Published at LXer:

The threat to general purpose computing goes beyond legislation. As I see it, we have at least four major threats to general purpose computing - legislation, cloud computing, computing appliances, and consumer indifference.

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I completely agree. These 4 horsemen must be fought to the end by everyone who is still awake. We will likely lose the fight, but we must fight nonetheless (at least to delay the inevitable).

I didn't know what computing appliances are ... they're basically non-general purpose computers = all those devices that people buy and soon find out that they are locked out by the manufacturer.

P.S. I was gonna start a thread on the same subject, but this article sums it up and more.

My introduction to personal computing came in the form of a Commodore VIC-20 in the math lab at my Junior High School. It was pretty much love at first sight. My family eventually got a VIC-20 of our own, and later a C64.

Sure I played games, but the most fun for me was learning to program in BASIC. It was like interactive television, something unheard of at that time. I could make things happen on the TV at my command. I was learning to think in new ways. I wrote barely playable clones of my favorite games, crude databases, and other simple programs.

What a joyful experience! The thought that future generations might be barred from getting full use of their machines is very saddening.