Well, Rogério Brito,

Hi.

I am not a developer, but I do care. I do know about the "incestuous" relationships of the media playing libraries in the OSS world. I do know that having one alternative less is a bad thing, especially in the long run. I'm also very grateful for LAME and don't "wish the death of" any one of the projects you mentioned.

I do provide feedback to OSS developers, hopefully in the form of constructive suggestions. Maybe not media related ones, as that isn't my forté, but others. I've petitioned daringfireball to bring some attention to the matter. He reaches a lot of Mac devs. I think I'll try that Delicious Monster guy next.

My post above was not about dancing on the grave of the traffic cone, but to provide a service to the community: to share with other people an alternative way of playing media well that they may not know about, as I have only recently (re-)discovered Mplayer OSX Extended.

I guess that what I meant to say to you is: "Don't shit all over people you don't know and have only read one sentence of."

Signed, "user like the one above"

Sad to see VLC struggling, but there's always Mplayer OSX Extended for the mac. Get the extra codec pack and it can play anything!

Bravo indeed!

No shit, Sherlock ;)

What, the American or the European version?

Laden or unladen?

So freedom is what you want me to do.

I get it!

That's what she said.

Exactly, which makes them Nice Fat 'n Juicy targets for some shmuck holding patents.

And re: Submarine patent proof: That's the whole point! If there was proof, they wouldn't be submarine!

Also, you can phone up your bank, if their site's not working for you and scream:
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON'T SUPPORT GOOGLE?"
and they'll get with the Google.

Try that with StarForce..

Also: Include the kazillions earned via merchandising! Cars made tons!

Steve Jobs becoming majority share holder of Disney

No, no, no! He is the *largest* (single) shareholder! A stake of around 7% from what I last heard...a majority shareholder would have > 50%+1!

How can you fudge numbers up like that - this is slashdot dammit!

Sure, but AMD is an anagram of MAD!

And that's the problem. Companies with shareholders are required by law to compete as hard as they can.

That's actually not true.

A common economic theory is that what's best for a company is to aim to Maximise Shareholder Value, and that the best way to do that is to compete as hard as they can. But it's not law.

But even then, "as hard as they can" doesn't include anti-competative behaviour (or other unlawful things, like bombing AMD offices) because the EU will go and sit on you.

Only a 2 I'm affraid.

No, it's because it's a necessary simplification of an uncertain future. Mark-to-market ftw, as the kids say.