auxio

gatorguy said:

auxio said:

For all of the people who are splitting hairs over whether code was copied or they just created compatible APIs, you're missing the point.

Sun invested hundreds of millions of dollars creating the Java platform and marketing it.  In doing so, it became well known to software developers who created a large ecosystem of server-side and mobile applications for it (not to mention having a ton of experience with it).  Andy Rubin and company come along with Android and realize that they need a good software development environment for it.  As stated in an email exchange between Tim Lindholm and Andy Rubin, they understood well that the only option was Java, but they simply didn't want to pay a licensing fee for it.  So they effectively cloned and owned Java by taking advantage of open-source projects at the time which had special licensing terms for Java.  Thus gaining the benefit of the money invested in Java by Sun in a commercial product (which went on to help Google make a lot of money), but not paying a dime for it.

If you work in the software industry and somehow think it's cool that they found this loophole and exploited it, then I sincerely hope someone does the same to any products you happen to work on.  It's not right and I refuse to use Android because of it.

And if you think that simply because Oracle bought Sun, it gives them a pass, it doesn't.

And if you think Larry Ellison's Oracle suffered any loss because Google didn't pay a license fee to the previous owner...
He didn't. And he doesn't.

He still has his Lotto ticket and might end up paying nothing at all for Sun, even after destroying Java.

I could care less about Larry Ellison.  This is about knowingly and willfully exploiting a technology which had a lot of great work put into it.  It's about the mindset and actions of Rubin and company, and how others in the industry will see how they got away with it and try to follow in their footsteps.  It's the dirty side of the tech industry.

For all of the people who are splitting hairs over whether code was copied or they just created compatible APIs, you're missing the point.

Sun invested hundreds of millions of dollars creating the Java platform and marketing it.  In doing so, it became well known to software developers who created a large ecosystem of server-side and mobile applications for it (not to mention having a ton of experience with it).  Andy Rubin and company come along with Android and realize that they need a good software development environment for it.  As stated in an email exchange between Tim Lindholm and Andy Rubin, they understood well that the only option was Java, but they simply didn't want to pay a licensing fee for it.  So they effectively cloned and owned Java by taking advantage of open-source projects at the time which had special licensing terms for Java.  Thus gaining all the benefits of the money invested in the Java platform by Sun within Android (which went on to help Google make a lot of money), but not paying a dime for it.

If you work in the software industry and somehow think it's cool that they found this loophole and exploited it, then I sincerely hope someone does the same to any products you happen to work on.  It's not right and I refuse to use Android because of it.  I love Linux, and have contributed to it over the years since it was my learning ground during my formative years as a software developer, but I won't touch Android.

And if you think that simply because Oracle bought Sun, it gives them a pass, it doesn't.

SpamSandwich said:

auxio said:

AppleZulu said:

SpamSandwich said:

Someone please let me know when we’re celebrating Human Being Day, because we’ve already hit peak pandering.

Hooray for Humans!

Every day is Human Being Day. The problem is that even with that, the implicit default has historically always gone to one gender of one ethnicity. So sometimes other genders and/or ethnicities get specifically called out to recognize their contributions to humanity. Everyone who gets bothered by that should try adding the word “too” to whatever the called out group is, e.g., Women’s Day, Too. Nobody is saying they’re more important than anyone else, they’re just taking a moment to think beyond the usual default and recognize that they’re important, too. 

It's not just about recognizing the contributions of different groups of humans.  It's also about educating people about the biases against certain groups (in this case women), and the effects of those biases, in the hopes of eliminating them.

As far as law goes, there have been (and still currently are) laws which limit the rights of women.  For example, women being prohibited from voting.  That has changed in most developed nations now (after much protest), but still exists in some countries.

Then there are biases in the attitudes of a large portion of the population which create barriers and limitations for those groups.  For example, workplace attitudes that women are only good for certain jobs, or the attitude above that all women care about is watching The Bachelor.  Often people who aren't part of that group don't even see those biases because they don't have to experience the effects of them on a daily basis.  By calling out those biases and trying to educate people about the effects they have, hopefully more people will recognize them and they will be eliminated over time.

These are a few of the reasons why an International Women's Day is necessary.

Any alleged problems in the US are insignificant compared to the actual life and death issues some women face outside the US. Celebrating “International Women’s Day” is essentially a passive-aggressive way to avoid addressing the actual problem, which is typically Islamist extremism or Muslim suppression of women. That was the point of the original post. The sarcasm was completely lost in translation (big surprise, welcome to the Internet).

So just because there are areas of the world which have more extreme laws/biases against women, means that we shouldn't also acknowledge and try to educate people about the less extreme ones?  The goal is to eliminate all biases and try to create true equality.  Just because some areas of the world are further behind in that goal doesn't mean we're there yet.

Maybe talk to some women and ask them about experiences like having some men treat them like "pretty dumb things" in the workplace.  Or, as my wife experienced the other day, having a man follow you around to the point where you need to go into the nearest shop/restaurant and ask someone for help.

gatorguy said:

lkrupp said:

Just what we need, Android ports to iOS. Remember those Windows ports to Mac OS...? Let me guess. Google will encourage developers to build their Android apps and then port them to iOS using Flutter where they will look goofy and not perform as well.

Or they can develop for iOS first and easily port to Android too using Flutter. I know we have a few dev's here who can comment with more insight. 

I haven't looked into it deeply, but here's a key point:

Developers create the code of the app in Dart, which is then passed through Flutter's rendering engine and framework, with both tools used to make the code work on each platform natively. The engine is shipped as part of the app package, along with the developer's code, which is used to run the app on the target device, like an iPhone or an Android tablet. 

So basically you develop in a programming language which isn't native to iOS (Dart), which then requires you to bundle a special engine with your app to translate the application UI + logic from Dart into the native iOS APIs.  Sounds a lot like programming in Java.  I've used a few of these types of cross-platform runtime translation engines over the years, and the problem for me is that you'll never get access to the latest platform features because you're always waiting for the engine to support them.  And, of course, if such features aren't available on every platform the engine supports, then you may never get access to them.  Or you'll have to do a bunch of work to get access to them -- e.g. create your own JNI libraries in Java.

EDIT: Found the process for how to get access to native iOS features (looks a lot like creating JNI libraries): https://flutter.io/platform-channels/

These engines are perfectly fine for simple apps which are doing common things, but not-so-great once you want to get outside of that sandbox and do more interesting things which require platform features which don't fall in that platform common denominator scenario.  But since most of Google's apps just go out to the web/cloud for everything they do, it works for them.

AppleInsider said:

"But in 2015, the prior FCC bowed to pressure from President Obama. On a party-line vote, it imposed heavy-handed, utility-style regulations upon the Internet," added Pai. "That decision was a mistake. It's depressed investment in building and expanding broadband networks and deterred innovation."

What a joke!  The internet was built on government (military) investment and the service providers have reaped the rewards of the government selling off the fruits of that investment at a fraction of the cost.  And it's the tech companies + academia, not the ISPs, who do the innovating.  The only thing they've done is help build out the infrastructure, and even then, with heavy incentives and funding from the government in many cases.

Deeming internet access as an essential service/utility, like electricity, clean water, etc, without prioritization of service, is the right thing to do for society.  Otherwise you're just setting things up to have a large portion of the population which is left behind.  But I guess seeing what Trump has done with Puerto Rico, I shouldn't be surprised that he's willing to leave people behind.  Just please stop the rhetoric about trying to make things better and admit that it's all about lining the pockets of your business partners.