Ha ha! Yes, Frowningdog2000 is better suited. The source of the name is stupid. My wife and I adopted a cute puppy, and we fell totally in love with it. As a birthday present, back in 1998, I bought her the domain smilindog.com, so she could post cute puppy pictures. Our first yahoo ident was thus smilindog, but when it started getting spammed, I changed to smilindog2000 in the year 2000, the same year that my daughter was born. At the moment my daughter was born, I realized that my cute puppy had grown into a not-so-cute dog, and that buying him croissant from Starbucks every morning was just stupid. And now... I'm literally named after my dumb dog.
I apologize for saying "The Romans inflicted both the pen, and Christianity on the world." As an excuse, I can only say I'm sick, and couldn't sleep (thus the 3AM post). I should have said "The Romans spread both the pen, and Christianity to the world". The word "inflicted" implied that it was a bad thing, and obviously, the pen was a good thing, and I sincerely do not mean to imply that spreading Christianity was a bad thing. I also do not mean to imply that Christianity caused the downfall of the Roman Empire. Another poster stated that Constantine used Christianity to help hold the empire together for a while longer, which sounds about right to me. Thus, it would not be a coincidence that Christianity was adopted near the end of the empire in the west, but Christianity didn't cause the downfall.
For a change, I agree with the moderator who labeled my post Flamebait. Again, sorry.
As for writing... the book I read used "barbarian" to describe Germans early in the book, but after they had "adopted civilization" he refers to them as "Germans". I'm not saying writing == civilization, but it certainly helps, and it seems to be the way the writer used the term.
I do have the ATI card, and I had the same problem with Feisty Fawn. However, with a Google search, I found a work around. The problem's gone in Gutsy Gibbon. However, I agree... it's a PITA to install any linux distro when the machines are all different, and the supplier doesn't even care about BIOS bugs unless they effect Windows. On the other hand, things are changing. Dell has inspired ATI to properly support their linux driver, and they actually heard their linux users when they fixed their Dimension E521 BIOS back in January. The new relationship between Dell and Ubuntu seems to be slowly bringing industry support to a reasonable level. I'm actually pushing Dell for clients who want good Linux support on desktops (HP for servers).
I basically agree. An uncensored Internet has to be the greatest gift to mankind during my lifetime to date, if not all of history. The battle for freedom of speech, and thus free people, will be waged here, in the form of censorship. Too bad Google and others actively support censorship.
I just finished reading "A Brief History of Rome" (free e-book from gutenberg.org). Throughout, the 19th-century author kept referring to "Barbarians" and "Civilization". I eventually figured out that the difference was literacy (the pen). The Romans inflicted both the pen, and Christianity on the world. The author seemed to think both were true gifts, but I noticed that the downfall of Rome started in earnest with Constantine, who converted them empire's faith, and that the dark-ages followed shortly after. Coincidence? I doubt it. Wikipedia has a great article on it. Just my own two-cents, but a corrupt society built on slavery and the spoils of war needed the old religion and an all-powerful emperor to survive. So... which is more powerful, the pen, or religion?
The reason I post as smilindog2000, rather than put my full name out there, is also not listed. My poorly thought-out opinions can be embarrassing, and I don't want it to rub off on my employer.
Anyway, I'm not allowed to be completely honest on Citizendium. I just tried to sign up for an account... it wont let me because my name is so common that someone else has already used it. This has been a problem for me since I started my career. The day I started working at National Semiconductor, fresh out of college, I was issued a subpoena that accused me of some serious wrongs, and told me that I was being sued for millions in damages. I had to call the lawyers and tell them they had the wrong guy. Just to add insult to injury, I shared a cube with a great then-young engineer, but the a-hole next door had just expanded his cube at our expense, and I had to crawl over my desk just to get into my chair. My chair had only 3 wheels, with the fourth missing, and the stuffing in the seat was long-gone, so my first task was rebuilding the damned thing. I was told I couldn't just go buy a chair, as it was against company policy (National was later sued into submission on this point, after some serious back injuries occurred). Later, while working at HP, another guy on the floor above me had the same name, and he had the obvious e-mail address that I should have had (first.last@hp.com). He was a serious a-hole who spammed the whole building with hate-mail, and I had a hard time being around co-workers simply because they thought I was him. My credit reports have been semi-trashed by at least three a-holes who happen to share my name. Retailers who get screwed will spam whatever credit report they can semi-match.
So... I seriously recommend making up a name that has never been used, and sticking with it:-) You can just call me Smilindog2000 in public. Will that work on Citizendium?
Something's goofy... I just switch my Inspiron 9400 to battery power. It's only been about 10 minutes, but so far my Load_Cycle is sticking at 1 where it started. I'm not seeing this problem. It might be laptop-specific.
Thanks for that breakdown... makes sense. The Triangle is ok, but I suspect I would have enjoyed living in Boulder CO more. I started a small company here, and was looking for a good place to raise kids. I think this area is great for raising kids, which has to be it's defining trait. It's not a great place to start a company. I've been here 7 years, and still think the move was the best decision for my kids. For us parents... well the weather sucks, and I can't get use to it. I can't see anything cause there's too many trees in the way. My friends and family are all in the Bay Area. We hope to move back one day, but gotta raise the kids first.
Ok, this is waaay off topic, and just shows how ignorant I am, but what the heck is a software engineer, and how do they differ from us plain old programmers? Personally, I choose the title of "God Emperor" whenever I'm allowed to choose a title:-) I even occasionally get junk mail directed towards "God Emperor".
You've made some good points... I certainly intend to support the project, and I've got the hardware and a strong desire to code for it. The NEO1973, and probably even it's successor (code named the GTA-2), probably will never sell in volume, because we geeks willing to pay more for a device that is relatively poor hardware for the money are few and far between.
But, as a poster above points out, OpenMoko is the important part here, not the NEO1973. We can forget about poor hardware if the software platform ever takes off. Linus wasn't a good leader for Linux originally, I suppose... he kind of grew into the role. We might have similar leaders for OpenMoko, but there are some real differences. The development plan is not yet published, and may even be a company secret. For example, the touch screen driver is written for a pen, and fingers basically don't work. Who's updating the driver? I can't find out. Is there a photo app in the works, or should we write one? I've applied to write two projects (an e-book reader and a port of PocketSphinx for voice control). No response on either. I get a strong feeling that any OpenMoko requests are first translated into Chinese, and then approved or not by Taiwan corporate types. Why haven't I heard "no"? I suspect culture. Never say "no". IMO, the situation is bad enough almost to warrant forking the code, but I don't have time to drive it. I'd follow anyone who does.
Good vision... will Google share, and promote it? A bunch of super-business-savy guys like the leaders at Google just might agree with your vision... and they're in the right spot to profit from it. Apple recently announced that in February they will ship a development platform for the iPhone, opening it up for the world to hack. Some speculate that this is in response to the backlash to iPhone firmware 1.1.1, which blocks 3rd party hacked software for most people even today. Others at OpenMoko may fear it is in response to their efforts, and speculate that Google will make gPhone a closed system. I believe Apple fears gPhone, which is possibly the biggest threat to Apple's dominance in the mobile computing space. I'm hoping Google has your vision, and will take it to it's logical conclusion...
It's a bummer in several ways. First, we geeks don't get hard-ons for crappy hardware (as the poster below suggests). Sleek advanced hardware, totally open for us to explore while trying to change the world, however, gets my blood going. When the hackers cracked the iPhone and put some of the best software management tools I've seen in place, without even a damned header file... that was cool.
I own an NEO1973. I'm glad to support the project, and desperately hope that it will succeed. Here's something I read today from the OpenMoko mail list: "The Neo is, was, and will be, a product for geeks and therefore never was intended to be a mass market product. Geeks do not look at fancy glamour but for useful attributes." I have no idea who this guys is talking about. I'm about the biggest geek I've ever met (yeah, I know some of you are bigger:-) but what the hell?
The NEO1973 battery is tiny, screen too small, touch capabilities poor, integration level low, plastic instead of anodized aluminum, and worst of all... there's not the same kind of inspired software leadership. The community wants to build the world's best phone, but a guy like Linus is required to lead the effort. I think the OpenMoko guys have incredible vision, but not the complete vision, and the leader needed make it succeed is currently missing. Get the right guy involved, and they could change the world... crappy hardware and all.
Not true... information theory shows that a fractional bit is a probability of transmitting the desired bit correctly. A true source of random noise generates no bits, but a highly noisy channel transmits fractional bits per noisy bit sent. Fractional bits are well-founded mathematically.
Generally, sensitive government information is already physically shielded from the Internet - they simply don't connect their computers to it. I have some friends who don't even feel comfortable telling me what their wives' jobs are, and I doubt it's anything really cool that deserves to be secret. As far as I can tell, government security is working quite well. Heck, I can't even find anyone who wants to talk about that secret hypersonic plane I'm pretty sure we built. You'd think there'd be be nothing more fun to speculate about around the water cooler... not so. I just want to see the damned thing. It seems that the government realizes the basic truth of information security: the weakness is individuals, not technology (gee, how advanced is not connecting to the net?). I'm quite impressed at how universally government employees have been trained who access even potentially sensitive information. However, the vast majority of government employees I deal with are really smart... the stupid ones most be out there.
No, P2P file sharing is less of a threat than Google. Post something on your blog, and within a month, the whole world knows. A stupid government employee with access to both valuable secrets and Myspace could be quite dangerous. Anyway, I feel we currently err on the side of paranoia. 9/11, the Iraq war, and Bush's general preference for lack of oversight have to a silly explosion in classified government secrets.
I very much enjoyed reading your blog entry about your info-pad idea. Here's my own idea, worth what you just paid for it: How about a low-tech device that operates as snazzy e-book reader on-the-cheap? E-book readers like Sony's crud are too expensive (though Sony's problem is stupid marketing - not their e-book price). They take cheap e-ink that could be used to paint huge signs, and they cover them with low-yield expensive thin-film transistors. It's a bastardized hybrid, like mating a man and an ape. Instead what if we made a very nice scrolling page device that opened like an old-fashioned window blind? As you pull out the page, the e-ink would run along a thin long write-head in the scroll that would write the image onto the page. If you focused on making the device a pleasure to play with just to open and close, it might sell well if coupled with free books and a reasonable e-book site. If you could get it to display color, then you could also use it as a portable photo album, which would just be too cool for words.
Ok, guys like you belong in marketing:-) The good ones know how to use the power of both good and evil to achieve there ends. I'm not disagreeing with you, just shuddering at your proposal.
I have to agree... Microsoft can't keep us from using our own free software for our own benefit... oh, wait! That's what Microsoft's software patents are for:-)
In any case, it's all just speculation. I agree with previous articles posted on slashdot suggesting that Linux will not ever replace Windows as the dominant desktop OS. I'm ok with that. I'm glad the 2,000 pound gorilla is a US based software company, and I'm in no hurry to tear it down, so long as they refrain from stifling innovation. So long as I have the freedom to run the really cool stuff (Linux, IMO), I don't care about what Joe Sixpack uses. Let's just hope Microsoft sticks to their monopoly, without pissing off all the open-source innovators.
Ha, you're the first person I've heard mention this idea since the early '80s! Here's another similarly old, interesting factoid I've heard about the C compiler: The ASCII character set is no longer defined anywhere in the C compiler source code (which is written in C). In other words, '&' compiles to decimal 37 only because existing binary compilers know how to translate the '&' character constant.
While normally I'd agree with you, I'll risk more "flamebait" mods and predict that the Bush administration would be all for Microsoft's acquisitions. We split up AT&T, yet there were no major hurdles placed against AT&T re-merging. AT&T just bought both my cellular and home phone companies (Cingular and Bell South). They even provide my DSL. I keep my Sprint long-distance as a protest, but 90% of my money now goes to AT&T, half of it without a single reasonable competitor (my land-line). And what about Murdoch buying the Wall Street Journal? Big Business is the current administration's base.
Both Novel and RedHat are publicly traded companies, which means by law they hold their investor's interests above all else. Last time I checked, you could buy pretty much anything from investors at the right price. Microsoft buying Novel and RedHat would cause less of a riot than when Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal.
Microsoft could easily buy the two largest open-source companies on the planet without denting their reserves. If Microsoft ever suspects Linux is a significant threat, they'll just buy out the largest players. Let's face it... that's how #1 companies remain #1.
I wrote a rare letter to my congressman, suggesting that he propose a law that would ban US companies from working with foreign governments to sensor political content on the Internet. It would mean that Google and Yahoo would make less money, and they would create an opening for a strong competitor to be born... but what about "Do no evil"? I can't believe Americans willingly help destroy our most valued right: freedom of speech. It's just wrong, and should be illegal.
I totally agree. I'm gonna wait on the sidelines and see what Apple actually does. By Febuary, there should be a couple new options, like an iPhone clone from Nokia. Whoever delivers good hardware with an open-platform will have my business, though I no longer recommend Apple to people... stupid is all I can say. My support only counts for a few thousand dollars a month, buy why did they bother to piss me off by purposely disabling my iPhone?
In theory, I agree, but what security issue are we talking about? I rely on dozens to hundreds of open-source software packages every day. Apple can either allow that same kind of flexibility, or continue to try to control all software that can run on their devices. I don't see much middle ground, and I sure as heck don't want Apple-blessed only, as that's no better than what we have now.
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Ha ha! Yes, Frowningdog2000 is better suited. The source of the name is stupid. My wife and I adopted a cute puppy, and we fell totally in love with it. As a birthday present, back in 1998, I bought her the domain smilindog.com, so she could post cute puppy pictures. Our first yahoo ident was thus smilindog, but when it started getting spammed, I changed to smilindog2000 in the year 2000, the same year that my daughter was born. At the moment my daughter was born, I realized that my cute puppy had grown into a not-so-cute dog, and that buying him croissant from Starbucks every morning was just stupid. And now... I'm literally named after my dumb dog.
I apologize for saying "The Romans inflicted both the pen, and Christianity on the world." As an excuse, I can only say I'm sick, and couldn't sleep (thus the 3AM post). I should have said "The Romans spread both the pen, and Christianity to the world". The word "inflicted" implied that it was a bad thing, and obviously, the pen was a good thing, and I sincerely do not mean to imply that spreading Christianity was a bad thing. I also do not mean to imply that Christianity caused the downfall of the Roman Empire. Another poster stated that Constantine used Christianity to help hold the empire together for a while longer, which sounds about right to me. Thus, it would not be a coincidence that Christianity was adopted near the end of the empire in the west, but Christianity didn't cause the downfall.
For a change, I agree with the moderator who labeled my post Flamebait. Again, sorry.
As for writing... the book I read used "barbarian" to describe Germans early in the book, but after they had "adopted civilization" he refers to them as "Germans". I'm not saying writing == civilization, but it certainly helps, and it seems to be the way the writer used the term.
I do have the ATI card, and I had the same problem with Feisty Fawn. However, with a Google search, I found a work around. The problem's gone in Gutsy Gibbon. However, I agree... it's a PITA to install any linux distro when the machines are all different, and the supplier doesn't even care about BIOS bugs unless they effect Windows. On the other hand, things are changing. Dell has inspired ATI to properly support their linux driver, and they actually heard their linux users when they fixed their Dimension E521 BIOS back in January. The new relationship between Dell and Ubuntu seems to be slowly bringing industry support to a reasonable level. I'm actually pushing Dell for clients who want good Linux support on desktops (HP for servers).
I basically agree. An uncensored Internet has to be the greatest gift to mankind during my lifetime to date, if not all of history. The battle for freedom of speech, and thus free people, will be waged here, in the form of censorship. Too bad Google and others actively support censorship.
I just finished reading "A Brief History of Rome" (free e-book from gutenberg.org). Throughout, the 19th-century author kept referring to "Barbarians" and "Civilization". I eventually figured out that the difference was literacy (the pen). The Romans inflicted both the pen, and Christianity on the world. The author seemed to think both were true gifts, but I noticed that the downfall of Rome started in earnest with Constantine, who converted them empire's faith, and that the dark-ages followed shortly after. Coincidence? I doubt it. Wikipedia has a great article on it. Just my own two-cents, but a corrupt society built on slavery and the spoils of war needed the old religion and an all-powerful emperor to survive. So... which is more powerful, the pen, or religion?
The reason I post as smilindog2000, rather than put my full name out there, is also not listed. My poorly thought-out opinions can be embarrassing, and I don't want it to rub off on my employer.
:-) You can just call me Smilindog2000 in public. Will that work on Citizendium?
Anyway, I'm not allowed to be completely honest on Citizendium. I just tried to sign up for an account... it wont let me because my name is so common that someone else has already used it. This has been a problem for me since I started my career. The day I started working at National Semiconductor, fresh out of college, I was issued a subpoena that accused me of some serious wrongs, and told me that I was being sued for millions in damages. I had to call the lawyers and tell them they had the wrong guy. Just to add insult to injury, I shared a cube with a great then-young engineer, but the a-hole next door had just expanded his cube at our expense, and I had to crawl over my desk just to get into my chair. My chair had only 3 wheels, with the fourth missing, and the stuffing in the seat was long-gone, so my first task was rebuilding the damned thing. I was told I couldn't just go buy a chair, as it was against company policy (National was later sued into submission on this point, after some serious back injuries occurred). Later, while working at HP, another guy on the floor above me had the same name, and he had the obvious e-mail address that I should have had (first.last@hp.com). He was a serious a-hole who spammed the whole building with hate-mail, and I had a hard time being around co-workers simply because they thought I was him. My credit reports have been semi-trashed by at least three a-holes who happen to share my name. Retailers who get screwed will spam whatever credit report they can semi-match.
So... I seriously recommend making up a name that has never been used, and sticking with it
Something's goofy... I just switch my Inspiron 9400 to battery power. It's only been about 10 minutes, but so far my Load_Cycle is sticking at 1 where it started. I'm not seeing this problem. It might be laptop-specific.
Thanks for that breakdown... makes sense. The Triangle is ok, but I suspect I would have enjoyed living in Boulder CO more. I started a small company here, and was looking for a good place to raise kids. I think this area is great for raising kids, which has to be it's defining trait. It's not a great place to start a company. I've been here 7 years, and still think the move was the best decision for my kids. For us parents... well the weather sucks, and I can't get use to it. I can't see anything cause there's too many trees in the way. My friends and family are all in the Bay Area. We hope to move back one day, but gotta raise the kids first.
Ok, this is waaay off topic, and just shows how ignorant I am, but what the heck is a software engineer, and how do they differ from us plain old programmers? Personally, I choose the title of "God Emperor" whenever I'm allowed to choose a title :-) I even occasionally get junk mail directed towards "God Emperor".
You've made some good points... I certainly intend to support the project, and I've got the hardware and a strong desire to code for it. The NEO1973, and probably even it's successor (code named the GTA-2), probably will never sell in volume, because we geeks willing to pay more for a device that is relatively poor hardware for the money are few and far between.
But, as a poster above points out, OpenMoko is the important part here, not the NEO1973. We can forget about poor hardware if the software platform ever takes off. Linus wasn't a good leader for Linux originally, I suppose... he kind of grew into the role. We might have similar leaders for OpenMoko, but there are some real differences. The development plan is not yet published, and may even be a company secret. For example, the touch screen driver is written for a pen, and fingers basically don't work. Who's updating the driver? I can't find out. Is there a photo app in the works, or should we write one? I've applied to write two projects (an e-book reader and a port of PocketSphinx for voice control). No response on either. I get a strong feeling that any OpenMoko requests are first translated into Chinese, and then approved or not by Taiwan corporate types. Why haven't I heard "no"? I suspect culture. Never say "no". IMO, the situation is bad enough almost to warrant forking the code, but I don't have time to drive it. I'd follow anyone who does.
Good vision... will Google share, and promote it? A bunch of super-business-savy guys like the leaders at Google just might agree with your vision... and they're in the right spot to profit from it. Apple recently announced that in February they will ship a development platform for the iPhone, opening it up for the world to hack. Some speculate that this is in response to the backlash to iPhone firmware 1.1.1, which blocks 3rd party hacked software for most people even today. Others at OpenMoko may fear it is in response to their efforts, and speculate that Google will make gPhone a closed system. I believe Apple fears gPhone, which is possibly the biggest threat to Apple's dominance in the mobile computing space. I'm hoping Google has your vision, and will take it to it's logical conclusion...
It's a bummer in several ways. First, we geeks don't get hard-ons for crappy hardware (as the poster below suggests). Sleek advanced hardware, totally open for us to explore while trying to change the world, however, gets my blood going. When the hackers cracked the iPhone and put some of the best software management tools I've seen in place, without even a damned header file... that was cool.
:-) but what the hell?
I own an NEO1973. I'm glad to support the project, and desperately hope that it will succeed. Here's something I read today from the OpenMoko mail list: "The Neo is, was, and will be, a product for geeks and therefore never was intended to be a mass market product. Geeks do not look at fancy glamour but for useful attributes." I have no idea who this guys is talking about. I'm about the biggest geek I've ever met (yeah, I know some of you are bigger
The NEO1973 battery is tiny, screen too small, touch capabilities poor, integration level low, plastic instead of anodized aluminum, and worst of all... there's not the same kind of inspired software leadership. The community wants to build the world's best phone, but a guy like Linus is required to lead the effort. I think the OpenMoko guys have incredible vision, but not the complete vision, and the leader needed make it succeed is currently missing. Get the right guy involved, and they could change the world... crappy hardware and all.
I guess parent makes #429 on the new watch list for today :o)
/. posters.
Seriously, > 500 terrorist suspects per day? And over the last six years, how many actual convictions? The must be simply listing
Not true... information theory shows that a fractional bit is a probability of transmitting the desired bit correctly. A true source of random noise generates no bits, but a highly noisy channel transmits fractional bits per noisy bit sent. Fractional bits are well-founded mathematically.
Generally, sensitive government information is already physically shielded from the Internet - they simply don't connect their computers to it. I have some friends who don't even feel comfortable telling me what their wives' jobs are, and I doubt it's anything really cool that deserves to be secret. As far as I can tell, government security is working quite well. Heck, I can't even find anyone who wants to talk about that secret hypersonic plane I'm pretty sure we built. You'd think there'd be be nothing more fun to speculate about around the water cooler... not so. I just want to see the damned thing. It seems that the government realizes the basic truth of information security: the weakness is individuals, not technology (gee, how advanced is not connecting to the net?). I'm quite impressed at how universally government employees have been trained who access even potentially sensitive information. However, the vast majority of government employees I deal with are really smart... the stupid ones most be out there.
No, P2P file sharing is less of a threat than Google. Post something on your blog, and within a month, the whole world knows. A stupid government employee with access to both valuable secrets and Myspace could be quite dangerous. Anyway, I feel we currently err on the side of paranoia. 9/11, the Iraq war, and Bush's general preference for lack of oversight have to a silly explosion in classified government secrets.
Sorry... :-P I would never promote my own stupid blog on slashdot... :-)
I very much enjoyed reading your blog entry about your info-pad idea. Here's my own idea, worth what you just paid for it: How about a low-tech device that operates as snazzy e-book reader on-the-cheap? E-book readers like Sony's crud are too expensive (though Sony's problem is stupid marketing - not their e-book price). They take cheap e-ink that could be used to paint huge signs, and they cover them with low-yield expensive thin-film transistors. It's a bastardized hybrid, like mating a man and an ape. Instead what if we made a very nice scrolling page device that opened like an old-fashioned window blind? As you pull out the page, the e-ink would run along a thin long write-head in the scroll that would write the image onto the page. If you focused on making the device a pleasure to play with just to open and close, it might sell well if coupled with free books and a reasonable e-book site. If you could get it to display color, then you could also use it as a portable photo album, which would just be too cool for words.
Ok, guys like you belong in marketing :-) The good ones know how to use the power of both good and evil to achieve there ends. I'm not disagreeing with you, just shuddering at your proposal.
I have to agree... Microsoft can't keep us from using our own free software for our own benefit... oh, wait! That's what Microsoft's software patents are for :-)
In any case, it's all just speculation. I agree with previous articles posted on slashdot suggesting that Linux will not ever replace Windows as the dominant desktop OS. I'm ok with that. I'm glad the 2,000 pound gorilla is a US based software company, and I'm in no hurry to tear it down, so long as they refrain from stifling innovation. So long as I have the freedom to run the really cool stuff (Linux, IMO), I don't care about what Joe Sixpack uses. Let's just hope Microsoft sticks to their monopoly, without pissing off all the open-source innovators.
Ha, you're the first person I've heard mention this idea since the early '80s! Here's another similarly old, interesting factoid I've heard about the C compiler: The ASCII character set is no longer defined anywhere in the C compiler source code (which is written in C). In other words, '&' compiles to decimal 37 only because existing binary compilers know how to translate the '&' character constant.
While normally I'd agree with you, I'll risk more "flamebait" mods and predict that the Bush administration would be all for Microsoft's acquisitions. We split up AT&T, yet there were no major hurdles placed against AT&T re-merging. AT&T just bought both my cellular and home phone companies (Cingular and Bell South). They even provide my DSL. I keep my Sprint long-distance as a protest, but 90% of my money now goes to AT&T, half of it without a single reasonable competitor (my land-line). And what about Murdoch buying the Wall Street Journal? Big Business is the current administration's base.
Both Novel and RedHat are publicly traded companies, which means by law they hold their investor's interests above all else. Last time I checked, you could buy pretty much anything from investors at the right price. Microsoft buying Novel and RedHat would cause less of a riot than when Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal.
Novel's market cap: $2B
Red Hat's market cap: $4B
Microsoft's market cap: $292B
Microsoft could easily buy the two largest open-source companies on the planet without denting their reserves. If Microsoft ever suspects Linux is a significant threat, they'll just buy out the largest players. Let's face it... that's how #1 companies remain #1.
I wrote a rare letter to my congressman, suggesting that he propose a law that would ban US companies from working with foreign governments to sensor political content on the Internet. It would mean that Google and Yahoo would make less money, and they would create an opening for a strong competitor to be born... but what about "Do no evil"? I can't believe Americans willingly help destroy our most valued right: freedom of speech. It's just wrong, and should be illegal.
I totally agree. I'm gonna wait on the sidelines and see what Apple actually does. By Febuary, there should be a couple new options, like an iPhone clone from Nokia. Whoever delivers good hardware with an open-platform will have my business, though I no longer recommend Apple to people... stupid is all I can say. My support only counts for a few thousand dollars a month, buy why did they bother to piss me off by purposely disabling my iPhone?
In theory, I agree, but what security issue are we talking about? I rely on dozens to hundreds of open-source software packages every day. Apple can either allow that same kind of flexibility, or continue to try to control all software that can run on their devices. I don't see much middle ground, and I sure as heck don't want Apple-blessed only, as that's no better than what we have now.