" oh please. some dude with a blog spouting off what his cat did today does not a journalist make...."
Apparently, ThinkSecret's news important enough for/. to post, and was important enough for you to bother to read the comments off the/. post of their news. Otherwise, your comment wouldn't be here.
I'm sure the EFF would love to hear from/.ers asking for support against CherryOS, after being stabbed in the back by/.ers who overwhemingly supported Apple when the EFF tried to defend the bloggers Apple sued.
"You just strengthened me in my idea that the majority of Americans have no idea about what is going on in the rest of the world. It scares me."
A French person steals American movies, and you don't understand how this particular ruling doesn't piss off Americans? You don't even seem to know what's going on in this article. That scares me more.
The object of a lawsuit isn't just to recuperate lost revenue. It's also meant as a deterent for others, thus a penalty is much greater than the worth of that stolen. Why do you think a parking ticket costs more than the price you spend to park somewhere? That said, it's not the amount of songs you have that matters, it's the amount of people that downloaded each song that matter. A person that only share 1 song that was copied hundreds of times, has committed a greater crime than someone sharing hundreds of songs that no one is interested in downloading.
The guy's guilty. He doesn't even bother to make any excuses. He got what he deserved. Yet most people here say the RIAA is evil for suing a person guilty for breaking the law. Apple sues bloggers, which arguably violates the 1st amendment, and most people here defend Apple saying they have a right to defend their trade secrets, and need to know the source of the leaks. Can't you people see how closely related these two cases are? The RIAA wishes they were like Apple in/.'s eyes.
This band looks like it's more compatible with 902.16 than 802.11. 802.16 has a much higher SNDR than 802.11, and, therefore, you'll get more datat throughput, even with less bandwidth.
"The problem arises when somebody tries to use their position as the established leader to keep other companies from establishing a marketshare, thus using their dominance to maintain a monopoly."
Apple refuses to license their fairplay system, using their dominance in the music download business to leverage sales for iPods, the only player that can play these songs without jumping through a bunch of hoops.
Apple refuses to support WMA on iPods, combined with their refusal to license fairplay, allows them to use their mp3 player monopoly to leverage their iTMS online music sales. No one else can sell a song with DRM that plays on an iPod.
They're hoping the positive feedback of the lockin in these markets will keep them on top.
No real libertarian would support a govt based wireless muni network. The reason telcom companies are not providing metro WiFi access is they are a lot smarter than local politicians. They are waiting for WiMax deployment, which is the right solution for the problem. When your local govt wastes your money on a WiFi network, you'll be stuck with it while other comunities are get much better perfomance with WiMax for a lot lower cost. No telcom company will want to compete with your "free" but lousy network.
Because it's a stupid idea. WiFi was designed for short range LANs. The telcom companies are waiting for 802.16 (WiMax) to provide broadband wireless access. When the low power version is available (802.16e), they'll support mobile as well.
from your article: "Interestingly, the report only briefly touches on the immense technical obstacles associated with delivering broadband Wi-Fi services across a metropolitan area, especially in the 2.4-GHz band. Wi-Fi is a LAN technology that is well suited for many applications, ranging from home networking to enterprise LAN services to public hotspots. But using it for broadband wireless WAN services has always struck this pundit as ill advised. That's one of the key reasons 802.16 is viewed by many as a more strategic metropolitan wireless technology."
This isn't much different than other plans such as those proposed by the EFF. They're taxing computer equipment to pay the music industry, and then using the 5 cent contribution to decide how to divide up the loot. The problem is that not all computer users download songs. These people are stuck paying for your music if you are downloading more than the average amount of songs for 5 cents each. It's just another socialist solution that should be rejected.
"Apple has been using Open Source and making money from it for a few years now. Their model is to have open source and freely available core components (Darwin, Webkit, etc) then build value on top of it and charge for that."
Yes. This is Red Hat's model as well. They take open source software, bundle it, and provide a nice installer and other misc tools, and call is an OS.
Apple also uses their combination open source/proprietary software as a vehicle to sell their hardware, which is where the real money is made. Other companies such as IBM, HP, etc. are doing the same thing with Linux based OS's. Linux is part of the solution they are using to sell their server hardware.
So, OSS should be thought of as a shared resource that has no monetary value, but has real value as a tool that can be used to further one's business.
ThinkSecret didn't break any laws. They simply refuse to disclose who gave them info on an Apple product under NDA. ThinkSecret never agreed to the NDA.
The real thinking was, if we put an LCD display on the thing, we'll have to charge as much as an iPod mini, so no display. Let marketing figure out how to make that into a feature. Worked on you, apparently.
"once you get licenses in the picture, you disempower the smaller entities and empower the larger entities. And I think that most Americans are starting to see that whenever larger entities gain power over small entities and citizens, then things start to go sour..."
Fine, you can have your home-grown crappy WiFi network with a hundred hops to get to the next town. I can't believe this anti-corporate conspiracy bullshit gets modded up. Most of the products and services I buy are from large corporations. I've had a lot more problems with govt. power abuse than with corporations. The only way corporations can abuse their power is through the govt. anyway. Aside from using the govt., corporations have no power that isn't given to them by choices consumers make. I'll choose WiMax over the kludged WiFi solution any day.
"OOo is not only as good as MS Office, it is *better.*"
My company switched from solaris (with a pc card running windows) to linux and made all users use open office about a year or so ago. The verwhelming reaction was it sucked compared to MS Office. These aren't people with any particular allegance to MS or OSS. They just don't like it. The couple of windows boxes provided for the linux crowd are always in use and it's a pain to get one to use. Go ahead and mod me down for criticizing this product, but that is what people in the real world think.
" Because Apple is the New Microsoft. They use courts to squelch free speech rights of those who would impart Apple trade secrets to the public; they legally commit restraint of trade by mixing proprietary hardware with proprietary software so competitors can't break into their non-monopoly markets with alternative products; and they don't give all their code away for free, but instead select to give away or hold secret that which maximizes profit for their shareholders. Evil bastards! *cough!* --M"
Nice spin. Substitute MS for Apple in your post and everyone and everyone would say you were spreading FUD.Remeber when Apple sued the creator of playfair? This guy is next. Apple has always been just like MS. I'm surprised it took people this long to notice. Remember when they put all the clone makers out of business? They refuse to port their OS to x86 because they're using their software to sell their proprietary hardware solution. Try reverse engieering their BIOS to make a clone and they'll sue you into oblivion. Lucky for the rest of us non-MAC users, Compaq was successful at reverse engineering IBM's BIOS
From YOUR link: To play AAC and AAC Protected songs, your iPod must have iPod Software 1.3 or later installed. Not all digital music players can play AAC songs and only iPod can play AAC Protected songs.
Only the iPod can play DRMed songs purchased from iTMS
" This "article" (not really an article, it's a flamepost) would probably not have been posted had there been a moderation system."
Thanks for confirming that censorship is alive and well at/. Let's use words like troll and flamebait to suppress ideas we don't like, and lower the score of the post in the hope that no one reads the offending ideas.
You can't buy an iTunes song and play the file in a Creative mp3 player, and it's not Creative's fault. You cannot buy a song from Napster and play the file on an iPod. Again, Apple's fault, not Napster. Apple does control what you are doing by artificially limiting your choices for reason that have nothing to do with technology.
Slashdot Mirror
"Decoding Format: MP3 (8~320Kbps), MP3-VBR, WMA, WMA-DRM (5~192Kbps), WAV (ADPCM)"
They support WMA, but no mention of AAC and fairplay. This could be good for Napster, etc.
" oh please. some dude with a blog spouting off what his cat did today does not a journalist make...."
/. to post, and was important enough for you to bother to read the comments off the /. post of their news. Otherwise, your comment wouldn't be here.
Apparently, ThinkSecret's news important enough for
I'm sure the EFF would love to hear from /.ers asking for support against CherryOS, after being stabbed in the back by /.ers who overwhemingly supported Apple when the EFF tried to defend the bloggers Apple sued.
"You just strengthened me in my idea that the majority of Americans have no idea about what is going on in the rest of the world. It scares me."
A French person steals American movies, and you don't understand how this particular ruling doesn't piss off Americans? You don't even seem to know what's going on in this article. That scares me more.
The object of a lawsuit isn't just to recuperate lost revenue. It's also meant as a deterent for others, thus a penalty is much greater than the worth of that stolen. Why do you think a parking ticket costs more than the price you spend to park somewhere? That said, it's not the amount of songs you have that matters, it's the amount of people that downloaded each song that matter. A person that only share 1 song that was copied hundreds of times, has committed a greater crime than someone sharing hundreds of songs that no one is interested in downloading.
The guy's guilty. He doesn't even bother to make any excuses. He got what he deserved. Yet most people here say the RIAA is evil for suing a person guilty for breaking the law. Apple sues bloggers, which arguably violates the 1st amendment, and most people here defend Apple saying they have a right to defend their trade secrets, and need to know the source of the leaks. Can't you people see how closely related these two cases are? The RIAA wishes they were like Apple in /.'s eyes.
Read the WiMax spec, and then see if your opinion changes.
This band looks like it's more compatible with 902.16 than 802.11. 802.16 has a much higher SNDR than 802.11, and, therefore, you'll get more datat throughput, even with less bandwidth.
"The problem arises when somebody tries to use their position as the established leader to keep other companies from establishing a marketshare, thus using their dominance to maintain a monopoly."
Apple refuses to license their fairplay system, using their dominance in the music download business to leverage sales for iPods, the only player that can play these songs without jumping through a bunch of hoops.
Apple refuses to support WMA on iPods, combined with their refusal to license fairplay, allows them to use their mp3 player monopoly to leverage their iTMS online music sales. No one else can sell a song with DRM that plays on an iPod.
They're hoping the positive feedback of the lockin in these markets will keep them on top.
No real libertarian would support a govt based wireless muni network. The reason telcom companies are not providing metro WiFi access is they are a lot smarter than local politicians. They are waiting for WiMax deployment, which is the right solution for the problem. When your local govt wastes your money on a WiFi network, you'll be stuck with it while other comunities are get much better perfomance with WiMax for a lot lower cost. No telcom company will want to compete with your "free" but lousy network.
Why aren't telcom companies providing muni WiFi?
Because it's a stupid idea. WiFi was designed for short range LANs. The telcom companies are waiting for 802.16 (WiMax) to provide broadband wireless access. When the low power version is available (802.16e), they'll support mobile as well.
from your article:
"Interestingly, the report only briefly touches on the immense technical obstacles associated with delivering broadband Wi-Fi services across a metropolitan area, especially in the 2.4-GHz band. Wi-Fi is a LAN technology that is well suited for many applications, ranging from home networking to enterprise LAN services to public hotspots. But using it for broadband wireless WAN services has always struck this pundit as ill advised. That's one of the key reasons 802.16 is viewed by many as a more strategic metropolitan wireless technology."
WiMax is the right solution.
"And yes, he is running Linux on it ;)"
I was worried Linus had lost faith in his own creation, until I read the above line. Couldn't imagine him actually switching to MacOS.
This isn't much different than other plans such as those proposed by the EFF. They're taxing computer equipment to pay the music industry, and then using the 5 cent contribution to decide how to divide up the loot. The problem is that not all computer users download songs. These people are stuck paying for your music if you are downloading more than the average amount of songs for 5 cents each. It's just another socialist solution that should be rejected.
"Apple has been using Open Source and making money from it for a few years now. Their model is to have open source and freely available core components (Darwin, Webkit, etc) then build value on top of it and charge for that."
Yes. This is Red Hat's model as well. They take open source software, bundle it, and provide a nice installer and other misc tools, and call is an OS.
Apple also uses their combination open source/proprietary software as a vehicle to sell their hardware, which is where the real money is made. Other companies such as IBM, HP, etc. are doing the same thing with Linux based OS's. Linux is part of the solution they are using to sell their server hardware.
So, OSS should be thought of as a shared resource that has no monetary value, but has real value as a tool that can be used to further one's business.
ThinkSecret didn't break any laws. They simply refuse to disclose who gave them info on an Apple product under NDA. ThinkSecret never agreed to the NDA.
The real thinking was, if we put an LCD display on the thing, we'll have to charge as much as an iPod mini, so no display. Let marketing figure out how to make that into a feature. Worked on you, apparently.
You should ask yourself why companies are not pursuing muni WiFi solutions. The answer is they're not that stupid. They're waiting for WiMax.
"once you get licenses in the picture, you disempower the smaller entities and empower the larger entities. And I think that most Americans are starting to see that whenever larger entities gain power over small entities and citizens, then things start to go sour..."
Fine, you can have your home-grown crappy WiFi network with a hundred hops to get to the next town. I can't believe this anti-corporate conspiracy bullshit gets modded up. Most of the products and services I buy are from large corporations. I've had a lot more problems with govt. power abuse than with corporations. The only way corporations can abuse their power is through the govt. anyway. Aside from using the govt., corporations have no power that isn't given to them by choices consumers make. I'll choose WiMax over the kludged WiFi solution any day.
"OOo is not only as good as MS Office, it is *better.*"
My company switched from solaris (with a pc card running windows) to linux and made all users use open office about a year or so ago. The verwhelming reaction was it sucked compared to MS Office. These aren't people with any particular allegance to MS or OSS. They just don't like it. The couple of windows boxes provided for the linux crowd are always in use and it's a pain to get one to use. Go ahead and mod me down for criticizing this product, but that is what people in the real world think.
" Because Apple is the New Microsoft. They use courts to squelch free speech rights of those who would impart Apple trade secrets to the public; they legally commit restraint of trade by mixing proprietary hardware with proprietary software so competitors can't break into their non-monopoly markets with alternative products; and they don't give all their code away for free, but instead select to give away or hold secret that which maximizes profit for their shareholders. Evil bastards! *cough!* --M"
Nice spin. Substitute MS for Apple in your post and everyone and everyone would say you were spreading FUD.Remeber when Apple sued the creator of playfair? This guy is next. Apple has always been just like MS. I'm surprised it took people this long to notice. Remember when they put all the clone makers out of business? They refuse to port their OS to x86 because they're using their software to sell their proprietary hardware solution. Try reverse engieering their BIOS to make a clone and they'll sue you into oblivion. Lucky for the rest of us non-MAC users, Compaq was successful at reverse engineering IBM's BIOS
From YOUR link:
To play AAC and AAC Protected songs, your iPod must have iPod Software 1.3 or later installed. Not all digital music players can play AAC songs and only iPod can play AAC Protected songs.
Only the iPod can play DRMed songs purchased from iTMS
" This "article" (not really an article, it's a flamepost) would probably not have been posted had there been a moderation system."
/. Let's use words like troll and flamebait to suppress ideas we don't like, and lower the score of the post in the hope that no one reads the offending ideas.
Thanks for confirming that censorship is alive and well at
You can't buy an iTunes song and play the file in a Creative mp3 player, and it's not Creative's fault. You cannot buy a song from Napster and play the file on an iPod. Again, Apple's fault, not Napster. Apple does control what you are doing by artificially limiting your choices for reason that have nothing to do with technology.
"In short, Apple is not attacking ThinkSecret."
Yeah, hiring good lawyers to defend your right to keep your sources confidential doesn't cost a lot of money