Would you be upset if companies were allowed to contruct paying-subscriber-only lanes on the freeway? Or if they were able to just throw out traffic cones wherever they wanted?
It's potentially worse than that. It might be as bad as if trucking companies were allowed to own roads, and then permitted to charge competing trucking companies more than they charge their own trucks. Or charge you more to drive because they don't like the route you decided to take, or don't believe that they get financial benefit from the contents of your trunk.
I think the main problem (and I admit that I harp on this a lot) is that people think of the Internet as an entertainment service rather than infrastructure. They think, "Magazine publishers get to decide what's in their magazine, so why shouldn't ISPs get to decide what's on the Internet?" But it really is more like, "Why shouldn't the electric company decide what appliances can be run in your home?"
Could tightened control by ISPs help prevent child pornography from being available on the web? Possibly-- in just about the same way that allowing a private company to control traffic flow on roads could prevent kidnapping.
Yeah, to explain a bit more (maybe this is unnecessary, but I'll explain anyway), I think Verizon and TWC, as companies who own/maintain the infrastructure, should be barred from even being ISPs. To people who don't understand what an ISP does, that may seem like a silly idea, but Verizon already allows other ISPs to operate over their infrastructure. Whenever you get DSL (or a T1, T3) in my area, it's going through Verizon.
So what I would propose is that anyone running cable must allow that sort of access to other ISPs, but also ISPs should be freed from having to compete with the infrastructure owner, since the infrastructure owner would be inclined to give special access/pricing to themselves as an ISP. Further, the infrastructure provider should be barred from making special deals with particular service providers.
I'll take your word for it that I'm wrong (obviously you're more versed than I am), but I did read one of the decisions where the judge said that offering files for distribution was infringement (and even cited some particular statute, IIRC), but that "making available" was not "offering for distribution".
I must be mistaken in some part of my analysis or recollection, but I wouldn't mind if you explained more. If you know what case I'm talking about, what am I misunderstanding?
No, they call web applications web applications. The services that are offered by those web applications are still "services". Services offered via the web, through a web application which runs on a web browser.
Have we really gotten to this point in this conversation?
The burden of obtaining authorization to distribute is on the person offering the goods
Well though IANAL, I've read a few different arguments about this, including some rulings. It seems that they do distinguish between uploading and downloading in that copyright law talks specifically about offering distribution.
This is where is gets weird in the context of how we deal with information in the digital age: copying happens all the time, so we think distribution is the key issue. However, copyright is specifically about the act of copying, and not about distribution. In order to go after someone for infringement, I would have to go after who copied the file. By having a file on my hard drive, even if that file is infringing, I'm not breaking the law unless I actually copied it. At least this is my understanding.
That doesn't make the act of copying it legal, it just makes it incredibly hard to prosecute, particularly given that no special equipment is needed (you don't need a printing press or anything). So if the law stopped there, then I could sell millions of pirated CDs, and I could never be prosecuted so long as they couldn't prove that I actually did the copying.
However, part of the copyright law includes that it's infringement to offer infringing copies for distribution, and that's much easier to prosecute.
But it's not the case that copying is legal, and as far as I know there's never been a legal basis for saying "when something is copied over the internet, it's solely copied by the person from whose computer it is being downloaded, and not by the person whose computer it is being downloaded to." It seems like that any law like that would be problematic.
Yes, but I believe the grandparent was merely trying to state that the one doing the actual *copying* (and therefore running afoul of copyright laws) is the uploader, not the downloader, and that so far the courts have seen it as such.
The courts do seem to have seen uploading as infringement, but I haven't heard of any rulings that suggest that download is not.
It just depresses me that you (quite rightly) felt you had to throw in that last paragraph, even though the things you didn't say can be easily spotted, simply by reading your actual message.
It depresses me a bit too. I've found that I have to tell people what I'm not-saying on a pretty consistent basis, or else I get attacked for saying things that I specifically did not say.
I don't think we really listen to each other very well, and we don't think very deeply about what other people are saying. If we did, we'd often find that people who disagree with us are disagreeing for a reason-- maybe even a valid reason-- even if they're still "wrong".
I didn't say that "downloading == theft". I wouldn't. In fact, I've argued many times here on Slashdot that copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft, and people who are trying to equate them are being dishonest.
However, there are many laws other than those against theft, and to the best of my knowledge, it's not untrue to say that copyright infringement is "illegal". Also, that copying copyrighted material without a license to do so is generally considered copyright infringement, and that the process of downloading something from the Internet includes "copying".
I'm not trying to be controversial here. I don't believe that copyright was intended to prevent private individuals from enjoying copyrighted material without a license. It was more to prevent professional publishers from poaching off of each others' work for profit. On the hand, copyright does have a valid role in ensuring that artists are compensated for their work, and in the current legal formulation, I believe copying songs without buying them (outside of "fair use") is illegal.
I agree. The vertical integration of Time Warner is a bit disturbing. They own the studio that makes the show. They own the TV channel that carries the show. They own the cable network that carries the channel. They own the ISP that competes with that cable network as a method of distribution. They own the infrastructure that carries both the ISP and the cable network to your home. Am I missing anything?
Personally, I think that the split should be between the people who provide infrastructure and everything else. If you're the company that actually runs the cable to people's homes, then you shouldn't be allowed to provide any kind of service over that network. It presents too many conflicts of interest.
The Tragedy of the Commons happens because of human self-interest and imperfection.
I think it's also worth noting that there's no clear way that the "tragedy of the commons" applies to open source software. It can't really be over-used or used-up by any of the owners. Your use doesn't hamper my use.
Well I wouldn't quite put it that way. I think it's true that pretty much any economic system works as long as the underlying assumptions work-- which they almost never do. Communism assumes all sorts of things about a person's personal motivation, problem-solving abilities, and ability to cooperate with others. So does capitalism, but capitalism tends to make slightly more realistic assumptions.
But when you get down to it, not all the assumptions work out. People who are extremely in favor of capitalism tend to assume that people will spend their money well. Adam Smith implied that the system would only work well if people with money spent it wisely (it's been a long time, so I don't remember the context, but I remember him implying this though not saying it explicitly). When Greenspan admitted his mistakes in not regulating certain aspects of the financial industry, he said that he didn't think the heads of banks would be so foolish as to jeopardize their banks the way they did. There's an assumption that having money is proof that you're wise enough to have earned that money, and therefore are wise enough to know what the best thing to do with that money. Unfortunately, that's not always borne out.
There's also an assumption that "free markets" and "governmental regulation" are the opposite of each other. However, that's not always the case-- the most obvious example being monopolies. Power has a nasty habit of accruing more power, even in capitalism. The rich and powerful are in a position to influence the system, and therefore become more rich and powerful. After a certain point, pooling power gains enough influence to sway and even overturn market forces. Sometimes the government must intercede to open a market back up, allowing consumer choice, and therefore allowing market forces to correct the situation again.
But really those are just a couple practical considerations that someone in favor of capitalism should keep in view. The bigger problem is when people start believing that capitalism is an ethical/moral system instead of an economic system. For some, capitalism has become a religion, and for them, cut-throat competition towards making money is the only real virtue, and selfless cooperation is a deadly sin. Any human activity where the chief immediate goal is not to make money is "communist", which may as well be called "satanic". Even if the goal is to make money, if the means to do that involve cooperation with others, it's potentially communist.
This is where FOSS comes into the picture. Some people may be developing FOSS for fun, for the good of mankind, for educational purposes, or for some other reason. However, *lots* of developers are employed by companies like IBM, Novell, Google, Apple, Red Hat, and Canonical. These are companies who are investing money in building software so that they can sell products and services. It's a money making venture. Still, Capitalists (with a capital "C" to indicate those who believe in capitalism as a moral system) believe that the venture is "communist" because it involves open/public cooperation.
I really wish I could convince people that capitalism isn't a form of government and isn't a moral code. It's just an economic system. We don't engage in a capitalistic economic system because it's right, moral, or holy. We do it because it's effective and efficient. We should be willing to stray from it in cases when it's not effective or efficient.
each time shrinking their potential market by blaming the very people they should have been working to turn into customers.
Worse than that, they were shrinking their market by blaming the very people who already were their customers. Contrary to the way we sometimes talk about it, "people who download music in violation of copyrights" and "people who buy music" are not mutually exclusive groups.
Often enough, the same people who will spend money on high-quality convenient products that they feel are worth the price will also look for alternate channels in cases where they don't think the product they are being offered is high-quality enough, convenient enough, or worth the price.
Now I'm not trying to excuse people who download music illegally. It's illegal. I don't do it. I don't advocate that others do it. I don't approve of it. I'm just pointing out that all those nasty/evil group of "pirates" and "thieves" that the music industry keeps blaming, vilifying, and suing-- that group has a fair amount of overlap with that industry's legitimate customers.
It's up to you, but the common use of the term "web services" is not about browsers.
Yeah, well I'm talking about services (in the traditional sense) being offered over via web pages displayed in a web browser. What would you have me call those services?
I really couldn't care less that the terminology has been appropriated for other technical usages. Did you know that "wet" has a special meaning for chemists? I still use it to describe what happens to me when I get stuck out in the rain. I guess it's possible some chemist is laughing behind my back whenever I use the term "wet" that way, but I don't care about the opinion of someone who behaves that way.
I'll admit that this isn't the most padantic argument I've gotten pulled into. Once someone tried to tell me that it was improper for me to refer to the Internet as "the Internet" because "an internet" is any worldwide network (or something like that), so that "the Internet" was really just one internet of a couple internets that exist, and I should be more specific.
No matter where you are, if you are there long enough, you will start to think that what happens around you is normal. That is a very generic way to describe the problem....He no longer has any connections to the outside world and his own world has become one that agrees with what he thinks because his world ain't stupid enough no to.
I think you're right to point out that this is a more generic problem than just "yes men". See, even if Bill Gates isn't surrounded by "yes men", when he's at Microsoft he's still surrounded with software developers. So everyone he's talking to people who think about things the way software developers (and software-developer managers) think about things, from the point of view that software developers look at things.
They don't have to be yes-men, since they'll still take lots of things for granted. They'll get used to their coworkers agreeing with them, and they'll take that as evidence that they're 100% correct about certain things. Then when they encounter an alternate opinion, they'll be quick to disregard it because of this confidence that comes with being agreed with all the time.
It happens with all sorts of groups, whenever you're surrounded by "like-minded people".
You should avoid using the term "web services" if you are talking about a browser app.
Avoid using common terminology because of some obscure technical usage? Thanks for the advice, but I think I'll stick to my own word choice.
I think MS is trying to be as standards complaint as it can without breaking existing web pages. The customer for a browser is the "browsee", not the web developers or a standards committee.
That's naive. Forgetting the leaked internal emails that document Microsoft's attempts to sabotage other companies in the way I'm talking about, what makes you think that the "browsee" is the customer? Ask yourself who supplies the funding for IE development. Does the person browsing pay? No, for them, it's "free". Microsoft makes its money from pre-loading the browser with links and specific web services like their own search engine.
So it's Microsoft's own search engine and advertising divisions that are the real customer. The whole point of running their own browser is to drive traffic away from Google. The whole reason Google funds Firefox and Chrome development is to drive traffic back to their own services.
If some individuals or companies want to eliminate support for IE and thus greatly reduce the number of people who can see their content, that's their own choice.
Yeah, except my point was about those businesses who aspire to provide services over the web, but are prevented by doing so because they can't rely on visitors having a web browser that works. And most of the reason why they can't is because a single company has been pushing their browser on everyone while dragging their feet in adopting standards.
eb services are machine-to-machine interactions over a network. See http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-gloss/ [w3.org] and check out the definition of "web service".
Ok, to clarify, I'm not talking about some particular technical definition. I'm talking about services delivered over the web, i.e. through a web browser. The sorts of services that can be offered by a company like Google or Yahoo are most certainly dependent on browser technologies. Microsoft has been purposefully and specifically hampering the advancement of those technologies because it considers Google and Yahoo to be competitors. They've been using their dominant position in the OS market to hamper that advancement. How is this not a valid anti-trust issue?
It wasn't a "strawman argument". It was an attempt to consolidate your argument and then I asked if it was valid. If that's not what you were arguing, please explain how what you were arguing was different from that.
There are no roadblocks to overcome, just different implementations.
No, it's no just "different implementations". It's a sub-par behind-the-times non-implementation of the standards vs. standard and modern implementations.
Political-correctness aside, a smart small player would target IE first since it has the largest market share by far.
Only if you think having a majority market share is the only important issue, and not servicing anyone else, not making development easy, not making things work properly, not pushing technology forward, and not providing a superior product.
I'm not aware of any serious players large or small that "threw in the towel" over having to support IE.
Yeah, well you wouldn't, would you. You don't hear about the products that people don't develop, but only about the products that they do develop. There's also the issue of you wanting to limit the discussion to "serious players" (who gets to fit in that category, I don't know), as though smaller players are irrelevant. Are you saying that smaller players are irrelevant?
But instead what's just barely starting to happen, anyway, is that some limited developers are starting to put a notice on their site that IE isn't really supported.
Of course, web services aren't really about browsers anyway
Are you really saying that the capabilities (or lack thereof) of web browsers has no effect on web services? Can you explain?
Well, there may certainly be some lightweight players who aren't willing to do what it takes to make things work, but the serious ones always do.
No offense, but that's a pretty bad argument. "It OK for Microsoft to use it's monopoly status to push a sub-par browser on people, thereby hampering communications and technological/economic development, since someone with enough resources can theoretically work around the limitations anyway." Is that a valid assessment of your position?
Even if that were true, why should someone with enough resourced have to expend extra resources to overcome Microsoft's roadblocks? And what about the smaller players? Sometimes innovations come from the little guy, you know.
Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.
Kindles do have some features that your netbook probably doesn't. For one, it's very light, thin, and doesn't require you to open it like a clamshell device. Second, it has electronic ink, which lowers power consumption and supposedly is much easier on the eyes. Also, I've read that you get free wireless internet (via cell phone networks) to download books and such wherever you are.
Now I don't know whether Kindles will ultimately do very well, but they aren't the same sort of device as a netbook.
Does that mean that, if you order one, you'll eventually get one? Just not right away?
Either way, if there were enough buyers, I'm sure Amazon would ramp up production. When there are shortages like this, it's often because they don't want to ramp up production too much and then end up with a surplus they can't sell.
These are just technical details that can be worked out. They aren't making it impossible to do business. Nobody except developers care about the geek level issues.
Sorry, but I don't buy into that logic. It may be that "nobody but developers care about geek-level issues", but people other than developers care about the effects of geek-level issues. If you can't provide certain kinds of web services because most of the world is using a sub-par browser and you're forced to develop for the lowest common denominator, then the non-geek rest of the world suffers from not having the services that you are prevented from providing.
Maybe that's too obscure, but how about this: offline Google Docs. Mozilla and Apple and Google have all been working for support for that sort of thing, and it could potentially be very helpful for users. I haven't seen a whole lot of effort from Microsoft to develop support for that sort of thing-- and it's no surprise, since web applications threaten their market position.
So no, these aren't just "technical details that can be worked out". It may seem that way if you're not paying attention, because you're still seeing some websites and web applications being developed. It's really hard to talk about what sorts of websites and web applications aren't being developed because of lack of support.
I don't get it. Microsoft makes a web browser and bundles it with their operating system. Big deal! Apple does the same thing with Safari.
Apple didn't get caught trying to run Safari competitors out of the market. Apple didn't successful run Safari competitors out and then promptly decide to cease development on Safari. Apple hasn't specifically avoided implementing web standards for the purpose of creating vendor lock-in. Apple isn't trying to leverage an OS monopoly to gain a browser monopoly so that they can use the browser monopoly to gain a search-engine monopoly.
They may be late to the game, but since Microsoft hasn't quit playing that game yet, I can't blame others for playing too.
4.Microsoft may make a program that lets you choose between IE, Firefox, Opera and Chrome.
Yeah, it really doesn't seem this hard to me. Microsoft could write a simple application that would present you with a choice of browsers and download the proper browser from that browser's website. I'm sure Google and Mozilla would be willing to provide Microsoft with a static link that would always point to the most recent version of the browser. If you're worried about security, they can even use signatures from the SSL certs to verify that the download was good.
The amount of resources it would take for Microsoft to write/distribute such an application would be negligible. This whole, "How do you download a browser unless you already have a browser?" is a red herring.
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Would you be upset if companies were allowed to contruct paying-subscriber-only lanes on the freeway? Or if they were able to just throw out traffic cones wherever they wanted?
It's potentially worse than that. It might be as bad as if trucking companies were allowed to own roads, and then permitted to charge competing trucking companies more than they charge their own trucks. Or charge you more to drive because they don't like the route you decided to take, or don't believe that they get financial benefit from the contents of your trunk.
I think the main problem (and I admit that I harp on this a lot) is that people think of the Internet as an entertainment service rather than infrastructure. They think, "Magazine publishers get to decide what's in their magazine, so why shouldn't ISPs get to decide what's on the Internet?" But it really is more like, "Why shouldn't the electric company decide what appliances can be run in your home?"
Could tightened control by ISPs help prevent child pornography from being available on the web? Possibly-- in just about the same way that allowing a private company to control traffic flow on roads could prevent kidnapping.
Don't you know that nothing had been invented before patents? And nothing was written before copyrights?
Yeah, to explain a bit more (maybe this is unnecessary, but I'll explain anyway), I think Verizon and TWC, as companies who own/maintain the infrastructure, should be barred from even being ISPs. To people who don't understand what an ISP does, that may seem like a silly idea, but Verizon already allows other ISPs to operate over their infrastructure. Whenever you get DSL (or a T1, T3) in my area, it's going through Verizon.
So what I would propose is that anyone running cable must allow that sort of access to other ISPs, but also ISPs should be freed from having to compete with the infrastructure owner, since the infrastructure owner would be inclined to give special access/pricing to themselves as an ISP. Further, the infrastructure provider should be barred from making special deals with particular service providers.
I'll take your word for it that I'm wrong (obviously you're more versed than I am), but I did read one of the decisions where the judge said that offering files for distribution was infringement (and even cited some particular statute, IIRC), but that "making available" was not "offering for distribution".
I must be mistaken in some part of my analysis or recollection, but I wouldn't mind if you explained more. If you know what case I'm talking about, what am I misunderstanding?
(Genuinely interested, not being a smart-ass)
No, they call web applications web applications. The services that are offered by those web applications are still "services". Services offered via the web, through a web application which runs on a web browser.
Have we really gotten to this point in this conversation?
The burden of obtaining authorization to distribute is on the person offering the goods
Well though IANAL, I've read a few different arguments about this, including some rulings. It seems that they do distinguish between uploading and downloading in that copyright law talks specifically about offering distribution.
This is where is gets weird in the context of how we deal with information in the digital age: copying happens all the time, so we think distribution is the key issue. However, copyright is specifically about the act of copying, and not about distribution. In order to go after someone for infringement, I would have to go after who copied the file. By having a file on my hard drive, even if that file is infringing, I'm not breaking the law unless I actually copied it. At least this is my understanding.
That doesn't make the act of copying it legal, it just makes it incredibly hard to prosecute, particularly given that no special equipment is needed (you don't need a printing press or anything). So if the law stopped there, then I could sell millions of pirated CDs, and I could never be prosecuted so long as they couldn't prove that I actually did the copying.
However, part of the copyright law includes that it's infringement to offer infringing copies for distribution, and that's much easier to prosecute.
But it's not the case that copying is legal, and as far as I know there's never been a legal basis for saying "when something is copied over the internet, it's solely copied by the person from whose computer it is being downloaded, and not by the person whose computer it is being downloaded to." It seems like that any law like that would be problematic.
Yes, but I believe the grandparent was merely trying to state that the one doing the actual *copying* (and therefore running afoul of copyright laws) is the uploader, not the downloader, and that so far the courts have seen it as such.
The courts do seem to have seen uploading as infringement, but I haven't heard of any rulings that suggest that download is not.
It just depresses me that you (quite rightly) felt you had to throw in that last paragraph, even though the things you didn't say can be easily spotted, simply by reading your actual message.
It depresses me a bit too. I've found that I have to tell people what I'm not-saying on a pretty consistent basis, or else I get attacked for saying things that I specifically did not say.
I don't think we really listen to each other very well, and we don't think very deeply about what other people are saying. If we did, we'd often find that people who disagree with us are disagreeing for a reason-- maybe even a valid reason-- even if they're still "wrong".
I didn't say that "downloading == theft". I wouldn't. In fact, I've argued many times here on Slashdot that copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft, and people who are trying to equate them are being dishonest.
However, there are many laws other than those against theft, and to the best of my knowledge, it's not untrue to say that copyright infringement is "illegal". Also, that copying copyrighted material without a license to do so is generally considered copyright infringement, and that the process of downloading something from the Internet includes "copying".
I'm not trying to be controversial here. I don't believe that copyright was intended to prevent private individuals from enjoying copyrighted material without a license. It was more to prevent professional publishers from poaching off of each others' work for profit. On the hand, copyright does have a valid role in ensuring that artists are compensated for their work, and in the current legal formulation, I believe copying songs without buying them (outside of "fair use") is illegal.
I agree. The vertical integration of Time Warner is a bit disturbing. They own the studio that makes the show. They own the TV channel that carries the show. They own the cable network that carries the channel. They own the ISP that competes with that cable network as a method of distribution. They own the infrastructure that carries both the ISP and the cable network to your home. Am I missing anything?
Personally, I think that the split should be between the people who provide infrastructure and everything else. If you're the company that actually runs the cable to people's homes, then you shouldn't be allowed to provide any kind of service over that network. It presents too many conflicts of interest.
The Tragedy of the Commons happens because of human self-interest and imperfection.
I think it's also worth noting that there's no clear way that the "tragedy of the commons" applies to open source software. It can't really be over-used or used-up by any of the owners. Your use doesn't hamper my use.
Well I wouldn't quite put it that way. I think it's true that pretty much any economic system works as long as the underlying assumptions work-- which they almost never do. Communism assumes all sorts of things about a person's personal motivation, problem-solving abilities, and ability to cooperate with others. So does capitalism, but capitalism tends to make slightly more realistic assumptions.
But when you get down to it, not all the assumptions work out. People who are extremely in favor of capitalism tend to assume that people will spend their money well. Adam Smith implied that the system would only work well if people with money spent it wisely (it's been a long time, so I don't remember the context, but I remember him implying this though not saying it explicitly). When Greenspan admitted his mistakes in not regulating certain aspects of the financial industry, he said that he didn't think the heads of banks would be so foolish as to jeopardize their banks the way they did. There's an assumption that having money is proof that you're wise enough to have earned that money, and therefore are wise enough to know what the best thing to do with that money. Unfortunately, that's not always borne out.
There's also an assumption that "free markets" and "governmental regulation" are the opposite of each other. However, that's not always the case-- the most obvious example being monopolies. Power has a nasty habit of accruing more power, even in capitalism. The rich and powerful are in a position to influence the system, and therefore become more rich and powerful. After a certain point, pooling power gains enough influence to sway and even overturn market forces. Sometimes the government must intercede to open a market back up, allowing consumer choice, and therefore allowing market forces to correct the situation again.
But really those are just a couple practical considerations that someone in favor of capitalism should keep in view. The bigger problem is when people start believing that capitalism is an ethical/moral system instead of an economic system. For some, capitalism has become a religion, and for them, cut-throat competition towards making money is the only real virtue, and selfless cooperation is a deadly sin. Any human activity where the chief immediate goal is not to make money is "communist", which may as well be called "satanic". Even if the goal is to make money, if the means to do that involve cooperation with others, it's potentially communist.
This is where FOSS comes into the picture. Some people may be developing FOSS for fun, for the good of mankind, for educational purposes, or for some other reason. However, *lots* of developers are employed by companies like IBM, Novell, Google, Apple, Red Hat, and Canonical. These are companies who are investing money in building software so that they can sell products and services. It's a money making venture. Still, Capitalists (with a capital "C" to indicate those who believe in capitalism as a moral system) believe that the venture is "communist" because it involves open/public cooperation.
I really wish I could convince people that capitalism isn't a form of government and isn't a moral code. It's just an economic system. We don't engage in a capitalistic economic system because it's right, moral, or holy. We do it because it's effective and efficient. We should be willing to stray from it in cases when it's not effective or efficient.
each time shrinking their potential market by blaming the very people they should have been working to turn into customers.
Worse than that, they were shrinking their market by blaming the very people who already were their customers. Contrary to the way we sometimes talk about it, "people who download music in violation of copyrights" and "people who buy music" are not mutually exclusive groups.
Often enough, the same people who will spend money on high-quality convenient products that they feel are worth the price will also look for alternate channels in cases where they don't think the product they are being offered is high-quality enough, convenient enough, or worth the price.
Now I'm not trying to excuse people who download music illegally. It's illegal. I don't do it. I don't advocate that others do it. I don't approve of it. I'm just pointing out that all those nasty/evil group of "pirates" and "thieves" that the music industry keeps blaming, vilifying, and suing-- that group has a fair amount of overlap with that industry's legitimate customers.
It's up to you, but the common use of the term "web services" is not about browsers.
Yeah, well I'm talking about services (in the traditional sense) being offered over via web pages displayed in a web browser. What would you have me call those services?
I really couldn't care less that the terminology has been appropriated for other technical usages. Did you know that "wet" has a special meaning for chemists? I still use it to describe what happens to me when I get stuck out in the rain. I guess it's possible some chemist is laughing behind my back whenever I use the term "wet" that way, but I don't care about the opinion of someone who behaves that way.
I'll admit that this isn't the most padantic argument I've gotten pulled into. Once someone tried to tell me that it was improper for me to refer to the Internet as "the Internet" because "an internet" is any worldwide network (or something like that), so that "the Internet" was really just one internet of a couple internets that exist, and I should be more specific.
No matter where you are, if you are there long enough, you will start to think that what happens around you is normal. That is a very generic way to describe the problem....He no longer has any connections to the outside world and his own world has become one that agrees with what he thinks because his world ain't stupid enough no to.
I think you're right to point out that this is a more generic problem than just "yes men". See, even if Bill Gates isn't surrounded by "yes men", when he's at Microsoft he's still surrounded with software developers. So everyone he's talking to people who think about things the way software developers (and software-developer managers) think about things, from the point of view that software developers look at things.
They don't have to be yes-men, since they'll still take lots of things for granted. They'll get used to their coworkers agreeing with them, and they'll take that as evidence that they're 100% correct about certain things. Then when they encounter an alternate opinion, they'll be quick to disregard it because of this confidence that comes with being agreed with all the time.
It happens with all sorts of groups, whenever you're surrounded by "like-minded people".
You should avoid using the term "web services" if you are talking about a browser app.
Avoid using common terminology because of some obscure technical usage? Thanks for the advice, but I think I'll stick to my own word choice.
I think MS is trying to be as standards complaint as it can without breaking existing web pages. The customer for a browser is the "browsee", not the web developers or a standards committee.
That's naive. Forgetting the leaked internal emails that document Microsoft's attempts to sabotage other companies in the way I'm talking about, what makes you think that the "browsee" is the customer? Ask yourself who supplies the funding for IE development. Does the person browsing pay? No, for them, it's "free". Microsoft makes its money from pre-loading the browser with links and specific web services like their own search engine.
So it's Microsoft's own search engine and advertising divisions that are the real customer. The whole point of running their own browser is to drive traffic away from Google. The whole reason Google funds Firefox and Chrome development is to drive traffic back to their own services.
If some individuals or companies want to eliminate support for IE and thus greatly reduce the number of people who can see their content, that's their own choice.
Yeah, except my point was about those businesses who aspire to provide services over the web, but are prevented by doing so because they can't rely on visitors having a web browser that works. And most of the reason why they can't is because a single company has been pushing their browser on everyone while dragging their feet in adopting standards.
eb services are machine-to-machine interactions over a network. See http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-gloss/ [w3.org] and check out the definition of "web service".
Ok, to clarify, I'm not talking about some particular technical definition. I'm talking about services delivered over the web, i.e. through a web browser. The sorts of services that can be offered by a company like Google or Yahoo are most certainly dependent on browser technologies. Microsoft has been purposefully and specifically hampering the advancement of those technologies because it considers Google and Yahoo to be competitors. They've been using their dominant position in the OS market to hamper that advancement. How is this not a valid anti-trust issue?
Thanks for the strawman argument.
It wasn't a "strawman argument". It was an attempt to consolidate your argument and then I asked if it was valid. If that's not what you were arguing, please explain how what you were arguing was different from that.
There are no roadblocks to overcome, just different implementations.
No, it's no just "different implementations". It's a sub-par behind-the-times non-implementation of the standards vs. standard and modern implementations.
Political-correctness aside, a smart small player would target IE first since it has the largest market share by far.
Only if you think having a majority market share is the only important issue, and not servicing anyone else, not making development easy, not making things work properly, not pushing technology forward, and not providing a superior product.
I'm not aware of any serious players large or small that "threw in the towel" over having to support IE.
Yeah, well you wouldn't, would you. You don't hear about the products that people don't develop, but only about the products that they do develop. There's also the issue of you wanting to limit the discussion to "serious players" (who gets to fit in that category, I don't know), as though smaller players are irrelevant. Are you saying that smaller players are irrelevant?
But instead what's just barely starting to happen, anyway, is that some limited developers are starting to put a notice on their site that IE isn't really supported.
Of course, web services aren't really about browsers anyway
Are you really saying that the capabilities (or lack thereof) of web browsers has no effect on web services? Can you explain?
Well, there may certainly be some lightweight players who aren't willing to do what it takes to make things work, but the serious ones always do.
No offense, but that's a pretty bad argument. "It OK for Microsoft to use it's monopoly status to push a sub-par browser on people, thereby hampering communications and technological/economic development, since someone with enough resources can theoretically work around the limitations anyway." Is that a valid assessment of your position?
Even if that were true, why should someone with enough resourced have to expend extra resources to overcome Microsoft's roadblocks? And what about the smaller players? Sometimes innovations come from the little guy, you know.
Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.
Kindles do have some features that your netbook probably doesn't. For one, it's very light, thin, and doesn't require you to open it like a clamshell device. Second, it has electronic ink, which lowers power consumption and supposedly is much easier on the eyes. Also, I've read that you get free wireless internet (via cell phone networks) to download books and such wherever you are.
Now I don't know whether Kindles will ultimately do very well, but they aren't the same sort of device as a netbook.
It was always on a pre-order basis. ;-)
Does that mean that, if you order one, you'll eventually get one? Just not right away?
Either way, if there were enough buyers, I'm sure Amazon would ramp up production. When there are shortages like this, it's often because they don't want to ramp up production too much and then end up with a surplus they can't sell.
These are just technical details that can be worked out. They aren't making it impossible to do business. Nobody except developers care about the geek level issues.
Sorry, but I don't buy into that logic. It may be that "nobody but developers care about geek-level issues", but people other than developers care about the effects of geek-level issues. If you can't provide certain kinds of web services because most of the world is using a sub-par browser and you're forced to develop for the lowest common denominator, then the non-geek rest of the world suffers from not having the services that you are prevented from providing.
Maybe that's too obscure, but how about this: offline Google Docs. Mozilla and Apple and Google have all been working for support for that sort of thing, and it could potentially be very helpful for users. I haven't seen a whole lot of effort from Microsoft to develop support for that sort of thing-- and it's no surprise, since web applications threaten their market position.
So no, these aren't just "technical details that can be worked out". It may seem that way if you're not paying attention, because you're still seeing some websites and web applications being developed. It's really hard to talk about what sorts of websites and web applications aren't being developed because of lack of support.
The fact that IE fails to implement web standards definitely has an effect on development of web services.
I don't get it. Microsoft makes a web browser and bundles it with their operating system. Big deal! Apple does the same thing with Safari.
Apple didn't get caught trying to run Safari competitors out of the market. Apple didn't successful run Safari competitors out and then promptly decide to cease development on Safari. Apple hasn't specifically avoided implementing web standards for the purpose of creating vendor lock-in. Apple isn't trying to leverage an OS monopoly to gain a browser monopoly so that they can use the browser monopoly to gain a search-engine monopoly.
They may be late to the game, but since Microsoft hasn't quit playing that game yet, I can't blame others for playing too.
4.Microsoft may make a program that lets you choose between IE, Firefox, Opera and Chrome.
Yeah, it really doesn't seem this hard to me. Microsoft could write a simple application that would present you with a choice of browsers and download the proper browser from that browser's website. I'm sure Google and Mozilla would be willing to provide Microsoft with a static link that would always point to the most recent version of the browser. If you're worried about security, they can even use signatures from the SSL certs to verify that the download was good.
The amount of resources it would take for Microsoft to write/distribute such an application would be negligible. This whole, "How do you download a browser unless you already have a browser?" is a red herring.