You're dismissing the opinion of pirates on their choice of video codec because they're pirating content, implying they're somehow baised towards h264 because it's a patented codec.
No, I'm not. I'm saying they lack a bias against that codec that would be present in legitimate use, and in evaluating what is the best tool for the job.
they will choose the tool they believe best for the job.
Which has often been divx, even when h.264 existed and had decent support. It was only once they started embracing HD video that h.264 saw any adoption, and you still occasionally see a 720p divx.
We all now IE6 equals total swiss cheese that can turn a box into a virus laden whore faster than you can say coolwebsearch, so how exactly is having Chrome Frame for the very limited number of websites that will call it actually helpful?
That's actually a valid point, and one I thought about pretty much right after I hit submit...
The conclusion I came to was, again, it's not likely that this would be a target for malware authors when IE6 is already such an easier target it's not even funny. As to how it improves things, any content within a site that uses this should be somewhat safer.
Take a contrived example: Suppose I make a photo gallery app. I allow my users to upload photos, among other things. Or maybe it's a forum avatar, whatever. Someone discovers a bug in how IE processes images -- which has happened, at least once -- and embeds some malware in an image. If I've wrapped my app in a Chrome frame, they can't exploit IE -- even if the same exploit worked on the Chrome renderer, it's sandboxed.
Those desktops are usually locked down tighter than a Nun's panties and you usually have to go through an act of congress to get squat installed on those suckers, which is of course why they are still running IE6 and not IE7 or 8 or hell, anything that doesn't blow chunks like IE6.
So, one possibility is, due to a misconfiguration (or maybe it's deliberate, somehow), users are allowed to install plugins.
Another possibility is, that "act of congress" is required for a new app, but not for customizing and configuring an existing app. Installing a plugin might be considered "configuring" IE, and thus legal for IT to do.
just doesn't seem worth the development effort to me.
Maybe not. But I'm not going to complain, now that it works. It's also one way of solving the problem of needing one browser for the Intranet, and another for everything else. Sure, I'd prefer IETab, but this works, too, and requires less configuration.
In my mind the only way this makes any sense at all is if Google is hoping to get the "clicks through anything to get the goodies" crowd that are too stupid/lazy to get rid of the POS that is IE6.
If this is the case, I still applaud them for giving me another reason to not have to support IE6.
And if that is the case they would be much better off simply cutting off support for IE6 completely from all Google services and offering a link to Chrome
That would be nice, sure, but it's understandable that they aren't willing to do that.
Let's consider a few scenarios:
Google adds a download link to the page, but doesn't prevent it from working. Users ignore it. This is exactly what's happened with YouTube.
Google stops supporting IE6, allowing some things to break, and adds a more prominent link. Users don't understand what a browser is, and blame Google for not working.
Google disables tons of features on IE6 -- GMail's "basic HTML" mode, for example. Users don't notice the "you should get a browser" link, and assume Google is slower, and wonder why certain features are broken.
Google actively blocks the page with a "You should upgrade" page, and a very small "continue anyway" link. Users aren't brave enough to try a new "browser" (whatever that is), and give up on that page. Or, if they really want it, they grumble to themselves about how user-unfriendly Google is, making them download a whole new program to view the page. Then, if their new browser breaks, or does anything wrong, or anything different at all, they blame Google for making them download it.
Google actively blocks the page with a "You need this plugin" page, and a very small "continue anyway" link. Users react pretty much the way they'd react to the same thing from Flash or Silverlight -- as you say, click-through-to-the-goodies. They hardly notice their browser is different.
Oh, I forgot to mention: Again, we're talking about standard stuff in HTML5.
So, I can develop something that works in Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari, which uses the video tag. At this point, I can either add a ton of extra work by building a flash player, writing some script to replace the video tag with the flash player when I detect IE (or a simple lack of video tag support), and now do twice as much work any time I want to change anything about the player...
Or I can develop an app that relies on canvas, and try to find some ActiveX control, Flash widget, or other hackery that'll duplicate this -- again, talking about doubling the work -- to implement it on IE...
Or I can just develop in straight HTML5, and use Chrome Frame to support IE.
I'm amazed that, as a web developer, you don't see how that's useful, or how that relates to web standards.
I've seen perfectly valid HTML that renders differently in Firefox, Chrome and Opera
As have I -- with minor differences that can be fixed in a few minutes, if they were an issue at all.
we all agree that IE6 is pain
I just don't think we agree on how painful it is. Again: The vast majority of what I do "just works", with minor tweaks, in all the browsers I mentioned. Remove IE from the equation, and I'd still have to do cross-browser testing, there'd still be bugs and things to work around, but I'd easily shave off around 20% of my dev time.
we should not put the blame on Microsoft.
Uhm. Why not?
After all if we had to support versions of Netscape from the time of IE6 they would be pain too
That's true. However, Netscape did eventually support the standards. I'm still convinced that Firefox (which came from Netscape) is the whole reason IE7 happened at all.
IE8 is as different from the other browsers as they are among themselves.
That is possible, but I'm skeptical. This certainly wasn't the case back with IE7.
And if Google were all about standards then what is Gears?
An attempt to further standards. Indeed, most of the interesting features of Gears have now been merged into the HTML5 standard, and are now supported natively by other browsers.
I personally see this Chrome Frame + Gears thing as the next ActiveX.
*facepalm*
You really don't see the difference between enabling standard HTML5 (properly sandboxed) and inserting random executable content (with full local rights) into a webpage?
What am I going to hear next, that you can't tell the difference between a web app and an exe?
Unless it becomes popular, in which case the so-called "submarine" (actually they may not even be submarine) patents will come to the fore, and you'll have to pay... I'd go for the predictability of a licensable codec ahead of one that almost certainly would be a target for patent lawsuits if it ever achieves critical mass,
Ludicrous FUD. Did concerns like this make anyone even pause, for a heartbeat, before considering H.264?
Nothing about Theora's "open-ness" makes it more likely to be hit by a submarine patent than any proprietary project.
And remember, it was originally proprietary, and is covered by a few patents, which have been released to the public domain -- so if your argument is that having something patented once means it's less likely to be infringing on someone else's patents, even if that was ever a valid argument, it fails here.
having seen the silence over, say, Vorbis's apparent infringement of US Patent 5,214,742.
The conclusion I find from a quick Google search is that, really, any corporation interested in these should be doing their own due diligence. So, I'd ask Google, since, among other things, Chrome distributes a Theora decoder.
I might feel differently if Xiph didn't play word games with the term "Patent free", and gave a straight answer on the issues of actual patents people have found, rather than turning around and saying "Yeah, we ran it by a lawyer, and they said we're OK, but we're not going to tell you why
So, I'd run it by a lawyer myself.
especially as nobody will ever sue Xiph anyway
Except whatever business model Xiph has, whatever credibility they have, would evaporate if someone was ever successfully sued over Theora. So, if their "we ran it by a lawyer" story isn't completely bullshit, they'd certainly share that secret the second anyone was actually sued.
But no one has been, even with a few relatively large commercial entities using Theora.
They don't think "oh hey while I'm violating copyright I'll violate patents too, just because I can!"
No, but if they don't particularly care about violating copyright, they won't care much about violating patents, either.
H.264 is more popular because it is better
Because it's better, or because it's perceived as better -- in terms of quality per bit. But again, anywhere other than the pirate community, patents are likely to be an issue, and an open-but-worse format may be preferred over a closed-but-better format, especially if it's not that much worse.
admit that Theora is simply inferior.
I'm pretty sure that's what was meant by this part:
But not usually by very much; and in any case, countless codecs beat H.264 in pretty much every respect in turn
In other words, yes, Theora is inferior, but probably not by enough to care -- just as better-than-h.264 formats aren't better enough to care.
If Google's charging for this service, and thus passing these costs on to the customer, it's a bit like anti-phishing -- there should be a warning, but it shouldn't be blocked entirely. And it should be possible to turn the warning off.
That's the difference, and that's a possible valid point AT&T might have.
Except I think Google Voice is a free service, which means Google would essentially be swallowing these fees. What they're doing here is more akin to a backbone ISP refusing to peer with another, and I'm not sure that goes against net neutrality.
And how does that get installed? Is there actually a checkbox somewhere for "install Cool Web Search"?
I honestly don't get how this is supposed to make anyone more secure.
You can argue that it doesn't, but to "not get it" is a bit stupid.
First you have IE, and any and all vulnerabilities for it, and then you add Chrome on top,
In other words, it makes things "less secure" in exactly the same way that Flash, Silverlight, Java, Windows Media Player, and any other plugin does.
Basically, Microsoft's whole argument is a very good argument not to install Silverlight. I don't think that's an argument they want to make.
unless there is some hidden voodoo going on
It's not exactly hidden that Chrome supports sandboxing on Windows XP, while IE requires Vista and above for that. So for anyone who didn't upgrade to Vista or Win7 -- which is probably most of the people who didn't upgrade from IE6 -- Chrome Frame is adding a layer of security on top of IE, for the sites that use it.
Add to this the sheer swiss-cheese that is IE6 already... How shall I put this... It's like wearing boxers and a helmet. No one's going to try to shoot you through the helmet, given that choice.
It seems to me it would simply be better to push to get IE6 users to use ANYTHING other than that old POS,
It would be, and they are doing that. In fact, the page that prompts you to install Chrome Frame also mentions other browsers.
But this helps for people who are reluctant to try a new browser, but certainly less reluctant to try a new plugin. It also helps where people are not allowed to install a new browser, but might be allowed to install a new plugin -- not saying that's sane, but that's a lot of corporate desktops.
I can develop a site in Firefox, with Firebug, Firecookie, and all the other nice developer tools. That means I can stay on Linux, OS X, whatever I'm comfortable with.
I can then test it out in Chrome, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Epiphany -- hell, there's a fair chance it'll work on iCab -- and only require very minor tweaks.
Then I can test it out in IE, and discover I've got a few days of work. Especially if I wanted to target IE6. Easily 20-30% of my time developing a site is spent fighting with IE.
No other browser is that much of a bitch to support.
In other words: Google isn't doing this because they're evil, or because they want everyone to run Chrome. (Even if they did, so what? Chrome is open source.) They're doing it to make life easier on all web developers, including themselves. They're also doing it to make the web better, in general -- faster Javascript, HTML5 support, and better support for web standrads...
So, it really doesn't seem likely Google would care to port this to other browsers that actually work.
The point is that it's another exploitable object, thereby expanding the exposed surface of attack. That's Microsoft's entire point.
It didn't stop Microsoft from writing Silverlight -- or ActiveX, for that matter. Seems they're only concerned about "expanding the exposed surface of attack" when it's something they don't like.
There's just no reason to get this installed in corporate networks where IE6 is being used (breaks most intranet sites)
It's opt-in, by the site. The default IE6 engine will still be used for those intranet sites, unless the intranet sites explicitly ask for Chrome Frame -- and if that ever happens, there's a strong possibility that these intranet sites are ready for other browsers.
Downloading Chrome itself is fine, but this is nothing more than a veiled attempt at tricking users into using Chrome instead of legitimately gaining marketshare.
And bundling IE with the OS wasn't? How about exposing IE's HTML engine as a standard ActiveX component?
I'm not suggesting that either of these things could be reversed now, but understand that at the time this decision was made, Netscape was still being sold in stores, and I believe it did have a majority marketshare.
But you know what? At this point, I don't care if Google has to hire assassins to kill off Microsoft's IE team, as long as the end result is the same: We can finally start developing to web standards, and stop having to spend half our time figuring out how to work around IE's bugs. Hell, it means we can actually use exciting new features like HTML5, and stop using Flash unnecessarily, just because IE doesn't support <video>.
(Ok, yes, it would be very sad if people had to die over this, but you get the point.)
I honestly don't remember any virus being installed this way:
choose typical or default installation, and keep clicking yes till they get to the end.
I mean, I've seen Google Toolbar, OpenOffice, and other bits of software installed this way, but never did I see a checkbox in some installer for "Install virus?"
So surely Google could bundle the installer for this thing with the toolbar and everybody will have it. They just won't know what it is, why they have it, or how to get rid of it.
I can see why they might want to get rid of the toolbar. I have no idea why they'd want to get rid of this. It wouldn't hurt them in any way, it'd arguably make them more secure, and it'd make my life much easier as a web developer.
Compare that to how hard they push Chrome Frame, and other browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc), on anyone wanting to test out Wave. How long until YouTube simply doesn't support IE6?
Just because I write a book of philosophy that is grammatically incorrect but possibly deeply insightful doesn't not make it any less important.
If you're capable of writing a book of philosophy that is deeply insightful, you should also be capable of writing one that's grammatically correct. Doing so would set you apart from someone who is capable of neither, and it'd set you apart at a glance.
It's also common courtesy to the reader. Generally, people have no trouble reading something that's grammatically correct, no matter how poor their own grammar is. However, it's at least annoying, and sometimes frustrating and difficult to understand something that's incorrect. Depending how incorrect you are, I might decide that deep insight you have isn't worth the effort of reading your book.
In other words, if you want your philosophy book to actually be read, you'll proofread it, spellcheck it, and clean it up -- just as, if you want to actually be hired, you'll shower, shave, and put on a tie for the interview.
how many authors have had no editors?
An editor is helpful for two reasons: To catch the mistakes you don't, and to ensure that the publisher's name doesn't get tarnished by subpar writing.
It shouldn't be the editor's job to remind you to capitalize the first word in a sentence. Meet them halfway.
What's more, we're rapidly moving towards mediums that don't need a "publisher", per se -- anyone can start up a blog, or ramble on Slashdot, without any editor at all. If you think it's worth having an editor correct your grammar in a dead-tree book, surely it's worth having correct grammar in what you write online -- but do you really want to hire an editor for your blog? At that point, it just makes economic sense to learn some "basic common English" skills yourself.
So the minute that I bring something to market a competitor that has deeper pockets should simply be able to take my product and use its market presence to kill my product.
If your product idea is so derivative that a competitor can do that before you can establish any presence at all, I don't think that's an idea that deserves to be patented.
Trade secret will not protect you from the big dogs simply stealing your stuff.
Only if it can be stolen easily.
If it has to be reverse-engineered and built from scratch, that's still going to give you some lead time, which is sort of what patents were designed to provide. The difference is, instead of that limited monopoly being arbitrary (based on government regulation), it's instead based on the nature of just how revolutionary an idea it was in the first place.
Only very rarely do you find an idea that's so revolutionary it should be given patent protection, and yet so simple it could be reverse-engineered, developed, implemented, taken through QA, and actually brought to market fast enough to kill any competitive advantage of innovating... even more rarely is this something that would not have been invented anyway, without patent protection, as compared to something where an inventor would be too discouraged that people could just "steal" that idea.
It goes back to Watt and Hornblower -- without the patent system, both of them would likely have come up with the ideas they did, at about the pace they did. The only difference is, they'd be able to borrow each other's ideas, and they'd both have made more efficient engines. As it is, they both had to wait for each others' patents to expire, and the world got 15 years of inefficient steam engines because of it.
But it's never simple -- the counterargument goes, they should've traded licenses. Of course, that would've cut out any third parties, or made it significantly more expensive for a "little guy" to enter that market.
And I still don't know how to make prescription drugs work without either a patent system or government grants, but I also find it reprehensible that life-saving medicine ends up costing the patient so much, when competition could've made it dirt-cheap.
Time Machine can mostly back up to an arbitrary server over the internet. It uses AFP,
Ah. Looks like that can use ssh to stay reasonably secure.
you can use a Linux server using AFP. Though I think there may be some caveats there as well.
Probably, given Linux doesn't currently support directory hardlinks.
I am pretty sure you can encrypt the backup as well, but I haven't tried.
That would be the more interesting question -- AFP means you can probably encrypt it in transit, though I haven't tried. But can you leave it encrypted at the destination?
What I'd be even more curious about is whether you could do something like, mount a read/write encrypted loopback image (can OS X do that?), and backup to that, so that you can effectively use any filesystem that supports seeking, theoretically even FTP...
Of course, that raises questions about how secure such a scheme is, but you'd have to intercept a lot of traffic to figure out anything by watching filesystem access patterns.
They can't bring anything to market because anyone they approach to mfg the item will simply take the idea, cut them out, and take the profit themselves.
Which is the whole point of the NDA. If they haven't taken something to market, it's still a trade secret, and is effectively protected by trade secret laws.
Reselling OS X installed on PCs with quasisupported hardware makes OS X look bad.
I'm curious why the same thing doesn't happen to Windows?
Personally I don't like the online backup service stuff unless it is a server I own.
I have a server I can backup to. Can Time Machine do it securely over the Internet to that server, or do I have to be in the same building?
And I would be just as paranoid about someone else's server -- which is why I only do it when I can encrypt my data first.
Actually, you didn't. You said it's "not a credible option". It is.
dumb to use it as such when better, faster, lighter technology exists,
People do still use Apache, when nginx exists. I don't think it's entirely stupid of them to do so, either.
Hell, people use Gnome and KDE, when Fluxbox exists. Is that stupid?
or can be created.
I don't think vaporware is worth considering. Think about this from Nokia's point of view: Use X, or streamline X, or write something entirely different from scratch.
So once again you're stuck with the notion that orthdox = desktop.
Show me a non-desktop usage which has existed for long enough to be considered "orthodox", and draws a GUI.
Placing the word, "standard" in front of it doesn't really morph reality
Yeah, not worth continuing any discussion about the C library, when you don't have a concept of what a "standard library" is. Those other implementations you're talking about are still implementations of an entity called the "standard C library". What I may have been implying would've been quite accurately called a standard standard C library.
Come back when that sinks in, and we'll talk.
Changes to autoconf and even source are par for the course on most any new platform.
Assuming that by "platform" you mean "architecture", or maybe "distro".
I don't know what to say, other than, it disagrees with my observation. There are tons of nice little programs that I can download and expect to compile with autoconf, without having to tweak at all.
So your position is now that Android running on an alternate distro somehow doesn't run Android?!!?
Uhm. Android is itself a distro. It's a kernel, a few libraries, and an app store, which certainly qualifies as a package manager.
Are you claiming anything running on the same hardware is automatically Android?
notice that Android is a fucking framework and OS abstraction layer
I mean, seriously, you've written an entire paragraph -- a long paragraph -- talking about how my position is "hand-waving" and a "strawman argument", without even attempting to refute it, or show why it's either hand-waving or a strawman argument.
Hint: Strawman implies I've misrepresented your position. Where have I done that?
Lastly, you need to do a lot more reading. Id doesn't use X, they use OpenGL.
They actually use GLX, which ultimately renders to an X window.
Basically X is used to provide device input (kb, mouse) and window geometry for OpenGL to render within.
Yeah, and?
Never mind that other windows can be drawn above the GL window, but given your original point was that X is an impractical choice for a platform that requires games, I think I've refuted that. If you want to argue that X is a stupid choice, that's a matter of opinion, not fact.
why bother with X when you have a captive platform and are free to create a slimmer, smaller, faster, better interface
Because X is already there and already does what you need.
And you seem to be misunderstanding something. I am not saying that Android should have used X. I'm saying that it was "unorthodox", certainly compared to Moblin.
I'm not really sure why we're still talking about this, though. Why has that simple statement -- "Moblin is more orthodox than Android" -- gotten you into such a name-calling fury? And why am I wasting my time with you?
A lack of patents destroys innovation. If I come up with some brilliant idea there is nothing to stop MS from simply making a copy of it, marketing it it, and selling it as their own and leaving me ass out for the brain work I had to do.
Or you simply don't tell Microsoft without making them sign something that promises not to do exactly that.
Consider the iPhone -- while Apple may have some patents on multitouch, what they did here was keep the concept secret until it'd been developed into a complete product -- so the idea of even a single-touch phone didn't really catch on until the iPhone was already released, and it was an instant commercial success.
A patent for anything involved with the iPhone wouldn't have prevented it from being profitable, or prevented its inventors from making a profit on it, or prevented people from coming up with similarly innovative ideas in the future. All it does is prevent Apple from having a monopoly on the idea once it's actually out there in the wild.
I will point out that Apple doesn't seem to have done much to actively stop people from installing on non Apple hardware.
I seem to remember something about a TPM chip.
What they have done is actively gone after people who try to profit commercially by doing it.
Which still seems like something that should be legal, so long as those people have paid for every copy of OS X. (I realize it's not, as it violates the license, but I can't think of a good reason it shouldn't be.)
The people defending the violation of the licensing terms are effectively advocating for MS and Cisco and whoever to steal GPL code and use it how they want against the terms of the license.
Well, I've already said why I think this is different.
Time Machine is easily the most elegant personal backup solution I have ever seen... I recently bought a Time Capsule (again, well below retail) to serve as my home wireless and NAS. Wireless Time Machine Backups... no CDs. No USB drives. No nonsense. As long as my MBP is home and online it will do it's scheduled backup without me having to mess with anything or remember to do it.
That is nice.
I'd still probably prefer an online backup service, given the choice. As long as my laptop is online, it'll be synchronizing with some place that is physically far, far away from me. While it's much less likely, I'd still rather not lose everything if a tornado hits this house.
So yeah...you need another Mac in case of emergency, but the quality of care during that emergency is worlds better.
Except you haven't talked about the restore, so much as the backup process itself.
And it still doesn't save you from that time you're on vacation, you've spent hours on a project, but you haven't been home for it to backup. Or that time when Time Machine didn't work, for some reason -- maybe something was deliberately excluded (another OS in a VM), or accidentally.
Time Machine may be easier out of the box, but other than the UI, it's really nothing new.
Harder than using XUL (which has Javascript in it) with XULConnect and XPCOM.
In other words, using Javascript is harder than... using Javascript? WTF?
I don't see what XULConnect or XPCOM add, API-wise, to make sensing mouse movements any easier or more accurate than DOM events. I don't see what XUL XML adds to the situation at all.
Not all Javascript functions can be bound the Chrome API.
I'll try to put this as gently as possible...
Use complete sentences, please. I have no clue what you meant just then.
And, if you're saying what I think you're saying, please provide an example of a Javascript feature which is not available in Chrome extensions, and where it is available. If you use the words XUL or XPCOM in your answer, remember that we were talking about Javascript features here, not Firefox-specific features.
I'm pretty sure Chrome extensions have access to the same valid EcmaScript engine that webpages do, when viewed in Chrome.
And why is then Chrome did not use HTML to render its UI?
Actually, I don't know, but I am seriously considering writing a browser that does just that.
But again, it does use HTML to render pieces of its UI. What isn't done by HTML isn't much -- just the tab bar and the config pages, really. Even the download manager is HTML.
Chromium != Google Chrome. It is like saying Google Chrome == Safari just because they use WebKit.
*facepalm*
Actually, Chromium is Google Chrome. It lacks exactly two things found in Google Chrome:
Branding
Codecs
And you can still use ffmpeg codecs, it's just not legal -- whereas Google actually does have licenses to things like h.264, etc.
Chromium is more Google Chrome than Mozilla was Netscape, because Netscape really did add a ton of proprietary features on top of Mozilla -- things like spellcheck, which Mozilla had to write their own version of.
Then please explain why after 1 year and three major version in Windows, why Google Chrome (not derivatives like Chromium)
Chromium is exactly as much a derivative of Chrome as Mozilla is a "derivative" of Firefox. (Hint: It's the other way around.)
But please explain why it matters whether it's Chrome or Chromium. If the supposed issue is using C++ and Google's portable graphics API, shouldn't this affect Chromium as much as it affects Chrome?
Is it really that hard to make a port?
It is when you ignore facts, and continue to make statements like this:
When Firefox 1 was released, it is already available for Linux and OS X.
I don't believe there was an OS X port of the original Phoenix browser when its developer previews were released. And remember, this was a fork of Mozilla, which was already cross-platform. And it was a fork which removed things, so it should've been easier to port, if anything.
Netscape is not written by Mozilla, Netscape is written by Netscape Communication.
However, the original Mozilla was open source code that came from Netscape. I'm talking about Mozilla the browser, not the Mozilla Foundation.
Netscape doesn't even use XUL until version 6 (prior to that Netscape is completely C++)
Indeed, because XUL was one of the first innovations of Mozilla, which Netscape 6 was built on.
XUL was chosen because using it will simplify Mozilla's heavy burden of making Firefox/Seamonkey cross-platform friendly.
Yet Netscape (and Mozilla) were already massively portable before XUL. Maybe XUL made it easier going forward, but it certainly wasn't needed.
I do have to admit that I was wrong about XUL being required for that portability -- meaning it was
If they worked correctly in specificity the 20years wouldn't be a big deal because it would force everyone else to find a new way. IE, you can't just say "used magnet to hold plug in".
I suppose, if they were specific enough that you couldn't actually steal Apple's blueprints, that you had to actually design your own...
But there's still the interoperability issue. In this example, should other people be able to make plugs that work with your Macbook? Why not? And wouldn't it be better if this was turned into a standard, so that every laptop used the same plug, so we wouldn't have as much waste, and cables would be cheaper? Wouldn't it be better if cars, planes, etc, just had laptop cables in them, rather than having to buy a special cable for the cigarette lighter, or worse, buy an inverter, so it has to go DC->AC->DC again?
And then there's software patents. Should someone be able to patent an algorithm, or a mathematical function, such that no one else can implement the same file format without licensing the patent?
I am reasonably sure all of those have shortcuts, if not most. I could look them up, but I doubt you care that much about them.
Not too much, but it'd be nice to know if they exist -- in particular, the ones for manipulating windows. Just as a toy example, fire up a KDE (use a livecd, I don't care) and configure win+leftarrow to "pack left", same for the other four directions. Then open a window, hold the Windows key, and tap the arrows -- watch it fly around the screen.
Not immediately obvious how useful this is until you've got several terminal windows open on a high-resolution monitor...
Command-Arrow lets you move around your spaces...
Yes, I remember that. But is there a shortcut to bring the active window with me?
I HATE brushing it and having sloppy focus start dumping text into the wrong window.
I'm as likely to have it register as a "tap" if I brush it, so that would bite me no matter what focus model I use. I eventually got to where I just don't brush it.
Cocotron is the project I was talking about in moving apps away from OS X.
Interesting -- or, I suppose, it's a start. Of course, there's always the possibility that there's a patent somewhere in there... cheap shot, I know.
Problem: It still requires OS X to develop on (for now), and is mostly focused on targeting Windows (for now), which seems like it would be a much harder target than X11, for any apps that use anything out of the POSIX API.
The OS X/hardware "DRM" ties I'm not very upset about, Apple is a hardware company, nothing says they have to sell their OS on the street to anyone with a PC.... there are very good reasons why they do not want to support that jungle of shitty drivers
Nothing says they have to adapt their OS to the PC at all, or provide support to people who do so, or really provide any drivers at all.
However, once I buy some software, I tend to think of it as "mine", and I find it distasteful that Apple actively takes steps to prevent me from installing it on non-Apple hardware. A big warning is fine -- actually forcing me to crack my own software isn't.
It's the difference between putting a "warranty void if removed" sticker on top of some screws, and welding the screws to the case.
Compare this to any other software -- yes, I would consider it DRM if a game I bought said "designed for Dell" and would only run on Dell hardware. I do consider it DRM (and annoying DRM, at that) when an application decides to lock itself to a particular machine, and refuse to activate on any others, or in a virtual machine -- so Windows isn't much better in that regard.
The OS X license is what you pay for, and the OS X license says you must have Apple hardware.
Even more so, "especially for a platform where X was a credible option", is simply dumb as it doesn't apply in the least.
Tell that to the Nokia. The N900 uses X.
Even more so, gaming is a target for these phones.
If you're implying X can't be used for gaming, tell that to Id.
none of these issues have anything to do with "orthodox", unless your definition, which seems to be your entire position, is orthodox = desktop,
No.
However, we are talking about something drawing a GUI, and the usual ("orthodox"?) way of doing that is with X. And then there's the standard C library.
I have no idea why you're intent of negatively painting Android
I have no idea why you think I intend to "negatively paint Android". I love the concept, and my next phone is likely to either be Maemo or Android.
I'm also a bit unclear why you assume I have an axe to grind simply because I disagree with you -- though that does seem to be entirely too common. Here's a hint: Not everyone who disagrees with you is either stupid or has an agenda. Sometimes, they have a valid point. Sometimes, you're even wrong.
The "no changes" is the tricky part because almost no Linux applications are directly capable for compiling on an embedded system without change.
I haven't tried the N900 personally, but I doubt much change would be required. I distinctly remember running Linux on an HP Jornada handheld -- 32 megs of RAM and a 512 meg SD card. Specifically, I was running a pretty much unmodified Debian ARM, albeit without X, or any GUI, for that matter.
This is because more often than not they use autoconf which requires execution on the target.
And if it does, so what? Despite being an "embedded system", my Jornada could run autoconf. I'll bet the N900 can, too. And if that fails, just run it on an emulator, which any of thees systems should have.
By you definition, pretty much all Linux software is broken.
By my definition, pretty much all Linux software can be compiled on most new platforms without requiring custom patches for that platform. I'm not counting autoconf as a "source change", since it's pretty much a standard build tool.
it is possible if you use the Ubuntu Android port.
Does this allow the phone to continue functioning as an Android device? If so, I'll concede that point -- if Ubuntu works, clearly the standard C library isn't an issue.
most applications typically require some tweaking for new platforms, even when they do use tools such as autoconf.
Define "most".
straw man's argument.
Uninformed, maybe. Strawman, how? I don't believe I've misrepresented your position -- yet clearly, you've misrepresented mine.
Having the laptop automatically adjust to not burn by eyeballs out in low light is pretty nice.
Pretty nice, but still something I'd file under "nice to have", not under "I'd pay more for that". fn+downdowndowndowndown and my screen is dim.
The magnetic thing being proprietary doesn't bother me in the least, I support the idea that a company doing something actually innovative should get their time limited monopoly on it.
I was just pointing out that it does support my gut reaction that the Mac is proprietary. It's not just the shiny, it's little hardware features like this.
And I do have a problem with them having a monopoly on this for 15 years. Two years, five years even, I'd be OK with. Think about other things Apple has done -- the iPhone certainly deserves a couple years. But I suspect these things have more than paid for their R&D costs -- it's not as though a shorter patent length would cause companies to stop innovating.
I'm not entirely convinced that patents are a good idea at all, but certainly, patent times of a decade or more are severely limiting innovation, not fostering it.
That's why I'm frustrated here -- I don't like the idea that I'll be almost 40 before I see any other laptop manufacturer have the magnetic plug.
I have a 2 page document listing all of the keyboard shortcuts that I will probably never remember or use with my Mac. There is a shortcut for damned near everything there too.
Shortcuts I couldn't figure out, in the week I was forced to use a Mac:
Log out
Shut down
Reboot
Run Command (though Quicksilver might match alt+f2 on KDE4)
Maximize window
Grow/move window horizontally/vertically, until it hits another window or the edge of a screen
General keystroke to switch windows within an application. (Terminal was excellent at providing these, but I don't remember them being universal.) This means alt+tab is useless if it considers those windows to be in the same application.
That's just off the top of my hand. Maybe I just didn't know? Also, what about switching something to another virtual desktop (Space)? And can I middle-click on the title bar to send something to the back? Can I customize what a middle-click-on-the-title-bar does?
Plus, no sloppy focus, ever, except within applications that explicitly support it. Boo. That means I get sloppy focus within Terminal, but not between Terminal and another application, or between any non-Terminal window.
The things I have had to fight with to make work on other systems, be they Win or Lin, "Just Work" on my Mac.
There are a few things that I miss "just working" on a Mac. But there's all sorts of everyday productivity things that I couldn't ever get working on a Mac. It may take a bit more tweaking, but at least I can actually get Linux set up the way I want it. I was never able to get Windows or Mac to mirror that experience, and even beginning to customize things was painful.
Now, I will admit, if you can work the way the Mac wants you to work, it's all very smooth, out of the box. But go just slightly off the beaten path (c'mon, sloppy focus!) and it's difficult or impossible. And since it's proprietary, I actually can't fix all of these problems.
I'm not opposed to commercial software, I am opposed to commercial software that treats me like a criminal by default
OS X seems to have DRM built-in for itself, it just isn't usually an issue, except when people want to run OS X on non-Apple hardware.
really doesn't do all that much 'lock in' at all.
Proprietary GUI, meaning even Unix-y Mac tools aren't easy to port to other Unices unless you use X11, which sucks on the Mac.
OS X and Linux are MUCH more closely related under the hood than eith
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You're dismissing the opinion of pirates on their choice of video codec because they're pirating content, implying they're somehow baised towards h264 because it's a patented codec.
No, I'm not. I'm saying they lack a bias against that codec that would be present in legitimate use, and in evaluating what is the best tool for the job.
they will choose the tool they believe best for the job.
Which has often been divx, even when h.264 existed and had decent support. It was only once they started embracing HD video that h.264 saw any adoption, and you still occasionally see a 720p divx.
We all now IE6 equals total swiss cheese that can turn a box into a virus laden whore faster than you can say coolwebsearch, so how exactly is having Chrome Frame for the very limited number of websites that will call it actually helpful?
That's actually a valid point, and one I thought about pretty much right after I hit submit...
The conclusion I came to was, again, it's not likely that this would be a target for malware authors when IE6 is already such an easier target it's not even funny. As to how it improves things, any content within a site that uses this should be somewhat safer.
Take a contrived example: Suppose I make a photo gallery app. I allow my users to upload photos, among other things. Or maybe it's a forum avatar, whatever. Someone discovers a bug in how IE processes images -- which has happened, at least once -- and embeds some malware in an image. If I've wrapped my app in a Chrome frame, they can't exploit IE -- even if the same exploit worked on the Chrome renderer, it's sandboxed.
Those desktops are usually locked down tighter than a Nun's panties and you usually have to go through an act of congress to get squat installed on those suckers, which is of course why they are still running IE6 and not IE7 or 8 or hell, anything that doesn't blow chunks like IE6.
So, one possibility is, due to a misconfiguration (or maybe it's deliberate, somehow), users are allowed to install plugins.
Another possibility is, that "act of congress" is required for a new app, but not for customizing and configuring an existing app. Installing a plugin might be considered "configuring" IE, and thus legal for IT to do.
just doesn't seem worth the development effort to me.
Maybe not. But I'm not going to complain, now that it works. It's also one way of solving the problem of needing one browser for the Intranet, and another for everything else. Sure, I'd prefer IETab, but this works, too, and requires less configuration.
In my mind the only way this makes any sense at all is if Google is hoping to get the "clicks through anything to get the goodies" crowd that are too stupid/lazy to get rid of the POS that is IE6.
If this is the case, I still applaud them for giving me another reason to not have to support IE6.
And if that is the case they would be much better off simply cutting off support for IE6 completely from all Google services and offering a link to Chrome
That would be nice, sure, but it's understandable that they aren't willing to do that.
Let's consider a few scenarios:
Oh, I forgot to mention: Again, we're talking about standard stuff in HTML5.
So, I can develop something that works in Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari, which uses the video tag. At this point, I can either add a ton of extra work by building a flash player, writing some script to replace the video tag with the flash player when I detect IE (or a simple lack of video tag support), and now do twice as much work any time I want to change anything about the player...
Or I can develop an app that relies on canvas, and try to find some ActiveX control, Flash widget, or other hackery that'll duplicate this -- again, talking about doubling the work -- to implement it on IE...
Or I can just develop in straight HTML5, and use Chrome Frame to support IE.
I'm amazed that, as a web developer, you don't see how that's useful, or how that relates to web standards.
I've seen perfectly valid HTML that renders differently in Firefox, Chrome and Opera
As have I -- with minor differences that can be fixed in a few minutes, if they were an issue at all.
we all agree that IE6 is pain
I just don't think we agree on how painful it is. Again: The vast majority of what I do "just works", with minor tweaks, in all the browsers I mentioned. Remove IE from the equation, and I'd still have to do cross-browser testing, there'd still be bugs and things to work around, but I'd easily shave off around 20% of my dev time.
we should not put the blame on Microsoft.
Uhm. Why not?
After all if we had to support versions of Netscape from the time of IE6 they would be pain too
That's true. However, Netscape did eventually support the standards. I'm still convinced that Firefox (which came from Netscape) is the whole reason IE7 happened at all.
IE8 is as different from the other browsers as they are among themselves.
That is possible, but I'm skeptical. This certainly wasn't the case back with IE7.
And if Google were all about standards then what is Gears?
An attempt to further standards. Indeed, most of the interesting features of Gears have now been merged into the HTML5 standard, and are now supported natively by other browsers.
I personally see this Chrome Frame + Gears thing as the next ActiveX.
*facepalm*
You really don't see the difference between enabling standard HTML5 (properly sandboxed) and inserting random executable content (with full local rights) into a webpage?
What am I going to hear next, that you can't tell the difference between a web app and an exe?
Unless it becomes popular, in which case the so-called "submarine" (actually they may not even be submarine) patents will come to the fore, and you'll have to pay... I'd go for the predictability of a licensable codec ahead of one that almost certainly would be a target for patent lawsuits if it ever achieves critical mass,
Ludicrous FUD. Did concerns like this make anyone even pause, for a heartbeat, before considering H.264?
Nothing about Theora's "open-ness" makes it more likely to be hit by a submarine patent than any proprietary project.
And remember, it was originally proprietary, and is covered by a few patents, which have been released to the public domain -- so if your argument is that having something patented once means it's less likely to be infringing on someone else's patents, even if that was ever a valid argument, it fails here.
having seen the silence over, say, Vorbis's apparent infringement of US Patent 5,214,742.
The conclusion I find from a quick Google search is that, really, any corporation interested in these should be doing their own due diligence. So, I'd ask Google, since, among other things, Chrome distributes a Theora decoder.
I might feel differently if Xiph didn't play word games with the term "Patent free", and gave a straight answer on the issues of actual patents people have found, rather than turning around and saying "Yeah, we ran it by a lawyer, and they said we're OK, but we're not going to tell you why
So, I'd run it by a lawyer myself.
especially as nobody will ever sue Xiph anyway
Except whatever business model Xiph has, whatever credibility they have, would evaporate if someone was ever successfully sued over Theora. So, if their "we ran it by a lawyer" story isn't completely bullshit, they'd certainly share that secret the second anyone was actually sued.
But no one has been, even with a few relatively large commercial entities using Theora.
They don't think "oh hey while I'm violating copyright I'll violate patents too, just because I can!"
No, but if they don't particularly care about violating copyright, they won't care much about violating patents, either.
H.264 is more popular because it is better
Because it's better, or because it's perceived as better -- in terms of quality per bit. But again, anywhere other than the pirate community, patents are likely to be an issue, and an open-but-worse format may be preferred over a closed-but-better format, especially if it's not that much worse.
admit that Theora is simply inferior.
I'm pretty sure that's what was meant by this part:
But not usually by very much; and in any case, countless codecs beat H.264 in pretty much every respect in turn
In other words, yes, Theora is inferior, but probably not by enough to care -- just as better-than-h.264 formats aren't better enough to care.
Your second link, as has been pointed out so often in this thread, is using an svn snapshot from a year ago. Try again with an actual 1.1 release.
If Google's charging for this service, and thus passing these costs on to the customer, it's a bit like anti-phishing -- there should be a warning, but it shouldn't be blocked entirely. And it should be possible to turn the warning off.
That's the difference, and that's a possible valid point AT&T might have.
Except I think Google Voice is a free service, which means Google would essentially be swallowing these fees. What they're doing here is more akin to a backbone ISP refusing to peer with another, and I'm not sure that goes against net neutrality.
Anybody who has had to remove coolwebsearch...
And how does that get installed? Is there actually a checkbox somewhere for "install Cool Web Search"?
I honestly don't get how this is supposed to make anyone more secure.
You can argue that it doesn't, but to "not get it" is a bit stupid.
First you have IE, and any and all vulnerabilities for it, and then you add Chrome on top,
In other words, it makes things "less secure" in exactly the same way that Flash, Silverlight, Java, Windows Media Player, and any other plugin does.
Basically, Microsoft's whole argument is a very good argument not to install Silverlight. I don't think that's an argument they want to make.
unless there is some hidden voodoo going on
It's not exactly hidden that Chrome supports sandboxing on Windows XP, while IE requires Vista and above for that. So for anyone who didn't upgrade to Vista or Win7 -- which is probably most of the people who didn't upgrade from IE6 -- Chrome Frame is adding a layer of security on top of IE, for the sites that use it.
Add to this the sheer swiss-cheese that is IE6 already... How shall I put this... It's like wearing boxers and a helmet. No one's going to try to shoot you through the helmet, given that choice.
It seems to me it would simply be better to push to get IE6 users to use ANYTHING other than that old POS,
It would be, and they are doing that. In fact, the page that prompts you to install Chrome Frame also mentions other browsers.
But this helps for people who are reluctant to try a new browser, but certainly less reluctant to try a new plugin. It also helps where people are not allowed to install a new browser, but might be allowed to install a new plugin -- not saying that's sane, but that's a lot of corporate desktops.
You're obviously not a web developer.
I can develop a site in Firefox, with Firebug, Firecookie, and all the other nice developer tools. That means I can stay on Linux, OS X, whatever I'm comfortable with.
I can then test it out in Chrome, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Epiphany -- hell, there's a fair chance it'll work on iCab -- and only require very minor tweaks.
Then I can test it out in IE, and discover I've got a few days of work. Especially if I wanted to target IE6. Easily 20-30% of my time developing a site is spent fighting with IE.
No other browser is that much of a bitch to support.
In other words: Google isn't doing this because they're evil, or because they want everyone to run Chrome. (Even if they did, so what? Chrome is open source.) They're doing it to make life easier on all web developers, including themselves. They're also doing it to make the web better, in general -- faster Javascript, HTML5 support, and better support for web standrads...
So, it really doesn't seem likely Google would care to port this to other browsers that actually work.
The point is that it's another exploitable object, thereby expanding the exposed surface of attack. That's Microsoft's entire point.
It didn't stop Microsoft from writing Silverlight -- or ActiveX, for that matter. Seems they're only concerned about "expanding the exposed surface of attack" when it's something they don't like.
There's just no reason to get this installed in corporate networks where IE6 is being used (breaks most intranet sites)
It's opt-in, by the site. The default IE6 engine will still be used for those intranet sites, unless the intranet sites explicitly ask for Chrome Frame -- and if that ever happens, there's a strong possibility that these intranet sites are ready for other browsers.
Downloading Chrome itself is fine, but this is nothing more than a veiled attempt at tricking users into using Chrome instead of legitimately gaining marketshare.
And bundling IE with the OS wasn't? How about exposing IE's HTML engine as a standard ActiveX component?
I'm not suggesting that either of these things could be reversed now, but understand that at the time this decision was made, Netscape was still being sold in stores, and I believe it did have a majority marketshare.
But you know what? At this point, I don't care if Google has to hire assassins to kill off Microsoft's IE team, as long as the end result is the same: We can finally start developing to web standards, and stop having to spend half our time figuring out how to work around IE's bugs. Hell, it means we can actually use exciting new features like HTML5, and stop using Flash unnecessarily, just because IE doesn't support <video>.
(Ok, yes, it would be very sad if people had to die over this, but you get the point.)
Any organization smart enough to do that should be smart enough to replace IE6 with Firefox, and configure it to use IE Tab for the internal site.
It's installed the same way as viruses
I honestly don't remember any virus being installed this way:
choose typical or default installation, and keep clicking yes till they get to the end.
I mean, I've seen Google Toolbar, OpenOffice, and other bits of software installed this way, but never did I see a checkbox in some installer for "Install virus?"
So surely Google could bundle the installer for this thing with the toolbar and everybody will have it. They just won't know what it is, why they have it, or how to get rid of it.
I can see why they might want to get rid of the toolbar. I have no idea why they'd want to get rid of this. It wouldn't hurt them in any way, it'd arguably make them more secure, and it'd make my life much easier as a web developer.
Compare that to how hard they push Chrome Frame, and other browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc), on anyone wanting to test out Wave. How long until YouTube simply doesn't support IE6?
Judging by how pitiful AT&T service has been, it's got to be one of the shittiest networks ever designed.
Not that it should cause problems for anyone -- it's not as if they didn't see this coming -- but I wouldn't be surprised.
Just because I write a book of philosophy that is grammatically incorrect but possibly deeply insightful doesn't not make it any less important.
If you're capable of writing a book of philosophy that is deeply insightful, you should also be capable of writing one that's grammatically correct. Doing so would set you apart from someone who is capable of neither, and it'd set you apart at a glance.
It's also common courtesy to the reader. Generally, people have no trouble reading something that's grammatically correct, no matter how poor their own grammar is. However, it's at least annoying, and sometimes frustrating and difficult to understand something that's incorrect. Depending how incorrect you are, I might decide that deep insight you have isn't worth the effort of reading your book.
In other words, if you want your philosophy book to actually be read, you'll proofread it, spellcheck it, and clean it up -- just as, if you want to actually be hired, you'll shower, shave, and put on a tie for the interview.
how many authors have had no editors?
An editor is helpful for two reasons: To catch the mistakes you don't, and to ensure that the publisher's name doesn't get tarnished by subpar writing.
It shouldn't be the editor's job to remind you to capitalize the first word in a sentence. Meet them halfway.
What's more, we're rapidly moving towards mediums that don't need a "publisher", per se -- anyone can start up a blog, or ramble on Slashdot, without any editor at all. If you think it's worth having an editor correct your grammar in a dead-tree book, surely it's worth having correct grammar in what you write online -- but do you really want to hire an editor for your blog? At that point, it just makes economic sense to learn some "basic common English" skills yourself.
So the minute that I bring something to market a competitor that has deeper pockets should simply be able to take my product and use its market presence to kill my product.
If your product idea is so derivative that a competitor can do that before you can establish any presence at all, I don't think that's an idea that deserves to be patented.
Trade secret will not protect you from the big dogs simply stealing your stuff.
Only if it can be stolen easily.
If it has to be reverse-engineered and built from scratch, that's still going to give you some lead time, which is sort of what patents were designed to provide. The difference is, instead of that limited monopoly being arbitrary (based on government regulation), it's instead based on the nature of just how revolutionary an idea it was in the first place.
Only very rarely do you find an idea that's so revolutionary it should be given patent protection, and yet so simple it could be reverse-engineered, developed, implemented, taken through QA, and actually brought to market fast enough to kill any competitive advantage of innovating... even more rarely is this something that would not have been invented anyway, without patent protection, as compared to something where an inventor would be too discouraged that people could just "steal" that idea.
It goes back to Watt and Hornblower -- without the patent system, both of them would likely have come up with the ideas they did, at about the pace they did. The only difference is, they'd be able to borrow each other's ideas, and they'd both have made more efficient engines. As it is, they both had to wait for each others' patents to expire, and the world got 15 years of inefficient steam engines because of it.
But it's never simple -- the counterargument goes, they should've traded licenses. Of course, that would've cut out any third parties, or made it significantly more expensive for a "little guy" to enter that market.
And I still don't know how to make prescription drugs work without either a patent system or government grants, but I also find it reprehensible that life-saving medicine ends up costing the patient so much, when competition could've made it dirt-cheap.
Time Machine can mostly back up to an arbitrary server over the internet. It uses AFP,
Ah. Looks like that can use ssh to stay reasonably secure.
you can use a Linux server using AFP. Though I think there may be some caveats there as well.
Probably, given Linux doesn't currently support directory hardlinks.
I am pretty sure you can encrypt the backup as well, but I haven't tried.
That would be the more interesting question -- AFP means you can probably encrypt it in transit, though I haven't tried. But can you leave it encrypted at the destination?
What I'd be even more curious about is whether you could do something like, mount a read/write encrypted loopback image (can OS X do that?), and backup to that, so that you can effectively use any filesystem that supports seeking, theoretically even FTP...
Of course, that raises questions about how secure such a scheme is, but you'd have to intercept a lot of traffic to figure out anything by watching filesystem access patterns.
They can't bring anything to market because anyone they approach to mfg the item will simply take the idea, cut them out, and take the profit themselves.
Which is the whole point of the NDA. If they haven't taken something to market, it's still a trade secret, and is effectively protected by trade secret laws.
Reselling OS X installed on PCs with quasisupported hardware makes OS X look bad.
I'm curious why the same thing doesn't happen to Windows?
Personally I don't like the online backup service stuff unless it is a server I own.
I have a server I can backup to. Can Time Machine do it securely over the Internet to that server, or do I have to be in the same building?
And I would be just as paranoid about someone else's server -- which is why I only do it when I can encrypt my data first.
I said its dumb to use it
Actually, you didn't. You said it's "not a credible option". It is.
dumb to use it as such when better, faster, lighter technology exists,
People do still use Apache, when nginx exists. I don't think it's entirely stupid of them to do so, either.
Hell, people use Gnome and KDE, when Fluxbox exists. Is that stupid?
or can be created.
I don't think vaporware is worth considering. Think about this from Nokia's point of view: Use X, or streamline X, or write something entirely different from scratch.
So once again you're stuck with the notion that orthdox = desktop.
Show me a non-desktop usage which has existed for long enough to be considered "orthodox", and draws a GUI.
Placing the word, "standard" in front of it doesn't really morph reality
Yeah, not worth continuing any discussion about the C library, when you don't have a concept of what a "standard library" is. Those other implementations you're talking about are still implementations of an entity called the "standard C library". What I may have been implying would've been quite accurately called a standard standard C library.
Come back when that sinks in, and we'll talk.
Changes to autoconf and even source are par for the course on most any new platform.
Assuming that by "platform" you mean "architecture", or maybe "distro".
I don't know what to say, other than, it disagrees with my observation. There are tons of nice little programs that I can download and expect to compile with autoconf, without having to tweak at all.
So your position is now that Android running on an alternate distro somehow doesn't run Android?!!?
Uhm. Android is itself a distro. It's a kernel, a few libraries, and an app store, which certainly qualifies as a package manager.
Are you claiming anything running on the same hardware is automatically Android?
notice that Android is a fucking framework and OS abstraction layer
Being insulting and using profanity doesn't make you right. Hint: Even Wikipedia calls it an operating system.
I mean, seriously, you've written an entire paragraph -- a long paragraph -- talking about how my position is "hand-waving" and a "strawman argument", without even attempting to refute it, or show why it's either hand-waving or a strawman argument.
Hint: Strawman implies I've misrepresented your position. Where have I done that?
Lastly, you need to do a lot more reading. Id doesn't use X, they use OpenGL.
They actually use GLX, which ultimately renders to an X window.
Basically X is used to provide device input (kb, mouse) and window geometry for OpenGL to render within.
Yeah, and?
Never mind that other windows can be drawn above the GL window, but given your original point was that X is an impractical choice for a platform that requires games, I think I've refuted that. If you want to argue that X is a stupid choice, that's a matter of opinion, not fact.
why bother with X when you have a captive platform and are free to create a slimmer, smaller, faster, better interface
Because X is already there and already does what you need.
And you seem to be misunderstanding something. I am not saying that Android should have used X. I'm saying that it was "unorthodox", certainly compared to Moblin.
I'm not really sure why we're still talking about this, though. Why has that simple statement -- "Moblin is more orthodox than Android" -- gotten you into such a name-calling fury? And why am I wasting my time with you?
A lack of patents destroys innovation. If I come up with some brilliant idea there is nothing to stop MS from simply making a copy of it, marketing it it, and selling it as their own and leaving me ass out for the brain work I had to do.
Or you simply don't tell Microsoft without making them sign something that promises not to do exactly that.
Consider the iPhone -- while Apple may have some patents on multitouch, what they did here was keep the concept secret until it'd been developed into a complete product -- so the idea of even a single-touch phone didn't really catch on until the iPhone was already released, and it was an instant commercial success.
A patent for anything involved with the iPhone wouldn't have prevented it from being profitable, or prevented its inventors from making a profit on it, or prevented people from coming up with similarly innovative ideas in the future. All it does is prevent Apple from having a monopoly on the idea once it's actually out there in the wild.
I will point out that Apple doesn't seem to have done much to actively stop people from installing on non Apple hardware.
I seem to remember something about a TPM chip.
What they have done is actively gone after people who try to profit commercially by doing it.
Which still seems like something that should be legal, so long as those people have paid for every copy of OS X. (I realize it's not, as it violates the license, but I can't think of a good reason it shouldn't be.)
The people defending the violation of the licensing terms are effectively advocating for MS and Cisco and whoever to steal GPL code and use it how they want against the terms of the license.
Well, I've already said why I think this is different.
Time Machine is easily the most elegant personal backup solution I have ever seen... I recently bought a Time Capsule (again, well below retail) to serve as my home wireless and NAS. Wireless Time Machine Backups... no CDs. No USB drives. No nonsense. As long as my MBP is home and online it will do it's scheduled backup without me having to mess with anything or remember to do it.
That is nice.
I'd still probably prefer an online backup service, given the choice. As long as my laptop is online, it'll be synchronizing with some place that is physically far, far away from me. While it's much less likely, I'd still rather not lose everything if a tornado hits this house.
So yeah...you need another Mac in case of emergency, but the quality of care during that emergency is worlds better.
Except you haven't talked about the restore, so much as the backup process itself.
And it still doesn't save you from that time you're on vacation, you've spent hours on a project, but you haven't been home for it to backup. Or that time when Time Machine didn't work, for some reason -- maybe something was deliberately excluded (another OS in a VM), or accidentally.
Time Machine may be easier out of the box, but other than the UI, it's really nothing new.
Harder than using XUL (which has Javascript in it) with XULConnect and XPCOM.
In other words, using Javascript is harder than... using Javascript? WTF?
I don't see what XULConnect or XPCOM add, API-wise, to make sensing mouse movements any easier or more accurate than DOM events. I don't see what XUL XML adds to the situation at all.
Not all Javascript functions can be bound the Chrome API.
I'll try to put this as gently as possible...
Use complete sentences, please. I have no clue what you meant just then.
And, if you're saying what I think you're saying, please provide an example of a Javascript feature which is not available in Chrome extensions, and where it is available. If you use the words XUL or XPCOM in your answer, remember that we were talking about Javascript features here, not Firefox-specific features.
I'm pretty sure Chrome extensions have access to the same valid EcmaScript engine that webpages do, when viewed in Chrome.
And why is then Chrome did not use HTML to render its UI?
Actually, I don't know, but I am seriously considering writing a browser that does just that.
But again, it does use HTML to render pieces of its UI. What isn't done by HTML isn't much -- just the tab bar and the config pages, really. Even the download manager is HTML.
Chromium != Google Chrome. It is like saying Google Chrome == Safari just because they use WebKit.
*facepalm*
Actually, Chromium is Google Chrome. It lacks exactly two things found in Google Chrome:
And you can still use ffmpeg codecs, it's just not legal -- whereas Google actually does have licenses to things like h.264, etc.
Chromium is more Google Chrome than Mozilla was Netscape, because Netscape really did add a ton of proprietary features on top of Mozilla -- things like spellcheck, which Mozilla had to write their own version of.
Then please explain why after 1 year and three major version in Windows, why Google Chrome (not derivatives like Chromium)
Chromium is exactly as much a derivative of Chrome as Mozilla is a "derivative" of Firefox. (Hint: It's the other way around.)
But please explain why it matters whether it's Chrome or Chromium. If the supposed issue is using C++ and Google's portable graphics API, shouldn't this affect Chromium as much as it affects Chrome?
Is it really that hard to make a port?
It is when you ignore facts, and continue to make statements like this:
When Firefox 1 was released, it is already available for Linux and OS X.
I don't believe there was an OS X port of the original Phoenix browser when its developer previews were released. And remember, this was a fork of Mozilla, which was already cross-platform. And it was a fork which removed things, so it should've been easier to port, if anything.
Netscape is not written by Mozilla, Netscape is written by Netscape Communication.
However, the original Mozilla was open source code that came from Netscape. I'm talking about Mozilla the browser, not the Mozilla Foundation.
Netscape doesn't even use XUL until version 6 (prior to that Netscape is completely C++)
Indeed, because XUL was one of the first innovations of Mozilla, which Netscape 6 was built on.
XUL was chosen because using it will simplify Mozilla's heavy burden of making Firefox/Seamonkey cross-platform friendly.
Yet Netscape (and Mozilla) were already massively portable before XUL. Maybe XUL made it easier going forward, but it certainly wasn't needed.
I do have to admit that I was wrong about XUL being required for that portability -- meaning it was
If they worked correctly in specificity the 20years wouldn't be a big deal because it would force everyone else to find a new way. IE, you can't just say "used magnet to hold plug in".
I suppose, if they were specific enough that you couldn't actually steal Apple's blueprints, that you had to actually design your own...
But there's still the interoperability issue. In this example, should other people be able to make plugs that work with your Macbook? Why not? And wouldn't it be better if this was turned into a standard, so that every laptop used the same plug, so we wouldn't have as much waste, and cables would be cheaper? Wouldn't it be better if cars, planes, etc, just had laptop cables in them, rather than having to buy a special cable for the cigarette lighter, or worse, buy an inverter, so it has to go DC->AC->DC again?
And then there's software patents. Should someone be able to patent an algorithm, or a mathematical function, such that no one else can implement the same file format without licensing the patent?
I am reasonably sure all of those have shortcuts, if not most. I could look them up, but I doubt you care that much about them.
Not too much, but it'd be nice to know if they exist -- in particular, the ones for manipulating windows. Just as a toy example, fire up a KDE (use a livecd, I don't care) and configure win+leftarrow to "pack left", same for the other four directions. Then open a window, hold the Windows key, and tap the arrows -- watch it fly around the screen.
Not immediately obvious how useful this is until you've got several terminal windows open on a high-resolution monitor...
Command-Arrow lets you move around your spaces...
Yes, I remember that. But is there a shortcut to bring the active window with me?
I HATE brushing it and having sloppy focus start dumping text into the wrong window.
I'm as likely to have it register as a "tap" if I brush it, so that would bite me no matter what focus model I use. I eventually got to where I just don't brush it.
Cocotron is the project I was talking about in moving apps away from OS X.
Interesting -- or, I suppose, it's a start. Of course, there's always the possibility that there's a patent somewhere in there... cheap shot, I know.
Problem: It still requires OS X to develop on (for now), and is mostly focused on targeting Windows (for now), which seems like it would be a much harder target than X11, for any apps that use anything out of the POSIX API.
The OS X/hardware "DRM" ties I'm not very upset about, Apple is a hardware company, nothing says they have to sell their OS on the street to anyone with a PC.... there are very good reasons why they do not want to support that jungle of shitty drivers
Nothing says they have to adapt their OS to the PC at all, or provide support to people who do so, or really provide any drivers at all.
However, once I buy some software, I tend to think of it as "mine", and I find it distasteful that Apple actively takes steps to prevent me from installing it on non-Apple hardware. A big warning is fine -- actually forcing me to crack my own software isn't.
It's the difference between putting a "warranty void if removed" sticker on top of some screws, and welding the screws to the case.
Compare this to any other software -- yes, I would consider it DRM if a game I bought said "designed for Dell" and would only run on Dell hardware. I do consider it DRM (and annoying DRM, at that) when an application decides to lock itself to a particular machine, and refuse to activate on any others, or in a virtual machine -- so Windows isn't much better in that regard.
The OS X license is what you pay for, and the OS X license says you must have Apple hardware.
Granted -- also distasteful. In what
So, three distinct flaws. A casual Google search shows that all the components for Google apps were in place around 2006-2007.
So, significantly less than every six months.
Or, if you just look at Gmail, it's been around since 2004. How many actual security flaws in over 5 years of operation?
Even more so, "especially for a platform where X was a credible option", is simply dumb as it doesn't apply in the least.
Tell that to the Nokia. The N900 uses X.
Even more so, gaming is a target for these phones.
If you're implying X can't be used for gaming, tell that to Id.
none of these issues have anything to do with "orthodox", unless your definition, which seems to be your entire position, is orthodox = desktop,
No.
However, we are talking about something drawing a GUI, and the usual ("orthodox"?) way of doing that is with X. And then there's the standard C library.
I have no idea why you're intent of negatively painting Android
I have no idea why you think I intend to "negatively paint Android". I love the concept, and my next phone is likely to either be Maemo or Android.
I'm also a bit unclear why you assume I have an axe to grind simply because I disagree with you -- though that does seem to be entirely too common. Here's a hint: Not everyone who disagrees with you is either stupid or has an agenda. Sometimes, they have a valid point. Sometimes, you're even wrong.
The "no changes" is the tricky part because almost no Linux applications are directly capable for compiling on an embedded system without change.
I haven't tried the N900 personally, but I doubt much change would be required. I distinctly remember running Linux on an HP Jornada handheld -- 32 megs of RAM and a 512 meg SD card. Specifically, I was running a pretty much unmodified Debian ARM, albeit without X, or any GUI, for that matter.
This is because more often than not they use autoconf which requires execution on the target.
It really doesn't.
And if it does, so what? Despite being an "embedded system", my Jornada could run autoconf. I'll bet the N900 can, too. And if that fails, just run it on an emulator, which any of thees systems should have.
By you definition, pretty much all Linux software is broken.
By my definition, pretty much all Linux software can be compiled on most new platforms without requiring custom patches for that platform. I'm not counting autoconf as a "source change", since it's pretty much a standard build tool.
it is possible if you use the Ubuntu Android port.
Does this allow the phone to continue functioning as an Android device? If so, I'll concede that point -- if Ubuntu works, clearly the standard C library isn't an issue.
most applications typically require some tweaking for new platforms, even when they do use tools such as autoconf.
Define "most".
straw man's argument.
Uninformed, maybe. Strawman, how? I don't believe I've misrepresented your position -- yet clearly, you've misrepresented mine.
Having the laptop automatically adjust to not burn by eyeballs out in low light is pretty nice.
Pretty nice, but still something I'd file under "nice to have", not under "I'd pay more for that". fn+downdowndowndowndown and my screen is dim.
The magnetic thing being proprietary doesn't bother me in the least, I support the idea that a company doing something actually innovative should get their time limited monopoly on it.
I was just pointing out that it does support my gut reaction that the Mac is proprietary. It's not just the shiny, it's little hardware features like this.
And I do have a problem with them having a monopoly on this for 15 years. Two years, five years even, I'd be OK with. Think about other things Apple has done -- the iPhone certainly deserves a couple years. But I suspect these things have more than paid for their R&D costs -- it's not as though a shorter patent length would cause companies to stop innovating.
I'm not entirely convinced that patents are a good idea at all, but certainly, patent times of a decade or more are severely limiting innovation, not fostering it.
That's why I'm frustrated here -- I don't like the idea that I'll be almost 40 before I see any other laptop manufacturer have the magnetic plug.
I have a 2 page document listing all of the keyboard shortcuts that I will probably never remember or use with my Mac. There is a shortcut for damned near everything there too.
Shortcuts I couldn't figure out, in the week I was forced to use a Mac:
That's just off the top of my hand. Maybe I just didn't know? Also, what about switching something to another virtual desktop (Space)? And can I middle-click on the title bar to send something to the back? Can I customize what a middle-click-on-the-title-bar does?
Plus, no sloppy focus, ever, except within applications that explicitly support it. Boo. That means I get sloppy focus within Terminal, but not between Terminal and another application, or between any non-Terminal window.
The things I have had to fight with to make work on other systems, be they Win or Lin, "Just Work" on my Mac.
There are a few things that I miss "just working" on a Mac. But there's all sorts of everyday productivity things that I couldn't ever get working on a Mac. It may take a bit more tweaking, but at least I can actually get Linux set up the way I want it. I was never able to get Windows or Mac to mirror that experience, and even beginning to customize things was painful.
Now, I will admit, if you can work the way the Mac wants you to work, it's all very smooth, out of the box. But go just slightly off the beaten path (c'mon, sloppy focus!) and it's difficult or impossible. And since it's proprietary, I actually can't fix all of these problems.
I'm not opposed to commercial software, I am opposed to commercial software that treats me like a criminal by default
OS X seems to have DRM built-in for itself, it just isn't usually an issue, except when people want to run OS X on non-Apple hardware.
really doesn't do all that much 'lock in' at all.
Proprietary GUI, meaning even Unix-y Mac tools aren't easy to port to other Unices unless you use X11, which sucks on the Mac.
OS X and Linux are MUCH more closely related under the hood than eith