There's more to this issue than "mummy mummy microsoft did a bad thing and it's not faaaaaair!". The question we should be asking is "Is this the sort of behaviour we really want to encourge?"
Do we really want an industry where standards are sold to the highest bidder without any
scrutiny as to fitness for their supposed purpose. If so, the ISO committees may as well pack their bags and go home now, because we are headed for a world where no one will pay any attention at all to their
so called "standards".
I think that merits some discussion. Not because Microsoft did a Bad Thing so much, but because the
standards process served a useful purpose. Microsoft may well be willing to burn this process to the
ground in order to protect their file formats. I think the least we could do is shout "FIRE!"
In fact, with all that open source, isn't it easier to see what is going on so I can write a better exploit?
That, sir, is a very good point. In fact it's such a good point, it makes me wonder why no one
has ever suggested such a thing before, here on Slashdot.
Fortunately, there is a simple fix, readily suggested by the exemplary record set by The Microsoft Corporation.
All we need to do is change the file "/etc/passwd" to be "/etc/.passwd". That way, the file will no longer
show up on directory listings. And, since no one on earth is clever enough to think of running "ls -a",
that means that no one will know where the password file is, so no one will be able to break in.
Security Through Obscurity FTW!
Furthermore, if we apply this policy rigorously throughout the whole of the Linux operating system,
I'm sure we can make Linux' security record every bit a good as Windows in no time at all.
This is a very conservative viewpoint, why can things not change? Why can't we have the best of both worlds,
with both GUI configuration tools and text files?
That's a very good point. Trying to make your users work in a certain way is very much a Microsoft viewpoint.
Actually, that's not strictly fair - it's a proprietary viewpoint. Software houses have limited resources, so
they need to close choose a single way of doing things and concentrate their resources.
That's not something that's achievable in the FOSS world, nor (imho) is it desirable. People work on what interests
them, which makes FOSS devs rather harder to reallocate than their professional counterparts. Tell a developer he can't work on
Project X, and there's a fair chance his second option will be Nothing At All. Or maybe Project-X-On-BSD. There's no
benefit to be gained. And who is to say that, in the long term, Project X may not prove to be the Next Big Thing.
I think this is the flaw behind all the posts bemoaning "imagine how much further ahead we'd be without all these
distros/desktops/what-have you". It assumes that a developer working Gnome is one lost to KDE, and I don't think the
maths works out like that, any more than the RIAA's self serving assumption that each downloaded MP3 equals a lost
sale.
I think we should stop viewing the diversity of Linux software asa bug, and start looking at it as something to
be celebrated. The question is: how to explain that to the someone steeped in the Windows mindset?
Re:Wine breaks backward compatibility a lot.
on
Wine 0.9.44 Released
·
· Score: 3, Informative
To be fair, Wine does suffer quite a lot from regressions. Don't take my word for it - look up a few of your favourite games on the AppDB and notice how the playability level varies from one release to the next.
That's not so likely to be a problem with the major apps. World of Warcraft and MS Office are likely to be rested between releases, so they tend to be fairly stable. On the other hand, it's pretty much a crap-shoot whether Deus Ex (my favourite
use for Wine) will work with any particular release.
Don't get me wrong; I think Wine is a fantastic project, and the number of apps they can handle has risen steadily
over the time I've been using it. But being realistic, the do have a problem with regressions.
Once it gets out of beta, that will hopefully change.
The author even admits that he's just trying to get search engine traffic in the comments.
At the time of writing, there's only one comment from the author that mentions "search engines". So I assume your are refering to this paragraph:
I installed RootkitRevealer, and discovered it on my computer after installing the demo. I then found a fix to remove it on the 2K forums. In order for others to learn about this I used the word "rootkit", because it is what would naturally be typed in to search engines.
Now you may disagree, but that doesn't sound to me as if he means "I'm deliberately sensationalising the issue because I want to pimp my blog on Google". It sounds more like "I'm using the term 'rootkit' so that anyone who is searching for rootkit related stories can find this one", which seems reasonable enough to me. After all, as he pointed out in the previous paragraph, the issue was flagged by the Microsoft Rootkit Revealer, so it's not an entirely unreasonable use of the term.
He goes on to say:
The point of the article is to let people know that the SecuROM service was installed with the demo,and I have provided a way to remove it. This is a benefit for anyone who searches for "bioshock rootkit" or "SecuROM rootkit". I am not using it just for "traffic and ad revenue".
Now, I appreciate that you didn't say that he did use the term to boost "traffic and ad revenue", but I'm guessing
that a lot of people will have read it like that. So I thought it worth pointing out that the comment in question
explicitly states the opposite.
It's always hard to understand how intelligent, articulate, educated people can be right-of-center in terms of their values.
For most people, I don't think choosing political affiliation is a rational decision.I think it's
usually a mix of tribal instinct and identity at work. So people vote the way their parents did,
because they'd been brought up to believe that anything else was morally wrong. Or you get the ones
who vote against what their parents vote out of adolescent rebellion. You get people who'll adopt a
political viewpoint in the hopes of getting into someone's pants, and you get people who suddenly realise how bad the government are screwing everyone and make the unfounded assumption that the other lot must be better.
I don't think many people think it through at all. Not even the educated, articulate ones.
Who is to say that the G people will be able to convince everyone in the US to use their pipes?
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think they need to convince anyone.
I mean, yes, I'd expect them to use the wireless spectrum to give them a "last mile" connection to all that dark fiber
they've been buying up. But I think they'll also hook it up to the conventional Internet, and
keep it truly network neutral. Once that's in place, AT&T can packet shape youTube all they want;
all that will happen is that the best route will be via Google's fiber and AT&T will lose money because
they won't be peering so much data.
If Google do this right, AT&T will have to stay network neutral just to stay in the game.
It'll be typical Google; altruistic on the surface, with a business strategy behind it.
It's going to be interesting to see how this issue develops:)
Or, they are trying to get the attention of Google, or they are a proxy for Google, to test the 'net neutrality/being an ISP' water...
Interesting... I don't think it would help, though. AT&T probably aren't going to charge Google's ISP; they're going to demand
tribute from Google direct. They probably already get paid by Google's ISP via peering fees.
Telecoms need money to operate, content providers don't want to provide that funding, and customers don't either.
I was under the impression that telecoms made their money through
peering agreements.
Adding surcharges to Internet users not directly connected to their network is demanding
money for services already paid for.
Almost, because content companies HAVE been making deals with the infrastructure providers to improve their access.
As the wikipedians like to say: [[citation needed]]
I have to agree with his statement "The [allegedly] slow adoption of Vista is not due to DRM..."
Well, yes. The point I was trying to make, apparently in a somewhat ham-fisted manner was that the
slow adoption of Vista is not entirely due to DRM. There are a lot of negatives associated
with the operating system, and I expect each of them is having an effect.
And I think DRM is one of those factors. There are an awful lot of filesharers using Windows as a platform. A lot of them are going to be happy to stick with XP until they see how the DRM issues pan out.
I don't really disagree - as I said, the fact that you are locked in to a specific protocol
in order to access a service (which you now seem to consider is true) is probably unfixable,
but that doesn't mean it doesn't cause problems.
Well, I do reserve the right to change my mind if I decide that I've been talking rubbish, and I
try not to get so caught up in a debate that I can't consider that possibility that the other guy might be right. To which end, let's address a few other points here.
IPv6 Is Good Yes, I think you're probably right. We're going to need it sooner or later. And when we do we're going to need it a lot. But I don't think the need is as pressing as was anticipated and it might be quite a while yet before enough people are motivated that we see a change.
Migration from IPv4 poses problems. Yes it does. I'm a little hazy on how the situation will be noticeably worse in 2020, but in essence I agree with you.
So yes, these are serious problems. I'm not trying to trivialise the magnitude of an IPv6 migration.
However, I still don't think that the term "lock-in" is particularly apt. The situation lacks the elements of unwelcome external manipulation that I've come to associate with such usage.
And I still think "protocol lock-in" is at best meaningless, and at worst misleading.
I have doubts on any business model that has "sue your vendor" as a fail-safe for profitability, especially when the vendors are the big and powerful telcos.
Oh, I entirely agree. Start up vs. Telecoms giant. They could be tied up in court for ten years, even if they won.
Besides which, I can't see what leverage they might have with which to negotiate. There's no reason
for AT&T or Verizon to give them a deal at all. If I was an AT&T strategist, I'd refuse to talk at all, and wait. If they get big enough to be worth the effort, then start turning the screws. Either that, or shape them to death from the outset, until they come crawling, and then give them one of those "we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions at any time" agreements.
No, as I see it, these guys are either idealistic but doomed, or else they've come up with an interesting hook to see if they can set up as a high-price ISP. Either way, it's hard to see them
making a difference.
No, the notion that have net neutrality now (or had it recently) is a falsehood. You should say "gain" net neutrality.
What, you mean Google have actually been paying a surcharge to AT&T for their youTube traffic all
this time, and somehow they never noticed? Makes you wonder what Ed Whitacre was getting so worked up
about in which case.
I think a lot of people are not going to share your definition of "net neutrality", my friend:)
How does your use of Office prevent you from using Open Office? It doesn't.
How does your use of MSN prevent you from using XMPP? It doesn't.
OK, maybe you've got a point. Let's look at this another way:
I've been giving this a bit of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that the notion of
"protocol lock-in" is basically absurd.; I;m not saying that to be rude - I mean that the
notion is fundamentally flawed. Let me try and explain why:
The trouble is, for each and every protocol that exists, in order to use the protocol,
you have to use the protocol. It's no use me sitting inside waiting for the phone to ring
if you're determined to communicate using smoke signals. We have to use the same
protocol or there is no communication. The protocol defines the channel.
This means that every protocol going has 100% protocol lock-in among its users. "Protocol lock-in" is a tautology. It's a universal constant and there is nothing we can do to change that.
And so, because it's true in each and every case we might consider, we can factor it out of our discussions entirely. Good, bad, indifferent, it's always on and therefore irrelevant.
Now, if you disagree, please explain why. If not, say so and we can move on to the next bit; I suspect that if we're still going to discuss lock-in, then the word "vendor" is going to feature
strongly.
By negotiating contracts to that effect with Verizon or SBC? If they break the contract, they can then be sued for damages.
So the way to preserve net neutrality is for our ISPs to pay the big carriers not to downgrade our packets? And this is a good thing because otherwise they might demand payment from our ISPs in order for them not to downgrade our packets?
Makes you wonder why no one thought of this before, really.
If you're using SIP as your instant messaging protocol and I'm using XMPP, one of us has to change protocol (or use both) - that is inconvenient.
Oh, please! How is that to be considered a lock in? Does my use of SIP prevent me
from using XMPP? No it does not. I just have to install more software. Will the XMPP corporation
change the protocol so that I'm required to buy their software all over again? No, that will not happen. Inconvenient, yes. Lock-in, no.
Again, I have to reiterate - lock-in really isn't about whether something is being abused. Just because noone is in a position to subvert something for their own ends doesn't mean that you aren't locked into it and it doesn't mean there aren't problems with being locked in.
And here we disagree. I'm locked into my own house right now. That is, I'm inside and the door is locked. However I have a key and I can get out. The lock in is only a problem if someone else controls the key.
In the case of IPv4 and IPv6, that doesn't apply. I can migrate any time I want to. The fact that
there's not much point until most of the rest of the world does likewise doesn't mean I'm locked in, although it does mean there are serious migration issues to be solved if we're ever going to make the transition.
Also, how do you define "abuse" - taking the Skype example, the protocol is designed to use Skype's servers and has no scope for allowing third parties to run servers. Should this be considered an abuse or just a shortsighted protocol design?
A better phrase is "potential for abuse", and that's been there from the start. Which is one
reason why I don't use Skype. How much of that potential is down to poor design and how much was
because they wanted a level of vendor lock in on the emerging VOIP sector is something we'll probably never know for sure. But given that there were plenty of unencumbered protocols they could have used, I rather tend toward the latter.
If you had read my post you would've seen the bit which said "lock-in can be split into 3 separate categories in order of badness"
I did, and I chose not to address your point because I felt (and still feel) that you were proceeding from a false premise. However:
Case One: Yes, MS Office is a lock-in case, although the scope of the problem goes far beyond the use of.dox{x} files as a communication medium. In particular, there are also issues of deliberate breaking of backwards compatibility to force othewise undeeded upgrades, and issues about the long term availability of documents after the software that can read them is discontinued.
Case Two: This is really case one in disguise: MSN and Skype are vendor lock in cases, not protocol lock in. The problems here come not from the fact that the services have a defining protocol, but from the fact that a single vendor controls that protocol and is in a position to abuse that control.
Case Three: This I do not accept as lock in. There is no key holder here and no potential for abuse.
So I still think you're attempting to trivialise a serious industry problem by conflating it with
a completely unrelated problem on the one hand and with a handful of self evident non-issues on the other. Sorry, but no sale.
I think that's "market saturation". Different concept.
No, it's critical mass. I stated that quite clearly. See here for what that means.
Critical mass is what makes eBay popular. I don't think it's what makes it hard to
compete with them, at least not directly. I also think it's a lot harder to make that
argment for youTube (there are a lot of video upload sites) and harder still for
myspace (there are loads and loads of social networking sites).
Which is all somewhat beside the point.
I'm not arguing that anything is bad.
No, you're not, and that's the problem. I'm arguing that vendor lock in, often
referred to simply as "lock in" is bad. It describes a specific and well understood
problem where a single supplier controls the protocols
and formats used by a great many people, thereby opening them to unwelcome manipulation
from that supplier. This is widely understood and acknowledged to be a bad thing,
and I rather object to attempts to dilute the term by using it as if
it meant the same thing as "widely used".
Lock-in is lock-in - You don't have to be abused in order to be locked into something.
I'm sorry, but that's completely missing the point. You might as well say "being shot is being shot"
and then deliver a tirade about the evils of pea-shooters. Not only is the problem not inconveniencing
anyone sane, but you are also trivialising the original problem by declaring it to be
equivalent to something so minor.
I mean, yes, if I want to look at something, if I want to use my eyes, then I'm locked into using the
electromagnet spectrum. By your argument a lock-in is a lock-in, and therefore that's a Bad Thing,
or at least as bad as any other lock in. However, no one is abusing the singular nature of the visible
spectrum, and the fact that there are no practical alternatives for vision doesn't expose me
to any avenues of exploitation. More to the point, no one is in a position to potentially abuse
the medium. In consequence, I don't particularly care if vision has an
EMF lock in or not.
And the fact that a lot of people use a protocol (or a file format) isn't a problem -
it's what makes the protocol valuable. That's why Microsoft are creating such a stink
about OOXML - because they fear the erosion of the value of their formats.
And that's also why it's so important to have these formats and protocols open and
unencumbered by IPR issues, in all their various forms - because such common formats
are too valuable to be entrusted to any single entity.
I fully expect you to disagree with me, but as long as
you insist that the ills of lock-in stem from the lock-in itself rather
than any potential for abuse, then it's hard to see how we're going to
progress this.
While those are a good first step, they still are dependent on the Internet.
Well, he did say "darknet" and "insulated from the internet" rather than separate from. But it's a fair point.
I think the GP meant something completely separate, like a citizen-run WLAN
Which is a fabulous idea, and I think something like a widespread community mesh is an inevitability.
The only thing about that, I think, is that it's still conflating the transport medium with
protocols and infrastructure - OSI layer one with layers three and four.
It's not that it's a bad idea - I just think it's orthogonal to the matter at hand.
The more apropos example would have been eBay, MySpace or YouTube.
I think that's "market saturation". Different concept. I'll
grant that the thing that makes eBay useful is that a lot of people
use eBay. And certainly that much is true for TCP/IP.
But, if you're arguing that eBay is bad because it stops others
from making money... in which that case the analogy breaks down.
Unless, of course, your intention is to take TCP/IP
(which doesn't cost its users a penny),
and replace it with something that upon which you can levy charges.
And if that's the primary motivation for re-inventing the Internet,
I can't say I'm particularly sympathetic.
I think you're looking at the vendor lock-in term a bit myopically
I'm not interested in conflating a monopolistic abuse of proprietary
protocols and formats with the prevalence of a enabling technology
that isn't controlled by any single vendor, if that's what you mean.
i am certainly not a nascent-japanese-rival-to-the-internet fanboy.
And it certainly wasn't my intention to suggest otherwise - apologies if it came across that way.
what would it be like if we designed the internet today, but with a more "optimistic" approach? i don't know if it would change anything, or if it's even possible, but it would cool to find out.
Well, I think it would be a lot easier to censor, a lot more vulnerable to pharming attacks, less resistant to inter-ISP squabbles where one decides to drop
the other's packets, and you'd still have the problem that the "last mile" would be in the hands of either your local phone company or cable TV co, with
all the problems that implies.
Which isn't to say they shouldn't do the research; research is always good. But I think it's important to understand the distinction between the
protocols the internet runs on, the servers and routers, and the wire used to carry the signal. The "Internet" is protocols and servers and routers.
But the problems you've describes are about the wire - and you'll have to use that same wire to connect to any other network, unless you want to spend
a lot of money, anyway.
perhaps what is needed (if indeed anything is needed at all) is not a new and separate internet, but a kind of ad-hoc inter-network of peers that is isolated and possibly insulated from the internet, like some sort of giant darknet.
I love Lewis Carroll. And I also agree with him in principle. For
example, he loved questioning mathematics by turning its constructs on
their heads, but I don't think he would have recommended that everyday
mathematicians do this.
I think he'd have been delighted! Carroll's math was always sound,
and if he posed problems in counter-intuitive ways, I think that was
because he wanted to make people re-examine their preconceptions.
He'd have made a good zen master I think - koans second to none.
if everyone started to accept that the sarcastic use of
'alleged' is the 'new' meaning, then how would I unsarcastically say
'alleged'?
The same way you would "wicked" if you meant "immoral".
Ultimately, I think everything is contextual.
That said, I never sought to argue that negation was a
valid definition of "allegedly", just that it was a reasonable
interpretation given the context. I probably should have explained that
side of things a bit more carefully.
There needs to be some resistance to the changes so that they can fly
(become new 'definitions') or fail (remain merely contextual cues)
based on what turns out to be best for the language.
Absolutely right, too. The guardians of dictionaries should be
conservative in what they allow into their books. There has to be
a tension between the two impulses
I guess I'm kind of proposing a Darwinian model here. You're the mutative
agent, and I'm the selective agent.
heh - I've not been called one of them before. This has
turned out to be quite the interesting conversation -- doubly so
given a somewhat unpromising start. Thank you.
That's assuming there is more than 1 ISP around where you live. Which is not always true.
Especially if you need more than basic service (i.e. higher bandwidth).
Besides, spying on you can be mandated for all ISPs (it already is in some countries, no?),
so having a "choice" won't change much anyway. Next up is mandated filtering, also for all ISPs.
Yes. However, these are mainly political issues not technical ones. If your ISPs have been allowed to form a cartel,
if the government mandates ISP level surveillance - both political.
A redesigned from scratch Internet won't help with these issues at all,
because the problems are not technical ones and any new protocol will
be subject to the same issues.
On the other hand, a redesigned Internet could make matters a lot worse in this regard,
since it provides an opportunity for things like patent encumbered protocols and
on-by-default filtering of unregistered or encrypted protocols.
That's not to say that the problems you mention are not serious: just that you
seem to be looking in the wrong place for a solution.
There's a lot of points I could take issue with there, but I'm going to stick to the main one:
IPv4 has lots of problems, not least the lack of IP addresses, which forces you to use nasty hacks like NAT. However, you can't ditch IPv4 in favor of a protocol that solves these problems because you are locked into using services which are only provided over IPv4. This is why lock-in is bad - it prevents you from switching to a better technology (or at least - a technology that's better for _you_).
The problem I have here is that you are conflating on the one hand the problems of migrating a vary large user base
with, on the other, the monopolistic abuses of power popular with a certain Seattle based software house.
Persuading everyone to migrate to migrate to IPv6 is a major undertaking,
but it isn't being done to benefit a single controlling entity to the detriment
of the user base as a whole. You can't really say that about some of Microsoft's manipluations
of it's office formats.
Similarly, while the IPv6 upgrade is desirable for a some commercial interests,
for most Internet users, (and it would seem many ISPs and providers) the issue
doesn't seem to be sufficiently compelling for them to take action. The fact
that these stakeholder have the option not to upgrade is also atypical of the
vendor lock-in scenario.
So, in summary, I think the negative effects of he supposed TCP/IP lock-in are so minor (from a user perspective) as to be trivial,
while lock-in to proprietary protocols or formats can be not only expensive but also an avenue to all manner of unwelcome exploitation.
So my question is: are you deliberately trying to conflate the two issues?
I don't think you can support the notion that they are in any way comparable.
Slashdot Mirror
Stop whining? Certainly. STFU? I don't think so.
There's more to this issue than "mummy mummy microsoft did a bad thing and it's not faaaaaair!". The question we should be asking is "Is this the sort of behaviour we really want to encourge?"
Do we really want an industry where standards are sold to the highest bidder without any scrutiny as to fitness for their supposed purpose. If so, the ISO committees may as well pack their bags and go home now, because we are headed for a world where no one will pay any attention at all to their so called "standards".
I think that merits some discussion. Not because Microsoft did a Bad Thing so much, but because the standards process served a useful purpose. Microsoft may well be willing to burn this process to the ground in order to protect their file formats. I think the least we could do is shout "FIRE!"
That, sir, is a very good point. In fact it's such a good point, it makes me wonder why no one has ever suggested such a thing before, here on Slashdot.
Fortunately, there is a simple fix, readily suggested by the exemplary record set by The Microsoft Corporation. All we need to do is change the file "/etc/passwd" to be "/etc/.passwd". That way, the file will no longer show up on directory listings. And, since no one on earth is clever enough to think of running "ls -a", that means that no one will know where the password file is, so no one will be able to break in. Security Through Obscurity FTW!
Furthermore, if we apply this policy rigorously throughout the whole of the Linux operating system, I'm sure we can make Linux' security record every bit a good as Windows in no time at all.
That's a very good point. Trying to make your users work in a certain way is very much a Microsoft viewpoint. Actually, that's not strictly fair - it's a proprietary viewpoint. Software houses have limited resources, so they need to close choose a single way of doing things and concentrate their resources.
That's not something that's achievable in the FOSS world, nor (imho) is it desirable. People work on what interests them, which makes FOSS devs rather harder to reallocate than their professional counterparts. Tell a developer he can't work on Project X, and there's a fair chance his second option will be Nothing At All. Or maybe Project-X-On-BSD. There's no benefit to be gained. And who is to say that, in the long term, Project X may not prove to be the Next Big Thing.
I think this is the flaw behind all the posts bemoaning "imagine how much further ahead we'd be without all these distros/desktops/what-have you". It assumes that a developer working Gnome is one lost to KDE, and I don't think the maths works out like that, any more than the RIAA's self serving assumption that each downloaded MP3 equals a lost sale.
I think we should stop viewing the diversity of Linux software asa bug, and start looking at it as something to be celebrated. The question is: how to explain that to the someone steeped in the Windows mindset?
To be fair, Wine does suffer quite a lot from regressions. Don't take my word for it - look up a few of your favourite games on the AppDB and notice how the playability level varies from one release to the next.
That's not so likely to be a problem with the major apps. World of Warcraft and MS Office are likely to be rested between releases, so they tend to be fairly stable. On the other hand, it's pretty much a crap-shoot whether Deus Ex (my favourite use for Wine) will work with any particular release.
Don't get me wrong; I think Wine is a fantastic project, and the number of apps they can handle has risen steadily over the time I've been using it. But being realistic, the do have a problem with regressions. Once it gets out of beta, that will hopefully change.
At the time of writing, there's only one comment from the author that mentions "search engines". So I assume your are refering to this paragraph:
Now you may disagree, but that doesn't sound to me as if he means "I'm deliberately sensationalising the issue because I want to pimp my blog on Google". It sounds more like "I'm using the term 'rootkit' so that anyone who is searching for rootkit related stories can find this one", which seems reasonable enough to me. After all, as he pointed out in the previous paragraph, the issue was flagged by the Microsoft Rootkit Revealer, so it's not an entirely unreasonable use of the term.
He goes on to say:
Now, I appreciate that you didn't say that he did use the term to boost "traffic and ad revenue", but I'm guessing that a lot of people will have read it like that. So I thought it worth pointing out that the comment in question explicitly states the opposite.
For most people, I don't think choosing political affiliation is a rational decision.I think it's usually a mix of tribal instinct and identity at work. So people vote the way their parents did, because they'd been brought up to believe that anything else was morally wrong. Or you get the ones who vote against what their parents vote out of adolescent rebellion. You get people who'll adopt a political viewpoint in the hopes of getting into someone's pants, and you get people who suddenly realise how bad the government are screwing everyone and make the unfounded assumption that the other lot must be better.
I don't think many people think it through at all. Not even the educated, articulate ones.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think they need to convince anyone.
I mean, yes, I'd expect them to use the wireless spectrum to give them a "last mile" connection to all that dark fiber they've been buying up. But I think they'll also hook it up to the conventional Internet, and keep it truly network neutral. Once that's in place, AT&T can packet shape youTube all they want; all that will happen is that the best route will be via Google's fiber and AT&T will lose money because they won't be peering so much data.
If Google do this right, AT&T will have to stay network neutral just to stay in the game. It'll be typical Google; altruistic on the surface, with a business strategy behind it. It's going to be interesting to see how this issue develops :)
I was under the impression that telecoms made their money through peering agreements. Adding surcharges to Internet users not directly connected to their network is demanding money for services already paid for.
As the wikipedians like to say: [[citation needed]]
Well, yes. The point I was trying to make, apparently in a somewhat ham-fisted manner was that the slow adoption of Vista is not entirely due to DRM. There are a lot of negatives associated with the operating system, and I expect each of them is having an effect.
And I think DRM is one of those factors. There are an awful lot of filesharers using Windows as a platform. A lot of them are going to be happy to stick with XP until they see how the DRM issues pan out.
Oh, I entirely agree. Start up vs. Telecoms giant. They could be tied up in court for ten years, even if they won.
Besides which, I can't see what leverage they might have with which to negotiate. There's no reason for AT&T or Verizon to give them a deal at all. If I was an AT&T strategist, I'd refuse to talk at all, and wait. If they get big enough to be worth the effort, then start turning the screws. Either that, or shape them to death from the outset, until they come crawling, and then give them one of those "we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions at any time" agreements.
No, as I see it, these guys are either idealistic but doomed, or else they've come up with an interesting hook to see if they can set up as a high-price ISP. Either way, it's hard to see them making a difference.
What, you mean Google have actually been paying a surcharge to AT&T for their youTube traffic all this time, and somehow they never noticed? Makes you wonder what Ed Whitacre was getting so worked up about in which case.
I think a lot of people are not going to share your definition of "net neutrality", my friend :)
OK, maybe you've got a point. Let's look at this another way:
I've been giving this a bit of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that the notion of "protocol lock-in" is basically absurd.; I;m not saying that to be rude - I mean that the notion is fundamentally flawed. Let me try and explain why:
The trouble is, for each and every protocol that exists, in order to use the protocol, you have to use the protocol. It's no use me sitting inside waiting for the phone to ring if you're determined to communicate using smoke signals. We have to use the same protocol or there is no communication. The protocol defines the channel.
This means that every protocol going has 100% protocol lock-in among its users. "Protocol lock-in" is a tautology. It's a universal constant and there is nothing we can do to change that. And so, because it's true in each and every case we might consider, we can factor it out of our discussions entirely. Good, bad, indifferent, it's always on and therefore irrelevant.
Now, if you disagree, please explain why. If not, say so and we can move on to the next bit; I suspect that if we're still going to discuss lock-in, then the word "vendor" is going to feature strongly.
So the way to preserve net neutrality is for our ISPs to pay the big carriers not to downgrade our packets? And this is a good thing because otherwise they might demand payment from our ISPs in order for them not to downgrade our packets?
Makes you wonder why no one thought of this before, really.
Oh, please! How is that to be considered a lock in? Does my use of SIP prevent me from using XMPP? No it does not. I just have to install more software. Will the XMPP corporation change the protocol so that I'm required to buy their software all over again? No, that will not happen. Inconvenient, yes. Lock-in, no.
And here we disagree. I'm locked into my own house right now. That is, I'm inside and the door is locked. However I have a key and I can get out. The lock in is only a problem if someone else controls the key.
In the case of IPv4 and IPv6, that doesn't apply. I can migrate any time I want to. The fact that there's not much point until most of the rest of the world does likewise doesn't mean I'm locked in, although it does mean there are serious migration issues to be solved if we're ever going to make the transition.
A better phrase is "potential for abuse", and that's been there from the start. Which is one reason why I don't use Skype. How much of that potential is down to poor design and how much was because they wanted a level of vendor lock in on the emerging VOIP sector is something we'll probably never know for sure. But given that there were plenty of unencumbered protocols they could have used, I rather tend toward the latter.
I did, and I chose not to address your point because I felt (and still feel) that you were proceeding from a false premise. However:
Case One: Yes, MS Office is a lock-in case, although the scope of the problem goes far beyond the use of .dox{x} files as a communication medium. In particular, there are also issues of deliberate breaking of backwards compatibility to force othewise undeeded upgrades, and issues about the long term availability of documents after the software that can read them is discontinued.
Case Two: This is really case one in disguise: MSN and Skype are vendor lock in cases, not protocol lock in. The problems here come not from the fact that the services have a defining protocol, but from the fact that a single vendor controls that protocol and is in a position to abuse that control.
Case Three: This I do not accept as lock in. There is no key holder here and no potential for abuse.
So I still think you're attempting to trivialise a serious industry problem by conflating it with a completely unrelated problem on the one hand and with a handful of self evident non-issues on the other. Sorry, but no sale.
Critical mass is what makes eBay popular. I don't think it's what makes it hard to compete with them, at least not directly. I also think it's a lot harder to make that argment for youTube (there are a lot of video upload sites) and harder still for myspace (there are loads and loads of social networking sites).
Which is all somewhat beside the point.
No, you're not, and that's the problem. I'm arguing that vendor lock in, often referred to simply as "lock in" is bad. It describes a specific and well understood problem where a single supplier controls the protocols and formats used by a great many people, thereby opening them to unwelcome manipulation from that supplier. This is widely understood and acknowledged to be a bad thing, and I rather object to attempts to dilute the term by using it as if it meant the same thing as "widely used".
I'm sorry, but that's completely missing the point. You might as well say "being shot is being shot" and then deliver a tirade about the evils of pea-shooters. Not only is the problem not inconveniencing anyone sane, but you are also trivialising the original problem by declaring it to be equivalent to something so minor.
I mean, yes, if I want to look at something, if I want to use my eyes, then I'm locked into using the electromagnet spectrum. By your argument a lock-in is a lock-in, and therefore that's a Bad Thing, or at least as bad as any other lock in. However, no one is abusing the singular nature of the visible spectrum, and the fact that there are no practical alternatives for vision doesn't expose me to any avenues of exploitation. More to the point, no one is in a position to potentially abuse the medium. In consequence, I don't particularly care if vision has an EMF lock in or not.
And the fact that a lot of people use a protocol (or a file format) isn't a problem - it's what makes the protocol valuable. That's why Microsoft are creating such a stink about OOXML - because they fear the erosion of the value of their formats. And that's also why it's so important to have these formats and protocols open and unencumbered by IPR issues, in all their various forms - because such common formats are too valuable to be entrusted to any single entity.
I fully expect you to disagree with me, but as long as you insist that the ills of lock-in stem from the lock-in itself rather than any potential for abuse, then it's hard to see how we're going to progress this.
Well, he did say "darknet" and "insulated from the internet" rather than separate from. But it's a fair point.
Which is a fabulous idea, and I think something like a widespread community mesh is an inevitability. The only thing about that, I think, is that it's still conflating the transport medium with protocols and infrastructure - OSI layer one with layers three and four.
It's not that it's a bad idea - I just think it's orthogonal to the matter at hand.
I think that's "market saturation". Different concept. I'll grant that the thing that makes eBay useful is that a lot of people use eBay. And certainly that much is true for TCP/IP. But, if you're arguing that eBay is bad because it stops others from making money... in which that case the analogy breaks down.
Unless, of course, your intention is to take TCP/IP (which doesn't cost its users a penny), and replace it with something that upon which you can levy charges. And if that's the primary motivation for re-inventing the Internet, I can't say I'm particularly sympathetic.
I'm not interested in conflating a monopolistic abuse of proprietary protocols and formats with the prevalence of a enabling technology that isn't controlled by any single vendor, if that's what you mean.
And it certainly wasn't my intention to suggest otherwise - apologies if it came across that way.
Well, I think it would be a lot easier to censor, a lot more vulnerable to pharming attacks, less resistant to inter-ISP squabbles where one decides to drop the other's packets, and you'd still have the problem that the "last mile" would be in the hands of either your local phone company or cable TV co, with all the problems that implies.
Which isn't to say they shouldn't do the research; research is always good. But I think it's important to understand the distinction between the protocols the internet runs on, the servers and routers, and the wire used to carry the signal. The "Internet" is protocols and servers and routers. But the problems you've describes are about the wire - and you'll have to use that same wire to connect to any other network, unless you want to spend a lot of money, anyway.
Sounds like you'd like freenet and GNUnet.
I think he'd have been delighted! Carroll's math was always sound, and if he posed problems in counter-intuitive ways, I think that was because he wanted to make people re-examine their preconceptions. He'd have made a good zen master I think - koans second to none.
The same way you would "wicked" if you meant "immoral". Ultimately, I think everything is contextual. That said, I never sought to argue that negation was a valid definition of "allegedly", just that it was a reasonable interpretation given the context. I probably should have explained that side of things a bit more carefully.
Absolutely right, too. The guardians of dictionaries should be conservative in what they allow into their books. There has to be a tension between the two impulses
heh - I've not been called one of them before. This has turned out to be quite the interesting conversation -- doubly so given a somewhat unpromising start. Thank you.
That's assuming there is more than 1 ISP around where you live. Which is not always true. Especially if you need more than basic service (i.e. higher bandwidth). Besides, spying on you can be mandated for all ISPs (it already is in some countries, no?), so having a "choice" won't change much anyway. Next up is mandated filtering, also for all ISPs.
Yes. However, these are mainly political issues not technical ones. If your ISPs have been allowed to form a cartel, if the government mandates ISP level surveillance - both political.
A redesigned from scratch Internet won't help with these issues at all, because the problems are not technical ones and any new protocol will be subject to the same issues.
On the other hand, a redesigned Internet could make matters a lot worse in this regard, since it provides an opportunity for things like patent encumbered protocols and on-by-default filtering of unregistered or encrypted protocols.
That's not to say that the problems you mention are not serious: just that you seem to be looking in the wrong place for a solution.
you can skip this one as well then.
Bye now :D
There's a lot of points I could take issue with there, but I'm going to stick to the main one:
The problem I have here is that you are conflating on the one hand the problems of migrating a vary large user base with, on the other, the monopolistic abuses of power popular with a certain Seattle based software house.
Persuading everyone to migrate to migrate to IPv6 is a major undertaking, but it isn't being done to benefit a single controlling entity to the detriment of the user base as a whole. You can't really say that about some of Microsoft's manipluations of it's office formats.
Similarly, while the IPv6 upgrade is desirable for a some commercial interests, for most Internet users, (and it would seem many ISPs and providers) the issue doesn't seem to be sufficiently compelling for them to take action. The fact that these stakeholder have the option not to upgrade is also atypical of the vendor lock-in scenario.
So, in summary, I think the negative effects of he supposed TCP/IP lock-in are so minor (from a user perspective) as to be trivial, while lock-in to proprietary protocols or formats can be not only expensive but also an avenue to all manner of unwelcome exploitation.
So my question is: are you deliberately trying to conflate the two issues? I don't think you can support the notion that they are in any way comparable.