It worked great for them so since MS is trying to re-invent themselves, why not follow the same paradigm.
Indeed. And they get to follow Apple's lead in getting users the world over to accept DRM'd hardware and walled gardens. They can convince users that mobile devices need to be meticulously managed by the OS vendor, and allowing you access of any kind below the shiny, barred exterior is bad and will lead only to bad things.
This is something Microsoft has dreamed of for years. Apple beat them to the punch with iOS, and now Microsoft is following along. I expect the restrictions being placed on access to Metro will grow and eventually encompass all software that touches the Windows platform. Much like drivers, you will eventually be unable to install software without getting a Microsoft signature (for $hundreds) and you'll only be able to sell through Microsoft's app store.
GSM is a more popular format worldwide because it is not patent-encumbered.
Really? I find it hard to believe that GSM is not patent encumbered. My impression was that the lack of being hard-tied to a device was what made it so popular in Europe (what with their quaint notion of Consumer Rights) and it spread from there (and has grown by inertia to everywhere CDMA is as well.)
Because an Android device is a crippled, incompatible Linux distribution that goes only where Google wants. WebOS went nowhere due to mismanagement, and Google did a great job damaging interest in MeeGo.
Smartphones are the new console, and the push by the majors is to keep them that way while console-izing tablets and standard PCs.
See, I knew that Microsoft would insist that the ARM platform was special in some way that justified turning it into a walled garden. So if the two bits of information I've heard: Metro Apps will only be available via Microsoft's Store, and Win 8 on ARM can only use Metro Apps, then it really looks like Microsoft is trying to bring the worst of crippled, DRM-laden computing up from the smart phone level to the tablet and likely even the PC eventually (since Metro Apps will be locked similarly on the PC.)
Something tells me you know less than you think you do.
the way it installed applications was slow and cumbersome, configuration of mail was a pain, and would sometimes just stop working for no good reason. MMS wasn't supported, and the 3d party applications that existed didn't work.
Oh you mean MAEMO. Yes, MAEMO. Not MeeGo.
Thank you for your highly opinionated... opinion. Your experience (except for Hildon Application Manager) runs completely counter to mine.
As I understand it, the leadership behind Qt is not the same as the leadership behind much of Nokia or even Symbian. They definitely have a better understanding of how to work with communities and do things in the open than Nokia does.
The sad apathy and silence around this move, and the Qt project, shows how far Slashdot's reader base has fallen from being interested in FOSS and open development models.
It's all about being treated as second-rate by Google these days, white knighting for Apple, or reading shit articles posted by samzenpus/kdawson/timothy.
Irrelevant. Open source projects like this don't go upstream for Android because they're made by "the community" and not some large partner corporation.
Do you expect them to randomly have kernels for whatever ARM device you might have? All of the clunky "niceties" that we have on x86 that allow generic Linux and Windows kernels to install on pretty much any PC don't exist in the ARM world, so there's no point in posting ARM binaries unless it's in the form of a flashable image for a target device.
No. Linux will never make inroads due to the immense legacy of software that requires Windows to run. Microsoft achieved their goal of a desktop that is completely unable to escape it.
And where's your rage at the bankers who tanked the economy, whose actions have affected far more people more drastically than anything Anonymous has done?
Or how about the Tea Party idiots in the House, who played chicken with the economy as well?
Please, Wall Street and companies like Goldman Sachs are far greater National Security Risks than any conglomeration of people in their basements DDoSing websites.
I'd start with defense spending, as well as Social Security and Medicare reforms. For instance, would it not make sense for the government to negotiate the price of drugs and equipment they buy for Medicare/Medicaid, instead of being legally barred from doing so and paying whatever obscene price the manufacturer asks? Then I'd pare down in order of budget size.
Attacking NASA while refusing to even look at defense spending or Social Security is them saying "I refuse to even approach the problem," not that they are interested in solving it.
Firmware blobs, not being run by the host CPU, tend to be a bit of a wash.
a driver or two that isn't available in source form
Rarely are these kernel modules. Most often they are userspace modules, which limits your ability to upgrade or swap out the libc. This is problematic for non-Android Linux efforts because (thanks to Google) these userspace blobs are linked against Bionic and not glibc.
You can have all the open source you want; but if you can only run it on x86 whiteboxes and select dev boards, you still have a problem.
Which is precisely what Apple and Microsoft want. Well, minus the "x86 whitebox" because that gives you an out to get around them.
It's not how Free Software works, for sure. It's also not how community projects work. It's how insular, isolated projects with a strongly expressed NIH syndrome work.
Android is not Open Source though. The AOSP is. The AOSP is the offal of the Android project that Google used to draw in fans of open source, Free Software, and Linux. And yet at the height of Android's popularity they proceeded to leave the AOSP and community out of Honeycomb, and we have no idea whatsoever they'll do with Ice Cream Sandwich when it comes out on devices.
This is one reason that I shudder when people suggest that Android should be the basis for a desktop Linux, to the exclusion of all the other infrastructure not controlled by Google that, lacking any major architectural flaws, needs good usage testing and a designer's eye.
This is virtually a given, and pretty much a universality among mobile GPUs and mobile SoCs. The only vendor of graphics cores that does release all of their source code is Intel. And in the end I don't believe Eben or anyone at the Raspberry Pi project have any say in the matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Half are trolls, most are useless, and few are above +3. Slashdot's demographics seem to have rotted out completely.
"Better" as in "more accurate."
Not "better" as in "things weren't quite as bad as reported."
Indeed. And they get to follow Apple's lead in getting users the world over to accept DRM'd hardware and walled gardens. They can convince users that mobile devices need to be meticulously managed by the OS vendor, and allowing you access of any kind below the shiny, barred exterior is bad and will lead only to bad things.
This is something Microsoft has dreamed of for years. Apple beat them to the punch with iOS, and now Microsoft is following along. I expect the restrictions being placed on access to Metro will grow and eventually encompass all software that touches the Windows platform. Much like drivers, you will eventually be unable to install software without getting a Microsoft signature (for $hundreds) and you'll only be able to sell through Microsoft's app store.
Really? I find it hard to believe that GSM is not patent encumbered. My impression was that the lack of being hard-tied to a device was what made it so popular in Europe (what with their quaint notion of Consumer Rights) and it spread from there (and has grown by inertia to everywhere CDMA is as well.)
Because an Android device is a crippled, incompatible Linux distribution that goes only where Google wants. WebOS went nowhere due to mismanagement, and Google did a great job damaging interest in MeeGo.
Smartphones are the new console, and the push by the majors is to keep them that way while console-izing tablets and standard PCs.
See, I knew that Microsoft would insist that the ARM platform was special in some way that justified turning it into a walled garden. So if the two bits of information I've heard: Metro Apps will only be available via Microsoft's Store, and Win 8 on ARM can only use Metro Apps, then it really looks like Microsoft is trying to bring the worst of crippled, DRM-laden computing up from the smart phone level to the tablet and likely even the PC eventually (since Metro Apps will be locked similarly on the PC.)
It's still locked to Microsoft platforms. Flash is bad, Silverlight is worse.
Explain this, please?
Something tells me you know less than you think you do.
Oh you mean MAEMO. Yes, MAEMO. Not MeeGo.
Thank you for your highly opinionated... opinion. Your experience (except for Hildon Application Manager) runs completely counter to mine.
As I understand it, the leadership behind Qt is not the same as the leadership behind much of Nokia or even Symbian. They definitely have a better understanding of how to work with communities and do things in the open than Nokia does.
The sad apathy and silence around this move, and the Qt project, shows how far Slashdot's reader base has fallen from being interested in FOSS and open development models.
It's all about being treated as second-rate by Google these days, white knighting for Apple, or reading shit articles posted by samzenpus/kdawson/timothy.
Look who's trolling now. Stay at zero, anonymous shit.
Irrelevant. Open source projects like this don't go upstream for Android because they're made by "the community" and not some large partner corporation.
Yeah, I'm so stupid for wanting a FOSS Linux distribution to succeed in the face of a pseudo-Open and a pile of totally closed platforms.
Go Google! Way to undermine actual FOSS projects!
Shockingly, I expect they do. However, I expect that "North Korea" is a plain old troll.
Do you expect them to randomly have kernels for whatever ARM device you might have? All of the clunky "niceties" that we have on x86 that allow generic Linux and Windows kernels to install on pretty much any PC don't exist in the ARM world, so there's no point in posting ARM binaries unless it's in the form of a flashable image for a target device.
MIPS is huge in many embedded fields. It dominates the wifi router space, for instance.
No. Linux will never make inroads due to the immense legacy of software that requires Windows to run. Microsoft achieved their goal of a desktop that is completely unable to escape it.
You, however, are just a hateful shit.
And where's your rage at the bankers who tanked the economy, whose actions have affected far more people more drastically than anything Anonymous has done?
Or how about the Tea Party idiots in the House, who played chicken with the economy as well?
Please, Wall Street and companies like Goldman Sachs are far greater National Security Risks than any conglomeration of people in their basements DDoSing websites.
I'd start with defense spending, as well as Social Security and Medicare reforms. For instance, would it not make sense for the government to negotiate the price of drugs and equipment they buy for Medicare/Medicaid, instead of being legally barred from doing so and paying whatever obscene price the manufacturer asks? Then I'd pare down in order of budget size.
Attacking NASA while refusing to even look at defense spending or Social Security is them saying "I refuse to even approach the problem," not that they are interested in solving it.
LightSquared?
They need to get at least 2G and a sane government before they can be trying for terrestrial 4G that runs roughshod over GPS signals!
Firmware blobs, not being run by the host CPU, tend to be a bit of a wash.
Rarely are these kernel modules. Most often they are userspace modules, which limits your ability to upgrade or swap out the libc. This is problematic for non-Android Linux efforts because (thanks to Google) these userspace blobs are linked against Bionic and not glibc.
Which is precisely what Apple and Microsoft want. Well, minus the "x86 whitebox" because that gives you an out to get around them.
It's not how Free Software works, for sure. It's also not how community projects work. It's how insular, isolated projects with a strongly expressed NIH syndrome work.
Android is not Open Source though. The AOSP is. The AOSP is the offal of the Android project that Google used to draw in fans of open source, Free Software, and Linux. And yet at the height of Android's popularity they proceeded to leave the AOSP and community out of Honeycomb, and we have no idea whatsoever they'll do with Ice Cream Sandwich when it comes out on devices.
This is one reason that I shudder when people suggest that Android should be the basis for a desktop Linux, to the exclusion of all the other infrastructure not controlled by Google that, lacking any major architectural flaws, needs good usage testing and a designer's eye.
This is virtually a given, and pretty much a universality among mobile GPUs and mobile SoCs. The only vendor of graphics cores that does release all of their source code is Intel. And in the end I don't believe Eben or anyone at the Raspberry Pi project have any say in the matter.