Why does everyone screw up and make things so amazingly complicated when they try to copy Apple? The beauty of iTMS is that you just don't have to think about it! I think it demonstrates the amazing amount of work and planning Apple puts into its projects when their competitors have three times the restrictions and complications when they rush their product to market.
For the Clearchannel slave bands, I don't see any change. They are already incredibly hit-driven. Without a hit, they don't get Clearchannel airtime, they don't get an MTV TRL video, and they don't go double-plus-platinum with their CD sales. I would argue that for these mass market pop groups, one of the chief reasons they actually bother to make an entire album is because no one would pay $18 for a CD with four tracks. Even if the other ten tracks are filler, it makes it an easier sell.
By-track sales may reduce album creation by these bands. Good riddance, I say.
...aggression against our community taken by a party that has
long profited from the commercial distribution of our programs.
What's wrong with commercial distribution? Isn't one of the benefits of free software the right to charge for it as a commercial product if you darn well please? Red Hat makes a pretty good business doing that, and no one would call them Evil. I think better wording may have been proprietarization of the free software.
My mother bought this book for me about a year ago after yelling at her for saying it was unfortunate that I was an introvert. It annoyed me because she, like so very many people in the world, treat introversion as if it's a personality disorder. I explained to her that it's not something wrong with me, it's just how I am.
...and so she bought me a book. I think this book, and the subject it addresses, is important. Don't let people treat your introversion as if it's something wrong with you. Maybe you have a good reason for not wanting to talk with people. People are often a waste of time.
The video card is integrated into the motherboard. In fact, in a Powerbook/iBook, just about everything is integrated into the motherboard. Firewire, USB, Ethernet, PPC, Video, Audio, etc.
Even if it's not practical to charge for GPL software, there's no reason someone couldn't make a bundle off of sound samples to accompany it. The software could be free, and the samples could be $500. What's to stop someone from using other samples? Well, nothing really, but one of the nice things about SoundTrack is the high quality samples. It would be worthless to me if it didn't include those.
I buy software every month.
I use my computer every day.
I would rather have something that is pleasant to use every day than have a slightly easier time finding mass-market software.
I think, considering recent discussions on USB, anybody can claim USB 2.0 functionality. Apparently, merely existing in the same physical plane of existence as a USB plug is enough for the USB consortium to award you a logo. It just might be the logo with the blue thing at the bottom and no red on top. Because that makes sense.
I have to say that I for one am glad to have Microsoft doing "the right thing" for once. Even if they are evil in their other doings, let's at least recognize that in the war on Spam, it is going to take a few gorillas to clean up the mess. I'm hoping that Yahoo, Earthlink, RR, etc. bring some lawsuits right away for spamming their customers. Let's get the spammers out in the open! Even if they don't win the lawsuits, these seem like some pretty shady businesses, and with two or three big companies challenging them in court, it wouldn't take long for them to go bankrupt.
Omni doesn't seem to be hurting from lack of access to the core of the OS. Sure, it's using the same rendering engine as Safari, so it's arguably not even a different browser, just a different wrapper, but what's to stop M$ from doing that? They can take the WebCore and add their Front Page crap to it if they want to. Viola! Instant browser!
Heck, I might just go make my own browser now. Its key features will be integrated fish-cam browser window and a complete lack of a "back" button. Anybody in?
OS X has Darwin underneath, and Darwin is a relative of FreeBSD. And guess who is the largest distributer of *nix in the world? Apple. Their market share may even be growing (although slowly). And if you're concerned about servers, keep in mind that every time an OS X user checks the "Personal Web Sharing" box in their preference panel, another *BSD box running Apache goes live for the world.
I know it's not what you meant, but just keep in mind that *BSD is here to stay.
(Now if only I could afford to switch to Apple products.)
They're not that expensive. The eMac is pretty darn comparable to a 2 GHz P4 or what-have-you. Plus you get one of those nifty Firewire ports for the iPod.:)
1280x960 (big enough for any self-respecting geek), 17" flat screen (flat screen, not flat panel), OS X (all the BSD you can handle!), iTunes 4 (awesome), and there's no tower you have to keep under your desk. $999 US for that, less if you're a student.
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Ugghh!
Why does everyone screw up and make things so amazingly complicated when they try to copy Apple? The beauty of iTMS is that you just don't have to think about it! I think it demonstrates the amazing amount of work and planning Apple puts into its projects when their competitors have three times the restrictions and complications when they rush their product to market.
For the Clearchannel slave bands, I don't see any change. They are already incredibly hit-driven. Without a hit, they don't get Clearchannel airtime, they don't get an MTV TRL video, and they don't go double-plus-platinum with their CD sales. I would argue that for these mass market pop groups, one of the chief reasons they actually bother to make an entire album is because no one would pay $18 for a CD with four tracks. Even if the other ten tracks are filler, it makes it an easier sell.
By-track sales may reduce album creation by these bands. Good riddance, I say.
...aggression against our community taken by a party that has long profited from the commercial distribution of our programs.
What's wrong with commercial distribution? Isn't one of the benefits of free software the right to charge for it as a commercial product if you darn well please? Red Hat makes a pretty good business doing that, and no one would call them Evil.
I think better wording may have been proprietarization of the free software.
My mother bought this book for me about a year ago after yelling at her for saying it was unfortunate that I was an introvert.
It annoyed me because she, like so very many people in the world, treat introversion as if it's a personality disorder. I explained to her that it's not something wrong with me, it's just how I am.
...and so she bought me a book.
I think this book, and the subject it addresses, is important. Don't let people treat your introversion as if it's something wrong with you. Maybe you have a good reason for not wanting to talk with people. People are often a waste of time.
The video card is integrated into the motherboard. In fact, in a Powerbook/iBook, just about everything is integrated into the motherboard. Firewire, USB, Ethernet, PPC, Video, Audio, etc.
Even if it's not practical to charge for GPL software, there's no reason someone couldn't make a bundle off of sound samples to accompany it. The software could be free, and the samples could be $500. What's to stop someone from using other samples? Well, nothing really, but one of the nice things about SoundTrack is the high quality samples. It would be worthless to me if it didn't include those.
I buy software every month.
I use my computer every day.
I would rather have something that is pleasant to use every day than have a slightly easier time finding mass-market software.
I think, considering recent discussions on USB, anybody can claim USB 2.0 functionality. Apparently, merely existing in the same physical plane of existence as a USB plug is enough for the USB consortium to award you a logo.
It just might be the logo with the blue thing at the bottom and no red on top. Because that makes sense.
I have to say that I for one am glad to have Microsoft doing "the right thing" for once.
Even if they are evil in their other doings, let's at least recognize that in the war on Spam, it is going to take a few gorillas to clean up the mess. I'm hoping that Yahoo, Earthlink, RR, etc. bring some lawsuits right away for spamming their customers.
Let's get the spammers out in the open!
Even if they don't win the lawsuits, these seem like some pretty shady businesses, and with two or three big companies challenging them in court, it wouldn't take long for them to go bankrupt.
Die, spammer, die!
Heck, I might just go make my own browser now. Its key features will be integrated fish-cam browser window and a complete lack of a "back" button. Anybody in?
Show me how an Intel laptop with similar specs is cheaper. I dare you.
OS X has Darwin underneath, and Darwin is a relative of FreeBSD. And guess who is the largest distributer of *nix in the world? Apple. Their market share may even be growing (although slowly). And if you're concerned about servers, keep in mind that every time an OS X user checks the "Personal Web Sharing" box in their preference panel, another *BSD box running Apache goes live for the world.
I know it's not what you meant, but just keep in mind that *BSD is here to stay.
They're not that expensive. The eMac is pretty darn comparable to a 2 GHz P4 or what-have-you. Plus you get one of those nifty Firewire ports for the iPod. :)
1280x960 (big enough for any self-respecting geek), 17" flat screen (flat screen, not flat panel), OS X (all the BSD you can handle!), iTunes 4 (awesome), and there's no tower you have to keep under your desk. $999 US for that, less if you're a student.