Comment Re:A lot of apps use SSL (Score 1) 141
This is why we can't have nice things.
Presumably you can write them for iOS, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of apps on the AppStore that are playing fast and loose with SSL trust managers.
True fact: I have written Java code to allow for self-signed or any old cert over SSL, or even none. It's not hard to find plenty of sample code. In the course of my employment the code was used for testing only and either not part of a production build or disabled by default in production, but I cannot say what other developers or teams may have done in with my code in their systems.
Why the authors focused on Android and why they felt the need to blame the OS rather than alerting people to cruddy apps, one can only speculate.
Spreadsheets -- well, Excel really -- are inescapable in business.
I know personally of complex multimillion dollar deals in the oil and gas business involving buying and selling entire refineries and gas pipelines where the numbers were all worked out on a spreadsheet.
The insurance industry lives on the spreadsheets put together by the actuaries.
The only consistent reason I've seen for Excel users will give up their rows and columns and have bespoke software created is when the dataset gets cumbersomely large. A secondary reason is when the kinds of calculations needed can't be cobbled together with Excel's function and macro tools. Even then, it's not unheard of for users to demand summary/aggregate reports and analytics that they then copy the numbers from into their spreadsheet to do their scenarios.
Just keep in mind the next time you hear about big money moving around in some deal -- somewhere someone probably had a pivot table for that.
> that loss of revenue means that marginally some sites will close, some will stop offering advanced features, and fewer such new features will be offered?
Guess what? That's called "capitalism". Can't make money or compete in the market? Out you go. Don't try to use the government or the legal system to force people to allow your marginal and failing revenue model to continue to be profitable.
127.0.0.1 www.itif.org
Maybe we can start a blackhole list for domains that don't honor DNT the way it was designed? Maybe in the form of an addition list for AdBlock?
In the days before the personal computer revolution, all software* was by subscription. Companies and universities bought hardware form the IBMs, Honeywells, DECs, and Amdahls of the world, but then paid a subscription fee for support in the form of maintenance and upgrades.
Then the microcomputer came along, and there was no software for it at first, so people wrote what they needed. Some of it was good enough that people were willing to buy it, at retail, just like milk or bread. Some software vendors would support purchased software with upgrades, either free for a time or for small fees, but it wasn't subscription-based.
Microsoft was one of the biggest forces in the world of boxed retail software. Remember the Windows 95 midnight release?
A couple of decades or more later, and now Microsoft decides that the "pay forever" model of the giants it supplanted is the right path. While it is something of a regression to old ways, it's also an outgrowth of the absurd situation we've come to in copyright and licensing laws.
What other models are there now? Apple sells you the hardware (computer or phone) and you get the patches and minor updates for free, but they push you to upgrade your hardware relatively frequently -- iPhone 6 anyone? Ubuntu gives you the OS, but they have deals with corporate partners and will probably be pushing ads into the os soon. A number of vendors give you the software, upgrades, and source, but charge you for the kind of "call up somebody and get this fixed now" support that management likes.
The situation Microsoft is in may be unique, however, because they can no longer convince consumers -- or most corporations -- to get on the upgrade treadmill, thus they've lost their steady income stream. MS can't get their customers to cough up more money on a regular basis for the next version. Who can blame the customers when the difference between Office 2010 and Office 2013 is, well, what exactly is different, other than Metro? Why should anyone upgrade?
This inability to keep pumping their customers for additional money to upgrade is the main driving force behind the subscription model. With a copyright regime which increasingly says the user only "rents" the software, and declining revenue from the Office cash cow, Microsoft really has only once way out: charging you a monthly fee for the privilege of editing your letters and calculating your spreadsheets.
*footnote: except software you (the company, the university) wrote yourself.
Eureka! -- Archimedes