Much agreement. Additionally, I think the clone segment will actually help Apple. By making the OS more accessible, more people will use it, and there will be less inhibition for people to not get a Mac.
I can think of one area where it would definitely help them out: servers. While Apple has a server offering, it isn't a major market for them, and they obviously don't intend that this will ever be the case. Why not license OS X Server to companies like HP and IBM who are very much in the server business, and already have their foot in the door in enterprise environments? Let companies that are already in that market promote OS X Server in it. Servers are at least one area where Apple has nothing to lose and plenty to gain by licensing clones.
We managed to find $25 billion to fund bailing out a moribund auto industry. It seems to me putting that money into a forward-looking industry rather than a backwards-looking one would have been a much more worthwhile use of the money.
Nope. PowerPC is not coming back on the desktop anytime soon for Apple. The P.A. Semi purchase is about SoC likely built around ARM for small devices (aka iPhone).
That story was a lot more credible before they hired IBM's premier expert on Power. Why do they keep acquiring Power expertise if they want to build ARM processors? I'm not seeing the logic here....
if Apple were to license the ppc architecture from IBM...
You do know that Apple was part of the AIM alliance that created the ppc. I don't believe they need to license it from IBM.
Yeah, I do know that. And I'm wondering why Apple is acquiring all of this PPC expertise when they're using ARM processors in their handhelds, and Intel in their computers.
You have to wonder if PPC plays any role in their future product plans. I'm not sure I see the logic of acquiring all kinds of PPC expertise to build ARM processors....
Err, again without looking it up.. if you interbred all the different races equally, you'd end up with a brown skin race. Not exactly sure why you think that's white supremacist.
I'd question that premise. Even in multiracial populations, interbreeding between races is still relatively rare. For better or worse, most people seem to breed within their own ethnic enclave. If that wasn't the case, countries like the US would already have populations that looked like Tiger Woods. But despite the fact that it's been a multiracial society since Columbus landed, that hasn't happened.
Yes, but OTOH smart people have more opportunities to meet each other that they didn't have in the past. If you were born on a farm in 1900, chances are you'd stay there all your life, even if you had an IQ of 160. Now, most reasonably smart people have the opportunity to go to universities, and work in environments where they're going to meet other smart people. Of course, the children of smart parents tend to regress toward the mean, so genetics may play a lesser role in intelligence than you might think.
I find it kind of sad that most people reading this have never typed on anything that doesn't rely on electrons to work.
+1 Irrelevant Old Fart Comment
+1 Get Off My Lawn Comment
As somebody who's quite old enough to remember typing on things that didn't rely on electrons or even electricity, I can tell you for sure I don't miss the joys of carbon paper, having to start from scratch if you made a mistake, changing ribbons or unjamming jammed keys at all.
That's like saying you feel sad because some people have never experienced the joy of taking a crap in an outhouse on a cold winter day.
Considering that nobody died from Bill Gates making money and that he is now saving or at least helping lives, I would say definately yes.
You anti MS fanatics really need to take a step back and see the big picture. Yes, Microsoft did some pretty shady *business* dealings to make money. but Linux, Apple, whichever MS adversary you are supporting is not important compared to life.
You misunderstand - I'm not an anti-MS fanatic. What I'm saying is that in the process of earning his money providing a cheap, standardized platform (yes, cheap. If that surprises you, you must be too young to remember the software industry pre-PC.) Gates created a vast benefit to the world. The amount of benefit Gates has created giving away his money is negligible. Therefore, he's done the world more good earning his money than he ever will giving it away.
Because they're a monopoly, they didn't care to fix it until a newspaper came along with a bag of bad publicity in tow. If there were other options, the customer could have gone with a competitor with more willingness to resolve the problem.
Monopoly status didn't cause the problem, but it did cause a delay in the resolution. They suggested he change his name rather than fix the problem with the computer. Does that sound like the suggestion of someone who's worried about losing customers?
The problem here is that they aren't a monopoly. Read the article. Dr. Libshitz himself stated that since Verizon wouldn't accommodate him, he was sticking with AT&T, who already were.
Well, this was inevitable once Apple switched over to an Intel-based standard architecture. Unless there's more to their purchasing PA-Semi than they're currently admitting, I don't think there's going to be much they can do about it. If they want to avoid having their OS installed on white-box type machines, they'd probably be better off if they granted a limited license to a couple of companies like Lenovo or HP. At least that way they could ensure the clones met certain standards and didn't compromise the user experience.
I've often wondered why they don't at least license OS X Server, if not their desktops. Apple doesn't really have much of a presence in the server market, and don't seem to be very interested in establishing one. Why not license the server and let the IBM's and the HP's of the world do the heavy lifting of getting it into corporate data centers? It would give Apple an opportunity to establish a presence, and make some money from, a market they don't really compete in, with a product they already have, but don't push.
Actually, this is a demonstration that there really is no such thing as a free lunch. Sure, the software is free to use, but the cost of it is a bizarre ideological movement that pulls stunts like this, interfering with people's ability to actually get some use out of their computers.
GNU/FSF were fun and useful about 15 years ago, when free software was generally about coders using and sharing each others code. Unfortunately, I think success has spoiled the movement. I'd rather just pay for my software and avoid all the political crap.
Careful. Ask that around here and you're bound to get a few hopelessly ignorant responses from people who honestly believe Gates has done more harm than Hitler, and his giving away of billions in charity is all a ruse to solidify his ill-gotten position of power.
Well, I don't think he's done any harm by giving away his money. But I'll point out that he did the world far more good in the process of earning his money than he'll ever do giving it away.
Please. What do you suggest as the reason why someone would respect RMS? His good looks? His impeccable cleanliness? His tact? His unmatched skill at singing and songwriting?
Actually, it's mostly because of the association of his license and ancillary software with Linux. Stallman owes at least as much to Linus Torvalds as Torvalds does to him.
Like it or not, without RMS, Linux would never have been anything but a 386 assembly-language pet project,
Perhaps, but various *BSD flavors would still exist. There were already various efforts afoot to provide source-available unix-clones. Linux just happened to become available first.
Agree or disagree with him, if you can't imagine why anyone would respect RMS, then you need to research what's happened over the last 25 years.
Actually, most of that is negligible - most software in use is still proprietary and closed source. Open source fills a few important niches, but it's hardly irreplaceable.
Sure, Stallman has made some noteworthy contributions, but his crack-pot political agenda has arguably done just as much to inhibit the adoption of open-source software as it has to promote it.
I disagree on two counts. First, this is not a preemptive strike. This is the punishment for past wrongdoings. I would liken it to being on parole. No, it's not like parole, parole has a defined expiration date. What's the expiration date of Microsoft's parole?
Not so. They vote no, because they no the public does not want this. They are EXTREMELY happy that the centre-right goverment takes the hit for this, otherwise they would have to.
The socialists will now complain about this law all they way into goverment after the next election, when they will....do exactly nothing about it.
Just as with everything else they complain about. That's swedish politics for you. Actually, this sounds astonishingly similar to American politics. Note, the Democratic Congress hasn't made any attempt to repeal the much-reviled Patriot Act or stop the war in Iraq, both of which they rode into office on...
But what would really be great (and very much in line with the whole "embracing enterprise" thing) would be native support for Cisco IPsec VPN connections. As it stands, you have to use Cisco's own clunky client; if you could use the built-in client you could connect via a menubar icon. (Shimo does this pretty nicely, but it just became crippleware.)
That, and it would also be nice if they'd refine and include the TUN/TAP driver. I understand that it's in the kernel code, but has never been part of a build. (At least not an officially released one.)
The only thing this demonstrates is that the developer release doesn't support PPC. Whether the production release will is still anyone's guess. I don't think we'll know for sure until it hits the shelves...
How so? As a desktop client, Mac OS X has already had excellent support for SMB/CIFS for quite sometime. Mac OS X Server also has an excellent implementation of CIFS powered by Samba+LDAP and can even join an ActiveDirectory domain.
It has support for SMB/CIFS. "Excellent" is pushing it a bit...
I believe their hardware could stand on its own merits and the additional revenue and marketshare couldn't hurt. If nothing else, they'd probably do themselves some good licensing OS X Server. Apple doesn't have much of a presence in the server market, and doesn't look very interested in being one. Why not license to an HP or IBM, and let companies that actually play in that space sell their server OS in the data center?
I've often wondered what they intend to do with their server offering. Given that they seem to have no great interest in the server market, it would seem to make sense to license their server product, if not their desktop, to 3rd parties like HP or IBM, companies that actually sell into that space. It couldn't really be argued that licensing OS X Server would cannibalize hardware sales, since Apple isn't very interested in selling server hardware, anyway.
I just replaced the keyboard, bottom case and battery connector to my first gen macbook (white). It took about 2 hours and about $200. Apple would have charged me more than that and I refuse to pay for apple care from a previous debacle. Actually, if you pay for your Mac with a Visa (and maybe some others) credit card, you can purchase a warranty extension for up to 4 years, usually at a fraction of the cost of AppleCare. Just have it repaired at the normal price, and Visa reimburses you.
Why would they have to switch? Given that universal binaries are now pretty much the norm in the Apple software world, why not just use whichever processor is best suited for a particular product? They've already succeeded in making the processor architecture transparent. Why not exploit the transparency, rather than commit to one or the other?
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Much agreement. Additionally, I think the clone segment will actually help Apple. By making the OS more accessible, more people will use it, and there will be less inhibition for people to not get a Mac.
I can think of one area where it would definitely help them out: servers. While Apple has a server offering, it isn't a major market for them, and they obviously don't intend that this will ever be the case. Why not license OS X Server to companies like HP and IBM who are very much in the server business, and already have their foot in the door in enterprise environments? Let companies that are already in that market promote OS X Server in it. Servers are at least one area where Apple has nothing to lose and plenty to gain by licensing clones.
Maybe all they want is a square deal. Which they sure aren't getting now.
Come to think of it, I've never heard of a layoff at Apple. I don't know that it's never happened, but if it has, I've never heard of it.
We managed to find $25 billion to fund bailing out a moribund auto industry. It seems to me putting that money into a forward-looking industry rather than a backwards-looking one would have been a much more worthwhile use of the money.
Nope. PowerPC is not coming back on the desktop anytime soon for Apple. The P.A. Semi purchase is about SoC likely built around ARM for small devices (aka iPhone).
That story was a lot more credible before they hired IBM's premier expert on Power. Why do they keep acquiring Power expertise if they want to build ARM processors? I'm not seeing the logic here....
if Apple were to license the ppc architecture from IBM ...
You do know that Apple was part of the AIM alliance that created the ppc. I don't believe they need to license it from IBM.
Yeah, I do know that. And I'm wondering why Apple is acquiring all of this PPC expertise when they're using ARM processors in their handhelds, and Intel in their computers.
You have to wonder if PPC plays any role in their future product plans. I'm not sure I see the logic of acquiring all kinds of PPC expertise to build ARM processors....
Err, again without looking it up.. if you interbred all the different races equally, you'd end up with a brown skin race. Not exactly sure why you think that's white supremacist.
I'd question that premise. Even in multiracial populations, interbreeding between races is still relatively rare. For better or worse, most people seem to breed within their own ethnic enclave. If that wasn't the case, countries like the US would already have populations that looked like Tiger Woods. But despite the fact that it's been a multiracial society since Columbus landed, that hasn't happened.
Yes, but OTOH smart people have more opportunities to meet each other that they didn't have in the past. If you were born on a farm in 1900, chances are you'd stay there all your life, even if you had an IQ of 160. Now, most reasonably smart people have the opportunity to go to universities, and work in environments where they're going to meet other smart people. Of course, the children of smart parents tend to regress toward the mean, so genetics may play a lesser role in intelligence than you might think.
I find it kind of sad that most people reading this have never typed on anything that doesn't rely on electrons to work.
+1 Irrelevant Old Fart Comment
+1 Get Off My Lawn Comment
As somebody who's quite old enough to remember typing on things that didn't rely on electrons or even electricity, I can tell you for sure I don't miss the joys of carbon paper, having to start from scratch if you made a mistake, changing ribbons or unjamming jammed keys at all.
That's like saying you feel sad because some people have never experienced the joy of taking a crap in an outhouse on a cold winter day.
Sir, what are you thinking of?
Considering that nobody died from Bill Gates making money and that he is now saving or at least helping lives, I would say definately yes.
You anti MS fanatics really need to take a step back and see the big picture. Yes, Microsoft did some pretty shady *business* dealings to make money. but Linux, Apple, whichever MS adversary you are supporting is not important compared to life.
You misunderstand - I'm not an anti-MS fanatic. What I'm saying is that in the process of earning his money providing a cheap, standardized platform (yes, cheap. If that surprises you, you must be too young to remember the software industry pre-PC.) Gates created a vast benefit to the world. The amount of benefit Gates has created giving away his money is negligible. Therefore, he's done the world more good earning his money than he ever will giving it away.
Say what you will about bill gates and M$, but the man has donated a fuckton of his money to make the world a better place(Malaria cures, anyone?)
Has he done the world more good giving away his money than he did in the process of earning it? Think about that one for a while.
Because they're a monopoly, they didn't care to fix it until a newspaper came along with a bag of bad publicity in tow. If there were other options, the customer could have gone with a competitor with more willingness to resolve the problem.
Monopoly status didn't cause the problem, but it did cause a delay in the resolution. They suggested he change his name rather than fix the problem with the computer. Does that sound like the suggestion of someone who's worried about losing customers?
The problem here is that they aren't a monopoly. Read the article. Dr. Libshitz himself stated that since Verizon wouldn't accommodate him, he was sticking with AT&T, who already were.
Where is the monopoly in that?
Well, this was inevitable once Apple switched over to an Intel-based standard architecture. Unless there's more to their purchasing PA-Semi than they're currently admitting, I don't think there's going to be much they can do about it. If they want to avoid having their OS installed on white-box type machines, they'd probably be better off if they granted a limited license to a couple of companies like Lenovo or HP. At least that way they could ensure the clones met certain standards and didn't compromise the user experience.
I've often wondered why they don't at least license OS X Server, if not their desktops. Apple doesn't really have much of a presence in the server market, and don't seem to be very interested in establishing one. Why not license the server and let the IBM's and the HP's of the world do the heavy lifting of getting it into corporate data centers? It would give Apple an opportunity to establish a presence, and make some money from, a market they don't really compete in, with a product they already have, but don't push.
Actually, this is a demonstration that there really is no such thing as a free lunch. Sure, the software is free to use, but the cost of it is a bizarre ideological movement that pulls stunts like this, interfering with people's ability to actually get some use out of their computers.
GNU/FSF were fun and useful about 15 years ago, when free software was generally about coders using and sharing each others code. Unfortunately, I think success has spoiled the movement. I'd rather just pay for my software and avoid all the political crap.
Careful. Ask that around here and you're bound to get a few hopelessly ignorant responses from people who honestly believe Gates has done more harm than Hitler, and his giving away of billions in charity is all a ruse to solidify his ill-gotten position of power.
Well, I don't think he's done any harm by giving away his money. But I'll point out that he did the world far more good in the process of earning his money than he'll ever do giving it away.
Please. What do you suggest as the reason why someone would respect RMS? His good looks? His impeccable cleanliness? His tact? His unmatched skill at singing and songwriting?
Actually, it's mostly because of the association of his license and ancillary software with Linux. Stallman owes at least as much to Linus Torvalds as Torvalds does to him.
Like it or not, without RMS, Linux would never have been anything but a 386 assembly-language pet project,
Perhaps, but various *BSD flavors would still exist. There were already various efforts afoot to provide source-available unix-clones. Linux just happened to become available first.
Agree or disagree with him, if you can't imagine why anyone would respect RMS, then you need to research what's happened over the last 25 years.
Actually, most of that is negligible - most software in use is still proprietary and closed source. Open source fills a few important niches, but it's hardly irreplaceable.
Sure, Stallman has made some noteworthy contributions, but his crack-pot political agenda has arguably done just as much to inhibit the adoption of open-source software as it has to promote it.
The socialists will now complain about this law all they way into goverment after the next election, when they will....do exactly nothing about it.
Just as with everything else they complain about.
That's swedish politics for you. Actually, this sounds astonishingly similar to American politics. Note, the Democratic Congress hasn't made any attempt to repeal the much-reviled Patriot Act or stop the war in Iraq, both of which they rode into office on...
But what would really be great (and very much in line with the whole "embracing enterprise" thing) would be native support for Cisco IPsec VPN connections. As it stands, you have to use Cisco's own clunky client; if you could use the built-in client you could connect via a menubar icon. (Shimo does this pretty nicely, but it just became crippleware.)
That, and it would also be nice if they'd refine and include the TUN/TAP driver. I understand that it's in the kernel code, but has never been part of a build. (At least not an officially released one.)The only thing this demonstrates is that the developer release doesn't support PPC. Whether the production release will is still anyone's guess. I don't think we'll know for sure until it hits the shelves...
How so? As a desktop client, Mac OS X has already had excellent support for SMB/CIFS for quite sometime. Mac OS X Server also has an excellent implementation of CIFS powered by Samba+LDAP and can even join an ActiveDirectory domain.
It has support for SMB/CIFS. "Excellent" is pushing it a bit...I've often wondered what they intend to do with their server offering. Given that they seem to have no great interest in the server market, it would seem to make sense to license their server product, if not their desktop, to 3rd parties like HP or IBM, companies that actually sell into that space. It couldn't really be argued that licensing OS X Server would cannibalize hardware sales, since Apple isn't very interested in selling server hardware, anyway.
Why would they have to switch? Given that universal binaries are now pretty much the norm in the Apple software world, why not just use whichever processor is best suited for a particular product? They've already succeeded in making the processor architecture transparent. Why not exploit the transparency, rather than commit to one or the other?