Arfa Daily wrote:

msg wrote:
flipper wrote:

If 'Joe Blow' had only been allowed on administered systems (such as the
old BBS,
timesharing services, private networks, etc.) and network clients, this
predicament
certainly would not have happened in this fashion, and we would be more
likely
to preserve our freedoms.

What a lovely bit of doublespeak. If only things had started
constrained, managed, well controlled, without freedoms then we
wouldn't be (supposedly) on the way to losing the 'freedoms' that were
never allowed.

Perhaps I should have defined 'freedoms'. As with any example of a fast
proliferating phenomenon throughout history, disorder and threats to perceived
community order always produce regulation, restriction, taxation and
elimination. These reactions are often mitigated if the phenomenon is
at its outset responsibly deployed.

Please read John Walker's "Digital Imprimatur"; the creator of the very
popular first generation VoIP program 'spreakfreely' was very concerned
about the trends that now concern me and as a result stopped development
and support of his program. His lengthy statement is he

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/




I'm not usually given to disagreeing with the majority of what you say,
Michael, but in this case, I'm with Flipper. Surely, you can't live your
life worrying about retrospective 'what ifs' can you?

Heck, I have much more mundane worries that consume my worry budget; I just
felt compelled to join this discussion

snip
There may well also
have been other OSs poised to be released (unleashed?) on the public, which
may have been better at the time than Windows, or may have grown to have
been better.

However, the fact remains that they didn't make it to market in time, or
they weren't promoted 'ruthlessly' enough by their creators. As a
businessman myself (allbeit a very small one), I can't knock Gates for
having done this. At the time, MS was a relatively small company. Its
ultimate success comes from the fact that at its head was a technically
extremely competent person, who was also a visionary businessman.

Debate over the reasons for MS' success is abundant and consensus really doesn't
yet exist; I was just pointing out that under other circumstances you may have
been thanking Gary Kildahl or someone else


As far as the 'net goes, I can't see it ever being controlled in the
Draconian way you suggest that it will be. It is just too large, lumbering,
international and unbelievably complex to police in any way that is at all
practical.
snip

I hope and pray that you are right, but I fully expect to see forms of taxation,
regulation, pricing structures, and monitoring that effectively end today's
libertarian Internet.

In alt.internet.wireless Jeff Liebermann recently speculated:
"I've used the Wi-Fi hindsight example sufficiently that I've thought
about what wireless would be like in 2018. Visualize the DHS (Dept of
Homeland Security) running all communications and where you are
required to positively identify yourself before being allowed to use
the public airwaves. Meanwhile, spread spectrum bandwidth will be
auctioned by the megabyte in real time by the FCC, where user fees
have replaced spectrum auctions. SDR (software defined radio) will
have taken over, and every user can have their own protocol, optimized
for their specific application. More horror stories when I have time."


Michael