The entire crew of the Enterprise is still at school and Spock Jr is being bullied by ignorant full-blooded humans when Jamie Kirk leaps to the rescue and saves Spock Jr who says "you humans are so emotional. on my planet i would have left myself to be beaten to a bloody pulp". Jamie Kirk then kicks Spock jr in the groin, rips off his shirt and makes out with one of the local girls.
The MPAA are justified IMHO in worrying about p2p use on campuses. There is really no argument that movie downloading is a problem for traditional cinema and DVD sales.
But this attitude of "War on P2P" is a failure: it's a failure because framing the discussion in terms of right and wrong misses the point, it's a failure because it will alienate a generation of consumers and artists, and it's a failure because it will get in the way of developing long-term business models based more accurately on what people actually want and are willing to pay for.
It's impossible to force people - through policing, through DRM, through marketing - to pay for something they can get for free. I can't think of any examples where this has worked. It's like the many laws that try to mandate what people can do in private (sex, drugs, rock'n roll). The laws sound fine, but they fail.
The movie industry (like the music industry) must move to models of higher-volume, lower prices, and (most importantly) much lower internal costs. There is no reason why this business should have fatter profit margins than - say - retailing.
The media industries will say that the risk and cost of promoting unknown artists or failed movies means they need fat profits on successful ones. But this is a circular argument: using the new distribution and promotion models that the Internet affords makes it _extremely_ cheap to produce and promote new talent.
Anyhow, the pattern is classic: the industry will scream and kick, blackmail and sue, get government and industry support, and finally collapse as new young rivals (probably from other countries where vested interests form less of a barrier) storm the market with products that the consumer _really_ wants.
Windows a specific product, not a technology. The technology would be the operating system. An OS is based on a series of other technologies, most obviously compilers, networking, disk management systems, kernel models, etc.
Since these underlying technologies have been zero-priced since the 1980's (mainly thanks to Unix), the OS as a technology has indeed fallen into the zero-price domain as well.
In other words: a small team can today build a product that competes fairly well with Windows, using off-the-shelf technology. This was not true 10 years ago.
Windows is not free, but it obviously has found itself right in the middle of the zero-price zone.
Software, like much technology, follows a classic cycle from rare/expensive to common/cheap as the knowledge and means required to build it get cheaper.
"Moore's Law" is simply the application of this general law to hardware. But it applies also to software.
Free software is an expression of this cycle: at the point where the individual price paid by a group of developers to collaborate on a project falls below some amount (which is some function of a commercial license cost), they will naturally tend to produce a free version.
This is my theory, anyhow.
We can use this theory to predict where and how free software will be developed: there must be a market (i.e. enough developers who need it to also make it) and the technology required to build it must be itself very cheap (what I'd call 'zero-price').
History is full of examples of this: every large scale free software domain is backed by technologies and tools that themselves have fallen into the zero-price domain.
Thus we can ask: what technology is needed to build products like Gelato, and how close is this coming to the zero-price domain?
Incidentally, a corollary of this theory is that _all_ software domains will eventually fall into the zero-price domain.
And a second corollary is that this process can be mapped and predicted to some extent.
Malware is much more than a technical phenomenon, although it certainly was born as one.
For me, given that the scope of malware to get past our defenses seems almost infinite, it is much more interesting to look at this from other angles:
- Socioeconomic: who is paying for development of malware, and with what intentions? Healthy paranoia suggests that there is an organized agenda to take over and subvert large parts of the Net. Heck, several such agendas, probably, fighting it out.
- pseudo-Biological: can malware be modelled using biological models and can this help us fight it? I've argued in my journal that yes, this is a valid way of looking at malware, and may be the key to fighting it.
- political: given the potential (or real) power of malware to subvert and control large parts of the Net, should we ignore the inevitable political interest this will cause? If I was a spook, I'd be aiming to use malware to (a) spy on foreign governments, (b) spy on my own citizens, (c) act as a launchpad for cyberattacks.
- commercial: what value can be placed on "here is n% of the Net, to do with as you please..." Probably very high. Where there is value, a market of buyers and sellers will develop. Has probably already developed.
Slashdot is a important source of info (indeed) and I type very quickly, the bollocks does not take a lot of time. I spend significantly less time on/. than I do answering email, for instance.
But you say you "were running yours"... past tense? What happened? If you're a particularly good programmer and happen to live in Belgium, maybe you want to send me your CV.:)
"No, your luggage is smarter than you and has decided to go to California for the winter. Have a nice stay in Jacksonville!"
Seriously: RFID tags on luggage is a good idea, as any traveller wondering where the heck his suitcase went to will tell you. The systems will have teething problems, but today's barcode tickers are not 100% successful either. I've been stranded without luggage at two destinations in a year, both times I had to buy a set of clothes on arrival. In one case it took 4 weeks for my luggage to make it home.
Actually, there is a fairly universal concept of "right" and "wrong" with respect to human society. Human culture is not infinitely plastic. It is a product, invariably, of a standard human nature.
All cultures have similar kinds of internal conflicts, and the most classic one is between the individual and the "state", or the larger group.
And all states go through phases where they try to assert more control over the individual than is healthy. An extreme case would be North Korea. Such excessive control is so uneconomical that we eventually get a balance of power in which the state provides individuals with liberty in return for taxes and basic obedience.
When we seek to "impose our standards" on other states, all we're doing is saying: "hey, it's pointless to kill your dissidents and hang your thieves, pointless to ban women from education and turn religion into a tool of mind control..." We say this because we've been through it, and know that it's bad stuff.
What is not real is the suggestion that human liberty and freedom is culturally dependent. That is a lie used by repressive governments to justify policies that really only serve their own interests.
There have been many attempts in Western nations to repress individual rights because of the "common interest", and these rightly strike us as barbaric. No reason to apply different standards to other countries just because they are different.
However... the day I see an electorate in a "culturally different" country freely and democratically vote for a regime that restricts human rights, I'll change my mind.
Do I still want to write non-portable code in 2004? Apparently MSVC produces better code then gcc on Windows, but is that reason enough to use it rather than (e.g.) cygwin?
As a programmer, I insist on platforms that are 100% portable, so that my code can survive any OS and vendor changes. At the very least a commercial compiler must implement the standard language and libraries so that my code is portable.
Still, this is a good move for Microsoft and I welcome it.
Maglev is considerably more costly than TGV but this is justified on grounds of "speed", to compete with air travel. However, since air travel is subsidised through cheap (untaxed!) fuel, the comparison is economically flawed. Europe has demonstrated the feasibilty of large-scale TGV networks that compete favourably with air travel.
The "uses existing infrastructure" argument for TGVs is not a minor detail, it is the key to bringing new services into existing urban areas. And if you can't bring the train into Central Station, it is pretty useless.
Most commuters drive to work to make pencils? What country do you live in? Most car owners do service jobs that can be wholly or partly done remotely, either from smaller regional offices, or from home. The 'cubicle farms' of US corporations are a totally senseless way of bringing employees together.
Your comment on carpooling is unanswerable. How does the cost of something relate to its efficient/inefficient use? If I say that electricity is too cheap, is that an argument against using insulation? Carpooling saves resources, and is a _good thing_ period.
Cities... actually one of the most efficient ways of living, in terms of cost to the environment per head. Much more efficient than suburbia. Without the economic distortions of cheap roads and fuel, more people would live in cities and cities would become more compact, and nicer places. And there would be more of them, but fewer areas of endless suburbia.
More compact cities, getting around by bike, foot, and simple but efficient public transport, there is no contradiction here, rather a recipe for much happier living with less stress.
But... perhaps you enjoy spending 3-4 hours a day behind the wheel of a car. Personally I find that one of the greatest tragedies of modern life, and I'm very happy to be able to avoid it.
Maglev is extraordinarily expensive, noisy, and an engineering solution to what is a civil problem - commuting.
If maglev is what it takes to move people off the roads, I pity our civilization.
What about ordinary (cheap) trains, faster conventional trains (like Europe's TGVs) or living closer to work, or working more via Internet, or carpooling?
The best way to avoid commuting is for people to move back into the cities, to walk to work, to downsize the huge companies into smaller human-sized organizations, to live on a human scale. The best way to connect large countries is through high-speed trains that use conventional rail technology. It does not happen today for one simple reason: the artificially low cost of travelling by car and by air (thanks to subsidies on roads and on fuel).
The War on Spam sounds great, and I'm sure every citizen is happy their politicians are taking such draconian measures. Ditto for the spam fighters, who will get nice shiny boxes and new powers to help in the fight. But it won't work and for simple reasons.
One: spammers have huge networks of zombied computers at their disposal and can send spam almost entirely undetectably.
Two: this legislation does not affect the companies actually selling their products via spam. Thus it simply acts as a darwinian filter, eliminating the spammers stupid enough to remain in US jurisdiction and allow their identities to be tracked (see point one).
Three: there are already more effective ways to get the consumers' attention, and by legislating against spam, these will simply become more used. Mainly, I'm thinking of spyware/trojans like CoolWebSearch.
A realistic attack on spam and the rest must be focussed on the people paying for such services, i.e. advertisers. They must be liable for the cost and moral damage their marketing causes, as in any other domain. Further we need some changes to the policy of "receiver pays" which is the basic reason why spam exists at all.
But as so often, this attack on spammers is too little, too late, and ignores what is a much more serious problem: spyware, trojans, and worms that spread via security holes in MSIE and Windows.
I cancelled my TV subscription when I moved house about 4 years ago, and have resisted getting a TV in ouir new home. My wife took about 3 months to adapt, but survived. I rediscovered my evenings.
TV is very close to a drug. I guess it provides many people with a virtual social exposure with no interaction: sitting still, getting bombarded with faces and voices is kind of bizarre when you think of it. Since program makers can't increase the amount consumed (limited hours in a day), they increase the dose by making TV ever more intense.
Turning of my TV was hard, very much like stopping drinking coffee or alcohol, but worthwhile for me.
It eliminates the weak and forces the rest to get stronger.
SCO and Microsoft (and Sun) are predators as far as the OSS community is concerned, and although they will cause much suffering and trauma, the result will be stronger and more successful OSS firms.
That arresting your clients is not a productive tactic.
No-one argues about the rights and wrongs of copying movies like this. However the story is right on wrt:
- the likely success of this strategy, which is zero
- the value of jail sentences for such a crime, which is highly debatable
Indeed, like the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on poverty, and so many other "wars", this is likely to turn into a self-justifying game of power in which the "good guys" get to run riot with technology and funds, the "bad guys" stay one step ahead because they are, after all, in it for the money, and the general public is totally ignored if not actively abused.
Projectionists with night goggles? Crooks will use smaller and less visible cameras. Cinemas install permanent video recording of the public? Crooks will use button hole recorders. Cinemas do stop/search at entry? crooks will use eye-glass recorders. Cinemas force the public to go through security barriers?
The key argument here is whether the strategy can work, and clearly it can't.
There is a better way to stop people making poor copies of movies in cinemas: provide high-quality digital downloads for $4.95, make cinemas more fun to visit (and cheaper!), and make the films so good that people want to buy the DVDs for their collections.
The rules say the subject must be in ASCII. They should have said "7-bit US-ASCII". Still, it's probably a non-starter. I can't see a single spammer complying with this.
For one thing, simple Darwinian competition means that spammers who comply will be at a disadvantage to those who do not, and will thus be eliminated.
Regulation does not prevent crime, it just moves it elsewhere. Crime - like spamming - must be prevented by making it uneconomical.
It should be a federal crime to _advertise_ via spammers, via spyware, and via trojans under the basic regulation covering consumer rights. Hitting the advertisers rather than the spammers would have a much greater impact.
The International Federation of Spammers and Spyware Merchants announced that they planned to fully cooperate with all US federal regulations covering the transmission of unsolicited messages by email.
IFSS president Biggus R. Dickus said, "we are a responsible, family-oriented group of businessmen. Anyone who says otherwise can come and complain personally."
The FCC announced itself "very pleased" with the comments from the IFSS.
It's just had to change its name and location, due to an interstellar court action from Microsoft, which has claimed that the term "lunar" infringes on the term "Windows", given the obvious phonetic similarity.
When Sedna's lu--r object has found a new name, and shaken off Microsoft's legal team, it will reappear.
Slashdot Mirror
The entire crew of the Enterprise is still at school and Spock Jr is being bullied by ignorant full-blooded humans when Jamie Kirk leaps to the rescue and saves Spock Jr who says "you humans are so emotional. on my planet i would have left myself to be beaten to a bloody pulp". Jamie Kirk then kicks Spock jr in the groin, rips off his shirt and makes out with one of the local girls.
How long before war game training/simulation slides into becoming real-time tactical control of the battlefield?
It's probably already technically possible, and just requires a generational change for the generals to accept it.
The MPAA are justified IMHO in worrying about p2p use on campuses. There is really no argument that movie downloading is a problem for traditional cinema and DVD sales.
But this attitude of "War on P2P" is a failure: it's a failure because framing the discussion in terms of right and wrong misses the point, it's a failure because it will alienate a generation of consumers and artists, and it's a failure because it will get in the way of developing long-term business models based more accurately on what people actually want and are willing to pay for.
It's impossible to force people - through policing, through DRM, through marketing - to pay for something they can get for free. I can't think of any examples where this has worked. It's like the many laws that try to mandate what people can do in private (sex, drugs, rock'n roll). The laws sound fine, but they fail.
The movie industry (like the music industry) must move to models of higher-volume, lower prices, and (most importantly) much lower internal costs. There is no reason why this business should have fatter profit margins than - say - retailing.
The media industries will say that the risk and cost of promoting unknown artists or failed movies means they need fat profits on successful ones. But this is a circular argument: using the new distribution and promotion models that the Internet affords makes it _extremely_ cheap to produce and promote new talent.
Anyhow, the pattern is classic: the industry will scream and kick, blackmail and sue, get government and industry support, and finally collapse as new young rivals (probably from other countries where vested interests form less of a barrier) storm the market with products that the consumer _really_ wants.
Windows a specific product, not a technology. The technology would be the operating system. An OS is based on a series of other technologies, most obviously compilers, networking, disk management systems, kernel models, etc.
Since these underlying technologies have been zero-priced since the 1980's (mainly thanks to Unix), the OS as a technology has indeed fallen into the zero-price domain as well.
In other words: a small team can today build a product that competes fairly well with Windows, using off-the-shelf technology. This was not true 10 years ago.
Windows is not free, but it obviously has found itself right in the middle of the zero-price zone.
Software, like much technology, follows a classic cycle from rare/expensive to common/cheap as the knowledge and means required to build it get cheaper.
"Moore's Law" is simply the application of this general law to hardware. But it applies also to software.
Free software is an expression of this cycle: at the point where the individual price paid by a group of developers to collaborate on a project falls below some amount (which is some function of a commercial license cost), they will naturally tend to produce a free version.
This is my theory, anyhow.
We can use this theory to predict where and how free software will be developed: there must be a market (i.e. enough developers who need it to also make it) and the technology required to build it must be itself very cheap (what I'd call 'zero-price').
History is full of examples of this: every large scale free software domain is backed by technologies and tools that themselves have fallen into the zero-price domain.
Thus we can ask: what technology is needed to build products like Gelato, and how close is this coming to the zero-price domain?
Incidentally, a corollary of this theory is that _all_ software domains will eventually fall into the zero-price domain.
And a second corollary is that this process can be mapped and predicted to some extent.
Using "safe" languages just displaces the problem.
For example, the obnoxious CoolWebSearch trojan gets into computers via a hole in the MSIE Java runtime.
Further, the number of infections caused by code weaknesses is probably far less than the number caused by social weaknesses - "Click on me!"
Malware is much more than a technical phenomenon, although it certainly was born as one.
For me, given that the scope of malware to get past our defenses seems almost infinite, it is much more interesting to look at this from other angles:
- Socioeconomic: who is paying for development of malware, and with what intentions? Healthy paranoia suggests that there is an organized agenda to take over and subvert large parts of the Net. Heck, several such agendas, probably, fighting it out.
- pseudo-Biological: can malware be modelled using biological models and can this help us fight it? I've argued in my journal that yes, this is a valid way of looking at malware, and may be the key to fighting it.
- political: given the potential (or real) power of malware to subvert and control large parts of the Net, should we ignore the inevitable political interest this will cause? If I was a spook, I'd be aiming to use malware to (a) spy on foreign governments, (b) spy on my own citizens, (c) act as a launchpad for cyberattacks.
- commercial: what value can be placed on "here is n% of the Net, to do with as you please..." Probably very high. Where there is value, a market of buyers and sellers will develop. Has probably already developed.
Very funny.
/. than I do answering email, for instance.
:)
Slashdot is a important source of info (indeed) and I type very quickly, the bollocks does not take a lot of time. I spend significantly less time on
But you say you "were running yours"... past tense? What happened? If you're a particularly good programmer and happen to live in Belgium, maybe you want to send me your CV.
"I've lost my luggage!"
"No, your luggage is smarter than you and has decided to go to California for the winter. Have a nice stay in Jacksonville!"
Seriously: RFID tags on luggage is a good idea, as any traveller wondering where the heck his suitcase went to will tell you. The systems will have teething problems, but today's barcode tickers are not 100% successful either. I've been stranded without luggage at two destinations in a year, both times I had to buy a set of clothes on arrival. In one case it took 4 weeks for my luggage to make it home.
Actually, there is a fairly universal concept of "right" and "wrong" with respect to human society. Human culture is not infinitely plastic. It is a product, invariably, of a standard human nature.
All cultures have similar kinds of internal conflicts, and the most classic one is between the individual and the "state", or the larger group.
And all states go through phases where they try to assert more control over the individual than is healthy. An extreme case would be North Korea. Such excessive control is so uneconomical that we eventually get a balance of power in which the state provides individuals with liberty in return for taxes and basic obedience.
When we seek to "impose our standards" on other states, all we're doing is saying: "hey, it's pointless to kill your dissidents and hang your thieves, pointless to ban women from education and turn religion into a tool of mind control..." We say this because we've been through it, and know that it's bad stuff.
... are real of course.
What is not real is the suggestion that human liberty and freedom is culturally dependent. That is a lie used by repressive governments to justify policies that really only serve their own interests.
There have been many attempts in Western nations to repress individual rights because of the "common interest", and these rightly strike us as barbaric. No reason to apply different standards to other countries just because they are different.
However... the day I see an electorate in a "culturally different" country freely and democratically vote for a regime that restricts human rights, I'll change my mind.
but turning them into reality is brutally hard work.
Honestly: one lunch with some intelligent company and a little wine can produce enough ideas for five years' work. No big deal.
ROTFL. More and more of the world's population move into cities, despite them being "obsolete"?
Cities are efficient and will only become obsolete when a plague or disaster reduces human population to 0.01% of its current levels.
Does it run on Linux?
Do I still want to write non-portable code in 2004? Apparently MSVC produces better code then gcc on Windows, but is that reason enough to use it rather than (e.g.) cygwin?
As a programmer, I insist on platforms that are 100% portable, so that my code can survive any OS and vendor changes. At the very least a commercial compiler must implement the standard language and libraries so that my code is portable.
Still, this is a good move for Microsoft and I welcome it.
Your arguments are long but poor.
Maglev is considerably more costly than TGV but this is justified on grounds of "speed", to compete with air travel. However, since air travel is subsidised through cheap (untaxed!) fuel, the comparison is economically flawed. Europe has demonstrated the feasibilty of large-scale TGV networks that compete favourably with air travel.
The "uses existing infrastructure" argument for TGVs is not a minor detail, it is the key to bringing new services into existing urban areas. And if you can't bring the train into Central Station, it is pretty useless.
Most commuters drive to work to make pencils? What country do you live in? Most car owners do service jobs that can be wholly or partly done remotely, either from smaller regional offices, or from home. The 'cubicle farms' of US corporations are a totally senseless way of bringing employees together.
Your comment on carpooling is unanswerable. How does the cost of something relate to its efficient/inefficient use? If I say that electricity is too cheap, is that an argument against using insulation? Carpooling saves resources, and is a _good thing_ period.
Cities... actually one of the most efficient ways of living, in terms of cost to the environment per head. Much more efficient than suburbia. Without the economic distortions of cheap roads and fuel, more people would live in cities and cities would become more compact, and nicer places. And there would be more of them, but fewer areas of endless suburbia.
More compact cities, getting around by bike, foot, and simple but efficient public transport, there is no contradiction here, rather a recipe for much happier living with less stress.
But... perhaps you enjoy spending 3-4 hours a day behind the wheel of a car. Personally I find that one of the greatest tragedies of modern life, and I'm very happy to be able to avoid it.
Maglev is extraordinarily expensive, noisy, and an engineering solution to what is a civil problem - commuting.
If maglev is what it takes to move people off the roads, I pity our civilization.
What about ordinary (cheap) trains, faster conventional trains (like Europe's TGVs) or living closer to work, or working more via Internet, or carpooling?
The best way to avoid commuting is for people to move back into the cities, to walk to work, to downsize the huge companies into smaller human-sized organizations, to live on a human scale. The best way to connect large countries is through high-speed trains that use conventional rail technology. It does not happen today for one simple reason: the artificially low cost of travelling by car and by air (thanks to subsidies on roads and on fuel).
The War on Spam sounds great, and I'm sure every citizen is happy their politicians are taking such draconian measures. Ditto for the spam fighters, who will get nice shiny boxes and new powers to help in the fight. But it won't work and for simple reasons.
One: spammers have huge networks of zombied computers at their disposal and can send spam almost entirely undetectably.
Two: this legislation does not affect the companies actually selling their products via spam. Thus it simply acts as a darwinian filter, eliminating the spammers stupid enough to remain in US jurisdiction and allow their identities to be tracked (see point one).
Three: there are already more effective ways to get the consumers' attention, and by legislating against spam, these will simply become more used. Mainly, I'm thinking of spyware/trojans like CoolWebSearch.
A realistic attack on spam and the rest must be focussed on the people paying for such services, i.e. advertisers. They must be liable for the cost and moral damage their marketing causes, as in any other domain. Further we need some changes to the policy of "receiver pays" which is the basic reason why spam exists at all.
But as so often, this attack on spammers is too little, too late, and ignores what is a much more serious problem: spyware, trojans, and worms that spread via security holes in MSIE and Windows.
ClearChannel are a failing business?
Aren't they practically in a monopoly situation and trying to keep it that way?
... turning off your TV?
I cancelled my TV subscription when I moved house about 4 years ago, and have resisted getting a TV in ouir new home. My wife took about 3 months to adapt, but survived. I rediscovered my evenings.
TV is very close to a drug. I guess it provides many people with a virtual social exposure with no interaction: sitting still, getting bombarded with faces and voices is kind of bizarre when you think of it. Since program makers can't increase the amount consumed (limited hours in a day), they increase the dose by making TV ever more intense.
Turning of my TV was hard, very much like stopping drinking coffee or alcohol, but worthwhile for me.
It eliminates the weak and forces the rest to get stronger.
SCO and Microsoft (and Sun) are predators as far as the OSS community is concerned, and although they will cause much suffering and trauma, the result will be stronger and more successful OSS firms.
That arresting your clients is not a productive tactic.
No-one argues about the rights and wrongs of copying movies like this. However the story is right on wrt:
- the likely success of this strategy, which is zero
- the value of jail sentences for such a crime, which is highly debatable
Indeed, like the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on poverty, and so many other "wars", this is likely to turn into a self-justifying game of power in which the "good guys" get to run riot with technology and funds, the "bad guys" stay one step ahead because they are, after all, in it for the money, and the general public is totally ignored if not actively abused.
Projectionists with night goggles? Crooks will use smaller and less visible cameras. Cinemas install permanent video recording of the public? Crooks will use button hole recorders. Cinemas do stop/search at entry? crooks will use eye-glass recorders. Cinemas force the public to go through security barriers?
The key argument here is whether the strategy can work, and clearly it can't.
There is a better way to stop people making poor copies of movies in cinemas: provide high-quality digital downloads for $4.95, make cinemas more fun to visit (and cheaper!), and make the films so good that people want to buy the DVDs for their collections.
The rules say the subject must be in ASCII. They should have said "7-bit US-ASCII". Still, it's probably a non-starter. I can't see a single spammer complying with this.
For one thing, simple Darwinian competition means that spammers who comply will be at a disadvantage to those who do not, and will thus be eliminated.
Regulation does not prevent crime, it just moves it elsewhere. Crime - like spamming - must be prevented by making it uneconomical.
It should be a federal crime to _advertise_ via spammers, via spyware, and via trojans under the basic regulation covering consumer rights. Hitting the advertisers rather than the spammers would have a much greater impact.
The International Federation of Spammers and Spyware Merchants announced that they planned to fully cooperate with all US federal regulations covering the transmission of unsolicited messages by email.
IFSS president Biggus R. Dickus said, "we are a responsible, family-oriented group of businessmen. Anyone who says otherwise can come and complain personally."
The FCC announced itself "very pleased" with the comments from the IFSS.
It's just had to change its name and location, due to an interstellar court action from Microsoft, which has claimed that the term "lunar" infringes on the term "Windows", given the obvious phonetic similarity.
When Sedna's lu--r object has found a new name, and shaken off Microsoft's legal team, it will reappear.
Except in Benelux.
It's a bit weak.
Actually, it really sucks. Sorry, Michael Robertson, but you could have done better.
"LindOS" cuts it better.