"For me, it often makes more sense thinking about who I am in the context of my personal accomplishments and failures, dreams and aspirations, and all of my past experiences. Family and Society only come in loosely, but dont really affect how I think about myself."
"L'enfer, c'est les autres." (Hell is other people) - Jean Paul Sartre
Bullshit. I've worked as a consultant and have briefed rooms full of people up to executive management levels of large international organisations and corporations. The clothes I wore were usually hand-made and extremely conservative. When I recommended FOSS for use in the Enterprise, I spoke about having a useful, low-cost toolkit, not about Freedom (though I believe that you can't have one without the other).
People weren't biting. Why? The timing was wrong. This was the mid-90s, and nobody wanted to go out on a limb. They barely knew what this stuff was, and kept asking, 'Yeah, but what do I own?' The problem was not that nobody in a suit was talking about it. The problem was another one entirely - nobody else was using it.
FOSS is not a frontier any more. Everybody's using it, so people assume that it's for everyone. I can assure you, however, that they do not give a rat's ass what the developers are wearing. They only want a tool that works. Suggesting that the cause for this uptake was people in suits is to mistake cause and effect. The fact that suits are talking Linux these days, that not all developers are bearded hippies (they never were, but that's another story)... these are symptoms of FOSS' mainstream status, not the cause.
The cause of FOSS acceptance is that independant-minded developers cooperated to create something so compelling that nobody could deny its value. The fact that many who did so are not bound by traditional social mores should be celebrated, not vilified.
"That's a very insightful point, but what if the funds aren't available to do both? The best argument I can think of is that since mobile telephony seems to be spreading on its own, that is, without the help of governments and NGOs, the OLPC initiative is where developmental aid should be directed."
That's well enough. I'd suggest that government, NGOs and donors can play a role at critical stages of both, however. In Vanuatu (where I'm currently working) the government is encouraging improvement in telephone services through market liberalisation and regulation. If its new tariff regime gets cabinet approval, it will also create incentives for building and supporting computers locally instead of shipping them in from elsewhere.
You see, not all development consists of gifts from the developed world. The ideal is a situation where the price of a good or service is accessible to the local populace. Both of the tactics above came about because people broke out of the 'development is digging wells' mold and began looking at other options.
So where cash infusions are concerned, you're right to state that mobile telephony is already largely commoditised, and that computer manufacture could use a bit of support to reach the same level. Once the price is right, things should more or less take care of themselves, though. Assuming that everyone's playing fair, of course.
"Besides, unlike a cellphone, the crank-powered laptop is very useful even with no infrastructure - you can store an entire library of information on it."
Thank you so much for having a clue. Seriously. I work in development, specialising in communications, and I run into this silly reductionism so often it sometimes makes me want to scream. I don't know why it doesn't occur to more people, but power generation is a problem in most of the world, and with oil prices (and supply) what they are, things are only going to get worse. Charging (or disposing of) batteries is a real problem where I live. Rather than trade in my crank-powered laptop for a mobile, I'd rather run a crank-powered mobile (okay, VOIP) from my laptop.
The exclusionary logic that states 'mobiles are more effective than PCs; let's forget about PCs' is not only wrong in the assumption, it's wrong in the conclusion. Mobile telephony is great. It has tremendous value in the developing world, where laying out copper simply cannot happen. But guess what? Computers are great too. So let's try something really crazy, a-and - stay with me here - do both.
"The melting of floating ice has no net effect on water level."
That's right, so we don't have to worry about ice in the Arctic Ocean. Which just leaves the ice covering most of Greenland, Baffin and Ellesmere Islands, the coastal glaciers in North America and elsewhere. And Antarctica. But aside from that, we're fine.
"There's no mention/plan on how to refill the thing."
That's a show-stopper for me. I'd love to be able to deploy robust and renewable energy sources for field research, and for Internet access in very remote areas. If I can refuel these things myself (even if that means buying some patent-pending refuelly whizbanger for a mere 42 gazillion bucks), then I'm very interested. But if it's not trivially refillable, it's worse than deadweight.
"Also, it weighs a lot - more than 3 lbs, which could almost double some laptops' overall weight."
That's not such a big deal for a lot of applications. True that the average travelling salesman will care a lot about even a few more pounds to schlepp through the airport. But I suspect this kind of technology will find a different niche at first: situations where the cost of generating electricity removes any advantage that a battery provides.
For example, I recently kept a laptop running for a week on a very remote island in the South Pacific (cue the Cast Away "Wilson?!?" jokes). In order to do so I had to haul a few truck batteries and a solar panel with me. If I could make do with a couple of fuel cells and a mini-still (there's lots of sugar cane handy) or even a jug of high-proof, I'd be able to keep the laptop running non-stop, and more efficiently than running a generator to charge batteries.
"Can I ask why you can't just rent a dedicated server in the US or elsewhere?"
This has been asked of me many times. Here's the logic I've been following:
The bottom line is that the best solution is onshore. As I mentioned before, that's precluded by price. So the next obvious solution is to go offshore, and find someone who's willing to do it for us. That's what we're doing right now with the geek community mailing list. It's administered by someone in a neighbouring country who has a mandate to support this kind of thing. But managing dozens or hundreds of accounts and related mailing lists is a different kind of task to a single mailing list. I don't feel that we can in good conscience rely on this organisation to maintain that kind of service.
So why not host at a commercial operation, as you suggest? The biggest reason is that we don't have enough local talent to handle the setup and administration. The second reason is that we want to involve someone who actually sees some value in what we're doing. Google fits this bill, because they benefit by being perceived as Nice Guys in the development community. It makes great copy for them.
It's true that there are not a few others who would be willing to support this kind of thing. Staff at Apple computer have shown interest and offered assistance in other aspects of this project, as have many others. But it always pays to aim high. Google really is at the pinnacle of reliability right now. I've been using their service since the beginning, and in all that time have received a grand total of one server error.
In previous jobs I've worked with Tier 1 hosting providers who couldn't provide the same kind of support. The budget ones are sometimes good, but from this distance (i.e. several thousand miles away) it can be tough to be sure.
So I guess it boils down to this: Google is big, it's a known commodity, and has a policy of being a good neighbour. And they're free. All of those things may be true of others, but given that I've already found a service that fits the bill, why look further?
Assuming that we're approved for the beta, that is. 8^) If that doesn't happen, then I will most assuredly be looking at exactly the kind of service you're describing.
I think this is a really exciting opportunity for NGOs in the developing world, if Google decides to support us.
Organisations such as the ones I support in Vanuatu work with minimal resources in very difficult circumstances. Internet costs for a dedicated server start at about USD 1000 per month, and increase from there, based on bandwidth. This in a country where the average monthly income is less than USD 50.
In other words, we will not soon be in a position to host our own mail servers. Because NGOs are supposed to work in a transparent manner - we have a mandate for free and open communication - having our mail hosted by GMail is not a particular problem from a privacy perspective.
The biggest benefit that we can get is reliable and centralised email and - more important - mailing list management. Email is the only affordable means of communication in this country, as telephone and mail delivery are both expensive and inefficient. This is a big deal because poor communications in this country causes really severe problems - indeed, it can often make the difference between life and death.
I know some of you will ask: 'If this is life and death, why the hell would you trust an online email provider? Surely there are donors who would pay for a proper service?' The short answer is that there are people working on long-term solutions to this problem. I'm one of them. But donors move slowly, and the government has no money for this. In the fullness of time, I don't doubt that we'll develop a home-grown and very robust system. But in the short term, we need something that's going to work, and isn't going to kill us with the cost.
I've already submitted an application on behalf of my NGO, and if that's successful, I'll ask Google to consider supporting a couple of publicly-run computer resource centres I've set up, so that the public can get free email, and the staff can do mailing list and account management, etc. from one location.
"It *is* always going to be easier to stick with what you have already."
Damn, and I was going to mod this thread....
I think you're almost on target, but not quite. The easier decision is to stick with what you've got, and it's often much safer to avoid changing horses in mid-stream, but it is not always easier to stick with what you've got.
Case in point: A large government agency in the country where I live had incredible problems managing its Internet traffic, to the extent that sometimes messages would take over a day to cross from one department to the other. The delays were mostly due to a bottleneck caused by placing all the content, spam and traffic filtering on the same box. An acquaintance of mine quietly installed a(n experimental) Linux box on the network to take up some of the slack, and even though traffic problems were significantly reduced, the decision was made to spend USD 25,000 more to beef up the existing system, because 'That's what we know.'
In other words, a conservative viewpoint with regards to technology is good, but it can lead to situations where the well-trodden path isn't nearly as efficient as clearing a new one. As a wise man once said, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.'
"If they phone is wide open and anyone can develop for it why would anyone pay $2.50/song, $5 to $10/application, etc?"
That's true, as far as it goes, but consider an alternative approach: Why not give up a little on the apps and services side of the thing, and make buckets of money by selling gazillions of the devices because people can do more with your phone?
I suspect if they did a proper business case, they'd find, much as Apple has with the iPod, that it's not necessary to sell every little thing that can go onto the device. Just one or two really good ones.
I couldn't agree more. If you have value in the company, and it's work that you otherwise enjoy, then you might find the right environment to make positive change.
I remember back in '98, trying to talk the owner of a company I was working for into using FOSS tools as the foundation for our software apps. He kept asking me, "But... what do we own?" He never really did get it, though we did move all our servers to Linux and pushed a lot of our development work onto Linux boxes. What I really appreciated, though, was that he and the COO gave me a good two hours of their time to make my case, and though they didn't do everything I suggested, we did reach a compromise that improved our efficiency and our work environment.
Likewise, I and two other staff at another company worked with the owners to re-write the standard employment contract to allow for the GPL and FOSS-related 'IP ownership isses'.
The patent situation might prove a little more intransigent, though, because you seem to view it as a showstopper. Nonetheless, if you feel you're in the right position to do something about it, then see if you can change the policy. If you and your employer reach a workable compromise, then fine.
If you find that you cannot stomach the thought that you're contributing to an unethical or immoral situation, then you need to decide how to explain that to management in a way that makes it clear that his company has lost a valuable employee because of its policies. Ideally, you'll do it in such a way that they won't be glad to see the back of you. 8^)
All of this requires of course that you respect the management at that company, that they respect you, and that they're not so huge that they can't reconsider a fundamental policy such as this. I suspect that the latter will probably not be true, but you're the one who needs to judge that.
"In other words: No primary source material. No proof other than innuendo and hype."
This statement is either remarkably misinformed or downright deceptive. The web page on the Center for Digital Democracry site offers fourteen links to primary sources, such as original marketing materials that describe the new 'service offering' as well as FEC filings by AT&T, Bell South and Verizon. If those don't count as primary sources, I don't know what does.
"Now: would Verizon actually profit from a tiered system? Well -- it already does. Business-class DSL offers twice the bandwidth of Consumer-class DSL. Would they love to charge even more for a higher-differentiated tier system? Sure. Anyone surprised?"
That is a remarkably disingenuous statement. You're trying to remove the distinction between bandwidth as a commodity service, and bandwidth which is tailored per site, depending on whether or not the website owners have paid their tithe to the telcos. These are fundamentally different things, and only the latter has any relevance whatsoever to this discussion.
I can only conclude that either you've utterly missed the point of the whole article, or that you're deliberately seeking to confuse the issue.
"It worked, but it was supposed to be the tool of a major outbreak that never materialized, and is now unlikely to."
True, but it never happened in the same way the Y2K crisis 'didn't happen'. It was prevented by the concerted action of a very large number of people who re-emptively developed and deployed a patch to fill the gap until the vendor-provided one happened along. If it hadn't been for the public dissemination of the risk assessment and analytical data, this could have been a big problem.
That said, the damage was also mitigated by the fact that the black hats using the exploit decided not to package it in a highly virulent form. Nonetheless, the potential for widespread damage was very real - and remains a danger to those few who have yet to patch their systems.
"Open source advocates have blasted the offer because it lacks the knowledge required to interoperate with Windows behind its IP licensing, thus making it unusable."
I'm sure the submitter meant to write 'locks'. But this version was worth a chuckle.
"How can a client trust her now, since she might decide that her conscience tells her to spill the beans about something confidential to an opposing party, or to the police?"
First, she's not a criminal lawyer, so I strongly doubt the police would come into play. Second, leaking information to the competition is an entirely different thing, and not at all relevant to the case at hand. Third, defense lawyers are required to report crimes in many jurisdictions. but again, this case has nothing whatsoever to do with reporting criminal wrongdoing. I've spoken at length with a friend who is an expert in public defense, and he says the trick is to never ask the client a question to which you don't want to know the answer. In other words, it's a lawyer's job to represent her client to the best of her ability, and in criminal cases that requires that the lawyer is not privy to evidence which might prejudice the case. But this isn't about criminal defense. She was/is an IP lawyer.
But back to the topic at hand: There is a ton of precedent for a lawyer to offer advice which contradicts what the client believes (or wants to hear). When that happens it's the client's prerogative to find other counsel, and the lawyer's prerogative to suggest they do so.
The trope that lawyers are not allowed to have principles is unfortunately so common these days that the mere possibility seems to have been precluded in most people's minds. Incidentally, another lawyer who deliberately broke the law on principle was a guy named Nelson Mandela.
"I find it reasonable that a law firm fires an employee who states publicly that she will consciously break the law."
I don't think that follows at all. I should think a well-trained lawyer with a conscience is in a better position to determine the (in)justice of a given law than most people. Once they've arrived at that decision, I think it's incumbent on them to act consistently with their professional opinions. Personally, I find the disjuncture between law and morality in modern society quite distressing.
It wasn't always this way, though. Perhaps you weren't aware of this, but one of the most famous conscientious law-breakers in the world was trained as a lawyer: Mahatma Ghandi.
Thanks for a really thoughtful reply. It's nice to see actual dialogue on this issue. 8^)
I'm afraid I'm going to have to cherry-pick a few small points, because it's nearly 04:00 where I am, and I will never be able to do justice to your entire message. I don't necessarily agree with every assertion you make, but I respect the time and effort and thought that went into it.
With regards to legal controversy, I've read across a number of online resources, but I'm in Eastern Europe at the moment, so I haven't had the chance to do more than that. While there are individuals (Yoo, the ex-Justice dept. staffer and legal scholar, for example) who strongly defend the president's power to perform warrant-less surveillance on US citizens, it appears to me that the majority strongly disagree. A number of conservative Justice dept. officials are reputed to have lost or left their jobs because of their refusal to support the White House warrant-less surveillance programme. There's a good article on the Newsweek website. It's well researched and well written, presenting the reasoning and rationale in a pretty straightforward manner.
"Nooo, the Fourth Amendment (not Article IV) just says there can be no "unreasonable" searches. That may or may not mean a warrant -- the definition of "unreasonable" is up to the Courts, ultimately the Supreme Court."
The 'unreasonable' element puts limits on the kinds of search, but the 'probable cause' part makes it clear that searches and seizures require warrants that have stood up to the appropriate level of scrutiny, in this case the FISA court.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That's fairly unambiguous.
Again, people will argue that the president needs the ability to conduct warrantless surveillance of US citizens in order to protect the nation. While I don't personally agree with that, I can see why people would argue for it. What I consider indisputable, though, is that he would require congressional approval to do so, and that would certainly entail legislation. Some say the law covering FISA already provides this capability. I'm prone to agree with them.
"Congress has no power to grant or deny war powers to the President, because he is granted those powers under Article II of the Constitution, and the Constitution supercedes all laws passed by Congress."
I think you need to re-examine that assertion. Only Congress has the right to declare war. Once that's done, the president has constitutionally granted latitude to carry out the conflict as he sees fit, without requiring further advice or consent. But Congress has not declared war; they have granted him powers as defined within the legislation authorising the use of force against Iraq. The fact that Congress explicitly disallowed the prosecution of these powers on US soil is, in this case, integral. They did not grant him the power to operate unsupervised on US soil.
"But even beyond that, the matter is highly controversial and hotly debated. There's the question of the extent of the Executive's power to conduct military operations during wartime."
The matter is controversial, and there's no denying it's being hotly debated. The issues of law, however, are not so tenuous as you seem to think. Every argument that the White House has offered has been quite thoroughly refuted. About the simplest and clearest summary of these arguments can be found in Al Gore's speech on MLK day. And before anyone screams 'bias!': read the speech and weigh his statements on their merits. I'm not asking you to buy his conclusions, I'm asking you to consider his arguments and draw your own conclusions.
"You raid a cell in Pakistan, find a U.S. phone number on a computer there. In criminal justice terms, that's not probable cause to tap a phone line."
That almost certainly is probable cause, and because it's an espionage- and national security-related issue, the FISA court could readily be expected to issue a warrant for this.
In terms of spying on Americans, however, there must be a warrant. Article 4 of the constitution asserts this.
With regards to whatever 'War powers' the president might or might not have, he was explicitly denied the exercise of those powers in the US by Congress. When the White House asked the House to explicitly place US territory within the scope of the bill giving the president the right to use all means necessary, they refused. This is a matter of public record. It is therefore proven that Congress authorised no such program, and the warrant-less surveillance of individuals on US soil is illegal and unconstitutional.
Again, you're right to say that the issue of whether the president should conduct unwarranted surveillance on US soil is controversial and hotly debated. The issue of whether it is legal to do so today is not.
But back to the issue of whether AT&T is breaking the law - the details will have to come out before anyone can venture a reasoned opinion on this, I think. Even if AT&T's lawyers concluded that the unwarranted surveillance was illegal, they might still feel that the company had to comply with a US government order.
"Cellphones are more ubiquitous than PCs in Africa; they're already networked and Microsoft feels obligated to offer a realistic alternative to the $100 laptop which with ad-hoc mesh networking could make their entire closed-source software platform irrelevant to this part of the developing world."
That seems to just about sum it up. The strategy has a few fatal flaws in it, though. I live in a Least Developed Country (according to the UN), and cell phones here are popular, but they cost about 50-75% of the average monthly salary. About 1 in 30-50 people in the urban areas of this country has easy access to a television. The increased cost of buying a TV and a keyboard (no matter how cheaply you sell them) would be prohibitive for all but those who can already afford to pay to spend an hour every day or two at an Internet cafe.
In short, there's almost no imaginable way they could successfully market these. Remember, the $100 laptop folks are planning to sell the laptops to major governments and NGOs, who in turn will give them away. No matter how you price it, this proposed device will never be able to compete.
Slashdot Mirror
"For me, it often makes more sense thinking about who I am in the context of my personal accomplishments and failures, dreams and aspirations, and all of my past experiences. Family and Society only come in loosely, but dont really affect how I think about myself."
"L'enfer, c'est les autres." (Hell is other people) - Jean Paul Sartre
I think he used a Mac. 8^)
"Could Richard Stallman be part of the problem?"
No, unless you define the problem as 'The GPL'.
"Linux + Business Suits = Success."
Bullshit. I've worked as a consultant and have briefed rooms full of people up to executive management levels of large international organisations and corporations. The clothes I wore were usually hand-made and extremely conservative. When I recommended FOSS for use in the Enterprise, I spoke about having a useful, low-cost toolkit, not about Freedom (though I believe that you can't have one without the other).
People weren't biting. Why? The timing was wrong. This was the mid-90s, and nobody wanted to go out on a limb. They barely knew what this stuff was, and kept asking, 'Yeah, but what do I own?' The problem was not that nobody in a suit was talking about it. The problem was another one entirely - nobody else was using it.
FOSS is not a frontier any more. Everybody's using it, so people assume that it's for everyone. I can assure you, however, that they do not give a rat's ass what the developers are wearing. They only want a tool that works. Suggesting that the cause for this uptake was people in suits is to mistake cause and effect. The fact that suits are talking Linux these days, that not all developers are bearded hippies (they never were, but that's another story)... these are symptoms of FOSS' mainstream status, not the cause.
The cause of FOSS acceptance is that independant-minded developers cooperated to create something so compelling that nobody could deny its value. The fact that many who did so are not bound by traditional social mores should be celebrated, not vilified.
"That's a very insightful point, but what if the funds aren't available to do both? The best argument I can think of is that since mobile telephony seems to be spreading on its own, that is, without the help of governments and NGOs, the OLPC initiative is where developmental aid should be directed."
That's well enough. I'd suggest that government, NGOs and donors can play a role at critical stages of both, however. In Vanuatu (where I'm currently working) the government is encouraging improvement in telephone services through market liberalisation and regulation. If its new tariff regime gets cabinet approval, it will also create incentives for building and supporting computers locally instead of shipping them in from elsewhere.
You see, not all development consists of gifts from the developed world. The ideal is a situation where the price of a good or service is accessible to the local populace. Both of the tactics above came about because people broke out of the 'development is digging wells' mold and began looking at other options.
So where cash infusions are concerned, you're right to state that mobile telephony is already largely commoditised, and that computer manufacture could use a bit of support to reach the same level. Once the price is right, things should more or less take care of themselves, though. Assuming that everyone's playing fair, of course.
"Besides, unlike a cellphone, the crank-powered laptop is very useful even with no infrastructure - you can store an entire library of information on it."
Thank you so much for having a clue. Seriously. I work in development, specialising in communications, and I run into this silly reductionism so often it sometimes makes me want to scream. I don't know why it doesn't occur to more people, but power generation is a problem in most of the world, and with oil prices (and supply) what they are, things are only going to get worse. Charging (or disposing of) batteries is a real problem where I live. Rather than trade in my crank-powered laptop for a mobile, I'd rather run a crank-powered mobile (okay, VOIP) from my laptop.
The exclusionary logic that states 'mobiles are more effective than PCs; let's forget about PCs' is not only wrong in the assumption, it's wrong in the conclusion. Mobile telephony is great. It has tremendous value in the developing world, where laying out copper simply cannot happen. But guess what? Computers are great too. So let's try something really crazy, a-and - stay with me here - do both.
"Google everyone. By screename and real name."
Feh, just do what I do: Get a legal name change once a month. Works like a charm.
Sincerely,
Mahendra O'Gordon-Smythe Feuerstein
"The melting of floating ice has no net effect on water level."
That's right, so we don't have to worry about ice in the Arctic Ocean. Which just leaves the ice covering most of Greenland, Baffin and Ellesmere Islands, the coastal glaciers in North America and elsewhere. And Antarctica. But aside from that, we're fine.
[Sarcasm aimed at GP, not parent. I think.]
"There's no mention/plan on how to refill the thing."
That's a show-stopper for me. I'd love to be able to deploy robust and renewable energy sources for field research, and for Internet access in very remote areas. If I can refuel these things myself (even if that means buying some patent-pending refuelly whizbanger for a mere 42 gazillion bucks), then I'm very interested. But if it's not trivially refillable, it's worse than deadweight.
"Also, it weighs a lot - more than 3 lbs, which could almost double some laptops' overall weight."
That's not such a big deal for a lot of applications. True that the average travelling salesman will care a lot about even a few more pounds to schlepp through the airport. But I suspect this kind of technology will find a different niche at first: situations where the cost of generating electricity removes any advantage that a battery provides.
For example, I recently kept a laptop running for a week on a very remote island in the South Pacific (cue the Cast Away "Wilson?!?" jokes). In order to do so I had to haul a few truck batteries and a solar panel with me. If I could make do with a couple of fuel cells and a mini-still (there's lots of sugar cane handy) or even a jug of high-proof, I'd be able to keep the laptop running non-stop, and more efficiently than running a generator to charge batteries.
"Can I ask why you can't just rent a dedicated server in the US or elsewhere?"
This has been asked of me many times. Here's the logic I've been following:
The bottom line is that the best solution is onshore. As I mentioned before, that's precluded by price. So the next obvious solution is to go offshore, and find someone who's willing to do it for us. That's what we're doing right now with the geek community mailing list. It's administered by someone in a neighbouring country who has a mandate to support this kind of thing. But managing dozens or hundreds of accounts and related mailing lists is a different kind of task to a single mailing list. I don't feel that we can in good conscience rely on this organisation to maintain that kind of service.
So why not host at a commercial operation, as you suggest? The biggest reason is that we don't have enough local talent to handle the setup and administration. The second reason is that we want to involve someone who actually sees some value in what we're doing. Google fits this bill, because they benefit by being perceived as Nice Guys in the development community. It makes great copy for them.
It's true that there are not a few others who would be willing to support this kind of thing. Staff at Apple computer have shown interest and offered assistance in other aspects of this project, as have many others. But it always pays to aim high. Google really is at the pinnacle of reliability right now. I've been using their service since the beginning, and in all that time have received a grand total of one server error.
In previous jobs I've worked with Tier 1 hosting providers who couldn't provide the same kind of support. The budget ones are sometimes good, but from this distance (i.e. several thousand miles away) it can be tough to be sure.
So I guess it boils down to this: Google is big, it's a known commodity, and has a policy of being a good neighbour. And they're free. All of those things may be true of others, but given that I've already found a service that fits the bill, why look further?
Assuming that we're approved for the beta, that is. 8^) If that doesn't happen, then I will most assuredly be looking at exactly the kind of service you're describing.
I think this is a really exciting opportunity for NGOs in the developing world, if Google decides to support us.
Organisations such as the ones I support in Vanuatu work with minimal resources in very difficult circumstances. Internet costs for a dedicated server start at about USD 1000 per month, and increase from there, based on bandwidth. This in a country where the average monthly income is less than USD 50.
In other words, we will not soon be in a position to host our own mail servers. Because NGOs are supposed to work in a transparent manner - we have a mandate for free and open communication - having our mail hosted by GMail is not a particular problem from a privacy perspective.
The biggest benefit that we can get is reliable and centralised email and - more important - mailing list management. Email is the only affordable means of communication in this country, as telephone and mail delivery are both expensive and inefficient. This is a big deal because poor communications in this country causes really severe problems - indeed, it can often make the difference between life and death.
I know some of you will ask: 'If this is life and death, why the hell would you trust an online email provider? Surely there are donors who would pay for a proper service?' The short answer is that there are people working on long-term solutions to this problem. I'm one of them. But donors move slowly, and the government has no money for this. In the fullness of time, I don't doubt that we'll develop a home-grown and very robust system. But in the short term, we need something that's going to work, and isn't going to kill us with the cost.
I've already submitted an application on behalf of my NGO, and if that's successful, I'll ask Google to consider supporting a couple of publicly-run computer resource centres I've set up, so that the public can get free email, and the staff can do mailing list and account management, etc. from one location.
"It *is* always going to be easier to stick with what you have already."
Damn, and I was going to mod this thread....
I think you're almost on target, but not quite. The easier decision is to stick with what you've got, and it's often much safer to avoid changing horses in mid-stream, but it is not always easier to stick with what you've got.
Case in point: A large government agency in the country where I live had incredible problems managing its Internet traffic, to the extent that sometimes messages would take over a day to cross from one department to the other. The delays were mostly due to a bottleneck caused by placing all the content, spam and traffic filtering on the same box. An acquaintance of mine quietly installed a(n experimental) Linux box on the network to take up some of the slack, and even though traffic problems were significantly reduced, the decision was made to spend USD 25,000 more to beef up the existing system, because 'That's what we know.'
In other words, a conservative viewpoint with regards to technology is good, but it can lead to situations where the well-trodden path isn't nearly as efficient as clearing a new one. As a wise man once said, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.'
"If they phone is wide open and anyone can develop for it why would anyone pay $2.50/song, $5 to $10/application, etc?"
That's true, as far as it goes, but consider an alternative approach: Why not give up a little on the apps and services side of the thing, and make buckets of money by selling gazillions of the devices because people can do more with your phone?
I suspect if they did a proper business case, they'd find, much as Apple has with the iPod, that it's not necessary to sell every little thing that can go onto the device. Just one or two really good ones.
I couldn't agree more. If you have value in the company, and it's work that you otherwise enjoy, then you might find the right environment to make positive change.
I remember back in '98, trying to talk the owner of a company I was working for into using FOSS tools as the foundation for our software apps. He kept asking me, "But... what do we own?" He never really did get it, though we did move all our servers to Linux and pushed a lot of our development work onto Linux boxes. What I really appreciated, though, was that he and the COO gave me a good two hours of their time to make my case, and though they didn't do everything I suggested, we did reach a compromise that improved our efficiency and our work environment.
Likewise, I and two other staff at another company worked with the owners to re-write the standard employment contract to allow for the GPL and FOSS-related 'IP ownership isses'.
The patent situation might prove a little more intransigent, though, because you seem to view it as a showstopper. Nonetheless, if you feel you're in the right position to do something about it, then see if you can change the policy. If you and your employer reach a workable compromise, then fine.
If you find that you cannot stomach the thought that you're contributing to an unethical or immoral situation, then you need to decide how to explain that to management in a way that makes it clear that his company has lost a valuable employee because of its policies. Ideally, you'll do it in such a way that they won't be glad to see the back of you. 8^)
All of this requires of course that you respect the management at that company, that they respect you, and that they're not so huge that they can't reconsider a fundamental policy such as this. I suspect that the latter will probably not be true, but you're the one who needs to judge that.
"Would this process affect the coloration of the teeth?"
No, but tooth size many change. 8^)
"In other words: No primary source material. No proof other than innuendo and hype."
This statement is either remarkably misinformed or downright deceptive. The web page on the Center for Digital Democracry site offers fourteen links to primary sources, such as original marketing materials that describe the new 'service offering' as well as FEC filings by AT&T, Bell South and Verizon. If those don't count as primary sources, I don't know what does.
"Now: would Verizon actually profit from a tiered system? Well -- it already does. Business-class DSL offers twice the bandwidth of Consumer-class DSL. Would they love to charge even more for a higher-differentiated tier system? Sure. Anyone surprised?"
That is a remarkably disingenuous statement. You're trying to remove the distinction between bandwidth as a commodity service, and bandwidth which is tailored per site, depending on whether or not the website owners have paid their tithe to the telcos. These are fundamentally different things, and only the latter has any relevance whatsoever to this discussion.
I can only conclude that either you've utterly missed the point of the whole article, or that you're deliberately seeking to confuse the issue.
HTH. HAND.
"It worked, but it was supposed to be the tool of a major outbreak that never materialized, and is now unlikely to."
True, but it never happened in the same way the Y2K crisis 'didn't happen'. It was prevented by the concerted action of a very large number of people who re-emptively developed and deployed a patch to fill the gap until the vendor-provided one happened along. If it hadn't been for the public dissemination of the risk assessment and analytical data, this could have been a big problem.
That said, the damage was also mitigated by the fact that the black hats using the exploit decided not to package it in a highly virulent form. Nonetheless, the potential for widespread damage was very real - and remains a danger to those few who have yet to patch their systems.
"Open source advocates have blasted the offer because it lacks the knowledge required to interoperate with Windows behind its IP licensing, thus making it unusable."
I'm sure the submitter meant to write 'locks'. But this version was worth a chuckle.
They've had the protocol in place for years!
"How can a client trust her now, since she might decide that her conscience tells her to spill the beans about something confidential to an opposing party, or to the police?"
First, she's not a criminal lawyer, so I strongly doubt the police would come into play. Second, leaking information to the competition is an entirely different thing, and not at all relevant to the case at hand. Third, defense lawyers are required to report crimes in many jurisdictions. but again, this case has nothing whatsoever to do with reporting criminal wrongdoing. I've spoken at length with a friend who is an expert in public defense, and he says the trick is to never ask the client a question to which you don't want to know the answer. In other words, it's a lawyer's job to represent her client to the best of her ability, and in criminal cases that requires that the lawyer is not privy to evidence which might prejudice the case. But this isn't about criminal defense. She was/is an IP lawyer.
But back to the topic at hand: There is a ton of precedent for a lawyer to offer advice which contradicts what the client believes (or wants to hear). When that happens it's the client's prerogative to find other counsel, and the lawyer's prerogative to suggest they do so.
The trope that lawyers are not allowed to have principles is unfortunately so common these days that the mere possibility seems to have been precluded in most people's minds. Incidentally, another lawyer who deliberately broke the law on principle was a guy named Nelson Mandela.
"I find it reasonable that a law firm fires an employee who states publicly that she will consciously break the law."
I don't think that follows at all. I should think a well-trained lawyer with a conscience is in a better position to determine the (in)justice of a given law than most people. Once they've arrived at that decision, I think it's incumbent on them to act consistently with their professional opinions. Personally, I find the disjuncture between law and morality in modern society quite distressing.
It wasn't always this way, though. Perhaps you weren't aware of this, but one of the most famous conscientious law-breakers in the world was trained as a lawyer: Mahatma Ghandi.
Thanks for a really thoughtful reply. It's nice to see actual dialogue on this issue. 8^)
I'm afraid I'm going to have to cherry-pick a few small points, because it's nearly 04:00 where I am, and I will never be able to do justice to your entire message. I don't necessarily agree with every assertion you make, but I respect the time and effort and thought that went into it.
With regards to legal controversy, I've read across a number of online resources, but I'm in Eastern Europe at the moment, so I haven't had the chance to do more than that. While there are individuals (Yoo, the ex-Justice dept. staffer and legal scholar, for example) who strongly defend the president's power to perform warrant-less surveillance on US citizens, it appears to me that the majority strongly disagree. A number of conservative Justice dept. officials are reputed to have lost or left their jobs because of their refusal to support the White House warrant-less surveillance programme. There's a good article on the Newsweek website. It's well researched and well written, presenting the reasoning and rationale in a pretty straightforward manner.
"Nooo, the Fourth Amendment (not Article IV) just says there can be no "unreasonable" searches. That may or may not mean a warrant -- the definition of "unreasonable" is up to the Courts, ultimately the Supreme Court."
The 'unreasonable' element puts limits on the kinds of search, but the 'probable cause' part makes it clear that searches and seizures require warrants that have stood up to the appropriate level of scrutiny, in this case the FISA court.
That's fairly unambiguous.
Again, people will argue that the president needs the ability to conduct warrantless surveillance of US citizens in order to protect the nation. While I don't personally agree with that, I can see why people would argue for it. What I consider indisputable, though, is that he would require congressional approval to do so, and that would certainly entail legislation. Some say the law covering FISA already provides this capability. I'm prone to agree with them.
"Congress has no power to grant or deny war powers to the President, because he is granted those powers under Article II of the Constitution, and the Constitution supercedes all laws passed by Congress."
I think you need to re-examine that assertion. Only Congress has the right to declare war. Once that's done, the president has constitutionally granted latitude to carry out the conflict as he sees fit, without requiring further advice or consent. But Congress has not declared war; they have granted him powers as defined within the legislation authorising the use of force against Iraq. The fact that Congress explicitly disallowed the prosecution of these powers on US soil is, in this case, integral. They did not grant him the power to operate unsupervised on US soil.
"But even beyond that, the matter is highly controversial and hotly debated. There's the question of the extent of the Executive's power to conduct military operations during wartime."
The matter is controversial, and there's no denying it's being hotly debated. The issues of law, however, are not so tenuous as you seem to think. Every argument that the White House has offered has been quite thoroughly refuted. About the simplest and clearest summary of these arguments can be found in Al Gore's speech on MLK day. And before anyone screams 'bias!': read the speech and weigh his statements on their merits. I'm not asking you to buy his conclusions, I'm asking you to consider his arguments and draw your own conclusions.
"You raid a cell in Pakistan, find a U.S. phone number on a computer there. In criminal justice terms, that's not probable cause to tap a phone line."
That almost certainly is probable cause, and because it's an espionage- and national security-related issue, the FISA court could readily be expected to issue a warrant for this.
In terms of spying on Americans, however, there must be a warrant. Article 4 of the constitution asserts this.
With regards to whatever 'War powers' the president might or might not have, he was explicitly denied the exercise of those powers in the US by Congress. When the White House asked the House to explicitly place US territory within the scope of the bill giving the president the right to use all means necessary, they refused. This is a matter of public record. It is therefore proven that Congress authorised no such program, and the warrant-less surveillance of individuals on US soil is illegal and unconstitutional.
Again, you're right to say that the issue of whether the president should conduct unwarranted surveillance on US soil is controversial and hotly debated. The issue of whether it is legal to do so today is not.
But back to the issue of whether AT&T is breaking the law - the details will have to come out before anyone can venture a reasoned opinion on this, I think. Even if AT&T's lawyers concluded that the unwarranted surveillance was illegal, they might still feel that the company had to comply with a US government order.
"You must do the 'Windows Genuine Advantage' thingy before it'll install."
Ok, that explains it. I figured the mirrors were just slow:
"Assuming the used machine runs on batteries powered by solar cells, pedals, small windmill, crank, etc."
In fairness, this idea does seem to have a high-powered crank driving it. 8^)
"Cellphones are more ubiquitous than PCs in Africa; they're already networked and Microsoft feels obligated to offer a realistic alternative to the $100 laptop which with ad-hoc mesh networking could make their entire closed-source software platform irrelevant to this part of the developing world."
That seems to just about sum it up. The strategy has a few fatal flaws in it, though. I live in a Least Developed Country (according to the UN), and cell phones here are popular, but they cost about 50-75% of the average monthly salary. About 1 in 30-50 people in the urban areas of this country has easy access to a television. The increased cost of buying a TV and a keyboard (no matter how cheaply you sell them) would be prohibitive for all but those who can already afford to pay to spend an hour every day or two at an Internet cafe.
In short, there's almost no imaginable way they could successfully market these. Remember, the $100 laptop folks are planning to sell the laptops to major governments and NGOs, who in turn will give them away. No matter how you price it, this proposed device will never be able to compete.
"Google is seeding clouds! Is this the end of Microsoft due to a massive hurricane Google is developing in the Pacific?"
I think I have your answer. 8^)