It strikes me that, possibly, one reason for such measures is to give the people a different 'target' for their moral outrage. Evil terrorists. Evil pornographers. Evil communists.
Once you have the people sufficiently outraged by the 'menace', you can then label anyone you find. 'uncooperative' as the villain du jour, and enact all sorts of measures "the people" wouldn't normally accept (people disappearing without a public trial, censoring the press, monitoring communications, etc).
As for porno specifically, I'm no anthropologist or historian, but my experience has been that, by and large, people from all over the world, from different religious backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, frequently have had a cultural bias against promiscuity, and pornography is linked in many people's minds with promiscuity. So, it's easier to start with a bias that people already largely have, and 'inflate' it, than to create a new one from whole cloth.
It sounds like, from the article, Broussard never really got the concept of iterative development. It sounds like 4 or times they had a game *almost* done, and then scrapped it. Why? I mean, on the one hand, I do understand the idea of not releasing crap that dilutes your 'name brand', but the article author seems to have indicated that every time they demo'ed their 'current' generation of tech, the crowd was wowed.
In the 10 years from 1998-2008 they could have released 4 or 5 great games, each one getting better than the last. Each one making some revenue to help you fund the next version. I've come to appreciate that developing software isn't a destination, it's a journey. Make a new version, give yourself a well-defined, finite set of new features, develop them, sell that version, then start working on the next version which adds all the cool features you just weren't able to work into the last version, but wished you had.
One of the points in the article was that they scrapped the Quake II engine for Unreal, because Q2 just couldn't render the outside deserts around Las Vegas the way they wanted. I think, faced with the same problem, I would have just said, "No outside levels in this version - if we can't make them look decent, don't make them at all; we'll do it in the next version" - although, possibly I could see that one reboot as being necessary - probably the game would have been really missing something if there were no outdoor environments. So, I could see that change could have been necessary, switching to Unreal, but once they switched, they should have committed to shipping *a* game based on that engine, and only worried about changing up engines once they started work on the *next* game, after shipping DNF.
Well, at least young'uns like me can learn from 3DR's mistake.
Wrt maximum speeds, I've always figured that was an allowance for the reality that computer frame rates are limited, so it's probably difficult to render over a particular speed with good results, and particularly with PC titles, different computers have different limits, but you are trying to provide a consistent experience on any computer which meets at least the minimum requirement.
I have a question about the Nukes in space thing. I know that, without an atmosphere, you don't get the massive shockwave which causes much of the damage that you see in atmospheric detonations. . . but, wouldn't the Nuke still generate several million degrees of thermal energy? Wouldn't it tend to vaporize anything nearby, and melt things that are a little farther away, but still within like a mile or two? Wouldn't it also release a massive amount of Neutron radiation? (I'm not sure - could you effectively shield against that much neutron radiation? I know that space craft have to have a certain level of shielding just to remain safe from 'normal' Solar radiation, but could you effectively shield against the radiation released from an H-Bomb?)
I know iPhone batteries aren't *user* replaceable, but I thought that they could be replaced by an Apple service center? Of course, that's still a pain in the arse (because it means you have to lose the use of your phone for some period of time). Not saying I agree with Apple's design choice, but am I wrong that the battery *can* be replaced by someonen with the knowledge and tools? The way I figure it is, if a service center can replace the battery, then so can I - it just might not be as easy as other phones.
There's lots of new Android phones coming out, but HTC seems to have dropped the ball on possibly their greatest innovation - the G1 keyboard and hinge mechanism. Most phones with slide-out keyboards had small keyboards, but the hinging mechanism HTC used for the G1 allowed them to make the keyboard something like 50 percent bigger than any other phone with a slide-out.
It seems to me that HTC needs to do a refresh of the G1, but with upgraded processor, display, Android 2.1, better camera, etc. I want the keyboard of the G1, but don't want to get stuck with older version of Android on a slower processor, with a lower-res display.
I think, *eventually* that is the way mobile telephony should go. . . but. . . AT&T doesn't have good 3G coverage everywhere it has good voice coverage (although, I suppose 2.5G is fast enough for VOIP, so maybe the coverage is still fairly decent). Still, one thing I know is that a phone with basic voice will currently work most places in the country, but I wouldn't be quite so confident about that with VOIP. Another concern is that, with all the problems AT&T has purportedly had with congestion on their data network, I would be afraid that the VOIP quality would suffer (or cut out altogether) because of insufficient bandwidth at times.
Also, I just have a really hard time believing that AT&T would actually take a move that will cut their average revenue per handset down to about 1/3 of what they currently charge. I think most people with smart phones currently pay about $60-$70/mo for service. Why would AT&T allow them to get, basically, the exact same service, for 1/3 the cost?
I kind of have to agree with the parent. Monty lost any say in MySQL's copyright when he sold the kit and caboodle to Sun. Once you sell something to someone else, you NO LONGER GET A SAY in the control of that property. This guy strikes me as a bit of a jackass - it's like selling a house, then telling the new owner what he can or can't do with the house. If Monty cared, he never should have sold MySQL to Sun. As for the software, the previous GPL releases are still, and until the copyrights expire, will continue to be available under the GPL. What Oracle decides to do with it in the future is Oracle's business. Sorry, but that's life.
After perusing the linked Wiki article about Vacuum, I suppose what it comes down to is that the energy potential in vacuum is so incredibly small, it's not worth trying to exploit?
"According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum will be filled with electromagnetic waves leaping in and out of existence."
I'm confused. . . does this violate the law of the Conservation of Matter & Energy? Can this effect be exploited to harness 'free' energy? After all, electromagnetic waves are energy, are they not? Sure, propulsion that doesn't require you to throw stuff out the back door sounds interesting, but free energy sounds even more interesting.
I know you phrased the question as either/or, but you see, if you have a larger picture, and you look at it from farther away, it seems to me that it would appear to be higher resolution, wouldn't it? If you looked at it from the same distance, however, it would, I suppose, just look larger.
Yeah, that headline is the joke that keeps on giving. Just insert your favorite talking head: Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, or whoever. . . the list goes on and on - and that's just the U.S. I'm sure people in any country on Earth can find someone to insert into the punchline.
How do these shutter glasses synchronize with the video playback? That is, I would assume for this to work right, the timing of the shutter 'blacking out' that eye has to be pretty much exactly at the time the screen starts drawing a new frame (and, conversely, un-blacking the other eye must happen right then, too) I assume in this day and age they use some sort of wireless or optical calibration system that doesn't require any wires from your 'glasses' to the DVD player?
For those of us who wear prescription lenses already, seems like they could make lightweight clip-ons, such as are used for sun-glasses frequently. Since you are already wearing glasses, which you are used to and are comfortable, it seems like if they were well-designed, the clip-ons would be almost un-noticeable. But, I am kind of with you - for the most part, added depth-perception doesn't add much to the movie experience.
If what the GP says is true, probably what happened was they were just using the heat available from too small of a volume, I imagine.
I'm no expert on Thermodynamics, but I did decently well in my college physics courses, so my slightly educated guess is that they were drawing the energy from too small a volume of earth. If I bury a heat exchanger underground, then start using a heat pump to draw energy out of the earth at some rate per second, let's call it R, I can do that with a small heat exchanger buried in a small volume of earth. That earth will quickly cool down to a point where it's hard to draw more energy out of it, and it will heat up *relatively* slowly because the 'surface area' of the small volume is small (so heat transfer from surrounding soil will be relatively small).
Alternatively, I can bury a very large heat exchanger in a very large volume of earth, and while the rate I draw the energy out is still the same (R), because I'm drawing energy from a much larger volume, that volume cools less quickly, and it has a much larger 'surface area' with surrounding soil, so the energy should be replenished sooner. It's just a matter of getting those rates in equilibrium by using an appropriately sized heat exchanger.
With water, as you suggest, I imagine you can use a much smaller heat exchanger, and not need to worry about it, because the ground water (presumably) experiences constant flow, so that the 'cold' water is washed away by a new supply of 'warm water' fairly quickly. Basically, convection.
Maybe the poster made a typo? I bet he meant 14C, and just left off the leading 1. The reason I say that is I've always heard that underground (until you get very deep underground, at least), it's always about 60F/14C. I've never heard of it being that cold (4C) several hundred feet underground.
"of which $4.0 billion was in the division regarding iTunes store, iPod services, and iPod accessories. ..Of the 99 cents they charge for each DRM'ed music file, Apple has to pay the labels 70 cents. Apple only keeps 29 cents which goes to maintain iTunes store, payment systems, etc. ..So after all costs, it would appear Apple makes very little profit from music."
Maybe if you only talk about profit in terms of percentages. . .
Granted, I don't know what the breakdown of that revenue comes from 'services and accessories' - possibly a significant portion. Still. . .
To make the math simple, let's just call.99 == 1.0 (yes, that introduces 1 percent error; I think that's close enough for a/. discussion - this isn't an audit).
4 Billion *.29 ~= 1.1 Billion
I don't know what it costs them to run the iTMS, but I have a hard time believing it would come close to a Billion dollars per year (maybe a hundred million?). I'm not sure about you, but where I come from, a Billion dollars of profit is pretty significant. Of course, that simple calculation is based upon the assumption that all 4 Billion comes from the music side, and you're probably correct that a good chunk of that comes from Accessories, which according to your argument (which I do find mostly reasonable) will generally have a higher profit margin.
Still, my point is, even though Apple doesn't make much money *per track*, they sell a LOT of tracks. It does kind of add up after awhile. Plus, your premise that Apple is 'in the business' to sell hardware, services, and accessories is quite probably correct, the two goals aren't mutually exclusive. According to your own analysis, it stands to reason that the more Apple dominates distribution, the more hardware, services, and accessories they sell. So, from where I sit, Apple definitely *does* have interest/incentive to try to dominate music distribution - both to sell more of their 'own' products, and to increase the "Apple Tax" they collect on each track.
How this plays out with the Lala.com acquisition will be interesting to see. I could definitely see a possibility for Apple to try to maybe launch a streaming service for iPhones (and iPods with WiFi like the Touch). Apple Radio, anyone? Maybe they see an Apple Radio service as a way to let customers discover more music, which they then hope to sell as tracks on iTMS. Maybe just to give users one more reason to buy an iPhone/iPod instead of another device.
"It doesn't depend on if it is dynamically linked or not (for LGPL it would depend)."
I don't really know if this has anything to do with it, but that's actually an interesting, open question, as far as I know, in law. The GPL "claims" that if you dynamically link, you create a derivative work. But, the FSF doesn't get to unilaterally define what a 'derivative work' is. So far as I know, no court has ever had a case, yet, which addressed this question, but it's entirely possible that the courts might find that dynamic linking does NOT create a derivative work, and therefore, the GPL does not apply. Of course, it's also entirely possible that the courts would agree with the GPL.
I'm still waiting for an answer to this question. Personally, I find the arguments against defining linking as creating a derivative work to be very persuasive. Please note I am NOT anti-GPL, as some people may assume from this statement (I had this conversation one time before on a forum, I think it was Groklaw, and got some very vitriolic responses), but only that I believe that defining a dynamically linked executable to be a separate work to be more logical, consistent, and legally less problematic, and generally to be the position which better promotes freedom, which, after all, is what Free Software is all about, isn't it?
Those links are interesting, and at first glance, appear to contradict the story, but I think, in actuality, they might not. Here's what I mean: Yes, you can download the source for mupdf, but my reading of the rather scarce-on-detail article is that the GPL violation in this case arises NOT because they aren't shipping the source code for muPDF, but rather they aren't licensing the entire PDF Viewer application under the GPL. That is, they took a GPL work (muPDF in this case), created *another* work which incorporates muPDF, but did not license the new work under the GPL and offer source. This is against the terms of the GPL. Simply publishing the source code for the original work (even including patches, if those patches don't include the entire derivative work) does not make you GPL compliant.
I might be wrong. As I said, the article doesn't clearly spell out the problem, but that seems to be what they are saying (I think).
Personally, I'm willing to reserve my outrage in this case until further details emerge. It may also be interesting to see if this is a case of dynamic linking. One of the great unanswered questions of U.S. copyright law, right now, is whether dynamic linking creates a derivative work. The GPL asserts that if you dynamically link your app to a GPL dynamic library, you have created a derivative work, and the GPL thus applies. However, there's some very good arguments (at least in my opinion, but I'm not a lawyer, judge, or legislature, so my opinion doesn't really count) that dynamic linking should not be considered creating a derivative work. Again, I really have no idea if this is the case with this program, so I'll just watch this develop.
Ok, if we want electronic musical instruments, wouldn't getting schools one or two Theremins be a lot cheaper and more reliable?
I'm sure lots of schools are already struggling to fund basic music programs, and get kids 'ordinary' instruments (although, I suppose it's quite possible these Laptop Virtual instruments may be cheaper than some analog instruments). Do we really need to be complicating things and making them more expensive, and for what benefit? If the goal is to educate kids about music, I don't think you need some gee-whiz laptop-and-wiimote based 'virtual instruments' to introduce more points of failure? Aren't broken reeds and strings enough for kids to worry about?
Now get off my lawn. *grin* (Seriously, I hate to be a cranky old geezer - I mean, I'm only 31, but even after scanning the article, I'm not really sure I see any advantage to this)?
Ok. Fair enough. I'm not an electrical engineer, but being a good geek, I do have a basic working understanding of electrical theory. Anyhow, from what electrical theory I do know, it just seems to me that there should be no reason we can't deliver a small, but useful, amount of power with our data lines, which would open up the possibility to resolve the emergency phone operation situation. If doing 2 cables SxS is the better answer, then sure, go for it.
You know, after posting my original posting, I got to wondering - again, I'm no EE, so not sure if this is really practical, but I remember hearing about broadband-over-powerlines awhile back. Is there any reason with something like Coax, where you have an actual conductor (as opposed to optical fiber, which is non-conductive, of course) for carrying the signal, that the same pair of conductors which carry the signal couldn't also, at the same time, carry some power? (I suppose the biggest problem with that idea is legacy problems - old equipment which isn't expecting any more power than is necessary for the signal might get fried (or set on fire) by such an arrangement? Maybe sending power over the coax cable would only happen by a negotiation/handshake process on each end of the line where the end-user equipment somehow confirms to the other end that it is safe to receive power (I think that is how PoE works, isn't it)?
I don't think they've been following that convention for like, oh, 6 years or something. You're right that once upon a time that was the way it worked, but afaik, not any more.
Here's an idea. Why not selling some pure-IP (ethernet) credit card machines? I can see an argument for security (not running credit card transaction data over the public Internet, even encrypted, there is a chance that someone might break the encryption). I suppose that would be a good reason. Although, if this FCC plan goes through, it sounds like even the 'dialup' devices will still be having their data routed over the Internet. Hmmm.
I wonder if Telcos could setup seperate 'high security' networks for different industries, where from your place of business, the Internet and financial transactions are maybe on the same wire, but once it gets to the Telco switching equipment, the financial network traffic is split to a seperate physical/logical network, which is isolated from the public Internet?
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It strikes me that, possibly, one reason for such measures is to give the people a different 'target' for their moral outrage. Evil terrorists. Evil pornographers. Evil communists.
Once you have the people sufficiently outraged by the 'menace', you can then label anyone you find. 'uncooperative' as the villain du jour, and enact all sorts of measures "the people" wouldn't normally accept (people disappearing without a public trial, censoring the press, monitoring communications, etc).
As for porno specifically, I'm no anthropologist or historian, but my experience has been that, by and large, people from all over the world, from different religious backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, frequently have had a cultural bias against promiscuity, and pornography is linked in many people's minds with promiscuity. So, it's easier to start with a bias that people already largely have, and 'inflate' it, than to create a new one from whole cloth.
It sounds like, from the article, Broussard never really got the concept of iterative development. It sounds like 4 or times they had a game *almost* done, and then scrapped it. Why? I mean, on the one hand, I do understand the idea of not releasing crap that dilutes your 'name brand', but the article author seems to have indicated that every time they demo'ed their 'current' generation of tech, the crowd was wowed.
In the 10 years from 1998-2008 they could have released 4 or 5 great games, each one getting better than the last. Each one making some revenue to help you fund the next version. I've come to appreciate that developing software isn't a destination, it's a journey. Make a new version, give yourself a well-defined, finite set of new features, develop them, sell that version, then start working on the next version which adds all the cool features you just weren't able to work into the last version, but wished you had.
One of the points in the article was that they scrapped the Quake II engine for Unreal, because Q2 just couldn't render the outside deserts around Las Vegas the way they wanted. I think, faced with the same problem, I would have just said, "No outside levels in this version - if we can't make them look decent, don't make them at all; we'll do it in the next version" - although, possibly I could see that one reboot as being necessary - probably the game would have been really missing something if there were no outdoor environments. So, I could see that change could have been necessary, switching to Unreal, but once they switched, they should have committed to shipping *a* game based on that engine, and only worried about changing up engines once they started work on the *next* game, after shipping DNF.
Well, at least young'uns like me can learn from 3DR's mistake.
Wrt maximum speeds, I've always figured that was an allowance for the reality that computer frame rates are limited, so it's probably difficult to render over a particular speed with good results, and particularly with PC titles, different computers have different limits, but you are trying to provide a consistent experience on any computer which meets at least the minimum requirement.
I have a question about the Nukes in space thing. I know that, without an atmosphere, you don't get the massive shockwave which causes much of the damage that you see in atmospheric detonations. . . but, wouldn't the Nuke still generate several million degrees of thermal energy? Wouldn't it tend to vaporize anything nearby, and melt things that are a little farther away, but still within like a mile or two? Wouldn't it also release a massive amount of Neutron radiation? (I'm not sure - could you effectively shield against that much neutron radiation? I know that space craft have to have a certain level of shielding just to remain safe from 'normal' Solar radiation, but could you effectively shield against the radiation released from an H-Bomb?)
I know iPhone batteries aren't *user* replaceable, but I thought that they could be replaced by an Apple service center? Of course, that's still a pain in the arse (because it means you have to lose the use of your phone for some period of time). Not saying I agree with Apple's design choice, but am I wrong that the battery *can* be replaced by someonen with the knowledge and tools? The way I figure it is, if a service center can replace the battery, then so can I - it just might not be as easy as other phones.
There's lots of new Android phones coming out, but HTC seems to have dropped the ball on possibly their greatest innovation - the G1 keyboard and hinge mechanism. Most phones with slide-out keyboards had small keyboards, but the hinging mechanism HTC used for the G1 allowed them to make the keyboard something like 50 percent bigger than any other phone with a slide-out.
It seems to me that HTC needs to do a refresh of the G1, but with upgraded processor, display, Android 2.1, better camera, etc. I want the keyboard of the G1, but don't want to get stuck with older version of Android on a slower processor, with a lower-res display.
I think, *eventually* that is the way mobile telephony should go. . . but. . . AT&T doesn't have good 3G coverage everywhere it has good voice coverage (although, I suppose 2.5G is fast enough for VOIP, so maybe the coverage is still fairly decent). Still, one thing I know is that a phone with basic voice will currently work most places in the country, but I wouldn't be quite so confident about that with VOIP. Another concern is that, with all the problems AT&T has purportedly had with congestion on their data network, I would be afraid that the VOIP quality would suffer (or cut out altogether) because of insufficient bandwidth at times.
Also, I just have a really hard time believing that AT&T would actually take a move that will cut their average revenue per handset down to about 1/3 of what they currently charge. I think most people with smart phones currently pay about $60-$70/mo for service. Why would AT&T allow them to get, basically, the exact same service, for 1/3 the cost?
I kind of have to agree with the parent. Monty lost any say in MySQL's copyright when he sold the kit and caboodle to Sun. Once you sell something to someone else, you NO LONGER GET A SAY in the control of that property. This guy strikes me as a bit of a jackass - it's like selling a house, then telling the new owner what he can or can't do with the house. If Monty cared, he never should have sold MySQL to Sun. As for the software, the previous GPL releases are still, and until the copyrights expire, will continue to be available under the GPL. What Oracle decides to do with it in the future is Oracle's business. Sorry, but that's life.
After perusing the linked Wiki article about Vacuum, I suppose what it comes down to is that the energy potential in vacuum is so incredibly small, it's not worth trying to exploit?
"According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum will be filled with electromagnetic waves leaping in and out of existence."
I'm confused. . . does this violate the law of the Conservation of Matter & Energy? Can this effect be exploited to harness 'free' energy? After all, electromagnetic waves are energy, are they not? Sure, propulsion that doesn't require you to throw stuff out the back door sounds interesting, but free energy sounds even more interesting.
The answer to your question is: "yes"
I know you phrased the question as either/or, but you see, if you have a larger picture, and you look at it from farther away, it seems to me that it would appear to be higher resolution, wouldn't it? If you looked at it from the same distance, however, it would, I suppose, just look larger.
So, "yes".
Ok, I kind of suspected it might be something with Infrared. Makes sense. Cheap, safe, effective.
Yeah, that headline is the joke that keeps on giving. Just insert your favorite talking head: Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, or whoever. . . the list goes on and on - and that's just the U.S. I'm sure people in any country on Earth can find someone to insert into the punchline.
How do these shutter glasses synchronize with the video playback? That is, I would assume for this to work right, the timing of the shutter 'blacking out' that eye has to be pretty much exactly at the time the screen starts drawing a new frame (and, conversely, un-blacking the other eye must happen right then, too) I assume in this day and age they use some sort of wireless or optical calibration system that doesn't require any wires from your 'glasses' to the DVD player?
For those of us who wear prescription lenses already, seems like they could make lightweight clip-ons, such as are used for sun-glasses frequently. Since you are already wearing glasses, which you are used to and are comfortable, it seems like if they were well-designed, the clip-ons would be almost un-noticeable. But, I am kind of with you - for the most part, added depth-perception doesn't add much to the movie experience.
If what the GP says is true, probably what happened was they were just using the heat available from too small of a volume, I imagine.
I'm no expert on Thermodynamics, but I did decently well in my college physics courses, so my slightly educated guess is that they were drawing the energy from too small a volume of earth. If I bury a heat exchanger underground, then start using a heat pump to draw energy out of the earth at some rate per second, let's call it R, I can do that with a small heat exchanger buried in a small volume of earth. That earth will quickly cool down to a point where it's hard to draw more energy out of it, and it will heat up *relatively* slowly because the 'surface area' of the small volume is small (so heat transfer from surrounding soil will be relatively small).
Alternatively, I can bury a very large heat exchanger in a very large volume of earth, and while the rate I draw the energy out is still the same (R), because I'm drawing energy from a much larger volume, that volume cools less quickly, and it has a much larger 'surface area' with surrounding soil, so the energy should be replenished sooner. It's just a matter of getting those rates in equilibrium by using an appropriately sized heat exchanger.
With water, as you suggest, I imagine you can use a much smaller heat exchanger, and not need to worry about it, because the ground water (presumably) experiences constant flow, so that the 'cold' water is washed away by a new supply of 'warm water' fairly quickly. Basically, convection.
Maybe the poster made a typo? I bet he meant 14C, and just left off the leading 1. The reason I say that is I've always heard that underground (until you get very deep underground, at least), it's always about 60F/14C. I've never heard of it being that cold (4C) several hundred feet underground.
"of which $4.0 billion was in the division regarding iTunes store, iPod services, and iPod accessories. . .Of the 99 cents they charge for each DRM'ed music file, Apple has to pay the labels 70 cents. Apple only keeps 29 cents which goes to maintain iTunes store, payment systems, etc. . .So after all costs, it would appear Apple makes very little profit from music."
Maybe if you only talk about profit in terms of percentages. . .
Granted, I don't know what the breakdown of that revenue comes from 'services and accessories' - possibly a significant portion. Still. . .
To make the math simple, let's just call .99 == 1.0 (yes, that introduces 1 percent error; I think that's close enough for a /. discussion - this isn't an audit).
4 Billion * .29 ~= 1.1 Billion
I don't know what it costs them to run the iTMS, but I have a hard time believing it would come close to a Billion dollars per year (maybe a hundred million?). I'm not sure about you, but where I come from, a Billion dollars of profit is pretty significant. Of course, that simple calculation is based upon the assumption that all 4 Billion comes from the music side, and you're probably correct that a good chunk of that comes from Accessories, which according to your argument (which I do find mostly reasonable) will generally have a higher profit margin.
Still, my point is, even though Apple doesn't make much money *per track*, they sell a LOT of tracks. It does kind of add up after awhile. Plus, your premise that Apple is 'in the business' to sell hardware, services, and accessories is quite probably correct, the two goals aren't mutually exclusive. According to your own analysis, it stands to reason that the more Apple dominates distribution, the more hardware, services, and accessories they sell. So, from where I sit, Apple definitely *does* have interest/incentive to try to dominate music distribution - both to sell more of their 'own' products, and to increase the "Apple Tax" they collect on each track.
How this plays out with the Lala.com acquisition will be interesting to see. I could definitely see a possibility for Apple to try to maybe launch a streaming service for iPhones (and iPods with WiFi like the Touch). Apple Radio, anyone? Maybe they see an Apple Radio service as a way to let customers discover more music, which they then hope to sell as tracks on iTMS. Maybe just to give users one more reason to buy an iPhone/iPod instead of another device.
"It doesn't depend on if it is dynamically linked or not (for LGPL it would depend)."
I don't really know if this has anything to do with it, but that's actually an interesting, open question, as far as I know, in law. The GPL "claims" that if you dynamically link, you create a derivative work. But, the FSF doesn't get to unilaterally define what a 'derivative work' is. So far as I know, no court has ever had a case, yet, which addressed this question, but it's entirely possible that the courts might find that dynamic linking does NOT create a derivative work, and therefore, the GPL does not apply. Of course, it's also entirely possible that the courts would agree with the GPL.
I'm still waiting for an answer to this question. Personally, I find the arguments against defining linking as creating a derivative work to be very persuasive. Please note I am NOT anti-GPL, as some people may assume from this statement (I had this conversation one time before on a forum, I think it was Groklaw, and got some very vitriolic responses), but only that I believe that defining a dynamically linked executable to be a separate work to be more logical, consistent, and legally less problematic, and generally to be the position which better promotes freedom, which, after all, is what Free Software is all about, isn't it?
(Man, I wish /. had an edit button. . .)
legislature -> legislator
Those links are interesting, and at first glance, appear to contradict the story, but I think, in actuality, they might not. Here's what I mean: Yes, you can download the source for mupdf, but my reading of the rather scarce-on-detail article is that the GPL violation in this case arises NOT because they aren't shipping the source code for muPDF, but rather they aren't licensing the entire PDF Viewer application under the GPL. That is, they took a GPL work (muPDF in this case), created *another* work which incorporates muPDF, but did not license the new work under the GPL and offer source. This is against the terms of the GPL. Simply publishing the source code for the original work (even including patches, if those patches don't include the entire derivative work) does not make you GPL compliant.
I might be wrong. As I said, the article doesn't clearly spell out the problem, but that seems to be what they are saying (I think).
Personally, I'm willing to reserve my outrage in this case until further details emerge. It may also be interesting to see if this is a case of dynamic linking. One of the great unanswered questions of U.S. copyright law, right now, is whether dynamic linking creates a derivative work. The GPL asserts that if you dynamically link your app to a GPL dynamic library, you have created a derivative work, and the GPL thus applies. However, there's some very good arguments (at least in my opinion, but I'm not a lawyer, judge, or legislature, so my opinion doesn't really count) that dynamic linking should not be considered creating a derivative work. Again, I really have no idea if this is the case with this program, so I'll just watch this develop.
Ok, if we want electronic musical instruments, wouldn't getting schools one or two Theremins be a lot cheaper and more reliable?
I'm sure lots of schools are already struggling to fund basic music programs, and get kids 'ordinary' instruments (although, I suppose it's quite possible these Laptop Virtual instruments may be cheaper than some analog instruments). Do we really need to be complicating things and making them more expensive, and for what benefit? If the goal is to educate kids about music, I don't think you need some gee-whiz laptop-and-wiimote based 'virtual instruments' to introduce more points of failure? Aren't broken reeds and strings enough for kids to worry about?
Now get off my lawn. *grin* (Seriously, I hate to be a cranky old geezer - I mean, I'm only 31, but even after scanning the article, I'm not really sure I see any advantage to this)?
Ok. Fair enough. I'm not an electrical engineer, but being a good geek, I do have a basic working understanding of electrical theory. Anyhow, from what electrical theory I do know, it just seems to me that there should be no reason we can't deliver a small, but useful, amount of power with our data lines, which would open up the possibility to resolve the emergency phone operation situation. If doing 2 cables SxS is the better answer, then sure, go for it.
You know, after posting my original posting, I got to wondering - again, I'm no EE, so not sure if this is really practical, but I remember hearing about broadband-over-powerlines awhile back. Is there any reason with something like Coax, where you have an actual conductor (as opposed to optical fiber, which is non-conductive, of course) for carrying the signal, that the same pair of conductors which carry the signal couldn't also, at the same time, carry some power? (I suppose the biggest problem with that idea is legacy problems - old equipment which isn't expecting any more power than is necessary for the signal might get fried (or set on fire) by such an arrangement? Maybe sending power over the coax cable would only happen by a negotiation/handshake process on each end of the line where the end-user equipment somehow confirms to the other end that it is safe to receive power (I think that is how PoE works, isn't it)?
I don't think they've been following that convention for like, oh, 6 years or something. You're right that once upon a time that was the way it worked, but afaik, not any more.
Here's an idea. Why not selling some pure-IP (ethernet) credit card machines? I can see an argument for security (not running credit card transaction data over the public Internet, even encrypted, there is a chance that someone might break the encryption). I suppose that would be a good reason. Although, if this FCC plan goes through, it sounds like even the 'dialup' devices will still be having their data routed over the Internet. Hmmm.
I wonder if Telcos could setup seperate 'high security' networks for different industries, where from your place of business, the Internet and financial transactions are maybe on the same wire, but once it gets to the Telco switching equipment, the financial network traffic is split to a seperate physical/logical network, which is isolated from the public Internet?