Thursday, May 15, 2003

Roll The Presses. Bitter EJB is off to the printers today. You should start seeing it on bookshelves any minute now. Hmm... what do I sink my teeth into next? [Mike Clark] 11:04:01 PM    comment []

Applied social network analysis. Somehow Eric Promislow's Amazing Baconizer escaped my attention until Eric mentioned it to me recently. [Jon's Radio] Oh my. This is WAY too addictive. I just connected Fallen by Evanescence to The Joy of Cooking: All About Chicken. It's the Oracle of Bacon for the 2000s 10:45:02 PM    comment []

LispObjC. Gary Byers discusses a couple approaches to bridging the gap between Objective C objects and Lisp objects: [lemonodor] Really cool. I haven't had a chance to play with the Python bridge yet, but I like the idea of interfacing with Mac OS. Since I'm learning Lisp this year, it would be fun to play with it by making windows and small little apps on the Mac. 10:30:15 PM    comment []

Ballmer on Linux. Refining arguments [The Register] Interesting. Microsoft is now acknowledging Linux in a few ways. They still have no plans to port any software. They are going to start pushing TCO instead of "we are cheaper to acquire" because they believe Windows environments have lower TCO. 9:54:56 AM    comment []

SCO Warns Linux Users of Legal Liability. SCO Group on Wednesday raised the stakes in its battle to prevent what it sees as the illegal and unauthorized use of its Unix technologies in the Linux operating system. [Technology News from eWEEK and Ziff Davis] This is absolutely terrible. I must admit I don't fully understand SCO's position. They may be right on. I just don't know enough about the problem. That said, here's my beef with their approach: I can understand going after IBM for infringements with respect to AIX. I can understand going after anyone for infringements. However, to me, the fair thing to do is make it unilateral. They should send notes to OSS development projects to ask them to stop using their software, they could even be cool about it and work with the projects to suggest alternate implementations. If they are going to make it an offense to use their intellectual property, they should just come out and say it to everyone. Right now it seems like they're being a little two-faced. I personally believe that people would respect their position more if they just came right out and asked everyone to stop using their intellectual property. 9:48:31 AM    comment []

Intuit Will Discontinue Product Activation. Intuit said Wednesday that it has dropped product activation and digital-rights-management software from almost all future products in response to a backlash from its customers. [Technology News from eWEEK and Ziff Davis] At least Intuit seems to be (FINALLY) getting the message. There's probably going to be alot more of companies experiencing the backlash of DRM strategies. I vaguely remember when game companies were going to great lengths in the 80s and 90s to copy protect their games. Many companies realized that they were fighting a losing battle - crackers just adapted and found the holes. They also realized that plenty of honest people were still buying their games and that not having the intrusive copy protection actually increased customer satisfaction. To me it's kind of like running a big store - you're going to experience a certain amount of shrinkage from the dishonest folks. You can put in the magnetic stickers, security cameras, etc. However, if people are determined enough to steal from you, they are going to d o it despite all that. So, you have to choose technologies that make it slightly difficult while at the same time not inconveniencing the paying customers and your employees. Hopefully software companies and the entertainment industry will figure out a better balance and not infringe on our freedom to use their products. 9:35:33 AM    comment []

Wired News: Is Palladium Getting a Bad Rap? [Hack the Planet] Bad rap or not, I don't like the idea of something controlling access to resources for me. I also don't like the idea of my computer having covert communications with "authorized" parties. I also don't like the idea of the technology being closed and proprietary. I just like being in more control of my computing experience than most people. So, maybe Palladium doesn't do all that. Maybe it will let you know what it's doing and give you a choice to let it. Will my opting out leave me with a system that won't run ANY software? Can I opt out of the base operating system communicating with Microsoft in this fashion? Can I opt out globally and tell the damn thing to shut up and don't ask me to authenticate my software? If not, I'm not sure I'm interested. 9:22:29 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Tom Pierce.