Google didn't close Android, but does fight back if anybody tries to fork it or access Google Play without using bona-Fidel Android
- Google doesn't "fight back" if "anybody" tries to fork Android. They do, however, require members of the OHA stick to the agreement they voluntarily signed up to do.
- Google is absolutely right to restrict the Play Store to devices capable of running the software the Play Store sells.
You're basically demanding that:
- An organization, under Google's control, that promotes a common platform based on Android for mobile phones should promote a range of incompatible operating systems based upon Android
- Google should support incompatible operating systems based upon Android
And you're making the claim that whether Android is "open" has to do with whether Google supports every fork it has no involvement in, and whether the OHA promotes operating systems that are Android-like and contain Android code but are, in major ways, incompatible.
I assume you also think Firefox is closed. After all, the Mozilla Foundation can and has promoted a common, supported, version. Indeed, they go one step further, and require supported versions of Firefox be compiled by the Foundation itself. That's why Debian comes with Iceweasel.
You can download the code to Android. You can make whatever changes to it you want. Several manufacturers do, indeed, go off and do their thing although none, thus far, with the exception of Acer, have seen any value in creating an operating system that have their own APIs. Some of these companies, like Amazon, are rivals to Google. They have not been in any way restrained by Google's lack of support.
OK, so to understand you correctly, your position is that Amazon should throw away their existing OS, that Amazon has full control over, and for which Amazon runs an app store with an established, respected, base of apps, and switch to Microsoft, striking some kind of deal where they get Microsoft some marketshare, because... because otherwise Amazon might be restricted, when developing apps, to using earlier versions of the Android SDK or versions of the SDK its developed itself?
Other than spite, what motive has Amazon got to do this?
Let's pretend, and the key word is "pretend", because everyone claiming this is an attack on Amazon has no idea what they're talking about, that things are as bad as claimed, that Amazon now no longer has the right to use the SDK, and also they've lost the right to use all versions of the AOSP and other BS.
Does switching to Microsoft mean they can sell apps for their tablet? Does it mean they can skin the OS to work the way Amazon thinks a tablet should work? Does it in any way provide any more freedom than Amazon could get if they struck a deal with Google and instead bundled the official Google version of Android with it?
Because let's be clear: if Amazon had to do things the way Motorola and Samsung did things, voluntarily subjecting themselves to the policies of the OHA, they could still do everything they're doing right now. They could bundle their own launcher, skin the UI, and even bundle their own app store. The one thing they possibly couldn't do is leave out the non-free Google Android apps - they'd have to bundle the Play Store, for example.
So even when we're pretending the FUD is accurate, there's no good reason for Amazon to switch to Windows. It would leave Amazon objectively worse off.
But of course, we're pretending. None of the stories about this being targettted at Amazon are true. Amazon doesn't have to use the official SDK, but it can because legally it isn't doing anything wrong by the SDK. The Fire OS is not a fork, it supports exactly the same APIs as AOSP. It has a custom launcher and a custom skin and some bundled apps, and is in every other way AOSP. Until recently, Amazon didn't even bother shipping a package for the SDK, they just told developers the screen size, to avoid missing hardware features, to not use the Google extension APIs, and to compile for 2.3.
Well OK. Also not yet affected by changes to the SDK licensing terms:
* Windows 8
* Ubuntu
* The entire GNU project
* iOS
* Slashcode
* The New York Times
* The birther case against President Obama
* The thing Glenn Beck allegedly did that he hasn't denied
* The pair of headphones on my desk
* The value of the US dollar
* Superman
* Batman
* The Mayan Calendar
The bit about loading the SDK onto a mobile handset has been there forever, FWIW. See also this post which I think downplays the changes a little too much,but isn't completely out of whack: https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3358333&cid=42475067
The community certainly has the right to fork the SDK and distribute an open version. They'll miss out on the Google created development images of Android, which typically are released a few weeks before the corresponding AOSP versions, but that's about it.
As far as this being done to make money... I believe the SDK is still a free download. I'm not sure why Google feels the need to do this, but it doesn't appear to be about money.
CM is not fragmentation, there are no changes to the API, but again: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ANDROID.
Android is still open.
The _SDK_ is what's changed. The _SDK_ is what you use to write _APPS_ for Android.
CyanogenMod contains absolutely nothing from the SDK. It is not in any way affected by these licensing conditions, any more than Ubuntu suddenly becomes closed source if Intel releases a C compiler for Linux systems. If Cyanogen and his team wants to fork Android and produce a version with an entirely incompatible API they continue to have the right to do that.
At this point I'm not sure if this is genuine confusion on your part, or if you're part of the legion of Slashdot Google FUD spreaders. I'm not happy about the SDK licensing change but I can honestly say it does not in any way, shape, or form affect the openness of Android itself. If and when Google imposes new licenses on AOSP, you can start to pretend that CyanogenMod is suddenly in legal jeopardy. It isn't right now.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't offer an open source tablet operating system, so no.
Amazon's use of the SDK is also perfectly legitimate under this license, assuming they're using it at all. The Fire OS is essentially bare Android with a custom launcher. It doesn't include GApps, but GApps are not part of Android, at least, from the point of view of the SDK. They haven't forked the API, and anything developed for the Fire will work on other Android systems 2.3 and better unless you explicitly do version checks.
There's very little point in Google closing Android, but the biggest reason for them not to is that it would create significant motivation for a group to fork the last open version. That fork would at the very least cause confusion that would hurt Android in the near term, and might even overshadow Google's version and become the standard, resulting in a loss of Google control.
On that note, the chances of Ubuntu Mobile suddenly becoming popular on the back of this, or on the back of some hypothetical closing of Android 4.3, is about zero. People upset about Android being hurt are likely people who want Android open. Their first thought would be "How can we regain our freedoms in Android", not "Oh well, let's just give up and switch to something else that's untested and unproven and doesn't work the way we're used to."
This is the SDK we're talking about. How does closing the SDK, but still distributing it for free to anyone who wants a copy, create a barrier to entry in any market phone manufacturers care about? Do you really think Samsung is saying "OMG! If someone forks the SDK and produces a slightly better development environment for Android phones, WE'LL BE RUINED! RUINED I tell you!"?
From what I can tell, the nearest thing there'll be to real world consequences is that when Google releases a new version of the OS, people will have to wait until the corresponding AOSP release comes out before trying it out on their hardware. Previously, as soon as the SDK had a new version of Android available, you'd get a lot of (usually bad) ports of it to various phones and tablets. A significant example was Honeycomb, which wasn't put in the AOSP repository until the release of ICS (and the "AOSP" version is still hard to obtain as the versions of each file that make it up are not clearly tagged) which was, nonetheless, ported to a series of tablets by using the SDK version.
It's unfortunate, I don't know why Google is taking this action, but it remains the case that Android itself is FOSS, and I guess I'm not going to start demanding my torch be lit or my pitchfork be sharpened until I see evidence Google plans to change that; of course, even if Google was the secretly evil organization its detractors keep claiming, and planned to do that, it's hard to see how closing Android would do anything other than result in a serious, first class, fork that really would threaten "official" Android for years to come, so I seriously doubt they'll ever do that.
Not sure if you're making a joke or not, but in case you're not: GNU/Linux and Mac OS X have somewhat different APIs at the UI level. You can't just recompile a Mac OS X desktop application and it'll suddenly work on Ubuntu.
There's a kinda-sorta "clone" of the Cocoa API for GNU/Linux called GNUStep, but it's incomplete and has significant API differences due to the author's decision to base it upon the OPENSTEP operating system. And, to the best of my knowledge, there's no Carbon API for GNU/Linux.
Perhaps that is how they appear to someone with an anti-gun agenda, but to everyone else, not so much.
I have no interest in what you have to say about something I've written, if you're unwilling to discuss the words I've written, rather than attempt to ascribe political opinions to me that I don't have and haven't expressed.
...and yet the anti-Googlers on Slashdot were assuring us, yesterday, that the huge advantage of this system is that it would be "truely open" rather than Google's "impossible to fork" Android...
You know, they still haven't released Ubuntu for Android to the public, and that's a much more interesting project. I'm not holding out for this to ever be released, despite the plethora of open phones we have these days and the supposed use of an Android kernel.
OK, but counter to that, what stories actually do glorify violence? Rather than simply present it?
I thought one of the ironies of the NRA speech on the subject was that the two movies Wayne picked out, NBK and American Psycho, actually present violence negatively. At the same time, Wayne's "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" was right out of a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movie.
Those movies, the Wayne-Eastwood "Bad guys kill hero's family, hero shoots back" movies, do "glorify violence" - that is, they create a relatable hero, who uses violence, however reluctantly, like it's a good thing. But even then it's questionable however how much violence they actually cause: you might be able to connect the George Zimmerman incident to it, with Zimmerman convinced that he was doing the right thing by stalking a terrified teenager because he was a "good guy" and Martin looked, to him, like a "bad guy", but the Zimmerman incident is relatively rare in the great scheme of things. Nobody, to me, has suggested any link between the morality espoused by movies that glorify violence, like Revenge Westerns, and the killers in Colorado and Connecticut.
Computer games? Well, of course, but what are we talking about here? I've seen various things in the Saints Row series that made me feel extremely uncomfortable (SR2 especially), but I'm not aware of anyone linking that series to any real world violence. And the "usual suspects" that the NRA trotted out, included Grand Theft Auto - which has something more in line with Quentin Tarantino's violence-as-an-aesthetic motif, used in what's clearly a parodic context - and the cartoon violence of Mortal Kombat which is, ultimately, based upon acts by consenting adults.
The anti-violent-media pundits have it all wrong. Violent movies didn't bring us Connecticut, they brought us the current leadership of the NRA. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And I'm the good guy. *bam*
Agreed. Android for phones and tablets is mature. Ubuntu for desktops is mature. Windows 8 suggests it's hard to produce a friendly 100% unified OS that uses a common UI across these entirely different form factors. Ubuntu and Android running over a common kernel sharing a common file system would, on the other hand, be awesome.
The Federal Reserve is printing money, not the Government. And you guys have been predicting runaway inflation for the best part of half a decade now.
Inflation - outside of commodities whose supplies run dry - doesn't happen unless there are enough people with money to spend for it to happen. Nobody has any money. They can increase the size of the economy by 100x, but as long as that money's sitting in bank vaults or the pockets of the super-rich, inflation aint going to happen.
I think he's pointing out that taxes on corporations are just a form of double taxation where the taxation is "hidden" - you see more expensive goods and services, but have no idea what the cause is.
I'm in agreement, and I'm someone who would happily see higher taxes in exchange for better public services, and am as anti-corporate as the next guy. Corporate income tax just doesn't make any sense. Tax sales, tax employees incomes, tax dividends, etc, but the process of moving money around (which is, after all, what a corporation is) shouldn't, by itself, be taxable.
The page doesn't help either;-) I'm a Google Apps user, I've used it for a long time. The point they're trying to make, and doing so badly, isn't that "Docs is one of the Google Apps", it's "Docs is fully integrated with Google Apps".
In reality, GMail is really the major Google service that's more than simply integrated with GA. The others are integrated, supporting users who log in via GA accounts, allowing the account's settings to be managed by a GA administrator, and on occasion providing a few extra features useful to those in a GA Domain. But really, it's not much different from Active Directory's relationship to the Office suites on your work desktop, where Outlook is fully managed by AD, and some apps include some features that look things up or whatever in AD occasionally, and some features of Word may or may not be administrable using AD but in practice aren't.
...is a corporate domain-based user management system that's web based, with particular attention made in integrating it with GMail. What I suspect is that the submitter confused it with Google Docs. Google Docs is integrated with Google Apps (as is YouTube) but it's not Docs, any more than Active Directory is Excel.
Is this a serious Google branding issue? I can kinda understand the confusion, just as I can the whole "Google Voice is trying to compete with Vonage!" crap - that's a voicemail and forwarding service on steriods service people, not a VoIP service (Google Talk is the VoIP service.) Though that said, if you don't actually use a product enough to know what it is, why mention it?
RND, in Commodore BASIC, returns a float. Sorry. (Hence the name of the airline. And from memory, it didn't matter what the parameter was, it was always a float between 0 and 1.)
Absolutely, our best fare is only $49.99 + Fees. Compare that to the competition! SouthWest charges $79.99 + Extras, and American Airlines charges a staggering $149.99 + Charges. And don't even talk about Delta, $159.99 + Mandatory Service Costs!
What, you're going to go with Commodore Airlines, who charge $39.99+RND(1)*100? We'll match that!
There are other solutions to beating the airline industry too, if only more companies were progressive enough to take them on. For example, http://allaboardflorida.com/
Yes, they're aiming directly at the short haul airlines. And it's not hard to see how if the FEC can turn a profit with this, other railways will see an opportunity they've been missing for nearly half a century. And if you're about to ask "What's changed that'd make it profitable now", the fact is "it" hasn't been tried before. What's been tried before is trying to produce a full service, stops every five miles, rail system that the government actively competed with. If all you're doing, like AAF/FEC, is running trains between large cities - as airlines do planes - then you stand a much better chance of pulling this off and making a mint in the process.
The biggest issue is convincing the rail companies to dip their toes in the water again. Reportedly at least one Class A is thinking in terms of running a non-Amtrak service. If the FEC can make a success of it, I suspect most of the major rail companies will jump in.
Slashdot Mirror
And on that note, how can you be in favor of Information Technology in a world where the BSA drags unwitting small business owners into court?
- Google doesn't "fight back" if "anybody" tries to fork Android. They do, however, require members of the OHA stick to the agreement they voluntarily signed up to do.
- Google is absolutely right to restrict the Play Store to devices capable of running the software the Play Store sells.
You're basically demanding that:
- An organization, under Google's control, that promotes a common platform based on Android for mobile phones should promote a range of incompatible operating systems based upon Android
- Google should support incompatible operating systems based upon Android
And you're making the claim that whether Android is "open" has to do with whether Google supports every fork it has no involvement in, and whether the OHA promotes operating systems that are Android-like and contain Android code but are, in major ways, incompatible.
I assume you also think Firefox is closed. After all, the Mozilla Foundation can and has promoted a common, supported, version. Indeed, they go one step further, and require supported versions of Firefox be compiled by the Foundation itself. That's why Debian comes with Iceweasel.
You can download the code to Android. You can make whatever changes to it you want. Several manufacturers do, indeed, go off and do their thing although none, thus far, with the exception of Acer, have seen any value in creating an operating system that have their own APIs. Some of these companies, like Amazon, are rivals to Google. They have not been in any way restrained by Google's lack of support.
How is it not open?
OK, so to understand you correctly, your position is that Amazon should throw away their existing OS, that Amazon has full control over, and for which Amazon runs an app store with an established, respected, base of apps, and switch to Microsoft, striking some kind of deal where they get Microsoft some marketshare, because... because otherwise Amazon might be restricted, when developing apps, to using earlier versions of the Android SDK or versions of the SDK its developed itself?
Other than spite, what motive has Amazon got to do this?
Let's pretend, and the key word is "pretend", because everyone claiming this is an attack on Amazon has no idea what they're talking about, that things are as bad as claimed, that Amazon now no longer has the right to use the SDK, and also they've lost the right to use all versions of the AOSP and other BS.
Does switching to Microsoft mean they can sell apps for their tablet? Does it mean they can skin the OS to work the way Amazon thinks a tablet should work? Does it in any way provide any more freedom than Amazon could get if they struck a deal with Google and instead bundled the official Google version of Android with it?
Because let's be clear: if Amazon had to do things the way Motorola and Samsung did things, voluntarily subjecting themselves to the policies of the OHA, they could still do everything they're doing right now. They could bundle their own launcher, skin the UI, and even bundle their own app store. The one thing they possibly couldn't do is leave out the non-free Google Android apps - they'd have to bundle the Play Store, for example.
So even when we're pretending the FUD is accurate, there's no good reason for Amazon to switch to Windows. It would leave Amazon objectively worse off.
But of course, we're pretending. None of the stories about this being targettted at Amazon are true. Amazon doesn't have to use the official SDK, but it can because legally it isn't doing anything wrong by the SDK. The Fire OS is not a fork, it supports exactly the same APIs as AOSP. It has a custom launcher and a custom skin and some bundled apps, and is in every other way AOSP. Until recently, Amazon didn't even bother shipping a package for the SDK, they just told developers the screen size, to avoid missing hardware features, to not use the Google extension APIs, and to compile for 2.3.
Well OK. Also not yet affected by changes to the SDK licensing terms:
* Windows 8
* Ubuntu
* The entire GNU project
* iOS
* Slashcode
* The New York Times
* The birther case against President Obama
* The thing Glenn Beck allegedly did that he hasn't denied
* The pair of headphones on my desk
* The value of the US dollar
* Superman
* Batman
* The Mayan Calendar
The bit about loading the SDK onto a mobile handset has been there forever, FWIW. See also this post which I think downplays the changes a little too much ,but isn't completely out of whack: https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3358333&cid=42475067
The community certainly has the right to fork the SDK and distribute an open version. They'll miss out on the Google created development images of Android, which typically are released a few weeks before the corresponding AOSP versions, but that's about it.
As far as this being done to make money... I believe the SDK is still a free download. I'm not sure why Google feels the need to do this, but it doesn't appear to be about money.
CM is not fragmentation, there are no changes to the API, but again: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ANDROID.
Android is still open.
The _SDK_ is what's changed. The _SDK_ is what you use to write _APPS_ for Android.
CyanogenMod contains absolutely nothing from the SDK. It is not in any way affected by these licensing conditions, any more than Ubuntu suddenly becomes closed source if Intel releases a C compiler for Linux systems. If Cyanogen and his team wants to fork Android and produce a version with an entirely incompatible API they continue to have the right to do that.
At this point I'm not sure if this is genuine confusion on your part, or if you're part of the legion of Slashdot Google FUD spreaders. I'm not happy about the SDK licensing change but I can honestly say it does not in any way, shape, or form affect the openness of Android itself. If and when Google imposes new licenses on AOSP, you can start to pretend that CyanogenMod is suddenly in legal jeopardy. It isn't right now.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't offer an open source tablet operating system, so no.
Amazon's use of the SDK is also perfectly legitimate under this license, assuming they're using it at all. The Fire OS is essentially bare Android with a custom launcher. It doesn't include GApps, but GApps are not part of Android, at least, from the point of view of the SDK. They haven't forked the API, and anything developed for the Fire will work on other Android systems 2.3 and better unless you explicitly do version checks.
There's very little point in Google closing Android, but the biggest reason for them not to is that it would create significant motivation for a group to fork the last open version. That fork would at the very least cause confusion that would hurt Android in the near term, and might even overshadow Google's version and become the standard, resulting in a loss of Google control.
On that note, the chances of Ubuntu Mobile suddenly becoming popular on the back of this, or on the back of some hypothetical closing of Android 4.3, is about zero. People upset about Android being hurt are likely people who want Android open. Their first thought would be "How can we regain our freedoms in Android", not "Oh well, let's just give up and switch to something else that's untested and unproven and doesn't work the way we're used to."
CyanogenMod is not an SDK. It's an Android distribution. It is not in any way affected by the changes to the SDK licensing terms.
Uh, what?
This is the SDK we're talking about. How does closing the SDK, but still distributing it for free to anyone who wants a copy, create a barrier to entry in any market phone manufacturers care about? Do you really think Samsung is saying "OMG! If someone forks the SDK and produces a slightly better development environment for Android phones, WE'LL BE RUINED! RUINED I tell you!"?
Very little.
From what I can tell, the nearest thing there'll be to real world consequences is that when Google releases a new version of the OS, people will have to wait until the corresponding AOSP release comes out before trying it out on their hardware. Previously, as soon as the SDK had a new version of Android available, you'd get a lot of (usually bad) ports of it to various phones and tablets. A significant example was Honeycomb, which wasn't put in the AOSP repository until the release of ICS (and the "AOSP" version is still hard to obtain as the versions of each file that make it up are not clearly tagged) which was, nonetheless, ported to a series of tablets by using the SDK version.
It's unfortunate, I don't know why Google is taking this action, but it remains the case that Android itself is FOSS, and I guess I'm not going to start demanding my torch be lit or my pitchfork be sharpened until I see evidence Google plans to change that; of course, even if Google was the secretly evil organization its detractors keep claiming, and planned to do that, it's hard to see how closing Android would do anything other than result in a serious, first class, fork that really would threaten "official" Android for years to come, so I seriously doubt they'll ever do that.
Not sure if you're making a joke or not, but in case you're not: GNU/Linux and Mac OS X have somewhat different APIs at the UI level. You can't just recompile a Mac OS X desktop application and it'll suddenly work on Ubuntu.
There's a kinda-sorta "clone" of the Cocoa API for GNU/Linux called GNUStep, but it's incomplete and has significant API differences due to the author's decision to base it upon the OPENSTEP operating system. And, to the best of my knowledge, there's no Carbon API for GNU/Linux.
Sorry.
I have no interest in what you have to say about something I've written, if you're unwilling to discuss the words I've written, rather than attempt to ascribe political opinions to me that I don't have and haven't expressed.
You know, they still haven't released Ubuntu for Android to the public, and that's a much more interesting project. I'm not holding out for this to ever be released, despite the plethora of open phones we have these days and the supposed use of an Android kernel.
OK, but counter to that, what stories actually do glorify violence? Rather than simply present it?
I thought one of the ironies of the NRA speech on the subject was that the two movies Wayne picked out, NBK and American Psycho, actually present violence negatively. At the same time, Wayne's "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" was right out of a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movie.
Those movies, the Wayne-Eastwood "Bad guys kill hero's family, hero shoots back" movies, do "glorify violence" - that is, they create a relatable hero, who uses violence, however reluctantly, like it's a good thing. But even then it's questionable however how much violence they actually cause: you might be able to connect the George Zimmerman incident to it, with Zimmerman convinced that he was doing the right thing by stalking a terrified teenager because he was a "good guy" and Martin looked, to him, like a "bad guy", but the Zimmerman incident is relatively rare in the great scheme of things. Nobody, to me, has suggested any link between the morality espoused by movies that glorify violence, like Revenge Westerns, and the killers in Colorado and Connecticut.
Computer games? Well, of course, but what are we talking about here? I've seen various things in the Saints Row series that made me feel extremely uncomfortable (SR2 especially), but I'm not aware of anyone linking that series to any real world violence. And the "usual suspects" that the NRA trotted out, included Grand Theft Auto - which has something more in line with Quentin Tarantino's violence-as-an-aesthetic motif, used in what's clearly a parodic context - and the cartoon violence of Mortal Kombat which is, ultimately, based upon acts by consenting adults.
The anti-violent-media pundits have it all wrong. Violent movies didn't bring us Connecticut, they brought us the current leadership of the NRA. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And I'm the good guy. *bam*
I shall walk off into the sunset now.
Agreed. Android for phones and tablets is mature. Ubuntu for desktops is mature. Windows 8 suggests it's hard to produce a friendly 100% unified OS that uses a common UI across these entirely different form factors. Ubuntu and Android running over a common kernel sharing a common file system would, on the other hand, be awesome.
The Federal Reserve is printing money, not the Government. And you guys have been predicting runaway inflation for the best part of half a decade now.
Inflation - outside of commodities whose supplies run dry - doesn't happen unless there are enough people with money to spend for it to happen. Nobody has any money. They can increase the size of the economy by 100x, but as long as that money's sitting in bank vaults or the pockets of the super-rich, inflation aint going to happen.
I think he's pointing out that taxes on corporations are just a form of double taxation where the taxation is "hidden" - you see more expensive goods and services, but have no idea what the cause is.
I'm in agreement, and I'm someone who would happily see higher taxes in exchange for better public services, and am as anti-corporate as the next guy. Corporate income tax just doesn't make any sense. Tax sales, tax employees incomes, tax dividends, etc, but the process of moving money around (which is, after all, what a corporation is) shouldn't, by itself, be taxable.
The page doesn't help either ;-) I'm a Google Apps user, I've used it for a long time. The point they're trying to make, and doing so badly, isn't that "Docs is one of the Google Apps", it's "Docs is fully integrated with Google Apps".
In reality, GMail is really the major Google service that's more than simply integrated with GA. The others are integrated, supporting users who log in via GA accounts, allowing the account's settings to be managed by a GA administrator, and on occasion providing a few extra features useful to those in a GA Domain. But really, it's not much different from Active Directory's relationship to the Office suites on your work desktop, where Outlook is fully managed by AD, and some apps include some features that look things up or whatever in AD occasionally, and some features of Word may or may not be administrable using AD but in practice aren't.
Is this a serious Google branding issue? I can kinda understand the confusion, just as I can the whole "Google Voice is trying to compete with Vonage!" crap - that's a voicemail and forwarding service on steriods service people, not a VoIP service (Google Talk is the VoIP service.) Though that said, if you don't actually use a product enough to know what it is, why mention it?
RND, in Commodore BASIC, returns a float. Sorry. (Hence the name of the airline. And from memory, it didn't matter what the parameter was, it was always a float between 0 and 1.)
Standardized, published, prices is COMMUNISM now? WTF?
And FWIW, airlines have plenty of areas in which they can compete rather than just on ticket price.
Absolutely, our best fare is only $49.99 + Fees. Compare that to the competition! SouthWest charges $79.99 + Extras, and American Airlines charges a staggering $149.99 + Charges. And don't even talk about Delta, $159.99 + Mandatory Service Costs!
What, you're going to go with Commodore Airlines, who charge $39.99+RND(1)*100? We'll match that!
There are other solutions to beating the airline industry too, if only more companies were progressive enough to take them on. For example, http://allaboardflorida.com/
Yes, they're aiming directly at the short haul airlines. And it's not hard to see how if the FEC can turn a profit with this, other railways will see an opportunity they've been missing for nearly half a century. And if you're about to ask "What's changed that'd make it profitable now", the fact is "it" hasn't been tried before. What's been tried before is trying to produce a full service, stops every five miles, rail system that the government actively competed with. If all you're doing, like AAF/FEC, is running trains between large cities - as airlines do planes - then you stand a much better chance of pulling this off and making a mint in the process.
The biggest issue is convincing the rail companies to dip their toes in the water again. Reportedly at least one Class A is thinking in terms of running a non-Amtrak service. If the FEC can make a success of it, I suspect most of the major rail companies will jump in.