The Future End of Classic Computing

The End of Classic Computing, and in fact, the end of Computing as a hobby for almost all of us, is on the table in the U.S. Congress in the form of The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA). This insidious bill would strike at the very heart of this community, the software that keeps our ClassicComputers running, unless we or someone incorporates anti-pirating measures. Now, if that sounded inflammatory, it should. It's not quite accurate either. The bill will cover only software created from the time of the bill's passage and on into the future. The stuff we play with now would therefore be exempt. There appears to be a loophole for stuff you do that you never distribute. There also appears to be a loophole for computers that do not contain microprocessors. But there would be a horizon coming soon. If the bill is passed, computers and software being developed now, once 10 years old, might be on-topic, but you'd be breaking federal law to share software. Sponsored by someone who must surely be certifiably insane, one Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, if you want more information, see: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html This will require lots of work to defeat, I think, as the politicians have bought into the fantasy that a pirated copy of something conctitutes a lost sale. A true emperor's fine new clothes scneario... Regards, -dq -- -Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (dougq(a)iglou.com) [Call me "Doug"] "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits