Noone claims Jobs invented anti-DRM, but it's a bigger deal when a major player comes out against it than when a regular guy does. I mean, someone like me has no soapbox, and someone like Cory Doctorow has only a small one. Steve Jobs can command a major audience. Additionally, he's about the only guy benefiting from DRM. If he wants it gone, that says something.
No, you can read it. I'm reading it right now. It's only open to contributors for the time being though.
Does it matter?
on
SCO Vs. Groklaw
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· Score: 5, Interesting
As far as I know, everything hosted on Groklaw has been a matter of public record, and the blog has been clear in its anti-SCO bias from the get-go. There's no gag order in place, is there? And there's no rule that says you need to be honest on the Internet. I mean, since the info is true, does it legally have any bearing if PJ is one of IBM's lawyers, a real person, or the Easter Bunny?
Also, if Groklaw was run by IBM lawyers, why would it get involved in the Sony rootkit fiasco? I mean, IBM wouldn't want to come out against Sony if they could avoid it (supplying the PS3 with parts as they are) and also, why have your lawyers handle stuff like that?
Wrong. There are two types of pirates. Filesharers just need to crack a HDDVD or BluRay once, and upload it to the net. And most commercial pirates are overseas, where they can acquire cheap presses to press pirate copies, just like they do know for DVDs and CDs.
MS makes money when you virtualize - they make the same amount of money off a Windows install in a VM as they do on a HW install. Apple, however, loses a hardware sale (or a possible hardware sale). Therefore, MS wants you to virtualize (since they either upsell to Ultimate or Business editions, or make multiple sales, while Apple wants you to buy their hardware.
That's because of lack of native graphics support. A lot of OS X stuff can use the graphics card, and not having it forces OS X to fall back to SSE2 or Altivec, and if the VM can't virtualize SSE2/Altivec, it falls back on straight-up processor instructions, which'll be painful to say the least.
Personally, I would like that too. But Apple seems to have something for about 90% of the potential desktop market in all of 6 separate units* (4 iMacs, the Minis are the same minus a processor swap, there's only one Mac Pro with different processors/GPU). Dell, HP, Gateway, or whoever simply can't do that (or don't). It's a massive help to Apple, who move a lot fewer units than those Big 3 PC makers.
while that Vista may be equal in features but those features are poorly implemented
I try to argue by using what I call the "even-if" system. Basically, it boils down to: "Even if everything you say is absolutely correct, you're still wrong". I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, and still saying that even with all his assumptions (some of which I'd challenge), he still hasn't carried the argument sufficiently. In this specific instance, I'd take Tiger over Vista every day of the week and twice on Sundays, because I agree that Tiger has better implementations. Flip3D vs. Exposé is the best example of a shoddy Vista implementation of a Tiger feature.
Long term Apple has to be looking at the OS market and not seeing much of a future for OS X beyond its niche status. Vista has pretty much closed the gigantic security gap, no matter how much Mac fans don't want to believe it
This remains to be seen. Even if Vista is safer than XP (it probably is), there's not a lot of evidence that says it works. I mean, the fact that you're safe for the first two weeks means essentially nothing. Crackers and exploiters aren't rushing to be first, they're trying to hold their exploits until there are enough people about to make it worthwhile. Spammers/botters/virus-writers pay cash for vulnerabilities. They're not going to exploit Vista until there are enough potential victims to make that cash well-spent.
With regards to parallels, your logic only holds if Mac sales don't increase. A company is going to lose sales if it wants you to buy parallels and Windows for $250ish to run its software. And they'll be wide open to competitors who decide to offer native solutions.
Finally, your idea that Windows and Linux will quickly catch up to OS X assume that OS X is a stationary target. Between now and Vienna, 10.5 will ship, and 10.6 as well, assuming Vienna ships on time (mid-2009). Vista is currently about equal to OS X in features and ease-of-use, but that won't be true 4 months from now, and it will be even less true 18-24 months from now.
The issue is simply that massive servers are not cheap. Wikimedia is already at 100+ servers, and they are barely getting by. They could spend half a million on servers and still have a wish-list. And bandwidth isn't cheap. They get a charity discount, and a bulk discount, but it's still gigabytes and gigabytes a day.
The requirements would sound very high-end now, but likely will be just mid-range when it comes out in 2009. If I said the requirements for a decent run were a 2.4 GHz+ quad-core chip with 2-3 GB of RAM and 512MB VRAM, you'd cry, but the fact is that that'll be mid-range in 2009 (quad core is ultra-high-end now, high-end in late 2007, mid-range in 2008, halfway expected in 2009), just like dual core was premium in 2005, and is now pretty much mid-range to upper-mid-range.
I've been "using Vista" for 2 years via Tiger and Ubuntu, and I participated in the RC1 testing.
The simple answer is that Windows buyers fall into 4 groups: 1) Upgrade whenever IT feels like it. 2) Early adopters, bought Vista already. 3) Slow upgraders - will buy Vista in a year or so (when SP1 or whatever comes out) 4) Gets Vista with the regularly scheduled new computer.
Groups 1 and 4 are unaffected by Windows scheduling - they'll buy based on non-MS factors. Group 2 will likely buy any version of Windows early (either because they have to for their job [like developers], or because they're enthusiasts). By 2009, Group 3 will largely be on Vista anyways. Unless you bought a computer in Q2 2006 or later, the way processors are moving now, you'll be obsolete in 2009*. Not to mention that groups 2 and 3 are utterly dwarfed in size by groups 1 & 4. Therefore, 90% of MS sales are independent of how often they release their software.
* = note that this is accelerated by Vista. If everyone must have very high requirements to run Vista, then developers can soon start targeting more powerful computers.
That doesn't really apply to Windows, for two reasons:
1) Every consumer "needs" to replace their computer every 2-3 years. They won't delay a computer purchase more than 6 months in order to get the next OS. 2) Corporate sales often involve site licenses with a guaranteed free update. So if you buy a 5 year plan now, you pay $ X per year, and you can run XP, Vista, or the new OS when it's out. So an upcoming new release is essentially a bonus for those companies. The usual Microsoft strategy involves over-hyping the next release to appeal precisely to that. 3) Business's update at IT's pace. That is, just because Vista came out now doesn't mean they'll start using it now. They'll move to Vista in 12-18 months, independent of when the successor comes out.
There's a diminishing return on manpower. There's only so much the operating system can be fragmented, and each group can only be so large. That was part of Vista's problem - too many people having a say.
Currently, nearly all music from EMI is available on CDs anyways. So there's no "sharing" issue, because it's just as easy to pirate someone's MP3 they ripped as to pirate someone's MP3 they bought. Therefore, removing DRM from downloadable music does nothing to most piracy.
First of all, as I made clear in the post, I was guessing as to possible terms of the hidden contract. Without knowing the terms of the Apple contract or your contract, it's impossible to say which contract is better or worse, and even with all the terms, it's probably a wash.
There's a simple test to determine whether or not it's the RIAA who want the DRM. Does there exist a DRM-free store anywhere that sells RIAA music? eMusic is DRM-free, but it doesn't sell most RIAA songs. If the RIAA was willing to allow non-DRMed digital music, there would be someone willing to sell it, and plenty of people willing to buy it. There is no such source, so it stands to logic that it's not just Apple who want DRM.
Note that they are specifically labeled as podcasts - this just proves my point. They can sell podcasts without DRM (and it might be that they have no DRMed podcasts, I haven't checked), but they don't sell music without DRM.
See, but that would only be a major concern if the iPod wasn't the most popular DAP already. The iPod can now survive without the iTMS because there's just so much built around it, from the "coolness factor" to the fact that about half of all DAP peripherals use the iPod dock. And iPods are still the easiest to use with iTunes, especially since you get niceties like lyrics and album art transferred over as well. DRM certainly helped Apple get where it is, but it doesn't need it to stay there.
He knows what average means, he's just saying that average is not the right figure. The distribution is very important. A 22-song average would imply at first glance that only 1-2% of people are locked in, but if the distribution was a third the listeners with 66 songs and two thirds with none, then it would follow that a third are rather locked in (they take a $60 hit by going elsewhere for their DAP needs)
Also, DVD Jon was pointing out that Jobs's iPod figure reflected all iPods sold, not all that are functional or in use (a number that no one knows). People have been replacing iPods as they break, and have been upgrading as new ones get released. Additionally, music might be on more than one iPod, as a family might authorize everyone's computers to play everyone else's music, so that Bro and Sis can share songs on their iPods.
It's very possible that Apple's contract bans them from selling non-DRMed music alongside DRMed music. This explains why groups like Nettwerk haven't been given the option to sell their music DRM-free. Apple's got the best deal of all the music stores, they must have given up something to get it, and "all music must be DRMed" sounds very cartel-ish and would fit getting the good prices.
If it's good, then I'll probably see it in my Kubuntu in about a year and half (8.10 Irrepressible Iguana). See, this is what I like about free software. Borrow the good ideas from each other.
There are enough experts in the world on any topic for there to be a large plurality of editors for any given article. I say that there doesn't even need to be a dichotomy between "controversial" and "non-controversial"; just attach a plurality of editors to *every* article.
That's already the idea. The same person can't write and approve an article. Approval must be done by a plurality of uninvolved editors, or by a committee of editors collaborating on an article. Thus there would need to be several "Israeli generals" operating in unison, and they'd need to do so without another military history person noticing.
Slashdot Mirror
Chill the heck out, it's a spelling mistake.
Noone claims Jobs invented anti-DRM, but it's a bigger deal when a major player comes out against it than when a regular guy does. I mean, someone like me has no soapbox, and someone like Cory Doctorow has only a small one. Steve Jobs can command a major audience. Additionally, he's about the only guy benefiting from DRM. If he wants it gone, that says something.
No, you can read it. I'm reading it right now. It's only open to contributors for the time being though.
As far as I know, everything hosted on Groklaw has been a matter of public record, and the blog has been clear in its anti-SCO bias from the get-go. There's no gag order in place, is there? And there's no rule that says you need to be honest on the Internet. I mean, since the info is true, does it legally have any bearing if PJ is one of IBM's lawyers, a real person, or the Easter Bunny?
Also, if Groklaw was run by IBM lawyers, why would it get involved in the Sony rootkit fiasco? I mean, IBM wouldn't want to come out against Sony if they could avoid it (supplying the PS3 with parts as they are) and also, why have your lawyers handle stuff like that?
Wrong. There are two types of pirates. Filesharers just need to crack a HDDVD or BluRay once, and upload it to the net. And most commercial pirates are overseas, where they can acquire cheap presses to press pirate copies, just like they do know for DVDs and CDs.
MS makes money when you virtualize - they make the same amount of money off a Windows install in a VM as they do on a HW install. Apple, however, loses a hardware sale (or a possible hardware sale). Therefore, MS wants you to virtualize (since they either upsell to Ultimate or Business editions, or make multiple sales, while Apple wants you to buy their hardware.
That's because of lack of native graphics support. A lot of OS X stuff can use the graphics card, and not having it forces OS X to fall back to SSE2 or Altivec, and if the VM can't virtualize SSE2/Altivec, it falls back on straight-up processor instructions, which'll be painful to say the least.
Personally, I would like that too. But Apple seems to have something for about 90% of the potential desktop market in all of 6 separate units* (4 iMacs, the Minis are the same minus a processor swap, there's only one Mac Pro with different processors/GPU). Dell, HP, Gateway, or whoever simply can't do that (or don't). It's a massive help to Apple, who move a lot fewer units than those Big 3 PC makers.
* = and they only have 4 laptop units
while that Vista may be equal in features but those features are poorly implemented
I try to argue by using what I call the "even-if" system. Basically, it boils down to: "Even if everything you say is absolutely correct, you're still wrong". I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, and still saying that even with all his assumptions (some of which I'd challenge), he still hasn't carried the argument sufficiently. In this specific instance, I'd take Tiger over Vista every day of the week and twice on Sundays, because I agree that Tiger has better implementations. Flip3D vs. Exposé is the best example of a shoddy Vista implementation of a Tiger feature.
Long term Apple has to be looking at the OS market and not seeing much of a future for OS X beyond its niche status. Vista has pretty much closed the gigantic security gap, no matter how much Mac fans don't want to believe it
This remains to be seen. Even if Vista is safer than XP (it probably is), there's not a lot of evidence that says it works. I mean, the fact that you're safe for the first two weeks means essentially nothing. Crackers and exploiters aren't rushing to be first, they're trying to hold their exploits until there are enough people about to make it worthwhile. Spammers/botters/virus-writers pay cash for vulnerabilities. They're not going to exploit Vista until there are enough potential victims to make that cash well-spent.
With regards to parallels, your logic only holds if Mac sales don't increase. A company is going to lose sales if it wants you to buy parallels and Windows for $250ish to run its software. And they'll be wide open to competitors who decide to offer native solutions.
Finally, your idea that Windows and Linux will quickly catch up to OS X assume that OS X is a stationary target. Between now and Vienna, 10.5 will ship, and 10.6 as well, assuming Vienna ships on time (mid-2009). Vista is currently about equal to OS X in features and ease-of-use, but that won't be true 4 months from now, and it will be even less true 18-24 months from now.
Downloads of all the Wikimedia Projects. You need to do a lot of DB work (XML -> SQL conversion, importing, rebuilding tables, etc.)
The issue is simply that massive servers are not cheap. Wikimedia is already at 100+ servers, and they are barely getting by. They could spend half a million on servers and still have a wish-list. And bandwidth isn't cheap. They get a charity discount, and a bulk discount, but it's still gigabytes and gigabytes a day.
The requirements would sound very high-end now, but likely will be just mid-range when it comes out in 2009. If I said the requirements for a decent run were a 2.4 GHz+ quad-core chip with 2-3 GB of RAM and 512MB VRAM, you'd cry, but the fact is that that'll be mid-range in 2009 (quad core is ultra-high-end now, high-end in late 2007, mid-range in 2008, halfway expected in 2009), just like dual core was premium in 2005, and is now pretty much mid-range to upper-mid-range.
I've been "using Vista" for 2 years via Tiger and Ubuntu, and I participated in the RC1 testing.
The simple answer is that Windows buyers fall into 4 groups:
1) Upgrade whenever IT feels like it.
2) Early adopters, bought Vista already.
3) Slow upgraders - will buy Vista in a year or so (when SP1 or whatever comes out)
4) Gets Vista with the regularly scheduled new computer.
Groups 1 and 4 are unaffected by Windows scheduling - they'll buy based on non-MS factors. Group 2 will likely buy any version of Windows early (either because they have to for their job [like developers], or because they're enthusiasts). By 2009, Group 3 will largely be on Vista anyways. Unless you bought a computer in Q2 2006 or later, the way processors are moving now, you'll be obsolete in 2009*. Not to mention that groups 2 and 3 are utterly dwarfed in size by groups 1 & 4. Therefore, 90% of MS sales are independent of how often they release their software.
* = note that this is accelerated by Vista. If everyone must have very high requirements to run Vista, then developers can soon start targeting more powerful computers.
That doesn't really apply to Windows, for two reasons:
1) Every consumer "needs" to replace their computer every 2-3 years. They won't delay a computer purchase more than 6 months in order to get the next OS.
2) Corporate sales often involve site licenses with a guaranteed free update. So if you buy a 5 year plan now, you pay $ X per year, and you can run XP, Vista, or the new OS when it's out. So an upcoming new release is essentially a bonus for those companies. The usual Microsoft strategy involves over-hyping the next release to appeal precisely to that.
3) Business's update at IT's pace. That is, just because Vista came out now doesn't mean they'll start using it now. They'll move to Vista in 12-18 months, independent of when the successor comes out.
There's a diminishing return on manpower. There's only so much the operating system can be fragmented, and each group can only be so large. That was part of Vista's problem - too many people having a say.
Currently, nearly all music from EMI is available on CDs anyways. So there's no "sharing" issue, because it's just as easy to pirate someone's MP3 they ripped as to pirate someone's MP3 they bought. Therefore, removing DRM from downloadable music does nothing to most piracy.
First of all, as I made clear in the post, I was guessing as to possible terms of the hidden contract. Without knowing the terms of the Apple contract or your contract, it's impossible to say which contract is better or worse, and even with all the terms, it's probably a wash.
There's a simple test to determine whether or not it's the RIAA who want the DRM. Does there exist a DRM-free store anywhere that sells RIAA music? eMusic is DRM-free, but it doesn't sell most RIAA songs. If the RIAA was willing to allow non-DRMed digital music, there would be someone willing to sell it, and plenty of people willing to buy it. There is no such source, so it stands to logic that it's not just Apple who want DRM.
Note that they are specifically labeled as podcasts - this just proves my point. They can sell podcasts without DRM (and it might be that they have no DRMed podcasts, I haven't checked), but they don't sell music without DRM.
See, but that would only be a major concern if the iPod wasn't the most popular DAP already. The iPod can now survive without the iTMS because there's just so much built around it, from the "coolness factor" to the fact that about half of all DAP peripherals use the iPod dock. And iPods are still the easiest to use with iTunes, especially since you get niceties like lyrics and album art transferred over as well. DRM certainly helped Apple get where it is, but it doesn't need it to stay there.
He knows what average means, he's just saying that average is not the right figure. The distribution is very important. A 22-song average would imply at first glance that only 1-2% of people are locked in, but if the distribution was a third the listeners with 66 songs and two thirds with none, then it would follow that a third are rather locked in (they take a $60 hit by going elsewhere for their DAP needs)
Also, DVD Jon was pointing out that Jobs's iPod figure reflected all iPods sold, not all that are functional or in use (a number that no one knows). People have been replacing iPods as they break, and have been upgrading as new ones get released. Additionally, music might be on more than one iPod, as a family might authorize everyone's computers to play everyone else's music, so that Bro and Sis can share songs on their iPods.
It's very possible that Apple's contract bans them from selling non-DRMed music alongside DRMed music. This explains why groups like Nettwerk haven't been given the option to sell their music DRM-free. Apple's got the best deal of all the music stores, they must have given up something to get it, and "all music must be DRMed" sounds very cartel-ish and would fit getting the good prices.
A) I didn't advertise it to the world. Someone wrote a slashdot story.
B) Advertising is good because we could always use more contributors...
If it's good, then I'll probably see it in my Kubuntu in about a year and half (8.10 Irrepressible Iguana). See, this is what I like about free software. Borrow the good ideas from each other.
There are enough experts in the world on any topic for there to be a large plurality of editors for any given article. I say that there doesn't even need to be a dichotomy between "controversial" and "non-controversial"; just attach a plurality of editors to *every* article.
That's already the idea. The same person can't write and approve an article. Approval must be done by a plurality of uninvolved editors, or by a committee of editors collaborating on an article. Thus there would need to be several "Israeli generals" operating in unison, and they'd need to do so without another military history person noticing.