With the increase of the pace of technological change, why is the transition from TV to HDTV taking as long as the transition from radio to TV?
Why do mobile phone networks world-wide tend to far excel those found in the United States? Invested infrastructure.
Sure, if one was buying new equipment today, the more advanced tech would be an easy choice. However, companies involved in providing these services have already invested heavily in equipment that supports the older systems. And these systems are still perfectly functional.
Chucking out the old equipment and financing the new infrastructure is a hefty choice with a hefty price tag. Little wonder those who would foot the initial bill are asking whether the cost is worth it.
The major players within the music industry largely control that industry. They have spent decades honing the art of the industry. You can be sure control is a part of the business plan.
As long as that control is maintained, new business plans can be attempted with little risk. Loose control and everything is at risk. The old business plans go out the window. And the new ones could cost the entire business unit and everyone's job.
Sure the Big Five (and any record company, for that matter) want the cash. But it is their current deathgrip on control of the system that is the biggest assurance that cash is going to come in. It doesn't matter how much cash a new business model might promise. A business model is a risk and if that business model involves giving up control, it is too much a risk no matter what the potential payoff.
Unless, of course, an external force causes the industry to loose their current level of control despite their wishes.
Working within the IT industry is can be frustrating. If your job is to integrate and maintain technology, you will be dependent on vendors to produce that technology. Due to economy of scale, resources, the demands of R&D, and simply "how business is done", these vendors tend to be corporations. And eventually some of them are going to screw you over.
At this point it might be worth touching on the subject of morality. When something is labeled as "evil" it is a moral judgment. Something is opposed to one's sense of morality. One moral code often expressed within tech circles is functionality. Interoperability and functionality is a goal - anything that intentionally interferes with that goal is "evil". Business morality is often centered around profit. Anything that makes profit can be approved. Tech and business moral codes clash when technology is used to create a (often profitable) dependence on a product by limiting functionality and interoperability through technical or legal means.
Vendors will screw over the average tech worker when the company's moral code moves from a technical one to an aggressive business one. Take a look at Silicon Valley's history. It is chock full of techies starting a business, the business growing, and then the techie is pushed out as the business-types move in. The only question is how aggressive the business types get. It is a part of how corporations work and how "business is done." A company that is "cool" now can change based on who runs it and who decides on company policy and direction.
The double-cross might not even come from the trusted company in question. A company's assets (products, patents, and other intellectual property) often survive the company. The patent that is held "just in case" by the "cool" company of today can be sold off at pennies-on-the-dollar in tomorrow's liquidation and become a tool for its new owner's questionable, aggressive business tactics.
Why the distrust of Redhat? Because we almost expect a double-cross. Its history, nothing personal.
It may not be fair. But then, its not the game that we created. But the rules are well known. And Redhat should be very familiar with them by now. Knee-jerk journalism aside, Redhat should be prepared to explain their situation, their tactics, and provide a system of assurance to their customers and community they work with.
Let's take Linux as an example. Shifting to Linux workstations would limit the amount of "warez" and shareware available. The vast majority of Linux software have fairly liberal licenses. On the off chance that an install of illegal software is found, that software should have been installed against policy - rogue software.
But the real problem is not rogue software installations. The major cost is mismanagement of licenses for institutional software; Software that is used throughout (or within various units of) the organization. Keeping track of licenses, and purchasing additional licenses as needed, can be difficult. Tracking down licenses for legacy software, donated equipment, one-off purchases, etc only continues to complicate the job. Unless the software uses a free (or Free) license.
A BSA audit itself is not the costly bit. It is preparation (or paying the extortion fee/licensing) that will cost the schools. If a school district has moved to Open Source software and have the appropriate policies in place, and keep close tabs on the few instances of proprietary software within their organization, they should feel relatively safe.
And it will cost them considerably less. BSA chest-thumping or not.
There is one concept I agree with: its nice to have open source software available for proprietary operating systems. It gives users choices and that, ultimately, is one of the strong points to Open Source and Free software.
This freedom allows end users to choose what solutions work for them. And these choices will vary depending on the situation.
Most Windows users should have the option of running OSS alternatives to as many Microsoft products as possible... but for Windows, not just Linux/BSD.
That is the best way to help out public schools. Pay for all of their licenses for Windows so they're legal there and then help them get into OpenOffice if they feel that can replace Office without compromising any classes. Some schools may want to use Powerpoint to help students do presentations. OSS alternatives like OO have to be able to seemlessly replace Office in order for them to make the change.
First off, OS software has to meet the requirements of the environment. Period. The challenge to that is defining a true set of requirements and testing the software against it (as opposed to, say, grabbing the hammer that is Microsoft Office and swinging it at everything you can call a 'nail'). Along those lines - Open Office does have presentation software and may provide a suitable substitute for Powerpoint.
Schools are now being forced to face a greater challenge than whether to use Microsoft Office. Licensing is being used to extort schools out of their limited funds. The cost is more than simple licensing costs (and wasteful licensing deals). The larger cost is the time and manpower (and even software costs) in auditing and tracking licenses. A mixed environment does not relieve the public school system from this expense.
If schools continue to deploy / support Windows accross their enterprise, they will constantly face the expense and threat of auditing. Their only choices are to either continue placing their organizations and budget under these threats, or make a clean break and move to an Open Source infrastructure, limiting Windows and other proprietary software to very limited, high-need deployments (making auditing a much simpler and less costly proccess).
I thought the DMCA only stipulates laws for devices designed specifically copyright violation?
Have you been paying attention? The DMCA is constantly invoked in legal threats against technologies that have legitimate uses. Poke around Slashdot's stories.
Otherwise they could have outlawed CD burners, photocopiers and who knows what else by now.
CD burners and photocopiers do not circumvent copy protection schemes. And that leads in to an interesting point.
DeCCS was an interesting example of a technology attacked with DMCA claims despite its claims towards the DMCA's own interoperability clause. Yet, to pirate a DVD, one simply needs to make a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD, leaving the CCS "copy protection" scheme in place.
Keith, your belief in your former company is commendable in its own way - we should all believe in what we do. But in re-stating your points here, it seems like you're missing the point yourself. Let's go over your points and hazard a guess why they're not gleefully received:
Any reading of my WebLog at teare.com [teare.com] must lead you to the conclusion that the inability of DNS to support multi-lingual characters requires fixing, and that right now ONLY RealNames fixes this natively in the browser that is on 90% + desktops.
I am not familiar with this issue, but according to some of the posts under this article (and some excellent provided links) the issue is in work, and in fact some of the solutions are being implemented. Your solution may have provided a nice stop-gap now... but ultimately it was a monopoly in competition with the existing system. The entire Registrar game has been quickly moving away from single monopolies - with good reason. I'm affraid you're stuck in the past.
If you type "IBM Thinkpad" into the browser you will get an MSN Search result. Even if you do not like RealNames (its a free world) you have to acknowledge that ending up on the ThinkPad page at ibm.com is the right outcome.
That's a pretty easy call. But what if I type in the word "peppermint"? Should it go to peppermint.com (Peppermint Productions)? How about www.peppermints.com (Penguin Mints)? Or maybe www.altoids.com (Altoids)? Suddenly its not so obvious. Unless, of course, your company refused to sell a generic keyword. But c'mon... we both know it went to the first/highest bidder. And frankly, that makes your point pretty moot.
How you can support Microsoft tying the browser to exclusively Microsoft controlled middleware - and by so doing disable every language except English (7 bit ASCII actually) is baffling to me.
Look around. There's been grumbling about this practice (even replacing 404's with a MS search result). But it seems that replacing one monopoly with another is little to get excited about. The entire practice stinks. RealNames was just an interchangable part of the problem.
You're a business guy. Your baby was slaughtered. A lamb that was shocked when the pack it ran with decided to stop for lunch. But if you think you can gain support in this forum by simply pointing your finger at Microsoft, you've gravely misunderstood Slashdot's collective culture. And you've missed the real root of the complaints against Microsoft.
The problem with GPG is that it lacks an easy-to-use interface and Windows plugins.
Open Source works by scratching itches. NAI has done a lot to generate an itch for GUI plugins/frontends for GnuPG on Windows. Poke around and you can easily find some good starts.
This pageprovides a fairly nice listing of some of them. Check them out, kick the tires, see if they work for you. YMMV.
One thing to note - WinPT is shaping up nicely as a general GnuPG interface (although it doesn't provide a selection of MUA-specific plugins, they do also offer GPGOE, a plugin for Outlook Express). WinPT is Open Source under the GPL license. And unlike other frontends, WinPT is more tightly integrated by using GPGME, GnuPG's new API.
To me, that why the story of RealNames on/. is worthy of mention; because of/., not RealNames.
I'd offer a couple other reasons this story was worthy of attention.
First, RealNames has shown up on Slashdot before. And as chrisd points out in this article, RealNames is a posterchild for dubias business strategies that involve shoving the Internet in to one's own private monopoly. It wouldn't be suprising that the ultimate failure of this company wouldn't show up as a followup on Slashdot.
Secondly, the recent shenanigans has opened up dialog on a great subject: Microsoft isn't always in the wrong. If the CEO of RealNames had posted on Slashdot, he would have been labled a troll. Posters didn't fall for the bait. They noted RealNames was a Bad Idea and Microsoft, for once, wasn't doing anything worthy of ire. I saw the article subject not as "look what evil Microsoft has done now", but rather "look at who this guy is claiming as a scapegoat".
Lets not get carried away. Microsoft does plenty to attract criticism. But to be fair - Microsoft should be criticized only when their actions ARE appropriate. Microsoft doesn't deserve to be roasted when some scam artist wants to jump on the Microsoft-illegal-behavior-awareness bandwagon.
Grandma doesn't want to have to learn to use cdda2wav, lame, and cdrecord on the command line to "rip, mix, and burn".
Actually... if Grandma wants to RIP CDs, she uses something like GRIP. This actually continues with the "unix way". GRIP is a GUI frontend that focuses on the interface. It takes advantage of strong components in the background that handle each step well. And Grandma has no idea. She just goes clicky-clicky and everything works. Well.
Since GnuPG does not use the patented IDEA algorithm, it is in no danger from NAI.
Just to clarify...
I don't believe the issue is use of the IDEA algorithm - that patent is held by MediaCrypt. However, PGP is owned by NAI. GnuPG is safe from NAI because it does not contain any PGP code. GnuPG is (mostly) compatible with PGP because it implements the OpenPGP standard which was based on PGP.
Looks like it's time to switch to GNU Privacy Guard [gnupg.org] if you haven't already. Does anyone know if it will be immune to this attack?
You might want to poke around the link you provided. GnuPG is an implementation of RFC2440 (OpenPGP). Since OpenPGP is based on PGP, there is a certain degree of compatability between PGP and GnuPG, however, GnuPG is not based on PGP code. In short, NAI has no ownership over GnuPG in any form. Any attempts to block GnuPG with DMCA claims would be completely outlandish.
It might be worth noting that GnuPG is also being developed with funding from the German government. Even if NAI were to try and block GnuPG with such a DMCA claim, I suspect it would be entirely futile and wouldn't even cause a hiccup in GnuPG distribution and development.
Anybody who has played Counterstrike in the last year knows how bad it can get in a laissez faire environment. Cheating started with Half-life within weeks of it being on the market - it's only gotten worse since. There's a lot to be said for having all the simulation run on the server and the server run by the company the makes the game.
Yes. And that something to be said goes along the lines of "...it is no silver bullet. It doesn't matter who runs the server. It is the base code."
Poke around a bit. The release of Quake I source code, the the blatent cheating of hacked QuakeI/Quakeworld clients, spawned some discussion which even included posts by Carmack on Slashdot and elsewhere. Cheat-resistant networked games involve a series of non-trivial design considerations.
And before we learn the wrong lesson from the QuakeI lesson, opening source code only contributed to the cheating problem. Cheating existed well before then. And cheating certainly exists with other closed-source games.
Of course... this also means cheating exists on games who's servers are owned and maintained by the publisher of those games. A quick Google search begins to demonstrate the problem. Let's take a few favorite controlled-server examples:
Here's the thing though: up to now there have been two successful online game markets. Successful defined as popular.
1. The paid MMP market such as Everquest. One game, well made, well maintained, for a price.
2. The loss leader. Quake, Half-life, etc make their money by selling box copies. The online play is a offered as a free value-add, but with no guarantee of quality. The game maker invests some amount of money and resources into supporting online play, but on the assumption that it supports sku sales.
First off, Quake and Half-life are not a "loss leader". The profit is shown on the sale of the game. No additional investment is made in online servers (unless the company also runs meta-servers). The community supports on-line play by buying, begging, borrowing, or stealing space and bandwidth for their game server. The network game code is a part of the product - indeed, often THE selling point.
iD figured this out with Quake and abandoned the pretense of a offline single-player mode. Half-life included a truely excellent offline experience... but it is the mods and online play that's continued to sell Half-life boxes well beyond the usual lifespan of a twitch game.
But the biggest problem here is comparing Everquest to Quake. Apples and oranges.
Running a Quake server involves finding somewhere to host it, setting up the app, and go. Little additional maintenance, lots of frag time. Frankly, one Quake server is as good as another (assuming PL and community are the same).
Running an Everquest server would require not only the expense of finding a host, but the additional effort towards maintaining user data and creating new content. The only counter-example is the work done within the MUD communities. Neverwinter Nights might offer the first game that can test how the more "modern" network gaming culture responds to the challenge of creating new content for free.
In any case... having Microsoft owning and running a game's server infrustructure will not provide a silver bullet to game quality. Quality of the gaming experience will depend on game design - like it always has.
Disney, Security, and Infosec
on
XBox Live Network
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Robert J. Bach, a Microsoft senior vice president in charge of its games division: "When you're at Disneyland, there's no trash, no violence and you never see security. That's what we have in mind."
Its an interesting quote. And it points to a few issues:
Disney proves to be experts at crowd control. Their physical security is a quieter aspect of that. If the rumors can be believed, Disney obviously have trained experts in physical security working to protect the parks. Again - experts trained, knowledgable, and experienced with the challenges physical security present. Within the IT field, infosec knowledge and training is still relatively rare.
Security directly affects Disney's profit. Part of Disney's product is a safe, fun-oriented experience. Violating physical security threatens that experience, threatens the entire image (thus threatening the emotional responce to Disney products), threatens park attendance, and potentially exposes Disney to liability. Infosec issues rarely have the same effect in the IT industry (Microsoft being a fairly prime example).
Physical security and information security often have extreemly different environments, concerns, cultures, and methods. The two rarely overlap or otherwise have anything to do with each other. Making comparisons between the two is an exercise for the uninitiated.
Finally - there is a long-standing tennant within infosec that states there is an inverse relationship between functionality and security. The easier it is to use something, the less likely it is to be secure (and visa-versa). Infosec tech vendors are constantly searching for, and claiming to offer, the holy grail of ease-of-use security. But they are often chock full of caveats or simply fail to live up to scrutiny. Beware of any vendor who claims ease-of-use to a level that security is invisible.
Its rather amusing. Over the years, as Slashdot has shown up in more mainstream press and gained more and more readers, there has been a steady increase in pro-Microsoft activity.
Sometimes that activity includes rather thoughtfull posts defending a MS position or challenging MS criticism. Which is good. Keeps everyone honest.
But more often it is the usual claims of "MS-bashing" and "Linux zealots". It is the same, tired whining found in other perhapse more mainstream forums. It is not the voice of reason. The claims have no merrit. They are shrill name-calling. Trolling. The refuge of those who's status quo is challenged and have no recourse other than emotional outburst.
Does Michael push a political view? Yes. Slashdot always has. And much of its popularity is based on that; I for one share that view and enjoy the site. You may not agree with those views. And I'd enjoy thoughtfull, genuine discussion on those views when they are topical.
But before you bemoan your karma and take on the veil of the martyr... you might be experiencing negative feedback because you disagree. But then - it could also be because you sound like an uninformed idiot.
I don't know too many people that play traditional RPGs since everquest and UO came out. Do any folks still get around and play D&D? If not why dont' you? Is it because of time getting people together and whatnot. If so this could be the answer for you.
Dice & paper RPGs are a social activity. When I find a good group I enjoy playing with, I'll game more often. However, since I've been moving around a fair amount, I usually end up somewhere without a good group and stop playing.
So perhapse the challenge is finding a good group as much as the time to play?
One of the reasons I am interested in NWN is the possibility of getting togeather some of the old gaming group (who mostly have net access, even if they are widely seperated by geography). This could provide an interesting way to play some of the old campaigns.
Of course, I am also working with OpenRPG. OpenRPG is kind of like a digital kitchen table. It provides a gathering place to talk, space for your character sheets and other gaming materials, and a map to place "miniatures". The game itself is up to the players. With this environment, I've played D&D, Star Wars, and even Chess.
I would say the "dice & paper" rpg is far from dead. And perhapse the internet can even help those who don't have a local group. All it takes is the right tools.
Every time a new game comes out, someone actually reads the EULA and the spectres of corporate exploitation rears its head. Its just not happening. id, Blizzard, Valve, none of these companies have ripped off their fans. Why? Because its suicide. And we aren't doing it either.
Others have already brought up the "if you don't plan to use it, why do you have it" point. I would like to expand that a little further.
Let's be civil here and assume everyone at Blizzard are "cool" and not likely to abuse this clause. That's fine for now. But this is a business. Leadership in that business can change. Who's to say Blizzard's leadership will always have the same view towards use of this clause? Businesses sometimes go under and their assets get sold off. Who's to say the new owners of the NWN asset won't decide to make use of its pennies-on-the-dollar investment and exercise this clause?
Business law does not work on promises and intent. It works by the written word. And NWN's EULA has some words that lend themselves to some serious potential abuse of Blizzard's customer base. All this talk of intent and other EULAs does nothing to change the wording of this EULA.
Want to really take care of the confusion? Round up your corporate legal cousel and fix the EULA.
I hope Blizard does change the EULA. I would hate to have this issue darken all the hard work Blizzard has put towards what promises to be an increadible gaming environment.
Don't you get it? Dooku is using misdirection...he knows the Jedi won't believe him, so he's telling them the truth so that they'll "know" he's lying and Sidious will be safer.
Sure. And I'm sure he would have gotten a certain sense of satisfaction at telling the Jedi the unvarnished truth, knowing they would disreguard it.
But that's not my point.
It is not that I don't understand that part of the plot. Its that it could have made an interesting twist, but it reverted back to a tired cliche (even by Star Wars standards).
I think one of the best things that Lucas has done with this one is the fact that there are actual twists and turns!
I mean, is the good-guy a bad-guy? Are the good guys fighting against the wrong person? The Good Guys fighting along side StormTroopers!?!
Lucas ALMOST has a plot twist here. He sets up the stunt. He calls in the press. He drives up the ramp, drives back to the starting point, then decides to cross the canyon by taking the hiking trail. In the end, there is no stunt and there is no real plot twist.
Of course... what I am talking about is Dooku (sp). Dooku warns (taunts?) that the Republic is now under the control of the Sith. Woa. Could it be a plot-twist? Did Dooku discover (perhapse in being part of the plot to create the Republic's new army) the influence of the Sith? Did he become a rogue Jedi, taking perhapse the wrong path in a noble attempt to resist the Sith? Will the Jedi be fooled in to destroying the last resistance facing the Sith? Is this really a plot twist?
No, no. Don't worry. Dooku is really in league with Sidious. Its all a part of that machivelian Sith plan-within-a-plan-within-a-tired-plotline. Its a false twist. Its there just to fool you in to thinking there might be some active thought towards plot. But there's not. Evil.
So even if I am redundant, I at least got to one person that hadn't seen the other posts.
Fair enough. Though this does come up on a somewhat regular basis... usually with some implied accusation of hypocracy or conspiracy. It gets old. Odly enough, I didn't see Doubleclick mentioned in the FAQ (you'd think it would be).
I've blocked doubleclick in dns by putting in fake entries, but I'm not sure if there is a better way to do it. This results in an error everytime Opera hits a doubleclick page.
I used to create localhost entries in my hosts file (both Linux and Windows workstations). Then I began hitting sites that would simply break because of this. Now I'm back to using filter proxies like Junkbuster (although its probably time to look for something better).
It is not my job as a business person to forcibly inform the consumer. For example: I own a hot dog stand around the corner from another hot dog stand. My stand is on a very popular route, with most people passing mine first. If I choose to sell my hot dogs to passerbys for $5.00, while the cart around the corner (and out of sight) sells the same thing for $0.50, do I have an obligation to tell them that they can save $4.50 by walking 15 feet? No. Of course not.
How does that example have anything to do with this situation?
I don't think anybody is demanding Yahoo advertise "Use honestmail.com instead! They HONOR your marketing preferences!"
In the hotdog stand scenario, the "informed consumer" wouldn't involve the vendor posting signs like "100% Beef! - well, its actually sawdust and unknown meat byproducts" or "Our employees never wash their hands and routinly cook our hotdogs after they fell on the floor!"
Yes, consumers should make informed decisions. However, some issues are beyond the means and expertise of the average consumer. That is when watch-dog groups and (unfortunately) government regulation comes in.
Obviously not, because an e-mail was sent and 95% didnt respond.
Where did you get that stat? Granted - it could very well be accurate. But it could mean people either accept the situation, are silently abandoning their accounts, or are left scratching their heads in confusion. Or the Yahoo PR folks put a real nice spin on the email.
So what. Once you release the information without a strong written agreement its out there.
I do partially agree with you there. The sad thing about this case is that it proves that no matter how reputable a company seems, it is unlikely they can be trusted with your personal information. And it seems that it will take privacy laws to force companies to comply with their own promises.
And that is the key point here.
We do NOT have a situation where a company said "OK! We want to trade something for info and permission to start an invasive advertising campaign!" and the customer clicking on "Sure! Take advantage of my naive greed!" The situation here is Yahoo asking "can we advertise to you", the users selecting "no, opt me out" and yahoo (after some delay) replying "OK, we'll opt you in anyway".
If this exchange involved an ad banner, it would easily play out as "deceptive advertising".
One of the interesting tidbits in this article includes:
But only 73,000 users, comScore projects, considered ending their relationship with Yahoo by visiting the page (https://edit.yahoo.com/config/delete-user) that actually cancels their Yahoo accounts, which can include e-mail and other services. That was fewer, even, than the month before, when 114,000 users went to the page. (ComScore is unable to tell if the visitors to the page actually do push the button to close out their Yahoo accounts.)
This strikes me as interesting. Since there is no fee to Yahoo's service... I would assume the vast majority of users would simply abandon their accounts. There is no penalty to do so. And it is by far the easier method.
While I wouldn't be suprised if a vast portion of the public wouldn't move based on this issue alone, I find this stat pretty suspect proof of it.
You're risking your karma only because you're being redundant. Search around a bit. Its been covered a couple of times before.
Slashdot no longer controls the ads. That is all done by OSDN's marketing department who (it is claimed) in turn have no editorial influence. Slashdot editors have mentioned that they dislike Doubleclick, but its not their choice.
As for me - I filter out all Doubleclick ads. I leave ads whenever possible. I generally don't mind them. But when a company tries to use tracking cookies or stupid java / flash tricks (which can also be used for user tracking now), they get no "views". Filtered. Goodbye.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do mobile phone networks world-wide tend to far excel those found in the United States? Invested infrastructure.
Sure, if one was buying new equipment today, the more advanced tech would be an easy choice. However, companies involved in providing these services have already invested heavily in equipment that supports the older systems. And these systems are still perfectly functional.
Chucking out the old equipment and financing the new infrastructure is a hefty choice with a hefty price tag. Little wonder those who would foot the initial bill are asking whether the cost is worth it.
The major players within the music industry largely control that industry. They have spent decades honing the art of the industry. You can be sure control is a part of the business plan.
As long as that control is maintained, new business plans can be attempted with little risk. Loose control and everything is at risk. The old business plans go out the window. And the new ones could cost the entire business unit and everyone's job.
Sure the Big Five (and any record company, for that matter) want the cash. But it is their current deathgrip on control of the system that is the biggest assurance that cash is going to come in. It doesn't matter how much cash a new business model might promise. A business model is a risk and if that business model involves giving up control, it is too much a risk no matter what the potential payoff.
Unless, of course, an external force causes the industry to loose their current level of control despite their wishes.
Working within the IT industry is can be frustrating. If your job is to integrate and maintain technology, you will be dependent on vendors to produce that technology. Due to economy of scale, resources, the demands of R&D, and simply "how business is done", these vendors tend to be corporations. And eventually some of them are going to screw you over.
At this point it might be worth touching on the subject of morality. When something is labeled as "evil" it is a moral judgment. Something is opposed to one's sense of morality. One moral code often expressed within tech circles is functionality. Interoperability and functionality is a goal - anything that intentionally interferes with that goal is "evil". Business morality is often centered around profit. Anything that makes profit can be approved. Tech and business moral codes clash when technology is used to create a (often profitable) dependence on a product by limiting functionality and interoperability through technical or legal means.
Vendors will screw over the average tech worker when the company's moral code moves from a technical one to an aggressive business one. Take a look at Silicon Valley's history. It is chock full of techies starting a business, the business growing, and then the techie is pushed out as the business-types move in. The only question is how aggressive the business types get. It is a part of how corporations work and how "business is done." A company that is "cool" now can change based on who runs it and who decides on company policy and direction.
The double-cross might not even come from the trusted company in question. A company's assets (products, patents, and other intellectual property) often survive the company. The patent that is held "just in case" by the "cool" company of today can be sold off at pennies-on-the-dollar in tomorrow's liquidation and become a tool for its new owner's questionable, aggressive business tactics.
Why the distrust of Redhat? Because we almost expect a double-cross. Its history, nothing personal.
It may not be fair. But then, its not the game that we created. But the rules are well known. And Redhat should be very familiar with them by now. Knee-jerk journalism aside, Redhat should be prepared to explain their situation, their tactics, and provide a system of assurance to their customers and community they work with.
Unless, of course, their moral code has shifted.
Let's take Linux as an example. Shifting to Linux workstations would limit the amount of "warez" and shareware available. The vast majority of Linux software have fairly liberal licenses. On the off chance that an install of illegal software is found, that software should have been installed against policy - rogue software.
But the real problem is not rogue software installations. The major cost is mismanagement of licenses for institutional software; Software that is used throughout (or within various units of) the organization. Keeping track of licenses, and purchasing additional licenses as needed, can be difficult. Tracking down licenses for legacy software, donated equipment, one-off purchases, etc only continues to complicate the job. Unless the software uses a free (or Free) license.
A BSA audit itself is not the costly bit. It is preparation (or paying the extortion fee/licensing) that will cost the schools. If a school district has moved to Open Source software and have the appropriate policies in place, and keep close tabs on the few instances of proprietary software within their organization, they should feel relatively safe.
And it will cost them considerably less. BSA chest-thumping or not.
This freedom allows end users to choose what solutions work for them. And these choices will vary depending on the situation.
First off, OS software has to meet the requirements of the environment. Period. The challenge to that is defining a true set of requirements and testing the software against it (as opposed to, say, grabbing the hammer that is Microsoft Office and swinging it at everything you can call a 'nail'). Along those lines - Open Office does have presentation software and may provide a suitable substitute for Powerpoint.
Schools are now being forced to face a greater challenge than whether to use Microsoft Office. Licensing is being used to extort schools out of their limited funds. The cost is more than simple licensing costs (and wasteful licensing deals). The larger cost is the time and manpower (and even software costs) in auditing and tracking licenses. A mixed environment does not relieve the public school system from this expense.
If schools continue to deploy / support Windows accross their enterprise, they will constantly face the expense and threat of auditing. Their only choices are to either continue placing their organizations and budget under these threats, or make a clean break and move to an Open Source infrastructure, limiting Windows and other proprietary software to very limited, high-need deployments (making auditing a much simpler and less costly proccess).
Have you been paying attention? The DMCA is constantly invoked in legal threats against technologies that have legitimate uses. Poke around Slashdot's stories.
CD burners and photocopiers do not circumvent copy protection schemes. And that leads in to an interesting point.
DeCCS was an interesting example of a technology attacked with DMCA claims despite its claims towards the DMCA's own interoperability clause. Yet, to pirate a DVD, one simply needs to make a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD, leaving the CCS "copy protection" scheme in place.
I am not familiar with this issue, but according to some of the posts under this article (and some excellent provided links) the issue is in work, and in fact some of the solutions are being implemented. Your solution may have provided a nice stop-gap now... but ultimately it was a monopoly in competition with the existing system. The entire Registrar game has been quickly moving away from single monopolies - with good reason. I'm affraid you're stuck in the past.
That's a pretty easy call. But what if I type in the word "peppermint"? Should it go to peppermint.com (Peppermint Productions)? How about www.peppermints.com (Penguin Mints)? Or maybe www.altoids.com (Altoids)? Suddenly its not so obvious. Unless, of course, your company refused to sell a generic keyword. But c'mon... we both know it went to the first/highest bidder. And frankly, that makes your point pretty moot.
Look around. There's been grumbling about this practice (even replacing 404's with a MS search result). But it seems that replacing one monopoly with another is little to get excited about. The entire practice stinks. RealNames was just an interchangable part of the problem.
You're a business guy. Your baby was slaughtered. A lamb that was shocked when the pack it ran with decided to stop for lunch. But if you think you can gain support in this forum by simply pointing your finger at Microsoft, you've gravely misunderstood Slashdot's collective culture. And you've missed the real root of the complaints against Microsoft.
Open Source works by scratching itches. NAI has done a lot to generate an itch for GUI plugins/frontends for GnuPG on Windows. Poke around and you can easily find some good starts.
This pageprovides a fairly nice listing of some of them. Check them out, kick the tires, see if they work for you. YMMV.
One thing to note - WinPT is shaping up nicely as a general GnuPG interface (although it doesn't provide a selection of MUA-specific plugins, they do also offer GPGOE, a plugin for Outlook Express). WinPT is Open Source under the GPL license. And unlike other frontends, WinPT is more tightly integrated by using GPGME, GnuPG's new API.
Ascom is MediaCrypt or something to that effect.
I'd offer a couple other reasons this story was worthy of attention.
First, RealNames has shown up on Slashdot before. And as chrisd points out in this article, RealNames is a posterchild for dubias business strategies that involve shoving the Internet in to one's own private monopoly. It wouldn't be suprising that the ultimate failure of this company wouldn't show up as a followup on Slashdot.
Secondly, the recent shenanigans has opened up dialog on a great subject: Microsoft isn't always in the wrong. If the CEO of RealNames had posted on Slashdot, he would have been labled a troll. Posters didn't fall for the bait. They noted RealNames was a Bad Idea and Microsoft, for once, wasn't doing anything worthy of ire. I saw the article subject not as "look what evil Microsoft has done now", but rather "look at who this guy is claiming as a scapegoat".
Lets not get carried away. Microsoft does plenty to attract criticism. But to be fair - Microsoft should be criticized only when their actions ARE appropriate. Microsoft doesn't deserve to be roasted when some scam artist wants to jump on the Microsoft-illegal-behavior-awareness bandwagon.
Actually... if Grandma wants to RIP CDs, she uses something like GRIP. This actually continues with the "unix way". GRIP is a GUI frontend that focuses on the interface. It takes advantage of strong components in the background that handle each step well. And Grandma has no idea. She just goes clicky-clicky and everything works. Well.
Just to clarify...
I don't believe the issue is use of the IDEA algorithm - that patent is held by MediaCrypt. However, PGP is owned by NAI. GnuPG is safe from NAI because it does not contain any PGP code. GnuPG is (mostly) compatible with PGP because it implements the OpenPGP standard which was based on PGP.
You might want to poke around the link you provided. GnuPG is an implementation of RFC2440 (OpenPGP). Since OpenPGP is based on PGP, there is a certain degree of compatability between PGP and GnuPG, however, GnuPG is not based on PGP code. In short, NAI has no ownership over GnuPG in any form. Any attempts to block GnuPG with DMCA claims would be completely outlandish.
It might be worth noting that GnuPG is also being developed with funding from the German government. Even if NAI were to try and block GnuPG with such a DMCA claim, I suspect it would be entirely futile and wouldn't even cause a hiccup in GnuPG distribution and development.
Yes. And that something to be said goes along the lines of "...it is no silver bullet. It doesn't matter who runs the server. It is the base code."
Poke around a bit. The release of Quake I source code, the the blatent cheating of hacked QuakeI/Quakeworld clients, spawned some discussion which even included posts by Carmack on Slashdot and elsewhere. Cheat-resistant networked games involve a series of non-trivial design considerations.
And before we learn the wrong lesson from the QuakeI lesson, opening source code only contributed to the cheating problem. Cheating existed well before then. And cheating certainly exists with other closed-source games.
Of course... this also means cheating exists on games who's servers are owned and maintained by the publisher of those games. A quick Google search begins to demonstrate the problem. Let's take a few favorite controlled-server examples:
DiabloII
Everquest
Ultima Online
One final point...
First off, Quake and Half-life are not a "loss leader". The profit is shown on the sale of the game. No additional investment is made in online servers (unless the company also runs meta-servers). The community supports on-line play by buying, begging, borrowing, or stealing space and bandwidth for their game server. The network game code is a part of the product - indeed, often THE selling point.
iD figured this out with Quake and abandoned the pretense of a offline single-player mode. Half-life included a truely excellent offline experience... but it is the mods and online play that's continued to sell Half-life boxes well beyond the usual lifespan of a twitch game.
But the biggest problem here is comparing Everquest to Quake. Apples and oranges.
Running a Quake server involves finding somewhere to host it, setting up the app, and go. Little additional maintenance, lots of frag time. Frankly, one Quake server is as good as another (assuming PL and community are the same).
Running an Everquest server would require not only the expense of finding a host, but the additional effort towards maintaining user data and creating new content. The only counter-example is the work done within the MUD communities. Neverwinter Nights might offer the first game that can test how the more "modern" network gaming culture responds to the challenge of creating new content for free.
In any case... having Microsoft owning and running a game's server infrustructure will not provide a silver bullet to game quality. Quality of the gaming experience will depend on game design - like it always has.
Its an interesting quote. And it points to a few issues:
Its rather amusing. Over the years, as Slashdot has shown up in more mainstream press and gained more and more readers, there has been a steady increase in pro-Microsoft activity.
Sometimes that activity includes rather thoughtfull posts defending a MS position or challenging MS criticism. Which is good. Keeps everyone honest.
But more often it is the usual claims of "MS-bashing" and "Linux zealots". It is the same, tired whining found in other perhapse more mainstream forums. It is not the voice of reason. The claims have no merrit. They are shrill name-calling. Trolling. The refuge of those who's status quo is challenged and have no recourse other than emotional outburst.
Does Michael push a political view? Yes. Slashdot always has. And much of its popularity is based on that; I for one share that view and enjoy the site. You may not agree with those views. And I'd enjoy thoughtfull, genuine discussion on those views when they are topical.
But before you bemoan your karma and take on the veil of the martyr... you might be experiencing negative feedback because you disagree. But then - it could also be because you sound like an uninformed idiot.
Ack. Yea. I was tired and had Blizzard on the brain at the time. s/Blizzard/Bioware :)
Dice & paper RPGs are a social activity. When I find a good group I enjoy playing with, I'll game more often. However, since I've been moving around a fair amount, I usually end up somewhere without a good group and stop playing.
So perhapse the challenge is finding a good group as much as the time to play?
One of the reasons I am interested in NWN is the possibility of getting togeather some of the old gaming group (who mostly have net access, even if they are widely seperated by geography). This could provide an interesting way to play some of the old campaigns.
Of course, I am also working with OpenRPG. OpenRPG is kind of like a digital kitchen table. It provides a gathering place to talk, space for your character sheets and other gaming materials, and a map to place "miniatures". The game itself is up to the players. With this environment, I've played D&D, Star Wars, and even Chess.
I would say the "dice & paper" rpg is far from dead. And perhapse the internet can even help those who don't have a local group. All it takes is the right tools.
Others have already brought up the "if you don't plan to use it, why do you have it" point. I would like to expand that a little further.
Let's be civil here and assume everyone at Blizzard are "cool" and not likely to abuse this clause. That's fine for now. But this is a business. Leadership in that business can change. Who's to say Blizzard's leadership will always have the same view towards use of this clause? Businesses sometimes go under and their assets get sold off. Who's to say the new owners of the NWN asset won't decide to make use of its pennies-on-the-dollar investment and exercise this clause?
Business law does not work on promises and intent. It works by the written word. And NWN's EULA has some words that lend themselves to some serious potential abuse of Blizzard's customer base. All this talk of intent and other EULAs does nothing to change the wording of this EULA.
Want to really take care of the confusion? Round up your corporate legal cousel and fix the EULA.
I hope Blizard does change the EULA. I would hate to have this issue darken all the hard work Blizzard has put towards what promises to be an increadible gaming environment.
Sure. And I'm sure he would have gotten a certain sense of satisfaction at telling the Jedi the unvarnished truth, knowing they would disreguard it.
But that's not my point.
It is not that I don't understand that part of the plot. Its that it could have made an interesting twist, but it reverted back to a tired cliche (even by Star Wars standards).
SPOILER ALERT
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Lucas ALMOST has a plot twist here. He sets up the stunt. He calls in the press. He drives up the ramp, drives back to the starting point, then decides to cross the canyon by taking the hiking trail. In the end, there is no stunt and there is no real plot twist.
Of course... what I am talking about is Dooku (sp). Dooku warns (taunts?) that the Republic is now under the control of the Sith. Woa. Could it be a plot-twist? Did Dooku discover (perhapse in being part of the plot to create the Republic's new army) the influence of the Sith? Did he become a rogue Jedi, taking perhapse the wrong path in a noble attempt to resist the Sith? Will the Jedi be fooled in to destroying the last resistance facing the Sith? Is this really a plot twist?
No, no. Don't worry. Dooku is really in league with Sidious. Its all a part of that machivelian Sith plan-within-a-plan-within-a-tired-plotline. Its a false twist. Its there just to fool you in to thinking there might be some active thought towards plot. But there's not. Evil.
Fair enough. Though this does come up on a somewhat regular basis... usually with some implied accusation of hypocracy or conspiracy. It gets old. Odly enough, I didn't see Doubleclick mentioned in the FAQ (you'd think it would be).
I used to create localhost entries in my hosts file (both Linux and Windows workstations). Then I began hitting sites that would simply break because of this. Now I'm back to using filter proxies like Junkbuster (although its probably time to look for something better).
How does that example have anything to do with this situation?
I don't think anybody is demanding Yahoo advertise "Use honestmail.com instead! They HONOR your marketing preferences!"
In the hotdog stand scenario, the "informed consumer" wouldn't involve the vendor posting signs like "100% Beef! - well, its actually sawdust and unknown meat byproducts" or "Our employees never wash their hands and routinly cook our hotdogs after they fell on the floor!"
Yes, consumers should make informed decisions. However, some issues are beyond the means and expertise of the average consumer. That is when watch-dog groups and (unfortunately) government regulation comes in.
Where did you get that stat? Granted - it could very well be accurate. But it could mean people either accept the situation, are silently abandoning their accounts, or are left scratching their heads in confusion. Or the Yahoo PR folks put a real nice spin on the email.
I do partially agree with you there. The sad thing about this case is that it proves that no matter how reputable a company seems, it is unlikely they can be trusted with your personal information. And it seems that it will take privacy laws to force companies to comply with their own promises.
And that is the key point here.
We do NOT have a situation where a company said "OK! We want to trade something for info and permission to start an invasive advertising campaign!" and the customer clicking on "Sure! Take advantage of my naive greed!" The situation here is Yahoo asking "can we advertise to you", the users selecting "no, opt me out" and yahoo (after some delay) replying "OK, we'll opt you in anyway".
If this exchange involved an ad banner, it would easily play out as "deceptive advertising".
This strikes me as interesting. Since there is no fee to Yahoo's service... I would assume the vast majority of users would simply abandon their accounts. There is no penalty to do so. And it is by far the easier method.
While I wouldn't be suprised if a vast portion of the public wouldn't move based on this issue alone, I find this stat pretty suspect proof of it.
Slashdot no longer controls the ads. That is all done by OSDN's marketing department who (it is claimed) in turn have no editorial influence. Slashdot editors have mentioned that they dislike Doubleclick, but its not their choice.
As for me - I filter out all Doubleclick ads. I leave ads whenever possible. I generally don't mind them. But when a company tries to use tracking cookies or stupid java / flash tricks (which can also be used for user tracking now), they get no "views". Filtered. Goodbye.
I would advise you do the same.