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If APIs are copyrightable, then Linux and *BSD just became illegal for implementing POSIX without a license from The Open Group.
BSD predates The Open Group by 19 years. Linux predates it by 5 years. But that's a minor quibble; your point still stands.
The malice-based reason is that the ISP can stick the customer with a surprise overage bill.
There's no overage fee with a fixed rate, cap and top-up service. That's the whole point. I'd never want to subscribe with an ISP who could simply charge me for something I didn't explicitly ask for.
Probably by blocking all incoming connections. This means, for example, that FTP would have to use passive mode, and Skype would have to use a supernode, and torrents would have to use peers on business-class SLAs (which can accept incoming connections) or HTTP seeds, and games would have to use a dedicated server on a business-class SLA.
I don't have any of those restrictions, so that can't be the case. Oh well - I guess I'll find out when I ask.
Which would work only if ISPs were legally required to have a usage page.
What possible reason would ISPs have for concealing usage in this situation?
To continue the analogy to charging for unanswered calls, this means anyone can DDoS a particular subscriber up to the cap (and hence off the Internet) by flooding the user's IP address with UDP datagrams or incoming TCP connections.
That's a very good point. I know someone who works at an ISP - I'll ask him how they keep that from happening.
Well, " == True" is something some people prefer for clarity, which I can respect, so I assume that he's saying people made actual functions with completely useless abstract names like myfunc. If I saw if (myfunc() == True) I'd be able to parse it but would have no idea what it would mean.
If it's done correctly, like this:
- when do you get to see the meter? Just once per month at billing time?
Whenever you want. Just go to your usage page on the IPS's website and have a look.
- who verifies the meter is accurate?
You can have your own usage monitor on your computer or router if you want
- how are ISPs prevented from abusing the meter? Recall that long ago, laws had to be written to stop phone companies from charging for calls before they were actually answered.
If the ISPs can't charge the user then the only risk is of the ISP lying about usage. Have fixed monthly fee with a cap which cuts off or throttles access to the Internet beyond your ISP once the cap has been exceeded. Customer can pay to top up, ideally for slightly less than the price/GB of the basic cap. Customers can also configure an automatic top-up charge for convenience if they wish.
- how are bytes being counted? Bytes are not counted like phone minutes. Packets are re-transmitted out of necessity. Do they count twice?
There are plenty of perfectly valid answers. Most policies are fine as long as they are clearly-defined.
I guess my next take is this: If the tools are so much better for developers, why hasn't this platform taken off in the past 2-3 years?
Developer registration fees, perhaps
I'm not arguing any of that - in fact, I agree. The extensions available for Firefox is one of the reasons I said that I prefer using Firefox to Chrome. But as a developer I happen to find extensions more pleasant to write on Chrome, that's all.
However, as much as I like Firefox I must mention that Firebug and Greasemonkey functionality comes built-in with Chrome. There seem to be plenty of FTP client extensions as well.
I must say, after writing extensions for all the major browsers Chrome is the best to write for by a large margin (even though I prefer Firefox for personal use by a small margin). My only gripe with Google is their habit of charging one-time registration developer fee after one-time developer registration fee after one-time developer registration fee. Ostensibly it's to verify my account, but after paying so much to verify my account for Google's other services already isn't my account verified enough yet? I decided to draw the line and will have to do without Chrome Web Store.
Unfortunately I can't find any mention of the basic price of the service in the article, but 300GB is a huge cap and $10 for a 50GB top-up is next to nothing. I wish I could get a deal like that.
And Quick Launch is?
Microsoft's term for icons directly on the taskbar which you can click to launch apps.
Executive ability is prominent in your make-up.