For some more on the impossibility of funding software development on services revenue, here is a story from CNET on Progeny:
The move completes a change in strategy started in July, when the Indianapolis-based company decided it would focus more of its efforts on services and away from developing its own version of the Linux distribution known as Debian.
"We were burning too much cash doing development," said CEO Steve Schafer. "Now we are cash-positive."
Services do make money. They just don't make enough money to fund software development.
What about accenture and other big consulting companies. They make money on only services.
But they don't use it to fund open-source development. BTW, in case you didn't hear, Accenture is laying off big-time.
All big companies IBM, Oracle and even Microsoft make huge amounts of money on consulting and services. Even hardware manufacturers like dell and compaq are starting to push services as a way to make extra money.
See, it's this "huge" thing that makes it not a business plan and more of a science fiction story. It's hand-waving. Those companies don't fund their R&D on services. That wouldn't work. They fund their R&D by selling the products of R&D. That works.
But seriously... its hardly surprising that much of what is developed is a bit geeky really.
Programmers left to their own devices will tend to create software for programmers. Making software that is suitable for the average end user is a different proposition, and it requires money, time and discipline that are hard to come by in the open source world. Where it is happening at all, it's because companies are pumping in millions for strategic reasons to thwart Microsoft dominance (e.g., AOL funding Mozilla, Sun funding GNOME and OpenOffice) -- and even there, the results still don't really seem quite ready for prime time.
Most people in the third world haven't even used a phone let alone a pc and you think that a web server is not an innovation?
Um, I did say that the web browser and web server together constituted an innovation. I think citing httpd by itself as an innovation is stretching it, though, since it's not a particularly innovative protocol or server in itself. It's really just a utility that supports the real innovation, which is the browser.
Tim (proud to be unfairly down-modded, since that means I hit a nerve...)
It was clear to me -- as an Enhydra developer and partner on my current project -- that Lutris was seriously committed to the open source movement. I can't support the idea now circulating that its open source commitment was a bait and switch manever to get free volunteer support from the community. They walked the walk as well as talking the talk. They were firmly committed to ESR's principles in tCatB. Their business model was to give away the software and make their money on services.
The only problem is, the tCatB principles don't work. They haven't worked for anyone. Services revenues don't scale in the nonlinear way that is required to support the extremely high costs of professional-quality software research and development. Everyone who's tried this on a larger scale than the "Dave's Software Shop" four-person consulting business has failed or is currently in the process of failing. Lutris was just one of many groups to be led down the garden path by this unworkable business model.
They started to realize this earlier this year and were thrown into great confusion. Open source isn't just a movement, it's a religion, and it's always painful when your religion turns out to be false. For a while they thrashed. Finally grim economic necessity forced them to what is here being called their "betrayal," which was, to abandon the tCatB business model, and to return to a business model that has historically been successful for many developers. This was a visibly painful transition and they were reluctant to make it, but it was that or go into bankruptcy. (I get the feeling that some zealots here think Lutris should have just marched joyously into martyrdom!)
Their problem was not that they abandoned open source. Their problem was that they believed in it in the first place, without setting up any rational business model, based on ESR's numbers-free hand-waving and on media buzz around the Linux bubble. Had they just worked from a conventional business model to start with, their product would have been just as good (and it is pretty darn good), even more people would have used it, and they would not have become the whipping boy for the remaining (but shrinking) core of religious believers.
The true betrayal was in people who didn't have any understanding of, or concern for, business realities selling Lutris's founders the open source bill of goods and encouraging them to go into business in a way that was foolish and self-destructive. The true betrayal was in proselytizing for a false religion.
Tim
Re:When will Mozilla Innovate?
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
SSH (yes, it was originally open source)
For geeks only. Command lines aren't innovative -- they're reactionary,
Original httpd (became Apache)
Just the server-side component of the web browser, which I already acknowledged as an open source innovation. I have to say, though, as a protocol engineer, I don't see what's so special about HTTP. It's another super-simple "text commands on TCP" protocol, very much like FTP. Where's the innovation in hhtpd?
PGP
For geeks only. Like most open source software, the user interface puts it out of reach of most people. And again, where exactly is the innovation? The encryption is textbook stuff.
Perl
One of the most godawful programming languages ever invented, highly derivative from the UNIX shell, and for geeks only. Where's the innovation?
Python
Yet Another New Programming Language. Is everything new an innovation now? What does Python contribute?
BSD Unix
Not even slightly open source for the first eleven years of its development -- required an expensive UNIX source code license. Also, not an innovation -- just a clone of Bell Labs UNIX.
All of the software that formed the foundation of the Internet
Really? The earliest Internet software I saw was part of the closed-source UNIX operating system. Open source reference implementations from places like MIT and Dartmouth came some years later as clones of the proprietary stuff. I've just gone over a bunch of Internet history pages and I do not see any description anywhere about people sharing software with each other -- the "openness" they're talking about was mostly in the form of RFC sharing, not software sharing. Given that these were the days of radically incompatible operating systems and software on punch cards, I'm not sure how an "open source" model of source code sharing would even have been possible. But if you can provide specific links showing that the software, as opposed to the protocol documentation, was freely available and widely shared, I'll gladly look at it.
The case of Web browsers is clear: the (open source) Mosaic was a huge innovation, and proved the Web was suitable for end users. That led to the creation of Netscape, who capitalized on that innovation and took it mainstream.
No, it was geek-only software when it was Mosaic. Netscape made it suitable for the average end user at the same time they closed the source. They did this because they wanted to make money from a broad market, not out of the goodness of their hearts. The web browser was something of an innovation, even though it derives heavily from SGML and FTP, but it was not an innovation that made a difference in the world until it went commercial.
Many of the innovations that comprise your computing experience today originated from university researchers who had no interest in profiting from those innovations.
Not really true when it comes to end-user-facing software. Some of it did come out of research, but it was not open-source research. The GUI, the spreadsheet, the WYSIWYG word processor -- none of these killer apps came from the open source world. On the back end, language compilers were traditionally closed source, as were operating systems. You haven't demonstrated that the Internet was founded on open source, but if so, it's the only major layer of "my computing experience today" that was.
Tim
Re:90 percent of Mozilla staff work for AOL.
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
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· Score: 2
mozilla.org chooses its milestone dates in cooperation with all the companies who are using our code (several of whom are still operating in quiet mode.) This is called "being responsive to customers."
And of course, some customers are more equal than others. If AOL tells you what to do, you have to do it.
Mitchell Baker is still mozilla.org's Chief Lizard Wrangler. AOL merely chose to stop paying her to work on Mozilla.
And to stop treating her as its liason to the project. The title is so meaningless you can continue to give it to her if you want, but the fact is she is not in the same position. Her continued "Chief Lizard Wranglership" is the same kind of fiction as Mozilla.org's independence from AOL/Netscape.
My biggest concern with this kind of fiction is that it serves to convince people (falsely) that work they contribute to the project is not uncompensated work for AOL. It seems the truth about the relationship would not be quite as palatable to many of the volunteers,
This building has the greatest concentration of mozilla.org staff, and so it makes sense that it be our mailing address.
So you do uinderstand what that means with respect to your claims of independence (he asks, expecting the answer no)?
Tim
Re:Only people like us appreciate that.
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
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· Score: 2
Um, which is it? The whole network is UNIX-based, or some use of Windows and Macs is allowed? Sounds more like the latter.
I know lots of computer science and engineering departments require UNIX. That's not my definition of "average people."
Tim
Re:90 percent of Mozilla staff work for AOL.
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 2
Netscape is owned by AOL, Most Mozilla staff are Netscape staff. Aol owns the staff thus they own Mozilla.
You are correct, and AOL also calls the shots. They have not been particularly interventionist so far, it appears, but some public information has come to light on (for instance) milestone dates being changed to accomodate AOL demands, and the head of Mozilla being removed by AOL.
Re:Only people like us appreciate that.
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
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· Score: 2
Mozilla runs on any Unix that can build it. This feature is one that average people can use...
Dude, average people do not use UNIX. If there's one feature that is clearly just-for-programmers about Mozilla, it's UNIX support.
Tim
Re:When will Mozilla Innovate?
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
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· Score: 1, Troll
Open source isn't about innovation. It's about creating free versions of commercial software. In a recent/. discussion, I asked for examples of open source innovation. There were only two that more or less held up -- emacs and the web browser. emacs is a programmer tool from which any normal person would flee shrieking in terror, while the web browser only became suitable for end users after Netscape tried to take it commercial.
As a free knockoff of commercial web browsers, Mozilla is pretty darn good, but expecting innovation from people who don't have a commercial interest in profiting from their innovations is unrealistic.
More importantly, the ``problem'' this act is addressing is precisely that ``the Internet standards which the government developed'' make infringement of the RIAA's members' copyrights far to easy for the RIAA's taste. So, this act is proposed to, in one way or another, cripple those standards.
No one outside a few geeks on/. have said that this is in any way targeted at Internet protocols. It's obviously targeted at CD, DVD, and VCR devices. Find me one statement from the RIAA complaing about TELNET, SMTP, POP or HTTP.
This is getting really silly, so I think I'll let this thread die a natural death. Any actual evidence for these bizarre claims may be answered, but any more idle fabrication will not.
Neither side will agree with the other which means that the FTC gets to make up their own. My bet is that they will choose the one from MS and their side.
Quite simple, quite plausible, and quite likely.
Um, yeah. After trying and convicting Microsoft of antitrust violations, the government for some inexplicable reason decides to extend the scope of the act far beyond its intended purpose and obsolete the Internet standards which the government developed in favor of the proprietary standards of a convicted monopolist. That makes perfect sense to me.
You haven't given any motivation for the government to do such an insane and indefensible thing. There is still no plausible scenario.
Microsoft has no ability to do such a thing on its own initiative under the act.
The Secretary shall make a determination, nor more than 12 months after the date of enactment of the Act, as to whether representatives of interactive digital device manufacturers and representatives of copyright owners have reached agreement on security system standards for use in interactive digital devices...
No one company is able to force its own proprietary standards through over the disagreement of the rest of the industry, which in this case includes every manufacturer of network protocol products.
Why would Sun, Red Hat, Apple, etc., go along with Microsoft proprietary protocols being put into place and the Internet standards being obsoleted? It makes no sense. This is not even remotely a plausible scenario.
I think biological interfaces to computers "in a few years" is a wildly optimistic prediction. A few decades, perhaps, except where needed for reasons of disability.
Bio-interfaces to external systems would probably use wireless, which is highly tappable on a physical level at least. In addition, if a bio-interface were possible, it would be possible to develop a bio-tap using the same technology, making us more vulnerable to intrusion, not less.
Actually, protocol software could be considered a device under the bill.
It's not impossible that somehow there could be a ban on new implementations of a protocol, even though old implementations would be grandfathered in. What I have yet to see is any plausible scenario for that happening. Neither you nor anyone else here has provided such a scenario. Who has the interest in making that happen and why, and how would they get such a proposal approved through the massive objections?
I am against anything that will reduce my ability to use Open Source software.
What makes you think this will do that? I have yet to see any plausible scenario for a broad ban on open source, which would be a prima facie violation of the First Amendment.
You might wind up having to use a closed-source program for multimedia playback at worst. Maybe that's bad, but if so, focus on that, not on grandiose fantasies about shadowy agencies making it illegal to write and give away any and all software. Absurd claims about standards bodies making all open source software illegal are not worth the unsecured bits they're magnetized on.
I think people have a hard time acknowledging that what they're really having a problem with is laws against software specifically designed to crack security (e.g., DeCSS, Sklyarov) or violate copyright (e.g., Napster). That's not as sexy a cause as grand and ambiguous claims about freedom in the abstract. It may be a just cause, but let's call it what it is.
According to this bill the TELNET protocol would be ILLIGAL to use, same with SMTP, any protocol which used plain text transfers would be ILLIGAL:...
Not even remotely true. First off, try the very second paragraph:
Subsection (a) does not apply to the offer for sale or provision of, or other trafficking in, any previously-owned interactive digital device, if such device was legally manufactured or imported, and sold, prior to the effective date of regulations adopted under section 104 and not subsequently modified in violation of (a) or 103(a).
In addition, this bill only applies when private sector representatives have achieved consensus on a security standard for a particular technology. Can you imagine that the Internet standard bodies would create standards that ban all the previous standards on which the Internet is founded and by which it runs?
It's not a good bill, but let's not lie about what it actually is. Sheesh. I mean, the first time this bill was mentioned here, some geek at a Linux zine was claiming it banned all open source software.
There's a curious assumption which I've seen repeatedly-- namely, that a paradigm shift in human/computer interaction would be a good thing. Why, exactly?
That's an excellent question. By Kuhn's model of paradigm shifts, the shift must be preceded by a number of anomalies in the current paradigm. In command-line interfaces, the anomalies were numerous -- the need for constant relearning of old habits, the need for memorization, the ease of making errors, the computer being in control of the human rather than the other way around, etc. Eventually social factors caused the anomalies to be recognized as such, so that when a new paradigm was created, its values were widely recognized. Perfect recipe for a Kuhnian shift.
What are the anomalies today which would force a change in the paradigm? Serious question, not rhetorical. For starters, I'd say Gelernter's new project is an attempt to rectify some anomalies which have not yet attained social recognition as anomalies.
Pipes seem necessarily linked to the command line.
It's not even so much the command line as it is the pervasiveness of ASCII text for information storage throughout the system. Almost every program currently available for MacOS or Windows would have to be changed to start storing their files as ASCII text rather than as custom binary formats.
As XML conversion continues, this may become more feasible. However, few programs will use XML as their native format for efficiency reasons. Programs will need to have options for XML input and output.
This leaves aside the fact that pipes are a programmer-only feature, which no one else wants or could possibly use.
Do you really think that all of the hackers who find unix and vi to be the most productive work environment are masochists?
People blame themselves for design mistakes. They don't know the difference between system problems and their own errors. In UNIX, the jock thing to do is to laugh at anyone who makes errors, so that doesn't contribute to a calm and sensible examination of errors caused by bad system design. "It works for me -- what are you, some kind of newbie?"
You sure? I'm on MacOS, but mouse-down is the behavior I'm used to on my Windows box at work. Darn it, now you've got me wondering. Could all my memories have been implanted by aliens? I hate that.
Just to clarify for the peanut gallery (not you): I was discussing the merits of ordinary context menus versus mouse gestures. If we're talking about this plug-in as a way of working around a problem specifically with Mozilla context menus, that's a whole different discussion.
The problem with context menus, especially since they activate on mousedown-then-mouseup (instead of just mousedown [mozilla.org]) is that they offer no muscle memory.
Well, Mr. #255, I don't know what you mean. I just brought up a contextual menu in IE5.0. It came up on mouse-down rather than waiting for a mouse-up. Now I'll try it on a few different links. Hmm, that's funny, the menus and their items are all in exactly the same position relative to each click. I see no barriers to positional memory. If this isn't what you're seeing, you may want to adjust your set.
Sure, it may take a few minutes to learn.
As for taking a few minutes to learn, that's exactly my point. The whole point of the GUI revolution is that software tells you what it can do for you. You don't have to sit around memorizing a manual. It's not a trivial issue -- it's central. Once we open the door to rote-memorization interfaces, sure, any one feature may only take a few minutes to learn, but before long we're back to having to spend hours reading a manual before being able to use a new piece of software at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Tim
What about accenture and other big consulting companies. They make money on only services.
But they don't use it to fund open-source development. BTW, in case you didn't hear, Accenture is laying off big-time.
All big companies IBM, Oracle and even Microsoft make huge amounts of money on consulting and services. Even hardware manufacturers like dell and compaq are starting to push services as a way to make extra money.
See, it's this "huge" thing that makes it not a business plan and more of a science fiction story. It's hand-waving. Those companies don't fund their R&D on services. That wouldn't work. They fund their R&D by selling the products of R&D. That works.
Tim
But seriously ... its hardly surprising that much of what is developed is a bit geeky really.
Programmers left to their own devices will tend to create software for programmers. Making software that is suitable for the average end user is a different proposition, and it requires money, time and discipline that are hard to come by in the open source world. Where it is happening at all, it's because companies are pumping in millions for strategic reasons to thwart Microsoft dominance (e.g., AOL funding Mozilla, Sun funding GNOME and OpenOffice) -- and even there, the results still don't really seem quite ready for prime time.
Most people in the third world haven't even used a phone let alone a pc and you think that a web server is not an innovation?
Um, I did say that the web browser and web server together constituted an innovation. I think citing httpd by itself as an innovation is stretching it, though, since it's not a particularly innovative protocol or server in itself. It's really just a utility that supports the real innovation, which is the browser.
Tim (proud to be unfairly down-modded, since that means I hit a nerve...)
I have a somewhat different take on this.
It was clear to me -- as an Enhydra developer and partner on my current project -- that Lutris was seriously committed to the open source movement. I can't support the idea now circulating that its open source commitment was a bait and switch manever to get free volunteer support from the community. They walked the walk as well as talking the talk. They were firmly committed to ESR's principles in tCatB. Their business model was to give away the software and make their money on services.
The only problem is, the tCatB principles don't work. They haven't worked for anyone. Services revenues don't scale in the nonlinear way that is required to support the extremely high costs of professional-quality software research and development. Everyone who's tried this on a larger scale than the "Dave's Software Shop" four-person consulting business has failed or is currently in the process of failing. Lutris was just one of many groups to be led down the garden path by this unworkable business model.
They started to realize this earlier this year and were thrown into great confusion. Open source isn't just a movement, it's a religion, and it's always painful when your religion turns out to be false. For a while they thrashed. Finally grim economic necessity forced them to what is here being called their "betrayal," which was, to abandon the tCatB business model, and to return to a business model that has historically been successful for many developers. This was a visibly painful transition and they were reluctant to make it, but it was that or go into bankruptcy. (I get the feeling that some zealots here think Lutris should have just marched joyously into martyrdom!)
Their problem was not that they abandoned open source. Their problem was that they believed in it in the first place, without setting up any rational business model, based on ESR's numbers-free hand-waving and on media buzz around the Linux bubble. Had they just worked from a conventional business model to start with, their product would have been just as good (and it is pretty darn good), even more people would have used it, and they would not have become the whipping boy for the remaining (but shrinking) core of religious believers.
The true betrayal was in people who didn't have any understanding of, or concern for, business realities selling Lutris's founders the open source bill of goods and encouraging them to go into business in a way that was foolish and self-destructive. The true betrayal was in proselytizing for a false religion.
Tim
SSH (yes, it was originally open source)
For geeks only. Command lines aren't innovative -- they're reactionary,
Original httpd (became Apache)
Just the server-side component of the web browser, which I already acknowledged as an open source innovation. I have to say, though, as a protocol engineer, I don't see what's so special about HTTP. It's another super-simple "text commands on TCP" protocol, very much like FTP. Where's the innovation in hhtpd?
PGP
For geeks only. Like most open source software, the user interface puts it out of reach of most people. And again, where exactly is the innovation? The encryption is textbook stuff.
Perl
One of the most godawful programming languages ever invented, highly derivative from the UNIX shell, and for geeks only. Where's the innovation?
Python
Yet Another New Programming Language. Is everything new an innovation now? What does Python contribute?
BSD Unix
Not even slightly open source for the first eleven years of its development -- required an expensive UNIX source code license. Also, not an innovation -- just a clone of Bell Labs UNIX.
All of the software that formed the foundation of the Internet
Really? The earliest Internet software I saw was part of the closed-source UNIX operating system. Open source reference implementations from places like MIT and Dartmouth came some years later as clones of the proprietary stuff. I've just gone over a bunch of Internet history pages and I do not see any description anywhere about people sharing software with each other -- the "openness" they're talking about was mostly in the form of RFC sharing, not software sharing. Given that these were the days of radically incompatible operating systems and software on punch cards, I'm not sure how an "open source" model of source code sharing would even have been possible. But if you can provide specific links showing that the software, as opposed to the protocol documentation, was freely available and widely shared, I'll gladly look at it.
The case of Web browsers is clear: the (open source) Mosaic was a huge innovation, and proved the Web was suitable for end users. That led to the creation of Netscape, who capitalized on that innovation and took it mainstream.
No, it was geek-only software when it was Mosaic. Netscape made it suitable for the average end user at the same time they closed the source. They did this because they wanted to make money from a broad market, not out of the goodness of their hearts. The web browser was something of an innovation, even though it derives heavily from SGML and FTP, but it was not an innovation that made a difference in the world until it went commercial.
Many of the innovations that comprise your computing experience today originated from university researchers who had no interest in profiting from those innovations.
Not really true when it comes to end-user-facing software. Some of it did come out of research, but it was not open-source research. The GUI, the spreadsheet, the WYSIWYG word processor -- none of these killer apps came from the open source world. On the back end, language compilers were traditionally closed source, as were operating systems. You haven't demonstrated that the Internet was founded on open source, but if so, it's the only major layer of "my computing experience today" that was.
Tim
mozilla.org chooses its milestone dates in cooperation with all the companies who are using our code (several of whom are still operating in quiet mode.) This is called "being responsive to customers."
And of course, some customers are more equal than others. If AOL tells you what to do, you have to do it.
Mitchell Baker is still mozilla.org's Chief Lizard Wrangler. AOL merely chose to stop paying her to work on Mozilla.
And to stop treating her as its liason to the project. The title is so meaningless you can continue to give it to her if you want, but the fact is she is not in the same position. Her continued "Chief Lizard Wranglership" is the same kind of fiction as Mozilla.org's independence from AOL/Netscape.
My biggest concern with this kind of fiction is that it serves to convince people (falsely) that work they contribute to the project is not uncompensated work for AOL. It seems the truth about the relationship would not be quite as palatable to many of the volunteers,
This building has the greatest concentration of mozilla.org staff, and so it makes sense that it be our mailing address.
So you do uinderstand what that means with respect to your claims of independence (he asks, expecting the answer no)?
Tim
Um, which is it? The whole network is UNIX-based, or some use of Windows and Macs is allowed? Sounds more like the latter.
I know lots of computer science and engineering departments require UNIX. That's not my definition of "average people."
Tim
Netscape is owned by AOL, Most Mozilla staff are Netscape staff. Aol owns the staff thus they own Mozilla.
You are correct, and AOL also calls the shots. They have not been particularly interventionist so far, it appears, but some public information has come to light on (for instance) milestone dates being changed to accomodate AOL demands, and the head of Mozilla being removed by AOL.
Take a look at the WHOIS entry for Mozilla.org and compare it with the contact address for Netscape. Both are in Mountain View, hmm, but that could mean anything. Now look at the map to Mozilla.org and the map to Netscape. Hmm. Mozilla.org seems to be based in a Netscape building.
Independent? I don't think so.
Tim
Mozilla runs on any Unix that can build it. This feature is one that average people can use...
Dude, average people do not use UNIX. If there's one feature that is clearly just-for-programmers about Mozilla, it's UNIX support.
Tim
Open source isn't about innovation. It's about creating free versions of commercial software. In a recent /. discussion, I asked for examples of open source innovation. There were only two that more or less held up -- emacs and the web browser. emacs is a programmer tool from which any normal person would flee shrieking in terror, while the web browser only became suitable for end users after Netscape tried to take it commercial.
As a free knockoff of commercial web browsers, Mozilla is pretty darn good, but expecting innovation from people who don't have a commercial interest in profiting from their innovations is unrealistic.
Tim
Very funny. I'm an old Apple guy who hated Microsoft long before there was a Linux.
Tim
How many "information wants to be free" geeks are gonna pay for a scrip to LWN when they can get other linux news for free?
Yeah, marketing to those who, by definition, are reluctant to pay for things is kind of a sucker's game.
Tim
More importantly, the ``problem'' this act is addressing is precisely that ``the Internet standards which the government developed'' make infringement of the RIAA's members' copyrights far to easy for the RIAA's taste. So, this act is proposed to, in one way or another, cripple those standards.
/. have said that this is in any way targeted at Internet protocols. It's obviously targeted at CD, DVD, and VCR devices. Find me one statement from the RIAA complaing about TELNET, SMTP, POP or HTTP.
No one outside a few geeks on
This is getting really silly, so I think I'll let this thread die a natural death. Any actual evidence for these bizarre claims may be answered, but any more idle fabrication will not.
Tim
Neither side will agree with the other which means that the FTC gets to make up their own. My bet is that they will choose the one from MS and their side.
Quite simple, quite plausible, and quite likely.
Um, yeah. After trying and convicting Microsoft of antitrust violations, the government for some inexplicable reason decides to extend the scope of the act far beyond its intended purpose and obsolete the Internet standards which the government developed in favor of the proprietary standards of a convicted monopolist. That makes perfect sense to me.
You haven't given any motivation for the government to do such an insane and indefensible thing. There is still no plausible scenario.
Tim
No one company is able to force its own proprietary standards through over the disagreement of the rest of the industry, which in this case includes every manufacturer of network protocol products.
Why would Sun, Red Hat, Apple, etc., go along with Microsoft proprietary protocols being put into place and the Internet standards being obsoleted? It makes no sense. This is not even remotely a plausible scenario.
Tim
I think biological interfaces to computers "in a few years" is a wildly optimistic prediction. A few decades, perhaps, except where needed for reasons of disability.
Bio-interfaces to external systems would probably use wireless, which is highly tappable on a physical level at least. In addition, if a bio-interface were possible, it would be possible to develop a bio-tap using the same technology, making us more vulnerable to intrusion, not less.
Tim
Actually, protocol software could be considered a device under the bill.
It's not impossible that somehow there could be a ban on new implementations of a protocol, even though old implementations would be grandfathered in. What I have yet to see is any plausible scenario for that happening. Neither you nor anyone else here has provided such a scenario. Who has the interest in making that happen and why, and how would they get such a proposal approved through the massive objections?
Tim
The SSSCA would require closed-source for any software capable of processing or displaying words and images.
No, it wouldn't. Have you read it?
Tim (patience running thin)
I am against anything that will reduce my ability to use Open Source software.
What makes you think this will do that? I have yet to see any plausible scenario for a broad ban on open source, which would be a prima facie violation of the First Amendment.
You might wind up having to use a closed-source program for multimedia playback at worst. Maybe that's bad, but if so, focus on that, not on grandiose fantasies about shadowy agencies making it illegal to write and give away any and all software. Absurd claims about standards bodies making all open source software illegal are not worth the unsecured bits they're magnetized on.
I think people have a hard time acknowledging that what they're really having a problem with is laws against software specifically designed to crack security (e.g., DeCSS, Sklyarov) or violate copyright (e.g., Napster). That's not as sexy a cause as grand and ambiguous claims about freedom in the abstract. It may be a just cause, but let's call it what it is.
Tim
Not even remotely true. First off, try the very second paragraph:
In addition, this bill only applies when private sector representatives have achieved consensus on a security standard for a particular technology. Can you imagine that the Internet standard bodies would create standards that ban all the previous standards on which the Internet is founded and by which it runs?
It's not a good bill, but let's not lie about what it actually is. Sheesh. I mean, the first time this bill was mentioned here, some geek at a Linux zine was claiming it banned all open source software.
Tim
There's a curious assumption which I've seen repeatedly-- namely, that a paradigm shift in human/computer interaction would be a good thing. Why, exactly?
That's an excellent question. By Kuhn's model of paradigm shifts, the shift must be preceded by a number of anomalies in the current paradigm. In command-line interfaces, the anomalies were numerous -- the need for constant relearning of old habits, the need for memorization, the ease of making errors, the computer being in control of the human rather than the other way around, etc. Eventually social factors caused the anomalies to be recognized as such, so that when a new paradigm was created, its values were widely recognized. Perfect recipe for a Kuhnian shift.
What are the anomalies today which would force a change in the paradigm? Serious question, not rhetorical. For starters, I'd say Gelernter's new project is an attempt to rectify some anomalies which have not yet attained social recognition as anomalies.
Tim
Pipes seem necessarily linked to the command line.
It's not even so much the command line as it is the pervasiveness of ASCII text for information storage throughout the system. Almost every program currently available for MacOS or Windows would have to be changed to start storing their files as ASCII text rather than as custom binary formats.
As XML conversion continues, this may become more feasible. However, few programs will use XML as their native format for efficiency reasons. Programs will need to have options for XML input and output.
This leaves aside the fact that pipes are a programmer-only feature, which no one else wants or could possibly use.
Tim
Do you really think that all of the hackers who find unix and vi to be the most productive work environment are masochists?
People blame themselves for design mistakes. They don't know the difference between system problems and their own errors. In UNIX, the jock thing to do is to laugh at anyone who makes errors, so that doesn't contribute to a calm and sensible examination of errors caused by bad system design. "It works for me -- what are you, some kind of newbie?"
Tim
You sure? I'm on MacOS, but mouse-down is the behavior I'm used to on my Windows box at work. Darn it, now you've got me wondering. Could all my memories have been implanted by aliens? I hate that.
Just to clarify for the peanut gallery (not you): I was discussing the merits of ordinary context menus versus mouse gestures. If we're talking about this plug-in as a way of working around a problem specifically with Mozilla context menus, that's a whole different discussion.
Tim
The problem with context menus, especially since they activate on mousedown-then-mouseup (instead of just mousedown [mozilla.org]) is that they offer no muscle memory.
Well, Mr. #255, I don't know what you mean. I just brought up a contextual menu in IE5.0. It came up on mouse-down rather than waiting for a mouse-up. Now I'll try it on a few different links. Hmm, that's funny, the menus and their items are all in exactly the same position relative to each click. I see no barriers to positional memory. If this isn't what you're seeing, you may want to adjust your set.
Sure, it may take a few minutes to learn.
As for taking a few minutes to learn, that's exactly my point. The whole point of the GUI revolution is that software tells you what it can do for you. You don't have to sit around memorizing a manual. It's not a trivial issue -- it's central. Once we open the door to rote-memorization interfaces, sure, any one feature may only take a few minutes to learn, but before long we're back to having to spend hours reading a manual before being able to use a new piece of software at all.
Tim