LabView is like the 555 timer chip. Anybody who can do intelligent electronic design knows you don't use a fricking 555 timer chip. It's a 50 cent part that has 'issues', and you can use a 2 cent dual op-amp to accomplish as much, or more if you know anything at all about linear circuit design.
d'you ever asked carpenter if he had experience with hammers? LabView is a hammer for all that do not need/want programming but need to orchestrate repeating measurements.
G (why do people keep calling it "LabView"?) is more like a whole DAS/Process-Control multi-drawer rolling toolbox than a simple hammer.
Because G is no longer the name that National Instruments calls it?
While I agree that NI has recently de-emphasized the distinction between "G" and the entire LabView environment (my theory is because it was getting really hard to build search terms for a single letter (oh, how I have wished many times that K&R had called C something more distinctive when doing searches!), and because they got tired of answering stupid questions like "You mean "C", not "G", right?"), but the NI "community support" forums are still full of comments with "G-this" and "G-that" in them, even with new LabView programmers, and even in postings dated this year.
G is a name that NI has been using since 1986, and I may be wrong; but a quick look around on NI's site, doesn't seem to show any place where the term "G" is formally deprecated. It seems more like they are just quietly not talking specifically about "G" anymore as separate from "LabView" itself. Considering the fact that G is proprietary and I believe specific to the LabView platform, it was probably a wise marketing decision overall.
There are also, IIRC, trademark problems with single-letter and numerical names (remember how the 586 became the "Pentium" for that very reason?). So, that may also be an important reason (at least to NI), to stop using the term in marketing literature and documentation.
Twenty years from now, there probably won't be many LabView developers that have more than a passing knowledge of the term "G". But as of now, that most certainly doesn't seem to be the case, at least outside of NI's marketing and documentation departments.
Also, Wikipedia still lists "G" as the underlying language for LabView right in the second paragraph (and throughout the article), with no discussion of the name being dropped or changed. The name is also an important part of the OpenG project (Note that it is not called "OpenLabView". I'm sure if you post your idiotic comment there you'd be branded as a noob, or worse...
And, most importantly, even NI's online help system lists "G" simply as the "Graphical programming language LabVIEW uses", with no discussion of the name being deprecated or changed or dropped.
So, let's just agree that the term "G" is being slowly worked out of the LabView ecosystem; but especially with experienced G developers, the term will still be used to distinguish the language from the platform for a long time to come.
d'you ever asked carpenter if he had experience with hammers? LabView is a hammer for all that do not need/want programming but need to orchestrate repeating measurements.
G (why do people keep calling it "LabView"?) is more like a whole DAS/Process-Control multi-drawer rolling toolbox than a simple hammer.
I have had to "maintain" (read re-write) some G programs written by "non-programmers". While I have previously said that, as a software dev., G makes you wish you could UN-learn some of your typical programming habits, when you get beyond the simplest of apps, having a solid programming background/experience is pretty much as much a necessity in G as it is in any other language. In fact, I feel that it is far more difficult to just start "composing at the keyboard" in G than it is in assembler, BASIC or C.
G's slavishly OOP approach makes it really difficult to just sit down and write and write the typical spaghetti-code that is the hallmark of unskilled programmers the world around. If you try that in G, you will much more quickly develop yourself into a corner than in most "real" languages.
G actually requires and rewards good programming practices and a carefully-planned design. That is, once you get past a simple "acquire and display"-type app; which I would guess from you comments, you have not.
Really? I was bummed when I had to learn LabVIEW during my EE program because I felt like it was something I'd never use in the 'real world.' I mean, I still haven't ever seen a job advert asking for LabVIEW skills.
ORLY?
Here are FIFTEEN PAGES of Monster.com ads mentioning LabView.
LabView isn't programming it's masturbation. Java and C# are programming, if paint-by-number is an art form.
G (the language you ignorantly call "LabView") is, for what it is intended to be (an entirely graphic-based object-oriented language specifically created for the development of data acquisition and industrial control applications (Virtual Instruments) ONLY), is an incredible accomplishment, especially considering it was first introduced in the early 1980s.
I am an embedded developer with over 30 years of assembler and C (and a few years of G) experience; and while I wouldn't try to write a game, or CRM or ERP system in G, it is a damned sight easier and quicker to develop something like an automated test-stand/calibration/programming app (as I have done), or a front-end for a data acquisition system (as I have done), or something like a process-control system (as I have done), especially if that system is to be used by typical "factory-floor"-level personnel.
I have also written (and developed custom hardware for) data acquisition, machine-control and automated test-stand/calibration applications in assembler, BASIC, C and even HyperCard (the HyperCard-based one was actually pretty cool), and, although I have often said that it is actually somewhat of a detriment to be a "conventional" software dev. when programming in G, because you have to think like G, not like you're used to doing; in the end, you can create some pretty spiffy stuff in an incredibly short period of time. And, if you can't get there from here, you can always write more stuff in C or C++ that is called by G. Hardly masturbatory.
"Do you have any doubt that if Apple showed a similar set of videos, they would be videos of real people who actually loved their iPads?"
No doubt at all. Remember the original "Switcher" campaign? One of the reasons it was discontinued was that the real-life people in the ads started getting harassed/idolized in real-life. They were not actors.
Contrast that with the one-and-only Windows "switcher", who's picture came straight from Getty Images...
Actually at this point Microsoft seems more free than Apple. Apple was never a huge fan of open source, they were desperate. Generally companies in their prime can afford to "go it alone" and try to. Its the rest of the time that open source works so well.
Are you on crack?!?
Let's see:
WebKit
launchd
GCD
CUPS (purchased and then allowed to remain O/S)
Bonjour
Darwin
IOKit
Those are NOT signs of a "desperate" company; but rather a company that recognizes the value the F/OSS community has to offer, AND the value it has to offer the F/OSS community.
The article mentions that GCC has now been made GPL3, and Apple's stopped contributing.
Now, I understand why the Samba folks might not want their code to be used to produce an unmodifyable network appliance. GPL3 can help there, I guess. But Apple's not preventing Mac owners from updating Samba modules on their systems, so it's not that part of GPL3 that's causing the problem. And GCC isn't likely to appear in locked-down appliances at all. In fact GCC, as a dev tool, is probably a candidate for LGPL-type licensing.
So the Mac ends up being collateral damage to something else in the GPL3. And I assume the problem is the part of GPL3 about patents. I hate software patents as much as the next guy, but I don't see how Apple's embrace of them affects Samba users on Macs one bit. So, it's a political position, not a practical one. And a self-defeating one, if you ask me. All it does is make Macs work worse in Windows-based networks, ceding a bigger segment of the market to Microsoft.
While I agree that the SAMBA project and the GCC project both have bitten off their noses to spite their faces in this regard, I disagree that it should automatically follow that this won't actually result in a net GAIN for Apple users in general.
Both SAMBA and gcc, like most F/OSS projects, never seem to quite get it together, and truth be told, part of the reason that Apple is abandoning those projects is that, just like with launchd (which Apple then Open-Sourced) vs. the old rc boot process, their homegown solutions are often significant improvements over the original F/OSS code.
They decided on their values, formed the GPLv3, and stuck to those values.
Perhaps you misread what I said. I called the people who are pissed about the GPLv3 "control freak assholes." The GPLv3 was created by people who are more concerned with ensuring that people who receive GPLv3 software are not controlled.
So, please tell me how imposing MORE restrictions on the distribution of "free" software is not MORE controlling.
Was Apple calling SAMBA its own? No.
Was Apple restricting anyone else from using SAMBA (or its improvements thereto)? No.
Was Apple charging people EXTRA for using SAMBA? No.
Was Apple contributing changes and improvements to the SAMBA project? (I really don't know; but I assume "yes", since SAMBA has its share of bugs.) Yes.
So, please tell me how Apple was "controlling" SAMBA?
Apple very well understands the contributions the F/OSS community have made, and for a very large measure, has repaid those contributions in kind, and with respect.
For example, when Apple purchased CUPS, did they suddenly send C&D letters to all the Linux distro maintainers? What do you think would have happened if MS would have purchased CUPS?
Stop trying to paint Apple as Teh Evilz, it's becoming a more and more tiresome meme; because it is so easily refuted by Teh Factzes.
IMHO, Apple becomes less and less free than the ideals expressed when MacOSX arrived, and becomes more and more like Microsoft all the time, in terms of proprietary infrastructure with high walls and draconian developer requirements.
I think the number of included F/OSS projects in OS X has actually INCREASED over time; and Apple certainly has been anything but a software leech in terms of the F/OSS community in general.
What "draconinan" developer requirements? If you are talking about the paltry $99 for an iOS dev. license, you have a pretty damned distorted viewpoint on what "draconian" is.
If you looked at the requirements to become a registered Mac developer back in the Macintosh Toolbox and MPW days, versus now (for example, I am a registered Mac OS X developer, and I haven't paid a dime), you certainly would characterize their policies as becoming "more and more" "draconian", or the
"walls" being "high".
And as for a proprietary infrastructure; the core of OS X, Darwin, is, was, and remains Open. The parts that are proprietary are, by and large, actually built ON TOP of that infrastructure.
Oh, and BTW, many of those parts are Open, too. So go troll someplace else, ok?
You're either for personal freedom or you're not. Civil rights stop me from enslaving people, therefore I'm not free.
If I release some "free software", then someone else comes along and entangles it with their own proprietary software and adds their own restrictions, then the part that is my contribution is no longer free. The software itself is not free, in the same way that a slave is not free. The software has been enslaved. So allowing people to do whatever they want to my software is contrary to my software's freedom.
Then don't call it free, as in Freedom.
Who says your software didn't want to be incorporated with another project? For if you are anthropomorphizing software to the point that you say that it can be "enslaved", then you must also attribute to that software the free will to associate itself with other software, and the free will to "do things" of which you personally do not approve.
Either you put a big fat Copyright symbol on your software (which is exactly the same as branding cattle, or slaves) and call it YOUR slave, or you let it fly free into the world, to make its way on it own.
Having a single primary rule (with a small set of rules designed to support that rule) does not make you a dictator.
I seem to recall that the #1 Open Source project (Linux) chafes against what most so-called "F/OSS" devs.CALL "Open". Sir Linus doesn't like GPLv3, either, and in fact, thinks the whole FSF GPLv3 licensing bit is a sham.
Now what? This is a bit like the "Unlimited" internet service that Comcast OVERsold to everyone in their markets, then, when people actually started trying to exercise that condition of the agreement, suddenly, "Unlimited" became more and more of a bad joke (called breach-of-contract in any normal contractual agreement).
Why is that every time you show some Android product has better feature or performance, call it X, than an competing Apple product the reply from Apple fans follows this logic..
People don't care about X
Eventually Apples popularity will start to fade and people WILL care.
You are assuming that Apple will not continue to define and re-define whole markets and classes of devices, as it has done repeatedly in its history. Honestly, to take but one example, do you really think we would even HAVE Honeycomb to compare iOS to if Apple hadn't released the iPad?
1 second difference can add up to a lot of time if you read many web pages, or you are searching for something. Just do the math. Say 100 modest amount web pages a day , 365 days a year. So you have (100*365)/3600 = 10.13 extra hours spent a year staring at screen that is doing nothing.
The flaw in your logic is that you spend zero time after the page loads doing things like figuring out what part of the page is relevant, scrolling to read desired content, picking your nose, etc. Ya know, the things that humans do, that an automated test does not. Now, if the difference was like 200 or 300%, then I would agree that it MIGHT matter to a HUMAN.
In both tests they used the embedded browser for both handsets respectively. From their testing suite I don't see how they could throw off the benchmark that much, 45,000 samples is a pretty significant sample size.
And the differences are not spectacular, and in the next couple of months, the iPhone 5 will whip on the Nexus. So what? Until Apple and Google decide to synchronize their hardware and software releases (not bloody likely), there will continue to be a back-and-forth "winner", as each respective platform updates themselves asynchronously with the other.
More on there testing methodology is here http://www.blaze.io/mobile/methodology/ .
Finally the second link is complaints from Apple iOS developers. iOS 4.3 browser cannot use the new Nitro javascript engine in full screen mode, html 5 caching is missing, and mode in which the page is drawn on the screen has changed such that it is slower than native apps. Bug or not, it currently slower and no one knows why except Apple.
And no one knows why Android's scrolling/swiping is jumpy except Google, apparently; because I sure haven't seen anyone posting links to FIXES for that issue, and many, many Android owners complain about just that on Slashdot every single day (some even in this thread).
Could be that a piece or twelve of iOS javascript engine-code could use a little tightening. Cool thing is, when Apple does that, EVERY iOS device that can run the updated code will be updated to do so. How long do you think such a change would take to propagate through the Android multiverse?
VNC is more or less just a video stream with input controls, while GTK+ 3.2 is an interface toolkit. This not only uses less bandwidth for the typical "remote desktop" scenario, but it also can be used for entirely different purposes, such as a web application or an interface to a remote application. They're two totally different things.
I would imagine that Google is giving the middle finger to F/OSS because they feel, in their estimation, that none (or pretty much none) of the various F/OSS projects they have ripped-off have the financial wherewithal to mount an effective legal defense. Yes, I know about the EFF; but they have been, historically, pretty much ineffective at getting legal decisions in THEIR favor, and in fact, have actually made some pretty bad caselaw.
I mean, really? Do you think YOU could successfully sue Google if they ripped off YOUR F/OSS project? Unless you were the maintainer of something like Ubuntu or Apache, you'd be broke after fighting their first Motion To Dismiss or Summary Judgment motion.
Nope. This is the Golden Rule: They who have the Gold, make the Rules.
Really, this is pretty much a new low in comment-baiting for Slashdot.
This so-called "test" is so utterly and completely unscientific as to be not worth the service space it is stored on.
Period.
It's supposed to be NEWS for Nerds, and this hardly qualifies. And, not content to troll on its own, the summary has to link to ANOTHER Flamebait summary to "support" its "point".
Note to Slashdot: You can do better than this; so DO it already!
Um, because that's where this concept of "Government is the grantor of rights" originally came from, way back in 1948, long before the EU formed. The EU more or less just copied some of the original UN language. But, now that I look at it, the UN's version is much better than the EU's. FAR less "asterisks". I do note that in 2008, the UN Council on Human Rights formed. I have no idea what shenanigans they may be up to, though.
The GP is talking about The European Convention on Human Rights. It has nothing to do with the UN. It is a treaty for the protection of fundamental rights within Europe. The UK is a signatory to the treaty.
Also, do you really think that codifying a law as coming from "God" makes it harder to change? I'd never thought about it before - it's an interesting concept, although I think a modern version would have to be secular. Perhaps a law of the universe? I think that one of the the main reasons the constitution is so hard to change is because the idea of its supremacy is socially entrenched in the US. We don't have a specific set of codified, core values with which the whole country can identify like that here in the UK, but I really like the idea. I would be very much in favour of drawing up a constitution of universal rights and freedoms that is strongly protected from change.
I'm not an FSM believer, either. I was just saying that people in the USA more or less universally recognize those words as meaning "You are born with these rights, and no law can be created, and no action of government can be allowed that materially restricts them."
Now, having said that, of course there are minor restrictions on those freedoms everywhere: Can't walk outside without pants on (and women without just a shirt), FCC restricts certain images and language from broadcast, can't yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, etc. But those restrictions are, by and large, at least, somewhat understandable (although the censorship has always been over-the-top prudish, IMHO). When it gets dangerous is when the gummint says you can't say stuff about the gummint itself. Until then, you essentially have what most people would agree is free speech.
Contrast this with the countries that imprison/execute those who disparage, or satire, political or religious figures.
Slashdot Mirror
LabView is like the 555 timer chip. Anybody who can do intelligent electronic design knows you don't use a fricking 555 timer chip. It's a 50 cent part that has 'issues', and you can use a 2 cent dual op-amp to accomplish as much, or more if you know anything at all about linear circuit design.
Actually, I think most, if not all, of those issues were fixed with the 7555.
Oh, and tell that to Steve Wozniak, and the engineers of the original IBM PC. But I guess they don't qualify as people who knew anything about linear circuit design.
Also, there have been an estimated one BILLION 555 timer ICs manufactured EVERY YEAR up through the present, and by nearly everyone who spins linear silicon. Obviously, many of those are going into some pretty high-volume PRODUCTS.
So, it looks like you are a typical engineering snob, and not the "Illuminati" here.
d'you ever asked carpenter if he had experience with hammers? LabView is a hammer for all that do not need/want programming but need to orchestrate repeating measurements.
Tell that to Bruce Schneier.
G (why do people keep calling it "LabView"?) is more like a whole DAS/Process-Control multi-drawer rolling toolbox than a simple hammer.
Because G is no longer the name that National Instruments calls it?
While I agree that NI has recently de-emphasized the distinction between "G" and the entire LabView environment (my theory is because it was getting really hard to build search terms for a single letter (oh, how I have wished many times that K&R had called C something more distinctive when doing searches!), and because they got tired of answering stupid questions like "You mean "C", not "G", right?"), but the NI "community support" forums are still full of comments with "G-this" and "G-that" in them, even with new LabView programmers, and even in postings dated this year.
G is a name that NI has been using since 1986, and I may be wrong; but a quick look around on NI's site, doesn't seem to show any place where the term "G" is formally deprecated. It seems more like they are just quietly not talking specifically about "G" anymore as separate from "LabView" itself. Considering the fact that G is proprietary and I believe specific to the LabView platform, it was probably a wise marketing decision overall.
There are also, IIRC, trademark problems with single-letter and numerical names (remember how the 586 became the "Pentium" for that very reason?). So, that may also be an important reason (at least to NI), to stop using the term in marketing literature and documentation.
Twenty years from now, there probably won't be many LabView developers that have more than a passing knowledge of the term "G". But as of now, that most certainly doesn't seem to be the case, at least outside of NI's marketing and documentation departments.
Also, Wikipedia still lists "G" as the underlying language for LabView right in the second paragraph (and throughout the article), with no discussion of the name being dropped or changed. The name is also an important part of the OpenG project (Note that it is not called "OpenLabView". I'm sure if you post your idiotic comment there you'd be branded as a noob, or worse...
And, most importantly, even NI's online help system lists "G" simply as the "Graphical programming language LabVIEW uses", with no discussion of the name being deprecated or changed or dropped.
So, let's just agree that the term "G" is being slowly worked out of the LabView ecosystem; but especially with experienced G developers, the term will still be used to distinguish the language from the platform for a long time to come.
d'you ever asked carpenter if he had experience with hammers? LabView is a hammer for all that do not need/want programming but need to orchestrate repeating measurements.
G (why do people keep calling it "LabView"?) is more like a whole DAS/Process-Control multi-drawer rolling toolbox than a simple hammer.
I have had to "maintain" (read re-write) some G programs written by "non-programmers". While I have previously said that, as a software dev., G makes you wish you could UN-learn some of your typical programming habits, when you get beyond the simplest of apps, having a solid programming background/experience is pretty much as much a necessity in G as it is in any other language. In fact, I feel that it is far more difficult to just start "composing at the keyboard" in G than it is in assembler, BASIC or C.
G's slavishly OOP approach makes it really difficult to just sit down and write and write the typical spaghetti-code that is the hallmark of unskilled programmers the world around. If you try that in G, you will much more quickly develop yourself into a corner than in most "real" languages.
G actually requires and rewards good programming practices and a carefully-planned design. That is, once you get past a simple "acquire and display"-type app; which I would guess from you comments, you have not.
Really? I was bummed when I had to learn LabVIEW during my EE program because I felt like it was something I'd never use in the 'real world.' I mean, I still haven't ever seen a job advert asking for LabVIEW skills.
ORLY?
Here are FIFTEEN PAGES of Monster.com ads mentioning LabView.
Next?
LabView isn't programming it's masturbation. Java and C# are programming, if paint-by-number is an art form.
G (the language you ignorantly call "LabView") is, for what it is intended to be (an entirely graphic-based object-oriented language specifically created for the development of data acquisition and industrial control applications (Virtual Instruments) ONLY), is an incredible accomplishment, especially considering it was first introduced in the early 1980s.
I am an embedded developer with over 30 years of assembler and C (and a few years of G) experience; and while I wouldn't try to write a game, or CRM or ERP system in G, it is a damned sight easier and quicker to develop something like an automated test-stand/calibration/programming app (as I have done), or a front-end for a data acquisition system (as I have done), or something like a process-control system (as I have done), especially if that system is to be used by typical "factory-floor"-level personnel.
I have also written (and developed custom hardware for) data acquisition, machine-control and automated test-stand/calibration applications in assembler, BASIC, C and even HyperCard (the HyperCard-based one was actually pretty cool), and, although I have often said that it is actually somewhat of a detriment to be a "conventional" software dev. when programming in G, because you have to think like G, not like you're used to doing; in the end, you can create some pretty spiffy stuff in an incredibly short period of time. And, if you can't get there from here, you can always write more stuff in C or C++ that is called by G. Hardly masturbatory.
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
~John Lennon
SPECTACULAR quote! Kudos, sir.
It would need legal protection or it might be sued for defamation, even if it is correct
Not sued successfully. The truth is a complete defense in a defamation suit.
"Do you have any doubt that if Apple showed a similar set of videos, they would be videos of real people who actually loved their iPads?"
No doubt at all. Remember the original "Switcher" campaign? One of the reasons it was discontinued was that the real-life people in the ads started getting harassed/idolized in real-life. They were not actors.
Contrast that with the one-and-only Windows "switcher", who's picture came straight from Getty Images...
Actually at this point Microsoft seems more free than Apple. Apple was never a huge fan of open source, they were desperate. Generally companies in their prime can afford to "go it alone" and try to. Its the rest of the time that open source works so well.
Are you on crack?!?
Let's see:
WebKit
launchd
GCD
CUPS (purchased and then allowed to remain O/S)
Bonjour
Darwin
IOKit
Those are NOT signs of a "desperate" company; but rather a company that recognizes the value the F/OSS community has to offer, AND the value it has to offer the F/OSS community.
Try trolling somewhere else.
The article mentions that GCC has now been made GPL3, and Apple's stopped contributing.
Now, I understand why the Samba folks might not want their code to be used to produce an unmodifyable network appliance. GPL3 can help there, I guess. But Apple's not preventing Mac owners from updating Samba modules on their systems, so it's not that part of GPL3 that's causing the problem. And GCC isn't likely to appear in locked-down appliances at all. In fact GCC, as a dev tool, is probably a candidate for LGPL-type licensing.
So the Mac ends up being collateral damage to something else in the GPL3. And I assume the problem is the part of GPL3 about patents. I hate software patents as much as the next guy, but I don't see how Apple's embrace of them affects Samba users on Macs one bit. So, it's a political position, not a practical one. And a self-defeating one, if you ask me. All it does is make Macs work worse in Windows-based networks, ceding a bigger segment of the market to Microsoft.
While I agree that the SAMBA project and the GCC project both have bitten off their noses to spite their faces in this regard, I disagree that it should automatically follow that this won't actually result in a net GAIN for Apple users in general.
Both SAMBA and gcc, like most F/OSS projects, never seem to quite get it together, and truth be told, part of the reason that Apple is abandoning those projects is that, just like with launchd (which Apple then Open-Sourced) vs. the old rc boot process, their homegown solutions are often significant improvements over the original F/OSS code.
Perhaps you misread what I said. I called the people who are pissed about the GPLv3 "control freak assholes." The GPLv3 was created by people who are more concerned with ensuring that people who receive GPLv3 software are not controlled.
So, please tell me how imposing MORE restrictions on the distribution of "free" software is not MORE controlling.
Was Apple calling SAMBA its own? No.
Was Apple restricting anyone else from using SAMBA (or its improvements thereto)? No.
Was Apple charging people EXTRA for using SAMBA? No.
Was Apple contributing changes and improvements to the SAMBA project? (I really don't know; but I assume "yes", since SAMBA has its share of bugs.) Yes.
So, please tell me how Apple was "controlling" SAMBA?
Apple very well understands the contributions the F/OSS community have made, and for a very large measure, has repaid those contributions in kind, and with respect.
For example, when Apple purchased CUPS, did they suddenly send C&D letters to all the Linux distro maintainers? What do you think would have happened if MS would have purchased CUPS?
Stop trying to paint Apple as Teh Evilz, it's becoming a more and more tiresome meme; because it is so easily refuted by Teh Factzes.
IMHO, Apple becomes less and less free than the ideals expressed when MacOSX arrived, and becomes more and more like Microsoft all the time, in terms of proprietary infrastructure with high walls and draconian developer requirements.
I think the number of included F/OSS projects in OS X has actually INCREASED over time; and Apple certainly has been anything but a software leech in terms of the F/OSS community in general.
What "draconinan" developer requirements? If you are talking about the paltry $99 for an iOS dev. license, you have a pretty damned distorted viewpoint on what "draconian" is.
If you looked at the requirements to become a registered Mac developer back in the Macintosh Toolbox and MPW days, versus now (for example, I am a registered Mac OS X developer, and I haven't paid a dime), you certainly would characterize their policies as becoming "more and more" "draconian", or the "walls" being "high".
And as for a proprietary infrastructure; the core of OS X, Darwin, is, was, and remains Open. The parts that are proprietary are, by and large, actually built ON TOP of that infrastructure.
Oh, and BTW, many of those parts are Open, too. So go troll someplace else, ok?
You're either for personal freedom or you're not. Civil rights stop me from enslaving people, therefore I'm not free.
If I release some "free software", then someone else comes along and entangles it with their own proprietary software and adds their own restrictions, then the part that is my contribution is no longer free. The software itself is not free, in the same way that a slave is not free. The software has been enslaved. So allowing people to do whatever they want to my software is contrary to my software's freedom.
Then don't call it free, as in Freedom.
Who says your software didn't want to be incorporated with another project? For if you are anthropomorphizing software to the point that you say that it can be "enslaved", then you must also attribute to that software the free will to associate itself with other software, and the free will to "do things" of which you personally do not approve.
Either you put a big fat Copyright symbol on your software (which is exactly the same as branding cattle, or slaves) and call it YOUR slave, or you let it fly free into the world, to make its way on it own.
By your own analogy, there is no middle ground.
Having a single primary rule (with a small set of rules designed to support that rule) does not make you a dictator.
I seem to recall that the #1 Open Source project (Linux) chafes against what most so-called "F/OSS" devs.CALL "Open". Sir Linus doesn't like GPLv3, either, and in fact, thinks the whole FSF GPLv3 licensing bit is a sham.
Now what? This is a bit like the "Unlimited" internet service that Comcast OVERsold to everyone in their markets, then, when people actually started trying to exercise that condition of the agreement, suddenly, "Unlimited" became more and more of a bad joke (called breach-of-contract in any normal contractual agreement).
I'm sorry; but you just reduced your mobile device purchasing options to ZERO with that one spec.
Why don't you try learning to really code, instead.
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Sorry, but modern astrophysics just smacks of the "Our main weapon is surprise..." bit; where the number of "weapons" keeps increasing.
OK, well we're talking about crypto engineers, so only the 'girl' condition is essential, not the 'cute' condition.
And, if you're talking about Alan Turing, the 'girl' condition is not only non-essential, it is a liability.
Just sayin'...
1 second was just the median, not actuals, and since the average wasn't given you cannot compute the expected load time.
Cool thing is, when Apple does that, EVERY iOS device
In case of emergency, keep drinking your kool-aid. http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/139721/ios-43-leaves-iphone-3g-owners-exposed http://gizmodo.com/#!5512610/original-iphones-3g-cant-fully-upgrade-to-iphone-os-4
I note that you conveniently hacked off the end of the sentence, where I CONTINUED "that can run the updated code..."
But what else would I expect from an AC?
Why is that every time you show some Android product has better feature or performance, call it X, than an competing Apple product the reply from Apple fans follows this logic..
People don't care about X
Eventually Apples popularity will start to fade and people WILL care.
You are assuming that Apple will not continue to define and re-define whole markets and classes of devices, as it has done repeatedly in its history. Honestly, to take but one example, do you really think we would even HAVE Honeycomb to compare iOS to if Apple hadn't released the iPad?
1 second difference can add up to a lot of time if you read many web pages, or you are searching for something. Just do the math. Say 100 modest amount web pages a day , 365 days a year. So you have (100*365)/3600 = 10.13 extra hours spent a year staring at screen that is doing nothing.
The flaw in your logic is that you spend zero time after the page loads doing things like figuring out what part of the page is relevant, scrolling to read desired content, picking your nose, etc. Ya know, the things that humans do, that an automated test does not. Now, if the difference was like 200 or 300%, then I would agree that it MIGHT matter to a HUMAN.
In both tests they used the embedded browser for both handsets respectively. From their testing suite I don't see how they could throw off the benchmark that much, 45,000 samples is a pretty significant sample size.
And the differences are not spectacular, and in the next couple of months, the iPhone 5 will whip on the Nexus. So what? Until Apple and Google decide to synchronize their hardware and software releases (not bloody likely), there will continue to be a back-and-forth "winner", as each respective platform updates themselves asynchronously with the other.
More on there testing methodology is here http://www.blaze.io/mobile/methodology/ . Finally the second link is complaints from Apple iOS developers. iOS 4.3 browser cannot use the new Nitro javascript engine in full screen mode, html 5 caching is missing, and mode in which the page is drawn on the screen has changed such that it is slower than native apps. Bug or not, it currently slower and no one knows why except Apple.
And no one knows why Android's scrolling/swiping is jumpy except Google, apparently; because I sure haven't seen anyone posting links to FIXES for that issue, and many, many Android owners complain about just that on Slashdot every single day (some even in this thread).
Could be that a piece or twelve of iOS javascript engine-code could use a little tightening. Cool thing is, when Apple does that, EVERY iOS device that can run the updated code will be updated to do so. How long do you think such a change would take to propagate through the Android multiverse?
VNC is more or less just a video stream with input controls, while GTK+ 3.2 is an interface toolkit. This not only uses less bandwidth for the typical "remote desktop" scenario, but it also can be used for entirely different purposes, such as a web application or an interface to a remote application. They're two totally different things.
So, it really IS a hacker's dream!
I would imagine that Google is giving the middle finger to F/OSS because they feel, in their estimation, that none (or pretty much none) of the various F/OSS projects they have ripped-off have the financial wherewithal to mount an effective legal defense. Yes, I know about the EFF; but they have been, historically, pretty much ineffective at getting legal decisions in THEIR favor, and in fact, have actually made some pretty bad caselaw.
I mean, really? Do you think YOU could successfully sue Google if they ripped off YOUR F/OSS project? Unless you were the maintainer of something like Ubuntu or Apache, you'd be broke after fighting their first Motion To Dismiss or Summary Judgment motion.
Nope. This is the Golden Rule: They who have the Gold, make the Rules.
How is this different than using VNC, other than it doesn't require a server-client app pair?
Really, this is pretty much a new low in comment-baiting for Slashdot.
This so-called "test" is so utterly and completely unscientific as to be not worth the service space it is stored on.
Period.
It's supposed to be NEWS for Nerds, and this hardly qualifies. And, not content to troll on its own, the summary has to link to ANOTHER Flamebait summary to "support" its "point".
Note to Slashdot: You can do better than this; so DO it already!
Where did you get "UN Human Rights" from?
Um, because that's where this concept of "Government is the grantor of rights" originally came from, way back in 1948, long before the EU formed. The EU more or less just copied some of the original UN language. But, now that I look at it, the UN's version is much better than the EU's. FAR less "asterisks". I do note that in 2008, the UN Council on Human Rights formed. I have no idea what shenanigans they may be up to, though.
The GP is talking about The European Convention on Human Rights. It has nothing to do with the UN. It is a treaty for the protection of fundamental rights within Europe. The UK is a signatory to the treaty. Also, do you really think that codifying a law as coming from "God" makes it harder to change? I'd never thought about it before - it's an interesting concept, although I think a modern version would have to be secular. Perhaps a law of the universe? I think that one of the the main reasons the constitution is so hard to change is because the idea of its supremacy is socially entrenched in the US. We don't have a specific set of codified, core values with which the whole country can identify like that here in the UK, but I really like the idea. I would be very much in favour of drawing up a constitution of universal rights and freedoms that is strongly protected from change.
I'm not an FSM believer, either. I was just saying that people in the USA more or less universally recognize those words as meaning "You are born with these rights, and no law can be created, and no action of government can be allowed that materially restricts them."
Now, having said that, of course there are minor restrictions on those freedoms everywhere: Can't walk outside without pants on (and women without just a shirt), FCC restricts certain images and language from broadcast, can't yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, etc. But those restrictions are, by and large, at least, somewhat understandable (although the censorship has always been over-the-top prudish, IMHO). When it gets dangerous is when the gummint says you can't say stuff about the gummint itself. Until then, you essentially have what most people would agree is free speech.
Contrast this with the countries that imprison/execute those who disparage, or satire, political or religious figures.