# LANGUAGE translation of https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kragen-software.html # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc. # This file is distributed under the same license as the original article. # FIRST AUTHOR , YEAR. # #, fuzzy msgid "" msgstr "" "Project-Id-Version: kragen-software.html\n" "POT-Creation-Date: 2021-10-02 10:56+0000\n" "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n" "Last-Translator: FULL NAME \n" "Language-Team: LANGUAGE \n" "Language: \n" "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n" "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n" #. type: Content of: msgid "People, Places, Things and Ideas - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h2> msgid "People, Places, Things and Ideas" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><address> msgid "" "by Kragen Sitaker <a " "href=\"mailto:kragen@pobox.com\"><kragen@pobox.com></a>" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h3> msgid "Software" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Software is ideas. Information. It's different from people, places, and " "things; it's infinitely reduplicable like fire, at almost no cost. This is " "a truism, even a cliche. But it seems that there are particular " "consequences that aren't well-explored." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "One is that it doesn't work well to sell it the way you sell slaves, places, " "and things; any of your customers can make an unbounded number of copies at " "cost, or less. Market friction currently makes selling software a viable " "business model. Perhaps branding does, too; there's a question as to " "whether Red Hat sells CDs for $50 because people like Red Hat's brand, or " "just because they don't know they can buy essentially the same CD from " "CheapBytes for $2." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h3> msgid "The past and the present" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The traditional way to deal with this is to lock ideas up inside people, " "places, and things. A lawyer can get quite a bit of money simply for " "spitting out the appropriate ideas, not doing any actual creative work, or " "simply for applying rote procedures—most wills reportedly fall in this " "category. I have to go to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum to see old Georgia's " "paintings, because they don't allow photography. Then they can charge me " "admission. (Great museum, by the way. If you go there, don't get the " "four-day pass; their collection is rather small.) A book can be sold for " "more than the cost of printing it because the ideas are difficult to " "separate from their physical manifestation." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Software makes it much easier to separate ideas from people, places, and " "things. If I buy my computer to send email with, and I want to make " "fractals, I don't have to buy a new fractal machine. I just have to " "download some fractal software. If I want to calculate the yield force of a " "strut, I don't have to hire a structural engineer; I can download some <abbr " "title=\"Finite element analysis\">FEA</abbr> software and simulate stressing " "it until it yields. I don't have to go to a museum to look at my neighbor's " "fractals; I can just pull them up on my screen. (Once I download them, of " "course.)" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "This is a spectacular change." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h3> msgid "Software locked up: the future?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "And it was the nature of computer applications, in general, until recently. " "But now we have the Web, and people are talking a lot about " "application-specific embedded computers. Suddenly people can deliver " "applications like the ones they used to deliver as computer software, but " "they can lock up the software—the ideas—inside places and " "things." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "As an example, I have a CD-ROM containing aggregated US phone listings. " "Given sufficient time and expertise, I can extract these phone listings and " "put them up on a web site. (I need to reverse-engineer the database " "structure they're stored in first.) I can run correlation tests to see if " "people with certain last names tend to have more biased exchange " "distributions within a city. (Which would indicate that they lived close to " "their families, perhaps, or that the city was ethnically segregated.) I can " "find out which spelling of Cathy is most popular (Kathy? Cathi?), and I can " "see if people's choices of spellings of Cathy are correlated with their last " "names." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "There are also several web sites containing the same set of phone listings, " "or newer versions. I can't do any of these things with these web sites, " "because the phone listings—an idea—are locked up in the web " "site—a place or a thing, depending on how you look at it." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Another tack is to lock information up in things. The <abbr " "title=\"National Security Agency\">NSA</abbr>'s Skipjack algorithm was " "classified for several years; implementations were widely available, but " "only in special hardened devices. This allowed them to deploy it widely " "behind the iron curtain that surrounds classified research, and they " "intended to deploy it widely in the outside world, too. (So far, I'm " "outside that curtain.) Recently, circumstances forced them to distribute " "software implementations of Skipjack, and so they declassified it. (See <a " "href=\"https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/1998/0715.html#skip\"> " "schneier.com [archived]</a> for more.)" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h3> msgid "Why I don't like this" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Having the phone book myself gives me more freedom. On the other hand, it " "also requires me to install software on my machine, giving that software " "some degree of control over my machine. In this particular case, the " "software runs under Win95, so it demands complete control over my machine. " "So it's actually considerably more convenient for me to just visit the web " "page and fill out a form to look up someone's phone number." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Information in things is also considerably more convenient than information " "in software; a special-purpose thing is often considerably easier to use for " "that purpose than a general-purpose computer is. Because of this, many " "industry pundits have been forecasting that general-purpose computers will " "fall out of use in favor of special-purpose devices." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "I'm somewhat worried about this trend. I like using general-purpose " "computers—though admittedly they are often difficult to use. I like " "the freedom it gives me. The computer is just an extension of my mind." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Web sites and special-purpose hardware are not like this. They do not give " "me the same freedoms general-purpose computers do. If the trend were to " "continue to the extent the pundits project, more and more of what I do today " "with my computer will be done by special-purpose things and remote servers." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "What does freedom of software mean in such an environment? Surely it's not " "wrong to run a Web site without offering my software and databases for " "download. (Even if it were, it might not be feasible for most people to " "download them. IBM's patent server has a many-terabyte database behind it.)" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "I believe that software—open-source software, in particular—has " "the potential to give individuals significantly more control over their own " "lives, because it consists of ideas, not people, places, or things. The " "trend toward special-purpose devices and remote servers could reverse that." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "What does it mean to have free software burned into a ROM? Is the software " "still free if I have to desolder the ROM to read the source code and burn a " "new ROM to run a modified version? What does it mean to have free software " "running a remotely-accessible application on a Web server? Even with the " "best of intentions, these technologies seem make it difficult to give people " "the same kind of freedom they enjoy with PCs." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h3> msgid "How to fight it" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "It's more expensive to buy a new device than it is to download software and " "install it on my machine. So people won't use special-purpose devices if " "they provide no advantages." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But they do provide advantages. They're *much* easier to use than current " "general-purpose computers. A button for every function; no funny modes in " "which the buttons do something else, or nothing. A display for every state " "variable; you don't have to click on things to make them visible. I suspect " "that this is not an inherent limitation of general-purpose computers, but a " "limitation of their current state." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Another big issue is that they just work. General-purpose computers often " "don't, particularly when running Microsoft OSes. Even in the best case, you " "still have to do a couple of seconds of irrelevant stuff before getting to " "work on what you want to work on—typing a letter or whatever. More " "typically, you have to click around for ten seconds or so. At worst, you " "have to reinstall Windows and the application, reconfigure some peripherals, " "and reinstall their drivers before you can get anything done." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "A third big issue is that they require software installation. If I want to " "start using my machine for writing email different, I have to install email " "software on it. While this is considerably less expensive than buying a " "special-purpose email machine, it's considerably less uncomfortable, " "intimidating, and confusing. (Or so I'm told.) It also takes longer." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "If general-purpose computers are to survive the onslaught of tiny, cheap " "special-purpose boxes, they must become as easy to use, reliable, and easy " "to install software on as those special-purpose boxes. This requires a " "totally different operating environment than anything we're using on the " "desktop today; not surprisingly, GNU/Linux is closer than anything else I've " "used. (Squeak might be even better, but I haven't tried it yet.) But " "GNU/Linux is an incredibly long way away. This will require different " "hardware as well as different software." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The forces behind remote servers are similar—ease of use because of " "uniform interfaces through a web browser, “just working,” and no " "installation—just using. But they have a couple of other advantages " "as well: they can provide services that require massive storage or " "computational resources that can't reasonably be provided on your own " "machine, unless you want to spend wads of cash. (Downloading AltaVista's " "database every day would be a very inefficient way to search the Web.)" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "I think these extra advantages are probably impossible to overcome at the " "moment—although I'm interested in research on distributing big " "computational jobs over many machines." msgstr "" #. TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't have notes. #. type: Content of: <div> msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S NOTES*" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><div><p> msgid "" "Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <a " "href=\"mailto:gnu@gnu.org\"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. There are also <a " "href=\"/contact/\">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. Broken links and " "other corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a " "href=\"mailto:webmasters@gnu.org\"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>." msgstr "" #. TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, #. replace it with the translation of these two: # #. We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality #. translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. #. 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