It really depends on what they're up to. Their past efforts have shown that they're not too interested in being compatible with Linux/Unix, so this is suspicious.
One reason they might be doing this is to counter free software. Currently, projects like Samba have been making good progress toward connecting Unix and Windows computers. Samba is free software. By Microsoft closing the connectivity gap themselves, they can close it with closed-source, proprietary software. This means that they can control connectivity. If they so choose, they would then be able to break it off completely at any time.
This is why some companies need Linux/Unix, but don't realise it. As pointed out by that ImageMagick article earlier, sometimes having command-line tools rather than fancy GUI programs is extremely useful.
What is needed here is a shell script.
Windows does have (limited) scripting capabilities, but is severely lacking any good command-line programs.
The difference is mainly that this is easily enforced. Anyone who buys a new iPod will need to upgrade iTunes (assuming their iTunes is older than the iPod) and will be forced into having all of the conditions on their music changed and enforced.
I suppose it's not too different than other software that people have purchased having features taken out in an "upgrade", but I'm not aware of any software that does that, and if there is some, it's probably not as widely used as iTunes.
When licences change but are not enforced, people generally go by the original licence. Licence changes would probably be a grey area in court, anyway. The fact that Apple is rather easily enforcing this is what makes it matter more than most licence changes, not that they aren't bad either.
Possibly. I have called the ACCC about iTunes before, since the iTunes Music Store DRM locks consumers into buying iPods or else losing the ability to play their music collection except on PC. The guy I talked to was nice enough and agreed that it was interesting as well as bad for consumers. Despite this, he said there wasn't anything the ACCC could do about it, but pointed out that there is illegal (in Australia, as well as the US) software available to crack the DRM and convert the files to another format.
My girlfriend also recently had an issue with her iPod where its HDD was dying. iTunes refused to play nicely with it, but the guy at the Apple Store also suggested she download certain software that would rip everything on it into MP3 files, which would also be illegal under Australian law.
It seems that both the government (ACCC) and Apple employees are willing to suggest the use of illegal software, but still want to keep it officially illegal and perhaps even sometimes enforce these ridiculous laws. I'll bet every politician and judge in Australia has a close relative who has violated copyright laws, yet we still think we should be extraditing one of our own citizens (guy in Perth, part of a "piracy ring") to the US to face prosecution there, despite the fact that we can't seem to extradite "Dr Death" (aka Dr Jayant Patel) who supposedly killed tens of people while practicing in Queensland.
There was a little report a bit more recently, again describing the changes, but they were mostly superficial changes. Basically, they were adding things that bring us up to US copyright status. Before that, we were worse than the US when it came to copyright. (no fair use)
Actually, if I read correctly, the law would only make it legal for people to break the DRM and convert their files to a different format. I'm not sure that it would force companies to provide tools to convert the bastardised files into a different format. It's more of a correction to a very broken law, where people are currently not allowed to convert DRM files to a different format. (French DMCA equivalent)
Yeah, well, currently Apple have been changing what you can do with the music you have ALREADY PURCHASED. They have been doing this via iTunes software updates. They changed the number of CDs you are "allowed" to burn for each song, and the number of computers you are "allowed" to have each song on.
I think in most countries, that would/should be regarded a very direct violation of consumers' rights. In Australia, you are supposed to get the product you paid for, not something different. By changing how you can "use" each song, Apple have essentially switched the product that people have.
Apple probably justify this by some stupid clause in their Terms & Conditions that states you don't really own the songs at all, or something. I'm sure they also have one of those "we reserve the right to change anything in the terms & conditions without notice" clauses, too.
I have to disagree about analog data distribution being dead, assuming you're talking about papers being delivered each morning. The vast majority of people still read the papers.
Having a paper to carry around and read is so much more convenient than having to read the paper on a laptop or something like that. When you're commuting to work each morning, you don't want to whip out your laptop and start reading the newspaper on it, which you would have had to have saved to it while rushing to get ready for work.
I think newspapers have at least a good 10 years left. That said, Mr Murdoch is right, in that media companies that do not embrace technology are doomed. The trick is mixing both the old and new, and not doing only one or the other. Maximise profits by doing both.
Most PlayStation 1/2/3 games are sequels, sequels of sequels, or just not really that original.
I'm not too fussy about how original a game is, and I think that taking a good game and improving it slightly is fine. It does mean that I won't want the older version when there's a newer version, though. So when PS2 came out, most PlayStation games lost their appeal to me because they had better replacements. When PS3 comes out, the situation is likely to be much the same.
So this service isn't of much interest, except for a small handful games that haven't had superior sequels/clones yet.
So, the company was helped with launching by a former US president, and the search engine is backed by the Chinese government? Sounds pretty suspicious to me.
I didn't really meant for it to be taken that way. I just meant that with companies that are not well known, there's not much that can be done if your money disappears, and you can't be 100% sure that you will receive what you paid for.
I'd still bid on good deals, but I wouldn't throw thousands of dollars at them unless the seller had an excellent (and long) feedback profile.
I'm not talking about Adobe just supporting Linux by porting Photoshop to it. I'm talking about them actively pushing Linux onto the desktop. Doing so can only benefit any company that competes with Microsoft products.
I've always wondered why the FSF doesn't link to downloadable speeches from their website. I think a lot of people would like to see one, but don't usually know where to look. I realise there are essays on the FSF website, but having attended an RMS speech on "copyright versus community", I can say that the essays aren't quite as informative as the speeches are.
Microsoft can't make their applications the "default" on alternative operating systems. With Microsoft starting to expand their reach, companies like Adobe need to start thinking about what they're going to do when Microsoft has a "default" built-into-Windows program that does the same things that Adobe's programs do.
This concerns all companies that are competing with Microsoft now, or will be in the future. They need to prevent Microsoft from making clones of their programs that will be the Windows "defaults".
I bet IE7 doesn't have Google search as the start page. Can you guess which page might be the default?
When the virus scanners act like viruses, what should users do? This isn't the first time a virus scanner has screwed up, and it probably won't be the last time, either.
Furthermore, a lot of virus scanners have an option to "auto-update". Imagine if an entire company had this option turned on.
Virus scanners have always been a bad solution to the problem of viruses. They don't fix the problem at its root. Instead of ensuring their operating system has no known security holes, users now rely on virus scanners to just catch everything that comes through. Any determined attacker could still just craft a custom virus to attack any host they desire. Since the virus scanner companies wouldn't have come across that particular virus, it wouldn't get picked up.
Would you fix the holes in a boat with sticky tape instead of checking that the boat doesn't have holes before you put it in the water?
Interesting, but didn't George Bush recently say that America had to end its "addiction to oil" because most of it came from an "unstable part of the world"? (or words to that effect)
Actually, I wouldn't list people willing to die for what they believe in as a difference. I think the US has an equal, if not larger, percentage of people willing to die for what they believe in.
Let me ask you this: If Iraq had managed to invade the US, don't you think there would be a lot of Americans who would be willing to blow themselves up in order to kill off some of their Iraqi invaders?
If Microsoft think that the scope of the application is too small to be considered a completely separate package, it's not going to be the "Photoshop Killer" that they want it to be.
Will they get it right eventually? Probably. Microsoft can afford to throw money at things until they become good, and they have the added advantage of being able to make any product successful just by making it the "default". For this reason, they get a huge headstart over any competitors. Once competitors like Adobe and Google realise this, they might start thinking that switching customers over to Linux is a good idea. On Linux, no company controls the playground, so every application developing company is in there with an equal chance. There's no "default".
You know, as much as humans have screwed up the Earth, we've also made it interesting. I find the architecture and placement of buildings/roads/other man-made monuments to be the most interesting things on Google Maps. Google Moon is rather boring in comparison.
Damn right. In fact, any money spent online that doesn't go to well-established companies should always be money that you are willing to lose. There's never any guarantees about ebay sellers unless they have exceptional feedback for a LOT of auctions. (some dodgy sellers may "sell items" to friends to get positive feedback, before scamming other people)
Of course, some people deserve to lose their money more than others. I have far more sympathy for the bloke that lost $50 in a dodgy ebay auction than I do for someone who purchased property online without having seen it.
Buying any real estate online is clearly a stupid thing to do. Anyone who does this was just going to lose their money via some other scam, anyway. There's not much point in trying to prevent them from losing their money, because they will eventually find a way.
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It really depends on what they're up to. Their past efforts have shown that they're not too interested in being compatible with Linux/Unix, so this is suspicious.
One reason they might be doing this is to counter free software. Currently, projects like Samba have been making good progress toward connecting Unix and Windows computers. Samba is free software. By Microsoft closing the connectivity gap themselves, they can close it with closed-source, proprietary software. This means that they can control connectivity. If they so choose, they would then be able to break it off completely at any time.
So, this might just be a grab for power.
This is why some companies need Linux/Unix, but don't realise it. As pointed out by that ImageMagick article earlier, sometimes having command-line tools rather than fancy GUI programs is extremely useful.
What is needed here is a shell script.
Windows does have (limited) scripting capabilities, but is severely lacking any good command-line programs.
The difference is mainly that this is easily enforced. Anyone who buys a new iPod will need to upgrade iTunes (assuming their iTunes is older than the iPod) and will be forced into having all of the conditions on their music changed and enforced.
I suppose it's not too different than other software that people have purchased having features taken out in an "upgrade", but I'm not aware of any software that does that, and if there is some, it's probably not as widely used as iTunes.
When licences change but are not enforced, people generally go by the original licence. Licence changes would probably be a grey area in court, anyway. The fact that Apple is rather easily enforcing this is what makes it matter more than most licence changes, not that they aren't bad either.
Possibly. I have called the ACCC about iTunes before, since the iTunes Music Store DRM locks consumers into buying iPods or else losing the ability to play their music collection except on PC. The guy I talked to was nice enough and agreed that it was interesting as well as bad for consumers. Despite this, he said there wasn't anything the ACCC could do about it, but pointed out that there is illegal (in Australia, as well as the US) software available to crack the DRM and convert the files to another format.
My girlfriend also recently had an issue with her iPod where its HDD was dying. iTunes refused to play nicely with it, but the guy at the Apple Store also suggested she download certain software that would rip everything on it into MP3 files, which would also be illegal under Australian law.
It seems that both the government (ACCC) and Apple employees are willing to suggest the use of illegal software, but still want to keep it officially illegal and perhaps even sometimes enforce these ridiculous laws. I'll bet every politician and judge in Australia has a close relative who has violated copyright laws, yet we still think we should be extraditing one of our own citizens (guy in Perth, part of a "piracy ring") to the US to face prosecution there, despite the fact that we can't seem to extradite "Dr Death" (aka Dr Jayant Patel) who supposedly killed tens of people while practicing in Queensland.
There was a little report a bit more recently, again describing the changes, but they were mostly superficial changes. Basically, they were adding things that bring us up to US copyright status. Before that, we were worse than the US when it came to copyright. (no fair use)
I reckon Perl's OO support could use a bit of work, but I'm not very experienced with it, so maybe it just takes some getting used to.
Actually, if I read correctly, the law would only make it legal for people to break the DRM and convert their files to a different format. I'm not sure that it would force companies to provide tools to convert the bastardised files into a different format. It's more of a correction to a very broken law, where people are currently not allowed to convert DRM files to a different format. (French DMCA equivalent)
Yeah, well, currently Apple have been changing what you can do with the music you have ALREADY PURCHASED. They have been doing this via iTunes software updates. They changed the number of CDs you are "allowed" to burn for each song, and the number of computers you are "allowed" to have each song on.
I think in most countries, that would/should be regarded a very direct violation of consumers' rights. In Australia, you are supposed to get the product you paid for, not something different. By changing how you can "use" each song, Apple have essentially switched the product that people have.
Apple probably justify this by some stupid clause in their Terms & Conditions that states you don't really own the songs at all, or something. I'm sure they also have one of those "we reserve the right to change anything in the terms & conditions without notice" clauses, too.
I have to disagree about analog data distribution being dead, assuming you're talking about papers being delivered each morning. The vast majority of people still read the papers.
Having a paper to carry around and read is so much more convenient than having to read the paper on a laptop or something like that. When you're commuting to work each morning, you don't want to whip out your laptop and start reading the newspaper on it, which you would have had to have saved to it while rushing to get ready for work.
I think newspapers have at least a good 10 years left. That said, Mr Murdoch is right, in that media companies that do not embrace technology are doomed. The trick is mixing both the old and new, and not doing only one or the other. Maximise profits by doing both.
Most PlayStation 1/2/3 games are sequels, sequels of sequels, or just not really that original.
I'm not too fussy about how original a game is, and I think that taking a good game and improving it slightly is fine. It does mean that I won't want the older version when there's a newer version, though. So when PS2 came out, most PlayStation games lost their appeal to me because they had better replacements. When PS3 comes out, the situation is likely to be much the same.
So this service isn't of much interest, except for a small handful games that haven't had superior sequels/clones yet.
So, the company was helped with launching by a former US president, and the search engine is backed by the Chinese government? Sounds pretty suspicious to me.
I didn't really meant for it to be taken that way. I just meant that with companies that are not well known, there's not much that can be done if your money disappears, and you can't be 100% sure that you will receive what you paid for.
I'd still bid on good deals, but I wouldn't throw thousands of dollars at them unless the seller had an excellent (and long) feedback profile.
I'm not talking about Adobe just supporting Linux by porting Photoshop to it. I'm talking about them actively pushing Linux onto the desktop. Doing so can only benefit any company that competes with Microsoft products.
I've always wondered why the FSF doesn't link to downloadable speeches from their website. I think a lot of people would like to see one, but don't usually know where to look. I realise there are essays on the FSF website, but having attended an RMS speech on "copyright versus community", I can say that the essays aren't quite as informative as the speeches are.
Microsoft can't make their applications the "default" on alternative operating systems. With Microsoft starting to expand their reach, companies like Adobe need to start thinking about what they're going to do when Microsoft has a "default" built-into-Windows program that does the same things that Adobe's programs do.
This concerns all companies that are competing with Microsoft now, or will be in the future. They need to prevent Microsoft from making clones of their programs that will be the Windows "defaults".
I bet IE7 doesn't have Google search as the start page. Can you guess which page might be the default?
Google don't have a "photoshop type app", but Microsoft and Google have plenty of competing products.
:)
I'm putting my money on Google's office suite being free, and Microsoft having their new search engine as the "start" page in IE7 when Vista launches.
Have a lovely day yourself, sir.
When the virus scanners act like viruses, what should users do? This isn't the first time a virus scanner has screwed up, and it probably won't be the last time, either.
Furthermore, a lot of virus scanners have an option to "auto-update". Imagine if an entire company had this option turned on.
Virus scanners have always been a bad solution to the problem of viruses. They don't fix the problem at its root. Instead of ensuring their operating system has no known security holes, users now rely on virus scanners to just catch everything that comes through. Any determined attacker could still just craft a custom virus to attack any host they desire. Since the virus scanner companies wouldn't have come across that particular virus, it wouldn't get picked up.
Would you fix the holes in a boat with sticky tape instead of checking that the boat doesn't have holes before you put it in the water?
Interesting, but didn't George Bush recently say that America had to end its "addiction to oil" because most of it came from an "unstable part of the world"? (or words to that effect)
Actually, I wouldn't list people willing to die for what they believe in as a difference. I think the US has an equal, if not larger, percentage of people willing to die for what they believe in.
Let me ask you this: If Iraq had managed to invade the US, don't you think there would be a lot of Americans who would be willing to blow themselves up in order to kill off some of their Iraqi invaders?
If Microsoft think that the scope of the application is too small to be considered a completely separate package, it's not going to be the "Photoshop Killer" that they want it to be.
Will they get it right eventually? Probably. Microsoft can afford to throw money at things until they become good, and they have the added advantage of being able to make any product successful just by making it the "default". For this reason, they get a huge headstart over any competitors. Once competitors like Adobe and Google realise this, they might start thinking that switching customers over to Linux is a good idea. On Linux, no company controls the playground, so every application developing company is in there with an equal chance. There's no "default".
Time to play spot the martian!
You know, as much as humans have screwed up the Earth, we've also made it interesting. I find the architecture and placement of buildings/roads/other man-made monuments to be the most interesting things on Google Maps. Google Moon is rather boring in comparison.
Damn right. In fact, any money spent online that doesn't go to well-established companies should always be money that you are willing to lose. There's never any guarantees about ebay sellers unless they have exceptional feedback for a LOT of auctions. (some dodgy sellers may "sell items" to friends to get positive feedback, before scamming other people)
Of course, some people deserve to lose their money more than others. I have far more sympathy for the bloke that lost $50 in a dodgy ebay auction than I do for someone who purchased property online without having seen it.
Then your friend the real-estate appraiser should go back to high school before making any important financial decisions.
The land was actually worth $238,000, that is, the value of the land minus what it would cost to tear the house down.
Buying any real estate online is clearly a stupid thing to do. Anyone who does this was just going to lose their money via some other scam, anyway. There's not much point in trying to prevent them from losing their money, because they will eventually find a way.
A fool and his/her money will soon be parted.
See that picture at the top of the article? The big cloud with lots of fuzzy stuff in the middle, and then a less populated border?
Most of us were probably the border in high school...