This post brought to you by one of l33t j03's karma whore accounts.
<chrisd> ne1 heard about this SSSA thing??// <cmdrtaco9> newp <hemos> eh <COWBOYNEAL> MY BEDSORE HAS A FIRST NAME, IT'S B-L-O-O-D-B-O-I-L, MY BEDSORE HAS A SECOND NAME, IT'S P-R-O-B-A-B-L-Y-M-A-L-I-G-N-A-N-T <chrisd> well its this new law they r trying 2 make and if u have linux on ur machien u can go 2 jail... or sumtimn <cmdrtaco9> W T Fffffff <hemos> goOd thing I live in hollandbeliguim <hemos>:^) <cmdrtaco9> thats sooOoo gay -- we should call the EFF <michael> i think the EFF blocked *@slashdot.org on their mail server and got the phone company to block any calls from your house, rob <cmdrtaco9> oh stfu <JonKatz> Hello my post-apocalyptic cyberpunk neurogenial school shooting probates <cmdrtaco9> wtf doze that mean <COWBOYNEAL> OK SERIOUSLY <COWBOYNEAL> LIKE <COWBOYNEAL> THEY NEED TO MAKE MICROWAVEABLE STEAK ALREADY <hemos> hahahaahah <michael> sigh. <JonKatz> bbl. <cmdrtaco9> u should make a ask slashdot post aboutt that cowboynael and u would find out <chrisd> IM tryING TO tALK abOUT THE SSSSSSA <chrisd> ITS A BAD LAW <COWBOYNEAL> IS IT A TARIFF ON PORK>? <COWBOYNEAL> HOLY BUDDAH MY WORST FEARS ARE REALIZED <cmdrtaco9> can u send me cowboy.bebop.se01.ep02.mpeg so me and my fiansee can watch it 2gethedr <cmdrtaco9> ne1 here <hemos> yes lol * COWBOYN34L has returned, ALL YOUR CAKE IS BELKONG TO ME <cmdrtaco9> ROFLFFLFOLFMAO <hemos> hahahazz <michael> So. Anyone else think astroglide's flavor could be greatly improved? <timothy> oh shut up ur just a compl8nr <cmdrtaco9> ne1 seen my fiansee <slutchick37> yes im here lol <cmdrtaco9> lol join #analloveshack:))))) <hemos> EW!! heterosechsual sex:Q lol. <COWBOYN34L> DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO GET A1 SAUCE OUT OF JOCKEY BRIEFS?
Microsoft tends to receive quite a bit of bad press in the Free Software community. There is no doubt that Microsoft has released its share of bug ridden software, as has just about every other software company in the history of computing. All of this publicity does little to help the image of Microsoft in any community, much less one as technically demanding as Free Software. Given that image it is no wonder that many of us regard the company as evil and uncaring. We shudder at the costs of their software because we know full well that there are lternatives available that are arguably just as good, but are Free for the taking (and changing if we so choose).
Compared to Free Software Microsoft would probably appear to be evil even to the layman. Our community is composed of volunteers. Our software can be had for the cost of a little bandwidth. In our world you have vast freedom of choice and the source code of our software can even be changed to fit your particular whims, you aren't forced to use whatever some focus group research shows that everyone wants.
Microsoft is hires and retains its programmers with a variety of economic incentives. Obviously everyone receives a regular salary, there are also stock options, 401k payments, insurance subsidies, bonuses, education reimbursements, etc. Further, by choosing to work for Microsoft every employee implicitly (some explicitly in the form of contracts) agrees to the terms set forth by the company for the particular position they hold. Other aspects of the employment 'contract' are equally well defined. Coffee breaks, lunch times, and numerous other details of the work day are set forth in policies that are made public within the company.
Microsoft also takes particular pains to maintain good employee relations, so one can assume that the general happiness of the work force is good. Employees can leave the company any time they choose to pursue other opportunities. An excellent comparison to a system such as this would be a capitalist economy. The incentives to produce are obviously economic in nature, some kind of in cash transfer takes place. Employees agree to provide a service for which the company agrees to provide payment. Overall the system is not skewed in favor of one party or another, some areas favor the employer and some favor the employee. It is as close to the ideal of the perfect freedom as one might be able to find.
It is in this respect that the case could be made that Microsoft, while selling products that are not necessarily better than the alternatives, should be commended. Microsoft provides a non-exploitive means of employment for thousands of people all across the world and in doing so fulfills a social contract that is very valuable indeed. As a country's wealth, and that of its citizens, increases, so does the standard of living. Life expectencies increase due to better health care and sanitation.
The Free Software movement takes an entirely different approach to recruiting programmers. One of the largest repositories of Free Software projects, Sourceforge, shows a vast array of programs. Many of the workers on those projects are volunteers.
It cannot be disputed that the Free Software movement has produced quality products but its sterling reputation for being a good social citizen may not be as well deserved as one would think, considering the fact that in spite of their social contributions Microsoft continues to be viewed as evil. Free Software compensates its programmers not with economic transfers, but with social rewards. A review of the community forums will reveal instances of peer pressure to get programmers to contribute. Quotes like "If you want that feature go code it yourself" can be read quite often. The rewards of working in the Free Software world come not in the form of transfers of any monetary value, but from the admiration of one's peers. This is particularly evident with another visit to the popular Sourceforge, 'Highest Rated Users' and 'Top Project Downloads' graphics are porminently displayed on the front page.
Many would argue that programmers contribute to projects of their own free will, thus there is much more freedom in the community as opposed to our contrasting example. That assertion true, but it ignores the power of social pressures. A worker cannot simply walk away from a project without paying a price. The incentive to being it in the first place was fulfillment of the ego and such a person would not risk drawing any admonishments from the community for failing to fulfill his end of the social contract.
Further inspection of the Free Software movement reveals that the social incentives to contribute extend beyond those who can program as well, the movement has developed a way to take advantage of even the unskilled users. 'Release early release often' means a beta version of your favorite software is not far away. Whether one visits Sourceforge, Slashdot, or virtually any other Free Software website on the day a new Linux kernel is released there will no doubt be hype for it. The idea conveyed by the hype surrounding these releases is you need to have the latest version if you want to keep up! In order to keep the movement running smoothly there has to be continuous recruitment of beta testers.
Considering the social rewards and punishments of the Free Software movement one must wonder what its contribution to the greater welfare of society is. I would hold that we all benefit as a whole from the increase in competition between the two disparaging groups. Despite this there is also a considerable negative component of Free Software: It tends to exploit its workers by shackling them with vast social pressure yet it does nothing to improve their quality of life. Indeed, in courtries where there is widespread use of Free Software (relative to the use of Microsoft alternatives) the standard of living is considerably lower. The fact that shame is used to glean contributions also bears mentioning. A hint of disingenuity can also be found in the assertion that the use of the GPL prevents a person's work from being exploited in the name of corporate profit, companies like Red Hat make millions of dollars every year by providing support for code that originally released free of charge by programmers who were paid nothing.
As I stated in my opening paragraph, I am a loyal supporter of Free Software. I will continue to use it every day of my life. My primary desire in writing this short essay is to ask each of you to critically assess the Free Softwar movement, and give some thought to our predicament before you point an accusing finger in the direction of Microsoft.
I agree that the market will probably provide some type of solution to whatever restrictions come up. Castaway just came out in theatres but I can buy it on VHS out in the streets of Chicago, albeit a shitty copy. I can buy mod chips off the internet, illegal drugs, warez, whatever. The problem as I see it is that there is still risk involved, not only with the distribution of those things but also with their use. Although those who enforce the law don't like to waste their resources catching small time crooks and usually direct their energy toward bigger fish there is nothing stopping them from busting the end users. It follows that if it is illegal to circumvent a protection scheme, and the only way you could have a digital copy of some TV show is to have done that, then you may well be in possession of stolen goods. Who wants to tell the guy in the cell next to you that you are in for taping an episode of Andy Griffith?
The market takes care of us now, but it does so because the rewards outweigh the risk. Its like speeding: the liklihood of getting caught is pretty low and the potential punishment amounts to very little. As a result, everyone speeds. Would that change if your car reported your speed to the local cops? Would it change if the fine for speeding was 5 years in prison?
Essentially, accepting the presence of a protection scheme just because there is (or will be) a crack for it is placing your fate in someone else's hands. You have to rely on the market to get the crack to you and you have to accept the risk that no one will arrest you for using it.
Speaking of recurring themes: How come every time an article goes up on Slashdot about some new type of copy protection or use restriction there are several posts stating that "someone will crack it", but never any stating "I will/can crack it."
It seems to me that the few people capable of creating PSX mod chips or DeCSS or whatever are going to grow tired of the harassment that inevitably comes with distributing things like that. As the means of tracking those people down gets better their numbers (or willingness to crack) will almost certainyl decline.
I for one would rather put some effort into trying to make sure that the people who make TVs, DVD players, movies, etc. know that I do not want them to dictate when and where I use a product that I legitimately bought. I would rather there be no need to sit back and wait for someone else to crack some new crypto. Eliminating it in the first place seems to be a much better strategy than hoping someone will crack it for me.
I don't know about we, but I personally would like them to open source DB2. I could ask them to buy me a ferrari and get about the same results, but I think they could put some serious muscle behind MySQL, much needed muscle.
On a more serious note, I'm not sure that IBM's contribution has to necessarily be directed at the OS itself. They could probably make good contributions to MySQL, maybe Apache, possibly a web broswer. These are things that, if this were Microsoft, would be thought of as components of the OS but are certainly necessary pieces if Linux is to make inroads on the desktop.
Given that they have loads of Unix experience I imagine they could help improve security as well. Linux is lacking in good GUI based security management. No doubt many Slashdotters are perfectly happy with CLI (I am) but 90 out of 100 SAs I talk to equate CLI with the 1980s.
Anyway, I'm not sure that the community needs to ask IBM for anything. Linux is given away free as in speech. I don't think it you can give software away for several years and then start asking for favors once companies have embraced it. This isn't to say that they don't have an ethical responsibility to give a little back, I'm just not sure that we should be the ones who decide what. If their past history is any indication (didn't they just open an FS?) they will no doubt make a contribution.
Auctions (as in in-person public auctions) are not taxed in the first place. Ebay is just the auctioneer and it is the individual who is selling the item. State taxes cannot be collected on such sales, kind of like at yard sales.
If a person were running a business, and I'm not quite sure how that is defined, they would have to collect taxes. Of course they would have to licensed by the state to do so....
He raises some excellent points, many of which are so obvious that no one has ever bothered to state them in the past.:)
His idea of public review might work if it were possible to protect the information contained in it. It could be done in the US but what is to stop someone from implementing someone's soon to be patented idea in another country? I also think that expecting courts to keep up with the state of technology is not a workable solution. The patent office can't do it and they have much more freedom to hire specialized personnel that the court system (not that they take advantage of that freedom).
A solution that wasn't discussed was to make patents a lot less profitable by either shortening the time for which they are valid or by restricting licensing. This would not only help the technology industry but pharmaceuticals as well, an industry where the effects of patent abuse are much more severe. Patents are necessary to encourage research and development, they can't be eliminated entirely, but if the rules can be changed to level the playing field I;m sure corporation would adapt quickly.
They state that they received over 52,000 suggestions during the comment period for the guidelines. I wonder how many of those came from HMOs and other insurance companies? Since I have no idea how one finds out, before the end of the comment period, about such guidelines I won't hazard a guess. This does seem a bit like the solicitation for comments on the DMCA (or, more specifically, requests for hardships caused by the DMCA). It seems like things like this are never well publicized given how much they impact our everyday lives.
Set a fixed key length limit on crypto. Raise it as needed as computing power increases
You fail to realize that if I send sensitive information using your recommendation of weak crypto it can easily be captured and stored for several years, at virtually no cost. Once 'computing power increases' to the point where we would need to 'raise it' (key length) my old transmissions could be easily broken.
Many things, like the particular credit card number I had at the time, might not be at all useful but many other things, like the fact that I cheated on my taxes, might be.
The problem with the new name is that it is far too long to be quoted by the press. Due to a multitude of reasons (attention spans, copy space, etc) it is going to be known to most Americans as "The Medal of Valor Bill". At some point, in some election somewhere, a challenger is going to tell a group of firemen not to vote for the incumbent because he voted against The Medal of Valor Bill. The firemen, knowing no better, will vote out someone who protected their civil liberties.
It sounds like a great idea but I think it might have a flaw. Bush will be appointing some Supreme Court judges soon and they will no doubt be fairly conservative. The court has shown, by their election ruling, that they are partisan rather than some branch of government that is above typical politics. Jailing reps because the court doesn't agree with their politics is a great way to quell your enemies for several years.
Obviously you could rotate controversial bills between several different people but I still think laws covering things like crypto would come down to politics. A conservative court would never strike down a law if it meant a republican senator would get thrown in the pen.
Google is better than engines like Yahoo, Excite, NorthernLight, blah blah, because it is faster. No banners, no news, no stock tips, just search results.
They also have to be given credit for being up front about what they are doing, I haven't seen anything change on their site without soem sort of an explanation.
Also, the toolbar shouldn't be a concern for most Slashdotters because it is only available for Windows...or maybe it should, who knows. We rabid computer geeks wouldn't worry about Windows would we?
Re:Doesn't google sell placement in search results
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A Pair of Google Bits
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No, they don't.
At least not last time I checked. They rank sites based on several factors (what else links to them, matching search words, etc.) but they don't sell. I have noticed that the top line of several searches is an ad but it is highlighted so it can't be confused as a search result.
Why not? The bleeding edge is never all that practical, but five years from now everyone will look at digital cameras with disk storage the way we look at those wired remotes that came with early TVs.
Quality Assurance / Control has always suffered from the fact that companies are made up of individuals who are, at their core, more interested in their personal well being rather than the well being of the company as a whole. This is a large part of why many of the Japanese methods worked so well for them but have failed to affect significant changes in the US. Japanese workers place much more value on the success of their company than Americans do.
The problems, at least for the manufacturing companies I've been involved with, occur when the sales force tells upper management that they think they can sell 5000 widgets next month. Management goes to the manufacturing people and informs them that they must increae their production of widgets but must be careful not to spend too much money. The production lines fire up and start cranking out widgets. Unfortunately, quality was not foremost in the minds of the people who designed the production line (capacity was) so many of the widgets have defects. The Quality people start catching defects and they decide to either make some changes to the process or to start rejecting a few widgets. Manufacturing goes to management and cries a lot about how the Quality people are causing them to exceed their budget by scrapping widgets. Management learns that if the Quality people keep scrapping widgets at the present rate, no one is going to make any money this month, thus they lower their standards for what constitutes a good widget.
This can be applied to virtually any process, software development included. People are short sighted. They want immediate satisfaction, particularly in the tech industry.
But the costs go both ways, which the article is attmepting to point out. It costs the supplier more in the long run because they have to provide far more tech support and after the sale service. The last paragraph or so of the article recounted an experience with Dell and HP overnighting replacement parts to fix broken equipment. I think the example was extreme but things like that can get expensive.
Traditional Quality Control theories use cost reduction as their justification. Six Sigma is a particularly popular quality system at moment and cost reduction is very central to it.
The Napster debacle should show us that a centralized architecture is more prone to snooping / regulation. Despite the problems that Gnutella is experiencing I think the concept is much better. No central server to connect through, no single point that can be watched. I doubt Metallica would have been able to track downloads of their songs had Napster been as decentralized as Gnutella, much less been able to ban users.
The hard part of end to end is changing any design component that is found to be inadequate, like Gnutella's scaling problems. Rather than changing relatively few servers you would need to push updates out to a huge number of smaller components, be they phones or PCs. Regardless, the long term benefits of a decentralized architecture, which is what end to end used to be called I think, probably outweight the negatives.
Thanks for the info, I might check it out just to see how far it has come. I think the last version I used was 3.something and it was a decent alternative then.
Too bad the ads can't be obscured though, I find animtated ads distracting if nothing else.
Yes. From the article:
The banner-sized ad is quite small, and they are downloaded into the browser only once a week, to be cached for later use.
It has to connect to get new ads, but I imagine that would be simple to crack. If I used Opera maybe I'd take a shot.
Given that Opera has a decent reputation, or at least doesn't have a bad rep, this might not be a problem, but: Can the company really be trusted to not use the 'phone home' feature to collect customer browsing info? That would seem to be a bigger problem than the ads themselves.
Also, the article didn't mention but does anyone know whether the ads are always on top? If they can be hidden they might be less of an annoyance.
It appears that you have cracked their business plan.
I still don't see how this could be viable. Given the low cost of storage space, particularly versus bandwidth, why would someone need to have their music streamed to them? It obviously requires a computer so if you are traveling with your laptop so it should be much simpler to load your HD with whatever you wanted before you left home. There would be no need to dial up anything, you could listen to it on a plane, no service outages, etc.
Unless they have something else up their sleeve we'll probably be seeing them on dotcomfailures.
It is definitely true that this isn't the first moral panic that the world has seen, I don't think it is even heightened state as Katz calls it. If you own a gun you are probably aware of the acute moral panic surrounding the right to bear arms. This particular panic is, however, aimed directly at the type of people who read this web site so I can understand why he is writing the article.
I believe it comes down to a lack of understanding on the part of the older generation. 60s rock was frightening because the musicians were saying things that 40 year olds though would corrupt the youth. My mom doesn't like the music my band plays, she thinks it is 'just a bunch of noise'. Games are in the same category, people who grew up without them don't get it, they think their children are going to be harmed by all of the fantasy and imagery involved. In some cases they might be right. I've seen kids who take gaming far too seriously and let it displace other activites. Unfortunately the critics tend to use kids like that as examples, which is a powerful way to turn the opinions of the folks who don't understand gaming.
I think what they are offering is not in the area of performance, which will probably be worse, but marketing. Somewhere at AOL/Time Warner there is a guy who is responsible for designing the packaging for their CDs. Although his latest 'innovation' is to stuff them in pseudo DVD cases but I think he might be running low on ideas. But if a paper thin CD comes along....imagine opening up the Sunday paper and a half dozen AOL CDs pour out.
once they start to license out the technology dont you think that all the independent test would prove it was truly unbreakable or not
Certainly they would (or already have), unless the license agreement prevents anyone from attempting to break the crypto, or uses the DMCA to prevent it in the US. I think their objective is twofold:
1. To make the clueless PHBs of the music industry buy into a technology that they think is unbreakable.
2. To turn the PR around and show that the recording industry is really trying to give consumers the digital music they want but the evil hackers keep trying to steal from them.
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:^) :))))) :Q lol.
<chrisd> ne1 heard about this SSSA thing??//
<cmdrtaco9> newp
<hemos> eh
<COWBOYNEAL> MY BEDSORE HAS A FIRST NAME, IT'S B-L-O-O-D-B-O-I-L, MY BEDSORE HAS A SECOND NAME, IT'S P-R-O-B-A-B-L-Y-M-A-L-I-G-N-A-N-T
<chrisd> well its this new law they r trying 2 make and if u have linux on ur machien u can go 2 jail... or sumtimn
<cmdrtaco9> W T Fffffff
<hemos> goOd thing I live in hollandbeliguim
<hemos>
<cmdrtaco9> thats sooOoo gay -- we should call the EFF
<michael> i think the EFF blocked *@slashdot.org on their mail server and got the phone company to block any calls from your house, rob
<cmdrtaco9> oh stfu
<JonKatz> Hello my post-apocalyptic cyberpunk neurogenial school shooting probates
<cmdrtaco9> wtf doze that mean
<COWBOYNEAL> OK SERIOUSLY
<COWBOYNEAL> LIKE
<COWBOYNEAL> THEY NEED TO MAKE MICROWAVEABLE STEAK ALREADY
<hemos> hahahaahah
<michael> sigh.
<JonKatz> bbl.
<cmdrtaco9> u should make a ask slashdot post aboutt that cowboynael and u would find out
<chrisd> IM tryING TO tALK abOUT THE SSSSSSA
<chrisd> ITS A BAD LAW
<COWBOYNEAL> IS IT A TARIFF ON PORK>?
<COWBOYNEAL> HOLY BUDDAH MY WORST FEARS ARE REALIZED
<cmdrtaco9> can u send me cowboy.bebop.se01.ep02.mpeg so me and my fiansee can watch it 2gethedr
<cmdrtaco9> ne1 here
<hemos> yes lol
* COWBOYN34L has returned, ALL YOUR CAKE IS BELKONG TO ME
<cmdrtaco9> ROFLFFLFOLFMAO
<hemos> hahahazz
<michael> So. Anyone else think astroglide's flavor could be greatly improved?
<timothy> oh shut up ur just a compl8nr
<cmdrtaco9> ne1 seen my fiansee
<slutchick37> yes im here lol
<cmdrtaco9> lol join #analloveshack
<hemos> EW!! heterosechsual sex
<COWBOYN34L> DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO GET A1 SAUCE OUT OF JOCKEY BRIEFS?
Microsoft tends to receive quite a bit of bad press in the Free Software community. There is no doubt that Microsoft has released its share of bug ridden software, as has just about every other software company in the history of computing. All of this publicity does little to help the image of Microsoft in any community, much less one as technically demanding as Free Software. Given that image it is no wonder that many of us regard the company as evil and uncaring. We shudder at the costs of their software because we know full well that there are lternatives available that are arguably just as good, but are Free for the taking (and changing if we so choose).
Compared to Free Software Microsoft would probably appear to be evil even to the layman. Our community is composed of volunteers. Our software can be had for the cost of a little bandwidth. In our world you have vast freedom of choice and the source code of our software can even be changed to fit your particular whims, you aren't forced to use whatever some focus group research shows that everyone wants.
Microsoft is hires and retains its programmers with a variety of economic incentives. Obviously everyone receives a regular salary, there are also stock options, 401k payments, insurance subsidies, bonuses, education reimbursements, etc. Further, by choosing to work for Microsoft every employee implicitly (some explicitly in the form of contracts) agrees to the terms set forth by the company for the particular position they hold. Other aspects of the employment 'contract' are equally well defined. Coffee breaks, lunch times, and numerous other details of the work day are set forth in policies that are made public within the company.
Microsoft also takes particular pains to maintain good employee relations, so one can assume that the general happiness of the work force is good. Employees can leave the company any time they choose to pursue other opportunities. An excellent comparison to a system such as this would be a capitalist economy. The incentives to produce are obviously economic in nature, some kind of in cash transfer takes place. Employees agree to provide a service for which the company agrees to provide payment. Overall the system is not skewed in favor of one party or another, some areas favor the employer and some favor the employee. It is as close to the ideal of the perfect freedom as one might be able to find.
It is in this respect that the case could be made that Microsoft, while selling products that are not necessarily better than the alternatives, should be commended. Microsoft provides a non-exploitive means of employment for thousands of people all across the world and in doing so fulfills a social contract that is very valuable indeed. As a country's wealth, and that of its citizens, increases, so does the standard of living. Life expectencies increase due to better health care and sanitation.
The Free Software movement takes an entirely different approach to recruiting programmers. One of the largest repositories of Free Software projects, Sourceforge, shows a vast array of programs. Many of the workers on those projects are volunteers.
It cannot be disputed that the Free Software movement has produced quality products but its sterling reputation for being a good social citizen may not be as well deserved as one would think, considering the fact that in spite of their social contributions Microsoft continues to be viewed as evil. Free Software compensates its programmers not with economic transfers, but with social rewards. A review of the community forums will reveal instances of peer pressure to get programmers to contribute. Quotes like "If you want that feature go code it yourself" can be read quite often. The rewards of working in the Free Software world come not in the form of transfers of any monetary value, but from the admiration of one's peers. This is particularly evident with another visit to the popular Sourceforge, 'Highest Rated Users' and 'Top Project Downloads' graphics are porminently displayed on the front page.
Many would argue that programmers contribute to projects of their own free will, thus there is much more freedom in the community as opposed to our contrasting example. That assertion true, but it ignores the power of social pressures. A worker cannot simply walk away from a project without paying a price. The incentive to being it in the first place was fulfillment of the ego and such a person would not risk drawing any admonishments from the community for failing to fulfill his end of the social contract.
Further inspection of the Free Software movement reveals that the social incentives to contribute extend beyond those who can program as well, the movement has developed a way to take advantage of even the unskilled users. 'Release early release often' means a beta version of your favorite software is not far away. Whether one visits Sourceforge, Slashdot, or virtually any other Free Software website on the day a new Linux kernel is released there will no doubt be hype for it. The idea conveyed by the hype surrounding these releases is you need to have the latest version if you want to keep up! In order to keep the movement running smoothly there has to be continuous recruitment of beta testers.
Considering the social rewards and punishments of the Free Software movement one must wonder what its contribution to the greater welfare of society is. I would hold that we all benefit as a whole from the increase in competition between the two disparaging groups. Despite this there is also a considerable negative component of Free Software: It tends to exploit its workers by shackling them with vast social pressure yet it does nothing to improve their quality of life. Indeed, in courtries where there is widespread use of Free Software (relative to the use of Microsoft alternatives) the standard of living is considerably lower. The fact that shame is used to glean contributions also bears mentioning. A hint of disingenuity can also be found in the assertion that the use of the GPL prevents a person's work from being exploited in the name of corporate profit, companies like Red Hat make millions of dollars every year by providing support for code that originally released free of charge by programmers who were paid nothing.
As I stated in my opening paragraph, I am a loyal supporter of Free Software. I will continue to use it every day of my life. My primary desire in writing this short essay is to ask each of you to critically assess the Free Softwar movement, and give some thought to our predicament before you point an accusing finger in the direction of Microsoft.
The market takes care of us now, but it does so because the rewards outweigh the risk. Its like speeding: the liklihood of getting caught is pretty low and the potential punishment amounts to very little. As a result, everyone speeds. Would that change if your car reported your speed to the local cops? Would it change if the fine for speeding was 5 years in prison?
Essentially, accepting the presence of a protection scheme just because there is (or will be) a crack for it is placing your fate in someone else's hands. You have to rely on the market to get the crack to you and you have to accept the risk that no one will arrest you for using it.
It seems to me that the few people capable of creating PSX mod chips or DeCSS or whatever are going to grow tired of the harassment that inevitably comes with distributing things like that. As the means of tracking those people down gets better their numbers (or willingness to crack) will almost certainyl decline.
I for one would rather put some effort into trying to make sure that the people who make TVs, DVD players, movies, etc. know that I do not want them to dictate when and where I use a product that I legitimately bought. I would rather there be no need to sit back and wait for someone else to crack some new crypto. Eliminating it in the first place seems to be a much better strategy than hoping someone will crack it for me.
On a more serious note, I'm not sure that IBM's contribution has to necessarily be directed at the OS itself. They could probably make good contributions to MySQL, maybe Apache, possibly a web broswer. These are things that, if this were Microsoft, would be thought of as components of the OS but are certainly necessary pieces if Linux is to make inroads on the desktop.
Given that they have loads of Unix experience I imagine they could help improve security as well. Linux is lacking in good GUI based security management. No doubt many Slashdotters are perfectly happy with CLI (I am) but 90 out of 100 SAs I talk to equate CLI with the 1980s.
Anyway, I'm not sure that the community needs to ask IBM for anything. Linux is given away free as in speech. I don't think it you can give software away for several years and then start asking for favors once companies have embraced it. This isn't to say that they don't have an ethical responsibility to give a little back, I'm just not sure that we should be the ones who decide what. If their past history is any indication (didn't they just open an FS?) they will no doubt make a contribution.
If a person were running a business, and I'm not quite sure how that is defined, they would have to collect taxes. Of course they would have to licensed by the state to do so....
His idea of public review might work if it were possible to protect the information contained in it. It could be done in the US but what is to stop someone from implementing someone's soon to be patented idea in another country? I also think that expecting courts to keep up with the state of technology is not a workable solution. The patent office can't do it and they have much more freedom to hire specialized personnel that the court system (not that they take advantage of that freedom).
A solution that wasn't discussed was to make patents a lot less profitable by either shortening the time for which they are valid or by restricting licensing. This would not only help the technology industry but pharmaceuticals as well, an industry where the effects of patent abuse are much more severe. Patents are necessary to encourage research and development, they can't be eliminated entirely, but if the rules can be changed to level the playing field I;m sure corporation would adapt quickly.
You fail to realize that if I send sensitive information using your recommendation of weak crypto it can easily be captured and stored for several years, at virtually no cost. Once 'computing power increases' to the point where we would need to 'raise it' (key length) my old transmissions could be easily broken.
Many things, like the particular credit card number I had at the time, might not be at all useful but many other things, like the fact that I cheated on my taxes, might be.
Obviously you could rotate controversial bills between several different people but I still think laws covering things like crypto would come down to politics. A conservative court would never strike down a law if it meant a republican senator would get thrown in the pen.
They also have to be given credit for being up front about what they are doing, I haven't seen anything change on their site without soem sort of an explanation.
Also, the toolbar shouldn't be a concern for most Slashdotters because it is only available for Windows...or maybe it should, who knows. We rabid computer geeks wouldn't worry about Windows would we?
At least not last time I checked. They rank sites based on several factors (what else links to them, matching search words, etc.) but they don't sell. I have noticed that the top line of several searches is an ad but it is highlighted so it can't be confused as a search result.
Why not? The bleeding edge is never all that practical, but five years from now everyone will look at digital cameras with disk storage the way we look at those wired remotes that came with early TVs.
The problems, at least for the manufacturing companies I've been involved with, occur when the sales force tells upper management that they think they can sell 5000 widgets next month. Management goes to the manufacturing people and informs them that they must increae their production of widgets but must be careful not to spend too much money. The production lines fire up and start cranking out widgets. Unfortunately, quality was not foremost in the minds of the people who designed the production line (capacity was) so many of the widgets have defects. The Quality people start catching defects and they decide to either make some changes to the process or to start rejecting a few widgets. Manufacturing goes to management and cries a lot about how the Quality people are causing them to exceed their budget by scrapping widgets. Management learns that if the Quality people keep scrapping widgets at the present rate, no one is going to make any money this month, thus they lower their standards for what constitutes a good widget.
This can be applied to virtually any process, software development included. People are short sighted. They want immediate satisfaction, particularly in the tech industry.
Traditional Quality Control theories use cost reduction as their justification. Six Sigma is a particularly popular quality system at moment and cost reduction is very central to it.
The hard part of end to end is changing any design component that is found to be inadequate, like Gnutella's scaling problems. Rather than changing relatively few servers you would need to push updates out to a huge number of smaller components, be they phones or PCs. Regardless, the long term benefits of a decentralized architecture, which is what end to end used to be called I think, probably outweight the negatives.
Too bad the ads can't be obscured though, I find animtated ads distracting if nothing else.
The banner-sized ad is quite small, and they are downloaded into the browser only once a week, to be cached for later use.
It has to connect to get new ads, but I imagine that would be simple to crack. If I used Opera maybe I'd take a shot.
Given that Opera has a decent reputation, or at least doesn't have a bad rep, this might not be a problem, but: Can the company really be trusted to not use the 'phone home' feature to collect customer browsing info? That would seem to be a bigger problem than the ads themselves.
Also, the article didn't mention but does anyone know whether the ads are always on top? If they can be hidden they might be less of an annoyance.
I still don't see how this could be viable. Given the low cost of storage space, particularly versus bandwidth, why would someone need to have their music streamed to them? It obviously requires a computer so if you are traveling with your laptop so it should be much simpler to load your HD with whatever you wanted before you left home. There would be no need to dial up anything, you could listen to it on a plane, no service outages, etc.
Unless they have something else up their sleeve we'll probably be seeing them on dotcomfailures.
I believe it comes down to a lack of understanding on the part of the older generation. 60s rock was frightening because the musicians were saying things that 40 year olds though would corrupt the youth. My mom doesn't like the music my band plays, she thinks it is 'just a bunch of noise'. Games are in the same category, people who grew up without them don't get it, they think their children are going to be harmed by all of the fantasy and imagery involved. In some cases they might be right. I've seen kids who take gaming far too seriously and let it displace other activites. Unfortunately the critics tend to use kids like that as examples, which is a powerful way to turn the opinions of the folks who don't understand gaming.
Maybe they meant 47 straight days in a stretch. Maybe thats just DBAs, dunno.
Certainly they would (or already have), unless the license agreement prevents anyone from attempting to break the crypto, or uses the DMCA to prevent it in the US. I think their objective is twofold:
1. To make the clueless PHBs of the music industry buy into a technology that they think is unbreakable.
2. To turn the PR around and show that the recording industry is really trying to give consumers the digital music they want but the evil hackers keep trying to steal from them.