Second Attempt at Blog 11
The concept of open source brings many things to my mind. I remember my ethics class where we learned that source code could be compared to the works of a literary author. It is a concept or an idea that is placed in a legible form and eligible to copyright. While I recognize that I am simplifying copyright laws regarding software tremendously, this is what most closely relates to source code. Many people have taken the concept of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and made it their own. No one has been as successful as Shakespeare but they had the right to do that. In the movie "Brother Where Art Thou," the opening credits acknowledge that the concept was taken from the age old story "The Odyssey." Movie directors are notorious for remaking older movies. One that immediately comes to mind is "Sabrina" which was made first with a young Audrey Hepburn and was then remade in the early 1990's featuring Harrison Ford. The remake is just that, an exact replica of the first.
Open Source software is slightly different from a remake. It allows the user or owner to make changes to suit their needs and even resale or give away the new product. This concept is very beneficial to society as a whole because anytime an item is improved upon over and over again, the end product is something much better than the original. So if open source is beneficial, why do some people fight against it? Our society is a very competitive one. We pride ourselves on being a step ahead of the others. We cannot maintain this advantage without a level of exclusivity and secrecy. Open source eliminates that secrecy, it creates new opportunities for anyone willing to try and is beneficial to the user. Companies such as Microsoft seek to maintain their status and fear that open source will threaten their position. This threat encourages companies such as Microsoft to find ways of downplaying the advantages of open source software. This thinking only benefits them and not the end user.
Monday, April 07, 2003
Blog lost in cyberspace
After spending sometime considering blog 11--open source, I created what I thought was a pretty good journal entry. I edited it, and made sure it had no errors and attempted to post what I thought was a very insiteful entry. However, the great gods of cyberspace have rejected it due to some unknown error and now it's lost. What an argument for not depending solely on virtual information. One minute it's there, the next minute it's gone and who has a clue how to find it again. DAMN. This has really aggrevated me today. Que Sera Sera!! I guess it's time to start all over again. Of course, my memory is very similar to this digital wonderland, the information flowed freely as I typed it but now that it's out, it's gone. I don't know where it went but it's gone. So I guess the computer can be compared to the workings of the human mind after all.
After spending sometime considering blog 11--open source, I created what I thought was a pretty good journal entry. I edited it, and made sure it had no errors and attempted to post what I thought was a very insiteful entry. However, the great gods of cyberspace have rejected it due to some unknown error and now it's lost. What an argument for not depending solely on virtual information. One minute it's there, the next minute it's gone and who has a clue how to find it again. DAMN. This has really aggrevated me today. Que Sera Sera!! I guess it's time to start all over again. Of course, my memory is very similar to this digital wonderland, the information flowed freely as I typed it but now that it's out, it's gone. I don't know where it went but it's gone. So I guess the computer can be compared to the workings of the human mind after all.
The Ease of HTML
After our HTML workshop and our readings in class, I begin to ask myself, what's the big deal about HTML? For years, I have been afraid of considering using this form of software however, the more I think about the more I realize that I had used something very similar to it before. As an older student who has been using computers since roughly 1987, I've had the privilege of learning command prompts for DOS and using programs such as WordPerfect 5.0. I remember the concept of "tags" being introduced in my WordPerfect training. Under the reveal codes option, you could opt to see all the "tags" associated with your documents. I remember the extremely difficult task of merging documents using that software (difficult in comparison to what we have today). You had to insert a field codes before and after entering information. You had to"end" the block of merge information in order to start a new block. Very similar to HTML. In realizing that this style of formatting documents is something that is familiar to me, I wondered, exactly why I had so much fear? Was I the result of FUD marketing? It would appear that the answer is yes.
In any profession, there is a need to protect the validity of the profession. For example, if everybody could cut, style, and maintain their own hair, there would be no need expensive visits to the barber or salon. The profession would suffer tremendously and they would have to learn to be competitive in their prices. A beautician could no longer wash you hair, send you out with the exact same hairstyle everytime you visited and charge $30.00 or more for doing so. How does this apply to web design? Over a year ago, I was employed as the Marketing Director for a small theatre here in Macon. I was given the task of coordinating a website. The company who designed the site charged us $1895.00 to design and maintain the site. At the time, I thought the fees were rather pricey but I had little say in that decision. What struck me strange was that I had to gather all the information to go on the site, offer ideas for the design of the site and translate all data including photos into a digital format to be placed on the site. I also became responsible for updating the information on the site because they would have to charge us extra to do that. All they had to do was copy the information and paste it into the HTML file. Yet we paid them almost $2,000.00 for my--I mean-- their work. The website they designed was extremely straight forward and simple. Knowing what I know now, they probably spent very little time working on the project. Well as they say, when you know better, you do better. After looking up design principles for websites, I found so much information on how create a website that I was amazed. One website actually gave a step by step tutorial on how do to it. Why aren't more of us designing our own sites and eliminating the need for costly web designers? All I can see is fear, uncertainty and doubt.
After our HTML workshop and our readings in class, I begin to ask myself, what's the big deal about HTML? For years, I have been afraid of considering using this form of software however, the more I think about the more I realize that I had used something very similar to it before. As an older student who has been using computers since roughly 1987, I've had the privilege of learning command prompts for DOS and using programs such as WordPerfect 5.0. I remember the concept of "tags" being introduced in my WordPerfect training. Under the reveal codes option, you could opt to see all the "tags" associated with your documents. I remember the extremely difficult task of merging documents using that software (difficult in comparison to what we have today). You had to insert a field codes before and after entering information. You had to"end" the block of merge information in order to start a new block. Very similar to HTML. In realizing that this style of formatting documents is something that is familiar to me, I wondered, exactly why I had so much fear? Was I the result of FUD marketing? It would appear that the answer is yes.
In any profession, there is a need to protect the validity of the profession. For example, if everybody could cut, style, and maintain their own hair, there would be no need expensive visits to the barber or salon. The profession would suffer tremendously and they would have to learn to be competitive in their prices. A beautician could no longer wash you hair, send you out with the exact same hairstyle everytime you visited and charge $30.00 or more for doing so. How does this apply to web design? Over a year ago, I was employed as the Marketing Director for a small theatre here in Macon. I was given the task of coordinating a website. The company who designed the site charged us $1895.00 to design and maintain the site. At the time, I thought the fees were rather pricey but I had little say in that decision. What struck me strange was that I had to gather all the information to go on the site, offer ideas for the design of the site and translate all data including photos into a digital format to be placed on the site. I also became responsible for updating the information on the site because they would have to charge us extra to do that. All they had to do was copy the information and paste it into the HTML file. Yet we paid them almost $2,000.00 for my--I mean-- their work. The website they designed was extremely straight forward and simple. Knowing what I know now, they probably spent very little time working on the project. Well as they say, when you know better, you do better. After looking up design principles for websites, I found so much information on how create a website that I was amazed. One website actually gave a step by step tutorial on how do to it. Why aren't more of us designing our own sites and eliminating the need for costly web designers? All I can see is fear, uncertainty and doubt.