Google tells me Oracle is worth $140 billion (twice what it was in 2006, so they've been growing well). Google will easily pay one or two billion to pay a company, but 140 is quite something else.
Google's market value is $150 billion, marginally more than Oracle.
Late 2008, Sun's market value had dropped to $3 billion, and Oracle bought it for $7.4 billion. That's something Google could easily afford.
MS has a longer history than just the bit with Balmer at the wheel. In the '80s and early '90s, they were very good at restrictive contracts, making everybody dependent on them and unable to get out. If they're not the masters of vendor lock-in anymore, it's because they've been hammered by the DoJ and EC.
I do think Balmer is evil, but he's too incompetent to be in the same league as Elison or the younger Bill Gates (from before he started to give away his money, and was still bent on world domination).
What you're forgetting is that monopolies and cartels can also regulate supply and demand. There is a difference between a "free market" that's completely unregulated by anyone other than the big players in that market, and a market that is really free.
What I'm wondering is how hard the line between mobile and non-mobile devices really is. A netbook doesn't count as mobile, does it? What about a netbook with a touch screen? What about a netbook with built-in UMTS? What about a netbook with both? And a keyboard that slides out from under the screen? Maybe make it a bit smaller?
We need more devices between iPads and netbooks, and use them to challenge Oracle's silly restriction.
Java was far from the first byte code language and has always suffered from having an inefficient byte code interpreter.
Come on, Java not bloated? Then why do the lights dim whenever I start up a Java application?
Does your memory use that much power? Java is only inefficient if you're short on memory and have plenty of processing power. If it's the other way around, Java is pretty damn fast. Faster than C++ in some cases. There aren't a lot of languages, certainly not managed languages, that can claim the same. Well, Scala, obviously.
I think the list of evil companies was usually headed by Microsoft or Sony. Or Exxon, Haliburton or BP, when we include non-tech companies. Oracle was always on the list, but not usually at the top of the list.
Clearly they're tired of just being the leader in Databases. They want to be the leader in Evil too. Much bigger growth market.
I'm not so sure a corporation counts as "someone". If we allow power to be taken away from people and put in the hands of inhuman institutions, pretty soon everybody will be completely powerless.
Oh yes, I forgot about the fact that I was held up at gunpoint and forced to buy Motorola products! I mean, I was just sleeping and a Motorola representative pointed a 9MM at my head and handed me a Droid and made me use it.
I forgot about the fact that I was informed about this lockdown before I bought it.
If devices are going to be sold like this, they need to get a big warning on every ad that says: "you will never truly own this product". Then I'll know I shouldn't buy it. It was a fair assumption at the time that "Android" meant "open".
I think you're misusing the term "free market". A (truly) free market is a market without regulation.
No. A completely unregulated market will be owned by the big players on that market, and not be free at all. You need the right kind of regulation in order to free a market.
In what way is using a key that everybody knows any more secure than using no encryption at all?
A better idea is to have open wifi still negotiate a password with everybody who uses it, and use that just to encrypt the communication. No hassle at all, yet your communication is as secure as the wifi-owner wants.
Testers ask to be confronted by bugs. It's their job (even if they do it voluntarily). People who join a public beta and bitch about bugs have missed the point. But people who pay for a published product are asking for a finished product, and should be able to expect a reasonably bug-free experience. (There's no such thing as completely bug-free of course, but the game should be playable.)
It does matter on the PC too. PC users pay for their games too, and they deserve a functioning product for their money. With releases like these, users should demand their money back.
Sure it can be fixed later, but that takes time. How about I pay my money later too?
Not to mention that C++ isn't much of a replacement for Ruby. I believe Scala is the accepted alternative for people who need something faster than Ruby.
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Google tells me Oracle is worth $140 billion (twice what it was in 2006, so they've been growing well). Google will easily pay one or two billion to pay a company, but 140 is quite something else.
Google's market value is $150 billion, marginally more than Oracle.
Late 2008, Sun's market value had dropped to $3 billion, and Oracle bought it for $7.4 billion. That's something Google could easily afford.
MS has a longer history than just the bit with Balmer at the wheel. In the '80s and early '90s, they were very good at restrictive contracts, making everybody dependent on them and unable to get out. If they're not the masters of vendor lock-in anymore, it's because they've been hammered by the DoJ and EC.
I do think Balmer is evil, but he's too incompetent to be in the same league as Elison or the younger Bill Gates (from before he started to give away his money, and was still bent on world domination).
What you're forgetting is that monopolies and cartels can also regulate supply and demand. There is a difference between a "free market" that's completely unregulated by anyone other than the big players in that market, and a market that is really free.
If you want help from big companies, Google and IBM are our only hope, really. And IBM already joined the dark side.
Besides, shouldn't the standard JVM for linux work fine on Maemo?
What I'm wondering is how hard the line between mobile and non-mobile devices really is. A netbook doesn't count as mobile, does it? What about a netbook with a touch screen? What about a netbook with built-in UMTS? What about a netbook with both? And a keyboard that slides out from under the screen? Maybe make it a bit smaller?
We need more devices between iPads and netbooks, and use them to challenge Oracle's silly restriction.
Java was far from the first byte code language and has always suffered from having an inefficient byte code interpreter.
Come on, Java not bloated? Then why do the lights dim whenever I start up a Java application?
Does your memory use that much power? Java is only inefficient if you're short on memory and have plenty of processing power. If it's the other way around, Java is pretty damn fast. Faster than C++ in some cases. There aren't a lot of languages, certainly not managed languages, that can claim the same. Well, Scala, obviously.
I think the list of evil companies was usually headed by Microsoft or Sony. Or Exxon, Haliburton or BP, when we include non-tech companies. Oracle was always on the list, but not usually at the top of the list.
Clearly they're tired of just being the leader in Databases. They want to be the leader in Evil too. Much bigger growth market.
I'm not so sure a corporation counts as "someone". If we allow power to be taken away from people and put in the hands of inhuman institutions, pretty soon everybody will be completely powerless.
Oh yes, I forgot about the fact that I was held up at gunpoint and forced to buy Motorola products! I mean, I was just sleeping and a Motorola representative pointed a 9MM at my head and handed me a Droid and made me use it.
I forgot about the fact that I was informed about this lockdown before I bought it.
If devices are going to be sold like this, they need to get a big warning on every ad that says: "you will never truly own this product". Then I'll know I shouldn't buy it. It was a fair assumption at the time that "Android" meant "open".
I think you're misusing the term "free market". A (truly) free market is a market without regulation.
No. A completely unregulated market will be owned by the big players on that market, and not be free at all. You need the right kind of regulation in order to free a market.
Not to mention being able to root the robots when they rise.
In what way is using a key that everybody knows any more secure than using no encryption at all?
A better idea is to have open wifi still negotiate a password with everybody who uses it, and use that just to encrypt the communication. No hassle at all, yet your communication is as secure as the wifi-owner wants.
Exactly. Parent needs to be modded Insightful.
Testers ask to be confronted by bugs. It's their job (even if they do it voluntarily). People who join a public beta and bitch about bugs have missed the point.
But people who pay for a published product are asking for a finished product, and should be able to expect a reasonably bug-free experience. (There's no such thing as completely bug-free of course, but the game should be playable.)
Or they go bankrupt and the other game companies learn from that example.
Well, we can dream, can't we?
It does matter on the PC too. PC users pay for their games too, and they deserve a functioning product for their money. With releases like these, users should demand their money back.
Sure it can be fixed later, but that takes time. How about I pay my money later too?
I thought most major game developers nowadays released beta versions, only to patch it after release (if you're lucky).
Exactly. Google uses so much Java I'm surprised they weren't the ones to buy Sun. How much better the world would have looked if they had.
Yes, but Google didn't want Java ME. They wanted Java SE on a mobile device, and Sun wouldn't allow that.
Not to mention that C++ isn't much of a replacement for Ruby. I believe Scala is the accepted alternative for people who need something faster than Ruby.
Yeeech tab-indent or get back to the 20th century.
You're kidding, right? How many modern languages actually do that? Most people are not convinced that blocks-by-indentation is an improvement.
If you want to know what's being discussed, just read the summary. It's the JVM. And Scala uses the very same JVM. So not much of a replacement.
I don't necessarily object to men in tights, but why did they have to give the transparent suit to a man?
My partners android phone with Orange has been automatically updated to 2.2,
And that phone was 3 years old? I'm impressed!
I believe the smallest official town/city has 300 people or thereabouts. And two of our 5 largest cities never got city rights at all.