If I was SELLING music, I'd be more interested in what's actually popular with people BUYING music. I don't think I'd care much what people who wanted it all for free were interested in.
Well that is the obvious thing to go for, but rather shortsighted.
If an album is being heavily downloaded and sales continue to increase then you're onto something.
Obviously you have a CD so good that people are willing to pay for something they already have access to.
If an album is selling poorly but no-one's downloading it either then the signal is clear - you have a turkey on your hands.
If an album is selling poorly yet being downloaded a lot then you have one of two problems.
People find it's good enough to listen to, but not worth the price being charged.
Consider a cheaper price, or put more quality content and less filler on your next release.
People are downloading it, then realising it sucks. You probably have a CD that's good enough to listen to once or twice but isn't worth keeping around.
Good luck getting people to buy one of those.
If an album (or genre) is being highly downloaded in an area where it is not released then it proves an interest in that type of music.
It might be worth risking releasing it or a similar album.
Plus there is the simple fact that although there are many people who are pure freeloaders there are some who aren't. Knowing what songs are being downloaded illegally and then comparing the figures to the actual sales for the same songs or albums could give some important data. Like which ones are selling well despite being heavily downloaded.
This latter could be useful as you could then weigh up which CDs are less likely to need any kind of anti-copy technology. If it's going to sell well anyway then go without, you don't need to pay royalties to the people who wrote the DRM, and you don't risk ticking off half of a band's fanbase.
The problem is that the RIAA have shot themselves in the foot, but in such a way as reflects badly on everyone else.
People start boycotting music owing to RIAA tactics, or refusing to buy CDs owing to "copy protection" technology. Even if these people don't download a copy instead that's still a lost sale.
But saying that "We aren't buying your CDs because you support anti-copying measures" does little except give the RIAA and associates the (wrong) impression that we're all potential pirates.
I rarely listen to physical CDs anymore, and I know I'm not alone in this. As I use my computer more and more (in the room without the CD player - or space for one) I rip my legally purchased CDs to MP3 or (more recently) Ogg Vorbis. (Switched home PC fully to Linux, decided to change encoder of choice whilst I was at it)
To me this seems perfectly fine. I bought the music. I'm not ripping off the companies involved. But they'd still rather stop this from happening.
I also buy far fewer CDs than I have in the past, as well as downloading less music over P2P. Heck I'm getting enough variety from simply listening to CDs I bought years back and haven't looked at for ages. Plus price-wise i'd rather wait until what I want is on special offer. (Yes, I'm cheap. But these days I at least try to be legally cheap.)
I think that the main problem for the Industry is that there are now several factors in play that simply didn't exist to this extent defore the 1990s. Many of these are to do with the perceived value of buying a CD.
CDs seem to cost too much. They're often priced higher than what people would prefer to pay. Now in most cases people will grumble but still pay, but in other cases that doesn't always work. For more ethical people they simply don't buy - net result, sales still lost.
This one is complicated by price-changing. Whether for a seasonal sale, an in-store promotion, or sometimes even a blanket drop of the price you will often be able to find a CD at between a third and a half cheaper within a year of purchase.
Although to a much lesser extent that in movies instant information versus release-lag is still an issue.
Even when using the internet purely for research and not even contemplating downloading music the simple fact is that you are now likely to know about things long before their initial release. So by the time the first country gets a release the interest is far beyond and geographical boundaries.
Ease of use of digital formats means that people have very different expectations.
CD was (usually) superior to audio cassette. It was also originally rather tricky to back up. So replacing a tape or a damaged CD was seen as a justifiable cost to the customer. Fewer people are needing to replace tapes and it's trivial to back up a CD, so from a customer POV it just seems wrong to be forced to pay several times for replacements or portability.
Most of the music these days is on heavy-rotation on radio and TV. So although it raises the profile of those songs it means that very little value is perceived, after all you'd hear the song 3 times a day anyway "for free" so what's wrong with downloading?
Some songs are either hard to track down (either through being out of print, or through being unavailable in a given location) or are the one redeeming light on an otherwise dreadful album.
In the latter case there is no way you're going to persuade people to spend full album price for one single song. But the companies are obviously unwilling to allow people to play "pick and mix" too easily.
Technically the law is on the side of the companies. But those laws were written around practices that have been long-since obsolete by technological advances. As has been seen several times throughout history people will simply reject laws that they disagree with.
The world has changed, and there's no going back. Unfortunately for the music industry it's changed away form a model in which they had a m
I have to say point 2 is possibly not th most important thing in the grand scheme of things - although obviously some coders would feel better working under the GPL than other licenses. If they release the code as an official MS action (point 1) under a used and respected License then it is likely to be a good thing.
IF those three conditions were met I'd consider working on the code. Possibly. But MS has a pretty bad reputation, so I would check carefully for traps. (E.g., who maintains ownership of the code in case of a disagreement? What kind of agreement are they proposing that I sign to work with their project? Etc.)
If (big if, I know...) they used the GPL for a project then wouldn't that automatically answer some of the questions? Although now I come to think of it I know of some GPL projects where people assign the copyrights to the FSF. So obviously it is possible, and would probably have to be checked when contributing to an MS project.
Although he's just one person, Josh's article seems to suggest that he would personally favour something along the lines of the BSD license. So if they want to use the project code they can, but similarly if anyone else wanted to incorporate it into their project (GPL fork, anybody?[*]) then they'd be able to.
Of course I can't see Microsoft wanting to release their code under a BSD-style License. Though stranger thigns have happened.
[*] True, such forks might mean that you have GPL versions that might only be compatible with some of the commercial versions, but this wouldn't automatically be a bad thing. Besides, the same might be true of any open version.
But at least knowing that unsupported older versions had a maintained open equivalent would be useful.
The initial installation does often require a reboot, but subsequent times you plug the device in you don't have to.
This does mean that, unlike a PCI card, technically you "don't have to restart" to change your hardware.
Having said that, if they did phrase the advertising this way then it was somewhat misleading and could easily have opened themselves up to people complainign that they had to reboot the first time.
Dear God, i wonder what these execs are thinking sometimes. Don't they realize how much trouble the +- wars caused in consumer acceptance of DVD Recorders?
I honestly don't think they do, or particularly care.
Each company probably benefitted more from dual standards than they would have from all agreeing on one.
Plus (as the -R9 is showing) the more companies involved the longer it takes. So all they'll see is that their particular format came out faster than if they'd tried to all agree on a single one.
As long as it doesn't affect sales figures and profit margins then companies don't really seem to care what the consumer thinks. "The Consumer" just exists to buy whatever they put out - or at least that's what it feels like at times. They certainly don't appear to care about the effect the whole +/-R situation is having.
Duly noted, checked, and words taken back.
Always useful 'cos Enhanced CDs with video content nearly always used to use Sorenson-encoded Quicktimes rather than MPEGs. (And typically when I looked for content to check with it seems 2 recent ones were MPEG)
I'd bash Sorenson if the sites the movie trailers and the like were on said "Requires use of Sorenson Codec", with a link to Sorenson's site.
They don't, however. They state Quicktime, and use a codec that's only bundled with Quicktime. That's no less useless than if Quicktime were closed.
Besides, as I said earlier I don't need it anymore. Nothing I access anymore is Quicktime/Sorenson format.
When I used to, however, it wasn't the player I wanted it was the codecs.
Having an Open player that doesn't contain the closed codecs often associated with a player/format is useless. It's the same as the problem I have with Helix player. It's probably a great media player, but it's not the player itself I want or need. I simply need the codecs to allow it to play in the player of my choice.
So even if the Quicktime wrapper "official" Quicktime player isn't actually closed, the fact that most "Quicktime files" used are encoded with a codec that's only bundled with Quicktime itself means it's as good as being a closed format.
On the other hand if the Sorenson codecs are availble seperately then I'll gladly both take back my words and stop avoiding "Quicktime" files.
It's location-dependent too. But it's worse than that.
Here in the UK it sems that http://www.real.com/ redirects not just to a UK-version of the site, but it goes direct to their "RadioPass" page ("Radio" tab third in a row of 6). And this only has links to their 14-day free trial. You have to go to their "RealPlayer" tab (first in the row, but not what the site defaults to) to get their "Download the Free Player Only" link
Now having location-dependant subsites is all well and good, but I don't like that their apparent "root" site redirects depending on where you are and what you're running. Especially if they don't all have a consistent way of finding the Free Player that people are most-likely to be after.
Yes, it would be nice for Apple to licence FairPlay. But as to whether they "have" to some questions need to be answered.
The most obvious one is the "But can you play music from other stores on the iPod?" which has been answered. But Real seem to make that out to be the only question. And the others are ones that I'm personally interested in knowing, for curiosity's sake more than anything as being a UK-based Linux ocnvert kinda limits my choices in online music at the moment.
Can DRM-protected music from other stores play on other players?
Can iTMS purchases play directly on other players? (The "Burn and re-rip is another issue - see below)
If Rhapsody/Harmony is all about "freedom of choice", will their purchases run under Linux, on my MuVo or on any other cheap player?
Can Real-purchased songs be burned to an audio CD for use in CD players or to rip to unencombered formats?
I'd love official iTunes/iPod support under Linux. Do I think Apple should do this? Yes. Do I think it's gonna happen any time soon? No. I don't agree with their choice, but it's their choice. As such it means that when i can afford a hard-drive MP3-player it won't be an iPod. That's my choice.
It's the same with the DRM. Would it be great if they licensed FairPlay? Yes - in as far as licensing DRM goes anyway. Is it likely? No. It is Apple's decision to make, even if they make the "wrong" one? Ultimately yes.
If people really want to purchase songs from elsewhere for play on the move then there are a host of other players out there - ones that support other formats too, and often at cheaper than the price of an iPod. It really is a "vote with your feet" scenario. If you have to compete with an all-in-one solution like iPod/iTune/iTMS then you just have to try all the harder to win people to your side.
Is it right for Real to support "freedom of choice"? Yes. Is it right to reverse-engineer FairPlay to support their own format if refused official licensing? Questionable - there are good arguments on both sides. (And bad ones on both sides, too.)
Is it right, though, to break someone else's DRM and then announce plans to license the workaround - probably profitting in the process? Now that is the key question.
However, now they are wanting to preserve that right they have with their content providers yet seek to access other closed systems through inflammatory websites that only quote people that agree with them.. it's not even a feedback or debate site but a propaganda website in it's purest form..
I think that's my main problem with the whole issue. It's Real going on about "freedom of choice".
When it comes to media formats and players I've always seen Real And Apple/Quicktime as being two sides of the same dark coin. Both use closed formats with proprietary players with increasingly slow and bloated interfaces.
OK, I admit both are probably getting better. But back when my only PC was a P200 I found that keeping up with the latest version to watch the latest encodes was giving me applications from both companies that were slow and took up too much of my meager little 800x600.
Bith formats were closed, and with probably lucrative deals for exclusive content. Streaming content all seemed to be RealAudio or RealVideo, and movie trailers were always in Quicktime. And it was annoying - I didn't want either palyer on my system.
Of course movie trailers often got reencoded to MPEG within a day, so that solved that. But there wasn't that option with Real.
The amusing thing was that of the two items of actual software I found Quicktime played friendlier. The only things I didn't like about it (apart from interface-bloat) was that it asked me about upgrading to Pro every time I ran it, oh and that it wouldn't go fullscreen. My opinions on RealPlayer tended to agree with the majority that get expressed here whenever a story about Real crops up.
But basically to me both formats mean "closed" to me. Hell, when I was still using Windows I was using RealAlternative for RealMedia files. Not sure how legit it was, but it worked. And even now under Linux I tried the RealPlayer. Actually it "played nice", which was a pleasant surprise. But for whatever reason it wouldn't play files smoothly on my system - but a quick search for the codecs to download and Xine was running them better than ever.
Never had the problem with Quicktime, simply because I've not found anything yet where I couldn't find an alternative format.
What this all adds up to for me is that both Real and Quicktime are closed systems in my mind. But at least Apple seems to play nice. Anything from Real has, to me, meant having to find less-than-official means of playing back the content. And I'm reasonably sure that Real isn't too fond of these methods.
I just find it somewhat slimy of them to then break someone else's format (Apple always having seemed the lesser of the thwo evils), and then say it's all about "freedom of choice". Real are definitely not the company to talk about that.
If they were really about this "freedom", then they'd release official codecs for every major media-player going.
And I still think that whether you agree or disagree with Apple's licensing terms for FairPlay, Real basically just turned about and said "Fuck you, then" and went ahead, and are now surprised that they don't receive universal thanks for their actions.
Bitter, cynical, but sadly not 100 miles from the truth. And certainly likely if performing your first complete reinstall in these days' hostile online environment.
I've never managed to get a Windows box compromised whilst installing it, but I've certainly not liked the time it's taken to get secure whilst downloading said patches off the internet. I'm pretty certain my lack of infections was due to blind luck rather than anything else.
What I tend to do these days, however, is that if I have to install Windows from scratch then I get what I can beforehand.
If possible I grab the latest "manual update executable" from whatever antivirus software I'll be using. Even with a firewall and/or latest patches I'd not want to risk getting hit by something whilst updating the virus signatures online.
NT-based systems are also "easier" in this respect. Grabbing the latest Service Pack and burning to CD means that even if I don't slipstream I can get it to at least that level without needing to go online.
Similarly once you've found out once what ports and services you can and cannot disable it's a good idea to save the information somewhere, and print it out if necessary. If you need to reinstall again (or are in a position to check online before installing) then checking then is fine.
Although not exactly "easy" (and therefore not exactly helpful for less technical users) the best way to get a post-install system up to scratch quickly is as follows.
Prior to installation: Win9x Download the latest version of IE. Requires being run from a Windows machine (Though a VM or Wine might work...) so that you can "run" the installation in such a way as it downloads all of the stuff you need for the chosen version. Essential if wanting to install to a location with slow bandwidth. 2K/XP Download the latest service pack.
Use the Windows Update Catalog (IE required, at least it didn't like my attempts to use Mozilla) to bulk-download all of the patches and hotfixes for your chosen version of Windows.
Download latest anti-virus signatures, and firewall and anti-adware software of choice as needed depending on location/task of computer.
Burn all of these to CD/DVD/whatever.
Install Windows. Leave network cable unplugged.
Configure drivers. Get network settings as far as you can without plugging in.
Install all of the updates (and SP if NT-based) required - this is time consuming, but essential if your connection can't handle a full-on WindowsUpdate. Reboot as necessary.
Install anti-virus, firewall, and anti-adware.
Run the manual update program if available.
Get antivirus and firewall settings how you want them.
Plug in network cable.
Run WindowsUpdate to check for anything you've missed, or anything released since you downloaded. Also run antivirus online update. Again, things may have changed since you downloaded the latest.
Plus although not optimal, even a few-months-old set of updates is likely to be better than a vanilla install of Windows + antivirus, and increases your chances of getting fully secured before getting hit by something.
Install other software. Checking for compatibility issues or port/service blocking issues as you go.
Barring any severe issues or viruses this should get a system up and running safely somewhat quicker. It's not exactly easy though - especially as so many Windows components these days insist on only letting you easily download an installer which "phones home" for other components it needs. And this is rather hard if you're trying to get as many patches and updates installed before ever going online.
Is this really any worse than installing Linux, once?
Depends. For both systems your first-ever-install is likely to throw up problems. Both get easier to do with practice. And Linux can still get hit by unexpected problems or exploits. Maybe not as many, but it's still annoying to realise that you've managed to have your system hit by an exploit.
I guess it all boils down to what you're in the mood for, what you need, and when you're doing things.
Unless it could be COMPLETELY invisible and you can GUARANTEE a patch won't break something (a recent update broke some of my employers software for example), NO user wants stuff to happen without them knowing about it--not even beginning Windows users. I find they don't mind if CHECKS are done, but they want to control the download and install to be done on teir own time.
That's what I use the auto-update for - both on the family laptop and on my own PC (before I switched away to running Linux on it completely).
And that's why I hated the useless sumamries. It was the same information-lacking summaries. Just a list of "Critical updates" that all list dire consequences but are annoying low on details.
Plus, in my case anyone, it's a general mistrust of taking anything Microsoft says at face-value. I want to know exactly what's being patched. I want to know what the flaw was, and what the fix actually implements.
It's just annoying that they leave the bulk of the information out probably for the benefit of less technical users, when it's many of these users that either don't patch their systems at all or who simply accept every patch that comes.
Surely Microsoft have to realise that anyone actually reviewing the list of updates is actually interested in the details.
It just seems like Microsoft don't want to make it easy for people to get the details (a too-small window spawning when you link on the KB link, usually requiring a manual resize), and that they want people to just automatically install anything from them and automatically trust that it's "for the best".
I guess I'm just one of those people who don't really like having the details kept back. And there are entities I trust a damn site more than Microsoft that I would still blast for treating me the same way.
Actually, no. I don't know why they think "plain English" is better for the people who actually bother to update without just auto-installing the lot. Alongside the plain-English I'd rather like that they added something like "Buffer overplow in XYZ.foo" or "Spoofed packet may escalate priveleges" or whatever.
If nothing else it'll distinguish the dozen-and-a-half different versions of the "flaw in Internet Explorer".
Even if you need to visit another page for a full rundown I at least like a little mroe information in my summary than what amount to "This fixes a bug in Application_X".
Does anyone see the irony of someone complaining about this when the icon is a broken window and the topic is about a list of windows bugs fixed?
I kinda agree. The nature of Slashdot does mean that the majority of stories about Windows itself tend to mainly be about bugs and bug-fixes. So although somewhat belittling, the "Broken Windows" Icon is quite appropriate.
Maybe if there were more articles about Windows that were about the otehr aspects of Windows than just the bugs then a more appropriate Icon would be needed. But seeing that most Windows stories are about "broken windows" then it makes sense.
Then again, MS has always really vague and stupid titles.
I find that one of the mroe irritating things about MS. Though in their defense I have to say I'm not totally convinced that organisations that aren't MS are always that much better.
But it's the titles and summaries in Windows Update that I can't stand. They're totally useless, give no information, and require you to visit an additional page to get the details of the actual fix and/or problem - sometimes needing to visit yet another page from that.
How many variations of "A flaw in Internet Explorer may allow an attacker to control your commputer" do we need to see in one list? Details would be nice without having to click elsewhere. Even an extra couple of words to say what kind of flaw would be nice. I prefer(red) to know exactly what goes on my computer, especially from MS. Plus if I've heard a lot about an update already (whether good or bad) then it's useful to know which of the ones in the list it is.
why wouldn't we all switch over to the superior power of PostgreSQL?
Documentation.
At first, anyway.
I don't do a great deal with databases, but I did briefly look at using them alongside PHP a year or two ago. The majority of resources I looked at (both online and dead-tree) covered accessing a MySQL database to the exclusion of anything else. There were references to other databases, but no actual details on how to use them.
A quick check on Google reveals that not much has changed. Default "How to use a database" info is still MySQL-centric, and you have to specifically search for PostgreSQL to find anything (and you get a third of the results from MySQL).
It's a pain, sure. But it's a definite drawback - simple lack of mindshare. And as long as dead-tree books on PHP and/or databases mainly/only reference MySQL it's going to continue to be an issue.
Amazon hits for MySQL: 90. Amazon hits for PostgreSQL: 15.
So basically those who already know about PostgreSQL will make an informed choice, and anyone else will stick with MySQL either because they don't know there are alternatives or they can't find documentation.
I've always wondered abotu that myself. When people talk about the GPL they only talk about releasing changes if you actually plan to distribute it, whereas the License itself seems to imply that you should always make your changes/code available. (Although I'd be the first to admit that Licenses always confuse the heck out of me)
If I've got what you're saying right, then is Company X likes a GPL project and modifies it for internal use then they can do it without breaking the GPL as long as the source code is at least available in-house. So anyone who actually uses the software (Company X's staff) does have access to the source.
And if I'm way off-base then I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who is missing the point.
I have to admit that when it comes to things like this I'm kinda glad I suck at coding. Licenses are always written in "Legal", which is great for making them stick in court but useless for people like me who only understand "normal" English despite its ambiguities.
So if i were any good at coding I'd still never get anything done as I'd not understand the damn licenses well enough to ever risk releasing anything.
I never realised until I started working tech for a college, but classrooms do tend to rely heavily on floppy discs in many situations.
yes, we have a network here with user filespace, but there are some things that really need floppies. Small amounts of files to take home is one, exams is another. Hand 'em a floppy with the exam files on, take it in at the end of the session. Advantage of not needing to plug into the network to mark exams.
When you can buy a box of floppies for less than the price of a flash-drive then you start to see how important floppies can still be for rewriteable portable media.
AFAIK, RealPlayer doesn't come with Windows, so the user has to go and download it, trying desperately to avoid paying for the non-free version.
You're not wrong. But RealMedia is, unfortunately, a known quantity. Even people who don't like it at least know what it does and that it does what it's supposed to (albeit, historically, along with one or two things it wasn't supposed to), whereas many people simply won't have heard of Ogg. And I think this is what sways the decision. That and the fact that it's an all-in-one product. The codec and the software are linked, whereas there is no single official player that runs Ogg - and I do get the feeling that BBC Marketing/management/whoever might not be quite so keen on relying on Winamp or another MP3 player as it's main method of streaming.
I actually think they should stream Ogg Vorbis only and drop the RealAudio streams. Wouldn't that be cheaper in the long run? They can probably use the same hardware they used for encoding the RealAudio streams.
I agree with you. I'm just not convinced that whoever is in charge of the decision-making at BBC would see it the same way any time soon. Plus there's the whole mutual-advertising thing. Real does list the BBC as being one of it's news sources in it's "Real Guide" section - or whatever it's called. So people browsing the site after installing it to get other content might see BBC's name there.
I think it simply hinges that people know "Real". People don't know "Ogg". And Real and BBC seem to have a deal which is mutually beneficial. I don't think the BBC (apart from R&D/Technical) would really benefit from a partnership with Xiph.
I don't like it, and I do agree that using Ogg would probably be better on several levels. Unfortunately for whatever reasons Real seems to do better on whatever criteria the decision-makers use.
I enjoyed watching it despite NBC's terrible coverage, but as somebody who sails I obviously wanted to see much much more. And I wish they'd shove the rah-rah-go-US slant and just show the freaking race.
I guess they just think that it's what people want to see. And, to be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if they were right. Even as a determined non-sports-fan I do occasionally like to watch stuff like the Olympics - mainly to see exactly what the human body is capable of doing. Luckily, in the UK we seem to have coverage that covers most sports and most teams. Well we did in 1996 anyway, not had the chance or interest since.
The US always seems to have a slightly exaggerated take on patriotism in various things, even sports. Now I know that what I see in the media isn't always the whole truth, but this story certainly seems to back it up in at least this case.
I guess the TV execs (and their marketing departments) have either found out or decided that what the average American viewer wants to see is the American team, and especially when they're doing well. People with an actual interest in a given sport are probably thought of as a minority compared to the general viewing population, and therefore the reporting focuses on the Home Team than the actual event.
Technically this is where the Internet should come into its own. If your home coverage isn't getting the info you need, you are able to turn to another source. Unfortunately the usual "Unholy Aspects" of marketing and geographical-rights some into play. (I think we have these issues with regular sports coverage in the UK, but as a non-fan I'm rather low on details.)
It just seems to be another case of where they only want to cater for their Target Audience but also don't want to relax their "rights" and controls on distribution, therefore denying non-target audiences easy (or any) access to the information that they want.
Right, so the BBC have the resources to _develop_ a whole new codec, but not to set up Ogg Vorbis streaming of their radio programming, alongside the existing RealAudio streams?
It's probably to do with your average non-technical person won't have heard of Ogg Vorbis.
Joe Average has heard of Real. It's the format that "all the sites use". Joe Average hasn't heard of Ogg, except if they overhear some geek-type asking "but does it play OGG" about that new MP3 player in Dixons. (Or if they read every detail on the packaging for the I-River.
Now if they get their Dirac codec up to scratch then they can say "Content available in the BBC Dirac format" or sommat, and everyone knows it's to do with the BBC itself. BBC is instantly recogniseable in a way that Ogg currently isn't.
I'd also imagine it costs more to have two streams running for the same content - especially live content. It might be licensing, I dunno. It might just be the hardware and stuff. But I'm guessing that when they did have Ogg streams that the costs of running two streams probably weren't worth the numbers of people using Ogg. Which is a shame.
Again, it comes down to the brand-awareness. If they either can't afford or don't wish to run two streams then it makes most sense to use the one with the most brand-awareness. So they run one, then develop their own. They get the convenience-advantage of openness and the business-advantage of an in-house codec immediately having BBC's brand recognition.
People don't have a problem with advertisement-sponsored content itself (well, some do, but fuck 'em).
Yes, some do. And for varying reasons.
For one thing I find ad-banners (even non-popups) annoying because if I could afford whatever they're advertising I'd probably have paid for the product/site subscription in the first place.
The other thing is that too many sites farm out their advertising space to someone else. This means that if I'm trying to read a site in a hurry the local content is delayed whilst they wait for some third-party server having a bad day to deliver its crap to my browser.
The key difference, of course, is that knowledgeable and concerned XP sysadmins might want to expedite patches to their systems faster than MS would like and be willing to suffer other problems and risks that MS doesn't feel would be good for the general sysadmin population to experience.
Yeah. They've basically screwed anyone in an education establishment who'd rather roll-out a Final release than an RC. They either have to install pre-release, install during session, or hope nowt happens until Christmas.
I'm fairly certain they aren't doing this to be intentionally malicious. And I even think that they're actually trying to make sure that it doesn't "ship" until it's actually ready. But the fallout is the same.
Tiggs - glad the workstations at work ain't WinXP.
But the reason I watch movies in the cinema is the same reason I stick two fingers up to the same system and download episodes of American shows not (yet or ever) available in the UK. They're stories I want to see.
I don't give a shit about the licensing, or the politics. If I wanna see something I will. And neither the **AA and their equivalents or their vocal opposition are going to find it easy to convince me otherwise.
And all not supporting them will do is decrease their profits, they'll openly blame the lack of profits on "piracy" (a bullshit claim, but the one they'll mnake nonetheless), and they'll just try even harder to protect their old business model.
Besides, I was very entertained...
The lastest UK advertisements against movie piracy had me rolling about laughing. best jokes I'd seen for ages.
Why is it that Apple will license to Motorola but not to Real ? Is Steve Jobs honest when he tells stockholders that a deal with Real doesn't make 'business sense' ? What does that mean, couldn't Apple use a special "Real sucks Real bad and so pays a Real lot" license and make some easy yearly cash? Is this about Rhapsody vs. iTunes or is it about Real vs. Quicktime, or both ?
Well, licensing to Motorola is getting their music to play on someone else's kit. Plus (from what I can tell from the relevant/. article) it also ties into iTunes itself. So any changes Apple makes will automatically encompass the Motorola device - rather than breaking functionality.
Licensing to Real would be another case entirely, I think. This would be getting someone else music to play on their kit.
I'm not entirely sure, but I get the feeling that this would also hold up things from Apple's end when it came to making any changes to FairPlay. 'Cos they'd have to make sure that any changes didn't freeze out songs purchased from Real.
Also from a purely marketing point of view, would you really want your product associated with Real based on there track record in previous years?
'Cos you can bet that Real would want to maximise on iPod-compatibility in their advertising.
And you also hit the nail right on the head as to why I've had misgivings about what Real have been doing...
...but the unprofessional way Real went about 'asking' for a license pretty well blew what little chance they might have had.
I've been trying to work out why Real's actions disturbed me in a way that thins like PlayFair and DVD Jon don't. And you summed it up in one word. Unprofessional.
Geeks and tinkerers is one thing. When you're working on your own projects at home acting "professional" isn't a necessity. But when you're a company trying to increase your foothold in a corner of business then it's a different matter entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
Well that is the obvious thing to go for, but rather shortsighted.
Obviously you have a CD so good that people are willing to pay for something they already have access to.
Consider a cheaper price, or put more quality content and less filler on your next release.
Good luck getting people to buy one of those.
It might be worth risking releasing it or a similar album.
Plus there is the simple fact that although there are many people who are pure freeloaders there are some who aren't. Knowing what songs are being downloaded illegally and then comparing the figures to the actual sales for the same songs or albums could give some important data. Like which ones are selling well despite being heavily downloaded.
This latter could be useful as you could then weigh up which CDs are less likely to need any kind of anti-copy technology. If it's going to sell well anyway then go without, you don't need to pay royalties to the people who wrote the DRM, and you don't risk ticking off half of a band's fanbase.
The problem is that the RIAA have shot themselves in the foot, but in such a way as reflects badly on everyone else.
People start boycotting music owing to RIAA tactics, or refusing to buy CDs owing to "copy protection" technology. Even if these people don't download a copy instead that's still a lost sale.
But saying that "We aren't buying your CDs because you support anti-copying measures" does little except give the RIAA and associates the (wrong) impression that we're all potential pirates.
I rarely listen to physical CDs anymore, and I know I'm not alone in this. As I use my computer more and more (in the room without the CD player - or space for one) I rip my legally purchased CDs to MP3 or (more recently) Ogg Vorbis. (Switched home PC fully to Linux, decided to change encoder of choice whilst I was at it)
To me this seems perfectly fine. I bought the music. I'm not ripping off the companies involved. But they'd still rather stop this from happening.
I also buy far fewer CDs than I have in the past, as well as downloading less music over P2P. Heck I'm getting enough variety from simply listening to CDs I bought years back and haven't looked at for ages. Plus price-wise i'd rather wait until what I want is on special offer. (Yes, I'm cheap. But these days I at least try to be legally cheap.)
I think that the main problem for the Industry is that there are now several factors in play that simply didn't exist to this extent defore the 1990s. Many of these are to do with the perceived value of buying a CD.
This one is complicated by price-changing. Whether for a seasonal sale, an in-store promotion, or sometimes even a blanket drop of the price you will often be able to find a CD at between a third and a half cheaper within a year of purchase.
Even when using the internet purely for research and not even contemplating downloading music the simple fact is that you are now likely to know about things long before their initial release. So by the time the first country gets a release the interest is far beyond and geographical boundaries.
CD was (usually) superior to audio cassette. It was also originally rather tricky to back up. So replacing a tape or a damaged CD was seen as a justifiable cost to the customer. Fewer people are needing to replace tapes and it's trivial to back up a CD, so from a customer POV it just seems wrong to be forced to pay several times for replacements or portability.
In the latter case there is no way you're going to persuade people to spend full album price for one single song. But the companies are obviously unwilling to allow people to play "pick and mix" too easily.
Technically the law is on the side of the companies. But those laws were written around practices that have been long-since obsolete by technological advances. As has been seen several times throughout history people will simply reject laws that they disagree with.
The world has changed, and there's no going back. Unfortunately for the music industry it's changed away form a model in which they had a m
I have to say point 2 is possibly not th most important thing in the grand scheme of things - although obviously some coders would feel better working under the GPL than other licenses. If they release the code as an official MS action (point 1) under a used and respected License then it is likely to be a good thing.
If (big if, I know...) they used the GPL for a project then wouldn't that automatically answer some of the questions? Although now I come to think of it I know of some GPL projects where people assign the copyrights to the FSF. So obviously it is possible, and would probably have to be checked when contributing to an MS project.
Although he's just one person, Josh's article seems to suggest that he would personally favour something along the lines of the BSD license. So if they want to use the project code they can, but similarly if anyone else wanted to incorporate it into their project (GPL fork, anybody?[*]) then they'd be able to.
Of course I can't see Microsoft wanting to release their code under a BSD-style License. Though stranger thigns have happened.
[*] True, such forks might mean that you have GPL versions that might only be compatible with some of the commercial versions, but this wouldn't automatically be a bad thing. Besides, the same might be true of any open version.
TiggsBut at least knowing that unsupported older versions had a maintained open equivalent would be useful.
I was about to say the same thing.
The initial installation does often require a reboot, but subsequent times you plug the device in you don't have to.
This does mean that, unlike a PCI card, technically you "don't have to restart" to change your hardware.
Having said that, if they did phrase the advertising this way then it was somewhat misleading and could easily have opened themselves up to people complainign that they had to reboot the first time.
Duly noted, checked, and words taken back.
Always useful 'cos Enhanced CDs with video content nearly always used to use Sorenson-encoded Quicktimes rather than MPEGs. (And typically when I looked for content to check with it seems 2 recent ones were MPEG)
I'd bash Sorenson if the sites the movie trailers and the like were on said "Requires use of Sorenson Codec", with a link to Sorenson's site.
They don't, however. They state Quicktime, and use a codec that's only bundled with Quicktime. That's no less useless than if Quicktime were closed.
Besides, as I said earlier I don't need it anymore. Nothing I access anymore is Quicktime/Sorenson format.
When I used to, however, it wasn't the player I wanted it was the codecs.
Having an Open player that doesn't contain the closed codecs often associated with a player/format is useless. It's the same as the problem I have with Helix player. It's probably a great media player, but it's not the player itself I want or need. I simply need the codecs to allow it to play in the player of my choice.
So even if the Quicktime wrapper "official" Quicktime player isn't actually closed, the fact that most "Quicktime files" used are encoded with a codec that's only bundled with Quicktime itself means it's as good as being a closed format.
On the other hand if the Sorenson codecs are availble seperately then I'll gladly both take back my words and stop avoiding "Quicktime" files.
It's location-dependent too. But it's worse than that.
Here in the UK it sems that http://www.real.com/ redirects not just to a UK-version of the site, but it goes direct to their "RadioPass" page ("Radio" tab third in a row of 6). And this only has links to their 14-day free trial. You have to go to their "RealPlayer" tab (first in the row, but not what the site defaults to) to get their "Download the Free Player Only" link
Now having location-dependant subsites is all well and good, but I don't like that their apparent "root" site redirects depending on where you are and what you're running. Especially if they don't all have a consistent way of finding the Free Player that people are most-likely to be after.
Yes, it would be nice for Apple to licence FairPlay. But as to whether they "have" to some questions need to be answered.
The most obvious one is the "But can you play music from other stores on the iPod?" which has been answered. But Real seem to make that out to be the only question. And the others are ones that I'm personally interested in knowing, for curiosity's sake more than anything as being a UK-based Linux ocnvert kinda limits my choices in online music at the moment.
I'd love official iTunes/iPod support under Linux. Do I think Apple should do this? Yes. Do I think it's gonna happen any time soon? No. I don't agree with their choice, but it's their choice. As such it means that when i can afford a hard-drive MP3-player it won't be an iPod. That's my choice.
It's the same with the DRM. Would it be great if they licensed FairPlay? Yes - in as far as licensing DRM goes anyway. Is it likely? No. It is Apple's decision to make, even if they make the "wrong" one? Ultimately yes.If people really want to purchase songs from elsewhere for play on the move then there are a host of other players out there - ones that support other formats too, and often at cheaper than the price of an iPod. It really is a "vote with your feet" scenario. If you have to compete with an all-in-one solution like iPod/iTune/iTMS then you just have to try all the harder to win people to your side.
Is it right for Real to support "freedom of choice"? Yes. Is it right to reverse-engineer FairPlay to support their own format if refused official licensing? Questionable - there are good arguments on both sides. (And bad ones on both sides, too.)
Is it right, though, to break someone else's DRM and then announce plans to license the workaround - probably profitting in the process? Now that is the key question.
I think that's my main problem with the whole issue. It's Real going on about "freedom of choice".
When it comes to media formats and players I've always seen Real And Apple/Quicktime as being two sides of the same dark coin. Both use closed formats with proprietary players with increasingly slow and bloated interfaces.
OK, I admit both are probably getting better. But back when my only PC was a P200 I found that keeping up with the latest version to watch the latest encodes was giving me applications from both companies that were slow and took up too much of my meager little 800x600.
Bith formats were closed, and with probably lucrative deals for exclusive content. Streaming content all seemed to be RealAudio or RealVideo, and movie trailers were always in Quicktime. And it was annoying - I didn't want either palyer on my system.
Of course movie trailers often got reencoded to MPEG within a day, so that solved that. But there wasn't that option with Real.
The amusing thing was that of the two items of actual software I found Quicktime played friendlier. The only things I didn't like about it (apart from interface-bloat) was that it asked me about upgrading to Pro every time I ran it, oh and that it wouldn't go fullscreen. My opinions on RealPlayer tended to agree with the majority that get expressed here whenever a story about Real crops up.
But basically to me both formats mean "closed" to me. Hell, when I was still using Windows I was using RealAlternative for RealMedia files. Not sure how legit it was, but it worked. And even now under Linux I tried the RealPlayer. Actually it "played nice", which was a pleasant surprise. But for whatever reason it wouldn't play files smoothly on my system - but a quick search for the codecs to download and Xine was running them better than ever.
Never had the problem with Quicktime, simply because I've not found anything yet where I couldn't find an alternative format.
What this all adds up to for me is that both Real and Quicktime are closed systems in my mind. But at least Apple seems to play nice. Anything from Real has, to me, meant having to find less-than-official means of playing back the content. And I'm reasonably sure that Real isn't too fond of these methods.
I just find it somewhat slimy of them to then break someone else's format (Apple always having seemed the lesser of the thwo evils), and then say it's all about "freedom of choice". Real are definitely not the company to talk about that.
If they were really about this "freedom", then they'd release official codecs for every major media-player going.
And I still think that whether you agree or disagree with Apple's licensing terms for FairPlay, Real basically just turned about and said "Fuck you, then" and went ahead, and are now surprised that they don't receive universal thanks for their actions.
Bitter, cynical, but sadly not 100 miles from the truth. And certainly likely if performing your first complete reinstall in these days' hostile online environment.
I've never managed to get a Windows box compromised whilst installing it, but I've certainly not liked the time it's taken to get secure whilst downloading said patches off the internet. I'm pretty certain my lack of infections was due to blind luck rather than anything else.
What I tend to do these days, however, is that if I have to install Windows from scratch then I get what I can beforehand.
If possible I grab the latest "manual update executable" from whatever antivirus software I'll be using. Even with a firewall and/or latest patches I'd not want to risk getting hit by something whilst updating the virus signatures online.
NT-based systems are also "easier" in this respect. Grabbing the latest Service Pack and burning to CD means that even if I don't slipstream I can get it to at least that level without needing to go online.
Similarly once you've found out once what ports and services you can and cannot disable it's a good idea to save the information somewhere, and print it out if necessary. If you need to reinstall again (or are in a position to check online before installing) then checking then is fine.
Although not exactly "easy" (and therefore not exactly helpful for less technical users) the best way to get a post-install system up to scratch quickly is as follows.
Win9x Download the latest version of IE. Requires being run from a Windows machine (Though a VM or Wine might work...) so that you can "run" the installation in such a way as it downloads all of the stuff you need for the chosen version. Essential if wanting to install to a location with slow bandwidth.
2K/XP Download the latest service pack.
Burn all of these to CD/DVD/whatever.
Run the manual update program if available.
Plus although not optimal, even a few-months-old set of updates is likely to be better than a vanilla install of Windows + antivirus, and increases your chances of getting fully secured before getting hit by something.
Barring any severe issues or viruses this should get a system up and running safely somewhat quicker. It's not exactly easy though - especially as so many Windows components these days insist on only letting you easily download an installer which "phones home" for other components it needs. And this is rather hard if you're trying to get as many patches and updates installed before ever going online.
Depends. For both systems your first-ever-install is likely to throw up problems. Both get easier to do with practice. And Linux can still get hit by unexpected problems or exploits. Maybe not as many, but it's still annoying to realise that you've managed to have your system hit by an exploit.
I guess it all boils down to what you're in the mood for, what you need, and when you're doing things.
That's what I use the auto-update for - both on the family laptop and on my own PC (before I switched away to running Linux on it completely).
And that's why I hated the useless sumamries. It was the same information-lacking summaries. Just a list of "Critical updates" that all list dire consequences but are annoying low on details.
Plus, in my case anyone, it's a general mistrust of taking anything Microsoft says at face-value. I want to know exactly what's being patched. I want to know what the flaw was, and what the fix actually implements.
It's just annoying that they leave the bulk of the information out probably for the benefit of less technical users, when it's many of these users that either don't patch their systems at all or who simply accept every patch that comes.
Surely Microsoft have to realise that anyone actually reviewing the list of updates is actually interested in the details.
It just seems like Microsoft don't want to make it easy for people to get the details (a too-small window spawning when you link on the KB link, usually requiring a manual resize), and that they want people to just automatically install anything from them and automatically trust that it's "for the best".
I guess I'm just one of those people who don't really like having the details kept back. And there are entities I trust a damn site more than Microsoft that I would still blast for treating me the same way.
Actually, no. I don't know why they think "plain English" is better for the people who actually bother to update without just auto-installing the lot. Alongside the plain-English I'd rather like that they added something like "Buffer overplow in XYZ.foo" or "Spoofed packet may escalate priveleges" or whatever.
If nothing else it'll distinguish the dozen-and-a-half different versions of the "flaw in Internet Explorer".
Even if you need to visit another page for a full rundown I at least like a little mroe information in my summary than what amount to "This fixes a bug in Application_X".
I kinda agree. The nature of Slashdot does mean that the majority of stories about Windows itself tend to mainly be about bugs and bug-fixes. So although somewhat belittling, the "Broken Windows" Icon is quite appropriate.
Maybe if there were more articles about Windows that were about the otehr aspects of Windows than just the bugs then a more appropriate Icon would be needed. But seeing that most Windows stories are about "broken windows" then it makes sense.
I find that one of the mroe irritating things about MS. Though in their defense I have to say I'm not totally convinced that organisations that aren't MS are always that much better.
But it's the titles and summaries in Windows Update that I can't stand. They're totally useless, give no information, and require you to visit an additional page to get the details of the actual fix and/or problem - sometimes needing to visit yet another page from that.
How many variations of "A flaw in Internet Explorer may allow an attacker to control your commputer" do we need to see in one list? Details would be nice without having to click elsewhere. Even an extra couple of words to say what kind of flaw would be nice. I prefer(red) to know exactly what goes on my computer, especially from MS. Plus if I've heard a lot about an update already (whether good or bad) then it's useful to know which of the ones in the list it is.
Documentation.
At first, anyway.
I don't do a great deal with databases, but I did briefly look at using them alongside PHP a year or two ago. The majority of resources I looked at (both online and dead-tree) covered accessing a MySQL database to the exclusion of anything else. There were references to other databases, but no actual details on how to use them.
A quick check on Google reveals that not much has changed. Default "How to use a database" info is still MySQL-centric, and you have to specifically search for PostgreSQL to find anything (and you get a third of the results from MySQL).
It's a pain, sure. But it's a definite drawback - simple lack of mindshare. And as long as dead-tree books on PHP and/or databases mainly/only reference MySQL it's going to continue to be an issue.
Amazon hits for MySQL: 90. Amazon hits for PostgreSQL: 15.
So basically those who already know about PostgreSQL will make an informed choice, and anyone else will stick with MySQL either because they don't know there are alternatives or they can't find documentation.
I've always wondered abotu that myself. When people talk about the GPL they only talk about releasing changes if you actually plan to distribute it, whereas the License itself seems to imply that you should always make your changes/code available. (Although I'd be the first to admit that Licenses always confuse the heck out of me)
If I've got what you're saying right, then is Company X likes a GPL project and modifies it for internal use then they can do it without breaking the GPL as long as the source code is at least available in-house. So anyone who actually uses the software (Company X's staff) does have access to the source.
And if I'm way off-base then I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who is missing the point.
I have to admit that when it comes to things like this I'm kinda glad I suck at coding. Licenses are always written in "Legal", which is great for making them stick in court but useless for people like me who only understand "normal" English despite its ambiguities.
So if i were any good at coding I'd still never get anything done as I'd not understand the damn licenses well enough to ever risk releasing anything.
Classrooms.
I never realised until I started working tech for a college, but classrooms do tend to rely heavily on floppy discs in many situations.
yes, we have a network here with user filespace, but there are some things that really need floppies. Small amounts of files to take home is one, exams is another. Hand 'em a floppy with the exam files on, take it in at the end of the session. Advantage of not needing to plug into the network to mark exams.
When you can buy a box of floppies for less than the price of a flash-drive then you start to see how important floppies can still be for rewriteable portable media.
You're not wrong. But RealMedia is, unfortunately, a known quantity. Even people who don't like it at least know what it does and that it does what it's supposed to (albeit, historically, along with one or two things it wasn't supposed to), whereas many people simply won't have heard of Ogg. And I think this is what sways the decision. That and the fact that it's an all-in-one product. The codec and the software are linked, whereas there is no single official player that runs Ogg - and I do get the feeling that BBC Marketing/management/whoever might not be quite so keen on relying on Winamp or another MP3 player as it's main method of streaming.
I agree with you. I'm just not convinced that whoever is in charge of the decision-making at BBC would see it the same way any time soon. Plus there's the whole mutual-advertising thing. Real does list the BBC as being one of it's news sources in it's "Real Guide" section - or whatever it's called. So people browsing the site after installing it to get other content might see BBC's name there.
I think it simply hinges that people know "Real". People don't know "Ogg". And Real and BBC seem to have a deal which is mutually beneficial. I don't think the BBC (apart from R&D/Technical) would really benefit from a partnership with Xiph.
I don't like it, and I do agree that using Ogg would probably be better on several levels. Unfortunately for whatever reasons Real seems to do better on whatever criteria the decision-makers use.
I guess they just think that it's what people want to see. And, to be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if they were right. Even as a determined non-sports-fan I do occasionally like to watch stuff like the Olympics - mainly to see exactly what the human body is capable of doing. Luckily, in the UK we seem to have coverage that covers most sports and most teams. Well we did in 1996 anyway, not had the chance or interest since.
The US always seems to have a slightly exaggerated take on patriotism in various things, even sports. Now I know that what I see in the media isn't always the whole truth, but this story certainly seems to back it up in at least this case.
I guess the TV execs (and their marketing departments) have either found out or decided that what the average American viewer wants to see is the American team, and especially when they're doing well. People with an actual interest in a given sport are probably thought of as a minority compared to the general viewing population, and therefore the reporting focuses on the Home Team than the actual event.
Technically this is where the Internet should come into its own. If your home coverage isn't getting the info you need, you are able to turn to another source. Unfortunately the usual "Unholy Aspects" of marketing and geographical-rights some into play. (I think we have these issues with regular sports coverage in the UK, but as a non-fan I'm rather low on details.)
It just seems to be another case of where they only want to cater for their Target Audience but also don't want to relax their "rights" and controls on distribution, therefore denying non-target audiences easy (or any) access to the information that they want.
It's probably to do with your average non-technical person won't have heard of Ogg Vorbis.
Joe Average has heard of Real. It's the format that "all the sites use". Joe Average hasn't heard of Ogg, except if they overhear some geek-type asking "but does it play OGG" about that new MP3 player in Dixons. (Or if they read every detail on the packaging for the I-River.
Now if they get their Dirac codec up to scratch then they can say "Content available in the BBC Dirac format" or sommat, and everyone knows it's to do with the BBC itself. BBC is instantly recogniseable in a way that Ogg currently isn't.
I'd also imagine it costs more to have two streams running for the same content - especially live content. It might be licensing, I dunno. It might just be the hardware and stuff. But I'm guessing that when they did have Ogg streams that the costs of running two streams probably weren't worth the numbers of people using Ogg. Which is a shame.
TiggsAgain, it comes down to the brand-awareness. If they either can't afford or don't wish to run two streams then it makes most sense to use the one with the most brand-awareness. So they run one, then develop their own. They get the convenience-advantage of openness and the business-advantage of an in-house codec immediately having BBC's brand recognition.
Yes, some do. And for varying reasons.
For one thing I find ad-banners (even non-popups) annoying because if I could afford whatever they're advertising I'd probably have paid for the product/site subscription in the first place.
The other thing is that too many sites farm out their advertising space to someone else. This means that if I'm trying to read a site in a hurry the local content is delayed whilst they wait for some third-party server having a bad day to deliver its crap to my browser.
TiggsYeah. They've basically screwed anyone in an education establishment who'd rather roll-out a Final release than an RC. They either have to install pre-release, install during session, or hope nowt happens until Christmas.
Tiggs - glad the workstations at work ain't WinXP.I'm fairly certain they aren't doing this to be intentionally malicious. And I even think that they're actually trying to make sure that it doesn't "ship" until it's actually ready. But the fallout is the same.
I watched it. I go to the cinema every so often.
But the reason I watch movies in the cinema is the same reason I stick two fingers up to the same system and download episodes of American shows not (yet or ever) available in the UK. They're stories I want to see.
I don't give a shit about the licensing, or the politics. If I wanna see something I will. And neither the **AA and their equivalents or their vocal opposition are going to find it easy to convince me otherwise.
And all not supporting them will do is decrease their profits, they'll openly blame the lack of profits on "piracy" (a bullshit claim, but the one they'll mnake nonetheless), and they'll just try even harder to protect their old business model.
Besides, I was very entertained...
The lastest UK advertisements against movie piracy had me rolling about laughing. best jokes I'd seen for ages.
TiggsWell, licensing to Motorola is getting their music to play on someone else's kit. Plus (from what I can tell from the relevant /. article) it also ties into iTunes itself. So any changes Apple makes will automatically encompass the Motorola device - rather than breaking functionality.
Licensing to Real would be another case entirely, I think. This would be getting someone else music to play on their kit.
I'm not entirely sure, but I get the feeling that this would also hold up things from Apple's end when it came to making any changes to FairPlay. 'Cos they'd have to make sure that any changes didn't freeze out songs purchased from Real.
Also from a purely marketing point of view, would you really want your product associated with Real based on there track record in previous years?
'Cos you can bet that Real would want to maximise on iPod-compatibility in their advertising.
And you also hit the nail right on the head as to why I've had misgivings about what Real have been doing...
I've been trying to work out why Real's actions disturbed me in a way that thins like PlayFair and DVD Jon don't. And you summed it up in one word. Unprofessional.
Geeks and tinkerers is one thing. When you're working on your own projects at home acting "professional" isn't a necessity. But when you're a company trying to increase your foothold in a corner of business then it's a different matter entirely.