In simple terms, if you have good programmers and good methodology you have good code. If you don't, you have bad code. The license model is irrelevant to the security holes found in Open Source or proprietary software.
So you're saying that, given a well written and managed proprietory project and a similar project under a FLOSS licence, we can reasonably expect the two projects to yield code of roughly equal security? I don't think I have a problem with that, as far as it goes.
And yet Microsoft has more than its fair share of security woes, especially in comparison with the most popular (let's compare apples with apples here) open source
projects. So why should that be?
I think that an open development model encourages better coding methodology. For
instance, security-thouygh-obscurity doesn't make much sense in the open source, for obvious reasons. Another is the depth of code review to which new code is often subjected. Additionally, the non-commercial bias of FLOSS makes free projects less likely to succumb to pitfalls such as design-by-marketing, the immovable release date, and no-one-is-ever-going-to-see-the-code.
So, really, I think that dismissing the licence as "irrelvant" is to go too far. Granted, releasing the windows codebase under the GPL wouldn't magically solve its ongoing security woes. On the other hand, I think a good many of the root causes of those problems would have been reduced or eliminated under an open licence.
but really, science is all theory. science is not solid enough to believe. science was wrong about the world being flat, wrong about the world being the center of the universe,
mmm... common misconception there. Science isn't about proof, because it is all about theory.
Science doesn't say "the world is round". Science would say "the phenomena observed thus far are best explained the spheroid earth model" with a footnote the effect that if anyone can offer any evidence to disprove this planet theory, then the model will need to be revised.
... and cannot be trusted anymore than the Bible can.
May I ask, trusted by whom, and for what purpose?
If you're looking for spiritual development, then science is probably not the discipline
for you. On the other hand, if you want a system to reliably describe how the observable
world works, then science can be trusted - within its own limits - pretty darn well.
Going to a scientist to confess your sins is probably a silly idea - but if I'm going to use a bridge, I want it held up by more than faith and prayer, thank you all the same.
So, realy, we're just waiting for either China to ask for all of Google's search logs,
or for the US govt. to demand Google that censor their search results.
Once that happens, we'll be able to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, and
then we'll know whether or not you actually have a point.
putting copyright or bootleg content in a shared directory is intent to break the law.
So we're talking about intent here, right?
- Would you argue that B&E isn't a crime until you pick something up and leave the property?
- Is pointing a gun at somebody not a crime if you don't shoot them (or say you had no intention to)?
I'd argue that B&E isn't theft until something is stolen, and that pointing a gun
isn't assault until the trigger is pulled, just like it isn't murder until the
victim dies.
Certainly, I'd argue that neither of them is would be sufficent to prove intent.
They might offer evidence in support of such a claim,
but I doubt (IANAL) that such evidence would be sufficent by itself in a court.
Do you really feel that introducing the topic of child pornography into the debate
strengthens your argument in any way?
To be fair, TFA only says what the summary says - that they're going to fight their image as a huge american company.
I mean the ads are are airing in the US right now. Are MS really going to try and appear less american to a US audience? Makss about as much sense as trying to portray themselves as smaller, I suppose...
Well quite. However, by that yardstick there's insufficent evidence for gravity. The fact that the theory has
never been observed to fail hardly precludes the possibility that we have been experiencing some local
temporary phenomenon, and since correlation doesn't imply causality, we therefore have no proof.
Of course. most sane people have a point at which they're wiling to accept that the evidence before them justifies taking some sort of action. I'd have a lot more time for your line of argument if you were to offer some criteria in that regard, a set of observed phenomena and associated timescales that you would accept as sufficent evidence to warrant action.
For instance, if this year was to have three times the hurricane count of last year, would that be enough? How about five times? Mayeb quintiple the rate averaged over a ten year period, just to be sure it's not a statistical fluke? Is there some percentage of melted permafrost that would do the trick, or can all the trailers in Alaska sink into the mush and still not satisfy your passion for intellectual rigor? Will you say "perhaps you have a point" after all the arctic ice is gone, or will you wait for the antarctic icecap to go too, just to be sure?
Perhaps there is no combination of events that could ever bring you to that point?
See, I have this impression that, rather than upgrade their factories, or expose themselves to the risk of lawsuits, the industry reps lobbying against global warming would sooner see the planet catch fire.
So: where were you planning to draw the line? I really want to know.
Indeed, but how often do you hear it toted on these hallowed boards as definitive proof that Google is, in fact, some sort of messianic "new corporation"? The only thing they have is the fact that they said it.
About as often as I encounter the proposition that Google are evil because of all the things they could potentially do someday in the future.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is fact that the debate is so polarised.
Evil or not, thats my take on what they are currently doing.
It's a reasonable enought analysis, I suppose, if a little uncharitable. Why judge them on hypothetical motivations rather than on their actions - actions which in this case have served their users well?
I can understand why Microsoft get this sort of reaction, but Microsoft have got a decade and more of shatfing everyone in sight. On the other hand, apart from the AdSense team (who want their arses kicked) Google have played pretty nice so far.
The don't be evil thing is superb marketing that gained them a groundswell of grassroots
support, good for them.
Speaking as a grassroot, I thought the thing they did was to offer efficient, reliable and honest search results with a minimum of annoyances for the user. I'd been using Google for years before I heard about the "don't be evil" thing.
And, you know, long as I find Google's search results useful, I expect I'll carry on
using them.
They charge advertising sites per click-through, or maybe even per instance
Fair enough. I don't advertise though google (or indeed at all) so please pardon my ignorance here.
That said, even at click though, similar forces surely apply. A guy says to Google "I need to run these ads starting next week". Google says "sorry, we got all the advertisers we can serve as it is". Guy: "Look, this urgent! I'll pay five times your going click-through". That only has to happen a few times before prices go up.
So, where to go with it? I don't think either of us believe that legislatory regulation of the Engines is a good thing, but I'm also have grave doubts about any campaign of punitive pricing against Google users.
If it was me, I think I'd be looking to produce slashdot-ng -with del.icio.us tagging, digg style moderation amd multi-dimnsional karma. Use something like kohonen self organising maps to cluster the data and you get a moderation system that everyone can live with, and at the same time good targeting data to use for ads. Spend a couple of years building up the userbase, before you open it to ads and then make a point of playing fair by advertisers as well as users. Also help if you can open codebase and federate the site - that way you don't have to host all the bandwith single-handed. You'll never get rich with that approach, but I reckon in five years time you'd see Google seating ball bearings.
'course, it's easier said than done:D
If I may ask an impertinent question: what's your stake in this? Are you an advertiser with google? Run your own online business? None of my business I accept, but I'm curious as to how you came to this view of the matter.
Actually, I do want to hurt overpricing search-engines financially
through price-competition. The consumer will win in the end.
Interesting.
I checked your garden tools query, by the way. What struck me was the
number of links down the side. All the space on my browser was used,
and if I reloaded, some of the links changed. From that I infer that
there are more potential advertisers than there are slots to advertise.
Additionally, the fact some of the bigger names, like Bosch for instance,
didn't get swapped out suggests some people are paying a premium for
guaranteed exposure.
If so, then Google are just doing the old supply-and-demand thing. There is a limited
amount of room to display results on their search pages, and they are charging what the
market will bear. If they were conspiring to create an artificial shortage, I'd be
concerned. It seems though that (short of turning their site into a banner farm)
they're selling as much of this stuff as they can.
If prices are high, it's because deep pockets are willing to pay the extra
to force the little guys off the list. And that's always going to be a problem.
I think a better solution than penalising Google lies in offering an
alternative. It doesn't have to be a search engine - just something
that people want to use that allows you to target the ads reasonably
accurately. After all, if Google's rates are that high, then there's
a lot of money to be made. If you want them to have to compete, then
compete with them.
Incidentally, does it seem to you as if advertising as we know it is
on the way out? Not in the sort term, perhaps, but in maybe 10-15 years?
If the information on the web is ever organised and validated as well as it
could be, adverts are going to see as old fashioned as mangle rollers on
washing machines.
In the meantime, there'll always be a lot of money for anyone who can
efficiently channel high quality information between producer and consumer.
If you want to give Google fits, find a better way to do that.
So those same people would see the same ads elsewhere, several times over. This is not true for your average internet boutique.
But there are lots of other channels for advertising. Banner ads, review sites, social networking... if you have a reasonably compelling product there are lots of ways to get the word out. Of course, there's no garuantee that that your business will succeed even so, but that's the nature of a startup.
Of course, if you don't have a prarticularly compelling product, site or service, then you're probably trying to break into a global market that is already heavily subscribed, like cheap inkjet refils. In which case the competition would seem to be the problem rather than any particular search engine.
I suppose that what I really want is for stores to price-differentiate so as to account for the advertising prices, and to let their customers know that they're doing this.
I want Google et. al. not to punish them for this.
I see. And have Google been punishing advertisers for such activities?
Also when you say "price differentiate", what do you have in mind? A banner campaign with "10% discount for 'Yahoo!' referrers" sounds more like a tactic to
put pressure on them, rather than an objetive in its own right. So assuming you don't just want to hurt them financially, what do you want do with all that leverage? What concessions would you demand?
I'm still not clear what it is that you utimately want Google to do.
Each search engine has a near-monopoly over the supply of its users to the advertiser.
mmmm... I got the bus into work this morning. That bus line has a near monopoly over the
supply of its passengers to the advertiser as well. The trouble here is that the narrower the circumstances which are required in order to make the "monopoly" term credible, the less force the accusation has. My local greengrocer has a near monopoly over the sale of turnips to people who happen to be in his shop. So what?
Or rather the lack of [market forces].
Point I was making is that market forces raised google to its current pre-eminence over better funded and better established rivals. It did so in large part because of Google's approach to advertising. Were google forced into a more advertiser friendly stance, they might wind up losing their position to another company who adopted Google's approach to search and advertisers. Of course, that's what a lot of people want. Mainly because they want Google's place in the market.
Speaking of wants, what is it that you want, anyway? What do you need Google to do? I mean if you asked me that of Microsoft, I'd probably say something like "open their APIs (for real this time) adopt open standards for thier file formats, and stop bullying smaller companies"
Would make for a pretty shrewd tactic for the RIAA though. Get them to sign an NDA as part of the settlement, and then underwrite their legal costs if they decide to sue the download site. A bit like the deal with the lokitorrent guy to poison the well against any future fundraising for a community challenge.
Not that I'm saying that's what happened, but I'd be surprised if they haven't at least considered it.
For each search engine, that search engine has a near-monopoly over access to its users for the purpose of advertising.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. You're comparing Google to MS by virtue of the dominance of each in their market sector. However, and this is important, the distinction lies in how that dominance is maintained.
Microsoft maintain their position by ruthlessly crushing all competitors. Google maintain theirs by
Google arrived at thier current position by doing their job well.
Monopolies are harmful because they are enforced, either by government intervention, or by anti comnpetitive measure from the monopolist. That enforcement makes it impossible for new companies to enter the field, which means that the monopolist can charge above market rates and has no incentive to improve goods or services.
But no one is enorcing google's supposed monopoly. Anyone is free to compete.
What can the advertiser do to get the consumer to switch?
Well, if google are as repugnant to advertisers as you suggest, I'd say there was a gap in the market right there. Start a new search engine that is more advertiser friendly than Google. Of course, it may well prove that the reason google are so successful is that they put their users above their advertisers.
In which case, your problem isn't so much with google as with market forces. Best of luck, if so.
I always welcome a sentence or so editorial comment at the end of an article. I may not always agree with the opinions stated, but the perspective is often useful.
What is far more likely to get my goat is when we see an article where the text is naught but the opening paragraph of the linked web page. The one that particularly got me recently were a spate of "Firefox is less secure than IE, experts say" posts whose authors apparently held browser crashes to be less dangerous than arbitary code execution. Without any comment, it looks like the editor has just cicked these through on auto-pilot. With a little editorial comment, there's at least evidence of human involvement.
Of course, I may still not agree with the commentary, but I'd sooner see it there than not.
You say that as if "monopoly" means "popular". It's not like every PC I buy comes with Google preloaded, or that all my bookmarks are in proprietory google format, so I'l have to start again from scratch if I switch to Yahoo
Ummm... you appear to selecting instances where organisations have cynically used "human rights" as a smokescreen for some ulterior motive, and then generalising this behavior to cover not only all organisations, but every individual on the planet into the bargain.
I don't think your logic is sound. It would be simple enough, using the same technique, to demonstrate that no-one cares about your personal liberty - although I expect you would nevertheless complain bitterly if imprisoned without good reason.
I heard that if you play one forward you hear britney spears singing.
*shudder*
Re:Doomsday can come only from governments
on
Forecasting Doomsday
·
· Score: 2, Informative
mmm... how would you legislate the electoral process? All electoral procedures would sunset after the standard period. What's the default? Secret ballot? better be good, because it's unlikely to be changed.
A few other things to consider: you can count on the local thug to oppose laws against violence and the local thief to block laws against petty theft. You can certainly count on the neighbourhood crime boss to block laws against extotion robbery and arson. Count on teenagers to block the creation of a local police force. You can count on the local industry reps to block laws prohibiting dumping toxic waste into the local ecosystem, and to block any and all laws for a minimum wage.
And with a secret ballot, you can probably count on the wife beaters to block laws against domestic violence and paedophiles to block laws against molesting five year olds. Rape would probably be legal most places as well. That means that protective fathers are going to block laws against assault and murder, too.
And the sad thing is that, as each community has its misfits, we could expect to see this pattern broadly replicated from town to town, with a few variants. You'd get corporate towns where the local big employer kept the law, and others where the local landowner kept enough hired guns to maintain order. Essentially, there'd still be laws, and the laws would still be less than unanimous - they'd just be informal unwritten laws, enforced by violence. I can't see that as being a step forward.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite right too, my mistake. It's a ruling by the EU commission. Which carries just as much legal weight, of course, save that it can be appealed.
Really? And when the US also found Microsoft guilty of anticompetitive practices, what was the US government's ulterior motive?
So you're saying that, given a well written and managed proprietory project and a similar project under a FLOSS licence, we can reasonably expect the two projects to yield code of roughly equal security? I don't think I have a problem with that, as far as it goes.
And yet Microsoft has more than its fair share of security woes, especially in comparison with the most popular (let's compare apples with apples here) open source projects. So why should that be?
I think that an open development model encourages better coding methodology. For instance, security-thouygh-obscurity doesn't make much sense in the open source, for obvious reasons. Another is the depth of code review to which new code is often subjected. Additionally, the non-commercial bias of FLOSS makes free projects less likely to succumb to pitfalls such as design-by-marketing, the immovable release date, and no-one-is-ever-going-to-see-the-code.
So, really, I think that dismissing the licence as "irrelvant" is to go too far. Granted, releasing the windows codebase under the GPL wouldn't magically solve its ongoing security woes. On the other hand, I think a good many of the root causes of those problems would have been reduced or eliminated under an open licence.
The EU wants Microsoft to comply with the relevant court judgement. What's so hard to understand?
Just imagine, a lesser company might have taken the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and gratuitously smear the reputaton of it's leading rival.
mmm... common misconception there. Science isn't about proof, because it is all about theory.
Science doesn't say "the world is round". Science would say "the phenomena observed thus far are best explained the spheroid earth model" with a footnote the effect that if anyone can offer any evidence to disprove this planet theory, then the model will need to be revised.
May I ask, trusted by whom, and for what purpose?
If you're looking for spiritual development, then science is probably not the discipline for you. On the other hand, if you want a system to reliably describe how the observable world works, then science can be trusted - within its own limits - pretty darn well.
Going to a scientist to confess your sins is probably a silly idea - but if I'm going to use a bridge, I want it held up by more than faith and prayer, thank you all the same.
Once that happens, we'll be able to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, and then we'll know whether or not you actually have a point.
So we're talking about intent here, right?
- Would you argue that B&E isn't a crime until you pick something up and leave the property?
- Is pointing a gun at somebody not a crime if you don't shoot them (or say you had no intention to)?
I'd argue that B&E isn't theft until something is stolen, and that pointing a gun isn't assault until the trigger is pulled, just like it isn't murder until the victim dies.
Certainly, I'd argue that neither of them is would be sufficent to prove intent. They might offer evidence in support of such a claim, but I doubt (IANAL) that such evidence would be sufficent by itself in a court.
Do you really feel that introducing the topic of child pornography into the debate strengthens your argument in any way?
I mean the ads are are airing in the US right now. Are MS really going to try and appear less american to a US audience? Makss about as much sense as trying to portray themselves as smaller, I suppose...
Fucking Microsoft!
Well quite. However, by that yardstick there's insufficent evidence for gravity. The fact that the theory has never been observed to fail hardly precludes the possibility that we have been experiencing some local temporary phenomenon, and since correlation doesn't imply causality, we therefore have no proof.
Of course. most sane people have a point at which they're wiling to accept that the evidence before them justifies taking some sort of action. I'd have a lot more time for your line of argument if you were to offer some criteria in that regard, a set of observed phenomena and associated timescales that you would accept as sufficent evidence to warrant action.
For instance, if this year was to have three times the hurricane count of last year, would that be enough? How about five times? Mayeb quintiple the rate averaged over a ten year period, just to be sure it's not a statistical fluke? Is there some percentage of melted permafrost that would do the trick, or can all the trailers in Alaska sink into the mush and still not satisfy your passion for intellectual rigor? Will you say "perhaps you have a point" after all the arctic ice is gone, or will you wait for the antarctic icecap to go too, just to be sure?
Perhaps there is no combination of events that could ever bring you to that point?
See, I have this impression that, rather than upgrade their factories, or expose themselves to the risk of lawsuits, the industry reps lobbying against global warming would sooner see the planet catch fire. So: where were you planning to draw the line? I really want to know.
I shoulda seed that one coming!
About as often as I encounter the proposition that Google are evil because of all the things they could potentially do someday in the future.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is fact that the debate is so polarised.
Evil or not, thats my take on what they are currently doing.
It's a reasonable enought analysis, I suppose, if a little uncharitable. Why judge them on hypothetical motivations rather than on their actions - actions which in this case have served their users well?
I can understand why Microsoft get this sort of reaction, but Microsoft have got a decade and more of shatfing everyone in sight. On the other hand, apart from the AdSense team (who want their arses kicked) Google have played pretty nice so far.
At least, that's my take, anyway.
Speaking as a grassroot, I thought the thing they did was to offer efficient, reliable and honest search results with a minimum of annoyances for the user. I'd been using Google for years before I heard about the "don't be evil" thing.
And, you know, long as I find Google's search results useful, I expect I'll carry on using them.
Fair enough. I don't advertise though google (or indeed at all) so please pardon my ignorance here.
That said, even at click though, similar forces surely apply. A guy says to Google "I need to run these ads starting next week". Google says "sorry, we got all the advertisers we can serve as it is". Guy: "Look, this urgent! I'll pay five times your going click-through". That only has to happen a few times before prices go up.
So, where to go with it? I don't think either of us believe that legislatory regulation of the Engines is a good thing, but I'm also have grave doubts about any campaign of punitive pricing against Google users.
If it was me, I think I'd be looking to produce slashdot-ng -with del.icio.us tagging, digg style moderation amd multi-dimnsional karma. Use something like kohonen self organising maps to cluster the data and you get a moderation system that everyone can live with, and at the same time good targeting data to use for ads. Spend a couple of years building up the userbase, before you open it to ads and then make a point of playing fair by advertisers as well as users. Also help if you can open codebase and federate the site - that way you don't have to host all the bandwith single-handed. You'll never get rich with that approach, but I reckon in five years time you'd see Google seating ball bearings.
'course, it's easier said than done :D
If I may ask an impertinent question: what's your stake in this? Are you an advertiser with google? Run your own online business? None of my business I accept, but I'm curious as to how you came to this view of the matter.
Interesting.
I checked your garden tools query, by the way. What struck me was the number of links down the side. All the space on my browser was used, and if I reloaded, some of the links changed. From that I infer that there are more potential advertisers than there are slots to advertise. Additionally, the fact some of the bigger names, like Bosch for instance, didn't get swapped out suggests some people are paying a premium for guaranteed exposure.
If so, then Google are just doing the old supply-and-demand thing. There is a limited amount of room to display results on their search pages, and they are charging what the market will bear. If they were conspiring to create an artificial shortage, I'd be concerned. It seems though that (short of turning their site into a banner farm) they're selling as much of this stuff as they can.
If prices are high, it's because deep pockets are willing to pay the extra to force the little guys off the list. And that's always going to be a problem.
I think a better solution than penalising Google lies in offering an alternative. It doesn't have to be a search engine - just something that people want to use that allows you to target the ads reasonably accurately. After all, if Google's rates are that high, then there's a lot of money to be made. If you want them to have to compete, then compete with them.
Incidentally, does it seem to you as if advertising as we know it is on the way out? Not in the sort term, perhaps, but in maybe 10-15 years? If the information on the web is ever organised and validated as well as it could be, adverts are going to see as old fashioned as mangle rollers on washing machines.
In the meantime, there'll always be a lot of money for anyone who can efficiently channel high quality information between producer and consumer. If you want to give Google fits, find a better way to do that.
After all, that what Google did
But there are lots of other channels for advertising. Banner ads, review sites, social networking... if you have a reasonably compelling product there are lots of ways to get the word out. Of course, there's no garuantee that that your business will succeed even so, but that's the nature of a startup.
Of course, if you don't have a prarticularly compelling product, site or service, then you're probably trying to break into a global market that is already heavily subscribed, like cheap inkjet refils. In which case the competition would seem to be the problem rather than any particular search engine.
I suppose that what I really want is for stores to price-differentiate so as to account for the advertising prices, and to let their customers know that they're doing this.
I want Google et. al. not to punish them for this.
I see. And have Google been punishing advertisers for such activities?
Also when you say "price differentiate", what do you have in mind? A banner campaign with "10% discount for 'Yahoo!' referrers" sounds more like a tactic to put pressure on them, rather than an objetive in its own right. So assuming you don't just want to hurt them financially, what do you want do with all that leverage? What concessions would you demand?
I'm still not clear what it is that you utimately want Google to do.
mmmm... I got the bus into work this morning. That bus line has a near monopoly over the supply of its passengers to the advertiser as well. The trouble here is that the narrower the circumstances which are required in order to make the "monopoly" term credible, the less force the accusation has. My local greengrocer has a near monopoly over the sale of turnips to people who happen to be in his shop. So what?
Or rather the lack of [market forces].
Point I was making is that market forces raised google to its current pre-eminence over better funded and better established rivals. It did so in large part because of Google's approach to advertising. Were google forced into a more advertiser friendly stance, they might wind up losing their position to another company who adopted Google's approach to search and advertisers. Of course, that's what a lot of people want. Mainly because they want Google's place in the market.
Speaking of wants, what is it that you want, anyway? What do you need Google to do? I mean if you asked me that of Microsoft, I'd probably say something like "open their APIs (for real this time) adopt open standards for thier file formats, and stop bullying smaller companies"
What is it you want of Google?
Not that I'm saying that's what happened, but I'd be surprised if they haven't at least considered it.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. You're comparing Google to MS by virtue of the dominance of each in their market sector. However, and this is important, the distinction lies in how that dominance is maintained. Microsoft maintain their position by ruthlessly crushing all competitors. Google maintain theirs by Google arrived at thier current position by doing their job well.
Monopolies are harmful because they are enforced, either by government intervention, or by anti comnpetitive measure from the monopolist. That enforcement makes it impossible for new companies to enter the field, which means that the monopolist can charge above market rates and has no incentive to improve goods or services.
But no one is enorcing google's supposed monopoly. Anyone is free to compete.
What can the advertiser do to get the consumer to switch?
Well, if google are as repugnant to advertisers as you suggest, I'd say there was a gap in the market right there. Start a new search engine that is more advertiser friendly than Google. Of course, it may well prove that the reason google are so successful is that they put their users above their advertisers.
In which case, your problem isn't so much with google as with market forces. Best of luck, if so.
What is far more likely to get my goat is when we see an article where the text is naught but the opening paragraph of the linked web page. The one that particularly got me recently were a spate of "Firefox is less secure than IE, experts say" posts whose authors apparently held browser crashes to be less dangerous than arbitary code execution. Without any comment, it looks like the editor has just cicked these through on auto-pilot. With a little editorial comment, there's at least evidence of human involvement.
Of course, I may still not agree with the commentary, but I'd sooner see it there than not.
You say that as if "monopoly" means "popular". It's not like every PC I buy comes with Google preloaded, or that all my bookmarks are in proprietory google format, so I'l have to start again from scratch if I switch to Yahoo
I don't think your logic is sound. It would be simple enough, using the same technique, to demonstrate that no-one cares about your personal liberty - although I expect you would nevertheless complain bitterly if imprisoned without good reason.
*shudder*
A few other things to consider: you can count on the local thug to oppose laws against violence and the local thief to block laws against petty theft. You can certainly count on the neighbourhood crime boss to block laws against extotion robbery and arson. Count on teenagers to block the creation of a local police force. You can count on the local industry reps to block laws prohibiting dumping toxic waste into the local ecosystem, and to block any and all laws for a minimum wage.
And with a secret ballot, you can probably count on the wife beaters to block laws against domestic violence and paedophiles to block laws against molesting five year olds. Rape would probably be legal most places as well. That means that protective fathers are going to block laws against assault and murder, too.
And the sad thing is that, as each community has its misfits, we could expect to see this pattern broadly replicated from town to town, with a few variants. You'd get corporate towns where the local big employer kept the law, and others where the local landowner kept enough hired guns to maintain order. Essentially, there'd still be laws, and the laws would still be less than unanimous - they'd just be informal unwritten laws, enforced by violence. I can't see that as being a step forward.