I honestly hope they aren't doing this just to stop the mono project. Perhaps because one day mono will be able to run.Net applications (which MS so obviously wants everyone to run). The popularity of linux would be sure to grow because people will be able to use the same software as they do in windows
Here's a scenario for you: Microsoft builds a platform independent next generation OS that runs on top of.Net, and because of Mono, on top of Linux. This OS is popular because people can run the same applications regardless of the underlying platform and hardware. It quickly gains a near 100% marketshare.
Then Microsoft pulls out all the Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 era tricks it pulled to rid the world of nonMicrosoft DOSes such as DR-DOS. Linux (and OS X if it runs Mono) is discredited and dwindles. As a mere formality (and to rake in a bit of extra dough), Microsoft pulls out its patents and kills Mono.
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium."
Io: "What does that mean?"
Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla."
"Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
> I find this viewpoint extremely difficult to accept, because > even Microsoft would not shoot themselves in the foot > with a stick of dynamite.
Please, Microsoft would try to swallow Godzilla head first while his spines were glowing if they thought they could embrace and extend him into world domination. The ensuing nuclear fireball that would destroy them utterly would be an "oops" afterthought.
Don't confuse guile with common sense. Sensible companies don't alienate two thirds of their customers with draconian licensing terms and then crow about "unearned profits" in the media.
World domination is the name of their game. Microsoft wants 100% of the market, desktop and server, so bad it can taste it. Compared to that goal, any standard, much less a W3C standard, is nothing. They would have extended it into nonexistance anyway.
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium." Io: "What does that mean?" Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla." "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
> Back up, most unix-ish C code can be compiled on any > vaguely unix-like system with very little modification. I'd > call that platform independence, wouldn't you?
Very good point. Back in 1989-91, I was working on a 3D radiation treatment planning program, in C, that had to run under X11 on a DEC MicroVAX, HP, and a SGI, with their various flavors of Unix. The program had a single source, with all the platform dependent stuff (there wasn't a lot of it) isolated from the rest. Back then, platform independence (also known as portability) was the in thing.
Historical note: in the first year of that job, in a lab down the hall, was a pre-3.0 version of Windows. The poor primitive thing was still trying to figure out task switching. By the last year of that job, Linux was born.
> Imagine that, and without the overhead of a bloated VM > to slow things way down.
Despite the VM and its warts, Java is still a pretty cool language. It would be quite amusing to run Java on one of today's computers side-by-side with a 1990 computer running a C program under X11. I wonder if advances in computing speed really compensate for having a VM?
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> Are you kidding? Xserves don't have anywhere near the > computational horsepower of the Intel hardware.
Xserves would have equalled or beat Intel hardware had Motorola come through with the G5 when it was supposed to. Motorola didn't, and Apple is rushing around trying to get a next generation CPU as quickly as it can. When Apple does fix this, the Xserve will equal or beat Intel hardware (even if it has to be made of Intel hardware;). GPN sources indicate that the next gen processor will be out before Nov. 3, 2004, as Godzilla wants 50 G5 Xserves for his 50th birthday. (Mothra got OS X for her 40th birthday in 2001. No one knows if Apple is taking seriously King Ghidora's demand for a three headed, gold tone G4 iMac for his big 40 in 2004.)
> And, at that, they are probably more expensive than the > Xeon machines per unit.
The big expense for servers is per client licensing (Windows 2000 per client licensing can double the price of a server). The Xserve is sold with unlimited client licensing, so it actually is a fairly inexpensive server, much like a Linux based server.
> I've said it before and I'll say it again: you are not paying > for cutting-edge hardware when you buy an Apple. You > are paying for easy to use software.
You are paying for cutting edge hardware (say Firewire 800), but not (at the moment) a cutting edge CPU. You are also paying for cutting edge industrial design, the first Unix ever to make it on the desktop, and, yes, easy to use software that is also innovative enough for Microsoft to copy it every time an Apple programmer so much as sneezes.
> Movie production houses which have teams of > professional administrators do not need the handholding > that OSX Server would provide.
True, but Xserve isn't just a server, it can be a workstation. Using a few Xserves for 3D workstations and using a Linux blade server render farm sounds like a pretty good combo. The person creating a model or setting up a scene gets a good, solid, easy to use 3D workstation. The rendering farm can be cheap and not have to waste CPU power or memory on Aqua or X11.
I've seen a CNN business spotlight on Pixar. The OS X logo appeared a lot of times in that little piece, so I imagine they use it for something (and yeah, the other 90% of the logo appearances was Steve being cute and grabbing some free TV advertising).
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are." Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
> Lets face it, this is really all political. I doubt the EU will > be as lenient as the US has been, simply because it's not > at all in their interests to have a powerful company based > in the US controlling their desktops.
That's true. But normally they would face intense pressure from the US government to drop it. However, now they are facing intense pressure from the US government to march on Bagdad, which means they might slip a judgment in against Microsoft relatively unnoticed. The US (my government) appears to be getting quite frivolous in the random slapping on of economic sanctions, as they are proposing slapping them on Germany for daring to disagree over Iraq.
Once sanctions have been used, what does the US have left to twist the arms of fellow nations over Microsoft? Mind you, the US should not be arm twisting sovereign nations, but I don't think Bush views other nations as all that sovereign. His loss.
> Not that the US really does, but M$ is really a huge and > powerfull company. It's value to our economy is > enormous.
Microsoft is a medium sized corporation (IBM is far larger). Its value to our economy comes from illegally abusing its monopolies (it butchered other companies and achieved a strangle hold over its markets). From that economic value, you must subtract:
1) the massive profit margin on Windows and Office milked from its customers.
2) money extorted from companies via Licensing 6 and costly BSA audits.
3) the productivity cost and damages to data from Microsoft's swarm of bugs and security holes.
4) the cost to our technological future by having a monopoly squashing other companies and the innovations they would bring to the market.
The result of your subtraction: it becomes obvious that a big greedy tick has hung on the side of the US economy for years. A tick that would be painful to remove, but that must be removed for the long term health of the economy.
> The really intresting thing is that for the first time there's > a real alternative to microsoft in the form of Linux and > Free software. The rest of the world is jumping on it in > order to escape.
First time? Gee, where has Apple been all these years? Apple is better positioned as a desktop competitor to Microsoft. Don't worry though, Linux can make it on the desktop. Watch us, we'll show you how it's done. Then we can play all kinds of fun, healthy competitive games while sharing our open source with each other (like KHTML). It'll be great! You little waddling penguins are gonna have to get into shape though, if you are going to out run a Jaguar and out fly Mothra. Catch us if you can.:)
"Mothra Leo, the fluttering of your wings is Life!" Japanese language song "Mothra Leo", "Rebirth of Mothra" (Mothra resurrected an apple tree and the surrounding 8,000 acres of scorched earth, six days before Apple's surprise announcement of the return of Steve Jobs.)
> OK all you whiny civil libertarian deconstructionists...
The term you are looking for is patriotic Americans. You know, the kind that love the Constitution that our wise founding fathers set up for us. (Unlike the other kind, the flag cultists who don't have sense enough to bring their flags in out of the rain.) Even the President has sworn to uphold the Constitution.
> Just WHAT do you proactively propose we do with > Islamist terrorists in our midst if we don't turn the screws > down on the whole thing? What? Wait and see? Morons. > You think they are sitting still?
Well, tossing away the rights that generations of American soldiers have fought and died to protect is not only idiotic and unpatriotic, it doesn't do a damn bit of good in stopping terrorists.
What does? Why, we ordinary citizens, of course. The courageous passengers of Flight 93 stopped one of the Sept. 11th planes from reaching its goal and killing people. The wise manager of a company which occupied the offices hit by the second WTC plane evacuated his people before it hit, saving their lives. The shoe-bomber was stopped by the now famous passenger pile-on. If you saw some suspicious person with a rocket launcher in a back alley where the planes fly low near an airport, I bet you would be hitting "911" on your cell phone to report it to the police in a flash.
We don't need any of our rights taken away, the Homeland Security department, or any of this nonsense. We just need the government people to their jobs a bit better (like tell INS to not give the hijackers visas six months after their suicide attack), and have courageous Americans stand up to these thugs when they attack. And they are just thugs, not supermen, so chuck that fear in the nearest dumpster.
> It sure is easy to criticize, but what do you propose we > do if we Don't do something like Patriot II?
Rereading the Constitution would be a nice start. Capturing bin Laden and dumping him off at the World Court for a nice trial would be another good thing.
> Sit and wait for some Iraqi supplied anthrax to kill a few > thousand people?
Why bother importing, when we already had an idiot use American supplied Anthrax last year? You are aware that the US does have weapons of mass destruction, aren't you? That they can, and in the case of the Anthrax, have been stolen?
It is obvious that you are not aware that Anthrax is difficult to use as a terrorist weapon. In Japan, a group tried dumping a bunch of it off the top of a large building, and nobody got sick at all.
> Wait for "evidence" these people are out to get us?!?
What people? It is common knowledge that Al Qaeda is out to get us, or would be if that pesky "passenger pile-on" wasn't so effective. Iraq? What are they going to use, pre-WWII guns wielded by half starved soldiers in sandals and rags (that's the army the UN soldiers patrolling the DMZ say are lining up at the Kuwait border)? The American Anthrax terrorist that hasn't been heard from in over a year?
The only real threat I see is fear itself. That and Ashcroft's Constitution editing tools.
> Need more skyscrapers with people in them destroyed in > front of CNN cameras? Idiots.
Do you know where Al Qaeda is going to find a plane full of people willing to just sit there and let them run the plane into a building? The gig is up, and that trick is never going to work again.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> In other strange news Microsoft sells Japan less than an > hour after buying it. Sources allege that the push to sell > Japan came after it was pointed out that Tokyo had the > biggest bug of all: Godzilla. > > Bill Gates was quoted as saying: "It sounds like that other > browser thing I heard about. But even more shocking is > that Godzilla is a bigger bug than Windows".
The world's first computer bug was actually a moth. Japan has one whale of a moth: her sacred majesty, Mothra, the Queen of Monsters, Goddess of the Sun, and Forever Friend of Apple.
His sacred majesty, Godzilla, Dreaded God of the Atom, King of Monsters, and the world's biggest "switcher" (1993), is a mutated dinosaur and a god, not a bug. He does, however, hate Microsoft (who guest starred as the monster villain of "Godzilla 2000 Millennium"). Selling Japan to Microsoft around his 50th anniversary (Nov. 3, 2004) is about the fastest way to get Redmond nuked.
Actually, there might be an even faster way. Take his all-time best-ever video game, add in his enemy (Mechagodzilla) from his current movie, improve the game a bit, and put it out on Microsoft's evil X-box. When Goji gets done with his movie run, and latest round of Japanese nuclear plant "pranks", somebody's gonna be in trouble!:b
To Microsoft: The crown is not yours. Footsteps drum a dirge of doom By nuclear rage!
The world's great hero, Dreaded God and Monster King, Millennium ends.
> With Bush and co writing it, it will probably work a lot like this: > > 1. We (the Bush administration) can do anything we want to anyone else. > 2. Noone can not do anything at all to us (the Bush administration). > 3. Americans, including American companies, can do anything they want to any foreign country, company or person. > 4. No foreign country, company or person can do anything to any american person or company.
Sadly, we are America, land of the free and home of the brave, no longer.
Now, we are Rolithica, land of the corrupt and home of the greedy. We are the world's greatest superpower, and none can defeat our nuclear might.
No, there is one power greater: Great Mothra, the invincible Goddess of Peace! Our greatest weapons are like the bite of a mosquito to her. She is coming to rescue her fairies: Ladies Liberty and Justice.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> They are trying to get 5 hours of audio (notice they didn't > say music) in 24 megs of a 32 meg memory card. (note > the loss of space to the DRM stuff.)
I don't know about the audio quality. The article did say, however, that what was stored on the card was the CODEC, compiled to run only on the GBA. I suspect that it uses copy protection rather than DRM. With the files compressed with their CODEC, you can only get the audio out back out of the compressed format on your GBA. DRM would involve keeping track of who had rights to what.
Much as I hate DRM, copy protection, and companies treating their customers as untrustworthy potential criminals, I have to say that this isn't too bad. At least they give you the ability to use cheaper cards to store a lot of content in return for being burdened with copy protection. I'm probably not going to buy one though, as it would pale in comparison to my iPod.
> The last time I tried to buy one of those cards for my > camers, I could only find 64 meg and 128 meg sizes on > the shelf. What gives spec'ing this to an obsolete 32 meg > card?
Best Buy has the 32MB Smartmedia cards in stock for $24.99 (USD) a piece on their web site. As to why use them: they are cheap. Remember, the market is kids with GBAs, not a market with bucks to spend on huge sized cards.
Chief Tsujimori: "I won't let you get away. I will never let you escape." Godzilla elegantly lifts his tail skyward to give her the "finger", crashes it down on the water, and submerges. "Godzilla X Megagiras", 2000
> do you really think that the GBA should be allowed to > enter into the PDA market.
This is yet another third party GBA add on, as you would know if you read the article. The GBA has lots of add ons: camera, radio tuner, TV tuner, etc.
The $69.99 (USD) GBA does not have a touch screen, a keyboard, or personal information management software that would make it a PDA. It is a game machine, with fun third party add ons. Do you really not see kids having use for radio, mp3s, TV, and taking pictures of their friends?
Chief Tsujimori: "I won't let you get away. I will never let you escape." Godzilla elegantly lifts his tail skyward to give her the "finger", crashes it down on the water, and submerges. "Godzilla X Megagiras", 2000
Hackstraw, I agree with you that the goal of open source is not to get Microsoft to say they might lower their prices. The fact that Microsoft would even broach such a topic is, however, a sign that some health is returning to the industry, which is a positive benefit of competition from open source.
The FSF philosophy you quoted assumes that all users are programmers able to change code at will. The fact is that many users are barely computer literate, and have no more ability to change a program than a programmer would without the source.
To your average joe, there is no difference between free software, open source, and proprietary. The source code is useless to him, he can't understand it. He doesn't understand the politics or philosophy. All he knows is that some stuff is free, and the rest he can get for free at a warez site.
Mind you, I'm not saying that I don't respect or appreciate open source, regardless of the license or philosophy involved. But then, the important thing to me is the generosity of those who, out of the kindness of their hearts, open their source and share their hard work. Such generosity is a fine antidote to a market dominated by a greedy monster.
As for Sony, they and Nintendo are playing a merry little game of holding Microsoft's hands to the fire and watching them burn money. The PS2 and GameCube are at break even or profit points by now. Lowering the price is cutting their profits, but not hurting them. Microsoft is bleeding millions over the X-Box and every price cut they have to keep up with hurts them more. Sony is laughing, all the way to the bank.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Socialism implies government handouts, but the only thing they want from the government is to protect their obsolete 1940's era business model.
Capitalism implies market forces, and they fear those.
So what do you call a Nelson-like bunch of thugs that enslave artists with work for hire contracts, criminalize their customers, and invoke the fury of the government on those who would "interfere with private enterprise"?
"Mothra's Song" called them "tong yu", which means, in English: "barrel of sharks". That's exactly what they are, just a bunch of greedy sharks.
"Look at this story! I want a retraction!" Nelson, Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
The last time Microsoft's networks were attacked was the recent attack of the Slammer worm. It seems they didn't patch all their SQL servers.
This website lists 23 defacements of Microsoft web sites since the beginning of 1999.
One of the most embarrassing attacks was in 2000 when Russian crackers got into the servers that housed Microsoft's source code and waltzed around in there for up to three months!
Microsoft uses their own products, and thus are subject to the same security holes as their customers. Their network security and the insecurity of their products are pretty much one and the same: a joke. Anyone in charge of Microsoft's non-security has no business being the deputy, let alone the man in charge, of our nation's computer security.
But then, this isn't an issue of ability. As the article makes clear, the qualifications for the job are more about agreeing with the president than about securing anything.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
> So they forgot to update. The error here, believe it or not, > isn't all upon Microsoft.
Microsoft forgot to patch too. Who do they get to blame for that?
> First off, they didn't patch. Microsoft had the patch > available since June.
There's the patch, there's service pack 2, and there's service pack 3. There's a somewhat confusing knowledge base article, and some questions about which version of the patch causes what problem. If Microsoft's people can't figure out all this stuff and apply their patches, how are their customers, who can't run down to the Microsoft's SQL department to ask questions, supposed to do it?
> It's not like you never have to patch open-souce either...
Yeah, but patching OS X is easy and fun.;)
> Second, Microsoft explicitly warns users of SQL > databases to not put them openly on the internet, for > obvious reasons. And yet, they did it anyway.
Microsoft does not listen to its own warnings. Why should anybody else?
> You can blame Microsoft for this if you want, but it isn't > car companies' fault that people get killed because they > can't drive.
It's the car company's fault if they leave a bug in the firmware that lets evil people take remote control of the car and smash it into the overpass supports for a major interstate highway. Even if they have a patch for it, they can't just hide it away on some obscure website and expect people to know about it, be able to download it, and flash their cars.
The order of blame, in case you care about that more than fixing the problem, is: worm creator, Microsoft, then those who didn't patch due to negligence (as opposed to confusion or difficulties created by Microsoft).
> Open source has its merits, as does Microsoft.
Open source has its merits, as does proprietary software. Microsoft is convicted of breaking the law, and until it is rehabilitated, has no merits, only a "get out of jail free" card it does not deserve. The only way it got the card was by spending three times as much as Enron in the 2000 US elections.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it." Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Apple has about 25 million users (and growing). In its first two months, OS X actually outsold Windows 2000.
As for Linux, whole governments are either using or investigating using it. IBM sells Linux mainframes to banks and big corporations. Linux has a sizable market-share on the server side, a market that Microsoft does not have a monopoly in.
> This is Bill's world. Get used to it.
At the rate he is driving his users away (Licensing 6, the evil feature formerly known as Palladium, etc.), it won't be Bill's world for much longer.
"Your way of thinking is completely different from mine!" Mac user Shinoda to PC user Katagiri, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version) (From the world's biggest switch commercial, starring Apple's biggest fan: Godzilla!)
> After all, Safari already interfaces with both Rendezvous > and AddressBook right in the main interface,
Any third party can access both due to Apple providing APIs, and in the case of Rendezvous, opening its source. Address Book is now a system wide database.
> and it offers simple gateways to helper applications like > StuffIt, Preview, etc.
StuffIt is a third party application that any browser worth its salt on the Mac provides access to.
> Not only that, but one of the long term goals for Safari > seems to be to make the KHTML engine available to third > party application developers.
It is already available, since it is open source to begin with. What Apple has done is make it possible for a third party to use the engine to build a browser around with more bells and whistles than Safari, and then be able to sell it if they want to. Hardly anti-competitive.
> If this isn't "integration", what is?
Tightly integrating your browser so bad that it "can't" be removed without disabling the operating system. Taking years in court to get to the position where you will allow the browser icon to be hidden on the desktop.
BTW, Opera is just a big baby. They didn't have any problem competing with IE bundled on the Mac. Why is Safari such a great threat to them?
Windows: "Go talk to my friend, an 800 pound monopoly-abusing gorilla!" Mac: "And here's my good buddy, the 66,000 ton Godzilla!" Godzilla: Stomp!;) (Godzilla switched in 1993's "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2".)
Re:Not to be a troll here but...
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Superbowl XXXVII
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An AC wrote:
> what would Jesus do to protect the children in this post- > Columbine, post-September 11th world where the > terrorists will have won?
It is intriguing to see those two events strung together. Both turned ordinary, every day places into war zones of terror and death. Both terrorized America. And America reacted to both in a kind of knee-jerk embrace of draconian (but ineffective) security measures and profiling.
And yes, the terrorists have won for now because America has let its fear rule it. The enemy now is not a child with a gun or even Al Qaeda (although the latter certainly needs to be rounded up and put out of commission for good). The real enemy, the one we must conquer before it destroys everything we value as a country, is our own fear. Since September 11th, 2001 safety measures in our government spelled out by the Constitution have been tossed out one after another. If we don't master our fear and put them back, it will be the end of our democratic values, and the rise of a government that rules its people through fear.
> Who will save us?
The courage and compassion of the American people will save us, if we let it. Does Flight 93 ring a bell? The World Trade Center held a maximum of fifty thousand people. Less than three thousand died. Stories abound of how the tens of thousands that lived helped each other get out. We are the "Home of the Brave", not the home of the chicken!
One other will save us. The power greater than the Cold War superpowers: the power that shredded the Iron Curtain and ended the Cold War and its threat to Earth's future. The power the Romans called Pax Invictus: Invincible Peace. Peace, together with her sisters Liberty and Justice, ends all wars, and topples all dictators. Against the Invincible Queen of Peace, the King of Terror hasn't got a chance.
"Now, finally, must join together: Love, Courage, Wisdom." From the Japanese translation of the song "Haora Mosura" from "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks".
Actually, their OS for the next millennium was called "Millennium" while it was a research project in the late 1990s. But if it is any comfort to you, it was built to run on top of the "Borg JVM". These days, the Borg JVM has been replaced by.Net.
These web pages have fascinating material, including references to "trust" and "trust domains" (formerly known as Palladium), and such tell tale phrases as "only one system" (to rule them all), and the "assimilating" of machines, etc.:
For those who are worried that the loss of the Palladium keyword would make it difficult to explain to end users the dangers posed by such technology: Just park the parties in question in front of a TV and show them the Japanese version of "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (with subtitles). Most people can grasp "evil alien monster taking over my computer so it can rule the world". And Godzilla's answer to embrace and extend is oh so elegant.;)
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium."
Io: "What does that mean?"
Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla."
"Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Not only is Apple's X server a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but there is also a Carbon version of Emacs for Jaguar. It has many packages including LaTeX, and is as simple to install as the Mac gets. "Enhanced Carbon Emacs" does not require an X server or the Terminal app, as it is a fully native Mac program.
You are not the only one who expected a video editing review. However, I do think the reviewer had some valid points. Some Linux application GUIs and themes can be very hard to use, even if they are cool looking. And Linux application installs still need work if Linux is to be on the desktop of ordinary people. Joe User wouldn't know the difference between apt and RPM.
Such issues need to be brought up and discussed if Linux is to move forward. They could be brought up much more professionally, though...
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> I think it really odd that Apple is on that list.
Apple is the first company I would expect to be on that list. Since the 2002 Grammies, Apple has taken this stand:
- Intellectual property owners and consumers both have rights that should be upheld.
- The consumers have a right to manage and listen to their legally acquired music on whatever devices they own.
- Copyrights should not be violated.
- Copyright violations (piracy) is a behavioral problem that cannot be solved by DRM.
- DRM will always be hackable, and is therefore useless.
The above is taken from various speeches by Steve Jobs and other Apple execs, especially from Steve Jobs' acceptance speech at the 2002 Grammies.
The companies in the Alliance For Digital Progress represent a broad spectrum with Apple on the end upholding fair use rights and Microsoft on the extreme proDRM end. They are interested in keeping the government out of DRM, so they can resolve the issue between themselves. (With Apple no doubt hoping that many will run screaming from Palladium right to the DRM free Mac.)
Actually, I'm a bit surprised to see Microsoft there. For a time, they were taking out DRMOS patents and acting like they were going to embrace and extend CBDTPA into a 100% government mandated monopoly for themselves. Looks like either the government or the MPAA wised up and started mumbling something about open standards. When it started looking like Microsoft wasn't going to be ordained the official DRM provider to the US, Microsoft started speaking up against the CBDTPA. It just wouldn't do to have somebody else come up with a standard that Microsoft would have to abide by.
> They have been going after Holywood and TV studio > business for the past couple of years. I.e. the Purchase of > Final Cut Pro, Tremor, Shake, etc.
Apple has sworn to democratize the tools of music and movie making like they once did desktop publishing. The intended audience isn't just privileged members of a movie making or music recording cartel. The intended audience is anybody who wants to make a movie or record a song. That's why they just released a $299 trimmed down version of Final Cut Pro called Final Cut Express. Now even a wedding videographer can use a less expensive version of the program that was used to edit "When Dinosaurs Roamed America".
"If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own." Steve Jobs, 2002 Grammy Awards http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0203/0 4.jobs.p hp
Yes, the contracts are for 6 or 7 records. But if the label refuses to accept any albums beyond the first one, the contract effectively becomes for life. The artist can't perform, or sign with anyone else, and their copyrights were turned over to the label with a work for hire clause so they own nothing. The artist is silenced and the label is free to move on with a new clone.
They might as well keep their artists in cages and call them slaves. Mothra never saw a difference anyway.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming." From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
The RIAA is just the lobbying body of the big five labels. They are the ones going down, and when they do, the RIAA will just be disbanded or go back to being a standards organization like it used to be.
As for the big labels, they are a bunch of old (and very greedy) dinosaurs that are still trying to use a business model from the 1940's. Technology has moved on, and what used to be exclusive to them: studio equipment, distribution channels, and promotion contacts, are no longer exclusive. Studio equipment is cheap enough now for a well-off college student or a small business to afford. Distribution can be handled by ecommerce, and possibly a fulfillment center if one is selling a lot of CDs, something a musician just getting started wouldn't need to worry about. Promotion can be handled via P2P (already proven to work for indie artists), internet radio, the web, and word of mouth.
All that is dying is a bunch of greedy companies and a way of doing business that deserves to die. Music will live on in a new industry that is already waiting in the wings. Only instead of mega labels that "manufacture" a select few pop stars (that can't half sing), this will be an industry of indie artists, basement studios, and small indie labels, where the artists are in charge, prices are low, and variety is endless because there are no barriers to entry. Anybody who can carry a tune and get an mp3 made of the event will be able to be an artist. Run that mp3 up on your favorite P2P network and see if anyone salutes. If they do, make more and you are on your way to a fun hobby or even a career if you can find enough people interested in buying your mp3s and CD albums. If your first mp3 isn't noticed, either try again, perhaps with a different sound or style, or else don't and do something else with your life.
Want to hurry the death of the big labels along? Go here:
http://www.riaa.org/About-Members-1.cfm
This is a list of the members of the RIAA, including all the subsidiary labels of the big five. Boycott them. Also boycott anybody foolish enough to copy protect disks. Take your hard earned money and enthusiastically support indie artists. Find some you like and tell all your friends about them. This way, you may give the RIAA some ammo to complain about piracy in the short term (don't worry, they would make up something to complain about even if you were their best customer), but in the long term you will have built up a better future for both the artists and your fellow music lovers.
"Mothra's attack is working." Shouta, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
Boycotting will work if everyone walks away from the RIAA labels and supports the indies instead. If they don't sell anything, they will not have the money to buy congress critters and complain about P2P. Keep up the boycott long enough and the big labels will die out.
The new music industry that arises in their place will have freedom for the artists, a wide variety of music, and fair prices. It won't complain about P2P, it will use P2P for promotion.
Bells are ringing: Mothra, Mothra! Every heart is calling: Mothra, Mothra! Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have gotta pay! New Kirk calling Mothra, we need you today!
The DMCA does not have much built in protection to prevent innocents from having action taken against them. The accuser, and it could be anybody, does not have to prove guilt in a trial.
The accused looses internet access and the contents of their web site, including ecommerce data if it was an ecommerce site. The ability to sue or bring charges after the fact is cold comfort if one depended on that internet connection for their business or livelihood.
The DMCA is a very bad law that violates everything due process stands for. It is open to abuses: anything from retailers trying to silence coupon sites over their prices, to kids trying to get someone they dislike off the web.
No, I don't care about KaZaa's continued existance. I have no interest in saving the big music labels (the ones that use work-for-hire contracts to take copyrights from artists in the first place) from their own stupidity and greed. Neither are worth having our constitutional rights violated by such an outrageous piece of bought legislation.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming." From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
I've been using VCRs for 15 years, and I don't remember a time when you couldn't use the pause button to stop recording during the commercials. Before the VCR, there was the legendary trip to the refrigerator (still very useful since technology has not removed the human imperative to eat).
Yes, the technology has changed. It has responded to customer demand and created easier ways to do what we humans have done for most of the history of TV: avoid watching the stupid commercials. After all, it is not our fault that the broadcasters choose to scam other companies into believing that we viewers will buy their products if they play some silly jingle on TV. (Like I'm going to buy insurance from a company because they named a computer animated lizard their employee of the month.;)
Remember when the VCR first came on the market and the MPAA were running about in a total panic because this new piece of technology was going to destroy their members' business? Hmm, I wonder how many gazillion dollars they've made off video sales since then.
Nothing has really changed but the technology. Still the same old greedy sharks, either to slow to adapt to change, or outraged that they might loose their precious monopolies. After all, these companies got where they are today because technology at the time they rose to power was exclusive to them. The real threat to them is not piracy, but the availablilty of technology to more people and wider, cheaper methods of distribution.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Slashdot Mirror
Goalie_Ca wrote:
Here's a scenario for you: Microsoft builds a platform independent next generation OS that runs on top of .Net, and because of Mono, on top of Linux. This OS is popular because people can run the same applications regardless of the underlying platform and hardware. It quickly gains a near 100% marketshare.
Then Microsoft pulls out all the Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 era tricks it pulled to rid the world of nonMicrosoft DOSes such as DR-DOS. Linux (and OS X if it runs Mono) is discredited and dwindles. As a mere formality (and to rake in a bit of extra dough), Microsoft pulls out its patents and kills Mono.
Endgame: Millennium!
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium."
Io: "What does that mean?"
Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla."
"Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
An AC wrote:
> I find this viewpoint extremely difficult to accept, because
> even Microsoft would not shoot themselves in the foot
> with a stick of dynamite.
Please, Microsoft would try to swallow Godzilla head first while his spines were glowing if they thought they could embrace and extend him into world domination. The ensuing nuclear fireball that would destroy them utterly would be an "oops" afterthought.
Don't confuse guile with common sense. Sensible companies don't alienate two thirds of their customers with draconian licensing terms and then crow about "unearned profits" in the media.
World domination is the name of their game. Microsoft wants 100% of the market, desktop and server, so bad it can taste it. Compared to that goal, any standard, much less a W3C standard, is nothing. They would have extended it into nonexistance anyway.
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium."
Io: "What does that mean?"
Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla."
"Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Sarcazmo wrote:
> Back up, most unix-ish C code can be compiled on any
> vaguely unix-like system with very little modification. I'd
> call that platform independence, wouldn't you?
Very good point. Back in 1989-91, I was working on a 3D radiation treatment planning program, in C, that had to run under X11 on a DEC MicroVAX, HP, and a SGI, with their various flavors of Unix. The program had a single source, with all the platform dependent stuff (there wasn't a lot of it) isolated from the rest. Back then, platform independence (also known as portability) was the in thing.
Historical note: in the first year of that job, in a lab down the hall, was a pre-3.0 version of Windows. The poor primitive thing was still trying to figure out task switching. By the last year of that job, Linux was born.
> Imagine that, and without the overhead of a bloated VM
> to slow things way down.
Despite the VM and its warts, Java is still a pretty cool language. It would be quite amusing to run Java on one of today's computers side-by-side with a 1990 computer running a C program under X11. I wonder if advances in computing speed really compensate for having a VM?
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
I Am The Owl wrote:
;). GPN sources indicate that the next gen processor will be out before Nov. 3, 2004, as Godzilla wants 50 G5 Xserves for his 50th birthday. (Mothra got OS X for her 40th birthday in 2001. No one knows if Apple is taking seriously King Ghidora's demand for a three headed, gold tone G4 iMac for his big 40 in 2004.)
> Are you kidding? Xserves don't have anywhere near the
> computational horsepower of the Intel hardware.
Xserves would have equalled or beat Intel hardware had Motorola come through with the G5 when it was supposed to. Motorola didn't, and Apple is rushing around trying to get a next generation CPU as quickly as it can. When Apple does fix this, the Xserve will equal or beat Intel hardware (even if it has to be made of Intel hardware
> And, at that, they are probably more expensive than the
> Xeon machines per unit.
The big expense for servers is per client licensing (Windows 2000 per client licensing can double the price of a server). The Xserve is sold with unlimited client licensing, so it actually is a fairly inexpensive server, much like a Linux based server.
> I've said it before and I'll say it again: you are not paying
> for cutting-edge hardware when you buy an Apple. You
> are paying for easy to use software.
You are paying for cutting edge hardware (say Firewire 800), but not (at the moment) a cutting edge CPU. You are also paying for cutting edge industrial design, the first Unix ever to make it on the desktop, and, yes, easy to use software that is also innovative enough for Microsoft to copy it every time an Apple programmer so much as sneezes.
> Movie production houses which have teams of
> professional administrators do not need the handholding
> that OSX Server would provide.
True, but Xserve isn't just a server, it can be a workstation. Using a few Xserves for 3D workstations and using a Linux blade server render farm sounds like a pretty good combo. The person creating a model or setting up a scene gets a good, solid, easy to use 3D workstation. The rendering farm can be cheap and not have to waste CPU power or memory on Aqua or X11.
I've seen a CNN business spotlight on Pixar. The OS X logo appeared a lot of times in that little piece, so I imagine they use it for something (and yeah, the other 90% of the logo appearances was Steve being cute and grabbing some free TV advertising).
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are."
Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
autopr0n wrote:
:)
> Lets face it, this is really all political. I doubt the EU will
> be as lenient as the US has been, simply because it's not
> at all in their interests to have a powerful company based
> in the US controlling their desktops.
That's true. But normally they would face intense pressure from the US government to drop it. However, now they are facing intense pressure from the US government to march on Bagdad, which means they might slip a judgment in against Microsoft relatively unnoticed. The US (my government) appears to be getting quite frivolous in the random slapping on of economic sanctions, as they are proposing slapping them on Germany for daring to disagree over Iraq.
Once sanctions have been used, what does the US have left to twist the arms of fellow nations over Microsoft? Mind you, the US should not be arm twisting sovereign nations, but I don't think Bush views other nations as all that sovereign. His loss.
> Not that the US really does, but M$ is really a huge and
> powerfull company. It's value to our economy is
> enormous.
Microsoft is a medium sized corporation (IBM is far larger). Its value to our economy comes from illegally abusing its monopolies (it butchered other companies and achieved a strangle hold over its markets). From that economic value, you must subtract:
1) the massive profit margin on Windows and Office milked from its customers.
2) money extorted from companies via Licensing 6 and costly BSA audits.
3) the productivity cost and damages to data from Microsoft's swarm of bugs and security holes.
4) the cost to our technological future by having a monopoly squashing other companies and the innovations they would bring to the market.
The result of your subtraction: it becomes obvious that a big greedy tick has hung on the side of the US economy for years. A tick that would be painful to remove, but that must be removed for the long term health of the economy.
> The really intresting thing is that for the first time there's
> a real alternative to microsoft in the form of Linux and
> Free software. The rest of the world is jumping on it in
> order to escape.
First time? Gee, where has Apple been all these years? Apple is better positioned as a desktop competitor to Microsoft. Don't worry though, Linux can make it on the desktop. Watch us, we'll show you how it's done. Then we can play all kinds of fun, healthy competitive games while sharing our open source with each other (like KHTML). It'll be great! You little waddling penguins are gonna have to get into shape though, if you are going to out run a Jaguar and out fly Mothra. Catch us if you can.
"Mothra Leo, the fluttering of your wings is Life!"
Japanese language song "Mothra Leo", "Rebirth of Mothra"
(Mothra resurrected an apple tree and the surrounding 8,000 acres of scorched earth,
six days before Apple's surprise announcement of the return of Steve Jobs.)
An AC wrote:
> OK all you whiny civil libertarian deconstructionists...
The term you are looking for is patriotic Americans. You know, the kind that love the Constitution that our wise founding fathers set up for us. (Unlike the other kind, the flag cultists who don't have sense enough to bring their flags in out of the rain.) Even the President has sworn to uphold the Constitution.
> Just WHAT do you proactively propose we do with
> Islamist terrorists in our midst if we don't turn the screws
> down on the whole thing? What? Wait and see? Morons.
> You think they are sitting still?
Well, tossing away the rights that generations of American soldiers have fought and died to protect is not only idiotic and unpatriotic, it doesn't do a damn bit of good in stopping terrorists.
What does? Why, we ordinary citizens, of course. The courageous passengers of Flight 93 stopped one of the Sept. 11th planes from reaching its goal and killing people. The wise manager of a company which occupied the offices hit by the second WTC plane evacuated his people before it hit, saving their lives. The shoe-bomber was stopped by the now famous passenger pile-on. If you saw some suspicious person with a rocket launcher in a back alley where the planes fly low near an airport, I bet you would be hitting "911" on your cell phone to report it to the police in a flash.
We don't need any of our rights taken away, the Homeland Security department, or any of this nonsense. We just need the government people to their jobs a bit better (like tell INS to not give the hijackers visas six months after their suicide attack), and have courageous Americans stand up to these thugs when they attack. And they are just thugs, not supermen, so chuck that fear in the nearest dumpster.
> It sure is easy to criticize, but what do you propose we
> do if we Don't do something like Patriot II?
Rereading the Constitution would be a nice start. Capturing bin Laden and dumping him off at the World Court for a nice trial would be another good thing.
> Sit and wait for some Iraqi supplied anthrax to kill a few
> thousand people?
Why bother importing, when we already had an idiot use American supplied Anthrax last year? You are aware that the US does have weapons of mass destruction, aren't you? That they can, and in the case of the Anthrax, have been stolen?
It is obvious that you are not aware that Anthrax is difficult to use as a terrorist weapon. In Japan, a group tried dumping a bunch of it off the top of a large building, and nobody got sick at all.
> Wait for "evidence" these people are out to get us?!?
What people? It is common knowledge that Al Qaeda is out to get us, or would be if that pesky "passenger pile-on" wasn't so effective. Iraq? What are they going to use, pre-WWII guns wielded by half starved soldiers in sandals and rags (that's the army the UN soldiers patrolling the DMZ say are lining up at the Kuwait border)? The American Anthrax terrorist that hasn't been heard from in over a year?
The only real threat I see is fear itself. That and Ashcroft's Constitution editing tools.
> Need more skyscrapers with people in them destroyed in
> front of CNN cameras? Idiots.
Do you know where Al Qaeda is going to find a plane full of people willing to just sit there and let them run the plane into a building? The gig is up, and that trick is never going to work again.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
archen wrote:
:b
> In other strange news Microsoft sells Japan less than an
> hour after buying it. Sources allege that the push to sell
> Japan came after it was pointed out that Tokyo had the
> biggest bug of all: Godzilla.
>
> Bill Gates was quoted as saying: "It sounds like that other
> browser thing I heard about. But even more shocking is
> that Godzilla is a bigger bug than Windows".
The world's first computer bug was actually a moth. Japan has one whale of a moth: her sacred majesty, Mothra, the Queen of Monsters, Goddess of the Sun, and Forever Friend of Apple.
His sacred majesty, Godzilla, Dreaded God of the Atom, King of Monsters, and the world's biggest "switcher" (1993), is a mutated dinosaur and a god, not a bug. He does, however, hate Microsoft (who guest starred as the monster villain of "Godzilla 2000 Millennium"). Selling Japan to Microsoft around his 50th anniversary (Nov. 3, 2004) is about the fastest way to get Redmond nuked.
Actually, there might be an even faster way. Take his all-time best-ever video game, add in his enemy (Mechagodzilla) from his current movie, improve the game a bit, and put it out on Microsoft's evil X-box. When Goji gets done with his movie run, and latest round of Japanese nuclear plant "pranks", somebody's gonna be in trouble!
To Microsoft:
The crown is not yours.
Footsteps drum a dirge of doom
By nuclear rage!
The world's great hero,
Dreaded God and Monster King,
Millennium ends.
IPFreely wrote:
> With Bush and co writing it, it will probably work a lot like this:
>
> 1. We (the Bush administration) can do anything we want to anyone else.
> 2. Noone can not do anything at all to us (the Bush administration).
> 3. Americans, including American companies, can do anything they want to any foreign country, company or person.
> 4. No foreign country, company or person can do anything to any american person or company.
Sadly, we are America, land of the free and home of the brave, no longer.
Now, we are Rolithica, land of the corrupt and home of the greedy. We are the world's greatest superpower, and none can defeat our nuclear might.
No, there is one power greater: Great Mothra, the invincible Goddess of Peace! Our greatest weapons are like the bite of a mosquito to her. She is coming to rescue her fairies: Ladies Liberty and Justice.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Technician wrote:
> They are trying to get 5 hours of audio (notice they didn't
> say music) in 24 megs of a 32 meg memory card. (note
> the loss of space to the DRM stuff.)
I don't know about the audio quality. The article did say, however, that what was stored on the card was the CODEC, compiled to run only on the GBA. I suspect that it uses copy protection rather than DRM. With the files compressed with their CODEC, you can only get the audio out back out of the compressed format on your GBA. DRM would involve keeping track of who had rights to what.
Much as I hate DRM, copy protection, and companies treating their customers as untrustworthy potential criminals, I have to say that this isn't too bad. At least they give you the ability to use cheaper cards to store a lot of content in return for being burdened with copy protection. I'm probably not going to buy one though, as it would pale in comparison to my iPod.
> The last time I tried to buy one of those cards for my
> camers, I could only find 64 meg and 128 meg sizes on
> the shelf. What gives spec'ing this to an obsolete 32 meg
> card?
Best Buy has the 32MB Smartmedia cards in stock for $24.99 (USD) a piece on their web site. As to why use them: they are cheap. Remember, the market is kids with GBAs, not a market with bucks to spend on huge sized cards.
Chief Tsujimori: "I won't let you get away. I will never let you escape."
Godzilla elegantly lifts his tail skyward to give her the "finger", crashes it down on the water, and submerges.
"Godzilla X Megagiras", 2000
Cintentions wrote:
> do you really think that the GBA should be allowed to
> enter into the PDA market.
This is yet another third party GBA add on, as you would know if you read the article. The GBA has lots of add ons: camera, radio tuner, TV tuner, etc.
The $69.99 (USD) GBA does not have a touch screen, a keyboard, or personal information management software that would make it a PDA. It is a game machine, with fun third party add ons. Do you really not see kids having use for radio, mp3s, TV, and taking pictures of their friends?
Chief Tsujimori: "I won't let you get away. I will never let you escape."
Godzilla elegantly lifts his tail skyward to give her the "finger", crashes it down on the water, and submerges.
"Godzilla X Megagiras", 2000
Hackstraw, I agree with you that the goal of open source is not to get Microsoft to say they might lower their prices. The fact that Microsoft would even broach such a topic is, however, a sign that some health is returning to the industry, which is a positive benefit of competition from open source.
The FSF philosophy you quoted assumes that all users are programmers able to change code at will. The fact is that many users are barely computer literate, and have no more ability to change a program than a programmer would without the source.
To your average joe, there is no difference between free software, open source, and proprietary. The source code is useless to him, he can't understand it. He doesn't understand the politics or philosophy. All he knows is that some stuff is free, and the rest he can get for free at a warez site.
Mind you, I'm not saying that I don't respect or appreciate open source, regardless of the license or philosophy involved. But then, the important thing to me is the generosity of those who, out of the kindness of their hearts, open their source and share their hard work. Such generosity is a fine antidote to a market dominated by a greedy monster.
As for Sony, they and Nintendo are playing a merry little game of holding Microsoft's hands to the fire and watching them burn money. The PS2 and GameCube are at break even or profit points by now. Lowering the price is cutting their profits, but not hurting them. Microsoft is bleeding millions over the X-Box and every price cut they have to keep up with hurts them more. Sony is laughing, all the way to the bank.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Socialism implies government handouts, but the only thing they want from the government is to protect their obsolete 1940's era business model.
Capitalism implies market forces, and they fear those.
So what do you call a Nelson-like bunch of thugs that enslave artists with work for hire contracts, criminalize their customers, and invoke the fury of the government on those who would "interfere with private enterprise"?
"Mothra's Song" called them "tong yu", which means, in English: "barrel of sharks". That's exactly what they are, just a bunch of greedy sharks.
"Look at this story! I want a retraction!"
Nelson, Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
The last time Microsoft's networks were attacked was the recent attack of the Slammer worm. It seems they didn't patch all their SQL servers.
This website lists 23 defacements of Microsoft web sites since the beginning of 1999.
One of the most embarrassing attacks was in 2000 when Russian crackers got into the servers that housed Microsoft's source code and waltzed around in there for up to three months!
Microsoft uses their own products, and thus are subject to the same security holes as their customers. Their network security and the insecurity of their products are pretty much one and the same: a joke. Anyone in charge of Microsoft's non-security has no business being the deputy, let alone the man in charge, of our nation's computer security.
But then, this isn't an issue of ability. As the article makes clear, the qualifications for the job are more about agreeing with the president than about securing anything.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world. And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
rasafras wrote:
;)
> So they forgot to update. The error here, believe it or not,
> isn't all upon Microsoft.
Microsoft forgot to patch too. Who do they get to blame for that?
> First off, they didn't patch. Microsoft had the patch
> available since June.
There's the patch, there's service pack 2, and there's service pack 3. There's a somewhat confusing knowledge base article, and some questions about which version of the patch causes what problem. If Microsoft's people can't figure out all this stuff and apply their patches, how are their customers, who can't run down to the Microsoft's SQL department to ask questions, supposed to do it?
> It's not like you never have to patch open-souce either...
Yeah, but patching OS X is easy and fun.
> Second, Microsoft explicitly warns users of SQL
> databases to not put them openly on the internet, for
> obvious reasons. And yet, they did it anyway.
Microsoft does not listen to its own warnings. Why should anybody else?
> You can blame Microsoft for this if you want, but it isn't
> car companies' fault that people get killed because they
> can't drive.
It's the car company's fault if they leave a bug in the firmware that lets evil people take remote control of the car and smash it into the overpass supports for a major interstate highway. Even if they have a patch for it, they can't just hide it away on some obscure website and expect people to know about it, be able to download it, and flash their cars.
The order of blame, in case you care about that more than fixing the problem, is: worm creator, Microsoft, then those who didn't patch due to negligence (as opposed to confusion or difficulties created by Microsoft).
> Open source has its merits, as does Microsoft.
Open source has its merits, as does proprietary software. Microsoft is convicted of breaking the law, and until it is rehabilitated, has no merits, only a "get out of jail free" card it does not deserve. The only way it got the card was by spending three times as much as Enron in the 2000 US elections.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
An AC wrote:
:-)
> w00t first post
Only for values of "w00t first" >= 100.
> Who uses apple and linux
Apple has about 25 million users (and growing). In its first two months, OS X actually outsold Windows 2000.
As for Linux, whole governments are either using or investigating using it. IBM sells Linux mainframes to banks and big corporations. Linux has a sizable market-share on the server side, a market that Microsoft does not have a monopoly in.
> This is Bill's world. Get used to it.
At the rate he is driving his users away (Licensing 6, the evil feature formerly known as Palladium, etc.), it won't be Bill's world for much longer.
"Your way of thinking is completely different from mine!"
Mac user Shinoda to PC user Katagiri, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
(From the world's biggest switch commercial, starring Apple's biggest fan: Godzilla!)
babbage wrote:
;)
> After all, Safari already interfaces with both Rendezvous
> and AddressBook right in the main interface,
Any third party can access both due to Apple providing APIs, and in the case of Rendezvous, opening its source. Address Book is now a system wide database.
> and it offers simple gateways to helper applications like
> StuffIt, Preview, etc.
StuffIt is a third party application that any browser worth its salt on the Mac provides access to.
> Not only that, but one of the long term goals for Safari
> seems to be to make the KHTML engine available to third
> party application developers.
It is already available, since it is open source to begin with. What Apple has done is make it possible for a third party to use the engine to build a browser around with more bells and whistles than Safari, and then be able to sell it if they want to. Hardly anti-competitive.
> If this isn't "integration", what is?
Tightly integrating your browser so bad that it "can't" be removed without disabling the operating system. Taking years in court to get to the position where you will allow the browser icon to be hidden on the desktop.
BTW, Opera is just a big baby. They didn't have any problem competing with IE bundled on the Mac. Why is Safari such a great threat to them?
Windows: "Go talk to my friend, an 800 pound monopoly-abusing gorilla!"
Mac: "And here's my good buddy, the 66,000 ton Godzilla!"
Godzilla: Stomp!
(Godzilla switched in 1993's "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2".)
An AC wrote:
> what would Jesus do to protect the children in this post-
> Columbine, post-September 11th world where the
> terrorists will have won?
It is intriguing to see those two events strung together. Both turned ordinary, every day places into war zones of terror and death. Both terrorized America. And America reacted to both in a kind of knee-jerk embrace of draconian (but ineffective) security measures and profiling.
And yes, the terrorists have won for now because America has let its fear rule it. The enemy now is not a child with a gun or even Al Qaeda (although the latter certainly needs to be rounded up and put out of commission for good). The real enemy, the one we must conquer before it destroys everything we value as a country, is our own fear. Since September 11th, 2001 safety measures in our government spelled out by the Constitution have been tossed out one after another. If we don't master our fear and put them back, it will be the end of our democratic values, and the rise of a government that rules its people through fear.
> Who will save us?
The courage and compassion of the American people will save us, if we let it. Does Flight 93 ring a bell? The World Trade Center held a maximum of fifty thousand people. Less than three thousand died. Stories abound of how the tens of thousands that lived helped each other get out. We are the "Home of the Brave", not the home of the chicken!
One other will save us. The power greater than the Cold War superpowers: the power that shredded the Iron Curtain and ended the Cold War and its threat to Earth's future. The power the Romans called Pax Invictus: Invincible Peace. Peace, together with her sisters Liberty and Justice, ends all wars, and topples all dictators. Against the Invincible Queen of Peace, the King of Terror hasn't got a chance.
"Now, finally, must join together: Love, Courage, Wisdom."
From the Japanese translation of the song "Haora Mosura" from "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks".
Actually, their OS for the next millennium was called "Millennium" while it was a research project in the late 1990s. But if it is any comfort to you, it was built to run on top of the "Borg JVM". These days, the Borg JVM has been replaced by .Net.
These web pages have fascinating material, including references to "trust" and "trust domains" (formerly known as Palladium), and such tell tale phrases as "only one system" (to rule them all), and the "assimilating" of machines, etc.:
Millennium Summary Paragraph
(Look under "Previous Projects" for the "Borg JVM" reference.)
Millennium Goals Page
For those who are worried that the loss of the Palladium keyword would make it difficult to explain to end users the dangers posed by such technology: Just park the parties in question in front of a TV and show them the Japanese version of "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (with subtitles). Most people can grasp "evil alien monster taking over my computer so it can rule the world". And Godzilla's answer to embrace and extend is oh so elegant. ;)
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium."
Io: "What does that mean?"
Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla."
"Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Not only is Apple's X server a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but there is also a Carbon version of Emacs for Jaguar. It has many packages including LaTeX, and is as simple to install as the Mac gets. "Enhanced Carbon Emacs" does not require an X server or the Terminal app, as it is a fully native Mac program.
You are not the only one who expected a video editing review. However, I do think the reviewer had some valid points. Some Linux application GUIs and themes can be very hard to use, even if they are cool looking. And Linux application installs still need work if Linux is to be on the desktop of ordinary people. Joe User wouldn't know the difference between apt and RPM.
Such issues need to be brought up and discussed if Linux is to move forward. They could be brought up much more professionally, though...
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
nevershower wrote:
0 4.jobs.p hp
> I think it really odd that Apple is on that list.
Apple is the first company I would expect to be on that list. Since the 2002 Grammies, Apple has taken this stand:
- Intellectual property owners and consumers both have rights that should be upheld.
- The consumers have a right to manage and listen to their legally acquired music on whatever devices they own.
- Copyrights should not be violated.
- Copyright violations (piracy) is a behavioral problem that cannot be solved by DRM.
- DRM will always be hackable, and is therefore useless.
The above is taken from various speeches by Steve Jobs and other Apple execs, especially from Steve Jobs' acceptance speech at the 2002 Grammies.
The companies in the Alliance For Digital Progress represent a broad spectrum with Apple on the end upholding fair use rights and Microsoft on the extreme proDRM end. They are interested in keeping the government out of DRM, so they can resolve the issue between themselves. (With Apple no doubt hoping that many will run screaming from Palladium right to the DRM free Mac.)
Actually, I'm a bit surprised to see Microsoft there. For a time, they were taking out DRMOS patents and acting like they were going to embrace and extend CBDTPA into a 100% government mandated monopoly for themselves. Looks like either the government or the MPAA wised up and started mumbling something about open standards. When it started looking like Microsoft wasn't going to be ordained the official DRM provider to the US, Microsoft started speaking up against the CBDTPA. It just wouldn't do to have somebody else come up with a standard that Microsoft would have to abide by.
> They have been going after Holywood and TV studio
> business for the past couple of years. I.e. the Purchase of
> Final Cut Pro, Tremor, Shake, etc.
Apple has sworn to democratize the tools of music and movie making like they once did desktop publishing. The intended audience isn't just privileged members of a movie making or music recording cartel. The intended audience is anybody who wants to make a movie or record a song. That's why they just released a $299 trimmed down version of Final Cut Pro called Final Cut Express. Now even a wedding videographer can use a less expensive version of the program that was used to edit "When Dinosaurs Roamed America".
"If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own."
Steve Jobs, 2002 Grammy Awards
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0203/
Yes, the contracts are for 6 or 7 records. But if the label refuses to accept any albums beyond the first one, the contract effectively becomes for life. The artist can't perform, or sign with anyone else, and their copyrights were turned over to the label with a work for hire clause so they own nothing. The artist is silenced and the label is free to move on with a new clone.
They might as well keep their artists in cages and call them slaves. Mothra never saw a difference anyway.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
The RIAA is just the lobbying body of the big five labels. They are the ones going down, and when they do, the RIAA will just be disbanded or go back to being a standards organization like it used to be.
As for the big labels, they are a bunch of old (and very greedy) dinosaurs that are still trying to use a business model from the 1940's. Technology has moved on, and what used to be exclusive to them: studio equipment, distribution channels, and promotion contacts, are no longer exclusive. Studio equipment is cheap enough now for a well-off college student or a small business to afford. Distribution can be handled by ecommerce, and possibly a fulfillment center if one is selling a lot of CDs, something a musician just getting started wouldn't need to worry about. Promotion can be handled via P2P (already proven to work for indie artists), internet radio, the web, and word of mouth.
All that is dying is a bunch of greedy companies and a way of doing business that deserves to die. Music will live on in a new industry that is already waiting in the wings. Only instead of mega labels that "manufacture" a select few pop stars (that can't half sing), this will be an industry of indie artists, basement studios, and small indie labels, where the artists are in charge, prices are low, and variety is endless because there are no barriers to entry. Anybody who can carry a tune and get an mp3 made of the event will be able to be an artist. Run that mp3 up on your favorite P2P network and see if anyone salutes. If they do, make more and you are on your way to a fun hobby or even a career if you can find enough people interested in buying your mp3s and CD albums. If your first mp3 isn't noticed, either try again, perhaps with a different sound or style, or else don't and do something else with your life.
Want to hurry the death of the big labels along? Go here:
http://www.riaa.org/About-Members-1.cfm
This is a list of the members of the RIAA, including all the subsidiary labels of the big five. Boycott them. Also boycott anybody foolish enough to copy protect disks. Take your hard earned money and enthusiastically support indie artists. Find some you like and tell all your friends about them. This way, you may give the RIAA some ammo to complain about piracy in the short term (don't worry, they would make up something to complain about even if you were their best customer), but in the long term you will have built up a better future for both the artists and your fellow music lovers.
"Mothra's attack is working."
Shouta, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
Boycotting will work if everyone walks away from the RIAA labels and supports the indies instead. If they don't sell anything, they will not have the money to buy congress critters and complain about P2P. Keep up the boycott long enough and the big labels will die out.
The new music industry that arises in their place will have freedom for the artists, a wide variety of music, and fair prices. It won't complain about P2P, it will use P2P for promotion.
Bells are ringing: Mothra, Mothra! Every heart is calling: Mothra, Mothra!
Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have gotta pay! New Kirk calling Mothra, we need you today!
The DMCA does not have much built in protection to prevent innocents from having action taken against them. The accuser, and it could be anybody, does not have to prove guilt in a trial.
The accused looses internet access and the contents of their web site, including ecommerce data if it was an ecommerce site. The ability to sue or bring charges after the fact is cold comfort if one depended on that internet connection for their business or livelihood.
The DMCA is a very bad law that violates everything due process stands for. It is open to abuses: anything from retailers trying to silence coupon sites over their prices, to kids trying to get someone they dislike off the web.
No, I don't care about KaZaa's continued existance. I have no interest in saving the big music labels (the ones that use work-for-hire contracts to take copyrights from artists in the first place) from their own stupidity and greed. Neither are worth having our constitutional rights violated by such an outrageous piece of bought legislation.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
I've been using VCRs for 15 years, and I don't remember a time when you couldn't use the pause button to stop recording during the commercials. Before the VCR, there was the legendary trip to the refrigerator (still very useful since technology has not removed the human imperative to eat).
;)
Yes, the technology has changed. It has responded to customer demand and created easier ways to do what we humans have done for most of the history of TV: avoid watching the stupid commercials. After all, it is not our fault that the broadcasters choose to scam other companies into believing that we viewers will buy their products if they play some silly jingle on TV. (Like I'm going to buy insurance from a company because they named a computer animated lizard their employee of the month.
Remember when the VCR first came on the market and the MPAA were running about in a total panic because this new piece of technology was going to destroy their members' business? Hmm, I wonder how many gazillion dollars they've made off video sales since then.
Nothing has really changed but the technology. Still the same old greedy sharks, either to slow to adapt to change, or outraged that they might loose their precious monopolies. After all, these companies got where they are today because technology at the time they rose to power was exclusive to them. The real threat to them is not piracy, but the availablilty of technology to more people and wider, cheaper methods of distribution.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)