[sdiy] TCPA / Palladium -- more trouble for DIYers & hardware hackers

[Drew Smith (mux)]

> i keep an M$-free home, so when M$ owns the web, we'll still be able to
> talk to each other, batz.

	I too keep an M$-free home.  So long as there are folks out there who
consider blind conformity to be distasteful, Microsoft will never truly
own the web.

> seriously, open source is the way to go. the sooner developers realize
> this, the better we'll all be.

	Unfortunately, Microsoft's domination of the industry is supported on
the backs of working programmers and support staff - if Windows was
suddenly solid and bug free, hundreds of thousands of jobs would be
lost.

	Also, so long as it's possible to write a simple VB object to talk to a
database, and sell that object for $99 USD per license, we're going to
have a really tough time convincing "working" programmers to give their
source away for free.  What amounts to 100-200 hours of work can
literally make you rich, if you target it properly, and that is probably
the single strongest deciding factor in making that platform as strong
as it is - everything you could need is available, and if not, building
it will make you rich.

	Cheers,
	- Drew.