he consulted with a law student and figured that the student knew everything there is to know. he signed away his rights. this isn't capitalism. it's stupidity.
That remains to be seen, doesn't it? Now that he caught MS being MS, he might come out of it with more than if he'd tried to put up a fight or make a deal in the first place.
It's news because it's Motorola, not some self-styled inventor. If Motorola buys in it's likely this will actually happen sometime in the next few years.
As for "as long as needed," it could work. If they put a tiny backup battery in there so you could switch fuel cartriges without disconnecting your call, you could go on forever, without a large investment in expensive batteries.
How can it be that expensive? Even Iridium is "only" $30/mo + $1.50 per minute, through a handset. And you can even get data services at a whopping 2.4 Kbps. Ok, that's laughably bad, but you could transfer 50KBytes in under 3 minutes for about $4.50 in airtime.
I think the stability, performance, and security arguments fall the other way - in support of a binary interface.
Currently it is almost impossible for hardware vendors can provide a binary driver. It must be adapted to every distro and kernel rev. For the most part they don't bother.
Instead, we get reverse-"engineered" (i.e. hacked-together) drivers made by people doing their best to get devices working with no real understanding of how the device works. And you think that promotes stability, performance, and security?
Ideally, we'd have quality open-source drivers for everything. Since that hasn't happened, now what?
Then again, 'net based multicast could be good if you combined it with a set-top PVR. You could subscribe to just the multicast streams that you want, record them, and watch them "on demand."
This appears to be what the NBC/DirecTV system does, except the multicast system isn't IP-based - it's just the normal cable or satellite system. Since these systems already exist, I'm not sure what the benefit of replacing them with IP multicast would be anyways. In fact I think there are hardly any applications for IP multicast at all, and it's not even functional across the Internet at large.
No, I think the time for internet-based pay-per-view is very near.
1) Apple is already doing it.
2) I have friends - not slashdot types either - who use p2p instead of cable TV.
3) I've watched downloaded episodes that looked good at 1mbps, whereas my internet downloads frequently hit 4mbps.
4) Legitimate Internet TV will be pay-per-view for the forseeable future, so they don't need enough bandwidth to serve everybody simultaneously.
5) Cable co's will cache most of the legitimate content at their own facilities, so their bandwidth to the backbone won't be that big a problem.
6) The download industries will quickly grow to billions of dollars and cable co's will see it as another source of income.
You can cancel your cable and save that cost of a tivo every month.
Then what would you record with the TiVo? Or are you just pointing out that cable costs money?
For my money, cable + a homebrew PVR is the best deal going for video content. Are 98% of the shows crap? Sure, but when the other 2% is automatically ready whenever you want it, 2% of 80 round-the-clock channels is plenty. I have so many movies and shows queued up to watch I don't even worry about it.
If they keep putting more stuff on the CPU, at some point there should be a decrease in pin count, as there isn't much offboard to talk to any more! I like the other guy's idea of putting the DRAM on there, that should slash the pin count. Personally I've been stuck at 1GB DRAM for a few years now and don't need more. Let's make it 2GB onboard DRAM and call it good.
Actually, the article says that the cruise ship and the pirates were 100 miles off the coast of Somalia. It doesn't say how far away the pirates were from the cruise ship.
They were quite close indeed. Here's a more vivid account.
It does not work like that in non-FL/OSS industry, and noone claims that it works like that with FL/OSS. You just can't buy a service contract, do whatever the heck you like to the software, and then expect them to support your own code without giving them extra money for the time they need to analyse the changes you made to their software.
That's exactly what the MS guy is saying. He's not saying it's wrong for RedHat to operate this way, either: "They have to lock things down to provide value."
The question is whether this negates any benefits of open source, as he claims. In other words, "it's impractical for end users to change the code anyways, so why tout that as a benefit?"
In anarchocapitalist-speak, though, you don't own land until you've mixed your labor with it and no one before you has.
Whatever that means. Does letting my herd graze on it count?
In truth, what percentage of land on the earth has never been forcibly seized? Follow the chain of legal ownership back far enough and you'll find the point at which somebody got deposed, dead or alive. It doesn't bode will for moon investments.
As for legalizing fraud so people will learn their lesson, wow. It's not often you come across somebody so libertarian they don't even believe in binding contracts. Pretty hard to do any business that way.
I would be very happy if they just came up with a way to make cheap, high quality filet mignon without raising a whole cow. Cows really take up a lot of space, a lot of feed, and produce a lot of gasses (no, seriously). Plus there's the whole slaughterhouse scene. Good cultured meat would save us money and open up meat-eating (OK, and heart disease) to a lot of poor people around the world. The quality could be even better than natural, with super-fine fat marbling and no big bloody veins. Plus it should be relatively easy to do, since synthetic meat doesn't even have to be a functioning organ... it just has to be close enough to fool my tastebuds. And while we're dreaming, bring on the affordable hormone-free milk...
Macs (just like linux) "just work" when you stick with supported hardware.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool "linux guy," but unfortunately hardware support remains my one major complaint with Linux, even when you go our of your way and pay extra for something that's claimed to work. Just skip to the last paragraph if you get bored reading my laundry list of supporting examples:
My WG511 wifi card is supposedly supported by the prism54 driver. In fact it locks up the machine in minutes.
My All-In-Wonder card was supported by GATOS, but the drivers weren't good enough to be usable so I ditched it for the best linux-supported TV tuner card there is, the Hauppauge. Lucky me, I got one with a new chip revision so it didn't work.
OpenGL 3d acceleration on my T40 laptop works, but the machine locks up if you suspend to ram while hardware acceleration is enabled.
My webcam is supposedly supported by the ov511 driver, but the images are heavily tinged with red, and the compression module that enables decent framerates doesn't seem to be supported anymore. It works OK under Windows.
My Lego Mindstorms kit has a driver through Lejos, but oops! it doesn't work because the usb lego tower is only compatible with one of the usb driver modules (I forget which), which isn't compatible with the usb ports on my laptop.
My Epson 1250 scanner, purchased specifically due to Linux support, has horizontal artifacts under Linux but works fine under Windows. (And descreening works.)
My Pinnacle IR receiver is supported by Lirc, but the lircd exits randomly and without warning causing the remote to stop working.
I could go on, but the point is there's a big difference between a green X in a linux hardware compatibility list, and actually having a stable, working driver that supports all the features. And you never really know until *after* you shell out the cash. Macs have limited hardware support too, but from what I've seen if it is supported, it actually works. I stick with Linux because I like its principles, and after you get stuff going it's great. But when my parents asked what to buy for my grandpa it was a no-brainer: iMac.
I think the video on the iPod is not really all that impressive of a feature, but some of the criticisms of it are downright silly.
And this poll proves nothing. Had they asked, "are you interested in listening to music on your cellphone?" my guess is most people would not be. I think the percentage of people who use their cellphones for music listening is tiny. Does that prove anything about the market for the (audio) iPod?
I would be more worried about yahoo or TiVo selling the right to program your TiVo to the highest bidder. TiVo already does this to some extent but Yahoo might be even less motivated to keep TiVo's customers happy in the long run if it costs them potential ad revenue now.
Another possibility is they know they'll eventually sell more copies as $50/per, and fully plan to do so, but first they want to gouge the suckers who just can't wait.
I think it is hard to track. For every given brand of product, it's easy to find someone that's had impeccable reliability, and it's also easy to find someone that's seen horrid reliability with the same product.
I judge hard drive longevity by the warranty. At least you know it will last that long. 1 year does not speak well of a hard drive.
I don't see why performance should be a problem with solid state storage. Why can't they just put more controllers on the device, reading more independent banks of memory, until performance is good enough? Or you could do it at a higher level by filling up a USB2 hub with memory sticks and using RAID on them.
someone else can come visit the neighborhood someone not so nice and doesn't belong there who can now send spam or attempt to break in to other people's servers.
The Internet is an open global network, not a closed private network. Taking one or two feeble steps towards closing it will hurt average users much more than it will ever prevent spam or hacking.
For instance, I like getting free WiFi at cafes. Holding the cafe responsible for whatever somebody decides to do to the Internet through their hotspot would kill free anonymous Internet access. And how much would that really cut down spam? Not at all.
Consequently, South Korea's might feel their best interests like in making the switch, trading the short term inconvenience of the migration against getting out from under the thumb of one of the planet's more rapacious corporations.
I don't think most normal S. Koreans will even hear about this. It's not like somebody is in a position to decide all South Koreans will now switch to Linspire. It's no different than if some off-the-wall Linux distro from Mongolia offered to wipe out Windows piracy in the US by allowing us to use their distro for a one-time payment of $5M.
Who's talking about supporting anything? Almost none of the Windows installations there are supported either, because they're pirated. That's what started this whole thing. Presumably S. Koreans would just use and share Linspire the same way they use Windows now, only legally... though why S Korea would bother to pay the $5m to be legit, I don't know. Maybe to get the WTO off their back?
Stupidity? It's a choice. For instance my brother lives in a very friendly neighborhood where everybody has wifi and broadband. None of them secure it because they all get better coverage that way.
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As for "as long as needed," it could work. If they put a tiny backup battery in there so you could switch fuel cartriges without disconnecting your call, you could go on forever, without a large investment in expensive batteries.
Yowsers! Nowadays the Iridium phone is down to $1500 and the data kit is $189.
How can it be that expensive? Even Iridium is "only" $30/mo + $1.50 per minute, through a handset. And you can even get data services at a whopping 2.4 Kbps. Ok, that's laughably bad, but you could transfer 50KBytes in under 3 minutes for about $4.50 in airtime.
Currently it is almost impossible for hardware vendors can provide a binary driver. It must be adapted to every distro and kernel rev. For the most part they don't bother.
Instead, we get reverse-"engineered" (i.e. hacked-together) drivers made by people doing their best to get devices working with no real understanding of how the device works. And you think that promotes stability, performance, and security?
Ideally, we'd have quality open-source drivers for everything. Since that hasn't happened, now what?
I think it's more likely the CIA just called the president of the company and said, "hey, wanna help us screw the Soviets?"
1) Apple is already doing it.
2) I have friends - not slashdot types either - who use p2p instead of cable TV.
3) I've watched downloaded episodes that looked good at 1mbps, whereas my internet downloads frequently hit 4mbps.
4) Legitimate Internet TV will be pay-per-view for the forseeable future, so they don't need enough bandwidth to serve everybody simultaneously.
5) Cable co's will cache most of the legitimate content at their own facilities, so their bandwidth to the backbone won't be that big a problem.
6) The download industries will quickly grow to billions of dollars and cable co's will see it as another source of income.
For my money, cable + a homebrew PVR is the best deal going for video content. Are 98% of the shows crap? Sure, but when the other 2% is automatically ready whenever you want it, 2% of 80 round-the-clock channels is plenty. I have so many movies and shows queued up to watch I don't even worry about it.
If they keep putting more stuff on the CPU, at some point there should be a decrease in pin count, as there isn't much offboard to talk to any more! I like the other guy's idea of putting the DRAM on there, that should slash the pin count. Personally I've been stuck at 1GB DRAM for a few years now and don't need more. Let's make it 2GB onboard DRAM and call it good.
The question is whether this negates any benefits of open source, as he claims. In other words, "it's impractical for end users to change the code anyways, so why tout that as a benefit?"
In truth, what percentage of land on the earth has never been forcibly seized? Follow the chain of legal ownership back far enough and you'll find the point at which somebody got deposed, dead or alive. It doesn't bode will for moon investments.
As for legalizing fraud so people will learn their lesson, wow. It's not often you come across somebody so libertarian they don't even believe in binding contracts. Pretty hard to do any business that way.
I would be very happy if they just came up with a way to make cheap, high quality filet mignon without raising a whole cow. Cows really take up a lot of space, a lot of feed, and produce a lot of gasses (no, seriously). Plus there's the whole slaughterhouse scene. Good cultured meat would save us money and open up meat-eating (OK, and heart disease) to a lot of poor people around the world. The quality could be even better than natural, with super-fine fat marbling and no big bloody veins. Plus it should be relatively easy to do, since synthetic meat doesn't even have to be a functioning organ... it just has to be close enough to fool my tastebuds. And while we're dreaming, bring on the affordable hormone-free milk...
I could go on, but the point is there's a big difference between a green X in a linux hardware compatibility list, and actually having a stable, working driver that supports all the features. And you never really know until *after* you shell out the cash. Macs have limited hardware support too, but from what I've seen if it is supported, it actually works. I stick with Linux because I like its principles, and after you get stuff going it's great. But when my parents asked what to buy for my grandpa it was a no-brainer: iMac.
I would be more worried about yahoo or TiVo selling the right to program your TiVo to the highest bidder. TiVo already does this to some extent but Yahoo might be even less motivated to keep TiVo's customers happy in the long run if it costs them potential ad revenue now.
Another possibility is they know they'll eventually sell more copies as $50/per, and fully plan to do so, but first they want to gouge the suckers who just can't wait.
I don't see why performance should be a problem with solid state storage. Why can't they just put more controllers on the device, reading more independent banks of memory, until performance is good enough? Or you could do it at a higher level by filling up a USB2 hub with memory sticks and using RAID on them.
For instance, I like getting free WiFi at cafes. Holding the cafe responsible for whatever somebody decides to do to the Internet through their hotspot would kill free anonymous Internet access. And how much would that really cut down spam? Not at all.
Who's talking about supporting anything? Almost none of the Windows installations there are supported either, because they're pirated. That's what started this whole thing. Presumably S. Koreans would just use and share Linspire the same way they use Windows now, only legally... though why S Korea would bother to pay the $5m to be legit, I don't know. Maybe to get the WTO off their back?
Stupidity? It's a choice. For instance my brother lives in a very friendly neighborhood where everybody has wifi and broadband. None of them secure it because they all get better coverage that way.