Someone I know has pointed out that Clive SInclair doesn't actually even own the rights to the Speccy; he sold them to Amstrad. So having him as a shareholder may not actually give this mob the right to replicate the likeness or the ROMS.
This could prove interesting...
I'll be interested to see how many rights holders agree to contribute their games for free, especially when the unit itself is being sold for such a tidy profit. I can't imagine it would be very many.
Or maybe they plan on shipping the games of 'uncontactable' (ie those who don't reply) rights holders and 'remove' them if they later turn up and complain? Kind of shifty if this is the case.
If you create the product yourself you don't need an accountant until you sell it.
It should be obvious to anyone that RedHat has a vested interest in making the vast majority of Linux distributions dependent on technology it controls. Linux is its bread-and-butter.
It appears RedHat has realised that, through systemd, it can readily provide preferential support for its own projects, and place roadblocks up for projects it does not control, thus extending its influence broadly and quickly. By using tenuous dependencies amongst its own projects it can speed adoption even faster.
Once it has significant influence, and the maintainers of competing projects have drifted away either out of frustration or because they are starved of oxygen, RedHat knows that they can effectively take Linux closed-source by restricting access to documentation and fighting changes that are not in their own best interests.
At this point, they can market themselves as the only rational choice for corporate Linux support -- and this would be perfectly reasonable because they would have effective control of the ecosystem.
Linux (as in a full OS implementation) is an extremely complex beast and you can't just "fork it" and start your own 'distro' from scratch anymore -- you would have to leverage a small army to do it, then keep that army to maintain it. It's just not practical.
At the same time, Linux has matured to the point of attaining some measure of corporate credibility, and from RedHat's point of view, it no longer needs its 'open source' roots to remain viable. RedHat also, understandably, fears potential competition.
Through systemd and subsequent takeovers of other ecosystem components, RedHat can leverage its own position while stifling potential competition -- this is a best-case scenario for any corporation. It will have an advantage in the marketplace, potential customers will recognise that advantage, and buy its products and support contracts.
I hope you can understand why many see this as an extremely compelling case. Arguing that RedHat has 'ethics' and would 'never do such a thing' is immature and silly -- RedHat is a corporation, it exists to profit from its opportunities, just like any other company. To attempt to argue that it would not do so is contrary to what we can assume is its default state.
It's no 'conspiracy theory' to assume that a corporation will behave like a corporation; arguing that it is just makes one look like a naive child. systemd is one large step toward RedHat gaining the ability to reap what it has sewn -- for its benefit and not necessarily ours.
While you may think of your examples as 'advancements', many people (myself included) do not.
Your examples also do not affect the way a headless server boots. systemd does. And not in a good way.
Whether one dislikes systemd or not isn't necessarily because of what it does or doesn't do. The issue for many people (myself included) is simply that it's a monolith that keeps trying to grow larger in an "open" world that was meant to stand for a certain amount of platform agnosticism and component independence.
I realise that systemd can make life easier for some more novice users but to be true to the spirit of the open source community I would expect it to be optional where it can be so. When it starts to intrude into critical areas and make itself mandatory in some releases, that bothers me. It makes me think that the whole business is a sneaky attempt to subvert the Linux kernel and eventually take control of Linux as a whole.
Totally agree. He sees what Linus has and wants it for himself. The problem with that is, as you point out, Linus did what he did because he wanted to run UNIX (well, Minix?) on a POS old PC. Poettering really just wants the fame.
I live here, it's awesome =)
Seriously though, South Australia, while having a reputation for being a "backward" state, is actually one of (if not the) most liberal, progressive states in Australia. Adelaide has a cool startup culture too!
...or the standards of computer science education in Western countries could improve? We could start with insisting all CS students learn a close-to-the-metal language like C, and not graduating JavaScript specialists.
It's a pretty niche app, but the Slashdot crowd has a pretty large percentage of retro-computer collectors, so I thought it might be worth a mention...
tapDancer is an Android app that encodes
...have been around for years. I know they don't generally share the road (except with hapless interlopers who have to get out of the way) but there's still been much knowledge gleaned there. So the 'science' is already eay more advanced than with autonomous cars, for example.
...think that was ever going to last? C'mon now... really?
Firefox better watch itself. Trying to "nudge" people into creating apps that only work properly with their browser / OS may not end well for it.
While I agree most digital pianos do not have the greatest sound, VST plugins (particularly Kontakt) can emulate a piano quite closely using libraries that are gigabytes in size. It's not uncommon to see a MacBook chained to a digital piano during a performance.
Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"
