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Apple Terminates Safari Seed Program

coolmacdude writes "This morning Safari beta v67 was leaked to the Internet. Because this is the third time it has happened (v62 and v64 were leaked), Apple has apparantly had enough and decided to terminate the seed program that provided unreleased beta verisons to selected developers. In a email sent to all developers and posted on Mike Wendland's blog, Apple says: 'Due to Safari 67 postings to the internet, we have closed the Safari Seed project. We know that the majority of you are not responsible for the leaks to the internet, and we sincerely appreciate your feedback, time and effort with this project.'"

404 comments

  1. Damn Him! by disneyfan1313 · · Score: 3, Funny
    Apple Terminates Safari Seed Program


    Damn that Johnny Appleseed and his plan to propogate the Safari with Apple Trees... I knew it would never work!

    --
    -=SiGH=-
    1. Re:Damn Him! by DrMrLordX · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, what Apple is not telling you is that they have simply outsourced all their seed programs to Burpee.

    2. Re:Damn Him! by Cloud+9 · · Score: 5, Funny
      That was easily the crappiest play on words I've ever seen.... Considering I've been reading /. comments for 4 years, that's saying a lot.

      You should be ashamed of yourself.

      --
      Karma: Dyn-o-mite!(mostly affected by Jimmy Walker reading your comments)
    3. Re:Damn Him! by rizawbone · · Score: 0, Troll

      reading that was incredibly painful. how can you people mod this shit up?

    4. Re:Damn Him! by Tokerat · · Score: 0


      At least he didn't try to make any "Jumanji" puns...

      --
      CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
    5. Re:Damn Him! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would they do that? It makes no sense since they never paid the developers who helped testing the betas anyway. Care to back you statement up?

    6. Re:Damn Him! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Burpee is a distributor of seeds, for growing plants. I hope this explanation was simple enough for you to understand.

  2. Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More testers = more bugs found = better product.

    1. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by flagstone · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ummm....they did. There's a difference between beta and "nightly" releases (yeah, "seed" isn't really "nightly", but it's as close as Apple gets).

      --
      These people have looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
    2. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by corebreech · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Ummm.... they did.

      Did you really misunderstand the question?

      What's truly dismaying about this is that Safari is based on open source code. So not only are they not going to release all of the improvements to the source code they make, they're not even going to release all of the binaries they make.

      Apple sees open source as free code. They're wrong, it's a lot more than that. They now lose all of the testing and feedback and bug fixes that would have been streaming their way if they played by the rules.

      Their loss.

      Camino is a better browser anyways. :)

    3. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by evand · · Score: 4, Informative

      As far as I know, Apple has released all of the improvements to the GPL'd code that they've released. The code they've written from scratch, they're keeping closed, as is their right.

    4. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by evand · · Score: 1, Informative

      Uh, just to clarify -- I meant, "Apple has released all of their improvements to GPL'd code that they've released in binary form." Sorry for any confusion and havoc caused due do my general semi-coherent weekend state.

    5. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Rura+Penthe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When Apple makes a public beta release they release the new improvements to Webcore (KHTML) as well. So any and all contributions they make are released when the public binary appears. Just because you don't get it instantly doesn't mean they aren't releasing "all" of the improvements. This is fully in compliance with the LGPL that KHTML is licensed under.

      In addition to that, why don't we ask a KHTML developer about how much communication is going on between teams right now before you start complaining about the situation?

    6. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by feldsteins · · Score: 5, Insightful

      These kinds of misunderstandings get blurted out here on slashdot time and time again. Listen, it's just wrong! Apple isn't just "using" open source code while breaking the oss licensing. They're doing everything just the way they're fucking supposed to. Christ, the way the OSS crowd badgers one of the highest profile companies to embrace large parts of it's philosophy you'd think they were fucking Microsoft. Jesus. Give a little credit already.

      Hey and think about this. Apple sells software. They have to take some kind of reasonable action when they see their unreleased development code go flying across the internet. Even if in that particular case it doesn't matter (as could be argued with safari). Because next it'll happen with say, Keynote, and then in court the defense will say "well you never bothered to prosecute/stop anyone from doing this in the past, so why now?" and the judge goes "hmm" the prosecution goes "damn" and Apple loses the case.

      It's like when your employer has a policy. If that policy is widely disregarded they damned well better not ever fire you for violating it, because if they do all you have to do to prove that there effectively IS no policy is show that they enforced it in a spotty way.

      --
      You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
    7. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Frequanaut · · Score: 0, Troll

      Your 100% correct. They're well within in their rights and even moral obligations. However this is a perfect example of why I run debian (when I'm not running winxp for work). I dislike access to innovation being withheld (even if it will eventually be available).
      Now, I just need to reconcile that as someone who makes a living from software development.

    8. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by DavidinAla · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By this logic, you should have access to every developer's code from the moment he or she writes it. Heaven forbid that the people writing the code decide for themselves when it's good enough to be released. You'd better quit using Linux, too, because you don't have access to the code the moment it's written, either. :-)

    9. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by ThatMadeNoSense · · Score: 0

      Your 100% correct.

      That made no sense.

    10. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple sells software

      Actually, they sell hardware, mostly and bundle software. Yes, they make money licensing their software, but most of their profit comes from hardware sales.

      This is, in part, one of the reasons Apple has taken well to opensource. They give a lot of their software away anyway (Free Beer), so why not take the extra step and give some source too?

    11. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by evilviper · · Score: 1, Insightful
      More testers = more bugs found = better product.

      Hmm, by that logic, I suppost Mozilla must be the best browser on earth by far!
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    12. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by rowanxmas · · Score: 1

      well, yeah it is...

      what else works on almost every platform in the same way and is as standards compliant?

    13. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by ax_42 · · Score: 1

      Hey and think about this. Apple sells software.


      No. Apple is, sees itself as, and always has been a hardware company. The software is icing to make the hardware saleable.
    14. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by RoLi · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      Oh my god, I can't believe how somebody can be so naive and paranoid at the same time.

      Policies? Courtcases? Judges legalizing piracy because of "they didn't prosecute in the past"? What a bunch of nonsense.

      The only reasons for closing the betas is:

      • So that Steve gets a good feeling showing off new features at the next keynote
      • Integrating it in a new version of MacOSX (and possibly making sure it doesn't run on an older version) to create upgrade incentive and buying incentive. Apple has a long history of crippling their own products (just like the lack of PCI-slots in their customer machines), they just don't get that they hurt themselves in the long run.
      • Company stupidity/paranoia. Essentially that's the same point as the one above.

      Imaginary court cases have nothing to do with it.

    15. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by domeng24ph · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i use mozilla all the time but sorry to burst your bubble, it ain't the best browser...

    16. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by questamor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's a bit simplistic, and when placed in a world that has either hardware companies or software companies for the most part, it's understandable to put apple in the same boat.

      Apple is a solutions company. They do both, and they work together, neither working best without the other. It's always been touted as one of Apple's advantages, that the software works well because ALL of the base hardware is known. That isn't a side effect of apple being a hardware-company-that-releases-software-too, but it's the basis of the way they do business.

      (apart from the clone years, which thankfully ended. I've had to support hundreds of mac and mac compatible machines, and those clones just aren't holding up anywhere as well as Apple's own machines)

    17. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Ed+Avis · · Score: 4, Insightful
      By this logic, you should have access to every developer's code from the moment he or she writes it.

      But of course. Why not? The developer is well-placed to give an opinion on whether code is stable enough for production use but he cannot know the circumstances of every single user. You might desperately need a particular bug fix, for example. Or more importantly, if you are working on the same project yourself or reusing some of the code, you'd want to keep up-to-date with the latest developments so you don't duplicate work.

      For proprietary software there are reasons to keep development versions secret until an official release. You don't want competitors getting advance knowledge of what will be in the next version, you don't want users downloading new versions they have not paid for, and you'd rather arrange publicity through choreographed launches and press releases. Plus, you wouldn't want anyone to see that the promised new feature for next month is only half-implemented.

      For free software development none of these reasons really apply (with the possible exception of commercial free software such as Linux distributions where you do have competitors, launches, marketing departments and all that). By all means make official 'releases', but more and more projects are seeing it makes sense to provide read-only access to the source code repository so that if people need code that isn't in the latest release, they can get it without waiting. There are few projects now following a pure 'cathedral' model.

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    18. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 1

      I have heard that Safari v64 is VERY buggy.. corrupted page display tops that list.. also often seems to keep headers and put them in inappropriate places..

      Hopefully v67 will fix these things and help advance towards another public release.

    19. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ummm... errr...

    20. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 1

      Err...what? Copyright isn't like trademarks, you can enforce selectively. After all, they can hand out a beta saying "you can't distribute this" and sue anyone who breaks that agreement. They can chose not to and it won't hurt them one iota in a future case.

      It's ironic you complain about misunderstandings that "get blurted out here on slashdot time and time again" when you yourself are doing it.

    21. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by feldsteins · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would never for a moment deny that it's at least partly about Steve's Macworld keynotes. And I don't think that's wrong for him to do. Those are the two times a year his company gets a billion eyeballs on them. He wants it to have maximium impact. He doesn't want his competitors to know what he's got planned. He wants media to write about it. He wants Mac users to go "wow." These are legitimate things.

      Your point about PCI slots is an interesting one to me. I have always said that most 95% of people who buy computers don't know what a PCI slot is, and 95% of the people who do know never use the ones they have anyway. Therefore, religiously including them in every computer you make and having it limit you in terms of cost and form is ridiculous.

      Yes, my computer has PCI slots and yes I've used them. So have you. Not my point.

      --
      You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
    22. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by labratuk · · Score: 1

      I understand that it's their right to keep it closed, but I personally think it would be a good move as a company to release the entire source.

      Why? Example code. I'm sure there are plenty of bits on the apple developer website, but what would be really useful is an entire application as a demonstration of a large project.

      Besides, what would be the harm in releasing the code? It's not as though there are masses of industry secrets hidden in that code, is it?

      --
      Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
    23. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You never answered his question. What is the best browser? I wouldn't say Opera. Look how fast they went from 7.00 to 7.03.

    24. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by RoLi · · Score: 1
      I have always said that most 95% of people who buy computers don't know what a PCI slot is, and 95% of the people who do know never use the ones they have anyway.

      Where do you have these numbers from? Did you did a survey?

      Well, I agree that few people probably know what a PCI slot is, however most know very well that they can upgrade their computers and put cards into them. While it's perfectly OK to offer a PCI-less device it would be better for Apple if they would offer a low-cost model with PCI slots, too.

    25. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by lvdrproject · · Score: 1

      You make an extremely cogent point.

    26. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by tgibbs · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Actually, they sell hardware, mostly and bundle software. Yes, they make money licensing their software, but most of their profit comes from hardware sales.

      I'd say they sell software and bundle hardware. I think there are a lot more people who buy Macs because they prefer Apple's operating system than because they prefer the PowerPC.

    27. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I won't disagree with your statement that people buy Apple for the software, but that doesn't stop their hardware sales from being their source of income.

      Of course, I also believe that people *do* buy Apple for the hardware. Look at any G4-based laptop and tell me that isn't desirable hardware. Then tell me of any other computer maker that has put Firewire on board every machine they've shipped in the last 2 years (this is an esiti-guess), Even the low-end teardrop iMac's had Firewire.

    28. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by feldsteins · · Score: 1

      Where do you have these numbers from? Did you did a survey?

      Yeah I did a 5-year informal survey of all the clients I've dealt with as a computer support technician. :)

      it would be better for Apple if they would offer a low-cost model with PCI slots, too.

      I've heard this argument among Mac techies for years and I just don't buy it. It would make the machines ever so much more appealing to them, but they wildly overestimate their own status in the marketplace. They believe that if only Apple would please them with the new iMac then it would result in a million more sales per year. This is, of course, nonsense. It would hardly register a blip in the sales chart. And in the meantime by including the slots (which take room inside the case and have to terminate somewhere on the surface) you have forgone the form-factor that does sell a significant amount of computers.

      Again, don't get me wrong - I myself would likely buy one if they made a low-cost, highly upgradable machine. I just don't think, from a marketing standpoint, making one is the no-brainer that some make it out to be.

      --
      You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
    29. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by FsG · · Score: 1
      This is, in part, one of the reasons Apple has taken well to opensource. They give a lot of their software away anyway (Free Beer), so why not take the extra step and give some source too?

      Why? Because as it is, you CAN download iTunes but you can only run it on a Mac. If they release the source to iTunes, there will probably be x86 builds floating around within a few days. That'll be a sad day for Apple, as 30% of the incentive of buying an iMac (the iLife software) is, well, gone.

      --
      I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
    30. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by MoneyT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mostly to keep out the idiots.

      Most of you probably don't remember, but when Apple released OS X beta, they caught a lot of flak for releasing a buggy and incomplete product, despite the fact that it was listed as a BETA.

      If Apple's pre-offical betas get linked, and people think that these are official updates, people will be pissed as all hell when they don't work right, and that reflects badly on Apple

      --
      T Money
      World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    31. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by RoLi · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Essentially you say that all PC-motherboard makers are ignoring the market needs by including PCI-slots and you have the one true insight that nobody needs them and Apple with it's 2% and shrinking marketshare is the only computer maker which really, truely adresses market needs.

      Sorry, but your hypothesis just doesn't match with reality.

      I would really like Apple to succeed, I even have a Powerbook myself. But if Apple's don't start listening to the market, their own arrogance and greed will be their downfall.

      Another example is their spare parts policy. I don't consider Apple for a desktop because I can't get a spare motherboard/CPU. Even if Apple were cheaper than comparable PCs, I wouldn't even consider them for desktops because of that. Now you can lie to yourself and claim that "the enduser market doesn't need spare parts", but you know as well as me that's it's only Apple's greed preventing PPC-CPUs and motherboards from appearing in stores at reasonable prices.

      (With notebooks, the situation is equally bad for all vendors, that's why I have a Powerbook)

    32. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with some of the other posters under this thread and I think its really stupid when people inist apple is a hardware company. What do you think, they just write their software off as a complete loss? Of fucking cource they dont, they treat it all as part of the computer system. My god, use your fucking brain moron. Obviously they have to sell the hardware to be able to see their software. Its similar to AOL, but not quite. AOL sells their service but gives their software out for free. However, if they could somehow get people to pay hundreds of dollars per year for their "client" and give their service out for free, they probably would. Maybe thats a good idea. AOL has free internet where-as MSN makes you pay for internet service.

    33. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by feldsteins · · Score: 2, Interesting

      you say that all PC-motherboard makers are ignoring the market needs

      No, I'm saying that their business heavily relies upon being as backward compatible as possible so that corporate types buy truckloads of their desktops. That means not doing anything radical like omitting ISA (heh) and making damned sure to have every other port created since time began. Apple doesn't do things this way. Their business relies heavily on innovation and most importantly, in providing a total software-hardware experience. THey can do things like omit the PCI slots that virtually no home user takes advantage of in order to experiment wildly with the form factor. The iMac sold very well. Therefore I think my remarks match very well with reality. Home users aren't buying Dells because they have PCI slots. They're buying them because they can get a deal on last years model and because their brother-in-law has one. Period. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's definetly not because they have PCI slots. That is reality.

      it's only Apple's greed preventing PPC-CPUs and motherboards from appearing in stores at reasonable prices.

      I really don't think you understand their business. If CPUs and motherboards were available in stores for consumers to buy then people would build their own Macintoshes. THis would instantly drive prices down and everyone would rejoice. In fact, Mac whitebox makers would spring up in every city and you'd be able to have one custom built for you out of off-the-shelf parts for half what Apple charges for a computer. And it would also be the end of Apple itself. Even if they survived the transition to essentially a software-only company, they would lose the very things that makes them attractive - innovation and vertical integration.

      Apple would no longer be in a position to control the entire software-hardware continuum of the platform. That means cheaper prices, yes, but it also means "iffy" compatibility and the loss of the "one company designed this experience" feel. Scoff if you must, but this is the heart of the platforms appeal. That and software-hardware innovation like the firewire/imovie deal. Someone in Apple decided it was a good idea to bring digital video editing to consumers. The port didn't exist. The applications didn't exist. Now they do. Hard to do that when you have to convince seventy other companies to get onboard, each with their own idea on how to do it.

      In short, the "make the whole widget" vertical integration Apple has in the Mac platform is both the worst and the best thing about them. It keeps prices high and marketshare low, but without it they'd dissapear in a sea of other boxmakers and software makers, with no means of distinguishing themselves.

      --
      You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
    34. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Working the same way on every platform is an *advantage*?

    35. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by RoLi · · Score: 1
      No, I'm saying that their business heavily relies upon being as backward compatible as possible so that corporate types buy truckloads of their desktops. That means not doing anything radical like omitting ISA (heh) and making damned sure to have every other port created since time began. Apple doesn't do things this way.

      OK, maybe I didn't make that clear, so I will now:

      Apple is wrong.

      Including every port ever created is one of the most important features. My digital camera works damn fine and uses the serial port and I will not buy a new one just because Apple wants to save 0.3$ per unit. My HP49 calculator also has a serial interface.

      The reason why I use PS2 instead of USB for my mouse is that I have a PS2-extension cord and no USB-extension cord. PS2 works fine, I have no reason to jump to USB just because - well, I just don't know why. And I hate cordless mice, BTW (I avoid anything battery-driven as much as possible).

      In short, the "make the whole widget" vertical integration Apple has in the Mac platform is both the worst and the best thing about them. It keeps prices high and marketshare low, but without it they'd dissapear in a sea of other boxmakers and software makers, with no means of distinguishing themselves.

      Parallel and serial ports are maybe 1$ per unit and would make their products interesting for a whole slew of people currently needing these interfaces. Same goes for PCI slots in their low-end hardware.

      You are lying to yourself. There is nothing preventing Apple from testing the market by releasing 2 low-end models, one with, another without PCI-slots.

    36. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " but they wildly overestimate their own status in the marketplace..."

      god, this is so true. of course, the people that don't know about PCI slots do know that they want their games to run faster, or more hard drive space, etc. And then that's where their techies say, "no PCI slots? here, let me build you this Athlon box with 4 PCI slots for $599" and poof, apple loses another customer.

    37. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? by davidbailey · · Score: 1

      I disagree. Apple did try this and nearly died in the attempt. Remember Power Computing?

      http://www.lowendmac.com/power/index.shtml

      This and other cloners ("PowerMax") took good-sized chunks of Apple marketshare selling Macintosh-compatible hardware (that was very PC-like, low-cost, and had PCI slots) with Apple's Mac OS. Apple couldn't stop hemmoraging large amounts of cash until they bought the company at a loss and started innovating again.

      Even through all this, Apple's sales plus the sales of all the clones did not increase the Macintosh marketshare. It just canabalized Apple's base.

  3. License by gmuslera · · Score: 0, Interesting

    This is not violating any kind of license, like GPL? After all, Safari is Konqueror based. Or that will run when the final version is released?

    1. Re:License by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      If they're not distributing it they don't have to release the code.

    2. Re:License by frankie · · Score: 5, Informative
      This is not violating any kind of license, like GPL? After all, Safari is Konqueror based.

      Safari's back-end (parser, script engine, etc) is based on KHTML, and that code is available here. Safari's front-end (lickability, bookmarking, etc) remains proprietary, and that is allowed by LGPL.

    3. Re:License by The+Ape+With+No+Name · · Score: 0

      No. It uses the same engine as Konqueror. Is that engine GPL'd? I don't think so, but it is a good question.

      --
      Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
    4. Re:License by BJH · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you look at the KDE WebCVS depository for kdelibs (where khtml resides), you'll see that it's licensed under the LGPL, and thus Apple are obliged only to release the source to the changes they make to khtml itself.

    5. Re:License by fault0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      khtml is LGPL'd

    6. Re:License by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one's violating a license (the build isn't supposed to be public, so Apple doesn't have to have posted their changes yet.)

      The folks leaking this have violated their NDAs, however...

    7. Re:License by StopIllegalWar · · Score: 0

      But they are distributing it. At least to some selected developers.

    8. Re:License by OnlyRB · · Score: 1
      But they are distributing it. At least to some selected developers.

      It's probably the other way round. If they give it only to a selected number of testers under NDA it may still be regarded as "in-house". If they make it public beta (or if there is a massive leak) they must release the corresponding version of the underlying LGPL-ed code, no matter how buggy it is.

  4. No more "sowing the seeds" for apple by Rooked_One · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I guess my subject line sums it up

  5. Too bad by Blaine+Hilton · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thats too bad that a few had to ruin it for everyone else. Giving out software like that is a privage, not your God given right. People should respect Apple's wishes and wait until the full release, but no. Now its too late.

    1. Re:Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How many "beta" releases of Windows have been on the net over the years? At least MS was smart enough that these types of leaks aren't that bad a thing. In fact, it is excellent viral marketing if anything.

    2. Re:Too bad by g4dget · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Giving out software like that is a privage, not your God given right.

      You make it sound as if Apple is doing people a favor by giving out unfinished software. What they are really doing is off-loading testing to unpaid outsiders.

      Now its too late.

      Good. So maybe they'll hire testers, pay them, and have them come in. No leaks.

    3. Re:Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Giving out software like that is a privage, not your God given right.

      You make it sound as if Apple is doing people a favor

      Depends on how you interpret privage, of course.

    4. Re:Too bad by Bull999999 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I guess you've never used Windows ME beta version.

      --
      1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
    5. Re:Too bad by VistaBoy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wait...you mean that the Microsoft software I buy at the store ISN'T beta software? I always figured it was from how much it crashes. Whoa...if that's NOT beta, I don't think I want to see beta.

    6. Re:Too bad by grantb · · Score: 1

      I must say that is is a shame that the appleseeding programs all have to stopped like this. It is a great program allowing the people who use the software to make input on how it runs. But perhaps they could have run 2 bata. One for stable and the other for unstable. But alas it looks like this will never come to pass.

    7. Re:Too bad by Alien+Being · · Score: 5, Funny

      "a few had to ruin it for everyone else"

      Admit it. You were about to say "a few bad apples".

    8. Re:Too bad by fgodfrey · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Every time there's a /. article on "so and so released a beta of product X", someone comes along and makes this "Oh, they're just offloading testing" argument. The truth is, they have to have tested the thing in house beforehand, but users somehow manage to find bugs that your testers never do no matter how much testing is done. Releasing a beta gives the company a chance to get the product into the hands of people who a) Will "test" it in ways nobody at the company ever thought of and b) realize that there may be some problems.


      I'll bet if you did a "study" of version 1.0 of product with public betas and without, you'd find that the ones with public betas have fewer bugs.


      As to whether they are doing anyone any favors, I suspect that corporate IT departments like public betas because it gives them the chance to test the product before some bozo in management demands it be installed immediately the day it's released or the world will come to an end.

      --
      Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
    9. Re:Too bad by Blaine+Hilton · · Score: 1

      Actually I wasn't, but if I had thought about it before I would have :-) Especially those macs.....

    10. Re:Too bad by Burnsy3071 · · Score: 1

      This is not necessarily a bad thing. I know a guy who downloaded a pirate version of Win ME, summited bug reports to microsoft and they gave him a free legal version of the final product. Obviously in their eyes, the more bugs squashed the better.

    11. Re:Too bad by Geekboy(Wizard) · · Score: 1

      In comparison to the amount of beta and alpha releases of Windows that ever existed, *very* few. I had to clean a copy of Memphis off of a lady's computer (her husband worked for MS, and he passed away). That was very unfriendly. He broke most of the computer when we got to it. Had to replace a ram simm, the hard drive and the video card. (Why, I don't know, but he broke the shit out of that computer, and we earned our fee).

    12. Re:Too bad by Feztaa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      end up hurting MS in the long in the run

      You think rampant Windows piracy hurts Microsoft? If anything, it only serves to further their monopoly lock-in, thus forcing everybody else to use Windows just to be compatible with the pirates.

      In the long run, piracy keeps the market saturated with Windows. If everybody had to actually pay for it, you'd see a ton of people switch to something cheaper (Linux, or whatever else, really), which would hurt MS, big time.

    13. Re:Too bad by cbreaker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it does *now* - but at the beginning, it helped them lock in the Desktop market. I bet two "illegal" copies of Windows 95 were installed for every copy sold. And I think Windows 3.1 was even more so.

      They don't need more market share now though. Now, they can start doing things like they do with Windows XP's activation to make it more difficult for everyone to install a single copy. Sure, you can crack it fairly easily, but maybe the next version of Windows won't be.

      --
      - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
    14. Re:Too bad by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 1

      Every pirate version of windows going around is a VLK - Volume License Key - copy of XP Professional, distributed to thousands of businesses world wide. It's not hacked XP Home or hacked XP professional.

      Businesses will always need VLK versions, and business IT staf will always have one or two warez weenies who release it, and there will always be serial number generators. (or anyone with an MSDN subscription.. we have about 50 different windows install CDs at work.. everything from 98 -> .net server betas, in most cases there is a non-activation version too)

    15. Re:Too bad by j4ck50n · · Score: 1
      *sigh*

      This is such a generic /. 'canned' response...I mean really.

      How typical, how un-inspired, how 'slashdot' of you What a waste of keystrokes.

      Maybe next time you could liven it up with some reference to 'Buffy'...

    16. Re:Too bad by cbreaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      At first it was a hacked XP with the activation stuff disabled or worked-around.

      Unfortunately, many of these installs of XP were rendered unusable when SP1 was applied, forcing a switch to the "Corporate" (or as you say, VLK) edition.

      Either way, I'm sure MS is cooking up some way to have VLK in businesses without compromising the "security" of the product. Perhaps you'll be able to set up your own license authentication server/proxy in shop.

      Who knows, but if they are going to keep trying to enforce the product protection they won't stop at Windows XP that you buy at the store.

      As it's been stated before, MS needs new sources of revenue to continue functioning. It's the way the company is set up. This is one way to keep money coming in.

      I for one would never buy Windows, but there's other people out there that would if they couldn't easily get a copy from a friend, online, or from work.

      --
      - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
    17. Re:Too bad by Alsee · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe next time you could liven it up with some reference to 'Buffy'...

      Ok.

      Microsoft used to have "beta" code, but it was all demonic living-dead code and Buffy always destroyed it. So now Microsoft goes dirctly from alpha code (completely dead) directly to release code (mostly alive and only partially satanic). Chuckle :)

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    18. Re:Too bad by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 1

      What about if you're in the military or another network where the computers will never be connected to anything that is connected to the internet or PSTN? So yes, a local server could do it, but then you'ld just have a pirate local server software install floating around (again, thousands of copies to business/msdn), and anti MS people like myself in IT holding off introduction of any OS that requires this by pointing out the cost of box + windows server + license server software ;)

      There's any number of situations which would absolutely rule out anything that ever needs to phone home.

    19. Re:Too bad by dbrutus · · Score: 1

      The Washington Apple Council wants to talk to *you*.

      Something about defamation of fruit...

    20. Re:Too bad by cbreaker · · Score: 1

      Well, obviously if your workplace wants Windows, you install Windows - unless you have some sort of management position, but generally such people just say "make it work" and leave it to us lowly technical guys to deal with the details.

      So, you don't think there's *any* way to stop the "Corporate Key" software? I do. I think a local license authentication server is the first step. Whether you give people a copy of the license server to your friends or not, not everyone will have a spare Windows server hanging around (with probably AD running on it) to install it on. So, you'd be left with having to crack Windows again, or have a Windows server to put some software on.

      Betcha we see it in the not-too-long from now.

      As far as non-public networks, there's many ways to maintain something like a local license auth server, including periodic telephone calls to MS, mailing a floppy, sending an e-mail, etc. It sounds like a pain in the ass, and it is, but if MS is going to try to get business's legit and not give away their MSDN software, it'll happen.

      --
      - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
    21. Re:Too bad by g4dget · · Score: 1
      Every time there's a /. article on "so and so released a beta of product X", someone comes along and makes this "Oh, they're just offloading testing" argument. The truth is, they have to have tested the thing in house beforehand, but users somehow manage to find bugs that your testers never do no matter how much testing is done.

      The two statements aren't mutually exclusive. If they have the product tested by 1000 beta testers, of course, they are going to find more bugs than by the 10 in-house testers they have.

      In any case, what's so silly about this is Apple getting miffed about the beta getting out and users behaving like it's a punishment not to get the beta. That amounts to saying: "We'll show them--we won't be doing any more beta testing and just release a really buggy browser!"

      Companies that do betas with users are getting a free service, and they'll just have to deal with the reality that the users set the terms. An one is that betas usually end up being public, unless you have people sign NDAs.

    22. Re:Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? Name him.

  6. Who woulda thunk it by jbellis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    given apple's history of siccing lawyers on sites that dare to post pics of the latest & greatest before they're officially unveiled, the only surprising thing is that it lasted this long...

    1. Re:Who woulda thunk it by Lewisham · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, Apple has a pretty good past record of "leaking" pre-release code. The Register has gotton pretty blaise about it all. You only know if something shouldn't have happenend if heads publically roll, like the time the mirror face PowerMac designs were released to eWeek.

    2. Re:Who woulda thunk it by jmt9581 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm actually surprised that they didn't use steganography to uniquely identify each copy of the browser that they release to their individual, "select" developers. That way they could release the dogs of war on that poor soul.

      On another note, it's sad to see something like this ruined by what is probably a small number of bad seeds. :)

      --

      My blog

    3. Re:Who woulda thunk it by phelddagrif · · Score: 1

      Well can you really blame them. Just look at how many people blatently ripped off the iMac's translucent look shortly after, it was released. Furthermore, doing industrial design like they are isn't cheap, nor is it easy. So of course they're protective of it. You'd be protective of your possessions, so why can't apple?

    4. Re:Who woulda thunk it by adjusting · · Score: 1

      The Register has gotton pretty blaise about it all.
      Blaise Pascal?

  7. I'm Confused... by terraformer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Doesn't it make more sense for them to have as many testers as possible on pre-release builds? This way they find potential issues missed through the undoubtedly small QA team on the project.

    --
    Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
    1. Re:I'm Confused... by disneyfan1313 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It does and that's why there are public betas. Once the software gets out there in the open apple becomes liable (not from a legal but from a public relations standpoint) from any damage or drama the software causes. Would you like your software to be labled instable or buggy simply because someone in corprate wanted more testers out there?

      --
      -=SiGH=-
    2. Re:I'm Confused... by iabervon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But why would Apple be liable (even from a PR standpoint) for problems with a beta leaked by somebody else? If it's being distributed by somebody else, the problems you have with it could just as easily come from the intermediary rather than Apple. It makes sense for them to limit who they actually give the software directly to, but they shouldn't care who ends up with what purports to be an unreleased version, whether or not it matches an intermediate Apple code base.

    3. Re:I'm Confused... by bluGill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, someone must go through every bug report, and eliminate the ones that are for already known problems (with a public beta you potentially could end up with thousands of people thinking they are the first to find some problem that seems obscure). Then you have to eliminate the ones that aren't really problems (the copy and paste shortcuts are confusing by design since those who use them will use them often enough for the pain of memorizing strange key combinations is less than the pain of having to easy to remember short cuts that are harder to use on the keyboard). Next deal with the miscolanious problems (user didn't plug computer in, got a corupted download, has no net connection, and other problems that are either stupid user, or other stupid problem not related to the program).

      Really what it needed is a few QA testers who can test everything, but that isn't possiable. Not even Apple with control of all supported platforms can do it. A public beta might seem like a hope that the gain is less than the costs. In reality a public beta is generally a way for marketing to get a almost working version out before it is ready for release, and the bug reports that might come in are worth much less than the hype.

    4. Re:I'm Confused... by ydlman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Another main reason that Apple may not want all these beta builds out is that they may contain features that may or may not make it into a 1.0 release. Perhaps they wanted to try out feature X (say tabs) and find that it doesn't work the way that they had planned and they don't want it in a 1.0 release. But now if they release 1.0 without a feature that has been in the seeds the public uproar will be incredible.

    5. Re:I'm Confused... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The problem with you theory is that people (read joe sixpack) are going to associate a problem with an Apple product with Apple, not to whoever the got it from. So if a unstable browser with their name (see Safari->About Safari) on it is released by them, or anyone else, it makes it look to the public (once again read joe sixpack) as if Apple cannot write good software, which isn't good for Apple.

    6. Re:I'm Confused... by 90XDoubleSide · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Just go on the Apple support forums and look at how many people are compaining about the bugs in leaked builds. If people actually had the level of common sense you're giving thhem credit for, this wouldn't be a problem, but sadly they don't.

      --
      "Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
    7. Re:I'm Confused... by constantnormal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Contrast the way Apple has "managed" the Safari development with the way the mozorg folks have done with Camino and Mozilla.

      Apple releases a couple of "beta" releases, fires up interest and demand, and then nothing happens (from a public perspective) for a relatively long time. Given that it is beta software, there are a lot of things that need fixing -- the more people liked the initial rollout, the more demand there is for improved releases. But only frustration is available.

      OTOH, look at the Mozilla camp. There are milestone builds on a frequency on months wherein an attempt is made to level-set at a certain level of stability, and nightly builds that are expected to be fraught with bugs, but steadily progress towards the next milestone build. This method serves the people who want stability and predictability above all else, the bleeding edge lunatics who want the newest thing out, bugs and all, and the developers, who benefit from having the largest group of testers that is practical.

      How many people sent in bugs or suggestions for Safari? How many have seen even one of their personal hot buttons addressed? Virtually zilch, because Apple has been so stingy with new releases. OTOH, I personally have had several bugs looked at in Mozilla/Chimera(Camino), and feel a much stronger involvement with those products as a direct result of this.

      I think Apple is missing the point about Open Source software -- it's not just that it's cheap, it also has closer ties to the user community, and as a result, probably better fits the needs of that community. You can take Open Source, develop in behind closed doors with an army of people, and still release it as an open source product -- but it's the dumb way to do it. It's how Microsoft would do Open Source.

    8. Re:I'm Confused... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Joe sixpack doesn't go looking for beta releases. Joe sixpack barely upgrades software. Joe sixpack doesn't look at "About-> Whatever".

    9. Re:I'm Confused... by fusiongyro · · Score: 1

      There are milestone builds on a frequency on months wherein an attempt is made to level-set at a certain level of stability, and nightly builds that are expected to be fraught with bugs, but steadily progress towards the next milestone build.

      It wasn't always like that though. I remember in the pre 0.9.x days, when they were still called Milestone X, the releases were multiple months apart. And with the last beta release of it coming out about a month ago, I don't really thing you have anything to complain about.

      After all, Mozilla has thousands of developers, whereas Safari has what, a couple dozen if that? We're talking orders of magnitude difference here. The code doesn't write itself. You assume that every night there will be a cohesive program you can just download and install, but it might not be the case. Hell, they don't even have to guarantee that it will build every night.

      I personally have had several bugs looked at in Mozilla/Chimera(Camino), and feel a much stronger involvement with those products as a direct result of this.

      There's a concept in software engineering called egoless programming. The idea is that, you don't get too attached to the code you write. Your beautiful function might add bugs in other places, and you may have to remove it later, but it doesn't mean you should feel bad about it. By the same token, I'm not really sure why anyone should give a shit how much involvement you feel like you have with a project. Apple would rather release their browser on their terms, and fix the bugs on their terms. I'm content knowing that the engine of it is open source. Why isn't that enough? It's their code after all.

      It's how Microsoft would do Open Source.

      No, I'm pretty sure that's Shared Source, actually, with the premise being that if you want to see the source, you can (provided you don't modify it or use it any way).

      --
      Daniel

    10. Re:I'm Confused... by constantnormal · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I remember in the pre 0.9.x days, when they were still called Milestone X, the releases were multiple months apart. And with the last beta release of it coming out about a month ago, I don't really thing you have anything to complain about.

      I remember those days also, but I also recognize that Mozilla is targeting a very broad spectrum of hardware platforms and operating systems, whereas Safari has an exceedingly narrow focus. And the KDE code base Safari uses was supposedly selected because it has an order of magnitude fewer lines of code to deal with. Given the hoopla with with Apple has rolled it out, and dangled their "public beta" in front of me, I expect pretty frequent updates. The last one was 2-18-2003, and "about a month ago" happened at the beginning of the week just ended. It looks as if it will be some weeks/months before we see another one released to the public.

      Mozilla has thousands of developers, whereas Safari has what, a couple dozen if that?

      I wish (at least, I think I wish -- I'm not sure that having so many developers wouldn't make the whole thing dissolve into unmanageable slop) it were true that Mozilla had thousands of developers. The reality is that there are a handful (probably fewer than Apple commits to Safari, but one cannot know, as that is Apple's business and not the public's) of full-time developers and on the order of hundreds (not thousands) who have contributed on a part-time basis over the years.

      The real advantage the Mozilla development methodology brings has little to do with the product being Open Source, Shared Source, or Closed Source -- although I believe that those in the Open Source camp will have a mindset that finds it easier to adopt this style... The Mozilla folks seem to care a whole lot more about the product they produce than those who mindlessly manufacture lines of code for a living. I have only rarely had a software provider respond to a bug report within hours of filing it with suggestions of things to try or requests for additional information -- except for the Mozilla and Camino(Chimera) development teams, who regularly respond within hours.

      There's a concept in software engineering called egoless programming.

      There have been a lot of programming concepts rolled out over the years. Personally, I think things called pride of craftsmanship or pride of ownership are going to stand the test of time a lot better than egoless programming. Yes, it's true that code has a very short useful lifetime, given the rate of change in the environment it operates in. And a fixation to one's work in such an environment is not a Good Thing. But I don't believe that people who are not somewhat emotionally involved in what they do are very good at it. It's part of a thing called Motivation. I'll take professional pride over egoless programming every time.

      Apple would rather release their browser on their terms, and fix the bugs on their terms. I'm content knowing that the engine of it is open source. Why isn't that enough? It's their code after all.

      This is from the Apple Safari page:

      As with Mac OS X itself, Safari uses open source software at its core. For its Web page rendering engine, Safari draws on KHTML and KJS software from the KDE open source project. And of course, being a good open source citizen, Apple

      shares its enhancements with the open source community.

      Certainly sounds to me like they're trying to convey the notion that Safari is open source. But it's pretty clear that it's a closed development process.

      To summarize my feelings on this -- no, a software provider does not have to be responsive to me as a user of their software. But if they do, I like it better. If they roll out a "public beta" of a product that they also advertise as "open source", and then slam the development

    11. Re:I'm Confused... by edmac3 · · Score: 1

      Okay, there might be uproar, but if there is, deosn't that mean it was bad idea to remove the feature anyway?

    12. Re:I'm Confused... by styxlord · · Score: 1

      This rationale is used many times to make people feel comfortable with the fact that they either;
      a) broke their agreement with a software company and publicly released pre release software even though they agreed that they wouldn't
      b) copied and used software even though they had no permission from the copyright holder to do so

    13. Re:I'm Confused... by WNight · · Score: 1

      If Apple put a disclaimer screen in the program, at start, that made you type "Yes" to "I understand that not only is this BETA software likely to have unknown bugs, it also was distributed with known bugs (as detailed at http: ...) that have yet to be fixed at this stage in testing ..." I doubt people would be so hot to use it, or to bitch about it if they did.

      A legitimate tester, or illegitimate tester who understood what beta meant, would jump through that hurdle immediately. A bored person, or someone who thought they were getting something for free, probably wouldn't.

    14. Re:I'm Confused... by Saeger · · Score: 1
      I was about to say the same thing.

      An unmistakable startup disclaimer on betas would go a long way in combatting the perception that the software "sucks" among people who got a leaked copy and didn't know any better. Of course, the REALLY ignorant will STILL bitch.

      --

      --
      Power to the Peaceful
    15. Re:I'm Confused... by iabervon · · Score: 1

      They should probably put warnings all over the builds, if for no other reason than that the testers are probably using a stable version of the same software, and could easily get confused between the version that works and the largely identical version they're testing and have it crash when they were trying to do something with it.

      Of course, to have people complain about bugs is why you produce test builds anyway. You just have to direct people to the bug reporting section, rather than the support section (since the obvious support response is, "run a different version").

  8. Poor marketing by deadgoon42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know that Apple probably has good reason not to make the various beta releases of Safari available to the public, but I think they are missing out on a good marketing opportunity here. These Safari releases are keeping everyone interested, or they're keeping me interested anyway. Plus, people can see the new features as they are implemented and maybe once a favorite feature is added, emails about getting that feature will reduce.

    --

    Smeghead every day of the week.
    1. Re:Poor marketing by krel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The seeds get spread so quickly, it's simple for any joe-shmoe to get a copy. And the point of releasing a seed in the first place is to test it for bugs, you can expect that every version of safari not offically released is buggy in some way or another... and apple doesn't want just anyone running buggy apple code (because apple cares ;-).

      --
      karma: ouch!
  9. What's there to hide? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who cares? It's just a browser that's going to be released for free in the future anyways. And it's based off of Free software at any rate.

  10. Breach of ethics by Theovon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I consider this to be a small ethical violation on the part of the individual who leaked the beta, at least compared to many other things. Nevertheless, Apple had placed their trust in a group of developers, and some jerk decided to violate that trust. However small of a violation that this may be, as compared to, say, murder, I would still like to see that individual publically flogged.

    1. Re:Breach of ethics by linzeal · · Score: 1

      Whatever happened to good old fashioned corporeal punishment and human sacrifice ?

    2. Re:Breach of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how exactly are you going to find me?

      Hah!

  11. License Irrelevant by Eravau · · Score: 5, Informative

    Part of the core rendering is based on Konqueror and is open source (and they do release the enhancements they make to that part back to the community). Everything else that is wrapped around it is not open source. So they have no requirement to let everybody see every little change they make there...and won't.

    1. Re:License Irrelevant by Luke-Jr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Last I checked, GPL'd code cannot link to or be linked to from a non-compatible licensed program. Though it might be the case anyway since I'm pretty sure KDE is LGPL, not GPL.

      --
      Luke-Jr
    2. Re:License Irrelevant by fault0 · · Score: 1, Informative

      > Last I checked, GPL'd code cannot link to or be linked to from a non-compatible licensed program.

      yep.

      > Though it might be the case anyway since I'm pretty sure KDE is LGPL, not GPL

      yep, kdelibs (including khtml and kjs which Apple use) are LGPL.

    3. Re:License Irrelevant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone tell me how this post got +3 informative, just by saying "yep"?? The parent was the one that actually said it!

    4. Re:License Irrelevant by fault0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      > Someone tell me how this post got +3 informative, just by saying "yep"??

      yep.

    5. Re:License Irrelevant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope

    6. Re:License Irrelevant by fault0 · · Score: 1

      fuck you, bitch.

  12. Post Milestones with Talkback by The+Ape+With+No+Name · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why not just post the thing with a Talkback-like client and get feedback/bug reports from everybody? I know it is closed source but why not develop a Safari fan base by letting a community build around it. This is what Apple is best known for, right?

    --
    Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
    1. Re:Post Milestones with Talkback by tjohns · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, they already do. By default, Safari has a toolbar button that sends a bug report, along with an optional screenshot/code snapshot, to Apple. In fact, this is one of the reasons why they choose to release the beta, so they could iron out all the bugs without having to the test all of the pages out there.

      However, there is no need to get bug reports for a product that they know is unstable or incomplete (the post-v60 builds). If they posted one of those publicly, not only would they get a backlash for releasing an extreemly unstable build of their product, such as the first beta, which had a nice "feature" that would automatically delete ~/ for you, but all of their bug reports would be for a build which is still incomplete. Instead, they could just post their more complete, milestone builds, and get feedback which is much more beneficial to the developers.

    2. Re:Post Milestones with Talkback by ydnar · · Score: 0, Redundant
      Safari has a feedback button in the upper-right corner of the window. It's the one with the bug icon.

      y

    3. Re:Post Milestones with Talkback by The+Ape+With+No+Name · · Score: 1

      Cool. I'm a mozilla man. Haven't used Safari on OS X but I am interested to play with it. I'd like to compare KHTML to Gecko. Konqueror is OK, but it requires KDE and I can't cotton that.

      --
      Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
    4. Re:Post Milestones with Talkback by ShortSpecialBus · · Score: 1

      it requires the kde libs, not kde...i run konqueror in fluxbox all the time.
      Although, maybe your beef is with some sort of licensing???

      --
      //FIXME: Bad .sig
    5. Re:Post Milestones with Talkback by Reckless+Visionary · · Score: 1

      And I can use both Mozilla and Konqueror on OS X with on a rootless X11. It's surprisingly fast, even on this iBook, given that it's running on top of the Aqua interface with X11 and Apple's (closed source) aqua-wm window manager.

      --
      I think I'll stop here.
  13. Forget Safari seeds by Znonymous+Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you want to be on the bleeding edge use Camino nightly builds :)

    http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/camino/nightly/latest /

    --

    Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.

    1. Re:Forget Safari seeds by Chmarr · · Score: 4, Funny

      Using the Camino nightly build is hardly a good way of testing Safari.

    2. Re:Forget Safari seeds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using the Camino nightly build is hardly a good way of testing Safari.

      I DISAGREE! It is the ONLY way of testing safari.

    3. Re:Forget Safari seeds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I downloaded Camino 0.7 and gave it a shot. With espn.com loaded, even if it was in a background tab, it used 60% of my CPU running Flash animations. That's ridiculous, no other browser uses anywhere near that. And don't tell me to get rid of Flash, I like it and got rid of Camino instead. Call me back when Pinkerton grows up, stops crying, and learns how to code half decently. Since Hyatt left for Apple you can definitely see who the brains behind that project was.

    4. Re:Forget Safari seeds by crayz · · Score: 1

      Clearly this post was a total karma whore. The Camino nightly has been 2k for at least the past two nights...i.e. the build didn't work and there is nothing to download at that link.

      So I can only assume that you are posting that link even though you aren't actually using a nightly Camino build, and so therefore you are a karma whore

    5. Re:Forget Safari seeds by Znonymous+Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I can give two shits and a fuck about karma, look at my profile... I have all kinds of -1's

      I only "login" so I can see what kind of response I get to my comments.

      So in closing: Fuck karma and fuck you.

      --

      Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.

    6. Re:Forget Safari seeds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahahaha. You looked scowered through my site and that was the best you could find?

      Hint: I *took* all the pictures on my site. I was behind the camera, not in front of it

  14. Not everyone distributes that way by siskbc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    More testers = more bugs found = better product.

    Surprisingly, not everyone follows the open source mantra. There are legitimate reasons for not wanting to provide constant releases. One is confusion among a less educated (some might also say intelligent) user base - people getting what is effectively a beta and don't know it end up bitching at Apple. This makes them look incompetent, and can cause problems for their image.

    Apple has good reasons for wanting to keep their stuff under wraps until they ship. This doesn't make them wrong, unenlightened, or the enemy.

    --

    -Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

    1. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by Squareball · · Score: 1, Funny

      The far less knowledgable use IE. ;)
      What is the point of having a closed source browser? I mean what are you going to gain?

    2. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Don't forget about the people that insist on running the very latest/greatest version of everything--completing ignoring the alpha & beta status.

    3. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by reallocate · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >> What is the point of having a closed source browser? I mean what are you going to gain?

      For starters, control of your company's products.

      Then there's the notion of adding unique features and other goodies so you can attract more customers.

      Apple's business is to sell Apple computers. I'm guessing that every move they make has that objective in mind.

      Works for me.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    4. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by tjohns · · Score: 5, Insightful

      True, Safari itself is closed source. However, the heart of the browser, WebCore, is released under the APSL, which is open source. So what if they want to make their browser closed source, it's just a wrapper. If you don't like it, you could always write your own interface and have it tie into WebCore.

      As for Internet Explorer, once Apple ships a 1.0 release of Safari, you can bet that they will start to use it on new systems instead of IE. The "far less knowledgable" don't flock to IE because they want to use IE, they just use it because it's already there and don't see a need to get anything else.

    5. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's more likely that OS X will continue to ship with IE, but Safari will be the default browser. As it is, if you install Classic, your Mac ships with three browsers: IE 5.2, IE 5.0, and Netscape 4.7. What's one more?

    6. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by Crass+Spektakel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > One is confusion among a less educated (some might
      > also say intelligent)

      I wont jump for your "Mac users are stupid" trollbait, but let me me use my words to describe your theory:

      "the average mac user runs in danger downloading sources and binaries from a nearly secret cvs-like structure aside of the official updatemanager without noticing his wrongdoing"

      Only the paranoid survives .-)

      --
      "Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
    7. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by Ratso+Baggins · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Fair enough in principle, but what unique features & goodies are there in safari? Is it not "just a wrapper" to WebCore?

      --

      --
      "we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.

    8. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Informative
      Well I just downloaded it, and the APSL doesn't even come with the distribution. There are two copies of the LGPL that do, plus a "LICENCE.APPLE" file that reads:

      Copyright (C) 2003 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY APPLE COMPUTER, INC. ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL APPLE COMPUTER, INC. OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
      That's an "X11 style licence", not a CopyLeft or OpenSourceButNotFree licence (APSL, NPL, etc), and it's definitely not the APSL.

      I mention this to quell the "+5 Insightful" (are the mods on crack today?) flamewar that's broken out over your message.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    9. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by ShortSpecialBus · · Score: 1

      >> One is confusion among a less educated (some might
      >> also say intelligent)

      >I wont jump for your "Mac users are stupid" trollbait,
      >but let me me use my words to describe your theory:

      I don't think that's what he was saying, it came across to me more of as a "some apple users are less educated or intellegent" kind of thing, and they are the ones who would get confused, just as I've had to help some real morons on the gentoo forums and such (O.T. word of advice to the world: if you've never used linux before, don't start with gentoo. it's not incredibly user friendly. Spend a month with red hat or mandrake and THEN go to gentoo). It didn't read to me as a broad generalization of apple users or anything. Maybe he did mean it that way, but I doubt it. Just trying to heal your bruised ego, heh.

      --
      //FIXME: Bad .sig
    10. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by Alex+Thorpe · · Score: 1

      The far less knowledgable use IE and don't know it! They think it's just part of Windows, just as MS intended.

      --
      "Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
    11. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by cbuskirk · · Score: 1

      Not likely now that Apple's 5 year deal with Micor$oft lappsed and was not renewed. That deal in which all the masses thought M$oft bought Apple was a 5 year deal to include IE instead of Netscape. Now with the way the winds are blowing, Apple will likly drop them.

    12. Re:Not everyone distributes that way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More testers = more bugs found = better product.

      Surprisingly, not everyone follows the open source mantra.

      This isn't the open-source mantra. This is basic software engineering.

  15. Good Cloners? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    I hear they are good cloners. That's what Dex told me, anyhow.

  16. Why not release it on ADC? by ShatteredDream · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How hard would it be for them to put in the developer builds a little code to pop up a splash screen everytime that safari loads that reminds the user that it is a developer, not end-user build unless they disable that in the preferences?

  17. Perhaps they should look at Mozilla's approach by gusnz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With the KHTML engine still undergoing internal tweaking for better DOM/CSS/etc support, I think Apple should look to the Mozilla project for their approach to browser development. Why not publicly release nightly betas, so users can post feedback on development as with BugZilla? Users don't expect the nightlies to be perfect, but it would keep the tweakers (and web designers like me) happy, and the developers would get a lot more feedback on their progress, whereas most casual users can happily download milestone releases.

    Otherwise, the standards compliance of the browser will possibly be delayed (all the esoteric little implementation issues, especially with CSS and DHTML). After all, many eyeballs results in better code, especially with something as complex as a web browser.

    1. Re:Perhaps they should look at Mozilla's approach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple has a reputation to uphold, unlike Mozilla. Well, I guess Mozilla has a reputation for suckitude, if you count that. They're upholding that quite nicely.

  18. you don't want to be that bleeding edge by RalphBNumbers · · Score: 4, Informative

    They're pulling to the 1.3 mozilla trunk for the version of geko they embed in camino right now, and they introduced a whole slew of bugs when they did so. You might want to stick to the .7 release for a month or so unless you're a real masochist.

    I used to use the Chimera nightly builds almost exclusively, but these days I stick to the .7 release or safari, and just check the nightlies when something I'm interested in gets mentioned on bugzilla.

    --
    "The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
    1. Re:you don't want to be that bleeding edge by mikedaisey · · Score: 2, Informative


      I'm posting this from the most recent nightly that compiled, and it isn't unstable in use...everything after 3-14-03 seems to be solid. YMMV.

  19. A few bad seeds... by psoriac · · Score: 5, Funny

    So one could literally say that a few bad seeds ruined it for everyone else...

    --
    I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
    1. Re:A few bad seeds... by Suppafly · · Score: 4, Funny

      or one bad apple depending how you look at it.

  20. Leaked builds probably helped Safari by RedX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Without getting into the neverending "tabbed browsing" argument, I'll go out on a limb and say that these leaked builds will probably help Safari's marketshare in the long run. In browsing various Mac messageboards before and after v60 was leaked, I can tell you that many people dumped Camino the moment that tabs were discovered in Safari's debug menu. Had Safari's tabs been kept under wraps until the next public beta, Camino would have only matured and captured more users, which in the long run could've decreased the number of users using Safari. Of course this is all speculation. And I won't even get into the benefit that Apple realized by having a larger user base testing these builds.

    1. Re:Leaked builds probably helped Safari by Ivan+Karamazov · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, v60 is the most recent public beta--it does not have tabs and was never leaked. It's v62 that was the first to include tabs and was leaked, supposedly unintentionally.

      --
      "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Albert Camus,
    2. Re:Leaked builds probably helped Safari by NeuroKoan · · Score: 1

      No kidding. And not to mention that Safari's tabs are much much better then Camino's (in my opinion).

      I have Camino installed on my machine, but did I get it the first day it came out? no. I waited a bit, and on one slow day, I decided to download it and try it out. It didn't wow me enough for me to switch to it (versus v64, one of the leaked versions). If all I had was v60, I probably would have switched back to Camino as my main browser, but since I had a leaked Safari, I stuck with it instead.

      --

      "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
    3. Re:Leaked builds probably helped Safari by ThatMadeNoSense · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Safari's tabs are much much better then Camino's

      That made no sense.

  21. Uh-oh by tulare · · Score: 4, Funny

    In the interest of full or false disclosure (you decide), I should let you all know that I'm not using v64, which I did not find at macrumors, and it does not have tabbed browsing, which I donot find to be the final feature which makes Safari not kick ass on the mac.

    Had I known that these were seeds that Apple didn't want released, I would of course have downloaded them and used them. I would, after all, want to spoil a good thing

    Move the nots around to make the above true.

    --
    political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
    1. Re:Uh-oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      www.yzedf.com /pics /random /foo

      or something....

  22. It's out? by krray · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's out? Thanks. Quick Google search. Got it. Love it.

    Should I notify Apple that when you leave the tabs on all the time and "Open in tabs" a docked bookmark that the first tab always looks "active" (though the windowing for the tabs works fine)?

    It's too bad Apple is taking this stance. They should understand, realize, and if they were smart: CAPITALIZE on that fact that there _is_ a reason why us lowly end users are clamoring for the latest builds of Safari.

    It works. Like most Apple software it works very well -- even at the beta level. Yes, this is too bad...

    1. Re:It's out? by bnenning · · Score: 4, Funny
      Should I notify Apple that when you leave the tabs on all the time and "Open in tabs" a docked bookmark that the first tab always looks "active" (though the windowing for the tabs works fine)?


      Sure. Dave Hyatt has been known to possibly fix hypothetical bugs that may or may not occur in Safari versions that may or may not exist.

      --
      How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    2. Re:It's out? by UberLord · · Score: 2, Funny

      Lemmie get this straight

      Dave Hyatt fixes bugs that may or may not exist in a product version that may or may not exist?

      Damn - some of us have to fix real bugs in real products for a living! Is his company hiring atm?

    3. Re:It's out? by zeoslap · · Score: 1

      Well that's the problem isn't it, if the beta works just fine then nobody needs to purchase the final product (I'm not sure if Safari is free, but it's certainly valid for other betas I've seen)

    4. Re:It's out? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let me shed some light on this, if you are going to submit it.

      The bug is with "Always show tab bar" (which is a new feature in this build). If you have it enabled when you bring up a new window, it draws a light box permanently over the spot where the first tab is.

      This is bizarre behaviour, as you are unable to rid yourself of the box afterwards. If you open enough tabs that the tabs shrink, the box spans over a few tabs.

      The easiest way to avoid this bug is to just leave "Always show tab bar" unchecked. I really liked that feature, but it's the only way I've found.

      So the bug appears to come when the app reads the preferences file. You can submit it if you want, I don't want any trouble with Apple legal.

      AFAIK there is no good way to alter this behaviour since we don't have access to the code.

    5. Re:It's out? by NeuroKoan · · Score: 1

      Is his company hiring atm?

      I dunno, but you can send in your resume here

      --

      "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
    6. Re:It's out? by coolmacdude · · Score: 1

      Did you see his latest entry?

      "... if there were a Safari v62, and it did happen to leak to the public, and someone did happen to run it, and that person did happen to discover a bug with text-decoration, well then I would hypothetically be most grateful, and would in fact fix such a bug with the utmost expedience. In fact, it might even be fixed already, assuming of course there were such a build, and it did in fact have this problem."

      i laugh every time he says that

      --

      -You may license this sig for only $6.99.
  23. Re:Never Fear! by bob670 · · Score: 1

    But it can also be slow and bloated, where as Safari is fast and lean.

  24. easter eggs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting


    They should have done that trick where each developer gets a slightly different copy, possibly each having a different easter egg embedded inside. All they then have to do is download the version from the internet and trigger the easter egg to find out which copy was leaked and cut that developer off.

    --
    Dreamweaver Templates

    1. Re:easter eggs by HoneyBunchesOfGoats · · Score: 1

      What makes you think they didn't already?

    2. Re:easter eggs by Tokerat · · Score: 1


      ...because they cut everyone off?

      --
      CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
    3. Re:easter eggs by troc · · Score: 2, Funny

      That just means everyone leaked their copy :)

      Troc

      --
      Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
    4. Re:easter eggs by SlashdotLemming · · Score: 2, Funny

      They should have done that trick where each developer gets a slightly different copy

      You've just volunteered to be the configuration manager for THAT project

  25. Re:Damn this by bob670 · · Score: 1

    What the hell are you talking about? I read messages at Macaddict, Macobserver, Macnn and the Apple support boards and I haven't seen any unusual spike in issues since 10.2.4? If you think they need more beta releases, say so, but don't fabricate shit?

  26. Since when is humor off topic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What, you didn't see Attack of the Clones?

    Why would anyone name it Camino, anyway.

    1. Re:Since when is humor off topic? by LordNightwalker · · Score: 1

      Learn Spanish and it will make sense.

      --
      Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
    2. Re:Since when is humor off topic? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
      Why don't they just call the browser "Way"?

      I mean, it's a fairly uncool name, but it doesn't sound any worse than something that sounds like a 70's car marketed at obnoxious macho teenagers.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  27. Re:So what? by bob670 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Did you think this article was about Microsoft? Your post make complete sense if I put Microsoft eveyewhere you put the word Apple. When you go for your weekly shock therapy, tell them to up the voltage.

    And is there any real measurement that show Linux is on more desktops than Apple? I thougt not, you may go back to sleep now...

  28. Pathetically uncool by mariox19 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's up with these developers? It's like they're desparately trying to be one of the "cool kids," leaking the code to the Internet. "Yippee!"

    So, in an attempt at trying to upgrade their status to being picked only second to last in gym class, all the legitimate developers who respect agreements they've made have to suffer.

    Nice going!

    --

    quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

    1. Re:Pathetically uncool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      What about those of us who didnt get picked at all in gym class? Anyway...

      Its a very childish move by Apple and will only hinder the development of the product. In this day and age you just have to expect things to end up on the Internet, to think otherwise is just silly and childish.

      Apple just needs to grow up a little and then everyone will be happy.

    2. Re:Pathetically uncool by SuperBug · · Score: 1

      Well, why hasn't anyone given thought to this that it could actually be someone at Apple doing it in an unbeknownst manner? I mean, aren't there developers who work for Apple, who work on this, and say, have kids at home, or a room-mate?

      I'm sure that those developers who take their work home, always use secure passwords that the kids or room-mate can't guess. Right? Guys? Right?

      So regardless, it may still continue to happen, and Apple took the only proper recourse they can at this time to see if leaks still happen. I'm predicting they will.

      --
      --SuperBug
    3. Re:Pathetically uncool by MO! · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Umm if they work at Apple and are caught releasing stuff like this they are FIRED! In today's job market, there's an even bigger incentive to avoid doing things known to get yourself fired. As much of a flogging the individual developer (if identified) would face, losing their job would not likely be an issue.

      --
      I AM, therefore I THINK!
    4. Re:Pathetically uncool by King_TJ · · Score: 0, Troll

      Well, I hate to say it - but it's to be expected on the Mac platform. They simply don't have enough new software titles out to keep people busy otherwise.

      If the amount of new shareware and commercial software released in the PC world was released for the Mac, you'd see far fewer people who'd even bother to download and install some un-released beta of a public beta web browser.

    5. Re:Pathetically uncool by SuperBug · · Score: 1

      They might get fired, but if it's not *them* doing it, and no one else knows who's doing it they won't get "caught" per se, but are still helping to purportrate a leak. I'm sure if they knew it was going on behind their backs, it would be stopped.
      It's just a thought, though I predict it *will* still happen. Look at Micorosoft. I've seen links to desktop shares within their own infrastructure which were said to have contained XP and Longhorn snaps.

      --
      --SuperBug
    6. Re:Pathetically uncool by NeuroKoan · · Score: 1

      I'm sure that those developers who take their work home

      From what I've heard about Apple, no, you are not allowed to take your work home with you.

      They tend to take industrial espionage very seriously.

      --

      "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
    7. Re:Pathetically uncool by Artemis · · Score: 1

      You don't think it is childish for a "developer" to AGREE to all the terms of the seed program, and then purposely break those terms so that he can seem "cool" for leaking the seed? Apple is not the one that needs to grow up here, the immature developers that cannot keep their agreements are the ones who must grow up.

  29. Re:So what? by tulare · · Score: 4, Informative
    " I'd like to play with their unix too, but I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a whole new computer to do it."
    If it's just the Unix you want to play with, and don't give a hoot about the windowmanager, you can.
    --
    political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
  30. Re:So what? by iso · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you don't like Apple, that's all well and good, but why then do you feel the need to post or even click on an Apple story? I suppose you just couldn't let an Apple story go by without adding your insults. It's called trolling, and we don't need any more of it. Your opinion is valid, but posting this in an Apple story is just childish and counter-productive. Grow up, please.

    - j

  31. Spelling by LPetrazickis · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The leader of Apple is Steve Jobs who sees himself as a diety[sic] preaching Apple like a religion.

    You mean "deity", silly troll.:)

    --
    Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
    1. Re:Spelling by UberLord · · Score: 1

      Or he could mean that Apple is good for a diet ;)

  32. Re:Damn this by agentkhaki · · Score: 1, Informative

    I think the parent is referring to the battery-killing-10.2.4 issue mentioned on Slashdot a week or so back.

    Now, whether the parent is simply perpetuating the lie, or if Apple really did drop the ball is up to you to figure out.

    --
    Ack!
  33. Say it brother! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Thou dost preach the true gospel of Cupertino! The infidels who lack vision shall falter and Saint Jobs shall change the world! Blessed is the one true computer and blessed are the followers of the Church of Cupertino. Dammed are those who do not see the light and are left to dwell in the outer darkness of PeeCee use for all eternity! I'm proud to say that I first saw the light back in year 2 (1986 for the infidels) and have been a loyal follower ever since. Never have I been tempted to use the devil's instrument. I know that when my frail body fails I shall dwell in the house of Jobs forever.

  34. Re:So what? by usr122122121 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    YHBT. YHL. HAND.

    --

    -braxton
  35. Forced into it by ShadowMind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is a big trade-off between getting a decent sized community to test a product and allowing a not-yet-debugged product out into the wild.

    As a developer is it very valuable to have a willing group of people willing to test and feedback on not-yet-ready-for-market products. Unfortunately if these releases then get a wider distribution to people who don't understand that the app us a work in progress (as has happened with safari), any problems (which would be solved before an official release) reflect badly on both the product and the developer.

    Given that the betas are being leaked, and Apple's reputation for quality of its products, I don't think they had any option but to cancel to program. I also welcome their move for other reasons:

    As a web developer, one of the major issues I face is not just making a site compatible with the major browser releases (which in itself is a problem), but also with all the betas that are still being used. Many beta releases (or should have been betas) have quite significant bugs which are *very* difficult to work around. For example, I still see hits from people using betas of Netscape 4.

    Once a pre-release product makes it into the wild, many of the initial users will continue it use it since 'it works for me'. Of course, if this browser doesn't work with a site due to bugs or incompatibilities in the browser, its the sites fault - from the users perspective - and my clients if the user complains. These almost-right products seem to persist almost forever.

    1. Re:Forced into it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many beta releases (or should have been betas) have quite significant bugs which are *very* difficult to work around. For example, I still see hits from people using betas of Netscape 4.

      Dude, beta or not, you are going to have to work around some pretty serious bugs to get anything to be reliable under netscape 4.

    2. Re:Forced into it by eliza_turing · · Score: 1

      when i develop web content, i don't try to work around browser bugs. i don't have that sort of time. i develop to the standards and leave it at that. if it passes validate.w3.org, it is good.

      --
      END OF LINE
  36. Re:Never Fear! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He already covered "slow and bloated." He compared it to Linux. That means that, like Linux, it is slow and bloated.

  37. Interesting by motox · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I wonder if khtml group should stop allowing Apple to test betas as well

  38. Nectar of crimson desire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...reaps bitter harvest of forbidden fruit -Maya Angelou

  39. I disagree with the crowd on this by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1) They should have known that it would be available for download on the net as soon as they handed it out. If they didn't take that into account before starting the program they're idiots.

    2) A lot of people justify Apple here by posting the standard shit about it being terrible for the public to see an unfinished product. This is wrong and silly. Most people who come across this type of thing and are willing to install a beta are a) warez people who aren't gonna buy it anyway, or b) early adopters who are itching to try it out and are going to buy it no matter what.

    3) And finally some people are going to whine about the humanity of programmers having to see their beautiful program that they love like a child being stolen by the masses. Tell them to stop whining. The programmers are wage slaves. If the company earns more money because of massive warezing (that should be 'When the company inevitably earn more...') the programmers should shut up about the hurt to their souls and get back to fulfilling their contracts.

    Software companies act like this because they are run by idiots. You have no clue of the true magnitude of the crass stupidity they are capable of.

    And Apple just likes to throw temper tantrums. They probably lost more customers by canceling this program and making a stink than they would have lost by having betas escape into the wild.

    1. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by JohnG · · Score: 4, Interesting
      "And Apple just likes to throw temper tantrums. They probably lost more customers by canceling this program and making a stink than they would have lost by having betas escape into the wild."

      Considering Safari is a free download I don't think they are complaining much about lost customers.

    2. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by hmccabe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously dude, the average person on the street isn't like us. They talk about the war, and reality TV, and 401ks and the like. They don't care when a developer's beta release program gets cancelled. For God's sake, I just read this whole message board and I could care less.

    3. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I see that I need to explain how the world works. It's all about customers. Apple is a company. It therefore has to make this thing called money.

      The entire reason for developing Safari is to get more customers for Apple. Safari is 'free' but it also convinces people that they need a Mac.

      As I said in the original post, they've cancelled this program because they're worried about people seeing betas and then losing them as customers. I also pointed out why that reasoning is flawed.

    4. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by Enahs · · Score: 1
      For God's sake, I just read this whole message board and I could care less.



      Anyone else see a problem here?

      --
      Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
    5. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see two problems here.

      First, he admits to reding this whole page, defeating his argument.

      Second, he said 'could care less', also contradicting his point.

    6. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Second, he said 'could care less', also contradicting his point.

      Oh, please LORD NO. Not the bullshit "could care less" argument. This has been hashed out so much on slashdot it isn't even funny.

      American: "Could care less".

      British: "Couldn't care less".

      Canadian: "Please fuck off with this grammarian bullshit".

      Australian: "A dingo ate my baby, so I couldn't care less".

      Both wordings are 100% syntactically correct. The resoning behind them works both ways.

      Argument #1:

      Could care less: The person could care less about the item in question. Therefore by simply mentioning the item exists he's shown the level of care it is due. Very little.

      Couldn't care less: The person holds the item in question in such high regard that it is impossible for him to care less. If you think it means that he chooses not to care less, that is incorrect, as the wording would need to be "wouldn't care less".

      Argument #2:

      Could care less: The person holds the item in high enough regard that he cares more for the item than is necessary.

      Couldn't care less: The person is caring so little about the item, it would be impossible to care about it less.

      Both arguments are corrent, and therefore both terms work equally well. You will find regional variations -- not all of the US will say "could care less", and not all of the UK will say "couldn't care less".

    7. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by inkswamp · · Score: 3, Insightful
      They probably lost more customers by canceling

      I swear to freakin' God, the geek crowd on the Internet has the most impenetrable tunnel-vision I've ever seen. How on earth could Apple lose customers by cancelling a beta testing program? Most customers know nothing of it, much less the "controversy" surrounding it being cancelled.

      Get out a little more often.

      --
      --Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
    8. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I've read such a load of bollocks in my life.

      Could and Couldn't care less are both used to mean "I don't care about". Could, as a result, is meaningless because it implies that the person does actually care about the subject: if they didn't care, they wouldn't be able to care less about it.

      Couldn't is used in both the UK and US. Most of my American friends are just as irritated over the use of "could" in that cliche as my British friends. I'm a Brit living in America.

      Couldn't has been abbreviated to could out of laziness. It's a cliche that's subsequently been reduced in syllables by people who've heard it, knew what it meant from the context, and didn't bother to learn the actual words. It's up there with "The handwriting on the wall" (you mean "The hand writing on the wall") and "We need to go through this with a fine toothcomb" (what's a "toothcomb"? A comb for teeth? You meant "We need to go through this with a fine toothed comb")

      Couldn't makes the cliche have meaning. Could makes it meaningless. It's a simple matter of understanding the words you write.

    9. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by thevil · · Score: 1

      Did you just call Steve an idiot?

      You're not a Macuser?

      We learn our code with pride when we unpack our products:
      Unit, Apple, God, Country, Steve.

    10. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by JohnG · · Score: 1

      They can run the Beta without a Mac? If not it doesn't matter if they download Safari from a legitimate source or an illegimate one.

    11. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by error0x100 · · Score: 1

      Couldn't makes the cliche have meaning. Could makes it meaningless.

      Not exactly. As you pointed out, its a syllable reduction of a common expression that people understand when hearing it, either which way it is used. Since it is commonly used in the "incorrect" way, and people still understand it, then it still has meaning. As such, it doesn't make it "incorrect": it makes it idiomatic.

      It could well be that in the future "could care less" becomes the only version commonly used, but people will still understand it as meaning "couldn't care less". That makes it an idiomatic expression, because if you try to derive the meaning from the sum of the parts, you'll get nowhere: you just have to "know" the phrase.

      So: "couldn't care less" => means just what it says (i.e. subject cares so little about something that he/she is not capable of caring less); "could care less" => idiomatic.

      This is how languages evolve and how idiomatic expressions form. Most languages have many, many idioms. Idioms are, however, neither incorrect nor meaningless - you just have to learn them though.

    12. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 1

      What you're getting at is accurate, but I'm afraid that I don't get your point.

    13. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by JohnG · · Score: 1

      What I am saying is that whoever is downloading Safari already HAS a Mac, they are already an Apple customer by default. Unless you are saying that Safari's unreleased betas are so horribly horribly buggy that someone would ditch their $1500-$4000 macintosh and go to a PC (as opposed to just using Mozilla or IE) then Apple isn't losing any customers. As I'm sure you know Apple customer are in general alot more loyal than PC customers, almost zealot like, so I doubt one buggy app is going to send them screaming to Microsoft. I do however agree with Apple putting a stop to it. If the releases haven't been deemed ready for public consumption then they shouldn't be released. Apple is trying to protect customers from buggy apps, but I don't see at as an attempt to avoid losing customers.

    14. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 1

      Your analysis of Apple's motivation is wrong. Apple really is worried about losing customers over buggy apps. And it's silly to be worried about it, like you say. Hence my original derision of Apple's stupidity.

      You are wrong about Apple's motivation because you don't understand Apple. Apple is not in the business of protecting customers from themselves. Its focus is making money. If a customer wants something that's bad for him, and you know that you aren't going to lose him as a customer if he gets it, you give it to him. (Cf. the Tobacco industry).

      Like I said, Apple a company, not some do-gooder institution making a desperate last stand against the evil behemoth Microsoft, like so many people seem to think. (They think that because of a successful advertisement campaign that I admire, of course.)

    15. Re:I disagree with the crowd on this by JohnG · · Score: 1

      Maybe you're right, I dunno. I just fail to see how anyone at Apple that has a brain would think a buggy unoffical app is going to cause someone to switch their entire platform to one which is one big buggy app. :)

  40. Popcorn, Peanuts, Safari! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Get it while it's hot:

    http://www.ewetel.net/~wolfgang.eichner/public/s af ariv67.dmg

  41. this doesn't bug me nearly as much as... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Al Gore being added to Apple's board of directors.

    its like they're TRYING to kill off their fan base...

    1. Re:this doesn't bug me nearly as much as... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well you know he invened the internet.... next he would have invented the mouse.... oh wait... apple claims that....

  42. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  43. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, depending on the posters true intent, it might not be trolling. People need to learn that everyone who is a rude dick is not a troll. To be a true troll takes lots of skill and insight into the human mind. To be a troll is to tow the hardest line of all. Bow down to any troll you encounter for they are truly the heirs to the one true throne of the Jedi! Ave Satanas! Shem-ham-forash!!

  44. Re:So what? by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'll admit that I don't even know what Safari is

    This made me laugh.

    Dude, you preface your statement with a literal 'I'm about to talk out of my ass', and then of course you do so.

    Apple is a failed monopoly

    Every company but Microsoft is a failed monopoly. What is your point? Or, are monopolies good on Saturdays? I forget.

    Your mightily aged Mac trolls are telling, too. Listen, you don't like it, that's fine. But you don't even know what the hell you're talking about by your own admission. So, seriously, why are you posting? You're nothing but noise in here. Karma-to-burn norwithstanding.

    Blah blah blah, you love your PCs. Wonderful. Run along now.

    --
    If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
  45. Um, why not just fix the problem? by clambake · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It would be trivial to add an embedded key to every copy that goes out, then you can trace the exact guy hwo is giving them out!

    1. Re:Um, why not just fix the problem? by spanky1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Microsoft did exactly this during the Windows 2000 betas. When you'd download an ISO, the special download app would inject your obfuscated IP address and beta ID into the header. Some beta tester discovered this and was able to decode the obfuscation. MS wasn't too happy when this tester reported it to the beta newsgroup. Once people found out about it, it was trivial to remove or alter the injected information.

  46. APSL only approximates open source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for the record: the ways in which the APSL does not meet the GNU's notion of "free" can be found here. I acknowledge that there are other licenses than the GPL and other open source organizations than GNU, but I think this particular analysis does quite a good job at laying out the issues.

  47. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I routinely troll in the flame alt.flame. groups and these ass clowns are not trolls, just dickweeds.
    I've yet to see a real troll show up in here.
    This coming from the KING of Trolling..

  48. Watermarks? by .com+b4+.storm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe instead of discontinuing this program, Apple should have quietly started watermarking the private builds of Safari. A different watermark for each developer they give a sneak peak too. Then when it's leaked, they'll know who did it.

    Of course, they may do this already, and just decide not to divulge that information... Just a thought anyway.

    --
    "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
    -- Ryan Stiles
    1. Re:Watermarks? by linzeal · · Score: 1

      Appearently developer Fuck You, from Fuckyou systems is responsible at email address fuckyou3455@aol.com, the bastard!

    2. Re:Watermarks? by Lynn+Benfield · · Score: 2, Informative

      Downloading seeds from Apple typically requires you to have an account in their developer program, and to log in to their seed server - you then get a randomly generated user name/password combo for an ftp server that expires in a couple of hours. It would be quite possible to hook into this and to watermark binaries so that you could tell which seed account was used to leak the app.

      Or have the app watermark itself on first launch, after prompting for a unique key which gets mailed out to each person in the seed program. Lots of ways you could do it, and I wouldn't be surprised if you start seeing some of them in the future.

      We had to introduce a similar scheme for betas of our software, after a leak just before release - which has resulting in end-users mailing support asking for help when their ripped off copy fails to function with the latest data (wasting our time and slowing down support for our customers).

    3. Re:Watermarks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      While seeds are downloadable by ADC Select and above members, most developers not actively involved in a specific product will usually just wait for the monthly seed CDs to come round (like I do). I imagine it wouldn't be feasible to watermark each file on each CD individually.

    4. Re:Watermarks? by Artemis · · Score: 1

      Why waste the time going through all that trouble when their development community has already shown them multiple times that they cannot be trusted with privledged information? It's simpler to just cancel the seed program and space the public betas out.

  49. Reason for Private Seeds. by itistoday · · Score: 5, Informative

    I tested v67 out and I think there was a reason Apple didn't want it out: Bugs. This thing has so many bugs... it freezes, you can't click/select anything sometimes (but you can still load pages), among other things...

    So perhaps they simply didn't want to give a bad impression out, and don't want to be berraged by a million emails all pointing bugs out that they are most definitely aware of.

    1. Re:Reason for Private Seeds. by coolmacdude · · Score: 1

      Really, I've had less bugs with it than any other of the unreleased verions.

      --

      -You may license this sig for only $6.99.
    2. Re:Reason for Private Seeds. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, simply fails to run for me (freezes opening any page). In the trash now.

  50. GPL protections by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is actually a disadvantage of the LGPL license to Apple. Because of the viral licensing in the LGPL, they have to have a compatible license for their browser components. They quite likely do identify each copy individually. The problem is that instead of saying, "Don't distribute or we'll sue your ass into the ground," they are forced to say, "Don't distribute or we won't give it to you again."

    That happens a couple of times and it still gets out, they have no option but to not distribute if they want to preserve their versions between releases.

    1. Re:GPL protections by fault0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      > Because of the viral licensing in the LGPL, they have to have a compatible license for their browser components.

      This is not true at all for the LGPL. Things that wrap around the LGPL code do NOT have to be under a compatable license (unlike the GPL)

  51. Piracy/Leaking Is A Bad Thing by athagon · · Score: 1

    This just helps to show how software piracy/"leaking" trickles down and hurts everyone -- from the company, to the developers, to the beta testers, to Joe Average.

    --
    I think, therefore, I'm smarter than our president.
    1. Re:Piracy/Leaking Is A Bad Thing by DeathPenguin · · Score: 1

      Apple gets good exposure for upcoming products, and enthusiastic users get new features. How does this hurt anyone? This is how it should be.

  52. One Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch? by Speare · · Score: 2, Funny

    When the apple is ripe, it will fall. --Irish proverb

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  53. aint that a bitch? by Raven42rac · · Score: 1

    and one of my friends was just bitching about the lack of tabbed browsing in safari, oh well guess he is going to have to use Camino (tm) then.

    --
    I hate sigs.
  54. Can't by TheInternet · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why not publicly release nightly betas, so users can post feedback on development as with BugZilla?

    Quality expectations are different for Apple than from many other developers. I suspect this is at least part of the reason. Not to mention all the journalists that would descend upon such a thing to pick apart every release.

    Users don't expect the nightlies to be perfect

    Normal users don't, Mac users do. They take it personally if there's a bug in a piece of software -- like Apple is after them specifically.

    - Scott

    --
    Scott Stevenson
    Tree House Ideas
  55. Hello! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who is going to inherit your throne when you finally succumb to AIDS?

    1. Re:Hello! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Awesome.

  56. Apple still doesn't "get it." by dameron · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This the the equivalent of Jesus bitch smacking all the disciples 'cause Peter was a little to loud in his preaching. Hopefully one day Apple will realize fanatics who leak information about their products should be encouraged. After all, any press is good press, especially if you have a demonstrably inferior product.

    -dameron

    1. Re:Apple still doesn't "get it." by Artemis · · Score: 1

      Any press is not good press when Apple is releasing a private, most likely buggy version of a program out to supposedly selected, trusted developers. Apple does not want the seeds out to the general public in that form, that is what the public betas are for!

  57. Poor understanding by stewby18 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I know that Apple probably has good reason not to make the various beta releases of Safari available to the public

    But they are still making beta's available to the public, just not every single beta. I imagine that their public beta releases (which seem to be based on more or less completing a new feature) will stay steady, just like they have been so far, and just like the X11 betas.

    Far too many people here are confusing the seeding program with the public betas, and blowing this way out of proportion.

  58. Re:So what? by leereyno · · Score: 0

    I was tempted to mention Darwin and I'm glad that you have. I'm glad that darwin for the x86 exists and I'm very glad that Apple has been wise enough to keep the source to it open.

    The problem is that, so far at least, Darwin on the x86 has been plagued by a lack of driver support. The last time I played with it back in 2001 it wouldn't even run on motherboards that weren't based on the 440BX chipset. If Darwin is going to be anything other than a curiosity to members of the open source community who don't own macs, then this will have to change. If this has changed then I'll be very glad to hear it.

    Lee

    --
    Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
  59. Custom Builds w/ID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it really to hard to build in and unique ID. This is unix, you make a script that does it for you. Then you have that script mail the build to eveyone. They don't know and if it gets leaked blamo.

    Ok you don't want to email eveyone. You can do the same with a down load. You have eveything to be linked but one file and that you compile with the ID. When someone logs on and downloads, it compiles that file and links the app, there it has the ID in it again.

  60. What the hell is Safari anyway? by doubleyou · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It would be nice if the post gave some indication of what Safari was, or included some relevant links for background. Instead, the guy who wrote this post just assumes I know what he's talking about when he says "Safari".

    The only Safari I know of is O'Reilly's online books service, but I somehow doubt that's related.

    1. Re:What the hell is Safari anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    2. Re:What the hell is Safari anyway? by doubleyou · · Score: 1

      Cool, thanks.

      I don't know why, but some guy moderated my gripe as flamebait...

    3. Re:What the hell is Safari anyway? by doubleyou · · Score: 1

      Okay, whoever moderated this as flamebait is an imbecile.

      It's rather common that someone will make a post to Slashdot about something, without giving any background, links to more info, or contextual clues about what it is. I think this is a valid problem, and not flamebait.

      Didn't you people ever have english professors write on your papers "be more descriptive" in red ink?

  61. Re:Damn this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think this 10.2.4 battery issue is a mass hallucination. I certainly haven't had any problems with my iBook battery under 10.2.4. You have to remember that Mac users aren't generally that technically-oriented and therefore tend to be rather superstitious about computers. It seems more likely that Apple had a manufacturing problem with their batteries, and it sounds like they're replacing them for people who have problems. Because 10.2.4 came out around the same time this problem surfaced people are blaming it instead. If it weren't for that they'd be saying the iMovie 3.0.2 update killed their battery, or the switchover to daylight savings time did it, etc.

  62. Why didnt they (Apple) take the same approach as.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    many game developers take when using a seed program.

    All seeds are digitally signed in one or more ways, so that when the seed is found on the internet, the guilty party can be identified and removed from the program.

    Another case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

  63. is there anything interesting about it? by Trepidity · · Score: 1

    (This is meant as a legitimate question, since I know virtually nothing about Darwin.)

    I can see a bunch of neat things in the windowmanager (and underlying graphics API), but is there anything particularly interesting about the base Darwin OS that would merit using it over, say, Linux or FreeBSD?

    1. Re:is there anything interesting about it? by tulare · · Score: 1

      Well, aside from the 1337ness factor, probably the best thing I can think of is portability. Suppose, like me, your only Mac is an iBook 400 dual-USB. Totally kicks ass for network administration and client support, but I can tell you from long and painful experience that it's not much for compiling. On the other hand, my desktop box is a dual-Xeon monster that absolutely zips througth compiling - a vanilla linux kernel takes a couple of minutes on this box. Now, if I were running Darwin on it, and I wanted to port one of my favorite apps onto it, it would be a hell of a lot less painful for me to do by setting the arch flags in the makefile and deal with all the debugging on a machine that takes less than a tenth of the time to do the compiles before packaging up the binary.

      That's just one reason. I'm sure that there are others.

      --
      political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
    2. Re:is there anything interesting about it? by geniusj · · Score: 1

      true kernel level threading is one benefit.. FreeBSD doesn't quite have this completed (KSEs) and linux's clone() is pretty heavyweight.

    3. Re:is there anything interesting about it? by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Netinfo is probably worth checking out - it's one of those things you'll either love or hate. It replaces most of the critical files in /etc/ with a centrally, network accessable, database, a sort of cleaner version of what NIS/Yellow Pages is designed to do.

      Darwin is orientated around Apple's HFS+ file system, which is a "modern" (ie only 15 years old ;-) FS that supports features like file forks and meta data (albiet in a "What we needed 15 years ago" sense.) That said, there's very little if anything in Darwin proper that actually uses these features, all of these are really for Mac OS's use.

      Darwin is based on a microkernel-like kernel. It has a hacked version of Mach underneath, which has been changed to break some microkernel tenets in favour of better performance. The result is an extremely modular system which fits together very well.

      And that brings me onto the final point: Some OSes have clearly been thrown together, others have been put together. Darwin is much closer to the latter than the former, there's a clear sense in every aspect of "This has been done this way because..." as opposed to many distributions of Linux where, quite honestly, the overall impression one gets is that a file is in a particular place, or an INIT script works they way it does, because that's where some hacker put it 5 years ago when they were just trying to get it to run, and nobody's ever thought of moving it since. Another OS, other than Darwin, that always gives me that warm fuzzy feeling is OpenBSD - I assume FreeBSD is similar but haven't successfully installed it. Darwin just seems to make sense.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  64. v65 and v66 leaked out too by giaguara · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not only the v62, 64 and 67 leaked out.
    I saw v65 too.

  65. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Apple is a profitable and successful company, despite not following your advice. Whereas Be, who ditched their proprietary hardware and moved to the commodity x86 platform as you advise went straight down the tubes. I guess now we know why you're whining on Slashdot instead of running a computer company.

  66. Just give out the nightlies like Chimera / Camino by giaguara · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are many Safari users who use those v62-v67. Why? Because they believe the new versions will resolve some issues.

    Just give out the nightly builds like Chimera / Camino does. Those Safari users using the unreleased versions will enjoy the nightly builds and help fixing and finding the things that need still adjusting in Safari.

  67. "Open Source" ? by giaguara · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Anyone remembers Steve releasing Safari in MWSF? "Open source" ...

    1. Re:"Open Source" ? by 90XDoubleSide · · Score: 2, Informative

      Safari's rendering engine is open source. You will have to supply your own shiny buttons.

      --
      "Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
  68. Re:Never Fear! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux is slow and bloated. That is why real developers, end users, and IT professionals use Microsoft products.

  69. Re:So what? by bob670 · · Score: 1
    Did you shut your sarcasm detector off, or are you waiting for it in the next kernel build?

    Give us a call when your not dual booting, thanks bye.

  70. NDA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For any Apple seeding program, the people receiving the seeds are under NDA.

    I just love the attitude that says that it's just OK to violate an NDA, but that the [L]GPL is sacrosanct and should never be violated.

    Sheesh.

  71. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    YUO=TEH SUCK!!!11!!

  72. huh? by twitter · · Score: 0
    Giving out software like that is a privage, not your God given right

    No, sharing stuff based on KDE is bad, very bad. Three smacks with a wet noodle for defying your NDA and you are fired. Be greatful, oh so greatful for people who ask you to purchase what others give freely out of a sense of real comunity. Everything is ruined now, Apple will have to stick to IE. This is too wierd, I must have misunderstood something.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  73. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  74. Re:So what? by oingoboingo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nowadays the only people using them are die-hards and people who got them in order to play with their version of Unix. I'd like to play with their unix too, but I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a whole new computer to do it.

    Interesting comment...I just bought an old PowerMac 7600/120 from eBay for exactly that purpose (ie: to play around with OS X). A few bucks on upgrades (a 500MHz G3 card from Sonnet and an additional 256MB of RAM, plus a 18GB Seagate Barracuda I had lying around, and an old Sony SCSI CD-RW drive), and the thing runs OS X pretty well. Of course I would have never paid the prices Apple wants to buy their equipment new. If Apple does OS X on Intel, Windows and Linux better watch out...

  75. Re:So what? by acceleriter · · Score: 1

    Dude, trolling the Jobs-worshipping Apple fundamentalist faithful is like shooting fish in a barrel. Try something more challenging :).

    --

    CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.

  76. Actually, you're just wrong by FredFnord · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It may or may not conform to GNU's idea of 'free'... and we can argue back and forth about whether that's basically because GNU has always been determined to hate Apple, from day one, and will always be, no matter what Apple does.

    But it doesn't matter, because he didn't say 'free'. Not as in beer, not as in speech, not as in political prisoners.

    No, he said 'open source'. And, why lookie here... Apple's license is on the official list of 'open source licenses'.

    http://www.opensource.org/licenses/

    So stop with the trashing already. He said it was open source, it is open source.

    -fred

    --
    Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
    1. Re:Actually, you're just wrong by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The FSF has had arguments in the past with Apple (not GNU, which is software and is therefore neutral on these issues, that's like saying "The Macintosh has been determined to hate Stallman", "What Internet Explorer wanted to do was kick Netscape's butt", etc) because Apple has spent a lot of time suing over software IP, and in particular was the most dramatically damaging participant in the Look and Feel lawsuits of the 1980s and early nineties. The FSF did call a boycott while that was on, as I understand it the boycott no longer applies.

      Going from there to the FSF "has always been determined to hate Apple" is a little absurd, especially when your basis for this is that ONE Apple licence has been determined to be non-free. What, exactly, do you expect the FSF to say when a licence doesn't fit the FSF's criteria for "being free"? That "Oh, we had disagreements with this company in the past, but now they're gone and they're releasing a bit of source, we'll claim, falsely, that this stuff is free?"

      The FSF has also similarly rejected licences with similar issues from IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Netscape. Has the FSF been running some sort of hate campaign against these two too? If so, why has the FSF also approved other licences from the same organizations?

      FWIW, the WebCore stuff is not licenced under the APSL anyway. The major part is licenced under the LGPLs, with a choice of two versions, and Apple's changes are licenced under a simple X11 style licence. You can actually read the licences (the latter is in a file called "LICENCE.APPLE") by downloading the source code from Apple's website.

      I hate to see a "+5 Insightful" post that fighting windmills: the FSF is an extremely ideological organization, most people see that as a bad thing though I see it as a mark of integrity even if I don't always see eye to eye and feel there's room for being practical. It's a little ludicrous to suggest that the FSF would throw its ideological concerns out the window because it doesn't like the business practices of someone a decade before.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  77. Is Apple Stupid? by xant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A little knowledge of human nature and a smattering of statistics should tell you that this was almost guaranteed to happen, no matter what precautions (statutory or technological) were set against it.

    Is Apple stupid for thinking this wouldn't happen, or did they plan on it?

    --
    It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
    1. Re:Is Apple Stupid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, Al Gore is on the BOD and he did invent the internet :)

    2. Re:Is Apple Stupid? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      yeah, if you can't keep album of music that's not circulated around _anywhere_, and said to be have kept behind guards, gets out.. what chance does some poor 'closed' beta release of (of something that will be free, so you don't have even the moral hangover about doing it) software have?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  78. Re:So what? by leereyno · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Be went down the tubes because for several reasons, but the switch to x86 was not one of them. Intel literally paid them to port their OS to the x86 and if they had not done so they would have gone out of business long before they did.

    Be failed because of Linux. If Linux and would-be replacement products, such as FreeBSD, did not exist, then Be might have been more successful. The problem is that strong competition hurts weak competitors far more than it does strong ones. Linux is strong competition when it comes to the market for operating systems. Microsoft is hurting because of Linux, what does that say about companies that are not in Microsoft's position? Linux obliterated SCO, and if it wasn't for the fact that Sun sells big iron it would be hurting more than it already is because of Linux. IBM is pushing Linux on their big iron for the simple reason that IBM sells big iron, what OS is running on it is irrelevant to them. If hackers will create a top-notch commodity OS for them for free then they're going to laugh all the way to the bank. Sun will likely follow suit if they know what is good for them.

    BeOS was a commercial desktop operating system, and that means its survival was dependent upon the applications that could be run on it. It lacked the applications that Windows has, and the niche applications that ran on it were not enough to sustain the company. The problem with niche products is that they MUST fulfill a specific requirement that other more popular or widely used products cannot. BeOS was unable to find such a role, or at least one that was significant enough to keep them afloat.

    I was sorry to see them go. Just as I'll be sorry to see Apple go believe it or not. I started out on an Apple II+ and until the mid-80's 6502 based Apple's were all I used. I switched to PC's when EGA became popular and because the 286 was a speed demon compared to a 1 Mhz 6502. I didn't switch to the Mac because 1) I was a kid and couldn't afford one, and 2) they simply weren't expandable the way the PC was. The lack of expansion slots really hurt the early macs in my opinion. Apple had a golden opportunity back then to move to an open hardware platform, and they missed it. The Mac clones in mid 90's was a case of too little, too late. Being proprietary works for big iron, for now at least, but it doesn't work when you are competing with commodity hardware based upon an open standard.

    People blame Microsoft for Apple's decline, but they're wrong. Microsoft didn't cripple Apple. Compaq did, Dell did, Gateway did. Every mom and pop PC chop shop and Taiwaneese producer of standard PC components did. Along the way they killed off Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, and a host of other companies whose names are lost to history. Microsoft merely rode the PC wave to the top. The only reason Apple survived back then was because they were the strongest producer of proprietary systems. The Mac was truly a killer computer back then. Even so, open standards always win in the end, even if they are technically inferior. A PC circa 1988 was a bad joke compared to the Mac-II. But because there was competition within the PC market continuous improvement were made at a greater rate than what Apple could do on its own.

    The position Apple is in today is not one I would want to be in. They've got the PC hardware industry on one side, and the Linux movement on the other. They can't keep up with Intel and AMD, and if they were to become a pure OS/software company, Linux would eat them alive. They can't stay on their current hardware because Motorola and IBM gave up on the PPC as a desktop processor back when Apple axed CHRP. Neither company is going to pay to develop faster chips just for Apple's sake. That means that staying on PPC is staying on a sinking ship. The only way that Apple could make a successful transition to x86 is if they were able to create killer apps that only ran on OS-X. With even Microsoft's killer apps like Office and IE getting hit with open source alter

    --
    Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
  79. Re:So what? by leereyno · · Score: 1

    LOL!!

    You're right of course but the entertainment value is just too much to pass up. I really should be nicer to them I guess, I mean I don't pick on Amiga die-hards, but then they don't act like Scientologists either.

    --
    Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
  80. Re:So what? by leereyno · · Score: 1
    "Please enligten us as to why Apple should not produce the whole widget?"

    I'm more than happy to...

    link

    --
    Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
  81. In Japan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The site which distributes secret ones here is appleroom sanmonweb

  82. Re:So what? by tulare · · Score: 1

    Not to try to start an argument here, but believe me when I tell you that the OS and it's underpinnings have come a long, long way since 2001. I'm tempted to give it a try myself - gonna have to drag out the P III I've got laying about and see what happens :)

    --
    political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
  83. Re:Damn this by agentkhaki · · Score: 1

    Well, not all Mac users are superstitious - I'm certainly not at least. Nor have I had any problems with the battery in my iBook - probably because I keep it tilted at a 15 degree angle and never use it after dark... :o)

    --
    Ack!
  84. link to project descripton? by unborracho · · Score: 1

    This is the first time i've heard of the project, does anyone have a description of what the project is all about?

    Thanks in advance

    --
    "You had this look that of an angel, it was such a bad disguise" --Dishwalla
    1. Re:link to project descripton? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.apple.com/safari/

  85. Weird "beta" anyhow by yroJJory · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For a beta that's really alpha or dev (I thought the definition of beta was "All features in, bug fixes only"), I don't really understand why only certain "beta" releases are acceptable for the general public to use.

    Either it's a public "beta" or it's not. Which is it?

    --
    Jory
    1. Re:Weird "beta" anyhow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      v60 is a public "beta"
      v67 is a closed "beta"

      Simple, no?

  86. I work for the company and I have build 60 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This sucks. I have received no significant updates. I have tons of problems with it. And people out there are getting seeds and leaking them?

    Man, I feel boned.

    I think Apple is bungling this project very badly.

    1. Re:I work for the company and I have build 60 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure you do.

  87. _You're_, not "your". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your 100% correct.

    "Your 100% correct" what? C'mon, the suspense is killing me!

  88. Is slashdot down by Microsofts+slave · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Is slashdot down, or have the editors diesd, because the last submission was on the 22nd.

    --

    Tragek

    1. Re:Is slashdot down by ThatMadeNoSense · · Score: 0

      by Microsofts slave (522033)

      That made no sense.

    2. Re:Is slashdot down by Artemis · · Score: 1

      And dear lord, it's the...23rd!

      Apple: Apple Terminates Safari Seed Program Posted by chrisd on Saturday March 22, @08:48PM

      It's Official: Black Holes Have Lots Of Mass Posted by chrisd on Sunday March 23, @03:08AM

      Oh no! That's almost 8 hours between postings on the middle of a Saturday Night. Cure your addiction.

  89. I call. Bull. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It would hurt MS on the desktop of home users - wait, no it wouldn't. Home users get their copy of Windows for all but free(tm) with the purchase of their PC.

    All in all, the desktop monopoly doesn't do much for Microsoft, other than provide cheap training.

    It certainly wouldn't hurt business. Companies who use it can either pay, or simply aren't important to Microsoft's sustained economic well-being.

    Re: Free training. It's nice for MS, but ultimately, unnecessary. People will use what their boss instructs them to use, or they'll have a visit from Mr. Pink Slip.

  90. Where'd tabs go? by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Okay, a copy of the first tab-enabled seed magically found its way to my computer, and I played with it for awhile, but finally decided to stick with the official beta for my main browsing. Then, of course, I hear about this one, and it finds its way to my computer (amazing, really, its like my Mac reads my mind and downloads things I want without my permission!) But the Debug menu doesn't list tabbed browsing anymore!

    --
    Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
    The purpose of that site was not known.
    1. Re:Where'd tabs go? by z-kungfu · · Score: 2, Informative

      it's because tabbed browsing is always on in this one, no need to turn it on....

    2. Re:Where'd tabs go? by bailey34 · · Score: 1

      No, they can be turned on and off in the prefs.

    3. Re:Where'd tabs go? by EverLurking · · Score: 1
      Tab feature controls are now controlled under the preferences plane.

      DaveC

      --
      There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
    4. Re:Where'd tabs go? by Artemis · · Score: 1

      Why don't you just tell the truth instead of some childish "it magically found it's way onto my computer, twice!" joke. If you're going to download an unauthorized copy of a private seed then at least have the courage to tell the truth and stand up and say that's what you did.

    5. Re:Where'd tabs go? by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 1

      Thanks! (Silly me, didn't even think that they would have moved to a more 'official' place... And it's not like I need to change web browser preferences very often.)

      --
      Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
      The purpose of that site was not known.
  91. Isn't Safari GPL? by pete-classic · · Score: 1, Insightful
    I am under the impression that Safari is distributed under the terms of the GPL. I am pretty sure that this is because Safari is based on Konqueror.

    The GPL says:

    You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.


    So, distributing a derivitave work of Konqueror under any restrictions beyond those in the GPL is a violation of the KDE folks copyrights.

    What gives?

    -Peter
    1. Re:Isn't Safari GPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They weren't distributing it. Becasue it isn't a public beta (where you don't have to authenticate), they are effectively employees of Apple for this product. Passing the code to them is not distributing outside the company.

      That is the *intent* of the system, anyway.

    2. Re:Isn't Safari GPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the common lexicon can't get you by legally, just roll your own. They're not distributing, they just have special employees!

      And when people try to follow what is spelled out in the GPL, Apple slams the door shut in everyone's face.

      Now when someone violates an /Apple/ license, you can bet they're not gonna be satisfied with some weak little bit of doublespeak like:

      "That's not pirated software, the 'pirates' are just a kind of an extension to licensed users."

      You just can't get away from the mind bending crap anymore. It's everywhere. Everyone wants to roll a little propoganda to give them that little edge in every situation. Sociopath drumbeat going in the background of society that gets louder by the day.

    3. Re:Isn't Safari GPL? by GauteL · · Score: 2, Informative

      No. Safari is AFAIK not GPL. This is possible because KHTML (The Konqueror rendering engine) is LGPL-licensed, and this allows for it being dynamically linked into a closed source application.

      Personally I'd say that they SHOULD release it as GPL.

    4. Re:Isn't Safari GPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Open Source dipshits like yourself are always amusing. I be you're the kind of person who believes that Microsoft actually gives a fuck about Xbox Linux. It wasn't a public distribution. The GPL only applies to public distributions. What the fuck do you think the 'P' in GPL stands for?

      Now, fuck off back to Seattle.

    5. Re:Isn't Safari GPL? by TotallyUseless · · Score: 1

      it doesnt matter anyway, since Safari, like KHTML, is LGPL. The only thing they are 'required' to release are their changes to KHTML, which they have been giving back to the KHTML team as far as I understand.

      --

      Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
  92. Re:Looks like the bad guys got the last laugh by coolmacdude · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that's what I meant, should have been more specific.

    --

    -You may license this sig for only $6.99.
  93. Expunging "almost right" products by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An alternative, given the fact that pre-release builds are frequent, is to time-limit each build to (say) a month-- that way, "it works for me" won't apply after that, because the user will *have* to upgrade.

  94. That's a pretty big word. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you hear it passing coverage of the 'war on terror'. Stick it up your ass fuck face.

  95. Shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you whiney little bitch. Apple sucks ass and you need something to busy yourself with.

  96. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Damn you talk a lot...

    Do you perhaps want to bring any new ideas to the table? or are you doing just fine rehashing the same old bullshit?

  97. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someone bit a troll and got modded to 5... so sad, so sad.

  98. Re:I call. Bull. by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Home users get their copy of Windows for all but free(tm) with the purchase of their PC.

    If they buy a new computer whenever the next "must have" windows comes out they do.

    Most of the ones I've installed for friends and family tends to live quite a lot longer, most ordinary home users aren't on the bleeding edge. You can usually run the next two "releases" (e.g. win95-98-me) until it gets impossible even for the unsavy home user.

    I'd say the lock in at home is a major factor in the continued lock in at work. Not unlike how Nokia played their cards right by marketing to teen-agers, when Ericsson stayed with the corporate demographic. The sons and daugheters of the captains of industry ran around with cooler mobiles than their dads, a situation that ultimately couldn't (and didn't) last long.

    --
    Stefan Axelsson
  99. Must be LGPL by jeti · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If KHTML would be distributed exclusively under the GPL license, Apple would have to provide any code for released software that links against KHTML.

    KHTML must be using LGPL (or at least something similar).

    1. Re:Must be LGPL by dfaure · · Score: 4, Informative

      KHTML is LGPL indeed.

    2. Re:Must be LGPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And, if KHTML wasn't LGPL, Apple probably would not have used it.

    3. Re:Must be LGPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you're mistaken. All that would happen is this. Either Apple wouldn't play fair and would use KHTML&KJS and not submit any changes back, and of cource keep it a secret that they're using KHTML&KJS. Or they would use some other library that is LGPL/BSD licensed so they didn't have live under the Stalinist GPL, or they're develop their own HTML parser. I'm not bitching about the GPL really, I'm just saying its a very strict license to "force" software in the public -- which is why MS calls it viral but they just choose "viral" to make it sound worse.

      Also, GNOME would boast about GtkHTML (or whatever travesty they have now) being LGPL and usable for commecial products over KHTML.

    4. Re:Must be LGPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may be ROFL about the fact that I don't know the difference between KHTML and LGPL and I hope you LOL when I TTYL.

  100. Watermarking, unique copies, etc. by isj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think it is quite interesting that people recommend that Apple should have embedded watmermarks, unique identifcation, steganography and other stuff in the beta download to identify who leaked the copy.

    Isn't this the same posters that normally oppose DRM? :-)

  101. switch from freebsd to macos x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can someone tell me if it's worth switching from FreeBSD to MacOS X? Most importantly, what will I lose, if anything? I have remote FreeBSD servers and want to know if it's viable to develop for them on MacOS X.

  102. More Safari users than Mozilla users? by 00_NOP · · Score: 1

    Not that there are many of either :-(

    But that's what my server logs show.

  103. Lickability by ElGanzoLoco · · Score: 4, Funny

    Safari's front-end (lickability, bookmarking, etc)

    You enjoy licking brushed metal? Oh, man...

    --
    Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
  104. Offtopic 5 Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Why hasnt slashdot updated since 8:49p yesterday.. hehehe

  105. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    How on earth did this comment get modded up to 5?

    This person got bitten by a troll, and tried to be a slashdot-traffic-cop by getting up on their soapbox about how "childish and counter-productive" the trolls were. Ummm, duh?

  106. Why does this seem like a really negitive thing? by jellomizer · · Score: 2

    The problem with code leaks of betas from Apple is the fact that they are realeasing code with the Apple name on it. With the Apple name on the product means that should meet standards that apple wants to put on it product. So is unstable betas are released it could hurt the company because the unstable betas will seem like the product is not being improved from the stable betas. (which developers can understat that fact, some time to fix a problem you may have to break some code and refix it later). But unlike the *nix people. The Apple Comunity is a wider range of people and a lot of them understand what a beta is but if they keep getting newer betas and each newer beta has more bugs in it and not less. They will feel turned off from the product and when it is released they would probably not get it becuase they would be fed up with all the bugs in the beta version.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  107. Sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd be very disallusioned if I was the guy who went to the plate and tried to convince management that the seed program could work.

    I can imagine going to my management and saying "let's make nightly builds available". Management, whose job is to protect the company, would be (naturally) cautious. But with convicing, perhaps a limited "seed" build to select developers would be an excellent first step.

    "These are people who believe in Open Source and Apple", I'd argue.

    But after this fiasco, clearly I'd be wrong. And my management would walk away with the idea that open source developers cannot be trusted in this fashion.

  108. LGPL is viral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LGPL is viral, you utter moron. It allows linking of proprietary code. That's why they don't have to open source the whole browser. It still affects the terms of distribution. Let me explain for people like you who are very dumb.

    Browser components that are modifications of LGPL source files or derived from LGPL sources are covered under the LGPL or a compatible source license. That covers "browser components" like I said, but not the whole browser.

    Anything that is statically linked to LGPL code has to have a compatible distribution license. Idiots like you aren't allowed to stop the distribution of binaries generated from LGPL code. The same applies to any dynamically linked binaries that are packaged atomically. Just so it's clear, I mean atomically in the sense of indivisible, not some stupid mutation nonsense such as produced you.

    Thus, even though the source code of parts of Apple's Safari browser are closed, they still can't restrict redistribution of it. So your very limited knowledge is completely inapplicable to the situation at hand.

    1. Re:LGPL is viral by Phroggy · · Score: 5, Informative
      Anything that is statically linked to LGPL code has to have a compatible distribution license. Idiots like you aren't allowed to stop the distribution of binaries generated from LGPL code. The same applies to any dynamically linked binaries that are packaged atomically. Just so it's clear, I mean atomically in the sense of indivisible, not some stupid mutation nonsense such as produced you.

      You're either trolling, or you're simply ignorant. The restrictions you describe apply to GPL code, not LGPL. This is precisely why the LGPL exists. From the text of the LGPL:
      When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the combination of the two is legally speaking a combined work, a derivative of the original library. The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General Public License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with the library.
      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    2. Re:LGPL is viral by fault0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      /me thinks you need to releive your repressed sexual energy somewhere. And please wipe off your keyboard afterwards, thanks.

      Anyhoo, replace "LGPL" with "GPL" in your post, and you're going in the right step.

  109. Re:So what? "crack monkey" by z-kungfu · · Score: 1

    dude, put the pipe down and step away.... "linux killed Be", I think not, Be was a desktop OS, linux wasn't even close then. And "Apple is going out of business", oh I've heard that one about a thousand times before... like every year for the last 15...
    face it they are here to stay, they are the porsche of computers, while your playing with your little honda....

  110. Re:So what? by ThatMadeNoSense · · Score: 0

    Give us a call when your not dual booting

    That made no sense.

  111. Re:So what? "crack monkey" by ThatMadeNoSense · · Score: 0

    while your playing with your little honda

    That made no sense.

  112. Re:Gay Safari by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    :D

  113. Where can I get v67? ;-) by psyconaut · · Score: 1

    Anyone know where I can download a copy? *snicker*

    -psy

  114. Seedless Apples by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What will they think of next? ;-)

  115. All this fuss over a browser? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Someone please tell me why its even newsworthy?

    Or why apple would even care it was leaked?

    Its just a browser.. Sheesh.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:All this fuss over a browser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is news worthy because someone thinks it is, you stupid brain dead fuck.

  116. Safari non-Beta release date -- when? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When it a non-Beta version of Safari expected?

  117. If they were cleverer, they'd opensource it.... by otis+wildflower · · Score: 1

    ... and release it as a projectbuilder tarball.

    It'd make a great 'example' for coders to get familiar on, and Apple could take advantage of a large pool of folks who like browser innovations but also want to take advantage of OSXisms to make the most airwolf browser possible.

    I mean, c'mon, what do they have in there that isn't a) trivial to do in Moz/Camino, or b) reliant on Aqua/Cocoa-proprietary APIs? They're not making money on it, they could even use the GPL MySQL-style, where they control the 'official' and 'officially-supported' product, giving credit but requiring unlimited license for inclusion in the official product.. Are they ashamed of the code quality, paranoid, or just short-sighted? (mercy, I HOPE they're not so dumb as to think they can _make money_ by _selling_ safari shrinkwrap?)

    (not that _I've_ done much on OSX myself, but maybe it'd be easier to do more if there were better documentation and examples.. Or maybe I'm just fsckin lazy and unmotivated ;)

    ps: when will Apple update its HTML display frameworks to use the KHTML renderer across ALL HTML apps? The HTML widget that Sherlock uses chokes on obtuse and complicated CSS, which Safari even now can handle..

  118. Nerr, duh? by DAQ42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Okay, I think some of you need a little education on how Apple operates.
    First off, the whole beta program fro Safari is/was managed by a small team. Second, that team has a goal to release either the next public beta or the full 1.0 release by June 30th, 2003. You can verify this by opening up the terminal and navigating to /Applications/Safari.app/Content/MacOS/ and typing in the command 'strings Safari | grep June'. You will see two line in the binary that read "Safari Beta will expire on June 30, 2003.
    Safari Beta expired on June 30, 2003."
    This means that they are on a deadline and have a lot of work to do. A lot of people who have posted here are suggesting that they should do MORE work and add easter eggs/stenographics/blah-blah/security tracking to the seeded releases. Now you tell me, does that sound like a good way to reach a deadline? Especially one that is hard coded into the binary of the public beta? Now you could argue that putting in an arbitrary deadline is a "bad idea" or whatever, but I think it's a great way to keep a project both on track and managable. Pressure to perform and all that rot.
    The other thing a lot of people are apparently misguided in thinking is that Apple was naive about releasing these developer seeds. For this you have to understand a little bit about Apple's corporate culture and social philosophy. While you may not agree with it, I and a lot of others, think it's a great experiment and helps move our culture along. To understand thier philosophy, just look at Apple's public stance on music piracy. They have put in place some very basic and easily defeatable mechanisms with the iPod that prevents users from sharing music freely with thier iPod. They have not completely crippled your ability to share music, however they do put s little sticker on the iPod's that says "Don't steal music." They have also publicly stated in many debates about music piracy that it is a social problem, not a technological one, and that technology will not solve the issue. So in that statement, they have made reasonably clear that they don't really want to spend a lot of time working on something that they see as inevitable.
    They also want to trust those that they sign up for the seed programs. If you can't trust your testers to give you good reliable feedback, you are wasting your time and effort and you won't get your project completed or your bug fixed.
    Now the thing with the Safari seeds is that they gave the seed users 3 chances, basically 3 strikes, your out. After the 3rd strike, they pulled the program because they saw it as more detrimental that useful. I'm sure they started getting an unmanagable amount of negative feedback or duplicate bug reports, or even worse, useless ones because all these people that downloaded the seeds that were not part of the seed program probably started sending in incomplete bug reports or even worse, stupid things like "the thingy with the buttons, doesn't work on my puter, fix it now assholes", or something to that effect. This means that those managing the bug database and trying to glean useful information or even just track any real bugs now have to sift through thousands of shit reports. Needle in haystack time.
    Any of this sound reasonable.
    And finally, the most telling thing would be the reports on rumor sites. Apple hates rumor sites. They are counter productive to thier business (believe it or now, they are). If someone reads on a rumor site that such and such feature is missing/broken/doesn't work or whatever on a rumor site, and bases thier judgement on that rumor sites word (I know, stupid people, but it does happen, I have plenty of ad hom proof), they end up loosing a potential customer, or thier market image gets tarnished.
    I don't know about most of you, but these are the reasons that I see Apple's decision to pull the plug as both necessary and smart on Apple's part. Argue all you want about "the way it should be" or whatever, but these are the realities of this business. If you

    --
    Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
    1. Re:Nerr, duh? by Charles+Gaudette · · Score: 1

      Tried it. Slight typo in your instructions, but it gives the results you describe.

      [foobar:/Applications/Safari.app]memyselfi% cd Contents
      [foobar:/Applications/Safari.app/Content s] memyselfi% cd MacOS
      [foobar:Safari.app/Contents/MacOS] memyselfi% strings Safari | grep June
      Safari Beta will expire on June 30, 2003.
      Safari Beta expired on June 30, 2003.
      [foobar:Safari.app/Contents/MacOS] memyselfi%

  119. Re:So what? by dbrutus · · Score: 1

    PPC is dying which is why Apple is abandoning it. PPC was always the 32 bit cut down version of the much better Power series. PPC software (running otherwise identical hardware to a Power machine) can run without much speed penalty on a Power machine.

    Apple isn't going to die, though PPC will morph from those Power family computers running 32 bits to those Power computers that have a low enough cost/heat/electrical profiles to be put into a PC form factor.

    At that point Apple's running virtually the same chips that IBM's using for a wide variety of very profitable systems and they'll do just fine in the chip wars.

    Apple wouldn't use ISA/MCA etc because NuBus was better. When it ceased to be better, they switched to PCI for the cost savings. Ditto with SCSI/IDE and the ps2 connectors/ADB/USB hardware. Today's Apple strikes out on its own w/regard to hardware when it makes sense for their customers because the mainstream solution sucks. Firewire is an example of that. Firewire beats USB-1, Firewire II beats USB-2, Firewire is also shaping up to be a realistic competitor to very short-haul optical for clusters in the Firewire III/Firewire IV development line.

    Face the truth, Apple's going to be going out of business for decades more to come. B-)

  120. No, there's a big difference by adzoox · · Score: 1
    The difference is that DRM in music and video muddies end user ownership rights. Once purchased, a user should have free will to do whatever they want with their copy for their personal use. DRM prohibits such free use.

    On the other hand, Safari is free to the end user. It is to promote a whole concept and idea of using a Mac. Movies & Music don't have a "unique, take this for free, and buy our better package to use the free thing we just gave you." kind of product.

    Apple also makes iDVD, iMovie, iTunes all free with machine purchase (iTunes is free to all Mac Users). To me any app that is an Apple brand app should be polished & very stable. These builds are being seeded for developers & developers only. Apple wasallowing customization of Safari for those that wanted to do that. However, people were already getting there hopes up for tabbed browsing, when form what I have read, was actually a third party developed function, and that Apple really had no plans to release that function in the next build. Now, if they don't have it in, some will be disappointed.

    I had posted a previous comment, when the weblog was published on SlashDot, about tabbed browsing coming to Safari. I made the case that features like that should be reserved for other browsers, so that Apple can allow differentiation, and others to keep market share. While minutely, tabbed browsing is also a function that will have to be explained and supported to the laymen. I personally find tabbed browsing confusing and I am a 19 year Apple user and Authorized Technician, and registered developer. Also, minutely, it adds code bloat.

    To bring all this back together, Apple doesn't want DRM or even demanding control of the apps they release to developers and then to the public. They do want consistency and "polished" feel.

    A developer signs a non disclosure agreement - I didn't sign any agreement with any of the file sharing services. Apple KNOWS which developers have Safari. Anyone they don't know about, got it from someone they DO know. The developer that gave the copy away is breaking non disclosure + breaking Apple's requirement for developers to follow appearance and coding guidelines. (Apple is (rightfully so) very strict on code bloat.)

    --
    Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
  121. Ah such intelligent comments. by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Gotta love small minded people and their lack of ability to use complex words.

    Or was that too complex for ya?

    Crawl back under the pot infested rock you came from, no one really cares about you.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  122. Next version will cost $$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Safari beta seed program had to stop sometime, because Apple surely wants users to pay for Safari in the 10.3 release of MacOS X. Public leaks is as good an excuse as any to stop now, with the added benefit that it helps elicit sympathy for Apple.
    The Apple PR machine rolls on!

  123. I hope QA notices that THE TABS ARE UPSIDE DOWN! by RaycerX · · Score: 1

    I was really hoping that the quality of Apple's UIs would get better especially since Bud Tribble came back to Apple. The whole upside down tab thing in Safari is unbelievable.

    Since we aren't going to have an "official" public beta on which to provide feedback, we might as well say something now...

    Hit the "bug" button or select "Report Bugs to Apple..." in the "Safari" menu.

  124. Re:Sorry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you still manage to type? Now, that is awesome!

  125. Re:Nerr, duh?-Frank Sinatra's-"My Way." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Argue all you want about "the way it should be" or whatever, but these are the realities of this business. If you think you can do it better, feel free to start up a company and do this yourself. Otherwise go play with the freely available Darwin code and contribute something useful instead of criticizing Apple for taking care of thier business interests (which, after all, is what they are there to do)."

    I think, I will. I'll call it..."Microsoft"

  126. The ethical violation is all Apple's. by twitter · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    I consider this to be a small ethical violation on the part of the individual who leaked the beta ... I would still like to see that individual publically flogged.

    Yeah, I understand that's a joke. Some people out there, unfortunately don't. Tha larger picture is not so funny at all.

    You have the whole situation reversed. It's Apple's actions that are reprhensible not the developer. The developer did what comes naturally. Apple is working hard to limit our freedoms. It's not morally wrong to want to share useful things, it's morally wrong to make things that are useful and keep others from having them.

    It's natural to want to share software. Software is as close a thing to ideas and speech as tangible object can come. Like an idea, it is easy to copy and costs the original owner nothing when others make use of it. Good software, like a catchy tune, is something people want to share.

    Apple has not, "placed their trust in a group of developers." Apple extorted a promise from those developers in return for the chance to see and work on a beautiful thing. In return for that, these developers could not share their work or that of others. Because someone violated the master's will, Apple has cracked the whip. You don't need to use whips on people you trust, you need them for your slaves..

    This is a minor incidence of something Apple has done before. All closed source software houses make this deal with their developers. Apple has gone out of it's way to shut down other people's independent work as well. Viewed from the free software perspective, this is nothing new or surprising, though it still stings to see it.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:The ethical violation is all Apple's. by Theovon · · Score: 1

      I'm all for Free Software. But in this case, it was Apple's work, so Apple gets to dictate what people can do with it. I don't believe in abuse of intellectual property, but this wasn't abuse. This was Apple making a reasonable request.

      This is no different from how an open source developer can use the GPL to dictate that you may not turn his work into a closed-source commercial product.

    2. Re:The ethical violation is all Apple's. by twitter · · Score: 1
      You say, " I'm all for Free Software." but you don't seem to understand the reason for the GPL and are confused about a few other things too. This is apparent when you say, "it was Apple's work, so Apple gets to dictate what people can do with it."

      Apple is a leagal fiction not a person.

      The whole motive for the GPL is to use the evils of copyright law to promote ethical behavior. The fact remains that it's immoral to force NDAs and other restrictions for software. You will find lots of good sound reasoning here. It's and interesting fact that free software invariably becomes excellent software.

      Look at the harm that Apple's NDA has caused. You said that you wanted the person who released the browser flogged. That's exactly the kind of anti-social behavior that closed source promotes. The root of closed source is greed, pride and paranoia. It seeks to insure that only a select few can benifit fully from the software. Those who have been granted more prividges than others are resentful and angry when others share those privlidges. It's the anti social behavior of oppresion. It involves deception, punishment and force, ultimatly physical.

      --

      Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    3. Re:The ethical violation is all Apple's. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GIMME GIMME GIMME! You free software types make me sick.

      It's natural to want to share software.

      You mean, it's natural to want to have things without paying for them. Doesn't change the fact that it's completely immoral. Just because something (software) can be easily duplicated with little to no cost doesn't mean that it's ethical to do so without the creator's permission. Excuse my flaming language, but why the hell do you people think you have any right to do so?

      If you don't understand why this is wrong, you're fucking hopeless, so there's no point in further arguing. Nothing but a criminal and a leech to society. Probably a troll too, but oh well.

    4. Re:The ethical violation is all Apple's. by Theovon · · Score: 1

      Hmmm... Consider this: Let's say _I_ write a piece of software onto which I put the GPL license. But I decide that, because it's kinda broken, I would rather wait an extra month before I go totally live, so I send it only to a few close friends who promise to keep it under wraps.

      Then one of those people leaks the code, which spreads around to people who mistakenly think it's a production version, causing word to get around that my app sucks.

      What do you think about this situation? I, as the author, am not doing anything unethical by trying wanting to wait an extra month, or am I? Do I not have rights to control my own code ever?

      Intellectual property aside, what about the fact that that "friend" broke their promise to me? Is it ethical to break a promise any time you like? That is my beef with the original leaker anyhow. I was not bothered by there being a leaked version of the browser. I was bothered by the fact that some jerk decided to be untrustworthy and ruined a good thing for lots of other people.

      I really love the GPL because of its benefits. There's a ton of excellent software out there which stays excellent and doesn't get hijacked by commercial interests (but gets helped by them a lot!). I also 100% respect it. In any case where I would derive from GPL code, I would follow the license to the letter. If I were ever to release a derivative work, I would make sure that the original source and my source are freely available. I think it's vital that people do that. The GPL must be respected, at the very least, out of respect for the people who have contributed.

      And that's what it comes down to for me: respect. I'll admit that I have had more than a few illegal copies of commercial software at various points in the past, but at the same time, I'm relieved that I don't have to do that anymore because (a) I make enough money to pay for it if I want it now, and (b) there are great OSS alternatives. Out of RESPECT, I heed the wishes of producers of intellectual property to not use their products in ways which they disallow. (Out of respect for Microsoft, I don't use Windows, because I don't like their price and licensing terms.)

      Are you one of those people who thinks that all information must be free? Do you want to outlaw commercial software or force ISV's to open their source code? Are you the kind of person who says that if I produce ANYTHING AT ALL, I should make it publically available? What about privacy? What if I make a video of my wife and me having sex? Are you saying you have rights to that? Am I not allowed to say "You may not have a copy of that"?

      And so you say, I am an individual with privacy rights, but Apple is a fictional entity. But you forget that Apple is made up of people who care about their work. They take it personally, both the work and what others do with it. Does it not matter to you that some of the INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPERS might not appreciate someone leaking their software prematurely? Forget corporate interests. This is a matter of trust and respect.

      The fact that Free Software tends to become excellent software is not a justification for forcing every piece of software to be Open Source. If someone wants to keep their source closed, and therefore sucky, that's their business and their loss. Are you in the business of trying to FORCE developers to open their source? Why bother? If OSS is inherently better, then it'll win out naturally, because people will choose it over the closed alternative. That's the great thing about an open market where both the developers AND the consumers are free to CHOOSE amongst alternatives.

      I read the page you pointed me to on the FSF web site. Its first premise, basically that authors have no right to control what they produce, I think is absolute bollox. Authors take pride in their work and want to be recognized for it. We should respect that. And besides, slapping the GPL on something exerts no less control than any other license. It is a statement

  127. Can by twitter · · Score: 1
    Quality expectations are different for Apple than from many other developers. I suspect this is at least part of the reason. Not to mention all the journalists that would descend upon such a thing to pick apart every release.

    Apple's software quality have been admirable but that should not and does not keep Apple from sharing. Apple has adopted a BSD core, which maintians it's excellence though openness. That Apple has adopted this software over their own shows the superiority of the open way, regardless of what they might say.
    Mac [expect perfection]. They take it personally if there's a bug in a piece of software -- like Apple is after them specifically.

    Once again, software quality is not a negator of freedom. Mac users, like all users of closed source comercial software, expect all of the details to be taken care of for them and the things they buy to work. It's entirely possible for the user to make up their own mind about relative stability of software. Debian's stable, unstable, and testing sections are an excellent example of how quality and freedom can co-exist. The stable release of Debian has fewer bugs than most comercial software. Users can now chose to load up certian unstable or even testing programs into a stable set up. Surely Apple can match that feat in a modular way with a silly browser. Denying your users even that basic freedom is a bad sign from Apple.

    This is sad. Apple does have a wonderful platform. Their developers and designers have made real contributions. Why should such a talented company be so afraid to open up?

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:Can by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should such a talented company be so afraid to open up?

      Oh, I dunno. Maybe they're afraid of going out of business?? Dipshit.

  128. GIMME GIMME GIMME... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...a break. There are plenty of reasons not to release open source software each time a line of code is changed. It may fix some critical bug, but it may also introduce a new, more catastrophic one. You don't want that getting out in the wild with any pretense of being an "official" release.

    Most open source projects already allow access to CVS or developer "snapshots" with the various caveats in place. No need for more than this, and if a particular project doesn't wish to give such access, it is well within their rights to make that decision.

    At least you're not arguing that all code should be freely available, as the trolls above are. You recognize the legitimacy of closed source software, and I commend you for that. ;-)

  129. MOD UP!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    God Damn, somebody mod this the rest of the way up. It DESERVES it! Well said, man.

  130. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? tsarkon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    shut up fuckhead. you fuck. you are a know nothing apple zealot pig bitch. you got that? be it 1 day, 1 week, 1 year, you are always spouting and espousing BULLSHIT. you lie, you know nothing, you loser. you fat sexless pig. shut you fucking poor, parent fucking greasy pedophile fucking cakehole, assface.
    Pak chooie unf !!!!!! Pak chooie unf unf unf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    We are the Apple Zealots We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    We are the Apple Zealots We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    We are the Apple Zealots We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks From the terrible prospect of doing useful things
    I am the pusher apple-robot I shove around the blind people We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks From the terrible prospect of doing useful things

    I am the shover apple-robot I push bread down their throats We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks From the terrible prospect of doing useful things

    We are the Apple Zealots
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    From the terrible prospect of doing useful things
    We are the Apple Zealots
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    From the terrible prospect of doing useful things
    We protect you.

    Apples have a terrible low power * We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks Apples has a terrible low power Do you have stairs in your house?

    Do you have stairs in your house? We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    Pushing will protect you Pushing will protect you
    From the terrible prospect of doing useful things

    That is incorrect Shoving will protect you Shoving will protect you
    From the terrible prospect of doing useful things

    Do not trust the shover apple-robot
    Shoving is the answer
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks

    Do not trust the pusher apple-robot
    He is malfunctioning **
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks

    We are the Apple Zealots
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    From the terrible prospect of doing useful things
    We are the Apple Zealots
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    From the terrible prospect of doing useful things
    We protect you.

    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    Shoving is the answer Humans must be shoved They must go down the stairs

    You are mistaken Pushing is the answer Humans must be pushed They must go down the stairs
    Please go stand by the stairs So I can protect you

    Go stand by the stairs Steve Slobs is protected
    Steve Slobs has gone down the stairs
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks
    From the terrible prospect of doing useful things

    We are the Apple Zealots
    Steve Slobs is protected Steve Slobs is protected At the bottom of the stairs
    I am the pusher apple-robot Shoving is the answer I will shove Steve Slobs Outside into the snow
    I am the shover apple-robot Pushing is the answer I will push snow On top of Steve Slobs
    I am better than the pusher apple-robot I am superior I am better than the shover apple-robot He is inferior

    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks

    Pushing is the answer Shoving is the answer I have pushed many humans I have shoved many more

    The humans are protected Humans have gone down the stairs The humans are protected At the bottom of the stairs

    We are the Apple Zealots
    We are here to get ripped off and act like jerks

    Our mission is complete
    * "low power"; meaning not low power consumption, but rather low power as in fails to compete with any other CPU arch by any metric save one useless Altivec optimized Photoshop filter.
    ** " He is malfunctioning" Regarding the apple-robot, typically any and all Apple hardware, including the Apple-Robots sung about here, malfunction terribly, and erratically.

  131. Re:Why not just open the beta to everyone? idiots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    idiots like you tevis money? you are a unrepentant fuckwit.