Apple portrays a certain ease of use with all their products, especially to non-techie types. Just watch one of their PC vs Mac ads. Now if a non-techie person get a jailbroken iPhone, and something happens to it, they're gonna blame Apple. This is a problem for them, because then word might get out that their stuff doesn't "Just Work," even if they had nothing to do with it.
It does make sense, which is why it isn't true.
See the Blizzard/Glider case for an example of this. It was found that by using Glider, you were in fact, making an illegal copy of WoW in memory, because by using Glider, you were violating their terms.
I have no qualms about downloading crap for the sake of downloading crap. It's not like I would have bought it in the first place.
I have never gotten a clear answer to this. If you wouldn't have bought it in the first place, why do you feel entitled to it? Why not just go without?
The argument is that they are showing you where the infringing material is. That they are aiding and abetting copyright infringers, and they are becoming distributors of the content themselves, which is against copyright law in most countries.
Not saying I agree with it, just presenting their argument as I see it.
I guess being Less Sucky is technically an improvement, but not by much.
If you are willing to move your family over to India and never look back, then its not a terrible arrangement. If, however, you want to move back to the US after a few years, then you will have effectively lost any earning power that you would have had if you stayed in the States, due to much lower wages.
Which is why its so refreshing to see them do things like this. They've already made their money off of you, so they could just tell you to fuck right off. Instead, they're actually supporting the customer after the sale, and working to keep the playing field as level as possible for everyone.
I completely agree on that one. When I first heard about it, I couldn't really wrap my head around it. After a while (and some bad quiz scores later), I decided to accept that it was true, because smarter people than I came up with it. After doing that, I was able to understand it a little.
Although I admit this method is very unorthodox, as it depends on trusting those smarter than me to not be stupid. I wouldn't recommend using this method to learn stuff.
Assuming ndiswrapper is not actually shutting down, that the project is still continuing, I don't think its too much to ask that they keep their site up. It should be common sense that you shouldn't develop on the live server, if only for the fact that while you're developing, no one has access to the current site.
What if you're not able to support it yourself? I bet that a majority of the people who use Firefox wouldn't know the source code if it took a dump on their chest. Does that mean they should all go back to IE?
I think the difference is, you're giving specs and blueprints. With many smaller open source projects, you don't even get that. You get a big jumble of code, and what the code actually does is an exercise to the reader.
As for if OSS developers should support their projects for free? Not unless you want users, and want to KEEP those users. There might be users you don't want to keep. However, I feel that if your project is good enough to have its own website, then its good enough for YOU THE DEVELOPER, not just a volunteer but the guy who wrote the software, to write reliable, readable, and up to date documentation about it. Otherwise just throw it on Google Code or Usenet.
Unless you have specifically contributed to a project you have no reason to even expect some kind of support, and even then, its kind of iffy, unless you've contributed code, at which point it becomes pointless, because if you can hack on a project, it's unlikely you need any support.
So you're saying that if I help out a project through non-coding means, usually the things that OSS projects need the most (GOOD documentation, translation, marketing/advertising, usability testing), that I don't deserve help/support?
Advertisers want huge conglomerate radio station networks. Clear Channel et al deliver that.
I'm not so sure about this anymore. With the recent downturn in the US economy, studies are showing that advertisers are starting to reduce their ad budgets, and are looking for ways to get more bang for their buck. Internet Radio can give far more detailed numbers regarding how many people are listening, and the makeups of the listening demographics (think Google ads), than terrestrial radio can.
Actually, Objective C is really easy to learn if you already know C and some other Object Oriented language. You'd probably just need a weekend and a copy of Aaron Hillegass' fantastic book Cocoa Programming for OS X.
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Except they're not suing anybody. They're responding to an EFF request that jailbreaking the iPhone be exempt from the DMCA.
Apple portrays a certain ease of use with all their products, especially to non-techie types. Just watch one of their PC vs Mac ads. Now if a non-techie person get a jailbroken iPhone, and something happens to it, they're gonna blame Apple. This is a problem for them, because then word might get out that their stuff doesn't "Just Work," even if they had nothing to do with it.
However, most, if not all EULAs state that by using the software, you are agreeing to be bound by the EULA.
It does make sense, which is why it isn't true. See the Blizzard/Glider case for an example of this. It was found that by using Glider, you were in fact, making an illegal copy of WoW in memory, because by using Glider, you were violating their terms.
If that's the case, then its your fault for entering into an agreement without knowing/understanding the terms of the agreement beforehand.
One could argue that by buying gasoline, you are tacitly accepting and encouraging the business practices of the oil industry and the war for oil.
But iTunes used to have DRM on the music. The difference is their DRM worked on the most popular music player.
I have no qualms about downloading crap for the sake of downloading crap. It's not like I would have bought it in the first place.
I have never gotten a clear answer to this. If you wouldn't have bought it in the first place, why do you feel entitled to it? Why not just go without?
The argument is that they are showing you where the infringing material is. That they are aiding and abetting copyright infringers, and they are becoming distributors of the content themselves, which is against copyright law in most countries. Not saying I agree with it, just presenting their argument as I see it.
I guess being Less Sucky is technically an improvement, but not by much. If you are willing to move your family over to India and never look back, then its not a terrible arrangement. If, however, you want to move back to the US after a few years, then you will have effectively lost any earning power that you would have had if you stayed in the States, due to much lower wages.
"Ok sir, your cable modem is hooked up, and World of Warcraft has been installed. Would you like to sign up for Comcast's Gold Farming package now?"
AFAIC tell, the point of Mono really is so you can write C# code on a platform other than Windows.
It seems the only way to win is not to play...
Which is why its so refreshing to see them do things like this. They've already made their money off of you, so they could just tell you to fuck right off. Instead, they're actually supporting the customer after the sale, and working to keep the playing field as level as possible for everyone.
I completely agree on that one. When I first heard about it, I couldn't really wrap my head around it. After a while (and some bad quiz scores later), I decided to accept that it was true, because smarter people than I came up with it. After doing that, I was able to understand it a little. Although I admit this method is very unorthodox, as it depends on trusting those smarter than me to not be stupid. I wouldn't recommend using this method to learn stuff.
Assuming ndiswrapper is not actually shutting down, that the project is still continuing, I don't think its too much to ask that they keep their site up. It should be common sense that you shouldn't develop on the live server, if only for the fact that while you're developing, no one has access to the current site.
What if you're not able to support it yourself? I bet that a majority of the people who use Firefox wouldn't know the source code if it took a dump on their chest. Does that mean they should all go back to IE?
I think the difference is, you're giving specs and blueprints. With many smaller open source projects, you don't even get that. You get a big jumble of code, and what the code actually does is an exercise to the reader.
As for if OSS developers should support their projects for free? Not unless you want users, and want to KEEP those users. There might be users you don't want to keep. However, I feel that if your project is good enough to have its own website, then its good enough for YOU THE DEVELOPER, not just a volunteer but the guy who wrote the software, to write reliable, readable, and up to date documentation about it. Otherwise just throw it on Google Code or Usenet.
Unless you have specifically contributed to a project you have no reason to even expect some kind of support, and even then, its kind of iffy, unless you've contributed code, at which point it becomes pointless, because if you can hack on a project, it's unlikely you need any support.
So you're saying that if I help out a project through non-coding means, usually the things that OSS projects need the most (GOOD documentation, translation, marketing/advertising, usability testing), that I don't deserve help/support?
If you can't be bothered to learn new technologies, then why the hell are you in software development?
Man, you're lucky. Verizon said we can't get smoke signals out here yet. I'm stuck with carrier pigeons.
I believe that Kevin Mitnick would say otherwise.
Advertisers want huge conglomerate radio station networks. Clear Channel et al deliver that.
I'm not so sure about this anymore. With the recent downturn in the US economy, studies are showing that advertisers are starting to reduce their ad budgets, and are looking for ways to get more bang for their buck. Internet Radio can give far more detailed numbers regarding how many people are listening, and the makeups of the listening demographics (think Google ads), than terrestrial radio can.
Actually, Objective C is really easy to learn if you already know C and some other Object Oriented language. You'd probably just need a weekend and a copy of Aaron Hillegass' fantastic book Cocoa Programming for OS X.
A remake of Custer's Revenge