Thursday, March 27, 2003

Microsoft and NT security updates There is some news today about Microsoft announcing that they will probably not provide a security patch for a known DNS liability. NT 4.0 server is supposed to have an end of life (no further support) next January, so it is easy to see Microsoft's reluctance here. I see some similarity between Microsoft and Apple in actions, if not motivation. Apple is basically struggling to survive (this is not a flame - I am typing now on my iBook) and needs revenue from new versions of OS X. Microsoft depends on a constantly increasing stock price to maintain value of their stock options, so they can keep very good staff at reasonable salaries. So, Microsoft also requires revenue from OS upgrades. Perhaps a yearly licensing scheme would work. I really like SuSE Linux (by far my favorite distro). They charge a small and reasonable price, then updates are free for a long time (I am using a 2 year old distro, and they still provide live online updates for my distro). I have been a little preoccupied by software licenses lately because I have been trying to figure out exactly how I am going to market the product that I am working on (KBportal). I think that I am going to use a yearly licensing fee - customers who stop paying the fee will stop getting free updates and support. I tried really hard to find a business model for open sourcing the KBportal, but I could not come up with one. 2:15:59 PM

"Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty." Benjamin Franklin said: "Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty." Right on Ben! I fear terrorism as much as the next person, but I agree with Franklin. Although we all want our families safe, above all else, I don't think that a little extra security is worth sacrificing any of our constitutional freedoms. BTW, I am in the minority on this one, but: I do not see 9-11 as a failure of our security organizations. The CIA, NSA, and FBI have always done a professional and competent job - at least after the J. Edgar Hoover era. We do not need to give up liberties, as proposed by the right wing extremists in our country, in order to achieve a high probability of safety. 2:00:06 PM

Now is time to treat Guantanamo Bay detainees as POWs. Chess and Go In order to provide maximum safety to our troups fighting abroad, I think that now is probably the time to start treating the 660 detainees in Guantánamo Bay as POWs with protections granted under the Geneva Convention. For my work, I train and test my NLP software on news feeds from both the U.S. and around the world. This gives me, I believe, a perspective that many people in the U.S. do not have on general world opinion. We get an enormous amount of very bad (world) press over the treatment of the detainees. We are condemed by every human rights organization on the planet. I feel that the advantages of holding the detainees without any communication with anyone are now outweighed by my desire to see our captured troups, not just in Iraq, but everywhere given maximum protection. (I understand that the Iraq regime acts without moral authority of any type what so ever - but, they might still be influenced slightly by the Arab world and trading partners like Russia and France.) Having the rest of the world (except for the U.K. - mostly) calling us hypocrits over human rights can only be bad for our troups who are working overseas. Anyway, I believe this to be in our national interests. I believe that we must pay attention to "public relations" on a global scale. (I am, BTW, an avid Chess and Go(1) player - if you are going to play the game, play it right. We are not playing this "game" (in the game theory sense, not to make light of the current Iraq war situation) to our advantage; rather, we are playing stupidly.) (1) BTW, I wrote the first commercial Go playing program, "Honninbo Warrior" for the Apple II in the late 1970s. I also wrote the free Chess program Apple distributed on their Apple II demo cassette tape. 12:59:33 PM

© Copyright 2003 Mark Watson. Last update: 9/16/03; 7:35:20 AM.