Our conclusion is that the distributors really need to take a hard look at their own internal processes and look at how they can stop the insider leaks of their movies before taking measures that might hamstring consumers' technologies and rights.
Who cares about insider leaks? If 100,000 copies of a movie are distributed for free ahead of release, the distributors will be 10 times more concerned about the fact that they're not getting paid than the fact that the movie was leaked ahead of it's release. Whether a movie is leaked, bootleged, or copied from legit media, the distributors are screwed if 100,000 people get their hands on it for free.
What would really require the distributors to "take a hard look at their own internal processes" would be if someone discovered a loaded Kazaa node on one of their networks.
I couldn't agree more that the calendering functionality of outlook is probably Microsoft's one remaining strong hold in its battle against opensource. To overcome it, however, I think whatever is created as an opensource Exchange alternative will need to include a clean web interface.
Additionally, calendering should not be seen as the only feature for which Outlook is so popular... The contact and address book, integration with Office, and VBA support make it a very powerful workflow automater. Any opensource alternative to Outlook would need to provide these features - ie: integration with StarOffice and Corel WordPerfect.
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As if insider leaks are anything new...
Our conclusion is that the distributors really need to take a hard look at their own internal processes and look at how they can stop the insider leaks of their movies before taking measures that might hamstring consumers' technologies and rights.
Who cares about insider leaks? If 100,000 copies of a movie are distributed for free ahead of release, the distributors will be 10 times more concerned about the fact that they're not getting paid than the fact that the movie was leaked ahead of it's release. Whether a movie is leaked, bootleged, or copied from legit media, the distributors are screwed if 100,000 people get their hands on it for free.
What would really require the distributors to "take a hard look at their own internal processes" would be if someone discovered a loaded Kazaa node on one of their networks.
Additionally, calendering should not be seen as the only feature for which Outlook is so popular... The contact and address book, integration with Office, and VBA support make it a very powerful workflow automater. Any opensource alternative to Outlook would need to provide these features - ie: integration with StarOffice and Corel WordPerfect.