Well, WinMo 6.5 usually still has the executable, just not on the programs menu. iPhones, on the other hand, have no way to tether when not jailbroken unless ATT says its OK.
And AT&T (and Verizon) both say it's OK. You just have to pay for it (like you do with any other phone). And as you've stated, both Windows Mobile and iOS have mechanisms by which users can work around the limitation and violate their contract, if they so wish.
You're delusional if you think the iPhone market is saturated. How did they manage to sell over 16 million iPhones last quarter? Or maybe they are *now* just becoming saturated?
No, the iPhone will sell millions next quarter on Verizon alone, and they most certainly will add significant additional load to their network.
So does iOS. It's up to the carrier to decide how they charge to use the features on their network.
But wait, I thought the great advantage of the Iphone was that carriers could not mess with it and do things like dictate what OS features you can or cant use.
Nice straw man. The advantage you are referring to is that carriers could not alter any of the software on the iPhone (they can't remove software, add software, or alter software, like Verizon is notorious for (and even *they* aren't allowed to alter the software on the iPhone)).
What you are referring to is that the iPhone specifically allows the carriers to decide which *network* features they offer. Android offers the exact same customizability, *PLUS* the more severe ability for carriers like Verizon to completely alter anything they want in the OS.
That the carrier can control a very small handful of features that are specifically carrier-specific does not equate (like you are trying to do) with being able to alter the entire OS however they wish.
Of course you could have done this for a lot cheaper buying an old WinMo 6.x phone with the old unlimited plan. Supports tethering out of the box at no extra charge
So does iOS. It's up to the carrier to decide how they charge to use the features on their network.
Besides, cheaper != better. If he did that, he'd be stuck with a WinMo 6.5 phone. *Maybe* he wouldn't mind that, but somehow I doubt it. I can't imagine any statistically significant number of iOS or Android users who would enjoy downgrading that significantly.
How does that follow? Are you saying that Verizon is going to sell iPhones primarily to their existing Android customers?
The iPhone is going to add significantly to Verizon's user base. Even if Android consumes more data in aggregate than iPhone [*], and Verizon can handle that just fine, that doesn't mean that they can handle that plus another significant bandwidth consuming platform.
[*] That article was extremely sparse on any actual data, so there's no way to know exactly what they mean. WiFi tethering, for example, (which Verizon will be offering out of the gate) is something that more Android users use than iOS users, by the simple fact of it requiring jailbreaking on iOS (until iOS 4.3, which drops in a couple of weeks).
Take Linux, fork it, and redistribute it under the Apache license...
Google didn't take Linux and redistribute it under the Apache license or anything remotely like that. See what I mean about "spin"?
Yes, they did "something remotely like that". They took Oracle's copyrighted files, changed the copyright (which they do not have the right to do) then redistributed them under that license (which they do not have the right to do.
That's exactly like taking something else under the GPL (like Linux) and changing its license, and redistributing it. See what I mean about facts?
...silly accusations against the victim, solely because they are Oracle.
Haha, that's rich. Oracle... victim... like it wasn't Oracle who sued Google over using Java, thus pissing off the entire free software and open source community in one go...
Right. I'm weeping for Larry at this very moment or maybe not.
And again, you are proving my point. Google violated Oracle's license, but because it's Oracle that's being wronged (and Google that's doing the wrong, but Slashdot's hate for Oracle exceeds their love for Google), then fuck them.
Which does absolutely nothing to defend your statements that somehow ISO standards (like H.264) are created by a bunch of companies going around making proprietary standards and all vying to have their standard adopted officially.
To your specific response here, that's exactly why WebM is technologically inferior to H.264.
It's not open in the sense that you can't acually write either of these [encoder and decoder], as much of the vital mathematics required are subject to patents.
That is false. You can write both of these. You just have to license the patents, which is openly available to all parties.
and:
So it depends if you consider 'open' to mean access to the specification, or the legal right to use that access.
Anyone can buy the legal right to use that access. H.264 is the very definition of an open standard (while WebM is not). It's just an example of one that is patented.
You're right that patents limit the ability to completely freely use H.264, but no one is stopped from licensing those patents. They are openly available to one and all.
False, they copyright holder did *not* allow it. That's the whole point.
The whole spin you mean.
How is "the truth" spin? Oracle (previously, Sun) had licensed code under the GPL. The only right people had to redistribute that code was under the terms of the GPL. Google violated those terms. There is no wiggle room here, and the fact is that Google broke the license.
The fact is, Oracle licensed the code in question for distribution under some license. That by itself pretty much takes the wind out of the sails of any argument that Oracle never intended the source to be distributed.
Not a single person on the planet has claimed the source was never intended to be distributed.
Then it gets down to niggling about the license, intent, copyleft, tip of tree, all that. Interesting but not earth shattering, in spite of how much various trolls wish it were.
Take Linux, fork it, and redistribute it under the Apache license (like Google did with Oracle's files), or heck, even under the GPLv3, and see how well that goes over.
This isn't "niggling about the license", copyright is always about the license. Always, always, always. Oracle didn't license the code to be distributed in the way Google distributed it. It's not "tolling" or "spinning" or anything else. It's always about the license. Google violated the license.
There is great danger for Oracle in all this: they may be perceived as gaming the spirit of the GPL.
Certainly they will be perceived as doing this. But that's only because no matter what Oracle does, they will be "perceived" as doing something evil. On the other hand, any other time GPL code gets relicensed, Slashdot will be up in arms defending the GPL licensor, and wax hyperbolic against the offender.
In fact, that is how I perceive them. How much do you suppose our free software friends appreciate having their name being used in vain by Oracle, no friend of free software?
Exactly, silly accusations against the victim, solely because they are Oracle.
Sounds much like you're trolling. Copyrighted files can be distributed if the copyright holder allows it.
And the copyright holder (Oracle) did not allow it.
False, the copyright holder did allow it. The rest seems to be about correct identification of the distribution license.
False, they copyright holder did *not* allow it. That's the whole point.
Your last sentence is just a restatement of this very fact under different (and deliberately fuzzy) language. Oracle did not allow the distribution of those files under the Apache license, but that's exactly what Google did.
Apparently you've never seen how Open Source projects work. There are plenty of incompatible modifications that compete with each other, often replaced, sometimes permanently forked, etc.
On the other hand, I'm unaware of multitudes of competing and incompatible MPEG-4 implementations out in the wild during the standardization process. I am aware of different and not-entirely compatible profiles within the standard, but the standardization process was open, and not merely a competition amongst shipping technologies like you make it out to be.
On the other hand, WebM was developed in a closed manner, and never went through the competition and refinement process that H.264 went through. Now WebM is frozen in place, warts and all. And while refinements and optimizations to the implementation of WebM is possible, any refinements and advancement of the bitstream is going to be exceedingly difficult.
And how many incompatible extensions to H.264 where there in its development? By being a standard, participating groups were able to extend H.264, but they didn't have to go through the process jpmorgan laid out. The ISO process allowed the industry to extend MPEG-4 to what it is today. Such a thing is not currently feasible with WebM.
So is this ment to bypass the ISO standardisation, and get it put straight in an ISO standard? That's a pretty imaginative way to play the game, kudos to them.
No, they did this because it's much easier to put out an IETF RFC than it is to make an actual ISO standard. In terms of anything resembling an actual, official standard, Google is starting from a very weak position with regards to WebM. By going through the IETF, they can try to make WebM actually appear as though it's an open standard, whereas H.264 actually is an open standard.
Also, stating that the IETF cooperates closely with the ISO does not imply that creating an IETF standard somehow grants ISO standard status.
My blog never made a specific claim about Android devices containing certain code.
That's not what your blog post reads like. If they're not part of the codebase used on an Android device, you should have explicitly stated so,
Being in the repository is being part of the codebase.
seeing as quite obviously "The Android versions of those files" by default suggests that those files are a part of the Android OS.
The repository is the OS. It's just not the binary that the end-user receives. It is the OS the developer receives when they modify Android, or develop apps for it, or downloads it for whatever reason they choose to. That's how Open Source works.
It's also wrong, as stated above, that Google "deleted" those files. They are still in the Froyo (Android 2.2) and Gingerbread (2.3) trees. At least they were when I last checked, which was yesterday. They are just not in the tree for future versions.
That's kind of how source repositories work when you delete things.
Which is another way of saying, he's absolutely correct. The files are still there and still violating copyright. I'm not sure exactly how that's supposed to be a rebuttal.
Doesn't sound like "distributing," more like "making available."
That's pretty much a prerequisite for distributing something. They first made it available, then later (when someone downloaded it), distributed it.
Oh, and if unintentionally replacing the GPL license with Apache were to cause them to loose access to these files, it simply doesn't matter. They weren't part of Android to begin with.
How does that work out, exactly? If you went do download Android from Google via source, you got these files. Google distributed them to every Android developer, just not to Android handset users.
Sounds much like you're trolling. Copyrighted files can be distributed if the copyright holder allows it.
And the copyright holder (Oracle) did not allow it. But this is a situation where the GPL harms Google and helps Oracle, so maybe we should just sweep this all under the rug and call anyone who points out reality a troll?
And how many apps have been outright banned? And of those, how many weren't clearly treading if not outright crossing the line?
You are acting like Apple just randomly and whimsically bans apps with no rhyme or reason.
The claim that it's not safe to to business on Apple's App Store is proved false millions of times per day. The actual risk, which is infinitesimal, and the risk that exists in your mind, are severly out of sync.
Since the iPad doesn't have flash it breaks the formatting of many sites and requires an "app" to get them to work halfway decently.
It's funny that you mostly only ever hear people bitch about lack of flash from those that hate Apple, and not actual Apple customers. You know why? Because the Internet has moved on to H.264, and serves videos up using HTML5 for iOS devices, and Flash for everyone else.
In fact, it gets even better. On Android, Flash is available, but largely unusable. So whereas iOS users get a perfectly smooth H.264 video, Flash users on Android are served the same H.264 video via Flash, which stutters, drains the battery, crashes the browser, and severely degrades the responsiveness of the system.
While I do admit I haven't heard of any times Apple has remotely deleted Apps (yet),
For one very good reason: they haven't. Google, on the other hand, actually has used their kill switch on Android.
they have admitted that they built in a back door in iOS that will allow them to do just that.
You know why they admitted it? Because it's not some scary evil thing. In fact, it's there for a very good reason. If an app gets through the App Store that turns out to be malware, Apple can kill it.
Your whole argument is that the iPad is marketed as being a multipurpose device (and it is, in fact, an excellent multipurpose device), and games consoles aren't? Apparently you haven't seen the end of all PS3 ads that say "It only does everything." What's most humorous is that your defense of the consoles demonstrate the point that the situation on consoles are far worse than the situation on iOS.
The iPad is marketed to do anything you want to do on a laptop and fails at that goal and is naturally taking backlash because of it.
Only amongst an extremely insignificant subset of geeks. Apple sold 15 million iPads last year. You wanna know why? Because normal people don't give a shit about all the things that make you hate Apple's products.
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Well, WinMo 6.5 usually still has the executable, just not on the programs menu. iPhones, on the other hand, have no way to tether when not jailbroken unless ATT says its OK.
And AT&T (and Verizon) both say it's OK. You just have to pay for it (like you do with any other phone). And as you've stated, both Windows Mobile and iOS have mechanisms by which users can work around the limitation and violate their contract, if they so wish.
Out of the box, meaning it's not a feature taken away by any of the carriers in the US
That's not what "out of the box" means. And both US carriers allow tethering on the iPhone.
and even if they did, regedit is a lot easier than jailbreak, and a lot less warranty violating(which can be a big issue for corporate users)
They don't have to, they just pay for the tethering feature, like they do with any other phone.
You're delusional if you think the iPhone market is saturated. How did they manage to sell over 16 million iPhones last quarter? Or maybe they are *now* just becoming saturated?
No, the iPhone will sell millions next quarter on Verizon alone, and they most certainly will add significant additional load to their network.
But wait, I thought the great advantage of the Iphone was that carriers could not mess with it and do things like dictate what OS features you can or cant use.
Nice straw man. The advantage you are referring to is that carriers could not alter any of the software on the iPhone (they can't remove software, add software, or alter software, like Verizon is notorious for (and even *they* aren't allowed to alter the software on the iPhone)).
What you are referring to is that the iPhone specifically allows the carriers to decide which *network* features they offer. Android offers the exact same customizability, *PLUS* the more severe ability for carriers like Verizon to completely alter anything they want in the OS.
That the carrier can control a very small handful of features that are specifically carrier-specific does not equate (like you are trying to do) with being able to alter the entire OS however they wish.
Of course you could have done this for a lot cheaper buying an old WinMo 6.x phone with the old unlimited plan. Supports tethering out of the box at no extra charge
So does iOS. It's up to the carrier to decide how they charge to use the features on their network.
Besides, cheaper != better. If he did that, he'd be stuck with a WinMo 6.5 phone. *Maybe* he wouldn't mind that, but somehow I doubt it. I can't imagine any statistically significant number of iOS or Android users who would enjoy downgrading that significantly.
How does that follow? Are you saying that Verizon is going to sell iPhones primarily to their existing Android customers?
The iPhone is going to add significantly to Verizon's user base. Even if Android consumes more data in aggregate than iPhone [*], and Verizon can handle that just fine, that doesn't mean that they can handle that plus another significant bandwidth consuming platform.
[*] That article was extremely sparse on any actual data, so there's no way to know exactly what they mean. WiFi tethering, for example, (which Verizon will be offering out of the gate) is something that more Android users use than iOS users, by the simple fact of it requiring jailbreaking on iOS (until iOS 4.3, which drops in a couple of weeks).
As if Microsoft has never discontinued a product...
Surely to produce films 4 and 5, first there must be 2 and 3. Or am I missing something?
It worked for Star Wars.
Take Linux, fork it, and redistribute it under the Apache license...
Google didn't take Linux and redistribute it under the Apache license or anything remotely like that. See what I mean about "spin"?
Yes, they did "something remotely like that". They took Oracle's copyrighted files, changed the copyright (which they do not have the right to do) then redistributed them under that license (which they do not have the right to do.
That's exactly like taking something else under the GPL (like Linux) and changing its license, and redistributing it. See what I mean about facts?
...silly accusations against the victim, solely because they are Oracle.
Haha, that's rich. Oracle... victim... like it wasn't Oracle who sued Google over using Java, thus pissing off the entire free software and open source community in one go...
Right. I'm weeping for Larry at this very moment or maybe not.
And again, you are proving my point. Google violated Oracle's license, but because it's Oracle that's being wronged (and Google that's doing the wrong, but Slashdot's hate for Oracle exceeds their love for Google), then fuck them.
*THAT'S* the very definition of "spin".
Which does absolutely nothing to defend your statements that somehow ISO standards (like H.264) are created by a bunch of companies going around making proprietary standards and all vying to have their standard adopted officially.
To your specific response here, that's exactly why WebM is technologically inferior to H.264.
Pretty spot on except for:
It's not open in the sense that you can't acually write either of these [encoder and decoder], as much of the vital mathematics required are subject to patents.
That is false. You can write both of these. You just have to license the patents, which is openly available to all parties.
and:
So it depends if you consider 'open' to mean access to the specification, or the legal right to use that access.
Anyone can buy the legal right to use that access. H.264 is the very definition of an open standard (while WebM is not). It's just an example of one that is patented.
You're right that patents limit the ability to completely freely use H.264, but no one is stopped from licensing those patents. They are openly available to one and all.
False, they copyright holder did *not* allow it. That's the whole point.
The whole spin you mean.
How is "the truth" spin? Oracle (previously, Sun) had licensed code under the GPL. The only right people had to redistribute that code was under the terms of the GPL. Google violated those terms. There is no wiggle room here, and the fact is that Google broke the license.
The fact is, Oracle licensed the code in question for distribution under some license. That by itself pretty much takes the wind out of the sails of any argument that Oracle never intended the source to be distributed.
Not a single person on the planet has claimed the source was never intended to be distributed.
Then it gets down to niggling about the license, intent, copyleft, tip of tree, all that. Interesting but not earth shattering, in spite of how much various trolls wish it were.
Take Linux, fork it, and redistribute it under the Apache license (like Google did with Oracle's files), or heck, even under the GPLv3, and see how well that goes over.
This isn't "niggling about the license", copyright is always about the license. Always, always, always. Oracle didn't license the code to be distributed in the way Google distributed it. It's not "tolling" or "spinning" or anything else. It's always about the license. Google violated the license.
There is great danger for Oracle in all this: they may be perceived as gaming the spirit of the GPL.
Certainly they will be perceived as doing this. But that's only because no matter what Oracle does, they will be "perceived" as doing something evil. On the other hand, any other time GPL code gets relicensed, Slashdot will be up in arms defending the GPL licensor, and wax hyperbolic against the offender.
In fact, that is how I perceive them. How much do you suppose our free software friends appreciate having their name being used in vain by Oracle, no friend of free software?
Exactly, silly accusations against the victim, solely because they are Oracle.
Sounds much like you're trolling. Copyrighted files can be distributed if the copyright holder allows it.
And the copyright holder (Oracle) did not allow it.
False, the copyright holder did allow it. The rest seems to be about correct identification of the distribution license.
False, they copyright holder did *not* allow it. That's the whole point.
Your last sentence is just a restatement of this very fact under different (and deliberately fuzzy) language. Oracle did not allow the distribution of those files under the Apache license, but that's exactly what Google did.
Apparently you've never seen how Open Source projects work. There are plenty of incompatible modifications that compete with each other, often replaced, sometimes permanently forked, etc.
On the other hand, I'm unaware of multitudes of competing and incompatible MPEG-4 implementations out in the wild during the standardization process. I am aware of different and not-entirely compatible profiles within the standard, but the standardization process was open, and not merely a competition amongst shipping technologies like you make it out to be.
On the other hand, WebM was developed in a closed manner, and never went through the competition and refinement process that H.264 went through. Now WebM is frozen in place, warts and all. And while refinements and optimizations to the implementation of WebM is possible, any refinements and advancement of the bitstream is going to be exceedingly difficult.
And how many incompatible extensions to H.264 where there in its development? By being a standard, participating groups were able to extend H.264, but they didn't have to go through the process jpmorgan laid out. The ISO process allowed the industry to extend MPEG-4 to what it is today. Such a thing is not currently feasible with WebM.
So is this ment to bypass the ISO standardisation, and get it put straight in an ISO standard? That's a pretty imaginative way to play the game, kudos to them.
No, they did this because it's much easier to put out an IETF RFC than it is to make an actual ISO standard. In terms of anything resembling an actual, official standard, Google is starting from a very weak position with regards to WebM. By going through the IETF, they can try to make WebM actually appear as though it's an open standard, whereas H.264 actually is an open standard.
Also, stating that the IETF cooperates closely with the ISO does not imply that creating an IETF standard somehow grants ISO standard status.
You CAN'T simply "troll" mod him out of existence.
Of course they can. "-1 Troll" means, "what you're saying contradicts what I wish were true" here on Slashdot.
My blog never made a specific claim about Android devices containing certain code.
That's not what your blog post reads like. If they're not part of the codebase used on an Android device, you should have explicitly stated so,
Being in the repository is being part of the codebase.
seeing as quite obviously "The Android versions of those files" by default suggests that those files are a part of the Android OS.
The repository is the OS. It's just not the binary that the end-user receives. It is the OS the developer receives when they modify Android, or develop apps for it, or downloads it for whatever reason they choose to. That's how Open Source works.
It's also wrong, as stated above, that Google "deleted" those files. They are still in the Froyo (Android 2.2) and Gingerbread (2.3) trees. At least they were when I last checked, which was yesterday. They are just not in the tree for future versions.
That's kind of how source repositories work when you delete things.
Which is another way of saying, he's absolutely correct. The files are still there and still violating copyright. I'm not sure exactly how that's supposed to be a rebuttal.
Doesn't sound like "distributing," more like "making available."
That's pretty much a prerequisite for distributing something. They first made it available, then later (when someone downloaded it), distributed it.
Oh, and if unintentionally replacing the GPL license with Apache were to cause them to loose access to these files, it simply doesn't matter. They weren't part of Android to begin with.
How does that work out, exactly? If you went do download Android from Google via source, you got these files. Google distributed them to every Android developer, just not to Android handset users.
Sounds much like you're trolling. Copyrighted files can be distributed if the copyright holder allows it.
And the copyright holder (Oracle) did not allow it. But this is a situation where the GPL harms Google and helps Oracle, so maybe we should just sweep this all under the rug and call anyone who points out reality a troll?
In other words, people who defend Apple must, by definition, not be listened to? How does that make any sense?
The view of Apple around here is delusional. I'm just bringing reality into the picture.
And how many apps have been outright banned? And of those, how many weren't clearly treading if not outright crossing the line?
You are acting like Apple just randomly and whimsically bans apps with no rhyme or reason.
The claim that it's not safe to to business on Apple's App Store is proved false millions of times per day. The actual risk, which is infinitesimal, and the risk that exists in your mind, are severly out of sync.
Since the iPad doesn't have flash it breaks the formatting of many sites and requires an "app" to get them to work halfway decently.
It's funny that you mostly only ever hear people bitch about lack of flash from those that hate Apple, and not actual Apple customers. You know why? Because the Internet has moved on to H.264, and serves videos up using HTML5 for iOS devices, and Flash for everyone else.
In fact, it gets even better. On Android, Flash is available, but largely unusable. So whereas iOS users get a perfectly smooth H.264 video, Flash users on Android are served the same H.264 video via Flash, which stutters, drains the battery, crashes the browser, and severely degrades the responsiveness of the system.
While I do admit I haven't heard of any times Apple has remotely deleted Apps (yet),
For one very good reason: they haven't. Google, on the other hand, actually has used their kill switch on Android.
they have admitted that they built in a back door in iOS that will allow them to do just that.
You know why they admitted it? Because it's not some scary evil thing. In fact, it's there for a very good reason. If an app gets through the App Store that turns out to be malware, Apple can kill it.
Your whole argument is that the iPad is marketed as being a multipurpose device (and it is, in fact, an excellent multipurpose device), and games consoles aren't? Apparently you haven't seen the end of all PS3 ads that say "It only does everything." What's most humorous is that your defense of the consoles demonstrate the point that the situation on consoles are far worse than the situation on iOS.
The iPad is marketed to do anything you want to do on a laptop and fails at that goal and is naturally taking backlash because of it.
Only amongst an extremely insignificant subset of geeks. Apple sold 15 million iPads last year. You wanna know why? Because normal people don't give a shit about all the things that make you hate Apple's products.