Here's what ESR has to say about it (http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/wo rld-domination-201.html):
Can Linspire save us?
In late July 2006, one of us (Raymond) went public on a panel at at OSCON 2006 with the argument of the previous section. Just minutes later, he was contacted by Kevin Carmony, the CEO of Linux distributor Linspire. Mr. Carmony expressed stong support for our conclusions and a direct interest in addressing the problem.
Linspire, as it turns out, is in a unique position. They are the only company with the legal right to ship Linux ports of Windows Media Format codecs, including QuickTime capability. They extracted this concession as part of the settlement of their successful trademark lawsuit against Microsoft.
In August 2006, as a result of having shown a draft of this paper to Kevin Carmony, we were directly involved in the planning for a Linspire product with all the characteristics we have been describing. Linspire wants to be "Streaming Penguin" in the hopeful scenario we described above. They even adopted our proposed name for the product: the Codex.
As a result, Eric Raymond joined the Freespire Advisery Board. Freespire is the community development project associated with the Linspire system; its relationship with Linspire is analogous to that between the Fedora project and Red Hat.
Linspire may in fact be able to solve our multimedia problem. They deserve the community's support and encouragement for trying. That alone would be a huge step forward. And according to the CNR site, they ARE going to provide them.
Easily. The similar sci-fi projects did not contain enough technical details, or the details they contained aren't applicable to this particular galaxy due to the local physics laws, and this is a necessary requirement for filing a patent. It's like denying a patent for a warp engine suitable for interstellar travel just because a ton of sci-fi writers has already described it.
They're not saying they're going to support every single FOSS piece of software written. There is Mozilla to guide Firefox, and OOo to watch over OpenOffice, and Apache foundation to support Apache webserver and a ton of other projects. So why not a foundation whose goal is SPECIFICALLY to help Linux [the kernel and everything LSB-related] evolve? I can't see your point.
maybe it's time for MS to stop trying to compete with everyone and just focus on what they do well: OS'es and Office Suites
Forget it, as well as most of the other things you describe in you post. Microsoft couldn't do this even if they wanted; they've got shareholders to please. The office software market is oversaturated for a long time now, and only through artificial means is MS still able to extract money from it. They're not merely going to stop growing if they do not expand to new territories - they'll instantly drown, plain and stupid. It's very hard for the old dog to learn new tricks. They cannot possibly accommodate to a way of business without cheating on competitors, partners and customers, without spreading FUD, desecrating and locking down everything they touch... and THIS will be Microsoft's undoing.
From my point of view, there'll be no single winner, but technology will revert once again, and the term 'computer' will mean what it meant in the 60s and the 70s. Provided enough bandwidth, stability and solutions like roof-top server rooms - Google [or Microsoft, although it's hard for me to believe it] has good chances to build such a network with powerful data centers and relatively dumb clients. Again, the task is not easy, and there is 1001 reasons why, but defying laws of physics isn't among them, and the Almighty Buck will surely help solve all of them sooner or later.
If we're really lucky Google and Microsoft will hugely over-invest
Why? Google's desperately trying to diversify its income sources, why don't you suppose that they'll offer hosting services because they plan to?
Because, you see, http://mcafee.com/ doesn't even mention that this has happened, either. The McAfee site search returns empty results. Besides, Google searches on `nordea mcafee` and `nordea robbery` also didn't return anything comprehensive. Did a McAfee contact whisper it secretly in the ZDNet editor's ear?
Read my initial post again [which contains a quote from the article, not summary; thus I indeed have read it]. And regarding the trojan details - perhaps I expressed myself a bit unclear; what I meant was that it's okay to see the trojan details in the article given by McAfee, but strange to see police operation details given by them, too.
In the light of Vista and God knows what tricks hidden in its media player, would it be possible to identify movies either by watermark, or with [ducks] image recognition-type software build into the player, and then send the report back to Microsoft/studios, who would subsequently bill you for the content? No DRM, nothing wrong or unethical, all filesharing networks operational - just market expansion with Big Brother kind methods, and huge revenues for studios.
Still, I do not quite understand, why should an article quote a software security company when reporting actions of foreign police. It would be okay if they quoted McAfee on what kind of trojan was used and such stuff, but to quote them on the number of suspects? I think that's too much.
According to McAfee, Swedish police have established that the log-in information was sent to servers in the US, and then to Russia. And what has established Swedish police according to Swedish police? Why quote McAffee? What business do they have here?
Caminiti argues that the cost of the hydrogen/solar setup works out at about $4,000 a year when its $100,000 cost is spread over the anticipated 25-year lifespan of the equipment. That's still a lot higher than the $1,500 a year the average U.S. homeowner spends on energy
Last time I heard, production of solar panels was creating a significant amount of very unpleasant waste in process. So much for saving the environment. Besides, when you say that something costs NNN dollars, that means that in order to produce and deploy that system, an appropriate amount of resources and other products has to be spent; in this case hi-tech components are probably used, which have a longer production chain if we compare it with the oil-driven power supply. And the production of these components [or rather anything in this world at the moment] outputs some greenhouse gases and other waste. So one must think twice if switching to solar panels will really decrease our pressure on the Earth's ecosystem, since [as far as I understand] "more expensive" == "requires more productive effors" == "creates more pollution".
That said, I don't consider the modern energy production cycle okay - it's terrible. I just wanted to stress that for the moment, solar panels probably aren't the final solution of our problems, and we have to keep looking for something better.
By the way, do you know any good papers that try to extend the SM into gravity without using the concept of graviton? I.e. is there a model which attempts to describe gravitational effects not as an interaction of its own kind, but rather as some correction coefficient to the strong and electroweak interactions? Thank you.
10 hours from Pluto in average. 45 minutes from Jupiter in average. Don't know whether they'll in their aphelion or perihelion now, so can't say more precisely.
Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians - names, personalities and goals are not important. At the end of the day, there's only one thing that matters: the spice must flow.
Yet it looks like there are plans for something like that: take a look at this patent. "I, for one, welcome our new apt-getting Microsoft overlords"...
Lets say someone in highschool in Chicago makes some wacky video on their pc, and shares it with friends via CD. There is no way to police this sort of content production.
Nobody would even want to police such stuff - there's little chance for large content producers to make money on it, since they neither own, nor distribute it. The problem arises only when we turn to the for-profit content production, when the producer wants to receive income from his work, usually on per-copy basis.
Regulating the viewing mechanism for that content will not stop its production.
Overly optimistic. With the lion's share of computer users technically uneducated and using Windows, such regulation becomes possible, especially if what has been written about Vista DRM is true. Only a handful of users would be savvy enough to overcome all the inconveniences associated with video/music reproduction unauthorized by software and content producers.
Well, um, I don't want any versions of Windows at all. And having multiple 'versions' is not what I mean: I can't just install Aero on Win2000, or buy Vista without GUI at all. Not that I would do it even if it was possible.
Explain to me please, why doesn't Microsoft sell their so-called OS in parts? I mean, you need to get the basic platform without GUI - pay x dollars, you want Aero glass - pay y more; compilers and developer tools are free, but with a restrictive license, etc. Even if their software remains [my personal opinion] the bunch of crap that it is now, it would bring them more cash and customer trust than this "I-want-it-all-right-now-I-said" attitude. Besides, they would no longer have to convince the [my personal opinion] unlucky Windows users to upgrade every N years and would stabilize their revenue.
Slashdot Mirror
At the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20050218224540/http://w ww.cheswick.com/ches/map/gallery/index.html
Easily. The similar sci-fi projects did not contain enough technical details, or the details they contained aren't applicable to this particular galaxy due to the local physics laws, and this is a necessary requirement for filing a patent. It's like denying a patent for a warp engine suitable for interstellar travel just because a ton of sci-fi writers has already described it.
P.S. IANAL.
They're not saying they're going to support every single FOSS piece of software written. There is Mozilla to guide Firefox, and OOo to watch over OpenOffice, and Apache foundation to support Apache webserver and a ton of other projects. So why not a foundation whose goal is SPECIFICALLY to help Linux [the kernel and everything LSB-related] evolve? I can't see your point.
Forget it, as well as most of the other things you describe in you post. Microsoft couldn't do this even if they wanted; they've got shareholders to please. The office software market is oversaturated for a long time now, and only through artificial means is MS still able to extract money from it. They're not merely going to stop growing if they do not expand to new territories - they'll instantly drown, plain and stupid. It's very hard for the old dog to learn new tricks. They cannot possibly accommodate to a way of business without cheating on competitors, partners and customers, without spreading FUD, desecrating and locking down everything they touch... and THIS will be Microsoft's undoing.
From my point of view, there'll be no single winner, but technology will revert once again, and the term 'computer' will mean what it meant in the 60s and the 70s. Provided enough bandwidth, stability and solutions like roof-top server rooms - Google [or Microsoft, although it's hard for me to believe it] has good chances to build such a network with powerful data centers and relatively dumb clients. Again, the task is not easy, and there is 1001 reasons why, but defying laws of physics isn't among them, and the Almighty Buck will surely help solve all of them sooner or later.
If we're really lucky Google and Microsoft will hugely over-investWhy? Google's desperately trying to diversify its income sources, why don't you suppose that they'll offer hosting services because they plan to?
No, you're wrong. You can pay for Google Earth and Google Video with Checkout; I fail to see how Slashdot is any different.
I'll say that Checkout is mature when I see it among the methods of paying for Slashdot subscription :)
Because, you see, http://mcafee.com/ doesn't even mention that this has happened, either. The McAfee site search returns empty results. Besides, Google searches on `nordea mcafee` and `nordea robbery` also didn't return anything comprehensive. Did a McAfee contact whisper it secretly in the ZDNet editor's ear?
Read my initial post again [which contains a quote from the article, not summary; thus I indeed have read it]. And regarding the trojan details - perhaps I expressed myself a bit unclear; what I meant was that it's okay to see the trojan details in the article given by McAfee, but strange to see police operation details given by them, too.
In the light of Vista and God knows what tricks hidden in its media player, would it be possible to identify movies either by watermark, or with [ducks] image recognition-type software build into the player, and then send the report back to Microsoft/studios, who would subsequently bill you for the content? No DRM, nothing wrong or unethical, all filesharing networks operational - just market expansion with Big Brother kind methods, and huge revenues for studios.
Still, I do not quite understand, why should an article quote a software security company when reporting actions of foreign police. It would be okay if they quoted McAfee on what kind of trojan was used and such stuff, but to quote them on the number of suspects? I think that's too much.
Last time I heard, production of solar panels was creating a significant amount of very unpleasant waste in process. So much for saving the environment. Besides, when you say that something costs NNN dollars, that means that in order to produce and deploy that system, an appropriate amount of resources and other products has to be spent; in this case hi-tech components are probably used, which have a longer production chain if we compare it with the oil-driven power supply. And the production of these components [or rather anything in this world at the moment] outputs some greenhouse gases and other waste. So one must think twice if switching to solar panels will really decrease our pressure on the Earth's ecosystem, since [as far as I understand] "more expensive" == "requires more productive effors" == "creates more pollution".
That said, I don't consider the modern energy production cycle okay - it's terrible. I just wanted to stress that for the moment, solar panels probably aren't the final solution of our problems, and we have to keep looking for something better.
By the way, do you know any good papers that try to extend the SM into gravity without using the concept of graviton? I.e. is there a model which attempts to describe gravitational effects not as an interaction of its own kind, but rather as some correction coefficient to the strong and electroweak interactions? Thank you.
And the signature is physicsExpert?! Man, he has NO understanding of particle physics, and his post is completely misguiding.
10 hours from Pluto in average. 45 minutes from Jupiter in average. Don't know whether they'll in their aphelion or perihelion now, so can't say more precisely.
Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians - names, personalities and goals are not important. At the end of the day, there's only one thing that matters: the spice must flow.
Yet it looks like there are plans for something like that: take a look at this patent. "I, for one, welcome our new apt-getting Microsoft overlords"...
Believe it or not, the post stating that wasn't there when I hit the reply button.
From the mysterious past: http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/10/19/22552 39.shtml.
Nobody would even want to police such stuff - there's little chance for large content producers to make money on it, since they neither own, nor distribute it. The problem arises only when we turn to the for-profit content production, when the producer wants to receive income from his work, usually on per-copy basis.
Overly optimistic. With the lion's share of computer users technically uneducated and using Windows, such regulation becomes possible, especially if what has been written about Vista DRM is true. Only a handful of users would be savvy enough to overcome all the inconveniences associated with video/music reproduction unauthorized by software and content producers.
Well, um, I don't want any versions of Windows at all. And having multiple 'versions' is not what I mean: I can't just install Aero on Win2000, or buy Vista without GUI at all. Not that I would do it even if it was possible.
Explain to me please, why doesn't Microsoft sell their so-called OS in parts? I mean, you need to get the basic platform without GUI - pay x dollars, you want Aero glass - pay y more; compilers and developer tools are free, but with a restrictive license, etc. Even if their software remains [my personal opinion] the bunch of crap that it is now, it would bring them more cash and customer trust than this "I-want-it-all-right-now-I-said" attitude. Besides, they would no longer have to convince the [my personal opinion] unlucky Windows users to upgrade every N years and would stabilize their revenue.
God, that was back in October http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=kerala+linu x&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Search+Archives