I think it's going to pass more like an @stake stupidity.
Not only is there no proof Microsoft picked up the phone to get the guy fired. I think it is extremely unlikely.
Microsoft is a business, and they're in the business of doing business. Regardless of how much people enjoy antropomorphizing the company, they're not about injustice, evil and megalomany... they're about money, power and megalomany. Like practically every business out there.
In order of preference, these are the things Microsoft would like to happen with this paper:
- Never existed - No one knows it ever existed - Paper is discredited and ignored by everyone - Massive marketing and other pro-MS studies make customes disregard the academic paper
Consider the possibilities:
It is impossible for them to "undo" the paper.
In the default situation, the paper would be practically unknown in the mainstream. The few people who would know would quickly forget it. Even if the circle that pays attention to security pundits takes the paper to heart, this is controllable damage in a demographics that was not exactly pro-Microsoft in the first place.
If they wanted to discredit the paper they could have transferred him, suggested retirement, set him up and discredit him for a month or so... anything but summarily firing him after releasing this paper.
As it is, the paper has gotten more media attention than it could possibly have had otherwise. I mean, Bruce Schneier and others have not exactly been quiet about Microsoft these last few years. The media is just not that interested.
Now, with talk about Microsoft getting a prominent expert fired for presenting a paper, there might be a story out there. The media might pay attention. Discredit will go to the @stake company, and to Microsoft because of the implications. The paper, in turn, becomes more credible precisely because of this demonstration of power.
This will force Microsoft not only to go with the last alternative, but to put more effort now because they have to deflect the bad publicity.
I don't think it's going to be difficult for them. The media will get bored, and they have an excellent marketing machine.
But what Microsoft would have wanted was for the paper to be quietly forgotten, which it was probably going to, anyway.
They wouldn't have picked up the phone to destroy those chances.
They might pick up the phone now to ask @stake what the hell were they smoking.
The problem is that the court has not upgraded to MS Time.
In any case, good for the court on putting the ridiculousness of the situation in writing.
I mean, if the litigators are going to disrespect the court by wasting its time with ridiculous motions, they may be obligated to follow along, but they can at least put their own disrespect for the litigants in evidence.
I expected to see them wasting the 3 days in a vicious debate over which Linux distribution they would install on each of the family's new PCs.
Then over Window Managers, and then over retraining the family to use Mozilla, Konqueror, or Lynx.
Instead, they start by doing the sensible thing and getting them Powerbooks. Ok, not so bad here...
But then, they want to buy them a DELL?! And their second choice is an HP Pavillion?
What self-respecting team of geeks can't find a decent custom-built barebones, or put one together themselves, in 3 days with 15K? Or at least go for an Alienware or something like that if you want a "brand".
It would be more accurate to say that it did suck a lot.
JSP was a copy of ASP, created to keep Java as "the web language" and stop the VBScript insanity.
Of course, in the process it copied most of the insanity in ASP, moved a lot of ASP developers with bad habits to JSP, and trained a lot of Java developers into the really bad habits of that type of development.
However, to the merit of JSP, the Java zealots were the first ones to try to fix the mess:
After the first batch of books advocating bad practices, it became common advocated wisdom that application code belongs in Beans and Servlets, and JSPs should be dealt with as cleaner, glorified print-out statements.
Obsessive use of JavaBeans and extensible, Custom Tag Libraries can easily remove most, and often all, of the need for Java code from any JSP application. It looks and feels more like Coldfusion development, which is very nice for HTML interfaces.
And now the Expression Language is essentially a template engine with a scripting language that is not very different from Freemaker et al. The main advantage I see on this is to let you deal with Java code in JSPs not as an aesthetic preference, but as a capital sin (validate the code and refuse anything that has <% or %>).
Now ASP.NET copied most of the improvements and added a few of its own. And the same people who hated ASP find it very appealing now in its new shape.
Perhaps you still would prefer your own TemplateEngine+Servlets combination, perhaps not. But the hacks have changed a lot. They might be worth revisiting.
I would think the advantage "The Producers" had in that sense is rather obvious, considering the theme and plot of the movie... even the rythm of the movie.
I have to wonder how they'll tie this one together. Although some scenes are obviously easy to transfer to a musical (the Camelot song, Launcelot's "rescues"), there are other scenes and random pieces of absurdity that don't fit the format that well.
Funny, Trillian doesn't profit from my use of the IM networks.
You see, I use their freeware version of Trillian, which is still a superior product to the original IM clients (at least for my use).
Most Trillian users do the same. Maybe it's because we're cheap, maybe it's because we don't need those features.
But the money they make out of the "pro" version is evidently from people who demand more features than just "accessing other people's networks". And those needs are obviously not satisfied by the market.
My point is that there ARE reasons for Trillian to exist. Reasons enough that a lot of computer illiterate users prefer to download a 0.x version of a program from an unknown tiny software company (with limited/none support for things like webcams, file transfers, etc) to free "authorized" clients from such big-shots as Microsoft and AOL.
Reasons like: - Annoying pop-up SPAM messages from third parties every 10 minutes. - Truly horrid user interfaces. - Multiple conversations is an organizational nightmare. - Insane memory requirements for a silly IM client. - Inability to organize your contacts along more than one service.
Only the last one requires anything more than basic competence on the part of the software provider; and I can assure you, if they were solved, running multiple clients wouldn't bother clients any more than running the 700 icons in the typical Windows taskbar (from Realmedia to Printer Driver Utilities to P2P clients) does right now.
In a sense, you're right. There is no reason for Trillian to exist. If it were not for the incompetence of the rest of the industry, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Re:And the second rule of secure programming club
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Secure Programming
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· Score: 1
What I was hoping to suggest is that languages that define their own hardware (through VMs, or potentially through a hardware implementation of that VM) have more of a chance to enforce a concept of "security" not easily broken by the developer's code running inside the VM.
That is, security could be actually enforced, rather than being just a conceptual help.
I'm not saying VM-based languages enforce "real security", whatever that means in each context.
But that would blur the conceptual barrier suggested in the quote, that any such security requires dedicated hardware.
You do have a point, there is a lot of panic among US engineers/developers that's expressed as an inability to understand that companies will do whatever is profitable to companies, whether they like it or not.
It's also expressed in a tendency to generalize about foreign coders being bad programmers, make the very real language barrier seem insurmountable, and assume that there are no serious professionals outside of the US.
However, there are two points I strongly disagree with:
- It could be argued that the dot-com boom spoiled overpaid professionals.
I could see where this is very counterproductive for companies, because a key good programmer leaving the company for greener fields in the middle of a project can be more costly than an average programmer who's not being offered 100K a year by your competition.
I could even see how, when workers do depend on their jobs, their productivity may increase due to a certain level of precaution you could call "company loyalty".
Having people fearing for their jobs in the industry, and implicitely expecting to be laid off to save costs (through no fault of their own) is NOT going to increase their productivity, though.
You may not want to spoil them, but you need a certain level of morale for a worker to perform well.
- Strenghtening the company from within should be a priority.
There is a very big danger with outsourcing everything but "Mission Critical" or "Senior Engineering" work. There is a very real danger in outsourcing all the "code monkey" work.
You're not training any local code monkeys to become the next generation of Senior Engineers anymore.
You may have enough +100K senior developers to cover your needs right now, because they have decades of experience in the most active IT industry in the world.
But if you're not hiring any college graduates because their job can be done by junior programmers in Bangalore, the experience and expertise you'll need in a decade will have to be imported from Bangalore.
Don't expect to get such cheap deals on those when your supply of senior experts is reduced. And don't expect to find too many of those in the US either unless companies are specifically planning to grow them and train them.
Re:And the second rule of secure programming club
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Secure Programming
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· Score: 1
What about programming languages that define their own virtual hardware (VMs) ?
The "Microsoft Tax" is not a reference to the cost of the Operating System when you buy a new computer with Windows installed.
It's a reference to the fact OEMs were obligated to charge you for the Windows OS for every computer they sold, even if Windows was not installed. Effectively taxing every x86 sold, even if it had a competitor OS.
That, along with MS forbidding OEMs from selling dual-boots (a bit of "legislation" on their part) are among the things that killed BeOS in the womb.
He is a businessman. His company exists to make money.
Where's the news in that?
More importantly, why would that be a reason not to trust him?
I don't think anyone believes in his talk of "openness" and "support of free software" because they think he's a raving GNU hippie.
Rather, it would be because he believes, and asks his shareholders to believe, that it's good for Sun's business plan.
Usually, the people who believe him are convinced of that too.
Usually, people believe they will not kill/control Linux because it would be risky, unprofitable, doomed to fail, or all three.
This is no different from IBM, or any other pro-OSS company. We all know they're in the game to make a profit. We all know they'll leave if they do not. That's THEIR JOB. To do otherwise would be unethical, since their obligation is with their shareholders, not with Free Software.
You can trust someone only when you understand his motivations.
It took some time for "business" to trust the concepts of Free Software and Open Source, because it took them some time to understand the motivations of the community. A businessman's motivations are remarkably simpler to understand.
You just can't expect all of your allies to share your own motivations, or that list will be very short.
Most libertarians believe there is a place for the government in defending the citizens against the use of force. Some libertarians believe part of that role is in defending the market as well.
What libertarians don't like is someone manipulating (i.e.: regulating) the market. Imposing, and usually changing, costly rules of business, taxes, kicking players out of the market by force or favoring others for no reason.
Typically, that regulating force means the government.
However, a strong monopoly has the force, and often the motivation, to govern the market. The fact so many people consider the expression "the Microsoft tax" natural and valid says something.
So it is possible for a libertarian to strongly believe that the government has not only the duty not to mess with the market, but to make sure others don't try to do the same. Much like the government should refrain from violent repression, yet be ready to use force to protect the people from the threat of violence.
And where exactly is the rule written that consumers cannot or should not use port 25?
I guess you don't think we should serve http ports?
And no telnet/ssh either. Remote administration is the kind of thing a consumer doesn't need.
When I pay for my "consumer-level" DSL, I have some expectations that I'm willing to compromise on.
I know the tech-support people will not consider me a priority. I know if they have network problems, they will not work the extra mile to minimize my downtime. I know I cannot talk about "downtime" with them with a straight face, because they don't have those kinds of obligations.
I do expect, however, to be able to send and receive little packets of data every once in a while, at a certain speed, over whatever ports I want. I expect my paltry email packets to be dealt with equally with my fancy packets of video and audio (which certainly cost more bandwidth to my ISP, spam or no spam).
I do expect that my use is not restricted by "whatever is likely" other people need or do.
I agree with you that most users should have port 25 blocked. Actually, I think most BUSINESS users should have port 25 blocked too... a lot of small offices do not need, and do not have, their own email server but were happily sending emails through their business DSL lines due to SoBig.
Let BOTH kinds of users specifically remove that block. Force them to restrict it to a specific email server (or a list) if you want.
If they need it, whether it's a geek or a full IT department, it wouldn't be a problem because they know what they're doing.
But don't assume that a consumer never knows what he's doing, or that a business necessarily has a clue.
I had opened the article specifically to make this same comment.
Just like self-administered hosting services have successfully provided "servers for the little man" through virtual hosts and web configuration interfaces, ISPs could provide security for the average joe.
Integrate the UI well with your webmail (spam-filtering, etc) and other services, and your ISP portal can actually be more useful than as a bandwidth test.
That's because Emacs is at heart an Operating System, not an application.
I'm patiently waiting for the Emacs distro that runs Linux in a VM.
Re:Stagnant? How about stable and secure.
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Java vs .NET
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· Score: 1
Not to mention that some of us prefer our standards to be... well, actually standards in more than name (even if just de facto).
Even if each latest flashy feature is solid as rock in the platform, I'm not going to be happy if they are replaced every 12 months by a "new standard feature".
Java has gone through some dramatic changes, but one thing the JCP does is make sure there is a good reason for those changes, minimize disruption, and try to ensure their lifespan is not a couple of months.
This is more difficult to guarantee when the revenue of the only company with a voice in the platform changes (MS in.NET) is directly linked to an "upgrade cycle" for the development platform.
Re:An important thing to point out:
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Java vs .NET
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· Score: 2, Insightful
That's right, there are lots of great ways to write webapps in Java without using EJB.
But there are no great ways to write them without using J2EE. At least not unless you absolutely love client-side code.
Servlets are part of J2EE. Among the most useful parts, IMNSHO.
I don't think it's such a problem to remember that Java!=J2EE.
The problem is most people don't remember J2EE!=EJB, that an enterprise application doesn't always NEED EJBs, and that a lot of of the perceived complexity of J2EE disappears when you stop using EJBs compulsively.
I think Carmack (and Nintendo) have a point about the need for "simple" games that are trivial to pick up for casual gamers. Particularly as the "gaming market" grows and it's own "mainstream" (average gamers) merges with what other, bigger markets are used to call "mainstream" (average consumers of random toys).
However, most specialized genres are bound to be complex games, because they're aimed at consumers who WANT depth of gameplay, which implies complexity.
These genres have historically been a big part of the market, and although one would expect this to decrease as 10-minute Flash games become more popular than 50+ hours RPGs, they'll never disappear.
The reason is that not only were those more appealing to the market that was able to buy games before (computer-hobbyst => people who like complex toys | geeks). The people buying those games are still a big part of the market, are more willing to spend insane amounts on money on games and hardware than casual gamers, and are vocal enough to influence the philistines.
So there will always be sim fanatics who will demand accurate simulations, which will need a book just as a real car, airplane, or whatever is simulated requires one (at least).
Most RPG gamers will be glad to get a book with their game. It's easy to understand, considering they often buy BOOKS to play RPGs without their computer. Books that are mostly not about rules, but about background, fictional history, world-description, etc. I mean, what's the point of playing an RPG if the character and the world do not have the depth to merit that? Or are they going to show it all through FMVs with all the subtlety of an Asimov novel?
Simple is good where it makes sense. But complaining about RPGs shipping with documentation is like complaining that the keyboard has too many buttons. You may think you'd do just fine with less in Quake, but that's because what you want is not a keyboard.
Heh, that reminds me of some insane webpage (I wish I still had the link) where this guy ranted page after page of David-Ecke-style conspiracy theories about us living in a parallel universe that was actually sort of like the Matrix but really more like it is described in Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" (????) and it would all end up as in Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End", but with the aliens dominating us...
Among all the classical crackpot "revolutionary scientific discoveries that invalidate so-called modern science", his main evidence was having corresponded with the honorable Arthur C. Clarke.
Clarke OBVIOUSLY agreed and supported his efforts wholeheartedly, with statements like "I'm glad you enjoyed my books", "Yes, that is interesting", and "I'm always glad to hear from readers".
It is not uncommon for delusional people to mistake basic politeness (or in face-to-face meetings, distractions while looking for a route of escape) with agreement and support of their arguments.
They can do other things too, you know. As a matter of fact, it's not a bad idea to do other non-work related things even if you have web access.
The web is not the only distraction in the world, but it does have one very bad characteristic:
If you work on the computer, the web does not encourage separation of work from "play".
So it's easier to deceive yourself into believing you're working more time than you actually are... and underestimate the time you're distracted by videos from the StarWars Kid or Slashdot postings.
This is not true of extended lunch and coffee breaks, watercooler stops, etc. Or even, say, taking a break to read a book. You'll be more likely to think "I really should get back to work and finish this" than if you can just keep the work an alt-TAB away for just another 5 minutes. Or someone will be more likely to tell you at some point if you don't.
This doesn't mean it's inherently bad, but I think it requires more discipline than we care to be aware of. Pretty much for the same reasons working-at-home does.
The thing is, web access is vital or very useful for a lot of jobs, from tech (software and docs) to clerical and secretarial (google is faster than the yellow pages). But it's not like every workplace was an Ayn Rand's workaholic utopia before HTML was invented.
I can actually understand the Windows-only issue from their point of view; although I don't agree with it as a customer.
But I bet they're losing users to third-party clients in far greater numbers in the windows platform than anywhere else.
Linux users are already willing to go through some inconvenience to NOT use their OS OR their Office suite, areas over which they had a much tighter control in the market over the years. It's not like they hope to "bring them back" through Messenger.
I'm using Trillian right now on a Windows machine. Why? Not because I can't use Messenger, not because I have ethical issues about using Messenger, but because Messenger and its network (like RealPlayer) is a product that has gone from decent to inferior to catastrophic with each "upgrade".
Perhaps if the network did not kick me out sporadically, if their client didn't take that long to sign me in, or took up over twice the memory size of Trillian, or if I didn't constantly get spam through it, or if it didn't have authentication problems with my hotmail account (which Trillian doesn't have)...
Well, you get the idea. Perhaps if their client didn't suck that much I wouldn't mind using it.
I mean, I love having all my IM ids in the same client, and probably wouldn't want to live without it by now. But it's like tabbed browsing in Mozilla... it's a feature that solves a problem many people don't know they have.
What made me try Trillian was not my admittedly crowed taskbar, it was one too many popups from Messenger advertising porn.
If their products were merely competent, they wouldn't even have to match the 3rd party products feature by feature. Not until a mainstream IM client (IM or Yahoo) forces them to by including those features itself.
That was my point, sort of. They couldn't put 70 bucks a year for a PO BOX. Not so much for the money on the long term as for the money on the short term.
To get them to use it it would have to be free. Which the government may or may not be able to cover. I would say 'probably not' because giving it for free in this case sort of implies giving it for free to everyone. It's not like you can get yourself "certifiably homeless", the difficult part is proving you do have a home and income, not that you don't have it.
However, a telephone system wouldn't present that problem. Give restricted voicemail to everyone. What would someone achieve by abusing the system? Getting EXTRA shelter information from the government?
My point is that there are better solutions to the "no contact point" problem, and it's not a very good argument for this thing.
Slashdot Mirror
What for?
If ensuring that means that everyone will remember THAT paper, it's not worth it.
If ensuring that means their customers will notice THAT paper in the first place, it's not worth it.
This is not the first, nor will it be the last time Microsoft has been accused of having a negative effect on security in general.
As long as it doesn't affect their bottom line, they care as much about that paper as they do aout the political rants of Noam Chomsky.
I think it's going to pass more like an @stake stupidity.
Not only is there no proof Microsoft picked up the phone to get the guy fired. I think it is extremely unlikely.
Microsoft is a business, and they're in the business of doing business. Regardless of how much people enjoy antropomorphizing the company, they're not about injustice, evil and megalomany... they're about money, power and megalomany. Like practically every business out there.
In order of preference, these are the things Microsoft would like to happen with this paper:
- Never existed
- No one knows it ever existed
- Paper is discredited and ignored by everyone
- Massive marketing and other pro-MS studies make customes disregard the academic paper
Consider the possibilities:
It is impossible for them to "undo" the paper.
In the default situation, the paper would be practically unknown in the mainstream. The few people who would know would quickly forget it. Even if the circle that pays attention to security pundits takes the paper to heart, this is controllable damage in a demographics that was not exactly pro-Microsoft in the first place.
If they wanted to discredit the paper they could have transferred him, suggested retirement, set him up and discredit him for a month or so... anything but summarily firing him after releasing this paper.
As it is, the paper has gotten more media attention than it could possibly have had otherwise. I mean, Bruce Schneier and others have not exactly been quiet about Microsoft these last few years. The media is just not that interested.
Now, with talk about Microsoft getting a prominent expert fired for presenting a paper, there might be a story out there. The media might pay attention. Discredit will go to the @stake company, and to Microsoft because of the implications. The paper, in turn, becomes more credible precisely because of this demonstration of power.
This will force Microsoft not only to go with the last alternative, but to put more effort now because they have to deflect the bad publicity.
I don't think it's going to be difficult for them. The media will get bored, and they have an excellent marketing machine.
But what Microsoft would have wanted was for the paper to be quietly forgotten, which it was probably going to, anyway.
They wouldn't have picked up the phone to destroy those chances.
They might pick up the phone now to ask @stake what the hell were they smoking.
The problem is that the court has not upgraded to MS Time.
In any case, good for the court on putting the ridiculousness of the situation in writing. I mean, if the litigators are going to disrespect the court by wasting its time with ridiculous motions, they may be obligated to follow along, but they can at least put their own disrespect for the litigants in evidence.
I seriously doubt the geekness of these guys.
I expected to see them wasting the 3 days in a vicious debate over which Linux distribution they would install on each of the family's new PCs.
Then over Window Managers, and then over retraining the family to use Mozilla, Konqueror, or Lynx.
Instead, they start by doing the sensible thing and getting them Powerbooks. Ok, not so bad here...
But then, they want to buy them a DELL?! And their second choice is an HP Pavillion?
What self-respecting team of geeks can't find a decent custom-built barebones, or put one together themselves, in 3 days with 15K? Or at least go for an Alienware or something like that if you want a "brand".
It would be more accurate to say that it did suck a lot.
JSP was a copy of ASP, created to keep Java as "the web language" and stop the VBScript insanity.
Of course, in the process it copied most of the insanity in ASP, moved a lot of ASP developers with bad habits to JSP, and trained a lot of Java developers into the really bad habits of that type of development.
However, to the merit of JSP, the Java zealots were the first ones to try to fix the mess:
After the first batch of books advocating bad practices, it became common advocated wisdom that application code belongs in Beans and Servlets, and JSPs should be dealt with as cleaner, glorified print-out statements.
Obsessive use of JavaBeans and extensible, Custom Tag Libraries can easily remove most, and often all, of the need for Java code from any JSP application. It looks and feels more like Coldfusion development, which is very nice for HTML interfaces.
And now the Expression Language is essentially a template engine with a scripting language that is not very different from Freemaker et al. The main advantage I see on this is to let you deal with Java code in JSPs not as an aesthetic preference, but as a capital sin (validate the code and refuse anything that has <% or %>).
Now ASP.NET copied most of the improvements and added a few of its own. And the same people who hated ASP find it very appealing now in its new shape.
Perhaps you still would prefer your own TemplateEngine+Servlets combination, perhaps not. But the hacks have changed a lot. They might be worth revisiting.
I would think the advantage "The Producers" had in that sense is rather obvious, considering the theme and plot of the movie... even the rythm of the movie.
I have to wonder how they'll tie this one together. Although some scenes are obviously easy to transfer to a musical (the Camelot song, Launcelot's "rescues"), there are other scenes and random pieces of absurdity that don't fit the format that well.
Funny, Trillian doesn't profit from my use of the IM networks.
You see, I use their freeware version of Trillian, which is still a superior product to the original IM clients (at least for my use).
Most Trillian users do the same. Maybe it's because we're cheap, maybe it's because we don't need those features.
But the money they make out of the "pro" version is evidently from people who demand more features than just "accessing other people's networks". And those needs are obviously not satisfied by the market.
My point is that there ARE reasons for Trillian to exist. Reasons enough that a lot of computer illiterate users prefer to download a 0.x version of a program from an unknown tiny software company (with limited/none support for things like webcams, file transfers, etc) to free "authorized" clients from such big-shots as Microsoft and AOL.
Reasons like:
- Annoying pop-up SPAM messages from third parties every 10 minutes.
- Truly horrid user interfaces.
- Multiple conversations is an organizational nightmare.
- Insane memory requirements for a silly IM client.
- Inability to organize your contacts along more than one service.
Only the last one requires anything more than basic competence on the part of the software provider; and I can assure you, if they were solved, running multiple clients wouldn't bother clients any more than running the 700 icons in the typical Windows taskbar (from Realmedia to Printer Driver Utilities to P2P clients) does right now.
In a sense, you're right. There is no reason for Trillian to exist. If it were not for the incompetence of the rest of the industry, they wouldn't stand a chance.
What I was hoping to suggest is that languages that define their own hardware (through VMs, or potentially through a hardware implementation of that VM) have more of a chance to enforce a concept of "security" not easily broken by the developer's code running inside the VM.
That is, security could be actually enforced, rather than being just a conceptual help.
I'm not saying VM-based languages enforce "real security", whatever that means in each context.
But that would blur the conceptual barrier suggested in the quote, that any such security requires dedicated hardware.
You do have a point, there is a lot of panic among US engineers/developers that's expressed as an inability to understand that companies will do whatever is profitable to companies, whether they like it or not.
It's also expressed in a tendency to generalize about foreign coders being bad programmers, make the very real language barrier seem insurmountable, and assume that there are no serious professionals outside of the US.
However, there are two points I strongly disagree with:
- It could be argued that the dot-com boom spoiled overpaid professionals.
I could see where this is very counterproductive for companies, because a key good programmer leaving the company for greener fields in the middle of a project can be more costly than an average programmer who's not being offered 100K a year by your competition.
I could even see how, when workers do depend on their jobs, their productivity may increase due to a certain level of precaution you could call "company loyalty".
Having people fearing for their jobs in the industry, and implicitely expecting to be laid off to save costs (through no fault of their own) is NOT going to increase their productivity, though.
You may not want to spoil them, but you need a certain level of morale for a worker to perform well.
- Strenghtening the company from within should be a priority.
There is a very big danger with outsourcing everything but "Mission Critical" or "Senior Engineering" work. There is a very real danger in outsourcing all the "code monkey" work.
You're not training any local code monkeys to become the next generation of Senior Engineers anymore.
You may have enough +100K senior developers to cover your needs right now, because they have decades of experience in the most active IT industry in the world.
But if you're not hiring any college graduates because their job can be done by junior programmers in Bangalore, the experience and expertise you'll need in a decade will have to be imported from Bangalore.
Don't expect to get such cheap deals on those when your supply of senior experts is reduced. And don't expect to find too many of those in the US either unless companies are specifically planning to grow them and train them.
What about programming languages that define their own virtual hardware (VMs) ?
The "Microsoft Tax" is not a reference to the cost of the Operating System when you buy a new computer with Windows installed.
It's a reference to the fact OEMs were obligated to charge you for the Windows OS for every computer they sold, even if Windows was not installed. Effectively taxing every x86 sold, even if it had a competitor OS.
That, along with MS forbidding OEMs from selling dual-boots (a bit of "legislation" on their part) are among the things that killed BeOS in the womb.
He is a businessman. His company exists to make money.
Where's the news in that?
More importantly, why would that be a reason not to trust him?
I don't think anyone believes in his talk of "openness" and "support of free software" because they think he's a raving GNU hippie.
Rather, it would be because he believes, and asks his shareholders to believe, that it's good for Sun's business plan.
Usually, the people who believe him are convinced of that too.
Usually, people believe they will not kill/control Linux because it would be risky, unprofitable, doomed to fail, or all three.
This is no different from IBM, or any other pro-OSS company. We all know they're in the game to make a profit. We all know they'll leave if they do not. That's THEIR JOB. To do otherwise would be unethical, since their obligation is with their shareholders, not with Free Software.
You can trust someone only when you understand his motivations.
It took some time for "business" to trust the concepts of Free Software and Open Source, because it took them some time to understand the motivations of the community. A businessman's motivations are remarkably simpler to understand.
You just can't expect all of your allies to share your own motivations, or that list will be very short.
Most libertarians believe there is a place for the government in defending the citizens against the use of force. Some libertarians believe part of that role is in defending the market as well.
What libertarians don't like is someone manipulating (i.e.: regulating) the market. Imposing, and usually changing, costly rules of business, taxes, kicking players out of the market by force or favoring others for no reason.
Typically, that regulating force means the government.
However, a strong monopoly has the force, and often the motivation, to govern the market. The fact so many people consider the expression "the Microsoft tax" natural and valid says something.
So it is possible for a libertarian to strongly believe that the government has not only the duty not to mess with the market, but to make sure others don't try to do the same. Much like the government should refrain from violent repression, yet be ready to use force to protect the people from the threat of violence.
Ah, but wasn't fair use only valid for educational and non-commercial purposes? (according to Mr. McBride)
Wouldn't a PR campaign in a billion-dollar lawsuit process qualify as a commercial endeavor?
And where exactly is the rule written that consumers cannot or should not use port 25?
I guess you don't think we should serve http ports?
And no telnet/ssh either. Remote administration is the kind of thing a consumer doesn't need.
When I pay for my "consumer-level" DSL, I have some expectations that I'm willing to compromise on.
I know the tech-support people will not consider me a priority. I know if they have network problems, they will not work the extra mile to minimize my downtime. I know I cannot talk about "downtime" with them with a straight face, because they don't have those kinds of obligations.
I do expect, however, to be able to send and receive little packets of data every once in a while, at a certain speed, over whatever ports I want. I expect my paltry email packets to be dealt with equally with my fancy packets of video and audio (which certainly cost more bandwidth to my ISP, spam or no spam).
I do expect that my use is not restricted by "whatever is likely" other people need or do.
I agree with you that most users should have port 25 blocked. Actually, I think most BUSINESS users should have port 25 blocked too... a lot of small offices do not need, and do not have, their own email server but were happily sending emails through their business DSL lines due to SoBig.
Let BOTH kinds of users specifically remove that block. Force them to restrict it to a specific email server (or a list) if you want.
If they need it, whether it's a geek or a full IT department, it wouldn't be a problem because they know what they're doing.
But don't assume that a consumer never knows what he's doing, or that a business necessarily has a clue.
I had opened the article specifically to make this same comment.
Just like self-administered hosting services have successfully provided "servers for the little man" through virtual hosts and web configuration interfaces, ISPs could provide security for the average joe.
Integrate the UI well with your webmail (spam-filtering, etc) and other services, and your ISP portal can actually be more useful than as a bandwidth test.
That's because Emacs is at heart an Operating System, not an application.
I'm patiently waiting for the Emacs distro that runs Linux in a VM.
Not to mention that some of us prefer our standards to be... well, actually standards in more than name (even if just de facto).
.NET) is directly linked to an "upgrade cycle" for the development platform.
Even if each latest flashy feature is solid as rock in the platform, I'm not going to be happy if they are replaced every 12 months by a "new standard feature".
Java has gone through some dramatic changes, but one thing the JCP does is make sure there is a good reason for those changes, minimize disruption, and try to ensure their lifespan is not a couple of months.
This is more difficult to guarantee when the revenue of the only company with a voice in the platform changes (MS in
That's right, there are lots of great ways to write webapps in Java without using EJB.
But there are no great ways to write them without using J2EE. At least not unless you absolutely love client-side code.
Servlets are part of J2EE. Among the most useful parts, IMNSHO.
I don't think it's such a problem to remember that Java!=J2EE.
The problem is most people don't remember J2EE!=EJB, that an enterprise application doesn't always NEED EJBs, and that a lot of of the perceived complexity of J2EE disappears when you stop using EJBs compulsively.
What's so bad about that?
I think Carmack (and Nintendo) have a point about the need for "simple" games that are trivial to pick up for casual gamers. Particularly as the "gaming market" grows and it's own "mainstream" (average gamers) merges with what other, bigger markets are used to call "mainstream" (average consumers of random toys).
However, most specialized genres are bound to be complex games, because they're aimed at consumers who WANT depth of gameplay, which implies complexity.
These genres have historically been a big part of the market, and although one would expect this to decrease as 10-minute Flash games become more popular than 50+ hours RPGs, they'll never disappear.
The reason is that not only were those more appealing to the market that was able to buy games before (computer-hobbyst => people who like complex toys | geeks). The people buying those games are still a big part of the market, are more willing to spend insane amounts on money on games and hardware than casual gamers, and are vocal enough to influence the philistines.
So there will always be sim fanatics who will demand accurate simulations, which will need a book just as a real car, airplane, or whatever is simulated requires one (at least).
Most RPG gamers will be glad to get a book with their game. It's easy to understand, considering they often buy BOOKS to play RPGs without their computer. Books that are mostly not about rules, but about background, fictional history, world-description, etc. I mean, what's the point of playing an RPG if the character and the world do not have the depth to merit that? Or are they going to show it all through FMVs with all the subtlety of an Asimov novel?
Simple is good where it makes sense. But complaining about RPGs shipping with documentation is like complaining that the keyboard has too many buttons. You may think you'd do just fine with less in Quake, but that's because what you want is not a keyboard.
Heh, that reminds me of some insane webpage (I wish I still had the link) where this guy ranted page after page of David-Ecke-style conspiracy theories about us living in a parallel universe that was actually sort of like the Matrix but really more like it is described in Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" (????) and it would all end up as in Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End", but with the aliens dominating us...
Among all the classical crackpot "revolutionary scientific discoveries that invalidate so-called modern science", his main evidence was having corresponded with the honorable Arthur C. Clarke.
Clarke OBVIOUSLY agreed and supported his efforts wholeheartedly, with statements like "I'm glad you enjoyed my books", "Yes, that is interesting", and "I'm always glad to hear from readers".
It is not uncommon for delusional people to mistake basic politeness (or in face-to-face meetings, distractions while looking for a route of escape) with agreement and support of their arguments.
They can do other things too, you know. As a matter of fact, it's not a bad idea to do other non-work related things even if you have web access.
The web is not the only distraction in the world, but it does have one very bad characteristic:
If you work on the computer, the web does not encourage separation of work from "play".
So it's easier to deceive yourself into believing you're working more time than you actually are... and underestimate the time you're distracted by videos from the StarWars Kid or Slashdot postings.
This is not true of extended lunch and coffee breaks, watercooler stops, etc. Or even, say, taking a break to read a book. You'll be more likely to think "I really should get back to work and finish this" than if you can just keep the work an alt-TAB away for just another 5 minutes. Or someone will be more likely to tell you at some point if you don't.
This doesn't mean it's inherently bad, but I think it requires more discipline than we care to be aware of. Pretty much for the same reasons working-at-home does.
The thing is, web access is vital or very useful for a lot of jobs, from tech (software and docs) to clerical and secretarial (google is faster than the yellow pages). But it's not like every workplace was an Ayn Rand's workaholic utopia before HTML was invented.
And do what?
Because I haven't seen that many bare-skulled people without a face, living and walking around in airports.
I can actually understand the Windows-only issue from their point of view; although I don't agree with it as a customer.
But I bet they're losing users to third-party clients in far greater numbers in the windows platform than anywhere else.
Linux users are already willing to go through some inconvenience to NOT use their OS OR their Office suite, areas over which they had a much tighter control in the market over the years. It's not like they hope to "bring them back" through Messenger.
I'm using Trillian right now on a Windows machine. Why? Not because I can't use Messenger, not because I have ethical issues about using Messenger, but because Messenger and its network (like RealPlayer) is a product that has gone from decent to inferior to catastrophic with each "upgrade".
Perhaps if the network did not kick me out sporadically, if their client didn't take that long to sign me in, or took up over twice the memory size of Trillian, or if I didn't constantly get spam through it, or if it didn't have authentication problems with my hotmail account (which Trillian doesn't have)...
Well, you get the idea. Perhaps if their client didn't suck that much I wouldn't mind using it.
I mean, I love having all my IM ids in the same client, and probably wouldn't want to live without it by now. But it's like tabbed browsing in Mozilla... it's a feature that solves a problem many people don't know they have.
What made me try Trillian was not my admittedly crowed taskbar, it was one too many popups from Messenger advertising porn.
If their products were merely competent, they wouldn't even have to match the 3rd party products feature by feature. Not until a mainstream IM client (IM or Yahoo) forces them to by including those features itself.
That was my point, sort of. They couldn't put 70 bucks a year for a PO BOX. Not so much for the money on the long term as for the money on the short term.
To get them to use it it would have to be free. Which the government may or may not be able to cover. I would say 'probably not' because giving it for free in this case sort of implies giving it for free to everyone. It's not like you can get yourself "certifiably homeless", the difficult part is proving you do have a home and income, not that you don't have it.
However, a telephone system wouldn't present that problem. Give restricted voicemail to everyone. What would someone achieve by abusing the system? Getting EXTRA shelter information from the government?
My point is that there are better solutions to the "no contact point" problem, and it's not a very good argument for this thing.