...but it is certainly news to see mainstream media, not just ZDNET but ABC frikkin' news picking up on this. Remember, random idiots don't read slashdot. That, I believe, is significant.
And what do you mean *getting* confused? Was there ever a time when the.NOT marketing message was clear?
Yes, it factors into YOUR costs, but I really think your argument is a bit dangerous in that it creates a slippery slope to this whole "information deserves to be free because I pay for the internet crap" - yes, you may realize that your payment doesn't go toward content providers, but this is largely lost on the AOL crowd.
And I still think it's important to distinguish between content costs and the costs you independently pay to access it, and this becomes relevant when we're talking about a medium that different people access differently, like the internet. Hell, I have a T1 at work, so the internet is truly free for me. You and I would have different content costs when one includes access. Even for people who pay for internet, costs vary wildly. By that logic, network TV costs money, because you have to pay for a TV and cable to get it - except you could have gotten a secondhand TV and rabbitears and gotten it for free.
To sum it up, I would say the internet is free, it's your socket that costs money.
OK, I think you're missing part of it. To have a transfer from another site, bandwidth is paid for on two ends - the sender and the recipient. Yes, you pay AOL (or whoever) your $25/mo to receive data. However, none of what you pay goes to compensate whoever is serving the files, as they pay bandwidth costs too.
Naturally, pay-per-byte is fairly clumsy, and of course these sites use banner ads, subscriptions, etc to defray costs. But what people need to understand is this is a two-way street, and your AOL bill only pays for one end of it. In that sense, what you are reveiving now, most certainly, IS free. It's like you're saying that your car payment amounts to a toll - but it doesn't.
Yes, this is redundant, but people just aren't getting it...
The BIG major point of the article, which he point out at the very beginning, by the way, is just this:
Moore's Law has never really existed in any form that is consistent or interesting to us.
Right...but since nothing else was ever claimed for Moore's law by anyone with intelligence, I hardly see the point. Yes, I read the article. Yes, what you say is right. Moore's law has never been strictly correct. I'm kind of surprised you thought otherwise.
Hell, it's never been a law, in that there is no fundamental, scientific *reason* for there to be *any* link between the number of transistors on a chip, processing power, or whatever, and time. Intel *could* have ratcheted up the doubling times if they wanted, say in response to competition. Like what's happened in the last ~4 years thanks to AMD. That alone should have made it obvious that Moore's law is bunk.
Very, very embarassingly, (in my opinion) nobody much bothered to do this before, and the actual data lend very little support to any statement more concrete than "technology has improved significantly and rapidly since the invention of the IC".
To me, that's like saying it's embarassing that no one has ever done a test to prove that concrete is harder than styrofoam. No one bothered because it's so trivially obvious. The only people who considered Moore's law to be anything but a marketing construct over the last 30+ years are journalists, most of whom have no tech training.
It is always a rude awakening when you find out that a growth process that appears to be exponential has hit some limit.
Now, *that* wasn't in the article. He just proved that Moore's law never really had a point. He gives *no* technical reason why whatever validity it has now will cease to be. Nothing regarding power consumption/loss, tunnelling across junctions, etc. In fact, I saw nothing technical in the "article" whatever. Partially, that's fitting, since Moore's "law" isn't technical. But for the claim it has some technical, fundamental limit, such proof is needed.
So I'll stay with my original point - this article used 10 pages to prove the mundane. Also,what most people will assume the article proved wasn't in the article at all.
Finally, someone who actually read the damned article. I agree - further, the only point the guy ever made seemed to be that Moore and crew fudged the doubling time from 1 year, to 2 years, maybe even three. Whatever.
Looks to me like some jackass with no credibility is trying to make a name for himself by "publishing" a junk article in a "peer-reviewed" online journal by "proving" that Moore's law isn't a fundamental phenomenon. Well, duh. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he posted his own article to/.
Yeah, that was the first paragraph, the next three were CANNED, referred to BSD, BeOS, and Sun, and had pretty much NOTHING to do with the thread. I've seen the same damned canned crap before, and no, I'm not going back to find it. Hey AC - was that your post I made fun of? Talk about put up or shut up, sign your posts so we can see that you're defending your own post as if you were someone else. How pathetic. Leave your damned chain letters off of/.
OK, so basically what's happening is that these people are pissed they're not making the ad rates they were back in the dot com days. Obviously those days are gone, but they're trying to get the same revenue. Hence larger ads. Unfortunately, it won't work - it's not much harder to ignore a big ad as a small one.
Additionally, after the bust, not only did the dot coms stop advertising (obviously), but so did a lot of legitimate companies, when the internet got a bad name, and when it was assumed that internet advertising wasn't working (a partially flase assumption - that *isn't* why the internet companies went under, as we know now). They were replaced by the viagra-HGH-penis enlargement crowd. THe main difference between these two industries is the clientele - ie, not many people click on the type of ads that tend to proliferate these days, and those companies make it on low clickthru rates. The result is that overall clickthru rates have probably dropped.
Unfortunately, as you say, marketing types aren't that bright. The result is that internet ads are thought to not be working when really the click rates are down largely because of the type of advertisers they now attract.
Solution? Of course, they don't work to attract more reputable advertisers, even with loss leaders at first - no, they just conclude the ads need to be bigger! Of course! Expect this trend to continue - the more the ad insustry convinces itself that net ads don't work, the cheaper they become, and the more affordable they become for penis enhancement ads, further reducing click-thru rates, depressing ad revenue....you get the idea.
Nice spam dude. I look forward to your next post about how I can find 15,000 in my son's closet, or how I can make 100,000 a year managing internet terminals, "the next pay phone." And no, I won't give you my bank account number so I can help you embezzle $10M out of your country. But thanks.
Seriously, you moderators who modded this canned drivel up to 5(!) should have your mod priveleges revoked.
You're right - the OEMs are just making money, not playing ideology.
However, as I recall, years ago, you could get an OS-less PC from Dell. This was before M$ started strongarming companies, saying "put windows on everything you sell, or NOTHING." Obviously, from then on, OEMs sold windows on everything (this much is documented in the antitrust case).
Point is, are the OEMs basically refusing to sell OS-less PC's because it's convenient, or through fear? I know Dell will for some business clients, because usually they have a win site-license (could be mistaken about the details). However, they won't do it for just anyone.
I know it's hard to custom-make computers when you sell a jillion of them, but Dell does *some* tailoring of computers - it seems like formatting the HDD's of those pre-installed computers would not be that difficult to integrate into their business model. That's why I think there's still some fear of M$ involved.
So M$ is effectively breaching contract on the EULA, right? Any way one could mount an argument that this releases you from the terms of the EULA? 'Coz that would be nice....
OK, you obviously didn't read the article... Most of the fiber is owned by companies that simply don't exist any more.
No, you're the dipshit that didn't read. 95% was LAID by companies that went under. But you may have heard of something called bankruptcy proceedings, and I assure you, SOMEONE owns the damned fiber. I would be surprised if the new owners weren't in telecom, as it would make no sense otherwise.
You wanna make a mint? Go borrow a few hundred million dollars to buy fiber and start your own company. Until then, shut the hell up about "anticompetitive" practices.
Until I see that law degree of yours where you specialized in anti-trust, I'll just assume you don't have any idea what you're talking about. Study the dereg of the telcos in this country - it DIDN'T WORK. And the FCC does stipulate that the telcos have a public responsibility - hence are held to a higher standard than typical companies. Hell, what you say doesn't even make sense - anticompetitive practices are THE REASON someone can't use available fiber and start a low-cost high-bandwidth carrier - the telcos would undercut you until you go under, then raise their prices again. Happens all the time in a lot of industries.
I'm so incredibly sick and tired about people whining about "this company ought to do that becaise I think it's a good idea" or "this company is evil because of this".
Then bitch to the people who said that - I didn't. But if there's a whole hell of a lot of unused fiber, and let's assume that some of it is usable, then it's damned wasteful to NOT use it. And if there is something useful NOT being used, then there aren't too many legitimate reasons for that.
Might want to grab an econ book - there are many industries in which a dramatic increase in quantity of product would drop prices so much that the overall net revenue would be lower at higher quantity.
Examples include farming (hence we actually pay farmers to grow nothing), steel (at least now), oil (otherwise OPEC wouldn't set production quotas), and, yes, bandwidth.
To follow your argument, why then AREN'T the phone companies selling the extra bandwidth? It isn't the demand - I would like some cheap bandwidth. It isn't the lack of fiber - as the article says, there's a lot unused. It wouldn't be that hard to tap, especially since most consumers would be willing to pay for reasonable install costs.
No, the reason is the phenomenal price drop that an increase in quantity would bring, nothing more. And you're right, it's not about "evil" phone companies - it makes good sense to do what they're doing. I've never known a company want to DROP their prices, certainly.
It's time we either tell those colluding bastards to either foster some real competition or the communications industry gets re-regulated. Trust me, I'm no regulation fan, but I'm sick of seeing all the old companies stay off of each other's turf in everything except cell phones.
When you get down to it, the American people paid for those lines in terms of all of the stock lost in the now belly-up telecom stocks, so we should get something back. Huge bandwidth seems fair.
Only problem now is getting some company (or even the government) to make some use of this infrastructure before it's obsolete.
Maybe if the government points out that it's anticompetitive to hoard fiber with no intent to use it that they'll sell it to us at more reasonable prices.
Then again, I can keep dreaming. Thanks Michael Powell.
In general, I share your laugh. But if you wait long enough, some company will generally try a more customer-centric approach, assuming the market is suitably open and people are REALLY pissed. There are small airlines attempting this (Jetblue, Midwest Express) to go with one of your examples. And DirecTV has MUCH better service than any cable company I've ever dealt with (and much better prices).
I know talking about our supposedly-deregged local phone market is really a joke, but think if a company tried this approach: "Our service costs the same, and we WON'T sell your number to telelmarketers. We have ACTIVE telemarketer-proofing tools. We are anti-spam."
I think it's possible, and if the telemarketing problem were to explode like the spam problem, I think we would see it. Right now, though, I don't think it's quite annoying enough - don't know about you, but I'm not getting 15 telemarketing calls a day...yet. So there's not enough consumer outrage now to get a huge customer base.
Yes, it only applies to Australia. So this is mainly only a problem for corporations that have a presence everywhere (like news services, for example). For them, though, this is very problematic, and as mentioned, even if this guy loses his suit, the finding of fact already decided (I use the US term but I assume aussie is similar) is important in itself.
For private individuals, I assume you can tell the aussies to piss off. I would be surprised if the US extradited anyone on such a charge, but you never know. Basically, if you libel an aussie, don't plan on that Sydney vacation.
Mail fraud is a federal offense because it misuses a FEDERAL SERVICE. That gives the government a nexus to come down on it in a draconian fashion - and also to come down on OTHER uses of the service, like for speech the government doesn't like (i.e. porn). Try to protect email as MAIL and you let the federal censorship camel's nose into the tent.
I don't think that holds at all - currently, I can write with as much freedom through snailmail as I can email - the difference is the abuse. While certain states have dipshit mail laws (porno, booze, etc) they aren't, I believe, Federal. Thus I have no problem with the snailmail Federal laws being applied. And mail is no longer a federal service - it has been privatized - yet the laws still stand.
The way email SHOULD be protected is the same way your fax machine is protected against unsolicted faxes.
Well, I'd be all for that too, if it happens. Unfortunately, there are ways in which email is more like regular mail - I can forge a return address a lot more easily than a phone number, for instance. For what it's worth, email is somewhere between a fax and mail - and probably needs to be dealt with is such.
That said, he's also a moron. He's been signed up for all that mail under false pretenses. It's mail fraud and a Federal Offense.
You're right, it is, and that's a protection that email should enjoy as well. I guess a while back when the US developed a great mail service (for the time), and people started abusing it, there was this huge push to punish people who do so. Hence, all the criminals that the cops can't pin anything on, but they get them for abuse of mails (that and tax evasion).
Point is, he is signing people up for/sending people stuff under false pretenses daily - or does he really think that people have "opted in" to his lists like he claims? If they did, why would he have to use countermeasures to get around anti-spam software?
If we just extended the existing laws, it would reduce spam dramatically. Like when you request an opt-out, they can't resell your name. No forged headers. No disguised opt-ins. If we can get those things (and turn off all of asia;> ), spam should be easy to block.
...this is not as bad as you would think. The analogy I would make is to auto manufacturers having to match California emissions standards. Eventually, making 2 cars (one for Cali, one for everyone else) gets more troublesome than just selling the Cali car everywhere - hence, the California environmentalists influence the entire country. Let's home the same thing holds here - maybe (just maybe!) the hassle of releasing a MassWin makes them release the same Massachussets-approved Windows to everyone.
Additionally, the very presence of a "MassWin" means the rest of us will at least have something to get from the black market - I really think if Mass makes them open the Pandora's box, all of us will get the benefit.
Naturally, all this assumes the Mass Att. Gen. stays the course and really pushes MS - seems like the inclination is there. But I see more hope here than you seem to, Kollar-Koteley be damned.
Of course, the realist in me says that even if Mass wins the "version" of windows they get will be so intentionally crippled that it will be worse than the currently existing crap. But oh well - maybe that will spawn another round of anti-trust suits! Yay!
...with Win XP. Win XP was supposed to be the More Attractive Windows compared to the staid Win 95/98. What came out was a GUI that looked like it was made by someone who ate a lot of the brown acid: putrid color schemes that make one beg for the days of a monochrome monitor.
THe sad thing is, when M$ tries to copy apple, they screw it up.
Very interesting post. It sounds like their naming practice of their products is similar to their convention for "supporting" standards; ie, taking something existing (be it the word "Windows" or Javascript), and making it their own. With product names, they use trademark "law" (yes I use the term VERY loosely) to steal the word; with "standards" they make their version just different enough that small incompatibilities arise, thereby "owning" the standard as well.
It is brilliant, actually. Why come up with a name for a product when you can make yourself ubiquitous with an existing term AND proctect that term? Similarly, why develop a new protocol when you can steal an existing one, change it a bit, and make it your own? These bastards haven't innovated a damn thing. Ever.
Oh...wait...you mean that wasn't sarcasm? You actually wrote that with a straight face? Now *that* is funny.
Let's see how your opinion of free software changes after Mommy and Daddy stop paying for school and you have to get a job. Your tune will change when you realize that people who give away software won't be hiring you, because....they have no money to pay salaries! Hell, where does Linus get his paychecks? Not from a company releasing its intellectual property for free. As for consulting...you want to add up all the dollars spent on software (binaries) compared to consulting services? It isn't remotely close. Nice try.
This whole "all source code should be free" crap is only popular among people who don't work for a living (and, somehow, Stallman). When you own your code, and make a living off of it, it's amazing how your views tend to change. It's kind of like how the hippies of the 60's became the 80's Me-generation - money and power (and closed source code!) is only bad when someone ELSE is controlling it.
I subscribe to WSJ, and every day middle-low on the front page, they have a "humor" story, I suppose for really uptight type-A people. That was today's, so I assume no anti-TiVo subtext.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, is there any way to make moderators take a reading comprehension test about the article before they mark some redundant crap post as insightful?
And what do you mean *getting* confused? Was there ever a time when the .NOT marketing message was clear?
And I still think it's important to distinguish between content costs and the costs you independently pay to access it, and this becomes relevant when we're talking about a medium that different people access differently, like the internet. Hell, I have a T1 at work, so the internet is truly free for me. You and I would have different content costs when one includes access. Even for people who pay for internet, costs vary wildly. By that logic, network TV costs money, because you have to pay for a TV and cable to get it - except you could have gotten a secondhand TV and rabbitears and gotten it for free.
To sum it up, I would say the internet is free, it's your socket that costs money.
Naturally, pay-per-byte is fairly clumsy, and of course these sites use banner ads, subscriptions, etc to defray costs. But what people need to understand is this is a two-way street, and your AOL bill only pays for one end of it. In that sense, what you are reveiving now, most certainly, IS free. It's like you're saying that your car payment amounts to a toll - but it doesn't.
Yes, this is redundant, but people just aren't getting it...
Moore's Law has never really existed in any form that is consistent or interesting to us.
Right...but since nothing else was ever claimed for Moore's law by anyone with intelligence, I hardly see the point. Yes, I read the article. Yes, what you say is right. Moore's law has never been strictly correct. I'm kind of surprised you thought otherwise.
Hell, it's never been a law, in that there is no fundamental, scientific *reason* for there to be *any* link between the number of transistors on a chip, processing power, or whatever, and time. Intel *could* have ratcheted up the doubling times if they wanted, say in response to competition. Like what's happened in the last ~4 years thanks to AMD. That alone should have made it obvious that Moore's law is bunk.
Very, very embarassingly, (in my opinion) nobody much bothered to do this before, and the actual data lend very little support to any statement more concrete than "technology has improved significantly and rapidly since the invention of the IC".
To me, that's like saying it's embarassing that no one has ever done a test to prove that concrete is harder than styrofoam. No one bothered because it's so trivially obvious. The only people who considered Moore's law to be anything but a marketing construct over the last 30+ years are journalists, most of whom have no tech training.
It is always a rude awakening when you find out that a growth process that appears to be exponential has hit some limit.
Now, *that* wasn't in the article. He just proved that Moore's law never really had a point. He gives *no* technical reason why whatever validity it has now will cease to be. Nothing regarding power consumption/loss, tunnelling across junctions, etc. In fact, I saw nothing technical in the "article" whatever. Partially, that's fitting, since Moore's "law" isn't technical. But for the claim it has some technical, fundamental limit, such proof is needed.
So I'll stay with my original point - this article used 10 pages to prove the mundane. Also,what most people will assume the article proved wasn't in the article at all.
Looks to me like some jackass with no credibility is trying to make a name for himself by "publishing" a junk article in a "peer-reviewed" online journal by "proving" that Moore's law isn't a fundamental phenomenon. Well, duh. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he posted his own article to /.
Yeah, that was the first paragraph, the next three were CANNED, referred to BSD, BeOS, and Sun, and had pretty much NOTHING to do with the thread. I've seen the same damned canned crap before, and no, I'm not going back to find it. Hey AC - was that your post I made fun of? Talk about put up or shut up, sign your posts so we can see that you're defending your own post as if you were someone else. How pathetic. Leave your damned chain letters off of /.
Additionally, after the bust, not only did the dot coms stop advertising (obviously), but so did a lot of legitimate companies, when the internet got a bad name, and when it was assumed that internet advertising wasn't working (a partially flase assumption - that *isn't* why the internet companies went under, as we know now). They were replaced by the viagra-HGH-penis enlargement crowd. THe main difference between these two industries is the clientele - ie, not many people click on the type of ads that tend to proliferate these days, and those companies make it on low clickthru rates. The result is that overall clickthru rates have probably dropped.
Unfortunately, as you say, marketing types aren't that bright. The result is that internet ads are thought to not be working when really the click rates are down largely because of the type of advertisers they now attract.
Solution? Of course, they don't work to attract more reputable advertisers, even with loss leaders at first - no, they just conclude the ads need to be bigger! Of course! Expect this trend to continue - the more the ad insustry convinces itself that net ads don't work, the cheaper they become, and the more affordable they become for penis enhancement ads, further reducing click-thru rates, depressing ad revenue....you get the idea.
Seriously, you moderators who modded this canned drivel up to 5(!) should have your mod priveleges revoked.
You're right - the OEMs are just making money, not playing ideology.
However, as I recall, years ago, you could get an OS-less PC from Dell. This was before M$ started strongarming companies, saying "put windows on everything you sell, or NOTHING." Obviously, from then on, OEMs sold windows on everything (this much is documented in the antitrust case).
Point is, are the OEMs basically refusing to sell OS-less PC's because it's convenient, or through fear? I know Dell will for some business clients, because usually they have a win site-license (could be mistaken about the details). However, they won't do it for just anyone.
I know it's hard to custom-make computers when you sell a jillion of them, but Dell does *some* tailoring of computers - it seems like formatting the HDD's of those pre-installed computers would not be that difficult to integrate into their business model. That's why I think there's still some fear of M$ involved.
So M$ is effectively breaching contract on the EULA, right? Any way one could mount an argument that this releases you from the terms of the EULA? 'Coz that would be nice....
No, you're the dipshit that didn't read. 95% was LAID by companies that went under. But you may have heard of something called bankruptcy proceedings, and I assure you, SOMEONE owns the damned fiber. I would be surprised if the new owners weren't in telecom, as it would make no sense otherwise.
You wanna make a mint? Go borrow a few hundred million dollars to buy fiber and start your own company. Until then, shut the hell up about "anticompetitive" practices.
Until I see that law degree of yours where you specialized in anti-trust, I'll just assume you don't have any idea what you're talking about. Study the dereg of the telcos in this country - it DIDN'T WORK. And the FCC does stipulate that the telcos have a public responsibility - hence are held to a higher standard than typical companies. Hell, what you say doesn't even make sense - anticompetitive practices are THE REASON someone can't use available fiber and start a low-cost high-bandwidth carrier - the telcos would undercut you until you go under, then raise their prices again. Happens all the time in a lot of industries.
I'm so incredibly sick and tired about people whining about "this company ought to do that becaise I think it's a good idea" or "this company is evil because of this".
Then bitch to the people who said that - I didn't. But if there's a whole hell of a lot of unused fiber, and let's assume that some of it is usable, then it's damned wasteful to NOT use it. And if there is something useful NOT being used, then there aren't too many legitimate reasons for that.
Examples include farming (hence we actually pay farmers to grow nothing), steel (at least now), oil (otherwise OPEC wouldn't set production quotas), and, yes, bandwidth.
To follow your argument, why then AREN'T the phone companies selling the extra bandwidth? It isn't the demand - I would like some cheap bandwidth. It isn't the lack of fiber - as the article says, there's a lot unused. It wouldn't be that hard to tap, especially since most consumers would be willing to pay for reasonable install costs.
No, the reason is the phenomenal price drop that an increase in quantity would bring, nothing more. And you're right, it's not about "evil" phone companies - it makes good sense to do what they're doing. I've never known a company want to DROP their prices, certainly.
When you get down to it, the American people paid for those lines in terms of all of the stock lost in the now belly-up telecom stocks, so we should get something back. Huge bandwidth seems fair.
Only problem now is getting some company (or even the government) to make some use of this infrastructure before it's obsolete.
Maybe if the government points out that it's anticompetitive to hoard fiber with no intent to use it that they'll sell it to us at more reasonable prices.
Then again, I can keep dreaming. Thanks Michael Powell.
I know talking about our supposedly-deregged local phone market is really a joke, but think if a company tried this approach: "Our service costs the same, and we WON'T sell your number to telelmarketers. We have ACTIVE telemarketer-proofing tools. We are anti-spam."
I think it's possible, and if the telemarketing problem were to explode like the spam problem, I think we would see it. Right now, though, I don't think it's quite annoying enough - don't know about you, but I'm not getting 15 telemarketing calls a day...yet. So there's not enough consumer outrage now to get a huge customer base.
Yes, it only applies to Australia. So this is mainly only a problem for corporations that have a presence everywhere (like news services, for example). For them, though, this is very problematic, and as mentioned, even if this guy loses his suit, the finding of fact already decided (I use the US term but I assume aussie is similar) is important in itself.
For private individuals, I assume you can tell the aussies to piss off. I would be surprised if the US extradited anyone on such a charge, but you never know. Basically, if you libel an aussie, don't plan on that Sydney vacation.
I don't think that holds at all - currently, I can write with as much freedom through snailmail as I can email - the difference is the abuse. While certain states have dipshit mail laws (porno, booze, etc) they aren't, I believe, Federal. Thus I have no problem with the snailmail Federal laws being applied. And mail is no longer a federal service - it has been privatized - yet the laws still stand.
The way email SHOULD be protected is the same way your fax machine is protected against unsolicted faxes.
Well, I'd be all for that too, if it happens. Unfortunately, there are ways in which email is more like regular mail - I can forge a return address a lot more easily than a phone number, for instance. For what it's worth, email is somewhere between a fax and mail - and probably needs to be dealt with is such.
I'm a grad student at Caltech. Am I eligible? And can I wear a "Kobe sucks Shaq's pencildi*k" T-shirt through Compton instead of the Yzerman t-shirt?
SUMERIAN: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a spam for a spam.
That said, he's also a moron. He's been signed up for all that mail under false pretenses. It's mail fraud and a Federal Offense.
;> ), spam should be easy to block.
You're right, it is, and that's a protection that email should enjoy as well. I guess a while back when the US developed a great mail service (for the time), and people started abusing it, there was this huge push to punish people who do so. Hence, all the criminals that the cops can't pin anything on, but they get them for abuse of mails (that and tax evasion).
Point is, he is signing people up for/sending people stuff under false pretenses daily - or does he really think that people have "opted in" to his lists like he claims? If they did, why would he have to use countermeasures to get around anti-spam software?
If we just extended the existing laws, it would reduce spam dramatically. Like when you request an opt-out, they can't resell your name. No forged headers. No disguised opt-ins. If we can get those things (and turn off all of asia
...this is not as bad as you would think. The analogy I would make is to auto manufacturers having to match California emissions standards. Eventually, making 2 cars (one for Cali, one for everyone else) gets more troublesome than just selling the Cali car everywhere - hence, the California environmentalists influence the entire country. Let's home the same thing holds here - maybe (just maybe!) the hassle of releasing a MassWin makes them release the same Massachussets-approved Windows to everyone.
Additionally, the very presence of a "MassWin" means the rest of us will at least have something to get from the black market - I really think if Mass makes them open the Pandora's box, all of us will get the benefit.
Naturally, all this assumes the Mass Att. Gen. stays the course and really pushes MS - seems like the inclination is there. But I see more hope here than you seem to, Kollar-Koteley be damned.
Of course, the realist in me says that even if Mass wins the "version" of windows they get will be so intentionally crippled that it will be worse than the currently existing crap. But oh well - maybe that will spawn another round of anti-trust suits! Yay!
...with Win XP. Win XP was supposed to be the More Attractive Windows compared to the staid Win 95/98. What came out was a GUI that looked like it was made by someone who ate a lot of the brown acid: putrid color schemes that make one beg for the days of a monochrome monitor.
THe sad thing is, when M$ tries to copy apple, they screw it up.
Very interesting post. It sounds like their naming practice of their products is similar to their convention for "supporting" standards; ie, taking something existing (be it the word "Windows" or Javascript), and making it their own. With product names, they use trademark "law" (yes I use the term VERY loosely) to steal the word; with "standards" they make their version just different enough that small incompatibilities arise, thereby "owning" the standard as well.
It is brilliant, actually. Why come up with a name for a product when you can make yourself ubiquitous with an existing term AND proctect that term? Similarly, why develop a new protocol when you can steal an existing one, change it a bit, and make it your own? These bastards haven't innovated a damn thing. Ever.
Oh...wait...you mean that wasn't sarcasm? You actually wrote that with a straight face? Now *that* is funny.
Let's see how your opinion of free software changes after Mommy and Daddy stop paying for school and you have to get a job. Your tune will change when you realize that people who give away software won't be hiring you, because....they have no money to pay salaries! Hell, where does Linus get his paychecks? Not from a company releasing its intellectual property for free. As for consulting...you want to add up all the dollars spent on software (binaries) compared to consulting services? It isn't remotely close. Nice try.
This whole "all source code should be free" crap is only popular among people who don't work for a living (and, somehow, Stallman). When you own your code, and make a living off of it, it's amazing how your views tend to change. It's kind of like how the hippies of the 60's became the 80's Me-generation - money and power (and closed source code!) is only bad when someone ELSE is controlling it.
But thanks for the troll, that was a good one!
I subscribe to WSJ, and every day middle-low on the front page, they have a "humor" story, I suppose for really uptight type-A people. That was today's, so I assume no anti-TiVo subtext.