On the subject of networking, does anyone know if any Linux distros really use ZeroConf ubiquitously like OS X does? I'm a Kubuntu user and I like Kopete, but it is really annoying that I can't auto-discover users on the same LAN for chatting. Kubuntu also can't automatically find the network printer, which uses ZeroConf. The Macs on my LAN can all find these services (among others) and they're really useful. I know there are several mature ZeroConf implementations for Linux and the OLPC project even uses it to autodiscover other XO laptops and collaborate in various applications. Is it just Kubuntu that is behind the curve, or all Linux distros, or is it just Linux apps that haven't integrated the functionality?
I don't think mature Linux users will care. Linux is a great tool and does some things that osx can't do.
I know literally a hundred or more engineers who have moved from Linux or BSD on the desktop to OS X in the last few years. They care and they influence what software appears on what platform. Linux is a great server and a reasonable desktop. It is still ahead of the competition in some ways, but it is also behind in a lot of ways and it seems like Apple has no problem adopting cool ideas from Linux, but Linux on the desktop fails to steal the cool ideas Apple comes up with.
At some point the killer Linux app will come along that will drive adoption.
A cool app that only works on Linux and won't be ported? I find that unlikely. There could be a killer system/package that is Linux based, like the OLPC project, but a killer app is unlikely to sway users to Linux.
This is pretty much how it's always worked. This is how Linux is gaining now.
I run Linux on the desktop for those applications that work best in that environment. My list of applications that run best there, has been shrinking steadily. Right now it is down to Gimp, OpenOffice, and Inkscape. Notice all of those work on OS X, they're just not as polished. Also note, more and more resources are shifting to those applications on OS X. Also note, new OS X only programs are supplanting those for many of my needs. Really I just use Gimp from the CLI for batch jobs and OS X can handle that as well as Linux.
Stealing desktop share is a moot point. Apple has been trying for as long as I can remember to switch windows users and it doesn't work that well on its own until Vista came along.
Apple has had steady 20%-40% increases in computer market share, year over year, for quite a few years now, long before Vista shipped.
It's the shouting (advertising) that makes Apple products more viable.
I disagree. It is the application support for commercial software and it is the actual usability of the system for normal users. Marketing matters, but OS X also provides a much nicer experience for the average user than Linux. The areas where Linux is ahead mostly cater to power users or people looking to use it as a server. I run OS X, Kubuntu, and WinXP every day, and realistically each is ahead in a few ways, but Linux actually seems to be falling behind as a desktop IMHO.
I recently parted company with an employer. That employer developed and sold Linux and BSD based network appliances. When I started at that company, there were maybe one or two Mac laptops, with the rest of engineering being Linux or BSD and the rest of the company on Windows. Today, probably two thirds of engineering is OS X and maybe 1/3 of the rest of the company have switched. Every engineer gets to choose at upgrade time between a Mac or a Thinkpad, and the shift in just a few years has been dramatic. Of all the engineers (100+) only one tried OS X and switched back in the entire time I was there, and he was a huge Linux on the desktop developer as his hobby and switched back because he had trouble finding drivers for Macs and was unwilling to give up his hobby.
Now think about this. How many of those engineers do you suppose code in their free time as a hobby, or at least provide valuable bug reports and feedback? How many do you suppose are now coding their hobbies to run on OS X primarily instead of Linux? How many decided not to solve a Linux on the Desktop problem because Apple solved it for them and it no longer bothers them? How can OS X not be hurting the effort to develop Linux on the Desktop.
And I see Linux falling behind as a desktop more than I see it catching up. I use Linux and OS X daily (actually WinXP too). I think this is due to several factors. First, Linux is still primarily a server OS, and when it comes to the point where a large change is needed to help Linux as a desktop, it is resisted by most Linux developers because they want to minimize changes to keep their server as stable as possible and keep the footprint small. Also, Linux is a distributed effort. No one party can really break it, but no one party can make a decision to break with the old and do something really new, unless they can make it 100% backwards compatible or they can get the other major developers on board. OS X's weakness is that Steve Jobs can say, "I want the menu bar translucent dammit!" and it happens. OS X's strength is Steve Jobs can say, "I want drag and drop package installation with packages that work across different processors and that are super easy to use" and it happens. Can you even imagine what it would take to get all the major Linux distros to switch to using OpenStep packages and to allow drag and drop installation and uninstallation? Redhat would want to use RPMs no matter what and all the server oriented developers would scream about bloat. It would never fly and since not everyone would be on board you'd end up with a mix and have a less usable system than Linux has now. And there's another thing to consider, remember all those Linux on the desktop suing engineers that switched to using OS X on the desktop? Guess what, they are now firmly in the camp that wants Linux optimized as a server, since they still use it for that, and OS X has solved their desktop needs.
Realistically, I see hope in only a few areas. The OLPC project is an example of both of them. Linux is great for specialized devices that are willing to break from the all purpose computing mold and for the really low end market. Don't get me wrong, I love my Kubuntu desktop, I just don't see it keeping up with my OS X desktop. Every revision to OS X adds a few more things Linux has always done right. Every revision of Kubuntu adds more polish and new icons and some new applications, but never any fundamental new features that matter to me as a desktop user. I wonder why the hell they aren't copying things from OS X (aside from icons and expose). Where are the system services for the love of Buddha? Linux developers have had 8 years to copy that feature but I still can't install a simple grammar checker that will work in all my applications. All I can conclude is there just isn't any one person with enough sway to say, "we're going to implement a big change, it will hurt for a bit, but we'll do better in the long run." It just seems like the users that care about having a really advanced desktop have all moved to OS
One of the definitions of monopoly in the classical sense is that no other close products exist and there is a high barrier for entry into the market.
Antitrust law is not restricted to classical definitions of monopolies. Anything over about 70% market share in a market is subject to scrutiny to see if they have sufficient influence in a market for antitrust restrictions to be applied. This is because you don't need 100% market share to undermine free trade in a market and the point of antitrust law is to make sure we have free trade so that competition and capitalism work.
No one can argue that you can't get a substitute quite easily.
Well that depends. If you're already a customer and have an iPod (like 70% of people who own a portable music device) and have bought DRM'd music from the iTunes store, then it is non-trivial for the average person to transfer their music to the new device. Thus, while you can buy a substitute, you have motivation to not do so because of Apple's market share and because it is hard to get your music transferred legally because of the DRM apple used. Also, for people with some special need which is dependent upon a third party attachment, it is sometimes not possible to find third party attachments for any other kind of device. Both of these are reasons for an antitrust commission to consider Apple's influence and possibly deem it sufficient for antitrust laws to apply.
The only thing that Apple has a monopoly in is Fairplay music and video. But that's because they own the licensing and won't license to anyone else.
Actually they did license it to a couple of cell phone makers.
Ford doesn't have to make their engines compatible with Toyota.
Neither Ford nor Toyota has a 70% or greater market share for engine manufacture.
Now I'm not saying Apple does have monopoly influence, but they are right in the gray area where the law is concerned. Apple knows it and have taken steps to try to minimize any antitrust issues, such as pushing the RIAA to allow them to move away from DRM. It would be a shame if the courts took drastic action against Apple, since this overlaps a market MS has been convicted of abusing via their monopoly and the courts took no effective action. That said, Apple may have to either stop bundling iTunes or start bundling other players as well or do something to make other software player makers happy, be it helping them interact with iPods via public APIs, or giving them cash settlements.
In principal, forcing Apple to play nice doesn't hurt them at all, since if their software and service is the best at the cheapest price, they'll win market share anyway. Realistically, Microsoft is leveraging their monopoly, the RIAA is leveraging their cartel, and the MPAA is leveraging their cartel all of whom are convicted abusers of the system, so the market is already broken and a large portion of each consumer's choice is influenced by things other than the merits of the product. It would be great if the courts in the US or EU would tell Apple they want to see changes to make the market fair, right after they do the same and make it stick for all the other players.
Haha, grandparent post scares the rabid anti-MS freaks because the arguments are directly applicable to MS, despite the feeble "but you have file format lock in!" argument...
Umm, what are you babbling about? MS has been convicted of antitrust abuse in courts around the world with legal systems developed independently.
I don't care what the test is, the original intent of monopoly law was to prevent one business from controlling sole access to a resource.
Umm, "monopoly law." I think you mean "antitrust law" as in the Clayton Antitrust Act. It was designed primarily to stop the abuses of colluding groups of businesses which together were breaking the free market. The point was that large companies using their large market share were undermining capitalism's benefits and it needed to stop for the good o the people.
It's been manipulated, coerced, and corrupted over the years to basically mean anything your competitors comlain about.
I don't think you understand the intent of antitrust law. It wasn't created because of the danger of one company controlling a resource or they would have made monopolies illegal, which they aren't. The laws were created to make sure the free market and competition could keep companies from undermining the system and winning markets with inferior products. Please educate yourself before spouting off your nonsense here.
You better hope Ron Paul doesn't get elected. He'll go back to old school.
That's pretty unlikely. He has basically no chance and even if he was elected it's not as though he could get congress to pass everything he wanted (or likely anything). Also, I haven't heard his position on antitrust issues, so that is an open question. Not that it really matters, since the US DoJ is impotent, having been appointed by people elected using MS's campaign contributions. All the effective actions against them have been from the EU.
For the record, I'm stroked to just as many fits of hilarity and ridicule that people would claim Apple has a monopoly - the idea is just stupid.
Yeah it's stupid, unless you bother to notice that Apple does have a lot of influence in the portable music player market approaching 70% share, and that is where both US and EU law start investigating. But I don't expect you to know what I'm talking about and I wonder why I bother to reply to you.
Yeah, but my point was that there's no reason to believe this is the case.
I don't see that you've made that point at all.
Bundling of DRM? You can't bundle a feature of a piece of software.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. I wrote, "Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM." That says they bundled their iPod device(market 1) with their iTunes program(market 2) and their iTunes store(market 3) using DRM as the technical method of tying. I never claimed DRM was a market.
If it is not a sufficiently large piece of software to be able to stand on its own, such an argument should be laughed out of court.
The court doesn't care if you're talking about a feature or a device, they look only at markets, which I just detailed above.
Otherwise, Microsoft would have to stop releasing new versions of Office and Windows, as every version adds features....:-)
You have some pretty wrongheaded ideas about antitrust law. You can add all the features you want, so long as those features are not tying a monopolized market and another existing market.
Now if you were arguing that Apple should allow third-party vendors to write iTunes replacements, that would be a potential bundling argument, though DRM music stores shouldn't have standing to bring such a suit.
You're confusing a remedy with a determination of bundling. All that matters to determine if they are bundling is are they shipping a bundle of products where one product is monopolized and the other competes in an existing market. For example, if it is determined they have a monopoly on portable music players, then it is obvious they are bundling iTunes with it, which competes with other music players like WMP, WinAmp, etc.
You can, but the point is that a large percentage of software isn't available for both platforms, while by contrast, there are maybe ten CDs on the planet that are iTunes exclusives.... Selling Windows-only software is very common; selling iPod-only music is almost unthinkable.
You're arguing quantity not quality. That is not valid from a legal perspective.
That was my point---that the most common arguments for that don't hold water. Nothing more.
I don't see that you addressed that point with any of your comments. You made a lot of comments that seem to confuse what antitrust law is about both as implemented and in principal.
You do have a choice not to buy an iPod, however, you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them.
But you can play AAC files on some other players. So long as their are others where you can or there is nothing stopping a manufacturer from implementing AAC, that is not an antitrust issue. The Zune, for example, supports AAC. Now the DRM is another issue, but it is mostly mitigated because of Apple's push to remove it and because it was not Apple's choice to add DRM, but a requirement of the RIAA (cartel repeatedly convicted of antitrust abuse). Further, none of this matters at all unless someone can show Apple has monopoly influence on the online music download market, which no one has shown.
As long as the consumer is fully in control of whether to choose the product or its alternatives, there is no monopoly, regardless of how many units are sold.
Legally, this is not the case. A monopolist need only have enough market share to unduly influence the market away from competing products using its influence instead of competing fairly.
What makes something a monopoly is the lack of "close substitutes". Clearly, that is not the case for the iPod.
Is their anything about an iPod's market share that would dissuade consumers from choosing alternatives? What about if they are currently an iPod user and cannot transfer their music to a new device? What about if there aren't any adapters or third party attachments for anything but the iPod so they don't have the option to use anything else for a specific use case?
People choose the iPod because either they believe it is the best choice or they think it is hip or they have had bad experiences with other companies' products or... lots of reasons, but the lack of reasonably usable alternatives is not one of them.
Or they might choose them for either of the reasons I just listed which have nothing to do with the quality of the iPod and everything to do with its popularity.
The fundamental flaw with any argument based solely on number of units sold is that there is no real iPod lock-in.
You say that as if lock-in were the only type of antitrust abuse. It isn't. In fact tying is the first category of antitrust abuse detailed, with bundling being the the most common form. Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM. Mind you, the DRM was not by choice and they've done their best to remove or mitigate it. It was thrust upon them by a several time convicted antitrust cartel, the RIAA. Even so, both of those ties are illegal under antitrust law if Apple is ruled to have monopoly influence on the market.
With operating systems, you are pretty much locked in. The cost of buying new software to support another OS is huge, plus there are all the compatibility problems with files, etc. With music, you have a choice. You can choose to buy music from the iTunes Store if you want, knowing full well that you will have to burn to a CD and have a little quality loss if you want to move to a non-Apple player, but you can also choose to buy DRM-free music on CD, from Amazon, or even some selections from the iTunes Store.
Umm, and you don't know going in that software you buy will only run on Windows and can choose to only purchase software that is cross-platform and works on multiple OS's or has a cross-licensing policy. If you just buy your games from Blizzard they come with Windows and Mac versions on the same disk.
I could switch to any other player right now if somebody came out with a better one. I'd have to spend a few hours converting my protected AACs to unprotected AACs (burning to a CD and ripping it), but I could do it. The barrier to switching is basically zero, and other alternatives exist.
Wait, you're saying spending hours performing a task most users don't understand or know they can do is "zero" barrier? It is a fairly significant barrier actually, at least for the average user.
Thus, no monopoly. Simple as that.
Sorry, that's not the way the laws work. If Apple has enough influence in a market, just like Microsoft, they are prohibited from taking actions that use their monopoly's influence to gain any advantage in another market. Just as MS was convicted of bundling IE and Windows, Apple could be convicted of bundling iPods and iTunes. The test for monopoly influence is usually just market share and most of the US and the EU use 70% as a number to start investigating. If it is determined they have enough market, then the test becomes even easier... are the
It's no different to most WMA players not supporting DRMed AAC, and only supporting MS's DRMed WMA. Which can be said of many, many low-end Flash players.
Yes, actually it is different. Most manufacturers of low-end Flash players don't have enough market share to come close to qualifying as having monopoly influence on the market. Apple has about 70% of the portable, digital music player market, last time I looked, which is right about borderline and if the courts rule they do have monopoly influence, several of Apple's policies would be subject to antitrust law and possibly reparations.
Of course the specific complaint is a bit different since it tries to artificially break the market into flash and hard drive based systems, and lists higher market share than even the most generous estimates I've seen. Also, Microsoft has been more than charged, they've been convicted of abusing their monopoly with regard to the WMA format, and no real action was taken to remedy that situation.
Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol?
Sure, you can sue them for anything... it doesn't mean you'll win though. In that case there might be some real merit, since MS has been convicted of antitrust actions with regard to their media player and music format.
And there's where your post falls down. By our society. Which you are proposing to change anyway by the introduction of this so called "freedom".
According to our constitution, freedom is the default state, while government imposed rules are restrictions on freedom, justified for a very few specific reasons. All other laws should not be restricting freedoms, but merely mitigating conflicts between individuals to solve problems that arise when one person's freedom comes in conflict with another person's. I'm not proposing we introduce anything to this equation. I'm not proposing any changes to that original concept. It was always assumed that our government would overstep its bounds any try to legislate other things, taking away the freedom of the people, which is why we were commanded to be ever vigilant in protecting our freedoms from our government. The people have failed in that task and don't even know what "freedom" is let alone value it and protect it.
. By using the phrase "in our society" you show that this is all still relative. Where exactly is the line drawn? Maybe "freedom" in another society does include child murder. By your own admission children can't take on responsibilities until later, which you consider the price of rights. Historically, some societies have considered children to be property of parents until that point and parents have the right of life or death. Are you going to take away their freedom of choice?
You misunderstand completely. I never said there was not a choice to be made with regard to freedoms. I simply said that choice was not what was "good" but much more simply the choice is only, what is considered a "person" and what rights/responsibilities are assigned to an individual. Our society considers babies and children to have limited rights, held in trust for them. Our society at one point did not give rights to black people. Then there was a slow move towards granting them rights, but all of this was based upon the idea that blacks were people deserving of rights. We didn't pass a law saying blacks had freedom of speech and another law saying they had freedom of religion and another law for each right. We eventually decided they were equal and they gained all the accompanying rights they did not have before.
It is perfectly valid for a society to decide children below a certain age are not deserving of rights, just as it is perfectly valid for a society to decide dolphins, chimpanzees, and giraffe are deserving of rights. The point I'm making, is that is the only factor that is prerequisite when passing a law that is not mitigating conflicting rights, to see if it is anti-freedom.
The point I'm trying to make is that the moment you try and draw any sort of line, you'll fail.
Umm, I don't see that you've made that point at all. I'll fail at what? Every society needs to decide what has rights to be able to apply the law. Should rocks have the right to public assembly and should it be illegal to move them if they are thrown in the street by an earthquake? No, we don't grant rights to inanimate objects. There is no need to consider each law and see if it applies to rocks.
I made it explicitly clear in my last post I consider it qualitatively different.
But you failed to name the quality, making your argument nonexistent.
And I recognise that animal torture involves more than one person and their beliefs and values.
What does this have to do with anything? You might believe animal torture is wrong. I might believe animal torture is wrong. Unless the animals are granted the right to not be tortured and are correspondingly given the responsibility to not torture, then it is not our place to ban others from having different beliefs and acting on them. I submit that if animals have the right to not be tortured, they must be responsible to not torture and we must punish or lock up animals that do persist in tor
In the same way you could say that baby murder is a choice that some other people might disagree with.
Not at all. A human baby is recognized by our society as having human rights and responsibilities, most of which are held in trust by the state and the legal guardians. When the child grows up and has the right on his or her own to have a life, they are also held responsible for the things they do, like murder. An adult fox is not held responsible for murder if it kills another fox or a child or a mouse. By the same token it is not given the corresponding right to life in our legal system.
Fox hunting is not in the same class of "choice" as the other things the OP mentioned, heroin is a choice that doesn't directly affect another being.
You mean it isn't the same because it is one of the choices you disagree with, or do you have some other criteria you think differentiates it? Personally, I hunt, but only things I intend to eat. I disapprove of hunting foxes for sport, but I value the freedom of other people so I oppose any law preventing them from doing it. I recognize that my beliefs and values are not the same as everyone else's and am willing to let them make choices different from mine.
Or do you believe that any animal torture/mutilation/murder is fine as it's a "choice"?
Supporting torturing and killing animals is different from opposing laws regarding them. For that matter, I even support a very limited form or animal rights as a legal principal, but that needs to correspond directly with the level of responsibility the animals can assume. If a dog kills a child, that isn't the dog's fault. The dog does not know any better and usually has been trained to attack. The dog, then, cannot gain the corresponding right to not be killed at the whim of its owner.
If so then I guess I just don't support freedom, by your fucked up definition.
If you don't value the rights of people to make choices you disagree with or even hate, then no, you don't support freedom. You just support the rights of people to make the same choices you do, or just choices you don't object to. It is like supporting the freedom of people to speak freely, unless those people are saying things you don't like. For example, one person I know told me they thought it was terrible that O.J. Simpson was allowed to write a book about how (theoretically) he could have killed his wife. That person thought they supported freedom of speech, but when it came right down to it, they only supported the right of people to say things they approve of. I've heard the same thing with regard to "hate speech."
You can claim my definition is "fucked up" but you've failed to provide a better one. Maybe, as I claimed originally, you're just a typical american who does not support freedom, but have blindly assumed you did because it is a positive sounding word whose definition you've never really thought very hard about. "Freedom" isn't apple pies or christianity or flags. It is each person being able to make choices and decisions for themselves, regardless if the majority thinks those decisions are wrong. So long as you're not taking anyone else's rights (freedom) away, a person who supports freedom will support your right to say Jews are evil and greedy, to eat baby cows, to worship some dark god that in olden days ordered his followers to kill their children in sacrifice, or to dress up in tutus and have gay sex.
I may not like it when people kill animals for fun. I may not approve of the practice of marriage. I may not worship Zeus. I may not like people saying black people are all lazy and stupid. I may not think my neighbor is responsible enough to own a gun or have children, let alone do both at once. I do, however, recognize that it isn't my natural right to tell others what to do and how to live. I support their right to make their own choices, even when I feel what they are doing is unethical, sick, immoral, or dangerous. This is because I actually do value freedom. I don't think most americans do, and I do believe that lack contributes o the eroding civil rights in our country.
The hunting ban is about freedom... Freedom for the fox!
Does a fox deserve the basic right to not be killed that we give to humans? Can we agree that there is significant disagreement about this topic with some people believing one thing and other believing the opposite? Would it make sense to say that if someone chose to hunt and kill foxes other people would disagree with that choice? If they support freedom, however, they have to allow others to make that choice they feel is wrong. Until animals are granted the same basic rights as humans that will be the case, of course on that day we'll be too busy locking all the predators in jail cells for murder and inventing artificial meat for them to eat and trying make that sustainable... but I digress.
I'd add something like 'as long as no harm is done' to that. You know, just to avoid giving people the 'freedom' to kill others for example. The big question is where to draw the line.
Hmm, that is pretty subjective. How about we're consistent to a single concept? Freedom of others to make choices you disapprove of, provided those choices don't conflict with the rights of another. In fact, I'd argue that all laws should be mitigating the conflict of rights between citizens, otherwise it is trying to legislate behavior that does not affect society.
Does a same sex marriage harm anyone? Does the right to carry arms harm anyone? Does it harm anyone if the government isn't allowed to eavesdrop on your communications?
Same sex marriage does not infringe on the rights of people who aren't part of the marriage. Carrying guns does not, by itself, conflict with the rights of others, but it does potentially enable others to infringe your rights, thus it understandable to have some regulation. As for the the government eavesdropping, everything the government does infringes on individual rights because it is paid for with tax dollars taken involuntarily. As such, all government actions need to be justified specifically as preventing one's rights from being infringed.
The value of "freedom" as an american ideal was a great thing and shaped the very foundations of our government. That value is long since dead. Early Americans understood the value of personal freedom. They were very diverse and many of them were immigrants from oppressive cultures. Even the strict puritans espoused a policy of letting those outside their community make choices they disapproved of.
Here's an experiment. Go find a few normal people and have a conversation with them about a few political topics. Notice that no matter what their political affiliation, the vast majority of them think it is just and ethical for them to pass laws to take choices away from others, even when those choices do not affect anyone else. Be it hunting bans or gay marriage or prohibiting heroin, nearly everyone is in favor of passing at least one law to tell other people how to live their lives. Ask them if they value freedom and they'll tell you they do, but ask them specifics and you'll see they don't mean it. They want everyone to be free so long as they don't make choices they disapprove of.
Freedom is the right of others to make choices you think are wrong and supporting freedom means supporting the right of others to make those wrong choices. Unless that value becomes important to Americans, our civil rights will continue to erode from both ends of the political spectrum and both major political parties.
You are kidding, right? Draw a controversial cartoon in most of the EU and see what happens. Start a web page about Nazi's and see what happens. Start a new church and see what happens.
How are any of the above privacy issues; the subject being discussed?
I think the main problem is that we can't really separate personal opinions from business ones.
I think the main problem is that Americans do not value personal freedom. That is to say, despite how many times you see it in "patriotic" speeches or movies or other media, for the most part people in the Unites States don't believe that other's should have the right to make choices they don't agree with. Otherwise; employers would look at activities of their employees off the clock and only consider the real ramifications for the business, not their personal feelings about what the employee is doing. And the real ramifications would be much less as well because there would be no risk of boycotts from the average person, because that person too would value the freedom of others to make choices they disapprove of.
I say this because I've repeatedly talked politics with people and most don't even understand "freedom" to be an issue. As far as the average American is concerned, if they can get 51% of the people to sign off on it, they should be able to force the other 49% to conform in every way, and they have no moral or ethical qualms about it. Both republicans and democrats, so called conservatives and liberals alike, "Freedom" is not an american value anymore.
Sexuality is not protected? Where are you living? It's not in the federal books but it's in most states rule book.
Sadly, this is not true. Only 20 states have laws prohibiting discrimination against gays on the books. They are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. Several states, in fact, still have mandatory discrimination laws, such as laws making it illegal for openly gay people to hold positions as school teachers, or my own state's idiotic banning providing the same insurance benefits to married couples and same sex couples on any educational facility or business receiving state funding. Yeah you read that correctly if you run a school for the blind it is illegal for you to give your gay couple employees the same insurance benefits as your straight couple employees.
Perhaps you've been living in California and have not seen how bad it is in most of the rest of the US.
So because I'm black, gay, and/or a Scientologist, I can be fired "at will"? Something tells me this logic is very flawed.
Actually, the US has specific laws banning employers from firing you on the basis of your religion or race or gender. As for being gay, yes employers can and will fire you for being gay, including the US army and many, many private employers and it is legal for them to do so.
I have a huge amount of loyalty, but not to employees, to partners for sure. Employees have far too many "rights" for the no risk that they offer. You want to be a part of my business and be treated as an equal, you get to put in an equal or equivalent amount.
I'll not bother to argue for what employees "deserve" but you may want to consider loyalty to your employees in terms of how it affects your business. I've seen good and bad employers in this regard from both the position of the employee and the position of the employer. If you aren't loyal to your employees and don't treat them as individuals instead of replaceable parts of your business you'll inspire no loyalty at all. They will treat you the same way you treat them, in a mercenary fashion. If they can steal, why shouldn't they? If they can get paid more elsewhere, why not walk out on you without giving notice or even telling you they won't be in? If they can make some cash on the side by selling your client list to a competitor, why not do it? Why would they stay after hours to finish a project if they are on salary? If you don't treat your employees well and inspire them to believe in you and the company... if they don't believe you'll be loyal to them, then all you will get are people who can't get a better deal elsewhere working just hard enough to not be fired. Maybe that is all you want, but you better hope your competitor does not do better.
In some of the best companies I've worked there was profit sharing, and a feeling of community and the boss would go out of his way to help each employee. If they needed time off for something personal, hours can be flexible. If they're having trouble with their daycare, bring the kids into the office for a few afternoons. If your wife just left you, let's go have a drink, on the company. Bad gambling debt, I'm glad you told us, we'll work out a way to get you an advance and the company accountant can help you out... it sure beats you trying to steal from the company to cover your debts.
The result of the above is workers who return that loyalty. They turn down higher paying jobs to stay with the company and people they trust. They work extra hours during crunch times and wouldn't dream of quitting without 2 weeks notice. They spread good PR via word of mouth. That employee loyalty means real money in the bank at the end of the day. Businesses have gone broke because of employee theft and the cost of trying to police employees, and they generally have a declining quality of employees because no one wants to work in a highly policed environment. From a purely business perspective, it is usually cheaper to make your employees loyal and devoted than it is to deal with disloyal employees. Take a look at Google and how they treat employees. Notice that they attract many of the best employees and as a result come up with lots of cool technologies their competitors wish they had the brains to put together. It is their corporate culture, and it is sound business.
You have to go to the color selector and set the mode to CMYK.
Ironically the one advantage you cite over Pagemaker Adobe has in InDesign - they dropped their old PageMaker codebase as it was unmaintainable and started fresh with InDesign.
Sadly, InDesign seems to be being developed by the lowest bidder or something. I submitted a bug report four years ago for a feature that caused a crash (the program on OS X and the machine with Win2K, it worked cross platform). The bug was repeatable. It worked every time on every OS and it is still broken. Framemaker may be old and unable to move forward, but at least it is moderately stable.
There are products Adobe has no competition over - Flash for example.
Presumably Silverlight will be competing with that very soon, not that it will be better, just that it might make Adobe treat customers better.
What I find odd though is I work in the print industry and I've never heard of any of these tools
Probably most people on Slashdot wouldn't know what InDesign is. It is all a matter of what you work with and learn. I've done some consulting in a lot of fields so I probably have a better chance of having seen a given tool. Some of what I mentioned are quite new, gaining share only in last month or two.
Rather than listing everything listed their major products. Can you think of any that don't have a competing program?
Inkscape (like the gimp actually) doesn't have the print/pre-press features needed to actually work in a professional print environment. Doesn't support color profiles, doesn't seem to support cmyk workflows, color management etc etc.
CMYK in Inkscape works fine for me and it has, in fact replaced Illustrator for all the PR graphics at the last company I worked for. It seems fine for making graphics to pull into Quark or InDesign for pre-press.
If Madcap honestly believes they can replace FrameMaker - I honestly say let them at it. Personally I think they should focus on stabilizing their current products so that they actually work. Frame may have a lot of problems, but one thing the competition needs to consider however is it's outlasted all of the competition - since 1986 and every product that claimed it was going to kill Frame.
Framemaker is dead, they just don't know it. The product has been virtually abandoned by Adobe and is so far behind in so many areas it isn't funny. Adobe has ramped up development again, but I had a nice chat with those developers and don't have a lot of hope. The entire team is from India and they didn't seem to even understand half of the common feature requests when asked bout whether they were on the roadmap.
Acrobat - unless you need some of the advanced features in the product I'll agree with you.
If you need one of the advanced features, you're probably using a dedicated tool to create your PDFs, whether that is forms or 3D. Realistically, most people have Acrobat simply because it came in a bundle.
Quark - Adobe actually looks like a saint compared to what Quark does to their customers. Also the product last I checked doesn't support opentype, or unicode yet - something even FrameMaker now supports.
Maybe they treat customers badly, but they are valid competition. By the way, you're out of date. Quark has supported both Unicode and OpenType since version 7, which came out in early 2006.
Photoshop - again - I say the market is ready for the taking - except no-one has... like FrameMaker they've had since 1987 to do this.
Pixelmator is new, but has been gaining ground rapidly among independent contractors. Gimp exists and works for some workflows. I think Adobe's achilles heel here is they're trying to maintain parity for Windows and the Mac with an ancient, bloated code base, while other, more agile companies can rapidly recreate the majority of Photoshop's features using CoreGraphics, as well as some features not yet in Photoshop.
Lastly - CS3 for 2500 - or Pixelmator. Mind you the 2500$ version comes with every Adobe app they make (including the video apps After Effects, Encore and Premier).
That's my point. It's easier for me to get the boss to sign off on the $2500 version of CS3 than it is to get them to sign of on a $60 copy of Pixelmator.
Speaking of which, there have been exclusive phones in the past, and there will be more in the future, why is the iPhone always singled out for this?
Because in general the only phones anyone on Slashdot cares about are smart phones. Most smart phones makers (Palm, RIM) sell those phones through multiple carriers, so while often locked, they're locked to the phone service you have, not a competitor. The iPhone is the first really nice smart phone that a lot of people here would need to switch carriers to use without a hack, which is why people keep complaining. The issue is finally affecting them.
It is tagged "!surprising," as in "not surprising."
apple released a shitty locked down phone and people hacked it.
"Shitty" is a matter of opinion, the majority of which seems decidedly opposed to yours.
the only suprise here is that apple didn't BRICK your iphones with the update.
Apple patched the vulnerability used by third parties to add hacks. Since they are coming out with an official SDK and since this adds a way for users to add custom icons for Web apps it's not like there is not going to be third party apps, some people are just impatient.
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On the subject of networking, does anyone know if any Linux distros really use ZeroConf ubiquitously like OS X does? I'm a Kubuntu user and I like Kopete, but it is really annoying that I can't auto-discover users on the same LAN for chatting. Kubuntu also can't automatically find the network printer, which uses ZeroConf. The Macs on my LAN can all find these services (among others) and they're really useful. I know there are several mature ZeroConf implementations for Linux and the OLPC project even uses it to autodiscover other XO laptops and collaborate in various applications. Is it just Kubuntu that is behind the curve, or all Linux distros, or is it just Linux apps that haven't integrated the functionality?
I know literally a hundred or more engineers who have moved from Linux or BSD on the desktop to OS X in the last few years. They care and they influence what software appears on what platform. Linux is a great server and a reasonable desktop. It is still ahead of the competition in some ways, but it is also behind in a lot of ways and it seems like Apple has no problem adopting cool ideas from Linux, but Linux on the desktop fails to steal the cool ideas Apple comes up with.
At some point the killer Linux app will come along that will drive adoption.A cool app that only works on Linux and won't be ported? I find that unlikely. There could be a killer system/package that is Linux based, like the OLPC project, but a killer app is unlikely to sway users to Linux.
This is pretty much how it's always worked. This is how Linux is gaining now.I run Linux on the desktop for those applications that work best in that environment. My list of applications that run best there, has been shrinking steadily. Right now it is down to Gimp, OpenOffice, and Inkscape. Notice all of those work on OS X, they're just not as polished. Also note, more and more resources are shifting to those applications on OS X. Also note, new OS X only programs are supplanting those for many of my needs. Really I just use Gimp from the CLI for batch jobs and OS X can handle that as well as Linux.
Stealing desktop share is a moot point. Apple has been trying for as long as I can remember to switch windows users and it doesn't work that well on its own until Vista came along.Apple has had steady 20%-40% increases in computer market share, year over year, for quite a few years now, long before Vista shipped.
It's the shouting (advertising) that makes Apple products more viable.I disagree. It is the application support for commercial software and it is the actual usability of the system for normal users. Marketing matters, but OS X also provides a much nicer experience for the average user than Linux. The areas where Linux is ahead mostly cater to power users or people looking to use it as a server. I run OS X, Kubuntu, and WinXP every day, and realistically each is ahead in a few ways, but Linux actually seems to be falling behind as a desktop IMHO.
I recently parted company with an employer. That employer developed and sold Linux and BSD based network appliances. When I started at that company, there were maybe one or two Mac laptops, with the rest of engineering being Linux or BSD and the rest of the company on Windows. Today, probably two thirds of engineering is OS X and maybe 1/3 of the rest of the company have switched. Every engineer gets to choose at upgrade time between a Mac or a Thinkpad, and the shift in just a few years has been dramatic. Of all the engineers (100+) only one tried OS X and switched back in the entire time I was there, and he was a huge Linux on the desktop developer as his hobby and switched back because he had trouble finding drivers for Macs and was unwilling to give up his hobby.
Now think about this. How many of those engineers do you suppose code in their free time as a hobby, or at least provide valuable bug reports and feedback? How many do you suppose are now coding their hobbies to run on OS X primarily instead of Linux? How many decided not to solve a Linux on the Desktop problem because Apple solved it for them and it no longer bothers them? How can OS X not be hurting the effort to develop Linux on the Desktop.
And I see Linux falling behind as a desktop more than I see it catching up. I use Linux and OS X daily (actually WinXP too). I think this is due to several factors. First, Linux is still primarily a server OS, and when it comes to the point where a large change is needed to help Linux as a desktop, it is resisted by most Linux developers because they want to minimize changes to keep their server as stable as possible and keep the footprint small. Also, Linux is a distributed effort. No one party can really break it, but no one party can make a decision to break with the old and do something really new, unless they can make it 100% backwards compatible or they can get the other major developers on board. OS X's weakness is that Steve Jobs can say, "I want the menu bar translucent dammit!" and it happens. OS X's strength is Steve Jobs can say, "I want drag and drop package installation with packages that work across different processors and that are super easy to use" and it happens. Can you even imagine what it would take to get all the major Linux distros to switch to using OpenStep packages and to allow drag and drop installation and uninstallation? Redhat would want to use RPMs no matter what and all the server oriented developers would scream about bloat. It would never fly and since not everyone would be on board you'd end up with a mix and have a less usable system than Linux has now. And there's another thing to consider, remember all those Linux on the desktop suing engineers that switched to using OS X on the desktop? Guess what, they are now firmly in the camp that wants Linux optimized as a server, since they still use it for that, and OS X has solved their desktop needs.
Realistically, I see hope in only a few areas. The OLPC project is an example of both of them. Linux is great for specialized devices that are willing to break from the all purpose computing mold and for the really low end market. Don't get me wrong, I love my Kubuntu desktop, I just don't see it keeping up with my OS X desktop. Every revision to OS X adds a few more things Linux has always done right. Every revision of Kubuntu adds more polish and new icons and some new applications, but never any fundamental new features that matter to me as a desktop user. I wonder why the hell they aren't copying things from OS X (aside from icons and expose). Where are the system services for the love of Buddha? Linux developers have had 8 years to copy that feature but I still can't install a simple grammar checker that will work in all my applications. All I can conclude is there just isn't any one person with enough sway to say, "we're going to implement a big change, it will hurt for a bit, but we'll do better in the long run." It just seems like the users that care about having a really advanced desktop have all moved to OS
Antitrust law is not restricted to classical definitions of monopolies. Anything over about 70% market share in a market is subject to scrutiny to see if they have sufficient influence in a market for antitrust restrictions to be applied. This is because you don't need 100% market share to undermine free trade in a market and the point of antitrust law is to make sure we have free trade so that competition and capitalism work.
No one can argue that you can't get a substitute quite easily.Well that depends. If you're already a customer and have an iPod (like 70% of people who own a portable music device) and have bought DRM'd music from the iTunes store, then it is non-trivial for the average person to transfer their music to the new device. Thus, while you can buy a substitute, you have motivation to not do so because of Apple's market share and because it is hard to get your music transferred legally because of the DRM apple used. Also, for people with some special need which is dependent upon a third party attachment, it is sometimes not possible to find third party attachments for any other kind of device. Both of these are reasons for an antitrust commission to consider Apple's influence and possibly deem it sufficient for antitrust laws to apply.
The only thing that Apple has a monopoly in is Fairplay music and video. But that's because they own the licensing and won't license to anyone else.Actually they did license it to a couple of cell phone makers.
Ford doesn't have to make their engines compatible with Toyota.Neither Ford nor Toyota has a 70% or greater market share for engine manufacture.
Now I'm not saying Apple does have monopoly influence, but they are right in the gray area where the law is concerned. Apple knows it and have taken steps to try to minimize any antitrust issues, such as pushing the RIAA to allow them to move away from DRM. It would be a shame if the courts took drastic action against Apple, since this overlaps a market MS has been convicted of abusing via their monopoly and the courts took no effective action. That said, Apple may have to either stop bundling iTunes or start bundling other players as well or do something to make other software player makers happy, be it helping them interact with iPods via public APIs, or giving them cash settlements.
In principal, forcing Apple to play nice doesn't hurt them at all, since if their software and service is the best at the cheapest price, they'll win market share anyway. Realistically, Microsoft is leveraging their monopoly, the RIAA is leveraging their cartel, and the MPAA is leveraging their cartel all of whom are convicted abusers of the system, so the market is already broken and a large portion of each consumer's choice is influenced by things other than the merits of the product. It would be great if the courts in the US or EU would tell Apple they want to see changes to make the market fair, right after they do the same and make it stick for all the other players.
Umm, what are you babbling about? MS has been convicted of antitrust abuse in courts around the world with legal systems developed independently.
I don't care what the test is, the original intent of monopoly law was to prevent one business from controlling sole access to a resource.Umm, "monopoly law." I think you mean "antitrust law" as in the Clayton Antitrust Act. It was designed primarily to stop the abuses of colluding groups of businesses which together were breaking the free market. The point was that large companies using their large market share were undermining capitalism's benefits and it needed to stop for the good o the people.
It's been manipulated, coerced, and corrupted over the years to basically mean anything your competitors comlain about.I don't think you understand the intent of antitrust law. It wasn't created because of the danger of one company controlling a resource or they would have made monopolies illegal, which they aren't. The laws were created to make sure the free market and competition could keep companies from undermining the system and winning markets with inferior products. Please educate yourself before spouting off your nonsense here.
You better hope Ron Paul doesn't get elected. He'll go back to old school.That's pretty unlikely. He has basically no chance and even if he was elected it's not as though he could get congress to pass everything he wanted (or likely anything). Also, I haven't heard his position on antitrust issues, so that is an open question. Not that it really matters, since the US DoJ is impotent, having been appointed by people elected using MS's campaign contributions. All the effective actions against them have been from the EU.
For the record, I'm stroked to just as many fits of hilarity and ridicule that people would claim Apple has a monopoly - the idea is just stupid.Yeah it's stupid, unless you bother to notice that Apple does have a lot of influence in the portable music player market approaching 70% share, and that is where both US and EU law start investigating. But I don't expect you to know what I'm talking about and I wonder why I bother to reply to you.
I don't see that you've made that point at all.
Bundling of DRM? You can't bundle a feature of a piece of software.You need to work on your reading comprehension. I wrote, "Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM." That says they bundled their iPod device(market 1) with their iTunes program(market 2) and their iTunes store(market 3) using DRM as the technical method of tying. I never claimed DRM was a market.
If it is not a sufficiently large piece of software to be able to stand on its own, such an argument should be laughed out of court.The court doesn't care if you're talking about a feature or a device, they look only at markets, which I just detailed above.
Otherwise, Microsoft would have to stop releasing new versions of Office and Windows, as every version adds features....You have some pretty wrongheaded ideas about antitrust law. You can add all the features you want, so long as those features are not tying a monopolized market and another existing market.
Now if you were arguing that Apple should allow third-party vendors to write iTunes replacements, that would be a potential bundling argument, though DRM music stores shouldn't have standing to bring such a suit.You're confusing a remedy with a determination of bundling. All that matters to determine if they are bundling is are they shipping a bundle of products where one product is monopolized and the other competes in an existing market. For example, if it is determined they have a monopoly on portable music players, then it is obvious they are bundling iTunes with it, which competes with other music players like WMP, WinAmp, etc.
You can, but the point is that a large percentage of software isn't available for both platforms, while by contrast, there are maybe ten CDs on the planet that are iTunes exclusives.... Selling Windows-only software is very common; selling iPod-only music is almost unthinkable.You're arguing quantity not quality. That is not valid from a legal perspective.
That was my point---that the most common arguments for that don't hold water. Nothing more.I don't see that you addressed that point with any of your comments. You made a lot of comments that seem to confuse what antitrust law is about both as implemented and in principal.
But you can play AAC files on some other players. So long as their are others where you can or there is nothing stopping a manufacturer from implementing AAC, that is not an antitrust issue. The Zune, for example, supports AAC. Now the DRM is another issue, but it is mostly mitigated because of Apple's push to remove it and because it was not Apple's choice to add DRM, but a requirement of the RIAA (cartel repeatedly convicted of antitrust abuse). Further, none of this matters at all unless someone can show Apple has monopoly influence on the online music download market, which no one has shown.
As long as the consumer is fully in control of whether to choose the product or its alternatives, there is no monopoly, regardless of how many units are sold.
Legally, this is not the case. A monopolist need only have enough market share to unduly influence the market away from competing products using its influence instead of competing fairly.
What makes something a monopoly is the lack of "close substitutes". Clearly, that is not the case for the iPod.
Is their anything about an iPod's market share that would dissuade consumers from choosing alternatives? What about if they are currently an iPod user and cannot transfer their music to a new device? What about if there aren't any adapters or third party attachments for anything but the iPod so they don't have the option to use anything else for a specific use case?
People choose the iPod because either they believe it is the best choice or they think it is hip or they have had bad experiences with other companies' products or... lots of reasons, but the lack of reasonably usable alternatives is not one of them.
Or they might choose them for either of the reasons I just listed which have nothing to do with the quality of the iPod and everything to do with its popularity.
The fundamental flaw with any argument based solely on number of units sold is that there is no real iPod lock-in.
You say that as if lock-in were the only type of antitrust abuse. It isn't. In fact tying is the first category of antitrust abuse detailed, with bundling being the the most common form. Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM. Mind you, the DRM was not by choice and they've done their best to remove or mitigate it. It was thrust upon them by a several time convicted antitrust cartel, the RIAA. Even so, both of those ties are illegal under antitrust law if Apple is ruled to have monopoly influence on the market.
With operating systems, you are pretty much locked in. The cost of buying new software to support another OS is huge, plus there are all the compatibility problems with files, etc. With music, you have a choice. You can choose to buy music from the iTunes Store if you want, knowing full well that you will have to burn to a CD and have a little quality loss if you want to move to a non-Apple player, but you can also choose to buy DRM-free music on CD, from Amazon, or even some selections from the iTunes Store.
Umm, and you don't know going in that software you buy will only run on Windows and can choose to only purchase software that is cross-platform and works on multiple OS's or has a cross-licensing policy. If you just buy your games from Blizzard they come with Windows and Mac versions on the same disk.
I could switch to any other player right now if somebody came out with a better one. I'd have to spend a few hours converting my protected AACs to unprotected AACs (burning to a CD and ripping it), but I could do it. The barrier to switching is basically zero, and other alternatives exist.
Wait, you're saying spending hours performing a task most users don't understand or know they can do is "zero" barrier? It is a fairly significant barrier actually, at least for the average user.
Thus, no monopoly. Simple as that.
Sorry, that's not the way the laws work. If Apple has enough influence in a market, just like Microsoft, they are prohibited from taking actions that use their monopoly's influence to gain any advantage in another market. Just as MS was convicted of bundling IE and Windows, Apple could be convicted of bundling iPods and iTunes. The test for monopoly influence is usually just market share and most of the US and the EU use 70% as a number to start investigating. If it is determined they have enough market, then the test becomes even easier... are the
Yes, actually it is different. Most manufacturers of low-end Flash players don't have enough market share to come close to qualifying as having monopoly influence on the market. Apple has about 70% of the portable, digital music player market, last time I looked, which is right about borderline and if the courts rule they do have monopoly influence, several of Apple's policies would be subject to antitrust law and possibly reparations.
Of course the specific complaint is a bit different since it tries to artificially break the market into flash and hard drive based systems, and lists higher market share than even the most generous estimates I've seen. Also, Microsoft has been more than charged, they've been convicted of abusing their monopoly with regard to the WMA format, and no real action was taken to remedy that situation.
Sure, you can sue them for anything... it doesn't mean you'll win though. In that case there might be some real merit, since MS has been convicted of antitrust actions with regard to their media player and music format.
Yes, it's in TFA. It claims the cost would probably be about $.03 per iPod.
And there's where your post falls down. By our society. Which you are proposing to change anyway by the introduction of this so called "freedom".
According to our constitution, freedom is the default state, while government imposed rules are restrictions on freedom, justified for a very few specific reasons. All other laws should not be restricting freedoms, but merely mitigating conflicts between individuals to solve problems that arise when one person's freedom comes in conflict with another person's. I'm not proposing we introduce anything to this equation. I'm not proposing any changes to that original concept. It was always assumed that our government would overstep its bounds any try to legislate other things, taking away the freedom of the people, which is why we were commanded to be ever vigilant in protecting our freedoms from our government. The people have failed in that task and don't even know what "freedom" is let alone value it and protect it.
. By using the phrase "in our society" you show that this is all still relative. Where exactly is the line drawn? Maybe "freedom" in another society does include child murder. By your own admission children can't take on responsibilities until later, which you consider the price of rights. Historically, some societies have considered children to be property of parents until that point and parents have the right of life or death. Are you going to take away their freedom of choice?
You misunderstand completely. I never said there was not a choice to be made with regard to freedoms. I simply said that choice was not what was "good" but much more simply the choice is only, what is considered a "person" and what rights/responsibilities are assigned to an individual. Our society considers babies and children to have limited rights, held in trust for them. Our society at one point did not give rights to black people. Then there was a slow move towards granting them rights, but all of this was based upon the idea that blacks were people deserving of rights. We didn't pass a law saying blacks had freedom of speech and another law saying they had freedom of religion and another law for each right. We eventually decided they were equal and they gained all the accompanying rights they did not have before.
It is perfectly valid for a society to decide children below a certain age are not deserving of rights, just as it is perfectly valid for a society to decide dolphins, chimpanzees, and giraffe are deserving of rights. The point I'm making, is that is the only factor that is prerequisite when passing a law that is not mitigating conflicting rights, to see if it is anti-freedom.
The point I'm trying to make is that the moment you try and draw any sort of line, you'll fail.
Umm, I don't see that you've made that point at all. I'll fail at what? Every society needs to decide what has rights to be able to apply the law. Should rocks have the right to public assembly and should it be illegal to move them if they are thrown in the street by an earthquake? No, we don't grant rights to inanimate objects. There is no need to consider each law and see if it applies to rocks.
I made it explicitly clear in my last post I consider it qualitatively different.
But you failed to name the quality, making your argument nonexistent.
And I recognise that animal torture involves more than one person and their beliefs and values.
What does this have to do with anything? You might believe animal torture is wrong. I might believe animal torture is wrong. Unless the animals are granted the right to not be tortured and are correspondingly given the responsibility to not torture, then it is not our place to ban others from having different beliefs and acting on them. I submit that if animals have the right to not be tortured, they must be responsible to not torture and we must punish or lock up animals that do persist in tor
Not at all. A human baby is recognized by our society as having human rights and responsibilities, most of which are held in trust by the state and the legal guardians. When the child grows up and has the right on his or her own to have a life, they are also held responsible for the things they do, like murder. An adult fox is not held responsible for murder if it kills another fox or a child or a mouse. By the same token it is not given the corresponding right to life in our legal system.
Fox hunting is not in the same class of "choice" as the other things the OP mentioned, heroin is a choice that doesn't directly affect another being.You mean it isn't the same because it is one of the choices you disagree with, or do you have some other criteria you think differentiates it? Personally, I hunt, but only things I intend to eat. I disapprove of hunting foxes for sport, but I value the freedom of other people so I oppose any law preventing them from doing it. I recognize that my beliefs and values are not the same as everyone else's and am willing to let them make choices different from mine.
Or do you believe that any animal torture/mutilation/murder is fine as it's a "choice"?Supporting torturing and killing animals is different from opposing laws regarding them. For that matter, I even support a very limited form or animal rights as a legal principal, but that needs to correspond directly with the level of responsibility the animals can assume. If a dog kills a child, that isn't the dog's fault. The dog does not know any better and usually has been trained to attack. The dog, then, cannot gain the corresponding right to not be killed at the whim of its owner.
If so then I guess I just don't support freedom, by your fucked up definition.If you don't value the rights of people to make choices you disagree with or even hate, then no, you don't support freedom. You just support the rights of people to make the same choices you do, or just choices you don't object to. It is like supporting the freedom of people to speak freely, unless those people are saying things you don't like. For example, one person I know told me they thought it was terrible that O.J. Simpson was allowed to write a book about how (theoretically) he could have killed his wife. That person thought they supported freedom of speech, but when it came right down to it, they only supported the right of people to say things they approve of. I've heard the same thing with regard to "hate speech."
You can claim my definition is "fucked up" but you've failed to provide a better one. Maybe, as I claimed originally, you're just a typical american who does not support freedom, but have blindly assumed you did because it is a positive sounding word whose definition you've never really thought very hard about. "Freedom" isn't apple pies or christianity or flags. It is each person being able to make choices and decisions for themselves, regardless if the majority thinks those decisions are wrong. So long as you're not taking anyone else's rights (freedom) away, a person who supports freedom will support your right to say Jews are evil and greedy, to eat baby cows, to worship some dark god that in olden days ordered his followers to kill their children in sacrifice, or to dress up in tutus and have gay sex.
I may not like it when people kill animals for fun. I may not approve of the practice of marriage. I may not worship Zeus. I may not like people saying black people are all lazy and stupid. I may not think my neighbor is responsible enough to own a gun or have children, let alone do both at once. I do, however, recognize that it isn't my natural right to tell others what to do and how to live. I support their right to make their own choices, even when I feel what they are doing is unethical, sick, immoral, or dangerous. This is because I actually do value freedom. I don't think most americans do, and I do believe that lack contributes o the eroding civil rights in our country.
Does a fox deserve the basic right to not be killed that we give to humans? Can we agree that there is significant disagreement about this topic with some people believing one thing and other believing the opposite? Would it make sense to say that if someone chose to hunt and kill foxes other people would disagree with that choice? If they support freedom, however, they have to allow others to make that choice they feel is wrong. Until animals are granted the same basic rights as humans that will be the case, of course on that day we'll be too busy locking all the predators in jail cells for murder and inventing artificial meat for them to eat and trying make that sustainable... but I digress.
Hmm, that is pretty subjective. How about we're consistent to a single concept? Freedom of others to make choices you disapprove of, provided those choices don't conflict with the rights of another. In fact, I'd argue that all laws should be mitigating the conflict of rights between citizens, otherwise it is trying to legislate behavior that does not affect society.
Does a same sex marriage harm anyone? Does the right to carry arms harm anyone? Does it harm anyone if the government isn't allowed to eavesdrop on your communications?Same sex marriage does not infringe on the rights of people who aren't part of the marriage. Carrying guns does not, by itself, conflict with the rights of others, but it does potentially enable others to infringe your rights, thus it understandable to have some regulation. As for the the government eavesdropping, everything the government does infringes on individual rights because it is paid for with tax dollars taken involuntarily. As such, all government actions need to be justified specifically as preventing one's rights from being infringed.
The value of "freedom" as an american ideal was a great thing and shaped the very foundations of our government. That value is long since dead. Early Americans understood the value of personal freedom. They were very diverse and many of them were immigrants from oppressive cultures. Even the strict puritans espoused a policy of letting those outside their community make choices they disapproved of.
Here's an experiment. Go find a few normal people and have a conversation with them about a few political topics. Notice that no matter what their political affiliation, the vast majority of them think it is just and ethical for them to pass laws to take choices away from others, even when those choices do not affect anyone else. Be it hunting bans or gay marriage or prohibiting heroin, nearly everyone is in favor of passing at least one law to tell other people how to live their lives. Ask them if they value freedom and they'll tell you they do, but ask them specifics and you'll see they don't mean it. They want everyone to be free so long as they don't make choices they disapprove of.
Freedom is the right of others to make choices you think are wrong and supporting freedom means supporting the right of others to make those wrong choices. Unless that value becomes important to Americans, our civil rights will continue to erode from both ends of the political spectrum and both major political parties.
How are any of the above privacy issues; the subject being discussed?
I think the main problem is that Americans do not value personal freedom. That is to say, despite how many times you see it in "patriotic" speeches or movies or other media, for the most part people in the Unites States don't believe that other's should have the right to make choices they don't agree with. Otherwise; employers would look at activities of their employees off the clock and only consider the real ramifications for the business, not their personal feelings about what the employee is doing. And the real ramifications would be much less as well because there would be no risk of boycotts from the average person, because that person too would value the freedom of others to make choices they disapprove of.
I say this because I've repeatedly talked politics with people and most don't even understand "freedom" to be an issue. As far as the average American is concerned, if they can get 51% of the people to sign off on it, they should be able to force the other 49% to conform in every way, and they have no moral or ethical qualms about it. Both republicans and democrats, so called conservatives and liberals alike, "Freedom" is not an american value anymore.
Sadly, this is not true. Only 20 states have laws prohibiting discrimination against gays on the books. They are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. Several states, in fact, still have mandatory discrimination laws, such as laws making it illegal for openly gay people to hold positions as school teachers, or my own state's idiotic banning providing the same insurance benefits to married couples and same sex couples on any educational facility or business receiving state funding. Yeah you read that correctly if you run a school for the blind it is illegal for you to give your gay couple employees the same insurance benefits as your straight couple employees.
Perhaps you've been living in California and have not seen how bad it is in most of the rest of the US.
Actually, the US has specific laws banning employers from firing you on the basis of your religion or race or gender. As for being gay, yes employers can and will fire you for being gay, including the US army and many, many private employers and it is legal for them to do so.
I'll not bother to argue for what employees "deserve" but you may want to consider loyalty to your employees in terms of how it affects your business. I've seen good and bad employers in this regard from both the position of the employee and the position of the employer. If you aren't loyal to your employees and don't treat them as individuals instead of replaceable parts of your business you'll inspire no loyalty at all. They will treat you the same way you treat them, in a mercenary fashion. If they can steal, why shouldn't they? If they can get paid more elsewhere, why not walk out on you without giving notice or even telling you they won't be in? If they can make some cash on the side by selling your client list to a competitor, why not do it? Why would they stay after hours to finish a project if they are on salary? If you don't treat your employees well and inspire them to believe in you and the company... if they don't believe you'll be loyal to them, then all you will get are people who can't get a better deal elsewhere working just hard enough to not be fired. Maybe that is all you want, but you better hope your competitor does not do better.
In some of the best companies I've worked there was profit sharing, and a feeling of community and the boss would go out of his way to help each employee. If they needed time off for something personal, hours can be flexible. If they're having trouble with their daycare, bring the kids into the office for a few afternoons. If your wife just left you, let's go have a drink, on the company. Bad gambling debt, I'm glad you told us, we'll work out a way to get you an advance and the company accountant can help you out... it sure beats you trying to steal from the company to cover your debts.
The result of the above is workers who return that loyalty. They turn down higher paying jobs to stay with the company and people they trust. They work extra hours during crunch times and wouldn't dream of quitting without 2 weeks notice. They spread good PR via word of mouth. That employee loyalty means real money in the bank at the end of the day. Businesses have gone broke because of employee theft and the cost of trying to police employees, and they generally have a declining quality of employees because no one wants to work in a highly policed environment. From a purely business perspective, it is usually cheaper to make your employees loyal and devoted than it is to deal with disloyal employees. Take a look at Google and how they treat employees. Notice that they attract many of the best employees and as a result come up with lots of cool technologies their competitors wish they had the brains to put together. It is their corporate culture, and it is sound business.
You have to go to the color selector and set the mode to CMYK.
Ironically the one advantage you cite over Pagemaker Adobe has in InDesign - they dropped their old PageMaker codebase as it was unmaintainable and started fresh with InDesign.Sadly, InDesign seems to be being developed by the lowest bidder or something. I submitted a bug report four years ago for a feature that caused a crash (the program on OS X and the machine with Win2K, it worked cross platform). The bug was repeatable. It worked every time on every OS and it is still broken. Framemaker may be old and unable to move forward, but at least it is moderately stable.
There are products Adobe has no competition over - Flash for example.Presumably Silverlight will be competing with that very soon, not that it will be better, just that it might make Adobe treat customers better.
What I find odd though is I work in the print industry and I've never heard of any of these toolsProbably most people on Slashdot wouldn't know what InDesign is. It is all a matter of what you work with and learn. I've done some consulting in a lot of fields so I probably have a better chance of having seen a given tool. Some of what I mentioned are quite new, gaining share only in last month or two.
Rather than listing everything listed their major products. Can you think of any that don't have a competing program?
Inkscape (like the gimp actually) doesn't have the print/pre-press features needed to actually work in a professional print environment. Doesn't support color profiles, doesn't seem to support cmyk workflows, color management etc etc.CMYK in Inkscape works fine for me and it has, in fact replaced Illustrator for all the PR graphics at the last company I worked for. It seems fine for making graphics to pull into Quark or InDesign for pre-press.
If Madcap honestly believes they can replace FrameMaker - I honestly say let them at it. Personally I think they should focus on stabilizing their current products so that they actually work. Frame may have a lot of problems, but one thing the competition needs to consider however is it's outlasted all of the competition - since 1986 and every product that claimed it was going to kill Frame.Framemaker is dead, they just don't know it. The product has been virtually abandoned by Adobe and is so far behind in so many areas it isn't funny. Adobe has ramped up development again, but I had a nice chat with those developers and don't have a lot of hope. The entire team is from India and they didn't seem to even understand half of the common feature requests when asked bout whether they were on the roadmap.
Acrobat - unless you need some of the advanced features in the product I'll agree with you.If you need one of the advanced features, you're probably using a dedicated tool to create your PDFs, whether that is forms or 3D. Realistically, most people have Acrobat simply because it came in a bundle.
Quark - Adobe actually looks like a saint compared to what Quark does to their customers. Also the product last I checked doesn't support opentype, or unicode yet - something even FrameMaker now supports.Maybe they treat customers badly, but they are valid competition. By the way, you're out of date. Quark has supported both Unicode and OpenType since version 7, which came out in early 2006.
Photoshop - again - I say the market is ready for the taking - except no-one has... like FrameMaker they've had since 1987 to do this.Pixelmator is new, but has been gaining ground rapidly among independent contractors. Gimp exists and works for some workflows. I think Adobe's achilles heel here is they're trying to maintain parity for Windows and the Mac with an ancient, bloated code base, while other, more agile companies can rapidly recreate the majority of Photoshop's features using CoreGraphics, as well as some features not yet in Photoshop.
Lastly - CS3 for 2500 - or Pixelmator. Mind you the 2500$ version comes with every Adobe app they make (including the video apps After Effects, Encore and Premier).That's my point. It's easier for me to get the boss to sign off on the $2500 version of CS3 than it is to get them to sign of on a $60 copy of Pixelmator.
Because in general the only phones anyone on Slashdot cares about are smart phones. Most smart phones makers (Palm, RIM) sell those phones through multiple carriers, so while often locked, they're locked to the phone service you have, not a competitor. The iPhone is the first really nice smart phone that a lot of people here would need to switch carriers to use without a hack, which is why people keep complaining. The issue is finally affecting them.
It is tagged "!surprising," as in "not surprising."
apple released a shitty locked down phone and people hacked it."Shitty" is a matter of opinion, the majority of which seems decidedly opposed to yours.
the only suprise here is that apple didn't BRICK your iphones with the update.Apple patched the vulnerability used by third parties to add hacks. Since they are coming out with an official SDK and since this adds a way for users to add custom icons for Web apps it's not like there is not going to be third party apps, some people are just impatient.