Unfortunately, the side effects of this thinking could lead to an economic collapse if taken to the extreme of which RMS advocates.
If the whole world switched to a "free model" overnight, maybe. But this is not happening. In part, I get paid for the free software that I write by companies who sell proprietary software. Their sales ultimately pay me. But these are transition effects.
What's nice about the free software idea is that even without subscribing to it on moral grounds (which I tend to do), it also just pays off economically.
A company pays me to make an enhancement to a free software package. They benefit from my work, but they also benefit from thousands of hours of work that went into that package before, which they don't have to pay for. The results of my work will also not just benefit that particular company, but everybody else as well (since the results are freely available to everyone). Ultimately, everybody benefits, and the economy gradually adjusts to those patterns.
The fact that the economy needs to run and that people should be compensated for their work seems to go right past your head. [...] there is nothing wrong with selling software.
So many posts saying this or something similar, it's almost too frustrating to actually reply. Here I go...
It's absolutely possible to make money using free software, and make a very decent amount of money. Personally, I run a free software business in Germany. I recommend, install, and maintain free software for my customers -- big, well-paying corporations. I write free software for some of them, and I'm being paid for the software I write, just like any other worker is paid for the hours he spends working. It pays off tremendously well both for me, and the companies who employ me.
What the free software movement is against is to hide the source code of your software from the people who use it, just so you can make even more money out of it. But this is not necessary. The idea of the free software movement is a different economy where everybody can live well, and share what they know, and create. And this is possible economically, as I continue to experience every day.
So if a task needs doing, and GPL software can't yet do it well - RMS would rather that people ignored that task and pretend it didn't need doing, than to do the task with the best available tools?
No, the priorities are different. For a long shot, he'd consider it more important to create a free tool to do the task well, than to just do it with a non-free tool. It's just that, to him, freedom is more important than anything else. So, it's very natural and consistent that he'd rather first write the free tool and then do the task, instead of the other way round (and probably never get around to writing that free tool, anyway).
Yes, he is saying the same things as always. The same things he's been saying twenty years ago. And still, the rest of the world keeps behaving in exactly such ways that his words apply perfectly, again and again. Makes you wonder who's being more stubborn, exactly.
applications written in [Java] still tend to be quite easy to disassemble. Compare that to C++, which is difficult to disassemble; it's much easier to conceal source.
I don't think concealing the source is the most important point in the propietary model. The question is whether people are allowed to disassemble the object code, and whether they may do anything with the results, legally.
For example, Sun had no problem putting its SDK code in public display (a zip file included in every SDK), yet provide it under a license that would forbid anyone actually using what they saw in Sun's code in their own software.
It's very hard to keep anything really secret if you do give binary code away. Black-box re-engineering can do amazing things, even in C/C++.
The point is, really, what do you allow users to do with the code. The legal framework of copyright, and the means to enforce it, are so powerful today that you don't actually need to conceal the code to keep people from using it.
And the portion of real "trade secrets" that you don't want your competitors to see in your code tends to be very small in any given software system, probably zero in most of them.
That's what FSF extremists wish the model will be, but if the software is doing its job then there should be little need for "services".
Funny how using the word "free" in connection with "software" gets you labelled as an "FSF extremist" immediately, but I can live with that:-) (ok you didn't label me an extremist:-)
I make most of my money by deploying and customizing free software in large companies, and boy, I know for sure this kind of job is gonna be needed for a long time. It's not a function of how good the software is, how well it is doing it's job, but mostly of the complexity of the companies where it's being used. No, I don't see "services" going away anytime soon, unless we have software with artificial intelligence that deploys itself where it's needed and adapts itself to what it's needed for.
The future is really proprietary software leveraging the bottom of the software stack which is free. Proprietary software can give back by making contributions to these lower layers of the software stack, by maintaining a sane business model by offering value added proprietary software at the higher ends of the stack.
Here you are simply saying the opposite of what I said. Any reasons that would turn it into a valid argument? Why should it be so? If free software development is capable of taking over the lower levels, why should it stop there? Is it not an uphill battle for proprietary software vendors?
"We will give customers something that's differentiated in the market and do it with a lot less investment on our part," Fuller said.
So, in effect, he's saying: We let others do the basic work for us, and then make money by adding stuff on top of what they create.
Granted, this may be the same thing IBM is doing with Eclipse, it's just that you seldom hear it voiced so clearly and unmistakably.
As an open source/free software developer, I would think twice before contributing to such a code base -- I guess I'll end up doing it anyway, because like the sorcerer's apprentice, the power of unleashed free software development is already overturning the business model of these companies in a far greater extent than they seem to be prepared for, but still... it doesn't feel quite right to help a company in the short run maintaining a business model which I explicitly declined, when I became a free software developer.
The future is not in selling proprietary software; the future is in selling services for free software. IBM, for one thing, seems to have grasped that simple truth better than Borland, but I guess they are still learning.
Apple PIONEERED this technique with the iPod. You cannot do this with the iPod so why are they trashing the sony players for doing the SAME LIMITATION? This story has BIASED written all over it.
I submitted the story, and only because I bought a Sony two days ago (NW-E407) for my daughter, and got upset when I realized I couldn't just drag and drop, let alone use it under Linux. (I have since returned the unit and got an iRiver instead.)
I didn't have any iPod experience before. And yes, this kind of thing seems more widespread than just Sony. Arguably, Sony's technique is worse than that on the iPod, because they deliberately encipher your files when you put them on the device, whereas Apple's scheme is essentially just renaming, leaving the data intact (judging from other posts in this thread).
What's important is that there are players with no such restrictions, and therefore customers have a real chance to vote with their wallet.
Does anyone know of any portable players that
support the Ogg format? Two thirds of my music
is in this format and I'm in no hurry to re-rip
it.
iRiver's players support Ogg. And they appear rather Linux-friendly. There's also an independent community site, called MisticRiver (just google for it), with lots of in-depth information.
The standard firmware on the iRivers does not let you use them as USB drives (iRiver says that's for legal reasons), but they give you a firmware update that lets you do it, and so you can freely move your music on and off the device.
From my limited experience with them, it looks like these guys have the right spirit.
I only linked to the boingboing blurb in the original story, precisely because of that. I wasn't aware that posting a link far down in the comment hierarchy would get you a ton of hits as well. Sorry if it does. I'm really glad you did this stuff.
You cannot use it as a USB mass storage device. (Well, you can, but files that you simply copy to the device won't be recognized as "playable" by the unit.)
The de-obfuscation code referenced in the original article (the real code is here) runs under Linux. This is for a slightly older model though, it is not clear yet whether the brand-new ones have exactly the same obfuscation scheme. They do use similar obfuscation, that's all I can say from the unit I bought yesterday (NW-E407).
So, the answer is: it will probably work under Linux, using this or another hack. But if I were you, I'd seriously consider returning it to the shop.
iRiver is very Linux-friendly, by contrast. They have a special firmware that lets you use it just like a regular USB hard drive. (Their standard firmware won't let you do that, I believe they are not allowed to by law, or rather some obscure business agreement with the RIAA behind the scenes.)
There was a firmware update (which is why I finally got one) not to long ago for several of their devices that allowed you to use native MP3s. There is some stuff added to the files while they are being transfered (its automatic, you don't have to do anything) but the overall format isn't changed, its still a native MP3.
And that's where Sony differs. If you have a look at the de-obfuscation article, they really encrypt the MP3s with a simple substitution cipher, just so that you cannot read or use them anymore.
Maybe Apple's intentions on the iPod were the same, maybe not. The scheme that Sony uses is worse, technically, for us, that's for sure. It's us, the users, who need to decide what we want to accept and what we don't accept, and then buy accordingly. If this got Apple to providing a new firmware, fine. I doubt whether we could change Sony's ways in the same way, though. So let your wallet decide.
Yes, the new models have the same DRM. Sorry for not providing an official link, but there are no official reviews for these new players yet; they've been barely out a few days. But I know for sure that it is that way: I bought an NW-E407 yesterday, verified that it has the same DRM features (you cannot just drag and drop MP3s on them, you have to go through the SonicStage software, and after that, you'll see obfuscated files under strange names on the unit).
I promptly returned the device to the dealer. And I got so angry about it that I submitted a Slashdot story. It got accepted. And rightly so!
I don't care how the music gets stored on these players and is used natively...and if that's where the DRM is, then I can live with that...so long as I can retain my source material in whatever format I choose.
The trouble is that they use this scheme to keep you from getting the material back from the player. And there are all sorts of situations where I want that, as other posters have pointed out. Sharing that MP3 with a few friends who I happen to be hanging around with, physically, is not the least of it.
It's just not right to get in the way of such a basic interaction between people.
iRiver recently released firmware which lets their devices look like any other USB drive.
If I understand this correctly, the firmware that made it look like any other USB drive was there first, and then they were required by copyright law to make it "impossible" to get MP3s back from the player. (Copyright law and a lot of secret bullying by the RIAA behind the scenes I guess.)
This is what they say on their web site, as to why it's impossible to get those MP3s back from the device.
To me, it looks like iRiver is trying to circumvent this by offering the unrestricted firmware as a separate download. Which seems to pass under the radar of the RIAA... yet.
I used the Boingboing link in the story because I figured that Boingboing could handle the slashdot effect better than any of the smaller sites where the actual information is. The real real thing is here, btw: that's the actual de-obfuscation code.
According to the GPL, which is one of the most restrictive free software licenses, You only need to release source code if you are distributing binaries. If the software was only for internal use, only the employees need to be able to access the source code to fulfill the GPL
I was deliberately not referring to the license of the project in my post. This was my personal choice. I had been a core developer of that project for quite some time already, and the enhancements that the company wanted would have been useful for the general public. As a matter of fact, it would only have been a matter of time until somebody else would have made those enhancements and contributed them (hopefully) to the project. So, my personal choice was: I'm only going to work on this if I'm allowed to contribute the results back into the main project.
It turns out that they would also have been obliged to this by the license, because the software was in fact meant for public release.
I have other customers where I make internal enhancements to GPL software, and I'm perfectly fine with not releasing/contributing them. Usually these are small enhancements that would not be useful for the general public anyway. But if I'd add significant features to such software, I would try and approach my customers to see if we could contribute the results back to the community. Among other things, that would give them the benefit of public scrutiny being applied to those new features.
We were talking about personal values and preferences in this thread, after all. I was just trying to explain mine.
I'm speaking as a freelance consultant who has built up relations with several customers, so my situation is arguably a bit different. But I once had this big contract offer from a big company who wanted me to make enhancements to a free software package. However, they gave me their usual contract terms, saying that they would own everything that I write, it would be confidential and what not.
I said no. This is a free software project, and the enhancements I make must go back to the community.
This thing went on for weeks. They gave me slightly different contract terms, several times over, but they all meant, in effect, that the software I wrote would ultimately be theirs, and not the community's. I said no. I said, look: you benefit from thousands of man hours that have been put into this project before, for which you didn't have to pay. For some of this, other companies have paid. Now you want enhancements, I can do them for you, but only if you play by the same rules. You won't be able to buy the right to own that software from me, not for any money in the world. (As I said, luckily, I had other customers waiting in line.)
Finally I got a contract from them with the exact terms I had asked for. And they got, dare I say it, excellent service, far beyond what they had paid me for.
This is surely a different scenario than what you describe, but the bottom line is probably: It is certainly possible to stand firm by your principles. Sometimes it is the beginning of a lasting business relationship (as it was in this particular case).
Oh, and before idiots start saying "see, open source isn't secure," let me remind them that this is a commercial product that was comprimised. If anything, I'd take this as further evidence of the virtues of open source.
Errrm, forgive me, but it's a bit hard to grasp the logic in that. Are you saying that the idiots might say: "look, there's a security problem on Linux, so open source isn't secure." And you remind them that this problem is due to some piece of proprietary software that is not open source?
Fair enough (although that kind of logic really sounds weird to me). But be careful to claim "commercial software" is an opposite to "open source". There's lots and lots of "commercial software" that is open source by every accepted definition (e.g. MySQL). The real opposite of "open source" is "closed source", or "proprietary software" (such as Arkeia Network Backup).
Well, to state the obvious: Would this problem have survived for so long if Arkeia Network Backup had been open source software?
Large enterprises migrating to Linux now should be careful not to throw away the biggest advantage of their new platform by committing to all sorts of closed source software that happens to run on it.
For the time being, I guess I'll stick to my proven, open source (free software even) backup solution involving tar, gpg, and ssh.
Assuming 100% efficiency, and assuming current US energy consumption costs applied to the entire world population, it is more like 100s times more than we could use if we had a photovoltaic panel over every square metre of land area.
Are you sure that photovoltaics really is the best means to harvest solar energy? As I have said in other posts, keep in mind that practically all other energy we have here on earth is ultimately solar energy. Water power comes to mind: on the two thirds of sea surface (not covered by photovoltaics in your "scenario" above), the sun constantly lifts water to higher elevations. As it pours down again, turbines can harvest some of that energy. Keep in mind that wind, if you see it this way, is also solar energy -- differentially heated masses of air, which we can harvest energy from through wind mills -- using the atmosphere as a big turbine, as it were.
I think it's pointless. We do have a working fusion reactor right at our doorstep. It's got a perfect security distance (150 Mio. km). We've got a perfect radiation shield (the Van-Allen-Belt). And it produces billions and billions of times more energy than we could ever use. Even just the energy from it that hits the tiny spot called earth is several million times more than our total energy consumption, second by second. We really just need to find efficient means to harvest that energy, right down here on earth, rather than try and build our own tiny fusion reactor.
Also it's silly to think that 100% of power would be direct solar. Electricity production in the US is already 1/4 nuclear, 3/4 fossil, plus negligible alternative. One reasonable balance is 1/2 wind, 1/4 solar, 1/4 nuclear.
It's interesting to note that almost all of these energy sources are ultimately solar energy. Fossil fuels are conserved solar energy. Wind is solar energy (the atmosphere is heated differentially by the sun). Hydropower is solar energy (the water is elevated by the sun, then moves down through our turbines). Incidentally, Buckminster Fuller, in his book Critical Path, claims that the total amount of energy from the sun that hits the earth every second is several million times larger than humanity's total energy consumption, world-wide.
So, the sun is ultimately the only reasonable energy source for us. Nuclear power (the only energy source among those you list which is not ulitmately solar energy) seems rather futile by comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
If the whole world switched to a "free model" overnight, maybe. But this is not happening. In part, I get paid for the free software that I write by companies who sell proprietary software. Their sales ultimately pay me. But these are transition effects.
What's nice about the free software idea is that even without subscribing to it on moral grounds (which I tend to do), it also just pays off economically.
A company pays me to make an enhancement to a free software package. They benefit from my work, but they also benefit from thousands of hours of work that went into that package before, which they don't have to pay for. The results of my work will also not just benefit that particular company, but everybody else as well (since the results are freely available to everyone). Ultimately, everybody benefits, and the economy gradually adjusts to those patterns.
No collapse required.
So many posts saying this or something similar, it's almost too frustrating to actually reply. Here I go...
It's absolutely possible to make money using free software, and make a very decent amount of money. Personally, I run a free software business in Germany. I recommend, install, and maintain free software for my customers -- big, well-paying corporations. I write free software for some of them, and I'm being paid for the software I write, just like any other worker is paid for the hours he spends working. It pays off tremendously well both for me, and the companies who employ me.
What the free software movement is against is to hide the source code of your software from the people who use it, just so you can make even more money out of it. But this is not necessary. The idea of the free software movement is a different economy where everybody can live well, and share what they know, and create. And this is possible economically, as I continue to experience every day.
Sorry, I just had to say it.
No, the priorities are different. For a long shot, he'd consider it more important to create a free tool to do the task well, than to just do it with a non-free tool. It's just that, to him, freedom is more important than anything else. So, it's very natural and consistent that he'd rather first write the free tool and then do the task, instead of the other way round (and probably never get around to writing that free tool, anyway).
Yes, he is saying the same things as always. The same things he's been saying twenty years ago. And still, the rest of the world keeps behaving in exactly such ways that his words apply perfectly, again and again. Makes you wonder who's being more stubborn, exactly.
I don't think concealing the source is the most important point in the propietary model. The question is whether people are allowed to disassemble the object code, and whether they may do anything with the results, legally.
For example, Sun had no problem putting its SDK code in public display (a zip file included in every SDK), yet provide it under a license that would forbid anyone actually using what they saw in Sun's code in their own software.
It's very hard to keep anything really secret if you do give binary code away. Black-box re-engineering can do amazing things, even in C/C++.
The point is, really, what do you allow users to do with the code. The legal framework of copyright, and the means to enforce it, are so powerful today that you don't actually need to conceal the code to keep people from using it.
And the portion of real "trade secrets" that you don't want your competitors to see in your code tends to be very small in any given software system, probably zero in most of them.
Funny how using the word "free" in connection with "software" gets you labelled as an "FSF extremist" immediately, but I can live with that :-) (ok you didn't label me an extremist :-)
I make most of my money by deploying and customizing free software in large companies, and boy, I know for sure this kind of job is gonna be needed for a long time. It's not a function of how good the software is, how well it is doing it's job, but mostly of the complexity of the companies where it's being used. No, I don't see "services" going away anytime soon, unless we have software with artificial intelligence that deploys itself where it's needed and adapts itself to what it's needed for.
Here you are simply saying the opposite of what I said. Any reasons that would turn it into a valid argument? Why should it be so? If free software development is capable of taking over the lower levels, why should it stop there? Is it not an uphill battle for proprietary software vendors?
So, in effect, he's saying: We let others do the basic work for us, and then make money by adding stuff on top of what they create.
Granted, this may be the same thing IBM is doing with Eclipse, it's just that you seldom hear it voiced so clearly and unmistakably.
As an open source/free software developer, I would think twice before contributing to such a code base -- I guess I'll end up doing it anyway, because like the sorcerer's apprentice, the power of unleashed free software development is already overturning the business model of these companies in a far greater extent than they seem to be prepared for, but still... it doesn't feel quite right to help a company in the short run maintaining a business model which I explicitly declined, when I became a free software developer.
The future is not in selling proprietary software; the future is in selling services for free software. IBM, for one thing, seems to have grasped that simple truth better than Borland, but I guess they are still learning.
Yes, this is being pointed out by several people. See this reply I made to another post.
I submitted the story, and only because I bought a Sony two days ago (NW-E407) for my daughter, and got upset when I realized I couldn't just drag and drop, let alone use it under Linux. (I have since returned the unit and got an iRiver instead.)
I didn't have any iPod experience before. And yes, this kind of thing seems more widespread than just Sony. Arguably, Sony's technique is worse than that on the iPod, because they deliberately encipher your files when you put them on the device, whereas Apple's scheme is essentially just renaming, leaving the data intact (judging from other posts in this thread).
What's important is that there are players with no such restrictions, and therefore customers have a real chance to vote with their wallet.
iRiver's players support Ogg. And they appear rather Linux-friendly. There's also an independent community site, called MisticRiver (just google for it), with lots of in-depth information.
The standard firmware on the iRivers does not let you use them as USB drives (iRiver says that's for legal reasons), but they give you a firmware update that lets you do it, and so you can freely move your music on and off the device.
From my limited experience with them, it looks like these guys have the right spirit.
I only linked to the boingboing blurb in the original story, precisely because of that. I wasn't aware that posting a link far down in the comment hierarchy would get you a ton of hits as well. Sorry if it does. I'm really glad you did this stuff.
The de-obfuscation code referenced in the original article (the real code is here) runs under Linux. This is for a slightly older model though, it is not clear yet whether the brand-new ones have exactly the same obfuscation scheme. They do use similar obfuscation, that's all I can say from the unit I bought yesterday (NW-E407).
So, the answer is: it will probably work under Linux, using this or another hack. But if I were you, I'd seriously consider returning it to the shop.
iRiver is very Linux-friendly, by contrast. They have a special firmware that lets you use it just like a regular USB hard drive. (Their standard firmware won't let you do that, I believe they are not allowed to by law, or rather some obscure business agreement with the RIAA behind the scenes.)
And that's where Sony differs. If you have a look at the de-obfuscation article, they really encrypt the MP3s with a simple substitution cipher, just so that you cannot read or use them anymore.
Maybe Apple's intentions on the iPod were the same, maybe not. The scheme that Sony uses is worse, technically, for us, that's for sure. It's us, the users, who need to decide what we want to accept and what we don't accept, and then buy accordingly. If this got Apple to providing a new firmware, fine. I doubt whether we could change Sony's ways in the same way, though. So let your wallet decide.
I promptly returned the device to the dealer. And I got so angry about it that I submitted a Slashdot story. It got accepted. And rightly so!
The trouble is that they use this scheme to keep you from getting the material back from the player. And there are all sorts of situations where I want that, as other posters have pointed out. Sharing that MP3 with a few friends who I happen to be hanging around with, physically, is not the least of it.
It's just not right to get in the way of such a basic interaction between people.
If I understand this correctly, the firmware that made it look like any other USB drive was there first, and then they were required by copyright law to make it "impossible" to get MP3s back from the player. (Copyright law and a lot of secret bullying by the RIAA behind the scenes I guess.) This is what they say on their web site, as to why it's impossible to get those MP3s back from the device.
To me, it looks like iRiver is trying to circumvent this by offering the unrestricted firmware as a separate download. Which seems to pass under the radar of the RIAA... yet.
I used the Boingboing link in the story because I figured that Boingboing could handle the slashdot effect better than any of the smaller sites where the actual information is. The real real thing is here, btw: that's the actual de-obfuscation code.
I was deliberately not referring to the license of the project in my post. This was my personal choice. I had been a core developer of that project for quite some time already, and the enhancements that the company wanted would have been useful for the general public. As a matter of fact, it would only have been a matter of time until somebody else would have made those enhancements and contributed them (hopefully) to the project. So, my personal choice was: I'm only going to work on this if I'm allowed to contribute the results back into the main project.
It turns out that they would also have been obliged to this by the license, because the software was in fact meant for public release.
I have other customers where I make internal enhancements to GPL software, and I'm perfectly fine with not releasing/contributing them. Usually these are small enhancements that would not be useful for the general public anyway. But if I'd add significant features to such software, I would try and approach my customers to see if we could contribute the results back to the community. Among other things, that would give them the benefit of public scrutiny being applied to those new features.
We were talking about personal values and preferences in this thread, after all. I was just trying to explain mine.
I said no. This is a free software project, and the enhancements I make must go back to the community.
This thing went on for weeks. They gave me slightly different contract terms, several times over, but they all meant, in effect, that the software I wrote would ultimately be theirs, and not the community's. I said no. I said, look: you benefit from thousands of man hours that have been put into this project before, for which you didn't have to pay. For some of this, other companies have paid. Now you want enhancements, I can do them for you, but only if you play by the same rules. You won't be able to buy the right to own that software from me, not for any money in the world. (As I said, luckily, I had other customers waiting in line.)
Finally I got a contract from them with the exact terms I had asked for. And they got, dare I say it, excellent service, far beyond what they had paid me for.
This is surely a different scenario than what you describe, but the bottom line is probably: It is certainly possible to stand firm by your principles. Sometimes it is the beginning of a lasting business relationship (as it was in this particular case).
Haha, point taken. There is no security hole large enough that couldn't be justified by a committed team of developers.
I guess, though, I should have said: Would this problem have gone unnoticed for so long if this had been open source?
Errrm, forgive me, but it's a bit hard to grasp the logic in that. Are you saying that the idiots might say: "look, there's a security problem on Linux, so open source isn't secure." And you remind them that this problem is due to some piece of proprietary software that is not open source?
Fair enough (although that kind of logic really sounds weird to me). But be careful to claim "commercial software" is an opposite to "open source". There's lots and lots of "commercial software" that is open source by every accepted definition (e.g. MySQL). The real opposite of "open source" is "closed source", or "proprietary software" (such as Arkeia Network Backup).
Large enterprises migrating to Linux now should be careful not to throw away the biggest advantage of their new platform by committing to all sorts of closed source software that happens to run on it.
For the time being, I guess I'll stick to my proven, open source (free software even) backup solution involving tar, gpg, and ssh.
Are you sure that photovoltaics really is the best means to harvest solar energy? As I have said in other posts, keep in mind that practically all other energy we have here on earth is ultimately solar energy. Water power comes to mind: on the two thirds of sea surface (not covered by photovoltaics in your "scenario" above), the sun constantly lifts water to higher elevations. As it pours down again, turbines can harvest some of that energy. Keep in mind that wind, if you see it this way, is also solar energy -- differentially heated masses of air, which we can harvest energy from through wind mills -- using the atmosphere as a big turbine, as it were.
I think it's pointless. We do have a working fusion reactor right at our doorstep. It's got a perfect security distance (150 Mio. km). We've got a perfect radiation shield (the Van-Allen-Belt). And it produces billions and billions of times more energy than we could ever use. Even just the energy from it that hits the tiny spot called earth is several million times more than our total energy consumption, second by second. We really just need to find efficient means to harvest that energy, right down here on earth, rather than try and build our own tiny fusion reactor.
It's interesting to note that almost all of these energy sources are ultimately solar energy. Fossil fuels are conserved solar energy. Wind is solar energy (the atmosphere is heated differentially by the sun). Hydropower is solar energy (the water is elevated by the sun, then moves down through our turbines). Incidentally, Buckminster Fuller, in his book Critical Path, claims that the total amount of energy from the sun that hits the earth every second is several million times larger than humanity's total energy consumption, world-wide.
So, the sun is ultimately the only reasonable energy source for us. Nuclear power (the only energy source among those you list which is not ulitmately solar energy) seems rather futile by comparison.