The point is that if IBM didn't commoditize PC hardware then it would probably have been Apple that created the standard. In which case IBM would have seen their mainframe market dominated, and they would have completely missed the PC revolution. Besides which it can very easily be argued that IBM's PC lines failed when they tried to close the PC architecture with their proprietary MCA bus.
By this time PC buyers were very interested in maintaining a commodity PC market, and so IBM sales plummeted while Compaq, Dell, Gateway and other non-proprietary PC makers flourished. The fact that the PC market was IBM's to lose is evidenced by the fact that many people still bought the proprietary IBM machines, only to find that none of the inexpensive hardware add-ons would actually work in their machine.
Being Free Software has made Mozilla hundreds of times more popular than it should be. Heck, if Mozilla wasn't Free Software probably no one would be using it. For years it was hardly useable, and yet people (like me) still fired it up.
Now it is actually good, but Microsoft has all of the marketshare. The few people that are using it are almost without doubt using it because it is Free Software. Because it is Free Software, and because it is very cool, it is even being used in new projects which will undoubtedly drive its acceptance.
My guess is that in the long run it will even continue to gain converts, but this is only because it is Free. I don't personally think it would grow its userbase even if they gave it away but kept the source code. The only reason that people are interested in it is that they know that they can build on it, but that is quite likely to be enough to keep it alive and growing.
The USPTO has simply realized that it is easier and more cost effective to replace examiners with rubber stamp machines. They don't complain, they don't get sick, and they don't reject patents.
The bandwidth probably wasn't donated, and they probably hired their own editor.
I have spent the last little bit reading the behind the scenes bit of ShadowMarch and it would appear that they had a lot of expenses. Everything from custom programming to fridge magnets. Sometimes I forget that just because I could program and host something like ShadowMarch inexpensively does not mean that Tad Williams can.
If they *shelled out* (I hate these terms) a couple thousand a month for marketing, editing and distribution, would that really make it so much easier to part with 18 bucks?
The whole point is to not have to pay for marketing. I don't want marketing, I want good books.
Yeah. There is no such thing as "pure gravy" in business.
Sure there is. Tad sold the book. It will soon be available at bookstores, and it will probably sell well. My guess is that it will sell extremely well. Many of the people who subscribed to ShadowMarch will end up buying a copy of the book as well. In essence Tad got people to pay to proofread his novel.
Everybody needs to make a living. That is a given. Tad Williams tried an experiment in which he published a book over the Internet instead of using the normal route of publishing with a normal book publisher. He wasn't doing it for free, and he didn't really give up his day job.
That being said, instead of writing and selling one novel this year, he has now written and sold two novels. Writing both novels took a toll out of him (which is why he isn't going to be continuing). The good news, for him, was that he was able to get a portion of his fan club to pay $18 a pop for the privilege of proofreading one of his manuscripts while he wrote it. That money is pure gravy; it is above and beyond what he would have received had he simply turned the book over to his publisher in the first place. Not only that, but it would appear that the members of his fan club that participated in the experiment love him for the chance. I read pages and pages of responses to the recent news all of which included the word "hug." From Tad's comments on the site it would appear that he also appreciated the near instantaneous feedback.
Yet somehow you seem to think that this is some sort of a problem for Tad and are equating his actions to the actions of people that give stuff away for free. I don't understand the connection at all. Tad didn't give away anything for free. In fact, he charged top dollar for his work. You can waltz on over to www.baen.com and download comparable fiction at far lower prices (and all of this fiction has already already been finished and was professionally proofread). The folks at Baen seem to think that their behavior is making them money.
I am a firm believer that artists and writers should get paid, and I also believe that the Internet opens up a whole new set of avenues for the writer or artist to profit from their work without pesky middlemen. However, not many people are willing to pay hardcover prices for a book that is only available in electronic format and that isn't finished yet. I will happily buy Tad's book when it comes out in paperback. I would happily buy it now in electronic format if it were A) finished and B) available at a price comparable to a paperback, but it isn't.
When I looked into subscribing I believe the cost was around $21. That's maybe not as much as a Tad Williams hardcover, but it will buy you a hardcover from most other Fantasy authors.
And in many ways ShadowMarch is considerably less than a trade paperback. It might have a nifty web site, but that's not necessarily a bonus for most readers. Tad didn't even have to pay for professional editting, marketing, or distribution. Yet he still expects us to pay nearly double the paperback price.
I must admit that the HTML format is nice, but the book would be completely worthless if it wasn't in an open format. If I am going to pay $18 for a subscription to a serial available only in electronic format then you can bet that I am going to want it in an unecrypted format.
The funny thing about this experiment is that it will almost certainly work out well for Mr. Williams. He has sold the book anyhow, and so anything he made from shadowmarch.com is pure gravy. Basically a whole pile of Tad Williams fans paid to proofread his newest novel. My guess is that the shadowmarch.com experiment will even increase the sales when it comes out in book form. I know that I will probably buy it.
It does make me somewhat sad, however, that this experiment didn't work out better. I honestly believe that the major problem was that Tad priced his book out of the market. We'll never know now, but at least we will be able to find out how the story ends.
You are missing the point. The problem isn't really that Microsoft is shipping a virus (although you have to admit that this is pretty darn funny). The problem is that Microsoft is shipping files that they don't know about. This file could have been anything.
Microsoft has set up their business so that their customers have to trust them. There is no way for Microsoft's customers to verify that Microsoft software is safe. Yet time and time again Microsoft has shown that they simply are not particularly trustworthy. It has gotten so bad that it isn't just/. that is laughing at Microsoft. This particular story was published by CNET (which is a very Microsoft-friendly news source).
That's a load of hooey. Microsoft's customers didn't ask them to use a third party to translate the files, nor did they purchase the product from the third party. If Microsoft can't even handle the elementary security step of scanning the product for viruses before putting it on a CD, how do you even know that the mysterious third party isn't replacing important DLLs with DLLs that are functionally equivalent but have a hidden backdoor.
Clearly Microsoft isn't really checking these files. Which means that when Microsoft says "Trustworthy computing" what they are really saying is that you should trust them, and all of their "third party" allies despite the fact that they have a horrific track record.
Uh, dinotrac what in the heck are you talking about? Tad William's ShadowMarch was never about Free as in Beer. It was available in an unencrypted format, but to read past the first few chapters you had to pay the equivalent of a hardback novel. Oh, and you got the added pleasure of having to wait for the next chapter to come out. Personally I don't like to read that way. I was considering purchasing a subscription after he had "finished" the first novel (so I could read it all the way through), but now I suppose I will just have to wait until it is out in paperback.
I am a huge Tad Williams fan, but he simply can't compete with the folks over at www.baen.com. They have entire books available for sampling, in a wide variety of open formats. If you decide you would like to purchase one of their novels they are approximately $4 each and are available in bundles of four for $10. These folks have almost got me completely transitioned over to reading on my Visor Handspring.
There are plenty of people that don't mind paying for music and books, but they aren't interested in paying $20 for a book that may or may not ever get finished and that is released in installments.
Publishing books in serialized installments works fine. In fact, most of Tad Williams other books come in three and four book series, and people gladly waited until the next book came out.
The problem with this experiment is that it had all of the disadvantages of a paper bound book, and none of the advantages. I love Tad Williams, but I am not going to shell out $21 bucks a year, in advance, for a story that he may or may not finish and that doesn't come in book form. Especially when I can go to www.baen.com and get books in a unencrypted format of my choice for $4 a pop (or four for $10).
Tad wanted to charge hardback prices for a book that A) wasn't finished, and B) was available only in a digital format.
I agree wholeheartedly that it is important to learn the best practices of any given language. Syntax is easy to learn, but knowing the syntax to a programming language doesn't make you a good programmer any more than being able to write and spell makes you Shakespeare.
That being said, the PHP manuals are an excellent piece of work. It is my opinion that they are largely responsible for the popularity of PHP. I have used web development systems that I feel are superior to PHP, but I have yet to see anything that is both as easy to use as PHP and as well documented. Between the PHP manual, the PHP mailing lists, and the vast wealth of freely available example PHP code, I just don't see the added value of a book. The manual is more than enough to teach you the syntax, the tutorial will get you started on the correct path, and lurking on the mailing list is as likely as anything to teach you to use PHP properly. If you really get stuck, chances are good that you can examine a working example from some other production quality product.
And we have plenty of evidence that unauthorized code has leaked in, as well. Take a look at all the cool MS Office easter eggs we have had over the years. If the folks writing Excell could sneak in a flight simulator, then what would you bet that someone working on SQL Server could put in a back door.
You are correct. The source code for these types of sensitive niche programs probably should be under lock and key, as the only people interested in taking a look at the source are those people who are looking for holes that they can exploit. However, there is nothing in the GPL that requires that you put your source code up on an FTP server. You are just required to turn over source code to software to the people that received binaries from you. If you only distribute binaries to one organization (like the DOD), then you only have to release the source code to one organization.
It is also probably a good idea to build your system on Free Software components that do get a lot of use. Borland's Interbase had a secret backdoor password until it was released as a Free Software project just recently. If you based your top secret application on Interbase you could very easily have introduced a back door via the commercial software you used as the back end. In other words, for those parts of your project where you are utilizing commodity software (a database, an office suite, a web browser, etc.) you should be using something that comes with source code.
They are apparently only available online. This is probably nothing more than a trial balloon to see if selling OS-less PCs is worth the effort. Wal-Mart doesn't seriously get into a business unless they can undersell the competition, and the only way to underprice Dell is to sell computers without an operating system.
If they get enough support, then we will probably see Wal-Mart push these machines more aggresively. After all, Wal-Mart has nothing to lose. They can afford to piss Microsoft off because they don't make a living selling PCs.
Exactly. Most artists would be be better off selling 30,000 records and making a buck or two per record. The problem is that doesn't leave the outrageous profit margins that the music industry has been used to for so long.
The music industry is facing an increasingly consolidated radio business and the rise of a new distribution method that is in many ways superior to the current distribution channel that they control. In the end the artists, the radio stations, and the Internet are going to squeeze the fat right out of the record label middlemen.
You clearly have never worked for an actual manufacturer, nor do you have any idea of the damages that one lawsuit can do. Most companies are extremely careful about how they dispose of wastes for the simple reason that they do not want to be held liable for damages. Just look at what is happening to the tobacco industry and they even printed right on their cartons that their product was dangerous.
I know that when the EPA folks nose around our facility it is all "Yes Sir! Right Away Sir!" We know they could shut us down in a New York minute.
To some people freedom is not an abstract concept but something that they would give their lives to uphold. Perhaps you have heard of the slogan "Live Free or Die" some of us actually believe this to be a good motto to live (and perhaps die) by.
In other words, for me to go along with this sort of approach to environmentalism I would have to be convinced that it was in my own best interest. If I could not be convinced personally then the proponents of the plan would have to convince a large enough percentage of the community where I live so that laws could be passed that would oblige me to act in a certain way. If I thought that the plans were stupid I would do my level best to oppose the passage of these laws, but I would abide by the laws passed (assuming that they didn't infringe on my constitutional rights).
Unfortunately, many zealots believe that their cause is important enough that it warrants short circuiting these procedures.
If he lives anywhere near me (same hemisphere) I would recommend that he not go outside to take a shower. It's probably illegal, and it is very likely that some innocent bystander could get hurt.
Of course if all you need to do to take over an IE users computer is run a gopher server and get some hapless schmoe to click on a gopher link you can bet there will be a sudden resurgence in this venerable protocol. I imagine mixing in a link in pornography spam would probably net you quite a few computers. Some of them would almost certainly have useful information.
Eventually Microsoft is going to learn that paying idiots to release studies that of this type isn't in their best interests. Microsoft had a much better case in the Mindcraft studies, and they still were handed their heads. A group proposing the closed source software is inherently more secure than open source software is going to get crucified. Computer pundits absolutely salivate over this sort of thing. Everyone and their dog is going to A) point out that Microsoft funds this group, and B) knock their arguments clear out of the park.
You should probably start here. It has been a while since I used the Windows version of Ghostscript, but it seemed to be pretty complete. There is even special documentation on ps2pdf.
If I remember correctly I used a setup with a special printer that printed the Postscript output to a file. I would then run ps2pdf on the file and I would have a PDF file.
That's not the least bit true. The specification for PDF is public. What's more there is a huge pile of free software that allows you to create and view PDF files. In fact, using Ghostscript it is possible to turn nearly any print job into a PDF file (even on Windows), so there is no need for Adobe's expensive tools (unless, of course, you happen to like them).
The adoption of Open Software means nothing. It has no relevance to anything with regards to bringing up the level of Taiwan's computer industry. Indeed, neither does Microsoft software. Rather, it is the ability of highly skilled programmers and far-sighted corporate officers making great strides into the vast software market that will make all the difference. If anything, this step into Open Source Software will set Taiwan back.
That isn't true at all. As long as the Taiwanese (and the Peruvians, the Germans, etc.) base their work on software that is controlled by United States interests then they will continue to be subservient to the U.S. software houses. Free Software does two things for the foreign software industries. It gives them the opportunity to study the actual source code for working applications, many of which are extremely well done, and it gives them the opportunity to base their own work (that they can then get paid for) on software that is available royalty free.
Taiwan is a perfect example of how this works. The Taiwanese government is under pressure to stamp out software piracy in their government, and they can do this in one of two ways. They could send a big fat check to Microsoft on an annual basis. This money would then leave their country and make the U.S. software industry richer. Or they could pay local programmers to build on a foundation of Free Software so that it will fit their needs. Much of this software could even be commercial software that they could sell to other countries.
This works especially well for governments like Taiwan because they get to make the rules. They can set the standard on how communication is done with the government, and hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese businesses will have no choice but to comply. If the Taiwanese government said that the official document standard was StarOffice, for example, and that documents would not be accepted in any other format, then StarOffice would get a big boost in that country.
In other words, the software that becomes the base of the economy (and education), is important. Besides, programming is becoming more high level all of the time. Who worries about coding a linked list when nearly every language you might want to use has plenty of complex data structures ready to use? I personally am grateful for my education, but I don't delude myself into thinking that there is anything magical about it.
You are quite right, RedHat has gone through quite a bit of money. However, it can't be said that they aren't having a profound effect on the computer industry. Linux has especially changed the face of the server industry.
The fact of the matter is that there is no way that you can create an software company in this day and age and expect it to survive unless you are willing to radically change the economics of software. If you play by the rules that Microsoft has set then you will lose. If RedHat is successful then they will change the industry from one that is worth tens of billions of dollars a quarter to one that is worth an order of magnitude less. That may seem like a poor deal, but if RedHat can grab a substantial portion of this new pie it is far more than they could make otherwise.
Caldera, on the other hand, has not only burnt through millions of dollars of investor's money, but they are also losing marketshare (which would seem nearly impossible in a market where Linux continues to make impressive gains). Of all of the Linux companies RedHat is far and away the most likely to survive long term, and their survival is directly attributable to the fact that they give away the source code to the software they create.
Slashdot Mirror
The point is that if IBM didn't commoditize PC hardware then it would probably have been Apple that created the standard. In which case IBM would have seen their mainframe market dominated, and they would have completely missed the PC revolution. Besides which it can very easily be argued that IBM's PC lines failed when they tried to close the PC architecture with their proprietary MCA bus.
By this time PC buyers were very interested in maintaining a commodity PC market, and so IBM sales plummeted while Compaq, Dell, Gateway and other non-proprietary PC makers flourished. The fact that the PC market was IBM's to lose is evidenced by the fact that many people still bought the proprietary IBM machines, only to find that none of the inexpensive hardware add-ons would actually work in their machine.
Being Free Software has made Mozilla hundreds of times more popular than it should be. Heck, if Mozilla wasn't Free Software probably no one would be using it. For years it was hardly useable, and yet people (like me) still fired it up.
Now it is actually good, but Microsoft has all of the marketshare. The few people that are using it are almost without doubt using it because it is Free Software. Because it is Free Software, and because it is very cool, it is even being used in new projects which will undoubtedly drive its acceptance.
My guess is that in the long run it will even continue to gain converts, but this is only because it is Free. I don't personally think it would grow its userbase even if they gave it away but kept the source code. The only reason that people are interested in it is that they know that they can build on it, but that is quite likely to be enough to keep it alive and growing.
The USPTO has simply realized that it is easier and more cost effective to replace examiners with rubber stamp machines. They don't complain, they don't get sick, and they don't reject patents.
The bandwidth probably wasn't donated, and they probably hired their own editor.
I have spent the last little bit reading the behind the scenes bit of ShadowMarch and it would appear that they had a lot of expenses. Everything from custom programming to fridge magnets. Sometimes I forget that just because I could program and host something like ShadowMarch inexpensively does not mean that Tad Williams can.
If they *shelled out* (I hate these terms) a couple thousand a month for marketing, editing and distribution, would that really make it so much easier to part with 18 bucks?
The whole point is to not have to pay for marketing. I don't want marketing, I want good books.
Yeah. There is no such thing as "pure gravy" in business.
Sure there is. Tad sold the book. It will soon be available at bookstores, and it will probably sell well. My guess is that it will sell extremely well. Many of the people who subscribed to ShadowMarch will end up buying a copy of the book as well. In essence Tad got people to pay to proofread his novel.
Everybody needs to make a living. That is a given. Tad Williams tried an experiment in which he published a book over the Internet instead of using the normal route of publishing with a normal book publisher. He wasn't doing it for free, and he didn't really give up his day job.
That being said, instead of writing and selling one novel this year, he has now written and sold two novels. Writing both novels took a toll out of him (which is why he isn't going to be continuing). The good news, for him, was that he was able to get a portion of his fan club to pay $18 a pop for the privilege of proofreading one of his manuscripts while he wrote it. That money is pure gravy; it is above and beyond what he would have received had he simply turned the book over to his publisher in the first place. Not only that, but it would appear that the members of his fan club that participated in the experiment love him for the chance. I read pages and pages of responses to the recent news all of which included the word "hug." From Tad's comments on the site it would appear that he also appreciated the near instantaneous feedback.
Yet somehow you seem to think that this is some sort of a problem for Tad and are equating his actions to the actions of people that give stuff away for free. I don't understand the connection at all. Tad didn't give away anything for free. In fact, he charged top dollar for his work. You can waltz on over to www.baen.com and download comparable fiction at far lower prices (and all of this fiction has already already been finished and was professionally proofread). The folks at Baen seem to think that their behavior is making them money.
I am a firm believer that artists and writers should get paid, and I also believe that the Internet opens up a whole new set of avenues for the writer or artist to profit from their work without pesky middlemen. However, not many people are willing to pay hardcover prices for a book that is only available in electronic format and that isn't finished yet. I will happily buy Tad's book when it comes out in paperback. I would happily buy it now in electronic format if it were A) finished and B) available at a price comparable to a paperback, but it isn't.
When I looked into subscribing I believe the cost was around $21. That's maybe not as much as a Tad Williams hardcover, but it will buy you a hardcover from most other Fantasy authors.
And in many ways ShadowMarch is considerably less than a trade paperback. It might have a nifty web site, but that's not necessarily a bonus for most readers. Tad didn't even have to pay for professional editting, marketing, or distribution. Yet he still expects us to pay nearly double the paperback price.
I must admit that the HTML format is nice, but the book would be completely worthless if it wasn't in an open format. If I am going to pay $18 for a subscription to a serial available only in electronic format then you can bet that I am going to want it in an unecrypted format.
The funny thing about this experiment is that it will almost certainly work out well for Mr. Williams. He has sold the book anyhow, and so anything he made from shadowmarch.com is pure gravy. Basically a whole pile of Tad Williams fans paid to proofread his newest novel. My guess is that the shadowmarch.com experiment will even increase the sales when it comes out in book form. I know that I will probably buy it.
It does make me somewhat sad, however, that this experiment didn't work out better. I honestly believe that the major problem was that Tad priced his book out of the market. We'll never know now, but at least we will be able to find out how the story ends.
Perhaps you have never heard of the G-spot. That's pretty sexy (sorry I couldn't help it).
You are missing the point. The problem isn't really that Microsoft is shipping a virus (although you have to admit that this is pretty darn funny). The problem is that Microsoft is shipping files that they don't know about. This file could have been anything.
Microsoft has set up their business so that their customers have to trust them. There is no way for Microsoft's customers to verify that Microsoft software is safe. Yet time and time again Microsoft has shown that they simply are not particularly trustworthy. It has gotten so bad that it isn't just /. that is laughing at Microsoft. This particular story was published by CNET (which is a very Microsoft-friendly news source).
That's a load of hooey. Microsoft's customers didn't ask them to use a third party to translate the files, nor did they purchase the product from the third party. If Microsoft can't even handle the elementary security step of scanning the product for viruses before putting it on a CD, how do you even know that the mysterious third party isn't replacing important DLLs with DLLs that are functionally equivalent but have a hidden backdoor.
Clearly Microsoft isn't really checking these files. Which means that when Microsoft says "Trustworthy computing" what they are really saying is that you should trust them, and all of their "third party" allies despite the fact that they have a horrific track record.
Uh, dinotrac what in the heck are you talking about? Tad William's ShadowMarch was never about Free as in Beer. It was available in an unencrypted format, but to read past the first few chapters you had to pay the equivalent of a hardback novel. Oh, and you got the added pleasure of having to wait for the next chapter to come out. Personally I don't like to read that way. I was considering purchasing a subscription after he had "finished" the first novel (so I could read it all the way through), but now I suppose I will just have to wait until it is out in paperback.
I am a huge Tad Williams fan, but he simply can't compete with the folks over at www.baen.com. They have entire books available for sampling, in a wide variety of open formats. If you decide you would like to purchase one of their novels they are approximately $4 each and are available in bundles of four for $10. These folks have almost got me completely transitioned over to reading on my Visor Handspring.
There are plenty of people that don't mind paying for music and books, but they aren't interested in paying $20 for a book that may or may not ever get finished and that is released in installments.
Publishing books in serialized installments works fine. In fact, most of Tad Williams other books come in three and four book series, and people gladly waited until the next book came out.
The problem with this experiment is that it had all of the disadvantages of a paper bound book, and none of the advantages. I love Tad Williams, but I am not going to shell out $21 bucks a year, in advance, for a story that he may or may not finish and that doesn't come in book form. Especially when I can go to www.baen.com and get books in a unencrypted format of my choice for $4 a pop (or four for $10).
Tad wanted to charge hardback prices for a book that A) wasn't finished, and B) was available only in a digital format.
I agree wholeheartedly that it is important to learn the best practices of any given language. Syntax is easy to learn, but knowing the syntax to a programming language doesn't make you a good programmer any more than being able to write and spell makes you Shakespeare.
That being said, the PHP manuals are an excellent piece of work. It is my opinion that they are largely responsible for the popularity of PHP. I have used web development systems that I feel are superior to PHP, but I have yet to see anything that is both as easy to use as PHP and as well documented. Between the PHP manual, the PHP mailing lists, and the vast wealth of freely available example PHP code, I just don't see the added value of a book. The manual is more than enough to teach you the syntax, the tutorial will get you started on the correct path, and lurking on the mailing list is as likely as anything to teach you to use PHP properly. If you really get stuck, chances are good that you can examine a working example from some other production quality product.
And we have plenty of evidence that unauthorized code has leaked in, as well. Take a look at all the cool MS Office easter eggs we have had over the years. If the folks writing Excell could sneak in a flight simulator, then what would you bet that someone working on SQL Server could put in a back door.
You are correct. The source code for these types of sensitive niche programs probably should be under lock and key, as the only people interested in taking a look at the source are those people who are looking for holes that they can exploit. However, there is nothing in the GPL that requires that you put your source code up on an FTP server. You are just required to turn over source code to software to the people that received binaries from you. If you only distribute binaries to one organization (like the DOD), then you only have to release the source code to one organization.
It is also probably a good idea to build your system on Free Software components that do get a lot of use. Borland's Interbase had a secret backdoor password until it was released as a Free Software project just recently. If you based your top secret application on Interbase you could very easily have introduced a back door via the commercial software you used as the back end. In other words, for those parts of your project where you are utilizing commodity software (a database, an office suite, a web browser, etc.) you should be using something that comes with source code.
They are apparently only available online. This is probably nothing more than a trial balloon to see if selling OS-less PCs is worth the effort. Wal-Mart doesn't seriously get into a business unless they can undersell the competition, and the only way to underprice Dell is to sell computers without an operating system.
If they get enough support, then we will probably see Wal-Mart push these machines more aggresively. After all, Wal-Mart has nothing to lose. They can afford to piss Microsoft off because they don't make a living selling PCs.
Exactly. Most artists would be be better off selling 30,000 records and making a buck or two per record. The problem is that doesn't leave the outrageous profit margins that the music industry has been used to for so long.
The music industry is facing an increasingly consolidated radio business and the rise of a new distribution method that is in many ways superior to the current distribution channel that they control. In the end the artists, the radio stations, and the Internet are going to squeeze the fat right out of the record label middlemen.
You clearly have never worked for an actual manufacturer, nor do you have any idea of the damages that one lawsuit can do. Most companies are extremely careful about how they dispose of wastes for the simple reason that they do not want to be held liable for damages. Just look at what is happening to the tobacco industry and they even printed right on their cartons that their product was dangerous.
I know that when the EPA folks nose around our facility it is all "Yes Sir! Right Away Sir!" We know they could shut us down in a New York minute.
To some people freedom is not an abstract concept but something that they would give their lives to uphold. Perhaps you have heard of the slogan "Live Free or Die" some of us actually believe this to be a good motto to live (and perhaps die) by.
In other words, for me to go along with this sort of approach to environmentalism I would have to be convinced that it was in my own best interest. If I could not be convinced personally then the proponents of the plan would have to convince a large enough percentage of the community where I live so that laws could be passed that would oblige me to act in a certain way. If I thought that the plans were stupid I would do my level best to oppose the passage of these laws, but I would abide by the laws passed (assuming that they didn't infringe on my constitutional rights).
Unfortunately, many zealots believe that their cause is important enough that it warrants short circuiting these procedures.
If he lives anywhere near me (same hemisphere) I would recommend that he not go outside to take a shower. It's probably illegal, and it is very likely that some innocent bystander could get hurt.
Of course if all you need to do to take over an IE users computer is run a gopher server and get some hapless schmoe to click on a gopher link you can bet there will be a sudden resurgence in this venerable protocol. I imagine mixing in a link in pornography spam would probably net you quite a few computers. Some of them would almost certainly have useful information.
Eventually Microsoft is going to learn that paying idiots to release studies that of this type isn't in their best interests. Microsoft had a much better case in the Mindcraft studies, and they still were handed their heads. A group proposing the closed source software is inherently more secure than open source software is going to get crucified. Computer pundits absolutely salivate over this sort of thing. Everyone and their dog is going to A) point out that Microsoft funds this group, and B) knock their arguments clear out of the park.
Today, however, we all get to laugh.
You should probably start here. It has been a while since I used the Windows version of Ghostscript, but it seemed to be pretty complete. There is even special documentation on ps2pdf.
If I remember correctly I used a setup with a special printer that printed the Postscript output to a file. I would then run ps2pdf on the file and I would have a PDF file.
Good luck.
That's not the least bit true. The specification for PDF is public. What's more there is a huge pile of free software that allows you to create and view PDF files. In fact, using Ghostscript it is possible to turn nearly any print job into a PDF file (even on Windows), so there is no need for Adobe's expensive tools (unless, of course, you happen to like them).
In short PDF is good.
That isn't true at all. As long as the Taiwanese (and the Peruvians, the Germans, etc.) base their work on software that is controlled by United States interests then they will continue to be subservient to the U.S. software houses. Free Software does two things for the foreign software industries. It gives them the opportunity to study the actual source code for working applications, many of which are extremely well done, and it gives them the opportunity to base their own work (that they can then get paid for) on software that is available royalty free.
Taiwan is a perfect example of how this works. The Taiwanese government is under pressure to stamp out software piracy in their government, and they can do this in one of two ways. They could send a big fat check to Microsoft on an annual basis. This money would then leave their country and make the U.S. software industry richer. Or they could pay local programmers to build on a foundation of Free Software so that it will fit their needs. Much of this software could even be commercial software that they could sell to other countries.
This works especially well for governments like Taiwan because they get to make the rules. They can set the standard on how communication is done with the government, and hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese businesses will have no choice but to comply. If the Taiwanese government said that the official document standard was StarOffice, for example, and that documents would not be accepted in any other format, then StarOffice would get a big boost in that country.
In other words, the software that becomes the base of the economy (and education), is important. Besides, programming is becoming more high level all of the time. Who worries about coding a linked list when nearly every language you might want to use has plenty of complex data structures ready to use? I personally am grateful for my education, but I don't delude myself into thinking that there is anything magical about it.
You are quite right, RedHat has gone through quite a bit of money. However, it can't be said that they aren't having a profound effect on the computer industry. Linux has especially changed the face of the server industry.
The fact of the matter is that there is no way that you can create an software company in this day and age and expect it to survive unless you are willing to radically change the economics of software. If you play by the rules that Microsoft has set then you will lose. If RedHat is successful then they will change the industry from one that is worth tens of billions of dollars a quarter to one that is worth an order of magnitude less. That may seem like a poor deal, but if RedHat can grab a substantial portion of this new pie it is far more than they could make otherwise.
Caldera, on the other hand, has not only burnt through millions of dollars of investor's money, but they are also losing marketshare (which would seem nearly impossible in a market where Linux continues to make impressive gains). Of all of the Linux companies RedHat is far and away the most likely to survive long term, and their survival is directly attributable to the fact that they give away the source code to the software they create.