I'm of the "Star Trek needs a good long rest" persuasion, myself, but if anyone can revitalize and ailing franchise, it's probably Joe. He has the talent, the background, and the credentials.
It's ironic, though. When Joe first came up with Babylon 5, he pitched it to Paramount. Paramount turned thumbs down on it. Joe pitched elsewhere. What does Paramount come up with next? Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a show about a space station located on the borders of several competing interstellar powers. Coincidence?
Joe reportdly hit the roof, but was careful *not* to blame Rick Berman and the other folks directly involved in ST production. Paramount wished to protect the Trek franchise at all costs, and wasn't about to compete with itself by backing a non-Trek SF show. Whether it decided to sucker punch a possible competitor by bringing out the same idea first remains unknowable.
The problem is that Paramount got a successful franchise largely by accident. Star Trek: TOS was originally cancelled part way through, and brought back through fan pressure. It seems likely that Paramount never really understood *why* it was popular, so successive Star Trek: Whatever's have trod the same old ground, in apparent fear that any actual new ideas would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Personally, I was around when the original series was being aired. It was the best SF on TV at the time, but hasn't aged terribly well.
ST:TNG had some good moments, especially when it worked through the backlog of unproduced scripts bought for the original series and started buying new material. There was at least some attempt to deal with adult themes, even if there were embarassing clunkers.
DS9 had moments as well, especially when they introduced the war with the Dominion. Trek always had a schizophrenic attitude toward Star Fleet. Pointing out that the Enterprise was a capital ship, and if there *was* a war, Star Fleet would fight it produced hand-waving and denial from a lot of folks.
Voyager was simply excreble. I think I managed to watch one episode before giving up in disgust.
I had hopes for Enterprise. A show set early in the chronolgy of the series, detailing the early days of the Federation had promise. Promise that, unsurprisingly, has not been fulfilled. I've avoided it, too.
I have a problem with television that makes an implicit assumption that I'm dumb, and that any show with a few SF tropes and some FX will get me to watch. Dramatic story lines, meaningful characters, interesting plots, good writing? Who needs them? It's got the Trek name on it. It will sell...
Well, not to me, buddy.
Joe might actually be able to create a Trek series worth watching again. I'd love to see it. I'd lay long odds against Paramount saying yes.
______
Dennis
Websites cost money. The cost for the time of the folks who code them and supply the content; they cost for the server reources that host them; and they particularily cost for the bandwidth they use to provide access to them. The more popular a site gets, the greater that last cost becomes.
Where does the money come from? In most cases, advertising. A few sites have successfully implemented a subscription model for "premium" content, but most rely on ads.
Microsoft has a *lot* of money, and can afford to advertise on half the websites in the known universe. It's no surpise they should make a big push on Linux oriented sites, since Linux is thier principal OS competition.
Personally, I'd hold my nose and take the money. The folks who visit sites like Linux Today are usually sophisticated enough to see through the hype, and not be swayed by MS FUD. Those that aren't sophisticated enough are probably not good candidates for conversion to the First Church of Tux in any case.
The alternative for purists may be that the site goes under, because MS ads made the difference between enough revenue to keep going, and losing your shirt.
______
Dennis
A file system is a logical construct layered atop a physical medium. The disk controller sees things in blocks, clusters, and cylinders, but the logical view can be what you like.
There's no reason you *couldn't* use an RDBMS as a file system, and some RDBMS's will let you place the DB on a "raw" device, and provide thier own low-level calls to access it, and bypass the overhead of an OS file system.
And there are systems now where the DBMS is built into the OS instead of being a layered product. See IBM's AS400 for a current example.
Whether it makes sense depends upon what you need to do. The Unix model has the virtue of simplicity, but isn't necessarily the only way to do things.
______
Dennis
Why relational databases? Why not a post relational design? Why not an object oriented database? Everything doesn't map cleanly to the relational model.
Some folks may recall the file systems used on IBM mainframes, where awareness of what various file system objects were was part fo the OS. (VSAM, anyone?) For that matter, see PickOS, a relational DBMS built into the operating system, with a BASIC like language for development as well. A version of Pick was available as a layered product on top of Unix the last I knew, and a PC version called Revelation was also offered.
PickOS grew out of a US government project, but it isn't the only such thing. The IBM System 38 was a lot like that, and the current AS400 is, too.
The predominant Unix model seperated the file system from the application. Unix neither knows nor cares what a file contains. MS-DOS folloewd that model, and Windows did too.
Future Windows versions apparently feature a file system based on SQL Server (which itself derives from Sybase). It will be interesting to see how that works out.
______
Dennis
It's not. Doing that used to be a feature of the Unify RDBMS on Unix platforms. You could choose to place it on a raw device and bypass the Unix filesystem for performance. You needed a fairly big DB to justify it, but it wasn't hard to do.
There are a couple of problems with family businesses, and reasons why hiring friends/relatives can backfire. The fundamental issue will be that your girlfriend and brother will now be your *employees*. If everything works out, that's not a problem, but what if it doesn't?
Let's say thier performance just isn't adequate. Can you *fire* your girlfriend? How about your brother? (And what will happen to your relationship with them if you do?)
Maybe they handle thier jobs just fine, but every business runs into slow patches. What happens if the revenue to pay thier salaries just isn't there, and you have to lay one or both off?
And on the other paw, what happens if the company really takes off, and you have to hire yet more staff. Will the new folks feel they won't have a chance at advancement because you'll give preference to family regardless of merit? (You might not behave that way, but convince your employees of it...)
Are you hiring your girlfriend and possibly your brother because you can get them cheaper than hiring on the open market? That's a whole can of worms in itself.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it -- merely that it carries a set of risks you should be aware of going in.
______
Dennis
I'm not mocking the military. They _can_ get it right, if they are allowed to. It's precisely the upper management and politicians that concern me. As a good historical example, the U. S. Navy had major problems early in WII with malfunctioning torpedos. The torpedos were produced by a plant in Rhode Island that was a major source of political patronage jobs, so attempts fix the problems ran afoul of congress-critters worried about losing votes.
The problems were eventually corrected, but who know how many lives were lost as a result of weapons that didn't work before they were?
And the best designs still have to be built by someone. The procurement process is a political minefield as defense contractors lobby to get the contract, and you cross fingers that the best shop to do the job gets the bid, and Senator Nincompoop who sits on the appropriate committee doesn't insist it go to a contractor in his district so he gets votes, despite the contractor's demonstrated inability to do the job.
As a general rule, in combat, he who holds the high ground wins. Space is the new high ground.
Military organizations do endless contingency plans covering any possible threat they can see and how it might best be countered. The U.S. military is no exception. If they _didn't_ do this, they wouldn't be doing thier jobs.
An absolute essential in any combat situation is communications, command, and control (known as "C cubed"). Troops on the battlefield need effective intelligence on what they face, communications with thier fellows to coordinate responses, and communications from thier superiors about what those responses should be.
Satellites provide all of those things. If you can take out the other guy's satellites, you effectively blind him, and leave him at a severe disadvantage.
This doesn't even count the possibility of actual _weapons_ platforms in space, which are a whole other set of problems.
I'm not upset that the US military is looking at this area. It's part of thier job. I'm concerned with thier ability to get it right.
______
Dennis
Poor sales, and, I think, a misunderstanding of the market.
I've run into an assortment of Lego fanatics who buy blocks by the truckload. Guess what? They're all grown-ups.
I think Lego errs in persisting in thinking about Lego as a _children's_ toy. It is, but it's a grown up toy as well. It would be interesting to see what happened if Lego made a marketing pitch at grownups as a fun toy to buy for themselves, not the kids.
______
Dennis
The issue isn't how far apart the cities are: it's how far _you_ are from the distribution point. Folks in rural areas tend to be SOL on DSL/cable, because they are too far from a CO for DSL, and to far out to economically string cable for cable modem. If they are lucky, satellite might be an option.
And pricing is based on perception of what the market will bear. I have cable modem, bundled with other cable TV services like watch-and-record and digital cable. I believe the actual cable modem charges are about $45/month. I also have a DSL line. (It came first because cable wasn't available. When cable became available, I kept the DSL as a high speed backup.) The charges on that were recently reduced to about $30/month.
Competition is having an effect. Verizon reduced prices and upped speeds because cable was eating them for lunch. Time-Warner Roadrunner recent boosted download speeds from 2MBit/Sec to 3Mbit/Sec as a counter to Verizon, and to Comcast who is doing the same thing.
Would I like to pay less? Sure. Do I think I'm being charged an outrageous price? Frankly, no. If I thought it was outrageous, I wouldn't pay it, and I'd do without broadband.
It might not matter to me if I _didn't_ keep a low profile. When I'm informed that something _can_ happen, my first question is "Yes, but how _likely_ is it?" In the case of being listened in on in a VoIP wiretap, my conclusion is "Not very".
My stronger concern is a bit more fundamental. There's a strong push for broader police powers to cope with a perceived terrorist threat. That's very nice, but at some point, the threat of terror will abate. Then what?
In business, you win the game by showing a better bottom line than last year. In government, you win the game by being able to request a bigger budget and more staff next budget period.
Law enforcement agencies are bureaucracies. NO bureaucracy ever willingly gives up something once it gets it, and no police agency will willingly give up increased powers once they are given, even if there is no need for those powers.
There have already been enough occurances of government officials making fusses over one thing or another, simply to justify thier existance. I expect to see more than a few by law enforcement for the same reason.
I'm not worried about Voice over IP wiretaps per se. I _am_ worried about a trend towards increased police powers without a corresponding increase in oversight to insure they are properly used.
As for ending the war on drugs, nice thought, but how do you suggest it be done? I've thought on occasion that simply making drug use legal would solve a lot of problems. I don't especially care what other people do to feel good. And if some of those things get them killed by overdose or the like, hey, it's not like they didn't know it could happen.
I _would_ get positively draconian about injuries to _other_ people when someone was high. The same stuff you shouldn't do while drunk, you probably shouldn't do while high, and if you do it and someone is hurt or killed because you were impaired, the world _should_ fall in on you.
______
Dennis
I've seen plenty of examples of paranoia about this sort of thing. It's a concern, but just how big a concern is it?
First, they still have to get a court order, and get a judge to sign off on it. (If that requirement goes away, I'll get a lot more nervous.)
Second, there are only so many law enforcement personnel. They _can't_ listen to _everything_.
Third, why should they bother to listen to my calls? I'd have to do something to pique thier interest and make them want to. I'm quiet, keep a low profile, and tend not to do the sort of stuff a cop would find of professional interest.
Most paranoia is a defense mechanism. What the paranoid is _really_ afraid of is that they don't matter and nobody cares about them. If you can convince yourself that people are out to get you, you _matter_. You're important! Someone finds it worth the while to expend the effort to get you.
I'm not important. I don't matter (to the Feds, at any rate). That suits me just fine.
______
Dennis
You're correct about the upgrades, but bear in mind that that isn't where _growth_ comes from. _Growth_ comes from _new_ customers.
Also, remember who the customer _is_ for Microsoft. You and I aren't, really. Yeah, MS makes money on home users, but the _real_ revenue comes from corporate site liscenses, and the customer who gets listened to is the CIO who can sign off on a liscense for thousands of desktops. (There's a reason why the enhancements in Office tend to be focused on collaborative work across a network: the intended end-user is an office worker in a business.)
And that means that the upgrade revenue isn't as sure as MS might like. Upgrades of the OS or Office across an enterprise are a royal pain, as well as a _signifigant_ expense. For instance, my employer has Win2K Pro as the standard desktop OS, and Office 2K as the standard productivity suite, but the "standard" is a goal, not a reality. Most folks still have Win98 and Office 97, and I have some desktops at one office still running Win95 on P200 MMX boxes with 32MB RAM and a 2.1GB HD.
I'd love to get everyone up to the standard, but I dread the labor, and the company dreads actually spending the money.
Mine isn't the only company like that, and you may assume MS is pushing hard to get folks to upgrade to get the revenue. I expect to see accellerated "End of life" announcements for various MS products to encourage this.
The Inquirer's article is interesting, but the underlying forces have little to do with open source, and have been building for years.
For years, Microsoft was the classic "growth" stock. MS revenue and profit regularly posted double digit gains and beat analyst expectations. As a result, the value of MS stock soared into the stratosphere, making Chairman Bill Gates the richest man in the world based on the value of his Microsoft holdings, and making millionaires of many Microsoft employees. Growth companies don't pay dividends: they plow thier profits back into the company, and people invest in them because they expect the value of the stock to go up.
What happens when your company hits the limits of its growth? The dilemma MS faces is its own success. They own 95% of the desktop world. Almost everyone who _can_ use Windows and Office _does_ use it. They won't get continuing double-digit increases in revenue and profit from thier core business, because they've saturated thier market.
They've managed to narrowly beat revenue and profit estimates the past few years, but if you look closely at thier numbers, they _haven't_ done it from sales of Windows and Office. They've done it from gains in and returns on thier investment portfolio. MS has something like $49 billion in cash and short-term securities, and is getting an increasing number of complaints from investors that they ought to start returning some of that cash hoard to investors in the form of dividends.
Microsoft is in transition from a "growth" company to a "mature" company. Mature companies generate large amounts of cash, but _don't_ show tremendous growth. If it _doesn't_ show tremendous growth, the value of MS stock will drop out of the stratosphere, and folks whose wealth depends on the value of their MS stock won't be happy.
The challenge Steve Ballmer faces as MS CEO is to somehow support the value of MS stock while looking for huge new markets MS can enter and dominate to continue its growth.
So yes, you can look for MS to use any means it can to generate revenue and increase profits. But we didn't back them into a corner: they did it to themselves by becoming _too_ successful.
______
Dennis
I recall the USCD P-system, too. It was a nice idea. It might have been better received if the original implementation hadn't been on an Apple II. The concept requires reasonable horesepower to work effectively. It got ported to the original IBM PC as well, where it battled MS-DOS and CP/M-86 for market supremacy. Once again, it was on a platform that didn't have enough horsepower.
The P-system on a 386 might have been very interesting, but it had already been marginalized to a niche product.
We've seen it elsewhere besides UCSD Pascal: Pascal designer Nicholas Wirth's Oberon language is a programming language and operating environment. For that matter, so is Smalltalk.
What's the benefit to another layer of abstraction? Offhand, network computing in hererogenous environments. Assembler is machine specific. C doesn't always optimize nicely across architectures: you are at the mercy of what the particular compilers support. (Some of the guidelines aimed at Mozilla developers wax eloquent about this, and what rules of thumb you need to follow to write truly portable code.)
Hardware is getting fast enough that another layer of abstraction might just be a win, if it could allow the programmer to concentrate on the task and not worry about what would atually _run_ the code.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm of the "Star Trek needs a good long rest" persuasion, myself, but if anyone can revitalize and ailing franchise, it's probably Joe. He has the talent, the background, and the credentials.
It's ironic, though. When Joe first came up with Babylon 5, he pitched it to Paramount. Paramount turned thumbs down on it. Joe pitched elsewhere. What does Paramount come up with next? Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a show about a space station located on the borders of several competing interstellar powers. Coincidence?
Joe reportdly hit the roof, but was careful *not* to blame Rick Berman and the other folks directly involved in ST production. Paramount wished to protect the Trek franchise at all costs, and wasn't about to compete with itself by backing a non-Trek SF show. Whether it decided to sucker punch a possible competitor by bringing out the same idea first remains unknowable.
The problem is that Paramount got a successful franchise largely by accident. Star Trek: TOS was originally cancelled part way through, and brought back through fan pressure. It seems likely that Paramount never really understood *why* it was popular, so successive Star Trek: Whatever's have trod the same old ground, in apparent fear that any actual new ideas would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Personally, I was around when the original series was being aired. It was the best SF on TV at the time, but hasn't aged terribly well.
ST:TNG had some good moments, especially when it worked through the backlog of unproduced scripts bought for the original series and started buying new material. There was at least some attempt to deal with adult themes, even if there were embarassing clunkers.
DS9 had moments as well, especially when they introduced the war with the Dominion. Trek always had a schizophrenic attitude toward Star Fleet. Pointing out that the Enterprise was a capital ship, and if there *was* a war, Star Fleet would fight it produced hand-waving and denial from a lot of folks.
Voyager was simply excreble. I think I managed to watch one episode before giving up in disgust.
I had hopes for Enterprise. A show set early in the chronolgy of the series, detailing the early days of the Federation had promise. Promise that, unsurprisingly, has not been fulfilled. I've avoided it, too.
I have a problem with television that makes an implicit assumption that I'm dumb, and that any show with a few SF tropes and some FX will get me to watch. Dramatic story lines, meaningful characters, interesting plots, good writing? Who needs them? It's got the Trek name on it. It will sell...
Well, not to me, buddy.
Joe might actually be able to create a Trek series worth watching again. I'd love to see it. I'd lay long odds against Paramount saying yes.
______
Dennis
I'm sympathetic, but not overly so.
Websites cost money. The cost for the time of the folks who code them and supply the content; they cost for the server reources that host them; and they particularily cost for the bandwidth they use to provide access to them. The more popular a site gets, the greater that last cost becomes.
Where does the money come from? In most cases, advertising. A few sites have successfully implemented a subscription model for "premium" content, but most rely on ads.
Microsoft has a *lot* of money, and can afford to advertise on half the websites in the known universe. It's no surpise they should make a big push on Linux oriented sites, since Linux is thier principal OS competition.
Personally, I'd hold my nose and take the money. The folks who visit sites like Linux Today are usually sophisticated enough to see through the hype, and not be swayed by MS FUD. Those that aren't sophisticated enough are probably not good candidates for conversion to the First Church of Tux in any case.
The alternative for purists may be that the site goes under, because MS ads made the difference between enough revenue to keep going, and losing your shirt.
______
Dennis
Compared to things like IBM OS/MVS, or VAX VMS, why yes, Unix *does* have the virtue of simplicity.
Rather less than it once did, but still present...
______
Dennis
A file system is a logical construct layered atop a physical medium. The disk controller sees things in blocks, clusters, and cylinders, but the logical view can be what you like.
There's no reason you *couldn't* use an RDBMS as a file system, and some RDBMS's will let you place the DB on a "raw" device, and provide thier own low-level calls to access it, and bypass the overhead of an OS file system.
And there are systems now where the DBMS is built into the OS instead of being a layered product. See IBM's AS400 for a current example.
Whether it makes sense depends upon what you need to do. The Unix model has the virtue of simplicity, but isn't necessarily the only way to do things.
______
Dennis
Why relational databases? Why not a post relational design? Why not an object oriented database? Everything doesn't map cleanly to the relational model.
Some folks may recall the file systems used on IBM mainframes, where awareness of what various file system objects were was part fo the OS. (VSAM, anyone?) For that matter, see PickOS, a relational DBMS built into the operating system, with a BASIC like language for development as well. A version of Pick was available as a layered product on top of Unix the last I knew, and a PC version called Revelation was also offered.
PickOS grew out of a US government project, but it isn't the only such thing. The IBM System 38 was a lot like that, and the current AS400 is, too.
The predominant Unix model seperated the file system from the application. Unix neither knows nor cares what a file contains. MS-DOS folloewd that model, and Windows did too.
Future Windows versions apparently feature a file system based on SQL Server (which itself derives from Sybase). It will be interesting to see how that works out.
______
Dennis
It's not. Doing that used to be a feature of the Unify RDBMS on Unix platforms. You could choose to place it on a raw device and bypass the Unix filesystem for performance. You needed a fairly big DB to justify it, but it wasn't hard to do.
There are a couple of problems with family businesses, and reasons why hiring friends/relatives can backfire. The fundamental issue will be that your girlfriend and brother will now be your *employees*. If everything works out, that's not a problem, but what if it doesn't?
Let's say thier performance just isn't adequate. Can you *fire* your girlfriend? How about your brother? (And what will happen to your relationship with them if you do?)
Maybe they handle thier jobs just fine, but every business runs into slow patches. What happens if the revenue to pay thier salaries just isn't there, and you have to lay one or both off?
And on the other paw, what happens if the company really takes off, and you have to hire yet more staff. Will the new folks feel they won't have a chance at advancement because you'll give preference to family regardless of merit? (You might not behave that way, but convince your employees of it...)
Are you hiring your girlfriend and possibly your brother because you can get them cheaper than hiring on the open market? That's a whole can of worms in itself.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it -- merely that it carries a set of risks you should be aware of going in.
______
Dennis
I'm not mocking the military. They _can_ get it right, if they are allowed to. It's precisely the upper management and politicians that concern me. As a good historical example, the U. S. Navy had major problems early in WII with malfunctioning torpedos. The torpedos were produced by a plant in Rhode Island that was a major source of political patronage jobs, so attempts fix the problems ran afoul of congress-critters worried about losing votes.
The problems were eventually corrected, but who know how many lives were lost as a result of weapons that didn't work before they were?
And the best designs still have to be built by someone. The procurement process is a political minefield as defense contractors lobby to get the contract, and you cross fingers that the best shop to do the job gets the bid, and Senator Nincompoop who sits on the appropriate committee doesn't insist it go to a contractor in his district so he gets votes, despite the contractor's demonstrated inability to do the job.
We'll see.
______
Dennis
This is neither news nor a surprise.
As a general rule, in combat, he who holds the high ground wins. Space is the new high ground.
Military organizations do endless contingency plans covering any possible threat they can see and how it might best be countered. The U.S. military is no exception. If they _didn't_ do this, they wouldn't be doing thier jobs.
An absolute essential in any combat situation is communications, command, and control (known as "C cubed"). Troops on the battlefield need effective intelligence on what they face, communications with thier fellows to coordinate responses, and communications from thier superiors about what those responses should be.
Satellites provide all of those things. If you can take out the other guy's satellites, you effectively blind him, and leave him at a severe disadvantage.
This doesn't even count the possibility of actual _weapons_ platforms in space, which are a whole other set of problems.
I'm not upset that the US military is looking at this area. It's part of thier job. I'm concerned with thier ability to get it right.
______
Dennis
Poor sales, and, I think, a misunderstanding of the market.
I've run into an assortment of Lego fanatics who buy blocks by the truckload. Guess what? They're all grown-ups.
I think Lego errs in persisting in thinking about Lego as a _children's_ toy. It is, but it's a grown up toy as well. It would be interesting to see what happened if Lego made a marketing pitch at grownups as a fun toy to buy for themselves, not the kids.
______
Dennis
The issue isn't how far apart the cities are: it's how far _you_ are from the distribution point. Folks in rural areas tend to be SOL on DSL/cable, because they are too far from a CO for DSL, and to far out to economically string cable for cable modem. If they are lucky, satellite might be an option.
And pricing is based on perception of what the market will bear. I have cable modem, bundled with other cable TV services like watch-and-record and digital cable. I believe the actual cable modem charges are about $45/month. I also have a DSL line. (It came first because cable wasn't available. When cable became available, I kept the DSL as a high speed backup.) The charges on that were recently reduced to about $30/month.
Competition is having an effect. Verizon reduced prices and upped speeds because cable was eating them for lunch. Time-Warner Roadrunner recent boosted download speeds from 2MBit/Sec to 3Mbit/Sec as a counter to Verizon, and to Comcast who is doing the same thing.
Would I like to pay less? Sure. Do I think I'm being charged an outrageous price? Frankly, no. If I thought it was outrageous, I wouldn't pay it, and I'd do without broadband.
______
Dennis
It might not matter to me if I _didn't_ keep a low profile. When I'm informed that something _can_ happen, my first question is "Yes, but how _likely_ is it?" In the case of being listened in on in a VoIP wiretap, my conclusion is "Not very".
My stronger concern is a bit more fundamental. There's a strong push for broader police powers to cope with a perceived terrorist threat. That's very nice, but at some point, the threat of terror will abate. Then what?
In business, you win the game by showing a better bottom line than last year. In government, you win the game by being able to request a bigger budget and more staff next budget period.
Law enforcement agencies are bureaucracies. NO bureaucracy ever willingly gives up something once it gets it, and no police agency will willingly give up increased powers once they are given, even if there is no need for those powers.
There have already been enough occurances of government officials making fusses over one thing or another, simply to justify thier existance. I expect to see more than a few by law enforcement for the same reason.
I'm not worried about Voice over IP wiretaps per se. I _am_ worried about a trend towards increased police powers without a corresponding increase in oversight to insure they are properly used.
As for ending the war on drugs, nice thought, but how do you suggest it be done? I've thought on occasion that simply making drug use legal would solve a lot of problems. I don't especially care what other people do to feel good. And if some of those things get them killed by overdose or the like, hey, it's not like they didn't know it could happen.
I _would_ get positively draconian about injuries to _other_ people when someone was high. The same stuff you shouldn't do while drunk, you probably shouldn't do while high, and if you do it and someone is hurt or killed because you were impaired, the world _should_ fall in on you.
______
Dennis
I've seen plenty of examples of paranoia about this sort of thing. It's a concern, but just how big a concern is it?
First, they still have to get a court order, and get a judge to sign off on it. (If that requirement goes away, I'll get a lot more nervous.)
Second, there are only so many law enforcement personnel. They _can't_ listen to _everything_.
Third, why should they bother to listen to my calls? I'd have to do something to pique thier interest and make them want to. I'm quiet, keep a low profile, and tend not to do the sort of stuff a cop would find of professional interest.
Most paranoia is a defense mechanism. What the paranoid is _really_ afraid of is that they don't matter and nobody cares about them. If you can convince yourself that people are out to get you, you _matter_. You're important! Someone finds it worth the while to expend the effort to get you.
I'm not important. I don't matter (to the Feds, at any rate). That suits me just fine.
______
Dennis
You're correct about the upgrades, but bear in mind that that isn't where _growth_ comes from. _Growth_ comes from _new_ customers.
Also, remember who the customer _is_ for Microsoft. You and I aren't, really. Yeah, MS makes money on home users, but the _real_ revenue comes from corporate site liscenses, and the customer who gets listened to is the CIO who can sign off on a liscense for thousands of desktops. (There's a reason why the enhancements in Office tend to be focused on collaborative work across a network: the intended end-user is an office worker in a business.)
And that means that the upgrade revenue isn't as sure as MS might like. Upgrades of the OS or Office across an enterprise are a royal pain, as well as a _signifigant_ expense. For instance, my employer has Win2K Pro as the standard desktop OS, and Office 2K as the standard productivity suite, but the "standard" is a goal, not a reality. Most folks still have Win98 and Office 97, and I have some desktops at one office still running Win95 on P200 MMX boxes with 32MB RAM and a 2.1GB HD.
I'd love to get everyone up to the standard, but I dread the labor, and the company dreads actually spending the money.
Mine isn't the only company like that, and you may assume MS is pushing hard to get folks to upgrade to get the revenue. I expect to see accellerated "End of life" announcements for various MS products to encourage this.
______
Dennis
The Inquirer's article is interesting, but the underlying forces have little to do with open source, and have been building for years.
For years, Microsoft was the classic "growth" stock. MS revenue and profit regularly posted double digit gains and beat analyst expectations. As a result, the value of MS stock soared into the stratosphere, making Chairman Bill Gates the richest man in the world based on the value of his Microsoft holdings, and making millionaires of many Microsoft employees. Growth companies don't pay dividends: they plow thier profits back into the company, and people invest in them because they expect the value of the stock to go up.
What happens when your company hits the limits of its growth? The dilemma MS faces is its own success. They own 95% of the desktop world. Almost everyone who _can_ use Windows and Office _does_ use it. They won't get continuing double-digit increases in revenue and profit from thier core business, because they've saturated thier market.
They've managed to narrowly beat revenue and profit estimates the past few years, but if you look closely at thier numbers, they _haven't_ done it from sales of Windows and Office. They've done it from gains in and returns on thier investment portfolio. MS has something like $49 billion in cash and short-term securities, and is getting an increasing number of complaints from investors that they ought to start returning some of that cash hoard to investors in the form of dividends.
Microsoft is in transition from a "growth" company to a "mature" company. Mature companies generate large amounts of cash, but _don't_ show tremendous growth. If it _doesn't_ show tremendous growth, the value of MS stock will drop out of the stratosphere, and folks whose wealth depends on the value of their MS stock won't be happy.
The challenge Steve Ballmer faces as MS CEO is to somehow support the value of MS stock while looking for huge new markets MS can enter and dominate to continue its growth.
So yes, you can look for MS to use any means it can to generate revenue and increase profits. But we didn't back them into a corner: they did it to themselves by becoming _too_ successful.
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Dennis
I recall the USCD P-system, too. It was a nice idea. It might have been better received if the original implementation hadn't been on an Apple II. The concept requires reasonable horesepower to work effectively. It got ported to the original IBM PC as well, where it battled MS-DOS and CP/M-86 for market supremacy. Once again, it was on a platform that didn't have enough horsepower.
The P-system on a 386 might have been very interesting, but it had already been marginalized to a niche product.
We've seen it elsewhere besides UCSD Pascal: Pascal designer Nicholas Wirth's Oberon language is a programming language and operating environment. For that matter, so is Smalltalk.
What's the benefit to another layer of abstraction? Offhand, network computing in hererogenous environments. Assembler is machine specific. C doesn't always optimize nicely across architectures: you are at the mercy of what the particular compilers support. (Some of the guidelines aimed at Mozilla developers wax eloquent about this, and what rules of thumb you need to follow to write truly portable code.)
Hardware is getting fast enough that another layer of abstraction might just be a win, if it could allow the programmer to concentrate on the task and not worry about what would atually _run_ the code.
We'll see.