The only three things eh? Take away those three from Apple and what do you have left
Take away the lock-in, and you still have some of the best notebooks and desktops running Unix available today, the best MP3 player on the market, and the best phone on the market. Of those three, the lock-in on two of Apple's products actually *hurts* the product (DRMed songs and locked iPhones). Apple's business model would be better if they could get rid of those pieces of lock-in, but they're under contract with 3rd parties to enforce the lock-in.
The only instance where Apple's protective nature helps their bottom line is in preventing others from using their GUI on non-Apple hardware. And that's not even a case of vendor lock-in. They're simply refusing to license that software to run on non-Apple hardware. It's different.
Ok, so no one seems to see the difference. Let's give another example: you can't bring non-movie-house food into the theater, right? You can argue that it's stupid or unfair, but that's not really lock-in. That's just packaging services together. You can choose to eat someplace else before or after the movie, you just can't bring that food to the theater. Vendor lock-in would be if the movie theaters somehow made it so that, in order to watch a movie at that theater, you had to commit to paying to watch all movies in that theater and never watching movies elsewhere.
I didn't say it was a bad word, I said that I'm not one. And what I mean when I say, "I'm not a socialist" is that I don't think it's usually effective, efficient, or good to have a federal government running lots of things.
I'm generally believe in capitalism as an economic theory-- that supply and demand of private interests can regulate an economy better than a central government can. The goal of an economic system is efficiency at maintaining the public good. Insofar as capitalism is efficient, it's generally an appropriate economic system. However, there are cases where a totally free market does not provide the most efficient solution, and there are rare cases where efficiency actually runs contrary to the public good. In those cases, I do believe that governmental intervention is appropriate.
One could argue that the vendor lock-in that defines Apple's business model is actually more restrictive than the Microsoft model. In the Apple world, you are expected to purchase both Apple software and Apple hardware...You can't have OSX without whatever pimptastic hardware Apple is pushing at the moment.
That's not really lock-in. Lock-in would be if you couldn't use non-Apple products because you're currently using Apple products or have used Apple products in the past. So, for example, you have a legitimate complaint against Apple for its Fairplay DRM because it forbids the use of other MP3 players. Once you've started buying DRM-encumbered tracks from Apple, you can't simply switch to another MP3 player. You have to re-buy that music. That's lock-in.
However, all indications are that Apple isn't seeking that sort of lock-in (at least not in most cases). Even with Fairplay, they've made many attempts to drop DRM entirely, which would leave iTunes selling normal AAC files. Lots of MP3 players can play AAC files.
Not allowing you to run OSX on non-Apple hardware, however, is not a case of lock-in. Apple doesn't really make efforts to prevent interoperability between other operating systems, nor does it prevent switching between operating systems. Getting a Mac to interoperate with Dell or HP computers running Windows or Linux is not particularly hard. In many of the cases where OSX doesn't interoperate well with Windows, it's Microsoft that is breaking compatibility. If you want to trade in your Mac for a Windows or Linux machine, Apple hasn't really done anything to stop you. You can even install Windows or Linux on your Mac.
So it's not really lock-in. To give a more clear-cut example, think of a Cisco router. If Cisco refuses to allow other routers of non-Cisco brands to run the operating system they've developed for their routers, that would not be a case of lock-in. A case of "lock-in" would be if Cisco used their own proprietary routing methods that meant that using one Cisco router required all your routers to be Cisco-branded. So imagine that for a second-- imagine that owning one Cisco router meant all your routers and switches had to be Cisco, and also meant that your ISPs router had to be Cisco. Imagine that you needed to buy a new switch, and you either had to buy a Cisco switch or replace all your switches and routers to be non-Cisco brands.
That, my friend, is vendor lock-in. That's what Microsoft has been pursuing for years. That's why people get so enflamed about Microsoft refusing to use or support open standards and open protocols.
So what Apple is really doing is a relatively normal method of licensing software/patents. They're giving you a license which states "You can't use our IP unless you're using our hardware." But they're doing nothing to force you to use *only* Apple IP and hardware (except in the few cases of Aqua, iPhone, Fairplay). They even actively support Windows with iTunes, Quicktime, iPods, AppleTV, iPhone syncing, and now Safari. If they were really pursuing total lock-in, they wouldn't be supporting another OS.
Re:I think someone has a sig relevant to this news
on
The 700MHz Question
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Well, it is an interesting use of the joke. First, Yakov Smirnoff's version of the joke was usually to have the reverse of America, but have the American version make sense, but the Russian version paint a bad picture of Russia. The GGP post reverses this, having the Russian thing make sense and the American be corrupt. Since the joke is about reversal in the first place, reversing the reversal is in itself a bit funny.
Also, the jokes were originally meant to be a bit dark and ironic, and then used as a Slashdot cliche they were usually ironically ironic, resulting in a sort of nonsensical whimsey. Now, another layer of irony is added, almost returning the joke to its original sense, but I would say not quite to its original sense. So much irony has basically made it a non-joke, and simply a piercing critique of current US policy. It's pointing out that as ridiculously backwards as Soviet Russia was, it still may have been less backwards than we are now.
Now, did I really have to explain myself like that?
Well I would like to see Sprint get it since they are currently the least evil of the cell companies in the US.
Sounds a bit like saying, "I want to sell my soul to Mephistopheles because he's the least evil demon in hell!"
Re:This is a rhetorical question, right?
on
The 700MHz Question
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.
I think you've hit on an interesting issue in all of this, and I wonder why you didn't put more emphasis on it. The wireless spectrum is a *public* resource. Somehow this whole debate about the 700Mhz spectrum always gets framed in such a way as to imply that some huge company necessarily must own it. However, it's technically public and only gets licensed to some company for commercial use.
It really must not be forgotten. AT&T has no legal right to own the 700Mhz spectrum. It would be much more true to say that the people of the United States own that spectrum and always will. The question in front of us (and in front of *our* lawmakers (those lawmakers work for us!)) is how we wish to use that spectrum. Even if we license it to some particular business or group for the development of commerce or infrastructure, we have every right to put limits on how it can be developed and used.
For some reason, we've been tricked into not thinking of things that way. Radio waves travel through the air over everyone's property and through our bodies all the time. It's inherently public, like light or air. A responsible government cannot auction off those sorts of resources without any restriction on how they can be controlled or used. Moreover, what we're talking about here is the development of a national telecommunications infrastructure. We wouldn't let a single company own all plumbing so that all pipes, faucets, sinks, and toilets had to be purchased from that company. We wouldn't allow a single company to own all of our roads and highways such that they could deny passage to any driver or any car brand. We shouldn't allow a single company to control our communications over the entire country.
We are talking about making use of public resources in order to create national infrastructure. I have no objection to involving private companies in the development of that infrastructure, but the end result needs to be regulated in favor of the public good.
And no, I'm not a communist or socialist. I don't believe the federal government should be involved in very much. If there's one thing the federal government should do, it's maintain a standing army. If there are two things it should do, it's maintain an army and regulate the maintenance of national infrastructure.
Re:I think someone has a sig relevant to this news
on
The 700MHz Question
·
· Score: 3, Funny
That is clever. It turns the whole joke on its head.
Well, and let's face it: If you're going to develop a new OS, doesn't it make sense to at least *start* from one of the already-existing open source operating systems? It saves tons of development costs to just grab one of the BSD varieties that already exist, and then rewrite it for your own purposes. Even if you want to close off development immediately, A BSD license allows you to do that.
There is hardly any reason anymore to start writing an OS completely from scratch. I guess it might make sense to start from scratch if you were making something completely revolutionary that didn't work at all like any existing operating systems. Otherwise, you're just going to spend a crapload of time and money reinventing the wheel.
And this make sense. Apple is not about openness. They are about lock-in.
I don't know that that's fair. I mean, I'd agree that Apple isn't "about openness", but not being "about openness" doesn't necessarily mean you're "about lock-in".
It seems to me that Apple is "about" producing the sort of products that Steve Jobs thinks are cool. Sometimes this means being open, sometimes it means being closed. Every once in a blue moon, it means some kind of lock-in, but it's relatively rare.
For example, Apple doesn't really use proprietary file-formats or network protocols. Even when they invent their own, they generally open those new formats and protocols to other developers. The only three things I can think of where they aren't very open are the iPhone, Aqua, and FairPlay DRM. For the iPhone, I expect AT&T is pressuring them to stay closed, for FairPlay we know that the RIAA is pressuring Apple to stay secure. With the UI for OSX, it'd just suck for their business model if all Linux/BSD distros were suddenly able to offer the same GUI.
But it's not as though Apple is engaging in the sort of vendor lock-in that Microsoft is.
I see what you're saying, but I think the guy who said it wasn't an illusion was missing the point. He was saying, in effect, that it wasn't an illusion because if it was actually what it appeared to be, then the failed interpretation would be correct (i.e. if they were spheres under different colored lights, then the colors would actually be different).
However, this is true of any illusion. If the illusory effect were true, then it would not be an illusion. The illusion in question is an illusion because it causes your brain to assume lighting conditions that aren't the case, which cause you to interpret color incorrectly.
There are several reasons why people don't use the existing cell networks for data:
Cell carriers aren't using standardized hardware that is (generally) built into various devices. Data has to go through either a cell phone or a special add-on card that sticks out of your laptop, making it inconvenient.
It's generally expensive
It's generally slow
Coverage is bad
The whole thing seems "complicated" to your average Joe, and he doesn't want to deal with it.
However, a large percentage of computers sold today are laptops, and most of those laptop users would love to have wireless internet access wherever they go. If someone actually provided wireless internet access that was so cheap, simple, fast, and had such good coverage that you could always be connected everywhere, people would use that service.
No, I'm saying they're going to charge "the extra price" anyway. Or do you really think that, when these companies save a buck, they pass the savings on to you?
So you think wireless internet is doomed to fail because: over 10 years ago, before the internet had really became mainstream, someone tried to sell wireless internet at 56k speeds and it failed. Therefore, there is currently no demand and commercial success is not possible?
I don't see how any company/organization has a right to claim to a spectrum and who gave the FCC ownership of all of them and the ability to hand them out to the highest bidders?
Well it kind of makes sense that the federal government would regulate the use of radio frequencies. Technically, the radio spectrum is considered public. Some company can license a specific portion of the spectrum, but the ownership is still public. Doing it that way makes sense and works. You can't just have people running amok and creating interference, disrupting everyone else.
The only real problem is if the government is exercising its control of the radio spectrum in opposition to the public good. There's an argument to be made that "selling to the highest bidder" is in line with the public good because the money can be used for other public programs. However, I don't think this is the case when talking about building infrastructure. Any kind of serious and necessary infrastructure should be semi-public and heavily regulated (if not public). In my mind, this includes data infrastructure, both wired and wireless.
They ignore that all other efforts to build a massive wireless data
infrastructure have failed to find sufficient customers even when they
make it easy and fairly cheap.
Huh? WiMAX may be over-hyped, but when has someone ever created an effective, ubiquitous, highspeed wireless data infrastructure and then offered it cheaply? I don't know what "MetroCom" you're referring to, but I'm sure that no one has ever offered a good wireless data network anywhere I've lived. Verizon's data services are kind of passable, assuming you don't mind being stuck with Verizon's service and a proprietary wireless receiver, but they're not that great. And they have customers.
Of course, "Ceci ne sont pas des sphères", only pixels, so the comparison on interpreted colors fails.
That's what makes it an optical illusion. Your brain is interpreting visual information based on a context which causes a failed interpretation. That could be a definition for "optical illusion".
These aren't colored spheres, and no one said they were colored spheres. It's just an arrangement of colored patches, arranged in such a way as to give your mind a bunch of visual cues that there are different colored lights shining on those patches, causing your brain to misjudge the actual color of those colored patches. Hence, it is an illusion.
As such, I think you're missing an essential part of the strategy: The labels put MP3s on Amazon in an attempt to drive customers away from Apple, with the result that if enough people switch then Apple no longer has the clout to stand up to them. After that the next time the contracts are negotiated they raise the rates everywhere and require everyone to use whatever brand of DRM they see fit.
You may be right, that there's something here in the labels striking a deal with Amazon that's a bit suspicious. However, I think the real key thing is to buy DRM-free music wherever it's available. Always choose DRM-free music. If it's DRM free on iTunes, fine then, buy it there. If it has DRM on iTunes and Amazon is offering the same music without DRM, buy it on Amazon.
It sends a better message. Because, you know, a lot of people would claim that consumers don't really care and that DRM is good. Every time you choose to buy DRM-encumbered music while you have the option of buying the same music without DRM (especially if DRM-free is cheaper), you're supporting that argument.
Well I feel like it's stupid to be speculating about a "new Newton". Is it going to look like the old models? Is it going to work like the old Newton? Will it have handwriting recognition? Will it be called the Newton?
Yes, I think the iPhone is Apple's new PDA, and Newton is Apple's old PDA. I bet Apple is working on some new laptop models that are thinner and lighter. Perhaps, in addition to that, there will be a very small tablet-style Mac with a touch screen. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple wanted to bring some iPhone-like features to a more fully-functional computer in a bigger (yet still tablet-style) form.
But why would Apple offer the iPhone, iPod touch, and another "Newton" PDA? That wouldn't make sense to me. A full tablet PC that's two or three times as large as an iPhone but running a normal version of OSX seems more likely to me.
You have to have a thick skin. The person reading your question might be bored, impatient, a troll, or might have exactly the answer you need. Don't take it personally.
Oh, I'm fine with it. Didn't get too upset. But I just don't appreciate the attitude of calling someone "incompetent" just because they want to be able to set up a secure system with basic services without a huge hassle. IMHO, you should be able to set up a relatively secure Linux server with basic services (web, FTP, SSH) without knowing any more than I do. In fact, I believe that you can. Also, I know that there are far less knowledgeable people than me setting up servers with those basic services.
So I may not be a genius, but if I'm too stupid to set up a server properly, then we're all in trouble because pretty much everything is going to be set up wrong (actually, that would explain a lot). That leads to the big idea that I'm really trying to push: If you come up with a really brilliant security design, but only a small percentage of the people implementing that design are going to be smart enough and knowledgeable enough to set it up properly, then you should consider that it might not be such a great design.
In your first post you called random people "retarded"
No, in my first post I called a certain sort of expectation "retarded".
then you unprovokedly called me "somehow impaired."
An "unprovoked" response to a message where you're saying that my thoughts are stupid and retarded, my questions are trivial, and implied that I was a lazy liar. Like I said, "I'm almost always (at least!) less rude than the person I'm talking with."
I'm not going to take the rest of your assertions on faith, either.
Aww... that makes me very sad. I think I'll go into my timeout corner and cry.
Wow, I appreciate the info and think I'll probably squirrel it away for later. However, the story I was telling was from several years ago, and I a coworker eventually found a script that makes sure some users are limited to using a particular shell that (as I understand it) effectively limits users using that shell to jailed SFTP access. It seems to work.
My larger point, though, is that something *like* jailed SFTP is a genuine need. Lots of people want jailed FTP functionality with secure authentication, and possibly even encrypted transfers (why not?). So though I've been told by security experts who seemed quite knowledgeable that what I was asking for was stupid, it still seems to be a need. And it's also the sort of need that shouldn't need to be hacked together.
IMHO, FTP should be upgraded in order to be secure and encrypted (at least in authentication), or someone should write a good daemon to run a SFTP server that allows jailed SFTP sessions, even if it needs to be totally separated from the SSH daemon. Or, as a third option, someone could write something entirely new that would allow easy CLI-based file transfers in a secure method. I wouldn't claim to be expert enough to know which of those three are the best option, or whether there's a fourth option-- someone suggested to me that I should be looking at webdav instead. Whatever the best solution is, it should be standard, well engineered, and be able to be reasonably installed by a non-genius without needing special hacks.
Ignoring the particulars, people do in fact need secure file transfers. They want to be able to move files between Internet accessible computer in such a way that authentication and data are encrypted, and neither computer involved in the transfer has its own security compromised. I think that's a reasonable thing to be looking for, but if someone has a real argument why what I'm saying is stupid, that's fine. I'd love to hear that argument, just so long as it consists of something more decent than saying, "you're an incompetent moron."
And I don't know that this is the same sort of problem as what's being discussed about chroot jails, but it reminded me of it. Returning to the topic at hand: In abstract, I can't think of why it's unreasonable to want to jail someone in a limited environment within a non-limited server. I'm willing to accept that chroot isn't a good solution, but I wouldn't call someone incompetent just for trying.
In any event, thanks for sharing your solution. It's nice to see patient and helpful people on the Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, if Radiohead announced, "Hey, we made 20 million off this idea! Thanks guys!" then I could see the Tragedy of the Commons becoming common.
Good point. In order to make sure this thing works, I'm going to refrain from paying them.
Yes, there are people outside our borders, but I'm anticipating that the devices we're using to generate radio waves don't have an infinite range.
The only three things eh? Take away those three from Apple and what do you have left
Take away the lock-in, and you still have some of the best notebooks and desktops running Unix available today, the best MP3 player on the market, and the best phone on the market. Of those three, the lock-in on two of Apple's products actually *hurts* the product (DRMed songs and locked iPhones). Apple's business model would be better if they could get rid of those pieces of lock-in, but they're under contract with 3rd parties to enforce the lock-in.
The only instance where Apple's protective nature helps their bottom line is in preventing others from using their GUI on non-Apple hardware. And that's not even a case of vendor lock-in. They're simply refusing to license that software to run on non-Apple hardware. It's different.
Ok, so no one seems to see the difference. Let's give another example: you can't bring non-movie-house food into the theater, right? You can argue that it's stupid or unfair, but that's not really lock-in. That's just packaging services together. You can choose to eat someplace else before or after the movie, you just can't bring that food to the theater. Vendor lock-in would be if the movie theaters somehow made it so that, in order to watch a movie at that theater, you had to commit to paying to watch all movies in that theater and never watching movies elsewhere.
See the difference?
I didn't say it was a bad word, I said that I'm not one. And what I mean when I say, "I'm not a socialist" is that I don't think it's usually effective, efficient, or good to have a federal government running lots of things.
I'm generally believe in capitalism as an economic theory-- that supply and demand of private interests can regulate an economy better than a central government can. The goal of an economic system is efficiency at maintaining the public good. Insofar as capitalism is efficient, it's generally an appropriate economic system. However, there are cases where a totally free market does not provide the most efficient solution, and there are rare cases where efficiency actually runs contrary to the public good. In those cases, I do believe that governmental intervention is appropriate.
One could argue that the vendor lock-in that defines Apple's business model is actually more restrictive than the Microsoft model. In the Apple world, you are expected to purchase both Apple software and Apple hardware...You can't have OSX without whatever pimptastic hardware Apple is pushing at the moment.
That's not really lock-in. Lock-in would be if you couldn't use non-Apple products because you're currently using Apple products or have used Apple products in the past. So, for example, you have a legitimate complaint against Apple for its Fairplay DRM because it forbids the use of other MP3 players. Once you've started buying DRM-encumbered tracks from Apple, you can't simply switch to another MP3 player. You have to re-buy that music. That's lock-in.
However, all indications are that Apple isn't seeking that sort of lock-in (at least not in most cases). Even with Fairplay, they've made many attempts to drop DRM entirely, which would leave iTunes selling normal AAC files. Lots of MP3 players can play AAC files.
Not allowing you to run OSX on non-Apple hardware, however, is not a case of lock-in. Apple doesn't really make efforts to prevent interoperability between other operating systems, nor does it prevent switching between operating systems. Getting a Mac to interoperate with Dell or HP computers running Windows or Linux is not particularly hard. In many of the cases where OSX doesn't interoperate well with Windows, it's Microsoft that is breaking compatibility. If you want to trade in your Mac for a Windows or Linux machine, Apple hasn't really done anything to stop you. You can even install Windows or Linux on your Mac.
So it's not really lock-in. To give a more clear-cut example, think of a Cisco router. If Cisco refuses to allow other routers of non-Cisco brands to run the operating system they've developed for their routers, that would not be a case of lock-in. A case of "lock-in" would be if Cisco used their own proprietary routing methods that meant that using one Cisco router required all your routers to be Cisco-branded. So imagine that for a second-- imagine that owning one Cisco router meant all your routers and switches had to be Cisco, and also meant that your ISPs router had to be Cisco. Imagine that you needed to buy a new switch, and you either had to buy a Cisco switch or replace all your switches and routers to be non-Cisco brands.
That, my friend, is vendor lock-in. That's what Microsoft has been pursuing for years. That's why people get so enflamed about Microsoft refusing to use or support open standards and open protocols.
So what Apple is really doing is a relatively normal method of licensing software/patents. They're giving you a license which states "You can't use our IP unless you're using our hardware." But they're doing nothing to force you to use *only* Apple IP and hardware (except in the few cases of Aqua, iPhone, Fairplay). They even actively support Windows with iTunes, Quicktime, iPods, AppleTV, iPhone syncing, and now Safari. If they were really pursuing total lock-in, they wouldn't be supporting another OS.
Well, it is an interesting use of the joke. First, Yakov Smirnoff's version of the joke was usually to have the reverse of America, but have the American version make sense, but the Russian version paint a bad picture of Russia. The GGP post reverses this, having the Russian thing make sense and the American be corrupt. Since the joke is about reversal in the first place, reversing the reversal is in itself a bit funny.
Also, the jokes were originally meant to be a bit dark and ironic, and then used as a Slashdot cliche they were usually ironically ironic, resulting in a sort of nonsensical whimsey. Now, another layer of irony is added, almost returning the joke to its original sense, but I would say not quite to its original sense. So much irony has basically made it a non-joke, and simply a piercing critique of current US policy. It's pointing out that as ridiculously backwards as Soviet Russia was, it still may have been less backwards than we are now.
Now, did I really have to explain myself like that?
Well I would like to see Sprint get it since they are currently the least evil of the cell companies in the US.
Sounds a bit like saying, "I want to sell my soul to Mephistopheles because he's the least evil demon in hell!"
This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.
I think you've hit on an interesting issue in all of this, and I wonder why you didn't put more emphasis on it. The wireless spectrum is a *public* resource. Somehow this whole debate about the 700Mhz spectrum always gets framed in such a way as to imply that some huge company necessarily must own it. However, it's technically public and only gets licensed to some company for commercial use.
It really must not be forgotten. AT&T has no legal right to own the 700Mhz spectrum. It would be much more true to say that the people of the United States own that spectrum and always will. The question in front of us (and in front of *our* lawmakers (those lawmakers work for us!)) is how we wish to use that spectrum. Even if we license it to some particular business or group for the development of commerce or infrastructure, we have every right to put limits on how it can be developed and used.
For some reason, we've been tricked into not thinking of things that way. Radio waves travel through the air over everyone's property and through our bodies all the time. It's inherently public, like light or air. A responsible government cannot auction off those sorts of resources without any restriction on how they can be controlled or used. Moreover, what we're talking about here is the development of a national telecommunications infrastructure. We wouldn't let a single company own all plumbing so that all pipes, faucets, sinks, and toilets had to be purchased from that company. We wouldn't allow a single company to own all of our roads and highways such that they could deny passage to any driver or any car brand. We shouldn't allow a single company to control our communications over the entire country.
We are talking about making use of public resources in order to create national infrastructure. I have no objection to involving private companies in the development of that infrastructure, but the end result needs to be regulated in favor of the public good.
And no, I'm not a communist or socialist. I don't believe the federal government should be involved in very much. If there's one thing the federal government should do, it's maintain a standing army. If there are two things it should do, it's maintain an army and regulate the maintenance of national infrastructure.
That is clever. It turns the whole joke on its head.
Well, and let's face it: If you're going to develop a new OS, doesn't it make sense to at least *start* from one of the already-existing open source operating systems? It saves tons of development costs to just grab one of the BSD varieties that already exist, and then rewrite it for your own purposes. Even if you want to close off development immediately, A BSD license allows you to do that.
There is hardly any reason anymore to start writing an OS completely from scratch. I guess it might make sense to start from scratch if you were making something completely revolutionary that didn't work at all like any existing operating systems. Otherwise, you're just going to spend a crapload of time and money reinventing the wheel.
And this make sense. Apple is not about openness. They are about lock-in.
I don't know that that's fair. I mean, I'd agree that Apple isn't "about openness", but not being "about openness" doesn't necessarily mean you're "about lock-in".
It seems to me that Apple is "about" producing the sort of products that Steve Jobs thinks are cool. Sometimes this means being open, sometimes it means being closed. Every once in a blue moon, it means some kind of lock-in, but it's relatively rare.
For example, Apple doesn't really use proprietary file-formats or network protocols. Even when they invent their own, they generally open those new formats and protocols to other developers. The only three things I can think of where they aren't very open are the iPhone, Aqua, and FairPlay DRM. For the iPhone, I expect AT&T is pressuring them to stay closed, for FairPlay we know that the RIAA is pressuring Apple to stay secure. With the UI for OSX, it'd just suck for their business model if all Linux/BSD distros were suddenly able to offer the same GUI.
But it's not as though Apple is engaging in the sort of vendor lock-in that Microsoft is.
I see what you're saying, but I think the guy who said it wasn't an illusion was missing the point. He was saying, in effect, that it wasn't an illusion because if it was actually what it appeared to be, then the failed interpretation would be correct (i.e. if they were spheres under different colored lights, then the colors would actually be different).
However, this is true of any illusion. If the illusory effect were true, then it would not be an illusion. The illusion in question is an illusion because it causes your brain to assume lighting conditions that aren't the case, which cause you to interpret color incorrectly.
However, a large percentage of computers sold today are laptops, and most of those laptop users would love to have wireless internet access wherever they go. If someone actually provided wireless internet access that was so cheap, simple, fast, and had such good coverage that you could always be connected everywhere, people would use that service.
No, I'm saying they're going to charge "the extra price" anyway. Or do you really think that, when these companies save a buck, they pass the savings on to you?
So you think wireless internet is doomed to fail because: over 10 years ago, before the internet had really became mainstream, someone tried to sell wireless internet at 56k speeds and it failed. Therefore, there is currently no demand and commercial success is not possible?
I don't see how any company/organization has a right to claim to a spectrum and who gave the FCC ownership of all of them and the ability to hand them out to the highest bidders?
Well it kind of makes sense that the federal government would regulate the use of radio frequencies. Technically, the radio spectrum is considered public. Some company can license a specific portion of the spectrum, but the ownership is still public. Doing it that way makes sense and works. You can't just have people running amok and creating interference, disrupting everyone else.
The only real problem is if the government is exercising its control of the radio spectrum in opposition to the public good. There's an argument to be made that "selling to the highest bidder" is in line with the public good because the money can be used for other public programs. However, I don't think this is the case when talking about building infrastructure. Any kind of serious and necessary infrastructure should be semi-public and heavily regulated (if not public). In my mind, this includes data infrastructure, both wired and wireless.
They ignore that all other efforts to build a massive wireless data infrastructure have failed to find sufficient customers even when they make it easy and fairly cheap.
Huh? WiMAX may be over-hyped, but when has someone ever created an effective, ubiquitous, highspeed wireless data infrastructure and then offered it cheaply? I don't know what "MetroCom" you're referring to, but I'm sure that no one has ever offered a good wireless data network anywhere I've lived. Verizon's data services are kind of passable, assuming you don't mind being stuck with Verizon's service and a proprietary wireless receiver, but they're not that great. And they have customers.
Yeah, but we're going to get screwed by the telecoms either way. May as well have them paying the schools in the meantime.
Of course, "Ceci ne sont pas des sphères", only pixels, so the comparison on interpreted colors fails.
That's what makes it an optical illusion. Your brain is interpreting visual information based on a context which causes a failed interpretation. That could be a definition for "optical illusion".
These aren't colored spheres, and no one said they were colored spheres. It's just an arrangement of colored patches, arranged in such a way as to give your mind a bunch of visual cues that there are different colored lights shining on those patches, causing your brain to misjudge the actual color of those colored patches. Hence, it is an illusion.
As such, I think you're missing an essential part of the strategy: The labels put MP3s on Amazon in an attempt to drive customers away from Apple, with the result that if enough people switch then Apple no longer has the clout to stand up to them. After that the next time the contracts are negotiated they raise the rates everywhere and require everyone to use whatever brand of DRM they see fit.
You may be right, that there's something here in the labels striking a deal with Amazon that's a bit suspicious. However, I think the real key thing is to buy DRM-free music wherever it's available. Always choose DRM-free music. If it's DRM free on iTunes, fine then, buy it there. If it has DRM on iTunes and Amazon is offering the same music without DRM, buy it on Amazon.
It sends a better message. Because, you know, a lot of people would claim that consumers don't really care and that DRM is good. Every time you choose to buy DRM-encumbered music while you have the option of buying the same music without DRM (especially if DRM-free is cheaper), you're supporting that argument.
Well I feel like it's stupid to be speculating about a "new Newton". Is it going to look like the old models? Is it going to work like the old Newton? Will it have handwriting recognition? Will it be called the Newton?
Yes, I think the iPhone is Apple's new PDA, and Newton is Apple's old PDA. I bet Apple is working on some new laptop models that are thinner and lighter. Perhaps, in addition to that, there will be a very small tablet-style Mac with a touch screen. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple wanted to bring some iPhone-like features to a more fully-functional computer in a bigger (yet still tablet-style) form.
But why would Apple offer the iPhone, iPod touch, and another "Newton" PDA? That wouldn't make sense to me. A full tablet PC that's two or three times as large as an iPhone but running a normal version of OSX seems more likely to me.
Where'd you read that?
You have to have a thick skin. The person reading your question might be bored, impatient, a troll, or might have exactly the answer you need. Don't take it personally.
Oh, I'm fine with it. Didn't get too upset. But I just don't appreciate the attitude of calling someone "incompetent" just because they want to be able to set up a secure system with basic services without a huge hassle. IMHO, you should be able to set up a relatively secure Linux server with basic services (web, FTP, SSH) without knowing any more than I do. In fact, I believe that you can. Also, I know that there are far less knowledgeable people than me setting up servers with those basic services.
So I may not be a genius, but if I'm too stupid to set up a server properly, then we're all in trouble because pretty much everything is going to be set up wrong (actually, that would explain a lot). That leads to the big idea that I'm really trying to push: If you come up with a really brilliant security design, but only a small percentage of the people implementing that design are going to be smart enough and knowledgeable enough to set it up properly, then you should consider that it might not be such a great design.
In your first post you called random people "retarded"
No, in my first post I called a certain sort of expectation "retarded".
then you unprovokedly called me "somehow impaired."
An "unprovoked" response to a message where you're saying that my thoughts are stupid and retarded, my questions are trivial, and implied that I was a lazy liar. Like I said, "I'm almost always (at least!) less rude than the person I'm talking with."
I'm not going to take the rest of your assertions on faith, either.
Aww... that makes me very sad. I think I'll go into my timeout corner and cry.
Wow, I appreciate the info and think I'll probably squirrel it away for later. However, the story I was telling was from several years ago, and I a coworker eventually found a script that makes sure some users are limited to using a particular shell that (as I understand it) effectively limits users using that shell to jailed SFTP access. It seems to work.
My larger point, though, is that something *like* jailed SFTP is a genuine need. Lots of people want jailed FTP functionality with secure authentication, and possibly even encrypted transfers (why not?). So though I've been told by security experts who seemed quite knowledgeable that what I was asking for was stupid, it still seems to be a need. And it's also the sort of need that shouldn't need to be hacked together.
IMHO, FTP should be upgraded in order to be secure and encrypted (at least in authentication), or someone should write a good daemon to run a SFTP server that allows jailed SFTP sessions, even if it needs to be totally separated from the SSH daemon. Or, as a third option, someone could write something entirely new that would allow easy CLI-based file transfers in a secure method. I wouldn't claim to be expert enough to know which of those three are the best option, or whether there's a fourth option-- someone suggested to me that I should be looking at webdav instead. Whatever the best solution is, it should be standard, well engineered, and be able to be reasonably installed by a non-genius without needing special hacks.
Ignoring the particulars, people do in fact need secure file transfers. They want to be able to move files between Internet accessible computer in such a way that authentication and data are encrypted, and neither computer involved in the transfer has its own security compromised. I think that's a reasonable thing to be looking for, but if someone has a real argument why what I'm saying is stupid, that's fine. I'd love to hear that argument, just so long as it consists of something more decent than saying, "you're an incompetent moron."
And I don't know that this is the same sort of problem as what's being discussed about chroot jails, but it reminded me of it. Returning to the topic at hand: In abstract, I can't think of why it's unreasonable to want to jail someone in a limited environment within a non-limited server. I'm willing to accept that chroot isn't a good solution, but I wouldn't call someone incompetent just for trying.
In any event, thanks for sharing your solution. It's nice to see patient and helpful people on the Internet.