Re:It is the Palm killer. Here's why:
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Pocket PC 2002
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· Score: 2
Palm makes portions of the source code available to developers as well. I have a large part of the OS 3.5 source sitting on my hard disk right now, big deal. Unlike MS, however, Palm doesn't claim that they're doing anything like "shared source" or that it's really open source with a new name. They're just being nice by their developers.
Palm does not force you to buy a developers kit. The SDK is a free download and works with gcc. In fact, some of the most impressive Palm software is written with gcc on Linux, at no cost. Palm's "official" development environment is CodeWarrior, which is a commerical product. Microsoft's "official" (read: only) development environment is Visual Studio, which is a commercial product. I've developed for the Palm, and it is reasonably straightforward if you are comfortable with C. If not, there are C++ SDKs from third parties, Visual Basic add-ons, and several dozen other languages and environments.
The Sony CLIE PEG-N760c is a PalmOS device with a 320x320 color screen (higher resolution than PocketPC) with built-in mp3 and ATRAC playback.
So the Palm platform is not behind on any of the items you listed. If your friend doesn't know that, you may want to tell him.
The Washington on the West Coast, not the DC on the West Coast. The West Coast Washington is a state, a state in which there is a city called "Redmond", in which is another evil anti-consumer entity. You may have heard of them.
OK, a lot of people are crying that the sky is falling, that the jack-booted Nazis are at the gates in Washington (both the East Coast one and the West Coast one), that the totalitarian Big Brother is at hand. Is it? Hell, I don't know, but I'd rather not find out. This is still a democracy, folks, that means YOU have power. Even between elections, you have power. Because politicians, whatever else they are interested in (money, power, actually helping people, getting blowjobs from secretaries), are interested first and foremost in one thing: Getting reelected. Make them think that if they pass something asinine and unconstitutional, that there WILL be repercussions. Yes, scare the bejebers out of your congressman/woman and senator.
It takes TEN letters (dead tree letters, email gets deleted immediately) for a Senatorial office to open an issue. TEN. (According to Illinois Senator Dick Durban.) And regardless of the advertising and commercials that politicians raise huge war chests to fund, on election day it is YOUR VOTE that decides who ends up in DC. (East Coast, you have no say over the West Coast one.)
I'd like to issue a call to everyone who posted something modded up to 3 or above: Write a letter to your representatives with the same level of intelligence and Interesting/Insightful content. Write it once and send it three times, once to your Congressperson, and once to each Senator. Fax it if you'd prefer. (Snail mail and fax are what they like the most.) Keep it to one page. Reference the Constitution. Refer to yourself with your most impressive title. (Professor, Ph.d, Senior Engineer, Graduate Student, Independent Developer) and as a registered voter. In the name of the Tux do not tell them that you don't vote, even if that's the case (in which case you should be ashamed of yourself). Then when the next election rolls around, ignore the commercials, take an hour to do your own research, and vote for the candidate that did not support revoking the 4th Amendment and violating Ex Post Facto. It works. (See also: Former Senator Alan Dixon)
For those of you in countries outside of the US, the same applies to you. The Canadian, British, Australian, French, German, etc. governments are all popularly elected as well. (At least the active parts of the British government, anyway.) Politicians are the same everywhere. The same tactics apply. Use them. If you don't, you have no one to blame but yourselves.
Cool! Now for a real coup, alter WINE so that it doesn't have all these vulnerabilities. (Should be reasonably straight-forward, just put proper checks in to keep VB scripts from accessing certain parts of the system.) I can see the marketing now: "Runs all Windows programs, except the viruses!" "It's Windows, but safer." "Virii? We don't run no steenkin virii!"
No, I don't work for GeoWorks, but I was a long time user of it, from the early 80s (I was born in 1980, so I grew up with the C64) through 1998, when I went to college and grudgingly moved to MS Office because I had to be compatible with what my professors insisted that use to turn in assignments.:-( The GEOS PDA info I have because I seriously considered buying each and every one of those, but they were either too expensive (Z-7000), weren't actually released (PT-9000), or were on clumsy hardware (HP OmniGo), or a combination thereof. Also in 1998 I finally bought into the Palm line, and have been a Palm user ever since. The GeoWorks Patent stuff is from browsing their web site occationally, out of nostalgia, and a few Slashdot articles on them trying to claim that all wireless internet access is covered by one of their patents.
I agree wholeheartedly about multiple OSes being good for competition and all the resulting benefits thereof. But there is one flaw in your car analogy. Gas is gas is gas. Super unleaded works in a Ford, a Chevy, a Subaru, a Toyota, and a Kia. Software is not so multi-platform.
Re:Anybody remember...
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MenuetOS Debuts
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Not entirely accurate. GEOS pre-dated Windows by years. In fact, GEOS predated the Macintosh. It started on the Commodore 64, from Berkeley Software (the After Dark folks). It was ported to the Apple IIe a mere month before the Macintosh was released. It was then ported to the PC, and was released on the PC at the same time as Windows 3.0. All of the reviews at the time said that GeoWorks Ensemble, as it was called, was the better program. Graphical interface, wastebasket (had that on the Commodore version, too), a Documents folder, a full office suite that at the time had the full range of features in word processing, spreadsheet, and VECTOR-BASED drawing apps (yes, like Adobe Illustrator light, a decade ago), and support for running DOS programs as well. The entire word processor was only a few hundred kb, and it ran FAST, on a 286 and up. Development was done in "Graphical Object C".
So what happened to it? GeoWorks (spun off from Berkeley) had no concept of marketing. Microsoft had an excellent concept of marketing, and a monopoly in DOS that they could build from. GEOS didn't stand a chance in the marketplace, and never took off.
So, GEOS was ported yet again, this time to an entirely new platform. It was the OS for the Casio Zoomer Z-7000, the first PDA (predated the Newton). But the hardware was big and clunky, so it never took off. But it did provide a breeding ground for a little company that made software for it, including the handwriting recognition system. They were called Palm Computing, and a little while later they would be bought up by US Robotics where Jeff Hawkins would churn out the first Palm Pilot, finally jump starting the PDA "revolution".
Yet another attempt was the porting of the GEOS 3.0 kernel to the Sharp PT-9000. It ran the same apps as the desktop suite, exactly the same apps. That made it completely and fully compatible between the two as a (gasp!) tablet-like PC, complete with pen interface. It had the level of integration in 1996 that Microsoft didn't dream of until 1999. But for reasons unknown, Sharp killed the project shortly before it was completed and it never saw the light of day.
A final gasp was the HP OmniGo 100LX and 110LX, both of which were clamshell devices running GEOS. Also a no-go.
Today, GeoWorks exists by owning a lot of patents on various obtuse concepts and pretending to have a case to file suit. Rather sad, really, but to this day my mother still uses GeoWorks Ensemble as her desktop environment.
So what's the point of this little offtopic jaunt? The failure of GEOS had nothing to do with being written in assembly. It had nothing to do with it being late to finish, it predated all the big names, and in fact did a better job of them. (Ensemble is still the standard by which I judge the usability of an environment, and none have yet to match it, except maybe the Palm.) It had everything to do with marketing and marketshare. GeoWorks had engineers, but not marketdrones, and the MS marketdrones rolled over them like they weren't there. Lessons to be learned for anyone attempting to develop a new OS today.
PocketPC market?
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HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I wonder what effect this will have on the PDA market. Compaq's iPAQ line is the top selling PocketPC (although still a far distant third to Palm and Handspring in PDAs overall), and HP's Jornada line is #2. Will HP keep the iPQA line as is? Will they terminate it and pull the engineers into the Jornada team? Will they rename it to something without as many Qs in it?
Considering that the iPAQ is the only halfway-decent PocketPC to date, this has major implications for the PDA world. Especially since the iPAQ is also used by the most successful Linux-on-PocketPC distribution to date, MicroWindows....
I used to make an effort to not be so cynical about politics, but then I took a good, hard look at what is actually going on, and realised that We, the People, have no say in deciding the laws that effect us. Laws are bought and sold at will, all wrapped up in the sanitised form of bribery known as "campaign contributions"
Only if you continue to let it be. Politicians are smart. They know that the average person will vote for whoever has the most/best commercials, so they raise money by accepting bribes from multi-nationals, put on commercials, and get votes from the great unwashed masses.
However, they also know that it is still those unwashed masses whose vote keeps them employed. You CAN pressure your representatives and senators into action, if you scare them enough. And you can get up enough of a push to have them voted out of office if the go too far. Witness Sen. Dixon of Illinois, who lost the primary in 1996 to Carol Mosely Brawn (of all people), specifically because of his support for the womanizing ignoramous Clarence Thomas.
According to Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durban (with whom I have spoken), it takes TEN letters (not e-mails, not phone calls, US mail letters) before a typical congressional office begins to seriously look at an issue. Ten. They figure for every person who sends a letter, there are another thousand who agree but were just too lazy to send a letter. Wherever you are, whoever you are, get a letter writing campaign going to your senators and congressmen to scare them into reversing their position.
So what's the point I'm making? Money doesn't buy elections, money buys votes. Your votes. If you and those around you are stupid enough to sell them, then I can't do anything for you. Ignore the TV, hound your representatives, find one you like who agrees with your views and volunteer for their campaign. That's what the megacorps do, and that's what you need to do to fight back.
--GrouchoMarx
Big Brother doesn't work for the state department. He works for the MPAA.
Yes, it's paint by numbers. Yes, the characters are predictable. Yes, there are clear good guys and bad guys (save Vader, who goes from good guy to bad guy and is then redeemed). Yes, there are plush toys in staring roles. And you know what? That's exactly why people like it so much!
Was The Odyssey deep? Of course not. It was half blood and gore and half hot, sexy sea nymphs. Was Beowulf deep? Of course not, it was a super-human hero killing evil critters left and right.
There are, in Western culture at least, certain common images and settings that we have come to expect. They're an unwritten cultural and artistic language. "White" is the good guy, "Black" is the bad guy. Good guys have blond hair, bad guys have deep voices. The good guy doesn't kill the bad guy when he's down. Forests are places of mysticism. In American culture, the freedom-loving underdog rebels are always the good guys over the evil imperial military hegemony. (See also: American Revolution. Why do you think all Imperial officers have British accents?)
Star Wars very deliberately and openly plays into every single one of those. It is the "classic" and "quintessential" epic good vs. evil saga, because it pulls in every one of the things that we have come to expect in good vs. evil sagas over the past 2500 years. All good classics have things that you can anchor yourself on and use as a springboard into the plot. If Luke wasn't a goody two-shoes, no one would have liked him. If Han wasn't a "lovable rogue" but was really a nasty guy through and through, everyone would have hated him and Leah hooking up.
We're expecting too much from a saga that was intended not to break new plot ground, but to be a damn fun watch. And it was, because we like seeing the underdog good guys win by being good guys and the evil controlling imperial bad guys go down because they're the bad guys. Accept Star Wars for what it is: A hot damn fun adventure story in the style of classic adventure stories throughout the ages.
Do that, and you can even live with the Ewoks and Jar Jar. (I happen to like the Ewoks, they're cute!)
The common answer to "How do I make money writing free/open source software?" is generally "give the code away, but sell the service." Great, but what about those products that don't rely on service contracts?
For corporate consulting, and business to business software, I can see the financial viability of working only with GPLed software. But, that is not the only segment of the software industry. For the average consumer (read: home user, non-geek, non-businessman, "where is the any key" 90% of the computer-using world), any program that requires "service" means calling tech support, which is a bad thing. If you need support, the program is flawed in their eyes. So how does one make money in the consumer market? Custom add-ons are a market that can support maybe 3 people. How can one make money writing, say, a computer game if it's GPLed? If you have to get support for a game, something is wrong. How could a company like Blizzard, Id, or other game companies big and small survive with GPLed software? Then there's the thousands of independent shareware authors for whom selling the software at a few bucks to a lot of people is their bread and butter. How can they make money by writing GPLed software instead?
I am not against the GPL, far from it. But I am still uncertain as to how it maps into the half of the market that deals with end users rather than businesses. Considering that is the industry that I wish to go into, I am faced with the moral dilema of supporting Free Software on the one hand morally, but also needing to find a way to feed myself. What do you suggest as a way to be both morally secure and financially secure in the other half of the market?
What's the plot going to be? Instead of actors in body suits pretending to run around inside a tape-driven mainframe, will we have actors in body suits running around the Internet? I can see it now...
Tron: Uri, you made a wrong turn! That's a Windows 2000 server!
Uri: AAIIIEEE!!!!
Tron: No! Uri! NOOOOOO!!!!!
The MCP, of course, has been replaced with a virus that is spreading and bringing down the entire computer infrastructure of the world. It will be defeated in a huge on-screen battle with thousands of little CGI critters who are all in one place for some reason, despite being contrary to the very nature of computer software.
Of course, since the first Tron was one of the pioneers in computer graphics in movies, nothing short of Final Fantasy-level graphics will do 2.0 justice. Unless, they decide to save money and bring out the body suits again...
When? At what fictional point in history did people on a mass scale have enough disposable income to spent money on what they are force-fed but did not? The 1980s? Hardly. The 1960s? Nope. The idealized Leave it to Beaver 1950s? Sorry, wrong again. Any time in the 20th century? Nope. The late 1800s? Heyday of the robber barrons. The early 1800s? Not then, either. Earlier? Sorry, you're getting into the pre-industrial era, where everything was hand made and the whole capitalist concept did not exist in the first place. Nor did people have disposable income, except for the elite gentry and royalty. And THEY certainly spent a fortune on frivolity.
You call for the removal of government from the economic system completely. False. Deregulation has been negative in almost every case. Do you remember why government got involved in the first place? Because people were eating rat meat and doing nothing about it. Are you aware of the fact that if you buy a piece of children's sleepwear, that you have no way of knowing if it's flame retardant or not? A decade ago you knew it would be, because it's required. Today, it's not required, nor is it required that it be labeled. That's what the removal of government does.
I will agree with you that the current legal system is grossly flawed. But the answer is not to remove the law and the government. It is to alter the law (not expand, alter) to make it less biased towards the manipulator, towards the glutton, and towards the finagler.
The control-freaks know that. Witness the DMCA, the UITCA, the Napster lawsuit, the 2600 lawsuit, and so on. They know how to abuse the legal system and its holes for their own ends. Don't abandon the government. Don't pull the law out of it, because you can't. That's called anarchy, and then nobody wins.
Do your part to plug the holes in the law, and to fix the problems. If the problem is the law, you don't try and fix it through a boycott (aka "voting with your dollars"). You fix a legal problem through the legal system. That means get up off your arse, stop whining on newsboards that no one in a position of power reads, get involved in your own government, and get people elected who will work to fix the problems in the system. If you can't find one, run yourself. Government is YOU.
Yes, candidates are bought, by campaign contributions for advertising to automitons who will vote for whoever gives the best sales pitch. That is, the best marketing. Use the system right back. Ignore the marketing, get behind a candidate you support, and push. Campaign. We have a popularly elected government. If you let it create loopholes for control-freaks and conglomerates to abuse, then it is no one's fault but your own. That is what I mean by fighting back through the law. Not by removing it, but by altering it to be protective, rather than abusive.
It's not just an issue of money. It's a question of control.
The RIAA's accountants know that their profits have increased in the past few years. The RIAA's lawyers know that their profits have increased in the past few years. But there are people out there that are not using officially sanctioned music in officially sanctioned ways at officially sanctioned times with officially sanctioned equipment. That means there are people out there who are not under the control of the company, the mythical "consumer." This cannot be tollerated.
Microsoft has been making money hand over fist for two decades. Someone installing WinME on three of their computers when they bought one copy is not doing them any harm. If anything, it means fewer copies of Win98 in use, which means less old stuff for them to support. That's good for them. But it means that there are people out there not using the product in the officially sanctioned way on the officially sanctioned number of systems. Microsoft (and Bill Gates in particular) simply cannot deal with the concept of someone not using the product on their terms.
All of that goes back to one of the fundamental flaws in the capitalist mindset: The consumer. The mythical consumer is not a person. The mythical consumer is a machine that stands on the other side of a cash register and accepts input (products) and returns output (pictures of George Washington). They can be reduced to a mathematical equation of supply and demand. They can be manipulated by marketing. They can be made to fit into nice little cells on a spreadsheet. In short, the consumer can be controlled.
It fits nicely into the whole financial theory. Passive object Consumer (C) is convinced by active object Marketing Department (M) to purchase passive object Product (P), created by passive objects Employees (E) under the employ of the active object Owner (O). Add it all up, and you get a nice tity profit (n) for the Owner.
(C + M) + P(E) = O(n)
(A very efficent method, eh?)
There's just one problem: Not all human beings are passive objects C. Humans are not a mathematical equation. The equation works when it is not possible for a person to function otherwise. You force them into playing the role of C or E, and the equation comes out nicely. Everying is predictable, profitable, and controllable.
But as soon as something comes along that threatens the stability and controllability of that equation, panic mode sets in. The printed book would be the death of learning. TV would be the death of radio. VCRs would be the death of movies. DAT would be the death of radio. Cable would be the death of movies. E-books will be the death of learning. The Internet will be the death of civilization. And so on. A little control slips away, and the end is nigh, defend the System to the last lawyer.
No one likes uncertainty (except possibly Shrodinger), and no one likes surprises (except at birthdays). It's not your money that the RIAA or the MPAA or Microsoft want. It's your passivity. They want to know that you can be controlled, not because they want power or greed or world domination but because then you are predictable, and they can wrap their minds around something predictable. Everyone likes things to be predictable. Everyone likes knowing where their next meal is coming from.
So what do we do? Don't be a consumer. Don't be passive. Don't be swayed by marketing. Don't be a part of a machine, however well intentioned and genuinely useful it is (and it is). Most importantly: Don't take your business elsewhere. That doesn't work, it only makes your life more difficult. Saying "we'll just use open source software" doesn't do anything about the continued growth of draconian attempts at regaining control with their collateral damage. Turn and take the issue head on, at its core level: The law.
I don't care much for MSN Messenger, but it has been my IM for a while, so I may as well use that.
And that is precisely why bundling of this sort is a problem. The average computer user does not have the interest / time / intelligence / some combination of the above to install additional software.
So the system comes with Microsoft's browser, and they use it. Not because it's good or bad or otherwise, but because it's already there. So they never install Netscape or Mozilla or Opera or K-Meleon.
So the system comes with Microsoft's office suite, and they use it. (Nearly all pre-built systems come with Windows and some version of MS Office or MS Works.) Not because it's good or bad or otherwise, but because it's already there. So they never install WordPerfect or StarOffice or AbiWord or Lotus.
Why do you think companies try so hard to have their products bundled with a system? Because most people will use whatever is force-fed to them when they buy the product, regardless of the quality (whether the product is a PC, the speakers that come with a TV, the stereo that comes with your car, or the couch that comes with your new apartment). Who wants to take the extra time (and usually money) to install a different browser / word processor / stereo / OS then the one they already have? Very few people, and most of them read Slashdot.:-)
Now, when the company with a monopoly hold on the market (as proven in a court of law) is bundling its own software, you have abuse of monopoly power. That is exactly what MS was sued over, and rightly so. Now, they're doing it again. "Why bother using AIM when MSN Messenger is here already?" "Why bother using Java when C# is supported already?" "Why bother using Opera or Mozilla when IE is installed already?" Those are exactly the thoughts that people will have when buying Windows XP, and that is precisely what Microsoft is gunning for, quite consciously and deliberately.
Which product is superior technically is completely irrelevant. If it's preinstalled, it will win in the marketplace, because the typical user doesn't know any better. That is why people are complaining, and that is why MS should be stopped from doing it.
The problem with replacing hierarchical domain names with a global string, however it's assigned, is that it breaks one of the advantages of the current system: You own a block, not a string.
Go over to dhs.org. There, you can register a 3rd level domain for yourself off of the dhs.org or wox.org domains, which they own. I have two such domains, and host them off of my Linux server which has a DNS server running. By doing so, ANYTHING.mydomain.dhs.org is mine. I can add one system, I can add a hundred systems. I can even dynamically assign them if I want to. That's not the case if it's simply one big string. I have to pray that a.mydomain.dhs.org is available, which is not guaranteed just because I am using b.mydomain.dhs.org.
While me running my own little domain for ego's sake is not the most important reason in the world to use a given standard, the same advantage exists for larger organizations. Everyone who uses AOL has a domain name assigned to them when the log on, based on their IP. It's something like dialup45-pool22.aol.com, or something equally obscure, but still unique. More importantly, still having symantic meaning of its own. You can tell right off that it's an AOL system (.com not meaning much any more), and that it's a temp dialup connection in modem pool #22. If everything was random strings, they couldn't do that, unless they registered EVERY possible permutation of *aol* just to make sure that no one else did. Can you imagine fuckme.aol.com, or ihate.ibm.com? Right now, those don't and can't exist (unless someone at IBM's network center is having an arguement with his boss).
It's the same logic behind IP address blocks. My university owns its own class B, so 123.456.*.* (real numbers withheld, of course) will always be something here at the school. That makes administration far easier, and makes tracking down a hacker far easier as well.
Even phone numbers use the same hierarchical system. Country Code, Area Code, Exchange (somewhat muddled now), and Extension.
And yes, even your own name is a hierarchical naming system, specifically because it's easier to understand. If your name is Frank Johnson, then you can name your kids pretty much any first name you want, but their last name will almost always be Johnson. It's then much easier to identify you as their father/mother, and vice-versa.
Hierarchical naming and numbering systems are so prevalent because they are so useful. It makes it very easy to control a given block, to determine what a given string really means by its component parts, and to whom it belongs, and even sometimes where they are (.uk). See also: Linux/Unix file system.
TVs/VCRs/Cellphones/etc. already do this. NTSC vs. PAL takes care of TVs and VCRs. CDMA vs GSM takes cares of your cellphones.
Except in the case of NTSC vs. PAL and CDMA/TDMA/GSM/CDPD, etc., the fragmenting was haphazard and the result of different areas using incompatible standards. The difference here is that it's NOT an incompatible standard, in fact, it's a very uniform, world-wide standard on how to artificially create regions. The first has no clear malice of forethought, while DVD encoding and this Motorola GPS system are very specifically designed with the malicious creation of artificial market segments in mind. The former is bad for consumers, but not illegal. The latter is bad for consumers, and highly illegal. I just wish someone in Washington would figure that out, since they seem to have missed the threat to free trade that AOL/TimeWarner/Netscape/Mirabilis poses, and that other cartels such as the MPAA and RIAA pose. Yeah, Microsoft is up there, but the cartels are even more dangerous.
What the DVD Consortium, Motorola et al, and just about every other group that is pushing a regionalization scheme is doing is supporting a cartel. A cartel is illegal in the United States, according to the Sherman Anit-Trust Act, the same one that restricts monopolies.
For the record a cartel is defined as "a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices." (Mirriam-Webster Online)
Now, regionalization schemes do what? (Be it CSS, Motorola's GPS system, or something else.) They divide up the market so that companies can charge different prices in different areas. That is, fix prices. The fact that we haven't broken up the MPAA and RIAA is already a disgrace, as they are some of the most obvious and blatant cartels in American history, but if we allow companies to now segment ALL products into market regions? Californians have more money than Kentuckians, on average, so lets charge twice as much for a washing machine in California than Kentucky, even though it's cheaper to ship them there. "What the market will bear" and all of that jazz.
"Free market" capitalism is one of those things that works really nice on paper, but in the real world fails miserably. What's to stop competitors from joining forces into a cartel? Absolutely nothing. Oh, wait, except the government who can stop them through the legal system. But we can't have that, that would be socialism which is synonimous with demon spawn, right? And no, you can't "vote with your dollars" and go elsewhere, because there is no elsewhere to go. That's the whole point of a cartel. And no, you can't start up your own company, because the cost of entry in the modern marketplace is so high. Add to that the licensing costs of using technology to be compatible, and you have yourself an impenitrable cartel. (You don't like CSS and want to make DVDs without it? Sorry, they won't be compatible unless you sign agreements with the patent/copyright holders, the MPAA, who will require you to play by their rules and become one of them.)
I know there's a strong anti-government sentiment in this country and on Slashdot in particular, but I offer you a choice: The government you pick in the voting booth (buying an election only works if people like you are dumb enough to vote for the best commerical rather than the best candidate) and have control over and is YOUR GOVERNMENT, or a consortium of a few rich individuals who are answerable to no one but their own bottom line and who are indoctrinated to screw you over if they possibly can.
I don't know about you, but it's an easy choice for me. It's time to start busting some trusts left and right, starting with the MPAA, moving on to AOL/TimeWarner, any company that incorporates this "market division" technology, and just keep right on going. Splitting the compaines up should encourage competition, which is supposedly a good thing, right?
Ah, Teddy Roosevelt, where are you when we need you?
The Catholic Church is about morality. They're supposed to instill moral behavior by word and by example. Of course they're filtering out porn, and probably other stuff that conflicts with the Catholic ideal. Would you ever take the Church seriously again if they were using their resources to make pornography readily available for all who want it?
No, that's about par for what I expect from the Catholic Church. Using their money and influence to enforce their moral code on others. Inquisitions are out of style these days, so ISP filtering is the best they can get.
I'm not surprised by it in the slightest. That doesn't mean I don't find it wrong.
If nobody else is willing to move in and provide service and the church is, well -- then it's their business how they want to run their service.
Which is exactly my problem with this concept. The Church is acting like a business. Since when is religion a Fortune 1000 industry? Yeah, I know, it's nothing new. The Catholic Church has been in the business of making money for a millenia. (Indulgences, crusades, the mafia, etc.) During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church owned a third of Europe. But that doesn't make it right!
Then again, since the church has so much political clout in the region, they may just move into the legal system and demand filtering by all ISP's so that only the word of the almighty (Christian)God is available.
When the Ayatolla of Iran takes over militarily and forces a hyper-conservative flavor of Islam on the people, we shun the country and declare it a "rogue state." When Afganistan begins enforcing strict moral codes on the population (such as women are not allowed outside the home, ever), it makes it onto all the e-mail circuits as a crime against humanity. When the Catholic Church buys its way into imposing its moral standards onto a country.... then what?
The very thing which gives Linux its power is what will also keep it out of the mainstream. As Perl-fans say, "There's More Than One Way To DO It" (TMTOWTDI). But your average user doesn't want 5 ways to do something, they just want "the" way.
User: How do I do X?
Linux Geek: Well, you can use A, or B, or you can try C but that's still in beta, D is good if you want to do X1, but E is better if you're doing X2...
User: AAAAAHHHH!!!! I just want to do X, stop confusing me!
Yes, this goes against the "best tool for the given job" concept that rules in Linuxdom, and is a fairly good way to work overall. But, it's not what the average consumer wants to hear or can cope with. Yes, we can talk about "educating" the computing masses, but that is not going to go all that far unless what you're teaching them is far easier. You can "educate" a SMALL percentage of the population in Multi-Variable Calculus, but you can't do that until they've taken advanced Algebra, Trgonomitry, and Single-Variable Calculus. Most HowTos, and even most help pages and people in #Linux et al, aren't useful unless you've already had the Single-Variable Calculus analogy, which most people haven't.
People don't want to know how to tweak the engine in their car, they just want to drive to work. Most people don't want to recompile their kernel, they just want to write a paper for school and send an e-mail. In Linux, that's not an option. In an era when many if not most Windows users do not understand the concept of a directory or drive (or at least not except as abstract manilla icons on their screens), how can we hope to explain mounting multiple dive partitions to them? How can we turn them into Linux geeks, regardless of how much educating we do? Linux is still a geeks-only project.
Unfortunately, a major part of the solution is something that most Linux people will automatically rebel against instinctively: Standardization. OK, fine, we've got 2 or 3 or 12 word processors. That's great. But before Linux can really catch on with the Windows-using public, far more has to be standardized.
That means a common, universal installer and package manager, with a graphical wizard-like front end, used by ALL distributions and ALL program authors, that automatically installs an icon in your KDE/GNOME menu. Tarballs may be great for geeks, but you remember the trouble your parents and uncles had with DOS. That means an end to REQUIRING that something be distributed and installed via source. Say the word "compile" to your average person and they automatically think "advanced task like open heart surgery" and run the other way. Even just rebuilding a SRPM is beyond them, conceptually. And getting them past that is not going to happen en masse, until Linux reaches critical mass and is available pre-installed at Best Buy, maybe not even then. (Chicken and egg.) "Oh, but you have to recompile, so that you can optimize for your system and to account for different versions of your glibc package." I don't have to recompile anything to account for different versions of DirectX. Does that make DirectX superior, because it takes less user effort? For the average user, the answer is an emphatic YES! (Who cares if it's optimized, it runs with minimal effort, therefore it is better.)
Linux is not easy to use, nor is it simple or straight-forward for 75% of the population. If Linux ever wants to be more than a niche market for geeks and servers, it will have to come to grips with the fact that most users don't want More Than One Way To Do It, they just want it done. And nothing you do to "educate" them will change that. If they need to spend more than 5% of their computer time playing with the system, they will give up and never get to the applications. Can the Linux community adapt both themselves and the Linux world to be more real-person-friendly? Hope springs eternal...
From the Register article: but we did point out - and the specification points out - that CPRM physically locks signed media into a given location, driving a bus through the concept of file system abstraction.
So, let's say I have a gig of SDMI and CPRM-friendly music stored on my hard disk somewhere, in complete compliance with Big Brother's rules. I add another one, and because of the way hard disks work its pieces get fragmented all over the disk. No problem, I'll just defragment my drive.
BUZZ! Sorry, you have a gigabyte of space that is fragmented, but "cannot be moved" due to CPRM restrictions. You will not be able to get above 85% fragmentation now, because 15% of your disk is locked in place for copy prevention purposes.
So, in order to enforce copy prevention measures I am now unable to acheive proper performance out of my drive. This slows down my work (resulting in lost productivity) and decreases the life span of my hard disk (resulting in lost property when it dies sooner than it would otherwise). It also adversely impacts other LEGAL software, vis, defragmentation programs, who will likely get blamed for it because people tend to blame the program they first see it in, even if it's not at fault.
So.... what possible positive use does this have again to counterbalance restraint of trade and lost productivity? Oh, that's right, strict fascist control by the media cartels.
It's not time to be scared, it's time to do something about it.
Unfortunately, I fear that is not the case. Yes, most educated Slashdot readers will check to see if a drive is CPRM compliant and if so avoid it like the plague. But the average computer buyer doesn't even know what brand of hard disk is inside their beige box, they just know the size (maybe). Ask around with your non-geek friends, and see how many of them have even heard of CSS (of DVD fame, not W3C fame), DeCSS, or regional coding on DVDs. How many of them know to buy a non-regionalized DVD player, and how many even know what one is? Very few, I would wager.
If the average consumer goes to a store and sees a Compaq computer that says "40GB hard drive, CPRM compliant!" they're not going to say "uh oh, it's that evil CPRM, I'll go elsewhere." They're going to see yet another fancy acronym and assume that it is somehow good because fancy acronyms make something more advanced. They will buy the computer, take it home, and when they start running into problems will simply accept it as "computers aren't perfect." And by the time the general public figures it out, it will be too late, and will have become an accepted part of the computer age. The average corporate purchasing department has even less grasp of what is going on, so they're no help either.
A complete, state of the art home PC for under $600. (Commodore 64, graet little machine.) Gee, we're having a hard time getting that NOW, 20 years later, even with inflation.
Slashdot Mirror
Palm does not force you to buy a developers kit. The SDK is a free download and works with gcc. In fact, some of the most impressive Palm software is written with gcc on Linux, at no cost. Palm's "official" development environment is CodeWarrior, which is a commerical product. Microsoft's "official" (read: only) development environment is Visual Studio, which is a commercial product. I've developed for the Palm, and it is reasonably straightforward if you are comfortable with C. If not, there are C++ SDKs from third parties, Visual Basic add-ons, and several dozen other languages and environments.
The Sony CLIE PEG-N760c is a PalmOS device with a 320x320 color screen (higher resolution than PocketPC) with built-in mp3 and ATRAC playback.
So the Palm platform is not behind on any of the items you listed. If your friend doesn't know that, you may want to tell him.
The Washington on the West Coast, not the DC on the West Coast. The West Coast Washington is a state, a state in which there is a city called "Redmond", in which is another evil anti-consumer entity. You may have heard of them.
It takes TEN letters (dead tree letters, email gets deleted immediately) for a Senatorial office to open an issue. TEN. (According to Illinois Senator Dick Durban.) And regardless of the advertising and commercials that politicians raise huge war chests to fund, on election day it is YOUR VOTE that decides who ends up in DC. (East Coast, you have no say over the West Coast one.)
I'd like to issue a call to everyone who posted something modded up to 3 or above: Write a letter to your representatives with the same level of intelligence and Interesting/Insightful content. Write it once and send it three times, once to your Congressperson, and once to each Senator. Fax it if you'd prefer. (Snail mail and fax are what they like the most.) Keep it to one page. Reference the Constitution. Refer to yourself with your most impressive title. (Professor, Ph.d, Senior Engineer, Graduate Student, Independent Developer) and as a registered voter. In the name of the Tux do not tell them that you don't vote, even if that's the case (in which case you should be ashamed of yourself). Then when the next election rolls around, ignore the commercials, take an hour to do your own research, and vote for the candidate that did not support revoking the 4th Amendment and violating Ex Post Facto. It works. (See also: Former Senator Alan Dixon)
For those of you in countries outside of the US, the same applies to you. The Canadian, British, Australian, French, German, etc. governments are all popularly elected as well. (At least the active parts of the British government, anyway.) Politicians are the same everywhere. The same tactics apply. Use them. If you don't, you have no one to blame but yourselves.
Cool! Now for a real coup, alter WINE so that it doesn't have all these vulnerabilities. (Should be reasonably straight-forward, just put proper checks in to keep VB scripts from accessing certain parts of the system.) I can see the marketing now: "Runs all Windows programs, except the viruses!" "It's Windows, but safer." "Virii? We don't run no steenkin virii!"
No, I don't work for GeoWorks, but I was a long time user of it, from the early 80s (I was born in 1980, so I grew up with the C64) through 1998, when I went to college and grudgingly moved to MS Office because I had to be compatible with what my professors insisted that use to turn in assignments. :-( The GEOS PDA info I have because I seriously considered buying each and every one of those, but they were either too expensive (Z-7000), weren't actually released (PT-9000), or were on clumsy hardware (HP OmniGo), or a combination thereof. Also in 1998 I finally bought into the Palm line, and have been a Palm user ever since. The GeoWorks Patent stuff is from browsing their web site occationally, out of nostalgia, and a few Slashdot articles on them trying to claim that all wireless internet access is covered by one of their patents.
I agree wholeheartedly about multiple OSes being good for competition and all the resulting benefits thereof. But there is one flaw in your car analogy. Gas is gas is gas. Super unleaded works in a Ford, a Chevy, a Subaru, a Toyota, and a Kia. Software is not so multi-platform.
So what happened to it? GeoWorks (spun off from Berkeley) had no concept of marketing. Microsoft had an excellent concept of marketing, and a monopoly in DOS that they could build from. GEOS didn't stand a chance in the marketplace, and never took off.
So, GEOS was ported yet again, this time to an entirely new platform. It was the OS for the Casio Zoomer Z-7000, the first PDA (predated the Newton). But the hardware was big and clunky, so it never took off. But it did provide a breeding ground for a little company that made software for it, including the handwriting recognition system. They were called Palm Computing, and a little while later they would be bought up by US Robotics where Jeff Hawkins would churn out the first Palm Pilot, finally jump starting the PDA "revolution".
Yet another attempt was the porting of the GEOS 3.0 kernel to the Sharp PT-9000. It ran the same apps as the desktop suite, exactly the same apps. That made it completely and fully compatible between the two as a (gasp!) tablet-like PC, complete with pen interface. It had the level of integration in 1996 that Microsoft didn't dream of until 1999. But for reasons unknown, Sharp killed the project shortly before it was completed and it never saw the light of day.
A final gasp was the HP OmniGo 100LX and 110LX, both of which were clamshell devices running GEOS. Also a no-go.
Today, GeoWorks exists by owning a lot of patents on various obtuse concepts and pretending to have a case to file suit. Rather sad, really, but to this day my mother still uses GeoWorks Ensemble as her desktop environment.
So what's the point of this little offtopic jaunt? The failure of GEOS had nothing to do with being written in assembly. It had nothing to do with it being late to finish, it predated all the big names, and in fact did a better job of them. (Ensemble is still the standard by which I judge the usability of an environment, and none have yet to match it, except maybe the Palm.) It had everything to do with marketing and marketshare. GeoWorks had engineers, but not marketdrones, and the MS marketdrones rolled over them like they weren't there. Lessons to be learned for anyone attempting to develop a new OS today.
Considering that the iPAQ is the only halfway-decent PocketPC to date, this has major implications for the PDA world. Especially since the iPAQ is also used by the most successful Linux-on-PocketPC distribution to date, MicroWindows....
Only if you continue to let it be. Politicians are smart. They know that the average person will vote for whoever has the most/best commercials, so they raise money by accepting bribes from multi-nationals, put on commercials, and get votes from the great unwashed masses.
However, they also know that it is still those unwashed masses whose vote keeps them employed. You CAN pressure your representatives and senators into action, if you scare them enough. And you can get up enough of a push to have them voted out of office if the go too far. Witness Sen. Dixon of Illinois, who lost the primary in 1996 to Carol Mosely Brawn (of all people), specifically because of his support for the womanizing ignoramous Clarence Thomas.
According to Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durban (with whom I have spoken), it takes TEN letters (not e-mails, not phone calls, US mail letters) before a typical congressional office begins to seriously look at an issue. Ten. They figure for every person who sends a letter, there are another thousand who agree but were just too lazy to send a letter. Wherever you are, whoever you are, get a letter writing campaign going to your senators and congressmen to scare them into reversing their position.
So what's the point I'm making? Money doesn't buy elections, money buys votes. Your votes. If you and those around you are stupid enough to sell them, then I can't do anything for you. Ignore the TV, hound your representatives, find one you like who agrees with your views and volunteer for their campaign. That's what the megacorps do, and that's what you need to do to fight back.
--GrouchoMarx
Big Brother doesn't work for the state department. He works for the MPAA.
Just what I needed, banner ads on my underwear. Will there be any way to block porn sites? Maybe disable cookies?
Was The Odyssey deep? Of course not. It was half blood and gore and half hot, sexy sea nymphs. Was Beowulf deep? Of course not, it was a super-human hero killing evil critters left and right.
There are, in Western culture at least, certain common images and settings that we have come to expect. They're an unwritten cultural and artistic language. "White" is the good guy, "Black" is the bad guy. Good guys have blond hair, bad guys have deep voices. The good guy doesn't kill the bad guy when he's down. Forests are places of mysticism. In American culture, the freedom-loving underdog rebels are always the good guys over the evil imperial military hegemony. (See also: American Revolution. Why do you think all Imperial officers have British accents?)
Star Wars very deliberately and openly plays into every single one of those. It is the "classic" and "quintessential" epic good vs. evil saga, because it pulls in every one of the things that we have come to expect in good vs. evil sagas over the past 2500 years. All good classics have things that you can anchor yourself on and use as a springboard into the plot. If Luke wasn't a goody two-shoes, no one would have liked him. If Han wasn't a "lovable rogue" but was really a nasty guy through and through, everyone would have hated him and Leah hooking up.
We're expecting too much from a saga that was intended not to break new plot ground, but to be a damn fun watch. And it was, because we like seeing the underdog good guys win by being good guys and the evil controlling imperial bad guys go down because they're the bad guys. Accept Star Wars for what it is: A hot damn fun adventure story in the style of classic adventure stories throughout the ages.
Do that, and you can even live with the Ewoks and Jar Jar. (I happen to like the Ewoks, they're cute!)
For corporate consulting, and business to business software, I can see the financial viability of working only with GPLed software. But, that is not the only segment of the software industry. For the average consumer (read: home user, non-geek, non-businessman, "where is the any key" 90% of the computer-using world), any program that requires "service" means calling tech support, which is a bad thing. If you need support, the program is flawed in their eyes. So how does one make money in the consumer market? Custom add-ons are a market that can support maybe 3 people. How can one make money writing, say, a computer game if it's GPLed? If you have to get support for a game, something is wrong. How could a company like Blizzard, Id, or other game companies big and small survive with GPLed software? Then there's the thousands of independent shareware authors for whom selling the software at a few bucks to a lot of people is their bread and butter. How can they make money by writing GPLed software instead?
I am not against the GPL, far from it. But I am still uncertain as to how it maps into the half of the market that deals with end users rather than businesses. Considering that is the industry that I wish to go into, I am faced with the moral dilema of supporting Free Software on the one hand morally, but also needing to find a way to feed myself. What do you suggest as a way to be both morally secure and financially secure in the other half of the market?
Larry Garfield
Tron: Uri, you made a wrong turn! That's a Windows 2000 server!
Uri: AAIIIEEE!!!!
Tron: No! Uri! NOOOOOO!!!!!
The MCP, of course, has been replaced with a virus that is spreading and bringing down the entire computer infrastructure of the world. It will be defeated in a huge on-screen battle with thousands of little CGI critters who are all in one place for some reason, despite being contrary to the very nature of computer software.
Of course, since the first Tron was one of the pioneers in computer graphics in movies, nothing short of Final Fantasy-level graphics will do 2.0 justice. Unless, they decide to save money and bring out the body suits again...
--GrouchoMarx
You call for the removal of government from the economic system completely. False. Deregulation has been negative in almost every case. Do you remember why government got involved in the first place? Because people were eating rat meat and doing nothing about it. Are you aware of the fact that if you buy a piece of children's sleepwear, that you have no way of knowing if it's flame retardant or not? A decade ago you knew it would be, because it's required. Today, it's not required, nor is it required that it be labeled. That's what the removal of government does.
I will agree with you that the current legal system is grossly flawed. But the answer is not to remove the law and the government. It is to alter the law (not expand, alter) to make it less biased towards the manipulator, towards the glutton, and towards the finagler.
The control-freaks know that. Witness the DMCA, the UITCA, the Napster lawsuit, the 2600 lawsuit, and so on. They know how to abuse the legal system and its holes for their own ends. Don't abandon the government. Don't pull the law out of it, because you can't. That's called anarchy, and then nobody wins.
Do your part to plug the holes in the law, and to fix the problems. If the problem is the law, you don't try and fix it through a boycott (aka "voting with your dollars"). You fix a legal problem through the legal system. That means get up off your arse, stop whining on newsboards that no one in a position of power reads, get involved in your own government, and get people elected who will work to fix the problems in the system. If you can't find one, run yourself. Government is YOU.
Yes, candidates are bought, by campaign contributions for advertising to automitons who will vote for whoever gives the best sales pitch. That is, the best marketing. Use the system right back. Ignore the marketing, get behind a candidate you support, and push. Campaign. We have a popularly elected government. If you let it create loopholes for control-freaks and conglomerates to abuse, then it is no one's fault but your own. That is what I mean by fighting back through the law. Not by removing it, but by altering it to be protective, rather than abusive.
--GrouchoMarx
The RIAA's accountants know that their profits have increased in the past few years. The RIAA's lawyers know that their profits have increased in the past few years. But there are people out there that are not using officially sanctioned music in officially sanctioned ways at officially sanctioned times with officially sanctioned equipment. That means there are people out there who are not under the control of the company, the mythical "consumer." This cannot be tollerated.
Microsoft has been making money hand over fist for two decades. Someone installing WinME on three of their computers when they bought one copy is not doing them any harm. If anything, it means fewer copies of Win98 in use, which means less old stuff for them to support. That's good for them. But it means that there are people out there not using the product in the officially sanctioned way on the officially sanctioned number of systems. Microsoft (and Bill Gates in particular) simply cannot deal with the concept of someone not using the product on their terms.
All of that goes back to one of the fundamental flaws in the capitalist mindset: The consumer. The mythical consumer is not a person. The mythical consumer is a machine that stands on the other side of a cash register and accepts input (products) and returns output (pictures of George Washington). They can be reduced to a mathematical equation of supply and demand. They can be manipulated by marketing. They can be made to fit into nice little cells on a spreadsheet. In short, the consumer can be controlled.
It fits nicely into the whole financial theory. Passive object Consumer (C) is convinced by active object Marketing Department (M) to purchase passive object Product (P), created by passive objects Employees (E) under the employ of the active object Owner (O). Add it all up, and you get a nice tity profit (n) for the Owner.
(C + M) + P(E) = O(n)
(A very efficent method, eh?)
There's just one problem: Not all human beings are passive objects C. Humans are not a mathematical equation. The equation works when it is not possible for a person to function otherwise. You force them into playing the role of C or E, and the equation comes out nicely. Everying is predictable, profitable, and controllable.
But as soon as something comes along that threatens the stability and controllability of that equation, panic mode sets in. The printed book would be the death of learning. TV would be the death of radio. VCRs would be the death of movies. DAT would be the death of radio. Cable would be the death of movies. E-books will be the death of learning. The Internet will be the death of civilization. And so on. A little control slips away, and the end is nigh, defend the System to the last lawyer.
No one likes uncertainty (except possibly Shrodinger), and no one likes surprises (except at birthdays). It's not your money that the RIAA or the MPAA or Microsoft want. It's your passivity. They want to know that you can be controlled, not because they want power or greed or world domination but because then you are predictable, and they can wrap their minds around something predictable. Everyone likes things to be predictable. Everyone likes knowing where their next meal is coming from.
So what do we do? Don't be a consumer. Don't be passive. Don't be swayed by marketing. Don't be a part of a machine, however well intentioned and genuinely useful it is (and it is). Most importantly: Don't take your business elsewhere. That doesn't work, it only makes your life more difficult. Saying "we'll just use open source software" doesn't do anything about the continued growth of draconian attempts at regaining control with their collateral damage. Turn and take the issue head on, at its core level: The law.
--GrouchoMarx
And that is precisely why bundling of this sort is a problem. The average computer user does not have the interest / time / intelligence / some combination of the above to install additional software.
So the system comes with Microsoft's browser, and they use it. Not because it's good or bad or otherwise, but because it's already there. So they never install Netscape or Mozilla or Opera or K-Meleon.
So the system comes with Microsoft's office suite, and they use it. (Nearly all pre-built systems come with Windows and some version of MS Office or MS Works.) Not because it's good or bad or otherwise, but because it's already there. So they never install WordPerfect or StarOffice or AbiWord or Lotus.
Why do you think companies try so hard to have their products bundled with a system? Because most people will use whatever is force-fed to them when they buy the product, regardless of the quality (whether the product is a PC, the speakers that come with a TV, the stereo that comes with your car, or the couch that comes with your new apartment). Who wants to take the extra time (and usually money) to install a different browser / word processor / stereo / OS then the one they already have? Very few people, and most of them read Slashdot. :-)
Now, when the company with a monopoly hold on the market (as proven in a court of law) is bundling its own software, you have abuse of monopoly power. That is exactly what MS was sued over, and rightly so. Now, they're doing it again. "Why bother using AIM when MSN Messenger is here already?" "Why bother using Java when C# is supported already?" "Why bother using Opera or Mozilla when IE is installed already?" Those are exactly the thoughts that people will have when buying Windows XP, and that is precisely what Microsoft is gunning for, quite consciously and deliberately.
Which product is superior technically is completely irrelevant. If it's preinstalled, it will win in the marketplace, because the typical user doesn't know any better. That is why people are complaining, and that is why MS should be stopped from doing it.
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx
Go over to dhs.org. There, you can register a 3rd level domain for yourself off of the dhs.org or wox.org domains, which they own. I have two such domains, and host them off of my Linux server which has a DNS server running. By doing so, ANYTHING.mydomain.dhs.org is mine. I can add one system, I can add a hundred systems. I can even dynamically assign them if I want to. That's not the case if it's simply one big string. I have to pray that a.mydomain.dhs.org is available, which is not guaranteed just because I am using b.mydomain.dhs.org.
While me running my own little domain for ego's sake is not the most important reason in the world to use a given standard, the same advantage exists for larger organizations. Everyone who uses AOL has a domain name assigned to them when the log on, based on their IP. It's something like dialup45-pool22.aol.com, or something equally obscure, but still unique. More importantly, still having symantic meaning of its own. You can tell right off that it's an AOL system (.com not meaning much any more), and that it's a temp dialup connection in modem pool #22. If everything was random strings, they couldn't do that, unless they registered EVERY possible permutation of *aol* just to make sure that no one else did. Can you imagine fuckme.aol.com, or ihate.ibm.com? Right now, those don't and can't exist (unless someone at IBM's network center is having an arguement with his boss).
It's the same logic behind IP address blocks. My university owns its own class B, so 123.456.*.* (real numbers withheld, of course) will always be something here at the school. That makes administration far easier, and makes tracking down a hacker far easier as well.
Even phone numbers use the same hierarchical system. Country Code, Area Code, Exchange (somewhat muddled now), and Extension.
And yes, even your own name is a hierarchical naming system, specifically because it's easier to understand. If your name is Frank Johnson, then you can name your kids pretty much any first name you want, but their last name will almost always be Johnson. It's then much easier to identify you as their father/mother, and vice-versa.
Hierarchical naming and numbering systems are so prevalent because they are so useful. It makes it very easy to control a given block, to determine what a given string really means by its component parts, and to whom it belongs, and even sometimes where they are (.uk). See also: Linux/Unix file system.
--GrouchoMarx
Except in the case of NTSC vs. PAL and CDMA/TDMA/GSM/CDPD, etc., the fragmenting was haphazard and the result of different areas using incompatible standards. The difference here is that it's NOT an incompatible standard, in fact, it's a very uniform, world-wide standard on how to artificially create regions. The first has no clear malice of forethought, while DVD encoding and this Motorola GPS system are very specifically designed with the malicious creation of artificial market segments in mind. The former is bad for consumers, but not illegal. The latter is bad for consumers, and highly illegal. I just wish someone in Washington would figure that out, since they seem to have missed the threat to free trade that AOL/TimeWarner/Netscape/Mirabilis poses, and that other cartels such as the MPAA and RIAA pose. Yeah, Microsoft is up there, but the cartels are even more dangerous.
--GrouchoMarx
For the record a cartel is defined as "a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices." (Mirriam-Webster Online)
Now, regionalization schemes do what? (Be it CSS, Motorola's GPS system, or something else.) They divide up the market so that companies can charge different prices in different areas. That is, fix prices. The fact that we haven't broken up the MPAA and RIAA is already a disgrace, as they are some of the most obvious and blatant cartels in American history, but if we allow companies to now segment ALL products into market regions? Californians have more money than Kentuckians, on average, so lets charge twice as much for a washing machine in California than Kentucky, even though it's cheaper to ship them there. "What the market will bear" and all of that jazz.
"Free market" capitalism is one of those things that works really nice on paper, but in the real world fails miserably. What's to stop competitors from joining forces into a cartel? Absolutely nothing. Oh, wait, except the government who can stop them through the legal system. But we can't have that, that would be socialism which is synonimous with demon spawn, right? And no, you can't "vote with your dollars" and go elsewhere, because there is no elsewhere to go. That's the whole point of a cartel. And no, you can't start up your own company, because the cost of entry in the modern marketplace is so high. Add to that the licensing costs of using technology to be compatible, and you have yourself an impenitrable cartel. (You don't like CSS and want to make DVDs without it? Sorry, they won't be compatible unless you sign agreements with the patent/copyright holders, the MPAA, who will require you to play by their rules and become one of them.)
I know there's a strong anti-government sentiment in this country and on Slashdot in particular, but I offer you a choice: The government you pick in the voting booth (buying an election only works if people like you are dumb enough to vote for the best commerical rather than the best candidate) and have control over and is YOUR GOVERNMENT, or a consortium of a few rich individuals who are answerable to no one but their own bottom line and who are indoctrinated to screw you over if they possibly can.
I don't know about you, but it's an easy choice for me. It's time to start busting some trusts left and right, starting with the MPAA, moving on to AOL/TimeWarner, any company that incorporates this "market division" technology, and just keep right on going. Splitting the compaines up should encourage competition, which is supposedly a good thing, right?
Ah, Teddy Roosevelt, where are you when we need you?
--GrouchoMarx
No, that's about par for what I expect from the Catholic Church. Using their money and influence to enforce their moral code on others. Inquisitions are out of style these days, so ISP filtering is the best they can get.
I'm not surprised by it in the slightest. That doesn't mean I don't find it wrong.
--GrouchoMarx
Which is exactly my problem with this concept. The Church is acting like a business. Since when is religion a Fortune 1000 industry? Yeah, I know, it's nothing new. The Catholic Church has been in the business of making money for a millenia. (Indulgences, crusades, the mafia, etc.) During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church owned a third of Europe. But that doesn't make it right!
Then again, since the church has so much political clout in the region, they may just move into the legal system and demand filtering by all ISP's so that only the word of the almighty (Christian)God is available.
When the Ayatolla of Iran takes over militarily and forces a hyper-conservative flavor of Islam on the people, we shun the country and declare it a "rogue state." When Afganistan begins enforcing strict moral codes on the population (such as women are not allowed outside the home, ever), it makes it onto all the e-mail circuits as a crime against humanity. When the Catholic Church buys its way into imposing its moral standards onto a country.... then what?
--GrouchoMarx
User: How do I do X?
Linux Geek: Well, you can use A, or B, or you can try C but that's still in beta, D is good if you want to do X1, but E is better if you're doing X2...
User: AAAAAHHHH!!!! I just want to do X, stop confusing me!
Yes, this goes against the "best tool for the given job" concept that rules in Linuxdom, and is a fairly good way to work overall. But, it's not what the average consumer wants to hear or can cope with. Yes, we can talk about "educating" the computing masses, but that is not going to go all that far unless what you're teaching them is far easier. You can "educate" a SMALL percentage of the population in Multi-Variable Calculus, but you can't do that until they've taken advanced Algebra, Trgonomitry, and Single-Variable Calculus. Most HowTos, and even most help pages and people in #Linux et al, aren't useful unless you've already had the Single-Variable Calculus analogy, which most people haven't.
People don't want to know how to tweak the engine in their car, they just want to drive to work. Most people don't want to recompile their kernel, they just want to write a paper for school and send an e-mail. In Linux, that's not an option. In an era when many if not most Windows users do not understand the concept of a directory or drive (or at least not except as abstract manilla icons on their screens), how can we hope to explain mounting multiple dive partitions to them? How can we turn them into Linux geeks, regardless of how much educating we do? Linux is still a geeks-only project.
Unfortunately, a major part of the solution is something that most Linux people will automatically rebel against instinctively: Standardization. OK, fine, we've got 2 or 3 or 12 word processors. That's great. But before Linux can really catch on with the Windows-using public, far more has to be standardized.
That means a common, universal installer and package manager, with a graphical wizard-like front end, used by ALL distributions and ALL program authors, that automatically installs an icon in your KDE/GNOME menu. Tarballs may be great for geeks, but you remember the trouble your parents and uncles had with DOS. That means an end to REQUIRING that something be distributed and installed via source. Say the word "compile" to your average person and they automatically think "advanced task like open heart surgery" and run the other way. Even just rebuilding a SRPM is beyond them, conceptually. And getting them past that is not going to happen en masse, until Linux reaches critical mass and is available pre-installed at Best Buy, maybe not even then. (Chicken and egg.) "Oh, but you have to recompile, so that you can optimize for your system and to account for different versions of your glibc package." I don't have to recompile anything to account for different versions of DirectX. Does that make DirectX superior, because it takes less user effort? For the average user, the answer is an emphatic YES! (Who cares if it's optimized, it runs with minimal effort, therefore it is better.)
Linux is not easy to use, nor is it simple or straight-forward for 75% of the population. If Linux ever wants to be more than a niche market for geeks and servers, it will have to come to grips with the fact that most users don't want More Than One Way To Do It, they just want it done. And nothing you do to "educate" them will change that. If they need to spend more than 5% of their computer time playing with the system, they will give up and never get to the applications. Can the Linux community adapt both themselves and the Linux world to be more real-person-friendly? Hope springs eternal...
--GrouchoMarx
So, let's say I have a gig of SDMI and CPRM-friendly music stored on my hard disk somewhere, in complete compliance with Big Brother's rules. I add another one, and because of the way hard disks work its pieces get fragmented all over the disk. No problem, I'll just defragment my drive.
BUZZ! Sorry, you have a gigabyte of space that is fragmented, but "cannot be moved" due to CPRM restrictions. You will not be able to get above 85% fragmentation now, because 15% of your disk is locked in place for copy prevention purposes.
So, in order to enforce copy prevention measures I am now unable to acheive proper performance out of my drive. This slows down my work (resulting in lost productivity) and decreases the life span of my hard disk (resulting in lost property when it dies sooner than it would otherwise). It also adversely impacts other LEGAL software, vis, defragmentation programs, who will likely get blamed for it because people tend to blame the program they first see it in, even if it's not at fault.
So.... what possible positive use does this have again to counterbalance restraint of trade and lost productivity? Oh, that's right, strict fascist control by the media cartels.
It's not time to be scared, it's time to do something about it.
--GrouchoMarx
If the average consumer goes to a store and sees a Compaq computer that says "40GB hard drive, CPRM compliant!" they're not going to say "uh oh, it's that evil CPRM, I'll go elsewhere." They're going to see yet another fancy acronym and assume that it is somehow good because fancy acronyms make something more advanced. They will buy the computer, take it home, and when they start running into problems will simply accept it as "computers aren't perfect." And by the time the general public figures it out, it will be too late, and will have become an accepted part of the computer age. The average corporate purchasing department has even less grasp of what is going on, so they're no help either.
It is scary. Very very scary.
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx