Can I live without a smartphone? Yep, I did so untill some two months ago. I can live without any kind of phone too.
Did my life improve after I brought a smartphone? Yep. I still didn't need maps, but accessing my bank anywhere, and having some games for my daughter are usefull. Also, it does thetering, so all the problems with 3G modems and non-standard carrier authentication on Linux are gone.
Anyway, my monthly bill is still under $4. It did increase a bit after I brought the phone, because sometimes I use 3G, but not that much. (Or are you one of those people that get the phone for "free" and them pay for it for the rest of you life?)
The machines will take over, and we worship them as God/s because from our perspective, it's no difference.
Say for yourself. If that happens on my lifetime, I plan to BE one of them, not worship them. Or do you think those machines will jump so sudenly from "less smart than a human" to "too much more smart than a human" that we wond be able to cath up?
Give the average developer a stop-watch (or equivalent software) and make them TIME how long it takes to get something done with their interface. Think of it as OBJECTIVE UI metrics, rather than the dogmatic artsy crap.
That is what UI designers normaly do... Well, at least the competent ones. But they use people from the userbase, not developers (unless they are designing an IDE or something like that).
But worse is that the text on the bar is different from the text you type, different from the text at the favorites, different from the text you get if you copy it...
That's near the answer I'd give the GP. But since you said almost it all, I'm repying to you.
You are completely right. But yet, you are somewhat wrong. Everything is a file is certainly not fit for a modern system (not even a CLI based one), but "Everything is X" can be fit for some values of X. The UNIX philosophy was less that "X = file" than it was "keep X simple, and pay atention to that everything part".
Hum, sorry, but the world didn't "move on from the 1990 desktop".
At least not yet, and we don't have data to know how normal people will react to that change. You can speculate anytime you want, but all that we know is that the experts don't like it.
Microsoft is a software company that makes great hardware.
If only they had the courage to keep their software people out of the groups that write drivers for their hardware... But then, hardware people aren't any better writting them.
I'd be glad if drivers for all that stuf that goes into phones were availabe at the kernel. It would make it way easier to create other kinds of computers.
But I do understand you are concerned about code quality. The problem is that quality won't start improving if people don't start to reuse their drivers, and people won't reuse drivers if they are not at the main kernel. It is quite ok to ask for a driver that won't cause problems for other code, it is not ok to ask for a driver that doesn't have bugs.
Sony produces Android phones (or outsources, the difference is not relevant here), so they too write drivers for phones.
Also, as far as I know, there is no evidence indicating that their technical personel is as unethical as their executives, so I'm quite willing to trust them. Besides, it is free software, and rootkit would need to be public.
Bring together lots of different parties, that release code on different licenses (some even proprietary), so they share a toolbox? No can't be done with the GPL.
I tought people here at/. would be informed enough to know the OO ecosystem; or at least smart enough to saerch it.
How about dumping a smartphone OS on the market for free while ignoring other people's patents
Those patents that were alerady lagerly found invalid? (There was only 1 exception.) Nobody verified yet that Google used the technology on it (the only one that is valid), that it is not trivial (for any developer you ask, it is), and that it is worth anything.
Maybe they've done nothing wrong, in which case they've got nothing to worry about.
Getting draged to court by a patent troll, spending years and tons of money to prove you are innocent is nothing to worry about. Yeah, right.
I'd arguee that Nestle is a monopoly, but it is so obvious that the ingrdients can be changed that it isn't a problem. I'd arguee the same for Google, but IANAL, and everything...
They could quite well turn it into a library, and let people write their software with it. They are publishing it with the APL, if you redistribute it you must fork (because of trademark issues), and most people did already migrate to forks.
It is a nice way to make everybody colaborate on making ODF better, put everybody in sync, and make more ODF editors available. You can't do that with GPLed software. For once Oracle created something good. Too bad they had to try to screw everybody before they give up and do the right thing.
Any other reasons for Google to keep Mozilla/FF around?
Why did Google write Chrome in the first place? To get people out of IE. What is the browser that gets most people out of IE? (Hint, it is not Chrome, Chrome gets people out of Firefox mainly.)
If the people around me are representative, common people don't know how to use the search bar. They either type the google's address, or ask somebody to set it as their homepage.
Chrome doesn't generate revenue, and while it would be better (for Google) if all people using Firefox switched to Chrome, they wouldn't. Google would risk giving a lot of customers for Microsoft, and they fear that more than they fear paying some independent 3rd party.
If Google sees another browser taking users from both Chrome and IE, don't be surprized if they supported it.
I migrated* because it was free, and the address was more stable than any provider could provide. Also, it avoided the lockin created by using the ISPs address. There is something to be said about portability of web mail... But most people always read email from the same computer, and client based email can also be portable (IMAP).
If I had to guess, I try attributing it to chance. Web mail happened to offer the things people cared about before client based mail, brcause of no technical reason, it was just that the companies providing email to clients didn't have email as their mail business, so they sucked at it.
* No, in fact, I didn't migrate. I've always used client based mail at the same time I used web mail. Today I do both from the same servers.
On Windows most email clients (KMail, Claws Mail, Thunderbird, etc) support it by default. It is just the software that people actualy use (Outlook) that doesn't.
Anyway, that is a moot point. Nearly everybody uses webmail.
You are interested on knowing where you are relative to other planes. When flying by instruments your position relative to the floor is irrelevant.
Real altitude is so irrelevant that pilots calibrate their altimeters to the wrong value. The only thing that matters is that ALL pilots calibrate them to the SAME wrong value, while if they calibrated to the correct altitude, you'd need to recalibrate it during flight, otherwise everybody would measure a different value.
There are three sensors, and they aren't completely redundant, as they don't gather exactly the same data.
If I remember it correclty (what may not be the case) any data comes from at least two sensors. But there is that saying that a men with a watch knows the time, but a men with two is never sure.
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Can I live without a smartphone? Yep, I did so untill some two months ago. I can live without any kind of phone too.
Did my life improve after I brought a smartphone? Yep. I still didn't need maps, but accessing my bank anywhere, and having some games for my daughter are usefull. Also, it does thetering, so all the problems with 3G modems and non-standard carrier authentication on Linux are gone.
Anyway, my monthly bill is still under $4. It did increase a bit after I brought the phone, because sometimes I use 3G, but not that much. (Or are you one of those people that get the phone for "free" and them pay for it for the rest of you life?)
Say for yourself. If that happens on my lifetime, I plan to BE one of them, not worship them. Or do you think those machines will jump so sudenly from "less smart than a human" to "too much more smart than a human" that we wond be able to cath up?
That is what UI designers normaly do... Well, at least the competent ones. But they use people from the userbase, not developers (unless they are designing an IDE or something like that).
Yep, knowing that is kind of relevant.
But worse is that the text on the bar is different from the text you type, different from the text at the favorites, different from the text you get if you copy it...
Not that huge a problem, but still a problem.
That's near the answer I'd give the GP. But since you said almost it all, I'm repying to you.
You are completely right. But yet, you are somewhat wrong. Everything is a file is certainly not fit for a modern system (not even a CLI based one), but "Everything is X" can be fit for some values of X. The UNIX philosophy was less that "X = file" than it was "keep X simple, and pay atention to that everything part".
Hum, sorry, but the world didn't "move on from the 1990 desktop".
At least not yet, and we don't have data to know how normal people will react to that change. You can speculate anytime you want, but all that we know is that the experts don't like it.
Microsoft is a software company that makes great hardware.
If only they had the courage to keep their software people out of the groups that write drivers for their hardware... But then, hardware people aren't any better writting them.
I'd be glad if drivers for all that stuf that goes into phones were availabe at the kernel. It would make it way easier to create other kinds of computers.
But I do understand you are concerned about code quality. The problem is that quality won't start improving if people don't start to reuse their drivers, and people won't reuse drivers if they are not at the main kernel. It is quite ok to ask for a driver that won't cause problems for other code, it is not ok to ask for a driver that doesn't have bugs.
Sony produces Android phones (or outsources, the difference is not relevant here), so they too write drivers for phones.
Also, as far as I know, there is no evidence indicating that their technical personel is as unethical as their executives, so I'm quite willing to trust them. Besides, it is free software, and rootkit would need to be public.
Bring together lots of different parties, that release code on different licenses (some even proprietary), so they share a toolbox? No can't be done with the GPL.
I tought people here at /. would be informed enough to know the OO ecosystem; or at least smart enough to saerch it.
Those patents that were alerady lagerly found invalid? (There was only 1 exception.) Nobody verified yet that Google used the technology on it (the only one that is valid), that it is not trivial (for any developer you ask, it is), and that it is worth anything.
Getting draged to court by a patent troll, spending years and tons of money to prove you are innocent is nothing to worry about. Yeah, right.
Are you really missing that Google is a monopoly?
No, but that may be abuse of monopoly.
I'd arguee that Nestle is a monopoly, but it is so obvious that the ingrdients can be changed that it isn't a problem. I'd arguee the same for Google, but IANAL, and everything...
They could quite well turn it into a library, and let people write their software with it. They are publishing it with the APL, if you redistribute it you must fork (because of trademark issues), and most people did already migrate to forks.
It is a nice way to make everybody colaborate on making ODF better, put everybody in sync, and make more ODF editors available. You can't do that with GPLed software. For once Oracle created something good. Too bad they had to try to screw everybody before they give up and do the right thing.
That regulator that cost $1.60 is a zenner?
That is quite an expensive zenner.
They have 3 breasts each or on total?
Why did Google write Chrome in the first place? To get people out of IE. What is the browser that gets most people out of IE? (Hint, it is not Chrome, Chrome gets people out of Firefox mainly.)
If the people around me are representative, common people don't know how to use the search bar. They either type the google's address, or ask somebody to set it as their homepage.
Why would Google want to kill Firefox?
Chrome doesn't generate revenue, and while it would be better (for Google) if all people using Firefox switched to Chrome, they wouldn't. Google would risk giving a lot of customers for Microsoft, and they fear that more than they fear paying some independent 3rd party.
If Google sees another browser taking users from both Chrome and IE, don't be surprized if they supported it.
Why was it?
I migrated* because it was free, and the address was more stable than any provider could provide. Also, it avoided the lockin created by using the ISPs address. There is something to be said about portability of web mail... But most people always read email from the same computer, and client based email can also be portable (IMAP).
If I had to guess, I try attributing it to chance. Web mail happened to offer the things people cared about before client based mail, brcause of no technical reason, it was just that the companies providing email to clients didn't have email as their mail business, so they sucked at it.
* No, in fact, I didn't migrate. I've always used client based mail at the same time I used web mail. Today I do both from the same servers.
On Windows most email clients (KMail, Claws Mail, Thunderbird, etc) support it by default. It is just the software that people actualy use (Outlook) that doesn't.
Anyway, that is a moot point. Nearly everybody uses webmail.
Man, you insist in programming a computer without math?!?
Would you try to swim in a pool without water too? Write some texts without letters (or any kind of symbol)?
Not exactly so.
You are interested on knowing where you are relative to other planes. When flying by instruments your position relative to the floor is irrelevant.
Real altitude is so irrelevant that pilots calibrate their altimeters to the wrong value. The only thing that matters is that ALL pilots calibrate them to the SAME wrong value, while if they calibrated to the correct altitude, you'd need to recalibrate it during flight, otherwise everybody would measure a different value.
There are three sensors, and they aren't completely redundant, as they don't gather exactly the same data.
If I remember it correclty (what may not be the case) any data comes from at least two sensors. But there is that saying that a men with a watch knows the time, but a men with two is never sure.
I'm all for putting a neutrino detector at deep space. Must be easy as those things are just a few hundred meters wide.