Okay, besides the endless references to Terminator I could make, this really sucks. So, we have high-school kids doing weapons research free of charge for the DOD now?
I sincerely wish that people would put more ethical concerns regarding science in the right place. While people are bemoaning the evils of stem cell research, we're happily spending money on this sort of thing.
The happy-go-lucky attitude of the article, the competition, and not to mention slashdot is a little disturbing as well. Heyhey! That's right kids, it's time for the Darpa Competition! Just build us a robot that can run around by itself, and we'll take care of putting a gun on it. It's science-fun, just like Mr. Wizard! Even Dad's helping out!
This isn't just "neat" stuff - this is stuff that has an impact in the real world, and I suggest that those people involved consider what sorts of contributions they're making. Personally, I would appreciate them not building autonomous robots for the DOD.
According to "Rebel Code - Linux and the Open Source Revolution" by Glyn Moody (chap. 10), the term "Open Source" was coined in Winter/Spring 1998 (February 3rd?). Eric Raymond initiated the search for a term for this "free software" coming out, and later "open source" was decided upon. It seems they were looking for something less ambigious and more business-friendly than "free software". The term itself was originally suggested by Christine Peterson of the Foresight Institute.
regarding Stallman (quoting from the book)
"Richard Stallman always viewed this shift [from terms like 'free software' to 'open source'] with alarm. 'The open source movement is Eric Raymond's attempt to redirect the free software movement away from a focus on freedom,' he says. 'He does not agree that freedom to share software is an ethical/social issue. So he decided to try to replace the term 'free software' with another term, one that would in no way call to mind that way of framing the issue."
So it seems that, historically, there is something of a difference between "open source" and "free software"
Your argument is exactly the sort of thing that helped justify the Cold War. Tit-for-tat arms races do little to help things. The only thing the Cold War did was to terrify the people caught in the middle and make the possible outcomes of brinksmanship politics species-threatening. In the end, it turned out to be an enourmous waste of resources, ruining one country (USSR) and putting the rest of the world at risk for 40 years (and still counting)
You make the assumption, like all patriots, that your country is somehow "above" the possibility of descending into evil. No one thought, I'm sure, 100 years ago, that Germany would descend to the levels it did only 30 years later. I trust the USA, but not enough to let it point a gun at my head, and especially for any length of time.
So, no one should have these weapons in the first place, because you can't trust countries with these things in the long term. Nukes are bad enough, and now to add something else to the mix?
Far better for Rome, er, the US, is to not create these weapons and rather use its clout to put international pressure on countries to prevent them from doing so as well. Sure, some countries will sneak a few things in, but intl. pressure helps large-scale programs from developing (along with arms-races, which is what the first option would cause). Also, furthering development just increases the amount of knowledge available to the wider world for creating weapons. This is a kind of knowledge that I think the world is better off not knowing in the first place - what you don't know can't hurt you (or be stolen and manufactured by others, etc.) If Russia is already doing it, the US has plenty of other types of strategic weapons and raw military strength in its arsenal to balance out strategic differences without aggravating relationships with additional weapons.
Man, I was just a poor pimp hustlin' crack whores, but I got on monster.com and, man, now I'm CTO for escorts.com! I don't know what they're talking about!
Great, all we need is some crazy redneck buying up this thing.. bomb racks.. huhuh.. Sort of Dr. Strangelove meets Al Qaida (you know, at the end of the movie...)
It's funny, but if you just make opposite words out of this article, you get something that sounds just as reasonable about Microsoft.. Try it out!
"In short, Microsoft's expensive and high-cost software products are likely to be widely adopted in governments, where spending public money for licenses is an easy justification. Inevitably, that choice will lead to security breaches that will cost those same governments (and ultimately you), huge amounts of money to rectify."
"Microsoft software goes through rigorous security testing, but such testing serves only to test known outside threats. The fact that security holes continue to appear should be enough to deter governments from jumping on this bandwagon, but won't be."
Man, this is fun! Nothing like reading Microsoft gimp droppings! drool.
1) Get a web server on that connection "slashdotted"
2) Write a DDOS virus to attack the customer's web server on their existing connection. Then, hook up your connection. Compare and enjoy.
3) Goatse?
So something doesn't add up.. for the Economist? Send in the IMF! They'll sort it out! We've got to subject all this scientific thought to the market! The market of thought! Yeah! Liberalize your thinking!
hahaahahaha.. okay, bad joke.
This article didn't really go to any extremes in terms of linking Linux and the virus, such as saying it might be a linux developer who is doing it (like SCO was implying). It is, however, funny how Linux is portrayed in the media, as if the only users of it were "die-hard" hackers.
To make the point, what if the attacks were centered around Microsoft? Wouldn't these tie-ins and insinuations of SCO sound silly if we just changed the operating system? Proportionally, there are just as many "normal" users of Linux as there are of Windows (hackers vs. users). It could have been some Windows programmer that just happens to like Linux that wrote this virus. Maybe the peron who wrote it doesn't really give a crap about Linux, but figured this would be funny. I would argue this, actually, since anyone who actually cares about Linux probably wouldn't do this - it's only given the enemy SCO another tool for spreading propoganda.
(script for Dr. Strangelove at: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0055.htm l )
Ripper:
Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?
Mandrake:
Well, no I... I can't say I have, Jack.
Ripper:
Vodka. That's what they drink, isn't it? Never water?
Mandrake:
Well I... I believe that's what they drink, Jack. Yes.
Ripper:
On no account will a commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
Mandrake:
Oh, ah, yes. I don't quite.. see what you're getting at, Jack.
Ripper:
Water. That's what I'm getting at. Water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, you realize that.. seventy percent of you is water.
I cut back on the coffee, down to one or two cups a day. I don't think you need to go cold-turkey - I still like a cup of coffee in the morning, just like the Folger's commercial says;).
I would cut down to one cup a day - that helps with the headache thing, at least with me. It's not like quitting smoking, where you're spitting vomit and your head is spinning in a couple of hours. You might get a headache towards the end of the day, but I guess you have to deal with it to a certain point:).
Also, I started drinking herbal/fruit tea in the afternoon instead of coffee. It takes care of that "I need to drink something hot" fix, sans caffiene. Now I'm addicted to tea, but I haven't seen any white warnings on the side of tea boxes lately, so I guess it's okay:).
As for the permanence of off-shore jobs, aren't US employees in the same boat as the off-shore workers? Companies will gladly seek cheaper work within the US - how many companies have moved from state X to state Y for those very same reasons? Combine that with layoffs, dot-com-go-boom-boom, and other stuff, and I put about as much faith in the stability of my job as in a domestic US job (barring peachy government work;) ).
It's one thing to REALLY out-source work - contract based, facilities provided by the workers, etc. This is the picture I think you have, and is definitely tenuous, and possible exploitive. But as these companies invest more money into facilities, infrastructure, etc., in other countries, they now have something keeping them there. It's expensive to move away, and this is starting to become a situation for companies.
Anyway, regardless of the time companies are here, they provide experience and education for the workers, which are applied in the future and in the least case towards firms that are more permanently based there (stronger-presense foreign companies), or at best for working for domestic companies or their own enterprises.
So, that's my take. I agree with you that there's a dark side to this for the people getting work outside the US, but there's a good side too. Individual situations vary a lot, too, but in the case of IT, people are frequently getting paid better by foreign companies than their domestic counter-parts. Which leads to another point: what would it be like without the foreign companies? Certainly no better, and a lot less choice. I can't imagine what it would be like here without foreign companies throwing things into the mix.
Okay, first things first: Is slashdot an American website, or International? I couldn't glean the exact meaning of "maybe 'buy american' could be our new battle cry;)", but if Slashdot is decidedly American, than perhaps it should make it more obvious to those of us that live in "International". In fact, I'm actually getting a little tired of media outlets that take an ostensive international pose while putting a distinctly American spin on everything (aka CNN, MTV, and I hope not slashdot).
Now, more to the topic, and my gripe. I'm gaining from the "off-shore" movement (though I'm still looking for a beach in the middle of Europe.) I'm sorry about those people that are losing jobs as a result of this, but other people and economies are benefitting as well. Arguably, some of these people/economies sorely need these jobs more than the people/economies who are losing them.
Perhaps it's not so cut-and-dry with the off-shore movement. Currently, while companies can easily move money around the world for hiring in cheaper countries (aka globalization), the free movement of labor is very restricted. Perhaps freeing this up would attract labor to the US, which, while cheaper, would create a less extreme situation, since these immigrant employees would still have to be paid with a US cost-of-living in mind.
Another thing: The upper-middle class in the US (the strata most IT people live in) enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. Maybe this off-shore thing is, in a way, a natural balancing of economies - another effect of globalization?
So anyway, suck it up - it's not just greedy corporations that are benefitting from this, but real people in other parts of the world. But, of course, those aren't real people, are they? At least, it always seems that way on CNN.
I like Xoops a lot - it's very easy to administrate, and has some nice modules
http://www.xoops.org
You need PHP and MySQL (it might support other databases, but I'm not sure). Also, it works with a "standard" compilation of php (no extra modules), which a lot of ISP's have.
You want spam? Just post your email address in the threads on Slashdot:) You think we're a bunch of computer geeks posting these messages? Hell no, we're a bunch of spammers - this whole website is just a big ruse to harvest email addresses;).
You're right about it never "really" being public, at least in it's current incarnation. However, the DNS system itself has it's origins in the public domain, and remains a public service. Moreover, it has always been "publicly" regulated in some way.
In another sense, there has always been some mechanism for (at least ostensibly) assuring that these companies managing DNS work in the public's best interest. Up until now, I think that DNS has mostly operated as it should (minus outages:) ) as a result of these mechanisms working properly.
If I'm correct, this current "mechanism" is supposed to be ICANN. However, it is obvious that ICANN is fairly impotent in its ability to work in the public interest. Regardless, it is Verisign who has stepped over the bounds of appropriate behaviour with this priviledge that has been given them.
As for establishing a "US Department Of Internet Management and Control", we already have one: ICANN. Also, you should remember that Verisign only handles the.com and.net TLD's (and others?) - other TLD's, such as.de,.ru, etc.. are handled by other authorities, most of which I think are regulated in some way.
Anyway, what I'm proposing at the very least is to increase the regulation of DNS so that whoever is given management responsibility does not do this very sort of thing. Also, there should be mechanisms for punishing violations, such as revoking a company's "charter" for doing DNS.
I think these terms-of-service by themselves could definitely be a basis for a law-suit...
Like, the terms of service effectively say if I try to access a non-existant.com, etc. domain, I'm suddenly bound to a contract? WHAT THE !@#!@? I'm sure any competant judge would at the very least not allow Verisign to put any terms on such a thing.
Setting: Deep in the innards of Verisign's server rooms..
Characters:
Mr. Barnacle: VP, Marketing, Verisign
Mr. Patsy: some Admin for Versign
Mr. Barnacle: "Yeah, so I was reading DNS For Dummies last night, and it said you can put this thingy called a wildcard in records.."
Mr. Patsy: "Um, yeah, so?"
Mr. Barnacle: "Couldn't we use this to redirect people to some other site?"
Mr. Patsy: "Er, maybe...."
Mr. Barnacle: "WOW.. Let's do that!"
Mr. Patsy: "Ummm... I don't know..."
Mr. Barnacle: "Do it!"
Mr. Patsy: "Oh jeeez.. alright..."
When Verisign was given the authority to manage DNS for these TLDs, they were given this responsibility with the public trust..
The public trusted them NOT to do things exactly like this. You should do DNS, and that's it - nothing more, nothing less. In return, Verisign was given a source of income. I think that if Verisign continues in this way, it may be time to take back this thing entrusted to them.
This has become yet another disaster in
"privatization", and we should maybe consider moving this service back to the "public" sector (as much as it can be...).
I realize this is probably a little redundant, but couldn't this qualify as predatory pricing? (Assuming someone could come up with evidence that Microsoft really is doing this to compete with open source?)
Maybe Redhat could step into the fray here...Or someone else with an army of lawyers..
(source - FTC)
"....Price discrimination also might be used as a predatory pricing tactic -- setting prices below cost to certain customers -- to harm competition at the supplier's level. Antitrust authorities use the same standards applied to predatory pricing claims under the Sherman Act and the FTC Act to evaluate allegations of price discrimination used for this purpose"
The thing I find disgusting about companies that try to prevent price comparisons is that this is in violation of the very principles of the market economy that have made them so wealthy in the first place. Market economy theory dictates there should be competition, and with that competition comes lower prices because people choose the lower-priced goods over the higher priced ones. Lower prices, however, cannot be found if we do not allow people to compare prices. In sum, companies simply can't have their cake and eat it, too. Allowing people to compare prices is not just a priviledge companies give, but it is a right these people have.
Moreover, when you put your store on the Internet, you take advantage of the possiblity of millions of people looking at your wares, and all you have to do is put a webpage and database out there. You MUST be willing to accept the fact that with this conveinence, others should be able find ways to "conveniently" look at your data. I will not accept someone dictating to me how I can look at their data - you're the one who made it public, right? Again, these companies can't have their cake and eat it, too...
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, besides the endless references to Terminator I could make, this really sucks. So, we have high-school kids doing weapons research free of charge for the DOD now?
I sincerely wish that people would put more ethical concerns regarding science in the right place. While people are bemoaning the evils of stem cell research, we're happily spending money on this sort of thing.
The happy-go-lucky attitude of the article, the competition, and not to mention slashdot is a little disturbing as well. Heyhey! That's right kids, it's time for the Darpa Competition! Just build us a robot that can run around by itself, and we'll take care of putting a gun on it. It's science-fun, just like Mr. Wizard! Even Dad's helping out!
This isn't just "neat" stuff - this is stuff that has an impact in the real world, and I suggest that those people involved consider what sorts of contributions they're making. Personally, I would appreciate them not building autonomous robots for the DOD.
According to "Rebel Code - Linux and the Open Source Revolution" by Glyn Moody (chap. 10), the term "Open Source" was coined in Winter/Spring 1998 (February 3rd?). Eric Raymond initiated the search for a term for this "free software" coming out, and later "open source" was decided upon. It seems they were looking for something less ambigious and more business-friendly than "free software". The term itself was originally suggested by Christine Peterson of the Foresight Institute.
regarding Stallman (quoting from the book)
"Richard Stallman always viewed this shift [from terms like 'free software' to 'open source'] with alarm. 'The open source movement is Eric Raymond's attempt to redirect the free software movement away from a focus on freedom,' he says. 'He does not agree that freedom to share software is an ethical/social issue. So he decided to try to replace the term 'free software' with another term, one that would in no way call to mind that way of framing the issue."
So it seems that, historically, there is something of a difference between "open source" and "free software"
Some more reading (doesn't look like it was posted here yet)
http://www.attrition.org/errata/sec-co/mi2g-01.htOkay, flamebait..succumbing..
Your argument is exactly the sort of thing that helped justify the Cold War. Tit-for-tat arms races do little to help things. The only thing the Cold War did was to terrify the people caught in the middle and make the possible outcomes of brinksmanship politics species-threatening. In the end, it turned out to be an enourmous waste of resources, ruining one country (USSR) and putting the rest of the world at risk for 40 years (and still counting)
You make the assumption, like all patriots, that your country is somehow "above" the possibility of descending into evil. No one thought, I'm sure, 100 years ago, that Germany would descend to the levels it did only 30 years later. I trust the USA, but not enough to let it point a gun at my head, and especially for any length of time.
So, no one should have these weapons in the first place, because you can't trust countries with these things in the long term. Nukes are bad enough, and now to add something else to the mix?
Far better for Rome, er, the US, is to not create these weapons and rather use its clout to put international pressure on countries to prevent them from doing so as well. Sure, some countries will sneak a few things in, but intl. pressure helps large-scale programs from developing (along with arms-races, which is what the first option would cause). Also, furthering development just increases the amount of knowledge available to the wider world for creating weapons. This is a kind of knowledge that I think the world is better off not knowing in the first place - what you don't know can't hurt you (or be stolen and manufactured by others, etc.) If Russia is already doing it, the US has plenty of other types of strategic weapons and raw military strength in its arsenal to balance out strategic differences without aggravating relationships with additional weapons.
Man, I was just a poor pimp hustlin' crack whores, but I got on monster.com and, man, now I'm CTO for escorts.com! I don't know what they're talking about!
"Complete with extras including bomb racks"
Great, all we need is some crazy redneck buying up this thing.. bomb racks.. huhuh.. Sort of Dr. Strangelove meets Al Qaida (you know, at the end of the movie...)
It's funny, but if you just make opposite words out of this article, you get something that sounds just as reasonable about Microsoft.. Try it out!
"In short, Microsoft's expensive and high-cost software products are likely to be widely adopted in governments, where spending public money for licenses is an easy justification. Inevitably, that choice will lead to security breaches that will cost those same governments (and ultimately you), huge amounts of money to rectify."
"Microsoft software goes through rigorous security testing, but such testing serves only to test known outside threats. The fact that security holes continue to appear should be enough to deter governments from jumping on this bandwagon, but won't be."
Man, this is fun! Nothing like reading Microsoft gimp droppings! drool.
three off the top of my head
1) Get a web server on that connection "slashdotted"
2) Write a DDOS virus to attack the customer's web server on their existing connection. Then, hook up your connection. Compare and enjoy.
3) Goatse?
So something doesn't add up.. for the Economist? Send in the IMF! They'll sort it out! We've got to subject all this scientific thought to the market! The market of thought! Yeah! Liberalize your thinking! hahaahahaha.. okay, bad joke.
This article didn't really go to any extremes in terms of linking Linux and the virus, such as saying it might be a linux developer who is doing it (like SCO was implying). It is, however, funny how Linux is portrayed in the media, as if the only users of it were "die-hard" hackers.
To make the point, what if the attacks were centered around Microsoft? Wouldn't these tie-ins and insinuations of SCO sound silly if we just changed the operating system? Proportionally, there are just as many "normal" users of Linux as there are of Windows (hackers vs. users). It could have been some Windows programmer that just happens to like Linux that wrote this virus. Maybe the peron who wrote it doesn't really give a crap about Linux, but figured this would be funny. I would argue this, actually, since anyone who actually cares about Linux probably wouldn't do this - it's only given the enemy SCO another tool for spreading propoganda.(script for Dr. Strangelove at :m l
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0055.ht
)
Ripper:
Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?
Mandrake:
Well, no I... I can't say I have, Jack.
Ripper:
Vodka. That's what they drink, isn't it? Never water?
Mandrake:
Well I... I believe that's what they drink, Jack. Yes.
Ripper:
On no account will a commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
Mandrake:
Oh, ah, yes. I don't quite.. see what you're getting at, Jack.
Ripper:
Water. That's what I'm getting at. Water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, you realize that.. seventy percent of you is water.
Mandrake:
Uhhh God...
I cut back on the coffee, down to one or two cups a day. I don't think you need to go cold-turkey - I still like a cup of coffee in the morning, just like the Folger's commercial says ;).
I would cut down to one cup a day - that helps with the headache thing, at least with me. It's not like quitting smoking, where you're spitting vomit and your head is spinning in a couple of hours. You might get a headache towards the end of the day, but I guess you have to deal with it to a certain point :).
Also, I started drinking herbal/fruit tea in the afternoon instead of coffee. It takes care of that "I need to drink something hot" fix, sans caffiene. Now I'm addicted to tea, but I haven't seen any white warnings on the side of tea boxes lately, so I guess it's okay :).
You got me on the US thing :)
As for the permanence of off-shore jobs, aren't US employees in the same boat as the off-shore workers? Companies will gladly seek cheaper work within the US - how many companies have moved from state X to state Y for those very same reasons? Combine that with layoffs, dot-com-go-boom-boom, and other stuff, and I put about as much faith in the stability of my job as in a domestic US job (barring peachy government work ;) ).
It's one thing to REALLY out-source work - contract based, facilities provided by the workers, etc. This is the picture I think you have, and is definitely tenuous, and possible exploitive. But as these companies invest more money into facilities, infrastructure, etc., in other countries, they now have something keeping them there. It's expensive to move away, and this is starting to become a situation for companies.
Anyway, regardless of the time companies are here, they provide experience and education for the workers, which are applied in the future and in the least case towards firms that are more permanently based there (stronger-presense foreign companies), or at best for working for domestic companies or their own enterprises.
So, that's my take. I agree with you that there's a dark side to this for the people getting work outside the US, but there's a good side too. Individual situations vary a lot, too, but in the case of IT, people are frequently getting paid better by foreign companies than their domestic counter-parts. Which leads to another point: what would it be like without the foreign companies? Certainly no better, and a lot less choice. I can't imagine what it would be like here without foreign companies throwing things into the mix.
Okay, first things first: Is slashdot an American website, or International? I couldn't glean the exact meaning of "maybe 'buy american' could be our new battle cry ;)", but if Slashdot is decidedly American, than perhaps it should make it more obvious to those of us that live in "International". In fact, I'm actually getting a little tired of media outlets that take an ostensive international pose while putting a distinctly American spin on everything (aka CNN, MTV, and I hope not slashdot).
Now, more to the topic, and my gripe. I'm gaining from the "off-shore" movement (though I'm still looking for a beach in the middle of Europe.) I'm sorry about those people that are losing jobs as a result of this, but other people and economies are benefitting as well. Arguably, some of these people/economies sorely need these jobs more than the people/economies who are losing them.
Perhaps it's not so cut-and-dry with the off-shore movement. Currently, while companies can easily move money around the world for hiring in cheaper countries (aka globalization), the free movement of labor is very restricted. Perhaps freeing this up would attract labor to the US, which, while cheaper, would create a less extreme situation, since these immigrant employees would still have to be paid with a US cost-of-living in mind.
Another thing: The upper-middle class in the US (the strata most IT people live in) enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. Maybe this off-shore thing is, in a way, a natural balancing of economies - another effect of globalization?
So anyway, suck it up - it's not just greedy corporations that are benefitting from this, but real people in other parts of the world. But, of course, those aren't real people, are they? At least, it always seems that way on CNN.
Now THIS is an album I would be willing to spend money on - RIAA take note!
I'm just happy that I can finally start my Motley Crue fan site:
:P )
www.motleycruerox.org
They put the "uber" in "umlaut"! Rock on!
p.s.: this was, of course, the real reason why unicode was invented.
(slashdot isn't allowing posting of html entities/unicode,
The real question: can this stand up to the reality-warping effects of Florida on voting?
I suggest that someone put that PDF describing the technique on a web server in Florida, and see how much the proposal alters..
I like Xoops a lot - it's very easy to administrate, and has some nice modules
http://www.xoops.org
You need PHP and MySQL (it might support other databases, but I'm not sure). Also, it works with a "standard" compilation of php (no extra modules), which a lot of ISP's have.
You want spam? Just post your email address in the threads on Slashdot :) You think we're a bunch of computer geeks posting these messages? Hell no, we're a bunch of spammers - this whole website is just a big ruse to harvest email addresses ;).
You're right about it never "really" being public, at least in it's current incarnation. However, the DNS system itself has it's origins in the public domain, and remains a public service. Moreover, it has always been "publicly" regulated in some way.
In another sense, there has always been some mechanism for (at least ostensibly) assuring that these companies managing DNS work in the public's best interest. Up until now, I think that DNS has mostly operated as it should (minus outages :) ) as a result of these mechanisms working properly.
If I'm correct, this current "mechanism" is supposed to be ICANN. However, it is obvious that ICANN is fairly impotent in its ability to work in the public interest. Regardless, it is Verisign who has stepped over the bounds of appropriate behaviour with this priviledge that has been given them.
As for establishing a "US Department Of Internet Management and Control", we already have one: ICANN. Also, you should remember that Verisign only handles the .com and .net TLD's (and others?) - other TLD's, such as .de, .ru, etc.. are handled by other authorities, most of which I think are regulated in some way.
Anyway, what I'm proposing at the very least is to increase the regulation of DNS so that whoever is given management responsibility does not do this very sort of thing. Also, there should be mechanisms for punishing violations, such as revoking a company's "charter" for doing DNS.
I think these terms-of-service by themselves could definitely be a basis for a law-suit...
.com, etc. domain, I'm suddenly bound to a contract? WHAT THE !@#!@? I'm sure any competant judge would at the very least not allow Verisign to put any terms on such a thing.
Like, the terms of service effectively say if I try to access a non-existant
Setting: Deep in the innards of Verisign's server rooms.. Characters: Mr. Barnacle: VP, Marketing, Verisign Mr. Patsy: some Admin for Versign Mr. Barnacle: "Yeah, so I was reading DNS For Dummies last night, and it said you can put this thingy called a wildcard in records.." Mr. Patsy: "Um, yeah, so?" Mr. Barnacle: "Couldn't we use this to redirect people to some other site?" Mr. Patsy: "Er, maybe...." Mr. Barnacle: "WOW.. Let's do that!" Mr. Patsy: "Ummm... I don't know..." Mr. Barnacle: "Do it!" Mr. Patsy: "Oh jeeez.. alright..."
When Verisign was given the authority to manage DNS for these TLDs, they were given this responsibility with the public trust.. The public trusted them NOT to do things exactly like this. You should do DNS, and that's it - nothing more, nothing less. In return, Verisign was given a source of income. I think that if Verisign continues in this way, it may be time to take back this thing entrusted to them. This has become yet another disaster in "privatization", and we should maybe consider moving this service back to the "public" sector (as much as it can be...).
I realize this is probably a little redundant, but couldn't this qualify as predatory pricing? (Assuming someone could come up with evidence that Microsoft really is doing this to compete with open source?)
Maybe Redhat could step into the fray here...Or someone else with an army of lawyers..
(source - FTC) "....Price discrimination also might be used as a predatory pricing tactic -- setting prices below cost to certain customers -- to harm competition at the supplier's level. Antitrust authorities use the same standards applied to predatory pricing claims under the Sherman Act and the FTC Act to evaluate allegations of price discrimination used for this purpose"
The thing I find disgusting about companies that try to prevent price comparisons is that this is in violation of the very principles of the market economy that have made them so wealthy in the first place. Market economy theory dictates there should be competition, and with that competition comes lower prices because people choose the lower-priced goods over the higher priced ones. Lower prices, however, cannot be found if we do not allow people to compare prices. In sum, companies simply can't have their cake and eat it, too. Allowing people to compare prices is not just a priviledge companies give, but it is a right these people have.
Moreover, when you put your store on the Internet, you take advantage of the possiblity of millions of people looking at your wares, and all you have to do is put a webpage and database out there. You MUST be willing to accept the fact that with this conveinence, others should be able find ways to "conveniently" look at your data. I will not accept someone dictating to me how I can look at their data - you're the one who made it public, right? Again, these companies can't have their cake and eat it, too...
rant rant rant
-tk