That is incorrect. Comcast encrypts virtually all channels, so a standard ClearQAM tuner that is available on the television set will not work. Comcast will require an external box for all their channels (they may not today for OTA channels, but they will as of 2012 when they are legally allowed to encrypt EVERYTHING).
I would actually say that their development tools are still top-notch. The new stuff is really efficient, easy to use and pretty quick. The biggest problems I see with the Microsoft tools are :
(a) You are locked into the Microsoft Stack. You need to run your creations on the Microsoft platform which has a higher TCO than alternatives. Also, if you plan on making that hip-new-app, you need to release at the very least on Win and Mac, which the Microsoft Stack has a hard time with (don't bring up Mono -- it's great as a toy, but in all honesty, I would not trust it for production) (b) The tools ARE expensive. Who can drop $1500 every other year for their tools? Large businesses, sure. Businesses that don't make money yet can't. Let alone the MSDN and TechNet Subscriptions you need, which will set you back thousands of dollars more. (c) The.NET runtime is a moving target. I know developers who have had to basically trash all of their work to target the latest.NET Runtime. 1.0 -> 1.1 -> 1.3 -> 2.0 all required major rewrites, lots of refactoring, and lots of work. This is not just to get the new features, this is just to make it compile. Heck, even going from 3.5 to 4.0 will cost MAJOR development time and money because they changed everything around AGAIN.
and how would things like roaming work? I'm sure there are lots of cases when you are not on your own carrier's network (even if it says it on your phone's screen).....
I would second the UMA option. On our campus we have OK cell reception, but if you go into any basements or the center of the buildings, very rarely is there any good reception. Kicking on UMA with my BlackBerry allows me to continue my conversations. What is really nice is it will 'roam' between the WiFi and Cell, choosing whichever has the strongest signal. It does this automatically.
If you have a newer BlackBerry (with OS5 or better), you can 'train' the device to login to a captive portal, if your school uses one. You login once, it asks if you want to store the credentials, and away you go.
As far as quality goes, it really matters on your school's WiFi and internet access. Of course, this will affect any VoIP provider and solution, so that shouldn't make a different. Quality-wise, I can't tell if I'm on UMA or Cellular service at my place -- but then again they have awesome internet access:)
Hate to break it to you -- SWF, and just about everything else Flash is open-source and published standards. The only thing that is closed source is the Flash Player -- which utilizes licensed technologies (MP3, Video codecs, etc), so it legally can't be.
There are LOTS of tools that can output to the SWF standard. Tools written in Eclipse, Visual Studio, and lots of stand-alone tools.
Another thought -- how about you actually take a look at some ActionScript code too? ActionScript 3 is based on ECMA, which is what C++ and other languages are based on. It's OOP in almost every way.
How about doing some research before you spout off. Oh, right, this is/. , so you don't need to.
For some odd reason, this guy can't figure out that there is a difference between the IDE and the SDK. The Flash Builder IDE, which was released last week supports both the older 2.x, and 3.x SDKs. Not only does it support it, it has all the code hinting, wizards, and everything else one would expect from an IDE. Targeting a different SDK version is as simple as chainging the properties in your project.
The newer 4.0 SDK is different, but nobody is forcing you to use it. It is an open-source project (http://opensource.adobe.com), sponsored by Adobe. It's been cooking for about the last year and a half with hundreds of betas and builds posted on their website. It does change some of the features around regarding CSS, states, etc., but again, there is no impetitus for you to move to it today. If you have an active application in development, you can even mix-and-match some portions of the SDKs (for example, MX and Spark components), although this won't work for everything. There is some migration to go to the latest SDK, but this is not different for any other SDK (PHP4 to 5?.NET 3.0 to 3.5?, etc).
Here's the thing : As a student or faculity of the university, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in things like email. Email has become the major communications tool of this era. By switching to a 3rd party service like Google, that expectation of privacy goes out the window. If two faculity are working on a research project, there is no gaurentee that Google won't have one of their 'snafu's again where they expose your private email to others or the world. Remeber, research is what really powers the dollars for schools like Yale -- and an issue with exposed or leaked emails could cause the university millions.
Giving this up to a 3rd party runs into the "your data" vs. "my data" type of senerio. Your shit vs. my stuff in the words of George Carlin. If there is a privacy breech, and you run the email server, you know who to contact, you make the correction immediatly, and you deal with it. When a 3rd party company like Google has an issue, they "look into it", and rarely take the same steps to correct the issue. We've already seen that once when email was being delivered to students that the wrong university!
Yet, they are saving a dollar. It makes some IT manager's issues go away for not having to run yet another critical service.
The VideoFurnace product they are using allows users to stream the video using Multicast, using their VOD (Video On Demand) module. In theory, this content can be viewed anywhere on the UCLA Multicast Domain, which also includes a majority of the Internet2. Generally this is seen as "on campus only" Consumers cannot watch this content from home, as most commericial ISPs don't participate in Internet2, nor do they support multicast. Additionally, the VideoFurance equipment allows for this content to be encrypted, which disallows users to simply copy the content.
I'm sure this server room won't hold things like : Routers/Switches, Patch Panels, Telco Equipment, Firewalls, HVAC, Emergency Annunicators, Video equipment, etc. Plus, there should never be any room for growth in a building that is scoped to last at least 50 years.
Uncompressed 1080p video using MPEG2 is 38.0 mbps. This is a speed that is theoritically available to most wireless networks, but as soon as you have other wireless devices in the mix, it is very improbable. Even with 802.11n, when you mix in that you are most likely talking to a WAP with both devices, plus distance limitations, and other bandwidth contention (oh, you wanted to stream that YouTube video from the net, and display it wirelessly from your laptop?), you are in a world of hurt.
The other issue you will run into is lag and jitter. Realtime video, in general is effected very greatly by jitter. Wireless, just by its nature introduces LOTS of jitter into the stream.
You didn't buy OSX, you bought a LICENSE to OSX. In the leagal world (which it seems most/.'ers have no idea about), there is a big difference.
You cannot do what you wish with a piece of licensed software. You don't own it, the source code, etc. The license you purchase allows you to do only certain things with it, and in this case, only on certain hardware.
Your example of branding is incorrect. They say in the EULA : "This license is only valid on Apple Hardware [defined earlier as computers, electronics and devices manfactured by the Apple Computer Corporation of California]. Additionally, you break very clear trademark rules if you were to use the Apple logo, brand or other representations of their product without their permission. You do not have the right to label your Chevy as a Ford -- and you can be sued for doing so.
With digital content, you often don't/buy/ the item/record/song/book, but you buy a license to it. In the legal world, there has been a rift in the difference between a tangable and non-tangable item (a digital item being the 2nd). I license can specify what you can and can't do with that item. For example, sure you can "buy" a DVD of Mickey Mouse, but you can't use it for public display outside your private residence. Conversly, if you buy somebody's handwritten note (let's say Michael Jackson's DNR note to his doctor), a tangleable item, you purchased all rights to it (within reason). Digital copies, (I should say controlled copies in general) as appososed to the physical items that those items represent are defined differently in law. Copies are typically governed by licenses to use the product, and subsidized by less and less powerful laws like fair-use.
Just because you pay money for something dosen't mean you bought it. Paying $30 to ride a rollercoaster does not make me own it, just like spending $30 to watch a movie does not give me unlimited rights to that movie either.
But according to TFA, Rosetta Stone's big beef with the system is that there are companies selling ILLEGAL, and pirated versions of their software, and marketing it via Adwords. Essentially, if you look up Rosetta Stone's adword, you will see people selling "Rosetta Stone" for $50, when the software has an NPL of ~$500. There are also others that are selling "Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software", and when you visit their website, they only have look-alike software. This is perfectly in their right to ask the Goog to remove these listings -- they DO infringe on their trademark. And technically, they are doing their duty by defending their trademark in this case (if they do not defend it, it could be said to be diluted, and can no longer be claimed as being theirs).
I would disagree with this... Many hardware manufactures will not develop drivers for the Linux/Unix based platforms because they don't want to spend the R&D for a driver that could potentially be very complicated, for just a niche market. This is the same reason why they don't make OS/2 or BeOS -- they are niche products. A company will often make a decision -- do they delay a product for an additional 4 weeks in market time and make the Linux drivers, or do they ignore the potential 2% of the market? In the server world, the market share is much, much higher, which is why server-class products always have Linux drivers available for them.
The BLOB discussion is one that is pretty interesting too. Many Linux enthusiast don't realize that hardware manufactures have lots of patents that they've applied for, and often have to deal with purchasing rights to certain patents to create their products. When you have to deal in that world, you can't just give away the source code, especially if it deals with any of those technologies. They are still allowing interop with their products for these OSes, but they also protect their IP.
Really? You are concerned about that? Go browse the web for 10 minutes, and show me which websites DON'T use pre-packaged AJAX/JavaScript libraries. EXT, YUI, etc., are all over the place, and used every day. The fact these contractors used these OSS libraries shouldn't concern anybody -- really. Nothing to see here, go on with your Microsoft basing.
So, in the IPTV/CATV VLC is still seen is the gold-standard. It's funny when you work with vendors like Moto or others that they all tell you to use VLC as a way to diag or troubleshoot their equipment. The only issue I still have with it is that the OSX version still can't play Mutlicast MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 content. The Windows and Linux version do it just fine:)
The number one goal I keep seeing in Slashdot is to make year 200x the year of the Linux Desktop. Ok, but we still aren't there yet. People want their packages and products to be used by the general public, just like their Windows counterparts.
The problem is when stuff dosen't work out of the box or breaks. The number one response outside insulting the user is "Well, you code it!". This really isn't a valid response to a majority of the users out there. Sure, they may be smart enough to install Linux, install additional applications, etc. but to expect them to pick up C++, C, Java, etc. just because that is what your APIs are written in, is very short-sighted.
It may be that these people DO want to contribute back to the community, but have no good way to do it. Should they go to a community college and learn a programming language? Sure, that would be great, but after two semesters, would you allow this newbie programmer to start coding patchrs to your app?
It's not that there aren't critics to linux, it just that the community dosen't hear them. They dismis them before they understand where the person is coming from.
Why am I up in arms about this? If you want to work in MY country, then you can apply for a visa and get a workers permit like the rest of us. The process takes time, and is a real pain in the ass, but that allows you to work here legally.
The H1B visa is a visa that allows an employer to fill a job, temporarily while they find a qualified person to do the job, or for that person to start the application process to get a normal visa. It is not a cost savings, it is not a way to 'insource' certain tasks. H1B had a place when everybody was working and certain talents were in much greater demand than people were available in the USA that had those talents. That is NOT the case for 99.999% of the jobs, especially those sales positions that the banks were looking to replace.
If you fire somebody, don't replace them immediately with a foreign worker on a temporary visa. They proves right then and there there WAS somebody to do the job, and is against the impetuous of the H1B Visa.
What teachers really need is :
- Basic computer training. You would be amazed as to how many still can't figure out basic things like email, powerpoint or other similar 'basic' applications
- Updated material. I was talking with a friend who is still in high-school, and his civics book still has no mention of the 42nd or 43rd President. Oh, yeah, and his European Culture class still has a chapter about the Berlin Wall -- an object that hasn't been apart of European culture since before he was born.
- More salary. Many of the bankers went before congress defending their massive bonuses and payouts to employees using bailout money in order to retain the best talent. How are we ever going to get the best talent into teaching if we pay them slightly above minimum wage?! Show me a teacher that hasn't reached tenure who isn't struggling, and I'll show you a person who must have married rich.
- Better Student/Parent relationships. If teachers wouldn't be spending all their time baby-sitting, they could actually teach relevant stuff. School isn't a place where kids learn, it's a place kids > age of 5 go for the day while mommy and daddy are at work.
Once these issues are fixed, then maybe teachers could spend some time learning about the latest FOSS craze.
Almost any University I have dealt with (I currently work for one), all students waive their rights for any IP they create while enrolled at the university. There is no negotiation with this point at 99.9% i know of.
Intellictual Property is one of the strongest points of most Universities this day and age. They take it VERY seriously.
You've got to be doing something wrong. I've written extremely large applications, deployed to call centers with over 5,000 people logged in at any given moment. We load up thousands of very complex records for our end users and while there is a memory hit, the computers barely blink. Tricks like lazy-loading and true data management can allow you do distribute this data in a very intelligent, managed and predictable manner.
My guess is you are using one of those bulky frameworks like Cairngorm that has many known issues, like instantiation of variables in a way that leave references to them once they are no longer used.
There is a comment below your post that talks about the doLater() style functions. If used properly, this is a pretty neat way of doing certain things. In stead of doing a blocking call that could effect the performance of your application, why not split it up, and push it off if the user doesn't need it that milisecond. That allows the VM to better optimize when things get done (like cleaning up memory, or updating the display). You have to remember that the AS VM in the Flash Player is not truely multi-threaded, (it simulated multi-threadedness) so this technique is very useful to do things like, lets say do 5,000 very complex math queries.
The NES emulator, while originating in C++ was complied down to ActionScript bytecode. The output was a.SWF that could be played by any Flash player (9+)
Slashdot Mirror
Ever since we installed the Springfield Bear Protection System, there haven't been any bears in our neighborhood! It works great!
That is incorrect. Comcast encrypts virtually all channels, so a standard ClearQAM tuner that is available on the television set will not work. Comcast will require an external box for all their channels (they may not today for OTA channels, but they will as of 2012 when they are legally allowed to encrypt EVERYTHING).
I would actually say that their development tools are still top-notch. The new stuff is really efficient, easy to use and pretty quick. The biggest problems I see with the Microsoft tools are :
(a) You are locked into the Microsoft Stack. You need to run your creations on the Microsoft platform which has a higher TCO than alternatives. Also, if you plan on making that hip-new-app, you need to release at the very least on Win and Mac, which the Microsoft Stack has a hard time with (don't bring up Mono -- it's great as a toy, but in all honesty, I would not trust it for production) .NET runtime is a moving target. I know developers who have had to basically trash all of their work to target the latest .NET Runtime. 1.0 -> 1.1 -> 1.3 -> 2.0 all required major rewrites, lots of refactoring, and lots of work. This is not just to get the new features, this is just to make it compile. Heck, even going from 3.5 to 4.0 will cost MAJOR development time and money because they changed everything around AGAIN.
(b) The tools ARE expensive. Who can drop $1500 every other year for their tools? Large businesses, sure. Businesses that don't make money yet can't. Let alone the MSDN and TechNet Subscriptions you need, which will set you back thousands of dollars more.
(c) The
and how would things like roaming work? I'm sure there are lots of cases when you are not on your own carrier's network (even if it says it on your phone's screen).....
I would second the UMA option. On our campus we have OK cell reception, but if you go into any basements or the center of the buildings, very rarely is there any good reception. Kicking on UMA with my BlackBerry allows me to continue my conversations. What is really nice is it will 'roam' between the WiFi and Cell, choosing whichever has the strongest signal. It does this automatically.
If you have a newer BlackBerry (with OS5 or better), you can 'train' the device to login to a captive portal, if your school uses one. You login once, it asks if you want to store the credentials, and away you go.
As far as quality goes, it really matters on your school's WiFi and internet access. Of course, this will affect any VoIP provider and solution, so that shouldn't make a different. Quality-wise, I can't tell if I'm on UMA or Cellular service at my place -- but then again they have awesome internet access :)
Hate to break it to you -- SWF, and just about everything else Flash is open-source and published standards. The only thing that is closed source is the Flash Player -- which utilizes licensed technologies (MP3, Video codecs, etc), so it legally can't be.
There are LOTS of tools that can output to the SWF standard. Tools written in Eclipse, Visual Studio, and lots of stand-alone tools.
Another thought -- how about you actually take a look at some ActionScript code too? ActionScript 3 is based on ECMA, which is what C++ and other languages are based on. It's OOP in almost every way.
How about doing some research before you spout off. Oh, right, this is /. , so you don't need to.
For some odd reason, this guy can't figure out that there is a difference between the IDE and the SDK. The Flash Builder IDE, which was released last week supports both the older 2.x, and 3.x SDKs. Not only does it support it, it has all the code hinting, wizards, and everything else one would expect from an IDE. Targeting a different SDK version is as simple as chainging the properties in your project.
The newer 4.0 SDK is different, but nobody is forcing you to use it. It is an open-source project (http://opensource.adobe.com), sponsored by Adobe. It's been cooking for about the last year and a half with hundreds of betas and builds posted on their website. It does change some of the features around regarding CSS, states, etc., but again, there is no impetitus for you to move to it today. If you have an active application in development, you can even mix-and-match some portions of the SDKs (for example, MX and Spark components), although this won't work for everything. There is some migration to go to the latest SDK, but this is not different for any other SDK (PHP4 to 5? .NET 3.0 to 3.5?, etc).
Basic whining, picked up by /.
Here's the thing : As a student or faculity of the university, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in things like email. Email has become the major communications tool of this era. By switching to a 3rd party service like Google, that expectation of privacy goes out the window. If two faculity are working on a research project, there is no gaurentee that Google won't have one of their 'snafu's again where they expose your private email to others or the world. Remeber, research is what really powers the dollars for schools like Yale -- and an issue with exposed or leaked emails could cause the university millions.
Giving this up to a 3rd party runs into the "your data" vs. "my data" type of senerio. Your shit vs. my stuff in the words of George Carlin. If there is a privacy breech, and you run the email server, you know who to contact, you make the correction immediatly, and you deal with it. When a 3rd party company like Google has an issue, they "look into it", and rarely take the same steps to correct the issue. We've already seen that once when email was being delivered to students that the wrong university!
Yet, they are saving a dollar. It makes some IT manager's issues go away for not having to run yet another critical service.
The VideoFurnace product they are using allows users to stream the video using Multicast, using their VOD (Video On Demand) module. In theory, this content can be viewed anywhere on the UCLA Multicast Domain, which also includes a majority of the Internet2. Generally this is seen as "on campus only" Consumers cannot watch this content from home, as most commericial ISPs don't participate in Internet2, nor do they support multicast. Additionally, the VideoFurance equipment allows for this content to be encrypted, which disallows users to simply copy the content.
I'm sure this server room won't hold things like : Routers/Switches, Patch Panels, Telco Equipment, Firewalls, HVAC, Emergency Annunicators, Video equipment, etc. Plus, there should never be any room for growth in a building that is scoped to last at least 50 years.
Come-on guys. let's do that common sence thing.
Uncompressed 1080p video using MPEG2 is 38.0 mbps. This is a speed that is theoritically available to most wireless networks, but as soon as you have other wireless devices in the mix, it is very improbable. Even with 802.11n, when you mix in that you are most likely talking to a WAP with both devices, plus distance limitations, and other bandwidth contention (oh, you wanted to stream that YouTube video from the net, and display it wirelessly from your laptop?), you are in a world of hurt.
The other issue you will run into is lag and jitter. Realtime video, in general is effected very greatly by jitter. Wireless, just by its nature introduces LOTS of jitter into the stream.
You didn't buy OSX, you bought a LICENSE to OSX. In the leagal world (which it seems most /.'ers have no idea about), there is a big difference.
You cannot do what you wish with a piece of licensed software. You don't own it, the source code, etc. The license you purchase allows you to do only certain things with it, and in this case, only on certain hardware.
Your example of branding is incorrect. They say in the EULA : "This license is only valid on Apple Hardware [defined earlier as computers, electronics and devices manfactured by the Apple Computer Corporation of California]. Additionally, you break very clear trademark rules if you were to use the Apple logo, brand or other representations of their product without their permission. You do not have the right to label your Chevy as a Ford -- and you can be sued for doing so.
With digital content, you often don't /buy/ the item/record/song/book, but you buy a license to it. In the legal world, there has been a rift in the difference between a tangable and non-tangable item (a digital item being the 2nd). I license can specify what you can and can't do with that item. For example, sure you can "buy" a DVD of Mickey Mouse, but you can't use it for public display outside your private residence. Conversly, if you buy somebody's handwritten note (let's say Michael Jackson's DNR note to his doctor), a tangleable item, you purchased all rights to it (within reason). Digital copies, (I should say controlled copies in general) as appososed to the physical items that those items represent are defined differently in law. Copies are typically governed by licenses to use the product, and subsidized by less and less powerful laws like fair-use.
Just because you pay money for something dosen't mean you bought it. Paying $30 to ride a rollercoaster does not make me own it, just like spending $30 to watch a movie does not give me unlimited rights to that movie either.
But according to TFA, Rosetta Stone's big beef with the system is that there are companies selling ILLEGAL, and pirated versions of their software, and marketing it via Adwords. Essentially, if you look up Rosetta Stone's adword, you will see people selling "Rosetta Stone" for $50, when the software has an NPL of ~$500. There are also others that are selling "Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software", and when you visit their website, they only have look-alike software. This is perfectly in their right to ask the Goog to remove these listings -- they DO infringe on their trademark. And technically, they are doing their duty by defending their trademark in this case (if they do not defend it, it could be said to be diluted, and can no longer be claimed as being theirs).
I would disagree with this... Many hardware manufactures will not develop drivers for the Linux/Unix based platforms because they don't want to spend the R&D for a driver that could potentially be very complicated, for just a niche market. This is the same reason why they don't make OS/2 or BeOS -- they are niche products. A company will often make a decision -- do they delay a product for an additional 4 weeks in market time and make the Linux drivers, or do they ignore the potential 2% of the market? In the server world, the market share is much, much higher, which is why server-class products always have Linux drivers available for them.
The BLOB discussion is one that is pretty interesting too. Many Linux enthusiast don't realize that hardware manufactures have lots of patents that they've applied for, and often have to deal with purchasing rights to certain patents to create their products. When you have to deal in that world, you can't just give away the source code, especially if it deals with any of those technologies. They are still allowing interop with their products for these OSes, but they also protect their IP.
Really? You are concerned about that? Go browse the web for 10 minutes, and show me which websites DON'T use pre-packaged AJAX/JavaScript libraries. EXT, YUI, etc., are all over the place, and used every day. The fact these contractors used these OSS libraries shouldn't concern anybody -- really. Nothing to see here, go on with your Microsoft basing.
Flex, along with the SWF standard /ARE/ opensourced. http://opensource.adobe.com./ JavaFX and Silverlight are not. Sorry.
So, in the IPTV/CATV VLC is still seen is the gold-standard. It's funny when you work with vendors like Moto or others that they all tell you to use VLC as a way to diag or troubleshoot their equipment. The only issue I still have with it is that the OSX version still can't play Mutlicast MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 content. The Windows and Linux version do it just fine :)
The number one goal I keep seeing in Slashdot is to make year 200x the year of the Linux Desktop. Ok, but we still aren't there yet. People want their packages and products to be used by the general public, just like their Windows counterparts.
The problem is when stuff dosen't work out of the box or breaks. The number one response outside insulting the user is "Well, you code it!". This really isn't a valid response to a majority of the users out there. Sure, they may be smart enough to install Linux, install additional applications, etc. but to expect them to pick up C++, C, Java, etc. just because that is what your APIs are written in, is very short-sighted.
It may be that these people DO want to contribute back to the community, but have no good way to do it. Should they go to a community college and learn a programming language? Sure, that would be great, but after two semesters, would you allow this newbie programmer to start coding patchrs to your app?
It's not that there aren't critics to linux, it just that the community dosen't hear them. They dismis them before they understand where the person is coming from.
Why am I up in arms about this? If you want to work in MY country, then you can apply for a visa and get a workers permit like the rest of us. The process takes time, and is a real pain in the ass, but that allows you to work here legally.
The H1B visa is a visa that allows an employer to fill a job, temporarily while they find a qualified person to do the job, or for that person to start the application process to get a normal visa. It is not a cost savings, it is not a way to 'insource' certain tasks. H1B had a place when everybody was working and certain talents were in much greater demand than people were available in the USA that had those talents. That is NOT the case for 99.999% of the jobs, especially those sales positions that the banks were looking to replace.
If you fire somebody, don't replace them immediately with a foreign worker on a temporary visa. They proves right then and there there WAS somebody to do the job, and is against the impetuous of the H1B Visa.
What teachers really need is :
- Basic computer training. You would be amazed as to how many still can't figure out basic things like email, powerpoint or other similar 'basic' applications
- Updated material. I was talking with a friend who is still in high-school, and his civics book still has no mention of the 42nd or 43rd President. Oh, yeah, and his European Culture class still has a chapter about the Berlin Wall -- an object that hasn't been apart of European culture since before he was born.
- More salary. Many of the bankers went before congress defending their massive bonuses and payouts to employees using bailout money in order to retain the best talent. How are we ever going to get the best talent into teaching if we pay them slightly above minimum wage?! Show me a teacher that hasn't reached tenure who isn't struggling, and I'll show you a person who must have married rich.
- Better Student/Parent relationships. If teachers wouldn't be spending all their time baby-sitting, they could actually teach relevant stuff. School isn't a place where kids learn, it's a place kids > age of 5 go for the day while mommy and daddy are at work.
Once these issues are fixed, then maybe teachers could spend some time learning about the latest FOSS craze.
Almost any University I have dealt with (I currently work for one), all students waive their rights for any IP they create while enrolled at the university. There is no negotiation with this point at 99.9% i know of.
Intellictual Property is one of the strongest points of most Universities this day and age. They take it VERY seriously.
You've got to be doing something wrong. I've written extremely large applications, deployed to call centers with over 5,000 people logged in at any given moment. We load up thousands of very complex records for our end users and while there is a memory hit, the computers barely blink. Tricks like lazy-loading and true data management can allow you do distribute this data in a very intelligent, managed and predictable manner.
My guess is you are using one of those bulky frameworks like Cairngorm that has many known issues, like instantiation of variables in a way that leave references to them once they are no longer used.
There is a comment below your post that talks about the doLater() style functions. If used properly, this is a pretty neat way of doing certain things. In stead of doing a blocking call that could effect the performance of your application, why not split it up, and push it off if the user doesn't need it that milisecond. That allows the VM to better optimize when things get done (like cleaning up memory, or updating the display). You have to remember that the AS VM in the Flash Player is not truely multi-threaded, (it simulated multi-threadedness) so this technique is very useful to do things like, lets say do 5,000 very complex math queries.
The NES emulator, while originating in C++ was complied down to ActionScript bytecode. The output was a .SWF that could be played by any Flash player (9+)
I think you are confusing Adobe with Microsoft....