The technical, legal, and administrative costs of Wikipedia are not the problem. There's plenty of funding for that, and if the site were truly in jeopardy there would be a long line of institutional donors ready to support it.

The problem is that there's a bloated global administrative organization that doesn't actually help the core projects, and which drives up costs immensely. There are people in charge of partnerships who fly around the world looking for the next great thing, trying to get the foundation's foot in the door so that the empire will expand. There's money spent handling administration, legal matters, and software maintenance for projects like WikiNews, WikiBooks and WikiSpecies that, after using up more runway than Wikipedia did before it went aloft, still don't show meaningful signs of growth and relevance. There is money and effort being spent to maintain an egalitarian spirit and level playing field by supporting Wikipedia projects in dying languages, even though there is ample evidence to show that beyond the top 100 or so languages worldwide (maybe fewer) there aren't going to be enough contributors. There is money being spent on international staff travel that serves no useful purpose beyond demonstrating that the staff is globally engaged.

Perhaps these are all laudable projects and the effort is worthwhile. But the major institutional donors don't agree, and so the money isn't coming in.

If a foundation were created with a mission limited to supporting the largest 10, 20, 50, or 100 Wikipedias plus the commons image hosting platform, using a small administrative and technical staff in a single location with a token travel budget, there would be plenty of money. There would be enough money to build an endowment.

The smaller Wikipedias, the side projects, the partnerships, the in-country "chapters" could all be spun out to succeed or fail on their own merits. But that's not the way the foundation wants it. They want something bigger.

As though Wikipedia isn't enough of a success to be worth maintaining.

I think a more realistic assessment is that the rate of growth in hard disk densities will decline.

We've had a recent article on the shortcomings of SSDs, but I think the maturity of hard disk technology and the minimum cost posed by the complicated mechanical design will make hard disks obsolete for most applications in a few more years. Hey, people thought 3.5" disks would be here forever, too.

The problem that 99designs solves is that most clients don't need a $20,000 design and don't have $20,000 to spend.

Years ago I worked for a company that made point of sale systems. They had a logo that looked like a monogram on someone's shirt. It was drawn by a marketing VP who had no design experience, in the early days of the company. Eventually it became an embarrassment and they hired a consultant who made a new logo, new letterhead, etc., for $80,000.

But the thing is that they only sold to industry and didn't need that degree of expertise. Something from 99designs would have been good enough, and if it happened to look exactly like the logo some real estate management startup in Boise, Idaho was using, too, so what. Since then I've worked for a bunch of startups and the logo and website design has always been a problem. Usually it gets done by somebody's kid or somebody's friend, because startups don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a logo unless they're selling a consumer product.

Cellulosic isn't remotely cost effective even when the source materials are free or nearly so, as when wood chips or other waste products from other industries are used.

I used to grow corn. The subsidies vary from year to year. For the last several years, they have amounted to around 5-10% of the price of corn. There are also subsidies for ethanol production itself.

One fact to consider is that pulpwood has subsidies, as well.

There have been research and "breakthroughs" in cellulosic ethanol production reported with stunning regularity since 1898. Yet, a commercially viable process remains elusive. The combination of enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation described as a breakthrough in TFPR is prior art and covered in the Wikipedia article (see link in summary).

Until the process becomes cost competitive with corn, this is just a story about some enzymes and yeast that only a zymurgy nerd could love.

We'll see whether they commercialize this before cold fusion becomes a practical source of commercial electrical power.

From TFA:

"When sold or distributed to End Users, the Integrated Product shall not [...] (c) incorporate any Publically Available Software, in whole or in part, in a manner that may subject SHOUTcast Radio or the SHOUTcast Radio Materials, in whole or in part, to all or part of the license obligations of any Publically Available Software. As used herein, the term "Publicly Available Software" means any software that contains, or is derived in any manner (in whole or in part) from, any software that is distributed as free software, open source software or similar licensing or distribution models; and that requires as a condition of use, modification or distribution that such software or other software incorporated into, derived from or distributed with such software: (1) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (2) be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (3) be redistributable at no charge." (Emphasis mine)

This is a standard provision that is part of any license agreement for commercial software, and all it says is that you can't distribute the software in a way that makes it subject to the GFDL or some other Free license.

I'm not sure what the real reason is, but the OSS provision isn't it.

We'll know it's at least OK if the FBI and CIA start lobbying congress to outlaw it.

We'll know it's pretty good if the NSA starts lobbying congress to outlaw it.

The government is absolutely convinced that law enforcement will come to a screeching halt if people can communicate casually without being subject to eavesdropping. This despite the courts' general distaste for such evidence (people rarely speak candidly in phone conversations regarding criminal enterprises and therefore establishing context and the meaning of codewords becomes a prosecutorial hurdle), and the paucity of successful prosecutions built primarily on the strength of intercepts.

So we've had cryptography treated as a munition. And clipper. And CALEA.

Of course, if the keys are on a server somewhere they can always just subpoena them.

I think most Slashdotters will agree that the Service is well within their rights to perform forensic analysis on any device that they obtain during a lawful search, whether conducted under a warrant, incidental to an arrest, or based on probable cause. I do not believe that the Service suffers a poor track record regarding extralegal searches as does INS and some other agencies.

On the other hand, the availability of an effective "remote wipe" of a personal device is a rightful means of exercising freedom.

It's about balance.