It will become self-evident to you after you have written your first major application in a platform-specific language and/or environment that you want to make available on some other platform.
Until then, I will provide you with the most common scenario:
You are a company or independent developer who has unwisely decided to write thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of lines of code which uses a vendor-specific language. You are happy with your product, and you are happy with your vendor. All is good in your world. You have spent a huge amount of time and money on making your products, and you can't afford to do it all again from scratch. But you're okay with that, because your vendor is AWESOME, and you just can't foresee a reason why you would ever leave such an incredible experience.
You become disillusioned and/or pissed off with your language vendor (for whatever reasons; they don't matter for this discussion. Just know that it happens a lot), so you decide, "screw them! I'm out of there!" But, oops! You have written yourself into an intractable dependency on that vendor, because you didn't have the experience to understand how vendor lock-in works. You don't have the resources to rewrite from scratch, so you wind up having to surrender yourself to the whims of your vendor.
You plead with your vendor to be reasonable, but your vendor DOES have the experience to know how vendor lock-in works. So not only does your vendor ignore your pleas for mercy, but they raise their prices and/or make more unreasonable demands of you that you have absolutely no power to fight. You find yourself with no choice but to either cave to your vendor's demands, or go out of business.
You realize too late that had you used cross-platform technologies from either the very start, or at least switched to cross-platform technologies early on, you could have told your scumbag vendor to piss off; and then you could have found a different vendor to support you.
Running a personal data-mining business in a region of the world with strict policy laws? What could possibly go wrong?
That's a completely different issue. The EU is fining Google for having better products and services than everyone else. This has absolutely nothing to do with data mining, with which the EU seems to have few complaints.
This once again shows that the EU's priorities are WAY out of whack, as they should still be chasing Microsoft for continuing to abuse its monopoly positions (note the plural) unabated.
You were doing fine right up to that point where you revealed what a complete and total authoritarian asshole you are....
I think you have...issues.
No, I don't have kids nor have I ever wanted any so don't EVEN try that crap with me, mister.
I do have kids. I didn't do a whole lot of worrying about getting married and starting a family until after I got my degree and was satisfied that I was in a stable career. I worked my way into a stable and respected position in my career before taking on the responsibility that comes with having a wife and creating young people that depend on me for everything.
Again, it's basic common sense. Be outraged about it all you want, but having a wife and kids you can't support because of poor decision making over what should be really, really simple logic rarely results in anything good.
Sure, they can offer it. But they have to charge its usage against data caps just like they do all other services. That would be a great reason to extend the data caps to something reasonable (say, 1 exabyte a month), or do away with them altogether.
Living pay check to pay check isn't about how much money you bring in, but about how much you are spending in most cases.
I don't know who you think you are by being rational, but stop it! People don't want to take responsibility for themselves, but would rather make poor decisions and then blame someone else for the inevitably poor results.
That's nice, Walmart, but I think what people want is to not have both mom and dad working 60 hour work weeks yet still be living paycheck-to-paycheck.
That sounds reasonable when shooting from gut instinct, but that instinct is almost always wrong. I've watched what happens when the minimum wage gets an unreasonable boost: working hours go down to compensate, and usually go low enough to overcompensate. Thus, employees make less money with the wage increase than they made before it.
In my city, most full time minimum wage employees saw working hours slashed substantially so employers wouldn't have to pay as much as they were already paying. When the Affordable Care Act went into effect, those same employees had their working hours slashed yet again to ensure they fell below the earnings threshold that would require their employers to pay for health insurance.
A better solution would be for those parents to not be parents until they are financially and educationally viable to support a family. For those parents who didn't think before exchanging DNA, this is why your parents told you to not have sex until you were able to support a family. Your life is probably very difficult now, and you have only yourself to blame.
This doesn't require a lot of brain power. It's simple common sense.
I wonder how fast they will manage to kill Java given their current history of alienating customers.
Thankfully, SUN had the foresight to GPL Java before selling it to Oracle. There are many companies capable of collaborating on Java maintenance and development when Oracle fucks it all up.
In the case of operating systems, for example, or let's take iOS on Apple iPhones, there is not really the expectation of being able to put Android on it.
You need to stop being enslaved by Corporate ideology, and stop arguing against your best interest.
When they approched out business we switched to postgresql
I'll skip the details, but we, though our circumstances were not so dire, switched out all Oracle instances under our control to PostgreSQL because we got sick and tired of every aspect of Oracle's database (the software, the sales and marketing departments, the piss poor customer support, etc.).
Microsoft doesn't need to do a whole lot to sabotage GNOME or KDE, as both desktops are cutting off their own noses to spite their respective faces. GNOME has always been largely unusable and so ugly that even its mother could be forgiven for wanting to drop it into an exploding volcano.
KDE's decline began with the stagnation of the IO Slave architecture, the rise of Windows Explorer's bastard child, Dolphin, and the neglect of one of the world's best file managers, Konqueror. Since most of KDE's main features have been either neglected or mostly gutted, it really no longer matters which foundation gets the donation. At this point, they have already failed as a usable desktop (GNOME), or are well on the way to failing (KDE).
If it takes you 14 hours, 20 minutes to download Chrome or Firefox, you've got bigger problems. Microsoft really needs to work harder on its browser downloader.
I can't think of a better example of someone arguing against their best interests than this.
I buy LOTS of stuff from Amazon, and I therefore return lots of stuff to Amazon. My returns are exclusively due to defective or damaged products. Your plan would encourage Amazon and their resellers to sell defective merchandise, as buyers would be too afraid to return them.
People don't know the exact number of federal laws not because there are so many that they can't be counted, but because of the way American laws are written.
Either way, the end result is the same. You can't possibly know if you're breaking any laws. The odds are tremendously in favor of every single one of us breaking multiple serious laws every day without even realizing it.
I"ve yet to see any area of work in the US where they hold a gun to your head, and force you to stay as an employee against your will....
I've yet to see any area of work in the U.S. where they DON'T hold a figurative gun to you head and force you to stay as an employee against your will. If you don't think this is true, just ask yourself one simple question: "What happens to me if I refuse to work?"
In a labor camp, you're starved and abused until you die if you refuse to work.
In the U.S., you're starved and abused until you die if you refuse to work, because everything costs money and the poor are treated as low-class scum.
If I got MoviePass I'd feel obligated to go to the theater, which seems like a lot of effort and pressure.
The movie theater experience royally sucks, too. The sooner movie theaters die, the better. It will be a great day when all movies go direct to DVD and streaming. Watching movies at home is far, Far, FAR more enjoyable than any movie theater.
Perhaps you could list a few of these felonies that 'everyone' is committing 'every day'....
When the, "Why You Never Talk to The Police" video was released, there were over 50,000 Federal laws on the books. There are many more than that, because somewhere around 50,000 is where they stopped counting. According to that same video, nobody knows exactly how many Federal laws there are. And that's not even counting State and local laws.
So no, nobody should be stupid enough to believe that they are committing three felonies every day. That number is too low.
My kids handle Kubuntu just fine, and have since they were each three years old.
There have been lots of good posts here, and they completely reflect my experience with kids. They will easily move from one computing environment to the next, as they see them all as just minor variations on a common theme. Moving among Linux, Android, iCrap, Windows, Mac, etc. is just as easy for kids as it is for a competent driver to move among Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Saturn, etc.
Kids exposed to this stuff from birth aren't as absurd as their parents' and grandparents' generations that needed to memorize mouse clicks and keystrokes. They know to look for the print function on a program, rather than memorizing the specific keystrokes and mouse clicks needed to print on Microsoft Word. Once they are exposed to the idea that Print means output to paper or file, they then know to look for the Print function on ANY other program they use.
This is the way it should have always been, but morons teaching computer classes taught specific applications rather than concepts. And more often then not, those morons taught that way because other morons promoted the idiotic notion that they should limit students to only what was popular in the day. And sometimes to just specific versions of those applications.
While I can understand [Google] wanting to make money how does this line up with "Do no harm?"
"First, do no harm," is the physicians's motto (part of the Hippocratic Oath, or Hypocritic Oath for those who understand the irony). Google's motto is, "Don't be evil."
These companies are served thousands of National Security Letters every year, because they are a one-stop shop for Law Enforcement. It's much, much easier for the Feds to abuse a few enormous data stores than it is to pursue each of them individually. As such, those data stores are ripe for abuse. You are FAR more likely to be the victim of collateral damage when you take part in those huge data stores than you are as an individual.
Oh so putting yourself in a position where your data may be discovered by a legal process is bad...
Absolutely. Even if, or especially if, you're sure you've done nothing illegal. Because you're wrong. Today, you have most likely done something illegal that you do not realize is illegal. It's the same thing with yesterday, and will be the same thing tomorrow. Unnecessarily putting your data in a position that is easily accessible by law enforcement is foolish. They WILL find something they can use to persecute you.
...I get it now.
No, you don't.
I mean it's not like you get to keep this data when the feds come knocking on *your* door right?
The odds of the Feds coming knocking on my door are ridiculously small compared to the odds of the Feds getting my data by sweeping through one of the enormous data stores owned by these huge companies.
But seriously if all you have to go on is legal compliance then I consider this an incredible positive result.
Can you show a deliberate act where those 3 parties have abused or failed to secure your data?
Each of those companies have abused and failed to secure people's data many thousands of times a year, and those are just the ones they are legally allowed to tell us about. Microsoft just fought and lost a years-long battle over this very thing, as Congress now mandates that those companies abuse and fail to secure our data as a matter of law.
What makes your toaster so important?
Because we in the U.S. have a right to protect our toasters from unreasonable searches and seizures. Putting all of your stuff onto someone else's computers is being interpreted by our Judicial branch as voluntarily waiving those rights.
Let's assume this is true (whether it is or not doesn't matter much), and move on.
The problem with it was timing and apps.
I think timing here matters very little. I think there are two main reasons the Windows phone flopped:
1) Microsoft was/is run by complete and utter assholes, whose main objective was sucking your bank account dry by hook or by crook. This catapulted them to dominance in the 90's, and kept them in dominance despite their hoards of customers wanting to leave. However, their abusive monopoly power and absolute control over most of the people who were forced to spend tons of money on the Microsoft treadmill kept them making billions of dollars a year.
The law says you don't have to help LEOs, but you can't hinder.
Or how about developing systems that work only on something you know (passwords), which can't be compelled, and induce a complete wipe if authenticating with something you have (which can all be compelled). Naturally, architect the system with no back doors or failsafes.
Then, in court, you argue against having to provide the, "something you have", on the grounds that it violates your rights. When you inevitably lose, the courts compel you to use the, "something you have". Then, when the wipe is done and there is nothing left, there is nothing for the courts to charge you with; You complied with all court orders.
If they had the foresight to ask you ahead of time if such a mechanism exists, you invoke your fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. After all, it's well known that law enforcement and the court system view self-protection mechanisms as a defacto indication of guilt (even today, they promote the idea that only criminals want unbreakable encryption), so you're covered.
If they don't have the foresight to ask you ahead of time, you're still covered. You didn't lie about anything, and you're not obligated to volunteer any information which could be used against you.
Of course it's hacking. It's using software in a way in which it was not intended for your own purposes....
He was using the site EXACTLY as it was intended to be used: ask the system to provide information associated with some number at the end. This was not exploiting some unintended consequence to make the system behave in an unusual or unforeseen manner. This was making the computer system act in EXACTLY the manner the developer(s) intended.
If the Government wants to keep information private, the Government should place some form of security in front of it. As it is, there was (is?) NO security in front of the information.
If the Government wants to limit how much strain a single remote host imposes on the server, then the Government should place some firewall rules on the server. As it is, there were NO access controls on the server. It is therefore completely reasonable to assume that the Government intended for the information to be readily accessible to all guests.
Slashdot Mirror
[If] it really is novel and nothing like it has been patented before it will be granted.
If you work for a large company, use the phrase, "with a computer," and can pay the application fees, it will be granted.
How can a developer be locked in?
It will become self-evident to you after you have written your first major application in a platform-specific language and/or environment that you want to make available on some other platform.
Until then, I will provide you with the most common scenario:
You are a company or independent developer who has unwisely decided to write thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of lines of code which uses a vendor-specific language. You are happy with your product, and you are happy with your vendor. All is good in your world. You have spent a huge amount of time and money on making your products, and you can't afford to do it all again from scratch. But you're okay with that, because your vendor is AWESOME, and you just can't foresee a reason why you would ever leave such an incredible experience.
You become disillusioned and/or pissed off with your language vendor (for whatever reasons; they don't matter for this discussion. Just know that it happens a lot), so you decide, "screw them! I'm out of there!" But, oops! You have written yourself into an intractable dependency on that vendor, because you didn't have the experience to understand how vendor lock-in works. You don't have the resources to rewrite from scratch, so you wind up having to surrender yourself to the whims of your vendor.
You plead with your vendor to be reasonable, but your vendor DOES have the experience to know how vendor lock-in works. So not only does your vendor ignore your pleas for mercy, but they raise their prices and/or make more unreasonable demands of you that you have absolutely no power to fight. You find yourself with no choice but to either cave to your vendor's demands, or go out of business.
You realize too late that had you used cross-platform technologies from either the very start, or at least switched to cross-platform technologies early on, you could have told your scumbag vendor to piss off; and then you could have found a different vendor to support you.
Running a personal data-mining business in a region of the world with strict policy laws? What could possibly go wrong?
That's a completely different issue. The EU is fining Google for having better products and services than everyone else. This has absolutely nothing to do with data mining, with which the EU seems to have few complaints.
This once again shows that the EU's priorities are WAY out of whack, as they should still be chasing Microsoft for continuing to abuse its monopoly positions (note the plural) unabated.
I run and prefer Firefox, but it was 34.6 times slower than Chrome on that benchmark on Kubuntu.
You were doing fine right up to that point where you revealed what a complete and total authoritarian asshole you are....
I think you have...issues.
No, I don't have kids nor have I ever wanted any so don't EVEN try that crap with me, mister.
I do have kids. I didn't do a whole lot of worrying about getting married and starting a family until after I got my degree and was satisfied that I was in a stable career. I worked my way into a stable and respected position in my career before taking on the responsibility that comes with having a wife and creating young people that depend on me for everything.
Again, it's basic common sense. Be outraged about it all you want, but having a wife and kids you can't support because of poor decision making over what should be really, really simple logic rarely results in anything good.
Sure, they can offer it. But they have to charge its usage against data caps just like they do all other services. That would be a great reason to extend the data caps to something reasonable (say, 1 exabyte a month), or do away with them altogether.
Living pay check to pay check isn't about how much money you bring in, but about how much you are spending in most cases.
I don't know who you think you are by being rational, but stop it! People don't want to take responsibility for themselves, but would rather make poor decisions and then blame someone else for the inevitably poor results.
That's nice, Walmart, but I think what people want is to not have both mom and dad working 60 hour work weeks yet still be living paycheck-to-paycheck.
That sounds reasonable when shooting from gut instinct, but that instinct is almost always wrong. I've watched what happens when the minimum wage gets an unreasonable boost: working hours go down to compensate, and usually go low enough to overcompensate. Thus, employees make less money with the wage increase than they made before it.
In my city, most full time minimum wage employees saw working hours slashed substantially so employers wouldn't have to pay as much as they were already paying. When the Affordable Care Act went into effect, those same employees had their working hours slashed yet again to ensure they fell below the earnings threshold that would require their employers to pay for health insurance.
A better solution would be for those parents to not be parents until they are financially and educationally viable to support a family. For those parents who didn't think before exchanging DNA, this is why your parents told you to not have sex until you were able to support a family. Your life is probably very difficult now, and you have only yourself to blame.
This doesn't require a lot of brain power. It's simple common sense.
I wonder how fast they will manage to kill Java given their current history of alienating customers.
Thankfully, SUN had the foresight to GPL Java before selling it to Oracle. There are many companies capable of collaborating on Java maintenance and development when Oracle fucks it all up.
In the case of operating systems, for example, or let's take iOS on Apple iPhones, there is not really the expectation of being able to put Android on it.
You need to stop being enslaved by Corporate ideology, and stop arguing against your best interest.
When they approched out business we switched to postgresql
I'll skip the details, but we, though our circumstances were not so dire, switched out all Oracle instances under our control to PostgreSQL because we got sick and tired of every aspect of Oracle's database (the software, the sales and marketing departments, the piss poor customer support, etc.).
Microsoft benefits from more changes in Gnome.
Microsoft doesn't need to do a whole lot to sabotage GNOME or KDE, as both desktops are cutting off their own noses to spite their respective faces. GNOME has always been largely unusable and so ugly that even its mother could be forgiven for wanting to drop it into an exploding volcano.
KDE's decline began with the stagnation of the IO Slave architecture, the rise of Windows Explorer's bastard child, Dolphin, and the neglect of one of the world's best file managers, Konqueror. Since most of KDE's main features have been either neglected or mostly gutted, it really no longer matters which foundation gets the donation. At this point, they have already failed as a usable desktop (GNOME), or are well on the way to failing (KDE).
If it takes you 14 hours, 20 minutes to download Chrome or Firefox, you've got bigger problems. Microsoft really needs to work harder on its browser downloader.
The more returns, the higher the fee.
I can't think of a better example of someone arguing against their best interests than this.
I buy LOTS of stuff from Amazon, and I therefore return lots of stuff to Amazon. My returns are exclusively due to defective or damaged products. Your plan would encourage Amazon and their resellers to sell defective merchandise, as buyers would be too afraid to return them.
People don't know the exact number of federal laws not because there are so many that they can't be counted, but because of the way American laws are written.
Either way, the end result is the same. You can't possibly know if you're breaking any laws. The odds are tremendously in favor of every single one of us breaking multiple serious laws every day without even realizing it.
I"ve yet to see any area of work in the US where they hold a gun to your head, and force you to stay as an employee against your will....
I've yet to see any area of work in the U.S. where they DON'T hold a figurative gun to you head and force you to stay as an employee against your will. If you don't think this is true, just ask yourself one simple question: "What happens to me if I refuse to work?"
In a labor camp, you're starved and abused until you die if you refuse to work.
In the U.S., you're starved and abused until you die if you refuse to work, because everything costs money and the poor are treated as low-class scum.
So yes, I can see the corollary rather clearly.
If I got MoviePass I'd feel obligated to go to the theater, which seems like a lot of effort and pressure.
The movie theater experience royally sucks, too. The sooner movie theaters die, the better. It will be a great day when all movies go direct to DVD and streaming. Watching movies at home is far, Far, FAR more enjoyable than any movie theater.
Perhaps you could list a few of these felonies that 'everyone' is committing 'every day'....
When the, "Why You Never Talk to The Police" video was released, there were over 50,000 Federal laws on the books. There are many more than that, because somewhere around 50,000 is where they stopped counting. According to that same video, nobody knows exactly how many Federal laws there are. And that's not even counting State and local laws.
So no, nobody should be stupid enough to believe that they are committing three felonies every day. That number is too low.
My kids handle MATE just fine....
My kids handle Kubuntu just fine, and have since they were each three years old.
There have been lots of good posts here, and they completely reflect my experience with kids. They will easily move from one computing environment to the next, as they see them all as just minor variations on a common theme. Moving among Linux, Android, iCrap, Windows, Mac, etc. is just as easy for kids as it is for a competent driver to move among Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Saturn, etc.
Kids exposed to this stuff from birth aren't as absurd as their parents' and grandparents' generations that needed to memorize mouse clicks and keystrokes. They know to look for the print function on a program, rather than memorizing the specific keystrokes and mouse clicks needed to print on Microsoft Word. Once they are exposed to the idea that Print means output to paper or file, they then know to look for the Print function on ANY other program they use.
This is the way it should have always been, but morons teaching computer classes taught specific applications rather than concepts. And more often then not, those morons taught that way because other morons promoted the idiotic notion that they should limit students to only what was popular in the day. And sometimes to just specific versions of those applications.
While I can understand [Google] wanting to make money how does this line up with "Do no harm?"
"First, do no harm," is the physicians's motto (part of the Hippocratic Oath, or Hypocritic Oath for those who understand the irony). Google's motto is, "Don't be evil."
Saying it is, doesn't make it so.
These companies are served thousands of National Security Letters every year, because they are a one-stop shop for Law Enforcement. It's much, much easier for the Feds to abuse a few enormous data stores than it is to pursue each of them individually. As such, those data stores are ripe for abuse. You are FAR more likely to be the victim of collateral damage when you take part in those huge data stores than you are as an individual.
Oh so putting yourself in a position where your data may be discovered by a legal process is bad...
Absolutely. Even if, or especially if, you're sure you've done nothing illegal. Because you're wrong. Today, you have most likely done something illegal that you do not realize is illegal. It's the same thing with yesterday, and will be the same thing tomorrow. Unnecessarily putting your data in a position that is easily accessible by law enforcement is foolish. They WILL find something they can use to persecute you.
...I get it now.
No, you don't.
I mean it's not like you get to keep this data when the feds come knocking on *your* door right?
The odds of the Feds coming knocking on my door are ridiculously small compared to the odds of the Feds getting my data by sweeping through one of the enormous data stores owned by these huge companies.
But seriously if all you have to go on is legal compliance then I consider this an incredible positive result.
That's so sad.
Can you show a deliberate act where those 3 parties have abused or failed to secure your data?
Each of those companies have abused and failed to secure people's data many thousands of times a year, and those are just the ones they are legally allowed to tell us about. Microsoft just fought and lost a years-long battle over this very thing, as Congress now mandates that those companies abuse and fail to secure our data as a matter of law.
What makes your toaster so important?
Because we in the U.S. have a right to protect our toasters from unreasonable searches and seizures. Putting all of your stuff onto someone else's computers is being interpreted by our Judicial branch as voluntarily waiving those rights.
So thanks, but no thanks.
The Windows Phone was really well done.
Let's assume this is true (whether it is or not doesn't matter much), and move on.
The problem with it was timing and apps.
I think timing here matters very little. I think there are two main reasons the Windows phone flopped:
1) Microsoft was/is run by complete and utter assholes, whose main objective was sucking your bank account dry by hook or by crook. This catapulted them to dominance in the 90's, and kept them in dominance despite their hoards of customers wanting to leave. However, their abusive monopoly power and absolute control over most of the people who were forced to spend tons of money on the Microsoft treadmill kept them making billions of dollars a year.
2) People remember the above.
The law says you don't have to help LEOs, but you can't hinder.
Or how about developing systems that work only on something you know (passwords), which can't be compelled, and induce a complete wipe if authenticating with something you have (which can all be compelled). Naturally, architect the system with no back doors or failsafes.
Then, in court, you argue against having to provide the, "something you have", on the grounds that it violates your rights. When you inevitably lose, the courts compel you to use the, "something you have". Then, when the wipe is done and there is nothing left, there is nothing for the courts to charge you with; You complied with all court orders.
If they had the foresight to ask you ahead of time if such a mechanism exists, you invoke your fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. After all, it's well known that law enforcement and the court system view self-protection mechanisms as a defacto indication of guilt (even today, they promote the idea that only criminals want unbreakable encryption), so you're covered.
If they don't have the foresight to ask you ahead of time, you're still covered. You didn't lie about anything, and you're not obligated to volunteer any information which could be used against you.
Of course it's hacking. It's using software in a way in which it was not intended for your own purposes....
He was using the site EXACTLY as it was intended to be used: ask the system to provide information associated with some number at the end. This was not exploiting some unintended consequence to make the system behave in an unusual or unforeseen manner. This was making the computer system act in EXACTLY the manner the developer(s) intended.
If the Government wants to keep information private, the Government should place some form of security in front of it. As it is, there was (is?) NO security in front of the information.
If the Government wants to limit how much strain a single remote host imposes on the server, then the Government should place some firewall rules on the server. As it is, there were NO access controls on the server. It is therefore completely reasonable to assume that the Government intended for the information to be readily accessible to all guests.
This kid did absolutely NOTHING wrong.