The payment system. This seems like the largest stubling block to me in the scheme, perhaps I am just not up on the latest electronic cash concepts. I would really like to see, for this idea and others, what amounts to digital anonymous cash. I am sure so would a lot of others.
Affirmed. I remember an article a couple of years ago in Scientific American (?) which covered a double blind digital signature developed in Sweden(?). In the double blind system the merchant is assured that the client really does have the cash, but that is all they learn (no name, address, etc). Marketeers can still build their demographic spending charts, but they don't know who is or isn't a member of any particular group. The researchers had a design for an IC which could be embedded in a credit card to make transactions quick, painless and secure.
I've no idea what happened with this idea. I haven't heard of it since, but I haven't really been looking either. --- Update --- Whaddya know. Last time I checked, Google didn't return a thing, now there's slew of hefty reading material.
Thanks for bringing "linux is only the kernel" to light. I know that, but until your comment I had relegated it to a dark closet.
To get to the rest of your message, aren't the different 'linux' distributions mostly just different flavors of the same thing while the BSD distributions have deeper differences? (honest question)
A metaphor I have in my mind at the moment: Unix is a frozen dessert. Linux is ice cream, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry... BSD is sherbert, frozen yogurt...
(what would this make Windows? crushed ice? with salt?)
>... there is no economic incentive to carry out >the research to do something truly innovative
Most of the "innovations" currently in vogue today came from pure research labs. The mouse, hypertext, multi computer/preson collaborative document creation (workgroups), and network video conferencing all came from Doug Engelbart in 1968 (at Stanford?). A graphical user interface with icons and a pointing device came from Xerox PARC in the same era. And of course the Internet grew out of Arpanet which was developed by the Defense department and universities.
The only area I can think of (at the moment) where a commercial company being truly "innovative" is id software and Castle Wolfenstein (which reincarnated as Doom and Quake). Oh yeah, there's also the Amiga and the Video Toaster, but the innovation there is primarily in making existing technology affordable and accessible.
>(emacs still thinks there's no mouse).
I don't quite understand this statement. I've used a mouse with emacs before (admittedly, I don't normally use emacs). Besides emacs is not Linux, it's emacs.
Anyway, to at least approach the main gist of your comment - Where's the Economic Sense in Open Source?
It costs too much and develop, maintain and support a software system after it grows past a certain level of complexity or number of users. Let your users develop, maintain and support each other where they can.
Your salable value is in your expertise, experience and in-depth understanding of the system. This body of experience can be sold as publications, contract development work, and "branded" products. At home I buy white box computers and parts. At work I buy Digital, Dell, HP and IBM because we need the value and reliability they add.
{{I first tried to post this as one message, but it didn't work}}
First, what William said: "...thoughtful replies. I'll try, but it won't be easy -- you cover too many topics."
But unlike William, I'll only respond to a single theme.
>Linux can only follow Windows precedents;
Linux was network and internet aware and responsive before Windows knew it existed. Linux multitasked from day one, Windows was retrofitted for multitasking. Linux has been multiuser friendly from day one, Windows only started down this road a year or two ago. Linux knew how to use many different hardware architectures very early in it's evolution, Windows (NT only) can now use 2.
The only (broad) area where Linux is following "Windows precedents" is in the GUI area. And lets not forget that Windows followed the Macintosh into that realm (who in turn was following Xerox PARC).
If we change that statement to:
"Linux can only follow precedents"
The argument carries a little more weight -- all of the items I mentioned above were adopted from previous/contemporary operating systems.
However it carries weight only until we look a little further and realize that nearly all software was adapted from another source. Like the world of literature and movies, there are very few -original- ideas out there.
Linux "only following precedents" is not a weakness, but a strength. Linux (like any free-open system) can, and has, adopt any good idea it sees providing there are people interested in it. Microsoft (like any closed system) can only adopt good ideas when it can make money off it (or at least not lose money).
There are people everyday who quit their jobs in some kind of acrimonious situation and post a bitch letter to a mailing list or a newsgroup or a website. It's just another type of flaming. Also remember, it wasn't Raster who posted the flame to Slashdot, it was somebody else on the mailing list. And it grabbed Slashdot's attention because Raster is a popular guy. Remember the free-for-all when Steve Jobs left Apple? Anyway, the point is, that particular event cannot be laid at the door of the open source / free software movement.
One of the things we as a society are going to have to learn to deal with, is that on the 'net, everything is "open". Not just source code.
And we still have a ways to go in order to catch up.:( I wonder if anybody involved with Mozilla will try and bring in some of the Viola code so we can catch up with history?
And since we are on the topic of history and hypertext systems, have you seen this stuff on Englebart? http://unrev.stanford.edu/
There's a streaming video of his original 1968 demo, but it seems to require [yuk]Windows Media Player[/yuk].
It's simple really, and you can see it happen again and again in all walks of life: business, social, biological, heck even geological.
Take any structure, abstract or physical, and make it grow as as fast possible. The result is poorer than if you go slow and take more time.
In New Zealand they are farming pine trees now. They grow really quickly, harvestable in 20 years. Where I live in northern Canada, a similar pine will take 60 or more years to mature. Guess what, the slow growth wood is superior building material, stronger, doesn't rot as quickly.
With concrete the longer you draw out the curing process, the stronger it is.
etc.
RedHat is growing too fast, walls are being thrown up on foundation which is showing cracks. Not to say I think RH will fall down, that particular outcome is unlikely. But there is too much happening at once and some things are going to fall apart and get discarded. Since we're talking about a business, the discarded elements will be people and services. Those directly involved won't enjoy the experience much.
For the most part, I agree with you. However, a strong argument could be made against the veracity of:
They [Science] seem to fit our perception of the world more or less as well as they ever have, and do just about as good or bad a job of explaining and controlling the world as they ever have.
simply by bringing up the untold havoc human beings are wreaking on ourselves and our environment. With our greater scientific understanding, do we really have a better fit with our world now than our forebears did? It is precisely because the current dominant belief system, Science and Technology, does not give us a full enough understanding of our world that we are in such trouble (global warming, species extinction, etc.)
To me it seems that Science & Tech. - knowledge of the physical bit-by-bit world, needs Mythos - as understanding of self in relationship to the large r world, very badly indeed. I deliberately seperate Science, the art of knowing (implying understanding), from Science & Technology, the art of manipulating (which doesn't require understanding).
I'm not about to run off into the woods and leave my computer behind. But there are too many things in _my direct day to day experience_ which Science (of both contexts) simply doesn't explain satisfactorily. Maybe mythos will help me understand more. And maybe not, but at least mythos is pointed in that direction and not blindly insisting that if my super-duper-fantistic latest-generation scientific-measuring-device can't see it, it doesn't exist.
Anyway, I think we fit our world worse than our ancestors did theirs. Maybe we can change that.
There are now ~7 million linux users (conservative ).
If linux or freebsd or variant did not exist, I assume 75% of the current linux users would be using Windows, 20% commercial unix, 5% macintosh. (off the top of my head)
OS = would-have-been-linux-users * avg OS$ = loss Windows = 5,250,000 * $100 = $5.25 billion Unix = 1,400,000 * $1000 = $1.4 billion Mac = 350,000 * $300 = $105 million
Therefore linux users have cost proprietary commercial operating system vendors $6.755 billion dollars in lost revenue.:) And that doesn't take into account people using FreeBSD and siblings.
I'd like to see somebody who actually has real statistics run this scenario (for instance, I have no idea what a commercial unix or MacOS actually costs, or how many *BSD users there are).
Yeah, I'd like to know that too. I submitted the question to Ask Slashdot a month or so ago but it didn't make the cut. Maybe if this thread get's active we can find out.
So how about it? Are there extant FSF/SPI organizations in Canada? What would it take to setup a branch of the FSF or SPI in Canada so we can make tax-deductible donations too?
Bruce, I've tried for several days to email you (bruce@perens.com) and it keeps bouncing on me. If you have working email please drop me a line. Otherwise checkout the archives at debian-legal (thread "A Data License").
I'm surprised anybody, including the software vendors themselves, would go anywhere near this thing. I'm also suprised I don't see more discussion on this theme (is it a case of, if the idea doesn't come up within the first 50 posts it gets buried? Anyway, here's my attempt to raise the security issue profile).
Say MS decides they want a very tight handle on who runs NT Server or Back Office, and they place remote shutdown code in it. How long do you think it will take for somebody to figure out how to activate that code?
If we're lucky, that unknown c/hacker will be either a braggart (a cracker, who tells everybody of his exploit) or a responsible security admin (a hacker who also spreads the exploit, albeit more gently).
If we are unlucky, it will be a more devious character, who merely keeps the exploit to himself and a few close friends. This cadre might quietly work themselves up to a "kidnapping" or hostage taking in exchange for a few million bucks or something. Or perhaps it won't be devious character and a few cohorts, but the Intelligence arm of a hostile forign government or a terrorist organization.
I use the terms 'lucky' and 'unlucky' on pupose. Yes the smart ones will be running GPL/OS and not be exploitable. But like it or not, there are many, many, many more systems and businesses dependant on propritary and closed systems. If they go down, we will go down too, just not as far.
yeah, I posted that (1000 votes) before I looked at the dates/times. I also didn't realise yesterday was a holiday for Americans. Much better now.
I didn't like the format of the poll - what if you wanted more than one game, or older games or whatever. So emailed the webmaster and told him they should release source code for the "obsolete" ones.:)
Okay, the poll is working now, but we have to live up to our side of the bargain -- at least 9,000 people said "we want to see Sierra games on Linux" Well, Sierra listened, and have now put up a poll asking what games we want. Guess what, only ~900 have answered that question so far. So are we for real? Or what?
Garumph! It seems to be broken. I've tried to submit my vote several times, and the results still site at zero! Maybe it's because I'm behind a firewall. Anybody else have any luck?
Hey,/. effect is definately working. The poll has been changed to What upcoming Studios game would you like to see ported to Linux? (the choices are TeamFortress 2, Pharaoh, Homeworld, Gabriel Knight 3, Babylon 5 )
In a nutshell, Steve Mann takes images (well an image stream) from his wearable camera and stitches them together to create a seamless single image. He calls this system "painting with looks". The software is VideoOrbits and is downloadable as a tar.gz (rpm coming).
I think some pretty cool worlds could be created by combining painting with looks with Dr. Dersch's panorama software.
My only Computer training in school was in grade 7-8 on an Apple II/IIe. I quit high school at the end of grade 11, bummed around for awhile doing low-intellect jobs and travelling.
I briefly (4 months) lived with an uncle who had an old tandy 1000 he wasn't using. He generously allowed me to use the computer; he would tell me where to find help and things to try, but wouldn't actually -do- anything to help (Q: What's this "fdisk" program? A: What does it do? The bastard, he was a SysAdmin!). I was primarily interested in games (Zork & Planetfall). I figured things out.
About 4 years after leaving school I got interested in computers again and started hanging around a GIS (computer mapping & databases) company. After 3 months of working for free (I was living at home again) they decided they'd better hire me.:)
In that 3 months I had free reign to play with (& destroy ) an outdated computer and learn the mapping software, and a great many other things (novell, BBSs, dos, win31, games, games, games). I worked their for 5 years, and always had the freedom to play with new software and pick my own roadmap.
Anyway, now I am a GIS Technician as well as a Novell & NT Systems Administrator, Computer Hard/Soft Technician, and a couple of smaller hats too. To get my current position I had to go through a full competition regime against graduates of various institutions and work experience.
I fully believe that if I had gone through the formal education route, I would not have as deep, or as varied, a skill set as I now possess.
I am not against schooling, and at some point I will go back to school. However it won't be to a get a job, it will be to learn things for the sake of learning, for which a universty or college is just the best place for it.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that I was extremely lucky. My boss did not take advantage of cheap sweat house labour. I always had the freedom to explore and take things apart and choose my own roadmap. I had a strong desire, almost cimpulsion, which continuously impelled me into new territory (games! I learned about ipx/spx, tcp/ip and BNC cabling from Doom). I possess a natural aptitude for computing work.
If you had asked me in high school what I was going to do with my life, computers weren't even on the map!
Anyway, my point is, maybe institutions are not the best place for learning about computers. They're too new. They're changing too quickly. Post Secondary schools are simply too bureaucratic to adapt. Maybe in a another decade or two when (if!) things slow down and stabilize. The best way to learn is to _do_ it, to hack.
We already see it on TV, in magazines and newspapers, and on web pages. Just like in the other medias, the media will be re-formed (deformed?) to fit around the ads.
At first a sort of shell will form, and the distinction between ad and program will be quite distinct. With time and experience the ads will get better at controlling beyond the bounds of their shell, although the shell itself will appear to be quite rigid, formalized and impermeable.
For a biological metaphor, I'm reminded of the way a parasite invades a host and then uses the host's own cellular material to reproduce and package itself for transmission.
As in the other medias, there will be a full range of ad saturations to choose from; from all-dressed to birthday suit.
A decade or so from now, ads-in-programs will be nearly ubiquitous and regarded as a necessary, or at least an I-can't-do-anything-about-it, annoyance.
Myself, I will avoid programs-which-carry-ads the same way I avoid ads elsewhere. I record my TV and watch from tape, fast-forwarding through the commercials, editing them out all together for a keepable movie. I don't buy magazines with ads, or of they have 'em, I rip them out before I start reading (I hate mags which don't put ad's on both sides of the page...), or I don't buy unless I _really_ want it. For web-pages, the Junkbuster is my best friend.
All that being said, ads-in-programs will probably only survive in an online, constantly updating network environment (they need a constant stream of fresh nutrients). 'Mr.WordProcessor' won't have them, except maybe in a thin client setting.
Actually it says to answer "does not apply" or similar. In any case if a respondent does answer Q2 (what projects have you been involved with) you have a handle to seperate contributors from non, even if they leave Q1 blank.
The results viewable on the website don't show blank responses, but the blanks are intact in the database. Thus meaningful statistical analysis is possible, assuming the analyst has access to the database.
I find it very interesting, and it certainly applies to me personally, that the number one response by a very wide margin to Q1 (Why have you not contributed to a Free Source project?), is I don't have enough time.
The number of "does not apply" responses, indicating that individual does contribute, is way down there. Something like 1-5% from my guesstimate. I'd very much like to see some statistical analysis on this survey.
Slashdot Mirror
The payment system. This seems like the largest stubling block to me in the scheme, perhaps I am just not up on the latest electronic cash concepts. I would really like to see, for this idea and others, what amounts to digital anonymous cash. I am sure so would a lot of others.
Affirmed. I remember an article a couple of years ago in Scientific American (?) which covered a double blind digital signature developed in Sweden(?). In the double blind system the merchant is assured that the client really does have the cash, but that is all they learn (no name, address, etc). Marketeers can still build their demographic spending charts, but they don't know who is or isn't a member of any particular group. The researchers had a design for an IC which could be embedded in a credit card to make transactions quick, painless and secure.
I've no idea what happened with this idea. I haven't heard of it since, but I haven't really been looking either.
--- Update ---
Whaddya know. Last time I checked, Google didn't return a thing, now there's slew of hefty reading material.
-matt
Unfortunately openqubit.org is nothing but a "coming soon" sign. :( While we're waiting for that to open up we can go to www.qubit.org, particularily the "Introductions & Tutorials" page.
Thanks for bringing "linux is only the kernel" to light. I know that, but until your comment I had relegated it to a dark closet.
To get to the rest of your message, aren't the different 'linux' distributions mostly just different flavors of the same thing while the BSD distributions have deeper differences? (honest question)
A metaphor I have in my mind at the moment: Unix is a frozen dessert. Linux is ice cream, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry... BSD is sherbert, frozen yogurt...
(what would this make Windows? crushed ice? with salt?)
>... there is no economic incentive to carry out
>the research to do something truly innovative
Most of the "innovations" currently in vogue today came from pure research labs. The mouse, hypertext, multi computer/preson collaborative document creation (workgroups), and network video conferencing all came from Doug Engelbart in 1968 (at Stanford?). A graphical user interface with icons and a pointing device came from Xerox PARC in the same era. And of course the Internet grew out of Arpanet which was developed by the Defense department and universities.
The only area I can think of (at the moment) where a commercial company being truly "innovative" is id software and Castle Wolfenstein (which reincarnated as Doom and Quake). Oh yeah, there's also the Amiga and the Video Toaster, but the innovation there is primarily in making existing technology affordable and accessible.
>(emacs still thinks there's no mouse).
I don't quite understand this statement. I've used a mouse with emacs before (admittedly, I don't normally use emacs). Besides emacs is not Linux, it's emacs.
Anyway, to at least approach the main gist of your comment - Where's the Economic Sense in Open Source?
It costs too much and develop, maintain and support a software system after it grows past a certain level of complexity or number of users. Let your users develop, maintain and support each other where they can.
Your salable value is in your expertise, experience and in-depth understanding of the system. This body of experience can be sold as publications, contract development work, and "branded" products. At home I buy white box computers and parts. At work I buy Digital, Dell, HP and IBM because we need the value and reliability they add.
-ma
{{I first tried to post this as one message, but it didn't work}}
First, what William said: "...thoughtful replies. I'll try, but it won't be easy -- you cover too many topics."
But unlike William, I'll only respond to a single theme.
>Linux can only follow Windows precedents;
Linux was network and internet aware and responsive before Windows knew it existed.
Linux multitasked from day one, Windows was retrofitted for multitasking. Linux has been multiuser friendly from day one, Windows only started down this road a year or two ago. Linux knew how to use many different hardware architectures very early in it's evolution, Windows (NT only) can now use 2.
The only (broad) area where Linux is following "Windows precedents" is in the GUI area. And lets not forget that Windows followed the Macintosh into that realm (who in turn was following Xerox PARC).
If we change that statement to:
"Linux can only follow precedents"
The argument carries a little more weight -- all of the items I mentioned above were adopted from previous/contemporary operating systems.
However it carries weight only until we look a little further and realize that nearly all software was adapted from another source. Like the world of literature and movies, there are very few -original- ideas out there.
Linux "only following precedents" is not a weakness, but a strength. Linux (like any free-open system) can, and has, adopt any good idea it sees providing there are people interested in it. Microsoft (like any closed system) can only adopt good ideas when it can make money off it (or at least not lose money).
-mat
>I'd like a real, not some second rate sociological
>mythmaking about tribal 'gifts' and so forth.
See this piece for once such discussion.
-matt
>I can't understand why the government hates monopolies anyway.
The government can't stand competition.
Monopolies can't stand competition.
There are people everyday who quit their jobs in some kind of acrimonious situation and post a bitch letter to a mailing list or a newsgroup or a website. It's just another type of flaming. Also remember, it wasn't Raster who posted the flame to Slashdot, it was somebody else on the mailing list. And it grabbed Slashdot's attention because Raster is a popular guy. Remember the free-for-all when Steve Jobs left Apple? Anyway, the point is, that particular event cannot be laid at the door of the open source / free software movement.
One of the things we as a society are going to have to learn to deal with, is that on the 'net, everything is "open". Not just source code.
-matt
And we still have a ways to go in order to catch up. :( I wonder if anybody involved with Mozilla will try and bring in some of the Viola code so we can catch up with history?
And since we are on the topic of history and hypertext systems, have you seen this stuff on Englebart? http://unrev.stanford.edu/
There's a streaming video of his original 1968 demo, but it seems to require [yuk]Windows Media Player[/yuk].
-matt
What (is/was) Viola?
It's simple really, and you can see it happen again and again in all walks of life: business, social, biological, heck even geological.
:)
Take any structure, abstract or physical, and make it grow as as fast possible. The result is poorer than if you go slow and take more time.
In New Zealand they are farming pine trees now. They grow really quickly, harvestable in 20 years. Where I live in northern Canada, a similar pine will take 60 or more years to mature. Guess what, the slow growth wood is superior building material, stronger, doesn't rot as quickly.
With concrete the longer you draw out the curing process, the stronger it is.
etc.
RedHat is growing too fast, walls are being thrown up on foundation which is showing cracks. Not to say I think RH will fall down, that particular outcome is unlikely. But there is too much happening at once and some things are going to fall apart and get discarded. Since we're talking about a business, the discarded elements will be people and services. Those directly involved won't enjoy the experience much.
ramble.ramble...
I'm done philosophizing now.
For the most part, I agree with you. However, a strong argument could be made against the veracity of:
They [Science] seem to fit our perception of the world more or less as well as they ever have, and do just about as good or bad a job of explaining and controlling the world as they ever have.
simply by bringing up the untold havoc human beings are wreaking on ourselves and our environment. With our greater scientific understanding, do we really have a better fit with our world now than our forebears did? It is precisely because the current dominant belief system, Science and Technology, does not give us a full enough understanding of our world that we are in such trouble (global warming, species extinction, etc.)
To me it seems that Science & Tech. - knowledge of the physical bit-by-bit world, needs Mythos - as understanding of self in relationship to the large r world, very badly indeed. I deliberately seperate Science, the art of knowing (implying understanding), from Science & Technology, the art of manipulating (which doesn't require understanding).
I'm not about to run off into the woods and leave my computer behind. But there are too many things in _my direct day to day experience_ which Science (of both contexts) simply doesn't explain satisfactorily. Maybe mythos will help me understand more. And maybe not, but at least mythos is pointed in that direction and not blindly insisting that if my super-duper-fantistic latest-generation scientific-measuring-device can't see it, it doesn't exist.
Anyway, I think we fit our world worse than our ancestors did theirs. Maybe we can change that.
There are now ~7 million linux users (conservative ).
:) And that doesn't take into account people using FreeBSD and siblings.
If linux or freebsd or variant did not exist, I assume 75% of the current linux users would be using Windows, 20% commercial unix, 5% macintosh. (off the top of my head)
OS = would-have-been-linux-users * avg OS$ = loss
Windows = 5,250,000 * $100 = $5.25 billion
Unix = 1,400,000 * $1000 = $1.4 billion
Mac = 350,000 * $300 = $105 million
Therefore linux users have cost proprietary commercial operating system vendors $6.755 billion dollars in lost revenue.
I'd like to see somebody who actually has real statistics run this scenario (for instance, I have no idea what a commercial unix or MacOS actually costs, or how many *BSD users there are).
Yeah, I'd like to know that too. I submitted the question to Ask Slashdot a month or so ago but it didn't make the cut. Maybe if this thread get's active we can find out.
So how about it? Are there extant FSF/SPI organizations in Canada? What would it take to setup a branch of the FSF or SPI in Canada so we can make tax-deductible donations too?
Bruce, I've tried for several days to email you (bruce@perens.com) and it keeps bouncing on me. If you have working email please drop me a line. Otherwise checkout the archives at debian-legal (thread "A Data License").
-matt
I'm surprised anybody, including the software vendors themselves, would go anywhere near this thing. I'm also suprised I don't see more discussion on this theme (is it a case of, if the idea doesn't come up within the first 50 posts it gets buried? Anyway, here's my attempt to raise the security issue profile).
Say MS decides they want a very tight handle on who runs NT Server or Back Office, and they place remote shutdown code in it. How long do you think it will take for somebody to figure out how to activate that code?
If we're lucky, that unknown c/hacker will be either a braggart (a cracker, who tells everybody of his exploit) or a responsible security admin (a hacker who also spreads the exploit, albeit more gently).
If we are unlucky, it will be a more devious character, who merely keeps the exploit to himself and a few close friends. This cadre might quietly work themselves up to a "kidnapping" or hostage taking in exchange for a few million bucks or something. Or perhaps it won't be devious character and a few cohorts, but the Intelligence arm of a hostile forign government or a terrorist organization.
I use the terms 'lucky' and 'unlucky' on pupose. Yes the smart ones will be running GPL/OS and not be exploitable. But like it or not, there are many, many, many more systems and businesses dependant on propritary and closed systems. If they go down, we will go down too, just not as far.
yeah, I posted that (1000 votes) before I looked at the dates/times. I also didn't realise yesterday was a holiday for Americans. Much better now.
:)
I didn't like the format of the poll - what if you wanted more than one game, or older games or whatever. So emailed the webmaster and told him they should release source code for the "obsolete" ones.
Okay, the poll is working now, but we have to live up to our side of the bargain -- at least 9,000 people said "we want to see Sierra games on Linux" Well, Sierra listened, and have now put up a poll asking what games we want. Guess what, only ~900 have answered that question so far. So are we for real? Or what?
Garumph! It seems to be broken. I've tried to submit my vote several times, and the results still site at zero! Maybe it's because I'm behind a firewall. Anybody else have any luck?
Hey, /. effect is definately working. The poll has been changed to What upcoming Studios game would you like to see ported to Linux? (the choices are TeamFortress 2, Pharaoh, Homeworld, Gabriel Knight 3, Babylon 5 )
check out www.wearcam.org for related image-processing technology . High-bandwith version(not as comprehensive).
In a nutshell, Steve Mann takes images (well an image stream) from his wearable camera and stitches them together to create a seamless single image. He calls this system "painting with looks". The software is VideoOrbits and is downloadable as a tar.gz (rpm coming).
I think some pretty cool worlds could be created by combining painting with looks with Dr. Dersch's panorama software.
My only Computer training in school was in grade 7-8 on an Apple II/IIe. I quit high school at the end of grade 11, bummed around for awhile doing low-intellect jobs and travelling.
:)
I briefly (4 months) lived with an uncle who had an old tandy 1000 he wasn't using. He generously allowed me to use the computer; he would tell me where to find help and things to try, but wouldn't actually -do- anything to help (Q: What's this "fdisk" program? A: What does it do? The bastard, he was a SysAdmin!). I was primarily interested in games (Zork & Planetfall). I figured things out.
About 4 years after leaving school I got interested in computers again and started hanging around a GIS (computer mapping & databases) company. After 3 months of working for free (I was living at home again) they decided they'd better hire me.
In that 3 months I had free reign to play with (& destroy ) an outdated computer and learn the mapping software, and a great many other things (novell, BBSs, dos, win31, games, games, games). I worked their for 5 years, and always had the freedom to play with new software and pick my own roadmap.
Anyway, now I am a GIS Technician as well as a Novell & NT Systems Administrator, Computer Hard/Soft Technician, and a couple of smaller hats too. To get my current position I had to go through a full competition regime against graduates of various institutions and work experience.
I fully believe that if I had gone through the formal education route, I would not have as deep, or as varied, a skill set as I now possess.
I am not against schooling, and at some point I will go back to school. However it won't be to a get a job, it will be to learn things for the sake of learning, for which a universty or college is just the best place for it.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that I was extremely lucky. My boss did not take advantage of cheap sweat house labour. I always had the freedom to explore and take things apart and choose my own roadmap. I had a strong desire, almost cimpulsion, which continuously impelled me into new territory (games! I learned about ipx/spx, tcp/ip and BNC cabling from Doom). I possess a natural aptitude for computing work.
If you had asked me in high school what I was going to do with my life, computers weren't even on the map!
Anyway, my point is, maybe institutions are not the best place for learning about computers. They're too new. They're changing too quickly. Post Secondary schools are simply too bureaucratic to adapt. Maybe in a another decade or two when (if!) things slow down and stabilize. The best way to learn is to _do_ it, to hack.
-matt
We already see it on TV, in magazines and newspapers, and on web pages. Just like in the other medias, the media will be re-formed (deformed?) to fit around the ads.
At first a sort of shell will form, and the distinction between ad and program will be quite distinct. With time and experience the ads will get better at controlling beyond the bounds of their shell, although the shell itself will appear to be quite rigid, formalized and impermeable.
For a biological metaphor, I'm reminded of the way a parasite invades a host and then uses the host's own cellular material to reproduce and package itself for transmission.
As in the other medias, there will be a full range of ad saturations to choose from; from all-dressed to birthday suit.
A decade or so from now, ads-in-programs will be nearly ubiquitous and regarded as a necessary, or at least an I-can't-do-anything-about-it, annoyance.
Myself, I will avoid programs-which-carry-ads the same way I avoid ads elsewhere. I record my TV and watch from tape, fast-forwarding through the commercials, editing them out all together for a keepable movie. I don't buy magazines with ads, or of they have 'em, I rip them out before I start reading (I hate mags which don't put ad's on both sides of the page...), or I don't buy unless I _really_ want it. For web-pages, the Junkbuster is my best friend.
All that being said, ads-in-programs will probably only survive in an online, constantly updating network environment (they need a constant stream of fresh nutrients). 'Mr.WordProcessor' won't have them, except maybe in a thin client setting.
Well, there's $0.05
-matt
Actually it says to answer "does not apply" or similar. In any case if a respondent does answer Q2 (what projects have you been involved with) you have a handle to seperate contributors from non, even if they leave Q1 blank.
The results viewable on the website don't show blank responses, but the blanks are intact in the database. Thus meaningful statistical analysis is possible, assuming the analyst has access to the database.
I find it very interesting, and it certainly applies to me personally, that the number one response by a very wide margin to Q1 (Why have you not contributed to a Free Source project?), is I don't have enough time.
The number of "does not apply" responses, indicating that individual does contribute, is way down there. Something like 1-5% from my guesstimate. I'd very much like to see some statistical analysis on this survey.