Apple Monopolies:

• MP3 players?
• Distribution of iPhone OS Apps?
• Operating Systems on Apple hardware?

Microsoft didn't have a monopoly on browsers running on *nix when they were hit with antitrust violations for Internet Explorer on Windows. It was specifically the Windows browser market. Monopolies have very little to do with overall market share, especially when you've overly broadened the market they must monopolize to something incredibly general like "mobile devices". Why can Apple force the choice of NO FLASH on its users? Antitrust is about keeping companies from setting the rules for the game and playing the game at the same time, which is exactly what Apple is doing.

You might argue that no one is forcing the user to buy an Apple iWhatever, but there are tons of apps that don't run on another "mobile device" that do run on Apple gear. If the user wants a specific iPhone OS only app, then they must purchase a device with that OS. If they also want another app and the app developer wants to create an app for that device, how can a third party legally prohibit that?

In what way is Adobe "bullying their way into a market" here? Closed systems aren't illegal, but once you hold a monopoly in a market and start deciding that only certain other people can play with you it's a different story. Adobe is being vilified by Apple, and whether that's true or not cannot preclude Adobe from the right to create products that work on iPhone OS. If others can do it, Adobe should be able to too. Apple holds a monopoly in the MP3 player market. They also hold a monopoly on the distribution of iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhone applications.

I'm glad that someone with a little bit of pocket change is going after Apple and their vendor lock in. In my opinion, that's far worse than a closed source product. At least then, people can choose not to create sites with Flash voluntarily instead of being forced to.

My institution, Indiana University, has already contracted our student email services out. We actually have two systems: Imail (hosted by Microsoft on Windows Live) and Umail (hosted by Google on Gmail). Both of these are the ad-free versions and you have to use a secure University URL to log in to them (i.e. you can't just use gmail.com). Furthermore, the Global Address List from Active Directory are available inside these services as well. We've always been on the cutting edge of technology use though, and my guess is that these systems are FERPA compliant because UITS is big on CTA. After all, you have the option of forwarding your emails outside of the university anyway.

After your time at the university is over, your account automatically reverts to an ad-supported version, but you don't lose your email address. Something important to note, however, is that faculty and staff are not permitted to use the external systems and instead must use the in-house Exchange or Webmail services.

If the only thing keeping them from upgrading was a "small consumer grade server" I'm pretty sure the NSA would have made one fall off the back of a truck and this would no longer be a problem.

The problem is more likely that the software running on the server is proprietary and closed-source, making upgrades incredibly expensive. Far more expensive than the incremental upgrades that the system should have seen in the 20+ years that it's been in production.

I attend a major university that uses PHP and MySQL as their main server tools. The MySQL database that's provided with the hosting account is a "customized" version of MySQL 5.0 that does not allow stored procedures. The functionality is simply not there. This means that every query has to be dynamically generated (in a sense). I hate it because I'm losing serious performance and I end up with sometimes massive queries because I can't offload them to a stored procedure. In this case, my only true recourse is to use escape strings and type checking. I wouldn't be "stuck in the 'old PHP' ways" if I could help it.

Something else for AT&T to blame for overwhelming its network...?

Plus since there are no contracts, AT&T can raise the price every month if they want

I have a friend with a 2008 MacBook Pro that absolutely could not, for whatever reason, get Windows 7 to run correctly on Bootcamp. He would start it up and be able to get to the login screen, but his MBP would report the keyboard and touchpad as something non-generic and require a driver that doesn't yet exist for Window 7. He could force-install a generic driver but the exact same thing would happen the next time Windows restarted because it detects a less than ideal driver and replaces it.

Last I checked he was running 7 inside VMware instead, but he'd rather run it without a host OS under Bootcamp. As has been said lower here, it's not about the ability to run Windows 7 on Bootcamp, it's Apple's support of it. What's disappointing is they've had a lot longer than the GA of Windows 7 to put together this "update" and still haven't done it.

You're witnessing the difference between patent infringement and copyright infringement. Patents deal with a concept, idea, etc. Copyrights deal with actual products, be they physical (as in a car, processor, or pen) or intellectual (as in a movie, sound recording, etc). You would probably call the latter "imaginary", but regardless, at the current state of law, they are still considered copyrightable property.

Patents don't automatically translate into profits through sale of goods or services. Patents make up products, but there are many patents that don't ever make it to market in a product. Copyrights, on the other hand, deal with an actual product. Copyrights have intrinsic value because the product in question is available for sale or will be available for sale. Copyrights provide an exclusive right to sell, distribute, and produce a product, not an idea. Therefore, infringement of a copyright is much more damaging to the copyright holder than infringement of a patent, at least in theory. Thus the "harsher" penalties.

Keep patent reform separate from copyright reform because they are different things.