I always thought that intent was important when being charged with a crime.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'd just as soon see someone who well-meaningly did something stupid get slammed even harder. At least those with ill intentions are predictable.
I don't think that's a very good idea, but at least your heart's in the right place.
How many posts do you want, in every thread, acknowledging our own frail mortal limits before we're properly humbled?
None. Just one stating that "This thread is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to actual legal knowledge or insight is purely coincidental".:-)
I don't think there's much difference in the help you get here on Slashdot for tech or legal. You wouldn't "take" advice you got here, you'd look it up and use it as the basis for study
With tech advice, a significant minority here really know what they're talking about, another significant minority are flakey but make this clear, and some talk out of their backsides with authority.
However, since there are a critical mass of people who know what they're talking about, they're frequently called on this.
You wouldn't "take" advice you got here, you'd look it up and use it as the basis for study or to aid in consulting experts. [..] It's like Wikipedia, a good first reference, and likely right if it sounds consistent
That works for tech for the reasons give above.
It doesn't work for legal advice because there are too many people who don't know what they're talking about thinking they do and there are too few people who *do* know what they're talking about, and spotting them among the majority who *don't* is next to impossible.
The most you can do with Slashdot advice is to spot when a legal issue is *totally* clear cut or when it might be a can of worms, but if you know enough to ask the question, you can probably figure out which of those it is.
Good miss. The word you were grasping at is Scheisse.
Shiza sounds like one of those districts of Tokyo that nerds dream of going to because it consists of obscure shops that sell flavours of Pocky not available in the United States, like vodka-scented curried tayberry, or the infamous "Pocky flavoured Pocky" whose very meta-ness has driven some Westerners mad....
I doubt many people *would* come to Slashdot for medical advice, and if they did they'd be rightly sceptical about it. And no-one's going to do an operation based on what they read here.
Nor is anyone going to invade a small country based on what they read on Slashdot, nor Intel mistakenly use our ignorance as the basis for their next CPU family.
But plenty of people *will* use half-baked legal advice as the basis of how they proceed with things that could come back and bite them on the backside badly later on. And for some reason, Slashdotters feel qualified to give out legal advice with an air of authority that they wouldn't (and couldn't) with medical advice.
So it's the fact that legal advice given here is taken more seriously than it warrants, and that the people giving it (probably) genuinely believe that they know what they're talking about.
Perhaps you know not to believe everything you read, but the general vibe I get is that those taking part in these discussions think they're doing so with the same level of expertise and authority that they can (usually rightly) apply to IT subjects.
Contrary to what you say, aside from the odd "IANAL", there is relatively little acknowledgement of what I said in discussions like this.
I think the tricky part is that it was already under GPL before he got hired.
Well, it's very complicated. To the best of my understanding, if the libraries were GPL and he distributed his original project (before his work with the Uni), the project as a whole must be GPL-licensed.
To the best of my knowledge, the GPL itself does not affect the fact that you own the copyright on code that you wrote- it's just that if you want to distribute it integrated with GPLed code, you must make your own code available under the GPL.
Since releasing one's work under the GPL doesn't preclude you from releasing it under other licenses (in addition to the GPL), I would assume it might be theoretically possible to take the code that *he* wrote, remove others' GPLed libraries, link against non-free/non-GPL libraries
and release *that* under a non-GPL license.
No big deal, as his original code is still- and will always be- available under GPL, but as copyright owner of the parts he wrote, he could use them as the basis of a non-GPL proprietary fork. (He doesn't require his own permission to distribute his own work, and so doesn't have to follow the GPL to redistribute it if it's shorn of GPL-only code by others).
Now, it gets complicated if one considers whether the university's still using the GPL libraries, whether they "distributed" it at any point, etc. etc.
There are two distinct issues- whether the code is (and can only be) GPL, and who owns the copyright on the guy's own stuff.
As I said, if this had been an issue, he should have considered that before.
This is intellectually interesting, but I wouldn't remotely suggest someone use my- or your- post as legal advice.
In short, one should not use an Ask Slashdot for legal advice!
The blunt truth is that he made two stupid mistakes.
1) He didn't discuss the university's position on this and get it made clear in the contract in the first place, and
2) He came to Slashdot for legal advice.
It's been shown countless times that Slashdotters in general *do not understand how law works*. They assume that one can deduce how the law works logically, and that's how it is.
Well, it's not. The only way to know about how the law works is to learn how it works. It's not always logical, it's not always the way it *should* be (in a reasonable *or* in a logical world). I've actually been criticised for pointing out the latter, as if pointing out that the law doesn't work in that idealised way meant I endorsed its flaws (which is another stupid thing to do, but Slashdotters aren't always the detached paragons of common-sense that some would like to see themselves as).
Even if they understand the GPL in isolation, this case requires one to know how this relates to employment laws, jurisdictions, "works for hire", blah blah...
Bottom line- being an expert in IT and related fields does not qualify you to answer legal questions. IANAL, and neither are the vast majority of those contributing to this thread. And the problem is sorting out those who really *do* know what they're talking about from those who simply think they do.
Data, garbled or not, is coming in from a satellite 8 billion miles away. Do you really think the people involved in the mission are going to just throw it away?
Coming from the same organisation that has almost certainly lost forever the original, highest-quality copy of the moon landing TV transmissions, leaving us with a significantly inferior converted-on-the-fly-by-pointing-a-camera-at-a-monitor copy... I can quite believe that.
Another issue on top of the compulsory VAT; the UK- and now EU- consumer law that applies is generally much stronger than that in the US.
For example, Sony were selling PS2s in the US with a 90 day warranty. I've even seen cheap laptops being sold with a 30 day warranty.
IANAL, but my understanding is that you wouldn't get away with that in the UK (*) as it's nowhere near what anyone would reasonably expect such items to last for without breaking down.
Obviously, having to honour warranty repairs for longer and not being able to get away with cutting corners to the bone (**) in quality means that manufactureres aren't- in general- going to be able to sell goods quite as cheap within the EU.
Whether the above applies to the iPad, and- in general- how much of the US/UK price differentials can be legitimately covered by it is open to question, but IMHO it's undeniably a factor too many people ignore.
(*) Although contrary to what some people think, you *don't* automatically get a 5 year warranty or whatever in the EU, those are just the upper limits in some cases.
(**) Yay mixed metaphors...
Huh? Nothing in your reply even addresses what I *actually* said in my post(!!)
Did you even read it?
I was criticising your assumption that "Don't like it? Don't Buy it" extends to entitlement to protection from criticism.
You are all so fucking entitled it's not even funny.
You're so blinkered and focused on this (borderline strawman) sense of "entitlement" that the article described that you're not even paying attention to what others are saying any more, just repeating the same accusations.
Oblivious to the fact that it's a free world with free speech and the biggest sense of "entitlement" is *your own* in expecting those who dislike the iPhone- for whatever- reason to keep their mouths shut.
Re:You signed away this "right" by picking Apple.
on
Flash Is Not a Right
·
· Score: 1
Then choose another platform to work with! I really wish everyone would quit whining about lack of flash, walled gardens, no ports, and so on. If you don't like it, don't buy it, don't develop for it. Simple.
Maybe they *aren't* buying it or developing for it. They're exercising their free and legitimate right to say what they think of it, which in a free society and a free market based on the exchange of information and opinion is a perfectly healthy thing.
Another example of the Slashdot tendency to assume the right to say "don't like it? don't buy it" extends to freedom from criticism and the right to expect dissenters to STFU. It doesn't.
If you don't like this discussion, don't read it, don't take part in it. Simple.
FOAD your own anon self you don't get to vote without a name.
Er, you do realise it's quite possible that he's having to post anonymously precisely *because* he has an account and moderation privileges and has already used them in this thread? (^_^)
I've no idea why on earth your post was modded up to +5, but I'll say that comments like
Don't develop for Apple. No one will miss you. No one needs you.
were pretty childish and the ad hominem allegations in
I bet half the people who bitch on Slashdot aren't even devs but children trying to be edgy
were bordering on troll.
But more significantly and ironically- in a post that virulently attacks the alleged "entitlement" of others- the tone and implication of your message were basically that he had no right to criticise Apple if he didn't want to use their products, and that he should STFU and leave the platform to the hypemongers.
Well, no. It doesn't work like that. Apple are free to sell an obnoxiously closed platform, and they and others are free to say "Don't like it? Don't use/buy it."
However, that's as far as it goes. Others are free to state their opinions and criticisms of the iPhone and friends, and in a free society no one is... what's the word, oh yes... entitled to freedom from criticism as you seem to think Apple is.
Because quite frankly, the rabid and partisan tone of your attack on the GP- whose post was quite reasonable- blatantly smacked of this sense of entitlement, that he had the audacity to criticise the iPhone and not keep his mouth shut.
Sheer hypocrisy.
Re:You signed away this "right" by picking Apple.
on
Flash Is Not a Right
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
Yo dawg, we heard you like closed platforms...
Cute, though I'd say the problem here is that you *don't* get a closed platform in your closed platform.
When it's clearly no longer true nor applicable- neither of which is the case yet.
As a child I loved the TV show SPACE: 1999. But its gone now and not relevant
That's because the moon was not- and has never been- catastrophically blasted from the Earth's orbit with Martin Landau and Barbera Bain onboard, running into countless humanoid-alien-of-the-weeks along the way.
Moore's law was, and remains true, and a fundamental aspect of progress in the computer industry.
the bbc once aired the addams family without the laugh track and every single joke hung in the air like a bad fart. It was extremely uncomfortable to watch.
I strongly suspect that the Addams Family was scripted and acted with pauses for a prominent laugh track in mind, and that's why it sounded awkward without it- waiting for laughter that doesn't come.
You can argue that until the cows come home; the bottom line is that the commonly-accepted meaning of the term "personal computer" is one that broadly conforms to the desktop, single-user model that first rose to prominence with the Apple II, Commodore Pet and others.
The laptop is kind of in there, though that may be as much because most of those are "IBM PC compatible" derivatives. At any rate, the iPhone or a high-end calculator may be personal and computers, but most people wouldn't call them that. And in the end that's what matters.
It's also what the article meant, so you're kind of missing the point. One could define "blasphemy" as "imitating a marmalade sandwich", but it wouldn't mean you could treat the passages in the article condemning blasphemy as referring to that.:-)
Gods, remember the damn digicams that had full floppy disk drives on them?
Some of the first wave of commercially-released *analogue* electronic still cameras from the late-1980s- including the pre-digital versions of the Sony Mavica- used floppy disks. The recorded pictures were single composite-encoded NTSC or PAL single frames and recorded onto the disc itself in analogue format.
(Something interesting to bear in mind if you find yourself- as I sometimes do- automatically thinking of "digital" and "electronic" still photography as being synonymous).
You're basically restating the assertions you made in your original post, therefore my response is broadly the same.
They weren't in a position to pick and choose
Yes they were. The iPhone was a desirable device with massive hype behind it before it even hit the streets.
the telcos had the keys to the kingdom (customers) and Apple had an unproven, new smartphone
It may have been "unproven", but that didn't mean it wasn't going to sell, which is what counts.
And it wasn't seen as just another smartphone, it was the latest device from uber-cool Apple, and drooled over and hyped as much- in fact, probably more- than the iPad.
They need to sell the phone, and the only way to do that (effectively) is to subsidise it with cellphone contracts - that means carrier support.
Apple were free to let the networks sell subsidised versions with restrictions and sell unsubsidised versions that weren't tied.
They chose to enter a secretive, revenue-sharing agreement tying the phone to a single carrier in the US and other countries. (Perhaps the all-powerful AT&T decided to give the powerless Apple a cut of their profits out of the goodness of their hearts?;-))
Which they were well within their rights to do, just don't try to paint it as something they were forced into doing, or that money wasn't the primary factor. They held as many- probably more- cards than the telcos.
AT&T will have stipulated the conditions, and among them would be tethering control as a decision by them. Apple's choice is "don;t sell the phone" or "look at another carrier, who is going to impose similar restrictions".
Pretty much what you said before, and pretty much nonsense for the reasons I already gave.
The iPhone was the hot item everyone wanted. If AT&T (in the US) *seriously* wanted to have banned it from their network- which I gather would have been few people's first choice otherwise- it would have been their loss.
So please stop parroting the apologist, Apple-as-victim/underdog/new-kid-on-the-block line. Whether you're deluded enough to believe it or not, it's blatant nonsense.
My grandmother used to like to bet on the horses, and, in the UK at least, with some bookies you paid tax on the wager itself (with no tax on the winnings), at others you paid tax on the winnings (or nothing if you lose).
I thought you had the choice of being able to do it either way?
Don't gamble at all myself, so this isn't speaking from experience.
Remember, when it was released, the iPhone was the cellphone equivalent of Harry Potter - the children's book no one would publish, until JKR finally got a limited publishing run at the 6th attempt.
"Remember?"
Bullshit. I don't "remember" that apologist, revisionist version of events because it blatantly wasn't the case.
What I remember was a *lot* of hype surrounding the iPhone when it came out, and it was pretty damn obvious that the iPod-loving masses would want it, even if not everyone could afford it.
The comparison with Harry Potter isn't entirely misplaced- it was the equivalent of the fifth or sixth book in a series that was by then massively successful and likely to sell loads.
If there was a contractual requirement, it's likely because the telco (quite reasonably) wanted something in exchange for Apple getting *their* nice cut of their profits from the iPhone services. (Which I'm pretty damn sure was also in the contract).
Apple had a desirable device that people were excited about and could easily have insisted on tethering- at least to some extent, and certainly more than is officially possible now- and still could have had the networks take it on. But of course, that would have meant less money for Apple.
So please don't try to paint this as poor little Apple at the mercy of the telcos. They were in the position to pick and choose, they wanted their cut. Simple as that.
Why would anyone want to be stuck with FAT? There are several great file systems in use these days.
Because pretty much everything uses it, that's why. You can put forward a well-argued case about why ext69 is a better filesystem because it can store 1GB of data in seven bits, still be readable after a direct hit with a hydrogen bomb leaves only three atoms of the drive remaining, and solves world peace- but it won't be compatible with every random Tom, Dick and Harry device out there.
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC Clarke said they changed it to Jupiter in the film because the special effects required for Saturn's rings would have been too complex.
I always thought that intent was important when being charged with a crime.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'd just as soon see someone who well-meaningly did something stupid get slammed even harder. At least those with ill intentions are predictable.
I don't think that's a very good idea, but at least your heart's in the right place.
Oh, wait...
How many posts do you want, in every thread, acknowledging our own frail mortal limits before we're properly humbled?
None. Just one stating that "This thread is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to actual legal knowledge or insight is purely coincidental". :-)
I don't think there's much difference in the help you get here on Slashdot for tech or legal. You wouldn't "take" advice you got here, you'd look it up and use it as the basis for study
With tech advice, a significant minority here really know what they're talking about, another significant minority are flakey but make this clear, and some talk out of their backsides with authority.
However, since there are a critical mass of people who know what they're talking about, they're frequently called on this.
You wouldn't "take" advice you got here, you'd look it up and use it as the basis for study or to aid in consulting experts. [..] It's like Wikipedia, a good first reference, and likely right if it sounds consistent
That works for tech for the reasons give above.
It doesn't work for legal advice because there are too many people who don't know what they're talking about thinking they do and there are too few people who *do* know what they're talking about, and spotting them among the majority who *don't* is next to impossible.
The most you can do with Slashdot advice is to spot when a legal issue is *totally* clear cut or when it might be a can of worms, but if you know enough to ask the question, you can probably figure out which of those it is.
It was a sad day for Shiza-porn
Good miss. The word you were grasping at is Scheisse.
Shiza sounds like one of those districts of Tokyo that nerds dream of going to because it consists of obscure shops that sell flavours of Pocky not available in the United States, like vodka-scented curried tayberry, or the infamous "Pocky flavoured Pocky" whose very meta-ness has driven some Westerners mad....
Sorry, where was I again?
I doubt many people *would* come to Slashdot for medical advice, and if they did they'd be rightly sceptical about it. And no-one's going to do an operation based on what they read here.
Nor is anyone going to invade a small country based on what they read on Slashdot, nor Intel mistakenly use our ignorance as the basis for their next CPU family.
But plenty of people *will* use half-baked legal advice as the basis of how they proceed with things that could come back and bite them on the backside badly later on. And for some reason, Slashdotters feel qualified to give out legal advice with an air of authority that they wouldn't (and couldn't) with medical advice.
So it's the fact that legal advice given here is taken more seriously than it warrants, and that the people giving it (probably) genuinely believe that they know what they're talking about.
Perhaps you know not to believe everything you read, but the general vibe I get is that those taking part in these discussions think they're doing so with the same level of expertise and authority that they can (usually rightly) apply to IT subjects.
Contrary to what you say, aside from the odd "IANAL", there is relatively little acknowledgement of what I said in discussions like this.
I think the tricky part is that it was already under GPL before he got hired.
Well, it's very complicated. To the best of my understanding, if the libraries were GPL and he distributed his original project (before his work with the Uni), the project as a whole must be GPL-licensed.
To the best of my knowledge, the GPL itself does not affect the fact that you own the copyright on code that you wrote- it's just that if you want to distribute it integrated with GPLed code, you must make your own code available under the GPL.
Since releasing one's work under the GPL doesn't preclude you from releasing it under other licenses (in addition to the GPL), I would assume it might be theoretically possible to take the code that *he* wrote, remove others' GPLed libraries, link against non-free/non-GPL libraries and release *that* under a non-GPL license.
No big deal, as his original code is still- and will always be- available under GPL, but as copyright owner of the parts he wrote, he could use them as the basis of a non-GPL proprietary fork. (He doesn't require his own permission to distribute his own work, and so doesn't have to follow the GPL to redistribute it if it's shorn of GPL-only code by others).
Now, it gets complicated if one considers whether the university's still using the GPL libraries, whether they "distributed" it at any point, etc. etc.
There are two distinct issues- whether the code is (and can only be) GPL, and who owns the copyright on the guy's own stuff.
As I said, if this had been an issue, he should have considered that before.
This is intellectually interesting, but I wouldn't remotely suggest someone use my- or your- post as legal advice.
In short, one should not use an Ask Slashdot for legal advice!
The blunt truth is that he made two stupid mistakes.
1) He didn't discuss the university's position on this and get it made clear in the contract in the first place, and
2) He came to Slashdot for legal advice.
It's been shown countless times that Slashdotters in general *do not understand how law works*. They assume that one can deduce how the law works logically, and that's how it is.
Well, it's not. The only way to know about how the law works is to learn how it works. It's not always logical, it's not always the way it *should* be (in a reasonable *or* in a logical world). I've actually been criticised for pointing out the latter, as if pointing out that the law doesn't work in that idealised way meant I endorsed its flaws (which is another stupid thing to do, but Slashdotters aren't always the detached paragons of common-sense that some would like to see themselves as).
Even if they understand the GPL in isolation, this case requires one to know how this relates to employment laws, jurisdictions, "works for hire", blah blah...
Bottom line- being an expert in IT and related fields does not qualify you to answer legal questions. IANAL, and neither are the vast majority of those contributing to this thread. And the problem is sorting out those who really *do* know what they're talking about from those who simply think they do.
Data, garbled or not, is coming in from a satellite 8 billion miles away. Do you really think the people involved in the mission are going to just throw it away?
Coming from the same organisation that has almost certainly lost forever the original, highest-quality copy of the moon landing TV transmissions, leaving us with a significantly inferior converted-on-the-fly-by-pointing-a-camera-at-a-monitor copy... I can quite believe that.
Another issue on top of the compulsory VAT; the UK- and now EU- consumer law that applies is generally much stronger than that in the US.
For example, Sony were selling PS2s in the US with a 90 day warranty. I've even seen cheap laptops being sold with a 30 day warranty.
IANAL, but my understanding is that you wouldn't get away with that in the UK (*) as it's nowhere near what anyone would reasonably expect such items to last for without breaking down.
Obviously, having to honour warranty repairs for longer and not being able to get away with cutting corners to the bone (**) in quality means that manufactureres aren't- in general- going to be able to sell goods quite as cheap within the EU.
Whether the above applies to the iPad, and- in general- how much of the US/UK price differentials can be legitimately covered by it is open to question, but IMHO it's undeniably a factor too many people ignore.
(*) Although contrary to what some people think, you *don't* automatically get a 5 year warranty or whatever in the EU, those are just the upper limits in some cases.
(**) Yay mixed metaphors...
Did you even read it?
I was criticising your assumption that "Don't like it? Don't Buy it" extends to entitlement to protection from criticism.
You are all so fucking entitled it's not even funny.
You're so blinkered and focused on this (borderline strawman) sense of "entitlement" that the article described that you're not even paying attention to what others are saying any more, just repeating the same accusations.
Oblivious to the fact that it's a free world with free speech and the biggest sense of "entitlement" is *your own* in expecting those who dislike the iPhone- for whatever- reason to keep their mouths shut.
Then choose another platform to work with! I really wish everyone would quit whining about lack of flash, walled gardens, no ports, and so on. If you don't like it, don't buy it, don't develop for it. Simple.
Maybe they *aren't* buying it or developing for it. They're exercising their free and legitimate right to say what they think of it, which in a free society and a free market based on the exchange of information and opinion is a perfectly healthy thing.
Another example of the Slashdot tendency to assume the right to say "don't like it? don't buy it" extends to freedom from criticism and the right to expect dissenters to STFU. It doesn't.
If you don't like this discussion, don't read it, don't take part in it. Simple.
Fuck off. You don't get to vote by proxy.
FOAD your own anon self you don't get to vote without a name.
Er, you do realise it's quite possible that he's having to post anonymously precisely *because* he has an account and moderation privileges and has already used them in this thread? (^_^)
Don't develop for Apple. No one will miss you. No one needs you.
were pretty childish and the ad hominem allegations in
I bet half the people who bitch on Slashdot aren't even devs but children trying to be edgy
were bordering on troll.
But more significantly and ironically- in a post that virulently attacks the alleged "entitlement" of others- the tone and implication of your message were basically that he had no right to criticise Apple if he didn't want to use their products, and that he should STFU and leave the platform to the hypemongers.
Well, no. It doesn't work like that. Apple are free to sell an obnoxiously closed platform, and they and others are free to say "Don't like it? Don't use/buy it."
However, that's as far as it goes. Others are free to state their opinions and criticisms of the iPhone and friends, and in a free society no one is... what's the word, oh yes... entitled to freedom from criticism as you seem to think Apple is.
Because quite frankly, the rabid and partisan tone of your attack on the GP- whose post was quite reasonable- blatantly smacked of this sense of entitlement, that he had the audacity to criticise the iPhone and not keep his mouth shut.
Sheer hypocrisy.
Yo dawg, we heard you like closed platforms...
Cute, though I'd say the problem here is that you *don't* get a closed platform in your closed platform.
When will we stop referencing Moore's law?
When it's clearly no longer true nor applicable- neither of which is the case yet.
As a child I loved the TV show SPACE: 1999. But its gone now and not relevant
That's because the moon was not- and has never been- catastrophically blasted from the Earth's orbit with Martin Landau and Barbera Bain onboard, running into countless humanoid-alien-of-the-weeks along the way.
Moore's law was, and remains true, and a fundamental aspect of progress in the computer industry.
There was "Das iTeam - Die Jungs an der Maus", which was a crappy shot-by-shot remake. It was really bad.
I don't know why, the Germans normally have an excellent sense of humour ;-)
the bbc once aired the addams family without the laugh track and every single joke hung in the air like a bad fart. It was extremely uncomfortable to watch.
I strongly suspect that the Addams Family was scripted and acted with pauses for a prominent laugh track in mind, and that's why it sounded awkward without it- waiting for laughter that doesn't come.
You can argue that until the cows come home; the bottom line is that the commonly-accepted meaning of the term "personal computer" is one that broadly conforms to the desktop, single-user model that first rose to prominence with the Apple II, Commodore Pet and others.
:-)
The laptop is kind of in there, though that may be as much because most of those are "IBM PC compatible" derivatives. At any rate, the iPhone or a high-end calculator may be personal and computers, but most people wouldn't call them that. And in the end that's what matters.
It's also what the article meant, so you're kind of missing the point. One could define "blasphemy" as "imitating a marmalade sandwich", but it wouldn't mean you could treat the passages in the article condemning blasphemy as referring to that.
Give it up. BeOS is dead and never coming back.
BeOS isn't dead! It's alive and working in a supermarket in Scunthorpe!
I'm bitching about talentless losers who demean others out of jealousy rather than any real critique. That's hardly hypocritical.
It is if you're doing it because you're jealous of them. (^_^)
Gods, remember the damn digicams that had full floppy disk drives on them?
Some of the first wave of commercially-released *analogue* electronic still cameras from the late-1980s- including the pre-digital versions of the Sony Mavica- used floppy disks. The recorded pictures were single composite-encoded NTSC or PAL single frames and recorded onto the disc itself in analogue format.
(Something interesting to bear in mind if you find yourself- as I sometimes do- automatically thinking of "digital" and "electronic" still photography as being synonymous).
They weren't in a position to pick and choose
Yes they were. The iPhone was a desirable device with massive hype behind it before it even hit the streets.
the telcos had the keys to the kingdom (customers) and Apple had an unproven, new smartphone
It may have been "unproven", but that didn't mean it wasn't going to sell, which is what counts.
And it wasn't seen as just another smartphone, it was the latest device from uber-cool Apple, and drooled over and hyped as much- in fact, probably more- than the iPad.
They need to sell the phone, and the only way to do that (effectively) is to subsidise it with cellphone contracts - that means carrier support.
Apple were free to let the networks sell subsidised versions with restrictions and sell unsubsidised versions that weren't tied.
;-))
They chose to enter a secretive, revenue-sharing agreement tying the phone to a single carrier in the US and other countries. (Perhaps the all-powerful AT&T decided to give the powerless Apple a cut of their profits out of the goodness of their hearts?
Which they were well within their rights to do, just don't try to paint it as something they were forced into doing, or that money wasn't the primary factor. They held as many- probably more- cards than the telcos.
AT&T will have stipulated the conditions, and among them would be tethering control as a decision by them. Apple's choice is "don;t sell the phone" or "look at another carrier, who is going to impose similar restrictions".
Pretty much what you said before, and pretty much nonsense for the reasons I already gave.
The iPhone was the hot item everyone wanted. If AT&T (in the US) *seriously* wanted to have banned it from their network- which I gather would have been few people's first choice otherwise- it would have been their loss.
So please stop parroting the apologist, Apple-as-victim/underdog/new-kid-on-the-block line. Whether you're deluded enough to believe it or not, it's blatant nonsense.
My grandmother used to like to bet on the horses, and, in the UK at least, with some bookies you paid tax on the wager itself (with no tax on the winnings), at others you paid tax on the winnings (or nothing if you lose).
I thought you had the choice of being able to do it either way?
Don't gamble at all myself, so this isn't speaking from experience.
Remember, when it was released, the iPhone was the cellphone equivalent of Harry Potter - the children's book no one would publish, until JKR finally got a limited publishing run at the 6th attempt.
"Remember?"
Bullshit. I don't "remember" that apologist, revisionist version of events because it blatantly wasn't the case.
What I remember was a *lot* of hype surrounding the iPhone when it came out, and it was pretty damn obvious that the iPod-loving masses would want it, even if not everyone could afford it.
The comparison with Harry Potter isn't entirely misplaced- it was the equivalent of the fifth or sixth book in a series that was by then massively successful and likely to sell loads.
If there was a contractual requirement, it's likely because the telco (quite reasonably) wanted something in exchange for Apple getting *their* nice cut of their profits from the iPhone services. (Which I'm pretty damn sure was also in the contract).
Apple had a desirable device that people were excited about and could easily have insisted on tethering- at least to some extent, and certainly more than is officially possible now- and still could have had the networks take it on. But of course, that would have meant less money for Apple.
So please don't try to paint this as poor little Apple at the mercy of the telcos. They were in the position to pick and choose, they wanted their cut. Simple as that.
Why would anyone want to be stuck with FAT? There are several great file systems in use these days.
Because pretty much everything uses it, that's why. You can put forward a well-argued case about why ext69 is a better filesystem because it can store 1GB of data in seven bits, still be readable after a direct hit with a hydrogen bomb leaves only three atoms of the drive remaining, and solves world peace- but it won't be compatible with every random Tom, Dick and Harry device out there.