So, Apple doesn't spend massive amounts of money on marketing and litigation to make (and keep) itself cool??
There are tons of companies out there that make good products that are not cool. There are tons of companies out there that make bad products that are cool.
Apple made good products and bought cool as part of an extremely successful strategy. When something un-cool comes up (eg. the wireless security debacle last year, or the report that Apple had one of the worst environmental records of the computer companies) Apple pounces attacks the source in a way that would do a presidential candidate proud.
The fact that people don't see it this was, but rather just see Apple as naturally cool is further evidence that you can buy cool. If your products are bad (or your company is nasty or your environmental record is bad etc.) then you just have to spend more.
"I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process."
No question that he had a big impact with this video, but the average voter is 100% incapable of producing a video like this, and even if they could they are too busy with their own job and kids to do so.
What this reinforces is that those with the time, skill, and (usually) the money to produce entertaining spots will have a big influence.
For me, this reinforces the impression that the 'average' voter will continue to spend less time doing their own research and thinking, and more time absorbing the influence of those who produce the commercials, sock puppets, and blogs written by people who are quietly being paid for their work.
(The evidence of this is growing rapidly here in Canada too. One of our two national papers was setup with an explicitly political purpose by the fellow on trial in Chicago at the moment.)
> but Apple has a right to create a differentiated product and try to sell it.
Yes, they do. But they should do it by creating a better product (we're talking about the hardware here), not by forcing people to choose their hardware through this artificial lock-in.
The university is forced to buy (more expensive) Mac hardware, because Apple is preventing their OS from running on regular PC's, and somehow this is being reported as Apple/Mac saving the university money. If Apple could back off a little on their whole control/lock-in thing then the university could really save money by buying commodity hardware. (Can someone tell me what the average margin is on a Mac?)
If MS did what Apple is doing people would go nuts.
Ideally, they would be able to buy any PC that they wanted and then triple boot it with Windows, Mac, and Linux.
> California didn't want to give up its autonomy in setting taxes to a coalition of smaller states.
Let's restate that. CA didn't want to give up it's opportunity to score some political points. Autonomy and tax bashing sell extremely well in politics. Voters pay much less attention to issue like the efficiency of a harmonized tax system.
If this is done on a state by state basis it will be an inefficient mess with many more ways to get around paying. The result will be much less revenue for the states (and therefor no opportunities to reduce other taxes) and the honest citizens will get screwed because they will be the only ones paying this tax.
The reasons that Apple is evil are very different from MS, and very different then what is mentioned in the article.
Apple is 'evil' because of: - Lock-in. Apple is the ultimate lock-in company./. people don't like lock-in. - Control/Lawyers. nuff-said. - High margins to support big ad budget (to tell you they are cool). (High margins are possible because they are cool and because their users are locked in.) - The usual corporate crap, like the stock option issue.
Personally, I think the iPhone sounds great - exactly what I've been looking for - but I would never buy one because I know it would cost me too much in the end. I know people who are quite happy spending.99 for a 128Kb song that can only ever be played on Apple products, but not me.
> Dont need support? Then they both cost the same.
You are missing the fact that there is vastly more information and free help available on the internet for Linux. Since Linux (info, support, knowledge, books, etc.) is everywhere, it makes it easier to find help. On the other hand, the diversity of distro's complicates things a bit.
I studied MS extensively for a political science thesis. My conclusion is that MS is evil. Obviously I don't really mean evil, but I think the people on this site will know what I mean.
I also think that you are a little evil because, when you went looking for a job, you didn't care that MS was considered evil. Not as bad as working for a cigarette company, but it does suggest you'll get your money any way you can.
I also think that I'm a bit evil, because Windows is my primary OS. But I do my best to rationalize this away - us humans are good at that.
Bill cranked up this philanthropy thing around the time of the trials, where he was made to look both stupid and evil. So, I believe that this wasn't really about generosity - it was about ego and image. Just my opinion.
On the other hand, when you tell a company that they have a reputation for being evil and stupid, 99% of companies will start an advertising campaign to tell people that they are not, rather then actually doing something non-evil. Bill responded by doing something massively non-evil. So, he has won back my respect. And, against my will, I am starting to see MS in a more positive light.
Your average consumer might not need WiFi on their phone, but I think it is very important for the slashdot/techie/FLOSS crowd. The main reason is that we want to be able to bypass the cell network whenever possible to avoid paying. WiFi is free and plentiful for me at home, at work, and in many other places, whereas cellular bandwidth is slower and much more expensive. For syncing, downloading music, uploading pictures, and VoIP, WiFi is a requirement for my next phone.
Not sure if I fully understand you. Equality and Justice are definitely different things. I don't think people get them confused, but some people might consider equality to be an aspect of justice (eg. there is equality in a just society).
At least America is closer to achieving Justice then it is to achieving equality.
Perhaps what you are saying is that you believe in justice and don't believe in equality.
Is this what it has come to? The only way to convince people that massive inequality is wrong is to suggest that it might lower the GDP?
Whether your background is Christian, Jewish, etc. Humanist, or even liberal (like mine), you probably believe in some sort of equality. Not because it helps the economy but as a matter of right vs. wrong. People used to talk about equality of opportunity as one of the basic values of democracies and now even that has been thrown away.
Now it seems that 'equality of opportunity' has been replaced by 'the American dream', which seems to mean that regardless of your socio-economic background, any level of success is still theoretically possible. Success might be extremely unlikely compared to a kid with richer parents, but it does still happen (and when it does we celebrate it on TV).
Apple is well respected for design and, well, just for being a cool brand, but no one has ever associated Apple and openness. Apple is THE closed, proprietary, system. Being the big backer of DRM is completely consistent for them so I'm not sure why the summary suggests that we should be surprised.
In my opinion, it was killed by (1) the fight between KDE and Gnome, and (2) the iPod which led to the Apple resurgence. Now, many who a non-MS, or more unix-esque desktop OS looks to OS X instead of Linux. Politically, there couldn't be more difference then between Linux and OS X, but I do think that OS X has taken users and attention away from desktop Linux.
Maybe I didn't look hard enough but the only download-able format I found was QT. Why do this to us? Why not MPEG? Given the theme, I could understand if they wanted to make it available in Ogg, but QT? I can play MPEG with just about anything. Is there some sort of free codec pack that I could use (on Windows), rather then having to install another annoying proprietary player?
First, I don't think I even know anyone who donates a smaller percentage of their net value to charity (and they do so every year). And I'm talking about middle class people without lots of extra cash.
Second, most of these people I'm talking about don't pick their charities based on maximum publicity. This guy must be planning to run for political office.
If you are asking whether my donations match Mark's in absolute dollars, then obviously that is a stupid question. Personnally I think these billionaires should be able to afford to give a much larger percentage of their wealth (and many do). What Mark gives is pitiful.
There are lots of people out there throwing the little bits of money they have at charities and other causes that they think will make the world a better place.
While this all makes sense, and some Linux distros must be sensitive to the practical requirements of these corporations, there is another side...
It is very useful if you can, occasionally, break backward compatibility. With time, it becomes apparent that past decisions were a mistake. Being able to correct some of those mistakes, and do it in a reasonably clean way, makes for a better system.
So I wouldn't say that backward compatibility is a rule. After all, lot at MS with dotNet. dotNet 2.0 is not backward compatible with dotNet 1.0. If you want your 1.0 program to run on 2.0 you will need to make changes. But you can keep running your 1.0 program on the 1.0 stack which sits side-by-side with the 2.0 stack. In this way they allow for backward compatibility but they also allow for compatibility breaking changes.
I've seen a few posts suggesting that Sun couldn't do this till now because of the forking threat in the past, reprepresented by MS's J++. I think this is wrong and probably comes from people who blame everything on MS.
Sun didn't open Java before because it didn't have to. The fact that they are opening it now suggests to me that they are starting to fear.net (and maybe mono on Linux).
Personally, this makes me much more inclined to go to Java as my next language, rather then C# (I'm currently using C++) but, given Sun's past refusal to open Java, this move by Sun suggests to me that Java isn't doing as well now. (If only Sun had done this 10 years ago I could have been using Java all these years instead of C++.)
One other possible factor is the 3rd party open-source Java efforts. I don't know how they were coming along, but if any of them were doing well then they could have increased the pressure on Sun to do this. The great irony of those projects is that they get wiped out if they are successful.
Personally, I'll wait a little bit to see what the consensus opinion of this deal is. If, after some thought and discussion, the community decides that Novell's actions are harming Linux, then I will take this into account in my career (as a software developer).
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WHAT ???
So, Apple doesn't spend massive amounts of money on marketing and litigation to make (and keep) itself cool??
There are tons of companies out there that make good products that are not cool. There are tons of companies out there that make bad products that are cool.
Apple made good products and bought cool as part of an extremely successful strategy. When something un-cool comes up (eg. the wireless security debacle last year, or the report that Apple had one of the worst environmental records of the computer companies) Apple pounces attacks the source in a way that would do a presidential candidate proud.
The fact that people don't see it this was, but rather just see Apple as naturally cool is further evidence that you can buy cool. If your products are bad (or your company is nasty or your environmental record is bad etc.) then you just have to spend more.
"I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process."
No question that he had a big impact with this video, but the average voter is 100% incapable of producing a video like this, and even if they could they are too busy with their own job and kids to do so.
What this reinforces is that those with the time, skill, and (usually) the money to produce entertaining spots will have a big influence.
For me, this reinforces the impression that the 'average' voter will continue to spend less time doing their own research and thinking, and more time absorbing the influence of those who produce the commercials, sock puppets, and blogs written by people who are quietly being paid for their work.
(The evidence of this is growing rapidly here in Canada too. One of our two national papers was setup with an explicitly political purpose by the fellow on trial in Chicago at the moment.)
> but Apple has a right to create a differentiated product and try to sell it.
Yes, they do. But they should do it by creating a better product (we're talking about the hardware here), not by forcing people to choose their hardware through this artificial lock-in.
So, let's get this straight.
The university is forced to buy (more expensive) Mac hardware, because Apple is preventing their OS from running on regular PC's, and somehow this is being reported as Apple/Mac saving the university money. If Apple could back off a little on their whole control/lock-in thing then the university could really save money by buying commodity hardware. (Can someone tell me what the average margin is on a Mac?)
If MS did what Apple is doing people would go nuts.
Ideally, they would be able to buy any PC that they wanted and then triple boot it with Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Not meant as a desktop OS.
> California didn't want to give up its autonomy in setting taxes to a coalition of smaller states.
Let's restate that. CA didn't want to give up it's opportunity to score some political points. Autonomy and tax bashing sell extremely well in politics. Voters pay much less attention to issue like the efficiency of a harmonized tax system.
If this is done on a state by state basis it will be an inefficient mess with many more ways to get around paying. The result will be much less revenue for the states (and therefor no opportunities to reduce other taxes) and the honest citizens will get screwed because they will be the only ones paying this tax.
The reasons that Apple is evil are very different from MS, and very different then what is mentioned in the article.
Apple is 'evil' because of:
- Lock-in. Apple is the ultimate lock-in company.
- Control/Lawyers. nuff-said.
- High margins to support big ad budget (to tell you they are cool).
(High margins are possible because they are cool and because their users are locked in.)
- The usual corporate crap, like the stock option issue.
Personally, I think the iPhone sounds great - exactly what I've been looking for - but I would never buy one because I know it would cost me too much in the end. I know people who are quite happy spending
> Dont need support? Then they both cost the same.
You are missing the fact that there is vastly more information and free help available on the internet for Linux. Since Linux (info, support, knowledge, books, etc.) is everywhere, it makes it easier to find help. On the other hand, the diversity of distro's complicates things a bit.
Seems like rather an important tid-bit at the end there...
"Much of the criticism is being lead by a prominent user named Thomas Hawk who also happens to be CEO of Zooomr, a direct competitor to Flickr."
So, they are further integrating Flickr into Yahoo, what's wrong or surprising about that?
I studied MS extensively for a political science thesis. My conclusion is that MS is evil. Obviously I don't really mean evil, but I think the people on this site will know what I mean.
I also think that you are a little evil because, when you went looking for a job, you didn't care that MS was considered evil. Not as bad as working for a cigarette company, but it does suggest you'll get your money any way you can.
I also think that I'm a bit evil, because Windows is my primary OS. But I do my best to rationalize this away - us humans are good at that.
Bill cranked up this philanthropy thing around the time of the trials, where he was made to look both stupid and evil. So, I believe that this wasn't really about generosity - it was about ego and image. Just my opinion.
On the other hand, when you tell a company that they have a reputation for being evil and stupid, 99% of companies will start an advertising campaign to tell people that they are not, rather then actually doing something non-evil. Bill responded by doing something massively non-evil. So, he has won back my respect. And, against my will, I am starting to see MS in a more positive light.
Sounds great, shame about the WiFi.
Your average consumer might not need WiFi on their phone, but I think it is very important for the slashdot/techie/FLOSS crowd. The main reason is that we want to be able to bypass the cell network whenever possible to avoid paying. WiFi is free and plentiful for me at home, at work, and in many other places, whereas cellular bandwidth is slower and much more expensive. For syncing, downloading music, uploading pictures, and VoIP, WiFi is a requirement for my next phone.
Not sure if I fully understand you. Equality and Justice are definitely different things. I don't think people get them confused, but some people might consider equality to be an aspect of justice (eg. there is equality in a just society).
At least America is closer to achieving Justice then it is to achieving equality.
Perhaps what you are saying is that you believe in justice and don't believe in equality.
Is this what it has come to? The only way to convince people that massive inequality is wrong is to suggest that it might lower the GDP?
Whether your background is Christian, Jewish, etc. Humanist, or even liberal (like mine), you probably believe in some sort of equality. Not because it helps the economy but as a matter of right vs. wrong. People used to talk about equality of opportunity as one of the basic values of democracies and now even that has been thrown away.
Now it seems that 'equality of opportunity' has been replaced by 'the American dream', which seems to mean that regardless of your socio-economic background, any level of success is still theoretically possible. Success might be extremely unlikely compared to a kid with richer parents, but it does still happen (and when it does we celebrate it on TV).
Apple is well respected for design and, well, just for being a cool brand, but no one has ever associated Apple and openness. Apple is THE closed, proprietary, system. Being the big backer of DRM is completely consistent for them so I'm not sure why the summary suggests that we should be surprised.
In my opinion, it was killed by (1) the fight between KDE and Gnome, and (2) the iPod which led to the Apple resurgence. Now, many who a non-MS, or more unix-esque desktop OS looks to OS X instead of Linux. Politically, there couldn't be more difference then between Linux and OS X, but I do think that OS X has taken users and attention away from desktop Linux.
I'm thinking of buying a new notebook. When will these be available?
Maybe I didn't look hard enough but the only download-able format I found was QT. Why do this to us? Why not MPEG? Given the theme, I could understand if they wanted to make it available in Ogg, but QT? I can play MPEG with just about anything. Is there some sort of free codec pack that I could use (on Windows), rather then having to install another annoying proprietary player?
First, I don't think I even know anyone who donates a smaller percentage of their net value to charity (and they do so every year). And I'm talking about middle class people without lots of extra cash.
Second, most of these people I'm talking about don't pick their charities based on maximum publicity. This guy must be planning to run for political office.
If you are asking whether my donations match Mark's in absolute dollars, then obviously that is a stupid question. Personnally I think these billionaires should be able to afford to give a much larger percentage of their wealth (and many do). What Mark gives is pitiful.
Compare with Buffet.
There are lots of people out there throwing the little bits of money they have at charities and other causes that they think will make the world a better place.
Contrast with this guy.
While this all makes sense, and some Linux distros must be sensitive to the practical requirements of these corporations, there is another side...
It is very useful if you can, occasionally, break backward compatibility. With time, it becomes apparent that past decisions were a mistake. Being able to correct some of those mistakes, and do it in a reasonably clean way, makes for a better system.
So I wouldn't say that backward compatibility is a rule. After all, lot at MS with dotNet. dotNet 2.0 is not backward compatible with dotNet 1.0. If you want your 1.0 program to run on 2.0 you will need to make changes. But you can keep running your 1.0 program on the 1.0 stack which sits side-by-side with the 2.0 stack. In this way they allow for backward compatibility but they also allow for compatibility breaking changes.
I've seen a few posts suggesting that Sun couldn't do this till now because of the forking threat in the past, reprepresented by MS's J++. I think this is wrong and probably comes from people who blame everything on MS.
.net (and maybe mono on Linux).
Sun didn't open Java before because it didn't have to. The fact that they are opening it now suggests to me that they are starting to fear
Personally, this makes me much more inclined to go to Java as my next language, rather then C# (I'm currently using C++) but, given Sun's past refusal to open Java, this move by Sun suggests to me that Java isn't doing as well now. (If only Sun had done this 10 years ago I could have been using Java all these years instead of C++.)
One other possible factor is the 3rd party open-source Java efforts. I don't know how they were coming along, but if any of them were doing well then they could have increased the pressure on Sun to do this. The great irony of those projects is that they get wiped out if they are successful.
Actually, they do have a right.
But we have a right to stop using their products.
Personally, I'll wait a little bit to see what the consensus opinion of this deal is. If, after some thought and discussion, the community decides that Novell's actions are harming Linux, then I will take this into account in my career (as a software developer).
It just had an important birthday. It's probably hung over.
"Skeptics, polluting industries and President Bush can't run away from this one."
Wanna bet?
Does this mean that using (parts of) mono will only be safe on the SUSE distribution?
That would effectively make mono a proprietary technology.