really, it's not like MS makes a profit from every endevor they try... haven't they lost another $100 million on X-box... again... just to get a lock on the market. It's good to have the long term plan to develop something good rather than just another "product"
but remember that some 75% of programmers work for companies writing boring stuff like part counters, or machine instructions, or invoices, etc...
in my personal work experience there's not much my company would have to fear from using GPL'd code. The stuff we write remains inside our company... it would be breaking the law for even me [who wrote it] to release it without permission... that's cut-and-dry. For all the other stuff though, browsers, word processors, etc. that's not our business, just a tool.. if we find a bug we need it fixed.. does MS pay you when you find their bugs? [does anybody PAY you for finding their bugs?] so how are you loosing here...
As far as control, in a business setting you need that rapid response... the whole reason nobody wants to use linux is the idea that nobody is "responsible" to keep it up-to-date. There would be some "proprietary" glue between your company and theirs... I could see the fee being 1/10 of what MS charges... and getting better service to boot! Remember, the "average" company with 200 PCs is shelling out $50k -100K per year to MS/IBM/etc just to USE the hardware they paid for.. programming tools are EXTRA!! To get this level of service from a MS or IBM requires ANOTHER $50k on TOP of what you pay to use the software... There's big money to be made here. But the key thing your paying for is communication, not just to use the software. if they can spin it that way, there'd be no business advantage to stop paying and loose that resource.
But as a business, you'd be generally syncing to either Ubuntu's repository or your corperate one.. and not much else. The bandwidth to sync half an iso a day is pocket change for most businesses compared to email/websurfing demands. Cannonical would do the developer-syncing part... that'd make them the money.. all a business would see is their own connection.
Like somebody else questioned, the corperate benifit would be pooling the resources that allow the free version to operate... then your employees, school, govt can pull that version for free to build other stuff from... heck, they could probably figure out a way to make part of the payments tax-decuctable... bosses like that!!!
businesses will pay for a "gatekeeper" if they provide enough value. Red Hat's doing nicely, but it's still a seller/buyer thing.. not cooperation. You're still at Red Hat's mercy for the next "boxed" copy if you need something important fixed...or risk going "on your own" until the next version.
The big draw for Ubuntu of course would be that the main version is always free... That means they have to have an idea to make money without per-seat fees... i.e. you'll download the free version for all your desktops and they'll make profit from helping you write custom software? I could see it spun as they help your business with tools and your payments directly help the community... i.e. schools, employees, etc. when it's something you'd pay for anyway.. I'm interested to see where he takes this!
to take Ubuntu to the next level requires something "more" than just lots of hardworking people "pounding" code back into shape. The real draw of OSS is for commercial vendors seeking to get control of their businesses.. rather than being slaves to what ever MS/oracle/ etc wants this week.
I could see this as a great business model for them. Provide premium subscriptions to the archive for developers of Proprietary stuff with the gaurantee their stuff would work with all the supported Ubuntu versions! In the business world, 6 months for a new version really isn't that long.. and people really don't want that many versions anyway. I'm also thinking of the smaller vendors/ small businesses that programming too. In my companies ERP system 6 months to fix a bug would be a vast improvment... because we just don't have time to fix everything... all the time. There's a great many small-medium businesses out there that could be talked into $1000-$3000 per year no-questions for access to something like that for their developers. And remember, in a business setting you can keep Your-code-yours... but it's still benifical to share your problems "upstream" so other people can help fix them. Working thru a company like Cannonical you wouldn't be "giving" your source away, but they would be able to share the OSS parts of your work back without compromising your company info... That would seem to appeal to programmers/geeks that want speed and flexibility and to businessmen/lawyers that want some security to the whole thing.
The reason Bitkeeper was choosen over all the others is that it allowed a developer to keep their own private version and others to share specific parts... which is the opposite of nearly every other source management system. Every other system seeks to have one "golden" version with developers contributing only to that... think corperate style software, always working toward some "release". Bitkeeper was the only one to allow individuals to keep their "pet" projects, but still share all the changes amongst themselves... i.e you could have Linus' version, Alan Cox version, etc... they can all "borrow back" from eachother, but don't Have to. it's percisely the opposite philosophy of every other source control system to conform everybody to "the way".
CVS was a good start, and Gentoo takes the next step, but they all require somebody to be "developer in the middle" for every single configuration decision. Debian is very cool in that it seeks to always provide a "foundation" to build on, but it's much too slow advancing [updating the foundation] for "internet" usage. I've thought it was time for a while now to develop the "next" system... which I could gaurantee is unique to OSS and nobody else. Gentoo's ebuild is great, but it doesn't go back to the developer/ outside of gentoo. Think about this a minute... if Gentoo is source only, then it should be simple to make a ebuild for any other distro too... but "it's not that easy" you say... I'd ask WHY?
Ideally, every person who compiles should be able to submit their results "upstream" as well as "downstream" that's the current distro problem we face now. Every distro fixes things differently, but the original author can't keep up with all the changes coming from a dozen distros... so they all stay "fragmented". The "next" system should fix bugs once... and be able to relay the issues back to the guy who maintains that particular piece of source code. Gentoo comes close, but it can't "put back" and suggest changes and test cases to the original developer... That's the step that's slowing down development all around. It's the need for things like drivers and kernel modules to fix third- and fourth- levels of interaction... the best testing environment is the "real world" because there are far more combinations of programs out there than any one developer could ever hope to test... The ability to guess where a bug might be by looking at logs from ALL the compiled versions... and see what's breaking stuff... to reduce the reliance on "custom" distros, you need a sytem that can spot bugs that happen once per thousand or even ten-thousand users... The other advantage is that proprietary developers would be able to tap the same up-to-date pool for their projects... so they wouldn't be pertually "out of the loop" dragging things down!!
just call firefox a "plugin"... it's only 4 meg to download... most people will download shockwave, flash, or worse.Net which are far larger...
What firefox needs is a "view in firefox" option added to IE's toolbar so that users of IE can download firefox and still use IE as their "regular" browser.... that's the beauty of OSS... they don't have to have any shame about adapting.
actually, the Prometheus was Gou'ld based technology.. the asgard mearly enhanced it's materials to their maximum potential. Deadleus on the other hand is an Asgard based ship... and it's powered with a ZPM... so Gou'ld are offically a 'nusiance'...
there in lies the problem! Why do you think IBM likes Linux...they make hardware...you can't get hardware for free...not at any level that'd be useful...
Unfortunately, useful robotics is a highly proprietary market... far worse than the dark Unix years. Nobody who has the hardware wants "open robotics" and worse tend to tie their proprietary hardware to even more proproietary software! The only way to do something like this is "gaurilla" type projects like this one, but unfortunately you need somebody with experience to build hardware.
The main thing you could try to do is come up with Open robot specs using common industry standard pieces as much as possible. Perhaps thru persuasion to support the "open platform" manufactures would open up their software and prices would come down.. therein lies the problem... cheap robots like mindstorms and robosapien just aren't useful...and the parts to make something useful are a thousand $$ leap at this point....
Unfortunately, the 3 Laws are unrealistic for at least another 100-1000 years. The very notion of the 3 laws implies that Robots can be programed to make "moral" choices.. You can't even get get an "alice" bot to carry on a decent conversation...let alone understand the second and third meanings of what you're discussing..
frankly, I think any "sencient" robot would be more like "bicentenial man"... meticilously taught over 100+ years to "figure out" how to act human...
of course a "lifeform" doesn't mean "sencient"! the first generally accepted sign of live is self preservation... which means the ability to choose to attack or defend itself...think apes in 2001....the first "evolution" was to use a tool to gain competitive advantage for food!!!
Some of the original ideas for robots in Star Wars involved multi-processor systems who's interaction provided "intelligence"
I'd like TOTJ done too.. I thought the characters were great...as well as the emphisis on non-human jedi. TOTJ was truely crazy because the Force wasn't formalized yet...a great playground for lucas to preach a little. Also, I'd like to see Vodoo-siko-baa Ulic-qel-droma and Naomi-Sunrider and the crew...
of course Post-Vong galaxy would be cool too...again, like TOTJ, they broke all the rules.. so anything goes... more opportunity for "wild west" jedi than the "classic" story allows.
Personally, I'd like a "darker" Vader based miniseries. I'd fit Lucas's "saturday serial" ideas..but with a dark twist... Who doesn't want to see Vader in action!!!! that's the good stuff George won't let anybody else play with.
The clone wars are the coolest part of SW and Lucas himself has as done nothing with them!!! Between the Animated minis and the comics, video games, and RPGs there's tons of material to draw from.. pitty not having the main characters for parts of it.. as long as the writing's good fans won't care.
personally, I'd like to see something like the Tales of the Jedi or Young Jedi Knights done as TV... You can explain a lot of cool SW lore without directly competing with the movies.. Also, a "Taken" style miniseries would be better than a "series" I know many/.rs laugh at that Sci-Fi run, but they executed it masterfully..and the shorter timeframe to watch it in kept interest up...when it couldn't quite hold a whole season. Also, there's no "attachment" to doing more and you can't be cancled. It fits the SW style [OK everybody but lucas] in telling compacted stories [like the Young Jedi Knights, comics or Zahn's novels] Also, 22 hours of SW would do a lot better than the crash-and-burn movies we've been getting... Oh... Broadcast it in HDTV too George!!!
again, that argument was used againt magic...already been there. The current policy of the MMORGS to "own" all the stuf on their servers is to prevent exactly the situation you discribe... you can't sue them for monetary damage because it wasn't your property to sell in the first place. nice legal argument.
Being able to publish new items is what their position is all about... they're "publishers!" after all. They make their money selling a game running a place to play fair... Imagine competitive sports if you could buy and sell points from the "loosing" teams to add to your score at will. Things like the superbowl would be meaningless. This is where the genere needs to change.. and if "spore" [from will wright] is any indication then user created items will be valuable! Then people with interesting ideas will be more valuable players than hackers and people buying their way in.
but that's been dealt with before too.. in the early days Magic was played for Ante... in other words you lost a random card from your deck if you lost a duel.... That didn't last long when Black Lotus started hitting $300... and local authorities tried to ban the game...
I can't see how SOE is doing anything different...and again they're actually recieving compensation for the allowed "gambling" so that really gets messsy.
remember too, MT:G got in a lot of trouble when card prices went thru the roof... even though they were "just a publisher". Magic took the correct road in the matter by being the "publisher" rather than "gatekeeper". If SOE's server's wipe out, they're responsible for the $$ value of your missing items... espically if they recieved a cut of the profits!
I've mentioned before, the key is to make all things in a game limited... it means that games need to rebalanced to make outside auctions irrelevent. After all, again with the Magic, but they limited the allowed play formats so that everybody had relively the same access to any given card... sure there are rarities like the Black Lotus, but it's only playable in certian tournaments... normal tournaments are very easy to get good cards in... so the card prices stay "sane" versus the early days.. the key that WOTC realized [much to the ire of collectors] is that they make money selling CARDS... not based on how much a card is worth...at the most a rare is worth $3 to a seller because that's all a pack sells for!
I think WOW may get it in line soon, but then you're in a "damaged" genere... normal people have abandon MMORGS because of these issues long ago... and the only people that still play, only play because they can "cheat" at it...
point is if they send it to an individual who ordered it, you're not under any "obligagion" about when to use it. I suppose some online vendors that automatically autoship stuff my have been caught unawares... after all, how often does OS software ship EARLY!!!!
in my opinion, apple has the least restrictive DRM in iTMS. It is so trivial to get your music out of iTunes...you don't even need third party programs to do it.. as far as I know iTunes is the only music service you get a real...playable CD out of. Everything else uses...Hyper-DRM... The brand of DRM Microsoft is selling is complete and total... every device from memory stick, to camera, to phone, to audio device, to pc & pda will be required to ONLY run MS brand of DRM. MS version means you can purchase from anybody...but loose the key file in a hard drive crash and you'll have to repurchase again. Apple's files can be burned DRM'd to any media...they just have to "phone home" to apple to get permission... Apple let's you "own" your copy...just like a CD... MS ensures you will only ever "rent" your copiesl....with experation dates.. forever.
But the very idea of "single source" vendors is against nearly every govt purchasing policy...except desktop software. In ANY other field from Nuclear bombs to pencils, they reserve the right to litterally take your company and have somebody else make the product if you screw up...and it DOES happen. Not to mention the mono-culture breeds bad software purchasing practices to begin with... right now there's really no "oversight" of contracts.. they just call up dell and order a new office full when ever the department manager has the money... The disorganized feature-creep alone of the windows "office space" is incredibly wasteful [not just in $$ but wasted time, lost records, and extra staff]... but it's continued to be allowed "because it's M$
That the feds buy Tons of stuff...and have the ability to require other people to buy it to work with them!
The feds can spend tens of thousands on small projects...millions on bigger ones...and still consider it "department" expenses. Imagine what a $100k check would do for many OSS projects...but it's just another "notch" for the big guys. The govt is known for paying cash up front to help the "little guy" start up projects. a great many "meatspace" minority businesses are started that way. More than that govt gives credibility to the project. Imagine if you could simply get some govt agency to require Openoffice.org for their latest round of paperwork [don't worry about backward compatiblity...they really like making new paperwork!] It would be a logical step..as Openoffice is available on 3 platforms...and available for free! simply requiring people to use the format gets it out there.
The govt is the one entity that has vast sums of money available to new projects by fiat... They write huge checks, and affect a large number of people that have to "talk" to them. Being as M$ is a convicted "felon" it would be the least they could do to throw some projects to the little guys... like it's not fair M$ is a monopoly...but they continue to write them 1/2 Billion $$ checks!!!! Imagine that much money in the hands of RedHat, Suse, or even Debian & Ubuntu... It's a fraction of M$ budget, but 100's of times what most OSS companies would hope to see!
It's long past time for us to really bring our armies home. Most of the places we've been involved in the last 100 years have been strictly for american corporations, often going directly against the democratically elceted govts whey they told us off. The mess south of the boarder is directly our doing! "our" dictators have killed more people than the "commies" dictators have. The more old news I read, outside the USA the US acts very evil toward people...if we don't straighten up the "arabs" are the least of our worries.
scary to say, but we need to keep americans at home more... It's the only card we have against the multi-nationals. We value "corperate" rights over the individual rights of people all over the world. Why do thing Iraq is getting "freedom" but the very basics of OUR freedoms they don't get..unions, free trade, etc.. they're being farmed as "serfs" We've conveniently not overturned some of Saddam's more "dictatorlike" laws because the military thinks their convenient...soon we'll be in another bad situation again. the world has things to sort out...and we need our noze out of it. Otherwise we become everybody's target. Unless we seriously change our ways we will be the bad guys of the next war!!!
They don't have long range missles... best estimates I've heard put them in the 50-100 mile range. If they even had SCUDs testing, we'd be there in a hot minute. They may have Nukes, but that's not an ICBM.. those are truely rare things. Even though they make the movies a lot.
point is that if the SK govt can refuse to consider issues from "militant" students....how the heck can they negotiate with the armed and starving people to the north? They gotta answer the "a-hole" questions the students keep brining up... They have to pick KOREA's side, not the US or China! For any "controlled" merging of north and south, the current govts need to ask the tough questions, piss everybody off, and be willing to walk gracefully away from it when the time is right...
the "pochihantis" dollars are about the same size but are "gold" colored and have smooth edges... The "susan B" had the misfortune of being the same color and cross-cut edge as a quarter...
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really, it's not like MS makes a profit from every endevor they try... haven't they lost another $100 million on X-box... again... just to get a lock on the market. It's good to have the long term plan to develop something good rather than just another "product"
in my personal work experience there's not much my company would have to fear from using GPL'd code. The stuff we write remains inside our company... it would be breaking the law for even me [who wrote it] to release it without permission... that's cut-and-dry. For all the other stuff though, browsers, word processors, etc. that's not our business, just a tool.. if we find a bug we need it fixed.. does MS pay you when you find their bugs? [does anybody PAY you for finding their bugs?] so how are you loosing here...
As far as control, in a business setting you need that rapid response... the whole reason nobody wants to use linux is the idea that nobody is "responsible" to keep it up-to-date. There would be some "proprietary" glue between your company and theirs... I could see the fee being 1/10 of what MS charges... and getting better service to boot! Remember, the "average" company with 200 PCs is shelling out $50k -100K per year to MS/IBM/etc just to USE the hardware they paid for.. programming tools are EXTRA!! To get this level of service from a MS or IBM requires ANOTHER $50k on TOP of what you pay to use the software... There's big money to be made here. But the key thing your paying for is communication, not just to use the software. if they can spin it that way, there'd be no business advantage to stop paying and loose that resource.
Like somebody else questioned, the corperate benifit would be pooling the resources that allow the free version to operate... then your employees, school, govt can pull that version for free to build other stuff from... heck, they could probably figure out a way to make part of the payments tax-decuctable... bosses like that!!!
The big draw for Ubuntu of course would be that the main version is always free... That means they have to have an idea to make money without per-seat fees... i.e. you'll download the free version for all your desktops and they'll make profit from helping you write custom software? I could see it spun as they help your business with tools and your payments directly help the community... i.e. schools, employees, etc. when it's something you'd pay for anyway.. I'm interested to see where he takes this!
I could see this as a great business model for them. Provide premium subscriptions to the archive for developers of Proprietary stuff with the gaurantee their stuff would work with all the supported Ubuntu versions! In the business world, 6 months for a new version really isn't that long.. and people really don't want that many versions anyway. I'm also thinking of the smaller vendors/ small businesses that programming too. In my companies ERP system 6 months to fix a bug would be a vast improvment... because we just don't have time to fix everything... all the time. There's a great many small-medium businesses out there that could be talked into $1000-$3000 per year no-questions for access to something like that for their developers. And remember, in a business setting you can keep Your-code-yours... but it's still benifical to share your problems "upstream" so other people can help fix them. Working thru a company like Cannonical you wouldn't be "giving" your source away, but they would be able to share the OSS parts of your work back without compromising your company info... That would seem to appeal to programmers/geeks that want speed and flexibility and to businessmen/lawyers that want some security to the whole thing.
CVS was a good start, and Gentoo takes the next step, but they all require somebody to be "developer in the middle" for every single configuration decision. Debian is very cool in that it seeks to always provide a "foundation" to build on, but it's much too slow advancing [updating the foundation] for "internet" usage. I've thought it was time for a while now to develop the "next" system... which I could gaurantee is unique to OSS and nobody else. Gentoo's ebuild is great, but it doesn't go back to the developer/ outside of gentoo. Think about this a minute... if Gentoo is source only, then it should be simple to make a ebuild for any other distro too... but "it's not that easy" you say... I'd ask WHY?
Ideally, every person who compiles should be able to submit their results "upstream" as well as "downstream" that's the current distro problem we face now. Every distro fixes things differently, but the original author can't keep up with all the changes coming from a dozen distros... so they all stay "fragmented". The "next" system should fix bugs once... and be able to relay the issues back to the guy who maintains that particular piece of source code. Gentoo comes close, but it can't "put back" and suggest changes and test cases to the original developer... That's the step that's slowing down development all around. It's the need for things like drivers and kernel modules to fix third- and fourth- levels of interaction... the best testing environment is the "real world" because there are far more combinations of programs out there than any one developer could ever hope to test... The ability to guess where a bug might be by looking at logs from ALL the compiled versions... and see what's breaking stuff... to reduce the reliance on "custom" distros, you need a sytem that can spot bugs that happen once per thousand or even ten-thousand users... The other advantage is that proprietary developers would be able to tap the same up-to-date pool for their projects... so they wouldn't be pertually "out of the loop" dragging things down!!
What firefox needs is a "view in firefox" option added to IE's toolbar so that users of IE can download firefox and still use IE as their "regular" browser.... that's the beauty of OSS... they don't have to have any shame about adapting.
I want to see replicators vs. wraith!!!
Unfortunately, useful robotics is a highly proprietary market... far worse than the dark Unix years. Nobody who has the hardware wants "open robotics" and worse tend to tie their proprietary hardware to even more proproietary software! The only way to do something like this is "gaurilla" type projects like this one, but unfortunately you need somebody with experience to build hardware.
The main thing you could try to do is come up with Open robot specs using common industry standard pieces as much as possible. Perhaps thru persuasion to support the "open platform" manufactures would open up their software and prices would come down.. therein lies the problem... cheap robots like mindstorms and robosapien just aren't useful...and the parts to make something useful are a thousand $$ leap at this point....
frankly, I think any "sencient" robot would be more like "bicentenial man"... meticilously taught over 100+ years to "figure out" how to act human...
of course a "lifeform" doesn't mean "sencient"! the first generally accepted sign of live is self preservation... which means the ability to choose to attack or defend itself...think apes in 2001....the first "evolution" was to use a tool to gain competitive advantage for food!!!
Some of the original ideas for robots in Star Wars involved multi-processor systems who's interaction provided "intelligence"
Then they can have Vader jump over some evil kind of "shark-like" monster....to get better ratings, of course
of course Post-Vong galaxy would be cool too...again, like TOTJ, they broke all the rules.. so anything goes... more opportunity for "wild west" jedi than the "classic" story allows.
Personally, I'd like a "darker" Vader based miniseries. I'd fit Lucas's "saturday serial" ideas..but with a dark twist... Who doesn't want to see Vader in action!!!! that's the good stuff George won't let anybody else play with.
personally, I'd like to see something like the Tales of the Jedi or Young Jedi Knights done as TV... You can explain a lot of cool SW lore without directly competing with the movies.. Also, a "Taken" style miniseries would be better than a "series" I know many /.rs laugh at that Sci-Fi run, but they executed it masterfully..and the shorter timeframe to watch it in kept interest up...when it couldn't quite hold a whole season. Also, there's no "attachment" to doing more and you can't be cancled. It fits the SW style [OK everybody but lucas] in telling compacted stories [like the Young Jedi Knights, comics or Zahn's novels] Also, 22 hours of SW would do a lot better than the crash-and-burn movies we've been getting... Oh... Broadcast it in HDTV too George!!!
Being able to publish new items is what their position is all about... they're "publishers!" after all. They make their money selling a game running a place to play fair... Imagine competitive sports if you could buy and sell points from the "loosing" teams to add to your score at will. Things like the superbowl would be meaningless. This is where the genere needs to change.. and if "spore" [from will wright] is any indication then user created items will be valuable! Then people with interesting ideas will be more valuable players than hackers and people buying their way in.
I can't see how SOE is doing anything different...and again they're actually recieving compensation for the allowed "gambling" so that really gets messsy.
I've mentioned before, the key is to make all things in a game limited... it means that games need to rebalanced to make outside auctions irrelevent. After all, again with the Magic, but they limited the allowed play formats so that everybody had relively the same access to any given card... sure there are rarities like the Black Lotus, but it's only playable in certian tournaments... normal tournaments are very easy to get good cards in... so the card prices stay "sane" versus the early days.. the key that WOTC realized [much to the ire of collectors] is that they make money selling CARDS... not based on how much a card is worth...at the most a rare is worth $3 to a seller because that's all a pack sells for!
I think WOW may get it in line soon, but then you're in a "damaged" genere... normal people have abandon MMORGS because of these issues long ago... and the only people that still play, only play because they can "cheat" at it...
point is if they send it to an individual who ordered it, you're not under any "obligagion" about when to use it. I suppose some online vendors that automatically autoship stuff my have been caught unawares... after all, how often does OS software ship EARLY!!!!
in my opinion, apple has the least restrictive DRM in iTMS. It is so trivial to get your music out of iTunes...you don't even need third party programs to do it.. as far as I know iTunes is the only music service you get a real...playable CD out of. Everything else uses...Hyper-DRM... The brand of DRM Microsoft is selling is complete and total... every device from memory stick, to camera, to phone, to audio device, to pc & pda will be required to ONLY run MS brand of DRM. MS version means you can purchase from anybody...but loose the key file in a hard drive crash and you'll have to repurchase again. Apple's files can be burned DRM'd to any media...they just have to "phone home" to apple to get permission... Apple let's you "own" your copy...just like a CD... MS ensures you will only ever "rent" your copiesl....with experation dates.. forever.
The feds can spend tens of thousands on small projects...millions on bigger ones...and still consider it "department" expenses. Imagine what a $100k check would do for many OSS projects...but it's just another "notch" for the big guys. The govt is known for paying cash up front to help the "little guy" start up projects. a great many "meatspace" minority businesses are started that way. More than that govt gives credibility to the project. Imagine if you could simply get some govt agency to require Openoffice.org for their latest round of paperwork [don't worry about backward compatiblity...they really like making new paperwork!] It would be a logical step..as Openoffice is available on 3 platforms...and available for free! simply requiring people to use the format gets it out there.
The govt is the one entity that has vast sums of money available to new projects by fiat... They write huge checks, and affect a large number of people that have to "talk" to them. Being as M$ is a convicted "felon" it would be the least they could do to throw some projects to the little guys... like it's not fair M$ is a monopoly...but they continue to write them 1/2 Billion $$ checks!!!! Imagine that much money in the hands of RedHat, Suse, or even Debian & Ubuntu... It's a fraction of M$ budget, but 100's of times what most OSS companies would hope to see!
scary to say, but we need to keep americans at home more... It's the only card we have against the multi-nationals. We value "corperate" rights over the individual rights of people all over the world. Why do thing Iraq is getting "freedom" but the very basics of OUR freedoms they don't get..unions, free trade, etc.. they're being farmed as "serfs" We've conveniently not overturned some of Saddam's more "dictatorlike" laws because the military thinks their convenient. ..soon we'll be in another bad situation again. the world has things to sort out...and we need our noze out of it. Otherwise we become everybody's target. Unless we seriously change our ways we will be the bad guys of the next war!!!
They don't have long range missles... best estimates I've heard put them in the 50-100 mile range. If they even had SCUDs testing, we'd be there in a hot minute. They may have Nukes, but that's not an ICBM.. those are truely rare things. Even though they make the movies a lot.
point is that if the SK govt can refuse to consider issues from "militant" students....how the heck can they negotiate with the armed and starving people to the north? They gotta answer the "a-hole" questions the students keep brining up... They have to pick KOREA's side, not the US or China! For any "controlled" merging of north and south, the current govts need to ask the tough questions, piss everybody off, and be willing to walk gracefully away from it when the time is right...
the "pochihantis" dollars are about the same size but are "gold" colored and have smooth edges... The "susan B" had the misfortune of being the same color and cross-cut edge as a quarter...