Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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?
that sort of reminds me of this:
In late 1999, Apple CEO Steve Jobs telephoned Stephens(Adaptec CEO). "I want the source code for your CD burner on my desk today, or you'll never do business with Apple again," Jobs said.
Jobs seemingly (and boldly) wanted to examine the source code for possible inclusion in Apple's forthcoming OS, but Stephens, unwilling to give up proprietary information, politely explained that Adaptec would be happy to work out a licensing plan instead. So Stephens said, "With a healthy share of the Macintosh CD software market already and not a whole lot of business done directly with Apple these days, doesn't it seem...."
Click. Jobs hung up. Stephens was baffled.
From PC Magazine
Jobs makes me laugh. That takes some big rocks.
. . . 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.
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.
Okay, this is funny for two reasons. First just stop and think for a moment about: "...they just are very expensive... iMacs are cheap...". Ummm, so what you're saying is Apple sell a cheap line of computers (starting at $799) and a more expensive line? That doesn't seem unreasonable, and it also seems to contradict the rest of your argument. Just because some Macs are expensive doesn't mean all Macs are expensive.
But even more priceless is: "For the rest of us who actually use computers, we want a computer we can take apart and fiddle around with". Which is hilarious. Because the "we" who want to open up our computers and fiddle with them are the tiny, tiny minority of computer users. Most people don't want to ever open up the case of their computer. Ever. They wouldn't do it if you paid them.
This is why machines like the Mac and most PCs are so popular. Most users don't want to be hardware engineers or system configurators. Machines "for the rest of us" (to borrow an Apple marketing slogan) are sealed units that people will never open. Being a geek is a noble and wonderful thing, but don't for a second forget that we are highly atypical computer users. What we want is not what the mass market wants.
Sailing over the event horizon
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
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. If the Mac [Apple] does well, it means more Unix base. It means more people not under the Windows hegemony. It means more users of Open Source (BSD, GPL, or otherwise) software. It means more devlopers of Open Source. It means more testing and debugging of Open Source software. It means more Open Source software: Darwin Streaming Server, Darwin (which is more than just BSD), and OpenPlay (which is a network interface). Apple Open Source 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. Everyone is a competitor; competitor for users, money, developers, and products. Every engineer at Netscape writing Mac code is an engineer not writing Linux code. Every engineer patching bugs or adding Altivec optimizations to Open Source code is an engineer not doing something similar for non Apple hardware. If Apple goes belly up, Linux loses developments of things like Firewire (which Apple helped to develop), 802.11b (which Apple arguably foisted on the world over Intel's slower wireless networking standard), USB (PCs are still sold with PS/2 ports and peripherals). Arguably, Apple was the impetus for the WIMP paradigm that GNOME and KDE follow, as well as TrueType and PostScript (though one is Apple's and one is Adobe's), there wouldn't be GIMP (without the original PhotoShop), or Killustrator (without Illustrator), or *any* of the Office suites without the first original Word. It's fair to say that the Apple of today is a different beast than the Apple of 20 years ago, but one could arguably extrapolate into the future what Apple may offer us (iDVD, iPhoto, iMovie, iPod, etc) and how they may change the computing landscape for everyone, including Linux users. 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. Fair enough. Your opinion and your voice.
GPL Deconstructed