Nor did you respond to my comment which is obviously in a similar vein. That said, I wasn't aware that AMD supplied schematics and didn't protect their patents so that I could use their designs in my own products. The fact is, I can not go out and implement my own Opteron's nor use their designs without licensing.
I don't like to confuse the fact that the API/ABI is public with the notion that the product itself and all its workings are non-proprietary -- because they are proprietary.
None-the-less, I'll concede that they divulge a lot of information but that does that not mean that they are not proprietary (which the OP was contrasting). I hate to do this, but here is a snippet from the wikipedia entry for "proprietary":
"Something proprietary is something exclusively owned by someone, often with connotations that it is exclusive and cannot be used by other parties without negotiations. It may specifically mean that something is covered by one or more patents, as in proprietary technology. It can also mean that the copyright is used in a way that restricts the users' freedoms. "
Sorry but what would you consider an open processor then? All the documentation on the Opteron is available free of charge. What more are you looking for them to provide?
Well, the Win32 API is documented, too. Is it open?
Actually, I quite well understand. You don't understand that you can't change the meaning of a word to suit your particular want-of spin-doctoring. "Commercial, off-the-shelf" != Open.
The AMD chip is still proprietary as are the interconnect technologies. The fact that they come in packages you can assemble yourself to build your own custom solutions is really the focus of the article, but completely besides-the-point in terms of "openness". I don't mind the article or the technology but I don't see the need to frame it as "open".
You are right, that wasn't funny. Still, I think there is a big difference between something like that "joke" and the various Simpsons references that one is apt to see. A Simpsons reference (or similar) is almost invariably given as a verbatim quote used in context. They aren't really jokes -- they are supporting evidence. The Simpsons are typically quoted today in the same way that Shakespeare or Kierkegaard once were. They provide a common point of reference.
On the other hand, these "all your base", "in soviet russia", "beowolf cluster", "insensitive clod" type 'jokes' are simply rehashing of a situation molded to the subject at hand. It is the lamest possible joke of all -- repeating someone else's witicism just after they said it but in the wrong context. Slashdot can claim to have invented an even lamer version of that by combining that form of "humour" with the other lamest form of humour, perpetuation. Actually, perpetuation can be funny -- but usually only when done very well and by very skilled comedians and it typically requires some fresh material at its base.
Anyways, the end result leaves one reminded of Hollywood's incessant use of fart jokes. Hey, maybe it isn't a slashdot phenomenon after all.
Nuclear power is only cheap if you measure its cost with an archaic accounting system that cannot apply a major future expense to the period of production that brings that expense about. Most of the cost in the current technology is in handling the waste products over a very long future period. An appropriate solution to recycling or permanently storing nuclear waste is no closer today than it was in 1960.
You mean the same archaic accounting process that completely ignores externality costs in oil production and consumption? If the Atomic industry was run the same way as the hydrocarbon industry, we'd all be riding in electric cars.
There is no parity in costing because people confuse total cost with price so where one industry may try (or be forced) to do more, another industry is not. I agree that we SHOULD be costing externalities into price, but it is difficult to get agreement on these issues.
Economics are always favourable when you don't account for externalities or when you blue-sky about proposed but unproven technologies. Fission energy shouldn't be dismissed so easily, particularly when there is such a need for a petrochemical replacement. I wouldn't advocate it as "the" solution but it can be a temporary crutch until we can figure out what the hell to do in the long run.
He has every right to change his content in anyway he sees fit. It is his site, his bandwidth and he pays the bills. Fudruckers could have contacted him and asked for permission to host his copyrighted game. They did not. Instead, on their site they presented the link to his game (at his site) as if it was their own. You don't see that as egregious?
As for the original burgertime game -- if the copyright owners of that original game have any problem with this guy's work then they have every right to pursue that. They haven't and regardless of if they should, it does not in anyway excuse fuddruckers. If only people who were totally and purely innocent of all misdeeds were allowed to raise issues and take action then I'm afraid we would all have to STFU.
Decency in this case would have been for fuddruckers to approach this gentleman, not the other way around. Do you really think any corporation is entitled to a free lunch? He had a good point and he did the right thing, albeit strongly. The best part though is that some kids will no longer eat meat as a result of this. Fricking beautiful!!
"Corporate Agriculture is evil? The same corporate agriculture that has been enable farmers to increase yields and stopping famines from occurring in India and China?"
Yes, the same corporate agriculture which is over-utilizing pesticides, displacing small and family run farms, creating and using genetically modified products which have yet to be proven non-benign, creating "self-terminating" seeds to ensure revenue flow and reducing overall bio-diversity by overplanting specific strains of crops.
Its a shame that your argument is so weak. What to expect? You are an uneducated, fucking tool of corporate agriculture.
You would lose that bet unless your hypothetical scientist happened to be a farmer growing traditional crops. of course, it is another story if you simply meant a diet that could sustain someone without regard to health or wealtfare until they died and that further, there was no concern how long they continued to live. Two weeks, two months? Who cares as long as it proves your point, yes?
Agriculture is not in itself immoral, but corporate agriculture is and I personally think that the same is true of meat production. Want to really save the earth? Look a little deeper into the food industry and then decide for yourself what choices are best.
Sorry I wasn't more clear--it was supposed to be slightly lighthearted since I am trying to avoid a flamefest on this one:) It turns out that I was the OP and my point was to show that incorporating is a slippery slope. The girlfriend analogy was a little joke on that side. Sure, it will be a solely owned corporate entity today but what about tommorow?
The main premise is that the reasons given for pimping out Mozilla into a corporate shell are not clear compared to the stated and assumed needs of the Mozilla Foundation and FOSS projects in general. What makes Mozilla so special that it requires this whereas the Linux kernel did not? Nor Emacs. Nor the GNU compiler and toolchain. Nor Apache. Nor x.org. Get my drift?
So I guess you won't mind if your girlfriend goes away to vegas with me, right? After all, she'll still be your girlfriend -- for now.
It seems to me that other FOSS projects even more successful than Mozilla haven't resorted to this. Of course, those projects used a license better than the MPL, so go figure.
It also seems to me that any amount of money that the corporation can persue or recieve can equally well be done through the foundation so long as the money was dispersed. In the normal world where everyone else lives, foundations typically support underfunded individuals, groups and even companies that serve the common cause of the foundation. Mozilla is turning this upside down and for no apparent reason.
On the FAQ page it begins by saying "The Mozilla Corporation is a taxable subsidiary that serves the non-profit, public benefit goals of its parent, the Mozilla Foundation" yet Corporations have a duty to profit and serving the interest of its shareholders, not the public benefit. This is going to piss a lot of people off no matter what kind of spin they put on it.
Perhaps you have heard of people using multiple accounts or getting their bum buddies to help them troll? God you are guillable and ignorant. Besides, the fact remains, node3 is an idiot who doesn't understand the internet, doesn't understand web standards and how they have played out in the "mainstream", doesn't have even the slightest grasp of the historical facts regarding the technologies and companies that are under discussion and has fairly much no concept of logic and debate. His argumet boils down to, "you are wrong because foobar exists" when foobar was neither first adopted by Apple, is not relevant to a discussion of a technology being adopted in a web platform, is itself not a web standard (and so is subject to different rules) and in every case had a major vendor behind it proposing it as a proprietary technology tied to their product lines. In every case completely unlike the discussion at hand. A larger fool and mean spirited asswipe I have not seen in quite awhile.
node3 this is so obviously you posting as an AC. When you grow up, hopefully you will understand why you are completely wrong. Instead of following the debate you got stuck up on the fact that I said "period", which is very amusing. You are wrong not because I said you are wrong but rather because your argument is based on unrelated points to the debate and moreso, come from an obviously biased point of view. It is not my job to show you how and where you went wrong. The fact that you modded me down in a discussion that you were participating in shows exactly how weak your argument is. The fact that you resorted to name calling--quite early I might add and without provocation or any logical reason--shows very poorly on you. The fact that you could never answer my claims directly but rather only used non-related arguments to "prove" your point shows that you aren't up to the challenge. That you finally come back as an anonymous coward says it all. Guy, its not worth it. Who cares one way or another? Why are you acting like such a jerk--just because you can't stand being wrong? Good luck with that. You certainly need it.
Mainly true, but I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream where 'mainstream' is described as the antithesis of 'individuality'. Under that definition, we can discern 'alternative' from 'mainstream' and I would suggest that Firefox remains an alternative browser while iPod is certainly a mainstream MP3 player. 'mainstream' is a rather soft term and I'm afraid it greatly hurt this discussion. Never-the-less, when applied to a technology as opposed to an item from popular culture one needs discern in-use pervasiveness from other features. What can 'mainstream' possibly mean for a technology other than that it is widely deployed and transparently accessible?
Certainly SVG is not yet in the mainstream and this is what the original poster asked: would Apple's adoption lead it to the mainstream. That remains perposterous. It will take more than that and in my opionion, that means native adoption on IE.
Another poster here has tried to show that technologies can go mainstream without being adopted by IE. Of course, it doesn't take much intelligence to figure that out; unfortunately, none of his counter-examples to my claim were things first adopted by Apple (excepting QuickTime) and none were of the type that SVG is (an open WEB standard). In other words, he was completely off-topic and argumentative without considering the original supposition in the least. Apple has adopted several webstandards that Microsoft (and IE) have not -- so I ask: does the web conform to the standards or to IE? Up-to-now, the answer has decidedly been "IE".
Oh so the Death Penalty part is just a red-herring to attract attention? That's adds despicable on-top-of despicable. Off with their heads!
Your assertion that we don't think critically about our own culture is rather unkind. Many of the people here seem to spend a lot of time thinking about the way modern super-companies have co-opted all areas of human endeaver -- to the detriment of the individual and society at large. Many also think hard about the role that they as individuals and technologists in general play in society.
Political and corporate corruption is a much, much larger problem. Why not an article suggesting the death penalty for those offenders?
Okay, I don't want to argue with you but you it would be less likely if you would stick to the topic instaead of pointing out completely unrelated (and at least in the case of Java and Real arguably not even mainstream) technologies. You still haven't explained while SVG will succeed now that it is being adopted to Apple. I gave reasons why I think it won't. Your claim that "it only takes one other technology to show that I am wrong" is completely unfounded -- these are absolutely unrelated to SVG adoption and you are merely using red herrings instead of argument and logic. Prove the SVG case because if two items are unrelated and one is true, it does not make the other true as well. So you pointing to other technologies doesn't support your claim in the least.
So I ask: what makes this Apple event so special in regards to SVG and it becoming mainstream when, as you yourself noted, SVG is already supported everywhere at least via plugins and yet is decidedly not mainstream? Don't answer unless you have a compelling argument, which to-date you have not even come close to providing.
I on-the-other hand did provide reasons for my view. You refuse to accept them because they don't meet your expectations. Pity. But you are wrong. Period.
Think harder homer. When PDF hit the world, there was no CSS, no HTML, nothing in fact, except for proprietary page layout software and word processors. It filled a gap that others still have a hard time filling because it did it so well. On the other hand, one has to wonder if it would have the same impact if it was released today rather than back when. Indeed, who can offer an alternative to PDF at this point? Microsoft is about to try -- and considering their weight, they actually have a chance. Otherwise, the PDF argument is rather specious. As is the Java argument (how many websites deploy content/behaviours with Java?) and so many others that are being offered.
Lets compare like-to-like. TFA is talking about SVG becoming mainstream in relation to it being included in a browser. As we already know, there are plugins for SVG for almost every browser on every platform yet it is decidedly not mainstream yet. What is the major difference between Flash and PDF and SVG? Flash and PDF were earlier to market and are also proprietary (read single vendor) solutions.
So enough with the non-sequitors -- SVG needs IE adoption for success as does every web standard. To say otherwise is to support a rather uncommon view of the word "mainstream".
You don't seem to appreciate the fact that SVG is a web standard and for acceptance it requires native adoption in a web browser. That means IE. Period.
Your example also proves the point: iPod is mainstream just because it is BY FAR the dominant player in the industry. Just as IE is in the browser world. You recognize that as true, yes?
BTW, I never said that any technology not natively implemented by MS is not mainstream -- nice try at putting words in my mouth. I was talking about the specific case of SVG and I really do believe that your view is not as realistic as it might be. Of course, time will tell and a good part of me hopes that YOU are right!
I disagree--I think the GP got it right. If MS doesn't support it natively, it is not mainstream. Period. It may suck hard, but that doesn't mean it isn't fact. It has nothing to do with critical mass either; it has to do with penetration of implementations. Even if Safari, Firefox and every KDE browser in existence got it native and assuming that everyone who could upgrade did upgrade--it would still represent a marginal user base compared to the countless IE browsers in-use and without the plugin. Rembmber too that MS developed a differing system to SVG.
That said, there is some reason to think that SVG has a chance of going mainstream, but I don't see any reason to think that this will be the touchpoint that spurs the change.
"Some people have a different sense of humor than you."
So everyone is funny? I think not. Unfortuantely, everyone on slashdot thinks they are. Anyways, even the funniest of comedians get heckled. Why should an unfunny comment on slashdot have a more privledged position? In summary, if someone has the right to say any old stupid thing that comes to their mind and someone else thinks that it is funny then surely I have the right to disagree. Wholeheartedly.
Slashdot Mirror
Nor did you respond to my comment which is obviously in a similar vein. That said, I wasn't aware that AMD supplied schematics and didn't protect their patents so that I could use their designs in my own products. The fact is, I can not go out and implement my own Opteron's nor use their designs without licensing.
I don't like to confuse the fact that the API/ABI is public with the notion that the product itself and all its workings are non-proprietary -- because they are proprietary.
None-the-less, I'll concede that they divulge a lot of information but that does that not mean that they are not proprietary (which the OP was contrasting). I hate to do this, but here is a snippet from the wikipedia entry for "proprietary":
"Something proprietary is something exclusively owned by someone, often with connotations that it is exclusive and cannot be used by other parties without negotiations. It may specifically mean that something is covered by one or more patents, as in proprietary technology. It can also mean that the copyright is used in a way that restricts the users' freedoms. "
Well, the Win32 API is documented, too. Is it open?
Actually, I quite well understand. You don't understand that you can't change the meaning of a word to suit your particular want-of spin-doctoring. "Commercial, off-the-shelf" != Open.
The AMD chip is still proprietary as are the interconnect technologies. The fact that they come in packages you can assemble yourself to build your own custom solutions is really the focus of the article, but completely besides-the-point in terms of "openness". I don't mind the article or the technology but I don't see the need to frame it as "open".
Proprietary is proprietary. AMD chips are no more "open" than any other vendor's chips.
You are right, that wasn't funny. Still, I think there is a big difference between something like that "joke" and the various Simpsons references that one is apt to see. A Simpsons reference (or similar) is almost invariably given as a verbatim quote used in context. They aren't really jokes -- they are supporting evidence. The Simpsons are typically quoted today in the same way that Shakespeare or Kierkegaard once were. They provide a common point of reference.
On the other hand, these "all your base", "in soviet russia", "beowolf cluster", "insensitive clod" type 'jokes' are simply rehashing of a situation molded to the subject at hand. It is the lamest possible joke of all -- repeating someone else's witicism just after they said it but in the wrong context. Slashdot can claim to have invented an even lamer version of that by combining that form of "humour" with the other lamest form of humour, perpetuation. Actually, perpetuation can be funny -- but usually only when done very well and by very skilled comedians and it typically requires some fresh material at its base.
Anyways, the end result leaves one reminded of Hollywood's incessant use of fart jokes. Hey, maybe it isn't a slashdot phenomenon after all.
You mean the same archaic accounting process that completely ignores externality costs in oil production and consumption? If the Atomic industry was run the same way as the hydrocarbon industry, we'd all be riding in electric cars.
There is no parity in costing because people confuse total cost with price so where one industry may try (or be forced) to do more, another industry is not. I agree that we SHOULD be costing externalities into price, but it is difficult to get agreement on these issues.
Economics are always favourable when you don't account for externalities or when you blue-sky about proposed but unproven technologies. Fission energy shouldn't be dismissed so easily, particularly when there is such a need for a petrochemical replacement. I wouldn't advocate it as "the" solution but it can be a temporary crutch until we can figure out what the hell to do in the long run.
He has every right to change his content in anyway he sees fit. It is his site, his bandwidth and he pays the bills. Fudruckers could have contacted him and asked for permission to host his copyrighted game. They did not. Instead, on their site they presented the link to his game (at his site) as if it was their own. You don't see that as egregious?
As for the original burgertime game -- if the copyright owners of that original game have any problem with this guy's work then they have every right to pursue that. They haven't and regardless of if they should, it does not in anyway excuse fuddruckers. If only people who were totally and purely innocent of all misdeeds were allowed to raise issues and take action then I'm afraid we would all have to STFU.
Decency in this case would have been for fuddruckers to approach this gentleman, not the other way around. Do you really think any corporation is entitled to a free lunch? He had a good point and he did the right thing, albeit strongly. The best part though is that some kids will no longer eat meat as a result of this. Fricking beautiful!!
"Corporate Agriculture is evil? The same corporate agriculture that has been enable farmers to increase yields and stopping famines from occurring in India and China?"
Yes, the same corporate agriculture which is over-utilizing pesticides, displacing small and family run farms, creating and using genetically modified products which have yet to be proven non-benign, creating "self-terminating" seeds to ensure revenue flow and reducing overall bio-diversity by overplanting specific strains of crops.
Its a shame that your argument is so weak. What to expect? You are an uneducated, fucking tool of corporate agriculture.
You would lose that bet unless your hypothetical scientist happened to be a farmer growing traditional crops. of course, it is another story if you simply meant a diet that could sustain someone without regard to health or wealtfare until they died and that further, there was no concern how long they continued to live. Two weeks, two months? Who cares as long as it proves your point, yes?
Agriculture is not in itself immoral, but corporate agriculture is and I personally think that the same is true of meat production. Want to really save the earth? Look a little deeper into the food industry and then decide for yourself what choices are best.
Sorry I wasn't more clear--it was supposed to be slightly lighthearted since I am trying to avoid a flamefest on this one :) It turns out that I was the OP and my point was to show that incorporating is a slippery slope. The girlfriend analogy was a little joke on that side. Sure, it will be a solely owned corporate entity today but what about tommorow?
The main premise is that the reasons given for pimping out Mozilla into a corporate shell are not clear compared to the stated and assumed needs of the Mozilla Foundation and FOSS projects in general. What makes Mozilla so special that it requires this whereas the Linux kernel did not? Nor Emacs. Nor the GNU compiler and toolchain. Nor Apache. Nor x.org. Get my drift?
So I guess you won't mind if your girlfriend goes away to vegas with me, right? After all, she'll still be your girlfriend -- for now.
It seems to me that other FOSS projects even more successful than Mozilla haven't resorted to this. Of course, those projects used a license better than the MPL, so go figure.
It also seems to me that any amount of money that the corporation can persue or recieve can equally well be done through the foundation so long as the money was dispersed. In the normal world where everyone else lives, foundations typically support underfunded individuals, groups and even companies that serve the common cause of the foundation. Mozilla is turning this upside down and for no apparent reason.
On the FAQ page it begins by saying "The Mozilla Corporation is a taxable subsidiary that serves the non-profit, public benefit goals of its parent, the Mozilla Foundation" yet Corporations have a duty to profit and serving the interest of its shareholders, not the public benefit. This is going to piss a lot of people off no matter what kind of spin they put on it.
Perhaps you have heard of people using multiple accounts or getting their bum buddies to help them troll? God you are guillable and ignorant. Besides, the fact remains, node3 is an idiot who doesn't understand the internet, doesn't understand web standards and how they have played out in the "mainstream", doesn't have even the slightest grasp of the historical facts regarding the technologies and companies that are under discussion and has fairly much no concept of logic and debate. His argumet boils down to, "you are wrong because foobar exists" when foobar was neither first adopted by Apple, is not relevant to a discussion of a technology being adopted in a web platform, is itself not a web standard (and so is subject to different rules) and in every case had a major vendor behind it proposing it as a proprietary technology tied to their product lines. In every case completely unlike the discussion at hand. A larger fool and mean spirited asswipe I have not seen in quite awhile.
node3 this is so obviously you posting as an AC. When you grow up, hopefully you will understand why you are completely wrong. Instead of following the debate you got stuck up on the fact that I said "period", which is very amusing. You are wrong not because I said you are wrong but rather because your argument is based on unrelated points to the debate and moreso, come from an obviously biased point of view. It is not my job to show you how and where you went wrong. The fact that you modded me down in a discussion that you were participating in shows exactly how weak your argument is. The fact that you resorted to name calling--quite early I might add and without provocation or any logical reason--shows very poorly on you. The fact that you could never answer my claims directly but rather only used non-related arguments to "prove" your point shows that you aren't up to the challenge. That you finally come back as an anonymous coward says it all. Guy, its not worth it. Who cares one way or another? Why are you acting like such a jerk--just because you can't stand being wrong? Good luck with that. You certainly need it.
News Flash: due to slashdotting, sarcasm is no longer funny.
Mainly true, but I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream where 'mainstream' is described as the antithesis of 'individuality'. Under that definition, we can discern 'alternative' from 'mainstream' and I would suggest that Firefox remains an alternative browser while iPod is certainly a mainstream MP3 player. 'mainstream' is a rather soft term and I'm afraid it greatly hurt this discussion. Never-the-less, when applied to a technology as opposed to an item from popular culture one needs discern in-use pervasiveness from other features. What can 'mainstream' possibly mean for a technology other than that it is widely deployed and transparently accessible?
Certainly SVG is not yet in the mainstream and this is what the original poster asked: would Apple's adoption lead it to the mainstream. That remains perposterous. It will take more than that and in my opionion, that means native adoption on IE.
Another poster here has tried to show that technologies can go mainstream without being adopted by IE. Of course, it doesn't take much intelligence to figure that out; unfortunately, none of his counter-examples to my claim were things first adopted by Apple (excepting QuickTime) and none were of the type that SVG is (an open WEB standard). In other words, he was completely off-topic and argumentative without considering the original supposition in the least. Apple has adopted several webstandards that Microsoft (and IE) have not -- so I ask: does the web conform to the standards or to IE? Up-to-now, the answer has decidedly been "IE".
Oh so the Death Penalty part is just a red-herring to attract attention? That's adds despicable on-top-of despicable. Off with their heads!
Your assertion that we don't think critically about our own culture is rather unkind. Many of the people here seem to spend a lot of time thinking about the way modern super-companies have co-opted all areas of human endeaver -- to the detriment of the individual and society at large. Many also think hard about the role that they as individuals and technologists in general play in society.
Political and corporate corruption is a much, much larger problem. Why not an article suggesting the death penalty for those offenders?
God are dumb. I'd hit you with the clue stick but that would mean the destruction of entire clue forest. Good luck with that.
Okay, I don't want to argue with you but you it would be less likely if you would stick to the topic instaead of pointing out completely unrelated (and at least in the case of Java and Real arguably not even mainstream) technologies. You still haven't explained while SVG will succeed now that it is being adopted to Apple. I gave reasons why I think it won't. Your claim that "it only takes one other technology to show that I am wrong" is completely unfounded -- these are absolutely unrelated to SVG adoption and you are merely using red herrings instead of argument and logic. Prove the SVG case because if two items are unrelated and one is true, it does not make the other true as well. So you pointing to other technologies doesn't support your claim in the least.
So I ask: what makes this Apple event so special in regards to SVG and it becoming mainstream when, as you yourself noted, SVG is already supported everywhere at least via plugins and yet is decidedly not mainstream? Don't answer unless you have a compelling argument, which to-date you have not even come close to providing.
I on-the-other hand did provide reasons for my view. You refuse to accept them because they don't meet your expectations. Pity. But you are wrong. Period.
Dude, you aren't worth arguing with because you think you are right regardless of how little supports your view.
Cheers.
Think harder homer. When PDF hit the world, there was no CSS, no HTML, nothing in fact, except for proprietary page layout software and word processors. It filled a gap that others still have a hard time filling because it did it so well. On the other hand, one has to wonder if it would have the same impact if it was released today rather than back when. Indeed, who can offer an alternative to PDF at this point? Microsoft is about to try -- and considering their weight, they actually have a chance. Otherwise, the PDF argument is rather specious. As is the Java argument (how many websites deploy content/behaviours with Java?) and so many others that are being offered.
Lets compare like-to-like. TFA is talking about SVG becoming mainstream in relation to it being included in a browser. As we already know, there are plugins for SVG for almost every browser on every platform yet it is decidedly not mainstream yet. What is the major difference between Flash and PDF and SVG? Flash and PDF were earlier to market and are also proprietary (read single vendor) solutions.
So enough with the non-sequitors -- SVG needs IE adoption for success as does every web standard. To say otherwise is to support a rather uncommon view of the word "mainstream".
You don't seem to appreciate the fact that SVG is a web standard and for acceptance it requires native adoption in a web browser. That means IE. Period.
Your example also proves the point: iPod is mainstream just because it is BY FAR the dominant player in the industry. Just as IE is in the browser world. You recognize that as true, yes?
BTW, I never said that any technology not natively implemented by MS is not mainstream -- nice try at putting words in my mouth. I was talking about the specific case of SVG and I really do believe that your view is not as realistic as it might be. Of course, time will tell and a good part of me hopes that YOU are right!
I disagree--I think the GP got it right. If MS doesn't support it natively, it is not mainstream. Period. It may suck hard, but that doesn't mean it isn't fact. It has nothing to do with critical mass either; it has to do with penetration of implementations. Even if Safari, Firefox and every KDE browser in existence got it native and assuming that everyone who could upgrade did upgrade--it would still represent a marginal user base compared to the countless IE browsers in-use and without the plugin. Rembmber too that MS developed a differing system to SVG.
That said, there is some reason to think that SVG has a chance of going mainstream, but I don't see any reason to think that this will be the touchpoint that spurs the change.
"Some people have a different sense of humor than you."
So everyone is funny? I think not. Unfortuantely, everyone on slashdot thinks they are. Anyways, even the funniest of comedians get heckled. Why should an unfunny comment on slashdot have a more privledged position? In summary, if someone has the right to say any old stupid thing that comes to their mind and someone else thinks that it is funny then surely I have the right to disagree. Wholeheartedly.
you only say that because you are a disgusting anonymous coward.