I don't know about any of you guys and your oh-so-high-paying-jobs, but I very rarely spend over $20 on a book -- and those are usually the $50 bible sorts. For $100 I could all sorts of things
Methinks that the $100 is for the vanity publisher not the purchaser.
Re:Nuclear fission is the only sustainable power t
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Wave Driven Generators
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One of the ways that solar energy can win is by reducing the cost of transmission of power by generating the power at (or at least very near to) the point of consumption.
As far as photovoltaic solar goes, the theoretical limit is around 28% conversion (IIRC) and pushing the cells to ward that point is at an every increasing cost of the materials. I recall a technology (UNSW researched IIRC) that created relatively inefficient cells (8 - 13 % or something) but with materials cost 1/1000th of the more efficent cells. So cheap as to warrant one in every roof tile. Now that would be a fine thing. Does anyone recall this (over 5 years ago).
The buzzword of proportional representation has shunted the issue of different kinds of preferentional voting down the agenda in many jurisdictions, however I like the idea of a (or more) representative being elected from my local area to represent my local area, now the fact that the individual(s) in question may be party aligned diminishes the benefit (perhaps) but it does not eliminate it. The relative simplicity of the US electoral college means that the mechanics of counting ballots is really easy, but some of the more equitable systems such as PPP or Hare-Clark the actual process of counting the ballots is, er, tricky and needs a good scrut (p scroot). (have a gook at The ACE Project).
The need to physically move around ballots makes the automation of the process via computers an excellent methodology. Whilst at university we used one of these systems for Student council elections and for the few thousand ballots that were cast, a team of tens of volunteers spent all night shuffling papers to try and get a result. I wrote some software (as an exercise to teach myself C) that would do the actual counting in seconds. I also looked at the processes needed to take a manual ballot and data enter the ballots so that the computer could process them. Even with a cross check and audit process the whole counting could be an order of magnitude faster (and probably much more accurate). With electronic vote capture (polling booth or not) even more so.
I guess the point here is that IT has roles to play even in the scrutineering process. Remember the "spoiled ballot" issue. When the first count goes through the scrutineers from the candidates are unlikely to have too much to do with fighting about spoiled ballots, it is only once the election becomes close that the real barneys occur about whether a ballot is spoiled or not. This is probably part of the reason why Gore caught up some in the recount, some of the previously spoiled ballots were admitted or vice verse.
I'm sorry but this is too much of a crock not to respond even if it is a troll (since it certainly is too expansive to be one).
1. Believe in Free Software? If so, ever read the GNU Manifesto?
2. You are _absolutely wrong_ about no copyright implies no benefits from authorship. In fact in a world without copyright (WWC) reputation is everything. The number of people that will front you 10 bucks to fund your next "production" is directly related to the number of people you can convince that you last work suggests your next one is worth 10 bucks to them.
3. Your whole argument rests on "without copyright there is no incentive" which suggests either naivity, ignorance or wilful blindness to the reality that scratched itches are worth money to all kinds of entities. Every heard of large organisations funding development internally? They have no market to which they can "sell" their product (since they would not sell it anyway) and yet they develop _huge_ systems
4. In the event that a WWC fell apart because nobody was doing anything, the role of the state would be to kick start the cycle by funding the socially useful projects, much as it did before the industrial revolution. The difference now is that the state is not a bunch of dukes in Vienna but a (variously structured) organisation of executive organs that do stuff.
Copyright is _NOT_ a cornserstone of modern technological society. It is an accident of history whereby the fundamental analysis of the industrial revolution legal scholars, such as balckstone and locke, has been bastardised to apply to a concept for which the fundaments do not hold. The right you have is to the _FACT_ that you wrote it. Any other rights are provided by the state since if you give a copy to someone you have given them everything they _actually_ need to make further copies. If they then claimed authorship, that would be a lie, and therefor a fundamental wrong worthy of redress. All the rest is legal fiction bullshit, that gets in the way of the most efficient distribution of resources within society.
However, imagine for a moment what would happen if someone could re-brand a product and sell it for themselves, legally?
Under the law without copyright (LWC) this would fall under the tort of Passing Off or Fraud (or even another tort if one exists - even if it does not then one could be created), depending on what the rebrander actually claimed. Both these offences existed well before contract law or copyright law.
However the rebranding of a product as "NewCorps distribution of OldCorps PackageX" is a perfectly legitimat practice. (sound familiar?)
There is an important distinction to be drawn between copyright and intellectual property. The difference is certainly semantic to some extent, but the one of the problems is that the term copyright carries so much baggage nowdays that there is a real risk of doing the baby and bathwater thing.
I agree whole heartedly that Intellectual Property is bunk. The reasons for this belief are deep and complex, I shall not go into it here. However copyright is OK insofar as copyright means authorship.
I wonder as to the etymology of the phrase copyright. Is it the rights regarding the copying of the work in question or is it the rights in the copy? (as in advertising copy) I checked a number of online dictionaries as well as the paper Concise Oxford and it seems the consensus is that copyright means the right to copy. As such it must go. The problem I have is that a way of proving copyright is to mail oneself a copy of the item in question (thus getting it stamped by the post office) and leaving it unopened as evidence of the date when you had a version of the "item" in question. So copyright there is intrinsicly tied to authorship.
For want of a better phrase (although strictly speaking authorship is a better phrase) copyright would do to describe the right to claim authorship of a particular work, and authorship is a good thing since under the IPless paradigm that I endorse, authorship is the key to creating reputation, and reputation is way to measure the value of a persons potential contribution and hence the compensation you would part with to garner their contribution to your "project".
My moment of clarity came back in the eighties with two inch story the local paper buried in the TV listings about a shipyard labour strike in Gdansk. It was, of course, the strike that led to separation of Poland from the Eastern Block and the eventual collapse of the USSR. Arguably, the most important story of a generation, pushed to the back for more fluff about sports, celebrity and road closures.
And the counterpoint moment of clarity will come when once wonders about how much ones life _actually_ changes as a result of the enourmous expansion of information at ones disposal. Think about it in th 19th century nobody outside of india would here about the mudslide that killed 200,000 but everyone would know about the carriage that ran over the local philanderer on his way back from his current mistress's house. And how much is ones life improved (and I mean really improved), by this knowledge. Your example highlights the problem (I acknowledge the evils of the cult of celebrity). The road closures matter, they will _actually_ affect your like, the changes in Poland will not. Now in unfortunately the polish example is really bad for me since it really does matter since it did change the shape of the world, but it is only really with hindsight that the magnitude of the strike can be seen, in general a strike in Gdansk really wouldn't be an issue for you. Now by the time solidarity kicked of it was making the kind of press that was important.
One of the fundamental problems about middle class reactionary politics (and politicians) is that it fails to recognise that the system against which they rally is the _ONLY_ system of politics we have ever seen that not only tolerates their objections, but provides them with the means of sustenance whilst they actively react against it. If the choice came down to exploit another or die, everything about our history says we shall exploit, for one thing we can all say about our ancestors (and i mean every single one of them, and every single one of us) is that they managed to bring forth issue before they shuffled off this mortal coil. And a hell of a lot of the issuing took place at the _direct_ expense of others that were not so fortunate or perhaps successful.
I am not endorsing the status quo (although "Whatever You Want" is quite a apt song for this topic:-) but I am sick and fucking tired of reactionary middle class activists, particularly young ones, driving mummy or daddy's Volvo to the rally to cry the tears of the oppressed whilst enjoying the benefits of the system, includings freedoms and costs, against which they so vehemently react. The hypocracy would be farcical if they weren't so ernest. (I am not flaming the author above just the general reactionary politics summed up in biafra's position.)
Do they have any idea of the history that produced the place where they stand? Do they have _any_ idea how insignificant all this "conscience appeasing" rhetoric is the scheme of human motivation?
My view is that if there is a problem with the main organisational body, fix it, dont just ignore it and form your own body to satisfy the control freak inside you. The situation is akin to Michael Jonson saying he does not like the Olympic Committee and so running the "Michael Johnson Olympics", where he chooses his opponents, and indeed chooses the number 2 contender rather than the number 1 contender to race against
Yes and yet no. There are two classic examples that come down on either side of this point. First is international cricket, which was revolutionaised back in the mid seventies by a media organisation. A process that empowered the players and lead to a more equitable (well sort of) distribution of the income from the game (this is an example on the good side). Second is Rugby league which Rupert Murdoch tried to buy a few years ago, the wounds from that debacle are still being felt within the game (this is the example on the bad side).
There are many other examples (even the AFC and NFC in American football were the result of this kind of split IIRC) where the power of the participants (usually in sport) is used to usurp the administrators who seem to be stagnant in their approach to managing the area in question. So it is not as simple as working in side the organisation in all circumstances.
"The panel finds the respondent is in bad faith because...the respondent is deliberately using complainant's famous trademarks with the aim of misleading the public and siphoning off the 'Chanel' trademark's accumulated good will for profit," (actually quoated from an earlier ruling regardin Chanel)
I find it interesting that the test they apply is a good faith test. In these circumstances I think good faith tests are inherently righteous tests since the actions in question can be pretty easily distinguished as good or bad faith. Now some might argue that such a subjective test is a problem, but the law does deal with subjective tests all the time (although in the Anglo tradition many of these tests were left to juries to evaluate, and I bet there weren't no jury at WIPO). Typo squatting really doesn't have much of a leg to stand on it pretty much an unconscionable way of getting the attention of users. (but what about the days when altavista.com wasn't even owned by altavista, kinda puts a hole in the whole aregument really, anyway I digress)
An interesting "grey" area would be a site such as astslavista.com where clearly the name is a play on the phrase from the "renegade" in Terminator and the name altavista, but I would think they would have a fairly strong defence
Further, one of the classic "criticisms" of the free software movement (and more importantly the anti IP ideal) is that without the protection of IP why would anyone invest in solving problems.
You are absolutely correct to say that patronage is a viable vehicle for implementing an alternative method of funding the sustainance of those whole would be the artisans of the new age. (BTW, Mozart, Beethoven would be classic examples [excuse the pun] of artists funded by patrons). However we could also use technology to help us out here.
Imagine a web site, RFPheaven.org (or whatever) where people can submit their problems and the amount of money they are willing to spend on solving them (including time frames etc) for the freelancers to bid on taking them. People could join on both sides of the bid (ie more money or more developers). Clearly the logistics of deliveries and acceptance (et al) must be resolved and agreed to by the parties, but that is detail (albeit tricky).
Using this kind of approach even someone with $10.00 can help get their problems solved. Ie everyone can become a patron.
True, with one small proviso (IIRC). In most jurisdictions, there is an upper maximum beyond which the issuance requires a change in the legal registration of the corporate entity. Not a big deal (but hey whoever said that/. readers aren't pedants:-).
Now, the next question is, why doesn't Big Business just release the movie everywhere at the same time? That's another evil conspiracy, right? No. Copying a film is not like copying an MP3. Copying a film is hard
Er, I think you will find that the "movies everywhere" issue is not technical (well semi technical in once sense) but marketing. First, big movies need kids on school holidays, so calendar timing is an issue. Second big movies need big screens. If there are only X big screens in a given town then there can only be X times n films per day, where n is the number of sessions that can be commercially scheduled. Now even worse than this is the fact that the scum sucking distributors will almost always demand exclusivity on a given screen (or auditorium capacity) for a given period of time before they will allow the theatre to show the film. (Anyone in NY remember trying to see Phantom Menace when it first came out? How many "big screens" did it get? Around two cause lucasfilm wanted a 90 (almost unheard ofly large) day billing guarantee.
The whole process of movie distribution is killing independent film houses since the distributors want to screw _every_ penny out of them that they can. HAve you ever wondered why cinema pop corn is more expensive than gold? (well it might not be but it sure seems like it) Its because when a new movie comes out the distributor will take 100% of gate takings (thats right 100% of the face value of the ticket) for the first n weeks (or screenings) and this will then decrease through 90, 75 down to sometimes 50. And remember this is ticket prices, so the distributors also demand the price of the tickets themselves be as high as possible. SO the poor buggers that might own a huge floor space building in prime retails space (where a lot of cinemas exist) have to cover their business by robbing us at the concession stand.
Let's not forget the practice of the distributors working out that a big name film is so shit that they hide it from the reviewers, open it on a thousand screens for one weeked, get _everyone_ to see it at the first instance and then once the word gets out that it's shit, shut it down having grossed much more than they could other wise manage. And do you think that the distributors might tie one good film to three shit ones at the same picture house. Hmmm...
As an organsing member of a university film society in Oz, where we would show 2 films for three bucks, we were regularly asked by the distributors to bump up our ticket prices but I guess they figured we weren't worth fighting over, so they let us get away with it, still charging us 50% of gate or $200 for each film (whichever was greater). We could only get a limited range of films, usually after cinema but before video so it was a good deal for the students (and quite a social experience, but I digress). So what do you think happened when the distributor run multiplex opened across the road from the campus? Yup it just became harder to get that distributors films (bloody UIP!!!)
Anyway, back to the point. Cinema is Cinema, and no matter how good (except perhaps if you have a 25foot wall and your own LCD projector) your home cinema is, it aint film on a big white wall. I personally dig sitting in the front row and getting "cinemaed" by the full experience. Which, btw, is how the movie industry reinvented itself to the punting public in the mid eightes when video first caned them (well at least in Oz). So the lack of bums on seats cause they're at home watching it on 32inches doesn't really cut it.
As for region codes, it is purley a pricing device, so that they can charge X in India versus Y in Europe vs Z in America so that they can ensure that the % of disposable income that can be consumed by their "product" can be maximised in the different markets by placing the purchase decision at the right kind of "impulse" pricepoint and the right comparative level wrt to a cinema ticket. I can only hope that someone makes a successful anti competitive practice case against regioning (hey maybe I should get off my ass and do it myself, but it's sooo tiring). I am one of the suckers that struggles to resist buying the bloody things as well, although I do manage to resist the recent tat and focus on the "historical" moments of cinema or ones that I personally adore, I still give them my $$$ because I am weak.
I'm sorry for the tirade, but the motion picture industry is a cynical and immoral marketing machine that screws no only the consumer but the business people who are trying to pervey cinema to the hungry audience. It is tragedy that such tryanny has become so bad in the last half century (the comparison to the plight of the performers in the first half of last century is interesting) that I am hoping that technology can bring down the cost of production and distribution so far that the big houses can go and get stuffed. Digital movies anyone?
I think that people should moderate on the basis of their own values. If I moderate up what I tickles my fancy (or what angers me) and so do the other N moderators then what gets moderated representes the views of the moderating readership. There is really only one proviso and that is that there should be enough moderators to ensure that the distribution of views that are "promoted" by moderation are representative (rightly or wrongly) of the slashdot readership [or perhaps the non AC readership]
I think that the moderator guide to "moderate up" much more than "moderate down" is valuable. Further I think that one should moderate quickly. In other words, once one gets the gift, use the points quickly since then someone else will get some points and the richer the moderator base, the richer the "dialogue" that takes place.
If one is a +(>1) threaded reader, it is probably just to filter out the guff, so that one may make reading the views feasible. Remember it isn't an exam, there is no "correct" moderation. nor is it a reference site, its primarily a bit of entertainment that from time to time is enlightening. So take it for what it's worth
That's just plain wrong. Antitrust law, goes by many names, for example, fair dealing or competition Law, in different jurisdictions. The overriding premise of competition law is to redress the imbalance caused by _failures_ of markets to behave in a "perfectly competitive" way.
Now most often this is couched in terms of protecting consumers, but this is because the most obvious manifestation of these failures is that there is an imbalance of power between the participants in a market, most often with the lone consumer having the weak position when negotiating terms with a stronger legal entity. It seems clear to me that redressing this imbalance is _good_ for consumers.
They raise prices
Prices can only be raised to a level where the momentary return on capital is economical. In other words, if a monopoly has lower prices, it is either because they are operating at a loss or they are subsidising current prices with future (or past) revenue. The other possibility is that the monopoly is already perfectly competitive, which suggests that it is a natural monopoly in which case it should defeat an competition law at first principles. (I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide if there is such a thing as a natural monopoly)
reduce competition
Er,... only if the implementation of the law is an abject failure. Since I would think that the absract of every piece of competition law would state an intention to "promote competition"
stifle innovation
If by stifle innovation, you mean stop companies ripping off consumers to fund R&D that the consumer has not explicitly authorised through the price discovery process then yes you are right. Otherwise how?
foster corruption of government officials
Ah, capture theory, yup, it's a multo problem, but not a problem with competition law, rather with the institutions that execute it. The same problems exist with other areas of the executive branch (such as industrial relations) but it is not a flaw in the law but in the executive branch of government. And the causes and solutions to this are well off topic
The laws are used not to 'manage competition', but as strategic weapons by less-successful competitors seeking an advantage over market leaders
Puh, lease... markets fail. Markets fail to reach perfect competition for all kinds of reasons the existince of competition law as a method for redressing market failure far outweighs the occasions you highlight where they might be used for a strategic advantage over "market leaders". Oh and by the way, I can just imagine how you would define and identify market leaders
Markets fail when extraordinary profits can be made, ie when return on capital exceeds the current economic rate. I think it is _very_ hard to argue that the current market value of Microsoft is anything but the result of extraordinary profits. As such, the market in which they participate must have failed, the reason (IMHO) is they have used anti competitive practices to stifle products that compete with their own.
In our fast paced economy, we MUST do everything fast in order to survive.
is a valid criticism. Yes this is bad but RAD is neither necessary, sufficient nor a result of this time imperative.
In my experience the ability to design conceptually (whiteboards, CASE tools, beer sessions) is enhanced enourmously by the ability to have an environment that one can investigate the implementation choices available. By the time one has tried and rejected the "not so good" implementation choices, the feedback into the design process has been generallly positive.
Contracts are the tool of all legal entities. Persons, Corporations, Trusts etc. Contracts define the legal relationship between parties, thats it. If you don't like the terms don't sign the contract
It is wrong to say that contracts only serve corporations. Now it is not wrong to say that there is often an imbalance of power during the process that determines the terms of a contract, but that is a very different animal.
There are many jurisdictions in which there are strong sanctions for misuse of this power. However at its simplest level, if you don't like the contract, don't sign it
I regularly go through the rollercoaster of "this is a tragedy" to "Ah don't they see its all pointless" to "Ah the Americans and their freedoms" over the issue of the content "owners" (note the _careful_ use of owner). What we really need is a country willing to become an international pariah by saying fsck IP, fsck the industry come to my land (even remotely) and all ye want shall be free (AIS). The big corps will go apeshit but as long as the punters of that country have meat and drink what sanction can be inflicted on them, surely the income from the services that want such a place would be adequate compensation for whatever the international community sanctions. But I guess that would require the land to be free and brave. Hmmmm....
This is just another step towards the world media execs ideal world, where EVERYTHING is pay per view.
Absolutely. The content providers went all gooey over the thought of being able to get everything pay per view (or pay per experience but I will use PPV). I am trying to recall when I first heard the phrase PPV. Growing up in Australia, it was certainly not directly since pay TV in general arrived in the late nineties (scary really isn't it). I am sure that it was related to rasslin' or boxing and certainly originating from the US. And I hated the idea even then (but at least I can understand it)
I am intrigued by the chicken and egg nature of this discussion, which did come first the PPV concept or the ability for the media to be delivered selectively to those for whose view payment has been made.
I am about to use the argument of personal incredularity so what follows may be a crock but... I find it hard to believe that the music industry had any concept of PPV for recorded music until the enabling technology came along.
Most importantly, i think that it is easy to provide a qualitative distinction between the kind of event that is traditionally PPV and recorded music and that is the immediacy of the event. Ie the concert live, PPV, the recording of the live performance NOT. This qualitative difference is what makes the PPVing of recorded events for home use, wrong, both morally (ie it offends _my_ sensibilities) but also technically since it is really an anti competitive practice, using some technique to increase the price of the service beyond its market level. Oh and if you want to argue about that last point, forget it, I ain't even gonna try and persuade you. (If you don't agree you're just wrong:-)
What was the judge thinking? If he really wants to prevent people from telling others where to get the code, he should have made it illegal to publish the URL in any form. But that would make the fascist nature of his ruling even more painfully obvious. Instead he's opted for a fig leaf, although I can't imagine how he could do this without embarrassment. He's got to know that a ban on "linking" is pointless. Such silly actions merely reduce the people's respect for the courts.
There is another explanation. It is not unheard of for judges to construe relief extremely narrowly when they are compelled (in their opinion) to give a ruling that offends their own sensibilities. For example in Australia we have the joy of a tax law that, when stacked up, would enable yoda to reach the cookies on the top shelf, ie it's _really_ thick because the high court (Supreme court equivalent for you yanks:-), and in particular one chief justice, did not really like the idea of Federal tax law and so he construed every interpretation that came before him _real_ narrow. So exception after exception was rasied and the legislation required to "close" the loopholes became more and more, er, extensive.
Now it is my opinion that judges who act in this way are hiding behind a legalist shield when in fact they are not legalist judges. It's painful, and in the long run it causes more grief than it saves but hey, IANOJ so who cares what I think. The one saving grace in this case is that (as one other poster pointed out) the populace has the capacity to change this kind of law and since it isn't tax law (governments just love ways of raising money:-) it isn't necessarily going to conflict with the vested interests of government, just the lobbyists of the industries affected. Whilst they are a powerful industry they really aren't that powerful particularly when they are also dependent on the _continuing_ revenue stream from the affected peoples "luxury" budget. I mean the MPAA isn't the energy industry or anything.
Please, those that recall better feel free to correct, but this sounds like a piece of anti-blazeware (TM). In the good old days of comp.sys.amiga.advocacy, the blazeware suite of blazemonger etc (probably blazemail:-) would have given this app a serious amount of work to do.
Were he to be hit by a bus tomorrow then development would be stunted as people like Alan and Inigo fight over the "hot seat", and the open source movement would fail without Linux.
Puh-lease. Bus weaknesses really only exist where the sole record of the knowledge is contained in the bus victim (I work for an organisation with more bus weaknesses than is good for us). The joy of open source (be it FAIS software or whaever) is that in the event of a human failure there is the best chance that the only loss (great as it may be) is only the loss of that person's contribubtion. Linus is a smart guy, but _he_ aint the reason the world is (or isn't) turning.
Absolutely, even further, these countries are currently already being screwed by the WTO and WIPO, so they can also snub their noses at the legality of IP laws (sorry for the contradiction) of the bastard offspring of the bretton woods agreement all seem to think is sooooo fundamental to the righteous order of the new world. China would be a good candidate as they already snub much of the international hoi poloi and they have a lot of power, but unfortunately I think they have some problems with the way they treat fredom of expression so they kinda don't quite cut it.
I think this is the natural extension of the "financial havens" with which most of us have at least a passing knowledge. I do not think that these principles are solely the refuge of those who are doing things that they know are "questionable", but they provide a way for those without enough power to usurp the draconian nature of the state without resorting to violence or sedition.
Do not confused the fact that X11 is not programmable via pipes, with the notion that pipes are therefore useless. Rather, this is a case of where X11 is itself broken. See Plan9 for a GUI that needs nothing beyond pipes in order to effectively embed things.
I was not confused. My point was that the meta information of the pipe paradigm, the "nature of pipes", where by we have read and write (since we can safely ignore open and close as they are the "constructor" and "deconstructor" methods), is a significant constraint on moving to a new level of interoperability. A level where as a needer of functionality I can ask an object to "display" me and another object for a dataset that will warn me if a record changes so that I might process my own changes as a result. As I said in my post, pipes are inherently useful as an instance of IPC, but they are very rudimentary.
Indeed whilst plan9 may use pipes as their _implementation_ of IPC, it is an implementation choice not a conceptual one. Plan9 documentation itself talks about how most everything "looks like files", this is the conceptual tie that binds Plan 9. Step outside the "file" motif and perhaps there is another way. I am not convinced that bonobo is the other way, but I am convinved that it is a different way and within the constraints of my limited capacity to investigate, it seems to be an interesting way and a way that HP and Sun might be able to leverage their existing commitment to CORBA.
If I want to knit things together, I'll use a bloody pipe.
And there's the rub. The pipe has reached the limits of its usefulness, or at least the traditional unix concept thereof. Please don't misunderstand, the pipe is _extremely_ useful and I use it every day, but sometimes I would like to take a file of data and "pipe" it into a spreadsheet that could perform some math on the data the output of which I would then graph. With the ability to change the odd variable in my spreadsheet, the output on the graph would change.
This is where the CORBA (bonobo) model comes in, where pipes know about stdin and stdout, as I understand it, bonobo knows about a conceptual "stdinterface" and the different components can self discover about the functionality they provide to each other, thus my scenario above works with the conceptual simplicity of a pipe.
Remember that the pipe is contingent on the meta information about what is stdio, this meta object completely defines the interaction between functional elements. Well its time for a change, hopefully a change for the better, and I think that bonobo is a contender (KDE 2.0 may have an equivalent with, whats it called? kObjects or something [not a criticism, just my ignorance]) the fact that it is via CORBA (Soap anyone) and that HP and Sun are OMG players is probably what lead to Gnome being the flavour that attracted them.
Anyway, the key point is paradigm shift, pipes are dead long live self discovering interfaces.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about any of you guys and your oh-so-high-paying-jobs, but I very rarely spend over $20 on a book -- and those are usually the $50 bible sorts. For $100 I could all sorts of things
Methinks that the $100 is for the vanity publisher not the purchaser.
One of the ways that solar energy can win is by reducing the cost of transmission of power by generating the power at (or at least very near to) the point of consumption.
As far as photovoltaic solar goes, the theoretical limit is around 28% conversion (IIRC) and pushing the cells to ward that point is at an every increasing cost of the materials. I recall a technology (UNSW researched IIRC) that created relatively inefficient cells (8 - 13 % or something) but with materials cost 1/1000th of the more efficent cells. So cheap as to warrant one in every roof tile. Now that would be a fine thing. Does anyone recall this (over 5 years ago).
The buzzword of proportional representation has shunted the issue of different kinds of preferentional voting down the agenda in many jurisdictions, however I like the idea of a (or more) representative being elected from my local area to represent my local area, now the fact that the individual(s) in question may be party aligned diminishes the benefit (perhaps) but it does not eliminate it. The relative simplicity of the US electoral college means that the mechanics of counting ballots is really easy, but some of the more equitable systems such as PPP or Hare-Clark the actual process of counting the ballots is, er, tricky and needs a good scrut (p scroot). (have a gook at The ACE Project).
The need to physically move around ballots makes the automation of the process via computers an excellent methodology. Whilst at university we used one of these systems for Student council elections and for the few thousand ballots that were cast, a team of tens of volunteers spent all night shuffling papers to try and get a result. I wrote some software (as an exercise to teach myself C) that would do the actual counting in seconds. I also looked at the processes needed to take a manual ballot and data enter the ballots so that the computer could process them. Even with a cross check and audit process the whole counting could be an order of magnitude faster (and probably much more accurate). With electronic vote capture (polling booth or not) even more so.
I guess the point here is that IT has roles to play even in the scrutineering process. Remember the "spoiled ballot" issue. When the first count goes through the scrutineers from the candidates are unlikely to have too much to do with fighting about spoiled ballots, it is only once the election becomes close that the real barneys occur about whether a ballot is spoiled or not. This is probably part of the reason why Gore caught up some in the recount, some of the previously spoiled ballots were admitted or vice verse.
I'm sorry but this is too much of a crock not to respond even if it is a troll (since it certainly is too expansive to be one).
1. Believe in Free Software? If so, ever read the GNU Manifesto?
2. You are _absolutely wrong_ about no copyright implies no benefits from authorship. In fact in a world without copyright (WWC) reputation is everything. The number of people that will front you 10 bucks to fund your next "production" is directly related to the number of people you can convince that you last work suggests your next one is worth 10 bucks to them.
3. Your whole argument rests on "without copyright there is no incentive" which suggests either naivity, ignorance or wilful blindness to the reality that scratched itches are worth money to all kinds of entities. Every heard of large organisations funding development internally? They have no market to which they can "sell" their product (since they would not sell it anyway) and yet they develop _huge_ systems
4. In the event that a WWC fell apart because nobody was doing anything, the role of the state would be to kick start the cycle by funding the socially useful projects, much as it did before the industrial revolution. The difference now is that the state is not a bunch of dukes in Vienna but a (variously structured) organisation of executive organs that do stuff.
Copyright is _NOT_ a cornserstone of modern technological society. It is an accident of history whereby the fundamental analysis of the industrial revolution legal scholars, such as balckstone and locke, has been bastardised to apply to a concept for which the fundaments do not hold. The right you have is to the _FACT_ that you wrote it. Any other rights are provided by the state since if you give a copy to someone you have given them everything they _actually_ need to make further copies. If they then claimed authorship, that would be a lie, and therefor a fundamental wrong worthy of redress. All the rest is legal fiction bullshit, that gets in the way of the most efficient distribution of resources within society.
However, imagine for a moment what would happen if someone could re-brand a product and sell it for themselves, legally?
Under the law without copyright (LWC) this would fall under the tort of Passing Off or Fraud (or even another tort if one exists - even if it does not then one could be created), depending on what the rebrander actually claimed. Both these offences existed well before contract law or copyright law.
However the rebranding of a product as "NewCorps distribution of OldCorps PackageX" is a perfectly legitimat practice. (sound familiar?)
There is an important distinction to be drawn between copyright and intellectual property. The difference is certainly semantic to some extent, but the one of the problems is that the term copyright carries so much baggage nowdays that there is a real risk of doing the baby and bathwater thing.
I agree whole heartedly that Intellectual Property is bunk. The reasons for this belief are deep and complex, I shall not go into it here. However copyright is OK insofar as copyright means authorship.
I wonder as to the etymology of the phrase copyright. Is it the rights regarding the copying of the work in question or is it the rights in the copy? (as in advertising copy) I checked a number of online dictionaries as well as the paper Concise Oxford and it seems the consensus is that copyright means the right to copy. As such it must go. The problem I have is that a way of proving copyright is to mail oneself a copy of the item in question (thus getting it stamped by the post office) and leaving it unopened as evidence of the date when you had a version of the "item" in question. So copyright there is intrinsicly tied to authorship.
For want of a better phrase (although strictly speaking authorship is a better phrase) copyright would do to describe the right to claim authorship of a particular work, and authorship is a good thing since under the IPless paradigm that I endorse, authorship is the key to creating reputation, and reputation is way to measure the value of a persons potential contribution and hence the compensation you would part with to garner their contribution to your "project".
My moment of clarity came back in the eighties with two inch story the local paper buried in the TV listings about a shipyard labour strike in Gdansk. It was, of course, the strike that led to separation of Poland from the Eastern Block and the eventual collapse of the USSR. Arguably, the most important story of a generation, pushed to the back for more fluff about sports, celebrity and road closures.
And the counterpoint moment of clarity will come when once wonders about how much ones life _actually_ changes as a result of the enourmous expansion of information at ones disposal. Think about it in th 19th century nobody outside of india would here about the mudslide that killed 200,000 but everyone would know about the carriage that ran over the local philanderer on his way back from his current mistress's house. And how much is ones life improved (and I mean really improved), by this knowledge. Your example highlights the problem (I acknowledge the evils of the cult of celebrity). The road closures matter, they will _actually_ affect your like, the changes in Poland will not. Now in unfortunately the polish example is really bad for me since it really does matter since it did change the shape of the world, but it is only really with hindsight that the magnitude of the strike can be seen, in general a strike in Gdansk really wouldn't be an issue for you. Now by the time solidarity kicked of it was making the kind of press that was important.
One of the fundamental problems about middle class reactionary politics (and politicians) is that it fails to recognise that the system against which they rally is the _ONLY_ system of politics we have ever seen that not only tolerates their objections, but provides them with the means of sustenance whilst they actively react against it. If the choice came down to exploit another or die, everything about our history says we shall exploit, for one thing we can all say about our ancestors (and i mean every single one of them, and every single one of us) is that they managed to bring forth issue before they shuffled off this mortal coil. And a hell of a lot of the issuing took place at the _direct_ expense of others that were not so fortunate or perhaps successful.
I am not endorsing the status quo (although "Whatever You Want" is quite a apt song for this topic:-) but I am sick and fucking tired of reactionary middle class activists, particularly young ones, driving mummy or daddy's Volvo to the rally to cry the tears of the oppressed whilst enjoying the benefits of the system, includings freedoms and costs, against which they so vehemently react. The hypocracy would be farcical if they weren't so ernest. (I am not flaming the author above just the general reactionary politics summed up in biafra's position.)
Do they have any idea of the history that produced the place where they stand? Do they have _any_ idea how insignificant all this "conscience appeasing" rhetoric is the scheme of human motivation?
end rant.My view is that if there is a problem with the main organisational body, fix it, dont just ignore it and form your own body to satisfy the control freak inside you. The situation is akin to Michael Jonson saying he does not like the Olympic Committee and so running the "Michael Johnson Olympics", where he chooses his opponents, and indeed chooses the number 2 contender rather than the number 1 contender to race against
Yes and yet no. There are two classic examples that come down on either side of this point. First is international cricket, which was revolutionaised back in the mid seventies by a media organisation. A process that empowered the players and lead to a more equitable (well sort of) distribution of the income from the game (this is an example on the good side). Second is Rugby league which Rupert Murdoch tried to buy a few years ago, the wounds from that debacle are still being felt within the game (this is the example on the bad side).
There are many other examples (even the AFC and NFC in American football were the result of this kind of split IIRC) where the power of the participants (usually in sport) is used to usurp the administrators who seem to be stagnant in their approach to managing the area in question. So it is not as simple as working in side the organisation in all circumstances.
"The panel finds the respondent is in bad faith because...the respondent is deliberately using complainant's famous trademarks with the aim of misleading the public and siphoning off the 'Chanel' trademark's accumulated good will for profit," (actually quoated from an earlier ruling regardin Chanel)
I find it interesting that the test they apply is a good faith test. In these circumstances I think good faith tests are inherently righteous tests since the actions in question can be pretty easily distinguished as good or bad faith. Now some might argue that such a subjective test is a problem, but the law does deal with subjective tests all the time (although in the Anglo tradition many of these tests were left to juries to evaluate, and I bet there weren't no jury at WIPO). Typo squatting really doesn't have much of a leg to stand on it pretty much an unconscionable way of getting the attention of users. (but what about the days when altavista.com wasn't even owned by altavista, kinda puts a hole in the whole aregument really, anyway I digress)
An interesting "grey" area would be a site such as astslavista.com where clearly the name is a play on the phrase from the "renegade" in Terminator and the name altavista, but I would think they would have a fairly strong defence
Further, one of the classic "criticisms" of the free software movement (and more importantly the anti IP ideal) is that without the protection of IP why would anyone invest in solving problems.
You are absolutely correct to say that patronage is a viable vehicle for implementing an alternative method of funding the sustainance of those whole would be the artisans of the new age. (BTW, Mozart, Beethoven would be classic examples [excuse the pun] of artists funded by patrons). However we could also use technology to help us out here.
Imagine a web site, RFPheaven.org (or whatever) where people can submit their problems and the amount of money they are willing to spend on solving them (including time frames etc) for the freelancers to bid on taking them. People could join on both sides of the bid (ie more money or more developers). Clearly the logistics of deliveries and acceptance (et al) must be resolved and agreed to by the parties, but that is detail (albeit tricky).
Using this kind of approach even someone with $10.00 can help get their problems solved. Ie everyone can become a patron.
True, with one small proviso (IIRC). In most jurisdictions, there is an upper maximum beyond which the issuance requires a change in the legal registration of the corporate entity. Not a big deal (but hey whoever said that /. readers aren't pedants :-).
Now, the next question is, why doesn't Big Business just release the movie everywhere at the same time? That's another evil conspiracy, right? No. Copying a film is not like copying an MP3. Copying a film is hard
Er, I think you will find that the "movies everywhere" issue is not technical (well semi technical in once sense) but marketing. First, big movies need kids on school holidays, so calendar timing is an issue. Second big movies need big screens. If there are only X big screens in a given town then there can only be X times n films per day, where n is the number of sessions that can be commercially scheduled. Now even worse than this is the fact that the scum sucking distributors will almost always demand exclusivity on a given screen (or auditorium capacity) for a given period of time before they will allow the theatre to show the film. (Anyone in NY remember trying to see Phantom Menace when it first came out? How many "big screens" did it get? Around two cause lucasfilm wanted a 90 (almost unheard ofly large) day billing guarantee.
The whole process of movie distribution is killing independent film houses since the distributors want to screw _every_ penny out of them that they can. HAve you ever wondered why cinema pop corn is more expensive than gold? (well it might not be but it sure seems like it) Its because when a new movie comes out the distributor will take 100% of gate takings (thats right 100% of the face value of the ticket) for the first n weeks (or screenings) and this will then decrease through 90, 75 down to sometimes 50. And remember this is ticket prices, so the distributors also demand the price of the tickets themselves be as high as possible. SO the poor buggers that might own a huge floor space building in prime retails space (where a lot of cinemas exist) have to cover their business by robbing us at the concession stand.
Let's not forget the practice of the distributors working out that a big name film is so shit that they hide it from the reviewers, open it on a thousand screens for one weeked, get _everyone_ to see it at the first instance and then once the word gets out that it's shit, shut it down having grossed much more than they could other wise manage. And do you think that the distributors might tie one good film to three shit ones at the same picture house. Hmmm...
As an organsing member of a university film society in Oz, where we would show 2 films for three bucks, we were regularly asked by the distributors to bump up our ticket prices but I guess they figured we weren't worth fighting over, so they let us get away with it, still charging us 50% of gate or $200 for each film (whichever was greater). We could only get a limited range of films, usually after cinema but before video so it was a good deal for the students (and quite a social experience, but I digress). So what do you think happened when the distributor run multiplex opened across the road from the campus? Yup it just became harder to get that distributors films (bloody UIP!!!)
Anyway, back to the point. Cinema is Cinema, and no matter how good (except perhaps if you have a 25foot wall and your own LCD projector) your home cinema is, it aint film on a big white wall. I personally dig sitting in the front row and getting "cinemaed" by the full experience. Which, btw, is how the movie industry reinvented itself to the punting public in the mid eightes when video first caned them (well at least in Oz). So the lack of bums on seats cause they're at home watching it on 32inches doesn't really cut it.
As for region codes, it is purley a pricing device, so that they can charge X in India versus Y in Europe vs Z in America so that they can ensure that the % of disposable income that can be consumed by their "product" can be maximised in the different markets by placing the purchase decision at the right kind of "impulse" pricepoint and the right comparative level wrt to a cinema ticket. I can only hope that someone makes a successful anti competitive practice case against regioning (hey maybe I should get off my ass and do it myself, but it's sooo tiring). I am one of the suckers that struggles to resist buying the bloody things as well, although I do manage to resist the recent tat and focus on the "historical" moments of cinema or ones that I personally adore, I still give them my $$$ because I am weak.
I'm sorry for the tirade, but the motion picture industry is a cynical and immoral marketing machine that screws no only the consumer but the business people who are trying to pervey cinema to the hungry audience. It is tragedy that such tryanny has become so bad in the last half century (the comparison to the plight of the performers in the first half of last century is interesting) that I am hoping that technology can bring down the cost of production and distribution so far that the big houses can go and get stuffed. Digital movies anyone?
Or alternatively you could just swear that the message was created at time X. Just like other evidence.
Oh yeah I recall having that conversation/email tirade back in January
Bang, who needs a timestamp when one has corroborated testimony. Not every problem needs to solved in a technical way.
I think that people should moderate on the basis of their own values. If I moderate up what I tickles my fancy (or what angers me) and so do the other N moderators then what gets moderated representes the views of the moderating readership. There is really only one proviso and that is that there should be enough moderators to ensure that the distribution of views that are "promoted" by moderation are representative (rightly or wrongly) of the slashdot readership [or perhaps the non AC readership]
I think that the moderator guide to "moderate up" much more than "moderate down" is valuable. Further I think that one should moderate quickly. In other words, once one gets the gift, use the points quickly since then someone else will get some points and the richer the moderator base, the richer the "dialogue" that takes place.
If one is a +(>1) threaded reader, it is probably just to filter out the guff, so that one may make reading the views feasible. Remember it isn't an exam, there is no "correct" moderation. nor is it a reference site, its primarily a bit of entertainment that from time to time is enlightening. So take it for what it's worth
Antitrust laws are harmful to consumers.
That's just plain wrong. Antitrust law, goes by many names, for example, fair dealing or competition Law, in different jurisdictions. The overriding premise of competition law is to redress the imbalance caused by _failures_ of markets to behave in a "perfectly competitive" way.
Now most often this is couched in terms of protecting consumers, but this is because the most obvious manifestation of these failures is that there is an imbalance of power between the participants in a market, most often with the lone consumer having the weak position when negotiating terms with a stronger legal entity. It seems clear to me that redressing this imbalance is _good_ for consumers.
They raise prices
Prices can only be raised to a level where the momentary return on capital is economical. In other words, if a monopoly has lower prices, it is either because they are operating at a loss or they are subsidising current prices with future (or past) revenue. The other possibility is that the monopoly is already perfectly competitive, which suggests that it is a natural monopoly in which case it should defeat an competition law at first principles. (I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide if there is such a thing as a natural monopoly)
reduce competition
Er,... only if the implementation of the law is an abject failure. Since I would think that the absract of every piece of competition law would state an intention to "promote competition"
stifle innovation
If by stifle innovation, you mean stop companies ripping off consumers to fund R&D that the consumer has not explicitly authorised through the price discovery process then yes you are right. Otherwise how?
foster corruption of government officials
Ah, capture theory, yup, it's a multo problem, but not a problem with competition law, rather with the institutions that execute it. The same problems exist with other areas of the executive branch (such as industrial relations) but it is not a flaw in the law but in the executive branch of government. And the causes and solutions to this are well off topic
The laws are used not to 'manage competition', but as strategic weapons by less-successful competitors seeking an advantage over market leaders
Puh, lease... markets fail. Markets fail to reach perfect competition for all kinds of reasons the existince of competition law as a method for redressing market failure far outweighs the occasions you highlight where they might be used for a strategic advantage over "market leaders". Oh and by the way, I can just imagine how you would define and identify market leaders
Markets fail when extraordinary profits can be made, ie when return on capital exceeds the current economic rate. I think it is _very_ hard to argue that the current market value of Microsoft is anything but the result of extraordinary profits. As such, the market in which they participate must have failed, the reason (IMHO) is they have used anti competitive practices to stifle products that compete with their own.
No I do not agree. Your statement:
In our fast paced economy, we MUST do everything fast in order to survive.
is a valid criticism. Yes this is bad but RAD is neither necessary, sufficient nor a result of this time imperative.
In my experience the ability to design conceptually (whiteboards, CASE tools, beer sessions) is enhanced enourmously by the ability to have an environment that one can investigate the implementation choices available. By the time one has tried and rejected the "not so good" implementation choices, the feedback into the design process has been generallly positive.
Contracts are the tool of all legal entities. Persons, Corporations, Trusts etc. Contracts define the legal relationship between parties, thats it. If you don't like the terms don't sign the contract
It is wrong to say that contracts only serve corporations. Now it is not wrong to say that there is often an imbalance of power during the process that determines the terms of a contract, but that is a very different animal.
There are many jurisdictions in which there are strong sanctions for misuse of this power. However at its simplest level, if you don't like the contract, don't sign it
I regularly go through the rollercoaster of "this is a tragedy" to "Ah don't they see its all pointless" to "Ah the Americans and their freedoms" over the issue of the content "owners" (note the _careful_ use of owner). What we really need is a country willing to become an international pariah by saying fsck IP, fsck the industry come to my land (even remotely) and all ye want shall be free (AIS). The big corps will go apeshit but as long as the punters of that country have meat and drink what sanction can be inflicted on them, surely the income from the services that want such a place would be adequate compensation for whatever the international community sanctions. But I guess that would require the land to be free and brave. Hmmmm....
oh well one can dream :-)
This is just another step towards the world media execs ideal world, where EVERYTHING is pay per view.
Absolutely. The content providers went all gooey over the thought of being able to get everything pay per view (or pay per experience but I will use PPV). I am trying to recall when I first heard the phrase PPV. Growing up in Australia, it was certainly not directly since pay TV in general arrived in the late nineties (scary really isn't it). I am sure that it was related to rasslin' or boxing and certainly originating from the US. And I hated the idea even then (but at least I can understand it)
I am intrigued by the chicken and egg nature of this discussion, which did come first the PPV concept or the ability for the media to be delivered selectively to those for whose view payment has been made.
I am about to use the argument of personal incredularity so what follows may be a crock but... I find it hard to believe that the music industry had any concept of PPV for recorded music until the enabling technology came along.
Most importantly, i think that it is easy to provide a qualitative distinction between the kind of event that is traditionally PPV and recorded music and that is the immediacy of the event. Ie the concert live, PPV, the recording of the live performance NOT. This qualitative difference is what makes the PPVing of recorded events for home use, wrong, both morally (ie it offends _my_ sensibilities) but also technically since it is really an anti competitive practice, using some technique to increase the price of the service beyond its market level. Oh and if you want to argue about that last point, forget it, I ain't even gonna try and persuade you. (If you don't agree you're just wrong :-)
What was the judge thinking? If he really wants to prevent people from telling others where to get the code, he should have made it illegal to publish the URL in any form. But that would make the fascist nature of his ruling even more painfully obvious. Instead he's opted for a fig leaf, although I can't imagine how he could do this without embarrassment. He's got to know that a ban on "linking" is pointless. Such silly actions merely reduce the people's respect for the courts.
There is another explanation. It is not unheard of for judges to construe relief extremely narrowly when they are compelled (in their opinion) to give a ruling that offends their own sensibilities. For example in Australia we have the joy of a tax law that, when stacked up, would enable yoda to reach the cookies on the top shelf, ie it's _really_ thick because the high court (Supreme court equivalent for you yanks :-), and in particular one chief justice, did not really like the idea of Federal tax law and so he construed every interpretation that came before him _real_ narrow. So exception after exception was rasied and the legislation required to "close" the loopholes became more and more, er, extensive.
Now it is my opinion that judges who act in this way are hiding behind a legalist shield when in fact they are not legalist judges. It's painful, and in the long run it causes more grief than it saves but hey, IANOJ so who cares what I think. The one saving grace in this case is that (as one other poster pointed out) the populace has the capacity to change this kind of law and since it isn't tax law (governments just love ways of raising money :-) it isn't necessarily going to conflict with the vested interests of government, just the lobbyists of the industries affected. Whilst they are a powerful industry they really aren't that powerful particularly when they are also dependent on the _continuing_ revenue stream from the affected peoples "luxury" budget. I mean the MPAA isn't the energy industry or anything.
$0.02
Please, those that recall better feel free to correct, but this sounds like a piece of anti-blazeware (TM). In the good old days of comp.sys.amiga.advocacy, the blazeware suite of blazemonger etc (probably blazemail :-) would have given this app a serious amount of work to do.
Were he to be hit by a bus tomorrow then development would be stunted as people like Alan and Inigo fight over the "hot seat", and the open source movement would fail without Linux.
Puh-lease. Bus weaknesses really only exist where the sole record of the knowledge is contained in the bus victim (I work for an organisation with more bus weaknesses than is good for us). The joy of open source (be it FAIS software or whaever) is that in the event of a human failure there is the best chance that the only loss (great as it may be) is only the loss of that person's contribubtion. Linus is a smart guy, but _he_ aint the reason the world is (or isn't) turning.
I think this is the natural extension of the "financial havens" with which most of us have at least a passing knowledge. I do not think that these principles are solely the refuge of those who are doing things that they know are "questionable", but they provide a way for those without enough power to usurp the draconian nature of the state without resorting to violence or sedition.
Do not confused the fact that X11 is not programmable via pipes, with the notion that pipes are therefore useless. Rather, this is a case of where X11 is itself broken. See Plan9 for a GUI that needs nothing beyond pipes in order to effectively embed things.
I was not confused. My point was that the meta information of the pipe paradigm, the "nature of pipes", where by we have read and write (since we can safely ignore open and close as they are the "constructor" and "deconstructor" methods), is a significant constraint on moving to a new level of interoperability. A level where as a needer of functionality I can ask an object to "display" me and another object for a dataset that will warn me if a record changes so that I might process my own changes as a result. As I said in my post, pipes are inherently useful as an instance of IPC, but they are very rudimentary.
Indeed whilst plan9 may use pipes as their _implementation_ of IPC, it is an implementation choice not a conceptual one. Plan9 documentation itself talks about how most everything "looks like files", this is the conceptual tie that binds Plan 9. Step outside the "file" motif and perhaps there is another way. I am not convinced that bonobo is the other way, but I am convinved that it is a different way and within the constraints of my limited capacity to investigate, it seems to be an interesting way and a way that HP and Sun might be able to leverage their existing commitment to CORBA.
If I want to knit things together, I'll use a bloody pipe.
And there's the rub. The pipe has reached the limits of its usefulness, or at least the traditional unix concept thereof. Please don't misunderstand, the pipe is _extremely_ useful and I use it every day, but sometimes I would like to take a file of data and "pipe" it into a spreadsheet that could perform some math on the data the output of which I would then graph. With the ability to change the odd variable in my spreadsheet, the output on the graph would change.
This is where the CORBA (bonobo) model comes in, where pipes know about stdin and stdout, as I understand it, bonobo knows about a conceptual "stdinterface" and the different components can self discover about the functionality they provide to each other, thus my scenario above works with the conceptual simplicity of a pipe.
Remember that the pipe is contingent on the meta information about what is stdio, this meta object completely defines the interaction between functional elements. Well its time for a change, hopefully a change for the better, and I think that bonobo is a contender (KDE 2.0 may have an equivalent with, whats it called? kObjects or something [not a criticism, just my ignorance]) the fact that it is via CORBA (Soap anyone) and that HP and Sun are OMG players is probably what lead to Gnome being the flavour that attracted them.
Anyway, the key point is paradigm shift, pipes are dead long live self discovering interfaces.
$0.02