As for it having 2 MB RAM... That's what I recalled it having. It was a school computer, back in the early '90s, so my memory may have faded a little. It was the first time I'd seen X, and though it was great. I assume it has BSD, since that's what our mini-computer also had. I spent a lot more time on the mini-computer with its serial consoles than I did on the X machine.
And I'm not disputing that X11 alone would be faster than the full Aqua GUI. My point was really to make fun of the guy who pointed out how much faster X is on his [insert old system here]. Heck, Macintosh System 6.0.7 runs laps around my MacBook Pro when run on a Macintosh IIfx. Does that mean that I should run System 6 as my daily OS? No. (And Windows 3.1 is significantly more responsive on my 486/66 than Vista is on my Pentium 4 3.8.)
That's what I was wondering. I'd much rather have a doctor misdiagnose on his own 20% of the time, than misdiagnose thanks to Google 42% of the time.
I'm all for having doctors with more information at their fingertips to help with their diagnosis, but that's just a silly comparison. Especially with so few cases.
While fancy Bose or something might do even better, the difference between using my cancellers and just plain earplugs is night and day. They were just $30 Radio Shack specials, yet in the server room, it becomes dead silent. (The difference is so astonishing that if I'm wearing them when I walk in, I just plain don't notice the noise. If I then take them off, or turn them off, it's like I've stepped onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.)
I do understand the sentiment. His son is young enough, that as long as he has a decent firewall, and decent parental control software, (i.e. disallowing email and IM,) he should be fine.
But it's still an irresponsible thing to make as a blanket statement.
...he seems to miss totally the idea of open code -- confusing code with data.
Of course he does. He's not a geek. Yesterday I convinced one of my customers to use OpenOffice.org over Microsoft Office. The only selling point she heard? "Free". Not "Free as in speech", but "no cost to acquire." And her next door neighbor is Ward Cunningham (this one, not this one,) yet she still didn't quite get "open source". The average person doesn't understand open source, nor do they care enough to learn. It's just the way the world works.
It is disappointing that Linux couldn't make more inroads at a nonprofit, but as the article says, it's much easier to find cheap Microsoft help than Linux help. (For example, my on-site consulting company charges 50% more for Linux work than for Microsoft work; simply because we only have two of us that know Linux.)
And do you work in an environment where the situation around you is quite literally "life and death"? Where split-second decisions are needed, and sometimes people just can't quite remember to add 12 to the time? (Not that they CAN'T do it, just that they don't remember to.) When they write down that a patient last had their medicine at 1:32, and the next nurse interprets that as AM, when it was really PM, and gives them a second dose immediately, that can cause problems.
Sometimes, it's just easier to be unambiguous. And when you have mere moments to write it down, it's easier to be unambiguous when you don't HAVE to think about it.
Aviation, medical, police, fire, and others where unambiguity is essential all use 24-hour time. (I had a heck of a time finding my wife a stylish women's watch with 24-hour markings on it, as she works in a hospital, and needs to write everything down in 24-hour notation.)
Again, the OS 9 license says that you must have a previous, legally-licensed copy of the Mac OS, on an 'Apple-labeled or Apple-licensed' computer. The exact part detailing the 'upgrade' nature is:
This license allow you to install or operate the Apple Software only on a computer system that came bundled with a licensed version of the Mac OS at the time of original manufacture.
OS X has no such requirement. The only requirement for OS X is an 'Apple-labeled' computer. But, again, there is no definition of Apple-labeled. What you think the definition is doesn't count. What I think the definition is doesn't count. If it has never been tested in court, then the definition of 'Apple-labeled' has never been legally established. And no, nowhere in the license does it even once mention the word 'Macintosh' or 'Mac' (except as part of 'Mac OS'.)
I fully agree with the sentiment on what Apple meant. (One computer whose hardware is sold by Apple Computer Inc.) But that isn't what the license says. It says 'Apple-labeled', leaving some room for interpretation. (I just had my mom check her legal dictionary. The word 'label' isn't in it. So there is apparently no legal definition of 'labeled'. I'll see if she will do a Lexis-Nexis search at work on Monday to see if there is any precedent.)
That's the big question. I'm looking at the EULA of my 'Retail box' copy of 10.4, and it says nothing about requiring a valid license from an older version of the Mac OS. Windows 'Upgrade' EULAs state this. They require a legally valid existing license for a prior version of Windows. The OS X license merely states that you must have an 'Apple-labeled' computer; but declines to define 'Apple-labeled'.
I have an old Power Mac G3. I have upgraded the memory, processor, and video card. Yet it is still undeniably 'Apple' hardware. If I remove the original Power Mac G3 motherboard, and insert a motherboard from an Intel Mac mini, replacing the memory, processor, and video card, (but keeping the original hard drive,) it is still Apple hardware, right? My license to have 10.4 on that computer is still valid, right? (After all, the mini came with a valid license as well.) But now I'm running an x86 version of 10.4. If I take the processor and RAM from the mini's motherboard, and put them in a 'generic' x86 motherboard that supports said processors, am I still using Apple hardware? I'm using the same processor as I was before, the same memory, the same hard drive. The only thing that has changed is the motherboard. (Say I wanted a real hardware parallel port or serial port for some reason, or I got a motherboard with a PCI Express slot.) Is my license still legal?
How about if I take the guts of the Power Mac G3, and put them into a generic ATX PC case? It doesn't have an Apple label on the outside, but it's 100% Apple hardware on the inside. Is it 'Apple-labeled'? If so, then what if I follow with the process above, replacing with a Mac mini motherboard, then replacing the Mac mini motherboard. Now, the only Apple-original hardware would be the processor, memory, and hard drive. But I started with completely legal versions of everything. Does mere moving of parts and replacing of parts make the license illegal?
Nowhere does Apple define 'Apple-labeled'.
Apple's OS 9 'retail' license speciically said that you had to install it on a computer that contained an existing legally licensed copy of the Mac OS. Meaning that OS 9's retail box was really an 'upgrade' license.
My 12 year old son can't tell the difference between Windows XP with MS Office 2003 and Linux with XPde and OpenOffice. On a Pentium II 400 MHz system with 256 MB of RAM.
That's what they use at his middle school, and they use both Windows and Linux. When I installed Linux dual-boot on his home PC (P4 3.2 GHz, 512 MB RAM,) the only way he knows he's in Linux is that he can't find his games.
Your troll would be interesting, if there was fact behind it.
My son's middle school runs their computers on Linux with XPde and OpenOffice.
It's so convincing, it even took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn't XP. (When I looked at the Start menu and saw an X instead of a Windows logo. Everything else on screen would have been 100% 'at home' on a true Windows computer.)
A few years ago, I found that one company that I needed to call alot had replaced their button-press menu system with a voice recognition ONLY system. Pressing buttons, including '0' resulted in a friendly voice saying "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that, could you please repeat what you just said?" Saying "operator" didn't get you anywhere, saying "live person" didn't get you anywhere. You HAD to go through the menu to get to the 'appropriate' person. (In some cases, like billing, it would insist on having you listen to two minute long things about how well their automated system works, and why you should use it to pay your bill rather than talking to a live person.)
I did discover one phrase that got me to a live operator immediately, every time...
"GET ME A LIVE FUCKING PERSON NOW, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!"
Of course, the first time I said it, it was out of real frustration. The next time I called, I decided to make that the first thing I said, and was responded to with "Hold on while we connect you to a customer service agent." Worked every time. I don't know if it was the exact wording, or the volume, that did it, though.
MS released both Virtual Server and Virtual PC (for Windows only, not the Mac version,) for free (as in beer) months ago. This sounds like they are just touting it as a new thing to the EU regulators.
I must say, though, that I do find it ironic that you can call Microsoft for assistance in installing Red Hat on your (Virtual) PC.
Well, one theory for (the dwarf planet formerly known as) Pluto's odd orbit is that it may have been a moon of Neptune that was knocked out of Neptune's orbit by a passing star.
5 has been the limit for non-server editions of Microsoft's OSes forever. It doesn't mean that only 5 devices can be "approved" to talk to your computer (the way Apple does with the 5 computers that can play iTS purchases,) it's that only 5 devices can talk to the PC at the same time. (Or, in more correct computer-speak, only 5 inbound connections can be open per port.) This has long been a limitation of MS' non-server OSes.
The others, though, are new, and disturbing.
As for people saying "Isn't this just the OEM license?" about the transfers. No, it's not. OEM licenses have always been NO transfers. (i.e. If you buy a Dell, but never boot into Windows, and install Linux on it, that license STILL isn't legal to install on another computer. That license is restricted to that one Dell forever.) This has even been true for the 'white-box OEM' versions that you can often get from local computer stores or online without buying a new computer (I've heard of one online source that 'sells' you an old Pentium or 486 for one cent to make it a pseudo-legal selling of the OEM copy of Windows. Technically, to be legal, you would have to install the copy of Windows on a computer containing THAT chip.) The retail versions, though, have allowed transferring the license to another machine indefinitely. Upgrade editions have also been limited in that they can only be installed on top of a legally licensed copy of Windows. If THAT copy was an OEM that doesn't allow transfers, then the upgrade is likewise locked to the same machine. If it was an upgrade of a full retail edition that allows transfers, then in order to transfer the upgrade, you had to include the original full retail one that you were upgrading 'from' as well.
Now, the "full retail" version can only be transferred once. What makes a computer a computer, though? Tough call. People who are constantly upgrading individual parts would probably count as 'one computer' even after having upgraded every part, as long as it is the same 'initial install'. (i.e. if/when they got to upgrading the hard drive, they cloned it then erased the original, so that it was the same 'install' of Windows.) But if the computer changes enough to trigger a re-activation more than once, you'll probably have to talk to a drone at the activation center to explain yourself. (As I have had to do on more than one occassion.)
AMD claims that its quad core is true quad core, while Intel's is two dual-cores grafted together.
Who cares? Really.
If Intel has quad-core released within the next two months, and AMD's quad-core solution is more than 6 months away, this just sounds like sour grapes. I'm not an Intel fan-boy or an AMD fan-boy. I follow processor because I like technology. AMD had the best processor before Core 2. Now Intel has the best. AMD is running behind Intel, and it looks like they will drop further behind in the next year. I have no doubts that AMD will recover, and in a few years, retake the performance crown. But they don't have it right now.
As I said, who really cares if it's four cores on one die, or two two-die cores? Only the most extreme zealots will give a damn. And they were already AMD fanboys, just looking for an excuse to decry Intel's offerings. Yes, eventually, AMD's quad-core offerings will most likely be superior to Intel's. But when they're 6 months (or more) behind, does it matter?
Does it matter that GM will be releasing a super-environmentally-friendly fuel cell car in five years when you can get a Prius now?
Slashdot Mirror
"Bono".
As for it having 2 MB RAM... That's what I recalled it having. It was a school computer, back in the early '90s, so my memory may have faded a little. It was the first time I'd seen X, and though it was great. I assume it has BSD, since that's what our mini-computer also had. I spent a lot more time on the mini-computer with its serial consoles than I did on the X machine.
And I'm not disputing that X11 alone would be faster than the full Aqua GUI. My point was really to make fun of the guy who pointed out how much faster X is on his [insert old system here]. Heck, Macintosh System 6.0.7 runs laps around my MacBook Pro when run on a Macintosh IIfx. Does that mean that I should run System 6 as my daily OS? No. (And Windows 3.1 is significantly more responsive on my 486/66 than Vista is on my Pentium 4 3.8.)
Bah, and I used X on a 386/33 with 2 MB of RAM back in the early '90s. How does that matter in this case? It's that all modern OSes are hogs.
The king of all Geeks.
Woz.
I'm all for having doctors with more information at their fingertips to help with their diagnosis, but that's just a silly comparison. Especially with so few cases.
While fancy Bose or something might do even better, the difference between using my cancellers and just plain earplugs is night and day. They were just $30 Radio Shack specials, yet in the server room, it becomes dead silent. (The difference is so astonishing that if I'm wearing them when I walk in, I just plain don't notice the noise. If I then take them off, or turn them off, it's like I've stepped onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.)
I do understand the sentiment. His son is young enough, that as long as he has a decent firewall, and decent parental control software, (i.e. disallowing email and IM,) he should be fine.
But it's still an irresponsible thing to make as a blanket statement.
Of course he does. He's not a geek. Yesterday I convinced one of my customers to use OpenOffice.org over Microsoft Office. The only selling point she heard? "Free". Not "Free as in speech", but "no cost to acquire." And her next door neighbor is Ward Cunningham (this one, not this one,) yet she still didn't quite get "open source". The average person doesn't understand open source, nor do they care enough to learn. It's just the way the world works.
It is disappointing that Linux couldn't make more inroads at a nonprofit, but as the article says, it's much easier to find cheap Microsoft help than Linux help. (For example, my on-site consulting company charges 50% more for Linux work than for Microsoft work; simply because we only have two of us that know Linux.)
PC-DOS didn't even exist yet. The shuttle was designed in the 1970's.
And do you work in an environment where the situation around you is quite literally "life and death"? Where split-second decisions are needed, and sometimes people just can't quite remember to add 12 to the time? (Not that they CAN'T do it, just that they don't remember to.) When they write down that a patient last had their medicine at 1:32, and the next nurse interprets that as AM, when it was really PM, and gives them a second dose immediately, that can cause problems.
Sometimes, it's just easier to be unambiguous. And when you have mere moments to write it down, it's easier to be unambiguous when you don't HAVE to think about it.
... to hear that businesses are espousing "bogus legal and technological arguments" in an effort to stifle competition, and increase profits!
What is the world coming to?!
Aviation, medical, police, fire, and others where unambiguity is essential all use 24-hour time. (I had a heck of a time finding my wife a stylish women's watch with 24-hour markings on it, as she works in a hospital, and needs to write everything down in 24-hour notation.)
Go near the Canadian and Mexican borders. On many highways, they are signed primarly in Metric.
Thank you for the legally-defined definition (Black's Law.) I guess my mom didn't use Black's. (She isn't a lawyer herself, but works in a law firm.)
Then that does settle it for me.
Apple re-opened the source. And as someone else said, WebKit is 100% open, so your KHTML reference is irrelevant.
OS X has no such requirement. The only requirement for OS X is an 'Apple-labeled' computer. But, again, there is no definition of Apple-labeled. What you think the definition is doesn't count. What I think the definition is doesn't count. If it has never been tested in court, then the definition of 'Apple-labeled' has never been legally established. And no, nowhere in the license does it even once mention the word 'Macintosh' or 'Mac' (except as part of 'Mac OS'.)
I fully agree with the sentiment on what Apple meant. (One computer whose hardware is sold by Apple Computer Inc.) But that isn't what the license says. It says 'Apple-labeled', leaving some room for interpretation. (I just had my mom check her legal dictionary. The word 'label' isn't in it. So there is apparently no legal definition of 'labeled'. I'll see if she will do a Lexis-Nexis search at work on Monday to see if there is any precedent.)
That's the big question. I'm looking at the EULA of my 'Retail box' copy of 10.4, and it says nothing about requiring a valid license from an older version of the Mac OS. Windows 'Upgrade' EULAs state this. They require a legally valid existing license for a prior version of Windows. The OS X license merely states that you must have an 'Apple-labeled' computer; but declines to define 'Apple-labeled'.
I have an old Power Mac G3. I have upgraded the memory, processor, and video card. Yet it is still undeniably 'Apple' hardware. If I remove the original Power Mac G3 motherboard, and insert a motherboard from an Intel Mac mini, replacing the memory, processor, and video card, (but keeping the original hard drive,) it is still Apple hardware, right? My license to have 10.4 on that computer is still valid, right? (After all, the mini came with a valid license as well.) But now I'm running an x86 version of 10.4. If I take the processor and RAM from the mini's motherboard, and put them in a 'generic' x86 motherboard that supports said processors, am I still using Apple hardware? I'm using the same processor as I was before, the same memory, the same hard drive. The only thing that has changed is the motherboard. (Say I wanted a real hardware parallel port or serial port for some reason, or I got a motherboard with a PCI Express slot.) Is my license still legal?
How about if I take the guts of the Power Mac G3, and put them into a generic ATX PC case? It doesn't have an Apple label on the outside, but it's 100% Apple hardware on the inside. Is it 'Apple-labeled'? If so, then what if I follow with the process above, replacing with a Mac mini motherboard, then replacing the Mac mini motherboard. Now, the only Apple-original hardware would be the processor, memory, and hard drive. But I started with completely legal versions of everything. Does mere moving of parts and replacing of parts make the license illegal?
Nowhere does Apple define 'Apple-labeled'.
Apple's OS 9 'retail' license speciically said that you had to install it on a computer that contained an existing legally licensed copy of the Mac OS. Meaning that OS 9's retail box was really an 'upgrade' license.
We try, yet fail, to win.
My 12 year old son can't tell the difference between Windows XP with MS Office 2003 and Linux with XPde and OpenOffice. On a Pentium II 400 MHz system with 256 MB of RAM.
That's what they use at his middle school, and they use both Windows and Linux. When I installed Linux dual-boot on his home PC (P4 3.2 GHz, 512 MB RAM,) the only way he knows he's in Linux is that he can't find his games.
Your troll would be interesting, if there was fact behind it.
It's so convincing, it even took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn't XP. (When I looked at the Start menu and saw an X instead of a Windows logo. Everything else on screen would have been 100% 'at home' on a true Windows computer.)
I did discover one phrase that got me to a live operator immediately, every time...
"GET ME A LIVE FUCKING PERSON NOW, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!"
Of course, the first time I said it, it was out of real frustration. The next time I called, I decided to make that the first thing I said, and was responded to with "Hold on while we connect you to a customer service agent." Worked every time. I don't know if it was the exact wording, or the volume, that did it, though.
MS released both Virtual Server and Virtual PC (for Windows only, not the Mac version,) for free (as in beer) months ago. This sounds like they are just touting it as a new thing to the EU regulators.
I must say, though, that I do find it ironic that you can call Microsoft for assistance in installing Red Hat on your (Virtual) PC.
Well, one theory for (the dwarf planet formerly known as) Pluto's odd orbit is that it may have been a moon of Neptune that was knocked out of Neptune's orbit by a passing star.
5 has been the limit for non-server editions of Microsoft's OSes forever. It doesn't mean that only 5 devices can be "approved" to talk to your computer (the way Apple does with the 5 computers that can play iTS purchases,) it's that only 5 devices can talk to the PC at the same time. (Or, in more correct computer-speak, only 5 inbound connections can be open per port.) This has long been a limitation of MS' non-server OSes.
The others, though, are new, and disturbing.
As for people saying "Isn't this just the OEM license?" about the transfers. No, it's not. OEM licenses have always been NO transfers. (i.e. If you buy a Dell, but never boot into Windows, and install Linux on it, that license STILL isn't legal to install on another computer. That license is restricted to that one Dell forever.) This has even been true for the 'white-box OEM' versions that you can often get from local computer stores or online without buying a new computer (I've heard of one online source that 'sells' you an old Pentium or 486 for one cent to make it a pseudo-legal selling of the OEM copy of Windows. Technically, to be legal, you would have to install the copy of Windows on a computer containing THAT chip.) The retail versions, though, have allowed transferring the license to another machine indefinitely. Upgrade editions have also been limited in that they can only be installed on top of a legally licensed copy of Windows. If THAT copy was an OEM that doesn't allow transfers, then the upgrade is likewise locked to the same machine. If it was an upgrade of a full retail edition that allows transfers, then in order to transfer the upgrade, you had to include the original full retail one that you were upgrading 'from' as well.
Now, the "full retail" version can only be transferred once. What makes a computer a computer, though? Tough call. People who are constantly upgrading individual parts would probably count as 'one computer' even after having upgraded every part, as long as it is the same 'initial install'. (i.e. if/when they got to upgrading the hard drive, they cloned it then erased the original, so that it was the same 'install' of Windows.) But if the computer changes enough to trigger a re-activation more than once, you'll probably have to talk to a drone at the activation center to explain yourself. (As I have had to do on more than one occassion.)
Who cares? Really.
If Intel has quad-core released within the next two months, and AMD's quad-core solution is more than 6 months away, this just sounds like sour grapes. I'm not an Intel fan-boy or an AMD fan-boy. I follow processor because I like technology. AMD had the best processor before Core 2. Now Intel has the best. AMD is running behind Intel, and it looks like they will drop further behind in the next year. I have no doubts that AMD will recover, and in a few years, retake the performance crown. But they don't have it right now.
As I said, who really cares if it's four cores on one die, or two two-die cores? Only the most extreme zealots will give a damn. And they were already AMD fanboys, just looking for an excuse to decry Intel's offerings. Yes, eventually, AMD's quad-core offerings will most likely be superior to Intel's. But when they're 6 months (or more) behind, does it matter?
Does it matter that GM will be releasing a super-environmentally-friendly fuel cell car in five years when you can get a Prius now?