Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 31st Jul 2008 22:03 UTC
There are probably lots and lots of lawsuits going on every day in the technology world, and generally, they are quite uninteresting to all of us. Exceptions exist, of course, and the case of Apple and PsyStar is definitely one of them. It's a lawsuit that could test one of the most debated issues in the world of software: the EULA issue. To refresh your memory: PsyStar started offering Macintosh clones earlier this year, which caused quite the uproar in the Mac community. Apple was silent on the issue at first, but a few weeks ago the company decided to take legal action against PsyStar, claiming PsyStar violated Apple's copyright and license agreements (EULAs), and motivated others to do the same. While several legal experts agree that Apple's EULA will stand the test of court in The Netherlands, the situation in the US might be completely different. PsyStar seems prepared for the worst, as they have hired lawyers from Carr & Ferrell LLP, a firm who successfully fought Apple in court over IP issues before. I'm breaking out the popcorn, because this is hopefully going to be a big one.
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RE: Osx - Macintosh combo
by Thom_Holwerda on Fri 1st Aug 2008 06:00
in reply to "Osx - Macintosh combo"
Member since:2005-06-29
For example they might imply that the pricing for Macosx in retail stores doesn't reflect the value of the product hey're selling, rather being a nominal upgrade fee where the initial R&D costs for developing the Operating systems are being payed when you purchase the Mac hardware + MacOSX software combination.
I hear this a lot, but, uhm, how is this relevant? What business is it of mine that Apple sells retail copies of their software at a price that doesn't cover its costs? That's an Apple business decision, and has abslutely nothing to do with the case at hand.
This court case is going to be all about Apple needing to prove PsyStar is actually modifying Apple software, something that's going to be difficult for Apple since, as far as I know, PsyStar simply adds some scripts to OS X - it doesn't modify anything.
RE[2]: Osx - Macintosh combo
by Anacardo on Fri 1st Aug 2008 09:32
in reply to "RE: Osx - Macintosh combo"
Member since:2005-10-30
I hear this a lot, but, uhm, how is this relevant? What business is it of mine that Apple sells retail copies of their software at a price that doesn't cover its costs? That's an Apple business decision, and has abslutely nothing to do with the case at hand.
You're absolutely right, it's not directly related to this case, unless they're able to prove that the hw+sw combo constitute a single product rather than two separate products. But since most of the people seems to be very happy about the perspective of Apple loosing in court and the beginning of a new Clone-era (I know some of us in here would be happy to see Apple loose not because of this but because of the general impact it would have on eulas) I would just say that from a user-perspective (possibly a would be mac user perspective), it would probably end up being worse than it actually sounds.
RE[2]: Osx - Macintosh combo
by lurch_mojoff on Fri 1st Aug 2008 17:13
in reply to "RE: Osx - Macintosh combo"
Member since:2007-05-12
"For example they might imply that the pricing for Macosx in retail stores doesn't reflect the value of the product hey're selling, rather being a nominal upgrade fee where the initial R&D costs for developing the Operating systems are being payed when you purchase the Mac hardware + MacOSX software combination.
I hear this a lot, but, uhm, how is this relevant? What business is it of mine that Apple sells retail copies of their software at a price that doesn't cover its costs? That's an Apple business decision, and has abslutely nothing to do with the case at hand. "
Would you hold the same position if the case was a bit different - me purchasing an upgrade copy of program X and using a script to remove the step in the installer asking me for the license key of the the previous version? Would it still be DeveloperOfX's problem that they made the business decision to sell upgrade copies? Would I still be absolved of any responsibility because I've payed for the software?
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2005-10-30
I believe Apple might want to try to enforce the fact that the Macintosh - MacOSX combination is actually something more than software + hardware. For example they might imply that the pricing for Macosx in retail stores doesn't reflect the value of the product hey're selling, rather being a nominal upgrade fee where the initial R&D costs for developing the Operating systems are being payed when you purchase the Mac hardware + MacOSX software combination. Indeed they migt even have a point there, if people/companies are starting to buy macosx and install it on clones, Apple might be "forced" into asking a "proof of purchase" for each copy of OSX or even make OSX install only as an update to an existing installation. Which reminds me of certain proprietary commercial OS (ehm). If that wouldn't work, they might even consider rising the prices to a certain level (again to the same level of some other proprietary commercial Oses ehm). With all of this in mind and by not being a Mac user, I honestly don't care too much if Apple wins or not, but if I were (a mac user) I would certainly hope for Apple to win.