Oh -- and regarding idle power consumption -- no they won't consume less power, but that isn't even the point. When will you even have all 64 cores active? If you have cores that you never need, well, why have them at all? Why not have a single core or 2 cores that's buttloads faster?
That's true about video processing, but ideally any processor you use in a smartphone will already have fixed function encode/decode units for whatever audio and video you throw at it (*cough* webm notwithstanding *cough*)
People are in such a hurry to add cores, nobody's even stopping to think about this question.
Smartphone workloads are inherently serial. Even two cores can be overkill for a smartphone -- with one core underutilized even when the device is being actively used, and one core being powered down entirely while the other one's clock is scaled down, when the device is in your pocket. Why not just save the die space, have just one core, and optimize the heck out of that scenario?
Forgot to mention (5) buy a computer with no OS installed. That choice absolutely does exist as well. In many countries you even have (6) buy a computer with a pirated OS installed. When given that choice, guess which OS comes installed? In this case, the cost of the pirated OS is free no matter which one you choose -- and yet people seem to prefer Windows.
In no country is there a law prohibiting the sale of an OS on it. There is especially no law stating that computers be sold with Windows on them. Microsoft tires to convince all OEMs to sell computers with Windows on them to minimize piracy -- but they are powerless to do anything but "ask nicely". If they try any dirty tactics, they will land straight in antitrust court. You absolutely do have a choice -- you can (1) buy a mac (2) buy an ipad (3) buy a computer with linux preinstalled (4) buy an android tablet. These choices absolutely *do* exist.
What you describe ablout tech-savviness, OEMs not wanting to hassle with Linux etc. -- this is not the same as "force". These are market efficiencies that exist for any incumbent in any market, and inefficiencies that need to be overcome by any new entrant trying to break into any new market. Linux so far has not been able to make a compelling case on the desktop -- else the market would have gravitated there naturally and MS would have been powerless to do anything. Take smartphones for example -- linux (android) is making a compelling case there, so the market is responding. Nothing the incumbent (Apple or Blackberry) could do to stop it. Lastly -- the fact that people don't know better or don't care enough to ask for alternatives means that the OS of choice is not an issue for them. For you it is an issue, but you are trying to make your issue everyone else's issue. You should be happy with the OS of your choice -- but you should stop trying to make your bias everyone else's bias.
They're constantly releasing patches for the current one. Second tuesday of each month, to be specific. In fact, they released a Service Pack a little over a month ago. What's more, they still release patches (and service packs) for the version that preceded the current OS. They issued 3 service packs and they still issue security updates for the version before that, and will continue to do so until 2014, a full 13 years after it was released.
'most used os in united states' -> who gives a fuck
Strong words for someone who got real agitated when someone else replied to you with cuss words earlier. Chill dude. Windows is just an OS. Use whatever you want -- nobody can force you to use Windows. Just go easy on the hate. Life is too short.
http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-7-finally-overtakes-windows-xps-marketshare-in-the-us
Stats can prove anything. Bottom line -- Win7 is healthy, thriving, well-received, and rock solid. Get your head out of the sand my friend. It's just an OS. No need to get so worked up over it. Use what you like -- Linux and OS-X (or whatever) are perfectly good choices and in any case, to each their own. If other people can respect your choice, why can't you respect other people's choices? Why the need to prove that a perfectly good OS is a flop?
The world isn't going to stand still for you. Come along for the ride or get left behind. That certainly doesn't mean that you need to install Win7. It does mean that you should get your head out of the sand and stop pretending that it failed.
The impact is the same -- your data is pwned.
The incentive for an attacker to go after cloud storage is greater (many people's data vs. 1 person's data). Therefore, the odds of a targeted attack are vastly higher for a cloud service.
The truth isn't always so black-and-white. I don't know what the guidelines are, but I doubt they state something along the lines of "only buy microsoft / proprietary software". Whatever the guidelines are, somebody would have put some due dilligence into them. If you wonder why, for example, Google Apps and say Open Office often miss out on govt. contracts, here's one possible reason..
They could very well improve those features and win such contracts again in the future. My point is merely that you can't believe the slashdotesque fact-free bullshit on these issues.
This is just an absurd conversation that has gone on far too long.
The way of measuring your own success should not be dependant on somebody else's market share, or even relative to it. It should be based on your own mission and your own goals. There's plenty of market for everyone in the world to be successful if they want it badly enough. Linux is certainly doing well, and revenues and profits at Microsoft seem healthy as well -- so I don't get this obession with MS.
I don't get the obsession with stamping out proprietary software either. It's a choice that some companies make for their business model, and a choice that some customers make for their software (not choosing proprietary so much as choosing software that is proprietary because it meets their needs). It's a proven and successful business model too -- just like FOSS. You can have failures/successes in FOSS and you can have that with proprietary software as well. People just seem to be on the lookout for something to get inflamed about all the time. Absolutely nothing of interesting here.
If that were true, the Itanium would have A2D and D2A convertors on it, a very minimal integer unit and multiple hardcore floating point units on it. DSPs certainly are terrible for branches / interrupts / etc -- but that wasn't the Itanium's problem. Specifically, speed (as a CPU), was not the Itanium's problem -- it was (is?) a perfectly viable CPU architecture, with some crazy compiler control of branch-prediction and speculation, and moreover was a very clean implementation free from legacy cruft (ala x86/amd64).
None of this is surprising information -- this is not the first or last time that a good CPU architecture (or any good piece of engineering) will have fallen by the wayside due to market forces. It's probably even preferable this way -- AFAIK Intel/AMD/Via's cross-licensing agreements only extend as far as x86 and extensions thereof (amd64/em64t/sse/sse2/etc.) are concerned. Intel would have been under zero obligation to license the Itanium ISA to anyone else to come up with competing (compatible) designs. If Itanium had succeeded, Intel would surely have made low power variants that were suited to desktops / laptops / ultraportables, and ultimately gotten rid of the x86 legacy/burden, and also gotten rid of the competition in the process. I'll take a brain-damaged architecture over that set of events. But ia64 itself was pretty darn awesome.
Can you share some information about the nature of this meeting, and what kind of contract your team was evaluating? (especially considering this should have been at least 8 to 10 years ago)..
Itanium, from an engineering standpoint was a perfectly good architecture -- there are several scenarios in which VLIW architectures can attain truly astounding IPCs. It's weaknesses were essentially software support, power/heat, and price -- which is a vicious cycle of problems -- without software support, you don't get customers, without customers you don't get the volume to keep prices down, and you can't invest in advancing the architecture. If that wasn't enough, AMD's announcement of 64-bit extensions to x86 was pretty much the nail in the coffin for Itanium. I'd argue that Itanium's failings were essentially business related -- the chip itself was pretty cool.
Now explain, how has the Nokia CEO's decision to hand Microsoft a critical mass of the mobile phone market place/share and an unimaginable, for Microsoft anyway, customer base help NoKia?
I don't make this claim, so I don't need to defend it. I'm merely stating that GP is full of shit.
On the FOSS comment you so eloquently highlighted, did you miss the comment on CROSS PLATFORM DEVELOPEMENT? If you don't understand how that can benefit the ecosystem then pick back up the pipe and start smoking again.
Benefits, the ecosystem -- that is not the same as benefits Nokia. How does the cross platform development help Nokia?
If its all about the APPs, ecosystem and customer experience, then PLEASE explain how this move by Elop equates to Nokia looking out for themselves, no REALLY please explain?
Are you slow? Did you see me make some claim somewhere? Or are you the type of person who can only see MS vs. the rest of the world, so I someone is not towing the FOSS line, then they must be rooting for MS?
History is filled with previously apparently invincible companies dieing a death after missing obvious signs. Why would Nokia not be one of them today? A case for the future MBA courses unless they wake up, drop the pipe, and go back to their roots, innovation.
Sigh.. does generic fact-free garbage like this even warrant a response?
Reading is fundamental. I said nothing about you omitting facts -- I said you made zero arguments for how FOSS/Linux/Qt (by extension Android) can help Nokia. And you repeated the same mistake again in your reply. Never mind the part where your facts are a little embellished anyway.
BS Rant! You're complaining about the fact that your brand-spanking-new android device has tons of shitware on it, and didn't come with the latest OS version. Well, that's possibly because of a race to the bottom that's eroding margins for android OEMs, which should have factored in to Nokia's decision.
You also seem to have no regard for Nokia themselves or Nokia's customers, so why should Nokia care about your opinion (or opinions like yours). Your entire post was about Nokia doing what's good for FOSS/Linux/Qt. Nokia needs to be concerned about themselves, and about thier customers. Use the right tool for the job, and avoid re-inventing the wheel. If FOSS/Linux/Qt wins based on the needs of the hour, budget at hand, etc., so be it. You made zero (absolutely mother-fucking zero) arguments for how FOSS/Linux/Qt could help Nokia -- you just assumed FOSS/Linux/Qt superiority to be a truism and started spewing nonsense.
There is no way to have standardized DRM... The whole idea of DRM relies entirely on security through obscurity, and if you publish a standard then that obscurity is gone.
Not necessarily true -- the obfuscation used in DRM solutions isn't related to, or required for, the protocol itself. Obscurity will typically deal with things like making it hard to attach a debugger to the process (i.e. failing if a debugger is detected); if that is circumvented and someone is able to attach a debugger, obfuscation can also be used to generate machine code that doesn't disassemble well, making it hard to step through code to find keys. There are other uses too but the point is this -- the obfuscation itself doesn't get in the way of a standard. You can have different implementations of these obfuscation technologies on each platform -- but as long as you standardize on authentication mechanisms, and key-exchange mechanisms (with your service, on the internet) there's no reason you couldn't have a standardized DRM implementation.
Side note: obfuscation should not have the negative connotation usually associated with it -- it's not that security through obscrutity is a Good Thing -- it's just that its often a required part of security technologies. Stretching it a bit, you could even consider simple symmetric key crypto an example of obfuscation -- you're just relying on nobody having the computing power to factorize your key. The power actually does exist (especially with the advent of cheap cloud computing services), it's just that its rarely worth the price. All security is circumventable (even in the physical world). The cost of circumventing must be greater than the value of good protected.
If by effective you mean non-circumventable then you're right. Effectiveness merely requires that (cost of DRM solution) << (sales lost by not using DRM) - (sales lost by using DRM). It's possible that for some business models/products the RHS of that equation is negative, in which case the statement becomes true for effective DRM as well -- necessitating a change of business model or better product, or some combination thereof.
Yeah, Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Phone 7.0 are totally different. They're not the same at all. They're different.
It's just like Windows XP and Windows Vista. They're completely and totally different. They're not the same.
this message was brought to you by the $400 million dollar marketing budget for Windows Phone 7. Because Microsoft wants you to think they're different.
The funny thing is, they (wm6.x and wp7) are different. You might want to draw flawed analogies between XP and Win7. You might want to talk about unrelated things like marketing budget (huge, but doesn't change the fact that it's different). You basically can't talk about the facts -- a new UI model that's gone from worst-in-class to argulably best-in-class, combined with a developer story that is widely renowned as best-in-class. Couldn't say the same about wm6.x.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh -- and regarding idle power consumption -- no they won't consume less power, but that isn't even the point. When will you even have all 64 cores active? If you have cores that you never need, well, why have them at all? Why not have a single core or 2 cores that's buttloads faster?
That's true about video processing, but ideally any processor you use in a smartphone will already have fixed function encode/decode units for whatever audio and video you throw at it (*cough* webm notwithstanding *cough*)
People are in such a hurry to add cores, nobody's even stopping to think about this question.
Smartphone workloads are inherently serial. Even two cores can be overkill for a smartphone -- with one core underutilized even when the device is being actively used, and one core being powered down entirely while the other one's clock is scaled down, when the device is in your pocket. Why not just save the die space, have just one core, and optimize the heck out of that scenario?
Forgot to mention (5) buy a computer with no OS installed. That choice absolutely does exist as well. In many countries you even have (6) buy a computer with a pirated OS installed. When given that choice, guess which OS comes installed? In this case, the cost of the pirated OS is free no matter which one you choose -- and yet people seem to prefer Windows.
In no country is there a law prohibiting the sale of an OS on it. There is especially no law stating that computers be sold with Windows on them. Microsoft tires to convince all OEMs to sell computers with Windows on them to minimize piracy -- but they are powerless to do anything but "ask nicely". If they try any dirty tactics, they will land straight in antitrust court. You absolutely do have a choice -- you can (1) buy a mac (2) buy an ipad (3) buy a computer with linux preinstalled (4) buy an android tablet. These choices absolutely *do* exist. What you describe ablout tech-savviness, OEMs not wanting to hassle with Linux etc. -- this is not the same as "force". These are market efficiencies that exist for any incumbent in any market, and inefficiencies that need to be overcome by any new entrant trying to break into any new market. Linux so far has not been able to make a compelling case on the desktop -- else the market would have gravitated there naturally and MS would have been powerless to do anything. Take smartphones for example -- linux (android) is making a compelling case there, so the market is responding. Nothing the incumbent (Apple or Blackberry) could do to stop it. Lastly -- the fact that people don't know better or don't care enough to ask for alternatives means that the OS of choice is not an issue for them. For you it is an issue, but you are trying to make your issue everyone else's issue. You should be happy with the OS of your choice -- but you should stop trying to make your bias everyone else's bias.
But you cuss anytime you feel like it? Tolerance, my friend..
That's correct. It's an important market.
They're constantly releasing patches for the current one. Second tuesday of each month, to be specific. In fact, they released a Service Pack a little over a month ago. What's more, they still release patches (and service packs) for the version that preceded the current OS. They issued 3 service packs and they still issue security updates for the version before that, and will continue to do so until 2014, a full 13 years after it was released.
'most used os in united states' -> who gives a fuck
Strong words for someone who got real agitated when someone else replied to you with cuss words earlier. Chill dude. Windows is just an OS. Use whatever you want -- nobody can force you to use Windows. Just go easy on the hate. Life is too short.
http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-7-finally-overtakes-windows-xps-marketshare-in-the-us Stats can prove anything. Bottom line -- Win7 is healthy, thriving, well-received, and rock solid. Get your head out of the sand my friend. It's just an OS. No need to get so worked up over it. Use what you like -- Linux and OS-X (or whatever) are perfectly good choices and in any case, to each their own. If other people can respect your choice, why can't you respect other people's choices? Why the need to prove that a perfectly good OS is a flop?
The world isn't going to stand still for you. Come along for the ride or get left behind. That certainly doesn't mean that you need to install Win7. It does mean that you should get your head out of the sand and stop pretending that it failed.
2k8 is a server OS -- why are you using it for web-browsing?
The impact is the same -- your data is pwned. The incentive for an attacker to go after cloud storage is greater (many people's data vs. 1 person's data). Therefore, the odds of a targeted attack are vastly higher for a cloud service.
I will reserve further judgement until I see it in the wild
You mean you held something back?
The truth isn't always so black-and-white. I don't know what the guidelines are, but I doubt they state something along the lines of "only buy microsoft / proprietary software". Whatever the guidelines are, somebody would have put some due dilligence into them. If you wonder why, for example, Google Apps and say Open Office often miss out on govt. contracts, here's one possible reason..
They could very well improve those features and win such contracts again in the future. My point is merely that you can't believe the slashdotesque fact-free bullshit on these issues.
It's obvious. Proprietary software is a one-way street. Surely you realize that.
Please elaborate.
This is just an absurd conversation that has gone on far too long.
The way of measuring your own success should not be dependant on somebody else's market share, or even relative to it. It should be based on your own mission and your own goals. There's plenty of market for everyone in the world to be successful if they want it badly enough. Linux is certainly doing well, and revenues and profits at Microsoft seem healthy as well -- so I don't get this obession with MS.
I don't get the obsession with stamping out proprietary software either. It's a choice that some companies make for their business model, and a choice that some customers make for their software (not choosing proprietary so much as choosing software that is proprietary because it meets their needs). It's a proven and successful business model too -- just like FOSS. You can have failures/successes in FOSS and you can have that with proprietary software as well. People just seem to be on the lookout for something to get inflamed about all the time. Absolutely nothing of interesting here.
If that were true, the Itanium would have A2D and D2A convertors on it, a very minimal integer unit and multiple hardcore floating point units on it. DSPs certainly are terrible for branches / interrupts / etc -- but that wasn't the Itanium's problem. Specifically, speed (as a CPU), was not the Itanium's problem -- it was (is?) a perfectly viable CPU architecture, with some crazy compiler control of branch-prediction and speculation, and moreover was a very clean implementation free from legacy cruft (ala x86/amd64).
None of this is surprising information -- this is not the first or last time that a good CPU architecture (or any good piece of engineering) will have fallen by the wayside due to market forces. It's probably even preferable this way -- AFAIK Intel/AMD/Via's cross-licensing agreements only extend as far as x86 and extensions thereof (amd64/em64t/sse/sse2/etc.) are concerned. Intel would have been under zero obligation to license the Itanium ISA to anyone else to come up with competing (compatible) designs. If Itanium had succeeded, Intel would surely have made low power variants that were suited to desktops / laptops / ultraportables, and ultimately gotten rid of the x86 legacy/burden, and also gotten rid of the competition in the process. I'll take a brain-damaged architecture over that set of events. But ia64 itself was pretty darn awesome.
Can you share some information about the nature of this meeting, and what kind of contract your team was evaluating? (especially considering this should have been at least 8 to 10 years ago)..
Itanium, from an engineering standpoint was a perfectly good architecture -- there are several scenarios in which VLIW architectures can attain truly astounding IPCs. It's weaknesses were essentially software support, power/heat, and price -- which is a vicious cycle of problems -- without software support, you don't get customers, without customers you don't get the volume to keep prices down, and you can't invest in advancing the architecture. If that wasn't enough, AMD's announcement of 64-bit extensions to x86 was pretty much the nail in the coffin for Itanium. I'd argue that Itanium's failings were essentially business related -- the chip itself was pretty cool.
Now explain, how has the Nokia CEO's decision to hand Microsoft a critical mass of the mobile phone market place/share and an unimaginable, for Microsoft anyway, customer base help NoKia?
I don't make this claim, so I don't need to defend it. I'm merely stating that GP is full of shit.
On the FOSS comment you so eloquently highlighted, did you miss the comment on CROSS PLATFORM DEVELOPEMENT? If you don't understand how that can benefit the ecosystem then pick back up the pipe and start smoking again.
Benefits, the ecosystem -- that is not the same as benefits Nokia. How does the cross platform development help Nokia?
If its all about the APPs, ecosystem and customer experience, then PLEASE explain how this move by Elop equates to Nokia looking out for themselves, no REALLY please explain?
Are you slow? Did you see me make some claim somewhere? Or are you the type of person who can only see MS vs. the rest of the world, so I someone is not towing the FOSS line, then they must be rooting for MS?
History is filled with previously apparently invincible companies dieing a death after missing obvious signs. Why would Nokia not be one of them today? A case for the future MBA courses unless they wake up, drop the pipe, and go back to their roots, innovation.
Sigh.. does generic fact-free garbage like this even warrant a response?
Reading is fundamental. I said nothing about you omitting facts -- I said you made zero arguments for how FOSS/Linux/Qt (by extension Android) can help Nokia. And you repeated the same mistake again in your reply. Never mind the part where your facts are a little embellished anyway.
BS Rant! You're complaining about the fact that your brand-spanking-new android device has tons of shitware on it, and didn't come with the latest OS version. Well, that's possibly because of a race to the bottom that's eroding margins for android OEMs, which should have factored in to Nokia's decision.
You also seem to have no regard for Nokia themselves or Nokia's customers, so why should Nokia care about your opinion (or opinions like yours). Your entire post was about Nokia doing what's good for FOSS/Linux/Qt. Nokia needs to be concerned about themselves, and about thier customers. Use the right tool for the job, and avoid re-inventing the wheel. If FOSS/Linux/Qt wins based on the needs of the hour, budget at hand, etc., so be it. You made zero (absolutely mother-fucking zero) arguments for how FOSS/Linux/Qt could help Nokia -- you just assumed FOSS/Linux/Qt superiority to be a truism and started spewing nonsense.
There is no way to have standardized DRM... The whole idea of DRM relies entirely on security through obscurity, and if you publish a standard then that obscurity is gone.
Not necessarily true -- the obfuscation used in DRM solutions isn't related to, or required for, the protocol itself. Obscurity will typically deal with things like making it hard to attach a debugger to the process (i.e. failing if a debugger is detected); if that is circumvented and someone is able to attach a debugger, obfuscation can also be used to generate machine code that doesn't disassemble well, making it hard to step through code to find keys. There are other uses too but the point is this -- the obfuscation itself doesn't get in the way of a standard. You can have different implementations of these obfuscation technologies on each platform -- but as long as you standardize on authentication mechanisms, and key-exchange mechanisms (with your service, on the internet) there's no reason you couldn't have a standardized DRM implementation.
Side note: obfuscation should not have the negative connotation usually associated with it -- it's not that security through obscrutity is a Good Thing -- it's just that its often a required part of security technologies. Stretching it a bit, you could even consider simple symmetric key crypto an example of obfuscation -- you're just relying on nobody having the computing power to factorize your key. The power actually does exist (especially with the advent of cheap cloud computing services), it's just that its rarely worth the price. All security is circumventable (even in the physical world). The cost of circumventing must be greater than the value of good protected.
If by effective you mean non-circumventable then you're right. Effectiveness merely requires that (cost of DRM solution) << (sales lost by not using DRM) - (sales lost by using DRM). It's possible that for some business models/products the RHS of that equation is negative, in which case the statement becomes true for effective DRM as well -- necessitating a change of business model or better product, or some combination thereof.
Yeah, Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Phone 7.0 are totally different. They're not the same at all. They're different. It's just like Windows XP and Windows Vista. They're completely and totally different. They're not the same.
this message was brought to you by the $400 million dollar marketing budget for Windows Phone 7. Because Microsoft wants you to think they're different.
The funny thing is, they (wm6.x and wp7) are different. You might want to draw flawed analogies between XP and Win7. You might want to talk about unrelated things like marketing budget (huge, but doesn't change the fact that it's different). You basically can't talk about the facts -- a new UI model that's gone from worst-in-class to argulably best-in-class, combined with a developer story that is widely renowned as best-in-class. Couldn't say the same about wm6.x.