I got a Vista license with a new PC. I activated it, played at it, found it sucked, and installed Ubuntu over it. Another satisfied Microsoft customers.
And yeah -- Phoenix vs Mozilla was amazingly dramatic.
Firefox was good relative to Mozilla and IE, but that doesn't make it fast in an absolute sense. Rendering HTMl isn't rocket science, nor should it be a "grand challenge computation".
Firefox doesn't just embed Gecko, it IS a Gecko app. The menus, config options, the entire UI is coded in XUL,
Yeah, it's ironic, isn't it? In order to code Firefox in the supposedly fast C++ language, they moved most of the key functionality into glacially slow JavaScript and XML.
but I do wonder, occasionally, if we could do better, starting from scratch.
Well, there are two ways I think this can go. Either, the new JavaScript and its JIT will simply fix the problem with a minimum of hassle, or Firefox needs to be replaced by something that embeds Gecko in a Mono/.NET runtime and otherwise uses a GUI based on Gtk+ and a Javascript implementation based on the CLR.
I don't think Firefox ever was such a lean or efficient browser. It's also buggy and the developers don't seem to care much about Linux or MacOS (bad profile support, inefficient graphics, etc.). Opera and Konqueror both seem better written and better designed.
I still use Firefox. Why? Because Firefox works well enough, it's up-to-date, compatible, and, most importantly, has tons of useful extensions.
I hope the Firefox developers will be able to clean up their act, but unless it gets a lot worse, I'm sticking with Firefox, because, on balance, it's still the best browser there is.
Academics don't have a choice. They have to go with "reputable" publishers for journals and books because that's what they get evaluated by. Self-publishing or on-line journals just don't count in many disciplines. And very few academics make any significant royalties from publishing, even textbooks.
I think it's pretty obvious that making money was their intent.
It's not obvious at all. Lots of companies have similar patent portfolios without making billions from them. And IBM had such patent portfolios prior to making billions from them.
So, let me get this straight. Computers are getting smaller and cheaper, that's just a fact. Now, putting a VGA output+USB host port on a cell phone, or alternatively putting a cellular modem into a cheap portable machine with VGA output and USB host port, now counts as "research"? I suppose this great breakthrough has been patented as well?
Well, look, you're giving all reasons for why we're stuck with decades old operating system technology, and they are all good reasons. I'm saying that that wasn't inevitable. The computer industry could have taken a different course and we might be using technology that's a couple of decades more evolved. How? Well, for example, if the PC had chosen a different kind of OS, or if it had happened a decade later.
In any case, I think you are going to see radically different operating systems emerge over the next half century, systems that have neither "files" nor "processes" nor really "programs" in the traditional sense.
Well, to bring it to a point: the reason big companies have large patent portfolios is for cross licensing agreements. That is what people mean by "defensive patent": they can be used to force other companies not to assert patents by threatening to assert your own patents.
But once these patent portfolios have been created, companies have no reason not to recover part of the enormous costs by trying to get licensing fees.
So, in that context, there is almost no difference between this "everyone has defensive patents" world, and the "no one has any patents at all" world
There's a huge difference.
Existing companies with big portfolios and cross licensing agreements have a nice oligopoly, whereas new entrants have a really hard time to enter the market.
First, software patents are arguably bad. But we can't blame Microsoft or any other company over that. As long as software patents exist, companies need to get them.
Second, software patents are being abused. That's something we can blame Microsoft for because they are abusing software patents. What they should do is (1) only file software patents on ideas that are clearly new, and (2) deal in a straightforward and open way with infringement that comes to their attention
I have no problem with IBM suing Amazon. I do have a problem with Microsoft not suing open source projects and instead using the patent system for spreading FUD.
Automobiles aren't fundementally all that different than they were thirty or forty years ago.
Well, perhaps they should be.
As far as operating systems go, they definitely should be. Linux/Windows-style operating systems have been obsolete for 20 years.
The basic principles for multitasking kernels (memory allocation, scheduling, shared memory, etc.) were pioneered and implemented, and have been refined to one extent or another. Some functions, like forking were long ago optimized to just about as far as one can go
Sure. The problem is that the design itself is limited. And people now even lack the imagination to think that an operating system could be anything other than a bunch of processes and files.
(maybe things will change when we enter serious quantum computing, I don't know).
Even on current, sequential hardware, there are completely different ways of organizing computation and data.
The photographer accused a company of "theft" without any kind of evidence. Yahoo not only did the right thing to take down those comments, they may well be legally obligated to do so, since the photographer's comments may well be libelous.
I hope the guy who stole her photos will get found and published. But I also think the company she accused should consider suing her for libel--it sounds like they might have a good case.
And a piece of advice to photographers: if you don't want this to happen to you, put up your images in 1024x768 or lower resolution and put a couple of small watermarks somewhere in the image. You aren't legally obligated to do that, but it's foolish not to. Or, alternatively, just stop worrying about it and allow the images to be freely used with attribution. That way, people will make money off them (mostly just for the physical production), but you will usually get the credit as an artist.
Look, if you buy and use commercial software, you should live with what the vendor gives you, and you really don't have much choice. Trying to do some of their work for them doesn't make much sense.
Keep in mind that the primary purpose of any commercial piece of software is not to make users happy, it's to generate revenue. Sometimes those coincide, sometimes, they don't. For example, the Dock is an awful piece of software, but it demos well, so Apple keeps it. I suspect that the Finder and Spotlight also look nice in the store, even if they are suboptimal for actual use.
They're not basing that notice on any actual legal risk, they're just happy that they have found a good excuse not to have to learn something other than Microsoft Word.
Assuming MS really does have valid patents, how could just rewriting the code prevent Microsoft from seeking royalties for past infringement?
Well, infringement wasn't willful and developers would address it quickly, so any compensation would be for damages. And it would be hard for Microsoft to claim significant damages since most Linux users also have Windows licenses (for now).
Surely Linux 2.6.x is more modern than 1960s technology, right?
Not by much. Neither is Windows for that matter. Sad but true.
If you don't need it, don't install the 64bit version. The 64bit version works quite well, but the 32bit version works with more third party software and older software.
That should be: "Don't like it? Don't use them, tell others not to use them, and explain why you don't like them."
I don't know why people feel that companies have to justify price increases with some rationale of higher costs for them.
Because price and cost carries information about a company. If a company charges substantially more than cost, you know that you can probably find a better deal elsewhere. If you can't, then there may be a monopoly involved.
Microsoft's own code must be full of patent violations, since their developers and engineers have been told not to look at patents. So, I wonder what a careful examination of Microsoft's source code would reveal. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't also some GPL code in there.
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I got a Vista license with a new PC. I activated it, played at it, found it sucked, and installed Ubuntu over it. Another satisfied Microsoft customers.
And yeah -- Phoenix vs Mozilla was amazingly dramatic.
Firefox was good relative to Mozilla and IE, but that doesn't make it fast in an absolute sense. Rendering HTMl isn't rocket science, nor should it be a "grand challenge computation".
Firefox doesn't just embed Gecko, it IS a Gecko app. The menus, config options, the entire UI is coded in XUL,
Yeah, it's ironic, isn't it? In order to code Firefox in the supposedly fast C++ language, they moved most of the key functionality into glacially slow JavaScript and XML.
but I do wonder, occasionally, if we could do better, starting from scratch.
Well, there are two ways I think this can go. Either, the new JavaScript and its JIT will simply fix the problem with a minimum of hassle, or Firefox needs to be replaced by something that embeds Gecko in a Mono/.NET runtime and otherwise uses a GUI based on Gtk+ and a Javascript implementation based on the CLR.
I don't think Firefox ever was such a lean or efficient browser. It's also buggy and the developers don't seem to care much about Linux or MacOS (bad profile support, inefficient graphics, etc.). Opera and Konqueror both seem better written and better designed.
I still use Firefox. Why? Because Firefox works well enough, it's up-to-date, compatible, and, most importantly, has tons of useful extensions.
I hope the Firefox developers will be able to clean up their act, but unless it gets a lot worse, I'm sticking with Firefox, because, on balance, it's still the best browser there is.
Why? Isn't it obvious? Microsoft probably has a patent on using XML for representing word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Academics don't have a choice. They have to go with "reputable" publishers for journals and books because that's what they get evaluated by. Self-publishing or on-line journals just don't count in many disciplines. And very few academics make any significant royalties from publishing, even textbooks.
Why companies use patents that limit competition and increase profits doesn't change the basic fact that they do.
Their motivation makes a big difference, since the only way to change the current system is to negotiate with everybody involved.
I think it's pretty obvious that making money was their intent.
It's not obvious at all. Lots of companies have similar patent portfolios without making billions from them. And IBM had such patent portfolios prior to making billions from them.
They'd probably cheer; academics tend to hate the restrictive policies of academic publishers.
Apparently, it's just too hard for Microsoft to do what Linux distributions have done for several years now: support 32 bit and 64 bit simultaneously.
As of yesterday (8 mai 2007) sun released the JDK under the GPL2.
Well, sort of. Not all of it has been released.
So, let me get this straight. Computers are getting smaller and cheaper, that's just a fact. Now, putting a VGA output+USB host port on a cell phone, or alternatively putting a cellular modem into a cheap portable machine with VGA output and USB host port, now counts as "research"? I suppose this great breakthrough has been patented as well?
Well, look, you're giving all reasons for why we're stuck with decades old operating system technology, and they are all good reasons. I'm saying that that wasn't inevitable. The computer industry could have taken a different course and we might be using technology that's a couple of decades more evolved. How? Well, for example, if the PC had chosen a different kind of OS, or if it had happened a decade later.
In any case, I think you are going to see radically different operating systems emerge over the next half century, systems that have neither "files" nor "processes" nor really "programs" in the traditional sense.
Yes, but you still haven't shown that IBM got those patents for the purpose of deriving revenue from them.
Well, to bring it to a point: the reason big companies have large patent portfolios is for cross licensing agreements. That is what people mean by "defensive patent": they can be used to force other companies not to assert patents by threatening to assert your own patents.
But once these patent portfolios have been created, companies have no reason not to recover part of the enormous costs by trying to get licensing fees.
So, in that context, there is almost no difference between this "everyone has defensive patents" world, and the "no one has any patents at all" world
There's a huge difference.
Existing companies with big portfolios and cross licensing agreements have a nice oligopoly, whereas new entrants have a really hard time to enter the market.
You're mixing up two things.
First, software patents are arguably bad. But we can't blame Microsoft or any other company over that. As long as software patents exist, companies need to get them.
Second, software patents are being abused. That's something we can blame Microsoft for because they are abusing software patents. What they should do is (1) only file software patents on ideas that are clearly new, and (2) deal in a straightforward and open way with infringement that comes to their attention
I have no problem with IBM suing Amazon. I do have a problem with Microsoft not suing open source projects and instead using the patent system for spreading FUD.
Automobiles aren't fundementally all that different than they were thirty or forty years ago.
Well, perhaps they should be.
As far as operating systems go, they definitely should be. Linux/Windows-style operating systems have been obsolete for 20 years.
The basic principles for multitasking kernels (memory allocation, scheduling, shared memory, etc.) were pioneered and implemented, and have been refined to one extent or another. Some functions, like forking were long ago optimized to just about as far as one can go
Sure. The problem is that the design itself is limited. And people now even lack the imagination to think that an operating system could be anything other than a bunch of processes and files.
(maybe things will change when we enter serious quantum computing, I don't know).
Even on current, sequential hardware, there are completely different ways of organizing computation and data.
The photographer accused a company of "theft" without any kind of evidence. Yahoo not only did the right thing to take down those comments, they may well be legally obligated to do so, since the photographer's comments may well be libelous.
I hope the guy who stole her photos will get found and published. But I also think the company she accused should consider suing her for libel--it sounds like they might have a good case.
And a piece of advice to photographers: if you don't want this to happen to you, put up your images in 1024x768 or lower resolution and put a couple of small watermarks somewhere in the image. You aren't legally obligated to do that, but it's foolish not to. Or, alternatively, just stop worrying about it and allow the images to be freely used with attribution. That way, people will make money off them (mostly just for the physical production), but you will usually get the credit as an artist.
Look, if you buy and use commercial software, you should live with what the vendor gives you, and you really don't have much choice. Trying to do some of their work for them doesn't make much sense.
Keep in mind that the primary purpose of any commercial piece of software is not to make users happy, it's to generate revenue. Sometimes those coincide, sometimes, they don't. For example, the Dock is an awful piece of software, but it demos well, so Apple keeps it. I suspect that the Finder and Spotlight also look nice in the store, even if they are suboptimal for actual use.
They're not basing that notice on any actual legal risk, they're just happy that they have found a good excuse not to have to learn something other than Microsoft Word.
Assuming MS really does have valid patents, how could just rewriting the code prevent Microsoft from seeking royalties for past infringement?
Well, infringement wasn't willful and developers would address it quickly, so any compensation would be for damages. And it would be hard for Microsoft to claim significant damages since most Linux users also have Windows licenses (for now).
Surely Linux 2.6.x is more modern than 1960s technology, right?
Not by much. Neither is Windows for that matter. Sad but true.
Microsoft can't even claim that it would be too cumbersome to check--because they have publicy announced that they have already checked.
If you don't need it, don't install the 64bit version. The 64bit version works quite well, but the 32bit version works with more third party software and older software.
That should be: "Don't like it? Don't use them, tell others not to use them, and explain why you don't like them."
I don't know why people feel that companies have to justify price increases with some rationale of higher costs for them.
Because price and cost carries information about a company. If a company charges substantially more than cost, you know that you can probably find a better deal elsewhere. If you can't, then there may be a monopoly involved.
Microsoft's own code must be full of patent violations, since their developers and engineers have been told not to look at patents. So, I wonder what a careful examination of Microsoft's source code would reveal. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't also some GPL code in there.