What I was trying to express was that Microsoft came up with this great "spin" on regular patches, - Service Packs - but that the unending stream of emergency fixes they've been forced to provide has them reverting to using "patch" lest they lose the perceptive effect of that brilliant marketing move.
How is it advantageous to Microsoft to get people to download free patches?
I don't think it was planned.   I think they rush to market on every release.   I believe it to be the company's modus operandi - get it out the door, fix the problems in a Service Pack.
Service Pack.   There's an awesome piece of marketing.   Microsoft calls 'patches' 'Service Packs' and averts contaminating the perception of The Product.   A patch is something you apply to something that's broken.   A 'Service Pack' is like getting something extra.   Genius.
It all seems so obvious.   Microsoft wanted to offer complete connectivity between products.   And they did.   And they rushed it to market without realizing how all this inter-process functionality could be exploited.   I'm sure it was the furthest thing from their minds - "Why would anyone want to use The Product to do anything bad?   We're just trying to provide solutions.  Why the hell are people using our 'Solutions' to cause problems?"
I just want to say, without looking at any of the other comments, and without having read anything else about Matrix sequels, that right after I watched the film the first time I predicted these two:
I have always been fascinated by machines. I've always been adept with words. The fact that words can control machines is serendipitous beyond description.
I write. Machines (sometimes after a great deal of effort) respond. What can be more fun that that?
Absolutely. This is probably the only remedy that's really needed and will actually work. It's absolutely perfect, relatively simple to coordinate and enforce, easy to understand and has the most beneficial possibilities.
Congratulations on a succinct description. I was going to post something similar, but I decided to try and read through as many replies as I could.
(If I knew how or was allowed to, I'd mod this up)
Rant excused, now bear with me:)
They just want to use their computers to do stuff, and if XP makes it easier for them to do things online, work with video, etc, then they will use it even if installing it's a pain in the ass.
And my prediction has been, for some time now, that when people start finding out that other people using other OSs can do things that Windows won't let them - copy DVDs, make MP3s, use the same copy of the software on all their machines, what-have-you - then the motivation to find alternatives to MS will become stronger.
MS is on this track. They must exert control over the user - in order to toady up to the mega-media providers and to propitiate an ever-increasing revenue stream. This will be their undoing in the face of free alternatives which are not designed to enforce this type of intervention.
The average user may just want to do things, but when he finds out that Microsoft won't allow him to do the things he's become accustomed to, or wants to charge him for the privilege of doing these things, he will balk.
Anyway, I think I read on Slashdot about personal wireless networks. If this is possible and FCC legal, I think all efforts should be thrown into creating private networks with equipment capable of transmission distances of less than a mile. That means that in a reasonably populated area, everyone could be a node, blah, blah, blah.
"And since the Court describes Pavlovich's activities as "illegal", it appears to have already decided the main issue of the case itself (which has not yet been tried)."
This is basically the substance of Microsoft's appeal to the Supreme Court concerning its monopoly conviction. Perhaps Pavlovich could get some advice from Bill's lawyers?
The killer app for Linux is already here.  It's just not been forced into play yet.
It's freedom.  When Microsoft starts turning the screws on copyright protection, and the average user sees their Linux neighbors continuing to share files and make mix disks from legally-purchased CD's, etc, then the momentum will begin to pick up.
Also, if MS stands behind the copy-protection in Windows XP, you're going to see more and more people on the low end going to Linux for their used 1G Athlons instead of coughing up ~$200 for XP.
Your comments concerning hardware bring up an interesting scenario - the home server.  When it becomes economical to buy a machine capable of handling the home-user type demands of up to 6 people - thin clients, maybe small HDTVs in each bedroom, livingroom, kitchen, etc.
That will inject a dose of reality into the 'which-OS-to-use' question.
The fact alone that they are unwiling to say what cd(s) are copy-protected is essentially an admission of guilt -- they are *misrepresenting the CD* and this is fraud.
Actually, and this annoys me, I remember reading a few months back about the proposed release of this CD. IIRC, it's an older R&B artist, like Otis Redding or someone.
I'm not a fan of loud noise. But I am fond of fans. I love the heavy mechanical nature of PCs as they are now. I am going to hate when they're invisible. I love the LEDs and the cases and the manual interaction (keyboards) and the fans. Fan noise doesn't bother me. I think a bedroom-office humming with power supplies is awesome. My first computer was a Kaypro II with no fan, and I felt that I didn't have a real machine until I got my first used 8088 with an honest-to-God, fan-cooled power supply. My machines now have auxiliary fans bolted on the front, extra, internal fans wired to lighted front panel switches, Pabst AC tubeaxials... Ah shit, this's horribly geeky, isn't it? Oh well.
But then, that's me.
Nevertheless, I do know that fans represent energy lost trying to cool things that are wasting energy. When there're computers in your beer can and your BVDs they won't need fans, they'll be silent. But then, maybe we'll think back to when you could tell where the computer was by the noise it made.
Well. You got a point. In our times, most culturally popular things do get forgotten rapidly. However, 600 years ago, Gutenberg invented the printing press. About 200 years later, this invention was recognized to be of such importance, that access to it was codified in American Law.
It is not that much of a stretch to identify your computer as the direct descendant of Johanne's press.
We must hope that our [newest found] access, as individuals, to mass communications is not hampered by mere transitory market concerns.
Why do we watch or listen to what we do?   Because we found it and like it.   How did we find it?   Most likely through advertising.   Hollywood, MPAA, RIAA advertising.   But there're a shitload of talented people out there who'll never get that type of big advertising.   Nevertheless, we might like them.
Technological advances are making it possible for people to record music and make movies in and from their homes, without the need for massive studios.   The internet is just waiting for them to do their own marketing.   Look at the incredible penetration of "All Your Base", for God's sake.   When professional electronic entertainment becomes too expensive and too complicated to enjoy, more and more people will flock to free alternatives.   Want to see a movie?   Well, IndieTonight.com has 3000 titles which you can download - all independently written, produced, directed, acted and scored.   Copyright free.
You get what you pay for.  
There are millions of people who haven't made it in Hollywood for some reason or another.   If you're like most people, you probably know someone personally whom you think is awesomely talented.   He can act, sing, play, perform and thrill you, but he also has a day job.  
The big players, the MPAA and the RIAA, when they get their way and are able to encrypt everything they produce and limit your rights to its usage, will restrict themselves out of the market.   Their current dominance is based upon the ability we grant them to judge and distribute.   The internet is taking that away from them.   The bad side of all this is the threat of Balkanization.   Right now, in the US at least, we live in a society where anyone from any part of the country can strike up a conversation with most anyone else by referring to common cultural experience.   "Did you see Beck on SNL last night?" "How 'bout those Lakers?", that kind of stuff.   If the giant media corporations succeed in their panicked attempts to limit access to their products, they'll simply send consumers off in search of entertainment that's not so dear.   And we might possibly lose this electronic zeitgiest.   But even that won't last.   Because if people wander off from the media giants, they won't be media giants anymore.   If that happens, they'll be forced to drop their restrictions in order to lure people back.
Joe Sixpack may not know a whole hell of a lot, but he does know he can make a CD of songs he really likes and he can tape a tv show to watch later.   He is not going to give that up without a fight.
I mean, why would you purchase an un-copyable, use-limited CD of Band X for $15 when you can download Band Y's music for free and make a compilation CD from their tracks with tracks from Bands Z, AA and BB?   (Unless of course you're 15 and all your friends have Band X CDs.   But even then, if you can't afford Band X and Band Y is free, what are you gonna do?)   There'll be some cachet, I suppose, to having Band X CDs, but it won't be any more exciting than having Nike sneakers instead of New Balance.   They're still just sneakers.
If you put out big bucks for a super-digital, whiz-bang TV and then you can't afford to watch anything on it other than free crap you drag down off the internet, what are you going to do with your expensive, restricted hardware?   Watch the free crap.
That is an example of free-market forces at work.   No one makes you look at Keanu or Sandra.   There are hundreds of Keanus and Sandras who are just waiting for the chance to entertain you.   That's probably the scariest thing for both the MPAA and the RIAA.   We have a choice and now, finally, we have a source.
(Which is not to say that I don't find it abhorrent that entertainment companies would dictate what use I can make of hardware I bought!   But I think this abnormality will be rendered irrelevent.   The restricted, expensive, difficult shit just won't have any customers, and it will go away.)
Let me try to recap.   The Beatles were big.   Metallica is/was big. But that's only because, in the past, record companies had to winnow out obvious losers in order to recruit talent which could stand a chance of sustaining mass appeal.   The record companies might not know it yet, but they have already lost that power.   And the MPAA will lose it next.   YOU, the consumer, can review music from hundreds, thousands of bands.   YOU will be able to download trailers of truly indi films.   Columbia, CBS, RCA, whoever, won't be there to narrow your choices, unless you choose to pay for their services and submit to their restrictions.
No offense meant, but apparently the FBI is concerned with "Massive MS Exploits Over Last Year"
I'd take that to mean that not a whole lot of damage (stolen credit cars, personal info) has/is being done to anyone with regards ramen, script kiddies, etc.
MjM
Re:Will people go for this? PROBABLY
on
CPRM Smokescreen
·
· Score: 1
Honestly? I think I'm beginning to see beyond the curve. These exploits will become more common and most likely succeed, mostly because people who buy computers/MP3 players/etc won't understand or realize at first.
Then, one day, people will realize that back in the 'old days' they used to be able to record music they bought, they used to be able to make copies of software, they used to be able to strip out commercials from tv shows and they will raise holy hell and it will only take one or two opportunistic politicians to realize that their time in office will be greatly lengthened by championing the people against the media giants.
It will succeed and there will be a backlash. Stay tuned.
My understanding is that musicians make much more from personal appearances than they ever do from music sales. Apparently, most of the money generated by CDs remains with the record companies.
That said, it would seem to me that as the forces of copyright (the record companies) succeed in closing down the free music feed that's been going on for a while, people who are willing to release their music gratis via the web will gain more and more notice. Perhaps enough to justify those lucrative 'personal appearances'. (In addition to website hits, etc)
This is good. This is fun. It is good that we are all here to hash this out. To make sense of this, to exercise our mighty muscles of invective and investigation. We are spinning away at the wheel of truth, cobbing webs of vision and genecity from simple strands of plaint.
Microsoft doth vex us so, in its huge and omnivorous, yet soft, ware-arms. We tumble restlessly in marketing induced dreams, waking fraily, faintly to calls of life and freedom, but never rousing fully. For the beast is huge and surrounding and fighting on every front seemingly invisible foes is sure to grant one special lodging in the House of Crank.
You and I brother, sister, we stumble forth into this digital-electro future knowing fully its past, seeing the lessons hidden from the teeming hordes of TV surfers.
We shall be banished, ridiculed and, in the end, reeducated.
Yeah! Man, I love that. I'm going to rip it as a WAV someday from the tape. (I'm going to buy the tape first, okay?)
After several years of UNIX administration (largely with incomprehensible documentation) hearing that sentence squealed in a shrill voice never fails to drop me crying with laughter.
PS:In the book, the girl doesn't know shit. They just did that in the flick to make it 'inclusive' or something.
The Entertainment industry wants us to consume but they want to control how and where we do this consumption. I keep thinking of the money fleeced from consumers by the invention of the CD - it was supposed to cut costs of album production, and it did, from ~$10 per to ~$1 per - but did the recording industry reduce prices to consumers?
Even now, the sludge-brains at the record companies are offering music on the internet for - surprise - the same price you'd pay for the CD at Wal-Mart. Gee - I have to sit through a download and then burn a CD and I get no cover art, no liner notes, no CD case, shit, I even have to provide the blank CD and I still have to pay $15 for an album?!
Gnrow!
Yah.
Somehow or another the giants must fall. The gigantic, monolithic, blood-sucking industry that surrounds all popular culture must fall. If it doesn't, freedom will. They can't ever be allowed to tell us what protocols we can use, what software we aren't allowed to own on the assumption that we might put it to illegal use. This cannot be allowed to happen!
There's no need anymore for NBC, Sony Records, United Artists as they stand. The status quo is gone. The future of artistic endeavor has to be: you put it up, you're honest and good, people visit your site and pull it down. No record companies, only music reviewers. No movie industry, just reviewers, etc. Artists and the trusted portals will be the champions, dissemination will be ubiquitous.
What this really means, of course, is that your Monday morning chat around the water-cooler will be highly eclectic, because there won't be any "Friends" or "Seinfelds" - we'll move in different circles.
Slashdot Mirror
I got off track.
What I was trying to express was that Microsoft came up with this great "spin" on regular patches, - Service Packs - but that the unending stream of emergency fixes they've been forced to provide has them reverting to using "patch" lest they lose the perceptive effect of that brilliant marketing move.
Or something to that effect...
MjM
I don't think it was planned.   I think they rush to market on every release.   I believe it to be the company's modus operandi - get it out the door, fix the problems in a Service Pack.
Service Pack.   There's an awesome piece of marketing.   Microsoft calls 'patches' 'Service Packs' and averts contaminating the perception of The Product.   A patch is something you apply to something that's broken.   A 'Service Pack' is like getting something extra.   Genius.
It all seems so obvious.   Microsoft wanted to offer complete connectivity between products.   And they did.   And they rushed it to market without realizing how all this inter-process functionality could be exploited.   I'm sure it was the furthest thing from their minds - "Why would anyone want to use The Product to do anything bad?   We're just trying to provide solutions.  Why the hell are people using our 'Solutions' to cause problems?"
Spoing!
MjM
Matrix II - The Fight for Jericho
and
Matrix III - Return to Earth
Was I right?
MjM
I write. Machines (sometimes after a great deal of effort) respond. What can be more fun that that?
MjM
Huzzah!
Absolutely. This is probably the only remedy that's really needed and will actually work. It's absolutely perfect, relatively simple to coordinate and enforce, easy to understand and has the most beneficial possibilities.
Congratulations on a succinct description. I was going to post something similar, but I decided to try and read through as many replies as I could.
(If I knew how or was allowed to, I'd mod this up)
MjM
Rant excused, now bear with me
They just want to use their computers to do stuff, and if XP makes it easier for them to do things online, work with video, etc, then they will use it even if installing it's a pain in the ass.
And my prediction has been, for some time now, that when people start finding out that other people using other OSs can do things that Windows won't let them - copy DVDs, make MP3s, use the same copy of the software on all their machines, what-have-you - then the motivation to find alternatives to MS will become stronger.
MS is on this track. They must exert control over the user - in order to toady up to the mega-media providers and to propitiate an ever-increasing revenue stream. This will be their undoing in the face of free alternatives which are not designed to enforce this type of intervention.
The average user may just want to do things, but when he finds out that Microsoft won't allow him to do the things he's become accustomed to, or wants to charge him for the privilege of doing these things, he will balk.
MjM
Anyway, I think I read on Slashdot about personal wireless networks. If this is possible and FCC legal, I think all efforts should be thrown into creating private networks with equipment capable of transmission distances of less than a mile. That means that in a reasonably populated area, everyone could be a node, blah, blah, blah.
To hell with ISPs, in other words.
Is this possible?
MjM
This is basically the substance of Microsoft's appeal to the Supreme Court concerning its monopoly conviction. Perhaps Pavlovich could get some advice from Bill's lawyers?
MjM
The killer app for Linux is already here.  It's just not been forced into play yet.
It's freedom.  When Microsoft starts turning the screws on copyright protection, and the average user sees their Linux neighbors continuing to share files and make mix disks from legally-purchased CD's, etc, then the momentum will begin to pick up.
Also, if MS stands behind the copy-protection in Windows XP, you're going to see more and more people on the low end going to Linux for their used 1G Athlons instead of coughing up ~$200 for XP.
MjM
Your comments concerning hardware bring up an interesting scenario - the home server.  When it becomes economical to buy a machine capable of handling the home-user type demands of up to 6 people - thin clients, maybe small HDTVs in each bedroom, livingroom, kitchen, etc.
That will inject a dose of reality into the 'which-OS-to-use' question.
MjM
Actually, and this annoys me, I remember reading a few months back about the proposed release of this CD. IIRC, it's an older R&B artist, like Otis Redding or someone.
MjM
But then, that's me.
Nevertheless, I do know that fans represent energy lost trying to cool things that are wasting energy. When there're computers in your beer can and your BVDs they won't need fans, they'll be silent. But then, maybe we'll think back to when you could tell where the computer was by the noise it made.
MjM
It is not that much of a stretch to identify your computer as the direct descendant of Johanne's press.
We must hope that our [newest found] access, as individuals, to mass communications is not hampered by mere transitory market concerns.
MjM
Why do we watch or listen to what we do?   Because we found it and like it.   How did we find it?   Most likely through advertising.   Hollywood, MPAA, RIAA advertising.   But there're a shitload of talented people out there who'll never get that type of big advertising.   Nevertheless, we might like them.
Technological advances are making it possible for people to record music and make movies in and from their homes, without the need for massive studios.   The internet is just waiting for them to do their own marketing.   Look at the incredible penetration of "All Your Base", for God's sake.   When professional electronic entertainment becomes too expensive and too complicated to enjoy, more and more people will flock to free alternatives.   Want to see a movie?   Well, IndieTonight.com has 3000 titles which you can download - all independently written, produced, directed, acted and scored.   Copyright free.
You get what you pay for.  
There are millions of people who haven't made it in Hollywood for some reason or another.   If you're like most people, you probably know someone personally whom you think is awesomely talented.   He can act, sing, play, perform and thrill you, but he also has a day job.  
The big players, the MPAA and the RIAA, when they get their way and are able to encrypt everything they produce and limit your rights to its usage, will restrict themselves out of the market.   Their current dominance is based upon the ability we grant them to judge and distribute.   The internet is taking that away from them.   The bad side of all this is the threat of Balkanization.   Right now, in the US at least, we live in a society where anyone from any part of the country can strike up a conversation with most anyone else by referring to common cultural experience.   "Did you see Beck on SNL last night?" "How 'bout those Lakers?", that kind of stuff.   If the giant media corporations succeed in their panicked attempts to limit access to their products, they'll simply send consumers off in search of entertainment that's not so dear.   And we might possibly lose this electronic zeitgiest.   But even that won't last.   Because if people wander off from the media giants, they won't be media giants anymore.   If that happens, they'll be forced to drop their restrictions in order to lure people back.
Joe Sixpack may not know a whole hell of a lot, but he does know he can make a CD of songs he really likes and he can tape a tv show to watch later.   He is not going to give that up without a fight.
I mean, why would you purchase an un-copyable, use-limited CD of Band X for $15 when you can download Band Y's music for free and make a compilation CD from their tracks with tracks from Bands Z, AA and BB?   (Unless of course you're 15 and all your friends have Band X CDs.   But even then, if you can't afford Band X and Band Y is free, what are you gonna do?)   There'll be some cachet, I suppose, to having Band X CDs, but it won't be any more exciting than having Nike sneakers instead of New Balance.   They're still just sneakers.
If you put out big bucks for a super-digital, whiz-bang TV and then you can't afford to watch anything on it other than free crap you drag down off the internet, what are you going to do with your expensive, restricted hardware?   Watch the free crap.
That is an example of free-market forces at work.   No one makes you look at Keanu or Sandra.   There are hundreds of Keanus and Sandras who are just waiting for the chance to entertain you.   That's probably the scariest thing for both the MPAA and the RIAA.   We have a choice and now, finally, we have a source.
(Which is not to say that I don't find it abhorrent that entertainment companies would dictate what use I can make of hardware I bought!   But I think this abnormality will be rendered irrelevent.   The restricted, expensive, difficult shit just won't have any customers, and it will go away.)
Let me try to recap.   The Beatles were big.   Metallica is/was big. But that's only because, in the past, record companies had to winnow out obvious losers in order to recruit talent which could stand a chance of sustaining mass appeal.   The record companies might not know it yet, but they have already lost that power.   And the MPAA will lose it next.   YOU, the consumer, can review music from hundreds, thousands of bands.   YOU will be able to download trailers of truly indi films.   Columbia, CBS, RCA, whoever, won't be there to narrow your choices, unless you choose to pay for their services and submit to their restrictions.
MjM
No offense meant, but apparently the FBI is concerned with "Massive MS Exploits Over Last Year"
I'd take that to mean that not a whole lot of damage (stolen credit cars, personal info) has/is being done to anyone with regards ramen, script kiddies, etc.
MjM
Then, one day, people will realize that back in the 'old days' they used to be able to record music they bought, they used to be able to make copies of software, they used to be able to strip out commercials from tv shows and they will raise holy hell and it will only take one or two opportunistic politicians to realize that their time in office will be greatly lengthened by championing the people against the media giants.
It will succeed and there will be a backlash. Stay tuned.
MjM
That said, it would seem to me that as the forces of copyright (the record companies) succeed in closing down the free music feed that's been going on for a while, people who are willing to release their music gratis via the web will gain more and more notice. Perhaps enough to justify those lucrative 'personal appearances'. (In addition to website hits, etc)
MjM
MjM
All hail Mazda!
volition
MjM
Microsoft doth vex us so, in its huge and omnivorous, yet soft, ware-arms. We tumble restlessly in marketing induced dreams, waking fraily, faintly to calls of life and freedom, but never rousing fully. For the beast is huge and surrounding and fighting on every front seemingly invisible foes is sure to grant one special lodging in the House of Crank.
You and I brother, sister, we stumble forth into this digital-electro future knowing fully its past, seeing the lessons hidden from the teeming hordes of TV surfers.
We shall be banished, ridiculed and, in the end, reeducated.
MjM
Yeah! Man, I love that. I'm going to rip it as a WAV someday from the tape. (I'm going to buy the tape first, okay?)
After several years of UNIX administration (largely with incomprehensible documentation) hearing that sentence squealed in a shrill voice never fails to drop me crying with laughter.
PS:In the book, the girl doesn't know shit. They just did that in the flick to make it 'inclusive' or something.
MjM
I'm getting kind of tired of this.
The Entertainment industry wants us to consume but they want to control how and where we do this consumption. I keep thinking of the money fleeced from consumers by the invention of the CD - it was supposed to cut costs of album production, and it did, from ~$10 per to ~$1 per - but did the recording industry reduce prices to consumers?
Even now, the sludge-brains at the record companies are offering music on the internet for - surprise - the same price you'd pay for the CD at Wal-Mart. Gee - I have to sit through a download and then burn a CD and I get no cover art, no liner notes, no CD case, shit, I even have to provide the blank CD and I still have to pay $15 for an album?!
Gnrow!
Yah.
Somehow or another the giants must fall. The gigantic, monolithic, blood-sucking industry that surrounds all popular culture must fall. If it doesn't, freedom will. They can't ever be allowed to tell us what protocols we can use, what software we aren't allowed to own on the assumption that we might put it to illegal use. This cannot be allowed to happen!
There's no need anymore for NBC, Sony Records, United Artists as they stand. The status quo is gone. The future of artistic endeavor has to be: you put it up, you're honest and good, people visit your site and pull it down. No record companies, only music reviewers. No movie industry, just reviewers, etc. Artists and the trusted portals will be the champions, dissemination will be ubiquitous.
What this really means, of course, is that your Monday morning chat around the water-cooler will be highly eclectic, because there won't be any "Friends" or "Seinfelds" - we'll move in different circles.
I'm getting tired.
That is all.
MjM