Be didn't price themselves out of the market; Apple simply wanted something that Be couldn't give them: Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was a nice extra, but in all reality, Be was asking for far too much. The wanted hundreds of millions of $$$, plus a hefty helping of Apple stock. All this for a OS that hadn't seen the light of day, and was constantly coming out Real Soon Now.
Not so much as a printer driver existed at that point.
Apple paid a comparable amount for NeXT, but it also got a well respected development team (Avie and his crew), a mature and eastablished OS, WebObjects, which generate millions of $$$ in profits to this day. As well as Steve Jobs, who is probably the only reason Apple is still around to ship OS X.
Amelio was great for turning the company around, but he lacked the long term vision to keep it going.
Be shot themselves in the foot with the original offer, not to mention the fact they then demanded MORE money while Jean Louis went around telling people how much he was going to squeeze out of Apple.
Apple said "Fuck You" and went back to making billions in profit while Be is still desprately looking for ways to get out of the red for at least one quarter.
If I were at Apple, I'd be waiting for somebody - anybody - to demonstrate that free development can really be more profitable than proprietary work. (Note that a stock valuation greater than the worth of Belgium isn't profit. Note also that I'm talking about open sourcing a product for which the company makes the primary investment, not taking existing GPL software, packaging it and maybe paying somebody to improve it.) Until I saw that, why on earth would I risk Apple's current profitability to be the first to test out ESR's theories?
Well the community doesn't have any $$$ invested in OS X, so it doesn't matter to them if it costs Apple bigtime. They want it out there for a number of reasons, some for ideological reasons, others because they want something for nothing.
The first group, Apple and the industry in general, understand. Believe it or not, they do.
The second, is the one that will cause problems, the folks who don't want to pay for OS X or just want to get the code so they can do something with it.
As OK as this might sound, it could easily be considered greedy by Apple and others. They have spending excess of 300 Million $$$ to develop OS X.
If they give it all away, here's what will happen.
-Apple will suffer a massive investor lawsuit
-Apple will die.
-Every business that was considering Open Source will ask themselves, "What can it do to benefit us?" and answer "Apparently nothing".
-The movement will be discounted in corporate circles and no one will want to deal with it on a serious basis ever again.
Apple can't sell support on the MacOS, it is too damn easy to figure out on its own. With all due respect, this isn't Linux here. You don't need a book to figure out how to change your screen resolution.
Armchair quarterbacking is great. Reality is quite different.
Businesses exist for the sole purpose of making money and little else. Right now there is no clear way for Apple to make money by giving away OS X and the all the code.By whining that they haven't got everything they want, the OSS community makes itself look very bad. Regardless of their reasoning, it sounds to Apple (and others) like:
"But I don't want to have to write the code! You should spend your money to do that and give it to me for free!!"
If they are only insulted, OSS folks should consider themselves lucky.
Yes, 3rd party developers were pretty pissed at the cancellation of Copland, however, they would have been more upset if they had actually produced apps for it.
If you want to get a good insight into why it failed, read Gil Amelio's book "On The Firing Line - My 500 Days At Apple". Assuming a great number of/.-ers won't, here is the skinny on Copland.
Copland was designed to be a direct competitor to Windows 95. However, by the time it was two years late, Amelio came aboard and saw that there was no way in hell it would be complete until 1999 at the earliest.
Not good.
What made it especially bad was the fact it was being managed by an engineer, which as the past 20 years of computing has shown, is a very bad thing. Copland was missing numerous key features, such as memory protection and real Preemptive Multitasking.
Which it was never intended to have. Unfortunately, Copland was an OS out of time. It was supposed to be done in 96 or 97 and be a stepping stone to Gershwin, which would supposedly put NT to shame and include complete backwards compatibility with all the cool features of a modern OS. Too bad the Copland team had never thought to do any work on Gershwin, and it remained a feature spec on paper, now and forever.
While the Copland team was neglecting Gershwin and floundering the development of its own OS. It removed almost all of the engineers working on System 7 development under the outrageous assumption that it was still following its original development schedule and that System 7 would be obsolete in a couple of months, so what was wrong with halting support?
Quite a bit actually. This is the reason the whole System 7.5/Performa time is so embarrassing to Mac users. Especially because so many machines from that era are still in use, pissing off PC users to this day, resulting in skewed opinions and the chant of "Macs Suck" that is so often heard.
Anyway, Amelio dumped Copland, bought out NeXT (Be was too greedy and Bill Gates was fibbing about how easy it would be to resolve some of the technical problems involved with Mac NT).
The result was Rhapsody. Development continued for about a year, and things were looking up. That is until Adobe, Macromedia and quite a few other software makers realized they would have to completely rewrite all their apps for Objective C. (a.k.a the Yellow Box and Cocoa).
An collective "Oh Shit" went out across the Cupertino campus. So realizing that app vendors would desert them, Apple decided to revise the Classic API, put in into Rhapsody, make it backwards compatible with the Classic MacOS, put in a newer Mach Kernel, create a new display engine along with a host of other improvements and call it Mac OS X.
Halfway through this, they shipped a server version of Rhapsody called Mac OS X Server simply to prove they were doing something worthwhile.
Now, everybody's happy. The users (mostly), the app makers and most of the press.
Re:I'm using this method.. works great
on
Homebrew S/ADSL
·
· Score: 1
DSLAM......is that acronym a creation of yours, or the phone company?
I wouldn't like to be a teleco selling a product with the word "slam" in it. Too many bad connotations in the business.
I don't think it is wise to hold Mozilla 1.0 up as a shining achievement of the Open Source community.
Basically because it has taken too long. Regardless of the reasons, they are valid and unfortunate, people might be tempted to look at this and say "Two years after being HANDED the code to one of the most popular browsers, the entire community manages to push out a revision."
Whoever says this will most likely be considered a complete and utter prick by Open Source folks, but the reality of it is, there WILL be a element of the computing world that will take this position. This could end up harming the Open Source movement more than it helps. When it comes time to decide whether or not to support/contribute to the OS community, some might be tempted to say "Why bother?"
Who could blame them?
They aren't interested in ideology or a new (software) world order. Even if the eventual cost to them is negligable, it might seem pointless to give away what cost them money to produce if there isn't going to be any timely result.
Bisuness thrives on results. Failure to perform is not looked well upon, nor forgotten.
However small, there is a good chance this group will be people of considerable influence who will take a dim view of the whole concept of Open Source based on this one instance.
It will not matter if it is great or if it is shit.
Are you sure it's Carbon? I thought it was Cocoa/YellowBox... (Isn't QT running on OSX Server right now?)
I don't know about OS X Server, but the OS X version will be done in Carbon. It will save development time since it will work on MacOS 9 equipped systems as well.
I am not sure about the QT capabilities of OS X Server, the last time I checked you <b>needed</b> a seperate Mac to do development work. I believe it supplies only rudimentary features other than serving.
In the "Client" version of OS X, <B>Server 2.0</B> will be supplied as an add-on pack which will provide services for Web/FPT/Quicktime/WebObjects serving running on the base "consumer" OS as <B>Appleshare IP</B> is now. I assume they will remain Cocca apps. There isn't any problem with half of QT being Carbon and the other half being Cocca. Apparently the two environments communicate quite well with each other in the DPs and probably much better in the final version.
There ia a lot more to Quicktime than the Sorenson codec. However it is an important element that it cannot function without. It is rather expensive to license which could be what's delaying cross platform development.
For all we know, Apple has a long term deal with them dating back several years when the number of prospective users was less. If they try to renegotiate now, it could cost them big bucks.
Sorta like what happens when a TV network hires a cast for a show that becomes a hit and the contract is up for renewal or renegotiation.
BTW- QT4 for OS X is not written as a POSIX app, but rather Carbon, which does not make it any easier to portm as I have seen mentioned.
So apps like ed and vi are the reasons people keep coming back?
One good thing about dumping 'nix is that such programs would finally die. The whole "platform" has a huge amount of cruft floating around in standard installs. There is no reason for it except it is the way is has always been.
The MacOS UI *WAS* extensivly researched and tested before it was put into use. Things like proportional scrollbars had to be removed because it confused the testers.
The "drag disk to trash to eject it" feature was an indugance of the team, who later corrected it, and had to face the wrath of the users who demanded they go back.
I know the world has become a terrible place when Microsoft's GUI "innovations" are being used as the benchmark of quality. So far, Linux window managers have forgone innovation by providing emulating a well-established conventions, it is a failed endeavor. The result usually ends up being a poor copy of a poorly thought out design.
I believe there is reason to worry if the intention is to simply (more or less) reproduce the most popular elements, not the most useful ones.
However, if the ultimate goal is be better than preexisting designs, than perhaps the GNOME team, and others should invest their time in creating their, dare is say it.....own user interface, free of implementations of legacy features.
Is the goal to copy what already exists, fully aware of the design failures, just because it's safe and well tested? Just because it is a free alternative to what is already available? Perhaps, at least, they should spend some time investigating the original inspiration and concepts behind Microsoft's GUI, or else they risk diluting whatever thought was placed into the original work. Of which Microsoft has done little of.
Don't copy it because it exists, copy it because it is a solid design.
Throwing in things without having justification or an overall idea of how it will improve the rest of the system is stupid. Giving the user choice is good, but choice is meaningless without direction. New features should be added not after deciding a programming schedule, but after careful consideration of the pros and cons with a stong emphasis on the effect it will have over the rest of the UI and if it is worth it.
For example, upon viewing the demo of Aqua the leader of the GNOME team said that "the next revision will have [real] transparency". Uhhh.....ok, but why? How will this benefit the user? Is it just a bit of useless eye candy, or does it have a purpose? Will its presence be simply for the sake of having it because someone else does too?
I have heard the following too many times to count, and yet, I am still clueless as to what kind of logic the Linux community uses in a conversation such as this.
Linux Power User "The beauty of Linux is that the user can custiize and configure it any way they want to suit their needs, without anyone interfering.
Linux Newbie - "Well, I want a easy to use GUI based environment under Linux."
Linux Power User- "Fuck that! Linux should never be easy to use! How else could I ease my insecurities by claiming I can use such a nonintuative OS! I will oppose all efforts to make Linux easy to use."
Linux Newbie- "Hold on a sec while I pre-order OS X!"
Umm, because you are a Mac user you think you have to hold the mouse down the whole time while using the menu, which you don't in Windows or in most window managers. Just click on the menu, and behold, it stays open. Move to the submenu (you can move the curser 16 laps around the screen on the way if that gets you going) and click on it. It will open too! You obviously have no knowledge of Macs, because if you did, you would know that menus stay open until you select something else, regardless wether the mouse button(s) is/are being held down. The Mac desktop is ANYTHING but ideal for todays computer usage. The position of the shortcuts (open the tiny little Apple menu) stinks, as does having to use a menu to change tasks, as does having to move the curser out of the window to get the menus. For anyone will to give them half a chance, the best of the Linux window managers are vastly superior in almost every way. Except when it comes to useless things like functionality or consistancy. Which I am sure, have no bearing on the quality of the user's experiance whatsoever. Linux window managers suck bigtime.
Why have Ethernet jacks and cables running all over the place, when you can just put in a few Airport compatible base stations around campus. PC/Mac users can work with them and you can finally be able to watch UCONN beat your team over streaming video. BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Yesterday, I walked past the new shrine to last years national championship currently being constructed in the lobby of the UCONN library. Muahahahaahahahaah!
I believe that it is just a move by Gates to get rid of the Bill Gates/Evil Empire connotation that haunts M$ wherever it goes.
Now it is just another company led by just another CEO, who may be evil, but does not bring with him the cult of negative personality that is associated with Gates. It also puts a more scheming and ruthless man in the top spot in preparation for the impending showdown with the DOJ.
On CNBC just a little while ago, the two men were talking about how wonderful it was that Time-Warner had been bought out by a "E-Business" and that nobody expected such a thing to be possible.
What they were really saying is that here we have a big information/media company with worldwide reach that could, with clever lawyers, be portrayed as a threat to M$ and contribute to competition in the industry which the DOJ insists is not possible with Microsoft in the state it is in.
I worked in a video store last year, and the word leaking out from the distributor was that Lucasfilm had decided not to make any Star Wars DVDs until all the prequels are out of the way.
The reasoning was that they could get a lot more money out of the consumers. What else did you expect?
(Note:If you can't guess that I am joking there must be something seriously wrong with you. I accept no liability for anything)
Isn't this about the 50th time this has happpend within the past 4 months or so?
Is it that big of a deal? Maybe I'll try to patent it tomorrow just so I can see it on Slashdot! I'll go back the next day, and the next, I will start a "Try and trademark Linux just to piss-off Slashdot" campaign!
Every week a new story will be posted on my trademark attempt of the week, my mysterious disguises used to fool ususpecting patent clerks who are looking to throw me out as I hand in patent application after patent application.
My many followers will try and trademark Linux in their countries too!
It will never end!/. will be flooded as the words "Linux" and "Trademark" in the same sentance cause an article to be posted without thought!
(although MACOS X is BSD based and linux binaries will run in BSD, oh well... don't expect them to compile easily.)
People compile BSD apps on OS X Server all the time. It is a downplayed aspect of the OS, but it is there. Apple would need to break BSD to prevent it, and they have no intention of doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
Be didn't price themselves out of the market; Apple simply wanted something that Be couldn't give them: Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was a nice extra, but in all reality, Be was asking for far too much. The wanted hundreds of millions of $$$, plus a hefty helping of Apple stock. All this for a OS that hadn't seen the light of day, and was constantly coming out Real Soon Now.
Not so much as a printer driver existed at that point.
Apple paid a comparable amount for NeXT, but it also got a well respected development team (Avie and his crew), a mature and eastablished OS, WebObjects, which generate millions of $$$ in profits to this day. As well as Steve Jobs, who is probably the only reason Apple is still around to ship OS X.
Amelio was great for turning the company around, but he lacked the long term vision to keep it going.
Be shot themselves in the foot with the original offer, not to mention the fact they then demanded MORE money while Jean Louis went around telling people how much he was going to squeeze out of Apple.
Apple said "Fuck You" and went back to making billions in profit while Be is still desprately looking for ways to get out of the red for at least one quarter.
Well the community doesn't have any $$$ invested in OS X, so it doesn't matter to them if it costs Apple bigtime. They want it out there for a number of reasons, some for ideological reasons, others because they want something for nothing.
The first group, Apple and the industry in general, understand. Believe it or not, they do.
The second, is the one that will cause problems, the folks who don't want to pay for OS X or just want to get the code so they can do something with it.
As OK as this might sound, it could easily be considered greedy by Apple and others. They have spending excess of 300 Million $$$ to develop OS X.
If they give it all away, here's what will happen.
-Apple will suffer a massive investor lawsuit
-Apple will die.
-Every business that was considering Open Source will ask themselves, "What can it do to benefit us?" and answer "Apparently nothing".
-The movement will be discounted in corporate circles and no one will want to deal with it on a serious basis ever again.
Apple can't sell support on the MacOS, it is too damn easy to figure out on its own. With all due respect, this isn't Linux here. You don't need a book to figure out how to change your screen resolution.
Armchair quarterbacking is great. Reality is quite different.
Businesses exist for the sole purpose of making money and little else. Right now there is no clear way for Apple to make money by giving away OS X and the all the code.By whining that they haven't got everything they want, the OSS community makes itself look very bad. Regardless of their reasoning, it sounds to Apple (and others) like:
"But I don't want to have to write the code! You should spend your money to do that and give it to me for free!!"
If they are only insulted, OSS folks should consider themselves lucky.
Yes, 3rd party developers were pretty pissed at the cancellation of Copland, however, they would have been more upset if they had actually produced apps for it.
/.-ers won't, here is the skinny on Copland.
If you want to get a good insight into why it failed, read Gil Amelio's book "On The Firing Line - My 500 Days At Apple". Assuming a great number of
Copland was designed to be a direct competitor to Windows 95. However, by the time it was two years late, Amelio came aboard and saw that there was no way in hell it would be complete until 1999 at the earliest.
Not good.
What made it especially bad was the fact it was being managed by an engineer, which as the past 20 years of computing has shown, is a very bad thing. Copland was missing numerous key features, such as memory protection and real Preemptive Multitasking.
Which it was never intended to have. Unfortunately, Copland was an OS out of time. It was supposed to be done in 96 or 97 and be a stepping stone to Gershwin, which would supposedly put NT to shame and include complete backwards compatibility with all the cool features of a modern OS. Too bad the Copland team had never thought to do any work on Gershwin, and it remained a feature spec on paper, now and forever.
While the Copland team was neglecting Gershwin and floundering the development of its own OS. It removed almost all of the engineers working on System 7 development under the outrageous assumption that it was still following its original development schedule and that System 7 would be obsolete in a couple of months, so what was wrong with halting support?
Quite a bit actually. This is the reason the whole System 7.5/Performa time is so embarrassing to Mac users. Especially because so many machines from that era are still in use, pissing off PC users to this day, resulting in skewed opinions and the chant of "Macs Suck" that is so often heard.
Anyway, Amelio dumped Copland, bought out NeXT (Be was too greedy and Bill Gates was fibbing about how easy it would be to resolve some of the technical problems involved with Mac NT).
The result was Rhapsody. Development continued for about a year, and things were looking up. That is until Adobe, Macromedia and quite a few other software makers realized they would have to completely rewrite all their apps for Objective C. (a.k.a the Yellow Box and Cocoa).
An collective "Oh Shit" went out across the Cupertino campus. So realizing that app vendors would desert them, Apple decided to revise the Classic API, put in into Rhapsody, make it backwards compatible with the Classic MacOS, put in a newer Mach Kernel, create a new display engine along with a host of other improvements and call it Mac OS X.
Halfway through this, they shipped a server version of Rhapsody called Mac OS X Server simply to prove they were doing something worthwhile.
Now, everybody's happy. The users (mostly), the app makers and most of the press.
DSLAM......is that acronym a creation of yours, or the phone company?
I wouldn't like to be a teleco selling a product with the word "slam" in it. Too many bad connotations in the business.
I only hope that I will be able to play movies in a terminal window via the command line. GUIs are for wimps. Not macho geeks like me :)
I don't think it is wise to hold Mozilla 1.0 up as a shining achievement of the Open Source community.
Basically because it has taken too long. Regardless of the reasons, they are valid and unfortunate, people might be tempted to look at this and say "Two years after being HANDED the code to one of the most popular browsers, the entire community manages to push out a revision."
Whoever says this will most likely be considered a complete and utter prick by Open Source folks, but the reality of it is, there WILL be a element of the computing world that will take this position. This could end up harming the Open Source movement more than it helps. When it comes time to decide whether or not to support/contribute to the OS community, some might be tempted to say "Why bother?"
Who could blame them?
They aren't interested in ideology or a new (software) world order. Even if the eventual cost to them is negligable, it might seem pointless to give away what cost them money to produce if there isn't going to be any timely result.
Bisuness thrives on results. Failure to perform is not looked well upon, nor forgotten.
However small, there is a good chance this group will be people of considerable influence who will take a dim view of the whole concept of Open Source based on this one instance.
It will not matter if it is great or if it is shit.
Mozilla should be lauded, but quietly.
Are you sure it's Carbon? I thought it was Cocoa/YellowBox... (Isn't QT running on OSX Server right now?)
I don't know about OS X Server, but the OS X version will be done in Carbon. It will save development time since it will work on MacOS 9 equipped systems as well.
I am not sure about the QT capabilities of OS X Server, the last time I checked you <b>needed</b> a seperate Mac to do development work. I believe it supplies only rudimentary features other than serving.
In the "Client" version of OS X, <B>Server 2.0</B> will be supplied as an add-on pack which will provide services for Web/FPT/Quicktime/WebObjects serving running on the base "consumer" OS as <B>Appleshare IP</B> is now. I assume they will remain Cocca apps. There isn't any problem with half of QT being Carbon and the other half being Cocca. Apparently the two environments communicate quite well with each other in the DPs and probably much better in the final version.
There ia a lot more to Quicktime than the Sorenson codec. However it is an important element that it cannot function without. It is rather expensive to license which could be what's delaying cross platform development.
For all we know, Apple has a long term deal with them dating back several years when the number of prospective users was less. If they try to renegotiate now, it could cost them big bucks.
Sorta like what happens when a TV network hires a cast for a show that becomes a hit and the contract is up for renewal or renegotiation.
BTW- QT4 for OS X is not written as a POSIX app, but rather Carbon, which does not make it any easier to portm as I have seen mentioned.
So apps like ed and vi are the reasons people keep coming back?
One good thing about dumping 'nix is that such programs would finally die. The whole "platform" has a huge amount of cruft floating around in standard installs. There is no reason for it except it is the way is has always been.
Actually you are wrong.
The MacOS UI *WAS* extensivly researched and tested before it was put into use. Things like proportional scrollbars had to be removed because it confused the testers.
The "drag disk to trash to eject it" feature was an indugance of the team, who later corrected it, and had to face the wrath of the users who demanded they go back.
I know the world has become a terrible place when Microsoft's GUI "innovations" are being used as the benchmark of quality. So far, Linux window managers have forgone innovation by providing emulating a well-established conventions, it is a failed endeavor. The result usually ends up being a poor copy of a poorly thought out design.
I believe there is reason to worry if the intention is to simply (more or less) reproduce the most popular elements, not the most useful ones.
However, if the ultimate goal is be better than preexisting designs, than perhaps the GNOME team, and others should invest their time in creating their, dare is say it.....own user interface, free of implementations of legacy features.
Is the goal to copy what already exists, fully aware of the design failures, just because it's safe and well tested? Just because it is a free alternative to what is already available? Perhaps, at least, they should spend some time investigating the original inspiration and concepts behind Microsoft's GUI, or else they risk diluting whatever thought was placed into the original work. Of which Microsoft has done little of.
Don't copy it because it exists, copy it because it is a solid design.
Throwing in things without having justification or an overall idea of how it will improve the rest of the system is stupid. Giving the user choice is good, but choice is meaningless without direction. New features should be added not after deciding a programming schedule, but after careful consideration of the pros and cons with a stong emphasis on the effect it will have over the rest of the UI and if it is worth it.
For example, upon viewing the demo of Aqua the leader of the GNOME team said that "the next revision will have [real] transparency". Uhhh.....ok, but why? How will this benefit the user? Is it just a bit of useless eye candy, or does it have a purpose? Will its presence be simply for the sake of having it because someone else does too?
I have heard the following too many times to count, and yet, I am still clueless as to what kind of logic the Linux community uses in a conversation such as this.
Linux Power User "The beauty of Linux is that the user can custiize and configure it any way they want to suit their needs, without anyone interfering.
Linux Newbie - "Well, I want a easy to use GUI based environment under Linux."
Linux Power User- "Fuck that! Linux should never be easy to use! How else could I ease my insecurities by claiming I can use such a nonintuative OS! I will oppose all efforts to make Linux easy to use."
Linux Newbie- "Hold on a sec while I pre-order OS X!"
I guess that is the reason there is so much pressure from higher ups to replace Macs in the govornemnt workplace. Regardless of how well they work.
Steve Jobs used to be a big ant-establishment guy back in the day. I guess he wouldn't let them spy.
Just plug in a Firewire HD, and there you go.
Umm, because you are a Mac user you think you have to hold the mouse down the whole time while using the menu, which you don't in Windows or in most window managers. Just click on the menu, and behold, it stays open. Move to the submenu (you can move the curser 16 laps around the screen on the way if that gets you going) and click on it. It will open too! You obviously have no knowledge of Macs, because if you did, you would know that menus stay open until you select something else, regardless wether the mouse button(s) is/are being held down. The Mac desktop is ANYTHING but ideal for todays computer usage. The position of the shortcuts (open the tiny little Apple menu) stinks, as does having to use a menu to change tasks, as does having to move the curser out of the window to get the menus. For anyone will to give them half a chance, the best of the Linux window managers are vastly superior in almost every way. Except when it comes to useless things like functionality or consistancy. Which I am sure, have no bearing on the quality of the user's experiance whatsoever. Linux window managers suck bigtime.
Think of all the money you could get from licensing!
Amazon.com has proved that you can patent ANYTHING.
Why have Ethernet jacks and cables running all over the place, when you can just put in a few Airport compatible base stations around campus. PC/Mac users can work with them and you can finally be able to watch UCONN beat your team over streaming video. BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Yesterday, I walked past the new shrine to last years national championship currently being constructed in the lobby of the UCONN library. Muahahahaahahahaah!
I believe that it is just a move by Gates to get rid of the Bill Gates/Evil Empire connotation that haunts M$ wherever it goes.
Now it is just another company led by just another CEO, who may be evil, but does not bring with him the cult of negative personality that is associated with Gates. It also puts a more scheming and ruthless man in the top spot in preparation for the impending showdown with the DOJ.
On CNBC just a little while ago, the two men were talking about how wonderful it was that Time-Warner had been bought out by a "E-Business" and that nobody expected such a thing to be possible.
What they were really saying is that here we have a big information/media company with worldwide reach that could, with clever lawyers, be portrayed as a threat to M$ and contribute to competition in the industry which the DOJ insists is not possible with Microsoft in the state it is in.
Didn't M$ pay off Apple for their trademark infringement in the sum of $150 million as well?
Oh wait a minute, it was called an "investment" in $150 million of non voting shares.
It would be easier for them to say that the entire trilogy is out and you have X number of days to buy it before they stop shipping it.
Better to do the marketing all at once, saves money.
I worked in a video store last year, and the word leaking out from the distributor was that Lucasfilm had decided not to make any Star Wars DVDs until all the prequels are out of the way.
The reasoning was that they could get a lot more money out of the consumers. What else did you expect?
Nothing more than that!
(Note:If you can't guess that I am joking there must be something seriously wrong with you. I accept no liability for anything)
/. will be flooded as the words "Linux" and "Trademark" in the same sentance cause an article to be posted without thought!
Isn't this about the 50th time this has happpend within the past 4 months or so?
Is it that big of a deal? Maybe I'll try to patent it tomorrow just so I can see it on Slashdot! I'll go back the next day, and the next, I will start a "Try and trademark Linux just to piss-off Slashdot" campaign!
Every week a new story will be posted on my trademark attempt of the week, my mysterious disguises used to fool ususpecting patent clerks who are looking to throw me out as I hand in patent application after patent application.
My many followers will try and trademark Linux in their countries too!
It will never end!
Muahahahahahahahahahahahaah!
Actually, MacOs X is based on the Mach 3 kernel, which is compatible with BSD, but is much cooler.
Yes it is based on Mach, but they threw BSD 4.4 on top of it.
(although MACOS X is BSD based and linux binaries will run in BSD, oh well... don't expect them to compile easily.)
People compile BSD apps on OS X Server all the time. It is a downplayed aspect of the OS, but it is there. Apple would need to break BSD to prevent it, and they have no intention of doing so.