Brin and some others are arguing that privacy is a lost cause and that we should work on making sure governments and corporations lose as much privacy as individuals do.
In this context, that would amount to giving citizens free access to the camera outputs and technology, just like the cops. I don't think this is a great idea. Spouses tracking their errant partners to an assignation. Employers checking to see if employees calling in sick actually remain at home. Stalkers being able to build up detailed pictures of their victim's movements. Burglars having a great casing tool, and knowing the camera locations ahead of time.
On the other hand, I'm all for making the government live in a fishbowl if we do, maybe even if we don't. If they want to watch us, they can return the favor by opening up those smoke filled back rooms and going on the public record with their sweetheart deals, plus full financial disclosure. Oh, and they should have to pee in a bottle before taking their seat in congress or the white house, with random checks thereafter. Maybe then there would be more privacy advocates in congress.
I think Sun may have found a good niche for thin clients outside business, and more power to them.
The schools get hardware that is cheaper and better than an NT network. In addition it's simpler to administer and it grants them more control over students, they'll love that part.
So as long as we don't forget the people who all this is supposedly in benefit of, the students, it sounds great. I have some points in that regard.
This should not be taken as an opportunity to impose product marketing on on a captive audience, whether we're talking about soft drinks or operating systems. OS and program sign-on splashes, ok, but lets not get ridiculous.
I also wouldn't like to see this used as an attack on diversity by Sun. That is, this tends to bind everyone to the editor, languages, and tools that Sun decides to provide with the server. No problem with that, as long as it is possible to add more diverse third party programs at the school's discretion, without talk of voiding licenses or warranties.
This is likely to leave students with practically zero privacy. Other students may crack the server, and the administration reads what they please of course. This is not a problem if the students and their parents are explicitly warned that all school computer data is public ahead of time. Terrible precedent, but otherwise you have to implement real security, and teach adminstrators to respect student privacy, and I can't see it happening this lifetime. Good practice for work it seems anyway.
If done right, this could be very good for students, schools, and Sun. Hope it is.
If you are going to posit nuclear missile carrying submarines, why not cruise missles or nuclear torpedos on submarines? What's the hit rate on those for this missle? If whatever it is is set up to trigger on anything approaching too fast after being launched then submarines can still kill cities, even if the missile defense proposed worked perfectly.
As to the hostile silo takeover, my supposition is that a takeover could not be instantly accomplished, and that country would be on the phone to us screaming their head off that they weren't responsible long before the missile even launched. Then we have a tough decision. If it's that easy to take over their nuclear silos and launch without permission while remaining anonymous perhaps they *should* worry about getting nuked in return.
In order to make the world safe against the use of "nukes" you'd have to cover all the ways they can be used simultaneously, or you just shift the way attacks will be carried out, not the results. Missles are far less useful against biological attacks for example, and those are easier to imagine getting in the wrong hands in the first place. To my way of thinking, shallow though it may be, arms races are futile past a certain point -- where you can credibly say that attacking you is very stupid. It's not much different from school violence, you need to solve the insanity at it's root, not by outgunning the miscreants, or putting kids in bulletproof suits. It's not a question of the world being a safe place, it's where you want to put your money to make it safer.
I'm completely with you on the general uselessness of college certification. After all, I'm a college dropout myself but like to pretend that 27 years programming means something too. This is not to say that lots of smart people don't have degrees, or that college is a bad idea, they do and it's not. But counting soley on a degree to evaluate a person's worth is plain oversimplification. A technical exam at the interview is both more fair and certain.
But honorary PhDs are closer to what the real meaning of the degree should be. Someone who has not only mastered their field, but contributed to it significantly. In that sense I think this award to Dr. Torvalds is right on, and he deserves congratulations for it. If only all degrees were so well bestowed.
Lawyers at Wilmerg Beiss expressed dismay today that their own law firm would engage in a frivolous suit against one of their clients. They promised to counter-sue themselves for all legal expenses incurred.
A top level firm member noted that they took their own allegations of immoral conduct by their client very seriously and were considering an action. The client's spokesperson noted that they were also thinking of a slander action, but thought it prudent to find new representation first, despite being quite impressed with the firm's flexibility.
So the government has spent $50 billion on an ICBM defense that isn't hitting its targets yet in tests. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and grant that they may actually get it working someday.
There is a funny thing about ICBM attacks, you can trace them back to the country of origin, and several satellites should notice any launch anyway. Please name a country that could fire an ICBM at an American city without developing a serious glow in the dark problem. MAD is still our ultimate insurance no one is that stupid, except if they only fire a few ICBM's it won't be mutual. The sad truth is that a world where everyone believes in anti-missle defenses is one where nuclear war will actually happen. This is destabilizing.
Any self-respecting terrorist or pissed off country is *not* going to be so stupid as to telegraph their intent and location by lobbing an ICBM at us! Please! It will arrive here quietly in the cargo of a ship, in a car crossing the border, or carried in a briefcase. Anti-missle defenses are not too useful for these very credible threats.
And of course, within a year of completion of this program, everyone will have counter-technology to make it useless again, and will have stolen the design for their own use. Don't worry just spend a bunch more billions to fix it. Then again, and again, until some fool actually thinks a launch is possible and tries it. You really want to go down this road any further?
I'm not opposed to military spending, just spending money stupidly. This money could have gone to space. Even if it were for orbiting nuclear monitoring and interdiction platforms (rather more difficult to shoot down) it would be a huge improvement over this boondoggle, and would at least be beneficial, even if hopelessly paranoid.
It's very interesting that Corel thinks Linux's future is in the sub $500 computer -- it probably reflects how they intend to divide their own attentions between NT and Linux. They are correct in stating that only Linux will scale downwards well, but no evidence is given for the price cutoff. The article also made it sound like Linux is succeeding because of Corel rather than the reverse, or better, succeeding together.
The Interix thing is sure interesting. Either Microsoft is worried about users wanting Unix, or about developers using Unix to develop for NT, or of course, both. Sure sign that Linux and the high end Unices are scaring them a bit.
That's interesting, I never thought of having to train people in correct classification of information, but of course you need guidelines.
Many spy thrillers have claimed there is another classification above Top Secret, without needing to shoot me, can you confirm or deny that?:)
Isn't it true that anyone in the business of collecting intelligence is bound to end up with a lot of stuff that would be good for political or monetary blackmail, but not very related to national defense? It must be kind of tricky classifying, securing, and defining access to such information.
I'm sure the NSA is far less scary than Hollywood would have it, unless you happen to be on their short list anyway.
I guess the major question in my mind is the degree of autonomy they may have. Presuming they are effectively reviewed and controlled by our government and not a hidden branch of it, there's not much more to fear there than with the military. Just make sure the politicians don't use them inappropriately. How you can do that without knowing what the NSA is up to is an interesting question however. Amounts to electing those you trust, which leaves some of us a little unsatisfied.
In view of the lack of normal feedback over operations I consider a distrust of the NSA a healthy thing. If they tried something really horrible, and it got out, people would believe it. You might consider Echelon an example. So they have to be a little careful, both in their security, and not doing stuff that's too embarassing if they get caught, because eventually, everything that's really juicy leaks.
Yeah, I'd probably prefer some radical changes myself. I just wish I expected some. Been there, tried that. What I'm sure of is that I don't like the way it's working now, and don't see change likely, so I'm willing to roll the dice on shaking the system to see what falls out. If only I was hearing a presidential candidate talk about why space is important, I might be more willing to leave it to government.
I don't expect corporations to be lining up to get in on this at all. That will come later after someone with vision gets rich. Costs of transport make mining anything, including pure platinum, economically ridiculous right now. The major opportunities are in research towards microgravity industries, solar energy, possibly lottery ticket tourism, and probably earth observation. Stuff you can send back as 1's and 0's, or is just along for the ride.
Corporations are very shortsighted in terms of return on investment right now, and space looks like 10-20 years out there for a real profit, with a gargantuan initial investment. Give them a top level domain,.spc, and start selling IPO shares in dot-space companies and maybe they see the light. Making space good marketing for them would work too. The point is -- corporations could do those things to get funding, while NASA can't. We've been waiting over 30 years for funding.
Why would it be so great to be able to own part of Mars? Nobody has a natural right to it, and it could easily be argued that its scientific importance, along with the fact that nobody lives there, should make it an interational colony. Ever read the RGB Mars books by Kim Stanley Robinson?
Well, the Earth is no less scientifically interesting than Mars, and people own parts of it. I agree we have a chance to rethink property law before launching out into space, and perhaps it needs it, but the reality is that old laws will likely be stretched to apply to new circumstances. That is, the first people to get some place and make use of it own it -- as long as they can defend it. For a long time to come cutting off supplies from Earth will be very difficult to counter, so law may well be imposed from here. But eventually, those places will make their own laws and define their own notions of property, as best suits their own circumstances and culture.
Aside from this, I think that it is a public responsiblity to explore space, and that putting the whole responsibility for space exploration on corporate shoulders is wrong, because they won't do anything that's not profitable.
The problem is that the government has proven it's unwillingness to fund a real space program. Change that if you can, many have tried and failed. So, if you want to get into space, perhaps it's worth harnessing some corporate greed. The internet started as a publically funded resource, and has now transited to a privately funded one. We'd all agree it's lost much in the transition, but at least it's here and there's hope for its future. It is *still* used by idealists and academics, even though it's privately funded.
Once goverments were mighty things, but the power is shifting to corporations. Already many have remarked that Microsoft is better funded for the anti-trust trial than the U.S. government. If you want to do something expensive you have to work with the folks who have the money. You can either work for radical change or do your best to make sure that idealists and academics still get access to a space program funded by corporations.
It sounds like they thought of theft alright, but I'm not sure they are ready for the abuses that public devices suffer. Looked at a phone booth or bus stop recently? How many drunks tossing their cookies into the keyboard will it take before replacement is required? I won't speak of other sources of bodily fluids.
Then there are the people who just think it's lots of fun to configure black text on black background and similarly hilarious stunts.
And the old favorite, lets see who can leave the most disgusting screen for the next customer game. Who may of course be a child. Best reboot 'tween customers I think.
It also possibly sounds a bit dangerous perhaps. Those who unthinkingly leave cookies might have others using those same services, logged to their account, after they leave the cab. Remember to logout from Yahoo mail, and to *not* check "save password." Remember, this allows console access, so security is meaningless. You need to deal with password catchers and copies of BO2K thoughtully left by customers for the next victim.
I suspect that after a short time, cabs will provide a place to connect your laptop if you wish, but will make no attempt to supply one.
I am glad to see our country working so hard to produce young people with a deep understanding of the stupidity and corruption everywhere in our society. Nothing will be more effective in promoting revolution or civil disobedience than small-minded persecutions and treating students as criminals. That's education with relevance.
The diabolical cleverness of this plan is stunning. Now when someone walks onto campus with an M16, they'll quickly be able to tell if they are a student by examining their badge to see if it is forged -- once they find a bar code reader anyway! Oh -- students have been responsible for shootings too? Well, at least this will force non-students to shoot from outside campus grounds! Or pretend to be telephone technicians, plumbers, or pizza delivery persons anyway.
Welcome to Amerika, please take an SS-Number, and be sure it is visible at all times!
"I'm ignorant on this subject (among lots of others:D). Can somebody explain to me why the need for constant upgrades is going to disappear and how that's supposed to translate into crashing software prices?"
I think what he is saying is that software will be distributed with a piece of hardware, and rarely upgraded, you'll rebuy the hardware and new software together when you upgrade. When was the last time you replaced the ROM firmware running your microwave oven or tv?
The per unit price on the software will be have to be extremely low, basically cost to develop divided by units sold, very little markup, because its critical to profitability of the consumer product. MS will find it very hard to compete with Linux in this regard.
I'm not in a screaming hurry to get pieces of plastic and metal embedded in my body. Couldn't we work on something a bit less intrusive like induction maybe?
As to interfacing directly to the brain, perhaps, but very possibly won't be much use to any of us. Restoring visual input to the brain in later life does little good, the brain never learns to sort it out and process it efficiently. Works fine if you restore it at an early age when the brain is still growing. Language acquisition is also something that only works well at a very young age. Learning to process high bandwidth input might also need to be done when very young. I'm sure people will be eager to volunteer their very young children for this. Not.
I don't think our technology is up to designing implants that last a lifetime yet either. Upgrades and repairs are unusually painful here. Bit disorienting when reality bluescreens on you while driving...
The main reason developers can buy computers cheaply right now is that they're the same computer everyone has to buy.
Suppose that home consumers all decide purpose-specific appliances are the way to go, and business decides thin-clients make sense. You won't be able to develop software from home very well on either -- a powerful box with a big hard drive is just much better for that. One of the main reasons is being free to choose your own tools, rather than subscribing to someone's "development suite." Even if you were willing to suffer development on a thin client it's likely that the usage fees would be prohibitive for such an uncommon activity.
So if Linus and Sun are right, expect the price of the box you develop software on to skyrocket, as only enough for developers will have to be made. Note that corporations will develop happily on thin client solutions, internally served and administered. Only open source developers and kids trying to learn programming will really feel the crunch from this.
I often write small assembly programs, where correctness, then time optimization are the critical design goals. I have to agree with your statement on over architecting small one-off systems, though careful design is always rewarded.
I'd also agree architecture is of critical importance in large multi-programmer projects, especially any that must be expanded and grow over time. Many open source projects qualify nicely of course.
But refactoring really rings a bell, even with small assembly programs. Typically I develop a simulation in C, test it, translate to assembly, verify equivalence of output, then refactor it until it's time optimal. Don't know if this book would suggest methods useful to me, but rewriting code while preserving its function is something I do a lot of.
Depending on how they defined virus this law comes awfully close to saying that certain ideas are illegal. Remember that a source for an encryption program was ruled protected speech here in the US, so this law would fall under prior restraint here.
Once again, legislators try to prohibit ideas and information, instead of making their irresponsible or malicious use illegal.
This assumes that no beneficial use for viruses will ever be found -- e.g. security patches that automatically spread and install themselves, or techniques similar to vaccinations where benign viruses are spread to train computer immune systems to attack damaging ones. Not a real issue today, but do we want to assume that it will *never* be an issue?
One thing that might help is a redirection permission meta tag. If it's not present in the original domain, redirection is not allowed, and alta vista keeps the older link.
The idea of an open source browser here is interesting because it makes our acceptance of the commercialization of the internet voluntary to some degree. If something really irritating like pop-ups from hell (or blink tags) is invented Mozilla is patched to ignore it by default. More people use Mozilla, bad advertising goes away from lack of people who can see it.
"Windows 95 has shipped with a nice little app called FTP.EXE since day one."
I agree, its a nice little app. Fine for you or me, but if you think a typical Windows user even knows ftp.exe exists or is able to use it, please re-estimate the problem a little:).
One of the most common questions I get when helping MS friends with new computers is "what is a directory?" They don't even know what an "exe" is because Windows Explorer hides file extensions by default. CLI tools usually aren't even on their horizon for a few weeks, and typically require line by line help over the phone to use them for a while. Just finding a file after it's downloaded provides a challenge to many. They aren't stupid, just totally inexperienced.
I don't think this situation is healthy or good, but it is reality.
I agree with you that the browser bundling is a poor argument. Every OS distribution needs a browser enabled after installation, so that, if nothing else, the browser of choice may be downloaded easily. It's also good for making system upgrades and security patches available, and of course help resources. Whether the browser belongs in the OS, or in the file manager application, I don't much care as long as it's fully replaceable and easy to get working.
But I think Microsoft put it very well when they suggested we need a hall monitor here. Microsoft has bullied and bought out its competition in a fashion destructive to an entire industry. To the point in this case, they illegally leveraged their desktop monopoly in order to supress competition in applications, it doesn't get any clearer than that.
I wouldn't break MS up, I prefer a single large target, clumsy from it's own weight. Microsoft might be smart enough to break itself up if the DOJ doesn't do it for them. What I would do is insure that Microsoft ceases and desists from threatening to stop sales to distributors if they carry competing products. If possible, that should be made criminal, with Mr. Gates personally responsible for seeing it doesn't happen. We don't need to tolerate bullying in business. We can't if we expect free market to mean anything at all. We want to select for quality of product, not weight of gorilla.
Yes, it does. It seems it would be more effective in general to let one knowledgeable person (thanks Bruce), do the initial contact over license questions. Especially since Debian is the organization directly concerned, and has plenty of people able and willing to look out for their license rights. If Debian can't get satisfaction, they'll let us know, and slashdot can then indicate their community interest in the issue.
Just applying the slashdot flamethrower at the first hint of conflict strikes me as counterproductive. We don't want Corel to associate the letters GPL with flames and trouble, or they may not license their proprietary portions in the way we would prefer. They say they have not decided on that license yet.
I think they probably aren't aware that the Linux community really knows what "beta" means. When hard disks get trashed by bugs (think bug in disk partitioner), big companies have to worry about liability somewhat, and loss of customers a lot, even if the software is clearly marked "beta." So the attempt to limit possible damage to a few informed testers is not completely misdirected.
In this case, early release probably works better than they imagine, but only experience will teach them that, and only if they aren't scared off the GPL first.
Besides, they may know better. If releasing a new beta candidate requires two weeks of formal processing at Corel (who knows?) finding the bugs early might not result in early fixes, and a wide distribution becomes dangerous.
It's a reasonable expectation that if you create value add software for a Linux distribution that you should be able to deploy it first. If they aren't imagining release for a few months yet, they have a reasonable interest in protecting their property -- they paid for that software.
Well, if you've got $25,000 for the picture, wouldn't it be easier just to *bribe* the judge? Or *gasp* pay the fine? Maybe you should have paid the parking meters instead. Exactly what sorts of crimes do people with that kind of disposable money need defending from anyway?
Somehow this doesn't strike me as the "justice for all" device the article implies.
So the next obvious question is, does this get covered by insurance? If so, why isn't the insurance company screaming about getting some security installed and maintained? Or are they making more in premiums than losing in payouts and fine with things as they are?
I've also been watching Sun with a doubtful eye, and it seems many share my fears. I've been thinking on why Sun bothers me, and it's because they are pretending to not understand the fundamental tradeoff involved with open source.
You can either control a product, in which case you hire all the labor you need for it, or else you can turn it loose and let open source developers take it from there. Sun wants it *both* ways, and that isn't going to work.
It's not that anyone thinks all their patches should be accepted without question, reasonable people know that peer review and subsequent rejection is often for the good of the software. But the rejection is only acceptable when it's a pure meritocracy. Developers are afraid of the SCSL because Sun's political and corporate aims are likely to provide reasons to reject patches and entire directions for development.
There is always a narrowing of an open source project at the top, some kernel of trusted people who make the tough decisions and control the future of the program. This doesn't result in authoritarian control only because the option to fork is always present. If nearly half of a project's developers disagree with the folks at top, the pressure to accept some control from below becomes intense due to the threat of forking. Sun's SCSL provides no such mechanism of checks over Sun's leadership. They could be terribly wrong, and there's not one thing you could do about it. No one wants to work on a project *for free* when they feel they have little to no control over it.
I think Sun understands this perfectly well, but simply is not willing to lose control over any software they feel has importance to them. They *should* give up trying to sound like they are sorta climbing on the Linux bandwagon, they're not. This doesn't make them an enemy, just another proprietary vendor that happens to sell Unix-like boxen. For now, they are very useful to Linux. We've got the cyberdemon(MS) and spiderdemon(Sun) fighting, so we should quietly go about our business and reassess matters after the fight is over. It's likely the competition will look more fair than now afterwards.
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Brin and some others are arguing that privacy is a lost cause and that we should work on making sure governments and corporations lose as much privacy as individuals do.
In this context, that would amount to giving citizens free access to the camera outputs and technology, just like the cops. I don't think this is a great idea. Spouses tracking their errant partners to an assignation. Employers checking to see if employees calling in sick actually remain at home. Stalkers being able to build up detailed pictures of their victim's movements. Burglars having a great casing tool, and knowing the camera locations ahead of time.
On the other hand, I'm all for making the government live in a fishbowl if we do, maybe even if we don't. If they want to watch us, they can return the favor by opening up those smoke filled back rooms and going on the public record with their sweetheart deals, plus full financial disclosure. Oh, and they should have to pee in a bottle before taking their seat in congress or the white house, with random checks thereafter. Maybe then there would be more privacy advocates in congress.
I think Sun may have found a good niche for thin clients outside business, and more power to them.
The schools get hardware that is cheaper and better than an NT network. In addition it's simpler to administer and it grants them more control over students, they'll love that part.
So as long as we don't forget the people who all this is supposedly in benefit of, the students, it sounds great. I have some points in that regard.
This should not be taken as an opportunity to impose product marketing on on a captive audience, whether we're talking about soft drinks or operating systems. OS and program sign-on splashes, ok, but lets not get ridiculous.
I also wouldn't like to see this used as an attack on diversity by Sun. That is, this tends to bind everyone to the editor, languages, and tools that Sun decides to provide with the server. No problem with that, as long as it is possible to add more diverse third party programs at the school's discretion, without talk of voiding licenses or warranties.
This is likely to leave students with practically zero privacy. Other students may crack the server, and the administration reads what they please of course. This is not a problem if the students and their parents are explicitly warned that all school computer data is public ahead of time. Terrible precedent, but otherwise you have to implement real security, and teach adminstrators to respect student privacy, and I can't see it happening this lifetime. Good practice for work it seems anyway.
If done right, this could be very good for students, schools, and Sun. Hope it is.
If you are going to posit nuclear missile carrying submarines, why not cruise missles or nuclear torpedos on submarines? What's the hit rate on those for this missle? If whatever it is is set up to trigger on anything approaching too fast after being launched then submarines can still kill cities, even if the missile defense proposed worked perfectly.
As to the hostile silo takeover, my supposition is that a takeover could not be instantly accomplished, and that country would be on the phone to us screaming their head off that they weren't responsible long before the missile even launched. Then we have a tough decision. If it's that easy to take over their nuclear silos and launch without permission while remaining anonymous perhaps they *should* worry about getting nuked in return.
In order to make the world safe against the use of "nukes" you'd have to cover all the ways they can be used simultaneously, or you just shift the way attacks will be carried out, not the results. Missles are far less useful against biological attacks for example, and those are easier to imagine getting in the wrong hands in the first place. To my way of thinking, shallow though it may be, arms races are futile past a certain point -- where you can credibly say that attacking you is very stupid. It's not much different from school violence, you need to solve the insanity at it's root, not by outgunning the miscreants, or putting kids in bulletproof suits. It's not a question of the world being a safe place, it's where you want to put your money to make it safer.
I'm completely with you on the general uselessness of college certification. After all, I'm a college dropout myself but like to pretend that 27 years programming means something too. This is not to say that lots of smart people don't have degrees, or that college is a bad idea, they do and it's not. But counting soley on a degree to evaluate a person's worth is plain oversimplification. A technical exam at the interview is both more fair and certain.
But honorary PhDs are closer to what the real meaning of the degree should be. Someone who has not only mastered their field, but contributed to it significantly. In that sense I think this award to Dr. Torvalds is right on, and he deserves congratulations for it. If only all degrees were so well bestowed.
Lawyers at Wilmerg Beiss expressed dismay today that their own law firm would engage in a frivolous suit against one of their clients. They promised to counter-sue themselves for all legal expenses incurred.
A top level firm member noted that they took their own allegations of immoral conduct by their client very seriously and were considering an action. The client's spokesperson noted that they were also thinking of a slander action, but thought it prudent to find new representation first, despite being quite impressed with the firm's flexibility.
So the government has spent $50 billion on an ICBM defense that isn't hitting its targets yet in tests. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and grant that they may actually get it working someday.
There is a funny thing about ICBM attacks, you can trace them back to the country of origin, and several satellites should notice any launch anyway. Please name a country that could fire an ICBM at an American city without developing a serious glow in the dark problem. MAD is still our ultimate insurance no one is that stupid, except if they only fire a few ICBM's it won't be mutual. The sad truth is that a world where everyone believes in anti-missle defenses is one where nuclear war will actually happen. This is destabilizing.
Any self-respecting terrorist or pissed off country is *not* going to be so stupid as to telegraph their intent and location by lobbing an ICBM at us! Please! It will arrive here quietly in the cargo of a ship, in a car crossing the border, or carried in a briefcase. Anti-missle defenses are not too useful for these very credible threats.
And of course, within a year of completion of this program, everyone will have counter-technology to make it useless again, and will have stolen the design for their own use. Don't worry just spend a bunch more billions to fix it. Then again, and again, until some fool actually thinks a launch is possible and tries it. You really want to go down this road any further?
I'm not opposed to military spending, just spending money stupidly. This money could have gone to space. Even if it were for orbiting nuclear monitoring and interdiction platforms (rather more difficult to shoot down) it would be a huge improvement over this boondoggle, and would at least be beneficial, even if hopelessly paranoid.
It's very interesting that Corel thinks Linux's future is in the sub $500 computer -- it probably reflects how they intend to divide their own attentions between NT and Linux. They are correct in stating that only Linux will scale downwards well, but no evidence is given for the price cutoff. The article also made it sound like Linux is succeeding because of Corel rather than the reverse, or better, succeeding together.
The Interix thing is sure interesting. Either Microsoft is worried about users wanting Unix, or about developers using Unix to develop for NT, or of course, both. Sure sign that Linux and the high end Unices are scaring them a bit.
That's interesting, I never thought of having to train people in correct classification of information, but of course you need guidelines.
:)
Many spy thrillers have claimed there is another classification above Top Secret, without needing to shoot me, can you confirm or deny that?
Isn't it true that anyone in the business of collecting intelligence is bound to end up with a lot of stuff that would be good for political or monetary blackmail, but not very related to national defense? It must be kind of tricky classifying, securing, and defining access to such information.
I'm sure the NSA is far less scary than Hollywood would have it, unless you happen to be on their short list anyway.
I guess the major question in my mind is the degree of autonomy they may have. Presuming they are effectively reviewed and controlled by our government and not a hidden branch of it, there's not much more to fear there than with the military. Just make sure the politicians don't use them inappropriately. How you can do that without knowing what the NSA is up to is an interesting question however. Amounts to electing those you trust, which leaves some of us a little unsatisfied.
In view of the lack of normal feedback over operations I consider a distrust of the NSA a healthy thing. If they tried something really horrible, and it got out, people would believe it. You might consider Echelon an example. So they have to be a little careful, both in their security, and not doing stuff that's too embarassing if they get caught, because eventually, everything that's really juicy leaks.
Yeah, I'd probably prefer some radical changes myself. I just wish I expected some. Been there, tried that. What I'm sure of is that I don't like the way it's working now, and don't see change likely, so I'm willing to roll the dice on shaking the system to see what falls out. If only I was hearing a presidential candidate talk about why space is important, I might be more willing to leave it to government.
.spc, and start selling IPO shares in dot-space companies and maybe they see the light. Making space good marketing for them would work too. The point is -- corporations could do those things to get funding, while NASA can't. We've been waiting over 30 years for funding.
I don't expect corporations to be lining up to get in on this at all. That will come later after someone with vision gets rich. Costs of transport make mining anything, including pure platinum, economically ridiculous right now. The major opportunities are in research towards microgravity industries, solar energy, possibly lottery ticket tourism, and probably earth observation. Stuff you can send back as 1's and 0's, or is just along for the ride.
Corporations are very shortsighted in terms of return on investment right now, and space looks like 10-20 years out there for a real profit, with a gargantuan initial investment. Give them a top level domain,
Well, the Earth is no less scientifically interesting than Mars, and people own parts of it. I agree we have a chance to rethink property law before launching out into space, and perhaps it needs it, but the reality is that old laws will likely be stretched to apply to new circumstances. That is, the first people to get some place and make use of it own it -- as long as they can defend it. For a long time to come cutting off supplies from Earth will be very difficult to counter, so law may well be imposed from here. But eventually, those places will make their own laws and define their own notions of property, as best suits their own circumstances and culture.
Aside from this, I think that it is a public responsiblity to explore space, and that putting the whole responsibility for space exploration on corporate shoulders is wrong, because they won't do anything that's not profitable.
The problem is that the government has proven it's unwillingness to fund a real space program. Change that if you can, many have tried and failed. So, if you want to get into space, perhaps it's worth harnessing some corporate greed. The internet started as a publically funded resource, and has now transited to a privately funded one. We'd all agree it's lost much in the transition, but at least it's here and there's hope for its future. It is *still* used by idealists and academics, even though it's privately funded.
Once goverments were mighty things, but the power is shifting to corporations. Already many have remarked that Microsoft is better funded for the anti-trust trial than the U.S. government. If you want to do something expensive you have to work with the folks who have the money. You can either work for radical change or do your best to make sure that idealists and academics still get access to a space program funded by corporations.
It sounds like they thought of theft alright, but I'm not sure they are ready for the abuses that public devices suffer. Looked at a phone booth or bus stop recently? How many drunks tossing their cookies into the keyboard will it take before replacement is required? I won't speak of other sources of bodily fluids.
Then there are the people who just think it's lots of fun to configure black text on black background and similarly hilarious stunts.
And the old favorite, lets see who can leave the most disgusting screen for the next customer game. Who may of course be a child. Best reboot 'tween customers I think.
It also possibly sounds a bit dangerous perhaps. Those who unthinkingly leave cookies might have others using those same services, logged to their account, after they leave the cab. Remember to logout from Yahoo mail, and to *not* check "save password." Remember, this allows console access, so security is meaningless. You need to deal with password catchers and copies of BO2K thoughtully left by customers for the next victim.
I suspect that after a short time, cabs will provide a place to connect your laptop if you wish, but will make no attempt to supply one.
I am glad to see our country working so hard to produce young people with a deep understanding of the stupidity and corruption everywhere in our society. Nothing will be more effective in promoting revolution or civil disobedience than small-minded persecutions and treating students as criminals. That's education with relevance.
The diabolical cleverness of this plan is stunning. Now when someone walks onto campus with an M16, they'll quickly be able to tell if they are a student by examining their badge to see if it is forged -- once they find a bar code reader anyway! Oh -- students have been responsible for shootings too? Well, at least this will force non-students to shoot from outside campus grounds! Or pretend to be telephone technicians, plumbers, or pizza delivery persons anyway.
Welcome to Amerika, please take an SS-Number, and be sure it is visible at all times!
"I'm ignorant on this subject (among lots of others :D). Can somebody explain to me why the need for constant upgrades is going to disappear and how that's supposed to translate into crashing software prices?"
I think what he is saying is that software will be distributed with a piece of hardware, and rarely upgraded, you'll rebuy the hardware and new software together when you upgrade. When was the last time you replaced the ROM firmware running your microwave oven or tv?
The per unit price on the software will be have to be extremely low, basically cost to develop divided by units sold, very little markup, because its critical to profitability of the consumer product. MS will find it very hard to compete with Linux in this regard.
I'm not in a screaming hurry to get pieces of plastic and metal embedded in my body. Couldn't we work on something a bit less intrusive like induction maybe?
As to interfacing directly to the brain, perhaps, but very possibly won't be much use to any of us. Restoring visual input to the brain in later life does little good, the brain never learns to sort it out and process it efficiently. Works fine if you restore it at an early age when the brain is still growing. Language acquisition is also something that only works well at a very young age. Learning to process high bandwidth input might also need to be done when very young. I'm sure people will be eager to volunteer their very young children for this. Not.
I don't think our technology is up to designing implants that last a lifetime yet either. Upgrades and repairs are unusually painful here. Bit disorienting when reality bluescreens on you while driving...
Maybe I'm just too old or something.
The main reason developers can buy computers cheaply right now is that they're the same computer everyone has to buy.
Suppose that home consumers all decide purpose-specific appliances are the way to go, and business decides thin-clients make sense. You won't be able to develop software from home very well on either -- a powerful box with a big hard drive is just much better for that. One of the main reasons is being free to choose your own tools, rather than subscribing to someone's "development suite." Even if you were willing to suffer development on a thin client it's likely that the usage fees would be prohibitive for such an uncommon activity.
So if Linus and Sun are right, expect the price of the box you develop software on to skyrocket, as only enough for developers will have to be made. Note that corporations will develop happily on thin client solutions, internally served and administered. Only open source developers and kids trying to learn programming will really feel the crunch from this.
I often write small assembly programs, where correctness, then time optimization are the critical design goals. I have to agree with your statement on over architecting small one-off systems, though careful design is always rewarded.
I'd also agree architecture is of critical importance in large multi-programmer projects, especially any that must be expanded and grow over time. Many open source projects qualify nicely of course.
But refactoring really rings a bell, even with small assembly programs. Typically I develop a simulation in C, test it, translate to assembly, verify equivalence of output, then refactor it until it's time optimal. Don't know if this book would suggest methods useful to me, but rewriting code while preserving its function is something I do a lot of.
Depending on how they defined virus this law comes awfully close to saying that certain ideas are illegal. Remember that a source for an encryption program was ruled protected speech here in the US, so this law would fall under prior restraint here.
Once again, legislators try to prohibit ideas and information, instead of making their irresponsible or malicious use illegal.
This assumes that no beneficial use for viruses will ever be found -- e.g. security patches that automatically spread and install themselves, or techniques similar to vaccinations where benign viruses are spread to train computer immune systems to attack damaging ones. Not a real issue today, but do we want to assume that it will *never* be an issue?
One thing that might help is a redirection permission meta tag. If it's not present in the original domain, redirection is not allowed, and alta vista keeps the older link.
The idea of an open source browser here is interesting because it makes our acceptance of the commercialization of the internet voluntary to some degree. If something really irritating like pop-ups from hell (or blink tags) is invented Mozilla is patched to ignore it by default. More people use Mozilla, bad advertising goes away from lack of people who can see it.
"Windows 95 has shipped with a nice little app called FTP.EXE since day one."
:).
I agree, its a nice little app. Fine for you or me, but if you think a typical Windows user even knows ftp.exe exists or is able to use it, please re-estimate the problem a little
One of the most common questions I get when helping MS friends with new computers is "what is a directory?" They don't even know what an "exe" is because Windows Explorer hides file extensions by default. CLI tools usually aren't even on their horizon for a few weeks, and typically require line by line help over the phone to use them for a while. Just finding a file after it's downloaded provides a challenge to many. They aren't stupid, just totally inexperienced.
I don't think this situation is healthy or good, but it is reality.
I agree with you that the browser bundling is a poor argument. Every OS distribution needs a browser enabled after installation, so that, if nothing else, the browser of choice may be downloaded easily. It's also good for making system upgrades and security patches available, and of course help resources. Whether the browser belongs in the OS, or in the file manager application, I don't much care as long as it's fully replaceable and easy to get working.
But I think Microsoft put it very well when they suggested we need a hall monitor here. Microsoft has bullied and bought out its competition in a fashion destructive to an entire industry. To the point in this case, they illegally leveraged their desktop monopoly in order to supress competition in applications, it doesn't get any clearer than that.
I wouldn't break MS up, I prefer a single large target, clumsy from it's own weight. Microsoft might be smart enough to break itself up if the DOJ doesn't do it for them. What I would do is insure that Microsoft ceases and desists from threatening to stop sales to distributors if they carry competing products. If possible, that should be made criminal, with Mr. Gates personally responsible for seeing it doesn't happen. We don't need to tolerate bullying in business. We can't if we expect free market to mean anything at all. We want to select for quality of product, not weight of gorilla.
"This has to be tough on corel."
Yes, it does. It seems it would be more effective in general to let one knowledgeable person (thanks Bruce), do the initial contact over license questions. Especially since Debian is the organization directly concerned, and has plenty of people able and willing to look out for their license rights. If Debian can't get satisfaction, they'll let us know, and slashdot can then indicate their community interest in the issue.
Just applying the slashdot flamethrower at the first hint of conflict strikes me as counterproductive. We don't want Corel to associate the letters GPL with flames and trouble, or they may not license their proprietary portions in the way we would prefer. They say they have not decided on that license yet.
I think they probably aren't aware that the Linux community really knows what "beta" means. When hard disks get trashed by bugs (think bug in disk partitioner), big companies have to worry about liability somewhat, and loss of customers a lot, even if the software is clearly marked "beta." So the attempt to limit possible damage to a few informed testers is not completely misdirected.
In this case, early release probably works better than they imagine, but only experience will teach them that, and only if they aren't scared off the GPL first.
Besides, they may know better. If releasing a new beta candidate requires two weeks of formal processing at Corel (who knows?) finding the bugs early might not result in early fixes, and a wide distribution becomes dangerous.
It's a reasonable expectation that if you create value add software for a Linux distribution that you should be able to deploy it first. If they aren't imagining release for a few months yet, they have a reasonable interest in protecting their property -- they paid for that software.
Well, if you've got $25,000 for the picture, wouldn't it be easier just to *bribe* the judge? Or *gasp* pay the fine? Maybe you should have paid the parking meters instead. Exactly what sorts of crimes do people with that kind of disposable money need defending from anyway?
Somehow this doesn't strike me as the "justice for all" device the article implies.
So the next obvious question is, does this get covered by insurance? If so, why isn't the insurance company screaming about getting some security installed and maintained? Or are they making more in premiums than losing in payouts and fine with things as they are?
I've also been watching Sun with a doubtful eye, and it seems many share my fears. I've been thinking on why Sun bothers me, and it's because they are pretending to not understand the fundamental tradeoff involved with open source.
You can either control a product, in which case you hire all the labor you need for it, or else you can turn it loose and let open source developers take it from there. Sun wants it *both* ways, and that isn't going to work.
It's not that anyone thinks all their patches should be accepted without question, reasonable people know that peer review and subsequent rejection is often for the good of the software. But the rejection is only acceptable when it's a pure meritocracy. Developers are afraid of the SCSL because Sun's political and corporate aims are likely to provide reasons to reject patches and entire directions for development.
There is always a narrowing of an open source project at the top, some kernel of trusted people who make the tough decisions and control the future of the program. This doesn't result in authoritarian control only because the option to fork is always present. If nearly half of a project's developers disagree with the folks at top, the pressure to accept some control from below becomes intense due to the threat of forking. Sun's SCSL provides no such mechanism of checks over Sun's leadership. They could be terribly wrong, and there's not one thing you could do about it. No one wants to work on a project *for free* when they feel they have little to no control over it.
I think Sun understands this perfectly well, but simply is not willing to lose control over any software they feel has importance to them. They *should* give up trying to sound like they are sorta climbing on the Linux bandwagon, they're not. This doesn't make them an enemy, just another proprietary vendor that happens to sell Unix-like boxen. For now, they are very useful to Linux. We've got the cyberdemon(MS) and spiderdemon(Sun) fighting, so we should quietly go about our business and reassess matters after the fight is over. It's likely the competition will look more fair than now afterwards.