Nerds are canaries? Please. The nerd demographic has much different needs than the rest of the user base. Ignoring that this story is FUD and an advert for a linux VAR, the average user cares about what precompiled software is available. They also care about cross platform interoperability and having native software running on their machine. The average user is not interested in ensuring they have all of the required dependencies on their system. Does linux have anything like the concept of.app packages? Is installling and uninstalling as easy as drag and drop? Are the directories organized logically? No, No and No.
Face it, linux is not ready for non-geeks. We keep on hearing about how "this year", linux will be ready for the desktop year after year but the real problem is not a technical one. The problem is the attitudes of the developers of linux and how they do not give a damn about the potential needs of others with regard to ease of use and functionality. There is too much scratching of their own itch going on.
Really, so where can I get Windows Media Player which offers access to the WMA stores for OS X or Linux? Whether MSFT licenses to portable MP3 player manufacturers is irrelevant since MSFT does not produce its own player and instead ties their technology to the windows platform. Do you people have reading deficiencies? WMA stores only work on "windows" whereas iTMS works on both OS X and Windows.
Is the Aqua layer Free Software? Alternatively, are the specs freely available (no NDA) and free to implement (no patents)?
A few questions. Have you ever heard of Commercial software? Do you understand how most businesses function? Do you have a job in the private sector? If so, do you care about the profitability of your employer as it relates to your job security? Why would a company with millions invested want to give away their IP? When was the last time someone outside of Apple contributed to the codebase of software that Apple has open sourced? Why would you need the specs outside of developer documentation? The API is all that you need to implement software using their framework. They are the copyright holders and can do as they wish and are under no obligation to release the source. Apple is under no obligation to allow for other platforms/kernels to use Aqua.
Also, PS: follow the sig.
What was the point of that? RMS and his appearance is a detriment to the Open Source Community.
Um yeah. And to actually build things for OS X, you must use tons of proprietary layers unless you like coding all your libraries yourself.
Uh, yeah. Are you talking about the UI? A lot of UI stuff in OS X do not require any coding at all, you just use interface builder. There are a plethora of applications and utilities out there for OS X which interface command line OSS with an Aqua UI.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/itheater http://www.videolan.org/ http://freshmeat.net/browse/839/
Do a search for OS X on sourceforge, you will find some mac specific applications but also a lot of cross platform projects and projects which merely provide a graphical UI for command line tools Mpegtools.
BTW, that's FS/OS. Not everyone agrees with gun-toting racists and the OSI does not represent those with morals.
What the hell are you talking about? Who are you accusing of being a gun-toting racists? How are you representing the open source movement when you go off on such an insane tangent?
Since when did releasing a proprietary OS that happens to include an X Server and FreeBSD userspace tools make Apple a part of the open source movement? Sure, Apple benefits from OSS, but they hardly do anything to give back to the community.
What do servers have to do with a desktop OS? If you want serious rack mounted server options with technical support, look at the xserve line either before now or after they transition to X86. Those needs that you pulled out of your ass would apply to 0.001% of the market. It is hardly worth it for Apple to support such obscure needs. Linux is perfectly acceptable as a server OS but quit mixing servers into this discussion.
If you are so damn geeky that you insist on wasting your valuable free time building a box yourself, go right ahead but don't expect companies like Apple to cater to you.
No, you were paying the price that the market could bare. Now Intel is sacrificing some of their profitablity in order to regain market share from AMD.
I don't like DRM either but it has become a necessity in an amoral climate where certain individuals expect to be paid for their efforts but are unwilling to pay for the services provided by others.
I'm glad that there are some people that understand that while an artist could create a CD themselves, they need the help of others to produce something with consistent production values. If an artist want to be able to share what they create with the widest audience possible and to be able to earn a decent living, they have to deal with the record company business model.
I hear a lot about the "evils" of the record business but artists who are able to earn a living with music are then able to devote the majority of their time to their craft. It is quite rare to see independent artists that make it to the point that they no longer have to have a day job to pay the bills.
Presumably you've never imported a CD or DVD from another country then.
Right and that is relevant how? If I had imported a CD or DVD from another country, that DVD or CD would have been produced either by the copyright holder or a third-party publisher via an agreement with the copyright holders. Any agreement between those two parties would have involved either a substantial upfront paying for transfer of distribution rights or specified payment schedule.
Show me where there is any evidence of a contract between Allofmp3 and the labels and show me where they ever paid a single red cent to them from their revenue on the sale of these songs.
"The pricing structure is good. In fact I'd say fantastic. You pay for what you get and because the prices are so reasonable, you perhaps buy what you wouldn't normally as you don't necessarily care if you don't like it... each song is only 10-20 cents (Australian)."
You may not be aware that allofmp3 has not up to this point entered into any aggreements with the artists or their labels and neither have receieved a single cent from that site. Do you still like their pricing structure? Are you also not aware that they get at least some of their content by leeching off other music pirate sites?
See people? We have yet another slashbot jumping to conclusions. I don't work in the music industry personally but I know enough to know that the RIAA does not put out CD's. It is an industry lobby group. You are using buzzwords without understanding what they mean.
I'm an asshole for suggesting that we, as the music listening public, should pay money for services rendered? Do you not pay for your food you eat at a restaurant? Do you not leave a tip for good service? Wouldn't you be an asshole for skipping out on the check?
The RIAA has nothing directly to do with production or the sale of music. Do you have a problem with reading comprehension? Allofmp3 has no direct or indirect connection with the copyright owners and yet you have no problem paying them? Why not just download directly from the pirate sites where they get their files from and cut out the middleman?
I have nothing to do with the music business. I am a patron of the arts. I show my appreciation for the hard work of the artists "and" audio engineers, promoters and various logistics staff put into giving me the convenience of being able to listen to the music whenever I wish. Prior to recorded medium, people would have had to travel to the estate of a patron or to a local tavern to pay to listen to music there.
It does not matter if the performance is recorded or live, it is still customary to "pay" for service that you receive and appreciate.
All you have managed to do is show your prejudice and ignorance through your vitriol and jumping to conclusions.
You do realize that under the old law, that site was essentially selling other people's content and not paying them one red cent right? Do you not care at all about your own copyright on anything you publish? To put it another way, how would you feel if someone took something you wrote and sold it to the public while passing it off as their own and giving you nothing for it?
The RIAA is to the record companies as the AMA to the doctors in the US. Record companies pay a fee for the privilege of membership which means that no money from the sale of CD's or downloads from services like iTMS goes to the RIAA directly. The function of the RIAA is to represent the interests of the industry as a whole.
Record companies invest money first, then sell a product to recoup their investment. Artist royalties are actually one of the smaller expenses that go in to creating a CD. If a CD is successful, then the record company has that much more reason to continue supporting the artist.
Allofmp3 pays no money to the record labels and artists. ROMS pays no money to the record labels and artists.
ROMS only legally and ethically represents Russian artists under Russian copyright law. Russian copyright law only applies to Russian residents.
Because you do not live in Russia and none of the money you paid to allofmp3 goes to the legal owners of the copyright, you would have paid someone for pirated music from the perspective of copyright laws outside of Russia.
At no time as either Allofmp3 or ROMS entered into an agreement with artists outside of Russia to assign distribution rights to either entity. Only the copyright holders can assign such rights.
Allofmp3.com is essentially the same as if one of you setup a site where you ripped CD's you owned or had borrowed and put up the rips songs for sale. The difference between your service and allofmp3 is that you would be arrested for piracy because you do not live in Russia or operate your business out of Russia.
You are using all the right slashdot buzzwords aren't you? Way to go. Unfortunately, you don't have a fucking clue about business in general let alone the music business. Do you really think music records itself, markets itself? Are you trying to tell me that you really believe the crap you are spouting?
I'm sorry but trying to use emotional rhetoric like suggesting that the music producers and this nebulous RIAA is someone damaging our culture is a crock full of shit.
Creating music involves a more than the artists, an agent in a cowboy hat and a stoner in a tie die shirt sitting in a recording booth. I hate to break it to you but movies and television shows are not an accurate source of information on the music biz.
The RIAA is an industry group that represents the artists and their labels interests. It is not directly involved in the production of the music but it does serve a role as an advocate representing the industry as a whole. I really wish my fellow slashdotters would stop throwing around that name without having a fucking clue what they do.
You are a fucking slashbot moron. How the fuck do you think their employers are able to afford to pay for that stuff? Answer: Through revenue generated by sale of CDs and music downloads. Do you idiots have any concept of what revenue, expenses and profit are? You know all those 1,2,3,4 step jokes? There is a lot of work that goes into the ???? step in before the profit is realized.
For fuck sakes, it seems like the average slashdotter thinks that software is produced by coders alone and music by musicians in front of microphones and one guy in the recording booth.
I don't give a fuck if I get modded down for this. You people really need a wake up call. Do us a favour and join the rest of us in the real world.
If you go to mac forum sites, you will tend to see more whining, people jumping to conclusions and others noticing problems after other point it out to them than from users of other brands. Mac fans tend to expect perfection and when an Apple product does not live up to their standard of perfection, you will see them launch into lengthy diatribes about how the small flaw has emotionally scarred them for life. Because of the numerous threads by the started by the same people on slightly different nuances of the same problem, you might think the problems are more widespread than they really are.
Based on my experience with first generation Apple products (12" 867Mhz pbook, eMac 700Mhz, and 15" 1.83Ghz mbp) I have not had any problems with dead pixels or other hardware failures other than the sleep light dying on the 12" pbook after 6 months.
I would like to speak on the mbp heat issues. My mbp ran much cooler than my 12" pbook even before the firmware upgrade. There may have been some models with heat problems and other issues but they were in the minority.
Slashdot Mirror
Face it, linux is not ready for non-geeks. We keep on hearing about how "this year", linux will be ready for the desktop year after year but the real problem is not a technical one. The problem is the attitudes of the developers of linux and how they do not give a damn about the potential needs of others with regard to ease of use and functionality. There is too much scratching of their own itch going on.
Really, so where can I get Windows Media Player which offers access to the WMA stores for OS X or Linux? Whether MSFT licenses to portable MP3 player manufacturers is irrelevant since MSFT does not produce its own player and instead ties their technology to the windows platform. Do you people have reading deficiencies? WMA stores only work on "windows" whereas iTMS works on both OS X and Windows.
Uh, no. This could also force WMA stores to be interoperable with the iPod and other players without PlayforSure technology.
A few questions. Have you ever heard of Commercial software? Do you understand how most businesses function? Do you have a job in the private sector? If so, do you care about the profitability of your employer as it relates to your job security? Why would a company with millions invested want to give away their IP? When was the last time someone outside of Apple contributed to the codebase of software that Apple has open sourced? Why would you need the specs outside of developer documentation? The API is all that you need to implement software using their framework. They are the copyright holders and can do as they wish and are under no obligation to release the source. Apple is under no obligation to allow for other platforms/kernels to use Aqua.
Also, PS: follow the sig.
What was the point of that? RMS and his appearance is a detriment to the Open Source Community.
Uh, yeah. Are you talking about the UI? A lot of UI stuff in OS X do not require any coding at all, you just use interface builder. There are a plethora of applications and utilities out there for OS X which interface command line OSS with an Aqua UI.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/itheater
http://www.videolan.org/
http://freshmeat.net/browse/839/
Do a search for OS X on sourceforge, you will find some mac specific applications but also a lot of cross platform projects and projects which merely provide a graphical UI for command line tools Mpegtools.
BTW, that's FS/OS. Not everyone agrees with gun-toting racists and the OSI does not represent those with morals.
What the hell are you talking about? Who are you accusing of being a gun-toting racists? How are you representing the open source movement when you go off on such an insane tangent?
I would suggest getting out more often and having a few beers.
http://www.apple.com/opensource/ Look at the top seven entries in that list.
Open Source at Apple
Webkit
Bonjour
Quicktime Streaming Server
Open Directory
Header Doc
CSDA
BTW. That's F/OSS, not FOSS. Not everyone agrees with RMS on everything and the FSF does not represent all of open source.
Apple is not FOSS but it is part of for OSS movement.
Jahshaka is a piece of crap. They do not even include all the media for the "examples" they supposedly provide you to give a feel for the program.
What do servers have to do with a desktop OS? If you want serious rack mounted server options with technical support, look at the xserve line either before now or after they transition to X86. Those needs that you pulled out of your ass would apply to 0.001% of the market. It is hardly worth it for Apple to support such obscure needs. Linux is perfectly acceptable as a server OS but quit mixing servers into this discussion.
If you are so damn geeky that you insist on wasting your valuable free time building a box yourself, go right ahead but don't expect companies like Apple to cater to you.
I think it is a combination of laziness and philosophical issues. Linux is being held back by both unfortunately.
No, you were paying the price that the market could bare. Now Intel is sacrificing some of their profitablity in order to regain market share from AMD.
I'm glad that there are some people that understand that while an artist could create a CD themselves, they need the help of others to produce something with consistent production values. If an artist want to be able to share what they create with the widest audience possible and to be able to earn a decent living, they have to deal with the record company business model.
I hear a lot about the "evils" of the record business but artists who are able to earn a living with music are then able to devote the majority of their time to their craft. It is quite rare to see independent artists that make it to the point that they no longer have to have a day job to pay the bills.
Right and that is relevant how? If I had imported a CD or DVD from another country, that DVD or CD would have been produced either by the copyright holder or a third-party publisher via an agreement with the copyright holders. Any agreement between those two parties would have involved either a substantial upfront paying for transfer of distribution rights or specified payment schedule.
Show me where there is any evidence of a contract between Allofmp3 and the labels and show me where they ever paid a single red cent to them from their revenue on the sale of these songs.
You may not be aware that allofmp3 has not up to this point entered into any aggreements with the artists or their labels and neither have receieved a single cent from that site. Do you still like their pricing structure? Are you also not aware that they get at least some of their content by leeching off other music pirate sites?
I'm an asshole for suggesting that we, as the music listening public, should pay money for services rendered? Do you not pay for your food you eat at a restaurant? Do you not leave a tip for good service? Wouldn't you be an asshole for skipping out on the check?
The RIAA has nothing directly to do with production or the sale of music. Do you have a problem with reading comprehension? Allofmp3 has no direct or indirect connection with the copyright owners and yet you have no problem paying them? Why not just download directly from the pirate sites where they get their files from and cut out the middleman?
It does not matter if the performance is recorded or live, it is still customary to "pay" for service that you receive and appreciate.
All you have managed to do is show your prejudice and ignorance through your vitriol and jumping to conclusions.
Good day sir.
You do realize that under the old law, that site was essentially selling other people's content and not paying them one red cent right? Do you not care at all about your own copyright on anything you publish? To put it another way, how would you feel if someone took something you wrote and sold it to the public while passing it off as their own and giving you nothing for it?
Record companies invest money first, then sell a product to recoup their investment. Artist royalties are actually one of the smaller expenses that go in to creating a CD. If a CD is successful, then the record company has that much more reason to continue supporting the artist.
Allofmp3 pays no money to the record labels and artists. ROMS pays no money to the record labels and artists.
ROMS only legally and ethically represents Russian artists under Russian copyright law. Russian copyright law only applies to Russian residents.
Because you do not live in Russia and none of the money you paid to allofmp3 goes to the legal owners of the copyright, you would have paid someone for pirated music from the perspective of copyright laws outside of Russia.
At no time as either Allofmp3 or ROMS entered into an agreement with artists outside of Russia to assign distribution rights to either entity. Only the copyright holders can assign such rights.
Allofmp3.com is essentially the same as if one of you setup a site where you ripped CD's you owned or had borrowed and put up the rips songs for sale. The difference between your service and allofmp3 is that you would be arrested for piracy because you do not live in Russia or operate your business out of Russia.
I'm sorry but trying to use emotional rhetoric like suggesting that the music producers and this nebulous RIAA is someone damaging our culture is a crock full of shit.
Creating music involves a more than the artists, an agent in a cowboy hat and a stoner in a tie die shirt sitting in a recording booth. I hate to break it to you but movies and television shows are not an accurate source of information on the music biz.
The RIAA is an industry group that represents the artists and their labels interests. It is not directly involved in the production of the music but it does serve a role as an advocate representing the industry as a whole. I really wish my fellow slashdotters would stop throwing around that name without having a fucking clue what they do.
For fuck sakes, it seems like the average slashdotter thinks that software is produced by coders alone and music by musicians in front of microphones and one guy in the recording booth.
I don't give a fuck if I get modded down for this. You people really need a wake up call. Do us a favour and join the rest of us in the real world.
Based on my experience with first generation Apple products (12" 867Mhz pbook, eMac 700Mhz, and 15" 1.83Ghz mbp) I have not had any problems with dead pixels or other hardware failures other than the sleep light dying on the 12" pbook after 6 months.
I would like to speak on the mbp heat issues. My mbp ran much cooler than my 12" pbook even before the firmware upgrade. There may have been some models with heat problems and other issues but they were in the minority.