Every time software is 'set free' like this I see not only yet another confirmation that Stallman right
Eudora wasn't "set free". Eudora was effectively dumped.
The dumping is not unexpected (at least for Mac users) given the endless promising of a new version that actually used OS X. It just sucks that they put it off for so long. They'd had been promising a complete rewriting of the OS X version since Tiger was released (Apr 2005). Now they're starting over again. They're not releasing Eudora's source code. They're just taking Thunderbird code and renaming it Eudora.
As for Thunderbird. It is generally a very disappointing product and an example of why free software sometimes amounts to getting what you pay for. The interface is horrible, doesn't conform to the standards of the OS. I haven't used it enough to question its reliability, but have read many concerns about it not being the most stable product.
This announcement was not a declaration that free software is the way to go, that was just a convenient way for Qualcomm to dump the product. Nothing more.
How about some sort of shortwave radar system that tracks inbound threats, combined with a fast-firing gatling gun that shoots thousands of projectiles per second at the incoming material in order to deflect or destroy it.
Excuse me, wouldn't firing thousands of projectiles per second increase the number of projectiles in orbit, making things EVEN WORSE?
Ok, it might not seem like a good idea at first, but after each mission, it'll become more and more necessary.
Yes, it will become more and more necessary as you'll be spewing out THOUSANDS OF NEW PROJECTILES PER SECOND. You're creating your own nightmare scenario.
Because the joke is based on a truth that half of the potential audience doesn't agree with
That would be the half that lives in denial. Fact: Jon Stewart doesn't just go after the Republicans, he goes after the Democrats, the Media and pretty much any stupidity in the political/media arena.
I guess the Daily Show is a good source of news if you like to be manipulated.
As compared to what, Fox News? Apparently you close your eyes and plug your ears when Jon Stewart belittles the liberals.
The truth is that those in power have gone so radically to the extreme right, that even conservatives appear as left-wing liberals when compared to those in power.
Their customer service sucks! And their reliability is total crap (I've had 5 outages of an hour+ each in the past week alone). When I call, they first tell me I shouldn't have a router connected ('we don't support that') -- where's your 'security' attitude now Comcast? I would much prefer that hole-ridden Windows box remain behind a NAT router.
After I tell them that I can reach them, but not the internet they futz around and then tell me that they are able to communicate with the modem. Did I just tell them that? Morons!! Then they ask if I reset the modem? D'Oh -- who would ever have thought of that.
These guys basically have a script they follow. If they were on their own, they wouldn't be able to think their way out of a wet paper bag. Their customer support is completely useless. It is sad when I'm longing to get back up to Time Warner Cable's quality of service.
I like Dr. Drew Pinsky's definition. Dr. Drew is a board-certified addiction specialist, as well as the host of Loveline. He defines addiction as the continued practice of something despite growing consequences.
That can be a substance (drugs, alcohol) or a behavior (internet, video games). If it starts having serious consequences in your life, and you continue doing it anyway -- then you're probably addicted.
Yeah, probably too much credit.. although I consider anything below a 4 to be a failing grade in my book. If they were interested in customer service (which they're not), they'd try to figure out why their always rated so poorly. Of course, they make it noticeably more expensive to use their hi-speed internet if you drop their crappy phone service. It's basically a lose-lose scenario.
Interestingly, Comcast's actual service makes TimeWarner look good (something that is incredibly hard to do), but ultimately, TimeWarner wins out for the crappiest customer service (when I lived in Austin, minimum wait times of 30+ minutes for ANYTHING). Comcast doesn't make you wait that long before you find out there is really nothing they can do for you.
I'm curious as to what you moved ppl to. Vonage is OK, but it has had its share of problems as well.
I have been using Comcast's Phone service for the past several months. Apart from the fact I incurred a phone number attached to someone with credit problems, the actual service of the phone is horrible. It sounds like I'm on a cell phone with a bad connection. Lots of static. On a few occasions, people have been unable to reach me (my phone never rang).
Overall, I rate my Comcast experience as a 2 out of 10.
FWIW, If I was an Apple guy, I'd look up the Asus notebooks
Apple is compared to Dell because both are big brands in the computer consumer space.
Next, I'm sure you'll want to compare Apple's machines to the home-built contraptions. I'm sure you can get larger HDD, better video, etc if you do it yourself.
If you were to take OpenOffice, make some changes to it, call it "FooWare XP" and charge $325/seat for it after having maybe fixed a couple of bugs, you'd resent contributing those changes back to the original project?
Try reading my post again, because you seem to have completely distorted my comment.
I did not refer to the case you describe in any way at all, I SPECIFICALLY discussed the idea of taking a small portion of that large code base, improving it in some way and contributing it back to the community. However, at that point, I cannot take that portion of code and use it in another piece of software without the GPL taking over the entire code base.
Thanks for completely misrepresenting the argument. It's no wonder people show concern when dealing with the OSS folks.
It may keep some small number of developers away, but if they're only interested in using our code against us, I don't see how this is harmful.
This gets back to the original point, which is that the GPL is designed to help create a library of Free code that can be used by any Free Software developer. You're saying "I can't steal just a little bit." and indeed, you're right, you can't, by design. You also can't mix that proprietary code into Free code.
I resent the notion that I'm simply trying to "steal just a little bit". My point, which you obviously missed, remains that you either have to subscribe to it 100% to participate in any way.
If I take a piece of code, make it better, return that change to the OSS community, I still can't use it in my software without make it GPL as well. So now that leaves ME at a disadvantage because there is no proportionality to the give and take. Because of that, I just avoid that game all together. At least the LGPL offers a more reasonable solution, in that sense. Sadly, it has the stigma of GPL with it. This ALL or NONE of GPL makes it more cult-like than many are comfortable with.
The fact that the "myths" are trying to be discounted shows that the GPL community wants to go mainstream, but like a certain political party, it feels that the idea of bringing the two groups together is for the other side to simply join them where they stand.
Your answer is way too simplistic and doesn't address the issue at all. It works great if you live in one world (OSS) or the other. This comes from what is appears to be the common belief that ALL software should be OSS. As long as you believe that to be the case, your answer seems appropriate because you have decided to live in only one world.
Unfortunately -- that is not very reflective of reality. That approach keeps people away from OSS because it's effectively an ALL OR NONE proposition for them. They either buy into the idea that everything should be OSS, or they stay away.
I avoid engaging in any OSS projects for that very reason. If you want to the benefits of others works, there is a cost associated with it. GPL just makes that cost your software where Proprietary Software usually has some fixed cost associated with it (ie the cost of the software). GPL is definitely not free.
I still believe that GPL is viral in nature because there is no proportionality associated with it. If you apply a small set of code to an existing open program, I can understand the requirement to keep it open. But if I were to take a program the size of OpenOffice and use a couple interesting chunks of code, I'm technically in the same situation. So whether the GPL code contributes
I know the immediate response to that is "then don't use it, you have a choice" -- which is what I do, but it doesn't change viral nature. Version 3 of the license doesn't seem to address this issue and it is one of the big reasons why anyone thinking of using any GPL code needs to think about it carefully because it remains an ALL or NONE proposition. To me, that's what makes it viral in nature.
Apparently some of these infractions occurred in 1999-2000. So where has the SEC been the last 6+ years? And where does it end? Should the SEC start investigating the illegal actions of the 80's and early 90's. I'm sure there was funny-money stuff happening back then too.
I do think this is more destabilizing because the rules associated with it aren't being made clear to the public. And given the fact that the laws are only now being "enforced", so far from the actual "illegal act". The Nebulous information stream does not instill confidence (even if the act of enforcing the law is supposed to). It also seems strange that only the Hi-Tech industry would be doing this.
As for being a lawful society, apparently there are some folks in our government that aren't too worried about obeying laws which seem inconvenient to them, like those that protect our rights. Those laws are even MORE important than the ones watching the corporations because there is no real recourse when your government turns against you.
As I said before, the idea originally came from BeOS. Aside from that, the shortcuts Apple took to make Spotlight (i.e. it isn't actually part of the filesystem) resemble the steps Microsoft took when going from WinFS to Windows Search.
I'll need to check the dates, but Apple had a content-search API back in the System 7 days, which has been expanded, but did many of the things that Spotlight does today. I think it pre-dates BeOS.
The problem was that the API was overly complicated to use so most developers didn't support for it. So, like the desk-accessory idea, it has been around much longer and Apple is repackaging ideas it has had for a while. That's not a bad thing. It shows that Apple is now better at taking its ideas and presenting a cleaner API for the developer to use.
Yes, who wouldn't want to jump at the opportunity to pay who knows what for:
- a DVD that won't play in your car - a low-quality digital version to put on your iPod (just how low will they go? 32-kbps encoding? after all, we wouldn't wan it to be useful) - a video clip or two - a few remixes
All this for what, $18, $20? Wow.. I don't feel compelled yet.
I can already get low quality encoding from Apple's iTunes at $.99 a pop. Videos aren't all that interesting anymore. The innovation is gone. It's all rehash of the same concepts.
I generally don't use my originals for actual daily use. I'll burn a duplicate CD for the car because it is easily scratched up. And you're going to DRM the low-quality encoded versions as well, to give me an extra headache? Joy, oh joy!!
I guess the devil lies in the details. Once again, the recording industry is going about the same ol' same ol' without much regard to their customers.
Dvorak offers no solutions, just vague complaints
on
Dvorak Rants on CSS
·
· Score: 1
Once again, Dvorak is all about the griping but offers zero solutions (scrap the whole thing is not a real solution).
I would have more respect for the guy if he actually offered up some ideas for improvement.
One option might be for the W3C.org to grade the browsers on their support for CSS1, CSS2, CSS3. Issue a press release with those grades. Let folks know that IE6 received a D+ in supporting CSS2. A public outcry "might" help.
I think it is interesting that tens (hundreds?) of thousands of website developers are forced to continually work-around the issues created by one or two browsers. It only encourages the browsers folks to not change (mostly MS). Maybe if a several thousand developers signed a public letter to MS that their IE 6 browser needs to address these top ten issues, they might be pressured to fix it. MS has fixed other issues under public pressure. But the more we all work around the issues, the less likely it will ever change.
btw.. I don't think any of that will happen because status quo is the most likely path.
I don't think requiring a reboot to watch a video or play a song is going to be considered user friendly by anyone's definition.
Boot Camp (and Parallels) is a great solution for those industry special programs that are most unlikely to go platform.
But for something horizontal that is supposed to deliver content, there is no excuse why Macs are excluded in that market. And given that the competition DOES offer cross-platform support, it says your chances aren't great. One of the reasons why we haven't all switched to digital TV signals is because content delivery has to be as broad as possible, and there are still enough non-HDTV, non-Cable, non-Satallite folks out there.
If Microsoft really wanted to have a shot in this area, they should be courting Mac users as well (preferably with an interface that is much better than Windows Media Player).
> Are you refering to the fact PS games won't play on an xbox or a GameCube etc.? > If so you are forgetting a huge differance.
Actually -- there isn't. Apple isn't requiring an exclusive license on the music, so Sony, TimeWarner, etc are able to encode their music into the other format as well.
The iPod is open. It plays MP3's just fine! The only thing that is closed is the copy-protection, something that the RIAA insists upon. Talk to them about removing the copy protection and you can open up the iPod and iTunes.
Until then, I think the whole issue is whining about the fact that Apple took a risk, put in hard effort to design a friendly experience and it paid off. Now folks want to capitalize on that with zero effort on their part. That sounds more like a leech to me.
This sure sounds like Microsoft using its monopoly on the OS in an attempt to dominate a new market, just like they did with the browser.
And unlike Microsoft, Apple essentially CREATED this market and created their position in a legal manner. Apple doesn't have OS tying issues because 1) they're OS is not a monopoly and 2) iTunes runs on Windows as well.
Microsoft talks about choice -- but they offer only one choice -- Windows. They offer zero Mac support for any of their Windows media stuff. At least Apple offers Windows support for iTunes. So you can be a Windows user and use iTunes. Microsoft's solution says that if you're a Mac user, "buy Windows". Ah, choice!
Non IDE Way - They might get through 4/5ths of the above lesson plan, but on the flip side they'll be closer to the metal, as someone already said and they'll learn to develop good style habits from the start and to debug even when they have no tool to lean on, just the JDK.
Sorry -- being closer to the metal in no way guarantees you'll learn good style habits or that it will improve your debugging skills.
The command line is nothing more than a LAME IDE (one that makes YOU do all the work).
insisting that such a system would not violate citizens' privacy and was not a civil liberties issue.
Thank Goodness he insisted it wouldn't violate our privacy or liberties. I feel much better now.
After all, a politician would never LIE to me, right? I mean how many times, really, as a public official lied about activities that involved denial of liberties. It is not like they detain citizens illegally, or that they listen in and track citizens every action. And it certainly isn't like they would use that to spy on journalists trying to keep them semi-honest.
Why shouldn't I trust them?
This message has been brought to you by Fox News, where "fair" and "balanced" are two words in some dictionary.
The likelihood of seeing a $600 MacBook is the same as seeing a $15K BMW 3-Series.
That said, many people have complained about Apple's pricing. Apple has made a conscious decision to balance the weight issue with the price/features of a product. Many Ultra-lightweight computers compromise in features and functionality to get that savings.
I think there is a certainly segment of the population that will never be satisfied. If the computer was lightweight, but was missing features and or battery life, the complaints would simply shift to that area.
If the computer does not meet your needs -- don't buy it.
I don't know why Apple always makes only heavy notebooks, but they should stop.
You make it sounds like they purposefully put lead in the product to weigh it down.
The lighter the materials, the more the cost -- at which point you would probably complain that "I don't know why Apple always makes only expensive notebooks, but they should stop."
In other words, it seems clear that you will never be happy with Apple's notebook -- so don't buy one. End of story.
Slashdot Mirror
Every time software is 'set free' like this I see not only yet another confirmation that Stallman right
Eudora wasn't "set free". Eudora was effectively dumped.
The dumping is not unexpected (at least for Mac users) given the endless promising of a new version that actually used OS X. It just sucks that they put it off for so long. They'd had been promising a complete rewriting of the OS X version since Tiger was released (Apr 2005). Now they're starting over again. They're not releasing Eudora's source code. They're just taking Thunderbird code and renaming it Eudora.
As for Thunderbird. It is generally a very disappointing product and an example of why free software sometimes amounts to getting what you pay for. The interface is horrible, doesn't conform to the standards of the OS. I haven't used it enough to question its reliability, but have read many concerns about it not being the most stable product.
This announcement was not a declaration that free software is the way to go, that was just a convenient way for Qualcomm to dump the product. Nothing more.
Might just as well invade Iraq or bomb Iran. I'm not sure you percieved the point of the OP.
My bad. There are so many stupid decisions (from Bush & Co) to be mocked, I just lose track.
How about some sort of shortwave radar system that tracks inbound threats, combined with a fast-firing gatling gun that shoots thousands of projectiles per second at the incoming material in order to deflect or destroy it.
Excuse me, wouldn't firing thousands of projectiles per second increase the number of projectiles in orbit, making things EVEN WORSE?
Ok, it might not seem like a good idea at first, but after each mission, it'll become more and more necessary.
Yes, it will become more and more necessary as you'll be spewing out THOUSANDS OF NEW PROJECTILES PER SECOND. You're creating your own nightmare scenario.
Because the joke is based on a truth that half of the potential audience doesn't agree with
That would be the half that lives in denial. Fact: Jon Stewart doesn't just go after the Republicans, he goes after the Democrats, the Media and pretty much any stupidity in the political/media arena.
I guess the Daily Show is a good source of news if you like to be manipulated.
As compared to what, Fox News? Apparently you close your eyes and plug your ears when Jon Stewart belittles the liberals.
The truth is that those in power have gone so radically to the extreme right, that even conservatives appear as left-wing liberals when compared to those in power.
Agreed.
Their customer service sucks! And their reliability is total crap (I've had 5 outages of an hour+ each in the past week alone). When I call, they first tell me I shouldn't have a router connected ('we don't support that') -- where's your 'security' attitude now Comcast? I would much prefer that hole-ridden Windows box remain behind a NAT router.
After I tell them that I can reach them, but not the internet they futz around and then tell me that they are able to communicate with the modem. Did I just tell them that? Morons!! Then they ask if I reset the modem? D'Oh -- who would ever have thought of that.
These guys basically have a script they follow. If they were on their own, they wouldn't be able to think their way out of a wet paper bag. Their customer support is completely useless. It is sad when I'm longing to get back up to Time Warner Cable's quality of service.
I like Dr. Drew Pinsky's definition. Dr. Drew is a board-certified addiction specialist, as well as the host of Loveline. He defines addiction as the continued practice of something despite growing consequences.
That can be a substance (drugs, alcohol) or a behavior (internet, video games).
If it starts having serious consequences in your life, and you continue doing it anyway --
then you're probably addicted.
Yeah, probably too much credit.. although I consider anything below a 4 to be a failing grade in my book. If they were interested in customer service (which they're not), they'd try to figure out why their always rated so poorly. Of course, they make it noticeably more expensive to use their hi-speed internet if you drop their crappy phone service. It's basically a lose-lose scenario.
Interestingly, Comcast's actual service makes TimeWarner look good (something that is incredibly hard to do), but ultimately, TimeWarner wins out for the crappiest customer service (when I lived in Austin, minimum wait times of 30+ minutes for ANYTHING). Comcast doesn't make you wait that long before you find out there is really nothing they can do for you.
I'm curious as to what you moved ppl to. Vonage is OK, but it has had its share of problems as well.
I have been using Comcast's Phone service for the past several months. Apart from the fact I incurred a phone number attached to someone with credit problems, the actual service of the phone is horrible. It sounds like I'm on a cell phone with a bad connection. Lots of static. On a few occasions, people have been unable to reach me (my phone never rang).
Overall, I rate my Comcast experience as a 2 out of 10.
FWIW, If I was an Apple guy, I'd look up the Asus notebooks
Apple is compared to Dell because both are big brands in the computer consumer space.
Next, I'm sure you'll want to compare Apple's machines to the home-built contraptions. I'm sure you can get larger HDD, better video, etc if you do it yourself.
Mac folks already have this with Safari in OS X 10.4 (Tiger).
No new browser needed.
Just Enable Safari -> Private Browsing.
If you were to take OpenOffice, make some changes to it, call it "FooWare XP" and charge $325/seat for it after having maybe fixed a couple of bugs, you'd resent contributing those changes back to the original project?
Try reading my post again, because you seem to have completely distorted my comment.
I did not refer to the case you describe in any way at all, I SPECIFICALLY discussed the idea of taking a small portion of that large code base, improving it in some way and contributing it back to the community. However, at that point, I cannot take that portion of code and use it in another piece of software without the GPL taking over the entire code base.
Thanks for completely misrepresenting the argument. It's no wonder people show concern when dealing with the OSS folks.
It may keep some small number of developers away, but if they're only interested in using our code against us, I don't see how this is harmful.
This gets back to the original point, which is that the GPL is designed to help create a library of Free code that can be used by any Free Software developer. You're saying "I can't steal just a little bit." and indeed, you're right, you can't, by design. You also can't mix that proprietary code into Free code.
I resent the notion that I'm simply trying to "steal just a little bit". My point, which you obviously missed, remains that you either have to subscribe to it 100% to participate in any way.
If I take a piece of code, make it better, return that change to the OSS community, I still can't use it in my software without make it GPL as well. So now that leaves ME at a disadvantage because there is no proportionality to the give and take. Because of that, I just avoid that game all together. At least the LGPL offers a more reasonable solution, in that sense. Sadly, it has the stigma of GPL with it. This ALL or NONE of GPL makes it more cult-like than many are comfortable with.
The fact that the "myths" are trying to be discounted shows that the GPL community wants to go mainstream, but like a certain political party, it feels that the idea of bringing the two groups together is for the other side to simply join them where they stand.
Then just do that.
Your answer is way too simplistic and doesn't address the issue at all. It works great if you live in one world (OSS) or the other. This comes from what is appears to be the common belief that ALL software should be OSS. As long as you believe that to be the case, your answer seems appropriate because you have decided to live in only one world.
Unfortunately -- that is not very reflective of reality. That approach keeps people away from OSS because it's effectively an ALL OR NONE proposition for them. They either buy into the idea that everything should be OSS, or they stay away.
I avoid engaging in any OSS projects for that very reason. If you want to the benefits of others works, there is a cost associated with it. GPL just makes that cost your software where Proprietary Software usually has some fixed cost associated with it (ie the cost of the software). GPL is definitely not free.
I still believe that GPL is viral in nature because there is no proportionality associated with it. If you apply a small set of code to an existing open program, I can understand the requirement to keep it open. But if I were to take a program the size of OpenOffice and use a couple interesting chunks of code, I'm technically in the same situation. So whether the GPL code contributes
I know the immediate response to that is "then don't use it, you have a choice" -- which is what I do, but it doesn't change viral nature. Version 3 of the license doesn't seem to address this issue and it is one of the big reasons why anyone thinking of using any GPL code needs to think about it carefully because it remains an ALL or NONE proposition. To me, that's what makes it viral in nature.
Apparently some of these infractions occurred in 1999-2000. So where has the SEC been the last 6+ years? And where does it end? Should the SEC start investigating the illegal actions of the 80's and early 90's. I'm sure there was funny-money stuff happening back then too.
I do think this is more destabilizing because the rules associated with it aren't being made clear to the public. And given the fact that the laws are only now being "enforced", so far from the actual "illegal act". The Nebulous information stream does not instill confidence (even if the act of enforcing the law is supposed to). It also seems strange that only the Hi-Tech industry would be doing this.
As for being a lawful society, apparently there are some folks in our government that aren't too worried about obeying laws which seem inconvenient to them, like those that protect our rights. Those laws are even MORE important than the ones watching the corporations because there is no real recourse when your government turns against you.
As I said before, the idea originally came from BeOS. Aside from that, the shortcuts Apple took to make Spotlight (i.e. it isn't actually part of the filesystem) resemble the steps Microsoft took when going from WinFS to Windows Search.
I'll need to check the dates, but Apple had a content-search API back in the System 7 days, which has been expanded, but did many of the things that Spotlight does today. I think it pre-dates BeOS.
The problem was that the API was overly complicated to use so most developers didn't support for it. So, like the desk-accessory idea, it has been around much longer and Apple is repackaging ideas it has had for a while. That's not a bad thing. It shows that Apple is now better at taking its ideas and presenting a cleaner API for the developer to use.
Yes, who wouldn't want to jump at the opportunity to pay who knows what for:
- a DVD that won't play in your car
- a low-quality digital version to put on your iPod (just how low will they go? 32-kbps encoding? after all, we wouldn't wan it to be useful)
- a video clip or two
- a few remixes
All this for what, $18, $20? Wow.. I don't feel compelled yet.
I can already get low quality encoding from Apple's iTunes at $.99 a pop. Videos aren't all that interesting anymore. The innovation is gone. It's all rehash of the same concepts.
I generally don't use my originals for actual daily use. I'll burn a duplicate CD for the car because it is easily scratched up. And you're going to DRM the low-quality encoded versions as well, to give me an extra headache? Joy, oh joy!!
I guess the devil lies in the details. Once again, the recording industry is going about the same ol' same ol' without much regard to their customers.
Once again, Dvorak is all about the griping but offers zero solutions (scrap the whole thing is not a real solution).
I would have more respect for the guy if he actually offered up some ideas for improvement.
One option might be for the W3C.org to grade the browsers on their support for CSS1, CSS2, CSS3. Issue a press release with those grades. Let folks know that IE6 received a D+ in supporting CSS2.
A public outcry "might" help.
I think it is interesting that tens (hundreds?) of thousands of website developers are forced to continually work-around the issues created by one or two browsers. It only encourages the browsers folks to not change (mostly MS). Maybe if a several thousand developers signed a public letter to MS that their IE 6 browser needs to address these top ten issues, they might be pressured to fix it. MS has fixed other issues under public pressure. But the more we all work around the issues, the less likely it will ever change.
btw.. I don't think any of that will happen because status quo is the most likely path.
I don't think requiring a reboot to watch a video or play a song is going to be considered user friendly by anyone's definition.
Boot Camp (and Parallels) is a great solution for those industry special programs that are most unlikely to go platform.
But for something horizontal that is supposed to deliver content, there is no excuse why Macs are excluded in that market. And given that the competition DOES offer cross-platform support, it says your chances aren't great. One of the reasons why we haven't all switched to digital TV signals is because content delivery has to be as broad as possible, and there are still enough non-HDTV, non-Cable, non-Satallite folks out there.
If Microsoft really wanted to have a shot in this area, they should be courting Mac users as well (preferably with an interface that is much better than Windows Media Player).
In fact, if you're a Mac user, you are S.O.L. in viewing or listening to any Microsoft DRM protected material.
Microsoft wants to give you the choice --
1) use their OS only.
Yep -- you're choice!
> Are you refering to the fact PS games won't play on an xbox or a GameCube etc.?
> If so you are forgetting a huge differance.
Actually -- there isn't. Apple isn't requiring an exclusive license on the music, so Sony, TimeWarner, etc are able to encode their music into the other format as well.
The iPod is open. It plays MP3's just fine! The only thing that is closed is the copy-protection, something that the RIAA insists upon. Talk to them about removing the copy protection and you can open up the iPod and iTunes.
Until then, I think the whole issue is whining about the fact that Apple took a risk, put in hard effort to design a friendly experience and it paid off. Now folks want to capitalize on that with zero effort on their part. That sounds more like a leech to me.
This sure sounds like Microsoft using its monopoly on the OS in an attempt to dominate a new market, just like they did with the browser.
And unlike Microsoft, Apple essentially CREATED this market and created their position in a legal manner. Apple doesn't have OS tying issues because 1) they're OS is not a monopoly and 2) iTunes runs on Windows as well.
Microsoft talks about choice -- but they offer only one choice -- Windows. They offer zero Mac support for any of their Windows media stuff.
At least Apple offers Windows support for iTunes. So you can be a Windows user and use iTunes. Microsoft's solution says that if you're a Mac user, "buy Windows". Ah, choice!
Non IDE Way - They might get through 4/5ths of the above lesson plan, but on the flip side they'll be closer to the metal, as someone already said and they'll learn to develop good style habits from the start and to debug even when they have no tool to lean on, just the JDK.
Sorry -- being closer to the metal in no way guarantees you'll learn good style habits or that it will improve your debugging skills.
The command line is nothing more than a LAME IDE (one that makes YOU do all the work).
insisting that such a system would not violate citizens' privacy and was not a civil liberties issue.
Thank Goodness he insisted it wouldn't violate our privacy or liberties. I feel much better now.
After all, a politician would never LIE to me, right? I mean how many times, really, as a public official lied about activities that involved denial of liberties. It is not like they detain citizens illegally, or that they listen in and track citizens every action. And it certainly isn't like they would use that to spy on journalists trying to keep them semi-honest.
Why shouldn't I trust them?
This message has been brought to you by Fox News, where "fair" and "balanced" are two words in some dictionary.
The likelihood of seeing a $600 MacBook is the same as seeing a $15K BMW 3-Series.
That said, many people have complained about Apple's pricing. Apple has made a conscious decision to balance the weight issue with the price/features of a product. Many Ultra-lightweight computers compromise in features and functionality to get that savings.
I think there is a certainly segment of the population that will never be satisfied. If the computer was lightweight, but was missing features and or battery life, the complaints would simply shift to that area.
If the computer does not meet your needs -- don't buy it.
I don't know why Apple always makes only heavy notebooks, but they should stop.
You make it sounds like they purposefully put lead in the product to weigh it down.
The lighter the materials, the more the cost -- at which point you would probably complain that
"I don't know why Apple always makes only expensive notebooks, but they should stop."
In other words, it seems clear that you will never be happy with Apple's notebook -- so don't buy one. End of story.