the fact that on *some* Macs (and not all) this uses a DRM chip to enforce the lock-in doesn't mean that this is DRM
Correction: no mac sold in the last 5 years references any sort of a DRM chip. Really old PPC macs used a ROM to ensure it was a mac. Some Intel macs shipped with a TPM module, but was never checked by the OS.
...there is a grain of truth in what he says. OSX is not the worlds greatest platform if your main requirment is GUI-based Open Source.
If that had been the author's premise, to evaluate the state of GUI open source on different platforms, I might agree. I do not, however, think many people would consider that to eb a very interesting or useful study. Most people don't care about GUI versus CLI as much as they care about what works easily for their needs, which varies by audience. Also, most people don't care about open versus closed source nearly as much as they care about freeware versus payware.
I certainly share the impression that there is less native free (beer) ware than Windows...
"Native" is a pretty subjective term. I am always shocked when looking for freeware, how little there is for Windows in many cases. More than once I've ended up downloading freeware for OS X because all the programs I could find for Window cost money. If you want to assert that for general uses there are more free options for a given task, if you;re using Windows, you need to support that argument. The author made that argument, but did not support it with anything other than his opinion.
This is rather second-best, Since the Unique Selling Point of OSX over Linux/FreeBSD is its GUI...
I'd disagree with this. I'd say that integration and a well tested environment is the main selling point. How many times have you heard the phrase "it just works" with reference to OS X. The fact that I can open up a mac laptop, have it auto-discover both wireless and a usable printer, with no driver installation or configuration on my part, is one of the biggest wins in my mind... and that has nothing to do with the GUI. I'd say the OS X GUI is technologically on par with Linux, just better tested and more smoothly integrated with the rest of the system.
So, basically, if you want a totally free ride, use Linux or FreeBSD...
TANSTAAFL. Anyway, in general I agree that if you want a totally free ride you should be using Linux on the desktop.
...its no great revelation that OSX is aimed mainly at people who are either going to use iLife + (maybe) Office or shell out $$$HOW MUCH!? for professional creativity gear.
That may have been the case in the past, but that is not what I see today. I work in the security industry and OS X has positively taken the desktop/laptop space in this industry by storm. Go find a hardcore BSD or Linux or Solaris geek developing really cool server software and the chances are they're doing it from a terminal window in OS X on a MacBook.
There is a book from the 70s where every instance of a "profane" word is replaced with the name of one of the supreme court justices who ruled those words could be banned on TV by the FCC. After reading it, it is clear which word is which. If only that had caught on with the general public. Then at least our cursing could have a good foundation in ethics instead of just being based on religious "heresy" according to puritans.
The point is to provide a free, standard application for word processing that will work on all platforms.
The Microsoft Office Student/Teacher edition can be purchased readily from Apple's online store for $149 for the full version of Office.
So that is about $50 a year, per person, given the average upgrade cycle. Assume you're running a school or business. Is that a significant amount of money? If you're running a school, how can you assure that all students both at home and in the lab can have access to the same version of a word processor, or at least one that is compatible with the same file format? Is it reasonable to require all parents to spend that amount of money simply so their kids can use a compatible word processor? Wouldn't it make more sense if there was a free word processor that everyone could keep up to date (since it costs nothing to do so) and which you could be assured would work with all your files regardless of which version created them? What if your school has a few Linux labs? There is no version of MS Office for Linux. How can you assure those students can be compatible?
Your time isn't worth any money and you should reconsider what you're using it for
A lot of people, including students and people in less wealthy countries find that $50 is worth a lot of time (weeks of work for some of them) and why are you assuming MSOffice will save time over OpenOffice? I find the exact opposite in many cases.
You can't afford it, so how can you afford the computer that you're using
What kind of an argument is this? We should waste $50 a year per person because it is insignificant and we couldn't possibly afford a computer iff we can't afford to waste that much? Do you work for the government or something?
You just have no desire to pay for software and/or hate Microsoft for XYZ reasons.
Or maybe OpenOffice is both cheaper and better for what we want to do. I want to trade documents with engineers using Linux boxes and with colleagues working in European governments. Those users send OO files. OpenOffice can read both those files and.doc files, while Word cannot.
Obviously all of those items are problems, but for the price and how good Office is for the Mac, I think it's quite a value.
Office for the Mac is bloated and slow. It uses more memory than Photoshop for Allah's sake. It has a worse record for opening old.doc files than OO does. I used Word for about 30 minutes yesterday to create a Word template for a co-worker and it crashed on me 3 times. MS has announced they are canceling VB support in the Mac version of Word and it will no longer be able to open files with macros. Are those enough reasons why we need a competitor in the running?
Besides, "free" is relative, this is alpha software that's 5 years AT BEST behind Microsoft Office.
In many ways this software is already ahead of MS Office. It all depends upon what you need to do.
I think that Google's Apps are much more promising as a Microsoft competitor than a buggy copy-cat of what you can already get for a relatively low cost.
When Google said their apps are not competing with MS's offerings, that was not just marketing fluff. They really do serve different needs. Not many companies will let their files be managed for them by Google. Not many users are ready for needing the internet for all word processing. The ideal use cases for these designs is very different.
I downloaeded[sic[ and installed the Indesign demo for the very purpose of seeing if it could handle docs, and it oouldn't[sic].
You're 100% wrong on this count. I just tried it to be sure. You go to File: Place, then select the file you want to import. It handles both Word(.doc not.dot) and Excel files. You can find this out by clicking on the help menu and typing in "Microsoft Word." I don't think you were very thorough in your evaluation.
Is it really this hard to just keep all of the LGPL code in its own files, and only add code to them that needs to be there?
For a lot of companies, I think so. We manage a fair number of LGPL and GPL software packages here. Then again, we ship servers preloaded with it, just like Tivo does. The LGPL requires not only changes to the LGPL library, but also all the linkable object files used to glue it to your code base. This means you have to track it all and educate users. Here, most of the developers have a good handle on OSS licensing and we already have to track GPL software we also include on our boxes, making it not a huge deal to manage LGPL code. Other places, however, that do not already manage LGPL and/or GPL libraries have a lot more risk and pain involved. They might do it to get something vital, but there is not really all that much about OTR that makes it better than something that could be written in house or contracted elsewhere. The only real advantages are time to market (not much demand yet so not a big motivator), cost (cost of tracking over a few years may well exceed cost of contracting this), and compatibility with the existing OTR user base, which is pretty tiny compared to the IM market. If any major player (AOL, MS, Yahoo, Google, or Apple were to standardize on something else and pre-install it, they would automatically have a bigger chunk of the encrypted IM market than OTR does).
Which is why they use the LGPL, which allows usage without forcing openness.
I'm familiar with the LGPL license, but while it is great for "tivoization" type uses, it is usually a no-no for software inclusion. Most corporate lawyers I know don't want employees including LGPL code in distributed software, because the cost of making sure it is compliant and making sure the developers understand what they do and don't have to resubmit, and the cost of documenting the linkages, is too onerous, especially for this small of a chunk of code. It is easier to simply write their own code that does things differently and since there is not a documented standard, that will probably not be compliant with OTR's.
This is why basic building blocks like the TCP stack are often BSD licensed. It is a lot more motivation to adopt a standard, when you can incorporate a free, reference implementation without maintaining all the tracking for the licensing the LGPL brings with it. I just don't see Microsoft pulling LGPL code into default Windows applications so that Messenger, or whatever it called now, can interoperate with then tiny number of OTR users. I can see them grabbing some BSD code and embedding it for a quick bullet point.
So what does this say about GPLv2 and GPLv3, in which, if you modify the software (and distributed it), you are forced to release it under GPL (FSF is forcing you to do their bidding)? Once you use GPL, you are enslaved by it?
I think you're mistaking the idea of personal freedom and societal freedom. I'm free to go buy a bottle of booze. I'm not free to go take a bottle of booze without paying for it. Does this mean I'm enslaved by the law that says stealing is illegal?
In our current society and set of laws the author of a work has the right to copy it and everyone else has their rights to make copies limited. Note, this has nothing to do with the GPL, it is copyright law. What the GPL does is offer a trade. Just as I can buy booze for money, the GPL offers me the right to make copies of code, providing that if I make any changes and distribute those changes, I distribute them to everyone else under the GPL. That is called a trade, not enslavement. If you don't want to use the code, don't. If you do want to use the code (just as if you want to take a bottle of booze) you pay. Your personal freedom to take a bottle, or make a copy of some code, does not trump the person freedoms of others to own property or to control the copying of a work, at least according to our current laws and social conventions. If you think copying or stealing should be legal, you should address the laws that make them illegal, not the person licensing the code, or selling the booze.
Re:The GPL: Intellectual Theft
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GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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People who use BSD-like licences are giving away their work, usually because they want to maximise the amount of value others get from it.
This is not 100% accurate. Putting a work into the public domain is giving it away. Licensing it via the BSD license, is swapping it for very little (credit in any redistributed versions of your code or modifications of your code).
Particularly since having two mutually-incompatible encryption packages is a pretty crummy state of affairs; it just means that the few users who do use encryption, are going to be fragmented between incompatible systems.
This is what standards are for. We need a standard for IM encryption, possibly as part of a larger encryption framework. I have no problem advocating a standard, which I think is a lot better idea than advocating a given program/library.
If only some of the other IM clients would start building it in by default, rather than making it an optional addon, I think it would quickly gain traction as a de facto standard.
OTR is licensed as GPL/LGPL. As such, I'm not sure a lot of major software makers will be all that keen about implementing it. Take a look at iChat or Yahoo Messenger. They're not going to open source their application just to add an encryption format that is still pretty rare and where there is not a lot of demand. This is one of those rare instances where a BSD licensed implementation would be a whole lot more likely to solidify the de-facto standard. Realistically, I doubt that the major players are going to go open source for their clients, and as such I doubt there will be adoption of OTR unless it is submitted as a real, well documented standard and/or a BSD reference implementation is made available. We're a lot more likely to see Microsoft or AOL take over this space with a proprietary encryption scheme, which will be reverse engineered and pseudo-supported on other platforms/clients simply because people will need to communicate with the majority.
No, I simply want to ensure it goes to the correct receiver (which if it fell out, wouldn't happen).
Here's a tip for you. Use a piece of tape to hold the pages of the letter shut. Write the address on the back, and add a stamp. You just saved the cost of an envelope.
Your argument would be correct with the minor exception of that pesky DMCA.
Interesting DMCA facts:
The DMCA does not ban circumventing encryption, copyright controls.
The DMCA bans distribution of tools that can be used to circumvent said controls.
The DMCA does not ban download of said tools, only distribution.
The DMCA applies only to breaking encryption for controls, so the legality of anything where encryption is not broken is questionable. (See bitwise copying)
The DMCA has a fair use clause.
The DMCA may be applied for the copying of DVDs in the US, but it is unlikely to ever result in a winning lawsuit, only in costly barratry.
It's clear that many of you have no interest in actually understanding the law and what is and isn't legal. How do you expect to actually bring about the necessary changes when you can't be bothered to understand the underlying problems?
Physician, heal thyself.
The DMCA is an often abused law, partly because it was originally created to be ambiguous and difficult to understand. That said, trying to apply it to bring a case against a person who is making backups of their DVDs, for their own personal use will never result in a win in court. It may, however, be expensive enough in court costs to make it a useful means of abusing the legal system to intimidate others.
This is another hardware solution. not something you install to your computer. AFAICT.
EyeTV is both a hardware tuner, and a software DVR package for your computer that you install. It is (AFAIK) Mac only, but is pretty smooth and easy to use, without any of the feature crippling of a Windows Media Center. It has been my PVR for many years now and seems like a great solution for people with an old Mac laying around that they might want to turn into a PVR/media server/extra workstation.
Honestly if things randomly become unresponsive on your machine there's a bigger problem than using windows.
Yeah, it is strange how this same problem has persisted across 6 different hardware vendors and a dozen or more fresh installs or various versions of Windows (some of which were centrally managed and which I did not even have permission to install software on). It's not like this has been documented for years by professionals in many different fields. Run Adobe InDesign and open and edit a few large documents, like a catalog or something. You'll get about 2, 8-hour days, and then Windows is at the point where clicking on a given item in the task bar takes 60 seconds or more to bring that application to the foreground, regardless of which application is in the foreground when you use it. (P.S., it is not random. This is easily repeatable and the same situation applies to differing degrees with almost all software on Windows.)
This is a list of apps you'd normally find running all the time on my PC:
The responsiveness issue is not about how many applications you have open. It is about how long you actually perform operations in them without quitting them. As for running lots of applications on Windows, if you have RAM as your limiting factor, Windows does a better job (for most use cases) than OS X does. It does a worse job if CPU or disk is the limiting factor. If you have all those applications you mention sitting in the background idle and they have not been idle you're probably fine, unless of course you've actually been doing things with them, then they will start to leak memory which is not cleaned up. The worst case is when you have an application in the background actually trying to share the CPU with the one in the foreground. Windows handles that situation poorly because it does not prioritize either the foreground application of the user interface elements enough in comparison. Unless you've been dealing with it so long you no longer notice, several minute pauses before the UI responds is pretty unusable.
For that matter, do a Google search for UI responsiveness issues with Windows. A lot of graphic artists avoid the platform simply because mouse and other input is not prioritized enough above other functions. If you're trying to highlight some text and the mouse input is ignored or not displayed for a half a second it is no big deal. When you're trying to draw a brush stroke in a painting program, it is a show stopper.
But for some reason Mac users believe they've got some special workflow that the rest of us are deprived.
If you really do use OS X, Windows and Linux every day (I do) you should recognize that each architecture lends itself to different workflows. When I run Windows, I run 1-3 applications at a time and I shut them down when I'm not using them, because otherwise the system becomes unusable. Application leak memory and Windows does not clean up after them well, so they need to be quit and restarted. Adobe InDesign on Windows, for example lasts about 2 days using the size of files I normally handle, then the UI becomes too slow to use. Quitting the program and restarting fixes it. InDesign leaks memory on OS X as well, but never to the point that it stops working and leaving it open for a week does not make the machine unusable for other task like it does on Windows.
Because of the real multi-tasking differences, workflows are very different. On OS X I regularly leave 8 or so applications running constantly for a month or more. Why would I ever quit my e-mail client or browsers, or calendar, or IM client? On Windows I quit them because otherwise the computer eventually stops being responsive, even if they are just sitting in the background.
There's no benefit for a desktop user to run his machine 24/7.
That all depends upon what you do with it. Is your desktop also your DVR? Do you use it to play music while you sleep? Does it monitor your security system? Are you like one of my co-workers and only sleep 45 minutes at a time, spread out evenly around the clock? Be careful making blanket declarations.
But honestly, the mythical "frequent rebooting and resetting" of Windows, just like the Blue Screen of Death, is one of those things that died with the 9x series of Windows (95/98/Me).
I rebooted my Win2k machine every day at work because I needed to in order to keep it responsive. Anyway, I never said you have to reboot modern versions of Windows. I said it was less of a hassle given the average workflow on a Windows machine (only a few apps open). When I rebooted my mac laptop the other day, the first thing I did after logging in was tell it to start 8 applications I leave running all the time at work. I rebooted my Windows setup at the same time, and I started the one application I needed right away. Quitting one app and rebooting to play a game on Windows is not that big of a hassle. Saving all my files/sessions and quitting 8 programs, rebooting, playing a game, rebooting, and then starting those 8 programs back up and reopening the files, is a pain I don't want to bother with just to play a game. I'd rather just play a console game. Starting Parallels and the game, however, is convenient and acceptable
Erm, Warcraft 3 was never a hardware intensive game even at release. Perhaps you had a kickass machine at the time...
Warcraft 3 was plenty hardware intensive to strain the average machine at the time, just not the average hardcore gamer machine. I was running it on a 867 Mhz g4 laptop; not exactly a powerhouse.
there is nothing inherently magical about OS X that makes games run faster. If anything, it's more bloated than Windows XP.
Did I say anything about how fast the machine can run a game? I said OS X's multitasking could support running it without shutting other things down. OS X's mutli-tasking is a great deal better than WinXP when you're working with multiple CPU intensive applications. This is pretty obvious to anyone who has used both. Running WinXP+Photoshop+InDesign+Warcraft 3 results in a basically unusable gaming session because even in the background WinXP allocates too many resources to the other applications and does not do a good job of prioritizing the input devices. The same is not true for OS X+Photoshop+InDesign+Warcraft 3.
Look Windows is better at some things and OS X is better at some things. I'm no zealot and I run both of them daily. OS X just happens to be a lot better at running many applications at once when CPU or disk is the bottleneck, or when responsiveness of the input devices is key. Windows often does a better job when memory is the bottleneck. This lends itself to different workflows and different needs. On OS X, getting the fastest CPU is less important than getting enough RAM. On OS X, users tend to develop workflows that involve never rebooting or even shutting down popular applications. I'll run mail.app, Firefox, Safari, SubEthaEdit, terminal, ical, and ichat for months at a time in some cases because there is no need to shut them down to get better performance for other applications. On Windows, I shut down applications I'm not using right now, because otherwise the performance of the apps that are running suffers.
The problem I'm pointing out, is that while for experienced Windows users shutting down all your applications and even rebooting is common, so workflows develop to accommodate that need. Therefor, they assume that doing the same is no big deal to OS X users, and that simply is not the case.
As far as speed gains, I can't imagine you think there is no noticeable difference in speed. Virtualization still has to go through a separate layer.
Imagine? I'm not imagining anything. I do it every day. I don't need to imagine. Are you trying to claim that there is a noticeable speed difference for the apps you run, or are you simply ignorant and imagining there is a big difference without ever having used Parallels?
why in the world would anyone run emulation when they can run Windows natively with bootcamp.
First, it is virtualization, not emulation. I run Parallels because I need to use both Windows and OS X native applications to get my daily work. Rebooting 30 or 40 times a day would be less than productive. Also, maybe you're not understanding the workflow of many mac users. I don't shutdown my computer and I don't reboot. I rarely ever shutdown about 5 major applications. I am a casual gamer. I used to go to LAN parties with my laptop and play Warcraft 3 and amaze all the Windows users by not bothering to shut down Photoshop, InDesign, Firefox, and all the rest of my applications, because OS X's multitasking was up to it. I'm sure not going to shut down all my applications and close all my files and reboot my machine, just to play some game. That would be a huge pain in the ass. I will, however, boot up a Windows session in a window and play it there.
Most gamers are casual gamers, like me. We don't care if it is running 50fps instead of 40fps. We don't care if the textures are all at the highest settings. We just want to play a few games and have fun without a hassle. If Parallels will let me do that, I'd shell out for it. I can afford it. I'm a computer geek; we tend to be well paid. I say I would pay for it because, likely, my company will be buying my upgrade for me anyway.
I bought a mac, but I'm 98% in the windows. I only use mac to test web based apps in safari.
The advantages of using OS X as the host OS are numerous, if you're the kind of person willing to learn new ways of doing things. It is an added level of security, and running OS X apps natively allows for more interaction between apps and more customization of features for all apps.
For people like me or for gamers, I don't see why you would ever use paralells emulation. The speed cost is just too high.
For games that don't use 3D acceleration, I don't even normally notice any speed difference at all between parallels and bootcamp. The limiting factor in all cases is memory, so running Parallels is like having.5G less memory. With the notice graphics card support, I doubt the speed difference will bug me at all. Like I said, I (like most gamers) am a casual gamer. In any case, claiming the speed cost is too high is a bit premature until it is actually tested, don't you think?
I had no idea that some DVRs wouldn't FF thorough adds. I hope my cable company never "upgrades" to one.
Don't just hope, do something. The cable company wants you to watch as many ads as possible because it makes them money. Relying on them to provide you with a box to let you skip ads is a pretty poor strategy. Their plan is to make you watch absolutely as many ads as possible through disabling features that will let you skip them, without motivating you to move to another vendor for your DVR. Worse, the price they charge you for your DVR is usually subsidized by overcharging you for cable service, thus allowing them to seem cheaper than competitors, while really providing themselves with a quasi-legal (probably illegal) subsidy. They'll keep this up until they've driven competitors out of business, then they'll raise prices.
Their strategy works because they plan for the long term and consumers like you do not. If you don't switch at the first sign of the cable co acting against your interests, they'll just keep crippling the box more and more. They'll disable allowing your system to archive to DVD and export to mpeg for your laptop and video ipod. They'll disable commercial skipping and fast forward either all the time or for select shows. They'll disable time shifting for certain "premium" shows. Don't wait until you can't stand it, because by then it may be too late and they will have driven competitors out of business and undermined FCC rules so they can keep competitors from returning.
Limewire isn't illegal. It's used illegally of course - but it's not illegal. If you don't set your upload preferences to OFF - you may end up breaking the law inadvertently. That's was my point.
Your example was that you gave it to a friend who ignorantly put it in the shared limewire directory. In your example, you broke the law by making him a copy in the first place and then he broke the law by republishing it on the internet. If you or your frined downloads and installs software that they don't understand the purpose of, then I don't have a lot of sympathy for you when that software works in ways you don't understand to break the law. The same thing can be said of shared Windows directories.
In other news - you're a fucking moron.
What are you, 8 years old or something? "I'm rubber you're glue..." Grow up.
One shared directory makes all the difference. Forget "computer stolen" stories - too many steps. More likely, someone drops an MP3 into a download directory or a shared directory with LimeWire - and if that preference isn't turned off (it's on by default) - instant distribution.
So you're upset because Apple puts identifying info in their files and that could cause you problems when you're breaking the law by giving copies to incompetent criminal friends of yours? Here's a news flash for you. If you're buying files as downloads from an online store, it is not very hard to apply a digital watermark to the music that will uniquely identify that copy. It is a lot harder to find and remove than this plaintext info.
Does Apple add watermarks? I don't know. Do other online stores? Again, I don't know. Probably some of them do. If you're planning on continuing your illegal enterprises before the laws are changed I recommend you do not do so with files from online stores, regardless of if they have your info in the plaintext metadata fields.
It's not dumber than lending your CDs to a bunch of people from time to time, it's music you've paid for and let others use it.
Yes, it is dumber. First, lending CDs is not copyright infringement because you're not making a copy, just loaning your copy. If they make a copy of the CDs, then they are breaking the law, but that is not implicit in the act of uploading the way it is with digital files.
Second, we know how CDs are made for the most part and it precludes watermarking each CD or song with a unique, invisible identifier. Thus, even if you make copies of the CDs and give them to everyone, they will probably not be easily traceable back to you. The same is not true of music purchased online and it is quite likely that Apple and every other manufacturer is doing just that; something a lot harder to find and discover than plaintext info such as is described here. An intelligent person should assume that his or her files may be watermarked if they're purchased from an online store, and thus avoid sharing them in their original form.
Let's see how many people are outraged when Apple does something like this, as opposed to say, Sony or Microsoft.
When has Microsoft or Sony ever done "something like this?" This does not stop me from taking any action I want with the files I buy. This does not even prevent me from breaking the law if I so choose. What exactly has Apple done here that you're comparing to MS and Sony? Do they take some action with these files that stop me from burning CDs with them? No. Does this in some way stop me from playing them on all the computers and players I own that support this open format? No. Does this stop me from sharing these files with millions of others? Not really. It might provide a slight amount of evidence if I were caught doing that, but since nothing is stopping me from encoding anyone else's name and e-mail address into files like these and uploading them, that does not exactly make for a good case against me by itself. And what about uploading files to P2P networks? Am I going to do it with these files? Hell no! I assume all files I purchase somewhere have unique watermarks that are a lot harder to find and remove than this plaintext info. Apple is probably watermarking these files as well. It is a lot easier and safer to simply download files from P2P if I plan to upload them as well and if I don't care about the law, why would I pay Apple in the first place?
I'm definitely not approving or defending any company doing this kind of thing, but I do expect a bit of a disconnect as to the reaction. Call me cynical.
Call me an optimist but I hope there is a disconnect between the way people react to a guy who goes to target practice at the shooting range and a guy who goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of people because they are very different things.
What happens when your computer or mp3 player gets stolen and 6 months later there's files all over the p2p nets with your name on them. How could you prove you weren't the one that put them on there in the first place?
First, why would you have to prove that you did not put them there? Your name on them is not proof that you did, and if you can show that a device that may have had the files was stolen you'll walk unscathed from even a civil suit.
This whole thing seems a bit weird to me. Apple's license forbids them from sending the data back to headquarters for analysis to catch casual pirates. They've been including this data in all the files they've sent for a long time. This is in the mp4 format so nothing stops a freeware program from erasing or changing them. Heck I can grab your e-mail address from a dozen places now and add it to mp4 files on P2P networks. That doesn't prove you put them there.
So, it is 100 times easier to grab these files from P2P for purposes of piracy than it is to steal a player or get them some other way. Who is planning on uploading files they have purchased anyway? That's just dumb.
Guess what? All media outlets can (and usually do) do it!
Really? You have evidence of any major news outlet going to court and admitting they intentionally lied to viewers and that it was legal for them to do so? I'd like to see some citation of that.
See CBS News, where Dan Rather insisted for several days after the documents were posted to LGF and other blogs that there was no evidence of forgery in the Killian memos.
Googling for that story I find:
Although CBS and Rather defended the authenticity and usage of the document for a two-week period, continued scrutiny from independent and rival news organizations and independent analysis of other copies of the documents obtained by USA Today raised questions about the documents' validity and led to a public repudiation on September 20, 2004. Rather stated, "if I knew then what I know now - I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question,"
CBS did not defend their right to lie in court and neither did Dan Rather. They claimed that as soon as they found reliable evidence that the documents were faked they admitted to that and they claim that if they knew they were fake they would not have published the story. They did not say they knew they were fake but that it was okay for them to publish them anyway because they have no legal responsibility to not tell lies.
Sorry, your comparison is way off. That is not the same issue at all. CBS at least publicly claims they will always print what they think is the truth. They have never openly defended intentionally lying to the audience.
Slashdot Mirror
Correction: no mac sold in the last 5 years references any sort of a DRM chip. Really old PPC macs used a ROM to ensure it was a mac. Some Intel macs shipped with a TPM module, but was never checked by the OS.
...there is a grain of truth in what he says. OSX is not the worlds greatest platform if your main requirment is GUI-based Open Source.If that had been the author's premise, to evaluate the state of GUI open source on different platforms, I might agree. I do not, however, think many people would consider that to eb a very interesting or useful study. Most people don't care about GUI versus CLI as much as they care about what works easily for their needs, which varies by audience. Also, most people don't care about open versus closed source nearly as much as they care about freeware versus payware.
I certainly share the impression that there is less native free (beer) ware than Windows..."Native" is a pretty subjective term. I am always shocked when looking for freeware, how little there is for Windows in many cases. More than once I've ended up downloading freeware for OS X because all the programs I could find for Window cost money. If you want to assert that for general uses there are more free options for a given task, if you;re using Windows, you need to support that argument. The author made that argument, but did not support it with anything other than his opinion.
This is rather second-best, Since the Unique Selling Point of OSX over Linux/FreeBSD is its GUI...I'd disagree with this. I'd say that integration and a well tested environment is the main selling point. How many times have you heard the phrase "it just works" with reference to OS X. The fact that I can open up a mac laptop, have it auto-discover both wireless and a usable printer, with no driver installation or configuration on my part, is one of the biggest wins in my mind... and that has nothing to do with the GUI. I'd say the OS X GUI is technologically on par with Linux, just better tested and more smoothly integrated with the rest of the system.
So, basically, if you want a totally free ride, use Linux or FreeBSD...TANSTAAFL. Anyway, in general I agree that if you want a totally free ride you should be using Linux on the desktop.
...its no great revelation that OSX is aimed mainly at people who are either going to use iLife + (maybe) Office or shell out $$$HOW MUCH!? for professional creativity gear.That may have been the case in the past, but that is not what I see today. I work in the security industry and OS X has positively taken the desktop/laptop space in this industry by storm. Go find a hardcore BSD or Linux or Solaris geek developing really cool server software and the chances are they're doing it from a terminal window in OS X on a MacBook.
There is a book from the 70s where every instance of a "profane" word is replaced with the name of one of the supreme court justices who ruled those words could be banned on TV by the FCC. After reading it, it is clear which word is which. If only that had caught on with the general public. Then at least our cursing could have a good foundation in ethics instead of just being based on religious "heresy" according to puritans.
The point is to provide a free, standard application for word processing that will work on all platforms.
The Microsoft Office Student/Teacher edition can be purchased readily from Apple's online store for $149 for the full version of Office.So that is about $50 a year, per person, given the average upgrade cycle. Assume you're running a school or business. Is that a significant amount of money? If you're running a school, how can you assure that all students both at home and in the lab can have access to the same version of a word processor, or at least one that is compatible with the same file format? Is it reasonable to require all parents to spend that amount of money simply so their kids can use a compatible word processor? Wouldn't it make more sense if there was a free word processor that everyone could keep up to date (since it costs nothing to do so) and which you could be assured would work with all your files regardless of which version created them? What if your school has a few Linux labs? There is no version of MS Office for Linux. How can you assure those students can be compatible?
Your time isn't worth any money and you should reconsider what you're using it forA lot of people, including students and people in less wealthy countries find that $50 is worth a lot of time (weeks of work for some of them) and why are you assuming MSOffice will save time over OpenOffice? I find the exact opposite in many cases.
You can't afford it, so how can you afford the computer that you're usingWhat kind of an argument is this? We should waste $50 a year per person because it is insignificant and we couldn't possibly afford a computer iff we can't afford to waste that much? Do you work for the government or something?
You just have no desire to pay for software and/or hate Microsoft for XYZ reasons.Or maybe OpenOffice is both cheaper and better for what we want to do. I want to trade documents with engineers using Linux boxes and with colleagues working in European governments. Those users send OO files. OpenOffice can read both those files and .doc files, while Word cannot.
Obviously all of those items are problems, but for the price and how good Office is for the Mac, I think it's quite a value.Office for the Mac is bloated and slow. It uses more memory than Photoshop for Allah's sake. It has a worse record for opening old .doc files than OO does. I used Word for about 30 minutes yesterday to create a Word template for a co-worker and it crashed on me 3 times. MS has announced they are canceling VB support in the Mac version of Word and it will no longer be able to open files with macros. Are those enough reasons why we need a competitor in the running?
Besides, "free" is relative, this is alpha software that's 5 years AT BEST behind Microsoft Office.In many ways this software is already ahead of MS Office. It all depends upon what you need to do.
I think that Google's Apps are much more promising as a Microsoft competitor than a buggy copy-cat of what you can already get for a relatively low cost.When Google said their apps are not competing with MS's offerings, that was not just marketing fluff. They really do serve different needs. Not many companies will let their files be managed for them by Google. Not many users are ready for needing the internet for all word processing. The ideal use cases for these designs is very different.
You're 100% wrong on this count. I just tried it to be sure. You go to File: Place, then select the file you want to import. It handles both Word(.doc not .dot) and Excel files. You can find this out by clicking on the help menu and typing in "Microsoft Word." I don't think you were very thorough in your evaluation.
For a lot of companies, I think so. We manage a fair number of LGPL and GPL software packages here. Then again, we ship servers preloaded with it, just like Tivo does. The LGPL requires not only changes to the LGPL library, but also all the linkable object files used to glue it to your code base. This means you have to track it all and educate users. Here, most of the developers have a good handle on OSS licensing and we already have to track GPL software we also include on our boxes, making it not a huge deal to manage LGPL code. Other places, however, that do not already manage LGPL and/or GPL libraries have a lot more risk and pain involved. They might do it to get something vital, but there is not really all that much about OTR that makes it better than something that could be written in house or contracted elsewhere. The only real advantages are time to market (not much demand yet so not a big motivator), cost (cost of tracking over a few years may well exceed cost of contracting this), and compatibility with the existing OTR user base, which is pretty tiny compared to the IM market. If any major player (AOL, MS, Yahoo, Google, or Apple were to standardize on something else and pre-install it, they would automatically have a bigger chunk of the encrypted IM market than OTR does).
I'm familiar with the LGPL license, but while it is great for "tivoization" type uses, it is usually a no-no for software inclusion. Most corporate lawyers I know don't want employees including LGPL code in distributed software, because the cost of making sure it is compliant and making sure the developers understand what they do and don't have to resubmit, and the cost of documenting the linkages, is too onerous, especially for this small of a chunk of code. It is easier to simply write their own code that does things differently and since there is not a documented standard, that will probably not be compliant with OTR's.
This is why basic building blocks like the TCP stack are often BSD licensed. It is a lot more motivation to adopt a standard, when you can incorporate a free, reference implementation without maintaining all the tracking for the licensing the LGPL brings with it. I just don't see Microsoft pulling LGPL code into default Windows applications so that Messenger, or whatever it called now, can interoperate with then tiny number of OTR users. I can see them grabbing some BSD code and embedding it for a quick bullet point.
I think you're mistaking the idea of personal freedom and societal freedom. I'm free to go buy a bottle of booze. I'm not free to go take a bottle of booze without paying for it. Does this mean I'm enslaved by the law that says stealing is illegal?
In our current society and set of laws the author of a work has the right to copy it and everyone else has their rights to make copies limited. Note, this has nothing to do with the GPL, it is copyright law. What the GPL does is offer a trade. Just as I can buy booze for money, the GPL offers me the right to make copies of code, providing that if I make any changes and distribute those changes, I distribute them to everyone else under the GPL. That is called a trade, not enslavement. If you don't want to use the code, don't. If you do want to use the code (just as if you want to take a bottle of booze) you pay. Your personal freedom to take a bottle, or make a copy of some code, does not trump the person freedoms of others to own property or to control the copying of a work, at least according to our current laws and social conventions. If you think copying or stealing should be legal, you should address the laws that make them illegal, not the person licensing the code, or selling the booze.
This is not 100% accurate. Putting a work into the public domain is giving it away. Licensing it via the BSD license, is swapping it for very little (credit in any redistributed versions of your code or modifications of your code).
This is what standards are for. We need a standard for IM encryption, possibly as part of a larger encryption framework. I have no problem advocating a standard, which I think is a lot better idea than advocating a given program/library.
If only some of the other IM clients would start building it in by default, rather than making it an optional addon, I think it would quickly gain traction as a de facto standard.OTR is licensed as GPL/LGPL. As such, I'm not sure a lot of major software makers will be all that keen about implementing it. Take a look at iChat or Yahoo Messenger. They're not going to open source their application just to add an encryption format that is still pretty rare and where there is not a lot of demand. This is one of those rare instances where a BSD licensed implementation would be a whole lot more likely to solidify the de-facto standard. Realistically, I doubt that the major players are going to go open source for their clients, and as such I doubt there will be adoption of OTR unless it is submitted as a real, well documented standard and/or a BSD reference implementation is made available. We're a lot more likely to see Microsoft or AOL take over this space with a proprietary encryption scheme, which will be reverse engineered and pseudo-supported on other platforms/clients simply because people will need to communicate with the majority.
Here's a tip for you. Use a piece of tape to hold the pages of the letter shut. Write the address on the back, and add a stamp. You just saved the cost of an envelope.
Interesting DMCA facts:
- The DMCA does not ban circumventing encryption, copyright controls.
- The DMCA bans distribution of tools that can be used to circumvent said controls.
- The DMCA does not ban download of said tools, only distribution.
- The DMCA applies only to breaking encryption for controls, so the legality of anything where encryption is not broken is questionable. (See bitwise copying)
- The DMCA has a fair use clause.
- The DMCA may be applied for the copying of DVDs in the US, but it is unlikely to ever result in a winning lawsuit, only in costly barratry.
It's clear that many of you have no interest in actually understanding the law and what is and isn't legal. How do you expect to actually bring about the necessary changes when you can't be bothered to understand the underlying problems?Physician, heal thyself.
The DMCA is an often abused law, partly because it was originally created to be ambiguous and difficult to understand. That said, trying to apply it to bring a case against a person who is making backups of their DVDs, for their own personal use will never result in a win in court. It may, however, be expensive enough in court costs to make it a useful means of abusing the legal system to intimidate others.
EyeTV is both a hardware tuner, and a software DVR package for your computer that you install. It is (AFAIK) Mac only, but is pretty smooth and easy to use, without any of the feature crippling of a Windows Media Center. It has been my PVR for many years now and seems like a great solution for people with an old Mac laying around that they might want to turn into a PVR/media server/extra workstation.
Yeah, it is strange how this same problem has persisted across 6 different hardware vendors and a dozen or more fresh installs or various versions of Windows (some of which were centrally managed and which I did not even have permission to install software on). It's not like this has been documented for years by professionals in many different fields. Run Adobe InDesign and open and edit a few large documents, like a catalog or something. You'll get about 2, 8-hour days, and then Windows is at the point where clicking on a given item in the task bar takes 60 seconds or more to bring that application to the foreground, regardless of which application is in the foreground when you use it. (P.S., it is not random. This is easily repeatable and the same situation applies to differing degrees with almost all software on Windows.)
This is a list of apps you'd normally find running all the time on my PC:The responsiveness issue is not about how many applications you have open. It is about how long you actually perform operations in them without quitting them. As for running lots of applications on Windows, if you have RAM as your limiting factor, Windows does a better job (for most use cases) than OS X does. It does a worse job if CPU or disk is the limiting factor. If you have all those applications you mention sitting in the background idle and they have not been idle you're probably fine, unless of course you've actually been doing things with them, then they will start to leak memory which is not cleaned up. The worst case is when you have an application in the background actually trying to share the CPU with the one in the foreground. Windows handles that situation poorly because it does not prioritize either the foreground application of the user interface elements enough in comparison. Unless you've been dealing with it so long you no longer notice, several minute pauses before the UI responds is pretty unusable.
For that matter, do a Google search for UI responsiveness issues with Windows. A lot of graphic artists avoid the platform simply because mouse and other input is not prioritized enough above other functions. If you're trying to highlight some text and the mouse input is ignored or not displayed for a half a second it is no big deal. When you're trying to draw a brush stroke in a painting program, it is a show stopper.
If you really do use OS X, Windows and Linux every day (I do) you should recognize that each architecture lends itself to different workflows. When I run Windows, I run 1-3 applications at a time and I shut them down when I'm not using them, because otherwise the system becomes unusable. Application leak memory and Windows does not clean up after them well, so they need to be quit and restarted. Adobe InDesign on Windows, for example lasts about 2 days using the size of files I normally handle, then the UI becomes too slow to use. Quitting the program and restarting fixes it. InDesign leaks memory on OS X as well, but never to the point that it stops working and leaving it open for a week does not make the machine unusable for other task like it does on Windows.
Because of the real multi-tasking differences, workflows are very different. On OS X I regularly leave 8 or so applications running constantly for a month or more. Why would I ever quit my e-mail client or browsers, or calendar, or IM client? On Windows I quit them because otherwise the computer eventually stops being responsive, even if they are just sitting in the background.
There's no benefit for a desktop user to run his machine 24/7.That all depends upon what you do with it. Is your desktop also your DVR? Do you use it to play music while you sleep? Does it monitor your security system? Are you like one of my co-workers and only sleep 45 minutes at a time, spread out evenly around the clock? Be careful making blanket declarations.
But honestly, the mythical "frequent rebooting and resetting" of Windows, just like the Blue Screen of Death, is one of those things that died with the 9x series of Windows (95/98/Me).I rebooted my Win2k machine every day at work because I needed to in order to keep it responsive. Anyway, I never said you have to reboot modern versions of Windows. I said it was less of a hassle given the average workflow on a Windows machine (only a few apps open). When I rebooted my mac laptop the other day, the first thing I did after logging in was tell it to start 8 applications I leave running all the time at work. I rebooted my Windows setup at the same time, and I started the one application I needed right away. Quitting one app and rebooting to play a game on Windows is not that big of a hassle. Saving all my files/sessions and quitting 8 programs, rebooting, playing a game, rebooting, and then starting those 8 programs back up and reopening the files, is a pain I don't want to bother with just to play a game. I'd rather just play a console game. Starting Parallels and the game, however, is convenient and acceptable
Warcraft 3 was plenty hardware intensive to strain the average machine at the time, just not the average hardcore gamer machine. I was running it on a 867 Mhz g4 laptop; not exactly a powerhouse.
there is nothing inherently magical about OS X that makes games run faster. If anything, it's more bloated than Windows XP.Did I say anything about how fast the machine can run a game? I said OS X's multitasking could support running it without shutting other things down. OS X's mutli-tasking is a great deal better than WinXP when you're working with multiple CPU intensive applications. This is pretty obvious to anyone who has used both. Running WinXP+Photoshop+InDesign+Warcraft 3 results in a basically unusable gaming session because even in the background WinXP allocates too many resources to the other applications and does not do a good job of prioritizing the input devices. The same is not true for OS X+Photoshop+InDesign+Warcraft 3.
Look Windows is better at some things and OS X is better at some things. I'm no zealot and I run both of them daily. OS X just happens to be a lot better at running many applications at once when CPU or disk is the bottleneck, or when responsiveness of the input devices is key. Windows often does a better job when memory is the bottleneck. This lends itself to different workflows and different needs. On OS X, getting the fastest CPU is less important than getting enough RAM. On OS X, users tend to develop workflows that involve never rebooting or even shutting down popular applications. I'll run mail.app, Firefox, Safari, SubEthaEdit, terminal, ical, and ichat for months at a time in some cases because there is no need to shut them down to get better performance for other applications. On Windows, I shut down applications I'm not using right now, because otherwise the performance of the apps that are running suffers.
The problem I'm pointing out, is that while for experienced Windows users shutting down all your applications and even rebooting is common, so workflows develop to accommodate that need. Therefor, they assume that doing the same is no big deal to OS X users, and that simply is not the case.
Imagine? I'm not imagining anything. I do it every day. I don't need to imagine. Are you trying to claim that there is a noticeable speed difference for the apps you run, or are you simply ignorant and imagining there is a big difference without ever having used Parallels?
First, it is virtualization, not emulation. I run Parallels because I need to use both Windows and OS X native applications to get my daily work. Rebooting 30 or 40 times a day would be less than productive. Also, maybe you're not understanding the workflow of many mac users. I don't shutdown my computer and I don't reboot. I rarely ever shutdown about 5 major applications. I am a casual gamer. I used to go to LAN parties with my laptop and play Warcraft 3 and amaze all the Windows users by not bothering to shut down Photoshop, InDesign, Firefox, and all the rest of my applications, because OS X's multitasking was up to it. I'm sure not going to shut down all my applications and close all my files and reboot my machine, just to play some game. That would be a huge pain in the ass. I will, however, boot up a Windows session in a window and play it there.
Most gamers are casual gamers, like me. We don't care if it is running 50fps instead of 40fps. We don't care if the textures are all at the highest settings. We just want to play a few games and have fun without a hassle. If Parallels will let me do that, I'd shell out for it. I can afford it. I'm a computer geek; we tend to be well paid. I say I would pay for it because, likely, my company will be buying my upgrade for me anyway.
I bought a mac, but I'm 98% in the windows. I only use mac to test web based apps in safari.The advantages of using OS X as the host OS are numerous, if you're the kind of person willing to learn new ways of doing things. It is an added level of security, and running OS X apps natively allows for more interaction between apps and more customization of features for all apps.
For people like me or for gamers, I don't see why you would ever use paralells emulation. The speed cost is just too high.For games that don't use 3D acceleration, I don't even normally notice any speed difference at all between parallels and bootcamp. The limiting factor in all cases is memory, so running Parallels is like having .5G less memory. With the notice graphics card support, I doubt the speed difference will bug me at all. Like I said, I (like most gamers) am a casual gamer. In any case, claiming the speed cost is too high is a bit premature until it is actually tested, don't you think?
Don't just hope, do something. The cable company wants you to watch as many ads as possible because it makes them money. Relying on them to provide you with a box to let you skip ads is a pretty poor strategy. Their plan is to make you watch absolutely as many ads as possible through disabling features that will let you skip them, without motivating you to move to another vendor for your DVR. Worse, the price they charge you for your DVR is usually subsidized by overcharging you for cable service, thus allowing them to seem cheaper than competitors, while really providing themselves with a quasi-legal (probably illegal) subsidy. They'll keep this up until they've driven competitors out of business, then they'll raise prices.
Their strategy works because they plan for the long term and consumers like you do not. If you don't switch at the first sign of the cable co acting against your interests, they'll just keep crippling the box more and more. They'll disable allowing your system to archive to DVD and export to mpeg for your laptop and video ipod. They'll disable commercial skipping and fast forward either all the time or for select shows. They'll disable time shifting for certain "premium" shows. Don't wait until you can't stand it, because by then it may be too late and they will have driven competitors out of business and undermined FCC rules so they can keep competitors from returning.
Your example was that you gave it to a friend who ignorantly put it in the shared limewire directory. In your example, you broke the law by making him a copy in the first place and then he broke the law by republishing it on the internet. If you or your frined downloads and installs software that they don't understand the purpose of, then I don't have a lot of sympathy for you when that software works in ways you don't understand to break the law. The same thing can be said of shared Windows directories.
In other news - you're a fucking moron.What are you, 8 years old or something? "I'm rubber you're glue..." Grow up.
So you're upset because Apple puts identifying info in their files and that could cause you problems when you're breaking the law by giving copies to incompetent criminal friends of yours? Here's a news flash for you. If you're buying files as downloads from an online store, it is not very hard to apply a digital watermark to the music that will uniquely identify that copy. It is a lot harder to find and remove than this plaintext info.
Does Apple add watermarks? I don't know. Do other online stores? Again, I don't know. Probably some of them do. If you're planning on continuing your illegal enterprises before the laws are changed I recommend you do not do so with files from online stores, regardless of if they have your info in the plaintext metadata fields.
Yes, it is dumber. First, lending CDs is not copyright infringement because you're not making a copy, just loaning your copy. If they make a copy of the CDs, then they are breaking the law, but that is not implicit in the act of uploading the way it is with digital files.
Second, we know how CDs are made for the most part and it precludes watermarking each CD or song with a unique, invisible identifier. Thus, even if you make copies of the CDs and give them to everyone, they will probably not be easily traceable back to you. The same is not true of music purchased online and it is quite likely that Apple and every other manufacturer is doing just that; something a lot harder to find and discover than plaintext info such as is described here. An intelligent person should assume that his or her files may be watermarked if they're purchased from an online store, and thus avoid sharing them in their original form.
When has Microsoft or Sony ever done "something like this?" This does not stop me from taking any action I want with the files I buy. This does not even prevent me from breaking the law if I so choose. What exactly has Apple done here that you're comparing to MS and Sony? Do they take some action with these files that stop me from burning CDs with them? No. Does this in some way stop me from playing them on all the computers and players I own that support this open format? No. Does this stop me from sharing these files with millions of others? Not really. It might provide a slight amount of evidence if I were caught doing that, but since nothing is stopping me from encoding anyone else's name and e-mail address into files like these and uploading them, that does not exactly make for a good case against me by itself. And what about uploading files to P2P networks? Am I going to do it with these files? Hell no! I assume all files I purchase somewhere have unique watermarks that are a lot harder to find and remove than this plaintext info. Apple is probably watermarking these files as well. It is a lot easier and safer to simply download files from P2P if I plan to upload them as well and if I don't care about the law, why would I pay Apple in the first place?
I'm definitely not approving or defending any company doing this kind of thing, but I do expect a bit of a disconnect as to the reaction. Call me cynical.Call me an optimist but I hope there is a disconnect between the way people react to a guy who goes to target practice at the shooting range and a guy who goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of people because they are very different things.
First, why would you have to prove that you did not put them there? Your name on them is not proof that you did, and if you can show that a device that may have had the files was stolen you'll walk unscathed from even a civil suit.
This whole thing seems a bit weird to me. Apple's license forbids them from sending the data back to headquarters for analysis to catch casual pirates. They've been including this data in all the files they've sent for a long time. This is in the mp4 format so nothing stops a freeware program from erasing or changing them. Heck I can grab your e-mail address from a dozen places now and add it to mp4 files on P2P networks. That doesn't prove you put them there.
So, it is 100 times easier to grab these files from P2P for purposes of piracy than it is to steal a player or get them some other way. Who is planning on uploading files they have purchased anyway? That's just dumb.
Really? You have evidence of any major news outlet going to court and admitting they intentionally lied to viewers and that it was legal for them to do so? I'd like to see some citation of that.
See CBS News, where Dan Rather insisted for several days after the documents were posted to LGF and other blogs that there was no evidence of forgery in the Killian memos.Googling for that story I find:
Although CBS and Rather defended the authenticity and usage of the document for a two-week period, continued scrutiny from independent and rival news organizations and independent analysis of other copies of the documents obtained by USA Today raised questions about the documents' validity and led to a public repudiation on September 20, 2004. Rather stated, "if I knew then what I know now - I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question,"CBS did not defend their right to lie in court and neither did Dan Rather. They claimed that as soon as they found reliable evidence that the documents were faked they admitted to that and they claim that if they knew they were fake they would not have published the story. They did not say they knew they were fake but that it was okay for them to publish them anyway because they have no legal responsibility to not tell lies.
Sorry, your comparison is way off. That is not the same issue at all. CBS at least publicly claims they will always print what they think is the truth. They have never openly defended intentionally lying to the audience.