Slashdot Mirror

CmdrTaco, I am stunned to see such a biased and ridiculously slanted summary coming from your desk. Come on... “both combine...strong client support”? Are you kidding? Silverlight only runs fully featured enabled on Windows. Mac users suffer sub-par SilverLight performance due to issues with hardware acceleration, Linux users are left in the cold, and even the Windows technology has an awful track record. Let's take two large rollouts of SilverLight for example: Major League Baseball and Netflix Instant Play.

MLB: It does not take long to see that MLB had such an uproar of customer complaints about SilverLight that the MS player was quickly “benched”: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10212843-93.html

Netflix: The Netflix subsidized SilverLight player has resulted in an absolute flood of complains and a continual stream of glitches: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10199350-56.html http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/03/netflix-updates/

Of course, being that this is /., I would think the fact that SilverLight does not play on any open players or Linux distributions would be enough to reject this summary's premise alone. Flash, in spite of all the horrendous attributes inherent in that technology, at least actually plays on most platforms and mobile devices. Thus, I respectfully disagree with your primary assertion that these two technologies are even on the same playing field.

CmdrTaco, I am stunned to see such a biased and ridiculously slanted summary coming from your desk. Come on... “both combine...strong client support”? Are you kidding? Silverlight only runs fully featured enabled on Windows. Mac users suffer sub-par SilverLight performance due to issues with hardware acceleration, Linux users are left in the cold, and even the Windows technology has an awful track record. Let's take two large rollouts of SilverLight for example: Major League Baseball and Netflix Instant Play.

MLB: It does not take long to see that MLB had such an uproar of customer complaints about SilverLight that the MS player was quickly “benched”: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10212843-93.html

Netflix: The Netflix subsidized SilverLight player has resulted in an absolute flood of complains and a continual stream of glitches: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10199350-56.html http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/03/netflix-updates/

Of course, being that this is /., I would think the fact that SilverLight does not play on any open players or Linux distributions would be enough to reject this summary's premise alone. Flash, in spite of all the horrendous attributes inherent in that technology, at least actually plays on most platforms and mobile devices. Thus, I respectfully disagree with your primary assertion that these two technologies are even on the same playing field.

1) http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/08/unpatched_vulnerability_in_all.php
2) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/microsoft-warns-of-serious-unpatched-windows-7-flaw/6474
3) http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/08/unpatched_vulnerability_in_all.php
4) http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176944/Microsoft_warns_of_bug_in_64_bit_Windows_7?source=rss_security
5) http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=8023
6) http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10170962-83.html
7) http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/17-year-old-unpatched-windows-vulnerability-discovered-20100120/
8) http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/exploits-of-unpatched-ie6-ie7-flaw-on-the-rise.ars
9) http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Several-known-vulnerabilities-to-remain-unpatched-on-forthcoming-Microsoft-patch-day-947191.html
10) http://www.myce.com/news/microsoft-confirms-windows-shortcut-zero-day-exploit-32107/?utm_source=myce&utm_medium=frontpage&utm_campaign=related_posts

There, 10 vulnerabilities, which either took Microsoft months after visibility to patch, or still aren't patched.

Now, STFU.

So why is it exactly that you think Mono is such a bad example? Seems to me that if you cut away all of the FUD thrown at Mono, Miguel was right all along: The CLI and C# is absolutely open and safe from MS patent litigation.

But JVM and the Java language are absolutely open and safe from Oracle patent litigation! This isn't about conforming to an existing spec, or even that Google are implementing the Java language.

The way in here for Oracle is that Google are not implementing the JVM but a similar, incompatible, system that infringes upon JVM patents. If Google had gone for C# over Dalvik, there'd be no protection against patent lawsuits from Oracle either. Yeah, I said Oracle - Microsoft signed a license agreement with (what was then) Sun that licenses specific Java patents for use with .NET. It's not even clear that the license protects non-Microsoft implementations, so it's even possible that a hypothetical (and utterly pointless) replacement of Dalvik with Mono would also fall foul of the same patent concerns.

Incidentally, Microsoft has actually been quietly licensing patents to Android phone makers (while avoiding going after Google directly) although I believe these are mostly user interface patents.

In this context, Miguel's comment is about as silly as it gets. First of all, the Oracle lawsuit, being against a third party non-Java VM implementation, actually raises questions about Mono's safety rather than reaffirming it. Second, it ignores the reason Google rolled their own VM in the first place, instead proposing that there was some obscure reason why the JVM wasn't suitable but somehow the CLI would have been. And finally it proposes that Microsoft is not going around threatening Android phone makers with patent suits, when they are already doing so!

I think Miguel is unfairly demonized on Slashdot, but in this instance I think his comments weren't thought through.

First OpenSolaris.

I hope they dont do anything like this with java.....oh wait

"Google went to the effort of developing a clean-room bytecode interpreter so they did not just game the rules as you imply. "

And why did they do that?

Oh yes to get around licensing. I don't care if they made more technical effort to do it, they are still gaming the rules.

The intent of Java has always been to keep it to a standard, and the license is all about not subsetting/supersetting.

Google gamed the rules, told Sun to screw off and will now face Oracle in court.

Instead of abiding by the spirit and intent of the license, Google instead chose to ignore it entirely by exploiting a loophole. After that IMO all bets are off. If Oracle nails them because they didn't carry out their exploit cleanly, just deserts for attempting the exploit.

If Google respected the license they wouldn't be in court.

I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree and hence my point, this isn't as clear cut as SCO vs IBM. I think there will be plenty of people that once they read about how Google attempted to just use a technicality to avoid licensing will see the other side.

BTW when the story first broke, my first reaction was "Those damn Oracle bastards", but after I read some back-story, my opinion changed to Google attempting and exploit here to get out of licensing.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9817048-39.html
http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/110/

Personally that's the ONLY way they should do it.

For arrests, just release statistics.
"This weekend we arrested 5 people on DUI. 1 Burglary. 1 Indecent exposure."

Only AFTER someone has been convicted in the court of law should their names be released. Release their names, photos who cares.

I remember there were some people up in arms that Spain refused to release the names of the guys that were accused of running a bot net. I'd love to see a sane law in the United States, but I'm not going to wait on it.

No it isn't. That was over the use of the JAVA trademark.

Trademark was only part of the litigation. J++ extensions to Java and use of Java technologies was also part of the litigation.

This was all finally settled in 2003, as reported by CNET (emphasis mine):

Under the 10-year pact with Microsoft, the software company will pay Sun $700 million to resolve antitrust issues and $900 million to resolve patent issues, the companies said. The companies will pay royalties to use each other's technology; Microsoft is paying $350 million now, with Sun to make payments when it incorporates technology later.

It was Sun who never submitted Java to ISO or ANSI, it was Sun who created a dual-licensed Java, it was Sun who filed hundreds of patents on Java-related technologies, and it was Sun who created the limited patent grant under conditions that nobody could meet.

Actually, they were going to submit to ISO... but then the complaints suddenly started coming in about being a standard from a single company. One of said complaints was from Microsoft, naturally.

Funny how MS doesn't have that same problem when it's their standard (OOXML).

Sun submitted it to ECMA instead. Then later withdrew it after realizing that Microsoft could use this to add things to the Java specification (this was after the lawsuit).

Of course, Microsoft's goals here were probably to get Sun to do exactly that, as less than a year later, they C# (and by extension the .NET framework).

It was Sun who never submitted Java to ISO or ANSI, it was Sun who created a dual-licensed Java, it was Sun who filed hundreds of patents on Java-related technologies, and it was Sun who created the limited patent grant under conditions that nobody could meet.

Actually, they were going to submit to ISO... but then the complaints suddenly started coming in about being a standard from a single company. One of said complaints was from Microsoft, naturally.

Funny how MS doesn't have that same problem when it's their standard (OOXML).

Sun submitted it to ECMA instead. Then later withdrew it after realizing that Microsoft could use this to add things to the Java specification (this was after the lawsuit).

Of course, Microsoft's goals here were probably to get Sun to do exactly that, as less than a year later, they C# (and by extension the .NET framework).

It was Sun who never submitted Java to ISO or ANSI, it was Sun who created a dual-licensed Java, it was Sun who filed hundreds of patents on Java-related technologies, and it was Sun who created the limited patent grant under conditions that nobody could meet.

Actually, they were going to submit to ISO... but then the complaints suddenly started coming in about being a standard from a single company. One of said complaints was from Microsoft, naturally.

Funny how MS doesn't have that same problem when it's their standard (OOXML).

Sun submitted it to ECMA instead. Then later withdrew it after realizing that Microsoft could use this to add things to the Java specification (this was after the lawsuit).

Of course, Microsoft's goals here were probably to get Sun to do exactly that, as less than a year later, they C# (and by extension the .NET framework).

Now Sun sees everyone hopping on the Android train for all sorts of devices, and no licensing fees coming in from any of them. And they're suing.

Actually Sun's grievances go way back to 2007 ("Sun's worried that Google Android could fracture Java".) It's just that Oracle's bite is worse than Sun's bark. Oracle see Java as probably the most important part of the Sun acquisition and it's logical they would want to protect it from fracturing as Sun did with MS in the early years. They're too big to be pushed around by Google too which sadly couldn't be said of the waning Sun.

"I wonder if this could be as big and as interesting(for the geek community) a fight as SCO v Novell"

Nope because this one is much more grey.

I am on Oracles side on this one. Google tried to exploit a technical loophole to get around licensing. Dirty pool IMO.

Every other mobile implementation is licensed, but Google thought they were special and could get around it.

Sun tried to resolve this in 2007 and Google told them to go pound sand.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9817048-39.html

"Most are saying that they are going after google's jme which is quite interesting since google built (Dalvik) themselves to get around these licensing issues"

Oracle/Sun actually make money licensing JVM for mobile use. Google trying to use a technical exploit to escape licensing does seem like a dick move to me. I have no sympathy for Google on this one.

It was clear from the beginning that Sun was agaisn't this, but likely lacked the resources to do anything about it. Sun tried to work with Google in 2007 to clear things up. Google thinking they had found a loophole to exploit, told Sun to go pound sand:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9817048-39.html

Sun wants to work with Google to nip any problems in the bud. "We're really interested in working with Google to make sure developers don't end up with a fractured environment. We're reaching out to Google and assuming they'll be reaching out to us to ensure these platforms and APIs will be compatible so deployment on a wide variety of platforms will be possible," Green said.

Google unrepentant
Google didn't adopt a terribly conciliatory tone in its response, arguing that when it comes to Java fragmentation, Android is the solution, not the problem.

To me it looks like Google said screw licensing. We are Google, we can do what we want...

If Apple could add an optional "bottom half" cover to the iPad, which would consist of a keyboard, memory card reader on the side, and perhaps connect only having swing out arms that attach magnetically to the bezel of the iPad (itself having built in hidden magnets) so that it would look like a netbook, I imagine such a thing would be really popular. Especially if priced at $149 or so.

Of course, this idea is from Always Innovating Netbook, Touchpad, and only the attachment is changed to make it more in line with Apple's current style and offerings:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10185351-1.html

I consider the current dock connector keyboard a real klutzy solution.

People love blaming inherited problems on the person currently in power.

It is easy, and true, to blame this administration for this. VP Joe Biden is pro-MAFIA, er MP-RI/AA.

Falcon

What do people expect when Vice President Joe Biden is pro-MP-RIAA?

Falcon

Had it been said as part of a competent explanation, it probably wouldn't have been picked up on. However his halting, improper explanation made it seem that he probably really did think of the Internet as being just like a sewer system, which is not at all correct.

That and the fact that his rambling was his justification to block the addition of net neutrality language to the telecom bill that he himself had 'authored' as head of the commerce committee. By demonstrating his rather poor grasp of the workings of the internet he also demonstrated that he really wasn't qualified to have so much control over it.

People laugh at Gore for saying "he invented the internet" when he really didn't say that, but Stevens has only gummed it up since then. Plus, it's ironic that, at least according to Wikipedia, Declan McCullough is an apologist for Stevens's "tubes" comment but was the first to exaggerate what Gore said for comedic effect.

Difference between A shares and B shares -- CNet.com article from earlier this year:

Google created a dual-class stock structure when it filed for an initial public offering in 2004. Class A shares are the ones that were offered to the public, granting the owner the value of one vote for one share. Class B shares, owned by Brin, Page, CEO Eric Schmidt, directors, early investors, and key managers, grant their owners 10 votes per share.

Page and Brin currently control 59 percent of the voting power of Google's stock, according to Friday's filing. By the time they have disposed of all the shares involved in the plan, they will control 48 percent of the voting power of Google's stock.

This is in an article about a long-term stock-dispersal plan -- Page & Brin will still have over 50% of voting rights until 2014.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10440005-265.html

CNET reports here that this is an app external to the Android Market, and you had to get it from a maliscious (I assume) website.

I saw one report from a phone user claiming they saw it as a 13kb download that they didn't think they asked for, and deleted it. No idea if that is credible.

So it does appear, at least for now, that this is not a Market app.

In my opinion, the problem is Eric Schmidt. I trust both Larry Page and (even more so) Sergey Brin that they really try to live by "don't be evil". But Eric Schmidt transforms the company more and more into a profit-oriented, shareholder-controlled, greedy mess. I'm afraid that it will get a lot worse once Page and Brin lose give up control over the company. After all, most shareholders are concerned with return of investment, not things as silly as ethics. "By 2014, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will have sold enough of their stock to give up majority control of the company, Google announced Friday evening." http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10440005-265.html Not something I'm looking forward to.

None of this is Mozilla's responsibility, nor should it be.

If it's not supposed to be Mozilla' responsibility, then there should be an option to make it that way.

One of the options in the various extensions prevents it from being used if it is newer than a specific version (i.e. an extension originally written for 3.5.8 won't work for 3.5.8.1). It's the same form of version checking found in some old DOS programs that needed SetVer to run properly, and making that form of check in Mozilla is obstructive to experienced users.

It's no different from preventing Netscape 4 from running on sites designed for Netscape 3, and forcing them to redownload Netscape 4.

They have cameras at airports that can take a photo with HUNDREDS of people on them and identify their faces from a database within seconds.

Total bullshit. All trials of such systems have been utter and total failures.

Basically, it's important for VOIP to have a certain quality of service for clear voice calls, but different QOS rules may make sense for other data types

Do you remember when the millimeter wave full-body scans weren't going to be recorded? But now they routinely are? Remember when seatbelt laws would only be enforced in conjunction with another type of violation, but now they are an arrestable violation all on its own? Maybe you don't remember these things, but I do, with countless other examples I could name, I see a trend....

If it's possible, they'll do it and they already have (Comcast vs Torrents, anyone?) and the only reason they don't do it more is because people got pissy about it. We need to get pissy about this, too. Somehow, despite lacking all these vital QoS rules, the Internet has grown to become the dominant global information network, winning out over many other networks having such things as QoS enforcement. (EG: Proprietary ATM networks, etc)

Sorry, but I like my Internet the way it is, spam and all. It really needs to be nothing more than a Network of Endpoints all sharing equivalent potential value. Let people decide what's valuable and what's not.

We need to be pissy about this issue.

Story is FUDas a poster from above said.

Actually, NYT got this story very wrong, according to cnet:

As part of the deal, Verizon would agree not to selectively throttle Internet traffic through its pipes. That would not, however, apply to data traveling over its wireless network for mobile phones, the report says.

Second, this has nothing to do with evil mutual fund and pension fund managers. While your right, these big guys would like nothing more than to control the company, that's juts not possible now. Google's major voting powers are held by Bring and Page via their Class B stock, that only transforms into a class A when they choose to sell it, or when they die, whichever comes first. Reports are that they plan to sell some of their Class B, which then becomes class A, over the next few years. Even still, they will still control more than anyone else, making it likely their vote counts more. This is completely ignoring their CEO, which is lock-step in sync with the owners.

This piece makes it sound like the agreement is for more fine grained QoS, not net general net neutrality.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20012723-56.html?tag=mncol;txt

Full disclosure, I work for Google. But I have no say in these kinds of things. Normally I wouldn't comment on such an article, but do I think it's enlightening to hear Google's side of the story. Therefore, here are CEO Eric Schmidt's recent comments on this topic:

"People get confused about Net neutrality," Schmidt said. "I want to make sure that everybody understands what we mean about it. What we mean is that if you have one data type, like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. It's OK to discriminate across different types...There is general agreement with Verizon and Google on this issue. The issues of wireless versus wireline get very messy...and that's really an FCC issue not a Google issue."

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20012723-56.html?tag=mncol;txt

Basically, it's important for VOIP to have a certain quality of service for clear voice calls, but different QOS rules may make sense for other data types. For example, downloading raw data files can be bursty. Precaching future web pages or Javascripts doesn't have to always succeed. But, "you don't discriminate against one person's [data] in favor of another".

Actually, NYT got this story very wrong, according to cnet:

As part of the deal, Verizon would agree not to selectively throttle Internet traffic through its pipes. That would not, however, apply to data traveling over its wireless network for mobile phones, the report says.

iOS is the biggest mobile operating system player right now

bullshit!

companies that are suffering from Microsoft lock-in

The City of Munich is going thru this. The first big hurdle (which they have cleared) was replacing M$Office macros and templates. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/09/5284.ars
(The next big hurdle is getting SAP's stuff to behave with a non-M$ OS or getting a replacement for the closed, proprietary stuff.)
The city's goal is to gain control of the source code for EVERYTHING they use.
They have their own spin of Debian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
(Progress report there on the city's conversion to all-FOSS; they are taking a very cautious, conservative approach WRT the timetable.)

The region of Extremadura in Spain was far more bold. They first converted over to FOSS apps under the payware OS--then in a single weekend switched the whole public sector over to a FOSS OS.
http://www.osnews.com/story/12611
Their spin of Debian is called LinEx. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuLinEx

...and, of course, there's the classic example from the previous century of a corp getting its tit caught in the wringer with payware licenses and a BSA raid and deciding to get off that junk post haste.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-6488047_ITM
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

gewg_ (CAPTCHA: ragweed; How'd they know?)

The peak of the iPhone buying craze is Christmas, though there definitely is a spike at product launches due to pent up demand. Anyway, I agree, it definitely seems to be the case that Android was outselling the iPhone during or around that time, and likely continues to do so. But there does seem to be a question of supply, since Apple still has a three-week wait for iPhones if you try to order them, whereas in the past you can usually get them within 2-3 days after the launch date. The summary is also a bit misleading, since it compares year-ago numbers against year-ago numbers for most of the manufacturers, but then conveniently doesn't for Apple. Had it done so, it would have indicated significant growth for the iPhone in the last year, since it had 10.8% in Q1 and 13.3% in Q2 of 2009, compared to the 23% it has now.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10245339-37.html
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/13/iphone-market-share-grew-375-in-q2/

Google did exactly that : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20005528-52.html

This article, and:

http://collateralmurder.com/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/16/army_wikileaks/
http://www.examiner.com/x-6495-US-Intelligence-Examiner~y2010m6d20-Censored-news-Pentagon-attacks-Wikileaks-more-gulf-drilling-approved-Fed-fights-reform-more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Errors_in_the_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_that_have_been_corrected_in_Wikipedia
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
http://thestatsblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/britannica-versus-wikipedia/

Oh really?

You realize some of the biggest "corporate masters" pushing for Net Neutrality are Microsoft, Google, etc - right?

And that just as many Democrats - Joe LIEberman, these 73 asstard bastards, Jay Rockefeller who recently put forth the "emergency censorship for Da Prezzy" bill - hate Net Neutrality?

Discuss in reality. There's no reason for anyone to vote this on political lines, and the whole "pleasuring their corporate masters" thing is just fucking stupid. The question is whether a certain few Content Cartels - Cox(sucker) Cable, Comcrap, TW, AOHell, etc - can try to run an extortion scam on content providers like Hulu and Youtube.

There is a video tutorial on cnet tv that shows you how to downgrade a 3G if you regret installing iOS4.

Do so at your own risk, YMMV, etc...

Steve is already readying his police cronies to kick down some doors to stop this. And don't think some hippie court ruling is going to stand in Steve's way! He'll say this is malicious hacking.

I don't expect anybody to read this as Slashdot articles grow exponentially in comments each hour but...

The price of petrol in London is about 116 pence per liter http://www.whatprice.co.uk/petrol-prices/
1 US gallon = 3.78 liter
4.39 GBP (pounds) per gallon
1 pound = 1.5 dollars (exchange rates are always crazy)
6.59 dollars per gallon

195k / 49.5 = 3939.40 * $6.59 = 25,960
  195k / 30 = 6500 * $6.59 = 42,835
195k / 15 = 13000 * $6.59 = $85,670

So, while many will argue that "Europeans" are "controlling their oil consumption" through taxes, I would argue that the world has been susidizing the oil industry. Additionally, many American vehicles get 20 or even 15 mpg.

PLEASE REMEMBER, money is fiction (pieces of paper), work is economic fiction, government is fiction, and the price of Gas/Fossil Fuels is fiction. We all agree to a system but the system can and should be changed towards improvement.

IEA: To promote efficiency, cut fossil fuel subsidies
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20007059-54.html

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_23.html

So perhaps instead of silly rebates we should reduce Fossil Fuel susbidies and increase the tax on gas (yes, there are both Federal and State taxes on gas already so I'm not proposing some radical communist ideology).
       

But it's aged fairly well for being at least six years old.

Not really. Google designs and builds their own servers.
The "super expensive storage solutions" are for suckers.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10209580-92.html

These expensive solutions are probably the reason why the analyst mentions saving $1M for each 100TB removed.
With 4U enclosures like backblaze's, you get 90TB for $11K of hardware and $6K (45 disks @ 8WH) of power usage per year.
An IT operator can control dozens of such enclosures, let's say a conservative 2 dozens. So $160K salary / 24 enclosures is $7K.
Add $7K for a full time dev and custom storage management software, and $14K for management (still for 24 enclosures).
That's still about $45K for 90TB all included, exactly 20 times less than the mentioned $1M for 100TB.

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/
I replaced the 1.5TB disks with Seagate Barracuda XT SATA 6Gb/s 2TB disks at $200 on newegg in this computation.
Seagate's other models built in China have lots of problems that the XT doesn't seem to have.

I had a CycloDS for my DS, but your DSi's firmware blocked it from working. This page reminded me to look, and sure enough, I can now buy a nice Acekard 2i for like $15 and/or a Supercrad DStwo for about $35 that does things your console should do natively (such as GBA and SNES emulation), both of which use the same 16 GB Micro SDHC card that my CycloDS uses, all of which will work with my nice Nintendo DSiXL.

Of course, since I own physical copies of all the games I put on my flash cart, it's all ethically sound, if not legally unassailable. Fortunately for me, I am much more concerned with living ethically, if not legally, especially when in regards to stupid, anti-consumer laws like the ones that would outlaw this sort of thing. Although Nintendo might be screwed even in that case, because "Jailbreaking" a mobile device is now legal in the US. Since my DS is a mobile device, and the Acekard / DStwo are methods of "jailbreaking," -- i.e., running unapproved software -- well, seems to me the much loved DMCA that Nintendo would no doubt use to shut these things down in the US... wouldn't actually shut them down.

So thank you, Nintendo. Thank you for reminding me to look for a DSi compatible flash cart, and reminding me I need to do my part to support small development studios like the Supercard and Acekard teams.

If they treat any of them like they've treated OpenSolaris, then I'd say they would die a slow death.

At this point, the last release was June 2009. Development has stopped being exposed to the outside world, we were expecting a May release, and we're going on August now. There still has not been official announcement by Oracle on this topic either.

While OpenSolaris is not a true open source product, it has been mistreated since the Oracle take over. It is unclear why there has been nothing said on it, but I'd rather take a project death at this point than this continued silence. Several key people have left to move onto other projects as well, though others are saying that development is still continuing. And worst of all, it would be a pain in the ass to fork because of their particular license design choice.

The forums have been rather full of people complaining about it as well. Especially after the OpenSolaris board has threatened to kill itself off if Oracle doesn't make some key decisions.

Just bad news all around. And it would be so easy to fix too, just by giving us an official statement on it's future.

Hmm, and Comcast (and others) have been royally excoriated for fucking around with BT and have generally backed off.

Because of FCC regulation.

Hmm, and you are prevented from changing your DNS exactly how? How fucking hard is it to use OpenDNS?

That is precisely what I'm doing right now.

And it's a damn good thing that we currently have a largely neutral Internet, because that means my traffic to OpenDNS is treated just the same as my traffic to my ISP's DNS. If we didn't have a neutral Internet then my traffic to OpenDNS might be subject to throttling or surcharges.

This net neutrality bullshit is going to bite you idiots in the ass.

To be completely honest, you're probably right... But not for the reasons that you think you are. It isn't like the mythical Free Market is going to do any better. Stuff gets fucked up. It's just what happens.

If "not" neutral was a good idea WHY THE HELL ISN'T IT ACTIVELY BEING USED ALL OVER THE PLACE ALREADY?!??

It is.

I do all sorts of traffic shaping at work. We block various sites outright. We limit other sites to just a fraction of our total bandwidth. And some sites get priority treatment.

My personal motivation for this is to ensure that all the business-critical stuff we need is accessible.

Other folks might have multiple pipes, and shape traffic based on which route is going to cost them the least. Or you might base it on latency, or congestion. There's lots of ways to shape traffic, and lots of reasons to do it.

Right now, generally speaking, shaping is pretty much limited to private networks like mine. Once you get out to your ISP everything is generally treated the same. But the technology exists, and the motivation exists. The main reason ISPs aren't currently doing large scale shaping is because the legality is fuzzy right now.

Both sides of the debate would like to correct that. We all want to eliminate that fuzziness. The difference is that one side wants to make that kind of large scale shaping clearly legal, where the other side wants to make it clearly illegal.

I attached a note to the IRS asking them not to put it in that kitty

I think the IRS loves kitty way too much:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6104259-7.html

Another great example of this ignorance (and misinformation spread by Apple) is that Mac OSX is virus-free and will stay so, while in fact there have been several recent instances of malware on OSX. The funny thing is that because Apple spreads these lies and users blindly trust them, they also are ignorant and can't see it. It's the classic lalalalala.

Exactly.

I do realize that, however they are only doing streaming in Canada.

Netflix started mailing disks then started to transition to streaming. While in Canada it would cost me 4.50, near the $5 monthly fee from netflix, to download 1GB (~1 movie at CD quality).

At DVD quality (4GB), they could buy you your own copy of the new release and ship it to you!

This is just crazy. Why does this happen? Monopoly pricing. Btw, its better if they destroy the disk preferably with flames.

here's a typical breakdown:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13556_3-10250017-61.html

Goodreads.com is like Last.FM for books.

So, how can Microsoft guarantee its Windows Phone 7 devices will enjoy broader adoption than the ill-fated Kin? By giving every Microsoft employee a free one, that's how

I'm sorry but this is a stupid statement and a stupid article.

No, you really missed the point. They seriously sold like 500 to 1000 kin phones, so handing out 90,000 of these phones is two orders of magnitude greater. Guaranteed greater marketshare. Of course MS used to be able to sell Windows phones before there were things that were much better and easier to use, but that's in significant doubt now. Sure, they'll be able to sell some, but I'd be extremely surprised if they crack significant market share. If they do it will be by one of two ways: actually creating one of the best products they ever have in order to compete, or the same old dirty business tricks that made dos, windows, exchange, etc successful.

As a matter of fact, the mere fact that we are having this discussion, that I initiated by posting the story, is making me re-think any further investment into Apple platform.

If you're bought into Apple, you've already paid a pretty penny. I'm really confused why applying for a design patent causes you more remorse than the amount of money you've already shelled out but to each their own I guess. Before you switch to Linux, consider that this patent can be used in good way and in a very very bad way. And given that you're willing to buy Apple gear, it's highly likely you never experience this user ad supported interface. It just wouldn't make sense for Apple to force this onto desktop users.

Don't forget that Huawei once copied Cisco's IOS including documentation, via stolen source code.

I wouldn't expect anything different from Baidu