Posts by Gulfie 749 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Aug 2007
You should look at training in the UK. £400-£500 a day. $1599 for five? That's a bargain, I could afford the airfare and a cheap hotel and still have change left over to eat and get horrendously drunk every night, and still spend less than the cost of 5 days training in the UK.
Vendor events like this are invaluable - nay priceless - when done properly for the people that they are aimed at.
I initially lost out in the rush for Google I/O tickets and ended up going through eBay for a ticket which I got at 'only' three times the list price. Ironically that makes two days at Google I/O the same cost as two days training in the UK. Oh, plus travel and hotel. But you won't get Google I/O anywhere else anytime soon.
I proceeded with utmost caution after winning my auction and was able to confirm with Google that my ticket was genuine, and correctly transferred to me, within 24 hours of paying. I hate working in this way but I'm not sure what the best solution is. Supply and demand - when demand far exceeds supply, touting is inevitable.
If purchasers provide some kind of ID when purchasing - credit card number is probably best - and must produce the same when registering at the conference, and a photo ID in the same name (passport, drivers licence) then this would kill enough of the touting to make the rest not worth chasing. Add in the rule that anybody who turns up without the prescribed ID (and therefore isn't let in) gets a refund of the face price of the ticket, and the ticket then goes to somebody else who's pre-registered for a physical ticket returns queue and actually shown up on the offchance.
If you want to return your ticket in advance then this should be possible for free. Google (or Apple, or whoever) refund, and assign the spare ticket using something like first come first served, or a lottery, of people who have registered interest in returned tickets.
in the absence of this kind of arrangement: just make it clear what the criteria for getting in on the day is, make sure that 99% of touted tickets won't be valid on the day (we're back to ID again), and don't try to police the touts. Just put out lots of publicity that a touted ticket is invalid and won't be honoured.
Google were very clear when I contacted them about purchasing through eBay, academic tickets cannot be upgraded but beyond that anything is permitted. Provided people know what the T's and C's are, and are careful in their approach to verifying their eBay purchase, nobody should get ripped off (beyond paying over the face value of the ticket).
For the record, if I miss out next year, I'll go back to eBay to get into Google I/O. Perhaps these companies should consider running their events in more than one continent (e.g. North America, Europe, Asia, Australasia) and just repeat the conference in several locations over several weeks.
The most depressing part for me was that I was off sick for two days the week after the quake. Listening to BBC 5 Live I heard expert after expert interviewed across the two days, all expressing the common view that the scale of the problem was being overblown, that meltdown was highly unlikely. It was painfully obvious that because these experts had nothing to give the interviewer to stoke the story, the interviewer would move on to another aspect of the story, or another story altogether, a bit too quickly.
However when they were able to interview other people who could do nothing but offer baseless speculation from a non-scientific basis, they got plenty more airtime.
Stepping back from this specific discussion, El Reg falls into the same trap on a regular basis - not least the recent "all Android code must be open sourced" disinformation. Sad.
Of course all this really is, is an extrapolation of existing tech. Cruise missiles use a pre-loaded mission profile and are completely autonomous once launched (although I'm not suggesting they can't be called off at all before their mission objective is achieved). It is perfectly feasible to equip an aircraft with the same kind of tech, just programmed to launch/drop weapons in a predetermined fashion and then return to base.
As long as the programming doesn't allow for autonomous decision making of course.
Actually James Gosling when last questioned said that he didn't really care what was happening with Java. If you're so in touch with Java tech, why do you still think that Java ME has any relevance? Your comment about fragmentation is about five years past its sell-by date.
As for performance, well now you're beginning to sound like one of those .Net developers who looked at java in, oh, 2002 and hasn't looked again since. Java and .Net virtual machines are more or less on equal footing when it comes to raw performance. I'm not going to start arguing about which is 'better' because they are both capable platforms and can deliver applications that perform.
Java definitely has legacy. But then, at least Sun didn't turn round every 2-3 years and drop their leading technology just as I'd finished learning it, or produce a "new version of Java" with no low-pain migration path (cough) VB (cough).
Producing a non-backward-compatible "New Java" will not happen under Oracle's ownership unless there is a compelling business case to make that hugely expensive and risky investment. I'd put money on it never happening - Oracle are not a R&D company.
The future for Java and the VM is the new languages that are appearing. Use Java for the nuts and bolts, and functional or domain specific languages for the business logic. Eventually one will evolve to the point that it will start to replace Java more widely - because it is better and is accepted as such. This is a much better strategy and one Oracle are encouraging with the extending support for other JVM languages as part of Java 7 and Java 8.
Like them or loathe them, Google understand the place in business for speculative research. This is exactly how Gosling and his colleagues came to develop Oak, now Java, which has kept me in profitable work for ten years.
It's great to see that somebody with such a sharp mind is going somewhere where he'll be able to put it to full use. Google I/O has just got better - can't wait for May 10th...
... to point out that the whole GPL issue does not affect 95% of third party applications that are not GPL'd by association because they don't directly use or link to the disputed files.
... and also to point out that while Google might have to go through a legal action and pay damages (in the worst possible scenario) they can also stop using the disputed header files and switch to ones that don't cause the same problems. Yes that's a piece of work, but it's not rocket science. The legal issue can be solved without the death of Android.
And that's if the legal analysis is correct. When the likes of Linus Torvalds weighs in and says the analysis is not valid...
I'm inclined to the view that whilst there might be one or two legally valid points. But on the whole? Google, and the Linux community, believe that the approach is generally correct. So only an outside entity has an interest in stirring this up - one of Google's main smartphone competitors like Apple or Microsoft.
Early Android versions used a fork of the kernel with Google extensions which were not well received by the Linux community. Google agreed to work with the community to arrive at a common kernel that satisfies both parties. Do you really think this would have been going on for about a year with nobody spotting this issue?
I appreciate the extra background this article provides, but I also think that it should be a little more objective about the underlying reality.
1. Honeycomb is impressive but isn't finished - the SD card slot on the Xoom isn't yet supported, for example.
2. Google have been caught with their pants down with respect to where some of their source code came from. I expect they are conducting a very thorough exercise on the Honeycomb code base to expunge any potential issues. They can't afford for fresh accusations to come to light.
3. I don't see Google delaying the source code release to slow down the manufacturers - after all the more devices that run Android, the better it is for Google.
4. Google have delayed previous source code releases (notably Froyo) so this is not really news.
In summary, a delay to the source code release is not a new development, it's been done before, and it doesn't change what is a very open OS into a closed OS. It just isn't ready for RTM yet.
The big retailers (Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda) only carry chart CDs so the likes of, erm, HMV can't afford to keep too much non-chart stock and certainly not the obscure stuff. The small independents can't compete with either and will, eventually, completely disappear.
Complaining about high street stores not stocking the obscure stuff, whilst using overseas services (I'm including the channel islands) to get what you can't buy on demand is pointless and stupid. If you want your local shop to stock something, go and ask for it. Better still, find your closest independent record shop and order the thing.
Its the same with books. I used to buy loads of second hand books, now I find it hard to find a second hand bookshop (that isn't a charity shop), those that are still around stick all the good stuff on the 'net (in the belief, rightly or wrongly, that they'll get a better price) but not on show in their shop - you just get the cack that didn't make the cut, and the occasional gem that's not been spotted.
Like most people I get probably 75% of my shop-sourced purchases from the likes of Sainsburys. However I make a point of using all the decent local shops on a regular basis, or pretty soon we'll only have the choice of Tesco, Sainsburys or Asda for 99% of all purchases where we interact with a person.
Stopped using the term Microprocessor when I started dealing with the 68000, it really doesn't apply to anything beyond 8 bit computing and the earlier 808x range (8086, 8088). If you want to be picky and what is a processor and what is a microprocessor, maybe an on-wafer FPU should act as the deciding factor...
If it says "Made in France" you can bet it won't be carrying any weapons, be one of the few aircraft built with a reverse gear and definitely won't be flying a non-stop mission to Libya unless the pilot can stop several times for coffee en route.
This whole situation reminds me of a t-shirt I bought at the Mildenhall airshow in the late 1980's. It had a picture of a US jet with the slogan "F-111's fly low and fast - ask any Libyan". I didn't keep it for long, one of the foreign students in my postgrad halls made it disappear while it was in the wash...
My Vodafone business account I signed up for last August. For £30 + vat a month I got an up-to-the-minute Android phone (with tethering/hotspot enabled) for £0, unlimited landline calls, 12 hours mobile calls, and unlimited (yes, I said unlimited) data every month. Oh and 250 texts but I don't do much of that.
Carefully reading the contract I could find no fair usage policy or a call-out to 'other terms and conditions'. I understand from others with a similar package that Vodafone don't take an interest in you until you regularly exceed 8Gb a month...
Now you won't get that by just going in and expecting it to be handed to you, but if you want a business account you can tell them how important having data is and that the standard amount is too low, maybe I should talk to O2 or 3... worked like a dream for me.
The community reaction you describe is (a) not from the community buy a lawyer and (b) a bit late in the day seeing as Android has been available as source for quite some time now - certainly a good year.
In that time there have been several forks of Android, most of which have ended up coming back together under the Cyanogen(mod) banner, and all without as much as a murmur. I would expect that more than one Kernel man would have cast their eye over the code in the intervening period... if only to see what the folks at Google have done.
I'm happy to concede that some people (mainly Google) may have something to worry about. However I'm more inclined to think that the deafening silence that has ensued right up until Oracle started throwing their toys out of the pram implies that it suits somebody to make as much noise as they can about license violations... I wonder who that might be?
Don't forget that Google has been working to streamline their own extensions to the kernel and get them folded back into the main source tree. How could that go on for so long and nobody raise a concern about the kernel headers?
I would suggest the FOSS community isn't up in arms because those that looked at what Google had done though, "well, it isn't so different to any other fork". They might not have been aware of the mechanism used to get there.
I'm not saying Google are right, either. We all have a duty to ensure we remain within the terms of a license, or avoid the license altogether. If Google had the option of taking a well-established route that avoided an obvious pitfall, more fool them for not taking it.
I agree with you but ONLY in the situation that the application in question has actually incorporated the GPL'd code into its own distribution. I write Java, compile it to Dalvik, and distribute an APK file. I've not so much as even glanced at the Kernel headers so my code is not GLP'd by contamination.
The number of end-user applications that will need to reference the kernel headers is probably so close to zero as makes no difference. You've got to either compile in at least one GPL'd file into your application, or copy and paste code from at least one GPL'd file, to be affected at all. And for people writing in Java for Android it just isn't possible. For people writing in C/C++ for Android it's still highly unlikely to be an issue.
FUD FUD FUD plain and simple. Learn your license terms and understand what you need to be doing with/to open source for them to affect you.
The key paragraph is at the bottom of page 8 and indeed acknowledges the very point I made. Java code destined to run under Android neither links to, nor includes, the Kernel headers at the heart of the dispute. Therefore they cannot be implicated in any violation of GPL v2. It's a shame that Brown Rudnick don't clarify this point but then they probably don't appreciate the subtlety.
The people who are at risk are those who have forked Android such as Cyanogen(mod), and those who are writing native C/C++ code that does link against / include the kernel headers.
But you can still write native code that does not fall foul of the licence. I repeat my assertion that this only affects third parties in a very limited sense. For most of us it's business as usual.
In the article you imply that, without explaining how, an Android 3rd party developer may be forced to publish the source code to their application simply because it runs on Android. I call an analysis fail on this claim.
In simplistic terms if this were true, every piece of commercial software currently running on top of a GPL v2 licensed OS would also have to be open sourced. I think somebody would have spotted this issue before now.
Just because application 'A' uses an API in operating system 'B' does not make it a derivative work. Only when application 'A' includes copied/modified source code from operating system 'B' is the developer forced to open source his or her application because it is in part derived from the GPL'd source code.
I fail to see how a possible transgression by Google can cascade down onto application developers that have developed on top of Android, so suggesting that Android developers will be forced to publish source code is highly misleading and FUD to boot.
I have two important non-functional requirements when being asked to select software to purchase in a business setting. These are an open defect/support system (such as Jira) so that anybody can look at anything and open / uncensored forums. Yes, you can't always have what you ask for but it's held me in good stead to stick to these wherever possible. I'm far more trusting of a company that is open to and accepting of criticism.
As a 'PC' seller HP are really just a box shifter like all the other PC manufacturers. They all use (broadly) the same hardware, they all load the same OS, so they can only compete on price. Same as the Android and Windows Mobile spaces, which may be why they decided to go with WebOS and not be 'just another reseller'.
These days it's the bespoke software that ties people to hardware (would you buy Apple if you could get a reliable OS X laptop or iOS-running phone from somebody else?) so if (a big if, admittedly) HP can innovate on top of WebOS and resist the temptation to licence it to third parties, then they'll be able to exert the same degree of control that Apple do, with the the same commercial benefits.
It's a risky strategy (from the perspective of the amount of money needed to make it work) but at least they've realised that if they carry on as they are they won't be able to hike margins or differentiate themselves from the competition. Or, to coin Highlander...
"It's better to burn out than to fade away"
I haven't used Windows outside of client offices for over three years now and never upgraded my own machines past XP (I've not used Vista or Windows 7 at all).
Consequently as family buy new hardware they get Windows 7 and fall outside of my capabilities. Simples.
Anyone who buys a Mac will get all the support they need (which will be next to nothing)...
I've made two warranty claims on Apple. The first was for a battery that 'popped' (cell rupture) and they supplied a new battery without argument. The second was for a replacement DVD drive that stopped writing DVDs. On both occasions the genius bar person remarked that the machine had been opened (I upgraded the hard drive) but as there was nothing to indicate this was a contributory factor, they would honour the warranty.
If you have a bad story to tell, then tell it. Otherwise it's just opinion and hearsay.
What they actually said was, approximately, "You can do pretty much anything with a Spectrum you can do with any other Z80-based computer but the hardware may get in the way". The ZX81 manual said much the same thing (I build several third party expansion cards for both and designed and built a couple of my own). In hindsight we got some relatively awesome hardware for our money!
There's no point saying this thing could be improved by shipping it with marketplace. Google won't certify an Android 2.2 device that doesn't meet their minimum hardware requirement, so it'll never get marketplace. Further, Dixons/Advent won't be updating the firmware to a later version of Android because there is no money to be made in doing so...
They're relying on people not understanding what is present, what is missing, and how hard it will be for Joe Public to work that out before the opportunity to return it has been lost. I think the reviewer is being too kind.
"Anyone who has existing OSX cocoa development skills will be well at home developing iOS applications. Anyone that isn't should buy a book on it."
And a Mac, for the large percentage of people who don't already own one. If Mac market share worldwide is 6%, what % of developers have "has existing OSX cocoa development skills"?
From an app developer's perspective Android will generally be an easier choice as a first platform:
1. Most developers don't own a Mac.
2. Most developers don't know Objective C.
3. Getting on for half of all serious developers have already worked with Java.
4. The learning curve for a competent Java developer is pretty flat.
5. Google charge a low one-off fee for the App Store.
6. No approval/rejection process and therefore lower risk of a wasted investment.
7. Cheaper hardware -> wider adoption
Yes there is fragmentation. That sucks. Google should change the terms on which manufacturers can say their device runs android:
1. Their OS implementation should pass a Google-provided TCK that verifies (a) all the documented interfaces are present and (b) they behave in a fashion dictated by Google - this solves many of the multiple platform issues
2. They must distribute the Google App Store pre-installed.
Simples...
insist that the App Store is installed on every piece of hardware that says it runs on Android, and insist that
First off, Oracle announced this at Devoxx 2010 on Wednesday morning (the 17th). They backed it with a full list of dates for key activities in the release process so I am confident that they will achieve the July 2011 release date.
On the subject of Harmony, at the 'future of java' panel on Friday morning, Oracle were quoted as saying that Apache Harmony will 'never' get the TCK licence (in minutes due to be made public next week).
At this point I don't see Oracle responding to pressure from Apache, and I don't think there are enough people in the JCP to cause a major problem. Even if there are, I'd expect Oracle to push on with their timetable regardless and try and resolve the JCP issues separately.
Of course, the runaway success of Android has done nothing to help Apache's cause (not that I'm suggesting that it is the principal reason for Oracle's position).
Private Eye has been covering this story since the original prosecution, most recently in the run up the the general election. They have repeatedly stated that the practice was much more widespread than the prosecution covered, that the police knew this was the case, had not notified any of the other affected people, and that in effect this was always going to be a ticking bomb for the paper and Coulson. I shall be reading the next edition with interest.
I imported one from Google and then found I could get a second for free when I moved from o2 to Voda. So I did just that, now I have my everyday phone and my dev phone. BTW Vodafone sell the Nexus One as it came from Google; unlocked and unbranded so it now runs froyo and supports tethering - which is not explicitly banned in my contract which also has no data limit...
Vodafone are offering very competitive deals on Android smartphones (most of which can be re-flashed with Vanilla Android very easily). For example - free Android smartphone on a 2 year £30 a month contract (I looked at Desire and Nexus One but they have others too).
A sim-only deal with the same minutes, texts and data is only £5 a month cheaper, making the cost of the handset just £120. A new unlocked vanilla Nexus One on eBay is still around £400.
For comparison an iPhone 4 (16Gb) from Vodafone with the same contract length, minutes, texts and data would cost you £120 up front and an extra £5 a month for the same contract.
Somebody is prepared to point out that the king isn't wearing any clothes. Somebody who occupies a neutral position of authority. Next step is to make covering up or removing shoulder ID when working an 'instant sacking' offence and perhaps the police will go back to serving the interests of the people rather than the state.
Apple want to patent the concept of giving people a rich user experience outside of a browser but delivered across a network. Kind of like Adobe Air for a mobile platform, then?
Or pretty much a direct competitor to Adobe Air, seeing as the aims are identical and the technology differing only in that it is two different ways of achieving the same thing. This is pretty much the very thing they have been blocking from appearing on their mobile devices so their security and performance will have to be up to scratch or they will get roasted. So, are these things just very big iAds then?
This is going to be so much fun to watch. I must find me a biiiiig bucket of popcorn. Oh, BTW, anyone got any doubts still about Apple's intentions in the area of, I was going to say Internet domination, but many people won't think of it as the internet because they won't interact with a browser in this model. They'll do what Apple let them do.
We can only hope that this clearly closed and tightly controlled approach to marketing (for that is all that it is) is an utter fail.
This is really just another take on the UI. Boxee is probably the simplest software I've come across for Joe Public that allows you to put your computer in the driving seat provided it can be connected to your TV. There is no reason why this approach couldn't simply be applied as a plug-in to Boxee, rather than spawning yet another 'command and control' centre.
Personally (and this is the techie in me) I'd prefer to buy a big screen with _no_ receiver built in, and then add my own hardware to provide content. For example a new Mac Mini with an eyeTV would give me a DVD player, terrestrial digital PVR, media player - local, network and internet... all in one small, quiet box (although it is not cheap). Before you say it, I don't watch Blu-Ray and I don't play games - so just one box. Of course a PS3 would solve both of those omissions.
One key aspect of a takeover is keeping key staff on side - especially in parts of the business you have no intention of killing off. Oracle have clearly failed to do this - first James Gosling and now Greg Lavender. Yes, Java and Solaris respectively won't die because these people have left. Although I personally regard James Gosling as the bigger loss, I imagine the Solaris community have been more worried by the news of Greg Lavender's leaving that I was about hearing that Java's creator had left.
Is there room in Oracle for speculative R&D? No. But if they want to keep the talent they acquired with the purchase of Sun, then they need to re-think this approach - take a leaf out of Google's book and give people one day in five for speculative research.
If Project Canvas allows all content providers to offer content on the same terms then Virgin can't really have many grounds for complaint.
I suspect the real problem is that Virgin make precious little content of their own, and none that will generate subscription revenue. So Project Canvas will turn them from a Cable TV provider into an infrastructure provider.
It is interesting that Virgin and Sky have very similar business models - reselling bundles of channels for a monthly fee (most of the content being crap), yet Sky are not sabre-rattling - presumably because they see the market for their big pay channels getting bigger, not smaller. And in the long run if the requirement to build and run sattelites and give away set top boxes were to go away I doubt they'd mind.
The only real down for consumers is that video from an external Canvas box will probably be over HDMI, so consumers will have very little ability to record and keep programs they like. Of course the inevitable catch-up service(s) will cover 90% of normal use cases.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
