Pick any industry, and look up the number of regulations. The sheer number of them keeps some businesses from doing anything because of the cost of keeping track of being compliant.
Unsubstantiated vagaries. I wanted one example, can you not even provide that? If you are so concerned, obviously you have specific examples you have selected as evidence for your case.
The number alone, never mind any one regulation in particular, can easily keep smaller players out of the game.
Such as? Let's go at this another way, name a company that has been shut down or kept out of a market because of regulations?
So basically just reduce them by half. Any regulations, it doesn't really matter which ones - because they are mostly selectively enforced anyway whenever someone gets uppity.
It does matter. Suggesting that you can just arbitrarily drop half the regulations in existence implies that no one rule has any more value than another, which is totally disingenuous.
No, a handful of high level suggestions would be useful. I rarely even get that. Though I am not surprised to get an offhand dismissal from an AC. That said, when people scream about "reducing regulation" it rarely has anything to do with bills that benefit corporations.
And I expect better from/. as well, which is why I'm baffled that the GGP got modded +4 with such an empty post.
What regulations would you reduce? I hear that all the time but little to nothing in specifics except ways that put more power into corporate hands / push costs off on to the citizens of the country.
But we all know the newer Intel chips no longer have a BIOS but instead run UEFI and MS has made it quite clear they'll use it to block any attempts to install unlicensed software.
Err, please refrain from speaking about that which you don't understand. Most motherboards come with UEFI today, as it stands. Microsoft just happens to be leveraging it for their own purposes.
Samsung has the rump of Meego in the form of Tizen
There's nothing MeeGo about Tizen. Some existing projects from Intel might make their way in, but nothing of MeeGo proper is present. As it stands, Tizen is just SLP made public with investment from Intel and more public than LiMo (albeit without any sort of community input that I can see.)
Other than that, the current Tizen push to have no native software at all, focusing entirely on HTML5 software (which, in the face of Android and iOS support for native development is suicide.) As someone who attended the Tizen summit in San Francisco back in May, this has greatly discouraged me and sharply tempered my interest in the platform. I'll keep my ears open and fiddle with my reference unit, but it looks like I'm stuck with my N900 for yet more time until something drops that can actually replace it (hopefully giving me the option of root that I want.)
Well then he can weep, despite it moving one step closer to his goal. Actually, didn't he acknowledge that proprietary software on a Free platform was better than proprietary software on a proprietary platform?
The problem are the APIs used on Android generally don't line up to anything you normally find on non-Android Linux platforms. The entire JNI setup, for instance, isn't necessary on non-Andorid platforms. Instead you need to work through Xorg (X11) and deal with the standard *nix user space and not whatever Android supplies instead.
Or just force them to divest the infrastructure into a separate company, and make said company a common carrier.
Comcast can split into Comcast that owns the pipes, and Xfinity for all their media bullshit. They can then make Comcast a common carrier, and bar them from favoring Xfinity in any way.
quick lets all make up excuses for Linus getting old man syndrome
Quick, let's resort to an ad-hominem! The target doesn't matter, let's just bash!
OMFG NOOOOO there is no possible way that NVIDIA could operate like every other chip maker on the face of the planet.
Apparently this isn't the case. Apparently they can go to the vendors of other chips and get questions answered. They may be difficult, but apparently nvidia is the worst. Not a good thing when the developers of the kernel your customers are using for their mobile devices can't get answers to solve problems.
They have millions of chips to produce for paying customers.
Because making a product justifies making life hard for developers who are attempting to support your platform. Oh, no it doesn't. It behooves Nvidia to aid people attempting to resolve problems that involve Nvidia's hardware/drivers.
he is starting to get that syndrome where everything out of his mouth makes you want to roll your eyes and ignore him
You've obviously never had to deal with a shitty company before. Nvidia interacts heavily with the Linux world, but any attempts to accomplish things if you aren't a direct customer buying millions of chips from them is goddamn impossible. It's not just getting sources, it's just making shit work and having to deal with the fact that a prominent company whose technology gets used in so many platforms causes you no end of trouble (bug reports, workarounds, etc.) but they won't assist or aid you in the slightest. On top of being entirely closed source. You can't ignore the issue entirely, but your hands are tied in terms of how you can actually look into and resolve a problem.
So yeah, Nvidia cranks out Linux drivers that work decently well. That doesn't make them immune to criticism, especially not at the level Linus probably has to deal with them at.
But hey, Slashdot is rapidly becoming very, very anti-Linux so why not?
Most people have never heard of BartPE and using it violates the Windows license. Plus it doesn't work well from a USB drive, e.g. installing apps is flaky. MS has taken a good idea and added proper support for it. I really don't see how you can paint that as anything other than a useful and good thing.
Is it available for regular users or is it still an "enterprise" feature that won't be available to the average user?
Are you kidding? Gamers have been wanting XBOX Live style integration for Windows games for years.
Oh you mean like Games for Windows LIVE, which virtually every PC gamer I know spits on and hates with a passion (nothing like a game management utility update forcing a system reboot, or just outright breaking games.) Steam does a great job and is isn't hated like GFWL is.
* That's not in a laptop * Those cost several tens of thousands of dollars when they came out * They required two DVI connections to operate, and behaved weirdly because of it * Low (40Hz) refresh rate
I consider the slight hassle (have to find screwdriver!) of changing the "non-replaceable" battery in an iPhone once every couple of years, for example, much better than having an externally accessible battery fall out periodically.
Funny, in the near 3 years I've owned my N900 the battery has not fallen out once. Perhaps your problem lies not with the existence of a readily replaceable battery but with poor manufacturing processes.
You can buy wholesale, right now, Android 4.0 7" tablets with 1GB ram, 8GB storage, capacitive screens for $55 a piece.
You can, but they tend to be shit and come from vendors who are utterly incompetent at proper software adaptations and don't comply with the GPL for the kernel (let alone releasing any of the other sources.
Obviously I'm right about the comfort level thing due to people's reactions to my comment.
Someone disagrees with you and that means what, exactly?
People can't admit to themselves that they are risking their money by using non-aproved software with hardware they buy.
Holy hell, it's the same terrible arguments being used to justify locking down mobile devices being applied to standard PC hardware. Wow.
Don't delude yourself into thinking that hardware that you buy will let you use it without using the manufacturer's approved drivers without voiding warranty.
By that logic the only OS we can ever use is Windows.
I'll avoid using an obvious car analogy here.
Good, because a car analogy would be exceedingly shitty.
Virtually no vendors these days include a restore CD. Instead they include a junkware riddled "restore partition." Microsoft stopped letting them include clean OEM install CDs years ago.
We've forgotten the fact that essentially using Linux does void your warranty in most cases.
Which is not true, quite frankly.
Distributions like Linux Mint do a good job of hiding all the warnings that you used to see when trying to get your drivers working, but they are still there.
Then logically just reinstalling Windows would void your warranty. I suspect they wouldn't have voided the return if it was running Windows.
From a manufacturer's point of view, I can't say I blame them for having this stance.
Letting manufacturers dictate end user actions by threatening their hardware warranty is the nasty, nasty direction the computing world is taking. Just accepting it is probably the worst of all possible courses of action.
Everyone using Linux, FreeBSD, ReactOS or Haiku or any other open source/community built OS where the drivers are written through reverse engineering needs to understand this because sometimes it does come back to bite.
"If you use non-Windows platforms, you are lesser and will get screwed over. Accept it." That said, I don't know how many drivers are actually -reverse engineered- these days other than Nouveau.
Sorry if this comes off as rather snarky, but your argument basically falls into the growing anti-Linux, anti-anything-not-Windows bucket.
It's not harming in any other way, access to any other service.
Indeed, Comcast is not violating network neutrality here. Abusing their regional monopolies and leveraging it to give themselves an edge over Netflix is what they are doing.
Again it's not harming the quality of anything you receive from anywhere.
Which, in the context of Comcast's activities, is beside the point.
Here's a final question - name a single network neutrality bill that would prevent Comcast from doing what they are doing, and why.
Unfortunately there aren't any. A bill that would go a long way to solving the problem that is Comcast would be one that disallows carriers from owning media companies (and vice versa) and forces ISPs into the Common Carrier part of telecom law. Network neutrality and conflict of interest concerns solved.
Slashdot Mirror
Unsubstantiated vagaries. I wanted one example, can you not even provide that? If you are so concerned, obviously you have specific examples you have selected as evidence for your case.
Such as? Let's go at this another way, name a company that has been shut down or kept out of a market because of regulations?
It does matter. Suggesting that you can just arbitrarily drop half the regulations in existence implies that no one rule has any more value than another, which is totally disingenuous.
No, a handful of high level suggestions would be useful. I rarely even get that. Though I am not surprised to get an offhand dismissal from an AC. That said, when people scream about "reducing regulation" it rarely has anything to do with bills that benefit corporations.
And I expect better from /. as well, which is why I'm baffled that the GGP got modded +4 with such an empty post.
What regulations would you reduce? I hear that all the time but little to nothing in specifics except ways that put more power into corporate hands / push costs off on to the citizens of the country.
Err, please refrain from speaking about that which you don't understand. Most motherboards come with UEFI today, as it stands. Microsoft just happens to be leveraging it for their own purposes.
There's nothing MeeGo about Tizen. Some existing projects from Intel might make their way in, but nothing of MeeGo proper is present. As it stands, Tizen is just SLP made public with investment from Intel and more public than LiMo (albeit without any sort of community input that I can see.)
Other than that, the current Tizen push to have no native software at all, focusing entirely on HTML5 software (which, in the face of Android and iOS support for native development is suicide.) As someone who attended the Tizen summit in San Francisco back in May, this has greatly discouraged me and sharply tempered my interest in the platform. I'll keep my ears open and fiddle with my reference unit, but it looks like I'm stuck with my N900 for yet more time until something drops that can actually replace it (hopefully giving me the option of root that I want.)
Well then he can weep, despite it moving one step closer to his goal. Actually, didn't he acknowledge that proprietary software on a Free platform was better than proprietary software on a proprietary platform?
The problem are the APIs used on Android generally don't line up to anything you normally find on non-Android Linux platforms. The entire JNI setup, for instance, isn't necessary on non-Andorid platforms. Instead you need to work through Xorg (X11) and deal with the standard *nix user space and not whatever Android supplies instead.
I know, because being able to do whatever you want (even if there is some risk) is so very, very terrible.
Android gets malware. Android malware won't necessarily run on other Linux-based platforms.
It can, but if it does it'll be way more severe due to it being a remote exploit.
Then just bar them from being allowed to do so. They're corporations, not human beings. Restricting them to divert a power grab is never a bad thing.
Yeah, brilliant move I say.
Or just force them to divest the infrastructure into a separate company, and make said company a common carrier.
Comcast can split into Comcast that owns the pipes, and Xfinity for all their media bullshit. They can then make Comcast a common carrier, and bar them from favoring Xfinity in any way.
Quick, let's resort to an ad-hominem! The target doesn't matter, let's just bash!
Apparently this isn't the case. Apparently they can go to the vendors of other chips and get questions answered. They may be difficult, but apparently nvidia is the worst. Not a good thing when the developers of the kernel your customers are using for their mobile devices can't get answers to solve problems.
Because making a product justifies making life hard for developers who are attempting to support your platform. Oh, no it doesn't. It behooves Nvidia to aid people attempting to resolve problems that involve Nvidia's hardware/drivers.
Quick, let's lash out at Linus!
You've obviously never had to deal with a shitty company before. Nvidia interacts heavily with the Linux world, but any attempts to accomplish things if you aren't a direct customer buying millions of chips from them is goddamn impossible. It's not just getting sources, it's just making shit work and having to deal with the fact that a prominent company whose technology gets used in so many platforms causes you no end of trouble (bug reports, workarounds, etc.) but they won't assist or aid you in the slightest. On top of being entirely closed source. You can't ignore the issue entirely, but your hands are tied in terms of how you can actually look into and resolve a problem.
So yeah, Nvidia cranks out Linux drivers that work decently well. That doesn't make them immune to criticism, especially not at the level Linus probably has to deal with them at.
But hey, Slashdot is rapidly becoming very, very anti-Linux so why not?
Is it available for regular users or is it still an "enterprise" feature that won't be available to the average user?
Oh you mean like Games for Windows LIVE, which virtually every PC gamer I know spits on and hates with a passion (nothing like a game management utility update forcing a system reboot, or just outright breaking games.) Steam does a great job and is isn't hated like GFWL is.
And my USB port has been solid as a rock.
Qualcomm does not use ARM's reference Cortex designs.
Why do companies write proprietary software? Because they think it gives them an advantage.
Because:
* That's not in a laptop
* Those cost several tens of thousands of dollars when they came out
* They required two DVI connections to operate, and behaved weirdly because of it
* Low (40Hz) refresh rate
Funny, in the near 3 years I've owned my N900 the battery has not fallen out once. Perhaps your problem lies not with the existence of a readily replaceable battery but with poor manufacturing processes.
You can, but they tend to be shit and come from vendors who are utterly incompetent at proper software adaptations and don't comply with the GPL for the kernel (let alone releasing any of the other sources.
Someone disagrees with you and that means what, exactly?
Holy hell, it's the same terrible arguments being used to justify locking down mobile devices being applied to standard PC hardware. Wow.
By that logic the only OS we can ever use is Windows.
Good, because a car analogy would be exceedingly shitty.
Virtually no vendors these days include a restore CD. Instead they include a junkware riddled "restore partition." Microsoft stopped letting them include clean OEM install CDs years ago.
Which is not true, quite frankly.
Then logically just reinstalling Windows would void your warranty. I suspect they wouldn't have voided the return if it was running Windows.
Letting manufacturers dictate end user actions by threatening their hardware warranty is the nasty, nasty direction the computing world is taking. Just accepting it is probably the worst of all possible courses of action.
"If you use non-Windows platforms, you are lesser and will get screwed over. Accept it." That said, I don't know how many drivers are actually -reverse engineered- these days other than Nouveau.
Sorry if this comes off as rather snarky, but your argument basically falls into the growing anti-Linux, anti-anything-not-Windows bucket.
It's not harming in any other way, access to any other service.
Indeed, Comcast is not violating network neutrality here. Abusing their regional monopolies and leveraging it to give themselves an edge over Netflix is what they are doing.
Which, in the context of Comcast's activities, is beside the point.
Unfortunately there aren't any. A bill that would go a long way to solving the problem that is Comcast would be one that disallows carriers from owning media companies (and vice versa) and forces ISPs into the Common Carrier part of telecom law. Network neutrality and conflict of interest concerns solved.