Actually, it has yet to be established that these systems would require any less tending than their pure Unix counterparts. Everyone is merely assuming that this is the case because we're talking about Apple.
As you point out Apple's reputation for ease-of-use alone would make that a selling point even if it wasn't true in this case. Fortunately Mac OS X server is very "user friendly" even a school administrator or graphic designer with no UNIX expertise could set up and administer this machine. That is not to say that there aren't other easy-to-use servers, I'm sure there are (though I bet they don't support Macintosh clients as well). Apple has done a good job, I doubt they will take the server market by storm - but they will do a decent business selling to their target market and picking up a some extra sales and revenue from a market that was formerly completely closed to them.
I'm serious - why would anyone buy this instead of cheaper x86-based racks servers? I don't understand...
Actually I think there are a couple of points which your own post illustrates:
There are proven server OS's for x86, i.e. Linux, FreeBSD, WindowsAS, BSDI,
Each of which requires a propeller head to set up and maintain. The mac server's selling point will be ease of use. SInce they are (initially) targetting the server needs of their own installed base (education, design, etc.) they are also selling familialarity. Powerful UNIX server, no UNIX guru - that should save you a little money right there.
Apple has no track record in this domain
Another way of saying this is that they are entering a whole new market (read: whole new revenue stream) with a minimal investment. A side benefit of moving to a UNIX underpining for their consumer desktop OS is that they essentially got a respectible server OS with all that top-notch UNIX server software for "free." Why not take advantage of that? Even if they only see very modest success breaking into this market, every sale will be one they didn't even have a chance at before & will increase their potential revenues in a way that selling upgrades to their existing user base doesn't.
I know this seems to contradict a portion of my first point (that they are targeting the server needs of their existing user base) But, those server needs would have been met by a Windows or UNIX server (imperfectly I might add - those damn "apple doubles" can be a pain) Now those needs will be better and more easily met by an OS X server, the shop or school is now "all mac" and Apple makes a sale it had no chance at before.
All excellent advise, BUT, as one of the people at the hearing noted, Parents are simply NOT able to monitor their kids 100% of the time - and it is too bad that the larger environment makes such draconian monitoring necessary.
There was a time when the larger culture largely supported parents in their goal of protecting their children - sadly that is no longer the case. Now, I understand that "protecting the children" can be disengenuisly used to advance all sorts of limitations of our freedoms BUT that does not necessarily mean that it is therefore NEVER a desireable goal of the larger society beyond the bounds of the nuclear family. Frankly (and I'm sure I'll get flamed for this) I don't see how some of the measures often decried on this board as outrageous violations of free speech actually merit such outrage. Free speech has never in the past meant that all speech was allowed in all forums. It has always been and still is illegal to show hardcore porn on broadcast TV, and all but the most insanely dogmatic would probably concede that an airing of "Barney" should not suddenly be interupted by a flashing images from goat.cx. If we are capable of making such a distinction in that case then surely we are capable of making similar distinctions in similar cases.
What the debate is about is whether or not it is a "free software" licence.
Actually that's basically the way I see it as well. But there are a lot of people on/. that conflate the terms "open source" and "free software" and I left it up to the reader to decide whether releasing code under the APSL constituted "giving back to the community".
What projects do they contribute open source code to ?
All ive heard is that they use *bsd code, do they improve and contribute the code upstream ?
From what I have heard YES, apple has contributed code back to the projects they have used: gcc, apache, perl, freebsd, mysql, emacs, openssh etc.
Then of course there are their own projects that have been released under the APSL. There is a lot of debate about whether this license is "open source" or not. Whatever your opinion on it they have used it to release the Darwin OS, the Darwin Streaming Server (for streaming Quicktime content) OpenPlay (a network abstraction layer based on Apple's old NetSprockets technology) and HeaderDoc (A tool for generating HTML reference documentation from comments in C, C++ and Objective-C header files..)
I can agree with your point that Apple has seems a bit more agressive. But protesting the "give the kiddies windows" wasn't aggression - it was self defense.
You have to admire Microsofts chutzpah. Their proposal to settle the monopoly case was to give away their software (aka dumping) to the one market segment where they have a viable competitor.
.Since... OS X is not supported on any of the beige Macs,
Umm... I believe my biege G3 is still officially supported. Unfortunately it uses ADB ports rather than USB so my Wacom tablet doesn't work on X, but everything else seems to work fine.
It is really a shame, especially when Shake was becoming so common and was really kicking butt on the Linux side. It seems that Apple has signed the death warrant for serious compositing in Shake and now we are just left with iShake for Final Cut Pro enthusiasts.
I'm curious, how do you think FinalCut Pro would be recieved by the lower-end more budget conscious segment of the market if a substantial portion of shakes functionality was folded into it? Or perhaps as (relatively) inexpensive expansion module/plug-in for FinalCut Pro?
The statement that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer is about the trends in wealth distribution towards fewer, wealthier people and more, poorer people.
To be fair to the original poster. While a reasonably sophisticated person understands this there are MANY more unsophisticated people that really do believe that in order for one person to have more money someone else must have less.
Was Apple innovative? Incontrovertably yes. Are they STILL innovative - that's a little more problematic. They still make their own OS but they are using a lot over other peoples innovations either by buying them (NeXT, FinalCut Pro, iTunes, Nothing Real (curious to see what that little purchase is about)) or getting them for free (Mach, BSD).To be fair when they bought some of those innovations they also "bought" the innovators (Even in the case of BSD where they didn't have to, Jordan Hubbard is an Apple employee now.)
In the past Apple did "innovate" and even "invent" a lot of things. Unfortunately that also led them to have a vicious "not-invented-here" syndrome which caused them to always be non-standard in lots of ways which weren't necessary. They used their own technologies for almost everything - FireWire, NuBus, ADB (That's APPLE desktop bus) of course the MacOS, ColorSync, AppleScript, AppleTalk, MacSpeech, OpenDoc, QuickTime etc. etc. etc. They can even claim a little credit for the PowerPC chip - back when it was being developed the AIM alliance (Apple, IBM and Motorola) maintained a joint R&D lab - and yes some of the engineers & scientists were and a fair amount of the money came from Apple. A lot of primary computer science research on all sorts of things was done by Apple's Advanced Technology Group (ATG). In the personal computer industry Apple has been the first or among the first during every major development: first GUI on a PC, first PDA, first(? - or at least among the first) consumer digital cameras, first OS with system wide color management, First UNIX my granny can use. etc. etc. etc.
Sadly Apple has changed, The ATG is history, Fundamental research has given way to R&D that had better be in a money making product in short order. Industry standard technologies (PCI, USB etc) are "good enough" and Apple has stopped trying to invent their own superior version or choosing superior non-standard technologies (like when they standardised on SCSI when everyone else went with the cheaper option)
Happily Apple has changed. The not-invented-here syndrome is history. R&D money is spent more wisely and profitably. Industry standard technologies are good enough and Apple has stopped wasting time and money and ensuring their incompatiblity with everyone else by inventing their own expansion busses and connections or always choosing the better but less common standard.
I suspect that Granny hasn't a prayer of installing OSX, either
Umm... Unless Granny has Alzheimers she should be OK. 1) Insert CD. 2) Double click "instal MacOS X" 3) wait (a while) for progress bar. Congratulations OS X is installed - though you may still need to answer some questions to get your internet connection working.
IIRC the Chinese tried to claim Taiwan was Chinese property a few years ago,
The Chinese have *always* claimed to own Tiawan, and the Tiawanese for that matter claim to own China. This 50 year old conflict has a very real potential to boil over into a real shooting war and if it does we would very likely get involved. The CIA is warning that when/if that happens the Chinese are planning a cyber attack as one element of their battle plan.
Do the Chinese really want to pick a fight with a country that is fairly internet-dependent and risk starting World War 3 and in the process getting nuked into oblivion?
No, but it is not hard to imagine a scenario where they did. And it is unlikely that we would use nukes since China is perfectly capable of retaliating in kind. (thanks to US aerospace companies)
Re:Well beyond copyright law
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GPL's Strength
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In both GPL'd and proprietary software you don't have the right to distribute copyrighted material without a license under copyright law
Yes, the "L" in GPL stands for license, and under that license you now CAN distribute the copyrighted material if you agree to a few conditions.
The GPL adds the requirement that you must license you source under the GPL which also not part of copyright law and in fact takes away a right (keeping your own source code private) that you would otherwise have were it not for the GPL.
The GPL does not ADD a requirement to a right you would otherwise have (absent the agreement). It has a requirement you must comply with if you want to exercise a RIGHT you DIDN'T have but the license is granting to you.
"Your" source is only affected if it is derived from the copyrighted material (and thus it's not really "your" work). I can't go buy the latest Grisham novel, change the ending and then sell "my novel", or even give it away for free - UNLESS Grisham grants me a license to do so. GPL works exactly like that - you can "change the ending of the novel" as long as the novel (now with your new ending) is still covered by the same licensing terms.
The conditions in the GPL are only in effect if you are excersising a right YOU DIDN"T HAVE without agreeing to the GPL. Most EULA's add conditions that you must agree to that take away rights you would have had if you had simply purchased the software WITHOUT the EULA. Take your example of reverse engineering - it was perfectly legal to do to a copyrighted piece of software that you had boght and your right to do if you so desired.
I don't have a problem with any agreements/contracts etc. making any terms whatsoever. If two parties voluntarily want to enter an agreement that says "in order to buy this software you must shave your head and bark like a dog at at the checkout counter" That is between the buyer and the seller and really none of my business. If you click a button that says "I Agree" when you don't - that is your problem. I was simply pointing out that it seems an agreement where you are being GRANTED rights (under certain conditions) that you wouldn't otherwise have, is in an inately stronger position than an agreement that RESTRICTS rights you would have had absent the agreement.
On the otherer hand, if they launch a few pounds of gravel into space before the nuclear attack
Two points, 1) It's much more complex than simply launching gravel. 2) I would imagine that a space based weapon designed to shoot down missles would have a pretty obvious defense against a missile full of gravel.
And who, in this modern world, is truly liable to launch "a few" nukes at the US??
China, North Korea and Iran. It is depresingly easy to imagine a war between North and South Korea or between China and Tiawan where we face the real possiblity of a nuclear attack against the mainland US (China has implied EXACTLY that threat "Americans care more about Los Angeles than they do Tai Pei." - Lt. Gen. Xiong Guang Kai). You should perhaps take China of the list though because though they only have "a few" ICBM's capable of hitting us now they are already working to change that to "a lot". North Korea and Iran on the other hand will probably never have the capablity to have a very large number of nukes or ICBM's to deliver them so they would remain liable to launch "a few".
Countries less likely to attack us but capable of it (in the future) are Pakistan and India. Like N. Korea and Iran they are countries that are unlikely to ever have huge arsenals of ICBM's capable of reaching us but are likely in the future to have "a few". I can't come up with a scenario where India is a threat but Pakistan is not the most stable country and a takeover by radical islamists is not very far-fetched.
All that being said it is impossible to predict what the next several decades hold. History has not stopped: there will still be wars, revolutions, coups, dictators even the occasional insane demogogue. We don't really know who is "liable" to launch a few nukes at us but the list of who *could* keeps getting longer.
Re:Well beyond copyright law
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The author doesn't offer any precedents that show that a court is more likely to enforce a license because it is less restrictive than other licenses.
Your missing the point. It doesn't have anything to do with whether the terms are more or less restrictive. It has to whether the rights are being granted or denied and therefore where the burden of proof lies.
In most EULA's legal rights that you would otherwise have are being taken away by the agreement. The burden of proof is on the software maker to PROVE that you are bound by an agreement taking those rights away.
In the GPL you are being GIVEN a right YOU DIDN"T HAVE AT ALL without the agreement. In a dispute the burden of proof is on YOU to prove that you have been granted rights that you wouldn't have if you didn't agree to the terms.
(b) provide for an adult-only domain such as.prn where all non-child-safe sites (pr0n, hate speech, etc.) would be relegated--the sites would have to give up their.com/.org/.net domains they own today. The first part makes sense, but the second clearly treads on free speech to some extent
Exactly *how* does this tread on free speech? They are not outlawing such "speech" they are saying that such speech would have to reside in it's own tld. Just like in the real world such "speech" is limited to property in certain zones and kept off of broadcast TV., or how some people want spam to have "ADV" in the subject line or want it to be illegal to anonymously criticise your congressman for a number of days prior to an election (which considering the intent of the first ammendment seems a rather more obvious violation of its principles).
I suppose the fear is that this opens up the possibility that corporate and home filtering software would actually work. But the person paying the bills in each of those cases is the one doing the "censoring" If you want to look at Pr0n do it at home, buy your own internet access, or move out of your parents house.
Dune is an epic multi-book novel, with huge backstory, and a huge amout of people who have put time and effort into figuring out cosutmes and sets
Umm.... while I woudn't put the Myst novels on the same literary level as Dune the books weren't that bad and described an interesting alternate reality with a lot of potential.The backstory is pretty complex. As for costume and set design Myst is well ahead of the game since one of it's primary creators is a visual artist and it was originally concieved in a visual medium; which like the original Dune movie will be a rich resource to draw material and ideas from.
In some ways this project may have MORE potential to be a good miniseries than Dune. Dune, even more than most books, was too complex to be reduced to a movie, or even a miniseries. The result when you DO turn such a novel into a movie is that even if it is a decent movie on it's own merits it will always suffer in comparison to the book which will always have more depth. On the other hand most video games have the opposite problem - no depth or plot at all. On the gripping hand Myst has the depth, plot, and complex backstory that video games lack. And the story isn't tied to one particular canonical narrative like you have with a novel. They will be able to adapt the story to the medium of film rather than be forced into the kind of compromises you usually see going from a novel to a film.
Actually Dell does have a combo DVD+RW/CD-RW for $429. Of course adding it STILL throws this guys numbers off.
The PowerMac also comes with a Nvidia GeForce4 MX while the stock Dell he is comparing it too has a GeForce2. I really don't know much about graphics cards so when I tried to recreate his comparison I upgraded them both to a GeForce4 Titanium which cut down the price difference some more. You also have to add the Dell movie studio package to get the FireWire ports that are standard on the Mac.
The Mac also has Gigabit ethernet which isn't an option on the Dell. Not quite sure what the value of Apple's built in ethernet card is.
The Dell has a "faster" (as in more Mhz) chip but the actual performance difference probably depends on what you are doing with it. From what I have seen it seems intel's clock speed advantage translates into a real performance advangtage but Altavec MORE than makes up for it when it can be used. So in general computing the Wintel machine wins; in mutlimedia stuff the Mac wins. In my own use mulitimedia tasks are the only processor intensive stuff I do. I will notice a perfomance advantage in FinalCut Pro but not in my wordprocessor.
Comparing the bundled software is difficult because the bundles are so different. The Dell comes with more productivity stuff; the Mac with multimedia and of course the DevTools CD. Overall, I think the Mac software bundle probably has a pretty significant edge in both quantity and quality.
Still trying to match up bullet points on spec sheets item for item, the Dell is still significantly cheaper.
Of course industrial design, the relative quality of the components and engineering don't show up on a bare spec sheet nor does even more intangible elements like "ease of use" and the like. The consensus opinion seems to be that in quality of engineering and in the attention to "intagibles" the Mac again has a significant edge. Is it worth the price premium? I guess that is for consumers to decide.
You're mixing different classes of intellectual property.
I realise this - and I am not arguing against the reform of abuses. I AM arguing against an ignorant dogmatism that believes you "cannot own information or ideas". Of course you can own ideas!! Indeed they are more securely owned than real property since someone can by stealth or force TAKE my real property. But my "intellectual property" is secure against everything short of torture (and even that isn't guaranteed to work.) You can't get the contents of my mind. It can only be acquired from me when I by my own decision express it in some way. I may be able to profit from it without any external expression or that expression can be guarded or kept secret to secure for myself its benefits. The concept of intellectual property ENCOURAGES me to SHARE and be OPEN with ideas and information that otherwise would be kept to myself.
That being said: Copyright extensions are ridiculously long. Patents are being granted when they shouldn't. In both cases the system is being abused and manipulated. That is an argument for reform for how intellectual property is implemented not and argument against intellectual property as a concept - which is the sentiment (I hesitate to elevate it by calling it 'thought') I am arguing against.
As for licenses: If you don't like the terms of the license don't agree to it. If you DIND"T READ THE LICENSE and later decide you don't like it TOUGH! If they refuse to meet your terms TOUGH! - find someone who will or write your own software. You have no right to compel someone else to give you what they created. As for promises they may not promise that their software will meet your every expectation but they do promise that you can use it - AND YOU DO! They have met their side of the bargain - why do you complain about having to meet your side! On those occasions where they lie it's not that it "could be considered fraud" IT IS FRAUD! Sue them. If you can't then you probably weren't promised what you say you were promised. If you want guarantees you can get them - they just cost more - AND THAT COST IS FAIR, it reflects the added work and financial risk such a guarantee requires. GPL software often makes the same "pseudo promises" the description of the programs says it "WILL do such and so" it's developers say it's "better than commercial product X". But the license, just like most commercial licenses (unless you are paying for a warrantee) very specifically declaims in all caps so you know they're shouting:
"...THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER
EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE
PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY
SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION."
from the GPL
It's that everybody shares for the good of the people or the community. Hence communism.
Um yes... But again the state is not "getting the hell out" but making sure that everybody shares for the good of the community. Hence communism.
The ideal communism is closer to some of the highly socialized democracies found in northern europe, than to the Cold War communisms.
For the sake of argument I'll grant this (for now). You again underline the original posters confusion on the nature of communism. Northern European states are NOT characterised by states that "get the hell out" but by states that are very active in regulating commerce and individual resources. They have a high percentage of state ownership of resources, high tax rates, and a high degree of regulation over private commercial activity. BUT although these countries are socialist to a significant degree they are not actually communist.
In both of these statements of yours you are either confused about communism yourself or soft-pedaling it's distinctive characteristics. It is not a merely a matter of sharing but of outright public ownership: "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." and state control (which is what we are talking about): "The proletariat will use its political supremacy top wrest, by
degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all
instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the
proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the
total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by
means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the
conditions of bourgeois production..." Nothing about the "state getting the hell out" to be found here. The northern european states exhibit SOME communist distinctives they fail to exhibit others: They still have private land ownership. have rights of inheritance, private banks & financial institutions. I would imagine that Marx would label them examples of Bourgeois Socialsim rather than explicitly communist.
Should the exotic car dealer be allowed to forbid you from loaning your Ferrari to a friend... If the exotic car dealer has no rights once the car has left his possession, how can a software author?
Yes, I believe you should be allowed to loan your Ferrari to a friend. Which answers your second question. Let me ask a couple of questions myself to elaborate: If you loan your Ferrari to your friend, does he now own it? Do you have any rights once the car has left YOUR possession? Yes you do! You own the car, your friend is merely borrowing it. What if he (to overcome your apparent scepticism) offered to give you money in return for borrowing the car for the evening? Now after paying that money does he now OWN the car? Do you have any rights once the car has left your possession (supposedly just for the evening)? Or is he merely renting the USE of the car under conditions you both agreed to?
Well this is EXACTLY the case with most software you "buy" - you do NOT really buy it, you license it. The software owner is renting to you the use of the software he owns under conditions that he sets and you agree to. Whether the condition is money and limits on your use or the conditions of the GPL (notice that the "L" stands for "license") it is the same thing - he OWNS it and you LICENSE IT. Read your EULA or the GPL - the software writer is retaining ownership and you are agreeing to his terms. You do not have the rights of a new owner driving his Ferrari off the lot - you have the rights of your friend borrowing the car for the night!
As for the moral legitimacy of "intellectual property" yes, to a degree it is a legal fiction. But it also has a firm basis in reality. In a very obvious and incontrovertible way I "own" any unique ideas or thoughts in my head. You are completely incapable of possessing them in any way unless I make them available in a way you can access them. If in the case of software if I choose to only make them available to you as a service on a secure server or a binary with extreme copy protections then that is the only access you CAN have to them.
On one hand intellectual property laws were developed to encourage MORE openness for ideas that were easily profited from even when kept secret which is generally the case with software (the other reason for intellectual property is to secure profit and motivation for creators that can't profit from their creations unless they are made publically availabe - like authors, musicians etc.) For instance: The inventor of an industrial process could keep that invention secret and profit by his unique knowledge indefinitely. A concrete example of this is the Zildjian family's secret metalurgical processes which they have successfully kept secret unpatented and profited from for centuries. Prior to the much maligned concepts of "intellectual property" inventors were obsessed with secrecy. Inventions sometimes died with their creators, businesses where hobbled by the paramount need for secrecy, if the secret came out the inventor could be financially ruined. Patent law solved the problem - ideas could be owned in a legally protected way. The inventor recieved the protection of the law and in return for publically disclosing his invention and giving up ownership after a set number of years.
BUT, those rights include the rights of each of us to make whatever private agreements between each other that we want. Let me ask you: do you have a right to rent your car to someone? Do you have the right to lend someone your car for a limited time and with conditions that they agree to? When you "buy" most software you are actually licensing something that belongs to someone else. You are renting the software and have VOLUNTARILY agreed to their terms. If you don't like the terms don't license that software! If you want to really own the software either truly buy it (rather than license the right from the owner to use it), find someone who is giving it away (GPL doesn't count - see the note below), or write it yourself.
Note: you do not OWN GPL software either - The "L" stands for license, exactly like commercial software - he owns to software which he licenses to you and you voluntarily agree to HIS CONDITIONS. You do NOT own it, he retains all the rights of owning his intellectual property and if you do not abide by the terms of your agreement he will attempt to compel you to do so through the governments recognition of his rights of his ownership of his intellectual property.
I think what the origninal poster was talking about was simple Cocoa GUI's to common command line utilities. There are alot of these around but they are - and this is whats ridiculous - SHAREWARE. These guys do a brain dead simple GUI (a few hours of work at most) for some pre-existing (and often already installed) utility, and they want to sell it to you. Hey, if they are the only ones that go to the (limited) bother - fine. But I'm sure there are some open-source programmers that could take a day or two (mostly learning about ProjectBuilder and Cocoa) and just do it.
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Actually, it has yet to be established that these systems would require any less tending than their pure Unix counterparts. Everyone is merely assuming that this is the case because we're talking about Apple.
As you point out Apple's reputation for ease-of-use alone would make that a selling point even if it wasn't true in this case. Fortunately Mac OS X server is very "user friendly" even a school administrator or graphic designer with no UNIX expertise could set up and administer this machine. That is not to say that there aren't other easy-to-use servers, I'm sure there are (though I bet they don't support Macintosh clients as well). Apple has done a good job, I doubt they will take the server market by storm - but they will do a decent business selling to their target market and picking up a some extra sales and revenue from a market that was formerly completely closed to them.
I'm serious - why would anyone buy this instead of cheaper x86-based racks servers? I don't understand...
Actually I think there are a couple of points which your own post illustrates:
There are proven server OS's for x86, i.e. Linux, FreeBSD, WindowsAS, BSDI,
Each of which requires a propeller head to set up and maintain. The mac server's selling point will be ease of use. SInce they are (initially) targetting the server needs of their own installed base (education, design, etc.) they are also selling familialarity. Powerful UNIX server, no UNIX guru - that should save you a little money right there.
Apple has no track record in this domain
Another way of saying this is that they are entering a whole new market (read: whole new revenue stream) with a minimal investment. A side benefit of moving to a UNIX underpining for their consumer desktop OS is that they essentially got a respectible server OS with all that top-notch UNIX server software for "free." Why not take advantage of that? Even if they only see very modest success breaking into this market, every sale will be one they didn't even have a chance at before & will increase their potential revenues in a way that selling upgrades to their existing user base doesn't.
I know this seems to contradict a portion of my first point (that they are targeting the server needs of their existing user base) But, those server needs would have been met by a Windows or UNIX server (imperfectly I might add - those damn "apple doubles" can be a pain) Now those needs will be better and more easily met by an OS X server, the shop or school is now "all mac" and Apple makes a sale it had no chance at before.
All excellent advise, BUT, as one of the people at the hearing noted, Parents are simply NOT able to monitor their kids 100% of the time - and it is too bad that the larger environment makes such draconian monitoring necessary.
There was a time when the larger culture largely supported parents in their goal of protecting their children - sadly that is no longer the case. Now, I understand that "protecting the children" can be disengenuisly used to advance all sorts of limitations of our freedoms BUT that does not necessarily mean that it is therefore NEVER a desireable goal of the larger society beyond the bounds of the nuclear family. Frankly (and I'm sure I'll get flamed for this) I don't see how some of the measures often decried on this board as outrageous violations of free speech actually merit such outrage. Free speech has never in the past meant that all speech was allowed in all forums. It has always been and still is illegal to show hardcore porn on broadcast TV, and all but the most insanely dogmatic would probably concede that an airing of "Barney" should not suddenly be interupted by a flashing images from goat.cx. If we are capable of making such a distinction in that case then surely we are capable of making similar distinctions in similar cases.
What the debate is about is whether or not it is a "free software" licence.
/. that conflate the terms "open source" and "free software" and I left it up to the reader to decide whether releasing code under the APSL constituted "giving back to the community".
Actually that's basically the way I see it as well. But there are a lot of people on
What projects do they contribute open source code to ?
All ive heard is that they use *bsd code, do they improve and contribute the code upstream ?
From what I have heard YES, apple has contributed code back to the projects they have used: gcc, apache, perl, freebsd, mysql, emacs, openssh etc.
Then of course there are their own projects that have been released under the APSL. There is a lot of debate about whether this license is "open source" or not. Whatever your opinion on it they have used it to release the Darwin OS, the Darwin Streaming Server (for streaming Quicktime content) OpenPlay (a network abstraction layer based on Apple's old NetSprockets technology) and HeaderDoc (A tool for generating HTML reference documentation from comments in C, C++ and Objective-C header files..)
(yes I know you can plug a three button mouse into a MAC, try using right click to bring up context sensitive menus.)
OK tried it... Works fine... your point?
I can agree with your point that Apple has seems a bit more agressive. But protesting the "give the kiddies windows" wasn't aggression - it was self defense.
You have to admire Microsofts chutzpah. Their proposal to settle the monopoly case was to give away their software (aka dumping) to the one market segment where they have a viable competitor.
.Since... OS X is not supported on any of the beige Macs,
Umm... I believe my biege G3 is still officially supported. Unfortunately it uses ADB ports rather than USB so my Wacom tablet doesn't work on X, but everything else seems to work fine.
It is really a shame, especially when Shake was becoming so common and was really kicking butt on the Linux side. It seems that Apple has signed the death warrant for serious compositing in Shake and now we are just left with iShake for Final Cut Pro enthusiasts.
I'm curious, how do you think FinalCut Pro would be recieved by the lower-end more budget conscious segment of the market if a substantial portion of shakes functionality was folded into it? Or perhaps as (relatively) inexpensive expansion module/plug-in for FinalCut Pro?
The statement that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer is about the trends in wealth distribution towards fewer, wealthier people and more, poorer people.
To be fair to the original poster. While a reasonably sophisticated person understands this there are MANY more unsophisticated people that really do believe that in order for one person to have more money someone else must have less.
Really? Did they "innovate" the PCI bus and BSD?
.To be fair when they bought some of those innovations they also "bought" the innovators (Even in the case of BSD where they didn't have to, Jordan Hubbard is an Apple employee now.)
Was Apple innovative? Incontrovertably yes. Are they STILL innovative - that's a little more problematic. They still make their own OS but they are using a lot over other peoples innovations either by buying them (NeXT, FinalCut Pro, iTunes, Nothing Real (curious to see what that little purchase is about)) or getting them for free (Mach, BSD)
In the past Apple did "innovate" and even "invent" a lot of things. Unfortunately that also led them to have a vicious "not-invented-here" syndrome which caused them to always be non-standard in lots of ways which weren't necessary. They used their own technologies for almost everything - FireWire, NuBus, ADB (That's APPLE desktop bus) of course the MacOS, ColorSync, AppleScript, AppleTalk, MacSpeech, OpenDoc, QuickTime etc. etc. etc. They can even claim a little credit for the PowerPC chip - back when it was being developed the AIM alliance (Apple, IBM and Motorola) maintained a joint R&D lab - and yes some of the engineers & scientists were and a fair amount of the money came from Apple. A lot of primary computer science research on all sorts of things was done by Apple's Advanced Technology Group (ATG). In the personal computer industry Apple has been the first or among the first during every major development: first GUI on a PC, first PDA, first(? - or at least among the first) consumer digital cameras, first OS with system wide color management, First UNIX my granny can use. etc. etc. etc.
Sadly Apple has changed, The ATG is history, Fundamental research has given way to R&D that had better be in a money making product in short order. Industry standard technologies (PCI, USB etc) are "good enough" and Apple has stopped trying to invent their own superior version or choosing superior non-standard technologies (like when they standardised on SCSI when everyone else went with the cheaper option)
Happily Apple has changed. The not-invented-here syndrome is history. R&D money is spent more wisely and profitably. Industry standard technologies are good enough and Apple has stopped wasting time and money and ensuring their incompatiblity with everyone else by inventing their own expansion busses and connections or always choosing the better but less common standard.
I suspect that Granny hasn't a prayer of installing OSX, either
Umm... Unless Granny has Alzheimers she should be OK. 1) Insert CD. 2) Double click "instal MacOS X" 3) wait (a while) for progress bar. Congratulations OS X is installed - though you may still need to answer some questions to get your internet connection working.
IIRC the Chinese tried to claim Taiwan was Chinese property a few years ago,
The Chinese have *always* claimed to own Tiawan, and the Tiawanese for that matter claim to own China. This 50 year old conflict has a very real potential to boil over into a real shooting war and if it does we would very likely get involved. The CIA is warning that when/if that happens the Chinese are planning a cyber attack as one element of their battle plan.
Do the Chinese really want to pick a fight with a country that is fairly internet-dependent and risk starting World War 3 and in the process getting nuked into oblivion?
No, but it is not hard to imagine a scenario where they did. And it is unlikely that we would use nukes since China is perfectly capable of retaliating in kind. (thanks to US aerospace companies)
In both GPL'd and proprietary software you don't have the right to distribute copyrighted material without a license under copyright law
Yes, the "L" in GPL stands for license, and under that license you now CAN distribute the copyrighted material if you agree to a few conditions.
The GPL adds the requirement that you must license you source under the GPL which also not part of copyright law and in fact takes away a right (keeping your own source code private) that you would otherwise have were it not for the GPL.
The GPL does not ADD a requirement to a right you would otherwise have (absent the agreement). It has a requirement you must comply with if you want to exercise a RIGHT you DIDN'T have but the license is granting to you.
"Your" source is only affected if it is derived from the copyrighted material (and thus it's not really "your" work). I can't go buy the latest Grisham novel, change the ending and then sell "my novel", or even give it away for free - UNLESS Grisham grants me a license to do so. GPL works exactly like that - you can "change the ending of the novel" as long as the novel (now with your new ending) is still covered by the same licensing terms.
The conditions in the GPL are only in effect if you are excersising a right YOU DIDN"T HAVE without agreeing to the GPL. Most EULA's add conditions that you must agree to that take away rights you would have had if you had simply purchased the software WITHOUT the EULA. Take your example of reverse engineering - it was perfectly legal to do to a copyrighted piece of software that you had boght and your right to do if you so desired.
I don't have a problem with any agreements/contracts etc. making any terms whatsoever. If two parties voluntarily want to enter an agreement that says "in order to buy this software you must shave your head and bark like a dog at at the checkout counter" That is between the buyer and the seller and really none of my business. If you click a button that says "I Agree" when you don't - that is your problem. I was simply pointing out that it seems an agreement where you are being GRANTED rights (under certain conditions) that you wouldn't otherwise have, is in an inately stronger position than an agreement that RESTRICTS rights you would have had absent the agreement.
On the otherer hand, if they launch a few pounds of gravel into space before the nuclear attack
Two points, 1) It's much more complex than simply launching gravel. 2) I would imagine that a space based weapon designed to shoot down missles would have a pretty obvious defense against a missile full of gravel.
And who, in this modern world, is truly liable to launch "a few" nukes at the US??
China, North Korea and Iran. It is depresingly easy to imagine a war between North and South Korea or between China and Tiawan where we face the real possiblity of a nuclear attack against the mainland US (China has implied EXACTLY that threat "Americans care more about Los Angeles than they do Tai Pei." - Lt. Gen. Xiong Guang Kai). You should perhaps take China of the list though because though they only have "a few" ICBM's capable of hitting us now they are already working to change that to "a lot". North Korea and Iran on the other hand will probably never have the capablity to have a very large number of nukes or ICBM's to deliver them so they would remain liable to launch "a few".
Countries less likely to attack us but capable of it (in the future) are Pakistan and India. Like N. Korea and Iran they are countries that are unlikely to ever have huge arsenals of ICBM's capable of reaching us but are likely in the future to have "a few". I can't come up with a scenario where India is a threat but Pakistan is not the most stable country and a takeover by radical islamists is not very far-fetched.
All that being said it is impossible to predict what the next several decades hold. History has not stopped: there will still be wars, revolutions, coups, dictators even the occasional insane demogogue. We don't really know who is "liable" to launch a few nukes at us but the list of who *could* keeps getting longer.
The author doesn't offer any precedents that show that a court is more likely to enforce a license because it is less restrictive than other licenses.
Your missing the point. It doesn't have anything to do with whether the terms are more or less restrictive. It has to whether the rights are being granted or denied and therefore where the burden of proof lies.
In most EULA's legal rights that you would otherwise have are being taken away by the agreement. The burden of proof is on the software maker to PROVE that you are bound by an agreement taking those rights away.
In the GPL you are being GIVEN a right YOU DIDN"T HAVE AT ALL without the agreement. In a dispute the burden of proof is on YOU to prove that you have been granted rights that you wouldn't have if you didn't agree to the terms.
(b) provide for an adult-only domain such as .prn where all non-child-safe sites (pr0n, hate speech, etc.) would be relegated--the sites would have to give up their .com/.org/.net domains they own today. The first part makes sense, but the second clearly treads on free speech to some extent
Exactly *how* does this tread on free speech? They are not outlawing such "speech" they are saying that such speech would have to reside in it's own tld. Just like in the real world such "speech" is limited to property in certain zones and kept off of broadcast TV., or how some people want spam to have "ADV" in the subject line or want it to be illegal to anonymously criticise your congressman for a number of days prior to an election (which considering the intent of the first ammendment seems a rather more obvious violation of its principles).
I suppose the fear is that this opens up the possibility that corporate and home filtering software would actually work. But the person paying the bills in each of those cases is the one doing the "censoring" If you want to look at Pr0n do it at home, buy your own internet access, or move out of your parents house.
Dune is an epic multi-book novel, with huge backstory, and a huge amout of people who have put time and effort into figuring out cosutmes and sets
Umm.... while I woudn't put the Myst novels on the same literary level as Dune the books weren't that bad and described an interesting alternate reality with a lot of potential.The backstory is pretty complex. As for costume and set design Myst is well ahead of the game since one of it's primary creators is a visual artist and it was originally concieved in a visual medium; which like the original Dune movie will be a rich resource to draw material and ideas from.
In some ways this project may have MORE potential to be a good miniseries than Dune. Dune, even more than most books, was too complex to be reduced to a movie, or even a miniseries. The result when you DO turn such a novel into a movie is that even if it is a decent movie on it's own merits it will always suffer in comparison to the book which will always have more depth. On the other hand most video games have the opposite problem - no depth or plot at all. On the gripping hand Myst has the depth, plot, and complex backstory that video games lack. And the story isn't tied to one particular canonical narrative like you have with a novel. They will be able to adapt the story to the medium of film rather than be forced into the kind of compromises you usually see going from a novel to a film.
Actually Dell does have a combo DVD+RW/CD-RW for $429. Of course adding it STILL throws this guys numbers off.
The PowerMac also comes with a Nvidia GeForce4 MX while the stock Dell he is comparing it too has a GeForce2. I really don't know much about graphics cards so when I tried to recreate his comparison I upgraded them both to a GeForce4 Titanium which cut down the price difference some more. You also have to add the Dell movie studio package to get the FireWire ports that are standard on the Mac.
The Mac also has Gigabit ethernet which isn't an option on the Dell. Not quite sure what the value of Apple's built in ethernet card is.
The Dell has a "faster" (as in more Mhz) chip but the actual performance difference probably depends on what you are doing with it. From what I have seen it seems intel's clock speed advantage translates into a real performance advangtage but Altavec MORE than makes up for it when it can be used. So in general computing the Wintel machine wins; in mutlimedia stuff the Mac wins. In my own use mulitimedia tasks are the only processor intensive stuff I do. I will notice a perfomance advantage in FinalCut Pro but not in my wordprocessor.
Comparing the bundled software is difficult because the bundles are so different. The Dell comes with more productivity stuff; the Mac with multimedia and of course the DevTools CD. Overall, I think the Mac software bundle probably has a pretty significant edge in both quantity and quality.
Still trying to match up bullet points on spec sheets item for item, the Dell is still significantly cheaper.
Of course industrial design, the relative quality of the components and engineering don't show up on a bare spec sheet nor does even more intangible elements like "ease of use" and the like. The consensus opinion seems to be that in quality of engineering and in the attention to "intagibles" the Mac again has a significant edge. Is it worth the price premium? I guess that is for consumers to decide.
You're mixing different classes of intellectual property.
I realise this - and I am not arguing against the reform of abuses. I AM arguing against an ignorant dogmatism that believes you "cannot own information or ideas". Of course you can own ideas!! Indeed they are more securely owned than real property since someone can by stealth or force TAKE my real property. But my "intellectual property" is secure against everything short of torture (and even that isn't guaranteed to work.) You can't get the contents of my mind. It can only be acquired from me when I by my own decision express it in some way. I may be able to profit from it without any external expression or that expression can be guarded or kept secret to secure for myself its benefits. The concept of intellectual property ENCOURAGES me to SHARE and be OPEN with ideas and information that otherwise would be kept to myself.
That being said: Copyright extensions are ridiculously long. Patents are being granted when they shouldn't. In both cases the system is being abused and manipulated. That is an argument for reform for how intellectual property is implemented not and argument against intellectual property as a concept - which is the sentiment (I hesitate to elevate it by calling it 'thought') I am arguing against.
As for licenses: If you don't like the terms of the license don't agree to it. If you DIND"T READ THE LICENSE and later decide you don't like it TOUGH! If they refuse to meet your terms TOUGH! - find someone who will or write your own software. You have no right to compel someone else to give you what they created. As for promises they may not promise that their software will meet your every expectation but they do promise that you can use it - AND YOU DO! They have met their side of the bargain - why do you complain about having to meet your side! On those occasions where they lie it's not that it "could be considered fraud" IT IS FRAUD! Sue them. If you can't then you probably weren't promised what you say you were promised. If you want guarantees you can get them - they just cost more - AND THAT COST IS FAIR, it reflects the added work and financial risk such a guarantee requires. GPL software often makes the same "pseudo promises" the description of the programs says it "WILL do such and so" it's developers say it's "better than commercial product X". But the license, just like most commercial licenses (unless you are paying for a warrantee) very specifically declaims in all caps so you know they're shouting:
"...THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION."
from the GPL
It's that everybody shares for the good of the people or the community. Hence communism.
Um yes... But again the state is not "getting the hell out" but making sure that everybody shares for the good of the community. Hence communism.
The ideal communism is closer to some of the highly socialized democracies found in northern europe, than to the Cold War communisms.
For the sake of argument I'll grant this (for now). You again underline the original posters confusion on the nature of communism. Northern European states are NOT characterised by states that "get the hell out" but by states that are very active in regulating commerce and individual resources. They have a high percentage of state ownership of resources, high tax rates, and a high degree of regulation over private commercial activity. BUT although these countries are socialist to a significant degree they are not actually communist.
In both of these statements of yours you are either confused about communism yourself or soft-pedaling it's distinctive characteristics. It is not a merely a matter of sharing but of outright public ownership: "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." and state control (which is what we are talking about): "The proletariat will use its political supremacy top wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production..." Nothing about the "state getting the hell out" to be found here. The northern european states exhibit SOME communist distinctives they fail to exhibit others: They still have private land ownership. have rights of inheritance, private banks & financial institutions. I would imagine that Marx would label them examples of Bourgeois Socialsim rather than explicitly communist.
Should the exotic car dealer be allowed to forbid you from loaning your Ferrari to a friend... If the exotic car dealer has no rights once the car has left his possession, how can a software author?
Yes, I believe you should be allowed to loan your Ferrari to a friend. Which answers your second question. Let me ask a couple of questions myself to elaborate: If you loan your Ferrari to your friend, does he now own it? Do you have any rights once the car has left YOUR possession? Yes you do! You own the car, your friend is merely borrowing it. What if he (to overcome your apparent scepticism) offered to give you money in return for borrowing the car for the evening? Now after paying that money does he now OWN the car? Do you have any rights once the car has left your possession (supposedly just for the evening)? Or is he merely renting the USE of the car under conditions you both agreed to?
Well this is EXACTLY the case with most software you "buy" - you do NOT really buy it, you license it. The software owner is renting to you the use of the software he owns under conditions that he sets and you agree to. Whether the condition is money and limits on your use or the conditions of the GPL (notice that the "L" stands for "license") it is the same thing - he OWNS it and you LICENSE IT. Read your EULA or the GPL - the software writer is retaining ownership and you are agreeing to his terms. You do not have the rights of a new owner driving his Ferrari off the lot - you have the rights of your friend borrowing the car for the night!
As for the moral legitimacy of "intellectual property" yes, to a degree it is a legal fiction. But it also has a firm basis in reality. In a very obvious and incontrovertible way I "own" any unique ideas or thoughts in my head. You are completely incapable of possessing them in any way unless I make them available in a way you can access them. If in the case of software if I choose to only make them available to you as a service on a secure server or a binary with extreme copy protections then that is the only access you CAN have to them.
On one hand intellectual property laws were developed to encourage MORE openness for ideas that were easily profited from even when kept secret which is generally the case with software (the other reason for intellectual property is to secure profit and motivation for creators that can't profit from their creations unless they are made publically availabe - like authors, musicians etc.) For instance: The inventor of an industrial process could keep that invention secret and profit by his unique knowledge indefinitely. A concrete example of this is the Zildjian family's secret metalurgical processes which they have successfully kept secret unpatented and profited from for centuries. Prior to the much maligned concepts of "intellectual property" inventors were obsessed with secrecy. Inventions sometimes died with their creators, businesses where hobbled by the paramount need for secrecy, if the secret came out the inventor could be financially ruined. Patent law solved the problem - ideas could be owned in a legally protected way. The inventor recieved the protection of the law and in return for publically disclosing his invention and giving up ownership after a set number of years.
BUT, those rights include the rights of each of us to make whatever private agreements between each other that we want. Let me ask you: do you have a right to rent your car to someone? Do you have the right to lend someone your car for a limited time and with conditions that they agree to? When you "buy" most software you are actually licensing something that belongs to someone else. You are renting the software and have VOLUNTARILY agreed to their terms. If you don't like the terms don't license that software! If you want to really own the software either truly buy it (rather than license the right from the owner to use it), find someone who is giving it away (GPL doesn't count - see the note below), or write it yourself.
Note: you do not OWN GPL software either - The "L" stands for license, exactly like commercial software - he owns to software which he licenses to you and you voluntarily agree to HIS CONDITIONS. You do NOT own it, he retains all the rights of owning his intellectual property and if you do not abide by the terms of your agreement he will attempt to compel you to do so through the governments recognition of his rights of his ownership of his intellectual property.
...(communism): The state gets the hell out
I think you are seriously confused about the whole idea behind communism.
I think what the origninal poster was talking about was simple Cocoa GUI's to common command line utilities. There are alot of these around but they are - and this is whats ridiculous - SHAREWARE. These guys do a brain dead simple GUI (a few hours of work at most) for some pre-existing (and often already installed) utility, and they want to sell it to you. Hey, if they are the only ones that go to the (limited) bother - fine. But I'm sure there are some open-source programmers that could take a day or two (mostly learning about ProjectBuilder and Cocoa) and just do it.