Sinabro

Ars Technica reports

In the last few years, virtual machines have gone from an interesting intellectual exercise and shortcut for testing software to a powerful method of optimizing the power and performance of server hardware. With everyone from Microsoft to IBM to various Linux vendors jumping on board the VM bandwagon, Apple stood alone in giving virtualization the cold shoulder: the end-user license agreements for Mac OS X were very specific: one Macintosh, one copy of the OS. All this has changed with the release of Leopard Server, which now allows virtualization.

If anything, this again tells me free software is far superior above anything else—I am free to use it in any way I see it fit (Freedom 0). No unconstitutional, yet-to-be-court-challenged EULA stopping me every step of the way. Proprietary software vendors presume to have some sort of “right” to control every aspect of my life. Is there anything more immoral?

On a side note, if you are going to run it on a server, why the heck would you run OS X? Assuming it’s a server accessed by usual protocols (HTTP, SSH, etc.), I don’t see what more OS X offers that’s not offered by any other flavor of Unix, and hence GNU/Linux systems. But then, if people want to ride unicycles around in a plane, what’s to stop them?

On LinuxDevices.com

Bill Buzbee offered the first public demonstration of the Minix OS — a cousin of Linux — running on his homebrew minicomputer, today at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif. Magic-1, built with 74-series TTL ICs using wire-wrap construction, implements a homebrew, 8086-like ISA.

Perhaps an answer to Treacherous Computing? After all, each chip in that device can’t be complex enough to implement Treacherous Computing. But then, if the only solution truly impervious to Treacherous Computing means going back 20, 30 years in terms of technology, how many will take it?

Lessig at the University of Washington

On Friday 2007-11-02, I watched Larry Lessig give a presentation at the University of Washington entitled “Is Google (2008) Microsoft (1998)”? Since it was Lessig, the talk was articulate and thought-provoking, and he used his slides very well (unlike many presenters who just read bullet points).

Well, of the points made, I have to protest that it’s too early to give up on free competition as the balancing force that makes everything right. For one, I have a much greater faith in acts of self-interest of all parties balancing themselves out than in an easily-corruptible government regulating companies.

After all, do you know why free market doesn’t seem to be working out well? It’s because of the government-granted monopolies. When such artificial barriers to entry have been imposed by the government, how can the invisible hand be expected to work? Once we have gotten rid of the draconian length of the copyright grant we have at the moment, and perhaps once the free software has been allowed to reform this corrupt industry, then we can give free market a chance, and I am convinced it will work.
After all, free market is far less messier than government regulation. Let’s just put it this way: free market is like a nature preserve—take off all the interfering hands, and the ecology will restore itself to the equilibrium. On the other hand, regulation is like trying to stabilize a troubled ecology by introducing new organisms and predators, one after another. It might work at times (or even necessary), but it does require a very skilled hand.