I know it's a rhetorical question, but for most Slashdotters, the answer is no.
Re:You /. people really like the word "monopoly"
on
Broadband Obstacles
·
· Score: -1
I'll probably get modded down for this but....
So, to review: 100% monopoly on basic phone services + gov't deregulation in the 90's = high rates, shoddy service, illegal activity, and nowhere else to go.
So what would happen if somebody decided to start their own landline phone company in your area to compete with Verizon? If they provided competent service at comparable prices, they'd kill Verizon, right?
Or would they not be allowed by law to do that? Oh, you mean Verizon's monopoly is protected by the government? Sounds like deregulation isn't the problem here at all....
Science fiction was exploring "the Net" in print long before it became the subject of fiction in Hollywood movies and on television news. Indeed, the science fictional imagery of "cyberpunks" seem to have been a model for many online venues, as well as for a goodly portion of the online population. But very few SF writers accurately portrayed today's Internet--or even the virtual reality Net that seems to be looming on the horizon. Almost none showed the real, day-to-day concerns of inhabitants of their fictional Nets.
Most readers will be familiar with the early cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, by William Gibson. In it, as in many movies, the Net is portrayed as a sort-of monster video game populated by self-made superheroes. On a more realistic level, but still making dazzling use of virtual reality in cyberspace, is Vernor Vinge's novella, "True Names." First published in 1980 and thus predating the Gibson work and other cyberpunkia, "True Names" focuses in part on the obsession online hacker communities have with keeping their real names--their true names--a secret. In fact, the plot hinges on it; hence the title. In Vinge's world of hackers, for someone else to know your true name was to lose all, and to be at the mercy of those who knew your true name.
As you know if you've read Chapter 1, anonymity is every bit as vital a concern to contemporary hackers as it was to the hackers in "True Names." It should be a vital concern to you, too, in certain situations.
"True Names" is also a good starting-point for understanding a bit about the hacker culture and related Web communities. In short, it is a "must-read" for anyone who uses the Internet.
"The only flaming homosexual on here"? Being the only flaming homosexual on Slashdot is like being the only virgin at a Star Trek convention. It's impossible.
American citizens have long valued the entrepreneurial spirit, and nowhere is this more apparent today than in the burgeoning computer industry. Many of today's most successful computer industry leaders started their own businesses. Bill Gates and a handful of other entrepreneurs have achieved spectacular fame and fortune, but there are countless other software engineers and hardware manufacturers who have developed successful small and mid-sized businesses. Competition among these businesses is the spark that ignites innovation in the computer industry, and it is innovation that brings real choice to consumers in the marketplace. But one company -- Bill Gates' Microsoft Corporation -- has achieved such a dominant role in the global computer industry that it presents a serious threat to further competition, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Free market advocates are fond of blaming economic problems on government regulation, and they don't look kindly on government-regulated monopolies. But the real threat to a healthy economy is an unregulated monopoly. Microsoft's marketing strategy is aimed at controlling the market.
Largely as a result of the monopoly abuses of the early U.S. industrialists, American businesses are subject to a set of strong anti-trust laws, chiefly the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914. When these laws are enforced, monopoly practices can be curtailed, competition among entrepreneurs can flourish, and consumers can benefit from competitive choices in the marketplace.
Anti-trust laws aren't just intended to protect competitors from anti-competitive practices. These laws are also supposed to protect consumers! Everyone who uses a computer has a stake in maintaining a competitive computer industry. And you don't need to know any complicated economic theories to understand why. If one company controls the market, it sets the price, controls the quality and determines the availability of products. With a Microsoft monopoly, you can count on higher prices, lower quality, and more delays in new product roll-outs.
It's time for consumers to speak out, loud and clear, and demand that federal officials enforce the anti-trust laws. If they don't, there's a good chance Bill Gates' Microsoft Corporation will take our choices away.
Microsoft has launched its latest version of Windows, Windows XP (eXtra Proprietary). Tightening its stranglehold on all industries that use computers, Microsoft's XP features are certain to further degrade customer choice, cost/performance and, in some cases, even civil liberties.
One of the most controversial new eXtra Proprietary technologies is Windows Media. In a twist that no framer of the U.S. Constitution could have imagined, Microsoft is using patents to prevent software interoperability with its eXtra Proprietary technologies. Of course, Windows Media has to compete with the immensely popular MP3 format, but Windows XP limits the quality of MP3 encoding and decoding. By intentionally degrading the quality of all competing technologies, and by allowing only Microsoft-approved uses of its own technologies, Windows Media has the potential to create yet another monopoly for Microsoft -- a monopoly that extends from software to content. Such a monopoly would change our entertainment economy from one of unlimited content at limited cost, to one of limited content with unlimited costs.
Let's get out of this vicious trap the way we got in: by controlling what we do with our money. If you are already running Microsoft's products, do the sensible thing and BOYCOTT THE MONOPOLIST. Let Microsoft's latest products sit in warehouses until Microsoft comes to their senses and removes all the eXtra Proprietary technologies they've been engineering over the past several years. Wait until Microsoft offers a level playing field to other operating systems, applications and network service providers.
For those of you who cannot stand still, join a LUG (Linux Users Group) and maybe upgrade to Linux. Aside from saving a bundle on licensing fees (there are none), you'll get unprecedented freedom and control. With thousands of Red Hat Certified Engineers, and millions of Linux enthusiasts, any configuration running on any hardware can be supported at a fair price (determined by a free market of competing vendors) for as long as you want. Suddenly, hardware and software upgrades will be your choice, not a choice dictated to you. Suddenly, money you spend will be on things that you value, not things you are forced to pay for. Suddenly, you will begin to see the engine of growth that Moore's law enables come back to life, and the dividends it pays will be ones you can put in your bank account, not the bank account of a convicted monopolist.
Hey, I can see why I might be the worst troll, but why wouldn't you want to be trapped in an elevator with me? If you're male, I'll leave you alone, and if you're female, you wanna ride my dick anyway.
Man, this is more fucked up than the Hall of Fame balloting.
"not only does it preclude gainful employment...."
Indeed. Compute how much these morons would earn working full-time at minimum wage for the next 4 months, and then think of a) how many scalped opening night tickets they could buy with that money and b) how many miscellaneous advantages there are to NOT FUCKING LIVING OUTSIDE FOR FOUR MONTHS.
When people on this site fail to "get" jokes over and over again, you have to wonder about the way they claim to enjoy things like the Simpsons and Monty Python....
Dude! Why don't we talk about the Dark Tower more on this site?! We should have flamewars about which is the best book (I know some l4m3rz who think it's the first one) and whether Cort or David Quick would win in a fight, and whether Farson is a person or a town.
Lawmakers must not react to the media-fed anti-video game frenzy.
Disproportionate press coverage increases the possibilities of censorship in video games and various forms of entertainment media. In the United States, freedom of speech and expression are two of the most important rights every citizen has. An adult should be able to purchase whatever media, including violent video games, he wants. While small children should not necessarily be exposed to such violent images, it would be wrong to infringe on the rights of millions of adults to play these video games. Since video games are such a relatively new media, it is easy for the press and uninformed members of the general public to cry for government censorship of these violent video games. The creators of these games also have the right to make and express themselves through their chosen "art" form.
Video games make an easy scapegoat. The danger in blaming a scapegoat is that the real causes of problems do not get addressed. It is easier for the public to blame something they do not wholly understand. In the wake of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, people are searching to blame the gunmen's actions on their exposure to violent video games and other media. While the real solution to preventing such tragedies lies in gun education and tolerance of other's beliefs, it is much easier for the media to make violent video games out to be a monolithic evil.
By increasing the bad press given to these violent video games, children become even more drawn to them. It is common knowledge that children especially love to do things they are not supposed to because of the thrill involved. When children see adults condemning violent games such as Doom and Half-Life on television, they become intrigued to see why so many adults are talking about these games. Thus, even more younger children will try to play these games to fulfill such dark desires.
I think it's important for us to state cogently why, with so many other things going on in the world, this is an important issue. There are several reasons:
The free ride. E-mail spam is unique in that the receiver pays so much more for it than the sender does. For example, AOL has said that they were receiving 1.8 million spams from Cyber Promotions per day until they got a court injunction to stop it. Assuming that it takes the typical AOL user only 10 seconds to identify and discard a message, that's still 5,000 hours per day of connect time per day spent discarding their spam, just on AOL. By contrast, the spammer probably has a T1 line that costs him about $100/day. No other kind of advertising costs the advertiser so little, and the recipient so much. The closest analogy I can think of would be auto-dialing junk phone calls to cellular users; you can imagine how favorably that might be received.
The ``oceans of spam'' problem. Many spam messages say ``please send a REMOVE message to get off our list.'' Even disregarding the question of why you should have to do anything to get off a list you never asked to join, this becomes completely impossible if the volume grows. At the moment, most of us only get a few spams per day. But imagine if only 1/10 of 1 % of the users on the Internet decided to send out spam at a moderate rate of 100,000 per day, a rate easily achievable with a dial-up account and a PC. Then everyone would be receiving 100 spams every day. If 1% of users were spamming at that rate, we'd all be getting 1,000 spams per day. Is it reasonable to ask people to send out 100 ``remove'' messages per day? Hardly. If spam grows, it will crowd our mailboxes to the point that they're not useful for real mail. Users on AOL, which has a lot of trouble with internal spammers, report that they're already nearing this point.
The theft of resources. An increasing number of spammers, such as Quantum Communications, send most or all of their mail via innocent intermediate systems, to avoid blocks that many systems have placed against mail coming directly from the spammers' systems. (Due to a historical quirk, most mail systems on the Internet will deliver mail to anyone, not just their own users.) This fills the intermediate systems' networks and disks with unwanted spam messages, takes up their managers' time dealing with all the undeliverable spam messages, and subjects them to complaints from recipients who conclude that since the intermediate system delivered the mail, they must be in league with the spammers.
Many other spammers use ``hit and run'' spamming in which they get a trial dial-up account at an Internet provider for a few days, send tens of thousands of messages, then abandon the account (unless the provider notices what they're doing and cancels it first), leaving the unsuspecting provider to clean up the mess. Many spammers have done this tens or dozens of times, forcing the providers to waste staff time both on the cleanup and on monitoring their trial accounts for abuse.
It's all garbage. The spam messages I've seen have almost without exception advertised stuff that's worthless, deceptive, and partly or entirely fraudulent. (I include the many MLMs in here, even though the MLM-ers rarely understand why there's no such thing as a good MLM.) It's spam software, funky miracle cures, off-brand computer parts, vaguely described get rich quick schemes, dial-a-porn, and so on downhill from there. It's all stuff that's too cruddy to be worth advertising in any medium where they'd actually have to pay the cost of the ads. Also, since the cost of spamming is so low, there's no point in targeting your ads, when for the same low price you can send the ads to everyone, increasing the noise level the rest of us have to deal with.
They're crooks. Spam software invariably comes with a list of names falsely claimed to be of people who've said they want to receive ads, but actually consisting of unwilling victims culled at random from usenet or mailing lists. Spam software often promises to run on a provider's system in a way designed to be hard for the provider to detect so they can't tell what the spammer is doing. Spams invariably say they'll remove names on request, but they almost never do. Indeed, people report that when they send a test ``remove'' request from a newly created account, they usually start to receive spam at that address.
Spammers know that people don't want to hear from them, and generally put fake return addresses on their messages so that they don't have to bear the cost of receiving responses from people to whom they've send messages. Whenever possible, they use the ``disposable'' trial ISP accounts mentioned above so the ISP bears the cost of cleaning up after them. I could go on, but you get the idea. It's hard to think of another line of business where the general ethical level is so low.
It might be illegal. Some kinds of spam are illegal in some countries on the Internet. Especially with pornography, mere possession of such material can be enough to put the recipient in jail. In the United States, child pornography is highly illegal and we've already seen spammed child porn offers.
Any one of these six would be enough to make me pretty unhappy about getting junk e-mail. Put them together and it's intolerable.
Uh, have you ever seen hentai? They are fucked up over there. I mean, once in a while Americans make pr0n with schoolgirl outfits and stuff, but in Japan nearly all the pr0n suggests rape. I have no doubt that when the technology becomes affordable, there will be Japanese CGI pr0n of young girls of ALL ages getting all their holes reamed by disgustingly large cocks on good days, and by (the hentai standby) tentacles on bad days. May God have mercy on that godless land.
You love me.... you really love me! I love Sally Field, you know. Especially her puckered virginal anus. So in the spirit of anal sex with Sally Field, here are my votes:
Best Troll of 2001: Ralph JewHater Nader. He was consistent all year - Turd Report and WIPO just hit their prime in the last two months. Wil Wheaton was fucking hilarious for a while too.
Worst Troll of 2001: Klerck. When you discourage people from reading at -1, less people read the trolls, less people join in the trolling, and you actually INCREASE the signal-to-noise ratio.
Most Improved Troll: The WIPO Troll.
Troll Lifetime Achievement Award: The Turd Report, for bringing Michael down to our level.
Best Troll post of 2001: Egg Troll's GPL piece was a troll masterpiece, especially the followup where he said BSD was stolen from the MS-DOS kernel. Honorable mention to the Taco-Snotting FAQ.
Best CrapFlood Material: ASCII Goatse, with "Taco" written in the middle of the anus.
Most hated Slashdot Janitor: If Roblimo still works here, I vote for him. Otherwise, CmdrTaco.
Slashdot Janitor Most Likely to Get Fired: JonKatz. The dot-com bust is long due to catch up with this fucker.
Troll You Would Want to Drink a Beer With: The WIPO Troll - I'm not a young girl so I'm not scared of him, and he knows great jokes.
Troll That You Would Not Want to Be Trapped in an Elevator With: The WIPO Troll also. A beer is one thing, a stuck elevator is quite another.
Many people think of Microsoft as the monster menace of the software industry. There is even a campaign to boycott Microsoft. This feeling has intensified since Microsoft expressed active hostility towards free software.
In the free software movement, our perspective is different. We see that Microsoft is doing something that is bad for software users: making software proprietary and thus denying users their rightful freedom.
But Microsoft is not alone in this; almost all software companies do the same thing to the users. If other companies manage to dominate fewer users than Microsoft, that is not for lack of trying.
This is not meant to excuse Microsoft. Rather, it is meant as a reminder that Microsoft is the natural development of a software industry based on dividing users and taking away their freedom. When criticizing Microsoft, we must not exonerate the other companies that also make proprietary software. At the FSF, we don't run any proprietary software---not from Microsoft or anyone else.
In the ``Halloween documents'', released at the end of October 1998, Microsoft executives stated an intention to use various methods to obstruct the development of free software: specifically, designing secret protocols and file formats, and patenting algorithms and software features.
These obstructionist policies are nothing new: Microsoft, and many other software companies, have been doing them for years now. In the past, probably, their motivation was to attack each other; now, it seems, we are among the intended targets. But that change in motivation has no practical consequence, because secret conventions and software patents obstruct everyone, regardless of the ``intended target''.
Secrecy and patents do threaten free software. They have obstructed us greatly in the past, and we must expect they will do so even more in the future. But this is no different from what was going to happen even if Microsoft had never noticed us. The only real significance of the ``Halloween documents'' is that Microsoft seems to think that the GNU/Linux system has the potential for great success.
Thank you, Microsoft, and please get out of the way.
As the year comes to a close, let's just be thankful that after one year under "President" Bush, Free Software is still legal. Should we be as hopeful for next year?
Slashdot Mirror
Can you say, "sarcasm"?
I know it's a rhetorical question, but for most Slashdotters, the answer is no.
I'll probably get modded down for this but....
So, to review: 100% monopoly on basic phone services + gov't deregulation in the 90's = high rates, shoddy service, illegal activity, and nowhere else to go.
So what would happen if somebody decided to start their own landline phone company in your area to compete with Verizon? If they provided competent service at comparable prices, they'd kill Verizon, right?
Or would they not be allowed by law to do that? Oh, you mean Verizon's monopoly is protected by the government? Sounds like deregulation isn't the problem here at all....
Make no mistake - Laura Bush is the 2nd-hottest first lady in the history of the United States, behind only Jackie Kennedy.
Science fiction was exploring "the Net" in print long before it became the subject of fiction in Hollywood movies and on television news. Indeed, the science fictional imagery of "cyberpunks" seem to have been a model for many online venues, as well as for a goodly portion of the online population. But very few SF writers accurately portrayed today's Internet--or even the virtual reality Net that seems to be looming on the horizon. Almost none showed the real, day-to-day concerns of inhabitants of their fictional Nets.
Most readers will be familiar with the early cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, by William Gibson. In it, as in many movies, the Net is portrayed as a sort-of monster video game populated by self-made superheroes. On a more realistic level, but still making dazzling use of virtual reality in cyberspace, is Vernor Vinge's novella, "True Names." First published in 1980 and thus predating the Gibson work and other cyberpunkia, "True Names" focuses in part on the obsession online hacker communities have with keeping their real names--their true names--a secret. In fact, the plot hinges on it; hence the title. In Vinge's world of hackers, for someone else to know your true name was to lose all, and to be at the mercy of those who knew your true name.
As you know if you've read Chapter 1, anonymity is every bit as vital a concern to contemporary hackers as it was to the hackers in "True Names." It should be a vital concern to you, too, in certain situations.
"True Names" is also a good starting-point for understanding a bit about the hacker culture and related Web communities. In short, it is a "must-read" for anyone who uses the Internet.
"The only flaming homosexual on here"? Being the only flaming homosexual on Slashdot is like being the only virgin at a Star Trek convention. It's impossible.
Whoever's post is directly below this one has been marked as a FLAMING HOMOSEXUAL! RUN BEFORE HE RAPES YOU!
The party where he did that trick must have been the worst party in history.
And you, sir, have quite the excellent Blondie lyrics in your Sig.
And now back to sticking Star Trek TNG DVDs up Sarcasta's birth canal.
I'm back, muthafuckas! Slashdot banned me, but they couldn't ban me forever! Beware The Goat With a Thousand Young!
American citizens have long valued the entrepreneurial spirit, and nowhere is this more apparent today than in the burgeoning computer industry. Many of today's most successful computer industry leaders started their own businesses. Bill Gates and a handful of other entrepreneurs have achieved spectacular fame and fortune, but there are countless other software engineers and hardware manufacturers who have developed successful small and mid-sized businesses. Competition among these businesses is the spark that ignites innovation in the computer industry, and it is innovation that brings real choice to consumers in the marketplace. But one company -- Bill Gates' Microsoft Corporation -- has achieved such a dominant role in the global computer industry that it presents a serious threat to further competition, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Free market advocates are fond of blaming economic problems on government regulation, and they don't look kindly on government-regulated monopolies. But the real threat to a healthy economy is an unregulated monopoly. Microsoft's marketing strategy is aimed at controlling the market.
Largely as a result of the monopoly abuses of the early U.S. industrialists, American businesses are subject to a set of strong anti-trust laws, chiefly the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914. When these laws are enforced, monopoly practices can be curtailed, competition among entrepreneurs can flourish, and consumers can benefit from competitive choices in the marketplace.
Anti-trust laws aren't just intended to protect competitors from anti-competitive practices. These laws are also supposed to protect consumers! Everyone who uses a computer has a stake in maintaining a competitive computer industry. And you don't need to know any complicated economic theories to understand why. If one company controls the market, it sets the price, controls the quality and determines the availability of products. With a Microsoft monopoly, you can count on higher prices, lower quality, and more delays in new product roll-outs.
It's time for consumers to speak out, loud and clear, and demand that federal officials enforce the anti-trust laws. If they don't, there's a good chance Bill Gates' Microsoft Corporation will take our choices away.
Microsoft has launched its latest version of Windows, Windows XP (eXtra Proprietary). Tightening its stranglehold on all industries that use computers, Microsoft's XP features are certain to further degrade customer choice, cost/performance and, in some cases, even civil liberties.
One of the most controversial new eXtra Proprietary technologies is Windows Media. In a twist that no framer of the U.S. Constitution could have imagined, Microsoft is using patents to prevent software interoperability with its eXtra Proprietary technologies. Of course, Windows Media has to compete with the immensely popular MP3 format, but Windows XP limits the quality of MP3 encoding and decoding. By intentionally degrading the quality of all competing technologies, and by allowing only Microsoft-approved uses of its own technologies, Windows Media has the potential to create yet another monopoly for Microsoft -- a monopoly that extends from software to content. Such a monopoly would change our entertainment economy from one of unlimited content at limited cost, to one of limited content with unlimited costs.
Let's get out of this vicious trap the way we got in: by controlling what we do with our money. If you are already running Microsoft's products, do the sensible thing and BOYCOTT THE MONOPOLIST. Let Microsoft's latest products sit in warehouses until Microsoft comes to their senses and removes all the eXtra Proprietary technologies they've been engineering over the past several years. Wait until Microsoft offers a level playing field to other operating systems, applications and network service providers.
For those of you who cannot stand still, join a LUG (Linux Users Group) and maybe upgrade to Linux. Aside from saving a bundle on licensing fees (there are none), you'll get unprecedented freedom and control. With thousands of Red Hat Certified Engineers, and millions of Linux enthusiasts, any configuration running on any hardware can be supported at a fair price (determined by a free market of competing vendors) for as long as you want. Suddenly, hardware and software upgrades will be your choice, not a choice dictated to you. Suddenly, money you spend will be on things that you value, not things you are forced to pay for. Suddenly, you will begin to see the engine of growth that Moore's law enables come back to life, and the dividends it pays will be ones you can put in your bank account, not the bank account of a convicted monopolist.
Hey, I can see why I might be the worst troll, but why wouldn't you want to be trapped in an elevator with me? If you're male, I'll leave you alone, and if you're female, you wanna ride my dick anyway.
Man, this is more fucked up than the Hall of Fame balloting.
"not only does it preclude gainful employment...."
Indeed. Compute how much these morons would earn working full-time at minimum wage for the next 4 months, and then think of a) how many scalped opening night tickets they could buy with that money and b) how many miscellaneous advantages there are to NOT FUCKING LIVING OUTSIDE FOR FOUR MONTHS.
It'd be better if they got cancer and died on May 15.
When people on this site fail to "get" jokes over and over again, you have to wonder about the way they claim to enjoy things like the Simpsons and Monty Python....
The above post is not by the real Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. It is an impostor. Please moderate him down as I did.
Shhh, dude! For only $10 they can find out everything about you.
Many other spammers use ``hit and run'' spamming in which they get a trial dial-up account at an Internet provider for a few days, send tens of thousands of messages, then abandon the account (unless the provider notices what they're doing and cancels it first), leaving the unsuspecting provider to clean up the mess. Many spammers have done this tens or dozens of times, forcing the providers to waste staff time both on the cleanup and on monitoring their trial accounts for abuse.
Spammers know that people don't want to hear from them, and generally put fake return addresses on their messages so that they don't have to bear the cost of receiving responses from people to whom they've send messages. Whenever possible, they use the ``disposable'' trial ISP accounts mentioned above so the ISP bears the cost of cleaning up after them. I could go on, but you get the idea. It's hard to think of another line of business where the general ethical level is so low.
Any one of these six would be enough to make me pretty unhappy about getting junk e-mail. Put them together and it's intolerable.
Uh, have you ever seen hentai? They are fucked up over there. I mean, once in a while Americans make pr0n with schoolgirl outfits and stuff, but in Japan nearly all the pr0n suggests rape. I have no doubt that when the technology becomes affordable, there will be Japanese CGI pr0n of young girls of ALL ages getting all their holes reamed by disgustingly large cocks on good days, and by (the hentai standby) tentacles on bad days. May God have mercy on that godless land.
You love me.... you really love me! I love Sally Field, you know. Especially her puckered virginal anus. So in the spirit of anal sex with Sally Field, here are my votes:
Best Troll of 2001: Ralph JewHater Nader. He was consistent all year - Turd Report and WIPO just hit their prime in the last two months. Wil Wheaton was fucking hilarious for a while too.
Worst Troll of 2001: Klerck. When you discourage people from reading at -1, less people read the trolls, less people join in the trolling, and you actually INCREASE the signal-to-noise ratio.
Most Improved Troll: The WIPO Troll.
Troll Lifetime Achievement Award: The Turd Report, for bringing Michael down to our level.
Best Troll post of 2001: Egg Troll's GPL piece was a troll masterpiece, especially the followup where he said BSD was stolen from the MS-DOS kernel. Honorable mention to the Taco-Snotting FAQ.
Best CrapFlood Material: ASCII Goatse, with "Taco" written in the middle of the anus.
Most hated Slashdot Janitor: If Roblimo still works here, I vote for him. Otherwise, CmdrTaco.
Slashdot Janitor Most Likely to Get Fired: JonKatz. The dot-com bust is long due to catch up with this fucker.
Troll You Would Want to Drink a Beer With: The WIPO Troll - I'm not a young girl so I'm not scared of him, and he knows great jokes.
Troll That You Would Not Want to Be Trapped in an Elevator With: The WIPO Troll also. A beer is one thing, a stuck elevator is quite another.
Many people think of Microsoft as the monster menace of the software industry. There is even a campaign to boycott Microsoft. This feeling has intensified since Microsoft expressed active hostility towards free software.
In the free software movement, our perspective is different. We see that Microsoft is doing something that is bad for software users: making software proprietary and thus denying users their rightful freedom.
But Microsoft is not alone in this; almost all software companies do the same thing to the users. If other companies manage to dominate fewer users than Microsoft, that is not for lack of trying.
This is not meant to excuse Microsoft. Rather, it is meant as a reminder that Microsoft is the natural development of a software industry based on dividing users and taking away their freedom. When criticizing Microsoft, we must not exonerate the other companies that also make proprietary software. At the FSF, we don't run any proprietary software---not from Microsoft or anyone else.
In the ``Halloween documents'', released at the end of October 1998, Microsoft executives stated an intention to use various methods to obstruct the development of free software: specifically, designing secret protocols and file formats, and patenting algorithms and software features.
These obstructionist policies are nothing new: Microsoft, and many other software companies, have been doing them for years now. In the past, probably, their motivation was to attack each other; now, it seems, we are among the intended targets. But that change in motivation has no practical consequence, because secret conventions and software patents obstruct everyone, regardless of the ``intended target''.
Secrecy and patents do threaten free software. They have obstructed us greatly in the past, and we must expect they will do so even more in the future. But this is no different from what was going to happen even if Microsoft had never noticed us. The only real significance of the ``Halloween documents'' is that Microsoft seems to think that the GNU/Linux system has the potential for great success.
Thank you, Microsoft, and please get out of the way.
I'm honestly surprised that research like this is still allowed to go on during the administration of George "Big Oil" Bush II.
As the year comes to a close, let's just be thankful that after one year under "President" Bush, Free Software is still legal. Should we be as hopeful for next year?