This is obviously nonsense. First of all, most of the software that he's talking about here is already "free" in the sense of "no incremental cost" to the distribution to include it, much of it licensed using approaches like BSD-style licenses or simply released into the public domain. Those licenses do not prevent the software from being used in this way. If the software were GPLed, it would.
Second, what you say is entirely unproven. The software economy would not necessarily collapse. It might even get a lot better. We don't know yet because it hasn't been tried. Most of the people engaged in writing software for a living do not write software that ends up shrink-wrapped in a box on a retail shelf. Most developers write custom code for complex one-off applications that, even if the code were GPL, probably wouldn't be very useful except to the customer it was written for.
In fact, what we might see is a boom of software employment as companies took major packages and hired developers to add bits and pieces that they felt were valuable for their business. Of course, you're right. No one would make money selling software. They would make money writing it.
Actually, it is possible to implement copyright law in software. The law provides the Fair Use exception to allow citizens certain rights with respect to creative works. The law does not require that works must be distributed in a fashion that allows these exceptions to be exercised. Therefore, if **AA wants to implement a scheme that makes it impossible to copy something under *any* circumstance, they are quite within the law. Maybe no one will buy their stuff, but CDs and DVDs were read-only for a long time and found mass acceptance before widespread write-able CD and DVD media were available... so I think the **AA could easily go this route.
The real problem with DRM is that it will never work. NEVER. Because someone somewhere will either crack it or figure out a way around it-- even if it involves degradation of the signal, many will find that degradation an acceptable alternative to paying. It's just not possible to make both the medium and the player available at retail outlets where cash is an acceptable payment and the transaction anonymous such that the protection scheme isn't fairly vulnerable to attack. I mean, the key is in there somewhere, otherwise you couldn't play the movie/song/whatever back.
Who cares how the packages are built? Not me. I agree there may be some differences in how package information is stored on a system, but as a user of both.rpm,.deb, and.tar.gz, I've never seen a significant difference (to me, the user).
What I care about is that the package management tools are sensible. All packages are is glorified zip files. apt-get could just as easily be made to work with a set of.rpms, no? What we really need are more Linux distros that support a BSD-like ports system, so that installing from random source code can be integrated more easily into the existing set of packages (assuming a more widespread ports system will encourage developers to develop such that their tarballs are easily "ported").
The number of screens in this case is partly due to extremely finicky clauses in the Lucasfilm contracts like minimum length of run and sound system stuff. When Lucas puts crap like "AotC must run for at least four weeks on any screen it is shown on" what he does is limit the number of screens it will open on. But by doing that he also increases the chance that the movie will draw more repeat viewers because less screens means less people all rushing out to see the film the first weekend.
When we all know the film is going to be full (and particularly after Jar-Jar) we wait to hear what others thought. Of course we'll go see it, and this helps keep the movie in the theater longer since it evens the demand out over time. The longer the flick is in the theater, the more chances people who saw it early in the run will have to see it again.
Mostly I think focusing on a single short-term revenue number as a signifier of anything, especially a cultural trend is a bad idea. Basically Jon Katz couldn't clue his way out of a wet paper bag with both hands. Or something like that. What he needs to do is wait until both of these movies have been out on DVD/VHS for at least a holiday season, then total both in-theater and home sales. Then *maybe* he'll have a real number to go on. But still, he probably can't conclude a damn thing about generation this-or-that or culture, but merely the quality of the films.
Um, while I'm not happy with the outcome of the last election myself, the fact is that the USA is a federation of states, which are given unequal voting representation in the presidential election (just like they have unequal numbers of representatives in one part of the legislature). The problem with the last election was not a failure in the overall (macro) system, but a detail problem (micro) having to do with counting irregularities in one (or more) of the states. While post-election information indicates that at least one state's counting problems may have resulted in that state voting the wrong way, most of us will never truly know-- given the extremely close nature of the race in that state and the highly inaccurate methods used to tally the votes.
It will become a dictatorship, if and only if, the current administration uses their position to effect political changes (i.e. assassinations, intimidations, etc) or simply finds a way to prevent future elections (i.e. state of war, whatever). Until that occurs, which seems highly unlikely, the United States is a democratic/constitutional republic and your so-called free citizenry is safe from tyranny, ok?
Note that even a constitutional republic is susceptible to degradation of rights for minorities and recognition of protections for acts like free speech. The overriding dependency is the tolerance of citizens to the behavior of police and the final decisions of judicial oversight. Since people are involved both as actors and in a judgement capacity there are bound to be mistakes, inaccuracies, disagreements, misunderstandings, etc.
Who the hell cares if the code to top-secret applications is available? The weakest parts of computer security are the people using the system. Most serious damage is done by insiders (traitors, spies, or idiots). There are lots of closed source programs on the market that have tremendous flaws and for which the holes seem to come at about the same rate as the fixes.
Can you imagine an open source coding campaign by the government like the famous offer by D. Knuth, where any patch submitted that ultimately leads to improved security for a government-use application nets the hacker a $50 check and a little note for their resume? Imagine the ad campaign. "Learn C and help your country while helping yourself!"
As to whether the government will follow the spirit and letter of the GPL, just look at the NSA's work on Linux.
That's not entirely true. Jon Katz is employed by Slashdot to write stories for Slashdot. Many articles posted here are longer pieces researched by the authors, most notably book and movie reviews. I agree that this site is heavy on the opinion and commentary-- the news is a lot more fun when you can chat about it. But the site's main function is that of filter. There is simply too much news in the world for me or you or any of us to read on our own. Slashdot through the submission and selection process filters out lots of news that I don't want to read while simultaneously highlighting things I may want to read but would never find on my own. The premise is that (even if we hold polar opposite views about something) a lot of geeks/nerds are going to want to read the same articles.
In the case of this article, we probably have two sizable contingents: the ones that agree that the military shouldn't be making games to make army life look glamorous (because it isn't), and the ones who think that the military can do no wrong because they are supposedly risking their lives to protect us.
give it a rest. all news is biased, if merely for the act of selection. that's why we come here, because we want a filter on the news geared towards free software, linux/BSD/MacOSX, video games, geeky stuff like robots and astronomy, cyber-liberties, programming, anime, and science fiction. frankly michael and the slashdot crew haven't done a darn thing to "brainwash" me. if anything, the forum they provide has opened my eyes by giving a fairly equal voice to any and all speakers.
Can you post links that clearly show these "sin" taxes as part of state bills, and then demonstrate how these are related to stadium taxes? The stadium bills I've read contain food, beverage, and entertainment tax provisions, but nothing that would impose a $5 additional tax on a lap dance (which at current rates of $20 per song would be something like a 25% tax). The senate baseball bill is capped at 3%, the house at 5%. And from what I can see the bills are designed to keep Minneapolis from voting for stadium taxes so that either St. Paul can catch the stadium or so that the rest of the state can blame the central city when the team leaves. One can only hope this bill passes the way it does, because I'm guessing Minneapolis voters will shoot down the necessary approvals for additional taxes and we can be done with the whole mess. (At least that's my first blush take on it today).
I doubt the US has a "negative population curve" (whatever that is).
While the population in the US is rising every year, the rate of change for the rise is actually lessening. So the population curve has a positive slope. But if you were to graph the change from one year to next, that curve would have a negative slope.
So why do they keep building more damn condos? Because population densities are changing. The dense areas (cities) are growth areas, while the less dense areas (rural) are shrinking. Even states like Iowa, which is growing very slowly overall (indeed shrank from 2000 to 2001), is still seeing massive growth in their urban center(s). Just outside of Des Moines, for example, there are massive construction projects to build entire divisions of what used to be small towns near Des Moines, but are now simply suburbs.
Lots and lots of great information on the US population at www.census.gov.
Your point about Apple not making the drives is the best thing I've read in this thread so far-- I wasn't trying to be critical of Apple per se, just going after the person putting out the hardware. Because frankly, if a black hat can make a CD that destroys my drive, yes, that is the fault of the maker of the drive. What's insane is that it's likely Sony making both the drive and the destructive CD.
Imagine if there were a signal you could put on a video tape that would prevent your VCR from ejecting the tape... that's how I see this. There should always be a button that I can press that says, "whatever the drive is doing, stop it, move all the mechanicals to where they need to be, and open the drive".
Why do they need to conjure up such a convoluted excuse to axe a service that they feel is costing them more to provide than they make off it? If the costs of running Usenet servers for subscribers exceeds the portion of subscriber revenues determined to be a result of offering Usenet feeds, then why not add a surcharge for access to Usenet servers? If they were to cancel Usenet as part of the regular subscription, and I had the option to "upgrade" my RR account so that I could still get Usenet I'd probably do it (until I found a better deal).
I have to wonder how many internet users even know what Usenet is.
In the com.com story you linked, there is no mention of Sony complaining about this copy protection scheme. Unless you are asserting that Philips is now a Sony company.
As to the BBC link, the computers that could crash and have trouble ejecting may well be these iMacs. They are not specific in the article.
I hold to my assertion that if the only way to get the drive to eject a faulty CD is to take it into a repair shop that the design is flawed. Now if these CDs were the wrong size, or had a non-standard surface instead of the aluminum or whatever it is, then I can almost see it. As it is, from my understanding of the write-up here, the Apple drive fails solely due to non-compliant data on an otherwise standard disc.
For my part, I'll just assume that my current CD collection is fine, and I'll scrupulously avoid any labels belonging to the RIAA or who have been found using this copy protection scheme. But I have to wonder if the eject problem can happen to commercially available discs, what's to prevent similar problems with home-burned discs and the like?
How are they adhering to standards by providing a device which does not fail gracefully? I don't mind if the drive can't play these CDs, but if the device is going to suffer serious damage as a result of putting something in which has the exact same form factor as a proper CD and can only be differentiated by putting it in the device, then Apple has some bad engineering on its hands. Apple blaming this on the pseudo-CD makers is just passing the buck, sorry.
Good post. I mostly agree that Nader is better for the rest of us than Chomsky, because he gets things done. But Chomsky's battle is one of getting a lot more people to realize that something needs to be done at all. If you walk down the street in America, how many people are aware of the things Chomsky is normally focused... and if they are aware, how many agree that there's a problem?
But yes, I agree: Nader's sense of humor, common-man sensibilities (in spite of being an Ivy League lawyer), and generally having accomplished some stuff are very respectable qualities. Politicians of all persuasions could take a lesson from him in those things.
No shit sherlock? I've run the program, it sucks. Why spend money on a Mac only to slow it way down by running an x86 emulator on it? It's not a serious alternative to running native-compiled software, and as long as Windows and Office have increasing CPU/RAM/HD demands emulating them on alien hardware will be a waste of energy.
The reason emulating old machines, like Apple IIs, C-64s, and even early Macs, is so successful is that the hardware was quite limited compared to today's hardware, and there will be no upgrade curve, EVER. Not so with Windows and Office. The demands for current software cannot usefully be met through emulation on same-generation hardware. Hell, Windows and Office are taxing enough in their native environments.
The point I was trying to make, and will persist in making, is that the Mac version of Office is incomplete and therefore incomparable to the Windows version. If I really want to run Office, I need to buy a machine that runs Windows native. It's that simple.
Seriously, if the Mac version of Office, which costs more (from what I understand) than the Windows version, doesn't include Microsoft Access, then it is missing what I consider to be 40 to 60 per cent of what makes Office a worthwhile set of applications (the other major portion being Excel. Love Excel, especially for charting).
Luckily for those of us looking to do database stuff on a Mac, OS X is Unix, which means we should be able to run programs like postgresql and mysql. But neither of which can touch Access for ease of use in the area of macros and reporting (being serious databases and not reporting tools).
Who cares if it was a bad day? Bring slippers now!
On a more serious note, I see that all the cool add-ons and stuff seem to require Windows of some flavor... anyone know if this C++ stuff is going to work from Linux and/or Mac OS X? Lego Mindstorm seems to have the same Windows-only problem (although I hear there's some Linux solutions out there for Lego, it can't possibly match the Lego-provided in-box software).
Except that this computer is *not* fine. It's not even close to fine. Can I hold the entirety of the Encyclopedia Britannica on a machine the size of a steno pad? Can I carry my entire CD library around and have my computer learn what songs I like? (On the same machine) Can I carry my entire video library on that same machine? Does my operating system contain tools that truly fight back against viruses and security threats without my help? Does my application suite learn my preferences rather than requiring complex settings dialogs? Can I browse wirelessly while riding a submarine up the Mississippi river? Can I do real-time voice/visual chat from that same computer?
Computers have come a long way, but they still have a long way to go.
Rather than comparing Microsoft to utilities (most of which have a long history of being semi-public and often government-created monopolies) look to compare them to the auto industry. In the auto industry (as much as we'd all like to carp otherwise) innovation is slow, difficult and requires a lot of expensive research. Getting an overall increase in fuel efficiency isn't simple, while at the same time providing the larger SUV and trucks people seem to want. Getting cars safer and more reliable every year takes a lot of work. And then finally, there's the fact that cars, like all machines (including computers) degrade with use, requiring new purchases.
MS may have a monopoly, but they are also in an industry where the barriers to entry are very low, and *potential* competitors are everywhere. An IBM or the new Compaq/HP could easily look to create alternative operating systems. I even hear that a group of hobbyists wrote a whole operating system and some pretty decent apps and that they give the thing away. Don't forget Apple is there hungry to have us decide that Macs make the best central systems in our new digital lifestyles.
But why is Microsoft sitting on cash? Who knows. Don't make no sense to me. Seems to me that's the least profitable investment for all that money they could make. At the same time, it should be proof to every single one of their customers that Microsoft products are overpriced. The company makes so much money they can't even spend it all.:)
Humor aside, you'd think the guy who can code up major portions of Slashdot could figure out how to write a Perl script or a procmail recipe that figures out which emails contain this virus and deletes them automatically... or at least flags them like SpamAssassin does with spam.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for the funniest post on Slashdot this week.
It is legal for you to stand on my sidewalk and observe my yard. If I put up a wall so you can't see in, have I violated your rights under law?
Second, what you say is entirely unproven. The software economy would not necessarily collapse. It might even get a lot better. We don't know yet because it hasn't been tried. Most of the people engaged in writing software for a living do not write software that ends up shrink-wrapped in a box on a retail shelf. Most developers write custom code for complex one-off applications that, even if the code were GPL, probably wouldn't be very useful except to the customer it was written for.
In fact, what we might see is a boom of software employment as companies took major packages and hired developers to add bits and pieces that they felt were valuable for their business. Of course, you're right. No one would make money selling software. They would make money writing it.
Actually, it is possible to implement copyright law in software. The law provides the Fair Use exception to allow citizens certain rights with respect to creative works. The law does not require that works must be distributed in a fashion that allows these exceptions to be exercised. Therefore, if **AA wants to implement a scheme that makes it impossible to copy something under *any* circumstance, they are quite within the law. Maybe no one will buy their stuff, but CDs and DVDs were read-only for a long time and found mass acceptance before widespread write-able CD and DVD media were available... so I think the **AA could easily go this route.
The real problem with DRM is that it will never work. NEVER. Because someone somewhere will either crack it or figure out a way around it-- even if it involves degradation of the signal, many will find that degradation an acceptable alternative to paying. It's just not possible to make both the medium and the player available at retail outlets where cash is an acceptable payment and the transaction anonymous such that the protection scheme isn't fairly vulnerable to attack. I mean, the key is in there somewhere, otherwise you couldn't play the movie/song/whatever back.
Who cares how the packages are built? Not me. I agree there may be some differences in how package information is stored on a system, but as a user of both .rpm, .deb, and .tar.gz, I've never seen a significant difference (to me, the user).
.rpms, no? What we really need are more Linux distros that support a BSD-like ports system, so that installing from random source code can be integrated more easily into the existing set of packages (assuming a more widespread ports system will encourage developers to develop such that their tarballs are easily "ported").
What I care about is that the package management tools are sensible. All packages are is glorified zip files. apt-get could just as easily be made to work with a set of
Why not simply cite revenue per screen then?
The number of screens in this case is partly due to extremely finicky clauses in the Lucasfilm contracts like minimum length of run and sound system stuff. When Lucas puts crap like "AotC must run for at least four weeks on any screen it is shown on" what he does is limit the number of screens it will open on. But by doing that he also increases the chance that the movie will draw more repeat viewers because less screens means less people all rushing out to see the film the first weekend.
When we all know the film is going to be full (and particularly after Jar-Jar) we wait to hear what others thought. Of course we'll go see it, and this helps keep the movie in the theater longer since it evens the demand out over time. The longer the flick is in the theater, the more chances people who saw it early in the run will have to see it again.
Mostly I think focusing on a single short-term revenue number as a signifier of anything, especially a cultural trend is a bad idea. Basically Jon Katz couldn't clue his way out of a wet paper bag with both hands. Or something like that. What he needs to do is wait until both of these movies have been out on DVD/VHS for at least a holiday season, then total both in-theater and home sales. Then *maybe* he'll have a real number to go on. But still, he probably can't conclude a damn thing about generation this-or-that or culture, but merely the quality of the films.
Why would anyone care about TM, in my town ClearChannel itself is one of the main promoters of large concerts (i.e. stadiums, festivals, etc)....
Um, while I'm not happy with the outcome of the last election myself, the fact is that the USA is a federation of states, which are given unequal voting representation in the presidential election (just like they have unequal numbers of representatives in one part of the legislature). The problem with the last election was not a failure in the overall (macro) system, but a detail problem (micro) having to do with counting irregularities in one (or more) of the states. While post-election information indicates that at least one state's counting problems may have resulted in that state voting the wrong way, most of us will never truly know-- given the extremely close nature of the race in that state and the highly inaccurate methods used to tally the votes.
It will become a dictatorship, if and only if, the current administration uses their position to effect political changes (i.e. assassinations, intimidations, etc) or simply finds a way to prevent future elections (i.e. state of war, whatever). Until that occurs, which seems highly unlikely, the United States is a democratic/constitutional republic and your so-called free citizenry is safe from tyranny, ok?
Note that even a constitutional republic is susceptible to degradation of rights for minorities and recognition of protections for acts like free speech. The overriding dependency is the tolerance of citizens to the behavior of police and the final decisions of judicial oversight. Since people are involved both as actors and in a judgement capacity there are bound to be mistakes, inaccuracies, disagreements, misunderstandings, etc.
Well, except that in SimCity you can stop the clock (or slow it way down), do all the construction you want, and then turn time back on again. :)
Who the hell cares if the code to top-secret applications is available? The weakest parts of computer security are the people using the system. Most serious damage is done by insiders (traitors, spies, or idiots). There are lots of closed source programs on the market that have tremendous flaws and for which the holes seem to come at about the same rate as the fixes.
Can you imagine an open source coding campaign by the government like the famous offer by D. Knuth, where any patch submitted that ultimately leads to improved security for a government-use application nets the hacker a $50 check and a little note for their resume? Imagine the ad campaign. "Learn C and help your country while helping yourself!"
As to whether the government will follow the spirit and letter of the GPL, just look at the NSA's work on Linux.
That's not entirely true. Jon Katz is employed by Slashdot to write stories for Slashdot. Many articles posted here are longer pieces researched by the authors, most notably book and movie reviews. I agree that this site is heavy on the opinion and commentary-- the news is a lot more fun when you can chat about it. But the site's main function is that of filter. There is simply too much news in the world for me or you or any of us to read on our own. Slashdot through the submission and selection process filters out lots of news that I don't want to read while simultaneously highlighting things I may want to read but would never find on my own. The premise is that (even if we hold polar opposite views about something) a lot of geeks/nerds are going to want to read the same articles.
In the case of this article, we probably have two sizable contingents: the ones that agree that the military shouldn't be making games to make army life look glamorous (because it isn't), and the ones who think that the military can do no wrong because they are supposedly risking their lives to protect us.
give it a rest. all news is biased, if merely for the act of selection. that's why we come here, because we want a filter on the news geared towards free software, linux/BSD/MacOSX, video games, geeky stuff like robots and astronomy, cyber-liberties, programming, anime, and science fiction. frankly michael and the slashdot crew haven't done a darn thing to "brainwash" me. if anything, the forum they provide has opened my eyes by giving a fairly equal voice to any and all speakers.
Can you post links that clearly show these "sin" taxes as part of state bills, and then demonstrate how these are related to stadium taxes? The stadium bills I've read contain food, beverage, and entertainment tax provisions, but nothing that would impose a $5 additional tax on a lap dance (which at current rates of $20 per song would be something like a 25% tax). The senate baseball bill is capped at 3%, the house at 5%. And from what I can see the bills are designed to keep Minneapolis from voting for stadium taxes so that either St. Paul can catch the stadium or so that the rest of the state can blame the central city when the team leaves. One can only hope this bill passes the way it does, because I'm guessing Minneapolis voters will shoot down the necessary approvals for additional taxes and we can be done with the whole mess. (At least that's my first blush take on it today).
I doubt the US has a "negative population curve" (whatever that is).
While the population in the US is rising every year, the rate of change for the rise is actually lessening. So the population curve has a positive slope. But if you were to graph the change from one year to next, that curve would have a negative slope.
So why do they keep building more damn condos? Because population densities are changing. The dense areas (cities) are growth areas, while the less dense areas (rural) are shrinking. Even states like Iowa, which is growing very slowly overall (indeed shrank from 2000 to 2001), is still seeing massive growth in their urban center(s). Just outside of Des Moines, for example, there are massive construction projects to build entire divisions of what used to be small towns near Des Moines, but are now simply suburbs.
Lots and lots of great information on the US population at www.census.gov.
Your point about Apple not making the drives is the best thing I've read in this thread so far-- I wasn't trying to be critical of Apple per se, just going after the person putting out the hardware. Because frankly, if a black hat can make a CD that destroys my drive, yes, that is the fault of the maker of the drive. What's insane is that it's likely Sony making both the drive and the destructive CD.
Imagine if there were a signal you could put on a video tape that would prevent your VCR from ejecting the tape... that's how I see this. There should always be a button that I can press that says, "whatever the drive is doing, stop it, move all the mechanicals to where they need to be, and open the drive".
Why do they need to conjure up such a convoluted excuse to axe a service that they feel is costing them more to provide than they make off it? If the costs of running Usenet servers for subscribers exceeds the portion of subscriber revenues determined to be a result of offering Usenet feeds, then why not add a surcharge for access to Usenet servers? If they were to cancel Usenet as part of the regular subscription, and I had the option to "upgrade" my RR account so that I could still get Usenet I'd probably do it (until I found a better deal).
I have to wonder how many internet users even know what Usenet is.
In the com.com story you linked, there is no mention of Sony complaining about this copy protection scheme. Unless you are asserting that Philips is now a Sony company.
As to the BBC link, the computers that could crash and have trouble ejecting may well be these iMacs. They are not specific in the article.
I hold to my assertion that if the only way to get the drive to eject a faulty CD is to take it into a repair shop that the design is flawed. Now if these CDs were the wrong size, or had a non-standard surface instead of the aluminum or whatever it is, then I can almost see it. As it is, from my understanding of the write-up here, the Apple drive fails solely due to non-compliant data on an otherwise standard disc.
For my part, I'll just assume that my current CD collection is fine, and I'll scrupulously avoid any labels belonging to the RIAA or who have been found using this copy protection scheme. But I have to wonder if the eject problem can happen to commercially available discs, what's to prevent similar problems with home-burned discs and the like?
How are they adhering to standards by providing a device which does not fail gracefully? I don't mind if the drive can't play these CDs, but if the device is going to suffer serious damage as a result of putting something in which has the exact same form factor as a proper CD and can only be differentiated by putting it in the device, then Apple has some bad engineering on its hands. Apple blaming this on the pseudo-CD makers is just passing the buck, sorry.
Good post. I mostly agree that Nader is better for the rest of us than Chomsky, because he gets things done. But Chomsky's battle is one of getting a lot more people to realize that something needs to be done at all. If you walk down the street in America, how many people are aware of the things Chomsky is normally focused... and if they are aware, how many agree that there's a problem?
But yes, I agree: Nader's sense of humor, common-man sensibilities (in spite of being an Ivy League lawyer), and generally having accomplished some stuff are very respectable qualities. Politicians of all persuasions could take a lesson from him in those things.
No shit sherlock? I've run the program, it sucks. Why spend money on a Mac only to slow it way down by running an x86 emulator on it? It's not a serious alternative to running native-compiled software, and as long as Windows and Office have increasing CPU/RAM/HD demands emulating them on alien hardware will be a waste of energy.
The reason emulating old machines, like Apple IIs, C-64s, and even early Macs, is so successful is that the hardware was quite limited compared to today's hardware, and there will be no upgrade curve, EVER. Not so with Windows and Office. The demands for current software cannot usefully be met through emulation on same-generation hardware. Hell, Windows and Office are taxing enough in their native environments.
The point I was trying to make, and will persist in making, is that the Mac version of Office is incomplete and therefore incomparable to the Windows version. If I really want to run Office, I need to buy a machine that runs Windows native. It's that simple.
Seriously, if the Mac version of Office, which costs more (from what I understand) than the Windows version, doesn't include Microsoft Access, then it is missing what I consider to be 40 to 60 per cent of what makes Office a worthwhile set of applications (the other major portion being Excel. Love Excel, especially for charting).
Luckily for those of us looking to do database stuff on a Mac, OS X is Unix, which means we should be able to run programs like postgresql and mysql. But neither of which can touch Access for ease of use in the area of macros and reporting (being serious databases and not reporting tools).
Wouldn't it just have been easier if we all drove Ford cars filled with Standard Oil gas while talking on our AT&T phones?
Actually, it would be easier. But we would complain about not having any choices.
Who cares if it was a bad day? Bring slippers now!
On a more serious note, I see that all the cool add-ons and stuff seem to require Windows of some flavor... anyone know if this C++ stuff is going to work from Linux and/or Mac OS X? Lego Mindstorm seems to have the same Windows-only problem (although I hear there's some Linux solutions out there for Lego, it can't possibly match the Lego-provided in-box software).
Now maybe if Apple had a robotoy division...
Except that this computer is *not* fine. It's not even close to fine. Can I hold the entirety of the Encyclopedia Britannica on a machine the size of a steno pad? Can I carry my entire CD library around and have my computer learn what songs I like? (On the same machine) Can I carry my entire video library on that same machine? Does my operating system contain tools that truly fight back against viruses and security threats without my help? Does my application suite learn my preferences rather than requiring complex settings dialogs? Can I browse wirelessly while riding a submarine up the Mississippi river? Can I do real-time voice/visual chat from that same computer?
:)
Computers have come a long way, but they still have a long way to go.
Rather than comparing Microsoft to utilities (most of which have a long history of being semi-public and often government-created monopolies) look to compare them to the auto industry. In the auto industry (as much as we'd all like to carp otherwise) innovation is slow, difficult and requires a lot of expensive research. Getting an overall increase in fuel efficiency isn't simple, while at the same time providing the larger SUV and trucks people seem to want. Getting cars safer and more reliable every year takes a lot of work. And then finally, there's the fact that cars, like all machines (including computers) degrade with use, requiring new purchases.
MS may have a monopoly, but they are also in an industry where the barriers to entry are very low, and *potential* competitors are everywhere. An IBM or the new Compaq/HP could easily look to create alternative operating systems. I even hear that a group of hobbyists wrote a whole operating system and some pretty decent apps and that they give the thing away. Don't forget Apple is there hungry to have us decide that Macs make the best central systems in our new digital lifestyles.
But why is Microsoft sitting on cash? Who knows. Don't make no sense to me. Seems to me that's the least profitable investment for all that money they could make. At the same time, it should be proof to every single one of their customers that Microsoft products are overpriced. The company makes so much money they can't even spend it all.
Humor aside, you'd think the guy who can code up major portions of Slashdot could figure out how to write a Perl script or a procmail recipe that figures out which emails contain this virus and deletes them automatically... or at least flags them like SpamAssassin does with spam.