Yeah every packet is treated the same, so we don't have to worry about innovation in delivery anymore. Plus we won't have to worry about that pesky content getting delivered that ${current luddites in power} don't like, so more bandwidth available for approved content.
Milwaukee's system is a start. Money follows each student, but unfortunately only a smaller chunk than what a public school would get (where does the remaining chunk go...?). Each charter school must accept EVERY student that enrolls through the school choice program so atheist children can go to catholic charter schools, etc... A limited number of students can enroll but that is quickly changing as the benefits are being shown and the public lobbies for change. There have been studies in the area that have shown dramatic improvement in students that are now going to charter schools AND improvements in students at public schools. Some of the worst public schools are actually closing as enrollment drops and only the good teachers are being absorbed by the remaining schools.
If you want a model for school choice check out Denmark. Every school competes as public money (all of it) follows each student. Bad school...then you get fewer students and thus less funding. More students equal more money and if your economies of scale are correct you will probably be more productive with those dollars (and if you're not then some other school, that is more productive, will slowly steal away your market share). The only thing preventing you from going to a particular school or not is their individual ability to house your child. At this point the firms in their education market have become pretty much equal in quality, and thus tons better than US schools.
And part of the problem are teacher's unions. Most force a system were all new teachers are paid the same, with the same tenure requirements and the same raise/bonus requirements. There is little if no incentive to become a teacher of "hard" subjects like math and science when you can get the same salary and job security in one of the "soft" subjects like social science, art, music or gym. This is why most schools have a glut of "soft" subject teachers and why there are so many bad math and science teachers.
What happens is the shortage of math and science teachers forces the school to make a "soft" subject teacher teach those subjects. They end up doing a terrible job because they aren't trained in it, don't have an excitement about the subject and generally feel that they will only being doing the job temporarily. This maybe the case but only because they are sacked (not likely given our tenure system) or quit when they reach a certain level of dissatisfaction. Otherwise a school is stuck with a crappy math or science teacher until they retire.
If the research was done I bet a good causal relationship of bad math and science teachers and lower student interest/performance in those subjects could be made. Getting rid of the ridiculous parts of the union system and creating a Milwaukee, WI style school choice program will go a long way to better teachers, better schools and students that will be able to compete globally again.
MS has already submitted parts of the.Net API to the EMCA. They have also said that the entire spec will be submitted before it reaches 1.0. As long as Mono stays compatible with the EMCA standard of.Net, then everything would be fine.
This doesn?t mean that MS won?t extend. This is sort of a new method they are trying out. Instead of embracing a good standard they are creating one. MS/Windows-only extensions may occur but I doubt it. These extensions will be the part that MS might not let the dotGnu and Mono projects touch. At least there will be a 1.0 standard that will still be completely cross platform and independent of any org or biz.
I doubt that any of it will come to that. This thread goes well with the one about Bob Young. He states that the future focus of RedHat, and the rest of the Linux community, should be to work on Linux?s current strengths and get it into the embedded market. Tablets, PDA, and other networked portable devices is where the future of computing is going. Web services and apps that are compatible with multiple platforms will be the main reason these devices will work. I think it will be cool when a Palm device can use the same.Net program as the one on a PC, Mac or PocketPC and be able to send messages via the web seamlessly.
Anyways, that was way to long, and poorly written...
Yeah.
Hell in a handbasket, here we come:P
This, of course, is just natural selection occuring that was bound to happen in the post tech boom era. Now that it's touching closer to home for the slashdot/open-source community, maybe some common sense will take over. I don't like that it's happening to the good people of VA, but maybe some others will have to get down off their horses.
I'm not sure what Microsoft thinks it has to gain. All kidding aside, Microsoft already has a system like this in place and it occurs naturally called "Upgrades".
After three years Microsoft software becomes useless, usually through Microsoft's doing. Just look at the new upgrade to Windows XP. If you want the upgrade to Media Player 8 you have to purchase WinXP. The same happened with the Win95-98 switch and IE4+. You could get a copy for 95 but it was suspiciously broken in some areas (why, when I was still a Windows junkie, I upgraded). I also think that it would not have been very hard for Microsoft to upgrade 95 to use USB properly, but if you want USB you need to buy 98.
About the only people who still use three year old Microsoft software are those using Office, Windows NT (version 4) and possibly some of the developer tools.
Microsoft developer tools really don't change to offten. Bug fixes realized in new versions of Visual Studio are often times available via service packs for the older versions.
Office users still using old versions usually do so because they are either pirating the software (Microsoft won't see a dime from these people under the new licensing) and those who feel they don't use the software enough to justify the additional cost (they are definitely not going to justify the cost of buying the same version of a software title again). The later group of people compose the group that dare to use Office like solutions that are not Microsoft. Even with its flaws, Corel's Office software is not too shabby, and then there are the StarOffice and 602 Office titles (both free, later makes you pay for special features).
Windows NT4 is about the oldest Microsoft title still being used on a wide scale. This is because it is still being used as a server to keep many business running smoothly. It's difficult to upgrade servers that you rely on, I'm wanting to upgrade my Linux server at home but have put it off since my housemates rely on several services I have running on it. Imagine the effort needed to upgrade all the NT boxes for a multinational corporation. Even though these people have millions or billions of dollars, being told that they must either buy the new Microsoft server software or pay again for each existing server will make any multinational start looking for alternatives. Microsoft will have negated the only real point to the Microsoft NT vs. *nix debate, *nix may cost more over time. Currently NT is easy to administer (look at all the yahoos with MSCE) so you don't need highly skilled, yet expensive, system admins. All you need is a three month traing period (if that), a mouse and patience while the machine reboots. With *nix you will need highly skilled sys-admins, so its possible that salaries could push the *nix systems to be more expensive. In real life though, both types of admins cost about the same making both system just as expensive to operate. Now Microsoft wants to add an additional charge every three years that you won't find on *nix systems (cost of small upgrades don't count, Microsoft and *nix solutions both have similar upgrade costs), making Microsoft server software more expensive to use over time. Expect to see some "crossing over" if Microsoft does go through with this new licensing scheme.
Untill it's legal for Microsoft to make it so users must be connected to the internet so the software can validate itself with a Microsoft server (hopefully this never happens), any new licensing plan is going to fail just as badly at keeping pirated copies from being used/distributed as the current plan. Worst of all it's a punishment for the good little, "I buy and register all of my Microsoft software", drones, all because of those out there who rebel against the status quo. I'm fairly certain that it's poor business practice to piss off your loyal customer base. No matter how dependant they are on Microsoft software, sooner or later reasonable alternative will crop up. Even if later never happens, there will be a time when a huge paradigm shift will leave the slow monster of Microsoft struggling to keep up with the small start-ups. At that point Microsoft will need their loyal customer base to stay competitive.
The good sign is that Microsoft have been systematically finding problems with the new licensing scheme and have started to backtrack. The new three year subscription plan is a compromise of its monthly subscription plan. Expect to see any subscription plan to be abandoned by Microsoft soon after it starts or before it even begins. Remeber Office 2000?
then you don't buy from that broker again. you go to another that doesn't take his/her server down much and pay them mojo for whatever. of course you might pay more for stability. see how real world it is.
the bad thing is that napster has to go through and ban those usernames from their servers. this would be because of the "wonderful" digital millennium copyrigh act. i hope that metallica was kind enough to include an electronic version too. at least with that you can run it trough a script or something to automate the process, otherwise they're screwed.
What is scary is that this could go through depending on if the GPL can be enforced in Uruguay or not.
Just like in the USA, some licences, or parts of them, are valid in certain states and not in others. Uruguay might have some sort catch for foreign licenses making all or parts of them void. It could also be just a legal loop hole.
Common sense should take over here, I don't care what legal catches you have, approving this trademark would be anti-smart.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets keep God out of it too; his people are crazy.
I'm holding out for ElementaryOS to come out of beta before switching to OS X. It seems promising and their hearts are in the right place.
We are also too reliant on electricity, computers, cars, airplanes, ships,...
Yeah every packet is treated the same, so we don't have to worry about innovation in delivery anymore. Plus we won't have to worry about that pesky content getting delivered that ${current luddites in power} don't like, so more bandwidth available for approved content.
Probably a precursor to AT&T blocking all VOIP traffic on their lines. Hmmmm, anti-trust.
Economics of Net Neutrality
Milwaukee's system is a start. Money follows each student, but unfortunately only a smaller chunk than what a public school would get (where does the remaining chunk go...?). Each charter school must accept EVERY student that enrolls through the school choice program so atheist children can go to catholic charter schools, etc... A limited number of students can enroll but that is quickly changing as the benefits are being shown and the public lobbies for change. There have been studies in the area that have shown dramatic improvement in students that are now going to charter schools AND improvements in students at public schools. Some of the worst public schools are actually closing as enrollment drops and only the good teachers are being absorbed by the remaining schools.
If you want a model for school choice check out Denmark. Every school competes as public money (all of it) follows each student. Bad school...then you get fewer students and thus less funding. More students equal more money and if your economies of scale are correct you will probably be more productive with those dollars (and if you're not then some other school, that is more productive, will slowly steal away your market share). The only thing preventing you from going to a particular school or not is their individual ability to house your child. At this point the firms in their education market have become pretty much equal in quality, and thus tons better than US schools.
And part of the problem are teacher's unions. Most force a system were all new teachers are paid the same, with the same tenure requirements and the same raise/bonus requirements. There is little if no incentive to become a teacher of "hard" subjects like math and science when you can get the same salary and job security in one of the "soft" subjects like social science, art, music or gym. This is why most schools have a glut of "soft" subject teachers and why there are so many bad math and science teachers.
What happens is the shortage of math and science teachers forces the school to make a "soft" subject teacher teach those subjects. They end up doing a terrible job because they aren't trained in it, don't have an excitement about the subject and generally feel that they will only being doing the job temporarily. This maybe the case but only because they are sacked (not likely given our tenure system) or quit when they reach a certain level of dissatisfaction. Otherwise a school is stuck with a crappy math or science teacher until they retire.
If the research was done I bet a good causal relationship of bad math and science teachers and lower student interest/performance in those subjects could be made. Getting rid of the ridiculous parts of the union system and creating a Milwaukee, WI style school choice program will go a long way to better teachers, better schools and students that will be able to compete globally again.
MS has already submitted parts of the .Net API to the EMCA. They have also said that the entire spec will be submitted before it reaches 1.0. As long as Mono stays compatible with the EMCA standard of .Net, then everything would be fine.
This doesn?t mean that MS won?t extend. This is sort of a new method they are trying out. Instead of embracing a good standard they are creating one. MS/Windows-only extensions may occur but I doubt it. These extensions will be the part that MS might not let the dotGnu and Mono projects touch. At least there will be a 1.0 standard that will still be completely cross platform and independent of any org or biz.
I doubt that any of it will come to that. This thread goes well with the one about Bob Young. He states that the future focus of RedHat, and the rest of the Linux community, should be to work on Linux?s current strengths and get it into the embedded market. Tablets, PDA, and other networked portable devices is where the future of computing is going. Web services and apps that are compatible with multiple platforms will be the main reason these devices will work. I think it will be cool when a Palm device can use the same .Net program as the one on a PC, Mac or PocketPC and be able to send messages via the web seamlessly.
Anyways, that was way to long, and poorly written...
OUT
Yeah. Hell in a handbasket, here we come :P
This, of course, is just natural selection occuring that was bound to happen in the post tech boom era. Now that it's touching closer to home for the slashdot/open-source community, maybe some common sense will take over. I don't like that it's happening to the good people of VA, but maybe some others will have to get down off their horses.
I'm not sure what Microsoft thinks it has to gain. All kidding aside, Microsoft already has a system like this in place and it occurs naturally called "Upgrades".
After three years Microsoft software becomes useless, usually through Microsoft's doing. Just look at the new upgrade to Windows XP. If you want the upgrade to Media Player 8 you have to purchase WinXP. The same happened with the Win95-98 switch and IE4+. You could get a copy for 95 but it was suspiciously broken in some areas (why, when I was still a Windows junkie, I upgraded). I also think that it would not have been very hard for Microsoft to upgrade 95 to use USB properly, but if you want USB you need to buy 98.
About the only people who still use three year old Microsoft software are those using Office, Windows NT (version 4) and possibly some of the developer tools.
Microsoft developer tools really don't change to offten. Bug fixes realized in new versions of Visual Studio are often times available via service packs for the older versions.
Office users still using old versions usually do so because they are either pirating the software (Microsoft won't see a dime from these people under the new licensing) and those who feel they don't use the software enough to justify the additional cost (they are definitely not going to justify the cost of buying the same version of a software title again). The later group of people compose the group that dare to use Office like solutions that are not Microsoft. Even with its flaws, Corel's Office software is not too shabby, and then there are the StarOffice and 602 Office titles (both free, later makes you pay for special features).
Windows NT4 is about the oldest Microsoft title still being used on a wide scale. This is because it is still being used as a server to keep many business running smoothly. It's difficult to upgrade servers that you rely on, I'm wanting to upgrade my Linux server at home but have put it off since my housemates rely on several services I have running on it. Imagine the effort needed to upgrade all the NT boxes for a multinational corporation. Even though these people have millions or billions of dollars, being told that they must either buy the new Microsoft server software or pay again for each existing server will make any multinational start looking for alternatives. Microsoft will have negated the only real point to the Microsoft NT vs. *nix debate, *nix may cost more over time. Currently NT is easy to administer (look at all the yahoos with MSCE) so you don't need highly skilled, yet expensive, system admins. All you need is a three month traing period (if that), a mouse and patience while the machine reboots. With *nix you will need highly skilled sys-admins, so its possible that salaries could push the *nix systems to be more expensive. In real life though, both types of admins cost about the same making both system just as expensive to operate. Now Microsoft wants to add an additional charge every three years that you won't find on *nix systems (cost of small upgrades don't count, Microsoft and *nix solutions both have similar upgrade costs), making Microsoft server software more expensive to use over time. Expect to see some "crossing over" if Microsoft does go through with this new licensing scheme.
Untill it's legal for Microsoft to make it so users must be connected to the internet so the software can validate itself with a Microsoft server (hopefully this never happens), any new licensing plan is going to fail just as badly at keeping pirated copies from being used/distributed as the current plan. Worst of all it's a punishment for the good little, "I buy and register all of my Microsoft software", drones, all because of those out there who rebel against the status quo. I'm fairly certain that it's poor business practice to piss off your loyal customer base. No matter how dependant they are on Microsoft software, sooner or later reasonable alternative will crop up. Even if later never happens, there will be a time when a huge paradigm shift will leave the slow monster of Microsoft struggling to keep up with the small start-ups. At that point Microsoft will need their loyal customer base to stay competitive.
The good sign is that Microsoft have been systematically finding problems with the new licensing scheme and have started to backtrack. The new three year subscription plan is a compromise of its monthly subscription plan. Expect to see any subscription plan to be abandoned by Microsoft soon after it starts or before it even begins. Remeber Office 2000?
hmmm...
then you don't buy from that broker again. you go to another that doesn't take his/her server down much and pay them mojo for whatever. of course you might pay more for stability. see how real world it is.
the bad thing is that napster has to go through and ban those usernames from their servers. this would be because of the "wonderful" digital millennium copyrigh act. i hope that metallica was kind enough to include an electronic version too. at least with that you can run it trough a script or something to automate the process, otherwise they're screwed.
What is scary is that this could go through depending on if the GPL can be enforced in Uruguay or not.
Just like in the USA, some licences, or parts of them, are valid in certain states and not in others. Uruguay might have some sort catch for foreign licenses making all or parts of them void. It could also be just a legal loop hole.
Common sense should take over here, I don't care what legal catches you have, approving this trademark would be anti-smart.
Bah!