I've owned my Kyocera Smartphone for several months now and I really like it. They've done a good job at integrating a Palm and a phone.
I couldn't care less about color, video, IM, web, and games. I also happen to like the look of the Smartphone.
I read it and I don't think it's that good. It has a little more than other documentation I've found, but not much, and only really covers the common cases.
They have not sued anyone about this patent till now. The fact they didn't know they had it is irrelevant, they filed for it. Thus, should should have at least kept track of it's status. They really have no claim when they say they just found out the have the patent. It's been 12 years since the patent was granted, and about 25 since they filed for it.
By the way, according to the wording of the patent hanging on the wall here, it says, in part, "subject to maintenance fees."
AFAIK, in order to keep a patent valid, one has to pay the USPTO "maintenance fees" throughout the life of the patent; if not, the patent lapses into invalidity. Therefore, if BT hasn't been paying the fees, their patent is unenforcable.
Somebody should point this out to them before they look like fools. Oh... too late.
... is why there seems to exist this rampant tendency among Linux-folk to upgrade one's kernel constantly. Unless a new kernel solves a problem you have, there is no reason to upgrade.
There are plenty of examples of OSS projects which are succeeding despite this "mass-delusion" -> Apache, Tomcat, Linux, MySQL, PostGRES..
You missed part of the original posters key point: money. Yes, those OSS projects are successful, but none of the groups developing them are doing it for the money (or enough money to run a business: any money they do get is considered icing).
Nobody seems to mention that their sdk is freely available, including a cross-compiler, all under linux
Uh, the PalmOS SDK is also freely available and there is a gcc cross-compiler and development environment. It's been this way since the early days of Palm.
Did it ever occur to anybody that somebody could develop some software technique that is really useful, patent it, and essentially give a free license to everybody except Microsoft?
Yes, patents have access-control lists.
Software patents aren't inherently bad; it's how they're licensed.
I would say the #1 blunder in Apple's release of this product is lack of support for configuring it from an x86 PC (running Windows or Linux or your BSD of choice).
There has been both a Windows (FreeBase) and Java configurator for a long time. Hopefully, the respective authors will update their software for the 2.0 firmware.
The only thing Mr. Cox has achieved... by his action is to annoy US-based Linux users...
Even if that is true, the hope is, if you are a US citizen, you will be so annoyed that you will write your congressional representatives and complain.
The problem is that you typically do not want your space project going to the "lowest bidder".
Uh, all of the hardware that goes into a space shuttle already goes to the lowest bidder. NASA awards contracts to private companies to build the shuttle now.
Remember those cheap O-rings made by Morton-Thiocol that failed causing the shuttle explosion?
AT&T did NOT but the customer base; they just bought the hardware assets, facilities, etc. They never said they had any intention of doing anything with the DSL service, nor did they have any obligation to.
I also had Northpoint with Verio as my ISP. AT&T bought Northpoint's assets AFTER they declared bankruptcy and AFTER they already announced that "a cessation of services is immanent."
You might be able to complain that AT&T did nothing to keep the DSL service going, but they were merely buying assets at a dot-bomb garage sale; they never made any statements about the DSL service. AT&T had nothing to do with Northpoint's failure or leaving its customers high-and-dry.
I just don't get why anybody wants a portable music device like this, or at least enough people to justify such a product's existence.
When I look around, most people are not walking down the street (or wherever) listening to music devices, be they tape, CD, or MP3 players. Ocasionally, I'll see a jogger or some spikey-haired teenager listening to one, but they're hardly as commonplace as PDAs.
Do people think that many people just NEED to have gigs of music with them at all times? I don't get it.
I've had my PowerBook G3 (Bronze) for nearly 2 years and I love it. Even though it's not as thin as the new G4s, it's still pretty thin and has a much nicer form factor than most Intel laptops. I also like that I can run with dual batteries and get about 7 hours out of it, which I'm thankful for on transcontinental flights. And, let's face it: any computer in a black case is cool.:-)
I got it specifically to do Unix software development on, so I've been running Yellow Dog Linux on it and it works very well, even sleep works. I hang out in a cafe doing development while accessing mail via my wireless PCMCIA card. It's pretty sweet.
I'm running OS X on my desktop machine and still haven't decided whether I should switch the laptop to OS X or not. Probably not for a while. OS X is still much more of a memory pig.
These comments are with respect to 2.0, not 2.1, so some things may have been fixed.
The installation is "different" not really improved (since 1.1). It's now defaults to a graphical installer (couldn't care less), but it still has issues, or at least it did on my Lombard PowerBook.
In case anybody else has this problem: the installer segfaults if you try to partition the unallocated portion of your disk. The workaround is to put a temporary MacOS partition there, then delete it from within thr YDL installer and replace it with Linux partitions. After that, it works fine.
I still think Intel-based distro installers are much better. YMMV.
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I've owned my Kyocera Smartphone for several months now and I really like it. They've done a good job at integrating a Palm and a phone. I couldn't care less about color, video, IM, web, and games. I also happen to like the look of the Smartphone.
I thought that if you write something negative, but it is in fact true, i.e., a fact, that it's not libel by definition.
A cookbook would be much better.
By the way, according to the wording of the patent hanging on the wall here, it says, in part, "subject to maintenance fees."
AFAIK, in order to keep a patent valid, one has to pay the USPTO "maintenance fees" throughout the life of the patent; if not, the patent lapses into invalidity. Therefore, if BT hasn't been paying the fees, their patent is unenforcable.
Somebody should point this out to them before they look like fools. Oh... too late.
... is why there seems to exist this rampant tendency among Linux-folk to upgrade one's kernel constantly. Unless a new kernel solves a problem you have, there is no reason to upgrade.
You missed part of the original posters key point: money. Yes, those OSS projects are successful, but none of the groups developing them are doing it for the money (or enough money to run a business: any money they do get is considered icing).
Uh, the PalmOS SDK is also freely available and there is a gcc cross-compiler and development environment. It's been this way since the early days of Palm.
In short: Kyocera did a nice integration job.
My Palm device can dial just fine. IMHO, it's just too redundant to have a PDA and a separate phone.
Yes, patents have access-control lists.
Software patents aren't inherently bad; it's how they're licensed.
There has been both a Windows (FreeBase) and Java configurator for a long time. Hopefully, the respective authors will update their software for the 2.0 firmware.
Remember those cheap O-rings made by Morton-Thiocol that failed causing the shuttle explosion?
Why? Why don't you work on personal projects in your spare time that interest you?
AT&T did NOT but the customer base; they just bought the hardware assets, facilities, etc. They never said they had any intention of doing anything with the DSL service, nor did they have any obligation to.
I also had Northpoint with Verio as my ISP. AT&T bought Northpoint's assets AFTER they declared bankruptcy and AFTER they already announced that "a cessation of services is immanent."
You might be able to complain that AT&T did nothing to keep the DSL service going, but they were merely buying assets at a dot-bomb garage sale; they never made any statements about the DSL service. AT&T had nothing to do with Northpoint's failure or leaving its customers high-and-dry.
I just don't get why anybody wants a portable music device like this, or at least enough people to justify such a product's existence.
When I look around, most people are not walking down the street (or wherever) listening to music devices, be they tape, CD, or MP3 players. Ocasionally, I'll see a jogger or some spikey-haired teenager listening to one, but they're hardly as commonplace as PDAs.
Do people think that many people just NEED to have gigs of music with them at all times? I don't get it.
I've had my PowerBook G3 (Bronze) for nearly 2 years and I love it. Even though it's not as thin as the new G4s, it's still pretty thin and has a much nicer form factor than most Intel laptops. I also like that I can run with dual batteries and get about 7 hours out of it, which I'm thankful for on transcontinental flights. And, let's face it: any computer in a black case is cool. :-)
I got it specifically to do Unix software development on, so I've been running Yellow Dog Linux on it and it works very well, even sleep works. I hang out in a cafe doing development while accessing mail via my wireless PCMCIA card. It's pretty sweet.
I'm running OS X on my desktop machine and still haven't decided whether I should switch the laptop to OS X or not. Probably not for a while. OS X is still much more of a memory pig.
Have you seen a picture of Alan Cox? He takes care of quite a bit, however.
These comments are with respect to 2.0, not 2.1, so some things may have been fixed.
The installation is "different" not really improved (since 1.1). It's now defaults to a graphical installer (couldn't care less), but it still has issues, or at least it did on my Lombard PowerBook.
In case anybody else has this problem: the installer segfaults if you try to partition the unallocated portion of your disk. The workaround is to put a temporary MacOS partition there, then delete it from within thr YDL installer and replace it with Linux partitions. After that, it works fine.
I still think Intel-based distro installers are much better. YMMV.