Remember when Vista came out? There were a few articles showing all the toolbars in an infected IE. It was funny to see how many there were, but few people actually asked themselves about why *any* toolbar exists.
It seems every company want's you to install their toolbar and/or to switch to their search engine. Why? Many masquerade that they are providing alternative search engines in such a way as to not force you to change your search engine. If it's the reason, this is a big a fib. We know it's a fib because we know most browsers have options allowing you to change the search engine temporarily. Getting you to install a toolbar is a way of getting you to allow (without actually consenting) to allow the toolbar developer to sneak a peak at what you are doing. You didn't think that toolbar was there for you to click on the pretty buttons did you? They're there to track what you do (and to present ads targeted at what you are looking at).
It was bad enough having Microsoft leach this way, but now there is the impetuous to encourage more developers to create toolbars so they can copy Microsoft's parasitic approach. Now that the cat's out of the bag and the methodology is known, you will have everyone doing it. Even those malicious search products that sneak onto your computer disguised as a legitimate product will be able to do this and they'll be able to make money.
I guess the best way to deal with this is to not use Microsoft's Bing, or their Live products, or IE. One has to ask, that as their products get used less, how they keep this up. I guess I'm not surprised to find myself concluding that they'd just add this to their other products -- anything that would run continuously (even their desktop search could monitor (Search 4.0)).
When I thought about how they did it and when I concluded that they were cheating and not going through the pain in order to gain (so to speak) I couldn't help thinking that sort of plays out the Chaos theory described in the Jurassic Park movie. In other words, Microsoft won't have taken the time to learn how to do it themselves so they copy the big guys, the competent ones, but in the end they'll fuck everyone over.
And on another point, as far as I am concerned there is no opting in here. No one here knew what Microsoft was doing. Some may have suspected it, yet held their tongue as the mass insane would accuse them of conspiracy theories, but, the fact remains, no one knew for certain until now. With this being the case, how on freaking earth could those people opt in? Has that passed by so many of those people by?
Just ask yourself this: how does Google put an end to it? How can they control this in a way that stops Microsoft (or anyone else) from doing precisely this. Microsoft's parasitic approach to search is telling, in that they are admitting that they do not have the skill to create a product that can compete head to head with Google. They are sucking the blood of Google in order to feed their own system, because they "suck".
I agree. Football with the team captain and all the players playing their position organizing their plays is a gang activity. Sheesh, when will these Judges grow up?
There are too many problems with the cloud currently, and they are likely to remain.
The iPad is only small tree in a larger forest. Given enough time there'll be enough new iPad-like trees that they'll make a forest of their own. That takes time and the right conditions (market conditions and strategic decisions). The iPad isn't that influential except in popularizing the tablet market. I still know no one that owns one. I know no one that wants to own one. I would consider one if it wasn't for the closed nature and walled garden approach that Apple took. I have owned an iPhone for a few years and have purchased apps and music. The music will translate to a new product but the apps won't. Once I stopped being wow'd by the iPhone apps I stopped buying them (and music).
I don't believe in Microsoft nor in their vision. There's little doubt that they are not leading the industry any longer. They have two products that dominate their markets (the OS and productivity apps). Gaming consoles are targeted at the young. They'll never influence the older consumer. Older consumers don't orgasm at the latest game to be released. As you get older your focus will be on family, friends, career, retirement leaving little time for consideration of the gaming console. That's why the Win mobile 7 won't really influnce the broader consumer mindset for those raising their family, paying their mortgage, running their business. If Win mobile 7 goes anywhere it will be for other reasons. I spent some time using Win mobile 7. It was a nice product. It was fast and had some nice features (it lacked some as well).
I watch little TV due to commercialization. I am after product details. I'm tired of being prodded to buy this or that product only to find out that it has some serious limits. I don't want to buy a product that isn't mine and that if I tinker with it I could be committing a felony. TV commercials selling XBOX360s has little influence on me. I have no desire to watch those that profess cloud computing without telling the consumer of the pitfalls.
My attorney said he would never store his data in the cloud (mail or otherwise), because he doesn't have total control. Laying that in the hands of a third party could cause serious issues in defending his clients. And, he's right. It would be too easy to have the government misuse their powers and gain access to that information, and too costly for those cloud based systems to defend against the government (demonstrated by what we see today day in and day out just by reading sites like/.).
What the cloud does for me know is it allows me to store my photos offsite at low cost. That's pretty much all I'll use it for. Most of my friends have their drop boxes, but they never us it. They don't have the kind of data/programs that they need to access/run from the cloud. The cloud for me is good for email and pictures. Data storage is cheap. You can get a USB 3 external 2 terabyte system for under $100.00. Pick up 4 of them and you have 8 terabytes for around $400. Use two as back up and store your information off site.
We realize what's being said about tablets and cloud computing. We aren't dumb. We aren't being selective in what we listen to. We are educating ourselves in more ways than one. People that adopt early may reap greater reward or they may pay a greater price for learning the hard lessons.
Listening to a 30 second commercial isn't my idea of becoming informed.
Linux is in everything today (Android is Linux). My media center at home is run off a Linux install. My phone is Android. My NAS is running Linux. Most of my computers run Linux including those that are entitled to the Windows OS. My internal phone system runs Linux. My GPS is Linux.
The other day I saw the Parrot Asteroid which is a car stereo that has a touch screen interface running Android. It looked sweet.
I guess I'm saying that Linux/Android have momentum and that'll be hard to beat. Microsoft's own products will have difficulty overcoming it.
I have no belief that the tablet will supplant the PC. I also have no belief that the PC will go the way of the mainframe (still existing but only in certain markets). At least not due to the tablet market of today (or the NEAR future). The PC will remain what it is to those that use it now and will remain what it is for the near and far future.
I do believe that the Armdriod platform will grow significantly and entertain consumers with new uses for computers (or old uses only done in albeit different and limited ways). Their use will be for short-term tasks--looking stuff up, chatting, text, browsing, music, videos, etc. Anything they can drop their heads to task and raise back up to complete the desktop or life task afterwards.
I see a broad acceptance by the consumer only to have them acknowledge that Armdroid is not for everything. The market will swell to saturation and then flatline for growth unless something amazing happens to turn the tablet into a more useful device, such as Box (from the Sci-Fi TV series on PBS). With IBM's Watson maybe we'll have a true system that can interpret what we mean instead of what we said (the literal words). If the tablet becomes connected enough, with enough storage (or some other mechanism of analyzing all the data) we'll see them becoming significantly more useful and thus used for longer periods of time.
When thinking about the peripheral markets, since Android is basically Linux, I think those that have spent a great deal of time working with it (learning it like they did with Windows) will benefit the most from the markets that spring up. They'll have the longest and most successful careers since they took the time to learn this stuff inside and out. Those who could not keep up or got frustrated at Linux (due to their preconceived notions founded in Wintel) will have the hardest problem and likely move on to other careers.
Breaking that lock is very important. It means a lot. It's a must. H.264 will survive. VP8 will be a cost effective alternative. Nothing keeps it from being incorporated into hardware.
Google won't lock us in with their alternative. When you have no choice you will be locked. when you have a choice it is hard to lock. But the alternative must be viable and gain enough market penetration to make a difference (and the pre-existing lock can't be so entrenched that no one can compete with it).
In case you didn't know, eminent domain is used quite often in the US. In fact, the US Supreme Court gave Cities the right to "take" property, because they feel the Cities know what's best for their community than you, the property owner.
Making strawman arguments such yours does little to enhance the debate. If you accuse him of being Stalin you must apply that to other areas where eminent domain has been implied.
I think h.264 has done a great job for the web. It's provided us with high quality video on demand. It's helped ensure our hardware also has high quality video.
VP8 on the other hand, regardless of its' roots is meant to help break a lock on the industry, a lock that h.264 has gained. It's a lock that must be broken. Having choice is really all that matters even if it sets things back once in a while. Often times industries take 2 steps forward and 1 step back.
Technically, this is not a huge change. It isn't an instant change. If the industry can implement this in the web and other software products, as well as hardware, then so be it. If both need to be supported then so be it. It's not unheard of and not altogether uncommon.
The goal is to give choice and to ensure that the consumer isn't locked into one product, that, in being so, denies them choice and increases their costs.
So, so be it. Nothing we do here in debate will change the reality of the situation. Google's made a choice that it feels is best to ensure that things are open and inexpensive.
You need to go back and research what happened with AM/FM radio. It isn't what you think. I believe there's a good National Geographic episode on it, or maybe a Discovery episode. Either way it is very informative.
It's inappropriate to be setting forth a premise such as yours without backing it up. It leads to a very confusing version of what really happened.
Though I may not have been clear on some of my points, and I could have written it better I can see that you failed to thoroughly read his and my posts.
I have no problem in giving you credit by saying that open source software suffers the same fate as commercial software--bugs & software design. I too have had to deal with gnome panels that seem to rearrange my icons. In general though it is unusual for them to change, but once in a while they do.
Your comments about KDE are not proven by me, as I have not experienced those issues, although I have experienced others. Again, I credit it to bugs which are prevalent in commercial software as well as open source.
This though doesn't detract from my statement that open source "code" is, in general, considered tighter and better done than commercial software. Certainly all software has bugs and design flaws. To me though tight well done coding is a different animal than producing bug free software. Part of my comment was written to show how stupid it is to claim that commercial code is better written when no one generally has access to the code to prove it--and at least with open source you can review the code and look at it yourself.
Further I would say that not all software projects are created equal, open source or commercial. Not all project programmers were created equal.
A benefit of open source is that you can look at the code to make a determination. With open source (with you being someone complaining about these problems) you can modify the code yourself.
Complaining about bugs in open source while ignoring the fact that commercial software has bugs as well is a bit selective.
I read through the whole article. You need to read the whole article.
It's amazing you can't see that he's claiming that American capitalism looses due to open source because it permits other countries to spend differently and that lack of spending on US goods inhibits Silicon Valley's to compete. He's saying that by giving foreign countries money (because they aren't spending on US products) they get to spend in other countries such as Africa, Russia, Brazil (all of which he mentions in his article) thus increasing their economic clout and influence.
He beats around the bush a lot in his article and he hides behind a facade, but he clearly saying that using open source is bad for the US economy and that it hurts the ability of Silicon Valley to compete and it gives countries such as Russia and China the opportunity to use open source products in ways that defeat commercial software's ability to turn a profit.
He also clearly indicates that doing so undermines efforts by agencies such as the FBI from obtaining the benefit of back doors being programmed into software, because open source software code can be reviewed.
And there's nothing classic about me. My posts almost never get negative mods. In general, I get positive mods.
It doesn't matter what he said about activists. He's demonstrating utter incompetence in his article, from beginning to end. Seriously, he's lost when it comes to understanding open source and those that support it. He seems to imply that open source is *only* sold through activists efforts. The opening paragraph shows his incompetent ire. His following thesis shames everyone everywhere.
I read the article. It is ridiculous, and on every level.
His underlying premise is that unless you use commercial closed source software you are not a nationalist/patriot and you are opening the gates to allow foreign companies and governments gain such large valuation (I guess because they would be saving money by not buying commercial software thus reducing America's commercial value while at it) that they can use those saved funds to hedge their bets in order to buy American and European companies such as AOL or Skype where they can destroy the privacy of every person and entity using those services.
Seriously, that's what it sounds like to me from just reading through the article. All of this is made possible because open source isn't controlled by commercial entities in cahoots with their governments, and also made possible because of those pale faced pony-tailed geeks coding away in the basement of their parents home so totally unsuspecting of the consequences of their actions.
The guy has no concept of what open source is. He's preaching to the fringe, those with extreme views. What went through my mind was that he was being paid to make these propaganda claims.
He might as well be saying that American companies should stockpile manufacturing and technical skills (in the US) so that when China does take over Africa, Russia, South America, etc., Silicon Valley will have the ability to continue to compete.
I mean seriously. He's saying things about China going into Africa, Russia, Brazil, etc., and how that will affect the technological and competitive nature of Silicon Valley. One has to ask how on earth that ties into open source supporters and what they are trying to accomplish. His whole article is ludicrous.
There's nothing today that indicates that open source software isn't being written by a highly diverse set of developers. He's talking feldercarb.
And your citation in support of this is where exactly? What study did you perform? Are you just repeating what you've heard on sites such as digg.com or microsoft's get the facts?
If you really knew you'd know better than to even attempt such fiction here at slashdot.
Open source code is generally considered tighter and superior than closed source. But alas, how do you know when the source code is closed? What's your point of reference, or are you just using FUD as an astroturfer for one of those close source companies?
As is the case with specialists. We spend time thinking about these issues. We analyze. We influence. It is only a win win for everyone that doesn't. They rely on us. The problem is with those specialists that won't take the time. They won't influence. This change will matter. And greatly, given enough time.
It is best to get off a proprietary product controlled by a company that threatens to sue everyone over patents with most being questionable.
We need to be off one codec and to spread it around. Imagine the market if Intel had remained the only processor supplier.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember when Vista came out? There were a few articles showing all the toolbars in an infected IE. It was funny to see how many there were, but few people actually asked themselves about why *any* toolbar exists.
It seems every company want's you to install their toolbar and/or to switch to their search engine. Why? Many masquerade that they are providing alternative search engines in such a way as to not force you to change your search engine. If it's the reason, this is a big a fib. We know it's a fib because we know most browsers have options allowing you to change the search engine temporarily. Getting you to install a toolbar is a way of getting you to allow (without actually consenting) to allow the toolbar developer to sneak a peak at what you are doing. You didn't think that toolbar was there for you to click on the pretty buttons did you? They're there to track what you do (and to present ads targeted at what you are looking at).
It was bad enough having Microsoft leach this way, but now there is the impetuous to encourage more developers to create toolbars so they can copy Microsoft's parasitic approach. Now that the cat's out of the bag and the methodology is known, you will have everyone doing it. Even those malicious search products that sneak onto your computer disguised as a legitimate product will be able to do this and they'll be able to make money.
I guess the best way to deal with this is to not use Microsoft's Bing, or their Live products, or IE. One has to ask, that as their products get used less, how they keep this up. I guess I'm not surprised to find myself concluding that they'd just add this to their other products -- anything that would run continuously (even their desktop search could monitor (Search 4.0)).
When I thought about how they did it and when I concluded that they were cheating and not going through the pain in order to gain (so to speak) I couldn't help thinking that sort of plays out the Chaos theory described in the Jurassic Park movie. In other words, Microsoft won't have taken the time to learn how to do it themselves so they copy the big guys, the competent ones, but in the end they'll fuck everyone over.
And on another point, as far as I am concerned there is no opting in here. No one here knew what Microsoft was doing. Some may have suspected it, yet held their tongue as the mass insane would accuse them of conspiracy theories, but, the fact remains, no one knew for certain until now. With this being the case, how on freaking earth could those people opt in? Has that passed by so many of those people by?
Just ask yourself this: how does Google put an end to it? How can they control this in a way that stops Microsoft (or anyone else) from doing precisely this. Microsoft's parasitic approach to search is telling, in that they are admitting that they do not have the skill to create a product that can compete head to head with Google. They are sucking the blood of Google in order to feed their own system, because they "suck".
I agree. Football with the team captain and all the players playing their position organizing their plays is a gang activity. Sheesh, when will these Judges grow up?
I was being sarcastic toward the guy that claims the world is so much better off without America. That's what the /s indicates.
Let's hope that those suffering in other countries work their way toward that land which is "greater" than America for a better chance at life. /s
I believe the Pirate Bay site has "flags" for trusted content and respected uploaders. Does it not?
There are too many problems with the cloud currently, and they are likely to remain.
The iPad is only small tree in a larger forest. Given enough time there'll be enough new iPad-like trees that they'll make a forest of their own. That takes time and the right conditions (market conditions and strategic decisions). The iPad isn't that influential except in popularizing the tablet market. I still know no one that owns one. I know no one that wants to own one. I would consider one if it wasn't for the closed nature and walled garden approach that Apple took. I have owned an iPhone for a few years and have purchased apps and music. The music will translate to a new product but the apps won't. Once I stopped being wow'd by the iPhone apps I stopped buying them (and music).
I don't believe in Microsoft nor in their vision. There's little doubt that they are not leading the industry any longer. They have two products that dominate their markets (the OS and productivity apps). Gaming consoles are targeted at the young. They'll never influence the older consumer. Older consumers don't orgasm at the latest game to be released. As you get older your focus will be on family, friends, career, retirement leaving little time for consideration of the gaming console. That's why the Win mobile 7 won't really influnce the broader consumer mindset for those raising their family, paying their mortgage, running their business. If Win mobile 7 goes anywhere it will be for other reasons. I spent some time using Win mobile 7. It was a nice product. It was fast and had some nice features (it lacked some as well).
I watch little TV due to commercialization. I am after product details. I'm tired of being prodded to buy this or that product only to find out that it has some serious limits. I don't want to buy a product that isn't mine and that if I tinker with it I could be committing a felony. TV commercials selling XBOX360s has little influence on me. I have no desire to watch those that profess cloud computing without telling the consumer of the pitfalls.
My attorney said he would never store his data in the cloud (mail or otherwise), because he doesn't have total control. Laying that in the hands of a third party could cause serious issues in defending his clients. And, he's right. It would be too easy to have the government misuse their powers and gain access to that information, and too costly for those cloud based systems to defend against the government (demonstrated by what we see today day in and day out just by reading sites like /.).
What the cloud does for me know is it allows me to store my photos offsite at low cost. That's pretty much all I'll use it for. Most of my friends have their drop boxes, but they never us it. They don't have the kind of data/programs that they need to access/run from the cloud. The cloud for me is good for email and pictures. Data storage is cheap. You can get a USB 3 external 2 terabyte system for under $100.00. Pick up 4 of them and you have 8 terabytes for around $400. Use two as back up and store your information off site.
We realize what's being said about tablets and cloud computing. We aren't dumb. We aren't being selective in what we listen to. We are educating ourselves in more ways than one. People that adopt early may reap greater reward or they may pay a greater price for learning the hard lessons.
Listening to a 30 second commercial isn't my idea of becoming informed.
Linux is in everything today (Android is Linux). My media center at home is run off a Linux install. My phone is Android. My NAS is running Linux. Most of my computers run Linux including those that are entitled to the Windows OS. My internal phone system runs Linux. My GPS is Linux.
The other day I saw the Parrot Asteroid which is a car stereo that has a touch screen interface running Android. It looked sweet.
I guess I'm saying that Linux/Android have momentum and that'll be hard to beat. Microsoft's own products will have difficulty overcoming it.
I have no belief that the tablet will supplant the PC. I also have no belief that the PC will go the way of the mainframe (still existing but only in certain markets). At least not due to the tablet market of today (or the NEAR future). The PC will remain what it is to those that use it now and will remain what it is for the near and far future.
I do believe that the Armdriod platform will grow significantly and entertain consumers with new uses for computers (or old uses only done in albeit different and limited ways). Their use will be for short-term tasks--looking stuff up, chatting, text, browsing, music, videos, etc. Anything they can drop their heads to task and raise back up to complete the desktop or life task afterwards.
I see a broad acceptance by the consumer only to have them acknowledge that Armdroid is not for everything. The market will swell to saturation and then flatline for growth unless something amazing happens to turn the tablet into a more useful device, such as Box (from the Sci-Fi TV series on PBS). With IBM's Watson maybe we'll have a true system that can interpret what we mean instead of what we said (the literal words). If the tablet becomes connected enough, with enough storage (or some other mechanism of analyzing all the data) we'll see them becoming significantly more useful and thus used for longer periods of time.
When thinking about the peripheral markets, since Android is basically Linux, I think those that have spent a great deal of time working with it (learning it like they did with Windows) will benefit the most from the markets that spring up. They'll have the longest and most successful careers since they took the time to learn this stuff inside and out. Those who could not keep up or got frustrated at Linux (due to their preconceived notions founded in Wintel) will have the hardest problem and likely move on to other careers.
Nah, you are just trying to divert from the bigger issue with a smaller one that's of no consequence. That's a strawman.
Breaking that lock is very important. It means a lot. It's a must. H.264 will survive. VP8 will be a cost effective alternative. Nothing keeps it from being incorporated into hardware.
Google won't lock us in with their alternative. When you have no choice you will be locked. when you have a choice it is hard to lock. But the alternative must be viable and gain enough market penetration to make a difference (and the pre-existing lock can't be so entrenched that no one can compete with it).
In case you didn't know, eminent domain is used quite often in the US. In fact, the US Supreme Court gave Cities the right to "take" property, because they feel the Cities know what's best for their community than you, the property owner.
Making strawman arguments such yours does little to enhance the debate. If you accuse him of being Stalin you must apply that to other areas where eminent domain has been implied.
Personally, I don't agree with eminent domain.
He was being rhetorical when he asked "really?".
I think h.264 has done a great job for the web. It's provided us with high quality video on demand. It's helped ensure our hardware also has high quality video.
VP8 on the other hand, regardless of its' roots is meant to help break a lock on the industry, a lock that h.264 has gained. It's a lock that must be broken. Having choice is really all that matters even if it sets things back once in a while. Often times industries take 2 steps forward and 1 step back.
Technically, this is not a huge change. It isn't an instant change. If the industry can implement this in the web and other software products, as well as hardware, then so be it. If both need to be supported then so be it. It's not unheard of and not altogether uncommon.
The goal is to give choice and to ensure that the consumer isn't locked into one product, that, in being so, denies them choice and increases their costs.
So, so be it. Nothing we do here in debate will change the reality of the situation. Google's made a choice that it feels is best to ensure that things are open and inexpensive.
Time to move forward.
You need to go back and research what happened with AM/FM radio. It isn't what you think. I believe there's a good National Geographic episode on it, or maybe a Discovery episode. Either way it is very informative.
It's inappropriate to be setting forth a premise such as yours without backing it up. It leads to a very confusing version of what really happened.
Though I may not have been clear on some of my points, and I could have written it better I can see that you failed to thoroughly read his and my posts.
Wow, so personal.
The last refuge of a coward is the personal attack.
I have no problem in giving you credit by saying that open source software suffers the same fate as commercial software--bugs & software design. I too have had to deal with gnome panels that seem to rearrange my icons. In general though it is unusual for them to change, but once in a while they do.
Your comments about KDE are not proven by me, as I have not experienced those issues, although I have experienced others. Again, I credit it to bugs which are prevalent in commercial software as well as open source.
This though doesn't detract from my statement that open source "code" is, in general, considered tighter and better done than commercial software. Certainly all software has bugs and design flaws. To me though tight well done coding is a different animal than producing bug free software. Part of my comment was written to show how stupid it is to claim that commercial code is better written when no one generally has access to the code to prove it--and at least with open source you can review the code and look at it yourself.
Further I would say that not all software projects are created equal, open source or commercial. Not all project programmers were created equal.
A benefit of open source is that you can look at the code to make a determination. With open source (with you being someone complaining about these problems) you can modify the code yourself.
Complaining about bugs in open source while ignoring the fact that commercial software has bugs as well is a bit selective.
I read through the whole article. You need to read the whole article.
It's amazing you can't see that he's claiming that American capitalism looses due to open source because it permits other countries to spend differently and that lack of spending on US goods inhibits Silicon Valley's to compete. He's saying that by giving foreign countries money (because they aren't spending on US products) they get to spend in other countries such as Africa, Russia, Brazil (all of which he mentions in his article) thus increasing their economic clout and influence.
He beats around the bush a lot in his article and he hides behind a facade, but he clearly saying that using open source is bad for the US economy and that it hurts the ability of Silicon Valley to compete and it gives countries such as Russia and China the opportunity to use open source products in ways that defeat commercial software's ability to turn a profit.
He also clearly indicates that doing so undermines efforts by agencies such as the FBI from obtaining the benefit of back doors being programmed into software, because open source software code can be reviewed.
And there's nothing classic about me. My posts almost never get negative mods. In general, I get positive mods.
It doesn't matter what he said about activists. He's demonstrating utter incompetence in his article, from beginning to end. Seriously, he's lost when it comes to understanding open source and those that support it. He seems to imply that open source is *only* sold through activists efforts. The opening paragraph shows his incompetent ire. His following thesis shames everyone everywhere.
I read the article. It is ridiculous, and on every level.
His underlying premise is that unless you use commercial closed source software you are not a nationalist/patriot and you are opening the gates to allow foreign companies and governments gain such large valuation (I guess because they would be saving money by not buying commercial software thus reducing America's commercial value while at it) that they can use those saved funds to hedge their bets in order to buy American and European companies such as AOL or Skype where they can destroy the privacy of every person and entity using those services.
Seriously, that's what it sounds like to me from just reading through the article. All of this is made possible because open source isn't controlled by commercial entities in cahoots with their governments, and also made possible because of those pale faced pony-tailed geeks coding away in the basement of their parents home so totally unsuspecting of the consequences of their actions.
The guy has no concept of what open source is. He's preaching to the fringe, those with extreme views. What went through my mind was that he was being paid to make these propaganda claims.
He might as well be saying that American companies should stockpile manufacturing and technical skills (in the US) so that when China does take over Africa, Russia, South America, etc., Silicon Valley will have the ability to continue to compete.
I mean seriously. He's saying things about China going into Africa, Russia, Brazil, etc., and how that will affect the technological and competitive nature of Silicon Valley. One has to ask how on earth that ties into open source supporters and what they are trying to accomplish. His whole article is ludicrous.
There's nothing today that indicates that open source software isn't being written by a highly diverse set of developers. He's talking feldercarb.
And your citation in support of this is where exactly? What study did you perform? Are you just repeating what you've heard on sites such as digg.com or microsoft's get the facts?
If you really knew you'd know better than to even attempt such fiction here at slashdot.
It's utterly ludicrous to make such a bullshit statement about open source supporters. He's just showing how big of an idiot he is.
Open source code is generally considered tighter and superior than closed source. But alas, how do you know when the source code is closed? What's your point of reference, or are you just using FUD as an astroturfer for one of those close source companies?
As far as I am concerned--I see open source everywhere, I use it everywhere--it is mainstream.
As is the case with specialists. We spend time thinking about these issues. We analyze. We influence. It is only a win win for everyone that doesn't. They rely on us. The problem is with those specialists that won't take the time. They won't influence. This change will matter. And greatly, given enough time.
It is best to get off a proprietary product controlled by a company that threatens to sue everyone over patents with most being questionable.
We need to be off one codec and to spread it around. Imagine the market if Intel had remained the only processor supplier.
Everything today is niche due to monopolistic practices.