The problem isn't that morality back in the day was different (i.e. more primitive). The problem is that, faithheads think that what's written in the book is absolute. So the example of Mohammed sleeping with a 9 year old, or the bible advocating slavery, genocide etc. are examples to prove that modern morality is far better than the obviously flawed "absolute" morality advocated in those books.
I don't think even that's the problem. I find that many things that work reasonably well in Windows and Mac OS X do not work properly on many Linux distributions. There may be understandable reasons for this, but in practical terms, it's a really big problem.
For example, I have a docking station for my Lenovo X201. When I put my laptop on the docking station, it should automatically switch to the external display - at the correct resolution. When I open my laptop lid, it should activate both. When I boot up while docked and lid closed, only external display should come on at the correct resolution. About an year ago (which is when I tested last), it didn't do any of these things perfectly, It kept forgetting the resolution of the external display, and I had to keep readjusting it. Opening and closing the lid was a slow and unbearable affair.
This is apart from the fact that the graphics are pretty sluggish, with occasional tearing etc. Scrolling and panning were also fairly slow. Intel drivers are correctly installed. The UI just doesn't have the polish and smoothness that Android, Windows and OS X do. The fonts are also pretty ugly by default, The buttons and layouts look squished or otherwise disproportionate. There are many many similar hiccups as the ones outlined above. As a point of comparison, I'll point out that I started using Mac OS X only recently, and have found it instantly more pleasant and intuitive to use, although I still find Windows to provide the most flexibility, especially when it comes to multi-monitor support.
Android is a testament to the fact that fluid and beautiful desktops on Linux are entirely possible, on a range of hardware. I think KDE (my favourite) and Gnome just need to stop worrying about new features, and just polish their existing experience. Alternatively, maybe the trick to finally having Linux on the Desktop, is to have Android on the Desktop.
To clarify further, it's not just targeted advertising that will be possible with this data. It is very likely that one's political affiliations, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and other hidden thoughts and opinions etc. can be predicted with this data. In the hands of some ideally benevolent government, all data may be benign. In the hands of a despotic one, it can be used to detect and eliminate any and all opposition - a witch hunt to end all witch hunts.
Amazon only has access to a certain restricted aspect of your social life - your purchase preferences for certain internet goods. But if Amazon's info could be combined with facebook's database, your location information from google maps, your browsing history from your ISP, your supermarket profile, your movie preferences, your medical history etc. etc. (basically, the Database of Ruin the author is talking about) and I'd wager those Amazon recommendations are going to be a whole lot more accurate.
Umm... Would the name calling gentleman be so kind as to explain, why incidents like this are very rare in countries which do not provide ready access to guns to the general public?
I might add, the writing has been on the wall for sometime now, and Google is still wasting time preparing for an all-cloud future with Chrome OS, although I recall hearing about plans to merge with Android. Still, local storage + processing isn't going away any-time soon, not till internet connections are uniformly 100mbps+ or something. So I don't see the point in preparing for a future cloud-only battle if you lose the current tablet battle and aren't relevant any more for the future.
Of course, Google can still reign in the mobile phone market, because Microsoft isn't going to be able to break into that market any time soon.
I recommend that you read his views, and rationale, straight from the source and gain a proper appreciation of his position, rather than sensationalist news blurbs written by reporters who never bothered to. Singer is a pretty amazing guy, and you'll find that he's a more ethical person than most. There's a reason he's a professor of bioethics at Princeton, and the people doing the reporting, are not.
My mind has been changed on the ethics of that and it was Peter Singer who convinced me of the fact. It's an argument rooted not only in minimizing harm to sentient creatures (and avoiding speciesism), but also on the arguably more distasteful issue another poster mentioned, that of how animals are treated in farms.
Singer's article here provides the latter argument, but I can't recall sources for his former argument. Perhaps here.
I am looking forward to the wide availability of lab-grown meat. It'll be an altogether more humane alternative to what we are engaging in now. Plus, on a personal note, it'll make me less of a hypocrite, because I still eat meat. As they say, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
I won't call this a debate, because a debate implies a particular position, and I don't have one. Let's just call it being the devil's advocate.
However, I will point out that the abstract nature of an algorithm, vs an engineered product has not really been established. By this I mean, a recipe for creating an engineering product is also abstract. For example, a sequence of steps A, B, C in manufacturing product X is abstract, until it is implemented in some concrete product.
Therefore, the "abstract nature" of software (also a recipe) provide no distinguishable difference from an industrial process (also abstract).
So all I'm saying is, there needs to be something more evident here which establishes the difference. Personally, I dislike that idea of any kind of recipe being patented, because I think they are all ideas at the end of the day, and attempts to claim rights to those are attempts to claim rights to thoughts, and ultimately, to police thought. However, I also see the need to compensate inventors. I just don't see a clear solution.
I'm not sure I understand why software operating on abstract data makes it fundamentally different though? It seems like an assertion, and not a fact? I think that in patents, what is being valued is not what it operates on, but the process by which it is achieved. For example, if a certain industrial process operates on air, which is available abundantly and has nil material value, it's not the air we patent right? It's the process, or recipe. In the software case, the "object" it operates on, the data, by itself has no material value. But nevertheless, both the software and the industrial process are both recipes, steps for achieving something. I don't understand the difference?
So it looks to me like, either both should be patentable or neither should be.
Interesting points about crypto and patenting mathematics.
But what is your take on patenting software in general? What is the difference between an algorithm and an industrial process? Aren't they both "recipes"? If so, should both be patentable? or neither?
Following from that, why is patenting beneficial for industrial processes but not for software?
I'm not really advocating patents nor renouncing them, just trying to get a better idea.
I wasn't talking about trees, not am I interested in pedantic discussions on semantics. I'm saying that in this context, specifically that of someone creating a piece of software, music, or whatever in order to make a living out of it, it's reasonable to expect that others should pay to consume it. It's reasonable to state that if they don't get paid for it, they will have no means of earning their livelihood through their work, which essentially harms the creative process. No type of excuse can hide this bare fact.
The answer to this problem is not to deny that it is happening, which is nonsense, but to understand that the problem lies in greed and exploitation. Popular media is an essential part of culture. Denying people access to that media is essentially a way of denying people access to culture, an essential part of their social existence. Charging such high prices is a form of extortion. It is akin to charging $10 bucks for a glass of water (hyperbole, but you get the idea). Again, there's no need for extremist interpretations here, like, "oh hang on, you won't drop dead because you couldn't watch a movie" etc. Try not to miss the wood for the trees!
The solution is, make things cheap, make it accessible, and make money on sheer, staggering volume. Make people respect copyright by not making copyright a joke. They can start by abolishing the ability to hang onto copyright hundreds of years after the original author is dead.
Once you enter the professional world (e.g. get a job in that business) you become part of the decision process on which software the company should purchase. Since you will have already gathered experience in photoshop, the company might be more inclined to go with that instead of GIMP.
This argument might apply to software used in the industry like photoshop, but how will it apply to something like games, intended for personal use?
That's why I think the "piracy is good" argument makes no sense. Piracy is the act of using something without giving money for it. Let's not try to kid ourselves into thinking it's a virtue.
Personally, I think that the way to stop piracy is for industries to stop being greedy. It's just not reasonable to expect the massive prices that are demanded for every song, movie, game etc. etc. on the market. People consume a lot of media. The daily bombardments of advertising is to ensure that this happens. For people to be "in" on the scene, they need to consume this stuff. But who has the money to pay $80 per game? or $20 per "3D" movie ticket? Companies need to sell items cheap and make money on volume. And they can!
High prices or high volume, pick 1. If you charge a high price, expect to cater to a niche market and for the masses to pirate. If you want high volume, charge a low price.
Instead, these guys want to charge a high price and have volume to boot. Greedy bastards.
I find it interesting though, that Sebastian Thrun gets so much attention, and Andrew Ng for example, gets no mention. I think that Ng poured in a tremendous amount of effort to teach an absolutely outstanding class with far more structured and well-developed content.
Don't get me wrong, Thrun is an enthusiastic and obviously knowledgeable individual, but having followed both AI and ML classes, I was of the opinion that Andrew Ng was the better teacher. Thrun needs to improve his teaching skills, so that he can impart his great store of knowledge better to students. Although that is my personal opinion, I think you might find that it is backed by some evidence, if you were to trawl through the comments on the respective forums of the AI and ML classes. Overall, both of them + Peter Norvig and the rest of their teams, made fantastic contributions, and that should be recognized equally, whenever possible!
That's the best counter-argument I've received so far - the cost factor. Thanks! But we have to factor in the half a billion people that use MS office. As I've outlined over the course of this thread, for that sizeable population, the cost factor will be offset by the fact that you can own one single portable device, instead of two. I think the argument can be settled by analyzing how many people use a "tablet" currently as their one single personal computer. I'm guessing most people have two devices right now - one running windows. In future, when tablets are as powerful as current PCs, the situation will be even more skewed in favour of Windows. Why spend money on a toy tablet running Android?
That's why I believe Google's word processing strategy is critical, among other things. I want Google to make sure MS's monopoly is finally broken. They need to cover all their bases - and half a billion word users need to be given serious consideration.
And wrt to the keyboard. I agree the keyboard is mandatory, but what's to prevent one from being plugged in at whim? (e.g. Asus Transformer)
I agree that Office is not critical for the table market - right now. That's because tablets are mostly toy devices right now. So users don't want to run office on it, as you've pointed out. But why will that not change in future? I'm saying that the miniaturization trend will culminate in laptops becoming ultrabooks, and ultrabooks becoming tablets with detachable mouse/keyboard/monitor. In other words, tablets will become the single main personal computer for most people. It's at that point that Office will be critical, unless Google has a viable alternative. Hope I've clarified my views better over the course of this thread.
I think there's a fundamental difference in the NT/RISC case with the Win8/ARM case. Which is that ARM devices are actually popular! Therefore, vendors definitely will have incentives to retarget their applications for ARM, assuming that Windows 8 becomes popular on ARM. BeerCat's contention that users need to do this recompilation makes no sense. When did the typical windows user ever compile from source? The vendors will publish x86 and ARM binaries on their websites. I think it's reasonable to conjecture that Microsoft Office will be available for ARM. Others will follow.
So the key question is, will Win 8 become popular on tablets? If the trend of miniaturization continues (and why wouldn't it?), with laptops becoming ultrabooks, and ultrabooks becoming transformers (basically, tablet + dock), then it stands to reason that Windows 8 will be the OS by default, as it is already the defacto PC operating system. As an additional bonus, hardware manufacturers can choose either ARM or x86 for their hardware, which means it'll be Intel that's in trouble, not Microsoft.
I don't know whether Google offering a "good enough" word processor will be enough, as you've suggested. Perhaps it will be, but we should keep in mind that a vast majority of users are heavily invested in Word/Excel documents, and are pretty much locked in. They may also be locked in because of other Apps, like Photoshop, or whatever. If apps don't matter, how can we explain Microsoft's strangle-hold on the OS market? What is Google's strategy for breaking that lock-in?
See my reply to the previous poster.
In summary: 94% of word processor use is MS Office.
And nowhere have I said that a keyboard/mouse is not needed. But what's to prevent you from hooking your future tablet to a 30" monitor and a keyboard?
You make some interesting points. However, the Win32 API will probably remain the same. As such, it will be a simple matter of recompiling legacy apps for ARM. I don't see the big problem here? Furthermore, enabling touch support for an existing code base is a matter of tweaking the UI layer. You could argue that those apps will not be very user friendly if not designed from the ground up to be touch friendly, but being able to leverage existing code means you're already halfway there.
As for your question of - why prefer it to a netbook? Because a tablet which has a detachable mouse and keyboard makes more sense than a netbook. Would you rather spend money on and lug around 3 or 4 devices, and maintain software on all of them, or have one device which does it all? I'm saying that things will eventually head that way. That's the only way Microsoft can break the tablet market. And in the process of doing so, they will kill the desktop PC/laptop market. Stuff like the Asus Transformer and the Motorola Atrix are a portent of things to come.
As for Word, MS word is the defacto word processing standard, whether we like it or not. 94% of the market is with Office. MS word, or extremely good compatibility with it, will be critical to most users. Libre Office compatibility with MS word is very poor. I have tried it, and have experienced it first hand. A piece of software that 94% of people use has every chance to make or break Android.
What I'm saying in summary is, if a user had a chance to buy a Windows 8 Tablet, and run Word on it (and connect mouse/keyboard to it), they'd probably buy that, instead of spending another $500 on an Android tablet on which they can do less.
Thanks for that clear answer. Sounds pretty bad to me although I think non-technical users might not care, but what interested me most was the bit about the 30% cut with the Metro App Store. All of this serves to highlight why Microsoft shouldn't dominate the tablet space. But my fears that they will, are I I believe, legitimate. Android very badly needs to think of itself as a proper OS, not just a mobile OS running toy applications. It needs to rethink of itself as being able to run serious software - everything from a full fledged word processor, to Photoshop to Crysis.
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The problem isn't that morality back in the day was different (i.e. more primitive). The problem is that, faithheads think that what's written in the book is absolute. So the example of Mohammed sleeping with a 9 year old, or the bible advocating slavery, genocide etc. are examples to prove that modern morality is far better than the obviously flawed "absolute" morality advocated in those books.
That is why this Aisha story comes up so often.
I don't think even that's the problem. I find that many things that work reasonably well in Windows and Mac OS X do not work properly on many Linux distributions. There may be understandable reasons for this, but in practical terms, it's a really big problem.
For example, I have a docking station for my Lenovo X201. When I put my laptop on the docking station, it should automatically switch to the external display - at the correct resolution. When I open my laptop lid, it should activate both. When I boot up while docked and lid closed, only external display should come on at the correct resolution. About an year ago (which is when I tested last), it didn't do any of these things perfectly, It kept forgetting the resolution of the external display, and I had to keep readjusting it. Opening and closing the lid was a slow and unbearable affair.
This is apart from the fact that the graphics are pretty sluggish, with occasional tearing etc. Scrolling and panning were also fairly slow. Intel drivers are correctly installed. The UI just doesn't have the polish and smoothness that Android, Windows and OS X do. The fonts are also pretty ugly by default, The buttons and layouts look squished or otherwise disproportionate. There are many many similar hiccups as the ones outlined above. As a point of comparison, I'll point out that I started using Mac OS X only recently, and have found it instantly more pleasant and intuitive to use, although I still find Windows to provide the most flexibility, especially when it comes to multi-monitor support.
Android is a testament to the fact that fluid and beautiful desktops on Linux are entirely possible, on a range of hardware. I think KDE (my favourite) and Gnome just need to stop worrying about new features, and just polish their existing experience. Alternatively, maybe the trick to finally having Linux on the Desktop, is to have Android on the Desktop.
What you said is interesting. Is this a personal opinion or are there any papers/sources you can refer me to? cheers!
To clarify further, it's not just targeted advertising that will be possible with this data. It is very likely that one's political affiliations, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and other hidden thoughts and opinions etc. can be predicted with this data. In the hands of some ideally benevolent government, all data may be benign. In the hands of a despotic one, it can be used to detect and eliminate any and all opposition - a witch hunt to end all witch hunts.
Shneier explains it well: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html
Amazon only has access to a certain restricted aspect of your social life - your purchase preferences for certain internet goods. But if Amazon's info could be combined with facebook's database, your location information from google maps, your browsing history from your ISP, your supermarket profile, your movie preferences, your medical history etc. etc. (basically, the Database of Ruin the author is talking about) and I'd wager those Amazon recommendations are going to be a whole lot more accurate.
Umm... Would the name calling gentleman be so kind as to explain, why incidents like this are very rare in countries which do not provide ready access to guns to the general public?
Oops, forgot to log-in.
I might add, the writing has been on the wall for sometime now, and Google is still wasting time preparing for an all-cloud future with Chrome OS, although I recall hearing about plans to merge with Android. Still, local storage + processing isn't going away any-time soon, not till internet connections are uniformly 100mbps+ or something. So I don't see the point in preparing for a future cloud-only battle if you lose the current tablet battle and aren't relevant any more for the future.
Of course, Google can still reign in the mobile phone market, because Microsoft isn't going to be able to break into that market any time soon.
People who subscribe to primitive taboo morality, cannot reason ethically by definition.
Oh well, should have known better than to respond to a troll! Good bye!
I recommend that you read his views, and rationale, straight from the source and gain a proper appreciation of his position, rather than sensationalist news blurbs written by reporters who never bothered to. Singer is a pretty amazing guy, and you'll find that he's a more ethical person than most. There's a reason he's a professor of bioethics at Princeton, and the people doing the reporting, are not.
Nothing wrong with killing animals for food....
My mind has been changed on the ethics of that and it was Peter Singer who convinced me of the fact. It's an argument rooted not only in minimizing harm to sentient creatures (and avoiding speciesism), but also on the arguably more distasteful issue another poster mentioned, that of how animals are treated in farms.
Singer's article here provides the latter argument, but I can't recall sources for his former argument. Perhaps here.
I am looking forward to the wide availability of lab-grown meat. It'll be an altogether more humane alternative to what we are engaging in now. Plus, on a personal note, it'll make me less of a hypocrite, because I still eat meat. As they say, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
If something can be virally adopted, it can be virally killed.
I won't call this a debate, because a debate implies a particular position, and I don't have one. Let's just call it being the devil's advocate.
However, I will point out that the abstract nature of an algorithm, vs an engineered product has not really been established. By this I mean, a recipe for creating an engineering product is also abstract. For example, a sequence of steps A, B, C in manufacturing product X is abstract, until it is implemented in some concrete product.
Therefore, the "abstract nature" of software (also a recipe) provide no distinguishable difference from an industrial process (also abstract).
So all I'm saying is, there needs to be something more evident here which establishes the difference. Personally, I dislike that idea of any kind of recipe being patented, because I think they are all ideas at the end of the day, and attempts to claim rights to those are attempts to claim rights to thoughts, and ultimately, to police thought. However, I also see the need to compensate inventors. I just don't see a clear solution.
Sorry about the delay in replying.
I'm not sure I understand why software operating on abstract data makes it fundamentally different though? It seems like an assertion, and not a fact? I think that in patents, what is being valued is not what it operates on, but the process by which it is achieved. For example, if a certain industrial process operates on air, which is available abundantly and has nil material value, it's not the air we patent right? It's the process, or recipe. In the software case, the "object" it operates on, the data, by itself has no material value. But nevertheless, both the software and the industrial process are both recipes, steps for achieving something. I don't understand the difference?
So it looks to me like, either both should be patentable or neither should be.
Interesting points about crypto and patenting mathematics.
But what is your take on patenting software in general? What is the difference between an algorithm and an industrial process? Aren't they both "recipes"? If so, should both be patentable? or neither?
Following from that, why is patenting beneficial for industrial processes but not for software?
I'm not really advocating patents nor renouncing them, just trying to get a better idea.
I wasn't talking about trees, not am I interested in pedantic discussions on semantics. I'm saying that in this context, specifically that of someone creating a piece of software, music, or whatever in order to make a living out of it, it's reasonable to expect that others should pay to consume it. It's reasonable to state that if they don't get paid for it, they will have no means of earning their livelihood through their work, which essentially harms the creative process. No type of excuse can hide this bare fact.
The answer to this problem is not to deny that it is happening, which is nonsense, but to understand that the problem lies in greed and exploitation. Popular media is an essential part of culture. Denying people access to that media is essentially a way of denying people access to culture, an essential part of their social existence. Charging such high prices is a form of extortion. It is akin to charging $10 bucks for a glass of water (hyperbole, but you get the idea). Again, there's no need for extremist interpretations here, like, "oh hang on, you won't drop dead because you couldn't watch a movie" etc. Try not to miss the wood for the trees!
The solution is, make things cheap, make it accessible, and make money on sheer, staggering volume. Make people respect copyright by not making copyright a joke. They can start by abolishing the ability to hang onto copyright hundreds of years after the original author is dead.
It is.
Once you enter the professional world (e.g. get a job in that business) you become part of the decision process on which software the company should purchase. Since you will have already gathered experience in photoshop, the company might be more inclined to go with that instead of GIMP.
This argument might apply to software used in the industry like photoshop, but how will it apply to something like games, intended for personal use?
That's why I think the "piracy is good" argument makes no sense. Piracy is the act of using something without giving money for it. Let's not try to kid ourselves into thinking it's a virtue.
Personally, I think that the way to stop piracy is for industries to stop being greedy. It's just not reasonable to expect the massive prices that are demanded for every song, movie, game etc. etc. on the market. People consume a lot of media. The daily bombardments of advertising is to ensure that this happens. For people to be "in" on the scene, they need to consume this stuff. But who has the money to pay $80 per game? or $20 per "3D" movie ticket? Companies need to sell items cheap and make money on volume. And they can!
High prices or high volume, pick 1. If you charge a high price, expect to cater to a niche market and for the masses to pirate. If you want high volume, charge a low price.
Instead, these guys want to charge a high price and have volume to boot. Greedy bastards.
I find it interesting though, that Sebastian Thrun gets so much attention, and Andrew Ng for example, gets no mention. I think that Ng poured in a tremendous amount of effort to teach an absolutely outstanding class with far more structured and well-developed content.
Don't get me wrong, Thrun is an enthusiastic and obviously knowledgeable individual, but having followed both AI and ML classes, I was of the opinion that Andrew Ng was the better teacher. Thrun needs to improve his teaching skills, so that he can impart his great store of knowledge better to students. Although that is my personal opinion, I think you might find that it is backed by some evidence, if you were to trawl through the comments on the respective forums of the AI and ML classes. Overall, both of them + Peter Norvig and the rest of their teams, made fantastic contributions, and that should be recognized equally, whenever possible!
This is a guy who's trying to stop the wheel of time from turning.
That's the best counter-argument I've received so far - the cost factor. Thanks! But we have to factor in the half a billion people that use MS office. As I've outlined over the course of this thread, for that sizeable population, the cost factor will be offset by the fact that you can own one single portable device, instead of two. I think the argument can be settled by analyzing how many people use a "tablet" currently as their one single personal computer. I'm guessing most people have two devices right now - one running windows. In future, when tablets are as powerful as current PCs, the situation will be even more skewed in favour of Windows. Why spend money on a toy tablet running Android?
That's why I believe Google's word processing strategy is critical, among other things. I want Google to make sure MS's monopoly is finally broken. They need to cover all their bases - and half a billion word users need to be given serious consideration.
And wrt to the keyboard. I agree the keyboard is mandatory, but what's to prevent one from being plugged in at whim? (e.g. Asus Transformer)
I agree that Office is not critical for the table market - right now. That's because tablets are mostly toy devices right now. So users don't want to run office on it, as you've pointed out. But why will that not change in future? I'm saying that the miniaturization trend will culminate in laptops becoming ultrabooks, and ultrabooks becoming tablets with detachable mouse/keyboard/monitor. In other words, tablets will become the single main personal computer for most people. It's at that point that Office will be critical, unless Google has a viable alternative. Hope I've clarified my views better over the course of this thread.
I think there's a fundamental difference in the NT/RISC case with the Win8/ARM case. Which is that ARM devices are actually popular! Therefore, vendors definitely will have incentives to retarget their applications for ARM, assuming that Windows 8 becomes popular on ARM. BeerCat's contention that users need to do this recompilation makes no sense. When did the typical windows user ever compile from source? The vendors will publish x86 and ARM binaries on their websites. I think it's reasonable to conjecture that Microsoft Office will be available for ARM. Others will follow.
So the key question is, will Win 8 become popular on tablets? If the trend of miniaturization continues (and why wouldn't it?), with laptops becoming ultrabooks, and ultrabooks becoming transformers (basically, tablet + dock), then it stands to reason that Windows 8 will be the OS by default, as it is already the defacto PC operating system. As an additional bonus, hardware manufacturers can choose either ARM or x86 for their hardware, which means it'll be Intel that's in trouble, not Microsoft.
I don't know whether Google offering a "good enough" word processor will be enough, as you've suggested. Perhaps it will be, but we should keep in mind that a vast majority of users are heavily invested in Word/Excel documents, and are pretty much locked in. They may also be locked in because of other Apps, like Photoshop, or whatever. If apps don't matter, how can we explain Microsoft's strangle-hold on the OS market? What is Google's strategy for breaking that lock-in?
See my reply to the previous poster. In summary: 94% of word processor use is MS Office. And nowhere have I said that a keyboard/mouse is not needed. But what's to prevent you from hooking your future tablet to a 30" monitor and a keyboard?
You make some interesting points. However, the Win32 API will probably remain the same. As such, it will be a simple matter of recompiling legacy apps for ARM. I don't see the big problem here? Furthermore, enabling touch support for an existing code base is a matter of tweaking the UI layer. You could argue that those apps will not be very user friendly if not designed from the ground up to be touch friendly, but being able to leverage existing code means you're already halfway there.
As for your question of - why prefer it to a netbook? Because a tablet which has a detachable mouse and keyboard makes more sense than a netbook. Would you rather spend money on and lug around 3 or 4 devices, and maintain software on all of them, or have one device which does it all? I'm saying that things will eventually head that way. That's the only way Microsoft can break the tablet market. And in the process of doing so, they will kill the desktop PC/laptop market. Stuff like the Asus Transformer and the Motorola Atrix are a portent of things to come.
As for Word, MS word is the defacto word processing standard, whether we like it or not. 94% of the market is with Office. MS word, or extremely good compatibility with it, will be critical to most users. Libre Office compatibility with MS word is very poor. I have tried it, and have experienced it first hand. A piece of software that 94% of people use has every chance to make or break Android.
What I'm saying in summary is, if a user had a chance to buy a Windows 8 Tablet, and run Word on it (and connect mouse/keyboard to it), they'd probably buy that, instead of spending another $500 on an Android tablet on which they can do less.
Thanks for that clear answer. Sounds pretty bad to me although I think non-technical users might not care, but what interested me most was the bit about the 30% cut with the Metro App Store. All of this serves to highlight why Microsoft shouldn't dominate the tablet space. But my fears that they will, are I I believe, legitimate. Android very badly needs to think of itself as a proper OS, not just a mobile OS running toy applications. It needs to rethink of itself as being able to run serious software - everything from a full fledged word processor, to Photoshop to Crysis.