Not disagreeing with you, but want to clear up what it means to make cloud storage, or any type of server storage, secure and inaccesible from court orders:

In the case of dropbox, data is stored encrypted, but the server software holds the encryption keys so it can serve the data to clients unencrypted. This means subpeanas and other legal/law enforcement actions can access the data by going to the server operators, who likely will not challenge the order.

If you instead encrypt the data client side before you send it to the server, then everyone who accesses the data must also have the key.
What if you want to revoke access for one person? You have to download the data client side, decrypt/re-encrypt with a new key, reupload, provide key to remaining sharers. So this technique only really works for data that you do not share, i.e. just your personal stuff, and is essentially what people do now when they encrypt data before uploading it to dropbox.

Asymmetric techniques don't really apply here unless you're only sharing with one party. You combined your private key and their public key to encrypt the data, then only they can decrypt it. This does not work when dealing with 3 or more parties, unless some are going to share the same key for one side of the asymmetric encryption, in which case you're back to the same problem we had with sharing a symmetric key.

"shouldn't cost us knowledge"

Oh I comprehend, that he thinks the content belonged to "us". If it does, then he his welcome to setup hist own host and host that content. Nothing is lost if you exercised your right to make a copy under the CC license, assuming it was licensed that way. If not, then it didn't belong to us.

Who the fuck are you to say this or that entity is obligated to be your personal content host? It's not your fucking server. If I run a website, and I decide that an article is out of date and I take it down, that's might right as the owner of that server. Fuck you.

Content and knowledge are related, but are not the same. If someone stops delivering content, that doesn't mean the knowledge is lost.

What you don't comprehend is the distinction between having knowledge, and actually where it is hosted.

This is not like we've taken every written record of physics and banned it. 1) You are still free to host the content at your own free will. 2) That "knowledge" exists in many other forms, so even if was not licensed the knowledge is not lost.

So your point is, if twisted juuust right, any slashdot article can somehow be an opportunity for someone to bitch about Obama.

You don't own the content. You might have access to it under a CC license, but you don't own it. If MIT wants to take it down, that's their right. The fact that you think you should have some say in the matter is bullshit.

That and "associated maintenance shops, administrative space, storage space, 5-ton bridge crane, oil/water separator, aircraft container and forklift storage, UAV runway, taxiway, access apron, oil and hazardous waste storage buildings, vehicle storage facilities, organizational vehicle parking, and overhead protection/canopy"

Servers always work to reduce bandwidth usage. Bandwidth is expensive when you're talking thousands of users.

Smaller images means faster transfer and faster load times, especially for mobile.

Just look at all the efforts put into bundling/compression/etc. Some companies go as far as reducing all their CSS class names to 3 or less characters. These have different purposes though not always directly related to bandwidth reduction. Bundling is more about reducing the number of HTTP requests than reducing bandwidth though, since it bundles multiple requests for CSS/JS into single request for each, because each HTTP request consumes server resources.

Usage is larger than it used to be as well. Now vast majority of people have a computer in their pocket at all times and access internet much more frequently than the age of desktops, when there was one computer per family accessed intermittently.

Many mobile data connections have lower bandwidth than traditional ground connections, although a few are faster.

As for as harddrives, the pervasiveness of digital cameras being on every phone in many pockets, means a tremendous increase in # pictures being taken. Storage on phones is higher $/gb than hard drives. Usually these make their way onto a server such as instagram or facebook, who each would be interested in reducing storage size, as the $/gb is high when you consider that data likely has at least two forms of redundancy.

The popular version you hear on radio all the time doesn't sound like this to me, but there is another version that is on the box set that really sounds like this to me.

"A subscription adds one more point of weakness.
Change banks or get a new credit card for any reason, and you have one more account to update. Forget to update, and your computers may not work."

Certainly articulated better than parent, who only vaguely implied what kind of mistake he was referring to. I however addressed this as well: "Maybe you were trying to speak to some sort of DRM failure month-to-month". Microsoft has so far not disabled Windows as a result of being unlicensed. I just recently cloned a VM for local testing and the MAC address changed, and they flagged me as being unlicensed. The only thing they did was disable updates until I reactivated. I was still able to fully and completely use the OS. My point, since I obviously have to lay it out for you illiterates: Microsoft does not prevent you from using your software due to a licensing issue that occurs after initial activation. So until details are revealed about the new pricing/licensing model, anything else it pure speculation, and the evidence we have so far is that their policy is to only block updates, which is only a temporary issue since if they follow existing processes, make it very easy to reactivate.

"Your argument of "other things can break too" is pointless."

That was not my argument. My point was that pricing model has little correlation with uptime, and gave examples of what does correlate with uptime.

As far as AutoCAD breaking, the parent tried to imply somehow a fixed upfront cost is less risky than a monthly cost. The point I was making with AutoCAD, was that the same licensing deactivation error/failures are a risk with upfront pricing models as well. The pricing model again is irrelevant. The risk of software failing as a result of a licensing issue has a lot more to do with how their DRM works, than how you pay for the software.

"As many of our parents probably stated in the past, "If AutoCAD jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?""
I at no point advocated that others should follow the model that AutoCAD does. So no, I'm not saying others should do as AutoCAD does. Where did you get that? Just how illiterate are you? Everything about your reply shows you are incapable of the most basic reading comprehension. The only thing I said about AutoCAD was " Just search around for all the issues people have with AutoCAD related to activation." How is that in anyway me suggesting people do the same asAutoCAD?

Whether you choose a fixed up front cost, or a reoccurring cost, you still are at risk for licensing issues. Whether that issue brings your computers down is also not related to pricing model, because from one company to another, their policies differ. Some will block you from support/updates, others will block you from using the software. If you are only looking at the pricing model, then you are ignoring other potential risk factors that are of greater concern. So no my argument is not "other things can break too", but is instead that you should look at the company's other policies for dealing with licensing issues.

If there is a licensing issue, do they prevent you from using the software? We've seen repeatedly terribly implemented DRM that despite the fact you already paid for the software, still breaks. So no my argument is not "other things can break too", but is that the pricing model is the wrong factor to look at.

So let's follow your logic. Company X offers you an OS for $1200 upfront, but they have draconian DRM/licensing and when a failure occurs the software is unusable. Company Y offers you an OS for $100 a month for a 12 month contract, and if they're DRM/licensing allows you to use the software even if a failure is detected, so long as you resolve it within 30 days. You being the illiterate person you are fail to read and comprehend the hundreds of articles warning people of the risks of using Company X's OS, and go ahead and buy it, because you don't like the idea of a month to month fee for Y's OS. Because of X's buggy DRM, you suffer repeated downtime and lose lots of $ because you are illiterate.

"support and development just stops as all the ADD kids jump at the new toy"

We'll assume you means support and development of the language specification/Compilers/IDEs/etc.

Agreed that if there's not a solid backing either through a large community or major corporations, then yeh you'd be an idiot to invest production code in a a language that might not have longevity. This is not a risk unique to high level languages. This is a risk with any language that doesn't have a mature and committed community or corporation supporting it.

""five years down the road someone will fork the fork and you can throw all your code away"

I would be interested in examples of major languages that went this way, and why code had to be wholesale thrown away?

Let's assume by fork, you mean forking the language specification and/or compiler. Someone forking shouldn't cause you to need to throw away code. You would only have to throw your code away if the new fork became so popular that maintainers of the upstream decided to abandon their language and maintain the fork, AND you were of the opinion that the old upstream compiler/specification was not matured enough for you to stick with it.

Even if you switched to the forked compiler, I can only imagine a childish tantrum resulting in someone throwing away their code over some compiler errors that required minor syntax changes. You sound just like that type of person. If anything usually some clever regex will solve this problem. Although I agree, it's a good sign you were an idiot for choosing a language supported by those who do not value backward compatibility, and/or you invested production code into a language that was still in early development when backwards compatibility is usually not a primary goal.

These are attributes of niche languages. There are some low level languages that have been created as experiments, proof-of-concept, etc. that suffer from the same issues. C-- was a lowlevel languages created to try and implement common compiler algorithms for reuse, which is now dead. Ambitious little projects without enough of an audience to gain traction, and eventually the maintainer's time is directed elsewhere and it dies(the language, not the maintainer).

Those are attributes of niche languages, not of high level languages.

"That'll never happen with your C code."

You've not been around very long OR you've never tried to leverage some really old C code and had to fix hundred of compiler errors to get it up to speed. Now usually that's more of an issue with the code not being written to be very portable, but there's nothing inherent about C that makes it any more immune to the portability issues that high level languages suffer from when bad programmers get their fingers in there. Code that compiled fine 10 years ago often won't compile anymore if it's not been maintained, because the more common compiler options are vastly different. You've not been around the block if you've had to maintain someone's really old code and had your compile seg fault the first attempt to compile it.

In fact, I'd say writing portable code requires alot more skill in C because you're at such a low level and have to be much more knowledgeable of things that higher level languages hide from you. It probably makes you a better programmer for it, but that's about like saying beating yourself with a stick makes you tougher.

Anyway, there's lots of reasons people invent new languages. Some of them are doing it just for fun, and never intended them for production use. Proof of concepts, etc. Writing a compiler is a great learning experience.

There's nothing to be sickened by. It's not like there is some street peddler trying to get you to use some esoteric language. There might be a few misguided fools who are all excited about some language and pushing it for production use where it is inappropriate, but someone's misplaced zeal is usually no fault of the language or language designers.

" expose myself to loss of the use of my computers if a mistake is made"

How does downtime risk have anything to do with pricing model? It doesn't. No matter what OS you're using, if there is a bug, vulnerability, configuration error, administration error, etc. you have a risk. If your primary concern is desktop uptime, then usually pricing is the last factor you look at. If a business loses money when people can't use their desktops, they invest in a wide range of hardware and software to maximize uptime within a budget of what they believe is tolerable risk.

When you venture into the server world where uptime is often a major factor, then you look at some very pricey hardware like redundant power supplies, consider architectures such as failover clusters, hire administrators with lots of experience(or get managed hosting), and often pay for a support license for critical software/OS. If there is a very specific issue that affects your system, then that support license usually covers hotfixes.

Without that, when an issue comes up outside the scope of what your admin can fix, your business is losing money.

Oh it's open source? So you are going to spend how much on the salary of someone with experience in kernel programming and all the other aspects needed to cover the gambit of possible issues that arise? Hire random freelancer to fix it and hope they are reliable? Or are you one of these people that think Open Source means you have an army of personal programming minions at your whim to do as you command everytime you have an issue? No, that's what support contracts/licenses are for, and that's why even OSS has them as well.

You can cut corners in some of these respects, but it's all a balancing act of how much/frequent downtime you can tolerate and how long of turnaround time you can tolerate.

Of course you would usually not go to these extremes for desktops, but the point is if anything, the vast majority of ways you increase uptime involve spending $, not the opposite. So if you equate "have Yet Another fixed recurring expense" and "expose myself to loss of the use of my computers if a mistake is made" then that's completely invalid. Maybe you were trying to speak to some sort of DRM failure month-to-month, but that issue already exists with other licenses that are paid up front. Just search around for all the issues people have with AutoCAD related to activation.

With Windows if you change your MAC address, you have to reactivate, BUT you are still able to use the computer completely, just don't get updates until you fix the activation issue, which is usually as simple as running the Activate Windows program. So even then you aren't facing downtime.

"I run a business."
*slow clap*

This would be interesting if there were a substantial article linked that provided some depth to the story, rather than an abstract.

.NET source is freely available. If that's the standard we are measuring by.

Here's the entire web stack for example:

https://github.com/ASP-NET-MVC...

Compiler is open source to, and they are putting the BCL into an open source license as well (source code has been available, but under a non-open license previously for few years).

Bennet is this guy who writes lengthy rambling opinion pieces that slashdot repeatedly posts every week or so and despite a large outcry of how ridiculous that it is that he gets to use slashdot as his personal blog, they keep posting his crap again and again. So regardless of whether slashdot is open source, the parent poster used this particular implementation which is a system completely out of his control and acts of its own free will regardless of the will of its user base. If his considers this the measure by which "It can't really be considered a viable choice" then he is a hypocrate. He can always take the source and pay for his own dedicated server and invest the time to setup and implement his own slashdot, but it stands for now that he is using the implementation out of his control.

He is conveniently drawing a very curved line in the sand to place .NET into a realm he disapproves of while not measuring everything else he uses by the same standard.

"There is no large scale .NET app I know of"

Ever heard of stackexchange?

I can name alot of things you just used just to make that one post that are completely out of your control. Oh you think slashdot is freedom? Tired of seeing Bennet Hasslehoof make the front page? Too bad, not your choice no matter how much the community complains.

.NET has those mature components available either within the framework or as open source libraries. It has a very healthy ecosystem with lots of freedom.