I don't know what you're trying to argue. The discussion is about why Microsoft is restricting this by country, and I told you why: both because they can maximize their profit and because they want to comply with local tax laws. What's so difficult about that?
"Start from scratch" is a strawman, and you haven't shown where Samsung has improved anything.
The Galaxy software that Samsung is being sued over comes from Google. The features Apple is suing over are things Apple didn't even invent (universal search, sliding, recognition of phone numbers, etc.). In addition, Apple copied many features from Android, including such biggies as Android's notifications, voice recognition, and multitasking. And there is tons of software available for Android that Apple won't even permit on iPhone, such as different launchers, scripting, syncing, and input methods. As for the hardware, the fact that a phone like the Samsung S2 cost half as much as an iPhone 4S alone is a big improvement. So are better drop resistance, OLED, interchangeable batteries, MHL, USB host mode, and tons of other features.
So, the real question is: what has Apple actually "improved"?
The fact that businesses have stuck with MS over the past twenty some odd years indicates that your opinion does not represent the majority
Business continue to use Windows because of compatibility, training, and third party software. On its own merits, Windows would never make it in the market.
Hey, if only it was so easy on linux, just download an installer, run it and viola! It works!
On Linux, hardware is easy: you plug it in and if it's supported it will work. Linux will never prompt you to install a driver. There is some unsupported hardware you may get to work with a lot of work, but that's not worth it.
There have been plenty of command line interfaces that attempt correction for you, prompt you for arguments, have popup help, etc. For some reason, people preferred simpler shells, but that's not a limitation of the CLI.
Maybe thats because the Windows desktop environment tends to be far superior for the end user than the Linux one.
You mean Windows' mess of deeply nested and illogical configuration options and wizards? Its haphazard collection of inconsistent user interface elements? The way it randomly and inconsistently remaps the file system hierarchy in the user interface? The way plugging in any new piece of hardware starts a hardware installation wizard that hardly ever seems to work and then causes people to go hunting for some CD or driver on the net? The way you need to reinstall Windows every now and then because it mysteriously slows down or bits and pieces of it stop working?
No, I don't think the Windows desktop environment is "superior" for anybody, not experienced users and not novices.
Current non-enforcement is a Democratic president unilaterally and deliberately ignoring immigration law.
Reagan went to Congress and proposed a deal of amnesty for those already in the country in exchange for stronger mechanisms for immigration enforcement. That deal went through, but the immigration enforcement provisions were subsequently gutted by Congress again.
Both Republicans and Democrats bear responsibility for the messy state of immigration in different ways. Republicans generally just can't make up their mind between restrictive nativism and nationalism and libertarian free market ideologies when it comes to immigration. But the political sins of the Democrats is that they generally advocate treating people who are here illegally like legal residents, out of some misguided notion of "civil rights".
In a world where some professionals earn $5/day and some earn $500/day, it seems quite fair to price software accordingly.
The lack of fairness there is that the same skills are rewarded with different salaries, and the cause of that is trade barriers and restrictions on mobility of workers; if products could be traded freely and workers could move freely, then those differences would go away.
If you want to allow price discrimination, you need strong trade barriers, because otherwise people would just buy in the cheaper market. Congratulations: you have just perpetuated poverty and unfairness.
Laws that are inherently unenforceable are stupid. If physical goods are coming into the country maybe you can track that. But digital downloads? Hopeless.
But they are not "unenforceable". Microsoft has plenty of seizable assets, and they are being held responsible for their business practices.
Apple is as much an imitator as Microsoft, they are just more successful at misleading people like you through marketing. Apple didn't invent the app store, or full screen apps, or touch screen apps.
But calling this "mini-factories", "programming", and "nanotechnology" is a clever reframing to make a combination of standard molecular biology techniques that are very far from actual medical use appear more hip and high tech.
You can say they stole something when they paid for it and claiming they haven't innovated either is rather silly.
I didn't use the word "stole", you did.
You're clearly biased and no matter what the truth is you're always going to see them as being the bad guy. That's ok though. People are usually happier when they live in a fantasy world.
Of course I'm biased against Apple, and for good reason: the company has been abusing the courts and the patent system for 25 years, and it hasn't created any significant technological innovation. Go look up the look and feel lawsuit: Apple has been pulling this sh*t for a long time.
"A couple of other nations" being "every developed western nation except the US" and they perform very well.
You don't know what you're talking about. UK-style single-payer systems exist only in a few other places like Canada and Australia. In most civilized nations, health care is provided under a system of regulated private insurance and private service providers, just like the US.
The UK is pretty much right on the average line, and our outcome is not too shabby. Yes we can do better, but we're not an example of a total "lousy" failure.
Yes, the UK system is pretty much average among developed nations in terms of health outcomes (but then, so were Cuba and East Germany). And that makes it a dismal failure compared to systems that manage to deliver the same kind of health care without such massive intrusions into individual liberties.
The only reason such a thing doesn't happen is because patent and trademark issues are taken care of before launching unlike computers where they pretty much do what they want and hope for the best.
You should read up on the history of the automobile.
And I suspect you'll find most of the crap people such as yourself spew about what Apple stole isn't exactly true. For example, Apple paid Xerox in exchange for them sharing.
You're missing the point. Whether Apple paid something or not, the fact is that Apple managed to kill research at most of the companies it copied from, without actually innovating themselves.
Just like their design patents don't patent rounded corners or rectangles but the truth doesn't always suit Android fanboys.
A system that has saved several family members and my own life on a number of occasions can hardly be called lousy. It sure has its issues, and still suffers in the wake of too much neglect, but it's something the UK should be proud of.
It can be called "lousy" if you end up paying a lot more for that system than you would elsewhere, or if it substantially infringes on your or other people's liberties. Of course, you don't even known any better.
There are only a couple of other nations with single-payer health plans like the UK. They don't perform better than other systems, and are a bad idea.
Nothing on that page represents "innovation". In fact, most of the Apple designs that you allege Samsung copied are designs Apple themselves ripped off from others, including the dock connector design, the USB power adapters, and the use of a big microphone.
All those trivial design features pale in comparison to the real and fundamental technical innovations Apple copied from Xerox, Palm, Diamond, Psion, Nokia, AT&T, and many others. Apple did real damage to those companies and their ability to innovate by blatantly copying them without compensation. And even that would be OK if Apple didn't turn around and now tried to keep others from copying and improving on them with trivial patents.
I don't know how we can promote innovation better in general, but I am sure that we can't promote it by rewarding Apple with patents, a company that has extensively copied from others and has nearly bankrupted many of the companies it "stole" from.
I wouldn't call developing the next generation MacOS "research".
Apple's ATG might be argued to have been Apple's "research lab". But they mostly ended up doing software development and software engineering tasks and were shut down and merged into Apple's product development efforts in 1997.
Progress in technology is made by copying what is successful and then improving on it. Forcing companies to start from scratch and break convention and compatibility in everything hinders progress.
And copying is exactly how the iPhone improved on what was there before: Apple largely cloned Palm's functionality and UI, reused their OS that was derived from Mach and Smalltalk, and added a smattering of Nokia and Symbian into the mix.
Slashdot Mirror
Patent invalidation takes years and is hence pointless.
A better strategy is to demand steep damages when Apple's lawsuits don't work out, and to countersue with other patents.
With Jobs's gone, long term, the problem is going to go away anyway: Apple has neither the technology nor the leadership to continue to succeed.
I don't know what you're trying to argue. The discussion is about why Microsoft is restricting this by country, and I told you why: both because they can maximize their profit and because they want to comply with local tax laws. What's so difficult about that?
I don't see much difference between Bush and Obama: both presidents have been duds and in pretty much the same ways.
The Galaxy software that Samsung is being sued over comes from Google. The features Apple is suing over are things Apple didn't even invent (universal search, sliding, recognition of phone numbers, etc.). In addition, Apple copied many features from Android, including such biggies as Android's notifications, voice recognition, and multitasking. And there is tons of software available for Android that Apple won't even permit on iPhone, such as different launchers, scripting, syncing, and input methods. As for the hardware, the fact that a phone like the Samsung S2 cost half as much as an iPhone 4S alone is a big improvement. So are better drop resistance, OLED, interchangeable batteries, MHL, USB host mode, and tons of other features.
So, the real question is: what has Apple actually "improved"?
Business continue to use Windows because of compatibility, training, and third party software. On its own merits, Windows would never make it in the market.
On Linux, hardware is easy: you plug it in and if it's supported it will work. Linux will never prompt you to install a driver. There is some unsupported hardware you may get to work with a lot of work, but that's not worth it.
There have been plenty of command line interfaces that attempt correction for you, prompt you for arguments, have popup help, etc. For some reason, people preferred simpler shells, but that's not a limitation of the CLI.
You mean Windows' mess of deeply nested and illogical configuration options and wizards? Its haphazard collection of inconsistent user interface elements? The way it randomly and inconsistently remaps the file system hierarchy in the user interface? The way plugging in any new piece of hardware starts a hardware installation wizard that hardly ever seems to work and then causes people to go hunting for some CD or driver on the net? The way you need to reinstall Windows every now and then because it mysteriously slows down or bits and pieces of it stop working?
No, I don't think the Windows desktop environment is "superior" for anybody, not experienced users and not novices.
Current non-enforcement is a Democratic president unilaterally and deliberately ignoring immigration law.
Reagan went to Congress and proposed a deal of amnesty for those already in the country in exchange for stronger mechanisms for immigration enforcement. That deal went through, but the immigration enforcement provisions were subsequently gutted by Congress again.
Both Republicans and Democrats bear responsibility for the messy state of immigration in different ways. Republicans generally just can't make up their mind between restrictive nativism and nationalism and libertarian free market ideologies when it comes to immigration. But the political sins of the Democrats is that they generally advocate treating people who are here illegally like legal residents, out of some misguided notion of "civil rights".
The lack of fairness there is that the same skills are rewarded with different salaries, and the cause of that is trade barriers and restrictions on mobility of workers; if products could be traded freely and workers could move freely, then those differences would go away.
If you want to allow price discrimination, you need strong trade barriers, because otherwise people would just buy in the cheaper market. Congratulations: you have just perpetuated poverty and unfairness.
But they are not "unenforceable". Microsoft has plenty of seizable assets, and they are being held responsible for their business practices.
You'd do it for two reasons.
First, different countries want to extract different amounts of taxes.
Second, developers love to extract the maximum amount of money from customers by charging more in "rich" countries and less in "poor" countries.
Apple is as much an imitator as Microsoft, they are just more successful at misleading people like you through marketing. Apple didn't invent the app store, or full screen apps, or touch screen apps.
Don't get me wrong, this is a nice achievement.
But calling this "mini-factories", "programming", and "nanotechnology" is a clever reframing to make a combination of standard molecular biology techniques that are very far from actual medical use appear more hip and high tech.
I didn't use the word "stole", you did.
Of course I'm biased against Apple, and for good reason: the company has been abusing the courts and the patent system for 25 years, and it hasn't created any significant technological innovation. Go look up the look and feel lawsuit: Apple has been pulling this sh*t for a long time.
You don't know what you're talking about. UK-style single-payer systems exist only in a few other places like Canada and Australia. In most civilized nations, health care is provided under a system of regulated private insurance and private service providers, just like the US.
Yes, the UK system is pretty much average among developed nations in terms of health outcomes (but then, so were Cuba and East Germany). And that makes it a dismal failure compared to systems that manage to deliver the same kind of health care without such massive intrusions into individual liberties.
You should read up on the history of the automobile.
You're missing the point. Whether Apple paid something or not, the fact is that Apple managed to kill research at most of the companies it copied from, without actually innovating themselves.
Apple switches their claims against competitors between trademarks, patents, and design patents. And what Apple thinks they own, they have shown in their legal briefs: http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/2/2596527/apple-samsung-design-patent-iphone-ipad-work-around
It can be called "lousy" if you end up paying a lot more for that system than you would elsewhere, or if it substantially infringes on your or other people's liberties. Of course, you don't even known any better.
There are only a couple of other nations with single-payer health plans like the UK. They don't perform better than other systems, and are a bad idea.
It stopped being so much fun now that dressing up as women falls under official diversity guidelines.
Well, fortunately, even Obamacare isn't as lousy and rotten as the British medical system.
Nothing on that page represents "innovation". In fact, most of the Apple designs that you allege Samsung copied are designs Apple themselves ripped off from others, including the dock connector design, the USB power adapters, and the use of a big microphone.
All those trivial design features pale in comparison to the real and fundamental technical innovations Apple copied from Xerox, Palm, Diamond, Psion, Nokia, AT&T, and many others. Apple did real damage to those companies and their ability to innovate by blatantly copying them without compensation. And even that would be OK if Apple didn't turn around and now tried to keep others from copying and improving on them with trivial patents.
I don't know how we can promote innovation better in general, but I am sure that we can't promote it by rewarding Apple with patents, a company that has extensively copied from others and has nearly bankrupted many of the companies it "stole" from.
RTFA
I wouldn't call developing the next generation MacOS "research".
Apple's ATG might be argued to have been Apple's "research lab". But they mostly ended up doing software development and software engineering tasks and were shut down and merged into Apple's product development efforts in 1997.
Progress in technology is made by copying what is successful and then improving on it. Forcing companies to start from scratch and break convention and compatibility in everything hinders progress.
And copying is exactly how the iPhone improved on what was there before: Apple largely cloned Palm's functionality and UI, reused their OS that was derived from Mach and Smalltalk, and added a smattering of Nokia and Symbian into the mix.