Is there an organized group involved in trying to take control of the Internet through the nefarious means of planting virus and trojan software on a critical mass of systems from which they can launch deadly attacks to take over the entire Internet?
Ahem. No MSN, Kazaa or AOL jokes please. This is a serious question.
IBM stole my idea even before I thought of it. Almost down to the "connected on all six sides" aspect.
Frankly nice to see my brain is still working. Only... IBM have made their bricks all the same size and one color.
This is boring. The fun starts when the bricks are all colors and shapes.
Control over hardware - why it does not matter
on
Hacking the XBox
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Microsoft may (and this is debatable) be aiming for control over a trusted hardware platform. Applying Occam's razor suggests they want to lock down the Xbox to prevent piracy of their games.
Honestly: does anyone here believe a large company can build a secure system? Security (be it in hardware, software, or bricks) depends on human beings, and the larger the company the more weak links there are.
Microsoft cannot be so stupid as to actually believe a secure box is possible. It is not.
And... if it was... who cares? Hardware is a commodity and there will always be someone happy to build and sell a 'untrusted' platform.
Paranoia over trusted computing is OK, but don't forget that we're talking about corporations that are basically incompetent when it comes to security.
Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft
on
Hacking the XBox
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Just an idea.
Many people run Windows solely for the games. Without the games, switching to Linux is easier. Now move all the games to Xboxes.
Voila! The desktop is now unencumbered and can move to Linux easily.
So stop trying to hack the XBox and promote it instead. Port all those cool Windows games?
SCO (ex-Caldera) is run by lawyers, and they are not stupid nor crazy. Clearly they have a plan and it justifies putting their company at total risk.
Assume for a second that this case goes to court. What are the chances that it will be resolved quickly? Not good. The matter is arcane enough that it will spend several years going through judgement, appeal, judgement, appeal, as long as SCO can pay their own (cheap) legal fees.
What on earth can SCO be after? I don't believe it's a settlement from IBM. They _know_ IBM, a company that has always lived by the fist.
What else? Their business is bankrupt. They sell _nothing_. Their IP is worthless - indeed, realizing this may have been the trigger that set them on their course.
Nuisance value, that is their game. They are attacking Linux and all OSS by association, and they are attacking it a level that plays directly to the paranoia of managers making a Windows / Linux choice today. What SCO are saying, and getting lots of attention to, is that Linux/OSS is not a safe choice. Even IBM are likely to be sued. How about your business next? If the RIAA can sue ten thousand P2P users, why can't SCO sue ten thousand Linux users?
Normal decent paranoia suggests that Microsoft's hand and money lie behind this move, but that is not the crux of the matter.
What is important is that we are at the stage when Linux/OSS seriously threatens commercial interests, and this looks like an undeclared war by those interests against it. War is not nice, not decent, not logical.
Such attacks can go either way. Linux has never has so much publicity as during the last weeks, and the association IBM+Linux is now strongly in the minds of many managers. This is a good thing. People trust IBM.
The OSS community must counter attack. The best approach would be a collective libel and defamation suit by some thousand OSS developers, seeking punitive damages against SCO.
Such a suit would not win but it would show SCO that their opponents are not helpless nerds unable to understand the meaning of cold, hard steel. Knives out!!
Perhaps someone from the EFF would set up a campaign fund? I would gladly contribute $50 or $100 if it would result in SCO getting slapped with a suit.
This is a very strange comparison to make. OSS _is_ commodity software, by its very nature. You cannot get more commodity than perl, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Linux. Open standards are the only basis for true commodity software: TCP/IP, HTTP, etc.
Commercial software is not a commodity, it is the opposite, a corral in which users are captured and bled.
RMS' of course predicted the "Looting of OSS" (or rather was one of the first lootees) and this is why the GPL is so important. The looters become part of the movement.
My company does not pay for its payroll software. We employ a company to do the payroll, and we update and access our data by Internet. The software (which is extremely complex given Belgium's payroll legislation) is, to all extents, free. Of course we pay something for the service but it is not excessive.
This is commodity software. Made possible by standardization and cheap communications. Thinking "sourceforge" is thinking too small, and you will see that I've repeated that OSS is only _one_ of the routes to free software (free as in beer) and probably not the most interesting for business process automation.
Obviously there is an infinite space that is always beyond commoditization. But raising this is a meaningless argument. We are discussing the ground that has been covered, not the infinite space remaining. Hey, I can't connect Apache to my bluetooth headset either, does that mean cheap software does not exist?
My business runs on cheap and free software. This is not a metaphor, it's a fact, and it's one that was unthinkable only a decade ago.
In which the "computer" consists of a number of bricks, assembled much like the child's toy "Lego". The bricks come in standard sizes, half-height, double-length, etc. There are bricks for computing, bricks for storage, bricks for power, for backups, and for i/o.
To assemble a "system" you simply choose your bricks and click them together. Bricks have universal connectors in each "bump" which exchange power and information.
Implementation: each brick is a complete computer, and the "system" is a network cluster. A "storage" brick is simply a PC with a fat HD. A "memory" brick being one with lots of RAM.
When I want a new server, I can simply assemble one from bricks that are lying around. When a PC gets too slow, I can replace or add a computing brick. There is no limit to the size of a system: I could plug together hundreds of random bricks to build a computing wall or desk.
The bricks are built to some specifications so that the OS can work with them easily. But competition between manufacturers will ensure that the most innovative and tasteful bricks are the most popular.
The Bricks OS has no concept of file systems. Instead user spaces are automagically synchronized between storage bricks. No backups are ever needed because all available space is always used to keep redundant copies of data.
Personal user spaces can be held on small bricks that are eminently portable and can be connected to portable power supplies and foldable LCDs (hey, I saw this in/. today!) to create instant portable systems.
Lastly, security. All bricks are marked with a sticker reading "Steal me and the RIAA will sue you!"
Commodity software is a commodity, and the surprise is that there is such a thing at all.
Anything custom built always costs more: clothes, cars, software, food. So what? Does the high cost of good cuisine mean that basic foods are not cheap? Does the high cost of fashionable clothes negate the fact that commodity jeans and t-shirts are now so cheap that everyone, even in the poorest places, can afford them?
To be accurate, that is Gates' First Corollary to Heironymous' Law. Gates' Second Corollary is "software reliability falls by half every 18 months".
I agree that "software you want" is always pricy, but this applies to cars, clothes, women, and most everything. No-one really wants commodity items. That does not make them less cheap.
Let me list some of the drivers of Heironymous' Law:
- cheaper hardware
- cheaper communications
- software portability
- standardization
- state of the art (but this is a minor one, sadly)
- level of abstraction
The most obvious manifestation of Heironymous' Law is OSS, but it's only one. Software by wire is more subtle but just as real. Cheap developers from across the world ($200 per month for an Indian developer) is the way to get that luxury feel at a knock-down price.
>no large company trusts open source software to run stuff like their accounting system...
Possibly not. But real software costs are going down a lot faster than you might believe. Look, for instance, at the symptom of software 'bloat'. This is nothing more than vendors trying to maintain the price of their goods by adding more and more features. The actual cost of each individual feature drops, and very quickly.
Very much like hardware, actually.
The day will come when the majority of businesses get their accounting packages for free and will wonder why anyone would ever pay for such a thing. If it's not OSS, it will be software-by-wire, like the CRM system you mentioned (and like systems my company makes). OSS is not the only route to free or nearly-free software, and probably not the best route for certain kinds of work.
Various things hide the trend, but the trend is there.
People with their heads down writing books fail to look around them, they are inevitably 3-4 years out of date, and their advice always smells like old socks. This book would have been great in 1998, but in 2003 it's useless. More and more software is a commodity, and not an investment any more than electricity or coffee is. "Treat your coffee machine as a partner". Well, maybe. The truth is that commercial software companies still live by over-selling their wares, and it's an untenable business. "Heironymous' Law", which I proposed a day or so ago, states that software costs fall by half every 18 months. That ERP system which cost $1M in 1998 should now cost 32K$. And that's the truth, folks. Only asses still pay $1M today. And for those asses out there, I have this great coffee from 1998 too, only $500 per cup!!
Criticize RMS at your peril. This is a very smart and tough mind who understands clearly the dangers facing free software developers. RMS has spent the last 20 years building structures designed almost exactly to avoid this kind of debacle, in which a widely-used piece of free software falls victim to spurious but dangerously credible IP allegations. Remember Unix? What SCO are doing (with or without MS's help) is putting OSS at serious risk. RMS has defined a fire corridor, putting the Linux kernel on one side and all the rest on the other. Software is incredibly easy to mix up, we hate making boundaries and we love to apply generalistic labels. The fact is that this is a dangerous convenience. GNU (to take one example) represents a vast investment of effort. Being mixed with Linux into one convenient box is not simply frustrating for the GNU team, it also puts GNU at risk. And I don't think I would stand by and watch my life's work being put at risk without speaking out. RMS has the right of reply, after SCO published his misquoted text. Shame, shame, and more shame on those of you who do not respect this man. He is one of the geniuses of our age, a rare and valuable mind. Go home, build one good and solid tool, read the GPL, and consider what it means to dedicate your life to protecting the concept of free software.
Designed by Gurus, built by hackers, crashed by mothers?
Domesticated Pengiuns?
"The OS Your Mother Would Have Made You"
"Linux and Apple Pie"
"Linux, with extra chicken soup"
sorry... the idea of a 'mom test' blew my mind. my mom (at 65) has been using computers for more than 20 years, and i don't think there is any proof that age is a barrier to using linux. how about 'tried lindows on people with a measured IQ of one hundred'.
Sometimes what is most obvious to one person is most unobvious to another. OSS is - to Slashdotters - as obvious as water and sun. To managers, it is a contradictory concept and much of the education has to come in the form of explaining why it is "free". Much of the counter arguments to OSS try to leverage the natural paranoia of business people (GPL virus, OSS patent liability, TCO, etc. etc.).
The simple truth - and this is obvious to any neutral observer - is that the Internet changed the dynamics of the software industry by removing all the previous barriers to organization and communication. What used to require a large organization to produce can now be economically (and this is the key) produced by random professionals in their spare time, by tiny teams working on thin margins, and by organizations who would otherwise do nothing special with the code anyhow.
The key questions about OSS ("who pays?") have been asked before, about the Internet, and we now all know the answers: everyone pays, a little, but since the technology required is so very, very cheap, it comes down to rewarding people's time. And it so happens that for many developers, the product is its own reward.
Software only represents a slice of any business's operation, and whether OSS is free or cheap makes little difference. However, when software is expensive (think SAP or Oracle), it eats so deeply into the business that little is left for other investment.
Managers need first to learn that large swathes of the software landscape are now completely in the domain of "as cheap as air", and only foolish people will still pay for something that their competitors get for nothing.
Managers need secondly to learn that this process keeps on moving. One by one the bastions of commercial software will become commodity items. The businesses with the capacity to be pioneers will always benefit. The rest will follow when the technology curve flattens out and moves into the "general market" and then "late adopter" phase.
OSS is simply a slice of a standard S-shaped technology curve. It's the same curve that drives Moore's Law, and indeed, one can say that software cost has a half-life. One could even estimate this. Allow me to state "Heironymous' Law" of falling software costs: every 18 months, software products fall in cost by half, eventually reaching effective zero.
Which is why we can now get databases, office suites, Beowulf clustering software, etc. etc. etc. for the cost of bandwidth.
Patents, by the way, are a brake on this technology curve, and this is IMHO why those of us who love and feel this curve hate patents so much. Technology wants to be free.
Come on, guys. Netflix are competing with a very large and not-so-gentle adversary, Walmart. They (Netflix) have built up a good business providing their clients with exactly what they want. But their business model has turned into a commodity. Patent protection is an unusual way of protecting business processes but if it works, all power to them. This is one of the better patents I've seen recently - it actually describes true innovation that has been implemented, and actually protects the innovator against competitors who would copy the idea and the model.
Videos, with subtitles. CLicking on subtitles takes you to new pop-over windows. Switching to one of these freezes other windows. Close a main window, the one you come back to starts-up again.
Now _this_ would make video surfing fun. Something like the 'information videos' we see on MTV, but with hyperlinks.
Apple is the new Sony: give people the gadgets they want, and charge a premium for it. Speed is not the killer argument. As long as it's fast enough to digest whatever you throw at it, who cares?
Re:The nicest Unix front-end ever?
on
Jaguar is Over
·
· Score: 1
Moderators, mod up parent insightful. Apple are setting the standard for beautiful GUIs running over Unix. This is worth saying again... Unix is prettier than Windows.
...and that is demand-based pricing. Car lanes represent a fixed capital cost. The price at any time period should reflect demand. When demand is high, prices should rise. When demand is low, prices should fall. This can easily be managed by software. It does not require an Ebay solution. Instead, look at what EasyGroup do...
With some tuning it could be the perfect solution for pricing any products with fixed capital costs. There are probably excellent mathematical models that can calculate the optimal pricing to arrive at a 99% utilization rate.
This would make a valuable OSS project. Now, all that remains to be found is a client willing to pay for such work.:)
Slashdot Mirror
1. Virus writers
2. Spam merchants
3. ???
Is there an organized group involved in
trying to take control of the Internet
through the nefarious means of planting
virus and trojan software on a critical
mass of systems from which they can launch
deadly attacks to take over the entire
Internet?
Ahem. No MSN, Kazaa or AOL jokes please.
This is a serious question.
Holy Shit!
IBM stole my idea even before I thought of it.
Almost down to the "connected on all six sides"
aspect.
Frankly nice to see my brain is still working.
Only... IBM have made their bricks all the same
size and one color.
This is boring. The fun starts when the bricks
are all colors and shapes.
Microsoft may (and this is debatable) be aiming for control over a trusted hardware platform. Applying Occam's razor suggests they want to lock down the Xbox to prevent piracy of their games.
Honestly: does anyone here believe a large company can build a secure system? Security (be it in hardware, software, or bricks) depends on human beings, and the larger the company the more weak links there are.
Microsoft cannot be so stupid as to actually believe a secure box is possible. It is not.
And... if it was... who cares? Hardware is a commodity and there will always be someone happy to build and sell a 'untrusted' platform.
Paranoia over trusted computing is OK, but don't forget that we're talking about corporations that are basically incompetent when it comes to security.
Just an idea.
Many people run Windows solely for the games.
Without the games, switching to Linux is easier.
Now move all the games to Xboxes.
Voila! The desktop is now unencumbered and can
move to Linux easily.
So stop trying to hack the XBox and promote it
instead. Port all those cool Windows games?
Yay, go XBox!!
SCO (ex-Caldera) is run by lawyers, and they are not stupid nor crazy. Clearly they have a plan and it justifies putting their company at total risk.
Assume for a second that this case goes to court. What are the chances that it will be resolved quickly? Not good. The matter is arcane enough that it will spend several years going through judgement, appeal, judgement, appeal, as long as SCO can pay their own (cheap) legal fees.
What on earth can SCO be after? I don't believe it's a settlement from IBM. They _know_ IBM, a company that has always lived by the fist.
What else? Their business is bankrupt. They sell _nothing_. Their IP is worthless - indeed, realizing this may have been the trigger that set them on their course.
Nuisance value, that is their game. They are attacking Linux and all OSS by association, and they are attacking it a level that plays directly to the paranoia of managers making a Windows / Linux choice today. What SCO are saying, and getting lots of attention to, is that Linux/OSS is not a safe choice. Even IBM are likely to be sued. How about your business next? If the RIAA can sue ten thousand P2P users, why can't SCO sue ten thousand Linux users?
Normal decent paranoia suggests that Microsoft's hand and money lie behind this move, but that is not the crux of the matter.
What is important is that we are at the stage when Linux/OSS seriously threatens commercial interests, and this looks like an undeclared war by those interests against it. War is not nice, not decent, not logical.
Such attacks can go either way. Linux has never has so much publicity as during the last weeks, and the association IBM+Linux is now strongly in the minds of many managers. This is a good thing. People trust IBM.
The OSS community must counter attack. The best approach would be a collective libel and defamation suit by some thousand OSS developers, seeking punitive damages against SCO.
Such a suit would not win but it would show SCO that their opponents are not helpless nerds unable to understand the meaning of cold, hard steel. Knives out!!
Perhaps someone from the EFF would set up a campaign fund? I would gladly contribute $50 or $100 if it would result in SCO getting slapped with a suit.
Someone has made a nice commission on this sale.
Even ignoring OSS alternatives, the high unit price means a fat profit for a dealer somewhere.
Bet you a dollar there is a slice of this going back to whoever OK'd the contract. Generals gotta pay for the servants too, y'know!
(Actually, that is not true. One good thing about being a General is that you get all the slave labour you could want.)
This is a very strange comparison to make. OSS _is_ commodity software, by its very nature. You cannot get more commodity than perl, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Linux. Open standards are the only basis for true commodity software: TCP/IP, HTTP, etc.
Commercial software is not a commodity, it is the opposite, a corral in which users are captured and bled.
RMS' of course predicted the "Looting of OSS" (or rather was one of the first lootees) and this is why the GPL is so important. The looters become part of the movement.
My company does not pay for its payroll software. We employ a company to do the payroll, and we update and access our data by Internet. The software (which is extremely complex given Belgium's payroll legislation) is, to all extents, free. Of course we pay something for the service but it is not excessive.
This is commodity software. Made possible by standardization and cheap communications. Thinking "sourceforge" is thinking too small, and you will see that I've repeated that OSS is only _one_ of the routes to free software (free as in beer) and probably not the most interesting for business process automation.
Obviously there is an infinite space that is always beyond commoditization. But raising this is a meaningless argument. We are discussing the ground that has been covered, not the infinite space remaining. Hey, I can't connect Apache to my bluetooth headset either, does that mean cheap software does not exist?
My business runs on cheap and free software. This is not a metaphor, it's a fact, and it's one that was unthinkable only a decade ago.
"...either SOAP or XML over HTTP..."
/gloat
and given this free choice, I predict that SOAP will quickly become a second choice to XML over HTTP (presumably XML/RPC).
Never liked SOAP, so this is a gloat.
(Patent pending)
/. today!) to create instant portable systems.
In which the "computer" consists of a number of bricks, assembled much like the child's toy "Lego". The bricks come in standard sizes, half-height, double-length, etc. There are bricks for computing, bricks for storage, bricks for power, for backups, and for i/o.
To assemble a "system" you simply choose your bricks and click them together. Bricks have universal connectors in each "bump" which exchange power and information.
Implementation: each brick is a complete computer, and the "system" is a network cluster. A "storage" brick is simply a PC with a fat HD. A "memory" brick being one with lots of RAM.
When I want a new server, I can simply assemble one from bricks that are lying around. When a PC gets too slow, I can replace or add a computing brick. There is no limit to the size of a system: I could plug together hundreds of random bricks to build a computing wall or desk.
The bricks are built to some specifications so that the OS can work with them easily. But competition between manufacturers will ensure that the most innovative and tasteful bricks are the most popular.
The Bricks OS has no concept of file systems. Instead user spaces are automagically synchronized between storage bricks. No backups are ever needed because all available space is always used to keep redundant copies of data.
Personal user spaces can be held on small bricks that are eminently portable and can be connected to portable power supplies and foldable LCDs (hey, I saw this in
Lastly, security. All bricks are marked with a sticker reading "Steal me and the RIAA will sue you!"
Commodity software is a commodity, and the surprise is that there is such a thing at all.
Anything custom built always costs more: clothes, cars, software, food. So what? Does the high cost of good cuisine mean that basic foods are not cheap? Does the high cost of fashionable clothes negate the fact that commodity jeans and t-shirts are now so cheap that everyone, even in the poorest places, can afford them?
To be accurate, that is Gates' First Corollary to Heironymous' Law. Gates' Second Corollary is "software reliability falls by half every 18 months".
I agree that "software you want" is always pricy, but this applies to cars, clothes, women, and most everything. No-one really wants commodity items. That does not make them less cheap.
Let me list some of the drivers of Heironymous' Law:
- cheaper hardware
- cheaper communications
- software portability
- standardization
- state of the art (but this is a minor one, sadly)
- level of abstraction
The most obvious manifestation of Heironymous' Law is OSS, but it's only one. Software by wire is more subtle but just as real. Cheap developers from across the world ($200 per month for an Indian developer) is the way to get that luxury feel at a knock-down price.
>no large company trusts open source software to run stuff like their accounting system...
Possibly not. But real software costs are going down a lot faster than you might believe. Look, for instance, at the symptom of software 'bloat'. This is nothing more than vendors trying to maintain the price of their goods by adding more and more features. The actual cost of each individual feature drops, and very quickly.
Very much like hardware, actually.
The day will come when the majority of businesses get their accounting packages for free and will wonder why anyone would ever pay for such a thing. If it's not OSS, it will be software-by-wire, like the CRM system you mentioned (and like systems my company makes). OSS is not the only route to free or nearly-free software, and probably not the best route for certain kinds of work.
Various things hide the trend, but the trend is there.
1. /8 IP addresses are allocated on global basis
2. If there is any shortage it is a global shortage
3. But certainly not an "Asian Problem"
or.
1. Fantasise that 'Asia' actually exists on the Internet
2. ???
3. Panic!!
Come on guys. The original stories were obviously completely brainless.
People with their heads down writing books fail to look around them, they are inevitably 3-4 years out of date, and their advice always smells like old socks.
This book would have been great in 1998, but in 2003 it's useless. More and more software is a commodity, and not an investment any more than electricity or coffee is. "Treat your coffee machine as a partner". Well, maybe.
The truth is that commercial software companies still live by over-selling their wares, and it's an untenable business.
"Heironymous' Law", which I proposed a day or so ago, states that software costs fall by half every 18 months. That ERP system which cost $1M in 1998 should now cost 32K$.
And that's the truth, folks. Only asses still pay $1M today. And for those asses out there, I have this great coffee from 1998 too, only $500 per cup!!
Criticize RMS at your peril. This is a very smart and tough mind who understands clearly the dangers facing free software developers.
RMS has spent the last 20 years building structures designed almost exactly to avoid this kind of debacle, in which a widely-used piece of free software falls victim to spurious but dangerously credible IP allegations. Remember Unix?
What SCO are doing (with or without MS's help) is putting OSS at serious risk. RMS has defined a fire corridor, putting the Linux kernel on one side and all the rest on the other.
Software is incredibly easy to mix up, we hate making boundaries and we love to apply generalistic labels. The fact is that this is a dangerous convenience. GNU (to take one example) represents a vast investment of effort. Being mixed with Linux into one convenient box is not simply frustrating for the GNU team, it also puts GNU at risk. And I don't think I would stand by and watch my life's work being put at risk without speaking out.
RMS has the right of reply, after SCO published his misquoted text.
Shame, shame, and more shame on those of you who do not respect this man. He is one of the geniuses of our age, a rare and valuable mind. Go home, build one good and solid tool, read the GPL, and consider what it means to dedicate your life to protecting the concept of free software.
This sounds about right.
Microsoft believe there is a
market for spam-free email.
And when they identify a
market, they always want 95%.
In the case of email, this
means they need to destroy the
existing open email system
first.
Spam is a huge business.
I have been waiting to see
which way Microsoft would go.
We have been saved from
Windows Spam Server 2004.
Presumably this is because
MS has something better than
Spam up their sleeves.
Never sleep with a smoking
elephant. If it does not roll
over on you, it will set the
bed alight.
Designed by Gurus, built by hackers, crashed by mothers?
Domesticated Pengiuns?
"The OS Your Mother Would Have Made You"
"Linux and Apple Pie"
"Linux, with extra chicken soup"
sorry... the idea of a 'mom test' blew my mind. my mom (at 65) has been using computers for more than 20 years, and i don't think there is any proof that age is a barrier to using linux. how about 'tried lindows on people with a measured IQ of one hundred'.
Sometimes what is most obvious to one person is most unobvious to another. OSS is - to Slashdotters - as obvious as water and sun. To managers, it is a contradictory concept and much of the education has to come in the form of explaining why it is "free". Much of the counter arguments to OSS try to leverage the natural paranoia of business people (GPL virus, OSS patent liability, TCO, etc. etc.).
The simple truth - and this is obvious to any neutral observer - is that the Internet changed the dynamics of the software industry by removing all the previous barriers to organization and communication. What used to require a large organization to produce can now be economically (and this is the key) produced by random professionals in their spare time, by tiny teams working on thin margins, and by organizations who would otherwise do nothing special with the code anyhow.
The key questions about OSS ("who pays?") have been asked before, about the Internet, and we now all know the answers: everyone pays, a little, but since the technology required is so very, very cheap, it comes down to rewarding people's time. And it so happens that for many developers, the product is its own reward.
Software only represents a slice of any business's operation, and whether OSS is free or cheap makes little difference. However, when software is expensive (think SAP or Oracle), it eats so deeply into the business that little is left for other investment.
Managers need first to learn that large swathes of the software landscape are now completely in the domain of "as cheap as air", and only foolish people will still pay for something that their competitors get for nothing.
Managers need secondly to learn that this process keeps on moving. One by one the bastions of commercial software will become commodity items. The businesses with the capacity to be pioneers will always benefit. The rest will follow when the technology curve flattens out and moves into the "general market" and then "late adopter" phase.
OSS is simply a slice of a standard S-shaped technology curve. It's the same curve that drives Moore's Law, and indeed, one can say that software cost has a half-life. One could even estimate this. Allow me to state "Heironymous' Law" of falling software costs: every 18 months, software products fall in cost by half, eventually reaching effective zero.
Which is why we can now get databases, office suites, Beowulf clustering software, etc. etc. etc. for the cost of bandwidth.
Patents, by the way, are a brake on this technology curve, and this is IMHO why those of us who love and feel this curve hate patents so much. Technology wants to be free.
Come on, guys. Netflix are competing with a very large and not-so-gentle adversary, Walmart. They (Netflix) have built up a good business providing their clients with exactly what they want. But their business model has turned into a commodity. Patent protection is an unusual way of protecting business processes but if it works, all power to them.
This is one of the better patents I've seen recently - it actually describes true innovation that has been implemented, and actually protects the innovator against competitors who would copy the idea and the model.
Videos, with subtitles. CLicking on subtitles takes you to new pop-over windows. Switching to one of these freezes other windows. Close a main window, the one you come back to starts-up again.
Now _this_ would make video surfing fun. Something like the 'information videos' we see on MTV, but with hyperlinks.
Apple is the new Sony: give people the gadgets they want, and charge a premium for it. Speed
is not the killer argument. As long as it's
fast enough to digest whatever you throw at it,
who cares?
Moderators, mod up parent insightful. Apple are setting the standard for beautiful GUIs running over Unix. This is worth saying again... Unix is prettier than Windows.
...and that is demand-based pricing.
:)
Car lanes represent a fixed capital cost.
The price at any time period should reflect demand.
When demand is high, prices should rise.
When demand is low, prices should fall.
This can easily be managed by software.
It does not require an Ebay solution.
Instead, look at what EasyGroup do...
With some tuning it could be the perfect
solution for pricing any products with
fixed capital costs. There are probably
excellent mathematical models that can
calculate the optimal pricing to arrive
at a 99% utilization rate.
This would make a valuable OSS project.
Now, all that remains to be found is a
client willing to pay for such work.