Indeed - they also have a lower value on the new golden standard of revenue per employees. If Jobs had got Apple into the Microsoft's place in the market, it'd have been viewed as a disaster...
No, they didn't make - you are confusing revenue with profits, thus forgetting to take into account costs.
This statistic also does not seem relevant given the context - the claim was that Apple might have turned into "HP", with the implication that that would be a bad thing. So yes, it might mean they'd have a lower "revenue / number of employees". But the Apple of today would nonetheless have been a far larger company (in terms of profits and revenues, as well as employees). Now, I can understand an Apple employee not liking that, but why would someone who enjoys Apple products think that a bad thing?
To put things into context - Microsoft also have a lower "revenue / number of employees". But if someone said "If Apple did this, they'd be in Microsoft's position now", you're seriously telling me you'd interpret that as a bad situation?
Shaping Apple products != Shaping the personal electronics industry. Give me an example if you disagree (and not one of the "Apple firsts" myths, please).
Agreed - comparing revenue per employee is meaningless since it doesn't equate to profits, market share, or employee salary (there are those things like costs).
Europeans are even sillier these days where NATO and UN have to beg plead and extort to get a handful of European soldiers to come within a few hundred miles of a place where they might possibly get shot at.
Your post would have been fine without the racist shot against Europeans. There's a difference between nanny-state style risk aversion, and not wanting to invade other countries (which some people happen to think is not always a good thing, whether or not we ourselves might be at risk). Have you ever stood in the firing line of bullets, btw?
I'm sure some would say your pointless Slashdot posts are heating up their planet... If you're going to be annoyed at other people's energy usage, you could try practicing what you preach.
Surely it's only an issue in the summer, rather than being worse. In months where you are needing to heat your home, it all ends up as heat anyway, so there's no extra cost or energy usage.
It's a bog standard PC. I guess I can say that new Amigas are available if I put a sticky "Amiga" label on it. It's even backwards compatible with the old software.
If you are making the claim that doing something against the EULA is illegal, then the burden is upon you to cite the court case where a user was successfully sued for running Mac OS on a non-Apple machine.
Yes but it ought to be obvious to someone installing software on a machine that doesn't have an Apple sticky label on it that they don't agree with that term.
Good for Apple. My EULA says that I can install software I've legally purchased on whatever the hell I like. Apple indicate agreement with my EULA by selling me the software. If they do not agree, they can send me a refund.
I'm certainly not advocating forcing Apple to modify their software specifically to support anyone else's software (although your NES analogy did make me smile).
You then say:
From a lawyer's point of view, there probably wouldn't be any difference between the two cases.
Who'd buy an OS they don't have a right to use? What, do Apple store employees get you to sign a contract saying you can't use what you're about to buy, until you've agreed to the additional terms? I think I'll stick to companies that don't require me to do that.
You don't have to agree to the GPL. The GPL itself states this: "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program."
It's quite simple: buying software means you can use it. It doesn't mean you can distribute it. That's the way it is when you buy a music CD, it's the way it works with anything.
So if you don't accept the GPL and decide to illegally distribute it, that's your choice - but good luck in court.
If you don't accept Apple's "agreement" and decide to use it, but not illegally distribute it, then tough luck for Apple.
I often travel through London with a rucksack. That doesn't stop me having my Oyster card ready for the machine, and I don't see why on earth it would. And if for some reason I didn't have it ready, I don't see how my rucksack would prevent me from stepping to one side.
But a single anecdote is beside the point. Obviously there will be girls who just don't like maths/computers/etc - there are large numbers of men who don't either, after all!
But if a girl did enjoy maths - if that girl was your daughter, she'd have an advantage. If that girl was someone else's daughter, I feel she'd have been less likely than a boy to be encouraged into pursuing studies and a career in maths.
I've wondered why the gender imbalance exists in geek subjects like computers. I mean, usually pressure to be "masculine" is geared towards being macho, violent, extrovert and so on - none of the things you associate with the typical geek!
Many of the original computer programmers were women, so it's not clear there was a historical reason for this either.
My suspicion is that this is largely down to toys and in general, gender differences in upbringing. When I was growing up in the 80s, there were lots of electronic hand-held toys, and home computers were appearing. Two decades later, adults have all these hand held gadgets, and I spend my working day with computers. My situation was definitely helped by the toys available to me as a child - but such toys are far less likely to be marketed towards girls.
See my other comment for my check out of a random toy store - it's sad to see that the gender differences in marketing are still here 20 years on.
I feel that changing the way children are brought up will have much more of a better long term effect than things like "positive" discrimination. Unfortunately, I fear any attempt to market toys in a more gender neutral way will have the likes of the Daily Mail screaming "OMG Boys forced to play with PONIES, it's Political Correctness Gone Mad!!!"
Just look at a toy store and see what's marketed towards girls, and what's marketed towards boys. Certainly here in the UK, my experience in the 80s was that home computers were seen more as things for boys to use, than things for girls.
Let's take a look (and believe me, this was the first website I tried, I didn't go looking for obvious cases of differences):
Action toys, radio controlled, vehicles, dressing up as ppl with superpowers, military vehicles, scalextric, building sets, gokarts, trains, models. Whilst nothing computer related admittedly, they include electronic toys, and encourage things like building things, as well as generally encouraging boys to associate with jobs and things in the real world.
Playsets, baby dolls, dressing up to look pretty, fashion dolls, fluffy toys, baby, another baby, knitting, OMG PONIES, and be a beautiful Disney Princess.
I'm not sure it makes the sense to play the "YOU POOR VICTIM" card, if that's the card being played to support "affirmative action". I also don't know any women who live 10,000 years to experience that, nor any men come to that.
Here in the UK, girls are outperforming boys at GCSE and A Levels ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/883836.stm ) - does that mean we should have "positive" discrimination in favour of boys to make up?
I don't for one minute doubt or support the horrendous sexism that still exists in many areas of live - but that doesn't mean it's related to this particular issue, nor does it mean the answer is more discrimination. I feel that any decisions should be made on an individual level. So sure, at an interview you might take into account that a person's individual experiences means that they had it harder than someone else, and that they might have better potential despite lower test scores. What you don't do is judge people based on what's between their legs, or the experiences of their forefathers (what are we, Klingons?).
Oxford and Cambridge have a problem with getting state school applicants, and there is a huge inbalance. But they don't resort to discrimination or quotas - rather they have programmes where people go to state schools to encourage people to apply, and people's background is taken into account on an individual level (e.g., a private educated person might have 6 A Levels whilst a state school person doesn't, but the state school never allowed that person the chance to take that many).
(And before anyone accuses me of wanting some male-only club, the huge inbalance in gender in maths/computer University courses and jobs is something I hate, and would much rather there was a 50/50 split. But that doesn't mean I support discrimination, no matter what I personally want.)
I stated "If X then Y" - this means I am making no comment about what happens "If not X". Yes, if someone libels you and you aren't able to sue them, you still have a problem - I didn't state that as it's a statement of the bleeding obvious. I was making no comment on the issue of people covering their tracks.
Your claim however was that this was just like the situation the RIAA face. But their problem is not simply that people can cover their tracks - it's that millions of people are downloading their material, not just one. Which I already said in my first post, but you ignored so you could argue against a straw man.
You cannot sell a photograph of a painting or even your own sketch of a painting without violating the copyright on that painting.
As for "photograph" that's my point - I'm guessing this isn't a photograph of the original board that Scrabulous are using.
However, you can't blanketly copyright all expressions of a particular idea. If I draw a talking mouse or an italian plumber, I can't be sued by Disney/Nintendo for copyright violation (though trademarks might be a different matter).
So it's not clear how this applies to something as simple as a few squares - unless you can cite some relevant court cases.
I don't know if any of that is true or not, but in any case, I think the criticisms of Bush go far beyond those nine statements. Most of those points would be true for just about all presidential candidates. No one is saying Bush is bad on the grounds that he is "loved by the media" or he's a Christian (born again or otherwise). You are setting up a straw man.
You can't copyright a game, but you *can* copyright a game board.
Citation? I mean, I presume that they didn't create the Scrabulous board by making a derivative from the graphical files of some online Hasbro Scrabble game, nor by taking a photo of an actual Scrabble board.
Copyright covers a particular works, but it's not clear to me that this means you can copyright all possible conceptions of a particular idea. It's not obvious to me whether something as simple as the "Scrabble game board" falls into the category of something that can be copyrighted or not.
(Although it occurs to me that one sneaky way round this is to make the game be able to use any generic game board defined in a simple file format, and distribute with an original game board. If someone else then makes a Scrabble game board, that's up to them... although I don't know if this could be done with Facebook apps.)
The RIAA have the problem that large numbers of people want to copy their material. So taking down one site means others pop up in its place.
With libel, typically it's only one particular individual. This guy doesn't have the problem that thousands or even millions of people are libelling him, so it is nothing like the situation the RIAA face! If this person faces a massive legal bill, the problem is solved. It is unlikely that this means he or anyone else will set up another site to libel him.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed - they also have a lower value on the new golden standard of revenue per employees. If Jobs had got Apple into the Microsoft's place in the market, it'd have been viewed as a disaster...
No, they didn't make - you are confusing revenue with profits, thus forgetting to take into account costs.
This statistic also does not seem relevant given the context - the claim was that Apple might have turned into "HP", with the implication that that would be a bad thing. So yes, it might mean they'd have a lower "revenue / number of employees". But the Apple of today would nonetheless have been a far larger company (in terms of profits and revenues, as well as employees). Now, I can understand an Apple employee not liking that, but why would someone who enjoys Apple products think that a bad thing?
To put things into context - Microsoft also have a lower "revenue / number of employees". But if someone said "If Apple did this, they'd be in Microsoft's position now", you're seriously telling me you'd interpret that as a bad situation?
Shaping Apple products != Shaping the personal electronics industry. Give me an example if you disagree (and not one of the "Apple firsts" myths, please).
Agreed - comparing revenue per employee is meaningless since it doesn't equate to profits, market share, or employee salary (there are those things like costs).
Revenue for 4th Quarter 2007:
Apple: $904m ( http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/10/22results.html )
HP: $1.7b ( http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-150322.html )
And for 1st Quarter 2008:
Apple: $1.58b ( http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/22/apple-1q-2008-results-record-1-58-billion-profit/ )
HP: $2.13b ( http://www.news8.net/news/stories/0208/497320.html )
But I'm sure some Apple fan will make up some arbitrary calculation to somehow make Apple come out better...
Europeans are even sillier these days where NATO and UN have to beg plead and extort to get a handful of European soldiers to come within a few hundred miles of a place where they might possibly get shot at.
Your post would have been fine without the racist shot against Europeans. There's a difference between nanny-state style risk aversion, and not wanting to invade other countries (which some people happen to think is not always a good thing, whether or not we ourselves might be at risk). Have you ever stood in the firing line of bullets, btw?
I'm sure some would say your pointless Slashdot posts are heating up their planet... If you're going to be annoyed at other people's energy usage, you could try practicing what you preach.
Surely it's only an issue in the summer, rather than being worse. In months where you are needing to heat your home, it all ends up as heat anyway, so there's no extra cost or energy usage.
Try reading the link you put in your comment, and skip down to the section headed "Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies."
Yes, it's a licence. You don't have to agree to the licence to use the software. Just like with so-called EUL"A"s.
It's a bog standard PC. I guess I can say that new Amigas are available if I put a sticky "Amiga" label on it. It's even backwards compatible with the old software.
If you are making the claim that doing something against the EULA is illegal, then the burden is upon you to cite the court case where a user was successfully sued for running Mac OS on a non-Apple machine.
Yes but it ought to be obvious to someone installing software on a machine that doesn't have an Apple sticky label on it that they don't agree with that term.
Good for Apple. My EULA says that I can install software I've legally purchased on whatever the hell I like. Apple indicate agreement with my EULA by selling me the software. If they do not agree, they can send me a refund.
The very post you replied to covered this:
I'm certainly not advocating forcing Apple to modify their software specifically to support anyone else's software (although your NES analogy did make me smile).
You then say:
From a lawyer's point of view, there probably wouldn't be any difference between the two cases.
Your evidence for this?
Who'd buy an OS they don't have a right to use? What, do Apple store employees get you to sign a contract saying you can't use what you're about to buy, until you've agreed to the additional terms? I think I'll stick to companies that don't require me to do that.
You don't have to agree to the GPL. The GPL itself states this: "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program."
It's quite simple: buying software means you can use it. It doesn't mean you can distribute it. That's the way it is when you buy a music CD, it's the way it works with anything.
So if you don't accept the GPL and decide to illegally distribute it, that's your choice - but good luck in court.
If you don't accept Apple's "agreement" and decide to use it, but not illegally distribute it, then tough luck for Apple.
I often travel through London with a rucksack. That doesn't stop me having my Oyster card ready for the machine, and I don't see why on earth it would. And if for some reason I didn't have it ready, I don't see how my rucksack would prevent me from stepping to one side.
But a single anecdote is beside the point. Obviously there will be girls who just don't like maths/computers/etc - there are large numbers of men who don't either, after all!
But if a girl did enjoy maths - if that girl was your daughter, she'd have an advantage. If that girl was someone else's daughter, I feel she'd have been less likely than a boy to be encouraged into pursuing studies and a career in maths.
I've wondered why the gender imbalance exists in geek subjects like computers. I mean, usually pressure to be "masculine" is geared towards being macho, violent, extrovert and so on - none of the things you associate with the typical geek!
Many of the original computer programmers were women, so it's not clear there was a historical reason for this either.
My suspicion is that this is largely down to toys and in general, gender differences in upbringing. When I was growing up in the 80s, there were lots of electronic hand-held toys, and home computers were appearing. Two decades later, adults have all these hand held gadgets, and I spend my working day with computers. My situation was definitely helped by the toys available to me as a child - but such toys are far less likely to be marketed towards girls.
See my other comment for my check out of a random toy store - it's sad to see that the gender differences in marketing are still here 20 years on.
I feel that changing the way children are brought up will have much more of a better long term effect than things like "positive" discrimination. Unfortunately, I fear any attempt to market toys in a more gender neutral way will have the likes of the Daily Mail screaming "OMG Boys forced to play with PONIES, it's Political Correctness Gone Mad!!!"
Just look at a toy store and see what's marketed towards girls, and what's marketed towards boys. Certainly here in the UK, my experience in the 80s was that home computers were seen more as things for boys to use, than things for girls.
Let's take a look (and believe me, this was the first website I tried, I didn't go looking for obvious cases of differences):
http://www.hamleys.com/Boys%20+%20Hamleys%20Toys/020000000,default,sc.html :
Action toys, radio controlled, vehicles, dressing up as ppl with superpowers, military vehicles, scalextric, building sets, gokarts, trains, models. Whilst nothing computer related admittedly, they include electronic toys, and encourage things like building things, as well as generally encouraging boys to associate with jobs and things in the real world.
http://www.hamleys.com/Girls%20+%20Hamleys%20Toys/030000000,default,sc.html :
Playsets, baby dolls, dressing up to look pretty, fashion dolls, fluffy toys, baby, another baby, knitting, OMG PONIES, and be a beautiful Disney Princess.
God, it makes me sick. I wish I hadn't looked.
I'm not sure it makes the sense to play the "YOU POOR VICTIM" card, if that's the card being played to support "affirmative action". I also don't know any women who live 10,000 years to experience that, nor any men come to that.
Here in the UK, girls are outperforming boys at GCSE and A Levels ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/883836.stm ) - does that mean we should have "positive" discrimination in favour of boys to make up?
I don't for one minute doubt or support the horrendous sexism that still exists in many areas of live - but that doesn't mean it's related to this particular issue, nor does it mean the answer is more discrimination. I feel that any decisions should be made on an individual level. So sure, at an interview you might take into account that a person's individual experiences means that they had it harder than someone else, and that they might have better potential despite lower test scores. What you don't do is judge people based on what's between their legs, or the experiences of their forefathers (what are we, Klingons?).
Oxford and Cambridge have a problem with getting state school applicants, and there is a huge inbalance. But they don't resort to discrimination or quotas - rather they have programmes where people go to state schools to encourage people to apply, and people's background is taken into account on an individual level (e.g., a private educated person might have 6 A Levels whilst a state school person doesn't, but the state school never allowed that person the chance to take that many).
(And before anyone accuses me of wanting some male-only club, the huge inbalance in gender in maths/computer University courses and jobs is something I hate, and would much rather there was a 50/50 split. But that doesn't mean I support discrimination, no matter what I personally want.)
You obviously didn't read my post.
I stated "If X then Y" - this means I am making no comment about what happens "If not X". Yes, if someone libels you and you aren't able to sue them, you still have a problem - I didn't state that as it's a statement of the bleeding obvious. I was making no comment on the issue of people covering their tracks.
Your claim however was that this was just like the situation the RIAA face. But their problem is not simply that people can cover their tracks - it's that millions of people are downloading their material, not just one. Which I already said in my first post, but you ignored so you could argue against a straw man.
You cannot sell a photograph of a painting or even your own sketch of a painting without violating the copyright on that painting.
As for "photograph" that's my point - I'm guessing this isn't a photograph of the original board that Scrabulous are using.
However, you can't blanketly copyright all expressions of a particular idea. If I draw a talking mouse or an italian plumber, I can't be sued by Disney/Nintendo for copyright violation (though trademarks might be a different matter).
So it's not clear how this applies to something as simple as a few squares - unless you can cite some relevant court cases.
I don't know if any of that is true or not, but in any case, I think the criticisms of Bush go far beyond those nine statements. Most of those points would be true for just about all presidential candidates. No one is saying Bush is bad on the grounds that he is "loved by the media" or he's a Christian (born again or otherwise). You are setting up a straw man.
You can't copyright a game, but you *can* copyright a game board.
Citation? I mean, I presume that they didn't create the Scrabulous board by making a derivative from the graphical files of some online Hasbro Scrabble game, nor by taking a photo of an actual Scrabble board.
Copyright covers a particular works, but it's not clear to me that this means you can copyright all possible conceptions of a particular idea. It's not obvious to me whether something as simple as the "Scrabble game board" falls into the category of something that can be copyrighted or not.
(Although it occurs to me that one sneaky way round this is to make the game be able to use any generic game board defined in a simple file format, and distribute with an original game board. If someone else then makes a Scrabble game board, that's up to them ... although I don't know if this could be done with Facebook apps.)
The RIAA have the problem that large numbers of people want to copy their material. So taking down one site means others pop up in its place.
With libel, typically it's only one particular individual. This guy doesn't have the problem that thousands or even millions of people are libelling him, so it is nothing like the situation the RIAA face! If this person faces a massive legal bill, the problem is solved. It is unlikely that this means he or anyone else will set up another site to libel him.