It's important to note that tentative rulings (such as this one) are not actually legally binding in any way.
This is just the judge's "best guess" of how he will rule on the case. Giving a tentative ruling can help to focus the argument of the case more on the actually relevant issues. Or, it may encourage the losing party to reframe the case, basing it from another legal perspective. Of course, the judge may also have it completely wrong, in which case the lawyers will tell him so and how.
In any case, this shouldn't be taken as much of a victory at all for Apple. They haven't even gone to court yet.
My understanding is that the case is in fact the reverse of the statement by one "industry founder" in the article that "Our music is not something to be given away to sell iPods."
In fact, Apple is lowering its price on iPods precisely with the intent of increasing sales on iTunes. That's how Apple makes money, not the other way around. The costs of distributing music online are obviously extremely low.
To be sure, the affect goes both ways, but loads of money spent on legal downloads makes it easy to make iPods cheaper. If Apple raised prices on downloads, it wouldn't do much to discourage iPod buying--the iPod is still a very neat gadget and one of the most usable MP3 players--but it would certainly encourage more pirating of music.
Here's the tricky part about your suggestions of buttons: How do you stop automated system from abusing it? Unless users install some sort of Google software on their computer, Google can only expect to know when a site doesn't work, not when a site does. No one will be clicking back to search results to mark a link as bad or good unless it didn't satisfy their search. Or perhaps they will, if it was useful but not useful enough, but that seems unlikely. Google can't even tell how popular a result is without adding in some sort of "go" page which redirects you to the final site.
I'm sure Google has considered (and rejected) such methods. Amazon.com's review rating works before people never leave Amazon.
Just about everyone agrees that visible things like, say, electronics are real. We accept that the scientific method works, and that it works exceptionally well because it gives exceptional results. That's obvious and clear. Try denying this computer exists. If any clear and patently obvious technology contradicted something in the bible, it would simply be dropped by fundamentalists.
But if you accept the method, you need to accept the consequences. The consequences of science include evolution. Just because I can't evolve humans in a machine overnight doesn't mean that it isn't true by the same standard that we accept baffling explanations like electromagnetism even though it makes little sense from an obvious standpoint.
Science isn't always obvious. That doesn't mean that it's wrong, or that you can disregard less obvious parts are clearly wrong if they are required by all coherent theory.
The whole for going to Firefox (or Netscape) is absolutely NOT for safer browsing. "Safer browsing" has been around for years, but nobody has cared about alternative browsers recently until Firefox. This was thanks to the features and design of Firefox, not the rendering engine.
Most people really don't care about very much about whether they're using the most secure browser. It's much more valuable to have a browser that works. That's been important to Firefox's success - the ability to view most webpages normally, just like IE.
Firefox clearly far outshines the new Netscape with the user interface, but the IE rendering option is absolutely a plus.
The security risks are only ones that the user takes upon themselves. And there's clearly a demand for viewing webpages with the IE engine that were looked at in Firefox - the "IE View" extension is one of the most popular.
In order to beat IE, Firefox needs to be able to beat it on every count. The optional IE rendering engine eliminates the one good reason stick with IE.
I hope this feature from Netscape is incorporated back into Firefox, at least as an optional extension. It would make an astronomical difference in the browser wars.
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It's important to note that tentative rulings (such as this one) are not actually legally binding in any way.
This is just the judge's "best guess" of how he will rule on the case. Giving a tentative ruling can help to focus the argument of the case more on the actually relevant issues. Or, it may encourage the losing party to reframe the case, basing it from another legal perspective. Of course, the judge may also have it completely wrong, in which case the lawyers will tell him so and how.
In any case, this shouldn't be taken as much of a victory at all for Apple. They haven't even gone to court yet.
My understanding is that the case is in fact the reverse of the statement by one "industry founder" in the article that "Our music is not something to be given away to sell iPods."
In fact, Apple is lowering its price on iPods precisely with the intent of increasing sales on iTunes. That's how Apple makes money, not the other way around. The costs of distributing music online are obviously extremely low.
To be sure, the affect goes both ways, but loads of money spent on legal downloads makes it easy to make iPods cheaper. If Apple raised prices on downloads, it wouldn't do much to discourage iPod buying--the iPod is still a very neat gadget and one of the most usable MP3 players--but it would certainly encourage more pirating of music.
The music execs seem to have this all wrong.
Here's the tricky part about your suggestions of buttons: How do you stop automated system from abusing it? Unless users install some sort of Google software on their computer, Google can only expect to know when a site doesn't work, not when a site does. No one will be clicking back to search results to mark a link as bad or good unless it didn't satisfy their search. Or perhaps they will, if it was useful but not useful enough, but that seems unlikely. Google can't even tell how popular a result is without adding in some sort of "go" page which redirects you to the final site. I'm sure Google has considered (and rejected) such methods. Amazon.com's review rating works before people never leave Amazon.
Just about everyone agrees that visible things like, say, electronics are real. We accept that the scientific method works, and that it works exceptionally well because it gives exceptional results. That's obvious and clear. Try denying this computer exists. If any clear and patently obvious technology contradicted something in the bible, it would simply be dropped by fundamentalists. But if you accept the method, you need to accept the consequences. The consequences of science include evolution. Just because I can't evolve humans in a machine overnight doesn't mean that it isn't true by the same standard that we accept baffling explanations like electromagnetism even though it makes little sense from an obvious standpoint. Science isn't always obvious. That doesn't mean that it's wrong, or that you can disregard less obvious parts are clearly wrong if they are required by all coherent theory.
Actually, reduced mortality rates are better correlated to the increased righteousness of our cause.
Get it straight! It's lower TC0 - Total Cost of 0wnership.
The whole for going to Firefox (or Netscape) is absolutely NOT for safer browsing. "Safer browsing" has been around for years, but nobody has cared about alternative browsers recently until Firefox. This was thanks to the features and design of Firefox, not the rendering engine. Most people really don't care about very much about whether they're using the most secure browser. It's much more valuable to have a browser that works. That's been important to Firefox's success - the ability to view most webpages normally, just like IE. Firefox clearly far outshines the new Netscape with the user interface, but the IE rendering option is absolutely a plus. The security risks are only ones that the user takes upon themselves. And there's clearly a demand for viewing webpages with the IE engine that were looked at in Firefox - the "IE View" extension is one of the most popular. In order to beat IE, Firefox needs to be able to beat it on every count. The optional IE rendering engine eliminates the one good reason stick with IE. I hope this feature from Netscape is incorporated back into Firefox, at least as an optional extension. It would make an astronomical difference in the browser wars.