That said, this is NOT The right to go about this (disassemblying closed source, creating open source from it). It's the same shit DivX got in trouble with early on, and they're lucky to have survived. I give much more praise to guys who can write this stuff totally from scratch.
Not to troll or anything, but just how can one write from scratch something, he doesn't have knowledge of? Consult Miss Cleo? Do you really think if there was a detilled how_to_implement_mimic guide, this guy, Ole André Vadla Ravnås, would go to such extremes as to ponder over a buch of Assembly code and try to create a working C program out of it?! Such a feat is worth the praise.
As I said Rambus was the first example that came to my mind and is definitely not the best (actually, just after I posted I thought of ARM). I admit, Rambus' business practices at times were far from unobtrusive. However, my idea was, that IP companies (including Rambus) are more often really creating intellectual products (i.e. technologies), than not. That is to say, I don't see why so many slashdoters expect almost impending doom (OK, I'm overexagearing here) beacuse of a chip developer/manufacturer going into R&D and licensing business.
In a nutshell, I'm saying that the restructuring of Transmeta should be expected to be more of a good thing than bad.
Why is everybody so concerned with Transmeta suing every CPU user or manufacturer in sight? IP companies are not bad by definition. Just the contrary. And SCO is an exception! The first IP company I come up with, Rambus, is not the public enemy you are trying to turn those, who make a living out of intellectual property, into. Maybe not all of their products are as good or as cheap as many would like them to be (including Rambus themselves), but at least the company is not in the business with groundless lawsuits.
So please, stop bitching over insane snowflake_in_hell possibilities of Transmeta's future and ask yourselves what will you benefit if CPU manufacturers (ie Intel, AMD, IBM) adopt the very good technologies, part of Crusoe and Efficeon processors. (stuff like LongRun and LongRun2, you know)
You'd be suprised how many computers still exist out there with Windows '98, or even Windows '95, or in some pathological cases Windows 3.1.
Well, there are quite a few people running Mac OS 9 or even Mac OS 8. I just don't get your point.
In fact, I think that in the Windows world, it's safe to say that the OS is the _least_ important part. It's there just so the applications will load. We'd run just as happily (or actually happier) without any OS, if the same apps could be booted directly without an OS. Hence, the lack of Windows people creaming their pants at the thought "woo, we can pay for a new release."
I'm also a Windows user and I totally agree with that. And that's the problem. Microsoft throws a bunch of code and call it an OS. Application developers are the the ones that are expected to sort things out, to find the hows and whys of making programs work. In Mac OS world the operating sistem offloads some of the work from developers (if you're curious how note technologies like CoreData,CoreAudio, CoreImage, CoreVideo, Spotlight, Automator and some more(i'm tired of pasting links and, besides, if you're that iterested in the subject you'll find whatever you need)). And since all of these techs also make applications better, faster, and feature rich, users are "creaming their pants" too. So for both Macintosh users and developers a new OS release is someting big.
So in a nutshell that's why we're wondering about it. Because over here on this side of the fence, sticking to an OS for 4-5 years is really the norm. Seeing people getting all excited at the thought of buying yet another yearly remake of the same OS is, well, a bit strange.
I guess you've already realised that, but, unlike Win2000 and WinXP, Mac OS 10.4 (aka Tiger) is very close to a different operating system (ok, I'm stretching it a bit here, but you get my point). Nothing strange in this department, buddy.
So, pray tell, just for my curiosity: _what_ applications didn't work with the old release? Was there some killer-app or killer-game announced that requires Tiger to run?
Nope! Tiger is not out yet. But in the very near future, astoundingly great apps, made specifically for OS 10.4 willbe all over the place.
Is there some much needed functionality comes in this release and was sorely missing in Panther? I'm just, you know, curious.
Well, Apple may be anything but stupid. This was done for a reason - since you are obliged by the ToS to use iTunes to purchase songs from iTMS offloading the DRM-ing of the songs to the client is very good technical (as in how_do_we_make_a_serverside_program_that_wont_chok e_on_all_that_many_customers)and business (as in how_do_we_save_a_buck_or_ten). Besides, it is rumoured that Apple supposedly watermarks the songs they distibute through iTMS and these watermarks may (or may not) contain data ont the user who purchassed that song.
Actually admitting GoogleX' look and feel is inspired by Mac OS X should have saved their @$$es. By doing so, noone (including Apple) can accuse them of "borowing" the look and feel of OS X and passing it off as their own invention.
If this copy (http://dinkdoink.com/me/googlex/) is identical to the original page, I think Apple missed a free ad on Google(note the text on the bottom of the page - there is a link to Apple's OS X page). Or maybe this is excatly the reason Google took it off?!
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't see it right away either, but they've added a Satellite link (that is up and right).
Nifty effect with arguable practicality beyond the coolness factor, though. I find the "old" Google maps much better for finding your way around.
OK, point taken.
As I said Rambus was the first example that came to my mind and is definitely not the best (actually, just after I posted I thought of ARM). I admit, Rambus' business practices at times were far from unobtrusive. However, my idea was, that IP companies (including Rambus) are more often really creating intellectual products (i.e. technologies), than not. That is to say, I don't see why so many slashdoters expect almost impending doom (OK, I'm overexagearing here) beacuse of a chip developer/manufacturer going into R&D and licensing business.
In a nutshell, I'm saying that the restructuring of Transmeta should be expected to be more of a good thing than bad.
Why is everybody so concerned with Transmeta suing every CPU user or manufacturer in sight? IP companies are not bad by definition. Just the contrary. And SCO is an exception! The first IP company I come up with, Rambus, is not the public enemy you are trying to turn those, who make a living out of intellectual property, into. Maybe not all of their products are as good or as cheap as many would like them to be (including Rambus themselves), but at least the company is not in the business with groundless lawsuits.
So please, stop bitching over insane snowflake_in_hell possibilities of Transmeta's future and ask yourselves what will you benefit if CPU manufacturers (ie Intel, AMD, IBM) adopt the very good technologies, part of Crusoe and Efficeon processors. (stuff like LongRun and LongRun2, you know)
Well, Apple may be anything but stupid.k e_on_all_that_many_customers)and business (as in how_do_we_save_a_buck_or_ten).
This was done for a reason - since you are obliged by the ToS to use iTunes to purchase songs from iTMS offloading the DRM-ing of the songs to the client is very good technical (as in how_do_we_make_a_serverside_program_that_wont_cho
Besides, it is rumoured that Apple supposedly watermarks the songs they distibute through iTMS and these watermarks may (or may not) contain data ont the user who purchassed that song.
Actually admitting GoogleX' look and feel is inspired by Mac OS X should have saved their @$$es. By doing so, noone (including Apple) can accuse them of "borowing" the look and feel of OS X and passing it off as their own invention.
If this copy (http://dinkdoink.com/me/googlex/) is identical to the original page, I think Apple missed a free ad on Google(note the text on the bottom of the page - there is a link to Apple's OS X page). Or maybe this is excatly the reason Google took it off?!