True, this is like MS claiming allowing unauthorized applications and devices on the internet would break the ISP's or Tier 1 provider's routers and then locking up all applications with a App store raking in 30% of the cost compulsorily.
Also, from the response from Apple:
Looking at the four statutory fair use factors,18 although the use per se of the modified iPhone bootloader and OS on an individual handset is of a personal nature, it is not a transformative use, and because a jailbroken OS is often used to play pirated content, the act of jailbreaking should be considered of a commercial nature since it facilitates obtaining applications without paying fees for the them.
snip...
In sum, the value of the OS software to the iPhone, and therefore to Apple, is that it enables the iPhone to function as a platform for the mobile computing experience that differentiates the iPhone from its many competitors. This, in turn, increases the value of Appleâ(TM)s iPhone copyrights and, again, overall consumer utility, making the iPhone a more attractive product to consumers.
Huh? WTF? A jailbroken OS is often used to play pirated content? Apple keeps rejecting(censoring?) useful apps that developers and companies have spent lots of time and money on for silly reasons such as political content, duplication of functionality, mature content etc. The real reason is not piracy, it's because Apple wants to keep that 30% cut of all apps sold and control all the content while at the same time not angering AT&T with their approved Apps to keep the ~$17/month that Apple gets paid for each iPhone customer.
Is this what Apple calls the platform for the mobile computing experience? And there are a bunch of people including Jobs calling the iPod touch the equivalent of a netbook. http://www.osnews.com/story/20424/Jobs_on_Cheap_Computers_Netbookshttp://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/the-iphone-and-ipod-touch-apples-netbook.ars Please, no thanks.Do not pervert the word computer to mean a walled garden. Call it a phone, gaming console, e-book reader etc. if you wish. This makes the evil MS look like defenders of freedom in shining armor. God forbid if a company like Apple won the PC wars back in the 80s instead of IBM/PC compatibles. *shudder*
No, significant parts of Vista were supposed to be rewritten in C# but due to performance(or other) reasons, the plan was ditched in 2003/2004 and a normal C++ upgrade to XP was started. This was one of the big factors in the delay of Vista's release.
I bet that kind of veto power by AT&T is written into their contract. Once the exclusivity is up, I would also bet they need a new contract. At that point Apple can either stipulate less control from AT&T or take their phones to another provider, or both. Their strategy in the cell market seems to be similar to the music store market. They started out giving in to those that held the power, then after they grew their market share more than anyone thought they would, the tables turned.
That's all good, but why will Apple want to give up the nice chunk of ~$17/month of the user fees that AT&T passes on to them? I only expect the current situation to continue.
... the App Store sucks. This is yet another example of why it's bad that for a given platform, you are required to get your software from a manufacturer approved repository. Don't get me wrong, repositories are great. But not if you're forced to use them, and especially not when the repository owner manipulates the software selection to suit themselves. I smell an anti-competitive lawsuit in the making here.
You forgot the forced nice 30% cut of whatever the developer gets.
Why doesn't Apple just get a list of phone uses that AT&T doesn't like and put them in the dev agreement for the SDK? Just state that any apps involving voice, or tethering etc. are banned. That way developers don't waste their time and money making such apps.
Apple can always tell developers that no VoIP type apps will be allowed. That way, companies like Google etc. won't waste unnecessary time and money developing applications and then getting rejected.
Everytime you update the firmware with Apple's latest fixes and features, you have to jailbreak, search and download your jailbroken apps and then configure them again. Quite a painful process.
Microsoft takes so long to produce patches because they figure if the general population doesn't know about it, then it can't be too pressing a problem and chose to ignore it until it is an issue. Then it takes them even longer because they supposedly do huge amounts of testing.
Not just Microsoft, almost every company out there seems to be doing the same thing. Oracle, Apple, Adobe, all are famous for sitting on security holes for months if not years and seem to care only about exploits in the wild.
What about all the people(a ton of people on this website who always get modded up) who always said that the Unix security model and OS X is the way to go?
People wonder why I don't install flash, all web sites have a perfectly usable non-flash variant of the site,
Youtube has a perfectly usable non-flash variant of their site? Where?
Or maybe you don't watch video in the web browser at all. But most people would like to. Your solution is as good as 'I don't use a computer because it's such a security threat.'.
Window's record is pretty bad, but Mac OSX hasn't been completed tested out in the wild yet because it's not very popular right now. More exploits might be coming as it gets used more. But Apple seems to have developed it with security in mind, so let's see what happens.
Wave is surely an interesting concept and application, but if there's any web app that just makes you want to scream for a native implementation, it's Wave. There's no way even the fastest web browser running on a Quad core or Octo core with 8 gigs of RAM will leave you satisfied with the experience. Just as I typed that, my browser froze in Slashdot.2.0 for like five seconds.
Why is Google spoiling good concepts by tying them to the browser exclusively? They just need to develop for the three major platforms, Windows, Linux and OS X. And open source it so that the enthusiasts of other OSes can port them. And they can still have a web implementation for people on other platforms or those who do not want to install a native app.
It's all about sandboxing. No user exploit can affect Unix system files unless running as root, which done on a per-program basis.
That's not sandboxing, that's privilege separation and has been implemented in Windows NT i think in the beginning of 90s and for consumer OSes like 2000/2K. I don't see why you point it out as if it was exclusive to UNIX and not present in Windows? We're not in MS-DOS/95/98 era anymore.
For Ubuntu, the October 2009 version will include Firefox sandboxing to reduce damage to user files in the case of an exploit.
It's not available yet, and it was implemented in Vista available since Jan 2007. I don't really see any point to your post except to inform that Ubuntu is late to the party. Also, a reference to what you say would be appreciated.
Flash's record is pretty bad, but Silverlight hasn't been completed tested out in the wild yet because it's not very popular right now. More exploits might be coming as it gets used more. But MS seems to have developed it with security in mind, so let's see what happens.
WRONG on many levels. If you're not running as admin, only your user files will get affected in all the current OSes including XP. But IE8 on Windows 7/Vista does sandboxing and hence is more secure than Firefox on Ubuntu out of the box. Don't believe me? Read is straight from the horse's mouth. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941
Why Safari? Why didnâ(TM)t you go after IE or Safari?
Itâ(TM)s really simple. Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit. The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs donâ(TM)t do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You donâ(TM)t have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations youâ(TM)d find in Windows.
Itâ(TM)s more about the operating system than the (target) program. Firefox on Mac is pretty easy too. The underlying OS doesnâ(TM)t have anti-exploit stuff built into it.
[ SEE: 10 questions for MacBook hacker Dino Dai Zovi ]
With my Safari exploit, I put the code into a process and I know exactly where itâ(TM)s going to be. Thereâ(TM)s no randomization. I know when I jump there, the code is there and I can execute it there. On Windows, the code might show up but I donâ(TM)t know where it is. Even if I get to the code, itâ(TM)s not executable. Those are two hurdles that Macs donâ(TM)t have.
Itâ(TM)s clear that all three browsers (Safari, IE and Firefox) have bugs. Code execution holes everywhere. But thatâ(TM)s only half the equation. The other half is exploiting it. Thereâ(TM)s almost no hurdle to jump through on Mac OS X.
Um, if your operating system is fucking brittle that a Flash update brings it down, then you've got really huge problems.
Huh. The post you're replying to is talking about Windows updates, not Flash, because the discussion got sidetracked at some point. I haven't heard of a Flash update bringing down Windows, except maybe if it messes with boot.ini or MBR or system files. I would imagine the same thing would happen in Linux or OS X.
Now if you're talking about Flash vulnerabilities in Windows, remember that OS X/Linux is similarly exploitable through Flash.
In an advisory that was updated after this article was published, Adobe says the "vulnerability exists in the current versions of Flash Player (v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87) for Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems, and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat v9.x for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems."
The company expects to release an update fixing Flash in Windows, OS X and Unix on July 30 and fixing Acrobat and Reader on those same three platforms on July 31.
This is the problem with anti-MS zealotry. There are a LOT of cool improvements in Vista which any geek would appreciate, many of which are not present in Linux. For example, per application volume control, network and disk access priority levels for processes, superfetch etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista All those have been swept under the carpet of twitter style 'lalalala M$' discussion and moderation. This is not really a news for nerds site.
If you ever understood why Richard Stallman takes exactly the stance he takes, you would never make so a silly statement.
Richard Stallman saw his own code he wrote for his own projects incorporated in a commercial product and got forbidden to ever reuse or publish his own code. And thus because the company in question had a license in place that basicly made all changes and extension to the code base the property of the company.
So Richard Stallman sought a way to make such a code grap impossible by design - by inventing a license that removes all your rights to all the code you were given the moment you try to shield it from other people.
So when Richard Stallman says that the GPL-type licenses are here not only to open source, but to keep the software actually free, then he has a point.
If you because of your limited experience don't see the point, it's not Richard Stallman's fault.
WRONG. No company stole his code. Stop making shit up and then accusing others of being of 'limited experience'. Good job on gaming Slashdot to get +4 insightful though. It's so easy, just write what they want to hear.
The real reason Stallman did what he did:
From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html
The MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) received a graphics printer as a gift from Xerox around 1977. It was run by free software to which we added many convenient features. For example, the software would notify a user immediately on completion of a print job. Whenever the printer had trouble, such as a paper jam or running out of paper, the software would immediately notify all users who had print jobs queued. These features facilitated smooth operation.
Later Xerox gave the AI Lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so we couldn't add any of our favorite features. We could arrange to send a notification when a print job was sent to the dedicated computer, but not when the job was actually printed (and the delay was usually considerable). There was no way to find out when the job was actually printed; you could only guess. And no one was informed when there was a paper jam, so the printer often went for an hour without being fixed.
The system programmers at the AI Lab were capable of fixing such problems, probably as capable as the original authors of the program. Xerox was uninterested in fixing them, and chose to prevent us, so we were forced to accept the problems. They were never fixed.
And while we're at it, what exactly is "twisted" about the FSF's definition of free software? Ensuring the user has complete control over their own property seems like a pretty good definition of freedom to me. If you don't agree with Stallman's definition - and assuming you are not just trolling on behalf of Microsoft - I would really like to know what exactly it is that you object to. Is the very existence of the FSF in some way harming you?
A copy of a program has nearly zero marginal cost (and you can pay this cost by doing the work yourself), so in a free market, it would have nearly zero price. A license fee is a significant disincentive to use the program.
snip..
However, imposing a price on something that would otherwise be free is a qualitative change. A centrally-imposed fee for software distribution becomes a powerful disincentive.
snip...
Programmers writing free software can make their living by selling services related to the software. I have been hired to port the GNU C compiler to new hardware, and to make user-interface extensions to GNU Emacs. (I offer these improvements to the public once they are done.) I also teach classes for which I am paid.
snip...
This confirms that programming is among the most fascinating of all fields, along with music and art. We don't have to fear that no one will want to program.
He does believe that Software should be able to be distributed free of cost though he always avers that Free means libre and not zero price. The major flaw is his reasoning is that he thinks that since the marginal cost of producing an extra copy of software is zero, the price should be zero. But what about the sunk cost? If it costs $200 million for Adobe to make Photoshop, the first copy would cost $250 million and the rest would be free. Adobe folds after that and a magical group of hackers appear and work on it's code to produce the next version for free like they do for Gimp and OpenOffice now? Give me a break.There's some aspects of software development(like extensive testing, making it user friendly etc.) which is NOT fun and shouldn't be outlawed in the name of Freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
True, this is like MS claiming allowing unauthorized applications and devices on the internet would break the ISP's or Tier 1 provider's routers and then locking up all applications with a App store raking in 30% of the cost compulsorily.
Also, from the response from Apple:
Looking at the four statutory fair use
factors,18 although the use per se of the modified iPhone bootloader and OS on an individual
handset is of a personal nature, it is not a transformative use, and because a jailbroken OS is
often used to play pirated content, the act of jailbreaking should be considered of a commercial
nature since it facilitates obtaining applications without paying fees for the them.
snip...
In sum, the value of the OS software to the iPhone, and therefore to Apple, is that it
enables the iPhone to function as a platform for the mobile computing experience that
differentiates the iPhone from its many competitors. This, in turn, increases the value of Appleâ(TM)s
iPhone copyrights and, again, overall consumer utility, making the iPhone a more attractive
product to consumers.
Huh? WTF? A jailbroken OS is often used to play pirated content? Apple keeps rejecting(censoring?) useful apps that developers and companies have spent lots of time and money on for silly reasons such as political content, duplication of functionality, mature content etc. The real reason is not piracy, it's because Apple wants to keep that 30% cut of all apps sold and control all the content while at the same time not angering AT&T with their approved Apps to keep the ~$17/month that Apple gets paid for each iPhone customer.
Is this what Apple calls the platform for the mobile computing experience? And there are a bunch of people including Jobs calling the iPod touch the equivalent of a netbook. http://www.osnews.com/story/20424/Jobs_on_Cheap_Computers_Netbooks http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/the-iphone-and-ipod-touch-apples-netbook.ars Please, no thanks.Do not pervert the word computer to mean a walled garden. Call it a phone, gaming console, e-book reader etc. if you wish. This makes the evil MS look like defenders of freedom in shining armor. God forbid if a company like Apple won the PC wars back in the 80s instead of IBM/PC compatibles. *shudder*
Confusing summary. Will Wednesday's demo show how to exploit ActiveX even after the patch is applied or not?
No, significant parts of Vista were supposed to be rewritten in C# but due to performance(or other) reasons, the plan was ditched in 2003/2004 and a normal C++ upgrade to XP was started. This was one of the big factors in the delay of Vista's release.
Because Apple does not want to lose the nice ~$17/month per iphone user chunk of change that AT&T passes on.
I bet that kind of veto power by AT&T is written into their contract. Once the exclusivity is up, I would also bet they need a new contract. At that point Apple can either stipulate less control from AT&T or take their phones to another provider, or both. Their strategy in the cell market seems to be similar to the music store market. They started out giving in to those that held the power, then after they grew their market share more than anyone thought they would, the tables turned.
That's all good, but why will Apple want to give up the nice chunk of ~$17/month of the user fees that AT&T passes on to them? I only expect the current situation to continue.
... the App Store sucks. This is yet another example of why it's bad that for a given platform, you are required to get your software from a manufacturer approved repository. Don't get me wrong, repositories are great. But not if you're forced to use them, and especially not when the repository owner manipulates the software selection to suit themselves. I smell an anti-competitive lawsuit in the making here.
You forgot the forced nice 30% cut of whatever the developer gets.
Why doesn't Apple just get a list of phone uses that AT&T doesn't like and put them in the dev agreement for the SDK? Just state that any apps involving voice, or tethering etc. are banned. That way developers don't waste their time and money making such apps.
Apple can always tell developers that no VoIP type apps will be allowed. That way, companies like Google etc. won't waste unnecessary time and money developing applications and then getting rejected.
Everytime you update the firmware with Apple's latest fixes and features, you have to jailbreak, search and download your jailbroken apps and then configure them again. Quite a painful process.
Microsoft takes so long to produce patches because they figure if the general population doesn't know about it, then it can't be too pressing a problem and chose to ignore it until it is an issue. Then it takes them even longer because they supposedly do huge amounts of testing.
Not just Microsoft, almost every company out there seems to be doing the same thing. Oracle, Apple, Adobe, all are famous for sitting on security holes for months if not years and seem to care only about exploits in the wild.
What about all the people(a ton of people on this website who always get modded up) who always said that the Unix security model and OS X is the way to go?
People wonder why I don't install flash, all web sites have a perfectly usable non-flash variant of the site,
Youtube has a perfectly usable non-flash variant of their site? Where?
Or maybe you don't watch video in the web browser at all. But most people would like to. Your solution is as good as 'I don't use a computer because it's such a security threat.'.
Umm, I never said there won't be any issues with Silverlight. In fact I bet there would be. My point is that MS seems to have finally woken up to security threats and is trying to clean up by having proper security audits to avoid many(NOT ALL) security holes. For example: http://cplus.about.com/b/2009/05/15/microsoft-security-and-cc-programming.htm http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/15/152213 This seems to be paying dividends with Vista, most of the security holes discussed over the past few weeks either flat out don't work on Vista or trigger a UAC prompt. Adobe has yet to do something like this. That's my whole point. Now if you argue that I am a (paid) shill, I have nothing to say but point you to this http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/07/25/1757253/Linus-Calls-Microsoft-Hatred-a-Disease
Window's record is pretty bad, but Mac OSX hasn't been completed tested out in the wild yet because it's not very popular right now. More exploits might be coming as it gets used more. But Apple seems to have developed it with security in mind, so let's see what happens.
Wrong. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2748
Pwn2Own hacker: Apple Safari is 'easy pickings'
Wave is surely an interesting concept and application, but if there's any web app that just makes you want to scream for a native implementation, it's Wave. There's no way even the fastest web browser running on a Quad core or Octo core with 8 gigs of RAM will leave you satisfied with the experience. Just as I typed that, my browser froze in Slashdot.2.0 for like five seconds.
Why is Google spoiling good concepts by tying them to the browser exclusively? They just need to develop for the three major platforms, Windows, Linux and OS X. And open source it so that the enthusiasts of other OSes can port them. And they can still have a web implementation for people on other platforms or those who do not want to install a native app.
It's all about sandboxing. No user exploit can affect Unix system files unless running as root, which done on a per-program basis.
That's not sandboxing, that's privilege separation and has been implemented in Windows NT i think in the beginning of 90s and for consumer OSes like 2000/2K. I don't see why you point it out as if it was exclusive to UNIX and not present in Windows? We're not in MS-DOS/95/98 era anymore.
For Ubuntu, the October 2009 version will include Firefox sandboxing to reduce damage to user files in the case of an exploit.
It's not available yet, and it was implemented in Vista available since Jan 2007. I don't really see any point to your post except to inform that Ubuntu is late to the party. Also, a reference to what you say would be appreciated.
Wrong . http://lists.openwall.net/full-disclosure/2008/07/25/15
Flash's record is pretty bad, but Silverlight hasn't been completed tested out in the wild yet because it's not very popular right now. More exploits might be coming as it gets used more. But MS seems to have developed it with security in mind, so let's see what happens.
WRONG on many levels. If you're not running as admin, only your user files will get affected in all the current OSes including XP. But IE8 on Windows 7/Vista does sandboxing and hence is more secure than Firefox on Ubuntu out of the box. Don't believe me? Read is straight from the horse's mouth. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941
Why Safari? Why didnâ(TM)t you go after IE or Safari?
Itâ(TM)s really simple. Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit. The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs donâ(TM)t do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You donâ(TM)t have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations youâ(TM)d find in Windows.
Itâ(TM)s more about the operating system than the (target) program. Firefox on Mac is pretty easy too. The underlying OS doesnâ(TM)t have anti-exploit stuff built into it.
[ SEE: 10 questions for MacBook hacker Dino Dai Zovi ]
With my Safari exploit, I put the code into a process and I know exactly where itâ(TM)s going to be. Thereâ(TM)s no randomization. I know when I jump there, the code is there and I can execute it there. On Windows, the code might show up but I donâ(TM)t know where it is. Even if I get to the code, itâ(TM)s not executable. Those are two hurdles that Macs donâ(TM)t have.
Itâ(TM)s clear that all three browsers (Safari, IE and Firefox) have bugs. Code execution holes everywhere. But thatâ(TM)s only half the equation. The other half is exploiting it. Thereâ(TM)s almost no hurdle to jump through on Mac OS X.
Um, if your operating system is fucking brittle that a Flash update brings it down, then you've got really huge problems.
Huh. The post you're replying to is talking about Windows updates, not Flash, because the discussion got sidetracked at some point. I haven't heard of a Flash update bringing down Windows, except maybe if it messes with boot.ini or MBR or system files. I would imagine the same thing would happen in Linux or OS X.
Now if you're talking about Flash vulnerabilities in Windows, remember that OS X/Linux is similarly exploitable through Flash.
From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/22/adobe_flash_attacks_go_wild/
In an advisory that was updated after this article was published, Adobe says the "vulnerability exists in the current versions of Flash Player (v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87) for Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems, and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat v9.x for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems."
The company expects to release an update fixing Flash in Windows, OS X and Unix on July 30 and fixing Acrobat and Reader on those same three platforms on July 31.
Hey, Linus has a message for you. http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/07/25/1757253/Linus-Calls-Microsoft-Hatred-a-Disease
This is the problem with anti-MS zealotry. There are a LOT of cool improvements in Vista which any geek would appreciate, many of which are not present in Linux. For example, per application volume control, network and disk access priority levels for processes, superfetch etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista All those have been swept under the carpet of twitter style 'lalalala M$' discussion and moderation. This is not really a news for nerds site.
If you ever understood why Richard Stallman takes exactly the stance he takes, you would never make so a silly statement.
Richard Stallman saw his own code he wrote for his own projects incorporated in a commercial product and got forbidden to ever reuse or publish his own code. And thus because the company in question had a license in place that basicly made all changes and extension to the code base the property of the company.
So Richard Stallman sought a way to make such a code grap impossible by design - by inventing a license that removes all your rights to all the code you were given the moment you try to shield it from other people.
So when Richard Stallman says that the GPL-type licenses are here not only to open source, but to keep the software actually free, then he has a point.
If you because of your limited experience don't see the point, it's not Richard Stallman's fault.
WRONG. No company stole his code. Stop making shit up and then accusing others of being of 'limited experience'. Good job on gaming Slashdot to get +4 insightful though. It's so easy, just write what they want to hear. The real reason Stallman did what he did: From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html
The MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) received a graphics printer as a gift from Xerox around 1977. It was run by free software to which we added many convenient features. For example, the software would notify a user immediately on completion of a print job. Whenever the printer had trouble, such as a paper jam or running out of paper, the software would immediately notify all users who had print jobs queued. These features facilitated smooth operation. Later Xerox gave the AI Lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so we couldn't add any of our favorite features. We could arrange to send a notification when a print job was sent to the dedicated computer, but not when the job was actually printed (and the delay was usually considerable). There was no way to find out when the job was actually printed; you could only guess. And no one was informed when there was a paper jam, so the printer often went for an hour without being fixed. The system programmers at the AI Lab were capable of fixing such problems, probably as capable as the original authors of the program. Xerox was uninterested in fixing them, and chose to prevent us, so we were forced to accept the problems. They were never fixed.
Read my comment --> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1314321&cid=28812671 Stallman wants the user to have complete control over his own property... for which he didn't pay a penny at all.
A copy of a program has nearly zero marginal cost (and you can pay this cost by doing the work yourself), so in a free market, it would have nearly zero price. A license fee is a significant disincentive to use the program. snip.. However, imposing a price on something that would otherwise be free is a qualitative change. A centrally-imposed fee for software distribution becomes a powerful disincentive. snip... Programmers writing free software can make their living by selling services related to the software. I have been hired to port the GNU C compiler to new hardware, and to make user-interface extensions to GNU Emacs. (I offer these improvements to the public once they are done.) I also teach classes for which I am paid. snip... This confirms that programming is among the most fascinating of all fields, along with music and art. We don't have to fear that no one will want to program.
He does believe that Software should be able to be distributed free of cost though he always avers that Free means libre and not zero price. The major flaw is his reasoning is that he thinks that since the marginal cost of producing an extra copy of software is zero, the price should be zero. But what about the sunk cost? If it costs $200 million for Adobe to make Photoshop, the first copy would cost $250 million and the rest would be free. Adobe folds after that and a magical group of hackers appear and work on it's code to produce the next version for free like they do for Gimp and OpenOffice now? Give me a break.There's some aspects of software development(like extensive testing, making it user friendly etc.) which is NOT fun and shouldn't be outlawed in the name of Freedom.