📄 00000280.htm
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everything that came before seem insignificant. <BR> * The release of Office for Linux, which might happen in 2000, will <BR> be another defining event. Office would further "legitimize" Linux <BR> in millions of businesses; it would also make life much more <BR> difficult for commercial and free Linux office suites. Linux <BR> systems running Office may beat other systems running Office, but <BR> that is still not the vision many of us have of our desired <BR> computing future. <BR> * Linux stocks are currently valuable for a number of reasons; one <BR> of those is their scarcity. By the end of next year, that scarcity <BR> will no longer exist. Expect a true flood of Linux IPOs over the <BR> next six months; also expect companies that are already public to <BR> try to reposition themselves as Linux companies - along the lines <BR> of Corel. <BR> * The pressures of being public and of increasing amounts of money <BR> in play will erode the friendly nature of the competition between <BR> Linux companies. The "we are all in this together, against <BR> Microsoft" line will look increasingly timeworn. Linux companies <BR> will be competing against each other. <BR> * There will be an explosion of vertical applications for Linux. <BR> Already we are seeing applications for restaurants, medical <BR> offices, and e-commerce sites showing up. Many more will come, <BR> especially as industries discover that they can do better with <BR> cooperatively-developed open source software. There is probably a <BR> promising future for companies that can set up and coordinate <BR> development projects for vertical applications. <BR> <BR> Beyond all that, look for the usual tremendous growth in Linux <BR> deployments, more endorsements from the commercial world, continued <BR> pointless licensing flamewars, and no end of things that nobody <BR> expects. <BR> <BR> Another issue for 2000 is protection of algorithms. Software patents, <BR> clearly, are an important aspect of this problem. The software patent <BR> issue may well come to a head in the coming year, as silly patents <BR> bite more and more people. The level of discontent will certainly <BR> rise; whether it's enough to bring about any kind of worthwhile change <BR> remains to be seen. <BR> <BR> Software patents are bad enough, but free software also is vulnerable <BR> to attacks on reverse engineering. The current attack by the "DVD Copy <BR> Control Association" against 72 defendents demonstrates clearly the <BR> extent of the problem. The DVD folks put together a poor, <BR> closed-source encryption system that was easily broken; now they want <BR> to use intellectual property laws to put the genie back into the <BR> bottle. They will fail, but the amount of grief that they can cause in <BR> the meantime is large. <BR> <BR> Defendants are being named in this suit for the crime of linking to <BR> places where DVD information could be found. Deja.com has been named <BR> for carrying a netnews posting with links. <BR> <BR> The attack on reverse engineering is scary. If it succeeds, expect to <BR> see a lot more like it. And once it is illegal to look inside a box to <BR> see how it works, it will be always harder to create free software <BR> equivalents, to deal with problems, or even to look for "NSA keys." So <BR> much for freedom. <BR> <BR> The attack on linking is perhaps even worse. It is reminiscent of the <BR> "Communications Decency Act" of the mid-90's, which attempted to <BR> criminalize the provision of legal information. If linking is a crime, <BR> then the web is in trouble, and freedom along with it. It is <BR> encouraging that (just before LWN went to "press") the initial motion <BR> for a restraining order (to prevent posting or linking to the DeCSS <BR> code) was denied by the court, but this fight has just begun. Let us <BR> hope that 2000 goes down as the year when these sorts of attacks were <BR> beaten back. <BR> <BR>==================== End of review and prespect===================== <BR>-- <BR>|======================+========================+====================| <BR>| 以无法为有法 , | 拳本无法,有法也空; | 我爱GNU/Linux, | <BR>| 以无限为有限 | 一法不立,无法不容。| 因为我爱自由! | <BR>| | | | <BR>| 截拳道宗师-李小龙 | 意拳宗师-王芗斋 | 土人 Linuxrat | <BR>|======================+========================+====================| <BR> <BR>※ 来源:·BBS 水木清华站 smth.org·[FROM: 202.112.168.252] <BR><CENTER><H1>BBS水木清华站∶精华区</H1></CENTER></BODY></HTML>
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