In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:50:45 +0100
<1582635.8kz1KB56PK@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> ____/ [H]omer on Saturday 25 August 2007 22:48 : \____
>
>> Verily I say unto thee, that The Ghost In The Machine spake thusly:
>>
>>> [3] Microsoft wouldn't give a damn, either, unless something cuts
>>> into their profits.
>>
>> But they obviously /do/ give a damn, since they seem to be spending
>> *huge* resources on lobbying and disinformation in an attempt to
>> monopolise protocols and standards. If those standards are locked-in to
>> one particular platform - /their platform/ - then that guarantees the
>> future sustainability of the status quo (i.e. monopoly for life). Take
>> away those closed standards, and replace them with Open Standards which
>> are accessible on /all/ platforms, and the monopoly is crushed ...
>> paving the way to the domination of Open Platforms. This would most
>> certainly "cut into their profits".
>>
>> Closer examination reveals that OOXML is not as "open" as it pretends to
>> be, Sliverlight depends on .NET encumbered technologies, MDF is
>> similarly encumbered, and one of the biggest threats to interoperability
>> and digital Freedom - Windows Media - is as closed as they come.
>>
>> Microsoft technology is like a slow acting toxin, causing a creeping
>> paralysis that reaches into every corner of society. But Microsoft
>> thinks that just because they stick a "Good For You" label on the
>> bottle, that everyone will drink it. Some of us aren't so gullible.
>
> They even use names like "Silverlight" to quiet down the mob. It's also
> MS-DRM-dependent, among other things. There is a whole big stack of lock-ins
> and it was quietly integrated into Vista. This lockin 'conspiracy' must be
> fought against sooner rather than later.
>
The issues are multiple, and transcend Microsoft. Granted,
Microsoft is one pivot point in all this, but consider what
people want to *do* with their computer equipment (or with
certain other equipment that happens to have a computer
doing the heavy lifting -- recall that microprocessors
are very cheap nowadays).
- View shows, movies, and clips. The Internet (as usual)
is turning the world of broadcast media upside-down,
and a fair number will probably fail in the process.
An ugly side effect, apparently, is the increasing cable
bill; not sure how much of that is legitimate expense,
how much of that is transfer payments to the producers,
and how much of that is outright graft. DSL isn't that
much better in that respect, and one can generalize
the problem; are we paying for bandwidth maintenance or
for something majorly extra? This dovetails into the
Network Neutrality debate as well. It's gonna get messy,
especially with free, unsecured Wi-Fi edging into the mix.
- Listen to their favorite music, clips, and shows.
Old-style radio theater is probably nonexistent (except
as archives), but presumably a lot of radio shows will
provide archive clips, for a fee. (Certainly my favorite
morning show does.) The issues are similar to video,
although the bandwidth is somewhat less.
- View printed text. The whole point of the Web was at
one point to disseminate printed materials. I'm not
sure where hyperlinking and embedded images (and later
embedded objects) came into the picture, although the
Amiga (I forget the name of the wordprocessor, but it
could process anim files, which made for some interesting
notions of what a "document" is), had some interesting
notions in that realm way back when; it just didn't do
it in a standard fashion.
- Grab and process raw data. The more sophisticated
individuals (accountants, software developers, 3D design
workers) will want various formats of model file,
budgetary data, source code. Scientists might want
measurements from various sources. Artists might want
something that they can turn into art, which might come
from raw data (the USGS presumably publishes various
things which can be recolorized if necessary, or just
taken as is; NASA and EIA presumably publish similar data
for other planets, or from satellites orbiting our own).
- Play synthetic scenarios ("games" for most of us).
Depending on manufacturer, this could be a genuine
simulation (POVRAY, to some extent; also SimCity,
SimAnt, and Lincity; Eternal Lands also fits into
this pigeonhole, although not all that well because
it is a MMORPG), a constrained/directed simulation
(Unreal Tournament in single-player mode, Nexuiz in
campaign mode, Quake, DOOM, etc.), or just a board game
variant with enough artificial intelligence to make life
interesting (Gnu chess).
- Yak at somebody, and maybe have someone yak back.
Depending on technology, this could be an old-fashioned
phone call, or texting. Sex might be considered as a
form of yakking, if one includes such things as chats
in various less-than-proper-but-never-mind areas, and
casual sex from nearby Bluetoothers. (There is a line
here, though; some of those areas include forced rape
and pedophelia-on-request.)
I won't dsicuss the current political situation as it's not
directly relevant, beyond mentioning the Youtube debates.
That's a bit of a stunt but we'll probably have more
of such, and remember who has control of the questions.
It's not the Youtuber (they're raw fodder and in a sense
minable); it's the question selector. Presumably a large
number of questions were left on the equivalent of the
cutting-room floor during the debate prep. Spin it right,
and things could get very interesting -- and not in a
good way.
The good news: AFAICT, DRM is being roundly rejected.
Presumably part of that is the peculiarly US notion of
innocent until proven guilty (augmented by various bad
press issues and technical missteps; Sony in particular
issued a rootkit (!), and the authorities arrested DJ
Drama, who apparently is being charged under RICO statutes
for little more than borrowing clips without asking for
licensing first), and part of it is simply the current
technical nonfeasibility of implementing it without
significant performance degradation, bookkeeping on the
user's part, or both.
The bad news: I doubt DRM's been quite rejected yet. Also,
there's no particular reason why a popular microprocessor
couldn't be turned out that would, by law, require DRM
surveillance features of some sort; these features would
include extra bus lines and checking hardware to ensure
that no copyrighted non-ASCII data (ASCII has some
problems, for various reasons, and is a loophole big
enough to drive an aircraft carrier through, if they're
naive about it!) passes through its system without prior
authorization from the owner thereof. Such a system would
end up being a bodge squared, in my opinion; hopefully the
genie's way out of the bottle by now and not recapturable.
However, someone might get the bright idea that they just
need a larger butterfly net...
Unfortunately we're not exactly the most competent
(present company excepted, hopefully!) when it comes
to reading about tiny complexities in the law regarding
Network Neutrality and other such, which can be spun in
various methods -- the simplest one being "free market"
versus "equal access". Who owns the airwaves, cables,
and information, really?
Welcome to the New World Order. My brain hurts.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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