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Slashback: Rebuttal, Satellite, Patents
RTFPrint An Anonymous Coward writes: "As I'm sure is true of many others among the Slashdot faithful, I was ecstatic to see the culmination of this story earlier in the week. It seemed that Comcast's leadership had experienced a sudden and uncharacteristic attack of common sense. As a former @Home subscriber being moved to Comcast's network, I'd balked at the new terms of service Comcast required (particularly the part about giving Comcast permission to track my browsing). So, if Comcast swears that it won't track users' browsing anymore, why does it still ask for permission to? Exhibit 1: Comcast's "Subscriber Agreement". May I direct your attention to section 5, entitled "Collection, Use and Disclosure Of Information On Subscriber Use", in which Comcast requests that you give permission for them to track (and sell) information about your browsing habits. I particularly like the part about how collecting information on users' browsing is "necessary to provide the Service". Note also that this exact "Subscriber Agreement" is required for ex-@Home users to move to Comcast's network. How fortunate that I just last week got notified about the avaiability of DSL in my area...."
It's not as simple as averaging "W" and "Y." marktwain writes: "Gene Steinberg probably has the most sensible rebuttal on his website http://www.macnightowl.com/ to Robert Cringely's recent article which Slashdot linked to, commented about, and which deserves a rebuttal. The whole idea of porting OS X is not only inane but is an idea which was flogged to death a year ago. And if Cringely's article wasn't bad enough, Slashdot kicked off with the equally inane "but Apples are so expensive" garbage. In today's world, dominated by the Wicked Wizard of Redmond, the penguins and the mac heads need to hang together and understand each other."
Getting the most of sky-high satellite costs. Jason Nunnelly sent in a note that he's updated his information on connecting a home network to the Net using satellite, a feat that can be difficult and expensive. Of course, when all your options are difficult and expensive, it might look like a pretty good idea. Read this information if you want to know how to save money on the connection and the hardware required, and some sobering words about technical support. (Check those hourly rates, too.)
Novel idea: require patents to have one. Cecil Bumfluff writes: "An update to a recent /. story regarding European proposals for software patents. It seems that unlike the US system, the vendor must prove they have made a "technical contribution to the state of the art". This seems a lot tougher than current US patent law. Check out the story at The Register"
Judge Dredd, or Judge Milquetoast? spellcheckur writes: "Remember the ACME Rent-a-car and GPS fiasco? The Boston Globe is reporting that ACME has been ordered to cease the practice and refund the money. One of the interesting conclusions in the article, they say the increased liability of a speeding car amounts to about $0.37 in insurance cost, not the $150 they were charging. Why is it then that my insurance gets to jack my rates two hundred bucks a year when I get one lousy ticket?"
"Why is it then that my insurance gets to jack my rates two hundred bucks a year when I get one lousy ticket?"
.37 * 365 = $135. Going up $200 is a bit much maybe but not as much as you made it seem.
i use the internet for only a few things... and the main use is running servers.
satellite is basically worthless... we can't think of the internet as a media outlet, it is an interactive environment... users aren't 'surfing the web' hoping for content just be spewed at them, they want to interact, and the uplink of most satellites makes even posting a lot of form data a problem.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
In other words its still the same over here. And the reason is simple
THE US HAS TOO MANY LAWYERS
Which means they have an approach of grant and challenge (i.e. in the courts, long and expensive process for everyone involved, normally leads to might is right), rather than the European challenge and grant, which means academics and other interested parties can challenge it before its given. The later gives patents that are rarely over-turned and rarely granted, the former, lots of over-turns of lots of patents.
ITS THE LAWYERS MAKING MONEY HERE
Having Lawyer driven processes is bad... hell even Dan Quayle spotted that one on 8/13/91!
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The courts in Anchorage, AK threw out unmanned radar, probably on the same grounds as this.
No harm, no foul, I guess.
I can't believe we're still discussing this at all. Apple is never going to port OS X to Intel, it just doesn't fit with their business model. Apple is a hardware company. They make their money selling a good package of reliable, solid hardware and powerful software. Mac OS X sells for about $100 and Apple is happy with its returns, they are not interested in selling it for $279 per license to suck the money out of the consumer. They don't even use software keys on it! Can we please let this issue die?
In today's world, dominated by the Wicked Wizard of Redmond, the penguins and the mac heads need to hang together and understand each other
Except that Apple have their own monopoly; only their business practives are worse than those of Microsoft - the only reason their market share is so small compared to MS is the price of the hardware.
Remember, the Free Software Foundation have never imposed a boycott on Microsoft. They have on Apple.
"I think he was truly surprised at how little I cared about how big a market the Mac had" - Linus on Jobs
OS X on intel is not the answer. Mac holds about 5% of the market. Well that is what I have been told It sure as heck seems bigger but lets say that 5% is true. What can appple do to get more then 5% and still keep control of hardware, and make all these OS X on Intel freakes happy.
:)
,end of story.
2 simple steps
Step 1.
Make a head less Imac with no super drive as the low end. the super drive adds like $400 to the cost of the system and the LCD adds between 400 - 600. so if we cut those out you are left with a good sub 600$ system that will run X.
Step 2.
There is no step two.
This is the only way for apple to get more the 5% of the market they will have to win in the sub 500 system area. Think about it, if it had a TV hook up on it and a simple remote , it would be the digital hub
When your cheapest system that is current is a laptop you have done something wrong.
These were all very good article's, but they are happy feel good articles, sorta like what you would see on any local news stations.
I'd like to see more articles relating to what a lot of us nerds have been going through lately. I'm talking about dealing with the current economy, unemployment, depression. Reading this posts responses one can only assume that there are a lot us out here in the same boat.
I want to see more stories about how to get through these issues. Maybe some nerd recipe sharing for those on budgets. How about articles that deal with where the money that used to go into the technology sector went. Give me something more to do with my day than hitting refresh on slashdot.org to see what new stories are there. How about stories on places nerds can use their skills in a volunteer position? There are many ways slash can help, please start doing something different.
So they charge you $200 more if you get a speeding ticket. Do you pay it? Well, there you are, they charge more because they can.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
..they say the increased liability of a speeding car amounts to about $0.37 in insurance cost, not the $150 they were charging.
:)
Really sucks if you get a divorce or have a medical problem, and then they nicely raise your rates for no reason other than your credit rating changes. Here in Washington state insurance companies are getting away with murder, if you have low credit or bad credit they want to charge you more, even if you have a perfect driving record. This is known as Credit Scoring, and our Gov. Gary Locke is trying to pass a bill to make it illegal.
I love that scene in fight club where the insurance companies are blown up.
Before you all come back with "but macs are so well built," admit that if there were no mac OS, if Windows were ported to the G3/4, would you have bought a mac? I didn't think so.
Finally, it's not like there's some enormous future reward to being a hardware company. Think about it, who would you rather be: Microsoft or Intel? I've just never understood Apple's strategy...
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
> .37 * 365 = $135.
So if someone gets a speeding ticket, that means he speeds 365 days a year.
Does that also mean if you get two speeding tickets, you must be speeding 730 days a year, so your insurance bill should go up $400?
Slashdot kicked off with the equally inane "but Apples are so expensive" garbage
I wouldn't call this argument "garbage". As someone who grew up on a macintosh and couldn't think of anything else, I now use a pc (yay linux!). Why? Because macs are expensive. I'm not trying to flame; they just are very expensive.
The typical reply is that iMacs are cheap. That's why I told my parents to get one. For the rest of us who actually use computers, we want a computer we can take apart and fiddle around with. Macs just can't do this.
I'm sorry, but Macs are expensive. And this is also why we won't see MacOSX on PCs anytime soon -- hardware is how Apple makes its money. If they don't sell the hardware bundled with the OS, they won't keep making that profit they like so much.
In today's world, dominated by the Wicked Wizard of Redmond, the penguins and the mac heads need to hang together and understand each other.
I don't understand why we need to do that. Apple is a for-profit company. They would be doing what Microsoft is doing if they had the chance. Remember how they sued Microsoft for having a windowing OS? Remember how they sued people for making iMac clones? Remember how they smashed all the aqua themes as fast as they came? "[T]he penguins and the mac heads" don't need to stick together -- they're after totally different goals. On one end, superb computing, on the other end, profit.
I've tried to make this as non-flamey as possible, but this topic always causes a flame war. Please read my arguments carefully before you respond.
If you are on a tight budget, or unemployed, you should not be worrying about places to volunteer. Maybe get off the free-software wagon and go join the capitalists. After you are producing surplus, then you can start thinking about helping others.
. . . Apple hardware isn't overpriced, but OS X on x86 would kill Apple, because everybody would flock to the comparably priced alternative hardware that isn't compatible with any legacy Mac apps.
Look, the Mac clones were, when it came down to the hardware, real Macs assembled by people other than Apple. Nobody argued that the Mac clone hardware was not equal to that in an Apple Mac. All the arguments for OS X on Intel argue that Intel hardware won't satisfy people who want Mac hardware. While this argument may be fallacious, it is *not* refutable simply by bringing up the Mac clones.
Instead, the basic argument against Cringley is that Mac hardware isn't worth the premium over x86 hardware. That is, that Mac hardware is overpriced relative to equivalent PC hardware, and only can sell because the OS and software makes up for the cost differential. That Mac hardware, dollar per dollar, is inferior to x86 hardware.
Look, just because Apple changes the processor OS X runs on doesn't mean that Dells and Compaqs will be able to use it. It shouldn't be hard for for Apple to come up with some hardware feature that prevents normal x86 hardware from running OS X.
Back in the days when Amigas were the cool machines with great graphics, they used the same processor architecture as Macs. Did Amiga sales cannibalize Mac sales? Not much. Amigas didn't have the copyrighted Mac ROMs. Apple can do the same with x86.
There. No cannibalization of their existing business. Yet they get to take advantage of a processor architechure that is faster, and getting faster all the time.
Look, I don't WANT the dominant processor architecture to be one of the cruftiest ones around. But it IS the dominant processor architecture. The chips are cheaper and faster. Yes, there would be pain in such a switch. But Apple pulled it off pretty well last time. Apple shouldn't let pride and fear hold them back.
Mac OS X was derived from NeXTStep, which did run on Intel as well as Motorola hardware. A number of the earlier Developer Releases, back when it was still only known as "Rhapsody", still ran on Intel hardware.
Steve Jobs, to be exact.
The man has a vision, no one can deny that. But he has an obsessive desire to control every aspect of the computing experience with a zeal few in the industry have ever been able to even approach, much less match.
He has a long-standing history of making sure Macs are as non-expandable as possible. Which doesn't mean he's going to bolt the G4 case closed, but he is going to limit expansion options as much as possible where it won't ruin sales of the particular model.
He wants uniformity across the line in every way possible. Even programming a theme creation app is enough to bring the wrath of Apple Legal down upon you. Of course, the offical reason is that a user could possibly violate Apple's trademarks with such a program, but really, everyone knows that it is to protect Aqua.
Apple likes to control its hardware and its software. Moreso than even Microsoft. They go to extrodinary lengths to make sure what ships from the factory is what ends up being thrown away years later.
The whole "you can mess with the BSD/Mach stuff" in OS X is nothing more than a bone thrown to the community. The stuff they use is already out there, so it's better for Apple to just let it remain so. People buy-into the idea that Apple is somehow a reasonably friendly company that won't screw you over. But that's a fantasy, I'm afraid. One proven countless times by various actions by the company as it has strived to maintain it's control over every aspect of the platform and the experince a user has interacting with it.
But people defend them because they are Apple and not Microsoft. People want to see an alternative and they are willing to accept any one that bills itself as being better, even if the painful reality is far different than they want it to be.
The point is, Apple wants to have an extremly high-level of control over every aspect of your computing experience. In many ways, even Microsoft is less restrictive. x86 hardware - even with some sort of ROM - would be the complete and total antethisis of what Apple consideres to be acceptable. They would quickly lose control over the platform, and their (Steve's) vision of the computing experience would be completely and utterly undermined.
Disclaimer: I would love OS X on Intel. Since I can't have it, I bought a Mac.
Let's see if I can proactively shoot down all the OS X on Intel crowd.
Here's my base assumptions:
Everything Apple does has to be advantageous (barring idiocy)
Advantageous to itself
Advantageous to it's current installed base
Advantageous to it's target market
Porting OS X to x86 in of itself implies several questions:
Dual architecture support
Legacy support (Classic)
Clones
Hardware limitations
So let's answer the questions.
If Apple ports OS X to x86, is it advantageous to itself?
Apple gains more options. Options are good. Apple is burdened with more support variables. Complexity is bad. Apple gets more thorough testing. Diversity is good. Conclusion: Existence of OS X86 is good.
If Apple ports OS X to x86, is it advantageous to customers?
If it means producing a new line of x86 hardware:
Customers get more choice. Choice is good. Performance is a question, but supposedly better. Better performance is good. Apple is burdened with more support variables. Complexity is bad. Apple gets more thorough testing. Diversity is good. Developers have to undergo another transition, unless they use Cocoa. Loss of developer support is bad. Virtual PC would perform better under OS X86. Better performance is better. Conclusion: No change for Apple.
If it means releasing the OS only:
Customers get more choice. Choice is good. Apple is burdened with *many* more support variables. Complexity is bad. Apple gets less thorough testing. Complexity is bad. Developers would have another platform to support. Diversity, while good, is expensive. Expect no software except through Cocoa or VirtualPC. Apple gets more customers. Good. Apple sells cheaper product; lower revenue, lower margins? Arguably bad. Conclusion: Apple loses.
If it means doing both:
Combine both situations, and Apple loses. Not to mention that in order to support the current market base, Apple would need to emulate the 68k under Classic, which itself would need to be ported, and which probably also requires PPC emulation.
If Apple ports OS X to x86, is it advantageous to it's target market?
Flat out: No. Target market loses the whole widget equation. Software, OS, and hardware are no longer integrated. Ease of use is hampered. Design decisions are hampered by lowest common denominator effect, unless they release their own PCs, and then they gain no advantage.
How about dual architecture support?
Apple would have to support older G3s, new G3s and G4s, and new x86, not even mentioning the option/headache of AMD vs Intel. This is a headache for no real gain for itself at the questionable gain of performance for it's customers.
How about legacy support (Classic)?
More emulation! Unless the new hardware can emulate PowerPC without a performance loss, users will see sluggishness in all parts of the OS not optimized for the new hardware, especially the PPC native bits. This doesn't even mention emulation of the Classic OS under the new hardware... Emulating an older processor (PPC), which itself emulated an even older processor (68k) as well as emulating parts of the older OS (Classic)... what performance benefit, again?
How about clones?
If the only difference between a Mac x86 and a standard PC is the OS + bits of logic, how soon until someone reverse engineers and releases, ala Compaq-IBM, a clone and steal entirely the Apple market?
How about hardware limitations?
How about the fact that power consumption and form factor limits Apple's ability to create nifty designs? No more 1" laptops that run for 4 hours! No more fanless designs! *Note, Apple *could* use the Tualatin, but then get hobbled by high price and low performance.
GPL Deconstructed
Apparently, ask and you shall receive:
7 22 1
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/21/232
For those who are looknig at Apple and syaing that it's hardware is expansive and that Apple gives away it's OS (low cost compared to Windows) you also need to point out that the number of softwares and flavor of hardwares on Apple are limited when it comes to x86.
This is also a big factor in buying an Apple vs an x86. I don't have data on this but I think it is save to say that there are more softwares for Linux than for OS X.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
Frankly put, why should us linux-using folks give a rats ass if the Mac does well or poorly? I don't see how Mac marketshare or 'cooperation' with the open-source crowd could be of any benefit whatsoever to Linux. To Apple, yes; to Linux, no.
Apple isn't and will never be a competitor. Apple has zero chance of negatively affecting the the development or use of Linux. And Apple has nothing to offer Linux. If Apple goes belly-up tomorrow it would have no effect at all on the development of the kernel, KDE, Gnome, various apps, etc.
I don't like Macs any more than I like Windows. In fact, I'd say I like the OS less because it's even more restrictive than Windows is (you have to buy very specific hardware, all approved by Apple, and most of it overly expensive). I see no justification or need for cooperation between Linux developers and Apple.
Let them make their own way. Assuming they can.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
One of the interesting conclusions in the article, they say the increased liability of a speeding car amounts to about $0.37 in insurance cost, not the $150 they were charging. Why is it then that my insurance gets to jack my rates two hundred bucks a year when I get one lousy ticket?
If you get caught speeding, your insurance agency knows that you speed, and you drive that car all the time. If a rental car is speeding, then the insurance agency knows that one of the multitude of people who drove that car speeds, but cannot expect the next X renters to speed.
I'm sick of people wasting bytes rehashing the same anti-mac rhetoric over and over. If this were a well thought out criticism, I'd welcome it, but this is just yet another kneejerk Linux geek shouting the same crap again. If you don't like Mac's, don't buy one. Period. I happen to use the more than enything else and find them to be very nimble and useful tools.
Pooty tweet
Do Macs come with any scsi standard anymore? I know their HDD are all IDE now, right? It seems like Apple would be nowhere nearly as important to Adaptec as they were 5 yrs ago when it seems like Apple was 100% scsi as a potential buyer of scsi chipsets.
ostiguy
Thank you for trying not to flame. I try too ;-)
This is silly. The only Macs that you can't take apart are the low-end stuff. What geek is happy with low-end anyway? The Towers are very easy to open up. For christ's sake, they won *design awards* for how easy they are to open up. Besides the motherboard, there really isn't much that you can't upgrade/fiddle with. Just last week I went to a local computer fair (PC stuff) and bought the cheapest 60GB ATA drive I could find. I stuck it in the slave drive bay and formated it. The whole operation took about 5 minutes. Not many people want to do complete motherboard swaps or want to build their own computer. Please tell me: what do you want to fiddle around with exactly?
I'm trying not to flame here but I'm sick of people making vague comments about why Macs aren't as good as PCs (we need a better name for this, wintel/lintel doesn't cut it). Here are some classics (not saying that you believe all of them):
I've missed some I'm sure. The Mac has some very real cons (working VNC would be nice, one that actually displays the cursor!), and I don't mind people griping about them but these are just FUD.
So that I'm not completely off topic, the guy that wrote the Mac OS X on Intel article is right. Unless Apple starts becoming a software company, this isn't going to happen. Apple is even more of a hardware company now than it was 5 years ago. Apple is giving away software for free and charging a lot less for Mac OS X than they could.
They seem to be reverting to their pre-system 7 days, where you bought a Mac and all the Apple software was free. IIRC, system 7 was the first MacOS they charged for.
I hope that wasn't a flame :-)
Guys, any idea what position the DirecPC satellite is in? I've got a second hand direcpc PCI card, and a spare single LNB...
Not that I'm up to coding anything close to the kernel code that would probably be necessary, but I'd at least like a stab at it.
However, one idea that I haven't heard is to port Aqua and the developer package to FreeBSD.
Aqua on FreeBSD is good for Apple because they can extend their developer base without giving away the crown jewels.
Think about it. People who buy desktop Macintosh are going to buy desktop Macintosh. Aqua alone would be like selling an excellerated X server with the QT toolkit.
If people were allowed to install FreeBSD and load on Aqua with support for a few video cards, that would create a developer base on Intel, that still has to buy a Mac for the integrated environment of OSX.
FreeBSD/Aqua gives developers well, a completed GNUStep. But for iTunes, Final Cut Pro, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, firewire that works when you plug it in, sleek sexy machines that are attractive to most people, etc, etc, etc,you have to buy the Mac.
I know that Apple can port this. OpenStep was ported to damn near everything, and Aqua isn't all that different. Plus the fact that FreeBSD is similar in many respects to OSX.
Also giving FreeBSD users the development tools makes development candy for FreeBSD. Coupled with the fact that JKH works for Apple, we would see some cool apps, and some cool cross-pollination without diluting what makes Apple Apple.
Maybe down the line Apple would find it worth their while to port to other *nixen, but Apple seems pretty bent on "There are five times as many BSD users as Linux users" sort of PR.
I would probably reccommend that Apple keep Aqua/FreeBSD pretty much under their own control. (Like Sun with Solaris source) This would be neccesary to keep the platforms in sync. Before anyone flames me for not worshiping OpenSource, just ask yourselves how many people use the Trolltech produced version of QT versus FreeQT or whatever it is called.
Note that I intentionally left out Linux and Net/OpenBSD because they all compete on the same hardware. Plus, I use FreeBSD, and I'm a poopy BSD bigot. Perhaps for the aformentioned reasons of "the Apple platform", this wouldn't be an issue. Apple could unify the UNIX desktop this way, but that might hurt them in the long run. Plus choice is good, right?
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
Not so, Carbon apps would run just fine in a Mac OS X for Intel. Most of the applications running natively on Mac OS X are Carbon apps, not Cocoa apps; for example Microsoft Office for X is a Carbon app. Perhaps you are thinking of Classic which won't be part of Mac OS X for Intel?
Carbon is an API, arguably one Apple could cleanly support on on OS X86. You're right, I confused Classic apps with Carbon apps. So theoretically Apple would provide the Carbon library for OS X and everyone would have to provide a 'fat' binary. So Carbon and Cocoa apps would indeed run on OS X86.
Actually there is one enormous advantage for Apple of a Mac OS X for Intel that only runs on Apple built hardware. They can use fast, relatively cheap x86/x96 CPUs. Currently the PowerPC CPUs - with the greatest respect to Steve's marketing snow job - are at about 2 years behind Intel CPUs in terms of performance for a given price point. This is hurting Apple more than it cares to admit.
That's only an advantage if x86 CPUs in a laptop running at 6W are faster than PPC CPUs... On the desktop, you may be right, but only if x86's *future* roadmap is brighter than PPC's *future* roadmap. I'm not in any position to argue that right now. Still, taking all four products into the equation, x86 is not an advantage.
GPL Deconstructed
In his article, Cringlely talks about how Borland gave MS a run for their money, and probably could have won out if not for their own mistakes.
Here's the problem with that argument: Microsoft didn't have much in the way of development tools at the time (i.e., they were vulnerable), so Borland was able to jump ahead and later maintain parity in marketshare with MS.
Apple is not in that situation. MS is very cognizant of the need to control the desktop, they have poured a ton of money into it, and they now control ~90% to Apple's ~5%. Apple is not in a position to leap ahead of MS because MS has already stolen most of the functional advances of the Mac OS, and they continue to steal shamelessly from Apple, from the bundling of video editing software right down to putting an "X" in the OS nomenclature.
Be had a vastly superior OS to Windows 9x; why didn't Be eat MS's lunch? MS was way too far ahead in the game, that's why. BeOS's superior architecture was understood and appreciated by maybe 1% of Windows users, but it wasn't enough to convince the other 99% to switch.
Maybe if Apple could magically convince every existing PC developer to develop for OS X first, and then maybe port to Windows, then yeah, OS X on Intel *might* have a shot at converting people in the long haul. It just ain't gonna happen, though.
Personally, I think Cringely couldn't come up with a good column for last week, so he said to himself, "Hey, I'll just talk about Mac OS on Intel again, that's always good for lively debate!" Cringely is a smart fellow who's well-read about the tech industry. I have a hard time believing that he actually thinks OS X on Intel would serve Apple well in the industry's current monopolistic state. In fact, I found his article disappointing and a little insulting.
"Why is it then that my insurance gets to jack my rates two hundred bucks a year when I get one lousy ticket?"
Because they're paying for the insurance on just the car. You're paying for the insurance on you as a driver as well as your car.
If anything this is a case of a company abusing its customers. If James Turner didn't get a lawyer and sue the rental store this crap would still be going on.
Now back to your regularly scheduled knee-jerking.
However there were licensees which is a whole 'nother thing. Clones just rip off the product, licensees have an arrangement with the owner, contracts, payment schedules, etc.
In Apple's case they were having production, inventory & cost-control issues so they figured let some other folks into the pool, expand the market. Apple would keep the mid and upper-end NA & European markets for itself, others could service the super-premium, budget, Asian, educational, and gamer markets. Unfortunately many of these companies soon stopped expanding the market and just went for the low-hanging fruit: Apple's own sales.
Instead of bringing in lots of new Mac users from markets Apple wasn't strong in (or not particularly profitable) instead Apple found itself competing with their own licensees on their own turf with their own technologies and own their compatibility assurances etc. It was cannibalism and Apple was the one getting eaten. Every time Power Computing sold one of their Macs it was at the cost of Apple selling one, and instead of that sale bringing in $$$ it was bringing in $, all while Apple was hemorrhaging money.
Did they shut down the licensees? Damn right - if they hadn't Apple'd have been bled dry pretty darn quick. Sure no Apple would have meant no Mac market but that wasn't the licensees concern, they'd gotten contracts allowing them to buy MacOS ROMs and sell MacOS 7.0 at a great price and they were busy undercutting Apple and making super money.
So finally Apple took advantage of the contracts, refused to write a new license for the new MacOS 7.5 and then used the buy-out clause to shut the licensees down. Did they scream? Sure, they'd been milking an expensive cow for cheap, who wouldn't scream to see that taken away. But was it shutting down "clones"? No, it was all legal, no cloning there.
Wintel PCs on the other hand: IBM never locked wily Bill Gates into an exclusive for DOS. Bill was happy to sell a custom version to anyone who ponied up and when the plethora of versions became too great released the generic and soon to be standard MS DOS.
Later the subtly-incompatible-in-different-ways BIOS issue was surmounted when the IBM PC BIOS was legally reverse-engineered and at that point the cat was out of the bag. IBM had never wanted clones, never expected them, and fought long and mightily against them but was never able to eradicate them.
Clever strategy? No, awful mistake. While the market wouldn't have grown as explosively most folks agree that had IBM kept control of their PC design they'd have made multiples of what they did off of it, would likely have "owned" the market. Anyway, IBM came out with MicroChannel and the PS/2 design and OS/2 which were all attempts to redefine the "IBM PC" back to something IBM controlled but to no avail - and trust me Apple had watched and learned and made sure those MacOS ROMs were crucial.
Now - the ROMs are gone. They're a file loaded like any other. You can even download the core of MacOS X and Apple has kindly ported it to x86. They've kept the upper levels to themselves but Darwin (and particularly with X on top) is a usable OS with some nifty architectural features. After flirtations with standardized PowerPC platforms (PREP, CHRP, etc - at one point there was such compatibility it is rumored that it was possible to boot a legit MacOS on an IBM RS-6000) Apple has instead gone to industry standard hardware with IDE, PCI, AGP, etc - just their own North & South Bridges and Open Firmware instead of the ancient BIOS.
What keeps folks from producing PowerPC-based Mac clones? Well the non-embedded PowerPC motherboard market is pretty small and somewhat pricey. There are also the legions of rabid Apple lawyers. Finally while Darwin is a start on MacOS X it's certainly not the whole thing and without Quartz/Aqua/Carbon/Cocoa/Etc. nobody is going to even try to label the thing "Mac". Apple probably does lose some sales to folks running QuickTime servers on Darwin but hey, it gets QuickTime more exposure, likely results in some outside development on Darwin that can be rolled back into MacOS X and it's not all that big a loss. Besides - that's not a clone either.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
and just because he only got CAUGHT once, doesn't mean he was only speeding once.
Then what does it mean ? And what significance does it hold in this discussion ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The only upgradable components in the new iMac are RAM and an AirPort card (and possibly the hard disk but it wouldn't be easy). This is in line with its expected market. The Towers are very expandable.
You win on this one, assuming you're being truthful. However, your situation is very atypical. Most computer users buy a CompUSA Compaq etc and for them Macs are cost competitive.
No thanks.
So is this the things to come.... satellite hacking.... in all honesty, why dont we as a community put a bird up ourselves?
It wouldn't be tooo hard.... i mean... people have cheaply put birds up before.... we could use evil technology like 802.11 and highly directional antennas..... Use IPSec on the link....
*thinks this is evil, but a good idea.. so... who wants to help *
The one clear problem is that the fcc power transmission limits.... but we could get around that somehow...
Nonsense -- your post is nothing but trolling.
/. -- but this one needs a reply.
I always ignore such bullsh*t comment coming form troller on
Have you been to a computer store lately? Check the number of titles available for Mac vs. Windows. What about the hardware? And need I mention the price difference?
You bring up Photoshop as Apple had it first -- well I can bring up 123 as x86 had it first. But this point is irrelevant and it looks at the past. You need to wake up and face the *today* and the future -- it's 2002 not 1982 any more.
PS: Next time watch your language. I too can use silly words like "bullsh*t".
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
It's in the "Your Rights Online" section, but has never appeared on the frong page. This is, sadly, the fate of many quality submissions, including Ask Slashdot.
The company also said the policy was not a penalty but a deterrent to keep people from driving at unsafe speeds.
This reminds me of the French diplomat who, in response to complaints about France's continued testing of nuclear bombs in the Pacific, said:
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Think about it, if it had a TV hook up on it and a simple
After my apple IIc I thought I'd never have to hook a computer up to a TV again!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yellow means stop. Just about anywhere you drive, a cop has a judgement call to make. If you go through a yellow, and the cop judges that you could have stopped, he can give you a ticket for running the light even though it was yellow.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
That's a nice opinion, but it's not the law. The law states that if any part of your car is in the intersection before the light turns red, you're legal to proceed through the intersection.
Now, what's realy safe, or what people should do, is a matter up for debate, but not up for tickets.
"I am a cipher, a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce" -Jimmy James
The problem is the "line" that the red-light camera uses to decide when you're in the intersection is not indicated on the road surface.
Yellow light timing has also significantly decreased over the last few years.
Read this for more info on this cash machine.
However we're already there with FireWire & USB devices. Lots of them work in MacOS (the generic USB class drivers do a good job) but not everything is and folks deal. The same for PCI cards in Macs that do have them - if it don't say Mac support on the side then you takes yer chances. Usually you'll be fine for generic items.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
how about using weather balloons to lift a launch platform up to an extreamly high alt... fire a liquid fuel... or if we want to be fancy... an impulse drive engine..... and kick the bird into orbit....
OS X runs on certain hardware. So does Solaris, yet I never hear anyone here complaining about overpriced Sparc hardware. Yes, I know that there is a big difference between their markets and performance factors, but in both cases you buy the hardware to get the OS, or you want the hardware to do something with it. If you want OS X, you have to get PPC. If you want Solaris, you get Sparc (well there is x86 Solaris, but that's just silly).
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Sure, that I sort of understand. There's actually some "royalties" paid back from the police to the manufacturer on the fines from those stop-light cameras, and that's just plain wrong.
But really there's not a problem. Even as far as the stop-light thing goes, the only issue is for the city/police to define exactly what tolerance is permitted (to allow for dodgy speedometers), and then frankly no-one has a leg to stand on. Ppl jumping red lights are more of a danger than a speeder. Some ppl complain that they only put them on busy junctions - well DOH! where else would you use them, except in areas where there's lots of cars and the odd asshole jumping the lights is likely to cause a more serious accident and traffic problems?
Grab.