But the government is going after Internet service providers; it's a criminal offense for ISPs to facilitate unauthorized downloading
Since as a business you want to minimise risk, the easy road is to simply block all identifiable P2P traffic. There is no way for the router/traffic-shaper to know if the bits are copyright by someone who might sue, so it's easier to block as much as possible. And since (unlike the user) the ISP can face criminal charges, there's one hell of an incentive to cut off as much 'suspect' traffic as possible.
So if I try use BT to download (cc) material from http://www.jamendo.com/en/ it would be blocked by the ISP...
In all other countries that I'm aware of (and that by no means is a definitive list!) the service provider has some kind of "safe harbour" provision.
Spainards will have to download their WoW patches via P2P safe in the knowledge that Blizzard will not sue them.
Except with ISPs on the hook, I suspect that 100% of P2P traffic will be blocked (at least 100% of identifiable P2P traffic).
So it's not a question of whether you're afraid of getting sued by Blizzard: The patch simply won't come down the pipe.
Without privacy and due process protections, the guy in the high rise will be in more danger of becoming a terrorist suspect than of beomcing a terrorist victim.
If we don't succumb to extreme measures and forfeit privacy and liberty there is some possibility that Bad People (tm) will do Bad Things (tm) to innocent people.
If we grant the state absolute power over our lives there is a guarantee that this power will be abused and they will do Bad Things (tm) to innocent people.
isn't it illegal to not provide encryption keys to the police if they request
This doesn't bother me (assuming it's a court order, and not just a cop knocking on your door!)
If a judge feels that there is enough evidence to issue a "data warrant", then I'm probably not the object of random searching.
If all my internet traffic is encrypted, and my personal data on my computer is encrypted then I know that I won't get 'profiled' or any other such nonsense. If on the other hand they have reason to believe (and can convince a judge!) that there is reason to read my personal data then so be it.
Kinda like a warrant to enter and search my house. I'm ok with the police providing sufficient evidence to a judge who signs off and then my house can be searched. There's an oversite to the granting of the search.
With blanket/mass monitoring the state provides no such privacy...therefore I will have to provide it for myself.
Having had a conversation over the past couple of weeks with some non-techie friends, but whom I regard [nontheless!:) ] as educated and intelligent it's apparent to me that as with many topics, there is the/. view, and then there is the rest of the population. And they are no where near the same.
In general terms, they feel that mass monitoring, arresting people on security certificates and all the other things that I feel are an invasion of my privacy and liberty were perfectly acceptable.
It's "think of the children" applied to "think of our security".
I suppose it's human to fear the unknown. And the terror age we live in is filled with uncertainty.
After much discussion, I think they see my point of view, though they still maintain that "something" must be done. And if that "something" infringes on liberty that's still a cost they are willing to bear.
So, sadly, in my limited experience, the sheeple are not going to be bothered any time soon...
While XP 'required' you to register with ms.com, this could be (and was) hacked pretty quick.
Where I see the difference between XPs attempt at forcing the pirate to buy is that it remained uni-directional. In other words, if the OS was hacked and was told that everything was Ay-Oh-Kay! then the computer ran quite nicely, and totally beyond the control/reach of ms.com
Vista, on the otherhand (maybe more specifically Genuine Advantage, but I say Vista 'cause that's when it won't be optional in any way shape or form...) requires you to connect for updates. Not legit? no soup for you!
It's this mandatory registration that will make people move to something else. And yes some (maybe most?) will then buy a license, but there will be some who say f*sk them! and switch to something else, and for a lot of people, that something else is going to be Linux.
Yeah, I don't think M$ ever directly goes after anyone; I meant the Bully Software Alliance. And they have stepped up their aggresiveness and now offer a $200k reward to snitches.
The study found that 35 percent of software worldwide is pirated. In North America alone, the piracy rate for software is 22 percent.
People (generally) don't pirate to spite the author. They either can't afford it, or don't want to pay. Genuine Advantage won't change this fact. Therefore, of these people, some percentage won't purchase Windows, and will consider that free linux thing they've heard about...
Estimations (can't find a quick link!) that I've seen put Linux around/under 5%. So even 10% of the available market share would be in the order of a 50% increase in Linux' current market share. It's taken near 15yrs to get here, so if in the next coupl'a years Linux was to get to 7% or 8% that would be a respectable increase. ...and just imagine what getting 1/3 the available (split evenly between Mac, Win and Linux) means going from some 5% to some 12%-16% market share. okok, perhaps that's being a little wishful, but, well, a guy can dream, right?
Anyways, just think how much of an impact Linux has had on computers with only a sub-5% market share, and then just imagine how much more influential it will become as the numbers grow up to and over 10%...
I submit as argument that the #1 reason MS Windows is so popular is because it was so heavily pirated. As people used it at home (for free!) they either were the boss who made the decision to buy Windows, or convinced the boss that they should go with it.
Microsoft spent most of the 90s looking the other way when it came even to business piracy, while talking tough through the BSA. Even now, when they have ramped up their aggresiveness, (AFAIK) they have yet to sue a single home-user, still only targeting businesses.
Enter Vista
This will severely limit* Joe Average's ability to pirate Windows.
Faced with being either unable to pirate, or an unwillingness to divulge the personal info (I know people switching now as Genuine Advantage is rolling out), people will look for alternatives.
So, I suggest that Vista will be the single biggest event in Linux desktop adoption.
I suspect Apple knows it, and that is the reason for their current ads doing a Mac/Windows comparison - because they also see Vista as a possible catalyst... 'look for alternatives' is really Mac and Linux at this point.
*limit != eliminate, and the less 'average' Joe's will also be less limited.
I didn't say give everyone a piece of paper - i contested your argument that some people don't deserve more education.
just a nit: your original response was not to me. However, that aside, it's not a question as to whether or not everyone deserves an education. First off: no one 'deserves' anything. Period. You're free to work for what you want, and an education is one of them. My position wasn't to dissallow the ditch-digger from educating him/herself, but rather that a formal education costs tax money (especially if you want it to be free!) In (all?) industrialised countries, there's already some taxes kicked in for an education, even if it's just a tax write-off. And this money is wasted if it's spent on someone who won't use it.
There are also a limited number of qualified teachers and instructors. (no matter what you pay!) This translates into a maximum number of students...
So what we are really getting at is scarcity. Giving everyone a piece of paper is not a very efficient use of resources. So again, nothing is stopping people from learning on their own: Today information is pretty much freely available, and if the ditch-digger wants to spend the time learnin' stuff then You Go Girl! I'm not only NOT opposed to this, I think more people should be spending time learning instead of being a couch potato, and I did say this.
Just because someone has to dig ditches does not mean they have to be dumb.
Well, education and intelligence are not the same thing. When I say people are dumb it's not because they havn't the education, it's that they couldn't understand it even if it were explained to them. And while this was just fine for the last million years when the ideas 'fire' and 'wheel' were pretty cutting edge that's no longer true. Today you need to understand the collective works of the brightest minds in recorded history. Just what kind of percentage of the population can understand how a processor works? Hell, most people don't understand how a car works, and that's a 100+ year old mechanical device that can be dissasembled and the parts and assembly reviewed...
Actually, from your statements above you are against education for many people who don't meet your requirements. You are an elitist snob
Again, INFORMATION is freely available: a formal education costs money, and in the real world we deal with scarce resources and we should try and maximise our usage of these resources. If that means that not everyone gets a formal education, well, that's called reality. I didn't get to be a pro-baseball player since I was not granted those skills. Tough for me: I won't get paid millions, but other will.
So, if by 'elitist' you meant 'realist' than yes, we need to cut a line somewhere for the formal education, and that by definition means that we exclude those that don't meet the requirements.
But I will stand by my argument...everyone - from the garbage man, to the short order cook, to the computer techy, to the worlds leading brain surgeon should ALL have the option of learning more - and to do it for free!
Nothing I said contradicts this. Where (perhaps) we differ in opinion is the a free formal education. Do I think we could spend more? Sure. But there's already a ton of financial aid and loans available. While I'm sure there are plenty of anecdotal examples to contradict this, I would suggest that for the most part, the people that should be getting a university degree in North America are in fact getting one, along with (if anything) a pile of people that shouldn't. (and by that I mean that they either lack the mental capacity to complete, but get it by cheating/purchasing/whatever, or I mean that they will never see a return on it). At the same time, the bulk of the population shows a complete lack of interest in learning. I'd say at this time there's plenty of available education, and making more available won't help...
Yes, we want people to stay less knowledgable, because we know society is better off having more dumb people.
So many answers...
People are dumb... and giving everyone a piece of paper doesn't change that
People have all the resources of the library, the 'net, etc and still don't bother to educate themselves. A formal education is merely proof that you've paid for and passed some standard-level examinations. MIT has their courses on-line for free, and plenty (all?) others will tell you what books you will read in getting your degree. It's plenty easy to educate yourself if you've a mind to
Someone still has to dig ditches, and for this very little (no?!) education is necessary, why waste resources giving an education to someone who won't ever use it?
Fabricating more people educated in a specific discipline than can be employed doesn't increase the demand for that skillset: it does however diminish the return that any member of the group can expect. So resources are spent and there is no return
I'm not against education. One of the very few things I like about the IT industry is that it changes constantly, and you are basically required to continually educate yourself to stay current. (Unfortunately this doesn't quite kick out all the people that it should - PHBs can still keep people they like over people that can perform...)
At the same time, however, I wish I was an electrician or plumber or brick-layer. I'd be making more money, be self-employed more easily and with more stability. But when I was in high-school it was "go to university and get a desk job, or you are a loser. Loser. Loser."... damn shame too, 'cause we need trades-people. And physical labour can't be outsourced in quite the same way that (it seems) all IT stuff is headed.
Education increases in value as more people have it.
That statement is both true and false. (this assumes we are looking at the economic value of an education, not the 'I got the degree for me, not for a job' crowd...)
While the economy is, over the long term, stronger with a better education system, the relative value to an individual decreases as more people have it.
30yrs ago it was enough to have a generic BA to get a job, now a BA is just about worthless, and higher management positions want not just some kind of business specific degree, they want a Masters.
In other words: to the individual, the value of a degree has diminished. All other things being equal, you need more education to achieve the same position.
and have factored in all the market effects at work.
Happily the major market force pushing prices down (for most businesses) is competition, which the monopolies (aka RIAA / MPAA) don't have to worry about.
The End Result? They can charge way more than a business that faces market pressure. And this is, of course, part of the definition of a monopoly: Less product at a higher unit price.
To work, your proposal would have to first require hauling everyone in our Government out into the street and shooting them, and then replacing them with people who weren't corruptable.
At this point, any solution or system that assumes a government that acts in the best interest of its citizens, and not for the direct personal gain of the representatives themselves, is flawed.
The more I look at politics, the more I'm convinced that it's political 'donations' that are at the heart of most major problems we have.
I still think that the answer, therefore, is to make it 100% illegal for anyone to give or donate any amount of money to a politician or political party.
Campaign money would come out of taxes* and be equal by candidate, so it's no longer 'rich and/or corrupt(able) guy wins'. Major media (minimum size?) like TV, newspaper etc would be required to provide space where the candidates could 'post' their platform.
Is this perfect? Hell no, but I think it's a lot better than the overtly corrupt system that exists now.
*Don't forget, as a consumer you're already paying for the campaigns out of the profits which they get from you. And as a corporation gets bigger and more profitable, they push for more and stronger legislation to make them more profitable which they use to buy even stronger laws... this method is fairly perfected by the likes of the mpaa and riaa.
To be fair, one of the biggest problems in OSS that turns many single-user-types away is the "support"... "Did you RTFM?" is not support, but is the most common opening answer to a newbies first (and second, third...) problem. Those that are sufficiently technical to understand TFM they may continue to use it... those that don't know which end of a mouse to hold, and don't have a friend to show them will revert to the OS and software setup that they know.
Some labs build huge clusters, this new Windows flavor must cost less than the "Windows Beginners Edition [a.k.a. 3rd world edition]" (*) and provide impeccable service, otherwise it can't compete with opensource softwares.
You're working under the false assumption that price is the sole/major factor when organisations choose products and services.
If that were the case, Windows would have been wiped out by Linux 5yrs ago. Not only has it failed to wipe out Windows, we're still having the "is it ready for the desktop" debate.
And you can't even argue the 'back-end vs desktop': the latest numbers show IIS is chipping away at Apache...
There used to be a saying (maybe still is?) "You won't get fired for choosing IBM". Today this can easily be stated as: "You won't get fired for choosing Windows". There's plenty of CIO's that would rather pick the devil they know aka:Windows and have predictable and known problems that everyone else in the boardroom understands (and sadly expects!), than strike out into an 'unknown' platform with unknown risk for the sake of a coupl'a hundred grand -- and more importantly: risk their job.
well... I still don't understand how 'bribery' became legal... but imho it's the problem with politics today.
here's my POV:
If you pay someone money, you're probably expecting something in return.
If you accept money from someone, it's real likely that you either work for them, or you will...
Other than charitable contributions (where the 'return' is the nice feeling you get), no one hands out money for nothing.
So my solution starts with removing ALL campaign contributions. And it has to be 100%, 'cause if you let people donate even a few bucks, they'll find a way to corrupt the system.
To eliminate 'only the rich can run', make funding campaigns a federal budget line item, and maybe mix in the national/minimum-sized media outlets (on an even by-party basis) to reserver 'free' space. TV and radio will be easy, since those require a license:) . So, while everyone will have the same budget, it's cash-in-hand and some ad-space, and each party can do what they want with it.
To those that say that they don't want to pay for the campaign out of tax dollars, I remind you that you are already paying for them when you buy products... every CD you buy ensures more $$$ for stronger laws that remove your rights. Once companies can no longer purchase politicians, the laws will more strongly reflect what WE THE PEOPLE actually want.
Is this solution perfect? hell no, but imho it's infinitely better than the one we have.
I'm with you - it's all or nothing when it comes to Intellectual Monopoly.
The problem is that the 'without protection, there won't be any creativity" lie is so well accepted, that suggesting to most people that we need to get rid of copyright gets you written off as a lunatic.
Copyright with much shorter terms could be a stepping stone; Lessig suggests we backtrack to 1710:
14 years, renewable to 28, as laid down by the 1710 Statute of Anne
Perhaps if we can start by showing people that creativity doesn't require 140yrs +/- of protection, we can work our way to zero. Lets remember that we didn't get to the current state in one step, so it may not be necessary to get back in a single jump either.
"Working with Qtrax is just one way EMI is actively supporting emerging business models, technologies and platforms to deliver music to fans," said David Munns, Chairman and CEO of EMI Music North America.
No one owns logic gates, and the x86 instruction set has been implemented by more companies than intel. And that assumes you are stuck on the x86 instruction set. Linux runs on toasters (tm)...
When enough people find that their Linux doesn't work on the hardware (how many companies run Linux web-servers???) they will start to look for alternatives. For even a (relatively) small demand, there will be a company that makes hardware that is unencumbered.
And personally, when I have to make the choice between a 1THz encumbered CPU and a 500MHz free CPU I won't have to think long.... let's face it, 500MHz runs anything I want to do today. The 90s are over; with the exception of gaming, todays PC has enough power for the average user.
The other comment about routers checking packets, well, the easy answer is that that still doesn't affect how my computer works, just how I can interact with the internet. The more difficult answer is that if the gvt and corpororate america has exerted that much influence than all our freedoms are pretty much gone anyways, and we have bigger problems than whether or not my computer is the boss of me. I can always turn my PC off...
Do you suspect that your co-worker (or pesky ex-wife) is a witch?
Report them now! It's your duty as a citizen to help protect us from the witches!
Don't worry about a thing. DHS takes care of capturing and removing the suspected witch and ensuring (using state of the art hydro-submersion techniques) that the suspect is a witch.
Punishment for those found guilty will be quick, and you can live out your life in safety, knowing that you are secure from the evils of the world.
What do you mean 'one tyrant for another'?... hmmm... perhaps you are a witch for suggesting that there is something wrong with out technique....please wait right there, someone will be with you shortly.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe we can use this to grow new back-bones for the legislators.
Since as a business you want to minimise risk, the easy road is to simply block all identifiable P2P traffic. There is no way for the router/traffic-shaper to know if the bits are copyright by someone who might sue, so it's easier to block as much as possible. And since (unlike the user) the ISP can face criminal charges, there's one hell of an incentive to cut off as much 'suspect' traffic as possible.
So if I try use BT to download (cc) material from http://www.jamendo.com/en/ it would be blocked by the ISP...
In all other countries that I'm aware of (and that by no means is a definitive list!) the service provider has some kind of "safe harbour" provision.
So it's not a question of whether you're afraid of getting sued by Blizzard: The patch simply won't come down the pipe.
sorry ... it should have been Terror Age (tm), broadcast live! on location! 24/7. Extra fear dished out on the hour.
If we grant the state absolute power over our lives there is a guarantee that this power will be abused and they will do Bad Things (tm) to innocent people.
I'll take my chances with the "maybe"...
If a judge feels that there is enough evidence to issue a "data warrant", then I'm probably not the object of random searching.
If all my internet traffic is encrypted, and my personal data on my computer is encrypted then I know that I won't get 'profiled' or any other such nonsense. If on the other hand they have reason to believe (and can convince a judge!) that there is reason to read my personal data then so be it.
Kinda like a warrant to enter and search my house. I'm ok with the police providing sufficient evidence to a judge who signs off and then my house can be searched. There's an oversite to the granting of the search.
With blanket/mass monitoring the state provides no such privacy...therefore I will have to provide it for myself.
In general terms, they feel that mass monitoring, arresting people on security certificates and all the other things that I feel are an invasion of my privacy and liberty were perfectly acceptable.
It's "think of the children" applied to "think of our security".
I suppose it's human to fear the unknown. And the terror age we live in is filled with uncertainty.
After much discussion, I think they see my point of view, though they still maintain that "something" must be done. And if that "something" infringes on liberty that's still a cost they are willing to bear.
So, sadly, in my limited experience, the sheeple are not going to be bothered any time soon...
All my calls come from (202) 456-1414
Wath timmmothy drunk when he wrote thith?
Where I see the difference between XPs attempt at forcing the pirate to buy is that it remained uni-directional. In other words, if the OS was hacked and was told that everything was Ay-Oh-Kay! then the computer ran quite nicely, and totally beyond the control/reach of ms.com
Vista, on the otherhand (maybe more specifically Genuine Advantage, but I say Vista 'cause that's when it won't be optional in any way shape or form...) requires you to connect for updates. Not legit? no soup for you!
It's this mandatory registration that will make people move to something else. And yes some (maybe most?) will then buy a license, but there will be some who say f*sk them! and switch to something else, and for a lot of people, that something else is going to be Linux.
As for new computers, yes the Big Boys preload, but not all PC sales have Win preloaded. From http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-5561113.html
The BSA says 1/3 of the world software is pirated, and about 1/4 in North America. All that market share is up for grabs. From http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121974,Estimations (can't find a quick link!) that I've seen put Linux around/under 5%. So even 10% of the available market share would be in the order of a 50% increase in Linux' current market share. It's taken near 15yrs to get here, so if in the next coupl'a years Linux was to get to 7% or 8% that would be a respectable increase.
Anyways, just think how much of an impact Linux has had on computers with only a sub-5% market share, and then just imagine how much more influential it will become as the numbers grow up to and over 10%...
Microsoft spent most of the 90s looking the other way when it came even to business piracy, while talking tough through the BSA. Even now, when they have ramped up their aggresiveness, (AFAIK) they have yet to sue a single home-user, still only targeting businesses.
Enter Vista
This will severely limit* Joe Average's ability to pirate Windows.
Faced with being either unable to pirate, or an unwillingness to divulge the personal info (I know people switching now as Genuine Advantage is rolling out), people will look for alternatives.
So, I suggest that Vista will be the single biggest event in Linux desktop adoption.
I suspect Apple knows it, and that is the reason for their current ads doing a Mac/Windows comparison - because they also see Vista as a possible catalyst ... 'look for alternatives' is really Mac and Linux at this point.
*limit != eliminate, and the less 'average' Joe's will also be less limited.
*Firefox Download Utility
just a nit: your original response was not to me. However, that aside, it's not a question as to whether or not everyone deserves an education. First off: no one 'deserves' anything. Period. You're free to work for what you want, and an education is one of them. My position wasn't to dissallow the ditch-digger from educating him/herself, but rather that a formal education costs tax money (especially if you want it to be free!) In (all?) industrialised countries, there's already some taxes kicked in for an education, even if it's just a tax write-off. And this money is wasted if it's spent on someone who won't use it. ...
There are also a limited number of qualified teachers and instructors. (no matter what you pay!) This translates into a maximum number of students
So what we are really getting at is scarcity. Giving everyone a piece of paper is not a very efficient use of resources. So again, nothing is stopping people from learning on their own: Today information is pretty much freely available, and if the ditch-digger wants to spend the time learnin' stuff then You Go Girl! I'm not only NOT opposed to this, I think more people should be spending time learning instead of being a couch potato, and I did say this.
Well, education and intelligence are not the same thing. When I say people are dumb it's not because they havn't the education, it's that they couldn't understand it even if it were explained to them. And while this was just fine for the last million years when the ideas 'fire' and 'wheel' were pretty cutting edge that's no longer true. Today you need to understand the collective works of the brightest minds in recorded history. Just what kind of percentage of the population can understand how a processor works? Hell, most people don't understand how a car works, and that's a 100+ year old mechanical device that can be dissasembled and the parts and assembly reviewed...
Again, INFORMATION is freely available: a formal education costs money, and in the real world we deal with scarce resources and we should try and maximise our usage of these resources. If that means that not everyone gets a formal education, well, that's called reality. I didn't get to be a pro-baseball player since I was not granted those skills. Tough for me: I won't get paid millions, but other will.
So, if by 'elitist' you meant 'realist' than yes, we need to cut a line somewhere for the formal education, and that by definition means that we exclude those that don't meet the requirements.
Nothing I said contradicts this. Where (perhaps) we differ in opinion is the a free formal education. Do I think we could spend more? Sure. But there's already a ton of financial aid and loans available. While I'm sure there are plenty of anecdotal examples to contradict this, I would suggest that for the most part, the people that should be getting a university degree in North America are in fact getting one, along with (if anything) a pile of people that shouldn't. (and by that I mean that they either lack the mental capacity to complete, but get it by cheating/purchasing/whatever, or I mean that they will never see a return on it). At the same time, the bulk of the population shows a complete lack of interest in learning. I'd say at this time there's plenty of available education, and making more available won't help...
- People are dumb
... and giving everyone a piece of paper doesn't change that
- People have all the resources of the library, the 'net, etc and still don't bother to educate themselves. A formal education is merely proof that you've paid for and passed some standard-level examinations. MIT has their courses on-line for free, and plenty (all?) others will tell you what books you will read in getting your degree. It's plenty easy to educate yourself if you've a mind to
- Someone still has to dig ditches, and for this very little (no?!) education is necessary, why waste resources giving an education to someone who won't ever use it?
- Fabricating more people educated in a specific discipline than can be employed doesn't increase the demand for that skillset: it does however diminish the return that any member of the group can expect. So resources are spent and there is no return
I'm not against education. One of the very few things I like about the IT industry is that it changes constantly, and you are basically required to continually educate yourself to stay current. (Unfortunately this doesn't quite kick out all the people that it should - PHBs can still keep people they like over people that can perform...)At the same time, however, I wish I was an electrician or plumber or brick-layer. I'd be making more money, be self-employed more easily and with more stability. But when I was in high-school it was "go to university and get a desk job, or you are a loser. Loser. Loser."
While the economy is, over the long term, stronger with a better education system, the relative value to an individual decreases as more people have it.
30yrs ago it was enough to have a generic BA to get a job, now a BA is just about worthless, and higher management positions want not just some kind of business specific degree, they want a Masters.
In other words: to the individual, the value of a degree has diminished. All other things being equal, you need more education to achieve the same position.
The End Result? They can charge way more than a business that faces market pressure. And this is, of course, part of the definition of a monopoly: Less product at a higher unit price.
I still think that the answer, therefore, is to make it 100% illegal for anyone to give or donate any amount of money to a politician or political party.
Campaign money would come out of taxes* and be equal by candidate, so it's no longer 'rich and/or corrupt(able) guy wins'. Major media (minimum size?) like TV, newspaper etc would be required to provide space where the candidates could 'post' their platform.
Is this perfect? Hell no, but I think it's a lot better than the overtly corrupt system that exists now.
*Don't forget, as a consumer you're already paying for the campaigns out of the profits which they get from you. And as a corporation gets bigger and more profitable, they push for more and stronger legislation to make them more profitable which they use to buy even stronger laws... this method is fairly perfected by the likes of the mpaa and riaa.
To be fair, one of the biggest problems in OSS that turns many single-user-types away is the "support" ... "Did you RTFM?" is not support, but is the most common opening answer to a newbies first (and second, third...) problem. Those that are sufficiently technical to understand TFM they may continue to use it ... those that don't know which end of a mouse to hold, and don't have a friend to show them will revert to the OS and software setup that they know.
If that were the case, Windows would have been wiped out by Linux 5yrs ago. Not only has it failed to wipe out Windows, we're still having the "is it ready for the desktop" debate.
And you can't even argue the 'back-end vs desktop': the latest numbers show IIS is chipping away at Apache...
There used to be a saying (maybe still is?) "You won't get fired for choosing IBM". Today this can easily be stated as: "You won't get fired for choosing Windows". There's plenty of CIO's that would rather pick the devil they know aka:Windows and have predictable and known problems that everyone else in the boardroom understands (and sadly expects!), than strike out into an 'unknown' platform with unknown risk for the sake of a coupl'a hundred grand -- and more importantly: risk their job.
here's my POV:
If you pay someone money, you're probably expecting something in return.
If you accept money from someone, it's real likely that you either work for them, or you will...
Other than charitable contributions (where the 'return' is the nice feeling you get), no one hands out money for nothing.
So my solution starts with removing ALL campaign contributions. And it has to be 100%, 'cause if you let people donate even a few bucks, they'll find a way to corrupt the system. :) . So, while everyone will have the same budget, it's cash-in-hand and some ad-space, and each party can do what they want with it. ... every CD you buy ensures more $$$ for stronger laws that remove your rights. Once companies can no longer purchase politicians, the laws will more strongly reflect what WE THE PEOPLE actually want.
To eliminate 'only the rich can run', make funding campaigns a federal budget line item, and maybe mix in the national/minimum-sized media outlets (on an even by-party basis) to reserver 'free' space. TV and radio will be easy, since those require a license
To those that say that they don't want to pay for the campaign out of tax dollars, I remind you that you are already paying for them when you buy products
Is this solution perfect? hell no, but imho it's infinitely better than the one we have.
The problem is that the 'without protection, there won't be any creativity" lie is so well accepted, that suggesting to most people that we need to get rid of copyright gets you written off as a lunatic.
Copyright with much shorter terms could be a stepping stone; Lessig suggests we backtrack to 1710: Perhaps if we can start by showing people that creativity doesn't require 140yrs +/- of protection, we can work our way to zero. Lets remember that we didn't get to the current state in one step, so it may not be necessary to get back in a single jump either.
No one owns logic gates, and the x86 instruction set has been implemented by more companies than intel. And that assumes you are stuck on the x86 instruction set. Linux runs on toasters (tm)...
When enough people find that their Linux doesn't work on the hardware (how many companies run Linux web-servers???) they will start to look for alternatives. For even a (relatively) small demand, there will be a company that makes hardware that is unencumbered.
And personally, when I have to make the choice between a 1THz encumbered CPU and a 500MHz free CPU I won't have to think long.... let's face it, 500MHz runs anything I want to do today. The 90s are over; with the exception of gaming, todays PC has enough power for the average user.
The other comment about routers checking packets, well, the easy answer is that that still doesn't affect how my computer works, just how I can interact with the internet. The more difficult answer is that if the gvt and corpororate america has exerted that much influence than all our freedoms are pretty much gone anyways, and we have bigger problems than whether or not my computer is the boss of me. I can always turn my PC off...
Report them now! It's your duty as a citizen to help protect us from the witches!
Don't worry about a thing. DHS takes care of capturing and removing the suspected witch and ensuring (using state of the art hydro-submersion techniques) that the suspect is a witch.
Punishment for those found guilty will be quick, and you can live out your life in safety, knowing that you are secure from the evils of the world.
What do you mean 'one tyrant for another'? ... hmmm... perhaps you are a witch for suggesting that there is something wrong with out technique....please wait right there, someone will be with you shortly.