LIS5362 - Week 1 Slides - Intro
Some big ideas
..YMMV
The Ticker Tape Theme
Human communication? NO. DATA.
(there are a LOT of ways to express this)
A L'IL ECON
The marginal cost of software (and anything else "digital") is zero,
and economics (for better or worse) tells us that its real price will approach zero.
A reasonable idea
If software is infinitely reproduceable and can be shared everywhere for free;
then no piece of software should *ever* be rewritten;
and everyone should always have the best one.
A reasonable idea THAT DEFINITELY DID NOT HAPPEN
If software is infinitely reproduceable and can be shared everywhere for free;
then no piece of software should *ever* be rewritten;
and everyone should always have the best one.
Instead?
A lot of people are sharing and that is awesome...but also
to figure out how things are going,
consider software as a free resource, not a product
NNT's "Lindy"
A good predictor of how long something will be around in the future..
... is how long it has been around in the past
Evolution
Individual pieces of software are sometimes intelligently designed...
...but the ecosystem is DEFINITELY evolution.
(i.e., a lot makes no sense
See also luggage wheels aka)
Luggage wheels.
Y'all.
We put a man on the moon before we put wheels on luggage.
ARE YOU SERIOUS.
LAW
yeah, if that existed on the internet that'd be nice
JOKING SORT OF (I take this seriously in Info Policy?)
Digging deep into the web
You find two things:
Free and Open Source software (esp Linux)
AND
Text
(these two things are STRONGLY related)
The Prof's Million Foot View
1) More open generally wins in the long run
2) Piracy? Meh
The First PCs
- BASIC
- Freeware and Purchased Software
- Connect to TVs, frequently
- Some basic independent "Office" apps
- Very very open. Apple Clubs and such.
Pioneers of Freedom?
Apple II/Macintosh series
Apple v. IBM (COMPATIBLE)
MS Windows v. OS/2
The Dominance of MS
Probably not Windows the OS, but ...
The Dominance of MS
Probably not Windows the OS, but ...
How (not) to kill a giant
Direct competition?
Government Intervention?
The original "Surface" (2003-2007)
The Microsoft Tablet (2002)
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
(I didn't make this up, they used it INTERNALLY)
Either BUY OUT your competition, or E,E,E.
(e.g.)
.Net
ActiveX
DirectX vs. OpenGL
Attempted with odt.
This prevents you from having to competitively innovate.
(and is kind of understandable.)
Not even the (U.S.) gov't.
United States v. Microsoft, 253 F.3d 34 (2001)(mostly over IE.)
Europe did, but without much consequence...except that you can legally now say "Convicted Monopolist, Microsoft"
Wow, so how DO you kill a giant?
SLOWLY.
With The Internet
+
With Non Computer Devices
(both of which run on...guess what)
Missed it...
"Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority." - Bill Gates
Microsoft:
Home Computer as Household Appliance(running proprietary/closed source software)...
but what about those other big computers and networks and stuff...old school?
Unix
Unix
- Multi-User from the beginning
- "Buying" software? What?
The Unix Way
- Write programs that do 1 thing well
- Write programs to work together
- Write programs to handle text, the universal interface
Unix Descendants
(aka, why am I talking about all this?)
LITERALLY LINUX:
- Linux ("real" Linux or GNU/Linux) =
- Linux Kernel/weird Java on top = Android
- Linux OS/thick layer of Google on top = Chromebooks
- And today, the exactly backwards named
Unix Descendants
(aka, why am I talking about all this?)
Super close ("Posix Compatible etc)
- BSD (very similar, different License)
- Mac Os X, all other Apple operating systems
Unix Descendants
(aka, why am I talking about all this?)
EVERYTHING THAT ISNT WINDOWS*
Open Source
A bit more complicated than one might think...
Free v. Open
Free software existed first.
"Free as in speech, not free as in beer."
Libre v. Gratis
Real hard to sell stuff when it's called "free"
So, "Open-Source" is adopted.
All free software is open source, but not all open source software is free (as in speech or otherwise)
And so, you get a pretty good mix....
Open (but not free) Source
You can do most anything with it, including lock it back down and making it unfree.
(BSD, Apache, anything MIT Licensed
Free Software
You can do most anything with it yourself..
EXCEPT you may NOT re-release it closed.
GNU/Linux, Firefox etc.
What is the internet made of, software-wise?
Historically?
Free and Open Source, overwhelmingly
Today?
Free and Open source, overwhelmingly,
but with weird business models...
Evaluating Tools
Like I said, LINUX and TEXT.
But there's A LOT OF MONEY in between, aka PLATFORMS
"Platforms"
Any layer between "the bare metal machine" and "what you see on the web"
(this is a BROAD category)
(flypaper is not a bad analogy here)
Things to think about re: Platforms
Distinguish between those generally open/free .. e.g.
Apache, Wordpress, Wikipedia
(there REALLY aren't many of these)
Things to think about re: Platforms
..and not. (this can definitely be a spectrum)
Nearly always those with a for-profit business model:
facebook, docker, wix, twitter, canva, canvas, blackboard,
adobe, microsoft, react, d3, apple, amazon, netflix etc etc etc
Things to think about re: Platforms
Two ways to analyze the businesses:
- 1) What is the "value-add"
What are you not allowed to have if you don't pay them?
- 2) What is the space between "what they say and imply they do"
(e.g. Netflix is VERY DIFFERENT from Facebook)
So: understanding Unix/Linux stuff
will help you immensely with understanding
the shape of the web.
ESPECIALLY file management, one of the most important things.
This is the main reason why I'm focusing on "knowing some Linux."
Also, "the cloud"
There is no cloud, it's just someone elses computer.
Almost *always* running Linux.
Web hosting, etc.
(e.g. the LAMP stack)
The other thing you find when you dig deep..
Relatedly:
TEXT.
Now, what's on top?
LOTS of possibilities here — But by default, we will look at the possibility of being self hosted.
more to come..