Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what "open access" means. Let's look at this hypothetical situation and you can tell me where my thinking is astray, if in fact it is:
BigPhoneCo runs fiber all over my little town of Los Alamos, NM. I face the prospect of having HSA. Now, since BigPhoneCo wants to make all kinds of cash, they launch a subsidiary ISP company with the innovative name of BigPhone.net. I am quite happy getting my internet goodies from my own ISP, call 'em WeeISP.com.
As I understand it, "open access" means that BigPhoneCo can't require me to use BigPhone.net as my ISP -- that is, that they have to make it possible for me to continue with WeeISP.com. Also as I understand it, BigPhoneCo is able and expected to charge WeeISP.com for the use of BigPhoneCo's new fiber line. BigPhoneCo will still make money and profit from the decision to lay fiber; they just won't make as much as if they were allowed to force me to use BigPhone.net.
Unless I'm mistaken in the above premise, rolling out the infrastructure for HSA _is_ going to be a profit-making activity for whatever company has the foresight (and more to the point, the available cash-on-hand) to do the rolling.
As for the issue of "Why should we do something that will make a lot of money if The Man won't let us make an obscene amount of money", that's a problem with corporate America that precedes the rise of the 'net by more than a century -- and in all that time, we haven't yet figured out a solution.
With all due respect, _what_ risk? If there's ever been a sure thing, high speed 'Net access is it. Communities with DSL or cable are seeing customers jumping on board like mad; @Home had to institute upstream limits because folks want to run their own servers; newsgroups, chat rooms, and message boards are hammered with "Why on God's Green Earth will my telco/cableco/ISP/alien overlord not give me HSA?"
We live in a very different world from that of a decade ago. Communications (voice, audio, video, data) are converging -- it's all bits and we gotta get _our_ bits into _that_ machine as fast as possible. The faster we can move bits, the more bits we want to move. When companies roll out something that will let us move our bits faster, whether it's a 56k modem, a DSL adapter, or a honkin' big T3 running through the living room with a tap hanging off the side, customers come and they come with checkbooks open.
If you build it, they will come. It's undeniable.
Re:Irreverent attitudes towards religion...
on
Spoonful of Quickies
·
· Score: 1
"I find the extremely aggressive attitude of the/. crowd towards religion disturbing. Is it really necessary that we all have to slander and defame Christians?"
Absolutely, bub. Anyone who not only dedicates his life to a fairy tale but who tries to establish the law of the land in such a way that his fairy tale is the guiding principle deserves a bullet to the brain. Since we're not allowed to do that, brutal mockery is the best we can do.
The thing to remember is that during the time frame in question, Netscape "owned the market" because there wasn't much of a market. Their competition at the time was basically Lynx and Mosaic -- then when MS decided that they should have a browser, they illegally used their dominance with the Windows platform to crush Netscape like a bug. IANAL, nor do I play one on TV, but I've been reading as many comments from antitrust lawyers as I can find during the trial and most of them feel that the DOJ has adequately demonstrated that (1) Microsoft has monopoly power and (2) Microsoft has abused that monopoly power to expand into new markets.
Biggest hope: Jackson will rule that Microsoft must fully disclose (1) file formats, (2) APIs, and (3) protocols -- and that the disclosure must continue until he decides that remediation has been accomplished. This will treat Windows as the "essential facility" that it is and allow competitors to compete on an even basis, while preventing Microsoft from immediately releasing Office June 2000 with All New File Formats to eliminate the hard work done by, e.g., the Wine development team.
Biggest disappointment: Judge Jackson, unaware of the magnitude of the economics at play, finds that Microsoft has done all the Bad Things they're accused of, and settles the issue by fining them the "massive" sum of 5 or 6 billion dollars. Business as usual, profits take a one-quarter dip.
Biggest fear: Microsoft is found not to possess monopoly power, and Judge Jackson thanks them for their generous time and apologizes for their inconvenience. Linux suddenly vanishes from the pages of the ZD publications. OEMs regretfully announce that their sales of machines with Linux just aren't high enough to justify the cost of supporting them and therefore Linux will be discontinued as an option. Microsoft integrates every program ever written into their flagship operating system.
As for the author who felt disturbed by the fact that so many people think this trial is nothing more than "IE or Netscape, who runs the Web?", one should never forget that most people have the brains of week-old banana pudding and for them, active involvement in civic life means spitting on the grass in the park instead of on the sidewalk.
"The fact that researchers from Los Alamos are presently researching this (10 years later) may serve as an indicator that there may be some substance to these claims, and that it may be worthy of future research."
Uh, no. I work at Los Alamos and we have a great deal of personal freedom here. While we all have programmatic requirements, most of us have little side projects going on that (if successful) we push for funding and what not for. The CF researchers here are free to look into it. They would also be free to look into perpetual motion or superluminal travel. Just because an employee of LANL is studying something, you shouldn't attach the Lab's prestige to it.
"If I wanted my personal data sold to the highest bidder, I'd sell it myself. "
It's not the highest bidder: it's any bidder who's willing to pay what the great state of California wants. Just another day in the land of the fee and the home of the slave.
Y'know, I can live with an ad or two on a webpage. What I cannot -- and will not -- accept is advertising that blinks, fades, shimmers, dances, or in some other way interferes with my ability to read a web page by attacking my peripheral vision.
Television and movie advertising are not the appropriate model for the Web. You can get away with eye-popping visuals in those media because you have either interrupted the programming (TV) or not yet begun it (movie).
The Web is more like a newspaper. Sure, the content is dynamic and all that jazz, but the bottom line is that nearly every page I'm interested in consists of content that has to be read, and animated advertising actively hinders my ability to do so.
I don't know if you're involved with advertising or if you just hate to see people proxying ads off their browsers, but consider this: when advertising consisted of billboard-like banners and plaintext hyperlinks, I occasionally clicked-through. Only when the marketing whores turned it into a cross between a casino and a video arcade did I seek out a proxy filter (specifically, Junkbuster).
Am I the only one who remembers the glory days before Microsoft when a 1.0 release was ready to go? If OS X isn't ready for prime time, then it should still be in the 0.75b4 stage or some such.
Fuckin' A, buddy. I thought I was the only Linux user in the Land of Enchantment gnashing his teeth and clenching his fists over US Worst's treatment of the locals. (If you're keeping score at home, NM is the only one of USW's 13-state coverage area that has no DSL service.)
How soon before real competition comes to NM? I'll drop US Worst in a heartbeat when an option becomes available.
"I'll agree that 56k is a nasty hack. The problem is it had to be done. The reason it exists at all is that the local phone apparently are determined not to be dragged into the 21st century, and intend to claw the ground kicking and screaming all the way."
Christ, yes. US West is fighting improvement in their operations like a momma rat cornered by pit bull terriers. Here in New Mexico they recently had their pet legislators pass a bill that would have in essence removed all regulatory oversight in exchange for vague promises of eventual improvements. The Gov. shot that down, but I suspect that the payback will be that they don't begin rolling out DSL here until several years after the rest of the country endorses telepathic communication.
Thank God; I was beginning to think I was the last person in America who knew what "begging the question" was. Admittedly, knowing that I might well be one of _two_ doesn't really fill me with glee.
Re:One world, One OS - No OS. Mod that one up to 5
on
GNU Inside?
·
· Score: 1
"Would you aim a gun at the typical Windows user's head, or just use the rubber hoses?"
Not unless the 2.3 series has some mind-blowingly fundamental changes to the kernel. Fixes, enhancements, and minor features would in all likelihood lead to a 2.4.0 -- and since Linus has said that he doesn't intend for the 2.3 series to run nearly as long chronologically as did 2.1, odds are there won't be time for anything that spectacular to make its way in.
Hey, Rob...here's an unsolicited suggestion for making/. a little bit more literate:
Whenever you post a story that touches upon the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and restrictions to what people can write/say/transfer, include a little reminder at the end that the proper spellings are "speech" and "amendment."
The Palm isn't intended to replace your computer; it's intended to supplant your computer. You can't put a keyboard in a shirt pocket (not a usable one, anyway). If you have to do much data entry with the Palm and you aren't entering it on your (real) computer and syncing it to the handheld, you're Doing It Wrong.
It only looks like a 180-degree turn, until you realize that vaporware announcements and the non-announcement here both achieve the same goal: getting people to buy a new Microsoft product.
"Although I have no relevant experience with drugs, never having taken them, I feel compelled to indict all those who do use drugs. Despite the fact that all of my information about drugs is either anecdotal or based on biased, often wildly inaccurate propaganda, I think I am completely qualified to label all those who use drugs as unworthy of the full-human status that I claim just for having a beating heart (pumping squeaky-clean blood, no less!)"
"isn't there a danger that by over-regulating microsoft, what would really be accomplished is a sort of affirmative action for microsoft competitors?"
Yes -- and the reasoning is the same as the reasoning that drove AA laegislation: those who have unfairly or unlawfully gained an advantage are not going to surrender it willingly, so we provide disproportionate assistance to the underdogs _until the inequity is resolved._
The question of when that takes place is certainly open to question; for me, one indicator that competition has been restored would be when Microsoft tells Michael Dell "if you want to put Windows on any of your machines, you'll put it on all of them" and his response is "suck my dick, you assholes."
"Proposal 1 (require MS to open all APIs) has already been rejected by capatalist pundits as being more of an advantage to Microsoft's competitors rather than helping consumers."
I read the article you referenced; it is the typical "Anything that drives the Dow up is Good" kind of paper.
The bottom line is this: the most likely scenario of full format (API, file, protocol) disclosure is that people can write applications that truly work with Windows as well as Microsoft's applications do. Interoperability skyrockets and tying vanishes. And suddenly, I no longer have to have a copy of MS Office to exchange info with people who do. I can buy Something Else! And so could my correspondents, if they choose. All of a sudden, Microsoft and Star and Applix and Corel have feature-comparable applications that all see comparable performance. The companies have to compete for my purchasing dollar. One of the easiest ways for them to do that is not to add dancing paperclips, but to -- brace yourself, this is a big thing -- cut their prices.
And price-cutting is Good for consumers. Yes, full disclosure helps competitors more than consumers in the short run -- but you can't help consumers without competition and you can't have competition without helping the (unlawfully restrained) competitors.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what "open access" means. Let's look at this hypothetical situation and you can tell me where my thinking is astray, if in fact it is:
BigPhoneCo runs fiber all over my little town of Los Alamos, NM. I face the prospect of having HSA. Now, since BigPhoneCo wants to make all kinds of cash, they launch a subsidiary ISP company with the innovative name of BigPhone.net. I am quite happy getting my internet goodies from my own ISP, call 'em WeeISP.com.
As I understand it, "open access" means that BigPhoneCo can't require me to use BigPhone.net as my ISP -- that is, that they have to make it possible for me to continue with WeeISP.com. Also as I understand it, BigPhoneCo is able and expected to charge WeeISP.com for the use of BigPhoneCo's new fiber line. BigPhoneCo will still make money and profit from the decision to lay fiber; they just won't make as much as if they were allowed to force me to use BigPhone.net.
Unless I'm mistaken in the above premise, rolling out the infrastructure for HSA _is_ going to be a profit-making activity for whatever company has the foresight (and more to the point, the available cash-on-hand) to do the rolling.
As for the issue of "Why should we do something that will make a lot of money if The Man won't let us make an obscene amount of money", that's a problem with corporate America that precedes the rise of the 'net by more than a century -- and in all that time, we haven't yet figured out a solution.
With all due respect, _what_ risk? If there's ever been a sure thing, high speed 'Net access is it. Communities with DSL or cable are seeing customers jumping on board like mad; @Home had to institute upstream limits because folks want to run their own servers; newsgroups, chat rooms, and message boards are hammered with "Why on God's Green Earth will my telco/cableco/ISP/alien overlord not give me HSA?"
We live in a very different world from that of a decade ago. Communications (voice, audio, video, data) are converging -- it's all bits and we gotta get _our_ bits into _that_ machine as fast as possible. The faster we can move bits, the more bits we want to move. When companies roll out something that will let us move our bits faster, whether it's a 56k modem, a DSL adapter, or a honkin' big T3 running through the living room with a tap hanging off the side, customers come and they come with checkbooks open.
If you build it, they will come. It's undeniable.
"I find the extremely aggressive attitude of the /. crowd towards religion disturbing. Is it really necessary that we all have to slander and defame Christians?"
Absolutely, bub. Anyone who not only dedicates his life to a fairy tale but who tries to establish the law of the land in such a way that his fairy tale is the guiding principle deserves a bullet to the brain. Since we're not allowed to do that, brutal mockery is the best we can do.
"I'm not so sure I mind a little intrusion if it protects me or my family."
And just like that, freedom takes another beating.
The thing to remember is that during the time frame in question, Netscape "owned the market" because there wasn't much of a market. Their competition at the time was basically Lynx and Mosaic -- then when MS decided that they should have a browser, they illegally used their dominance with the Windows platform to crush Netscape like a bug. IANAL, nor do I play one on TV, but I've been reading as many comments from antitrust lawyers as I can find during the trial and most of them feel that the DOJ has adequately demonstrated that (1) Microsoft has monopoly power and (2) Microsoft has abused that monopoly power to expand into new markets.
Biggest hope: Jackson will rule that Microsoft must fully disclose (1) file formats, (2) APIs, and (3) protocols -- and that the disclosure must continue until he decides that remediation has been accomplished. This will treat Windows as the "essential facility" that it is and allow competitors to compete on an even basis, while preventing Microsoft from immediately releasing Office June 2000 with All New File Formats to eliminate the hard work done by, e.g., the Wine development team.
Biggest disappointment: Judge Jackson, unaware of the magnitude of the economics at play, finds that Microsoft has done all the Bad Things they're accused of, and settles the issue by fining them the "massive" sum of 5 or 6 billion dollars. Business as usual, profits take a one-quarter dip.
Biggest fear: Microsoft is found not to possess monopoly power, and Judge Jackson thanks them for their generous time and apologizes for their inconvenience. Linux suddenly vanishes from the pages of the ZD publications. OEMs regretfully announce that their sales of machines with Linux just aren't high enough to justify the cost of supporting them and therefore Linux will be discontinued as an option. Microsoft integrates every program ever written into their flagship operating system.
As for the author who felt disturbed by the fact that so many people think this trial is nothing more than "IE or Netscape, who runs the Web?", one should never forget that most people have the brains of week-old banana pudding and for them, active involvement in civic life means spitting on the grass in the park instead of on the sidewalk.
"The fact that researchers from Los Alamos are presently researching this (10 years later) may serve as an indicator that there may be some substance to these claims, and that it may be worthy of future research."
Uh, no. I work at Los Alamos and we have a great deal of personal freedom here. While we all have programmatic requirements, most of us have little side projects going on that (if successful) we push for funding and what not for. The CF researchers here are free to look into it. They would also be free to look into perpetual motion or superluminal travel. Just because an employee of LANL is studying something, you shouldn't attach the Lab's prestige to it.
"If I wanted my personal data sold to the highest bidder, I'd sell it myself. "
It's not the highest bidder: it's any bidder who's willing to pay what the great state of California wants. Just another day in the land of the fee and the home of the slave.
Y'know, I can live with an ad or two on a webpage. What I cannot -- and will not -- accept is advertising that blinks, fades, shimmers, dances, or in some other way interferes with my ability to read a web page by attacking my peripheral vision.
Television and movie advertising are not the appropriate model for the Web. You can get away with eye-popping visuals in those media because you have either interrupted the programming (TV) or not yet begun it (movie).
The Web is more like a newspaper. Sure, the content is dynamic and all that jazz, but the bottom line is that nearly every page I'm interested in consists of content that has to be read, and animated advertising actively hinders my ability to do so.
I don't know if you're involved with advertising or if you just hate to see people proxying ads off their browsers, but consider this: when advertising consisted of billboard-like banners and plaintext hyperlinks, I occasionally clicked-through. Only when the marketing whores turned it into a cross between a casino and a video arcade did I seek out a proxy filter (specifically, Junkbuster).
"I mean, come on.. this is version 1.0!"
Am I the only one who remembers the glory days before Microsoft when a 1.0 release was ready to go? If OS X isn't ready for prime time, then it should still be in the 0.75b4 stage or some such.
"Beta" doesn't mean "It compiles."
'Since I read all the stuff about Linux in this comment: Xfree86 never was a "Linux project".'
Of course not. It's part of "the GNU system."
Fuckin' A, buddy. I thought I was the only Linux user in the Land of Enchantment gnashing his teeth and clenching his fists over US Worst's treatment of the locals. (If you're keeping score at home, NM is the only one of USW's 13-state coverage area that has no DSL service.)
How soon before real competition comes to NM? I'll drop US Worst in a heartbeat when an option becomes available.
"I'll agree that 56k is a nasty hack. The problem is it had to be done. The reason it exists at all is that the local phone apparently are determined not to be dragged into the 21st century, and intend to claw the ground kicking and screaming all the way."
Christ, yes. US West is fighting improvement in their operations like a momma rat cornered by pit bull terriers. Here in New Mexico they recently had their pet legislators pass a bill that would have in essence removed all regulatory oversight in exchange for vague promises of eventual improvements. The Gov. shot that down, but I suspect that the payback will be that they don't begin rolling out DSL here until several years after the rest of the country endorses telepathic communication.
Thank God; I was beginning to think I was the last person in America who knew what "begging the question" was. Admittedly, knowing that I might well be one of _two_ doesn't really fill me with glee.
"Would you aim a gun at the typical Windows user's head, or just use the rubber hoses?"
Can't we do both?
Not unless the 2.3 series has some mind-blowingly fundamental changes to the kernel. Fixes, enhancements, and minor features would in all likelihood lead to a 2.4.0 -- and since Linus has said that he doesn't intend for the 2.3 series to run nearly as long chronologically as did 2.1, odds are there won't be time for anything that spectacular to make its way in.
Hey, Rob...here's an unsolicited suggestion for making /. a little bit more literate:
Whenever you post a story that touches upon the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and restrictions to what people can write/say/transfer, include a little reminder at the end that the proper spellings are "speech" and "amendment."
The Palm isn't intended to replace your computer; it's intended to supplant your computer. You can't put a keyboard in a shirt pocket (not a usable one, anyway). If you have to do much data entry with the Palm and you aren't entering it on your (real) computer and syncing it to the handheld, you're Doing It Wrong.
It only looks like a 180-degree turn, until you realize that vaporware announcements and the non-announcement here both achieve the same goal: getting people to buy a new Microsoft product.
You do realize that perfect spelling with no caps makes you look as big a schmoe as the "loosers" you rightfully dreide, don't you?
"Although I have no relevant experience with drugs, never having taken them, I feel compelled to indict all those who do use drugs. Despite the fact that all of my information about drugs is either anecdotal or based on biased, often wildly inaccurate propaganda, I think I am completely qualified to label all those who use drugs as unworthy of the full-human status that I claim just for having a beating heart (pumping squeaky-clean blood, no less!)"
/. ?
Hey! Who knew Nancy Reagan read
"Temporary patches aren't going to fill up that God-shaped hole in your heart. Only one thing can fill that hole."
A three-way with a couple of nubile sorority sisters looking to broaden their horizons?
"isn't there a danger that by over-regulating microsoft, what would really be accomplished is a sort of affirmative action for microsoft competitors?"
Yes -- and the reasoning is the same as the reasoning that drove AA laegislation: those who have unfairly or unlawfully gained an advantage are not going to surrender it willingly, so we provide disproportionate assistance to the underdogs _until the inequity is resolved._
The question of when that takes place is certainly open to question; for me, one indicator that competition has been restored would be when Microsoft tells Michael Dell "if you want to put Windows on any of your machines, you'll put it on all of them" and his response is "suck my dick, you assholes."
"Proposal 1 (require MS to open all APIs) has already been rejected by capatalist pundits as being more of an advantage to Microsoft's competitors rather than helping consumers."
I read the article you referenced; it is the typical "Anything that drives the Dow up is Good" kind of paper.
The bottom line is this: the most likely scenario of full format (API, file, protocol) disclosure is that people can write applications that truly work with Windows as well as Microsoft's applications do. Interoperability skyrockets and tying vanishes. And suddenly, I no longer have to have a copy of MS Office to exchange info with people who do. I can buy Something Else! And so could my correspondents, if they choose. All of a sudden, Microsoft and Star and Applix and Corel have feature-comparable applications that all see comparable performance. The companies have to compete for my purchasing dollar. One of the easiest ways for them to do that is not to add dancing paperclips, but to -- brace yourself, this is a big thing -- cut their prices.
And price-cutting is Good for consumers. Yes, full disclosure helps competitors more than consumers in the short run -- but you can't help consumers without competition and you can't have competition without helping the (unlawfully restrained) competitors.