Palm, if you want to sync DRM free Media to the Pre, write your own application.
The Pre is a USB mass storage device, so it's already possible to copy media to it without iTunes. The advantage of integration with iTunes is that people already know how to use iTunes. This isn't a case of Palm using Apple's software to provide a facility they're too lazy to provide themselves, but rather of providing an additional feature to allow Pre users to use software they're already familiar with.
Only because people are continually working on reverse-engineering Apple's attempts to lock-out other software from working with iPods. And you can't use a recent iPod Touch or iPhone with any software other than iTunes, because Apple have explicitly locked out the methods used by third-party clients to sync with earlier versions of the iPhone.
I didn't say anywhere that AGPL prevents you from modifying software. The concern is that, by relying on the same legal reasoning that allows other software producers to use EULAs to restrict people's use of their software, the AGPL might have the unintended consequence of reinforcing these restrictions.
The relevant language in the AGPL technically sidesteps this problem, although I'm not sure whether it addresses the spirit of your concern. The key point is section 13:
Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software.
So, the rule is that you can't modify AGPL software to remove an offer to provide source code to networked users; it's not technically a restriction on use, but rather on modification. The odd thing is that it applies to a modification that isn't distributed. Asserting the ability to use copyright to restrict that kind of modification is very similar to the reasoning that was used to enforce World of Warcraft's EULA; in that case, WoW mods that modified the software when it was loaded were held to violate copyright. So the AGPL could be a slippery slope to the validation of EULAs.
Except T-Mobile and AT&T phones aren't locked down; you can install any Java (or Window Mobile, or Symbian, or Blackberry, as appropriate) apps you want on them.
There are a whole lot of rendering engines out there, why choose one with an HTML API?
Yes, the API seems to me to be give the lie to the idea that WebKit is just a rendering engine, not a browser. If you look at the API, it's very clearly designed to power a browser-style application. If it exposed an API that you could pass a DOM tree and a list of CSS styles, and get back a pixmap rendering, that might not be a bad backend for a theming system. But WebKit doesn't expose that low-level API, rather, its API is based around loading whole HTML pages.
That page links to a list of third-party web sites where you can file your taxes, that is, exactly the situation that the parent is complaining about. The IRS don't offer their own online filing service.
The division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, manâ(TM)s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.
There is a public, well-established API to get stuff into and out of iTunes/iPods
No there isn't. Not only is access to the database on the iPod undocumented, Apple periodically changes the way it's stored, for instance adding various forms of encryption, specifically to prevent third-party clients from syncing with iPods.
No, the GPL is about preventing limits on what users can do with their software by adding limits on what ''distributors'' can do with their software. You can use GPL software for any purpose you like, including using it in a profit-making business or selling it for money; what you can't do is distribute it under conditions that remove this freedom from the users you distribute the software to.
The GPL restricts the freedom of one group in order to promote the freedom of a different group. You may think GPL proponents are wrong to privelege one group over the other, but there's no hypocrisy here.
But your "point" is completely back to front. The reason iPods don't work with WMP is because Apple went out of their way to use a proprietary syncing system on the iPod; they could have just used USB mass storage like the majority of other MP3 players. Apple prevented iPods working with WMP (and anything else that isn't iTunes), not Microsoft. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but it means that you the iPod/WMP situation is completely different from the Palm/iTunes one.
I don't think many people are saying that a company is required to support a competitor (the exceptions would be those maintaining that Apple has a monopoly). But Apple is deliberately making its software less useful in order to maintain its market position. They have a perfect right to do that, but we also have a right to think it marks Apple as a user-hostile company whose products should be avoided.
The problem isn't Apple making money; the problem is Apple placing restrictions on what users of software can do with it. The GPL, on the other hand, is about preventing limits being placed on what users can do with their software. In other words, it's the exact opposite of what Apple are doing. And believing that A is good and the opposite of A is bad, is pretty much the exact opposite of hypocrisy.
Did Microsoft prevent Windows Media Player from syncing with the iPod? That is to say, did somebody (perhaps Apple) produce the necessary code to get Windows Media Player to sync with iPods, which MS then prevented from working?
Windows Media Player doesn't sync with iPods out of the box, but as far as I can see that's just because Microsoft haven't implemented Apple's proprietary syncing scheme. That's quite a lot different from actively preventing Windows Media Player from syncing with the iPod.
I meant that the public radio station, being supported by public donations, grants, etc is not a profit-seeking venture, it would not be required to pay extra dues
Why would you think that? Why would a public radio station be exempt from copyright-related royalties? I don't see the connection.
At least offer a normal binary package so Linux users can easily have access to their software.
Of course there's a normal binary package for Eclipse on Linux; but, of course, using such a package foregoes the advantages of package management (automatic dependency resolution, automatic updates, QA from the distribution, etc). We use package management systems because they're useful, not because we have to use them; if you prefer Windows' free-for-all installation system, nothing prevents you from managing a Linux system that way.
Coupled with desktop search and changing the system file open window to be one that lets you use said search.
The GTK file open windows do in fact integrate desktop search, as well as a recently used file list, although the standard folder view is the default, and the search and recent options are not especially prominent. I've only recently got into the habit of using them, and they certainly are, a lot of the time, far superior to digging through some confusing mess of folders.
I'm suprised Shuttleworth didn't mention Zeitgeist, which is a solution to the difficulty of manually managing files and folders and is, as I understand it, being considered for inclusion in GNOME 3. The basic idea is to group files (and other activities, like web bookmarks and email contents) automatically according to human-relevant criteria, like "edited last week" or "related to this document I'm writing." It's still very much a work in progress, but it looks like it could be pretty great.
Jesus, the GTK file picker is not what people should be spending time on - it's already much, much better than the file picker in any other GUI framework.
God knows why you're bringing up a 40 year old text almost no-one has read, but thanks for doing so, because the book could do with more exposure. The SCUM Manifesto is surely the most entertaining political manifesto ever written; I'd recommend it to everyone.
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Non-smartphone Nokias don't run Symbian (also, you haven't seen any Ericsson or Motorola or Samsung or LG non-smartphones recently? Really?).
Palm, if you want to sync DRM free Media to the Pre, write your own application.
The Pre is a USB mass storage device, so it's already possible to copy media to it without iTunes. The advantage of integration with iTunes is that people already know how to use iTunes. This isn't a case of Palm using Apple's software to provide a facility they're too lazy to provide themselves, but rather of providing an additional feature to allow Pre users to use software they're already familiar with.
1. You can use your iPod with other software.
Only because people are continually working on reverse-engineering Apple's attempts to lock-out other software from working with iPods. And you can't use a recent iPod Touch or iPhone with any software other than iTunes, because Apple have explicitly locked out the methods used by third-party clients to sync with earlier versions of the iPhone.
I didn't say anywhere that AGPL prevents you from modifying software. The concern is that, by relying on the same legal reasoning that allows other software producers to use EULAs to restrict people's use of their software, the AGPL might have the unintended consequence of reinforcing these restrictions.
The relevant language in the AGPL technically sidesteps this problem, although I'm not sure whether it addresses the spirit of your concern. The key point is section 13:
Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software.
So, the rule is that you can't modify AGPL software to remove an offer to provide source code to networked users; it's not technically a restriction on use, but rather on modification. The odd thing is that it applies to a modification that isn't distributed. Asserting the ability to use copyright to restrict that kind of modification is very similar to the reasoning that was used to enforce World of Warcraft's EULA; in that case, WoW mods that modified the software when it was loaded were held to violate copyright. So the AGPL could be a slippery slope to the validation of EULAs.
Except T-Mobile and AT&T phones aren't locked down; you can install any Java (or Window Mobile, or Symbian, or Blackberry, as appropriate) apps you want on them.
There are a whole lot of rendering engines out there, why choose one with an HTML API?
Yes, the API seems to me to be give the lie to the idea that WebKit is just a rendering engine, not a browser. If you look at the API, it's very clearly designed to power a browser-style application. If it exposed an API that you could pass a DOM tree and a list of CSS styles, and get back a pixmap rendering, that might not be a bad backend for a theming system. But WebKit doesn't expose that low-level API, rather, its API is based around loading whole HTML pages.
That page links to a list of third-party web sites where you can file your taxes, that is, exactly the situation that the parent is complaining about. The IRS don't offer their own online filing service.
I do think that's a very good point. Marx put it well 150 years ago:
The division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, manâ(TM)s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.
Would you have wanted to see a film adaptation using early 1970's film technology?
Yes.
No there isn't. Not only is access to the database on the iPod undocumented, Apple periodically changes the way it's stored, for instance adding various forms of encryption, specifically to prevent third-party clients from syncing with iPods.
No, the GPL is about preventing limits on what users can do with their software by adding limits on what ''distributors'' can do with their software. You can use GPL software for any purpose you like, including using it in a profit-making business or selling it for money; what you can't do is distribute it under conditions that remove this freedom from the users you distribute the software to.
The GPL restricts the freedom of one group in order to promote the freedom of a different group. You may think GPL proponents are wrong to privelege one group over the other, but there's no hypocrisy here.
But your "point" is completely back to front. The reason iPods don't work with WMP is because Apple went out of their way to use a proprietary syncing system on the iPod; they could have just used USB mass storage like the majority of other MP3 players. Apple prevented iPods working with WMP (and anything else that isn't iTunes), not Microsoft. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but it means that you the iPod/WMP situation is completely different from the Palm/iTunes one.
I don't think many people are saying that a company is required to support a competitor (the exceptions would be those maintaining that Apple has a monopoly). But Apple is deliberately making its software less useful in order to maintain its market position. They have a perfect right to do that, but we also have a right to think it marks Apple as a user-hostile company whose products should be avoided.
The problem isn't Apple making money; the problem is Apple placing restrictions on what users of software can do with it. The GPL, on the other hand, is about preventing limits being placed on what users can do with their software. In other words, it's the exact opposite of what Apple are doing. And believing that A is good and the opposite of A is bad, is pretty much the exact opposite of hypocrisy.
Did Microsoft prevent Windows Media Player from syncing with the iPod? That is to say, did somebody (perhaps Apple) produce the necessary code to get Windows Media Player to sync with iPods, which MS then prevented from working?
Windows Media Player doesn't sync with iPods out of the box, but as far as I can see that's just because Microsoft haven't implemented Apple's proprietary syncing scheme. That's quite a lot different from actively preventing Windows Media Player from syncing with the iPod.
A nuclear power station does make sense as an investment for Google; after all, they've got plenty of experience of investing in things that are never going to make a profit.
Do you mean GLX? I believe that works over NX.
I meant that the public radio station, being supported by public donations, grants, etc is not a profit-seeking venture, it would not be required to pay extra dues
Why would you think that? Why would a public radio station be exempt from copyright-related royalties? I don't see the connection.
At least offer a normal binary package so Linux users can easily have access to their software.
Of course there's a normal binary package for Eclipse on Linux; but, of course, using such a package foregoes the advantages of package management (automatic dependency resolution, automatic updates, QA from the distribution, etc). We use package management systems because they're useful, not because we have to use them; if you prefer Windows' free-for-all installation system, nothing prevents you from managing a Linux system that way.
The GTK file open windows do in fact integrate desktop search, as well as a recently used file list, although the standard folder view is the default, and the search and recent options are not especially prominent. I've only recently got into the habit of using them, and they certainly are, a lot of the time, far superior to digging through some confusing mess of folders.
I'm suprised Shuttleworth didn't mention Zeitgeist, which is a solution to the difficulty of manually managing files and folders and is, as I understand it, being considered for inclusion in GNOME 3. The basic idea is to group files (and other activities, like web bookmarks and email contents) automatically according to human-relevant criteria, like "edited last week" or "related to this document I'm writing." It's still very much a work in progress, but it looks like it could be pretty great.
Jesus, the GTK file picker is not what people should be spending time on - it's already much, much better than the file picker in any other GUI framework.
God knows why you're bringing up a 40 year old text almost no-one has read, but thanks for doing so, because the book could do with more exposure. The SCUM Manifesto is surely the most entertaining political manifesto ever written; I'd recommend it to everyone.
Or just download a torrent, which will doubtless have a nocd patch included, making it even easier.