Back when the RIAA was focused on Napster and P2P, didn't we say they shouldn't be focusing on the technology, but on those who misuse it?
Now they're doing just that - focusing on the people, not the technology. Their methods could be a lot better (they should focus on people who share a lot, not anyone with an MP3 with a suspicious name), but they *are* on the right track.
What it boils down to is the business models are flawed.
Customers are led to believe costs will be lower in a UDC/ODC. However, think about it - the hosting company has just taken on all of the risk of hardward procurement. To cover the risk, it has to be baked into the costs. Otherwise, what happens if you board a customer who has very low utilization? They don't pay much, and you can't recover the cost of the hardware. Thus costs are higher, and it violates customers' expectations - they dont sign. Furthermore, many software licensing schemes are incompatible with a UDC/ODC - they're based on total size of the host platform, and don't take into account utilization, partitions, etc. That adds cost as well. And then there's a lot of technology to make it all happen, but no amount of good tech will fix such a flawed business model.
It's too expensive and is marketed horribly. That's why it died. Now it's up to IBM alone to prove this will work...
Well, they've already stated that Mario 64 will be ported, and from this article on the launch (lot more responsive than Smoking-Hulk-Of-PlanetGameCube), looks like GBA games will be compatible (although that goes against everything else I've read).
I actually think this might work. I've always been skeptical of business models based on people paying for a music subscription rather than downloads. People like the idea that years down the line it's still theirs, and is always theirs.
This gets around it by having a receptive audience already in place - XM subscribers who effectively pay for commercial-free music streaming already. This just adds it to their computer as well as their car, etc.
Off-topic, but since when has Real been so friendly to Linux? Not trolling, I genuinely hadn't noticed that. I mean, if open source is the only criteria then QuickTime Streaming Server has been open source for years.
A couple of notes on those forums - MacNN tends to have a lot of noise to signal, and a LOT of immature people. You'll start to realize that Slashdot really *is* a better bunch.:) MacFixit, while an *excellent* site, requires a membership these days to search the archives or post in their forums. Still for a switcher it may be worth your while, and the folks there are very knowlegeable.
I highly recommend MacUpdate for software updates (and for finding a utility to do x-y-z), MacMinute for news (if you care), and the best of them all, Mac OS X Hints for daily tweaks, tips, and just plain cool stuff.
Welcome - the grass really is greener over here.:)
The point is that storage space is no longer a realistic issue outside of video. Bare bones consumer machines have 80GB hard drives. Laptops have at least 40GB drives. Who cares if your word processor is 5MB or 100MB? That's not what's filling your drive, it's all the pr0n you've got on there.
You've got some serious financial issues. I don't make a great salary by any standards, but I could purchase a couple of 250MB drives and sticks of memory for under a grand, easily. I'm not saying my monthly budget wouldn't hurt, but if I needed it I could do it.
Chart hard drive capacity over the years. If memory serves, it has outpaced Moore's Law. Remember, back in the mid-80's, your memory size and disk size were fairly close, or a factor of 10 at most. Today, power users have maybe 1GB of RAM, but 300GB of hard drive space.
People have been looking for replacements for winchester technology for years, and it has never happened. Optical, flash, etc. They have different uses (obviously), but they don't reach the all-around usefulness of a magnetic hard drive.
This doesn't seem possible - that's what, 100,000 x 300GB hard drives? Are they really providing that much, or is this the total amount available on the entire network?
Hold on a second - according to your own link, one CANNOT create a file that matches a given hash. They can create two streams with matching hashes, but they can't take an arbitrary existing file and create another file with the same hash.
An attacker can generate two messages M and M' such that Hash(M) = Hash(M'). Currently this is possible for MD5 but we have to consider the possibility that it will be eventually possible for SHA-1.
Note that he cannot (currently) generate a message M such that Hash(M) is a given hash value, nor can he generate a message M' such that it hashes the same as a fixed message M.
Could someone please explain how a project like Wine (emphasis on the "is NOT an emulator" part) could be made to run on Mac OS X PPC? I could see it running on Darwin/x86, but it seems to go against the grain of the project to run on PPC. Even if all of the Wine libs were compiled for PPC, how would this make any difference as the Windows applications would still be x86 binaries?
The proper solution is to have a strong set of UI guidelines and standard libraries that make it trivially easy to follow those standards, not to limit the capability of the system just because you don't trust people not to abuse it.
Could someone explain what's wrong with buying CD's? After all, if you hate the evil music cartels, then you don't want to deal with the artists who signed with them and support them.
Actually, when you think about it, this part of it is good. People know that exceptions won't be made. However, corrections to the system need to be possible, and that's where it all falls down right now.
Yes, let's add guns so weapons don't need to be smuggled. Let's add lockouts so someone can take *that* system over without even being on a plane. Let's add anti-aircraft weaponry on buildings so all of *that* has to be secured in a million places. Yup, the answer sure is adding more weapons...
I don't think anyone minds having more music files, I think it's a matter of support. Since users will be dealing with an Apple iPod and assumedly Apple iTunes, when something breaks they're going to call Apple for help, and Apple will have to waste time and resources on a competitor's product.
We're not against more music choices, we're against saddling a company we particularly like with support headaches and costs they have no reason to bear.
Let's please get one thing straight - Real is not doing "freedom" any favors with harmony. All it does is reapply the same DRM limitations on the resulting iPod-compatible file. You're still stuck with a hobbled, limited file.
Meanwhile, look at it from Apple's perspective (please, give it a try, just for a moment). User buys songs from Real, with their DRM limitations. User converts them, loads them on iPod, assumedly through iTunes. Now, the user tries to play them on multiple computers, etc like Apple DRM allows... and it doesn't play. Who are they calling? Do they remember which store they bought it from? No, they see that iTunes isn't playing something, and they call Apple. Now some Apple tech has to figure out that this is a Real AAC, not an Apple AAC, and figure out how the hell their DRM integrates (or doesn't) with iTunes, etc. This is a support disaster waiting to happen, and it will be Apple's, not Real's.
And finally, for those who read veiled threats into the press release Apple sent out about the iPod maybe not working in the future with such files - why not take it at face value for a moment? It's widely known that third parties supply the chips and guts of the iPod, so it's not such a reach that one of these new generations of chips and software just won't be prepared for whatever hack Real has done, and it will break. No conspiracy, no revenge, just simple fact of life in development.
I could see your point if they were stripping out DRM to create a DRM-less product. However, all they're doing is converting their DRM to Apple's DRM. This has nothing to do with arguments over DRM and its validity, and everything to do with whether or not Apple can control who can license its DRM technology.
However, since you can't run both simultaneously (damn lack of multitasking) you still can't tunnel your VNC through SSH. How I wish someone would combine the two into an all-in-one VNC-through-SSH app...
Slashdot Mirror
Back when the RIAA was focused on Napster and P2P, didn't we say they shouldn't be focusing on the technology, but on those who misuse it?
Now they're doing just that - focusing on the people, not the technology. Their methods could be a lot better (they should focus on people who share a lot, not anyone with an MP3 with a suspicious name), but they *are* on the right track.
What it boils down to is the business models are flawed.
Customers are led to believe costs will be lower in a UDC/ODC. However, think about it - the hosting company has just taken on all of the risk of hardward procurement. To cover the risk, it has to be baked into the costs. Otherwise, what happens if you board a customer who has very low utilization? They don't pay much, and you can't recover the cost of the hardware. Thus costs are higher, and it violates customers' expectations - they dont sign. Furthermore, many software licensing schemes are incompatible with a UDC/ODC - they're based on total size of the host platform, and don't take into account utilization, partitions, etc. That adds cost as well. And then there's a lot of technology to make it all happen, but no amount of good tech will fix such a flawed business model.
It's too expensive and is marketed horribly. That's why it died. Now it's up to IBM alone to prove this will work...
Well, they've already stated that Mario 64 will be ported, and from this article on the launch (lot more responsive than Smoking-Hulk-Of-PlanetGameCube), looks like GBA games will be compatible (although that goes against everything else I've read).
9 96.html
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/09/21/news_6107
I actually think this might work. I've always been skeptical of business models based on people paying for a music subscription rather than downloads. People like the idea that years down the line it's still theirs, and is always theirs.
This gets around it by having a receptive audience already in place - XM subscribers who effectively pay for commercial-free music streaming already. This just adds it to their computer as well as their car, etc.
Nice move.
However no company can throw money away by supporting a platform that wont recoup the cost of devlopment.
But they'll sell 3 million songs below cost?
Off-topic, but since when has Real been so friendly to Linux? Not trolling, I genuinely hadn't noticed that. I mean, if open source is the only criteria then QuickTime Streaming Server has been open source for years.
A couple of notes on those forums - MacNN tends to have a lot of noise to signal, and a LOT of immature people. You'll start to realize that Slashdot really *is* a better bunch. :) MacFixit, while an *excellent* site, requires a membership these days to search the archives or post in their forums. Still for a switcher it may be worth your while, and the folks there are very knowlegeable.
:)
I highly recommend MacUpdate for software updates (and for finding a utility to do x-y-z), MacMinute for news (if you care), and the best of them all, Mac OS X Hints for daily tweaks, tips, and just plain cool stuff.
Welcome - the grass really is greener over here.
The point is that storage space is no longer a realistic issue outside of video. Bare bones consumer machines have 80GB hard drives. Laptops have at least 40GB drives. Who cares if your word processor is 5MB or 100MB? That's not what's filling your drive, it's all the pr0n you've got on there.
You've got some serious financial issues. I don't make a great salary by any standards, but I could purchase a couple of 250MB drives and sticks of memory for under a grand, easily. I'm not saying my monthly budget wouldn't hurt, but if I needed it I could do it.
Chart hard drive capacity over the years. If memory serves, it has outpaced Moore's Law. Remember, back in the mid-80's, your memory size and disk size were fairly close, or a factor of 10 at most. Today, power users have maybe 1GB of RAM, but 300GB of hard drive space.
People have been looking for replacements for winchester technology for years, and it has never happened. Optical, flash, etc. They have different uses (obviously), but they don't reach the all-around usefulness of a magnetic hard drive.
This doesn't seem possible - that's what, 100,000 x 300GB hard drives? Are they really providing that much, or is this the total amount available on the entire network?
And I see problems. One person does not make a statistically significant sample.
I know I won't get an answer, but how the hell did I get rated "Redundant" when I posted this *before* all of the other "+5 yadayada" posts? WTF?
Could someone please explain how a project like Wine (emphasis on the "is NOT an emulator" part) could be made to run on Mac OS X PPC? I could see it running on Darwin/x86, but it seems to go against the grain of the project to run on PPC. Even if all of the Wine libs were compiled for PPC, how would this make any difference as the Windows applications would still be x86 binaries?
The proper solution is to have a strong set of UI guidelines and standard libraries that make it trivially easy to follow those standards, not to limit the capability of the system just because you don't trust people not to abuse it.
Hey, this is Linux we're talking about.
Could someone explain what's wrong with buying CD's? After all, if you hate the evil music cartels, then you don't want to deal with the artists who signed with them and support them.
Right?
Perhaps they alter it because the gestalt is what's important, not the specific groups?
Actually, when you think about it, this part of it is good. People know that exceptions won't be made. However, corrections to the system need to be possible, and that's where it all falls down right now.
Yes, let's add guns so weapons don't need to be smuggled. Let's add lockouts so someone can take *that* system over without even being on a plane. Let's add anti-aircraft weaponry on buildings so all of *that* has to be secured in a million places. Yup, the answer sure is adding more weapons...
Yes, but are Apple's Fairplay DRM restrictions the same as Real's? And which set of restrictions are in "Harmonized" files? That's the problem.
I don't think anyone minds having more music files, I think it's a matter of support. Since users will be dealing with an Apple iPod and assumedly Apple iTunes, when something breaks they're going to call Apple for help, and Apple will have to waste time and resources on a competitor's product.
We're not against more music choices, we're against saddling a company we particularly like with support headaches and costs they have no reason to bear.
Let's please get one thing straight - Real is not doing "freedom" any favors with harmony. All it does is reapply the same DRM limitations on the resulting iPod-compatible file. You're still stuck with a hobbled, limited file.
Meanwhile, look at it from Apple's perspective (please, give it a try, just for a moment). User buys songs from Real, with their DRM limitations. User converts them, loads them on iPod, assumedly through iTunes. Now, the user tries to play them on multiple computers, etc like Apple DRM allows... and it doesn't play. Who are they calling? Do they remember which store they bought it from? No, they see that iTunes isn't playing something, and they call Apple. Now some Apple tech has to figure out that this is a Real AAC, not an Apple AAC, and figure out how the hell their DRM integrates (or doesn't) with iTunes, etc. This is a support disaster waiting to happen, and it will be Apple's, not Real's.
And finally, for those who read veiled threats into the press release Apple sent out about the iPod maybe not working in the future with such files - why not take it at face value for a moment? It's widely known that third parties supply the chips and guts of the iPod, so it's not such a reach that one of these new generations of chips and software just won't be prepared for whatever hack Real has done, and it will break. No conspiracy, no revenge, just simple fact of life in development.
I could see your point if they were stripping out DRM to create a DRM-less product. However, all they're doing is converting their DRM to Apple's DRM. This has nothing to do with arguments over DRM and its validity, and everything to do with whether or not Apple can control who can license its DRM technology.
However, since you can't run both simultaneously (damn lack of multitasking) you still can't tunnel your VNC through SSH. How I wish someone would combine the two into an all-in-one VNC-through-SSH app...
Of course he doesn't. Now as to what's on the DVD I can't tell you.