"it's actually the strong rights management the phones have that lets companies charge so little for their software and still make a profit."
erm. i own a P800 (I am in the UK). It doesnt really have THAT strong rights management actually. there are no root certificates, or DRM. The only thing that resembles "rights management" is the IMEI number of the phone. Every GSM phone sold in the world (whether smartphone or not) have a unique IMEI number, that in most countries is illegal to modify (and practically useless to modify due to operators), and it is relatively simple to encode into the setup a routine that checks the IMEI number to the purchaser.
It is probably easy to hack it to work with any phone, but considering the cheap prices, and the fact that they are made by independants, few people do this.
Except for the 3 version of the Motorola Symbian phone which only accept applications signed by 3, most symbain phones are relatively open, and pretty much free for all to modify, and support standards well (i really cringe MS entering this market - look at IE)
Also Symbian/Nokia and Ericsson have unofficially provided a lot of help to freeware/shareware developers in the past.
A VERY good open source app for the p800 is oggplay.
No, its probably some patented code that a contributer has liscensed ONLY for the GPL (maybe even IBM code itself) even if its not part of the Linux kernel or even GNU for that matter.
If SCO incorporates ANY GPL code into Unixware, or OpenUnix under terms other than the GPL, they are in violation, woudl woudl have to remove the code, or relicense affected products.
You say you are an attorney? If my attorney made a decision on pure hearsay, i woudl fire him/her. You did not give us any facts, just the presumption that they must be a fine upstanding company. Well so is IBM, and IBM happens to be MORE than SCO. On that assumption you have decided to ditch Linux, and go for MS? Nice deal you got with them!
Groklaw is a site for us NON-LAWYERS. As an attorney, surely you dont need to go to Groklaw of all places right??? you shoudl be well versed on the facts. In fact you shoudl be CONTRIBUTING to the knowledge on Groklaw, not reading it!
This motion in effect redirects the case back to the contract issues. During the life of this suite so far, copyrights tradesecrets, and other issues have been raise by SCO, when initially it was supposed to be only about contracts.
WHat in effect IBM are doing is, filtering out the irrelevent parts, and refocussing it on the Contracts.
Of course the copyright issues were a part fo the contract dispute, and if this motion is granted, and a declaratory judgement is made, it woudl certainly make it harder for SCO to spew more spruious comment in their favour.
Its more a question about timing. Whilst SCO et al, have been blasting away with their outlandish comments, IBM have been staying quiet, and feeding as much rope as possible. This way SCO cannot argue back saying the trail has been unfair to them.
As a side point, I recall someone on Groklaw mentioning that on the motion there is IBM referencing to SCO incorporating GPL code into UnixWare or Unix.
The statement was vague, and MAY have meant SAMBA, etc. However, considering SCO has provided the source code to UnixWare as part of discovery, it is likely they may have found something.
Search for a program called Oggplay for both P800 and P900, and a version available for the Nokia Series 60 (though only later models, as earlier ones didnt have enough memory/processing power). the Px00 version is significantly bettter, especially thanks to the 5 way jogdial on those phones (pause/play - push dial in, next/previous - push dial forward and back, volume - scroll up or down), and also the large 208x320 screen on the Px00 series means there are some really hot skins for it.
Its actually very good quality, but does use virtually all of the P800's processing power (the P900 has a littel more omph) but with skinning, playlist support, etc, it is easily one of the killer apps for the P800...
Ohh it works AMAZINGLY in flip closed mode...
Its open source (i think GPL)...
http://www.geocities.com/p800tools/
or sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/symbi anoggplay
Its really good, and sounds great with the headphones supplied, which is surprising, because most standard headphones are pants.
Their innovation continues to exist in Symbian Devices.
I own a SonyEricsson P800 UIQ based Mobile Phone. Based on the Symbian 7.0 platform, you can still see the Psion/Epoc influence underneath.
The result, a sold stable computing platform, which arguebly crashes FAR less than equivelent MS Smartphones. (this is from personal experience amongst me and my collegues)
A MultiTasking/Multithreading operating system that is easy enough to use (MAC/Palm style), yet DOES allow you access the filesystem (C drive, ddrive, etc), and other system details via freely downloadable software shoudl you wish to tinker.
Its Handwritign recognition is exemplar, and far better and more "user friendly" than Palm's old Graffiti system which was very good for what it was.
I use it as an Ogg player (who needs an MP3 player, its sound quality is excellent), a PDA (it synchs with Outlook contacts/mail/tasks/diary/notes, and has dynamic contact spaces (it dynamically adds new fields even when they are not provided in the main set of fields, try that with palm its its infuriating 5 max fields for numbers/fax/email/web and one address field)
For those not wishing to submit to Outlook, it also has excellent vCard and SyncML support. You can back up the contacts by selecting "send all" and pointign the Infrared or bluetooth at any computer (Win/Mac/Linux) and selecting send. it will create a standard vCard file with all contact details stored in it. and to send it back to the phone, just send the single file. Even outlook on the PC cannot handle a vCard with numerous contacts so simply and elegantly, heaven help Mobile Outlook users!
it is simply the best PDA i have ever had, and does follow to some extent Jerry Kaplan's original vision...
Oh and i forgot to mention, its a damn good phone too!:)
> This seems as if it would be a nice start to > bettering the functionality of a web browser on a > computer too small for a standard keyboard... i.e. > pda and smart phones
Hmmm that doesnt fly in reality you know. Already people look at me when i make a simple call on my PDA/Smartphone when i am on the train. Now imagine me shouting "Reload dammit!!!" whilst on a crowded London train, If that doesnt get me into trouble with the boys in blue (coppers) especially with the heightened security, i dont know what will!
Secondly Opera on my P800 is already a very sweet browser, and is fast to operate. They will be just competing against themselves.
i am NOT certain, but i THINK some of the bands DO use the 8k carrier (BBC, etc).
This was why the first boxes needed a firmware update to work with all channels, but since the update was done automatically over the air, not many people realised that.
Before i answer this, I have a Dell FP1703 (made by samsung) Flat Panel, and often use it to display my own pictures as a screensaver. Its 17 inch and cost me 299 (UK Pounds, convert to your own currency). it is NOT a top of the range, and rather a good value screen.
> I agree, but you're missing most of the point- > it's not the hardware, it's the concept; > low-tech is best.
Of course, low tech is best, nothgin will beat the value of a Van Gough, or a leonardo da vinci, or even yoru daughters painting from school. However, there is a need in some situations for a changing picture. This idea is to serve a need.
> * framing a picture means it was good enough > to warrant said treatment. The whole point of > putting up a picture frame is lost if all you > show are crap photos of your dog or whatnot.
I take professional quality pictures of scenary as a hobby using a Pentax Manual SLR, i dont think they would qualify as a "crap picture of a dog"
> Further, if I have a great photo, I want it to > always be there, or at least be instantly > accessible. No easy way to do that here...
I have MANY pictures which are memorable, i dont want to show just one..
> the LCD panel won't last very long being on all > day, every day; the backlights are rated for a > few thousand hours tops.
where did you get this information from? My own LCD panel is rated such that the backlights have a mean time of 4 and a half years if switched on permanantly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
> they're horrible for viewing at anything other > than dead-on; gamma and contrast change > drastically from side to side or above/below
again, not true. My own panel has an excellent vieing angle (side to side) where contrast changes are almost not noticable. Its above bellow viewing angle is ok, not as good as side to side, but a lot better than older LCD technology.
as an aside, it has a contrast ratio of 600:1 which gives very vibrant colours. makign it ideal for using as a photo viewer.
> they need a power cord, which is fugly
point taken, however, can be hidden.
> they have vastly inferior resolution;
please explain why this is even relevent for the purpose (picture frame). Noone is going to look up close to it. it will be far more than adequate to display a 1280x1024 picture.
secondly my panel has a native resolution of 1280 x 1024 and is a 17 inches. thats a pretty damn good resolution for what its needed for.
> high-resolution LCD panels aren't available > anywhere except in laptops.
get your facts right.. they ARE available for the desktop, and they are not even "high end" screens. I have one. Please dont generalise.
> A standard print from even, say, Walmart's > digital photo lab machine...is at least 300dpi, > more like 600dpi.
thats is for a print. those sorts of resolutions are NOT needed for a picture frame.
> Archival photo paper, with UV-blocking glass, > mounted with acid-free materials, will last > decades. This toy will last about 2-3 years if > it's lucky. Maybe 5.
again, if you have more than one picture u are proud of, and you change it frequently... well there you go.
> at the temperatures involved (the mini-itx site > lists a figure around 44C) none of the > components will last very long. Hard drives > especially don't like heat...
again, the heat can be reduced by using slower, low powered disks (after all no need for a 10,000 rpm disk drive here, we could even use a flash disk)
The parent has made some poitns, but most are not really relevent for the application.
Firstly, this is just resectoring, and is HIGHLY dangerous as all it is doing is making some sectors appear twice. Physically its just one sector.
Secondly, ALL IDE type drives (and some SCSI) have soem reserved space (possibly 5%) which is intelligently remapped whenever a bad sector is found. (rememeber you are NOT supposed to Low Level format an IDE drrive). During manufacturing, it is inevitable that bad sectors WILL be found, but these are remapped to the hidden reserved section, whcih is why most Hard disks you buy now do not APPEAR to have bad sectors. The reason is they are already mapped into the reserved area. So the rule is, when you DO start seeing bad sectors on your IDE drive, you can be sure that the reserved space is now full and its time to start looking for a new Hard Drive.
"Recovering" the space allocated to the reserved section is NOT good at all, since you then bypass the IDE bad sector mapping mechanism, and if the drive is not suitably surfaced checked, you can bet yoru bottom dollar that you will see some bad sectors.
Yes, i think i mentioned that on an earlier post. Two or three years ago when i first saw it on Slashdot, I thought it was associated with a Disney story, and when I saw the name "OpenLinux" in the accociated article I was like, "Wow, The mouse uses Linux!"
I also agree. XP is more than stable enough as an operating system. Take the Microsoft factor out of it, and what you have left is a stable OS. I think most people get their crashes due to faulty drivers, and underspec hardware. I to used to get random crashes and lockups, whcih I then resolved with a new powersupply. Since then, I have yet to see XP bluescreen on me. I use Firefox, Apache, MySQL, and many stuff on the core operating system, and speeds are great for what it is.
Sure I am a Linux user too, and I find Linux intresting for what it can do, and what it promises, the Open Source factor. However, in stability I woudl say that both are pretty much equal, and certainly (pre 2.6 kernel) Windows XP is noticeably faster.
The only reason I do not liek WIndows is due to some of the other dodgy addons. If WIndows was a Open source project, I certainly would NOT use Linux. I woudl compile a version of XP which is as lean as possible, and use that.
notice i DID use the word "intended" not "is"....... again, if you look at the directions and so on, Firefox is INTENDED to be the end user product, whilst the suite is INTENDED to be the platform, for businesses and non-end users.
I prefer german cars, as they are well made, and yet they make it relatively easily for the user to do most work him/herself, if he/she wishes (after the courtesy service is over)..
My Mercedes C-Class is a dream to work with, and certainly one of the most easiest cars to maintain...
Slashdot Mirror
"it's actually the strong rights management the phones have that lets companies charge so little for their software and still make a profit."
erm. i own a P800 (I am in the UK). It doesnt really have THAT strong rights management actually. there are no root certificates, or DRM. The only thing that resembles "rights management" is the IMEI number of the phone. Every GSM phone sold in the world (whether smartphone or not) have a unique IMEI number, that in most countries is illegal to modify (and practically useless to modify due to operators), and it is relatively simple to encode into the setup a routine that checks the IMEI number to the purchaser.
It is probably easy to hack it to work with any phone, but considering the cheap prices, and the fact that they are made by independants, few people do this.
Except for the 3 version of the Motorola Symbian phone which only accept applications signed by 3, most symbain phones are relatively open, and pretty much free for all to modify, and support standards well (i really cringe MS entering this market - look at IE)
Also Symbian/Nokia and Ericsson have unofficially provided a lot of help to freeware/shareware developers in the past.
A VERY good open source app for the p800 is oggplay.
The TCPA should NOT be compared to Palladium, and other so called "trusted computing initiatives" which are really there to hadcuff you.
t ta l.pdf
There has already been a huge debate on this, and IBM have created a very large rebuttal against many of the complaints.
http://www.research.ibm.com/gsal/tcpa/tcpa_rebu
TCPA is a security system designed to store senstive keys in a area of the computer. This has nothing to do with DRM etc...
IBM may have invented..... but Microsoft (and SCO) sure made it popular!
On paper and on its own it doesnt mean the end., but it is only the beginning of the end.
If copyrights are thrown out, then what else has SCO got?
As the the Trade Secrets, when even that SCO have already told the court there are no trade secrets in Linux.
All that is left is a very dubious claim of breaking contract terms by contributing derivative works into Linux without permission.
The positive spin on this is that, if this motion is granted, then SCO cannot go after Linux users as copyright is no longer an issue.
No, its probably some patented code that a contributer has liscensed ONLY for the GPL (maybe even IBM code itself) even if its not part of the Linux kernel or even GNU for that matter.
If SCO incorporates ANY GPL code into Unixware, or OpenUnix under terms other than the GPL, they are in violation, woudl woudl have to remove the code, or relicense affected products.
> "These are intelligent, wealthy people"
so were Enron, et-al.
You say you are an attorney? If my attorney made a decision on pure hearsay, i woudl fire him/her. You did not give us any facts, just the presumption that they must be a fine upstanding company. Well so is IBM, and IBM happens to be MORE than SCO. On that assumption you have decided to ditch Linux, and go for MS? Nice deal you got with them!
Groklaw is a site for us NON-LAWYERS. As an attorney, surely you dont need to go to Groklaw of all places right??? you shoudl be well versed on the facts. In fact you shoudl be CONTRIBUTING to the knowledge on Groklaw, not reading it!
I doubt you are a attorney, just a troll.
Good bye, and nice try.
This motion in effect redirects the case back to the contract issues. During the life of this suite so far, copyrights tradesecrets, and other issues have been raise by SCO, when initially it was supposed to be only about contracts.
WHat in effect IBM are doing is, filtering out the irrelevent parts, and refocussing it on the Contracts.
Of course the copyright issues were a part fo the contract dispute, and if this motion is granted, and a declaratory judgement is made, it woudl certainly make it harder for SCO to spew more spruious comment in their favour.
Its more a question about timing. Whilst SCO et al, have been blasting away with their outlandish comments, IBM have been staying quiet, and feeding as much rope as possible. This way SCO cannot argue back saying the trail has been unfair to them.
As a side point, I recall someone on Groklaw mentioning that on the motion there is IBM referencing to SCO incorporating GPL code into UnixWare or Unix.
The statement was vague, and MAY have meant SAMBA, etc. However, considering SCO has provided the source code to UnixWare as part of discovery, it is likely they may have found something.
yes its a bug... but then again, FireFox is not YET v1.0
If you download an extension/theme, you have to immeadiately restart the browser to clear the install queue.
Otherwise when you download the next one, you will get *TWO" restart messages (and increasing each time)
This bug WILL be fixed by 1.0, and is hardly what you call serious, and better by far than IE, which requires to you restart the system at times.
yes, a 64Kpbs Ogg Vorbis file certainly sounds almost as good as a 128Kbps MP3 file, certainly when played on a "portable" player like the phone...
"handwritting" was an honest mistake... typing too quickly on a laptop that I am not used to.
"Exemplar" is intentional and a CORRECT spelling (check your dictionary), maybe Americans dont use that word much?
Search for a program called Oggplay for both P800 and P900, and a version available for the Nokia Series 60 (though only later models, as earlier ones didnt have enough memory/processing power). the Px00 version is significantly bettter, especially thanks to the 5 way jogdial on those phones (pause/play - push dial in, next/previous - push dial forward and back, volume - scroll up or down), and also the large 208x320 screen on the Px00 series means there are some really hot skins for it.
i anoggplay
Its actually very good quality, but does use virtually all of the P800's processing power (the P900 has a littel more omph) but with skinning, playlist support, etc, it is easily one of the killer apps for the P800...
Ohh it works AMAZINGLY in flip closed mode...
Its open source (i think GPL)...
http://www.geocities.com/p800tools/
or sourceforge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/symb
Its really good, and sounds great with the headphones supplied, which is surprising, because most standard headphones are pants.
Their innovation continues to exist in Symbian Devices.
:)
I own a SonyEricsson P800 UIQ based Mobile Phone. Based on the Symbian 7.0 platform, you can still see the Psion/Epoc influence underneath.
The result, a sold stable computing platform, which arguebly crashes FAR less than equivelent MS Smartphones. (this is from personal experience amongst me and my collegues)
A MultiTasking/Multithreading operating system that is easy enough to use (MAC/Palm style), yet DOES allow you access the filesystem (C drive, ddrive, etc), and other system details via freely downloadable software shoudl you wish to tinker.
Its Handwritign recognition is exemplar, and far better and more "user friendly" than Palm's old Graffiti system which was very good for what it was.
I use it as an Ogg player (who needs an MP3 player, its sound quality is excellent), a PDA (it synchs with Outlook contacts/mail/tasks/diary/notes, and has dynamic contact spaces (it dynamically adds new fields even when they are not provided in the main set of fields, try that with palm its its infuriating 5 max fields for numbers/fax/email/web and one address field)
For those not wishing to submit to Outlook, it also has excellent vCard and SyncML support. You can back up the contacts by selecting "send all" and pointign the Infrared or bluetooth at any computer (Win/Mac/Linux) and selecting send. it will create a standard vCard file with all contact details stored in it. and to send it back to the phone, just send the single file. Even outlook on the PC cannot handle a vCard with numerous contacts so simply and elegantly, heaven help Mobile Outlook users!
it is simply the best PDA i have ever had, and does follow to some extent Jerry Kaplan's original vision...
Oh and i forgot to mention, its a damn good phone too!
> This seems as if it would be a nice start to
> bettering the functionality of a web browser on a
> computer too small for a standard keyboard... i.e.
> pda and smart phones
Hmmm that doesnt fly in reality you know. Already people look at me when i make a simple call on my PDA/Smartphone when i am on the train. Now imagine me shouting "Reload dammit!!!" whilst on a crowded London train, If that doesnt get me into trouble with the boys in blue (coppers) especially with the heightened security, i dont know what will!
Secondly Opera on my P800 is already a very sweet browser, and is fast to operate. They will be just competing against themselves.
i am NOT certain, but i THINK some of the bands DO use the 8k carrier (BBC, etc).
This was why the first boxes needed a firmware update to work with all channels, but since the update was done automatically over the air, not many people realised that.
UK Freeview (our Terestrial DIgital TV) uses DVB, and requires DVB compatible setup boxes.
You simply buy the box (any brand, you are not restricted) and you get 40 channels for free, plus a bunch of radio and text channels.
Before i answer this, I have a Dell FP1703 (made by samsung) Flat Panel, and often use it to display my own pictures as a screensaver. Its 17 inch and cost me 299 (UK Pounds, convert to your own currency). it is NOT a top of the range, and rather a good value screen.
> I agree, but you're missing most of the point-
> it's not the hardware, it's the concept;
> low-tech is best.
Of course, low tech is best, nothgin will beat the value of a Van Gough, or a leonardo da vinci, or even yoru daughters painting from school. However, there is a need in some situations for a changing picture. This idea is to serve a need.
> * framing a picture means it was good enough
> to warrant said treatment. The whole point of
> putting up a picture frame is lost if all you
> show are crap photos of your dog or whatnot.
I take professional quality pictures of scenary as a hobby using a Pentax Manual SLR, i dont think they would qualify as a "crap picture of a dog"
> Further, if I have a great photo, I want it to
> always be there, or at least be instantly
> accessible. No easy way to do that here...
I have MANY pictures which are memorable, i dont want to show just one..
> the LCD panel won't last very long being on all
> day, every day; the backlights are rated for a
> few thousand hours tops.
where did you get this information from? My own LCD panel is rated such that the backlights have a mean time of 4 and a half years if switched on permanantly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
> they're horrible for viewing at anything other
> than dead-on; gamma and contrast change
> drastically from side to side or above/below
again, not true. My own panel has an excellent vieing angle (side to side) where contrast changes are almost not noticable. Its above bellow viewing angle is ok, not as good as side to side, but a lot better than older LCD technology.
as an aside, it has a contrast ratio of 600:1 which gives very vibrant colours. makign it ideal for using as a photo viewer.
> they need a power cord, which is fugly
point taken, however, can be hidden.
> they have vastly inferior resolution;
please explain why this is even relevent for the purpose (picture frame). Noone is going to look up close to it. it will be far more than adequate to display a 1280x1024 picture.
secondly my panel has a native resolution of 1280 x 1024 and is a 17 inches. thats a pretty damn good resolution for what its needed for.
> high-resolution LCD panels aren't available
> anywhere except in laptops.
get your facts right.. they ARE available for the desktop, and they are not even "high end" screens. I have one. Please dont generalise.
> A standard print from even, say, Walmart's
> digital photo lab machine...is at least 300dpi,
> more like 600dpi.
thats is for a print. those sorts of resolutions are NOT needed for a picture frame.
> Archival photo paper, with UV-blocking glass,
> mounted with acid-free materials, will last
> decades. This toy will last about 2-3 years if
> it's lucky. Maybe 5.
again, if you have more than one picture u are proud of, and you change it frequently... well there you go.
> at the temperatures involved (the mini-itx site
> lists a figure around 44C) none of the
> components will last very long. Hard drives
> especially don't like heat...
again, the heat can be reduced by using slower, low powered disks (after all no need for a 10,000 rpm disk drive here, we could even use a flash disk)
The parent has made some poitns, but most are not really relevent for the application.
Firstly, this is just resectoring, and is HIGHLY dangerous as all it is doing is making some sectors appear twice. Physically its just one sector.
Secondly, ALL IDE type drives (and some SCSI) have soem reserved space (possibly 5%) which is intelligently remapped whenever a bad sector is found. (rememeber you are NOT supposed to Low Level format an IDE drrive). During manufacturing, it is inevitable that bad sectors WILL be found, but these are remapped to the hidden reserved section, whcih is why most Hard disks you buy now do not APPEAR to have bad sectors. The reason is they are already mapped into the reserved area. So the rule is, when you DO start seeing bad sectors on your IDE drive, you can be sure that the reserved space is now full and its time to start looking for a new Hard Drive.
"Recovering" the space allocated to the reserved section is NOT good at all, since you then bypass the IDE bad sector mapping mechanism, and if the drive is not suitably surfaced checked, you can bet yoru bottom dollar that you will see some bad sectors.
Beware.
Yes, i think i mentioned that on an earlier post. Two or three years ago when i first saw it on Slashdot, I thought it was associated with a Disney story, and when I saw the name "OpenLinux" in the accociated article I was like, "Wow, The mouse uses Linux!"
oh well...
I also agree. XP is more than stable enough as an operating system. Take the Microsoft factor out of it, and what you have left is a stable OS. I think most people get their crashes due to faulty drivers, and underspec hardware. I to used to get random crashes and lockups, whcih I then resolved with a new powersupply. Since then, I have yet to see XP bluescreen on me. I use Firefox, Apache, MySQL, and many stuff on the core operating system, and speeds are great for what it is.
Sure I am a Linux user too, and I find Linux intresting for what it can do, and what it promises, the Open Source factor. However, in stability I woudl say that both are pretty much equal, and certainly (pre 2.6 kernel) Windows XP is noticeably faster.
The only reason I do not liek WIndows is due to some of the other dodgy addons. If WIndows was a Open source project, I certainly would NOT use Linux. I woudl compile a version of XP which is as lean as possible, and use that.
... tin foil hat...
coudl this be simply a "sting" operation by tehDOJ to get MS to slip up? After all Bois is their stooge
hmmm
notice i DID use the word "intended" not "is".... ... again, if you look at the directions and so on, Firefox is INTENDED to be the end user product, whilst the suite is INTENDED to be the platform, for businesses and non-end users.
When i first read this, i thought it was Mozilla that was to retire.. then i read it again... and cleared my keyboard of the spilled coffee!
I prefer german cars, as they are well made, and yet they make it relatively easily for the user to do most work him/herself, if he/she wishes (after the courtesy service is over)..
My Mercedes C-Class is a dream to work with, and certainly one of the most easiest cars to maintain...
the binary is distributed under the MPL.. the source is either MPL/LGPL dual liscense, or MPL/GPL/LGPL triple liscense depending on the code.
Well its liek this, can you compile a copy of a red hat distribution and "sell" it on as "red hat"? in a way firefox is like a distribution...
i hope someone will be able to correct me on this if i am wrong.