So, why are we still listening to him? There are millions of voices on the Internet, shouldn't we listen to one of the ones that still has credibility?
"...but no one is interested adding such features."
The weakness of open-source is not that the developers have any less desire to support accessibility (I would guess that they have more), but rather that the nature of open-source sometimes means that the applications are less closely tied to a framework or OS that can easily provide those features.
After all, individual apps don't usually provide their own accessibility support, whether open-source or not - they must gain support for accessibility through the framework or OS that they are based on.
First they sold everyone music at 128kbps (though their competitors were all using 192kbps). I can't remember whether it was Apple themselves, or the media, but the idea that there was an deficient about 128 was dumped on.
Then, they started selling the new 256kbps (without DRM).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but people who bought a track when they were only available at 128kbps had to pay to get the same track upgraded to 256kbps.
Next, Apple will probably release it in some new format (called it "256kbps HD") and owners will have to pay a third time for the same track.
Right there, is a good reason that we will not get to buy our music using a lossless format.
Tyranny is not a good solution to mistakes, such as the "bumbling incompetence" that you ascribe to Microsoft.
Microsoft and some of the Google OEM's have made mistakes, but that is not because they aren't practicing tyranny.
For example, this week we heard that Google had made a mistake and not caught a virus in some apps in its Marketplace. Apple supporters jumped on this and declared that this was the result of Google's more open app store, which makes no sense. Open app stores can and should block viruses and malware, and they usually do. The problem in this case is not that Google isn't authoritarian enough, it is simply that they messed up.
Freedom is messy in many ways compared to authoritarianism, but the claim that it can't function well is a false defense of authoritarianism.
Nokia and Canonical are companies. It is managements' job to make everyone in the company work towards a coherent goal - the fact that this includes Linux developers is irrelevant. Companies selling/using open-source technologies are just as capable as proprietary companies of doing this effectively, or (as in the case of Nokia) of failing at it.
Nokia and Canonical both also worked within a community. That adds an extra level of complexity. That is where Canonical failed.
No one is suggesting that Canonical failed at internal management in the way that Nokia failed.
I don't know the details of how Canonical handled communications/relationship with Gnome, but I think we need to give some leeway to a business that is trying to pursue profit.
Let's remember, the vast majority of companies out there use open-source daily and give nothing back at all. Canonical has given back tons.
You can host your videos in H264 and WebM and deliver whichever is supported to each client. Or, if you don't like that, you can just support one and ask your customers to install a plug-in. After all, there will be free H264 plug-ins for the browsers that don't ship with H264 support (actually, I think there already are). The only exception, of course, is iOS where users will not be allowed to use WebM, so I guess you'll go for H264.
On the other hand, when a browser like IE9 decides to not support half of the technologies that we are talking about, you don't have much recourse (short of asking them to switch browsers), so I would say that that is much more important to discussion.
Apple recently announced that it will be taking a 30% cut on subscriptions. They already take a 30% cut on the App Store. The iPhone5 will probably have NFC and then they will take a cut of every purchase you make in a store, and once again, the size of their cut will shock people.
So, they might be making the bulk of their money from hardware now, but imagine how lucrative all of those 30% are going to be.
This connection between 'openness' and Google messing up and letting a virus get through is a bunch of crap.
You can have an App Store that is 'open' but still blocks all virus and malware, and that is what Google is attempting to do - they just blew it this time.
Open can have many meaning, but in this case it includes stuff like allowing free competition - not blocking apps just because they go against the interests of the platform's sponsor or their buddies.
It does NOT mean that every single app posted to the store gets published. It never has. I'm a bit baffled that so many in the media are pretending that this is what 'open' means but can only guess that they are desperately looking for a way to defend their 'closed' app store.
Agreed - the age restriction is not the issue in all of this.
The issue is that Apple can decide that they will allow the Opera browser, because Opera doesn't bug them to much and has agreed to play by their rules. Now, if Google tried to submit Chrome, or if someone created a browser that did something Apple didn't like, that would be rejected without explanation.
In other words, Apple reserves the right to play any games they want in who they accept and reject.
I heard that there were concerns about whether the technology was mature enough, but it sounds like a very important web tech so I really hope it makes it.
If it doesn't get into Firefox 4 that takes all pressure off of MS to include it, and it will probably be years before it gets widely deployed.
Agreed. $200, $100, whatever. Some fee is fine. (Mind you, they must be careful - for devs in other countries those can be large amounts).
What is much more important is the rules of the App Store. Does the App Store have simple, written rules?
I remember the story of the dev who had an app for both iPhone and Android and in his listings he mentioned that he had won an award for best Android app. He got rejected by Apple for even mentioning Android. On a practical level that is easy to fix, but it makes you feel like the App Store is some kind of arbitrary and petty despotism.
More significant was when Apple changed their rules to block all location based ads (not delivered by Apple and partners). Lots of companies were affected by that.
So, I'm not going to fret about the $200 fee. Just tell me what the rules are.
"If Android is any indication of Google's commitment to security, a free wallpaper application will be able to read all your text messages and track your location in real-time."
Only if you explicitly give the app permission to do those things.
And, what is wrong with that. There is a Google Maps live wallpaper that does just that - requests and uses my real-time location.
It's a bit different then the iPhone where Apple is tracking your location whether you like it or not (permission is buried in the iTunes terms). On Android, nothing gets your location, not even Google, unless you explicitly permit it.
Java, Flash, Silverlight, etc. all replace web technologies in your browser.
NaCl is designed to be used with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and all the other HTML5 technologies. It essentially lets you pre-optimize pieces of performance critical pieces of Javascript such as codecs.
No, I think this is a tailor made argument for using cloud services with excellent data export abilities. Since you mention 'do no evil' I assume you are referring to Google, so it is worth noting that most Google services do satisfy this criteria: http://www.dataliberation.org/
In the end, whatever type of software or service you are using, it comes down to lock-in. If the company providing the software or services doesn't provide a really good export facility then they effectively own your data.
Yes, the gov't has yet done anything to wikileaks, but the Republicans want wikileaks to be designated a terrorist organization.
Now, I don't know the details, but I would guess that once the U.S. designates you a terrorist organization you can pretty much expect to see a drone coming in your direction pretty soon.
Jailbreaking, SIM unlocking, and rooting are quite different things and I have been surprised at how many people don't know the difference. Now, however, seeing that even the editors of/. don't know the difference I begin to understand why there is so much confusion.
If you are willing to submit yourself to Apple like that, just because they have been successful and made lots of money, then you will make an excellent Apple devotee.
No one is questioning their success now. Not buying into Applethink doesn't mean predicting their doom - it means being able to question ridiculous, sycophantic articles like this one.
At least facebook seems to be blocking content based on a clear set of criteria. It's not as if they are blocking all links to Google services just because they don't like Google.
I'm sure there were many articles declaring that Apple would have to stop blocking Apps if they wanted the iPhone to succeed but user's didn't care. And no, the recent changes in the App Store rules (and their allowing of Google Voice) were not because of pressure from users - they were from F.C.C. pressure.
So, we here on/. might care about FB blocking content, but I doubt their users will care.
In the spring Google said that they had collected a vast number of random 200ms snippets of encrypted data. Obviously this will include passwords, e-mail addresses, band account numbers, and anything else you can think of. Google tried not to talk about that aspect of it, but they didn't deny it - how could they. So how is it a revelation that, last month, they were forced to make an official statement of the obvious?
I feel like I've been reading stories about this incident every week since it was first revealed last spring. Most of the ones in the mainstream press are confused (Wi-Fi data collecting versus StreetView) and totally paranoid (in the Google is reading your thoughts vein), and very repetitive.
So who is keeping this going? Is it Google's competitor's? Or is the law firms that are pursuing the extortion lawsuits? There are legitimate issues here, and legitimate law suits, but these endless ridiculous stories are not helping. They are just part of some P.R. battle.
Excellent question (to which there is no good answer).
I too used to deride MS for these nasty business practices. Now Apple has emerged as the primary competitor to MS (for consumer products) and I feel pretty silly.
As another outsider, I would concur, but I would also say that it is pretty obvious that one of those things wrong with the U.S. system is the subject of this article: money.
So now Google serves up uncensored results and the Chinese government censors them somewhere between Google and the end-user (and completely blocks Google new SSL search).
Not much of a practical improvement for the Chinese user, but a much more defensible position for Google for a number of reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
Florian Mueller has zero credibility left.
Remember? He was the guy who claimed that Android included source stolen from Oracle's Java. After getting enormous publicity the whole thing was debunked:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/oops-no-copied-java-code-or-weapons-of-mass-destruction-found-in-android/2162
So, why are we still listening to him? There are millions of voices on the Internet, shouldn't we listen to one of the ones that still has credibility?
"...but no one is interested adding such features."
The weakness of open-source is not that the developers have any less desire to support accessibility (I would guess that they have more), but rather that the nature of open-source sometimes means that the applications are less closely tied to a framework or OS that can easily provide those features.
After all, individual apps don't usually provide their own accessibility support, whether open-source or not - they must gain support for accessibility through the framework or OS that they are based on.
Didn't Apple make a killing playing this game?
First they sold everyone music at 128kbps (though their competitors were all using 192kbps). I can't remember whether it was Apple themselves, or the media, but the idea that there was an deficient about 128 was dumped on.
Then, they started selling the new 256kbps (without DRM).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but people who bought a track when they were only available at 128kbps had to pay to get the same track upgraded to 256kbps.
Next, Apple will probably release it in some new format (called it "256kbps HD") and owners will have to pay a third time for the same track.
Right there, is a good reason that we will not get to buy our music using a lossless format.
Tyranny is not a good solution to mistakes, such as the "bumbling incompetence" that you ascribe to Microsoft.
Microsoft and some of the Google OEM's have made mistakes, but that is not because they aren't practicing tyranny.
For example, this week we heard that Google had made a mistake and not caught a virus in some apps in its Marketplace. Apple supporters jumped on this and declared that this was the result of Google's more open app store, which makes no sense. Open app stores can and should block viruses and malware, and they usually do. The problem in this case is not that Google isn't authoritarian enough, it is simply that they messed up.
Freedom is messy in many ways compared to authoritarianism, but the claim that it can't function well is a false defense of authoritarianism.
You are comparing Apples to Oranges.
Nokia and Canonical are companies. It is managements' job to make everyone in the company work towards a coherent goal - the fact that this includes Linux developers is irrelevant. Companies selling/using open-source technologies are just as capable as proprietary companies of doing this effectively, or (as in the case of Nokia) of failing at it.
Nokia and Canonical both also worked within a community. That adds an extra level of complexity. That is where Canonical failed.
No one is suggesting that Canonical failed at internal management in the way that Nokia failed.
I don't know the details of how Canonical handled communications/relationship with Gnome, but I think we need to give some leeway to a business that is trying to pursue profit.
Let's remember, the vast majority of companies out there use open-source daily and give nothing back at all. Canonical has given back tons.
Why is this an issue for you?
You can host your videos in H264 and WebM and deliver whichever is supported to each client. Or, if you don't like that, you can just support one and ask your customers to install a plug-in. After all, there will be free H264 plug-ins for the browsers that don't ship with H264 support (actually, I think there already are). The only exception, of course, is iOS where users will not be allowed to use WebM, so I guess you'll go for H264.
On the other hand, when a browser like IE9 decides to not support half of the technologies that we are talking about, you don't have much recourse (short of asking them to switch browsers), so I would say that that is much more important to discussion.
Apple recently announced that it will be taking a 30% cut on subscriptions. They already take a 30% cut on the App Store. The iPhone5 will probably have NFC and then they will take a cut of every purchase you make in a store, and once again, the size of their cut will shock people.
So, they might be making the bulk of their money from hardware now, but imagine how lucrative all of those 30% are going to be.
This connection between 'openness' and Google messing up and letting a virus get through is a bunch of crap.
You can have an App Store that is 'open' but still blocks all virus and malware, and that is what Google is attempting to do - they just blew it this time.
Open can have many meaning, but in this case it includes stuff like allowing free competition - not blocking apps just because they go against the interests of the platform's sponsor or their buddies.
It does NOT mean that every single app posted to the store gets published. It never has. I'm a bit baffled that so many in the media are pretending that this is what 'open' means but can only guess that they are desperately looking for a way to defend their 'closed' app store.
Agreed - the age restriction is not the issue in all of this.
The issue is that Apple can decide that they will allow the Opera browser, because Opera doesn't bug them to much and has agreed to play by their rules. Now, if Google tried to submit Chrome, or if someone created a browser that did something Apple didn't like, that would be rejected without explanation.
In other words, Apple reserves the right to play any games they want in who they accept and reject.
What's the status of Web Sockets in Firefox 4?
I heard that there were concerns about whether the technology was mature enough, but it sounds like a very important web tech so I really hope it makes it.
If it doesn't get into Firefox 4 that takes all pressure off of MS to include it, and it will probably be years before it gets widely deployed.
Agreed. $200, $100, whatever. Some fee is fine. (Mind you, they must be careful - for devs in other countries those can be large amounts).
What is much more important is the rules of the App Store. Does the App Store have simple, written rules?
I remember the story of the dev who had an app for both iPhone and Android and in his listings he mentioned that he had won an award for best Android app. He got rejected by Apple for even mentioning Android. On a practical level that is easy to fix, but it makes you feel like the App Store is some kind of arbitrary and petty despotism.
More significant was when Apple changed their rules to block all location based ads (not delivered by Apple and partners). Lots of companies were affected by that.
So, I'm not going to fret about the $200 fee. Just tell me what the rules are.
"If Android is any indication of Google's commitment to security, a free wallpaper application will be able to read all your text messages and track your location in real-time."
Only if you explicitly give the app permission to do those things.
And, what is wrong with that. There is a Google Maps live wallpaper that does just that - requests and uses my real-time location.
It's a bit different then the iPhone where Apple is tracking your location whether you like it or not (permission is buried in the iTunes terms). On Android, nothing gets your location, not even Google, unless you explicitly permit it.
Java, Flash, Silverlight, etc. all replace web technologies in your browser.
NaCl is designed to be used with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and all the other HTML5 technologies. It essentially lets you pre-optimize pieces of performance critical pieces of Javascript such as codecs.
No, I think this is a tailor made argument for using cloud services with excellent data export abilities. Since you mention 'do no evil' I assume you are referring to Google, so it is worth noting that most Google services do satisfy this criteria:
http://www.dataliberation.org/
In the end, whatever type of software or service you are using, it comes down to lock-in. If the company providing the software or services doesn't provide a really good export facility then they effectively own your data.
What Assange has done is great, but he is quite an egotist and that was getting in the way of making wikileaks effective.
For him, this had to be about him, and it shouldn't be. The focus on him (or any individual) was the biggest weakness of wikileaks.
Yes, the gov't has yet done anything to wikileaks, but the Republicans want wikileaks to be designated a terrorist organization.
Now, I don't know the details, but I would guess that once the U.S. designates you a terrorist organization you can pretty much expect to see a drone coming in your direction pretty soon.
Actually, this is a very important distinction.
Jailbreaking, SIM unlocking, and rooting are quite different things and I have been surprised at how many people don't know the difference. Now, however, seeing that even the editors of /. don't know the difference I begin to understand why there is so much confusion.
If you are willing to submit yourself to Apple like that, just because they have been successful and made lots of money, then you will make an excellent Apple devotee.
No one is questioning their success now. Not buying into Applethink doesn't mean predicting their doom - it means being able to question ridiculous, sycophantic articles like this one.
At least facebook seems to be blocking content based on a clear set of criteria. It's not as if they are blocking all links to Google services just because they don't like Google.
I'm sure there were many articles declaring that Apple would have to stop blocking Apps if they wanted the iPhone to succeed but user's didn't care. And no, the recent changes in the App Store rules (and their allowing of Google Voice) were not because of pressure from users - they were from F.C.C. pressure.
So, we here on /. might care about FB blocking content, but I doubt their users will care.
In the spring Google said that they had collected a vast number of random 200ms snippets of encrypted data. Obviously this will include passwords, e-mail addresses, band account numbers, and anything else you can think of. Google tried not to talk about that aspect of it, but they didn't deny it - how could they. So how is it a revelation that, last month, they were forced to make an official statement of the obvious?
I feel like I've been reading stories about this incident every week since it was first revealed last spring. Most of the ones in the mainstream press are confused (Wi-Fi data collecting versus StreetView) and totally paranoid (in the Google is reading your thoughts vein), and very repetitive.
So who is keeping this going? Is it Google's competitor's? Or is the law firms that are pursuing the extortion lawsuits? There are legitimate issues here, and legitimate law suits, but these endless ridiculous stories are not helping. They are just part of some P.R. battle.
Excellent question (to which there is no good answer).
I too used to deride MS for these nasty business practices. Now Apple has emerged as the primary competitor to MS (for consumer products) and I feel pretty silly.
As another outsider, I would concur, but I would also say that it is pretty obvious that one of those things wrong with the U.S. system is the subject of this article: money.
No.
They are not censoring their search results.
So now Google serves up uncensored results and the Chinese government censors them somewhere between Google and the end-user (and completely blocks Google new SSL search).
Not much of a practical improvement for the Chinese user, but a much more defensible position for Google for a number of reasons.
You might want to read the article and think about it for a second before posting.
If Google does what is being asked of them then they have to give in to China too, and where does it stop.
I thought that Google's way of telling the labels to go away was appropriate.