Calling the US on it's execution record is not really the best tact. Given there are over 20 differant capital crimes in China, one of which is tax evasion.
Just so you know, IBM didn't actually have much to do with the aptiva. The hardware is made by Acer, it just has IBM branding. IBM has kind of had a love/hate relationship with the desktop, as AFAIK they're not even selling the aptiva's through brick and mortar any more.
Well, my perception of the situation is that no one will be "left in the dust". The free unix user community is increasing in size, and even if it's 90% linux 10% *BSD, the BSD user community is still increasing in size, which means more developers, more opportunities for commercial growth etc.
Moreover, I think that the market isn't really "getting" about open source yet is that there isn't the proprietary prisoner's dillema that exists in commercial OSes. Developing for Linux does not exclude OpenBSD. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and because both are open, both can "borrow" the good ideas from each other.
Also, open OS's promote a "toolbox" view of OS code. Because of the open development, you're not "stuck" using an OS that doesn't really meet your wants because it has one or two proprietary features you need. This means that running several differant OS's is okay, because the open nature makes them interoperable.
1. Streaming video. Streaming TV. A good idea I think, but when you get people who start to stream movies, that will naturally piss off the MPAA.
This doesn't really effect the amount of bandwidth that you can get at home, nor does it effect the fact that TCP/IP is not optimized for real time transmittion, what with out of order packets being useless in realtime. (Though IMO as bandwidth increases to the point where it's possible to have high resolution video, this problem with cease to be as important, as the dropped packets will be insignificant to the amount of data in a single frame, and algorythms could be worked out to let it degrade gracefully in the face of missing data.
2. MB overload. Even the most modern computer systems can only handle so much bandwidth...
Granted, even the 100mbit switch we have here makes the differance between accessing data across the network, and accessing it locally negligable in terms of speed. However, this sort of high speed fiber is meant to be used at a rather high level where it won't be interacting with the realitively slow PC's.
3. Overki...never mind, there's no such thing as overkill when it comes to having too much bandwidth.
And last but not least.... 4. $$$$$. Bandwidth is a Good Thing(tm), but it can get rather expensive.
Actually, most of the cost of bandwidth in a WANis in the physical medium rather than the hardware being used to route it. Running a piece of plastic across the atlantic ocean is *expensive* designing a router to make use of it is *cheap*. So, this will in fact probably make bandwidth cheaper rather than more expensive.
I'm just wondering if the name "Duron" conflicts w/ the "Duron" paint brand? Or, because they are both obviously different products, there is no infringement?
From my limited understanding, the gold standard in Trademark infringement is if there is a reasonable expectation that the two products could be confused. ie, Having a McDonald's Hot Grit stand could get you in trouble, but a McDonald's Petrified Nattelie Portman Shoppe probably wouldn't.
The Russian's didn't really have a significant rocket gap. They never had a rocket that could carry a significant payload to the moon. In fact, as per the IAA rules, they really weren't even the first into space, as the rockets that carried every one from Yuri Gegarin to the first woman didn't carry the cosmonaught down to earth, but ejected them at @ 20,000 feet. Also, they ran huge risks that were never really leaked to the west. Like, a rocket running on Hydrogen Peroxide that blew up on the pad and killed 150 odd people, or sending astronaughts into space without pressure suits.
So if the record companies can make a profit when cassettes are sold for $10, doesn't that mean that the extra $5 for a CD is pure profit? Doesn't that mean that the music companies have basically been sticking consumers $5 a pop for the millions of CDs that have been sold?
Actually, no it doesn't. Value, as expressed in price is a subjective thing. As an example, if I stumbled on a Diamond laying on the ground it would be worth as much as the diamond someone dug out of the ground at great expense and personal effort.
They can charge more for CD's because a CD is worth more to most people. Most people like the ability to hop from track to track, and the increase in sound quality that the CD brings.
Marketshare is the single defining factor of a monopoly. By definition a company cannot be a monopoly if they have low marketshare.
FYI, marketshare is not the defining factor in a monopoly. A monopoly is made when a company has a command over the market, no substitutes exist, and entry by other firms is barred.
Sorry, I realise this goes on for a while: It took me a while to figure out what the deal was with these suits. I mean, were I a record executive interested in going after infringment of intellectual property rights, I would go after a few of the people on Napster who had a few gigs of MP3s online. As the people who are storing the MP3s are clearly in the wrong(legally) you could nail a few of them to the wall to warn others off.
However, they chose to go after the distributors, where the law is much more ambigious. I couldn't figure out why they did this until I realised, they basically could give a fsck about pirate MP3s. They're really no differant from when my sister makes a mix tape of her favorite britany spears crap to give to her friends, which has been going on forever.
What they do care quite a lot about, however, is the fact that MP3s, and moreover digital distribution represent the last link in the chain from musician to consumer. Cheap electronics have made it possible to set up a studio for 1/100th of what it used to cost. Musicians I know have cut CDs with only a day or so of commerical studio time, because most of what they need they have at home. This kills the recording industry's ability to control the creative end.
What they're left with is the production and distribution end, and the final genesis of the revolution that MP3.com and Napster have started would be a set of competing online services providing for pay songs online. Moreover, the fact that the Internet lowers cost of information makes advertising less important. This leaves the recording industry in a bad position, and they are acutely aware of it.
They can't tell musicians not to buy cheap recording equipment, and they can't tell consumers that the only thing they can buy is CDs. So they have to take a page from the Microsoft playbook and attempt to keep the distribution protocols proprietary. Looking back at technologies like DAT and to a lesser extent CDRs (which they're still pushing to have a tax on) they have only very rarely gone after anyone who was actually infringing on copywrite. It has always been about keeping their methods on top.
So, in closing, they realise that you will always be able to get pirate MP3s on the Internet. If it's kept underground, it doesn't harm them (in fact it may be helping them). However, if you try to compete with them in a credible way, they will go after you with everything they have.
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Cheat on your taxes, get shot.
Just so you know, IBM didn't actually have much to do with the aptiva. The hardware is made by Acer, it just has IBM branding. IBM has kind of had a love/hate relationship with the desktop, as AFAIK they're not even selling the aptiva's through brick and mortar any more.
Moreover, I think that the market isn't really "getting" about open source yet is that there isn't the proprietary prisoner's dillema that exists in commercial OSes. Developing for Linux does not exclude OpenBSD. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and because both are open, both can "borrow" the good ideas from each other.
Also, open OS's promote a "toolbox" view of OS code. Because of the open development, you're not "stuck" using an OS that doesn't really meet your wants because it has one or two proprietary features you need. This means that running several differant OS's is okay, because the open nature makes them interoperable.
1. Streaming video. Streaming TV. A good idea I think, but when you get people who start to stream movies, that will naturally piss off the MPAA.
This doesn't really effect the amount of bandwidth that you can get at home, nor does it effect the fact that TCP/IP is not optimized for real time transmittion, what with out of order packets being useless in realtime. (Though IMO as bandwidth increases to the point where it's possible to have high resolution video, this problem with cease to be as important, as the dropped packets will be insignificant to the amount of data in a single frame, and algorythms could be worked out to let it degrade gracefully in the face of missing data.
2. MB overload. Even the most modern computer systems can only handle so much bandwidth...
Granted, even the 100mbit switch we have here makes the differance between accessing data across the network, and accessing it locally negligable in terms of speed. However, this sort of high speed fiber is meant to be used at a rather high level where it won't be interacting with the realitively slow PC's.
3. Overki...never mind, there's no such thing as overkill when it comes to having too much bandwidth.
And last but not least.... 4. $$$$$. Bandwidth is a Good Thing(tm), but it can get rather expensive.
Actually, most of the cost of bandwidth in a WANis in the physical medium rather than the hardware being used to route it. Running a piece of plastic across the atlantic ocean is *expensive* designing a router to make use of it is *cheap*. So, this will in fact probably make bandwidth cheaper rather than more expensive.
From my limited understanding, the gold standard in Trademark infringement is if there is a reasonable expectation that the two products could be confused. ie, Having a McDonald's Hot Grit stand could get you in trouble, but a McDonald's Petrified Nattelie Portman Shoppe probably wouldn't.
The Russian's didn't really have a significant rocket gap. They never had a rocket that could carry a significant payload to the moon. In fact, as per the IAA rules, they really weren't even the first into space, as the rockets that carried every one from Yuri Gegarin to the first woman didn't carry the cosmonaught down to earth, but ejected them at @ 20,000 feet. Also, they ran huge risks that were never really leaked to the west. Like, a rocket running on Hydrogen Peroxide that blew up on the pad and killed 150 odd people, or sending astronaughts into space without pressure suits.
So if the record companies can make a profit when cassettes are sold for $10, doesn't that mean that the extra $5 for a CD is pure profit? Doesn't that mean that the music companies have basically been sticking consumers $5 a pop for the millions of CDs that have been sold?
Actually, no it doesn't. Value, as expressed in price is a subjective thing. As an example, if I stumbled on a Diamond laying on the ground it would be worth as much as the diamond someone dug out of the ground at great expense and personal effort.
They can charge more for CD's because a CD is worth more to most people. Most people like the ability to hop from track to track, and the increase in sound quality that the CD brings.
FYI, marketshare is not the defining factor in a monopoly. A monopoly is made when a company has a command over the market, no substitutes exist, and entry by other firms is barred.
However, they chose to go after the distributors, where the law is much more ambigious. I couldn't figure out why they did this until I realised, they basically could give a fsck about pirate MP3s. They're really no differant from when my sister makes a mix tape of her favorite britany spears crap to give to her friends, which has been going on forever.
What they do care quite a lot about, however, is the fact that MP3s, and moreover digital distribution represent the last link in the chain from musician to consumer. Cheap electronics have made it possible to set up a studio for 1/100th of what it used to cost. Musicians I know have cut CDs with only a day or so of commerical studio time, because most of what they need they have at home. This kills the recording industry's ability to control the creative end.
What they're left with is the production and distribution end, and the final genesis of the revolution that MP3.com and Napster have started would be a set of competing online services providing for pay songs online. Moreover, the fact that the Internet lowers cost of information makes advertising less important. This leaves the recording industry in a bad position, and they are acutely aware of it.
They can't tell musicians not to buy cheap recording equipment, and they can't tell consumers that the only thing they can buy is CDs. So they have to take a page from the Microsoft playbook and attempt to keep the distribution protocols proprietary. Looking back at technologies like DAT and to a lesser extent CDRs (which they're still pushing to have a tax on) they have only very rarely gone after anyone who was actually infringing on copywrite. It has always been about keeping their methods on top.
So, in closing, they realise that you will always be able to get pirate MP3s on the Internet. If it's kept underground, it doesn't harm them (in fact it may be helping them). However, if you try to compete with them in a credible way, they will go after you with everything they have.