The vwvortex is a nice concept car. No one will buy it however, and very little of the technology will translate into improved fuel efficiency in the sort of cars consumers will buy.
If you want to make a more efficient car, you 1) Make it more aerodynamic 2) Use diesel, tweak fuel injection and compression 3) Use a small engine 4) Reduce weight wherever possible.
After following these steps, you get a 200+ MPG car (provided you only drive it on flat ground). However, make a small engine motorcycle fully faired and you'll get more than half-way to this.
Hybrid cars are just plain more efficient. And fuel cells will come about for one simple reason - they will require MORE fossil fuel to run than current cars, but more of it will come from American sources. You gotta get the hydrogen from somewhere - current plans indicate it will come from natural gas at home. So, you come home, plug the gas line into your fuel cell car, and fill it up with hydrogen. It burns as Zero Emission because it makes only water as a by-product of combustion.
But there are conversion losses, so we end up using even more natural gas than we would have used gasoline. More money for energy companies - and more of it American.
This is the American way - big business marketing laws to pass so that consumers end up giving them even more money. Zero emission is nice. But is it worth an even greater use of fossil fuels, and even greater CO2 release than before ?
I mean, the sample size is pretty small - one book. It's promising to see this happening, but I hesitate to jump to the end result of "it works". Then again, that's books and the hot topic of discussion isn't about books.
Actually, it is several books. The strongest point made, perhaps, are that 1) Sales are initially very strong, then fade fast 2) In the middle of the fading period, if the title is made available free online, sales inexplicably rise.
This would suggest at least that music titles that have been released for more than a year or two, especially from low-sales artists, will benefit from being freely available after an initial period of not being freely available. I think I agree with that argument. It is kind of the same argument about movie VHS tapes: first year, very expensive, second year, $10, third year, $2 bin.
Precisely - I'm still waiting for a real embbedded (both qt and gtk) vim component - My evolution, kmail and a bunch of others desire for it;).
I don't get it. I use mutt to read mail, and it is quite happy to embed vim for my usage in a console window.
I think the fancy trick used is called a pipe, but I am not sure. But it seems any editor that can run in a console can use the same trick, so maybe OLEs for linux are pretty advanced already ?
How modular is Linux? How easy is it to pull apart the pieces? (I honestly don't know the answers, so input would be great).
The rule-of-thumb in linux kernel development is that if there is not a substantial advantage to having something in the kernel, it should live in user-space (and run with user privileges and priorities).
So things like TCP/IP stacks, block I/O, etc, are in the kernel. Things like web browsers are out of the kernel. Things like device drivers (and all stuff that 'touches' hardware except the video card) are in the kernel, but are loaded as modules. Anything that has an easily defined interface is a module (like devices).
In essence, linux could already comply to the dissenting states' requirements for modularity in an operating system.
First of all, there is no way Microsoft can enforce conditions upon the implementation of a standard (read: "standard"). Entering into a contract requires, well, that you enter into a contract.
Sure they can. First, they patented the methods used in the standard. Then, they used the standard. Now, they have the right to deny anyone else the use of that standard for any reason they want. That is what patented IP is all about.
Secondly, this is a -- if not the -- prime example of what's wrong with the "intellectual property" faction of anti-GPL types. The GPL in no way inhibits intellectual property.
That part is largely a marketing ploy against the GPL. Of course anyone that understands IP law knows that a third party's programming effort cannot affect their IP, but this is all part of dragging the GPL through the mud.
The main issue here is that Microsoft claims 1) The CIFS is patented 2) If you want to implement it, you have to play by our rules 3) No GPL for you !
The terms of patent law apply to them, surely. However the terms of this particular license does not apply to them unless they agree to it.
Well, sort of. The license actually states that any use of the patented methods must adhere to terms of the license. So Microsoft's stance would be that it is illegal to use their patents except in the case that the terms of this license are agreed to.
The patents actually cover file transfer under the SAMBA protocol.
Microsoft would, of course, have to send a "desist or we'll sue" letter to SAMBA or NAS makers to get the ball rolling, something they are reluctant to do.
I was looking at that...What do those patents claim, and is it possible to implement CIFS without them? If not, then M$ has something with which to hit Samba over the head...
They basically describe the SAMBA protocol.
Microsoft will need to actively stop people from using SAMBA, which they may choose to do. I suspect the EFF would contest the patent claims, and an enormous PR war would ensue. It would be really ugly.
Right now, Microsoft seems to want developers to agree not to use their tech spec document to make GPL'd implementations of SAMBA.
It seems pretty straightforward: if you want to read/access the document you must be agree to the terms. Samba reverse engineered its implementation, and so, therefore, does not need to follow this license or view the documment.
Not in patent law. Microsoft has patented methods used to authenticate users in their networked file system. Microsoft can deny ANYONE the right to use this authentication mechanism using any terms they like. Reverse engineering is fine for circumventing methods decsribed in copyrighted works; it is useless against patent protection.
I didn't read fully the gist of what Microsoft did, but it certainly seems like they just made it illegal to use a GPLd SAMBA that uses their patented authentication, and forced anyone else to get a license from them to use the SMB protocol.
Bass is easy. It is a slow waveform, relatively easy to cancel, and relatively hard to keep out with thick walls.
Geez - 4 digits sums ! This is really an undergraduate project that would involve two microphones, a low pass filter, an amplifier, an audio amp, and a speaker.
But that's kind of the point. If we don't offer patent protection for software innovations-- truly deserving ones, I mean-- then we'll never know what we missed.
You missed MY main point. Patent protection exists to promote the transfer of inventions into public domain. Software patents barely if at all fulfill that role. By the time a software patent expires, it is usually not useful at all. And throughout its lifetime, it prevents others from using it.
Software, like music, is fundamentally expression based, and copyright was invented to protect expression. And, copyright NEVER protects concepts or ideas embodied in some expression - merely the specific expression of them.
I don't. You're forgetting the purpose of patent protection: to encourage innovation.
There's no real cost to innovating in music or art. It doesn't take ten years and three billion dollars to come up with a new melody. So there's little barrier to innovation in music. Anybody can do it, and many people do.
I think that you are quite silly. Masterful composers can take years to write innovative new symphonies. There are few people who even are capable of doing this. It is not as though any old Alfred E. Neuman can write a symphony.
OTOH, any old Alfred E. Neuman with a copy of VisualBasic can choke email servers around the world.
But software-- and more importantly innovation in software-- is a really important thing. To a large extent, our society and our economy are powered by software.
Let's take a REALLY good example - the spreadsheet. It was not patented, and its inventors made next to nothing from it.
Did we not benefit from this innovation (and this would be considered by ANY standard in use today to be innovative and patentable) ? Is this innovation not broadly in use today ?
In what way would we, as consumers, be better off if the spreadsheet had been patented ?
I guess the argument is that the spreadsheet may never have been invented if its inventors cared about IP. But that is a moot point; they didn't and we still have the spreadsheet. There are scores of other examples of patentable ideas that were not patented (TeX typesetting is another good one) that are REALLY broadly in use today. I doubt as a consumer I would suffer AT ALL if software patents did not exist.
Let's not forget - the entire purpose of patents is creating the largest repository possible of public domain IP. Patents encourage disclosure so that the invention becomes public domain after a limited time, and that makes all of our lives richer, because eventually we use the patent for free.
Software patents rarely become public domain in a meaningful way. They are choking the industry.
The Dead allowed people to record their concerts from the beginning. Part of their success is owed to the distribution of live shows. JamBands such as Phish have kept with that tradition with much success.
The Dead were hardcore against tapers in the beginning, and came around sometime in the early to mid 1970s, neophyte. Barlow calls it the invention of viral marketing. (Barlow was a writer for the Dead, and is now EFF head honcho).
I think the most interesting current model is The String Cheese Incident. They made their own record company, and will sell you a recording CD set from any concert of theirs. In addition, you are free to tape it yourself.
How many people will tape a concert if they can buy it for $18 (a 3-4 CD set) ?
Barlow has many writings about the Dead and taping. He claims that musicians make most of their money from concert revenues anyway, so giving the music away doesn't hurt much. In fact, it seemed to boost both regular CD sales and concert attendance.
The people who make money from music sales are the record companies, plain and simple.
The problem with Quicktime is not Apple, it's the people that do the codec (Soresen? sorry can't remember off hand).
This is utter BS. Apple has exclusive licensing - any lack of players for linux is entirely in their camp. They will not release one, and will not allow anyone else to either through patent protection. Sorensen makes lotsa cash from Apple, but has no control.
Anyone who has contacted Sorensen can confirm this. The rest is just, well, spin by Apple.
Neither Microsoft nor Apple wants to legitimatize linux as a platform for playing multimedia, plain and simple.
If they are 'free-as-in-everything' they can't be GPL'd. Because public domain means setting it all free so even your enemy can use it.
Your enemy can use GPLd works - he just has to make available the source when he distributes them.
All the GPL'd code will be public domain before long anyhow. We're anti-copyright and without long-term copyrights, all the GPL'd code will be public domain quickly.
Dunno about we, but GPL advocates are NOT anti-copyright. The same copyright laws that protect authors allow the GPL to force derivative works of GPL license works to release source code as part of distributing the work. Without copyright law there could be no GPL.
And public domain has entirely different connotations. Yes, certainly, GPL works will fall under public domain 75 years after their authors die, but that is not realistic in the software world. But you should feel free to use any source you like from programs written in the early 1920s.
Then MPlayer violates criterion 2 of the Open Source Definition and is therefore not Open Source. I'd rather buy the similarly non Open Source Crossover and help fund the developers of the LGPL/X11 licensed Wine (many of whom work for Codeweavers, including Alexandre Julliard, the founder o the project). MPlayer also obviously can't handle Sorenson Quicktime.
Mplayer is no more and no less 'free' in the free speech sense than Codeweavers, but it is 'free' in the free beer sense. Free beer beats paying for beer, obviously.
Also, Mplayer is a movie player intrinsic to linux, so it takes full advantage of the Xvideo and SDL extensions when possible, and it scales easily, syncs properly, etc. And it plays anything WMP can play.
As for Quicktime using Sorenson, they are working on they API - I doubt it will be long judging from the latest on the email list.
I don't have anything against contributing to WINE, but Mplayer can be downloaded and installed by just about anyone for free, and that is kinda nice too.
We cannot afford to let Microsoft monopolize this market. Think of the ramifications of Microsoft having a 100 percent lock on digital content. Digital Rights Management? Easy... just put it in Windows Media. Region lockouts? Put it in Windows Media. Want to work around those problems? Sorry, you can't, because digital media is Windows Media and you don't have any other choice!
There is really no choice now. If you want to make a high quality video you would know this. You can 1) Pay to use Real. 2) Pay to use WM7 or WM8 3) Pay to use Sorenson 4) Use opendivx, which most Windows and Mac users cannot play.
Real, WM7 and 8, and Sorenson are all patent protected. And the future here is anything but bright. MPEG4 is laced with patents and they want to make as much money off streaming media as possible. There are literally NO free alternatives that are high quality and allow people from Windows, Mac, and linux to view video. [if I am wrong - I'd love to hear about it - but I've researched this a bit lately for my own projects]
Ogg is working on Tarkin, an open video codec, but they are still in the "throwing ideas around" phase.
Me - I make mine vids in MPEG1, b/c I need for some WebTV users to see them, and they can only view MPEG1s. Online video is horrible, and this doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.
Mplayer plays any video WMP can play, and plays it with its own interface directly to the WMP codecs, and does it for free. The downside is they only allow source distribution, because it sorta auto-configures in a massive way during the build. The player is open source, the codecs are not.
NTFS has features like ACLs, streams, etc that aren't in FFS or UFS. Also, support for transparent compression and encryption, also sparse files. There's support for quotas in the filesystem, and it's quite resistant to the effects of fragmentation. It's journalled and supports Unicode. It's actually a very good filesystem, once of the better parts of NT.
Right. This begs the question of why bother ?
The push et al is just a load of hype to push the upgrade path. They are going to engineer a database into their file system "to make searches faster" because doing it the slocate way would not force another round of complete system upgrades on consumers.
You may have also noticed that Outlook and Office will need to be rewritten to "take advantage" of the new file system. So not only will they leverage OS upgrades, but Office upgrades as well. They are planning to rip out a perfectly good file system (which is called "antiquated" in the article) to make billions of dollars, and the press releases are all about consumer benefit.
And consumer benefit, as you have noted, is essentially nil.
If AOL rolls out a Gecko-based client, it will take a long long time to do so. Further, they will then have to migrate 24 million accounts from IE to (likely less-functional) Netscape 6.x.
This is AOL. You will upgrade and be assimilated whether you like it or not.
As to commanding the web to rewrite - the web rewrites for its readership, provided they exist in adequate percentages. No one ever commanded anything. Authors write for their audience - always have, always will. A few years back when IE and Netscape both had market share, people had to write and validate independently for both.
If AOL really makes this move, it will mean the same situation will return. Web authors will need to validate for Mozilla and IE. And for other than Microsoft web users, this is a "good thing."
I dunno abour your predictions, but AOL switching to a Gecko rendering base will do wonders for web standards compliance.
And an AOL-linux client will be a big seller too, but at the OEM level. Grandma will buy a box set up to connect, with a user interface she would never know is linux if you asked her. It will have an AOL interface - and a linux engine.
Actually, they licensed the spyglass browser and then gave it away for free. Nearly killed the company (Spyglass)
And the CTO from Spyglass - is now the head of Abisource which makes a GPLd word processor compatible with GNOME.
Spyglass was actually just leasing Mosaic code from University of Illinois. Gates cost those academic institutions billions when he gave away IE. Spyglass musta had pretty ridiculous contractual lawyers, or idiots running the business end.
Burrow-owls live in a hole in the ground. Why the hell do you think they call them burrow-owls, anyway ?
That wasnt' the point. The antitrust abuses in Standard Oil and AT&T cases had to do with collusion at different levels of companies that used to be separate, but had merged.
But the point goes further. It is not mandated to break up a monopoly unless the antitrust abuse is used to maintain the monopoly. Instead, this case demonstrated the monopoly being used to leverage new markets. Therefore, the remedy should address the issue of Microsoft being able to leverage middleware, and the OS monopoly should not, and will not, be addressed.
As such, a legally appropriate and suitable remedy would be forcing the componentization of all Microsoft middleware, and forcing Microsoft to sell its OS and middleware separately. You can buy them together (at OEM level too), but it will cost more than just buying the stripped down version. Pay more for email, more for IE, more for the Media Player. There is no penalty from Microsoft for buying a packaged version with Eudora and Realplayer and Quicktime and Mozilla instead. This is the essence of the alternative states' proposal. It would free up the middleware market if it were enforced.
Slashdot Mirror
The vwvortex is a nice concept car. No one will buy it however, and very little of the technology will translate into improved fuel efficiency in the sort of cars consumers will buy.
If you want to make a more efficient car, you
1) Make it more aerodynamic
2) Use diesel, tweak fuel injection and compression
3) Use a small engine
4) Reduce weight wherever possible.
After following these steps, you get a 200+ MPG car (provided you only drive it on flat ground). However, make a small engine motorcycle fully faired and you'll get more than half-way to this.
Hybrid cars are just plain more efficient. And fuel cells will come about for one simple reason - they will require MORE fossil fuel to run than current cars, but more of it will come from American sources. You gotta get the hydrogen from somewhere - current plans indicate it will come from natural gas at home. So, you come home, plug the gas line into your fuel cell car, and fill it up with hydrogen. It burns as Zero Emission because it makes only water as a by-product of combustion.
But there are conversion losses, so we end up using even more natural gas than we would have used gasoline. More money for energy companies - and more of it American.
This is the American way - big business marketing laws to pass so that consumers end up giving them even more money. Zero emission is nice. But is it worth an even greater use of fossil fuels, and even greater CO2 release than before ?
I mean, the sample size is pretty small - one book. It's promising to see this happening, but I hesitate to jump to the end result of "it works". Then again, that's books and the hot topic of discussion isn't about books.
Actually, it is several books. The strongest point made, perhaps, are that
1) Sales are initially very strong, then fade fast
2) In the middle of the fading period, if the title is made available free online, sales inexplicably rise.
This would suggest at least that music titles that have been released for more than a year or two, especially from low-sales artists, will benefit from being freely available after an initial period of not being freely available. I think I agree with that argument. It is kind of the same argument about movie VHS tapes: first year, very expensive, second year, $10, third year, $2 bin.
Precisely - I'm still waiting for a real embbedded (both qt and gtk) vim component - My evolution, kmail and a bunch of others desire for it ;).
I don't get it. I use mutt to read mail, and it is quite happy to embed vim for my usage in a console window.
I think the fancy trick used is called a pipe, but I am not sure. But it seems any editor that can run in a console can use the same trick, so maybe OLEs for linux are pretty advanced already ?
How modular is Linux?
How easy is it to pull apart the pieces?
(I honestly don't know the answers, so input would be great).
The rule-of-thumb in linux kernel development is that if there is not a substantial advantage to having something in the kernel, it should live in user-space (and run with user privileges and priorities).
So things like TCP/IP stacks, block I/O, etc, are in the kernel. Things like web browsers are out of the kernel. Things like device drivers (and all stuff that 'touches' hardware except the video card) are in the kernel, but are loaded as modules. Anything that has an easily defined interface is a module (like devices).
In essence, linux could already comply to the dissenting states' requirements for modularity in an operating system.
First of all, there is no way Microsoft can enforce conditions upon the implementation of a standard (read: "standard"). Entering into a contract requires, well, that you enter into a contract.
Sure they can. First, they patented the methods used in the standard. Then, they used the standard. Now, they have the right to deny anyone else the use of that standard for any reason they want. That is what patented IP is all about.
Secondly, this is a -- if not the -- prime example of what's wrong with the "intellectual property" faction of anti-GPL types. The GPL in no way inhibits intellectual property.
That part is largely a marketing ploy against the GPL. Of course anyone that understands IP law knows that a third party's programming effort cannot affect their IP, but this is all part of dragging the GPL through the mud.
The main issue here is that Microsoft claims
1) The CIFS is patented
2) If you want to implement it, you have to play by our rules
3) No GPL for you !
The terms of patent law apply to them, surely. However the terms of this particular license does not apply to them unless they agree to it.
Well, sort of. The license actually states that any use of the patented methods must adhere to terms of the license. So Microsoft's stance would be that it is illegal to use their patents except in the case that the terms of this license are agreed to.
The patents actually cover file transfer under the SAMBA protocol.
Microsoft would, of course, have to send a "desist or we'll sue" letter to SAMBA or NAS makers to get the ball rolling, something they are reluctant to do.
I was looking at that...What do those patents claim, and is it possible to implement CIFS without them? If not, then M$ has something with which to hit Samba over the head...
They basically describe the SAMBA protocol.
Microsoft will need to actively stop people from using SAMBA, which they may choose to do. I suspect the EFF would contest the patent claims, and an enormous PR war would ensue. It would be really ugly.
Right now, Microsoft seems to want developers to agree not to use their tech spec document to make GPL'd implementations of SAMBA.
It seems pretty straightforward: if you want to read/access the document you must be agree to the terms. Samba reverse engineered its implementation, and so, therefore, does not need to follow this license or view the documment.
Not in patent law. Microsoft has patented methods used to authenticate users in their networked file system. Microsoft can deny ANYONE the right to use this authentication mechanism using any terms they like. Reverse engineering is fine for circumventing methods decsribed in copyrighted works; it is useless against patent protection.
I didn't read fully the gist of what Microsoft did, but it certainly seems like they just made it illegal to use a GPLd SAMBA that uses their patented authentication, and forced anyone else to get a license from them to use the SMB protocol.
Bass is easy. It is a slow waveform, relatively easy to cancel, and relatively hard to keep out with thick walls.
Geez - 4 digits sums ! This is really an undergraduate project that would involve two microphones, a low pass filter, an amplifier, an audio amp, and a speaker.
But that's kind of the point. If we don't offer patent protection for software innovations-- truly deserving ones, I mean-- then we'll never know what we missed.
You missed MY main point. Patent protection exists to promote the transfer of inventions into public domain. Software patents barely if at all fulfill that role. By the time a software patent expires, it is usually not useful at all. And throughout its lifetime, it prevents others from using it.
Software, like music, is fundamentally expression based, and copyright was invented to protect expression. And, copyright NEVER protects concepts or ideas embodied in some expression - merely the specific expression of them.
I don't. You're forgetting the purpose of patent protection: to encourage innovation.
There's no real cost to innovating in music or art. It doesn't take ten years and three billion dollars to come up with a new melody. So there's little barrier to innovation in music. Anybody can do it, and many people do.
I think that you are quite silly. Masterful composers can take years to write innovative new symphonies. There are few people who even are capable of doing this. It is not as though any old Alfred E. Neuman can write a symphony.
OTOH, any old Alfred E. Neuman with a copy of VisualBasic can choke email servers around the world.
But software-- and more importantly innovation in software-- is a really important thing. To a large extent, our society and our economy are powered by software.
Let's take a REALLY good example - the spreadsheet. It was not patented, and its inventors made next to nothing from it.
Did we not benefit from this innovation (and this would be considered by ANY standard in use today to be innovative and patentable) ? Is this innovation not broadly in use today ?
In what way would we, as consumers, be better off if the spreadsheet had been patented ?
I guess the argument is that the spreadsheet may never have been invented if its inventors cared about IP. But that is a moot point; they didn't and we still have the spreadsheet. There are scores of other examples of patentable ideas that were not patented (TeX typesetting is another good one) that are REALLY broadly in use today. I doubt as a consumer I would suffer AT ALL if software patents did not exist.
Let's not forget - the entire purpose of patents is creating the largest repository possible of public domain IP. Patents encourage disclosure so that the invention becomes public domain after a limited time, and that makes all of our lives richer, because eventually we use the patent for free.
Software patents rarely become public domain in a meaningful way. They are choking the industry.
The Dead allowed people to record their concerts from the beginning. Part of their success is owed to the distribution of live shows. JamBands such as Phish have kept with that tradition with much success.
The Dead were hardcore against tapers in the beginning, and came around sometime in the early to mid 1970s, neophyte. Barlow calls it the invention of viral marketing. (Barlow was a writer for the Dead, and is now EFF head honcho).
I think the most interesting current model is The String Cheese Incident. They made their own record company, and will sell you a recording CD set from any concert of theirs. In addition, you are free to tape it yourself.
How many people will tape a concert if they can buy it for $18 (a 3-4 CD set) ?
Barlow has many writings about the Dead and taping. He claims that musicians make most of their money from concert revenues anyway, so giving the music away doesn't hurt much. In fact, it seemed to boost both regular CD sales and concert attendance.
The people who make money from music sales are the record companies, plain and simple.
Yo. Waddsa paddwoid ?
The problem with Quicktime is not Apple, it's the people that do the codec (Soresen? sorry can't remember off hand).
This is utter BS. Apple has exclusive licensing - any lack of players for linux is entirely in their camp. They will not release one, and will not allow anyone else to either through patent protection. Sorensen makes lotsa cash from Apple, but has no control.
Anyone who has contacted Sorensen can confirm this. The rest is just, well, spin by Apple.
Neither Microsoft nor Apple wants to legitimatize linux as a platform for playing multimedia, plain and simple.
This was a bizarro post.
If they are 'free-as-in-everything' they can't be GPL'd.
Because public domain means setting it all free so even your enemy can use it.
Your enemy can use GPLd works - he just has to make available the source when he distributes them.
All the GPL'd code will be public domain before long anyhow. We're anti-copyright and without long-term copyrights, all the GPL'd code will be public domain quickly.
Dunno about we, but GPL advocates are NOT anti-copyright. The same copyright laws that protect authors allow the GPL to force derivative works of GPL license works to release source code as part of distributing the work. Without copyright law there could be no GPL.
And public domain has entirely different connotations. Yes, certainly, GPL works will fall under public domain 75 years after their authors die, but that is not realistic in the software world. But you should feel free to use any source you like from programs written in the early 1920s.
Then MPlayer violates criterion 2 of the Open Source Definition and is therefore not Open Source. I'd rather buy the similarly non Open Source Crossover and help fund the developers of the LGPL/X11 licensed Wine (many of whom work for Codeweavers, including Alexandre Julliard, the founder o the project). MPlayer also obviously can't handle Sorenson Quicktime.
Mplayer is no more and no less 'free' in the free speech sense than Codeweavers, but it is 'free' in the free beer sense. Free beer beats paying for beer, obviously.
Also, Mplayer is a movie player intrinsic to linux, so it takes full advantage of the Xvideo and SDL extensions when possible, and it scales easily, syncs properly, etc. And it plays anything WMP can play.
As for Quicktime using Sorenson, they are working on they API - I doubt it will be long judging from the latest on the email list.
I don't have anything against contributing to WINE, but Mplayer can be downloaded and installed by just about anyone for free, and that is kinda nice too.
We cannot afford to let Microsoft monopolize this market. Think of the ramifications of Microsoft having a 100 percent lock on digital content. Digital Rights Management? Easy... just put it in Windows Media. Region lockouts? Put it in Windows Media. Want to work around those problems? Sorry, you can't, because digital media is Windows Media and you don't have any other choice!
There is really no choice now. If you want to make a high quality video you would know this. You can
1) Pay to use Real.
2) Pay to use WM7 or WM8
3) Pay to use Sorenson
4) Use opendivx, which most Windows and Mac users cannot play.
Real, WM7 and 8, and Sorenson are all patent protected. And the future here is anything but bright. MPEG4 is laced with patents and they want to make as much money off streaming media as possible. There are literally NO free alternatives that are high quality and allow people from Windows, Mac, and linux to view video. [if I am wrong - I'd love to hear about it - but I've researched this a bit lately for my own projects]
Ogg is working on Tarkin, an open video codec, but they are still in the "throwing ideas around" phase.
Me - I make mine vids in MPEG1, b/c I need for some WebTV users to see them, and they can only view MPEG1s. Online video is horrible, and this doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.
You call it Mplayer
Mplayer plays any video WMP can play, and plays it with its own interface directly to the WMP codecs, and does it for free. The downside is they only allow source distribution, because it sorta auto-configures in a massive way during the build. The player is open source, the codecs are not.
Works really really well.
NTFS has features like ACLs, streams, etc that aren't in FFS or UFS. Also, support for transparent compression and encryption, also sparse files. There's support for quotas in the filesystem, and it's quite resistant to the effects of fragmentation. It's journalled and supports Unicode. It's actually a very good filesystem, once of the better parts of NT.
Right. This begs the question of why bother ?
The push et al is just a load of hype to push the upgrade path. They are going to engineer a database into their file system "to make searches faster" because doing it the slocate way would not force another round of complete system upgrades on consumers.
You may have also noticed that Outlook and Office will need to be rewritten to "take advantage" of the new file system. So not only will they leverage OS upgrades, but Office upgrades as well. They are planning to rip out a perfectly good file system (which is called "antiquated" in the article) to make billions of dollars, and the press releases are all about consumer benefit.
And consumer benefit, as you have noted, is essentially nil.
that they can simply take FFS and Soft Updates and embed it in Windows, and call it OFS.
Now that would be a substantial improvement.
If AOL rolls out a Gecko-based client, it will take a long long time to do so. Further, they will then have to migrate 24 million accounts from IE to (likely less-functional) Netscape 6.x.
This is AOL. You will upgrade and be assimilated whether you like it or not.
As to commanding the web to rewrite - the web rewrites for its readership, provided they exist in adequate percentages. No one ever commanded anything. Authors write for their audience - always have, always will. A few years back when IE and Netscape both had market share, people had to write and validate independently for both.
If AOL really makes this move, it will mean the same situation will return. Web authors will need to validate for Mozilla and IE. And for other than Microsoft web users, this is a "good thing."
I dunno abour your predictions, but AOL switching to a Gecko rendering base will do wonders for web standards compliance.
And an AOL-linux client will be a big seller too, but at the OEM level. Grandma will buy a box set up to connect, with a user interface she would never know is linux if you asked her. It will have an AOL interface - and a linux engine.
Actually, they licensed the spyglass browser and then gave it away for free. Nearly killed the company (Spyglass)
And the CTO from Spyglass - is now the head of Abisource which makes a GPLd word processor compatible with GNOME.
Spyglass was actually just leasing Mosaic code from University of Illinois. Gates cost those academic institutions billions when he gave away IE. Spyglass musta had pretty ridiculous contractual lawyers, or idiots running the business end.
Burrow-owls live in a hole in the ground. Why the hell do you think they call them burrow-owls, anyway ?
So, Microsoft didn't buy anyone?
That wasnt' the point. The antitrust abuses in Standard Oil and AT&T cases had to do with collusion at different levels of companies that used to be separate, but had merged.
But the point goes further. It is not mandated to break up a monopoly unless the antitrust abuse is used to maintain the monopoly. Instead, this case demonstrated the monopoly being used to leverage new markets. Therefore, the remedy should address the issue of Microsoft being able to leverage middleware, and the OS monopoly should not, and will not, be addressed.
As such, a legally appropriate and suitable remedy would be forcing the componentization of all Microsoft middleware, and forcing Microsoft to sell its OS and middleware separately. You can buy them together (at OEM level too), but it will cost more than just buying the stripped down version. Pay more for email, more for IE, more for the Media Player. There is no penalty from Microsoft for buying a packaged version with Eudora and Realplayer and Quicktime and Mozilla instead. This is the essence of the alternative states' proposal. It would free up the middleware market if it were enforced.
The bells never merged. There was AT&T and that was it.
Check this link
Standard Oil didn't merge with anyone. They bought or crushed all their competitors.
Right. They bought their competitors, or merged with them in the business sense. Check this link
Happy now ?