I could understand the opposition if apple was actively violating the GPL. But they are not violating the GPL in any way!
Not anymore, but not for lack of trying.
It is the customer's choice to agree to the terms of the apple licenses.
Customer choice is what brought us the Microsoft monopoly.
I was seriously considering becoming a card carrying member of the fsf in the last few months but now I am not interested in being associated with immature fools that would condone this irrelevant and useless tirade.
I have never considered becoming a card-carrying member of the FSF. But Stalllman's track record in spotting upcoming problems and doing something about it is better than anyone's.
That's right, people have the freedom to engage in commerce as they so choose, and the FSF is intentionally disrupting that
I don't know whether these specific actions by the FSF break any laws (I suspect they have looked into this). But you do not have a right to engage in commerce free of criticism or unpleasant interactions with other people. Picketing and heckling you for your purchase is legal, much as it may annoy you.
And the reason the FSF is doing this is because they believe that your choices are affecting their freedom to engage in commerce.
I am the target of the FSF because I am not only a developer, I also have influence over the software used by many large companies. I'll be considering this tactic when I overlook GNU projects and push Apache & BSD instead.
I'm sure Stallman is shaking in his boots. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
If you're a UNIX/Linux supporter, however, you need to realize how important Apple has been to you.
I've been a UNIX user for 20 years. Apple has been nothing but trouble and annoyance. They tried to kill all other GUIs with lawsuits, Jobs tried to steal GNU software, and Apple more than anybody else has perpetuated myths and lies about UNIX and Linux usability.
Apple products aren't perfect, but they are good enough to hold off the behemoth, and that's been worth something.
Apple hasn't been "holding Microsoft at bay", Apple is in bed with Microsoft, and Apple has done nothing significant to help open source.
As opposed to mature bullshit, like when Jobs tried to defraud the FSF out of gcc, or when Apple tried to defraud the public out of using graphical user interfaces?
A You have a point, you can advertise it on your web site,
Yeah, Apple would love that: Apple's billions in marketing dollars and PR against FSF's nearly zero budget.
Organizations like FSF don't win by putting up a few web pages.
but grow the fuck up. Doing shit like this will only turn people AWAY from your message.
I don't think the FSF gives a damn about annoying people like you.
Personally, I wouldn't participate in such an action. But I can see why the FSF is doing it, and nothing you have said suggests that it's a bad idea. Being controversial and annoying the hell out of Macintosh users simply isn't going to hurt the FSF with anybody in their target audience.
And this is not the first time that the FSF has taken on Apple, and it hasn't hurt them. Even Apple depends on FSF software.
I don't understand. I have been told the Macintosh "just works". How is it possible that anybody "needs" to use the Genius bar? I thought the Genius bar was just, I dunno, for the coffee and the light conversation with attractive, well-dressed people.
That's not how customer service is supposed to work, and it's creepy.
They should (1) keep their systems running so that people don't have to complain, and (2) if things fail listen to people calling/mailing in and try to fix their problems.
If they do (1) and (2) reasonably well, they don't need to read people's blogs.
Have they renounced their "200 patents" claim? Have they stopped bundling, tying, and bullying vendors?
No.
All this other stuff is largely irrelevant. OSP is legally meaningless, the LGPL doesn't require Microsoft's blessing, and joining the Apache foundation could be as sinister as their ISO efforts.
Microsoft seems to have been moving a little in the right direction, but they are still far away from being trustworthy or respectable.
I'd rather be worried about solar storms, the stinky car in front of me, getting HIT in the head, than.001 watts from my call phone.
As you should be. But from a public health perspective, this is something to be concerned about because brain cancer is enormously costly.
My Samsung claims it's output varies between.001 watt and 1 watt of output. I usually have full signal.
Your inference that your phone uses close to minimum power because you get a full signal is wrong.
It's a fact that cell phones have significant effects on brain physiology and function. The only open question is whether those effects may also lead to cancer.
Except that our current understanding of biology gives no physical mechanism through which non-ionizing microwave wavelength radiation can damage DNA to cause cancer.
There are two known kinds of carcinogens: genotoxic and non-genotoxic. Here is an example of work on non-genotoxic carcinogens:
Yes, cell phone radiation is not genotoxic. But it appears to affect temperatures, cell membranes, blood flow, and gene expression, all of which are reasonable indicators that it may be a non-genotoxic carcinogen.
It's anti-science to go
You are some piece of work: based on some limited and faulty understanding of biology, you jump to conclusions that something just can't happen, even though there are many reputable scientists that work in the field and can say it can happen. And then you have the gall to accuse others of "anti-science".
"If there is a risk from these products -- and at this point we do not know that there is -- it is probably very small," the Food and Drug Administration says on an agency Web site.
That statement isn't supported by the data either. One really obvious problems with all these studies is that cell phone technologies keep changing, including frequencies, usage patterns, cofactors, and encodings. For example, AMPS at 800 MHz might be harmless, while HSDPA at 2100 MHz might be quite harmful after a decade of usage, yet none of these studies would show that. There are many other statistical effects in such retroactive studies that could hide even a substantial risk.
Anyone who assumes that Tor exit nodes aren't heavily monitored by lots of three letter agencies, private companies, and researchers is a fool.
If Tor's utility depended on legal protections, it would be a lost cause. What Tor actually does for you is obscure your IP address, nothing more and nothing less. That is very useful. But you still need to make sure that your content is clean. That's why Tor is often used with software like Privoxy.
If anybody actually goes after these security researchers, it's not to protect the privacy of Tor users, it's to prevent the researchers for alerting Tor users to protecting their identity better, because once 99.9% of the Tor traffic is encrypted, listening in becomes much less useful.
including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc
If this is about page rank, Google did a great job applying it to the web, but the idea and approach were not "pioneering". The same algorithm had been in the literature for many years.
And "very little structure or linking" is entirely up to the author
Yes, and in Wikipedia, it is not.
It's not so much "one expert" as "one person, who is actually being paid"
And where's the evidence that "actually being paid" makes these articles better?
not to mention that having two well-developed, dissenting articles could be more useful than either the homogenized compromise
I find two dissenting articles much less useful than one homogenized compromise. Remember, when going to Wikipedia, I want an answer, I don't want to have to do a lengthy analysis. When I want to do an analysis, I just go to the primary literature.
Perhaps if the content is good?
But I don't think it is.
Why does anyone bother adding things to Wikipedia?
Because people have an interest in communicating their view of the world.
see if it's applicable to migrating Knol articles to Wikipedia.
No, it doesn't apply to migrating Knol articles to Wikipedia, except if the original author does it (in which case he is just a Wikipedia contributor and has to change his content substantially).
I think Knol just misses the point of Wikipedia and why it has become so successful.
Just drop the whole "marketing" meme. It wasn't true last year, it's not true now and it doesn't look likely next year
It wasn't true a few years ago... Macs were genuinely better, but it is becoming increasingly true.
I was using Macs for a couple of years as my primary machine and also recommending it to my extended family, but I have switched to Ubuntu now and only use the Mac as a media player.
Ubuntu has more of the software that I use, is more consistent, is easier to maintain, and is cheaper to boot. Ubuntu also doesn't suffer from the spinning beach ball syndrome. The Mac used to be the king of eye candy, but even there, it has been surpassed.
Family and friends have also started switching to Ubuntu from Mac and are really happy with it because Ubuntu just works, while the Mac keeps bugging them with software issues.
I own an iPod Touch and it is HANDS DOWN the greatest tech device I've ever bought. There is nothing else like it on the market right now.
It's a music player. Maybe Cover Flow gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, and maybe you like to "touch", but there are plenty of other fine music players. In fact, just from the point of playing stuff, something with real buttons that you can feel when the thing is in your pocket is superior.
The reason I don't have an iPod is because I need to use iTunes in order to use it. iTunes has destroyed my music collection, not once but several times. The iTunes user interface also has serious problems, as the many third party attempts at fixing it show.
The iPod Touch hardware is nice, but until Apple opens it up so that it can officially synchronize with other music management software and until it can officially be programmed as an OS X system, I think it's foolish to buy one.
Godwin has illegally used his position and the City of Memphis as a ram to ruin the Constitution of the United States.
Accusing someone of an illegal act without having that proven in a court of law puts you at risk of getting sued for libel, and that is as it should be.
Something like this is probably less risky:
I believe Godwin has illegally used his position and the City of Memphis as a ram to ruin the Constitution of the United States.
No problem with that; it's the author's opinion, not a statement of fact.
Godwin has used his position and the City of Memphis as a ram to ruin the Constitution of the United States; this may be illegal.
Again, "ruining the Constitution" is fairly vague (and poorly worded to boot), so it's probably doesn't count as libel.
I like a lot of Google things, but Knol leaves me scratching my head. Knol articles are just that: plain articles with very little structure or linking. And I don't think that one expert can compete with dozens of people collaborating on an article.
A lot of the stuff on Knol is CC. Perhaps it could legally be incorporated into Wikipedia. But, frankly, I don't see why anybody would bother.
Slashdot Mirror
NeXT (now Apple) attempted to violate the GPL on gcc, and the FSF did protest and got its way.
Apple attempted to monopolize the GUI through a patent grab, and the FSF did protest and organized a boycott.
And now, Apple is trying to screw people with DRM and the FSF is protesting.
NeXT under Jobs tried to keep the Objective C modifications closed source.
NeXT and Apple merged and got Jobs as their CEO.
I could understand the opposition if apple was actively violating the GPL. But they are not violating the GPL in any way!
Not anymore, but not for lack of trying.
It is the customer's choice to agree to the terms of the apple licenses.
Customer choice is what brought us the Microsoft monopoly.
I was seriously considering becoming a card carrying member of the fsf in the last few months but now I am not interested in being associated with immature fools that would condone this irrelevant and useless tirade.
I have never considered becoming a card-carrying member of the FSF. But Stalllman's track record in spotting upcoming problems and doing something about it is better than anyone's.
That's right, people have the freedom to engage in commerce as they so choose, and the FSF is intentionally disrupting that
I don't know whether these specific actions by the FSF break any laws (I suspect they have looked into this). But you do not have a right to engage in commerce free of criticism or unpleasant interactions with other people. Picketing and heckling you for your purchase is legal, much as it may annoy you.
And the reason the FSF is doing this is because they believe that your choices are affecting their freedom to engage in commerce.
I am the target of the FSF because I am not only a developer, I also have influence over the software used by many large companies. I'll be considering this tactic when I overlook GNU projects and push Apache & BSD instead.
I'm sure Stallman is shaking in his boots. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
If you're a UNIX/Linux supporter, however, you need to realize how important Apple has been to you.
I've been a UNIX user for 20 years. Apple has been nothing but trouble and annoyance. They tried to kill all other GUIs with lawsuits, Jobs tried to steal GNU software, and Apple more than anybody else has perpetuated myths and lies about UNIX and Linux usability.
Apple products aren't perfect, but they are good enough to hold off the behemoth, and that's been worth something.
Apple hasn't been "holding Microsoft at bay", Apple is in bed with Microsoft, and Apple has done nothing significant to help open source.
Immature bullshit like this.
As opposed to mature bullshit, like when Jobs tried to defraud the FSF out of gcc, or when Apple tried to defraud the public out of using graphical user interfaces?
A You have a point, you can advertise it on your web site,
Yeah, Apple would love that: Apple's billions in marketing dollars and PR against FSF's nearly zero budget.
Organizations like FSF don't win by putting up a few web pages.
but grow the fuck up. Doing shit like this will only turn people AWAY from your message.
I don't think the FSF gives a damn about annoying people like you.
Personally, I wouldn't participate in such an action. But I can see why the FSF is doing it, and nothing you have said suggests that it's a bad idea. Being controversial and annoying the hell out of Macintosh users simply isn't going to hurt the FSF with anybody in their target audience.
And this is not the first time that the FSF has taken on Apple, and it hasn't hurt them. Even Apple depends on FSF software.
I don't understand. I have been told the Macintosh "just works". How is it possible that anybody "needs" to use the Genius bar? I thought the Genius bar was just, I dunno, for the coffee and the light conversation with attractive, well-dressed people.
(1) Interfere with people who need tech support.
(2) Piss off Apple customers and turn them away from F/OSS.
(3) Absolutely no change in Apple policy.
Given that the majority of Apple's operating system consists of FOSS, does that mean that Apple customers will stop buying Apple? Good!
You can be sure that these people are also trying to:
You can be equally certain that they are not doing it right and that the backdoors they are trying to put in make your system less secure.
Running open source software is your best bet, but even there, you aren't completely protected.
That's not how customer service is supposed to work, and it's creepy.
They should (1) keep their systems running so that people don't have to complain, and (2) if things fail listen to people calling/mailing in and try to fix their problems.
If they do (1) and (2) reasonably well, they don't need to read people's blogs.
Have they renounced their "200 patents" claim? Have they stopped bundling, tying, and bullying vendors?
No.
All this other stuff is largely irrelevant. OSP is legally meaningless, the LGPL doesn't require Microsoft's blessing, and joining the Apache foundation could be as sinister as their ISO efforts.
Microsoft seems to have been moving a little in the right direction, but they are still far away from being trustworthy or respectable.
I'd rather be worried about solar storms, the stinky car in front of me, getting HIT in the head, than .001 watts from my call phone.
As you should be. But from a public health perspective, this is something to be concerned about because brain cancer is enormously costly.
My Samsung claims it's output varies between .001 watt and 1 watt of output. I usually have full signal.
Your inference that your phone uses close to minimum power because you get a full signal is wrong.
It's a fact that cell phones have significant effects on brain physiology and function. The only open question is whether those effects may also lead to cancer.
Except that our current understanding of biology gives no physical mechanism through which non-ionizing microwave wavelength radiation can damage DNA to cause cancer.
There are two known kinds of carcinogens: genotoxic and non-genotoxic. Here is an example of work on non-genotoxic carcinogens:
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/7/1173
Yes, cell phone radiation is not genotoxic. But it appears to affect temperatures, cell membranes, blood flow, and gene expression, all of which are reasonable indicators that it may be a non-genotoxic carcinogen.
It's anti-science to go
You are some piece of work: based on some limited and faulty understanding of biology, you jump to conclusions that something just can't happen, even though there are many reputable scientists that work in the field and can say it can happen. And then you have the gall to accuse others of "anti-science".
"If there is a risk from these products -- and at this point we do not know that there is -- it is probably very small," the Food and Drug Administration says on an agency Web site.
That statement isn't supported by the data either. One really obvious problems with all these studies is that cell phone technologies keep changing, including frequencies, usage patterns, cofactors, and encodings. For example, AMPS at 800 MHz might be harmless, while HSDPA at 2100 MHz might be quite harmful after a decade of usage, yet none of these studies would show that. There are many other statistical effects in such retroactive studies that could hide even a substantial risk.
So, we simply don't know.
Anyone who assumes that Tor exit nodes aren't heavily monitored by lots of three letter agencies, private companies, and researchers is a fool.
If Tor's utility depended on legal protections, it would be a lost cause. What Tor actually does for you is obscure your IP address, nothing more and nothing less. That is very useful. But you still need to make sure that your content is clean. That's why Tor is often used with software like Privoxy.
If anybody actually goes after these security researchers, it's not to protect the privacy of Tor users, it's to prevent the researchers for alerting Tor users to protecting their identity better, because once 99.9% of the Tor traffic is encrypted, listening in becomes much less useful.
including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc
If this is about page rank, Google did a great job applying it to the web, but the idea and approach were not "pioneering". The same algorithm had been in the literature for many years.
Office of Special Plans? This is Information Adjustment. The Office of Special Plans is in Information Retrieval.
Everything I ever say is either my opinion (what else should it be?) or it is the opinion of someone else,
And it is your responsibility to make the distinction when you speak:
"He committed this illegal act." (Implies "in the opinion of the people making up the legal system", which is the opinion that counts.)
"I believe he committed this illegal act." (In your opinion, which probably doesn't count.)
"The NYT reports that he commited this illegal act." (The NYT opinion, let them worry about it.)
That's what it's all about: tell your audience whose opinion it is. That's your responsibility.
Most statements imply whose opinion it actually is if you don't qualify them, and it's often not the speaker's.
Actually, it's a statement of fact disguised as an opinion.
There is nothing "disguised" about it.
"I believe he did something illegal." is an opinion. "He did something illegal." is a statement of fact.
If you can't tell the difference, you have a problem.
And "very little structure or linking" is entirely up to the author
Yes, and in Wikipedia, it is not.
It's not so much "one expert" as "one person, who is actually being paid"
And where's the evidence that "actually being paid" makes these articles better?
not to mention that having two well-developed, dissenting articles could be more useful than either the homogenized compromise
I find two dissenting articles much less useful than one homogenized compromise. Remember, when going to Wikipedia, I want an answer, I don't want to have to do a lengthy analysis. When I want to do an analysis, I just go to the primary literature.
Perhaps if the content is good?
But I don't think it is.
Why does anyone bother adding things to Wikipedia?
Because people have an interest in communicating their view of the world.
see if it's applicable to migrating Knol articles to Wikipedia.
No, it doesn't apply to migrating Knol articles to Wikipedia, except if the original author does it (in which case he is just a Wikipedia contributor and has to change his content substantially).
I think Knol just misses the point of Wikipedia and why it has become so successful.
Just drop the whole "marketing" meme. It wasn't true last year, it's not true now and it doesn't look likely next year
It wasn't true a few years ago... Macs were genuinely better, but it is becoming increasingly true.
I was using Macs for a couple of years as my primary machine and also recommending it to my extended family, but I have switched to Ubuntu now and only use the Mac as a media player.
Ubuntu has more of the software that I use, is more consistent, is easier to maintain, and is cheaper to boot. Ubuntu also doesn't suffer from the spinning beach ball syndrome. The Mac used to be the king of eye candy, but even there, it has been surpassed.
Family and friends have also started switching to Ubuntu from Mac and are really happy with it because Ubuntu just works, while the Mac keeps bugging them with software issues.
I own an iPod Touch and it is HANDS DOWN the greatest tech device I've ever bought. There is nothing else like it on the market right now.
It's a music player. Maybe Cover Flow gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, and maybe you like to "touch", but there are plenty of other fine music players. In fact, just from the point of playing stuff, something with real buttons that you can feel when the thing is in your pocket is superior.
The reason I don't have an iPod is because I need to use iTunes in order to use it. iTunes has destroyed my music collection, not once but several times. The iTunes user interface also has serious problems, as the many third party attempts at fixing it show.
The iPod Touch hardware is nice, but until Apple opens it up so that it can officially synchronize with other music management software and until it can officially be programmed as an OS X system, I think it's foolish to buy one.
Accusing someone of an illegal act without having that proven in a court of law puts you at risk of getting sued for libel, and that is as it should be.
Something like this is probably less risky:
No problem with that; it's the author's opinion, not a statement of fact.
Again, "ruining the Constitution" is fairly vague (and poorly worded to boot), so it's probably doesn't count as libel.
sufficient credential, where expertise really would make a difference.
OK, and what do credentials have to do with expertise?
I like a lot of Google things, but Knol leaves me scratching my head. Knol articles are just that: plain articles with very little structure or linking. And I don't think that one expert can compete with dozens of people collaborating on an article.
A lot of the stuff on Knol is CC. Perhaps it could legally be incorporated into Wikipedia. But, frankly, I don't see why anybody would bother.