No matter what, you can't say that MS doesn't have good business sense.
1) Control the beach-head (client) 2) Leverage the supply line (server) 3) Buy out the pipes (communications infrastructure) to charge transaction fees 4) Price the talent of the really smart people out of the reach of competition (stock options) 5) Dictate to the content providers to compete away their brand premium (AOL, media, etc)
It worked for the railroads and highway builders, why not communications and IT? Of course, now that the other big media groups are somewhat aware, perhaps the execution will be a little bit more difficult. The point of real interest is can a grassroot social philosophy (OpenSource) do anything except offer a temporary delaying action against the forces of big business and money?
I wonder what the stock markets will be like in 10 years time...
Reminds me of an old story where they set up a contest between a hand shearer (of sheep) against the new-fangled electric shears. The manual champion won and everyone thought the electric shears was going to be tossed.... then the electric shearer got another few pounds of wool off the hand-shorn sheep, ie less wastage == more profits.
While people might not think a few percentage makes a lot of difference, it should be pointed out that in high volume businesses, companies like Wal-Mart sustain a long-term competitive advantage over their peers by adopting a pervasive mindset to control their costs. While Linux may not be a gas-guzzling speed champion on pre-slected race-grounds, the lack of restrictive licenses (operational cost less dependent on #connections) and the ability to control your own environment (ie upgrade at your own pace) offer value in other ways. These savings would add up when hosting very large web farms.
Fundamentally what is a tax? A forced contribution to provide for public benefits which would be too difficult to charge for directly. E.g. laws/regulation, self-defense, public health information. etc. There are a couple of problems with taxing the internet, unlike federal roads computer networks are essentially privately owned (ignoring the academic/government bits) and (AOL/MSN/Yahoo notwithstanding) market forces have compelled players to interoperate, if only to get a slice of a larger pie.
Secondly, governments, despite their perception of gross stupidity, are not ignorant about the economic benefits of IT. Any one government that wants to put a tarriff/tax on IT traffic will find itself in a comparative disadvantage as firms immediately relocate their services offshore and land their fibre cables elsewhere. How many country towns disappeared due to newly created highways bypassing their locales?
Thirdly is what exactly is there to be taxed? Can you demand 20% of all the bits flowing along a wire? Can you have half a promise (essentially what money has now devolved to)? Much of the information that flows nowadays are transactions, or essentially bookkeeping activities between firms or internal transfers between business units of the same company. Calculating a dollar cost is a complex task. For its 10% GST impost, the Australian government tried to figure out a value-added-tax formula for financial transactions but gave up in the end.
As for juristiction, that is another whole can of worms that nobody wants to touch due to the headaches (and politics) involved. There will always be the odd-ball country that will refuse to play along (why do you think international tax havens exist?). Even if the US government unilaterally imposed the ol' greenback on the rest of the world with all the associated legal baggage, some smart cookie will find a solution to avoid confiscatory measures like establishing extra-territorial oil platforms beyond national maritine borders to host electronic services. Identities and paper corporations can be created faster than any countermeasure to crack down so it becomes a losing game. One can only look at corporations like Fox/News to see how shifting costs between countries can add extra value to the bottom-line.
As one wag used to say, he doesn't think the government is that efficient that its worth giving them more than the minimum required by law. Perhaps the only solution is to become rich then let public pressure and social stigma require individual voluntary contributions to non-profit causes.
I suspect some of it is motivated by fear of long-term obsolescence through the commodisation of education, especially at the undergraduate level (basic maths/english doesn't change that fast). If you look at the University of Phoenix model where they separate the creation and delivery of content (I believe flat $1K/lecture) you can understand why highly paid professors want some bargining chip against the fear of being replaced by a teaching assistant with decent parroting ability. Universities are only too happy to oblige to protect their brand/reputation in order to justify their fees.
Now as to the right/wrong of this is another debatable (and contentious) point which is best left for time to resolve. Technology always has this nasty habit of destroying old practices and, despite the perception of universities as technology powerhouses, many are still accustomised to the medieval practice of mass delivery to a lecture-hall. From the professor's point of view, if there is some original and unique features in their lectures, they would prefer to capture the economic benefits through textbooks, videotapes and (autographed?) notes. Afterall, Feyman wasn't adverse to making a buck or two. One can compare the case where the composer of a song would get some (miniscule) payment for a movie songtrack though the bulk of payments would go to the singer.
The question is how many steps removed from the source can you justifiably claim some recompensate? This is a rather interesting point as it also relates to OpenSource and the reluctance of many companies to release their IP into (effectively) the public domain. If computers allow defect free copying of digital content, then limiting the original content or controlling the distribution channels is the only way of preventing the value of your original investment (in the case of universities their library infrastructure and sunk costs in faculty staff) from disipating.
Sooner or later, universities are going to get hit by the same train that has run rough-shod over the music/media industries and the sight is not going to be pretty.
The fear of the unknown is precisely why RedHat, LinuxCare and other future support companies will be making money, certainly the IBM global service arm is not complaining. Let's face it, for the non-cognosti, computers are complex, difficult and tempermental (and that's just the installation:-) ). You, as the resident Linux expert, get paid for reducing risks of the IT budget being flushed down the toilet (correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the track record is 50% of major IT projects are a complete disaster and have to be scrapped). If IT is not their strength, it makes sense for companies to outsource the operation of their infrastructure to others, much like we just pay for water and electricity without worrying about the piping and dams. Given this model, the logical conclusion is that Linux would be the preferred choice as less of the profit disappears into their coffers. Expect their app-host hosting efforts to redouble once Linux starts taking big chunks of their developer/desktop market.
The internet does change things in that it refocuses efforts on the services and thus reduces hardware to supporting roles and software to enabling agents. As I've been telling people at this end, the cost is in the infrastructure but the value is in the services. Once the hype of e-commerce dies down, then you might be able to objectively measure the value-cost proposition and work out what needs to be done in redesigning corporations around the flow of information, much like old factories needed to be freed from the constraints of steam-driven belts and pulleys.
Does this indicate that access to the entertainment dollar is becoming saturated when they complain about the competition and limited profit margins for hardware? When you think about it, not only does every software release have to contend with other titles released at the same time, but (given emulators) competes with all the previous gaming hits as well (how many people still relax with Zorks or old Amiga shoot-them-ups?). Apart from the minimal replication and distribution costs of software, people forget about its persistance properties in lasting unaltered for a long time. I suspect that the economics (ie more profits) of shifting to an internet model where they can charge per time unit (a la mobile phone) or per use (a la arcade parlor) might be the attractive part rather than any technology advantage per se. When you think about it, paying $100 for unlimited use of a game like Quake or its variant is a good deal if it will be used to kill thousands of hours for the rest of your life (assuming you're not one of those extreme adrenaline junkies physically bonded to your joystick). Compare with paying $10 a pop for a 2 hour movie or $50 for a decent sports game it seems a good tradeoff.
Given the increasing development costs, risk of market boredom, and sophistication of computer games (ie special effects) I would predict either a shake-out of the gaming industry or else a move towards Hollywood linkups (a la Phatom Menance) where the game is part of a combined movie + merchandising tie-in. Here Sony has the edge compared with Sega or Nitendo but other big players like Disney could easily muscle in. Perhaps it'll be Quake the Movie next?:-)
Is it my imagination or are companies rushing to patent concepts which are more marketing features than any real "innovations". If that is the case, then the market is the place to decide, not the legal systme. While it may be disappointing to the class of patent lawyers, is it too radical a concept for companies to be competing on their execution rather than trying to spoil the ground around them? People might be interested in an article which points out the benefits of cooperation rather than the paranoid dog-eat-dog world. Perhaps too much competition indicates that the field is not big enough (ie profitable) to support that many companies and its a signal that resources are better deployed elsewhere (one reason why capitalism is more economically efficient).
One problem with governments is that they can effectively define monopolies. Could the patent system be replaced by a more market driven system based on property rights? One can point to the media industry where you have song-writer creative rights which require recognition and further payment from films and other down-stream activities. Perhaps OpenSource software could provide certification rights or distribution rights? It would certainly benefit companies who are thinking about the opensource route but are relunctant to see the fruits of their efforts being appropriated without fair compensation. At the very least, it would reduce overheads due to non-core activities (e.g. legal liability) and perhaps let smaller firms florish.
I suspect the port of Linux would be a little bit more challenging than the average CPU. Effectively it is 2.5 CPUs (EmotionEngine, Graphics Synthesiser, old Sony R3K CPU). Hence the SMP tricks of the existing Linux kernel might not be relevant. However, it does offer the interesting possibilities that Mesa could be optimised for the EE, GGI for the GS and a small Linux kernel for the old CPU which will be a real challenge as there is a total of 32M and you cannot assume swap space. The question is how do you develop generic code which migrates to the processor which best suits it (a la variant of SGI processor affinity). Perhaps some Java mobile code layer that identifies the CPU and loads the appropriate vectorised libraries? This applies to a wider class of problems as with the increasing popularity of SIMD instructions (MIPS MDMX, Sparc VS, PPC AltiVec, Intel MDX) you would like to have code which uses the optimisations of the underlying hardware without stressing out too much at the software development level.
The biggest problem I see is that the Sony testbed is about $20K which is out of the reach of most OpenSource groups. OK for the multimillion dollar gaming groups but not for your average OpenSource scrounger. I wonder how many people are interested in some sort of fractional ownership scheme? Say half a dozen people chip in $4K each and host the machine somewhere for OpenSource development purposes (ie dedicated compilation engine) for any number of projects.
If it is to be the media control unit for the house (as Sony claims), it would open up a lot of new devspace like real-time DVD/camcorder editing.
... is a verifier for the interpreter to the compiler of the vm translator that emits code to the vectorising assembler optimised for the hardware scheduler:-).
If you look at any high level abstract language (say Python) it goes through a number of stages, each of them designed to feed into the lower layers. The debates about the various schools can be viewed as an on-going bun-fight between the various groups as to who gets the largest slice of the $$ pie and simplified workload. In some ways, the hardware guys have a conceptually easier task, they get to include more of the surrounding chipset. The software language or API developers are forced to explore unknown territory. Witness the fumbled gropings to move beyond OpenGL to higher level 3D scene representation.
The rather interesting factor is that the OpenSource scene allows flexibility for the software and hardware to be realigned periodically. The example I'm thinking about is the GGI project and the move towards the Graphics Processing Unit as a self-contained CPU instead of an add-on video board. The next step might even be dedicated I/O/media processors combining FibreChannel, TCP/IP, SCSI, XML/Perl/Java engines, codecs, etc... As Linus pointed out, controlling the complexity of the kernel requires understanding very clearly the minimal protocol that is needed to communicate between the different functions.
The biggest problem nowadays is not actually technical (tough but doable) but legal. Witness the jockeying around System on a Chip where you have to combine multiple IPs along with the core. Hardware vendors have cross-licensing portfolios and reverse-engineer their competitors to copy the ideas anyway. Linux avoids the problem by making everything GNU and thus designers/engineers can concentrate on the job without fighting with the lawyers, as well as defining prior art (cf with universities rushing to publish the human genome before the commerical mobs fence it off). Given the fast pace of the industry, the market is a stronger judge than any legal protection (why bother protecting something trivial that will be obsolete in a few years?). Perhaps in a few decades, people might look back and consider the millstone the patent system has become.
The biggest open question IMHO now is how to get multiple internet sites to interoperate. For example, some people might wish to combine customised/. filtering with references to Encyclopeida Britanica or archived news sites. Much as EBay might squeal about sites "stealing" their auction databases (what they want to do in practice), it is a way of creating large aggregated information complexes.
CPU tricks and speed races will always make headlines but despite the appeal of multi-gigahertz chips, the information backlane will remain a mess until the telcos/cable/sat get their act together.
While the article extols the financial advantages of using OpenSource/GNU software for cash-strapped startups without a VC fund and tons of hype behind them, there's also other advantages. A recent article pointed out that... copyright was less of an issue as many programmers wrote for Microsoft platforms which had their own Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). In effect, much of the intellectual property was de facto handed over to Microsoft in these instances and it was only the integration of business objects - ready-made slabs of programming code ready-to-run - that mattered. So it comes down to how you see your role, as a architect creating new forms or as a building constructor knocking prefabs into shape. The rather interesting factor is that like all professionals and artists, there is that inner urge to "show off" to peers which means ideas are circulated. Much like a Jazz band, structures and improvised, creating unique on-the-spot music rather than repetitive pop tunes.
The other constraint is the choice of language/tools automatically limits your designs. While big companies can only tackle the average needs of their customers, OpenSource has the flexibility to satisfy the specialised demands of niches. This is particularly the case with scientific applications which though it likes big and cheap computing power, would be less than 1% of the total computing market. The shift away from tools to services (e.g. Zope) will add a further dynamic to the equation as the limitation then becomes skilled people capable of using the tools. The key to long-term success here is winning the fickle attention of the development crowd.
Oh well, if all you have is a penguin, then everything looks like a fish.
I would hope that if you spend 8 hours a day, you'd at least enjoy what you're doing. Let's face it, that's at least 1/3rd of your life. Already there is increasing blurring between work and home with the arrival of mobile phones and laptops. The problem is that there are still many jobs that a dull but necessary. Somebody has to go around cleaning stuff, somebody has to go around flogging pizzas, some poor soul will be stuck in a sweatshope factory trying to earn a living for their family. If there was a surplus of IT workers (and corresponding salary drop) would there be as much enthusiasm? How easy is it to get passionate about the next database? One hope is that OpenSource is the ultimate free market, you choose your job and (hopefully) if you're good at it, you get picked up by a commercial mob. In this sense, you effectively make your own employment if you can figure out an area of the noosphere which is important but nobody has realised it yet.
I can imagine the future now, Linux... the ultimate CV. Imagine employors saying "Show me the source".
I'm surprised that they haven't explored complimentary business models besides advertising. Off the top of my head
1) Value added services for libraries such as Science Triva Pursuit, improved indexing, automatic language translation, etc
2) Reducing costs by soliciting for contributor pictures and pperhaps new entries (a la HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Earth)
3) Provide a persistant URI scheme based on reader's feedback and license that to other players.
4) Look at repackaging subcategories, perhaps as electronic books or quick reference material (cheat notes?).
5) License material to other people as anotations to say index of human body, history or geography (though National Geographic would probably be better).
These are just off the top of my head but I'm sure/.ers can come up with more. The big problem is that the world has changed whereas encyclopedias haven't. I do remember the fun I had just randomly browsing, fascinated by the connections between the science entries. Maybe they just need to hire some people with a bit more creative/lateral thinking than stogey old salespeople? If they spend some time think about their job and business (are they a creator, aggregator, repackager or distributor of information?), I'm sure they can add value to their existing knowledge-base and get back some market share against its competitors.
Given that most newspapers are syndicated columns or recycled content from the big media houses, is it not surprising that some people are dissatisified with the emotional repackaging and are seeking more authorative sources of knowledge? Think about a major event and the chances of the movie/pop star du jour being asked by a news channel for their thoughts. Superlative as they are at faking celluloid repartee, I would hardly expect them to be competent in fields outside their expertise (granted, they may have a wide selection of interests). Let's face it, all the real experts are either doing the gruntwork, whether it is biotech or space-science, or are not photogenic enough to warrent exposure to the masses.
For example in the current controversy about genetically modified food, I suspect people would think more about the issues if they were exposed to the inner discussions which the scientists conduct (but don't be surprised at the range of opinions!). Unfortunately, as Carl Sagan pointed out in his book, The Demon Haunted World, this requires a fair amount of basic scientific literacy just to understand the topic, much less the argot of that expertise. If your interests in technology stops at the microwave and TV remote, then is it surprising that Atlantis and UFOs are more popular topics than biodiversity or social rationalisation?
Hopefully the Internet will readdress some of the imbalance, allow the public greater access to the knowledge and expertise tied up in the great libraries and minds of people working in the field. Maybe, just maybe, in a few decades if you're not able to add value to a discussion, then news outlets will be forced to reinvent themselves. Specialist journals such as Jane will probably survive, but the general audience is likely to fragment and seek the direct opinions of football stars or technology experts (until they get so sick of the attention they invent AI secretaries... Linus' next project?). The advantage of computers acting as the storage medium is that people are free to browse user profiles and judge for themselves the history of postings and evaluate the degree of trust they have in a poster's conversations. This past memory is unique and allows balanced review (especially if you are concerned about stupid remarks being kept for prosperity) and cross-referencing, something which cannot be duplicated in TVs or newspapers. Maybe politicians could learn some lessons from this?
Oh well, so you too can become an authority on an obscure speciality and get your 15 minutes of fame... one of these decades.
Hmmm... title starting to sound like a 1984 byline. I thought the strength of Linux was suppose to be its customisation and flexibility? That you could mix and match components/applications as you wish (for example, there are at least 3 variants of mail transport agents). Thus you can get a version that can optimised to fit the simplified hardware needs rather than a single size fits all. If someone wants to say throw together a simple drawing appliance for kids, they could whip together a mips board, touch screen, along with a stripped down Linux and GIMP. Having access to the source and packages allows one to hit small niches that a big expensive PC wouldn't be practical or affordable.
Naturally this requires some smarts on the part of the integrator and, of course;-{, as it is well publicised, we all know that a certain company claims to have purchased the smartest CS brains alive so obviously this can't be the case:-).
... is that ultimately it appeals to the emotions, whether the safety of the pack or reinforcing existing prejudices (let's face it, the existance of rather spotty quality free/shareware has tarnished the origins of GNU/OpenSource). The marketing concept of the "Big Lie" (repeat anything long enough and people will believe it) probably offends engineers' sense of asethetics, being trained to think logically and applying careful principles to evaluate physical properties. Unfortunately, how do you measure two complex pieces of software? Function points (ie bells and whistles) are easy to count but who measures subtle factors like quality, support, and reliability? As they say, a leaky tap gets the attention whereas something designed to work correctly the first time is not noticed. The lack of marketing oomph outside word-of-mouth is a somewhat mixed blessing as unless people are aware of alternatives, they cannot have free choice, especially given inherent biases in some trade journals. Perhaps one way of redressing the balance is for every piece of OpenSource software available for public release (ie not beta) have 3 sets of numbers associated with it.
cost to repair/replace
estimated useful product lifecycle
mean time between failure/update
giving a rule of thumb purchase price + (1) * (2) / (3) lifetime cost. Perhaps other/.ers can suggest metrics for giving consumers a better feel for what the real cost of software really is beyond the initial marked price. In particular, people should be aware of the switching costs as given the rapid pace ot technology, something better always comes along. This is true regardless of whether it is OpenSource or Commercial. The only way to combat FUD is to provide independently validated information which the consumers can then use to make up their own minds as to the value and stability of whatever software goods they are purchasing.
Given the variety of choices out there (Lotus, MS, Star, GOffice) does it really make sense to keep on butting heads against brick walls? The market now has a range of choices and prices ranging from free (speech), to app-rental to full office suites. There be should be enough diversity to satisfy anyone with varying prices to match. Instead, would it be better to think about areas which OpenSource and/or Linux would have a comparative advantage and be superior in the long term? Areas like scaling development environments to support thousands of contributors, perhaps automated code documentation to relieve the tedium, device transparent access (from smartcards/PDAs to server clusters). A tail chase on a commercial product is going to be long so why not instead put some energy into stuff which is more speculative and might open up interesting areas? Like having code morph to make optimal use of the local instruction set or improve its execution speed each time? While commercial groups have to look after their existing customer base, OpenSource hackers are unencumbered to explore whatever topic catches their fancy without worrying about a return on investment or keeping the shareholders doped on hype. As free agents, hackers can scout new unexplored software territory while leaving the heavyweight gorillas to fight it out in the business jungle.
For your interest, the technical term in atmospheric studies is called ensemble forecasting, Monte Carlo is the generic class of techniques for sampling a large state space which is not strictly the same as ray-casting for scene generation. If you've got the inclination, check out
Prospects and Limitations of Seasonal Atmospheric GCM Predictions, Kumar and Hoerline, Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society, Vol 76(3), March 1995.
which discusses the predictability of time-averaged GCM runs. It all comes down to the spatial-temporal correlations as most of hte time, people are more interested in the anomalies (ie extreme events) rather than the natural variability. The science is still out on this area.
You don't know what the f*** you're talking about and I claim my free cigar, troll! You're quite welcome to smoke your own cigar.
While it make be hot and sexy to participate in a feel-good global climate project, I'd like to see more of the scientific methodology first. Anyone can run monte-carlo simulations (in fact too many do so for market forecasting) but the underlying science still has to be validated. While it may save them buying a Cray or 10, will it achieve any useful results? I recall a project which simulated the effect of climate change across a forested German country-side and what eventually hit the papers bigtime was the most extreme scenario where all the trees were killed off. Essemble forecasting can usually pick the extreme events but the normal one are trickier to analyse. Extrapolate this across the globe and you will always find a scenario where you are personally affected (wheat belts moving into Canada, sea levels rising, higher winter fuel costs, etc). There is a very good reason why science has to go through peer review first and to be especially sceptical of simulated results which makes a lot of simplifying assumptions (which would be necessary to fit into a PC memory).
So what will the climate be like next decade? All anyone can say really say is that it might change. Any attempts at scare-mongering or trying to protect vested interests will only be a distraction to putting in the fundamental research in trying to gain a better understanding of the world's climate dynamics.
I think that using commercial off-the-shelf stuff says something about the rapid adoption of technology into mainstream (though I still would have thought a radiation hardened CPU would be better). Basically, anything which is considered cutting edge will probably be commonplace in another 7-10 years.
I can see 2050 high school projects now... design your own hamster cloning project with cells grown on the local school satellite....:-(
When we start talking about the good ol' days of Linux hacking, then its time to quit mainstream and find something new to do.
If people are interested, there's an interview with the author in the ezine Edge. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can someone explain to me what the significance of his interpretation is? Look at it, all I can see is a coordinate transformation from extrinsic linear 3D space to intrinsic circulinear chaos space. I'll try and exaplin with an analogy.
From the measured exterior world, the alpha particle moves in a straight line from the atom. Now from the point of view of the atom, which we can approximate as a spherical point, it can exist in multiple orientations. So if you imagine a sphere spinning randomly around with the number of potential states away from the point the alpha particle split being the linear dimension (ie radius away from sphere), then the alpha particle does appear as a spherical wave.
If there are any physicists out there, can you explain what the significance of what the author is on about? Most people accept that derived order of knowledge is medicine - biology - chemistry - physics - mathematics, but beyond mathematics lies philosophy. For example, if we map the chaotic spherical world to Linux hacker community (a collection of independent free agents) and the extrinsic structured view to the Gartner viewpoint (see previous story) with a single "standard" then you can explain the discrepencies between the 2 points of view. Although the look and feel of Linux is quite variable, it is based on a sonsistent set of principles (file & devices) and based on this framework it is easy to extrapolate to the rest of the world. Thus a Linux hacker, wven when faced with an unknown system, knows roughly where to look for things and can usually ramp up the learning curve fairly quickly. On the other hand, the Gartner worldview only sees the exterior pretty GUI, not understanding that underneath is a mish-mash of concepts and APIs pretending to move in formation. Thus it is a extrinsic view (speaking as a voice for the Fortune500 wannabes) whereas Linux is a multistate intrinsic view with a wavefront of acceptance among individuals that is expanding exponentially. Thus it is fundamentally the difference between single-user (monopole) and multiuser (chaotic wave) disruptive event. If you're an established business interested in saving costs, then a single training interface is considered "superior". If you're a struggling ISP trying to stave off the arrival of the big guns, then having the flexibility to find a niche is more important. Different strokes for different people.
The mindset between the single vs many is also reflected in the difference between the ezines "Edge" and/. Edge claims to include the luminaries of the day (including your favorite bully boy) and exists as a broadcast forum for these "great digerati" to ennunciate their thoughts and spread their "wisdom". On the other hand/. is a rowdy cocktail party where everyone and their 2 cents is allowed a say. Which is better? Does it depend on whether you're already an "elite" or part of the unwashed masses? Oh well, enough mumbling for the day.
ACE is an opensource C++ framework that implements common concurrent design patterns tested in a variety of platforms using a common source tree, not to mention a Java version. As for multiple languages, that's a little harder because some languages make certain assumptions. Easier to write C++ wrappers around them.
Another future possibility may be OpenMP which allows a sequential and parallel shared memory version to reside in the same codebase using compiler extensions. Although there are specifications for several languages/platforms, I don't think anyone has tested for intervendor compatibility as yet. However, it is still evolving.
The major problem is that once you start wandering outside the most commonly used languages (C,C++,Java,Fortran) into more exotic variants (Amoeba, Occam, Z etc) you will be running across differences in conceptual models (actor, CSP, timed lambda calculus, etc) which is like mixing different mathematical coordinate systems... ie not recommended unless you really grok the theory and got a firm grasp of what you're trying to do. Coding is complex enough without making life impossible for yourself. Keeping things simple will then become your best friend.
Back when the Patent Laws were first mooted, good ideas were relatively scarce (emphasis on good) so there was some justification to encourage open publication and greater dissemination. However, in today's modern era where any business process can be codified in software to some extent and thus automated, creating artificial exclusions seems to encourage too many ideas which frankly are minor and incremental. We need much better ways of filtering out the crap that floats by (perhaps a/. moderated version?).
Also, nowadays, having a good idea is not enough, you need to be in a position to execute and solve a broader long-term customer need (or even create that need!). When patents become deliberate barriers to new entrants (either through unrealistic licensing or legal threats) then it starts to create systematic problems. For example, drugs can be patented so companies then spend more effort on manufactured designs rather than adapting existing commonplace plant-based remedies which they can't control. So given the choice between high margin patented solutions or low-margin systems, guess which gets widely advertised and pushed at doctors? Given the complications of body chemistry, I suspect that most people want the placebo equivalent of a nice cup of tea and less stress.
Anyway, you can make still money by not using software patents. One path is to become an ultraspecialist and come up with completely new fields. For the rest of us, we have to be content with just surviving without getting too rippedoff. In the end, it's not the patented software that counts (business guys will always find a way of screwing over the inventor), it's the fact that you will continue to generate good ideas in the future that will make you an irresistable catch for whatever company that wants your skills (and threaten to quit if not happy).
Cplus wrote I think we should have a/. prize to reward the perosn with the highest karma rating.
Highest? Not a good idea as it benefits the very early subscribers who've had longer time to post. Instead I suggest something like signal to noise ratio which is the number of posts per week that is above the baseline. Then perhaps sort by volume. This way you would reward people who consistently get 4-5 using a few pithy and to the point comments but without continuously responding just to get their posts noticed and their karma up. For your information, in studies of organisational efficiency, people have always found simple metrics to be rather self-defeating as people orient to the artificial goal instead of the organisational objectives. Defining metrics for measuring people is inherently a politicised process. E.g. would you say that having a high IPO is a good measure of success in Silicon Valley? If so, does this encourage people to overhype technology giving the entire industry a bad name in the long term?
Oh well, he (or she) who defines the rules, gets the reward.
Chalst wrote No mathematics prize either, and I believe that subject existed then...
The mathematical equivalent is the Fields Medal. The story is that Nobel had a bit of a... ummm... personal disagreement with a prominant mathematician of the day so deliberately left out mathematics to prevent his rival from gaining any kudos.
As for other posters wanting something similar for computing, I would instead suggest that a computer language which is widely adopted and solves a significant class of problems would be a better choice. Afterwall, what is a language but a systematic way of ennunciating the concepts for a general problem domain? In this way, the greatest mark of respect for Perl and (to some extent) Python has been their rapid adoption by peer programmers. To paraphrase ESR, show them the code and reap the kudos.
Slashdot Mirror
No matter what, you can't say that MS doesn't have good business sense.
...
1) Control the beach-head (client)
2) Leverage the supply line (server)
3) Buy out the pipes (communications infrastructure) to charge transaction fees
4) Price the talent of the really smart people out of the reach of competition (stock options)
5) Dictate to the content providers to compete away their brand premium (AOL, media, etc)
It worked for the railroads and highway builders, why not communications and IT? Of course, now that the other big media groups are somewhat aware, perhaps the execution will be a little bit more difficult. The point of real interest is can a grassroot social philosophy (OpenSource) do anything except offer a temporary delaying action against the forces of big business and money?
I wonder what the stock markets will be like in 10 years time
LL
Reminds me of an old story where they set up a contest between a hand shearer (of sheep) against the new-fangled electric shears. The manual champion won and everyone thought the electric shears was going to be tossed .... then the electric shearer got another few pounds of wool off the hand-shorn sheep, ie less wastage == more profits.
While people might not think a few percentage makes a lot of difference, it should be pointed out that in high volume businesses, companies like Wal-Mart sustain a long-term competitive advantage over their peers by adopting a pervasive mindset to control their costs. While Linux may not be a gas-guzzling speed champion on pre-slected race-grounds, the lack of restrictive licenses (operational cost less dependent on #connections) and the ability to control your own environment (ie upgrade at your own pace) offer value in other ways. These savings would add up when hosting very large web farms.
Different horses for different courses.
LL
Fundamentally what is a tax? A forced contribution to provide for public benefits which would be too difficult to charge for directly. E.g. laws/regulation, self-defense, public health information. etc. There are a couple of problems with taxing the internet, unlike federal roads computer networks are essentially privately owned (ignoring the academic/government bits) and (AOL/MSN/Yahoo notwithstanding) market forces have compelled players to interoperate, if only to get a slice of a larger pie.
Secondly, governments, despite their perception of gross stupidity, are not ignorant about the economic benefits of IT. Any one government that wants to put a tarriff/tax on IT traffic will find itself in a comparative disadvantage as firms immediately relocate their services offshore and land their fibre cables elsewhere. How many country towns disappeared due to newly created highways bypassing their locales?
Thirdly is what exactly is there to be taxed? Can you demand 20% of all the bits flowing along a wire? Can you have half a promise (essentially what money has now devolved to)? Much of the information that flows nowadays are transactions, or essentially bookkeeping activities between firms or internal transfers between business units of the same company. Calculating a dollar cost is a complex task. For its 10% GST impost, the Australian government tried to figure out a value-added-tax formula for financial transactions but gave up in the end.
As for juristiction, that is another whole can of worms that nobody wants to touch due to the headaches (and politics) involved. There will always be the odd-ball country that will refuse to play along (why do you think international tax havens exist?). Even if the US government unilaterally imposed the ol' greenback on the rest of the world with all the associated legal baggage, some smart cookie will find a solution to avoid confiscatory measures like establishing extra-territorial oil platforms beyond national maritine borders to host electronic services. Identities and paper corporations can be created faster than any countermeasure to crack down so it becomes a losing game. One can only look at corporations like Fox/News to see how shifting costs between countries can add extra value to the bottom-line.
As one wag used to say, he doesn't think the government is that efficient that its worth giving them more than the minimum required by law. Perhaps the only solution is to become rich then let public pressure and social stigma require individual voluntary contributions to non-profit causes.
LL
I suspect some of it is motivated by fear of long-term obsolescence through the commodisation of education, especially at the undergraduate level (basic maths/english doesn't change that fast). If you look at the University of Phoenix model where they separate the creation and delivery of content (I believe flat $1K/lecture) you can understand why highly paid professors want some bargining chip against the fear of being replaced by a teaching assistant with decent parroting ability. Universities are only too happy to oblige to protect their brand/reputation in order to justify their fees.
Now as to the right/wrong of this is another debatable (and contentious) point which is best left for time to resolve. Technology always has this nasty habit of destroying old practices and, despite the perception of universities as technology powerhouses, many are still accustomised to the medieval practice of mass delivery to a lecture-hall. From the professor's point of view, if there is some original and unique features in their lectures, they would prefer to capture the economic benefits through textbooks, videotapes and (autographed?) notes. Afterall, Feyman wasn't adverse to making a buck or two. One can compare the case where the composer of a song would get some (miniscule) payment for a movie songtrack though the bulk of payments would go to the singer.
The question is how many steps removed from the source can you justifiably claim some recompensate? This is a rather interesting point as it also relates to OpenSource and the reluctance of many companies to release their IP into (effectively) the public domain. If computers allow defect free copying of digital content, then limiting the original content or controlling the distribution channels is the only way of preventing the value of your original investment (in the case of universities their library infrastructure and sunk costs in faculty staff) from disipating.
Sooner or later, universities are going to get hit by the same train that has run rough-shod over the music/media industries and the sight is not going to be pretty.
LL
The fear of the unknown is precisely why RedHat, LinuxCare and other future support companies will be making money, certainly the IBM global service arm is not complaining. Let's face it, for the non-cognosti, computers are complex, difficult and tempermental (and that's just the installation :-) ). You, as the resident Linux expert, get paid for reducing risks of the IT budget being flushed down the toilet (correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the track record is 50% of major IT projects are a complete disaster and have to be scrapped). If IT is not their strength, it makes sense for companies to outsource the operation of their infrastructure to others, much like we just pay for water and electricity without worrying about the piping and dams. Given this model, the logical conclusion is that Linux would be the preferred choice as less of the profit disappears into their coffers. Expect their app-host hosting efforts to redouble once Linux starts taking big chunks of their developer/desktop market.
The internet does change things in that it refocuses efforts on the services and thus reduces hardware to supporting roles and software to enabling agents. As I've been telling people at this end, the cost is in the infrastructure but the value is in the services. Once the hype of e-commerce dies down, then you might be able to objectively measure the value-cost proposition and work out what needs to be done in redesigning corporations around the flow of information, much like old factories needed to be freed from the constraints of steam-driven belts and pulleys.
LL
Does this indicate that access to the entertainment dollar is becoming saturated when they complain about the competition and limited profit margins for hardware? When you think about it, not only does every software release have to contend with other titles released at the same time, but (given emulators) competes with all the previous gaming hits as well (how many people still relax with Zorks or old Amiga shoot-them-ups?). Apart from the minimal replication and distribution costs of software, people forget about its persistance properties in lasting unaltered for a long time. I suspect that the economics (ie more profits) of shifting to an internet model where they can charge per time unit (a la mobile phone) or per use (a la arcade parlor) might be the attractive part rather than any technology advantage per se. When you think about it, paying $100 for unlimited use of a game like Quake or its variant is a good deal if it will be used to kill thousands of hours for the rest of your life (assuming you're not one of those extreme adrenaline junkies physically bonded to your joystick). Compare with paying $10 a pop for a 2 hour movie or $50 for a decent sports game it seems a good tradeoff.
:-)
Given the increasing development costs, risk of market boredom, and sophistication of computer games (ie special effects) I would predict either a shake-out of the gaming industry or else a move towards Hollywood linkups (a la Phatom Menance) where the game is part of a combined movie + merchandising tie-in. Here Sony has the edge compared with Sega or Nitendo but other big players like Disney could easily muscle in. Perhaps it'll be Quake the Movie next?
LL
Is it my imagination or are companies rushing to patent concepts which are more marketing features than any real "innovations". If that is the case, then the market is the place to decide, not the legal systme. While it may be disappointing to the class of patent lawyers, is it too radical a concept for companies to be competing on their execution rather than trying to spoil the ground around them? People might be interested in an article which points out the benefits of cooperation rather than the paranoid dog-eat-dog world. Perhaps too much competition indicates that the field is not big enough (ie profitable) to support that many companies and its a signal that resources are better deployed elsewhere (one reason why capitalism is more economically efficient).
One problem with governments is that they can effectively define monopolies. Could the patent system be replaced by a more market driven system based on property rights? One can point to the media industry where you have song-writer creative rights which require recognition and further payment from films and other down-stream activities. Perhaps OpenSource software could provide certification rights or distribution rights? It would certainly benefit companies who are thinking about the opensource route but are relunctant to see the fruits of their efforts being appropriated without fair compensation. At the very least, it would reduce overheads due to non-core activities (e.g. legal liability) and perhaps let smaller firms florish.
LL
1900 - My gun is faster than your gun
:-(.
2000 - My nuke is bigger than your nuke
2100 - My AI can run circles around your AI?
Well, politicians have to do something to justify their hefty salaries while the rest of us get on with the real work
LL
iapetus wrote
Now, anyone fancy taking on the port?
I suspect the port of Linux would be a little bit more challenging than the average CPU. Effectively it is 2.5 CPUs (EmotionEngine, Graphics Synthesiser, old Sony R3K CPU). Hence the SMP tricks of the existing Linux kernel might not be relevant. However, it does offer the interesting possibilities that Mesa could be optimised for the EE, GGI for the GS and a small Linux kernel for the old CPU which will be a real challenge as there is a total of 32M and you cannot assume swap space. The question is how do you develop generic code which migrates to the processor which best suits it (a la variant of SGI processor affinity). Perhaps some Java mobile code layer that identifies the CPU and loads the appropriate vectorised libraries? This applies to a wider class of problems as with the increasing popularity of SIMD instructions (MIPS MDMX, Sparc VS, PPC AltiVec, Intel MDX) you would like to have code which uses the optimisations of the underlying hardware without stressing out too much at the software development level.
The biggest problem I see is that the Sony testbed is about $20K which is out of the reach of most OpenSource groups. OK for the multimillion dollar gaming groups but not for your average OpenSource scrounger. I wonder how many people are interested in some sort of fractional ownership scheme? Say half a dozen people chip in $4K each and host the machine somewhere for OpenSource development purposes (ie dedicated compilation engine) for any number of projects.
If it is to be the media control unit for the house (as Sony claims), it would open up a lot of new devspace like real-time DVD/camcorder editing.
LL
... is a verifier for the interpreter to the compiler of the vm translator that emits code to the vectorising assembler optimised for the hardware scheduler :-).
... As Linus pointed out, controlling the complexity of the kernel requires understanding very clearly the minimal protocol that is needed to communicate between the different functions.
/. filtering with references to Encyclopeida Britanica or archived news sites. Much as EBay might squeal about sites "stealing" their auction databases (what they want to do in practice), it is a way of creating large aggregated information complexes.
If you look at any high level abstract language (say Python) it goes through a number of stages, each of them designed to feed into the lower layers. The debates about the various schools can be viewed as an on-going bun-fight between the various groups as to who gets the largest slice of the $$ pie and simplified workload. In some ways, the hardware guys have a conceptually easier task, they get to include more of the surrounding chipset. The software language or API developers are forced to explore unknown territory. Witness the fumbled gropings to move beyond OpenGL to higher level 3D scene representation.
The rather interesting factor is that the OpenSource scene allows flexibility for the software and hardware to be realigned periodically. The example I'm thinking about is the GGI project and the move towards the Graphics Processing Unit as a self-contained CPU instead of an add-on video board. The next step might even be dedicated I/O/media processors combining FibreChannel, TCP/IP, SCSI, XML/Perl/Java engines, codecs, etc
The biggest problem nowadays is not actually technical (tough but doable) but legal. Witness the jockeying around System on a Chip where you have to combine multiple IPs along with the core. Hardware vendors have cross-licensing portfolios and reverse-engineer their competitors to copy the ideas anyway. Linux avoids the problem by making everything GNU and thus designers/engineers can concentrate on the job without fighting with the lawyers, as well as defining prior art (cf with universities rushing to publish the human genome before the commerical mobs fence it off). Given the fast pace of the industry, the market is a stronger judge than any legal protection (why bother protecting something trivial that will be obsolete in a few years?). Perhaps in a few decades, people might look back and consider the millstone the patent system has become.
The biggest open question IMHO now is how to get multiple internet sites to interoperate. For example, some people might wish to combine customised
CPU tricks and speed races will always make headlines but despite the appeal of multi-gigahertz chips, the information backlane will remain a mess until the telcos/cable/sat get their act together.
LL
While the article extols the financial advantages of using OpenSource/GNU software for cash-strapped startups without a VC fund and tons of hype behind them, there's also other advantages. A recent article pointed out that ... copyright was less of an issue as many programmers wrote for Microsoft platforms which had their own Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). In effect, much of the intellectual property was de facto handed over to Microsoft in these instances and it was only the integration of business objects - ready-made slabs of programming code ready-to-run - that mattered. So it comes down to how you see your role, as a architect creating new forms or as a building constructor knocking prefabs into shape. The rather interesting factor is that like all professionals and artists, there is that inner urge to "show off" to peers which means ideas are circulated. Much like a Jazz band, structures and improvised, creating unique on-the-spot music rather than repetitive pop tunes.
The other constraint is the choice of language/tools automatically limits your designs. While big companies can only tackle the average needs of their customers, OpenSource has the flexibility to satisfy the specialised demands of niches. This is particularly the case with scientific applications which though it likes big and cheap computing power, would be less than 1% of the total computing market. The shift away from tools to services (e.g. Zope) will add a further dynamic to the equation as the limitation then becomes skilled people capable of using the tools. The key to long-term success here is winning the fickle attention of the development crowd.
Oh well, if all you have is a penguin, then everything looks like a fish.
LL
I would hope that if you spend 8 hours a day, you'd at least enjoy what you're doing. Let's face it, that's at least 1/3rd of your life. Already there is increasing blurring between work and home with the arrival of mobile phones and laptops. The problem is that there are still many jobs that a dull but necessary. Somebody has to go around cleaning stuff, somebody has to go around flogging pizzas, some poor soul will be stuck in a sweatshope factory trying to earn a living for their family. If there was a surplus of IT workers (and corresponding salary drop) would there be as much enthusiasm? How easy is it to get passionate about the next database? One hope is that OpenSource is the ultimate free market, you choose your job and (hopefully) if you're good at it, you get picked up by a commercial mob. In this sense, you effectively make your own employment if you can figure out an area of the noosphere which is important but nobody has realised it yet.
... the ultimate CV. Imagine employors saying "Show me the source".
I can imagine the future now, Linux
LL
I'm surprised that they haven't explored complimentary business models besides advertising. Off the top of my head
/.ers can come up with more. The big problem is that the world has changed whereas encyclopedias haven't. I do remember the fun I had just randomly browsing, fascinated by the connections between the science entries. Maybe they just need to hire some people with a bit more creative/lateral thinking than stogey old salespeople? If they spend some time think about their job and business (are they a creator, aggregator, repackager or distributor of information?), I'm sure they can add value to their existing knowledge-base and get back some market share against its competitors.
1) Value added services for libraries such as Science Triva Pursuit, improved indexing, automatic language translation, etc
2) Reducing costs by soliciting for contributor pictures and pperhaps new entries (a la HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Earth)
3) Provide a persistant URI scheme based on reader's feedback and license that to other players.
4) Look at repackaging subcategories, perhaps as electronic books or quick reference material (cheat notes?).
5) License material to other people as anotations to say index of human body, history or geography (though National Geographic would probably be better).
These are just off the top of my head but I'm sure
LL
Given that most newspapers are syndicated columns or recycled content from the big media houses, is it not surprising that some people are dissatisified with the emotional repackaging and are seeking more authorative sources of knowledge? Think about a major event and the chances of the movie/pop star du jour being asked by a news channel for their thoughts. Superlative as they are at faking celluloid repartee, I would hardly expect them to be competent in fields outside their expertise (granted, they may have a wide selection of interests). Let's face it, all the real experts are either doing the gruntwork, whether it is biotech or space-science, or are not photogenic enough to warrent exposure to the masses.
... Linus' next project?). The advantage of computers acting as the storage medium is that people are free to browse user profiles and judge for themselves the history of postings and evaluate the degree of trust they have in a poster's conversations. This past memory is unique and allows balanced review (especially if you are concerned about stupid remarks being kept for prosperity) and cross-referencing, something which cannot be duplicated in TVs or newspapers. Maybe politicians could learn some lessons from this?
... one of these decades.
For example in the current controversy about genetically modified food, I suspect people would think more about the issues if they were exposed to the inner discussions which the scientists conduct (but don't be surprised at the range of opinions!). Unfortunately, as Carl Sagan pointed out in his book, The Demon Haunted World, this requires a fair amount of basic scientific literacy just to understand the topic, much less the argot of that expertise. If your interests in technology stops at the microwave and TV remote, then is it surprising that Atlantis and UFOs are more popular topics than biodiversity or social rationalisation?
Hopefully the Internet will readdress some of the imbalance, allow the public greater access to the knowledge and expertise tied up in the great libraries and minds of people working in the field. Maybe, just maybe, in a few decades if you're not able to add value to a discussion, then news outlets will be forced to reinvent themselves. Specialist journals such as Jane will probably survive, but the general audience is likely to fragment and seek the direct opinions of football stars or technology experts (until they get so sick of the attention they invent AI secretaries
Oh well, so you too can become an authority on an obscure speciality and get your 15 minutes of fame
LL
Hmmm ... title starting to sound like a 1984 byline. I thought the strength of Linux was suppose to be its customisation and flexibility? That you could mix and match components/applications as you wish (for example, there are at least 3 variants of mail transport agents). Thus you can get a version that can optimised to fit the simplified hardware needs rather than a single size fits all. If someone wants to say throw together a simple drawing appliance for kids, they could whip together a mips board, touch screen, along with a stripped down Linux and GIMP. Having access to the source and packages allows one to hit small niches that a big expensive PC wouldn't be practical or affordable.
;-{, as it is well publicised, we all know that a certain company claims to have purchased the smartest CS brains alive so obviously this can't be the case :-).
Naturally this requires some smarts on the part of the integrator and, of course
Oh well, different courses for horses.
LL
giving a rule of thumb purchase price + (1) * (2) / (3) lifetime cost. Perhaps other
All brand and no beef makes for very skimpy meal.
LL
Given the variety of choices out there (Lotus, MS, Star, GOffice) does it really make sense to keep on butting heads against brick walls? The market now has a range of choices and prices ranging from free (speech), to app-rental to full office suites. There be should be enough diversity to satisfy anyone with varying prices to match. Instead, would it be better to think about areas which OpenSource and/or Linux would have a comparative advantage and be superior in the long term? Areas like scaling development environments to support thousands of contributors, perhaps automated code documentation to relieve the tedium, device transparent access (from smartcards/PDAs to server clusters). A tail chase on a commercial product is going to be long so why not instead put some energy into stuff which is more speculative and might open up interesting areas? Like having code morph to make optimal use of the local instruction set or improve its execution speed each time? While commercial groups have to look after their existing customer base, OpenSource hackers are unencumbered to explore whatever topic catches their fancy without worrying about a return on investment or keeping the shareholders doped on hype. As free agents, hackers can scout new unexplored software territory while leaving the heavyweight gorillas to fight it out in the business jungle.
LL
For your interest, the technical term in atmospheric studies is called ensemble forecasting, Monte Carlo is the generic class of techniques for sampling a large state space which is not strictly the same as ray-casting for scene generation. If you've got the inclination, check out
Prospects and Limitations of Seasonal Atmospheric GCM Predictions, Kumar and Hoerline, Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society, Vol 76(3), March 1995.
which discusses the predictability of time-averaged GCM runs. It all comes down to the spatial-temporal correlations as most of hte time, people are more interested in the anomalies (ie extreme events) rather than the natural variability. The science is still out on this area.
You don't know what the f*** you're talking about and I claim my free cigar, troll!
You're quite welcome to smoke your own cigar.
LL
While it make be hot and sexy to participate in a feel-good global climate project, I'd like to see more of the scientific methodology first. Anyone can run monte-carlo simulations (in fact too many do so for market forecasting) but the underlying science still has to be validated. While it may save them buying a Cray or 10, will it achieve any useful results? I recall a project which simulated the effect of climate change across a forested German country-side and what eventually hit the papers bigtime was the most extreme scenario where all the trees were killed off. Essemble forecasting can usually pick the extreme events but the normal one are trickier to analyse. Extrapolate this across the globe and you will always find a scenario where you are personally affected (wheat belts moving into Canada, sea levels rising, higher winter fuel costs, etc). There is a very good reason why science has to go through peer review first and to be especially sceptical of simulated results which makes a lot of simplifying assumptions (which would be necessary to fit into a PC memory).
So what will the climate be like next decade? All anyone can say really say is that it might change. Any attempts at scare-mongering or trying to protect vested interests will only be a distraction to putting in the fundamental research in trying to gain a better understanding of the world's climate dynamics.
LL
I think that using commercial off-the-shelf stuff says something about the rapid adoption of technology into mainstream (though I still would have thought a radiation hardened CPU would be better). Basically, anything which is considered cutting edge will probably be commonplace in another 7-10 years.
... design your own hamster cloning project with cells grown on the local school satellite .... :-(
I can see 2050 high school projects now
When we start talking about the good ol' days of Linux hacking, then its time to quit mainstream and find something new to do.
LL
If people are interested, there's an interview with the author in the ezine Edge. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can someone explain to me what the significance of his interpretation is? Look at it, all I can see is a coordinate transformation from extrinsic linear 3D space to intrinsic circulinear chaos space. I'll try and exaplin with an analogy.
/. Edge claims to include the luminaries of the day (including your favorite bully boy) and exists as a broadcast forum for these "great digerati" to ennunciate their thoughts and spread their "wisdom". On the other hand /. is a rowdy cocktail party where everyone and their 2 cents is allowed a say. Which is better? Does it depend on whether you're already an "elite" or part of the unwashed masses? Oh well, enough mumbling for the day.
From the measured exterior world, the alpha particle moves in a straight line from the atom. Now from the point of view of the atom, which we can approximate as a spherical point, it can exist in multiple orientations. So if you imagine a sphere spinning randomly around with the number of potential states away from the point the alpha particle split being the linear dimension (ie radius away from sphere), then the alpha particle does appear as a spherical wave.
If there are any physicists out there, can you explain what the significance of what the author is on about? Most people accept that derived order of knowledge is medicine - biology - chemistry - physics - mathematics, but beyond mathematics lies philosophy. For example, if we map the chaotic spherical world to Linux hacker community (a collection of independent free agents) and the extrinsic structured view to the Gartner viewpoint (see previous story) with a single "standard" then you can explain the discrepencies between the 2 points of view. Although the look and feel of Linux is quite variable, it is based on a sonsistent set of principles (file & devices) and based on this framework it is easy to extrapolate to the rest of the world. Thus a Linux hacker, wven when faced with an unknown system, knows roughly where to look for things and can usually ramp up the learning curve fairly quickly. On the other hand, the Gartner worldview only sees the exterior pretty GUI, not understanding that underneath is a mish-mash of concepts and APIs pretending to move in formation. Thus it is a extrinsic view (speaking as a voice for the Fortune500 wannabes) whereas Linux is a multistate intrinsic view with a wavefront of acceptance among individuals that is expanding exponentially. Thus it is fundamentally the difference between single-user (monopole) and multiuser (chaotic wave) disruptive event. If you're an established business interested in saving costs, then a single training interface is considered "superior". If you're a struggling ISP trying to stave off the arrival of the big guns, then having the flexibility to find a niche is more important. Different strokes for different people.
The mindset between the single vs many is also reflected in the difference between the ezines "Edge" and
LL
ACE is an opensource C++ framework that implements common concurrent design patterns tested in a variety of platforms using a common source tree, not to mention a Java version. As for multiple languages, that's a little harder because some languages make certain assumptions. Easier to write C++ wrappers around them.
... ie not recommended unless you really grok the theory and got a firm grasp of what you're trying to do. Coding is complex enough without making life impossible for yourself. Keeping things simple will then become your best friend.
Another future possibility may be OpenMP which allows a sequential and parallel shared memory version to reside in the same codebase using compiler extensions. Although there are specifications for several languages/platforms, I don't think anyone has tested for intervendor compatibility as yet. However, it is still evolving.
The major problem is that once you start wandering outside the most commonly used languages (C,C++,Java,Fortran) into more exotic variants (Amoeba, Occam, Z etc) you will be running across differences in conceptual models (actor, CSP, timed lambda calculus, etc) which is like mixing different mathematical coordinate systems
LL
Back when the Patent Laws were first mooted, good ideas were relatively scarce (emphasis on good) so there was some justification to encourage open publication and greater dissemination. However, in today's modern era where any business process can be codified in software to some extent and thus automated, creating artificial exclusions seems to encourage too many ideas which frankly are minor and incremental. We need much better ways of filtering out the crap that floats by (perhaps a /. moderated version?).
Also, nowadays, having a good idea is not enough, you need to be in a position to execute and solve a broader long-term customer need (or even create that need!). When patents become deliberate barriers to new entrants (either through unrealistic licensing or legal threats) then it starts to create systematic problems. For example, drugs can be patented so companies then spend more effort on manufactured designs rather than adapting existing commonplace plant-based remedies which they can't control. So given the choice between high margin patented solutions or low-margin systems, guess which gets widely advertised and pushed at doctors? Given the complications of body chemistry, I suspect that most people want the placebo equivalent of a nice cup of tea and less stress.
Anyway, you can make still money by not using software patents. One path is to become an ultraspecialist and come up with completely new fields. For the rest of us, we have to be content with just surviving without getting too rippedoff. In the end, it's not the patented software that counts (business guys will always find a way of screwing over the inventor), it's the fact that you will continue to generate good ideas in the future that will make you an irresistable catch for whatever company that wants your skills (and threaten to quit if not happy).
LL
Cplus wrote /. prize to reward the perosn with the highest karma rating.
I think we should have a
Highest? Not a good idea as it benefits the very early subscribers who've had longer time to post. Instead I suggest something like signal to noise ratio which is the number of posts per week that is above the baseline. Then perhaps sort by volume. This way you would reward people who consistently get 4-5 using a few pithy and to the point comments but without continuously responding just to get their posts noticed and their karma up. For your information, in studies of organisational efficiency, people have always found simple metrics to be rather self-defeating as people orient to the artificial goal instead of the organisational objectives. Defining metrics for measuring people is inherently a politicised process. E.g. would you say that having a high IPO is a good measure of success in Silicon Valley? If so, does this encourage people to overhype technology giving the entire industry a bad name in the long term?
Oh well, he (or she) who defines the rules, gets the reward.
LL
Chalst wrote
... ummm ... personal disagreement with a prominant mathematician of the day so deliberately left out mathematics to prevent his rival from gaining any kudos.
No mathematics prize either, and I believe that subject existed then...
The mathematical equivalent is the Fields Medal. The story is that Nobel had a bit of a
As for other posters wanting something similar for computing, I would instead suggest that a computer language which is widely adopted and solves a significant class of problems would be a better choice. Afterwall, what is a language but a systematic way of ennunciating the concepts for a general problem domain? In this way, the greatest mark of respect for Perl and (to some extent) Python has been their rapid adoption by peer programmers. To paraphrase ESR, show them the code and reap the kudos.
LL