Yeah - the main thing, from my perspective, is that anything released under such a scheme would never be accepted or used by the big companies that right now are major customers of free software (e.g. Google). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems if Google accepted software under such a license, it would be required to release its source code in exchange. I doubt Google would do that, and neither would most other companies.
What you have right now is a weird situation where GPL is totally fine for web based proprietary services, because they don't involve distribution, but is not fine if you want to provide the exact same service by distributing the binaries on CD's, in which case you have to distribute the source. In other words, it almost seems like the medium of the provision of the software gets to dictate whether or not the software developer has to release their source code under the GPL.
That doesn't strike me as a logically consistent compromise, and I don't think it will be able to hold up in the long run. There will eventually have to be resolution of this contradiction. Since you can easily rule out the possibility of the GPL drafters weakening the license, that means that eventually, if it values consistency, the GPL will have to start considering web services as somehow "conveying" the software in such a way as to mandate release of source code under the GPL. When you think about it, the current situation really just does not make sense - the GPL folks are directly taking on software companies like Microsoft, but at the same time they're allying with companies like Google, even though Google is also a software company - it just doesn't distribute its software. It is not clear to me from a practical standpoint how doing a search on Google.com is substantively different from running a binary on my computer.
When the GPL starts going after web services, I think you will see anything released under the GPL versions that contain those restrictions not getting very much use at all. Linux is a dominant server platform right now - but it certainly would never have gotten where it is if the licensing scheme demanded that companies providing services on servers release their source code. If that had happened, I think we'd all be using Windows, BSD and Solaris.
I had the same question, based on the following from the FSF FAQ:
"A company is running a modified version of a GPL'ed program on a web site. Does the GPL say they must release their modified sources? The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without ever distributing it to others. What this company is doing is a special case of that. Therefore, the company does not have to release the modified sources. It is essential for people to have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately, without ever publishing those modifications. However, putting the program on a server machine for the public to talk to is hardly "private" use, so it would be legitimate to require release of the source code in that special case. We are thinking about doing something like this in GPL version 3, but we don't have precise wording in mind yet.
In the mean time, you might want to use the Affero GPL for programs designed for network server use. "
But it doesn't look like they actually put anything to that effect in this new version, unless I misunderstand the meaning of the word "propagate."
Anybody know what's going on here? I'd love to be able to get a handle on that.
I just wanted to note that I think that posts critical of GPL v3 and the GPL in general seem to be modded down fairly quickly as "flamebait" and "trolling" even if they have good points. I don't think that is appropriate.
"People put code out under the GPL because they want changes to be redistributed. The fact that you could use the code as a webservice was never intended as a feature of the GPL, it was a loophole. It allowed a way for people to redistribute GPLed code as a service without releasing changes. If this change makes it into GPL3 it will be a good thing. IMO, its one of the two most important changes needed in the GPL (the other being patents)."
But does GPLv3 actually do anything about this? I juat gave it a couple of skims and couldn't find anything to that effect. It does seem to be just based on distribution.
Have you tried putting your name in quote marks? Then if you can find an identifying characteristic of other people with your same name, you can eliminate those searches from your results by prepending that characteristic with a dash.
So if your name is Andrew Jones, and there is a famous Andrew Jones who does work on cancer and has 20,000 mentions on the internet, just search for the following:
"Andrew Jones" -cancer
You can add a lot of the dashed removals,w hich should solve your problem. You can also search specific sites like: site:slashdot.org
Combine all these things and you can find a lot. People usually only look one level in, and if their initial results are muddled they give up. But you have to dig deeper by cutting out the fat and zeroing in on specific things.
Again, it also helps to combine other keywords associated with the person.
You're right, I guess I am just a bit weary since I have spent the past few days arguing about it on my blog with people in the comments section from both sides AND arguing about stem cell research on a email list (in addition to the whole Israel-Lebanon thing...). It can get tiring after a while. But you all carry on!
Actually, it means something to me, if that matters. I support abortion rights only until it cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the baby is sentient ("I think therefore I am" seems like the best standard for issues like this). Therefore this means I support abortion rights until appx the 31st day. Prior to this I was actually under the mistaken impression that brain mass developed earlier than it does. So this makes me marginally more pro-choice, though I guess I am still what you would call "pro-life" on balance.
Here's hoping slashdotters don't decide to turn this thread into an abortion debate.
I can actually find out a heck of a lot about somebody with their name and Google. If you know power searching tips, and construct searches based on what you already find, you can find out a lot. If I had somebody's name who was a frequent Internet user, I could probably find out a fair amount of biographical information on them with a few variations on their name. Then I could search using those pieces of information as keywords and find out even more information.
And God help you if you have a MySpace account with a wall. Then I can learn everything about your social life, including the names of your friends. Then I can look them up too and construct a whole web of information about you....and you can too! A lot of the information he says he found in 4.5 hours is not that impressive. Pics of his former roommates? Easy if they're Myspace or Facebook friends. Places he lived before? Check the history for his wall. Places he worked before? If he was in IT, and you can find his favorite internet screenname, you can find his postings to internet tech forums such as Slashdot, Devshed, Sourceforge, etc, complete with the details of what he was working on.
That's just with Google. Combine that with even modest law enforcement databases and you can find out a heck of a lot about one person.
Granted, that still scares me a LOT. I value my privacy but I feel like I don't actually have it anymore. All I'm saying is his deal is not all that unique. Or maybe I'm just The Power Google Searcher From Hell!!!!!
This article made me think of the overall lack of commercial systems sporting pre-loaded Linux operating systems. It's funny that it would take such a relatively small company as this to even attempt it. In particular, I am surprised that boutique companies like Alienware don't offer their models with Linux or with a Linux-Windows dual-boot. People who are willing to shell out thousands for an SLI notebook are (relatively) likely to be interested in Linux. And if you dual-boot with Windows, what's the loss?
One of the biggest reasons why Linux has not reached a wider audience is the difficulty of installation and configuration, which involves partitioning, potentially compiling drivers, and other things that can take some time. It also requires a decent amount of technical knowledge. If Linux came pre-installed, casual users would be a lot more inclined to give it a try.
My guess is the reason they are charging so much is that a laptop preloaded with Linux is very much a novelty, so they can.
I checked your profile/blog and gathered you were joking (I have said similar things said in all seriousness on internet forums), but I wanted to respond to the argument anyway, which is an argument that people do make about this sort of thing. So, for whoever cares...
- In fact, securing your network is NOT the same thing as preventing others from using it. It prevents random people from using it, but you can still encrypt it and then provide trusted friends with a key. For example, our family has 64-bit encryption and uses the key to require logon to our router, but gave the key to the family living in the apartment below ours so they could share our connection. That was a better solution for us, because I am in fact worried about somebody committing crimes using my account, which would be very bad, or a casual user sniffing my airborne packets. With encryption and giving away the key to those I know, I can have the best of all worlds. But my ISP still isn't able to charge my trusted neighbors.
- I believe you could also have a form of security whereby all transmissions are encrypted between the wireless router and the computers, but anybody can log on. This would prevent data interception but allow open access. Somebody correct me if this is wrong.
- ISP's do in fact lose money when people share connections through open wireless routers, under their current scheme. But they can actually adapt and still make as much money as before. Right now they depend on providng high speed access to a lot of people for a medium amount of money, and those users rarely if ever use all their allotted bandwidth over the course of a month. Given that sharing connections through wireless routers is only going to become more common with better wireless technologies (N, etc), ISP's have the option of charging more than they otherwise would and simply assuming that people will share connections. Or, they can charge by amount of data transferred rather than a fixed bandwidth cap, eliminating the "problem" of sharing entirely (this would also probably be more efficient, as it would mean anybody could have a superfast connection at times when they wanted it and ISP bandwidth would be dynamically shared, rather than the extremely inefficient multiplexing of DSL's currently used.)
BTW my second sentence was in reference to the following quote:
--> "I am generally opposed to government infringing on individual rights," offers Jim Albright. "I think Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said, 'Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.' That being said, I am absolutely in favor of regulation requiring not just business-installed but all wireless networks to be secure. It is a long-standing premise that the rights of an individual end where they begin to infringe on the rights of others."
A beautiful quote by Ben Franklin ruined by a complete lack of understanding of both liberty and technology. How exactly am I infringing somebody else's rights by leaving my wireless network open? The answer is I am not.
So here is my counter statement:
--> "I am generally opposed to government infringing on individual rights," offers eliot1785. "I think Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said, 'Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.' That being said, I am absolutely in favor of regulation banning stupid people from talking. It is a long-standing premise that the rights of an individual end when stupid people are allowed to offer opinions on the extent of those rights."
Could it be that maybe, just maybe, somebody wants to actually SHARE? Sacrilege, I know.
Overall, I am worried that people these days consistently seem to say "I'm not in favor of too much regulation, but this specific piece seems pretty good."
Uh huh. You know the slippery slope has started to apply when people say that about such inane proposals as this one.
By the way, this may not actually be a bad thing. There are too many games out there as is. Who wants to play a so-so game when you can play an awesome game? The point of gaming (at least I think) is entertainment. People are not going to go for less interesting games the way they might go for store-brand cereal, to save money.
This is nothing new. Whenever a better product comes out, it will steal market share from a lesser product. It's not an abuse of the market - that's how the market works. Game models that are losing market share will continue to do so until either they raise their level of appeal, or Wow's appeal decreases.
It's sort of like how the iPod crowded out the Walkman. Money that would have gone to the Walkman started going to the iPod.
It would be a bit easier to design for multiple systems if Apple didn't have a terrible EULA that prevents you from installing it on non-Apple computers, thereby making Mac-friendly development that much harder. I just discovered this today when I was going to try to make my Windows-Linux dual-boot into a Windows-Linux-Mac triple-boot, and I am pissed. This sucks for developers and makes it that much harder to design CSS (or anything else) for multiple platforms.
I wonder why we don't hear that much railing on Apple for these restrictions...
Like most of Apple's iPod/ITMS-related endeavors, this will probably be highly successful. Apple might have spent 15 years getting pushed around by the PC market, and to a certain extent its recent successes have only happened as it has given in and adopted Intel and Windows pre-installations, but it has consistently made all the right moves with iPod/ITMS, and has consistently been in the driver's seat there. While Microsoft's plans to compete with ITMS will keep Apple on its toes, all indications are that they will be able to fend off the competition.
Concerns that have been raised on this list so far can all be addressed:
Argument: People want to own their media, they don't want to rent it for an established period of time or viewing. That is why subscription services like those offered by Real and Napster have been less successful that ITMS, which sells the content outright. People will hate a subscription service that puts them in a world of red tape. Response: One big reason for Apple's success has been its ability to understand that consumers hate complex technology and complex agreements. One of the reasons the iPod was so successful was that it is such a simplistic model, both in terms of hardware and the ITMS. The contrast with other companies is very clear, and I think this parody drives that point home better than I can do. If Apple goes with a subscription service for movies, they will present it in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. That goes a long way toward improving consumer confidence. Also, unlike music, people often "rent" movies, so the concept is a familiar one, and will be embraced by consumers if the price is low enough to make the restriction worth it. Also, if Apple is smart it will continue to fight to sell outright ownership copies alongside the rentals, to give people a choice. Finally, it is well-known that the ITMS DRM can be subverted by burning a copy to a disk and then ripping it back - so Apple will probably disable burning for subscription files, but outright owners will probably retain that option in the worst case scenario. I'm not saying this is an ideal solution, and others are right to point out that this makes consumers captive to Apple, but on a purely objective level, if the IMMEDIATE terms don't seem too restrictive, people will ignore potential long-term harms. (Also, if Apple decides to eliminate that loophole, it will probably still be possible to find an earlier ITMS version that still contains it.)
Argument: The resolution on videos sold by ITMS is way too low for people to want to buy movies from them. Response: I actually completely agree. I have only bought a couple of TV shows from Apple as a result of this problem. However, I think that the movie sales and/or subscriptions will be released in tandem with the new, larger-screen video iPod, with higher resolution on all offerings to boot. That said, for it to really be worth it, the resolution has to be higher than what even this larger-screen iPod can display. It really does need to be sold at basic DVD quality (higher quality is too much to hope for at this point, but "DVD Quality" is good enough for consumers right now). People might buy TV shows at low quality because they're not available anywhere else until years after airing, but DVD's are available in DVD quality in many locations. Apple does need to get beyond the paradigm of selling videos intended only for the iPod video, and start selling for computer viewing. But, again, I think they will probably do this. Certainly they will never sell the videos at 320 X 240. They know that would make them a joke.
Argument: Bandwidth is not high enough for this. Response: Previews can be offered in lower quality. The people consuming the most bandwidth will be paying for the downloads, so it will be worth it to Apple. They are also paying for their DSL. (IMHO, this is why net neutrality is a bad idea, b
To realize how unremarkable the expansion of the IP number set is, think about the lack of fanfare that occurred when ISBN numbers (used to identify books) went from 10 digits to 13 digits, effectively for the same reason. It didn't get as much press because it wasn't high tech so average people didn't think it was revolutionary (which it wasn't, and neither is this, really, except that such a big number looks cool when you write it out).
This article is actually on the front page of the Drudge Report right now (www.DrudgeReport.com), a heavily trafficked news website that is read by a lot of politicos.
I think that the intended humor here was that the rest of the world just learned about IPV6, when it has been around for a lot of time. I'm guessing a couple years from now there will be headlines about the "new DVD's" that can store 50+ gigabytes of information on them. "That sort of capacity ought to last us for a while."
And before everybody jumps on me, I meant to say that Microsoft may continue to have a near-monopoly on operating systems (which I would characterize as 80% or higher share). Windows will be the last thing to go if Microsoft ever goes under.
For Intel's sake, I hope those managers were really not worthwhile. Because cost-cutting efforts like this can come back to bite you if it means you lose the brains of your operation in the process. Unless Intel had a thousand people sitting around who were little more than paper pushers, this will inevitably negatively impact the company's growth potential in the future. After all, sectors of the company that are "not profitable" right now might be sectors that would have become highly profitable with additional research.
(BTW, A tangential point re: the sub-thread about previous antitrust complaints about Intel, and how in retrospective they were overblown now that Intel is losing market share... you might even be able to say the same thing about Microsoft. It's been "big and bad" for 10-15 years now, but look at what is happening to its market share. Internet Explorer is losing share to Firefox, and within a year or so, OpenOffice.org will do the same thing to Microsoft Office. It might still have a monopoly on operating systems, but it will hardly be the behemoth people have always thought of it as. Intel and Microsoft are showing us that big companies can be toppled by competitive rivals more quickly now than in the past.)
Anonymous Coward is ok if you just want social privacy. As long as you are not breaking the law or threatening to do so, and as long as you assume that the ISP and the host of the website you are posting to don't care enough to do their own investigative research, and as long as nobody is doing a professional job of sniffing your packets (in other words, in normal situations), you can still have anonymity. There are just limits to it.
I think you fail to grasp the fact that I was making a joke. I actually understand the terms of the GPL very well, having researched it for my startup. The premise of my joke was that the DOD had directed its contractors to develop missile defense systems under the GPL free software license, and was then obligated as a customer of those contractors to release the code. In the real world this would probably never happen, since even if they chose the GPL (which I doubt they would), I believe DOD could simply break the license if "national security" demanded it. Anyway, I would rather be a troll than a hysterical GNU Zealot any day...
On a more serious note, if the DOD decided to make its software open source under less restrictive open source terms (e.g. Apache-style), they would still be giving away national security secrets by the basic act of opening the source, even though they would not be obligated to release any subsequent modifications to the public. On the other hand, taking open source software and modifying it internally (and secretly) is probably a great strategy, since it tends to be more reliable and modular, IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah - the main thing, from my perspective, is that anything released under such a scheme would never be accepted or used by the big companies that right now are major customers of free software (e.g. Google). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems if Google accepted software under such a license, it would be required to release its source code in exchange. I doubt Google would do that, and neither would most other companies.
What you have right now is a weird situation where GPL is totally fine for web based proprietary services, because they don't involve distribution, but is not fine if you want to provide the exact same service by distributing the binaries on CD's, in which case you have to distribute the source. In other words, it almost seems like the medium of the provision of the software gets to dictate whether or not the software developer has to release their source code under the GPL.
That doesn't strike me as a logically consistent compromise, and I don't think it will be able to hold up in the long run. There will eventually have to be resolution of this contradiction. Since you can easily rule out the possibility of the GPL drafters weakening the license, that means that eventually, if it values consistency, the GPL will have to start considering web services as somehow "conveying" the software in such a way as to mandate release of source code under the GPL. When you think about it, the current situation really just does not make sense - the GPL folks are directly taking on software companies like Microsoft, but at the same time they're allying with companies like Google, even though Google is also a software company - it just doesn't distribute its software. It is not clear to me from a practical standpoint how doing a search on Google.com is substantively different from running a binary on my computer.
When the GPL starts going after web services, I think you will see anything released under the GPL versions that contain those restrictions not getting very much use at all. Linux is a dominant server platform right now - but it certainly would never have gotten where it is if the licensing scheme demanded that companies providing services on servers release their source code. If that had happened, I think we'd all be using Windows, BSD and Solaris.
I had the same question, based on the following from the FSF FAQ:
"A company is running a modified version of a GPL'ed program on a web site. Does the GPL say they must release their modified sources?
The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without ever distributing it to others. What this company is doing is a special case of that. Therefore, the company does not have to release the modified sources.
It is essential for people to have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately, without ever publishing those modifications. However, putting the program on a server machine for the public to talk to is hardly "private" use, so it would be legitimate to require release of the source code in that special case. We are thinking about doing something like this in GPL version 3, but we don't have precise wording in mind yet.
In the mean time, you might want to use the Affero GPL for programs designed for network server use. "
But it doesn't look like they actually put anything to that effect in this new version, unless I misunderstand the meaning of the word "propagate."
Anybody know what's going on here? I'd love to be able to get a handle on that.
I just wanted to note that I think that posts critical of GPL v3 and the GPL in general seem to be modded down fairly quickly as "flamebait" and "trolling" even if they have good points. I don't think that is appropriate.
"People put code out under the GPL because they want changes to be redistributed. The fact that you could use the code as a webservice was never intended as a feature of the GPL, it was a loophole. It allowed a way for people to redistribute GPLed code as a service without releasing changes. If this change makes it into GPL3 it will be a good thing. IMO, its one of the two most important changes needed in the GPL (the other being patents)." But does GPLv3 actually do anything about this? I juat gave it a couple of skims and couldn't find anything to that effect. It does seem to be just based on distribution.
They actually have several layers of memory (registers, L1, L2...), it's just not called that.
I don't think that's what they meant though.
Have you tried putting your name in quote marks? Then if you can find an identifying characteristic of other people with your same name, you can eliminate those searches from your results by prepending that characteristic with a dash.
So if your name is Andrew Jones, and there is a famous Andrew Jones who does work on cancer and has 20,000 mentions on the internet, just search for the following:
"Andrew Jones" -cancer
You can add a lot of the dashed removals,w hich should solve your problem. You can also search specific sites like: site:slashdot.org
Combine all these things and you can find a lot. People usually only look one level in, and if their initial results are muddled they give up. But you have to dig deeper by cutting out the fat and zeroing in on specific things.
Again, it also helps to combine other keywords associated with the person.
You're right, I guess I am just a bit weary since I have spent the past few days arguing about it on my blog with people in the comments section from both sides AND arguing about stem cell research on a email list (in addition to the whole Israel-Lebanon thing...). It can get tiring after a while. But you all carry on!
Actually, it means something to me, if that matters. I support abortion rights only until it cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the baby is sentient ("I think therefore I am" seems like the best standard for issues like this). Therefore this means I support abortion rights until appx the 31st day. Prior to this I was actually under the mistaken impression that brain mass developed earlier than it does. So this makes me marginally more pro-choice, though I guess I am still what you would call "pro-life" on balance.
Here's hoping slashdotters don't decide to turn this thread into an abortion debate.
I can actually find out a heck of a lot about somebody with their name and Google. If you know power searching tips, and construct searches based on what you already find, you can find out a lot. If I had somebody's name who was a frequent Internet user, I could probably find out a fair amount of biographical information on them with a few variations on their name. Then I could search using those pieces of information as keywords and find out even more information.
...and you can too! A lot of the information he says he found in 4.5 hours is not that impressive. Pics of his former roommates? Easy if they're Myspace or Facebook friends. Places he lived before? Check the history for his wall. Places he worked before? If he was in IT, and you can find his favorite internet screenname, you can find his postings to internet tech forums such as Slashdot, Devshed, Sourceforge, etc, complete with the details of what he was working on.
And God help you if you have a MySpace account with a wall. Then I can learn everything about your social life, including the names of your friends. Then I can look them up too and construct a whole web of information about you.
That's just with Google. Combine that with even modest law enforcement databases and you can find out a heck of a lot about one person.
Granted, that still scares me a LOT. I value my privacy but I feel like I don't actually have it anymore. All I'm saying is his deal is not all that unique. Or maybe I'm just The Power Google Searcher From Hell!!!!!
This article made me think of the overall lack of commercial systems sporting pre-loaded Linux operating systems. It's funny that it would take such a relatively small company as this to even attempt it. In particular, I am surprised that boutique companies like Alienware don't offer their models with Linux or with a Linux-Windows dual-boot. People who are willing to shell out thousands for an SLI notebook are (relatively) likely to be interested in Linux. And if you dual-boot with Windows, what's the loss?
One of the biggest reasons why Linux has not reached a wider audience is the difficulty of installation and configuration, which involves partitioning, potentially compiling drivers, and other things that can take some time. It also requires a decent amount of technical knowledge. If Linux came pre-installed, casual users would be a lot more inclined to give it a try.
My guess is the reason they are charging so much is that a laptop preloaded with Linux is very much a novelty, so they can.
I checked your profile/blog and gathered you were joking (I have said similar things said in all seriousness on internet forums), but I wanted to respond to the argument anyway, which is an argument that people do make about this sort of thing. So, for whoever cares...
- In fact, securing your network is NOT the same thing as preventing others from using it. It prevents random people from using it, but you can still encrypt it and then provide trusted friends with a key. For example, our family has 64-bit encryption and uses the key to require logon to our router, but gave the key to the family living in the apartment below ours so they could share our connection. That was a better solution for us, because I am in fact worried about somebody committing crimes using my account, which would be very bad, or a casual user sniffing my airborne packets. With encryption and giving away the key to those I know, I can have the best of all worlds. But my ISP still isn't able to charge my trusted neighbors.
- I believe you could also have a form of security whereby all transmissions are encrypted between the wireless router and the computers, but anybody can log on. This would prevent data interception but allow open access. Somebody correct me if this is wrong.
- ISP's do in fact lose money when people share connections through open wireless routers, under their current scheme. But they can actually adapt and still make as much money as before. Right now they depend on providng high speed access to a lot of people for a medium amount of money, and those users rarely if ever use all their allotted bandwidth over the course of a month. Given that sharing connections through wireless routers is only going to become more common with better wireless technologies (N, etc), ISP's have the option of charging more than they otherwise would and simply assuming that people will share connections. Or, they can charge by amount of data transferred rather than a fixed bandwidth cap, eliminating the "problem" of sharing entirely (this would also probably be more efficient, as it would mean anybody could have a superfast connection at times when they wanted it and ISP bandwidth would be dynamically shared, rather than the extremely inefficient multiplexing of DSL's currently used.)
BTW my second sentence was in reference to the following quote:
--> "I am generally opposed to government infringing on individual rights," offers Jim Albright. "I think Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said, 'Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.' That being said, I am absolutely in favor of regulation requiring not just business-installed but all wireless networks to be secure. It is a long-standing premise that the rights of an individual end where they begin to infringe on the rights of others."
A beautiful quote by Ben Franklin ruined by a complete lack of understanding of both liberty and technology. How exactly am I infringing somebody else's rights by leaving my wireless network open? The answer is I am not.
So here is my counter statement:
--> "I am generally opposed to government infringing on individual rights," offers eliot1785. "I think Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said, 'Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.' That being said, I am absolutely in favor of regulation banning stupid people from talking. It is a long-standing premise that the rights of an individual end when stupid people are allowed to offer opinions on the extent of those rights."
Could it be that maybe, just maybe, somebody wants to actually SHARE? Sacrilege, I know.
Overall, I am worried that people these days consistently seem to say "I'm not in favor of too much regulation, but this specific piece seems pretty good."
Uh huh. You know the slippery slope has started to apply when people say that about such inane proposals as this one.
By the way, this may not actually be a bad thing. There are too many games out there as is. Who wants to play a so-so game when you can play an awesome game? The point of gaming (at least I think) is entertainment. People are not going to go for less interesting games the way they might go for store-brand cereal, to save money.
This is nothing new. Whenever a better product comes out, it will steal market share from a lesser product. It's not an abuse of the market - that's how the market works. Game models that are losing market share will continue to do so until either they raise their level of appeal, or Wow's appeal decreases.
It's sort of like how the iPod crowded out the Walkman. Money that would have gone to the Walkman started going to the iPod.
It would be a bit easier to design for multiple systems if Apple didn't have a terrible EULA that prevents you from installing it on non-Apple computers, thereby making Mac-friendly development that much harder. I just discovered this today when I was going to try to make my Windows-Linux dual-boot into a Windows-Linux-Mac triple-boot, and I am pissed. This sucks for developers and makes it that much harder to design CSS (or anything else) for multiple platforms.
I wonder why we don't hear that much railing on Apple for these restrictions...
Like most of Apple's iPod/ITMS-related endeavors, this will probably be highly successful. Apple might have spent 15 years getting pushed around by the PC market, and to a certain extent its recent successes have only happened as it has given in and adopted Intel and Windows pre-installations, but it has consistently made all the right moves with iPod/ITMS, and has consistently been in the driver's seat there. While Microsoft's plans to compete with ITMS will keep Apple on its toes, all indications are that they will be able to fend off the competition.
Concerns that have been raised on this list so far can all be addressed:
Argument: People want to own their media, they don't want to rent it for an established period of time or viewing. That is why subscription services like those offered by Real and Napster have been less successful that ITMS, which sells the content outright. People will hate a subscription service that puts them in a world of red tape.
Response: One big reason for Apple's success has been its ability to understand that consumers hate complex technology and complex agreements. One of the reasons the iPod was so successful was that it is such a simplistic model, both in terms of hardware and the ITMS. The contrast with other companies is very clear, and I think this parody drives that point home better than I can do. If Apple goes with a subscription service for movies, they will present it in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. That goes a long way toward improving consumer confidence. Also, unlike music, people often "rent" movies, so the concept is a familiar one, and will be embraced by consumers if the price is low enough to make the restriction worth it. Also, if Apple is smart it will continue to fight to sell outright ownership copies alongside the rentals, to give people a choice. Finally, it is well-known that the ITMS DRM can be subverted by burning a copy to a disk and then ripping it back - so Apple will probably disable burning for subscription files, but outright owners will probably retain that option in the worst case scenario. I'm not saying this is an ideal solution, and others are right to point out that this makes consumers captive to Apple, but on a purely objective level, if the IMMEDIATE terms don't seem too restrictive, people will ignore potential long-term harms. (Also, if Apple decides to eliminate that loophole, it will probably still be possible to find an earlier ITMS version that still contains it.)
Argument: The resolution on videos sold by ITMS is way too low for people to want to buy movies from them.
Response: I actually completely agree. I have only bought a couple of TV shows from Apple as a result of this problem. However, I think that the movie sales and/or subscriptions will be released in tandem with the new, larger-screen video iPod, with higher resolution on all offerings to boot. That said, for it to really be worth it, the resolution has to be higher than what even this larger-screen iPod can display. It really does need to be sold at basic DVD quality (higher quality is too much to hope for at this point, but "DVD Quality" is good enough for consumers right now). People might buy TV shows at low quality because they're not available anywhere else until years after airing, but DVD's are available in DVD quality in many locations. Apple does need to get beyond the paradigm of selling videos intended only for the iPod video, and start selling for computer viewing. But, again, I think they will probably do this. Certainly they will never sell the videos at 320 X 240. They know that would make them a joke.
Argument: Bandwidth is not high enough for this.
Response: Previews can be offered in lower quality. The people consuming the most bandwidth will be paying for the downloads, so it will be worth it to Apple. They are also paying for their DSL. (IMHO, this is why net neutrality is a bad idea, b
To realize how unremarkable the expansion of the IP number set is, think about the lack of fanfare that occurred when ISBN numbers (used to identify books) went from 10 digits to 13 digits, effectively for the same reason. It didn't get as much press because it wasn't high tech so average people didn't think it was revolutionary (which it wasn't, and neither is this, really, except that such a big number looks cool when you write it out).
This article is actually on the front page of the Drudge Report right now (www.DrudgeReport.com), a heavily trafficked news website that is read by a lot of politicos. I think that the intended humor here was that the rest of the world just learned about IPV6, when it has been around for a lot of time. I'm guessing a couple years from now there will be headlines about the "new DVD's" that can store 50+ gigabytes of information on them. "That sort of capacity ought to last us for a while."
And before everybody jumps on me, I meant to say that Microsoft may continue to have a near-monopoly on operating systems (which I would characterize as 80% or higher share). Windows will be the last thing to go if Microsoft ever goes under.
For Intel's sake, I hope those managers were really not worthwhile. Because cost-cutting efforts like this can come back to bite you if it means you lose the brains of your operation in the process. Unless Intel had a thousand people sitting around who were little more than paper pushers, this will inevitably negatively impact the company's growth potential in the future. After all, sectors of the company that are "not profitable" right now might be sectors that would have become highly profitable with additional research.
(BTW, A tangential point re: the sub-thread about previous antitrust complaints about Intel, and how in retrospective they were overblown now that Intel is losing market share... you might even be able to say the same thing about Microsoft. It's been "big and bad" for 10-15 years now, but look at what is happening to its market share. Internet Explorer is losing share to Firefox, and within a year or so, OpenOffice.org will do the same thing to Microsoft Office. It might still have a monopoly on operating systems, but it will hardly be the behemoth people have always thought of it as. Intel and Microsoft are showing us that big companies can be toppled by competitive rivals more quickly now than in the past.)
Anonymous Coward is ok if you just want social privacy. As long as you are not breaking the law or threatening to do so, and as long as you assume that the ISP and the host of the website you are posting to don't care enough to do their own investigative research, and as long as nobody is doing a professional job of sniffing your packets (in other words, in normal situations), you can still have anonymity. There are just limits to it.
Very well. Back to the drawing board for me, I guess... clearly, IANAL.
PS: Thanks to all for the corrections, I do appreciate the opportunity to learn from my errors.
I think you fail to grasp the fact that I was making a joke. I actually understand the terms of the GPL very well, having researched it for my startup. The premise of my joke was that the DOD had directed its contractors to develop missile defense systems under the GPL free software license, and was then obligated as a customer of those contractors to release the code. In the real world this would probably never happen, since even if they chose the GPL (which I doubt they would), I believe DOD could simply break the license if "national security" demanded it. Anyway, I would rather be a troll than a hysterical GNU Zealot any day...
On a more serious note, if the DOD decided to make its software open source under less restrictive open source terms (e.g. Apache-style), they would still be giving away national security secrets by the basic act of opening the source, even though they would not be obligated to release any subsequent modifications to the public. On the other hand, taking open source software and modifying it internally (and secretly) is probably a great strategy, since it tends to be more reliable and modular, IMHO.
"Bill Gates said Tuesday there was an 80 percent chance the company's next-generation operating system, Vista, would be ready in January"
Didn't they give an 80% go-ahead for release in November just a few months ago?