I bought a license for Matlab for my old PowerPC-based PowerBook about a year ago, and was initially quite pleased with Mathworks- the times I had to call them for support, they were helpful and responsive. All that changed when I switched to an Intel-based Mac a month or so ago. While moving all of my software over to my new laptop, I observed that most software companies used one of two possible approaches to the software redistribution problem:
Release an Intel-compatible binary of their product, and make it available to current license-holders free of charge; or
Take advantage of the opportunity to do a new major-version revision of their product, which license-holders would have to pay to upgrade to.
Each of these, to me, seem like reasonable solutions— if it's a major-version update, I'd have to pay for it anyway... and if it's just a recompiled version of the product I already have, it should be free to current users. It turns out, however, that there was a third possibility, which is what Mathworks chose:
3. Release a new minor-version Universal Binary update, and then make all current customers buy a new full-price license in order to get it.
So, in order to run Matlab on an Intel-based Mac, current PowerPC license holders have to re-purchase their expensive software from scratch. No upgrade path, no nothing— just a nice, loud, "screw you" from Mathworks to their users. And it's not like we could just use our PowerPC verisons under Rosetta- there was a workaround, but it involved disabling all of the graphing/visualization features. Basically, it was a "pay for a full new license or don't use Matlab on your new computer" kind of thing.
I dunno, maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it still felt pretty crappy. From a customer service standpoint, it wasn't exactly a master-stroke- it wouldn't have really cost them anything just to let current license-holders have an Intel-compatible copy of the software they'd already paid for...
With Exposé, hitting "F10" does exactly what you want- it just shows the windows belonging to the current application. Hitting "tab" cycles to the next application, and so on. It's kind of hard to explain, but once you see it/use it, it quickly becomes an important part of your computer use style.
FWIW, I was at the conference and talked to Stallman about this very subject after his talk. He is entirely aware of the irony, but seemed hopeful that, in the long run, exposing more people in Cuba to the ideas behind free software (and the unfettered internet access needed to fully utilize it) would have positive effects on the openness of Cuban society. I'd certainly like to believe that... it's a nice idea, and it might even be true.
BTW, I'm not sure who the "ponytailed young Cuban programmers" that the article refers to were- there were very, very few guys with long hair. I think mine was the longest, and there might have been three or four others that I saw. For the most part, Cuban fashion tends towards shorter hair for guys- this is possibly a holdover from earlier decades when guys with long hair were routinely hauled into police stations to have their heads shaved.
Incidentally, this particular beer is, besides being amazingly tasty, excellent for cooking with. I find that it works well as a base for chili. I'd initially thought to use Guiness, but found that it seemed to make the chili a little bit too heavy, and its flavor kind of took over the whole thing. Old Rasputin contributes excellent flavor without too much body. Just about right for chili.:-)
Also good for chili is Black Butte Porter, from Deschutes Brewing. It might be tough to get ahold of outside of Oregon, though- I'm not sure what their distribution is like.
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Each of these, to me, seem like reasonable solutions— if it's a major-version update, I'd have to pay for it anyway... and if it's just a recompiled version of the product I already have, it should be free to current users. It turns out, however, that there was a third possibility, which is what Mathworks chose:
3. Release a new minor-version Universal Binary update, and then make all current customers buy a new full-price license in order to get it.
So, in order to run Matlab on an Intel-based Mac, current PowerPC license holders have to re-purchase their expensive software from scratch. No upgrade path, no nothing— just a nice, loud, "screw you" from Mathworks to their users. And it's not like we could just use our PowerPC verisons under Rosetta- there was a workaround, but it involved disabling all of the graphing/visualization features. Basically, it was a "pay for a full new license or don't use Matlab on your new computer" kind of thing.
I dunno, maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it still felt pretty crappy. From a customer service standpoint, it wasn't exactly a master-stroke- it wouldn't have really cost them anything just to let current license-holders have an Intel-compatible copy of the software they'd already paid for...
With Exposé, hitting "F10" does exactly what you want- it just shows the windows belonging to the current application. Hitting "tab" cycles to the next application, and so on. It's kind of hard to explain, but once you see it/use it, it quickly becomes an important part of your computer use style.
BTW, I'm not sure who the "ponytailed young Cuban programmers" that the article refers to were- there were very, very few guys with long hair. I think mine was the longest, and there might have been three or four others that I saw. For the most part, Cuban fashion tends towards shorter hair for guys- this is possibly a holdover from earlier decades when guys with long hair were routinely hauled into police stations to have their heads shaved.
In the Portland area, anyway, several of the McMenamins brewpubs have 802.11, including the excellent Cornelius Pass Roadhouse.
Also good for chili is Black Butte Porter, from Deschutes Brewing. It might be tough to get ahold of outside of Oregon, though- I'm not sure what their distribution is like.