Generally market research data isn't messed around with, at least if it's produced by an independent researcher. Some filtering will happen on "extreme" data, it sticks out like a sore thumb in tabulation, it does happen, for example I've seen surveys with male obstetric patients. Those results are generally filtered out. Likewise you might get a few results where people will claim they own "50 cars" or "25 children" or something like that. For the purposes of ISO certification, every record in a survey is kept by the research company for audits and so on, so everything is backtrackable. For privacy, when the results are given to any third party, uniquely identifying information is always stripped out (again my experiences are limited to an ethical independent researcher, everything was completely above board).
Generally such results also fit way outside of your normal distribution, too.
Sometimes data is weighted, but when you start doing that with data you leave the realm of pure research and move into statistics.
Absolutely, any data, good or bad, is going to be subject to interpretation.
I know that when I'm searching, googling if you will, for an app to do something, if a sourceforge link comes up, the software I get from there will be open source, and (maybe I am making a big jump here) virus and spyware free as a result.
Am I lazy because I can't be stuffed researching too much about the apps I need? Maybe. But sourceforge is double plus good if you ask me.
This certainly looks like more of a stunt than genuine research.
Proper market research works along very similar rules to more scientific research, results are tabulated and so on.
But much like psychology, your data comes from humans, which are notoriously difficult to pin down. At least psychologists get their subjects in controlled environment. Market research observations are not so tight, but even still you wouldn't expect such spurious results.
However! It's already got a lot of slashdotters reading it. Don't underestimate just how low the lowest common denominator is. How many people will really believe this? Will it change their buying habits? If Carphone Warehouse uses this data seriously as a marketing campaign of some kind, the data should come under scrutiny. Whether the data is *valid* or not, it is definitely having an impact.
These surveys are worthless, and we all have a duty to make them more so.
Disclaimer: I used to work in market research as an analyst, so I know what I am talking about.
The surveys cost a lot of money to generate. So they have a value from that perspective. The surveys are paid for by major corporations and governments and health organisations. Governments determine policies, and corporations design products and price points based on the data within the surveys. They are referred to constantly within parliament if government owned, and taken as gospel. Health surveys are used to allocate funding and tackle major medical issues affecting the population.
Based on those facts, I cannot support your theory that the surveys are worthless.
Now, as for the reliability of the data, that is another question entirely. Sample sizes are often small enough that you'll see "bad" figures like the million-dollars-for-a-phone factoid this article is about. So what does that mean? That the survey, even if bad, is worthless? No. Quite the opposite. Even if the data is bad, we can see the data is being used to generate articles and who knows what else within the corporations churning over the data.
I'd say this is a pretty clear example as to why it's important to be honest in a survey, and why participating in a survey gives you (a very small) influence over government and corporation. Would you be so quick to dismiss this?
The question I have to ask is, how come it is just this one man who seems to be almost alone in a world of lawyers working to nail down every single right to the freedom of ideas in our society? There are others, it's true, but Lessig seems to be up against some incredible odds.
I am sure he isn't alone, the FSF, EFF, and the whole open source community are fighting for the same things in different ways.
Well yes... the USA was founded, whether you consider it noble or not, because rich colonists were being taxed by their government but they were not in control of the government by being part of it (representation).
So the colonists overthrew the government and established one that fit their ideals, allowing the rich to control their government by forming it themselves. Bear in mind that at the time the only people voting were rich white men.
I wasn't referring to mainstream non-hobbyist microcomputer. Most of the kit computers before the Apple II were grey , black or brushed steel electronics kits. Most mainframes and back office microcomputers and minicomputers at the time were similarly coloured.
If Safari turns out to be better than Firefox, they deserve to take their marketshare. If not, well, Apple deserves to see this fall flat on its face.
This article isn't directly about which is the better browser on technical merits.
It's all about the motivations of corporations. What is Apple doing? Is this good for the I/T community of bad for the I/T community? Let's go over what happened:
- Apple releases Safari for Windows. - Jobs claims his intent is to compete with Internet Explorer - Safari shapes up badly against MSIE on Windows, and even worse against Firefox - Apple fans downplay the performance of the browser and any insinuation of competition by suggesting it is just a method to allow people to write web apps for iPhone without owning a Mac - Jobs releases documentation supportive of Apple undertaking a strategy of competing with MSIE for browser share.
There's obviously some motivation for this. If it was just to be a development tool, it would have been released on the quiet. What's going to happen? What might happen?
- Entrenched MSIE users will be confused by even more urging to move them from their comfortable IE nest - Some "alternative" browser users may ditch FireFox and pick up Safari. - Jobs will attempt to use leverage on existing products to increase Safari share, and Safari share to leverage other Apple products
So yes, what the article is suggesting seems spot on. Apple wants browser share and it will do so at the expense of OSS. Yes, Apple is a money-hungry corporation. They are not doing anything altruistically here. Apple is a threat to F/OSS.
Seriously, for any fantasy game, nothing wrecks the atmosphere quicker than an american accent.
The actors in Jackson's LOTR were all coached so they could speak with an english accent - I'm not making fun of americans here, I even went to the USA once, I was amazed because everyone sounded like "the people from TV".
But if I'm playing in an immersive fantasy world with elves, dwarves etc, the last thing I want to experience is the jarring unbroken voice of a whining 12yo american kid named "Likestospooge". Kind of ruins the atmosphere.
More importantly than that, it wasn't the musicians at all that got all the fame and kudos... they just implemented the compositions. If they did it well they were rewarded, of course. The songwriters themselves got all the really big kudos. One could even say they achieved a limited form of immortality. Guys like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven.
But those guys, I don't remember them trying to stop people accessing their copyrighted sheet music and stopping people from reproducing their creations...
Thanks Apple, for bringing us another fine ambassador to join the ranks of Quicktime in signing up new users to wave the Apple flag.
Because Quicktime is surely the best media player for Windows, thus Safari... ohh I can't keep a straight face. Quicktime is one of the worst media players ever to blight the face of Windows. It's bloated, intrusive, quirky, and not even fully functional unless you pay extra money for things like full screen view. People only use it because it's the most obvious way to watch.mov files... typical Apple lock-in, they're as bad as Microsoft with those proprietary formats.
Sure, people are all saying that Safari on Windows is just an SDK, but seriously, is this the best Apple has to offer in terms of interoperability? Steve Jobs is adamant that Apple is a software company first and foremost. So why in heck do they keep publishing such software gems as Quicktime and Safari as ambassadors to the wider Windows community?
Open source software is making huge inroads into the general populace with great products like Firefox that work in Windows and show everyone just how great FOSS is without making people go through the pain of installing Linux. You'd think Apple could learn a thing or to from this approach.
2006 called, they want their viewpoint on Microsoft patching practices back.
Microsoft killed patch tuesday a while ago, they release patches whenever they feel like it now.
Which puts them back into the same patch responsiveness bucket as Apple.
Open source patch deployment speed is still FTW. Horizontal monopolist + lockin (Microsoft) and Vertical monopolist + lockin (Apple) still fall behind.
The personal computer, whilst having substantial recreational value by means of being the predominant portal to the internet, is also an invaluable office tool.
Can you think of any businesses that work without personal computers? There may still be some, but very very few.
It's not a gadget. Heck, it's not even technology anymore. I remember reading a quote from Douglas Adams once, where he mentioned that "Technology is something that doesn't work yet." Because once it works so seamlessly that you don't even think about it, it stops being a technology, and starts being a phone, a car, a bicycle, a television. So do people really think the PC is just a gadget?
I'm guessing there's still more Windows boxes, and the windows boxes out there are also more weakly secured with larger surface area.
Are you really suggesting someone has a printer with embedded Linux that's got a direct connection to the internet? Who is this person and what's the address of the printer?
But you do have a point, another reason that Linux is not a favourable target is because the benefit of compromising a Linux system is lesser than a Windows system. You might just break into a printer (apparently there's a lot of unfirewalled Linux printers on the internet, "a LOT more than you think there is" so I hear) and that isn't a great mechanism for spamming compared to the resources of a Windows box.
And of course with all these printers and modems running Linux, the configurations are all going to be wildly different, whereas Windows is wholly consistent about which system files and versions and services you can expect to find, so they all tend to share the same vulnerabilities, whereas the Linux environment is very heterogenous, so you can't uniformly attack Linux systems.
The largest problem with factoring prime numbers as I see it (except the impossibility issue) is that... WTF? It's impossible. What else do you need?
Ahh, but you see, DRM is just like factoring primes. Of course, it's impossible.
The DRM makers work very hard, release a product, and it gets knocked down very quickly after scrutiny. Presumably you could also factor a prime, release a number (which would be in error), and it gets knocked down very quickly after scrutiny.
So we're not saying it can't be done, but it can't be done right. So the problem, apart from the impossibility, is that it's a huge waste of time and frankly it inconveniences everyone.
That is a flawed analogy, there easily exists sufficient explosive devices to destroy each and every windmill that might (for whatever reason) be offensive to you. Inflicting enough structural damage onto a windmill will prevent it from spinning.
I agree... actually when you think about it, there's good reasons not to target Linux.
Linux isn't mainstream - if you see a Linux install somewhere it's because someone *wanted* Linux and if the wanted it, they're going to be reasonably savvy about security (compared to your average PC user). Which means they are more likely to work out they're being compromised. Which means they are more likely to investigate who is doing that work. And it means they're more likely to find out who you are. And they probably won't hesitate to call the authorities.
It's just too risky. Windows is much more appealing for the criminals. Even if Windows was categorically more secure than Linux, people would still aim for Windows.
I guess you never tried to connect to a Windows Server 2003 SMB share then.
Thankfully R2 allows you to create NFS shares. Microsoft isn't as great on interoperability as it used to be, but I think it is remarkable that the solution for interoperability came from Microsoft rather than being developed by the OSS community.
What is an option? What is consideration? FOSS has always been an option for the Navy. The Navy has always had the choice to consider it. Now they are forced to consider it as an option? What?
The only way to truly examine this is through a car analogy.
Say you are driving a car, and you are trying to get to Algeria. You come to a junction where you could turn off and head to Libya, or you can keep going straight and arrive in Algeria. You have the option. But maybe you don't consider it as an option because it is not mandatory. Now, let's say you are driving as you normally do but now there is a boomgated checkpoint at the junction! A mean looking man with a rifle points the rifle at you and demands that you consider it an option, because under the new law it is mandatory to consider your option.
So you just say "Algeria" and keep doing as you wanted to do anyway.
Do you see what I did there?
Think about this next time it becomes "Mandatory" to consider Pepsi an option instead of Coke... you can still choose Coke.
Is that now every shoddy internet business is going to have a big serious looking "we care about your privacy" notice stuck somewhere prominent (but not prominent enough to displace advertising).
They won't change their actual privacy policies or anything, and they'll still leak credit card details etc. to the highest bidders.
Think I'm being cynical? Maybe. But think about it, this is bound to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Generally market research data isn't messed around with, at least if it's produced by an independent researcher. Some filtering will happen on "extreme" data, it sticks out like a sore thumb in tabulation, it does happen, for example I've seen surveys with male obstetric patients. Those results are generally filtered out. Likewise you might get a few results where people will claim they own "50 cars" or "25 children" or something like that. For the purposes of ISO certification, every record in a survey is kept by the research company for audits and so on, so everything is backtrackable. For privacy, when the results are given to any third party, uniquely identifying information is always stripped out (again my experiences are limited to an ethical independent researcher, everything was completely above board).
Generally such results also fit way outside of your normal distribution, too.
Sometimes data is weighted, but when you start doing that with data you leave the realm of pure research and move into statistics.
Absolutely, any data, good or bad, is going to be subject to interpretation.
I really like sourceforge.
I know that when I'm searching, googling if you will, for an app to do something, if a sourceforge link comes up, the software I get from there will be open source, and (maybe I am making a big jump here) virus and spyware free as a result.
Am I lazy because I can't be stuffed researching too much about the apps I need? Maybe. But sourceforge is double plus good if you ask me.
This certainly looks like more of a stunt than genuine research.
Proper market research works along very similar rules to more scientific research, results are tabulated and so on.
But much like psychology, your data comes from humans, which are notoriously difficult to pin down. At least psychologists get their subjects in controlled environment. Market research observations are not so tight, but even still you wouldn't expect such spurious results.
However! It's already got a lot of slashdotters reading it. Don't underestimate just how low the lowest common denominator is. How many people will really believe this? Will it change their buying habits? If Carphone Warehouse uses this data seriously as a marketing campaign of some kind, the data should come under scrutiny. Whether the data is *valid* or not, it is definitely having an impact.
These surveys are worthless, and we all have a duty to make them more so.
Disclaimer: I used to work in market research as an analyst, so I know what I am talking about.
The surveys cost a lot of money to generate. So they have a value from that perspective.
The surveys are paid for by major corporations and governments and health organisations.
Governments determine policies, and corporations design products and price points based on the data within the surveys. They are referred to constantly within parliament if government owned, and taken as gospel. Health surveys are used to allocate funding and tackle major medical issues affecting the population.
Based on those facts, I cannot support your theory that the surveys are worthless.
Now, as for the reliability of the data, that is another question entirely. Sample sizes are often small enough that you'll see "bad" figures like the million-dollars-for-a-phone factoid this article is about. So what does that mean? That the survey, even if bad, is worthless? No. Quite the opposite. Even if the data is bad, we can see the data is being used to generate articles and who knows what else within the corporations churning over the data.
I'd say this is a pretty clear example as to why it's important to be honest in a survey, and why participating in a survey gives you (a very small) influence over government and corporation. Would you be so quick to dismiss this?
Lessig is a hero, there is no doubt about that.
The question I have to ask is, how come it is just this one man who seems to be almost alone in a world of lawyers working to nail down every single right to the freedom of ideas in our society? There are others, it's true, but Lessig seems to be up against some incredible odds.
I am sure he isn't alone, the FSF, EFF, and the whole open source community are fighting for the same things in different ways.
Well yes... the USA was founded, whether you consider it noble or not, because rich colonists were being taxed by their government but they were not in control of the government by being part of it (representation).
So the colonists overthrew the government and established one that fit their ideals, allowing the rich to control their government by forming it themselves. Bear in mind that at the time the only people voting were rich white men.
I wasn't referring to mainstream non-hobbyist microcomputer. Most of the kit computers before the Apple II were grey , black or brushed steel electronics kits. Most mainframes and back office microcomputers and minicomputers at the time were similarly coloured.
So... no.
If Safari turns out to be better than Firefox, they deserve to take their marketshare. If not, well, Apple deserves to see this fall flat on its face.
This article isn't directly about which is the better browser on technical merits.
It's all about the motivations of corporations. What is Apple doing? Is this good for the I/T community of bad for the I/T community? Let's go over what happened:
- Apple releases Safari for Windows.
- Jobs claims his intent is to compete with Internet Explorer
- Safari shapes up badly against MSIE on Windows, and even worse against Firefox
- Apple fans downplay the performance of the browser and any insinuation of competition by suggesting it is just a method to allow people to write web apps for iPhone without owning a Mac
- Jobs releases documentation supportive of Apple undertaking a strategy of competing with MSIE for browser share.
There's obviously some motivation for this. If it was just to be a development tool, it would have been released on the quiet. What's going to happen? What might happen?
- Entrenched MSIE users will be confused by even more urging to move them from their comfortable IE nest
- Some "alternative" browser users may ditch FireFox and pick up Safari.
- Jobs will attempt to use leverage on existing products to increase Safari share, and Safari share to leverage other Apple products
So yes, what the article is suggesting seems spot on. Apple wants browser share and it will do so at the expense of OSS. Yes, Apple is a money-hungry corporation. They are not doing anything altruistically here. Apple is a threat to F/OSS.
Seriously, for any fantasy game, nothing wrecks the atmosphere quicker than an american accent.
The actors in Jackson's LOTR were all coached so they could speak with an english accent - I'm not making fun of americans here, I even went to the USA once, I was amazed because everyone sounded like "the people from TV".
But if I'm playing in an immersive fantasy world with elves, dwarves etc, the last thing I want to experience is the jarring unbroken voice of a whining 12yo american kid named "Likestospooge". Kind of ruins the atmosphere.
No, it's a fashion accessory that doubles as a vertical monopoly lock-in device for DRM implementations for Steve Job's music distribution business.
Wasn't it all black, grey and silver before the Apple II?
How times change...
More importantly than that, it wasn't the musicians at all that got all the fame and kudos... they just implemented the compositions. If they did it well they were rewarded, of course. The songwriters themselves got all the really big kudos. One could even say they achieved a limited form of immortality. Guys like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven.
But those guys, I don't remember them trying to stop people accessing their copyrighted sheet music and stopping people from reproducing their creations...
Has humanity changed so much?
Thanks Apple, for bringing us another fine ambassador to join the ranks of Quicktime in signing up new users to wave the Apple flag.
.mov files... typical Apple lock-in, they're as bad as Microsoft with those proprietary formats.
Because Quicktime is surely the best media player for Windows, thus Safari... ohh I can't keep a straight face. Quicktime is one of the worst media players ever to blight the face of Windows. It's bloated, intrusive, quirky, and not even fully functional unless you pay extra money for things like full screen view. People only use it because it's the most obvious way to watch
Sure, people are all saying that Safari on Windows is just an SDK, but seriously, is this the best Apple has to offer in terms of interoperability? Steve Jobs is adamant that Apple is a software company first and foremost. So why in heck do they keep publishing such software gems as Quicktime and Safari as ambassadors to the wider Windows community?
Open source software is making huge inroads into the general populace with great products like Firefox that work in Windows and show everyone just how great FOSS is without making people go through the pain of installing Linux. You'd think Apple could learn a thing or to from this approach.
2006 called, they want their viewpoint on Microsoft patching practices back.
Microsoft killed patch tuesday a while ago, they release patches whenever they feel like it now.
Which puts them back into the same patch responsiveness bucket as Apple.
Open source patch deployment speed is still FTW. Horizontal monopolist + lockin (Microsoft) and Vertical monopolist + lockin (Apple) still fall behind.
Since when is a computer a gadget?
The personal computer, whilst having substantial recreational value by means of being the predominant portal to the internet, is also an invaluable office tool.
Can you think of any businesses that work without personal computers? There may still be some, but very very few.
It's not a gadget. Heck, it's not even technology anymore. I remember reading a quote from Douglas Adams once, where he mentioned that "Technology is something that doesn't work yet." Because once it works so seamlessly that you don't even think about it, it stops being a technology, and starts being a phone, a car, a bicycle, a television. So do people really think the PC is just a gadget?
I'm guessing there's still more Windows boxes, and the windows boxes out there are also more weakly secured with larger surface area.
Are you really suggesting someone has a printer with embedded Linux that's got a direct connection to the internet? Who is this person and what's the address of the printer?
But you do have a point, another reason that Linux is not a favourable target is because the benefit of compromising a Linux system is lesser than a Windows system. You might just break into a printer (apparently there's a lot of unfirewalled Linux printers on the internet, "a LOT more than you think there is" so I hear) and that isn't a great mechanism for spamming compared to the resources of a Windows box.
And of course with all these printers and modems running Linux, the configurations are all going to be wildly different, whereas Windows is wholly consistent about which system files and versions and services you can expect to find, so they all tend to share the same vulnerabilities, whereas the Linux environment is very heterogenous, so you can't uniformly attack Linux systems.
The largest problem with factoring prime numbers as I see it (except the impossibility issue) is that ... WTF? It's impossible. What else do you need?
Ahh, but you see, DRM is just like factoring primes. Of course, it's impossible.
The DRM makers work very hard, release a product, and it gets knocked down very quickly after scrutiny.
Presumably you could also factor a prime, release a number (which would be in error), and it gets knocked down very quickly after scrutiny.
So we're not saying it can't be done, but it can't be done right. So the problem, apart from the impossibility, is that it's a huge waste of time and frankly it inconveniences everyone.
It's worse than sports. If you fail as a nerd you may be required to entertain members of the opposite sex.
How thoroughly have these agreements been tested in court prior to this event?
Nobody actually reads EULA's, right? I'd say at least 99.9% of EULAs are just clicked on through without any consideration for the implications.
Does the reality of 99.9% of cases over-rule the law?
Running AD in mixed or native mode?
That is a flawed analogy, there easily exists sufficient explosive devices to destroy each and every windmill that might (for whatever reason) be offensive to you. Inflicting enough structural damage onto a windmill will prevent it from spinning.
Maybe a car analogy would be more appropriate?
I agree... actually when you think about it, there's good reasons not to target Linux.
Linux isn't mainstream - if you see a Linux install somewhere it's because someone *wanted* Linux and if the wanted it, they're going to be reasonably savvy about security (compared to your average PC user). Which means they are more likely to work out they're being compromised. Which means they are more likely to investigate who is doing that work. And it means they're more likely to find out who you are. And they probably won't hesitate to call the authorities.
It's just too risky. Windows is much more appealing for the criminals. Even if Windows was categorically more secure than Linux, people would still aim for Windows.
--Ability to map SMB and/or NFS shares: Check.
I guess you never tried to connect to a Windows Server 2003 SMB share then.
Thankfully R2 allows you to create NFS shares. Microsoft isn't as great on interoperability as it used to be, but I think it is remarkable that the solution for interoperability came from Microsoft rather than being developed by the OSS community.
Navy Now Mandated to Consider FOSS as an Option
What is an option? What is consideration? FOSS has always been an option for the Navy. The Navy has always had the choice to consider it. Now they are forced to consider it as an option? What?
The only way to truly examine this is through a car analogy.
Say you are driving a car, and you are trying to get to Algeria. You come to a junction where you could turn off and head to Libya, or you can keep going straight and arrive in Algeria. You have the option. But maybe you don't consider it as an option because it is not mandatory. Now, let's say you are driving as you normally do but now there is a boomgated checkpoint at the junction! A mean looking man with a rifle points the rifle at you and demands that you consider it an option, because under the new law it is mandatory to consider your option.
So you just say "Algeria" and keep doing as you wanted to do anyway.
Do you see what I did there?
Think about this next time it becomes "Mandatory" to consider Pepsi an option instead of Coke... you can still choose Coke.
Is that now every shoddy internet business is going to have a big serious looking "we care about your privacy" notice stuck somewhere prominent (but not prominent enough to displace advertising).
They won't change their actual privacy policies or anything, and they'll still leak credit card details etc. to the highest bidders.
Think I'm being cynical? Maybe. But think about it, this is bound to happen.