if you feel comfortable sending 1-2 grand to some company you've never heard of i suppose system76 are the ones to beat. if you are interested in the peace of mind that comes with buying from an established vendor in the linux laptop space (like most people do with dell or HP), then you want an emperor and their prices start pretty much where dell's stop. with that said, system76 is a good find and i will definitely check them out.
a good part of this is MS's shinnanegans (giving deep discounts on the two products the buying public is pretty much guaranteed to be interested in if they drag their feet on supplying linux) and a small part of it is fear or ignorance on the part of the vendors themselves.
it should also be mentioned that open office installs on windows as well, and so does clamAV
Buy a laptop that comes with Ubuntu preinstalled. There are some vendors that offer it.
there are plenty of vendors out there that will preinstall and support linux on your laptop for not quite twice what the equivalent windows laptop will run you.
don't take that as a criticism of ubuntu, linux or linux laptop vendors... think of it more like a glimpse into the world of PC vendors and the effect that the invisible hand of MS has on it.
AFAIK, people don't just got into the guts of their system to crank everything up for the joy of theoretical numbers to throw around.
talk to a hardcore seti addict sometime. they will drop $1500 on a new liquid cooled rig to push them up to the next user class. the guys in the top 20 are even worse. i had a friend who once misappropriated a whole software test lab over a 4 day weekend to see a boost in seti rank.
So do the music execs *WANT* DRM, or do they *NOT* want it? They can't have it both ways.
they don't want it. what they want to do is get rid of downloadable music in general. they would also like us to SHUT THE HELL UP about getting rid of DRM. perhaps if they shift the blame around and wave their hands we will be placated enough to let this digital download nonsense subside and just go back to buying CDs.
just wait, soon there will be talk about how downloads are not sustainable and we have to get rid of the service once and for all.
Dell doesn't HAVE to do jack sh*t just to appease a few Linux activists. Their main business is going to remain, for quite a while, wintel machines.
teen angst ramblings aside, dell has been fingerfucking with linux for years. i think this is why the story intrigues so many people. most dell desktops will run linux with no difficulty, and have done so for years. my first linux machine was a dell 486/66 and i have installed different distros on probably two dozen dell optiplexes over the years. i even had one of those 10 pound inspiron 7something laptops that ran linux just fine as long as you didn't want to dial up to something. dell has wanted to do more with linux (on servers and desktops alike) for years, but doesn't have the balls to confuse it's corporate/consumer userbase. there is also danger of upsetting microsoft.
they know that the vast majority of the people they sell computers to don't know the difference between windows and office, let alone the difference between linux and windows. they also know that MS will respond unkindly to any largescale linux involvement.
we all know that dell isn't agianst linux. that's not the issue. the issue is the decade or so of teasing that dell does, snuggling up to linux but never making a real commitment.
to lie about holding said paper is inexcusable. It then brings into question your credibility over all.
perhaps no one explained tp you the tacit undestanding that all parties share in internet interactions: the preponderance of falsehood. wikipedia isn't the place to go for facts about a given subject. it's a place to peer into the minds of sweaty otaku to catch a glimpse of their obsession.
Time literally _is_ money when an employee or two are doing it. You pay salaries for that time. So having someone figure out the focal point, the mounting, build some contraption to hold the LNB in the right place, etc, can end up costing more than $70 quite easily.
FTFA:
45 South volunteer Ken Jones designed the wok transmitter in his spare time last year when he wanted to provide wireless broadband to his Ardgowan home.
emphasis mine.
paying your employees an hourly rate to futz with a wok may not make much business sense... but taking advantage of the R&D done for free by a dedicated volunteer in his spare time makes plenty of business sense.
I am certainly not saying it is full of kind-hearted souls (very far from it!) but there is more to it than just "let's fuck the consumer and the artist to make a buck!".
there is a lot more to it... like the lying, the cheating, the backstabbing, and the drugs.
From the article: "When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system.""
Virtualization belongs below the operating system, let's say in the BIOS.
that depends on what kind of virtualization you want. there are differnet kinds, based on what you want to do.
i think that he is saying that you should run your virtualization stuff at the os level, ala openVZ.
i guess it goes without saying that "virtualization" is *such* an overloaded term now a days that you can never be sure what anyone is talking about anymore.
in a nutshell, OS level virtualization (according to the these folks) means that the OS itself is virtualized instead of the hardware which is the vmware/ms virtual server way. OS level virtualization means that you run one OS, and each virtual environment is a container with a "private" instance of that OS... like a root jail on steroids.
what you end up with is a bunch of instances of the same OS. the virtual servers are shielded from eachother, and the host shielded from the virtual servers, but the virtual servers are not necessarily shielded from the host. the key difference is that all of them, virtual server and host alike, are running the same kernel. they don't run copies of the same kernel, they all talk to the same running kernel. this means simpler setup and administration and more efficient use of disk, cpu and memory thanks to reduced redundancy in hardware and operating system emulation and/or abstraction. openVZ pretty much lets you run a bunch of iterations of the same OS, but with different applications, users, IPs, etc.
you essentially are giving up the ability to run arbitrary guest OS's in exchange for simpler configuration and more efficient use of resources.
it seems to me that OS level virtualization (instead of hardware/hypervisor virtualization) is more along the lines of what MS would want, which is people buying lots of windows licenses, or just paying up for the most expensive version of windows so they can virtualize to the fullest extent of their hardware's capabilities.
i think that this might be the first step to competing with VMWare and all the others that let you run windows servers on linux. one way to improve stability in anything is to reduce the number of things that it does. the weird language in vista about using licenses in virtualization might be the precursor to the different tiers for the next iteration of windows server where buying the top level OS grants you the licensing freedom to many virtualized servers on the same machine.
what will be most interesting is if active directory and the like will change... will you still be required you to run DNS and other services on your AD server? or, will you be able to off load those services to "smaller" single function virtual servers?
Looking back, I should have left Redhat around 7.3, which was the last good and consistently stable RH release.
that was the last redhat i lived with for a considerable length of time. redhat 8 had that "windowsME" gui wizard feeling that i feel is beneath linux. ubuntu is the only linux i trust that doesn't have a package system based on tarballs (OpenBSD and slackware are still tops in that regard).
i first installed ubuntu because that is one of the few distros that VMWare says it supports. my decision to switch was based on application needs rather than disappointment with slack. i will admit that installing ubuntu and having it "just work" made me feel like kind of a sissy after using slackware and openBSD, but i got over it pretty fast.
IM is way better than email for 90% of what people use email for.
when i worked on a helpdesk, we were all on the phone all the time, and we used AIM and an AIM chatroom to IM with eachother about stuff like what systems were up, what was down, that sort of thing. you can talk on the phone (well, listen to an idiot yammer) and answer other people's questions pretty easily that way. plus, you can have several conversations going at once which is way more efficient than a single phone conversation. it's also a great way to move files between people you know since most corporate email systems strip the most interesting of attachments without some sort of manipulation.
i would do personal stuff with it as well... IMing with my wife all day cuts down on the "how was your day/we never talk anymore" meme that cuts into precious evening game time... both mine and hers.
my only beef with IM is that even with clients that let you have several "presences" (jabber/trillian) there aren't many that let you talk to people while they are in an MMORPG. asheron's call had a third party plugin system called DeCAL that let you run many things, including an IRC and aim client ingame which created an allegiance chat channel before one was added to the game in addition to being reachable while in game... but to my knowlege there is no way to reach someone with a default install of a given game without being logged into the game as well.
it would be nice to be able to tell my little brother that he has a meat body somewhere outside of WOW that needs to eat dinner once in a while.
But all of these statements -- that the Windows Virtualization Technology will be stunning, that Virtualization belongs in the OS, etc. seems to be thowing FUD directly at VMware (and, I assure you, the VMware product is "stunning" -- I particularly like the Server product running on Linux).
To my knowledge (or my opinion, if you prefer), Microsoft ONLY reacts this strongly if their platform is being threatened. And I don't see what the introduction of a bit more enterprise driver support does to threaten Windows.
i have used VMWare server on both linux and windows and i like it. i like that vmware server runs on linux, and that you can trade machines between linux and windows just by copying the VM files. the biggest benefit i see is the VMWare virtual appliance marketplace where you can shop for pre-made vmware machines. a lot of them are free.
at home i use linux, and i have a 2003 server and 2000 pro install both running in VMWare server on an ubuntu desktop. i also have a LAMP appliance and a media wiki appliance set up, but i haven't done a whole lot with them. trading out motherboards and adding a raid controller to the mix had no effect on any of the VMs, even though i moved to a fresh ubuntu install on a bare drive. in fact, i suspended the VMs and they didn't even register the host shutdown.
at work i have a 2003 server hosting a mediawiki appliance on vmware server for windows. it's pretty much a demo for mediawiki as a proof of concept. i also have MS virtual PC 2004 installed on my xp pro workstation and i run a handful of 2000 pro and one slackware virtual PC that i use for different things. setup was a breeze and even slackware runs without a glitch.
i tried to use ms virtual PC on my laptop at home running a wireless network card to host xubuntu for quick access to an environment to surf potentially "hostile" sites such as those that let you download romz. virtual PC doesn't provide it's own "nic", but rather, a pointer to the installed nic. this is fine for servers and desktops, but on a laptop with a linksys network card... well i wasn't interested in ndiswrapper black magic to get the xubuntu VM going just to hunt for romz.
so based on that purely amateur, totally not production experience, i have to say that the VMWare way is cooler. i should mention that i haven't run virtual server 2004 or any version of 2007 yet.
i think that an ebook reader is something like an MP3 player... it's a handy device for accessing digital media you already have. until ebooks are in the hands of millions of people (like mp3s were when the ipod hit the scene) there won't be much market for a dedicated device, regardless of the cost. at the end of the day, people like MP3s because they are cheap, convenient, and portable. until the ebook is the same way (or it offers something that a traditional book can't, like search) i think that the market will prefer traditional paperbacks for just about everything.
the idea of being able to fit 300 searchable books in a pocket sized device is certainly compelling, but i don't think the ebook is there quite yet. if google can get the bugs worked out of it's books system, i think that will be a real shot in the arm for the ebook.
i work for a surgical research center and minimally invasive robotic surgery will change everything. we use da vincis to do proofs of concept on cadavers and live animals, and the technology is no where near ready for prime time, but the possibilities are really cool.
the control console and the robot don't have to be in the same place, so it will be possible to perform surgery with the patient in a completely sterile field without all the people that are usually necessary in a traditional OR. the graspers are currently the size of a finger and are articulated like a wrist, so doctors have greater range of motion in smaller spaces (smaller incisions mean less risk of infections, less pain, and faster recovery times). it will also be possible to perform surgery remotely (telemedicine) which is ideal for military and disaster relief scenarios. nasa is interested in telesurgery for space missions where it's not always possible to turn around and go back. it will also be possible to have a surgery mentored remotely by an expert (telementoring) so developing countries can get better access to advanced medicine.
I've had a think about this. It seems to me that if your ability to go home at the end of your working day in a car instead of a box depended on being heavily armed when raiding places that might or might not be dangerous, perhaps it isn't so extreme to act that way.
you have a point about why SWAT guys do what they do. i'm an army vet... i spent 5 years being told "there's no such thing as underkill."
the question wasn't did the SWAT guys over do it once they arrived on the scene. the question was is the presence of SWAT on the scene in the first place over doing it?
to put it another way, are police departments using SWAT too much?
after all, if you need sub machine guns and flashbangs to guarantee survivability in any police engagement, then why isn't that standard operating procedure for all police actions?
think about it... you could use SWAT to evict people from their apartments, to settle domestic disputes, or even provide security at concerts.
Mind you, the raid itself seemed a bit extreme.
They found none of the stuff that made them think they should go in armed. Still, I don't know what percentage of raids of this type do turn up arms/drugs, or how many they have to do, the gun toting could simply be policy.
i am not sure how much of this is the RIAA's fault and how much of it is the work of overzealous SWAT officers. the RIAA is famous for using police style uniforms to intimidate street vendors who sell bootleg music... so i wouldn't put this stunt past them either.
i think a better question to ask would be, why do you need a SWAT team to shake down a few bootleggers? were the suspects known to be armed? do they have prior offenses of a violent nature? are they members of a gang?
or, is it much easier to scare they bejesus out of would be downloaders and tape mixers if you get pictures in the paper and video on the television of cops in military gear and uniforms busting a studio? just like terrorism, the RIAA's goals are political and psychological, rather than legal, technical, or tactical.
i don't know about vista (haven't made the switch yet), but i have been using office 2007 at work on a 3 gig P4 with a gig of ram and it's visibly slower than o2k3. not unsuable by any stretch, but not nearly as snappy as i had become accustomed to with XPpro/o2k3pro
That extra payment then could be used to expand the network or the telcos could pocket it. The telcos that just pocket it would then start to lose customers. And the whole thing just goes in circles.
the telcos have said that they want to build out their networks but net neutrality won't let them recover the costs. the truth is that they can't imagine building out a network that doesn't guarantee a monopoly... i guess anything less than a 300% return in an investment isn't worth the "risk".
as for losing customers... who the hell would they lose them to? if you are lucky, you live in a neighborhood where you can choose between the cable company and the phone company. in many neighborhoods you only have one choice. what are you going to do then, go back to dialup?
this is precisely why we need muni-wifi and muni-fiber projects all over the US. this is also precisely why there will never be any largescale muni-fiber and muni-wifi projects in the US.
IBM released Eclipse for free, and it's killed off all the commercial Java IDEs out there. Sure, the source is available - but why isn't that seen as predatory? The net effect has been the same.
giving something away for free to create value for something else is absolutely predatory, that's why Internet Explorer and Active Server Pages where declared illegal in 1999, MS was split into two companines by the DOJ, and the use of windows carries a mandatory prison sentence to this day.
Slashdot Mirror
if you feel comfortable sending 1-2 grand to some company you've never heard of i suppose system76 are the ones to beat. if you are interested in the peace of mind that comes with buying from an established vendor in the linux laptop space (like most people do with dell or HP), then you want an emperor and their prices start pretty much where dell's stop. with that said, system76 is a good find and i will definitely check them out.
a good part of this is MS's shinnanegans (giving deep discounts on the two products the buying public is pretty much guaranteed to be interested in if they drag their feet on supplying linux) and a small part of it is fear or ignorance on the part of the vendors themselves.
it should also be mentioned that open office installs on windows as well, and so does clamAV
there are plenty of vendors out there that will preinstall and support linux on your laptop for not quite twice what the equivalent windows laptop will run you.
don't take that as a criticism of ubuntu, linux or linux laptop vendors... think of it more like a glimpse into the world of PC vendors and the effect that the invisible hand of MS has on it.
talk to a hardcore seti addict sometime. they will drop $1500 on a new liquid cooled rig to push them up to the next user class. the guys in the top 20 are even worse. i had a friend who once misappropriated a whole software test lab over a 4 day weekend to see a boost in seti rank.
FIVE GOLD RINGS!
they don't want it. what they want to do is get rid of downloadable music in general. they would also like us to SHUT THE HELL UP about getting rid of DRM. perhaps if they shift the blame around and wave their hands we will be placated enough to let this digital download nonsense subside and just go back to buying CDs.
just wait, soon there will be talk about how downloads are not sustainable and we have to get rid of the service once and for all.
teen angst ramblings aside, dell has been fingerfucking with linux for years. i think this is why the story intrigues so many people. most dell desktops will run linux with no difficulty, and have done so for years. my first linux machine was a dell 486/66 and i have installed different distros on probably two dozen dell optiplexes over the years. i even had one of those 10 pound inspiron 7something laptops that ran linux just fine as long as you didn't want to dial up to something. dell has wanted to do more with linux (on servers and desktops alike) for years, but doesn't have the balls to confuse it's corporate/consumer userbase. there is also danger of upsetting microsoft.
they know that the vast majority of the people they sell computers to don't know the difference between windows and office, let alone the difference between linux and windows. they also know that MS will respond unkindly to any largescale linux involvement.
we all know that dell isn't agianst linux. that's not the issue. the issue is the decade or so of teasing that dell does, snuggling up to linux but never making a real commitment.
perhaps no one explained tp you the tacit undestanding that all parties share in internet interactions: the preponderance of falsehood. wikipedia isn't the place to go for facts about a given subject. it's a place to peer into the minds of sweaty otaku to catch a glimpse of their obsession.
FTFA:
emphasis mine.paying your employees an hourly rate to futz with a wok may not make much business sense... but taking advantage of the R&D done for free by a dedicated volunteer in his spare time makes plenty of business sense.
there is a lot more to it... like the lying, the cheating, the backstabbing, and the drugs.
that depends on what kind of virtualization you want. there are differnet kinds, based on what you want to do.
i think that he is saying that you should run your virtualization stuff at the os level, ala openVZ.
i guess it goes without saying that "virtualization" is *such* an overloaded term now a days that you can never be sure what anyone is talking about anymore.
in a nutshell, OS level virtualization (according to the these folks) means that the OS itself is virtualized instead of the hardware which is the vmware/ms virtual server way. OS level virtualization means that you run one OS, and each virtual environment is a container with a "private" instance of that OS... like a root jail on steroids.
what you end up with is a bunch of instances of the same OS. the virtual servers are shielded from eachother, and the host shielded from the virtual servers, but the virtual servers are not necessarily shielded from the host. the key difference is that all of them, virtual server and host alike, are running the same kernel. they don't run copies of the same kernel, they all talk to the same running kernel. this means simpler setup and administration and more efficient use of disk, cpu and memory thanks to reduced redundancy in hardware and operating system emulation and/or abstraction. openVZ pretty much lets you run a bunch of iterations of the same OS, but with different applications, users, IPs, etc.
you essentially are giving up the ability to run arbitrary guest OS's in exchange for simpler configuration and more efficient use of resources.
it seems to me that OS level virtualization (instead of hardware/hypervisor virtualization) is more along the lines of what MS would want, which is people buying lots of windows licenses, or just paying up for the most expensive version of windows so they can virtualize to the fullest extent of their hardware's capabilities.
i think that this might be the first step to competing with VMWare and all the others that let you run windows servers on linux. one way to improve stability in anything is to reduce the number of things that it does. the weird language in vista about using licenses in virtualization might be the precursor to the different tiers for the next iteration of windows server where buying the top level OS grants you the licensing freedom to many virtualized servers on the same machine.
what will be most interesting is if active directory and the like will change... will you still be required you to run DNS and other services on your AD server? or, will you be able to off load those services to "smaller" single function virtual servers?
that was the last redhat i lived with for a considerable length of time. redhat 8 had that "windowsME" gui wizard feeling that i feel is beneath linux. ubuntu is the only linux i trust that doesn't have a package system based on tarballs (OpenBSD and slackware are still tops in that regard).
i first installed ubuntu because that is one of the few distros that VMWare says it supports. my decision to switch was based on application needs rather than disappointment with slack. i will admit that installing ubuntu and having it "just work" made me feel like kind of a sissy after using slackware and openBSD, but i got over it pretty fast.
IM is way better than email for 90% of what people use email for.
when i worked on a helpdesk, we were all on the phone all the time, and we used AIM and an AIM chatroom to IM with eachother about stuff like what systems were up, what was down, that sort of thing. you can talk on the phone (well, listen to an idiot yammer) and answer other people's questions pretty easily that way. plus, you can have several conversations going at once which is way more efficient than a single phone conversation. it's also a great way to move files between people you know since most corporate email systems strip the most interesting of attachments without some sort of manipulation.
i would do personal stuff with it as well... IMing with my wife all day cuts down on the "how was your day/we never talk anymore" meme that cuts into precious evening game time... both mine and hers.
my only beef with IM is that even with clients that let you have several "presences" (jabber/trillian) there aren't many that let you talk to people while they are in an MMORPG. asheron's call had a third party plugin system called DeCAL that let you run many things, including an IRC and aim client ingame which created an allegiance chat channel before one was added to the game in addition to being reachable while in game... but to my knowlege there is no way to reach someone with a default install of a given game without being logged into the game as well.
it would be nice to be able to tell my little brother that he has a meat body somewhere outside of WOW that needs to eat dinner once in a while.
all they want to do is ruin people's lives! is that so wrong?
go for it, the odds of getting pinched for a torrent on TBP are about as good as the odds of winning the lottery.
i have used VMWare server on both linux and windows and i like it. i like that vmware server runs on linux, and that you can trade machines between linux and windows just by copying the VM files. the biggest benefit i see is the VMWare virtual appliance marketplace where you can shop for pre-made vmware machines. a lot of them are free.
at home i use linux, and i have a 2003 server and 2000 pro install both running in VMWare server on an ubuntu desktop. i also have a LAMP appliance and a media wiki appliance set up, but i haven't done a whole lot with them. trading out motherboards and adding a raid controller to the mix had no effect on any of the VMs, even though i moved to a fresh ubuntu install on a bare drive. in fact, i suspended the VMs and they didn't even register the host shutdown.
at work i have a 2003 server hosting a mediawiki appliance on vmware server for windows. it's pretty much a demo for mediawiki as a proof of concept. i also have MS virtual PC 2004 installed on my xp pro workstation and i run a handful of 2000 pro and one slackware virtual PC that i use for different things. setup was a breeze and even slackware runs without a glitch.
i tried to use ms virtual PC on my laptop at home running a wireless network card to host xubuntu for quick access to an environment to surf potentially "hostile" sites such as those that let you download romz. virtual PC doesn't provide it's own "nic", but rather, a pointer to the installed nic. this is fine for servers and desktops, but on a laptop with a linksys network card... well i wasn't interested in ndiswrapper black magic to get the xubuntu VM going just to hunt for romz.
so based on that purely amateur, totally not production experience, i have to say that the VMWare way is cooler. i should mention that i haven't run virtual server 2004 or any version of 2007 yet.
two years? yeah right! video news releases are here now without the aid of digital effects.
i think that an ebook reader is something like an MP3 player... it's a handy device for accessing digital media you already have. until ebooks are in the hands of millions of people (like mp3s were when the ipod hit the scene) there won't be much market for a dedicated device, regardless of the cost. at the end of the day, people like MP3s because they are cheap, convenient, and portable. until the ebook is the same way (or it offers something that a traditional book can't, like search) i think that the market will prefer traditional paperbacks for just about everything.
the idea of being able to fit 300 searchable books in a pocket sized device is certainly compelling, but i don't think the ebook is there quite yet. if google can get the bugs worked out of it's books system, i think that will be a real shot in the arm for the ebook.
i work for a surgical research center and minimally invasive robotic surgery will change everything. we use da vincis to do proofs of concept on cadavers and live animals, and the technology is no where near ready for prime time, but the possibilities are really cool.
the control console and the robot don't have to be in the same place, so it will be possible to perform surgery with the patient in a completely sterile field without all the people that are usually necessary in a traditional OR. the graspers are currently the size of a finger and are articulated like a wrist, so doctors have greater range of motion in smaller spaces (smaller incisions mean less risk of infections, less pain, and faster recovery times). it will also be possible to perform surgery remotely (telemedicine) which is ideal for military and disaster relief scenarios. nasa is interested in telesurgery for space missions where it's not always possible to turn around and go back. it will also be possible to have a surgery mentored remotely by an expert (telementoring) so developing countries can get better access to advanced medicine.
you have a point about why SWAT guys do what they do. i'm an army vet... i spent 5 years being told "there's no such thing as underkill."
the question wasn't did the SWAT guys over do it once they arrived on the scene. the question was is the presence of SWAT on the scene in the first place over doing it?
to put it another way, are police departments using SWAT too much?
after all, if you need sub machine guns and flashbangs to guarantee survivability in any police engagement, then why isn't that standard operating procedure for all police actions?
think about it... you could use SWAT to evict people from their apartments, to settle domestic disputes, or even provide security at concerts.
i am not sure how much of this is the RIAA's fault and how much of it is the work of overzealous SWAT officers. the RIAA is famous for using police style uniforms to intimidate street vendors who sell bootleg music... so i wouldn't put this stunt past them either.
i think a better question to ask would be, why do you need a SWAT team to shake down a few bootleggers? were the suspects known to be armed? do they have prior offenses of a violent nature? are they members of a gang?
or, is it much easier to scare they bejesus out of would be downloaders and tape mixers if you get pictures in the paper and video on the television of cops in military gear and uniforms busting a studio? just like terrorism, the RIAA's goals are political and psychological, rather than legal, technical, or tactical.
i don't know about vista (haven't made the switch yet), but i have been using office 2007 at work on a 3 gig P4 with a gig of ram and it's visibly slower than o2k3. not unsuable by any stretch, but not nearly as snappy as i had become accustomed to with XPpro/o2k3pro
the telcos have said that they want to build out their networks but net neutrality won't let them recover the costs. the truth is that they can't imagine building out a network that doesn't guarantee a monopoly... i guess anything less than a 300% return in an investment isn't worth the "risk".
as for losing customers... who the hell would they lose them to? if you are lucky, you live in a neighborhood where you can choose between the cable company and the phone company. in many neighborhoods you only have one choice. what are you going to do then, go back to dialup?
this is precisely why we need muni-wifi and muni-fiber projects all over the US. this is also precisely why there will never be any largescale muni-fiber and muni-wifi projects in the US.
this one group of guys was a while back, but i'm not sure anything came of it.
giving something away for free to create value for something else is absolutely predatory, that's why Internet Explorer and Active Server Pages where declared illegal in 1999, MS was split into two companines by the DOJ, and the use of windows carries a mandatory prison sentence to this day.
yeah, from the same people that developed Xvid. it's called OLAH.