It says in the article: virus writing and subsequent distribution aren't pure speech. Rather, they're speech plus action
But it is never elaborated on at all. I do not understand how it can be said that posting something on the web is any more of an action than the physical act of mailing a letter to the editor, but we do say that mailing a letter to the editor falls squarely under free speech. How are we supposed to separate speech and action (something the article acknowledges are different) on the internet if the act of posting places your content beyond pure speech? How are we supposed to have free speech if we are prevented from speaking to others by posting our thoughts?
There is a big difference between saying "This code will infect machines and do this to them" and then compiling that code and releasing it with malicious intent. One is speech, the other is action. It is the same as the difference between saying "I could break into your home by doing this" and then actually going out and doing it. One is not illegal, the other is.
This reminds me of another issue. How long before distributing an MP3 player makes you an accomplice to copyright infringement because you haven't included draconian copy-protection schemes? The problem is social, not technological.
Probably because those models had margins that could absorb the component price increase. The TiBook certainly has hefty margins, and the iBook uses a G3 instead of a more expensive G4.
My suggestion: bring back hardware licensing! It will increase market share and increase the purchases of their OS, where the real money is at anyway.
Are you insane? Bringing back hardware licensing would increase other people's marketshare, not Apple's, and we saw this years ago when cloning almost put Apple out of business. As for there being more money in selling the OS - how much profit do you think Apple makes on hardware? Their gross margins on Powermacs are something on the order of %20 - which is a hell of a lot more than they make selling their OS for $150.
Hardware licensing would be awful. If Apple became just an OS vendor then they'd start acting like Microsoft - force feeding upgrades to a market that doesn't really want them because its their only way to maintain income, and all the other stupid and horrible things MS has to do to keep the cash rolling in. What an awful world that would be. If you want Apple to die a horrible death at the hands of their own OS licensees then bring back cloning.
I'll happily keep paying my little bit extra to get hardware that works well, an OS that doesn't have stupid web browsers built into it for no reason, and applications that don't try to sell me things whenever I plug in a camera.
I'm not at all convinced this is true. A good counter-example is Apple, who for years owned the educational market both in high schools and universities in the US. It didn't lead (as Apple had hoped it would) to widespread use of Macs in the commercial world.
You are forgetting why businesses and others didn't adopt the Mac when it came time to pick a platform - Price! A lot of people looked at the cost of Windows on Intel and the cost of a Mac and decided to stay within their limited budgets and get the (much) cheaper platform. Apple lost mindshare and marketshare because they priced themselves out of the majority of budgets. Linux, on the other hand, definitely has the price advantage compared to Windows - so I would expect that people who are familiar with Linux from school will continue to use Linux if given a choice.
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But it is never elaborated on at all. I do not understand how it can be said that posting something on the web is any more of an action than the physical act of mailing a letter to the editor, but we do say that mailing a letter to the editor falls squarely under free speech. How are we supposed to separate speech and action (something the article acknowledges are different) on the internet if the act of posting places your content beyond pure speech? How are we supposed to have free speech if we are prevented from speaking to others by posting our thoughts?
There is a big difference between saying "This code will infect machines and do this to them" and then compiling that code and releasing it with malicious intent. One is speech, the other is action. It is the same as the difference between saying "I could break into your home by doing this" and then actually going out and doing it. One is not illegal, the other is.
This reminds me of another issue. How long before distributing an MP3 player makes you an accomplice to copyright infringement because you haven't included draconian copy-protection schemes? The problem is social, not technological.
Probably because those models had margins that could absorb the component price increase. The TiBook certainly has hefty margins, and the iBook uses a G3 instead of a more expensive G4.
Are you insane? Bringing back hardware licensing would increase other people's marketshare, not Apple's, and we saw this years ago when cloning almost put Apple out of business. As for there being more money in selling the OS - how much profit do you think Apple makes on hardware? Their gross margins on Powermacs are something on the order of %20 - which is a hell of a lot more than they make selling their OS for $150.
Hardware licensing would be awful. If Apple became just an OS vendor then they'd start acting like Microsoft - force feeding upgrades to a market that doesn't really want them because its their only way to maintain income, and all the other stupid and horrible things MS has to do to keep the cash rolling in. What an awful world that would be. If you want Apple to die a horrible death at the hands of their own OS licensees then bring back cloning.
I'll happily keep paying my little bit extra to get hardware that works well, an OS that doesn't have stupid web browsers built into it for no reason, and applications that don't try to sell me things whenever I plug in a camera.
You are forgetting why businesses and others didn't adopt the Mac when it came time to pick a platform - Price! A lot of people looked at the cost of Windows on Intel and the cost of a Mac and decided to stay within their limited budgets and get the (much) cheaper platform. Apple lost mindshare and marketshare because they priced themselves out of the majority of budgets. Linux, on the other hand, definitely has the price advantage compared to Windows - so I would expect that people who are familiar with Linux from school will continue to use Linux if given a choice.