I agree: notice and notice is a much better system. If only we also had safe harbour to go with it.
You're right about the distribution issue (which I hadn't thought of). A great deal of graduate computer science work involves building proof of concept applications. IANAL either, but it seems to me that that sort of activity would be a legal minefield (who can you distribute the apps to?) for grad students.
Thanks again for the timely and well written letter to start from
Nice letter! I will be using it as a guide to writing my own. However, isn't one of the explicitly named exceptions to the anti-circumvention provision the research exception. It looks like in that particular, our DMCA has learned something (while missing the point everywhere else).
While I do love C++ (C is for OS programmers, which I am not) the truth is that JIT compilers perform optimizations that native compilers don't. They can inline things based on dynamic usage, they can inline library functions, they can even recompile based on the hardware the code is running on (similar to compiling a custom kernel in linux, but on the fly) . When all of this is working VM based languages can really fly.
Some of these ideas will eventually make it to native C++ compilers. However, I can't see all of them making the transition since they depend so heavily on having an intermediate form of the code to work with.
So, yes, bytecode can be faster than native code in certain situations. I think there's still a lot of work to be done with these compilers. "Certain situations" might well become "nearly all situations" in the future.
To clarify a bit. When I say "generally" I mean for the case where XML is chosen as the data format. There are many cases where binary formats are just better.
In (weak) defense of XML, the advantages of human readability generally outweigh the size concern. Especially when you consider how compressible XML is. When space is a greater concern than processing time, many developers take advantage of LZW or another text compression algorithm to minimize space.
There's a fair bit of research in this area, actually. I've seen a bunch of compression algorithms that get decent compression rates, while maintaining the document structure (so that you can find and decompress only the bit of the XML you need at any given time). I thought that was pretty cool.
Thank you, I was beginning to think that I was was the only one who got the impression that the OP failed to present a compelling case. On the upside, I guess the rest of us now have a better idea of what points we'd need to cover in a small-claims spam suit.
That runs into regional issues. Japan, for instance, is not happy with the assumptions made by unicode, and have their own preferred encoding. Agreeing on a standard doctype specification (at the very least) resolves many of these sorts of issues.
The truth is that Linux appeals best to users that understand and enjoy the very idea of computing.
What the majority world wants from computers is something else entirely. A computer is there to facilitate tasks, and enable tasks and activities that are impossible without them.
Appliance isn't quite right. "Appliance" implies that there is a standard set of functions that the device can perform that do not change. Even for very pragmatic users, part of the draw of computers is that they are not static, that from time to time the computer can take on a new role, or provide novel experiences. The Unix ideal of adminstrator vs restricted user makes sense from a computing security PoV, but it doesn't mesh well with the real world use of computers. People look to computers to make their lives easier, to simplify things. In order to make that happen, they look to the web, or to stores. They really don't want to have to ask their adminstrator pretty please to let them, say, do their taxes. While things like doing taxes can be really easy with a spreadsheet, that takes expert knowledge that most home users don't want to take the time to develop. Specialized software exists, that they might only use once. Each time they meet an obstacle to getting the computer to help them, they become less likely to look to the computer for help. If I knew exactly what it would take to make this possible, and natural enough for a time-starved CEO to learn, I'd have step ???? down.
The world will never be ready for Linux as it stands today. It's not made for the world. I'm confident that there's enough innovators, and people dedicated to making their Linux distribution a platform for real human beings to work on, that someday there will be a Linux that the world is ready for. In a lot of ways, OSS may be better positioned than commercial software to be a really human oriented platform. It is free from the politics that create profit oriented requirements. It's free to really explore radical ideas because there's no deadlines, and no stockholders to please.
Really though, it's not about Linux. Linux is just the thing that lives under the hood, and if people can do what they want, what makes the hardware work is irrelevant.
Google will be the largest media company in the world within 10 years. You heard it here first.
If Google today is willing to spend the equivalent of 1.5 billion dollars aquiring youtube, how long will it be until they start financing the creation of media to put on it? While it isn't in the company mission statement to create media, I would be in the same ballpark as the aquisition of keyhole so that they'd have something to make google earth with.
I'm not questioning your anecdotes, but chances are good that there were factors in the SH suits that resulted in firings that you weren't privy to. The guidelines for Harassment at my office are quite clear, and it doesn't take 1337 social skills to be able to follow them, and demonstrate that you followed them. The kind of people crazy enough to file a SH suit over being asked to go for lunch with "the guys" are something of a rarity. People don't deserve to be ostracised because of something someone else did sometime who happened to have the same gender.
What can a lone girl to gain some acceptance? Visit your coworkers (on your team) in their cubes to ask for help, comment on the stuff they have there. Guys have things in their cubes for a reason. Try inviting groups to go for lunch. If you have a boyfriend or husband, mention them every now and then, it'll put you in the safe zone, where they can treat you like one of the guys. When all else fails, just invite yourself along when the cliques gather. People can only resist the instinct to add to the tribe for so long.
As to the converse, people shoudl go out of their way to welcome new hires. Make sure they know where people eat lunch/have coffee and that they should come along. If you're worried about sexual harrassment, approach the new girl in the office in pairs. It's much harder to interpret an invitation to a social occasion as an advance if it comes from a group.
So...how long will it be until we can install Linux on one of these babies?
Seriously though, this seems like a pretty exciting discovery, anything that helps Medical Science get a better handle on the consequences of changes in brain chemistry can only help with treatment of the scarier diseases like schizophrenia.
Thankfully, the elevators here don't have music piped into them, but you're right, I can't avoid hearing RIAA owned music in the big city I live in, but I can (and do) avoid paying for it.
There's one subset of media that very quickly approaches a level of polish comparable to mainstream corporate, and that's music. I've been listening to strictly indy music for about 2 years now, and frankly, I haven't missed the stuff that RIAA has it's claws into at all. Only a small portion of it has been released under CC, but I think that might well change. A number of podcasts I listen to use the CC license as compromise to make independant artists more comfortable having their music digitally broadcast.
There were some pretty significant enhancements to Cocoa and the the Core Foundation libraries between 10.2 and 10.3, some of which aren't back compatible to 10.2. Some of these changes are pretty fundamental, like the bindings capability in nibs that allow you to very quickly write simple MVC apps. 10.4 similarly added a bunch of new stuff to the API's, but nothing that seems to have driven apps to require them quite like 10.3 did. I suspect 10.5 will be similar to 10.3, Core Animation will make implementing sophisticated custom controls much simpler and faster to implement.
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/Cocoa/AppK itOlderNotes.html#X10_3Notes
Simple business sense:
When two platforms (Windows and Xbox) use a single API (DirectX) and those platforms are far an away the largest combined market share out there, it doesn't make sound business sense to code on anything but the API expressly designed for those platforms. While Qt's GL component does solve a great many of the problems with porting to various platforms, there is still extra hassle involved that isn't there when you just commit to Direct X.
Anyone who writes a game in OpenGL so that they might be able to port it, is doing it for the love, not for money.
If Apple really wanted to bring games to their OS, they'd pretty much have to find some way to license and maintain an OS X port of Direct X. Hopefully with an Obj-C wrapper (a guy can dream, can't he?).
That scheme defines an infinite addressing space, which means that you would need to store the address as a string. This complicates the IP packet header, and makes it a non constant size (which is icky for optimizing performance; this is one application where every ms counts). In addition, this means that one sure way to really break naive implementations of various services would be create a network with ridiculously long addresses and have them connect to things. And there wouldn't be much you could do about it because the IP headers would be valid.
From http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060615-7062 .html
" 42 percent of its "mystery shoppers" between the ages of 13 and 16 were able to purchase M-rated games during 2005. That's an improvement from the 69 percent figure of 2003, but not where either the FTC or Congress wants it to be. "
So yes, while it is enforced, it's pretty much a coin toss. Which means there is room for activist legislation that end runs the ESRB, though chances are any such legislation that is actually constitutional will be so watered down as to be useless. Videogames are still considered protected speech.
I'm also pretty sure that the ESRB would have to become a federal (or at least state run) board before you could use its ratings in legislation. It may well be that the ESRB ratings will become an acceptable test of the phrase "The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence". Which would mean that Jack's law might actually do what you suggest in practice.
If Microsoft make achieving technological parity with google a priority long enough, they will.
Even if google keeps innovating, the capabilities of the two search suites will eventually be close enough that 95% of users out there won't know the real differences.
Now, the real quandry is whether googles current dominance of the search industry to the point where people refer to websearching as "googling" will be powerful enough to overcome Microsofts' ability to make their tool the first one new computer owners see.
Lazy is a pretty powerful market share.
A lot of webloggers allow the owners to post articles, and then have a section for comments attached to each article. If you check out an active blog over on Livejournal, you'll find that most postings have a fair number of comments. Slashdot shares this characteristic in spades.
Slashdot also gives each of us a journal. On the web. One might almost call that a weblog.
The usual connotation of weblogs as a journal of personal information rather than bleeding edge nerd commentary is probably what makes the classification seem wierd, and I'll admit that I felt the same when you brought it up.
There's this new idea in the software community called User Centered Design. Professor Bartle might find it a bit radical. It revolves around the idea of actually identifying what potential users want out of your product, and what the most natural method of achieving these requirements are for your portential users.
A big part of UCD is knowing when to ignore your users, but to claim that it is an inherent property of users to always want what they don't really want is a pretty big leap. It is an arrogant claim that merits more serious justification than the axioms this article tries to pawn off on its audience.
I'm not being entirely fair with the above. I think there is a definite place for virtual worlds that explore the ramification of world laws that might never be accepted by commercial audiences. Hobbies and Academia are wonderful things.
Sounds to me like the GUI world for linux is steadily improving. Unfortunately, it still isn't up to the standards set by XP and OSX. This review really highlights that.
I don't know if the criticism of the RedHat GUI that the reviewer made are exaustive. I suspect that they are not. There seems to be an excess of sloppiness in the organization and implementation of the desktop environment.
There was an item on the main menu that lacked an icon that still had not been fixed in the new distribution. A standard interface element (the combo box) did not work properly. Can you imagine the lambasting a Mac or Windows GUI would get if they shipped with blatantly buggy interface elements?
I have to agree with the opinion that Linux and OSS are not ready from prime time. I have confidence that they will be ready eventually, just not now. Interface developers with new ideas, and a will to implement them are starting to trickle in. The RadialContext menu for Mozilla is a good example of that trickle down.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree: notice and notice is a much better system. If only we also had safe harbour to go with it.
You're right about the distribution issue (which I hadn't thought of). A great deal of graduate computer science work involves building proof of concept applications. IANAL either, but it seems to me that that sort of activity would be a legal minefield (who can you distribute the apps to?) for grad students.
Thanks again for the timely and well written letter to start from
Nice letter! I will be using it as a guide to writing my own. However, isn't one of the explicitly named exceptions to the anti-circumvention provision the research exception. It looks like in that particular, our DMCA has learned something (while missing the point everywhere else).
While I do love C++ (C is for OS programmers, which I am not) the truth is that JIT compilers perform optimizations that native compilers don't. They can inline things based on dynamic usage, they can inline library functions, they can even recompile based on the hardware the code is running on (similar to compiling a custom kernel in linux, but on the fly) . When all of this is working VM based languages can really fly.
Some of these ideas will eventually make it to native C++ compilers. However, I can't see all of them making the transition since they depend so heavily on having an intermediate form of the code to work with.
So, yes, bytecode can be faster than native code in certain situations. I think there's still a lot of work to be done with these compilers. "Certain situations" might well become "nearly all situations" in the future.
To clarify a bit. When I say "generally" I mean for the case where XML is chosen as the data format. There are many cases where binary formats are just better.
In (weak) defense of XML, the advantages of human readability generally outweigh the size concern. Especially when you consider how compressible XML is. When space is a greater concern than processing time, many developers take advantage of LZW or another text compression algorithm to minimize space.
There's a fair bit of research in this area, actually. I've seen a bunch of compression algorithms that get decent compression rates, while maintaining the document structure (so that you can find and decompress only the bit of the XML you need at any given time). I thought that was pretty cool.
Thank you, I was beginning to think that I was was the only one who got the impression that the OP failed to present a compelling case. On the upside, I guess the rest of us now have a better idea of what points we'd need to cover in a small-claims spam suit.
That runs into regional issues. Japan, for instance, is not happy with the assumptions made by unicode, and have their own preferred encoding. Agreeing on a standard doctype specification (at the very least) resolves many of these sorts of issues.
The truth is that Linux appeals best to users that understand and enjoy the very idea of computing.
What the majority world wants from computers is something else entirely. A computer is there to facilitate tasks, and enable tasks and activities that are impossible without them.
Appliance isn't quite right. "Appliance" implies that there is a standard set of functions that the device can perform that do not change. Even for very pragmatic users, part of the draw of computers is that they are not static, that from time to time the computer can take on a new role, or provide novel experiences. The Unix ideal of adminstrator vs restricted user makes sense from a computing security PoV, but it doesn't mesh well with the real world use of computers. People look to computers to make their lives easier, to simplify things. In order to make that happen, they look to the web, or to stores. They really don't want to have to ask their adminstrator pretty please to let them, say, do their taxes. While things like doing taxes can be really easy with a spreadsheet, that takes expert knowledge that most home users don't want to take the time to develop. Specialized software exists, that they might only use once. Each time they meet an obstacle to getting the computer to help them, they become less likely to look to the computer for help. If I knew exactly what it would take to make this possible, and natural enough for a time-starved CEO to learn, I'd have step ???? down.
The world will never be ready for Linux as it stands today. It's not made for the world. I'm confident that there's enough innovators, and people dedicated to making their Linux distribution a platform for real human beings to work on, that someday there will be a Linux that the world is ready for. In a lot of ways, OSS may be better positioned than commercial software to be a really human oriented platform. It is free from the politics that create profit oriented requirements. It's free to really explore radical ideas because there's no deadlines, and no stockholders to please.
Really though, it's not about Linux. Linux is just the thing that lives under the hood, and if people can do what they want, what makes the hardware work is irrelevant.
If Google today is willing to spend the equivalent of 1.5 billion dollars aquiring youtube, how long will it be until they start financing the creation of media to put on it? While it isn't in the company mission statement to create media, I would be in the same ballpark as the aquisition of keyhole so that they'd have something to make google earth with.
I'm not questioning your anecdotes, but chances are good that there were factors in the SH suits that resulted in firings that you weren't privy to. The guidelines for Harassment at my office are quite clear, and it doesn't take 1337 social skills to be able to follow them, and demonstrate that you followed them. The kind of people crazy enough to file a SH suit over being asked to go for lunch with "the guys" are something of a rarity. People don't deserve to be ostracised because of something someone else did sometime who happened to have the same gender.
What can a lone girl to gain some acceptance? Visit your coworkers (on your team) in their cubes to ask for help, comment on the stuff they have there. Guys have things in their cubes for a reason. Try inviting groups to go for lunch. If you have a boyfriend or husband, mention them every now and then, it'll put you in the safe zone, where they can treat you like one of the guys. When all else fails, just invite yourself along when the cliques gather. People can only resist the instinct to add to the tribe for so long.
As to the converse, people shoudl go out of their way to welcome new hires. Make sure they know where people eat lunch/have coffee and that they should come along. If you're worried about sexual harrassment, approach the new girl in the office in pairs. It's much harder to interpret an invitation to a social occasion as an advance if it comes from a group.
So...how long will it be until we can install Linux on one of these babies? Seriously though, this seems like a pretty exciting discovery, anything that helps Medical Science get a better handle on the consequences of changes in brain chemistry can only help with treatment of the scarier diseases like schizophrenia.
Thankfully, the elevators here don't have music piped into them, but you're right, I can't avoid hearing RIAA owned music in the big city I live in, but I can (and do) avoid paying for it.
There's one subset of media that very quickly approaches a level of polish comparable to mainstream corporate, and that's music. I've been listening to strictly indy music for about 2 years now, and frankly, I haven't missed the stuff that RIAA has it's claws into at all. Only a small portion of it has been released under CC, but I think that might well change. A number of podcasts I listen to use the CC license as compromise to make independant artists more comfortable having their music digitally broadcast.
There were some pretty significant enhancements to Cocoa and the the Core Foundation libraries between 10.2 and 10.3, some of which aren't back compatible to 10.2. Some of these changes are pretty fundamental, like the bindings capability in nibs that allow you to very quickly write simple MVC apps. 10.4 similarly added a bunch of new stuff to the API's, but nothing that seems to have driven apps to require them quite like 10.3 did. I suspect 10.5 will be similar to 10.3, Core Animation will make implementing sophisticated custom controls much simpler and faster to implement. http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/Cocoa/AppK itOlderNotes.html#X10_3Notes
Is brainball http://smart.tii.se/smart/projects/brainball/index _en.html highbrow enough?
There are some strange art-concept games being made on the fringes.
Simple business sense: When two platforms (Windows and Xbox) use a single API (DirectX) and those platforms are far an away the largest combined market share out there, it doesn't make sound business sense to code on anything but the API expressly designed for those platforms. While Qt's GL component does solve a great many of the problems with porting to various platforms, there is still extra hassle involved that isn't there when you just commit to Direct X. Anyone who writes a game in OpenGL so that they might be able to port it, is doing it for the love, not for money. If Apple really wanted to bring games to their OS, they'd pretty much have to find some way to license and maintain an OS X port of Direct X. Hopefully with an Obj-C wrapper (a guy can dream, can't he?).
For the curious: Real Player's Questionable Practices. On the other hand, Some might be cheered by the fact that they Bypassed FairPlay.
That scheme defines an infinite addressing space, which means that you would need to store the address as a string. This complicates the IP packet header, and makes it a non constant size (which is icky for optimizing performance; this is one application where every ms counts). In addition, this means that one sure way to really break naive implementations of various services would be create a network with ridiculously long addresses and have them connect to things. And there wouldn't be much you could do about it because the IP headers would be valid.
From http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060615-7062 .html
" 42 percent of its "mystery shoppers" between the ages of 13 and 16 were able to purchase M-rated games during 2005. That's an improvement from the 69 percent figure of 2003, but not where either the FTC or Congress wants it to be. "
So yes, while it is enforced, it's pretty much a coin toss. Which means there is room for activist legislation that end runs the ESRB, though chances are any such legislation that is actually constitutional will be so watered down as to be useless. Videogames are still considered protected speech.
I'm also pretty sure that the ESRB would have to become a federal (or at least state run) board before you could use its ratings in legislation. It may well be that the ESRB ratings will become an acceptable test of the phrase "The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence". Which would mean that Jack's law might actually do what you suggest in practice.
If Microsoft make achieving technological parity with google a priority long enough, they will. Even if google keeps innovating, the capabilities of the two search suites will eventually be close enough that 95% of users out there won't know the real differences. Now, the real quandry is whether googles current dominance of the search industry to the point where people refer to websearching as "googling" will be powerful enough to overcome Microsofts' ability to make their tool the first one new computer owners see. Lazy is a pretty powerful market share.
A lot of webloggers allow the owners to post articles, and then have a section for comments attached to each article. If you check out an active blog over on Livejournal, you'll find that most postings have a fair number of comments. Slashdot shares this characteristic in spades. Slashdot also gives each of us a journal. On the web. One might almost call that a weblog. The usual connotation of weblogs as a journal of personal information rather than bleeding edge nerd commentary is probably what makes the classification seem wierd, and I'll admit that I felt the same when you brought it up.
There's this new idea in the software community called User Centered Design. Professor Bartle might find it a bit radical. It revolves around the idea of actually identifying what potential users want out of your product, and what the most natural method of achieving these requirements are for your portential users. A big part of UCD is knowing when to ignore your users, but to claim that it is an inherent property of users to always want what they don't really want is a pretty big leap. It is an arrogant claim that merits more serious justification than the axioms this article tries to pawn off on its audience. I'm not being entirely fair with the above. I think there is a definite place for virtual worlds that explore the ramification of world laws that might never be accepted by commercial audiences. Hobbies and Academia are wonderful things.
Sounds to me like the GUI world for linux is steadily improving. Unfortunately, it still isn't up to the standards set by XP and OSX. This review really highlights that.
I don't know if the criticism of the RedHat GUI that the reviewer made are exaustive. I suspect that they are not. There seems to be an excess of sloppiness in the organization and implementation of the desktop environment.
There was an item on the main menu that lacked an icon that still had not been fixed in the new distribution. A standard interface element (the combo box) did not work properly. Can you imagine the lambasting a Mac or Windows GUI would get if they shipped with blatantly buggy interface elements?
I have to agree with the opinion that Linux and OSS are not ready from prime time. I have confidence that they will be ready eventually, just not now. Interface developers with new ideas, and a will to implement them are starting to trickle in. The RadialContext menu for Mozilla is a good example of that trickle down.