>> Chrome OS was announced almost two years ago (July 2009) and if they could have shipped something quickly it might have been worthwhile (and for fuck's sake, how hard is it?[...])
The reason is very simple: The iPad. They were probably ready to deploy sometime in 2010, but then the iPad was released and changed the game.
>> [...]but I can't think of a single reason for it to exist today.
Exactly. ChromeOS was announced back when the tech pundits claimed that the plain-ol' Web and netbooks were the future of computing. That is no longer the vision. The existence of ChromeOS has really no point at this time.
Google and China, right... As far as I remember, that didn't end well for them. Google had to stop their automatic redirection in order to avoid having their licenses revoked.
It was a PR embarrassment for them, as I recall. None of it affected Baidu at all, their Chinese competitor and still the largest search service in the country.
Great insight! But why stop there? Which other countries in your opinion form a very small portion of Google's business? How about Canada? Perhaps Brazil? Maybe Google should also dispense with offering services to Montana or New Mexico; I'm sure those are very small portions of Google's business too, so why bother with the expense?
You should send your proposal to the Google management. I'm sure Mr. Larry Page will be thrilled to receive your wise and erudite business advice.
Now, what about the U.S. budget crisis? Can you offer more of your sage advice on how to solve that?
And which restrictions are those? The ones that allow her to run her entire business on the tablet, or the ones that satisfy all her uses?
So perhaps other devices would have served the same purpose, perhaps not. However the original comment was a response to someone saying that tablets have no real world use yet, which is clearly not accurate.
But why would I ask him? I base my position in previous case law, tradition, and common sense. He has himself stated that he would not be "shocked" if the courts agreed that ripping CDs is fair use, so why would his own personal opinion matter?
But they don't have "sufficient control to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to" the market for online music.
Again, signing an exclusive artist to the iTunes store only makes iTunes a monopoly if you narrow the scope to the music of that artist. If, say, we're talking about Beatles music, then yes, Apple has a monopoly on access to it's online catalog. But that is hardly at question, and is a very limited market space. The allegations are pertaining to the entire music market.
This comes up over and over. Microsoft had a monopoly on Operating Systems for Personal Computers, which is a more general and broad scope than merely Operating Systems from Microsoft. Likewise, IBM had a monopoly on general purpose Electronic Digital Computer Systems, not on Computing Services and Products provided by IBM.
Apple, so far, has a monopoly on Apps made for iOS and music artists signed exclusively with iTunes, which are narrow spaces indeed. This is not to say that it will not change in the future. However, this is the state of things as they currently stand.
You know what would be a more interesting and apt quote? This one,
"I am not saying that I would be shocked if some court were to conclude that [space shifting CDs] is fair use. "
-- David O. Carson (former General Counsel for the US Copyright Office), "Making the Making Available Right Available", 33 Colum. J. L. & Arts. 135, 138.
The New York Times did not intend people to collect all feeds in a singular location to make it easier for people to read articles for free. The intention was to allow genuine subscribers to share articles, and hopefully entice others to subscribe to get the full content.
Whether it violates Tweeter policy or is illegal does not matter; clearly, that feed goes against the original intention of the NYT and tries to exploit a loophole so that all freeloaders can bypass the pay wall completely.
But, hey! I get it. They screwed up by opening themselves to exploitation, so they deserve what they get, right? It's not like we need to be civil or anything; after all it is our god given right to get the The New York Times for free. How dare they try to make money, those evil, nasty corporations.
Not really. They are antagonizing a bunch of freeloaders that, when offered a free exception to the new pay wall in good faith, decided to exploit it by retweeting mechanically, wholesale.
I don't think those are the readers the New York Times is looking for.
In the original article (which took three links to get to), Linus says that there are parts of the kernel that are protected, only those areas intended for user-space are free to use without limitations. He further admits that he has not seen exactly what Google has done, but he seems confident that they would not be using those protected parts because they are only for the kernel and make no sense for user-space.
The implications is that if Google did in fact used those protected kernel-specific definitions and stripped them of their copyright notices, they would indeed be in violation. Nothing Linus says contradicts this; he is just assuming that this cannot be the case because he believes there is no point to it.
Now, the allegation is that Google did include those protected kernel-specific definitions and stripped them of their copyright notices. If this is correct (which is still to be determined), then Linus' assumption is wrong.
Can someone elucidate on the actual allegations and not on Linus' knee-jerk reaction to this, which he fully admits is not even based on a cursory examination of the actual allegations? Is Google including kernel-specific definitions as part of Bionic?
Until he grew old and forgotten, and realized that the only thing he really ever accomplished--and the only one anyone ever remembers him for--is being Spock.
Check him out in recent interviews; he is *happy* to even get recognition at all. He realized that he almost burned those bridges with his loyal fans.
So, what you mean is, that it's more like unlocking the cupboard, taking some cookies out for the kids, leaving the cupboard open with the assumption that it eventually locks itself back, and then finding your kids ransacked it because you didn't care enough to read the manual which states that re-locking takes 15 minutes to take effect.
The fact that you yourself have noticed that you are able to take more than one cookie at a time for a short time after unlocking it did not cross your mind either.
True, but those mainframes were not PC's, were they?
The parent poster claimed that PC gaming came before home consoles and hand-held devices; mainframes were not even remotely included in the conversation.
>> Before there were consoles or handhelds, there was only PC gaming.
The above comment is inaccurate and makes the rest of your post suspect.
Consoles were there in the 70s and early 80s, then "died" (or went through a protracted "dry spell," as you say), then came back during the late 80s, just in time for PCs to finally not suck and start competing.
Unless you are including microcomputers under the "PC" label (which is a stretch, to say the least), such as the Apple II and the Commodore 64. Oh wait, the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision were already entrenched in the home-gaming mainstream market for at least 3 years by the time those two started seriously competing as video game machines.
And if you factor in the hand-held single-game machines, such as those by Mattel-Electronics, Texas Instruments, Casio, and just about anybody who made silicone chips back in the day, you can put "mobile" gaming devices almost 10 years before even the venerable Mode X in DOS was popularized.
The point is that the trend has always been to go from niche to mainstream by way of commoditization and personalization of the devices. DIY kits gave way to ready-made micro-computers; early arcade machines gave way to home video game machines; and so it seems natural that complex, custom-rigged PCs will be displaced eventually by simpler, cheaper, and more personal commodity devices like mobile phones or tablets.
>> Being a dick says a lot about your character, but other than alienating yourself from people who don't want to be around dicks, it really should carry no consequences whatsoever. (emphasis mine)
Oh gawd, not again. In Spanish we have a saying that, roughly translated, means "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle."
The intended meaning is that, it doesn't matter how much you wish for something to be true, or how much you think it should be so, the real world has a tendency of existing without fulfilling your expectations.
I'm sure some people think that performing any action should also come with no consequences whatsoever, or that everything should be free for anybody to take. However, that's not how the real world works, at least not the civilized world.
You are able to express your opinion; just perhaps not on your subject's home. And even that you are able to do, it's just not necessarily a good idea.
If I go to my neighbor's house and insult them in front of all their peers, should I be surprised when they kick me out and never invite me to dinner again? Nothing prevents me from doing it (except perhaps common decency and decorum, but this is Slashdot), but then I must deal with the consequence of my actions.
I am also free to insult my neighbor's out in the streets or in the privacy of my own home, or at the super market, and avoid dealing with their scorn directly.
You do not seem to understand. The breach of that "contract" was performed by the user: the contract was not a purchase in which goods must be exchanged, but a license allowing the user to install the software so long as he or she adheres to the terms. Since the user violated the terms, he is in breach of contract, his license is revoked, and therefore he has no claim.
As the parent poster said, it does not make it right or justifiable, just legal.
Slashdot Mirror
>> Chrome OS was announced almost two years ago (July 2009) and if they could have shipped something quickly it might have been worthwhile (and for fuck's sake, how hard is it?[...])
The reason is very simple: The iPad. They were probably ready to deploy sometime in 2010, but then the iPad was released and changed the game.
>> [...]but I can't think of a single reason for it to exist today.
Exactly. ChromeOS was announced back when the tech pundits claimed that the plain-ol' Web and netbooks were the future of computing. That is no longer the vision. The existence of ChromeOS has really no point at this time.
-dZ.
Google and China, right... As far as I remember, that didn't end well for them. Google had to stop their automatic redirection in order to avoid having their licenses revoked.
It was a PR embarrassment for them, as I recall. None of it affected Baidu at all, their Chinese competitor and still the largest search service in the country.
-dZ.
Great insight! But why stop there? Which other countries in your opinion form a very small portion of Google's business? How about Canada? Perhaps Brazil? Maybe Google should also dispense with offering services to Montana or New Mexico; I'm sure those are very small portions of Google's business too, so why bother with the expense?
You should send your proposal to the Google management. I'm sure Mr. Larry Page will be thrilled to receive your wise and erudite business advice.
Now, what about the U.S. budget crisis? Can you offer more of your sage advice on how to solve that?
-dZ.
And which restrictions are those? The ones that allow her to run her entire business on the tablet, or the ones that satisfy all her uses?
So perhaps other devices would have served the same purpose, perhaps not. However the original comment was a response to someone saying that tablets have no real world use yet, which is clearly not accurate.
-dZ.
Thanks for out my error.
Wait! That's truly news by nerds. There's a big difference.
-dZ.
Mmm. You know, I could for some wonton lifting right now. The problem is that I always feel like lifting more again in half an hour.
-dZ.
I stand by what I said, and your comments reinforce my position.
-dZ.
It's a well known fact that 83% of all iPod branded HDD-based portable music players designed by Apple are only available from Apple.
-Barney.
But why would I ask him? I base my position in previous case law, tradition, and common sense. He has himself stated that he would not be "shocked" if the courts agreed that ripping CDs is fair use, so why would his own personal opinion matter?
-dZ.
But they don't have "sufficient control to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to" the market for online music.
Again, signing an exclusive artist to the iTunes store only makes iTunes a monopoly if you narrow the scope to the music of that artist. If, say, we're talking about Beatles music, then yes, Apple has a monopoly on access to it's online catalog. But that is hardly at question, and is a very limited market space. The allegations are pertaining to the entire music market.
This comes up over and over. Microsoft had a monopoly on Operating Systems for Personal Computers, which is a more general and broad scope than merely Operating Systems from Microsoft. Likewise, IBM had a monopoly on general purpose Electronic Digital Computer Systems, not on Computing Services and Products provided by IBM.
Apple, so far, has a monopoly on Apps made for iOS and music artists signed exclusively with iTunes, which are narrow spaces indeed. This is not to say that it will not change in the future. However, this is the state of things as they currently stand.
-dZ.
You know what would be a more interesting and apt quote? This one,
Maybe I should put that in my sig, uh?
-dZ.
The New York Times did not intend people to collect all feeds in a singular location to make it easier for people to read articles for free. The intention was to allow genuine subscribers to share articles, and hopefully entice others to subscribe to get the full content.
Whether it violates Tweeter policy or is illegal does not matter; clearly, that feed goes against the original intention of the NYT and tries to exploit a loophole so that all freeloaders can bypass the pay wall completely.
But, hey! I get it. They screwed up by opening themselves to exploitation, so they deserve what they get, right? It's not like we need to be civil or anything; after all it is our god given right to get the The New York Times for free. How dare they try to make money, those evil, nasty corporations.
-dZ.
Not really. They are antagonizing a bunch of freeloaders that, when offered a free exception to the new pay wall in good faith, decided to exploit it by retweeting mechanically, wholesale.
I don't think those are the readers the New York Times is looking for.
dZ.
In the original article (which took three links to get to), Linus says that there are parts of the kernel that are protected, only those areas intended for user-space are free to use without limitations. He further admits that he has not seen exactly what Google has done, but he seems confident that they would not be using those protected parts because they are only for the kernel and make no sense for user-space.
The implications is that if Google did in fact used those protected kernel-specific definitions and stripped them of their copyright notices, they would indeed be in violation. Nothing Linus says contradicts this; he is just assuming that this cannot be the case because he believes there is no point to it.
Now, the allegation is that Google did include those protected kernel-specific definitions and stripped them of their copyright notices. If this is correct (which is still to be determined), then Linus' assumption is wrong.
Can someone elucidate on the actual allegations and not on Linus' knee-jerk reaction to this, which he fully admits is not even based on a cursory examination of the actual allegations? Is Google including kernel-specific definitions as part of Bionic?
-dZ.
Until he grew old and forgotten, and realized that the only thing he really ever accomplished--and the only one anyone ever remembers him for--is being Spock.
Check him out in recent interviews; he is *happy* to even get recognition at all. He realized that he almost burned those bridges with his loyal fans.
-dZ
So, what you mean is, that it's more like unlocking the cupboard, taking some cookies out for the kids, leaving the cupboard open with the assumption that it eventually locks itself back, and then finding your kids ransacked it because you didn't care enough to read the manual which states that re-locking takes 15 minutes to take effect.
The fact that you yourself have noticed that you are able to take more than one cookie at a time for a short time after unlocking it did not cross your mind either.
-dZ.
True, but those mainframes were not PC's, were they?
The parent poster claimed that PC gaming came before home consoles and hand-held devices; mainframes were not even remotely included in the conversation.
-dZ.
>> Before there were consoles or handhelds, there was only PC gaming.
The above comment is inaccurate and makes the rest of your post suspect.
Consoles were there in the 70s and early 80s, then "died" (or went through a protracted "dry spell," as you say), then came back during the late 80s, just in time for PCs to finally not suck and start competing.
Unless you are including microcomputers under the "PC" label (which is a stretch, to say the least), such as the Apple II and the Commodore 64. Oh wait, the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision were already entrenched in the home-gaming mainstream market for at least 3 years by the time those two started seriously competing as video game machines.
And if you factor in the hand-held single-game machines, such as those by Mattel-Electronics, Texas Instruments, Casio, and just about anybody who made silicone chips back in the day, you can put "mobile" gaming devices almost 10 years before even the venerable Mode X in DOS was popularized.
The point is that the trend has always been to go from niche to mainstream by way of commoditization and personalization of the devices. DIY kits gave way to ready-made micro-computers; early arcade machines gave way to home video game machines; and so it seems natural that complex, custom-rigged PCs will be displaced eventually by simpler, cheaper, and more personal commodity devices like mobile phones or tablets.
-dZ.
>> It's hardly like Angry Birds or Plant vs Zombies were innovative.
Hey, hey, HEY! Say what you will about that crap game Angry Birds; but I'll be damned if I'm going let anyone bad-mouth Plant vs. Zombies.
-dZ.
Shouldn't Pi day be the 22th of July?
-dZ.
>> Being a dick says a lot about your character, but other than alienating yourself from people who don't want to be around dicks, it really should carry no consequences whatsoever. (emphasis mine)
Oh gawd, not again. In Spanish we have a saying that, roughly translated, means "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle."
The intended meaning is that, it doesn't matter how much you wish for something to be true, or how much you think it should be so, the real world has a tendency of existing without fulfilling your expectations.
I'm sure some people think that performing any action should also come with no consequences whatsoever, or that everything should be free for anybody to take. However, that's not how the real world works, at least not the civilized world.
-dZ.
You are able to express your opinion; just perhaps not on your subject's home. And even that you are able to do, it's just not necessarily a good idea.
If I go to my neighbor's house and insult them in front of all their peers, should I be surprised when they kick me out and never invite me to dinner again? Nothing prevents me from doing it (except perhaps common decency and decorum, but this is Slashdot), but then I must deal with the consequence of my actions.
I am also free to insult my neighbor's out in the streets or in the privacy of my own home, or at the super market, and avoid dealing with their scorn directly.
-dZ.
You do not seem to understand. The breach of that "contract" was performed by the user: the contract was not a purchase in which goods must be exchanged, but a license allowing the user to install the software so long as he or she adheres to the terms. Since the user violated the terms, he is in breach of contract, his license is revoked, and therefore he has no claim.
As the parent poster said, it does not make it right or justifiable, just legal.
-dZ.
I paid 10 dollars for WinAmp. Two weeks later, NullSoft announced that WinAmp was absolutely Freeware and no more licenses were offered.
-dZ.