Actually, this would have the exact opposite effect. Microsoft's porting of its major desktop software to Linux would go a long way toward legitimizing Linux as a viable desktop envrionment.
The other thing is that under Linux, Microsoft would be just another developer. They wouldn't have the ability to control the underlying API's which is the heart of Microsoft's monopoly power. If Microsoft did something wierd to Linux to try to usurp control, they would have to release that information because of the GPL. If the changes they made were good, everybody would accept them and they'd show up in other distros. If the changes were bad, everybody else would ignore them.
The only possible evil thing they could do is force other distros to incorporate MS's changes to the Kernel in order to be compatible with Office and IE. The end result of this though is that MS just pisses everybody off, but they can continue to follow the changes that MS makes so they never get their monopoly power.
Now if Linux was released under Artistic License or BSD, they could just take the Linux code, close it up hack it to hell and back and sell it as their own proprietary version with their own API's. Fortunately they cannot do that!
If secure data is being store in the cookie, why not encrypt it. The server can have the keys to encrypt and decrypt the contents of the cookie. Then if somebody gets your cookie file they still have to crack the encryption of the cookie itself.
The only potential issue I can see with this is the possibility that the limited size of the cookies may make decent grade encryption too big. I'm not certain though.
Personally I like the use of cookies as a session token for server-side session management. The only thing stored on the client is a one-use session ID which expires. Thus, even if somebody could get your cookie file, they'd have to take the session ID and use it within say 15 minutes, otherwise it would be totally useless. To further prevent fraud, you can link the session ID with the IP address, which eliminates all but the most complex hijackings that I can think of.
An interesting trend that I've noticed is that usually with any sort of political protest such as this there are two distinct groups of individuals. The first group consists of people who have a deep commitment to a particular cause and are willing to risk imprisonment and their personal safety to make a point. The second groups consists of people who want to wreak a little destruction and will use any political excercise as an excuse to do so.
If you read MSNBC's articles on the subject, they mentioned a protestor who was arrested by the police. The protestor, upon being interviewed, admitted to the fact that he did not have a particular agenda against the WTO. Ah, the committed ideals of the civilly disobdeient masses are amazing aren't they?:)
A friend of mine particpated in a Martin Luther King rally that ocurred in Denver a few years back. The KKK, being the fun loving happy go lucky kind of white supremacists they are, thought it would be a lovely idea to stage a rally of their own at the state capital. She was with a large group of people who were very into civil rights, and wanted to show their respect for MLK with a peaceful march through downtown. At the capital, they discovered that another group, completely unrelated to theirs had shown up with only one intention, beating the ever loving crap out of the KKK. Now, if there is any organization that deserves such a reception it is the KKK, but the end result was a riot that far overshadowed anything good that happened that day.
So, for those in the audience who just enjoy stirring things up and being violent, would you take up knitting or something rather than screwing up the political message of the few people in this country who are willing to go out of their way to make a political point.
*As sterno steps down from his soap box the crowd goes wild*
The governments of the world aren't getting stronger than they used to be. The problem is that they are scared of the possibilities of this new technology. They fear a borderless world where they cannot monitor what their citizens say and do. Fear makes people do stupid and irrational things and that is what you are seeing unfold now.
Senators, representatives and members of parliment are afraid that in 10 or 20 years, terrorism and criminal organizations will be communicating freely over the Internet and will remain beyond prosecution. To combat this they pass legislation (the only way they know how to deal with problems), but in order to get the bad guys(TM), they must stomp on the rights of regular citizens. They don't see another way to deal with it, and trampling the rights of common citizens seems a small price to pay for safety.
As with all reactionary movements throughout time, this will go too far. Some legislation will get passed, some person's rights will be trampled a little too far, and then the protests and media blitz will follow that will end this reactionary era. The government will get over its hangups about encryption and realize that in the long run there is nothing it can do about it and it does not inhibit there standing ability to enforce law and order.
On the HP ScanJet 4, the scanner would make different tones as it was scanning based on the speed and direction that the scan light was moving. Some engineer at HP then took this and released software (I think it came with the scanner) that would cause it to play music using the movement of the scanner to generate the notes.
The new release seems to work better than M10, but it is still buggy and it crashed after about 5 minutes of use (which is the longest I've managed so far). I was happy to see that I could compose a message and send it without anything horrible happening:).
Good work mozilla team! Keep it up and you may run the world yet!:)
Ah, I didn't know that TrustE has an association with the EFF. But yeah, my general point was that whoever does this needs to be in a position to say screw the corporations if it has to.
That wouldn't change any thing. Ultimately, the obligation needs to be enforced by somebody, and if TrustE and the company they are dealing with don't want to follow that obligation they don't have too.
Let's take a look at the business model for TrustE briefly. You, as a company, write them a check every year to proove to consumers that you are a good and worthy company. Then, the theory goes that if you violate somebody's privacy, they are supposed to ask you to stop sending them checks and remove that little certification graphic from your pages.
TrustE's dependeancy on amiable relationships and paychecks from the companies they are supposed to monitor makes it impossible for them to do what they are supposed to be doing, protecting consumer privacy rights. It's akin to calling up the police because some Mafia guy is beating on you, and it turns out the police won't show up because they are on the take!
To have an effective watchdog of on-line privacy, it must be a non-profit organization or a government agency. I much prefer the forme to the latter of these. Perhaps the EFF, EPIC, or the ACLU, could start up a program of certification like TrustE. Certification of a site or application would be rigorous and free. I'd be happy to write any of these organizations a check if they did this!
Of course you said you are a security person so you are supposed to be a bit paranoid. Personally I do on-line banking, but I tend to use relatively obscure meaningless passwords so it wouldn't do much good for somebody to run a cracker against it.
I would suggest that a login/password scheme is sufficient so long as you make a stringent effort to keep people from doing stupid things with their password. Run their passwords through a quick idiot check, and make a very big point of telling them that they shouldn't write it down, etc, etc. Make it clear that their privacy is at stake if they do not take proper security precautions by picking out a good password and keeping it to themselves.
Other scemes for authentication tend to be very complex to implement over a web interface. What would be really ideal is some sort of PAM like interface for browsers. So, you could write a plug-in that somebody could download that would permit the interface of a biometric device or similar. But to the best of my knowledge that doesn't exist.
Here's another idea, what about having the GNU foundation create a patent fund. People could donate money to it and then the fund would go to try to collect as many patents as possible. Then these patents could be made available to GPL software for free. Another twist on this could be establishing a prior art repository so that if somebody wants to free their idea, they can put it there and be safe in the knowledge that nobody else would be able to get a valid patent on it.
Another possibility is that this fund could be used to pay the royalties in bulk for all GPL software. So, for example, somebody from GNU goes over to Unisys and offers to pay them a lump sum to permit royalty free use of the patent for all software released under the GPL.
This would have two effects:
1) It would provide a way for people developing free software from having to pay royalties on something that they might not make money off of in the first place.
2) It would encourage more people to use the GPL because they could write their software without having to pay various royalties that they might otherwise be committed to.
I had an idea that I came up with when I discovered that apparently the concept of an on-line Auction is patented. What I'd like to see is a patent fighting fund. Basically you set up a website where a listing of really bad patents are available. If you see a patent you absolutely detest, you can whip out your credit card and donate a few bucks to a legal fund to fight it.
You bring in a few patent attorneys and having a standing arrangement that they give a price tag for the battle and when they get that much money in the coffers, they can go out and start taking down the patent. If not enough money is collected after a given period of time, then the money would not be charged to the credit card and the patent would go on its merry way.
The fourth amendment guarantees your right not to be searched without due process of law. Most of the time this is the case. This same guarantee protects your right not to be wiretapped.
Now, the problem with building in backdoors into the fundamental security of the Internet or any system is that it provides the possibility for abuse by both authorities and third party criminals (as opposed to the criminals who are the authorities). If somebody can get access to that back door they can create endless havoc.
The other problem is that with this back door so readily available, authorities will be very tempted to use the door without warrants. If they think you are a bad guy they can sniff your traffic get enough evidence then go get the warrant to get the rest of your traffic. And don't think they won't do it. There are countless cases of cops using wiretaps illegaly to get information and go after people who otherwise would not be prosecutable. In all likelyhood they would surrpeticiously just sniff all traffic for naughty bits, and nobody would be the wiser because it is all the kind of stuff locked up in the dark recesses of the FBI and NSA headquarters.
Actually, the punishment for Microsoft would be determined at the end of the current trial. The Supreme court merely determines whether laws are constitutional and enforced in the proper manner. The supreme court would not determine the punishment, but would rather be responsible for deciding whether the case proceeded on valid legal ground and whether the punishment was reasonable within the bounds of the constitution. In fact, since I do not see any obvious questions about the validity of the law or the way the trial was carried out I would expect the Supreme Court to deny the appeal.
Frankly I don't think Microsoft has a chance in hell of getting out of this unscathed. To get the finding's of fact overturned would be impossible unless they could somehow proove the judge to be incompetent, which he is not. The findings of fact, even without a ruling in this case are very important when dealing with other cases such as Sun or Corel's lawsuit.
Because Microsoft is now officially a monopoly, they are in serious trouble. Monopolies are completely legal, but if you are one you have to be very careful about how you use your power. Things that an ordinary company can get away with, you cannot get away with if you are a monopoly. Microsoft has built up a very nasty hurdle for themselves and I believe that they will fall.
As for punishment, legal precedent indicates that breaking up a company is the most viable option. Regulation of a company would have to be very well crafted, would be subject to all sorts of potential legal boobytraps, and would generally make far more of a mess than there already is. I expect to see Microsoft divided into several small companies with strong restrictions about what boundaries they are allowed to operate within.
A possible breakup situation:
-Microsoft Consumer OS -Microsoft Server Technologies (SQL Server, NT/2000, IIS, etc) -Microsoft Palmtop OS -Microsoft Data Products (SQL Server) -Microsoft Business Software (Office, etc) -Microsoft Consumer Software (a long list...) -Microsoft Web Technologies (Media Player, IE, etc) -Microsoft Media (the MS in MSNBC) -Microsoft Network (although this might be part of the media group considering the ongoing mergers of cable, phone, internet, etc) -WebTV
If that happens it will be very interesting to see what happens. The consumer version of windows without the lock-in of Internet Explorer has the potential to be rendered irrelevant by the growth of the Internet. Internet Explorer, having to survive on its own without the rest of a big corporation to subsidize it will have to charge money and will lose market share to the open source Mozilla project which should be in good shape by the time the ruling comes down.
The server software will be forced to stand on its own two feet without the windows desktop hooks and Internet Explorer hooks. It will have the advantage of being nicely integrated within itself, but the whole proprietary technology garbage will have to go away to compete against other people's products.
Office will continue to survive because, honestly, it is actually good (if somewhat bloated and security hole ridden) software. It won't have the commitment to Windows anymore, so expect to see releases for Linux, BeOS, and any O/S that can get enough people together to buy it. With any luck, competition from other sources will drive the price down a bit too.
In the end, hopefully Microsoft will finally get a necessity to innovate to go with their freedom to innovate. Expect them to play by the same rules they do now, they'll just have to play seperately.
I think, we as a society need to get over the notion that people own ideas. The open source movement has begun to demonstrate a great way for people to make a buck without having to own ideas. Rather than writing software, keeping it secret and then selling it to people, the companies have learned to give away the secrets, but make money on support and services.
Personally, my income is hurt by closed source old world ways of distributing software and media. I work in computers doing custom development of software for corporations. The software I right is really only useful in a specific context for a company so piracy doesn't effect the work I do. However, having to pay for operating systems, database software and development tools does effect my bottom line in a big way.
I will admit to the fact that deciding as a society that intellectual property isn't something you can own will hurt a lot of companies who have built their empires on that assumption. But in the long run I believe we will be better off for it. In addition I think their are better ways for these companies to make money.
Rather than producing a CD and depending on the distribution of the music to make money, why not make money off concerts instead. Give away the music to hook people and then do major concert tours. Sell experiences that cannot be duplicated and pressed and mass distributed. Sell things that are unique once of a lifetime events.
I can get a DVD of a movie, but yet I still go and see it in the theatres. Why do I do this? Because it is a unique experience that I cannot reproduce in my home. Their is value in that experience. I have a nice home theater system, but it is never the same, so I shell out my money and see it on the big screen with big sound and a large crowd of people to share the experience with.
Really the whole intellectual property thing is, I think, a sign of inefficiency in the mechanisms of distribution more than it is a legitimate form of business. Books, CD's, Videotapes, DVD's, all have a certain cost in duplication and distribution which must be recovered. With the rise of the digital, and the ability to make infinite perfect copies it seems wholely ridiculous to charge me money for it.
Do I believe that copying a DVD is illegal, yes. Do I believe that it is immoral, no. I believe that to charge more than the cost of distribution for the DVD is immoral.
See, when the GNU folks talk about free software it is completely different from when MS talks about free software and is the root of the price issue.
When you buy NT/2000 server you get all sorts of built in "free" software. You get a webserver, DHCP server, transaction server, and all sorts of other wonderful "free" things. Of course, realistically, Microsoft has spent thousands of programmer hours developing these proprietary products and making them all work together nicely. At some point, all of those hours have to be made up somewhere, and the cost of the O/S and client licenses is it.
This new Internet connector license is really a funny way of saying that IIS costs $2000. I mean, if you are any sort of real business, you will be using some sort of authentication and have to shell out the money for the connector license. They just phrase it differently so they can still say that IIS comes free with their software.
Personally I like the average linux distribution where all the software is actually free in every sense of the word. You can even go out and download even more truely free software as much as you want. And how much is this costing you... Oh, about $50 if you don't download it yourself.
Now granted, you still have to pay to support the system on top of that, but let's be honest, you end up paying the same thing with MS's software if not more (and I bet it is much more). So it still ends up being a better deal.
The Internet Connector licensing fee is only effective with user's connecting to the system through the Internet interface. It still doesn't apply to internal users using file services, etc.
Essentially, they are just charging $2000 for their webserver when you get down to it.
Let us assume for the moment that Real Networks had decided to ignore the pleas from the Internet community to fix this privacy bug. What could the Internet community do? Boycott Real Networks? If that were to happen, people who needed to use streaming media for their livelihoods, etc, would be screwed. The only choice they'd have is going with Microsoft which has not demonstrated any better tendancies to protect the privacy of users.
Think about that for a moment. There are only two vendors who are really competing in this marketplace and they have incompatible products. So, if they decide to do something that is bad for people on the Internet there isn't a whole lot that can be done about it.
This is why open standards are good (what can I say, I love preaching to the choir:). If we have open standards, then neither one of these companies can maintain monopolistic control of the technology. If Real Networks doesn't do it right, we go somewhere else that does meet our needs.
So, any volunteers to make a streaming media distribution protocol standard???
What the heck is the point of the six month notice clause. There's no international body that exists to enforce treaties and punish people for breaking them, so what exactly is the point of an out clause. If you want out, just ignore the treaty:)
It is true that viruses mutate frequently, but mutation requires energy. Energy that can only be acquired from a susceptible host species. If the virus does not have any energy input, then it will not live long enough to mutate enough to be able to infect a native species.
As for the genetic similarity issue you raised, I think the notion that the systems by which life was established on earth are unique is hogwash. That is to say I agree with you, in non-devil's advocate mode, completely:). But to argue the point (i.e. to preach to the choir:), I think we can see from the vast diversity of species and methods of development on this planet, that the traditional formula for making life is not consistent or uncommon.
My favorite example of this is that of the bizarre species that live in deep oceans. They live off of boiling hot water and sulfur, which are two things that would kill almost any other species on the planet. At this point, the only thing that can be consistently said to be necessary for life as we know it is good old Water, and hydrocarbons. Now, it may very well be that these are not fundamental requirements, but it's all we can go off for now. Even if those are fundamental requirements, water and carbon are all over the universe (take a glance at a passing comet for example:).
So, life is out there. The only question in my mind is whether that life is capable of communicating with us and whether it would even want to if it could:).
This is just my opinon completely unbacked by any sort of scientific study. However I believe it to be reasonably rational and logical so here goes...
The reason that the viruses the conquistadors brought with them were a problem was because ultimately the natives and the spanish were biologically very similar. The genetic differences between ethnicities are very minor and viruses don't require much if any adaptation to jump from one to the other.
An alien virus would be adapted to effect the biology of alien species. The likelyhood that an alien species would be genetically similar to humans is INCREDIBLY slim. Thus the virus would get here, find no suitable host, and either die or go into some sort of hibernation state.
All I did was look up federal register on yahoo and it pointed me to the governments official search engine for the register. Just took a couple minutes...
Slashdot Mirror
The other thing is that under Linux, Microsoft would be just another developer. They wouldn't have the ability to control the underlying API's which is the heart of Microsoft's monopoly power.
If Microsoft did something wierd to Linux to try to usurp control, they would have to release that information because of the GPL. If the changes they made were good, everybody would accept them and they'd show up in other distros. If the changes were bad, everybody else would ignore them.
The only possible evil thing they could do is force other distros to incorporate MS's changes to the Kernel in order to be compatible with Office and IE. The end result of this though is that MS just pisses everybody off, but they can continue to follow the changes that MS makes so they never get their monopoly power.
Now if Linux was released under Artistic License or BSD, they could just take the Linux code, close it up hack it to hell and back and sell it as their own proprietary version with their own API's. Fortunately they cannot do that!
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The only potential issue I can see with this is the possibility that the limited size of the cookies may make decent grade encryption too big. I'm not certain though.
Personally I like the use of cookies as a session token for server-side session management. The only thing stored on the client is a one-use session ID which expires. Thus, even if somebody could get your cookie file, they'd have to take the session ID and use it within say 15 minutes, otherwise it would be totally useless. To further prevent fraud, you can link the session ID with the IP address, which eliminates all but the most complex hijackings that I can think of.
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If you read MSNBC's articles on the subject, they mentioned a protestor who was arrested by the police. The protestor, upon being interviewed, admitted to the fact that he did not have a particular agenda against the WTO. Ah, the committed ideals of the civilly disobdeient masses are amazing aren't they?
A friend of mine particpated in a Martin Luther King rally that ocurred in Denver a few years back. The KKK, being the fun loving happy go lucky kind of white supremacists they are, thought it would be a lovely idea to stage a rally of their own at the state capital. She was with a large group of people who were very into civil rights, and wanted to show their respect for MLK with a peaceful march through downtown. At the capital, they discovered that another group, completely unrelated to theirs had shown up with only one intention, beating the ever loving crap out of the KKK. Now, if there is any organization that deserves such a reception it is the KKK, but the end result was a riot that far overshadowed anything good that happened that day.
So, for those in the audience who just enjoy stirring things up and being violent, would you take up knitting or something rather than screwing up the political message of the few people in this country who are willing to go out of their way to make a political point.
*As sterno steps down from his soap box the crowd goes wild*
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Senators, representatives and members of parliment are afraid that in 10 or 20 years, terrorism and criminal organizations will be communicating freely over the Internet and will remain beyond prosecution. To combat this they pass legislation (the only way they know how to deal with problems), but in order to get the bad guys(TM), they must stomp on the rights of regular citizens. They don't see another way to deal with it, and trampling the rights of common citizens seems a small price to pay for safety.
As with all reactionary movements throughout time, this will go too far. Some legislation will get passed, some person's rights will be trampled a little too far, and then the protests and media blitz will follow that will end this reactionary era. The government will get over its hangups about encryption and realize that in the long run there is nothing it can do about it and it does not inhibit there standing ability to enforce law and order.
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Good work mozilla team! Keep it up and you may run the world yet!
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Ralph Nader maybe?
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TrustE's dependeancy on amiable relationships and paychecks from the companies they are supposed to monitor makes it impossible for them to do what they are supposed to be doing, protecting consumer privacy rights. It's akin to calling up the police because some Mafia guy is beating on you, and it turns out the police won't show up because they are on the take!
To have an effective watchdog of on-line privacy, it must be a non-profit organization or a government agency. I much prefer the forme to the latter of these. Perhaps the EFF, EPIC, or the ACLU, could start up a program of certification like TrustE. Certification of a site or application would be rigorous and free. I'd be happy to write any of these organizations a check if they did this!
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Micro Channel????
:)
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I would suggest that a login/password scheme is sufficient so long as you make a stringent effort to keep people from doing stupid things with their password. Run their passwords through a quick idiot check, and make a very big point of telling them that they shouldn't write it down, etc, etc. Make it clear that their privacy is at stake if they do not take proper security precautions by picking out a good password and keeping it to themselves.
Other scemes for authentication tend to be very complex to implement over a web interface. What would be really ideal is some sort of PAM like interface for browsers. So, you could write a plug-in that somebody could download that would permit the interface of a biometric device or similar. But to the best of my knowledge that doesn't exist.
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Another possibility is that this fund could be used to pay the royalties in bulk for all GPL software. So, for example, somebody from GNU goes over to Unisys and offers to pay them a lump sum to permit royalty free use of the patent for all software released under the GPL.
This would have two effects:
1) It would provide a way for people developing free software from having to pay royalties on something that they might not make money off of in the first place.
2) It would encourage more people to use the GPL because they could write their software without having to pay various royalties that they might otherwise be committed to.
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You bring in a few patent attorneys and having a standing arrangement that they give a price tag for the battle and when they get that much money in the coffers, they can go out and start taking down the patent. If not enough money is collected after a given period of time, then the money would not be charged to the credit card and the patent would go on its merry way.
Thoughts?
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Now, the problem with building in backdoors into the fundamental security of the Internet or any system is that it provides the possibility for abuse by both authorities and third party criminals (as opposed to the criminals who are the authorities). If somebody can get access to that back door they can create endless havoc.
The other problem is that with this back door so readily available, authorities will be very tempted to use the door without warrants. If they think you are a bad guy they can sniff your traffic get enough evidence then go get the warrant to get the rest of your traffic. And don't think they won't do it. There are countless cases of cops using wiretaps illegaly to get information and go after people who otherwise would not be prosecutable. In all likelyhood they would surrpeticiously just sniff all traffic for naughty bits, and nobody would be the wiser because it is all the kind of stuff locked up in the dark recesses of the FBI and NSA headquarters.
Nah I'm not paranoid...
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Frankly I don't think Microsoft has a chance in hell of getting out of this unscathed. To get the finding's of fact overturned would be impossible unless they could somehow proove the judge to be incompetent, which he is not. The findings of fact, even without a ruling in this case are very important when dealing with other cases such as Sun or Corel's lawsuit.
Because Microsoft is now officially a monopoly, they are in serious trouble. Monopolies are completely legal, but if you are one you have to be very careful about how you use your power. Things that an ordinary company can get away with, you cannot get away with if you are a monopoly. Microsoft has built up a very nasty hurdle for themselves and I believe that they will fall.
As for punishment, legal precedent indicates that breaking up a company is the most viable option. Regulation of a company would have to be very well crafted, would be subject to all sorts of potential legal boobytraps, and would generally make far more of a mess than there already is. I expect to see Microsoft divided into several small companies with strong restrictions about what boundaries they are allowed to operate within.
A possible breakup situation:
-Microsoft Consumer OS
-Microsoft Server Technologies (SQL Server, NT/2000, IIS, etc)
-Microsoft Palmtop OS
-Microsoft Data Products (SQL Server)
-Microsoft Business Software (Office, etc)
-Microsoft Consumer Software (a long list...)
-Microsoft Web Technologies (Media Player, IE, etc)
-Microsoft Media (the MS in MSNBC)
-Microsoft Network (although this might be part of the media group considering the ongoing mergers of cable, phone, internet, etc)
-WebTV
If that happens it will be very interesting to see what happens. The consumer version of windows without the lock-in of Internet Explorer has the potential to be rendered irrelevant by the growth of the Internet. Internet Explorer, having to survive on its own without the rest of a big corporation to subsidize it will have to charge money and will lose market share to the open source Mozilla project which should be in good shape by the time the ruling comes down.
The server software will be forced to stand on its own two feet without the windows desktop hooks and Internet Explorer hooks. It will have the advantage of being nicely integrated within itself, but the whole proprietary technology garbage will have to go away to compete against other people's products.
Office will continue to survive because, honestly, it is actually good (if somewhat bloated and security hole ridden) software. It won't have the commitment to Windows anymore, so expect to see releases for Linux, BeOS, and any O/S that can get enough people together to buy it. With any luck, competition from other sources will drive the price down a bit too.
In the end, hopefully Microsoft will finally get a necessity to innovate to go with their freedom to innovate. Expect them to play by the same rules they do now, they'll just have to play seperately.
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Personally, my income is hurt by closed source old world ways of distributing software and media. I work in computers doing custom development of software for corporations. The software I right is really only useful in a specific context for a company so piracy doesn't effect the work I do. However, having to pay for operating systems, database software and development tools does effect my bottom line in a big way.
I will admit to the fact that deciding as a society that intellectual property isn't something you can own will hurt a lot of companies who have built their empires on that assumption. But in the long run I believe we will be better off for it. In addition I think their are better ways for these companies to make money.
Rather than producing a CD and depending on the distribution of the music to make money, why not make money off concerts instead. Give away the music to hook people and then do major concert tours. Sell experiences that cannot be duplicated and pressed and mass distributed. Sell things that are unique once of a lifetime events.
I can get a DVD of a movie, but yet I still go and see it in the theatres. Why do I do this? Because it is a unique experience that I cannot reproduce in my home. Their is value in that experience. I have a nice home theater system, but it is never the same, so I shell out my money and see it on the big screen with big sound and a large crowd of people to share the experience with.
Really the whole intellectual property thing is, I think, a sign of inefficiency in the mechanisms of distribution more than it is a legitimate form of business. Books, CD's, Videotapes, DVD's, all have a certain cost in duplication and distribution which must be recovered. With the rise of the digital, and the ability to make infinite perfect copies it seems wholely ridiculous to charge me money for it.
Do I believe that copying a DVD is illegal, yes. Do I believe that it is immoral, no. I believe that to charge more than the cost of distribution for the DVD is immoral.
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When you buy NT/2000 server you get all sorts of built in "free" software. You get a webserver, DHCP server, transaction server, and all sorts of other wonderful "free" things. Of course, realistically, Microsoft has spent thousands of programmer hours developing these proprietary products and making them all work together nicely.
At some point, all of those hours have to be made up somewhere, and the cost of the O/S and client licenses is it.
This new Internet connector license is really a funny way of saying that IIS costs $2000. I mean, if you are any sort of real business, you will be using some sort of authentication and have to shell out the money for the connector license. They just phrase it differently so they can still say that IIS comes free with their software.
Personally I like the average linux distribution where all the software is actually free in every sense of the word. You can even go out and download even more truely free software as much as you want. And how much is this costing you... Oh, about $50 if you don't download it yourself.
Now granted, you still have to pay to support the system on top of that, but let's be honest, you end up paying the same thing with MS's software if not more (and I bet it is much more). So it still ends up being a better deal.
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Essentially, they are just charging $2000 for their webserver when you get down to it.
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Think about that for a moment. There are only two vendors who are really competing in this marketplace and they have incompatible products. So, if they decide to do something that is bad for people on the Internet there isn't a whole lot that can be done about it.
This is why open standards are good (what can I say, I love preaching to the choir
So, any volunteers to make a streaming media distribution protocol standard???
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As for the genetic similarity issue you raised, I think the notion that the systems by which life was established on earth are unique is hogwash. That is to say I agree with you, in non-devil's advocate mode, completely
My favorite example of this is that of the bizarre species that live in deep oceans. They live off of boiling hot water and sulfur, which are two things that would kill almost any other species on the planet. At this point, the only thing that can be consistently said to be necessary for life as we know it is good old Water, and hydrocarbons. Now, it may very well be that these are not fundamental requirements, but it's all we can go off for now. Even if those are fundamental requirements, water and carbon are all over the universe (take a glance at a passing comet for example
So, life is out there. The only question in my mind is whether that life is capable of communicating with us and whether it would even want to if it could
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The reason that the viruses the conquistadors brought with them were a problem was because ultimately the natives and the spanish were biologically very similar. The genetic differences between ethnicities are very minor and viruses don't require much if any adaptation to jump from one to the other.
An alien virus would be adapted to effect the biology of alien species. The likelyhood that an alien species would be genetically similar to humans is INCREDIBLY slim. Thus the virus would get here, find no suitable host, and either die or go into some sort of hibernation state.
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