So what services do you have access to? I'll be more then happy to run the search for you but you can pay for your own copies. Doubtless a finance whiz like you subscribes to Bloomberg / FirstCall / West / etc.
This is proof? 'Er, uh, yeah, if you go and search for it, the proof is out there...' Now there's an unassailable argument!
Um - first off the reason there are no Mac clones is actually kinda an accident. IBM never intended for there to be clones of their PC's either (heck, they never even dreamt they'd be a big product!) [snip]
This is true...
On the other hand Apple put a large chunk of it's code into proprietary ROMs installed on the motherboard. These ROMs contained many of the routines critical to operating the Macs and they were both heavily legally protected and difficult to reverse engineer. There was no particular genius in this - it was simply how Apple built their boxes and it turned out to be fortuitous way of keeping their hold on their market.
This is pure bollocks. This is of course the reason why it was possible to run MacOS on an Atari ST (Magic Sac anyone?), years ahead of the current crop of powerful PCs and Mac emulators we have now. No machine is tied to a particular hardware, through the magic of emulation. And of course, who can forget Apple's imfamous (and very weak) 'Look and Feel' argument for taking Digital Research to court as part of their 'heavily legally protected' firmware?
Apple did have a licensing program, often incorrectly characterized as clones... [snip]
Unfortunately the licensees didn't remain focused on the small-margin educational market, super-high-end graphics market & burgeoning but very price sensitive foreign markets as originally intended but began to cannibalize Apple's high-profit mid/high-end domestic Mac market. As a result they began to cost Apple both in support, un-recovered R&D, and lost sales and thus were eventually unceremoniously killed.
Err, these guys in business weren't going to try to sell them wherever they could? I'd say that it's pretty naive on Apple's part to think that their competitors would play nice!
Apple does have an advantage when it comes to close-coupling their hardware with their software. By making their own boxes they can design the hardware and software to compliment eachother. This is also a drawback as it limits the market to what Apple can develop & supply.
Couldn't have said it much better myself. The advantages of proprietary hardware is that you have a stable target to write for. The tradeoff is that you can't upgrade your hardware easily, but isn't that big a deal if the hardware is reasonably decent...
[snip]
Apple would be unwise to compete in the x86 market simply because they'd be horribly far behind when it comes to device support. In the 'sheltered' Mac market it's accepted that not third-party all devices are supported & cost more (conversely Mac users are furious when supported devices don't work flawlessly.) In the Wintel world everyone is expected to have WinX drivers and that's that.
Who's to say that Apple would be unwise to compete in the x86 market? Why couldn't they say that their OS would only work on a certain combination of hardware and that anything else would not be supported? Also, this is yet another example of how Wintel computer users have been led to believe that a flawlessly working device is an anomaly. Wintel users should also be furious when devices don't work flawlessly!
Furthermore Apple commands a high premium for their Macintoshes simply because they're the only game in town. Were they to attempt to get the same margin on x86 boxes they charge on Macs they'd be laughed out of the market. To sell x86 PCs at a competitive price wouldn't recover their OS development costs and would cannibalize their traditional Mac platform sales.
This is classic. Everyone knows that hardware is a loss leader--the real money is in software (look at the gaming console market if you have doubts). And the reason that Macs command such a high premium is because they've been marketed to a small niche of people, to appeal to people's snobbery and vanity. Only people who Think Different(TM), people who want to try and set themselves apart from the mainstream, people who want to associate themselves with artists and other creative types will want to buy Macs. It doesn't matter if they actually are better or not--just look at any of their recent billboards for iMacs for proof. Do they tout how they're better than other computers? No! All they have is a single word describing the hot new color you can get it in (alongside a picture of same) and their little 'Think Different' tagline. Apple isn't about substance, they're about surface... Need further proof? The Mac Cube. 'Nuf said.
Who would want a $2,000 PC selling for $3,000 runing MacOS X and a limited set of hardware options? I love Macs but this would be hard to swallow. Apple could consider using another chip (perhaps an Alpha) to justify/disguise their markup but it would still be difficult.
Again, you're falling into the trap of Apple having to sell hardware with their software. It doesn't have to be that way--all they'd have to do say that it's guaranteed to work with X combination of x86 hardware and anything else is unsupported.
[snip]
Unfortunately as we've seen with other mixed-processor OS's (Linux being a good example) the whole process of supporting code on different processors is fraught with difficulty. Can you imagine explaining today to a Mac customer that some apps run on MacOS X PPC & other on MacOS X x86 and that the versions aren't the same?
How is this different from what currently goes on with MS software written for the PC & Mac? Why would it be such an issue?
Finally - Apple didn't 'steal' anything from Xerox. This is an old chestnut that's gone around for years and is patently false. If you do a bit of research you'll discover Apple had already settled on a graphical interface for their next-gen OS well before their visits to Xerox.
I fail to see how this proves that they didn't take anything away from the visit to PARC. Just because they 'settled' on making a graphical interface before they went to PARC doesn't mean that it was in no way influenced by what they found after they went.
Certainly the Lisa folks were influenced by what they saw at Xerox but it was by no means a copy or theft. Indeed the concepts of much of what they eventully shipped were developed *before* their trips to Xerox. Furthermore much of what they released was significantly different from what Xerox had (and yes I've used a Xerox Star extensively.)
So what if it was different? Why did they even need to go to PARC to look at what they had in the first place if they were so bulletproof?
Apple is a neat company and they've devloped some great stuff but they're not perfect. They've made some incredibly foolish, incredibly arrogent mistakes. They've also developed some amazing stuff and managed to pull their chestnuts out of the fire more times than any company has a right to.
Great stuff? I'd say that their influence is vastly overrated and that the microchauvinists (and you know who you are) who support Apple have bought into Apple's marketing hype. What real advantage is there to being locked into Apple's hardware/software? If they're so revolutionary, why are they building their new OS on Unix?
This is an obvious troll, but I'll bite since it's so venomous...
Oh thank goodness!
Someone who know's Apple's business better then that durn Board of Directors... All these years the Financial Analysts have been saying the same thing: "Apple makes it's money on hardware". All these years they've been saying "They couldn't support themselves on the fees for their OS - the development & support costs would overwhelm them" - THEY'VE all been *wrong* and of course YOU are *right* ! (... More irritating blather snipped...)
Of course, you have facts to back up the ridiculous claims of these mythical Financial Analysts, don't you? If not, I suggest you take your fallacious arguments elsewhere.
MacOS X is not being developed for x86. Yes that was the plan for Rhapsody, MacOS's immediate predecessor. This was scrapped. Yes Darwin has been released as Open Source by Apple for the x86. Yes this is the base for MacOS X. No these are not the same things. (...
Apple MacOS X commercial snipped...) Darwin may be the engine but that's *all* it is. It's unlikely Apple would release MacOS X for x86 since Apple is a hardware company and thus this wouldn't make sense for them financially. Yes you and many others think doing so would be cool but financially it would be suicide for Apple so tough - buy their stock and be happy they make a profit.
Every time I hear this argument, it makes me wanna holler. Apple is, and always has been since the day they stole the WIMP paradigm from Xerox, a software company that thinks it's a hardware company. Yes, they do make custom hardware based around Motorola processors (much to their credit--I like Motorola tech), but their focus has always been MacOS which is (now say it with me) software. To pretend otherwise is just silly.
If Jobs would wake up and smell the dramamine he would realize that it's not the hardware that's going to make him any money (just how much margin is there on that overpriced iMac?)... To say that it would be financial suicide for Apple to port OS X to other systems is completely unsubstantiated (you can't make money selling OSes? Ever hear of Micro$oft?). To say that it's tough that they don't port it and to buy Apple stock and be happy they make a profit is at best a ridiculous statement.
I would add more, but I have to go immolate myself...
However, from a pragmatic standpoint, Windows is a better gaming OS. Gamers reboot their machines every thing, and don't need the raw stability of Linux. For those who have used Windows NT or Win2K, stability isn't even an issue.
I beg to disagree: I think that Windows as a gaming OS sucks.
And to say that stability isn't an issue? That's got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! Case in point: Jedi Knight. Having been a somewhat rabid fan of LucasArts offerings in the past (Dark Forces mainly) I was looking forward to Jedi Knight and got a copy when it first came out. However, I was saddened by the fact that it would only work with Win95! Their previous DOS offerings had rock solid stability and I had a feeling that this would come to an end with a dependence on WinXX/DirectX...
Unfortunately, I was right; the game would occasionally dump out into Windows and Windows would be completely unresponsive. No recourse but to reboot. And you could never predict when it would happen. And, of course, there was no mention of this problem anywhere on the LucasArts site (though there were plenty of other problems listed)...
DirectX may be a good thing for developers, but the fact is that it's married to a crappy, unstable OS. I was sorry to see developers abandon the stability of DOS (with its attendant hardware/configuration problems) for the promise of less hassle with hardware/configuration problems using DirectX. The result for me (at least WRT JK) was a less than satisfying gaming experience.
Maybe things have gotten better (I've pretty much given up on games on WinXX), but I doubt it.
There are other models of music creation and compensation on the horizon. See NPR's article on the Street Performer Protocol to see how British band Marilion got more control of their music while still planning to sign with a major label.
I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of hearing the so-called Street Performer Protocol being bandied about as the cure to all IP ills. First of all the whole idea is completely antithetical to what a real street perfomer does: They stand out on the street and perform regardless of whether or not they get any money. Let's get real here and call the Street Performer Protocol what it really is: the Extortionist Artist Prototcol.
The thought that keeps me up at night is: who's really benefiting from the new world taking shape? I mean, even the corporate droids at the top are still droids. Their lives are being stripped of meaning, too. I see the corporations as a new life form that is gorging itself on the old.
You are more right than you know: Corporations are persons, at least in the eyes of the law (which is where it counts). The horrible consequences of this are that they get equal protection under the law. This means that they have an unbelievably disproportionate amount of power in comparison to ordinary, everyday people like you and I.
Are they fish or fowl? From their website (emphasis mine):
The Recording Industry Association of America is the
trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry.
I'm a little hazy on what exactly a trade group is (legally, that is). If it were analogous to a corporation, we could work towards gettting their charter revoked...
A sobering view of the power of corporations can be found here.
One could compare this to a situation with out of print books. There is a definite owner of the IP, (s)he is still alive and owns the copyright, but the work is
no longer commercially available. If there was a surge of interest in such a book, and I had a copy, I would never consider it acceptable to just scan it in and let people read it without asking the writer.
This is just plain silly. To say that it's unacceptable to scan in a book that is no longer commercially available and pass it around for free is ridiculous (horrors! somebody is reading something they didn't get permission from the author to read)! Nobody's losing any money, and gee, it just might stimulate enough interest in that old book to get it back into print!
Hmm...
Also consider:
Calling it "abandonware" makes it sound like a little lost puppy that you can't find its owner.
Again, silly. Abandonware is the perfect name for it--speaking as one who works in the industry, the company I work for regularly abandons certain versions of their commercial software when it no longer makes any money for them.
I'm interested in what you just said.. but you gave no argument and no way to follow up on it.. if it isn't stealing what is it? I would definately like to learn the facts so if you could tell me why its not stealing and where I can go to verify I will definately follow up on it... thanks in advance!!
Sigh...
Copying music is not stealing, it is infringement and the two are very different in the eyes of the law. Copying a Metallica song is not the same as breaking into Lar's bungalow and stealing his toaster. The arguments that this is indeed the case are just plain wrong, and they play into the hands of the IP industry cartels.
Copyright is not a natural right. It is an artificial right that has been extended and abused by the RIAA and MPAA to the detriment of the average person. I find it sad and disgusting that most of the people posting here buy into their lies.
Someone is infringing copyrights? My God! What would Thomas Jefferson say?
So what this is really about, then, is 20 million people infringing on an entire industry by stealing that industry's copyrighted works.
Err, no. You obviously don't get it because you're spouting the same tired line about how copying music is stealing. It's not. Get your facts straight before going around spouting the IP world's propaganda.
Last line is great! As a programmer, I'm distressed when I hear other programmers going nuts about people who can't program.
I agree that yelling at people who don't know how to program is a bad thing, but I can understand the root of that frustration that causes those people to yell. The fact that there is this expectation for people to be stupid and to cater to that expectation is sickening.
The fact of the matter is that people just don't seem to care all that much about giving up their creative birthright--they want to live their lives out seated on a couch in front of the TV, being told what to think and what to believe. These are the kind of people that Microsoft and Apple are catering to under the guise of 'making computers easy to use.' Personally, I think that computers are too difficult to use. And I know that the solution to that problem isn't going to come from any entity whose bottom line is to make money. Creativity and innovation will never come from that, except by accident.
I also agree with the idea that, "this is working for me now." Even as a programmer, OS programming doesn't interest me that much. I don't want to spend a lot of time monkeying with my OS if I don't have to. I want to pull it out of a box, install it and forget about it.
Good luck doing that with any Microsoft OS. Or MacOS for that matter. One of the reasons that linux exists at all is precisely because you can't pull a modern OS out of a box, install it, and forget about it.
Ahem, excuse me. Since when does the word of an RIAA spokesman mean anything?
An RIAA representative said this case isn't about hyperlinking at all.... "This isn't the RIAA coming out against hyperlinking. This is about the fact that the sources MP3Board.com are linking... [emphasis mine]
Linking is linking, whether you put a prefix like hyper in front of it or not. This nothing more than dodging the argument, that being that 'we're not against linking'. The fact is that they are!
They even have a genre labeled as 'Legal MP3s.'" [emphasis mine]
Which would seem to imply that somehow all MP3s are illegal, or at least of dubious legality. This is nothing more than the same tired old line spewed endlessly by the RIAA about how a method of compressing audio is illegal. Clearly, it is not.
The bottom line is that this is all about control--or, more accurately, the near complete lack of it that the RIAA currently holds. They want to cling to an abberation that allowed them to have a stranglehold on music for the past umpteen years. They want you and your children to bow to their will and their view of the world and how they believe it should work. Parroting their point of view only serves to further their interests.
The RIAA is an outdated institution that produces nothing, and, as such, will eventually disappear. Unless, of course, they secure the blessings of our Congress and get even more favorable (to them) restrictions legislated...
Slashdot Mirror
-- Shamus
Insert pithy saying here
Sheesh!
-- Shamus
This space for rent
If Jobs would wake up and smell the dramamine he would realize that it's not the hardware that's going to make him any money (just how much margin is there on that overpriced iMac?)... To say that it would be financial suicide for Apple to port OS X to other systems is completely unsubstantiated (you can't make money selling OSes? Ever hear of Micro$oft?). To say that it's tough that they don't port it and to buy Apple stock and be happy they make a profit is at best a ridiculous statement.
I would add more, but I have to go immolate myself...
-- Shamus
Reality is for people with no imagination
And to say that stability isn't an issue? That's got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! Case in point: Jedi Knight. Having been a somewhat rabid fan of LucasArts offerings in the past (Dark Forces mainly) I was looking forward to Jedi Knight and got a copy when it first came out. However, I was saddened by the fact that it would only work with Win95! Their previous DOS offerings had rock solid stability and I had a feeling that this would come to an end with a dependence on WinXX/DirectX...
Unfortunately, I was right; the game would occasionally dump out into Windows and Windows would be completely unresponsive. No recourse but to reboot. And you could never predict when it would happen. And, of course, there was no mention of this problem anywhere on the LucasArts site (though there were plenty of other problems listed)...
DirectX may be a good thing for developers, but the fact is that it's married to a crappy, unstable OS. I was sorry to see developers abandon the stability of DOS (with its attendant hardware/configuration problems) for the promise of less hassle with hardware/configuration problems using DirectX. The result for me (at least WRT JK) was a less than satisfying gaming experience.
Maybe things have gotten better (I've pretty much given up on games on WinXX), but I doubt it.
-- Shamus
You are a cynic with 5 moderation points.
-- Shamus
Look! The Emperor has no clothes!
You are more right than you know: Corporations are persons, at least in the eyes of the law (which is where it counts). The horrible consequences of this are that they get equal protection under the law. This means that they have an unbelievably disproportionate amount of power in comparison to ordinary, everyday people like you and I.
So just what can be done about this? Corporations should no longer enjoy the privilege of personhood and be able to have their charters revoked. Get the full scoop over at Adbusters.
I'm a little hazy on what exactly a trade group is (legally, that is). If it were analogous to a corporation, we could work towards gettting their charter revoked...
A sobering view of the power of corporations can be found here.
This is just plain silly. To say that it's unacceptable to scan in a book that is no longer commercially available and pass it around for free is ridiculous (horrors! somebody is reading something they didn't get permission from the author to read)! Nobody's losing any money, and gee, it just might stimulate enough interest in that old book to get it back into print!
Hmm...
Also consider:
Again, silly. Abandonware is the perfect name for it--speaking as one who works in the industry, the company I work for regularly abandons certain versions of their commercial software when it no longer makes any money for them.
Quoth the poster:
I'm interested in what you just said.. but you gave no argument and no way to follow up on it.. if it isn't stealing what is it? I would definately like to learn the facts so if you could tell me why its not stealing and where I can go to verify I will definately follow up on it... thanks in advance!!
Sigh...
Copying music is not stealing, it is infringement and the two are very different in the eyes of the law. Copying a Metallica song is not the same as breaking into Lar's bungalow and stealing his toaster. The arguments that this is indeed the case are just plain wrong, and they play into the hands of the IP industry cartels.
Copyright is not a natural right. It is an artificial right that has been extended and abused by the RIAA and MPAA to the detriment of the average person. I find it sad and disgusting that most of the people posting here buy into their lies.
Someone is infringing copyrights? My God! What would Thomas Jefferson say?
Quoth the poster:
So what this is really about, then, is 20 million people infringing on an entire industry by stealing that industry's copyrighted works.
Err, no. You obviously don't get it because you're spouting the same tired line about how copying music is stealing. It's not. Get your facts straight before going around spouting the IP world's propaganda.
Last line is great! As a programmer, I'm distressed when I hear other programmers going nuts about people who can't program.
I agree that yelling at people who don't know how to program is a bad thing, but I can understand the root of that frustration that causes those people to yell. The fact that there is this expectation for people to be stupid and to cater to that expectation is sickening.
The fact of the matter is that people just don't seem to care all that much about giving up their creative birthright--they want to live their lives out seated on a couch in front of the TV, being told what to think and what to believe. These are the kind of people that Microsoft and Apple are catering to under the guise of 'making computers easy to use.' Personally, I think that computers are too difficult to use. And I know that the solution to that problem isn't going to come from any entity whose bottom line is to make money. Creativity and innovation will never come from that, except by accident.
I also agree with the idea that, "this is working for me now." Even as a programmer, OS programming doesn't interest me that much. I don't want to spend a lot of time monkeying with my OS if I don't have to. I want to pull it out of a box, install it and forget about it.
Good luck doing that with any Microsoft OS. Or MacOS for that matter. One of the reasons that linux exists at all is precisely because you can't pull a modern OS out of a box, install it, and forget about it.
Ahem, excuse me. Since when does the word of an RIAA spokesman mean anything?
... "This isn't the RIAA coming out against hyperlinking. This is about the fact that the sources MP3Board.com are linking ... [emphasis mine]
An RIAA representative said this case isn't about hyperlinking at all.
Linking is linking, whether you put a prefix like hyper in front of it or not. This nothing more than dodging the argument, that being that 'we're not against linking'. The fact is that they are!
They even have a genre labeled as 'Legal MP3s.'" [emphasis mine]
Which would seem to imply that somehow all MP3s are illegal, or at least of dubious legality. This is nothing more than the same tired old line spewed endlessly by the RIAA about how a method of compressing audio is illegal. Clearly, it is not.
The bottom line is that this is all about control--or, more accurately, the near complete lack of it that the RIAA currently holds. They want to cling to an abberation that allowed them to have a stranglehold on music for the past umpteen years. They want you and your children to bow to their will and their view of the world and how they believe it should work. Parroting their point of view only serves to further their interests.
The RIAA is an outdated institution that produces nothing, and, as such, will eventually disappear. Unless, of course, they secure the blessings of our Congress and get even more favorable (to them) restrictions legislated...