Maybe that's what sony means with the biotech stuff. No need to engineer hardware, just turn the kids into biological computers.;-)
I'm afraid thats exactly what they mean, They already have devices that will shock you when you get hit, and we know you can project images on the retina. Just strap a Geoforce to your ass and you're there.
As I see it, they [disney.com] want DRM built into the DVD-RW drives, not Windows, just so they [mpaa.org] can prevent software (like Linux) from getting around DRM the way DeCSS does.
Give this guy a gold star. He has pointed out what I think is the most evil part of this bill.
In never-neverland (which is where Hollings spends most of his time), this sort of DRM is just what the doctor ordered. You get a PPV movie, you watch it once, and you can never watch it again (unless you buy it again). Great - the content is protected.
But the unfortunately side effect is that this legislation gives wide sweeping powers to a single orginization. And unfortunately, that group stands to make lots of money by restricting the DRM to a small subset of manufacturers and charging handsomely for it.
Then, the bidding starts. Microsoft can easily afford to give millions of dollars a year for the right to control DRM for their software. Linux won't be able to keep suit, and even if they do, it will involve closed source software (because nobody wants to pay out the ass for the DRM information and then turn around and give it to free - not to mention the ineveidable NDAs and other bullshit).
So the end result is that, in the name of protection, I will not be allowed to view my own media on my own computer with my choice of operating system.
Call your congressman/woman and tell him/her to vote no. Tell them that you support DRM but that you don't support wide sweeping laws that remove your rights in the process. Choose choice!
Otherwise with a credit/debit card or check, its easy to associate your real name with your card.
For differing values of easy. I question the value of the time and expense of matching the names with the cards, especially since the cards are transferable (and sometimes the checkers will use their own if you forget yours).
Certainly, they can easily grab your name from electronic payment methods, and they probably use those to spam you or find you when you skip out on the bill, but I doubt that they can easily track you with that method (they meaning your average supermarket). Otherwise, why would they even institute the savings card in the first place?
This site has exceeded its limit of 3 Gigabytes of transfer for the month. You may buy extra Gigabytes of transfer by logging in to the user menu and choosing "upgrade".
Thank you, 0catch.com
Re:Hollywood's blessing necessary for broadband?
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 2
But are the people out on the street rushing to buy this?
No, they're not. Interactive, HDTV & Digital TV has been a failure, with only a few technogeeks buying a comptabile set. The majority of people are perfectly happy with what they have right now, and are not interested in what is trying to get forced down their throat.
But what if the provider does it, and says, oh, by the way, heres our broadband video system, and here's a box for rent at 5 bucks a month. The oppertunity here exists in selling millions of boxes to a given provider, not try to sell thousands of boxes at Circuit City.
For an example, one only has to look at digital cable. I doubt that people would have turned out in droves to buy cable boxes and get the service, but hey, the service magicaly appeared, it seemd to have better features, and they gave you the box. Thats when something goes from minor geek toy to major distribution.
Re:Hollywood's blessing necessary for broadband?
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 2
Right now, everybody and their uncle is racing to be the first to have a broadband television network. The network would typically deliver internet connectivity, free channels, pay channels (HBO) and pay-per-view (hopefully Video on Demand). This area definately has a possibility for the Next Big Thing (C, TM).
But Hollywood won't make that content available unless it is confident it won't be pirated.
This is true. And every Set Top Box (STB) maker is racing to develop content protection for their system in order to ensure that their clients can get the very best content. This isn't anything new - access control has been in vouge for 20 years now (don't you remember watching Cinimax as a teenager looking for a unscrambled tit?). This copy protection will be very specific to the system you are using, and the content you are viewing, and it will not take away your fair use rights.
What we don't want is to be forced to include copy protection regardless of device or content type. That takes the job of proving content security away from Hollywood and puts it on the Justice Department. That way, they can force cheap and ineffective copy protetion, and then rely on the feds to prosecute when it gets broken.
Thats what Hollings really wants to do, but he thought he would play the "content security" card.
Thats why I'm so scared, because we know that copy protection *is* nessesary for Hollywood to release their content, and at first glance, government mandated laws seem to fit the bill. Its only after studying the situation, that you realize that this bill was a spawn of Satan himself. Thats why contacting your reps in Congress is so important. We need to force everybody to analyze this and not take Jack Valente's word for it.
Here's a better solution: Every time one of your faves goes to this copy protection shit send them a letter that says fuck your value-diminished, encumbered content and find a new fave that doesn't truck with it.
The problem is, if the law passes *EVERYONE* will have to use the copy protection to keep legal. All the way from U2 down to your neighbors garage band. Its doubtful that anyone will get away with a major distribution of unprotected music without the feds getting involved.
Just write the letter.
Re:You can prevent this...
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Ok, I'll bite.
Tell me a few things:
1. How many terms had the Rep served?
2. What positions did he hold on the various committees he served on?
3. What were his political aspirations? What he content serving the people, or did he want to jump to the party leadership and beyond?
Sadly, though there are some senators and representitives that are more interested in serving the people than themselves (a special shout out to Rep Jim Matheson, District 2, Utah!), few if any of the people in power (or the people who *want* to be in power) can be as enlightened as your boss.
For every dollar donated to an individual, 3 dollars are donated to the party. Over time, this becomes a large amount of money for the political party and the people in charge. Nobody wants to run the risk that a particular person may choose to vote with some intellegence, and happens to alienate a major contributor. Doing that would mean trouble for the party, and a one way trip to obscurity for the unlucky voter.
I think that if we ever discovered the amazing power that political parties hold over the legislative and executive process it would scare the hell out of us. Its best just to not think about it.
Re:I gotta agree with Blizzard...
on
EFF Takes Bnetd Case
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
Be flamed!
See, thats just wrong.
Its really nice to rail against the machine, and attack a huge mammouth like Vivendi, but the story is old, and tired.
Listen, they wrote the game. It cost them money, and brainpower to develop the game, and when it was finalized, they chose to provide it to the world. And they provided it for a price, because after all, they had to pay for the programmers, and administration, and deployment and on-going maintaince.
So you can see where they would be a little peeved if somebody came along and developed a free server that would let everyone get around paying them a little money to use their own server.
Now, I don't agree with their decisions, I have always thought that if you give the servers away for free, more people will buy the clients (witness Quake II/III and HalfLife), but hey, they have the right to decide what to do with their property. If you don't like it, then don't buy the game. Its a simple as that.
It would be really nice if we lived in a utopian society, where everyone gave freely of themselves, and nobody needed anything. Unfortunately, the last time I looked, my phone bill needed paying, and so instead of living in your utopian world (aka, your parent's house), I've got to go back to work for the evil corporations and try to wrench a few bucks out of their hands.
I think it pissed me off more that no one booed him off stage.
He could have defiled a young maiden on stage, and nobody would have booed him off. Sadly, the President/CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has way too many of the people in the audience that night by the short and curlies.
This is a perfect example of why ethical issues like freedom of speech, fair use, and the right to carry a gun are not as cut and dried as we would like them to be.
It all boils down to this: While 99% of any given set of a population may be honest, ethical or safe, there is always that 1% that will take advantage of that very fact. In this case, Gilmore wants the freedom to do what he wishes with his mail server, and though most people respect that, a malious few have used that trust to damage others.
You can extend this to any argument: While most of us respect fair-use laws, there are those that take advantage of those laws and pirate music and movies. While most people with concealed gun permits have honorable intentions, there is always a small contingent that does not.
I always say, you have the right to [ speak freely, copy music, carry a gun ] until it infringes on my rights. The problem is, determining who's rights are being infringed on.
This episode is a great reminder that the issue is much more complicated that most people are willing to admit.
It could very well destroy the common person's ability to create their own content. Want to create a home movie? You'll have to buy a $10,000 device. Want to record your daughter's piano recital? You'll have to pay $100 in patent fees to some company.
Yes! Exactly! Bravo! ** applause **
This will prevent my neighbors garage band from creating and duplicating their CDs for distribution amongst their friends. And it will prevent their friends from duplicating and sending to *their* friends. Making a digital quality demo tape on the latest hardware will go from an easy to use program on a PC to thousands of dollars in equipment just to encode the right security codes.
If we were lucky, this would go back and bite the RIAA in the ass. Less garage bands distributing demo CDs means less bands for the RIAA members to sign and rip off. And that might also mean more independent labels playing some kick ass music and playing more than 30 days worth of concerts every 5 years.
By making clear that your company opposes illegal use of your product, even going so far as to lobby for the enactment of laws restricting your product's use, you remove liability from yourself and transfer it to those who seek to use your product for illegal purposes.
Unfortunately, you transfer the liability to the hardware manufaturers, the courts, and the government. Its easy to implement crappy copy protection, and then rely on other people to protect you when somebody figures out how to circumvent it.
As a company, it makes a lot of sense to try to stop people from using your products illegally.
I agree. And I have no problem with any company trying to do this. If they want to, then there should be nothing trying to stop them. I, of course, am free to not use their products, and I am free to support any company that chooses not to use copy protection that interfers with my fair-use rights.
The problem is that they are trying to pass a law to remove these rights from me. They are taking the actions of a few illegal traders (who are outnumbered by legitimate CD buyers - Somebody must have made O-Town a #1 record) and turning them into legislation that will effectively, remove my ability to choose and to fairly use my media in a way that I see fit.
Except that you're reading this for free on Slashdot, run on open source software used for free, on a browser you didn't pay for (unless you use opera),...
I was going to reply and agree with you, but then Mozilla seg faulted....
Two problems. One, which has already been noted here, is that Microsoft can just lower their own prices.
But two, and most importantly: What ELSE are you going to install on that computer if not Windows? Linux?
Of course not. Linux is not ready for the desktop. In fact, if we hit the mainstream, we would probably crash and burn horribly. Then Microsoft would triumpantly return, and we would be relegated to eternal obscurity.
We need Microsoft to continue dominating the desktop right now, so we can quitely finish the revolution without getting egg on our face in the process. Its like a magician - we keep Microsoft and the media focusing on our inability to get on the desktop, and in the meantime, we will quietly replace them on all the other processors that really matter (servers, PDAs, game consoles etc...)
Keeping Microsoft fat, dumb and happy is the only way to kill the dragon.
You remind me of a guy who I went to school with that was bound and determined to live outside of the capitalist system (but still stay in the United States). I'm happy to say he has managed to stay alive without spending any money, because he joined the military. Other than that, he would have lots of ideals, but no food on the table.
I love open source, I really do. And I think that open source is going to change the world. I love the idea of lots of people can write free code and make it work. But you know what? For every piece of free code that gets made, there is some propriatary code that doesn't.
All these guys running your Open Source revolution all have jobs. Torvalds is at Transmeta, Cox works for Red Hat, etc. But at some point, everybody gets some support from proprietary software (or custom engineering, which more often than not, is proprietary as well), becuase in the end, like all things, it puts food on our table. Fortunately, it also frees many of us up to produce the open source software that you depend on.
Only one guy has managed to live off his ideals of writing free software, and the only way he could do that is to convince the rest of us to support him. I doubt that will work twice.
The first thing you will learn on the first day of your first job after school is that they didn't even begin to teach you what you need to know to be a successful programmer. All of your learning will be on the job experience. Sure, everyone once in a while, you might remember an alogrithm that they told you in school, and if somebody mentions a double linked hash table, you'll know what they're talking about, but other than that, all your knowlege will be garnered from experience.
When you go directly into a masters degree without having gained some of this real world experience, then you might have the higher salary, but you still know about as much as a BS graduate. And when the layoffs come, given simiilar skill sets, who will get the axe? The guy with the higher salary.
Get the experience, then go back and get your degree.
You gotta give props to a guy named Randy Bush who can make it all the way through middle school, high school and college and finally on to be the architect of a major internet protocol without going crazy and changing his name.
Reminds me of a manager I once knew named Phat Ho.
PS: I wonder how many people searching for pr0n on the internet type in "randy bush" and get a bunch of RFCs?
If the GPL doesn't hold up, does that mean Microsoft is free to take large chunks of GPL'd software and make it proprietary?
Good question! What if portions of the GPL are declared to be bad, or if the whole GPL is declared invalid, does that mean that a new licence can be drawn up and all the existing projects can be allowed to relicence themselves under the new licence, or are they stuck as GPLed forever?
From the government? I think you were kidding yourself when you thought it was secure in the first place. I find it easy to believe that the NSA is far ahead of the public in the encryption arms-race.
Exactly! One of the most lucid posts I have ever seen on/. The alphabet soup agencies spend millions of dollars and hire the most brilliant minds in the world (not just the US), and their whole existance is based on the premise that they need to be able to find out what every human on earth is doing at any point in time.
I have never thought that I could put one by the government, and I have never encrypted my documents because I was worried that some spook might read it. If they want my password, credit card number or DNA bad enough, they're going to get it no matter what I do. I encrypt my data because I'm more worried about script kiddies and regular old fashioned crooks.
Linux means kernel here, not distribution. In a situation like this, I think that the set of packages will be the minimal set of standard utilities, plus a few platform specific toys.
Sorry, I don't ever see myself playing games on a PDA.
How about a game console?:)
No, you make good points. I will never get rid of my desktop, because I really, coding is the most effective on a desktop system. But first, you need to remember that we as geeks do not define the marketplace. It doesn't matter if each one of us buys a desktop a year, thats still only about 200 or 300 thousands sales. In their heyday, Gateway and Dell were selling 200 or 300 thousand boxes a month. So when I predict the end of the desktop, I make that prediction in a very loose generalization - the desktop computer as it exists today will not go away, but the main market will disappear as people start to realize that they don't need a $2000 desktop just to send e-mail and bid on E-bay. This is how I see the future in personal computing:
1. At the top you have the hard core poeople who still need a large monitor and their own processor. This will include programmers, graphic designers and other engineers. This will be a smattering of operating systems, generally based on what people feel comfortable with. Not many sales here, but the prices will be higher to compensate.
2. Then you have the armies of secretaries, associates and business people who don't need their own 1.2ghz processor, but they still need to do their work. For them, its $300 thin clients all the way (instead of $2000 desktops). This will open Linux up to a new market, because price and size limit the amount of storage on these devices.
3. Next you have the home crowd - who despite all the predictions, probably don't use their computers for much more than online computing, gaming, and the occasional report or checkbook balancing. (I recoginze that there are those who demand more from a computer, but I would stick those in level 1 - We're talking about my Mom here). This level will use the settop box, where they can watch TV, surf the web, do IM, do e-mail and play games.
4. Finally, you have the PDA crowd that only wants to store their information and read e-mails on the go.
So as you can see, generally, the market will be segmented - and the desktop as we know it will decrease in sales from millions a year to tens of thousands a year (still sizeable, but nothing like it used to be). And more importantly, new markets where non Microsoft operating systems can find their nitch.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe that's what sony means with the biotech stuff. No need to engineer hardware, just turn the kids ;-)
into biological computers.
I'm afraid thats exactly what they mean, They already have devices that will shock you when you get hit, and we know you can project images on the retina. Just strap a Geoforce to your ass and you're there.
/me shudders
As I see it, they [disney.com] want DRM built into the DVD-RW drives, not Windows, just so they [mpaa.org] can prevent software (like Linux) from getting around DRM the way DeCSS does.
Give this guy a gold star. He has pointed out what I think is the most evil part of this bill.
In never-neverland (which is where Hollings spends most of his time), this sort of DRM is just what the doctor ordered. You get a PPV movie, you watch it once, and you can never watch it again (unless you buy it again). Great - the content is protected.
But the unfortunately side effect is that this legislation gives wide sweeping powers to a single orginization. And unfortunately, that group stands to make lots of money by restricting the DRM to a small subset of manufacturers and charging handsomely for it.
Then, the bidding starts. Microsoft can easily afford to give millions of dollars a year for the right to control DRM for their software. Linux won't be able to keep suit, and even if they do, it will involve closed source software (because nobody wants to pay out the ass for the DRM information and then turn around and give it to free - not to mention the ineveidable NDAs and other bullshit).
So the end result is that, in the name of protection, I will not be allowed to view my own media on my own computer with my choice of operating system.
Call your congressman/woman and tell him/her to vote no. Tell them that you support DRM but that you don't support wide sweeping laws that remove your rights in the process. Choose choice!
Otherwise with a credit/debit card or check, its easy to associate your real name with your card.
For differing values of easy. I question the value of the time and expense of matching the names with the cards, especially since the cards are transferable (and sometimes the checkers will use their own if you forget yours).
Certainly, they can easily grab your name from electronic payment methods, and they probably use those to spam you or find you when you skip out on the bill, but I doubt that they can easily track you with that method (they meaning your average supermarket). Otherwise, why would they even institute the savings card in the first place?
They have these "savings cards" that they give to you, if you fill out a form that asks for all kinds of information.
,the lady gave me the form and told me to mail it in, so I chucked it. Now I get anonymous shopping at discount prices.
When I got mine
But are the people out on the street rushing to buy this?
No, they're not. Interactive, HDTV & Digital TV has been a failure, with only a few technogeeks buying a comptabile set. The majority of people are perfectly happy with what they have right now, and are not interested in what is trying to get forced down their throat.
But what if the provider does it, and says, oh, by the way, heres our broadband video system, and here's a box for rent at 5 bucks a month. The oppertunity here exists in selling millions of boxes to a given provider, not try to sell thousands of boxes at Circuit City.
For an example, one only has to look at digital cable. I doubt that people would have turned out in droves to buy cable boxes and get the service, but hey, the service magicaly appeared, it seemd to have better features, and they gave you the box. Thats when something goes from minor geek toy to major distribution.
Right now, everybody and their uncle is racing to be the first to have a broadband television network. The network would typically deliver internet connectivity, free channels, pay channels (HBO) and pay-per-view (hopefully Video on Demand). This area definately has a possibility for the Next Big Thing (C, TM).
But Hollywood won't make that content available
unless it is confident it won't be pirated.
This is true. And every Set Top Box (STB) maker is racing to develop content protection for their system in order to ensure that their clients can get the very best content. This isn't anything new - access control has been in vouge for 20 years now (don't you remember watching Cinimax as a teenager looking for a unscrambled tit?). This copy protection will be very specific to the system you are using, and the content you are viewing, and it will not take away your fair use rights.
What we don't want is to be forced to include copy protection regardless of device or content type. That takes the job of proving content security away from Hollywood and puts it on the Justice Department. That way, they can force cheap and ineffective copy protetion, and then rely on the feds to prosecute when it gets broken.
Thats what Hollings really wants to do, but he thought he would play the "content security" card.
Thats why I'm so scared, because we know that copy protection *is* nessesary for Hollywood to release their content, and at first glance, government mandated laws seem to fit the bill. Its only after studying the situation, that you realize that this bill was a spawn of Satan himself. Thats why contacting your reps in Congress is so important. We need to force everybody to analyze this and not take Jack Valente's word for it.
Here's a better solution: Every time one of your faves goes to this copy protection shit send them a letter that says fuck your value-diminished, encumbered content and find a new fave that doesn't truck with it.
The problem is, if the law passes *EVERYONE* will have to use the copy protection to keep legal. All the way from U2 down to your neighbors garage band. Its doubtful that anyone will get away with a major distribution of unprotected music without the feds getting involved.
Just write the letter.
Ok, I'll bite.
Tell me a few things:
1. How many terms had the Rep served?
2. What positions did he hold on the various committees he served on?
3. What were his political aspirations? What he content serving the people, or did he want to jump to the party leadership and beyond?
Sadly, though there are some senators and representitives that are more interested in serving the people than themselves (a special shout out to Rep Jim Matheson, District 2, Utah!), few if any of the people in power (or the people who *want* to be in power) can be as enlightened as your boss.
For every dollar donated to an individual, 3 dollars are donated to the party. Over time, this becomes a large amount of money for the political party and the people in charge. Nobody wants to run the risk that a particular person may choose to vote with some intellegence, and happens to alienate a major contributor. Doing that would mean trouble for the party, and a one way trip to obscurity for the unlucky voter.
I think that if we ever discovered the amazing power that political parties hold over the legislative and executive process it would scare the hell out of us. Its best just to not think about it.
Be flamed!
See, thats just wrong.
Its really nice to rail against the machine, and attack a huge mammouth like Vivendi, but the story is old, and tired.
Listen, they wrote the game. It cost them money, and brainpower to develop the game, and when it was finalized, they chose to provide it to the world. And they provided it for a price, because after all, they had to pay for the programmers, and administration, and deployment and on-going maintaince.
So you can see where they would be a little peeved if somebody came along and developed a free server that would let everyone get around paying them a little money to use their own server.
Now, I don't agree with their decisions, I have always thought that if you give the servers away for free, more people will buy the clients (witness Quake II/III and HalfLife), but hey, they have the right to decide what to do with their property. If you don't like it, then don't buy the game. Its a simple as that.
It would be really nice if we lived in a utopian society, where everyone gave freely of themselves, and nobody needed anything. Unfortunately, the last time I looked, my phone bill needed paying, and so instead of living in your utopian world (aka, your parent's house), I've got to go back to work for the evil corporations and try to wrench a few bucks out of their hands.
Is it just me, or is it becoming "cool" to rebel (!) against the new Episodes?
Works for me. That way I can actually go see the movie without having to stand in line next to some freak in a Wookie outfit.
I think it pissed me off more that no one booed him off stage.
He could have defiled a young maiden on stage, and nobody would have booed him off. Sadly, the President/CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has way too many of the people in the audience that night by the short and curlies.
This is a perfect example of why ethical issues like freedom of speech, fair use, and the right to carry a gun are not as cut and dried as we would like them to be.
It all boils down to this: While 99% of any given set of a population may be honest, ethical or safe, there is always that 1% that will take advantage of that very fact. In this case, Gilmore wants the freedom to do what he wishes with his mail server, and though most people respect that, a malious few have used that trust to damage others.
You can extend this to any argument: While most of us respect fair-use laws, there are those that take advantage of those laws and pirate music and movies. While most people with concealed gun permits have honorable intentions, there is always a small contingent that does not.
I always say, you have the right to [ speak freely, copy music, carry a gun ] until it infringes on my rights. The problem is, determining who's rights are being infringed on.
This episode is a great reminder that the issue is much more complicated that most people are willing to admit.
It could very well destroy the common person's ability to create their own content. Want to create a home movie? You'll have to buy a $10,000 device. Want to record your daughter's piano recital? You'll have to pay $100 in patent fees to some company.
Yes! Exactly! Bravo! ** applause **
This will prevent my neighbors garage band from creating and duplicating their CDs for distribution amongst their friends. And it will prevent their friends from duplicating and sending to *their* friends. Making a digital quality demo tape on the latest hardware will go from an easy to use program on a PC to thousands of dollars in equipment just to encode the right security codes.
If we were lucky, this would go back and bite the RIAA in the ass. Less garage bands distributing demo CDs means less bands for the RIAA members to sign and rip off. And that might also mean more independent labels playing some kick ass music and playing more than 30 days worth of concerts every 5 years.
By making clear that your company opposes illegal use of your product, even going so far as to lobby for the enactment of laws restricting your product's use, you remove liability from yourself and transfer it to those who seek to use your product for illegal purposes.
Unfortunately, you transfer the liability to the hardware manufaturers, the courts, and the government. Its easy to implement crappy copy protection, and then rely on other people to protect you when somebody figures out how to circumvent it.
As a company, it makes a lot of sense to try to stop people from using your products illegally.
I agree. And I have no problem with any company trying to do this. If they want to, then there should be nothing trying to stop them. I, of course, am free to not use their products, and I am free to support any company that chooses not to use copy protection that interfers with my fair-use rights.
The problem is that they are trying to pass a law to remove these rights from me. They are taking the actions of a few illegal traders (who are outnumbered by legitimate CD buyers - Somebody must have made O-Town a #1 record) and turning them into legislation that will effectively, remove my ability to choose and to fairly use my media in a way that I see fit.
This scares the hell out of me.
Except that you're reading this for free on Slashdot, run on open source software used for free, on a browser you didn't pay for (unless you use opera), ...
:)
I was going to reply and agree with you, but then Mozilla seg faulted....
I guess I did get what I paid for....
Two problems. One, which has already been noted here, is that Microsoft can just lower their own prices.
But two, and most importantly: What ELSE are you going to install on that computer if not Windows? Linux?
Of course not. Linux is not ready for the desktop. In fact, if we hit the mainstream, we would probably crash and burn horribly. Then Microsoft would triumpantly return, and we would be relegated to eternal obscurity.
We need Microsoft to continue dominating the desktop right now, so we can quitely finish the revolution without getting egg on our face in the process. Its like a magician - we keep Microsoft and the media focusing on our inability to get on the desktop, and in the meantime, we will quietly replace them on all the other processors that really matter (servers, PDAs, game consoles etc...)
Keeping Microsoft fat, dumb and happy is the only way to kill the dragon.
You remind me of a guy who I went to school with that was bound and determined to live outside of the capitalist system (but still stay in the United States). I'm happy to say he has managed to stay alive without spending any money, because he joined the military. Other than that, he would have lots of ideals, but no food on the table.
I love open source, I really do. And I think that open source is going to change the world. I love the idea of lots of people can write free code and make it work. But you know what? For every piece of free code that gets made, there is some propriatary code that doesn't.
All these guys running your Open Source revolution all have jobs. Torvalds is at Transmeta, Cox works for Red Hat, etc. But at some point, everybody gets some support from proprietary software (or custom engineering, which more often than not, is proprietary as well), becuase in the end, like all things, it puts food on our table. Fortunately, it also frees many of us up to produce the open source software that you depend on.
Only one guy has managed to live off his ideals of writing free software, and the only way he could do that is to convince the rest of us to support him. I doubt that will work twice.
Bad Advice
The first thing you will learn on the first day of your first job after school is that they didn't even begin to teach you what you need to know to be a successful programmer. All of your learning will be on the job experience. Sure, everyone once in a while, you might remember an alogrithm that they told you in school, and if somebody mentions a double linked hash table, you'll know what they're talking about, but other than that, all your knowlege will be garnered from experience.
When you go directly into a masters degree without having gained some of this real world experience, then you might have the higher salary, but you still know about as much as a BS graduate. And when the layoffs come, given simiilar skill sets, who will get the axe? The guy with the higher salary.
Get the experience, then go back and get your degree.
You gotta give props to a guy named Randy Bush who can make it all the way through middle school, high school and college and finally on to be the architect of a major internet protocol without going crazy and changing his name.
Reminds me of a manager I once knew named Phat Ho.
PS: I wonder how many people searching for pr0n on the internet type in "randy bush" and get a bunch of RFCs?
If the GPL doesn't hold up, does that mean Microsoft is free to take large chunks of GPL'd software and make it proprietary?
Good question! What if portions of the GPL are declared to be bad, or if the whole GPL is declared invalid, does that mean that a new licence can be drawn up and all the existing projects can be allowed to relicence themselves under the new licence, or are they stuck as GPLed forever?
From the government? I think you were kidding yourself when you thought it was secure in the first place. I find it easy to believe that the NSA is far ahead of the public in the encryption arms-race.
/. The alphabet soup agencies spend millions of dollars and hire the most brilliant minds in the world (not just the US), and their whole existance is based on the premise that they need to be able to find out what every human on earth is doing at any point in time.
Exactly! One of the most lucid posts I have ever seen on
I have never thought that I could put one by the government, and I have never encrypted my documents because I was worried that some spook might read it. If they want my password, credit card number or DNA bad enough, they're going to get it no matter what I do. I encrypt my data because I'm more worried about script kiddies and regular old fashioned crooks.
Solaris was introducted in 1991
Linux means kernel here, not distribution.
In a situation like this, I think that the set of packages will be the minimal set of standard utilities, plus a few platform specific toys.
Sorry, I don't ever see myself playing games on a PDA.
:)
How about a game console?
No, you make good points. I will never get rid of my desktop, because I really, coding is the most effective on a desktop system. But first, you need to remember that we as geeks do not define the marketplace. It doesn't matter if each one of us buys a desktop a year, thats still only about 200 or 300 thousands sales. In their heyday, Gateway and Dell were selling 200 or 300 thousand boxes a month. So when I predict the end of the desktop, I make that prediction in a very loose generalization - the desktop computer as it exists today will not go away, but the main market will disappear as people start to realize that they don't need a $2000 desktop just to send e-mail and bid on E-bay. This is how I see the future in personal computing:
1. At the top you have the hard core poeople who still need a large monitor and their own processor. This will include programmers, graphic designers and other engineers. This will be a smattering of operating systems, generally based on what people feel comfortable with. Not many sales here, but the prices will be higher to compensate.
2. Then you have the armies of secretaries, associates and business people who don't need their own 1.2ghz processor, but they still need to do their work. For them, its $300 thin clients all the way (instead of $2000 desktops). This will open Linux up to a new market, because price and size limit the amount of storage on these devices.
3. Next you have the home crowd - who despite all the predictions, probably don't use their computers for much more than online computing, gaming, and the occasional report or checkbook balancing. (I recoginze that there are those who demand more from a computer, but I would stick those in level 1 - We're talking about my Mom here). This level will use the settop box, where they can watch TV, surf the web, do IM, do e-mail and play games.
4. Finally, you have the PDA crowd that only wants to store their information and read e-mails on the go.
So as you can see, generally, the market will be segmented - and the desktop as we know it will decrease in sales from millions a year to tens of thousands a year (still sizeable, but nothing like it used to be). And more importantly, new markets where non Microsoft operating systems can find their nitch.