What about it drove you away? (You never gave a reason, and I'm curious)
Well, one reason is that it seemed to crash more often than Windows. *20 second obligatory pause for laughter* Anyway, the Linux Kernel is a brick house sure...but on top of that I was running X -> Enlightenment -> Netscape for most of my web browsing. Somewhere in those 3 layers(not the kernel) things just kept crashing. Usually once of twice a day the xserver would crash, and I'd be left back in console mode...typing startx again.
I mean, when people tout the values of Linux the very first thing they emphasize is stability. And they are right provided you don't use X. After you type 'startx' it's a different world however(again, my individual experience). So between windows crashing, and Enlighttenment crashing...well all things being equal I'd prefer windows. Simply because the layout is more intuitive(specifically the File Manager). And there are loads of applications for windows that install like:
Where as Linux was always about racking dozens of unrelated library dependancies, (which got more and more out of date, and more and more difficult/tedious to maintain). All 'n all it was a headache to use. I liked it for programming with vim...but that's about it. Otherwise I want to be spending my time inside of an application not an operating system. So, sorry to rant...but it's more or less the way it went for me.
Woah! you don't like simple paths, do you? Ever thought that you could have bought directly debian CD on E-bay [ or ask any LUG and get them almost free ] ?
Well, I acutally attempted to install debian last year. But gave up after a few hours(hardware conflicts, and a whole mess of stuff that I'm glad I don't remember.)
The PGI installer was supposted to simplify all of that. What I read told me that all the installation nightmares had been taken care of, and that installing Debian was now a breeze with PGI.
None of the debian Woody versions I saw for sale on the web said anything about the PGI installer...so rather than chance it I decided to burn my own directly from the PGI project site.
I'll probably get modded into oblivion for posting this, but I wanted to chime in. I've got two boxes running side-by-side, one running Suse and the other Win98(games box). What I've noticed is that I've been spending more and more time using the windows box.
I thought it was just a distribution problem), and since so many people here on Slashdot rave about Debian I thought I'd give it a try. Especially since PGI(progenies graphical installer) is now 1.0.
So I actually bought a CD burner from E-bay for the sole purpose of burning the new debian-woody-pgi ISO to a CD so I could install debian. The drive arrived 2 days ago, and works like a charm. I burned the ISO to disk yesterday, and tried the install 3 times before I could even get the installer to start(My router has DHCP enabled, but for some reason the installer couldn't find it). Then X wouldn't run because the PGI ISO has ancient drivers(I have a GeForce4). But I had a command line right?...just ftp and get the drivers, np. Except ftp doesn't work. I can't even ping(yes, I did a remote install...which worked fine! guess debian just forgot how to connect after it installed...*sigh*). So then I tried using the other box (Suse) to write the drivers to a floppy and then copy them to the Debian install. Except...well...after 2 hours of trying to figure out how to mount the floppy drive I find out that I can't write to the floppy because I need to format it in ext2. Fine (grrr)
I use google and find the fdformat command and format the disk...except...that doesn't work either(for whatever reason). So fine, I'll just remove the Geforce 4 and swap in my old SIS card, do the install, then get the drivers and re-configure X. Sure that will work(30 mins later) X starts! Then I switch over to my Suse box to search around for HOWTO's etc (I use a KVM switch to share the monitor) and when I switch back, my mouse no longer works...and niether does the webbrowser.
After about 10 hours of this I just lost it. I have wiped the disk, and am now in the process of installing windows on both machines. I will probably never use linux again.
Don't get me wrong, I love using Mozilla and Open Office, and a few other open-source apps. They are superior to the Microsoft alternatives(and free as in beer!). But they are on my machine first and foremost because installing/configuring them was a breeze.
2)WTF? the shift/ctrl/alt+Fkey bar is one of the best UI to make it inot games in the last couple of years! Plus the rotary rightclick system works mucho efficiently.
Ya, and how about that targetting with bow/arrow? Nothing like aiming at feet all day. Did you try the camera angle hack? Notice how FAR SUPERIOR the game experience was? How long does your neck last in a day of gameplay? Playing that game is like watching TV while sitting in an electric chair.
The bandwidth is not for 802.11a alone. It is an open band -> anyone can use it for anything -> lots of non-data interference which cannot be controlled.
I would really like to believe this. Where did you get your information?
I'm shocked, but the cynic in me says that they are just opening up more real estate to be sold to private interest, rather than be preserved for the public. Does anyone have a more in-depth understanding of what these two senators are trying to pass?
Damn, post a story about how Salon is losing money and then link them in the story? That's like telling your doctor that you have a headache and then they kick you in the nuts.
Yep, and hopefully this will continue until every website is destroyed.
Then people will be forced to make the correct decision of migrating towards a P2P internet.
Like most things, the previous generation stands in the way of the next. Most of the people holding the keys are trying to protect a dated and dying model based on advertising. That horse still has a little ways to go before it's dead, but we're getting there. Then we can build something that actually works, and that we actually own.
My god, the man is writing DRM software, not eating babies.
Actually what he's doing is worse.
He's fattening himself by sacrificing the rights of babies(all of ours). If I was a baby I'd rather he eat me than force me to grow up in a world like the one he's helping to create.
I think most developers will agree, this is a once in a lifetime contract. The biggest client I have ever had, doing an extremely high profile project. I am trying to build a business.
So as long as what you're doing is highly profitable it's ok? How is this different from Microsoft again?
there are very few of us that would turn this contract down under these circumstances.
Everyone has a price, therefore so do you?
I know, I won't be remembered for the money I made,
It's very likely that you won't be remembered for any of the software you wrote, or the money you made. But that memory is embedded within the software itself. Behind every tool is the endorsement of the person who built it.
it will be volunteering at the Mormon Church, coaching little league, etc,
Oh right, you're saving the children so that outwieghs building a product like this. And if that isn't enough, Jesus Christ is your savior so you can pretty much get away with bloody murder and still get into heaven, because all your sins are forgiven. Do you know how much damage this Christian rationlization has caused in the US alone. Doing 95% harm and 5% good is exactly that. Must be nice not having to worry about the consequences of your actions.
there are very few of us that would turn this contract down under these circumstances.
What would Jesus do? Even Jesus was violent once. When he saw the money changers who were supporting a system that said "God will see you at a price". Don't you think what you're doing is somewhat similar? You're supporting people who have extended the copyright term to over 80 years. These are the people who say "Your culture, your memories, and your history are ours. You can only revisit them if you can afford it." Holding our humanity hostage is almost as evil as saying we need to pay for God to love us.
The lawyers and politicians can pass whatever laws/policy they feel will continue to empower the few at the expense of the many. But it's the person at the end of that chain of command who actually decides if it happens. People just like yourself. Unfortunately it looks as if the lowest common denomenator is going to win out.
Do you think you're the first person to be offered this contract? Do you wonder went through the minds of those who decided not to take the job. I guess you'll never know.
When I was initially apprached, I pushed MP3's hard, I even built the system around MP3's at first. They brought up DRM. I never worked with DRM and as I mentioned before, implementing DRM was the most horrific experience ever.
I appreciate your honesty, but I have another question for you.
The tone of your post seems to indicate that you don't have much say in what gets implemented. Are you in a position where the only kind of work/contract you can find right now is building something like this?
Said another way, are you having to choose between paying your rent/morgage vs. doing what you seem to know in your heart of hearts is wrong?
That's true, but it's also how DRM could become something much more menacing that what you invision it to be. Do you think Hillary Rosen shares your moderate viewpoint on DRM? You just build the tools, you don't get to decide how they are going to be used. Most people here are aware that succesful software oftentimes ends up being adopted to perform functions that the designer never even considered.
As well indended as your efforts may be to try and find a working compromise between content consumers/producers. You are laying a groundwork that could dramatically dis-empower millions of people.
The primary issue here is one of precedent. You're helping to bolster the notion that DRM is something that people will accept.
Right now marketing is being pressured into "selling" DRM without disrupting product sales. Which is very tricky in recessionary times like these. Companies need consumer dollars to stay afloat, so they can't be too hasty and scare them away with technologies like DRM. Once sales pick up again however, there will be much more leaway to completely transition to DRM based media distribution. Have you really considered what that would imply?
This isn't a comic book, and what you're doing could end up effecting real people in very negative ways. I'm just curious what is going through your mind as you're coding this stuff. Do you think you're some kind of hero? Would you please elaborate your point of view?
Grumble all you want, but most companies (in the US at least) either force you or "highly encourage" (read: force) you to sign a 1 or 2-year contract.
Yep, and in all those "socialist" countries the cell networks are in pristine working condition. The next time you want to vote to privitize electricity(california?), or gas...think of the cell phone industry. The cell phone industry is a clear example of private enterprise and competetion failing to improve service. We're seeing the same thing in broadband services as well.
nteresting... any sources (esp. online) where I can find out more about this?
Unfortunately I couldn't find any material on-line. As I said though, history tends to be highly revisionist in ways that benefit/support the side of the victor. This information isn't easy to find in historical text.
Also, do you happen to be a southerner?
I was born in Michigan, and spent the majority of my life living in the north. I am now living in Atlanta, and have been here for 8 years. So I do have some exposure to both sides of the story.
Oh yes, we all have heard the usual arguments. Technology doesn't break the law, people do. Aka, the Pontius Pilate / Eichmann defense.
Laws have a way of changing with the times.
For nearly a century it was legal in the US to buy human slaves, and to treat them however you wanted. You could whip them, beat them, and rape thier wives without any fear of recrimination whatsoever. It took almost 100 years of this before America came to its moral senses, and took a stand for the rights of all people. Regardless of color, creed, etc.
It's a little known fact that initially the south supported this change. They repented thier moral wrongdoing, and the majority of southerners agreed to cooperate. The only provision was that the US government would compensate the south for thier losses. I.e. the country as a whole would pay for the regrettable history of slavery by putting tax dollars towards weaning the south away from slavery...and into a new business model which didn't require slavery. The northerners took the very selfish stance of claiming that it was the south's fault for using slaves in the first place, and that they didn't deserve any kind of financial support to help them make the transition.
This of course left the southerners only 2 alternatives:
1) Relinquish slavery in all its forms and become pennyless(if you think un-employment is bad now...). 2) Fight for thier way of life(thier right to eat, and stay clothed, etc)
Obviously there really was no choice for them. American history, like all histories, has a way of demonizing the losing side...but in fact the north was very cowardly and selfish in refusing to bear thier share of the legacy of slavery.
What's the point to all this?
I would argue that we're in a very similar situation now as relates to intellectual property and copyrights. Businesses who rely on intellectual property to support thier "way of life" are terribly threatened by things like file-sharing. They are human beings too, and they shouldn't have to give up thier standard of living. But at the same time, they are slaveholders.
Who are the slaves? We are. The history, and indeed the very culture of our generation is steeped in books, movies, television, music, video/computer games, etc. The merits/de-merits of this aside...it's largely true that a great deal of "ourselves" is derived from these things. The problem of course is that our culture is completely subsidized. We don't have the right to re-visit our culture unless we can afford it.
I'm not sure, but it seems as if this is the first time in history where this has happened. For thousands of years culture was passed down by word of mouth, festivals, plays, music, poetry, etc. etc. the vast majority of which was free...even taken for granted. People, even the poor, had a right to themselves and thier culture. Today we have to stand in line before an iron gate, and pay tribute to the keyholders if we want to remember who we are. A terribly dehumanizing prospect.
The controversy is obvious, and much like the days before the cival war, both sides are right. Unfortunately it appears as if history will repeat itself, and that noone will make the sacrifices neccesary to avoid a conflict. Someone is going to get burned at the expense of someone else...hopefully this will be the last time however. Because in a post-scarcity society it's a win-win situation.
The real price in web content isn't the delivery, it's in obtaining the content. It takes a decent staff to put together a magazine, and those same people need the same pay of they're going to do it as an e-zine too!...The problem is not in the delivery, it's in the cost of content creation. Decentralizing to a P2P structure that carries no ads will take away the incentive to write in the first place.
Many of the best sites that still survive are written by hobbiests for hobbiests. Is there a better example to this than Slashdot? These are people who have so much genuine enthusiasm for a particular subject that they practically fall over themselves writing these sites. Ironically many of the worst sites on the web are those who employ salaried writers. Principally because there's so much product placement and mis-information.
Imagine the "can't-get-there-from-here" situations. You'll get 10 mbps connections to your neighbors, not 10 mbps connections to the content you want to see. There's a reason why 99% of the server load falls to 1% of the machines, they're the ones where the good new content is being published
You're right of course, that it's a very difficult problem. But I disagree when you say it's impossible. 802.11A has the potential to deliever 100Mpbs, and some of the new spatial division signal technologies could push that number through the roof to the Gbps range. All of this stuff has passed the proof of concept phase, it really exists. So if you have 100 clients per square mile, with ~50Gigs free harddrive space and > 100Mpbs transfer rate. That's a very potent recipe for success.
If just one guy in your city refreshed the "newest" copy of Slashdot, that means you only have to hop over to his box to get a copy...rather than making 45 hops to get to the source. There could be designated super-nodes and repeaters for this kind of thing...not hard to do.
I hope that yahoo! does not have the same lax privacy policy for paying customers as for non-paying customers
The really interesting part of all of this is that when Yahoo first started, thier service was exemplary. They were effecient, thoughtful, smart, and they implemented a host of useful resources.
Then, like the vast majority of the dot-com companies, the VCs and big-business types pulled the wool over the eyes of the original founders(people like Jerry Yang). Or, put another way, the original founders sold out. After that happened(about 1 year before the dot-com crash) Yahoo's service has continually degraded. That's about 2 years of constant monotonic degradation of service. Now they're insisting on customers paying for a service that was taken for granted 2 years ago?
Understandably the dot-com business model has all but evaporated in the face of diminished advertising revenue. (Ad companies are paying 1/10th what they used to per ad). This coupled with the fact that the stock inflators have all left town or gone broke, pretty much means that Yahoo has very little to go on. This of course is true of almost all the.com's, as the majority of them relied on advertising for revenue. (except sites like e-bay, etc. who are doing fine in this kind of environment).
It's very unlikely that any of this will change, as consumers are more and more fervently seeking out products that will block advertisments. The latest batch of "pop-up" style advertising techniques has pretty much buried any respect the advertising industry ever had in the mind of the consumer. Said another way, advertisers are paying less and less per ad because they percieve how ofter those ads are being avoided. In turn they insist on "eyeball time" and make even more hostile ads. This in turn increases the consumers anger, and the customer finds even more effective ways to block out all advertisements. It's a cycle that bears very little hope for the advertisement based web-business model.
Those are big hurdles, but in conjunction they appear to be within our grasp:
1) Wireless broadband means buying a dedicated commodity unit for ~$150(before prices drop) that will provide 10Mbps 24/7(does your telco/cable co offer this?). Most importantly, there is no monthly cost...goodbye $50/month to Bell X.
2) P2P transfer of not only files, but also dynamic content like webpages. This would involve a dramatic paradigm shift away from the current client-server model. But with > 100 10Mbps nodes per square-mile in urban areas, and intelligent caching, there's every reason to suggest this is possible.
The client-server model that the "old internet" has relied on is broken. The ad-revenue cycle is destroying quality of service, shutting down many good sites permanently, and we're losing vast quantities of content in the process.
Currently 99% of the server load is on 1% of the connected machines. Leaving the other 99% of the client base Idle. A small investment of ~$150(about the price of a 2nd harddrive, or a new soundcard) could change all of this. Then those 99% idle client boxes could become very powerful P2P nodes.
This is not the distant future folks, it just takes a catalytic moment to get everyone to buy that 802.11X card. It happened to CD-ROM drives, sound-cards, etc. sooner or later a new standard component is adopted. Then the folks at Dell etc. will include one in every standard box they sell. Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later. Then the OSS/private sector can build HTTP over P2P(challenging, but not impossible within this infrastructure).
I'm sincerely hoping all of this happens soon, because many great web-sites are going down, and we're losing a lot of good content. There's less and less in that Google cache every day, and we need to change that.
As for your statement that the ghost has left him, I have to disagree. Yeah, the two extant Star Wars prequels aren't as good as many people wish they had been. (In all fairness, they never could have lived up to the fanboys' expectations, but that's another argument.) But the underlying story is fantastic stuff. The way the bad guys manipulate the good guys, playing both sides of the fence to achieve their goals, just blows me away.
I think we're on the same page here. Lucas wrote those stories during his creative golden years, and I do agree that they are good stories. But everything he's done recently (including digitally modifying the original trilogy) has been banal.
Slashdot Mirror
What about it drove you away? (You never gave a reason, and I'm curious)
.exe or .zip .exe or .zip ...
Well, one reason is that it seemed to crash more often than Windows. *20 second obligatory pause for laughter*
Anyway, the Linux Kernel is a brick house sure...but on top of that I was running X -> Enlightenment -> Netscape for most of my web browsing. Somewhere in those 3 layers(not the kernel) things just kept crashing. Usually once of twice a day the xserver would crash, and I'd be left back in console mode...typing startx again.
I mean, when people tout the values of Linux the very first thing they emphasize is stability. And they are right provided you don't use X. After you type 'startx' it's a different world however(again, my individual experience). So between windows crashing, and Enlighttenment crashing...well all things being equal I'd prefer windows. Simply because the layout is more intuitive(specifically the File Manager). And there are loads of applications for windows that install like:
1) download
2) run
3)
4) add/remove programs to un-install.
Where as Linux was always about racking dozens of unrelated library dependancies, (which got more and more out of date, and more and more difficult/tedious to maintain). All 'n all it was a headache to use. I liked it for programming with vim...but that's about it. Otherwise I want to be spending my time inside of an application not an operating system. So, sorry to rant...but it's more or less the way it went for me.
Woah! you don't like simple paths, do you? Ever thought that you could have bought directly debian CD on E-bay [ or ask any LUG and get them almost free ] ?
Well, I acutally attempted to install debian last year. But gave up after a few hours(hardware conflicts, and a whole mess of stuff that I'm glad I don't remember.)
The PGI installer was supposted to simplify all of that. What I read told me that all the installation nightmares had been taken care of, and that installing Debian was now a breeze with PGI.
None of the debian Woody versions I saw for sale on the web said anything about the PGI installer...so rather than chance it I decided to burn my own directly from the PGI project site.
I'll probably get modded into oblivion for posting this, but I wanted to chime in. I've got two boxes running side-by-side, one running Suse and the other Win98(games box). What I've noticed is that I've been spending more and more time using the windows box.
I thought it was just a distribution problem), and since so many people here on Slashdot rave about Debian I thought I'd give it a try. Especially since PGI(progenies graphical installer) is now 1.0.
So I actually bought a CD burner from E-bay for the sole purpose of burning the new debian-woody-pgi ISO to a CD so I could install debian. The drive arrived 2 days ago, and works like a charm. I burned the ISO to disk yesterday, and tried the install 3 times before I could even get the installer to start(My router has DHCP enabled, but for some reason the installer couldn't find it). Then X wouldn't run because the PGI ISO has ancient drivers(I have a GeForce4). But I had a command line right?...just ftp and get the drivers, np. Except ftp doesn't work. I can't even ping(yes, I did a remote install...which worked fine! guess debian just forgot how to connect after it installed...*sigh*). So then I tried using the other box (Suse) to write the drivers to a floppy and then copy them to the Debian install. Except...well...after 2 hours of trying to figure out how to mount the floppy drive I find out that I can't write to the floppy because I need to format it in ext2. Fine (grrr)
I use google and find the fdformat command and format the disk...except...that doesn't work either(for whatever reason). So fine, I'll just remove the Geforce 4 and swap in my old SIS card, do the install, then get the drivers and re-configure X. Sure that will work(30 mins later) X starts! Then I switch over to my Suse box to search around for HOWTO's etc (I use a KVM switch to share the monitor) and when I switch back, my mouse no longer works...and niether does the webbrowser.
After about 10 hours of this I just lost it. I have wiped the disk, and am now in the process of installing windows on both machines. I will probably never use linux again.
Don't get me wrong, I love using Mozilla and Open Office, and a few other open-source apps. They are superior to the Microsoft alternatives(and free as in beer!). But they are on my machine first and foremost because installing/configuring them was a breeze.
-Signed
A repenting Linux Zealot
Hey now, don't be dissin' the Dr. Who.
And let's not forget Tom Bakers riveting cameo performance in Dungeons and Dragons. The man is a genius.
No, the original poster is correct.
I'm sick of reading about the ills of society and corporate america. If anyone actually gave a shit we wouldn't have the Republican Nation.
...
Americans need to shit or get off the pot. Either we have rights and freedoms or we don't.
Yep. But unfortunately the readership on Slashdot doesn't represent the majority of this country. Not even close actually.
Have you considered the possibility that maybe Americans are hopelessly addicted to pain? I know it sounds strange, but
2)WTF? the shift/ctrl/alt+Fkey bar is one of the best UI to make it inot games in the last couple of years! Plus the rotary rightclick system works mucho efficiently.
Ya, and how about that targetting with bow/arrow? Nothing like aiming at feet all day. Did you try the camera angle hack? Notice how FAR SUPERIOR the game experience was? How long does your neck last in a day of gameplay? Playing that game is like watching TV while sitting in an electric chair.
You're thinking of Knights of the Old Republic, which is being developed by Bioware and will not be out for some time.
Thank God Bioware isn't behind SWG. They have 2 rules at Bioware that must be adhered to,
1) Ignore the customer
2) Don't bother to build a usable interface, or to user test it. After all, we're brilliant.
morons
The bandwidth is not for 802.11a alone. It is an open band -> anyone can use it for anything -> lots of non-data interference which cannot be controlled.
I would really like to believe this. Where did you get your information?
Hard to run the DMV when taxpayers are so cheap.
*Jaw drops to floor*
I'm shocked, but the cynic in me says that they are just opening up more real estate to be sold to private interest, rather than be preserved for the public. Does anyone have a more in-depth understanding of what these two senators are trying to pass?
Damn, post a story about how Salon is losing money and then link them in the story? That's like telling your doctor that you have a headache and then they kick you in the nuts.
Yep, and hopefully this will continue until every website is destroyed.
Then people will be forced to make the correct decision of migrating towards a P2P internet.
Like most things, the previous generation stands in the way of the next. Most of the people holding the keys are trying to protect a dated and dying model based on advertising. That horse still has a little ways to go before it's dead, but we're getting there. Then we can build something that actually works, and that we actually own.
That's nice, too bad it takes 2 hours to wade through the quarterly reports, doublespeak, and doctered numbers.
Can anyone make basic sense of this?
My god, the man is writing DRM software, not eating babies.
Actually what he's doing is worse.
He's fattening himself by sacrificing the rights of babies(all of ours). If I was a baby I'd rather he eat me than force me to grow up in a world like the one he's helping to create.
Lawyers aren't the only ones that need educating:
l d=0&commentsort=0&tid=95&mode=nested&cid=47130 21
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=45549&thresho
I think most developers will agree, this is a once in a lifetime contract. The biggest client I have ever had, doing an extremely high profile project. I am trying to build a business.
So as long as what you're doing is highly profitable it's ok? How is this different from Microsoft again?
there are very few of us that would turn this contract down under these circumstances.
Everyone has a price, therefore so do you?
I know, I won't be remembered for the money I made,
It's very likely that you won't be remembered for any of the software you wrote, or the money you made. But that memory is embedded within the software itself. Behind every tool is the endorsement of the person who built it.
it will be volunteering at the Mormon Church, coaching little league, etc,
Oh right, you're saving the children so that outwieghs building a product like this. And if that isn't enough, Jesus Christ is your savior so you can pretty much get away with bloody murder and still get into heaven, because all your sins are forgiven. Do you know how much damage this Christian rationlization has caused in the US alone. Doing 95% harm and 5% good is exactly that. Must be nice not having to worry about the consequences of your actions.
there are very few of us that would turn this contract down under these circumstances.
What would Jesus do? Even Jesus was violent once. When he saw the money changers who were supporting a system that said "God will see you at a price". Don't you think what you're doing is somewhat similar? You're supporting people who have extended the copyright term to over 80 years. These are the people who say "Your culture, your memories, and your history are ours. You can only revisit them if you can afford it." Holding our humanity hostage is almost as evil as saying we need to pay for God to love us.
The lawyers and politicians can pass whatever laws/policy they feel will continue to empower the few at the expense of the many. But it's the person at the end of that chain of command who actually decides if it happens. People just like yourself. Unfortunately it looks as if the lowest common denomenator is going to win out.
Do you think you're the first person to be offered this contract? Do you wonder went through the minds of those who decided not to take the job. I guess you'll never know.
When I was initially apprached, I pushed MP3's hard, I even built the system around MP3's at first. They brought up DRM. I never worked with DRM and as I mentioned before, implementing DRM was the most horrific experience ever.
I appreciate your honesty, but I have another question for you.
The tone of your post seems to indicate that you don't have much say in what gets implemented. Are you in a position where the only kind of work/contract you can find right now is building something like this?
Said another way, are you having to choose between paying your rent/morgage vs. doing what you seem to know in your heart of hearts is wrong?
Baby steps. Slow and steady wins the race.
That's true, but it's also how DRM could become something much more menacing that what you invision it to be. Do you think Hillary Rosen shares your moderate viewpoint on DRM? You just build the tools, you don't get to decide how they are going to be used. Most people here are aware that succesful software oftentimes ends up being adopted to perform functions that the designer never even considered.
As well indended as your efforts may be to try and find a working compromise between content consumers/producers. You are laying a groundwork that could dramatically dis-empower millions of people.
The primary issue here is one of precedent. You're helping to bolster the notion that DRM is something that people will accept.
Right now marketing is being pressured into "selling" DRM without disrupting product sales. Which is very tricky in recessionary times like these. Companies need consumer dollars to stay afloat, so they can't be too hasty and scare them away with technologies like DRM. Once sales pick up again however, there will be much more leaway to completely transition to DRM based media distribution. Have you really considered what that would imply?
This isn't a comic book, and what you're doing could end up effecting real people in very negative ways. I'm just curious what is going through your mind as you're coding this stuff. Do you think you're some kind of hero? Would you please elaborate your point of view?
Lol, pretty good.
Grumble all you want, but most companies (in the US at least) either force you or "highly encourage" (read: force) you to sign a 1 or 2-year contract.
Yep, and in all those "socialist" countries the cell networks are in pristine working condition. The next time you want to vote to privitize electricity(california?), or gas...think of the cell phone industry. The cell phone industry is a clear example of private enterprise and competetion failing to improve service. We're seeing the same thing in broadband services as well.
nteresting... any sources (esp. online) where I can find out more about this?
Unfortunately I couldn't find any material on-line. As I said though, history tends to be highly revisionist in ways that benefit/support the side of the victor. This information isn't easy to find in historical text.
Also, do you happen to be a southerner?
I was born in Michigan, and spent the majority of my life living in the north. I am now living in Atlanta, and have been here for 8 years. So I do have some exposure to both sides of the story.
Oh yes, we all have heard the usual arguments. Technology doesn't break the law, people do. Aka, the Pontius Pilate / Eichmann defense.
Laws have a way of changing with the times.
For nearly a century it was legal in the US to buy human slaves, and to treat them however you wanted. You could whip them, beat them, and rape thier wives without any fear of recrimination whatsoever. It took almost 100 years of this before America came to its moral senses, and took a stand for the rights of all people. Regardless of color, creed, etc.
It's a little known fact that initially the south supported this change. They repented thier moral wrongdoing, and the majority of southerners agreed to cooperate. The only provision was that the US government would compensate the south for thier losses. I.e. the country as a whole would pay for the regrettable history of slavery by putting tax dollars towards weaning the south away from slavery...and into a new business model which didn't require slavery. The northerners took the very selfish stance of claiming that it was the south's fault for using slaves in the first place, and that they didn't deserve any kind of financial support to help them make the transition.
This of course left the southerners only 2 alternatives:
1) Relinquish slavery in all its forms and become pennyless(if you think un-employment is bad now...).
2) Fight for thier way of life(thier right to eat, and stay clothed, etc)
Obviously there really was no choice for them. American history, like all histories, has a way of demonizing the losing side...but in fact the north was very cowardly and selfish in refusing to bear thier share of the legacy of slavery.
What's the point to all this?
I would argue that we're in a very similar situation now as relates to intellectual property and copyrights. Businesses who rely on intellectual property to support thier "way of life" are terribly threatened by things like file-sharing. They are human beings too, and they shouldn't have to give up thier standard of living. But at the same time, they are slaveholders.
Who are the slaves? We are. The history, and indeed the very culture of our generation is steeped in books, movies, television, music, video/computer games, etc. The merits/de-merits of this aside...it's largely true that a great deal of "ourselves" is derived from these things. The problem of course is that our culture is completely subsidized. We don't have the right to re-visit our culture unless we can afford it.
I'm not sure, but it seems as if this is the first time in history where this has happened. For thousands of years culture was passed down by word of mouth, festivals, plays, music, poetry, etc. etc. the vast majority of which was free...even taken for granted. People, even the poor, had a right to themselves and thier culture. Today we have to stand in line before an iron gate, and pay tribute to the keyholders if we want to remember who we are. A terribly dehumanizing prospect.
The controversy is obvious, and much like the days before the cival war, both sides are right. Unfortunately it appears as if history will repeat itself, and that noone will make the sacrifices neccesary to avoid a conflict. Someone is going to get burned at the expense of someone else...hopefully this will be the last time however. Because in a post-scarcity society it's a win-win situation.
The real price in web content isn't the delivery, it's in obtaining the content. It takes a decent staff to put together a magazine, and those same people need the same pay of they're going to do it as an e-zine too! ...The problem is not in the delivery, it's in the cost of content creation. Decentralizing to a P2P structure that carries no ads will take away the incentive to write in the first place.
Many of the best sites that still survive are written by hobbiests for hobbiests. Is there a better example to this than Slashdot? These are people who have so much genuine enthusiasm for a particular subject that they practically fall over themselves writing these sites. Ironically many of the worst sites on the web are those who employ salaried writers. Principally because there's so much product placement and mis-information.
Imagine the "can't-get-there-from-here" situations. You'll get 10 mbps connections to your neighbors, not 10 mbps connections to the content you want to see. There's a reason why 99% of the server load falls to 1% of the machines, they're the ones where the good new content is being published
You're right of course, that it's a very difficult problem. But I disagree when you say it's impossible. 802.11A has the potential to deliever 100Mpbs, and some of the new spatial division signal technologies could push that number through the roof to the Gbps range. All of this stuff has passed the proof of concept phase, it really exists. So if you have 100 clients per square mile, with ~50Gigs free harddrive space and > 100Mpbs transfer rate. That's a very potent recipe for success.
If just one guy in your city refreshed the "newest" copy of Slashdot, that means you only have to hop over to his box to get a copy...rather than making 45 hops to get to the source. There could be designated super-nodes and repeaters for this kind of thing...not hard to do.
I hope that yahoo! does not have the same lax privacy policy for paying customers as for non-paying customers
.com's, as the majority of them relied on advertising for revenue. (except sites like e-bay, etc. who are doing fine in this kind of environment).
The really interesting part of all of this is that when Yahoo first started, thier service was exemplary. They were effecient, thoughtful, smart, and they implemented a host of useful resources.
Then, like the vast majority of the dot-com companies, the VCs and big-business types pulled the wool over the eyes of the original founders(people like Jerry Yang). Or, put another way, the original founders sold out. After that happened(about 1 year before the dot-com crash) Yahoo's service has continually degraded. That's about 2 years of constant monotonic degradation of service. Now they're insisting on customers paying for a service that was taken for granted 2 years ago?
Understandably the dot-com business model has all but evaporated in the face of diminished advertising revenue. (Ad companies are paying 1/10th what they used to per ad). This coupled with the fact that the stock inflators have all left town or gone broke, pretty much means that Yahoo has very little to go on. This of course is true of almost all the
It's very unlikely that any of this will change, as consumers are more and more fervently seeking out products that will block advertisments. The latest batch of "pop-up" style advertising techniques has pretty much buried any respect the advertising industry ever had in the mind of the consumer. Said another way, advertisers are paying less and less per ad because they percieve how ofter those ads are being avoided. In turn they insist on "eyeball time" and make even more hostile ads. This in turn increases the consumers anger, and the customer finds even more effective ways to block out all advertisements. It's a cycle that bears very little hope for the advertisement based web-business model.
I would suggest that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But it requires the vast majority of us to embrace 2 distinct technologies. Wireless broadband, and Peer-To-Peer file-sharing, HTTP, and computing.
Those are big hurdles, but in conjunction they appear to be within our grasp:
1) Wireless broadband means buying a dedicated commodity unit for ~$150(before prices drop) that will provide 10Mbps 24/7(does your telco/cable co offer this?). Most importantly, there is no monthly cost...goodbye $50/month to Bell X.
2) P2P transfer of not only files, but also dynamic content like webpages. This would involve a dramatic paradigm shift away from the current client-server model. But with > 100 10Mbps nodes per square-mile in urban areas, and intelligent caching, there's every reason to suggest this is possible.
The client-server model that the "old internet" has relied on is broken. The ad-revenue cycle is destroying quality of service, shutting down many good sites permanently, and we're losing vast quantities of content in the process.
Currently 99% of the server load is on 1% of the connected machines. Leaving the other 99% of the client base Idle. A small investment of ~$150(about the price of a 2nd harddrive, or a new soundcard) could change all of this. Then those 99% idle client boxes could become very powerful P2P nodes.
This is not the distant future folks, it just takes a catalytic moment to get everyone to buy that 802.11X card. It happened to CD-ROM drives, sound-cards, etc. sooner or later a new standard component is adopted. Then the folks at Dell etc. will include one in every standard box they sell. Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later. Then the OSS/private sector can build HTTP over P2P(challenging, but not impossible within this infrastructure).
I'm sincerely hoping all of this happens soon, because many great web-sites are going down, and we're losing a lot of good content. There's less and less in that Google cache every day, and we need to change that.
As for your statement that the ghost has left him, I have to disagree. Yeah, the two extant Star Wars prequels aren't as good as many people wish they had been. (In all fairness, they never could have lived up to the fanboys' expectations, but that's another argument.) But the underlying story is fantastic stuff. The way the bad guys manipulate the good guys, playing both sides of the fence to achieve their goals, just blows me away.
I think we're on the same page here. Lucas wrote those stories during his creative golden years, and I do agree that they are good stories. But everything he's done recently (including digitally modifying the original trilogy) has been banal.