Java caught on quickly largely because it was open: the language specification was published without prohibiting 3rd parties from implementing it in their own VM, etc. Copyrighting the class library API, which is half of Oracle's charges here, is a severe lockdown. Oracle's grab to control more of Java than even Sun did is going to kill the spirit of the community that cares about openness which keeps Java alive.
This lawsuit has no bearing on whether or not Java remains alive. This lawsuits deals with Google's use of "Java Technology" to create a competing VM called Dalvik which is NOT Java compatible. If anything this lawsuit signifies Oracle's willingness to defend its IP and prevent fragmentation not blessed by the JCP. This can also be viewed as Oracle taking steps to ensure the health of Java. That and Oracle's baby steps towards making JCP independent by inviting IBM to the party.
This is not a severe lockdown. Just enforcing the terms of the Open Source License granted by Sun/Oracle on Java SE.
It also had this line"The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets." Yet it didn't provide any details of which agency nor where in the US to back up that statement.
The rest of the article talks about the US using it in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to inspect cargo at ports. It appeared his only source was an ASE salesperson.
I, for one, am awaiting Chrome OS and Google's take on what a Linux desktop should be like.
You do realize that Chrome OS will be just as much Linux as Android is right? It may use Linux near the hardware, but it will run web applications exclusively.
Google's take on what a Linux desktop should be like is not to use Linux and have hooks that make it easier for Google to deliver targeted advertising (non-scary way of saying track you).
First point is that Unity is still a GNOME Desktop. It's just a different UI shell on it. So Ubuntu will still be following much development from the GNOME guys.
They will be using the Gnome libraries, yet implementing their own UI. I wouldn't call it a GNOME Desktop. It's more like a GNOME compatible desktop.
Second point is that Ubuntu is already well known for not sticking to upstream implementations. A corollary is that Ubuntu has been developing UI enhancements for quite a while now, so it's not a new thing somehow that they've just decided on today.
Enhancement not equal to Replacement. Ubuntu 10.04 is a perfect example. There may be Ubuntu specific tweaks to the GNOME Desktop on Ubuntu Desktop edition but they are not obvious nor do they deviate from how things are done on a GNOME desktop. Ubuntu Notebook Edition, on the other hand, completely replaced the GNOME desktop with Unity and changed a large amount of how the user interacts with the applications.
See: Ubuntu Netbook Edition, which is now quite stable in Ubuntu 10.04;
Unity is unfinished. You have to jump through hoops to place an application on it's dock bar. It is cumbersome with programs that open multiple windows side-by-side. It works but not as easily as GNOME. I have a better experience with Ubuntu Desktop edition on my Asus netbook than with Unity. Luckily it wasn't a big deal to go back to GNOME since Ubuntu pretty much installed the entire GNOME desktop too. It just defaults to Unity on login.
Ubuntu is pushing Unity to integrate Ubuntu's desktop with Canonical's cloud computing service (Ubuntu One). Not because GNOME 3.0 shell isn't up to the task or going to be released too late.
Because shipping containers and semi-trailers were exclusively lottery based inspections. With scanners like these most shipping containers and semi-trailers can be inspected at the port while shortening the delay that a physical inspection usually causes.
Now we also need them roaming the streets?
I didn't see anything in the slideshow that indicated that these were roaming the streets. I see this being used in a container yard or shipping hub which are places that US Customs and Border Protection actually patrol. BTW there is absolutely no expectation of privacy for any package or shipping container traveling on a common carrier (third-party delivery company for hire), entering or leaving the country, or stored within a maritime port or airport
The researcher took the obvious step of adding malware code to a jail break program. While the article reports that the Jailbreak app will lead the way for more malware, it also stated this which contradicts:
The program is harmless and the vulnerabilities in question were patched by Apple in early August. However, Monti warns that more and more high value applications on the iPhone will increase the attractiveness of the platform for malicious parties, including banking and e-commerce.
Emphasis mine.
Also the "more and more high value" application line warrants a "no shit sherlock". Willie Sutton robbed banks because that was where the money was.
Basically this just shows that you need to know the risks before you jailbreak your phone. This is true for any phone OS, since jailbreak is a political term for rooting. Check the source (as in where you downloaded) and compare the binary with a known reliable hash (eg. MD5, etc). When you leave the comforts of the installed ROM, you need to be more vigilant about your security.
The only difference with meego is that the standard userland is already there, but nothing stopping you from installing what you need on android.
Well except the restricted memory space and you still need to load a libraries to support the standard userland. The N900 was built with the intention of running Maemo. The Android OS was made to run on resource limited devices such as the nexus one. I'm not saying it's not possible to run a standard GUI on the nexus one, I seen linux GUI run on less (like my ancient Sharp Zaurus). I just have my doubts that the standard userland can run within Android and actually be useful (speed may be a concern).
Of course the phones will get more powerful, and soon the hardware will support running Linux programs alongside Android. This will be feature supplied by the hardware and made possible by the linux kernel that Android runs on top off. Not exactly Android itself.
All things are technically possible with software, the question becomes would the reward justify the effort. The parent was referring to the fact that he could run his programs on Maemo with very little effort. You can't say that is the case with Android.
Whose standards will those products follow once there is only one mobile OS that matters?
Easy! Google's of course.
Just like Microsoft gave us standard's... I can't finish the sentence.
From what I see, standards are not very high in Google's agenda. Dalvik the non-standard bastard step-child of Java, and Flash the proprietary home-run of Adobe's are what I see as talking points for Android. Not that HTML5 isn't a priority for Google.
Of course standards are what companies use until they reach a dominate position, then they become the de facto standard.
Legally companies do have responsibilities to their shareholders. That is exactly how the system is designed to work. Shareholders are entirely within their legal rights to sue their companies for failing to make decisions which are likely to make the company profitable.
The court case Dodge v. Ford Motor Company is often cited on Slashdot as the basis of this meme. The basis of the ruling was that Ford wanted to pay most of the money up front for a smelter plant in order to prevent the Dodge brothers from receiving a dividend and using it to create a competing car company. It wasn't that Ford Motor Company didn't make a profit, it was that Henry Ford was purposely diverting the funds to infrastructure expenditures in order to prevent a dividend from being paid to Dodge.
In fact in AP Smith Mfg. Co. v. Barlow (1953) the court ruled against the shareholder when he sued AP Smith for donating money to Princeton University because:
In the light of all of the foregoing we have no hesitancy in sustaining the validity of the donation by the plaintiff. There is no suggestion that it was made indiscriminately or to a pet charity of the corporate directors in furtherance of personal rather than corporate ends. On the contrary, it was made to a preeminent institution of higher learning, was modest in amount and well within the limitations imposed by the statutory enactments, and was voluntarily made in the reasonable belief that it would aid the public welfare and advance the interests of the plaintiff as a private corporation and as part of the community in which it operates. We find that it was a lawful exercise of the corporation's implied and incidental powers under common-law principles and that it came within the express authority of the pertinent state legislation.
In my opinion the only reason that bible.com shareholder lawsuit may have merit was because the company paid their debt with shares of stock and not performing a good faith effort at repaying their debt or making the shares given worth the debt owed. The other compelling reason for the suit was the following (FTA):
The company's business plan stated "it is the goal of the board of directors of Bible.com to become very, very profitable," according to court documents.
This is another important element of the shareholder suit, since the plaintiff must establish that the financial dealings done by the board run counter to the business plan agreed.
Please let this "corporations must make a profit or be sued" myth die. It all depends on the companies charter.
On the phone side, the only phones that are pretty much open-source friendly are anything running Android and OpenMoko.
I think our definitions of friendly differ.
If I have to jump through hoops to "root" a phone in order to upgrade an Android phone, then I don't consider that friendly.
Now if I could just place a boot image on a SD card and the phone will natively boot off that image, then I would consider that friendly.
Meaning, the main difference between an iPhone and an Android Phone *hardware* is that we call rooting a iPhone - jail breaking. Now the OS on both platforms allow you to run open source software, while the Android OS itself in open source.
In contrast, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of total federal taxes in 2007. The lower 90% of taxpayers paid the other 45%.
Top 10% has a median income of $394,500, top 5% has a median income of $611,200, and the top 1% has a median income of $1,873,000.
Within that same report you quoted, people earning less that $138,800 per year paid 55.2% of the total federal tax liabilities.
In order to be included in the top 1% of income earned, you had to make at least $341,800. All people making less than that paid 71.6 of the total federal tax liabilities.
The effective individual income tax rates for the lowest 40% has been negative since 2002, as the methodology includes low-income tax credits. However, once you add in the other types of federal taxes, it's no longer negative, but the lowest quintile's share of total federal taxes was less than 1% in 2007.
To be in the lowest quintile, you can't make over $19,400 per year, and to be included in the second quintile you can't make over $33,000 per year.
The millionaires always claim that they pay the majority of the taxes and therefore deserve some kind of tax relief. But according to the CBO report, the group which they associate themselves with (over $341,800) only pay $28.4% of the total bill. Unfortunately the CBO hasn't updated their brackets so we can't really know what percentage the millionaire segment actually pays.
The problems with this report is that it only includes income reported as taxable, so if an individual had a trust that handled their wealth it wouldn't necessarily show up here, and the report only includes realized capital gains not actual capital gains (market worth).
Why would anybody try? The data rate will be too low and the LEO will make the contact window too small, so people will quickly get frustrated and continue to use the much cheaper, reliable and faster connections they have now.
When I installed my Java update from Apple this morning, I noticed that the wording was similar for Java 1.4 on leopard. Apple may be just announcing that this is the end of the line for Java 6 SE, and only expect future support for Java 7 SE in the next version of OS X.
Unlike Oracle, Apple disables the previous version of Java platform and gives the user the option of re-enabling it by jumping through hoops.
That's a lot of fear-mongering. Steve Jobs went out of his way during his presentation Wednesday to point out that the Mac App Store is only an alternate method for developers to sell their software. Traditional methods will continue to exist.
Slashdot Mirror
This lawsuit has no bearing on whether or not Java remains alive. This lawsuits deals with Google's use of "Java Technology" to create a competing VM called Dalvik which is NOT Java compatible. If anything this lawsuit signifies Oracle's willingness to defend its IP and prevent fragmentation not blessed by the JCP. This can also be viewed as Oracle taking steps to ensure the health of Java. That and Oracle's baby steps towards making JCP independent by inviting IBM to the party.
This is not a severe lockdown. Just enforcing the terms of the Open Source License granted by Sun/Oracle on Java SE.
I'm sure that Eric Schmidt being Barrack Obama's "informal" technology advisor had nothing to do with it.
The article had a sensationalist headline.
It also had this line"The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets." Yet it didn't provide any details of which agency nor where in the US to back up that statement.
The rest of the article talks about the US using it in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to inspect cargo at ports. It appeared his only source was an ASE salesperson.
You do realize that Chrome OS will be just as much Linux as Android is right? It may use Linux near the hardware, but it will run web applications exclusively.
Google's take on what a Linux desktop should be like is not to use Linux and have hooks that make it easier for Google to deliver targeted advertising (non-scary way of saying track you).
They will be using the Gnome libraries, yet implementing their own UI. I wouldn't call it a GNOME Desktop. It's more like a GNOME compatible desktop.
Enhancement not equal to Replacement. Ubuntu 10.04 is a perfect example. There may be Ubuntu specific tweaks to the GNOME Desktop on Ubuntu Desktop edition but they are not obvious nor do they deviate from how things are done on a GNOME desktop. Ubuntu Notebook Edition, on the other hand, completely replaced the GNOME desktop with Unity and changed a large amount of how the user interacts with the applications.
Unity is unfinished. You have to jump through hoops to place an application on it's dock bar. It is cumbersome with programs that open multiple windows side-by-side. It works but not as easily as GNOME. I have a better experience with Ubuntu Desktop edition on my Asus netbook than with Unity. Luckily it wasn't a big deal to go back to GNOME since Ubuntu pretty much installed the entire GNOME desktop too. It just defaults to Unity on login.
Ubuntu is pushing Unity to integrate Ubuntu's desktop with Canonical's cloud computing service (Ubuntu One). Not because GNOME 3.0 shell isn't up to the task or going to be released too late.
I didn't see anything in the slideshow that indicated that these were roaming the streets. I see this being used in a container yard or shipping hub which are places that US Customs and Border Protection actually patrol. BTW there is absolutely no expectation of privacy for any package or shipping container traveling on a common carrier (third-party delivery company for hire), entering or leaving the country, or stored within a maritime port or airport
Jeez. Ubuntu is becoming the jack of many trades and master of none.
Let the dedicated desktop guys at Gnome work on the UI. Last thing Linux needs is yet another implementation of a desktop.
I think we are about to witness the "Jumping the shark".. (Happy Days reference)
Well using Kubuntu, you'll be replacing Gnome bloat with KDE bloat.
How about putting quick launch shortcuts in the "dock" without having to manually create a '.desktop' file?
The researcher took the obvious step of adding malware code to a jail break program. While the article reports that the Jailbreak app will lead the way for more malware, it also stated this which contradicts:
Emphasis mine.
Also the "more and more high value" application line warrants a "no shit sherlock". Willie Sutton robbed banks because that was where the money was.
Basically this just shows that you need to know the risks before you jailbreak your phone. This is true for any phone OS, since jailbreak is a political term for rooting. Check the source (as in where you downloaded) and compare the binary with a known reliable hash (eg. MD5, etc). When you leave the comforts of the installed ROM, you need to be more vigilant about your security.
My point was competition keeps everybody in check. I not particularly happy with the wording in the parent quote.
Well except the restricted memory space and you still need to load a libraries to support the standard userland. The N900 was built with the intention of running Maemo. The Android OS was made to run on resource limited devices such as the nexus one. I'm not saying it's not possible to run a standard GUI on the nexus one, I seen linux GUI run on less (like my ancient Sharp Zaurus). I just have my doubts that the standard userland can run within Android and actually be useful (speed may be a concern).
Of course the phones will get more powerful, and soon the hardware will support running Linux programs alongside Android. This will be feature supplied by the hardware and made possible by the linux kernel that Android runs on top off. Not exactly Android itself.
All things are technically possible with software, the question becomes would the reward justify the effort. The parent was referring to the fact that he could run his programs on Maemo with very little effort. You can't say that is the case with Android.
Excellent point. I wish I could mod you up.
Easy! Google's of course.
Just like Microsoft gave us standard's... I can't finish the sentence.
From what I see, standards are not very high in Google's agenda. Dalvik the non-standard bastard step-child of Java, and Flash the proprietary home-run of Adobe's are what I see as talking points for Android. Not that HTML5 isn't a priority for Google.
Of course standards are what companies use until they reach a dominate position, then they become the de facto standard.
Tell me more about these weather-proof radio waves and where I can purchase one.
IANAL
The court case Dodge v. Ford Motor Company is often cited on Slashdot as the basis of this meme. The basis of the ruling was that Ford wanted to pay most of the money up front for a smelter plant in order to prevent the Dodge brothers from receiving a dividend and using it to create a competing car company. It wasn't that Ford Motor Company didn't make a profit, it was that Henry Ford was purposely diverting the funds to infrastructure expenditures in order to prevent a dividend from being paid to Dodge.
In fact in AP Smith Mfg. Co. v. Barlow (1953) the court ruled against the shareholder when he sued AP Smith for donating money to Princeton University because:
In the light of all of the foregoing we have no hesitancy in sustaining the validity of the donation by the plaintiff. There is no suggestion that it was made indiscriminately or to a pet charity of the corporate directors in furtherance of personal rather than corporate ends. On the contrary, it was made to a preeminent institution of higher learning, was modest in amount and well within the limitations imposed by the statutory enactments, and was voluntarily made in the reasonable belief that it would aid the public welfare and advance the interests of the plaintiff as a private corporation and as part of the community in which it operates. We find that it was a lawful exercise of the corporation's implied and incidental powers under common-law principles and that it came within the express authority of the pertinent state legislation.
In my opinion the only reason that bible.com shareholder lawsuit may have merit was because the company paid their debt with shares of stock and not performing a good faith effort at repaying their debt or making the shares given worth the debt owed. The other compelling reason for the suit was the following (FTA):
The company's business plan stated "it is the goal of the board of directors of Bible.com to become very, very profitable," according to court documents. This is another important element of the shareholder suit, since the plaintiff must establish that the financial dealings done by the board run counter to the business plan agreed.
Please let this "corporations must make a profit or be sued" myth die. It all depends on the companies charter.
Will Nokia replace the N900 with a newer model that runs Meego?
I think our definitions of friendly differ.
If I have to jump through hoops to "root" a phone in order to upgrade an Android phone, then I don't consider that friendly.
Now if I could just place a boot image on a SD card and the phone will natively boot off that image, then I would consider that friendly.
Meaning, the main difference between an iPhone and an Android Phone *hardware* is that we call rooting a iPhone - jail breaking. Now the OS on both platforms allow you to run open source software, while the Android OS itself in open source.
Excellent! Thanks for the heads up.
Don't forget the actual report that goes with those tables:
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/AverageFedTaxRates2007.pdf
Top 10% has a median income of $394,500, top 5% has a median income of $611,200, and the top 1% has a median income of $1,873,000.
Within that same report you quoted, people earning less that $138,800 per year paid 55.2% of the total federal tax liabilities.
In order to be included in the top 1% of income earned, you had to make at least $341,800. All people making less than that paid 71.6 of the total federal tax liabilities.
To be in the lowest quintile, you can't make over $19,400 per year, and to be included in the second quintile you can't make over $33,000 per year.
The millionaires always claim that they pay the majority of the taxes and therefore deserve some kind of tax relief. But according to the CBO report, the group which they associate themselves with (over $341,800) only pay $28.4% of the total bill. Unfortunately the CBO hasn't updated their brackets so we can't really know what percentage the millionaire segment actually pays.
The problems with this report is that it only includes income reported as taxable, so if an individual had a trust that handled their wealth it wouldn't necessarily show up here, and the report only includes realized capital gains not actual capital gains (market worth).
The same thing can be said about OS X 10.7, so all is still good.
Why would anybody try? The data rate will be too low and the LEO will make the contact window too small, so people will quickly get frustrated and continue to use the much cheaper, reliable and faster connections they have now.
When I installed my Java update from Apple this morning, I noticed that the wording was similar for Java 1.4 on leopard. Apple may be just announcing that this is the end of the line for Java 6 SE, and only expect future support for Java 7 SE in the next version of OS X.
Unlike Oracle, Apple disables the previous version of Java platform and gives the user the option of re-enabling it by jumping through hoops.
Coincidently, Apple just pushed a Java update to my computer this morning.
That's a lot of fear-mongering. Steve Jobs went out of his way during his presentation Wednesday to point out that the Mac App Store is only an alternate method for developers to sell their software. Traditional methods will continue to exist.