In other news today, a faulty air bag was blamed for the death of a driver in a recent accident. The auto manufacturer's safety claims for the car were obviously overblown, and their smugness is now revealed.
Update later that day: As a side note to this story, the owner of the vehicle replaced the OEM airbag with one from Orval Reddenbacker, so she could eat popcorn in case she was in an accident. We originally decided we would overlook this aspect, because we have an axe to grind with this manufacturer and to create buzz generating free advertising for our company.
Here's a sample letter I sent to my Senator. Modify the pro-blah blah part to fit whatever ideology your senator perports to. A good lobbying tip is to get your congressman to think eliminating software patents is in the best interest of their public agenda, regardless of whatever that may be. Tie your agenda into their's, or you won't easily get their attention. You can do thay by putting some of their mantra in the first sentance, and tieing it into your issue.
Notice I put the additional information link at the bottom. Probably no one will look at it, that's why it's at the bottom. The Amicus Brief I inlined. Since it is being heard by the supreme court, it's a Washington issue and more likely to actually be of interest to those inside the beltway.
Dear Senator/Representitive blah blah, I'm pro-small business, pro-innovation, and pro-low taxes. Software patents are bad for all those stances.
Large companies which previously were all for broader and broader patents are beginning to realize the error of their earlier ways. As is seen in this case currently before the supreme court.
Lawsuits which are now starting against OpenSource software developers and users will be a terrible drag on innovation and consequently our economy. Half the internet (or more) is power by such software, and that includes government networks. A high cost will be bore by the tax payer if OpenSource software is made illegal by software patents, and the government has to replace thousands of networks running on free software with commercial solutions. Not to mention the transitions costs.
I am not an OpenSource software developer, but by my business relies on software from companies such as RedHat, IBM, and MySQL which do. If they cannot deliver their OpenSource software, my business will not survive.
Software patents are stifling innovation and consequently our economy. Please take action to roll back or completely eliminate software patents.
The article is written to make you think this treaty will steal copyrights away from content creators if they choose to broadcast content through some broadcaster of some sort. It does not do that. So the article is being alarmist to attract attention. (That or they probably didn't read the treaty either.)
The Bad: Looks like it would put an end to PVRs as we know them. I'm sure ABC would allow Comcast to rent you a PVR which enforces ABC's rebroadcast requirements. YUCK! So the article got that much right.
The not bad: The so called restrictions on the original content creators don't exist. Basically the treaty states FOX can state terms to Groening that if they are going to broadcast the Simpsons on their network it is going to have the broadcast flag and be restricted according to their policy. Groening could of course not agree to those terms and tell them to fly a kite. Fox may then come back to groening and say OK we won't do the broadcast flag. That my friends will never happen, because Groening wants FOX to get the add revenue (which is of course how they pay him). Even with the broadcast flag on every episode of the Simpsons there would be nothing preventing Groening from hosting a webcast of the show himself without the broadcast flag. That is unless his contract with FOX prevents him from doing so, which I think it already does anyway.
The unclear: The webcast amendment doesn't appear to read like Comcast can tack on a broadcast flag to a home movie my parents stream from my.mac account. It seems to be giving the webcaster the right to impose such restrictions if they wanted to. In this example.mac would have to add the broadcast flag to the video. Comcast simply being the conduit, could not. So this has the same restrictions as over-the-air broadcasters, I could still chose not to use that service and set up my own server if I didn't agree to the terms.
So, for content creators the sky is not falling, but for PVR users it probably is. This isn't really anything new, just more of the same. I am not sure what to think about this actually. I don't think it's evil as some would like to suggest. If everyone skipped all commercials, networks would go out of business as we know them. That wouldn't cause an end to media, it would just transform the way we get it. Content would end up being sold pay-per-view for everything. We already seem to be starting that transition. So if you don't want to pay for everything, and are willing to live with ads to pay for some content, allowing things like the 'broadcast flag' may be the necessary evil. Just a thought.
** Names of companies and TV shows were pulled out of thin air for the purposes of illustration. Don't read anything this post as implying these particular companies are or aren't behind this treaty.
Interesting scenario. Very Slingbox-esque. I like the application. If you can do this in such a way that only you are able to download it, that will probably land you squarely in the middle of a gray area.:) I have no doubt TV/MPAA wouldn't like it, but it might work out for you in court.
If you could do the same things with an iTunes-like authentication scheme that limits who can download and view it, you'd probably be safely in the white. I don't see Torrent any differently than FTP, so if you used one or the other it shouldn't matter. The issue is more about who has access to the data.
I like the idea of layering spacial shifting on top of time shifting, but that's a definite gray area. Fair Use is not 100% spelled out, which means we get to fight over it in court and congress. Until that happens to your scenario, it's a dice game. I hope it comes up 7's!
He says file sharing is not theft, but copyright infringement is still.. well.. copyright infringement.
Of course the material has to by copyrighted for that to matter. But let's not pretend what the vast majority of data flowing over these networks are. Movies, Music, and copyrighted software. You can't tell me that internet bandwidth is being 30% consumed by people sharing Linux CDs, the Gimp, and OOo with torrents. Why would you when you can so easily download those things directly from their respective sources without searching for them on a Mule server? At that rate every computer in the world would be running Linux by now, and being refreshed with a new version weekly.
If I go to a shop and buy some software, I give my money to the shopkeeper and, in return, recieve a box containing a CD.
Since I do not infringe the copyright by running the software, I have no reason to ask the copyright holder for permission to do so; therefore I have no reason to agree to the EULA.
I do believe this interpretation is subject to your jurisdiction. In CA it has been determined by the courts that a shrink wrapped EULA is insufficient, in other states I'm not so sure that is the case. So with regards to shrink wrap licenses you are probably correct. However, I wouldn't bet that shrink wrapped EULAs are insufficient in all jurisdictions though, you'd need to refer to local laws.
That said, it is exactly cases such as those in CA which have migrated virtually all software to using click through "I Agree" EULAs the first time you run the software. I haven't used an application in the last 3+ years that doesn't include a click through EULA. This clicking is legally binding. And there are laws specifically designed to make clicking "I Agree" as legal as signing on the dotted line. E-Sign and UETA address the subject of electronic signatures.
These laws address both EULAs and e-commerce. Without them you could argue the validity of any purchase made over the internet where you didn't fax a signature.
Click through EULAs make the "benefit" clearer. If you disagree to the terms the application exists and you don't get to use it. This is the meeting of the minds as you put it. The sale is not final when you hand the cashier the money. You are entitled to a refund if you disagree, but in most jurisdictions I don't think the retailer is required to fufill the reimbursement. You have to do that directly with the MFG, who will probably refuse forcing you to sue for a refund. It is an unfortunate state of affairs. This road has been travelled with M$ in the past, and people have succesfully got refunds by declining the EULA on prepacked Windows. But unfortunately not many.
M$ hasn't had to do that lately, and I'm guessing you must have to agree to the EULA before purchasing your computer from Dell these days. I'm not a Dell customer anymore, so I don't know what the transaction looks like.
This leaves the shady area of cracking the software. What if, before ever starting the software, you crack it to remove the EULA? This may still be a little gray. It is possible copyright law could be used against you, saying you have created a deriviative work without permission. Also the DMCA may get you on this. Although the click through is not an encryption mechanism, which the DMCA references, it also refers to protection mechanisms. This is a mechanism meant to "protect" the software from being used by people that don't agree to the terms. Between the two I don't think the court would take the side of a cracker that did such a thing. I haven't seen any cases like this, but I'd be interested to.
In the OS X case, I'm sure they didn't bother with that anyhow. So first they violated the DMCA when they cracked the hardware restriction mechanism, whether or not they agreed to the EULA. You don't get the option of agreeing to the DMCA, it is the law with or without your consent. Second, when they started the software on some non-Apple hardware, and clicked that they agreed to the EULA; they were immediately in violation of the EULA. Which states that the software is only to be run on Apple hardware.
It's worth stating that the courts are not a fairness system, but a legal system. And if the laws are unfair, so shall be the judgements. You can't argue that the courts are rigged just because a decision isn't fair. They weren't designed to operate that way. They simply determine what is legal. When it comes to fairness we have to fight that out at the ballot box.
There is no reason why you must enter this contract, but under our current legal code the only way to not enter the contract is not purchase and open the package. Using your example, a mfg. does infact have the right to attach an EULA to the purchase of a rake at your neighborhood Big-Box-Depot. DMCA is specific to digitally copy protected materials so that wouldn't apply, making this strictl a civil contract. But within the bounds of the law (including common law precidence), that contract could restrict your usage. I also think there are laws (not DMCA) which pertain to the whole topic of shrink wrapped software licesning making the practice enforceable (to varying degrees in different states). When talking about a rake this may require an actual signature before purchasing to be enforceable, but the mfg. could sign a contract with the store which requires them to only sell the rake to people which sign the contract for the rake.
With old technology such as a rake there is common law precidence (US and Britain as well as others are common law countries) which the courts will use to throw out a restriction like "You may only rake leaves with this and nothing else". Hence why the courts are forcing auto makers to publish repair manuals and data sheets that they'd rather not. Big auto would love to put the 3rd party repair shops out of business and keep that business themselves, but the practice of providing the information and access needed for a 3rd party to do these repairs has a long precidence.
In areas of new technology there is not any (or much) common law precidence to lean on (years or a couple decades instead of centuries). This means we have to rely on other precidence or laws to guide what is legal in EULAs. In the area of digital materials, copyright law does spell out some rights which EULAs can't restrict, but we obviously are still arguing about those in the courts.
Going back to your rake idea, business contracts tend to be viewed a little more loosy goosy even when using old technology. If we avoid personal use and focus on selling a rake to a business, you probably could write a contract which restricts your lawn care service to only using that rake within 10 miles of your company headquarters. Without any supporting laws to legitimate shrink wrapped licenses on lawn equipment this may require an actual signature, but it sounds enforceable.
EULAs have nothing to do with copyright law. Zip Zero Zilch. Copyright law mearly says who can copy (reproduce) it. EULAs on the other hand are a contract. Within certain limits which we fight out in congress and court that can contain whatever terms they want. Apple could just as legally say "Thou shalt only run this on Apple hardware and nothing else." and include no authetication mechanism what-so-ever. You would still be just as (legally) guilty of violating the EULA as if they did include a protection scheme.
In all actuality the only reason to include a protection mechanism in the software is because it is cheaper (VASTLY) than chasing down every possible EULA violator. The protection scheme (theoretically) will reduce the violators down to a number that is small enough that you can chase down the successful remainder with lawsuits.
INAL, but up until DMCA, all EULA violations purely civil contract matters, not criminal cases. What DMCA has done is taken a subset of all the possible EULA contract violations and made them into a criminal offense as well a civil one. So for as much as everyone complains about DMCA, even without it Apple could sue your ass off for violating the EULA. The only difference is without DMCA the penalty can only be financial, with it it can also include jail time.
I love how everyone's personal annectdotal experience qualifies them to expert status on this issue. So using that same guideline as everyone else, I'll extrapolate that everyone in the US shares my experience thus rendering your argument completely void.
"First off, the premium is $54.00, exactly. Not sure where you pulled over $75.00 from. A family of 3 or more costs $108.00.
The premium is also waived or cut if you don't make a lot of money - 100% is covered if you make under $20,000 a year and it goes up to $28,000 in steps. A lot of employers cover it because it, quite frankly, isn't all that much. Public assistance is a joke in the USA (at least in Oregon).
I've also lived in BC and I've lived in the states. Maybe some things have changed since 1997, but I know people who currently pay $800 a month for health insurance in the USA for their families."
I pay $180/month for my family (of 4) insurance, of course my employer picks up the rest. $30/mo for a single guy at my company. You pay $54/mo for yours, and of course you pick up the rest in your taxes. MN has pretty good public assistance. It has been shrinking a little lately with budget cuts, but we're still pretty tops in the nation. I forget what the statistics are, but I recall that the majority of people that currently don't have insurance are eligable, and either don't know it or have refused assistance.
"Seeing a doctor in the USA right away is nearly impossible. The whole concept of a "walk in clinic" is foreign to them"
I usually can see my GP in 2-3 days, and I can barely step out my door without tripping over an "Urgeant Care" walk-in clinic. I won't see my GP (it is possible), but that's to be expected. There are 2 of these clinics within 5 min, and 4 withing 10 min. of my house.
"A procedure billed to medicare can be over 200% more expensive than one billed to an hmo (And the price to an uninsured person can be all over the board)."
I know a hospital administrator, so I have it on good word that they receive LESS from Medicare patients than they do from everyone else. So regardless of that List Price on the bill the negotiated rate is in favor of the US Gov, and not the HMOs.
So as you can see, since all American's experience are the same as mine, our health care is just as good as yours.
"An X-Ray - given to an American in BC - without any insurance and in the ER of a hospital - is a whopping $42. The cost of an X-Ray in an American hospital is roughly 10 times that amount."
The next time I'm in Canada (I annually go to Rainy Lake in Boundary Waters in Ontario), I'll be sure to break a leg and have an X-Ray while I'm there. Thank you in advance for paying for it.
More seriously. The US system is definitely less efficient. The 3rd party payer system introduces a wierd price inflation factor in the equation that is hard to isolate. From my encounters with Canadians in the Boundary Waters, it seems medical access is much better south of the border (10 min. away). Those who can afford to, cross the border and do so. That must speak to the quality or the access or both of the health care on the north side.
Canadian drugs are cheaper, and we Minnesotans have been going North for some time now to get cheaper drugs. That however is a short solution that won't last forever. Canadians get a much better deal on their drugs because the gov negotiates the price for everyone. The entire rest of the world can thank us Americans for subsidizing their drugs by paying full price. If we employed the same practice to drugs as the Canadians one of two things will likely happen:
1) Worldwide prices would go up on drugs to compenstate for the reduction in what the US pays for drugs.
2) or the number of new drugs coming from Pharma Cos will drop significantly.
Because of the high price we pay in the US, there is big cash incentive
Reminds me of what I first thought when I saw the replicator on Star Trek. When you can reproduce something for virutally free it wreaks havoc with economics. Need food? Replicate it, no farmers. Need clothes? Replicate them, no clothing makers. Need housing? Replicate it, no timber, masonry, plumbing, etc. Broken replicator? Assuming you still have at least one good one around, replicate it. No need for replicator makers.
Nope, nothing to do all day but play in the Holodeck. And for fun people would probably pretend to do stuff in there that they could do for real outside?:)
And the caveat that the replicator can't put together something as delicate as wine, hence the Picards still ran that vinyard? Yet right. As if I'd trust them to transport my atoms without scrambling my brain, if they couldn't replicate wine.
I was going to make this point as well. He does not represent the Cray you are probably familiar with. The brains of the Cray you all know and love still lives on in Chippewa Falls, WI. Although Seymore Cray has long since left and unfortunately died, they still retain their lead vector computing architects.
They've fallen on some hard times as of late. When Terra acquired the remenants of Cray from SGI, they continued Terra's parallel processing work. Which never turned out to be much of a business success. Rumor has it that they are putting their efforts back into vector processing.
Seeing that a Terra co-founder is leaving, this would seem to confirm the shift away from parallel processing (Terra's heritage) and back to vector processing (Cray's heritage.) It has to been tough to compete using the parallel processing business model. It may be a more scalable approach, but everyone and their dog is trying to build these types of systems. Including colleges which whip them together using off the shelf computers. The Terra/Cray advantage was interconnect and memory access speed.
There still are specialized applications that work best on a vector processor such as weather simulations and atomic simulations.
Microsoft is probably a better home for Burton Smith given his approach to supercomputing.
"Dell is a lean machine of a company, offering the same as everybody else just easier, cheaper and with more options."
Those are certainly good qualities, yet they are completely different to the qualities that makes Apple a success. I think it is safe to say both will be around a long while. It is more meaningful to look at the merits and risk of each company on its own.
-Dell- Pro: What you said. Company ideally suited to compete in a commodity market and win.
Con: Technology packager, not innovator. Vulnerable to disruptive technology shifts, which create demand for entirely different types of systems and solutions.
-Apple- Pro: Technology Innovator. Mostly on the software side these days, but the iPod and iMac are very smart designs. They also have a long history of innovative designs and early technology adoption (Lisa, Mac, mouse, GUI, Newton, Firewire, USB, Cube, OS X, iLife, etc.), which also have been easy to use. Some flopped some fizzled, the usual lot of an R&D company. However, disruptive technologies are an advantage. The heavy R&D budget and focus on making technology easy, allows them to change the rules, create new markets, and achieve early success in those new markets.
Con: High R&D costs. Need for disruptive technologies. Apple needs higher profits to fund the R&D and build the cusion to mitigate the risk associated with failed projects (Lisa, Newton, Cube,.etc). Technology stagnation allows cost reducers (Dell) to create competing products at lower prices. Needs to continually create or find disruptive technologies in order to fend off cost reducers. Innability to continually do so, will force them to directly compete against the likes of Microsoft and Dell. That would put Apple back were it was 10 years ago.
-Microsoft sidenote- Microsoft stradles between technology innovator and cost reducer, moving back and forth as they see the need. It is what makes them a fierce competitor and succesfull company. Their huge success is their biggest weakness. While they have had a good track record of identifying disruptive technologies that may threaten them, any technology shift requires them to do much more work to make such a transition smoothly. The large user base requires significant legacy support, so they can't as easily pull off a PPC->x86 or OS 9 -> OS X switch ala Apple without opening opportunity for competitors. Consequently they resist inventing their own disruptive technologies, and chose to react to them as they arrive. (If Apple where to grow that large they'd have the same problem. Smaller is better when it comes to innovation.) Eventually a technology sufficiently disruptive will require them to change faster than is possible. After which they will remain a market player, but no longer the dominate leader. IBM was there and done that.
For any network built by a government or a defacto government agent (like a national telephone company), the monthly fee may not nearly represent the actual cost. How much are the residents of these countries paying via income, property, and sales taxes on completely unrelated goods which ends up funding these networks.
I may be paying $50/month for 1.5 MB/s service, but my grandma who doesn't use broadband (or dial-up for that matter), doesn't pay anything either. Any country with a national telecom business that isn't %100 self-funded (and I don't know the break-down on the countries listed in the article) is forcing the non-users to pay as well. I may like the idea of cheap broadband, but I'm considering the total cost.
That and I totally understand the problem with the population density in this country. To offer the level of service mentioned in the article to everyone, would cost a hell of a lost more in the USA than in France or Japan.
Forget the tax. The government will just waste that building glass covered rain forests in Iowa. Require the company to provide the recycle service themselves. No reason they couldn't contract it out to the garbage companies, but it would make them think twice about the materials used and the packaging they choose.
I don't know that we're really going to have to worry about "as is". Nothing is going to be "as is" when the final product ships, and probably for the following 18 months afterwards we'll see continued performance gains.
Both Apple and M$ face having egg on face if they don't make equivalent software perform at competitive speeds on comparable hardware. Which actually will be much easier to determine now that a few of the larger variables have been removed from the equation. Consequently, I expect we might see boths companies to try and optimize the performance of their platforms.
It's not. The problem with these hypothetical mental excercises is they are not based in reality, but in some hypothetical world where the laws of land, economics, and social interaction are simplified. Simplified so as to fit ones' predisposed view of how one wants the world to be.
Once that is done, some wrong (in this case Apple not permitting their software on non-Apple hardware) is lambasted, and some "logical" reason is given why 1) they morally shouldn't and 2) economically don't need to do said wrong. And any laws permitting such behavior are immoral.
That works until you get out of the sandbox. Then the real rules apply. So in the real world the morality ends up being decided democratically (or dictated in unfortunate countries) and enshrined in law. And the economics may or may not actually work in favor of your argument.
You'll have people firmly planted on both sides that are not going to change their opinion. But they'll construct redicuously simple worlds in which they can knock down straw men to make their point. Sometimes futilly trying to sway firmly committed people on the other side, but mostly fighting for the hearts and minds of those in the middle.
--My take--
Apple has no moral obligation to allow you to run it on just any hardware. Microsoft doesn't either, we've just grown used to it being that way.
In my world view, life dependancy is the driving factor behind moral obligation. Apple's insignificant market share in the government and other public institutions means if they closed their doors today and took their software and computers with them, no great harm would come to the world. Yes, some would suffer, but I'm talking the great massess.
If Microsoft did the same, we'd have a socio-economic disaster on our hands. So they have a greater moral obligation than Apple. Which would be to at least let the current batch of software run as is on current hardware. Which they do. They could however decide to restrict new software to work only on M$ hardware. That would again cause pain for some, but not a disaster. It would be more like the effect high gas prices are having. A drag on the economy, but not the end of the world.
That would introduce a new moral obligation to M$, to make hardware available at a price range which doesn't bankrupt the government. Who knows what the price would be, but it would be an obligation. And if they pushed too far, I assume the legislature would take action to make sure they fufill their moral obligation. Either by forcing them to open up their software to non-M$ hardware or by regulating the price.
Economically speaking, who knows? Opening it up could kill their revenue and put them out of business. Since they don't have a moral obligation to open it up, I don't see why we should force them to take that risk if they don't want to. If forcing them to open it up means they'll just quit selling Macs and only do iPods, I'd rather prefer it the way it is. At least they provide an option. Don't like their option? There's always M$, Solaris, Linux, BSD, and others. It's not like you're trapped. At least your not trapped in the real world.
With Mac's running on Intel we may see the poor performance of Windows' OpenGL performance highlighted. Earlier on slashdot was a report on the poor performance of OpenGL on Windows due to the fact that Windows translates OpenGL to DirectX on the fly.
Could motivate M$ to improve their OpenGL support, which would be good for Apple.
It's not dirt cheap. But a good value for what you want to do. It also will allow you to retain your tape as the original archive footage. A Final Cut user pointed out earlier the usefulness of that.
A 4 hour tape runs list price $55.
I say stick with tape unless you are willing to through away your footage. Then you could go with a disk based appoach.
Except the answer will be "Only if you buy this $$$ DRM capable monitor and speakers as well. And Longhorn 'Home' edition" (assuming the PC comes with XP, which will be true for low-end PCs for a while due to the hardware specs longhorn needs).
Several years ago, that would have been a problem. Today, notebooks are the hotest PCs on the market. And while/.'ers may actually upgrade their OS, my friends don't. They simply junk their old computer, or give it to their parents or younger sibling and buy a new one.
In which case, the DRM monitor, speakers, and Longhorn are all included. It's not video on PCs that's going to give consumers heartburn. It's if downloadable video content, and HD-DVD require you to replace your television and home sterio system that's going to do that. Although I was liking HD-DVD's backwards compatibility, I now wish it also included Blu-Ray's S-Video output support. It may have its resolution crippled, but its better than nothing.
If all PCs added DRM and Apple did not, Apple would LOSE market share. When any of my friends that aren't tech savvy (which is most of them) go to BestBuy to buy a computer, they have 3 concerns.
1) Can it play game X? 2) Can it run Office? 3) Can it play music?
I actually know some switchers, because currently Apple meets that criteria. (albeit with a somewhat limited game selection). When all PCs have DRM built in, add:
4) Can it play movies?
No where on the list is "Does it not have DRM?"
Apple does not have the market power to force studio to deliver non-DRM'd versions of their content. Apple's market share is small enough for studios to ignore, so they will make downloadable/dvd video content with DRM protection that only plays on PCs that support it.
Ergo, My friends will ask "Can it play movies?". If it doesn't support DRM, the answer is no and they'll buy a Dell.
There are thousands of people out there who would be/quite happy/ to splash out £75 for a copy of OSX to multi-boot their home PCs.
Ok. How many thousands? Tens of thousands? (maybe) Hundreds of thousands? (very unlikely)
Let's take the high estimate: 99,999 Revenue: 99,999 * $130 = $12,999,870
What would the cost of that $13M be? Odds are, not a single one of those computers would work out-of-the-box with what will be the released version.
As is, OS X is missing necessary plug 'n play discovery software. Remember they are on a controlled platform. Implementing plug 'n play to work properly is much easier there. Now they are in the wild. The OS will be running on untested hardware.
Let's swag some variables
Cost of an engineer (Apple's cost not what the engineer takes home): $350,000/yr
1) They will have to develop more sophisticated plug 'n play detection software.
3 engineers (maybe more) * 1 yr * $350k = $1.05M
2) They will have to develop many more drivers
15 engineers (definitely a lot more) * 1 yr * $350k = $5.25M
3) Pray that they get 3rd Party hardware companies to deliver more drivers
2 marketing dudes * 1yr * $350k = $700K
4) Do tons more regression testing to verify that the OS works in a uncountable number of configurations.
6 engineers * 1yr * $350k =~ $2.1M
That $13M cost them $9.1M, for a profit of $4 million. That assumes high sales and low costs. Those number would likely be not so favorable, so that $4 million positive could easily go negative.
That does not take into account any potential loss this would have to existing Mac hardware sales. It could devistate them, even turning $4 million in the positive into a huge, huge negative.
That is a MEGATON of risk, with a micro-prospect of reward.
Per another post I saw. Under the right circumstances, as Apple, I would consider licensing the OS. But I would never release it into the wild.
I do like the models you chose. Niche market vehicles, sort of like the Mac. I think you have correctly hit one aspect of the "transition" problem apple is going to face. Apple will face different transition problems than Microsoft would (assuming MS even had the ability to pull off such a switch).
Fotunately for Apple, the people that fall into the category you defined, are going to like Windows even less. They may give Linux a try, but unless they want to give up their leather seats they won't like that either.
My guess is that the crowd falling into that camp will buy the last PowerPC product on the market and hold it for a while. Probably take a wait and see approach with the newer Intel based systems, and then finally switch when the old hardware just don't cut it.
I suspect businesses using Mac software might take this approach too. IT departments tend to be more conservative about big transitions. They will delay the migration as long as they can, extending the non-Rosetta life of their existing PowerPC applications.
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In other news today, a faulty air bag was blamed for the death of a driver in a recent accident. The auto manufacturer's safety claims for the car were obviously overblown, and their smugness is now revealed.
Update later that day: As a side note to this story, the owner of the vehicle replaced the OEM airbag with one from Orval Reddenbacker, so she could eat popcorn in case she was in an accident. We originally decided we would overlook this aspect, because we have an axe to grind with this manufacturer and to create buzz generating free advertising for our company.
Now if only Tony Soprano told you "it is in your best interest" to do something you might actually listen.
Notice I put the additional information link at the bottom. Probably no one will look at it, that's why it's at the bottom. The Amicus Brief I inlined. Since it is being heard by the supreme court, it's a Washington issue and more likely to actually be of interest to those inside the beltway.
The article is written to make you think this treaty will steal copyrights away from content creators if they choose to broadcast content through some broadcaster of some sort. It does not do that. So the article is being alarmist to attract attention. (That or they probably didn't read the treaty either.)
.mac account. It seems to be giving the webcaster the right to impose such restrictions if they wanted to. In this example .mac would have to add the broadcast flag to the video. Comcast simply being the conduit, could not. So this has the same restrictions as over-the-air broadcasters, I could still chose not to use that service and set up my own server if I didn't agree to the terms.
The Bad: Looks like it would put an end to PVRs as we know them. I'm sure ABC would allow Comcast to rent you a PVR which enforces ABC's rebroadcast requirements. YUCK! So the article got that much right.
The not bad: The so called restrictions on the original content creators don't exist. Basically the treaty states FOX can state terms to Groening that if they are going to broadcast the Simpsons on their network it is going to have the broadcast flag and be restricted according to their policy. Groening could of course not agree to those terms and tell them to fly a kite. Fox may then come back to groening and say OK we won't do the broadcast flag. That my friends will never happen, because Groening wants FOX to get the add revenue (which is of course how they pay him). Even with the broadcast flag on every episode of the Simpsons there would be nothing preventing Groening from hosting a webcast of the show himself without the broadcast flag. That is unless his contract with FOX prevents him from doing so, which I think it already does anyway.
The unclear: The webcast amendment doesn't appear to read like Comcast can tack on a broadcast flag to a home movie my parents stream from my
So, for content creators the sky is not falling, but for PVR users it probably is. This isn't really anything new, just more of the same. I am not sure what to think about this actually. I don't think it's evil as some would like to suggest. If everyone skipped all commercials, networks would go out of business as we know them. That wouldn't cause an end to media, it would just transform the way we get it. Content would end up being sold pay-per-view for everything. We already seem to be starting that transition. So if you don't want to pay for everything, and are willing to live with ads to pay for some content, allowing things like the 'broadcast flag' may be the necessary evil. Just a thought.
** Names of companies and TV shows were pulled out of thin air for the purposes of illustration. Don't read anything this post as implying these particular companies are or aren't behind this treaty.
Interesting scenario. Very Slingbox-esque. I like the application. If you can do this in such a way that only you are able to download it, that will probably land you squarely in the middle of a gray area. :) I have no doubt TV/MPAA wouldn't like it, but it might work out for you in court.
If you could do the same things with an iTunes-like authentication scheme that limits who can download and view it, you'd probably be safely in the white. I don't see Torrent any differently than FTP, so if you used one or the other it shouldn't matter. The issue is more about who has access to the data.
I like the idea of layering spacial shifting on top of time shifting, but that's a definite gray area. Fair Use is not 100% spelled out, which means we get to fight over it in court and congress. Until that happens to your scenario, it's a dice game. I hope it comes up 7's!
He says file sharing is not theft, but copyright infringement is still .. well .. copyright infringement.
Of course the material has to by copyrighted for that to matter. But let's not pretend what the vast majority of data flowing over these networks are. Movies, Music, and copyrighted software. You can't tell me that internet bandwidth is being 30% consumed by people sharing Linux CDs, the Gimp, and OOo with torrents. Why would you when you can so easily download those things directly from their respective sources without searching for them on a Mule server? At that rate every computer in the world would be running Linux by now, and being refreshed with a new version weekly.
I do believe this interpretation is subject to your jurisdiction. In CA it has been determined by the courts that a shrink wrapped EULA is insufficient, in other states I'm not so sure that is the case. So with regards to shrink wrap licenses you are probably correct. However, I wouldn't bet that shrink wrapped EULAs are insufficient in all jurisdictions though, you'd need to refer to local laws.
That said, it is exactly cases such as those in CA which have migrated virtually all software to using click through "I Agree" EULAs the first time you run the software. I haven't used an application in the last 3+ years that doesn't include a click through EULA. This clicking is legally binding. And there are laws specifically designed to make clicking "I Agree" as legal as signing on the dotted line. E-Sign and UETA address the subject of electronic signatures.
Summery of E-Sign and UETA:g fried.html
http://www.vsb.org/sections/rp/articles/ESign.sie
These laws address both EULAs and e-commerce. Without them you could argue the validity of any purchase made over the internet where you didn't fax a signature.
Click through EULAs make the "benefit" clearer. If you disagree to the terms the application exists and you don't get to use it. This is the meeting of the minds as you put it. The sale is not final when you hand the cashier the money. You are entitled to a refund if you disagree, but in most jurisdictions I don't think the retailer is required to fufill the reimbursement. You have to do that directly with the MFG, who will probably refuse forcing you to sue for a refund. It is an unfortunate state of affairs. This road has been travelled with M$ in the past, and people have succesfully got refunds by declining the EULA on prepacked Windows. But unfortunately not many.
M$ hasn't had to do that lately, and I'm guessing you must have to agree to the EULA before purchasing your computer from Dell these days. I'm not a Dell customer anymore, so I don't know what the transaction looks like.
This leaves the shady area of cracking the software. What if, before ever starting the software, you crack it to remove the EULA? This may still be a little gray. It is possible copyright law could be used against you, saying you have created a deriviative work without permission. Also the DMCA may get you on this. Although the click through is not an encryption mechanism, which the DMCA references, it also refers to protection mechanisms. This is a mechanism meant to "protect" the software from being used by people that don't agree to the terms. Between the two I don't think the court would take the side of a cracker that did such a thing. I haven't seen any cases like this, but I'd be interested to.
In the OS X case, I'm sure they didn't bother with that anyhow. So first they violated the DMCA when they cracked the hardware restriction mechanism, whether or not they agreed to the EULA. You don't get the option of agreeing to the DMCA, it is the law with or without your consent. Second, when they started the software on some non-Apple hardware, and clicked that they agreed to the EULA; they were immediately in violation of the EULA. Which states that the software is only to be run on Apple hardware.
It's worth stating that the courts are not a fairness system, but a legal system. And if the laws are unfair, so shall be the judgements. You can't argue that the courts are rigged just because a decision isn't fair. They weren't designed to operate that way. They simply determine what is legal. When it comes to fairness we have to fight that out at the ballot box.
There is no reason why you must enter this contract, but under our current legal code the only way to not enter the contract is not purchase and open the package. Using your example, a mfg. does infact have the right to attach an EULA to the purchase of a rake at your neighborhood Big-Box-Depot. DMCA is specific to digitally copy protected materials so that wouldn't apply, making this strictl a civil contract. But within the bounds of the law (including common law precidence), that contract could restrict your usage. I also think there are laws (not DMCA) which pertain to the whole topic of shrink wrapped software licesning making the practice enforceable (to varying degrees in different states). When talking about a rake this may require an actual signature before purchasing to be enforceable, but the mfg. could sign a contract with the store which requires them to only sell the rake to people which sign the contract for the rake.
With old technology such as a rake there is common law precidence (US and Britain as well as others are common law countries) which the courts will use to throw out a restriction like "You may only rake leaves with this and nothing else". Hence why the courts are forcing auto makers to publish repair manuals and data sheets that they'd rather not. Big auto would love to put the 3rd party repair shops out of business and keep that business themselves, but the practice of providing the information and access needed for a 3rd party to do these repairs has a long precidence.
In areas of new technology there is not any (or much) common law precidence to lean on (years or a couple decades instead of centuries). This means we have to rely on other precidence or laws to guide what is legal in EULAs. In the area of digital materials, copyright law does spell out some rights which EULAs can't restrict, but we obviously are still arguing about those in the courts.
Going back to your rake idea, business contracts tend to be viewed a little more loosy goosy even when using old technology. If we avoid personal use and focus on selling a rake to a business, you probably could write a contract which restricts your lawn care service to only using that rake within 10 miles of your company headquarters. Without any supporting laws to legitimate shrink wrapped licenses on lawn equipment this may require an actual signature, but it sounds enforceable.
EULAs have nothing to do with copyright law. Zip Zero Zilch. Copyright law mearly says who can copy (reproduce) it. EULAs on the other hand are a contract. Within certain limits which we fight out in congress and court that can contain whatever terms they want. Apple could just as legally say "Thou shalt only run this on Apple hardware and nothing else." and include no authetication mechanism what-so-ever. You would still be just as (legally) guilty of violating the EULA as if they did include a protection scheme.
In all actuality the only reason to include a protection mechanism in the software is because it is cheaper (VASTLY) than chasing down every possible EULA violator. The protection scheme (theoretically) will reduce the violators down to a number that is small enough that you can chase down the successful remainder with lawsuits.
INAL, but up until DMCA, all EULA violations purely civil contract matters, not criminal cases. What DMCA has done is taken a subset of all the possible EULA contract violations and made them into a criminal offense as well a civil one. So for as much as everyone complains about DMCA, even without it Apple could sue your ass off for violating the EULA. The only difference is without DMCA the penalty can only be financial, with it it can also include jail time.
I love how everyone's personal annectdotal experience qualifies them to expert status on this issue. So using that same guideline as everyone else, I'll extrapolate that everyone in the US shares my experience thus rendering your argument completely void.
I pay $180/month for my family (of 4) insurance, of course my employer picks up the rest. $30/mo for a single guy at my company. You pay $54/mo for yours, and of course you pick up the rest in your taxes. MN has pretty good public assistance. It has been shrinking a little lately with budget cuts, but we're still pretty tops in the nation. I forget what the statistics are, but I recall that the majority of people that currently don't have insurance are eligable, and either don't know it or have refused assistance.
I usually can see my GP in 2-3 days, and I can barely step out my door without tripping over an "Urgeant Care" walk-in clinic. I won't see my GP (it is possible), but that's to be expected. There are 2 of these clinics within 5 min, and 4 withing 10 min. of my house.
I know a hospital administrator, so I have it on good word that they receive LESS from Medicare patients than they do from everyone else. So regardless of that List Price on the bill the negotiated rate is in favor of the US Gov, and not the HMOs.
So as you can see, since all American's experience are the same as mine, our health care is just as good as yours.
The next time I'm in Canada (I annually go to Rainy Lake in Boundary Waters in Ontario), I'll be sure to break a leg and have an X-Ray while I'm there. Thank you in advance for paying for it.
More seriously. The US system is definitely less efficient. The 3rd party payer system introduces a wierd price inflation factor in the equation that is hard to isolate. From my encounters with Canadians in the Boundary Waters, it seems medical access is much better south of the border (10 min. away). Those who can afford to, cross the border and do so. That must speak to the quality or the access or both of the health care on the north side.
Canadian drugs are cheaper, and we Minnesotans have been going North for some time now to get cheaper drugs. That however is a short solution that won't last forever. Canadians get a much better deal on their drugs because the gov negotiates the price for everyone. The entire rest of the world can thank us Americans for subsidizing their drugs by paying full price. If we employed the same practice to drugs as the Canadians one of two things will likely happen:
1) Worldwide prices would go up on drugs to compenstate for the reduction in what the US pays for drugs.
2) or the number of new drugs coming from Pharma Cos will drop significantly.
Because of the high price we pay in the US, there is big cash incentive
For a city of Population: 79,093 Longmont, CO is heavily invested in these two companies. Check out a couple of their locations:
l ongmont,+co+to+389+Disc+Dr,+longmont+co&ll=40.1479 79,-105.152807&spn=0.042694,0.081702&t=h&hl=en
n t+co,+to+2270+S+88th+Street,+Louisville,+CO&ll=40. 061782,-105.116501&spn=.341985,.653618&hl=en
:)
Maxtor is the start point and Seagate is the stop.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=2452+Clover+Basin,+
It's also not far from Seagate to industry old, dog StorageTek. They don't compete head to head but are in a related market:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=389+Disc+Dr,+longmo
Maybe this should be called the Magnetic Plateau.
Reminds me of what I first thought when I saw the replicator on Star Trek. When you can reproduce something for virutally free it wreaks havoc with economics. Need food? Replicate it, no farmers. Need clothes? Replicate them, no clothing makers. Need housing? Replicate it, no timber, masonry, plumbing, etc. Broken replicator? Assuming you still have at least one good one around, replicate it. No need for replicator makers.
:)
Nope, nothing to do all day but play in the Holodeck. And for fun people would probably pretend to do stuff in there that they could do for real outside?
And the caveat that the replicator can't put together something as delicate as wine, hence the Picards still ran that vinyard? Yet right. As if I'd trust them to transport my atoms without scrambling my brain, if they couldn't replicate wine.
I was going to make this point as well. He does not represent the Cray you are probably familiar with. The brains of the Cray you all know and love still lives on in Chippewa Falls, WI. Although Seymore Cray has long since left and unfortunately died, they still retain their lead vector computing architects.
They've fallen on some hard times as of late. When Terra acquired the remenants of Cray from SGI, they continued Terra's parallel processing work. Which never turned out to be much of a business success. Rumor has it that they are putting their efforts back into vector processing.
Seeing that a Terra co-founder is leaving, this would seem to confirm the shift away from parallel processing (Terra's heritage) and back to vector processing (Cray's heritage.) It has to been tough to compete using the parallel processing business model. It may be a more scalable approach, but everyone and their dog is trying to build these types of systems. Including colleges which whip them together using off the shelf computers. The Terra/Cray advantage was interconnect and memory access speed.
There still are specialized applications that work best on a vector processor such as weather simulations and atomic simulations.
Microsoft is probably a better home for Burton Smith given his approach to supercomputing.
Please tell me the Onion is the original source of this article.
Those are certainly good qualities, yet they are completely different to the qualities that makes Apple a success. I think it is safe to say both will be around a long while. It is more meaningful to look at the merits and risk of each company on its own.
-Dell-
Pro:
What you said. Company ideally suited to compete in a commodity market and win.
Con:
Technology packager, not innovator. Vulnerable to disruptive technology shifts, which create demand for entirely different types of systems and solutions.
-Apple-
Pro:
Technology Innovator. Mostly on the software side these days, but the iPod and iMac are very smart designs. They also have a long history of innovative designs and early technology adoption (Lisa, Mac, mouse, GUI, Newton, Firewire, USB, Cube, OS X, iLife, etc.), which also have been easy to use. Some flopped some fizzled, the usual lot of an R&D company. However, disruptive technologies are an advantage. The heavy R&D budget and focus on making technology easy, allows them to change the rules, create new markets, and achieve early success in those new markets.
Con:
High R&D costs. Need for disruptive technologies. Apple needs higher profits to fund the R&D and build the cusion to mitigate the risk associated with failed projects (Lisa, Newton, Cube,
-Microsoft sidenote-
Microsoft stradles between technology innovator and cost reducer, moving back and forth as they see the need. It is what makes them a fierce competitor and succesfull company. Their huge success is their biggest weakness. While they have had a good track record of identifying disruptive technologies that may threaten them, any technology shift requires them to do much more work to make such a transition smoothly. The large user base requires significant legacy support, so they can't as easily pull off a PPC->x86 or OS 9 -> OS X switch ala Apple without opening opportunity for competitors. Consequently they resist inventing their own disruptive technologies, and chose to react to them as they arrive. (If Apple where to grow that large they'd have the same problem. Smaller is better when it comes to innovation.) Eventually a technology sufficiently disruptive will require them to change faster than is possible. After which they will remain a market player, but no longer the dominate leader. IBM was there and done that.
For any network built by a government or a defacto government agent (like a national telephone company), the monthly fee may not nearly represent the actual cost. How much are the residents of these countries paying via income, property, and sales taxes on completely unrelated goods which ends up funding these networks.
I may be paying $50/month for 1.5 MB/s service, but my grandma who doesn't use broadband (or dial-up for that matter), doesn't pay anything either. Any country with a national telecom business that isn't %100 self-funded (and I don't know the break-down on the countries listed in the article) is forcing the non-users to pay as well. I may like the idea of cheap broadband, but I'm considering the total cost.
That and I totally understand the problem with the population density in this country. To offer the level of service mentioned in the article to everyone, would cost a hell of a lost more in the USA than in France or Japan.
Forget the tax. The government will just waste that building glass covered rain forests in Iowa. Require the company to provide the recycle service themselves. No reason they couldn't contract it out to the garbage companies, but it would make them think twice about the materials used and the packaging they choose.
I don't know that we're really going to have to worry about "as is". Nothing is going to be "as is" when the final product ships, and probably for the following 18 months afterwards we'll see continued performance gains.
Both Apple and M$ face having egg on face if they don't make equivalent software perform at competitive speeds on comparable hardware. Which actually will be much easier to determine now that a few of the larger variables have been removed from the equation. Consequently, I expect we might see boths companies to try and optimize the performance of their platforms.
It's not. The problem with these hypothetical mental excercises is they are not based in reality, but in some hypothetical world where the laws of land, economics, and social interaction are simplified. Simplified so as to fit ones' predisposed view of how one wants the world to be.
Once that is done, some wrong (in this case Apple not permitting their software on non-Apple hardware) is lambasted, and some "logical" reason is given why 1) they morally shouldn't and 2) economically don't need to do said wrong. And any laws permitting such behavior are immoral.
That works until you get out of the sandbox. Then the real rules apply. So in the real world the morality ends up being decided democratically (or dictated in unfortunate countries) and enshrined in law. And the economics may or may not actually work in favor of your argument.
You'll have people firmly planted on both sides that are not going to change their opinion. But they'll construct redicuously simple worlds in which they can knock down straw men to make their point. Sometimes futilly trying to sway firmly committed people on the other side, but mostly fighting for the hearts and minds of those in the middle.
--My take--
Apple has no moral obligation to allow you to run it on just any hardware. Microsoft doesn't either, we've just grown used to it being that way.
In my world view, life dependancy is the driving factor behind moral obligation. Apple's insignificant market share in the government and other public institutions means if they closed their doors today and took their software and computers with them, no great harm would come to the world. Yes, some would suffer, but I'm talking the great massess.
If Microsoft did the same, we'd have a socio-economic disaster on our hands. So they have a greater moral obligation than Apple. Which would be to at least let the current batch of software run as is on current hardware. Which they do. They could however decide to restrict new software to work only on M$ hardware. That would again cause pain for some, but not a disaster. It would be more like the effect high gas prices are having. A drag on the economy, but not the end of the world.
That would introduce a new moral obligation to M$, to make hardware available at a price range which doesn't bankrupt the government. Who knows what the price would be, but it would be an obligation. And if they pushed too far, I assume the legislature would take action to make sure they fufill their moral obligation. Either by forcing them to open up their software to non-M$ hardware or by regulating the price.
Economically speaking, who knows? Opening it up could kill their revenue and put them out of business. Since they don't have a moral obligation to open it up, I don't see why we should force them to take that risk if they don't want to. If forcing them to open it up means they'll just quit selling Macs and only do iPods, I'd rather prefer it the way it is. At least they provide an option. Don't like their option? There's always M$, Solaris, Linux, BSD, and others. It's not like you're trapped. At least your not trapped in the real world.
With Mac's running on Intel we may see the poor performance of Windows' OpenGL performance highlighted. Earlier on slashdot was a report on the poor performance of OpenGL on Windows due to the fact that Windows translates OpenGL to DirectX on the fly.
Could motivate M$ to improve their OpenGL support, which would be good for Apple.
Check out JVC's DV3000U
It's not dirt cheap. But a good value for what you want to do. It also will allow you to retain your tape as the original archive footage. A Final Cut user pointed out earlier the usefulness of that.
A 4 hour tape runs list price $55.
I say stick with tape unless you are willing to through away your footage. Then you could go with a disk based appoach.
Except the answer will be "Only if you buy this $$$ DRM capable monitor and speakers as well. And Longhorn 'Home' edition" (assuming the PC comes with XP, which will be true for low-end PCs for a while due to the hardware specs longhorn needs).
/.'ers may actually upgrade their OS, my friends don't. They simply junk their old computer, or give it to their parents or younger sibling and buy a new one.
Several years ago, that would have been a problem. Today, notebooks are the hotest PCs on the market. And while
In which case, the DRM monitor, speakers, and Longhorn are all included. It's not video on PCs that's going to give consumers heartburn. It's if downloadable video content, and HD-DVD require you to replace your television and home sterio system that's going to do that. Although I was liking HD-DVD's backwards compatibility, I now wish it also included Blu-Ray's S-Video output support. It may have its resolution crippled, but its better than nothing.
If all PCs added DRM and Apple did not, Apple would LOSE market share. When any of my friends that aren't tech savvy (which is most of them) go to BestBuy to buy a computer, they have 3 concerns.
1) Can it play game X?
2) Can it run Office?
3) Can it play music?
I actually know some switchers, because currently Apple meets that criteria. (albeit with a somewhat limited game selection). When all PCs have DRM built in, add:
4) Can it play movies?
No where on the list is "Does it not have DRM?"
Apple does not have the market power to force studio to deliver non-DRM'd versions of their content. Apple's market share is small enough for studios to ignore, so they will make downloadable/dvd video content with DRM protection that only plays on PCs that support it.
Ergo, My friends will ask "Can it play movies?". If it doesn't support DRM, the answer is no and they'll buy a Dell.
There are thousands of people out there who would be /quite happy/ to splash out £75 for a copy of OSX to multi-boot their home PCs.
Ok. How many thousands? Tens of thousands? (maybe) Hundreds of thousands? (very unlikely)
Let's take the high estimate: 99,999
Revenue: 99,999 * $130 = $12,999,870
What would the cost of that $13M be? Odds are, not a single one of those computers would work out-of-the-box with what will be the released version.
As is, OS X is missing necessary plug 'n play discovery software. Remember they are on a controlled platform. Implementing plug 'n play to work properly is much easier there. Now they are in the wild. The OS will be running on untested hardware.
Let's swag some variables
Cost of an engineer (Apple's cost not what the engineer takes home): $350,000/yr
1) They will have to develop more sophisticated plug 'n play detection software.
3 engineers (maybe more) * 1 yr * $350k = $1.05M
2) They will have to develop many more drivers
15 engineers (definitely a lot more) * 1 yr * $350k = $5.25M
3) Pray that they get 3rd Party hardware companies to deliver more drivers
2 marketing dudes * 1yr * $350k = $700K
4) Do tons more regression testing to verify that the OS works in a uncountable number of configurations.
6 engineers * 1yr * $350k =~ $2.1M
That $13M cost them $9.1M, for a profit of $4 million. That assumes high sales and low costs. Those number would likely be not so favorable, so that $4 million positive could easily go negative.
That does not take into account any potential loss this would have to existing Mac hardware sales. It could devistate them, even turning $4 million in the positive into a huge, huge negative.
That is a MEGATON of risk, with a micro-prospect of reward.
Per another post I saw. Under the right circumstances, as Apple, I would consider licensing the OS. But I would never release it into the wild.
I do like the models you chose. Niche market vehicles, sort of like the Mac. I think you have correctly hit one aspect of the "transition" problem apple is going to face. Apple will face different transition problems than Microsoft would (assuming MS even had the ability to pull off such a switch).
Fotunately for Apple, the people that fall into the category you defined, are going to like Windows even less. They may give Linux a try, but unless they want to give up their leather seats they won't like that either.
My guess is that the crowd falling into that camp will buy the last PowerPC product on the market and hold it for a while. Probably take a wait and see approach with the newer Intel based systems, and then finally switch when the old hardware just don't cut it.
I suspect businesses using Mac software might take this approach too. IT departments tend to be more conservative about big transitions. They will delay the migration as long as they can, extending the non-Rosetta life of their existing PowerPC applications.