If Real had reverse engineered Apple's software and wrote their own code to run on the iPod (or any facsimile), that would be one thing. The problem was that Real cracked Apple's Fairplay code and violated the license. This is what got them in hot water and how Apple (like any other company) would have protected themselves from somebody else wanting a free ride on their back.
What license did Real agree to, what evidence is there that they "cracked" Fairplay (rather than reading the publically available documentation from those who actually did crack the scheme), and what legal hot water are they in?
Let's pretend Squiggleslash Corp is about to release the MicroSquiggle 6000, a dual 2.8GHZ 970 based desktop computer with a built in LCD monitor that's 2"x20"x14". Price hasn't been determined yet, but our marketing people are pretty sure the sweet spot is about $2,000. We'll decide in a meeting this week so we can announce the complete package at SquiggleExpo.
ThinkSquiggle then publishes a leaked story, clearly coming from someone with an NDA, who claims that Squiggleslash Corp is about to release a new computer, probably part of the MicroSquiggle line, a dual 970 based desktop computer, probably 2GHz or better, with a built in LCD monitor. The dimensions are about 20" across, it's about 2" thick, and it's sub-$1,000.
The specs are largely right. The price (and clockspeed) is almost certainly wrong. Does Trade Secret law apply in this case?
Changing the specs a little, supposing SquiggleInsider has also got a friend working at a factory in Taiwan. He reports that the device doesn't actually have a built-in LCD (that's 'cos the factory ships units with a plate in place of the LCD, the LCDs being inserted in another factory three blocks down the road. Hey, it was cheaper that way. At Squiggleslash, we're always looking for savings we can pass on to YOU the customer. Besides, these LCDs are sweeeeeeeet. We didn't want the first factory to install them because they're actually quad-colour, so those women with the reverse colour blindness thing can now see photo-realistic pictures. We're also coming up with three models of two colour LCD too, for slightly less, for colour blind users. Anyway, that's all a major trade secret, so don't tell anyone) So SquiggleInsider then publishes:
Squiggleslash Corp is about to release an entirely new machine at SquiggleExpo! Sporting two 2.8GHz G5s, the machine is headless, and according to other rumour sites, is priced at $999!
So has SquiggleInsider also published trade secrets, despite getting the story wrong?
The answer is: probably. And from Squiggleslash Corp's point of view, we're fucked. Since SquiggleInsider and ThinkSquiggle published these rumours, sales of the MicroSquiggle 100 - our current lowest price MicroSquiggle - have plummetted, even though the MicroSquiggle 6000 will cost nearly twice the price and be aimed at a completely different group of people. So, given the chance, we want to take action.
Which, when Steve Quiggleslash owned Squiggleslash Corp, would probably have meant we'd have sent out a few angry letters and announced the product early so there are no false expectations. Unfortunately we were taken over by Steve Jobs last week so lawsuits are pending...
He got a DUI or something in the early days of his career. I can't remember the specifics.
He co-wrote Microsoft BASIC. Detractors claim he didn't actually do any of the coding himself, but that doesn't seem to be supported by the available evidence.
He wrote a letter to the Homebrew Computer Club complaining about people making copies of Microsoft BASIC. That's fairly famous, as at that time it wasn't really established in the minds of computer users that copyright applied to computer software. (I'm still of a mind it shouldn't really, software really isn't in any practical sense like literature, pictures, sounds or sound patterns, patents might have been a better way to go. By this, I don't mean modern software patents, I mean you'd have had to patent a specific implementation of a solution to a problem, not some generalized thing that can apply to file formats etc. Even then, I'm not happy about it. Arguably a fourth form of "IP" should have been invented.)
He wrote a letter to Apple when they released the Macintosh suggesting they license the operating system. Apple refused for several years, and when they finally did they'd already lost the operating system wars.
He married the creator of Microsoft Bob.
Offhand, I can't think of anything else (I mean, I know things Microsoft has done, that I assume Gates had a big hand in, but Gates specifically...)
90% of the comments here seem to be against Apple. I agree that criticism of Apple tends to be dealt with negatively here (hell, I've suffered the mods for that myself), but I think most people are against the suing of ThinkSecret.
FWIW, I think the rumours have harmed Apple, though given the timescale involved, not a great deal (hurting eMac sales at a time when eMac sales were going to be low anyway, for a couple of weeks), but, you know what? I don't care. That's Apple's problem, not ThinkSecret's, and certainly not the court's. It also harms Apple if someone comes up with a nicer looking, easy to use and intuitive, operating system than OS X, but I'd positively rejoice at that.
Apple has always been lawsuit happy. They were pioneers of the infamous "look and feel" lawsuits in the 1980s (only Atari predated them, setting the precedent, but more or less leaving the area alone after that), they've made spurious legal threats against RealNetworks for having the audacity to make something compatable with the iPod, and I don't see this as anything more than yet more legal masturbation on their part.
Re:Maybe the price point wasn't firm yet...
on
Apple Sues Think Secret
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Most people can't put together that system though. Besides which, even at $500 I can put together a box including a Wal*Mart PC, a semi-modern graphics card, and a monitor, running GNOME or something, that'll be more powerful than this device. That's not really the point. You and I are geeks, sure we can do this, 95% of the population doesn't want to however.
The point is that a low cost Mac (not a practical form factor, because you have to use a fucking huge 17" monitor - either as the screen or as a paperwieght - for the life of the machine. That's why people who "just want to try OS X" are not buying $800 eMacs) is about to come out. So it is good news, whether it's $500 or $750. People will buy it, and more people will buy it than currently buy eMacs.
I don't think this has much to do with pricing. Apple's prices have almost never matched the rumours. Apple didn't sue the rumour sites over the PowerMac G5 (sent out cease and desists, yes, but didn't actually sue), or over the iMac G5, or over the iPod Mini.
Remember the iPod mini? That was supposed to include a 2G model that'd retail for less than $100. The 4G model would be under $200. Remember the uproar when it didn't happen? Just a 4G model, and that was $250.
Prices are rarely correct because pricing is determined by marketing and high level management not random people at Apple or at Apple's many suppliers. The guy at the factory in South East Asia who's looking at these machines coming off assembly lines knows enough to call ThinkSecret and others with the exact specs, but has about as much clue as to the pricing as George W. Bush. The guy who goes for a drink with Jonathan Ive's assistant every night knows that the machine has a fairly sweet look, and Apple has the thing at the factory, but hasn't a clue how much it'll cost, except that it's the much sought-after rumoured headless iMac.
Whatever Apple's concerns here, they have nothing to do with pricing. The most likely explanation is that Apple generally wants to crack down on the rumours. They probably feel that the rumours have the potential to Osbourne their business. In all probability, eMac sales are very slow right now, partially because eMacs are underspecced, but also - in large part - because budget Mac buyers are waiting for a supposed $500 iMac. And, as the rumour is essentially true (except it'll probably be more expensive, like in the $600-700 range), Trade Secrets law is the weapon Apple are using.
Mac enthusiasts like to think the rumour sites help Apple. Actually, they don't. They create false expectations of Apple, they Osbourne Apple on a regular information, often with machines that'll never be released, and they undermine Apple's own marketing efforts by pre-announcing products. If Apple was particularly bad at marketing, as they were in the mid-nineties, this might actually help them, but that was then and this is now. Apple is spectacularly good at marketing. Anyone trying to do it for them is going to be undermine what they're doing.
FWIW, I think the lawsuit sucks and Apple shouldn't be allowed to do it. I'm merely trying to follow the logic here, and unfortunately, ethics are not usually a part of what Apple does.
Wonder what the level of inducement is that's needed for a crime to have been committed.
I know ThinkSecret has a very prominant "Anonymous Tips Hotline" on their front page, encouraging people with secret information to call them anonymously. But, at the same time, that's the only obvious extent of the encouragement. No other enducements (no cash rewards, etc) are advertised, at least, none that I've ever noticed.
While I didn't agree with his opinions, he was, at one point, considered a journalist with some integrity. He did a fairly "warts and all" portrait of GWB some time before the 2000 election, which infuriated many Bush supporters for reporting on a joke Bush made about a woman on death row.
On a show like Crossfire, where the show encouraged partisanship to the point of absurdity on both sides, he really wasn't the right person. It's not a show for serious journalists, and Carlson, I felt, wanted at some point to be taken seriously as a journalist, not just a pundit. In that respect, it was sadly appropriate that he, rather than his collegues, ended up trying to defend the show against Stewart.
Given what people are used to, I doubt it'll make much difference.
Still, I didn't buy any DVDs until DeCSS "happened". Whether legal or otherwise, I'll wait until an unputbackintheboxable de-DRM system is created for HD-DVD before moving to HD-DVD. Hollywood may "win" with me never buying a DVD, but given I've never copied DVDs for others or sought unauthorized copies of anything, it'll be a hollow victory for them.
But that's the point. The BSD license is making that decision for me. It says "If you want to contribute to a project licensed under me, then you MUST contribute your code to proprietary software vendors that want to use it, and you may not charge them for the privilege." The GPL leaves that up to me. It doesn't force me to do anything.
The GPL gives me freedom to decide how the code will be used in proprietary software. It doesn't, by itself, remove any freedoms from anyone. The BSD license may force a situation (if you're required to license under the BSD license, which, without forking, you generally are for BSD projects), but the GPL merely has the absense of that force.
Generally it's a strange definition of freedom that denies it to contributors.
Thousands of people without jobs right now who have real-world perspective: "YES!!"
Sure, right, so we must never have principles and people who can get a job anywhere should work for the money, never picking and chosing between job offers based upon ethics.
Slashbots may hate Stallman, but I doubt he'd have difficulty getting a job if he quit one whose ethical position he opposed.
Nonsense. The GPL is one of the most dramatically practical licenses there is. Indeed, a project that standardizes upon the GPL is giving its contributors the most amount of freedom.
If I contribute to FreeBSD, then, unless I choose to fork the entire project, I have no control over how my code is used outside of free software projects. I'm essentially working for Apple for free.
If I contribute to Linux, I can send my all-new module I wrote myself to Linus with a copy of the GPL and he'll include it in the kernel (if it's any good, of course.) If someone wants to include my code in a proprietary product, they can come to me and negotiate a license.
You'll note that nothing is taken away from anyone. The proprietary software vendor still has "freedom", they just may have to pay towards the costs of coding in some form other than giving back to the community of which I'm a part. Perhaps I'll let them use it for nothing. Perhaps I'll require they duplicate the effort and get in a programmer to do it themselves. Or maybe I'll accept a few hundred dollars. That's up to me. But in this case, it's me that's saying how free (monetarily or non-monetarily) it'll end up for end users, not some eye-swivelling project leaders brought up on a diet of anti-RMS diatribes and McCarthyism.
I'm rather tired of hearing the GPL described as "non-free" or the BSD as "free-er". The BSD license is free as in "Working for Apple for free", it provides no additional freedom above that that the GPL provides, it merely gives the contributor more control over how free the code is going to be and to whom.
Mac OS X is the third most popular OS. GNU/Linux's marketshare has been higher than Apple's for a while (and all of Apple's marketshare tends to be bunched together anyway, a high proportion, possibly even a majority, of Apple users are using Mac OS 9 and earlier operating systems.
JA: Is the management/activist role something you desire to remain in?
Richard Stallman: I wouldn't say I desire to, but it's necessary that I do so. At the moment we don't have anyone to replace me. We're actually thinking about how we we could try and develop people who could do this, so that I will not be indispensable.
Seems a resonable response to the question myself."Full of himself"? Right?
"we [GNU] will support linux as long as it remains popular..."
This is an answer to the following question:
JA: Will the GNU Project focus solely on a GNU system built around the GNU Hurd when it is released, or will it continue to support a widening range of free-software kernels?
Oh yeah. Full of himself. Right.
He thinks he is the saviour of free software? Sure he's started some wonderful projects that are VERY useful today [e.g. GCC and GDB] but he's not "irreplaceble". I mean look at GCC change logs. How many commits are due to RMS? He could [...] die tommorow and the world will keep spinning. OSS will keep being developed.
Wow. Just wow. Not only a quote out of context, but pretending he hadn't said the exact opposite throughout the interview.
The guy is nothing but a hippie throwback trying to cling to his fame from the past. Get a hair cut you bum!
RMS bashing is about the only type of trolling you can perform on Slashdot that carries with it positive karma.
It's just a fact that people don't care about the ideological bents of folks like Stallan. Maybe he's ahead of his time or something, but right now, his ideas just aren't viable. People don't care about open source and the market will slowly squeeze it out because the loss of things like GNU/Linux distros and MythTV and whatnot just aren't important as far the market is concerned. Open source can't survive in this market because nobody of consequence really wants it to.
I disagree with this. Free software (which is what RMS cares about and what I think you meant by "Open source") is actually a major player in the market right now and is surviving. Those "in the know" can get out of the Microsoft/Apple/Sun (I put Sun in there because of Java and Solaris, but I don't for a moment want to ignore their substantial and important contributions to free software) straightjacket and survive quite happily with fully functional, fully interoperable, powerful computer systems comparable to the best of the proprietary.
The subtext of your argument is that (if I'm reading you correctly), because only a small minority see freedom in software as important, free software is not viable. That minority however is important: that minority is a huge proportion of those who make technology decisions for computer companies, which is why we're seeing a situation where most servers today seem to run free software. That minority is also intelligent and educated enough to be able to support free software, to provide the infrastructure that allows it to exist. And free software, to an extent, is self-sustaining as long as someone, somewhere, believes in it. If there's only one person in the world who believes in it, that person can modify and improve the software they have. The same argument cannot be made for proprietary software which requires a large enough market to become sustainable.
In other words, the marketshare of free software is not a serious issue and never has been. Those handing their private parts and a mallet to Apple have more to fear than those handing them to RMS and ESR.
RMS has already won the war, to a certain extent. Free software is no longer a lunatic idea. The second most popular operating system is free software and is just as viable as the first.
While Java may have been Microsoft's target, what ActiveX actually displaced - and Microsoft ultimately deliberately turned off support for once ActiveX was popular enough - were browser plug-ins. The technology was always more suited to replacing plug-ins than it was Java, which was more than just a rich-content system for web-browsers.
Browser plug-ins were just as insecure as ActiveX. Indeed, ActiveX at least had that almost useless signing system, when plug-ins didn't even have that fig-leaf of security..
So I'm not sure I agree with the argument that some-how Microsoft invented this particular security issue. Netscape invented it. Microsoft just innovated.;-)
I think if Fink were a complex package manager, you'd have a point, but generally installing something with fink is a matter of typing something like "fink install emacs", entering the root password, and then hitting return as often as necessary.
As far as Panther vs Jaguar, it may say this, but I never had a problem with Fink on Jaguar. I suspect for the most part the concern is that more recent ports are only likely to be tested on Panther. While this is true, Darwin didn't really change a great deal between the two operating systems, and that's, ultimately, what matters.
As for Tiger, Panther has some nice advantages over Jaguar (but looks physically uglier), hopefully Tiger continues the trend and is faster than Panther. I don't know when what is going to be released, so I can't really help you on that.
If you do upgrade OS X, there's a substantial probability you'll have to reinstall Fink. You can probably find a way to automate reinstalling everything you installed earlier though.
FWIW, IE for Mac is still being developed, it's just tied to MSN now (you can't get it as a seperate download, or run it independently.) Essentially Microsoft is asking Mac users to pay for a product, just as Windows users do (by paying for Windows.)
The reason nobody's really making a big deal over it is that Safari was so much better not just than IE 5.2 but than the latest IE-on-Windows. And, now that Firefox supports middle clicking (Mac users - download the latest builds) IE is falling behind in general. So few people actually want to run the MSN browser.
Once upon a time, Apple had a downloadable X server for Jaguar. Then they removed the link to it when Panther came out.
In the mean time, you can get the X.org (or is it XFree86?) version of X11 to install on any OS X via Fink. This is probably your best bet.
However, if you only want to run OpenOffice.org, there's a program called NeoOffice/J that eschews X11 and POSIX-crap for Java and OS X shtuff. While imperfect, it's about as stable as the original and doesn't require fiddling with special "OpenOffice.org launcher" programs that never quite work the way you want anyway. Other than appearance, NeoOffice/J works like a regular Mac OS X app.
That's monopolistic behaviour, when you are a producer of both the hardware and software: imagine MS and Dell merging and producing one product. Would that be nice? Duuuudeee....
If MS and Dell merged and produced one product, I can see the end of Windows as the monopoly operating system.
One major advantage of Windows is that it's everywhere and can run on anything. If Microsoft were to tie it in this way, Windows wouldn't stand much of a chance of continued success as its success would be dependent on Dell's. Meanwhile, any company wanting to compete with Dell would have to put out an alternative operating system, which means real R&D dollars would go into such a thing.
Give it time, man, give it time. Microsoft are doing their thing, the console game makers their's, and it's all good. Microsoft just has to build the base, that creates the momentum; then game sales will truly become the ying to Microsoft's yang. You have to remember that the larger the sales for the console in the short term, the larger the loss for Microsoft, but the better the long term prospects for profitability become.
We're not talking about the Iraq war here: Microsoft knew what it was getting into, it wasn't blinded by ideology, it did the calculations, and most importantly, nobody's ever died because of Microsoft's X-Box strategy.
So relax. Let it happen. What they're doing isn't hurting you, there's no need to be mean or critical about it.
Indeed (externally), yeah I forgot to mention the address bus in that big description.
Internally, the 68000 and 68008 were completely 32 bit for both data and addresses. A wonderful architecture, IBM needs a good kicking for not adopting it, but I don't think I'm the only person to say so.
I thoght the A1000 and A3000s were both very elegant for their time. There were a bunch of white Amigas too (the A1200 at the very least), and one black one (hello CDTV. God you're ugly.)
Talking of the latter, wasn't the CD32 dark gray? I don't think it was beige.
The settlements from patent infringement on this could be sizeable.
Given the Commodore 64 was released in 1982, and patents last a maximum of 20 years, I think it's safe to say the settlements will be minimal, if there are any at all.
Actually, I suspect Commodore doesn't have any valid patents today. Even Amiga Inc, a seperate entity with the rights to the Amiga IP, may have a handful, but the bulk of the cool stuff was done in 1985 with that. This year we can probably see AROS switch to using the Amiga's drop down menus instead of the context-menus they've been doing up until now.
Commodore will have two collections of valid, useful, IP. One is the copyright of certain Commodore produced software. There isn't a lot of that, and little of it is in use today. There's the BASIC ROMs, I guess, but I suspect that Joystick-with-a-C64-in-it thing has licensed them anyway.
The other is the Commodore brand. Fortunately for this company, Commodore didn't become generic in the time taken for Commodore to die, but there's a reason for that - nobody's using it. So it's highly unlikely to net much revenue.
Despite the submitters comment about "copyrights", I suspect this operation will have very little to do unless they get off their arses and release actual products, cashing in on the Commodore brand name. And it remains to be seen how useful that will be.
The 68000 was externally a 16 bit chip. To complicate the argument further, the 8088 was externally an 8 bit chip with a 20 bit address bus, but Motorola made a direct equivalent, the 68008, which Sinclair used in the QL and ICL in the OPD (who they? Sinclair and ICL were both British, Sinclair on the consumer end, ICL in the business end. ICL was originally the result of a government attempt to nationalise the computer industry. I don't know where they are now.) Like the 8088, the 68008 was compatable with its bigger brother and sported an 8 bit external data bus and 20 bit external address bus.
So I think, somewhere, that story is garbled. The reading I've always heard, including that article on IBM's site linked to from/. that was about important processors the other day, was that IBM had the right to produce 8088s.
I suspect though the fact that the 808x series was source code compatable with the 8080, the then market leader and the only platform CP/M was available for, also played a part. Ironic really, considering CP/M then was dropped in favour of at-that-time vapourware from Microsoft.
Same reason as people use the Florida turnpike from Fort Pierce to Miami in place of I-95 (which is regularly so close that, from an airplane, the two would look like a peculiar four-direction divided highway.)
Namely the two different roads end up with different volumes of traffic and different types of driver, and one usually ends up vastly superior to the other if you don't consider driving the game 90% of the population see it as.
I drive on the turnpike myself for everything but the shortest of journeys South. It's calmer, there are less loonies, you can drive in the right most lane with cruise control without feeling like you'll not be able to shift left if a UHaul comes up in front of you. For someone who hates driving, and for a situation where public transport just doesn't cut it, it's as close to perfection as we'll get until the magical self-driving Winebago-sized 100mpg flying car is developed.
Slashdot Mirror
ThinkSquiggle then publishes a leaked story, clearly coming from someone with an NDA, who claims that Squiggleslash Corp is about to release a new computer, probably part of the MicroSquiggle line, a dual 970 based desktop computer, probably 2GHz or better, with a built in LCD monitor. The dimensions are about 20" across, it's about 2" thick, and it's sub-$1,000.
The specs are largely right. The price (and clockspeed) is almost certainly wrong. Does Trade Secret law apply in this case?
Changing the specs a little, supposing SquiggleInsider has also got a friend working at a factory in Taiwan. He reports that the device doesn't actually have a built-in LCD (that's 'cos the factory ships units with a plate in place of the LCD, the LCDs being inserted in another factory three blocks down the road. Hey, it was cheaper that way. At Squiggleslash, we're always looking for savings we can pass on to YOU the customer. Besides, these LCDs are sweeeeeeeet. We didn't want the first factory to install them because they're actually quad-colour, so those women with the reverse colour blindness thing can now see photo-realistic pictures. We're also coming up with three models of two colour LCD too, for slightly less, for colour blind users. Anyway, that's all a major trade secret, so don't tell anyone) So SquiggleInsider then publishes:
So has SquiggleInsider also published trade secrets, despite getting the story wrong?The answer is: probably. And from Squiggleslash Corp's point of view, we're fucked. Since SquiggleInsider and ThinkSquiggle published these rumours, sales of the MicroSquiggle 100 - our current lowest price MicroSquiggle - have plummetted, even though the MicroSquiggle 6000 will cost nearly twice the price and be aimed at a completely different group of people. So, given the chance, we want to take action.
Which, when Steve Quiggleslash owned Squiggleslash Corp, would probably have meant we'd have sent out a few angry letters and announced the product early so there are no false expectations. Unfortunately we were taken over by Steve Jobs last week so lawsuits are pending...
He co-wrote Microsoft BASIC. Detractors claim he didn't actually do any of the coding himself, but that doesn't seem to be supported by the available evidence.
He wrote a letter to the Homebrew Computer Club complaining about people making copies of Microsoft BASIC. That's fairly famous, as at that time it wasn't really established in the minds of computer users that copyright applied to computer software. (I'm still of a mind it shouldn't really, software really isn't in any practical sense like literature, pictures, sounds or sound patterns, patents might have been a better way to go. By this, I don't mean modern software patents, I mean you'd have had to patent a specific implementation of a solution to a problem, not some generalized thing that can apply to file formats etc. Even then, I'm not happy about it. Arguably a fourth form of "IP" should have been invented.)
He wrote a letter to Apple when they released the Macintosh suggesting they license the operating system. Apple refused for several years, and when they finally did they'd already lost the operating system wars.
He married the creator of Microsoft Bob.
Offhand, I can't think of anything else (I mean, I know things Microsoft has done, that I assume Gates had a big hand in, but Gates specifically...)
FWIW, I think the rumours have harmed Apple, though given the timescale involved, not a great deal (hurting eMac sales at a time when eMac sales were going to be low anyway, for a couple of weeks), but, you know what? I don't care. That's Apple's problem, not ThinkSecret's, and certainly not the court's. It also harms Apple if someone comes up with a nicer looking, easy to use and intuitive, operating system than OS X, but I'd positively rejoice at that.
Apple has always been lawsuit happy. They were pioneers of the infamous "look and feel" lawsuits in the 1980s (only Atari predated them, setting the precedent, but more or less leaving the area alone after that), they've made spurious legal threats against RealNetworks for having the audacity to make something compatable with the iPod, and I don't see this as anything more than yet more legal masturbation on their part.
The point is that a low cost Mac (not a practical form factor, because you have to use a fucking huge 17" monitor - either as the screen or as a paperwieght - for the life of the machine. That's why people who "just want to try OS X" are not buying $800 eMacs) is about to come out. So it is good news, whether it's $500 or $750. People will buy it, and more people will buy it than currently buy eMacs.
I don't think this has much to do with pricing. Apple's prices have almost never matched the rumours. Apple didn't sue the rumour sites over the PowerMac G5 (sent out cease and desists, yes, but didn't actually sue), or over the iMac G5, or over the iPod Mini.
Remember the iPod mini? That was supposed to include a 2G model that'd retail for less than $100. The 4G model would be under $200. Remember the uproar when it didn't happen? Just a 4G model, and that was $250.
Prices are rarely correct because pricing is determined by marketing and high level management not random people at Apple or at Apple's many suppliers. The guy at the factory in South East Asia who's looking at these machines coming off assembly lines knows enough to call ThinkSecret and others with the exact specs, but has about as much clue as to the pricing as George W. Bush. The guy who goes for a drink with Jonathan Ive's assistant every night knows that the machine has a fairly sweet look, and Apple has the thing at the factory, but hasn't a clue how much it'll cost, except that it's the much sought-after rumoured headless iMac.
Whatever Apple's concerns here, they have nothing to do with pricing. The most likely explanation is that Apple generally wants to crack down on the rumours. They probably feel that the rumours have the potential to Osbourne their business. In all probability, eMac sales are very slow right now, partially because eMacs are underspecced, but also - in large part - because budget Mac buyers are waiting for a supposed $500 iMac. And, as the rumour is essentially true (except it'll probably be more expensive, like in the $600-700 range), Trade Secrets law is the weapon Apple are using.
Mac enthusiasts like to think the rumour sites help Apple. Actually, they don't. They create false expectations of Apple, they Osbourne Apple on a regular information, often with machines that'll never be released, and they undermine Apple's own marketing efforts by pre-announcing products. If Apple was particularly bad at marketing, as they were in the mid-nineties, this might actually help them, but that was then and this is now. Apple is spectacularly good at marketing. Anyone trying to do it for them is going to be undermine what they're doing.
FWIW, I think the lawsuit sucks and Apple shouldn't be allowed to do it. I'm merely trying to follow the logic here, and unfortunately, ethics are not usually a part of what Apple does.
I know ThinkSecret has a very prominant "Anonymous Tips Hotline" on their front page, encouraging people with secret information to call them anonymously. But, at the same time, that's the only obvious extent of the encouragement. No other enducements (no cash rewards, etc) are advertised, at least, none that I've ever noticed.
On a show like Crossfire, where the show encouraged partisanship to the point of absurdity on both sides, he really wasn't the right person. It's not a show for serious journalists, and Carlson, I felt, wanted at some point to be taken seriously as a journalist, not just a pundit. In that respect, it was sadly appropriate that he, rather than his collegues, ended up trying to defend the show against Stewart.
Still, I didn't buy any DVDs until DeCSS "happened". Whether legal or otherwise, I'll wait until an unputbackintheboxable de-DRM system is created for HD-DVD before moving to HD-DVD. Hollywood may "win" with me never buying a DVD, but given I've never copied DVDs for others or sought unauthorized copies of anything, it'll be a hollow victory for them.
The GPL gives me freedom to decide how the code will be used in proprietary software. It doesn't, by itself, remove any freedoms from anyone. The BSD license may force a situation (if you're required to license under the BSD license, which, without forking, you generally are for BSD projects), but the GPL merely has the absense of that force.
Generally it's a strange definition of freedom that denies it to contributors.
Slashbots may hate Stallman, but I doubt he'd have difficulty getting a job if he quit one whose ethical position he opposed.
If I contribute to FreeBSD, then, unless I choose to fork the entire project, I have no control over how my code is used outside of free software projects. I'm essentially working for Apple for free.
If I contribute to Linux, I can send my all-new module I wrote myself to Linus with a copy of the GPL and he'll include it in the kernel (if it's any good, of course.) If someone wants to include my code in a proprietary product, they can come to me and negotiate a license.
You'll note that nothing is taken away from anyone. The proprietary software vendor still has "freedom", they just may have to pay towards the costs of coding in some form other than giving back to the community of which I'm a part. Perhaps I'll let them use it for nothing. Perhaps I'll require they duplicate the effort and get in a programmer to do it themselves. Or maybe I'll accept a few hundred dollars. That's up to me. But in this case, it's me that's saying how free (monetarily or non-monetarily) it'll end up for end users, not some eye-swivelling project leaders brought up on a diet of anti-RMS diatribes and McCarthyism.
I'm rather tired of hearing the GPL described as "non-free" or the BSD as "free-er". The BSD license is free as in "Working for Apple for free", it provides no additional freedom above that that the GPL provides, it merely gives the contributor more control over how free the code is going to be and to whom.
Mac OS X is the third most popular OS. GNU/Linux's marketshare has been higher than Apple's for a while (and all of Apple's marketshare tends to be bunched together anyway, a high proportion, possibly even a majority, of Apple users are using Mac OS 9 and earlier operating systems.
The subtext of your argument is that (if I'm reading you correctly), because only a small minority see freedom in software as important, free software is not viable. That minority however is important: that minority is a huge proportion of those who make technology decisions for computer companies, which is why we're seeing a situation where most servers today seem to run free software. That minority is also intelligent and educated enough to be able to support free software, to provide the infrastructure that allows it to exist. And free software, to an extent, is self-sustaining as long as someone, somewhere, believes in it. If there's only one person in the world who believes in it, that person can modify and improve the software they have. The same argument cannot be made for proprietary software which requires a large enough market to become sustainable.
In other words, the marketshare of free software is not a serious issue and never has been. Those handing their private parts and a mallet to Apple have more to fear than those handing them to RMS and ESR.
RMS has already won the war, to a certain extent. Free software is no longer a lunatic idea. The second most popular operating system is free software and is just as viable as the first.
Browser plug-ins were just as insecure as ActiveX. Indeed, ActiveX at least had that almost useless signing system, when plug-ins didn't even have that fig-leaf of security..
So I'm not sure I agree with the argument that some-how Microsoft invented this particular security issue. Netscape invented it. Microsoft just innovated. ;-)
As far as Panther vs Jaguar, it may say this, but I never had a problem with Fink on Jaguar. I suspect for the most part the concern is that more recent ports are only likely to be tested on Panther. While this is true, Darwin didn't really change a great deal between the two operating systems, and that's, ultimately, what matters.
As for Tiger, Panther has some nice advantages over Jaguar (but looks physically uglier), hopefully Tiger continues the trend and is faster than Panther. I don't know when what is going to be released, so I can't really help you on that.
If you do upgrade OS X, there's a substantial probability you'll have to reinstall Fink. You can probably find a way to automate reinstalling everything you installed earlier though.
The reason nobody's really making a big deal over it is that Safari was so much better not just than IE 5.2 but than the latest IE-on-Windows. And, now that Firefox supports middle clicking (Mac users - download the latest builds) IE is falling behind in general. So few people actually want to run the MSN browser.
In the mean time, you can get the X.org (or is it XFree86?) version of X11 to install on any OS X via Fink. This is probably your best bet.
However, if you only want to run OpenOffice.org, there's a program called NeoOffice/J that eschews X11 and POSIX-crap for Java and OS X shtuff. While imperfect, it's about as stable as the original and doesn't require fiddling with special "OpenOffice.org launcher" programs that never quite work the way you want anyway. Other than appearance, NeoOffice/J works like a regular Mac OS X app.
One major advantage of Windows is that it's everywhere and can run on anything. If Microsoft were to tie it in this way, Windows wouldn't stand much of a chance of continued success as its success would be dependent on Dell's. Meanwhile, any company wanting to compete with Dell would have to put out an alternative operating system, which means real R&D dollars would go into such a thing.
We're not talking about the Iraq war here: Microsoft knew what it was getting into, it wasn't blinded by ideology, it did the calculations, and most importantly, nobody's ever died because of Microsoft's X-Box strategy.
So relax. Let it happen. What they're doing isn't hurting you, there's no need to be mean or critical about it.
Internally, the 68000 and 68008 were completely 32 bit for both data and addresses. A wonderful architecture, IBM needs a good kicking for not adopting it, but I don't think I'm the only person to say so.
Talking of the latter, wasn't the CD32 dark gray? I don't think it was beige.
Actually, I suspect Commodore doesn't have any valid patents today. Even Amiga Inc, a seperate entity with the rights to the Amiga IP, may have a handful, but the bulk of the cool stuff was done in 1985 with that. This year we can probably see AROS switch to using the Amiga's drop down menus instead of the context-menus they've been doing up until now.
Commodore will have two collections of valid, useful, IP. One is the copyright of certain Commodore produced software. There isn't a lot of that, and little of it is in use today. There's the BASIC ROMs, I guess, but I suspect that Joystick-with-a-C64-in-it thing has licensed them anyway.
The other is the Commodore brand. Fortunately for this company, Commodore didn't become generic in the time taken for Commodore to die, but there's a reason for that - nobody's using it. So it's highly unlikely to net much revenue.
Despite the submitters comment about "copyrights", I suspect this operation will have very little to do unless they get off their arses and release actual products, cashing in on the Commodore brand name. And it remains to be seen how useful that will be.
So I think, somewhere, that story is garbled. The reading I've always heard, including that article on IBM's site linked to from /. that was about important processors the other day, was that IBM had the right to produce 8088s.
I suspect though the fact that the 808x series was source code compatable with the 8080, the then market leader and the only platform CP/M was available for, also played a part. Ironic really, considering CP/M then was dropped in favour of at-that-time vapourware from Microsoft.
Namely the two different roads end up with different volumes of traffic and different types of driver, and one usually ends up vastly superior to the other if you don't consider driving the game 90% of the population see it as.
I drive on the turnpike myself for everything but the shortest of journeys South. It's calmer, there are less loonies, you can drive in the right most lane with cruise control without feeling like you'll not be able to shift left if a UHaul comes up in front of you. For someone who hates driving, and for a situation where public transport just doesn't cut it, it's as close to perfection as we'll get until the magical self-driving Winebago-sized 100mpg flying car is developed.