For a group that generally likes open standards, I'm a little surprised by the response. Microsoft has written a little OS and outlined a standardized platform to be made by multiple hardware manufacturers. And it is being manufactured by several other respectable companies. This is a GOOD THING!
Palm is a proprietary, closed OS AND SYSTEM, that forces us to buy hardware from a single vendor. What we should want is hardware which permits Linux or PicoBSD or something similar. Something with a standard platform that multiple vendors can build to. Once we have a standard platform, provided it is open, and not overly tailored to WinCE, we put free OS's on them, and take over. Maybe even convince the hardware vendors to help. MS abusing their platform vendors only helps!
We can't let the well evolved, and well founded mistrust of MS get in the way of open standards, and the development of new markets for Open Source operating systems, however small they might be.
If the broadband pipe was funded through taxes, then libertarians will agree with you. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "broadband pipes" though. If you mean access to a companies privately constructed backbone, I'll have to disagree.
You shouldn't disagree. I have a generally libertarian bent, but when it comes to "privately constructed" backbone and its regulation there is enough rampant statism already at work that I think libertarian concerns militate in the other direction.
Take the cable systems for example, or Ma Bell in another age. Each of these systems uses the public rights of way at spectacularly subsidized rates. Market value never comes into the franchise costs these folks pay. They built their monopolistic networks on the backs of the public by abusing government fiat.
So when it comes time for the public to require open access, (at market rates mind you... not free!) it is just a bit hard to take to hear these companies claim the protection of a free market. AT&T wouldn't know a free market if it hit them in the face!
If it weren't for the governments power of eminent domain under the constitution (brits - compulsory purchase)there would be no network. Sure we should privatize these functions, but by their nature and by their history, they must be regulated. In fact, in this case, without regulation dictating the use of the PUBLIC right of way and its contents, we actually have less freedom.
Re:Don't blame open source for browser stagnancy
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You are absolutely right. No one will buy the "superior" product unless the margin of superiority is in an appropriate relationship to the marginal increase in cost.
In other words, whatever widget they decide to add to a commercial product to make it, in some respect, superior, it will have some value to any given consumer. The consumer will consider the value of that widget to him. If he values that widget in an amount greater than the asking price, then he might buy it. Basic Economics.
Those same basic economics will drive innovation, not slow it. OSS simply raises the bar for the performance of commercial software. As someone already said, the only products that will be driven out of the market are those that aren't as good as something available for free.
Given the lowered transaction costs available through the Internet and improved communications, even marginal improvements should find a market.
It isn't that a degree is useless or unneeded. It's just economics. Of course a degree will give you better exposure to the theoretical side, and of course you get a degree at the expense of some years of experience. The real issue presently is that degrees are a cost of entry, a ticket to ride. And under current market conditions, supply is so thin, you don't necessarily need that ticket. Many programmers are getting good jobs without the degree, so why pay the high cost of entry? Why mortgage your future with student loans? Personally, I have an advanced degree, but that's me. Frankly tech degrees are some of the few substantive degrees left that haven't been hollowed out and carved down to the lowest common denominator. But even in good degrees, in college one of the central things you learn is how to teach yourself. If you've figured that out, (and I suspect everyone here has)then it is simply a matter of what knowledge you have. The degree is some evidence of your knowledge level, nothing more. Anyway, these statistics should surprise noone. If they hire basketball players out of college a few years early, why not programmers? And if you teach yourself better than the monkey with the professor job, don't mortgage your future to buy him a Beamer if you don't have to. However, if the market ever turns around, that "sheepskin" is sure a nice thing to have.
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For a group that generally likes open standards, I'm a little surprised by the response. Microsoft has written a little OS and outlined a standardized platform to be made by multiple hardware manufacturers. And it is being manufactured by several other respectable companies. This is a GOOD THING!
Palm is a proprietary, closed OS AND SYSTEM, that forces us to buy hardware from a single vendor. What we should want is hardware which permits Linux or PicoBSD or something similar. Something with a standard platform that multiple vendors can build to. Once we have a standard platform, provided it is open, and not overly tailored to WinCE, we put free OS's on them, and take over. Maybe even convince the hardware vendors to help. MS abusing their platform vendors only helps!
We can't let the well evolved, and well founded mistrust of MS get in the way of open standards, and the development of new markets for Open Source operating systems, however small they might be.
If the broadband pipe was funded through taxes, then libertarians will agree with you. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "broadband pipes" though. If you mean access to a companies privately constructed backbone, I'll have to disagree.
You shouldn't disagree. I have a generally libertarian bent, but when it comes to "privately constructed" backbone and its regulation there is enough rampant statism already at work that I think libertarian concerns militate in the other direction.
Take the cable systems for example, or Ma Bell in another age. Each of these systems uses the public rights of way at spectacularly subsidized rates. Market value never comes into the franchise costs these folks pay. They built their monopolistic networks on the backs of the public by abusing government fiat.
So when it comes time for the public to require open access, (at market rates mind you... not free!) it is just a bit hard to take to hear these companies claim the protection of a free market. AT&T wouldn't know a free market if it hit them in the face!
If it weren't for the governments power of eminent domain under the constitution (brits - compulsory purchase)there would be no network. Sure we should privatize these functions, but by their nature and by their history, they must be regulated. In fact, in this case, without regulation dictating the use of the PUBLIC right of way and its contents, we actually have less freedom.
You are absolutely right. No one will buy the "superior" product unless the margin of superiority is in an appropriate relationship to the marginal increase in cost.
In other words, whatever widget they decide to add to a commercial product to make it, in some respect, superior, it will have some value to any given consumer. The consumer will consider the value of that widget to him. If he values that widget in an amount greater than the asking price, then he might buy it. Basic Economics.
Those same basic economics will drive innovation, not slow it. OSS simply raises the bar for the performance of commercial software. As someone already said, the only products that will be driven out of the market are those that aren't as good as something available for free.
Given the lowered transaction costs available through the Internet and improved communications, even marginal improvements should find a market.
It isn't that a degree is useless or unneeded. It's just economics. Of course a degree will give you better exposure to the theoretical side, and of course you get a degree at the expense of some years of experience.
The real issue presently is that degrees are a cost of entry, a ticket to ride. And under current market conditions, supply is so thin, you don't necessarily need that ticket. Many programmers are getting good jobs without the degree, so why pay the high cost of entry? Why mortgage your future with student loans?
Personally, I have an advanced degree, but that's me. Frankly tech degrees are some of the few substantive degrees left that haven't been hollowed out and carved down to the lowest common denominator. But even in good degrees, in college one of the central things you learn is how to teach yourself. If you've figured that out, (and I suspect everyone here has)then it is simply a matter of what knowledge you have. The degree is some evidence of your knowledge level, nothing more.
Anyway, these statistics should surprise noone. If they hire basketball players out of college a few years early, why not programmers? And if you teach yourself better than the monkey with the professor job, don't mortgage your future to buy him a Beamer if you don't have to.
However, if the market ever turns around, that "sheepskin" is sure a nice thing to have.