Correct. But it's not all of open source that's on the line here, only alleged SCO Unix code in Linux. The BSD licence & derivatives, for example, would not be liable under this or any other possible SCO action.
"Yeesh, man, chill out [...] are you always this pleasant when someone disagrees with you?"
Nobody's ripping on you, don't get all defensive like they did.
"To say that Apple's DRM is consumer friendly, though, is a joke."
Well, I guess you're not satisfied with any of the online music services then, because iTunes Music Store has far less stringent DRM than any of them (never mind the DRM that will be integral to Longhorn). Some people won't be satisfied with any level of DRM, and I think you're one of them, but most realise that at least a little bit of DRM is necessary for the Labels to play ball.
What's more, you're dumping on Apple's Music Store for not having a mechanism for re-downloading a song you lost, being Mac-only and other things. This is new release, bud. Your expectations of them having everything you want (eg. infinite downloads & streaming? Runs on Linux/Be/AtheOS?) first off is unrealistic.
You can already buy hardware that runs Linux from Jobs & Co. In fact, since their software is basically a loss leader to encourage hardware sales, they probably couldn't care less what you run on your new machine. MS, on the other had, has every reason to discourage Linux use.
And No, we don't all love 'proprietary lock-down Macs'. I've never owned one and probably never will, but that dosen't mean I can't see their survival is essential to the health of the entire industry. God knows with market odds like what they're up against, they can use all the help they can get.
Sounds impressive from the rumors. I sure hope Creative fixes the low background crackling sounds when playing audio files. It would kinda kill their l33t Aud1oph1le claims for the Zen if they don't fix it by this time around.
"What I personally would like to see out of this is Apple releasing their own BSD distro."
And what, exactly, would Apple gain by doing that?
Answer to first: They make a disro already, it's called Darwin and yes, as a *BSD it runs most *BSD code with little or no tweaking (both on PPC or x86 systems).
Answer to second: I guess the same gains as any company basing their core software on open source projects. Companies such as Red Hat and now Apple that do this benefit from masses of enthusiasts continually improving their operating system cores, letting them devote their limited resources to value-added and unique features on top that customers actually pay for. Read Martin Fink's The Business & Economics of Open Source to find out more.
Can any reader from down under enlighten me as to the recent change in directions Australia has taken in the past 2-3 years? Everything from new export restrictions, DRM crackdowns like this, and immigrant internment camps are uncharacterisitic for what I thought was a liberal democracy. For someone that has never been there but listens to the news, this and many other recent changes amount to what seem like pretty drastic policy changes. What's going on?
But don't blame Apple for the hype, and resulting dissapointment if anything less than voice-activated flying cars isn't included in the new OS release. This is basically an eWeek reporter building a story on tidbits from "inside sources", with a dash of speculation: in short, a rumor piece. As far as Apple is concerned, they've not commented on any of these journalistic gems - in fact they have a strict policy of not commenting on rumors in a (futile) attempt to stop rumor problems.
One/. reader commented above "Not to troll, but if they're thinking they can leapfrog with user switching and roaming home directories, they need to jump a lot higher than that." (#5782007) Come on people, you're criticizing the company for a few unconfirmed upgrades in a future release that has not yet been announced, while dismissing this same effort as not enough. No wonder the poor company is paranoid about media leaks.
So he should muzzle himself or change his political views because of whom he is getting money from? No: the principles of Theo and others on the OpenBSD team, and the fact that their principles are not for sale, is one of the very reasons why OpenBSD is as good as it is.
Theo did not use the grant "as a vehicle for his political opinions"; in all likelyhood the grant caused a minor amount of media attention, and he was asked about DARPA issues and how this relates to the war, to which he gave his (pre-grant) opinion which was unchanged despite the money. Good for him.
"This isn't a Big Mean US Gov't story [...] this is yet another case of a great programmer and leader who has let his mouth get in the way of his work."
How did his comments degrade the code in OpenBSD? The only thing these comments got in the way of was politics, not his work.
Yours and other comments in this thread suggest that if funding was yanked because of his politics, so what of it? Don't be surprized if your political views result in government grants being awarded or denied you, whether you have the best solution or not, right? This attitude is becoming disturbingly common with the present administration & political climate. "Sure, we have vested politicized interests, and we'll use those as a basis for what's the best use of taxpayer's money, so what?" What's next, Environmental Protection Agency grants being awarded or denied on the basis of what your company thinks about the War? NASA contracts going to worse bids because the bidders have agreeable views on opening up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration?
There is a reason "political viewpoint" is not a criteria for who gets tax-funded contracts; it's not only to stop the abuse of power but also to make sure taxpayers are getting the best value for their money.
You're probably right about MS not even considering a Universal bid until they heard Apple may be going for it - this is most likely a ploy by them to drive the price way up. They know that if any company with a viable competing platform gains this much access to content, their content control plans will face a hard road. And can you see any of the other major non-Windows payers making this move? It would be a near-impossible fit for both IBM and Sun, and HP is not in a financial position for a move of this size.
While buying Universal Music may or may not end up being good for Apple (the size of the deal would basically mean they are betting the entire company), it does have some strategic benefits. Those constant rumours about Sony or Disney purchasing Apple would be much less likely - antitrust regulators would frown on such a great concentration of content considering their already large music assets. This is actually beneficial to Apple; being bought out by either of these companies would lead widespread changes at Apple and soon to the loss of what makes the company unique, and the division would soon become very unprofitable.
You're mistaken in assuming that Apple can't focus on improvements in their core business while also (potentially) changing the music industry through Universal Music. Pixar has focussed succesfully on making great animated films, and an even better example is how Filemaker has retained focus on it's core databases while being a part of Apple. So, more than merely managing TWO companies, Jobs & Co. are managing MANY companies successfully - look at new developments with Spruce, Emagic, Silicon Grail, Nothing Real, Zayante, Prismo Graphics, Raycer, and other companies that have recently joined Apple and are doing well. In short, they are already managing good media companies, and maybe that's one reason they think they are qualified to manage another. They may also have some plans we don't know about that factor into the equation.
BTW, Titanium, though light, strong and a good heat sink, is comparatively soft and easy to scratch. That's why they wisely decided to paint their PowerBooks.
"Have you no decency? If you want to report on Iraq, report on something legitimate."
You are correct in that there are more important things going on with Iraq right now than what cell-phone system they get. However, as ludicrous as this all might sound, it is still important: the cell phone system Iraq eventually chooses or has chosen for them will indicate not only the real motiations behind their 'liberation', but also what choices they have on any number of aspects of their future. They can expect similar 'choices' when it comes to who benefits from their oil, their supplies of vehicles and equipment, infrastructure systems, economy as a whole, and ultimately -through economic freedom (or lack of it)- their future. The reason it's getting so much attention here is not necessarily because it's about some damn cell-phone system or other, but because it's the thin edge of the wedge.
It's official; Creationists confirm: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when Objective: Christian Ministries confirmed that *BSD is satanic propaganda, part of a larger campaign by powerful & evil subversive forces such as PBS and Pokemon. Coming on the heels of recent evidence which plainly shows that *BSD is the work of the Devil, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD and it's evil ilk is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by the dominance of Microsoft and Forces of Good in computers.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. As many of us are already aware, it is written that in the coming Armageddon we will see *BSD and it's many daemons vanquished. Red ink will flow like a river of blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Hippie Apple Computer founders Jobs & Wozniak sold their first computer for $666. Their newest computer system is based on 'Darwin' - an open source system named in reference to Charles Darwin. Not only is evolutionism evoked but we all know that open source is just another name for communism. Further, as noted theobiologist Dr Richard Payley states, "Darwin OS is not the original creation of Apple Computers but is instead based off of an older, obsolete OS called 'BSD Unix'" While the clear alignment of *BSD, Apple, & open source with evil might be shocking, Dr Payley says that this is "well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans" This is consistent with the strife and 'flame wars' this elite often delight in spreading.
Due to the troubles of evil, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by something even more sinister who sell another troubled OS. Now according to a consensus of media analysts they will also soon be dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
How long will *BSD continue to shake it's trident in defiance of God? *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be only among evil OS dilettantes. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
"Going from Mac OS X 10.n to 10.n + 1 should cost nothing for someone who already owns 10.n. It is an incremental upgrade."
Not necessarily. For example, the upgrade from MacOS 8.0 to 8.5 was a paid upgrade, though still 'incremental' in number. The same can be said about a number of similar incremental upgrades with various software packages and operating systems over the years, not just from Apple. Whether a company calls a significant upgrade a minor point release or major point release often depends more on convenience from a marketing standpoint rather than a technological standpoint. In Apple's case, they are a little tied into making even fairly major upgrades only point releases due to their chosen nomenclature system - can you imagine the confusion resulting from MacOS X 11? I think a very major new system (eg the first 64-bit native system after 10.3 or perhaps 10.4) should be MacOS XI, but they are more likely to keep the X moniker and call it MacOS X 11, unfortunately.
Not that choosing a roman numeral system wasn't good - it was, and highlighted the break with the old and incidentally spawned another wave of X-this and X-that everywhere in technology. It's just too bad they also decided to stick to their system naming guidelines used since system 6.x days, resulting in the X 10.x.x that they'll have to string out for as long as possible. So these point upgrades can often be as significant as the paid Photoshop 5.0 to 5.5 was, for example.
Seems a few people here are more than a little gullible to believe this DoD spokesman at face value. More to the point than military PR, is whether or not they've degraded the signal in the past where & when it really counts.
The Geek Cruises certainly are great, I haven't gone on any but the list of luminaries that give presentations are impressive, and I've heard good things about them. Is the Ottawa YAPC turning into a marketing scheme at all? ExitCertified has been quite active & helpful for not only the local PerlMongers group, but also the Ottawa Unix Users' Group (OCUUG); as you'll notice from their Meetings page, they're actually held every month at ExitCertified. There's also substantial cross-pollination between ExitCertified people, the Ottawa Capital Linux Users' Group (OCLUG which hold monthly meetings just around the corner from ExitCertified, hmmm...), as well as PMs and some of the same suspicious characters can be seen at the Macintosh User's Group of Ottawa (MUGOO) (ahem, Jay et al)
These nefarious groups indeed seem to be as thick as theives. But if a firm like ExitCertified is devoting their time, office space, and personnel to so much in the local OSS/programming communities, haven't they earned the respect of our community? Just because they're an active company dosen't mean they're all bad. I wouldn't worry about the vacancies either; speakers were still being lined up for the local Open Source Weekend/Business Of Open Source Conference (BOSS) held a few weeks ago in the city and look who showed up.
What's been happening in Australia lately? It used to be known as one of the most open & welcoming societies. But now with increasing incidents like this, like detention camps for immigrants and the Australian government apparently falling over itself to out-ape the Bush Administration, it's quickly losing that reputation. Can someone from there explain? I can't see feds cracking down on mp3 trading as a result of the Bali bombing.
"See I have a couple of different reasons why this doesn't hit me as a fair deal from apple. [...] Why would I pay $1 a track, $15 a cd when I can go to a used Record/CD store, pick-up used copies of the artists I want to hear for about $6-$9 a pop."
Because you can actually find what you want immediately rather searching through 4 used record stores all over town before finding that used debut CD of The Primitives. You can also pick & choose the songs you want on your CD, and not pay for the crap you don't like. Plus if you can actually find decent used (working) CDs for $6 a pop, why don't you tell us all where this is so that we can pick some up before that store goes out of business?
"Those with this music service from apple will have to go out, get to the site, log in, find the track, pay for track, wait for confirmation of the payment being recieved, then once that confirm is recieved - download it, and then play it"
Ooh, that's tough. Almost like going out, get to the site, enter a book title in Search, find the book from the results, add to shopping cart, enter address, pay for the book, wait for the 1 second confirmation of payment being received, then wait for the thing to come in the mail. You're right, who the heck would have such a lame-assbusinessmodel? This music download service will certaily fail because it's way too cumbersome.
"Besides, I for one am still really leary of any site that wants me to pay for digital downloads, what's really there to stop the RIAA or some of their Brain Washed supportive Artists from coming after members on that service?"
How about the receipt they'll have that says they paid for their music? Or the contract between the record company and Apple saying they're authorised to sell that music for commission? If that's not enough, what's to stop the RIAA from coming after you when you buy new or used CDs instead?
Sure, accurate from an ethnic standpoint, but considering how the US is supposed to be a 'melting pot' how meaningful is that? Sort of like my roomate, who is ethnically chinese, born & grew up in Hawaii, but not American - she says she's Hawaiian. She can only be talking of nationality here and not ethnicity.
Same thing with Dull's CIO: to him, 'unix' is apparently only proprietary implementations of unix - a meaningless & sensationalist definition these days. Pigeons are extinct!! (great headline, and accurate if pigeon=carrier pigeon)
"The importance of the Unix era vs. Linux era, says Mott, Is that Linux is based on open standards"
Huh? Funny that Linux appears as a branch in the tree diagram of the history of unix. The guy must have most proprietary definition of unix possible. "Unix vs. Linux"? He seems to be under the impression that unix has no open standards, forgetting about all the *BSDs etc in the process - ie. Unix = {SCO Unixware}. I hope this is intentionally using the terms incorrectly to get people's attention, rather than a genuine lack of understanding for them as Dell CIO.
Sort of like how many Hawaiians insist they are Hawaiian, not American.
Re:Nothing happens to your privacy...
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NYT on RFID Tags
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Oh, it could. Say I go into Wal-Mart and get a neon pink training bra and a George W. Bush Smokin' out the Evildoers (TM) baseball cap and then the Gap for a pair of size 10 pink paisley panties, and later in the week I'm wearing them with my 3-piece suit. How many people have been known to buy neon pink training bras and pink paisley panties and and a George W. cap in my city? The unique combination of RFID tags I have been known to buy and are on my person is just about as good as an RFID tag for me. And while RFID tags are scan-only now, how long will it take retailers & loss prevention companies from making them scannable from a distance (it's already being worked on).
Now you have a medium-range scannable tag combination that can be used to identify you, by anyone who has access to your sales history (as in when your credit card company sold the info to direct marketing or consumer info companies). Everyone from private investigators to direct marketers to the original retailers themselves can and will use this information on you if they have access to it, never mind the CIA. In the future, you'll walk into the Gap and the autogreeter will say "Nice to see you again Mr Anderton! How are you enjoying those pink paisley panties you bought last time?" à la Minority Report. Unless there's enforced legislation preventing the sharing of your purchasing habits, that's one type of greeting you'll have to get used to.
If you mail columnist Richard Thompson ( rthompson@nationalpost.com ) regarding his article predicting Apple's "fade to nothingness", don't forget to at least CC: the Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran ( tcorcoran@nationalpost.com ) too.
As a fairly non-political news junkie in Canada, I can say that the National Post has been factually erroneous (eg. here) more often than any other paper I've ever read here, has never declared a profit since it's conception, is declining in circulation (used to be #3 nationally), and this is all probably resulting from the fact that their news & editorial pieces are generally out of touch with the opinions of most Canadians. Near-xenophobic opinions on refugees & immigrants, (see here and here, for example), as well as intolerant & exclusionary views on the issue of Quebec are all examples of this.
I wouldn't be too worried about yet another jump-to-conclusions inflammatory article from someone at the National Post.
"That said, the Apple Way depends on huge margins, which is why their market share IS at 2.3%. So what if they only sell three computers, they still have huge profit margins!"
Sort of like how profit margins on MS Office et al are astronomical and that's why Microsoft market share is in the toilet?
"But lets not forget that as of a little while ago, Linux is on more desktops than MacOS is! [...] [Apple] dying a slow painfull death? Maybe."
Uhh... No.
While Linux desktop market share is slowly increasing, it would still have a way to go before it catches up. An IDC analyst recently predicted that in 2003/2004 Linux desktops would outnumber Mac desktops, but even with this liberal estimation Linux has yet to surpass the MacOS current shipments & installed base. Further, estimations like these do not take into account that more Linux success means more Mac success - the more people considering Liunx, the more are willing to consider MacOS X too (and vice-versa). The "momentum hump" for switchers to get over is the willingness to seriously consider an alterative to Windows; once they make that decision they are often willing to experiement with many systems.
There is also the recent phenomenon of what Tim O'Reilly describes as the migration of the alpha geeks. He has noticed over the last year that many of the influential core developers and stakeholders (the alpha geeks) in the open source movement especially are "choosing Mac OS X." Linux Journal Senior Editor Doc Searls seems to agree, and - will wonders never cease? - there's evidence of IT types now considering Mac solutions.
The reason that these influential adopters are important beyond their mere numbers is that often where they go, much of the industry goes too. Not necessarily resulting in huge market share, but in mindshare and driving a core part of the industry. In fact, contrary to what many people in this forum think, the almighty goal of market share is usually not a worthwhile central objective for a company such as Apple; read Dave Minter's The Myth of Market Share: Why Market Share is the Fool's Gold of Business for some much needed common sense in operating system market share discussions.
Slashdot Mirror
Correct. But it's not all of open source that's on the line here, only alleged SCO Unix code in Linux. The BSD licence & derivatives, for example, would not be liable under this or any other possible SCO action.
"Yeesh, man, chill out [...] are you always this pleasant when someone disagrees with you?"
Nobody's ripping on you, don't get all defensive like they did.
"To say that Apple's DRM is consumer friendly, though, is a joke."
Well, I guess you're not satisfied with any of the online music services then, because iTunes Music Store has far less stringent DRM than any of them (never mind the DRM that will be integral to Longhorn). Some people won't be satisfied with any level of DRM, and I think you're one of them, but most realise that at least a little bit of DRM is necessary for the Labels to play ball.
What's more, you're dumping on Apple's Music Store for not having a mechanism for re-downloading a song you lost, being Mac-only and other things. This is new release, bud. Your expectations of them having everything you want (eg. infinite downloads & streaming? Runs on Linux/Be/AtheOS?) first off is unrealistic.
Please drop the attitude.
You can already buy hardware that runs Linux from Jobs & Co. In fact, since their software is basically a loss leader to encourage hardware sales, they probably couldn't care less what you run on your new machine. MS, on the other had, has every reason to discourage Linux use.
And No, we don't all love 'proprietary lock-down Macs'. I've never owned one and probably never will, but that dosen't mean I can't see their survival is essential to the health of the entire industry. God knows with market odds like what they're up against, they can use all the help they can get.
Sounds impressive from the rumors. I sure hope Creative fixes the low background crackling sounds when playing audio files. It would kinda kill their l33t Aud1oph1le claims for the Zen if they don't fix it by this time around.
Answer to first: They make a disro already, it's called Darwin and yes, as a *BSD it runs most *BSD code with little or no tweaking (both on PPC or x86 systems).
Answer to second: I guess the same gains as any company basing their core software on open source projects. Companies such as Red Hat and now Apple that do this benefit from masses of enthusiasts continually improving their operating system cores, letting them devote their limited resources to value-added and unique features on top that customers actually pay for. Read Martin Fink's The Business & Economics of Open Source to find out more.
Can any reader from down under enlighten me as to the recent change in directions Australia has taken in the past 2-3 years? Everything from new export restrictions, DRM crackdowns like this, and immigrant internment camps are uncharacterisitic for what I thought was a liberal democracy. For someone that has never been there but listens to the news, this and many other recent changes amount to what seem like pretty drastic policy changes. What's going on?
But don't blame Apple for the hype, and resulting dissapointment if anything less than voice-activated flying cars isn't included in the new OS release. This is basically an eWeek reporter building a story on tidbits from "inside sources", with a dash of speculation: in short, a rumor piece. As far as Apple is concerned, they've not commented on any of these journalistic gems - in fact they have a strict policy of not commenting on rumors in a (futile) attempt to stop rumor problems.
/. reader commented above "Not to troll, but if they're thinking they can leapfrog with user switching and roaming home directories, they need to jump a lot higher than that." (#5782007) Come on people, you're criticizing the company for a few unconfirmed upgrades in a future release that has not yet been announced, while dismissing this same effort as not enough. No wonder the poor company is paranoid about media leaks.
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So he should muzzle himself or change his political views because of whom he is getting money from? No: the principles of Theo and others on the OpenBSD team, and the fact that their principles are not for sale, is one of the very reasons why OpenBSD is as good as it is.
Theo did not use the grant "as a vehicle for his political opinions"; in all likelyhood the grant caused a minor amount of media attention, and he was asked about DARPA issues and how this relates to the war, to which he gave his (pre-grant) opinion which was unchanged despite the money. Good for him.
"This isn't a Big Mean US Gov't story [...] this is yet another case of a great programmer and leader who has let his mouth get in the way of his work."
How did his comments degrade the code in OpenBSD? The only thing these comments got in the way of was politics, not his work.
Yours and other comments in this thread suggest that if funding was yanked because of his politics, so what of it? Don't be surprized if your political views result in government grants being awarded or denied you, whether you have the best solution or not, right? This attitude is becoming disturbingly common with the present administration & political climate. "Sure, we have vested politicized interests, and we'll use those as a basis for what's the best use of taxpayer's money, so what?" What's next, Environmental Protection Agency grants being awarded or denied on the basis of what your company thinks about the War? NASA contracts going to worse bids because the bidders have agreeable views on opening up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration?
There is a reason "political viewpoint" is not a criteria for who gets tax-funded contracts; it's not only to stop the abuse of power but also to make sure taxpayers are getting the best value for their money.
You're probably right about MS not even considering a Universal bid until they heard Apple may be going for it - this is most likely a ploy by them to drive the price way up. They know that if any company with a viable competing platform gains this much access to content, their content control plans will face a hard road. And can you see any of the other major non-Windows payers making this move? It would be a near-impossible fit for both IBM and Sun, and HP is not in a financial position for a move of this size.
While buying Universal Music may or may not end up being good for Apple (the size of the deal would basically mean they are betting the entire company), it does have some strategic benefits. Those constant rumours about Sony or Disney purchasing Apple would be much less likely - antitrust regulators would frown on such a great concentration of content considering their already large music assets. This is actually beneficial to Apple; being bought out by either of these companies would lead widespread changes at Apple and soon to the loss of what makes the company unique, and the division would soon become very unprofitable.
You're mistaken in assuming that Apple can't focus on improvements in their core business while also (potentially) changing the music industry through Universal Music. Pixar has focussed succesfully on making great animated films, and an even better example is how Filemaker has retained focus on it's core databases while being a part of Apple. So, more than merely managing TWO companies, Jobs & Co. are managing MANY companies successfully - look at new developments with Spruce, Emagic, Silicon Grail, Nothing Real, Zayante, Prismo Graphics, Raycer, and other companies that have recently joined Apple and are doing well. In short, they are already managing good media companies, and maybe that's one reason they think they are qualified to manage another. They may also have some plans we don't know about that factor into the equation.
BTW, Titanium, though light, strong and a good heat sink, is comparatively soft and easy to scratch. That's why they wisely decided to paint their PowerBooks.
"Have you no decency? If you want to report on Iraq, report on something legitimate."
You are correct in that there are more important things going on with Iraq right now than what cell-phone system they get. However, as ludicrous as this all might sound, it is still important: the cell phone system Iraq eventually chooses or has chosen for them will indicate not only the real motiations behind their 'liberation', but also what choices they have on any number of aspects of their future. They can expect similar 'choices' when it comes to who benefits from their oil, their supplies of vehicles and equipment, infrastructure systems, economy as a whole, and ultimately -through economic freedom (or lack of it)- their future. The reason it's getting so much attention here is not necessarily because it's about some damn cell-phone system or other, but because it's the thin edge of the wedge.
It's official; Creationists confirm: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when Objective: Christian Ministries confirmed that *BSD is satanic propaganda, part of a larger campaign by powerful & evil subversive forces such as PBS and Pokemon. Coming on the heels of recent evidence which plainly shows that *BSD is the work of the Devil, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD and it's evil ilk is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by the dominance of Microsoft and Forces of Good in computers.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. As many of us are already aware, it is written that in the coming Armageddon we will see *BSD and it's many daemons vanquished. Red ink will flow like a river of blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Hippie Apple Computer founders Jobs & Wozniak sold their first computer for $666. Their newest computer system is based on 'Darwin' - an open source system named in reference to Charles Darwin. Not only is evolutionism evoked but we all know that open source is just another name for communism. Further, as noted theobiologist Dr Richard Payley states, "Darwin OS is not the original creation of Apple Computers but is instead based off of an older, obsolete OS called 'BSD Unix'" While the clear alignment of *BSD, Apple, & open source with evil might be shocking, Dr Payley says that this is "well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans" This is consistent with the strife and 'flame wars' this elite often delight in spreading.
Due to the troubles of evil, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by something even more sinister who sell another troubled OS. Now according to a consensus of media analysts they will also soon be dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
How long will *BSD continue to shake it's trident in defiance of God? *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be only among evil OS dilettantes. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
"Going from Mac OS X 10.n to 10.n + 1 should cost nothing for someone who already owns 10.n. It is an incremental upgrade."
Not necessarily. For example, the upgrade from MacOS 8.0 to 8.5 was a paid upgrade, though still 'incremental' in number. The same can be said about a number of similar incremental upgrades with various software packages and operating systems over the years, not just from Apple. Whether a company calls a significant upgrade a minor point release or major point release often depends more on convenience from a marketing standpoint rather than a technological standpoint. In Apple's case, they are a little tied into making even fairly major upgrades only point releases due to their chosen nomenclature system - can you imagine the confusion resulting from MacOS X 11? I think a very major new system (eg the first 64-bit native system after 10.3 or perhaps 10.4) should be MacOS XI, but they are more likely to keep the X moniker and call it MacOS X 11, unfortunately.
Not that choosing a roman numeral system wasn't good - it was, and highlighted the break with the old and incidentally spawned another wave of X-this and X-that everywhere in technology. It's just too bad they also decided to stick to their system naming guidelines used since system 6.x days, resulting in the X 10.x.x that they'll have to string out for as long as possible. So these point upgrades can often be as significant as the paid Photoshop 5.0 to 5.5 was, for example.
Seems a few people here are more than a little gullible to believe this DoD spokesman at face value. More to the point than military PR, is whether or not they've degraded the signal in the past where & when it really counts.
"The first casualty of war is Truth"
The Geek Cruises certainly are great, I haven't gone on any but the list of luminaries that give presentations are impressive, and I've heard good things about them. Is the Ottawa YAPC turning into a marketing scheme at all? ExitCertified has been quite active & helpful for not only the local PerlMongers group, but also the Ottawa Unix Users' Group (OCUUG); as you'll notice from their Meetings page, they're actually held every month at ExitCertified. There's also substantial cross-pollination between ExitCertified people, the Ottawa Capital Linux Users' Group (OCLUG which hold monthly meetings just around the corner from ExitCertified, hmmm...), as well as PMs and some of the same suspicious characters can be seen at the Macintosh User's Group of Ottawa (MUGOO) (ahem, Jay et al)
These nefarious groups indeed seem to be as thick as theives. But if a firm like ExitCertified is devoting their time, office space, and personnel to so much in the local OSS/programming communities, haven't they earned the respect of our community? Just because they're an active company dosen't mean they're all bad. I wouldn't worry about the vacancies either; speakers were still being lined up for the local Open Source Weekend/Business Of Open Source Conference (BOSS) held a few weeks ago in the city and look who showed up.
What's been happening in Australia lately? It used to be known as one of the most open & welcoming societies. But now with increasing incidents like this, like detention camps for immigrants and the Australian government apparently falling over itself to out-ape the Bush Administration, it's quickly losing that reputation. Can someone from there explain? I can't see feds cracking down on mp3 trading as a result of the Bali bombing.
"See I have a couple of different reasons why this doesn't hit me as a fair deal from apple. [...] Why would I pay $1 a track, $15 a cd when I can go to a used Record/CD store, pick-up used copies of the artists I want to hear for about $6-$9 a pop."
Because you can actually find what you want immediately rather searching through 4 used record stores all over town before finding that used debut CD of The Primitives. You can also pick & choose the songs you want on your CD, and not pay for the crap you don't like. Plus if you can actually find decent used (working) CDs for $6 a pop, why don't you tell us all where this is so that we can pick some up before that store goes out of business?
"Those with this music service from apple will have to go out, get to the site, log in, find the track, pay for track, wait for confirmation of the payment being recieved, then once that confirm is recieved - download it, and then play it"
Ooh, that's tough. Almost like going out, get to the site, enter a book title in Search, find the book from the results, add to shopping cart, enter address, pay for the book, wait for the 1 second confirmation of payment being received, then wait for the thing to come in the mail. You're right, who the heck would have such a lame-ass business model? This music download service will certaily fail because it's way too cumbersome.
"Besides, I for one am still really leary of any site that wants me to pay for digital downloads, what's really there to stop the RIAA or some of their Brain Washed supportive Artists from coming after members on that service?"
How about the receipt they'll have that says they paid for their music? Or the contract between the record company and Apple saying they're authorised to sell that music for commission? If that's not enough, what's to stop the RIAA from coming after you when you buy new or used CDs instead?
Sure, accurate from an ethnic standpoint, but considering how the US is supposed to be a 'melting pot' how meaningful is that? Sort of like my roomate, who is ethnically chinese, born & grew up in Hawaii, but not American - she says she's Hawaiian. She can only be talking of nationality here and not ethnicity.
Same thing with Dull's CIO: to him, 'unix' is apparently only proprietary implementations of unix - a meaningless & sensationalist definition these days.
Pigeons are extinct!! (great headline, and accurate if pigeon=carrier pigeon)
"The importance of the Unix era vs. Linux era, says Mott, Is that Linux is based on open standards"
Huh? Funny that Linux appears as a branch in the tree diagram of the history of unix. The guy must have most proprietary definition of unix possible. "Unix vs. Linux"? He seems to be under the impression that unix has no open standards, forgetting about all the *BSDs etc in the process - ie. Unix = {SCO Unixware}. I hope this is intentionally using the terms incorrectly to get people's attention, rather than a genuine lack of understanding for them as Dell CIO.
Sort of like how many Hawaiians insist they are Hawaiian, not American.
Oh, it could. Say I go into Wal-Mart and get a neon pink training bra and a George W. Bush Smokin' out the Evildoers (TM) baseball cap and then the Gap for a pair of size 10 pink paisley panties, and later in the week I'm wearing them with my 3-piece suit. How many people have been known to buy neon pink training bras and pink paisley panties and and a George W. cap in my city? The unique combination of RFID tags I have been known to buy and are on my person is just about as good as an RFID tag for me. And while RFID tags are scan-only now, how long will it take retailers & loss prevention companies from making them scannable from a distance (it's already being worked on).
Now you have a medium-range scannable tag combination that can be used to identify you, by anyone who has access to your sales history (as in when your credit card company sold the info to direct marketing or consumer info companies). Everyone from private investigators to direct marketers to the original retailers themselves can and will use this information on you if they have access to it, never mind the CIA. In the future, you'll walk into the Gap and the autogreeter will say "Nice to see you again Mr Anderton! How are you enjoying those pink paisley panties you bought last time?" à la Minority Report. Unless there's enforced legislation preventing the sharing of your purchasing habits, that's one type of greeting you'll have to get used to.
If you mail columnist Richard Thompson ( rthompson@nationalpost.com ) regarding his article predicting Apple's "fade to nothingness", don't forget to at least CC: the Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran ( tcorcoran@nationalpost.com ) too.
As a fairly non-political news junkie in Canada, I can say that the National Post has been factually erroneous (eg. here) more often than any other paper I've ever read here, has never declared a profit since it's conception, is declining in circulation (used to be #3 nationally), and this is all probably resulting from the fact that their news & editorial pieces are generally out of touch with the opinions of most Canadians. Near-xenophobic opinions on refugees & immigrants, (see here and here, for example), as well as intolerant & exclusionary views on the issue of Quebec are all examples of this.
I wouldn't be too worried about yet another jump-to-conclusions inflammatory article from someone at the National Post.
"That said, the Apple Way depends on huge margins, which is why their market share IS at 2.3%. So what if they only sell three computers, they still have huge profit margins!"
Sort of like how profit margins on MS Office et al are astronomical and that's why Microsoft market share is in the toilet?
"But lets not forget that as of a little while ago, Linux is on more desktops than MacOS is! [...] [Apple] dying a slow painfull death? Maybe."
Uhh... No.
While Linux desktop market share is slowly increasing, it would still have a way to go before it catches up. An IDC analyst recently predicted that in 2003/2004 Linux desktops would outnumber Mac desktops, but even with this liberal estimation Linux has yet to surpass the MacOS current shipments & installed base. Further, estimations like these do not take into account that more Linux success means more Mac success - the more people considering Liunx, the more are willing to consider MacOS X too (and vice-versa). The "momentum hump" for switchers to get over is the willingness to seriously consider an alterative to Windows; once they make that decision they are often willing to experiement with many systems.
There is also the recent phenomenon of what Tim O'Reilly describes as the migration of the alpha geeks. He has noticed over the last year that many of the influential core developers and stakeholders (the alpha geeks) in the open source movement especially are "choosing Mac OS X." Linux Journal Senior Editor Doc Searls seems to agree, and - will wonders never cease? - there's evidence of IT types now considering Mac solutions.
The reason that these influential adopters are important beyond their mere numbers is that often where they go, much of the industry goes too. Not necessarily resulting in huge market share, but in mindshare and driving a core part of the industry. In fact, contrary to what many people in this forum think, the almighty goal of market share is usually not a worthwhile central objective for a company such as Apple; read Dave Minter's The Myth of Market Share: Why Market Share is the Fool's Gold of Business for some much needed common sense in operating system market share discussions.