want to! We're not doing anything!"
The difference is that this time, people will blame Microsoft. And they'll be right to do so.
I enjoy an occasional game and REALLY don't want to keep a Windows box around just for that...
So go grab a Playstation 2 or Nintendo Gamecube when their prices drop. I've found it's more fun to play games that I can play with up to three of my friends in the same room than it is to play multiplayer over the 'net anyhow. It's also nice to be able to play on a big-screen TV set.
Another neat thing about consoles is that they're easy to pack up and take to a friend's place as well.
Microsoft leaving Java out of XP doesn't hurt Java.
;)
It hurts Microsoft.
EVERYTHING that is happening in software engineering, everything new and bold and adventurous, is happening in Java. From where I sit here in San Diego, Java is simply taking over. The problem is this: Java isn't just a web page scripting language any more. And because of its structure, it's very easy to write compiler tools for it. As a result, all kinds of nifty new extensions (such as AspectJ) are being applied to it. Even the hardware industry -- including the embedded hardware industry -- is going all over it.
The reason for the above craziness is simple -- Java has features people have been trying to put into languages for years, but unlike those languages, it actually had a marketing push behind it.
Java is no longer Sun's alone. Java is the industry's. And Microsoft's abandoning Java just means that Microsoft has further detached themselves from everything innovative happening in the industry.
Even Apple figured this out. Witness OS X.
By crippling XP so that it can't run Java, they're making the same mistake IBM made when they crippled the PS/2 so that it couldn't use ISA cards, or when GM installed "planned obsolesence" and got waxed by the Japanese in the 80's, or when DEC's president decided he'd rather fly his plane than talk to IBM execs about an OS for their new "PC" dealy-bopper.
DEC is gone. GM is still suffering (although the new attitude at Cadillac shows hope). IBM had to reinvent themselves.
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot, and in the same way others have done in the past. They've forgotten that they only succeed as long as they serve their customers, and that their customers do not exist to serve them.
It's one of the classic blunders. Like trying to win a land war in Asia.
How about the following examples, then?
1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was
awarded $780,000.00 by a jury of her peers after
breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was
running amok inside a furniture store.
The owners of the store were understandably
surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving
tyke was Ms. Robertson's son.
2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles
won $74,000.00 and medical expenses when his neighbor
ran over his hand over with a Honda Accord.
Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice someone was at
the wheel of the car whose hubcap he was trying to steal.
3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol
Pennsylvania was exiting a house he finished robbing
by way of the garage. He was not able to get the
garage door to go up, the automatic door opener was
malfunctioning. He couldn't reenter the house because
the door connecting the house and garage locked when
he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, so
Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for
eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found,
and a large bag of dry dog food.
This upset Mr. Dickson, so he sued the homeowner's
insurance company claiming the situation caused him
undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of
half a million dollars and change.
4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas
was awarded $14,500.00 and medical expenses after
being bitten on the buttocks by his next door
neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in it's
owner's fenced in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The
award was less than sought after because the jury
felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams
who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to
pay Amber Carson of Lancaster Pennsylvania
$113,500.00 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink
and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor
because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30
seconds earlier during an argument.
6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware
successfully sued the owner of a night club in a
neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom
window to the floor and knocked out her two front
teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to
sneak through the window in the lady's room to avoid
paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded
$12,000.00 and dental expenses.
The "coffee was unreasonably hot" argument is a good argument on the surface, and is probably what resulted in the ruling. I was aware of the degree of damage the coffee did to her when I posted that. I still think it's debatable, but I'm willing to drop that example.
The potential failure of that one example, however, does NOT invalidate the general principle. Finding a four-leaf clover doesn't mean that there aren't a whole lot of three-leaf clovers out there.
You and I both know that even today there are plenty of lawsuits filed against corporations simply because people can do so, and have good enough odds of walking away with a huge amount of someone else's money with very little risk. People don't like admitting their own fault, and corporations look like they're made of money, so it's easy to file a lawsuit.
It's just that in this case, the opposite extreme has occurred -- the DMCA has made a low-risk opportunity for corporations to muscle around scientists and engineers.
Fortunately, the EFF is not letting this attempt stand.
The problem is we've had too many multi-million-dollar judgments against corporations because some loon spilled coffee on her lap or because some idiot couldn't read the Surgeon General's Warning. These are cases where the individuals themselves were the ones who should have been held accountable, but the corporations ended up getting the blame.
As a result, corporations bend over backwards to cover their own asses in these cases with all kinds of legalese. The DMCA, the Felten case, Sklyarov, and all of this nonsense are a result of this; since individuals have gotten judgments they didn't deserve, corporations have been able to get more protection than they really needed.
It's not just "Oooh, evil corporations are taking over everything!" Individual citizens failed to be accountable for their own actions, and convinced uneducated juries that the world owed them a living. As a result, companies have gone ape-shit to try to protect themselves, and now this practice has gotten out of hand.
There's a historical cause behind what we're seeing today. It isn't "us" against "them."
It's also not a zero-sum game, where one group gains freedoms at the expense of others.
I don't think Java will ever completely take over C/C++, simply because the hardware accessibility just isn't in Java and you need it when programming an OS.
Yes, but that's simply because it lacks the libraries for it. There's nothing keeping Java from having those libraries, either; it can work just as well as target-system-compiled code as byte-compiled code.
Billiards.
Earth-ball in the corner pocket...
Stop bathing. Learn a new love for limburger cheese, raw garlic and onions. Keep a bowl of durians nearby as a snack.
When everyone moves out, take over their cubicles.
Your post is terribly underrated, and mine is terribly overrated.
Thanks for pointing that out. I re-read the article, and you're right -- this is a truly enriching read. It's the sort of thing where even if you disagree with it, you're enriched just for thinking about what he addresses.
``"Let's have a whole bunch of people try real hard for a real long time, and eventually all the (rockets/software) that doesn't work will explode, leaving us with stuff that works".
``Oh golly.''
Yes, but ya know...that's really what happens -anyhow-! That's the engineering process in a nutshell. There's a great book called "Design Paradigms" by Henry Petroski that covers, essentially, the history of bridge building. And with each new bridge-building process, there's at least one spectactular failure and one spectacular success. And although the book focuses on the difference between good engineering and bad, reading it, you realize that that statement is not a prescription for how engineering happens, but a description of how it happens.
We keep building bridges until one breaks. Then, we find a new principle.
"The builders shared a set of principles--the common pattern language."
Slashdot is, in its own, chaotic way, from the folks posting "goatse.cx" links to the helpful mirror-site posters, from the "Frist prost!" guys up to folks like Perens and Carmack, the place where engineering minds of many feathers come together, and as a group, we are able to keep in touch not just with news, culture, and technology, but to keep in touch with a common understanding and culture.
We ARE the mob.
More important than your career or your pet peeve -- your family.
I'm about halfway through it now. Only reason I'm posting now is because I have a problem resisting the temptation to post as fast as I can. :)
:)
:)
But I'm absolutely enthralled by reading this. I'm at work, I should be working, but...I can't. I'm glued to this. Breathed, whether he wants to be or not, is forever an icon of what the 80's were to me...or more appropriately, of what the 80's weren't. They weren't silly, they weren't fun, they weren't lying in the dandelion patch.
If this interview were a slashdot post, I'd post beneath it saying, "Mod this up! +1, Insightful" as some of us are wont to do.
It's great to hear from the guy. Now pardon me while I go back and read more...