They can get away with demanding exclusivity in a market they control, but they don't currently control tablets... Their previous tablet effort have been terrible, so it would be crazy for any hardware manufacturer to agree to exclusivity to a vendor with trivial market share, a new incompatible product and a history of failure in the market.
Yes, the usb storage can only passively hold the virus, it cannot execute it so you rely on stupid configuration (autorun) or user error to pass the virus from the usb stick to a device it can actually infect. A tablet that's actively infected with a running virus can proactively attack other systems.
People have lost 80%, or even larger amounts investing in traditional financial systems too... Look at the large "safe" companies/banks that have collapsed in recent years. A high risk investment is a high risk investment.
DRM'd content often isnt static, depending on the scheme used it might get encrypted with a different key per user. Also some of these providers like to insert ads into the stream, so you're not downloading a static video file...
Worse than that, without salts you can precompute the hashes (eg rainbow tables) and do subsequent attacks far more efficiently against anyone using the same hash type (and unsalted md5, sha-1 and ntlm are extremely common making it well worth the effort of generating tables)... Tables can be (and often are) shared, thus distributing the required hashing power across a much larger pool of resources.
Then those of us who want to use modern phones would face inconvenience whenever we're a passenger in a vehicle... While those who want to use their mobile while driving would either acquire a crack for the system, or simply use an older phone.
Net effect, inconvenience all round, but more of it for the law abiding... No less carnage on the roads.
And just how dangerous is using a GPS vs using a map while driving? Both of them distract you, but i would argue a GPS less so because it generally has spoken instructions so you don't need to take your eyes off the road. Similarly, a hands free phone is not really any more dangerous than talking to a passenger.
Some stop signs make sense, many do not (ie you have perfect visibility of the road and no reason to come to a stop which just wastes time and fuel)...
And no, mild fines for disobeying traffic laws doesn't seem to do anything, people still disobey laws on a regular basis. Having fines which are the same for everyone just penalises the poor... Do you really think a guy driving a $500k supercar is going to care about a $50 fine? That's just a trivial addition to the cost of driving for him, on top of the huge sums he already pays for insurance and gas.
On the other hand, someone who can barely afford a car but needs one for work might consider a $50 fine very painful.
But being patented, we dare not use it for fear of being sued!
And those built in GPS maps are usually located in the center console, where the passenger could use them too... When i have passengers i typically ask them to program the GPS if we need to make changes mid route anyway.
And any system that tries to detect motion is going to be a pain in the ass for anyone who is a passenger in any vehicle...
Which is why open standards are so important... It works for browsing and email simply because there are standards in those fields. The only reason it may not work in other areas is due to a lack of standards, and that's what needs to be fixed not trying to paper over the cracks with "certified" devices.
Well the risks are that the device is not under your control, so you cannot wipe it etc...
Data can be stolen from a company supplied device, and malware can be put onto one just as easily.
On the other hand, a bunch of isolated android devices will be far less susceptible to malware than a bunch of windows boxes which have common access credentials.
A lot of BYOD offices still provide desktop computers, but want to cut back on the cost of providing cellphones... With these docks, you could provide a single device that serves both functions, thus mitigating the risks of BYOD and reducing costs at the same time.
As for the security aspect, a bunch of separate android running devices would be a considerably harder target to attack than a stack of windows workstations which are joined to a domain.
No, it's a more expensive product so you'd expect to get what you paid for... Windows and OSX are fairly polished products that will install easily on supported hardware, will support the full functionality of that hardware and have a good selection of third party software available.
What you actually get with morphos is a system that is only partially functional on most of the hardware it supports and has a pretty poor selection of available applications.
Fuck your business model. The OS has been made for over 10 years. The developers try to earn something from it. Why should they give it away? That's a poor business model if anything.
You don't earn money from a niche os, you develop it as a hobby or not at all. Sure you might get a small core of people who pay for it, just like theres a small core of people who regularly donate to projects like AROS, Syllable, *BSD etc... But by having a high barrier to entry you severely discourage potential hobbyists from taking up the platform. So with new users few and far between, and old users gradually dropping off, the platform dies.
Put simply, a niche platform targeted at hobbyists is not commercially viable. Niche platforms are only viable when you occupy a niche that is essential to some businesses, and can force them to pay top price. I doubt there are any business users out there who depend on morphos.
If you want to get a "somewhat modern Amiga" being able to buy Windows for say 99 dollar doesn't help much does it?
A $99 copy of windows on virtually any hardware made in the last 10 years (that people are throwing out and can be obtained for close to free) will run WinUAE just fine.
Or you could run AROS... It runs on considerably more powerful hardware than morphos, some of which is actually modern and available to buy new right now. Like morphos, it is lacking in some areas... But considering it costs you nothing, this is forgiveable (and you are invited to help fix the areas that are lacking)... If you ultimately find that it doesn't suit your needs then you can simply delete it, nothing lost.
Yes. Probably. Because Linux has never booted a system before and lacked some functionality? Or the BSDs? Or Solaris on x86? Or an OS X hack?
Noone is asking 111 euros for a semi functional version of linux or bsd... And if they did, noone would pay. An OSX hack is just that, a hack, its not running on officially supported hardware so you're on your own.
If you're going to charge money for something, you have to offer something worthwhile that's not available more cheaply elsewhere. As i understand it, the key selling point of amigaos like systems is speed, but what good is a fast os running on antiquated hardware? You might as well use modern hardware with slower software to achieve the same end result.
Yes, if it was free or at least very cheap people might consider using it, but at 111 euros? That's more than the price of OSX or many versions of Windows... And being such a niche product, i doubt it will even tempt anyone to release a cracked version.
Creating a niche OS that only runs on obsolete hardware, and costs more than that hardware itself does? That seems to be an extremely poor business model...
If it was free or dirt cheap, people might be tempted in it to breathe new life into old hardware... But at that price, you might as well just buy some newer more capable hardware.
As for the lack of wireless support, the changelog for 3.0 cites one of the biggest new features as "PowerBook support for 1.67GHz models"... So a laptop with built in wifi, but you can't use wireless on it?
Exactly, you hit the nail right on the head there... Media is marketed in such a way so as to put a lot of pressure on people to watch it, and make them feel bad if they haven't seen it while all their friends have. People who have not seen the latest shows are stigmatised as being "out of touch".
If you do this, and then don't provide a method by which people can actually buy the content, then they will have no recourse but to pirate it.
It's also now common to have friends in different countries, thanks to the internet... So the old model of releasing content significantly later in different countries becomes extremely damaging too... When participating in multinational forums on the internet, you are considered to be behind the times, from a backwater and looked down upon if you have to wait 6 months to see the shows everyone else is watching.
I never said it was, I said Hitler would have been proud of a system which discriminates against others for arbitrary reasons such as country, which he would have.
I'm sure if Hitler were in power today, or if he was running a media company he would take every step he could to ensure that those of us living outside of Germany were unable to access his content.
Because the pirate versions are better, more convenient and more flexible.
If legitimate copies were available to download in drm-free form then a lot less people would pirate, however when all the legitimate versions are drm encumbered with all manner of ridiculous restrictions the pirate copies look very attractive.
There's still plenty of reasons the pirate version is more desirable than the network tv version...
Canadian tv might carry the show at the same time or soon after wherever the show airs first, in many countries however we have to wait weeks or months after a show is broadcast elsewhere.
Even if they do put it online, its usually via a proprietary streaming service, which is no good for people like me who have bandwidth caps during the day (unlimited late at night - but who wants to watch tv at 3am?), or for people who want to download it to transfer to a portable device and watch on the move, also many of those services require silverlight which isn't usable on linux, and those that require flash aren't usable on more niche platforms than linux. streaming services are also poor quality on slow/congested connections, and connections tend to be most congested at the times people want to watch tv... on a slow line i can download over night and have it ready for me in the morning.
Pirate versions are commercial free.
The network provided dvr devices tend to be very inflexible, and usually wont let you copy the media off onto another device for instance.
What you would find, is that all the mass market shows would condense onto a small number of channels, and any niche programming would simply be cut entirely. Do you really want to see non stop reality shows on 10 channels, with nothing else available to watch?
Incidentally, many people in the uk live in residences which do not permit the installation of satellite dishes, and thus CANNOT get sky, and therefore cannot legally watch game of thrones irrespective of how much they are willing to pay. There are people in other countries in a similar boat...
For many people, piracy is the only option available to them at all.
The shape of the air is an obvious development as the components get smaller... There are several wedge shaped laptops (and indeed wedge shaped non laptop computers like the C64)... Creating a smaller, thinner wedge was obvious and was bound to happen sooner or later.
Most progress is not made by totally new and innovative products, but by "standing on the shoulders of giants"... That is, a product which is mostly a copy of a previous one, but with a few improvements here and there.
Developing something new from scratch is time consuming and costly, especially when you have to work around huge numbers of patents... Also if a product is too different to existing ones, users will often reject it because it's too unfamiliar.
Plenty of beneficial works were made before the days of patents or copyrights, and there's no reason to believe they wouldn't do so again were these schemes abolished. People create works for all kinds of reasons, not everyone is purely motivated by profit and greed...
On balance, the current patent/copyright laws do far more to stifle innovation than to promote it.. You have products which are crippled to avoid patents, people afraid to release (or even start developing) products for fear of being sued, works still in copyright when the original author is long dead (many of which will be totally forgotten and/or lost by the time copyright expires) etc etc...
Both copyright and patents were meant to be a compromise between the ability for creators of such works to profit, and the benefit of society as a whole... The current systems however are so distorted and corrupt that they are generally entirely detrimental to society and often to the creators of the works too.
For-profit also causes innovations to be stifled, why release a new (expensive, requiring retooling etc) product, when you can continue selling your existing one?
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They can get away with demanding exclusivity in a market they control, but they don't currently control tablets... Their previous tablet effort have been terrible, so it would be crazy for any hardware manufacturer to agree to exclusivity to a vendor with trivial market share, a new incompatible product and a history of failure in the market.
Yes, the usb storage can only passively hold the virus, it cannot execute it so you rely on stupid configuration (autorun) or user error to pass the virus from the usb stick to a device it can actually infect.
A tablet that's actively infected with a running virus can proactively attack other systems.
People have lost 80%, or even larger amounts investing in traditional financial systems too... Look at the large "safe" companies/banks that have collapsed in recent years.
A high risk investment is a high risk investment.
A government controlled currency is still "made up"...
There are not always alternatives to commercial banks.
DRM'd content often isnt static, depending on the scheme used it might get encrypted with a different key per user.
Also some of these providers like to insert ads into the stream, so you're not downloading a static video file...
Worse than that, without salts you can precompute the hashes (eg rainbow tables) and do subsequent attacks far more efficiently against anyone using the same hash type (and unsalted md5, sha-1 and ntlm are extremely common making it well worth the effort of generating tables)...
Tables can be (and often are) shared, thus distributing the required hashing power across a much larger pool of resources.
How would you enforce that? If you just took away the handset they had at the time, they would simply go out and buy another one.
Talking to a person in the car is arguably worse, if you look over to see their expression etc... You can't do that on a phone so you won't even try.
Then those of us who want to use modern phones would face inconvenience whenever we're a passenger in a vehicle...
While those who want to use their mobile while driving would either acquire a crack for the system, or simply use an older phone.
Net effect, inconvenience all round, but more of it for the law abiding... No less carnage on the roads.
And just how dangerous is using a GPS vs using a map while driving? Both of them distract you, but i would argue a GPS less so because it generally has spoken instructions so you don't need to take your eyes off the road.
Similarly, a hands free phone is not really any more dangerous than talking to a passenger.
Some stop signs make sense, many do not (ie you have perfect visibility of the road and no reason to come to a stop which just wastes time and fuel)...
And no, mild fines for disobeying traffic laws doesn't seem to do anything, people still disobey laws on a regular basis. Having fines which are the same for everyone just penalises the poor... Do you really think a guy driving a $500k supercar is going to care about a $50 fine? That's just a trivial addition to the cost of driving for him, on top of the huge sums he already pays for insurance and gas.
On the other hand, someone who can barely afford a car but needs one for work might consider a $50 fine very painful.
Easy, just use my patented DPUTFP method.
Don't Pick Up The Fucking Phone.
But being patented, we dare not use it for fear of being sued!
And those built in GPS maps are usually located in the center console, where the passenger could use them too... When i have passengers i typically ask them to program the GPS if we need to make changes mid route anyway.
And any system that tries to detect motion is going to be a pain in the ass for anyone who is a passenger in any vehicle...
Which is why open standards are so important...
It works for browsing and email simply because there are standards in those fields. The only reason it may not work in other areas is due to a lack of standards, and that's what needs to be fixed not trying to paper over the cracks with "certified" devices.
Well the risks are that the device is not under your control, so you cannot wipe it etc...
Data can be stolen from a company supplied device, and malware can be put onto one just as easily.
On the other hand, a bunch of isolated android devices will be far less susceptible to malware than a bunch of windows boxes which have common access credentials.
A lot of BYOD offices still provide desktop computers, but want to cut back on the cost of providing cellphones...
With these docks, you could provide a single device that serves both functions, thus mitigating the risks of BYOD and reducing costs at the same time.
As for the security aspect, a bunch of separate android running devices would be a considerably harder target to attack than a stack of windows workstations which are joined to a domain.
Yeah but this isn't OS X or Windows.
No, it's a more expensive product so you'd expect to get what you paid for... Windows and OSX are fairly polished products that will install easily on supported hardware, will support the full functionality of that hardware and have a good selection of third party software available.
What you actually get with morphos is a system that is only partially functional on most of the hardware it supports and has a pretty poor selection of available applications.
Fuck your business model. The OS has been made for over 10 years. The developers try to earn something from it. Why should they give it away? That's a poor business model if anything.
You don't earn money from a niche os, you develop it as a hobby or not at all. Sure you might get a small core of people who pay for it, just like theres a small core of people who regularly donate to projects like AROS, Syllable, *BSD etc... But by having a high barrier to entry you severely discourage potential hobbyists from taking up the platform. So with new users few and far between, and old users gradually dropping off, the platform dies.
Put simply, a niche platform targeted at hobbyists is not commercially viable. Niche platforms are only viable when you occupy a niche that is essential to some businesses, and can force them to pay top price. I doubt there are any business users out there who depend on morphos.
If you want to get a "somewhat modern Amiga" being able to buy Windows for say 99 dollar doesn't help much does it?
A $99 copy of windows on virtually any hardware made in the last 10 years (that people are throwing out and can be obtained for close to free) will run WinUAE just fine.
Or you could run AROS...
It runs on considerably more powerful hardware than morphos, some of which is actually modern and available to buy new right now.
Like morphos, it is lacking in some areas... But considering it costs you nothing, this is forgiveable (and you are invited to help fix the areas that are lacking)... If you ultimately find that it doesn't suit your needs then you can simply delete it, nothing lost.
Yes. Probably. Because Linux has never booted a system before and lacked some functionality? Or the BSDs? Or Solaris on x86? Or an OS X hack?
Noone is asking 111 euros for a semi functional version of linux or bsd... And if they did, noone would pay.
An OSX hack is just that, a hack, its not running on officially supported hardware so you're on your own.
If you're going to charge money for something, you have to offer something worthwhile that's not available more cheaply elsewhere. As i understand it, the key selling point of amigaos like systems is speed, but what good is a fast os running on antiquated hardware? You might as well use modern hardware with slower software to achieve the same end result.
Yes, if it was free or at least very cheap people might consider using it, but at 111 euros? That's more than the price of OSX or many versions of Windows...
And being such a niche product, i doubt it will even tempt anyone to release a cracked version.
Creating a niche OS that only runs on obsolete hardware, and costs more than that hardware itself does? That seems to be an extremely poor business model...
If it was free or dirt cheap, people might be tempted in it to breathe new life into old hardware... But at that price, you might as well just buy some newer more capable hardware.
As for the lack of wireless support, the changelog for 3.0 cites one of the biggest new features as "PowerBook support for 1.67GHz models"... So a laptop with built in wifi, but you can't use wireless on it?
Exactly, you hit the nail right on the head there...
Media is marketed in such a way so as to put a lot of pressure on people to watch it, and make them feel bad if they haven't seen it while all their friends have. People who have not seen the latest shows are stigmatised as being "out of touch".
If you do this, and then don't provide a method by which people can actually buy the content, then they will have no recourse but to pirate it.
It's also now common to have friends in different countries, thanks to the internet... So the old model of releasing content significantly later in different countries becomes extremely damaging too... When participating in multinational forums on the internet, you are considered to be behind the times, from a backwater and looked down upon if you have to wait 6 months to see the shows everyone else is watching.
I never said it was, I said Hitler would have been proud of a system which discriminates against others for arbitrary reasons such as country, which he would have.
I'm sure if Hitler were in power today, or if he was running a media company he would take every step he could to ensure that those of us living outside of Germany were unable to access his content.
"The video you have requested is not available for your geographic region"...
In other words they discriminate against me because i'm an inferior foreigner in their eyes. Hitler would have been proud.
Because the pirate versions are better, more convenient and more flexible.
If legitimate copies were available to download in drm-free form then a lot less people would pirate, however when all the legitimate versions are drm encumbered with all manner of ridiculous restrictions the pirate copies look very attractive.
There's still plenty of reasons the pirate version is more desirable than the network tv version...
Canadian tv might carry the show at the same time or soon after wherever the show airs first, in many countries however we have to wait weeks or months after a show is broadcast elsewhere.
Even if they do put it online, its usually via a proprietary streaming service, which is no good for people like me who have bandwidth caps during the day (unlimited late at night - but who wants to watch tv at 3am?), or for people who want to download it to transfer to a portable device and watch on the move, also many of those services require silverlight which isn't usable on linux, and those that require flash aren't usable on more niche platforms than linux. streaming services are also poor quality on slow/congested connections, and connections tend to be most congested at the times people want to watch tv... on a slow line i can download over night and have it ready for me in the morning.
Pirate versions are commercial free.
The network provided dvr devices tend to be very inflexible, and usually wont let you copy the media off onto another device for instance.
What you would find, is that all the mass market shows would condense onto a small number of channels, and any niche programming would simply be cut entirely. Do you really want to see non stop reality shows on 10 channels, with nothing else available to watch?
Incidentally, many people in the uk live in residences which do not permit the installation of satellite dishes, and thus CANNOT get sky, and therefore cannot legally watch game of thrones irrespective of how much they are willing to pay.
There are people in other countries in a similar boat...
For many people, piracy is the only option available to them at all.
The shape of the air is an obvious development as the components get smaller... There are several wedge shaped laptops (and indeed wedge shaped non laptop computers like the C64)... Creating a smaller, thinner wedge was obvious and was bound to happen sooner or later.
Most progress is not made by totally new and innovative products, but by "standing on the shoulders of giants"... That is, a product which is mostly a copy of a previous one, but with a few improvements here and there.
Developing something new from scratch is time consuming and costly, especially when you have to work around huge numbers of patents... Also if a product is too different to existing ones, users will often reject it because it's too unfamiliar.
Plenty of beneficial works were made before the days of patents or copyrights, and there's no reason to believe they wouldn't do so again were these schemes abolished. People create works for all kinds of reasons, not everyone is purely motivated by profit and greed...
On balance, the current patent/copyright laws do far more to stifle innovation than to promote it.. You have products which are crippled to avoid patents, people afraid to release (or even start developing) products for fear of being sued, works still in copyright when the original author is long dead (many of which will be totally forgotten and/or lost by the time copyright expires) etc etc...
Both copyright and patents were meant to be a compromise between the ability for creators of such works to profit, and the benefit of society as a whole... The current systems however are so distorted and corrupt that they are generally entirely detrimental to society and often to the creators of the works too.
For-profit also causes innovations to be stifled, why release a new (expensive, requiring retooling etc) product, when you can continue selling your existing one?