I can't believe how long it took to find a post that actually understood what the article was saying and wasn't just some generic rant against the RIAA.
As much as I despise the RIAA, I can actually see their point. Mechanical royalties were established back in the player piano days. And I don't think that a songwriter deserves the same rate for a 10 second ringtone as they do for a CD release.
However, as long as ringtones are $3+ versus $.99 for a song from itunes, the labels can suck it up. Sounds like they are losing more money from downloads than ringtones.
And the rules are the same. Journalists have to face the same consequences as anyone else when they refuse to answer a subpoena. See the reporters who sat in jail rather than say who leaked Valerie Plume's identity (even though no such action happened to Robert Novak, the conservative who actually printed the information).
Maybe because the Constitution/Bill of Rights issues protections against the government, not private enterprise. Apple can't secretly lock me up behind bars without being able to see a lawyer and keep me there they rest of my life.
I personally think there should be no criminal consequences to leaking any information about government plans or actions--only for revealing personal information (like what was on my tax forms). And fuck any police/soldiers that might be "hurt" because of it. They knew the possible consequences when they signed up for the job.
Anyone who thinks they can trust the government should go ask a Native American or anyone who has been arrested while "not white".
This has *nothing* to do with the studios. The artists made a product and sold that whole work. Someone else is coming along and editing their work and passing copies along. That is wrong. The entire issue is about artistic vision. That's why the Director's Guild is the plaintiff, not the MPAA.
What if you were to make a post saying "I am not a racist" and I then edited it to say "I am a racist"? That is the exact same thing -- someone editing out parts of an author's creative work. Only you have a right to make derivative works, and that is what these businesses were doing. You can't go buy nude photos, paint clothes on them, and then sell them. a
And if artistic vision has no meaning to you, what if a buyer of the edited movies started bad-mouthing the movie because it "sucked" or was "confusing", solely because of the unauthorized edits? That would cost the original author/studio money.
It is also a spreadsheet. Read this blog from Brian Jones about why this is actually a big deal. Consider a spreadsheet used by a third party test: 7 million xml elements, 9.6 million attributes, 131 MB uncompressed. That is not a trivial file to save, especially when compared to what it takes to save in the standard excel format.
Why does everyone seem to forget the PJB? I paid something like $700 to have the first hard-drive based mp3 player, which *surprise* had the same interface as claimed by this patent. How else are you going to navigate a music player with that much music?
Today, the fine folks of West Hollywood don't have to play by Salt Lake City's mores, and vice-versa.
Buzz! Wrong. Care to try again?
The federal government routinely (under modern Republican administrations) prosecutes adult video companies under the obsenity definitions of the most restrictive county in the country (which I believe is in Western Pennsylvania). They'll order adult movies from there and then sue the California-based businesses for violating local obcenity laws (and often federal postal laws about obcenity using local definitions). Hell, I can't order sex toys over the Internet because the Texas government has prosecuted businesses that have no direct dealings in Texas other than mailing someone what they purchased, therefore scaring those businesses from selling anything to me.
With the Internet and modern telecommunications, it is no longer possible to define anything at a local level. I can access and purchase things from anywhere in the world over the phone and/or Internet, which therefore means all businesses have to operate under the most restrictive laws/definitions or risk an expensive court battle in a far away location. I would suggest the Supreme Court needs to review its decisions, but with the far-right-friendly appointments of Alito and Roberts, they'd probably ban Playboy as obscene.
As to your gay marriage statement, the constitution requires state governments to honor all contracts from other states. Therefore, if I have a marriage license from any state in the nation, every local and state government must honor it no matter if it says I'm married to a farm animal.
No, it is relevant. US laws protect against illegal seizure, and seizure without compensation. Show a REAL ARGUMENT as to why ICANN's holdings should be seized, THEN the US government can consider seizure and compensation.
Siezing isn't necessarily the issue., How about the fact that US businesses couldn't export good encryption for a long time. How about the fact that during military conflicts we prohibit satellite companies from selling photos of the war zone?
If a conflict were to arise between the US and another nation, the US government could force all the root servers in the US to not serve addresses in the opposing country. Hell, since it is based out of the US they could demand they do it on all the root servers.
The Internet is now critical infrastructure in most countries. Other countries are not going to allow the US to be able to shut them off of it. And I think that is very reasonable. And I can't imagine any organization doing a worse job than ICANN.
Though there wouldn't be a problem if everyone in non-US countries would use their country TLD instead of the generic ones. The US doesn't have control of.uk or.au.
Actually, I remember Guiliani issuing a new medallion. He gave it to an immigrant cab driver who had done something heroic (don't remember what, but something like save a child's life). So there has been at least 1 issued in the last 50 years.
The rewrite in Java had one big goal -- easy transition of your projects. Moving a WO 4.5 Java project to 5.0 was pretty trivial. If they had switched to collections instead of NSArray, etc. then it would have taken more work. Also, the order of parameters differs (NSArray.setValueForKey(value, key), Vector.put(key, value)) which would have been a nightmare.
Java was the "hot" language at the time and WO already worked with it. The switch worked nicely, except Apple never marketed it. Now they have finally accepted they are never going to market it, so they make it free.
And they have killed deployment on non OS-X platforms. Sure, you can do it. But they won't officially support it. That kills my ability to sell WO as a solution to enterprise customers. We have loads of Solaris and Linux boxes that we are not going to replace, and big business won't go with an unsupported deployment solution.
I've used WO for 7 years and it is now largely dead for me. I'm likely going to give up web development, because no other system even comes close. I have no desire to work with jsp, struts, or php again.
It gives you exactly what freedom? The "freedom" to have exactly one choice of online music?
The freedom to pay one price and be able to listen to the music on your ipod, burn it to cd, listen on your computer, etc.
With the Microsoft solution, each song can be priced differently. Your rights to the song can expire after a period of time or a certain number of plays. Without knowing, you might end up purchasing a song that won't play on your portable device or won't burn to cd. You have to agree to the WMP license that allows MS to inspect your hard drive and remove items they find unacceptable. Your helping MS extend their monopoly in to other areas when it has been proven in court they abuse their monopolies to crush competitors.
Apple/Steve Jobs has fought hard against the record companies to keep a unified pricing/licensing scheme (and there always will be DRM from the major labels, so arguments against DRM have no meaning). Apple has tried to find a medium between we-want-it-all-consumers and we-want-all-control-record labels. Microsoft just gives in to whatever corporate interests want.
And most of all, Apple is not a convicted monopolist. That makes a world of difference between Apple's actions and Microsoft's actions.
Don't forget to include FICA/medicare/unemployment taxes. I know when I was making 120K in NYC I was taking home 52% of my gross until I hit the social security cap, which dropped the taxes a bit.
Now that I'm living in Texas, my take home pay is significantly higher than it would be in NYC. And fuck what the NY court says, they aren't getting a dime of my money. The business pays them more than enough, especially considering our data center isn't in NY.
Is this suppose to apply to corporate offices outside of NY? If not, what defines a corporate office? I can't imagine they are seriously going to start taxing every employee of the banks based out of NY.
Your mistake is thinking that Apple is a hardware company. They're not.
No, you are the one mistaken. Apple is a hardware company. Look at any of their quarterly financial statements. Software isn't even 10% of their income. Apple makes software so people will buy the hardware. That's why anyone asking for OS X on x86 is wasting their time.
If Apple is a software company, why do they sell a server OS with unlimited clients for next to nothing, especially compared to Windows? Why is iTunes free? Why is iMovie and iDVD free with a new computer instead of a purchase like MS Office?
I do wish that Apple would extend this further and add hooks to the context or "right click" menu in the finder like Windows does.
Apple has supported this since MacOS 8.0 or 8.5. They are called Contextual Menu Items, and they work in any application, not just the Finder. I've got a bunch of them installed -- touch a file, copy the path (unix or hfs), view the creator/type, preview an image, etc. Do a search at versiontracker.com or macupdate.com and you'll find boat loads of them.
I think you a correct, to a point. But there is a point where it crosses the line. For example, if someone isn't willing to work or look for a job, they shouldn't get any public assistance. And too often, that line is crossed, largely because there are too many laws to keep track of and someone can always pay to get what they want.
A big problem I've had lately is all this talk of eliminating the social security payroll tax cap. That is fucking ridiculous. As it is, I'm paying more into SS than most people, but will only take out an equal share. I certainly should not be expected to pay a higher share and not get a higher return. I've always looked forward to the point I hit the cap and my net pay rises. That's my money, and just because I'm skilled enough to earn more doesn't entitle more to be taken from me.
Not that I'm opposed to social security. If we didn't have it, the general public would not accept millions of elderly living on the streets because they didn't save any money, so we'd be paying the incompetent (who didn't save) out of general tax revenues.
On the matter of this bill, the background checks and inability to have the code on the Internet kills any benefit. It certainly couldn't be an open source project if every contributor was required to have a background check. (And what are they looking for? What would prevent them from working on it?)
That would seem to work very well with my proposed solution to government expansion. All laws should have a 5 year expiration date. Then congress would be too busy renewing the important laws to bother with the stupid shit.
The content doesn't matter. If it's newsworthy, then by definition, reporting it is journalism. If it's journalism, then journalistic sheild laws apply.
The source does. The Bill of Rights and most shield laws exists to protect from the government, not private enterprise. And since the definition of "journalism" is so murky, you'll never find an adequate definition of it (and hence, no law based on it).
Think Secret was actively soliciting people to violate contracts. Under California law, Apple has a right to sue because of that and should win. If you don't like it and you live in California, lobby your legislature.
Personally, I think he should get sued into the ground so he's indentured to Apple for the rest of his life. And I'd feel the same way if he made money pushing rumors about Microsoft, Intel, or any other business.
I worked at a web shop around 97-99 and we were well over 70% left handed. And I've gone to dinner a number of times where the right handed people had to sit on the ends so as to not bump hands with all the lefties.
1. Marketing costs are high and price per unit that users are willing to pay are not high. Unless you've got way into six figures to for advertising and marketing, forget about getting your sales out of two figures.
You must be assuming shrink-wrap software. My business is on target to make 6 figures/year on software sales sometime next year and aside from trade shows (which always pay for themselves), I haven't spent even 5 figures on marketing. And while I've hired other employees, I've still written over 99% of the code.
The secret is either making something truly innovative or finding a market niche that isn't being effectively served. Look at Audion (two coders, which is close enough to a lone coder). They got a buyout offer from Apple, turned it down, and still had a successful product.
Maybe you can't succeed in the windows/linux worlds, but I know a lot of sucessful Mac software shops that started as a lone coder and still have < 5 programmers.
And it is even easier to succeed if you still do contract programming to make up the difference while you get off the ground. I'm down to 40 hours a month or so right now, and should be able to eliminate it next year (but I'll probably still keep it at a low level for a while as I enjoy the variety and it is steady money).
I did that six months ago, moving my software company, too. Went from a $2400/month 1-bedroom in Manhattan to a $700/month 3-bedroom in rural Texas. Took a 1/3 paycut and used the money to hire two employees and things are working out great. The business stuff is still run in NYC, but all the programming happens down here.
Prices are a lot lower, and I'm old enough that I don't mind the slower pace. However, it does suck being in a red state with a large evangelical population. (I think this town of 20K has more churches than Manhattan.)
The thing I miss the most is the ability to take a cab or the subway home instead of having to worry about drinking and driving. After twelve years of public transportation, it is taking a while to get used to driving everywhere.
And if there are any Cocoa developers out there willing to relocate to hicksville, I'll likely be hiring soon.
Now, lets say you want to write a peice of software to USE libfoo. To write this software, it's required to import some of libfoo's headers. These headers are copyrighted. When you compile your software, even though it links dynamically at runtime, it still retains this copyrighted memory structure information in the final binary image. You're compiled program has just included GPLd code. In fact, if you simply call methods, you're program could arguably be including copyrighted material.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The courts have ruled that function declarations are not copyrightable. Otherwise, BSD would never have won the lawsuit vs AT&T. The same goes for structures. Macros can be a sticky issue, however, as they sometimes contain code that is copyrightable.
I have a hard time believing a court would rule against a programmer who dynamically loads GPL code at runtime (loads it explicitly, not something that was dynamically linked), and does not distribute the GPL code.
Personally, I don't think there should be an issue with dynamically linking to any library no matter what license it is under. If it is on the user's system, the user has permission to use it and therefore should be able to use it through my software. Of course I can't distribute it without agreeing to the license terms of that library.
While the US is a federation of states, its citizens largely see themselves (in front of the rest of the world) as being US in identity - whatever state they come from is less important.
Except people from Texas! We're Texans first, Americans second.
No parallel or serial port? That means I'd have to throw out all of my hardware and buy new stuff.
You should have thrown it out a long time ago. Serial ports became outdated, what, 5-6 years ago? And you expect a new computer to support such outdated technology? I find it a lot more offensive to pay for old features I know I'll never use than for new features I might use.
I don't know any mac user w/o a firewire device (and I know lots of mac users, as I refuse to help anyone with Windows). Most have multiple (iPods, iSight/web cam, removable/backup drives, extra hard drives, camcorders). If you don't need dvd authoring, then get a model with a combo drive. The new powerbooks are the first model with standard bluetooth. When you bought it as an option, Apple's marked up price was $40. Since it is built-in, I'm sure at most it raises the price by $5. Wahh, $5 is so fucking much....
I've got 4 firewire and 4 USB devices I use on my powerbook. My dad has at least that many (and he's retired and not a tech geek). My sister (who never had a computer until I bought her an iMac a few years ago) has multiple firewire and usb devices and she's a non-geek house-mom without a LOT of disposble income.
If all you want is a cheap piece of shit, then go buy one. But most mac users end up buying firewire, usb, and bluetooth devices because their computers support those connections. And they are much better off as a result.
My 8 year-old niece made a video for a class project, edited it with iMovie, and burned to a DVD with iDVD. My sister & brother-in-law would have said they had no need for a DVD burner or firewire, but my niece learned a lot, really enjoyed filming a boring school report, earned an A+,and impressed the hell out of her parents, teachers, classmates, and me.
My mom loved the fact that last christmas I hooked up her camcorder to my powerbook, digitized some old home movies whose video tapes were nearing the end of their lifetime, and burned them to DVD. I had no experience with video editing, camcorders, or DVD burning before that, but that was more than worth the price of my computer (especially since some were priceless vidoes of my brother who died 13 years ago.)
Apple computers empower you to do things you never would have thought of doing. Maybe you "think" you don't need those features, but most home consumers could certainly learn to use them. Users never know what they really need (ask anyone who does custom software development), but when given options, they end up doing things they never imagined.
And remember, USB would be nowhere without Apple. Firewire would be nowhere without Apple. WiFi would be nowhere without Apple. In a few years, it will probably be the same with bluetooth.
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I can't believe how long it took to find a post that actually understood what the article was saying and wasn't just some generic rant against the RIAA.
As much as I despise the RIAA, I can actually see their point. Mechanical royalties were established back in the player piano days. And I don't think that a songwriter deserves the same rate for a 10 second ringtone as they do for a CD release.
However, as long as ringtones are $3+ versus $.99 for a song from itunes, the labels can suck it up. Sounds like they are losing more money from downloads than ringtones.
And the rules are the same. Journalists have to face the same consequences as anyone else when they refuse to answer a subpoena. See the reporters who sat in jail rather than say who leaked Valerie Plume's identity (even though no such action happened to Robert Novak, the conservative who actually printed the information).
Maybe because the Constitution/Bill of Rights issues protections against the government, not private enterprise. Apple can't secretly lock me up behind bars without being able to see a lawyer and keep me there they rest of my life.
I personally think there should be no criminal consequences to leaking any information about government plans or actions--only for revealing personal information (like what was on my tax forms). And fuck any police/soldiers that might be "hurt" because of it. They knew the possible consequences when they signed up for the job.
Anyone who thinks they can trust the government should go ask a Native American or anyone who has been arrested while "not white".
This has *nothing* to do with the studios. The artists made a product and sold that whole work. Someone else is coming along and editing their work and passing copies along. That is wrong. The entire issue is about artistic vision. That's why the Director's Guild is the plaintiff, not the MPAA.
What if you were to make a post saying "I am not a racist" and I then edited it to say "I am a racist"? That is the exact same thing -- someone editing out parts of an author's creative work. Only you have a right to make derivative works, and that is what these businesses were doing. You can't go buy nude photos, paint clothes on them, and then sell them. a
And if artistic vision has no meaning to you, what if a buyer of the edited movies started bad-mouthing the movie because it "sucked" or was "confusing", solely because of the unauthorized edits? That would cost the original author/studio money.
It is also a spreadsheet. Read this blog from Brian Jones about why this is actually a big deal. Consider a spreadsheet used by a third party test: 7 million xml elements, 9.6 million attributes, 131 MB uncompressed. That is not a trivial file to save, especially when compared to what it takes to save in the standard excel format.
Why does everyone seem to forget the PJB? I paid something like $700 to have the first hard-drive based mp3 player, which *surprise* had the same interface as claimed by this patent. How else are you going to navigate a music player with that much music?
The federal government routinely (under modern Republican administrations) prosecutes adult video companies under the obsenity definitions of the most restrictive county in the country (which I believe is in Western Pennsylvania). They'll order adult movies from there and then sue the California-based businesses for violating local obcenity laws (and often federal postal laws about obcenity using local definitions). Hell, I can't order sex toys over the Internet because the Texas government has prosecuted businesses that have no direct dealings in Texas other than mailing someone what they purchased, therefore scaring those businesses from selling anything to me.
With the Internet and modern telecommunications, it is no longer possible to define anything at a local level. I can access and purchase things from anywhere in the world over the phone and/or Internet, which therefore means all businesses have to operate under the most restrictive laws/definitions or risk an expensive court battle in a far away location. I would suggest the Supreme Court needs to review its decisions, but with the far-right-friendly appointments of Alito and Roberts, they'd probably ban Playboy as obscene.
As to your gay marriage statement, the constitution requires state governments to honor all contracts from other states. Therefore, if I have a marriage license from any state in the nation, every local and state government must honor it no matter if it says I'm married to a farm animal.
If a conflict were to arise between the US and another nation, the US government could force all the root servers in the US to not serve addresses in the opposing country. Hell, since it is based out of the US they could demand they do it on all the root servers.
The Internet is now critical infrastructure in most countries. Other countries are not going to allow the US to be able to shut them off of it. And I think that is very reasonable. And I can't imagine any organization doing a worse job than ICANN.
Though there wouldn't be a problem if everyone in non-US countries would use their country TLD instead of the generic ones. The US doesn't have control of .uk or .au.
Actually, I remember Guiliani issuing a new medallion. He gave it to an immigrant cab driver who had done something heroic (don't remember what, but something like save a child's life). So there has been at least 1 issued in the last 50 years.
The rewrite in Java had one big goal -- easy transition of your projects. Moving a WO 4.5 Java project to 5.0 was pretty trivial. If they had switched to collections instead of NSArray, etc. then it would have taken more work. Also, the order of parameters differs (NSArray.setValueForKey(value, key), Vector.put(key, value)) which would have been a nightmare.
Java was the "hot" language at the time and WO already worked with it. The switch worked nicely, except Apple never marketed it. Now they have finally accepted they are never going to market it, so they make it free.
And they have killed deployment on non OS-X platforms. Sure, you can do it. But they won't officially support it. That kills my ability to sell WO as a solution to enterprise customers. We have loads of Solaris and Linux boxes that we are not going to replace, and big business won't go with an unsupported deployment solution.
I've used WO for 7 years and it is now largely dead for me. I'm likely going to give up web development, because no other system even comes close. I have no desire to work with jsp, struts, or php again.
With the Microsoft solution, each song can be priced differently. Your rights to the song can expire after a period of time or a certain number of plays. Without knowing, you might end up purchasing a song that won't play on your portable device or won't burn to cd. You have to agree to the WMP license that allows MS to inspect your hard drive and remove items they find unacceptable. Your helping MS extend their monopoly in to other areas when it has been proven in court they abuse their monopolies to crush competitors.
Apple/Steve Jobs has fought hard against the record companies to keep a unified pricing/licensing scheme (and there always will be DRM from the major labels, so arguments against DRM have no meaning). Apple has tried to find a medium between we-want-it-all-consumers and we-want-all-control-record labels. Microsoft just gives in to whatever corporate interests want.
And most of all, Apple is not a convicted monopolist. That makes a world of difference between Apple's actions and Microsoft's actions.
Don't forget to include FICA/medicare/unemployment taxes. I know when I was making 120K in NYC I was taking home 52% of my gross until I hit the social security cap, which dropped the taxes a bit.
Now that I'm living in Texas, my take home pay is significantly higher than it would be in NYC. And fuck what the NY court says, they aren't getting a dime of my money. The business pays them more than enough, especially considering our data center isn't in NY.
Is this suppose to apply to corporate offices outside of NY? If not, what defines a corporate office? I can't imagine they are seriously going to start taxing every employee of the banks based out of NY.
No, you are the one mistaken. Apple is a hardware company. Look at any of their quarterly financial statements. Software isn't even 10% of their income. Apple makes software so people will buy the hardware. That's why anyone asking for OS X on x86 is wasting their time.
If Apple is a software company, why do they sell a server OS with unlimited clients for next to nothing, especially compared to Windows? Why is iTunes free? Why is iMovie and iDVD free with a new computer instead of a purchase like MS Office?
I think you a correct, to a point. But there is a point where it crosses the line. For example, if someone isn't willing to work or look for a job, they shouldn't get any public assistance. And too often, that line is crossed, largely because there are too many laws to keep track of and someone can always pay to get what they want.
A big problem I've had lately is all this talk of eliminating the social security payroll tax cap. That is fucking ridiculous. As it is, I'm paying more into SS than most people, but will only take out an equal share. I certainly should not be expected to pay a higher share and not get a higher return. I've always looked forward to the point I hit the cap and my net pay rises. That's my money, and just because I'm skilled enough to earn more doesn't entitle more to be taken from me.
Not that I'm opposed to social security. If we didn't have it, the general public would not accept millions of elderly living on the streets because they didn't save any money, so we'd be paying the incompetent (who didn't save) out of general tax revenues.
On the matter of this bill, the background checks and inability to have the code on the Internet kills any benefit. It certainly couldn't be an open source project if every contributor was required to have a background check. (And what are they looking for? What would prevent them from working on it?)
That would seem to work very well with my proposed solution to government expansion. All laws should have a 5 year expiration date. Then congress would be too busy renewing the important laws to bother with the stupid shit.
The source does. The Bill of Rights and most shield laws exists to protect from the government, not private enterprise. And since the definition of "journalism" is so murky, you'll never find an adequate definition of it (and hence, no law based on it).
Think Secret was actively soliciting people to violate contracts. Under California law, Apple has a right to sue because of that and should win. If you don't like it and you live in California, lobby your legislature.
Personally, I think he should get sued into the ground so he's indentured to Apple for the rest of his life. And I'd feel the same way if he made money pushing rumors about Microsoft, Intel, or any other business.
I worked at a web shop around 97-99 and we were well over 70% left handed. And I've gone to dinner a number of times where the right handed people had to sit on the ends so as to not bump hands with all the lefties.
The secret is either making something truly innovative or finding a market niche that isn't being effectively served. Look at Audion (two coders, which is close enough to a lone coder). They got a buyout offer from Apple, turned it down, and still had a successful product.
Maybe you can't succeed in the windows/linux worlds, but I know a lot of sucessful Mac software shops that started as a lone coder and still have < 5 programmers.
And it is even easier to succeed if you still do contract programming to make up the difference while you get off the ground. I'm down to 40 hours a month or so right now, and should be able to eliminate it next year (but I'll probably still keep it at a low level for a while as I enjoy the variety and it is steady money).
I did that six months ago, moving my software company, too. Went from a $2400/month 1-bedroom in Manhattan to a $700/month 3-bedroom in rural Texas. Took a 1/3 paycut and used the money to hire two employees and things are working out great. The business stuff is still run in NYC, but all the programming happens down here.
Prices are a lot lower, and I'm old enough that I don't mind the slower pace. However, it does suck being in a red state with a large evangelical population. (I think this town of 20K has more churches than Manhattan.)
The thing I miss the most is the ability to take a cab or the subway home instead of having to worry about drinking and driving. After twelve years of public transportation, it is taking a while to get used to driving everywhere.
And if there are any Cocoa developers out there willing to relocate to hicksville, I'll likely be hiring soon.
All drawing on Mac OS X goes straight to OpenGL. I believe it was offered as an option for java with jaguar and came standard with panther.
The courts have ruled that function declarations are not copyrightable. Otherwise, BSD would never have won the lawsuit vs AT&T. The same goes for structures. Macros can be a sticky issue, however, as they sometimes contain code that is copyrightable.
I have a hard time believing a court would rule against a programmer who dynamically loads GPL code at runtime (loads it explicitly, not something that was dynamically linked), and does not distribute the GPL code.
Personally, I don't think there should be an issue with dynamically linking to any library no matter what license it is under. If it is on the user's system, the user has permission to use it and therefore should be able to use it through my software. Of course I can't distribute it without agreeing to the license terms of that library.
Well, I and most everyone I work with is safe. All of the requirements seem to be based on having specs.
Just push your department to switch to exteme/agile development and stay eligible for overtime. (Not that you'll likely get it.)
I don't know any mac user w/o a firewire device (and I know lots of mac users, as I refuse to help anyone with Windows). Most have multiple (iPods, iSight/web cam, removable/backup drives, extra hard drives, camcorders). If you don't need dvd authoring, then get a model with a combo drive. The new powerbooks are the first model with standard bluetooth. When you bought it as an option, Apple's marked up price was $40. Since it is built-in, I'm sure at most it raises the price by $5. Wahh, $5 is so fucking much....
I've got 4 firewire and 4 USB devices I use on my powerbook. My dad has at least that many (and he's retired and not a tech geek). My sister (who never had a computer until I bought her an iMac a few years ago) has multiple firewire and usb devices and she's a non-geek house-mom without a LOT of disposble income.
If all you want is a cheap piece of shit, then go buy one. But most mac users end up buying firewire, usb, and bluetooth devices because their computers support those connections. And they are much better off as a result.
My 8 year-old niece made a video for a class project, edited it with iMovie, and burned to a DVD with iDVD. My sister & brother-in-law would have said they had no need for a DVD burner or firewire, but my niece learned a lot, really enjoyed filming a boring school report, earned an A+,and impressed the hell out of her parents, teachers, classmates, and me.
My mom loved the fact that last christmas I hooked up her camcorder to my powerbook, digitized some old home movies whose video tapes were nearing the end of their lifetime, and burned them to DVD. I had no experience with video editing, camcorders, or DVD burning before that, but that was more than worth the price of my computer (especially since some were priceless vidoes of my brother who died 13 years ago.)
Apple computers empower you to do things you never would have thought of doing. Maybe you "think" you don't need those features, but most home consumers could certainly learn to use them. Users never know what they really need (ask anyone who does custom software development), but when given options, they end up doing things they never imagined.
And remember, USB would be nowhere without Apple. Firewire would be nowhere without Apple. WiFi would be nowhere without Apple. In a few years, it will probably be the same with bluetooth.