Most people don't get the idea that two computers can be completely different even if they have the CPU in common
What's your point? Except for BIOS-compatibility, Macs are IBM PC-AT architecture computers (or "PC99" or whatever the current version of the spec is called).
Certainly one could design a completely different architecture around an Intel chip... SGI did, but Apple did not.
ACPI is a requirement for all EFI implementations, so if Apple is really using EFI, then it should have some form of ACPI which is possibly compatible with XP-32.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only part of XP that needs the BIOS is the bootloader.
So, only one of two things need to happen: Either someone rewrites NTLDR for EFI systems, or someone needs to create a fake BIOS enviornment. The LinuxBios people had a way of faking a real BIOS to boot XP, so going EFI -> Linux -> Windows might be possible also.
Turn your argument around. Nobody really "needs" a Mac in the first place. We could get everything we need to get done on a standard Windows PC, but instead we buy Macintoshes because we *want* to, not because we need to.
Surely you will admit that there are some very popular Windows packages that have not been ported to the Mac. As well about a million inhouse and vertical software packages designed for Windows. A lot of people in the Mac community see this as something that would be legitimately useful to them, and not just "because it's there". They're doing this because they think it would add value to their Mac system.
ThinkPads actually have two passwords -- a standard BIOS one, and a secure one that supposedly renders the machine totally unbootable without it. And the new ones have a TCPA chip as well.
As Boingo pointed out, 2o7.net is the Omniture web hit counter. There's nothing evil about it -- it's just a replacement for logfile analysis software.
The idea that things like runtime libraries are part of the OS shows a profound lack of understanding of computer architecture.
That's exactly the point I made. You are making an academic distinction that has little to no relevance to how application programmers use the OS (or as Sun puts it "operating enviornment").
You could, but you couldn't run KDE applications then, could you? As far as a KDE app is concerned, KDE is part of the "OS", just as GDI32 is part of the OS for a Windows app.
Microsoft made the marketing decision to make IE uninstallable. That alone doesn't make it any more or less part of the operating system.
a desktop and windowing environment is not "a part of the OS" in linux.
This sort of argument is basically specious CSci hairsplitting. The "operating system" provides a runtime environment for application software. There's no fundemental difference between the KDE system and the MS Windows system.
The complaint about MS is the running of said things in or at the kernel.
No it isn't. This is something that technically clueless Linux users invented.
that's still enough for the marketing department to truthfully combine "64bit" and "first" in the same sentence. That's all that mattered.
Actually, it's total lie. DEC shipped $1000 "640bit" Alpha desktops running MS Windows back in the mid 90s.
And their evidence for "world's fastest* personal computer" was pretty weak -- special Apple conducted SpecMarks that were half the offical scores -- so weak they got in trouble in several countries for making that claim.
If I read one more blurb about how great it is that he can code in assembly...
Right, he codes Win32 apps in assembly. So he has the ability to dis-assemble the WMF player code and figure out what's really going on. Instead, he made a couple shallow observations and jumped immediately to a conspiracy theory.
Well leaving aside the XPSP2 you mentioned, what about NT4SP4 (ie, integration of browser with OS)?
SP4 didn't really add any new features (maybe some under-the-hood stuff). The browser/web server integration came on a seperate package called Option Pack.
I am actually not that concerned about converting the SQL code
I'm kind of curious about this. A MS-SQL Internet license runs around $2500. That's only about one week of a database developer's time. Unless you were very careful when writing the application, that cost is easily going to get soaked up in QA and development.
As for performance, there's some load testing packages out there which could simulate your user load on your application on your hardware. But then again, they cost a lot more than MS-SQL does. Other than that, you pretty much don't have much to work on except generalities, a blind leap, and hopefully a fallback plan.
Let me guess, they don't want to call the database developer because he seems like kind of a woundup, haughty prick?
Seriously this seems like a great opportunity for you, and you're responding by getting frustrated that the company isn't full of database developers who understand data management theory. Typical IT Syndrome.
Or maybe you don't have to ask the keyboard controller to enable gate A20 on these new machines? Or maybe there's no Intel 8259 interrupt controller emulation,
Hardware-wise, the chipset supports these. So, nothing has been left-behind. In fact, Apple is subsidizing the remaining DOS users that need these features.
OK -- maybe a more topical analogy: "You agree that linking to these headers/IDL will create a 'derived work' under copyright law".
I would just assume that's a factual matter for the judge to determine, rather than something that could be specified by a contract. But what do I know.
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Most people don't get the idea that two computers can be completely different even if they have the CPU in common
... SGI did, but Apple did not.
What's your point? Except for BIOS-compatibility, Macs are IBM PC-AT architecture computers (or "PC99" or whatever the current version of the spec is called).
Certainly one could design a completely different architecture around an Intel chip
ACPI is a requirement for all EFI implementations, so if Apple is really using EFI, then it should have some form of ACPI which is possibly compatible with XP-32.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only part of XP that needs the BIOS is the bootloader.
So, only one of two things need to happen: Either someone rewrites NTLDR for EFI systems, or someone needs to create a fake BIOS enviornment. The LinuxBios people had a way of faking a real BIOS to boot XP, so going EFI -> Linux -> Windows might be possible also.
Turn your argument around. Nobody really "needs" a Mac in the first place. We could get everything we need to get done on a standard Windows PC, but instead we buy Macintoshes because we *want* to, not because we need to.
Surely you will admit that there are some very popular Windows packages that have not been ported to the Mac. As well about a million inhouse and vertical software packages designed for Windows. A lot of people in the Mac community see this as something that would be legitimately useful to them, and not just "because it's there". They're doing this because they think it would add value to their Mac system.
Perhaps they are, but usually the name of the site is in the domainname, eg something like apple.2o7.net.
2o7.net also has a web page which one could check before leaping to silly conclusions.
ThinkPads actually have two passwords -- a standard BIOS one, and a secure one that supposedly renders the machine totally unbootable without it. And the new ones have a TCPA chip as well.
As Boingo pointed out, 2o7.net is the Omniture web hit counter. There's nothing evil about it -- it's just a replacement for logfile analysis software.
> the kernel API remains the same. The only time the API changes is when Linus says so.
I think Linus would deny there's any such thing at the "Kernel API", much less one that stays stable.
I worked with many NT4 servers that never had IE4+ installed, so I doubt your story.
> What was your point again?
That most Linux users don't know anything about computers.
The idea that things like runtime libraries are part of the OS shows a profound lack of understanding of computer architecture.
That's exactly the point I made. You are making an academic distinction that has little to no relevance to how application programmers use the OS (or as Sun puts it "operating enviornment").
You could, but you couldn't run KDE applications then, could you? As far as a KDE app is concerned, KDE is part of the "OS", just as GDI32 is part of the OS for a Windows app.
Microsoft made the marketing decision to make IE uninstallable. That alone doesn't make it any more or less part of the operating system.
> not only is explorer the component for rendering HTML, but it also renders the desktop, taskbar, start menu, etc.
There was an updated 'common controls' DLL that originally came with IE4, but that's different from rendering the start menu/taskbar in HTML.
a desktop and windowing environment is not "a part of the OS" in linux.
This sort of argument is basically specious CSci hairsplitting. The "operating system" provides a runtime environment for application software. There's no fundemental difference between the KDE system and the MS Windows system.
The complaint about MS is the running of said things in or at the kernel.
No it isn't. This is something that technically clueless Linux users invented.
Actually, the iMac is 2.1x faster at SPECfp_rate as well, according to Apple, Even accounting for dualcores, puts it ahead of PowerPC slightly.
that's still enough for the marketing department to truthfully combine "64bit" and "first" in the same sentence. That's all that mattered.
Actually, it's total lie. DEC shipped $1000 "640bit" Alpha desktops running MS Windows back in the mid 90s.
And their evidence for "world's fastest* personal computer" was pretty weak -- special Apple conducted SpecMarks that were half the offical scores -- so weak they got in trouble in several countries for making that claim.
If I read one more blurb about how great it is that he can code in assembly...
Right, he codes Win32 apps in assembly. So he has the ability to dis-assemble the WMF player code and figure out what's really going on. Instead, he made a couple shallow observations and jumped immediately to a conspiracy theory.
Well leaving aside the XPSP2 you mentioned, what about NT4SP4 (ie, integration of browser with OS)?
SP4 didn't really add any new features (maybe some under-the-hood stuff). The browser/web server integration came on a seperate package called Option Pack.
I am actually not that concerned about converting the SQL code
I'm kind of curious about this. A MS-SQL Internet license runs around $2500. That's only about one week of a database developer's time. Unless you were very careful when writing the application, that cost is easily going to get soaked up in QA and development.
As for performance, there's some load testing packages out there which could simulate your user load on your application on your hardware. But then again, they cost a lot more than MS-SQL does. Other than that, you pretty much don't have much to work on except generalities, a blind leap, and hopefully a fallback plan.
Let me guess, they don't want to call the database developer because he seems like kind of a woundup, haughty prick?
Seriously this seems like a great opportunity for you, and you're responding by getting frustrated that the company isn't full of database developers who understand data management theory. Typical IT Syndrome.
Press Release: As Trials Of Waco Survivors Open In Texas, ACLU, NRA, Others Ask Clinton To Address Federal Police Abuse.
Or maybe you don't have to ask the keyboard controller to enable gate A20 on these new machines? Or maybe there's no Intel 8259 interrupt controller emulation,
Hardware-wise, the chipset supports these. So, nothing has been left-behind. In fact, Apple is subsidizing the remaining DOS users that need these features.
Apple Network Servers ... Which weren't called "Macs" (in the US at least), because they did not boot MacOS.
> Requiring the user to violate the DMCA in order to get the source code is clearly a problem.
A DMCA Technical Measure generally has nothing to do with protecting it's own source code.
The intent of the clause is to preserve the right to reverse-engineer GPL code to get at whatever data it is protecting.
OK -- maybe a more topical analogy: "You agree that linking to these headers/IDL will create a 'derived work' under copyright law".
I would just assume that's a factual matter for the judge to determine, rather than something that could be specified by a contract. But what do I know.