…and you better be prepared!
Another example, how disoriented people in wrong departments are totally confused by this:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2051196,00.html

“But you give it away for free, this must be a crime…!”

Take some words of wisdom (Bob Dylan, emphasise mine):

“Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’…”

Java is the cream of programming languages in the 21st century!

http://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index

What this report also shows, is that Microsoft has again come too late and with the wrong strategy (NON-open programming languages tied to environment and ie with NON-standard languages = dotnet) to try and react to the ongoing wildfire-spreading of JAVA everywhere.

I think JAVA will continue to dominate by far (like Apache does for webservers) and this is because of the maturity, rich- and openess of the whole Java-ecosystem.

Look at the availability of 1st-class tools like Eclipse, JBoss, ApacheGeronimo, Tomcat, just to name a few.
And whats best: Most of them are FREE as in freedom AND cost 0 cent AND run on Free LinuxServers – what more could you ask for?

Edit: Having discovered that beautiful analysis debunking MicroSoft, I found it interesting to read about it here:
http://aaxnet.com/editor/edit029.html#dotnet

As you can see 3 years later on tiobe.com, C# fails miserably in coming even close as an alternative…Good luck to anyone having build their company’s future success on that one!

Now this could get interesting in the long run:

OpenSource Car

What it shows is that a community-driven project can take on any form and produce any good.
What else is a business, but a big (non-free) community?

Recently, a discussion has come up, if something so effective and powerfull as GNU/Linux could be linked to a communistic ideal opposing the ‘good virtues’ of corporate business, especially US.

My personal view is:
There are some important differences in those two words, although they appear to be similar for astethic reasons: communistic as in community…

Where communism forces anyone to participate by artifically shutting down the free markets, community-driven projects force others to respond only by competing and succeeding in a corporate envirenmont on their own merits!

So communism has something artifical to it, where community is something natural, evolutionary.
Also note that for example the GPL-community doesn’t exclude anyone, but offers the choice for anyone to join or not to join, be it an individual or a big business (eg, IBM).

“By using FOSS, you’re propagating Communism-
A Reminder of Monopoly-convicted Software Giant MS”

Few days ago, I began musing about computers.
I will continue this today and try to make my thoughts straight.

Before I go on, I would like to introduce a few terms for better understanding:

I like to call a production-device a DA-Device, since it converts information from Binary (or Digital) to Analog. A scanning-device is referred to as AD-Device.

The process of industrialization

Since the beginning of the industrialization, production has gotten more and more automatized and concentrated.
Computers and robots are becoming vital parts in most modern manufacturing of goods.

Now the concentration of the equipments necessary to produce goods in large quantities (machines, production-assets, robots) has come to a turning point in some markets. With the continuing trend of miniaturization in the computing-devices industry, a new generation of production-devices will eventually become so small to be afford- and deployeable by a wide range of individuals. These individuals sum up easily to mass-production.

The trend can be shown as a gauss-curve:

The left half of the curve shows the concentration-process.

But at a certain point, the trend seems to be reversed.

I think, what happens is this:
When a DA-device has reached the potential to be mass-marketed, the trend of concentration is opposed by a new trend: That of the individual mini-mass production.
The DA-device spreads and mimics the functionality of that big machines.

Whats happening to the Music-Industry

Take a look whats happening to the music-industry:
The rise of the CD-burner (DA-device) has a great influence to that market.
Together with the Internet, it has the potential to circumvent an entire industry, which itself has come close to reaching the high-point on that gauss-curve by concentrating more and more power in the hands of a few big record-labels. There are discussions, that those few left will have to combine powers to one source in their struggle to counter the new freedom of their costumers.
For sure, such a final concentration would yield in tremendous power and be severly at odds with that self-proclaimed ‘balance of competing markets’.

So why is the media-industry facing this mechanism?
First, it’s because its main products (sound, pictures, moving-pictures) are relatively easy to be digitized with common technology.
Second, the digitized results can be consumed by anyone because the necessary DA-devices already come with every computer: Screens and soundcards.
The third reason is the ease of distribution of digital content:
The ability for the computing devices to be used to store and transport information
(either physically by exchanging a CD, smartcard, etc. or virtually via wired or wireless access)
without losing quality has made widespread distribution possible.
But it is the internet that is taking the same role as distribution, sharing and collaboration-channel like it has done with regards to the success of the Free software.

For the MI to survive in such an environment and retain their status quo, they have to try and cut down this communication-process or at least severly reduce its effectiveness.
For this they need to change the environment and basically make it totally unfree by doing 3 things:

1.) Implement DRM into all AD-devices to control the digitalization-process.
This is so no content already published analog may be digitized by ‘unauthorized’ persons. At the same time, the content industry has to switch from broadcasting analog signals to digital-only themselves rather to continue delivering analog content and allow someone else to digitize the content.
They can then decide how the digital content gets ‘tainted’ by watermarks or scramble it (DeCSS).

2.) Implement DRM into all computing-devices (mini and macro), to control the flow and usage of information.

3.) Implement DRM into all DA-devices to control the output.

The last point maybe the hardest to control, because for most information to be useful, it has to be transformed back to analog (think of music) which means losing some or all control. So 1 and 3 must go together hand in hand to ensure nothing ‘leaks’.

This seems all very unlikely now, but the industry is getting there with massive steps:

– Getting rid of analog medias, like television, radio, etc. and move them to the digital plane.
– Publish content only in digital form.
– declare copying without DRM illegal and make laws to punish those who think otherwise

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004409.php
what users think of this announcement
and this comment, that says it all…

The question is: What’s going to stop us from the RIAA’s disposal?

On a simple level, one can regard a typical computer as a mathematical computing and storage device.
It can use data as input, do some calculation and store the processed data again.

Analog <–> Digital <–> Analog

The computer operates on a binary level.
It therefore has to convert any input to a binary format.

Input-devices transform analog data into the digital, binary language a computing device can understand.
Think of scanning pictures or capturing sound-waves.

On the other end, the computer can output stored data as ‘information’.
In order to do so, it makes use of so called ‘production-devices’ to convert the binary data to useful information again.
I would like to call them DA-devices.
Think of a screen, a soundcard connected to your speakers or a printer.
A printer, on a closer look, can print out a book, by transforming the information (a good SF-story) on pieces of paper, ink and electricity.

Such a production-device transforms information stored inside the computer with the use of consumptional goods back into ‘real’ or analog commodities.
Note that this function may be limited or prevented when surveyed by a so called DigitalRestrictionManagement = DRM.

As you may confirm by your own experience, there are many differences between information inside the computer and analog commodities.
For example, you can use the ‘produced’ goods without the computer itself.
The digital data can be used over and over to make many ‘produced’ goods out of one set of digital information.
You can also vary the quality (eg. resolution, black-white, color) for your produced goods, when you have different DA-devices.

This is whats happening everyday with millions of computers and DA-devices all over the world.

Miniaturization

Many times, you transfer information from or to the computer from or to another digital device, like a mobile phone or a camera.
These devices could be seen as mini-computers.
They classify as this although they maybe trimmed down and only good for certain functions. This is done to make them portable.
Whenever a ‘full-grown’ computer is not useable (cable-connection to the powerstation), a minicomputer might do the trick.

With continuing trend of minituriazation and the rise of the minicomputers, its necessary to digitize more and more information and keep it digital through all device-transfers.
In order to be useful, the devices must be compatible for each device that is storing the data at that time.

Welcome to my weblog !

On this blog, I’ll share my personal thoughts for anyone interested to read.
Most of the time, I’ll keep on musing about technology and its influence on the economical progress and add my personal opinions to it.
What you’ll likely find here is information you already know with my view what it means for you and me…

Feel free to share your thoughts, since not much changed from the day when mankind first saw the dawn of the earth:

We’re all in it together!