You should be able to do a low-level grovel through your entire directory tree, read every file, and not have a single byte of that data surprise you.
And of course, 99.9% of Windows users are quite happy to do this.
</sarcasm>
WTF is the point in an operating system if you have to understand every single damn byte?? If I wanted to do that, I'd go back in time 40 years and toggle my bootstrap in by hand.
Well, why shouldn't the Disney Corporation retain those rights? They developed and nurtured the character over decades.
OK, good point. Remind me, when was the last Mickey Mouse cartoon made?
America, for all its faults, is nothing at all like a totalitarian country. Those who say it is truly have no clue of what life under tyranny is really like.
I think a lot of the slashbot groupthink is very much "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" chicken-little stuff. That being said, I believe it was Karl Marx who suggested that under a capitalist system it was inevitable that the rich would get richer and the poor poorer until such time as there was a revolution.
It won't be copyright that brings about the next revolution - most people are too worried earning money so they can eat.
It will be when there are so few jobs that few have money and few can eat.
I'm sorry, but using the price of the software as an excuse to steal it
I'm sorry, but it is my considered opinion that you are speaking complete balderdash.
for a one time use and to play around with
AFAICT, the argument is "if I use it once for a few hours, decide I don't really need it, forget it was ever installed and never touch it again, why should I pay?"
I would argue that this is perfectly reasonable if you add the condition: "if I find I actually like the software and go on to use it regularly, I'll go out and buy it". Lots of commercial software houses don't offer viable evaluation versions for various reasons, what's wrong with using the full-blown product for evaluation?
1. Fear of the costs involved in supporting a bunch of people contacting them with questions which can't be answered by your typical "pot plant with a script" they sit on the helpdesk.
2. They don't have a problem per se, but there are so many licensing issues tied up with the hardware itself and its drivers that to release the specs would be a legal minefield.
3. Cynical view: their hardware's very nasty, they know this, they don't really want the rest of the world to see the number of workarounds for this they've had to write into the driver.
4. Even more cynical view: Their hardware doesn't actually do much, it depends on the driver to do almost everything. A bit like WinModems, only applied to other addons.
"Macintosh computers using Intel microprocessors do not use Open Firmware."
Similarly, there is no corresponding sentence saying "They use a standard PC BIOS".
This might be because they do plan on using EFI. Or it might simply be that they want to discourage developers from trying low-level things to find out what kind of hardware they're sitting on - the whole point of a rich API is that you don't have to do that kind of thing, and if developers are discouraged from doing so, it leaves the door slightly more open for further changes later on.
1. You still need to talk a lot of hardware manufacturers into writing drivers. There's a lot of addons (both internal and external) where the manufacturer simply hasn't bothered. I see this as a chicken-and-egg scenario. I can't see manufacturers devoting much time to writing drivers if they don't perceive a market; similarly I don't see a significantly larger market emerging if hardware compatability is a big issue.
2. Assuming Apple does some day plan on selling the OS through OEMs or off-the-shelf, how do they get OEMs to ship it in the first place? Another OS to install means another OS to provide support for. Without some degree of popularity, that's unlikely to happen. However, if they can gain significant sales through retail, this may not be a problem. But do Apple want to set up and run a support line where people ring up saying "I installed OS X on this random bit of hardware I found in the shed and (insert-random-thing-here) is broken?"
3. True. But you need to consider where you're going with the marketshare. Business marketshare is good, as it's more likely to pay for the software - if not now then some day. Personal marketshare - well, here we're back at the "how many people will ever go out and BUY it when they upgrade" question.
.. what would happen if Apple decided to just offer the OS without the hardware?
My guess is:
1. Apple would have to provide drivers for every shitty bit of PC hardware out there. Every chipset, every graphics card, every addon.
2. Beige-box vendors would steer well clear because they don't want to lose the hefty discounts they're getting on Windows. Is it illegal to refuse discounts if the person buying your stuff is also buying from the competition? Probably. Would Microsoft threaten it anyway? Almost certainly.
This immediately eliminates anyone who's not prepared to go out and buy a separate OS to install. That's a pretty big userbase.
3. As a side-effect of supporting all sorts of generic hardware - bye bye locking OS X to Apple hardware, hello piracy nightmare.
Could it happen? Certainly. Is it likely to happen any time before Apple has enough market share to eliminate the above concerns? Nope.
Well, it's not quite as simple as that. Running the lottery is outsourced to a company called Camelot. The companies wanting to run it had to submit bids explaining what they'd do with the money.
Camelot answered "Give some of it to arts projects, put some of it into the prize fund, use the rest to pay our directors absurd quantities of money", and they got the contract.
I'm not a parent, and I'm curious. Why do parents feel the need to hide pornography?
It's not just straight, simple porn that's potentially worrying. It's fetishes, bestiality, paedophiles and other assorted things which are perhaps undesirable. Where do you draw the line?
At the time of the show's start, Courney Cox was far and away the most recognizable celebrity
Whoa. Stop there. First misunderstanding : it's recognizability of the CHARACTERS. Not the actors. Practically everyone in the UK knows a Derrick Trotter or a David Brent.
A bad designer turns out crap, nobody buys it, the clothes wind up in the £1 bargain bin, the designer needs to start looking for another job.
A bad automobile designer turns out crap, nobody buys it, he's sacked, if the entire company churns out nothing but crap it goes under sooner or later.
A bad actor turns out crap, gets lousy reviews and the next acting job is the back end of a pantomime cow.
Microsoft turn out Windows and people keep on buying it in droves.
Why in gods name can't the printer companies just make a freakin printer, charge a reasonable profit for their effort and do the same with replacement ink.
Because they don't make enough money that way. Yes, a company could come along and do that, and charge a fair price for ink cartridges. The aftermarket ones likely wouldn't exist for that printer. But at the consumer end, most people look at the price of the printer itself. Considering ongoing costs is very much a niche corner of the market. At the business end, many printers aren't sold at all, they're leased - the company gets the printer and all the toner they can eat "free" - but they pay a fixed rate per page.
The only way you'll ever get this done is to legislate it. Never gonna happen.
The press release I read didn't say anything about going to IA32. It just said "Intel chips".
Intel are shipping x86-64 chips now.
I also don't recall anything about moving away from OpenFirmware, and just because there's an Intel CPU involved doesn't mean you're obliged to hook it up to a half-baked north/southbridge combo with a semi-compliant IDE interface and a braindamaged BIOS which needs updates just to handle basic features properly.
OT, but seriously, will someone explain exactly what's evil about that anyway? (Rating: -1, Troll)
Apple are a computer company. Not a "PowerPC chip powering the computer" computer company. They've never been afraid of major changes (witness 680x0 to PPC, OS 9 to OS X). If they reckon they can ultimately produce a better product or attract more customers by using Intel processors and they can minimise the pain to existing customers in doing so, why the hell not? (Rating: -1, Flamebait)
I seriously doubt we'll see them using a standard PC motherboard, chipset and BIOS (and these are generally the reason why things like power saving still suck in PC land).
OK, so a G5 powered Apple may have more limited use in 4 years' time than a 4 year old Apple does today. But the development tools being pushed by Apple don't produce "x86-only" code - they produce programs which can run on BOTH architectures. So I really can't see the problem.
What claim does Sony (or whoever) have on the DVD Decrypter source code?
I don't see anything about a court order here. I suspect he received a Cease & Desist letter saying "hand everything over or we'll sic a 100-strong pack of lawyers on you, sue you for millions and get you in jail you lowdown little shitbag".
What is the current situation with DVD regonal codes?
Here in the UK it is trivial to get a region-free DVD player from a high-street store, and nobody will bat an eyelid. Many of the cheap chinese models are region-free from the factory.
Non-region 2 DVDs are somewhat scarce in the shops, though I understand Amazon will deliver anywhere (and they make clear if a DVD will require a multi-region player).
Apple now owns a large amount of PPC IP and Intel will now be manufacturing and designing PPC chips
Now that I can believe. The same chips, the same technology - means that there's no platform shift and associated hassles. Also means there's no risk of people loading OS X onto the Dell they bought for 1/2 the price. I'll bet Intel are only to happy to license the IP behind the Power chip.
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You should be able to do a low-level grovel through your entire directory tree, read every file, and not have a single byte of that data surprise you.
And of course, 99.9% of Windows users are quite happy to do this.
</sarcasm>
WTF is the point in an operating system if you have to understand every single damn byte?? If I wanted to do that, I'd go back in time 40 years and toggle my bootstrap in by hand.
Well, why shouldn't the Disney Corporation retain those rights? They developed and nurtured the character over decades.
OK, good point. Remind me, when was the last Mickey Mouse cartoon made?
America, for all its faults, is nothing at all like a totalitarian country. Those who say it is truly have no clue of what life under tyranny is really like.
I think a lot of the slashbot groupthink is very much "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" chicken-little stuff. That being said, I believe it was Karl Marx who suggested that under a capitalist system it was inevitable that the rich would get richer and the poor poorer until such time as there was a revolution.
It won't be copyright that brings about the next revolution - most people are too worried earning money so they can eat.
It will be when there are so few jobs that few have money and few can eat.
I'm sorry, but using the price of the software as an excuse to steal it
I'm sorry, but it is my considered opinion that you are speaking complete balderdash.
for a one time use and to play around with
AFAICT, the argument is "if I use it once for a few hours, decide I don't really need it, forget it was ever installed and never touch it again, why should I pay?"
I would argue that this is perfectly reasonable if you add the condition: "if I find I actually like the software and go on to use it regularly, I'll go out and buy it". Lots of commercial software houses don't offer viable evaluation versions for various reasons, what's wrong with using the full-blown product for evaluation?
Thoughts that occur:
1. Fear of the costs involved in supporting a bunch of people contacting them with questions which can't be answered by your typical "pot plant with a script" they sit on the helpdesk.
2. They don't have a problem per se, but there are so many licensing issues tied up with the hardware itself and its drivers that to release the specs would be a legal minefield.
3. Cynical view: their hardware's very nasty, they know this, they don't really want the rest of the world to see the number of workarounds for this they've had to write into the driver.
4. Even more cynical view: Their hardware doesn't actually do much, it depends on the driver to do almost everything. A bit like WinModems, only applied to other addons.
"Macintosh computers using Intel microprocessors do not use Open Firmware."
Similarly, there is no corresponding sentence saying "They use a standard PC BIOS".
This might be because they do plan on using EFI. Or it might simply be that they want to discourage developers from trying low-level things to find out what kind of hardware they're sitting on - the whole point of a rich API is that you don't have to do that kind of thing, and if developers are discouraged from doing so, it leaves the door slightly more open for further changes later on.
Purely out of curiosity, does BSD (any flavour) have a reasonably mature LVM system?
1. You still need to talk a lot of hardware manufacturers into writing drivers. There's a lot of addons (both internal and external) where the manufacturer simply hasn't bothered. I see this as a chicken-and-egg scenario. I can't see manufacturers devoting much time to writing drivers if they don't perceive a market; similarly I don't see a significantly larger market emerging if hardware compatability is a big issue.
2. Assuming Apple does some day plan on selling the OS through OEMs or off-the-shelf, how do they get OEMs to ship it in the first place? Another OS to install means another OS to provide support for. Without some degree of popularity, that's unlikely to happen. However, if they can gain significant sales through retail, this may not be a problem. But do Apple want to set up and run a support line where people ring up saying "I installed OS X on this random bit of hardware I found in the shed and (insert-random-thing-here) is broken?"
3. True. But you need to consider where you're going with the marketshare. Business marketshare is good, as it's more likely to pay for the software - if not now then some day. Personal marketshare - well, here we're back at the "how many people will ever go out and BUY it when they upgrade" question.
.. what would happen if Apple decided to just offer the OS without the hardware?
My guess is:
1. Apple would have to provide drivers for every shitty bit of PC hardware out there. Every chipset, every graphics card, every addon.
2. Beige-box vendors would steer well clear because they don't want to lose the hefty discounts they're getting on Windows. Is it illegal to refuse discounts if the person buying your stuff is also buying from the competition? Probably. Would Microsoft threaten it anyway? Almost certainly.
This immediately eliminates anyone who's not prepared to go out and buy a separate OS to install. That's a pretty big userbase.
3. As a side-effect of supporting all sorts of generic hardware - bye bye locking OS X to Apple hardware, hello piracy nightmare.
Could it happen? Certainly. Is it likely to happen any time before Apple has enough market share to eliminate the above concerns? Nope.
Support doesn't just mean "Hi, tech support helpline, how can I help you?".
It also means patches and updates.
I went to the same school as Cameron. A very smart guy, who tried not to let his disability get in his way.
Goodbye, Cam. Hope the next world treats you a bit better than this one did.
I guess the state runs the lottery in the uk too
Well, it's not quite as simple as that. Running the lottery is outsourced to a company called Camelot. The companies wanting to run it had to submit bids explaining what they'd do with the money.
Camelot answered "Give some of it to arts projects, put some of it into the prize fund, use the rest to pay our directors absurd quantities of money", and they got the contract.
I'm not a parent, and I'm curious. Why do parents feel the need to hide pornography?
It's not just straight, simple porn that's potentially worrying. It's fetishes, bestiality, paedophiles and other assorted things which are perhaps undesirable. Where do you draw the line?
Photoshop may be expensive
It is expensive. But it's not intended for Joe Bloggs cropping the crappy little images he makes with his £90 digital camera.
I will be very surprised if this has significant impact on Adobe's core market.
R: 3.
At the time of the show's start, Courney Cox was far and away the most recognizable celebrity
Whoa. Stop there. First misunderstanding : it's recognizability of the CHARACTERS. Not the actors. Practically everyone in the UK knows a Derrick Trotter or a David Brent.
A bad designer turns out crap, nobody buys it, the clothes wind up in the £1 bargain bin, the designer needs to start looking for another job.
A bad automobile designer turns out crap, nobody buys it, he's sacked, if the entire company churns out nothing but crap it goes under sooner or later.
A bad actor turns out crap, gets lousy reviews and the next acting job is the back end of a pantomime cow.
Microsoft turn out Windows and people keep on buying it in droves.
Why in gods name can't the printer companies just make a freakin printer, charge a reasonable profit for their effort and do the same with replacement ink.
Because they don't make enough money that way. Yes, a company could come along and do that, and charge a fair price for ink cartridges. The aftermarket ones likely wouldn't exist for that printer. But at the consumer end, most people look at the price of the printer itself. Considering ongoing costs is very much a niche corner of the market. At the business end, many printers aren't sold at all, they're leased - the company gets the printer and all the toner they can eat "free" - but they pay a fixed rate per page.
The only way you'll ever get this done is to legislate it. Never gonna happen.
I think I missed most of that.
The press release I read didn't say anything about going to IA32. It just said "Intel chips".
Intel are shipping x86-64 chips now.
I also don't recall anything about moving away from OpenFirmware, and just because there's an Intel CPU involved doesn't mean you're obliged to hook it up to a half-baked north/southbridge combo with a semi-compliant IDE interface and a braindamaged BIOS which needs updates just to handle basic features properly.
I think the proof will be in the pudding.
OT, but seriously, will someone explain exactly what's evil about that anyway? (Rating: -1, Troll)
Apple are a computer company. Not a "PowerPC chip powering the computer" computer company. They've never been afraid of major changes (witness 680x0 to PPC, OS 9 to OS X). If they reckon they can ultimately produce a better product or attract more customers by using Intel processors and they can minimise the pain to existing customers in doing so, why the hell not? (Rating: -1, Flamebait)
I seriously doubt we'll see them using a standard PC motherboard, chipset and BIOS (and these are generally the reason why things like power saving still suck in PC land).
OK, so a G5 powered Apple may have more limited use in 4 years' time than a 4 year old Apple does today. But the development tools being pushed by Apple don't produce "x86-only" code - they produce programs which can run on BOTH architectures. So I really can't see the problem.
Burn, Karma, burn.
legislators need to think for themselves.
How many legislators in ANY country know the first thing about any given industry?
Usually none. So they do what seems sensible - go speak to the experts in that industry. Who are the experts?
Generally the group who is most persuasive at convincing the legislators that they're the experts.
What claim does Sony (or whoever) have on the DVD Decrypter source code?
I don't see anything about a court order here. I suspect he received a Cease & Desist letter saying "hand everything over or we'll sic a 100-strong pack of lawyers on you, sue you for millions and get you in jail you lowdown little shitbag".
Most people will cave on the spot.
What is the current situation with DVD regonal codes?
Here in the UK it is trivial to get a region-free DVD player from a high-street store, and nobody will bat an eyelid. Many of the cheap chinese models are region-free from the factory.
Non-region 2 DVDs are somewhat scarce in the shops, though I understand Amazon will deliver anywhere (and they make clear if a DVD will require a multi-region player).
as did Intel with the 386SX and 386DX chips I believe.
IIRC it was the 486. The SX was a DX with something disabled (FPU?).
Not really false advertising as such - they are different products, there's just not a very big difference.
Apple now owns a large amount of PPC IP and Intel will now be manufacturing and designing PPC chips
Now that I can believe. The same chips, the same technology - means that there's no platform shift and associated hassles. Also means there's no risk of people loading OS X onto the Dell they bought for 1/2 the price. I'll bet Intel are only to happy to license the IP behind the Power chip.