You are right, of course, but there are a couple of key differences:
The KDE guys have not littered the field with their enemies who have been ruthlessly destroyed or muscled aside for the sake of commercial gain. Also, KDE sells to everyone for the same price (free) rather than having "most-favored" pricing for sycophants and "screw-you" pricing for those that have "transgressed" against them. Finally, KDE does not completely dominate anything in particular, and exist within a movement where doing so is not a favorable objective.
John Taschek's comments are pretty brutal given the wide exposure ZDNet gets, but not unexpected from a journalist whose job forces him to be a generalist. Taschek probably would have little idea of where to go to get open source software to address a given need. Moreover, it would not be his first choice anyway.
What this speaks to is not the availability of "the goods", but how well the average person perceives them to be available (and anyone who writes an article such as Tashek's can be lumped into the average, at least where open source is concerned). This is not to attack Tashek (although personally I wish someone would), but to suggest that if open source wants to attract his kind of casual user, the inherent "promotion" from the community should be different.
How desirable that is I will leave up to this capable community of users, developers, and admins. I just wish that Tashek in his rush to get in a (weak-ass) submission would think about the damage he is doing. If his article was factual, we could take his words as a peer issuing a healthy challenge, but instead they just do damage by distorting facts.
That is an interesting thought, and if I may borrow from your thinking, how about it? As a community, open-sourcers should consider creating a donation-driven legal defense fund. It would work like any other organization of its type: - against organizations friendly to open-source, it would not be needed or employed; - against organizations not friendly to open-source, it would be litigious and ruthless.
As much as some find it questionable, this seems like a great tool to bring more companies under the umbrella of open-source (through settlement?), and reward those who already are. Just a thought on how to survive in the hardball world of lawyers and software.
Well, there are actually a few distinctions, so I will pass on the hypocrite label that you are waving around threateningly.
An offender who is still in jail has lost their rights (in a de facto sense), and should not be able to make money from their crimes. Furthermore, an injunction should be put into place if there are human victims to effect their ability to do so when released.
I do not think that Mitnick should be able to indict his victims by name now either (EVIL corporations though they be), but to lecture on the generalities of security seems a valid use for this once misguided person. Hell, there are much worse criminals out there making money right now, and maybe they have no incentive to try to benefit any group but themselves. Why not leave available a rehabilitation carrot to go with the stick?
I usually do not answer Anonymous Cowards, but what the hell...
Where in the Bill of Rights (Mr. Expert) does it say his 1st Amendment Right is revoked for a conviction? Sounds like you are spouting shinola all of the sudden, huh?
Further, the risk of him going to Syria (figuratively; probably to the highest non-domestic bidder) is a real one, so interesting you should bring it up. Can you imagine alienating a miscreant with this level of proven ability for mayhem?
Yes, Kevin Mitnick is a convicted criminal. But not letting him lecture on how to stop his own ilk accomplishes less than nothing. Companies and organizations cannot benefit from his knowledge, an opportunity lost.
Moreover, there are people in similar situations who present a good reason to let him lecture. Remember Michael Milken, junk bond king? Now lectures with a positive message, and has for a few years. One can objectively say he has contributed to society. I do not think I like this idea of once a criminal, always a criminal. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy in my view.
Wow, I was reading the related articles on CNN and noticed that Mitnick had made an informational appearance before Congress as recently as March 2000. Now, the government is curtailing his ability to do the same for others (who are admittedly paying him).
Imagine the kiss they owe him after a screwing like that!
Mitnick really needs to get out of this country to a place where there is free speech. From there, he could launch his lecture circuit and be a practitioner of a field that he knows better than most, making some coin in the process.
The problem? Because of his parole/probation status, my guess is he cannot leave the country. And since there is no longer freedom of speech for him here...
Sorry, there is a patent and copy protection on hot pokers with a Fair Use clause prohibiting your use of them on any optical organ. The patent is pending on the use of fire as a heating element in poker applications.
I am with you on the EFF-lawyer thing unless they are getting some help from the ACLU, of from 1st Amendment guys trying to make a name for themselves. In the growing frontier of electronic info, it seems like good publicity could elevate a lawyer into the F. Lee Bailey strata.
In a move seen as a major concession to the legal forces arrayed against him, Bill Gates has agreed to release the industry's balls today. He has had a two-handed grip for a period many believe to be in excess of five years.
"The people out there who appreciate innovation have long understood Microsoft's commitment to a white-knuckled vise-like grip on the industry's testes," said Gates in a prepared statement. "And with your best interests in mind, we have held them so tightly as to have a permanent imprint on the palm of the company's iron fist. But now, due to legal considerations pending appeal, we will relinquish our hold on the industry's balls until such time as the powers-that-be realize how dedicated we are to the onward march of technology and the power of positive thought."
As a ceremonial gesture, Gates mocked a release of his own package as he walked away from the podium. - Assassinated Press, 2000, All Rights Undeserved
So, Microsoft to be split into two companies: (A) Products that work; (B) Products that do not work.
I suppose I can accept that bands that are losing money to MP3 trading are going to fight, and since much of the music is pirated they will probably win. I am sure they do lose a portion of their potential income to such piracy (yeah, you can argue, but you are wrong:).
The thing that really irks me is that it is Metallica leading the charge, one of the biggest money-makers of the last 5 years. This just gives me the mental image of these spoiled spandex millionaires checking payphones and vending machines for abandoned nickles, lifting the couch cushions, or combing the beach with metal-detectors. I could understand it more if it were marginal bands whose income stream is not that great otherwise.
There is a not-so-old expression, "It's the data, stupid." That would be the only reason you would want such "insurance". The government is having their precious data stolen, and in terms of capital value, it would still be a problem if it were written on $.02 index cards.
The only thing I would worry about in marketing an MP3 audio player is the infancy of the business. When the format of the data is the industry, any of three factors can rule you obsolete:
(1) legal issues; (2) new format adoption; (3) better technology.
You certainly do not want to find yourself in the position of marketing the world's greatest voice-activated mobile BetaMax. Awesome product though for the here and now.
-L
Standards, the double-edged sword
on
Get QNX For Free
·
· Score: 1
Good points. HTML and TCP/IP are examples of academic exercises evolving to the point of being mature standards. It runs contrary to the current model where the de facto standard emerges due to market forces.
It seems an open standard relies on one of three things: (1) an organization that is dedicated to open standards reacting to an existing commercial standard; (2) above organization founds the original standard; (3) plain dumb luck involving an academic exercise emerging into a mature standard.
Since these open source entities and individuals lack marketing departments, they seldom know how to spin a project into becoming a standard. This leaves us with reacting to existing standards (e.g. GIF), or plain dumb luck. Sounds like GPL advocates need marketing deparments;-)
The costs are very high when the standards are held by purely commercial entities like the Redmond Raiders.
-L
Re:Hubris and the Russian Sub Incident
on
UNIX.com On eBay?
·
· Score: 1
Why would I apologize for reading the article correctly the first time, oh Anonymous Coward?
Read my post: "I bet the current owners will be unhappy with whatever result they get."
An intelligent reader realizes that this is written in future tense, and 5/11 falls into that category when referenced from today.
As to the apology, I was not insulting anyone on/. (at least not by intent), but I think I will apologize to you after all. I am just not sure whether to apologize for you being an imbecile (learn to read) or you having no balls (Anonymous Coward).
I actually agree with you, but was more striving for some introspection by people who commit stupid studies based on unsure correlations. Good point though.
-L
Hubris and the Russian Sub Incident
on
UNIX.com On eBay?
·
· Score: 1
It is not of such great importance what you or I think it is worth. The people who matter are the people selling it. If I understand Ebay correctly, you can set the initial value and/or reserve price. I would love to know what is the reserve price they are setting for it. If it had not been/.ed, it probably would have never met their (arrogant?) reserve.
Now that it has been/.ed, it will probably be hard to tell what it finally goes for. Remember the company selling the Russian subs? They were so swamped with phony bids after the publicity they got, that it was hard to nail down a serious bidder. I bet the current owners will be unhappy with whatever result they get.
The answer to this quandary lies not in technology, but in economics. The production of new technologies is a piece of the equation, but until those technologies become tenable within the market, nobody but the research institutions and the government will possess them.
Thus, a new technology has to be researched and produced, and later mass-produced as the costs per unit begin to drop. A combination of lowering costs and high consumer demand make these things household realities.
Okay, so two hours of HGTV for every hour of frags. I really like how we know everything about how the brain works, and that everyone's neural networks work identically, or even average out to working similarly.
So now, instead of being left-brained or right-brained, you are either "gun-brained" or "plowshare-brained". I come away from this discussion feeling that someone should be just plain brained! Uh-oh, those damned video games talking through my fingers again!
Does being in the military lead to more violent behavior?
I suspect that this has to be more causative of violence than video games. Consider that video games are a virtual experience, often involving the destruction of enemies that are understood to be unreal. The military teaches the destruction of real people and objects, and makes the ways and means of doing so mundane.
If my hypothesis is correct (feel free to flame if you know better), then why do we consider veterans good people to hire, know, and work among?
The reason is because nobody has pronounced the military to be loner/geek/outcast behavior, so it cannot be duly attacked with presumptive logic and judgmental studies. Food for thought.
Not having the paper manual leads to a loss expression which cannot be replaced with online files.
Have you ever tried to hurl a PDF file across the room in frustration? Can you make HTML cool off in the office trash can for a few hours? Can you wave BMP screenshots at your colleagues while shouting "Eureka!"?
Paper docs are here to stay if for no other reason than their tactile and expressive value.
I propose a new backdoor in the Apache code. It would work something like this:
When the user types "Bill Gates is a fungus covering the streets of the cyber village" to a logged site, the server immediately spawns new processes which scour the Web looking for vulnerable IIS servers.
Upon finding these sites, it does nothing. Why would you need to do anything to a machine that runs (Af)front Page Extensions?! It already suffers from enough code-bloat to make any amount of bandwidth nearly useless.
Overclocking is more a form of optimization than a form of rebellion. Is everyone who exceeds the speed limit, in spite of safety and legal considerations, a member of a counterculture. Not, they are just normal people who are in a rush or hate to drive slow.
Also worth noting, much as real counterculture members are discarded by society as ingrates and kooks, the incredible inertia of technological advancement renders any gains from overclocking as irrelevant, or at best an electrical curiousity practiced by the cyber equivalent of base-jumpers.
It will be easy to keep it underground. All you need to do are the following:
(1) suppress all info about Linux company IPOs (2) eliminate a growing amount of shelf-space footage in computer and book retail stores (3) eliminate thousands of slick Linux Web sites which evangelize the technology (4) get rid of free-porting companies (e.g. Netscape) (5) get rid of independent open-source zealots (6) break up GNU (7) stop the interminable series of Linux books from being published (8) and so on...
Commercialization happens to everything that has value, so you should get used to it. You can say what you want about Slashdot being watered down, but if people do not continue to preach the virtues of open-source and community, that commercialization will destroy it rather than just proliferating it. We could argue about what the final result of either path is, but I think we would agree upon careful analysis that it is made better by this forum rather than worse.
Now let me go back to being noise, and let's see how much signal I can overlap.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right, of course, but there are a couple of key differences:
The KDE guys have not littered the field with their enemies who have been ruthlessly destroyed or muscled aside for the sake of commercial gain. Also, KDE sells to everyone for the same price (free) rather than having "most-favored" pricing for sycophants and "screw-you" pricing for those that have "transgressed" against them. Finally, KDE does not completely dominate anything in particular, and exist within a movement where doing so is not a favorable objective.
-L
John Taschek's comments are pretty brutal given the wide exposure ZDNet gets, but not unexpected from a journalist whose job forces him to be a generalist. Taschek probably would have little idea of where to go to get open source software to address a given need. Moreover, it would not be his first choice anyway.
What this speaks to is not the availability of "the goods", but how well the average person perceives them to be available (and anyone who writes an article such as Tashek's can be lumped into the average, at least where open source is concerned). This is not to attack Tashek (although personally I wish someone would), but to suggest that if open source wants to attract his kind of casual user, the inherent "promotion" from the community should be different.
How desirable that is I will leave up to this capable community of users, developers, and admins. I just wish that Tashek in his rush to get in a (weak-ass) submission would think about the damage he is doing. If his article was factual, we could take his words as a peer issuing a healthy challenge, but instead they just do damage by distorting facts.
-L
>I'll donate money to the legal offense fund.
That is an interesting thought, and if I may borrow from your thinking, how about it? As a community, open-sourcers should consider creating a donation-driven legal defense fund. It would work like any other organization of its type:
- against organizations friendly to open-source, it would not be needed or employed;
- against organizations not friendly to open-source, it would be litigious and ruthless.
As much as some find it questionable, this seems like a great tool to bring more companies under the umbrella of open-source (through settlement?), and reward those who already are. Just a thought on how to survive in the hardball world of lawyers and software.
-L
Well, there are actually a few distinctions, so I will pass on the hypocrite label that you are waving around threateningly.
An offender who is still in jail has lost their rights (in a de facto sense), and should not be able to make money from their crimes. Furthermore, an injunction should be put into place if there are human victims to effect their ability to do so when released.
I do not think that Mitnick should be able to indict his victims by name now either (EVIL corporations though they be), but to lecture on the generalities of security seems a valid use for this once misguided person. Hell, there are much worse criminals out there making money right now, and maybe they have no incentive to try to benefit any group but themselves. Why not leave available a rehabilitation carrot to go with the stick?
-L
I usually do not answer Anonymous Cowards, but what the hell...
Where in the Bill of Rights (Mr. Expert) does it say his 1st Amendment Right is revoked for a conviction? Sounds like you are spouting shinola all of the sudden, huh?
Further, the risk of him going to Syria (figuratively; probably to the highest non-domestic bidder) is a real one, so interesting you should bring it up. Can you imagine alienating a miscreant with this level of proven ability for mayhem?
BTW, grow some balls, Anonymous Coward.
-L
Yes, Kevin Mitnick is a convicted criminal. But not letting him lecture on how to stop his own ilk accomplishes less than nothing. Companies and organizations cannot benefit from his knowledge, an opportunity lost.
Moreover, there are people in similar situations who present a good reason to let him lecture. Remember Michael Milken, junk bond king? Now lectures with a positive message, and has for a few years. One can objectively say he has contributed to society. I do not think I like this idea of once a criminal, always a criminal. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy in my view.
-L
Wow, I was reading the related articles on CNN and noticed that Mitnick had made an informational appearance before Congress as recently as March 2000. Now, the government is curtailing his ability to do the same for others (who are admittedly paying him).
Imagine the kiss they owe him after a screwing like that!
-L
Mitnick really needs to get out of this country to a place where there is free speech. From there, he could launch his lecture circuit and be a practitioner of a field that he knows better than most, making some coin in the process.
The problem? Because of his parole/probation status, my guess is he cannot leave the country. And since there is no longer freedom of speech for him here...
-L
Sorry, there is a patent and copy protection on hot pokers with a Fair Use clause prohibiting your use of them on any optical organ. The patent is pending on the use of fire as a heating element in poker applications.
I am with you on the EFF-lawyer thing unless they are getting some help from the ACLU, of from 1st Amendment guys trying to make a name for themselves. In the growing frontier of electronic info, it seems like good publicity could elevate a lawyer into the F. Lee Bailey strata.
-L
In a move seen as a major concession to the legal forces arrayed against him, Bill Gates has agreed to release the industry's balls today. He has had a two-handed grip for a period many believe to be in excess of five years.
"The people out there who appreciate innovation have long understood Microsoft's commitment to a white-knuckled vise-like grip on the industry's testes," said Gates in a prepared statement. "And with your best interests in mind, we have held them so tightly as to have a permanent imprint on the palm of the company's iron fist. But now, due to legal considerations pending appeal, we will relinquish our hold on the industry's balls until such time as the powers-that-be realize how dedicated we are to the onward march of technology and the power of positive thought."
As a ceremonial gesture, Gates mocked a release of his own package as he walked away from the podium. - Assassinated Press, 2000, All Rights Undeserved
So, Microsoft to be split into two companies:
(A) Products that work; (B) Products that do not work.
That still leaves a monopoly by my tally.
-L
I suppose I can accept that bands that are losing money to MP3 trading are going to fight, and since much of the music is pirated they will probably win. I am sure they do lose a portion of their potential income to such piracy (yeah, you can argue, but you are wrong :).
The thing that really irks me is that it is Metallica leading the charge, one of the biggest money-makers of the last 5 years. This just gives me the mental image of these spoiled spandex millionaires checking payphones and vending machines for abandoned nickles, lifting the couch cushions, or combing the beach with metal-detectors. I could understand it more if it were marginal bands whose income stream is not that great otherwise.
-L
There is a not-so-old expression, "It's the data, stupid." That would be the only reason you would want such "insurance". The government is having their precious data stolen, and in terms of capital value, it would still be a problem if it were written on $.02 index cards.
-L
The only thing I would worry about in marketing an MP3 audio player is the infancy of the business. When the format of the data is the industry, any of three factors can rule you obsolete:
(1) legal issues;
(2) new format adoption;
(3) better technology.
You certainly do not want to find yourself in the position of marketing the world's greatest voice-activated mobile BetaMax. Awesome product though for the here and now.
-L
Good points. HTML and TCP/IP are examples of academic exercises evolving to the point of being mature standards. It runs contrary to the current model where the de facto standard emerges due to market forces.
;-)
It seems an open standard relies on one of three things:
(1) an organization that is dedicated to open standards reacting to an existing commercial standard;
(2) above organization founds the original standard;
(3) plain dumb luck involving an academic exercise emerging into a mature standard.
Since these open source entities and individuals lack marketing departments, they seldom know how to spin a project into becoming a standard. This leaves us with reacting to existing standards (e.g. GIF), or plain dumb luck. Sounds like GPL advocates need marketing deparments
The costs are very high when the standards are held by purely commercial entities like the Redmond Raiders.
-L
Why would I apologize for reading the article correctly the first time, oh Anonymous Coward?
/. (at least not by intent), but I think I will apologize to you after all. I am just not sure whether to apologize for you being an imbecile (learn to read) or you having no balls (Anonymous Coward).
Read my post: "I bet the current owners will be unhappy with whatever result they get."
An intelligent reader realizes that this is written in future tense, and 5/11 falls into that category when referenced from today.
As to the apology, I was not insulting anyone on
-L
I actually agree with you, but was more striving for some introspection by people who commit stupid studies based on unsure correlations. Good point though.
-L
It is not of such great importance what you or I think it is worth. The people who matter are the people selling it. If I understand Ebay correctly, you can set the initial value and/or reserve price. I would love to know what is the reserve price they are setting for it. If it had not been /.ed, it probably would have never met their (arrogant?) reserve.
/.ed, it will probably be hard to tell what it finally goes for. Remember the company selling the Russian subs? They were so swamped with phony bids after the publicity they got, that it was hard to nail down a serious bidder. I bet the current owners will be unhappy with whatever result they get.
Now that it has been
-L
The answer to this quandary lies not in technology, but in economics. The production of new technologies is a piece of the equation, but until those technologies become tenable within the market, nobody but the research institutions and the government will possess them.
Thus, a new technology has to be researched and produced, and later mass-produced as the costs per unit begin to drop. A combination of lowering costs and high consumer demand make these things household realities.
-L
$man{"from"}=qw(Nantucket);
...
-L
Okay, so two hours of HGTV for every hour of frags. I really like how we know everything about how the brain works, and that everyone's neural networks work identically, or even average out to working similarly.
So now, instead of being left-brained or right-brained, you are either "gun-brained" or "plowshare-brained". I come away from this discussion feeling that someone should be just plain brained! Uh-oh, those damned video games talking through my fingers again!
-L
Okay, here's the next study to perform:
Does being in the military lead to more violent behavior?
I suspect that this has to be more causative of violence than video games. Consider that video games are a virtual experience, often involving the destruction of enemies that are understood to be unreal. The military teaches the destruction of real people and objects, and makes the ways and means of doing so mundane.
If my hypothesis is correct (feel free to flame if you know better), then why do we consider veterans good people to hire, know, and work among?
The reason is because nobody has pronounced the military to be loner/geek/outcast behavior, so it cannot be duly attacked with presumptive logic and judgmental studies. Food for thought.
-L
Not having the paper manual leads to a loss expression which cannot be replaced with online files.
Have you ever tried to hurl a PDF file across the room in frustration? Can you make HTML cool off in the office trash can for a few hours? Can you wave BMP screenshots at your colleagues while shouting "Eureka!"?
Paper docs are here to stay if for no other reason than their tactile and expressive value.
-L
I propose a new backdoor in the Apache code. It would work something like this:
When the user types "Bill Gates is a fungus covering the streets of the cyber village" to a logged site, the server immediately spawns new processes which scour the Web looking for vulnerable IIS servers.
Upon finding these sites, it does nothing. Why would you need to do anything to a machine that runs (Af)front Page Extensions?! It already suffers from enough code-bloat to make any amount of bandwidth nearly useless.
-L
Overclocking is more a form of optimization than a form of rebellion. Is everyone who exceeds the speed limit, in spite of safety and legal considerations, a member of a counterculture. Not, they are just normal people who are in a rush or hate to drive slow.
Also worth noting, much as real counterculture members are discarded by society as ingrates and kooks, the incredible inertia of technological advancement renders any gains from overclocking as irrelevant, or at best an electrical curiousity practiced by the cyber equivalent of base-jumpers.
-L
It will be easy to keep it underground. All you need to do are the following:
(1) suppress all info about Linux company IPOs
(2) eliminate a growing amount of shelf-space footage in computer and book retail stores
(3) eliminate thousands of slick Linux Web sites which evangelize the technology
(4) get rid of free-porting companies (e.g. Netscape)
(5) get rid of independent open-source zealots
(6) break up GNU
(7) stop the interminable series of Linux books from being published
(8) and so on...
Commercialization happens to everything that has value, so you should get used to it. You can say what you want about Slashdot being watered down, but if people do not continue to preach the virtues of open-source and community, that commercialization will destroy it rather than just proliferating it. We could argue about what the final result of either path is, but I think we would agree upon careful analysis that it is made better by this forum rather than worse.
Now let me go back to being noise, and let's see how much signal I can overlap.
-L