Too bad Apple doesn't talk up safe booting more so people will know it is there.
Too bad Apple doesn't do the user-friendly thing, which is to offer users "safe mode" when the previous boot failed. That's what both Linux and Windows do, and it's the right thing to do (well, even better would be detecting and disabling broken extensions, but I guess that's too hard for any of them).
Book Burro (bookburro.org) is a Firefox extension that would give you prices of books at other sites when browsing Amazon (or vice versa). (It's down right now, but I believe it's still available.)
On an embedded device, you aren't going to want more than one toolkit, because there isn't enough space.
That's a self-serving attempt at justifying monopolization of the market. It's also bullshit. First of all, these devices have plenty of room. In addition, Troll Tech has no problem shipping Java toolkits, they just don't want competing native Linux toolkits. Finally, not all toolkits are as bloated and slow as Qt; some toolkits are smaller than Qt's notepad application.
So, you are saying the Motorola's Linux phones are lackluster commercially. Actually, their Linux phones are some of the most popular they sell.
Ah, I'd been wondering what that awful UI on the new Motorola Linux phones was; that explains it. Also, there are essentially no third party apps for those phones.
I don't know what is going on with these guys; maybe they had good intentions, maybe they had some sleazy master plan from the beginning.
Good thing is: you don't have to buy from them. There are plenty of alternatives to both Amazon and O'Reilly, run by people that don't have such a cloud hanging over them.
Well, you know, I'd really like to believe that the race goes to the honest and the case goes to the preponderance of evidence, but the way to bet is that the race goes to the deep pockets and the case goes to the guy who can force you to defend the most points in court until you run out of money or lawyers (or if you're Eric Raymond, money, guns, or lawyers) and you settle.
If you start with that assumption, then why worry about whether Microsoft does or does not publish anything? They can sue you anyway.
In any case, I can just repeat it: for open source projects to worry about willful infringement is pointless; the major risk to open source projects is that they get shut down or delayed due to infringement, and that happens regardless of whether the infringement is willful or not. If Microsoft publishes something that says "here is our technique and it's patented", that's a good thing for open source. And if Microsoft publishes something that says "here is our technique, you need it for interoperability" without telling you that it's patented, then their claims of damages are arguably weaker. Either way, open source wins.
"It does not matter for liability purposes that a patented infringer was unaware of the patented technology when infringement occurred. However, willful or intentional infringement may carry a higher monetary penalty than innocent infringement."
Merely by reading something "documented in a published document" (your words), you are no more likely to be guilty of willful infringement than you would be if you obtained the information some other way.
But triple damages is a non-issue for open source projects; open source projects must avoid patent infringement altogether, and if Microsoft tells you which patents you might infringe, that's all the better. On the other hand, if Microsoft tries to hide the fact that they have patents on some technologies they are trying to get others to adopt, they have a much harder time claiming damages at all; courts just don't look kindly on that kind of bullshit. Either way, open source wins.
I don't see any point in porting desktop versions of Windows, since few of the applications are going to work anyway. Windows Mobile might make a limited amount of sense, but even there, I'd ask: why bother?
Microsoft's power doesn't reside in hiding information or obtaining judgements, it resides in changing interfaces faster than people can keep up with them, and fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Neither of these are eroded.
Sure, they are. The more companies and organizations use Microsoft's published interfaces, the less freedom they have to change them.
Except that it gives them the ability to say "the EU court acknowledged the validity of our patents". Remember, they don't HAVE software patents in Europe. Still don't, in statute law. But now they do in case law.
The EU doesn't have case law the way the US does. Furthermore, the agreement doesn't presume the validity of patents, it merely says what happens if there are patents that are valid.
And it gives them the ability to say "they're using XYZ patented technique, as documented in this published document". And "Joe Smith worked for Noncommercial SA who bought our document back in 2008, and went to work for Red Hat in 2011..." Oops.
That issue only matters with trade secrets, not patents. And if Microsoft publishes something widely, it is not a trade secret anymore. That's another reason why this sort of dissemination is good: it erodes Microsoft's ability to claim trade secrets.
This is useful for many users: it makes it much easier to migrate from desktop to web applications, and it is intrinsically easier for people to grasp "to get to your mail, click on the Mail icon" than "start the browser, go to your bookmarks, select...".
Also, if this is well executed, it provides a better level of isolation between web applications. Right now, it's pretty tricky trying to read mail for two or three GMail accounts (it would be less tricky if profiles weren't broken...), and if one web site locks up or slows down the browser, other web apps suffer as well. SSB can address those problems.
I'm sure it would've taken years to build a similar application using.NET's Browser Control.
The site-specific browsers are full Mozilla browsers, they simply have some chrome removed.
But you are absolutely right that a Windows developer would likely take the.NET browser control and try to put something like this together in VisualStudio. And the result would suck because it's not the same thing. And that highlights a common problem with Windows developers: they don't think things through properly and instead take the obvious path that Microsoft has laid out for them.
So, although it was meant as sarcasm, you are right: it would take a.NET developers years to do this, and it still wouldn't work as well.
Microsoft has managed to pretty much completely win everything that people keep saying they'd lost. This kind of thing is why I was skeptical of the EU deal from the start.
I agree that the EU deal doesn't deliver what it promises. But while these are not big victories, they slowly erode Microsoft's power: more information leaks out of Microsoft, Microsoft's ability to obtain judgments becomes more limited, etc.
That leaves them open to attack everything from Samba to Red Hat Package Manager.
Yes, but they can do that already. The EU deal makes that slightly harder, however, and that is progress.
You can't stream video continuously. (Are you illiterate?)
It completely defeats the purpose.
Then don't subscribe to it.
That's like giving someone a Ferarri and a race track and telling them they can't go over the highway speed limit
No, it's like buying a turbo-charged car: if you try to drive those at max hp continuously, they break, but if you use the turbo charging for short bursts, you're fine.
If you want a Ferrari rather than a rice rocket, pay for it. Verizon, Comcast, and all the other ISPs give you "business class Internet" if you pay for it, and you can stream and serve all you want with that.
The Neo runs X11 on a 640x480 screen and allows multiple toolkits to run on the same screen. If TrollTech wants to run in that environment, that's good.
On the other hand, if they are going to port Qt/Embedded and try to take over the phone, like they have done on other phones, they should forget it; those attempts at monopolizing the platform are unwelcome.
Overall, I'm kind of doubtful that TrollTech has much to contribute anyway. Devices based on Qt/Embedded have had lackluster commercial success, and the platform has serious usability problems in my opinion. Maybe the company should stick to writing toolkits and leave the end user experience to people who have more experience with that.
Some patents are valid. But my presumption is that all patents are invalid unless someone makes a convincing argument that they should be valid. So, can you make a convincing argument that these patents are non-obvious and don't have prior art?
If their claims are legitimate and based on genuinely innovative technology, and they're also working in good faith to make reasonable licensing deals with infringers, then maybe you should be boycotting the parties being sued for infringing with no license instead.
The legal presumption is that an issued patent is valid. However, in the real world, a presumption that a patent is invalid because of prior art or obviousness seems quite reasonable, until someone makes a convincing argument to the contrary. So, yes, it's a knee-jerk reaction, and it's a good one.
Now, can you make a clear and convincing argument that SanDisk's patents indeed represent innovation?
Yes, sector remapping was obvious in 1993 as well; it's a standard technique you use with many storage devices, since many storage devices sooner or later develop bad sectors.
Why would they do anything about it? Microsoft is a big political force in the US, and it caters nicely to libertarian and free market mythology(*). The US government has little motivation to do anything "about" Microsoft other than protect and promote them. The fact that Microsoft is actually built on theft and deception, and that Microsoft is harmful to the US economy in the long term is not relevant.
"Non-commercial" is such a weasel word. Is gcc distributed by the FSF "non-commercial"? Is gcc on Ubuntu "non-commercial"? Is gcc on a purchased copy of SuSE "non-commercial"? Is Firefox "non-commercial"? Is OpenOffice "non-commercial"?
Now, I don't think it matter much; Microsoft is slowly painting themselves into a corner, and it's implausible that they really can assert those patents at all in the future. Nevertheless, it would be better if the EU were alert to those kinds of weasel words and would say something clear like "Microsoft cannot assert these patents against software distributed under OSI-compliant licenses".
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately for Apple, it's OS competitor has a much better track record in the quality of new releases.
You're right: Ubuntu kicks Apple's ass not just in terms of included functionality, graphics, and price, but also in terms of smooth upgrades.
Too bad Apple doesn't talk up safe booting more so people will know it is there.
Too bad Apple doesn't do the user-friendly thing, which is to offer users "safe mode" when the previous boot failed. That's what both Linux and Windows do, and it's the right thing to do (well, even better would be detecting and disabling broken extensions, but I guess that's too hard for any of them).
Also, rule of thumb: 100% clean installs are always the safe way to go. Back up your stuff, wipe the HD, then restore as needed.
Unfortunately, it then takes many hours to reinstall all the little utilities and applications and settings one has come to depend on.
Book Burro (bookburro.org) is a Firefox extension that would give you prices of books at other sites when browsing Amazon (or vice versa). (It's down right now, but I believe it's still available.)
On an embedded device, you aren't going to want more than one toolkit, because there isn't enough space.
That's a self-serving attempt at justifying monopolization of the market. It's also bullshit. First of all, these devices have plenty of room. In addition, Troll Tech has no problem shipping Java toolkits, they just don't want competing native Linux toolkits. Finally, not all toolkits are as bloated and slow as Qt; some toolkits are smaller than Qt's notepad application.
So, you are saying the Motorola's Linux phones are lackluster commercially. Actually, their Linux phones are some of the most popular they sell.
Ah, I'd been wondering what that awful UI on the new Motorola Linux phones was; that explains it. Also, there are essentially no third party apps for those phones.
Motorola bet on the wrong platform.
I don't know what is going on with these guys; maybe they had good intentions, maybe they had some sleazy master plan from the beginning.
Good thing is: you don't have to buy from them. There are plenty of alternatives to both Amazon and O'Reilly, run by people that don't have such a cloud hanging over them.
Well, you know, I'd really like to believe that the race goes to the honest and the case goes to the preponderance of evidence, but the way to bet is that the race goes to the deep pockets and the case goes to the guy who can force you to defend the most points in court until you run out of money or lawyers (or if you're Eric Raymond, money, guns, or lawyers) and you settle.
If you start with that assumption, then why worry about whether Microsoft does or does not publish anything? They can sue you anyway.
In any case, I can just repeat it: for open source projects to worry about willful infringement is pointless; the major risk to open source projects is that they get shut down or delayed due to infringement, and that happens regardless of whether the infringement is willful or not. If Microsoft publishes something that says "here is our technique and it's patented", that's a good thing for open source. And if Microsoft publishes something that says "here is our technique, you need it for interoperability" without telling you that it's patented, then their claims of damages are arguably weaker. Either way, open source wins.
"It does not matter for liability purposes that a patented infringer was unaware of the patented technology when infringement occurred. However, willful or intentional infringement may carry a higher monetary penalty than innocent infringement."
Merely by reading something "documented in a published document" (your words), you are no more likely to be guilty of willful infringement than you would be if you obtained the information some other way.
But triple damages is a non-issue for open source projects; open source projects must avoid patent infringement altogether, and if Microsoft tells you which patents you might infringe, that's all the better. On the other hand, if Microsoft tries to hide the fact that they have patents on some technologies they are trying to get others to adopt, they have a much harder time claiming damages at all; courts just don't look kindly on that kind of bullshit. Either way, open source wins.
What does that have to do with anything? What kind of original technology do you believe is in OWA?
Microsoft didn't come up with the idea for XMLHttpRequest or AJAX; the market simply picked their function name. Big deal.
I don't see any point in porting desktop versions of Windows, since few of the applications are going to work anyway. Windows Mobile might make a limited amount of sense, but even there, I'd ask: why bother?
Microsoft's power doesn't reside in hiding information or obtaining judgements, it resides in changing interfaces faster than people can keep up with them, and fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Neither of these are eroded.
Sure, they are. The more companies and organizations use Microsoft's published interfaces, the less freedom they have to change them.
Except that it gives them the ability to say "the EU court acknowledged the validity of our patents". Remember, they don't HAVE software patents in Europe. Still don't, in statute law. But now they do in case law.
The EU doesn't have case law the way the US does. Furthermore, the agreement doesn't presume the validity of patents, it merely says what happens if there are patents that are valid.
And it gives them the ability to say "they're using XYZ patented technique, as documented in this published document". And "Joe Smith worked for Noncommercial SA who bought our document back in 2008, and went to work for Red Hat in 2011..." Oops.
That issue only matters with trade secrets, not patents. And if Microsoft publishes something widely, it is not a trade secret anymore. That's another reason why this sort of dissemination is good: it erodes Microsoft's ability to claim trade secrets.
This is useful for many users: it makes it much easier to migrate from desktop to web applications, and it is intrinsically easier for people to grasp "to get to your mail, click on the Mail icon" than "start the browser, go to your bookmarks, select...".
Also, if this is well executed, it provides a better level of isolation between web applications. Right now, it's pretty tricky trying to read mail for two or three GMail accounts (it would be less tricky if profiles weren't broken...), and if one web site locks up or slows down the browser, other web apps suffer as well. SSB can address those problems.
I'm sure it would've taken years to build a similar application using .NET's Browser Control.
.NET browser control and try to put something like this together in VisualStudio. And the result would suck because it's not the same thing. And that highlights a common problem with Windows developers: they don't think things through properly and instead take the obvious path that Microsoft has laid out for them.
.NET developers years to do this, and it still wouldn't work as well.
The site-specific browsers are full Mozilla browsers, they simply have some chrome removed.
But you are absolutely right that a Windows developer would likely take the
So, although it was meant as sarcasm, you are right: it would take a
Where do you plug it in? Ewww, never mind!
Microsoft has managed to pretty much completely win everything that people keep saying they'd lost. This kind of thing is why I was skeptical of the EU deal from the start.
I agree that the EU deal doesn't deliver what it promises. But while these are not big victories, they slowly erode Microsoft's power: more information leaks out of Microsoft, Microsoft's ability to obtain judgments becomes more limited, etc.
That leaves them open to attack everything from Samba to Red Hat Package Manager.
Yes, but they can do that already. The EU deal makes that slightly harder, however, and that is progress.
You can't stream video?
You can't stream video continuously. (Are you illiterate?)
It completely defeats the purpose.
Then don't subscribe to it.
That's like giving someone a Ferarri and a race track and telling them they can't go over the highway speed limit
No, it's like buying a turbo-charged car: if you try to drive those at max hp continuously, they break, but if you use the turbo charging for short bursts, you're fine.
If you want a Ferrari rather than a rice rocket, pay for it. Verizon, Comcast, and all the other ISPs give you "business class Internet" if you pay for it, and you can stream and serve all you want with that.
The Neo runs X11 on a 640x480 screen and allows multiple toolkits to run on the same screen. If TrollTech wants to run in that environment, that's good.
On the other hand, if they are going to port Qt/Embedded and try to take over the phone, like they have done on other phones, they should forget it; those attempts at monopolizing the platform are unwelcome.
Overall, I'm kind of doubtful that TrollTech has much to contribute anyway. Devices based on Qt/Embedded have had lackluster commercial success, and the platform has serious usability problems in my opinion. Maybe the company should stick to writing toolkits and leave the end user experience to people who have more experience with that.
I don't get why people keep picking on Comcast; lots of ISPs implement traffic shaping and/or other restrictions for consumer accounts:
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs
If you want unrestricted service, why not just pay for it?
Some patents are valid. But my presumption is that all patents are invalid unless someone makes a convincing argument that they should be valid. So, can you make a convincing argument that these patents are non-obvious and don't have prior art?
If their claims are legitimate and based on genuinely innovative technology, and they're also working in good faith to make reasonable licensing deals with infringers, then maybe you should be boycotting the parties being sued for infringing with no license instead.
The legal presumption is that an issued patent is valid. However, in the real world, a presumption that a patent is invalid because of prior art or obviousness seems quite reasonable, until someone makes a convincing argument to the contrary. So, yes, it's a knee-jerk reaction, and it's a good one.
Now, can you make a clear and convincing argument that SanDisk's patents indeed represent innovation?
Yes, sector remapping was obvious in 1993 as well; it's a standard technique you use with many storage devices, since many storage devices sooner or later develop bad sectors.
Why would they do anything about it? Microsoft is a big political force in the US, and it caters nicely to libertarian and free market mythology(*). The US government has little motivation to do anything "about" Microsoft other than protect and promote them. The fact that Microsoft is actually built on theft and deception, and that Microsoft is harmful to the US economy in the long term is not relevant.
"Non-commercial" is such a weasel word. Is gcc distributed by the FSF "non-commercial"? Is gcc on Ubuntu "non-commercial"? Is gcc on a purchased copy of SuSE "non-commercial"? Is Firefox "non-commercial"? Is OpenOffice "non-commercial"?
Now, I don't think it matter much; Microsoft is slowly painting themselves into a corner, and it's implausible that they really can assert those patents at all in the future. Nevertheless, it would be better if the EU were alert to those kinds of weasel words and would say something clear like "Microsoft cannot assert these patents against software distributed under OSI-compliant licenses".
There are two things Verizon could do: change the service or change the ads. They can't change the service because it's economically not feasible.
So, what this will mean is simply that ads will get slightly more prominent disclaimers saying something like
Verizon Unlimited Bandwidth*
*Subject to terms of service; file sharing, bandwidth sharing, public servers, or continuous data transfer are examples of prohibited activities.