But like most open source projects, there are large numbers of users requesting things, way fewer who say they will do something, and even fewer than that who actually do so.
So you shouldn't worry about whether any but the last group are missing out on the features.:)
A quick digression: Directron are less than a mile from me, and they're pretty damn cool.
No, you can't get a PC as small as the mini, because the mini is basically a repackaged laptop, not a stripped down desktop. But you can get a mini-ITX box and motherboard and a decent AGP video card that's small enough. There's not really all that many situations where a one-foot-cube is too bag, and a laptop isn't really what you're looking for... and for those a reconditioned laptop is still pretty price-competitive.
If it's open source software, and there's interesting features in 10.4 that some people want, see if you can talk some of them into doing the work. If it's important, and you're willing to accept updates, you might be surprised at what people will just pop up and do.
Open Source "Software" is the main thrust of the free software movement.
There's lots of main thrusts of "the" free software movement. If I had more time I'd come up with a wholly remarkable spanish-inquisition skit about the goals of "the" free software movement, but unfortunately my lunch hour is too short to contain it.
The mini is about $150 more than a comparable x86-based box. Adding the price of OS X to it brings you into the same ballpark... which is an absurdly low price for a Mac, but if you're just buying the hardware that's about a 25% premium, which if not "absurd" is still a bit beefy.
Well, OK, so why did you spend $500+ for a Mac Mini instead of maybe $150 less for an x86-based box with comparable specs that you can put a better video card in?
I'm not sure I understand the relationship between the three options I'm inferring from your post.
You can stay with Panther. That's a viable option, the only reason I switched from Jaguar to Panther is that it was the software installed on my mini.
You can upgrade to Tiger. That's also a viable option. You can even stay with Panther now and upgrade to Tiger later when you find you need it... by then you'll be able to buy Tiger cheaper than you can now.
You can install Linux. That's a viable option, if you want Linux. However, it was just as viable 3 months ago and it would have been much cheaper to put together an x86 based Linux box with comparable functionality than to buy a mini.
So what I want to understand is what's changed that makes Linux more attractive than Panther. What can you do with Linux on a Mac mini that you can't do with Panther, because I honestly can't think of anything.
If it's the permissive kind of license (BSD, MIT, etc), [...] Assuming we presume that a so-called "Copyleft" license was used [...]
It doesn't matter what license is used, your DRM still depends on being able to establish an unimpeachable chain from the hardware to the hardware, from the hardware the data is stored in, through the hardware the software is running on, to the hardware that's presenting the data to the physical world.
What you're talking about in both cases is creating a "digital epoxy" that the unchanging binary can be embedded in, and it could be that some such scheme can actually be implemented in a way that really does prevent all possible spoofing mechanisms, down to emulating the environment that the checksum code's running in and letting it measure the "right" data regardless of what the physical CPU's actually doing... it's not like the problem of hiding diagnostics where copyprotection software can't detect it, or hiding rootkits where user-level administrator tools can't see them, isn't one that's been under active attack by the "dark side" for decades.
But let's grant that it can be done. It doesn't change anything. Because the important part of open source isn't the license, the important part of open source is what you can do with it.
So... even if that's possible, what's the difference between an open-source environment for which you can't actually use the source, and a proprietary closed one? Not a damn thing that I can see.
And whether it's possible or not, it's much harder than building the whole thing out of sight where someone can't easily put a tap in between the media player and the analog card.
The amount of material generated in the last ~50 years is massive and releasing it for free distribution would destroy the marketplace for new product.
Yep, all these old piano rolls and 8-tracks are just waiting to roll out and trash the entire entertainment market.
It may include some or most of the *kernel* changes in 10.4.1, but you're not missing out on anything except a chance to do some extra beta-testing to help the "paying customers" get a better product.
The big gain, for Apple, would be a wider base of music which could be leveraged into selling more iPod's.
Huh? I go to iTMS, I see a bunch of artists. I go to other stores, I see a bunch of artists. When I look at individual artists, I see... the same bunch of artists. There are a few exceptions (like I don't expect to ever see the Beatles on iTMS), but the only cases I know about where someonething isn't available in AAC have nothing to do with technical reasons like the DRM and everything to do with human reasons like money and ego.
If you know different, please elaborate. I'm all agog with anticipation.
Oh, and speaking of "technical reasons" for things: "It's not that they're bad products, they're just out of their native environment and kinda running in a semi-emulator."
EVERYTHING in Windows is running in just as much of "an emulator", these days. Microsoft has had so many battling APIs, all of which are still festering in the Win32 swamp, that one more makes no difference.
a nit with your post: "However, if walmart.com wanted to sell AAC files, those AAC files would play on the iPod just fine."
That's true, but Apple has consistently refused to license the AAC/Fairplay format, so walmart.com can't sell music with that DRM.
The OP didn't say "if walmart.com wanted to sell AAC/Fairplay files". The OP just said "if walmart.com wanted to sell AAC files". There's no law that says Walmart has to restrict themselves to artists or labels who demand DRM, and I took that as the point of the post.
You negotiate with your wallet. If you don't want it, you don't buy it. We're not yet anywhere near a world where we're forced to buy DRMed music or no music at all, even if that's the world the RIAA wants.
I don't NEED to be a brainless zombie consumer that buys whatever shit they spew.
Citizen, please report to re-education camp 91101 immediately for an update of your healthy behaviour reinforcement regimen. Have a legally pleasant day.
I think the WMA DRM is the more reasonable of the two (which isn't saying much) because it's much more device independent
I think the Apple DRM is the more reasonable of the two because OS/X is built on an Open Source kernel, so Apple's DRM can not possibly be made as strong as Microsoft's even if Apple wanted to. See my comment here for why.
If you invest in the iPod/iTunes infrastructure, you better be happy with what Apple offers for the foreseeable future (as long as you want to put your purchased music on an MP3 player).
If I want to play my music on anyone's MP3 player, I have to MixBurnRip it into MP3 no matter whose format it started in. BUT, in any case...
If I invest in the WMA/Napster/Real infrastructure, I better be happy with what Microsoft offers for the forseeable future. Because those hundreds of different players by dozens of different vendors are none of them significantly different from each other, just like the dozens of different Pocket PC variants are pretty much interchangable. Microsoft controls the functionality that you're going to get from WMA, like Apple controls the functionality you get from AAC... so whichever way you go...
you can burn and rerip CDs if you don't mind recompressing and retagging. I mind that.
If you mind that, you're not in the market for DRM-muffled music anyway.
I think buying DRM music is stupid and I won't do it
Yeh, like that.
there's going to be a lot of people in the next five years who spent a lot of money at iTMS and end up regretting it
Probably. And then there's going to be a lot of people in the next five years who spend a lot of money on subscription services and end up regretting it. What's your point?
Apple _is_ using two products in a way that each keeps you pretty much locked into the other.
Got that. Absolutely. Now what are the consequences of this? If you don't have an iPod, are you limited in the kinds of music you can listen to? Do you have to buy an iPod to listen to the latest Brittney Spears? Have they locked down the music distribution business with the iTunes Music Store? If you have a Rio, are you unable to listen to Guns n Roses on it? Does it cost you more money to buy your Guns n Roses from Napster? When was the list time someone sent you a song in protected AAC format and you were frustrated because you didn't have an iPod to play it on?
Compare the effects of the Apple monopoly to the Windows monopoly. Can you see the difference?
The "Palm-Sized PC" and then Pocket PC apps were crippled version of the original Windows CE applications, with the ability to view multiple documents and navigate the file system removed in an apparent effort to make was might have been a viable laptop replacement into something that emulated the limitations of the Palm OS without managing to pick up any of the advantages that came along with them.
That was when the Pocket PC was supposed to be a "Palm Killer". Well, it was cellphones that really tromped on the traditional Palm, and Microsoft almost completely failed to get a position in that market while I see the Handspring/Palm Treo all over the place.
Now they're going for a "Blackberry Killer". I wonder what that portends for their applications. Will they finally let the Windows CE platform really compete with the ultralight laptops and Tablet PC on anything like a level playing field?
Google hasn't been helpful here, what I'm looking for is what Microsoft's license for the WMA DRM software is to third part software develipers and hardware integrators. That is, if I were to build a media player that played Microsoft's WMA files, what would they require me to do in the player's hardware and operating system to protect the integrity of their DRM? We know what they themselves do on Windows... they embed a portion of the media player's software in the kernel to make sure it can't be trapdoored. If Apple were to license Microsoft's DRM, precisely what control would that give Microsoft over the design of OS/X?
The implication is that if iTunes dished out WMA, then she'd be happy, because MSFT are already bum-buddies with the RIAA.
You also have to consider the fact that WMA is harder to break because it runs only on Windows and Microsoft has embedded Windows Media Player's DRM component (as of version 9) deeply in the kernel where it's much much harder to patch than iTunes, which is just an application.
This isn't really a problem, because it doesn't really matter whether DRM is breakable or not, because building a DRM that's really unbreakable is a fantasy. DRM can never be more than a token effort on any system that isn't embedded in epoxy from the data to the cortex, with a self-destruct charge wired into the data that'll go off if it thinks you're trying to break into it. Anything less can at the very least be intercepted between the metal and the meat.
And with the internet, once one person, anywhere in the world, has beaten the DRM... it's beaten everywhere. All DRM can do is slow things down. So stopping piracy isn't the real point to DRM. Now the people who push DRM may honestly believe it is, but it's not... it can't stop piracy. But... it DOES have an effect.
What DRM does is increase the control the people peddling the DRM have over the people using the end product. And control can ALWAYS be parleyed into money. DRM doesn't actually have to work to make this control possible, people just have to go along with the DRM. So, it just has to be strong enough that people go along with it, without being restrictive enough that people are forced to try and break it anyway. And iTunes seems to be doing a pretty good job of that, actually.
Anyway, the big problem for a lot of us who oppose DRM is not that it makes music cost a little more or be a little less convenient, it's that DRM depends on keeping a part of the system you sell to a user secret from the user you sell it to. To build a really strong DRM mechanism you really do need a tightly controlled proprietary system... an "open source" DRM is a contradiction in terms. In fact, even having a DRM plugin or component in an open-source application is impossible. Hell, even having openly documented hooks for the DRM module would render it irrelevant. Any place you let the user control what his own hardware and software are doing you provide a place to strip out the DRM. And putting that control in the hands of the user... not the vendor... is what Open Source and Open Systems are really all about.
Now, a little bit of openness isn't really a problem for the DRM advocates. After all, they started out by complaining about the impact of 'piracy' on a system that had no DRM at all. But over the years they have convinced themselves that it is.
And Microsoft's DRM is "better" than Apple's.
And that's why I don't want Apple using WMA, anywhere. I don't want the DRM pressure groups to push Apple to reduce their commitment to Open Source and Open Systems.
Slashdot Mirror
But like most open source projects, there are large numbers of users requesting things, way fewer who say they will do something, and even fewer than that who actually do so.
:)
So you shouldn't worry about whether any but the last group are missing out on the features.
How do you have to add the price of OS X
It came with the Mac, and so part of what you paid was the price of OS X.
A quick digression: Directron are less than a mile from me, and they're pretty damn cool.
No, you can't get a PC as small as the mini, because the mini is basically a repackaged laptop, not a stripped down desktop. But you can get a mini-ITX box and motherboard and a decent AGP video card that's small enough. There's not really all that many situations where a one-foot-cube is too bag, and a laptop isn't really what you're looking for... and for those a reconditioned laptop is still pretty price-competitive.
If it's open source software, and there's interesting features in 10.4 that some people want, see if you can talk some of them into doing the work. If it's important, and you're willing to accept updates, you might be surprised at what people will just pop up and do.
Open Source "Software" is the main thrust of the free software movement.
There's lots of main thrusts of "the" free software movement. If I had more time I'd come up with a wholly remarkable spanish-inquisition skit about the goals of "the" free software movement, but unfortunately my lunch hour is too short to contain it.
The mini is about $150 more than a comparable x86-based box. Adding the price of OS X to it brings you into the same ballpark... which is an absurdly low price for a Mac, but if you're just buying the hardware that's about a 25% premium, which if not "absurd" is still a bit beefy.
Some of us prefer linus to Mac OS X.
Linux.
Well, OK, so why did you spend $500+ for a Mac Mini instead of maybe $150 less for an x86-based box with comparable specs that you can put a better video card in?
I'm not sure I understand the relationship between the three options I'm inferring from your post.
You can stay with Panther. That's a viable option, the only reason I switched from Jaguar to Panther is that it was the software installed on my mini.
You can upgrade to Tiger. That's also a viable option. You can even stay with Panther now and upgrade to Tiger later when you find you need it... by then you'll be able to buy Tiger cheaper than you can now.
You can install Linux. That's a viable option, if you want Linux. However, it was just as viable 3 months ago and it would have been much cheaper to put together an x86 based Linux box with comparable functionality than to buy a mini.
So what I want to understand is what's changed that makes Linux more attractive than Panther. What can you do with Linux on a Mac mini that you can't do with Panther, because I honestly can't think of anything.
Apple likes the open-source model for development of the lowest, least visible, least innovative parts of its OS
The kernel might just be the old dinosaurian hindbrain, but remember what Mac OS was like when Apple was trying to make do without one.
If it's the permissive kind of license (BSD, MIT, etc), [...] Assuming we presume that a so-called "Copyleft" license was used [...]
It doesn't matter what license is used, your DRM still depends on being able to establish an unimpeachable chain from the hardware to the hardware, from the hardware the data is stored in, through the hardware the software is running on, to the hardware that's presenting the data to the physical world.
What you're talking about in both cases is creating a "digital epoxy" that the unchanging binary can be embedded in, and it could be that some such scheme can actually be implemented in a way that really does prevent all possible spoofing mechanisms, down to emulating the environment that the checksum code's running in and letting it measure the "right" data regardless of what the physical CPU's actually doing... it's not like the problem of hiding diagnostics where copyprotection software can't detect it, or hiding rootkits where user-level administrator tools can't see them, isn't one that's been under active attack by the "dark side" for decades.
But let's grant that it can be done. It doesn't change anything. Because the important part of open source isn't the license, the important part of open source is what you can do with it.
So... even if that's possible, what's the difference between an open-source environment for which you can't actually use the source, and a proprietary closed one? Not a damn thing that I can see.
And whether it's possible or not, it's much harder than building the whole thing out of sight where someone can't easily put a tap in between the media player and the analog card.
The amount of material generated in the last ~50 years is massive and releasing it for free distribution would destroy the marketplace for new product.
Yep, all these old piano rolls and 8-tracks are just waiting to roll out and trash the entire entertainment market.
How does Darwin differ from Tiger and why the hell should I care?
Darwin is the UNIX core of OS X, without any of the GUI or applications.
8.0.1 is not 10.4.1
It may include some or most of the *kernel* changes in 10.4.1, but you're not missing out on anything except a chance to do some extra beta-testing to help the "paying customers" get a better product.
What benefits are there to running Darwin on x86 as opposed to Linux or any other BSD?
Chicks dig scars.
The big gain, for Apple, would be a wider base of music which could be leveraged into selling more iPod's.
Huh? I go to iTMS, I see a bunch of artists. I go to other stores, I see a bunch of artists. When I look at individual artists, I see... the same bunch of artists. There are a few exceptions (like I don't expect to ever see the Beatles on iTMS), but the only cases I know about where someonething isn't available in AAC have nothing to do with technical reasons like the DRM and everything to do with human reasons like money and ego.
If you know different, please elaborate. I'm all agog with anticipation.
Oh, and speaking of "technical reasons" for things: "It's not that they're bad products, they're just out of their native environment and kinda running in a semi-emulator."
EVERYTHING in Windows is running in just as much of "an emulator", these days. Microsoft has had so many battling APIs, all of which are still festering in the Win32 swamp, that one more makes no difference.
a nit with your post:
"However, if walmart.com wanted to sell AAC files, those AAC files would play on the iPod just fine."
That's true, but Apple has consistently refused to license the AAC/Fairplay format, so walmart.com can't sell music with that DRM.
The OP didn't say "if walmart.com wanted to sell AAC/Fairplay files". The OP just said "if walmart.com wanted to sell AAC files". There's no law that says Walmart has to restrict themselves to artists or labels who demand DRM, and I took that as the point of the post.
its thier scheme, not mine, no negotiation.
You negotiate with your wallet. If you don't want it, you don't buy it. We're not yet anywhere near a world where we're forced to buy DRMed music or no music at all, even if that's the world the RIAA wants.
I don't NEED to be a brainless zombie consumer that buys whatever shit they spew.
Citizen, please report to re-education camp 91101 immediately for an update of your healthy behaviour reinforcement regimen. Have a legally pleasant day.
I think the WMA DRM is the more reasonable of the two (which isn't saying much) because it's much more device independent
I think the Apple DRM is the more reasonable of the two because OS/X is built on an Open Source kernel, so Apple's DRM can not possibly be made as strong as Microsoft's even if Apple wanted to. See my comment here for why.
If you invest in the iPod/iTunes infrastructure, you better be happy with what Apple offers for the foreseeable future (as long as you want to put your purchased music on an MP3 player).
If I want to play my music on anyone's MP3 player, I have to MixBurnRip it into MP3 no matter whose format it started in. BUT, in any case...
If I invest in the WMA/Napster/Real infrastructure, I better be happy with what Microsoft offers for the forseeable future. Because those hundreds of different players by dozens of different vendors are none of them significantly different from each other, just like the dozens of different Pocket PC variants are pretty much interchangable. Microsoft controls the functionality that you're going to get from WMA, like Apple controls the functionality you get from AAC... so whichever way you go...
you can burn and rerip CDs if you don't mind recompressing and retagging. I mind that.
If you mind that, you're not in the market for DRM-muffled music anyway.
I think buying DRM music is stupid and I won't do it
Yeh, like that.
there's going to be a lot of people in the next five years who spent a lot of money at iTMS and end up regretting it
Probably. And then there's going to be a lot of people in the next five years who spend a lot of money on subscription services and end up regretting it. What's your point?
Apple _is_ using two products in a way that each keeps you pretty much locked into the other.
Got that. Absolutely. Now what are the consequences of this? If you don't have an iPod, are you limited in the kinds of music you can listen to? Do you have to buy an iPod to listen to the latest Brittney Spears? Have they locked down the music distribution business with the iTunes Music Store? If you have a Rio, are you unable to listen to Guns n Roses on it? Does it cost you more money to buy your Guns n Roses from Napster? When was the list time someone sent you a song in protected AAC format and you were frustrated because you didn't have an iPod to play it on?
Compare the effects of the Apple monopoly to the Windows monopoly. Can you see the difference?
The "Palm-Sized PC" and then Pocket PC apps were crippled version of the original Windows CE applications, with the ability to view multiple documents and navigate the file system removed in an apparent effort to make was might have been a viable laptop replacement into something that emulated the limitations of the Palm OS without managing to pick up any of the advantages that came along with them.
That was when the Pocket PC was supposed to be a "Palm Killer". Well, it was cellphones that really tromped on the traditional Palm, and Microsoft almost completely failed to get a position in that market while I see the Handspring/Palm Treo all over the place.
Now they're going for a "Blackberry Killer". I wonder what that portends for their applications. Will they finally let the Windows CE platform really compete with the ultralight laptops and Tablet PC on anything like a level playing field?
Not to self: Not only should you Preview, but if you DO make changes, hit Preview AGAIN before Submit. "develipers" indeed. *sigh*
Google hasn't been helpful here, what I'm looking for is what Microsoft's license for the WMA DRM software is to third part software develipers and hardware integrators. That is, if I were to build a media player that played Microsoft's WMA files, what would they require me to do in the player's hardware and operating system to protect the integrity of their DRM? We know what they themselves do on Windows... they embed a portion of the media player's software in the kernel to make sure it can't be trapdoored. If Apple were to license Microsoft's DRM, precisely what control would that give Microsoft over the design of OS/X?
The implication is that if iTunes dished out WMA, then she'd be happy, because MSFT are already bum-buddies with the RIAA.
You also have to consider the fact that WMA is harder to break because it runs only on Windows and Microsoft has embedded Windows Media Player's DRM component (as of version 9) deeply in the kernel where it's much much harder to patch than iTunes, which is just an application.
This isn't really a problem, because it doesn't really matter whether DRM is breakable or not, because building a DRM that's really unbreakable is a fantasy. DRM can never be more than a token effort on any system that isn't embedded in epoxy from the data to the cortex, with a self-destruct charge wired into the data that'll go off if it thinks you're trying to break into it. Anything less can at the very least be intercepted between the metal and the meat.
And with the internet, once one person, anywhere in the world, has beaten the DRM... it's beaten everywhere. All DRM can do is slow things down. So stopping piracy isn't the real point to DRM. Now the people who push DRM may honestly believe it is, but it's not... it can't stop piracy. But... it DOES have an effect.
What DRM does is increase the control the people peddling the DRM have over the people using the end product. And control can ALWAYS be parleyed into money. DRM doesn't actually have to work to make this control possible, people just have to go along with the DRM. So, it just has to be strong enough that people go along with it, without being restrictive enough that people are forced to try and break it anyway. And iTunes seems to be doing a pretty good job of that, actually.
Anyway, the big problem for a lot of us who oppose DRM is not that it makes music cost a little more or be a little less convenient, it's that DRM depends on keeping a part of the system you sell to a user secret from the user you sell it to. To build a really strong DRM mechanism you really do need a tightly controlled proprietary system... an "open source" DRM is a contradiction in terms. In fact, even having a DRM plugin or component in an open-source application is impossible. Hell, even having openly documented hooks for the DRM module would render it irrelevant. Any place you let the user control what his own hardware and software are doing you provide a place to strip out the DRM. And putting that control in the hands of the user... not the vendor... is what Open Source and Open Systems are really all about.
Now, a little bit of openness isn't really a problem for the DRM advocates. After all, they started out by complaining about the impact of 'piracy' on a system that had no DRM at all. But over the years they have convinced themselves that it is.
And Microsoft's DRM is "better" than Apple's.
And that's why I don't want Apple using WMA, anywhere. I don't want the DRM pressure groups to push Apple to reduce their commitment to Open Source and Open Systems.