Developers should indeed know better, but I think a lot of people don't know what they're getting into. It's only through publicising stories like this that people will realise and go elsewhere.
This is a very worrying issue - whilst Apple are a niche player, imagine if they did end up becoming a monopoly on mobile platforms? Mobile computing is going to become ubiquitous in the next few years, and I'm very worried at any possibility of it being locked down and controlled by a single company, who could arbitrary decide what applications are allowed, or dictate whatever changes or censorship it liked. This sort of thing can't have enough publicity, just to minimise the risk of this happening. People need to support the many open alternatives whilst there's still a market.
The worrying thing is that it's on a traditionally anti-censorship site like Slashdot that support for the Iphone seems to be strongest.
It's funny that as soon as the context is America vs China, the acknowledgement that stealing and copyright infringement are different issues goes out the window, and we get a whole load of people talking just like the RIAA.
I didn't realise the RIAA were posting on Slashdot these days. Yes, I'm sure that the US will be ruined if people keep making copies of Windows, over and over again.
What are you gonna do - sue them for a million billion dollars, or something?
Not that it justifies the murder, but note that the boot camps in the US are used for juvenille criminals (joyriding, in this case). In China, you get sent there for spending too much time on the Internet (so called "addiction" - but I've seen no evidence that they require a medical diagnosis to be sent there, not have I seen any scientific evidence that these "boot camps" are an effective way to treat such alleged addictions). AFAICT, these are private institutions, and nothing to do with the justice system.
So another words, even though you admit that OS X 10.5 is also beyond running on that old hardware, you expect better from Vista and Windows 7?
10.4 was released in 2005, Vista came later in 2007 (as was 10.5 later that year). So 10.4 should be compared to XP. 10.5 to Vista. And 10.6 to Windows 7.
Anyhow, if running on old computers is all you care about, AmigaOS 1.x, 2.x runs on a 1MB or less 68000.
But seriously.. windows 7 looks and feels like the "I'm a PC" guy from apple advertisements... even the name sounds boring...
It's an operating system, for heaven's sake. Do you worry that the SATA cable in your computer doesn't look hip, or your fridge-freezer looks boring, or the exhaust pipe of your car doesn't look trendy?
Personally I'd rather a computer component does its job well, rather than trying to win me over with cheap ads that try to appeal to some corporate-dictated pretence of being fashionable. If I care about the looks of things I own, I've no need to bother with needing advice tips from geeks at Apple or Microsoft.
I do know about that command, and have been forced to use it, but I avoid it if at all possible, because, as you said yourself, it force-closes applications. On a server, that can lead to data loss.
You want to force all applications to shut down (and not allow them to interrupt the process for any reason, including say data not yet saved), but you don't want to "force-close" applications? What's the difference?
Wait - a review of the finished latest release of the most dominant OS on the planet, from the biggest software company in the world, isn't news? Yet the daily stories we get of every possible random rumour about the Iphone and the "[do mundane activity] On Your Iphone!" stories we get aren't advertising?
Thank you Captain Obvious for pointing out that he broke the law. Even those who don't RTFA can see that in the summary, which even quotes the name of the law. (Yes, it looks like the OP wasn't previously aware that this is illegal, but he isn't disputing that fact.)
The discussion that the rest of us are having is whether it's right that this should be against the law. You know, "You can hate the law, and work to change it". Perhaps that's why he suggested donating to the EFF?
By "politically correct", you mean simply "correct". I happily call them laptops, but I acknowledge the term makes little sense. I mean, we use laptops on desks, and put desktops on floors...
Yeah I was going to reach for my book, but I'll just switch on my 24" monitor and fire up my 500W computer and have a look.
(It's not immediately clear which is more environmentally unfriendly, especially if we take into account the production of computers, which would be fair if we're also including the production of the book.)
Everytime I read a webcomic now, I find myself hovering the mouse over the image, wondering why the text won't appear, before I realise it's only XKCD that does that.
I guess reading it in book form, I'm going to hovering my finger over the page.
It's not uncommon to start off with 5 weeks a year in the UK, and yes, it goes without saying that that's for each single year.
The very fact that you ask this question - and seriously thought it might have been 5 weeks over 4 years - shows how different it must be wherever you're from...
"In Socialist Europe, higher education causes unemployment!"
(Someone points out a European country with extensive higher education and very low unemployment.)
"But, but - unemployment is good for the economy! In Socialist Europe, higher education causes low unemployment and that's bad!"
Why, I can almost hear the sound of the back peddling.
the rate of inflation would be through the roof as employers paid increasingly ridiculous salaries to try to fill positions
If someone posted a statistic showing that it wasn't through the roof, I look forward to you back peddling to say how inflation is a good thing, and it's bad that inflation isn't through the roof in Scandinavian countries?
In which european countries have more than half the population received higher education? (This claims for the EU overall, even among just young people, the figure is a third).
Then everyone expects to get an "advanced" job and despises menial labour or "low-level" technical jobs (like say, a car technician).
I'm not sure we can make that conclusion. In (non-socialist) UK, we used to have fees paid for and grants, but only some people went to University. In the last 10 or so years, there's a push to get more people apply - but at the same time (in order to pay for it), grants have been abolished and tuition fees introduce.
I'd also argue that the sense of entitlement is greater when education is not free: when it's free, I'm going to University for an education, and any job I get out of that is a bonus. It hasn't cost me, so I don't think I'm entitled to anything.
But when suddenly University costs thousands of pounds, I can understand people feeling more entitled to get something out of it. This is especially true when the argument that the UK Government has put forward is that "graduates earn more money, so it's okay to charge them loads of money up front for going to University" - if it turns out that they can't get such a job after all, but they're still left with thousands of pounds of debt, I could understand them feeling cheated (although the problem is with the Government, not the University).
And I have to ask - can you cite a case where in "socialist" Europe, people have been suing their Universities for not getting a good job?
It all results in high unemployment ("advanced" jobs are rare by definition) for European "aborigines", while uneducated (but willing to work everywhere) migrants fill the labour market gap.
Well hang on, surely that's a fix to the problem? If there are lesser educated people who are willing to do the jobs (migrants or otherwise), then that means it's no longer a problem that there aren't people willing to do the jobs. So you have migrants doing the less skilled work, and other people doing the work that requires degree level education.
You could like, not use them all if they're unneeded?
(I can't remember the last time I had mod points - it was years ago. No wonder moderation is going downhill if some people are getting ridiculous amounts of them, so they get to use them to mod down everyone they disagree with, whilst other people don't get any anymore...)
Yes, just like when the ATM hands me £20 notes instead of £10 notes, it's fair game for me to keep it.
Oh wait, it's not. The law has shown that actually, even if the company gives me the money, it's not my right to take it, if it was reasonably given by mistake.
So when it's an individual who makes the mistake, and a company takes advantage, why should that be any different? It's not appropriate to take advantage of a faulty ATM, and it shouldn't be appropriate to take advantage of a faulty input to this software.
To demonstrate how stupid it is. The whole point of the tool is to tell you how much (if any) you have to pay them - if you already know that, what's the point of the tool?
Consider, supposing I want to licence an article, and within that article is a large chunk of text that's quoted from Jefferson or whoever. This suggests that it would happily include those words in the cost calculation. I guess it's their right to charge whatever arbitrary value they like for a whole article, but this is all the more reason for stories like this to be publicised, so that people are aware of how the tool works. Plus, what if someone did want to quote a Jefferson quotation that happened to be in an article? The point is that they'll happily claim ownership, so it's important for people to be aware of how brain dead and simple the tool is.
Hardly surprising, given all the free advertising they get from the media. The sad thing is that the Apple hype will eventually lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, leaving us with an Apple monopoly far worse than Microsoft: expensive products with yesterday's features touted as "new", and a completely locked down platform. Nice one, media!
There are in fact other companies who are doing well - e.g., RIM, but most of the media prefers to ignore them. You'd think that a place like "news for nerds" would "think different" and focus on the interesting developments in the phone market, but instead it's just the same "Iphone news" that the mainstream media reports.
Okay, but I think it's unfair to criticise them for a quick quote. We also don't know the context - he may be talking about the context of the settlement.
I mean, by your pedantic reasoning, you could say "Talking about what he ate for breakfast is a subset of "anything", therefore he's being hysterical because Apple aren't stopping him from talking about his dietary habits". Yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious, that's clearly not the context that he meant though.
The article makes it clear what he is restricted from talking about, so I don't see any grounds for accusing them of being misleading, or hysterical.
but I do believe that this is a standard practice for settlements outside of court for ANY company not just Apple.
As I say elsewhere, I've never experienced or heard of having to do this for a refund. It is not hysteria to not want to open yourself to being sued because you happened to mention you got a refund.
But sensationalist headlines and bogus stories against companies like Apple who favor the democratic party are typical for "news" organizations like the Times and Fox who are both owned by News Corporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
What on earth? I hate republicans, but that doesn't excuse Apple. This is a UK story, and I doubt the person in the story, the girl, or the journalist give a damn (and statistically, I imagine they're more likely to prefer democrats if they have any opinion on US politics at all). Are you seriously suggesting that the guy gave this misleading quote, because he didn't like Apple's stance on US politics?
What is bogus? We agree on the facts of the case, and nothing is misrepesented; you are just quibbling over the interpretation.
Sensationalism follows Apple around. Usually the hype gives them free publicity - no point whining if they get more than their fair share of bad publicity too.
And I'd say the Times is one of the least sensationalist media outlets - perhaps that's not saying much, but if that's your concern, there's nothing we can trust.
having settlements and their terms made public only increases the risk of people running 250V through their years-old iPods in hopes of getting a shiny new one.
There'll be even more people doing that, now that it's on the national news:)
Slashdot Mirror
Censorship - it Just Works, Out Of The Box!
I'm not a fan of the Iphone, but I've got to admit, they're way ahead on this one.
Developers should indeed know better, but I think a lot of people don't know what they're getting into. It's only through publicising stories like this that people will realise and go elsewhere.
This is a very worrying issue - whilst Apple are a niche player, imagine if they did end up becoming a monopoly on mobile platforms? Mobile computing is going to become ubiquitous in the next few years, and I'm very worried at any possibility of it being locked down and controlled by a single company, who could arbitrary decide what applications are allowed, or dictate whatever changes or censorship it liked. This sort of thing can't have enough publicity, just to minimise the risk of this happening. People need to support the many open alternatives whilst there's still a market.
The worrying thing is that it's on a traditionally anti-censorship site like Slashdot that support for the Iphone seems to be strongest.
It's funny that as soon as the context is America vs China, the acknowledgement that stealing and copyright infringement are different issues goes out the window, and we get a whole load of people talking just like the RIAA.
I didn't realise the RIAA were posting on Slashdot these days. Yes, I'm sure that the US will be ruined if people keep making copies of Windows, over and over again.
What are you gonna do - sue them for a million billion dollars, or something?
Not that it justifies the murder, but note that the boot camps in the US are used for juvenille criminals (joyriding, in this case). In China, you get sent there for spending too much time on the Internet (so called "addiction" - but I've seen no evidence that they require a medical diagnosis to be sent there, not have I seen any scientific evidence that these "boot camps" are an effective way to treat such alleged addictions). AFAICT, these are private institutions, and nothing to do with the justice system.
By that logic, how many revisions of MacOS did Apple have to go through, before they realised it was better to just ditch it and bring in Next?
So another words, even though you admit that OS X 10.5 is also beyond running on that old hardware, you expect better from Vista and Windows 7?
10.4 was released in 2005, Vista came later in 2007 (as was 10.5 later that year). So 10.4 should be compared to XP. 10.5 to Vista. And 10.6 to Windows 7.
Anyhow, if running on old computers is all you care about, AmigaOS 1.x, 2.x runs on a 1MB or less 68000.
It can copy? Well, it's ahead of Mac/Iphone OS then...
But seriously.. windows 7 looks and feels like the "I'm a PC" guy from apple advertisements... even the name sounds boring...
It's an operating system, for heaven's sake. Do you worry that the SATA cable in your computer doesn't look hip, or your fridge-freezer looks boring, or the exhaust pipe of your car doesn't look trendy?
Personally I'd rather a computer component does its job well, rather than trying to win me over with cheap ads that try to appeal to some corporate-dictated pretence of being fashionable. If I care about the looks of things I own, I've no need to bother with needing advice tips from geeks at Apple or Microsoft.
I do know about that command, and have been forced to use it, but I avoid it if at all possible, because, as you said yourself, it force-closes applications. On a server, that can lead to data loss.
You want to force all applications to shut down (and not allow them to interrupt the process for any reason, including say data not yet saved), but you don't want to "force-close" applications? What's the difference?
This isn't news. it's an ad.
Wait - a review of the finished latest release of the most dominant OS on the planet, from the biggest software company in the world, isn't news? Yet the daily stories we get of every possible random rumour about the Iphone and the "[do mundane activity] On Your Iphone!" stories we get aren't advertising?
Wait - who claimed that he hasn't broken the law?
Thank you Captain Obvious for pointing out that he broke the law. Even those who don't RTFA can see that in the summary, which even quotes the name of the law. (Yes, it looks like the OP wasn't previously aware that this is illegal, but he isn't disputing that fact.)
The discussion that the rest of us are having is whether it's right that this should be against the law. You know, "You can hate the law, and work to change it". Perhaps that's why he suggested donating to the EFF?
By "politically correct", you mean simply "correct". I happily call them laptops, but I acknowledge the term makes little sense. I mean, we use laptops on desks, and put desktops on floors...
And here in the UK, we have people blocks, where people are held up just so the police can go on a random fishing expedition with their dog-sniffers. Even though there's clearly not even the argument of the dangers of drink-driving.
Yeah I was going to reach for my book, but I'll just switch on my 24" monitor and fire up my 500W computer and have a look.
(It's not immediately clear which is more environmentally unfriendly, especially if we take into account the production of computers, which would be fair if we're also including the production of the book.)
Everytime I read a webcomic now, I find myself hovering the mouse over the image, wondering why the text won't appear, before I realise it's only XKCD that does that.
I guess reading it in book form, I'm going to hovering my finger over the page.
It's not uncommon to start off with 5 weeks a year in the UK, and yes, it goes without saying that that's for each single year.
The very fact that you ask this question - and seriously thought it might have been 5 weeks over 4 years - shows how different it must be wherever you're from...
"In Socialist Europe, higher education causes unemployment!"
(Someone points out a European country with extensive higher education and very low unemployment.)
"But, but - unemployment is good for the economy! In Socialist Europe, higher education causes low unemployment and that's bad!"
Why, I can almost hear the sound of the back peddling.
the rate of inflation would be through the roof as employers paid increasingly ridiculous salaries to try to fill positions
If someone posted a statistic showing that it wasn't through the roof, I look forward to you back peddling to say how inflation is a good thing, and it's bad that inflation isn't through the roof in Scandinavian countries?
In which european countries have more than half the population received higher education? (This claims for the EU overall, even among just young people, the figure is a third).
Then everyone expects to get an "advanced" job and despises menial labour or "low-level" technical jobs (like say, a car technician).
I'm not sure we can make that conclusion. In (non-socialist) UK, we used to have fees paid for and grants, but only some people went to University. In the last 10 or so years, there's a push to get more people apply - but at the same time (in order to pay for it), grants have been abolished and tuition fees introduce.
I'd also argue that the sense of entitlement is greater when education is not free: when it's free, I'm going to University for an education, and any job I get out of that is a bonus. It hasn't cost me, so I don't think I'm entitled to anything.
But when suddenly University costs thousands of pounds, I can understand people feeling more entitled to get something out of it. This is especially true when the argument that the UK Government has put forward is that "graduates earn more money, so it's okay to charge them loads of money up front for going to University" - if it turns out that they can't get such a job after all, but they're still left with thousands of pounds of debt, I could understand them feeling cheated (although the problem is with the Government, not the University).
And I have to ask - can you cite a case where in "socialist" Europe, people have been suing their Universities for not getting a good job?
It all results in high unemployment ("advanced" jobs are rare by definition) for European "aborigines", while uneducated (but willing to work everywhere) migrants fill the labour market gap.
Well hang on, surely that's a fix to the problem? If there are lesser educated people who are willing to do the jobs (migrants or otherwise), then that means it's no longer a problem that there aren't people willing to do the jobs. So you have migrants doing the less skilled work, and other people doing the work that requires degree level education.
I don't see education causes unemployment anyhow?
Incidentally, US unemployment seems comparable to EU unemployment ( http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25873672-664,00.html , http://www.geo.tv/8-1-2009/46892.htm claim 9.5% for both). Your post wasn't an anti-socialism rant in disguise, was it?
You could like, not use them all if they're unneeded?
(I can't remember the last time I had mod points - it was years ago. No wonder moderation is going downhill if some people are getting ridiculous amounts of them, so they get to use them to mod down everyone they disagree with, whilst other people don't get any anymore...)
Yes, just like when the ATM hands me £20 notes instead of £10 notes, it's fair game for me to keep it.
Oh wait, it's not. The law has shown that actually, even if the company gives me the money, it's not my right to take it, if it was reasonably given by mistake.
So when it's an individual who makes the mistake, and a company takes advantage, why should that be any different? It's not appropriate to take advantage of a faulty ATM, and it shouldn't be appropriate to take advantage of a faulty input to this software.
To demonstrate how stupid it is. The whole point of the tool is to tell you how much (if any) you have to pay them - if you already know that, what's the point of the tool?
Consider, supposing I want to licence an article, and within that article is a large chunk of text that's quoted from Jefferson or whoever. This suggests that it would happily include those words in the cost calculation. I guess it's their right to charge whatever arbitrary value they like for a whole article, but this is all the more reason for stories like this to be publicised, so that people are aware of how the tool works. Plus, what if someone did want to quote a Jefferson quotation that happened to be in an article? The point is that they'll happily claim ownership, so it's important for people to be aware of how brain dead and simple the tool is.
Hardly surprising, given all the free advertising they get from the media. The sad thing is that the Apple hype will eventually lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, leaving us with an Apple monopoly far worse than Microsoft: expensive products with yesterday's features touted as "new", and a completely locked down platform. Nice one, media!
There are in fact other companies who are doing well - e.g., RIM, but most of the media prefers to ignore them. You'd think that a place like "news for nerds" would "think different" and focus on the interesting developments in the phone market, but instead it's just the same "Iphone news" that the mainstream media reports.
Okay, but I think it's unfair to criticise them for a quick quote. We also don't know the context - he may be talking about the context of the settlement.
I mean, by your pedantic reasoning, you could say "Talking about what he ate for breakfast is a subset of "anything", therefore he's being hysterical because Apple aren't stopping him from talking about his dietary habits". Yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious, that's clearly not the context that he meant though.
The article makes it clear what he is restricted from talking about, so I don't see any grounds for accusing them of being misleading, or hysterical.
but I do believe that this is a standard practice for settlements outside of court for ANY company not just Apple.
As I say elsewhere, I've never experienced or heard of having to do this for a refund. It is not hysteria to not want to open yourself to being sued because you happened to mention you got a refund.
But sensationalist headlines and bogus stories against companies like Apple who favor the democratic party are typical for "news" organizations like the Times and Fox who are both owned by News Corporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
What on earth? I hate republicans, but that doesn't excuse Apple. This is a UK story, and I doubt the person in the story, the girl, or the journalist give a damn (and statistically, I imagine they're more likely to prefer democrats if they have any opinion on US politics at all). Are you seriously suggesting that the guy gave this misleading quote, because he didn't like Apple's stance on US politics?
What is bogus? We agree on the facts of the case, and nothing is misrepesented; you are just quibbling over the interpretation.
Sensationalism follows Apple around. Usually the hype gives them free publicity - no point whining if they get more than their fair share of bad publicity too.
And I'd say the Times is one of the least sensationalist media outlets - perhaps that's not saying much, but if that's your concern, there's nothing we can trust.
having settlements and their terms made public only increases the risk of people running 250V through their years-old iPods in hopes of getting a shiny new one.
There'll be even more people doing that, now that it's on the national news :)