Posts by h4rm0ny 4560 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jul 2008
Oh and fallacious though your reasoning is anyway, your facts are also wrong. That's not 1/60th of a seconds work. As well as setting up the camera and settings, once the photo is taken, there's the post-work done on the photographs. Even the selection process of which photo to use. I guarantee you that the photo we have seen is the product of a fair bit of skilled work post taking. Things that also contribute to its copyrightable nature.
Or they have a living room where they like to game, possibly shared with a partner or family and they don't want a great clunking PC sat next to their television. As opposed to someone who games on a monitor in their bedroom for example.
Consoles do have some advantages, you know.
Presumably if the algorithm fails and you do something different, it doesn't display the now incorrect frame and you revert to having slightly greater latency for a brief moment. It's not playing the game for you, it's just planning ahead. A little like the pre-fetch of pages a browser will do where a human takes valuable time moving the mouse around and thinking so the browser pre-fetches the pages that various links on the current page point to. Only in this case it's significantly more sophisticated.
>>"You always seem to be 100% sure about things until get pointed to contradictions as in the case of 40K vs 50K patents fact."
As this is something like the third time you've made attacks on me based on another thread rather than keeping things in that thread, I'll respond just the once here. There's no contradiction in what I wrote. I said that Google were historically weak on patents. They were. That's why they went on a massive patent purchasing spree. And interestingly, now that they have lots of patents, they have started charging other people for use of them. Now stop attacking me over things in a different thread as a means to bolster a different argument here.
>>This is a lot of writing and looks pretty ugly. I'd prefer a much simpler syntax like this one:
I probably shouldn't indulge this. Your initial attack was to demand whether Outlook could be used by scripting. Having been told that it can and much more (it has a full OO API) you shift goal posts and say there's too much "writing" for your tastes. However, I can see where this road leads and it's not to a good place for your argument, so I'll allow you to shift the goal posts a little closer to the cliff if you wish.
Basically, you don't understand what is happening here. I'll illustrate the difference. Here's a short sample of a script that works with Outlook. It's creating and sending an email.
$ol = New-Object -comObject Outlook.Application
gm -InputObject $ol
$mail = $ol.Session.OpenSharedItem("C:\Test Email Subject.msg")
$mail.Forward()
$Mail.Recipients.Add("someone@example.com")
$Mail.Subject = "Test Mail"
$Mail.Body = " Here is some text"
$Mail.Send()
Here's what you prefer because you think it's shorter and simpler:
echo "Hello
Here's my message.... " | mutt -F ~/.mutt/one_of_myprofyles -s "Hi from me" someone@somewhere.something -a ~/Documents/attached.pdf
Firstly, the former isn't long - it's eight lines, one statement on each and anyone remotely competent should be able to handle that. ;)
The reason yours is short is because all you're doing is piping text to the Mutt program and using command line flags. The Outlook example is Object Oriented code that lets you instantiate an instance of Outlook, an instance of a mail object, perform operations on those instances and do pretty much anything you want with them, clone them, copy them, feed them as objects to other programs... It's vastly more powerful than piping text to Mutt on the command line. If you don't understand that, then you are not a programmer.
>>"My position was that "a user can do it within mutt", are you supposed to count all the "external" shared libs too that mutt uses as a dependency? "
No, but it's pretty fair to say that having to launch an external program such as Firefox to see a formatted email or included images does not count as being able to "do it within Mutt". Perhaps my car counts as a movie theatre because it can take me to the cinema, too? :D
You linked to a Google image search of Mutt interfaces as an objection the screenshot I posted. I am more than happy for people to compare any of those with Outlook 2013's interface. It shows the absurdity of arguing Mutt has a simplicity advantage. Yes, I can use it fine, but then I've been using Vi for over a decade. The majority of users do not want to have to learn such things to use their email client.
>>"Who uses an email client on a headerless server environment?" is concerned, I and many other people very happily do"
Then that is terrible and archaic practice. You should not be running an email client on computers running your services. It's an obsolete practice and it's not something anyone in the Windows world wants to do on Server Core and therefore not a feature needed or desirable in Outlook. Seriously - criticizing Outlook - an email client - for not having terminal text-only interface again shows how staggeringly far removed you are from normal users.
>>As fiddly as limiting/searching for mail containing wildcard constructs like
~d 21/3/2012*3y*5m*2w*3d =f fromsomeone =b "some text in the body "
#-- show me all the emails in this mailbox dated within 3 years 5months, 2 weeks and 3 days since March 21 2012 sent from fromsomeone containing "some text" in their bodies
This one is really funny because you should have quit whilst you were ahead. You demanded whether Outlook could let you search using regular expressions and I freely volunteered that it could not, conceding an advantage to Mutt. However that wasn't enough for you and you had to go on to show off an example of regular expressions. The unfortunate thing is (for your argument at least) that it's very easy to do your example in Outlook and you don't even have to understand "d 21/3/2012*3y*5m*2w*3d " - anyone can do it. You just click on Find and then if none of the common tools meet your needs just click on "Advanced Find" and you can add as many criteria as you wish. This includes things such as "received on or after X". Throw in a "received on or before Y" and you have your date range. Throw in "Body contains" and you're done. And it's all quickly and easily assembled through a GUI that guides you in the process.
Not that needing a regular expression to find emails between two dates is quite as vital on a client that actually has a GUI unlike Mutt, of course. You just click sort by date and scroll down through your search results in the range you're interested in. Anyone can do it, even those with little technical expertise. Really, you scored one point for Mutt by pointing out that it can handle regular expressions, and then you torpedoed it by showing off what you could do with regular expressions in Mutt and ended up with something that can be done just as well in Outlook without using them!
Another poster commented that you are what is wrong with Open Source. I am inclined to agree. You would rather argue that tortuous approaches such as yours are better rather than look at the actual reasons why something like Mutt isn't used outside of a very niche group of expert users.
>>"Outlook runs only on Windows, so no chance for me, mam (which is not a shortcoming for you according to the tone of the corresponding reply).
You could just say "no" when asked if you've actually used the product you're criticizing. And yes, lack of familiarity with something you're attacking is a "shortcoming". One should know before one criticizes. It might avoid posts like your earlier one where you say things like "can you use it in a script" and "can it handle IMAP". (Yes to both).
>>"Let me also assume you haven't used latest mutt-patched as well."
I've used Mutt. I think I can get my head around the addition of a side-bar to it. But regardless, I'm not that one that launched into a random attack on another product. I don't believe I've made one factually incorrect statement about Mutt (correct me if I'm wrong - well, you would have), whereas you have made multiple flawed attacks on Outlook. I'd suggest your lack of familiarity is the greater problem here.
You shift the goalposts again. You argued that Mutt had more features than Outlook. I pointed it lacked such basics as displaying formatting or images. You responded with questions such as "does outlook support scripting". I responded that it did - in fact a full API. You then argue that you think Mutt's "scripting" (which is actually just command line flags unlike Outlooks Object Oriented actual API) looks nicer. You're just seeking reasons to dismiss that actually Outlook does have these features you thought you'd scored points on. Another case in point - your stripping all context from the GPG comment.
After finding out that contrary to your attempt to find ways to show Mutt is more feature-rich you actually can use GPG with Outlook, you (a) try to find a way to dismiss it by seizing on my comment that it's not available for 64-bit Outlook 2013, yet, saying this is the normal case. In fact, it's not - Office 2013 still makes up a very small proportion of the Office userbase that is out there. Most people, let alone corporations, do not roll out software immediately on release. And more than that - the default install type for MS Office 2013 is - wait for it - 32bit! So not only are you wrong in suggesting that the standard version is Office 2013 (it's probably less than 5% worldwide), but of those a large proportion are going to be the 32 bit version. Possibly you don't understand that 64-bit OS does not mean there's no 32-bit software.
So GPG is available for the overwhelming majority of Outlook users and the only thing you have shown is you are determined to seize on anything you can in your attempt to salvage your attack on Outlook. Actually, it gets worse - you strip away entirely my pointing out that there are other more enterprise-friendly ways of achieving the same thing with Outlook without GPG - which is to say you are putting your own personal rules on how something can be achieved for the sake of your argument. Not that there's anything wrong with GPG - it's great. I use it. But your using it as an attempt to show Mutt is more capable is flawed.
All of your charges were answered with the exception of using regular expressions in searches which you'd need to script something for. You could easily have looked these things up yourself but you would rather accuse first and hope that something sticks.
>>>>Ability to display formatting or embedded images are two capabilities missing from Mutt compared to Outlook that spring immediately to mind.
>>Mutt got an ability to use external software (w3m, firefox, image viewers) of a user's choice that have this capabilities
For people not familiar with Mutt, here is the interface: screenshot. This is what you're comparing to Outlook.
You claimed that Mutt was "probably" more capable than Outlook. (I assume the 'probably' is because as with our previous discussions you haven't actually used the current version of Outlook in any significant way). I gave two common and popular capabilities that Outlook has and Mutt lacks. Saying that you can open an email from Mutt in Firefox if you want to see does not change that it doesn't have the features. You've now shifted your position to "Mutt plus other software used alongside it can do some of the same things as Outlook more or less". The "more or less" is because I don't think opening an email in a separate program just so you can see the formatting counts as the same. That's quite a goal post shift from "Mutt is probably more capable".
>>1) How many Operating Systems besides MS Windows can it run on?
It's Windows only, as I'm sure you know. I very much doubt many Outlook users care.
>>2) how well does it handle IMAP?
Fine. Exchange is recommended so you can use the calendaring and other features, but here is how to set it up with IMAP. Link. You know, 5 seconds with a search engine and you might have been able to actually check rather than asking questions with an agenda on here.
>>3) can you use pgp/gpg for signatures and mail encryption?
Yes. It's unusual because Outlook is aimed toward Enterprise environments and there are other tools to achieve the same thing as GPG managed centrally by an IT department. Really for something like this you want a company-wide approach with enterprise management solutions. However, you can use GPG with Outlook. Again, five seconds with a search engine would have told you this: Link. The GPG4Win Outlook plugin doesn't work for Office 2013 64-bit version yet (that's still quite new) but does for the 32-bit version and others. There may be another way to do it, I don't know. I have GPG4Win installed here but I use it with Thunderbird and the Enigmail plugin.
>>4) can it be run without GUI (like in the Core Server environment)?
No. Who uses an email client on a headerless server environment? If you're trying to sell Mutt as more capable than Outlook (sorry - "probably" more capable) by holding up its lack of GUI as a feature you're far removed from normal use cases.
>>5) can you use it in a script or out of the command line?
Yes. More so than Mutt, actually as Outlook exposes a full and rich object-orientated API that you can access from another program or Powershell. All exposed elements in Outlook are objects. Here is a really small taste of what you can do just to give you a feel for how simple it is.
$ol = New-Object -comObject Outlook.Application
gm -InputObject $ol
$mail = $ol.Session.OpenSharedItem("C:\Test Email Subject.msg")
$mail.Forward()
$Mail.Recipients.Add("someone@example.com")
$Mail.Subject = "Test Mail"
$Mail.Body = " Here is some text"
$Mail.Send()
>>6) does the search/filtering in Outlook support regular expression (and virtual mailboxes for that matter)?
Wildcards only in the default interface. You could, if you wished, create a short script which used regular expressions and attach it as a filter / search. Bit fiddly.
>>7) can you pipe any email message (any part from a message) onto a command from the shell or an application?
Again, this is far, far removed from normal use case. You could do it with a script if you wished. Or, you know, hit Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V.
>>Can you tag any number of messages using regex option as in search/filtering and do the same, or apply mailbox operation such as moving to a different (remote) box, saving, deleting etc?
Already answered the regex. Yes, you could do this but you'd have to know a small amount about using regex's in scripts.
>>8) can you use external editor of your choice (like vim/Emacs) for message composition?
Obviously. Write in whatever you want and then put it into an email.
>>9) is it as simple, fast and with as low foot print as Mutt (around 28MB of RAM for me currently for 10K email messages on gmail IMAP)?
It is actually simpler given that it is GUI based. It's footprint is not as low but it runs fine on any modern hardware. Once you meet the condition of "running fine", you've met user needs. Besides, that's not really a "capability". More goal post shifting.
>>" am fine with mutt and GNUS (using IMAP and postfix as a sendmail frontend). I bet, those are much more capable than Outlook."
Ability to display formatting or embedded images are two capabilities missing from Mutt compared to Outlook that spring immediately to mind. Features rather expected in the 21st century.
>>>>It's the best argument in favor of slavery I've ever heard
>>Say what? I think you may have the wrong end of the stick.
No, you don't quite get what they're saying. Labour done without compensation is slavery or exploitation. Only exception to that would be failed labour (nothing to do with Milliband).
Your example of you not getting paid for washing the dishes at home falls down in that you are receiving the fruits of that labour. Were you to be doing it for someone else then it would be a parallel to the situations we're talking about in this article.
>>"It's pure capitalism, and it's not new"
Agenda, much? Taking without compensation is not part of capitalism. Selfishness, yes. Capitalism no. Capitalism is about trade and the market. Because you dislike both X and Y, does not mean X is Y. Learn your definitions rather than just shoe-horn any bad thing into an attack on capitalism.
>>"Err... No! First, I didn't know that medieval times had any particular view on “copyright”. Must have been difficult, not having a printing press and all that"
That's the point - the views are "medieval" because they're for a time before mass reproduction was possible. In medieval times there they didn't have copyright because the acts of creation and reproduction were both labour intensive whereas afterwards, only the act of creation was. The Wikimedia Foundation has been espousing a viewpoint that aligns with medieval views on this.
The only points on which I diverge from the author are concerning Amanda Palmer. I don't believe there was any intent to defraud or cut costs. I'm very sure that she genuinely didn't think of it in terms of money and just saw it as a chance for lesser known musicians to participate with a more famous one on tour and drive community interest. She's a fascinating person and having seen a number of interviews, I'm certain there was no ill-intent there.
The other point I diverge, if only slightly, is that I think more caveats are needed. Kickstarters can be great. There are high-profile cases such as in this article where people give money only to see others make a fortune, but there are many good kickstarters and that needs highlighting else the article seems wholly against it when really it's the exploitation which is a problem.
Nokia do a dual-sim Lumia: http://www.nokia.com/in-en/phones/phone/lumia630-dual-sim/. Not sure if they do any others in the range like that. WP8.1 does have nice support for dual SIM, though - http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/how-to/wp8/connectivity/use-a-dual-sim-phone. Doubles up the signal bars and runs dual messaging apps, etc. adjacent to each other. Not sure if that's helpful to you or not.
We need proper Libre phones out there. So long as there's viable Libre software that can do this, there's choice and we can avoid lock-in and stagnancy. Also, there's a lot to be said for a phone that can be modern whilst still being simple.
They should put a lot of focus on battery life. Firefox OS on a device with really long battery life would be outstanding for many parts of the Indian market.
Pint for the Mozilla crew - launching a new mobile OS is a lot of work!
>>"Subjects of the bills range from "kill the gays" to "
Can I get a citation on that? I find it unlikely that any remotely well-funded group in the USA has drafted actual bills that gay people be executed and passed them to senators to propose and be voted on.
>>"Rather appropriate considering the overwhelming evidence for global warming these days"
Thus indicating you don't actually understand the criticism. AGW skeptics are generally unconvinced by the degree to which human activity is a driver of global warming, not that it exists. No matter how many times actual arguments are made, people still trot out this argument as if it solves everything.
>>"Your original comment in support of agnosticism was that no one knows if deities exist. If you apply your same logic to Russell's celestial teapot you have to agree that it might exist, right up to the point that you can definitively prove that it does not."
Yes. That is logically correct. The point is that until it becomes relevant to me to make a decision on whether or not there's a teapot in Space, I really don't care. If someone challenges me as to whether there is a teapot in Space I'll shrug and say I don't think there is. But I wont be intellectually dishonest and say that because I have seen no evidence of a teapot that is evidence there isn't. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I wasn't saying the case is or isn't anything. I was just pointing out that the correct term for saying you don't know is agnosticism, the correct term for saying there is no god is atheist and that the two are not the same even though some people would like to present atheism differently. No-one has successfully proved there isn't a god as yet. Ergo, agnosticism is the only fully supportable position that doesn't rely on preference.
Atheism and most religions both make authoritative statements about what is without being able to prove it. Religion argues that something is despite lack of evidence. Atheism argues that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Agnosticism - stating we don't know either way, is the only logically thorough position.
>> "@H4rm0ny - "It's the same price as a MacBook Air with equivalent screen size"
It's interesting that you edited my words in the title above to say something that I never did. I think you perhaps don't understand the principles of quoting.
I never wrote they were the same price. I wrote they're in the same price range. And they are fairly close. People complaining about the Surface Pro 3 being too expensive appear to be willing to give MacBook Airs (which are all over the place) a pass. Does the small percentage price difference between the two account for how one can be hugely popular but the other is far too expensive? Is it the extra couple of tenths of a GHz speed bump you hone in on that makes one cheap enough to be everywhere but the other too expensive?
As to your list, you pick all the negatives and try to write off the positives, and select the lowest specced version in the range to do so, too.
>>"The pen issue is what makes the Surface/Win8 a non-starter for me. In my opinion using a pen on a screen just isn't a very pleasant experience for a number of reasons; I'm yet to come across a pen tip that feels 'right' on glass, and it's awkward to not be able to let the remainder of your hand rest on a touchscreen, like it would on a peice of paper, as you constantly end up inputting involuntary clicks and movements."
You don't have to avoid putting your hand on the glass when using the pen! It has palm rejection. I think you must be thinking of capacitive styluses. This is an active digitizer as you would find in a Wacom graphics tablet. Slightly lower degrees of pressure sensitivity (and who's hand distinguishes more than 256 anyway?) but otherwise the same.
It's in the same price range as a MacBook Air with equivalent screen size. Plus you get good quality pen, potentially more storage, dual-purposes as a reasonable tablet. It certainly is expensive. But I see MacBook Airs all over the place so clearly it's not too expensive. I think some reviewers *cough cough* are having trouble getting their head around what to compare this to (or even if they should).
Criticising the use case makes little sense to me. It can meet most of the uses of a laptop perfectly well and no-one argues laptops aren't useful. So then the angry demand comes back why not just get a laptop. To which the reply is: this is really convenient, serves as a passable tablet and why not?
I have a laptop. I use it far less than I used to since I bought a Surface RT. Much of my work these days is Office-based work and web-based work and I can do both on the RT. And it's so much lighter that I take it with me on many occasions I wouldn't take a laptop. That's the other reason I don't get this repetitive attack on it for "lack of apps". Apps were a work around for phones that didn't have proper browsers or much power. Modern tablets have both. There are apps for anything I really need and I just use websites for the rest. Unless you want to play games (which this can run actual PC games anyway), I just don't see the complaint.
I often ask what people can't conveniently do due to lack of apps on Windows 8 (even RT). I never get a very convincing reply that isn't only true for a small handful of people.
Has anyone read the Media Viewer page in Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_Viewer
It's full of PR about how users have liked it, etc. Now THAT is a page where one might question the neutrality!
The American companies aren't responsible for misuing our data any more than a dog is responsible for eating meat put in front of it. The ones we should be lynching - and have the power to - are the companies that gave our data to the Americans in the first place. This they had no right to do just because some worthless assurance was given.
It's wrong of the American companies, certainly. But it is NEGLIGENT of the European ones. Don't just name and shame the American companies - tell us who over here has been handing our data out!
I would love to buy one of Lenovo's high-end laptops. But I just can't justify that amount of cash. Of course they sell lower-spec ones, but I can't bring myself to buy one of those either.
I go to the site. I click on a base laptop. I go through the configuration tool and add things I want. Price is now too high. I go round again and try to find things to remove. Can't - I want everything.
>>And what pray, would grandma do with a brand new PC, and accompanying blank hard drive when she switches it on? Get real.
And supposing it wasn't "grandma" but someone who wanted to put Ubuntu on there? You don't get to pick whoever you want as the representative person just to make a request look bad. If you'd made an argument about managing extra supply lines you might have had a comment. But just trying to make out that there aren't plenty of people who want a blank machine or don't know what to do with one is silly.
People shouldn't be forced to buy things they don't want to get the things they actually do.
>>"how easily do BSD or Linux systems install on Lenovo machines? Searching the web tends to get me disorganized lists with little useful information."
About the same as on any other mainstream x86 system. I.e. generally pretty well. (Not sure about BSD as I don't use it, but any modern GNU/Linux distro should be fine).
The problem with searching online for this stuff is that you naturally end up with page after page of all the problems people have because all the people who are just fine with it aren't posting about how fine it is.
Not sure what most GNU/Linux DE's are like with touchscreens, as a caveat. Lenovo sells laptops with these and I've never used KDE or GNOME on a touchscreen device. May well be fine - just thought I'd better qualify my answer.
It doesn't need to know if the machine has been hacked or if some employee is deliberately trying to email out data (for example). It just knows that matching data should never leave. E.g. it could scan for patterns that match credit card numbers or national insurance numbers, or if the file has certain metadata attached to it.
This is quite interesting. I'm now envisaging an intruder trying to modify the data on the inside so that they can extract it without triggering the rules. Zipping them up would be the obvious thing to do, I would assume.
>>"It's only since people had their own houses (not shared with their entire extended family) and had curtains to draw that we think we've got "privacy".
It's only since people had access to vaccinations that we think we've got "safety from measles".
It's only since people had access to plumbing that we've gotten used to "indoor toilets".
It's only since people had Internet that we think we have "easy ways to learn what's going on in the world and to share information and learning on a massive scale".
Let's not give up the benefits of our hard-won progress just because we haven't always had it, eh? The past is not a golden age that we should casually return to for no good reason.
>>This again is your own speculation entirely! There are a lot of OEMs not participating in OHA
Hmm, here's what I wrote:
"You might also note that Google will kick you out of the OHA (and thus from selling devices with PlayStore and their services on) if you also make a non-compliant device"
Here's from the very opening section of the Wikipedia page on the OHA:
"OHA members are contractually forbidden from producing devices that are based off incompatible forks of Android"
So are you suggesting that Google wants the rule in the contract but wont actually enforce it? That they were just kidding? Seems unlikely given that Acer was forced to stop manufacturing devices with a competitor fork on there - even though they were just manufacturing them for a third party, even!
You say that there are "a lot of OEMs not participating in OHA". Saying there are OEMs that aren't part of the OHA doesn't show Google wont kick you out. The presence of OEMs that do this and are part of the OHA is what would logically indicate this. Earlier you said there were "millions of OEMs". That was untrue. Later you linked to a Wikipedia page which was a list of phone manufacturers without any examination of them, just asserting that many of them were Android sellers and many were not members of the OHA. I asked you for the overlap - give me just one phone manufacturer that isn't a tiny niche (2% or more of the market) or isn't selling to a country where Google is banned that is selling both Google Android and an incompatible version. Doesn't exist and all you've been able to do is talk about "lots of OEMs". So if there are lots, just find one that meets my criteria. It's not so much to ask when there are "lots" to choose from. We know big OEMs would like to from Acer and Samsung, but they can't because Google uses its market dominance to squash competition.
If you can't find me a phone manufacturer that fits my criteria, then talking about "lots of OEMs" doesn't refute my argument.
>>"And when you would try to bring up the proprietary Google's apps, I counter it with so many things, like MSO (of different types and juices), Exchange, VS, MS Sql server. So you better drop that! I might even drag a photoshop or something :)"
When I point out the large ongoing shift of the Android userspace to being Closed Source, and observe that Google are getting new developers to use their own proprietary APIs rather than the Open ones, then saying Microsoft sell proprietary software does nothing to contradict that.
Indeed, it looks like you're arguing if Microsoft do something it's okay for others to do something too. In which case I refer you to my earlier comment that if you're using Microsoft as your benchmark for morality you need to up your standards.
The only reason a counter-argument such as the above would even appear to make sense would be if you had some football fan mentality that isn't interested in the specific subject, etc., but just trying to prove the other "team" is worse than yours. Which given that much of your last few posts have just been generic attacks on Microsoft that don't follow from what I actually argued, appears to be the case.
>>"1) Windows - a proprietary OS? -yes. Android is mostly Open Source (BSD, GPL etc)."
Well, Android's getting less Open Source under Google's control as has been established but anyway... The above is what you post in response to my questioning why you excuse Google for using market dominance to keep OEMs from selling rival OSs at all, whilst you agree that it was wrong for Microsoft to exert the same pressure on Dell. The answer appears to be that you have a double-standard where such bullying is okay if the perpetrator is "mostly Open Source">
I disagree - exploitation of market dominance does not become okay just because you like Google or like that they're using Open Source software. Using your market dominance to stop people selling competitor's software is bad, whoever the parties involved are.
>>"It is making devices with incompatible forks of Android might kick you out of OHA!"
And Google defines compatibility on their own terms. You have to include Google's proprietary API, you have to include all of Google's services. Google sets itself up as judge and prevents forking by squashing any commercial viability of forks. They also mandate the inclusion of proprietary code and their services. That's what "incompatible" means when Google use it. And it's still wrong to threaten OEMs not to sell competing software to your own. FirefoxOS is incompatible with Android too, it would be just as wrong to say an OEM couldn't sell that if they wanted to retain permission to use Google services on their phones. It's irrelevant.
Much of the rest of your replies seem to consist of you saying what I said, but I don't recognize your versions as my own. Also, general attacks on Microsoft which I don't see the relevance of to this discussion other than you're now mainly attempting to prove Microsoft is bad rather than address my points about Google, as if it's some zero-sum game and so long as you can criticize Microsoft it makes Google not bad. Or in the case above, that criticism of Google can be dismissed by saying Microsoft do it too.
And a smattering of ad hominems and accusations of bias such as calling me a "Google hater".
>>"So you really don't know what is the main difficulty for them? The real difficulty is not in the userspace, mam, it's the kernel, more precisely, it's the device drivers that are binary blobs!"
No. I wrote that these truly Libre projects become harder every year as Google moves more of the userspace into Closed Source and that remains true. It's hardly going to make things easier, is it? Keyboard, Calendar, Maps, the API itself... Even SMS is going that way. Look at this. Formerly Open Source apps on Android are falling like dominoes. When I said the closed sourcing of basic apps on Android makes things harder for the really Libre versions of Android, that's factually true. Don't try to argue against that!
>>"Being far from perfect, Google should be given their due though. Not that there are no poor decisions made by Google: going with Apache Harmony instead of IcedTea, not ensuring good code for the kernel and letting device OEMs create a big mess there. BTW, I try not to use Google's software if they are not at least mostly open source. So I have Chromium installed on some of my systems, not Chrome. I would prefer Cyanogen or Replicant, but better Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora or Arch, not the stock Android. No disrespect to Google here, "thanks" to OEMs. My next phone would probably be Nexus, since it's better supported by both Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish. A touch device should be able to run GNU/Linux too"
Good for you - see all that I respect. It's not Open Source software I dislike. It's this partisanship and this enoblement of giant corporations that I'm arguing with you about. I like tech, at the end of the day. That's what I'm about. Btw, no Firefox OS on your list?
>>"You also mentioned that OEMs cannot set up their own stores or put their apps in the Google's store? Amazon, Samsung apps? Or 30 of these. Do they receive cease and desist letters from Google, or cannot get licensed Google apps?"
Odd. I recall specifically mentioning Amazon and Samsung at the time. So it's strange that you flag them up as if they are omissions. I recall writing that Amazon can pull this off because they are not selling phones, but just their kindle devices and that Samsung is currently the only OEM with a real chance of breaking Google's lock. I also explicitly mentioned the case of China where they must have a non-OHSA Android because several Google services are against the law there. If you check your "30 of these" you'll see lots of Chinese OEMs. Again, you've simplified my argument to the point it no longer reflects what I wrote. Look back - you'll see I explicitly wrote about significant commercial companies selling in the West. You cannot unilaterally shift the context of what I wrote in your desire to prove me wrong.
>>Acer that never forked Android, but tried to ship devices with a forked Alayun OS were warned to be out of OHA, because they were breaking the agreement they committed to when joining it!
Aliyun is a fork of Android. Acer tried to sell devices with it on, Google shut them down because Google can take away Acer's licence to sell Android devices that are compatible with Google services. Google can do that whether Acer agree to it or not. Acer's agreement is immaterial from a point of view of whether Google are restricting Open Source or not, it is Google that insists upon the restriction. Don't present this as some sort of bad faith on Acer's part - what matters is that Google forces OEMs not to fork Android (or work with those who do) via their market dominance.
>>"I am not happy about the fact they are proprietary, but isn't it the part of the license"
It's part of the licence because Google insist upon it, no other reason. It doesn't have to be in there. It is because its in Google's financial interest for it to be in there. Regarding your list of non-OHSA Android OEMs, look at them in detail. Some of them are not even shipping smartphones (e.g. Siemans is on there). Others that are, sell to China where Google can't threaten people with the removal of their services because they're banned there anyway so there's nothing to lose. Instead of giving me a Wikipedia page of mobile phone manufacturers and saying "most of them are shipping Android phones", try to show what would actually be necessary to disprove what I've been saying and find me anyone of significance that is selling to non-Google Android devices to countries other than where Google is banned.
By significant, I'll set a generously low bar, let's call it 2% of the market, just to weed out the specialist use-cases that aren't to the general public. My bet is that you wont be able to find an OEM selling non-Google Android that hits that outside of banned countries. And we know that manufacturers would like to, btw. As we know of at least two that want to publically.
>>"Here's a Linux mobile journal talking about Acer, Alayun OS and Google. They state that the reason Google is pissed with Alalyun OS that it is incompatible and closesourced"
Well yes, it being incompatible with their services is the point - Google want to restrict anything that isn't compatible with them. And to be compatible, you have to support their services. It would be a little like Microsoft blocking the sale of any OS that didn't use .NET. And getting away with it.
I couldn't find a reference to Aliyun being Closed Source in the article you linked. I'm not saying it can't be, but there's nothing about any such thing on Wikipedia for it which just refers to it as a fork. In any case, the point is that faced with a viable fork of Android, Google set themselves up as judge and used their market dominance to stop a company from building phones for it. That's very much against the spirit of Libre Software.
>>"Cyanogenmod is reported to be installed on 12 million devices"
Which constitutes about 0.7% of Android devices out there (based on what I could find references for). And of those 12 million devices, I presume next to none were sold with Cyanogenmod actually on there already? My point is made - we should be seeing lots of phones sold with Cyanogenmod pre-installed. There would be a use for these. But we're not because of Google's OHSA.
>>"What are the means and what is the cost? Again do you have the figure of the cost of how much it would be? Or it's your own speculation."
I don't have a figure - obviously. You expect me to know the precise amount of money each OEM would lose by not being able to sell Google Android before you accept this? We know logically at least, that it is enough to make companies like Acer start turning down phone contracts and a giant like Samsung to invest in rolling their own rival OS and building entire compatibility layers rather than fork Android which would be a lot easier. So a pretty huge cost, whatever it is.
>>Neither do I consider you Aristotle. If you didn't get it, it was a gentle allusion to the fact that what you call "faith" in my argument , was an experience, induction, observation, extrapolation after all. In particular, that Google would continue doing in the future what they have been doing before. Instead of admitting that it makes a lot of sense, you are calling it faith-based
Google have never, to my knowledge sacrificed their own financial interests in order to subsidize Apple, Samsung et al. This is explained time and again and never refuted, but you continue to insist on arguing that Google are "more noble" because in a hypothetical timeline you believe they would do so. That is why it is a faith-based argument rather than an argument based on evidence. Even the argument that Google only use patents as a defence has been shot down as they have sought (and received) money for the Motorola patents not as a response to patent suits against them.
You insist that Google motivation in not using patents is one of principle, despite their historically being extremely weak on patents and one case where it actually was in their financial interest they went ahead and demanded money for their use, not as a defence! You then attempt to project this into an alternate timeline that never happened and claim that Google are "more noble" because of their actions in that timeline. Faith-based argument. Calling me Aristotle doesn't change that.
>>>>I replied with several examples of how Google uses soft controls to restrict the behaviour of Android OEMs, of previously Open Source parts of the userspace they had turned Closed Source (I gave examples), prevent companies from forking Android - a key principle of Libre Software - using market dominance (again, I gave an example),
>>"Several" examples was only the soft keyboard. What about a pdf engine (pdfium) that they opensourced? Does this neutralize all your examples?
There are more examples of soft controls even in the section that you just quoted from me in the actual post! Closed Sourcing keyparts of the userspace of Android, using market dominance to prevent forks of Android. I've also previously linked you to a four-page article on the subject, as well as giving the evidence of Google using their position to shut down competitor apps such as Skyhook. Please look back through my posts and accept that I did not only give one example of Google's soft controls.
And to close sourcing the keyboard to Android which you think is so small a thing, you can add Calendar, Camera, Maps, Drive, Gmail. Most of the Android userspace used to be Libre Software. Now under Google nearly the entirety of the standard userspace apps on Android are proprietary. Microsoft nor any other competitor has ever managed to gut so many Open Source projects and replace them with Closed Source as Google has.
If you really want to champion Open Source, then you're going to have to start distinguishing between those who say they lead it and those who actually do.
And to the apps themselves add a little item such as Google superseding the old Open Android API with their own proprietary one. As someone on LWN.net insightfully put it, this is giving every sign that it's going to be the new win32. Good luck escaping from this proprietary API.
You might also note that Google will kick you out of the OHA (and thus from selling devices with PlayStore and their services on) if you also make a non-compliant device. Even if you're hired to make it for someone else! Quick question - when MS were trying to stop Dell selling GNU/Linux laptops did you object? I did. I bet you did too. Google are pulling the same thing with insisting you sell only their version of Android or you can't sell theirs at all. They use the same stick - market dominance. I'm criticising them for this. But strangely you're now determined to argue that Google is "more noble" than other companies. Why the double-standard? To me, you appear to be championing the flag, not the country.
>>"Well not exactly, It's (roughly) akin to the difference from the Plato's and Aristotle's pov on physics. The latter thought that it is more like Math, you need no to very little observation, just get your axioms prepared and theorems proven. The former though thought about importance of experiments and observations. However, in the Ancient Greek case, Aristotle never accused his equally great teacher of going with the faith too much..."
Your analogy breaks down because I don't consider you Plato nor my teacher. That you liken yourself to either is a little presumptuous, imho.
>>"Again, I was answering to someone attacking Google (as you would call it if it were me bringing up Microsoft if it weren't mentioned originally). My point was that Google were not the one that is suing, "
The OP you were "answering" said they hoped Samsung would get Tizen off the ground and escape from both MS and Google (which they called wannabe monopolists which they are - that's the nature of business). You questioned why Samsung would need to free themselves from Google. I replied with several examples of how Google uses soft controls to restrict the behaviour of Android OEMs, of previously Open Source parts of the userspace they had turned Closed Source (I gave examples), prevent companies from forking Android - a key principle of Libre Software - using market dominance (again, I gave an example), and excluding apps that were against Google's financial interest (again, I gave examples). None of this depends in any way on Google suing Samsung in this matter.
>>"$4.5 bn worth of Nortel patents would absolutely sure mandate the board to start attacking them. The original $10 bn amount left over from Motorola acquisition doesn't apply here, because it's a totally different situation (you gotta take my word for this, you pretty much said)."
Did I? Let's see what I actually wrote: "Well that was certainly a big balls up on Google's part, but the two scenarios are not alike. One is a situation where Google did at least get some assets and can spin it as a smaller loss depending on the value they ascribe to the patents. And they at least had a plan in that case even if it didn't work out. But the other scenario you seem to consider so plausible is one where Google is actively subsidizing their competitors on an ongoing basis and deliberately turning down revenue. That wouldn't happen"
So I pointed out that one was a badly judged acquisition ($12bn, iirc) that nontheless still resulted in Google being able to sell on part of that acquisition for $3bn and keeping a large patent portfolio where they had almost nothing before. I also pointed out that even though it was badly judged in terms of what they paid, it was at least an attempt to make money for themselves. These things make it a rather different proposition to where billions are spent with the objective of saving their major competitors money in the future and sticking to that on an ongoing basis.
So no, I didn't "pretty much say you gotta take my word for it".
Btw, by using patents offensively, I take it that means asking for money for use of them (can't really mean anything else). You're aware that as part of the sell of Motorola to Lenovo, Google demanded and got payment for Lenovo's use of their Motorola patents, yes? I.e. Google has demanded money for use of its patents?
>>You also provided two links of articles (you said very trustworthy) on how Samsung was corrupted and Google is evil in enslaving their partners in Android ecosystem. Again, it's you that decided it's a very trustworthy source
Again, I don't use the world "evil". It has to be something pretty extraordinary to get me to talk in such terms and a company acting in its own financial interests is unlikely to do it. I consider that normal. But the usual re-phrasing of what I wrote aside, yes, my links are both reputable. Ars Technica is one of the finest tech journalism sites currently and Vanity Fair has a long-standing tradition of good journalism. If you wish to discredit these sources, then come out and say so. Don't just make snide insinuations that it's me who "decided they were trustworthy". Tell me why these sites are disreputable or better, point out anything in the articles I linked that is wrong. I'm not appealing to authority here. Show me what in my citations is wrong or stop making nasty remarks about them.
>>You mentioned how it was difficult to break the shackles of Android ecosystem due to the evident loss of most important features there. No specifics on what the features are, though!"
Again, false. I supported what I wrote with a link to an extensive article on Ars Technica detailing this. And the ecosystem is one of the most important features which I explicitly wrote. Imagine you are Acer and you try to fork Android (as they did). Only to then find that if you dare do this, Google lock you out of the Playstore and therefore pretty much the entire ecosystem. That is what makes it difficult. Google use "compatibility" requirements to enforce this. I wrote that this is why Samsung is the only one with a real chance of breaking Android free of Google currently, because they have the resource to create their own ecosystem (which they are doing with Tizen). I also wrote that this is why only Amazon have been able to break free over here - because their Kindles are not phones. You can find all of this in my posts so do not write "No specifics though" as if I'm just making up conclusions to suit.
>>"You never tackled both Replicant and Cyanogenmod though, perhaps this would again not apply as according to you."
Correct because I explicitly talked about companies. Show me the Replicant or Cyanogenmod phones in a high street store, or even significant market share of them, and I will cheerfully concede someone else has managed to break Android free of Google. However, this has not happened supporting my point - Google limit the Open Source benefits of Android (free to modify it, open ecosystem) by using other means to make the cost of breaking away too high for commercial entities.
I would LOVE to see these take off in the mainstream. I will take Tizen as introducing more variety and competition back into Linux in the mobile world, but I would prefer even more that truly Libre versions were the ones to do it. Samsung just wants to replace Google, not free the software. Sadly, every year projects like Replicant and Cyanogenmod become harder and harder as Google moves more and more of the userspace into Closed Source. Even the keyboard has moved to Closed Source, now. Google leaves behind abandonware increasing the burden on others who would prefer to be separate from Google.
It is very sad.
There's a lot of misquoting and misrepresentation in your version of my arguments. I've never termed anything here "evil" and I know that because I don't think in those terms. I'd prefer you stuck to my own words if you're going to describe my position to me.
>>Since you're dissing my didactic faculties, I'll share with you of my opinion on yours. Funny, your way reminds me my acquaintance with his UFO sitings. He is so amazing at mixing his (or someone else's) fantasies about the Niburu, Annunaki, Dogons, (several more lines about your friend)I hear a similar tune in your way of arguing. Not sure if you both realize it, but this logic appears to be disingenuous.
So if I understand your argument, I am equivalent to someone ranting about UFOs. Very nice. Again, not argument.
>>"I also said that based on the Google's history they never attack first and use patents as defense against somebody who's doing just that. You said it was all boloney, completely irrational and illogical, because Google would sure not hesitate to attack for patents first if had enough patents at hand, they of course don't at the moment"
No, I never said that - really just quote parts from my actual posts rather than putting them in your own phrasing. That way there wont be silly side arguments where I have to correct your misrepresentations. The reason I said Google using patents "defensively" was not evidence of being more moral is because patents don't have some exclusive status of being the only wrong one can do to another. Again, Google has used other companies IP without recompense. Saying "if you ask for money from us for that, we'll hit you with a patent lawsuit" is not a defensive act, it's using them as a stick to dissuade people from seeking licence fees for infringement, as happened with BT.
When Google say they only use patents "defensively", what they mean is they want to be able to infringe on others patent use and wont use their own if other's let them - it's an attempt to devalue patents because Google has historically had very little in the way of patent portfolio. Ergo, it is in their financial interest that patents are not used and always has been. Hence the rhetoric about only using them defensively. You appear to take this as a signifier of moral superiority, but the Realpolitik of it is that Google gains a lot more from infringing on patents than it gains from licence fees on patents, if they can convince people not to use patents. Ergo, it's opening move is always to try and dissuade use of patents.
All this is true, so the final question would be why believe the reason is one of principle, rather than financial benefit?
>>One major difference between your way and my friend's is that he is not teaching me on how to argue."
It is my hope that if I point out that ad hominem and argument by assertion are fallacies and rhetoric, I might get actual argument in its place. To some extent that appears to be working because in this post you have finally gone back to some of my actual posts, so I feel validated in that.
>>>>isn't logical just because someone says it is.
>>But it really is when someone is you, right?
No. As I wrote, there's nowhere that I haven't backed up something I wrote with reasons. This is the third time you've tried to present me as saying my argument is right just because I say it is. So back it up - find any actual statement I've made in this thread where I haven't given a reason for it. IF you can find one, it will be because it's something trivial to verify. IF you can find one. Either back it up or drop these ad hominems.
>>"this generality was used to explain you that your assertion of my lack of logic doesn't make it true"
Again, I didn't "assert" that your argument was faith-based, I gave reasons why it was. To whit, it depends on Google in an alternate timeline paying $4bn dollars to subsidize their competitors. That is logically an argument based on faith that this would be the case. Even if you believe they would, it remains an argument based on faith rather than evidence. Kindly don't keep pretending that I'm "asserting" things rather than giving reasons. You have attempted to argue that Google would act against its own financial interests and to the benefit of their competitors by referencing a couple of other actions by Google, but neither meet the criteria of being wilfully against Google's own financial interests or deliberately helping its competitors and therefore are poor evidence.
You've also three times now failed to explain to me why paying so that your competitors don't have to is "more noble" rather than insanity. If that had actually been Google's desire, they would logically have joined the Rockstar Consortium which would have had the same effect of Apple, Samsung and Microsoft not having to pay ongoing licence fees at less cost to Google. Google could also have then voluntarily payed the licence fees for any other non-partner company as well and still come out with less overall cost than paying for everything themself. You see - it just doesn't add up even if you accept that subsidizing competitors is Google's aim, trying to buy the whole portfolio exclusively still wouldn't be the most cost efficient way of achieving that.
The reason you are arguing such an absurd hypothetical is because you set out to prove that Google is "more noble" than other companies (your words) and are trying to make arguments fit that, rather than letting conclusion follow facts. It's also why you are basing arguments on hypothetical timelines in the first place. (i.e. faith-based argument, rather than argument based on historical fact).
Do you really not see the weakness of trying to prove that Google are "more noble" than other companies by trying to find evidence that in a hypothetical situation they would do something you consider noble?
You know what I've realized after reading all these posts? That registering a certificate should be something that you get as part of registering a domain name. And when you transfer a domain name's ownership, the old one is invalidated.
Yes, not everyone is going to need it and you may not have created it at the time you register the URL, but it should be standard and considered a basic part of buying a domain, included in the cost.
Certs shouldn't be a big expense and something people think of as an option when needed. There's no big technical difficulty with them, just the issue of keeping the signing certs of the CAs safe. And they would make just the same money (more probably) if the cost was a few pennies on every domain purchase or transfer rather than occasional big purchases.
That's how it should be.
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