However Androids goal was to make the cell phone the device it should be, not to make a 'Linux phone'.
That's fine, but the whole thrust of the slashdot conventional wisdom here is that Verizon is doing something underhanded by going with a "different Linux phone" instead of Android. And that's where I'm coming from here: if you're looking for a platform to run Linux software on a cellphone, then Android isn't the platform you're looking for, and castigating Verizon is, well, not fair.
I'm sure you could write a simple C compiler for a JVM, after all there was one for the Burroughs A series. It wouldn't be very useful, and would run like molasses with a big old byte array simulating memory (which is what the Burroughs one did). Writing one that generated code that ran fast enough to be useful requires solving problems that so far as I know nobody's really addressed, and all that work would be part of the effort...
And even if I'm wrong, and you could do it with only (say) twice as much effort as implementing Smalltalk on the JVM, the fact that it would require that kind of effort to run UNIX (or Linux) programs on top of Android is just proving my point. It's not providing a Linux environment, it's providing a Java environment, the fact that Linux is involved is irrelevant to either the end user of the Android application developer: the API would be the same if it was implemented on top of Windows CE. It doesn't matter to people who want a Java environment, because they don't want a Linux one, and it doesn't matter to people who want a Linux environment, because it doesn't provide one. It only matters to Google because they can muddy the waters by talking about Linux.
I don't know exactly how the law works in this instance, but that feels like a sort of trespassing.
If I got into a restaurant and they ask me my name and I give them a false name, so that when I'm called to my table I get a brief childish thrill from having the waiter say "Mike Check, your table is ready", that's not like trespassing. If I get cornered outside a clothing store by a survey-taker, and tell them my address is 1060 West Addison, Chicago, Illinois, so the junk mail goes to Wrigley Field instead of my house... that's not like trespassing.
[she] harmed MySpace by abusing other members
That's a different matter, and using a false identity to avoid any legal action MySpace might take against her could well be a factor in any action MySpace might take, but that's got nothing to do with whether using a pseudonym is like trespass, or whether simply violating TOS should carry any stronger sanctions than loss of service, which is where "what technology has to do with it" comes in.
Not exactly, currently, Android depends on *nix security system. Some features (powersaving, graphics, sound) also require cooperation between Android and the kernel.
That's interesting when one is considering the quality and details of the implementation, but unless it's exposed through the API in a way that depends on the fact that it's Linux under the hood that doesn't change my point. Android provides an Android environment, not a UNIX one.
But you can also argue that you can run Symbian OS applications on Windows if you care to port its API and binary loader.
Why yes, you can. Though UNIX is a better example: I can run UNIX applications on Windows NT using either Interix or Cygwin. When I am doing this, as far as I'm concerned, I am working in a UNIX environment, not a Windows environment... and I normally dscribe Interix as a hosted implementation of UNIX under Windows NT.
There is no "public" space online. MySpace is the property of News Corp. It isn't even government owned. When you're on MySpace, the rules should be different.
There is not really a "space" online, for the most part... setting aside things like Second Life that simulate a virtual reality in which you can only be in one place at a time, online services aren't things you "go out to", they're things you bring to you. They're not a space any more than a newspaper is a space. You're not "on Myspace", you're in your bedroom or living room. The rules aren't different because you're running a program on your computer.
If you violate the terms of service of an online service, you're not breaking a law, you're breaking a contract. There are different kinds of contracts, and the implicit contract of adhesion represented by a EULA or TOS page is one of the weakest. The sanctions for breaking an implicit contract of adhesion should not be magically greater simply because you clicked a button.
If they want a contract that carries penalties beyond loss of service than they need to give you a contract to print out, sign, and fax back. That's what you have to do anywhere else... as you say why should the Internet be different?
You can already easily use native libraries in Android, even though it is officially unsupported.
I can use native libraries in Mono, too... that doesn't mean that the fact that Mono runs on Linux makes a.NET application a Linux application.
The Android API may well be a better one than the UNIX API for a cellphone, by the way, so I'm not saying that this is necessarily a drawback to Android. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter all that much to the developer whether the OS below the Android runtime is Linux, Windows CE, Windows PE, whatever the Symbian OS is called this week, Palm OS 5, BeOS, or Amiga.DE.
The whole "Android is Linux" meme is just muddying the waters... Android isn't using Linux as anything but an implementation tool. Android isn't about Linux. Android is about Android.
If you are willing to write a compiler you can turn any language you want in to Java byte code
There's an accumulated 35 years worth of software written in "C" for the UNIX API that includes pretty much all the software that I'm personally interested in running, one way or another.
Writing a compiler for a subset of C that would make even a fraction of these programs work would probably be a bigger job than creating Android was.
The difference is that the post office doesn't make you press a button on the mailbox to show you agree with a "terms of use" form lacquered to the side of the box, and there are no laws that pressing a physical button obligates you to abide by any terms. There are laws about what constitutes postal fraud, but random postal services companies don't get to set them up and have them be treated as legally binding on people who just push a button.
There's a whole bunch of bad laws that have built up around computers and online services, and this is an example of why they're bad... because this case has the potential for establishing a whole new world of opportunities for lawyers and prosecutors to hurt people who are far less culpable than Lori Drew, while providing no real handle to deal with serious abuse.
I have run into cases online where people who have deliberately engaged in long-term wide-scale bullying on the Internet. Some of them are well known and well respected members of the research community, people at major institutions who have written standard textbooks. Others are merely online personalities who restrict themselves to attacking people on political or religious grounds. Their victims have in some cases lost their jobs, and there have been rumors of suicides.
These are not naive people playing a cruel joke on someone they know, there's no connection between them and their victims, they may not even be in the same country as their targets, and they feel no remorse for their actions... they've played the same game over and over again, and even boasted about it where they feel safe to do so.
And no amount of playing games with EULAs will stop them. All it will do is create more opportunities for abusive prosecutions and lawsuits.
Android may be open source, but the fact that it's based on Linux is more or less irrelevant to the programmer. The native API is Java-based, Android applications run under the JVM, and you can't expect to run anything but Java applications on Android. It's not a "Linux phone", it's a "Java phone" that happens to use Linux in its implementation.
Since this is a home server I'd second this recommendation. 1Us are great for colo because they generally charge you per rack unit, but they're really poor value for money where space isn't a premium.
The *step widgets are old, they're copying what NeXT (and Apple in Rhapsody) had in 1997. Updating the widgets to look like 2008 instead of 1997 is trivial compared to what QGtkStyle is doing, and the GNUstep frameworks are easy to modify. Look at what Apple did with the NeXTstep frameworks that they're copycatting.
So even if they were "fugly", which they're not, that's an utter irrelevance.
My original post was half-joking, but I do think in current usage "encourage" is more correct... government agencies are in no wise in need of emboldening (or even outlining or italicizing).
Is that webpage really grey-on-dark-grey or is it using an IE-only style sheet?
If so, is that one way to avoid the blockade, make your webpage on eluding the blockade so hard to read that anyone over 30 gets a migraine before they get to the end?
I haven't used any of the "big" window managers, my preference is Windowmaker and GNUstep apps. THey seem to have less overhead and if they don't provide all the wizzy Window/Mac transitions... you know, I really don't miss 'em.
What's been holding GNUstep back? It doesn't work like Windows?
I liked his "fuel tanks", too. Puncture one of those in flight, have your jet fuel soaking down your leg from a bladder belted to your belly towards a running jet engine strapped to your foot... great balls of fire!
Slashdot Mirror
However Androids goal was to make the cell phone the device it should be, not to make a 'Linux phone'.
That's fine, but the whole thrust of the slashdot conventional wisdom here is that Verizon is doing something underhanded by going with a "different Linux phone" instead of Android. And that's where I'm coming from here: if you're looking for a platform to run Linux software on a cellphone, then Android isn't the platform you're looking for, and castigating Verizon is, well, not fair.
Like, say, the display class in DIO or Speedtables. :)
:)
Disclaimer: I based STDisplay on DIODisplay.
The FSM hates touching pulsars with his noodly appendage... he gets gravel-burns like you wouldn't believe.
I'm sure you could write a simple C compiler for a JVM, after all there was one for the Burroughs A series. It wouldn't be very useful, and would run like molasses with a big old byte array simulating memory (which is what the Burroughs one did). Writing one that generated code that ran fast enough to be useful requires solving problems that so far as I know nobody's really addressed, and all that work would be part of the effort...
And even if I'm wrong, and you could do it with only (say) twice as much effort as implementing Smalltalk on the JVM, the fact that it would require that kind of effort to run UNIX (or Linux) programs on top of Android is just proving my point. It's not providing a Linux environment, it's providing a Java environment, the fact that Linux is involved is irrelevant to either the end user of the Android application developer: the API would be the same if it was implemented on top of Windows CE. It doesn't matter to people who want a Java environment, because they don't want a Linux one, and it doesn't matter to people who want a Linux environment, because it doesn't provide one. It only matters to Google because they can muddy the waters by talking about Linux.
See what happens when real physicists write SF!
I don't know exactly how the law works in this instance, but that feels like a sort of trespassing.
If I got into a restaurant and they ask me my name and I give them a false name, so that when I'm called to my table I get a brief childish thrill from having the waiter say "Mike Check, your table is ready", that's not like trespassing. If I get cornered outside a clothing store by a survey-taker, and tell them my address is 1060 West Addison, Chicago, Illinois, so the junk mail goes to Wrigley Field instead of my house... that's not like trespassing.
[she] harmed MySpace by abusing other members
That's a different matter, and using a false identity to avoid any legal action MySpace might take against her could well be a factor in any action MySpace might take, but that's got nothing to do with whether using a pseudonym is like trespass, or whether simply violating TOS should carry any stronger sanctions than loss of service, which is where "what technology has to do with it" comes in.
Not exactly, currently, Android depends on *nix security system. Some features (powersaving, graphics, sound) also require cooperation between Android and the kernel.
That's interesting when one is considering the quality and details of the implementation, but unless it's exposed through the API in a way that depends on the fact that it's Linux under the hood that doesn't change my point. Android provides an Android environment, not a UNIX one.
But you can also argue that you can run Symbian OS applications on Windows if you care to port its API and binary loader.
Why yes, you can. Though UNIX is a better example: I can run UNIX applications on Windows NT using either Interix or Cygwin. When I am doing this, as far as I'm concerned, I am working in a UNIX environment, not a Windows environment... and I normally dscribe Interix as a hosted implementation of UNIX under Windows NT.
There is no "public" space online. MySpace is the property of News Corp. It isn't even government owned. When you're on MySpace, the rules should be different.
There is not really a "space" online, for the most part... setting aside things like Second Life that simulate a virtual reality in which you can only be in one place at a time, online services aren't things you "go out to", they're things you bring to you. They're not a space any more than a newspaper is a space. You're not "on Myspace", you're in your bedroom or living room. The rules aren't different because you're running a program on your computer.
If you violate the terms of service of an online service, you're not breaking a law, you're breaking a contract. There are different kinds of contracts, and the implicit contract of adhesion represented by a EULA or TOS page is one of the weakest. The sanctions for breaking an implicit contract of adhesion should not be magically greater simply because you clicked a button.
If they want a contract that carries penalties beyond loss of service than they need to give you a contract to print out, sign, and fax back. That's what you have to do anywhere else... as you say why should the Internet be different?
You can already easily use native libraries in Android, even though it is officially unsupported.
.NET application a Linux application.
I can use native libraries in Mono, too... that doesn't mean that the fact that Mono runs on Linux makes a
The Android API may well be a better one than the UNIX API for a cellphone, by the way, so I'm not saying that this is necessarily a drawback to Android. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter all that much to the developer whether the OS below the Android runtime is Linux, Windows CE, Windows PE, whatever the Symbian OS is called this week, Palm OS 5, BeOS, or Amiga.DE.
The whole "Android is Linux" meme is just muddying the waters... Android isn't using Linux as anything but an implementation tool. Android isn't about Linux. Android is about Android.
If you are willing to write a compiler you can turn any language you want in to Java byte code
There's an accumulated 35 years worth of software written in "C" for the UNIX API that includes pretty much all the software that I'm personally interested in running, one way or another.
Writing a compiler for a subset of C that would make even a fraction of these programs work would probably be a bigger job than creating Android was.
So what's the difference here?
The difference is that the post office doesn't make you press a button on the mailbox to show you agree with a "terms of use" form lacquered to the side of the box, and there are no laws that pressing a physical button obligates you to abide by any terms. There are laws about what constitutes postal fraud, but random postal services companies don't get to set them up and have them be treated as legally binding on people who just push a button.
There's a whole bunch of bad laws that have built up around computers and online services, and this is an example of why they're bad... because this case has the potential for establishing a whole new world of opportunities for lawyers and prosecutors to hurt people who are far less culpable than Lori Drew, while providing no real handle to deal with serious abuse.
I have run into cases online where people who have deliberately engaged in long-term wide-scale bullying on the Internet. Some of them are well known and well respected members of the research community, people at major institutions who have written standard textbooks. Others are merely online personalities who restrict themselves to attacking people on political or religious grounds. Their victims have in some cases lost their jobs, and there have been rumors of suicides.
These are not naive people playing a cruel joke on someone they know, there's no connection between them and their victims, they may not even be in the same country as their targets, and they feel no remorse for their actions... they've played the same game over and over again, and even boasted about it where they feel safe to do so.
And no amount of playing games with EULAs will stop them. All it will do is create more opportunities for abusive prosecutions and lawsuits.
Android may be open source, but the fact that it's based on Linux is more or less irrelevant to the programmer. The native API is Java-based, Android applications run under the JVM, and you can't expect to run anything but Java applications on Android. It's not a "Linux phone", it's a "Java phone" that happens to use Linux in its implementation.
While verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer, it tends to emboggle hoi polloi when one enlicenses oneself surlibre.
Since this is a home server I'd second this recommendation. 1Us are great for colo because they generally charge you per rack unit, but they're really poor value for money where space isn't a premium.
I bet you think a Thinkpad is "fugly" too.
The *step widgets are old, they're copying what NeXT (and Apple in Rhapsody) had in 1997. Updating the widgets to look like 2008 instead of 1997 is trivial compared to what QGtkStyle is doing, and the GNUstep frameworks are easy to modify. Look at what Apple did with the NeXTstep frameworks that they're copycatting.
So even if they were "fugly", which they're not, that's an utter irrelevance.
My original post was half-joking, but I do think in current usage "encourage" is more correct... government agencies are in no wise in need of emboldening (or even outlining or italicizing).
That's so 15th century, Bruce. How about "encourage"?
Web 1.0 is the new Web 2.0.
Is that webpage really grey-on-dark-grey or is it using an IE-only style sheet?
If so, is that one way to avoid the blockade, make your webpage on eluding the blockade so hard to read that anyone over 30 gets a migraine before they get to the end?
I haven't used any of the "big" window managers, my preference is Windowmaker and GNUstep apps. THey seem to have less overhead and if they don't provide all the wizzy Window/Mac transitions ... you know, I really don't miss 'em.
What's been holding GNUstep back? It doesn't work like Windows?
Why not do both? "Dear NBC: turning off the TV now. Love, ex-viewer."
At no point in beating a dead horse should your zipper drop.
Slashdot would be a kinder and gentler place if more people kept that in mind.
I liked his "fuel tanks", too. Puncture one of those in flight, have your jet fuel soaking down your leg from a bladder belted to your belly towards a running jet engine strapped to your foot... great balls of fire!
"Slashdot: Equine sadonecrobestiality for the masses."
Man, you just don't get the slashdot zeitgeist. Old news is an essential part of the whole experience.
PS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fLOgMQon7c