Dave Hyatt is one of the lead safari developers. He works on webcore. He used to be one of the lead mozilla developers.
He has two weblogs, one for personal stuff, and one for safari stuff. Neither is currently being updated much, but the archive of posts is very interesting.
Or maybe Mozilla is just bloated because it's user interface has all it's own damn widgets written in mutherfucking javascript!!!
I know you're trolling, but a lot of people use that argument seriously, without understanding why mozilla has its own widgets.
The thing is, if you want to display standards correctly, or be cross-platform, it's literally impossible to use native widgets, because they're often too limited. Read Dave Hyatt's adventures in getting the mac widgets to cooperate when rendering standards-compliant pages in safari, and he doesn't even have to worry about cross-platform compatibility. And he can also submit bugs to the widget developers and actually gets things fixed. Mozilla doesn't have that luxury.
So, mozilla HAS to carry its own widgets. At that point you have an engine that can render complicated pages using custom widgets. It made sense to not implement a separate engine for the gui, but just reuse the browser engine. So the entire gui is not much more than a webpage to the mozilla framework (in fact, the only thing that is keeping people from embedding xul in regular webpages is a series of bugs). Does it slow down mozilla? Yes, some. But in exchange you get a browser that is consistent, reliable, standards-compliant, cross-platform and ridiculously extendable. Additionally, mozilla is a superior development platform for webbased apps, and keeping that from happening was the major reason for MS to kill netscape. So, in a way, netscape won, because of the insistance of mozilla developers to build a platform rather than a browser.
Besides, if you see what longhorn is bringing, you'll see that microsoft is heading in the same direction. Performance and features are always in a trade-off, and today it makes sense to no longer compile your ui's. Longhorn will use xaml like mozilla uses xul. Mozilla is just a pioneer. Pioneers always get criticised for taking too much risk.
Though, to be honest, they are moving towards sharing the gecko engine using mozilla GRE (gecko runtime embedding), so you won't have the performance bloat resulting from the double gecko use (or triple, with nvu, or something like that).
Apparently, the KHTML developers have a more pragmatic policy with respect to implementing MSHTML extensions *cough*document.all*cough* than the more standards-minded Gecko developers.
There are good reasons for not implementing that. Implementing just document.all does nothing for IE-compatibility, since you have to implement the rest of the MS Document Object Model to actually get things done. Once you do that you would have three DOM implementations, the mozilla native one, the W3C one, and the IE one. All three would have to be maintained, and you'd need to constantly chase every new release of IE (though with IE's current lethargy this is less of a problem). Also, it's impossible to have perfect IE compatibility. IE for mac was a different engine, and wasn't anymore compatible with windows IE than mozilla is. You need to not only implement the same features, but you have to implement the same bugs, the same way of responding to error conditions, the same timing of screen updating behaviors.
Gecko's design is a very good trade-off between standards and compatibility. Dave Hyatt has stated on his weblog he tries to do things the gecko way often (looking to gecko for guidance on how to do a compromise). And safari pretends to be gecko in its useragent string.
Anyway, if a site doesn't work in mozilla, you can file it as a bug. If it can be fixed in the engine without breaking standards compatibility and a lot of sites would benefit from that fix, it probably will be. Otherwise it will become an evangelism bug, and mozilla people will contact the site to advise them how to become mozilla-compatible.
You have to wonder if Microsoft's decision to integrate a simple web browser into Windows Explorer isn't closer to the mark, something that has value to ordinary users.
I don't buy that, I've always seen little use in being able to see websites within your file manager. The metaphor use is entirely different, and so the UI becomes either a cluttered mess, or unsuitable for one of the two purposes.
It's not the integration into the file explorer, it's the integration into windows. The vast majority of users are unaware there are alternatives. Most of those that are aware of the alternatives believe explorer is a good browser, and see no reason to switch. Only a very small minority is willing to try new browsers and stick with them.
Also, it doesn't help that isp's promote explorer among their userbase. The biggest loss to netscape's marketshare came when isp's started abandoning them. If isp's started pushing an alternative browser again, you'd be sure to see it climb in marketshare drastically.
We are sending messages. You know radio signals? Those don't just stop at your radio. They keep going.
At the signal strength we're sending those, we might as well not be sending them at all.
Radio signals die off pretty fast with distance. I'm not a physicist, but it would surprise me if it's possible to pick up the radio signals we broadcast (whenever they arrive) at the nearest star.
Why do we always just listen and never send? It seems we're afraid of actually making contact. What if the aliens are also being prudent and just listening? We could be listening to each other's silence for millenia.
An alien civilization could be less than 20 light years away. At that distance, you could start a conversation. Sure, it would take decades for every answer, but you wouldn't have to wait for the answer to ask more questions. It would be the most historical event of the millenium, to learn that we aren't alone.
I don't really understand the whole "prudence" argument either. If a civilization doesn't have interstellar travel, they pose no threat. If they DO have interstellar travel and are close enough to receive our signals, it would seem extremely likely they've already visited our solar system, studied its natives, and decided making contact wasn't worth it. Either way, it seems unlikely an alien civilization would show up "independance day"-style to destroy us.
Just because he gives a lot to charity he's a good guy? I don't think so.
First of all, what is the percentage of what he gives to charity compared to his income, and how does that in turn compare to the nationwide average? If he doesn't give more proportionally than the average, I don't think he should get credit for it at all. Generosity lies in giving more than your share.
Secondly, microsoft has monopoly pricing on windows and office. Every dollar that is above the pricing level there would be in a free market, is a dollar taken out of the economy. Microsoft hoards the majority of it, and pays Bill Gates a large segment, which he hoards in turn. Money has to move, everyone knows that. If bill gates didn't have that money to give to charity, it would be invested in the economy, and would produce greater gains than giving a percentage of it to charity will ever do.
Ofcourse, when you compare Bill Gates to the Walton family, he comes out like a saint. He hasn't destroyed entire towns to acquire his wealth, and he doesn't hoard it as badly. But that doesn't mean he should be commended for the life he has lead. All he gets from me is respect.
Let's be realistic here. If there's atm fraud happening, some people will lose access to their money for a while, and some will lose money permanently. The banks aren't omniscient, once they find out about fraud, it is likely that they won't be able to find all the money stolen.
Now, at that point, it seems reasonable to me that there should be security standards for atms. I find it hard to imagine a windows xp machine passing such testing.
I wasn't talking about someone breaking into the atms from the internet, I was talking about someone breaking into the banking network from the atm. It seems to me an unprotected windows machine can be made to do whatever you want.
I'm curious how it could be legal to use windows for an atm machine. It seems to me that a windows machine can't possibly be made trustworthy (in the "verification of what's running" way), and therefore is just a network break-in waiting to happen. If you can't trust the platform you're running on, it's irrelevant how secure your software is. And I don't suppose secure is an appropriate word to describe diebold's software.
This reminds me of the case a few years back where people ran a network of fake atm machines. They would do the actual atm transaction, but then store your card info and pin, and since they had modified the actual atm, nobody was the wiser. It wasn't until millions of dollars started disappearing from accounts that people caught on.
I could never trust a financial network that's designed in a way that such a thing is even possible.
Name one person who owns both a rio or iriver and an ipod and thinks the ipod isn't the best mp3 player of the two.
That rio or iriver buyers say their product is just as good as an ipod or better is just as unsurprising as ipod users saying the ipod is just as good or better than anything the competition offers. I want to see the opinion of people who aren't biased by how they spent their money, because they spent it on everything.
I'm an ipod owner. It was either the karma or the ipod. The price was the same, the hd size in both cases big enough, and the physical size a pretty good match. In the end I decided the ipod had a bigger community, a better interface, and a nicer look. Yes, on features the karma is an even match, but those intangibles are what sells ipods. I still think I made the right choice, but I realise my opinion is biased.
Geeks might care about such things like disk size, and whether it has ethernet support, but guess what, the majority of electronics buyers are not geeks, or even male. And normal people care more about how something looks, and how easy it is to use, than about whether it does xizzy, has foobar or supports quux. The ipod is the undisputable king in the look and feel department, and that is why it's outselling anything else.
I am going the other way around. I bought an ipod, liked it so much I started using itunes for it, and liked that so much I've decided my next PC will be a mac.
You'd be surprised how many SysAdmins (the Elders I'm thinking) have this view.
I think it's a sad reflection on the state of the IT industry that sysadmins don't like to sysadmin. This is not a criticism of sysadmins. Too little effort and research is going into making computers more useful as a tool, rather than an occupation. I'm not even convinced computers save most companies money. The loss of work involved with the headaches computers produce is stupendously large. I'm sure in a lot of businesses it outstrips whatever benefit computers bring to the table.
Ofcourse, microsoft has zero interest in actually doing anything about this situation. Messing with the status quo is an unacceptable risk for them. I wish I could have hope for open source to make things better, but they seem to be making it worse. Apple is the only company who has been genuinely interested in allowing users to get things done, and even they are slipping, with OS X being a milestone in usability, in the wrong direction.
The only lasting thing that comes to mind us humans seem to be able to build in society is religion. Maybe if IBM became a religion they could live forever.
Don't worry. In less than a decade it will be cool to wear a clearly noticeable ear piece. And within 5 years of that happening nobody will even notice it anymore, and they'll consider you quaint and old-fashioned if your ears are naked.
I think microsoft is annoyed with the ipod's success. The ipod doesn't play windows media, so it completely circumvents microsoft's attempt to become the standard in media compression. Microsoft has tried to get wmv and wma support into everything they can (it's even included in the new dvd standard), but none of those devices come close to being as appealing as the ipod. I highly doubt apple will be able to win unless the EU trial forces MS to open up windows media, since wmv and wma are literally everywhere but the ipod. However, the ipod is a credible threat to MS nevertheless, so they must keep people from buying it. Saying they have an ipod killer coming out Real Soon Now is an excellent way of achieving that. MS always promises a soon to be released product will be the answer to everyone's woes, so people wait, and wait, and wait.
You'll need nearly Jupiter's mass of a substance with the same tensile strength as an atomic nucleus. In sort, not known to our physical theories (I'll stop just short of saying it's impossible). And then to spin the thing up to 1 gravity, you'll need the amount of energy that our sun puts out in 1000 years. In short, extremely difficult. Even then it's unstable.
Hmm, that all seems to depend on the size of the sun. What if you build your ring around a white dwarf? Since it's not technically in orbit around the sun, the size of your ring is only determined by the distance the surface needs to be from the sun to get earthlike sunlight, which is determined both by the size and type of the sun. A small sun means a small ring. Also, you'd need less spin to get 1g for a smaller ring.
I'd like to see someone do the math for the smallest stars we know.
I don't think it matters why they're going after microsoft. If microsoft should be "corrected", and I think they should, then any reason is a good reason, even if it is a political one.
look honey I got you an artifical diamond for your weding ring is not going to work
You see how the diamond lobby has polluted your thinking? The only reason you think you have to get her a Real Diamond (tm) is because of years and years of debeers advertising. Manmade diamonds ARE real diamonds, and they're of a higher quality than natural diamonds. They can also be tinted cheaply into colours which are very rare and expensive in the natural variety.
Imagine if someone created a process that turns lead into pure gold. Would you insist on natural gold? Or would you be happy you could get golden earrings for your wife more cheaply?
Competition is what capitalism is supposed to be about, right?
That depends on your definition of capitalism. The narrow definition of capitalism is that it is an economic system where capital is privately owned. The loose definition says the same, but extends it with the requirement of market freedom (the freedom to enter and compete in a market).
I would like to add that a free market ensures profit will be as low as possible. In a free market system, if your business is too profitable, someone will come along and undersell you. Microsoft right now is too profitable to thrive in a free market. To ensure stockholder value they MUST kill any and all viable competition. The free market is their enemy.
By the way, the notion of consumer harm is irrelevant. A monopoly, with a monopoly pricing model, is an inefficient way of investing capital (that is something that just about all schools of economic theory agree on), so the mere existance of a monopoly guarantees economic harm comes to society as a whole. That monopolies are tolerated is already quite the concession. That they're allowed to damage market freedom is just plain silly.
The difference is that isp's provide various bandwidth plans depending on how much you need. You can't use more than your share, or you'll get kicked/throttled. If you want a bigger share, you pay more. ISP's sell bandwidth.
Universities don't sell bandwidth, they sell education. University isp's have a huge fat pipe to share across the students. They make no guarantees about how much bandwidth you can have. They have to ensure the bandwidth is sufficiently fairly distributed. P2P apps means users who have genuinely legal (education-oriented) traffic get an unfairly small bandwidth share. It's common sense to block p2p in that kind of setting.
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Dave Hyatt is one of the lead safari developers. He works on webcore. He used to be one of the lead mozilla developers.
He has two weblogs, one for personal stuff, and one for safari stuff. Neither is currently being updated much, but the archive of posts is very interesting.
You can find more current and ex mozilla developers weblogs at mozillazine.
Or maybe Mozilla is just bloated because it's user interface has all it's own damn widgets written in mutherfucking javascript!!!
I know you're trolling, but a lot of people use that argument seriously, without understanding why mozilla has its own widgets.
The thing is, if you want to display standards correctly, or be cross-platform, it's literally impossible to use native widgets, because they're often too limited. Read Dave Hyatt's adventures in getting the mac widgets to cooperate when rendering standards-compliant pages in safari, and he doesn't even have to worry about cross-platform compatibility. And he can also submit bugs to the widget developers and actually gets things fixed. Mozilla doesn't have that luxury.
So, mozilla HAS to carry its own widgets. At that point you have an engine that can render complicated pages using custom widgets. It made sense to not implement a separate engine for the gui, but just reuse the browser engine. So the entire gui is not much more than a webpage to the mozilla framework (in fact, the only thing that is keeping people from embedding xul in regular webpages is a series of bugs). Does it slow down mozilla? Yes, some. But in exchange you get a browser that is consistent, reliable, standards-compliant, cross-platform and ridiculously extendable. Additionally, mozilla is a superior development platform for webbased apps, and keeping that from happening was the major reason for MS to kill netscape. So, in a way, netscape won, because of the insistance of mozilla developers to build a platform rather than a browser.
Besides, if you see what longhorn is bringing, you'll see that microsoft is heading in the same direction. Performance and features are always in a trade-off, and today it makes sense to no longer compile your ui's. Longhorn will use xaml like mozilla uses xul. Mozilla is just a pioneer. Pioneers always get criticised for taking too much risk.
Firefox roadmap. Plus, it's been announced on mozillazine.org in even greater detail.
Though, to be honest, they are moving towards sharing the gecko engine using mozilla GRE (gecko runtime embedding), so you won't have the performance bloat resulting from the double gecko use (or triple, with nvu, or something like that).
Apparently, the KHTML developers have a more pragmatic policy with respect to implementing MSHTML extensions *cough*document.all*cough* than the more standards-minded Gecko developers.
There are good reasons for not implementing that. Implementing just document.all does nothing for IE-compatibility, since you have to implement the rest of the MS Document Object Model to actually get things done. Once you do that you would have three DOM implementations, the mozilla native one, the W3C one, and the IE one. All three would have to be maintained, and you'd need to constantly chase every new release of IE (though with IE's current lethargy this is less of a problem). Also, it's impossible to have perfect IE compatibility. IE for mac was a different engine, and wasn't anymore compatible with windows IE than mozilla is. You need to not only implement the same features, but you have to implement the same bugs, the same way of responding to error conditions, the same timing of screen updating behaviors.
Gecko's design is a very good trade-off between standards and compatibility. Dave Hyatt has stated on his weblog he tries to do things the gecko way often (looking to gecko for guidance on how to do a compromise). And safari pretends to be gecko in its useragent string.
Anyway, if a site doesn't work in mozilla, you can file it as a bug. If it can be fixed in the engine without breaking standards compatibility and a lot of sites would benefit from that fix, it probably will be. Otherwise it will become an evangelism bug, and mozilla people will contact the site to advise them how to become mozilla-compatible.
A 10 percent difference is very noticeable. There have been smaller improvements that I clearly noticed before I read the new version was faster.
You have to wonder if Microsoft's decision to integrate a simple web browser into Windows Explorer isn't closer to the mark, something that has value to ordinary users.
I don't buy that, I've always seen little use in being able to see websites within your file manager. The metaphor use is entirely different, and so the UI becomes either a cluttered mess, or unsuitable for one of the two purposes.
It's not the integration into the file explorer, it's the integration into windows. The vast majority of users are unaware there are alternatives. Most of those that are aware of the alternatives believe explorer is a good browser, and see no reason to switch. Only a very small minority is willing to try new browsers and stick with them.
Also, it doesn't help that isp's promote explorer among their userbase. The biggest loss to netscape's marketshare came when isp's started abandoning them. If isp's started pushing an alternative browser again, you'd be sure to see it climb in marketshare drastically.
We are sending messages. You know radio signals? Those don't just stop at your radio. They keep going.
At the signal strength we're sending those, we might as well not be sending them at all.
Radio signals die off pretty fast with distance. I'm not a physicist, but it would surprise me if it's possible to pick up the radio signals we broadcast (whenever they arrive) at the nearest star.
Why do we always just listen and never send? It seems we're afraid of actually making contact. What if the aliens are also being prudent and just listening? We could be listening to each other's silence for millenia.
An alien civilization could be less than 20 light years away. At that distance, you could start a conversation. Sure, it would take decades for every answer, but you wouldn't have to wait for the answer to ask more questions. It would be the most historical event of the millenium, to learn that we aren't alone.
I don't really understand the whole "prudence" argument either. If a civilization doesn't have interstellar travel, they pose no threat. If they DO have interstellar travel and are close enough to receive our signals, it would seem extremely likely they've already visited our solar system, studied its natives, and decided making contact wasn't worth it. Either way, it seems unlikely an alien civilization would show up "independance day"-style to destroy us.
So why aren't we transmitting?
Just because he gives a lot to charity he's a good guy? I don't think so.
First of all, what is the percentage of what he gives to charity compared to his income, and how does that in turn compare to the nationwide average? If he doesn't give more proportionally than the average, I don't think he should get credit for it at all. Generosity lies in giving more than your share.
Secondly, microsoft has monopoly pricing on windows and office. Every dollar that is above the pricing level there would be in a free market, is a dollar taken out of the economy. Microsoft hoards the majority of it, and pays Bill Gates a large segment, which he hoards in turn. Money has to move, everyone knows that. If bill gates didn't have that money to give to charity, it would be invested in the economy, and would produce greater gains than giving a percentage of it to charity will ever do.
Ofcourse, when you compare Bill Gates to the Walton family, he comes out like a saint. He hasn't destroyed entire towns to acquire his wealth, and he doesn't hoard it as badly. But that doesn't mean he should be commended for the life he has lead. All he gets from me is respect.
Let's be realistic here. If there's atm fraud happening, some people will lose access to their money for a while, and some will lose money permanently. The banks aren't omniscient, once they find out about fraud, it is likely that they won't be able to find all the money stolen.
Now, at that point, it seems reasonable to me that there should be security standards for atms. I find it hard to imagine a windows xp machine passing such testing.
I wasn't talking about someone breaking into the atms from the internet, I was talking about someone breaking into the banking network from the atm. It seems to me an unprotected windows machine can be made to do whatever you want.
I'm curious how it could be legal to use windows for an atm machine. It seems to me that a windows machine can't possibly be made trustworthy (in the "verification of what's running" way), and therefore is just a network break-in waiting to happen. If you can't trust the platform you're running on, it's irrelevant how secure your software is. And I don't suppose secure is an appropriate word to describe diebold's software.
This reminds me of the case a few years back where people ran a network of fake atm machines. They would do the actual atm transaction, but then store your card info and pin, and since they had modified the actual atm, nobody was the wiser. It wasn't until millions of dollars started disappearing from accounts that people caught on.
I could never trust a financial network that's designed in a way that such a thing is even possible.
Braille displays have a tendency to be line at a time devices separate from the actual monitor.
Name one person who owns both a rio or iriver and an ipod and thinks the ipod isn't the best mp3 player of the two.
That rio or iriver buyers say their product is just as good as an ipod or better is just as unsurprising as ipod users saying the ipod is just as good or better than anything the competition offers. I want to see the opinion of people who aren't biased by how they spent their money, because they spent it on everything.
I'm an ipod owner. It was either the karma or the ipod. The price was the same, the hd size in both cases big enough, and the physical size a pretty good match. In the end I decided the ipod had a bigger community, a better interface, and a nicer look. Yes, on features the karma is an even match, but those intangibles are what sells ipods. I still think I made the right choice, but I realise my opinion is biased.
Geeks might care about such things like disk size, and whether it has ethernet support, but guess what, the majority of electronics buyers are not geeks, or even male. And normal people care more about how something looks, and how easy it is to use, than about whether it does xizzy, has foobar or supports quux. The ipod is the undisputable king in the look and feel department, and that is why it's outselling anything else.
I am going the other way around. I bought an ipod, liked it so much I started using itunes for it, and liked that so much I've decided my next PC will be a mac.
You'd be surprised how many SysAdmins (the Elders I'm thinking) have this view.
I think it's a sad reflection on the state of the IT industry that sysadmins don't like to sysadmin. This is not a criticism of sysadmins. Too little effort and research is going into making computers more useful as a tool, rather than an occupation. I'm not even convinced computers save most companies money. The loss of work involved with the headaches computers produce is stupendously large. I'm sure in a lot of businesses it outstrips whatever benefit computers bring to the table.
Ofcourse, microsoft has zero interest in actually doing anything about this situation. Messing with the status quo is an unacceptable risk for them. I wish I could have hope for open source to make things better, but they seem to be making it worse. Apple is the only company who has been genuinely interested in allowing users to get things done, and even they are slipping, with OS X being a milestone in usability, in the wrong direction.
The only lasting thing that comes to mind us humans seem to be able to build in society is religion. Maybe if IBM became a religion they could live forever.
Don't worry. In less than a decade it will be cool to wear a clearly noticeable ear piece. And within 5 years of that happening nobody will even notice it anymore, and they'll consider you quaint and old-fashioned if your ears are naked.
I think microsoft is annoyed with the ipod's success. The ipod doesn't play windows media, so it completely circumvents microsoft's attempt to become the standard in media compression. Microsoft has tried to get wmv and wma support into everything they can (it's even included in the new dvd standard), but none of those devices come close to being as appealing as the ipod. I highly doubt apple will be able to win unless the EU trial forces MS to open up windows media, since wmv and wma are literally everywhere but the ipod. However, the ipod is a credible threat to MS nevertheless, so they must keep people from buying it. Saying they have an ipod killer coming out Real Soon Now is an excellent way of achieving that. MS always promises a soon to be released product will be the answer to everyone's woes, so people wait, and wait, and wait.
You'll need nearly Jupiter's mass of a substance with the same tensile strength as an atomic nucleus. In sort, not known to our physical theories (I'll stop just short of saying it's impossible). And then to spin the thing up to 1 gravity, you'll need the amount of energy that our sun puts out in 1000 years. In short, extremely difficult. Even then it's unstable.
Hmm, that all seems to depend on the size of the sun. What if you build your ring around a white dwarf? Since it's not technically in orbit around the sun, the size of your ring is only determined by the distance the surface needs to be from the sun to get earthlike sunlight, which is determined both by the size and type of the sun. A small sun means a small ring. Also, you'd need less spin to get 1g for a smaller ring.
I'd like to see someone do the math for the smallest stars we know.
I don't think it matters why they're going after microsoft. If microsoft should be "corrected", and I think they should, then any reason is a good reason, even if it is a political one.
look honey I got you an artifical diamond for your weding ring is not going to work
You see how the diamond lobby has polluted your thinking? The only reason you think you have to get her a Real Diamond (tm) is because of years and years of debeers advertising. Manmade diamonds ARE real diamonds, and they're of a higher quality than natural diamonds. They can also be tinted cheaply into colours which are very rare and expensive in the natural variety.
Imagine if someone created a process that turns lead into pure gold. Would you insist on natural gold? Or would you be happy you could get golden earrings for your wife more cheaply?
Competition is what capitalism is supposed to be about, right?
That depends on your definition of capitalism. The narrow definition of capitalism is that it is an economic system where capital is privately owned. The loose definition says the same, but extends it with the requirement of market freedom (the freedom to enter and compete in a market).
I would like to add that a free market ensures profit will be as low as possible. In a free market system, if your business is too profitable, someone will come along and undersell you. Microsoft right now is too profitable to thrive in a free market. To ensure stockholder value they MUST kill any and all viable competition. The free market is their enemy.
By the way, the notion of consumer harm is irrelevant. A monopoly, with a monopoly pricing model, is an inefficient way of investing capital (that is something that just about all schools of economic theory agree on), so the mere existance of a monopoly guarantees economic harm comes to society as a whole. That monopolies are tolerated is already quite the concession. That they're allowed to damage market freedom is just plain silly.
The difference is that isp's provide various bandwidth plans depending on how much you need. You can't use more than your share, or you'll get kicked/throttled. If you want a bigger share, you pay more. ISP's sell bandwidth.
Universities don't sell bandwidth, they sell education. University isp's have a huge fat pipe to share across the students. They make no guarantees about how much bandwidth you can have. They have to ensure the bandwidth is sufficiently fairly distributed. P2P apps means users who have genuinely legal (education-oriented) traffic get an unfairly small bandwidth share. It's common sense to block p2p in that kind of setting.