From the wired coverage of this story: 'No one knows exactly why OSx86 appears to be running faster on the PCs than the Mac OS does on today's Macs. "To be honest, we're not sure," said a hacker nicknamed "cmoski," who said he works for a large software company.'
It is a tribute to the Steve Jobs RDF that none of these people are able to voice the most obvious reason -/that PCs are simply faster that Macs/.
Apple chooses to actually push the technology envelope instead of repeatedly patching the old piece of shit for 25 years in order to maintain compatibility (which coincidentally is one reason some people choose Windows).
Windows NT started development in 1988.
NeXT started development in 1987.
(It seems Apple is the one "patching up the old piece of shit").
There are a handful of places OS X is technically superior to Windows - almost solely in areas like the display system. Other than that, it's a wash.
The main reason Apple are ahead in the technology race/at the moment/ is because they were 7 - 10 years late to the "next generation OS" party that Microsoft were having back in the early '90s.
I find it incredibly hypocritical the way Mac zealots crow about the "technical superiority" of OS X while conveniently ignoring the "technical superiority" of most PC OSes for nearly a decade preceding its release.
The wheel will turn again. When it does, is zealotry and misplaced loyalty going to drive your attitude, or pragmatism and usefulness ?
If Windows is configured and treated like any other mainstream OS, the difference between them in "security" is negligible.
[...] and poor usability [...]
Your personal tastes do not define "poor usability".
The real problem with Windows isn't that it crashes so often (in 2000 and XP I rarely encounter an OS level crash); it's Window's extremely poor security. Spyware is so prevalent on Windows partially due to its popularity, but primarily due to its insecurity.
Funny how if you use Windows the same way do other OSes (don't run binaries from unknown sources, don't run with high privileges, avoid known vulnerable software like IE) most of those "security problems" (the few of them that aren't directly attributable to end-user behaviour, that is) evaporate.
The morally repugnant behaviour that I symbolised by "murder" would be (say) a convicted monopoly using my BSD code as the foundation, and then embracing and extending that code to lock people into their new propreitory protocols.
Why is it "morally repugnant" to "lock people in to proprietry protocols" but not to do so with the software license of your choice ?
There are more deaths on Australian country roads than city roads, yet almost all speed cameras are positioned in busy roads with relatively low death tolls.
Not to mention the main reason the death rate outside cities is higher is because of how much longer it takes for help to arrive.
I know there's *supposed* to be a scientific basis for the limits being what they are, but hey they've been calculated by civil servants, and lets face it, if you're hit by a car doing 65mph, being hit at 90mph isn't going to make much difference to you.
The scientific basis for choosing speed limits (the "85th percentile") works exceptionally well. The problem is it's usually ignored when speed limits are being set and/or reviewed.
The vast bulk of speed limits are not set scientificailly, they are set politically and economically.
Yeah, they are testing the same thing in Victoria..."the place to be" (that's their state slogan btw)
Actually there are two [my additions]:
Victoria: The place to be [leaving]
Victoria: On the move [to Queensland]
Having driven quite a bit everywhere in Australia, I feel confident in stating that Victorians are, on average, far and away the _worst_ drivers in the country. It would be tough to figure out who was next on the list (maybe NSW, solely because of how aggressive Sydney drivers are), but Victoria is definitely on top.
My personal belief is that this is because the draconian speed enforcement in that state (probably the most restrictive in the entire world) has got all of them looking so closely at their speedo, they forget to think about anything else.
And how about doing 45k over a 110km/h limit on 8 lane highways of equivalent (if not better) design and condition than autobahn's with _no_ speed limits ?
That's the trouble with blanket speed limit enforcement and its proponents - they only ever talk about examples of _dangerous driving_, not examples of simple _speeding_ (and one of the most obvious reasons why safety is not really an objective)
Although it looks like it's serving it's function as a deterrant to speeding.
Which, unsurprisingly, has had little to no effect on the road toll.
I live in hope that one day a government actually interested in making the roads safer will be elected, and actually take notice of the _mountains_ of scientific evidence that exists on how to do so. Alas, since this would basically remove any possibility of fines as a consistent and reliable source of general revenue, I can't see it happening.
Look, I'm normally very cynical about red-light cameras, and speeding cameras (oh the cops are out issuing fines, I guess they're running a bit short of some cash this month).
People being cynical about speed cameras I can understand (given there isn't a jot of evidence supporting the idea that they help road safety), but I struggle to understand how someone can be cynical about red light cameras - running red lights is _exceptionally dangerous_ in nearly all circumstances.
To those who are getting booked for a couple of kilometers over the limit, I agree that is excessive.
Two of the most idiotic aspects of speed limit enforcement, are that a) it doesn't take context into account and b) it works on absolute values. So, according to speeding laws, driving past a school at 3:30 in the afternoon doing 15 over the limit is as dangerous as doing the same down an empty 8 lane freeway at 2 in the morning.
In my ideal world speeding - particularly outside of built-up areas - would only ever be contributory evidence to charges of dangerous/negligent driving, not an offence on its own.
Depends on where your reference system is. For instance, if you're a developer joining an ongoing project previously released as GPL then you're liable to falling in the "GPL trap": the original authors can, provided they get you to file papers giving up on any copyright on your code, relicense your code under a proprietary license. you might consider that Freeedom. I consider it freedom to make other people richer, and you poorer, i.e., slavery.
Yes, well, there's a reason I have "freedom" in ""s - and that's because I don't think the GPL is "free as in freedom" at all.
In other words, it's hard to sketch out a consistent picture of morality with a two-syllable sound bite.
The core philosophy of people who align themselves with the "pro life" movement (which, in my experience, is most of them - or at least so they say (as always, YMMV)) is that "all 'human life' is sacred". Supporting capital punishment and anything except a pacifist, non-violent approach to conflict is in direct contradiction of this philosophy.
Agreed, the sale of free software is a bit difficult due to the redistrobution bit. However, it's not completely impossible. Look at RHEL: the source RPMs are the basis of several distrobutions.
And the only reason Red Hat can actually sell RHEL is because of the support services they tie it to. If they didn't, CentOS and co. would have bankrupted them years ago.
Free software is really a case of perfect competition as economics puts it: there is no long term economic profit in making free software.
Free software [development] does not appear to have any viable method of recouping development costs (particularly initial development costs). I'm not an economics expert, but I find it difficult to believe an example of "perfect competition" would be so obviously flawed.
I dunno.. Redhat seem to have no problems with this.
Because they tie their GPLed software to other products and services (their support contracts) - precisely as I pointed out they need to in my original post.
If Red Hat's only source of income was selling Linux, CentOS, WBL and various other free knockoffs would have run them out of business years ago (after all, why would you pay $$$$ to Red Hat when you could download an identical product for free ?).
You're right; the GPL isn't "free"; it does, however, support the *preservation* of the *same level of freedom* that came with it in the first place. Contrast with BSD/public domain, which is more "free", but does nothing to *preserve* its freedom.
This is not correct. Code licensed under the BSD license has its "freedom preserved" - it will always be BSD licensed. *Modifications* to that code, *derivatives* of that code and products that utilise the functionality of that code, however, might not be.
What you are talking about is the *propogation* of "freedom", not the "preservation". The GPL *propogates* by requiring derivatives (with a ridiculously broad definition of "derivative", I might add) also be GPLed. The BSDL *preserves* by only applying to the code as it is originally released.
Or, to put it in simple terms, the BSDL is about influencing the code you write, the GPL is about influencing the code someone else writes.
I was (half-)joking with my original post, however:
RMS doesn't want to forbid the distrobution of GPLed software for money. In fact, he's even said that it's okay to distribute for profit.
OTOH, the GPL is designed in such a way as to make distributing (GPLed) software for profit practically impossible (without it being legally tied to/bundled with some other product or service).
He just said that you need to include the source when you ship the binary copy.
*AND* that anyone you distribute it to must also be able to redistribute it. This is a rather important additional condition (because it's the one that creates the "practically impossible" aspect of "selling GPLed software").
If he'd wanted everything to be free as in beer as well as free as in freedom, he would have written that into the license.
Uh, you don't exactly make an intention like "I want to make selling software impossible"/obvious/ if you want anyone outside of a small group of hardcore idealists to be interested in it.
RMS's philosophy is that software should be "free as in my definition of freedom". That definition of "freedom" just happens to include making selling software practically impossible.
The down side would be that people have to pay more for their health care [...]
The problem is that the large chunks of the population who can't afford privatised health insurance are also the people most likely to need it - ie: more likely to get sick or injured.
The ethical issue is what to do with them - if you provide any sort of "free" healthcare to them, at which point (in terms of income) do you draw the line at stopping such a "free" service ? Moreover, if you fund such a system through taxation, why should the people paying for it (the "rich") not be able to benefit from it ?
It would be much better to have at least some control over what and who we pay for health care.
The system here in Australia is a "universal" healthcare system (Medicare) that covers everyone, however, there are also a large number of private healthcare insurnace providers that people can choose to purchase "additional" cover from. The advantage to choosing the private health cover in addition to Medicare is the former will cover the costs of a private room in hospital (vs just a public ward), quicker access to "better" doctors (in particular for elective surgery) and benefits for non-essential health-related costs (eg: gym memberships, contact lenses, orthodontics, etc). A certain proportion of the annual private health cover premium is also tax-deductible - and if you earn more than about AU$50k (I think the average wage is about $42k) it's cheaper overall (because of the tax deduction) to take out the private health cover. Note that taking out private health cover does not stop you from also using Medicare-funded services (although, obviously, not taking advantage of the private health cover if you have it is a bit silly).
This seems to me to be a reasonably balanced concept. It allows a level of competition between the private health insurance companies, but also has "safety net" cover for those who can't afford private cover.
Well, taking a conservative estimate of $85 billion a year spent in Iraq [...]
How much of this sum would be spent regardless of whether or not the US was "in Iraq" (eg: soldier salaries) ?
Not saying war isn't an expensive, futile business, but if you're going to throw around numbers about "the cost of war", it's only honest to do so if you're describing the _actual_ cost of war, and not money that would be spent anyway.
I no longer have to clean out her spyware, fix virus problems, or any other crap my life was being wasted on when she used to use windows. And should anything require support, I can do it remotely as long as she can connect to the Net.
Funny, I manage to achieve all that with my mother's computer running Windows.
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It is a tribute to the Steve Jobs RDF that none of these people are able to voice the most obvious reason - /that PCs are simply faster that Macs/.
False. There are a handful of areas (mainly in the display engine). The rest is, at most, a wash.
Windows NT started development in 1988.
NeXT started development in 1987.
(It seems Apple is the one "patching up the old piece of shit").
There are a handful of places OS X is technically superior to Windows - almost solely in areas like the display system. Other than that, it's a wash.
The main reason Apple are ahead in the technology race /at the moment/ is because they were 7 - 10 years late to the "next generation OS" party that Microsoft were having back in the early '90s.
I find it incredibly hypocritical the way Mac zealots crow about the "technical superiority" of OS X while conveniently ignoring the "technical superiority" of most PC OSes for nearly a decade preceding its release.
The wheel will turn again. When it does, is zealotry and misplaced loyalty going to drive your attitude, or pragmatism and usefulness ?
Are you part of the Windows development team ?
[...] poor security, [...]
If Windows is configured and treated like any other mainstream OS, the difference between them in "security" is negligible.
[...] and poor usability [...]
Your personal tastes do not define "poor usability".
The real problem with Windows isn't that it crashes so often (in 2000 and XP I rarely encounter an OS level crash); it's Window's extremely poor security. Spyware is so prevalent on Windows partially due to its popularity, but primarily due to its insecurity.
Funny how if you use Windows the same way do other OSes (don't run binaries from unknown sources, don't run with high privileges, avoid known vulnerable software like IE) most of those "security problems" (the few of them that aren't directly attributable to end-user behaviour, that is) evaporate.
The bottleneck isn't in the "MB and OS", it's in the physical drive mechanism. That's why you have cache there - to minimise that bottleneck.
Why is it "morally repugnant" to "lock people in to proprietry protocols" but not to do so with the software license of your choice ?
You have not justified why someone not driving dangerously (but driving over the speed limit) should be punished.
Not to mention the main reason the death rate outside cities is higher is because of how much longer it takes for help to arrive.
The scientific basis for choosing speed limits (the "85th percentile") works exceptionally well. The problem is it's usually ignored when speed limits are being set and/or reviewed.
The vast bulk of speed limits are not set scientificailly, they are set politically and economically.
Actually there are two [my additions]:
Victoria: The place to be [leaving]
Victoria: On the move [to Queensland]
Having driven quite a bit everywhere in Australia, I feel confident in stating that Victorians are, on average, far and away the _worst_ drivers in the country. It would be tough to figure out who was next on the list (maybe NSW, solely because of how aggressive Sydney drivers are), but Victoria is definitely on top.
My personal belief is that this is because the draconian speed enforcement in that state (probably the most restrictive in the entire world) has got all of them looking so closely at their speedo, they forget to think about anything else.
And how about doing 45k over a 110km/h limit on 8 lane highways of equivalent (if not better) design and condition than autobahn's with _no_ speed limits ?
That's the trouble with blanket speed limit enforcement and its proponents - they only ever talk about examples of _dangerous driving_, not examples of simple _speeding_ (and one of the most obvious reasons why safety is not really an objective)
Which, unsurprisingly, has had little to no effect on the road toll.
I live in hope that one day a government actually interested in making the roads safer will be elected, and actually take notice of the _mountains_ of scientific evidence that exists on how to do so. Alas, since this would basically remove any possibility of fines as a consistent and reliable source of general revenue, I can't see it happening.
Look, I'm normally very cynical about red-light cameras, and speeding cameras (oh the cops are out issuing fines, I guess they're running a bit short of some cash this month).
People being cynical about speed cameras I can understand (given there isn't a jot of evidence supporting the idea that they help road safety), but I struggle to understand how someone can be cynical about red light cameras - running red lights is _exceptionally dangerous_ in nearly all circumstances.
To those who are getting booked for a couple of kilometers over the limit, I agree that is excessive.
Two of the most idiotic aspects of speed limit enforcement, are that a) it doesn't take context into account and b) it works on absolute values. So, according to speeding laws, driving past a school at 3:30 in the afternoon doing 15 over the limit is as dangerous as doing the same down an empty 8 lane freeway at 2 in the morning.
In my ideal world speeding - particularly outside of built-up areas - would only ever be contributory evidence to charges of dangerous/negligent driving, not an offence on its own.
Right. Do you have even the slightest shred of evidence that "exhaust fumes" play any part in the setting of speed limits ?
Yes, well, there's a reason I have "freedom" in ""s - and that's because I don't think the GPL is "free as in freedom" at all.
"Free as in GNU/Freedom", maybe :D
The core philosophy of people who align themselves with the "pro life" movement (which, in my experience, is most of them - or at least so they say (as always, YMMV)) is that "all 'human life' is sacred". Supporting capital punishment and anything except a pacifist, non-violent approach to conflict is in direct contradiction of this philosophy.
And the only reason Red Hat can actually sell RHEL is because of the support services they tie it to. If they didn't, CentOS and co. would have bankrupted them years ago.
Free software is really a case of perfect competition as economics puts it: there is no long term economic profit in making free software.
Free software [development] does not appear to have any viable method of recouping development costs (particularly initial development costs). I'm not an economics expert, but I find it difficult to believe an example of "perfect competition" would be so obviously flawed.
Because they tie their GPLed software to other products and services (their support contracts) - precisely as I pointed out they need to in my original post.
If Red Hat's only source of income was selling Linux, CentOS, WBL and various other free knockoffs would have run them out of business years ago (after all, why would you pay $$$$ to Red Hat when you could download an identical product for free ?).
This is not correct. Code licensed under the BSD license has its "freedom preserved" - it will always be BSD licensed. *Modifications* to that code, *derivatives* of that code and products that utilise the functionality of that code, however, might not be.
What you are talking about is the *propogation* of "freedom", not the "preservation". The GPL *propogates* by requiring derivatives (with a ridiculously broad definition of "derivative", I might add) also be GPLed. The BSDL *preserves* by only applying to the code as it is originally released.
Or, to put it in simple terms, the BSDL is about influencing the code you write, the GPL is about influencing the code someone else writes.
Of course you could - if you were prepared to negotiate appropriate licensing with Microsoft.
I was (half-)joking with my original post, however:
RMS doesn't want to forbid the distrobution of GPLed software for money. In fact, he's even said that it's okay to distribute for profit.
OTOH, the GPL is designed in such a way as to make distributing (GPLed) software for profit practically impossible (without it being legally tied to/bundled with some other product or service).
He just said that you need to include the source when you ship the binary copy.
*AND* that anyone you distribute it to must also be able to redistribute it. This is a rather important additional condition (because it's the one that creates the "practically impossible" aspect of "selling GPLed software").
If he'd wanted everything to be free as in beer as well as free as in freedom, he would have written that into the license.
Uh, you don't exactly make an intention like "I want to make selling software impossible" /obvious/ if you want anyone outside of a small group of hardcore idealists to be interested in it.
RMS's philosophy is that software should be "free as in my definition of freedom". That definition of "freedom" just happens to include making selling software practically impossible.
It's still possible to make money from GPLed software. Ergo, RMS's job is not done.
The problem is that the large chunks of the population who can't afford privatised health insurance are also the people most likely to need it - ie: more likely to get sick or injured.
The ethical issue is what to do with them - if you provide any sort of "free" healthcare to them, at which point (in terms of income) do you draw the line at stopping such a "free" service ? Moreover, if you fund such a system through taxation, why should the people paying for it (the "rich") not be able to benefit from it ?
It would be much better to have at least some control over what and who we pay for health care.
The system here in Australia is a "universal" healthcare system (Medicare) that covers everyone, however, there are also a large number of private healthcare insurnace providers that people can choose to purchase "additional" cover from. The advantage to choosing the private health cover in addition to Medicare is the former will cover the costs of a private room in hospital (vs just a public ward), quicker access to "better" doctors (in particular for elective surgery) and benefits for non-essential health-related costs (eg: gym memberships, contact lenses, orthodontics, etc). A certain proportion of the annual private health cover premium is also tax-deductible - and if you earn more than about AU$50k (I think the average wage is about $42k) it's cheaper overall (because of the tax deduction) to take out the private health cover. Note that taking out private health cover does not stop you from also using Medicare-funded services (although, obviously, not taking advantage of the private health cover if you have it is a bit silly).
This seems to me to be a reasonably balanced concept. It allows a level of competition between the private health insurance companies, but also has "safety net" cover for those who can't afford private cover.
There is if you subscribe to the "pro-life" aspect of opposing abortion (and I can't think of many anti-abortion folks who don't trot out that line).
How much of this sum would be spent regardless of whether or not the US was "in Iraq" (eg: soldier salaries) ?
Not saying war isn't an expensive, futile business, but if you're going to throw around numbers about "the cost of war", it's only honest to do so if you're describing the _actual_ cost of war, and not money that would be spent anyway.
Funny, I manage to achieve all that with my mother's computer running Windows.