``Well, I hope it's at least damn pretty, cause being the runner up to "the real os" isn't really something to be proud of. But if its flashy enough, then people will like it and will increase their opinion of linux. Then again... is it going to say its Linux?''
It is worth bearing in mind that Linux is not an operating system. It is a kernel, and there is a plethora of operating systems built on top of that kernel. Colloquially, these operating systems are often referred to as "Linux", but the differences between them can be enormous. Ubuntu may be pretty, but I wouldn't really say the same about OpenWrt. Yet, they are both "Linux". Of course, they are different operating systems that serve different purposes, so one's opinion of one should not carry over to the other.
Remember, folks. This is what "1.0" means in the world of proprietary software. Remember that, next time you're using apt version 0.6.46.4, detach 0.2.3, or QEMU 0.9.1.
If you look around, I think you will find that most people don't care about virtual desktops. And I don't mean just Windows users. Mac users generally don't care, and Linux users generally don't care, either. Perhaps, if more people had been crying to have the feature, Microsoft would have implemented it sooner. Because you are right: it isn't rocket science. Still, I think Microsoft made the right choice in playing catch up in other races, first: stability, support for Internet protocols and standard, security, multi-user support, etc. etc. I'd say these are all more important than virtual desktops.
A couple of things that have changed, from the top of my head:
- Those old machines had an OS dedicated to support exactly the hardware that was shipped. OTOH, Linux distros are usually generic, and detect hardware on boot.
- There's a huge difference between a BASIC interpreter and a full-fledged multi-user OS with networking, GUI, etc.
- PC hardware spends a lot of time during boot before actually handing control to the software. Server hardware is often a lot worse.
- The code involved in booting those old machines was probably written by Real Programmers, who knew the ins and outs of the hardware they were programming for. It's probably horrible to maintain, but ridiculously fast. By contrast, most of the code involved in booting your Linux distro is written in a variety of languages, by a whole lot of people, few of whom are Real Programmers, and it's probably optimized for genericity and maintainability, rather than efficiency.
Having said all that, you _can_ boot Linux ridiculously fast. I used to have a 486 where the boot process basically consisted of (1) POST (2) Load GRUB (3) Load kernel (4) Run init (5) Run login. Pretty much a normal boot process. What was special about it is that the kernel had all required modules compiled in, and nothing else. init (IIRC) only spawned a single tty and ran login. And both init and login were BusyBox statically linked against dietlibc. From GRUB to login prompt took less than 5 seconds, IIRC. You could further improve on this by foregoing the BIOS in favor of something like coreboot.
Is login actually all that heavy? I've never considered it as taking up a lot of time. Also, when thinking about replacing login, bear in mind that it is one of those parts of the system that have years of security experience incorporated in them.
Back in the day, I used H.323. Nowadays, I use mostly SIP. Both are open standards that can be used with a variety of clients, such as Ekiga, XMeeting, and Gizmo.
By default, these protocols are unencrypted. I would run them over a VPN (I use OpenVPN) so that all communication is encrypted. This also solves some of the connectivity problems that Network Address Translation creates.
``This is also an argument in favor of using open source software. I've been dubious in the past about claims that closes-source vendors couldn't be trusted, but apparently I was being naive.''
It's not that closed source cannot be trusted, it's just that you need to realize that's what you're really doing. You are trusting that code to do what you think it does, and not do what you think it doesn't do. But really, you have no idea. With open source, you and others can actually verify whether a given claim about the code is true. Of course, doing so isn't necessarily trivial, but the fact that you and others are allowed to see for yourself what the program does, and change it if you see fit, makes a very real difference.
Well, there is a possibility that end-to-end security goes for voice calls. Note that this story is about _text_ conversations.
I still refuse to use Skype for using a proprietary protocol and resent that the founders became millionaires by successfully getting the world to use a proprietary protocol for what was already being done using open protocols, _and_ I still maintain that trusting closed source software is more an act of faith than good security...but let's not go knocking Skype with false arguments.
``The administrative flexibility of swap files outweighs that of partitions;''
Speaking of which, isn't it about time partitions and filesystems got more flexible? How about, say, the following scenario: storage is partitioned according to performance characteristics (how long does it take to read, how long to write?), then filesystems are created based on usage characteristics (read-only vs. read-write, many small files vs. few large files, many writes vs. many reads, etc.), and then storage is allocated to filesystems dynamically to achieve certain goals (performance, reliability, cost, etc.)
I realize the last thing we want to do is make storage so complicated that we can't depend on it working reliably anymore, but I also feel the way things work nowadays is a bit too rigid. You basically have to guess right when you set up the system, and maintaining the system is a non-trivial operation. Try reassigning some unused space from one partition to another partition, for example, or think about what you would need to do when adding a harddisk to the system...
Actually, _can_ IP addresses be spoofed for the purpose of sending email? AFAIK, you need to be able to receive and interpret responses from the server to be able to send email. Can you do that with a spoofed IP address?
``To replicate that functionality I would have to backup my entire email pretty much every time I got any, which is completely impractical.''
Excuse me? Once your email is stored locally, it's in your filesystem, and backing it up with the rest of your important files is a snap; it may not even require any extra work on your part at all.
By contrast, how are you going to back up your email that is stored on Google's machines? More generally, how are you going to back up your data that is stored on machines controlled by others, especially when they don't give you filesystem access? And don't tell me it's not important. The scenario of the provider terminating the service is only one thing you need to worry about. How about accidentally deleting or corrupting part of your data? How about temporary downtime, either on their end or on yours? How are you going to get at that email from last year now?
When it comes down to it, there is no substitute for having control over your own data.
``> Minix is a full, Unix-like operating system, whereas Linux is a kernel.
Really? I was under the impression that it used GNU tools to fill in the rest of the system, just like Linux.''
I could be wrong, but I think that used not to be the case. For example, where many free Unix-like systems use gcc as their compiler, Minix has traditionally used ack - the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, developed by Andrew Tanenbaum and Ceriel Jacobs. I think Minix 3 does use GNU tools, but, again, I could be wrong.
As for being credited to one person, that may be the case, but I don't think Andy wrote _everything_ by himself. In the version of Minix I used (2.0.something), Ceriel Jacobs is also listed as the author of some things. I know for sure that Minix 3 is developed by others besides Andy.
``I could be wrong, though. If so, that would be another point against Minix -- Linux was able to leverage existing, portable tools. Minix was not yet POSIX-compliant at the time, making portability between Minix and anything else a bit harder.''
IIRC (but, again, I could be wrong - this is not stuff I think about every day), Linus originally used Minix as a development platform for Linux. So that's your "portable tools", then, I guess.:-D Also, the version of Minix 2 I used claimed to be POSIX-compliant, but you should take that with a grain of salt - I think it mostly meant "we've implemented all the required parts, but left out everything else, and taken full advantage of any leeway offered by the spec". As for portability, it is my understanding that Minix originally started out as a clone of Unix Version 6, so I would expect there to be compatibility on that level. At any rate, portability between any two unices was pretty rocky at the time.
``Also it goes to quicker recovery time in case of outages. Coming from the Solaris world before they had journaling UFS filesystem it could take hours to FSCK a large partition before the OS would come up.''
And now I have reiserfs, which fscks really quickly, after which the system spends two hours checking quota.:-(
``say what you will, but the original Linux was entirely his, complete with 386 support and a multithreaded filesystem (already giving it an edge over Minix).''
*blink* Multithreaded filesystem?? What do you mean?
Also, as far as giving it an edge over Minix goes, allow me to point out that Minix is a full, Unix-like operating system, whereas Linux is a kernel. I have written kernels all by myself. If I am to write a full, Unix-like operating system, I sure hope I won't have to do it all alone!
What I did was remap the Command key to generate a Control key event under X. That way, the shortcuts that work using Command under OS X and using Control under X can be accessed with the same key.
I believe the following lines in my.xmodmaprc accomplish the remapping, but I haven't double checked:
``Honestly, how hard is it to write voting software?''
Not incredibly hard, but that's not the issue. The issue is how easy it is to convince the right people that your voting system does what they want it to do.
I think the problem is either that's it's too easy to convince the right people that a voting system works, or that the right people aren't the people we want it to be.
You have some good ideas, but I feel obliged to point out that your solution does not obviously ensure that
1. Your vote gets counted correctly 2. Your vote is not traceable back to you 3. You cannot vote more than once
I still have more faith in casting votes on paper and counting them by hand than I have in your solution. Actually recording your vote on the paper ballot can be done by machine, of course, as long as you get to inspect the ballot to check that the machine did what you wanted it to.
``Rather than solving the problem, i.e. our dependency on fossil-fuels, we are treating the symptoms of it.''
Actually, that's too black and white. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's not worth it. Anything that reduces our consumption of natural oil is a Good Thing.
Making a car that runs on fossil fuels use 20% less fuel accomplishes that. Making it run on a mixture of fossil and renewable fuels also accomplishes it. So does converting it to run entirely renewable fuels also reduces natural oil consumption, as does stopping to drive the car. But, here's the thing: None of the options actually "solve the problem". Compared to everything and everybody else that still uses natural oil, getting a single car to 80% of its former usage is as insignificant as getting that car to completely stop using natural oil.
So if you want to take only measures that completely eliminate our consumption of natural oil, you will end up never improving the situation at all.
My advice to you (and the thing I do myself) is to go for a _reduction_ of consumption of natural resources. Start with yourself. Do your research so you don't fall for some kind of scam or otherwise land yourself in trouble, then start considering how you could reduce your negative impact on the environment. Have you replaced your light bulbs by more energy efficient alternatives? Do you really need a super fast and super power-sucking computer, or could you use a more energy efficient one? Do you gain much by driving your car at the maximum speed the circumstances allow, or could you go for a more relaxed ride and save some fuel at the same time?
I find I actually like thinking about these things. Sure, none of them actually reduce my impact on the environment to zero, but, well, to accomplish that, I'd have to stop breathing, too. Every once in a while I find something that is so good that I recommend it to others - sometimes even to people who don't give a whit about the environment. And what do you know? According to a test I took a few years ago, my energy consumption is actually within what the test claimed our Earth can sustain (that is, if everybody were at that level). And I have a good life - house, heating, lighting, computer, fridge, etc. etc, it's all there. The main difference is that my energy consumption is a lot lower than that of the average European (that already being lower than that of the average USAmerican), and that some of my bills are correspondingly lower.
``Because of the way the popular and electoral votes interact, the outcome of the analysis had some surprising and intriguing results. For example, in 2004, 57,787 votes would have given us President Kerry; and in 2000, 269 votes would have given us President Gore. In all there have been 12 US Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the election would have been different."''
That is, assuming the vote counts they used in their research were correct. Which they likely weren't.
``how exactly could you fake a successful rocket launch, anyway? Or more so - hide an explosive failure?''
Clearly, you don't realize how much control the powerful have over people's minds. In Europe, everybody knows things about Tibet, and in China, everybody knows things about Tibet. But the things people know often completely contradict one another. In what is now Serbia, some drunken vandals caused minor disturbances in Belgrade. Or, if you believed B92 instead of the state media, a massive protest against president Milosevic was taking place. At some point, many people in the USA knew that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a grave threat to the USA. People elsewhere in the world knew this to be false - fearmongering by a belligerent government and complicit media. By the way, have you seen the footage of the Large Hadron Collider generating a black hole? We knew all along that this would happen, and now it did! Oh, and the various bombings that have happened around the world in recent years? Al Qaeda was behind those. But I'm sure I don't need to tell you that, because everybody already knows.
Now, I am sure you believe things about everything I have said above. You will probably believe some statements to be true and others to be false. But ask yourself this: how do you actually _know_ whether any of the things I have claimed are true or false? Were you there? If you were, are you sure you saw what you think you saw? If you weren't, you must have gotten your information from somebody else. Are you sure they are telling the truth? Even if you trust them, how do you know they haven't been misled? Do you know how many USAmerican space vehicles failed before a mission was completed successfully? Do you know how many Soviet space vehicles failed? Do you know how many launch attempts China has performed in secret?
``And record companies aren't much different than than mouse companies. Even with digital goods (and whether it's a song or a piece of software or a stock photo), up-front costs are amortized as a cost of sale. Record labels are primarily in the business of selling music, so it's the sales that must recoup the development costs.''
Only that it isn't. It's good that you're applying some proper economics to the situation, but that's not the whole story. Amortizing fixed costs by incorporating them into the cost of a single item is but one model. And it it isn't the truth; it's just an estimate of how much you must make on a single item to break even.
The truth is that you have costs and you must recoup them to break even. Recouping some on each sale is one way to do so. But it's not what you "must" do; it is but one of your options.
Hardware manufacturers sell their fancy phones. They should be happy.
Telcos sell their expensive plans. They should be happy.
Users get their phones. If they don't use some of the features, they probably don't because it's not worth their trouble to learn how to use them. But if they wanted to, they could. And some users do. And some users decide they'd rather not pay for features they don't use and get cheaper phones and plans. In all cases, it's their own choice. They should be happy.
Except that it doesn't. Consider the examples you gave: ``EULAs, DRM, product activation, installation, acquiring media'': all these are obstacles to be dealt with before one can simply use the product. Yet products that feature those hurdles are overwhelmingly popular. Microsoft Windows. DVDs. iTunes Music Store. Need I go on?
Slashdot Mirror
``Well, I hope it's at least damn pretty, cause being the runner up to "the real os" isn't really something to be proud of. But if its flashy enough, then people will like it and will increase their opinion of linux. Then again... is it going to
say its Linux?''
It is worth bearing in mind that Linux is not an operating system. It is a kernel, and there is a plethora of operating systems built on top of that kernel. Colloquially, these operating systems are often referred to as "Linux", but the differences between them can be enormous. Ubuntu may be pretty, but I wouldn't really say the same about OpenWrt. Yet, they are both "Linux". Of course, they are different operating systems that serve different purposes, so one's opinion of one should not carry over to the other.
<list of misfeatures of Desktops 1.0>
Remember, folks. This is what "1.0" means in the world of proprietary software. Remember that, next time you're using apt version 0.6.46.4, detach 0.2.3, or QEMU 0.9.1.
If you look around, I think you will find that most people don't care about virtual desktops. And I don't mean just Windows users. Mac users generally don't care, and Linux users generally don't care, either. Perhaps, if more people had been crying to have the feature, Microsoft would have implemented it sooner. Because you are right: it isn't rocket science. Still, I think Microsoft made the right choice in playing catch up in other races, first: stability, support for Internet protocols and standard, security, multi-user support, etc. etc. I'd say these are all more important than virtual desktops.
A couple of things that have changed, from the top of my head:
- Those old machines had an OS dedicated to support exactly the hardware that was shipped. OTOH, Linux distros are usually generic, and detect hardware on boot.
- There's a huge difference between a BASIC interpreter and a full-fledged multi-user OS with networking, GUI, etc.
- PC hardware spends a lot of time during boot before actually handing control to the software. Server hardware is often a lot worse.
- The code involved in booting those old machines was probably written by Real Programmers, who knew the ins and outs of the hardware they were programming for. It's probably horrible to maintain, but ridiculously fast. By contrast, most of the code involved in booting your Linux distro is written in a variety of languages, by a whole lot of people, few of whom are Real Programmers, and it's probably optimized for genericity and maintainability, rather than efficiency.
Having said all that, you _can_ boot Linux ridiculously fast. I used to have a 486 where the boot process basically consisted of (1) POST (2) Load GRUB (3) Load kernel (4) Run init (5) Run login. Pretty much a normal boot process. What was special about it is that the kernel had all required modules compiled in, and nothing else. init (IIRC) only spawned a single tty and ran login. And both init and login were BusyBox statically linked against dietlibc. From GRUB to login prompt took less than 5 seconds, IIRC. You could further improve on this by foregoing the BIOS in favor of something like coreboot.
Is login actually all that heavy? I've never considered it as taking up a lot of time. Also, when thinking about replacing login, bear in mind that it is one of those parts of the system that have years of security experience incorporated in them.
Back in the day, I used H.323. Nowadays, I use mostly SIP. Both are open standards that can be used with a variety of clients, such as Ekiga, XMeeting, and Gizmo.
By default, these protocols are unencrypted. I would run them over a VPN (I use OpenVPN) so that all communication is encrypted. This also solves some of the connectivity problems that Network Address Translation creates.
``This is also an argument in favor of using open source software. I've been dubious in the past about claims that closes-source vendors couldn't be trusted, but apparently I was being naive.''
It's not that closed source cannot be trusted, it's just that you need to realize that's what you're really doing. You are trusting that code to do what you think it does, and not do what you think it doesn't do. But really, you have no idea. With open source, you and others can actually verify whether a given claim about the code is true. Of course, doing so isn't necessarily trivial, but the fact that you and others are allowed to see for yourself what the program does, and change it if you see fit, makes a very real difference.
Well, there is a possibility that end-to-end security goes for voice calls. Note that this story is about _text_ conversations.
I still refuse to use Skype for using a proprietary protocol and resent that the founders became millionaires by successfully getting the world to use a proprietary protocol for what was already being done using open protocols, _and_ I still maintain that trusting closed source software is more an act of faith than good security...but let's not go knocking Skype with false arguments.
``The administrative flexibility of swap files outweighs that of partitions;''
Speaking of which, isn't it about time partitions and filesystems got more flexible? How about, say, the following scenario: storage is partitioned according to performance characteristics (how long does it take to read, how long to write?), then filesystems are created based on usage characteristics (read-only vs. read-write, many small files vs. few large files, many writes vs. many reads, etc.), and then storage is allocated to filesystems dynamically to achieve certain goals (performance, reliability, cost, etc.)
I realize the last thing we want to do is make storage so complicated that we can't depend on it working reliably anymore, but I also feel the way things work nowadays is a bit too rigid. You basically have to guess right when you set up the system, and maintaining the system is a non-trivial operation. Try reassigning some unused space from one partition to another partition, for example, or think about what you would need to do when adding a harddisk to the system...
Actually, _can_ IP addresses be spoofed for the purpose of sending email? AFAIK, you need to be able to receive and interpret responses from the server to be able to send email. Can you do that with a spoofed IP address?
``To replicate that functionality I would have to backup my entire email pretty much every time I got any, which is completely impractical.''
Excuse me? Once your email is stored locally, it's in your filesystem, and backing it up with the rest of your important files is a snap; it may not even require any extra work on your part at all.
By contrast, how are you going to back up your email that is stored on Google's machines? More generally, how are you going to back up your data that is stored on machines controlled by others, especially when they don't give you filesystem access? And don't tell me it's not important. The scenario of the provider terminating the service is only one thing you need to worry about. How about accidentally deleting or corrupting part of your data? How about temporary downtime, either on their end or on yours? How are you going to get at that email from last year now?
When it comes down to it, there is no substitute for having control over your own data.
``> Minix is a full, Unix-like operating system, whereas Linux is a kernel.
Really? I was under the impression that it used GNU tools to fill in the rest of the system, just like Linux.''
I could be wrong, but I think that used not to be the case. For example, where many free Unix-like systems use gcc as their compiler, Minix has traditionally used ack - the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, developed by Andrew Tanenbaum and Ceriel Jacobs. I think Minix 3 does use GNU tools, but, again, I could be wrong.
As for being credited to one person, that may be the case, but I don't think Andy wrote _everything_ by himself. In the version of Minix I used (2.0.something), Ceriel Jacobs is also listed as the author of some things. I know for sure that Minix 3 is developed by others besides Andy.
``I could be wrong, though. If so, that would be another point against Minix -- Linux was able to leverage existing, portable tools. Minix was not yet POSIX-compliant at the time, making portability between Minix and anything else a bit harder.''
IIRC (but, again, I could be wrong - this is not stuff I think about every day), Linus originally used Minix as a development platform for Linux. So that's your "portable tools", then, I guess. :-D Also, the version of Minix 2 I used claimed to be POSIX-compliant, but you should take that with a grain of salt - I think it mostly meant "we've implemented all the required parts, but left out everything else, and taken full advantage of any leeway offered by the spec". As for portability, it is my understanding that Minix originally started out as a clone of Unix Version 6, so I would expect there to be compatibility on that level. At any rate, portability between any two unices was pretty rocky at the time.
``Also it goes to quicker recovery time in case of outages. Coming from the Solaris world before they had journaling UFS filesystem it could take hours to FSCK a large partition before the OS would come up.''
And now I have reiserfs, which fscks really quickly, after which the system spends two hours checking quota. :-(
``Bad code can be rewritten, but lousy design is here forever''
Maybe the constraint that "design is here forever" causes a lot of problems.
``say what you will, but the original Linux was entirely his, complete with 386 support and a multithreaded filesystem (already giving it an edge over Minix).''
*blink* Multithreaded filesystem?? What do you mean?
Also, as far as giving it an edge over Minix goes, allow me to point out that Minix is a full, Unix-like operating system, whereas Linux is a kernel. I have written kernels all by myself. If I am to write a full, Unix-like operating system, I sure hope I won't have to do it all alone!
This actually isn't new. Systrace has been doing this for years. And it runs on more than just Linux.
What I did was remap the Command key to generate a Control key event under X. That way, the shortcuts that work using Command under OS X and using Control under X can be accessed with the same key.
I believe the following lines in my .xmodmaprc accomplish the remapping, but I haven't double checked:
``Honestly, how hard is it to write voting software?''
Not incredibly hard, but that's not the issue. The issue is how easy it is to convince the right people that your voting system does what they want it to do.
I think the problem is either that's it's too easy to convince the right people that a voting system works, or that the right people aren't the people we want it to be.
You have some good ideas, but I feel obliged to point out that your solution does not obviously ensure that
1. Your vote gets counted correctly
2. Your vote is not traceable back to you
3. You cannot vote more than once
I still have more faith in casting votes on paper and counting them by hand than I have in your solution. Actually recording your vote on the paper ballot can be done by machine, of course, as long as you get to inspect the ballot to check that the machine did what you wanted it to.
``Rather than solving the problem, i.e. our dependency on fossil-fuels, we are treating the symptoms of it.''
Actually, that's too black and white. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's not worth it. Anything that reduces our consumption of natural oil is a Good Thing.
Making a car that runs on fossil fuels use 20% less fuel accomplishes that. Making it run on a mixture of fossil and renewable fuels also accomplishes it. So does converting it to run entirely renewable fuels also reduces natural oil consumption, as does stopping to drive the car. But, here's the thing: None of the options actually "solve the problem". Compared to everything and everybody else that still uses natural oil, getting a single car to 80% of its former usage is as insignificant as getting that car to completely stop using natural oil.
So if you want to take only measures that completely eliminate our consumption of natural oil, you will end up never improving the situation at all.
My advice to you (and the thing I do myself) is to go for a _reduction_ of consumption of natural resources. Start with yourself. Do your research so you don't fall for some kind of scam or otherwise land yourself in trouble, then start considering how you could reduce your negative impact on the environment. Have you replaced your light bulbs by more energy efficient alternatives? Do you really need a super fast and super power-sucking computer, or could you use a more energy efficient one? Do you gain much by driving your car at the maximum speed the circumstances allow, or could you go for a more relaxed ride and save some fuel at the same time?
I find I actually like thinking about these things. Sure, none of them actually reduce my impact on the environment to zero, but, well, to accomplish that, I'd have to stop breathing, too. Every once in a while I find something that is so good that I recommend it to others - sometimes even to people who don't give a whit about the environment. And what do you know? According to a test I took a few years ago, my energy consumption is actually within what the test claimed our Earth can sustain (that is, if everybody were at that level). And I have a good life - house, heating, lighting, computer, fridge, etc. etc, it's all there. The main difference is that my energy consumption is a lot lower than that of the average European (that already being lower than that of the average USAmerican), and that some of my bills are correspondingly lower.
``Because of the way the popular and electoral votes interact, the outcome of the analysis had some surprising and intriguing results. For example, in 2004, 57,787 votes would have given us President Kerry; and in 2000, 269 votes would have given us President Gore. In all there have been 12 US Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the election would have been different."''
That is, assuming the vote counts they used in their research were correct. Which they likely weren't.
``how exactly could you fake a successful rocket launch, anyway? Or more so - hide an explosive failure?''
Clearly, you don't realize how much control the powerful have over people's minds. In Europe, everybody knows things about Tibet, and in China, everybody knows things about Tibet. But the things people know often completely contradict one another. In what is now Serbia, some drunken vandals caused minor disturbances in Belgrade. Or, if you believed B92 instead of the state media, a massive protest against president Milosevic was taking place. At some point, many people in the USA knew that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a grave threat to the USA. People elsewhere in the world knew this to be false - fearmongering by a belligerent government and complicit media. By the way, have you seen the footage of the Large Hadron Collider generating a black hole? We knew all along that this would happen, and now it did! Oh, and the various bombings that have happened around the world in recent years? Al Qaeda was behind those. But I'm sure I don't need to tell you that, because everybody already knows.
Now, I am sure you believe things about everything I have said above. You will probably believe some statements to be true and others to be false. But ask yourself this: how do you actually _know_ whether any of the things I have claimed are true or false? Were you there? If you were, are you sure you saw what you think you saw? If you weren't, you must have gotten your information from somebody else. Are you sure they are telling the truth? Even if you trust them, how do you know they haven't been misled? Do you know how many USAmerican space vehicles failed before a mission was completed successfully? Do you know how many Soviet space vehicles failed? Do you know how many launch attempts China has performed in secret?
``And record companies aren't much different than than mouse companies. Even with digital goods (and whether it's a song or a piece of software or a stock photo), up-front costs are amortized as a cost of sale. Record labels are primarily in the business of selling music, so it's the sales that must recoup the development costs.''
Only that it isn't. It's good that you're applying some proper economics to the situation, but that's not the whole story. Amortizing fixed costs by incorporating them into the cost of a single item is but one model. And it it isn't the truth; it's just an estimate of how much you must make on a single item to break even.
The truth is that you have costs and you must recoup them to break even. Recouping some on each sale is one way to do so. But it's not what you "must" do; it is but one of your options.
Is this a problem?
Hardware manufacturers sell their fancy phones. They should be happy.
Telcos sell their expensive plans. They should be happy.
Users get their phones. If they don't use some of the features, they probably don't because it's not worth their trouble to learn how to use them. But if they wanted to, they could. And some users do. And some users decide they'd rather not pay for features they don't use and get cheaper phones and plans. In all cases, it's their own choice. They should be happy.
Tell me again what the problem is?
``"Simple" wins every time.''
Except that it doesn't. Consider the examples you gave: ``EULAs, DRM, product activation, installation, acquiring media'': all these are obstacles to be dealt with before one can simply use the product. Yet products that feature those hurdles are overwhelmingly popular. Microsoft Windows. DVDs. iTunes Music Store. Need I go on?