That's an interesting take but I don't understand how that will protect the programmer. You can still be sued for patent infringement no matter what license your code uses, right? Seams unlikely that you can protect yourself from being sued by releasing your code under a particular license.
The problem is that Apple acts as both the manufacturer and the seller if you buy from Apple Store (online or retail). As a manufacturer Apple provides a one year warranty and still do so, that was never the issue. However as a seller Apple also is responsible for hardware defects, and this is something that they have to do for two years; but only if you actually bought from them. If you bought from a reseller then it's the reseller that has that responsibility. That responsibility is very limited in comparison to a traditional warranty and as a customer you essentially has to prove that the defect was the result of manufacturing. As a seller you are also responsible for explaining this to the customer. Apple did not explain this well enough to customers, and that was what the problem was all about.
While it's nice and all, upgrades aren't mandatory or related to warranties on the hardware.
If the phone is still as capable as it was when sold then it's fine.
It's not just a phone. It's a network connected computer and should not be used or at least not connected to any form of network if it's no longer supported and receives security updates.
The problem was that a significant number (enough for the EU govenerment, AKA 27 goverments, to take notice) of Apple devices couldn't make it to the 2 year limit required by law.
You can spin it however you like but that fact remains.
Apple choose to ignore the law as they didn't want to support people after a year (speaks highly of their confidence in the hardware) and they got burnt.
Correct me if I'm wrong here but the problem was not that they don't support their hardware accordingly to the law, the problem was that they were not good enough at informing customers about it.
If a feature requires certain hardware or the hardware is not capable or powerful enough to support it then you just can't support that feature. There's no way around that. The iPhone 4 started out with iOS 4, and will be supported at least up until iOS 7. A lot has changed from iOS 4 to iOS 7, and it's honorable that Apple has supported it so well. Of course some features may not be supported, but that list is very short and most items on it has a good reason for being there.
I think the problem here is that the word warranty is used differently. Because I know for sure that some EU countries don't have any requirement whatsoever that the seller and/or manufacturer provides warranty. What they require is similar to warranty, but clearly defined as something different from warranty.
The iPhone 4 was already obsolete when it came out, as the specs were on par with competing phones that had been released for months already (like, you guessed it, the Desire).
How can something be obsolete after a few months if it's expected to be around for years?
The fact that it's still working for you doesn't mean a thing. My mother-in-law still has a Galaxy S1, which does what she needs and is just a bit too slow for my tastes, though I'm a power user.
Does Samsung still support the S1 with updates? Does it run the latest stable version of Android? Will it run the next major version of Android?
I'm not totally familiar with the law in Italy, but if it follows the same type of law that is common in the EU then it is not warranty per se. It usually means that if something breaks the vendor has the responsibility to fix it _or_ prove that the problem was not caused by the vendor. That is very different from how most warranties work.
How does it give you programmer protection? Doesn't the standard five or so line warranty disclaimer that most licenses include work well as protection?
Or even the ISC license. Basically the same thing but shorter and avoids terminology which might not be practical for every type of project, like binary form for example. I's not as popular as BSD, but it is used here and there. The OpenBSD project uses it for example.
Copyright (c) Year(s), Company or Person's Name (E-mail address)
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
That's the reason why so many don't want to base their work on something that uses GPL, because one day you may want to redistribute your work and find that you might be prevented to do so under the terms you choose. A no-GPL policy prevents such uncomfortable realizations.
Nothing in this machine is designed to be cheap. From what I understand it's mostly a matter of if third party vendors are willing to support the cramped form factor. Hopefully they will. We don't know yet.
According to some people att WWDC replacing a "drive" is merely a matter of taking the cover off and popping it out of the PCIe slot. Plugging the new one in and closing the cover. The units they have on display features two such slots. Seams pretty OK to me.
RAM is definitly user upgradeable. Four slots for DDR3 1866 MHz ECC. Works like any other RAM slot.
It should be possible to replace the GPUs as well. The only question seams to be that it's unclear how many GPUs will be availble that fits within the form factor.
Slashdot Mirror
That's an interesting take but I don't understand how that will protect the programmer. You can still be sued for patent infringement no matter what license your code uses, right? Seams unlikely that you can protect yourself from being sued by releasing your code under a particular license.
Thanks. That's a good explanation.
But just to be clear, is it just regular app updates or will for example the kernel be updated if a root exploit is found?
The problem is that Apple acts as both the manufacturer and the seller if you buy from Apple Store (online or retail). As a manufacturer Apple provides a one year warranty and still do so, that was never the issue. However as a seller Apple also is responsible for hardware defects, and this is something that they have to do for two years; but only if you actually bought from them. If you bought from a reseller then it's the reseller that has that responsibility. That responsibility is very limited in comparison to a traditional warranty and as a customer you essentially has to prove that the defect was the result of manufacturing. As a seller you are also responsible for explaining this to the customer. Apple did not explain this well enough to customers, and that was what the problem was all about.
The EU doesn't have a two year warranty. I was going to explain it, but Udo Schmitz did a much better job if you look a bit further down.
While it's nice and all, upgrades aren't mandatory or related to warranties on the hardware.
If the phone is still as capable as it was when sold then it's fine.
It's not just a phone. It's a network connected computer and should not be used or at least not connected to any form of network if it's no longer supported and receives security updates.
The problem was that a significant number (enough for the EU govenerment, AKA 27 goverments, to take notice) of Apple devices couldn't make it to the 2 year limit required by law.
You can spin it however you like but that fact remains.
Apple choose to ignore the law as they didn't want to support people after a year (speaks highly of their confidence in the hardware) and they got burnt.
Correct me if I'm wrong here but the problem was not that they don't support their hardware accordingly to the law, the problem was that they were not good enough at informing customers about it.
If a feature requires certain hardware or the hardware is not capable or powerful enough to support it then you just can't support that feature. There's no way around that. The iPhone 4 started out with iOS 4, and will be supported at least up until iOS 7. A lot has changed from iOS 4 to iOS 7, and it's honorable that Apple has supported it so well. Of course some features may not be supported, but that list is very short and most items on it has a good reason for being there.
I think the problem here is that the word warranty is used differently. Because I know for sure that some EU countries don't have any requirement whatsoever that the seller and/or manufacturer provides warranty. What they require is similar to warranty, but clearly defined as something different from warranty.
So if they are not glued then why are they not offering battery replacement?
They offer battery replacement
The iPhone 4 was already obsolete when it came out, as the specs were on par with competing phones that had been released for months already (like, you guessed it, the Desire).
How can something be obsolete after a few months if it's expected to be around for years?
The fact that it's still working for you doesn't mean a thing. My mother-in-law still has a Galaxy S1, which does what she needs and is just a bit too slow for my tastes, though I'm a power user.
Does Samsung still support the S1 with updates? Does it run the latest stable version of Android? Will it run the next major version of Android?
I'm not totally familiar with the law in Italy, but if it follows the same type of law that is common in the EU then it is not warranty per se. It usually means that if something breaks the vendor has the responsibility to fix it _or_ prove that the problem was not caused by the vendor. That is very different from how most warranties work.
Software is covered under copyright law, a hammer is usually not.
How does it give you programmer protection? Doesn't the standard five or so line warranty disclaimer that most licenses include work well as protection?
Under most jurisdictions then no one can legally use your software, not even run it.
If that's what you want then do it, I just don't see the point of it.
Or even the ISC license. Basically the same thing but shorter and avoids terminology which might not be practical for every type of project, like binary form for example. I's not as popular as BSD, but it is used here and there. The OpenBSD project uses it for example.
Copyright (c) Year(s), Company or Person's Name (E-mail address)
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
It's still a bit of a gray area. Don't expect a big organization to rely on it until the facts are clear.
That's the reason why so many don't want to base their work on something that uses GPL, because one day you may want to redistribute your work and find that you might be prevented to do so under the terms you choose. A no-GPL policy prevents such uncomfortable realizations.
If that's what you want to do then that's what you should do, just be aware that a lot of people and organizations won't touch your code.
That's very hard to do in practice, since once you start adding your code the line between your changes and the upstream gets blurry.
You're obviously using legacy hardware. You should use a touch display like the Surface or Surface Pro.
Sounds reasonable to count big tablets if people buy them instead of traditional computers.
The Metro interface in Windows 8 which they released last year is faily innovative.
Nothing in this machine is designed to be cheap. From what I understand it's mostly a matter of if third party vendors are willing to support the cramped form factor. Hopefully they will. We don't know yet.
Four slots total. One socket. 128 GB maximum RAM. All subject to change.
I was thinking of the Power Macintosh G3 All-In-One.
According to some people att WWDC replacing a "drive" is merely a matter of taking the cover off and popping it out of the PCIe slot. Plugging the new one in and closing the cover. The units they have on display features two such slots. Seams pretty OK to me.
RAM is definitly user upgradeable. Four slots for DDR3 1866 MHz ECC. Works like any other RAM slot.
It should be possible to replace the GPUs as well. The only question seams to be that it's unclear how many GPUs will be availble that fits within the form factor.