Really... The only real concern here, then, would be more that there's serious patent risks involved with Mono's use- UNRESOLVED risks.
Willful patent infringement (which would be what we seem to be seeing with Mono without an official Patent license for us there...) incurs treble damages for starters- and it's applicable to damned near anyone the rights holder sees fit to drag into court. And, they don't have to be suing everyone like they would for Trademarks- it only affects their ability to get damages or enforce for select parties they chose to ignore in the intrim.
Moreover, if MS so chose, they could deny use of the stuff in Mono that did infringe upon their patents. You'd have to yank every bit of the infringing stuff except in rare cases (mainly where they've allowed the infringement to go on a long while without their mitigating their losses there...).
Until you get in re Bilski heard by the SCOTUS, it's truly intrinsically dangerous to use Mono for ANYTHING without that license. Keep solidly in mind MS has sued people over their patents in recent times, infringements on things that when they were done it wasn't known there was patent coverage. Once MS comes a-callin' over FAT32 (and they have...) it's time to either invalidate that patent (in progress...again...) or remove the functionality. They can and will enforce their rights on this stuff and using it is folly of the worst kind.
But, hey, suit yourself. I just choose to not get myself stuck with that tarbaby.
Add to that the fact the M$ published the spec under a recognized standards body
They did so, also claiming patent coverage for the stuff under that spec.
Unless you have a patent license that is compatible with the GPL for those patents from MS, you have a problem using it. Moreover, unless you have a license (so far, I've seen NOTHING indicating anything of the sort...MS and Novell's covenant is only applicable to Novell's customers, not the community at large...), implementing a version of that standard can open you up to the risk of committing an act of willful infringement (look it up...) of the said patents.
It's ill advised from the start and you can frame it however you like- unless you can produce a proper covenant or license that actually does something to protect the community at large, you have no protection and it's like sticking your head in the jaws of the lion.
Heh... I'd consider that you're not either informed nor enlightened when you have to resort to ad-hominem attacks like "card carrying member of the commune of the cult of GPL" in your commentary to prove your point.
You might have had some small point there, and it might have been a bit enlightened and maybe even informed- but you covered it all up with the other stuff.
They didn't sue with anything in hand and it wasn't about patents, it was copyrights- SCO isn't a good example here in the slightest way possible. Try the TomTom lawsuit that Microsoft recently initiated. See how THAT worked out for Microsoft.
There were 3 claimed (doesn't talk to whether they're valid patents, only that they were granted...) patents that hit LINUX directly in that suit, despite claims of them not litigating patent infringement by Linux. Just because the case was settled in a manner that doesn't trip up TomTom with GPL licensing, it doesn't lead to Microsoft NOT doing another suit like it or bringing out something involved with.Net, which DOES have patents.
The Mono proponents can't or won't tell anyone how one could realistically get the offered RAND terms on the patents involved with.Net per the ECMA submitted spec- nor, for that matter, will Microsoft. It's beyond stupid to go forward with something along those lines going on. When you infringe, it won't be accidental, it'll be willful. And if you think Novell's little deal will protect you, think again. It's only applicable to the customers of Novell and only for a given time. When the time is up or if you don't buy from Novell (OpenSuSE doesn't count...) you don't HAVE any covenant regarding any of that stuff. You're on your own. Since there's announcement of patents in the ECMA spec, it's your obligation to obtain licensing on the same if you're attempting to implement it. If you don't, it's willful infringement. That's a nasty cesspool of pain you don't want to step off into- seriously.
When people say there's no risk on this, they're selling you a bill of goods or are very dangerously ignorant of what you're looking at here.
Heh... Because they use a dedicated DSP that uses the small fraction of the power the GP CPU will use doing the decoding and allows them to pick and choose Video codecs on a whim...
Most of the mobile devices happen to do that. Some consumer devices that worry about playing DVD's or DivX will use "dedicated" hardware, comprising a few of the difficult things to do on playback (not everything- they don't do everything, ever...) and the rest is done in the MIPS or ARM main CPU. They'll do that to shave a few pennies off their BOM. If they're making a high-end machine that supports more than one or two functions fully, they'll resort to a similar setup to the mobile devices.
Because they DON'T do "dedicated" hardware in most cases. They use a DSP to do the work, which is designed for these sorts of tasks, as opposed to the GP CPU that isn't.
Typically, they DON'T have a hardware decoder. What they have is a full-tilt DSP capable of doing a variety of Video and Audio formats (See OMAP2, OMAP3, Snapdragon, etc... You'll find that there's no "h.264 decode code" and a DSP like TI's DaVinci instead...). Ditto the MIPS and other SoC's.
Moreover, the requirement for RAND licensing on the codec for any patents that might be covering the implementation will figure into the standard as well.
Theora, while it might not be "better", has no licensing issues. h.264 DOES. The patent holders won't likely allow a FOSS type license where if there's no money exchanging hands, you owe nothing- as has been shown with the MP3 stuff, they want their money, always.
No, you can't patent an API, but if there's a narrow range of usable implementations, you CAN (As long as In re Bilski hasn't been heard and upheld by the SCOTUS...then this changes a bit...) patent the range thereof, effectively barring any outside implementations of said API...
It's almost as if we've got Intel or Windows fans posting the "pro" postings.
ARM's already IN this space and nearly as fast per clock as Atom and in 6-12 months will be nipping at the heels of Core's performance profile with the Cortex-A9 with nearly the same power/performance profile the A8's are already showing to have. This is not saying they're "OMG FAST!" at this stuff- but then, neither is the Atom, really. What I've had the pleasure of seeing was a machine that's nearly as fast as the previous and some current attempts at "low-power" X86 CPUs and systems, but consume only about 200-400 mW of juice doing it.
Even then, you're still consuming 2-3 times the juice of the current comparable ARM parts already shipping.
"Vastly Faster" is a relative concept, mind. Clock-for-clock, they're showing to be rather close in performance right at the moment. Most of the Cortex-A8 parts are clocked down to 500-600MHz to save further on juice.
Don't get me wrong, Atom's VERY nice (I've got one machine right now, getting more...) but as a smartphone platform, it's not as compelling as ARM is. The only real reason you'd really EVER need X86 is if you're trying to wedge Windows XP or Windows7 onto the device (Seriously...) as most of the mobile/embedded space use ARM or MIPS in their designs. To be sure, there's configurations in the embedded industry that call for that- but the handheld/wearables tend to not hold up as well or be as prevalent as the ARM or MIPS variants.
But, unfortunately, many of the things that the government are about doing don't even remotely fall under "preventative maintenance", which many would consider to be nearly as urgent as the other "urgent" stuff.
1) Libertarians aren't neo-liberals or neo-conservatives; they're a differing party from the other two- and while there's both kinds in the Libertarian party, there's as many or more in the Republican and Democrat camps. 2) The people who actually did the lobbying for the initial loosening of the regulations was the Democrats under the premise that there'd be easier access to home ownership. 3) The further loosening of the rules that was done was done by the Republicans under the mantra you quoted. 4) Under the all loosening (Not just the Republicans, mind...), the players did very, very iffy practices, urged on by the Government of two different Presidents from two different parties to give out the loans they did.
When it's bought out of state. Not the responsibility of the seller to collect the out of state taxes. It's your responsibility to pay for those taxes to the state you reside in in the form of a "Use Tax".
There's a very narrow range of things for which it's legal to do so. Unfortunately for MediaSentry, that range does not apply because they're NOT the RIAA or one of the Member Labels.
Unfortunately, the evidence wasn't legally gathered and could not be without a PI license. In MI it's a misdemeanor. In Texas, it's actually a Felony.:-D I don't know if it's hard for one to obtain it in MI, but it's not at all easy for one to obtain one in Texas- and MediaSentry would have a fun time obtaining one or getting a licensed PI to do and oversee the investigation there.
I think some enterprising person will start one in light of this. Any info used for these "settlements" was illegally obtained in pretty much every State in the Union. Moreover, it's very defective at best if it WAS obtained legally- it doesn't do anything of what the RIAA claims in court that it does. They knew or should have known that the stuff was explicitly inadmissable and that they had no case at that point. They pursued a campaign of threats of the sort of litigation that we've seen, knowing that people would twig onto that while maybe they weren't guilty of anything or that they didn't have a case, that the settlement was the cheaper way out- mounting a Federal case isn't cheap on either side. Knowing this and pursuing the course the RIAA chose to pursue on this, "to make examples of file sharers" (using their OWN words on the matter) would be considered to be extortion and racketeering by many and possibly even provable in a Court of Law at this point, based on what's been shown in the trials up to this point. Someone's going to want to cash in on that once it becomes dead clear they're in a bad position over this- and it won't just be RIAA, but the member labels that participated in this fiasco. Those guys are flush with cash...;-)
In reality, if the laws in question were violated by MediaSentry (they were...), then the law DOES require exclusion on the spot for the evidence in question.
In her state, the stuff's explicitly inadmissable- you can't enter evidence of this nature gathered by anyone other than a licensed PI into a case. In the case of the Federal statutes, the same applies. It's not info that they can actually allow in court.
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Really... The only real concern here, then, would be more that there's serious patent risks involved with Mono's use- UNRESOLVED risks.
Willful patent infringement (which would be what we seem to be seeing with Mono without an official Patent license for us there...) incurs treble damages for starters- and it's applicable to damned near anyone the rights holder sees fit to drag into court. And, they don't have to be suing everyone like they would for Trademarks- it only affects their ability to get damages or enforce for select parties they chose to ignore in the intrim.
Moreover, if MS so chose, they could deny use of the stuff in Mono that did infringe upon their patents. You'd have to yank every bit of the infringing stuff except in rare cases (mainly where they've allowed the infringement to go on a long while without their mitigating their losses there...).
Until you get in re Bilski heard by the SCOTUS, it's truly intrinsically dangerous to use Mono for ANYTHING without that license. Keep solidly in mind MS has sued people over their patents in recent times, infringements on things that when they were done it wasn't known there was patent coverage. Once MS comes a-callin' over FAT32 (and they have...) it's time to either invalidate that patent (in progress...again...) or remove the functionality. They can and will enforce their rights on this stuff and using it is folly of the worst kind.
But, hey, suit yourself. I just choose to not get myself stuck with that tarbaby.
They did so, also claiming patent coverage for the stuff under that spec.
Unless you have a patent license that is compatible with the GPL for those patents from MS, you have a problem using it. Moreover, unless you have a license (so far, I've seen NOTHING indicating anything of the sort...MS and Novell's covenant is only applicable to Novell's customers, not the community at large...), implementing a version of that standard can open you up to the risk of committing an act of willful infringement (look it up...) of the said patents.
It's ill advised from the start and you can frame it however you like- unless you can produce a proper covenant or license that actually does something to protect the community at large, you have no protection and it's like sticking your head in the jaws of the lion.
Heh... I'd consider that you're not either informed nor enlightened when you have to resort to ad-hominem attacks like "card carrying member of the commune of the cult of GPL" in your commentary to prove your point.
You might have had some small point there, and it might have been a bit enlightened and maybe even informed- but you covered it all up with the other stuff.
They didn't sue with anything in hand and it wasn't about patents, it was copyrights- SCO isn't a good example here in the slightest way possible. Try the TomTom lawsuit that Microsoft recently initiated. See how THAT worked out for Microsoft.
There were 3 claimed (doesn't talk to whether they're valid patents, only that they were granted...) patents that hit LINUX directly in that suit, despite claims of them not litigating patent infringement by Linux. Just because the case was settled in a manner that doesn't trip up TomTom with GPL licensing, it doesn't lead to Microsoft NOT doing another suit like it or bringing out something involved with .Net, which DOES have patents.
The Mono proponents can't or won't tell anyone how one could realistically get the offered RAND terms on the patents involved with .Net per the ECMA submitted spec- nor, for that matter, will Microsoft. It's beyond stupid to go forward with something along those lines going on. When you infringe, it won't be accidental, it'll be willful. And if you think Novell's little deal will protect you, think again. It's only applicable to the customers of Novell and only for a given time. When the time is up or if you don't buy from Novell (OpenSuSE doesn't count...) you don't HAVE any covenant regarding any of that stuff. You're on your own. Since there's announcement of patents in the ECMA spec, it's your obligation to obtain licensing on the same if you're attempting to implement it. If you don't, it's willful infringement. That's a nasty cesspool of pain you don't want to step off into- seriously.
When people say there's no risk on this, they're selling you a bill of goods or are very dangerously ignorant of what you're looking at here.
Heh... Because they use a dedicated DSP that uses the small fraction of the power the GP CPU will use doing the decoding and allows them to pick and choose Video codecs on a whim...
Most of the mobile devices happen to do that. Some consumer devices that worry about playing DVD's or DivX will use "dedicated" hardware, comprising a few of the difficult things to do on playback (not everything- they don't do everything, ever...) and the rest is done in the MIPS or ARM main CPU. They'll do that to shave a few pennies off their BOM. If they're making a high-end machine that supports more than one or two functions fully, they'll resort to a similar setup to the mobile devices.
Because they DON'T do "dedicated" hardware in most cases. They use a DSP to do the work, which is designed for these sorts of tasks, as opposed to the GP CPU that isn't.
Typically, they DON'T have a hardware decoder. What they have is a full-tilt DSP capable of doing a variety of Video and Audio formats (See OMAP2, OMAP3, Snapdragon, etc... You'll find that there's no "h.264 decode code" and a DSP like TI's DaVinci instead...). Ditto the MIPS and other SoC's.
Moreover, the requirement for RAND licensing on the codec for any patents that might be covering the implementation will figure into the standard as well.
Theora, while it might not be "better", has no licensing issues. h.264 DOES. The patent holders won't likely allow a FOSS type license where if there's no money exchanging hands, you owe nothing- as has been shown with the MP3 stuff, they want their money, always.
People should too... Unfortunately, that's been forgotten of late.
No...it's laziness. Moreover, SSN is NOT a "reliable source of validated data" even if it wasn't due to laziness. :-D
Actually, the owner HAS indicated that it was done that way in one of the linked items from the summary.
Hell, a browser would be out of the question (for the same reasons...)
If it were as you claimed, you'd have something.
Unfortunately, unless you're actively denying the update, you GOT IE8 if you're on one of their supported OS platforms for it. Period. Full stop.
WHY would they need a marketing campaign to get you to use IE8 if they didn't have a larger population of NON-IE users, hm?
No, you can't patent an API, but if there's a narrow range of usable implementations, you CAN (As long as In re Bilski hasn't
been heard and upheld by the SCOTUS...then this changes a bit...) patent the range thereof, effectively barring any outside implementations
of said API...
I don't think it escaped anyone, really.
It's almost as if we've got Intel or Windows fans posting the "pro" postings.
ARM's already IN this space and nearly as fast per clock as Atom and in 6-12 months will be
nipping at the heels of Core's performance profile with the Cortex-A9 with nearly the same
power/performance profile the A8's are already showing to have. This is not saying they're "OMG
FAST!" at this stuff- but then, neither is the Atom, really. What I've had the pleasure of seeing was
a machine that's nearly as fast as the previous and some current attempts at "low-power" X86
CPUs and systems, but consume only about 200-400 mW of juice doing it.
If you're already sitting on Linux, it's less of a port and more of a recompile if it's clean code. Seriously.
Even then, you're still consuming 2-3 times the juice of the current comparable ARM parts already shipping.
"Vastly Faster" is a relative concept, mind. Clock-for-clock, they're showing to be rather close in performance
right at the moment. Most of the Cortex-A8 parts are clocked down to 500-600MHz to save further on juice.
Don't get me wrong, Atom's VERY nice (I've got one machine right now, getting more...) but as a smartphone
platform, it's not as compelling as ARM is. The only real reason you'd really EVER need X86 is if you're trying
to wedge Windows XP or Windows7 onto the device (Seriously...) as most of the mobile/embedded space use
ARM or MIPS in their designs. To be sure, there's configurations in the embedded industry that call for that-
but the handheld/wearables tend to not hold up as well or be as prevalent as the ARM or MIPS variants.
There's a reason for this...
Considering that most people WON'T be doing that and that the Cortex-A8 based appear to already able to DO 1080p...
But, unfortunately, many of the things that the government are about doing don't even remotely fall under "preventative maintenance", which many would consider to be nearly
as urgent as the other "urgent" stuff.
1) Libertarians aren't neo-liberals or neo-conservatives; they're a differing party from the other two- and while there's both kinds in the Libertarian party, there's as many or more in the Republican and Democrat camps.
2) The people who actually did the lobbying for the initial loosening of the regulations was the Democrats under the premise that there'd be easier access to home ownership.
3) The further loosening of the rules that was done was done by the Republicans under the mantra you quoted.
4) Under the all loosening (Not just the Republicans, mind...), the players did very, very iffy practices, urged on by the Government of two different Presidents from two different parties to give out the loans they did.
When it's bought out of state. Not the responsibility of the seller to collect the out of state taxes.
It's your responsibility to pay for those taxes to the state you reside in in the form of a "Use Tax".
There's a very narrow range of things for which it's legal to do so. Unfortunately for MediaSentry, that range does not apply because they're NOT the RIAA or one of the Member Labels.
Unfortunately, the evidence wasn't legally gathered and could not be without a PI license. In MI it's a misdemeanor. In Texas, it's actually a Felony. :-D
I don't know if it's hard for one to obtain it in MI, but it's not at all easy for one to obtain one in Texas- and MediaSentry would have a fun time obtaining
one or getting a licensed PI to do and oversee the investigation there.
I think some enterprising person will start one in light of this. Any info used for these "settlements" was illegally obtained in pretty much every State in the Union. Moreover, it's very defective at best if it WAS ;-)
obtained legally- it doesn't do anything of what the RIAA claims in court that it does. They knew or should have known that the stuff was explicitly inadmissable and that they had no case at that point. They pursued a campaign of threats of the sort of litigation that we've seen, knowing that people would twig onto that while maybe they weren't guilty of anything or that they didn't have a case, that the settlement was the cheaper way out- mounting a Federal case isn't cheap on either side. Knowing this and pursuing the course the RIAA chose to pursue on this, "to make examples of file sharers" (using their OWN words on the matter) would be considered to be extortion and racketeering by many and possibly even provable in a Court of Law at this point, based on what's been shown in the trials up to this point. Someone's going to want to cash in on that once it becomes dead clear they're in a bad position over this- and it won't just be RIAA, but the member labels that participated in this fiasco. Those guys are flush with cash...
In reality, if the laws in question were violated by MediaSentry (they were...), then the law DOES require exclusion on the spot for the evidence in question.
In her state, the stuff's explicitly inadmissable- you can't enter evidence of this nature gathered by anyone other than a licensed PI into a case.
In the case of the Federal statutes, the same applies. It's not info that they can actually allow in court.