We've been talking an awful lot about the Palm Pre and iPhone lately, but what about Android? Sure, we've mentioned Android a number of times when it comes to netbooks, but what about phones, you know, what Android is designed for? Well, today, HTC annoucned its 3rd Android phone, the HTC Hero. This is the first to include a custom UI, as well as Flash 10 right out of the box.
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Member since:2006-06-02
/Rant begins
Well, I am going to "yah, boo, hiss" on this one.
Yes, right people and companies work for money. Clever you.
But you are conflating money with profit here. Profit goes to shareholders. Shareholders dictate what happens ultimately with a company (or often, don't do anything until the sh*t hits the fan). They then go crying to govt., as do businesses, when the risk did not pay off. These people suddenly find 'communism', by which I guess you mean state intervention and direction, suddenly very appealing. Strange that.
Money is just a means of value exchange. The way money is valued these days, the way material goods, services, and, by extrapolation people, are valued, is pretty much based on mass speculation, and speculation designed to benefit a paltry few who don't *do* much that is productive. King Midas, anyone?
What would IBM have as an opportunity if like X% of people were *not* making a voluntary, moral choice to create something out of their own prowess, and ability, and allowing it to be shared and re-used? Nichts, nada, bl**dy nothing.
I am kind of up to here with the frontiersman, capitalist, gangsterism mentality that pervades a lot of what is posted here when it comes to economics and politics.
Think about it - it's like someone getting mugged saying that you don't need the law, because you have to protect freedom. You strive to maintain the situation whereby you'll be exploited, either personally, because you are forced to compete over credits, or collectively, because the guys who screw up in business come wailing cap in hand and the taxpayer is asked to bail them out.
I don't live in a communist country but I do live in one in which businesses don't even abide by their own supposedly superior capitalist ethos, and the government is too supine to even point it out.
/End of rant
Member since:2006-01-10
/begin rant...
"These people suddenly find 'communism', by which I guess you mean state intervention and direction, suddenly very appealing. Strange that."
I do not fault the companies from wanting money. What capitalist doesn't want free money. I fault the government for giving it to them. A government which, people like yourself, have empowered time and time again to take such actions.
"and speculation designed to benefit a paltry few who don't *do* much that is productive. King Midas, anyone? "
Umm, I work in engineering. My salary is paid for by that 'paltry unproductive few'. I gain benefit (i.e. money) from it. Sure, I'll write open source software, the day government tells me it will guarantee me a job for life. Let me know when that happens.
The only slave driver here is government. The CEO of walmart doesn't force me to do anything.
It is only government that oppresses me. Heck, if I don't pay the property tax on my house, some government oppressors will come and kick me out of my own house.
As a matter of fact, without government taking 50% of my income and another 15% in sales tax, and another 5% in property taxes each year, maybe... just maybe... I'd have been able to retire by now (I live a very simple life), and I could then focus on writing open source code just for the problems I like solving.
So in fact, it is government that keeps us enslaved to work.
let me preempt any ridiculous argument.
Providing roads, basic policing, security... would not cost much at all. It could probably be paid for just with a sales tax. It is all the extravagance that government does, including the hated bailouts, that cost all the money that causes us to be enslaved.
/ end rant
Member since:
2006-01-10
This is just slightly amusing...
People and companies work for money.
HTC spent time and money developing their UI.
If they open source it, then their competitors can take what they did for free.
Of course, if your competitors also released their stuff, then you could get their stuff for free.
Of course... I would hope you think your 'stuff' is better than their 'stuff' as that is why people would buy your products instead of theirs. So why would HTC put its stuff as open source?
Why do some companies use open source? Generally because there is no edge in the market or because the open source product is not a key differentiators and you get free workers.
For example, IBM has adopted open source not because they are kind and gentle folks. It is because they decided to focus on the services/solutions sector. In the services/solution sector, you sell services/solutions because your customers don't want to configure, choose, support things on their own.
Microsoft does not support it as they sell software.
Open sourcing software is not a moral choice for 98.25% of people. It is a practical choice based on business needs.