Perhaps there are industries which are so important to the well being of society that they sould not be left to the private sector to run. Private companies have one all important goal: to make a profit. Perhaps the larger good of society (like building and upgrading old power plants) is more important than profit and these are constantly at odds. I think Health Care, electricity, water, and a few other essentials should not be administered by private corporations. They must constantly weigh the common good against the bottom line. In private insustry, the bottom line will always win.
I secretly hope the commercial internet cash cow is largely a failure. Pay for content? I don't think so. I see the net as a vast library, not a cable tv service. I hope the big media companies decide that there isn't much $$ in the net and leave it alone. I have created and maintain many useful websites on a variety of topics which I have some expertise. I offer this info for free and enjoy the useful info posted by others. I don't mind ads on websites. Occasionally I even click an interesting one. But obnoxious, flashing, in-my-face ads are a sure way to turn me off to your product.
Recently on CNN, they discussed how the 'older' bands, i.e. Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, REM, etc. are far out-selling newer 'popular' bands for concert ticket sales. The music lackey who was interviewed said that it was due to 'creative pairings' and 'an established library of music'. They never mentioned that new music mostly sounds like the same crap. It occurs to me that this is the true root of filesharing and the loss of $$ to the labels lately. It would never occur to them that CD sales are down because the new music stinks. I wonder what percentage of downloaded music is the 'older' stuff compared with the 'popular' tripe they try to force down our throats. My guess is that there are far more Rolling Stones downloads than Brittany.
Sometimes governments mandate something to break the 'inertia' mentioned in the article. I expect the move to OS would be at a snail's pace as change can be difficult in a large bureaucracy where the pressure is on to keep the status quo. There are times when the government's job is to mandate something to force change on a reluctant group. Think civil rights or enviornmental issues. Especially when millions of dollars and persuasive lobbists are involved.
The next big thing: Portable hard drives. They would pop in and out like floppies, and auto configure hardware (ala Knoppix). You would always have your files, programs, etc. just as you do at home or work.
I was the first in my office to push for evaluating Linux alternatives. I ran into a lot of resistance and developed the reputation for being the 'radical' and 'Microsoft hater' in the office. (And we are an IT shop!) This was about 2 years ago. Sloooowly thngs are changing. Now we can talk Linux openly and compare this quality and feature to that. Our personnel have soured on MS and now using Linux at home on their own machines.
I cannot tell you what a relief it has been to see the 'light come on' with these guys. It's been tough to put up with the ribbing I took early on without saying 'nah nah, I told you so'. But hang in there. MS is making our point for us every time these new 'features' surface.
If I recall the story of why PCs are on 95% of the desktops and not Apples (which had the far superior product in the early days of personal computing), it goes something like this: Apple, in an attempt to control quality and compatiblility, made a marketing decision to only allow Apple to sell Apples. Microsoft also made a marketing decision to allow DOS to be used by anyone who wanted to build a comptuer. The market became flooded with cheap "IBM Clones" which ran DOS. Software designers wrote programs for the majority of the machines out there, which were running DOS. Apple continued to control the availability of Apple and its software. Windows 95 came out, which would load on top of DOS and suddenly all those old, clunky DOS machines had a GUI, and the basic look and feel of an Apple, for much less cost. Today Apple remains somewhat of a niche product, while MS dominates the desktop. The rest is history. The moral of the story is:
1. Write crappy OS 2. Licence to everyone 3. Profit!!!!!
If my memory of some details of this story is incorrect, Im sure the/. crowd will gleefully correct me.
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Perhaps there are industries which are so important to the well being of society that they sould not be left to the private sector to run. Private companies have one all important goal: to make a profit. Perhaps the larger good of society (like building and upgrading old power plants) is more important than profit and these are constantly at odds.
I think Health Care, electricity, water, and a few other essentials should not be administered by private corporations. They must constantly weigh the common good against the bottom line. In private insustry, the bottom line will always win.
I secretly hope the commercial internet cash cow is largely a failure. Pay for content? I don't think so. I see the net as a vast library, not a cable tv service. I hope the big media companies decide that there isn't much $$ in the net and leave it alone.
I have created and maintain many useful websites on a variety of topics which I have some expertise. I offer this info for free and enjoy the useful info posted by others.
I don't mind ads on websites. Occasionally I even click an interesting one. But obnoxious, flashing, in-my-face ads are a sure way to turn me off to your product.
Recently on CNN, they discussed how the 'older' bands, i.e. Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, REM, etc. are far out-selling newer 'popular' bands for concert ticket sales. The music lackey who was interviewed said that it was due to 'creative pairings' and 'an established library of music'. They never mentioned that new music mostly sounds like the same crap.
It occurs to me that this is the true root of filesharing and the loss of $$ to the labels lately. It would never occur to them that CD sales are down because the new music stinks. I wonder what percentage of downloaded music is the 'older' stuff compared with the 'popular' tripe they try to force down our throats. My guess is that there are far more Rolling Stones downloads than Brittany.
Sometimes governments mandate something to break the 'inertia' mentioned in the article. I expect the move to OS would be at a snail's pace as change can be difficult in a large bureaucracy where the pressure is on to keep the status quo. There are times when the government's job is to mandate something to force change on a reluctant group. Think civil rights or enviornmental issues. Especially when millions of dollars and persuasive lobbists are involved.
The next big thing: Portable hard drives. They would pop in and out like floppies, and auto configure hardware (ala Knoppix). You would always have your files, programs, etc. just as you do at home or work.
I was the first in my office to push for evaluating Linux alternatives. I ran into a lot of resistance and developed the reputation for being the 'radical' and 'Microsoft hater' in the office. (And we are an IT shop!) This was about 2 years ago. Sloooowly thngs are changing. Now we can talk Linux openly and compare this quality and feature to that. Our personnel have soured on MS and now using Linux at home on their own machines. I cannot tell you what a relief it has been to see the 'light come on' with these guys. It's been tough to put up with the ribbing I took early on without saying 'nah nah, I told you so'. But hang in there. MS is making our point for us every time these new 'features' surface.
If I recall the story of why PCs are on 95% of the desktops and not Apples (which had the far superior product in the early days of personal computing), it goes something like this:
/. crowd will gleefully correct me.
Apple, in an attempt to control quality and compatiblility, made a marketing decision to only allow Apple to sell Apples. Microsoft also made a marketing decision to allow DOS to be used by anyone who wanted to build a comptuer.
The market became flooded with cheap "IBM Clones" which ran DOS. Software designers wrote programs for the majority of the machines out there, which were running DOS. Apple continued to control the availability of Apple and its software.
Windows 95 came out, which would load on top of DOS and suddenly all those old, clunky DOS machines had a GUI, and the basic look and feel of an Apple, for much less cost. Today Apple remains somewhat of a niche product, while MS dominates the desktop.
The rest is history. The moral of the story is:
1. Write crappy OS
2. Licence to everyone
3. Profit!!!!!
If my memory of some details of this story is incorrect, Im sure the