Comment Re:Linux? (Score 1) 444
Exactly why would we need a GNU/Linux version of Chrome? GNU/Linux already has very good browsers such as Epiphany, developed by dedicated free software communities.
If I can lock down my laptop, then how long until criminals and crackers find a way to lock it down as well using the same technology as a new DoS attack?
I think the problem of theft can be solved very easily by just not storing any data on any local machine, store everything on your own servers instead.
I charge my PDA exclusively using solar power, but unfortunately that's all I can use solar power for, as for anything bigger I would have to have huge solar cells. Similarly, wind power is great, but it's difficult to collect lots of power from wind farms unless you devote lots of space for them.
The problem of efficiency is well-known and much-discussed, but solar and wind power also have some disadvantages that most people don't consider: they attach us too much to the environment. What will happen if the environment suddenly changes? Solar power isn't going to work after a major supervolcanic eruption, no matter where you are on the planet, except if we develop solar power with artifician suns on Earth (ie artificial small Dyson spheres). Wind power assumes that the wind patterns will remain the same, but a major climatic change could affect the current wind patterns so we would have to build new windfarms. Additionally, I am very concerned about wind power because it could prove fatal for many birds.
I do not think there is a single solution to our power needs. I believe that the best solution is to use a mixture of many power sources so that we are not dependent on any single source: 10% oil (as long as we still have it), 10% coal, 10% gas, 10% nuclear, 10% solar, 10% wind, 10% geothermal, 10% hydro, and so on, or maybe just have a slight bias in favour of solar/wind.
I also believe that it would be much better to have decentralised power grids, ie every human should be able to produce enough power for themselves plus some more that would be delivered to a worldwide power grid. Centralised power generation means massive plants with massive pollution around them, but if we decentralise power generation then there would be no pollution hotspots and any generated pollution could be cleaned easily by natural means (the wind etc). Decentralising power generation also enhances the probability of having surviving communities after a major catastrophe such as a big asteroid impact.
The US government releases its stuff as public domain material.
The EU governments do not. UK government has Crown Copyright. Other governments have normal copyright. (IANAL).
This means that as free culture gets more popular and people spend more of their time reading free publications rather than proprietary publications, the US government has a hige advantage in being able to provide these free publications with free content, effectively projecting the US culture to the world.
But the EU governments do not have this ability so easily, they cannot easily project their culture to the world through free publications because their cultural works are not free.
Governments know very well how important it is to project their culture to the world (this is why all governments open offices or companies in other countries that promote their language, etc), and EU governments understand that now that free publications are on the rise and people get more influenced by free publications than by proprietary publications, they must do anything possible to be able to influence the free publications in promoting their own culture instead of the US culture.
EU governments are now realising that their restrictive copyright that applies to government material places them at a disadvantage compared to the US in influencing world culture. The obvious solution is to change their laws, but this may take time, so for the short-term the EU governments may be thinking that making specific donations under a free licence is a good idea while they are trying to decide how best to balance the US cultural dominance in free publications (because the US federal stuff is free, many wikis and other free publications make extensive use of US federal stuff, effectivelly helping promoting the US culture and the US government's worldview and history).
But such moves are not enough. You can't beat the US public domain cultural projection with one-off free donations of cultural works. EU governments must quickly make all their stuff public domain by default if they want people in the world to be influenced more by EU culture and not only by US culture.
Why not invent your own language? It's easy (every CS student can do it, albeit I'm not so sure about IT students). You can invest your time in learning about compiler design rather than about a particular language, and then go forward and build your very own programming language.
This experience will introduce you to the most important difference between the GNU/Linux and Windows worlds: the GNU/Linux people are creative, but the Windows people expect everything to be provided by their vendor ready for consumption.
Most sane businesses should have realized by now that they really only need the standard set (.com/.net/.org), plus the country TLDs for the countries where they're actually doing business.
I really cannot comprehend why one would want a ccTLD. com/net/org work just fine. In fact com/org are all we need, anything else is not needed IMO. Is it so difficult to set up a com/org and put a menu or homepage there asking the user the language and geography they want to use? For direct access use language/geography subdomains like en.example.org. Internet is supposed to be a world-wide medium, so I really see no value in maintaining domain names limiting you to a specific geography. Internet is globalisation at its finest and ccTLDs should be expired and replaced by non-geography specific TLDs.
Text message will ensure that all the details get there, not some garbled, half-heard phone call.
There is a serious problem, though: text messages may never get to the destination or may get there late, in case the text server is busy or unavailable, and the most serious problem is that you won't know that someone had tried to text you. With phone calls, at least, you know when the line gets cut off by network problems, but with text messages you can never know unless you were expecting a particular message. There is also no guarantee that you will receive the text messages in the order they were sent, if the server has problems.
Essentially texting has very similar problems to email when the email servers and intermediaries don't work correctly.
So, imagine getting the instructions for reattaching the arm before the instructions for removing it, while the instructions for cutting the bone were never delivered at all...
GNU/Linux does not have a market share because it operates out of the market. A few GNU/Linux distributions are commercial and therefore can have market share, but the majority of distros operate in out of the market. GNU/Linux is out of the market because it is not a product. Rather, GNU/Linux is an act of free speech, an act of love and passion, and a gift.
So, counting the market share of GNU/Linux has no meaning, since it's not a product. Calling it a competitor to any other OS is also wrong, for the same reason. Calling free software products of competitors are propaganda terms designed to make decision makers believe that GNU/Linux could potentially be subject to regulations about products. But if they suceed in this, then they can cook some new regulation that would effectivelly ban GNU/Linux. Don't let them do this, call GNU/Linux and free software what it really is: free speech, not a product, and therefore protected as free speech rather than subject to product regulations.
Just to tell you an example, suppose a new regulation says that all products must contain encryption that is X bits powerful and the keys be submitted to a central repository, but that the product must take precautions not to let its users discover the keys. Such a regulation would apply on products (IANAL: I am not a lawyer), but what if you printed a book with your words that just happen to be the secret keys? Free speech is protected so printing a book must be ok (IANAL: I am not a lawyer). Now, if someone comes and say "look you hackers, you created an OS and you put it online for download, therefore you have put a product in the market, therefore you must hide the secret key" that would be a cause of trouble if they suceed in labelling free software packages as products. But free software in my view is not a product, it is an exercise of free speech.
So, next time someone labels your free software a product, a market participant, or a competitor to their products, just tell them the truth: your free software was never supposed to be viewed as a product, your free software is instead only an act of free speech, and the fact that it is available online is an exercise of the right of assembly and communication with other people, as well as a gift.
In a similar way, product regulations may say that new TVs should do this and that, but if you are an engineer and you build your own homebrew TV at home and you just want to post its blueprints online to share your passion with fellow homebrew engineers then your creations should be treated as free speech rather than as an attempt to enter the market, therefore in my view amateurs should not be subject to product and market regulation rules in the same way as commercial players are.
Of course I have absolutely no idea whether this line of thinking would make any sense in a legal setting about questions of applicability of product regulations on free software, as I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
Many people install TVs and DVDs, as well as PCs in their cars now, with TFT screens. Should we also see screens banned?
Gee, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
