Because Apple retains full control of what their browser can do, and what APIs it exposes - i.e. they will not compete against their own app store. And, they are not allowing alternate browsers either (no, Opera Mini is not a replacement for a full web browser).

Flash, on the other hand, would have full access to the OS API (like any other app), and Apple wouldn't have any control over how the APIs get used - maybe Flash games and apps you download/buy, they could even be stored locally and act like normal apps.

That's because Apple has ultimate control over their browser - i.e. what HTML5 "apps" can do, what APIs they can access, how they can "compete" and to what extent they can "bypass" the Apple app store.

This is not the same as Flash having full (as any other compiled app) access to the device OS and hardware, providing the full OS APIs to Flash apps, and maybe eventually bypassing Apple's control altogether.

Both you and the author of TFA seem to have omitted software patents from the equation in that claim (see x264).

- Apple already allows "homebrew" apps through their App store, just not Flash
- who knows?

The issue is Apple wants to maintain the chokehold on their app store being the only source of apps, whereas Flash would effectively bypass it.

Obviously, it's the product lifetime - i.e. if your product no longer works, you are no longer covered by the warranty.

Mostly true; if you are running a family blog, or an Intranet for 100 employees for a monthly newsletter who cares about index merges?

But grow your database to a point where you need to query not 100s, but millions of rows in a meaningful way, then get back to me about "easiest and cheapest."

Anyone who cares about data, and where data is important.

Samsung phones are known to have GPS problems. I can also confirm this first-hand. I don't know whether it's the GPS chip they use in Android phones, or it's a more widespread problem, but you'll have a lot better quality GPS hardware if you go with HTC or Motorola.

The reason MyISAM (not the whole MySQL) is "fast" is because there is no proper abstraction level between what executes the query and the actual file writes. This is true for simple inserts, simple selects, simple updates. This is also why when MySQL crashes, quite frequently MyISAM tables become corrupt - you can try to repair them, but hopefully you were replicating.

Besides, you use MyISAM for "speed" and you lose basic functionality like transactions, MVCC, ACID compliance (hmm, did you even have it in the first place?), row/page locks, etc. You can perform direct file writes even faster than that, I guess it counts for something, but that doesn't do you any good either.

On the other hand, what kind of "real-world" benchmarks did you do? No such "real world" I know of consists of simple inserts and selects. How about cases for:

- optimized subqueries
- using index merges
- reusing indexes in same query
- partial indexes
- indexes on expressions
- transactions with savepoints
- etc., etc.

MySQL doesn't do any of the above. Welcome to the "real world."

Actually, if you read the patent application, it's so broad, there is no requirement for screen captures, just text. Here's claim 1:

This is basically a text log of the game. There are other claims, of course, that extend this one that add images, dialogue, screenshots, etc. but none of those would be required to infringe.

I beg to differ. Postgres is not just "ok" - have you looked at its features and their completeness; standards compliance; scalability (clustering); RBAC; programming flexibility; reliability? If you are a developer - how about size and quality of code, optimizer, query execution flow? Postgres probably has one of the best maintained codebase for a complex piece of software you'll ever see.

In none of the categories above can you even start placing MySQL in the same ballpark as Postgres. It's not even the same league, it's not even the same sport. So, the other part of your sentence is right in a way - it's completely different in these and many other regards from MySQL.

IANAL, but so what that it's in the preamble? The statement is pretty clear itself, it's even preceded with the phrase we have made it clear.

That's not so. First of all, with the patents it's the "use" that's licensed not the distribution. Second, to me "everyone's free use" means what it says and it's not limited to distributors or program in question only*. Third, if you read the patent section in the license "everyone" includes any person who receives the software "directly or indirectly through you" - that would include pretty much everyone.

* one argument that could be made is that you actually need to get a GPL program to acquire such license; that could easily be satisfied by distributing a small file with every copy of software.

I still don't see how Sun's patent license - i.e. only for full J2SE implementations - satisfies GPL anyway. There's nothing in GPL that prevents you from removing features from the program and creating another more limited derivative. Since this wouldn't be compatible with Sun's patent license, then was there an implicit license as well that did satisfy GPL?

Definitely interested to see how it develops.

That is incorrect. Please refer to GPLv2 (in this case):

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

Emphasis mine.

It's still a sale and not a lease. They fact that the sale price is subsidized via the sale of another product (2 year service contract) does not make it any less of a sale. If you buy a burrito and a bag of chips, the drink is only 25 cents. If you apply for a Macy's credit card, you get additional 40% off your purchase.

You are confusing subsidized vs unlocked. They are 2 different things. I thought you could already get it unsubsidized, but not unlocked (at least in the U.S.).

I don't know why you would want it, but that's not the point. One could still use it as a Wifi device with VoIP capabilities, etc. You may want to use it on T-Mobile, or get a plan from Canada, or sell it / give it to someone else from another country.

No you don't - 3G frequencies are different. Voice and 2G are the same.

Again, you are confusing subsidized vs unlocked.

Besides the "entitlement" argument, I agree with your point there - I am not convinced the government should step in.

Not as hard as you think. All the tools are already there or readily available.

You could easily do this yourself on your rooted Android phone.

This could have been an arguable compromise solution. The other part - where your data on FAT32 is still wide open (pics/video/logs/whatever apps store on it) - would remain. But at least this way you could have some apps (depending on sensitivity of their info) store their data on such encrypted partition-in-a-file.

Other advantages would be:

- you could grow/shrink partition and filesystem as needed automatically by OS or manually
- you could just copy one file from one SD card to another and have it automatically work on your device without compromising any info in it and bunch of other benefits you get from encryption.