While the medium of software lends itself to long-term open source development, many of the things commonly shared via P2P are not. Music, movies, and television shows are often items used only once, or used sporadically over the course of several years. My copy of "Home Alone!" on VHS doesn't get nearly as much use as say, my operating system or word processor. Perhaps because of their inherent linearity, most entertainment products do not need to be updated over time. It's simply more entertaining to experience new episodes of The Simpsons, rather than watch updated versions of the old ones.
An open source counterculture has developed because the need for quality software is not fulfilled (and perhaps cannot be fulfilled) by large corporations with lots of funding. The public's desire for music, movies, and television, however, is pretty much satisfied. It also costs lots of money to obtain the equipment to create commercial quality entertainment products. While a lot of popular music seems to be really amazingly bad, the people still like it, and they still spend money on it, and more of it gets made. A counterculture dedicated to creating what they consider to be high quality free music product may develop a large cult following, but would have extreme difficulty becoming as popular as products with heavy monetary backing. If this hypothetical subculture did eventually reach widespread popularity, it would probably be purchased by a larger media producer sooner rather than later.
In order to try and change the way entertainment products are distributed (exorbitant prices on CDs, etc.), a counterculture needs to focus not on the creation of the entertainment products, but on creating an effective method of distribution. Because the industry is so money driven, for a truly effective new paradigm to catch on, there would have to be some way to get at least some money to the people who want it.
Also, the public at large doesn't really know what's going on. Many people are perfectly happy to wander into Tower Records and blow $20 on the latest offering from N'Sync. Perhaps with some education they could see the light.
Astronomers, physicists, biologists, and other scientists that may want to find a distributed computing solution to their problems or run large scale simulations of an environment, breeding population, star system, or whatever, are not all computer geeks. Granted, I'm sure a bunch of them are, but definitely not all. What is three-day setup for one person may amount to a week of work and finally breaking down and having to hire a professional techie (or walking down the hall and asking the local linux geek, a hassle either way).
As far as modifications to the OS to natively support clustering, it's already trivial to set up. I imagine that a control panel controlling clustering preferences and whatnot would look very similar to the Pooch interface already in use.
Concerning application support though, I have no idea. However, I do remember somebody saying something about OS X automatically utilizing multiple processors (if present) for all applications. If it can do that, native support for clustering can't be too far away.
Something that has only been partially touched on in this whole discussion is the fact that other formats currently exist that are not widely "pirated." As the society moves closer and closer to the ancient vision of the "paperless office," we see more and more things acquiring practical digital formats. First text, then pictures, then sound, then video. The latter three formats have become pretty much standards in their respective industry. Digital cameras are beginning to become as widespread as tangible film in the music industry, especially as those technologies become cheaper.
Since the introdcution of Napster, we're seeing direct client to client sharing of MP3s, but now that Gnutella is coming along, it's becoming practical and feasible to share other things as well. The music industry isn't going to be the only industry affected by the wave of "piracy" that's spreading around the internet. When eTexts become more popular, don't think for a minute that they won't be distributed on a Gnutella like system at some point in time.
Also, we should consider the potential positive aspects of this phenomenon. What if you had a Gnutella-like network for the distribution of free (potentially "pirated") educational materials? This could make it infinitely easier for people to share information with each other and make their ideas public, and could even fall within the restraints of the law if there's an applicable adaptation of the GNU Documentation liscense...
I don't believe that it's solely a matter of control. On a lot of levels, control may be the issue. Parents want control over what their children see, librarians want control over what is viewed in the library, the government wants control over what the public is made aware of, etcetera. This desire for ultimate control comes from the urge for safety. Parents want their children to be safe, librarians want to keep their libraries safe, the government wants to keep the internet safe for the people to look at without finding information that is deemed unsafe by them. How is it determined what's safe and what's not? They were told by somebody else.
Control might not be nearly as much of an issue if the people who were in control were educated as to exactly what they were controlling, and this is where memetics figures into it. We live in a society were a large amount of information is spread through non-specific idiot-proof memes, like "our software makes a mistake only one-in-a-million times" rather than accurate analyzations of research and study. Broad sweeping statements that appeal to the ignorance of the masses are easier to swallow than cold hard facts, so people end up spreading their ignorance on the subject like some sort of chain letter.
We need to find a better way to educate people as to what's really going on. Find a way to actually let the accept the facts, rather than what their next-door neighbor told them in passing.
As a result, cultural barriers collapsed, people started judging by ideas instead of the color of your skin or your age...
When you judge a person by their ideas, you are comparing your ideas to your own. This isn't an inherantly bad thing, that's why these message boards exist. For the comparison, discussion, and evolution of the ideas inside of our heads. The problem is when people make irrational judgements about other people's ideas, and are unwilling to let the ideas in their own head change as new information is presented to them.
Essentially what I'm saying is that the urge for control would be much less a problem if the people who were attempting to gain that control were really educated as to what's going on. I'm not entirely sure how to do that, but just using broad memes with opposite opinions seems equally ignorant. Maybe our entire culture needs to revamp the way we learn things and distribute information?
sircase
Memetics are fun. Aaah! Your big ideas scare me... Hide me from the rain.
In the "Agenda" section on algore2000.com, I can't help but notice a pointed lack of comments on intellectual property laws. If Al Gore intends to make the internet a "duty-free" zone for commerce, thereby promoting the already insanely rapid growth of internet business, how does he intend to deal with issues such as the recent trend of "questionable" patent applications, the semi-legitimate buying/selling of domain names, the open-sourcing of code, and other issues closely related to intellectual property? And, now that I think of it, I wonder if Gore has any ideas on how to deal with the huge "information provider" type mergers, such as AOL/Time Warner. -sircase Please wait a moment, I am constructing haiku. What season is this?
Slashdot Mirror
While the medium of software lends itself to long-term open source development, many of the things commonly shared via P2P are not. Music, movies, and television shows are often items used only once, or used sporadically over the course of several years. My copy of "Home Alone!" on VHS doesn't get nearly as much use as say, my operating system or word processor. Perhaps because of their inherent linearity, most entertainment products do not need to be updated over time. It's simply more entertaining to experience new episodes of The Simpsons, rather than watch updated versions of the old ones.
An open source counterculture has developed because the need for quality software is not fulfilled (and perhaps cannot be fulfilled) by large corporations with lots of funding. The public's desire for music, movies, and television, however, is pretty much satisfied. It also costs lots of money to obtain the equipment to create commercial quality entertainment products. While a lot of popular music seems to be really amazingly bad, the people still like it, and they still spend money on it, and more of it gets made. A counterculture dedicated to creating what they consider to be high quality free music product may develop a large cult following, but would have extreme difficulty becoming as popular as products with heavy monetary backing. If this hypothetical subculture did eventually reach widespread popularity, it would probably be purchased by a larger media producer sooner rather than later.
In order to try and change the way entertainment products are distributed (exorbitant prices on CDs, etc.), a counterculture needs to focus not on the creation of the entertainment products, but on creating an effective method of distribution. Because the industry is so money driven, for a truly effective new paradigm to catch on, there would have to be some way to get at least some money to the people who want it.
Also, the public at large doesn't really know what's going on. Many people are perfectly happy to wander into Tower Records and blow $20 on the latest offering from N'Sync. Perhaps with some education they could see the light.
Astronomers, physicists, biologists, and other scientists that may want to find a distributed computing solution to their problems or run large scale simulations of an environment, breeding population, star system, or whatever, are not all computer geeks. Granted, I'm sure a bunch of them are, but definitely not all. What is three-day setup for one person may amount to a week of work and finally breaking down and having to hire a professional techie (or walking down the hall and asking the local linux geek, a hassle either way).
As far as modifications to the OS to natively support clustering, it's already trivial to set up. I imagine that a control panel controlling clustering preferences and whatnot would look very similar to the Pooch interface already in use.
Concerning application support though, I have no idea. However, I do remember somebody saying something about OS X automatically utilizing multiple processors (if present) for all applications. If it can do that, native support for clustering can't be too far away.
Something that has only been partially touched on in this whole discussion is the fact that other formats currently exist that are not widely "pirated." As the society moves closer and closer to the ancient vision of the "paperless office," we see more and more things acquiring practical digital formats. First text, then pictures, then sound, then video. The latter three formats have become pretty much standards in their respective industry. Digital cameras are beginning to become as widespread as tangible film in the music industry, especially as those technologies become cheaper.
Since the introdcution of Napster, we're seeing direct client to client sharing of MP3s, but now that Gnutella is coming along, it's becoming practical and feasible to share other things as well. The music industry isn't going to be the only industry affected by the wave of "piracy" that's spreading around the internet. When eTexts become more popular, don't think for a minute that they won't be distributed on a Gnutella like system at some point in time.
Also, we should consider the potential positive aspects of this phenomenon. What if you had a Gnutella-like network for the distribution of free (potentially "pirated") educational materials? This could make it infinitely easier for people to share information with each other and make their ideas public, and could even fall within the restraints of the law if there's an applicable adaptation of the GNU Documentation liscense...
Just some food for thought.
sircase
I don't believe that it's solely a matter of control. On a lot of levels, control may be the issue. Parents want control over what their children see, librarians want control over what is viewed in the library, the government wants control over what the public is made aware of, etcetera. This desire for ultimate control comes from the urge for safety. Parents want their children to be safe, librarians want to keep their libraries safe, the government wants to keep the internet safe for the people to look at without finding information that is deemed unsafe by them. How is it determined what's safe and what's not? They were told by somebody else.
Control might not be nearly as much of an issue if the people who were in control were educated as to exactly what they were controlling, and this is where memetics figures into it. We live in a society were a large amount of information is spread through non-specific idiot-proof memes, like "our software makes a mistake only one-in-a-million times" rather than accurate analyzations of research and study. Broad sweeping statements that appeal to the ignorance of the masses are easier to swallow than cold hard facts, so people end up spreading their ignorance on the subject like some sort of chain letter.
We need to find a better way to educate people as to what's really going on. Find a way to actually let the accept the facts, rather than what their next-door neighbor told them in passing.
As a result, cultural barriers collapsed, people started judging by ideas instead of the color of your skin or your age...
When you judge a person by their ideas, you are comparing your ideas to your own. This isn't an inherantly bad thing, that's why these message boards exist. For the comparison, discussion, and evolution of the ideas inside of our heads. The problem is when people make irrational judgements about other people's ideas, and are unwilling to let the ideas in their own head change as new information is presented to them.
Essentially what I'm saying is that the urge for control would be much less a problem if the people who were attempting to gain that control were really educated as to what's going on. I'm not entirely sure how to do that, but just using broad memes with opposite opinions seems equally ignorant. Maybe our entire culture needs to revamp the way we learn things and distribute information?
sircase
Memetics are fun.
Aaah! Your big ideas scare me...
Hide me from the rain.
In the "Agenda" section on algore2000.com, I can't help but notice a pointed lack of comments on intellectual property laws. If Al Gore intends to make the internet a "duty-free" zone for commerce, thereby promoting the already insanely rapid growth of internet business, how does he intend to deal with issues such as the recent trend of "questionable" patent applications, the semi-legitimate buying/selling of domain names, the open-sourcing of code, and other issues closely related to intellectual property? And, now that I think of it, I wonder if Gore has any ideas on how to deal with the huge "information provider" type mergers, such as AOL/Time Warner. -sircase Please wait a moment, I am constructing haiku. What season is this?