Three dollars is half the cost of a matinee on the big screen for one person. Have a bunch of friends over? That three dollars amortizes pretty quickly.
The other factor is convenience.
If you know you want to watch movie X two or three days in advance and you remember to put it at the top of your queue, yeah, Netflix is better. But, and this is where I see myself using it, if you have a spontaneous gathering over (or even if you don't) and you don't like the options you have on hand, getting a widescreen HD movie for $4 or $5 beats getting everyone down to Blockbuster or Hollywood. That, I think, is where iTunes Movie Rentals is going to capture territory. it's worth money for me not having to make time in my errand schedule to go _back_ and return the damn thing.
Some of the rover team was through Raleigh a couple/three years back, they said while the rovers exceeded their hopes for lifespan, beforehand, they scaled down public lifespan expectations to ~90 days.
So, yes the rovers _have_ exceeded expectations, but they were also hedged.:)
Having people browse the web with Safari on Windows does nothing for Apple's bottom line.
Not necessarily.
But the primary reason is simply money. Safari is a free download, but it's already one of Apple's most profitable software products.
It's not widely publicized, but those integrated search bars in web browser toolbars are revenue generators. When you do a Google search from Safari's toolbar, Google pays Apple a portion of the ad revenue from the resulting page. (Ever notice the "client=safari" string in the URL query?)
I'd say that Apple's not expecting a lot, in public. Similar to the XServe, they weren't proclaiming that they'd seize the server market. They said they had a product and would listen and learn and improve, and that's when a company can be scary good. Listen, improve, release, repeat. It is precisely what MS is _not_ doing currently.
One of the things that strikes me about a lot of the CIO/"enterprise" prognostication is a sense of permanence to whatever an impression is. Apple clearly sees an opening and just because 1.0 isn't what it could be, people seem to conveniently forget there can be a 1.1, 1.2...
I doubt finding out who is objective and who isn't is truly helpful here, particularly since judging someone's objectivity is very subjective. Instead, the practice should expose you a broader sense of what the issue is or is not from a variety of perspectives.
The biases of the sources, media, etc are all at play, and it _always_ made sense for the discriminating reader, in addition to the writer, to get information from multiple sources.
I'll add that you've set-up and knocked down a very nice straw-man. I'll agree that MSM has room for improvement, but it's something else to paint the entirity with a very coarse brush.
Ah, no. It is far from the public domain, legally speaking. The author has copyright on the material unless they've explicitly assigned their rights to the public domain. Simply posting material on a website does not accomplish that.
As a content author, they are free to try to their consumers how to consume and use their service (per license, I'm sure). Whether it's *reasonable* or not is another issue entirely.
This is not unreasonable from an employer's perspective. The employer is unimportant.
If the coder does work on a project that invokes similar methods as he uses at his day job that's deep code fu trade secret stuff and it comes out in a sideline GPL project, the company would lose the ability to sue anyone else against that trade secret (inadvertant or mistaken disclosure tends to make trade secrets no longer secret by law). Given how large tech firms like to defend their knowledge base from competitors, I'm not surprised.
Moreover, I'm not convinced this is all that unlikely to happen as a programmer (using similar methods). Is it likely to be harmful? I kinda doubt it. Is it something companies should be cautious of? Yes.
A related question. Would Microsoft object to him working under another open source license, say, Apache, BSD or Artistic?
While more jobs may not exist now, past history indicates they will at some point in the future. That's likely to be sooner than later.
I see three advantages here for the open source college worker;
1. Real world experience. So, simply having code that completes the assignment isn't good enough. Code that satisfies the users, project organizer and maintainers is the higher bar (insert separate discourse on quality of open source code...)
2. Real world references. In my last job switch, my new employer was looking for work references. How I performed in a working environment. Not a reference from an instructor I cornered or completed a research project with.
3. the project may (not likely, but possible) become a sellable product and employ the student in that fashion. Bam! Job creation.
First, as an employer, I want somebody who will do what I want them to do. If that means writing content only for Internet Explorer, then so be it. Second, I want them to understand what is valuable to me. If I want Internet Explorer specific content, I don't want them to meekly submit and do it, I want them to understand why it is important to me. Fresh perspectives that youth tends to have are indeed valuable, but only when they can fit within my existing framework.
This sounds like asking to have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to hire yes men, go right ahead. But at the same time, don't try to encourage understanding if you're coming across as inflexible. Here's our general office criteria (and maybe this is what you were getting at): Decisions or thought processes by management are adjustable to employee imput. We do occasionally encouter some resistence when we rip into an idea that we think is utter crap. But, the basis for our arguments is we are where the work is done and hence have working knowledge that perhaps doesn't occur to folks who repesent the dept in meetings six hours out of eight. Ultimately, we'll do as we're asked, but we won't hide our opinions along the way. By and large, our manager is good about listening and making adjustments where they need to be made. It's expected that no one is above discussing the reasoning behind a decision.
Secondly, we've found that management "existing frameworks" can lead to valuable ideas being ignored or dismissed when raised by "new employees." Instead, we can find ourselves behind when six to nine months later, it becomes part of someone's "existing framework"
No, I don't think this is what companies want. Companies (at least ones that stay in business long enough to pay their employees) want results, and last I checked, they don't care how you accomplish them, as long as they're delivered on time and on budget.
I think that's dependent upon the company and the position within the company. I work for a newspaper and I can immediately see about three classes of employee.
The first is the post press packager or carrier. We need a lot of these people to learn a rote task quickly and execute it quickly and reliably. It's hard to argue over "training" when the paper promises a neatly folded copy on the correct doorsteps with the correct ad inserts by 5:30 every morning.
At the other extreme, we have people like our press operators. Newspaper presses are large, complex, multistory machines and are evidently very sensitive in their adjustment. The apprenticeship to be a printer is about four years long. It's not to say they aren't useful in that whole time, but they're considered in training for that amount of time.
Somewhere in the middle, we have my dept., New Media. While we expect some expertise coming in (HTML, AP copyediting skills, news judgment), we don't expect everyone will know every aspect of the operation. I believe we expect a new employee to be at or near expected productivity in about three to six months.
>>Isn't it amazing how the education system in this country is so screwed up?! It starts in public education and ends after your first two years of college. This whole "well-rounded" thing is there to hold you back an additional 2 years before you go into the workforce. "Know a little about a lot" and "widen your horizons" are just excuses. It's impossible to teach people everything they need beforehand. School isn't an initialization routine, yet for some reason, this is what schools try to do
One of my instructors wrote about a similar mindset among her students about five years ago. Basically, she wanted to present material and coursework that challenged her students' abilities, experiences and resources. A large part of the students pushed back on the grounds that, with work and other classes, they didn't "have time" to do anything more than skim the daily reading material and show up to class. To be sure, my university was/is a commuter school with a high average undergraduate age (26-28) and a low on campus population (900 out of 25,000). And I think the "student attitude" is why folks like myself sometimes wonder if that two years of upper division work could have been spent doing something more productive.
Put it this way. Education - though in some areas the trend has been changing - has had a diminished set of expectations from students. As college education and access broadened, its rigor decreased. (my argument is not against higher access, btw). So, having experienced lower expectations in many classes, general ed in particular, students bristle against challenge. A friend of mine from college didn't have to write a term paper from Junior High until her second year of college. And complained the instructor was making her do it. The lack of challenge and experience set her back a year with remedial courses.
I work in the new media dept. of a daily newspaper. My job still has its fun moments and perks. Typically, once a month or so, my boss joins me and another coworker at our adopted bar, "the new media lounge," to throw darts and share a pitcher. That's cool for two aspects. One, we can release stress outside the office w/ the boss buying. Two, it shows the boss has an interest in us as people, not merely as peons.
Quite often, I find the best work environment isn't always fun and games. It's the one that leaves you alone to focus on a large project and draw on the resources you need to make things happen. To a fair degree (but by no means universally) the managers know that frequent distractions keep me from getting my current work done and that ultimately delays the work *they* are asking me to do.
Ultimately, I find a great deal of satisfaction in my job, not because it's "fun". Quite often it isn't. But, at the end of the day, the work has kept me challenged, the boss wants me to be challenged and keep bringing new ideas to the table. The other benefit I've made for myself is not living and dying by my work. I give it due care and consideration. It is important. But it's not all I do and I won't spend more than 45 hours a week in the office unless there is a damn good reason for me to do so.
I also make a habit of not living for work out of the office. If something important happens that needs my attention, I can be contacted, but I don't go out of my way to seek contact after hours and over the weekend with work. By and large, unless I see it by 4 p.m. Friday, I'm not going to deal with it until 9 or 10 a.m. Monday.
I find all of the above are critical for contining to enjoy my work. I get close to burnout only infrequently. I tend to stay optimistic about longterm prospects. Being given an effective work environment, the flexibility to come early, leave early (or vice-versa) and not be tied down to a leash is far more powerful than being given PlayStations or having scooter races through the halls.
I find that breaks are essential to my productivity. If I don't have them and the day is one constant crunch, I start to suck after about four hours. If I was cycling, I'd call it a "bonk."
Fav break activities: looking in on sites coworkers send me through the day, yakking about movies, playing South Park clips...
I figure, it keeps my mind fresh and helps me tackle problems that don't offer an immediate solution. Ultimately, that helps my company.
Theoretically, the Constitution only applies to Federal entities. Practically, speaking that's not always true, but doesn't push the argument in your favor.
More specifically, powers not explicity granted to Congress are reserved for the states (10th amendment). And municipalities (cities, counties) are generally charted by the state. Any limits I would imagine would strictly be in the interpritation of the state constitutions and the municipal charters.
Also, the feds have a long history of acting on stuff like this. AT&T had a federally authorized monopoly for decades. Finally, municipalities have a long history of operating utilities. Water, trash collection and electricity distribution are three examples. I fail to see why this would be much different.
Sorry, I prefer for people to ask my barley and hops pref. A case of Sammy, sure. Guinness in the pub daught cans, right on. Bud, Pabst or the like. Heck no.
Note for those without a sense of humor (and disclaimer to prevent the FBI from storming my house): This is a joke
The fact that you thought about your statement and added this disclaimer for the FBI is reason for pause. Why should we feel like we need to apologize for exercising our constitutional rights?
This is perhaps one of the best examples I've seen of web journalism's promise and why i hope we won't see the fall of indy sites in the face of increased corporate internet "ownership." This story raises a lot of very interesting questions.
Hmm, didn't have that with mine, though I broke the initiation across three months of billing. Yes, some folks pay when the place goes out of business (though I'd imagine if a company goes through bankruptcy, you could withhold payment, if they're eliminating service.) What I typically see is people who continue to pay for service they no longer use because it's more convenient to let the charge go than drive down to a place you think you're embarassed to go into and cancel the service. And if you do, the club is going to try and sell you on the benefits of club membership again. AOL does this as well to great effect.
I seriously doubt, though, you'd have to pay for a second subscription if you lost a drive. they may give you some hassle about reinstallation, but remember, you're paying for access. Microsoft may be evil in many arenas but they're generally careful not to piss off their customers. Or, at least large numbers of them.
I generally agree that this is a bad thing (for most people in most cases). But, some of your arguments are based on less than pure fact.
Actually, it's all opinion, based mostly on my perceptions.
For instance, you say that "I foresee a few legal cases testing the ability of consumers to modify and extend products they are paying for the use of, but never really "own." Guess what? No-one legally owns the software they "buy".
No argument there. The quotes were intentional. Most people talk in terms of "I bought Windows 2000." They hardly ever say "I licensed." Maybe they aren't interested in the symantics, but the lawyers and shareholders are. Most folks, I think, would be surprised to find that Microsoft, if they wanted, could legally forbid them from using Windows after having purchased a copy.
You do not own the software in any sense. So switching to a lease model makes no difference.
I disagree. Basically, if presented with a monthly bill for software, they may see it in terms like cable, or their telephone service. If they don't like it, they cancel the service. But, notice, cable companies are very explicit on the bill about "equipment rental." They do a better job of it.
As for your points on delineation between software, did you follow the M$ case?? That was all about delineation of applications. Where does IE stop and Windows start?
Again, no disagreement, but my point is less about what SW makers want than where this might go, taken to one possible extension. In fact, I state that this possibility is most likely *not* what Microsoft wants. But, I think if the lease model in SW is going to be what it is in other sectors, a one size fits all approach will be met with resistance. My opinion is that if consumers are going to be asked to pay a monthly fee, they are going to want to taylor what they are paying for. Remember, Microsoft wants the lease model to both increase their cash flow and to make it more predictable. I'd be surprised if, as the world's largest software company, they *didn't* want to do this.
Finally - what makes you say that publishers will try and prevent third party add ons?? You make this claim but offer no evidence or reason to back it up. It really doesn't make sense to me.
True. But consider Sony's reaction to Bleem! and Connetix VirtualPlaystation. They sued, even though it could have ment higher game sales. They sued because they didn't like what it represented, a loss of complete control over their platform.
Look at photoshop (you use it as an example). It's extendability is one of it's biggest selling points. In fact, it's plugin format is so "standard" that other apps support it. So if Adobe were to take that away there would be an uproar. The world's graphic designers would either (a) switch to a different app or (b) refuse to "upgrade" to the new version. Either way, Adboe lose big time. Can't see that happening myself.
But, for the sake of argument, you aquire access to Photoshop on a lease model. You're allowed to break it into modules. You're a web designer, but don't like ImageReady. You want to use Photoshop's tools, but you want to use a third party optimization tool. Are you all that convinced Adobe's going to be completly happy with that arrangement? Especially, if it's opensource? If you're Adobe, you've suddenly lost revenue.
Software leasing is to me bad for different reasons (which I won't go into in detail as this post is already too long). Primarily, the security/privacy issues, the cost involved in not upgrading (i.e you can't just carry on using the same app forever, you have to pay for it forever too), and the ways in which it will aid the big boys in increasing their monolopies.
Well, it's bad for all of those reasons, too. I can definately see where purchasing a certain configuration of SW is going to be required for a company to allow you to use the support you purchase access to.
After thinking about it, I think there are some things I would choose to pay a monthly fee for, a good spell checker say, but I think there may be a surprise for bigtime publishers. Their software may not garner as much use as they think. In fact, if monthly payments fall off after, say three months of licensed use, I'd worry. It would confirm what many folks think -- that by and large, folks don't always make regular use of the software they "own."
So, what happens? Well, it could go two ways, people stop paying for bloated SW packages they don't use the features for. They may only want Word's word processing modules, not Word's HTML export functions or the rest of office. Will Microsoft meet the demands of the market, and allow for customizable software packages? Or, will folks continue to pay for what they don't use, like they will a health club "membership," long after they've stopped using it?
Obviously, the SW makers would be OK with the second model, even if they won't come right out and say so. In fact, I'll venture to guess that they'd fight any such indication of that being widespread behavior. They really won't like the first model for a few reasons.
First, what are the natural divisions in the software. You can start with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook. But what about common functions between programs as we now know them. The Office Assistant? Templates? Clipart? file browsing services? VB scripting? help documentation, Spell checking, macros, document module sharing (OLE). In my mind, it should all be up for grabs. Otherwise, why pay for it if you aren't using it? Microsoft will likely say nothing is "bundled," that everything is part of a core feature set of Word, or whathaveyou. The real question, is whether or not people will accept that answer.
Secondly, *if* such a distribution model is accepted, SW publishers would likely fight the release of any information that documents how their software is structured, allowing modules or lower or no cost to take the place of their own. This eats into their bread and butter. I foresee a few legal cases testing the ability of consumers to modify and extend products they are paying for the use of, but never really "own."
Thirdly, in order to preserve their own market space, Microsoft, et al, would likely actively change critical bits of their software in the name of improvements, but would oddly appear as actions to prevent competitors from offering an improved product. How this activity would be viewed by the FTC is unknown at this point. How would their customers respond, though?
Fourth, as an active counter measure, I believe SW manufacturers would explictly change their terms of use in an attempt to contractually prohibit the use of third-party software modules. However, from Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and DOS on, third party modules have had a long, very good history in terms of positively extending functionality for the consumer. QEMM for DOS 5 anyone? Norton AV at any time? What's the backlash when people find out they can't "legally" use these?
If the true a la carte model takes hold (though it may take a while and is dependent upon a few things), it represents what I consider the best opportunity for the open source community to make a meaningful impact to the rest of the computing world. Not to say that BSD, Linux, Apache, et. al. haven't been significant contributions, it's just that most Windows users don't know because they don't see it. If, however, modules for their favorite SW (Photoshop, Word, Excel, Quicken) were able to be replaced with free and open modules, they will see a difference. Ideally (and yes, this is very dependent on "forces beyond our control"), they'll see a smaller bill. And they'll think just how much they might not be spending if the entire package was free.
Obviously, this is quite conditional on other factors, but *if* this is the game the big proprietary SW publishers want to play, this community can, and should, embrace it as a Trojan Horse. The competition would serve everyone well.
if you're in California, if your former employer sues merely to keep you silent, you may be able to pursue legal fees and punitive damages under the state's "Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation" statute. Several other states have similar laws. Basically, a corporation, invididual or government body cannot use the legal process as an intimidation tactic to keep you from excersing your First Amendment rights.
Actually, don't look at it as being Microsoft having to organize fights against Win 2K with Linux *or* Mac OS X. Microsoft, surely sees the writing on the wall. Both of their large market OS competitors are now UNIX-based or derived. They can (should and will) share resources.
While the UNIX market fragmentation might have being one of Microsoft's opening (we can provide an end to end solution, desktop to domain controller...) in the mid 90's, the periphery is organizing itself around the target that Windows presents. It must be scary. Samba, Apache, PHP w/MySQL/Postgres, StarOffice...
Suddenly, the argument that got Microsoft's foot in the door doesn't seem as compelling to the executive team.
Slashdot Mirror
Three dollars is half the cost of a matinee on the big screen for one person. Have a bunch of friends over? That three dollars amortizes pretty quickly. The other factor is convenience. If you know you want to watch movie X two or three days in advance and you remember to put it at the top of your queue, yeah, Netflix is better. But, and this is where I see myself using it, if you have a spontaneous gathering over (or even if you don't) and you don't like the options you have on hand, getting a widescreen HD movie for $4 or $5 beats getting everyone down to Blockbuster or Hollywood. That, I think, is where iTunes Movie Rentals is going to capture territory. it's worth money for me not having to make time in my errand schedule to go _back_ and return the damn thing.
Bluetooth earpieces with the blue blinky lights FTW.
Some of the rover team was through Raleigh a couple/three years back, they said while the rovers exceeded their hopes for lifespan, beforehand, they scaled down public lifespan expectations to ~90 days. So, yes the rovers _have_ exceeded expectations, but they were also hedged. :)
Having people browse the web with Safari on Windows does nothing for Apple's bottom line.
Not necessarily.
from Daring Fireball
I'd say that Apple's not expecting a lot, in public. Similar to the XServe, they weren't proclaiming that they'd seize the server market. They said they had a product and would listen and learn and improve, and that's when a company can be scary good. Listen, improve, release, repeat. It is precisely what MS is _not_ doing currently.
One of the things that strikes me about a lot of the CIO/"enterprise" prognostication is a sense of permanence to whatever an impression is. Apple clearly sees an opening and just because 1.0 isn't what it could be, people seem to conveniently forget there can be a 1.1, 1.2...
Why browse the way some web site or computer corporation thinks I should?
Because your experience on a site will be a lot better the closer your browser set-up is to how the company tests functionality/usability.
If I'm not having to debug your one-off problem, I'm most likely working on adding features to the product or improving performance/usability.
I doubt finding out who is objective and who isn't is truly helpful here, particularly since judging someone's objectivity is very subjective. Instead, the practice should expose you a broader sense of what the issue is or is not from a variety of perspectives. The biases of the sources, media, etc are all at play, and it _always_ made sense for the discriminating reader, in addition to the writer, to get information from multiple sources. I'll add that you've set-up and knocked down a very nice straw-man. I'll agree that MSM has room for improvement, but it's something else to paint the entirity with a very coarse brush.
Ah, no. It is far from the public domain, legally speaking. The author has copyright on the material unless they've explicitly assigned their rights to the public domain. Simply posting material on a website does not accomplish that.
As a content author, they are free to try to their consumers how to consume and use their service (per license, I'm sure). Whether it's *reasonable* or not is another issue entirely.
This is not unreasonable from an employer's perspective. The employer is unimportant.
If the coder does work on a project that invokes similar methods as he uses at his day job that's deep code fu trade secret stuff and it comes out in a sideline GPL project, the company would lose the ability to sue anyone else against that trade secret (inadvertant or mistaken disclosure tends to make trade secrets no longer secret by law). Given how large tech firms like to defend their knowledge base from competitors, I'm not surprised.
Moreover, I'm not convinced this is all that unlikely to happen as a programmer (using similar methods). Is it likely to be harmful? I kinda doubt it. Is it something companies should be cautious of? Yes.
A related question. Would Microsoft object to him working under another open source license, say, Apache, BSD or Artistic?
Simple, it's the nature of entrepreneurship.
While more jobs may not exist now, past history indicates they will at some point in the future. That's likely to be sooner than later.
I see three advantages here for the open source college worker;
1. Real world experience. So, simply having code that completes the assignment isn't good enough. Code that satisfies the users, project organizer and maintainers is the higher bar (insert separate discourse on quality of open source code...)
2. Real world references. In my last job switch, my new employer was looking for work references. How I performed in a working environment. Not a reference from an instructor I cornered or completed a research project with.
3. the project may (not likely, but possible) become a sellable product and employ the student in that fashion. Bam! Job creation.
First, as an employer, I want somebody who will do what I want them to do. If that means writing content only for Internet Explorer, then so be it. Second, I want them to understand what is valuable to me. If I want Internet Explorer specific content, I don't want them to meekly submit and do it, I want them to understand why it is important to me. Fresh perspectives that youth tends to have are indeed valuable, but only when they can fit within my existing framework.
This sounds like asking to have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to hire yes men, go right ahead. But at the same time, don't try to encourage understanding if you're coming across as inflexible. Here's our general office criteria (and maybe this is what you were getting at): Decisions or thought processes by management are adjustable to employee imput. We do occasionally encouter some resistence when we rip into an idea that we think is utter crap. But, the basis for our arguments is we are where the work is done and hence have working knowledge that perhaps doesn't occur to folks who repesent the dept in meetings six hours out of eight. Ultimately, we'll do as we're asked, but we won't hide our opinions along the way. By and large, our manager is good about listening and making adjustments where they need to be made. It's expected that no one is above discussing the reasoning behind a decision.
Secondly, we've found that management "existing frameworks" can lead to valuable ideas being ignored or dismissed when raised by "new employees." Instead, we can find ourselves behind when six to nine months later, it becomes part of someone's "existing framework"
No, I don't think this is what companies want. Companies (at least ones that stay in business long enough to pay their employees) want results, and last I checked, they don't care how you accomplish them, as long as they're delivered on time and on budget.
I think that's dependent upon the company and the position within the company. I work for a newspaper and I can immediately see about three classes of employee.
The first is the post press packager or carrier. We need a lot of these people to learn a rote task quickly and execute it quickly and reliably. It's hard to argue over "training" when the paper promises a neatly folded copy on the correct doorsteps with the correct ad inserts by 5:30 every morning.
At the other extreme, we have people like our press operators. Newspaper presses are large, complex, multistory machines and are evidently very sensitive in their adjustment. The apprenticeship to be a printer is about four years long. It's not to say they aren't useful in that whole time, but they're considered in training for that amount of time.
Somewhere in the middle, we have my dept., New Media. While we expect some expertise coming in (HTML, AP copyediting skills, news judgment), we don't expect everyone will know every aspect of the operation. I believe we expect a new employee to be at or near expected productivity in about three to six months.
>>Isn't it amazing how the education system in this country is so screwed up?! It starts in public education and ends after your first two years of college. This whole "well-rounded" thing is there to hold you back an additional 2 years before you go into the workforce. "Know a little about a lot" and "widen your horizons" are just excuses. It's impossible to teach people everything they need beforehand. School isn't an initialization routine, yet for some reason, this is what schools try to do
One of my instructors wrote about a similar mindset among her students about five years ago. Basically, she wanted to present material and coursework that challenged her students' abilities, experiences and resources. A large part of the students pushed back on the grounds that, with work and other classes, they didn't "have time" to do anything more than skim the daily reading material and show up to class. To be sure, my university was/is a commuter school with a high average undergraduate age (26-28) and a low on campus population (900 out of 25,000). And I think the "student attitude" is why folks like myself sometimes wonder if that two years of upper division work could have been spent doing something more productive.
Put it this way. Education - though in some areas the trend has been changing - has had a diminished set of expectations from students. As college education and access broadened, its rigor decreased. (my argument is not against higher access, btw). So, having experienced lower expectations in many classes, general ed in particular, students bristle against challenge. A friend of mine from college didn't have to write a term paper from Junior High until her second year of college. And complained the instructor was making her do it. The lack of challenge and experience set her back a year with remedial courses.
I work in the new media dept. of a daily newspaper. My job still has its fun moments and perks. Typically, once a month or so, my boss joins me and another coworker at our adopted bar, "the new media lounge," to throw darts and share a pitcher. That's cool for two aspects. One, we can release stress outside the office w/ the boss buying. Two, it shows the boss has an interest in us as people, not merely as peons.
Quite often, I find the best work environment isn't always fun and games. It's the one that leaves you alone to focus on a large project and draw on the resources you need to make things happen. To a fair degree (but by no means universally) the managers know that frequent distractions keep me from getting my current work done and that ultimately delays the work *they* are asking me to do.
Ultimately, I find a great deal of satisfaction in my job, not because it's "fun". Quite often it isn't. But, at the end of the day, the work has kept me challenged, the boss wants me to be challenged and keep bringing new ideas to the table. The other benefit I've made for myself is not living and dying by my work. I give it due care and consideration. It is important. But it's not all I do and I won't spend more than 45 hours a week in the office unless there is a damn good reason for me to do so.
I also make a habit of not living for work out of the office. If something important happens that needs my attention, I can be contacted, but I don't go out of my way to seek contact after hours and over the weekend with work. By and large, unless I see it by 4 p.m. Friday, I'm not going to deal with it until 9 or 10 a.m. Monday.
I find all of the above are critical for contining to enjoy my work. I get close to burnout only infrequently. I tend to stay optimistic about longterm prospects. Being given an effective work environment, the flexibility to come early, leave early (or vice-versa) and not be tied down to a leash is far more powerful than being given PlayStations or having scooter races through the halls.
I find that breaks are essential to my productivity. If I don't have them and the day is one constant crunch, I start to suck after about four hours. If I was cycling, I'd call it a "bonk."
Fav break activities: looking in on sites coworkers send me through the day, yakking about movies, playing South Park clips...
I figure, it keeps my mind fresh and helps me tackle problems that don't offer an immediate solution. Ultimately, that helps my company.
Theoretically, the Constitution only applies to Federal entities. Practically, speaking that's not always true, but doesn't push the argument in your favor.
More specifically, powers not explicity granted to Congress are reserved for the states (10th amendment). And municipalities (cities, counties) are generally charted by the state. Any limits I would imagine would strictly be in the interpritation of the state constitutions and the municipal charters.
Also, the feds have a long history of acting on stuff like this. AT&T had a federally authorized monopoly for decades. Finally, municipalities have a long history of operating utilities. Water, trash collection and electricity distribution are three examples. I fail to see why this would be much different.
It doesn't even have to be good beer
Sorry, I prefer for people to ask my barley and hops pref. A case of Sammy, sure. Guinness in the pub daught cans, right on. Bud, Pabst or the like. Heck no.
Note for those without a sense of humor (and disclaimer to prevent the FBI from storming my house): This is a joke
The fact that you thought about your statement and added this disclaimer for the FBI is reason for pause. Why should we feel like we need to apologize for exercising our constitutional rights?
set prompt = '[%n@%m %c1]%# '
set rprompt = '[%T]'
short, sweet. I know what time it is.
and believe it or not, it's faster than running 9.1 directly.
I seriously doubt, though, you'd have to pay for a second subscription if you lost a drive. they may give you some hassle about reinstallation, but remember, you're paying for access. Microsoft may be evil in many arenas but they're generally careful not to piss off their customers. Or, at least large numbers of them.
For instance, you say that "I foresee a few legal cases testing the ability of consumers to modify and extend products they are paying for the use of, but never really "own." Guess what? No-one legally owns the software they "buy".
No argument there. The quotes were intentional. Most people talk in terms of "I bought Windows 2000." They hardly ever say "I licensed." Maybe they aren't interested in the symantics, but the lawyers and shareholders are. Most folks, I think, would be surprised to find that Microsoft, if they wanted, could legally forbid them from using Windows after having purchased a copy.
You do not own the software in any sense. So switching to a lease model makes no difference.
I disagree. Basically, if presented with a monthly bill for software, they may see it in terms like cable, or their telephone service. If they don't like it, they cancel the service. But, notice, cable companies are very explicit on the bill about "equipment rental." They do a better job of it.
As for your points on delineation between software, did you follow the M$ case?? That was all about delineation of applications. Where does IE stop and Windows start?
Again, no disagreement, but my point is less about what SW makers want than where this might go, taken to one possible extension. In fact, I state that this possibility is most likely *not* what Microsoft wants. But, I think if the lease model in SW is going to be what it is in other sectors, a one size fits all approach will be met with resistance. My opinion is that if consumers are going to be asked to pay a monthly fee, they are going to want to taylor what they are paying for. Remember, Microsoft wants the lease model to both increase their cash flow and to make it more predictable. I'd be surprised if, as the world's largest software company, they *didn't* want to do this.
Finally - what makes you say that publishers will try and prevent third party add ons?? You make this claim but offer no evidence or reason to back it up. It really doesn't make sense to me.
True. But consider Sony's reaction to Bleem! and Connetix VirtualPlaystation. They sued, even though it could have ment higher game sales. They sued because they didn't like what it represented, a loss of complete control over their platform.
Look at photoshop (you use it as an example). It's extendability is one of it's biggest selling points. In fact, it's plugin format is so "standard" that other apps support it. So if Adobe were to take that away there would be an uproar. The world's graphic designers would either (a) switch to a different app or (b) refuse to "upgrade" to the new version. Either way, Adboe lose big time. Can't see that happening myself. But, for the sake of argument, you aquire access to Photoshop on a lease model. You're allowed to break it into modules. You're a web designer, but don't like ImageReady. You want to use Photoshop's tools, but you want to use a third party optimization tool. Are you all that convinced Adobe's going to be completly happy with that arrangement? Especially, if it's opensource? If you're Adobe, you've suddenly lost revenue. Software leasing is to me bad for different reasons (which I won't go into in detail as this post is already too long). Primarily, the security/privacy issues, the cost involved in not upgrading (i.e you can't just carry on using the same app forever, you have to pay for it forever too), and the ways in which it will aid the big boys in increasing their monolopies. Well, it's bad for all of those reasons, too. I can definately see where purchasing a certain configuration of SW is going to be required for a company to allow you to use the support you purchase access to.
So, what happens? Well, it could go two ways, people stop paying for bloated SW packages they don't use the features for. They may only want Word's word processing modules, not Word's HTML export functions or the rest of office. Will Microsoft meet the demands of the market, and allow for customizable software packages? Or, will folks continue to pay for what they don't use, like they will a health club "membership," long after they've stopped using it?
Obviously, the SW makers would be OK with the second model, even if they won't come right out and say so. In fact, I'll venture to guess that they'd fight any such indication of that being widespread behavior. They really won't like the first model for a few reasons.
First, what are the natural divisions in the software. You can start with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook. But what about common functions between programs as we now know them. The Office Assistant? Templates? Clipart? file browsing services? VB scripting? help documentation, Spell checking, macros, document module sharing (OLE). In my mind, it should all be up for grabs. Otherwise, why pay for it if you aren't using it? Microsoft will likely say nothing is "bundled," that everything is part of a core feature set of Word, or whathaveyou. The real question, is whether or not people will accept that answer.
Secondly, *if* such a distribution model is accepted, SW publishers would likely fight the release of any information that documents how their software is structured, allowing modules or lower or no cost to take the place of their own. This eats into their bread and butter. I foresee a few legal cases testing the ability of consumers to modify and extend products they are paying for the use of, but never really "own."
Thirdly, in order to preserve their own market space, Microsoft, et al, would likely actively change critical bits of their software in the name of improvements, but would oddly appear as actions to prevent competitors from offering an improved product. How this activity would be viewed by the FTC is unknown at this point. How would their customers respond, though?
Fourth, as an active counter measure, I believe SW manufacturers would explictly change their terms of use in an attempt to contractually prohibit the use of third-party software modules. However, from Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and DOS on, third party modules have had a long, very good history in terms of positively extending functionality for the consumer. QEMM for DOS 5 anyone? Norton AV at any time? What's the backlash when people find out they can't "legally" use these?
If the true a la carte model takes hold (though it may take a while and is dependent upon a few things), it represents what I consider the best opportunity for the open source community to make a meaningful impact to the rest of the computing world. Not to say that BSD, Linux, Apache, et. al. haven't been significant contributions, it's just that most Windows users don't know because they don't see it. If, however, modules for their favorite SW (Photoshop, Word, Excel, Quicken) were able to be replaced with free and open modules, they will see a difference. Ideally (and yes, this is very dependent on "forces beyond our control"), they'll see a smaller bill. And they'll think just how much they might not be spending if the entire package was free.
Obviously, this is quite conditional on other factors, but *if* this is the game the big proprietary SW publishers want to play, this community can, and should, embrace it as a Trojan Horse. The competition would serve everyone well.
While the UNIX market fragmentation might have being one of Microsoft's opening (we can provide an end to end solution, desktop to domain controller...) in the mid 90's, the periphery is organizing itself around the target that Windows presents. It must be scary. Samba, Apache, PHP w/MySQL/Postgres, StarOffice...
Suddenly, the argument that got Microsoft's foot in the door doesn't seem as compelling to the executive team.
If I was Bill, I'd worry, too.