Actually those immigration forms foreigners have to fill out upon entering the US are not that far off from your questionaire.
Actually, I used to find those "Are you an evil kitten-huffing war-criminal terrorist? yes/no (If yes, please bribe your local embassy official before travelling)" stupid until I got the point:
Kitten huffing and other unamerican practices may or may not be against federal or state law - and attempting to arrest or deport someone for it could run into trouble from pinko liberal hippy lawyers muttering obscenities like "probable cause", "jurisdiction" or "it was all done in Photoshop". However, supplying false information on an immigration form is - praise the lord - very illegal and they can arrest you like mad for that.
Given that MS are probably not going to be $50 worse off because you buy a PC without Windows (I can't believe that Dell don't have some sort of fixed-price license agreement) I'd get the one with Windows on the grounds that if I ever did need to run Windows (often hard to avoid under our Windows-loving Overlords) getting a "full" copy costs 3x as much as a bundled copy.
If, however, you see this as a matter of principle then there are plenty of smaller suppliers/system builders who do price Windows separately.
01 The number 1
02 The number 2
03 The number 3
04 The number 4
05 I eat babies
06 The number 6
Bad luck - you have breached the sacred doctrine of Python:
Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.
You should probably fail to expect the Spanish Inquisition real soon now.
Nothing has changed that has made illegal that MS carry out their promise.
Except a new raft of requirements and oblicgations which - even if you agree with the GPLv3 - are non-trivial in their implications...
...and while they are perfectly able to comply with the updated terms...
...only an expert IP lawyer with access to all the details about MS's IP porfolio could safely decide that. Meanwhile they are perfectly free to decide not to comply provided they negotiate their way out of the voucher "contract" before any distribution takes place.
Look - we don't like MS but all these bits of logical gymnastics could end up as caselaw, and what goes around, comes around.
There is a difference.
I had this really neat comeback about how people always had a choice to obey the law... but it would have broken Godwin's law which - under GPLv3 logic - now applies retroactively to the whole thread, so all debate is now over, sorry:-)
The whole point that PJ has been going on about are Microsoft's little coupons. She is under the impression that issuing a coupon is the same thing as distributing - that if any of Microsoft's coupons are redeemed for a GPLv3-licensed product, that Microsoft has then distributed it.
More than that, there are two amazing memes developing on Groklaw. Meme 1 - simply because a lot of GPLv2 software contains the clause that says the recipient may (at their option) choose to copy/modify/redistribute under the terms of a later version of the GPL - loads of GPLv2 software automagically morphed into GPLv3 overnight. Apparently, as soon as Mrs Trellis of Wales decides she is going to give her son a copy under the terms of GPLv3 that decision (with all the extra obligations and restrictions) ripples back down the chain of people who gave her the software... Yeah, right.
Meme 2: if you enter into a promise/agreement/contract (e.g. the vouchers) and then something changes that makes it illegal for you to carry out that promise (e.g. if/when GPLv3 code shows up in SUSE) then not only are you obliged to follow through with the promise and break the law, but the mere existence of the promise becomes a violation of the new law... I mean, does anybody think that Microsoft is going to lose sleep over having to give a few bucks in compensation to voucher holders? Is a future court not only going to back the vouchers=distribution theory, but find that compelling/blatent enough to tell Microsoft that all its patents are now belong to the world when it could just issue a fine and an injunction to stop distributing?
While PJ and the FSF people haven't said this in so many words, its implicit in the "spin" of their postings and they haven't stepped in to correct the IANALs who do express this view. TFA is a typical example of trying to open the box with the crowbar found inside (the GPLv3 re-definition of distribution).
Don't get me wrong - I don't want to see MS get away with their datstardly scheme to take over the world and hope that - as authors choose to adopt GPLv3, it will help. But the GPL is just a software license, not a magical time-travelling IP-law-re-writing superhero - if it has a few drinks, pulls on some blue and red lycra and throws itself the top of a tall building it will just destroy its own credibility.
Seriously - the Cube was far smaller than a midi tower (unless you mean the NeXT cube, not the Mac cube - in which case yeah, that was sexy but in a slightly more black-ribbed fetishsitic way)
MySQL is modular - pick'n'mix data storage engines sharing a SQL front end. I can't find the bit in TFA that says which one they compared.
I've always suspected that most MySQL vs Postgres flame wars are based on comparing Postgres with the speed of MySQL/MyISAM (No transactions or relational integrity checks - so, big surprise, dead fast for simple queries) and then waving MySQL/InnoDB around when the functionality issue is raised.
MySQL/MyISAM hits the speed/functionality sweet spot for LAMP data-driven websites, is supported by lots of free webapp software and offered by most decent web hosting services. Comparing it speedwise with Postgres has always been pointless, though. If Postgres has caught up, colour me impressed, but if they're pro-Postgres I bet they're comparing with MySQL/InnoDB (which is a bit closer to like-with-like).
Never quite seen the point of MySQL/InnoDB really - all the advantages of MySQL/MyISAM minus the speed, support by popular webapps, availbility on low-cost hosts... and still lacks the features of Postgres.
(e.g.) a nice, user-friendly personal database program or a industry strength relationald DBMS with really good query optimization and full ACID, OLAP and general ETLA* compliance?
If you've thought of a really neat user interface for a personal contacts manager program, then nobody will care if you've used a bubble sort to keep a few hundred names in order. If you're trying to improve performance for Google then some theoretical homework might be in order...
The danger for education (for any technical subject, not just in CS) is that it tends to teach a subject at a pessimal level of detail - 90% of the class wastes time trying to memorize a few trivial proofs from that subject's equivalent of special relativity (which will be forgotten 10 minutes after the exam), for the sound educational reason that, otherwise, the Prof. that gets the top 10% of the class for the postgrad course will whinge about having to run a few extra lectures.
E.g. you could either:
Know about the universal Turing machine and its significance
Be able to regurgitate the textbook description of a Turing machine and write the state tables for some trivial operations
Actually be fluent with computability theory and able to apply it to practical applications or original theoretical work.
(2) is the pessimal level of knowledge, as it is of no realistic use unless you then proceed to (3) and is certainly not required to write form-based database clients. It is, however, pure gold if you are trying to write a CS exam...
(I'm not saying that (2) can't be interesting or stimulating - just that you shouldn't make students cram it unless they're likely to go all the way).
So, this is sold as a desktop computer that takes up less space. Why?
Current market for "desktop tower" systems:
Cheap entry-level home PCs
Commodity business PCs
Gamers
Serious Workstations
In markets (1) and (2) they're up against negligible margin $300 boxes from Dell; (2) and (3) are Windows strangleholds not well served by OSX software; the Mac Pro and 17" MacBook have (4) covered.
Apple's forte is laptops and small-form-factor PCs which can demand a "premium" price & they're sticking to it. Its hard to make a midi-tower sexy.
Avoid solipsism here - just because lots of/.ers - including myself - would have liked a cheaper single-processor "tower" Mac doesn't mean there's a viable market. Plus, many of those people might relent and (like me) buy a Pro. (My main gripe with the pro is whether it was really necessary to use the most expensive memory technology in the known universe).
No - (re-reads post) oh God! its more of a single meaning in US English, isn't it... Sorry - rest assured that if I'd intended that as an offensive joke it wouldn't have passed quality control.
I bet the chance of having a car accident after drinking just one pint is hundreds of times higher than the chance of you getting cancer from someone smoking near you
I'm glad we don't have laws that restrict the rights of drinkers to put others in danger by (e.g.) drinking and driving... what? we do? what's that you say...? JAIL? Not a £50 fine? Wow!
Drunk driving is a problem - but while most people have at least got the "don't drink and drive - you'll spill most of it" message, smokers are allowed to drive around blatently inhaling an addictive mood-altering drug with impunity. Does that seem right to you? I bet the dangers of driving drinking just one pint compare favorably with driving while simultaneously trying to light and smoke cigarette (or while suffering nicotine withdrawal).
Perhaps Apple should have disgised the iPhone as a fag butt so that people could use it while driving without getting busted.
For open-ended games, I can't think of many that were more addictive than Elite. And yes, that is old school. If you missed it the first time around, too bad - it won't appeal to those who think anisotropic filtering makes a difference. It's wireframes, and your imagination does all the shading much better than any graphics card can.
Some perspective is in order - at the time the graphics in Elite were jaw-dropping; writing the manual "in character" may not have been 100% original but was still fresh - and alluding to "generation ships" and other mysteries which might have been out there (but weren't) was a masterstroke.
I take it that everybody knows about Oolite - which is a nice half-way-house between the classic wireframe game and glossy commercial "re-imaginings".
I've been re-playing "Freelancer" which was one of the better 21st century Elitealikes - sumptuous graphics, but its let down by the tiny universe (Elite used pseudo-random techniques to give the impression of hundreds of systems on a 32K computer) and really, really lame and repetetive fake dialogue and "radio chatter" with traders. Its interesting that the genre persists despite nothing since Elite really hitting the big time.
IANAL, but can anyone offer an opinion on whether Apple would actually be able to remove the "or later" clause from WebKit?
IANAL either, but as far as I can tell the GPLv2 says that if you re-distribute verbatim you must keep the copyright notices intact (sec. 1) but OTOH if you create a derivative work it must be licensed under the terms of "this license" (i.e. GPLv2).
So - if its a verbatim copy, no you can't change it, if you've added your own work to it, oh yes you can.
This makes sense to me - once you "own" some of the code then you get a say in how it is licensed, as long as you don't impose further restrictions (sec 6).
I'd be less happy unilaterally "upgrading" someone else's GPLv2 or later code to v3 without asking - the "or later" clause was part of the FSFs "pro forma" wording and I wouldn't assume that everybody who used it intended to (at least partially) waive section 6.
Methinks this "or later" business will become a big issue if there is a v2 vs v3 schism.
What point? iPhone contains GPLv2 code. Apple are complying with the GPLv2.
and I don't care how much you get off with your Apple products.
I don't even OWN an iBuzz!
If they're using GPL, they have to comply with the license,
AFAIK, they are...
and if they are going to use GPLv3 when it becomes the only license for GNU code, they'll have to open up the iPhone for development if they want to continue using it.
Nope - if the projects they are using switch to GPLv3 and they want to use code that others contribute to future versions then they will have to comply with v3. Otherwise, they can go on using and developing the existing GPLv2 code as long as they like - its not as if they don't have their own programmers.
Some people keep on trying to "spin" reality to make it sound as if the GPLv3 can be enforced retroactively. That's a very dangerous game because if industry gets that impression they will not touch the GPL with a bargepole.
Lets see if TiVO complies, or if they just drop Linux in favour of a closed source embedded OS.
If and when KHTML moves to (L)GPLv3, Apple will just have to start a GPLv2 fork of it.
So, any future contributions by Apple will go to the GPLv2 fork... and if Apple deletes any "...or later..." clause from "their" fork, the GPLv3 version won't even be able to cross-port their changes.
Nope - a debit card will, usually, happily let you (or Mr Bad Hat) drain your bank account and possibly max out your agreed overdraft. If it has a cap, its usually quite high. I'm talking about a "virtual cash" system that lets you load up your card with (say) $100-$200, so if it gets "lifted" its no worse than losing a wallet with some cash (I'm pretty sure such "virtual cash" systems exist, and its not unlike a pay-as-you-go phone). Of course, part of the attraction of cards is that you *can* make big purchases - so how about a card that worked like "virtual cash" without authentication for micropayments, needed a PIN for payments over X and PIN + second form of ID for payments over Y?
Don't you guys in the new world have chip and pin yet?
Its a million miles from perfect, but it certainly speeds up small payments and means that a crook has to clone the card *and* shoulder-surf for the PIN. Not sure any system can be high security *and* not hack off customers.
OK, we use it for big payments too (perhaps they should limit the amount to 10% of the PIN!)
Alternatively, instead of setting a per-transaction limit, have a system where the *user* 'loads' the card with cash and when that is exhausted they have to provide extra verification. Otherwise, crooks just go from shop to shop notching up small purchases. I've noticed some stores limiting how many packets of cigarettes they'll sell on a card, presumably for that reason.
The TFA links to a page on the official Parallels website that acknowledges the use of open source code from various sources, including the use of the LGPL, and offers to provide the source on request, as required.
Allegedly, when people have actually EMAILed this address, the response has been less than satisfactory.
Its quite right that the WINE people are keeping an eye on this situation, but I suggest that people browse the rest of the Parallels support fora and form an impression of the company's general track-record vis. timely and helpful responses to EMAIL requests before trying to answer the "conspiracy" vs. "cock-up" question.
Parallels for Mac is a jolly impressive product - they got a perfectly usable package out of the door, at a very low price within, what? six months of the launch of Intel Macs, and have since been regularly upping the ante in terms of OSX/Windows integration. However, they also have issues - e.g. too many people were enticed by the website to try the beta version of 2.5 and the current blurb for 3.0 widely oversells its ability to Run today's most popular PC games on a Mac.
The latter is a pity - what they've achieved is jolly impressive (e.g. I've been quite happily running "Freelancer" - everything apart from the opening splash & movie works, UT2004 was tolerable, with glitches) but its much more "enjoy a few of your 3-4 year old PC games that you didn't think you'd be able to play again".
As for the EMAIL & support: they'd been selling virtualization software to a crowd of tech-savvy developers and sysadmins, then they suddenly started dealing with regular Mac users who wanted to sync their mobile phones or run accounting software and were now trying to "virtualize" the copy of windows previously installed under "bootcamp". Anybody here want to volunteer for that particular helldesk?
Obviously you can't change the battery yourself, but from those pictures it looks like even Apple couldn't change it. That can't be so, can it?
Welcome to the scorched Earth.
Lots of people habitually upgrade their phone every time they upgrade their contract - OK that's with free or heavily subsidised phones that don't cost $500 with a contract - but rest assured, those guys who queued all day yesterday are not going to be seen dead using a first-generation iPhone in two year's time. These are the customers that will be paying Steve's mortgage, not the ones still using their 5-year-old handset, so why waste money designing a phone to last more that 2 years?
Plus, it doesn't half make that $70 AppleCare protection plan look attractive.
Having said that, I'm sure Apple service agents will be able to replace the battery (...a purpose designed case-opening tool and a supply of replacement back covers would make it rather easier) - and from Apple's POV a battery hatch, contacts and additional casing will cost a few cents more, might add a millimetre to the thickness and would be something else to break, go wrong or get replaced by a cookie by someone's sprog. Its not like the iPod flopped because of a non-removable battery.
It's surprising that AT&T here has done a better job than your carrier. HSDPA coverage is the same as GSM coverage throughout my market... not only are the core metro areas & highways covered, the populated outlying areas are too.
Bear in mind that there's been no real "intra-generation" standards war in the UK, just a progression from Analogue to GSM, then 3G/UMTS and now HSDPA. For some time we've had basic GSM everywhere that is likely to get mobile coverage this side of doomsday - so its a case of waiting for an upgrade to the latest flavour. I'd guess that GSM is newer in the US and more likely to be rolled out with all the trimmings.
Having said that - I have no bones about the 3G coverage, I was just observing that plain-old GPRS was still an essential fallback, and that GPRS for "email anywhere" + WiFi where available for web surfing might actually be a reasonable trade-off.
Also - I'm on T-Mobile which, in the UK, may not have the best coverage but (last time I looked) was the only carrier with a halfway sane unmetered internet plan.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I used to find those "Are you an evil kitten-huffing war-criminal terrorist? yes/no (If yes, please bribe your local embassy official before travelling)" stupid until I got the point:
Kitten huffing and other unamerican practices may or may not be against federal or state law - and attempting to arrest or deport someone for it could run into trouble from pinko liberal hippy lawyers muttering obscenities like "probable cause", "jurisdiction" or "it was all done in Photoshop". However, supplying false information on an immigration form is - praise the lord - very illegal and they can arrest you like mad for that.
Given that MS are probably not going to be $50 worse off because you buy a PC without Windows (I can't believe that Dell don't have some sort of fixed-price license agreement) I'd get the one with Windows on the grounds that if I ever did need to run Windows (often hard to avoid under our Windows-loving Overlords) getting a "full" copy costs 3x as much as a bundled copy.
If, however, you see this as a matter of principle then there are plenty of smaller suppliers/system builders who do price Windows separately.
Bad luck - you have breached the sacred doctrine of Python:
You should probably fail to expect the Spanish Inquisition real soon now.
Thank you for your lovely points, Samantha.
(Sorry, that was the best I could do in a hurry)
Except a new raft of requirements and oblicgations which - even if you agree with the GPLv3 - are non-trivial in their implications...
...only an expert IP lawyer with access to all the details about MS's IP porfolio could safely decide that. Meanwhile they are perfectly free to decide not to comply provided they negotiate their way out of the voucher "contract" before any distribution takes place.
Look - we don't like MS but all these bits of logical gymnastics could end up as caselaw, and what goes around, comes around.
I had this really neat comeback about how people always had a choice to obey the law... but it would have broken Godwin's law which - under GPLv3 logic - now applies retroactively to the whole thread, so all debate is now over, sorry :-)
More than that, there are two amazing memes developing on Groklaw. Meme 1 - simply because a lot of GPLv2 software contains the clause that says the recipient may (at their option) choose to copy/modify/redistribute under the terms of a later version of the GPL - loads of GPLv2 software automagically morphed into GPLv3 overnight. Apparently, as soon as Mrs Trellis of Wales decides she is going to give her son a copy under the terms of GPLv3 that decision (with all the extra obligations and restrictions) ripples back down the chain of people who gave her the software... Yeah, right.
Meme 2: if you enter into a promise/agreement/contract (e.g. the vouchers) and then something changes that makes it illegal for you to carry out that promise (e.g. if/when GPLv3 code shows up in SUSE) then not only are you obliged to follow through with the promise and break the law, but the mere existence of the promise becomes a violation of the new law... I mean, does anybody think that Microsoft is going to lose sleep over having to give a few bucks in compensation to voucher holders? Is a future court not only going to back the vouchers=distribution theory, but find that compelling/blatent enough to tell Microsoft that all its patents are now belong to the world when it could just issue a fine and an injunction to stop distributing?
While PJ and the FSF people haven't said this in so many words, its implicit in the "spin" of their postings and they haven't stepped in to correct the IANALs who do express this view. TFA is a typical example of trying to open the box with the crowbar found inside (the GPLv3 re-definition of distribution).
Don't get me wrong - I don't want to see MS get away with their datstardly scheme to take over the world and hope that - as authors choose to adopt GPLv3, it will help. But the GPL is just a software license, not a magical time-travelling IP-law-re-writing superhero - if it has a few drinks, pulls on some blue and red lycra and throws itself the top of a tall building it will just destroy its own credibility.
But not all it was cracked up to be.
Seriously - the Cube was far smaller than a midi tower (unless you mean the NeXT cube, not the Mac cube - in which case yeah, that was sexy but in a slightly more black-ribbed fetishsitic way)
MySQL is modular - pick'n'mix data storage engines sharing a SQL front end. I can't find the bit in TFA that says which one they compared.
I've always suspected that most MySQL vs Postgres flame wars are based on comparing Postgres with the speed of MySQL/MyISAM (No transactions or relational integrity checks - so, big surprise, dead fast for simple queries) and then waving MySQL/InnoDB around when the functionality issue is raised.
MySQL/MyISAM hits the speed/functionality sweet spot for LAMP data-driven websites, is supported by lots of free webapp software and offered by most decent web hosting services. Comparing it speedwise with Postgres has always been pointless, though. If Postgres has caught up, colour me impressed, but if they're pro-Postgres I bet they're comparing with MySQL/InnoDB (which is a bit closer to like-with-like).
Never quite seen the point of MySQL/InnoDB really - all the advantages of MySQL/MyISAM minus the speed, support by popular webapps, availbility on low-cost hosts... and still lacks the features of Postgres.
I said sexy - not gratuitously tasteless. How are SGI doing since they came out of chapter 11?
(e.g.) a nice, user-friendly personal database program or a industry strength relationald DBMS with really good query optimization and full ACID, OLAP and general ETLA* compliance?
If you've thought of a really neat user interface for a personal contacts manager program, then nobody will care if you've used a bubble sort to keep a few hundred names in order. If you're trying to improve performance for Google then some theoretical homework might be in order...
The danger for education (for any technical subject, not just in CS) is that it tends to teach a subject at a pessimal level of detail - 90% of the class wastes time trying to memorize a few trivial proofs from that subject's equivalent of special relativity (which will be forgotten 10 minutes after the exam), for the sound educational reason that, otherwise, the Prof. that gets the top 10% of the class for the postgrad course will whinge about having to run a few extra lectures.
E.g. you could either:
(2) is the pessimal level of knowledge, as it is of no realistic use unless you then proceed to (3) and is certainly not required to write form-based database clients. It is, however, pure gold if you are trying to write a CS exam...
(I'm not saying that (2) can't be interesting or stimulating - just that you shouldn't make students cram it unless they're likely to go all the way).
(*Extended three-letter acronyms)
Current market for "desktop tower" systems:
In markets (1) and (2) they're up against negligible margin $300 boxes from Dell; (2) and (3) are Windows strangleholds not well served by OSX software; the Mac Pro and 17" MacBook have (4) covered.
Apple's forte is laptops and small-form-factor PCs which can demand a "premium" price & they're sticking to it. Its hard to make a midi-tower sexy.
Avoid solipsism here - just because lots of /.ers - including myself - would have liked a cheaper single-processor "tower" Mac doesn't mean there's a viable market. Plus, many of those people might relent and (like me) buy a Pro. (My main gripe with the pro is whether it was really necessary to use the most expensive memory technology in the known universe).
No - (re-reads post) oh God! its more of a single meaning in US English, isn't it... Sorry - rest assured that if I'd intended that as an offensive joke it wouldn't have passed quality control.
I'm glad we don't have laws that restrict the rights of drinkers to put others in danger by (e.g.) drinking and driving... what? we do? what's that you say...? JAIL? Not a £50 fine? Wow!
Drunk driving is a problem - but while most people have at least got the "don't drink and drive - you'll spill most of it" message, smokers are allowed to drive around blatently inhaling an addictive mood-altering drug with impunity. Does that seem right to you? I bet the dangers of driving drinking just one pint compare favorably with driving while simultaneously trying to light and smoke cigarette (or while suffering nicotine withdrawal).
Perhaps Apple should have disgised the iPhone as a fag butt so that people could use it while driving without getting busted.
...there, fixed that for you.
In other news, "Cars, not Bicycles define Automobile Industry Success" and "Computers, not Mobile Phones define..." oh, wait...
See "inflatable dartboard", "ashtray on a motorbike", "mermaid in a chorus line", "glass hammer", "luminous sundial", "windows on a mobile phone"."
Some perspective is in order - at the time the graphics in Elite were jaw-dropping; writing the manual "in character" may not have been 100% original but was still fresh - and alluding to "generation ships" and other mysteries which might have been out there (but weren't) was a masterstroke.
I take it that everybody knows about Oolite - which is a nice half-way-house between the classic wireframe game and glossy commercial "re-imaginings".
I've been re-playing "Freelancer" which was one of the better 21st century Elitealikes - sumptuous graphics, but its let down by the tiny universe (Elite used pseudo-random techniques to give the impression of hundreds of systems on a 32K computer) and really, really lame and repetetive fake dialogue and "radio chatter" with traders. Its interesting that the genre persists despite nothing since Elite really hitting the big time.
IANAL either, but as far as I can tell the GPLv2 says that if you re-distribute verbatim you must keep the copyright notices intact (sec. 1) but OTOH if you create a derivative work it must be licensed under the terms of "this license" (i.e. GPLv2).
So - if its a verbatim copy, no you can't change it, if you've added your own work to it, oh yes you can.
This makes sense to me - once you "own" some of the code then you get a say in how it is licensed, as long as you don't impose further restrictions (sec 6).
I'd be less happy unilaterally "upgrading" someone else's GPLv2 or later code to v3 without asking - the "or later" clause was part of the FSFs "pro forma" wording and I wouldn't assume that everybody who used it intended to (at least partially) waive section 6.
Methinks this "or later" business will become a big issue if there is a v2 vs v3 schism.
What point? iPhone contains GPLv2 code. Apple are complying with the GPLv2.
I don't even OWN an iBuzz!
AFAIK, they are...
Nope - if the projects they are using switch to GPLv3 and they want to use code that others contribute to future versions then they will have to comply with v3. Otherwise, they can go on using and developing the existing GPLv2 code as long as they like - its not as if they don't have their own programmers.
Some people keep on trying to "spin" reality to make it sound as if the GPLv3 can be enforced retroactively. That's a very dangerous game because if industry gets that impression they will not touch the GPL with a bargepole.
Lets see if TiVO complies, or if they just drop Linux in favour of a closed source embedded OS.
If and when KHTML moves to (L)GPLv3, Apple will just have to start a GPLv2 fork of it.
So, any future contributions by Apple will go to the GPLv2 fork... and if Apple deletes any "...or later..." clause from "their" fork, the GPLv3 version won't even be able to cross-port their changes.
Yes, a proud day for the GPLv3.
Nope - a debit card will, usually, happily let you (or Mr Bad Hat) drain your bank account and possibly max out your agreed overdraft. If it has a cap, its usually quite high. I'm talking about a "virtual cash" system that lets you load up your card with (say) $100-$200, so if it gets "lifted" its no worse than losing a wallet with some cash (I'm pretty sure such "virtual cash" systems exist, and its not unlike a pay-as-you-go phone). Of course, part of the attraction of cards is that you *can* make big purchases - so how about a card that worked like "virtual cash" without authentication for micropayments, needed a PIN for payments over X and PIN + second form of ID for payments over Y?
Don't you guys in the new world have chip and pin yet?
Its a million miles from perfect, but it certainly speeds up small payments and means that a crook has to clone the card *and* shoulder-surf for the PIN. Not sure any system can be high security *and* not hack off customers. OK, we use it for big payments too (perhaps they should limit the amount to 10% of the PIN!)
Alternatively, instead of setting a per-transaction limit, have a system where the *user* 'loads' the card with cash and when that is exhausted they have to provide extra verification. Otherwise, crooks just go from shop to shop notching up small purchases. I've noticed some stores limiting how many packets of cigarettes they'll sell on a card, presumably for that reason.
... any more than "Dude." is a sentence. Are we done stickling?
Before we all get too excited...
The TFA links to a page on the official Parallels website that acknowledges the use of open source code from various sources, including the use of the LGPL, and offers to provide the source on request, as required.
Allegedly, when people have actually EMAILed this address, the response has been less than satisfactory.
Its quite right that the WINE people are keeping an eye on this situation, but I suggest that people browse the rest of the Parallels support fora and form an impression of the company's general track-record vis. timely and helpful responses to EMAIL requests before trying to answer the "conspiracy" vs. "cock-up" question.
Parallels for Mac is a jolly impressive product - they got a perfectly usable package out of the door, at a very low price within, what? six months of the launch of Intel Macs, and have since been regularly upping the ante in terms of OSX/Windows integration. However, they also have issues - e.g. too many people were enticed by the website to try the beta version of 2.5 and the current blurb for 3.0 widely oversells its ability to Run today's most popular PC games on a Mac.
The latter is a pity - what they've achieved is jolly impressive (e.g. I've been quite happily running "Freelancer" - everything apart from the opening splash & movie works, UT2004 was tolerable, with glitches) but its much more "enjoy a few of your 3-4 year old PC games that you didn't think you'd be able to play again".
As for the EMAIL & support: they'd been selling virtualization software to a crowd of tech-savvy developers and sysadmins, then they suddenly started dealing with regular Mac users who wanted to sync their mobile phones or run accounting software and were now trying to "virtualize" the copy of windows previously installed under "bootcamp". Anybody here want to volunteer for that particular helldesk?
Welcome to the scorched Earth.
Lots of people habitually upgrade their phone every time they upgrade their contract - OK that's with free or heavily subsidised phones that don't cost $500 with a contract - but rest assured, those guys who queued all day yesterday are not going to be seen dead using a first-generation iPhone in two year's time. These are the customers that will be paying Steve's mortgage, not the ones still using their 5-year-old handset, so why waste money designing a phone to last more that 2 years?
Plus, it doesn't half make that $70 AppleCare protection plan look attractive.
Having said that, I'm sure Apple service agents will be able to replace the battery (...a purpose designed case-opening tool and a supply of replacement back covers would make it rather easier) - and from Apple's POV a battery hatch, contacts and additional casing will cost a few cents more, might add a millimetre to the thickness and would be something else to break, go wrong or get replaced by a cookie by someone's sprog. Its not like the iPod flopped because of a non-removable battery.
(PS - I'm not saying I like the idea)
Informative post - thanks.
Bear in mind that there's been no real "intra-generation" standards war in the UK, just a progression from Analogue to GSM, then 3G/UMTS and now HSDPA. For some time we've had basic GSM everywhere that is likely to get mobile coverage this side of doomsday - so its a case of waiting for an upgrade to the latest flavour. I'd guess that GSM is newer in the US and more likely to be rolled out with all the trimmings.
Having said that - I have no bones about the 3G coverage, I was just observing that plain-old GPRS was still an essential fallback, and that GPRS for "email anywhere" + WiFi where available for web surfing might actually be a reasonable trade-off.
Also - I'm on T-Mobile which, in the UK, may not have the best coverage but (last time I looked) was the only carrier with a halfway sane unmetered internet plan.