What scares me is the fact that a large part of the slashdot crowd are siding with apple and big media on this one.
Reality Distortion Field at work -- A lot of people feel the need to defend their favorite 'beleaguered' computer maker. Had it been MS DRM or Real DRM instead of Apple DRM, you would see hardly any of the same reaction.
Their story is that Steve did everyone a big favor by implementing a "fair" DRM system, but the reality is that FairPlay isn't any different than the other RIAA-approved online music store DRM systems, other than it has Mac support.
Furthermore, their opposition to PlayFair isn't very pragmatic, as there's a real argument that it will only help Apple's music & ipod sales and not significantly increase piracy. All they have is a reactionary argument that PlayFair is bad because Apple says it is bad, and it's bad to lie to Apple and break their EULA.
-----------
What Apple Fans should understand is that consumer electronics and music are now way more profitable than Macintoshes -- and that will invevitably leave Apple, Inc. to make decisions that are good for RIAA/MPAA and not necessarily good for personal computing or the Mac platform.
I think it's perfectly possible to be a Macintosh booster without going balls to the wall for every new business Apple gets into. There's nothing inconsistant about believing that the Mac is the greatest computer ever made without endorsing Apple & the RIAA's online business model.
So, try being an Mac Fanboy instead of a Apple Inc Fanboy. It's refreshing.
I don't think it is -- Every small business I've worked with has at least one, and sometimes many special purpose or vertical application (and that's excluding accounting apps). Last year I worked for a firm in the legal industry, and they had at least 10 "essential" Win32 apps, excluding internal stuff. There's also an enormous amount of VB/Access/MSOffice "talent" out there grinding out new solutions on the cheap.
In larger organizations, the situation is orders of magnitude worse. I think it was Ford Motor that put out a report indicating they had more internal apps than they had employees. Now not all of those are Win32, but you can bet that a hellauva lot are.
This attitude that "Mozilla + OpenOffice = Business Desktop" is just out of touch with the real world -- Microsoft has been worming their tentacles in deep for many many years. Their monopoly is so profound that many LinAdvocates seem to fail to even understand it.
Now, I'm not saying it can't work some places, but you are talking about only the oldline mainframe-only, IBM-only shops, or very new progressive web-only shops. And that's a minority.
The longterm trends are towards webapps, Java, and NET, which is good for Linux. But unless Wine is 99.9% compatible, Linux on the desktop is just not reality for most businesses.
I don't know if you are correct or not, but the 16K expansion card was almost always called a "Language Card" (because it allowed you to run Pascal, I think).
I had an upgraded ][ (not plus) that had the Plus ROMs, 48K memory, language card, and could load integer basic from disk. The previous owner had hacked the hell out of that machine -- it even had lowercase letters.
We'll run Windows in VMWare until we can port our 150 Windows applications to Linux!
Three Years Later....
We've finished porting 60 applications, but somehow we now have 200 Windows apps deployed. ?
Just an observation about IT -- if you give the users a tool (Windows on VMWare), they'll find a way to use it. And I don't blame them either -- if there is a strong business need, they aren't going to wait around while IT tries to convince some vendor to port their maintenance mode VB/Access vertical app to Linux.
There is now financial interests within the Linux Community in publicizing the risks associated with Linux. Which may have the effect of amplifying Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt rather than dismissing it.
There's also the matter that some legal information or opinions may be reserved for those who are paying in rather than given to everyone.
I'm not trying to ascribe bad motives to the people behind this -- I just don't think they've thought out this enterprise to it's capitalist conclusions and what (unintended) effects it might have. "Trust Us" doesn't go very far in a for-profit world.
Look at it from Apple's point of view -- The PowerBook G4 was introduced in Jan 2001 -- that means it is now completely depreciated for many owners. Which means that Apple should be trying to sell them a new machine.
Now is going from 500Mhz to 1500Mhz in 3 years a "compelling" upgrade for most users? I think not. Way behind Moore's Law of Computer Marketing. And I agree with the AC that the memory bus is almost laughably antique.
Many Mac users do use their PowerBooks for Video Editing. Very few users justify a $2500 laptop with web browsing. Apple should be putting something out that will give the hard-core users new machine envy (and they probably would be if they had the G5 chips).
Just because I don't know the alphabet doesn't mean I didn't cover your point with G#1 & F#2.
I agree that it was in Apple's interest to give a kick-in-the-ass to the USB market, but I maintain the decision to drop the ports/floppy had a lot more to do with Apple's very fragile retail situation at the time. The Mac Section in my local stores went from a dusty shelf in the corner to an entire ailes. Every iMac sale was pretty much guaranteed to move at least 1 floppy/zip drive and 1 printer.
As for legacy ports being "crap", maybe you just didn't have an investement in older stuff.
A) Intel starts shipping USB hardware in 1996 or so. B) Microsoft is readying "Windows 97"/"Memphis" with full USB support (remember the demo crashing on Gates?) C) Manufacturers start gearing up for the anticipated USB demand D) Windows 98 is delayed again in early 1998 E) Apple introduces the iMac F) All those USB products in the pipeline quickly get Mac drivers and blue plastic, because otherwise nobody was buying them. G) Every Apple customer upgrading to the imac has to throw out his/her peripherals and buy new ones F) Mac products sales shoot thorough the roof, saving several key retailers for Apple G) Jobs looks like a genius, when it was at least 50% luck.
Apple isn't interested in licensing out technology if that means they're unable to control the quality.
Keep in mind that the iPod is a transitory device -- in a short amount of time you will be able to play digital music on your cell phone and your PDA (and your car radio, your home stereo, etc). You won't have a special "MP3 Player" on your geek holster
If a FairPlay AAC file skips on your Nokia cellphone, it will not reflect poorly on the Apple brandname. Unlike a GUI, the technology is transparent.
Apple is pretty much gearing themselves to the prosumer and professional markets.
I think that's a tactful way of saying that Apple is milking their installed base. (Similar things said about other 'dinosaur' platforms like VAX or Sun workstations.)
Not that far in the future, good PCs are going to cost $500 each, and the cognitive dissonance between that and a $1500 Mac is going to be too much for even the most loyal Mac Fan to swollow. I'm willing to bet that Steve Jobs understands this better than most of his customers do.
Thank you, that was the argument I was looking for. (And I won't disagree -- Apple made horrendous tactical errors along with the strategic decision of not licensing.)
But isn't "remaining premium" exactly what the iTunes/iPod licensing debate is about? Apple is trying to sell a premium product into a market that is predestined to become completely commodity. Music players are going to be a gigantic market not very long from now -- far beyond Apple's capacity or willingness to meet demand.
It seems to be the exact same mistake as with PCs -- Apple is in love with the iPods huge margins, while Microsoft is looking to nick 1% off every media player sold.
Something to think about in 5 years when everything in the home electronics store has a little Windows logo, and the dotters will be fretting about the fall of MPEG4/AAC/iTunes.
it ignores the real reasons for the failure of MacOS which had nothing to do with licensing
This goes 100% against the conventional wisdom that Apple niched itself by not licensing soon enough. There's an entire book, "Apple" by Jim Carlton that lays out this argument -- Apple had big names lining up to license and turned them down for years and years. (It is also a very good history of Apple Computer, so it is recommended reading for Mac fans.)
Another plausible explaination for the closed nature of iTunes is that Jobs & Gates have a handshake agreement to keep MS Office around as long as Apple stays out of MS's backyard.
Re:Free software lacks usability testing
on
GNOME for Grandma
·
· Score: 1
Exactly -- they can't change the basic menu structure in order to make it easier, so they come up with dorky stuff like disappearing options. There's also the sidebar in Office XP which replicates (but not replaces) a lot of the crappy modal dialogs.
Check Office for Mac for an idea of what they would do if they weren't locked into 10 year old UI decisions.
So this is no different to CD ripping with its associated risks of ripped files being shared on P2P networks
It could be different. My hunch is that iTunes have a watermark which can be used to trace files back to the original source. Since each song is individually encrypted for the user, this is possible.
(Recall the RIAA SDMI proposal, which iTunes seems to be based on. Ed Felton, etc.)
So, I would be careful in sharing your iTunes AAC files with the world until this can be confirmed or denied.
Check out the article at arstechnica.com. Good discussion.
Basically, over the last few years, Apple's computer operation has operated at break-even, and they make profits on investments and ipods. I'm not sure how (or if) Apple's going to change that.
And the fact that you are using a 5 year old machine is a not healthy sign for Apple. Why don't you pickup one of these wonderful eMacs you are touting? That's right, they suck, they're way behind moore's law. I also wouldn't say a 5 year old Mac is any better than a 5 year old PC. (My Powerbook is also 5 years old -- i can't quite pull the trigger yet.)
Not sure how you get from Flat Sales and Declining Market Share to "healthy market"... Windows sales have been doing quite well.
I'm leaning towards the idea that Apple is trying to milk it's "legacy" base of Mac users while transitioning to a consumer device company. In which case, I hope not, but how else do you read the evidence? In that case, Apple would be just another Sony...
The question is if you are an Apple-Fan or a Mac-Fan. I'm the latter.
I'm not sure if I completely follow your argument, but
There's no requirement that any derivative work must be licenced under the GPL. Only that a derivative work that you distribute or publish.
And, how do you fix that loophole without turning the GPL into a EULA?
US Copyright law grants the user to run any software which was legally distributed to them. That is, if the patch is legal, you can't prohibit the user from from running it.
I think this is the logic used for binary Linux-kernel patches.
Re:Free software lacks usability testing
on
GNOME for Grandma
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> word wouldnt have 40 tabs in the options window
This is a special case. No doubt Microsoft knows that the Word options dialog sucks from the usability standpoint.
However, the Corporate Training lobby has mandated that Microsoft Shalt Not Change Office's UI. Therefore, they are stuck with the exact same crappy dialog box since Word 6.0 (10 years ago).
I'm assuming here that you are using the GPL version of QT that's included with most Linux distros. I'm not sure that you "have to" open source your app.
This seems to be a straight-forward copyright law case, not a test of the GPL.
A better "test" is the IBM v SCO case -- can one distribute GPL software with "additional restrictions" ($699 licences)?
A more complicated test would revolve around defining "Derived Works" in the software world. Or a ruling which declares source code less than N lines to be exempt from copyright.
A more complicated question is if you use a GPL library -- such as Qt.
US Copyright Law and the GPL grants you the right to run the software. How does one "run" a library? Well you load it into memory and make programming calls against it.
So it seems like you could distribute a closed-source Qt program without violating copyright law (and therefore the GPL) -- just as long you didn't distribute the Qt libraries. Since every modern distro includes Qt, this isn't a problem. You skirt the "derived works" issue because both the programmer and the end user have Fair Use rights to run the library.
But yet this result massively contradicts GPL Doctrine. Unless I'm missing something.
Slashdot Mirror
What scares me is the fact that a large part of the slashdot crowd are siding with apple and big media on this one.
Reality Distortion Field at work -- A lot of people feel the need to defend their favorite 'beleaguered' computer maker. Had it been MS DRM or Real DRM instead of Apple DRM, you would see hardly any of the same reaction.
Their story is that Steve did everyone a big favor by implementing a "fair" DRM system, but the reality is that FairPlay isn't any different than the other RIAA-approved online music store DRM systems, other than it has Mac support.
Furthermore, their opposition to PlayFair isn't very pragmatic, as there's a real argument that it will only help Apple's music & ipod sales and not significantly increase piracy. All they have is a reactionary argument that PlayFair is bad because Apple says it is bad, and it's bad to lie to Apple and break their EULA.
-----------
What Apple Fans should understand is that consumer electronics and music are now way more profitable than Macintoshes -- and that will invevitably leave Apple, Inc. to make decisions that are good for RIAA/MPAA and not necessarily good for personal computing or the Mac platform.
I think it's perfectly possible to be a Macintosh booster without going balls to the wall for every new business Apple gets into. There's nothing inconsistant about believing that the Mac is the greatest computer ever made without endorsing Apple & the RIAA's online business model.
So, try being an Mac Fanboy instead of a Apple Inc Fanboy. It's refreshing.
Your business is quite particular
I don't think it is -- Every small business I've worked with has at least one, and sometimes many special purpose or vertical application (and that's excluding accounting apps). Last year I worked for a firm in the legal industry, and they had at least 10 "essential" Win32 apps, excluding internal stuff. There's also an enormous amount of VB/Access/MSOffice "talent" out there grinding out new solutions on the cheap.
In larger organizations, the situation is orders of magnitude worse. I think it was Ford Motor that put out a report indicating they had more internal apps than they had employees. Now not all of those are Win32, but you can bet that a hellauva lot are.
This attitude that "Mozilla + OpenOffice = Business Desktop" is just out of touch with the real world -- Microsoft has been worming their tentacles in deep for many many years. Their monopoly is so profound that many LinAdvocates seem to fail to even understand it.
Now, I'm not saying it can't work some places, but you are talking about only the oldline mainframe-only, IBM-only shops, or very new progressive web-only shops. And that's a minority.
The longterm trends are towards webapps, Java, and NET, which is good for Linux. But unless Wine is 99.9% compatible, Linux on the desktop is just not reality for most businesses.
I don't know if you are correct or not, but the 16K expansion card was almost always called a "Language Card" (because it allowed you to run Pascal, I think).
I had an upgraded ][ (not plus) that had the Plus ROMs, 48K memory, language card, and could load integer basic from disk. The previous owner had hacked the hell out of that machine -- it even had lowercase letters.
My prediction:
....
We'll run Windows in VMWare until we can port our 150 Windows applications to Linux!
Three Years Later
We've finished porting 60 applications, but somehow we now have 200 Windows apps deployed. ?
Just an observation about IT -- if you give the users a tool (Windows on VMWare), they'll find a way to use it. And I don't blame them either -- if there is a strong business need, they aren't going to wait around while IT tries to convince some vendor to port their maintenance mode VB/Access vertical app to Linux.
Check NT Compatible's database for Win9x game tips. They have instructions for Grim Fandango at least.
I posted something similar over at groklaw --
There is now financial interests within the Linux Community in publicizing the risks associated with Linux. Which may have the effect of amplifying Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt rather than dismissing it.
There's also the matter that some legal information or opinions may be reserved for those who are paying in rather than given to everyone.
I'm not trying to ascribe bad motives to the people behind this -- I just don't think they've thought out this enterprise to it's capitalist conclusions and what (unintended) effects it might have. "Trust Us" doesn't go very far in a for-profit world.
Look at it from Apple's point of view -- The PowerBook G4 was introduced in Jan 2001 -- that means it is now completely depreciated for many owners. Which means that Apple should be trying to sell them a new machine.
Now is going from 500Mhz to 1500Mhz in 3 years a "compelling" upgrade for most users? I think not. Way behind Moore's Law of Computer Marketing. And I agree with the AC that the memory bus is almost laughably antique.
Many Mac users do use their PowerBooks for Video Editing. Very few users justify a $2500 laptop with web browsing. Apple should be putting something out that will give the hard-core users new machine envy (and they probably would be if they had the G5 chips).
Just because I don't know the alphabet doesn't mean I didn't cover your point with G#1 & F#2.
I agree that it was in Apple's interest to give a kick-in-the-ass to the USB market, but I maintain the decision to drop the ports/floppy had a lot more to do with Apple's very fragile retail situation at the time. The Mac Section in my local stores went from a dusty shelf in the corner to an entire ailes. Every iMac sale was pretty much guaranteed to move at least 1 floppy/zip drive and 1 printer.
As for legacy ports being "crap", maybe you just didn't have an investement in older stuff.
A) Intel starts shipping USB hardware in 1996 or so.
B) Microsoft is readying "Windows 97"/"Memphis" with full USB support (remember the demo crashing on Gates?)
C) Manufacturers start gearing up for the anticipated USB demand
D) Windows 98 is delayed again in early 1998
E) Apple introduces the iMac
F) All those USB products in the pipeline quickly get Mac drivers and blue plastic, because otherwise nobody was buying them.
G) Every Apple customer upgrading to the imac has to throw out his/her peripherals and buy new ones
F) Mac products sales shoot thorough the roof, saving several key retailers for Apple
G) Jobs looks like a genius, when it was at least 50% luck.
Apple isn't interested in licensing out technology if that means they're unable to control the quality.
Keep in mind that the iPod is a transitory device -- in a short amount of time you will be able to play digital music on your cell phone and your PDA (and your car radio, your home stereo, etc). You won't have a special "MP3 Player" on your geek holster
If a FairPlay AAC file skips on your Nokia cellphone, it will not reflect poorly on the Apple brandname. Unlike a GUI, the technology is transparent.
And PCs start at $300, but I'm talking about a "good" mid-level configuration.
Reminiscant of the argument: Apple is fine with 10% marketshare -- Err I mean 5% -- err 2% -- uhh 0.75%?
Apple can make tons of money in the shortterm with iPods. The open question is why aren't they out for the whole enchalada?
Apple is pretty much gearing themselves to the prosumer and professional markets.
I think that's a tactful way of saying that Apple is milking their installed base. (Similar things said about other 'dinosaur' platforms like VAX or Sun workstations.)
Not that far in the future, good PCs are going to cost $500 each, and the cognitive dissonance between that and a $1500 Mac is going to be too much for even the most loyal Mac Fan to swollow. I'm willing to bet that Steve Jobs understands this better than most of his customers do.
Thank you, that was the argument I was looking for. (And I won't disagree -- Apple made horrendous tactical errors along with the strategic decision of not licensing.)
But isn't "remaining premium" exactly what the iTunes/iPod licensing debate is about? Apple is trying to sell a premium product into a market that is predestined to become completely commodity. Music players are going to be a gigantic market not very long from now -- far beyond Apple's capacity or willingness to meet demand.
It seems to be the exact same mistake as with PCs -- Apple is in love with the iPods huge margins, while Microsoft is looking to nick 1% off every media player sold.
Something to think about in 5 years when everything in the home electronics store has a little Windows logo, and the dotters will be fretting about the fall of MPEG4/AAC/iTunes.
For very low bandwidth (20Kbps) talk radio, I find Real to be the best sounding format. [prepares to be enemy listed]
it ignores the real reasons for the failure of MacOS which had nothing to do with licensing
This goes 100% against the conventional wisdom that Apple niched itself by not licensing soon enough. There's an entire book, "Apple" by Jim Carlton that lays out this argument -- Apple had big names lining up to license and turned them down for years and years. (It is also a very good history of Apple Computer, so it is recommended reading for Mac fans.)
Another plausible explaination for the closed nature of iTunes is that Jobs & Gates have a handshake agreement to keep MS Office around as long as Apple stays out of MS's backyard.
Exactly -- they can't change the basic menu structure in order to make it easier, so they come up with dorky stuff like disappearing options. There's also the sidebar in Office XP which replicates (but not replaces) a lot of the crappy modal dialogs.
Check Office for Mac for an idea of what they would do if they weren't locked into 10 year old UI decisions.
So this is no different to CD ripping with its associated risks of ripped files being shared on P2P networks
It could be different. My hunch is that iTunes have a watermark which can be used to trace files back to the original source. Since each song is individually encrypted for the user, this is possible.
(Recall the RIAA SDMI proposal, which iTunes seems to be based on. Ed Felton, etc.)
So, I would be careful in sharing your iTunes AAC files with the world until this can be confirmed or denied.
Check out the article at arstechnica.com. Good discussion.
Basically, over the last few years, Apple's computer operation has operated at break-even, and they make profits on investments and ipods. I'm not sure how (or if) Apple's going to change that.
And the fact that you are using a 5 year old machine is a not healthy sign for Apple. Why don't you pickup one of these wonderful eMacs you are touting? That's right, they suck, they're way behind moore's law. I also wouldn't say a 5 year old Mac is any better than a 5 year old PC. (My Powerbook is also 5 years old -- i can't quite pull the trigger yet.)
Not sure how you get from Flat Sales and Declining Market Share to "healthy market"... Windows sales have been doing quite well.
I'm leaning towards the idea that Apple is trying to milk it's "legacy" base of Mac users while transitioning to a consumer device company. In which case, I hope not, but how else do you read the evidence? In that case, Apple would be just another Sony...
The question is if you are an Apple-Fan or a Mac-Fan. I'm the latter.
I'm not sure if I completely follow your argument, but
There's no requirement that any derivative work must be licenced under the GPL. Only that a derivative work that you distribute or publish.
And, how do you fix that loophole without turning the GPL into a EULA?
US Copyright law grants the user to run any software which was legally distributed to them. That is, if the patch is legal, you can't prohibit the user from from running it.
I think this is the logic used for binary Linux-kernel patches.
> word wouldnt have 40 tabs in the options window
This is a special case. No doubt Microsoft knows that the Word options dialog sucks from the usability standpoint.
However, the Corporate Training lobby has mandated that Microsoft Shalt Not Change Office's UI. Therefore, they are stuck with the exact same crappy dialog box since Word 6.0 (10 years ago).
I'm assuming here that you are using the GPL version of QT that's included with most Linux distros. I'm not sure that you "have to" open source your app.
This seems to be a straight-forward copyright law case, not a test of the GPL.
A better "test" is the IBM v SCO case -- can one distribute GPL software with "additional restrictions" ($699 licences)?
A more complicated test would revolve around defining "Derived Works" in the software world. Or a ruling which declares source code less than N lines to be exempt from copyright.
A more complicated question is if you use a GPL library -- such as Qt.
US Copyright Law and the GPL grants you the right to run the software. How does one "run" a library? Well you load it into memory and make programming calls against it.
So it seems like you could distribute a closed-source Qt program without violating copyright law (and therefore the GPL) -- just as long you didn't distribute the Qt libraries. Since every modern distro includes Qt, this isn't a problem. You skirt the "derived works" issue because both the programmer and the end user have Fair Use rights to run the library.
But yet this result massively contradicts GPL Doctrine. Unless I'm missing something.