When industry leaders are predicting your (and Google's) demise, then you know that you have arrived. If you missed the 90's, then let me refresh your memory; nearly every week there was some shocking (unsubstantiated) rumor that this time Apple was truly going to fail.
So when both Linux and Google get the treatment, and on the same day no less(!), you have to suspect that the overtime FUD-meisters are in high gear. For a somewhat snarkier take on that last sentence you can look at yesterday's diary, sadly overlooked for some unknown reason.
First, before I get anything further, here's an interesting site that lets you 'pimp' your Linux. Never seen those two words in the same sentence (let alone thought them); tons of tips and tricks to make your Linux install look fresher.
If you are concerned about the future of the internet and your what rights you may or may not enjoy in your digital life, then you are right to do so; just look at what's happening with this bunch:
A new industry-backed Copyright Alliance was launched yesterday in Washington, DC, with the goal of "promoting the value of copyright as an agent for creativity, jobs, and growth." But the group wants to do more than simply get the word out about the value of copyright—it wants to actively strengthen current copyright law.
Backed by organizations like the MPAA, NBC, News Corp., Disney, Time Warner, the Business Software Alliance, Microsoft, ASCAP, the NBA, and others, the Copyright Alliance has already secured initial support from several members of Congress. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and "Hollywood" Howard Berman (D-CA) both sent statements of support, and Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) made sure that the launch was a bipartisan affair.
Just looking at the names involved and you know that the losers are going to be the end user, and the winners (surprise, surprise!) will be the corporations.
Just to be clear, copyright law is already very strong in the US; so for them to talk about making it stronger, well, I'm a tad bit concerned how that could be done. Permanent memory erasure after each view or listen of their content? I mean, honestly.
And just so you do not misunderstand me in any way, shape or fashion, this is not an endorsement of unapproved file-sharing; what constitutes fair use is still up in the air. I'm sure that upright group of corporations would like to erase the words from the dictionary, and make it pay per listen, and pay per view, for the lifetime of the individual.
Greg London has a very interesting take on how copyright, patent laws, software patents are hurting our culture, in an online treatise published at this link; here's a tiny sampling of what he has to say:
Successful bounty hunters should be able to make a living if they keep collecting bounties.
That is not the same as a bounty hunter making a living after collecting one bounty.
The bounty should pay for the time, energy, and expenses of the one job.
He uses the bounty hunter to represent the artist (and attached corporate entities); that we are so far from that is of some serious concern.
Apart from the obvious moral and ethical dilemmas in granting corporations permanent rights to intellectual property, there's the more important technological one, and that's not something that can be ignored.
If you are not familiar with Moore's Law, then here is a brief primer; basically the US can get on board the tech express, and profit from it, or they can try and stop it (with the 'help' of groups like above); if they get on board, then we all profit, and if they try and stop it, then the US gets shoved roughly to the side, and left behind as technology just churns on by.
Consider that Firefox has just added a torrent engine to their browser (and they have a blog!) Opera already has this functionality. This allows you to download your favorite Linux distro, even while Firefox is shut off, and as some of these are quite large (particularly the liveDVDs), this is welcome news indeed. And if you just like free music (and who doesn't?) then getting your Jamendo goodness just became that much easier.
Also consider that routers are now being built that have torrent functionality in them; shut off your computer (!?!) and they still continue to seed and download your favorite Linux distro and Jamendo album. They either have a hard drive built in to them, or a USB port that allows the attachment of a hard drive.
Disk storage, as well as computer speed and functionality, just gets better and better; I just bought a four gigabyte USB thumb drive an inch long and one-eighth of an inch wide for about thirty dollars US. When you can carry your entire music collection on something so tiny (and don't doubt that new iPods will be getting microscopic in size), and something that can be plugged into another computer, then you realize that sharing (legal, free) music, distros, and other content just got a huge boost.
A-ha! But when you say Linux distros and Jamendo music, that's really code for illegal movie and mp3 downloads, isn't that right? Well, actually no. Though it can certainly be used for that, I really don't see the point; if I want a movie, I wait until it comes out on DVD (the boxed set, with subtitles), or I get the CD, provided it can be ripped and put on my portable music player. And honestly, I don't see the point of getting something inferior in quality (movies) that can only be watched on your computer; ditto for music which is low bitrate and provides nothing for the artist. Plus the fact that I have a staggering CD and DVD collection, most of which I never watch or listen to (Plus it's Piracy!!!!!!).
I do add to my music collection, but I find very little to my liking in the current crop of commercial artists --with the exception of Linkin Park and Norah Jones, whose albums I will undoubtedly purchase. And when the latest and greatest from Hollywood are part three of a comic book, and (ironically) some bit about Pirates (Piracy!!!!!), then let's just say that they have very little to offer.
But what does this have to with Linux? Or you? Or electing Democrats? Well, as it should be obvious by now, Linux is open source; you can modify it, share it, tweak it, and do just about any damn thing you want with it, without fear of some huge corporation suing you into poverty, in a safe and sane (and cheap) computing environment; you can benefit from this, by enabling billions of people around the world in taking part in the most democratizing engine yet built --the internet.
And as far as electing Democrats, well, as we have seen in the not too distant past (yesterday, to be precise), that's not a guarantee of democratic promotion, simply because they have the magic 'd' in front of their district or state. I mean, look who is co-enabling the group above? If this was some kind of iron cage match, and the group with more of a similar letter in their identifiers gets the win, without concerns on their stands on net neutrality, the broadcast flag, the war, the recent secret trade deal, and on and on, then go for it. If you care about a saner, safer, more democratic (for all) world, then open source and Linux is clearly the way to go.
Our culture, our environment, our digital rights, and the well being of billions around the world depend on a safe, cheap and sane computing environment. Help that process along, by helping the US to get on the technology train, instead of slowing it down, and handing short terms gains to a bunch of big corporations. It's just that simple.
The new storage medium I mentioned earlier is an exciting development; you can now carry around your OS with you, in fact, you can carry four OSes around with you! Yup, you can boot up into any of four different distros on a tiny bit of plastic that holds all that info. You really have to see these to believe them. The biggest problem is that you might drop it in your soft drink can, or just lose sight of it. Words cannot describe the wow factor on these drives. The first time I put it in my computer's USB slot, I was afraid that it would get lost inside.
If you are looking for the cuttingest of the cutting edge, then perhaps you should take a look at sidux Linux; it's built on the unstable tree of Debian (thus the sid in its name) and it has a whole bunch of the coolest stuff in the latest kernel--especially device drivers for all of the notoriously unfriendly wireless devices.
Digg has got quite a decent technology section, though there are still a lot of folks that just don't get it; they link to way more material than slashdot and have a much livelier comment environment.
Still pimping out my Linux ride, so no chance to try out those games and write that game report yet, don't think that I have forgotten, though; I still plan on doing it, and soon.
A fun vid, from Youtube; dual boot Ubuntu and Vista: