In which case, wrap the software in a web service outside the patent zone. Then your software would call an external routine.
In many ways, the sooner we all get exposed at an end-user level to the evils of software patents, the sooner they'll get worked around and eventually destroyed.
Go ahead and contribute. Buy some stickers. $3? Hardly going to hurt.
People are incredibly mean about donating to OSS projects. So, you get an office suite for $0, saving you a few hundred bucks on an alternative, and you can't even send them $5?
People are often pleading for funds. Often, they've developed something as "itching a scratch", but often that's not sustainable.
The sums would make a huge difference if everyone chipped in even a couple of bucks. If OpenOffice.org got $5 from every user, that would be millions of dollars. Imagine how much development work could be done with that.
And if you've bought a "built" PC from a number of retailers I could mention in the UK, you'll get some obscure modem that no-ones heard of, whose driver cannot be downloaded from the website.
1. Why does stuff "just work instantly"? Because the vast majority of users are on Windows. So device drivers are built for Windows.
2. Yes. Applications matter. Now, why do people write software for Windows? Because the vast majority of users are on Windows.
3. Again, people want to play games. And Linux isn't that great, because it has no games. Why doesn't it have no games and Windows does? Because the vast majority of users are on Windows.
The "something really extraordinary" is the tipping point, where Linux reaches a point in terms of users where it becomes worthwhile software writers, game writers and hardware companies making provision for it.
In fact, it won't strictly speaking be a tipping point but more of a slide. Let's say hypothetically that someone running a small company would like to go Linux but can't because they use project management software like maybe MS Project. Now, someone offers an open source project management tool, maybe not as powerful, but good enough for that company, which means they can switch. This not only means that they've converted, but they've raised the installed base of Linux by a number of users, which accelerates the development of further OSS or commercial software.
The thing is, I've read some things on a website where people are saying that it's the sexist HP board that's to blame for her demise. Now, that is ludicrous.
People should deal with the fact and be honest that sometimes women and ethnic minorities can screw up as much as men.
I wish a few more people would look to Anne Mulcahy at Xerox, a woman who got down to business and got the job done (and turned Xerox's fortunes around). How much noise has been made about her?
There's also a lesson about hiring from within IMO (male or female).
I'm sure it happens, but if I'm investing my money in a tech stock, I expect there to be some R&D that goes nowhere, and to take it on trust that well managed R&D often delivers results.
Good post. And by the way, privatisation of services doesn't much help either. It still means the end user has to deal with a monopoly, who can't get fired, and hence there's a monoculture.
Quite true. The difference is that in nearly all industries, someone else can try and do it better. Don't like a supplier, go elsewhere. That's the free market. Or maybe you'd like your printer mandated, or your choice of ISP mandated.
The alternative was tried in Eastern Europe during the cold war. It resulted in shops that had no food, where people had to queue for hours and the cars were dirty, unreliable and inefficient.
Look at PCs. The free market has given us PC hardware that cost a fraction of what it cost a decade ago, and runs a heck of a lost better. You think Intel and AMD would work their butts out if they had a monopoly?
Certai things are just simpler as monopolies. Water, Fire Services, Police. The bureaucracy you'd have to create around private choice is too complex.
I just don't believe you need it for wi-fi.
I'm not debating access to wi-fi as a public good, actually. I think often there is a case for government funding things. In the UK, if you are on benefits, you get free eyesight tests. But, they are provided by a private optician who claims it back. But because there are multiple providers, competition happens which improves efficiency, innovation and quality.
Firstly, let's see my full paragraph:-
It's not the free market when government pays for free wi-fi, because it's doing something no different to companies dumping products unfairly - absuing a monopoly position.
Secondly, you've misinterpreted what I've said. I didn't say that public libraries are a monopoly. If you like though, I will say that public libraries are provided by a monopoly, and their funding is from a monopoly. Government is a monopoly. You have a choice in who you pay your taxes to? No. Thank you. Monopoly.
Thirdly, the product isn't being offered for $0. Unless you presume the people the government gets to provide the wi-fi are going to do it all for free. Someone's going to get paid.
The government is a monopoly and they will be providing services below cost, due to their other income. That's income that the private wi-fi providers aren't going to have access to, and therefore it's not free. Those guys are going to have to outperform the governments service and then some. It's like the EU subsidising farmers, even though many of us would rather pay for imports from outside - the importers can't compete because it's not a level playing field. I've had my taxes given to EU farmers which means that it's even harder for me to choose someone outside the EU, but I had no choice on those taxes.
Just give people the choice. If there's a problem of poverty, give vouchers to people who are on low incomes, but let them choose the supplier. Government monopolies just yield bad results.
I've heard some arguments from people in the southern states about leaving the union. Seriously, wouldn't the rest of the US be better off without them?
That is a good point. In some cases, certain things (where the infrastructure is very expensive, or basically relies on being a monopoly) - eg electricity, water - is often best supplied by government.
Private monopolies are as bad as public ones.
The best way to give people who can't afford wi-fi the option is to have them make the choice of provider and the state can reimburse them. That's what we do in the UK with things like opticians.
What will happen if government provides free wi-fi? Firstly, you'll pay for it anyway through taxation.
Then, if they don't deliver, you'll keep paying for it, but you'll end up having to fork out from your own pocket to pay for someone else to do the job properly.
It's not the free market when government pays for free wi-fi, because it's doing something no different to companies dumping products unfairly - absuing a monopoly position.
The result of government control, provision or over-regulation is nearly always bad service, and often expensive.
You may have a point there. Those numbers are eerily close to another set of percentages that we've seen recently here in the US, and I'd have to say I'm in the 49% that was forced into taking something I didn't want.
Which is exactly why government should be limited in what it does, because it can force one set of people to have something based on the desires of another set of people.
I know business people who are already renting "services" via the web. CRM software for one. If you are a 3-4 person office, the cost of getting a server and software installed and configured can be quite a dent. If you can rent the service for a few hundred dollars a year, it's cheaper. You know the software is getting maintained and updated centrally, so no patching at your end. It will run on more reliable hardware. It will get backed up. They can get their data anywhere on the road.
I already do it with route planners. I have a legit copy of Autoroute, but it's uninstalled. The reason is that I know that Michelin will be up-to-date with roads, when I use it, it will be patched to the best level, and new features can be added simply. It also means that I don't have a chunk of my hard drive with it on. It's just a service I use.
I think word processing and drawing packages will be the last to go, and people may keep them on their hard drives. But things like project management tools would be excellent as web based - set up a project via the browser, staff input their progress via the browser, clients can monitor progress via the browser. As a PM I'd love that.
I don't think they care less about the OS, as long as it can reach their services.
The next big battle in computing is software as service vs software on PC. I bet it's a battle that Microsoft doesn't want to deal with, but I have little doubt that it's the direction that everything will go.
There's already things like CRM solutions on the web. A lot of software has been or is getting beat by the web (route planners, encyclopedias, movie lookups). If someone made a project management tool like MS Project, but which you could rent and manage the whole thing via the web, people would start shifting to it in huge numbers. If Google made a calendar to work with Gmail, I'm sure that people would start uninstalling Outlook.
The web is simple. No software, no installs, less chances of viruses, more choice of clients. Get your data whereever you want. You just need the bandwidth and servers (both of which are getting cheaper and cheaper).
I think that ultimately it's where things are heading. If not now, then in 3, 5 or 10 years. It's going to happen. It's just the simple solution.
There are a few reasons why it may work where it didn't before.
1. A lot of the users on the web are not geeks like they were during Oracle's plan. People could admin their own machines. The internet has many people who aren't capable in that way. They are the people shopping or booking holidays. They are people who are probably using their PCs far more for connecting to web sites than anything else.
2. Viruses/Spyware etc have gone through the roof. People would rather maintain their own stuff.
3. Mobile devices. Better to have your data on a store than have it on multiple copies.
4. Familiarity and ubiquity of web. In the oracle times, people were still using a lot of desktop stuff that's now on the web. Think how much and how many people already use the web to get information, where in 1998 they probably had Encarta and used Autoroute.
5. More connectivity in and outside of businesses. Want to share a document with a supplier? In 1998, a lot of businesses I knew didn't want to go near the idea of their PCs being connected to the net. They had separate machines not connected to the main network.
Slashdot Mirror
The EU is overrun with regulation, and the US with debt.
Africa and Asia are poor and hungry and keen. EU and USA are like stagnant old fart companies thinking they've got a right to a market.
You got a hyperlink to the proposed text of it?
In many ways, the sooner we all get exposed at an end-user level to the evils of software patents, the sooner they'll get worked around and eventually destroyed.
It's now pretty obvious to me that it's a corrupt organisation. Maybe I should get a house in Guernsey before the rush.
Move servers to somewhere outside of the "patent zone".
People are incredibly mean about donating to OSS projects. So, you get an office suite for $0, saving you a few hundred bucks on an alternative, and you can't even send them $5?
People are often pleading for funds. Often, they've developed something as "itching a scratch", but often that's not sustainable.
The sums would make a huge difference if everyone chipped in even a couple of bucks. If OpenOffice.org got $5 from every user, that would be millions of dollars. Imagine how much development work could be done with that.
If there was a market for games on Linux, the tools would get written. All part of the chicken and egg.
And if you've bought a "built" PC from a number of retailers I could mention in the UK, you'll get some obscure modem that no-ones heard of, whose driver cannot be downloaded from the website.
The "something really extraordinary" is the tipping point, where Linux reaches a point in terms of users where it becomes worthwhile software writers, game writers and hardware companies making provision for it.
In fact, it won't strictly speaking be a tipping point but more of a slide. Let's say hypothetically that someone running a small company would like to go Linux but can't because they use project management software like maybe MS Project. Now, someone offers an open source project management tool, maybe not as powerful, but good enough for that company, which means they can switch. This not only means that they've converted, but they've raised the installed base of Linux by a number of users, which accelerates the development of further OSS or commercial software.
People should deal with the fact and be honest that sometimes women and ethnic minorities can screw up as much as men.
I wish a few more people would look to Anne Mulcahy at Xerox, a woman who got down to business and got the job done (and turned Xerox's fortunes around). How much noise has been made about her?
There's also a lesson about hiring from within IMO (male or female).
Was she in marketing there when the coffee stain logo came in?
The hip hop Bratz are one of the major reasons for the decline of Barbie. I'm not sure how much it has to do with modern feminism
I'm sure it happens, but if I'm investing my money in a tech stock, I expect there to be some R&D that goes nowhere, and to take it on trust that well managed R&D often delivers results.
Good post. And by the way, privatisation of services doesn't much help either. It still means the end user has to deal with a monopoly, who can't get fired, and hence there's a monoculture.
The alternative was tried in Eastern Europe during the cold war. It resulted in shops that had no food, where people had to queue for hours and the cars were dirty, unreliable and inefficient.
Look at PCs. The free market has given us PC hardware that cost a fraction of what it cost a decade ago, and runs a heck of a lost better. You think Intel and AMD would work their butts out if they had a monopoly?
I just don't believe you need it for wi-fi.
I'm not debating access to wi-fi as a public good, actually. I think often there is a case for government funding things. In the UK, if you are on benefits, you get free eyesight tests. But, they are provided by a private optician who claims it back. But because there are multiple providers, competition happens which improves efficiency, innovation and quality.
Secondly, you've misinterpreted what I've said. I didn't say that public libraries are a monopoly. If you like though, I will say that public libraries are provided by a monopoly, and their funding is from a monopoly. Government is a monopoly. You have a choice in who you pay your taxes to? No. Thank you. Monopoly.
Thirdly, the product isn't being offered for $0. Unless you presume the people the government gets to provide the wi-fi are going to do it all for free. Someone's going to get paid.
The government is a monopoly and they will be providing services below cost, due to their other income. That's income that the private wi-fi providers aren't going to have access to, and therefore it's not free. Those guys are going to have to outperform the governments service and then some. It's like the EU subsidising farmers, even though many of us would rather pay for imports from outside - the importers can't compete because it's not a level playing field. I've had my taxes given to EU farmers which means that it's even harder for me to choose someone outside the EU, but I had no choice on those taxes.
Just give people the choice. If there's a problem of poverty, give vouchers to people who are on low incomes, but let them choose the supplier. Government monopolies just yield bad results.
I've heard some arguments from people in the southern states about leaving the union. Seriously, wouldn't the rest of the US be better off without them?
Private monopolies are as bad as public ones.
The best way to give people who can't afford wi-fi the option is to have them make the choice of provider and the state can reimburse them. That's what we do in the UK with things like opticians.
Then, if they don't deliver, you'll keep paying for it, but you'll end up having to fork out from your own pocket to pay for someone else to do the job properly.
It's not the free market when government pays for free wi-fi, because it's doing something no different to companies dumping products unfairly - absuing a monopoly position.
The result of government control, provision or over-regulation is nearly always bad service, and often expensive.
Which is exactly why government should be limited in what it does, because it can force one set of people to have something based on the desires of another set of people.
I know business people who are already renting "services" via the web. CRM software for one. If you are a 3-4 person office, the cost of getting a server and software installed and configured can be quite a dent. If you can rent the service for a few hundred dollars a year, it's cheaper. You know the software is getting maintained and updated centrally, so no patching at your end. It will run on more reliable hardware. It will get backed up. They can get their data anywhere on the road.
I already do it with route planners. I have a legit copy of Autoroute, but it's uninstalled. The reason is that I know that Michelin will be up-to-date with roads, when I use it, it will be patched to the best level, and new features can be added simply. It also means that I don't have a chunk of my hard drive with it on. It's just a service I use.
I think word processing and drawing packages will be the last to go, and people may keep them on their hard drives. But things like project management tools would be excellent as web based - set up a project via the browser, staff input their progress via the browser, clients can monitor progress via the browser. As a PM I'd love that.
The next big battle in computing is software as service vs software on PC. I bet it's a battle that Microsoft doesn't want to deal with, but I have little doubt that it's the direction that everything will go.
There's already things like CRM solutions on the web. A lot of software has been or is getting beat by the web (route planners, encyclopedias, movie lookups). If someone made a project management tool like MS Project, but which you could rent and manage the whole thing via the web, people would start shifting to it in huge numbers. If Google made a calendar to work with Gmail, I'm sure that people would start uninstalling Outlook.
The web is simple. No software, no installs, less chances of viruses, more choice of clients. Get your data whereever you want. You just need the bandwidth and servers (both of which are getting cheaper and cheaper).
There are a few reasons why it may work where it didn't before.
1. A lot of the users on the web are not geeks like they were during Oracle's plan. People could admin their own machines. The internet has many people who aren't capable in that way. They are the people shopping or booking holidays. They are people who are probably using their PCs far more for connecting to web sites than anything else.
2. Viruses/Spyware etc have gone through the roof. People would rather maintain their own stuff.
3. Mobile devices. Better to have your data on a store than have it on multiple copies.
4. Familiarity and ubiquity of web. In the oracle times, people were still using a lot of desktop stuff that's now on the web. Think how much and how many people already use the web to get information, where in 1998 they probably had Encarta and used Autoroute.
5. More connectivity in and outside of businesses. Want to share a document with a supplier? In 1998, a lot of businesses I knew didn't want to go near the idea of their PCs being connected to the net. They had separate machines not connected to the main network.
Couldn't the guys at Apple made a plugin to make Jar-Jar disappear with it?