The study pointed out that, in most cases, Microsoft remains dominant as long as it has a first mover advantage. The question now is, why does Microsoft continue to enjoy a first mover advantage?
My hypothesis is that Microsoft, by actively wooing game developers and turning Windows into a gaming platform, is using the games industry to retain a significant portion of users (gamers). These users then help Microsoft retain users by spreading the word about deficiencies in Linux (lack of gaming support). Thus, Microsoft gains a set of "zealots" whose influence counterbalances the effect of Linux zealots.
Therefore, it is important that the Linux community actively tries to make gaming (both programming and running games) easier in Linux. This involves improving hardware support, simplyfying graphics and sound APIs, and simplifying program installation. In addition, a campaign must be mounted to try to get more game developers to release versions of their games for Linux. Gaming is the last area of computing where Microsoft enjoys total dominance. Removing this advantage will help level the playing field considerably for Linux.
Google doesn't need to release its modifications. The GPL only requires you to publish modifications if you're redistributing the software. Google is using the modified Linux kernels and filesystems internally, and isn't selling or redistributing its proprietary products in any way. Also, as a sibling post has pointed out, most of Google's proprietary modifications are so specialized to Google's unique needs (extremely distributed storage and processing) that they would be useless for the general programmer/user.
Most likely, the bad guys *already* knew. This article lets the good guys know as well, so that they can take countermeasures (like multiple overwrites).
A commercial, and in some respects a social doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and know already much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery.
Rogues knew a good deal about lock-picking long before locksmiths discussed it among themselves, as they have lately done. If a lock, let it have been made in whatever country, or by whatever maker, is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is to the interest of honest persons to know this fact, because the dishonest are tolerably certain to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of the knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance.
It cannot be too earnestly urged that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties. Some time ago, when the reading public was alarmed at being told how London milk is adulterated, timid persons deprecated the exposure, on the plea that it would give instructions in the art of adulterating milk; a vain fear, milkmen knew all about it before, whether they practiced it or not; and the exposure only taught purchasers the necessity of a little scrutiny and caution, leaving them to obey this necessity or not, as they pleased.
-- From A. C. Hobbs (Charles Tomlinson, ed.), Locks and Safes: The Construction of Locks. Published by Virtue & Co., London, 1853 (revised 1868).
The above quote still applies to security research today. Full disclosure is often the best policy, because bad guys always have the initiative. Therefore they are most likely to learn of new vulnerabilities (like looking for unerased data on cell phones). Disclosing a vulnerability such as this will then benefit the good guys (who now know to take countermeasures) more than the bad guys (who gain little additional information).
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that this is the same doomed business model of the dot-com bubble?
Does Universal actually expect to make money off this, or is this a "straw man" venture designed to fail in order to show shareholders and politicians that strict DRM is necessary to guarantee profitability?
But I can't help but feel a little concerned about having all of my personal documents in the hands of an online service.
No one is forcing you to use this service. If you're concerned about the privacy aspect, don't use it, or don't put your personal documents onto their servers. Just because you aren't confident in the service's privacy protection doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't use it to share and collaborate on other documents, especially ones that don't contain private or sensetive information.
But there can also be the more comlex (but not always) installs of slack or vector, etc.
And can you give me any reason for a newbie to be installing Slack or Vector? The entire reason for having different Linux distributions is to allow some to cater to new users (Ubuntu, SuSE, etc.) while still allowing others (Slackware, Gentoo, Arch, etc.) to cater to power users who want manual configuration for all settings.
A lot of the time, the airport security people make you turn on the laptop in front of them to make sure it runs.
Would suck if you had a dodgy battery.
Yeah, and it still doesn't prevent you from concealing a bomb in a second or spare battery, like the original poster suggested. Or, if you were really ambitious, you could take out 1/2 the cells in the battery and replace them with explosives. The laptop would still turn on, and your explosives would be easily concealed.
Graphical User Interfaces are intuitive because you can remember the location of things.
Unless Microsoft breaks the idiom by having the tabs on the multi-row tabbed interfaces dynamically move around to put the active row at the bottom. If you switch to a different row to check something, and want to go back to where you were before, you have to keep track of the fact that the row ordering has magically changed. Here's a hint guys: if the window has more than 1 row of tabs, it can be separated into 2 windows.
</rant>
If you disagree with the "business model" or the legal issues surrounding it, don't be a part of it. And that includes not obtaining the content in question.
As others have pointed out, the RIAA automatically blames "piracy" for declining revenue. They then use this justification with Congress to get ever more restrictions on fair use. Its all well and good for you to say, "Don't be a part of it", but it is equally ineffective to just stand by and wait for completely new content to appear. Like it or not, a lot of intellectual property is in the form of derived works. If consumers stand by and let the RIAA destroy fair use, then much of the feedstock for the new content that you are looking for will become inaccessible. At that point you are stuck between bowing to the RIAA's wishes or settling for the small amount content that is so absolutely new that the RIAA can't make a claim to it.
Restrictions on fair use also make it more difficult for those striving to create absolutely new content. If I happen to shoot an outdoor scene, and copyrighted music can be heard in the background, can the RIAA sue me? If I mention a song in a story, does the RIAA have rights? Its unfair to make content creators strip out or get rights for references to existing work. But with increasing restrictions on fair use, that's exactly the sort regime we are approaching.
If I have a store where I charge people money to enter, I'm going to sell a lot less merchandise than if I opened up the store to all who want to browse.
It'd only work if the soldiers were trained to hit the terroris without hitting the tens of people surrounding him/her, or hitting any portion of the plane itself. Given the fact that they'd be doing this in a close-quarters situation with potential turbulence, all I see are is a bunch of explosive decompressions due to stray rounds puncturing the skin of the aircraft.
A better solution is to use highly trained troops with knives. The risk to the soldier would be marginally greater, but this can be minimized by allowing the soldiers to carry large blades (a la machetes). It'd be messier that just shooting the guy, but a knife-fight would present a far smaller risk to the airplane itself.
You've hit the nail on the head. The OP's strategy would work great against Iran, or Syria or some other active sponsor of terror. But in many cases, like with Pakistan, or Columbia, or the Phillippines, such a strategy would backfire badly. The collective punishment of the entire populace would simply make the terrorists there more popular, as they'd be the only ones seen doing anything against "American aggression."
You're bound to cooperate if you're both close enough to each other that it doesn't matter what the power of your weapon is. Example: if you have a pistol and I have a bomb and we're both 5 yards from one another. In a situation like that, any wrong move will mean the end of both parties (especially if I have a "fail deadly" switch on the bomb).
Besides, as others have pointed out, this still doesn't affect "homegrown" terrorism. Who should we have "attacked" after Oklahoma City? Who should the Brits "attack" for their rail bombings (all carried out by British citizens IIRC)?
In that case, we need to educate people and let them know that there is no such monolithic thing as "Linux". In the general media perception, Linux refers to any generic Linux distro, as they are all assumed to be essentially equivalent. That view (equivalence) needs to be changed.
It is through the streamlining of purchasing computers that led to more standardization across components.
Oh, is this why Dell computers all have proprietary cases, motherboards, and power supplies? Dell has not done anything to improve standardization in terms of physical components. Dell has simply continued the tradition set by HP, Compaq, and others of creating and using propretary components whenever possible in order to keep the consumer coming back to them and them only when components fail.
We never see "Windows Professional is killing Windows Home".
That's because Windows Home and Windows Professional are binary compatible. I can take my Windows Home application, and install it on a Windows Professional machine without having to change anything. For all of Linux's strengths, binary compatibility is one thing that could still use a lot of improvements. I don't see how having multiple package managers improves the robustness or security of Linux in any way.
True, but's that's orthogonal to the point that I was trying to make. The grandparent is saying that Apple machines are akin to some kind of handcrafted piece of flawless fine art. I'm pinting out that Apple machines have flaws, just like every other type of computer vendor. Nobody, not even Apple, is perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
The study pointed out that, in most cases, Microsoft remains dominant as long as it has a first mover advantage. The question now is, why does Microsoft continue to enjoy a first mover advantage?
My hypothesis is that Microsoft, by actively wooing game developers and turning Windows into a gaming platform, is using the games industry to retain a significant portion of users (gamers). These users then help Microsoft retain users by spreading the word about deficiencies in Linux (lack of gaming support). Thus, Microsoft gains a set of "zealots" whose influence counterbalances the effect of Linux zealots.
Therefore, it is important that the Linux community actively tries to make gaming (both programming and running games) easier in Linux. This involves improving hardware support, simplyfying graphics and sound APIs, and simplifying program installation. In addition, a campaign must be mounted to try to get more game developers to release versions of their games for Linux. Gaming is the last area of computing where Microsoft enjoys total dominance. Removing this advantage will help level the playing field considerably for Linux.
Both. Its the only way to be sure.
Google doesn't need to release its modifications. The GPL only requires you to publish modifications if you're redistributing the software. Google is using the modified Linux kernels and filesystems internally, and isn't selling or redistributing its proprietary products in any way. Also, as a sibling post has pointed out, most of Google's proprietary modifications are so specialized to Google's unique needs (extremely distributed storage and processing) that they would be useless for the general programmer/user.
The above quote still applies to security research today. Full disclosure is often the best policy, because bad guys always have the initiative. Therefore they are most likely to learn of new vulnerabilities (like looking for unerased data on cell phones). Disclosing a vulnerability such as this will then benefit the good guys (who now know to take countermeasures) more than the bad guys (who gain little additional information).
According to the summary, the Windows version isn't finished yet. They need help in packaging the files into a handy .exe installer.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that this is the same doomed business model of the dot-com bubble?
Does Universal actually expect to make money off this, or is this a "straw man" venture designed to fail in order to show shareholders and politicians that strict DRM is necessary to guarantee profitability?
No one is forcing you to use this service. If you're concerned about the privacy aspect, don't use it, or don't put your personal documents onto their servers. Just because you aren't confident in the service's privacy protection doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't use it to share and collaborate on other documents, especially ones that don't contain private or sensetive information.
That's a good point. I have not yet seen a "low resource" distro that is also easy to install.
Unless Microsoft breaks the idiom by having the tabs on the multi-row tabbed interfaces dynamically move around to put the active row at the bottom. If you switch to a different row to check something, and want to go back to where you were before, you have to keep track of the fact that the row ordering has magically changed. Here's a hint guys: if the window has more than 1 row of tabs, it can be separated into 2 windows.
</rant>
As others have pointed out, the RIAA automatically blames "piracy" for declining revenue. They then use this justification with Congress to get ever more restrictions on fair use. Its all well and good for you to say, "Don't be a part of it", but it is equally ineffective to just stand by and wait for completely new content to appear. Like it or not, a lot of intellectual property is in the form of derived works. If consumers stand by and let the RIAA destroy fair use, then much of the feedstock for the new content that you are looking for will become inaccessible. At that point you are stuck between bowing to the RIAA's wishes or settling for the small amount content that is so absolutely new that the RIAA can't make a claim to it.
Restrictions on fair use also make it more difficult for those striving to create absolutely new content. If I happen to shoot an outdoor scene, and copyrighted music can be heard in the background, can the RIAA sue me? If I mention a song in a story, does the RIAA have rights? Its unfair to make content creators strip out or get rights for references to existing work. But with increasing restrictions on fair use, that's exactly the sort regime we are approaching.
The urban legend you are referring to has been disproven.
Also, how did you manage to insert a link without Slashcode diplaying the destination domain?
Sam's Club and Costco beg to differ.
I'm firmly convinced that women are unknowable and that their prescence must be accepted on faith.
It'd only work if the soldiers were trained to hit the terroris without hitting the tens of people surrounding him/her, or hitting any portion of the plane itself. Given the fact that they'd be doing this in a close-quarters situation with potential turbulence, all I see are is a bunch of explosive decompressions due to stray rounds puncturing the skin of the aircraft.
A better solution is to use highly trained troops with knives. The risk to the soldier would be marginally greater, but this can be minimized by allowing the soldiers to carry large blades (a la machetes). It'd be messier that just shooting the guy, but a knife-fight would present a far smaller risk to the airplane itself.
You've hit the nail on the head. The OP's strategy would work great against Iran, or Syria or some other active sponsor of terror. But in many cases, like with Pakistan, or Columbia, or the Phillippines, such a strategy would backfire badly. The collective punishment of the entire populace would simply make the terrorists there more popular, as they'd be the only ones seen doing anything against "American aggression."
You're bound to cooperate if you're both close enough to each other that it doesn't matter what the power of your weapon is. Example: if you have a pistol and I have a bomb and we're both 5 yards from one another. In a situation like that, any wrong move will mean the end of both parties (especially if I have a "fail deadly" switch on the bomb).
Besides, as others have pointed out, this still doesn't affect "homegrown" terrorism. Who should we have "attacked" after Oklahoma City? Who should the Brits "attack" for their rail bombings (all carried out by British citizens IIRC)?
In that case, we need to educate people and let them know that there is no such monolithic thing as "Linux". In the general media perception, Linux refers to any generic Linux distro, as they are all assumed to be essentially equivalent. That view (equivalence) needs to be changed.
Oh, is this why Dell computers all have proprietary cases, motherboards, and power supplies? Dell has not done anything to improve standardization in terms of physical components. Dell has simply continued the tradition set by HP, Compaq, and others of creating and using propretary components whenever possible in order to keep the consumer coming back to them and them only when components fail.
That's because Windows Home and Windows Professional are binary compatible. I can take my Windows Home application, and install it on a Windows Professional machine without having to change anything. For all of Linux's strengths, binary compatibility is one thing that could still use a lot of improvements. I don't see how having multiple package managers improves the robustness or security of Linux in any way.
It doesn't solve the backhoe issue, but encryption can solve the problem of splicing and eavesdropping.
True, but's that's orthogonal to the point that I was trying to make. The grandparent is saying that Apple machines are akin to some kind of handcrafted piece of flawless fine art. I'm pinting out that Apple machines have flaws, just like every other type of computer vendor. Nobody, not even Apple, is perfect.
Hmmm. Are these the same "lovingly crafted" systems that overheat due to leftover parts from the factory, flake paint and have "swelling and failing" batteries?