Posts by Neil C Smith

Java won the smartphone wars (and nobody noticed)

Re: Oh Really ??

hmm .. trying to work out if there's anything true in that comment .. not looking good so far!

Android bug lets attackers install malware without warning

Phone Companies should be liable too!

It's time to make phone companies partly responsible for security. For the large number of people on contract phones (not me anymore - fed up with it!) then if the phone companies want to lock down these phones they should also be made to provide timely updates. If the phones aren't made secure in a timely fashion then that should be reason to void the contract. In fact, if they're knowingly not providing security fixes, that's probably breaking some law or other already - maybe it's time for a test legal case?!

Belgians aim to be third neutral-net nation

Re: I'll Bite

Bet that made him feel like a Walloon!

IBM crams Lotus Symphony back into OpenOffice

18 moths?

Well, if a million monkeys can write Shakespeare, then your 18 moths should be able to write you a good database ... eventually! :-)

Oracle seeks 'billions' with Google Android suit

Open Source / Field of Use???

There seems to be a popular misconception in this article that Java isn't fully open-source. Java, or more precisely OpenJDK, is a fully open, fully certified implementation of Java, and therefore under GPL has *no* field of use restrictions. The restrictions are in the testing kit, which means you can't have a fully open and certified Java implementation unless it's derived from OpenJDK and under a compatible license.

However, Android is not (and nor could it be) a certified Java implementation, and therefore the field of use conditions in the TCK would be irrelevant.

If Google had forked OpenJDK rather than Harmony to create Android then it's doubtful Oracle would have a leg to stand on.

Desktop Linux: the final frontier

RE: Inertia or Functionality?

Not pay for software that doesn't work properly.

We get lots of our own stuff that doesn't work properly, for free! :-)

Pink Floyd remastered for Nintendo Entertainment System

386DX

Also up there with the greatness that is http://www.easylife.org/386dx/

A decade to forget - how Microsoft lost its mojo

New decade?

My years are like my arrays - I start counting at 0!

Beeb gets grief for Humpty Dumpty rewrite

It makes me [sic]

I hate quotes with [sic] in them at the best of times. What exactly is wrong with "cosseted away"?

As for the rest of it, that just makes me [sic]k!

Apple sued over shrink-wrapped Mafia death threats

@ kevin 6

You control what they can get access to and you let them have a billiards table. Sure, can't do any damage with that!

As for the 3rd guy. Spill the beans. Which actor are we talking about?

Wikipedia's Gallery guy hung up to dry?

@ Tim Parker

>> "This is a complete subversion of why copyright came into existence in the first place."

> "I would argue completely to the contrary."

Copyright was originally intended to give a limited protection to original creators to encourage the creation of more artistic work. These images are a direct reproduction of an existing image that is in the public domain, and the original creators are long since dead and so rather unlikely to gain anything from this. Copyright has moved more and more in favour of large institutions, to the detriment of the individual. What individual living artist now has the legal or financial firepower to assert their copyright in the way the National Portrait Gallery is doing? Therefore, I stick by my assertion that copyrighting a reproduction is an all too common subversion of why copyright came into existence.

As for your White Cliffs argument, a photograph of this would of course be copyrightable, as it would be an artistic interpretation. In the same way an artistic reinterpretation of the images in the NPG would be copyrightable. However, the whole essence of a reproduction is to not bring any additional creative interpretation to the image. Therefore, what exactly is copyrightable? For once our American friends have it right (and I don't say that on here often! :-) )

Apologies for the belated response - a rare excursion away from the laptop.

@ piloti - National Gallery is not correct

As a UK taxpayer and someone with a strong track record working in the arts sector I couldn't disagree with you more. As far as I'm concerned, public investment should mean public ownership, and therefore use of these images should be openly available to the UK public at the very least. I also find it disturbing that it's possible to copyright reproductions of public domain works anyway. This is a complete subversion of why copyright came into existence in the first place.

Open-source handset sales to soar

Symbian ???

Well, Symbian's meant to be open-source by now (I think we can consider we're past the first half of 2009), but maybe they're running a little late!

Stallman: open-source .NET 'danger' for Debian

@Paul 135

Whatever your opinion of RMS, calling him Communist is just plain wrong. I'm fed up of hearing this argument about free software - these ideals have more in common with Liberalism (the proper European kind, not what Amercans think it means!) and Libertarianism. Me thinks you're barking up the wrong side of the political tree!

Apple snips Nine Inch Nails app

@AC 09:41 / @AC 14:55

That 'Be a patriot' sticker has nothing to do with piracy. It's from the (fictional) US Bureau of Morality. Did you miss the satire? Are you American? :-)

There have been two NIN albums in the last two years, both available for download, and both under Creative Commons licensing (albeit with the non-commercial clause that even CC haven't worked out what it means yet!). Whatever you think of his music, as far as I'm concerned NIN are going in the right direction regarding the future of music distribution.

His judgement on the iPhone I'm less sure about! :-)

T-Mobile flips bird to alternative voicemail

@AC - T-Mobile Voicemail Workaround

I recently upgraded and was going to have to pay for voicemail. Luckily, the guy in the T-Mobile shop told me the same hint - set your own number as the voicemail number and it's free.

Comes to something when even their own staff think it's a lousy practice! :-)

IBM picks open-source in Oracle database fight

@ IMG - InnoDB is GPL

Unless I'm missing something, InnoDB is open-sourced under GPL. Yes, there are commercial licensing opportunities same as MySQL itself.

Of course, what happens now it's all under one roof is anyone's guess! :-)