Apple? Since when did any flavor of MS-Windows come with Quick Time? Or even an Apple-Talk protocol?
ISTR that when MS 'invested' $150 million in Apple, that was a condition of an out-of-court settlement; part of that court case involved Microsoft's transgressions on Apple's QuickTime patents/IP. (there was supposedly more money involved as well... however as nothing was confirmed, a lot of this was speculation).
This settlement involved Microsoft licensing some of Apple's patents, anyway, thus leading to possible mentions of Apple's name somewhere deep in the windows/ directory. OK, so it's not 'software' per se, but...
If Microsoft changes their implementation of their CLI (the CLR), who cares? Linux will still have a completely open CLI implementation. It's basically a better java without any strings. Microsoft can't do anything about it because it will be a standard.
Sure, it'll be the 'standard'... but the version in use on most of the world's desktops will be the real standard. The game of taking an established cross-platform standard and changing the Windows implementation is nothing new to Microsoft... maybe doing it to their own code is, though.:)
And I think that "a few decades" is optimistic if a "few" is 20, but pessimistic if a "few" is more than 50.
I'd place good money on it being more than 100, if I had any way to collect:) (the only way I could likely live to my 120s is if I'm proven wrong, and life-extending nanotech becomes easily affordable...)
Also, if your conspiracy theories held true, shouldn't big business have enough foresight (pun) to nip nanotech in the bud? If so, why did they "allow" Clinton to budget half a BILLION for nanotech research?
It sounds like you think $500 million is a lot on this scale. It's a drop in the ocean compared to the amount that will need to be spent before we have anything usable, I imagine.
I think that business likes to see the government spend money on R&D, as more likely than not, commercial opportunities will arise from it, and it's money they didn't have to spend... corporate welfare, in other words.
This is strange, if nanotech gets really going, which I don't think will happen in many many years, there should be no need to be afraid of losing business : everything will cost almost nothing to everybody.
What will you do with all your money when everything is cheap?
Money isn't money; money is power. People with power now don't want to be people with the same amount of power as everyone else in 30-50 years time. I don't think this is particularly depressing, just human nature...
One thing that an economy of plenty would involve would quite possibly be meritocracy -- those people who can use the tools (and construct the businesses around them) better would rise faster, as opposed to the situation now, where restraint of trade and massive amounts of marketing seem to be more common features of the market. Or maybe this is merely a characteristic of any emergent market, and ways would be found to limit the usage of nanotech, a la the nanotech viruses in Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_...
I like this band as much as the next guy, but can it really be number 29, or did somebody conveniently put this up there while browsing queries just to outrage people?
GnutellaMeter seems to record searches across the last 50 minutes... and given the way Gnutella works, not from all Gnutella clients, but from the subset that of queries that reach it.
For example, the #1 search there just now, with nearly 0.4%, was "neuroticfish no instruments". Maybe the person typing this search has a high speed link, and thus connects to many other peers...
If you think the old guard is squirming now, just imagine how these business' will react when molecular manufacturing (nanotech) is realized -- in a few more decades -- and then inevitably democratized.
I think "a few decades" is an optimistic view -- I also think that you are not taking into account the amounts of power that are exerted by the companies at the top to keep things the way they are. For example, if oil companies think that nanotech research might affect their business, all they have to do is lean on a few governments (on the legal side) and have a few words to, e.g., some people in the Russian mafia (on the not-so-legal side). Repeat this scenario across the richest.5% or so of the world's population, and you'll see that an economy of scarcity suits them perfectly, and they'll probably do anything to preserve it.
Or, maybe things will work out better than that. My crystal ball is in the shop at the moment, so can't really say:)
thank god i just changed to australia's other cable provider, optus:)
Lucky you, living in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane. For those of us in other cities, it's Telstra or it's nothing -- and I'd rather burn my money than hand it over to those leprous scabs.
"Providing the source to a customer is fine, and I agree with that, but they shouldn't be able to redistribute it (in my opinion). "
Do you have a good license that fits this description? I for one would be interrested in such a thing.
I wouldn't call it a good license, but this sounds a lot like Microsoft's Shared Source. Sure, you can look at the code, but be very, very careful if you write any code 5 years later that is used for similar purposes to the code you 'shared'...
If redistribution is not allowed, then the only people who will have a use for the source are developers who want to use software in-house. However, this license may make it difficult for them to use the source due to the 'polluting' effect of that license. Thus they may prefer not to open themselves up to the possible trouble.
I can see why you would want to use a license like this as an author/holder of the copyright, but does a license like this provide much benefit for the consumer over an ordinary propietary license? What benefits do you see on both sides?
Um, MS would not want to stop people from implementing C#. At most they would want to stop people from implementing versions of C# that would not run a pure C# or pure managed (one that runs entirely in the CLR and doesn't use native hooks) program.
Sun releases Java. Microsoft releases Visual J++. Sun gets upset. Sun sues.
Microsoft releases C#. Mono releases a (non-compliant) C#. Microsoft gets upset. Microsoft sues.
Isn't the fact that there is no news, news? Given Steve's Reality Distortion Field®, he likes to provide 'miracles' for the 'cult' (and don't worry, it's only an analogy). The fact that nothing much impressive has been announced is a deviation from recent behaviour, and it leads one to wonder if Apple have dropped the ball a little...
Rangers are the Glasgow Protestant football (soccer) team, in opposition to the Glasgow Catholic team, Celtic. Fans of both clubs have been known to hold up the odd, erm, 'controversial' banner (I seem to remember somthing supporting the Ulster Freedom Fighters being shown at a recent Rangers game).
Again, off-topic, but hopefully illuminating the nature of another/. poster.
Mixing alcohol and caffeine just seems retarded anyway if you ask me. Mixing two brain altering chemicals is pretty stupid. Makes about as much sense as dropping acid and E at the same time.
It makes wonderful sense. We call it a candy flip.
I'll second that one. Energy, happiness *and* that spaced out, skull-is-open-to-the-world feeling:) Leaves me feeling even more tired in the mornings though... of course, that's probably something to do with all the running around madly and dancing like a dancey thing...
Slashdot Mirror
Magic Carpet
:)
Feel like being taken for a ride? Or being caught in a Hailstorm?
Obviously all of the good names have been taken -- only the dubious ones are left, even for the largest of companies
Apple? Since when did any flavor of MS-Windows come with Quick Time? Or even an Apple-Talk protocol?
ISTR that when MS 'invested' $150 million in Apple, that was a condition of an out-of-court settlement; part of that court case involved Microsoft's transgressions on Apple's QuickTime patents/IP. (there was supposedly more money involved as well... however as nothing was confirmed, a lot of this was speculation).
This settlement involved Microsoft licensing some of Apple's patents, anyway, thus leading to possible mentions of Apple's name somewhere deep in the windows/ directory. OK, so it's not 'software' per se, but...
Microsoft actually has some pretty good stuff going in .NET, and they're extending an olive branch to the open source world.
An interesting metaphor to use... I would have gone with "bury the hatchet". And we all know where they want to bury it, don't we?
If Microsoft changes their implementation of their CLI (the CLR), who cares? Linux will still have a completely open CLI implementation. It's basically a better java without any strings. Microsoft can't do anything about it because it will be a standard.
:)
Sure, it'll be the 'standard'... but the version in use on most of the world's desktops will be the real standard. The game of taking an established cross-platform standard and changing the Windows implementation is nothing new to Microsoft... maybe doing it to their own code is, though.
Rite or wrong?
And I think that "a few decades" is optimistic if a "few" is 20, but pessimistic if a "few" is more than 50.
:) (the only way I could likely live to my 120s is if I'm proven wrong, and life-extending nanotech becomes easily affordable...)
I'd place good money on it being more than 100, if I had any way to collect
Also, if your conspiracy theories held true, shouldn't big business have enough foresight (pun) to nip nanotech in the bud? If so, why did they "allow" Clinton to budget half a BILLION for nanotech research?
It sounds like you think $500 million is a lot on this scale. It's a drop in the ocean compared to the amount that will need to be spent before we have anything usable, I imagine.
I think that business likes to see the government spend money on R&D, as more likely than not, commercial opportunities will arise from it, and it's money they didn't have to spend... corporate welfare, in other words.
This is strange, if nanotech gets really going, which I don't think will happen in many many years, there should be no need to be afraid of losing business : everything will cost almost nothing to everybody.
What will you do with all your money when everything is cheap?
Money isn't money; money is power. People with power now don't want to be people with the same amount of power as everyone else in 30-50 years time. I don't think this is particularly depressing, just human nature...
One thing that an economy of plenty would involve would quite possibly be meritocracy -- those people who can use the tools (and construct the businesses around them) better would rise faster, as opposed to the situation now, where restraint of trade and massive amounts of marketing seem to be more common features of the market. Or maybe this is merely a characteristic of any emergent market, and ways would be found to limit the usage of nanotech, a la the nanotech viruses in Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_...
Aah, who knows?
I like this band as much as the next guy, but can it really be number 29, or did somebody conveniently put this up there while browsing queries just to outrage people?
GnutellaMeter seems to record searches across the last 50 minutes... and given the way Gnutella works, not from all Gnutella clients, but from the subset that of queries that reach it.
For example, the #1 search there just now, with nearly 0.4%, was "neuroticfish no instruments". Maybe the person typing this search has a high speed link, and thus connects to many other peers...
The name is taken from a famous dildo in William S Burroughs' Naked Lunch.
:)
This is a book I've owned on a few different occasions, but people keep "borrowing"... grrr.
Hopefully through the wonders of karma (the non-Slashdot kind) a copy will find its way back to me sometime soon
I keep trying, and trying, but I can't seem to imagine Tim Berners-Lee and the W3C as a bunch of hippie anarchists.
What do TBL and the W3C have to do with the invention of the Internet?
Go and study some history. Free clue: the WWW is *not* the Internet.
If you think the old guard is squirming now, just imagine how these business' will react when molecular manufacturing (nanotech) is realized -- in a few more decades -- and then inevitably democratized.
.5% or so of the world's population, and you'll see that an economy of scarcity suits them perfectly, and they'll probably do anything to preserve it.
:)
I think "a few decades" is an optimistic view -- I also think that you are not taking into account the amounts of power that are exerted by the companies at the top to keep things the way they are. For example, if oil companies think that nanotech research might affect their business, all they have to do is lean on a few governments (on the legal side) and have a few words to, e.g., some people in the Russian mafia (on the not-so-legal side). Repeat this scenario across the richest
Or, maybe things will work out better than that. My crystal ball is in the shop at the moment, so can't really say
Bullets do.
:)
(That's a link for all of us old-timers out there
OSS deprives users of the opportunity to pay for their software.
Send a cheque to the author(s).
Problem solved.
thank god i just changed to australia's other cable provider, optus :)
Lucky you, living in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane. For those of us in other cities, it's Telstra or it's nothing -- and I'd rather burn my money than hand it over to those leprous scabs.
"Providing the source to a customer is fine, and I agree with that, but they shouldn't be able to redistribute it (in my opinion). "
Do you have a good license that fits this description? I for one would be interrested in such a thing.
I wouldn't call it a good license, but this sounds a lot like Microsoft's Shared Source. Sure, you can look at the code, but be very, very careful if you write any code 5 years later that is used for similar purposes to the code you 'shared'...
If redistribution is not allowed, then the only people who will have a use for the source are developers who want to use software in-house. However, this license may make it difficult for them to use the source due to the 'polluting' effect of that license. Thus they may prefer not to open themselves up to the possible trouble.
I can see why you would want to use a license like this as an author/holder of the copyright, but does a license like this provide much benefit for the consumer over an ordinary propietary license? What benefits do you see on both sides?
Um, MS would not want to stop people from implementing C#. At most they would want to stop people from implementing versions of C# that would not run a pure C# or pure managed (one that runs entirely in the CLR and doesn't use native hooks) program.
Sun releases Java. Microsoft releases Visual J++. Sun gets upset. Sun sues.
Microsoft releases C#. Mono releases a (non-compliant) C#. Microsoft gets upset. Microsoft sues.
Pot, kettle, black.
Moderators - that wasn't funny, that was depressing.
[Not that I moderated the comment you're replying to, but:]
To quote Homer Simpson, "It's funny because it's true."
BTW, what is it with no-one being able to spell Thief properly?
I've heard that too, and it doesn't surprise me that he'd go for the first name thing.
:)
ISTR that that's a Microsoft convention for email names for employees. billg, steveb, nathanm, etc.
Now whether that's due to the fiat of their illustrious leader is another question entirely
Jesus, there is NO news at MacWorld at all.
Isn't the fact that there is no news, news? Given Steve's Reality Distortion Field®, he likes to provide 'miracles' for the 'cult' (and don't worry, it's only an analogy). The fact that nothing much impressive has been announced is a deviation from recent behaviour, and it leads one to wonder if Apple have dropped the ball a little...
I think I just slipped into a world created by Kafka.
:)
Kafka was just documenting what was already out there. It's been out there for a while now
Sen. Hon. Richard K R Alston
Australian Federal Minister for Communications, Information Technology & the Arts
I don't believe you're the real Senator Alston... I'm not sure that Tricky Dicky even knows what a computer looks like!
I think this is a reference to Jack Handy:c s/deepthoughts.html
http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~nhughes/htmldo
Google is your friend...
The taste reminds me of a sweaty horse, sprayed with dwarf piss.
I *have* to ask... when was the last time you had a sweaty horse, sprayed with dwarf piss?
:)
Also, his link to:
/. poster.
http://www.rangers.co.uk
Rangers are the Glasgow Protestant football (soccer) team, in opposition to the Glasgow Catholic team, Celtic. Fans of both clubs have been known to hold up the odd, erm, 'controversial' banner (I seem to remember somthing supporting the Ulster Freedom Fighters being shown at a recent Rangers game).
Again, off-topic, but hopefully illuminating the nature of another
Mixing alcohol and caffeine just seems retarded anyway if you ask me. Mixing two brain altering chemicals is pretty stupid. Makes about as much sense as dropping acid and E at the same time.
:) Leaves me feeling even more tired in the mornings though... of course, that's probably something to do with all the running around madly and dancing like a dancey thing...
It makes wonderful sense. We call it a candy flip.
I'll second that one. Energy, happiness *and* that spaced out, skull-is-open-to-the-world feeling