Are we so dim that we can't comprehend that whenever anyone says anything they may actually have a reason for saying it, usually involving influencing someone else?
Around here, yes, it seems many fit that category. Many here seem to take info from friendly organization as a gospel from on high. Then when they turn to advocate that position they become counterproductive. For example some of the faithful have used biased info to advocate Linux to their boss and actually made things worse. Tossing out a few reality checks around here can't hurt.
For instance, the spin of pointing out that everyone has spin is that you want to denigrate what you are commenting on without appearing to do so outright. Obviously you have a beef with the EFF and you want to show them as being the same, morally, as everyone else. By extension, if they have no moral high ground they should not be preaching to others about what's right. Therefore, they shouldn't be listened to about anything.
Something like that, right?
No, the above seems like spin attempting to discount the simple truth that even the EFF spins things and/or makes mistakes. The truth will set you free but blind faith will make you someone's puppet and the best you can hope for is a benevolent master. Strange that you seem hostile to the truth, who's pulling your strings?
It does not matter why they have the agenda and spin, the important point is to recognize that they have one and to take that into consideration as you formulate your own opinion. The truth is the truth, and spin is spin regardless of whether or not you believe the spin is well meaning, helpful, etc.
Yeah, but try calling Adobe (for instance) and asking for a file to decrypt PDFs for educational (as in university) use. Sure there's an exeption in there, but nobody pays attention to it. They just claim it's a DMCA thing and hang up on you.
That's a red herring. They don't need the DMCA to hang up on your request, they always had the right to ignore you.
Sorry Elmer, but you don't need the DMCA to try to bluff with a lawsuit. Even if the bluff went as far as filing you could file a motion that hilights the section of the DMCA that grants the exemption. The judge will probably dismiss the suit on the spot. And there is also the potential for a countersuit over the frivilous suit and harassment.
Like nearly everyone else involved the EFF has an agenda and a spin. Once example of EFF FUD'ing may be the reference to scientific research. A while ago I read a *government* summary of the DMCA and I believe there is an *exemption for research*. Scientific research and various other activities are inherently exempt.
Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...
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· Score: 1
"I'm sorry but you have that backwards. Exceptional engineers are far less common than exceptional saleman."
How about you both agree on exceptional people being not common? (Which is one of the things making them exceptional in the first place...)
No, you're missing a small but important point. "Exceptional" is with respect to a particular segment of the population, not the population as a whole. If we take a headcount of the top 1% of engineers and a headcount of the top 1% of salesman you will find a far smaller number of engineers.
... a company is *bound by law* to maximise it's profit for the benefit of it's shareholders...
Complete BS. In the U.S. a company is free to consider ethical and moral issues and to give these a higher priority than additional profit. The Board of Directors and stockholder are free to replace management that gives priority over ethics and morals, but of course they are also free to replace management that gived profits priority over ethics and morals.
Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...
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I, Woz
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· Score: 1
... by the island-hopping technique. Would have saved a lot of Marine's lives if Halsey had done that.
That is a bit unfair to Halsey. He did not have the options to bypass or to conduct maneuver warfare that MacArthur had. He had some very small rocks sticking out of the Pacific that had to be taken.
Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...
on
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· Score: 1
I could have sworn that I read this comment somewhere else....
Unlike this or the other GP, which is the point...
I don't get your point. You deride Jobs for being only a "salesman," however his success proves that he is a salesman of rather exceptional caliber. If he was just average, then there would not be any way for him to have succeeded as well (and as regularly) as he has been able. Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple again -- that's a pretty remarkable track record. Salesman, engineer, guru, call him whatever you want, his results speak for themselves.
As for the comparisons to MacArthur; well, there are a lot worse people to be compared to. I'm not sure if you meant that to be derisive or not, but if you did, I take it you've never been to Japan.
Apple, part 1: Successful as a salesman, a PR master. The engineering success belongs to others, the Xerox and Apple engineers who are overshadowed by the PR machine.
Next: A classic failure. Failed in its products and market, and in its weakness was bought out. The price was a little above the salvage value since Apple was also buying Steve for PR value. A fluke of history for Next. Steve, like the Microsoft investment, made for good press and bought Apple time.
Pixar: The movie industry, showmanship and salesmanship have a disproportionate value.
Apple, part 2. Successful in spite of Job's instincts. For example 3rd party developers *forcing* Apple to incorporate backwards compaibility into Mac OS X. To Jobs' credit, he learned from his mistakes at Next and actually listened to customers / 3rd party developers. Or perhaps he was really reigned in by the board, under more adult supervision at Apple than he was at Next. Personally I think he has learned some lessons, hence my on-the-job training comment. He also benefits from the deep pockets generated by his predecessors. Errors are more tolerable than at Next.
The comparison to MacArthur is in the context that they were both egotistical and took an unfair share of the credit, hence the "I" vs "We" allusion. Men who love the media attention. Beyond that, MacArthur accomplished a lot more, absolutely.
Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...
on
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· Score: 1
Believe me, neither was MacArthur.
He did a *brilliant* job rebuilding Japan after the war, but as a general?
I constantly go back & forth between him and Monty as to who was the most incompotent, egomaniacal, self-sentered and overrated generals of WW II.
MacArthur succeeded far more often than he failed. Chinese involvement in Korea was a relatively rare failing. MacArthur was able to go on the offensive when he was only tasked with more of a defensive strategy while Europe was dealt with, he was able to take islands with a numerically inferior attacking force (quite the contrast with Monty), his casualty rate was relatively low, etc. Was he an egotistical prima dona who deserved to be fired for being insubordinate to civilian authority, abosultely, but that does not change the fact that he was able to out think and better utilize opportunities (terrain, position, etc) than his opponents.
Re:Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...
on
I, Woz
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· Score: 1
Really? They study how to "f' up" by starting a company that produces brilliant, ground-breaking technology that runs on mulitple platforms and has some of the best developer tools ever seen, then selling the company for half a billion dollars? Please tell me how I can "f' up" like that.
Simple, ignore your customers, ignore your third party developers, produce things that your target market can't afford, and then get really really lucky and be able to salvage your assets through the sale of the firm. Producing brilliant products is not enough, lots of companies do so and fail due to poor management. And on the flip side mediocre products succeed wildly due to good management.
Selling a firm is not necessarily a sign of good management, it is more often a sign of poor management, of untapped opportunity or poor excution. In other words an opportunity for a better management team. Given Next's failure in it's own business I think the poor management case is more applicable. If someone other than a cofounder of Apple was running Next they would not have found themselves running Apple. Next benefited from this fluke of history, Apple was buying Jobs and the associated PR machine and salesmanship as much as it was buying Next's technology. Jobs' was like the Microsoft investment, it was reassuring and bought the Apple engineers the time they needed. Jobs also benefitted from Apple's deep pockets, individual product failures were easily survived, unlike at Next.
Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...
on
I, Woz
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· Score: 1
... the one who was not under the delusion that he could run a corporation
Um, we're being ironic here, right?
Originally at Apple he was delisional. Later at Next he was a royal f' up, or so they teach in business school with respect to failing to listen to customers. At Pixar he was in an industry where salesmanship and showmanship matter a whole hell of a lot. After decades of on-the-job training he finally got up to speed for Apple part 2, at least he learned to listen to customers, well more accurately his 3rd party developers who forced him to make Mac OS X backwards compatibile for example.
Jobs is like General MacArthur, "I" vs "We" ...
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Woz, was and is a brilliant engineer. But there are hundreds like him. But there aren't many like Steve Jobs.
I'm sorry but you have that backwards. Exceptional engineers are far less common than exceptional saleman.
Steve Jobs IS Apple. Look what they did without him. 12 years of absolutely nothing. Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh.
Jobs is the PR face of Apple and the Mac. The brilliant innovation started at Xerox and continued with the very talented engineers at Apple. Jobs is merely a good saleman who recognized a good thing when he saw it at Xerox. Like Woz, the Xerox and Apple engineers who deserve the real credit are overshadows by the PR face.
Then he started NeXT which was a decade ahead of its time.
Actually in business school they study NeXT as an example of how to royally f' up.
Then he brought Apple back from near extinction. Can you think of another corporation that can yield such influence over an industry while having less than 10% market share?
Actually what saved Apple were the big developers say "NO" to Jobs and forcing Jobs to put backwards compatibility into Mac OS X. Jobs return and the surrounding PR machine was like the Microsoft cash investment, it was reassuring, it bought the Apple engineers some more time.
Oh, and somewhere in his spare time, he bought a little animation studio and turned it into a force.
Again salesmanship, again a PR face overshadowing the real talent,... Also note in this is an industry where salesmanship has a pretty heavy influence.
Jobs is like World War II's General MacArthur. "I" rather than "We", camera crew filming his wading ashore and dominating the newsreels,... Of course Jobs differs from MacArthur in that Jobs is not a genius.
Re:Actually Woz has the god-like status ...
on
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· Score: 1
Jobs is more like the delusional emporer..."
We must fight the empore!
Won't work. He'll just toss some free bread, errr - I mean free iPods, into the crowd and they will turn and cheer and bow. You'll just get yourself crucified along the Infinite Loop.
He created the specs for the Apple ][ case, without that the Apple ][ would have been as useful and popular as the IMSAI or other machines from the same time-period.
The Apple 1 was a kit. Moving to a non-kit was a fairly conventional next step. The case was a fairly paltry design compared to what went inside, ill-positioned keyboard, poorly implemented removable lid (easily worn if open too much),... Sorry, I used Apple II, II+, and//e models for many years, there was nothing special about the case in it's day. It is merely nostalgic today looking back at it.
With the Mac he wanted to extend that to the software, not only the hardware... Well, he was ahead of time...
Xerox was ahead of its time. Steve was merely a good salesman that recognized something good when he saw it. Also the real design of the Mac came from the very talented engineers working at Apple, who like Woz, are overshadowed by the public face of a saleman.
All that said, a salesman is very useful. A company with a bunch of brilliant engineers but without a great salesman is likely to be a failure or a buyout target. But let's try not to confuse the hype machine with history.
Actually Woz has the god-like status ...
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· Score: 3, Funny
Actually Woz has the god-like status, Jobs is more like the delusional emporer...
Actually Woz was the more important Steve ...
on
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Actually Woz was the more important Steve, the one people liked, the engineer rather than the salesman, the one who was not under the delusion that he could run a corporation, the one who decided not to make employees suffer under decades of on-the-job training while he developed the skills, the one who decided to do something more important, the one who was always welcome at Apple, the one person "at" Apple who doesn't need to care what Jobs thinks...
My friends and schoolmates actually do that on a fairly regular basis. Our porches and patios are usually covered by 802.11 so it doesn't really matter if you arrive before the host either. Coffee is a hell of a lot cheaper too.
Microsoft heaven, Apple users actually buying copies of Windows at full retail prices!
Last time I purchased XP I was able to buy an OEM version since I was purchasing a hard drive. A motherboard also qualified you at the time. Since then I've been told the OEM qualifications have been relaxed. I googled "Windows XP OEM" and several online stores seemed to be selling the OEM version for less than US$90 with no mention of other hardware purchases to qualify.
Desktops and servers are a small part of the world, numerically they are dwarfed by embedded and other small scale devices. Now you may not find an old pentium in many of these devices but you will find some, and probably more that Sparc, Alpha, and other "mainstream" server CPUs that receive Linux support. I did a quick google of single board computers and I was finding 386 based solutions. I'm having flashbacks to an embedded kernel development job in 1988.:)
If that were the case why haven't they donated their compiler backend to GCC?
The Intel compiler for Linux is quite good (so I'm told) and since that's not a money maker for them you'd think they would make it part of GCC.
Intel may license patented optimization techniques. Such techniques would be unavailable to gcc.
I doubt we're going to see Linux support form Apple any time soon--they are currently in the denial phase
Apple *is* the largest desktop Unix vendor, they are not in denial, they are merely not bothering to support #2. That's a normal thing for #1 to do. The vast majority of open source software is not Linux specific, it builds for manny Unix environment including Mac OS X.
And just how do you propose to get the behemoth that is the Linux Kernel compiling with something other than GCC???
Intel's free compiler? Yes, not portable, but for 99.9% of Linux users so what. And if Linux doesn't build due to unsupported gcc'ism well them fire up vi and change the code, don't use emacs though, that would unethical in this context.;-)
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Are we so dim that we can't comprehend that whenever anyone says anything they may actually have a reason for saying it, usually involving influencing someone else?
Around here, yes, it seems many fit that category. Many here seem to take info from friendly organization as a gospel from on high. Then when they turn to advocate that position they become counterproductive. For example some of the faithful have used biased info to advocate Linux to their boss and actually made things worse. Tossing out a few reality checks around here can't hurt.
For instance, the spin of pointing out that everyone has spin is that you want to denigrate what you are commenting on without appearing to do so outright. Obviously you have a beef with the EFF and you want to show them as being the same, morally, as everyone else. By extension, if they have no moral high ground they should not be preaching to others about what's right. Therefore, they shouldn't be listened to about anything. Something like that, right?
No, the above seems like spin attempting to discount the simple truth that even the EFF spins things and/or makes mistakes. The truth will set you free but blind faith will make you someone's puppet and the best you can hope for is a benevolent master. Strange that you seem hostile to the truth, who's pulling your strings?
It does not matter why they have the agenda and spin, the important point is to recognize that they have one and to take that into consideration as you formulate your own opinion. The truth is the truth, and spin is spin regardless of whether or not you believe the spin is well meaning, helpful, etc.
Yeah, but try calling Adobe (for instance) and asking for a file to decrypt PDFs for educational (as in university) use. Sure there's an exeption in there, but nobody pays attention to it. They just claim it's a DMCA thing and hang up on you.
That's a red herring. They don't need the DMCA to hang up on your request, they always had the right to ignore you.
Sorry Elmer, but you don't need the DMCA to try to bluff with a lawsuit. Even if the bluff went as far as filing you could file a motion that hilights the section of the DMCA that grants the exemption. The judge will probably dismiss the suit on the spot. And there is also the potential for a countersuit over the frivilous suit and harassment.
Like nearly everyone else involved the EFF has an agenda and a spin. Once example of EFF FUD'ing may be the reference to scientific research. A while ago I read a *government* summary of the DMCA and I believe there is an *exemption for research*. Scientific research and various other activities are inherently exempt.
"I'm sorry but you have that backwards. Exceptional engineers are far less common than exceptional saleman."
How about you both agree on exceptional people being not common? (Which is one of the things making them exceptional in the first place...)
No, you're missing a small but important point. "Exceptional" is with respect to a particular segment of the population, not the population as a whole. If we take a headcount of the top 1% of engineers and a headcount of the top 1% of salesman you will find a far smaller number of engineers.
... a company is *bound by law* to maximise it's profit for the benefit of it's shareholders ...
Complete BS. In the U.S. a company is free to consider ethical and moral issues and to give these a higher priority than additional profit. The Board of Directors and stockholder are free to replace management that gives priority over ethics and morals, but of course they are also free to replace management that gived profits priority over ethics and morals.
... by the island-hopping technique. Would have saved a lot of Marine's lives if Halsey had done that.
That is a bit unfair to Halsey. He did not have the options to bypass or to conduct maneuver warfare that MacArthur had. He had some very small rocks sticking out of the Pacific that had to be taken.
I could have sworn that I read this comment somewhere else....
...
Unlike this or the other GP, which is the point
I don't get your point. You deride Jobs for being only a "salesman," however his success proves that he is a salesman of rather exceptional caliber. If he was just average, then there would not be any way for him to have succeeded as well (and as regularly) as he has been able. Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple again -- that's a pretty remarkable track record. Salesman, engineer, guru, call him whatever you want, his results speak for themselves. As for the comparisons to MacArthur; well, there are a lot worse people to be compared to. I'm not sure if you meant that to be derisive or not, but if you did, I take it you've never been to Japan.
Apple, part 1: Successful as a salesman, a PR master. The engineering success belongs to others, the Xerox and Apple engineers who are overshadowed by the PR machine.
Next: A classic failure. Failed in its products and market, and in its weakness was bought out. The price was a little above the salvage value since Apple was also buying Steve for PR value. A fluke of history for Next. Steve, like the Microsoft investment, made for good press and bought Apple time.
Pixar: The movie industry, showmanship and salesmanship have a disproportionate value.
Apple, part 2. Successful in spite of Job's instincts. For example 3rd party developers *forcing* Apple to incorporate backwards compaibility into Mac OS X. To Jobs' credit, he learned from his mistakes at Next and actually listened to customers / 3rd party developers. Or perhaps he was really reigned in by the board, under more adult supervision at Apple than he was at Next. Personally I think he has learned some lessons, hence my on-the-job training comment. He also benefits from the deep pockets generated by his predecessors. Errors are more tolerable than at Next.
The comparison to MacArthur is in the context that they were both egotistical and took an unfair share of the credit, hence the "I" vs "We" allusion. Men who love the media attention. Beyond that, MacArthur accomplished a lot more, absolutely.
Believe me, neither was MacArthur. He did a *brilliant* job rebuilding Japan after the war, but as a general? I constantly go back & forth between him and Monty as to who was the most incompotent, egomaniacal, self-sentered and overrated generals of WW II.
MacArthur succeeded far more often than he failed. Chinese involvement in Korea was a relatively rare failing. MacArthur was able to go on the offensive when he was only tasked with more of a defensive strategy while Europe was dealt with, he was able to take islands with a numerically inferior attacking force (quite the contrast with Monty), his casualty rate was relatively low, etc. Was he an egotistical prima dona who deserved to be fired for being insubordinate to civilian authority, abosultely, but that does not change the fact that he was able to out think and better utilize opportunities (terrain, position, etc) than his opponents.
Really? They study how to "f' up" by starting a company that produces brilliant, ground-breaking technology that runs on mulitple platforms and has some of the best developer tools ever seen, then selling the company for half a billion dollars? Please tell me how I can "f' up" like that.
Simple, ignore your customers, ignore your third party developers, produce things that your target market can't afford, and then get really really lucky and be able to salvage your assets through the sale of the firm. Producing brilliant products is not enough, lots of companies do so and fail due to poor management. And on the flip side mediocre products succeed wildly due to good management.
Selling a firm is not necessarily a sign of good management, it is more often a sign of poor management, of untapped opportunity or poor excution. In other words an opportunity for a better management team. Given Next's failure in it's own business I think the poor management case is more applicable. If someone other than a cofounder of Apple was running Next they would not have found themselves running Apple. Next benefited from this fluke of history, Apple was buying Jobs and the associated PR machine and salesmanship as much as it was buying Next's technology. Jobs' was like the Microsoft investment, it was reassuring and bought the Apple engineers the time they needed. Jobs also benefitted from Apple's deep pockets, individual product failures were easily survived, unlike at Next.
... the one who was not under the delusion that he could run a corporation Um, we're being ironic here, right?
Originally at Apple he was delisional. Later at Next he was a royal f' up, or so they teach in business school with respect to failing to listen to customers. At Pixar he was in an industry where salesmanship and showmanship matter a whole hell of a lot. After decades of on-the-job training he finally got up to speed for Apple part 2, at least he learned to listen to customers, well more accurately his 3rd party developers who forced him to make Mac OS X backwards compatibile for example.
Woz, was and is a brilliant engineer. But there are hundreds like him. But there aren't many like Steve Jobs.
... Also note in this is an industry where salesmanship has a pretty heavy influence.
... Of course Jobs differs from MacArthur in that Jobs is not a genius.
I'm sorry but you have that backwards. Exceptional engineers are far less common than exceptional saleman.
Steve Jobs IS Apple. Look what they did without him. 12 years of absolutely nothing. Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh.
Jobs is the PR face of Apple and the Mac. The brilliant innovation started at Xerox and continued with the very talented engineers at Apple. Jobs is merely a good saleman who recognized a good thing when he saw it at Xerox. Like Woz, the Xerox and Apple engineers who deserve the real credit are overshadows by the PR face.
Then he started NeXT which was a decade ahead of its time.
Actually in business school they study NeXT as an example of how to royally f' up.
Then he brought Apple back from near extinction. Can you think of another corporation that can yield such influence over an industry while having less than 10% market share?
Actually what saved Apple were the big developers say "NO" to Jobs and forcing Jobs to put backwards compatibility into Mac OS X. Jobs return and the surrounding PR machine was like the Microsoft cash investment, it was reassuring, it bought the Apple engineers some more time.
Oh, and somewhere in his spare time, he bought a little animation studio and turned it into a force.
Again salesmanship, again a PR face overshadowing the real talent,
Jobs is like World War II's General MacArthur. "I" rather than "We", camera crew filming his wading ashore and dominating the newsreels,
Jobs is more like the delusional emporer ..."
We must fight the empore!
Won't work. He'll just toss some free bread, errr - I mean free iPods, into the crowd and they will turn and cheer and bow. You'll just get yourself crucified along the Infinite Loop.
He created the specs for the Apple ][ case, without that the Apple ][ would have been as useful and popular as the IMSAI or other machines from the same time-period.
... Sorry, I used Apple II, II+, and //e models for many years, there was nothing special about the case in it's day. It is merely nostalgic today looking back at it.
The Apple 1 was a kit. Moving to a non-kit was a fairly conventional next step. The case was a fairly paltry design compared to what went inside, ill-positioned keyboard, poorly implemented removable lid (easily worn if open too much),
With the Mac he wanted to extend that to the software, not only the hardware... Well, he was ahead of time...
Xerox was ahead of its time. Steve was merely a good salesman that recognized something good when he saw it. Also the real design of the Mac came from the very talented engineers working at Apple, who like Woz, are overshadowed by the public face of a saleman.
All that said, a salesman is very useful. A company with a bunch of brilliant engineers but without a great salesman is likely to be a failure or a buyout target. But let's try not to confuse the hype machine with history.
Actually Woz has the god-like status, Jobs is more like the delusional emporer ...
Actually Woz was the more important Steve, the one people liked, the engineer rather than the salesman, the one who was not under the delusion that he could run a corporation, the one who decided not to make employees suffer under decades of on-the-job training while he developed the skills, the one who decided to do something more important, the one who was always welcome at Apple, the one person "at" Apple who doesn't need to care what Jobs thinks ...
Why can't people just congregate at home?
My friends and schoolmates actually do that on a fairly regular basis. Our porches and patios are usually covered by 802.11 so it doesn't really matter if you arrive before the host either. Coffee is a hell of a lot cheaper too.
Microsoft heaven, Apple users actually buying copies of Windows at full retail prices!
Last time I purchased XP I was able to buy an OEM version since I was purchasing a hard drive. A motherboard also qualified you at the time. Since then I've been told the OEM qualifications have been relaxed. I googled "Windows XP OEM" and several online stores seemed to be selling the OEM version for less than US$90 with no mention of other hardware purchases to qualify.
166 mHz pentium? Please, step into at least 1999.
:)
Desktops and servers are a small part of the world, numerically they are dwarfed by embedded and other small scale devices. Now you may not find an old pentium in many of these devices but you will find some, and probably more that Sparc, Alpha, and other "mainstream" server CPUs that receive Linux support. I did a quick google of single board computers and I was finding 386 based solutions. I'm having flashbacks to an embedded kernel development job in 1988.
If that were the case why haven't they donated their compiler backend to GCC? The Intel compiler for Linux is quite good (so I'm told) and since that's not a money maker for them you'd think they would make it part of GCC.
Intel may license patented optimization techniques. Such techniques would be unavailable to gcc.
I doubt we're going to see Linux support form Apple any time soon--they are currently in the denial phase
Apple *is* the largest desktop Unix vendor, they are not in denial, they are merely not bothering to support #2. That's a normal thing for #1 to do. The vast majority of open source software is not Linux specific, it builds for manny Unix environment including Mac OS X.
And just how do you propose to get the behemoth that is the Linux Kernel compiling with something other than GCC???
;-)
Intel's free compiler? Yes, not portable, but for 99.9% of Linux users so what. And if Linux doesn't build due to unsupported gcc'ism well them fire up vi and change the code, don't use emacs though, that would unethical in this context.