12.03.12
Android Brought Linux World Domination. What Next?
Summary: How to move forward from here; feedback welcomed
THE Vista 8 failure has been shown everywhere we look. It is a mainstream position to say that Windows monopoly is dying. There is no denying the fact that Vista 8 is an apt name; the difference is, the public learned its lessons from Vista. Microsoft is already given buyer’s remorse to the few who bought Surface and the prices remain too high. Android has more applications and much better prices. All that Microsoft can at this stage now is distort the market with patents, jointly with Apple and other Linux foes.
Now that Novell is gone Windows is collapsing should we start covering more topics (except for patents)? What about surveillance and Internet freedom? I should have more time for this in 2013. Suggestions are needed though. The site is shaped by trends of threat to freedom and justice, but it also depends on the readers’ preferences. We have almost 16,000 blog posts and their focus evolves over time. █
mcinsand said,
December 4, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Freedom, internet and otherwise, will always be under attack, whether by governments that fear dissent or companies like Applesoft that fear honest competition. That also goes hand in hand with value in covering governments that subvert their own legal systems. In the US, we trashed the 4th amendment to our constitution when we allowed warrantless wiretaps, and SOPA was another push to allow for unreasonable search and siezure. The patent system is another example where our government is failing to follow its own laws. Whether we agree with patents or not, the USPTO is failing to hold inventors accountable for failing to submit ideas that are reasonably novel, failing to hold examiners accountable for basic prior art searches, and failing to follow procedures to only grant patents for patentable subject matter (math and language are not patentable).
I wouldn’t let up on the duopoly yet, though. They will get more dangerous and even more evil (if that’s possible) as they get more desperate. Especially as Applesoft continues to degenerate into a pair of software trolls, attention needs to be kept on where they are setting litigative traps. NTFS, Mono, and rounded corners all need to be kept under the light until the issues are completely resolved. Likewise, the Samsung/Apple trial and appeals are not over. We can see how this one wraps up, but I doubt that Apple will sit quietly unless they can find another biased judge and dishonest jury foreman.
Back to Freedom, though, in that I do think that tech freedom will be an ongoing struggle. The computing arena has broadened from just desktop/laptop to tablets and cellphones. My smartphone is every bit as much a computer as the desktop that I had 6-10 years ago, and lock-in is something we will have to address in the cellphone market. Thankfully, the SCOTUS made one incremental step in the right direction when they affirmed a consumer’s right to jailbreak a cellphone. We need to continue to push for the rights to hardware that we purchase and the software that we want to run on that hardware.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
Cheers.