More "end of the desktop PC"

[Walter Dnes]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 11:46:23AM -0500, JoeHill wrote
> 
> I've been reading articles like this for years now, in various forms
> proclaiming that the home desktop PC is a flawed and obsolete model,
> and that all of our software should be run from secure servers
> instead.
> 
> Personally, they can take my desktop when they pry it from my cold
> dead hands, but I'm curious about how others see this issue. Of
> course there's nothing *inherantly* wrong with relinquishing some
> control to networked servers,

  While composing this email, I'm listening to an American Internet
radio station that plays nothing but pre-Beatles rock/pop.  This freaks
out the CRTC (Commission for Repression and Thought Control) no small
amount.  When she became chair of the CRTC, Mme. Francoise Bertrand had
a rant about "Canadians spending too much time visiting American
websites" and by-golly, we're gonna do something about it...

http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/ottawa-sun.18nov96.html

  Just be thankful that the web exploded and created itself in a
big-bang event that caught the regulators flat-footed.  Look at what
happened with satellite TV.  Following the same pattern, we'd now all
have 9600 bps dial-up, and we'd only be allowed to view Sympatico.ca
internal webpages.  The CRTC has tried to "make the internet safer for
children" on a couple of occasions, but gotten nowhere.  However, if
there only a few major servers running our programs, it'll make things
"so much easier" for regulators.

> but dare we trust our software when we don't have ultimate control
> over it locally, especially when we are talking about proprietary,
> closed source software that we cannot see what's "under the hood"?

  Show-stoppers... If you aren't running broadband, forget about it.  You
have to get the data into the program.  This means either downloading
the program to your "set-top box", or uploading large spreadsheets and
databases to publicly accessable systems.  Yeah sure.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
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