This was, in fact, going to a question to Slashdot. But here goes anyway:
The FastTrack network (KaZaa), supports multisourced downloading. This cannot be changed in the settings. So, here's the problem: When the RIAA goes to court, how are they proving that the downloads haven't been multisourced from different people? Because if they are, at worst they're only proving that the client had SOME of A FILE which happened to come together into the song in the end. For instance, let's say I had a song that began as a sample from an RIAA-copyrighted song but then broke into a song that I created. If they're using multiple sources, how can they prove that the song they have isn't the beginning of their song with a middle and end that belong to me?
But what if, to avoid the above legal problem, the RIAA made their own client that did not support multisourced downloads, which is what I believe they have done. Wouldn't this require them to reverse-engineer the KaZaa client, and wouldn't THAT put them in violation of the DMCA AND general software copyright law since they are using it to make a profit?
What's more, I'm interested in how they are proving how many songs somebody is hosting. Are they, for instance, downloading one MD5-hashed song and then using the shared list to infer that the rest are legitimate RIAA-copyrighted songs? Or are they downloading every song and then comparing the MD5-hashes? And if the latter is the case, can it be implemented in the peer-to-peer protocols to keep individual users from uploading to the same people? That way, any lawsuit could be limited to say 5 songs or so?
I don't agree with this. These tubes aren't THAT effective. They're not going to cause a difference in temperature in the core part of the body because of the large difference in size between one's hands and core areas.
For example, imagine that your hands are really cold. Now imagine that to heat them up, you place them against the skin on your chest or rear. SURE, your hands will make the more core areas of your body cold, but not enough to signinficatly affect your core temperature. This is the same pricinciple behind the gloves. The only difference is, it automates the process.
I'll never forget the time when I was in driver's ed. and the instructor said, "... and NEVER drive with your knees..." Instantly, my friend Tyler and I looked at eachother and said "You can drive with our knees!? Awesome!" And so it was that a menace and numerous knee-driving competitions on the roadways were born.
While their the MPAA's actions are more admirable than the RIAA, I can't help but think that a similar situation will occur as paying customers are exposed to these ads.
-Grym
Re:Not a one-way mission....
on
Mice In Space
·
· Score: 1
You do realize that the mice will probably be killed for autopsy upon their return, right?
The experiment is trying to figure out the physiological effects of being in a lower-gravity environment. Those effects will probably be subtle over a short-term period, and most likely will require more than passive things like X-rays, CAT scans, and so on to yield any useful results.
There's nothing unethical about killing an animal, provided it serves a useful purpose. So, I hate to burst your bubble, but whether the mice die in space or on Earth...rest assured, the end effect will be the same.
I hate posts like this, because all you doomsdayers seem to think that music never existed before copyrights and the RIAA.
If what you're saying comes true, then YES many people are going to lose money, but I don't think it'll be the (genuinely good) artists. Instead, I'm willing to bet that they'll be paid like they were for thousands of years in the past--as performers. Besides, in all honesty, doesn't that make more sense than them attempting to be the sole "owners" of an intangible object that can be copied and distributed for little to no cost?
I for one, won't miss the RIAA one bit, either way. They ARE the bad guy. They cheat nearly every artist that you've ever heard of. They piss money away on circumventing the laws via payolla. And then as if to add insult to injury, the money they do give the artists usually comes in the form of loans. Take TLC, for instance, here was a band making millions of dollars in profit (not gross) and the artists, after all of their record company's swindling, were making about 20,000 per year individually.
As for your last statement, I love PC games. I, in fact, almost exclusively play PC games, but you're right, I haven't bought a PC game in awhile. Reason being: MOST of the games out right now suck. Apart from Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne, I haven't played a PC game that isn't generic or bug-ridden for awhile. Just give it some time, though. I GAURANTEE you 2004 will be the year PC games make a huge return. Again, it's not because of a lack of piracy, but there's a bunch of GREAT games coming out. To name a few: World of Warcraft, Doom III, Unreal Tournament 2004, Half-life 2, Counterstrike: Condition Zero. These are games that are going to pwn, and I plan on owning every one. (And this is after not buying a PC game for about 6 months.)
These issues have less to do with piracy like the RIAA and failing gaming companies would have you believe. In a world where nobody takes responsibility, this can be expected. I mean, it's easier to believe that your product isn't selling because of theft than it is to say it sucked. And the former certainly sounds better to stockholders and the media.
Piracy is an excuse. Unfortunately, some people (like the parent poster) have fallen for it.
I think the real problem with most slashdotters and sciencey people in general is that they are too idealistic for their own good.
Remember NASA is the organization that brought you the Columbia disaster, the Challenger disaster, the Apollo 1 disaster, the Apollo 13 near-disaster, and the probe lost on Mars due to unit-conversion, and the billions upon billions of dollars of absolute waste. Why SHOULD they be trusted with inherently dangerous nuclear material?
Sure. Sure. I bet the science is all well and good. I'm sure they'll say there's NO POSSIBLE WAY that an accident will happen. Meanwhile safety waiver after safety waiver will get signed. Damage to the device will go unchecked, and when an accident happens it'll get blamed on budget cuts or miscommunication.
Not everybody who is afraid of this kind of stuff is a prude or irrational. Sure NASA might be riding-high right now, but they have a TERRIBLE track record (or should I say bodycount?).
You're missing the point. Somebody SOLD that domain to someone other than JRR Tolkien Estates. But they aren't getting sued because they aren't as easy a target as the "sleazy" company. Compare that to regular affairs. If I were to knowingly sell something stolen to somebody, I'd get in trouble; not them.
The problem is with the system, and this whole progress-stifling mentality of "I got there first! All your profit are belong to us!" that permeates patents, copyrights, trademarks, and so on.
As much as I hate taking the side of SCO, it's on similar ground as Tolkein Estates. The only difference is that here at Slashdot we are supposed to instinctively take the side of Tolkien and hate the SCO.
If someone knowingly files a patent for an obvious applicaton or previously invented device, ANYONE who can demonstrat prior art can have that patent REVOKED.
But here's the thing, you're assuming that the legal system is fair and balanced towards all parties. This isn't the case. If I invented some great product and let's say Microsoft (or any large corporation for that matter) sees it, copies it, and files the patent first. I have little to NO CHANCE of getting it revoked. Because after the flurry of papers, alligations, and FUD by their pack of million-dollar-priced lawyers, there's not a jury or judge in the world that will rule in my favor.
See, what bothers me is that the laws AREN'T being enforced as they were intended. SURE, the law might SAY incremental changes can't be patented, but where was that when One-click shopping (or whatever it was) was "invented."
The real difference here is that the system in place is screwing wealthy coporations/persons, instead of the way its *supposed* to be.
Exactly. Funny how "getting there first" is all that seems to matter when it comes to patents, copyrights, trademarks, and the like, but when it comes to domains somehow its different.
It's all about what benefits the large companies and their congress critters the most. One standard works better here; another works better there.
I say, if we're going to stifle progress the way they want, then SURE allow mcdonalds.com to be cybersquatted, but if we're NOT going to allow that, then DON'T allow submarine-patents and lawsuits of standardized HEADER files.
Exactly. Funny how "getting there first" is all that seems to matter when it comes to patents, copyrights, trademarks, and the like, but when it comes to domains somehow its different.
It's all about what benefits the large companies and their congress critters the most. One standard works better here; another works better there.
I say, if we're going to stifle progress the way they want, then SURE allow mcdonalds.com to be cybersquatted, but if we're NOT going to allow that, then DON'T allow submarine-patents and lawsuits of standardized HEADER files.
-Grym
I also work for an ISP. I too am in charge of an Allot NetEnforcer. I know exactly what you're talking about: peer to peer traffic is accounts for about a 40-45% of our network traffic, which makes it the #1 use of our resources. This makes sense because, honestly, does one really need a broadband connection to send e-mail or load a webpage? I'm not surprised that your customers haven't called. The fact is, they probably won't, unless you disable peer-to-peer traffic completely, because I think most people attribute slow connection speeds on the other user (which is probably the case 90% of the time) rather than the ISP (provided their other types of connections go quickly, of course.)
Something that I suggest you try is what we do: throttle p2p during peak hours (during the day usually) then leave it unrestricted during times of typically low activity (night). As both a devoute kazaa-lite K++ user and an ISP employee, I feel it's a good compromise.
As for your last statement, I tend to disagree. P2P software isn't going away. It's like trying to stop a mouse by plugging up the mouse hole. Things like the NetEnforcer aren't as dumb as a TCP port blocker, but they still have their flaws. The NetEnforcer is able to determine what service is running by examining the TOS bits of the IP headers of traffic. Usually, like port numbers, these don't change. However, I've always wondered what would happen if someone were to create a program that randomly cycled through the possible TOS combinations. My guess is that the connection would still work, but devices/applications like that NetEnforcer would be left clueless. And even if that approach didn't work, things like SSH port tunneling would. Much like the RIAA-IP-blocking versions of Kazaa, I think we can bet that the P2P software designers are going to react rather than roll over and die if what you're saying comes true.
Stability was determined by the fact that they had two machines running the game for over 10 hours with only one crash to desktop.
Remember, the game isn't even in BETA stages yet. That's when the real tests, like server stability will be done.
-Grym
Now wait just a minute. I've killed thousands of people in a various number of ways in a number of different countries. Why haven't I gone to jail or been tried for war crimes? Because it's all in the virtual world (Counterstrike, Planetside, Diablo, etc.)
Just because The Sims *looks* more like real life than those games, DOESN'T give it the same legal protections. Perhaps a life of crime in Alphaville is a fantasy for a regular law-abiding citizens, but at the end of the day, they are just that, law-abiding citizens.
What EA did wasn't because of the law. It was because they didn't want bad PR from this guy reporting on what happens in the fantasy world they control. THAT is censorship at its very roots, and if I were him, I'd check my EULA to see if termination can occur in this manner.
I personally think that this is a great idea. While I shudder at the thought of misclicks and wonder how you will address Anti-virus software support / uninstalling, I think you're on to a workable solution. The one that's in place isn't, in my opinion, workable, and here's why:
I'm not new to computers, programming, manipulating the command-line, and so on, but I am new to linux. One of the most *frustrating* things I've found when trying to work with linux is the fact that nothing seems to come in executable form. I understand the reasons for this, but the least one could do is make sure all source files are included. *BUT* as we all know, this never happens. So now instead of doing something that actually seems productive, like setting up my new MRTG server, I'm instead running all over the internet trying to find the missing pieces of it.
After repeating this process until the damn thing compiles, I'm left wondering why I'm using linux in the first place:
- Because I'm saving money? Well, the time I've spent jumping through the l33t-user hoops have already eclipsed the cost of the program. Windows came with the machine, so no go there.
- Because it's more stable? I find that although they have to be rebooted every so often, NT-based windows systems are stable enough for me.
- Because the system + program is more efficient? Somehow, I think that few extra CPU cycles and megabytes of RAM aren't worth my troubles.
In the end, the only reason I stick with it is because of my ideals. I *really* like the idea of OBSD and free (either meaning) things. But I don't think that's good enough.
The linux community, in my opinion, really needs to choose. Do you want to really penetrate the desktop market and compete with Microsoft? Or do you want to continue the uberuser bravado that's kept the above problem (among others) from ever getting adequately addressed?
-Grym
The objects you use and have own you just as much as you own them. Don't believe me? Try giving away your beloved (I'm as guilty as the rest of us on this) computer for a month. It's hard.
Don't think because you created (or own) a program (or any object for that matter) that it doesn't have its own stake in you. After all, even in programming, you're limited in what you can do by the hardware, technology, programming language, and so on. You were forced to compromise your thoughts/algorithm around these limitations--whether you realized it or not.
In my opinion, this is one of the fundamental problems with Linux: it's solely designed (and mainly used) by incredibly knowledgeable programmers. (Unlike this, you can bet Microsoft has teams of focus groups of laypeople around helping the process.) These people, while extremely knowledgeable, don't relate to the average user. They don't see the problem with having to track down DLL files and source files needed for compilation of EVERY interesting program--they're used to it. They don't understand that most people don't want to deal with the command line unless they have to. They can't see why people would want to be able to just copy and paste files of a program from a computer with one linux distribution and have it work on another distribution.
The problem lies deeper than just ease of use like most people think. The problem is, while C++, PERL, bash scripting, security patching, and command line usage, are commonplace in the geek community, they are (relatively, when including those people of the "real world") a rather obscure and silly set of skills that are--unlike Windows--NECESSARY for proper usage of linux.
Until these problems are addressed, mark my words: Linux will never beat Windows on the average user's desktop. All the MSBlasters, Blue Screens of Death, and so on won't matter until Linux can even somewhat relate to an average person like Windows can.
Slashdot Mirror
This was, in fact, going to a question to Slashdot. But here goes anyway:
The FastTrack network (KaZaa), supports multisourced downloading. This cannot be changed in the settings. So, here's the problem: When the RIAA goes to court, how are they proving that the downloads haven't been multisourced from different people? Because if they are, at worst they're only proving that the client had SOME of A FILE which happened to come together into the song in the end. For instance, let's say I had a song that began as a sample from an RIAA-copyrighted song but then broke into a song that I created. If they're using multiple sources, how can they prove that the song they have isn't the beginning of their song with a middle and end that belong to me?
But what if, to avoid the above legal problem, the RIAA made their own client that did not support multisourced downloads, which is what I believe they have done. Wouldn't this require them to reverse-engineer the KaZaa client, and wouldn't THAT put them in violation of the DMCA AND general software copyright law since they are using it to make a profit?
What's more, I'm interested in how they are proving how many songs somebody is hosting. Are they, for instance, downloading one MD5-hashed song and then using the shared list to infer that the rest are legitimate RIAA-copyrighted songs? Or are they downloading every song and then comparing the MD5-hashes? And if the latter is the case, can it be implemented in the peer-to-peer protocols to keep individual users from uploading to the same people? That way, any lawsuit could be limited to say 5 songs or so?
What do you guys think?-Grym
I don't agree with this. These tubes aren't THAT effective. They're not going to cause a difference in temperature in the core part of the body because of the large difference in size between one's hands and core areas.
For example, imagine that your hands are really cold. Now imagine that to heat them up, you place them against the skin on your chest or rear. SURE, your hands will make the more core areas of your body cold, but not enough to signinficatly affect your core temperature. This is the same pricinciple behind the gloves. The only difference is, it automates the process.
-Grym
Exactly.
I'll never forget the time when I was in driver's ed. and the instructor said, "... and NEVER drive with your knees..." Instantly, my friend Tyler and I looked at eachother and said "You can drive with our knees!? Awesome!" And so it was that a menace and numerous knee-driving competitions on the roadways were born.
While their the MPAA's actions are more admirable than the RIAA, I can't help but think that a similar situation will occur as paying customers are exposed to these ads.
-Grym
You do realize that the mice will probably be killed for autopsy upon their return, right?
The experiment is trying to figure out the physiological effects of being in a lower-gravity environment. Those effects will probably be subtle over a short-term period, and most likely will require more than passive things like X-rays, CAT scans, and so on to yield any useful results.
There's nothing unethical about killing an animal, provided it serves a useful purpose. So, I hate to burst your bubble, but whether the mice die in space or on Earth...rest assured, the end effect will be the same.
-Grym
I hate posts like this, because all you doomsdayers seem to think that music never existed before copyrights and the RIAA.
If what you're saying comes true, then YES many people are going to lose money, but I don't think it'll be the (genuinely good) artists. Instead, I'm willing to bet that they'll be paid like they were for thousands of years in the past--as performers. Besides, in all honesty, doesn't that make more sense than them attempting to be the sole "owners" of an intangible object that can be copied and distributed for little to no cost?
I for one, won't miss the RIAA one bit, either way. They ARE the bad guy. They cheat nearly every artist that you've ever heard of. They piss money away on circumventing the laws via payolla. And then as if to add insult to injury, the money they do give the artists usually comes in the form of loans. Take TLC, for instance, here was a band making millions of dollars in profit (not gross) and the artists, after all of their record company's swindling, were making about 20,000 per year individually.
As for your last statement, I love PC games. I, in fact, almost exclusively play PC games, but you're right, I haven't bought a PC game in awhile. Reason being: MOST of the games out right now suck. Apart from Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne, I haven't played a PC game that isn't generic or bug-ridden for awhile. Just give it some time, though. I GAURANTEE you 2004 will be the year PC games make a huge return. Again, it's not because of a lack of piracy, but there's a bunch of GREAT games coming out. To name a few: World of Warcraft, Doom III, Unreal Tournament 2004, Half-life 2, Counterstrike: Condition Zero. These are games that are going to pwn, and I plan on owning every one. (And this is after not buying a PC game for about 6 months.)
These issues have less to do with piracy like the RIAA and failing gaming companies would have you believe. In a world where nobody takes responsibility, this can be expected. I mean, it's easier to believe that your product isn't selling because of theft than it is to say it sucked. And the former certainly sounds better to stockholders and the media.
Piracy is an excuse. Unfortunately, some people (like the parent poster) have fallen for it.
-Grym
I think the real problem with most slashdotters and sciencey people in general is that they are too idealistic for their own good.
Remember NASA is the organization that brought you the Columbia disaster, the Challenger disaster, the Apollo 1 disaster, the Apollo 13 near-disaster, and the probe lost on Mars due to unit-conversion, and the billions upon billions of dollars of absolute waste. Why SHOULD they be trusted with inherently dangerous nuclear material?
Sure. Sure. I bet the science is all well and good. I'm sure they'll say there's NO POSSIBLE WAY that an accident will happen. Meanwhile safety waiver after safety waiver will get signed. Damage to the device will go unchecked, and when an accident happens it'll get blamed on budget cuts or miscommunication.
Not everybody who is afraid of this kind of stuff is a prude or irrational. Sure NASA might be riding-high right now, but they have a TERRIBLE track record (or should I say bodycount?).
-Grym
You're missing the point. Somebody SOLD that domain to someone other than JRR Tolkien Estates. But they aren't getting sued because they aren't as easy a target as the "sleazy" company. Compare that to regular affairs. If I were to knowingly sell something stolen to somebody, I'd get in trouble; not them.
The problem is with the system, and this whole progress-stifling mentality of "I got there first! All your profit are belong to us!" that permeates patents, copyrights, trademarks, and so on.
As much as I hate taking the side of SCO, it's on similar ground as Tolkein Estates. The only difference is that here at Slashdot we are supposed to instinctively take the side of Tolkien and hate the SCO.
-Grym
If someone knowingly files a patent for an obvious applicaton or previously invented device, ANYONE who can demonstrat prior art can have that patent REVOKED.
But here's the thing, you're assuming that the legal system is fair and balanced towards all parties. This isn't the case. If I invented some great product and let's say Microsoft (or any large corporation for that matter) sees it, copies it, and files the patent first. I have little to NO CHANCE of getting it revoked. Because after the flurry of papers, alligations, and FUD by their pack of million-dollar-priced lawyers, there's not a jury or judge in the world that will rule in my favor.
See, what bothers me is that the laws AREN'T being enforced as they were intended. SURE, the law might SAY incremental changes can't be patented, but where was that when One-click shopping (or whatever it was) was "invented."
The real difference here is that the system in place is screwing wealthy coporations/persons, instead of the way its *supposed* to be.
-Grym
(sorry, was unformatted)
Exactly. Funny how "getting there first" is all that seems to matter when it comes to patents, copyrights, trademarks, and the like, but when it comes to domains somehow its different.
It's all about what benefits the large companies and their congress critters the most. One standard works better here; another works better there.
I say, if we're going to stifle progress the way they want, then SURE allow mcdonalds.com to be cybersquatted, but if we're NOT going to allow that, then DON'T allow submarine-patents and lawsuits of standardized HEADER files.
-Grym
Exactly. Funny how "getting there first" is all that seems to matter when it comes to patents, copyrights, trademarks, and the like, but when it comes to domains somehow its different. It's all about what benefits the large companies and their congress critters the most. One standard works better here; another works better there. I say, if we're going to stifle progress the way they want, then SURE allow mcdonalds.com to be cybersquatted, but if we're NOT going to allow that, then DON'T allow submarine-patents and lawsuits of standardized HEADER files. -Grym
I also work for an ISP. I too am in charge of an Allot NetEnforcer. I know exactly what you're talking about: peer to peer traffic is accounts for about a 40-45% of our network traffic, which makes it the #1 use of our resources. This makes sense because, honestly, does one really need a broadband connection to send e-mail or load a webpage? I'm not surprised that your customers haven't called. The fact is, they probably won't, unless you disable peer-to-peer traffic completely, because I think most people attribute slow connection speeds on the other user (which is probably the case 90% of the time) rather than the ISP (provided their other types of connections go quickly, of course.)
Something that I suggest you try is what we do: throttle p2p during peak hours (during the day usually) then leave it unrestricted during times of typically low activity (night). As both a devoute kazaa-lite K++ user and an ISP employee, I feel it's a good compromise.
As for your last statement, I tend to disagree. P2P software isn't going away. It's like trying to stop a mouse by plugging up the mouse hole. Things like the NetEnforcer aren't as dumb as a TCP port blocker, but they still have their flaws. The NetEnforcer is able to determine what service is running by examining the TOS bits of the IP headers of traffic. Usually, like port numbers, these don't change. However, I've always wondered what would happen if someone were to create a program that randomly cycled through the possible TOS combinations. My guess is that the connection would still work, but devices/applications like that NetEnforcer would be left clueless. And even if that approach didn't work, things like SSH port tunneling would. Much like the RIAA-IP-blocking versions of Kazaa, I think we can bet that the P2P software designers are going to react rather than roll over and die if what you're saying comes true.
-Grym
Stability was determined by the fact that they had two machines running the game for over 10 hours with only one crash to desktop. Remember, the game isn't even in BETA stages yet. That's when the real tests, like server stability will be done. -Grym
Now wait just a minute. I've killed thousands of people in a various number of ways in a number of different countries. Why haven't I gone to jail or been tried for war crimes? Because it's all in the virtual world (Counterstrike, Planetside, Diablo, etc.)
Just because The Sims *looks* more like real life than those games, DOESN'T give it the same legal protections. Perhaps a life of crime in Alphaville is a fantasy for a regular law-abiding citizens, but at the end of the day, they are just that, law-abiding citizens.
What EA did wasn't because of the law. It was because they didn't want bad PR from this guy reporting on what happens in the fantasy world they control. THAT is censorship at its very roots, and if I were him, I'd check my EULA to see if termination can occur in this manner.
-Grym
I personally think that this is a great idea. While I shudder at the thought of misclicks and wonder how you will address Anti-virus software support / uninstalling, I think you're on to a workable solution. The one that's in place isn't, in my opinion, workable, and here's why: I'm not new to computers, programming, manipulating the command-line, and so on, but I am new to linux. One of the most *frustrating* things I've found when trying to work with linux is the fact that nothing seems to come in executable form. I understand the reasons for this, but the least one could do is make sure all source files are included. *BUT* as we all know, this never happens. So now instead of doing something that actually seems productive, like setting up my new MRTG server, I'm instead running all over the internet trying to find the missing pieces of it. After repeating this process until the damn thing compiles, I'm left wondering why I'm using linux in the first place: - Because I'm saving money? Well, the time I've spent jumping through the l33t-user hoops have already eclipsed the cost of the program. Windows came with the machine, so no go there. - Because it's more stable? I find that although they have to be rebooted every so often, NT-based windows systems are stable enough for me. - Because the system + program is more efficient? Somehow, I think that few extra CPU cycles and megabytes of RAM aren't worth my troubles. In the end, the only reason I stick with it is because of my ideals. I *really* like the idea of OBSD and free (either meaning) things. But I don't think that's good enough. The linux community, in my opinion, really needs to choose. Do you want to really penetrate the desktop market and compete with Microsoft? Or do you want to continue the uberuser bravado that's kept the above problem (among others) from ever getting adequately addressed? -Grym
"He who grasps loses."
-Tao te Ching
The objects you use and have own you just as much as you own them. Don't believe me? Try giving away your beloved (I'm as guilty as the rest of us on this) computer for a month. It's hard.
Don't think because you created (or own) a program (or any object for that matter) that it doesn't have its own stake in you. After all, even in programming, you're limited in what you can do by the hardware, technology, programming language, and so on. You were forced to compromise your thoughts/algorithm around these limitations--whether you realized it or not.
In my opinion, this is one of the fundamental problems with Linux: it's solely designed (and mainly used) by incredibly knowledgeable programmers. (Unlike this, you can bet Microsoft has teams of focus groups of laypeople around helping the process.) These people, while extremely knowledgeable, don't relate to the average user. They don't see the problem with having to track down DLL files and source files needed for compilation of EVERY interesting program--they're used to it. They don't understand that most people don't want to deal with the command line unless they have to. They can't see why people would want to be able to just copy and paste files of a program from a computer with one linux distribution and have it work on another distribution.
The problem lies deeper than just ease of use like most people think. The problem is, while C++, PERL, bash scripting, security patching, and command line usage, are commonplace in the geek community, they are (relatively, when including those people of the "real world") a rather obscure and silly set of skills that are--unlike Windows--NECESSARY for proper usage of linux.
Until these problems are addressed, mark my words: Linux will never beat Windows on the average user's desktop. All the MSBlasters, Blue Screens of Death, and so on won't matter until Linux can even somewhat relate to an average person like Windows can.
-Grym