I have a Nokia 3650 which is considered a "smart phone". It runs Symbian and appears to have very versatile APIs in C++ to access nearly every feature of the phone. It's started to crash about once in ten times when I boot it up. Not quite sure why. Overall I'm pleased, there are some cool apps available for it and the voice quality is good also. However, dust has settled under the display glass and it's not even a year old yet. It feels as though the older "classic" cell phones like 3110 were of much better quality in that sense.
What, exactly, are these "hidden APIs" you speak about? It's been a rumour for years but I've yet to hear anything concrete about it... I'm getting increasingly convinced it's some bizarre myth.
Given that the member governments favour software patents when they are collaborating in the Council of Ministers, it's likely they would favour software patents even if the EU did not exist at all. I agree that representative democracy is not always as "democratic" as some people make it out to be... I just don't see this particular issue as an EU problem (not that the EU doesn't have problems).
The EU Parliment votes it down and puts some strict limits on software patents.
The Parliment vote is passed to the Council of Ministers, which directly represents (and contains) the elected governments of the member countries.
The member governments, through the Council, rip out all of the changes made by parliament, and add a few options that weren't even in there to begin with.
The president -- currently held by Ireland -- (and literally sponsored by Microsoft [eu2004.ie]) proceeds, with the rest of the Council, on a path to destroy the European software industry.
The only reason I could imagine, sadly, is that some EU bureaucrats get big dollars by US companies. The fact that theses bureaucrats just choose to overrulle the European Commission is so incredible that my hope is it will create an enormous indignation (because, face it, the average EU citizen doesn't care about patents, but perhaps the beahvior shown by the bureaucrat (total irrespect to the elected representants) will trigger something).
You have it entirely backwards. The council, which comprises the (elected) EU member governments, is pushing through this legislation despite opposition from the parliament. It was originally proposed by the European Commision, whose proposal the member countries are really anxious to push through.
In some policy areas, the European Parliament has full veto power over legislation. In other areas (such as the EU's foreign policy) it is utterly powerless. But its role has increased over the years -- originally its members were not elected by the people, and its powers were significantly more limited than today.
Despite flaws, the EU system works fairly well in practice. The European Parliament is only one part of the entire machinery.
Newsflash #1: every European citizen can vote for representatives in the European Parliament every five years -- next month will be an opportunity to do so.
Newsflash #2: It is the Council of Ministers that is pushing this decision through. Guess what that is? The EU member governments elected by the people on national level.
Look, I don't mean to come down too hard and I agree we have a problem here, but I just wish people who posted had some knowledge of the area instead of just guessing wildly.
Maybe it can be argued that the EU is not democratic. But that is more of a reflection on "representative democracy" as a concept, than the EU in particular.
To be honest I haven't found a package management system for Linux that I'm happy with. I guess the closest I came is Debian's apt-get, but I still encountered occasional problems that were quite frustrating. I currently run FreeBSD (not Linux, I know) on my server, and Windows on my regular box as I still feel that running Linux or other unix-like systems on my desktop is too much hassle with my limited spare time. I tend to play with Linux every now and then, it's clearly getting better and better every week, but I think the package management issue will be a hard nut to crack considering the variety of Linux distributions and package management systems out there. I hope that eventually this aspect becomes as easy as in Windows, which for the most part is fool-proof when it comes to installations.
WiX isn't written in XML. However, you use XML to build your installation packages -- through WiX. It's not likely that it would make sense to port WiX to Linux because the platforms are so different. There are already many customized package formats in use for Linux that are better suited.
I'm open to the possibility that this is true to some extent, but I have a hunch it's a myth more than anything else. There are plenty of audio and video codecs available, some of them free, and they work just fine with the Windows Media Player and any other player that supports Windows media.
WinFS is not being dropped from Longhorn, contrary to popular belief. Neither have any significant features been removed from it, either -- not even network support. There's more detailed information in the various MS blogs out there.
As for playing catchup, I don't really see where MS is technologically behind *nix/*bsd. Except perhaps the command prompt which is absolutely, utterly awful.
MS will be shipping the entire msbuild system (their new equivalence of makefiles) with every copy of Longhorn, allowing anyone to compile apps anywhere. And their development tools will actually modify msbuild files as opposed to use custom project file formats.
Also, I would say that.NET and the way they're taking it in Longhorn (by entirely building the new Windows API using it), combined with things like WinFS (which actually looks really REALLY cool) and Avalon is by and large a hobbyist developer's dream come true.
I realize MS hasn't always made the best products but I think they have truly started to get things right over the past few years and I think it will be pretty difficult for the free software community to catch up to what they're doing.
The European Commision isn't actually a court. In fact, several of the EC's antitrust decisions have been overturned by the real courts (such as the European Court of Justice) in recent years.
I use WAP for checking on the Stockholm public transport website (SL) how to get from point A to point B, or for checking whether any commuter trains are delayed and if so by how many minutes. I also occasionally check the national news sites or my bank account balance.
When I tried QT for Windows last time, perhaps a year ago, it did not appear use the look and feel of the Windows platform, despite the company implying that QT adjusts to the native platform. If they would use actual native widgets, then not only would the user interface automatically change as the Windows controls are updated, but it would also at all times feel like a true Windows GUI -- because that is exactly would it would be! It's possible that QT's architecture is not well suited to mapping the controls to the native API, but I think that is a crucial feature for a lot of people. So far, VwWindows seems like a better choice IMHO.
Ok, thanks for pointing that out -- it looks like I missed it. However, considering Jan's second name (Axelsson) is also clearly Swedish, and both are very common (in Sweden), I'd say it's beyond doubt that this person is a male, and most probably a Swede. Barnes and Noble must have made a mistake. As for the book being written in English, that's usually what technical books destined for an international audience are written in regardless of the author's nationality.
The numbers you may have seen (55 % is the accurate number for Sweden) is the total tax as a percentage of GDP. That does not mean that people typically pay that much (because the tax system is highly progressive). Most people in Sweden pay only local tax, which is anywhere from 29 % to 33 % of your income. So when you get a paycheck, that amount has been deducted and you take home the rest. Of course, there is still a sales tax on items you buy (but some items, like books, have less sales tax than others) but since sales tax is always included in the pricetags it's a kind of hidden tax.
I'm not sure but I think that in Norway (just like in Sweden), the "public defenders" are actually private, professional attorneys appointed by the court to take cases, on a rotating basis. Thus the US concept of "fresh-out-of-law-school crappy lawyers" wouldn't really be a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
"Jam the radar!"
I have a Nokia 3650 which is considered a "smart phone". It runs Symbian and appears to have very versatile APIs in C++ to access nearly every feature of the phone. It's started to crash about once in ten times when I boot it up. Not quite sure why. Overall I'm pleased, there are some cool apps available for it and the voice quality is good also. However, dust has settled under the display glass and it's not even a year old yet. It feels as though the older "classic" cell phones like 3110 were of much better quality in that sense.
What, exactly, are these "hidden APIs" you speak about? It's been a rumour for years but I've yet to hear anything concrete about it... I'm getting increasingly convinced it's some bizarre myth.
Given that the member governments favour software patents when they are collaborating in the Council of Ministers, it's likely they would favour software patents even if the EU did not exist at all. I agree that representative democracy is not always as "democratic" as some people make it out to be... I just don't see this particular issue as an EU problem (not that the EU doesn't have problems).
The only reason I could imagine, sadly, is that some EU bureaucrats get big dollars by US companies. The fact that theses bureaucrats just choose to overrulle the European Commission is so incredible that my hope is it will create an enormous indignation (because, face it, the average EU citizen doesn't care about patents, but perhaps the beahvior shown by the bureaucrat (total irrespect to the elected representants) will trigger something).
You have it entirely backwards. The council, which comprises the (elected) EU member governments, is pushing through this legislation despite opposition from the parliament. It was originally proposed by the European Commision, whose proposal the member countries are really anxious to push through.
In some policy areas, the European Parliament has full veto power over legislation. In other areas (such as the EU's foreign policy) it is utterly powerless. But its role has increased over the years -- originally its members were not elected by the people, and its powers were significantly more limited than today.
Despite flaws, the EU system works fairly well in practice. The European Parliament is only one part of the entire machinery.
Newsflash #1: every European citizen can vote for representatives in the European Parliament every five years -- next month will be an opportunity to do so.
Newsflash #2: It is the Council of Ministers that is pushing this decision through. Guess what that is? The EU member governments elected by the people on national level.
Look, I don't mean to come down too hard and I agree we have a problem here, but I just wish people who posted had some knowledge of the area instead of just guessing wildly.
Maybe it can be argued that the EU is not democratic. But that is more of a reflection on "representative democracy" as a concept, than the EU in particular.
"Hopefully, the EU and the US can learn from past mistakes and create a system that rewards innovation while not stifiling competetion."
Don't count on it.
How is .NET "not exactly mature"...?
To be honest I haven't found a package management system for Linux that I'm happy with. I guess the closest I came is Debian's apt-get, but I still encountered occasional problems that were quite frustrating. I currently run FreeBSD (not Linux, I know) on my server, and Windows on my regular box as I still feel that running Linux or other unix-like systems on my desktop is too much hassle with my limited spare time. I tend to play with Linux every now and then, it's clearly getting better and better every week, but I think the package management issue will be a hard nut to crack considering the variety of Linux distributions and package management systems out there. I hope that eventually this aspect becomes as easy as in Windows, which for the most part is fool-proof when it comes to installations.
WiX isn't written in XML. However, you use XML to build your installation packages -- through WiX. It's not likely that it would make sense to port WiX to Linux because the platforms are so different. There are already many customized package formats in use for Linux that are better suited.
I'm open to the possibility that this is true to some extent, but I have a hunch it's a myth more than anything else. There are plenty of audio and video codecs available, some of them free, and they work just fine with the Windows Media Player and any other player that supports Windows media.
WinFS is not being dropped from Longhorn, contrary to popular belief. Neither have any significant features been removed from it, either -- not even network support. There's more detailed information in the various MS blogs out there.
As for playing catchup, I don't really see where MS is technologically behind *nix/*bsd. Except perhaps the command prompt which is absolutely, utterly awful.
And anyone who has ever seen a movie knows that the bad guy would just chop your finger off if necessary and place it on the scanning pad.
MS will be shipping the entire msbuild system (their new equivalence of makefiles) with every copy of Longhorn, allowing anyone to compile apps anywhere. And their development tools will actually modify msbuild files as opposed to use custom project file formats. Also, I would say that .NET and the way they're taking it in Longhorn (by entirely building the new Windows API using it), combined with things like WinFS (which actually looks really REALLY cool) and Avalon is by and large a hobbyist developer's dream come true.
I realize MS hasn't always made the best products but I think they have truly started to get things right over the past few years and I think it will be pretty difficult for the free software community to catch up to what they're doing.
"Hardcore APIs"...? How do you suppose other third party codecs work?
The European Commision isn't actually a court. In fact, several of the EC's antitrust decisions have been overturned by the real courts (such as the European Court of Justice) in recent years.
I use WAP for checking on the Stockholm public transport website (SL) how to get from point A to point B, or for checking whether any commuter trains are delayed and if so by how many minutes. I also occasionally check the national news sites or my bank account balance.
600 kB/s isn't exactly unusual. A lot of people I know, myself included, are on 10 MBit/s connections, (about 1200 kB/s).
When I tried QT for Windows last time, perhaps a year ago, it did not appear use the look and feel of the Windows platform, despite the company implying that QT adjusts to the native platform. If they would use actual native widgets, then not only would the user interface automatically change as the Windows controls are updated, but it would also at all times feel like a true Windows GUI -- because that is exactly would it would be! It's possible that QT's architecture is not well suited to mapping the controls to the native API, but I think that is a crucial feature for a lot of people. So far, VwWindows seems like a better choice IMHO.
Ok, thanks for pointing that out -- it looks like I missed it. However, considering Jan's second name (Axelsson) is also clearly Swedish, and both are very common (in Sweden), I'd say it's beyond doubt that this person is a male, and most probably a Swede. Barnes and Noble must have made a mistake. As for the book being written in English, that's usually what technical books destined for an international audience are written in regardless of the author's nationality.
You refer to Jan as "her" and "she". Jan is a (Swedish) male name, however.
The numbers you may have seen (55 % is the accurate number for Sweden) is the total tax as a percentage of GDP. That does not mean that people typically pay that much (because the tax system is highly progressive). Most people in Sweden pay only local tax, which is anywhere from 29 % to 33 % of your income. So when you get a paycheck, that amount has been deducted and you take home the rest. Of course, there is still a sales tax on items you buy (but some items, like books, have less sales tax than others) but since sales tax is always included in the pricetags it's a kind of hidden tax.
I'm not sure but I think that in Norway (just like in Sweden), the "public defenders" are actually private, professional attorneys appointed by the court to take cases, on a rotating basis. Thus the US concept of "fresh-out-of-law-school crappy lawyers" wouldn't really be a problem.