Does this really matter (news about one beating others by a week) when chromebooks are at least 2 years late to the party? (netbooks accounted for about 20% of laptop marketshare (NPD 2009), tablets are taking 60-70% of that... there is not much left AFAIK)
I'm not sure if you are trolling on purpose, or if you don't understand what this news is all about. But I'll bite.
You see, linux runs on almost any kind of hardware: from embedded systems on toasters to phones, desktop computers, laptops, to big servers. Even most supercomputers to date are running Linux. There is a _lot_ of different users that would use Linux in many different ways.
Xen is a technology that virtualizes machines, mainly intended for the data center and cloud computing environments.
This is NOT intended for users in any way. Your mom does NOT have to know that Xen even exists, just like windows users don't need to know what IIS or Apache is in order to browse the web.
Would you also say that windows and OSX is "is way too complicated for people" because you read slashdot news about some geeky kernel details about windows/OSX ? Surely "no user should need to know, or care about this sort of thing.".
They don't. So do you about Xen. I'm not sure why someone like you is reading and posting on/., because this is usually "news for nerds", as the site indicates.:)
As many slashdotters would say about your reasoning behind your post: "You are doing it wrong.";)
So who of us would not fly every now and then on a private plane in order to travel through the world? Isn't this also the case for many polititians, especially "important" ones? Honestly, I would do it.
Congrats to the whole CyanogenMod team. Even if the numbers show that CM users are the minority, I think its a pretty damn good project. I love my CyanogenMod enabled phone:)
I am happy to be able to get a phone that is unlockable by design, and put an alternate mod on it that provides me with features that a stock OS doesn't. Thanks CM team!:)
I would say 35 for 32 devices is not really enough. There is a lot of testing and development, porting that needs to happen.
Also, hardware fragmentation isn't really fragmentation, Its choice.
Android fragmentation usually refers to the pathetic fact that many phones don't get their system updates ported on time (or at all), thus leaving a platform with multiple major OS versions around.
If you are going to troll, at least do it right.:P
What do you mean, it just happens to run a linux kernel? Linux is a kernel! (and nothing more)
"Android barely qualifies as a form of "Linux." Yes, it uses a Linux kernel, but the fact is largely incidental - there's no real technical reason that Android couldn't be built on BSD or even WinCE if Google or an OEM wanted it."
Debian barely qualifies as a form of "Linux." Yes, it uses a Linux kernel, but the fact is largely incidental - there's no real technical reason that Debian couldn't be built on BSD or even WinCE if Google or an OEM wanted it.
Oops, wait: there is Debian GNU/NetBSD and the like...
C'mon, Android is linux with an application layer over it. Just like most distributions are a kernel with more layers+apps on top. It is as much a form of linux as any other distribution.
Android just happens to have set a tight control on what apps can do and cannot by limiting them to the API the framework offers.
And frankly, I wished linux distributions agreed on such a standard, too. Maybe that way apps would be easier to code, apps could be reused across distributions, and app quality would hopefully improve (due to the application layer providing a better abstraction). I think that would help adoption on the desktop, and sure as hell it would reduce the vast amount of "fragmentation" the linux desktop community currently suffers from. IMHO.
App Store for FOSS software? I would never make it available through the app store if I need to pay $99 a year (or anything a year, for that matter). And I won't if that ever happens (not being able to install it through other means without rooting/jbreaking)
I don't think that will happen, though. I don't see the makers of free programs suddenly cashing out $99 for distribution unless they are paying more than that already for hosting, which I doubt.
Whoops. sorry, my bad. You are absolutely right, thats only app installs. That 0.005% is totally wrong. But yeah, at 350.000 phone activations per day, you get my point:)
"Unless your Android device is rooted, which is common."
Ooops, no, it is not common. By any chance. Again, I wish you had backed up your claims with actual data:)
Look: stats.cyanogenmod.com (by far the most popular android mod): 176,665 Total installs. Last Android numbers: 3 BILLION installs. 350.000 DAILY installs. (http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/14/google-hits-3-billion-android-app-installs-2-months-after-hitting-2-billion/)
Which means the total number of CM installs is less than 1/2 of *new* *daily* Android users. Do the math, its roughly 0.005% of all the Android userbase. Yeah right, common, you were saying?;)
"And then you proceed to not back up your claim with any actual data."
"The difference is I'll bet from an Android app I could read that cache and from iOS you cannot."
Well, I wish you had backed up your claim with actual data, as you say.
Author of the tool that reads android's location file says: "You will need root access to the device to read this directory." Which means you can't do that with an app. To make things even funnier, its *almost* the other way around. From your desktop, any app could read your iphone's location data from any of your iTunes backups.;)
It's not just the fact that they don't explicitly state how they are using your private location data. It's the fact that while you seem to be in control of what apps you can provide your location to (or even to provide your location at all) Apple seems to be collecting all the places you have ever been to with your phone. Without any visual indication that its doing so. And now they still haven't come forward and apologized or even explained WTF they are doing with location data of millions and millions of people. Apple is not an advertisement company, so if I'm not running apps that have ads, what are they using my location for? (AFAIK, my iOS device doesn't have a single app with ads)
I really think this is Sony pointing out android market ToS violations in order to get this pulled from Market ASAP. Smells like Sony's war on piracy. psx4droid has been in the android market for about a year without complaints from google...
By that reasoning most companies should be boycotted (and maybe you're right, not discussing that)
I am no friend of Apple's controlling policies, but c'mon, apple's actions are nothing compared to what sony does.
Apple: Shutdown apps in the appstore that I don't like, ban erotism, porn, remove android references, claim to have invented stuff that was already there.
Yes, thats kinda lame, but its hardly evil compared to: Sony: SHUTDOWN Liksang, SUE people that are hacking their aibo robots (while you can't even pirate anything!), SUE jailbreakers, put ROOTKITS in music CDs..
Wow, really thoughtful. Thanks for sharing those deep arguments against the grandparent poster. Almost convinced me!
Truth is, for better or worse GPL *IS* restrictive. Projects should use it if they want to, with its consequences. In this case, not mixing up GPLv3 software with commercial software VS more restrictive conditions that might imply people stop using it, or even worse, contributing back to it. (correct me if I'm wrong)
While a bit "trollish" (mind you), that statement does have some truth. And don't forget opera. The Firefox UI is quite a copy paste of Opera's UI, at least on first sight.
Yeah, I agree that lately they have been dragging behind in most features, especially tab management. But I think its a good thing that they improve those things where they are lacking, even if it means copying others. New tab management? new javascript engine? new UI? new process architecture? OK, its been copied from chrome and opera, but since FF is still the leader among the free browsers, I'd say its a good thing that they can keep up:)
What? You can't install "web apps" on your home screen. Except for shortcuts that launch Safari, which would run with the newer, faster engine.
AFAIK those "native iOS app sold through the App Store, where Apple takes a 30 per cent of sales." are precisely those that get launched from the home screen, which will be slow when displaying an embedded "WebView".
Did I understand this the other way around or did the summary just twist facts about 540 degrees? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thats exactly why there are no good RTS for the console:) The closest I have seen on console are voice commands and its not even close to how fast one can control RTS games with a keyboard.
There are, however, even PRO players that play console FPS games. (NGL)
I used to think that, too. I currently have a Wii and an Xbox and guess what: I find shooters to be more precise with the xbox controller. (the technique, of course, is totally different (less natural) but more precise in the end)
I would have never thought that I would find it to be that way. Its surprising and I still don't know why it is, but its true for me.
Current console generations like the XBOX 360 have been along for like 5 years!
It's always the same. When the next generation of consoles are released they will be much more powerful than any PC, after a while then they will be more or less equal, and in the end of each life cycle PC games will be substantially better (graphics wise, of course) than console games (which would represent today's state).
"The article includes three videos that give a fantastic insight into where PC graphics are headed" Yeah right, and where are consoles headed? In the same direction.
Slashdot Mirror
I bet Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and all the big guys drowning in cash could create the Nobel Prize in Computing.
Why they would (or would not) want to do it, might be a valid question.
Does this really matter (news about one beating others by a week) when chromebooks are at least 2 years late to the party? (netbooks accounted for about 20% of laptop marketshare (NPD 2009), tablets are taking 60-70% of that... there is not much left AFAIK)
I'm not sure if you are trolling on purpose, or if you don't understand what this news is all about. But I'll bite.
You see, linux runs on almost any kind of hardware: from embedded systems on toasters to phones, desktop computers, laptops, to big servers. Even most supercomputers to date are running Linux. There is a _lot_ of different users that would use Linux in many different ways.
Xen is a technology that virtualizes machines, mainly intended for the data center and cloud computing environments.
This is NOT intended for users in any way. Your mom does NOT have to know that Xen even exists, just like windows users don't need to know what IIS or Apache is in order to browse the web.
Would you also say that windows and OSX is "is way too complicated for people" because you read slashdot news about some geeky kernel details about windows/OSX ?
Surely "no user should need to know, or care about this sort of thing.".
They don't. So do you about Xen. I'm not sure why someone like you is reading and posting on /., because this is usually "news for nerds", as the site indicates. :)
As many slashdotters would say about your reasoning behind your post: "You are doing it wrong." ;)
So who of us would not fly every now and then on a private plane in order to travel through the world? Isn't this also the case for many polititians, especially "important" ones?
Honestly, I would do it.
Congrats to the whole CyanogenMod team. Even if the numbers show that CM users are the minority, I think its a pretty damn good project. I love my CyanogenMod enabled phone :)
I am happy to be able to get a phone that is unlockable by design, and put an alternate mod on it that provides me with features that a stock OS doesn't. Thanks CM team! :)
I would say 35 for 32 devices is not really enough. There is a lot of testing and development, porting that needs to happen.
Also, hardware fragmentation isn't really fragmentation, Its choice.
Android fragmentation usually refers to the pathetic fact that many phones don't get their system updates ported on time (or at all), thus leaving a platform with multiple major OS versions around.
If you are going to troll, at least do it right. :P
What do you mean, it just happens to run a linux kernel? Linux is a kernel! (and nothing more)
"Android barely qualifies as a form of "Linux." Yes, it uses a Linux kernel, but the fact is largely incidental - there's no real technical reason that Android couldn't be built on BSD or even WinCE if Google or an OEM wanted it."
Debian barely qualifies as a form of "Linux." Yes, it uses a Linux kernel, but the fact is largely incidental - there's no real technical reason that Debian couldn't be built on BSD or even WinCE if Google or an OEM wanted it.
Oops, wait: there is Debian GNU/NetBSD and the like...
C'mon, Android is linux with an application layer over it. Just like most distributions are a kernel with more layers+apps on top. It is as much a form of linux as any other distribution.
Android just happens to have set a tight control on what apps can do and cannot by limiting them to the API the framework offers. And frankly, I wished linux distributions agreed on such a standard, too. Maybe that way apps would be easier to code, apps could be reused across distributions, and app quality would hopefully improve (due to the application layer providing a better abstraction). I think that would help adoption on the desktop, and sure as hell it would reduce the vast amount of "fragmentation" the linux desktop community currently suffers from. IMHO.
App Store for FOSS software? I would never make it available through the app store if I need to pay $99 a year (or anything a year, for that matter). And I won't if that ever happens (not being able to install it through other means without rooting/jbreaking)
I don't think that will happen, though. I don't see the makers of free programs suddenly cashing out $99 for distribution unless they are paying more than that already for hosting, which I doubt.
Whoops. sorry, my bad. You are absolutely right, thats only app installs. That 0.005% is totally wrong. But yeah, at 350.000 phone activations per day, you get my point :)
"Unless your Android device is rooted, which is common."
Ooops, no, it is not common. By any chance. :)
Again, I wish you had backed up your claims with actual data
Look:
stats.cyanogenmod.com (by far the most popular android mod): 176,665 Total installs.
Last Android numbers: 3 BILLION installs. 350.000 DAILY installs. (http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/14/google-hits-3-billion-android-app-installs-2-months-after-hitting-2-billion/)
Which means the total number of CM installs is less than 1/2 of *new* *daily* Android users. ;)
Do the math, its roughly 0.005% of all the Android userbase. Yeah right, common, you were saying?
"And then you proceed to not back up your claim with any actual data."
"The difference is I'll bet from an Android app I could read that cache and from iOS you cannot."
Well, I wish you had backed up your claim with actual data, as you say.
Author of the tool that reads android's location file says: "You will need root access to the device to read this directory." Which means you can't do that with an app. ;)
To make things even funnier, its *almost* the other way around. From your desktop, any app could read your iphone's location data from any of your iTunes backups.
It's not just the fact that they don't explicitly state how they are using your private location data. It's the fact that while you seem to be in control of what apps you can provide your location to (or even to provide your location at all) Apple seems to be collecting all the places you have ever been to with your phone. Without any visual indication that its doing so. And now they still haven't come forward and apologized or even explained WTF they are doing with location data of millions and millions of people.
Apple is not an advertisement company, so if I'm not running apps that have ads, what are they using my location for? (AFAIK, my iOS device doesn't have a single app with ads)
I really think this is Sony pointing out android market ToS violations in order to get this pulled from Market ASAP. Smells like Sony's war on piracy. psx4droid has been in the android market for about a year without complaints from google...
I obviously meant "Now THAT is being evil" ;P
By that reasoning most companies should be boycotted (and maybe you're right, not discussing that)
I am no friend of Apple's controlling policies, but c'mon, apple's actions are nothing compared to what sony does.
Apple:
Shutdown apps in the appstore that I don't like, ban erotism, porn, remove android references, claim to have invented stuff that was already there.
Yes, thats kinda lame, but its hardly evil compared to:
Sony:
SHUTDOWN Liksang, SUE people that are hacking their aibo robots (while you can't even pirate anything!), SUE jailbreakers, put ROOTKITS in music CDs..
Not THAT is being evil. IMHO.
woops, OK. It appears GPLv3 allows commercial use. The summary got it wrong? (surprise!)
Wow, really thoughtful. Thanks for sharing those deep arguments against the grandparent poster. Almost convinced me!
Truth is, for better or worse GPL *IS* restrictive. Projects should use it if they want to, with its consequences.
In this case, not mixing up GPLv3 software with commercial software VS more restrictive conditions that might imply people stop using it, or even worse, contributing back to it.
(correct me if I'm wrong)
While a bit "trollish" (mind you), that statement does have some truth. And don't forget opera. The Firefox UI is quite a copy paste of Opera's UI, at least on first sight.
Yeah, I agree that lately they have been dragging behind in most features, especially tab management. But I think its a good thing that they improve those things where they are lacking, even if it means copying others. New tab management? new javascript engine? new UI? new process architecture? OK, its been copied from chrome and opera, but since FF is still the leader among the free browsers, I'd say its a good thing that they can keep up :)
What? You can't install "web apps" on your home screen. Except for shortcuts that launch Safari, which would run with the newer, faster engine.
AFAIK those "native iOS app sold through the App Store, where Apple takes a 30 per cent of sales." are precisely those that get launched from the home screen, which will be slow when displaying an embedded "WebView".
Did I understand this the other way around or did the summary just twist facts about 540 degrees? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
"SIP doesn't even traverse NAT firewalls without help from outside, and even then, barely."
Yep, thats what ICE is for.
What do you mean, if it traverses NAT, then only barely? I didn't know you could barely send an IP packet. is there anything like an O_BARELY flag? ;)
Where are my modpoints when I need them. (I agree)
Thats exactly why there are no good RTS for the console :) The closest I have seen on console are voice commands and its not even close to how fast one can control RTS games with a keyboard.
There are, however, even PRO players that play console FPS games. (NGL)
I used to think that, too. I currently have a Wii and an Xbox and guess what: I find shooters to be more precise with the xbox controller. (the technique, of course, is totally different (less natural) but more precise in the end)
I would have never thought that I would find it to be that way. Its surprising and I still don't know why it is, but its true for me.
Nothing unexpected.
Current console generations like the XBOX 360 have been along for like 5 years!
It's always the same. When the next generation of consoles are released they will be much more powerful than any PC, after a while then they will be more or less equal, and in the end of each life cycle PC games will be substantially better (graphics wise, of course) than console games (which would represent today's state).
"The article includes three videos that give a fantastic insight into where PC graphics are headed"
Yeah right, and where are consoles headed? In the same direction.
hahaha! sorry, I obviously meant to say "ambiguous". ;P