> Meaning, in no way will Microsoft ever be able to take on Linux directly....
Which they have no intention of doing, for exactly the reasons you mention. They don't have to. IBM can do what it wants with Linux, safe in the knowledge they are one of the companies with a patent portfolio. Tom Tom on the other hand....
Which is the message they want to send. Only players are allowed to play in the big leagues. If Tom Tom wants to enter the game they must license their IP from someone with a patent portfolio. Somebody like Novell or even IBM. But thinking one can just download Linux and enter the arena without a major defender is going to be shown as too dangerous for VC money, large instituitions, etc. At which point the major potential for market disruption implied by Linux, Open Source, Free Software, etc. is gone. This is just the warning shot. If companies like ASUS and Acer don't get the message expect an example to be made of one of the netbook makers soon.
Microsoft has been totally consistent in their rants on this topic. They are all for "Open Source" so long as they get a per copy patent royalty when it gets deployed in a shipping product. Because nobody can do anything without infringing their all encompassing patent portfolio. And they are probably right. And Linux is infringing patents held by every other tech company. Normally they just cross license between each other and little money actually changes hands, it is just a gate keeping new competitors without patents of their own to cross license at a disadvantage. Which is exactly where Linux is.
The patent system needs to be fixed. But every large company has billions invested in the current broken system AND, as noted above, depends on patents to keep new unexpected competitors from springing up.
> Apple has accepted an upper cap on their market penetration.
Exactly. The conspiracy minded think Apple made a deal with the devil to stay in single digits in exchange for Office remaining available. i.e. being Microsoft's official token competitor.
I disagree and think the post you replied to was more right. Apple sees itself as a premium brand experience that would be destroyed if they ever went double digit penetration. How special would a Mercedes owner feel if the rabble started driving them. Even if they were cheaper models, just seeing the logo on non rich people's cars would drive their current customers to brands that still carried the cache of luxury goods. At least half the appeal of owning a Mac is being SEEN owning a Mac. Not taking anything away from Apple's success in creating good functional products, but that isn't exactly what they are selling, much like a Mercedes IS indeed a quality machine but that quality is only a small part of the reason a stockbroker or drug dealer wants one.
The iPod was a dangerous but so far successful gambit. It seems to have raised awareness and desire for the Apple brand and even though lessor yuppies, nay even the common rabble these days, all sport the trademark white earbuds it doesn't seem to have diluted the luxury status of owning a Mac.
And that's why Linux shares the crap out of Microsoft. There is still some elite (leet?) tinge to Linux but vendors are working hard on versions for the ordinary user and marketing hard to create demand among non technical users. And ordinary users are Microsoft's core demo.
> Attempting a major OS upgrade without a good backup would be retarded, even in the Linux world.
Only because a crash or power failure during the upgrade would probably bone you. Can't say I have ever had a major problem upgrading Linux from version N to N+1.
> fresh install is the same amount of effort for considerably better results. In my mind,
Oh bull. You would be reinstalling every app and utility, resetting every preference, etc on Windows if you did a full wipe. On Linux it isn't that bad since you have all of the per user prefs in/home but you still lose the systemwide tweaks. All the blackholed ad servers in/etc/hosts, the manual edits to config file, etc.
> In the good old 386 days, almost none of that worked.
Yup, you needed at least a Pentium to run Windows 3.0. Oh, wait Win3.0 would run on a 286 with a meg of ram. Ok, not good enough to run real apps but a 80386 with 4MB would run real programs. Nowadays clock applets need more than that and I'm not just slagging Windows. Obviously Unicode, 24bit color and such accounts for some of the bloat but bad programming practices account for vastly more of the bloat.
> I suspect that products derived from this model will tend to have more in the way of peripherals;
Which will be a total bitch to develop because you will first have to make a dev board. Did ya look at that SoC? It has all sorts of crap on it! They should have just make a dev board that brings out all of those features and when you are ready to go into production you could just leave out the connectors and glue parts you didn't need. Most apps might not need two ethernets ports but many will. Some won't need multiple USB ports, some probably will. Some might need USB device mode. How about one of the SATA controllers? Some might find the audio/video I/O handy. (STB anyone?)
The server in a wallwart is a nice idea but just one USB, one ethernet and one SDIO limits the applications. Most deployed apps would still fit in a power plug, doesn't need much space for an extra ethernet (firewall?) or an audio out jack (say a MoH source in the phone closet?).
> It is skewing if they're buying the machine the cheapest way they can get it, then installing OSX or XP.
Perhaps... but not in the way you think.
Remember two things:
1. OEMs have to provide 100% of the tech support when they sell an OEM copy of Windows.
2. Support is a major cost center. On a netbook a single support incident can wipe out the entire profit margin and it is pretty much a sure thing that by call two the are wishing they never made that sale.
So with these facts in mind lets consider the probable thinking at a major OEM at the idea of customers buying the Linux version and loading their own Windows. Downside is they lose the profit margin on the OEM Windows license, a pretty small amount. They also lose any co branding dollars for loading the crapware that usually accompanies an OEM Windows preload. Considering the price gap it is safe to assume they are losing less than $50 in profits. Now consider the upside, once a customer nukes the Linux preload all vendor support ends and the odds are good they won't be trying to return the unit unless the hardware is really broken. Sounds like at least a tie, probably a longterm win.
> What about Ubuntu? Does it have to offer a choice as well?
You don't force Ubuntu to offer a choice. You package it up and agree to maintain the package. It then gets placed into a repo or onto the base install CD depending on its license, legal status and popularity. I suspect that were Microsoft to package a native IE and offer to maintain it in Ubuntu's distribution that it would be accepted. A Winelib port wouldn't be quite as welcome but would be allowed into the online repos. If it were released under a compatible and approved Open Source/Free Software license then even Debian and Fedora would take it.
See the difference between a monopoly trying to manipulate the market and a distribution based on Free Software trying to make happy users?
> If you ask me, big news organizations should be non-profit organizations anyway. As soon as you depend > on advertisers, your ability to be unbiased becomes suspect.
Please don't be an idiot. People gotta eat so that means they are going to be serving somebody. If the money comes from advertisers they influence the news. And NBC News being part of GE, ABC being part of the House of Mouse, CNN a cog in Time Warner, FNS under Rupert Murdock's thumb are all a way for corporate influence to make the news fit their needs. Make it taxpayer funded and forget news reporting government's mistakes. And non-profit news puts the controls in the hands of billionaire trust fund babies and captains of industry who slum around the grant writing world.
There is no one solution. If we can get and keep a few diverse sources of news they will balance each other out.
> They could... but how do you know they aren't lying?
Easy enough problem. Assume they are lying, just like our own overpaid media. The harder problem is knowing HOW they are lying, we know our own media enough to make educated guesses.
> Do you think the Chinese government or local new organizations would ever have reported Tiananmen Square?
At the time no. Now with the Internet yes. we have examples already of people posting from inside unfree hellholes.
And after CNN's admission they were burying negative stories about Saddam's Iraq to keep their uplink alive can we ever trust the western media to report the truth from inside unfree states any more than their own state owned media? And it isn't new, western media buried the Soviets crimes in the Ukraine for a long time, not because of threats of ejection or physical harm but simply because the believed so strongly in Communism the couldn't report anything that would have blown the whole world's goodwill budget.
Nope, airdropping a planeload of star reporters onto a story is all about the prestige of the MSM.
> The newspaper's advantage is that they have editors.
Past tense. The old media would be dying a lot slower, if at all, if your statement were still true but it just isn't. You can read major news stories at major papers and find common grammar and spelling mistakes on a daily basis. It doesn't sound like something that would prove fatal at first thought but I think it is THE problem. If the editors aren't even able to spot the obvious errors or even invoke a spell checker it eventually becomes obvious to even normal people that the editors probably aren't there any more. If an article isn't even spell checked it probably wasn't fact checked any better. In other words, the only advantage the major media claim over a common blogger doesn't actually exist and probably hasn't existed for a decade or better.
Bloggers on the other hand ARE fact checked. By other bloggers and their own readers. A fairly usable ranking is starting to settle out in the blogospere where the major sites at the top of the food chain are at least as reliable as a major newspaper or TV newscast.
> They seem to hope to make money licensing this package to hardware makers.
I think you nailed their business model in one try. If they were an open source project they wouldn't have given a rats rear about Hulu's demands. Hulu locks you out? Ya change the client id info to appear as one they will let in and restore compatibility. The Internet defines DRM/sensorship/client discrimination as damage and routes around. Do that in a commercially sold media player and the lawyers take wing. If the free download plays Hulu and boxed and sold ones won't there would be zero interest from potential hardware makers.
> And you are one of the 20% who demonized him before you even knew anything about him? Figures.
No, I'm one of those who knew everything I needed to know about The One by about this time last year. As soon as it became clear that HRC didn't have a lock on the Dimmocrat nomination I checked into The One a bit. By spring of last year I had already been clued in on Rev. Wright, read TUCC's website and was utterly repelled by it. I had read enough bio on O himself to realize he was a third generation communist who picked Chicago as the place where he wanted to build his political base because it was the epicenter of most of the black socialist movements he would need to tap into. In other words I knew enough to be very worried, that HRC was pretty much doomed and my team was likely to be totally unprepared for what was coming. I was right.
The guy is totally amoral, very slick and has billions of dollars and a lot of evil men backing him. Thankfully his administration isn't turning out to be quite as smart as I initially feared. He is making lots of rookie mistakes, which tells me that the idiot started believing his own press releases at some point and isn't being the passive vessel for the backend handlers he was supposed to be.
> Of course the idea of borrowing several billion dollars to give people a tax cut is also quite absurd..
No, it's worse. We are in a crisis which everybody agrees is a credit crunch, credit isn't available and it is causing pain everywhere. So what is their answer? Borrow a Trillion dollars and give it to every democratic wish list item ever floated. The problem was the housing bubble (chiefly caused by Democrats, even Bill Clinton fessed up on that one) blew out and scuttled the banks who had written all the bad paper the government insisted they write. So we blow through a Trillion dollars on nothing likely to stimulate the economy AND do nothing do help either housing or banking in this Porkulus bill. Nope, housing will be taken up in yet ANOTHER half trillion (will be another trillion after the bacon grease lubricates the skids enough to pass) and after the tax cheat finally gets a plan to blow through the remainder of the TARP money Congress is already getting ready to pour yet more money into nationalizing the banks. This bill was just paying off The One's political debts.
> This is of course what the republican agenda is all sore about right now as they want more tax cuts.
Not just any old tax cuts. We want to stimulate the economy. We want tax cuts that will get the biggest bang for the buck, and if we are lucky/wise they would be revenue positive. Bush's tax cuts were, Reagan's were, Kennedy's were. The Laffer Curve[1] is real and we are way on the wrong side of it, we could cut many taxes quite a bit before we moved to the side where cutting tax rates cuts revenue. What we need now is a massive but targeted tax cut to generate enough new wealth that we can paper over the banking fiasco. The government can't create wealth, it can either take it from some and give it to others, while destroying a fair chunk in the conversion, or borrow it and cause new problems in the credit markets.
[1] Only a fool would argue with the basic logic of the Laffer Curve. The only puny argument would be that we are on the good side of it, but history rebuts that so completely even The One didn't attempt it. Nope, he said that even if raising taxes REDUCES revenue it is the right policy because of his perverted notions of 'fairness.' Translate what he said as "Wealth envy is a cornerstone of the Democrat Party and I will not disappoint the base on that one."
>..Obama's fund raisers didn't for a consider portion of the campaign take even basic precautions to avoid fraud..
There is that problem. But the bigger one is simple math. The One and his disciples tell us that small donations powered his campaign. Math says otherwise. The guy hauled in a billion dollars +/- a few percent. If we define 'small' donor at $200 it would take just how many donors to get to a Billion with a B? His own campaign isn't claiming more than 3 million donors. That barely gets over the halfway point and since a more reasonable calculation would assume most small donors gave somewhat less than $200 the percentage of his take from them drops.
And again, this is before we take into account the documented fraud in the Obama campaign's credit card processing and the rampant accounts in the blogosphere (and a few even made it into the back pages of MSM pubs) that outright money laundering was happening from foreign sources in industrial amounts. Forget all that. The basic math says fat cats giving the max plus some were the primary source of Obama's cash, just like every other campaign in history, only the media were either knowingly parroting press release spin or they are idiots who can't use a pocket calculator.
80% of Slashdot bought into HopeyMcChange's schtick. It is going to be fun (in a tragic comedy sense) watching the disillusionment after a couple of years of increasingly violent denials that Yup, he is just a politician.... and while possessing great oratary skills not all that bright in the end.
But to put off that awakening watch the NewSpeak in the media as they try to explain away the fast breaking campaign promises. Bipartisan, open, new politics turned out to be inviting the opposition over to watch the Super Bowl while Nancy is writing the biggest pork bill in history behind closed doors and then passing it on a straight party line vote before anybody could read it. "Welfare check" has been redefined as a "tax cut" even though many of the people who will be getting checks already pay no taxes. And we aren't even at the one month point yet, this train wreck still has 47 months to go, wait until foreign policy disasters start piling up. Iran is likely to be the first, but several more are racing for the honor.
> Open source is verifiable. Closed source is not.
Good start, but since they are aiming low, why don't we?
There is no such thing as Closed Source. There is only Open Source and Source that only the vendor and the serious black hat types have.
If that doesn't set em thinking and you think you might still lose a customer over this BS go trawl the underworld a few hours and snarf a copy of the source to Windows. Toss the DVD on their desk and say "I found the source to Windows in less than a day. Yes possessing this thing is a crime so after you look at it a bit you might want to destroy it. Do you think the sort of people who want to 0wn your systems care about the legal niceties? The difference is most of the White Hat hackers DO care so less research is done to find Windows flaws before the bad guys do."
> If they're not "business class" I don't know what is.
Here is why the iMac isn't a contender:
1. Not Upgradable
2. Not Expandable
3. +25% to 50% more sticker price for a fashion statement
4. Requires a minimum 20" monstrosity of a monitor on a poor receptionist's desk. But Steve knows best so ya just have to make room for it, nope, no 15" monitors for tight spaces.
5. Even with the above flaws you get to pay $1199 for a minimal system. Compare to a lower end Optiplex[1] with a 20" monitor for less than $500.
6. Part of a complete product line, able to affordably outfit every employee from the receptionist to the engineers. Diversity == complexity in the eyes of the corporate types. No they won't green field replace everything but they want the option to have a migration path. The only reason they would be considering Macs is because they are tired of Windows and afraid of Linux. That switch argument gets really blunted when they realize half their network can't switch without wasting a crapload of money putting two or three times the machine on a lot of desks than needed. So they would be looking at supporting both forever; still fighting Windows infestations AND supporting Macs.
[1] No the above mentioned Dell, while a little faster in raw CPU, isn't quite the machine as the base iMac, it has crappy shared memory video and a smaller hdd. But for a LOT of people in a typical corporate environment it is quite enough and can be had for about 40% of the price of the iMac or 60% of the cost of a Mini. Cost matters, especially now with the crappy economy. And we aren't talking an extra hundred or two per seat, this is double the money.... for what?
Yes OS X is better than Windows but it isn't THAT much better, Linux, when properly admined of course, is better than Windows AND cheaper to boot and we are having hell achieving World Domination. How does Apple expect to get a foot in the door of a corporate IT dept (a few graphics guys in the Ad dept excepted) until they get the Mac premium down to 10-20% at most for the average desktop?
Not yet. Yes it is now time to be trying to have liquid assets on hand. Gold would probably be better than cash about now. People aren't selling land at distressed prices yet. What we have now is the bubble bursting and land selling for a little more than it should instead of the insane prices of last year.
Wait until Porkulus gets a good old inflationary spiral going. And if we topple over into a full on depression? Bargains will be everywhere for anyone who still has something of value to trade for it. I'm betting the USD won't be too valuable if things really go FOOM! None of the modern faith based currencies will be worth squat if that happens. Not quite post Civil War Confederate Dollar valuations, but closer tnan most people want to entertain the possibility of. Lots of modest fortunes turned into vast wealth during the last depression because people were desperate and sold real estate (usually the only thing of value they had left) at very distressed prices to the few who still had money and the foresight use it to buy up lots of desirable properties. When the economy recovered those wise investors made out like bandits.
The only difference was last time you could use cash, this time I suspect gold will be the only thing people will want to trade for. Besides if you hold cash inflation will have reduced your own wealth by a big percentage before the bottom comes, when you will be ready to buy.
What a retard. How can anyone with a room temp IQ even argue the point? Ignoring the Mini, which is a solution in search of a problem, the cheapest Mac is a fairly bottom of the barrel laptop going for a cool G and the bottom end non-toy desktop starts at $2700. You can argue that the $2700 machine is a good deal compared to a $2700 Dell Xeon monstrosity all you like, the bottom line is Apple offers no business class product for under $2700. Hello, the '80s called and are wondering WTF Apple is smoking.
Everyone else offers basic machines for clerical workers for $4-600 these days and the best Apple can offer is a Mini (braindead and at least a year behind) at $599 + keyboard and mouse ($99) + display... which you can't even buy from Apple unless you want to drop the bux for a CinemaDisplay. Business folk look at the Apple store and realize these clowns ain't even trying to sell to people who have to actually look at the pricetag.
> If there were a way to hack a bluetooth module in there, it could be a whole different deal. You > could talk using a handsfree bluetooth device, and in a brilliant circlejerk of redundancy, even > tether your internet connection to a traditional cellphone with a data plan.
That wouldn't be a circlejerk it would be useful. Look at Nokia's Internet Tablet line, the same WiFi+BT combo.
Advantages:
1. You get to keep a cell phone, i.e. you don't have a *%^$ing PDA stuck to your ear.
2. You can lose the PDA if you don't need it and just carry a small phone.
3. You can use the PDA while you are on the phone.
4. You can change the PDA without being tied to the cell carrier's contract, available products, etc.
Disadvantages:
1. You usually carry two gadgets, two chargers, etc.
> WE would be driving more mercedes and BMW's if we did the same thing.
Lawyers don't hide any secrets, it's all in lawbooks and much of the stuff can be found for free on the Internet. The difference is they have a trade guild that enjoys a government granted monopoly. Non members cannot practice law without the threat of prison so non lawyers quickly lose interest in expending the time required to learn the dark arcana since it can only be of passive interest. On the other hand anyone with the curiosity can grab a stack of Nutshell books, build anetwork from scratch in their spare bedroom, learn some salable skills and GET A JOB.
> You now have a new 499.99$ Unsupported Full Install package sitting next to it.
Nope, that wouldn't fly. For $499.99 it danged well better have support. Compare with Windows. OEM copies come with zero support from Microsoft; you are expected to call Dell when you have a problem. Buy a retail box Windows and you get phone support. You drop $399 on Vista Ultimate and they will take your call.
If Apple boxed OS X for a premium price they would also have to support it. They would have to put a very strict supported hardware list on a website, reference it clearly on the box and support that list. Which wouldn't cost that much so they would still make a bundle. And if they could stop there they might be tempted to do so, it would shut up the few who want OS X on hardware Apple can't add to their product line and stay under 10% of the PC market. But it wouldn't end there, the pressure to offer OEM pricing to Dell/HP/etc. would be intense and Steve rightly fears competition, knowing their boutique hardware products wouldn't stand a chance in an open market. The laptops might make it but their current desktop lines would be toast.
> Basically they're an hardware company developing software to help selling the hardware, much like HP and Sun.
Ding! You win. And that business model is dying out fast. Like propriatary mini-computers before that, that whole business model is going the way of the dodo. Because NOBODY can execute perfectly on the whole range of levels to do a whole computer stack, from chips to OS. HP has pretty much given up although they will still sell you a HPUX solution if you ask for one. Sun is still reluctant to give up on Sparc but the handwriting is on the wall. Apple gave up on the chips layer years ago. Apple still believes they can keep the hardware and software though, but they won't.
If I cared enough I might have tried it, but here it is for anyone else to give a go at.
Want to 'clone' a Mac close enough to 100% legal that they would have a really hard time stopping you? Exploit their lack of presence in the "desktop PC" market. Build up a good mini-tower that would normally sell for about $800. Ensure the herdware is 100% OS X compatible and if you can manage it get a OS X compatible EFI in the BIOS. Buy a stack of Mac Minis and install MythTV or something on them. Install the totally legal copy of OS X on the clones. Sell them as a package deal for $1800 with clear line item covering the reinstall on the 'upgrade' hardware as a service fee. Since Apple has no desktop offerings under $2700 it is a wide open marketplace so there should be sales. No you wouldn't sell MANY units but you could probably sell a few.
And Apple would have to attack. You would of course win since there are laws that forbid the kind of bundling Apple is attempting. Once you do win you could start disposing of the minis (less OS X license) seperate from the clone and then win that fight. You structure the sale as a sale of the mini+OS and hardware upgrade, less a credit for taking back the unwanted mini hardware and then a seperate sale to another customer of that mini hardware loaded with an alternate OS of their choice. Then Apple would see the next logical step and be forced to admit the boxed editions of OS X are actually just "upgrades" and NOT full copies. Because if they didn't the next logical step is where Pystar is now, only with a firm legal groundwork laid.
The idea being to not give Apple enough to confuse a judge with. Each case would be a simple one based on one or two well established prior rulings. Pystar might be expecting a little too much from the legal system in that it can rarely deal with a complex case in a rational way, they are basically just rolling the dice in the hope a judge will 'get it.'
> In the real world everyone uses Windows and Office, if you take that away from computer labs, you are going > to piss off a lot of people and take away valuable experience from students.
Unis aren't votech schools. And Office won't look like the version of Office you carefully trained em on by the time they hit the 'real world.' Teach work processing, not Word (or ooWriter) and they will be able to cope. Bottom line, schools and universities should not be seen as training centers for a single vendor's products. It was dumb when all the schools taught Word Perfect (how useful is knowing what all twelve F keys did in WP now?) and it is just as dumb when they obsess over Word. Adn considering the cost difference, and whether the students directly fork over for Office vs OO.o doesn't matter, anybody forcing the general student population to buy Office should be brought up on criminal charges. Yes some course work is designed around Excel and VBA so there are exceptions.
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> Meaning, in no way will Microsoft ever be able to take on Linux directly....
Which they have no intention of doing, for exactly the reasons you mention. They don't have to. IBM can do what it wants with Linux, safe in the knowledge they are one of the companies with a patent portfolio. Tom Tom on the other hand....
Which is the message they want to send. Only players are allowed to play in the big leagues. If Tom Tom wants to enter the game they must license their IP from someone with a patent portfolio. Somebody like Novell or even IBM. But thinking one can just download Linux and enter the arena without a major defender is going to be shown as too dangerous for VC money, large instituitions, etc. At which point the major potential for market disruption implied by Linux, Open Source, Free Software, etc. is gone. This is just the warning shot. If companies like ASUS and Acer don't get the message expect an example to be made of one of the netbook makers soon.
Microsoft has been totally consistent in their rants on this topic. They are all for "Open Source" so long as they get a per copy patent royalty when it gets deployed in a shipping product. Because nobody can do anything without infringing their all encompassing patent portfolio. And they are probably right. And Linux is infringing patents held by every other tech company. Normally they just cross license between each other and little money actually changes hands, it is just a gate keeping new competitors without patents of their own to cross license at a disadvantage. Which is exactly where Linux is.
The patent system needs to be fixed. But every large company has billions invested in the current broken system AND, as noted above, depends on patents to keep new unexpected competitors from springing up.
> Apple has accepted an upper cap on their market penetration.
Exactly. The conspiracy minded think Apple made a deal with the devil to stay in single digits in exchange for Office remaining available. i.e. being Microsoft's official token competitor.
I disagree and think the post you replied to was more right. Apple sees itself as a premium brand experience that would be destroyed if they ever went double digit penetration. How special would a Mercedes owner feel if the rabble started driving them. Even if they were cheaper models, just seeing the logo on non rich people's cars would drive their current customers to brands that still carried the cache of luxury goods. At least half the appeal of owning a Mac is being SEEN owning a Mac. Not taking anything away from Apple's success in creating good functional products, but that isn't exactly what they are selling, much like a Mercedes IS indeed a quality machine but that quality is only a small part of the reason a stockbroker or drug dealer wants one.
The iPod was a dangerous but so far successful gambit. It seems to have raised awareness and desire for the Apple brand and even though lessor yuppies, nay even the common rabble these days, all sport the trademark white earbuds it doesn't seem to have diluted the luxury status of owning a Mac.
And that's why Linux shares the crap out of Microsoft. There is still some elite (leet?) tinge to Linux but vendors are working hard on versions for the ordinary user and marketing hard to create demand among non technical users. And ordinary users are Microsoft's core demo.
> Attempting a major OS upgrade without a good backup would be retarded, even in the Linux world.
Only because a crash or power failure during the upgrade would probably bone you. Can't say I have ever had a major problem upgrading Linux from version N to N+1.
> fresh install is the same amount of effort for considerably better results. In my mind,
Oh bull. You would be reinstalling every app and utility, resetting every preference, etc on Windows if you did a full wipe. On Linux it isn't that bad since you have all of the per user prefs in /home but you still lose the systemwide tweaks. All the blackholed ad servers in /etc/hosts, the manual edits to config file, etc.
> In the good old 386 days, almost none of that worked.
Yup, you needed at least a Pentium to run Windows 3.0. Oh, wait Win3.0 would run on a 286 with a meg of ram. Ok, not good enough to run real apps but a 80386 with 4MB would run real programs. Nowadays clock applets need more than that and I'm not just slagging Windows. Obviously Unicode, 24bit color and such accounts for some of the bloat but bad programming practices account for vastly more of the bloat.
> I suspect that products derived from this model will tend to have more in the way of peripherals;
Which will be a total bitch to develop because you will first have to make a dev board. Did ya look at that SoC? It has all sorts of crap on it! They should have just make a dev board that brings out all of those features and when you are ready to go into production you could just leave out the connectors and glue parts you didn't need. Most apps might not need two ethernets ports but many will. Some won't need multiple USB ports, some probably will. Some might need USB device mode. How about one of the SATA controllers? Some might find the audio/video I/O handy. (STB anyone?)
The server in a wallwart is a nice idea but just one USB, one ethernet and one SDIO limits the applications. Most deployed apps would still fit in a power plug, doesn't need much space for an extra ethernet (firewall?) or an audio out jack (say a MoH source in the phone closet?).
> It is skewing if they're buying the machine the cheapest way they can get it, then installing OSX or XP.
Perhaps... but not in the way you think.
Remember two things:
1. OEMs have to provide 100% of the tech support when they sell an OEM copy of Windows.
2. Support is a major cost center. On a netbook a single support incident can wipe out the entire profit margin and it is pretty much a sure thing that by call two the are wishing they never made that sale.
So with these facts in mind lets consider the probable thinking at a major OEM at the idea of customers buying the Linux version and loading their own Windows. Downside is they lose the profit margin on the OEM Windows license, a pretty small amount. They also lose any co branding dollars for loading the crapware that usually accompanies an OEM Windows preload. Considering the price gap it is safe to assume they are losing less than $50 in profits. Now consider the upside, once a customer nukes the Linux preload all vendor support ends and the odds are good they won't be trying to return the unit unless the hardware is really broken. Sounds like at least a tie, probably a longterm win.
> What about Ubuntu? Does it have to offer a choice as well?
You don't force Ubuntu to offer a choice. You package it up and agree to maintain the package. It then gets placed into a repo or onto the base install CD depending on its license, legal status and popularity. I suspect that were Microsoft to package a native IE and offer to maintain it in Ubuntu's distribution that it would be accepted. A Winelib port wouldn't be quite as welcome but would be allowed into the online repos. If it were released under a compatible and approved Open Source/Free Software license then even Debian and Fedora would take it.
See the difference between a monopoly trying to manipulate the market and a distribution based on Free Software trying to make happy users?
> If you ask me, big news organizations should be non-profit organizations anyway. As soon as you depend
> on advertisers, your ability to be unbiased becomes suspect.
Please don't be an idiot. People gotta eat so that means they are going to be serving somebody. If the money comes from advertisers they influence the news. And NBC News being part of GE, ABC being part of the House of Mouse, CNN a cog in Time Warner, FNS under Rupert Murdock's thumb are all a way for corporate influence to make the news fit their needs. Make it taxpayer funded and forget news reporting government's mistakes. And non-profit news puts the controls in the hands of billionaire trust fund babies and captains of industry who slum around the grant writing world.
There is no one solution. If we can get and keep a few diverse sources of news they will balance each other out.
> They could... but how do you know they aren't lying?
Easy enough problem. Assume they are lying, just like our own overpaid media. The harder problem is knowing HOW they are lying, we know our own media enough to make educated guesses.
> Do you think the Chinese government or local new organizations would ever have reported Tiananmen Square?
At the time no. Now with the Internet yes. we have examples already of people posting from inside unfree hellholes.
And after CNN's admission they were burying negative stories about Saddam's Iraq to keep their uplink alive can we ever trust the western media to report the truth from inside unfree states any more than their own state owned media? And it isn't new, western media buried the Soviets crimes in the Ukraine for a long time, not because of threats of ejection or physical harm but simply because the believed so strongly in Communism the couldn't report anything that would have blown the whole world's goodwill budget.
Nope, airdropping a planeload of star reporters onto a story is all about the prestige of the MSM.
> The newspaper's advantage is that they have editors.
Past tense. The old media would be dying a lot slower, if at all, if your statement were still true but it just isn't. You can read major news stories at major papers and find common grammar and spelling mistakes on a daily basis. It doesn't sound like something that would prove fatal at first thought but I think it is THE problem. If the editors aren't even able to spot the obvious errors or even invoke a spell checker it eventually becomes obvious to even normal people that the editors probably aren't there any more. If an article isn't even spell checked it probably wasn't fact checked any better. In other words, the only advantage the major media claim over a common blogger doesn't actually exist and probably hasn't existed for a decade or better.
Bloggers on the other hand ARE fact checked. By other bloggers and their own readers. A fairly usable ranking is starting to settle out in the blogospere where the major sites at the top of the food chain are at least as reliable as a major newspaper or TV newscast.
> They seem to hope to make money licensing this package to hardware makers.
I think you nailed their business model in one try. If they were an open source project they wouldn't have given a rats rear about Hulu's demands. Hulu locks you out? Ya change the client id info to appear as one they will let in and restore compatibility. The Internet defines DRM/sensorship/client discrimination as damage and routes around. Do that in a commercially sold media player and the lawyers take wing. If the free download plays Hulu and boxed and sold ones won't there would be zero interest from potential hardware makers.
> And you are one of the 20% who demonized him before you even knew anything about him? Figures.
No, I'm one of those who knew everything I needed to know about The One by about this time last year. As soon as it became clear that HRC didn't have a lock on the Dimmocrat nomination I checked into The One a bit. By spring of last year I had already been clued in on Rev. Wright, read TUCC's website and was utterly repelled by it. I had read enough bio on O himself to realize he was a third generation communist who picked Chicago as the place where he wanted to build his political base because it was the epicenter of most of the black socialist movements he would need to tap into. In other words I knew enough to be very worried, that HRC was pretty much doomed and my team was likely to be totally unprepared for what was coming. I was right.
The guy is totally amoral, very slick and has billions of dollars and a lot of evil men backing him. Thankfully his administration isn't turning out to be quite as smart as I initially feared. He is making lots of rookie mistakes, which tells me that the idiot started believing his own press releases at some point and isn't being the passive vessel for the backend handlers he was supposed to be.
> Of course the idea of borrowing several billion dollars to give people a tax cut is also quite absurd..
No, it's worse. We are in a crisis which everybody agrees is a credit crunch, credit isn't available and it is causing pain everywhere. So what is their answer? Borrow a Trillion dollars and give it to every democratic wish list item ever floated. The problem was the housing bubble (chiefly caused by Democrats, even Bill Clinton fessed up on that one) blew out and scuttled the banks who had written all the bad paper the government insisted they write. So we blow through a Trillion dollars on nothing likely to stimulate the economy AND do nothing do help either housing or banking in this Porkulus bill. Nope, housing will be taken up in yet ANOTHER half trillion (will be another trillion after the bacon grease lubricates the skids enough to pass) and after the tax cheat finally gets a plan to blow through the remainder of the TARP money Congress is already getting ready to pour yet more money into nationalizing the banks. This bill was just paying off The One's political debts.
> This is of course what the republican agenda is all sore about right now as they want more tax cuts.
Not just any old tax cuts. We want to stimulate the economy. We want tax cuts that will get the biggest bang for the buck, and if we are lucky/wise they would be revenue positive. Bush's tax cuts were, Reagan's were, Kennedy's were. The Laffer Curve[1] is real and we are way on the wrong side of it, we could cut many taxes quite a bit before we moved to the side where cutting tax rates cuts revenue. What we need now is a massive but targeted tax cut to generate enough new wealth that we can paper over the banking fiasco. The government can't create wealth, it can either take it from some and give it to others, while destroying a fair chunk in the conversion, or borrow it and cause new problems in the credit markets.
[1] Only a fool would argue with the basic logic of the Laffer Curve. The only puny argument would be that we are on the good side of it, but history rebuts that so completely even The One didn't attempt it. Nope, he said that even if raising taxes REDUCES revenue it is the right policy because of his perverted notions of 'fairness.' Translate what he said as "Wealth envy is a cornerstone of the Democrat Party and I will not disappoint the base on that one."
> ..Obama's fund raisers didn't for a consider portion of the campaign take even basic precautions to avoid fraud..
There is that problem. But the bigger one is simple math. The One and his disciples tell us that small donations powered his campaign. Math says otherwise. The guy hauled in a billion dollars +/- a few percent. If we define 'small' donor at $200 it would take just how many donors to get to a Billion with a B? His own campaign isn't claiming more than 3 million donors. That barely gets over the halfway point and since a more reasonable calculation would assume most small donors gave somewhat less than $200 the percentage of his take from them drops.
And again, this is before we take into account the documented fraud in the Obama campaign's credit card processing and the rampant accounts in the blogosphere (and a few even made it into the back pages of MSM pubs) that outright money laundering was happening from foreign sources in industrial amounts. Forget all that. The basic math says fat cats giving the max plus some were the primary source of Obama's cash, just like every other campaign in history, only the media were either knowingly parroting press release spin or they are idiots who can't use a pocket calculator.
> Who is dumb enough to believe a politician?
80% of Slashdot bought into HopeyMcChange's schtick. It is going to be fun (in a tragic comedy sense) watching the disillusionment after a couple of years of increasingly violent denials that Yup, he is just a politician.... and while possessing great oratary skills not all that bright in the end.
But to put off that awakening watch the NewSpeak in the media as they try to explain away the fast breaking campaign promises. Bipartisan, open, new politics turned out to be inviting the opposition over to watch the Super Bowl while Nancy is writing the biggest pork bill in history behind closed doors and then passing it on a straight party line vote before anybody could read it. "Welfare check" has been redefined as a "tax cut" even though many of the people who will be getting checks already pay no taxes. And we aren't even at the one month point yet, this train wreck still has 47 months to go, wait until foreign policy disasters start piling up. Iran is likely to be the first, but several more are racing for the honor.
> Open source is verifiable. Closed source is not.
Good start, but since they are aiming low, why don't we?
There is no such thing as Closed Source. There is only Open Source and Source that only the vendor and the serious black hat types have.
If that doesn't set em thinking and you think you might still lose a customer over this BS go trawl the underworld a few hours and snarf a copy of the source to Windows. Toss the DVD on their desk and say "I found the source to Windows in less than a day. Yes possessing this thing is a crime so after you look at it a bit you might want to destroy it. Do you think the sort of people who want to 0wn your systems care about the legal niceties? The difference is most of the White Hat hackers DO care so less research is done to find Windows flaws before the bad guys do."
> If they're not "business class" I don't know what is.
Here is why the iMac isn't a contender:
1. Not Upgradable
2. Not Expandable
3. +25% to 50% more sticker price for a fashion statement
4. Requires a minimum 20" monstrosity of a monitor on a poor receptionist's desk. But Steve knows best so ya just have to make room for it, nope, no 15" monitors for tight spaces.
5. Even with the above flaws you get to pay $1199 for a minimal system. Compare to a lower end Optiplex[1] with a 20" monitor for less than $500.
6. Part of a complete product line, able to affordably outfit every employee from the receptionist to the engineers. Diversity == complexity in the eyes of the corporate types. No they won't green field replace everything but they want the option to have a migration path. The only reason they would be considering Macs is because they are tired of Windows and afraid of Linux. That switch argument gets really blunted when they realize half their network can't switch without wasting a crapload of money putting two or three times the machine on a lot of desks than needed. So they would be looking at supporting both forever; still fighting Windows infestations AND supporting Macs.
[1] No the above mentioned Dell, while a little faster in raw CPU, isn't quite the machine as the base iMac, it has crappy shared memory video and a smaller hdd. But for a LOT of people in a typical corporate environment it is quite enough and can be had for about 40% of the price of the iMac or 60% of the cost of a Mini. Cost matters, especially now with the crappy economy. And we aren't talking an extra hundred or two per seat, this is double the money.... for what?
Yes OS X is better than Windows but it isn't THAT much better, Linux, when properly admined of course, is better than Windows AND cheaper to boot and we are having hell achieving World Domination. How does Apple expect to get a foot in the door of a corporate IT dept (a few graphics guys in the Ad dept excepted) until they get the Mac premium down to 10-20% at most for the average desktop?
> Divest your money and buy land.
Not yet. Yes it is now time to be trying to have liquid assets on hand. Gold would probably be better than cash about now. People aren't selling land at distressed prices yet. What we have now is the bubble bursting and land selling for a little more than it should instead of the insane prices of last year.
Wait until Porkulus gets a good old inflationary spiral going. And if we topple over into a full on depression? Bargains will be everywhere for anyone who still has something of value to trade for it. I'm betting the USD won't be too valuable if things really go FOOM! None of the modern faith based currencies will be worth squat if that happens. Not quite post Civil War Confederate Dollar valuations, but closer tnan most people want to entertain the possibility of. Lots of modest fortunes turned into vast wealth during the last depression because people were desperate and sold real estate (usually the only thing of value they had left) at very distressed prices to the few who still had money and the foresight use it to buy up lots of desirable properties. When the economy recovered those wise investors made out like bandits.
The only difference was last time you could use cash, this time I suspect gold will be the only thing people will want to trade for. Besides if you hold cash inflation will have reduced your own wealth by a big percentage before the bottom comes, when you will be ready to buy.
> Sigh.
What a retard. How can anyone with a room temp IQ even argue the point? Ignoring the Mini, which is a solution in search of a problem, the cheapest Mac is a fairly bottom of the barrel laptop going for a cool G and the bottom end non-toy desktop starts at $2700. You can argue that the $2700 machine is a good deal compared to a $2700 Dell Xeon monstrosity all you like, the bottom line is Apple offers no business class product for under $2700. Hello, the '80s called and are wondering WTF Apple is smoking.
Everyone else offers basic machines for clerical workers for $4-600 these days and the best Apple can offer is a Mini (braindead and at least a year behind) at $599 + keyboard and mouse ($99) + display... which you can't even buy from Apple unless you want to drop the bux for a CinemaDisplay. Business folk look at the Apple store and realize these clowns ain't even trying to sell to people who have to actually look at the pricetag.
> If there were a way to hack a bluetooth module in there, it could be a whole different deal. You
> could talk using a handsfree bluetooth device, and in a brilliant circlejerk of redundancy, even
> tether your internet connection to a traditional cellphone with a data plan.
That wouldn't be a circlejerk it would be useful. Look at Nokia's Internet Tablet line, the same WiFi+BT combo.
Advantages:
1. You get to keep a cell phone, i.e. you don't have a *%^$ing PDA stuck to your ear.
2. You can lose the PDA if you don't need it and just carry a small phone.
3. You can use the PDA while you are on the phone.
4. You can change the PDA without being tied to the cell carrier's contract, available products, etc.
Disadvantages:
1. You usually carry two gadgets, two chargers, etc.
> WE would be driving more mercedes and BMW's if we did the same thing.
Lawyers don't hide any secrets, it's all in lawbooks and much of the stuff can be found for free on the Internet. The difference is they have a trade guild that enjoys a government granted monopoly. Non members cannot practice law without the threat of prison so non lawyers quickly lose interest in expending the time required to learn the dark arcana since it can only be of passive interest. On the other hand anyone with the curiosity can grab a stack of Nutshell books, build anetwork from scratch in their spare bedroom, learn some salable skills and GET A JOB.
> You now have a new 499.99$ Unsupported Full Install package sitting next to it.
Nope, that wouldn't fly. For $499.99 it danged well better have support. Compare with Windows. OEM copies come with zero support from Microsoft; you are expected to call Dell when you have a problem. Buy a retail box Windows and you get phone support. You drop $399 on Vista Ultimate and they will take your call.
If Apple boxed OS X for a premium price they would also have to support it. They would have to put a very strict supported hardware list on a website, reference it clearly on the box and support that list. Which wouldn't cost that much so they would still make a bundle. And if they could stop there they might be tempted to do so, it would shut up the few who want OS X on hardware Apple can't add to their product line and stay under 10% of the PC market. But it wouldn't end there, the pressure to offer OEM pricing to Dell/HP/etc. would be intense and Steve rightly fears competition, knowing their boutique hardware products wouldn't stand a chance in an open market. The laptops might make it but their current desktop lines would be toast.
> Basically they're an hardware company developing software to help selling the hardware, much like HP and Sun.
Ding! You win. And that business model is dying out fast. Like propriatary mini-computers before that, that whole business model is going the way of the dodo. Because NOBODY can execute perfectly on the whole range of levels to do a whole computer stack, from chips to OS. HP has pretty much given up although they will still sell you a HPUX solution if you ask for one. Sun is still reluctant to give up on Sparc but the handwriting is on the wall. Apple gave up on the chips layer years ago. Apple still believes they can keep the hardware and software though, but they won't.
If I cared enough I might have tried it, but here it is for anyone else to give a go at.
Want to 'clone' a Mac close enough to 100% legal that they would have a really hard time stopping you? Exploit their lack of presence in the "desktop PC" market. Build up a good mini-tower that would normally sell for about $800. Ensure the herdware is 100% OS X compatible and if you can manage it get a OS X compatible EFI in the BIOS. Buy a stack of Mac Minis and install MythTV or something on them. Install the totally legal copy of OS X on the clones. Sell them as a package deal for $1800 with clear line item covering the reinstall on the 'upgrade' hardware as a service fee. Since Apple has no desktop offerings under $2700 it is a wide open marketplace so there should be sales. No you wouldn't sell MANY units but you could probably sell a few.
And Apple would have to attack. You would of course win since there are laws that forbid the kind of bundling Apple is attempting. Once you do win you could start disposing of the minis (less OS X license) seperate from the clone and then win that fight. You structure the sale as a sale of the mini+OS and hardware upgrade, less a credit for taking back the unwanted mini hardware and then a seperate sale to another customer of that mini hardware loaded with an alternate OS of their choice. Then Apple would see the next logical step and be forced to admit the boxed editions of OS X are actually just "upgrades" and NOT full copies. Because if they didn't the next logical step is where Pystar is now, only with a firm legal groundwork laid.
The idea being to not give Apple enough to confuse a judge with. Each case would be a simple one based on one or two well established prior rulings. Pystar might be expecting a little too much from the legal system in that it can rarely deal with a complex case in a rational way, they are basically just rolling the dice in the hope a judge will 'get it.'
> In the real world everyone uses Windows and Office, if you take that away from computer labs, you are going
> to piss off a lot of people and take away valuable experience from students.
Unis aren't votech schools. And Office won't look like the version of Office you carefully trained em on by the time they hit the 'real world.' Teach work processing, not Word (or ooWriter) and they will be able to cope. Bottom line, schools and universities should not be seen as training centers for a single vendor's products. It was dumb when all the schools taught Word Perfect (how useful is knowing what all twelve F keys did in WP now?) and it is just as dumb when they obsess over Word. Adn considering the cost difference, and whether the students directly fork over for Office vs OO.o doesn't matter, anybody forcing the general student population to buy Office should be brought up on criminal charges. Yes some course work is designed around Excel and VBA so there are exceptions.