Go to the Podcasts pane (choose 'Podcasts' from the list on the left), then click the 'Settings' button in the lower-right corner of the window. This opens the 'Podcasts' section of the preferences window, which contains, amongst other things, settings for which episodes to keep. The options are:
All episodes
All unplayed episodes
Most recent episode
Last 2 episodes
Last 3 episodes
Last 4 episodes
Last 5 episodes
Last 10 episodes
You can also choose when to check for new episodes (manually, every day, every week, etc.) and what to do when new episodes are found (download most recent, download all, do nothing).
It's most certainly not the same thing as you can get in Panther. This calculator is designed to be helpful for the average programmer, so it includes:
oct/dec/hex buttons (not just menu items)
A 64-bit binary readout just under the main readout pane (this can be hidden, also)
Buttons to switch the binary readout between 1's and 2's complement representation
Buttons for common programming operations, such as:
AND, OR, NOT, XOR
Bit-shift left, bit-shift right (also as Y<<X and Y>>X)
Rotate Left and Rotate Right
Byte Flip and Word Flip (for help with big/little endian issues)
ASCII or Unicode representation of whatever value you enter (especially useful for decoding the Mac's OSType values, which are written as four ASCII chars to produce a 32-bit value, i.e. 'APPL', 'ecom', etc.)
Menu option to choose precision between 0 and 16 bits [digits?]
Menu option to use Reverse Polish Notation (been too long since I studied CS, can't even remember what this should do or look like now - changes '=' button to 'enter', though)
Unless you just really don't want to trade automatic garbage collection for reference counting
I can't find the external link to this now (it may only have been in the developer docs for the Tiger developer releases), but the Objective-C runtime in Tiger has garbage collection. And as of Panther (so, for just over a year now) there has been built in ObjC runtime support for thread synchronization in a similar manner to Java - via the @synchronized keyword - and runtime-supplied try/catch/finally (rather than the setjmp-based macros NS_DURING/NS_HANDLER/NS_ENDHANDLER previously supplied).
Since these features require a specific release of the Objective-C runtime, however, they will only work on their respective system builds, and therefore need to be enabled within the compiler settings in Xcode. So, garbage collection requires at least 10.4, and runtime exceptions/synchronization require at least 10.3.
-Q
PS. Just found out where I saw the option: in the 'Code Generation' section of the build rules pane on an Xcode target. Can't find any reference to it on the Internet. Although probably a better Googler than I might be able to find something associated with the GCC folks - the best I can find can be turned up by Googling or 'objc-gc'.
Thanks for the clarification on that one-- I'd assumed that these 'Pentagon Papers' were something in the same vein as Watergate or somesuch, yet not as well-known (at least, not to a non-American like me).
I don't know what happened to those who leaked the information (okay, I'm just too lazy to search for it), but I'd assume that they were protected from exposure by the rules we're discussing here - it certainly would fit into the moral grounds I outlined above.
In fact, in addition to those I mentioned before, I'd possibly add another rule --or possibly just a further clarification of the moral rule-- that when information is leaked concerning falsehoods perpetuated by some person or organization that has power over the people from whom they are concealing that information, that should be covered by the 'witness protection' rule also. As such, it wouldn't necessarily need to be strictly considered 'morally reprehensible' for a government to have people fighting in a foreign war yet not advertise the fact, it would be enough that they are attempting to conceal information from those over whom they hold sway.
That, to my mind, would essentially constitute a use of granted power to extend the reach of that power, which is not desirable, and certainly ought to be something withheld by the voting public -- i.e. the US President is not allowed (even with a Senate vote) to grant himself the right to a third/fourth/etc. term or office, only a general vote could do that.
In a last-ditch attempt to bring such musings back on-topic, it would compare in the Apple case to a situation where Apple held off releasing Tiger (and therefore, releasing any definitive information) so as to conceal a fact, such as 'it'll only work on computers made after April 2005', thereby attempting to force a mass-upgrade for the benefit of their next 10-Q filing.
ADC membership (student membership is free, non-student cost is significant)
Actually, there's Online Membership as well, which is free, and gives you access to download the dev tools. You don't get pre-release software or priority access to Apple DTS (developer technical support) though, but as a home user you're unlikely to actually require either of those.
I've been using Xcode for things for years now, and the only thing that takes any real time for me is the precompilation step.
If you build a Cocoa/Carbon application with only a couple source files, it may take a while to build the whole thing, but that's more than likely just the precompilation step (which is likely precompiling a large percentage of the header files installed on your system, and only happens on first build or after a 'clean' or 'clean all').
That said, I rarely have any problem with such applications. In fact, I quite often build one-source-file testing applications with Xcode just to try things out - for example, to see what error codes are returned by FSMountServerVolumeSync() under different situations (already mounted by same user, already mounted by other user, invalid volume, invalid server, invalid user/pass, etc.). I rarely have a problem with it.
Perhaps the tradeoff between long precompilation time and size of other source code seems wrong to you - but in that case you can always turn it off in the target settings. Internally it just calls through to gcc, and there doesn't seem to be any significant overhead that I can see...
You can certainly argue that exposing Apple trade secrets and the Pentagon Papers aren't the same, and I'd probably agree with you. But the question is WHY they aren't the same.
The idea, as I understand it, is that Enron, the Pentagon Papers, and suchlike, were all revealing secret information about people acting in a way which was either illegal or immoral. That's illegal in the court-of-law sense, and immoral in either the 'not explicitly covered by --yet obviously going against the general thrust of-- actual laws/statutes', or the 'a lot of people will be very upset by this behaviour' dominant moral ideology sense.
In the case against ThinkSecret et al, I can't see that such protection is merited. No-one gains any obvious benefit from the information, except that some folks may wait longer to get a machine & save the cost of an additional OS purchase. But unless the news reported was that Apple was trying to cheat folks out of their money somehow (they're not), then there's no controversy being reported, so no 'witness protection' is merited.
In short, these rules are to protect those folks who, in spite of danger to either life & limb or to their continued employment, make the details of some controversy open to the public. They are not there to enable employees to cheerfully break their employment contracts without fear of repercussion.
I personally believe that Apple need to find the person(s) responsible, because otherwise they've no real way of enforcing their contracts, and without obvious means of enforcement, there's no real incentive to abide by their terms, is there? They might as well print the opening pages of 'Gulliver's Travels' & hand that out to new employees instead...
I don't have the latest seed installed yet (I'm still a couple builds behind latest here), but it seems surprisingly spry on an old slot-loading G3 iMac. So, I can confirm your expectations.
That said, I would expect that the performance difference be less noticeable on newer machines - although I haven't seen it run on a G5 yet...
On a side note, even in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, they have for years had a camera under a bypass mailing people a picture of their car while speeding, and the ticket for speeding.
Traffic speed cameras like that are standard all over the UK. They have to put up signs telling people that they're there, however. That might possibly defeat the whole purpose, but they just stick the signs everywhere to indicate that there *may* be a working camera there (or a policeman with a radar gun, etc.)
Why on earth would they do that? So the Mac uses go out and buy Windows for their macs?? Are you nuts?
No, it's so that all the news sites are talking about the new Longhorn release, rather than the new Mac OS X release. It's about visibility in the press. Microsoft is large enough that their news will be picked up by a great many more reporters. Let's say that OS X 10.4 and Longhorn Beta are released on the same day. Which do you think is most likely to make the front page? Which is going to get the most column space?
Being a Mac user myself, I'd like to think that OS X would get that space - if for no other reason than that it's actually shipping, rather than being a preview. However, given the great disparity in market share, there are more people with a vested interest in Longhorn than in the Mac platform, so Longhorn will have the considerable ability to steal (or, to use a better analogy, drown out) Tiger's thunder.
It's designed so that all those people who might be swayed by Apple's "Long Before Longhorn" tagline, and the ideas behind it, won't attract people waiting for Longhorn. Those folks, instead of looking at Apple, will be looking at the reviews of the Longhorn beta. They're not really trying to entice people away from Tiger, they're trying to stop people looking away from Longhorn.
Think of it as you & your wife/girlfriend in a restaurant, and when a cute waitress walks past your wife/girlfriend starts playing footsie with you under the table. "Keep your eyes over here, please..."
It's probably worth pointing out that the most common Office applications (Excel & Word, certainly, and I think PowerPoint too) started out as Mac apps. Excel was called something different then, however.
The idea in putting 'Office' on the Mac is partially brainshare, and partially because the Mac community is not generally about to switch to a PC just to read Word documents -- they get too much value from their Mac otherwise (meaning that mos people with Macs get a Mac because a PC won't do what they want). However, the whole 'trojan horse' argument can still apply. Plus of course MS makes a lot of money from Office on the Mac.
I'ts probably worth pointing out the whole thing about middleware platforms here, and in particular why Microsoft doesn't want other people making them for Windows.
If you read this rather long Groklaw post containing the details of the Novell 'WordPerfect' complaint. It's a long read, however, so I'll paraphrase the issue which stands at the root of this case:
WordPerfect, as a suite of application (in the same was as Lotus SmartSuite, in fact) was becoming a middleware platform. It provided a certain amount of programmability, and it was therefore possible to impement 'business logic' using the WordPerfect desktop suite. This means that it's possible for businesses to 'program' WordPerfect and Quattro Pro, etc. with all the repetitive parts of their day-to-day tasks (anything from a mail merge up to a custom database/spreadsheet UI for the bean counters). This makes WordPerfect a powerful platform, since companies can built solutions on top of it and sell those solutions.
So, what caused WordPerfect to be singled out (more so than Lotus, at least) ? WordPerfect was available for many different platforms, and due to their implementation, software developed for the 'WordPerfect Platform' would run on any of those.
This presented MS with a problem. If people can build their business-operation software on top of WordPerfect, then there's nothing really stopping them from switching to UNIX, Mac, or Linux. Their critical business applications will run just as well on WordPerfect for any of those platforms. So, Microsoft (allegedly) did all sorts of nasty things to make people use MS Office instead. That platform wasn't available except on Windows, so people who used Windows+Office to build their business apps would not be able to switch to a different OS later-- unless they re-wrote alltheir business apps. Since no-one really wants to go through all that again, it's a much better situation for Microsoft.
"Yes," I hear you cry, "But is there any danger of you mentioning KDE any time soon?" Indeed there is, a veritable Damocles' Sword-ful of it, right here:
KDE on Windows is middleware. Okay, it's potentially a little more complex that scripting WordPerfect or MS Office, but that's beside the point (especially when you consider that scriptable apps for KDE exist -- at least, I presume so). The idea here is that application written for KDE on Windows are portable to KDE on Linux. In fact, they could need little more than a recompile, depending on the breadth of the KDE APIs.
And therein lies the Good Thing about this idea. If the folks who use software were to standardize on this platform, then it doesn't matter what operating system they run, so long as that operating system has the KDE software platform available. Business solutions developed using KDE (or KOffice, say) on Windows will still run on KDE/KOffice for Linux. With no changes.
All of a sudden, people aren't going to lose their investments the instant they walk away from their current supplier. Admittedly, it goes both ways, but we're not here to put Microsoft out of business, we're here to make Good Software That People Can Use And Enjoy. There is a difference, you know, however small it may seem right now...
Disclaimer: I don't actually use KDE, I use a Mac. Although I have read about KDE and like it (KDEParts & suchlike seem like Good Stuff), and back in my Linux days I preferred KDE to Gnome. If I've made any obvious errors when referring to KDE-type things above, I can only apologise & claim semi-ignorance.
the patent would only apply to the code
the graphics/artwork, storyline/writing, sound files, map layout, etc... would be covered under copyright laws
Actually, the patent would apply to the idea, not the execution, of the game. So, for Doom3 it would apply to a first-person shooter, set in the future, on a Martian research station, with lots of atmposhperic real-time shadowcasting. Probably the most obviously patentable component would be those atmospheric shadows.
But let's say, for the sake of argument, that everything that would be 'patented' there isn't in fact patentable. Let's say it's all either obvious, already patented, or there's buckets of unpatented prior art (quite likely in this case). So how do id Software protect their code? Let's analyse this shall we:
Graphics/Artwork: Media, protected by copyrights.
Storyline/Writing: Difficult. Probably covered by copyright, since it must have been written as a script at some point (same as a movie).
Sounds/Music: Copyrightable, just like the stuff on my iPod.
Maps: Presumably copyrightable; they're similar enough to art in their construction, and at a push we could call it sculpture.
Program Code: Copyrig..... oh no, that's gone now hasn't it? Okay, so we patent it. Oh, but there's prior art, it's just building on well-known ideas. Many old ideas, combined in a new way. Is that patentable....?
.....and therein lies the problem. Let's say, for the sake of argument (simply because I don't know for sure) that Doom3 can't be patented. It's taken many previously-known ideas, and it's combined them in a new way, but that is all that's new. The combination. Let's assume that this new arrangement of old ideas can't be patented. Well, their code isn't copyrighted any more, so I can happily copy it to my heart's content, since there is no protection in place to prevent me from doing so. Except for the provisions of the DMCA.
Whoa, hold the phone! If copyright protection is removed from software, that removes the foundation for the DMCA (at least insofar as it applies to software) ! Woohoo ! Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all....;o)
Ahem. Well, getting back on track: The problem here is that id Software suddenly don't have any protection for their software. I can't see many software companies going for that. After all, patents aren't automatic, like copyrights. Your work needs to be inspected to see if the patent is valid. If it's not (for whatever reason) then you're out of luck, and your work might as well be in the public domain (legally speaking, anyway).
But just for a moment let's say they did get a patent, and they allow me to use their patented stuff in my game. Maybe I pay them, maybe it's free. However, my game doesn't do anything particularly new. Where does that leave me? I've just licenced the Doom3 engine, and the Star Trek rights, etc. Where are the rights for my code now? All the 'technology' and 'patentable elements' are coming from id Software, and most ofthe 'copyrightable elements' are coming from the owners of all the Star Trek sounds & music I'm using. Sure, I create models & levels, but I'm also writing a fair bit of code. It's all modifications to the Doom3 engine to do a couple things it didn't already do, but they're not necessarily my ideas. Maybe it just needs its capabilities expanding so that my game in 2006 doesn't look just like Doom3 in 2004 (i.e. very out of date). Not necessarily patentable though, because I'm just making sure my game looks similar enough to the others that it doesn't seem 'old hat'...
There really are just too many little holes to pick open. It's just scary.....:o|
One argument in favor of patents is that it makes it *easier* since all the next person needs to do is license the technology from the patent holder, which is ought to be happy to do for the right price.
Theoretically, yes. But they don't have to license it to me. Or they could pick a number high enough to have that same effect. I know of no rules which say they have to let me make use of their idea.
This is where the possible abuse in the system can make things awkward. If I want to use someone's idea in something of my own (it doesn't need to be a major idea, just a minor one will do -- such as 'creating atmosphere through real-time shadow casting'), which is likely to compete with them, then they really have no incentive to let me use their idea, do they? One company can hold off anyone that might want to improve on their ideas, or even write something behaves in a similar way (for ease-of-use).
So, as you say, I just can't afford the solution to world peace. I gather from your statement that this is my 'fault', by which I'm sure you mean my 'problem'? Well, I guess it is. However, I need to sell my software to rectify that problem. And given the resources held by the major players (patents, lawyers, and cash to pay for them), I've got to sell a lot of software before I can adequately defend myself, thus curing the problem. Although of course I risk getting my arse sued off in doing so, at which point I need to have the money to def.....
........this is going to be one of those chicken & egg things, isn't it?
PS: A point I somehow forgot to make in the original post is that id Software ordinarily wouldn't need to patent Doom3 to make a profit from it. They just have to sell the game. They can also sublicense their rendering engine (source & binary code) to other people for much greater amounts of money. They don't need to charge money from anyone else making a first person shooter for the next seventeen years. Patents just aren't necessary, and the powers they grant hold far too much oppressive power to justify the good.
This would be great, except for one proviso: the smaller company would have to be able to demonstrate that their idea has never been had by anyone before. And given what gets patented in the software world, that's extremely unlikely to happen.
Whatever new idea you have will rely on the use of a number of other patented ideas, and you'll like as not have to pay for the privilege of using those as building blocks. Patents contain a number of claims, and they apply if you use any one of those, not all of them.
If MS should patent Word, do you really think that the patent will only be applicable to the entire program and everything in it? No, there will be a number of claims made in the patent, and it'll be very difficult to avoid falling afoul of these claims.
That especially applies to complex software. Moreso to the internal bits that the end user doesn't see, but to keep going with the word processor analogy, let's say that one of the ideas in MS Word is to have a little window where you can type some text, select a font & see instantly what that font looks like, at that size (Apple has something like this on OS X). Let's say this becomes a 'must-have' feature in the marketplace, so you, when you write your better word processor, want to integrate this feature. Well, you can't, unless Microsoft chooses to let you do so.
They won't have a patent on 'all the features in Word', they'll patent the individual ideas. Fair enough, that's what the patent system is for. But it then gives them a legally-enforceable monopoly on that idea. So whoever makes it to market first with a 'must-have' software feature, gets the market all sewn up for almost twenty years, unless they actually choose (out of the goodness of their hearts) to let their competitors implement the idea too.
Now, while I'd love to be the guy who invents something that everyone 'must have', and gets a monopoly on it for twenty years, I unfortunately can't afford to patent it. So I'll sell it for a bit first. Then, because I haven't patented it, a company with more programmers does their own implementation. And patents it. It's trade secrets, so if I want to claim I did mine first, and they say "we've been doing it for years, just not released it yet" I'd have another costly battle.
The big player will continue to abuse software patents, true. The problem there is, the small players will continue to not have the resources to fight back, and the only difference is that the small players won't have any automatic rights to defend themselves. Just pay out for the patents, pay out for the court costs, etc.
Well, that's kind of true. However, for a patent you do have to provide some quite detailed information on the implementation of the 'invention' - that's the whole point of the patent; you tell other people how to implement it.
That doesn't have to be source code, no, but if copyright were to be removed from the equation, then in order to promote competition each software patent would have to be very precise in its description. Otherwise we'd find ourselves with only one available mail client and only one available web browser, for example.
Notwithstanding the code/pseudocode/circuit-diagram 'representation' issue, the thing that is being patented must be described in full. I've been named on a software patent (still waiting to be issued, at six years and counting...) and there was no real code supplied in that - but there were circuit diagrams and pseudocode aplenty, enough that someone code re-implement the invention themselves, but not enough that they would have to infringe the copyright on our C/C++ implementation in doing so.
...it seems that he's not against software patents, just against their quality. From all that I can find, I can't see anything which suggests that the lawsuit is anything other than what it claims to be: namely, an attempt to convince Congress to abandon software copyright in favour of software patents. After all, how could he possibly benefit from the inverse? He makes his money from software patents...
In fact, I get the distinct impression from a number of hissites that he's not so much of the opinion that software patents are bad per se, just that all these frivolous ones are getting in the way of the real moneymakers.
The Good Point from the parent remains though: copyrights are better for computer software, because patents forbid others from creating software for the same purpose as yours - even if the underlying code is different. It would, for example, make it possible for Lexmark to enjoin companies for making competing ink cartridges for their printers; which of course opens the door for price-fixing and a non-competitive market in printer cartridges (not to mention a market where only printer manufacturers can make cartridges, not third parties).
Sorry folks.... not expecting HTML format to be on by default (and the preview button isn't on the left since I signed in.... Who's for a game of Spot The Newbie...?)
This is what it should have looked like: ------------
Okay, so let's say there are to be no more copyrights on computer software, and it's just patents instead.
So this means that, unless they want everyone making a carbon copy of Doom 3, id Software needs to patent the first person shooter.
Well, I hear you say, that's not what they'd patent, they'd patent the nicely rendered, fully shadow-casted, first-person perspective horror game, involving shooting hell beasts on a deserted Martian research station. Hmm, well, that sounds reasonably sound. But that's not how patents are defined, is it? That patent wouldn't cover the specific things which combine to create Doom3, and therefore cover only Doom3. They describe the rendering engine. They describe the use of fully dynamic shadow casting to create atmosphere. They describe a lot of technically seperate things.
This ultimately makes it difficult for people to write another horror-atmosphere first-person shooter, because a lot of the ideas which go into it are covered by id Software's patents. This is the crux of the problem: patents cover the ideas (first-person shooter, horror, monsters from hell) not the actual content. If a new 'Undying' game were created, using lots of real-time shadows & suchlike to enhance the atmosphere, it could be clubbed over the head with the Doom3 patents, because it does so many of the same things. However, it's obviously a completely different game.
It's like saying that once Hitchcock used the 'Vertigo' camera move (pull camera back & zoom in simultaneously) that no-one else could do that again -- it's protected by patents.
The point of using copyrights for software is that what you're protecting is your actual final piece of work. That way, you don't stop other people from attempting to improve upon your product (this is called competition, and it's what induces you to make your own software better over time). You also don't flood the patent office with a hundred *really tightly defined* patents for *slightly differing* products.
Hehe... who am I kidding...? If this goes through, MS will file lots of really specific patents to protect the exact internals of their own software? Sure, and when they do I'll make a celebratory dinner for all here, of 'aerial pork'...... Actually, that reminds me of something - for patents, don't you have to publish the entire method? So to patent Doom3, id would have to publish pseudocode for the entire piece of software? So, instead of having automatic copyright on my *trade secret* software code, I have to publish the whole lot? And then when some big company nicks it & doesn't admit it I just have to pull out masses of cash to sue them?
Okay, so let's say there are to be no more copyrights on computer software, and it's just patents instead.
So this means that, unless they want everyone making a carbon copy of Doom 3, id Software needs to patent the first person shooter.
Well, I hear you say, that's not what they'd patent, they'd patent the nicely rendered, fully shadow-casted, first-person perspective horror game, involving shooting hell beasts on a deserted Martian research station. Hmm, well, that sounds reasonably sound. But that's not how patents are defined, is it?
That patent wouldn't cover the specific things which combine to create Doom3, and therefore cover only Doom3. They describe the rendering engine. They describe the use of fully dynamic shadow casting to create atmosphere. They describe a lot of technically seperate things.
This ultimately makes it difficult for people to write another horror-atmosphere first-person shooter, because a lot of the ideas which go into it are covered by id Software's patents.
This is the crux of the problem: patents cover the ideas (first-person shooter, horror, monsters from hell) not the actual content. If a new 'Undying' game were created, using lots of real-time shadows & suchlike to enhance the atmosphere, it could be clubbed over the head with the Doom3 patents, because it does so many of the same things. However, it's obviously a completely different game.
It's like saying that once Hitchcock used the 'Vertigo' camera move (pull camera back & zoom in simultaneously) that no-one else could do that again -- it's protected by patents.
The point of using copyrights for software is that what you're protecting is your actual final piece of work. That way, you don't stop other people from attempting to improve upon your product (this is called competition, and it's what induces you to make your own software better over time). You also don't flood the patent office with a hundred *really tightly defined* patents for *slightly differing* products.
Hehe... who am I kidding...? If this goes through, MS will file lots of really specific patents to protect the exact internals of their own software? Sure, and when they do I'll make a celebratory dinner for all here, of aerial pork...... Actually, that reminds me of something - for patents, don't you have to publish the entire method? So to patent Doom3, id would have to publish pseudocode for the entire piece of software? So, instead of having automatic copyright on my *trade secret* software code, I have to publish the whole lot? And then when some big company nicks it & doesn't admit it I just have to pull out masses of cash to sue them?
Yeh, sign me up for that one right NOW......:o|
Slashdot Mirror
Not quite the same situation, but given the parent's comment I would like to point to Rudyard Kipling's eloquent words on the subject:
Dane-Geld
-Q
Go to the Podcasts pane (choose 'Podcasts' from the list on the left), then click the 'Settings' button in the lower-right corner of the window. This opens the 'Podcasts' section of the preferences window, which contains, amongst other things, settings for which episodes to keep. The options are:
You can also choose when to check for new episodes (manually, every day, every week, etc.) and what to do when new episodes are found (download most recent, download all, do nothing).
-Q
I can't find the external link to this now (it may only have been in the developer docs for the Tiger developer releases), but the Objective-C runtime in Tiger has garbage collection. And as of Panther (so, for just over a year now) there has been built in ObjC runtime support for thread synchronization in a similar manner to Java - via the @synchronized keyword - and runtime-supplied try/catch/finally (rather than the setjmp-based macros NS_DURING/NS_HANDLER/NS_ENDHANDLER previously supplied).
Since these features require a specific release of the Objective-C runtime, however, they will only work on their respective system builds, and therefore need to be enabled within the compiler settings in Xcode. So, garbage collection requires at least 10.4, and runtime exceptions/synchronization require at least 10.3.
-QPS. Just found out where I saw the option: in the 'Code Generation' section of the build rules pane on an Xcode target. Can't find any reference to it on the Internet. Although probably a better Googler than I might be able to find something associated with the GCC folks - the best I can find can be turned up by Googling or 'objc-gc'.
Thanks for the clarification on that one-- I'd assumed that these 'Pentagon Papers' were something in the same vein as Watergate or somesuch, yet not as well-known (at least, not to a non-American like me).
I don't know what happened to those who leaked the information (okay, I'm just too lazy to search for it), but I'd assume that they were protected from exposure by the rules we're discussing here - it certainly would fit into the moral grounds I outlined above.
In fact, in addition to those I mentioned before, I'd possibly add another rule --or possibly just a further clarification of the moral rule-- that when information is leaked concerning falsehoods perpetuated by some person or organization that has power over the people from whom they are concealing that information, that should be covered by the 'witness protection' rule also. As such, it wouldn't necessarily need to be strictly considered 'morally reprehensible' for a government to have people fighting in a foreign war yet not advertise the fact, it would be enough that they are attempting to conceal information from those over whom they hold sway.
That, to my mind, would essentially constitute a use of granted power to extend the reach of that power, which is not desirable, and certainly ought to be something withheld by the voting public -- i.e. the US President is not allowed (even with a Senate vote) to grant himself the right to a third/fourth/etc. term or office, only a general vote could do that.
In a last-ditch attempt to bring such musings back on-topic, it would compare in the Apple case to a situation where Apple held off releasing Tiger (and therefore, releasing any definitive information) so as to conceal a fact, such as 'it'll only work on computers made after April 2005', thereby attempting to force a mass-upgrade for the benefit of their next 10-Q filing.
-QActually, there's Online Membership as well, which is free, and gives you access to download the dev tools. You don't get pre-release software or priority access to Apple DTS (developer technical support) though, but as a home user you're unlikely to actually require either of those.
-QI've been using Xcode for things for years now, and the only thing that takes any real time for me is the precompilation step.
If you build a Cocoa/Carbon application with only a couple source files, it may take a while to build the whole thing, but that's more than likely just the precompilation step (which is likely precompiling a large percentage of the header files installed on your system, and only happens on first build or after a 'clean' or 'clean all').
That said, I rarely have any problem with such applications. In fact, I quite often build one-source-file testing applications with Xcode just to try things out - for example, to see what error codes are returned by FSMountServerVolumeSync() under different situations (already mounted by same user, already mounted by other user, invalid volume, invalid server, invalid user/pass, etc.). I rarely have a problem with it.
Perhaps the tradeoff between long precompilation time and size of other source code seems wrong to you - but in that case you can always turn it off in the target settings. Internally it just calls through to gcc, and there doesn't seem to be any significant overhead that I can see...
-Q
The idea, as I understand it, is that Enron, the Pentagon Papers, and suchlike, were all revealing secret information about people acting in a way which was either illegal or immoral. That's illegal in the court-of-law sense, and immoral in either the 'not explicitly covered by --yet obviously going against the general thrust of-- actual laws/statutes', or the 'a lot of people will be very upset by this behaviour' dominant moral ideology sense.
In the case against ThinkSecret et al, I can't see that such protection is merited. No-one gains any obvious benefit from the information, except that some folks may wait longer to get a machine & save the cost of an additional OS purchase. But unless the news reported was that Apple was trying to cheat folks out of their money somehow (they're not), then there's no controversy being reported, so no 'witness protection' is merited.
In short, these rules are to protect those folks who, in spite of danger to either life & limb or to their continued employment, make the details of some controversy open to the public. They are not there to enable employees to cheerfully break their employment contracts without fear of repercussion.
I personally believe that Apple need to find the person(s) responsible, because otherwise they've no real way of enforcing their contracts, and without obvious means of enforcement, there's no real incentive to abide by their terms, is there? They might as well print the opening pages of 'Gulliver's Travels' & hand that out to new employees instead...
-QThat would be Dance Monkey-Boy Dance.
If you Google for that phrase, you'll find a couple other interesting things, such as a mock iPod commercial based on it.
I don't have the latest seed installed yet (I'm still a couple builds behind latest here), but it seems surprisingly spry on an old slot-loading G3 iMac. So, I can confirm your expectations.
That said, I would expect that the performance difference be less noticeable on newer machines - although I haven't seen it run on a G5 yet...
Traffic speed cameras like that are standard all over the UK. They have to put up signs telling people that they're there, however. That might possibly defeat the whole purpose, but they just stick the signs everywhere to indicate that there *may* be a working camera there (or a policeman with a radar gun, etc.)
Why on earth would they do that? So the Mac uses go out and buy Windows for their macs?? Are you nuts?
No, it's so that all the news sites are talking about the new Longhorn release, rather than the new Mac OS X release. It's about visibility in the press. Microsoft is large enough that their news will be picked up by a great many more reporters. Let's say that OS X 10.4 and Longhorn Beta are released on the same day. Which do you think is most likely to make the front page? Which is going to get the most column space?
Being a Mac user myself, I'd like to think that OS X would get that space - if for no other reason than that it's actually shipping, rather than being a preview. However, given the great disparity in market share, there are more people with a vested interest in Longhorn than in the Mac platform, so Longhorn will have the considerable ability to steal (or, to use a better analogy, drown out) Tiger's thunder.
It's designed so that all those people who might be swayed by Apple's "Long Before Longhorn" tagline, and the ideas behind it, won't attract people waiting for Longhorn. Those folks, instead of looking at Apple, will be looking at the reviews of the Longhorn beta. They're not really trying to entice people away from Tiger, they're trying to stop people looking away from Longhorn.
Think of it as you & your wife/girlfriend in a restaurant, and when a cute waitress walks past your wife/girlfriend starts playing footsie with you under the table. "Keep your eyes over here, please..."
That would have been Martin Short.
It's probably worth pointing out that the most common Office applications (Excel & Word, certainly, and I think PowerPoint too) started out as Mac apps. Excel was called something different then, however.
The idea in putting 'Office' on the Mac is partially brainshare, and partially because the Mac community is not generally about to switch to a PC just to read Word documents -- they get too much value from their Mac otherwise (meaning that mos people with Macs get a Mac because a PC won't do what they want). However, the whole 'trojan horse' argument can still apply. Plus of course MS makes a lot of money from Office on the Mac.
I'ts probably worth pointing out the whole thing about middleware platforms here, and in particular why Microsoft doesn't want other people making them for Windows.
If you read this rather long Groklaw post containing the details of the Novell 'WordPerfect' complaint. It's a long read, however, so I'll paraphrase the issue which stands at the root of this case:
WordPerfect, as a suite of application (in the same was as Lotus SmartSuite, in fact) was becoming a middleware platform. It provided a certain amount of programmability, and it was therefore possible to impement 'business logic' using the WordPerfect desktop suite. This means that it's possible for businesses to 'program' WordPerfect and Quattro Pro, etc. with all the repetitive parts of their day-to-day tasks (anything from a mail merge up to a custom database/spreadsheet UI for the bean counters). This makes WordPerfect a powerful platform, since companies can built solutions on top of it and sell those solutions.
So, what caused WordPerfect to be singled out (more so than Lotus, at least) ? WordPerfect was available for many different platforms, and due to their implementation, software developed for the 'WordPerfect Platform' would run on any of those.
This presented MS with a problem. If people can build their business-operation software on top of WordPerfect, then there's nothing really stopping them from switching to UNIX, Mac, or Linux. Their critical business applications will run just as well on WordPerfect for any of those platforms. So, Microsoft (allegedly) did all sorts of nasty things to make people use MS Office instead. That platform wasn't available except on Windows, so people who used Windows+Office to build their business apps would not be able to switch to a different OS later-- unless they re-wrote alltheir business apps. Since no-one really wants to go through all that again, it's a much better situation for Microsoft.
"Yes," I hear you cry, "But is there any danger of you mentioning KDE any time soon?" Indeed there is, a veritable Damocles' Sword-ful of it, right here:
KDE on Windows is middleware. Okay, it's potentially a little more complex that scripting WordPerfect or MS Office, but that's beside the point (especially when you consider that scriptable apps for KDE exist -- at least, I presume so). The idea here is that application written for KDE on Windows are portable to KDE on Linux. In fact, they could need little more than a recompile, depending on the breadth of the KDE APIs.
And therein lies the Good Thing about this idea. If the folks who use software were to standardize on this platform, then it doesn't matter what operating system they run, so long as that operating system has the KDE software platform available. Business solutions developed using KDE (or KOffice, say) on Windows will still run on KDE/KOffice for Linux. With no changes.
All of a sudden, people aren't going to lose their investments the instant they walk away from their current supplier. Admittedly, it goes both ways, but we're not here to put Microsoft out of business, we're here to make Good Software That People Can Use And Enjoy. There is a difference, you know, however small it may seem right now...
Disclaimer: I don't actually use KDE, I use a Mac. Although I have read about KDE and like it (KDEParts & suchlike seem like Good Stuff), and back in my Linux days I preferred KDE to Gnome. If I've made any obvious errors when referring to KDE-type things above, I can only apologise & claim semi-ignorance.
Actually, the patent would apply to the idea, not the execution, of the game. So, for Doom3 it would apply to a first-person shooter, set in the future, on a Martian research station, with lots of atmposhperic real-time shadowcasting. Probably the most obviously patentable component would be those atmospheric shadows.
But let's say, for the sake of argument, that everything that would be 'patented' there isn't in fact patentable. Let's say it's all either obvious, already patented, or there's buckets of unpatented prior art (quite likely in this case). So how do id Software protect their code? Let's analyse this shall we:
Whoa, hold the phone! If copyright protection is removed from software, that removes the foundation for the DMCA (at least insofar as it applies to software) ! Woohoo ! Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.... ;o)
Ahem. Well, getting back on track: The problem here is that id Software suddenly don't have any protection for their software. I can't see many software companies going for that. After all, patents aren't automatic, like copyrights. Your work needs to be inspected to see if the patent is valid. If it's not (for whatever reason) then you're out of luck, and your work might as well be in the public domain (legally speaking, anyway).
But just for a moment let's say they did get a patent, and they allow me to use their patented stuff in my game. Maybe I pay them, maybe it's free. However, my game doesn't do anything particularly new. Where does that leave me? I've just licenced the Doom3 engine, and the Star Trek rights, etc. Where are the rights for my code now? All the 'technology' and 'patentable elements' are coming from id Software, and most ofthe 'copyrightable elements' are coming from the owners of all the Star Trek sounds & music I'm using. Sure, I create models & levels, but I'm also writing a fair bit of code. It's all modifications to the Doom3 engine to do a couple things it didn't already do, but they're not necessarily my ideas. Maybe it just needs its capabilities expanding so that my game in 2006 doesn't look just like Doom3 in 2004 (i.e. very out of date). Not necessarily patentable though, because I'm just making sure my game looks similar enough to the others that it doesn't seem 'old hat'...
There really are just too many little holes to pick open. It's just scary..... :o|
Theoretically, yes. But they don't have to license it to me. Or they could pick a number high enough to have that same effect. I know of no rules which say they have to let me make use of their idea.
This is where the possible abuse in the system can make things awkward. If I want to use someone's idea in something of my own (it doesn't need to be a major idea, just a minor one will do -- such as 'creating atmosphere through real-time shadow casting'), which is likely to compete with them, then they really have no incentive to let me use their idea, do they? One company can hold off anyone that might want to improve on their ideas, or even write something behaves in a similar way (for ease-of-use).
So, as you say, I just can't afford the solution to world peace. I gather from your statement that this is my 'fault', by which I'm sure you mean my 'problem'? Well, I guess it is. However, I need to sell my software to rectify that problem. And given the resources held by the major players (patents, lawyers, and cash to pay for them), I've got to sell a lot of software before I can adequately defend myself, thus curing the problem. Although of course I risk getting my arse sued off in doing so, at which point I need to have the money to def.....
PS: A point I somehow forgot to make in the original post is that id Software ordinarily wouldn't need to patent Doom3 to make a profit from it. They just have to sell the game. They can also sublicense their rendering engine (source & binary code) to other people for much greater amounts of money. They don't need to charge money from anyone else making a first person shooter for the next seventeen years. Patents just aren't necessary, and the powers they grant hold far too much oppressive power to justify the good.
This would be great, except for one proviso: the smaller company would have to be able to demonstrate that their idea has never been had by anyone before. And given what gets patented in the software world, that's extremely unlikely to happen.
Whatever new idea you have will rely on the use of a number of other patented ideas, and you'll like as not have to pay for the privilege of using those as building blocks. Patents contain a number of claims, and they apply if you use any one of those, not all of them.
If MS should patent Word, do you really think that the patent will only be applicable to the entire program and everything in it? No, there will be a number of claims made in the patent, and it'll be very difficult to avoid falling afoul of these claims.
That especially applies to complex software. Moreso to the internal bits that the end user doesn't see, but to keep going with the word processor analogy, let's say that one of the ideas in MS Word is to have a little window where you can type some text, select a font & see instantly what that font looks like, at that size (Apple has something like this on OS X). Let's say this becomes a 'must-have' feature in the marketplace, so you, when you write your better word processor, want to integrate this feature. Well, you can't, unless Microsoft chooses to let you do so.
They won't have a patent on 'all the features in Word', they'll patent the individual ideas. Fair enough, that's what the patent system is for. But it then gives them a legally-enforceable monopoly on that idea. So whoever makes it to market first with a 'must-have' software feature, gets the market all sewn up for almost twenty years, unless they actually choose (out of the goodness of their hearts) to let their competitors implement the idea too.
Now, while I'd love to be the guy who invents something that everyone 'must have', and gets a monopoly on it for twenty years, I unfortunately can't afford to patent it. So I'll sell it for a bit first. Then, because I haven't patented it, a company with more programmers does their own implementation. And patents it. It's trade secrets, so if I want to claim I did mine first, and they say "we've been doing it for years, just not released it yet" I'd have another costly battle.
The big player will continue to abuse software patents, true. The problem there is, the small players will continue to not have the resources to fight back, and the only difference is that the small players won't have any automatic rights to defend themselves. Just pay out for the patents, pay out for the court costs, etc.
Well, that's kind of true. However, for a patent you do have to provide some quite detailed information on the implementation of the 'invention' - that's the whole point of the patent; you tell other people how to implement it.
That doesn't have to be source code, no, but if copyright were to be removed from the equation, then in order to promote competition each software patent would have to be very precise in its description. Otherwise we'd find ourselves with only one available mail client and only one available web browser, for example.
Notwithstanding the code/pseudocode/circuit-diagram 'representation' issue, the thing that is being patented must be described in full. I've been named on a software patent (still waiting to be issued, at six years and counting...) and there was no real code supplied in that - but there were circuit diagrams and pseudocode aplenty, enough that someone code re-implement the invention themselves, but not enough that they would have to infringe the copyright on our C/C++ implementation in doing so.
Reformatted from a text file on his site:
In fact, I get the distinct impression from a number of his sites that he's not so much of the opinion that software patents are bad per se, just that all these frivolous ones are getting in the way of the real moneymakers.
The Good Point from the parent remains though: copyrights are better for computer software, because patents forbid others from creating software for the same purpose as yours - even if the underlying code is different. It would, for example, make it possible for Lexmark to enjoin companies for making competing ink cartridges for their printers; which of course opens the door for price-fixing and a non-competitive market in printer cartridges (not to mention a market where only printer manufacturers can make cartridges, not third parties).
Sorry folks.... not expecting HTML format to be on by default (and the preview button isn't on the left since I signed in.... Who's for a game of Spot The Newbie...?)
..... Actually, that reminds me of something - for patents, don't you have to publish the entire method? So to patent Doom3, id would have to publish pseudocode for the entire piece of software? So, instead of having automatic copyright on my *trade secret* software code, I have to publish the whole lot? And then when some big company nicks it & doesn't admit it I just have to pull out masses of cash to sue them?
:o|
This is what it should have looked like:
------------
Okay, so let's say there are to be no more copyrights on computer software, and it's just patents instead.
So this means that, unless they want everyone making a carbon copy of Doom 3, id Software needs to patent the first person shooter.
Well, I hear you say, that's not what they'd patent, they'd patent the nicely rendered, fully shadow-casted, first-person perspective horror game, involving shooting hell beasts on a deserted Martian research station. Hmm, well, that sounds reasonably sound. But that's not how patents are defined, is it? That patent wouldn't cover the specific things which combine to create Doom3, and therefore cover only Doom3. They describe the rendering engine. They describe the use of fully dynamic shadow casting to create atmosphere. They describe a lot of technically seperate things.
This ultimately makes it difficult for people to write another horror-atmosphere first-person shooter, because a lot of the ideas which go into it are covered by id Software's patents. This is the crux of the problem: patents cover the ideas (first-person shooter, horror, monsters from hell) not the actual content. If a new 'Undying' game were created, using lots of real-time shadows & suchlike to enhance the atmosphere, it could be clubbed over the head with the Doom3 patents, because it does so many of the same things. However, it's obviously a completely different game.
It's like saying that once Hitchcock used the 'Vertigo' camera move (pull camera back & zoom in simultaneously) that no-one else could do that again -- it's protected by patents.
The point of using copyrights for software is that what you're protecting is your actual final piece of work. That way, you don't stop other people from attempting to improve upon your product (this is called competition, and it's what induces you to make your own software better over time). You also don't flood the patent office with a hundred *really tightly defined* patents for *slightly differing* products.
Hehe... who am I kidding...? If this goes through, MS will file lots of really specific patents to protect the exact internals of their own software? Sure, and when they do I'll make a celebratory dinner for all here, of 'aerial pork'.
Yeh, sign me up for that one right NOW......
Okay, so let's say there are to be no more copyrights on computer software, and it's just patents instead. So this means that, unless they want everyone making a carbon copy of Doom 3, id Software needs to patent the first person shooter. Well, I hear you say, that's not what they'd patent, they'd patent the nicely rendered, fully shadow-casted, first-person perspective horror game, involving shooting hell beasts on a deserted Martian research station. Hmm, well, that sounds reasonably sound. But that's not how patents are defined, is it? That patent wouldn't cover the specific things which combine to create Doom3, and therefore cover only Doom3. They describe the rendering engine. They describe the use of fully dynamic shadow casting to create atmosphere. They describe a lot of technically seperate things. This ultimately makes it difficult for people to write another horror-atmosphere first-person shooter, because a lot of the ideas which go into it are covered by id Software's patents. This is the crux of the problem: patents cover the ideas (first-person shooter, horror, monsters from hell) not the actual content. If a new 'Undying' game were created, using lots of real-time shadows & suchlike to enhance the atmosphere, it could be clubbed over the head with the Doom3 patents, because it does so many of the same things. However, it's obviously a completely different game. It's like saying that once Hitchcock used the 'Vertigo' camera move (pull camera back & zoom in simultaneously) that no-one else could do that again -- it's protected by patents. The point of using copyrights for software is that what you're protecting is your actual final piece of work. That way, you don't stop other people from attempting to improve upon your product (this is called competition, and it's what induces you to make your own software better over time). You also don't flood the patent office with a hundred *really tightly defined* patents for *slightly differing* products. Hehe... who am I kidding...? If this goes through, MS will file lots of really specific patents to protect the exact internals of their own software? Sure, and when they do I'll make a celebratory dinner for all here, of aerial pork. ..... Actually, that reminds me of something - for patents, don't you have to publish the entire method? So to patent Doom3, id would have to publish pseudocode for the entire piece of software? So, instead of having automatic copyright on my *trade secret* software code, I have to publish the whole lot? And then when some big company nicks it & doesn't admit it I just have to pull out masses of cash to sue them?
Yeh, sign me up for that one right NOW...... :o|