Reassigning the copyrights is only unnecessary if you plan to fork the project and maintain your own branch.
The FSF is fairly strong on this and with good reason: by assigning copyrights to them, they have a much easier case proving the integrity of their case should they ever sue for a breach of copyright (for example, if someone releases a proprietary program based upon open GNU code.)
As others have said, the *AA that goes with movies is the MPAA. However, in this case, I believe it's Equity that'd be bothered about actors being put out of a job.
See the link in my.sig for more info on that RIAA vs MPAA thing, together with other common Slashdot confusions...
No, I'm not, but the comment was suggesting that Mac OS X was a "new" operating system in a way that Mac OS 7/8/9 wasn't. While there was a certain amount of CPU emulation for older, less portable, code, Mac OS's 8 and on were, for the most part (exceptions exist), recompiled for PowerPC too.
Two men, sentenced to die in the electric chair on the same day, were led down to the room in which they would meet their maker.
The priest had given them last rites, the warden had given the formal speech, and a final prayer had been said among the participants.
The warden, turning to the first man, solemnly asked, "Son, do you have a last request?"
To which the man replied, "Yes sir, I do. I love Celine Dion. Could you please play her latest CD for me one last time?"
"Certainly," replied the warden.
He then turned to the other man and asked, "Well, what about you, son? What is your final request?"
"Please," said the condemned man, "kill me first."
OS X is a new development for PowerPC, not an improved 68K based system like OS 7
This is incorrect. Mac OS X actually dates back to the mid-eighties and was originally developed for... yup, 680x0 based systems (I believe the original NeXT Cube had a 68020, can't be bothered to look it up now.) On top of which, in its original form, it was based on other pre-existing components such as the Mach kernel which date back even further.
This might seem an absurd comment at first sight. After all, Microsoft and Oracle are making a fortune out of software that apparently sells for much more than it costs to make. But at the same time, both, for different reasons, are selling on the basis of something other than what they technically are.
Microsoft is not selling at $50-300 a seat because of functionality. It's selling at that rate because of branding and, to some extent, API control. Branding matters, even in commodity markets. Three companies that spring to mind that also use both these factors (branding, access to something unique under their control) to sell into markets that are considered "commodity" are Apple, IBM, and Sun, all of which do very well selling hardware at prices (and profits) much higher than the Wintel norm.
Oracle isn't selling their database product, though for ease of understanding, that's what they claim to be doing (kind of like mobile phone companies "sell" mobile phones - well, they don't, they sell the service, but they market everything around the phone itself because that's easier for consumers to understand.) What they're selling is the consultancy and support required to set up a tremendously complex database on the technical level. This model hasn't worked that well in some areas, such as selling GNU/Linux distributions, but that's because... erm... well... GNU/Linux isn't - contrary to popular belief - something that's hard to set up.
Right now there are relatively few companies that are selling mass market boxed software as software. Most are selling support contracts disguised as boxed software. There are exceptions, games for instance, but only because every game is very specific. Anyone can write an "Excel compatable spreadsheet" but Unreal Tournament is always going to be the only Unreal Tournament in existance. And it's noticable that prices of games plummet after a few months on the shelves, $50 dropping to $9.99 (pretty much the cost of the materials, box, printing, distribution, and retailer's cut) isn't uncommon.
Would you start a company to sell operating systems? Do you have an idea for an office suite that you'd like to sell? Unless you have a major gimmick in your business plan, you're unlikely to even enter the market.
So how does supporting Linux help you if what you sell is a commodity? Well, all it does really is add value, but, as your boss can probably testify, it doesn't add enough value that increasing the price of your product wouldn't destroy your sales. However, there strikes me as being several solutions to this:
The first is you don't need to support "Linux", you just need to support users. Not all your users run Linux, indeed, not all of them run the operating systems you want to support. Linux, BSD, etc programmers have proven time and time again that they'll support anything with a clock if you can plug it in and if the documentation exists. You already have that documentation - you needed it to write the Windows driver. You can publish that documentation at minimal cost to yourselves, and increase your marketshare without needing to raise costs. The Linux "community" will do the programming for you.
In a reasonable world, that's what you should be doing anyway. Back in the 1980s, most computers I bought - from anyone from Sinclair to Commodore - came with so much documentation you could attack them with a soldering iron and know what you were doing. Even the Amiga 500+, released in 1991, came with circuit diagrams in the manual, and that's one of the most complex non-standard machines I've ever bought. We've suddenly evolved a rather bizarre level of secrecy which ultimately hurts users and also harms innovation.
The second is you can encourage the use of open standards internally and externally. Open standards help level costs, and even when they don't, people will choose a $50 widget over a $40 widget if they don't need any special drivers for the $50 unit. One of the problems here is that manufacturers rarely reali
The "you must use the ISP's smarthost" thing has a number of consequences which you happily ignore by using the tired and frequently abused "It's only a small minority" argument.
The first is that this method of "spam prevention" provides pretty much no spam prevention whatsoever. Insofar as it provides any protection, it's from a small minority of unsecured open relays present in older operating systems, which happens to be an extremely specific bug and a very easy issue to deal with.
The second is that this method makes configurationless email impossible. You HAVE to configure your MTA to point at a specific smarthost. You HAVE to change this if you use a different ISP. And if you regularly use more than one ISP, then you have to reconfigure every time you connect.
The third is that the "small minority" argument is bogus to begin with. Point at any activity on the Internet and you can claim it's a small minority. Slashdot, for instance, regularly causes problems for websites by linking to them. Only a "small minority" read Slashdot. Therefore it is legitimate to block Slashdot. You can work on it to any degree. The World Wide Web would never have gotten off the ground if the "small minority" people had decided to block it as a bandwidth waster from the beginning.
The fourth is that hacks like this undermine the integrity of the email infrastructure. By frequently imposing arbitrary rules, you guarantee the failure of legitimate email. You force system administrators and end users to frequently make minor and unnecessary changes to the configuration of their systems.
The fifth is that better anti-spam systems exist, but ISPs lack the will and desire to operate them. Blacklists are an easy way out, their proven ineffectiveness is testament to the stubborness and power-tripping of the groups that operate and subscribe to them. We have more spam on our systems now than ever before.
Yes, SMTP email wasn't designed to cope with the spam phenominem, but this isn't helping. Solutions need to be sane, they need to block spam or spammers, and not block on an arbitrary "well, a spammer might use this" basis. There's been far too much support for things that do not work, it's time to switch to things that do.
Oh, and I'm an expert. I do know what I'm talking about. I operate my own SMTP servers, wouldn't touch an ISP that doesn't let me, and thanks to that pretty much never receive spam (perhaps once per organization I've done business with at most.) We could eliminate spam tomorrow if ISPs had the guts to implement the systems needed. Unfortunately, they don't.
MAPS does block my static IP from Earthlink, I don't think they care much which it is as long as the somewhat arbitrary "business line vs residential line" distinction you make (because, as we all know, only businesses send email) is upheld.
Personally, my advice to the guy would be to ignore the issue. If people ask why there's a problem sending some email, tell them that some ISPs use a list to block incoming email from certain IP addresses that match certain criteria, and that unfortunately your IP address matches that criteria. That puts the onus on the receiver of the email to either figure out a solution, or lose the customer who wanted to receive the email.
It sucks, but these stupid, nothing-to-do-with-spam, "anti-spam" blacklists really are causing more problems than they're worth.
I did and that phrase doesn't appear anywhere in it.
He does say, regardless of how soon it takes to open source Solaris, that he likes the effect that having community involvement has had on Java and wants to bring "that model" to Solaris:
"Look, you only need to look at what we've done with Java to understand how Sun views the value of incorporating community feedback. Java could not exist if only Sun is supporting it. It exists because there are hundreds and thousands of partners. We need to now take the model with Java and bring it to Solaris," he said.
But that's not the same thing as saying that Java is open source, or that he wants the same license for Solaris as for Java.
What he does say is:
"I don't want to say when that will happen. But make no mistake, we will open source Solaris," he declared.
That's pretty clear cut.
So quit it with the bizarro-world conspiracy theories, 'k?
Re:You waited until now?
on
Becoming a CLEC?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Surely that wouldn't be being a CLEC, that would be being a reseller?
A CLEC generally leases the local loop lines from the ILEC, renting space in the exchange for the switching equipment. If your ILEC allows CLECs, then you can operate DSL regardless of whether the ILEC implements it, although generally I don't believe most ILECs allow someone to become a CLEC purely to offer DSL (ie you have to provide local phone service too.)
I don't think the grandparent meant that Sun was trying to claim it was open source. "Psuedo-open-source" is actually quite a good way of describing the conditions for getting Java. You have to agree to a somewhat restrictive license, but it's easy to get at the source code, hack around, and do what you will with it. Distributing changes though, even internally (in your organization) becomes more bureaucratic.
The PET was a mass-market machine and does predate the Apple II. And the point I was making about Britain isn't the exact timing, it's that it happened without Apple. That is, you're confusing Apple's popularity with its necessity. Apple wasn't necessary, it didn't invent anything that lead to the desktop (well, nothing non-specific, it obviously "invented" the Apple I and Apple II but not the concept of the desktop, nor even the concept of the mass-market desktop), and thriving personal computer markets were created without Apple being there, so the comment "Apple invented the desktop market" just doesn't stand up.
I don't doubt Apple was popular. But at the same time as Apple was putting out its mass-market computer, so was Commodore, Radio Shack, and a host of others. Some of these were popular, and Commodore's PET eventually lead to the Commodore 64. This, a single model of personal computer, is the best selling microcomputer of all time.
Apple didn't invent the desktop computer any more than Microsoft invented the multitasking GUI. They were in the right place at the right time to make a killing, and they did. But, unlike Microsoft, they can't even claim to have taken up so much of the market an (uninformed) rational person would think that, some how, if it wasn't for Apple, we wouldn't have these technologies.
Getting off topic, but I recall Primo Levi writing that after WW-II, he offered his services to a local lipstick manufacturer trying to rebuild after the war and having a small problem: the lipstick wasn't dry enough, it would smear too easily.
After much research, Levi found a substance that worked which the lipstick manufacturer adopted enthusiastically. It had one interesting ingredient:
Bird droppings.
There was some chemical in the droppings that was perfect for the job.
So for many years afterwards, Italian women were putting a substance on their lips made partially of birdshit. Lovely. At least one eats Whoppers so the idea of eating run-off from those is slightly less gross...
Quite. Even the stuff Sun doesn't open source (Solaris, Java, et al) it makes "source available" so people can ultimately fix their own problems and do the ports if Sun doesn't want to work on them. With Java I know the source license agreement, from memory, is a simple on-line automated form.
Now someone try finding me the same place on Apple's website to download, say, Cocoa, Quartz, etc. It's not there. You can download Darwin, but given it's based on primarily already F/OSS software, you damn well ought to be allowed.
I've never really understood the FOSS movement's hostility against Sun and love-in with Apple. I like Apple's software, it works very nicely, and they do make a good Unix desktop, but they have contributed very little to FOSS and Sun has donated a ton of "good stuff".
The Apple II dates back to 1977 (the Apple I came out in 1976.) The Commodore PET, therefore, preceeds the Apple II as the "first mass-market desktop" (it sold at about half the price despite the built in monitor and cassette deck too!), except that I don't doubt you can find machines before that.
Personally, I don't know what you're talking about. Apple was a significant player, but its importance was somewhat overblown by the fact that it was popular in schools and resold by a number of companies such as Bell and Howell. Its selling point was that it was one of the first, if not the first, colour home computer.
Outside of the US, Apple was very much a bit player until the Macintosh. In Britain, the home computer was popularized by Sinclair and Commodore, Acorn made a machine (the BBC) that competed in Apple's territory wiping it out completely, and it took Amstrad to actually take the PC out of the office and put it on people's desks. Apple rode along with a wave, it was never the creator of that wave, the wave, clearly, was coming along anyway.
It doesn't really matter if a cellphone is a utility service or not. The fact is:
No company trying to sell you something should be dishonest
No company trying to sell you something should seek to actively deceive you
No company trying to sell you something should be able to levy made up charges
No company trying to sell you something should be able to vary their contract with you without your consent
No company trying to sell you something should be able to provide substandard service that makes their product unusable
It doesn't matter if it's a cellphone company, a computer maker, a car maker, or a toy maker. Dishonesty should be punishable, moreover it should be easily punishable. If a computer maker sells me a computer that doesn't work, I can take it back. A computer company cannot hide charges that I'll be unaware of until after I've bought the item.
However, if a cell phone company oversubscribes its network, invents new taxes, changes tariffs, etc, then I have little recourse, especially if I'm locked into a contract. Right now the only way to avoid such things is to simply not get a cellphone. Libertarians may see that as OK, I see it as absurd. As a consumer, I should have the right to rely upon certain minimum levels of comfort. I shouldn't have to disbelieve information stated as fact by default.
Not exactly. When people refer to TDMA in the US, they're refering to a mobile "standard" called IS-136, sometimes called D-AMPS or just "Digital". This is completely unrelated to GSM. Other than having a vaguely similar technology for converting digital streams into physical radio signals (ie they both divide a carrier into equal sized time slots and different radios use different time slots), they're completely unrelated.
The term CDMA in the US usually refers to IS-95, different versions of which are called cdmaOne and CDMA2000. These have nothing to do with UMTS. Further, while one of the technologies available to UMTS operators is "code division multiple access", UMTS actually allows operators to chose between several different systems, including time division based systems.
As a general rule, people criticising mobile operators on issues like reception, call drops, call quality, etc, should post where they were using the service, as these types of problems (those you're reporting) tend to be fairly localized. There are several reasons for this, from geography to business organization.
For example, I use AT&T and T-Mobile in Florida's Treasure Coast area. Last year AT&T's GSM was pretty awful, I've started trying them again and there's been a 1,000% improvement where calls connect in 2-5 seconds (previously it took 20), call quality is normal for GSM (I swear they were putting their GSM calls over their TDMA infrastructure or something like that previously), I get reception now in my appartment and at work, and calls generally seem more stable. Oh and international messaging now works (but is stupidly expensive - 25c for an SMS? That's 5 times T-Mobile's rate. Geez.)
T-Mobile's network at the same time has been rock solid though with some major dead spots. Despite this, I routinely hear complaints on Internet groups about their service.
The point is that (a) Network quality is a location dependent thing, (b) It's also a time dependent thing, they do work on problems over time. A bad operator in one area may be a terribly good one else where. AT&T is currently good on the Treasure Coast, and T-Mobile is too. Verizon and Sprint both have their problems in this area (Sprint because of capacity, Verizon's voice quality is poor, I assume they're using one of the poorer, low bit rate, vocodecs by default)
AT&T and T-Mobile both have roaming agreements with Cingular (T-Mobile's is actually quite nifty in that both operators will "appear" to be the other in areas where "the other" doesn't have a license, so the roaming's completely seamless and you wouldn't even know you're roaming (and obviously you're not billed for it), but not with one another. That is, AT&T customers can't roam on T-Mobile, and T-Mobile customers can't roam on AT&T.
Which is a PITA. Hopefully the Cingular merger will fix that.
But what if it's Bono's records you've been pirating? If he's Pro Bono, he's not going to defend you very well, is he? Talk about a conflict of interest!;-)
And you're wrong because the higher level API calls for file I/O are NEVER referred to as a file system since their whole job is to abstract the file systems in the first place!
No, I'm right. Sorry. In the late seventies and early eighties, when I first started using computers, it was common to refer to the entire part of the operating system dealing with files (not merely the raw driver or file system handler) as a file system. It was also common to call that part, seperated from the rest of the OS, a Disk Operating System.
You may not like it. You may feel it's wrong. But I'm right in saying that was commonplace, and you're an idiot to contradict me.
But then, as you're actively lying in an effort to backtrack about your claims that only a device driver can be called a file system, that's not entirely surprising is it? I've re-read the thread and can see nothing the guy you were conversing with said that can be interpreted as meaning that the term "file system" is limited to the layout of the disks. What he said, correctly, is that there's nothing about defragmentation inherent in the HFS+ disk layout, and that the term "file system" shouldn't be assumed to exclusively refer to the software that implements a disk layout.
He's correct, and I suggest that you bite the bullet and admit it, rather than persist in this.
Has anyone told you you're both obnoxious and wrong?
The word file system, while correctly used to describe operating system components that implement file systems, is also used to describe the layouts themselves. Indeed, at one time, it was additionally used to describe the higher level operating system layers (the implementation of the open, read, close, etc, calls) in addition to both of those.
The guy you responded to, correctly, said that the defrag feature of Panther was tied to Panther's HFS+ implementation, not to the HFS+ specification for laying out data on disks itself.
Slashdot Mirror
The FSF is fairly strong on this and with good reason: by assigning copyrights to them, they have a much easier case proving the integrity of their case should they ever sue for a breach of copyright (for example, if someone releases a proprietary program based upon open GNU code.)
See the link in my .sig for more info on that RIAA vs MPAA thing, together with other common Slashdot confusions...
Two men, sentenced to die in the electric chair on the same day, were led down to the room in which they would meet their maker.
The priest had given them last rites, the warden had given the formal speech, and a final prayer had been said among the participants.
The warden, turning to the first man, solemnly asked, "Son, do you have a last request?"
To which the man replied, "Yes sir, I do. I love Celine Dion. Could you please play her latest CD for me one last time?"
"Certainly," replied the warden.
He then turned to the other man and asked, "Well, what about you, son? What is your final request?"
"Please," said the condemned man, "kill me first."
What on earth possessed you to write that I was wrong, and then confirm my statement is correct in the second sentence you write?
Wow. Just wow.
Or do you think NeXT was started in the seventies or nineties?
Sorry!
Microsoft is not selling at $50-300 a seat because of functionality. It's selling at that rate because of branding and, to some extent, API control. Branding matters, even in commodity markets. Three companies that spring to mind that also use both these factors (branding, access to something unique under their control) to sell into markets that are considered "commodity" are Apple, IBM, and Sun, all of which do very well selling hardware at prices (and profits) much higher than the Wintel norm.
Oracle isn't selling their database product, though for ease of understanding, that's what they claim to be doing (kind of like mobile phone companies "sell" mobile phones - well, they don't, they sell the service, but they market everything around the phone itself because that's easier for consumers to understand.) What they're selling is the consultancy and support required to set up a tremendously complex database on the technical level. This model hasn't worked that well in some areas, such as selling GNU/Linux distributions, but that's because... erm... well... GNU/Linux isn't - contrary to popular belief - something that's hard to set up.
Right now there are relatively few companies that are selling mass market boxed software as software. Most are selling support contracts disguised as boxed software. There are exceptions, games for instance, but only because every game is very specific. Anyone can write an "Excel compatable spreadsheet" but Unreal Tournament is always going to be the only Unreal Tournament in existance. And it's noticable that prices of games plummet after a few months on the shelves, $50 dropping to $9.99 (pretty much the cost of the materials, box, printing, distribution, and retailer's cut) isn't uncommon.
Would you start a company to sell operating systems? Do you have an idea for an office suite that you'd like to sell? Unless you have a major gimmick in your business plan, you're unlikely to even enter the market.
So how does supporting Linux help you if what you sell is a commodity? Well, all it does really is add value, but, as your boss can probably testify, it doesn't add enough value that increasing the price of your product wouldn't destroy your sales. However, there strikes me as being several solutions to this:
The first is you don't need to support "Linux", you just need to support users. Not all your users run Linux, indeed, not all of them run the operating systems you want to support. Linux, BSD, etc programmers have proven time and time again that they'll support anything with a clock if you can plug it in and if the documentation exists. You already have that documentation - you needed it to write the Windows driver. You can publish that documentation at minimal cost to yourselves, and increase your marketshare without needing to raise costs. The Linux "community" will do the programming for you.
In a reasonable world, that's what you should be doing anyway. Back in the 1980s, most computers I bought - from anyone from Sinclair to Commodore - came with so much documentation you could attack them with a soldering iron and know what you were doing. Even the Amiga 500+, released in 1991, came with circuit diagrams in the manual, and that's one of the most complex non-standard machines I've ever bought. We've suddenly evolved a rather bizarre level of secrecy which ultimately hurts users and also harms innovation.
The second is you can encourage the use of open standards internally and externally. Open standards help level costs, and even when they don't, people will choose a $50 widget over a $40 widget if they don't need any special drivers for the $50 unit. One of the problems here is that manufacturers rarely reali
The first is that this method of "spam prevention" provides pretty much no spam prevention whatsoever. Insofar as it provides any protection, it's from a small minority of unsecured open relays present in older operating systems, which happens to be an extremely specific bug and a very easy issue to deal with.
The second is that this method makes configurationless email impossible. You HAVE to configure your MTA to point at a specific smarthost. You HAVE to change this if you use a different ISP. And if you regularly use more than one ISP, then you have to reconfigure every time you connect.
The third is that the "small minority" argument is bogus to begin with. Point at any activity on the Internet and you can claim it's a small minority. Slashdot, for instance, regularly causes problems for websites by linking to them. Only a "small minority" read Slashdot. Therefore it is legitimate to block Slashdot. You can work on it to any degree. The World Wide Web would never have gotten off the ground if the "small minority" people had decided to block it as a bandwidth waster from the beginning.
The fourth is that hacks like this undermine the integrity of the email infrastructure. By frequently imposing arbitrary rules, you guarantee the failure of legitimate email. You force system administrators and end users to frequently make minor and unnecessary changes to the configuration of their systems.
The fifth is that better anti-spam systems exist, but ISPs lack the will and desire to operate them. Blacklists are an easy way out, their proven ineffectiveness is testament to the stubborness and power-tripping of the groups that operate and subscribe to them. We have more spam on our systems now than ever before.
Yes, SMTP email wasn't designed to cope with the spam phenominem, but this isn't helping. Solutions need to be sane, they need to block spam or spammers, and not block on an arbitrary "well, a spammer might use this" basis. There's been far too much support for things that do not work, it's time to switch to things that do.
Oh, and I'm an expert. I do know what I'm talking about. I operate my own SMTP servers, wouldn't touch an ISP that doesn't let me, and thanks to that pretty much never receive spam (perhaps once per organization I've done business with at most.) We could eliminate spam tomorrow if ISPs had the guts to implement the systems needed. Unfortunately, they don't.
God help people today. The worst thing is, I bet half the people reading this are going "Well, duh! Of course! There's always text messaging!"
Personally, my advice to the guy would be to ignore the issue. If people ask why there's a problem sending some email, tell them that some ISPs use a list to block incoming email from certain IP addresses that match certain criteria, and that unfortunately your IP address matches that criteria. That puts the onus on the receiver of the email to either figure out a solution, or lose the customer who wanted to receive the email.
It sucks, but these stupid, nothing-to-do-with-spam, "anti-spam" blacklists really are causing more problems than they're worth.
He does say, regardless of how soon it takes to open source Solaris, that he likes the effect that having community involvement has had on Java and wants to bring "that model" to Solaris:
But that's not the same thing as saying that Java is open source, or that he wants the same license for Solaris as for Java.What he does say is:
That's pretty clear cut.So quit it with the bizarro-world conspiracy theories, 'k?
A CLEC generally leases the local loop lines from the ILEC, renting space in the exchange for the switching equipment. If your ILEC allows CLECs, then you can operate DSL regardless of whether the ILEC implements it, although generally I don't believe most ILECs allow someone to become a CLEC purely to offer DSL (ie you have to provide local phone service too.)
Yeah, totally wierd concept of open source, just like that Linus fellow's...
I don't think the grandparent meant that Sun was trying to claim it was open source. "Psuedo-open-source" is actually quite a good way of describing the conditions for getting Java. You have to agree to a somewhat restrictive license, but it's easy to get at the source code, hack around, and do what you will with it. Distributing changes though, even internally (in your organization) becomes more bureaucratic.
I don't doubt Apple was popular. But at the same time as Apple was putting out its mass-market computer, so was Commodore, Radio Shack, and a host of others. Some of these were popular, and Commodore's PET eventually lead to the Commodore 64. This, a single model of personal computer, is the best selling microcomputer of all time.
Apple didn't invent the desktop computer any more than Microsoft invented the multitasking GUI. They were in the right place at the right time to make a killing, and they did. But, unlike Microsoft, they can't even claim to have taken up so much of the market an (uninformed) rational person would think that, some how, if it wasn't for Apple, we wouldn't have these technologies.
After much research, Levi found a substance that worked which the lipstick manufacturer adopted enthusiastically. It had one interesting ingredient:
Bird droppings.
There was some chemical in the droppings that was perfect for the job.
So for many years afterwards, Italian women were putting a substance on their lips made partially of birdshit. Lovely. At least one eats Whoppers so the idea of eating run-off from those is slightly less gross...
Start here if you want to do it ;-)
Now someone try finding me the same place on Apple's website to download, say, Cocoa, Quartz, etc. It's not there. You can download Darwin, but given it's based on primarily already F/OSS software, you damn well ought to be allowed.
I've never really understood the FOSS movement's hostility against Sun and love-in with Apple. I like Apple's software, it works very nicely, and they do make a good Unix desktop, but they have contributed very little to FOSS and Sun has donated a ton of "good stuff".
Personally, I don't know what you're talking about. Apple was a significant player, but its importance was somewhat overblown by the fact that it was popular in schools and resold by a number of companies such as Bell and Howell. Its selling point was that it was one of the first, if not the first, colour home computer.
Outside of the US, Apple was very much a bit player until the Macintosh. In Britain, the home computer was popularized by Sinclair and Commodore, Acorn made a machine (the BBC) that competed in Apple's territory wiping it out completely, and it took Amstrad to actually take the PC out of the office and put it on people's desks. Apple rode along with a wave, it was never the creator of that wave, the wave, clearly, was coming along anyway.
- No company trying to sell you something should be dishonest
- No company trying to sell you something should seek to actively deceive you
- No company trying to sell you something should be able to levy made up charges
- No company trying to sell you something should be able to vary their contract with you without your consent
- No company trying to sell you something should be able to provide substandard service that makes their product unusable
It doesn't matter if it's a cellphone company, a computer maker, a car maker, or a toy maker. Dishonesty should be punishable, moreover it should be easily punishable. If a computer maker sells me a computer that doesn't work, I can take it back. A computer company cannot hide charges that I'll be unaware of until after I've bought the item.However, if a cell phone company oversubscribes its network, invents new taxes, changes tariffs, etc, then I have little recourse, especially if I'm locked into a contract. Right now the only way to avoid such things is to simply not get a cellphone. Libertarians may see that as OK, I see it as absurd. As a consumer, I should have the right to rely upon certain minimum levels of comfort. I shouldn't have to disbelieve information stated as fact by default.
The term CDMA in the US usually refers to IS-95, different versions of which are called cdmaOne and CDMA2000. These have nothing to do with UMTS. Further, while one of the technologies available to UMTS operators is "code division multiple access", UMTS actually allows operators to chose between several different systems, including time division based systems.
A bit like This guy? ;-)
For example, I use AT&T and T-Mobile in Florida's Treasure Coast area. Last year AT&T's GSM was pretty awful, I've started trying them again and there's been a 1,000% improvement where calls connect in 2-5 seconds (previously it took 20), call quality is normal for GSM (I swear they were putting their GSM calls over their TDMA infrastructure or something like that previously), I get reception now in my appartment and at work, and calls generally seem more stable. Oh and international messaging now works (but is stupidly expensive - 25c for an SMS? That's 5 times T-Mobile's rate. Geez.)
T-Mobile's network at the same time has been rock solid though with some major dead spots. Despite this, I routinely hear complaints on Internet groups about their service.
The point is that (a) Network quality is a location dependent thing, (b) It's also a time dependent thing, they do work on problems over time. A bad operator in one area may be a terribly good one else where. AT&T is currently good on the Treasure Coast, and T-Mobile is too. Verizon and Sprint both have their problems in this area (Sprint because of capacity, Verizon's voice quality is poor, I assume they're using one of the poorer, low bit rate, vocodecs by default)
Which is a PITA. Hopefully the Cingular merger will fix that.
But what if it's Bono's records you've been pirating? If he's Pro Bono, he's not going to defend you very well, is he? Talk about a conflict of interest! ;-)
You may not like it. You may feel it's wrong. But I'm right in saying that was commonplace, and you're an idiot to contradict me.
But then, as you're actively lying in an effort to backtrack about your claims that only a device driver can be called a file system, that's not entirely surprising is it? I've re-read the thread and can see nothing the guy you were conversing with said that can be interpreted as meaning that the term "file system" is limited to the layout of the disks. What he said, correctly, is that there's nothing about defragmentation inherent in the HFS+ disk layout, and that the term "file system" shouldn't be assumed to exclusively refer to the software that implements a disk layout.
He's correct, and I suggest that you bite the bullet and admit it, rather than persist in this.
The word file system, while correctly used to describe operating system components that implement file systems, is also used to describe the layouts themselves. Indeed, at one time, it was additionally used to describe the higher level operating system layers (the implementation of the open, read, close, etc, calls) in addition to both of those.
The guy you responded to, correctly, said that the defrag feature of Panther was tied to Panther's HFS+ implementation, not to the HFS+ specification for laying out data on disks itself.