Good point, but it's not even just international folks like you who are interested... Here in the US, people in Vermont and no doubt in other places, too, are having troubles getting iPhone service from AT&T. As annoyed as AT&T may be with Apple for not *protecting* their phones well enough, Apple has got to be annoyed with the limitations of AT&T, both foreign and domestic.
It`s cheaper by about 100$, with probarly the same features(ofc in the iPhone the cost of AT&T monopoly is not included) I'm pretty interested in the OpenMoko project myself, but let's be realistic here.
1) Noone's going to know about it but Slashdot nerds. It may sell alright and be moderately succesful, but nothing like the iPhone.
2) The Phase 2 version of the phone (the one intended for mass market) will cost $450 for the base model, or $600 for the Advanced (developer's) version. That makes the base model $50 cheaper than the 4GB iPhone, and $150 cheaper than the 8GB iPhone, but there's also much less storage space (256MB + 512MB micro SD card... any other larger mSD cards you have to buy separately), no camera, and at this point, there's no way for the general public to really know how good the software interface is. It also has a smaller screen (but with higher resolution, so that's a plus), with no multi-touch functionality (yet). More pros and cons for the OpenMoko phone vs. the iPhone can be found here.
I hope the OpenMoko project is a success, and I want one two, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's an iPhone killer. Come to think of it, good things haven't ever happened for any company that's made a so-called iPod killer, so I wouldn't think OpenMoko should even aspire to be an iPhone killer. Just a good phone/personal portable computer.
But do they have more to gain from selling the hardware, or from their cut of the revenue? Estimates of profits on the hardware are anywhere from 23% ($138) to 55% ($329) of the cost of the phones (for the $599 iPhone, not sure about the $499 one). According to your links, Apple gets either $3 per contract ($72 over 2 years) or $11 ($264 over 2 years), depending on whether the AT&T customer is new to AT&T or not.
Depending on the balance of new customers to old (and 4GB iPhones to 8GB iPhones), Apple may just make more money by letting people buy the phone and use it with any provider, especially considering that the legal fees to try to enforce the locked phone policy would probably wipe out any difference in revenue from lost AT&T customers. That's provided that AT&T doesn't make too much of a stink with Apple about it. In any case, I'm sure the number of people who actually will end up unlocking their phones will be relatively small, so even AT&T doesn't have much to worry about, and Apple can enjoy those few extra sales that they'll get from it.
Except (AFAIK) you need to have certified you equipment for radio transmission. And since you've physically hacked your phone, my guess is the Apple certification doesn't count anymore. There's nothing physical (hardware, that is) about this hack, at least not for the iphonesimfree.com hack. And as long as the software doesn't make any modifications to the way the radio behaves (which I would imagine it doesn't), it should be just fine.
(See the line for "Other", and look all the way to the right)
Of course, the store is still down, so I'm not 100% sure if they're offering to bundle a VESA mount with your 34" iMac, but they call it optional, so it sounds like they will.
Not to mention that Works is the base "productivity software" on Dell systems (and maybe most or all other major Win-box retailers). You can still order them without it, but it doesn't decrease the price of the system, so isn't Works pretty much free (as in beer) to the consumer already, if you're buying a new computer?
Adding ads just makes it a worse product that still won't change the price of the system (to the customer) whether you include it or not.
But still, what's really the point of a comparison where two people who already like their system of choice talk about the OS's separately? I know they used the same general categories, but they each talked about them very differently. Their differing attitudes towards security alone is a pretty good indication that it won't be possible to get a fair look at the two OS's in an article like this. The Linux guy understands that security isn't an open and shut deal, that it's all relative. The Mac guy thinks that just because there's no real-world viruses and worms for Macs, the Mac OS is rock solid. Who is a casual reader going to listen to?
They should have responded to each other's points in their own writing... things like VNC and Synergy (which is less complete and functional on Mac OS than it is in Linux and Windows) being mentioned as why the Mac is so great, with no counterpoint about how those same things work in Ubuntu Linux is just lame.
[...]Microsoft has announced plans to pre-install an ad-laden version of Works on some manufacturers' PCs in coming months. [...]
Can't think of a better reason to try Linux or Mac.
Thanks, Microsoft!
Seriously... Isn't Works already bundled with new PCs for free (to the end user) anyway? So isn't this just extra revenue for MS and/or the vendors, while reducing the value of the product?
Jerks. Not that I've ever used anything in Works for more than 45 seconds, but still, it's the principle of the thing.
There is no reason to record a movie while you're watching it in a theater.
That's true, but this still could have been handled with much more discretion. The theater manager could have juse pulled the girl into his office and talked to her before deciding whether or not to call the police. He could have asked to see exactly what she taped, then deleted the offending scene from the tape, kick her out of the theater for the day, or for life, whatever. Even threaten to call the cops if it happens a second time. She would have learned her lesson, and told her friends, and now they would all know how serious it could have been. But getting the cops involved over something so small? Would a grocery store manager call the cops because a 10 year-old helps himself to a sample from the bulk food bin?
The GPP is right, this is just going to cost the theater more money than they would ever win in court, and cost the girl and her family money that will just go to lawyers and court costs.
Actually, no you can't burn a copy of a commercial, CSS-encrypted disc to a new disc. The section that would hold the CSS key on DVD-R's is not writeable, so you can copy the entire encrypted DVD image, but not the encryption key. That leaves you with a coaster. But you can mount the image on your hard drive and watch it.
I didn't think the DVD Jon stuff was so retarded just because it was a chance to show the MPAA/DVDCCA and the judicial officials of the world that CSS is not an effective encryption system.
The one that's retarded is the Kaleidescape debacle. To sum it up, a company called Kaleidescape puts together a fantastic DVD ripper/server system. It is easy and simple to use, it's locked down so movies that are ripped can't be accessed by any non-Kaleidescape device, it stores bit-for-bit CSS-encrypted copies of the DVDs on the server, and only decrypts them in the player (a separate box connected by a network connection), just like any other DVD player does. And best of all, Kaleidescape was granted a license by the DVDCCA to use CSS in the player. Oh yeah, and Kaleidescape also gives you the option to bundle large movie collections preloaded on a system, thereby providing revenue for the MPAA. Pretty soon the DVDCCA realizes what the product is, and since the DVDCCA is partially made up of consumer electronics manufacturers who never thought to create such a great device, they tried to lay the smackdown on Kaleidescape, saying they violated the terms of the license... Even though the Kaleidescape system offers less for would-be "pirates" than any PC with a $30 DVD drive... Oh, and the whole system, in the beginning, had a base price of $27,000. These days a basic system can go for about $10,000, but that's still out of reach of the kid in his mom's basement copying his friends movies. All the while, the only "legitimate" competitors to Kaleidescape make DVD servers which are not locked down, and which require the end-user to install DVD Decryptor or libdvdcss themselves (but the software is already set up to automatically integrate with DVD Decryptor). So the DVDCCA goes after the legally-licensed company and legitimizes the ones using the actual "pirate" software. And now that Kaleidescape won the lawsuit, the DVDCCA is amending their license agreement to require DVD players to actually be physically holding the original DVD.
Now that is retarded. Take an innovative, easy-to-use product, which if it won mass acceptance and became a common everyday system, would revolutionize the home movie experience, and try to cripple it, thereby keeping home movie viewing in the stone age.
Not to mention, in the section on working with Windows, He talks about how Linux requires you to either use Wine or use an entire activated copy of Windows in a VM to use native Windows apps. But on a Mac, you get to use Parallels (which has some unique advantages over VM solutions in Linux, but you still have almost all of the same disadvantages) or VMWare. Nevermind that there are tons of different VM solutions available in a Linux environment, including VMWare, and that Wine is an extra feature beyond what Apple provides.
I also don't see how sharing folders between Linux and Windows systems is any different than doing the same on a Mac. Ubuntu has made it very easy to share a folder... Right click on the folder and choose Share... if you don't have Samba server installed yet, it will do it for you.
He also talks about how you can use VNC to connect to a Mac from Windows ("Apple excels at remote access...") , and you can use MS's RD client to connect to a Windows PC, but neglects to mention that both of those are included in the default installs of Ubuntu, and are just as simple and straightforward to use. Also, under Linux, you can use 3rd party solutions like NoMachine's or 2X's or FreeNX's remote desktop solutions, which work very well, are fast, easier to set up than ever, and give you a variety of great options like attaching to an existing session or opening a new session.
He talks about how installation is so easy because Apple does it for you... but then he says that if you want Linux preinstalled (at least he does list some vendors, including Dell), it's going to be pricey... Haven't we seen that Linux Dells cost $40-50 less than equivalent Windows machines? And haven't we seen for years that the low and mid range Macs are quite expensive compared to equivalent Windows/Linux systems? Isn't MacOS pre-installed quite pricey?
He brings up the fact that Ubuntu doesn't include mp3 support by default, but doesn't mention that when you try to play an mp3, it will ask you if you want to get the appropriate codecs, which means it can play mp3's almost out of the box, and semi-automates the process.
The one negative thing about Apple that seems to stand out in the article is in the conclusions where he says that if you want software and hardware freedom, then buying an Apple is like making a deal with the devil... but that's basically just an ideological argument, and not really in the realm of practical concern for most people. He then repeats all the arguments he made above for the Mac (which mostly apply to Linux as well), to reinforce why the Mac is superior.
Yeah, I'd say he's a little biased. I'm probably biased in the other direction, but still...
All I want is iTunes compatibility. Sure, I can sync my ipod with Amarok or RythmBox, but I haven't found anything that works well for syncing video and I can't purchase music from the store.
This is probably the single biggest thing holding us back from going all-Linux at home. I have mostly been pretty happy with the performance and capabilities of Floola (it's pretty good at managing videos, and allows you to update podcasts directly on the iPod, instead of updating the library on the PC, then syncing to the iPod), but it's not quite as smooth as iTunes, and sometimes, after I've synced my iPod with a new version of iTunes, anytime I copy something to my iPod in Floola, or delete something, it messes up the database on the iPod. Floola's updated very regularly, but it still makes me nervous. I would probably still go all Linux, but my wife doesn't want to let go of iTunes.
It's my understanding (and with some limited experience) that remote X is not very fast, and is a security risk. From what I understand, that's why NX(FreeNX) is so useful... everything is tunneled transparently over an ssh connection, and a lot of the X stuff gets optimized. I guess there's a lot of back and forth communication between the X server and X clients which creates a lot of delay over a network, but somehow NX solves that. The big boast of the NX protocol is that it works great over low-bandwidth, high latency connections. I haven't ever tried it oever anything other than a local connection, so I don't know anything about that, really.
And NX has gotten much easier to install and setup, and will probably get easier. With the latest versions from NoMachine, you have the option of "shadowing" an existing session (à la Windows Remote Assistance) or starting a new session (which was previously the only way to do it).
Apparently the GPP thought he has to tunnel X over ssh to use it remotely, I guess that's why he mentioned it. And by the way, telnet is not a Windows thing, it's a standardized protocol, and Windows includes a telnet client (except for Vista, which makes it a non-default but still available add-on), just like most (if not all) Linux distributions do.
Also, saying that ssh is way more secure than telnet is like saying driving a car is faster than standing still. Telnet has no security, whereas ssh has very good security. That said, you're right in that ssh is very versatile, very useful, and secure. I use it all the time, but I also have some specific uses for telnet also. The right tool for the right job.
That sentence is funny, but not as funny as the preceding sentences in that paragraph:
The product is essentially a music playing SD card that will plug into any SD slot. The second part of the player is what makes the SD card usable as a digital audio player. That part is a type of sleeve that'll allow the user to control the music and plug in headphones for putting that music playing goodness to work.
OK, first off... why would anyone want a player that plugs into an SD slot? Doesn't that limit which computers you can use it with, or require you to buy a card reader? What a pain... even if they include an SD reader, it would still be so much more convenient to just plug into USB, like the old shuffle. At least the new shuffle's weird USB design avoids having an ugly USB connector, but with an SD interface on the MS player, you still have to have a part that can stick into an SD slot.
Second of all... it allows users to control music, and you can plug headphones into it... these are innovative features? The shuffle is barely usable because that's all it has. So how is that an extra feature for the zuffle? The sleeve? Does that mean that the SD connector slides out of the body of the player? What does it mean? And where is the innovation being talked about?
Honestly, I wouldn't ever buy a shuffle because it would drive me nuts. It would be funny if this part of TFA were true, that MS really wants a zuffle. The innovative part of the shuffle is Apple's gamble about whether or not people would want such a stripped-down player. But that's been done before, so would the Zuffle ever be anything other than a me too product?
I agree, just use a different player. VLC doesn't use the proprietary codecs and still plays the content.
Sure, VLC doesn't have any problem at all with proprietary software...
Also, why are Kubuntu and Ubuntu counted as seperated distros? Have you tried Kubuntu? That is a godsdamned shithole I'd disassociate myself from if I had to, as well. I use Kubuntu every day and it's fine. I prefer it to normal ubuntu by a long shot.
And thus we see, from an offtopic series of comments, the answer to the original article... There are so many different flavors of Linux because different people like different things about different distros. What one user loves, another can't stand. I think this has helped Linux in general. For me, I started off with Red Hat 6.1, but I never cared for the appearance of it. I know, you can skin Gnome and KDE however you want, but everything just seemed so ugly out of the box and gave me a headache to use, and customization can be a real pain, especialy when you have to redo everything on a reinstall. For saying RedHat was pretty much the main distro I heard about for a long time, it just didn't look that good. I was pleasantly surprised to see that other distros had their own look, and felt better to use. If RedHat would have been the only game in town, I probably would not have continued to use Linux much at all. I messed around with Suse, Gentoo, Mandrake (before Madriva), Debian, Slackware, and a few others. Eventually I settled on Ubuntu (and I use Gentoo at home for my MythTV box). It works well out of the box, I like the simple, straightforward nature of Gnome, and the default theme looks and feels polished (say what you want about the brown color, I think of it as chocolate). Other people disagree, and I'm glad that there are distros out there to meet a wide range of needs/tastes.
TFS makes it sound as if 300 different distributions are all in the faces of all the users, confusing everyone all the time. Many of those distros, however, are probably never even intended to have mass acceptance. They're happy with a small niche. They serve a small purpose, and that's a good thing. For the major distros competing for our attention, it's good that there is competition. I prefer Ubuntu, another guy I work with is a die-hard Fedora fan, and another does almost everything in Suse. It's a little annoying that each distro keeps different files in different places (it took me a while to realize that Suse uses/srv/www as the apache directory), but to each his own, and I'm not really bothered by the differences.
As far as duplication of effort goes, does anyone really believe that if all these people stopped making new distros, they would all unite in harmony and work together peacefully to create one super-distro? I think that if everybody was all trying to cooperate on one distro, there would be too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, and lots of people would be sitting around with nothing to do, because there's already too many people working on whatever it is they could be working on. Might as well have those people working on a separate distro that can provide some unique functionality.
Also, how in the world could we ever have only one Linux distribution? The flexibility and openness that fosters all these distributions is exactly what Linux is based on. Even if there was only one distribution (say, Red Hat), you could always go the Linux From Scratch route and create your own, and people would (did). And notice how Red Hat sponsors a separate community distribution (Fedora) as does Suse (OpenSuse) and Linspire (Freespire). Even the big enterprise players recognize the value of a spin-off distribution, even if the point is to have early adopters test new software for their corporate distros.
Usually a distro is started because existing distros don't fill a particular need. My point exactly. Instead of fixing the problem, people start their own distro, confusing the marketplace.
[oops, I meant to say 'distros' above]
It's not a question of problems, it's a question of taste. There's a reason why distributions are called flavors. I like Rocky Road ice cream, but I'm not about to question why Baskin Robbins sells other flavors, too.
There's distros that are custom tailored for specific applications like recording studio quality music, others for enterprise workstations, desktops or servers, others that make great firewalls or file servers. Some are extremely portable so you can carry them with you on a mini-CD or a flash drive and run them on any computer. Some strive to be completely free, by not including propietary drivers, codecs or other closed software, and others want to provide the functionality that the proprietary software gives (that right there is one good reason for multiple distros). Some are specifically aimed at PowerPC processors or other non-x86 architectures.
If there was one right way to do everything, I'm sure everyone would do it that way. But I'd rather have a million different distros all running different directions so I can choose what I want, than to have one distribution ruled by either a committee that wouldn't agree on anything or a dictator who did everything his way. If there was only one distro, it would have to have maximum flexibility to suit everyone's needs. It would probably have to be Linux From Scratch, or Gentoo. But then, people would want something easier, so others would come along and build a distro to cater to these people someone else would make a distro to cater to those people... I guess that's probably pretty close to the actual history of GNU/Linux distributions, isn't it?
The fact that GNU/Linux is open source means that you can have a different distro for each user on the planet if you wanted. I think that's a cool thing. Don't like how someone does it? Roll your own. I think that having many distributions of a free operating system is good, because everyone can learn from the best things the others do... The benefits of competition, with the warm fuzzy feeling of cooperation.
Maybe you should read through the other comments on this page to see how different people feel about Ubuntu and other distros. Personal preferences are all over the map. There's good and bad things about all distros. Usually a distro is started because existing drivers don't fill a particular need.
Head over to DistroWatch and read a little about some of the distros, you'll see what the unique purposes of most of them are.
Ubuntu is a relatively new distribution, and before that I messed around with RedHat/Fedora, Suse, Slackware, and Gentoo. Now I've settled on Ubuntu, because it has the look and feel that I think a computer should have, and because it works for me. Other people I know prefer Fedora or Suse, and that's fine. I still use Gentoo at home on my Mythbox, and for me, it's alright for that purpose. But on my laptop I use Ubuntu. In the last week, I tried out Suse and Fedora one more time, and realized I still like Ubuntu the most. To each his own, but at least we're not all stuck with the same distro.
No I was just saying that if it improves the performance of the network functions it is justified.
Then unfortunately, you're saying that a non-neutral network is justified, since the whole gist of TFA was that neutrality hurts the performance of the network. They can justify whatever performance claims they want. The whole thing is kind of a red herring, I think, since net neutrality isn't saying that packet types couldn't be discriminated against, but rather that packets shouldn't be given lower priority based on their source/destination. I think there could be a tiering solution that would give VOIP a higher priority, and certain other applications which are important and time sensitive, without discriminating against who is sending and who is receiving, and that would help bandwidth issues.
My questions:
1) Sure, a tiered internet would have some effect on peak bandwidth, but wouldn't the average bandwidth requirements be the same? (Unless, of course, internet usage declines dramatically, because it takes too long to load web pages and download files from non-ISP-approved sources...), and
2) I know that the network hardware companies are pushing for a tiered internet alongside the telcos... How would the cost of implementing all of their new hardware and software tiering solutions compare to the cost of increasing the available bandwidth?
As a side note, I think it's funny how the network hardware companies want a tiered internet so they have an excuse to roll out new products, while the telcos want the tiered internet so they have an excuse to not have to create more of what they create. I guess that's because the hardware companies don't get paid for their products until they can ship them, whereas, the telcos can get (and have been getting) paid for products years ago that they're still stalling on rolling out.
Taking bets this guy's gonna get an AWSOME documentary someday... I need a camera and a ticket to Sweden. Too bad he's from Norway and lives in the US nowadays.
Maybe DVD Jon will win the Nobel Prize someday for all of his anti MAFIAA work?
Universal wants to be able to up prices where it thinks it can get more money. Apple isn't letting them do that. How do you see it as a positive that they're going to go to someone who does?
Not to mention, Universal wants money from each iPod sold, just like they get from the Zune, (and they've been asking for that since before the Zune deal was announced). For some reason, they think that they deserve that, even though they didn't design the electronics, or the UI, and iPods are not sold with any Universal Music on them, and don't in any way require Universal Music to function correctly.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point, but it's not even just international folks like you who are interested... Here in the US, people in Vermont and no doubt in other places, too, are having troubles getting iPhone service from AT&T. As annoyed as AT&T may be with Apple for not *protecting* their phones well enough, Apple has got to be annoyed with the limitations of AT&T, both foreign and domestic.
1) Noone's going to know about it but Slashdot nerds. It may sell alright and be moderately succesful, but nothing like the iPhone.
2) The Phase 2 version of the phone (the one intended for mass market) will cost $450 for the base model, or $600 for the Advanced (developer's) version. That makes the base model $50 cheaper than the 4GB iPhone, and $150 cheaper than the 8GB iPhone, but there's also much less storage space (256MB + 512MB micro SD card... any other larger mSD cards you have to buy separately), no camera, and at this point, there's no way for the general public to really know how good the software interface is. It also has a smaller screen (but with higher resolution, so that's a plus), with no multi-touch functionality (yet). More pros and cons for the OpenMoko phone vs. the iPhone can be found here.
I hope the OpenMoko project is a success, and I want one two, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's an iPhone killer. Come to think of it, good things haven't ever happened for any company that's made a so-called iPod killer, so I wouldn't think OpenMoko should even aspire to be an iPhone killer. Just a good phone/personal portable computer.
But do they have more to gain from selling the hardware, or from their cut of the revenue? Estimates of profits on the hardware are anywhere from 23% ($138) to 55% ($329) of the cost of the phones (for the $599 iPhone, not sure about the $499 one). According to your links, Apple gets either $3 per contract ($72 over 2 years) or $11 ($264 over 2 years), depending on whether the AT&T customer is new to AT&T or not.
Depending on the balance of new customers to old (and 4GB iPhones to 8GB iPhones), Apple may just make more money by letting people buy the phone and use it with any provider, especially considering that the legal fees to try to enforce the locked phone policy would probably wipe out any difference in revenue from lost AT&T customers. That's provided that AT&T doesn't make too much of a stink with Apple about it. In any case, I'm sure the number of people who actually will end up unlocking their phones will be relatively small, so even AT&T doesn't have much to worry about, and Apple can enjoy those few extra sales that they'll get from it.
Apparently you will:
(See the line for "Other", and look all the way to the right)
Of course, the store is still down, so I'm not 100% sure if they're offering to bundle a VESA mount with your 34" iMac, but they call it optional, so it sounds like they will.
Not to mention that Works is the base "productivity software" on Dell systems (and maybe most or all other major Win-box retailers).
You can still order them without it, but it doesn't decrease the price of the system, so isn't Works pretty much free (as in beer) to the consumer already, if you're buying a new computer?
Adding ads just makes it a worse product that still won't change the price of the system (to the customer) whether you include it or not.
Good point, I missed that as I read the article.
But still, what's really the point of a comparison where two people who already like their system of choice talk about the OS's separately? I know they used the same general categories, but they each talked about them very differently. Their differing attitudes towards security alone is a pretty good indication that it won't be possible to get a fair look at the two OS's in an article like this. The Linux guy understands that security isn't an open and shut deal, that it's all relative. The Mac guy thinks that just because there's no real-world viruses and worms for Macs, the Mac OS is rock solid. Who is a casual reader going to listen to?
They should have responded to each other's points in their own writing... things like VNC and Synergy (which is less complete and functional on Mac OS than it is in Linux and Windows) being mentioned as why the Mac is so great, with no counterpoint about how those same things work in Ubuntu Linux is just lame.
Can't think of a better reason to try Linux or Mac.
Thanks, Microsoft!
Seriously... Isn't Works already bundled with new PCs for free (to the end user) anyway? So isn't this just extra revenue for MS and/or the vendors, while reducing the value of the product?
Jerks. Not that I've ever used anything in Works for more than 45 seconds, but still, it's the principle of the thing.
That's true, but this still could have been handled with much more discretion. The theater manager could have juse pulled the girl into his office and talked to her before deciding whether or not to call the police. He could have asked to see exactly what she taped, then deleted the offending scene from the tape, kick her out of the theater for the day, or for life, whatever. Even threaten to call the cops if it happens a second time. She would have learned her lesson, and told her friends, and now they would all know how serious it could have been. But getting the cops involved over something so small? Would a grocery store manager call the cops because a 10 year-old helps himself to a sample from the bulk food bin?
The GPP is right, this is just going to cost the theater more money than they would ever win in court, and cost the girl and her family money that will just go to lawyers and court costs.
Actually, no you can't burn a copy of a commercial, CSS-encrypted disc to a new disc. The section that would hold the CSS key on DVD-R's is not writeable, so you can copy the entire encrypted DVD image, but not the encryption key. That leaves you with a coaster. But you can mount the image on your hard drive and watch it.
I didn't think the DVD Jon stuff was so retarded just because it was a chance to show the MPAA/DVDCCA and the judicial officials of the world that CSS is not an effective encryption system.
The one that's retarded is the Kaleidescape debacle. To sum it up, a company called Kaleidescape puts together a fantastic DVD ripper/server system. It is easy and simple to use, it's locked down so movies that are ripped can't be accessed by any non-Kaleidescape device, it stores bit-for-bit CSS-encrypted copies of the DVDs on the server, and only decrypts them in the player (a separate box connected by a network connection), just like any other DVD player does. And best of all, Kaleidescape was granted a license by the DVDCCA to use CSS in the player. Oh yeah, and Kaleidescape also gives you the option to bundle large movie collections preloaded on a system, thereby providing revenue for the MPAA. Pretty soon the DVDCCA realizes what the product is, and since the DVDCCA is partially made up of consumer electronics manufacturers who never thought to create such a great device, they tried to lay the smackdown on Kaleidescape, saying they violated the terms of the license... Even though the Kaleidescape system offers less for would-be "pirates" than any PC with a $30 DVD drive... Oh, and the whole system, in the beginning, had a base price of $27,000. These days a basic system can go for about $10,000, but that's still out of reach of the kid in his mom's basement copying his friends movies. All the while, the only "legitimate" competitors to Kaleidescape make DVD servers which are not locked down, and which require the end-user to install DVD Decryptor or libdvdcss themselves (but the software is already set up to automatically integrate with DVD Decryptor). So the DVDCCA goes after the legally-licensed company and legitimizes the ones using the actual "pirate" software. And now that Kaleidescape won the lawsuit, the DVDCCA is amending their license agreement to require DVD players to actually be physically holding the original DVD.
Now that is retarded. Take an innovative, easy-to-use product, which if it won mass acceptance and became a common everyday system, would revolutionize the home movie experience, and try to cripple it, thereby keeping home movie viewing in the stone age.
Not to mention, in the section on working with Windows, He talks about how Linux requires you to either use Wine or use an entire activated copy of Windows in a VM to use native Windows apps. But on a Mac, you get to use Parallels (which has some unique advantages over VM solutions in Linux, but you still have almost all of the same disadvantages) or VMWare. Nevermind that there are tons of different VM solutions available in a Linux environment, including VMWare, and that Wine is an extra feature beyond what Apple provides.
I also don't see how sharing folders between Linux and Windows systems is any different than doing the same on a Mac. Ubuntu has made it very easy to share a folder... Right click on the folder and choose Share... if you don't have Samba server installed yet, it will do it for you.
He also talks about how you can use VNC to connect to a Mac from Windows ("Apple excels at remote access...") , and you can use MS's RD client to connect to a Windows PC, but neglects to mention that both of those are included in the default installs of Ubuntu, and are just as simple and straightforward to use. Also, under Linux, you can use 3rd party solutions like NoMachine's or 2X's or FreeNX's remote desktop solutions, which work very well, are fast, easier to set up than ever, and give you a variety of great options like attaching to an existing session or opening a new session.
He talks about how installation is so easy because Apple does it for you... but then he says that if you want Linux preinstalled (at least he does list some vendors, including Dell), it's going to be pricey... Haven't we seen that Linux Dells cost $40-50 less than equivalent Windows machines? And haven't we seen for years that the low and mid range Macs are quite expensive compared to equivalent Windows/Linux systems? Isn't MacOS pre-installed quite pricey?
He brings up the fact that Ubuntu doesn't include mp3 support by default, but doesn't mention that when you try to play an mp3, it will ask you if you want to get the appropriate codecs, which means it can play mp3's almost out of the box, and semi-automates the process.
The one negative thing about Apple that seems to stand out in the article is in the conclusions where he says that if you want software and hardware freedom, then buying an Apple is like making a deal with the devil... but that's basically just an ideological argument, and not really in the realm of practical concern for most people. He then repeats all the arguments he made above for the Mac (which mostly apply to Linux as well), to reinforce why the Mac is superior.
Yeah, I'd say he's a little biased. I'm probably biased in the other direction, but still...
This could be good business for the Smash My PS3 folks.
This is probably the single biggest thing holding us back from going all-Linux at home. I have mostly been pretty happy with the performance and capabilities of Floola (it's pretty good at managing videos, and allows you to update podcasts directly on the iPod, instead of updating the library on the PC, then syncing to the iPod), but it's not quite as smooth as iTunes, and sometimes, after I've synced my iPod with a new version of iTunes, anytime I copy something to my iPod in Floola, or delete something, it messes up the database on the iPod. Floola's updated very regularly, but it still makes me nervous. I would probably still go all Linux, but my wife doesn't want to let go of iTunes.
And what about Apple's own charging accessories?
That's not working out so well either.
Idiot. That's a coffee cup holder. No wonder you're having problems.
It's my understanding (and with some limited experience) that remote X is not very fast, and is a security risk. From what I understand, that's why NX (FreeNX) is so useful... everything is tunneled transparently over an ssh connection, and a lot of the X stuff gets optimized. I guess there's a lot of back and forth communication between the X server and X clients which creates a lot of delay over a network, but somehow NX solves that. The big boast of the NX protocol is that it works great over low-bandwidth, high latency connections. I haven't ever tried it oever anything other than a local connection, so I don't know anything about that, really.
And NX has gotten much easier to install and setup, and will probably get easier. With the latest versions from NoMachine, you have the option of "shadowing" an existing session (à la Windows Remote Assistance) or starting a new session (which was previously the only way to do it).
Apparently the GPP thought he has to tunnel X over ssh to use it remotely, I guess that's why he mentioned it. And by the way, telnet is not a Windows thing, it's a standardized protocol, and Windows includes a telnet client (except for Vista, which makes it a non-default but still available add-on), just like most (if not all) Linux distributions do.
Also, saying that ssh is way more secure than telnet is like saying driving a car is faster than standing still. Telnet has no security, whereas ssh has very good security. That said, you're right in that ssh is very versatile, very useful, and secure. I use it all the time, but I also have some specific uses for telnet also. The right tool for the right job.
OK, first off... why would anyone want a player that plugs into an SD slot? Doesn't that limit which computers you can use it with, or require you to buy a card reader? What a pain... even if they include an SD reader, it would still be so much more convenient to just plug into USB, like the old shuffle. At least the new shuffle's weird USB design avoids having an ugly USB connector, but with an SD interface on the MS player, you still have to have a part that can stick into an SD slot.
Second of all... it allows users to control music, and you can plug headphones into it... these are innovative features? The shuffle is barely usable because that's all it has. So how is that an extra feature for the zuffle? The sleeve? Does that mean that the SD connector slides out of the body of the player? What does it mean? And where is the innovation being talked about?
Honestly, I wouldn't ever buy a shuffle because it would drive me nuts. It would be funny if this part of TFA were true, that MS really wants a zuffle. The innovative part of the shuffle is Apple's gamble about whether or not people would want such a stripped-down player. But that's been done before, so would the Zuffle ever be anything other than a me too product?
Sure, VLC doesn't have any problem at all with proprietary software...
And thus we see, from an offtopic series of comments, the answer to the original article... There are so many different flavors of Linux because different people like different things about different distros. What one user loves, another can't stand. I think this has helped Linux in general. For me, I started off with Red Hat 6.1, but I never cared for the appearance of it. I know, you can skin Gnome and KDE however you want, but everything just seemed so ugly out of the box and gave me a headache to use, and customization can be a real pain, especialy when you have to redo everything on a reinstall. For saying RedHat was pretty much the main distro I heard about for a long time, it just didn't look that good. I was pleasantly surprised to see that other distros had their own look, and felt better to use. If RedHat would have been the only game in town, I probably would not have continued to use Linux much at all. I messed around with Suse, Gentoo, Mandrake (before Madriva), Debian, Slackware, and a few others. Eventually I settled on Ubuntu (and I use Gentoo at home for my MythTV box). It works well out of the box, I like the simple, straightforward nature of Gnome, and the default theme looks and feels polished (say what you want about the brown color, I think of it as chocolate). Other people disagree, and I'm glad that there are distros out there to meet a wide range of needs/tastes.
TFS makes it sound as if 300 different distributions are all in the faces of all the users, confusing everyone all the time. Many of those distros, however, are probably never even intended to have mass acceptance. They're happy with a small niche. They serve a small purpose, and that's a good thing. For the major distros competing for our attention, it's good that there is competition. I prefer Ubuntu, another guy I work with is a die-hard Fedora fan, and another does almost everything in Suse. It's a little annoying that each distro keeps different files in different places (it took me a while to realize that Suse uses
As far as duplication of effort goes, does anyone really believe that if all these people stopped making new distros, they would all unite in harmony and work together peacefully to create one super-distro? I think that if everybody was all trying to cooperate on one distro, there would be too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, and lots of people would be sitting around with nothing to do, because there's already too many people working on whatever it is they could be working on. Might as well have those people working on a separate distro that can provide some unique functionality.
Also, how in the world could we ever have only one Linux distribution? The flexibility and openness that fosters all these distributions is exactly what Linux is based on. Even if there was only one distribution (say, Red Hat), you could always go the Linux From Scratch route and create your own, and people would (did). And notice how Red Hat sponsors a separate community distribution (Fedora) as does Suse (OpenSuse) and Linspire (Freespire). Even the big enterprise players recognize the value of a spin-off distribution, even if the point is to have early adopters test new software for their corporate distros.
[oops, I meant to say 'distros' above]
It's not a question of problems, it's a question of taste. There's a reason why distributions are called flavors. I like Rocky Road ice cream, but I'm not about to question why Baskin Robbins sells other flavors, too.
There's distros that are custom tailored for specific applications like recording studio quality music, others for enterprise workstations, desktops or servers, others that make great firewalls or file servers. Some are extremely portable so you can carry them with you on a mini-CD or a flash drive and run them on any computer. Some strive to be completely free, by not including propietary drivers, codecs or other closed software, and others want to provide the functionality that the proprietary software gives (that right there is one good reason for multiple distros). Some are specifically aimed at PowerPC processors or other non-x86 architectures.
If there was one right way to do everything, I'm sure everyone would do it that way. But I'd rather have a million different distros all running different directions so I can choose what I want, than to have one distribution ruled by either a committee that wouldn't agree on anything or a dictator who did everything his way. If there was only one distro, it would have to have maximum flexibility to suit everyone's needs. It would probably have to be Linux From Scratch, or Gentoo. But then, people would want something easier, so others would come along and build a distro to cater to these people someone else would make a distro to cater to those people... I guess that's probably pretty close to the actual history of GNU/Linux distributions, isn't it?
The fact that GNU/Linux is open source means that you can have a different distro for each user on the planet if you wanted. I think that's a cool thing. Don't like how someone does it? Roll your own. I think that having many distributions of a free operating system is good, because everyone can learn from the best things the others do... The benefits of competition, with the warm fuzzy feeling of cooperation.
Maybe you should read through the other comments on this page to see how different people feel about Ubuntu and other distros. Personal preferences are all over the map. There's good and bad things about all distros. Usually a distro is started because existing drivers don't fill a particular need.
Head over to DistroWatch and read a little about some of the distros, you'll see what the unique purposes of most of them are. Ubuntu is a relatively new distribution, and before that I messed around with RedHat/Fedora, Suse, Slackware, and Gentoo. Now I've settled on Ubuntu, because it has the look and feel that I think a computer should have, and because it works for me. Other people I know prefer Fedora or Suse, and that's fine. I still use Gentoo at home on my Mythbox, and for me, it's alright for that purpose. But on my laptop I use Ubuntu. In the last week, I tried out Suse and Fedora one more time, and realized I still like Ubuntu the most. To each his own, but at least we're not all stuck with the same distro.
Then unfortunately, you're saying that a non-neutral network is justified, since the whole gist of TFA was that neutrality hurts the performance of the network. They can justify whatever performance claims they want. The whole thing is kind of a red herring, I think, since net neutrality isn't saying that packet types couldn't be discriminated against, but rather that packets shouldn't be given lower priority based on their source/destination. I think there could be a tiering solution that would give VOIP a higher priority, and certain other applications which are important and time sensitive, without discriminating against who is sending and who is receiving, and that would help bandwidth issues.
My questions:
1) Sure, a tiered internet would have some effect on peak bandwidth, but wouldn't the average bandwidth requirements be the same? (Unless, of course, internet usage declines dramatically, because it takes too long to load web pages and download files from non-ISP-approved sources...), and
2) I know that the network hardware companies are pushing for a tiered internet alongside the telcos... How would the cost of implementing all of their new hardware and software tiering solutions compare to the cost of increasing the available bandwidth?
As a side note, I think it's funny how the network hardware companies want a tiered internet so they have an excuse to roll out new products, while the telcos want the tiered internet so they have an excuse to not have to create more of what they create. I guess that's because the hardware companies don't get paid for their products until they can ship them, whereas, the telcos can get (and have been getting) paid for products years ago that they're still stalling on rolling out.
Maybe DVD Jon will win the Nobel Prize someday for all of his anti MAFIAA work?
What a world that would be...
Not to mention, Universal wants money from each iPod sold, just like they get from the Zune, (and they've been asking for that since before the Zune deal was announced). For some reason, they think that they deserve that, even though they didn't design the electronics, or the UI, and iPods are not sold with any Universal Music on them, and don't in any way require Universal Music to function correctly.