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Is it adding features? (to use the software lingo)

Or is it subtracting ones that have no real benefit, striving toward greater efficiency?

Like terse lines of code in a concise, well-written computer program, every bacterial gene seems to exist for one or more reasons. There is no bloat.

I'm biased, but to me bacteria, chloroplasts and mitochondria are life's most amazing machines and the tasks they perform are ultimately life's most important ones.

Thanks Dr. Margulis for the great thoughts.

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Now we have ESPN.

Hats off to keeptrying. You are a true fan.

Who knows, by building such a network you might in the process prove that there's more value to an internet than simply as a new channel over which to sell branded entertainment and disseminate advertising. You might also show just how much can be done over a 56k link with a little creativity.

In the world of bacteria, there is no need for the SEC, lawyers or fear of liability. It's the fact that their needs are so few - they can seemingly live almost anywhere under almost any conditions - that makes them appear so resilient.

Seems to me that the biological reality is that bacteria rule the Earth. They always have and always will, before we were here and after we're gone. And it seems at present there is _relatively_ little biotech we can do without the help of bacteria and their amazing junk-free genome. But I could be wrong. Corrections from the experts are welcome.

If Skype, a peer to peer network that uses a proprietary protocol and third party servers (neither of which is a prerequisite for a peer to peer network), was used primarily for file sharing over encrypted links, they would have some "big problems", as in "heavily funded lobbyists and plaintiffs", to deal with. These are the same "big problems" that are the driving force behind SOPA and consequently the same ones that have injected some steam into this reddit "think tank". SOPA has some interesting language where it refers to "or any successor protocol". Perhaps the next revision, or the next bill of this nature, will include language that refers to "any internetwork", present or future.

How a peer to peer network is used and who uses it does make a difference in terms of its acceptance and survival, even if in theory it shouldn't.

If the goal is to connect peer to peer with a small group of people you know in person and can trust, I see great potential. People congregate in small groups. Facebook friends, Skype contacts, etc. The advantage here is that third parties like Facebook, Microsoft and a gazillion advertisers are not involved. If it's small like that, it's doable as an overlay without using wireless as long as at least one person has a reachable IP and can act as the keeper of everyone else's address info.

If the goal is to create some sort of www replacement that must scale to global internet sizes, where any stranger can connect, and where kids are allowed to do all the things they're not allowed to do legally on the www, I see big problems.

Impossible to block Google? Probably true. But only because they have been allowed to grow so large as to be indefeasible. And the reason they've been able to do that is because of what the commenter said: websites allowed them to crawl, fast and hard, year after year. This is not true for all bots.

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the article and the specific issue. I don't disgree with what Google is doing in this case. And I understand why and where Google is headed.

The issue of who is allowed to crawl and who is not is something the commenter raised. It's a huge issue that people take for granted, in my opinion.

The inequities of crawling are in my opinion a huge issue with the web that receives relatively little discussion.

If a majority of websites were to ban Googlebot, Google would be brought to its knees. Slowly.

Their index would go stale.

I like Google. But I do think crawling, who gets to do it and who does not is an underappreciated issue. Google is very lucky.

But some people, e.g. at Goldman, do make good returns from these hyped IPO's no matter what eventually happens to the business, so these IPO's no matter how ridiculous they may seem do make sense for those people. Their risks are sufficiently limited. The more hype the better.

Here goes.

What are the arguments _against_ open source?

What if someone says, "Open source means poor quality"?

You can look back on the last 15 years, choose some examples of open source software and rebut that with evidence.

I would make this rebuttal.

You apparently would as well.

Now, what are the arguments _for_ open source?

You could say "Open source produces high quality software." Note: Not "can produce" but "produces". As in always.

You could say that.

I wouldn't.

I wouldn't make that argument.

I would argue open source make sense because the source can be reviewed and corrected if necessary, without being dependent on a proprietary vendor.

Hope this is clear.

Imagine you consult with two colleagues asking for an explanation of a problem.

Colleague 1 begins, "Well, it's complex, ...." Colleague 2 begins, "It's simple, ..."

All else being equal, just based on how they introduced their explanantion, which one seems the more appealing one to listen to?

You asked for the historical evidence I mentioned and I gave you the example of the TCP/IP stack we're all using.

I shouldn't have to say it but "open source" does not produce software, developers produce software. They might be working on a closed project or they might be working on an open one. The open/closed status of the project does not determine the quality of the software. The developers do.

You appear to be making the same mistake as the naysayers did when they said open source would never work. They believed the closed/open status of a project was somehow tied to quality. They were wrong. (Developers working on) open source projects can produce high quality software just as well as (developers working on) proprietary ones can. You cited the example of KDE's webkit to indicate you agreed.

If this is still somehow confusing to you, then I'm afraid I cannot help you.

Given the extremely basic task at hand, as an end user my main concern is that it's fast (even over slow connections), reliable and simple. If it breaks I can fix it.

My preference would be to retrieve the numbers into a non-graphical console via a few keypunches. All I want is a couple of numbers and I'm done.

This could be done with a TCP client like netcat and a shell script that uses basic UNIX utilities. And I could teach an 11 year old how to do it.

If a "smart" phone OS does not allow something so simple by default, then to me it's not very useful. It's been dumbed down. "Smart" is the wrong word.

Here's what I meant. I believe there were naysayers in the 1980's and early 1990's (and maybe they are still around today) who argued open source would never work. I believe history has proved them wrong.

As you pointed out, open source, like proprietary, can produce good results or bad results. It can produce "high quality"[1] results. It can even produce "higher quality" results.

I believe the reasons why open source is as good a choice as proprietary are very simple and quite obvious: If the user of the software can read the code, then 1. it is easier to evaluate the author's skill and programming sensibilities and 2. it is easier to fix errors and make improvements (without having to pester a proprietary software vendor).

You were also hoping that I would make an argument that the results obtained are somehow related to whether a project is open or closed. As I said, I won't make that argument. And as such I won't look for evidence to support it. That's because I do not believe it.

You have set yourself up for disappointment. I played no part in it.

If you want to know what I believe in terms of how "high quality" or "higher quality" software is achieved, just ask me and I will tell you[2].

But please do not make assumptions about what I think.

All the best.

1. Quality is a subjective determination.

2. I should warn you it is nothing revolutionary. I will only state the obvious.