Come on. As if the Oil Lobby will ever allow a cleaner, more efficient energy source to be available to consumers. How much effort has Dubbya given to his "Hydrogen Car" initiative beyond 10 minutes of lip service??
Your analysis tells us little while perpetuating the myth that Mac's were expensive. For Pete's sake, it cost $2500 for a KAYPRO with two floppies and no hard drive back then! And as expensive as the original Laserwriter was, it undersold by a large amount other comparable laser printers. Perhaps you aren't aware that the initial asking price for a Lisa was $10,000. That was a mistake, but the Mac was created to show that the price of an IBM PC could buy a lot more.
Perhaps you should read my article more closely. I never said that $2500 for a computer was expensive in 1984. What I am saying, is that it was too expensive for the "unwashed masses" who, at the time had neither the want or need for a home computer. Many who were "computer savvy" at the time, thought the Mac to be no more than a toy (ever hear the phrase "point-and-drool-interface"? It was originally coined for the Mac). Yes, for those who purchased and came to love the Mac, it was a computing dream come true (and a very valuable investment). It's just that the majority of the consumer base was not ready for this.
Actually, the drives of my first 286 ran the last time I tested them. The fricking things are armored like a tank and weigh a ton, so I'm sure that has something to do with their longevity. The PC itself, alas, wasn't so fortunate. The BIOS wasn't powered by a NiCad battey, but by two AA alkalines. One day, I powered it on only to see a strange grey haze on the monitor screen. I opened the case (which also weighed a ton, btw) to find that the batteries had leaked right onto the chipset. It was a sad day...
Forshadowing of Apple's 20 year problem
on
Macintosh's 1984 Debut
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Apple's brochures and TV ads proclaim, ``Of the 235 million people in America, only a fraction can use a computer.'' Macintosh, they say, is ``the computer for the rest of us.''
This statement really tells a lot about the problems that Apple had throughout the mid 80's to late 90's. They were so innovative, that they often fell "off of the curve". In 1984, Joe Consumer wasn't about to spend $2500 on a computer; an appliance that was, at the time, a luxery, and not a necessity. And certainly, it had no where near the ubiquitiy that it enjoys today. Microsoft knew that the timing for a "computer for the masses" was around the mid 90's, ten years after the Mac debuted. So they *ahem* borrow the Mac's look and feel, and release Win 95. IIRC, '95 was around the time that Apple decided that the next revolution in computing was in handhelds and palmtops that could respond to a user "writing" rather than keying in data. The Newton exploded onto the market, and promptly gathered dust on the shelves as users passed it by. A scant four years later, 3Com capitalizes on Apple's brilliant but horribly timed innovation with the Palm series.
It looks like after 20 years, Apple is finally getting it right. The IMac was the first "sexy" computer. Only a year later, I see that I can buy neon ground effects for my transparent PC. ITunes was released at exactly the perfect time. And should be, and rightly so, a cornerstone of Apple's brand identity for the first decade of the 21'st century. So, Happy Birthday to the Mac, and congrats to the great engineers at Apple that have finally learned that innovation and market timing are inseperable.
Except that 'Whitehouse' is the name of a lower-echelon upper-shelf magazine which has been in print in the UK for quite a while now.
Hmm, if that's the case, than it should be ok. Actually, I'm not sure if the owner whitehouse.com has gotten into trouble yet. I did read a month or so ago that the first arrest had been made of one of the more notorious porn-squatters. His tactic was to redirect from misspellings of popular domains, including Yahoo and Disney.
Porn sites who buy domains that have nothing to do with porn should be outlawed.
They are. Specifically, squatting a porn site on a domain name that can be misleading (e.g. whitehouse.com) was made illegal with the federal Amber Alert law last year.
IBM, I believe has no interest in purchasing SCO as part of a settlement. There's no chance in hell that M$ will pick them up. They are still appealing the fact that they are a Monopoly based soley on the fact that they own Windows. The FTC/SEC would never approve a buyout that would make MS the owners of both Windows and Unix. That would be, like, a monopoly^2
I recently broke a wiring harness on my girlfriend's Pontiac Aztec. I could replace it in about five minutes if I could get Pontiac to sell me the part. But they won't, not without purchasing the entire headlight module, for 300 dollars
GM probabally bought this unit pre-assembled. In their modern factory, most of the sub-assemblies are built by 3rd party sweat sho^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H subcontractors. If you could find out who supplies them with the finished module, you may be able to work out a deal.
(a) a lot more burgulars making damn sure no one was home before commencing and (b) a lot more jittery afraid to try would-be criminals rather than occasional-get-away-with-it criminals.
Or (c) Burgalars who decide to arm themselves before committing the crime, ready to blast the first person in the house that moves.
I'm not disagreeing with your point; if someone were to break into my house, I'm not going to ask him "Gee mister, are you only here to rob me, or are you planning on sodomizing my wife and kidnapping my son. That question, I'd leave up to the jury at my trial. AFAIC, just his presence there is an imminent threat to my family - he's leaving in a ziploc baggie.
Where I live (Phoenix, AZ) we have very open conceal-carry laws, and procecutors regularly won't procecute cases that, on the surface, appear to be self-defense. But that certainly hasn't solved the problem: carjackings, home invasions and robberies seem to only becoming more and more violent.
Users can stream...videos...from their PC
to the TV. This feature is ideal for subscribers of internet movie
services.
Yeaaaaah, that's their market. I'm willing to bet that every penny lost by the RIAA/MPAA due to *piracy* has been made up tenfold by companies that make ripping movies and music even easier and more convenient. Just like Sony Music screaming about dropping cd sales while Sony Electronics cashes in on portable MP3 Players.
My ISP allows 2gb of transfer per day. For the avarage user, that's plenty. But I could easily blow this quota by dl'ing two Linux distributions in the same day. I'm sure I've gone over once or twice, but probabally not frequently enough to get their attention. I'm certainly in more flagrant violation of their AUP by running an HTTP/FTP/telnet server under my desk:) Also, I believe they want you to pay for each PC you have connected to their network. Heheh, like that'll ever happen.
I've heard a lot of parallels between job markets that have been lost overseas in the past 20 years, and the current crisis for today's IT worker. Previously, the jobs lost were mainly in the the steel industry, manufacturing, and call centers. Conventional wisdom tells us that we couldn't stop from losing these jobs, therefore, we can't stop from losing all out IT jobs. It certainly is a frightening prospect, considering that previously, the jobs lost only required at *most* a high school diploma. The avarage IT worker has invested at least four years in college, often more. Someone laid off from a steel mill in the 80's could get a job working for a railroad, for example, and be insured a comparable salary. What's the specialized software guru to to when all the software jobs are lost? The reason we command such a high salary is that our work is considered highly skilled. Unlike the steel worker, our value to our employer increases with our length of employment, as our skill sets are continuously tested and refined. Unfortunately, these skills usually don't translate outside of the IT field. The American IT worker of today, IMHO, stands to lose much more than the American Manufacturer of 10 years ago.
Which brings me back to my original question; do the losses of American jobs in the past equate to a doomed American IT industry? Perhaps not. Not to sound arrogant, but the demographics are now totally different. The jobs being lost now are jobs that normally require college degrees. College educated people are often more likely to not only vote, but to actually study the candidates before casting their vote. This power cannot be overlooked. College educated people are also more likely to invest in the stock market. As a shareholder, you have a voice. CEO's keep telling us jobs are leaving because "shareholders demand it" As shareholders, we can demand that greedy execs stop pushing jobs overseas. Your stock may drop a quarter of a point because of this, but hey, sacrifices need to be made!
The situation looks bad. Keep in mind the people we are fighting are the 1% that rule America: the bloated CxO with a congressman in his back pocket. Fortunately, our voices are being heard. This is a big issue this election year, and every day, we see a new news story about it. This is good. We cannot stop offshoring entirely. But I do believe that if we never let ourselves be silenced, we can prevent it from bankrupting any more American families.
What is it with grade schools and incompetent computer teachers? Using net send hardly qualifies as "hacking". Heaven forbid that this poor student learns something other than how to use Google to find out about dinosaurs. This reminds me of when I was in 7th grade. I changed the default foreground and background colors on my Tandy 1000 terminal (remember ANSI escape sequences:). My teacher about had a coronary. She thought I broke the freaking thing. Then again, this is the same moron who "lost" $500 worth of educational software by leaving the 5.25 disks on top of a running PC for 2 days. It's a sad state when the child knows more about the subject than the teacher.
All that matters is that Sun has published a license in which they claim that they own the J2EE specifications and that you can't implement them freely. That is an explicit intellectual property claim by Sun, something they might take you to court for at any time and have a good chance of winning. No ASF press releases, no amount of Sun PR, and no amount of contorted reasoning about Tomcat and J2EE change that fact.
Then follow the fricking license. Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. You develop using commercial software, you're bound by a license. You extend or use Linux, you're bound by a license. You install a copy of Vice City, you're bound by a license. If you violate *any* of these terms, you incur civil liability.
Your lawyer would tell you that you need an explicit, written licensing agreement with Sun in order to implement their specifications.
And the problem with this is????
Quietly enough, apparently, that you mistakenly thought that Java was an open standard.
Clarification, since you obviously didn't read my last post: I didn't read the EULA before I made my initial post, so I made the incorrect statement that the J2EE spec is free to implement. Also, I never once stated that Java is an "open standard". Please stop putting words in my mouth and answer the questions I've posed to you about your statements.
No, it is not as "free" as the OSS part of your solution, it is merely free-as-in-beer. I'm sorry if you don't understand the difference, but the difference is enormous, not merely philosophically, but in terms of the code quality and financial risks you accept as a commercial user when you choose Java compared to an open platform.
I absolutely understand the distinction between the two meanings of "free". Yes, my argument has been from a "free beer" perspective. But in all honesty, in seven years of developing Java applications I have never *once* needed more flexibility with the platform or license than was provided "out of the box". Do I need a core Java class to behave differently? That's what inheritance is for. Is the default GC not efficient enough? I'll roll my own and plug it into the runtime. So what if I can't change the width of an int to 64 bits!
And I'd really like to know what "financial risks" you're talking about here. Does the IBM WebSphere server crash too often?? Call IBM support. Not happy with IBM support? Ditch the WebSphere and go with WebLogic. If anything, I have options from not only the OSS vendors, but from many big corporations as well. You really need to drop the "OSS Or Nothing" banter. Java, if anything has proven that it can play nicely with both OSS and Commercial vendors.
If you see fit to respond, please at least back up your assertions with facts. I've posed several challenges to you in my earlier posts, and none of them have gone answered.
Tomcat does not come close to implementing the J2EE spec, so why would Apache need a license from Sun?
Bzzt! JSP's and Servlets
are indeed part of the J2EE Spec, and they are covered by the same EULA that you cited. I found the answer to my licensing question for Apache. You should read it, as it appears to blow several of your arguments out of the water.
No, but Sun has claimed that Java is "open" in the "open standards", and that is just not true. An "open standard" is a standard anybody can implement, with no licensing restrictions. ANSI C is an open standard. IEEE Scheme is an open standard. Java is not an open standard.
No, Java is not an open standard by that definition, nor do I recall Sun ever claiming anything to this effect. Feel free to prove me wrong. My point is that even though Java is proprietary Intellectual Property (*oooooh there's that word*), Sun has made it a point that they include the Industry at Large, including to a large part, the OSS community, when it comes to guiding the future of the language and platform. Is your argument based on the "If it's not OSS, it's gotta suck" mentality? If so, I'm wasting my breath.
Actually, the fact that Sun is quietly putting these restrictions into their licenses and not asserting them is what makes them particularly worrisome. IP rights like that become particularly destructive if people (like you) come to believe that the standard can be implemented freely only to find out later that they were wrong.
I admitted that I didn't read the EULA before I posted my original comment. If I were to implement the spec for a commercial product, you can bet your arse that It would be corporate lawers, not myself, who would iron out any legalities before the first line of code was written. How "quietly" is Sun putting in these restrictions if they are spelled out at the top of the EULA in relatively plain English?
And Fortune 500 companies have so much money to throw around that their purchases don't even tell you whether something is cost effective or even works.
Yikes!!!! What fortune 500's have you worked for??? Yeah, they have money, but over the past 3 years, their IT bugets have been slashed across the board. Cost effectiveness and ROI (weather percieved or actual) of a solution is paramount. WTF do you think all of our jobs are going to Bangalore???
In different words, there is no logical connection between a company's use of Linux and a company's use of Java.
Well, let's talk about TCO then... Let's say I want to deploy a distributed enterprise Java application. I'll start with the OSS portion first. Linux Enterprise Distro of Choice, Database (either PosgreSQL or MySql), A Tomcat instance plugged into Apache, and JBoss as my EJB container. I can download and deploy these solutions for free, I'll pay for support if I need it. The application will be developed using Eclipse and the necessary plugins (again, all OSS). Now comes the nasty part... I need to install a Hideous, Closed Source, Imperialistic Java Runtime Environment. And let's see.... the cost of that is again..... FREE!!!! I don't have to pay Sun to use Java to deploy my app; it doesn't need to go through a certification process; in all actuality, from this standpoint, Java is just as economical and "Free" as the oss part of my solution. Java plays very nicely with OSS, both from a licensing standpoint, and from a development standpoint. This is why you're seeing enterprises that switch to a Linux/OSS model using Java so much. So I refute your claim that there is no connection.
Well, I stand corrected on the licensing issue. A full listing of licensees can be found here. Notably absent from this list is Apache, so I assume that they have worked out a special arrangement w/ Sun, since Tomcat is the servlet/jsp engine embedded in the J2EE RI.
However, I'm standing ground on the comparison between MS & Sun w.r.t. Java technology. I'm not going to argue the case of weather or not Java should be open source. But what Sun is doing, licensing the spec and allowing other companies to build their products around that spec, and compete on their relative merits, is a far, far cry from what MS does with its IP. Sun has never claimed that Java is "open" in the Open Source sense of the word. What they can claim, is that the technology is developed implemented, and deployed in an open, industry accepted manner. Keep in mind that many of the fortune 500 who are embracing Linux/OSS also have large investments in Java technology.
I cannot agree with your statement regarding the "legal minefield" of Java technology. What IP/Licensing cases (except JBoss/Apache - which was an affirmation of the LGPL) can you recall from the past year?
J2EE, for example, manages to be as bloated and proprietary as anything from Microsoft.
Not true at all. There are dozens of J2EE implementations not produced by Sun (IBM Websphere, BEA WebLogic, Allaire JRun, JBoss, Oracle 9i Application Server, etc.). Companies pay Sun to have their products certified J2EE compliant, but it costs nothing to implement the specification (which is openly distributed) in terms of licensing. Is the spec bloated? Well, it aint' small, but I'd prefer the term "feature rich". We're talking about scalable distributed enterprise computing. Show me an architecture that does this that isn't top-heavy.
Where's the "Kaboom"? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering "Kaboom". My Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator?! That Earth-creature has stolen the Space Modulator!!!!
Interesting, are you sure? Don't the standards at least have to be different? I usually think of porn as obscene, but obviously that is allowed as long as it's exchanged between consenting adults.
Ok, some clarifications here. Yes, I am sure that if GTA is found to be obscene, then there may be criminal liability involved. The difficulty arises in the definition of what is "obscene" in a legal sense. By law, obscenity is not protected under the 1st amendment. The supreme court doesn't hold your belief that porn, in and of itself, is obscene. If they did, we'd be living in a very puritanical society. IANAL, but generally, something can be found to be obscene if:
It appeals to morbid or purient interests.
It has no artistic, social, or political value.
These definitions themselves present a conundrum: "morbid and purient" and "artistic... value" are very subjective terms. And as such, any time an obscenity case is publicised, you can bet that there will be zealous arguments from both sides.
Now honestly, I doubt that GTA will ever be considered to be obscene, or that it will even get that far. It has sold millions of copies, and that in and of itself, proves that it doesn't appeal to the "purient interest". However, something doesn't have to be proven obscene to be banned at the state or local level. The Supreme Court has ruled that governments can enforce community standards, which may result in a ban on the game sales at certain gov't levels. Breaking this law would prbly. be considered a civil and not a criminal violation.
GTA is not in violation of any obscenity laws since it's not a public display.
Not true. Federal law prohibits the distribution of obscene material as well. If GTA were to be found "obscene" from the legal standpoint, Rockstar (as well as, perhaps, stores that sell GTA) could be brought up on federal felony charges. Since the threat of terrorism has been solved and the Justice department has nothing better to do, Reichsfurher Ashcroft has already started pursuing his own anti-obscenity agenda. Pretty scary stuff...
Slashdot Mirror
Come on. As if the Oil Lobby will ever allow a cleaner, more efficient energy source to be available to consumers. How much effort has Dubbya given to his "Hydrogen Car" initiative beyond 10 minutes of lip service??
Perhaps you should read my article more closely. I never said that $2500 for a computer was expensive in 1984. What I am saying, is that it was too expensive for the "unwashed masses" who, at the time had neither the want or need for a home computer. Many who were "computer savvy" at the time, thought the Mac to be no more than a toy (ever hear the phrase "point-and-drool-interface"? It was originally coined for the Mac). Yes, for those who purchased and came to love the Mac, it was a computing dream come true (and a very valuable investment). It's just that the majority of the consumer base was not ready for this.
Actually, the drives of my first 286 ran the last time I tested them. The fricking things are armored like a tank and weigh a ton, so I'm sure that has something to do with their longevity. The PC itself, alas, wasn't so fortunate. The BIOS wasn't powered by a NiCad battey, but by two AA alkalines. One day, I powered it on only to see a strange grey haze on the monitor screen. I opened the case (which also weighed a ton, btw) to find that the batteries had leaked right onto the chipset. It was a sad day...
This statement really tells a lot about the problems that Apple had throughout the mid 80's to late 90's. They were so innovative, that they often fell "off of the curve". In 1984, Joe Consumer wasn't about to spend $2500 on a computer; an appliance that was, at the time, a luxery, and not a necessity. And certainly, it had no where near the ubiquitiy that it enjoys today. Microsoft knew that the timing for a "computer for the masses" was around the mid 90's, ten years after the Mac debuted. So they *ahem* borrow the Mac's look and feel, and release Win 95. IIRC, '95 was around the time that Apple decided that the next revolution in computing was in handhelds and palmtops that could respond to a user "writing" rather than keying in data. The Newton exploded onto the market, and promptly gathered dust on the shelves as users passed it by. A scant four years later, 3Com capitalizes on Apple's brilliant but horribly timed innovation with the Palm series.
It looks like after 20 years, Apple is finally getting it right. The IMac was the first "sexy" computer. Only a year later, I see that I can buy neon ground effects for my transparent PC. ITunes was released at exactly the perfect time. And should be, and rightly so, a cornerstone of Apple's brand identity for the first decade of the 21'st century. So, Happy Birthday to the Mac, and congrats to the great engineers at Apple that have finally learned that innovation and market timing are inseperable.
Hmm, if that's the case, than it should be ok. Actually, I'm not sure if the owner whitehouse.com has gotten into trouble yet. I did read a month or so ago that the first arrest had been made of one of the more notorious porn-squatters. His tactic was to redirect from misspellings of popular domains, including Yahoo and Disney.
They are. Specifically, squatting a porn site on a domain name that can be misleading (e.g. whitehouse.com) was made illegal with the federal Amber Alert law last year.
IBM, I believe has no interest in purchasing SCO as part of a settlement. There's no chance in hell that M$ will pick them up. They are still appealing the fact that they are a Monopoly based soley on the fact that they own Windows. The FTC/SEC would never approve a buyout that would make MS the owners of both Windows and Unix. That would be, like, a monopoly^2
GM probabally bought this unit pre-assembled. In their modern factory, most of the sub-assemblies are built by 3rd party sweat sho^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H subcontractors. If you could find out who supplies them with the finished module, you may be able to work out a deal.
Or (c) Burgalars who decide to arm themselves before committing the crime, ready to blast the first person in the house that moves.
I'm not disagreeing with your point; if someone were to break into my house, I'm not going to ask him "Gee mister, are you only here to rob me, or are you planning on sodomizing my wife and kidnapping my son. That question, I'd leave up to the jury at my trial. AFAIC, just his presence there is an imminent threat to my family - he's leaving in a ziploc baggie.
Where I live (Phoenix, AZ) we have very open conceal-carry laws, and procecutors regularly won't procecute cases that, on the surface, appear to be self-defense. But that certainly hasn't solved the problem: carjackings, home invasions and robberies seem to only becoming more and more violent.
Yeaaaaah, that's their market. I'm willing to bet that every penny lost by the RIAA/MPAA due to *piracy* has been made up tenfold by companies that make ripping movies and music even easier and more convenient. Just like Sony Music screaming about dropping cd sales while Sony Electronics cashes in on portable MP3 Players.
My ISP allows 2gb of transfer per day. For the avarage user, that's plenty. But I could easily blow this quota by dl'ing two Linux distributions in the same day. I'm sure I've gone over once or twice, but probabally not frequently enough to get their attention. I'm certainly in more flagrant violation of their AUP by running an HTTP/FTP/telnet server under my desk :) Also, I believe they want you to pay for each PC you have connected to their network. Heheh, like that'll ever happen.
You used the words "experimenting" and "production" in the same context. That in itself is a recipe for disaster :)
Which brings me back to my original question; do the losses of American jobs in the past equate to a doomed American IT industry? Perhaps not. Not to sound arrogant, but the demographics are now totally different. The jobs being lost now are jobs that normally require college degrees. College educated people are often more likely to not only vote, but to actually study the candidates before casting their vote. This power cannot be overlooked. College educated people are also more likely to invest in the stock market. As a shareholder, you have a voice. CEO's keep telling us jobs are leaving because "shareholders demand it" As shareholders, we can demand that greedy execs stop pushing jobs overseas. Your stock may drop a quarter of a point because of this, but hey, sacrifices need to be made!
The situation looks bad. Keep in mind the people we are fighting are the 1% that rule America: the bloated CxO with a congressman in his back pocket. Fortunately, our voices are being heard. This is a big issue this election year, and every day, we see a new news story about it. This is good. We cannot stop offshoring entirely. But I do believe that if we never let ourselves be silenced, we can prevent it from bankrupting any more American families.
What is it with grade schools and incompetent computer teachers? Using net send hardly qualifies as "hacking". Heaven forbid that this poor student learns something other than how to use Google to find out about dinosaurs. This reminds me of when I was in 7th grade. I changed the default foreground and background colors on my Tandy 1000 terminal (remember ANSI escape sequences :). My teacher about had a coronary. She thought I broke the freaking thing. Then again, this is the same moron who "lost" $500 worth of educational software by leaving the 5.25 disks on top of a running PC for 2 days. It's a sad state when the child knows more about the subject than the teacher.
Then follow the fricking license. Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. You develop using commercial software, you're bound by a license. You extend or use Linux, you're bound by a license. You install a copy of Vice City, you're bound by a license. If you violate *any* of these terms, you incur civil liability.
Your lawyer would tell you that you need an explicit, written licensing agreement with Sun in order to implement their specifications.
And the problem with this is????
Quietly enough, apparently, that you mistakenly thought that Java was an open standard.
Clarification, since you obviously didn't read my last post: I didn't read the EULA before I made my initial post, so I made the incorrect statement that the J2EE spec is free to implement. Also, I never once stated that Java is an "open standard". Please stop putting words in my mouth and answer the questions I've posed to you about your statements.
No, it is not as "free" as the OSS part of your solution, it is merely free-as-in-beer. I'm sorry if you don't understand the difference, but the difference is enormous, not merely philosophically, but in terms of the code quality and financial risks you accept as a commercial user when you choose Java compared to an open platform.
I absolutely understand the distinction between the two meanings of "free". Yes, my argument has been from a "free beer" perspective. But in all honesty, in seven years of developing Java applications I have never *once* needed more flexibility with the platform or license than was provided "out of the box". Do I need a core Java class to behave differently? That's what inheritance is for. Is the default GC not efficient enough? I'll roll my own and plug it into the runtime. So what if I can't change the width of an int to 64 bits!
And I'd really like to know what "financial risks" you're talking about here. Does the IBM WebSphere server crash too often?? Call IBM support. Not happy with IBM support? Ditch the WebSphere and go with WebLogic. If anything, I have options from not only the OSS vendors, but from many big corporations as well. You really need to drop the "OSS Or Nothing" banter. Java, if anything has proven that it can play nicely with both OSS and Commercial vendors.
If you see fit to respond, please at least back up your assertions with facts. I've posed several challenges to you in my earlier posts, and none of them have gone answered.
Bzzt! JSP's and Servlets are indeed part of the J2EE Spec, and they are covered by the same EULA that you cited. I found the answer to my licensing question for Apache. You should read it, as it appears to blow several of your arguments out of the water.
No, but Sun has claimed that Java is "open" in the "open standards", and that is just not true. An "open standard" is a standard anybody can implement, with no licensing restrictions. ANSI C is an open standard. IEEE Scheme is an open standard. Java is not an open standard.
No, Java is not an open standard by that definition, nor do I recall Sun ever claiming anything to this effect. Feel free to prove me wrong. My point is that even though Java is proprietary Intellectual Property (*oooooh there's that word*), Sun has made it a point that they include the Industry at Large, including to a large part, the OSS community, when it comes to guiding the future of the language and platform. Is your argument based on the "If it's not OSS, it's gotta suck" mentality? If so, I'm wasting my breath.
Actually, the fact that Sun is quietly putting these restrictions into their licenses and not asserting them is what makes them particularly worrisome. IP rights like that become particularly destructive if people (like you) come to believe that the standard can be implemented freely only to find out later that they were wrong.
I admitted that I didn't read the EULA before I posted my original comment. If I were to implement the spec for a commercial product, you can bet your arse that It would be corporate lawers, not myself, who would iron out any legalities before the first line of code was written. How "quietly" is Sun putting in these restrictions if they are spelled out at the top of the EULA in relatively plain English?
And Fortune 500 companies have so much money to throw around that their purchases don't even tell you whether something is cost effective or even works.
Yikes!!!! What fortune 500's have you worked for??? Yeah, they have money, but over the past 3 years, their IT bugets have been slashed across the board. Cost effectiveness and ROI (weather percieved or actual) of a solution is paramount. WTF do you think all of our jobs are going to Bangalore???
In different words, there is no logical connection between a company's use of Linux and a company's use of Java.
Well, let's talk about TCO then... Let's say I want to deploy a distributed enterprise Java application. I'll start with the OSS portion first. Linux Enterprise Distro of Choice, Database (either PosgreSQL or MySql), A Tomcat instance plugged into Apache, and JBoss as my EJB container. I can download and deploy these solutions for free, I'll pay for support if I need it. The application will be developed using Eclipse and the necessary plugins (again, all OSS). Now comes the nasty part... I need to install a Hideous, Closed Source, Imperialistic Java Runtime Environment. And let's see.... the cost of that is again..... FREE!!!! I don't have to pay Sun to use Java to deploy my app; it doesn't need to go through a certification process; in all actuality, from this standpoint, Java is just as economical and "Free" as the oss part of my solution. Java plays very nicely with OSS, both from a licensing standpoint, and from a development standpoint. This is why you're seeing enterprises that switch to a Linux/OSS model using Java so much. So I refute your claim that there is no connection.
Another view.
However, I'm standing ground on the comparison between MS & Sun w.r.t. Java technology. I'm not going to argue the case of weather or not Java should be open source. But what Sun is doing, licensing the spec and allowing other companies to build their products around that spec, and compete on their relative merits, is a far, far cry from what MS does with its IP. Sun has never claimed that Java is "open" in the Open Source sense of the word. What they can claim, is that the technology is developed implemented, and deployed in an open, industry accepted manner. Keep in mind that many of the fortune 500 who are embracing Linux/OSS also have large investments in Java technology.
I cannot agree with your statement regarding the "legal minefield" of Java technology. What IP/Licensing cases (except JBoss/Apache - which was an affirmation of the LGPL) can you recall from the past year?
Not true at all. There are dozens of J2EE implementations not produced by Sun (IBM Websphere, BEA WebLogic, Allaire JRun, JBoss, Oracle 9i Application Server, etc.). Companies pay Sun to have their products certified J2EE compliant, but it costs nothing to implement the specification (which is openly distributed) in terms of licensing. Is the spec bloated? Well, it aint' small, but I'd prefer the term "feature rich". We're talking about scalable distributed enterprise computing. Show me an architecture that does this that isn't top-heavy.
...minus the Spiffy Uniform
...but STFW. Googling for "technology scholarship" returned 2.5 Million entries. The same search on acm.org returned over 500.
Where's the "Kaboom"? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering "Kaboom". My Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator?! That Earth-creature has stolen the Space Modulator!!!!
It could be worse, it could cost One Hundred...Millllllllion....Dollars!!!!
Ok, some clarifications here. Yes, I am sure that if GTA is found to be obscene, then there may be criminal liability involved. The difficulty arises in the definition of what is "obscene" in a legal sense. By law, obscenity is not protected under the 1st amendment. The supreme court doesn't hold your belief that porn, in and of itself, is obscene. If they did, we'd be living in a very puritanical society. IANAL, but generally, something can be found to be obscene if:
These definitions themselves present a conundrum: "morbid and purient" and "artistic... value" are very subjective terms. And as such, any time an obscenity case is publicised, you can bet that there will be zealous arguments from both sides.
Now honestly, I doubt that GTA will ever be considered to be obscene, or that it will even get that far. It has sold millions of copies, and that in and of itself, proves that it doesn't appeal to the "purient interest". However, something doesn't have to be proven obscene to be banned at the state or local level. The Supreme Court has ruled that governments can enforce community standards, which may result in a ban on the game sales at certain gov't levels. Breaking this law would prbly. be considered a civil and not a criminal violation.
Not true. Federal law prohibits the distribution of obscene material as well. If GTA were to be found "obscene" from the legal standpoint, Rockstar (as well as, perhaps, stores that sell GTA) could be brought up on federal felony charges. Since the threat of terrorism has been solved and the Justice department has nothing better to do, Reichsfurher Ashcroft has already started pursuing his own anti-obscenity agenda. Pretty scary stuff...