I hate to add emoticons to this quite serious discussion, but I can't help but think that we've lost; over the course of 40 years, a lot more than the cooperation and interoperability described here.
We lost operating systems that expect the user to eventually learn a programming language.
We lost the expectation that a user will ever learn one.
We lost the early expectations of a peer to peer Internet.
We lost the hope of encryption protecting anybody beyond a few stubborn nerds and activists.
We lost the idea of client programs, forcing more and more of our data into computers we don't control.
Were losing the idea that the public can manage their own computers, as we have thus far seen a poor job of it.[0]
Were losing our memory that these things were possible, that they ever could have been or could be.
Were losing the chance to change these things for the future, should we wish to.
[0]: I remember reading over 50% of computers on the Internet are in a botnet, if anyone could indulge my laziness and source this; I would be grateful.
(Though that loss seems to run somewhat more in one direction than the other. Still, ordinary people can rub elbows these days with people they couldn't have so much as gotten an autograph from in the past.)
I hate to add emoticons to this quite serious discussion, but I can't help but think that we've lost; over the course of 40 years, a lot more than the cooperation and interoperability described here.
We lost operating systems that expect the user to eventually learn a programming language.
We lost the expectation that a user will ever learn one.
We lost the early expectations of a peer to peer Internet.
We lost the hope of encryption protecting anybody beyond a few stubborn nerds and activists.
We lost the idea of client programs, forcing more and more of our data into computers we don't control.
Were losing the idea that the public can manage their own computers, as we have thus far seen a poor job of it.[0]
Were losing our memory that these things were possible, that they ever could have been or could be.
Were losing the chance to change these things for the future, should we wish to.
[0]: I remember reading over 50% of computers on the Internet are in a botnet, if anyone could indulge my laziness and source this; I would be grateful.