There's nothing that requires that natural causes have an effect that is of the same magnitude as Man-made causes. This is like claiming that you can protect the earth from a supernova by cutting CO2 emissions. In general, it is more feasible to be able to reverse the effects of man-made behavior, than to take on nature.
Your position is somewhat contradictory. The answers to your questions should be the same only if the cause of the climate change were the same in both cases, but the nature of the questions forbid that. If for example, global warming were caused naturally by activities on the surface of the sun, it would be unlikely that Man could do much about it. If, on the other hand, it was in fact caused by carbon emissions, that it is much more likely that we could do something about it. Should we not try to save ourselves just because we can imagine that we might not succeed?
It's fairly easy to see how politicians might want to deny that global warming exits, or is unusual, or is caused by Man because having to take action might have negative short-term economic effects in particular for those countries like the US, but what is the motivation for a majority of scientists to claim that global warming is caused by Man?
I see that Gore has won an academy award, but the guy's also been a Senator and VP, so I don't see this tremendous increase in his power because of his environmental positions. Likewise, I don't see organizations like Greenpeace wielding great power around the world.
One can debate the science, but I think trying to argue that there is more evidence of political motivation on the part of the global warming camp than in their opponent's is a losing proposition.
I suspect that in the real world of applications running concurrently with other applications, these estimates may not hold up very well, but let's see what the next 5 years bring.
"I'm sure they would have done that already if they could."
I'm sure prior to the invention of the Integrated Circuit, many hardware engineers thought that computers couldn't be made any smaller than a large closet. The technologies used today for creating processors are essentially refinements of the IC technology created in the late 1950's.
I'm not suggesting that Intel and AMD have a lot of options based on that legacy technology, but the future belongs to the companies that can develop new technologies. These new technologies may be developed through research into ideas like DNA computers, Quantum computers, or chemical computers etc. Or they may be based on new ideas that nobody has thought of yet.
I find it hightly unlikely that multi-core software techniques will be able to sustain significant performance improvements for more than 10 years, if that. Of course the same physical laws that restrict the performance of single core processors will significantly limit the number of cores that can be integrated in a single chip, so multicore hardware isn't going to scale very far either.
I don't make any claims about how hard concurrent programming is supposed to be, but until we see a lot more real-world apps running on multiple cores, we won't know how much of a performance gain will be seen. I'd say anything less than a average improvement of 25% wouldn't justify rewriting a legacy app to accomodate multiple cores.
Intel needs to develop new processor technologies to significantly increase native performance rather than just adding more cores. Whether multi-core processors can significantly increase performance for standard applications hasn't yet been proven and even if possible, will depend on the willingness of developers to do the extra work to make it happen.
If software developers can't or won't take advantage of the potential benefits of multi-core, Intel and AMD may have to significantly cut the price of their processors because upgrading won't add much value.
"Check your history, the original PCs from a hardware point of view were not that open. BIOS was the key and that was not open. They had to reverse engineer that to make the first clone."
Yes, I know. That's why I said it wasn't entirely open. Still, the PC hardware was open and they allowed MS to sell MS-DOS to other computer makers which makes it far more open than what Apple did.
"The big mistake here is different than IBM but no less fatal. The big mistake is that there will be too many different platforms for Microsoft to write to for hardware and uses. SmartPhones, PDAs, ultra-mobile PCs, tablets, desktops, workstations, role based servers, super servers (i.e. VMWare servers or similar products), mainframes (they will never go away completely but will evolve like everything else), network computers, network appliances, plus other devices not even conceived yet which will require some kind of embedded O/S and software stack."
Actually, computer diversity has been going down for a long time. In the old days every hand-held device would have its own unique hardware design with unique software in assembly that could not be ported to another device. Every microprocessor required a different custom development system with it's own OS, assembler and emulator.
Today most of the devices you mentioned are more general purpose computers with a different form-factor than they embedded systems. A large percentage of code can be ported from one system to another. Your existing knowledge can be leveraged to develop the next system and standard tools can be used to build it. It's never been easier to develop cross-platform than it is today.
It's not fundamentally about education or whether you get paid that is important, it's how much sustained effort you put into understanding a code base. I have no doubt that there are many open source developers who, if they put in 40hrs+ a week for months, could do just as well as the paid guys. The fact is that most don't and can't afford to unless they are paid to do so.
The real arrogance comes from believing that people can make a casual contribution to a legacy app that is many years old that is just as valuable as the contributions made by developers who work on it day after day for years. It's far easier to make incremental changes to a new application or one that is only a few years old. Being able to do the latter doesn't mean you're qualified to do the former unless you invest a lot of time.
Sounds like Apple's following the same gameplan for the iPhone as they used for the original Mac. It's the cell phone for the rest of us (i.e. not for those dumb old-fashioned businesses no matter how much money they have).
"If Microsoft Offered a version of Windows that was Open Source a community would quickly form, bugs would get fixed, people would start to feel better about Microsoft and they could still keep Office and other application cash cows closed source."
It always amazes me that although people hired full-time to write software spend months getting up to speed on the applications they need to maintain, some "community" person will be able spend a little time examining the source and find "bugs" which they will "fix" without fucking up the whole thing.
If you think MS has quality problems now, wait until the amateur geniuses get a hold of the code.
"Microsoft is making exactly the same mistakes IBM made"
Actually, from a business perspective IBM's mistake was making the PC too open (although it wasn't entirely open). If you want your platform to be widely adopted and ultimately non-profitable, make it open. If you care about profit more than generic adoption, keep in closed. That's why Apple is still in the personal computer business and IBM is not.
So, MS open sourcing their software would be making the same mistake as IBM.
"It would be nice if there were some citations in the article."
Given that you didn't even provide a link for your assertion that MS has violated US antitrust laws after the case was settled, I think I'll let you catch up in the evidence department before I worry about quoting page and paragraph numbers.
So, they bought Windows and unwittingly got the entire OS with all of its features on their computer without intending to? There must be people out there thinking "Damn that MS, they secretly bundled disk, sound and video support into Windows without properly informing me".
"But that was precisely the fear with GPLv2: that no company would touch it because that would give their competitors and advantage. But in the end, companies realized that the GPL levels the playing field, so although your competitor can use the code, you get to have his code modifications, too. And you're getting a community helping improve your code. So lots of company are now using GPLv2 code."
Many companies still don't license their code under the current GPL so it's not as if the "fear" that companies might not use the code was entirely baseless. Part of the problem is that making your code public can provide a lot of information to your competitors that they can use against you without having to accept the GPL or contribute anything back.
There would have been no antitrust implications for IBM had they written their own OS for the PC. At that time personal computers were seen as "toys" and there was plenty of IBM anti-trust "sins" in the established computer business for the government to pick from. IBM's strategy was not to "change their ways" but rather to fight antitrust in court and make the proper political contributions to insure that the matter would be dropped. That strategy worked.
As for the "crap" of MS-DOS, what are you comparing it to? I liked the Amiga and Atari as much as the next guy, but their OSs weren't exactly God's gift either. Even today, Linux can't be implemented on the standard PC without giving up the very stability that differentiates it from DOS.
"It's amusing how people root for the underdog but start to turn against it once it gets too big. I remember a time when M$ was viewed as a hero for scoring victories over the evil IBM monopoly."
Perhaps you're confusing DEC and Data General with MS. They were the companies that were seen as the Davids fighting the Goliath of IBM. MS wasn't a really IBM competitor until the OS/2 split and by then there was already a contingent of MS-haters (Mostly among UNIX fans who realized that the personal computer revolution passed them by - until Linux came along).
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There's nothing that requires that natural causes have an effect that is of the same magnitude as Man-made causes. This is like claiming that you can protect the earth from a supernova by cutting CO2 emissions. In general, it is more feasible to be able to reverse the effects of man-made behavior, than to take on nature.
Your position is somewhat contradictory. The answers to your questions should be the same only if the cause of the climate change were the same in both cases, but the nature of the questions forbid that. If for example, global warming were caused naturally by activities on the surface of the sun, it would be unlikely that Man could do much about it. If, on the other hand, it was in fact caused by carbon emissions, that it is much more likely that we could do something about it. Should we not try to save ourselves just because we can imagine that we might not succeed?
It's fairly easy to see how politicians might want to deny that global warming exits, or is unusual, or is caused by Man because having to take action might have negative short-term economic effects in particular for those countries like the US, but what is the motivation for a majority of scientists to claim that global warming is caused by Man?
I see that Gore has won an academy award, but the guy's also been a Senator and VP, so I don't see this tremendous increase in his power because of his environmental positions. Likewise, I don't see organizations like Greenpeace wielding great power around the world.
One can debate the science, but I think trying to argue that there is more evidence of political motivation on the part of the global warming camp than in their opponent's is a losing proposition.
I suspect that in the real world of applications running concurrently with other applications, these estimates may not hold up very well, but let's see what the next 5 years bring.
"I'm sure they would have done that already if they could."
I'm sure prior to the invention of the Integrated Circuit, many hardware engineers thought that computers couldn't be made any smaller than a large closet. The technologies used today for creating processors are essentially refinements of the IC technology created in the late 1950's.
I'm not suggesting that Intel and AMD have a lot of options based on that legacy technology, but the future belongs to the companies that can develop new technologies. These new technologies may be developed through research into ideas like DNA computers, Quantum computers, or chemical computers etc. Or they may be based on new ideas that nobody has thought of yet.
I find it hightly unlikely that multi-core software techniques will be able to sustain significant performance improvements for more than 10 years, if that. Of course the same physical laws that restrict the performance of single core processors will significantly limit the number of cores that can be integrated in a single chip, so multicore hardware isn't going to scale very far either.
I don't make any claims about how hard concurrent programming is supposed to be, but until we see a lot more real-world apps running on multiple cores, we won't know how much of a performance gain will be seen. I'd say anything less than a average improvement of 25% wouldn't justify rewriting a legacy app to accomodate multiple cores.
Intel needs to develop new processor technologies to significantly increase native performance rather than just adding more cores. Whether multi-core processors can significantly increase performance for standard applications hasn't yet been proven and even if possible, will depend on the willingness of developers to do the extra work to make it happen.
If software developers can't or won't take advantage of the potential benefits of multi-core, Intel and AMD may have to significantly cut the price of their processors because upgrading won't add much value.
Where did I say that Open Source products were poor quality?
"Check your history, the original PCs from a hardware point of view were not that open. BIOS was the key and that was not open. They had to reverse engineer that to make the first clone."
Yes, I know. That's why I said it wasn't entirely open. Still, the PC hardware was open and they allowed MS to sell MS-DOS to other computer makers which makes it far more open than what Apple did.
"The big mistake here is different than IBM but no less fatal. The big mistake is that there will be too many different platforms for Microsoft to write to for hardware and uses. SmartPhones, PDAs, ultra-mobile PCs, tablets, desktops, workstations, role based servers, super servers (i.e. VMWare servers or similar products), mainframes (they will never go away completely but will evolve like everything else), network computers, network appliances, plus other devices not even conceived yet which will require some kind of embedded O/S and software stack."
Actually, computer diversity has been going down for a long time. In the old days every hand-held device would have its own unique hardware design with unique software in assembly that could not be ported to another device. Every microprocessor required a different custom development system with it's own OS, assembler and emulator.
Today most of the devices you mentioned are more general purpose computers with a different form-factor than they embedded systems. A large percentage of code can be ported from one system to another. Your existing knowledge can be leveraged to develop the next system and standard tools can be used to build it. It's never been easier to develop cross-platform than it is today.
You're responding to an argument I didn't make.
It's not fundamentally about education or whether you get paid that is important, it's how much sustained effort you put into understanding a code base. I have no doubt that there are many open source developers who, if they put in 40hrs+ a week for months, could do just as well as the paid guys. The fact is that most don't and can't afford to unless they are paid to do so.
The real arrogance comes from believing that people can make a casual contribution to a legacy app that is many years old that is just as valuable as the contributions made by developers who work on it day after day for years. It's far easier to make incremental changes to a new application or one that is only a few years old. Being able to do the latter doesn't mean you're qualified to do the former unless you invest a lot of time.
Sounds like Apple's following the same gameplan for the iPhone as they used for the original Mac. It's the cell phone for the rest of us (i.e. not for those dumb old-fashioned businesses no matter how much money they have).
"If Microsoft Offered a version of Windows that was Open Source a community would quickly form, bugs would get fixed, people would start to feel better about Microsoft and they could still keep Office and other application cash cows closed source."
It always amazes me that although people hired full-time to write software spend months getting up to speed on the applications they need to maintain, some "community" person will be able spend a little time examining the source and find "bugs" which they will "fix" without fucking up the whole thing.
If you think MS has quality problems now, wait until the amateur geniuses get a hold of the code.
"Microsoft is making exactly the same mistakes IBM made"
Actually, from a business perspective IBM's mistake was making the PC too open (although it wasn't entirely open). If you want your platform to be widely adopted and ultimately non-profitable, make it open. If you care about profit more than generic adoption, keep in closed. That's why Apple is still in the personal computer business and IBM is not.
So, MS open sourcing their software would be making the same mistake as IBM.
I was referring to US laws not EU ones. I also don't consider "admissions" under threat to be proof of anything.
"It would be nice if there were some citations in the article."
Given that you didn't even provide a link for your assertion that MS has violated US antitrust laws after the case was settled, I think I'll let you catch up in the evidence department before I worry about quoting page and paragraph numbers.
"I don't know of any documented lobbying at that stage although if you have links I'd look at them."
http://tinyurl.com/yntlsc
So, they bought Windows and unwittingly got the entire OS with all of its features on their computer without intending to? There must be people out there thinking "Damn that MS, they secretly bundled disk, sound and video support into Windows without properly informing me".
"Our government is in serious need of reform and legalized bribes via lobbying need to be stopped."
How do you think the government got interested in MS in the first place had it not been via lobbying?
I think Linux is already too far ahead for Solaris to catch up.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call them UNIX/GNU tools. It's not as if much of this stuff was invented by RMS and GNU developers.
I wonder with all the crap that Linus has to put up with, if he had to do it over again, would he just go with the BSD license?
"But that was precisely the fear with GPLv2: that no company would touch it because that would give their competitors and advantage. But in the end, companies realized that the GPL levels the playing field, so although your competitor can use the code, you get to have his code modifications, too. And you're getting a community helping improve your code. So lots of company are now using GPLv2 code."
Many companies still don't license their code under the current GPL so it's not as if the "fear" that companies might not use the code was entirely baseless. Part of the problem is that making your code public can provide a lot of information to your competitors that they can use against you without having to accept the GPL or contribute anything back.
There would have been no antitrust implications for IBM had they written their own OS for the PC. At that time personal computers were seen as "toys" and there was plenty of IBM anti-trust "sins" in the established computer business for the government to pick from. IBM's strategy was not to "change their ways" but rather to fight antitrust in court and make the proper political contributions to insure that the matter would be dropped. That strategy worked.
As for the "crap" of MS-DOS, what are you comparing it to? I liked the Amiga and Atari as much as the next guy, but their OSs weren't exactly God's gift either. Even today, Linux can't be implemented on the standard PC without giving up the very stability that differentiates it from DOS.
On the other hand, what about Oak and Java as poor choices for a programming language.
"It's amusing how people root for the underdog but start to turn against it once it gets too big. I remember a time when M$ was viewed as a hero for scoring victories over the evil IBM monopoly."
Perhaps you're confusing DEC and Data General with MS. They were the companies that were seen as the Davids fighting the Goliath of IBM. MS wasn't a really IBM competitor until the OS/2 split and by then there was already a contingent of MS-haters (Mostly among UNIX fans who realized that the personal computer revolution passed them by - until Linux came along).