I'm not sure how much credibility should be accorded that article. Though lots of other stars probably are down-to-earth, it is quite common for others to have their own entourages and to demand special treatment and to just otherwise be horse's asses. I'm not sure how out-of-line Lawrence's behavior is but I am willing to bet there are others who are far worse than him. Sounds like sour grapes on the part of the anonymous source (maybe he got chewed out by Lawrence or his entourage).
I also had to laugh at the following quote from the anonymous source: At about 15-to-25 thousand dollars per minute to have a crew in oneplace and a set all up. Using the lower end of this rate would mean it costs nearly a MILLION dollars per hour to have a set up with crew. That seems impossible.
There is no end to what people will pirate(and I personally don't mind that
one bit)."
Yeah, but Slashdot cries foul every time there is a hint that someone is or might be violating the GPL. What a bunch of hypocrites. Either respect copyrights or don't.
Contrary to the prevailing opinion here, this is not predatory. Price discrimination can be shown to improve the welfare of all, if it can be implemented properly (i.e. if arbitrage and misidentification of groups is impossible). It allows people to get the product at the price they are willing to pay, including people who cannot afford to pay as much. This maximizes everyone's welfare and minimizes what economists call dead weight loss, a cost borne by society as a whole.
This is EXACTLY the same as offering discounts to students and seniors at restaurants and movie theaters (or alternatively, charging more to people who are NOT students or seniors). It's the same as computer companies selling their wares at university campuses for substantial discounts if you can produce a student card. It's the same as stores in tourist districts that give discounts if you are a local customer. Few would argue that these discounts are unfair or predatory. But it is important to note that in these cases, students/seniors/locals are NOT being charged lower prices out of the goodness of the hearts of the companies, they are being charged lower prices as a result of price discrimination, and the motivations are purely profit-oriented. And that is how things should be.
I've yet to have a seller knock off 20% after I've already agreed to the price.
Of course not. Price discrimination is about trying to charge different prices to different groups that differ in their willingness to pay for something (equivalently, their price elasticity). They would *like* to charge you as much as they possibly can for their product, and once you have agreed to price X, they KNOW you will pay it- no need to knock back the price another 20%. However, if you identify yourself as (say) a student before price negotiation occurs, the company may well conclude you are less likely to be willing to pay price X, and so they may be willing to afford you and other students a 20% discount.
Ever wonder why movie theaters charge students and seniors less than they do adults ? Same thing that's happening here. The problem is it is almost impossible to verify much demographics so it will prove hard to fairly associate people with groups - people will lie.
Re:Here'a a Weird Juxtaposition
on
Linux and Shrek
·
· Score: 1
I don't why, but I find this weirdly unsettling - Linux does the anonymous grunt work and M$ gets the flashy exposure.
Linux didn't do anything that warrants any more flashy exposure beyond what it is receiving in the present context. It is a tool, just like anything else, and warrants no big gala parties just because it works well in its capacity as a tool. You don't hear a big hubbub that Kodak film was used in a movie; and you won't (nor should you) hear a big hubbub about IBM or Compaq or Va Linux or whoever put together the physical linux boxes, either.
Do you really think that just because the rendering engines ran Linux, the videogames should be available on Linux even if this makes no financial sense ? There is no hue and cry about how the Final Fantasy games aren't available on Windows (are they ?;)), even though I imagine accounting and marketing and executive offices of Sony and Square probably run a lot of Windows products.
Would you be unsettled if the rendering was done on IRIX machines, but no version of the video game came out on IRIX ?
The only Open Source or Free Software the book mentions is Emacs, in a discussion about string searches.
Really, since the book isn't *about* open-source/free software, why is this is even relevant ? Don't people get tired of beating the same drum ? What does open/free software even have to do with interface design ?
And while we are on the topic, why not confront the issue that maybe the reason Open/Free software was not mentioned is because there is a paucity of good interface examples in that realm ? I mean, Emacs is in toto (arguably) a very poor example of good interface design, often taking a plethora of unintuitive keystrokes to accomplish things. GNOME/KDE are hardly intuitive and all the Open/Free desktop environments still lag far behind, for instance, the UIs in class MacOS, OS X, and OS/2, and usually the best features of the Open/Free desktops are stolen almost directly from commercial desktops.
I for one would NOT like to see ASUS continue producing these drivers. Sure, people will always cheat, but I can't see how gamers are helped by having ASUS encourage these people.
In addition, I disagree that playing with friends is better in toto than playing with strangers. Sure, I like playing with my friends, but it can be pretty hard to line up even a few of them to play for a few hours. I *love* being able to log onto the Zone at any given time and be able to play for a few hours with people who are more or less strangers, and indeed the vast majority of my gaming hours are spent playing with strangers.. But anyone who has run into a game where someone is lying in wait with a cheat or a rigged scenario knows that is just no fun and a plain waste of time. Yes, people will continue to make cheats even without ASUS' help. But why should I, as a gamer, buy a primarily-for-gaming video card from a company that is providing drivers that serve only to diminish my own enjoyment of the games themselves ?
Let me get this straight, a company wants to use its own product inside the company ? Stop the presses ! As the article well points out, LOTS OF OTHER COMPANIES DO THE SAME THING. And though they point to the Gap and Ford as counter-examples, while the Gap may not force its employees to wear Gap clothing, I will bet that they are NOT allowed to wear non-Gap tops (and probably bottoms) with labels of any sort. Sure, Ford doesn't force people to drive their cars, but that's when they are not working. Do you think Ford managers have any leeway as to what type of cars they are allowed to buy for their own fleet ?
I wonder whether it would be newsworthy if RedHat or VA Linux switched everyone over to mutt ? I wonder why the article (and Slashdot) didn't mention what the users are resisting switching from (likely Microsoft Outlook) ??
but I wonder if Amiga can ever really
succeed, what with the continued promises, delays, rearrangements, direction changes...
How log has the Amiga really been dead anyways (and this is NOT a flame) ? At least 15 years ago, for all intents and purposes. The fact that it has eked out an existence for this long in its little niche seems to be to make the best case for long term survival. Heck, I've been predicting the demise for Apple in the next year, for 15 years now, and finally have to concede it will survive.
How dare I, as a software author, attach a price tag to my work which you only have to pay if your code incorporates my own?
This is exactly the point, though. Stallman calls his software 'free', but as you well point out, it comes with a price tag. I am not arguing whether or not it this price tag is reasonable - I agree that if you give me something, you should be able to attach any conditions you wish to it.
But I don't think you should be calling that something 'free'. My objection is simply that because GPL'ed software comes with a price, it cannot be free. Stallman can call it what he likes, and so can you, but just because you call something a rose does not mean it is one. Just because he coined the term 'free software' does not mean it is a reasonable use of the term and does not mean it isn't extremely misleading. If I gave you software but made you post any changes you made to code you distribute on a specific website, would that software be free ? If I gave you source code and allowed you to distribute it yourself provided you paid me 10 dollars, or put advertising information in derivative source, would that software be free ?
Maybe the FSF should be called the Conditionally Free Software Foundation instead.
And we'll see whether removal of a lot of patent rights, or removal of outside support gives us "no pharmacutical research, amoung
other things.".
Well, if what you propose did happen, you absolutely would see a huge reduction in the number of drugs that drug companies make available. What incentive would there otherwise be for these companies to make them ? Do you have any idea how expensive it is to bring a compound through all the steps in an FDA pipeline ? Do you have any idea of what the failure rate is of compounds that enter the first stages of the pipeline are ? Do you have any idea how much funding of public institutions like hospitals and universities comes from industry ?
Without protection of intellectual property afforded by patents, almost all of this work would not be done because almost of the costs and risks of this very expensive work would have to be borne by industry with very limited rewards. Just why do you think universities and hospitals aren't themselves bringing drugs to market ? Why aren't e.g. AIDS and cancer foundations doing this ? Because they can't afford to.
Re:let's let things get out of hand right away
on
Magnet Patent Suits
·
· Score: 1
I agree that maybe they should not be entitled to much past damages if they neglected to make claims on infringer in the past, especially if they were aware of them. But IANAL, and that is a legal issue.
Moreover, the point you raise is completely separate from the hue and cry from the rest of the/. readers, the latter being basically an uninformed "this patent is stupid". Whether or not they should have enforced their patent in the past to be entitled to past damages is completely different from whether or not the patent is valid and should be enforceable at all. Give me a break.
Everyone before me seems to have jumped on the same knee-jerk bandwagon - "ooh patents are bad", or "ooh the patent system is so screwed up that a patent could be issued on something like this". Well I bet most of the readers who posted that did not read the patent - are you so sure the claims in the patent are obvious (in the sense that the Amazon one-click patent was)? The linked-to articles on Yahoo do not imply such.
As far as I'm concerned, if the patent claims are not obvious (I am not saying they are or aren't) then there is no reason to bitch and moan unless you really think you want to go back to a system where there are no patents (and hence where everything is kept secret). But expect to see higher prices and less innovation as companies are forced to recoup the costs of their investments in other ways. Expect to see no pharmaceutical research, among other things
The only valid issue I see raised here is whether or not the company had an obligation to enforce these patents earlier, i.e. whether or not their claim is invalidated by not protecting them. As with probably everyone before me, IANAL, but I seem to recall that a company need not enforce its patents for the patents to continue to remain valid, and that this is the basis for so-called defensive patents (someone correct me if I am wrong). Now whether or not they should be able to claim past damages during the period in which they did not enforce is another issue.
But it so tiring to see the same knee-jerk responses that are so ill-thought out.
If OS/2 taught us anything, it should surely be that making allowing an OS to run Windows applications is a sure recipe to disaster. IBM first gave us Win/OS2, allowing Win 3.1 applications to run under OS/2. They also made it easier to port Windows applications by allowing them to use pretty much the Win16 API in the OS/2 environment.
The result ? Developers saw that they didn't need to write OS/2 native apps, even though there was (and there was) some demand for them then. So either OS/2 users got to run Win 3.1 apps in Win/OS2 sessions (I ran Excel and Word there), or we got brain-dead ports like that of Lotus WordPro (was that what it was called) that used the compatibility API and therefore ran like a dog - the compatibility layer ensured that "OS/2" apps that used it were limited to Win16 features, so at least the first version of WordPro, for instance, did not support long filenames. Developers did half-ass jobs of providing "OS/2" versions of their programs, because they knew that was all it took to deliver it to the platform. Users were happy (for a while, anyways) because they could just buy the WIndows versions and run them on OS/2, even if they didn't run as well as they would if they were OS/2 native, and hence developers had no incentive to provide 'real' ports for OS/2 that would take advantage of things like Workplace Shell integration, etc.
If people can run Windows games on their Linux boxes, all this means is that fewer developers will have reason to develop games that can capitalize on Linux's advantages and we will be left with inferior games.
The only way for Linux to flourish as a gaming platform is if the tools needed to develop games on Linux are developed. Linux can't survive as a platform if it just runs "Windows better than Windows" (recapitulating to the best of my recall an old OS/2 mantra) - Linux has to survive on its own merits, or it won't survive at all.
I am not an American, but it is clear that this step would make Denmark's citizens richer - they are getting access to a resource which they might not otherwise have, and which citizens of other countries might not have. If your country made music sharing illegal, all the music-sharing advocates there would be crying foul, as they do all the time on/., precisely because they realize they have been made poorer. All this ignores, of course, what is being done to the copyright holders.
I wonder if it is possible to "GPL" a patent.
Maybe allow a patent licensed for free as long as the software it is used in meets the free and/or open software definition
Sure, you could just file the patent and then license it for free, or else (probably ?) just enforce cases where they are using the license for reasons you aren't happy with.
How to counter this ? At first I thought many studios and artists might refuse to tour in Denmark, and perhaps even refuse to sell their CDs and music videos in Denmark. But then the problem would be brought back to them in spades as this would force people to download music.
Linus begins his argument with the comment that Mundie's (and hence Microsoft's) claim seem to focus on the assertion that research and development is founded on the principles of "the importance of intellectual property rights"; which is pretty much what Transmeta certainly assumed when they begain their R&D.
And Linus refers to 'some petty "intellectual property rights"', which again, his company would certainly protect vigorously. Moreover, the GPL too attempts to protect these "petty" rights. So if intellectual property rights are "petty", why are they worth protecting at all ? Or did he just call them "petty" so as to sanctimoniously take a moral high ground ?
Disclaimer: I do believe Bill Gates should be sent to prison
One one hand he seems to be eschewing patents and protection of intellectual property. On the other hand, he is collecting a big fat paycheque from, and probably owns a stake in, a company which I assume has oodles of patents on its code-morphing technology and almost certainly plans to defend them vigorously. I am not necessarily taking a stand one side or another, but is it too much to expect some consistency on the part of advocates ??
interesting is the point about Eazel and Paypal, and the comparison to OS/2. The difference, of course, is that this is Free
Software in the speech sense, so it's a little more important than OS/2 IMHO.
I don't even understand the comparison, nor why Taco finds this interesting. Eazel is trying to get people to pay them. Team OS/2 did *not* try to get people to pay them, IIRC.
And the author's comment but it's no goofier than seven or eight years ago, when people who called themselves "Team OS/2" gave up evenings and weekends in unpaid volunteer support to be especially curious. Isn't this what open-source software is about ? Isn't this what we do when we post an answer to a question on Usenet, or on a bulletin board ? Isn't it what we do when we discuss things here ? The actions of Team OS/2 are no less "goofy" then open-sourcing software.
interesting is the point about Eazel and Paypal, and the
comparison to OS/2. The difference, of course, is that this is Free
Software in the speech sense, so it's
a little more important than OS/2 IMHO.
I don't even understand the comparison, nor why Taco finds this interesting. Eazel is trying to get people to pay them. Team OS/2 did *not* try to get people to pay them, IIRC.
And the author's comment but it's no goofier than seven or eight years ago, when people who called
themselves "Team OS/2" gave up evenings and weekends in unpaid volunteer support to be especially curious. Isn't this what open-source software is about ? Isn't this what we do when we post an answer to a question on Usenet, or on a bulletin board ? Isn't it what we do when we discuss things here ? The actions of Team OS/2 are no less "goofy" then open-sourcing software.
BUT they will be targeted a LOT less than windows machines.....
Why exactly would this be ? It would seem the sudden appearance of lots of new Unix boxes would make them very attractive targets, indeed.
Re:Look on the bright side
on
Cracking OSX
·
· Score: 2
Apple is at least headed in the right direction...They are offering an OS with a little freedom for someone who wants to play.
I completely disagree. The people who buy Macs mostly do not want to play with the OS. When I talk to Mac users I know, their main complaint was about the lack of stability in the OS (and most of them were OK living with that anyways); noone ever mentions a lack of control of the OS.
And for these people, we will see if "any form of *nix is better than what they had"...especially if lots of shiny new Cubes are hacked and found to be serving warez FTP sites and IRC, or maybe worse, if files start disappearing, because the people I described in the first paragraph are probably *exactly* the last people in the world who want to worry about securing a Unix box.
Slashdot Mirror
I also had to laugh at the following quote from the anonymous source: At about 15-to-25 thousand dollars per minute to have a crew in oneplace and a set all up. Using the lower end of this rate would mean it costs nearly a MILLION dollars per hour to have a set up with crew. That seems impossible.
Yeah, but Slashdot cries foul every time there is a hint that someone is or might be violating the GPL. What a bunch of hypocrites. Either respect copyrights or don't.
That was funny.
This is EXACTLY the same as offering discounts to students and seniors at restaurants and movie theaters (or alternatively, charging more to people who are NOT students or seniors). It's the same as computer companies selling their wares at university campuses for substantial discounts if you can produce a student card. It's the same as stores in tourist districts that give discounts if you are a local customer. Few would argue that these discounts are unfair or predatory. But it is important to note that in these cases, students/seniors/locals are NOT being charged lower prices out of the goodness of the hearts of the companies, they are being charged lower prices as a result of price discrimination, and the motivations are purely profit-oriented. And that is how things should be.
Of course not. Price discrimination is about trying to charge different prices to different groups that differ in their willingness to pay for something (equivalently, their price elasticity). They would *like* to charge you as much as they possibly can for their product, and once you have agreed to price X, they KNOW you will pay it- no need to knock back the price another 20%. However, if you identify yourself as (say) a student before price negotiation occurs, the company may well conclude you are less likely to be willing to pay price X, and so they may be willing to afford you and other students a 20% discount.
Ever wonder why movie theaters charge students and seniors less than they do adults ? Same thing that's happening here. The problem is it is almost impossible to verify much demographics so it will prove hard to fairly associate people with groups - people will lie.
Linux didn't do anything that warrants any more flashy exposure beyond what it is receiving in the present context. It is a tool, just like anything else, and warrants no big gala parties just because it works well in its capacity as a tool. You don't hear a big hubbub that Kodak film was used in a movie; and you won't (nor should you) hear a big hubbub about IBM or Compaq or Va Linux or whoever put together the physical linux boxes, either.
Do you really think that just because the rendering engines ran Linux, the videogames should be available on Linux even if this makes no financial sense ? There is no hue and cry about how the Final Fantasy games aren't available on Windows (are they ?;)), even though I imagine accounting and marketing and executive offices of Sony and Square probably run a lot of Windows products.
Would you be unsettled if the rendering was done on IRIX machines, but no version of the video game came out on IRIX ?
Really, since the book isn't *about* open-source/free software, why is this is even relevant ? Don't people get tired of beating the same drum ? What does open/free software even have to do with interface design ?
And while we are on the topic, why not confront the issue that maybe the reason Open/Free software was not mentioned is because there is a paucity of good interface examples in that realm ? I mean, Emacs is in toto (arguably) a very poor example of good interface design, often taking a plethora of unintuitive keystrokes to accomplish things. GNOME/KDE are hardly intuitive and all the Open/Free desktop environments still lag far behind, for instance, the UIs in class MacOS, OS X, and OS/2, and usually the best features of the Open/Free desktops are stolen almost directly from commercial desktops.
In addition, I disagree that playing with friends is better in toto than playing with strangers. Sure, I like playing with my friends, but it can be pretty hard to line up even a few of them to play for a few hours. I *love* being able to log onto the Zone at any given time and be able to play for a few hours with people who are more or less strangers, and indeed the vast majority of my gaming hours are spent playing with strangers.. But anyone who has run into a game where someone is lying in wait with a cheat or a rigged scenario knows that is just no fun and a plain waste of time. Yes, people will continue to make cheats even without ASUS' help. But why should I, as a gamer, buy a primarily-for-gaming video card from a company that is providing drivers that serve only to diminish my own enjoyment of the games themselves ?
I wonder whether it would be newsworthy if RedHat or VA Linux switched everyone over to mutt ? I wonder why the article (and Slashdot) didn't mention what the users are resisting switching from (likely Microsoft Outlook) ??
How log has the Amiga really been dead anyways (and this is NOT a flame) ? At least 15 years ago, for all intents and purposes. The fact that it has eked out an existence for this long in its little niche seems to be to make the best case for long term survival. Heck, I've been predicting the demise for Apple in the next year, for 15 years now, and finally have to concede it will survive.
This is exactly the point, though. Stallman calls his software 'free', but as you well point out, it comes with a price tag. I am not arguing whether or not it this price tag is reasonable - I agree that if you give me something, you should be able to attach any conditions you wish to it.
But I don't think you should be calling that something 'free'. My objection is simply that because GPL'ed software comes with a price, it cannot be free. Stallman can call it what he likes, and so can you, but just because you call something a rose does not mean it is one. Just because he coined the term 'free software' does not mean it is a reasonable use of the term and does not mean it isn't extremely misleading. If I gave you software but made you post any changes you made to code you distribute on a specific website, would that software be free ? If I gave you source code and allowed you to distribute it yourself provided you paid me 10 dollars, or put advertising information in derivative source, would that software be free ?
Maybe the FSF should be called the Conditionally Free Software Foundation instead.
Well, if what you propose did happen, you absolutely would see a huge reduction in the number of drugs that drug companies make available. What incentive would there otherwise be for these companies to make them ? Do you have any idea how expensive it is to bring a compound through all the steps in an FDA pipeline ? Do you have any idea of what the failure rate is of compounds that enter the first stages of the pipeline are ? Do you have any idea how much funding of public institutions like hospitals and universities comes from industry ?
Without protection of intellectual property afforded by patents, almost all of this work would not be done because almost of the costs and risks of this very expensive work would have to be borne by industry with very limited rewards. Just why do you think universities and hospitals aren't themselves bringing drugs to market ? Why aren't e.g. AIDS and cancer foundations doing this ? Because they can't afford to.
Moreover, the point you raise is completely separate from the hue and cry from the rest of the /. readers, the latter being basically an uninformed "this patent is stupid". Whether or not they should have enforced their patent in the past to be entitled to past damages is completely different from whether or not the patent is valid and should be enforceable at all. Give me a break.
As far as I'm concerned, if the patent claims are not obvious (I am not saying they are or aren't) then there is no reason to bitch and moan unless you really think you want to go back to a system where there are no patents (and hence where everything is kept secret). But expect to see higher prices and less innovation as companies are forced to recoup the costs of their investments in other ways. Expect to see no pharmaceutical research, among other things
The only valid issue I see raised here is whether or not the company had an obligation to enforce these patents earlier, i.e. whether or not their claim is invalidated by not protecting them. As with probably everyone before me, IANAL, but I seem to recall that a company need not enforce its patents for the patents to continue to remain valid, and that this is the basis for so-called defensive patents (someone correct me if I am wrong). Now whether or not they should be able to claim past damages during the period in which they did not enforce is another issue.
But it so tiring to see the same knee-jerk responses that are so ill-thought out.
The result ? Developers saw that they didn't need to write OS/2 native apps, even though there was (and there was) some demand for them then. So either OS/2 users got to run Win 3.1 apps in Win/OS2 sessions (I ran Excel and Word there), or we got brain-dead ports like that of Lotus WordPro (was that what it was called) that used the compatibility API and therefore ran like a dog - the compatibility layer ensured that "OS/2" apps that used it were limited to Win16 features, so at least the first version of WordPro, for instance, did not support long filenames. Developers did half-ass jobs of providing "OS/2" versions of their programs, because they knew that was all it took to deliver it to the platform. Users were happy (for a while, anyways) because they could just buy the WIndows versions and run them on OS/2, even if they didn't run as well as they would if they were OS/2 native, and hence developers had no incentive to provide 'real' ports for OS/2 that would take advantage of things like Workplace Shell integration, etc.
If people can run Windows games on their Linux boxes, all this means is that fewer developers will have reason to develop games that can capitalize on Linux's advantages and we will be left with inferior games.
The only way for Linux to flourish as a gaming platform is if the tools needed to develop games on Linux are developed. Linux can't survive as a platform if it just runs "Windows better than Windows" (recapitulating to the best of my recall an old OS/2 mantra) - Linux has to survive on its own merits, or it won't survive at all.
Funny, everyone always thought it would be the tanks that were unmanned. Don't worry, they will be as well.
I am not an American, but it is clear that this step would make Denmark's citizens richer - they are getting access to a resource which they might not otherwise have, and which citizens of other countries might not have. If your country made music sharing illegal, all the music-sharing advocates there would be crying foul, as they do all the time on /., precisely because they realize they have been made poorer. All this ignores, of course, what is being done to the copyright holders.
Sure, you could just file the patent and then license it for free, or else (probably ?) just enforce cases where they are using the license for reasons you aren't happy with.
How to counter this ? At first I thought many studios and artists might refuse to tour in Denmark, and perhaps even refuse to sell their CDs and music videos in Denmark. But then the problem would be brought back to them in spades as this would force people to download music.
And Linus refers to 'some petty "intellectual property rights"', which again, his company would certainly protect vigorously. Moreover, the GPL too attempts to protect these "petty" rights. So if intellectual property rights are "petty", why are they worth protecting at all ? Or did he just call them "petty" so as to sanctimoniously take a moral high ground ?
Disclaimer: I do believe Bill Gates should be sent to prison
One one hand he seems to be eschewing patents and protection of intellectual property. On the other hand, he is collecting a big fat paycheque from, and probably owns a stake in, a company which I assume has oodles of patents on its code-morphing technology and almost certainly plans to defend them vigorously. I am not necessarily taking a stand one side or another, but is it too much to expect some consistency on the part of advocates ??
I don't even understand the comparison, nor why Taco finds this interesting. Eazel is trying to get people to pay them. Team OS/2 did *not* try to get people to pay them, IIRC.
And the author's comment but it's no goofier than seven or eight years ago, when people who called themselves "Team OS/2" gave up evenings and weekends in unpaid volunteer support to be especially curious. Isn't this what open-source software is about ? Isn't this what we do when we post an answer to a question on Usenet, or on a bulletin board ? Isn't it what we do when we discuss things here ? The actions of Team OS/2 are no less "goofy" then open-sourcing software.
And the author's comment but it's no goofier than seven or eight years ago, when people who called themselves "Team OS/2" gave up evenings and weekends in unpaid volunteer support to be especially curious. Isn't this what open-source software is about ? Isn't this what we do when we post an answer to a question on Usenet, or on a bulletin board ? Isn't it what we do when we discuss things here ? The actions of Team OS/2 are no less "goofy" then open-sourcing software.
Why exactly would this be ? It would seem the sudden appearance of lots of new Unix boxes would make them very attractive targets, indeed.
I completely disagree. The people who buy Macs mostly do not want to play with the OS. When I talk to Mac users I know, their main complaint was about the lack of stability in the OS (and most of them were OK living with that anyways); noone ever mentions a lack of control of the OS.
And for these people, we will see if "any form of *nix is better than what they had"...especially if lots of shiny new Cubes are hacked and found to be serving warez FTP sites and IRC, or maybe worse, if files start disappearing, because the people I described in the first paragraph are probably *exactly* the last people in the world who want to worry about securing a Unix box.