We now know a shuffling algorithm should have been used and Microsoft could have evaded prosecution
Wow, I didn't know the EU already brought another anti-trust suit over this!
Oh wait, they didn't, who are you to say this function isn't sufficient to protect them from further prosecution? As I understand it, all they had to do was present a list of browser choices instead of just loading their own, and not choose the order of that list ahead of time. Of course, any list is going to have an order of some sort to begin with, so a simple random function accomplishes that goal.
There is a distinction that needs to be made here, it's a bit of a semantic but it is important nonetheless: It is not Microsoft's responsibility to "promote competition" against themselves. It is Microsoft's responsibility to not abuse their position of market dominance to unfairly disadvantage their competition in order to drive them out of the market. The EU felt that installing IE as the default browser on Windows was unfairly restricting a scarce resource to gain competitive advantage. As such, IE cannot be the default browser, and users must be given a choice from a list not chosen ahead of time.
You can't honestly argue that they are unfairly limiting a scarce resource in order to gain an unfair advantage because of a 50% chance they'll be the end option among four other options, can you?
You guys seriously need to get some perspective. I know it's fun to bash the big company, but seriously, it gets old after a while. Just keep them in line, that's all that's needed.
I'm sorry, but the last position is not a premium position, people don't function that way (at least not those who read and write a latin based language). At best it is slightly better than the middle positions, and far worse than the first position (top or left). They would be at a better advantage to give themselves a full 20% chance of getting the front position.
We always move left to right, top to bottom when looking at choices on a screen for the first time. The first viewed is the one most often picked, followed by the second, third etc.. This is why in search engine rankings the top choice is the most desirable, and the rest are picked far less often. Same thing with brand names in market places, eye-level is the most desirable spot, becoming less so as you move away. The end of the aisles as you walk in are the most premium spots in the store, the opposite ends being far, far less desirable.
That said, you WILL see a lot of people choosing IE even though it is the last choice. That is because IE has a lot of mind share - it is the most used browser in the world. I wouldn't say it is the best browser, but I wouldn't call it worse than any of the big names either, currently it is mostly a preference issue. If you're used to IE there isn't much reason to switch. Brand new computer users, though, will be using IE less often.
Actually they made the very intelligent decision to not waste precious resources on a simple problem with a simple solution that any freshman college student could manage in five minutes.
Seriously, the only criteria for this browser choice is that Microsoft does not pick the order ahead of time. It needs to be "random" in that the order needs to be chosen at start up, not that it needs to be 99% random.
The function used is extremely simple, is about 60% random, and consistently puts IE in the last position 50% of the time. Not even a European court is going to come back and say they were giving themselves an unfair advantage, and that's the whole purpose of the function. In court it would be viewed as going "above and beyond" what was necessary to ensure that their browser did not have the advantage.
What dumbass would waste hours of a programmer's time to solve a problem that can be sufficiently solved in five minutes? Not only is this solution "good enough", from an anti-trust standpoint it is probably far better than a truly random function.
Seriously, what the hell kind of world do you live on? Wait, wait, let me guess - you're some low-level wanna-be programmer, with absolutely zero management experience, and you think you could run your company better than those who sign your paychecks, am I right? I'll bet you bitch every day around your lunch table to your co-workers about how poorly your company is run, too.
Not give Internet Explorer advantage over competing browsers, as specifically defined in their anti-trust judgements.
"sufficient"
Any method that fulfills their legal obligation.
This function (repeated twice) accomplishes the goal set by the anti-trust judgement, and fulfills their legal obligation:
aBrowserOrderTop5.sort(RandomSort);
function RandomSort (a,b) {
return (0.5 - Math.random()); }
It is roughly 60% random, with IE in the least desirable position about 50% of the time. If it ever came up in court again, Microsoft actually punished themselves extra by using this function, thereby making another lawsuit on this particular matter impossible to win against them.
It's an extremely easy function and has the added benefit of covering their asses. They are no doubt counting on how ingrained IE is to PC users in order to keep from losing browser share, because that position in the list is definitely not the most desirable.
The only significant position is first. It is well known that users will pick the first choice more often than not unless they have a specific preference for another choice.
Because of the way most people learn to read (top down), the choice on top is always the first choice. The same is true for left-right, the choice on the left is always the first choice.
In either case, except when the individual already has a preference, the last choice is always the least often picked. This is why more expensive name brand goods always go at about eye-level in supermarkets - because people often don't look any further than the first choice they see.
As long as IE is not given an advantage (and they most definitely are not using this function) and are not promoting one browser over another (again, there isn't any sane way you can make that argument - the others are all competitors) then they meet the terms of their anti-trust judgement. There is your definition of "random enough for this", and that quick bit of code certainly achieves it for all of a buck or two in programmer costs.
Actually now that I think about it, the Terminator movies are -perfect- illustrations of the concept.
John Connor is leading the resistance and doing a bang-up job, so the machines send a terminator back to kill his mother.
John sends a young lieutenant of his back to prevent his mother's death.
Sarah Connor and the lieutenant hook up, bada bing, bada boom, John is conceived.
Sarah survives to give birth to John, who grows up to lead the resistance and send his father back in time to save his mother.
The time line is consistant for everyone, so there is no contradiction. However, if the machines had succeeded, there would be a contradiction (John would have never been born, and there would not have been anybody to send a machine back to kill). Likewise, if the machines had decided not to send a terminator back, there would be a contradiction because John would have never sent his father back and he would never have been born. But that isn't what happened, and because of this the people in the past had a small idea of what the future would be, because the past proved that the future would happen that way.
Going back in time to kill your own father before you were born creates a contradiction. Contradictions cannot exist, that's logic, upon which all math is based. 2+2 cannot equal both 4 and 5, only one of them can be correct. Einstein showed that it is possible to go back in time, but that doesn't solve the contradiction in anyway.
In other words, whatever you go back in time to do has already happened in the past. You can't go back in time and kill your father before you were born because your father would be dead - it would have already happened before you went back, and you never would have been born. Because you were in fact born, you never went back and killed your father.
Don't get stuck on the ability to perform the act, that doesn't matter. It's not so much that it "can't" happen, it's that it never will. The past event (showing up and killing your father) is linked to the future event (traveling back in time to kill your father) - they must both be consistent or Entropy does not exist as we have defined it. Since all the evidence suggests we have Entropy down pat, the only conclusion you can have about these paradoxes is that they didn't happen, therefore they won't happen. The lack of an event in the past proves the lack of an event in the future. For example there is nothing stopping you from going back in time and killing your father -after- you were born, however if in your own history your father was not killed by a stranger when you were a child, then there is still a contradiction. Basically, you will not go back and kill your father. The same point in space/time cannot have two different events associated it. In other words, the past is 2+2, and it will always equal 4. You cannot make it equal 5 no matter how hard you try.
Math doesn't really require numbers, numbers are simply placeholders for items. Math itself is logic. Time paradoxes create logical contradictions, and therefore they cannot exist.
How did they benefit? It's a lot easier to make the case that the end user benefits for actually recieving two (non-concurrent) licenses for the price of a single license, given that the old software has been discontinued. I don't think the OEM price for Vista or Win7 is any different from XP, and the new versions are the replacements for the old - frankly they weren't required to offer an XP option at all (except by the oft-derided free market pressure that was upon them, of course - nothing bad to say about free markets when they help you out eh?), or any form of downgrade. You don't see Apple offering a free downgrade option from Leopard to Tiger, do you? Of course not, ordinarily the idea is absurd. The only difference is that this upgrade was not well-received, and it was offer a downgrade or lose customers.
Since they weren't even required to continue selling XP at all, how the hell can you argue that selling a license that includes a free license for XP is anything but a value-add for the customer?
I have a hard time wrapping idea around the concept of forcing someone to sell something they don't want to sell. The idea is absurd. It's very mafia-ish at the very least.
Go for it if you want, OpenSolaris is well developed. It isn't going to be nearly as flexible, and there isn't nearly the community development behind it, but there's nothing stopping you.
Linux isn't 100% Unix compliant, so a lot of the goodies probably don't work, but it is certainly a powerful system.
I wouldn't really recommend it for desktop purposes though, much less so than I recommend Linux (which is not at all).
Linux drops support of old hardware all the time. Since drivers are handled by the kernel, if it didn't the thing would become unwieldy.
I'd agree that the single Linux kernel has broader hardware support, but at the same time the latest version of Windows simply won't run on the older hardware Linux can. However, if you use a version of Windows that WILL run on that same hardware, the driver support for that particular class of hardware is much better with that version of Windows than Linux.
If you look at what is not supported by any version of Windows and compare it to what isn't supported by any version of Linux, Linux doesn't look nearly as good.
One big plus though is ARM support in Linux, but it still doesn't make up for all the extraneous hardware Linux doesn't support.
Back on topic though, I think a PBI or DMG style package system for Linux would be a freaking godsend. I'd probably still be using it if that were the case (yeah, I CAN get non-repo repository software to work, and yeah I CAN fix it when repo dependancies break my software, but I don't WANT to, and I'm not going to deal with it).
Seriously, redundant libraries were a big deal 15 years ago, now it's just smart.
Repeat after me: Redundancy is a good thing, not a bad thing.
The proper solution is to support multiple versions of a library in your package manager. I don't know why package managers don't do that.
Because it's freaking hard to get right. See all of Microsoft's efforts to deal with this, it's the #1 flaw of the dll system (any shared library system, actually) and it has been from the start, the system used in.Net is their best effort so far - it uses manifests for each library to track and point software to the correct version.
It does when somebody updating a new library doesn't bother to double check that all the function calls for the old library work the same way in the new library, and your.deb requires the updated library.
Now if you need to update the software dependent on that function that was changed you're hosed and you'll have no idea what caused it.
No, you can't, because the control systems for these devices are tied directly to the hardware. It's not like these bad boys run Linux (not that you couldn't put it on there, you probably could, but that would be absurd).
If you take the company out of the picture there is no device to write software for. It's like saying the architecture for the x86 should be open sourced, that's absurd. The instruction set should be available, but if the internal programming were open sourced it would simply never happen, because it is directly tied to the hardware, and you need specific knowledge of the internal workings of the hardware that nobody except the developer of the hardware is going to have. Furthermore, the hardware vendor would not be able to sell a piece of hardware that didn't do anything, so they need to do the internals anyway. It's the same issue here, expanded a little bit (relating to a car instead of a processor).
Open source applies to a lot of things, and you could even use open source after a certain point on a lot of these devices, but the nuts and bolts of it can not and should not be open source. For a company selling a specific product, pouring millions of dollars into its development, however, open sourcing one part of it just doesn't make any sense at all, especially when each part is inter-dependent.
Huh, that's strange, I really thought bugs were related to the nature of programming, and not tied to a particular economic model, but maybe I'm wrong. Apparently all those bug fixes over the years in every single open source program that has ever been written weren't actually bugs, because the open source model can't produce bugs.
What were they then? Hmmm... I guess we need a new name for them, wait I've got it! Open source has "undocumented features" that it was decided they didn't need! Yeah, and all those "bug fixes" were really just "feature updates"!
Wait a second, that sounds vaguely familiar, like maybe something a company that is reviled and hated in the open source community once said. Hm, oh well, whatever.
Why would you tap the breaks while holding the accelerator? That's just foolish, and if you're holding the break for any period of time when you do it you're putting incredible wear on your breaks. I really wouldn't recommend it.
The breakcheck is far, far more effective against tailgaters if you actually slow down when you do it - it freaks them out and they back off. If they still keep tailgating, take your foot off the gas and let it coast and see how long it takes them to find a way around you. Be warned that that really really pisses them off, so if you're in an area known for road rage I wouldn't recommend the second technique. The first usually works great though.
Anyway that's not usually how court works, you've been watching too much TV.
The bottom line is it's Toyota's responsibility to take care of the problem, and via the dealer they have a direct line to the last known address. As soon as they send off that notification though, they are pretty much off the hook. If you don't bother to read it, or if you moved away and didn't tell them and they could not find you, then they made their best attempt and are generally off the hook at that point.
I'm getting tired of endlessly debating the filter with those who dont understand the wider ethical, moral and technical reasons on why its a bad idea.
I find it interesting that you seem to think that the reason people disagree with you stems from a lack of understanding. Have you stopped to think that perhaps a lot of people have stopped to consider the implications, particularly on an issue that is important to them? Perhaps they simply believe attempting to stop the ability of people to access child pornography is just more important than keeping the internet free. Maybe they are aware they aren't going to be able to stop everyone, but perhaps they believe raising the barrier is worth the cost?
Attempting to eliminate A may cost x, y, and z, but did you stop to think that to a lot of people even simply limiting A is worth losing x, y, and z? Did you consider the possibility that people simply disagree with you?
If a person disagrees with your principle, your basic premise, you'll never be able to convert them to your side no matter how you explain your opinion.
This is in fact exactly what we are experiencing in America with health care reform. The two parties disagree fundamentaly, and it is creating a deadlock. The majority party seems to believe by simply adding what the minority party wants to their bill it will work out, but they don't consider that a large portion of what the majority party wants to do goes against everything the minority party is all about. That's an irreconcilable difference, and it has led to the minority party exercising their super-majority option (ordinarily rarely used) on almost every bill the majority tries to pass in order to prevent portions of health care they are opposed to from sneaking into law via the amendment process.
I'm looking forward to running in the street laughing once the general populace work out what they've signed up for. A big fat "I told you so" from the entire IT industry would be in order.
I hate to tell you this, but I believe the response you'll get from that is a funny look and a "yeah? so?"
If it made any sense, Linux devs would have managed to pull off usability by now. Unfortunately, it still seems to be that pot 'o gold at the end of the rainbow for them.
I have a magic tablet that can do all that already.
Unfortunately, it can also turn invisible, and I misplaced it months ago. I think I'm just going to have to call auto-invisibility a cool idea, but in practice a very, very bad thing.
Of course it is, what are you smoking? All iPods are computers. That's why there are hacks to put Linux on them and the like, because they are just locked down, proprietary computers. Hell, every cell phone you've ever used was a computer, just small, weak, and proprietary.
It isn't what we think of as a PC, no, but it is definitely a personal computer. I'd really like to hear your definition of a computer, because it has to be out there. Probably some bullshit like "gotta have a separate keyboard and a separate monitor and can weigh no less than four pounds". It's completely arbitrary.
Seriously, what's the difference between an iPod Touch, or an HTC Hero, or an iPhone, and a laptop or a desktop? There's really only one difference: they are very small. That's it. Even a laptop is a self-contained device, and a number of smartphones have full qwerty keyboards, so that's no substantial difference.
Do you think it's not a computer because it has a different OS? Because really the only thing stopping the iPhone OS from going on a full desktop is chipset/driver support. That's it. In fact, you can do just that with the Android OS, given that Google is much more open with it.
This nonsense that it's not a computer is hogwash. Even a common calculator is a computer, and a powerful one when compared to the very first computers ever made.
I said they don't care who gives them what they want, just that it is easy to get what they want.
No shit people would be pissed if Apple pulled their product off their machine (I've never heard of that ever happening, out of the store sure but not off their phone/ipod), that follows directly from what I said. Not only are they not getting what they want in that case, what they want has been taken away from them. And again, if there is no App for it on the iPad, but there is for a similar device, and they want it but can't get it, they'll be unhappy. That was my friggin point.
No no, they are very good at creating new markets, it's just that the ones they create tend to get away from them.
Case in point: Personal Computers. Apple created that market practically out of thin air, and they dominated it for all of ten minutes before they were trounced.
A budding example is smartphones for regular consumers. Pre-iPhone it was all pretty much business users only (in the US anyway, Europe and Asia are a little different, but who cares about them?;) ). Now the market is starting to get away from them, and pretty soon they'll just be "the kid who won't play with anybody else" yet again.
I think iPods were a fluke, for one they didn't create that market, so they had to follow its rules and compete by being the easiest to use devices instead of any particular form of lock in - they have their own proprietary stuff but they can't force you to use it or they'd lose the market. iTunes was key for that one.
I mean, seriously, Apple makes fantastic products, they just don't know how to maintain the early dominance that their products give them. Contrast that with a company like Microsoft, who tends to not make good products until the third or fourth go-around, and never are they the innovators of a new market, yet they know how to grow and dominate.
You can buy a touchbook now, ARM touchscreen laptop with a removable keyboard (optional).
It's basically the iPad without the Apple lock in, and it is a bit uglier. If you really want a mobile OS on a device like this, you can put Android on it just fine, it comes with Linux installed and is multi-OS capable (though it doesn't do Windows, so Android might be a very good choice for non-Linux folk).
The significantly greater functionality is more important in my opinion, not to mention it's $200 cheaper than the iPad if you don't get the keyboard, but for some looks are everything.
You do realize all of those complaints except multi-touch apply doubly so to the iPad, right? It is a less powerful machine that requires a dock for a keyboard, which isn't very portable.
This netbook with the keyboard is also about $100 less expensive than an iPad without the keyboard. The screen is only slightly smaller, and a bit lower resolution. Playing video full screen was a problem for the iPad as far as quality goes from the review I read, so I don't think that is as big a bonus as they would like it to be.
Plus, if you really dig the mobile OS's, with the touchbook you can put Android on it, which IMO is better than the iPhone OS.
In two months we'll be using something else...
Uhh, you know the iPad isn't even going to be released for another month at least, and given the way new device releases go you probably won't get your hands on one for another two or three months after that, minimum. Yet again you've listed something that's worse for the iPad and somehow implied it's a positive.
Slashdot Mirror
We now know a shuffling algorithm should have been used and Microsoft could have evaded prosecution
Wow, I didn't know the EU already brought another anti-trust suit over this!
Oh wait, they didn't, who are you to say this function isn't sufficient to protect them from further prosecution? As I understand it, all they had to do was present a list of browser choices instead of just loading their own, and not choose the order of that list ahead of time. Of course, any list is going to have an order of some sort to begin with, so a simple random function accomplishes that goal.
There is a distinction that needs to be made here, it's a bit of a semantic but it is important nonetheless: It is not Microsoft's responsibility to "promote competition" against themselves. It is Microsoft's responsibility to not abuse their position of market dominance to unfairly disadvantage their competition in order to drive them out of the market. The EU felt that installing IE as the default browser on Windows was unfairly restricting a scarce resource to gain competitive advantage. As such, IE cannot be the default browser, and users must be given a choice from a list not chosen ahead of time.
You can't honestly argue that they are unfairly limiting a scarce resource in order to gain an unfair advantage because of a 50% chance they'll be the end option among four other options, can you?
You guys seriously need to get some perspective. I know it's fun to bash the big company, but seriously, it gets old after a while. Just keep them in line, that's all that's needed.
I'm sorry, but the last position is not a premium position, people don't function that way (at least not those who read and write a latin based language). At best it is slightly better than the middle positions, and far worse than the first position (top or left). They would be at a better advantage to give themselves a full 20% chance of getting the front position.
We always move left to right, top to bottom when looking at choices on a screen for the first time. The first viewed is the one most often picked, followed by the second, third etc.. This is why in search engine rankings the top choice is the most desirable, and the rest are picked far less often. Same thing with brand names in market places, eye-level is the most desirable spot, becoming less so as you move away. The end of the aisles as you walk in are the most premium spots in the store, the opposite ends being far, far less desirable.
That said, you WILL see a lot of people choosing IE even though it is the last choice. That is because IE has a lot of mind share - it is the most used browser in the world. I wouldn't say it is the best browser, but I wouldn't call it worse than any of the big names either, currently it is mostly a preference issue. If you're used to IE there isn't much reason to switch. Brand new computer users, though, will be using IE less often.
Actually they made the very intelligent decision to not waste precious resources on a simple problem with a simple solution that any freshman college student could manage in five minutes.
Seriously, the only criteria for this browser choice is that Microsoft does not pick the order ahead of time. It needs to be "random" in that the order needs to be chosen at start up, not that it needs to be 99% random.
The function used is extremely simple, is about 60% random, and consistently puts IE in the last position 50% of the time. Not even a European court is going to come back and say they were giving themselves an unfair advantage, and that's the whole purpose of the function. In court it would be viewed as going "above and beyond" what was necessary to ensure that their browser did not have the advantage.
What dumbass would waste hours of a programmer's time to solve a problem that can be sufficiently solved in five minutes? Not only is this solution "good enough", from an anti-trust standpoint it is probably far better than a truly random function.
Seriously, what the hell kind of world do you live on? Wait, wait, let me guess - you're some low-level wanna-be programmer, with absolutely zero management experience, and you think you could run your company better than those who sign your paychecks, am I right? I'll bet you bitch every day around your lunch table to your co-workers about how poorly your company is run, too.
"the task in question"
Not give Internet Explorer advantage over competing browsers, as specifically defined in their anti-trust judgements.
"sufficient"
Any method that fulfills their legal obligation.
This function (repeated twice) accomplishes the goal set by the anti-trust judgement, and fulfills their legal obligation:
aBrowserOrderTop5.sort(RandomSort);
function RandomSort (a,b)
{
return (0.5 - Math.random());
}
It is roughly 60% random, with IE in the least desirable position about 50% of the time. If it ever came up in court again, Microsoft actually punished themselves extra by using this function, thereby making another lawsuit on this particular matter impossible to win against them.
It's an extremely easy function and has the added benefit of covering their asses. They are no doubt counting on how ingrained IE is to PC users in order to keep from losing browser share, because that position in the list is definitely not the most desirable.
The only significant position is first. It is well known that users will pick the first choice more often than not unless they have a specific preference for another choice.
Because of the way most people learn to read (top down), the choice on top is always the first choice. The same is true for left-right, the choice on the left is always the first choice.
In either case, except when the individual already has a preference, the last choice is always the least often picked. This is why more expensive name brand goods always go at about eye-level in supermarkets - because people often don't look any further than the first choice they see.
As long as IE is not given an advantage (and they most definitely are not using this function) and are not promoting one browser over another (again, there isn't any sane way you can make that argument - the others are all competitors) then they meet the terms of their anti-trust judgement. There is your definition of "random enough for this", and that quick bit of code certainly achieves it for all of a buck or two in programmer costs.
Actually now that I think about it, the Terminator movies are -perfect- illustrations of the concept.
John Connor is leading the resistance and doing a bang-up job, so the machines send a terminator back to kill his mother.
John sends a young lieutenant of his back to prevent his mother's death.
Sarah Connor and the lieutenant hook up, bada bing, bada boom, John is conceived.
Sarah survives to give birth to John, who grows up to lead the resistance and send his father back in time to save his mother.
The time line is consistant for everyone, so there is no contradiction. However, if the machines had succeeded, there would be a contradiction (John would have never been born, and there would not have been anybody to send a machine back to kill). Likewise, if the machines had decided not to send a terminator back, there would be a contradiction because John would have never sent his father back and he would never have been born. But that isn't what happened, and because of this the people in the past had a small idea of what the future would be, because the past proved that the future would happen that way.
Going back in time to kill your own father before you were born creates a contradiction. Contradictions cannot exist, that's logic, upon which all math is based. 2+2 cannot equal both 4 and 5, only one of them can be correct. Einstein showed that it is possible to go back in time, but that doesn't solve the contradiction in anyway.
In other words, whatever you go back in time to do has already happened in the past. You can't go back in time and kill your father before you were born because your father would be dead - it would have already happened before you went back, and you never would have been born. Because you were in fact born, you never went back and killed your father.
Don't get stuck on the ability to perform the act, that doesn't matter. It's not so much that it "can't" happen, it's that it never will. The past event (showing up and killing your father) is linked to the future event (traveling back in time to kill your father) - they must both be consistent or Entropy does not exist as we have defined it. Since all the evidence suggests we have Entropy down pat, the only conclusion you can have about these paradoxes is that they didn't happen, therefore they won't happen. The lack of an event in the past proves the lack of an event in the future. For example there is nothing stopping you from going back in time and killing your father -after- you were born, however if in your own history your father was not killed by a stranger when you were a child, then there is still a contradiction. Basically, you will not go back and kill your father. The same point in space/time cannot have two different events associated it. In other words, the past is 2+2, and it will always equal 4. You cannot make it equal 5 no matter how hard you try.
Math doesn't really require numbers, numbers are simply placeholders for items. Math itself is logic. Time paradoxes create logical contradictions, and therefore they cannot exist.
How did they benefit? It's a lot easier to make the case that the end user benefits for actually recieving two (non-concurrent) licenses for the price of a single license, given that the old software has been discontinued. I don't think the OEM price for Vista or Win7 is any different from XP, and the new versions are the replacements for the old - frankly they weren't required to offer an XP option at all (except by the oft-derided free market pressure that was upon them, of course - nothing bad to say about free markets when they help you out eh?), or any form of downgrade. You don't see Apple offering a free downgrade option from Leopard to Tiger, do you? Of course not, ordinarily the idea is absurd. The only difference is that this upgrade was not well-received, and it was offer a downgrade or lose customers.
Since they weren't even required to continue selling XP at all, how the hell can you argue that selling a license that includes a free license for XP is anything but a value-add for the customer?
I have a hard time wrapping idea around the concept of forcing someone to sell something they don't want to sell. The idea is absurd. It's very mafia-ish at the very least.
Go for it if you want, OpenSolaris is well developed. It isn't going to be nearly as flexible, and there isn't nearly the community development behind it, but there's nothing stopping you.
Linux isn't 100% Unix compliant, so a lot of the goodies probably don't work, but it is certainly a powerful system.
I wouldn't really recommend it for desktop purposes though, much less so than I recommend Linux (which is not at all).
Linux drops support of old hardware all the time. Since drivers are handled by the kernel, if it didn't the thing would become unwieldy.
I'd agree that the single Linux kernel has broader hardware support, but at the same time the latest version of Windows simply won't run on the older hardware Linux can. However, if you use a version of Windows that WILL run on that same hardware, the driver support for that particular class of hardware is much better with that version of Windows than Linux.
If you look at what is not supported by any version of Windows and compare it to what isn't supported by any version of Linux, Linux doesn't look nearly as good.
One big plus though is ARM support in Linux, but it still doesn't make up for all the extraneous hardware Linux doesn't support.
Back on topic though, I think a PBI or DMG style package system for Linux would be a freaking godsend. I'd probably still be using it if that were the case (yeah, I CAN get non-repo repository software to work, and yeah I CAN fix it when repo dependancies break my software, but I don't WANT to, and I'm not going to deal with it).
And a big library is, what 100k? Maybe?
Seriously, redundant libraries were a big deal 15 years ago, now it's just smart.
Repeat after me: Redundancy is a good thing, not a bad thing.
The proper solution is to support multiple versions of a library in your package manager. I don't know why package managers don't do that.
Because it's freaking hard to get right. See all of Microsoft's efforts to deal with this, it's the #1 flaw of the dll system (any shared library system, actually) and it has been from the start, the system used in .Net is their best effort so far - it uses manifests for each library to track and point software to the correct version.
It does when somebody updating a new library doesn't bother to double check that all the function calls for the old library work the same way in the new library, and your .deb requires the updated library.
Now if you need to update the software dependent on that function that was changed you're hosed and you'll have no idea what caused it.
It happens, and it's a pain in the ass.
No, you can't, because the control systems for these devices are tied directly to the hardware. It's not like these bad boys run Linux (not that you couldn't put it on there, you probably could, but that would be absurd).
If you take the company out of the picture there is no device to write software for. It's like saying the architecture for the x86 should be open sourced, that's absurd. The instruction set should be available, but if the internal programming were open sourced it would simply never happen, because it is directly tied to the hardware, and you need specific knowledge of the internal workings of the hardware that nobody except the developer of the hardware is going to have. Furthermore, the hardware vendor would not be able to sell a piece of hardware that didn't do anything, so they need to do the internals anyway. It's the same issue here, expanded a little bit (relating to a car instead of a processor).
Open source applies to a lot of things, and you could even use open source after a certain point on a lot of these devices, but the nuts and bolts of it can not and should not be open source. For a company selling a specific product, pouring millions of dollars into its development, however, open sourcing one part of it just doesn't make any sense at all, especially when each part is inter-dependent.
So open source software never has bugs?
Huh, that's strange, I really thought bugs were related to the nature of programming, and not tied to a particular economic model, but maybe I'm wrong. Apparently all those bug fixes over the years in every single open source program that has ever been written weren't actually bugs, because the open source model can't produce bugs.
What were they then? Hmmm... I guess we need a new name for them, wait I've got it! Open source has "undocumented features" that it was decided they didn't need! Yeah, and all those "bug fixes" were really just "feature updates"!
Wait a second, that sounds vaguely familiar, like maybe something a company that is reviled and hated in the open source community once said. Hm, oh well, whatever.
Dumbass.
Why would you tap the breaks while holding the accelerator? That's just foolish, and if you're holding the break for any period of time when you do it you're putting incredible wear on your breaks. I really wouldn't recommend it.
The breakcheck is far, far more effective against tailgaters if you actually slow down when you do it - it freaks them out and they back off. If they still keep tailgating, take your foot off the gas and let it coast and see how long it takes them to find a way around you. Be warned that that really really pisses them off, so if you're in an area known for road rage I wouldn't recommend the second technique. The first usually works great though.
"I don't like news, so I don't watch it."
Bam, problem solved.
Anyway that's not usually how court works, you've been watching too much TV.
The bottom line is it's Toyota's responsibility to take care of the problem, and via the dealer they have a direct line to the last known address. As soon as they send off that notification though, they are pretty much off the hook. If you don't bother to read it, or if you moved away and didn't tell them and they could not find you, then they made their best attempt and are generally off the hook at that point.
I'm getting tired of endlessly debating the filter with those who dont understand the wider ethical, moral and technical reasons on why its a bad idea.
I find it interesting that you seem to think that the reason people disagree with you stems from a lack of understanding. Have you stopped to think that perhaps a lot of people have stopped to consider the implications, particularly on an issue that is important to them? Perhaps they simply believe attempting to stop the ability of people to access child pornography is just more important than keeping the internet free. Maybe they are aware they aren't going to be able to stop everyone, but perhaps they believe raising the barrier is worth the cost?
Attempting to eliminate A may cost x, y, and z, but did you stop to think that to a lot of people even simply limiting A is worth losing x, y, and z? Did you consider the possibility that people simply disagree with you?
If a person disagrees with your principle, your basic premise, you'll never be able to convert them to your side no matter how you explain your opinion.
This is in fact exactly what we are experiencing in America with health care reform. The two parties disagree fundamentaly, and it is creating a deadlock. The majority party seems to believe by simply adding what the minority party wants to their bill it will work out, but they don't consider that a large portion of what the majority party wants to do goes against everything the minority party is all about. That's an irreconcilable difference, and it has led to the minority party exercising their super-majority option (ordinarily rarely used) on almost every bill the majority tries to pass in order to prevent portions of health care they are opposed to from sneaking into law via the amendment process.
I'm looking forward to running in the street laughing once the general populace work out what they've signed up for. A big fat "I told you so" from the entire IT industry would be in order.
I hate to tell you this, but I believe the response you'll get from that is a funny look and a "yeah? so?"
stupendous adj. Of astounding force, volume, degree, or excellence; marvelous. Amazingly large or great; huge.
Seems like it fits to me.
AKA: Magic
If it made any sense, Linux devs would have managed to pull off usability by now. Unfortunately, it still seems to be that pot 'o gold at the end of the rainbow for them.
I have a magic tablet that can do all that already.
Unfortunately, it can also turn invisible, and I misplaced it months ago. I think I'm just going to have to call auto-invisibility a cool idea, but in practice a very, very bad thing.
Is an iPod Touch a computer?
Of course it is, what are you smoking? All iPods are computers. That's why there are hacks to put Linux on them and the like, because they are just locked down, proprietary computers. Hell, every cell phone you've ever used was a computer, just small, weak, and proprietary.
It isn't what we think of as a PC, no, but it is definitely a personal computer. I'd really like to hear your definition of a computer, because it has to be out there. Probably some bullshit like "gotta have a separate keyboard and a separate monitor and can weigh no less than four pounds". It's completely arbitrary.
Seriously, what's the difference between an iPod Touch, or an HTC Hero, or an iPhone, and a laptop or a desktop? There's really only one difference: they are very small. That's it. Even a laptop is a self-contained device, and a number of smartphones have full qwerty keyboards, so that's no substantial difference.
Do you think it's not a computer because it has a different OS? Because really the only thing stopping the iPhone OS from going on a full desktop is chipset/driver support. That's it. In fact, you can do just that with the Android OS, given that Google is much more open with it.
This nonsense that it's not a computer is hogwash. Even a common calculator is a computer, and a powerful one when compared to the very first computers ever made.
Uh, did you read my comment at all?
I said they don't care who gives them what they want, just that it is easy to get what they want.
No shit people would be pissed if Apple pulled their product off their machine (I've never heard of that ever happening, out of the store sure but not off their phone/ipod), that follows directly from what I said. Not only are they not getting what they want in that case, what they want has been taken away from them. And again, if there is no App for it on the iPad, but there is for a similar device, and they want it but can't get it, they'll be unhappy. That was my friggin point.
Seriously people, reading comprehension, try it.
No no, they are very good at creating new markets, it's just that the ones they create tend to get away from them.
Case in point: Personal Computers. Apple created that market practically out of thin air, and they dominated it for all of ten minutes before they were trounced.
A budding example is smartphones for regular consumers. Pre-iPhone it was all pretty much business users only (in the US anyway, Europe and Asia are a little different, but who cares about them? ;) ). Now the market is starting to get away from them, and pretty soon they'll just be "the kid who won't play with anybody else" yet again.
I think iPods were a fluke, for one they didn't create that market, so they had to follow its rules and compete by being the easiest to use devices instead of any particular form of lock in - they have their own proprietary stuff but they can't force you to use it or they'd lose the market. iTunes was key for that one.
I mean, seriously, Apple makes fantastic products, they just don't know how to maintain the early dominance that their products give them. Contrast that with a company like Microsoft, who tends to not make good products until the third or fourth go-around, and never are they the innovators of a new market, yet they know how to grow and dominate.
You can buy a touchbook now, ARM touchscreen laptop with a removable keyboard (optional).
It's basically the iPad without the Apple lock in, and it is a bit uglier. If you really want a mobile OS on a device like this, you can put Android on it just fine, it comes with Linux installed and is multi-OS capable (though it doesn't do Windows, so Android might be a very good choice for non-Linux folk).
The significantly greater functionality is more important in my opinion, not to mention it's $200 cheaper than the iPad if you don't get the keyboard, but for some looks are everything.
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook
You do realize all of those complaints except multi-touch apply doubly so to the iPad, right? It is a less powerful machine that requires a dock for a keyboard, which isn't very portable.
This netbook with the keyboard is also about $100 less expensive than an iPad without the keyboard. The screen is only slightly smaller, and a bit lower resolution. Playing video full screen was a problem for the iPad as far as quality goes from the review I read, so I don't think that is as big a bonus as they would like it to be.
Plus, if you really dig the mobile OS's, with the touchbook you can put Android on it, which IMO is better than the iPhone OS.
In two months we'll be using something else...
Uhh, you know the iPad isn't even going to be released for another month at least, and given the way new device releases go you probably won't get your hands on one for another two or three months after that, minimum. Yet again you've listed something that's worse for the iPad and somehow implied it's a positive.