Self-Driving Electric Cars Will Dominate Roads by 2030 - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/rethinkx-selfdriving-electric-cars-will-dominate-roads-by-2030 <comment><USER2> Is anybody else worried that a security-vulnerability in a popular family of internet-connected self-driving car could allow a worm that could cause casualties on the order of millions? I mean how many people would die if e.g. every late-model Ford in the US started aiming for pedestrians?

<comment><USER3> I think that there are a bunch of ways that you could make this very difficult for teenage idiots to manage, and if you're talking well-funded, highly competent state actors, they probably don't want to do terror attacks like this (and if they did, they could probably cause comparable harm today. Always remember how easy it would be to get a few sticks of dynamite into most US trains or subways).

<comment><USER4> > they could probably cause comparable harm today. Always remember how easy it > would be to get a few sticks of dynamite into most US trains or subways

That's localized death on the order of thousands at most, not global death of millions like the parent post was suggesting. Still obviously horrifying, but doesn't really compare in terms of the threat.

<comment><USER3> Well, one bomb would be, yes.

A sufficiently hypothetically scary driverless car attack might manage to do more deaths (though it'd be really hard, even for a state actor). But I think it wouldn't really get to the level of "more capable of causing terror." If you could cause let's say 15,000 deaths by a well-coordinated one-day bombing attack, and 80,000 deaths by a well-coordinated one-day driverless car attack, do those two things actually differentiate themselves in terms of your nation's agenda? I'd think they'd cause more-or-less identical amounts of terror, and the only purpose of such attacks are terror.

Ultimately, I don't think it's important. Nobody who's resourced well enough to pull this off is interested in doing it.

<comment><USER2> If I understand correctly, your claim is that only well-resourced (e.g. state- level) attackers will be able to pull this off.

It is extremely clear to me that today both desktop computers and IoT devices do not require a well-resourced attacker to compromise (can we agree on this?).

The point where we disagree is that I see little evidence that driverless car companies are investing in defense in depth that is at a level significantly higher than either IoT devices or desktop operating systems. Indeed, there is such a race to be first-to-market that the companies are incentivized to _not_ spend resources on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would like to see a real study that says people are comfortable with level 5 autonomy. When I ask my 40 something friends their response is "no way". And these are engineers. So maybe a generational thing. It's not that there won't be adoption - but to say you will have sea-change style adoption?

People who write these reports seem to be ignorant of the diversity of the automobile owning public. Does no one live in suburbia or have kids? The idea of sharing a car just doesn't make sense. it's part home / workshop / storage area. Maybe innovation solves this. Your rental minivan will dump its pod of crap at your house when it drops you off and picks it up when you call it.

Yes, if you live in a dense area this stuff makes great sense. But how do you deal with these use cases:

1) Follow behind your kid on halloween 2) Casually drive anywhere and pull over to watch the view. "Alexa - pull over at that little turn off." maybe?

<comment><USER6> > Does no one live in suburbia or have kids? The idea of sharing a car just > doesn't make sense. it's part home / workshop / storage area. Maybe > innovation solves this. Your rental minivan will dump its pod of crap at > your house when it drops you off and picks it up when you call it.

Ok, so this is in no way a criticism of you or your kids, but having kids doesn't have to mean that (e.g., would you let your kid leave her crayons on the subway? in the public library?). Sure, kids anywhere could occasionally mean kid vomit, but that's what damages fees are for, right?

Lots of people, my sister included, have kids and don't even own cars, today, right now.

<comment><USER3> You didn't understand him. He didn't mean that your kids will mess up the car, he meant that when you have kids, your car fills up with kid paraphernalia that you don't want to constantly load and unload.

My car has in it:

1\. My daughter's carseat.

2\. About three kleenex-box-sized volume worth of her books and toys.

3\. Wet wipes and diapers and changing equipment.

4\. A booster seat.

5\. A box of food and eating stuff (bibs, etc.)

Those all live in my car permanently. I don't want to take them all out and put them all back every time I go to the store.

<comment><USER7> Things will change, people raised kids for thousands of years before the automobile. To some extent, the reason you carry around all of that stuff is because you have the car, and the current state is the best of all possible alternatives for you and your family. In the future, the best of all possible alternatives might change, and the conditions that lead you to having made a choice to live a car centric lifestyle may change such that future parents of young children will do it differently.

Maybe the design of cars radically changes. Maybe the design of spaces in which we live changes to accommodate a more car free/car subscription but not ownership lifestyle. Parents are a large market and people will make money by solving these problems, but the first step before that is autonomy.

<comment><USER3> Between the alternatives of:

1\. Pay a bit more for a car you own (I mean, this isn't THAT expensive. A good used car costs maybe $8,000 and can last for five years).

or

2\. Fundamentally restructuring your life to a pre-modern approach of childcare

Which one would _you_ do?

<comment><USER7> From what I see, you're looking at the current set of constraints/opportunities and then just inserting a self driving car, the reality is that autonomy and the way people live is going to change things in many hard to predict ways. You're heuristic is probably applicable for the first ~5 years, but after then all bets are off.

A few things that I think you are assuming that will not change are:

1) High availability of free/cheap parking at all of your destinations including your home.

2) high availability of autonomous cars actually for sale to end users. Due to the odd liability of an autonomous car (is the owner responsible for a crash? how do you insure against that) I anticipate most/all L5 autonomy to be subscription based, not available for purchase.

3) Prohibitively expensive congestion/registration/etc charges for owner occupied cars in order to reduce the number of cars on the road

4) car ownership remaining legal (unlikely to change, I admit)

There is a lot that can happen. You will probably own a car for the rest of your life, your children probably will never own a car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'll believe it when I see it. To me it seems much more believable by that time that kind of cars won't dominate even streets around Google HQ.

</comment><comment><USER9> > And while 40% of the cars in 2030 will still be of the old, internal > combustion variety, they'll represent just 5% of the consumer miles driven.

> compared to the internal-combustion standard, self-driving EVs will > represent, "a 90% decrease in finance costs, an 80% decrease in maintenance > costs, a 90% decrease in insurance costs and a 70% decrease in fuel costs."

> Car subscription services will increase utilization of a vehicle from > 16,000-32,000 kilometers per year to 160,000 kilometers or more. And that > reduces the number of years the car is in service (and thus interest paid on > any financing plan) as well as increases the amount of use wrung out of it > per year.

These seem like wildly optimistic projections based on an assumption that a single self-driving car can take the place of 5-10 conventional vehicles. This could possibly work if commuters don't all need to use those cars at the same time (maybe a wider prevalence of non 9-5 work schedules) or that a substantial portion of autonomous vehicles will be high-occupancy minivans and the vast majority of commuters are willing to carpool with random strangers. I don't expect either of those things to happen.

I do think self-driving cars will be successful and widely used, but it's hard to imagine them having a 95% share of passenger miles when there's plenty of manually-driven cars still on the road.

> The savings represent some $5600 per consumer per year or $1 trillion in > additional disposable income in the U.S. alone by 2030.

According to the first thing I found on Google[1], average consumer spending on transportation was about $9503 per year in 2015 (which is a lot higher than I would have guessed. Apparently I'm an outlier). I think it's unrealistic to assume that lower vehicle maintenance and insurance costs are going to be passed on directly to consumers rather than shareholders. I know that's how efficient markets are supposed to work in general when you have multiple competitors, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm)

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it's ridiculous to espouse something like this when we have no real comparison of the safety of self-driving versus human driven cars as they exist right now.

<comment><USER11>
      Level 5 autonomous driving means driving better than most humans so it automatically means safer.

<comment><USER12> Which is a vacuously true statement because level 5 automation is practically defined as being better than human drivers.

The problem is that they basically have to perform better than humans in all situations. As soon as someone dies from a crash that a human could have prevented -- like the Tesla that plowed into a semi because it was white and it couldn't distinguish it from the sky -- it's basically game over for consumer trust.

If all we care about is safety then total automation is going to be fighting a losing battle against a machine assisted human drivers for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Since I am not going to be driving it, do I still need car insurance?

Shouldn't the company who develop the Self-Driving tech be liable for any accidents/damages its tech might cause?

If so, great deal for consumers, but I doubt the developers of the Self- Driving Tech would agree pay for the insurance for everyone

<comment><USER14> At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. The car owner will still pay either indirectly or directly. There is no other choice.

If the software developer is liable, then the software developers will just include that extra cost upfront when you purchase the self driving software/vehicle, or more likely as a monthly subscription to continue using their software, just like insurance!

If the customer is liable, then customers will just purchase separate insurance like we already do.

At the end of the day it's pretty much the exact same system. My 2 cents is we should just keep our current system and let people buy insurance from a third party instead of having to go through the software developer.

<comment><USER12> It's not just about who pays for the policy, its about all the other insurance things.

If your car is 'at fault' in an accident and you weren't driving do your rates go up? What does that even mean?

<comment><USER14> I imagine your rate would be the same as everyone that uses your self driving software version.

In fact, your rate could go up because _other people_ with your software are getting into accidents? Sounds crazy right? But it makes complete sense. Eventually it'd encourage you to switch to a safer self driving car system, which is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The real test of self driving cars are place like Mumbai where you are litteraly 6 vehicles on a 2 laned road. These includes cows, motorcycles, electrical rickshaws, normal cars and trucks, plus pedestrians who just walk in between them. The distance is often not more than a couple of inches.

</comment><comment><USER16> When self-driving cars take over, traffic will look very different. More like this: [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm_rlLyelQo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm_rlLyelQo)

</comment><comment><USER16> Self-driving cars, yes. Car-sharing, probably not. There are many car rental schemes now, but they're a niche market. Zipcar is not going to take over the world.

<comment><USER17> I don't know - why do you need to own a car 100% of the time?

Why not have a car drive to pick you up for your commute maybe with someone else heading your way - then it goes about and picks up people who are heading to the shops, have doctor's appointments, are heading to the airport.

You might even part-own that car - you get priority on your travelling hours - and the lease company does a daily valet before the car comes to pick you up.

<comment><USER18> An example for full time ownership is chaining trips together. If I am planning to go to multiple stores over the course of the day (one before work, two at lunch, and one after), I don't want to have to load and unload my purchases each time I have to get a different car. Or if I plan to do an activity after work that requires lots of equipment home is not along the way, I will bring the gear with and leave it in my car for the day.

These are just two examples from my own life but I am sure there are other reasons to own a private car.

<comment><USER19> It could be a time based rental, rather than trip based. If you think you'll need it for several trips, you should have the option to do that, rather than having to swap cars between trips.

<comment><USER3> To the extent that that's cheap, you'll see the utilization of the rental cars go down. To the extent that it's not cheap, why are people using this service?

There is some kind of happy-ish medium there, but it's another chip away at the claims of the omnipresence of rides-for-hire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >1) Follow behind your kid on halloween

Seriously? Fucking walk.

<comment><USER21> Um, there are reasons other than laziness.

<comment><USER15> Such as?

<comment><USER22> Various forms of disabilities, injuries, other conditions that walking isn't great for.

Personal: My mom has CRPS and walking around causes a great increase in pain for her(painkillers, even morphine level have almost 0 effect), even being in a car can be very difficult for her, but a vehicle she is able to better position herself than in a wheelchair. She can't drive because of it, but an autonomous car would make it so she could potentially go places (or follow the grand children around at Halloween). Both my parents are in their 60s and 70s and are super excited about level 5 self-driving cars.

Random other example: Parent is on crutches from injury, insurance didn't cover wheelchair, or perhaps live in area with poor wheelchair accessibility(bad/no sidewalks). But crutches are too slow to keep up with the kids, they could easily just sit in a self driving car and keep up. But not having to focus on driving and hitting other kids night, can focus on watching their kids and hanging out the window to interact with them.

<comment><USER22> ThomPete,

Sure these aren't necessarily applicable to ALL people, but you asked "such as?" to "Um, there are reasons other than laziness."

I gave you at least 2 specifics such as. There are plenty of laziness reasons, but doesn't mean there aren't potential valid reasons besides laziness.

I also generalized the "Various forms of disabilities, injuries, other conditions that walking isn't great for." in the beginning. And there are literally tens of millions of Americans that have at least 1 disability (approximately 20 percent of the US population). And lots of other countries like Japan has an aging population which are likely to have various mobility issues. Not including injuries, or potentially other issues. So I would say that is fairly generalizable.

<comment><USER15> Didn't mean to diminish the burden for those in the specific situations. Just mean that we can't have a discussion about self-driving cars by using anecdotes and anomalies, we have to talk about the general issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Self-driving, plug-in Tacoma = dream car.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ridiculous. I would never allow it. I think that autonomy and freedom triumph in America at the very least (Europe is hopeless)

<comment><USER25> You won't allow what? People to have the right to choose to use a self-driving car? How is that support freedom and autonomy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Let's hope they are electric. Because self driving cars will obviously make single person in a car transit cheap. And therefore cities will be chock-a- full of these things.

I think there should be a law that these cars are no bigger than a Fiat 500 (a little bigger than a bumper car).

<comment><USER9> I'm not looking forward to the streets being crowded with zero-occupant vehicles on their way to pick someone up or driving home after dropping someone off, or just circling the block all day because it's cheaper than paying for a parking spot.

<comment><USER26> If they are self driving you can just step in front of them & they stop, right?</comment></comment></comment>


Big productions: Why 'Fail Early, Fail Often' Is The Wrong Approach - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26105/Assassins_Creed_2s_Plourde_On_Why_Fail_Early_Fail_Often_Is_The_Wrong_Approach.php

<comment><USER2> It's "release early, release often" but I guess it doesn't matter much.

Speaking as a former founder of a video games company, I think that this kind of thinking is inherent to the entire industry and it is killing it. The inspiration clearly comes from the movie industry where admittedly, you don't make a movie in small iterations. As it stands now, triple-A titles have to make it to the top ten to be profitable due to extreme development costs which drives up marketing prices which in turn drives up the price of the games to the consumer. This spiral is really bad for the industry. I think that indie and small developers will take over most of the market because they do much smaller and more frequent releases.

<comment> jim-greer How exactly are you supposed to "release early, release often" when you're shipping DVDs to tens of thousands of retail locations? After going through months and months of Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo certification on a 3-ring binder full of technical requirements? And having the ESRB play every level of your game to make sure it doesn't have boobs or entrails?

Not to mention that for every programmer on these games there are 5 to 10 artists and level designers cranking out content. There's no automated regression suite to make sure that your last minute physics tweak didn't break one puzzle in one level somewhere.

There's a reason that console developers have miserable lives - they have huge teams and launch dates that are very expensive to move.

I'm not saying that things couldn't be done better, but it's a fundamentally hard problem.

<comment><USER3> Hence the qualifier about indie and small devs, I imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are there AAA game devs with 300 person teams who really think they can win without thorough documentation? WTF?

"Release early, release often" is for webapps and small teams. When you're dealing with a AAA game there is such a huge network effect it's actually crucial to make the first release a good release. You then get all the word- of-mouth which drives the game industry. Most AAA titles that ship with bugs pay for it dearly in sales because gamers talk to each other and word gets out in a few days about just how finished the game is.

"Release early, release often" can't possibly apply to AAA games with 300 person teams and fixed launch dates.

<comment><USER5> But it can apply to their internal dev process, where they 'release' to their testers and other stakeholders all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yea, waterfall works if you do it properly. Is that so surprising?

<comment><USER5> Yep. Console games have different requirements than other projects, so waterfall actually kind of works. Your hardware isn't changing, you end up with a single, static product, your requirements can be known ahead of time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Didn't Plourde just dive into 'Fail Early, Fail Often' with the way they did documentation?

</comment><comment><USER8> i think there are salient advantages to preferring to fail over documentation ---which is about getting the implementation right before time-consuming bugs or poor code are introduced--and preferring to "fail fast"---which is about not investing in a product the market doesn't support.

</comment><comment><USER9> He advocates moving failures upstream to the design process because it is cheaper than failing during the development process. While that is true, it's not an either or proposition. There is no reason you can't fail early and often in each stage of the process.</comment>


First OpenSocial Application Hacked Within 45 Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/02/first-opensocial-application-hacked-within-45-minutes/ <comment><USER2> Was this Google fault or the 3rd-party fault?</comment>


iPhone 6 and Android value - <AUTHOR> http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/10/iphone6 <comment><USER3> $600. I know they were always expensive. But for me, I just don't see paying that for something I might forget, drop, sit on, lose, have it stolen.

I got a Moto G for $170. Paid cash, and then got on a T-Mobile month by month plan. If I break it. I'll just go and get another one.

My relatives and friends have iPhones and looking and comparing them, I just don't see the extra "niceness" worth the other $430. Same goes for expensive Android phones.

<comment><USER4> Google's strategy of driving down handset costs continues. They don't make money on the hardware or software but rather on the data collection and advertising from android devices. Apple, on the other hand, makes their money from the devices. As people continue to undervalue their data and put up with advertising we'll increasingly see this logic. Why pay $600 to Apple when I can pay $170 to X. This puts pricing pressure on Apple and will eventually reduce their competitiveness.

It's google's ad supported model that is winning - not a superior product. That's not to say their product is bad - its quite good. But they can essentially give it away and make money on the users…

<comment><USER5> > Google's strategy of driving down handset costs continues. They don't make > money on the hardware or software but rather on the data collection and > advertising from android devices. Apple, on the other hand, makes their > money from the devices.

But Google isn't making the devices.

> Why pay $600 to Apple when I can pay $170 to X.

How much does X make on that $170 device, compared to how much Apple makes on their $600 device?

> But they can essentially give it away and make money on the users…

Google can, yes. But their device manufacturers can't. And that's where a lot of Windows PC developers ended up—they raced to lots of low margin sales, and made less and less on each sale. It hasn't gone well for them.

<comment><USER4> Agree with your points. What I was trying to say was that Google has created a competitive ecosystem like PC manufactures that will drive the price of handsets close to their cost thus depriving them of profit.

In other words there is less and less differentiation between a samsung and htc and lg handset as the pace of innovation slows in hardware. They cannot differentiate on software this they are left primarily with price. This will only exacerbate in the future.

<comment><USER5> > In other words there is less and less differentiation between a samsung and > htc and lg handset as the pace of innovation slows in hardware. They cannot > differentiate on software this they are left primarily with price. This will > only exacerbate in the future.

Definitely, and that's a rough place to be in for hardware manufacturers. Dell and HP and Compaq and Acer have shown what lies down that road. Hopefully they'll find some other area to differentiate their products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the article's author is right and that there could easily be high-end market shift from Android at the margin. On the other hand, Android Wear watches are already shipping, Google voice search is better than Siri, Google Now is kinda magic, Material Design is a very nice unified design language that is arguably better than iOS, and Android Auto could take off.

(By way of background, I'm working on developing [http://recent.io](http://recent.io) for both iOS and Android. Currently I switch between an iPhone 5 and a Nexus 5 and expect to buy both the iPhone 6 and the Nexus 6/X rumored to be coming out this fall.)

>with the iPhone 6 Plus (a very Microsofty name, it must be said)...

Except for the Apple II Plus, the Mac Plus, the LaserWriter Plus, the Apple IIc Plus, the Apple III Plus[1]... In reality I'd say it's a very Appley name! :)

[1] Yes, there actually was such a critter: [http://support.apple.com/kb/TA31434](http://support.apple.com/kb/TA31434)

<comment><USER7> +1; The value isn't in the device, it's in the ecosystem.

Siri isn't going to integrate with my Nest, Apple Maps isn't going to have a fleet of vehicles driving around to confirm mapping data, and Google Now has the ability to digest information from both existing Google users and the web.

Can Apple create a better platform backend faster than Google can meet them at design/UX?

<comment><USER8> > Siri isn't going to integrate with my Nest

What makes you think Apple won't release a SiriKit in the future ?

> Apple Maps isn't going to have a fleet of vehicles driving around to confirm > mapping data.

Neither does Google in most places. And Apple, Google, Microsoft etc all rely on third party data providers for most of their map data. Surely they would be confirming the data.

> Can Apple create a better platform backend faster than Google can meet them > at design/UX?

The issue is not what Google itself does. It's the ability of Google to influence the ecosystem to come along with it. That has always been the problem.

<comment><USER9> > Neither does Google in most places. And Apple, Google, Microsoft etc all > rely on third party data providers for most of their map data. Surely they > would be confirming the data.

Apple Maps has been out for two full years now, and it hasn't improved at all where I live, and the benchmark for demonstrating improvement is quite literally "find almost anything at all".

Admittedly, I'm in Iceland, but Reykjavik is a world capital, and a city with a bit over 200,000 people, so it's not like we're trading pelts over here either. And I don't think anyone understands how shockingly bad their maps are here. I've done quite a bit of testing with them, and if you search for a city in Iceland, you have pretty good odds of finding something (maybe 80% accuracy). If you search for a point of interest, it drops to maybe 40%. Everything else is 0%. Literally 0%. There's one fucking highway in the country, and if you look for directions between the two largest cities, it says "No results found". __Way __more than half of the searches I 've tested just pop up that message in a UIAlertView, and it's exactly 100% of the searches for directions. I work at a university with 4000 students, and we're not on the map at all. It points you to a dozen high schools in the city instead.

Open street maps supposedly provides their data, but OSM is quite good here. Somehow Apple turns correct data into "No results found", and that's been true since launch day.

<comment><USER10> Apple doesn't have any recent OSM data. All of their input dates from 2010 or earlier, before they adopted a newer copyleft license. Apple is now relying on a scattered bunch of different providers for map data.[0]

[0][http://screenwerk.com/2014/05/23/apple-maps-expanding- data-s...](http://screenwerk.com/2014/05/23/apple-maps-expanding-data- sources/)

<comment><USER9> Ah, that would explain it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What about the 7th category, the consumer that is tired of having his wallet savaged by the four major carriers. Android offers users the opportunity to buy a high-end device, off-contract, for $350. You can then use this phone with a pre-paid service that costs 1/2 of what the major carriers sell.

Maybe its a small demographic, but it seems like its growing.

<comment><USER12> Whilst obviously it's not at this price, but surely you can get an iPhone off- contract?

<comment><USER11> You are correct, but the pricing was the entire point of the statement I made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd like to point out the writer for dismissing customisability. This is my opinion, but the popularity of some apps used to customise my phone leads me to believe I do not stand alone.

Let's not forget that the android can offer advanced functionality that Apple seems to refuse to offer on its devices: access to a local file system, ability to work as an USB stick(it's even possible to have your phone work as a boot stick), being able to turn its wireless card into monitor mode for mobile sniffing.

Last, but not least: Waterproofness and mechanical resistance. Apple seems to have forgotten these two points on the iPhone, even though they already have a good starting point(phone with no removable battery).

So, yeah, I don't think apple will win over the premium market that easily.

EDIT: Adjusting newlines, forgot that newfags can't triforce.

<comment><USER14> I laughed when he wrote that Android customization is basically alternate keyboards and widgets. Clearly he's never even held one in his hand. I switched to Android after four iPhones and I'm amazed at how much easier and quicker it is to do things on Android when I have total control over the UI.

<comment><USER15> That's not what I wrote. I said that iOS8 addresses some of these points, with keyboards as just one example, and that the key difference is now personal taste rather than screen size or availability.

Clearly some people prefer iOS and others Android. But that's not the issue, is it?

<comment><USER14> >You can get a bigger screen, you can change the keyboard, you can put widgets on the notification panel (if you insist) and so on. Pretty much all the external reasons to choose Android are addressed

It wouldn't be hard to come up with a list of dozens of features that you can customize on Android that you can't on iOS. If you really think you're covered "pretty much all the reasons" to choose Android, you haven't researched the platform very thoroughly.

<comment><USER16> It is that exact line which broke me out of the "this is an objective analysis" trance. It is clear to me the author tried to impartial For that I have to credit him. Yet afterwards the faux-impartiality became grating. I can only conclude he did his best but just does not fully understand Android.

Leaving out stuff like water proof-ness, wireless charging, and multi-windows. These are features which in five years we'll all take for granted. These are real innovations.

I was honestly expecting more from Apple. Apple has the engineers and the component budget to reach the forefront and push it forward. Yet I'm left wondering what their component budget actually went into and where their engineering time went.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's interesting how Apple talked about ApplePay as if it's something revolutionary, that "only Apple could do". Maybe Apple did motivate retailers to put in NFC payment hardware, but I've been using Google Wallet at Whole Foods (with a N5 released 9 months ago) for weeks, since they put in NFC at the payment kiosks (probably in advance of the Apple Pay launch, but that makes no difference to my ability to use them). So I had to laugh at the attempt to promote Apple Pay and NFC as a selling point of iPhone 6 and iOS 8. A little late to that party, Apple... if you're going to show up late, don't pretend you're first, instead focus on how you implemented it better (which may very well be true, although I haven't seen android 5 yet).

<comment><USER18> I think it must be conceded that Apple was much more aggressive in on-boarding POS systems and credit card companies than Google, and for that they deserve credit. Google moved first with the tech, said "here, go forth and code for it", and didn't get a ton of traction.

Apple went so far as to even get a cut of the credit card transaction fees if Bloomberg was right.

Even Paypal hasn't had a ton of success trying to be THE mobile payment platform, and what was poking fun at Apple actually turns around, IMHO, to be a stab at themselves for not delivering on a system themselves.

"Nobody can dispute Apple's strong track record, but payments is a difficult area," PayPal's Rob Skinner told TechRadar. "It's much more difficult to do payments than to keep a live stream working."

<comment><USER19> 'PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here's one thing the author is missing: _all_ high-end phones are essentially being "disrupted" by lower cost models that are getting increasingly better - or in other words just as good as the high-end ones were 2-3 years ago, when many people were _very happy_ with their high-end phones at the time.

Why do you think Apple's market share is steadily declining at the global levels? It's because of the lower-cost phones. So Apple may "win" the 600+ dollar/euro high-end, just like they won in the $1,000+ PC market, and while that will no doubt continue to remain profitable for Apple, it will ultimately mean Apple has a _small market share_ , and therefore a smaller ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER21> The BIG HUGE problem with the article is in using app store revenue to measure "value to the ecosystem." Google does not show signs of caring about app store revenue and would certainly continue to develop Android without that revenue. Google has a completely different ecosystem than Apple.

That said, The value of the new iPhones is considerable. They will make a dent in Android market share, but not as big a dent as had they been "indestructable" sapphire clad.

<comment><USER15> App store revenue is not really relevant to Apple or Google - it's small as a proportion of either company. It is, though, relevant to developers - <USER2> for its own value, but as importantly for what it tells you about the users. That is, it's a proxy for overall willingness to spend on anything. Pretty much all ecommerce companies will tell you they see the same proportions, even if they're not using iTunes or Google payments directly.

<comment><USER22> I primarily program for Android. One of my personal apps has bounced between $1000 and $2300 a month in revenue since May 2013. Over 99% of that was ad revenue (the other <1% were experiments in alternative revenue). Not spectacular, but I've been happy with it, and I have other Android apps making money on ads as well.

Many websites make money on ads, why not apps? In mobile ads versus web ads, mobile has drawbacks and advantages. Some of the advantages have not been fully employed yet. If John Doe is walking through a mall, a Macy's ad can spring up for a sale within that mall. Mobile is still in its nascent stage, and ad networks to support it are still in early days.

Insight into what Android consumers are willing to spend money on is next to nothing. Ecommerce companies have cruddy Android apps, and their web sites look horrible in a phone.

One billion Android phones will be sold this year. Lack of Android consumer willingness to spend has little to do with them, and a lot to do with how little businesses have been giving users. Making money with Android is like shooting fish in a barrel since, for whatever reason, companies and programmers aren't stepping up to do add-ons for the billion Android phones that will sell this year. That may be changing though - three years ago the New York Android meetings fit around a table at a bar, now they're sponsored by companies and overflowing the 200 person registration limit. So that infrastructure is getting built out. Until then, we know next to nothing about the overall willingness of Android consumers to spend.

<comment><USER21> I make Android software, but not for businesses that rely on app store retail sales for revenue. There just isn't enough of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you follow Benedict Evans on Twitter then you know that he is something of an Apple fan boy, so it's hard to read such a piece without noting that there is already considerable bias in it.

I'd like to address the first list though, "There are a bunch of reasons why someone would buy a high-end Android rather than an iPhone".

That list does not include the two reasons that myself and people I know use Android:

1\. We wish to have control over our devices

2\. We have not invested heavily in either Apple or Google and we avoid making choices that will force us to be invested in one over the other

On the first point, control may be about privacy (using something like XPrivacy), personalisation (perhaps CyanogenMod), adblock (AdAway), or simply having more control over what runs to be able to extend the battery of a Nexus 5 to a few days of heavy use rather than a single day (kill all the background services but still have the apps available for us to use).

On the second point, myself and my friends do not use Google as an ecosystem or as a range of permanent services and virtual assistants. We invariably are using different launchers (Nova is most common), perhaps Duck Duck Go... and our Google footprint is really just to use some Google apps as standalone apps (Gmail, calendar, drive). We tend to get media from Kindle, or Spotify... so we're not even hooked on Google Play.

What this means is that we've avoided deep lock-in with Google, and we make choices that avoid being locked in to Microsoft or Apple too.

When I think of what most of my friends use, it's a mix of technologies. Apple and Lenovo laptops, the latter running Windows or Linux. iPods and Cowon music players. Mostly Android phones.

The biggest reasons not to go for an iPhone are the same reasons we haven't gone for an iPhone to date: It feels like an all or nothing decision that would be hard to change in the future.

The value of an iPhone seems to be of the entire Apple ecosystem, it makes sense if you've bought into it already, or are choosing to buy into it, but not if you do not choose to be locked in.

The value, to us, of an Android device is that you can get the benefits of this technology without having to be part of any ecosystem, Google's or Samsung's or that of anyone else (Amazon?).

I'm not sure it's possible for Benedict to see this any more... he's personally so deep into the Apple world that his perspective is skewed by that reality. The question of why anyone would choose _not_ to be a part of an ecosystem isn't even asked. He's made it an Apple vs Google question, when the people I know using Android are not even considering that question.

PS: If I think of what entices people to consider an Apple iPhone more than anything else, it's the camera (usually noted as the software ecosystem around the camera). Photography on an iPhone bests every Android device there is. This is the single reason that some of my friends have an iPhone.

<comment><USER24> One of my main reason for using Android is I hate being forced to use iTunes to update and sync.

One, it has one of the worst UI for device managers (was designed manage music), and it's a very unpleasant experience for me every time I am forced to use it to manage my idevices.

Two, it had wiped out everything in my iphone one time I try to sync it to a new computer. To me, the word "sync" means to update devices so that the data missing from the other device gets synced. No way would I have second guessed it would wipe out data from the device. So every time I use iTunes to sync, I get super nervous.

With Android, I can just navigate my device as if it's just an external drive when I plug it into my computer(a Mac).

iTunes is just the opposite of Apple's "it just works" motto.

<comment><USER25> > To me, the word "sync" means to update devices so that the data missing from > the other device gets synced.

But that's not what sync means. True sync has a source and a target, and the target's file collection is always made to match the source. If you confuse the source and the target and the "source" is empty, you get the outcome you describe -- the empty device's file collection is "duplicated" (i.e. erased) on the other device that's been mistakenly chosen as the target.

This is a surprisingly common outcome among people who don't fully understand the meaning of sync. If your interpretation were the default meaning, it would be impossible to delete any tracks from your music collection. If you deleted some tracks from the source device, the source would have those tracks restored from the target instead of being deleted from it -- but that's not what sync means.

EDIT: People, don't downvote posts just because you don't understand the topic under discussion. The above description is absolutely, incontrovertibly correct in every detail. Therefore, in a depressing trend, it's been downvoted because it's annoyingly, infuriatingly right.

<comment><USER26> That's nonsense.

Sync has always meant merging semantic changes in state between two or more devices. If I buy an app on my desktop and take 4 photos on my phone, when I sync the two devices, I expect the new app on my phone and 4 new photos in my iPhoto.

As version control has taught us, merging changesets can lead to a menagerie of pathological cases and there's no universally correct automatic merging tool. iTunes in the grandfather's case, chose to merge incorrectly and lose data.

<comment><USER25> > That's nonsense.

You either need to read more carefully, or you do not understand what "sync" means. Please do not add to public confusion about this.

1\. Synchronization means making two directory trees identical -- same files, same count, no more, no less.

2\. If tree B (destination) has more files than tree A (source), sync deletes files from B so it agrees with A.

3\. If tree B has fewer files than A, files are added to B so it agrees with A.

4\. If tree B has the same number of files, but different contents or dates, the sync program replaces them with files from tree A.

5\. THEREFORE, ERGO, the operator MUST say which is the source, and which is the destination.

For the life of me I can't understand why people find this so confusing.

> Sync has always meant merging semantic changes in state between two or more > devices.

YES, as clearly explained above. And that means if the user chooses the wrong source, for example a device with no music tracks, then the program will dutifully erase all the music tracks from the destination device.

> iTunes in the grandfather's case, chose to merge incorrectly and lose data.

Yes, but that outcome resulted, not from an error in iTunes, but from the user misidentifying the source device, and that, in turn, resulted from his not understanding sync, a misunderstanding that he revealed in his post by attempting to rely on an incorrect dictionary definition of the word.

EDIT: consider this hypothetical example.

1\. Directory tree A has 9 files.

2\. Directory tree B has 10 files.

3\. In your description, the user doesn't have to say which is the source -- no user intervention is required.

4\. If so, without user intervention, how does the sync program know what to do? Does it add a file to tree A, or delete a file from tree B?

Think before answering.

EDIT: Readers, do not downvote posts simply because you're confused. Ignorance is not a justification to cast a downvote.

<comment><USER27> > Sync has always meant merging semantic changes in state between two or more > devices.

That is a definition of file synchronization [1]. Usually the aim of "syncing" is to input two directories and the outcome is that the contents of both directories are the same.

What you are describing below point 1. is an algorithm to achieve this goal.

The algorithm you describe needs a source and destination folder and this may be Apple's algorithm and implementation (I have no idea) but this is by no means the only way to do so (see two-way file synchronization [1]).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_synchronization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_synchronization)

<comment><USER25> Your post is attached to mine, but it quotes and discusses a point made in its parent.

<comment><USER27> The quote is not yours but I discussed your post.

<comment><USER25> In that case, there are two strategies for synchronizing file systems -- either:

1\. The operator tells the program what to do.

\-- or --

2\. The program gets it wrong at least some of the time.

In the case of contact list synchronization, like Google Contacts, the system assumes that the device the operator is editing at the moment is the source, and acts accordingly. Notice that a positive determination is made as to what the source and destination are, based on the operator's activity and its timing.

In all other cases where two directory trees are synchronized, are made to have the same content, and in which files may be deleted as well as added, the operator has to tell the program which is the source and which is the destination. End, full stop.

<comment><USER27> I agree that you need some user input or the program will get it wrong in some cases.

But the distinction between source and destination is relevant with some algorithms (one-way sync) and irrelevant in others.

Let say you have two directories A and B to sync and both contain a file f but the one in B is more recent than the one i A. A consistent strategy would be to always favor the most recent file and end up with A and B containing the same f file that was the one being in B at the beginning of the syncing. At no point I asked the user to define a source nor a destination but still the two directories are synced.

Note that it is your choice to continue or not the discussion as much as it was mine (not yours, shockingly) to answer your post. So please keep your "End, full stop" and "Think before answering" to yourself, they are quiet annoying.

<comment><USER25> > But the distinction between source and destination is relevant with some > algorithms (one-way sync) and irrelevant in others.

True, but the decisions made by the operator are critical to any desirable outcome, _in all cases, without exception_. Your example proves the point:

> Let say you have two directories A and B to sync and both contain a file f > but the one in B is more recent than the one i A. A consistent strategy > would be to always favor the most recent file and end up with A and B > containing the same f file that was the one being in B at the beginning of > the syncing.

Yes, unless that's not what the operator wants. Suppose the operator has edited a file as part of a programming project, but introduces a bug and simply wants to restore the system's original state with a minimum number of file operations. In that case, the operator wants _older_ dated files to be copied over newer ones.

How shall the algorithm proceed? _The operator tells it what to do._

> So please keep your "End, full stop" and "Think before answering" to > yourself, they are quiet annoying.

If people understood the meaning of file synchronization, I wouldn't have to. All the replies suffer from naive assumptions contradicted by real-life experience, such as the OP losing his music collection as just one example, or the example I just gave -- things that happen to real people in the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> From an Indian perspective Iphone prices in India are really well out of budget of most people. Only people who can afford Iphone go for them. But even then lot of people like to try other options. Android is really dominant here and most people are rather familiar with the Android ecosystems.

<comment><USER29> That's this article's point. If someone can't afford $600 phone, Apple has no interest in them. Because Apple wants big margins. On other hand, Google is even willing to pay you to use Android to collect your data. They do it with their Android One program in India now.

<comment><USER30> Apple was giving heavy discounts to attract buyers. High end Samsung costs around same and they have good sales. "Google is even willing to pay you to use Android to collect your data" \- where did you get that? Most of the people here buy at full price, we don't have subsidies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> One the one hand, this argument sounds plausible.

On the other, we've seen this movie before. Remember Verizon? The iPhone 5 (LTE and a screen-size bump)? NTT DoCoMo and China Mobile?

These were all supposed to be game-changers. And while they all helped Apple sell plenty of phones, the Android/iPhone game didn't really change.

I'm sure the iPhone 6 and 6+ will be very successful. But I'm going to need to see something more before I believe that this time the game really will change.

<comment><USER32> I bought my first smartphone about 4.5 years ago. It was an Android because at the time an iPhone meant AT&T, and I didn't want to deal with their network.

Two years ago I bought my second smartphone. It was an Android because inertia and also because at the time iOS was really a bit behind Android in terms of things like notifications and useful o/s features.

I also bought my first tablet a little more than two years ago. It was an android because Apple didn't have a small tablet then (and because my phone was an android).

I'm going to get a new smartphone soon. And you know what? It'll be an Android. Yes, Apple has at this point addressed all the things that pushed me to Android. I could get an iPhone on any network. The o/s has caught back up. They have a small tablet now. But at this point, why would I change? Every time I use an iOS device, in bothered by a ton of small details -- they aren't really flaws, just things that don't work the way I expect. What's the upside? I like Android now. If they had had all those features from the start, it would have been a different story.

The flaw in this article is that it presumes that there is a large population of people who are just waiting for that one important feature to come to iOS so they can finally ditch Android. I don't think there are many people like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is all that money that the App store rakes in still mostly crappy, IAP-stuffed mobile games?

I know people like to pretend it's all artisanal productivity apps, but aren't the revenue numbers like 80% games?

(A quick Google finds some sources vaguely claiming this was true a couple of years ago, can't quickly find newer or better sourced stats)

</comment><comment><USER34> The Apple's sales market share of non-phablets <5" is known, around 20% for 14Q2 where sub-5" make up 60% of the total market ( Tomi Ahonen).

The upcoming hidden truth is that Apple is on its way for a single digit global smartphone market share. It's main strength appears to be the operator lock in in US mainly and elsewhere. Moto360 and others are even competing against this point with a price lower than just the contract prepayment.

Another problem is the looming lower overall smartphone growth next year, which will drive prices further down. Fred Wilson ended up being right, in that, the smartphone market turned out to be similar to PC market where a dominant ~90% Android will be next to a single digit Apple.

<comment><USER15> Actually, I quoted utterly uncontroversial, industry standard stats. I'd response to your other points, but I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. Apple sold around 20% of all smartphones in Q4 2013 (it's pretty cyclical) and is at or around 10% of all phone sales - this number is rising steadily.

<comment><USER34> ok, tried to make it better. Apple iPhone Plus may dent into >5", phablet category where in Q2 it has 0%, which makes 40% of overall. For the Larger sub 5" Apple has 20% share of sales in Q2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> About the value of Apple vs Android users, it also helps that Apple has an easier payment system with Touch ID. This will only increase in the future.

Android however does have introduced a 2-hour money back guarantee on apps. This might increase the spend on apps.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have an additional reason:

7.Taking notes on our devices.

I have an iphone for developing iOS and a galaxy Note.

I hate lots on things on Android(painfully slow and half baked) but note taking I love.

<comment><USER37> I don't understand why so many people in the Apple vs Android debate are completely oblivious to the fact that Apple is just a lot smoother transitioning from task to task and handling lag so that the user doesn't notice it. I've been a majority android user (Droid 1 '09-'11, Galaxy Nexus up to today) but I did purchase a 5s last year, which is currently waterlogged due to lending it to my mother.

I borrowed my mom's 3GS and even though it is quite slow, it has a magical ability to accurately detect and respond to my inputs as I would expect it to. Even on my Galaxy Nexus I have trouble with video lag switching between tasks, very long delays between my input and a response, and sometimes complete ignorance of my inputs. One of the most frustrating things for me when using the device is opening a web browser and trying to type a query into the search bar without having to wait for it to do who knows what in the background and attempt to load the last page I was looking at that I have no desire to see, while ignoring my spam clicking of the "X" to try to get it to stop.

Not to mention the app support for the 3GS is amazing compared to my Droid 1. I certainly can't get all the latest apps, but older apps still function extremely well, it really lives up to the UX hype. My Droid 1 can't even run YouTube anymore.

It's obvious that the advantage Apple has is that it has it's walled garden, closed hardware/software ecosystem. But it really shines in making the devices usable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Apple needs to publish SunSpider Javascript and other real world browser benchmarks. The new A8 is going to be much faster than a 2.7 805 in the Note 4. The iPhone is actually a great deal when you consider performance.

[http://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item2222/sunspider.png](http://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item2222/sunspider.png)

</comment><comment><USER29> Take me as an example:

I'm switching to iOS from a high end Android phone. My main reasons are better privacy and better user experience. My main reason I switched to Android was screen size.

<comment><USER39> Do you see Apple as being better for privacy? Sure, Google has my Gmail, but only because I choose to give it to them. I could use anything else on my Android phone.

Do you use Firefox, duckduckgo, XPrivacy etc.? Because Apple, in reality, only gives you one choice (even when I was using Opera, Safari would butt in all of the time - I haven't read a word about iOS8 so correct me if I'm wrong), and you're screwed if it doesn't work.

<comment><USER29> My main issue with Android is how app permissions work.

<comment><USER40> Android's permission model is inexcusably malicious. For instance, the "phone status" permission, that also gives apps the ability to see who you call, read your device ID, etc. There's zero reason that checking to see if the phone is active requires a permission. But by including those very intrusive permissions along with a benign one, Google encourages people to get used to revealing tons of personal information.

Google now allows apps to silently add even more permissions, if they are in the "same group". They try to downplay and confuse things as much as possible.

It seems highly unlikely this was accidental. This is the main reason I'm disgusted with Google/Android and am doing all I can to stop using their products and services.

<comment><USER39> I agree that that is terrible, but I use XPrivacy to combat it.

If you don't mind educating me further - what is the state of permissions on iOS? I haven't been using it for a year, but I don't recall any user involvement in allowing or forbidding any permissions at all. Is it better in any way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This article is a bit like postulating "Why you might not eat steak for dinner", and then positing reasons that all orbits the assumption that steak is your default choice, and alternatives must therefore have extenuating circumstances. It is an absurd foundation.

Did the grocer get more commission selling you chicken? (sidenote: That commission bit appears in every conspiracy laden story about Android's rise, despite having zero empirical evidence. Indeed, many carriers do more to market and pitch the iPhone than any other brand, implying something very different).

For most people now, smartphones are _largely_ interchangeable. They really are. You have a browser, can make calls, can access Netflix and your fantasy football app and Facebook and Twitter, etc. An iPhone 6x versus a GS 5, for instance, to many users it is simply a wash. Apple has tried hard to lock people into an ecosystem (Facetime me? No, Skype or Hangouts me please), but those efforts have fallen by the wayside and are becoming more of a hindrance than a benefit.

So it comes down to marketing (you know, like having U2 and giving out albums to gain more attention for your keynote) and differentiating features. Apple tried with the "true tone" flash or whatever. HTC is trying the dual-lens camera. Others make their devices waterproof. And so on. It isn't so clear.

Further, Ben Evans isn't just a bit of an Apple fan boy -- he is a huge Apple fan boy, with compromised credibility outside of that circle. He got a taste of the Apple aficionado love so now he panders to it fullstop. And given that Evans loves pointing out the payout to developers (then, _absurdly_ calculating per capita metrics because it sells his point), note that the Play Store payout is growing more quickly than the App Store is -- YoY growth in the most recent yearly period was 150%. At current rates the Play Store will payout more than Apple within a year. But of course they're both very lucrative targets, and it would be folly to ignore either, and it's bizarre that this metric even appears in a piece contemplating consumer choices.

<comment><USER42> the true value of the iphone is the Apple ecosystem.

i give an rat's ass about android phones, they could be miles ahead - doesn't matter anymore. just a phone.

i have an iphone, ipad, apple tv, macbook air and a compatible printer. and everything just _works_ , like magic.

i've spent years in the windows ecosystem tinkering. wrote my own sync for my iriver mp3 player, fiddled with regedit and battled drivers. so much lost time. IT bullshit galore. so tired of it.

i _know_ that if i want an apple watch i can buy it and it will perfectly into the rest of my devices and just work with them.

no other vendor can claim such a value.

iOS8 and Yosemite make this crystal clear, the new handover between apps will even work from Apple Watch. Just like that.

<comment><USER43> You must have never used Google's cloud services. Docs, Drive, Hangouts, etc... Everything works device to device. Even a non-Google device that belongs to someone else. All you really need is Chrome and your credentials.

How about Google Cloud print? All you need is to have Chrome on the computer that hooks up to your printer, and you can print to that printer from any device, even remotely. I can be at school/work and print to my printer at home... And if you buy a printer with the feature enabled, it doesn't even need to be hooked up to anything (except some sort of internet connection).

And of course, Google Now. Tells me how far to work on the days I work. What the weather's like, even when I go out of town. Where my car is parked if I'm somewhere new. Where the restaurant I just called is located. Even the application on my phone that I use to call people (the one with a phone icon that used to just be for calling people) - I can search for their name and call them or, if it's a business or place I've never heard of, I can search for them in the same box, and it will find them and just call them. Super cool.

I'm sure your Apple ecosystem is just fine, and I'm sure it feels like magic compared to Microsoft's sludgery... Heck, Linux feels like magic compared to MS. But on the other side, Google's ecosystem is absolutely fantastic.

Oh yeah, and then there's Chromecast. But even without it most Smart TVs have some measure of compatibility with Google's ecosystem...</comment></comment></comment>


Weinstein Company files for bankruptcy and ends all non-disclosure agreements - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-weinstein-company-bankruptcy/weinstein-co-files-for-bankruptcy-ends-all-non-disclosure-agreements-idUSKBN1GW08P <comment><AUTHOR> Related: Statement from New York Attorney General's office on sexual misconduct victims and witnesses being released from NDAs [https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/statement-attorney- general-s...](https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/statement-attorney-general- schneiderman-0)</comment>


Uncovering Computer Vision and Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> https://geekgazette.org/2017/08/samyaks-hangout/ <comment><AUTHOR> A conversation with Samyak Dutta, author of the book "Learning OpenCV 3 Application Development", on Computer Vision, OpenCV, Machine Learning and a lot more.</comment>


Microsoft: AMD security patch for chip flaw makes some computers unusable - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-says-amd-security-patch-for-chip-flaw-makes-some-computers-unusable-2018-01-09 <comment><USER2> Microsoft should have tested their stupid patch before deploying it.

Now, instead of apologizing, they're blaming AMD.</comment>


What is PIFTS.exe? - <AUTHOR> http://www.freebase.org/

<comment><USER2> From a slashdot comment on the same topic, way down:

[http://forums.zonealarm.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=...](http://forums.zonealarm.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=Off- Topic&message.id=19903)

Looks like a stats tracking part of their update program. Perhaps they wanted it secret and are employing forum admins with horrible self control.

Lesson: If you setup forums for your customers, dont go through deleting legitimate negative posts that concern your products. This magnifies the harm, not reduces it.

This is the internet, once something is posted here, its very hard to get rid of it.

<comment><USER3> _Lesson: If you setup forums for your customers, dont go through deleting legitimate negative posts that concern your products. This magnifies the harm, not reduces it._

Particularly true for security software. You're supposed to be able to trust these guys with deep hooks in your operating system, yet they seem to be engaging in something resembling a "security by obscurity" strategy.

<comment><USER4> News flash: virtually all security vendors keep mum on the design and implementation of their products. Many of the host-based security vendors actively compete with reverse engineers in vain attempts to prevent malware from patching around their products. There are even popular data-loss prevention products that hook the scheduler and interrupt handlers to keep the kernel itself from inspecting them.

This is just not a news story.

<comment><USER5> _This is just not a news story._

The fact that the implementation details of Symantec's security products are proprietary is not a news story. The fact that their response to questions about their product generating suspicious alerts on users' systems is to _delete forum posts_ asking about it is a news story. The correct answer in this situation is to tell users that the program is a legitimate part of Symantec's product.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you. It is notable that SYMC flubbed the PR on this. I think I'm trying to say, there's probably no story in the executable itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Official explanation:

[http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=ni...](http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=39119&jump=true)

a bad software update, and a weird attempt at removing 'spam' from their forum.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hysteria on both sides. I'm pissed at Symantec for amateurish public relations on this, but also embarassed by the conspiracy theorists; there is no way, in 2009, that Symantec could get away with hiding objectionable code in their binaries. Part-time security people will dissect this program for sport; large enterprises already staff teams of people to evaluate the code they're deploying.

<comment><USER7> _there is no way, in 2009, that Symantec could get away with hiding objectionable code in their binaries._

Granted. But there is no smoke without fire. I don't think its just a PR problem. If they could go to such lengths as to delete all those posts, there must be something in it other than the fact that they could not identify the problem, or they so stupid ?! I am intrigued to see how this unfolds !

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I honestly can't believe that people still use Norton in this day and age, let alone that it was doing something dodgy.

<comment><USER9> Why do you say that you can't believe that people still use it in this day and age? Does Norton have a reputation for being absoluately terrible that I'm not aware of?

<comment><USER8> This is anecdotal evidence, obviously...

Case 1

Background: my partner is an IT technician. He works in the school that I attended when I was younger. We originally met when I was still in school.

About 9 years ago, before I was in any way IT literate, my mum had a computer running Norton AV. It was slow, and not just because the hardware of the time wasn't up to spec - Norton was seriously hogging the resources, and the computer was loaded down with various viruses. We didn't know this at the time, and I had my partner - the IT technician - make a personal visit to my home on a weekend to see if he could fix the problem.

He was working on the computer from around lunch time on the Saturday until near 11pm, and then had to return again on the Sunday, just to get the computer back to a safe, useable state. Norton AV was replaced with AVG, and that computer never had problems again.

Case 2

My partner knows a nice lady called Brenda. She had a laptop, given to her by her son, that was also running Norton AV. We've been round to fix a few issues on multiple occasions, but none more 'stunning' than the time my partner removed Norton and installed AVG and Spybot; the virus/trojan/etc count totalled over 1000. I have no idea how that machine was even running.

Case 3

My colleagues work machine, also running Norton. I removed it last year and installed Avast. As well as finding a couple of issues, the overall performance of the computer improved remarkably.

Apart from those 3 specific incidents, over the past few years I have advised multiple people online to remove Norton and install something like AVG or Avast, and the response has always been positive. At the end of the day, even ignoring my experience, I could never trust a program that has to be released with a "removal tool", because the uninstall process doesn't remove the program from the system properly.

<comment><USER10> I can confirm that. Long before I started using Linux and OS X, I had an oldish Windows PC that had Norton on it. Replacing it with AVG not only sped up my PC, AVG also got rid of several _hundered_ pieces of malware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Norton broke their silence. [http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Protection- Blog/Symant...](http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Protection- Blog/Symantec-Comments-on-PIFTS-exe/ba-p/74968#A282)

Apparently it was just part of the update but it went out unsigned so it tripped the firewall. Some users were causing trouble so they just nuked all forum posts and accounts with the word PIFTS. It looks like maybe a bit more then that was going on, but other then some fighting with customers there's nothing special going on.

</comment><comment><USER12> > IF PIFTS.EXE WAS HERE, THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

Gotta be 4chan messing with Norton.

</comment><comment><USER13> If someone is looking for a good antivirus product, try F-secure.

Everytime I had to deal with a virus infection, they were always there with a free patch.

They are also playing nice with linux, and made a freely available Knoppix based rescue CD and are blogging about their activity.

[http://www.f-secure.com/linux- weblog/2008/11/25/rescuecd-301...](http://www.f-secure.com/linux- weblog/2008/11/25/rescuecd-301-released/)

They've always been there in bad times, they've earned my trust and that's the product I would advise to companies from now on.</comment>


Google uses this 'shocking' strategy to hire the best employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/10/google-uses-this-shocking-strategy-to-hire-the-best-employees.html <comment><USER2> Excruciatingly clickbaity.</comment>


Why we're doing things that don't scale - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3589-why-were-doing-things-that-dont-scale

<comment><USER2> I don't know if this is quite public knowledge yet, so: human-assisted onboarding is sort of catching on at a lot of SaaS companies in the B2B space, at price points which are a bit north of the top end of typical 37signals/etc apps. (Squarely in the zone for this new product, though.)

A lot of people find it very, very difficult to get started from a blank slate. Automated onboarding/email sequences/video tutorials/etc gets you to a point, but it still leaves guesswork in the process and (candidly) one can always blow off a computer but blowing off a person who has been talking to you for weeks is socially harder to do.

This also allows you to do basically a hybridized product/consulting model, since if (without loss of generality) Jason Fried is spending 2 hours for you talking about your business' challenges as he gets you up to speed on KYC, that's essentially equivalent from the customer's perspective to "Rent Jason's brains", but (crucially) the majority of the economic activity actually comes from the product whose use is enabled by the mini-consult rather than through consulting itself. This lets it scale to the moon. (Also, as every consulting company at scale will tell you, you can have Jason Fried's insights on your company actually delivered by an understudy. 37signals certainly doesn't lack for smart people who understand the 37signals playbook.)

This is currently giving me fits, since I haven't figured out a great way to deliver it consistently for non-enterprise accounts given that I'm 14 time zones away from many customers, but it's one of the big things I'm working on currently. The word on the B2B SaaS grapevine is it works very, very, very well at moving $X,000 to $X0,000 per year SaaS accounts.

I'll blog about this if I ever manage to systemize it successfully. (As usual, the plan is 1) Throw stuff at the wall and figure out what works. 2) Write down what worked and execute against that plan. 3) Pay someone to do #2. I'm currently somewhere in stage #1.)

<comment><USER3> I have my reservations about this, because it feels like B2B SaaS is now going upmarket by reaching for the familiar Enterprise, high-touch sales process.

We've all been through this, and we know where it leads.

You have to bring on dedicated high-touch sales people to "scale" the business.

Sales people can rarely bring the same passion or insight as the original founders when approaching each lead. So they start doing more dastardly things (See Zed Shaw:[http://zedshaw.com/essays/control_and_responsibility.html](http://zedshaw.com/essays/control_and_responsibility.html)).

Going up market means compromising more on the scope of what the products do. As individual deals become more lucrative, the incentive to close them grows. As this incentive increases, the products often suffer and you get the Bananas in the Lasagna problem (See Jason Fried: [http://entrepreneursunpluggd.com/blog/37signals-jason- fried-...](http://entrepreneursunpluggd.com/blog/37signals-jason-fried- interview)).

So my question to the folks advocating this "new" approach is, how are you going to avoid all those things?

<comment><USER4> As I mentioned in my post, high-touch, full-service doesn't have to be the permanent model. Our plan isn't to do it this way forever. Our plan is to do it this way for a while so we can learn everything we can. Then later on we can automate this and make it self-service. The product will be a lot better off because of it. This was pg's point in his original post as well.

<comment><USER5> But what about "post-sale"? I think there will always be customer demand for concierge-level of service. Some SaaS models do lend themselves to self- service, but others don't. Knowing that distinction is key.

<comment><USER4> Anyone who's signed up at the concierge-level of service will always get that level of service. And if we ultimately go self-service, I'd still keep the concierge-level of service around, just at a premium. We might even consider adding a concierge-level of service tier to Basecamp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this a new writing style I'm unaware of or just plain laziness?

Get to the _point_ blog writers!

Make your assertion clearly and right at the top, explain it if it could be misconstrued so that we know what the hell is being discussed.

Then go on to write about it.

It seems like every second blog post linked to here is a long rambling missive that only reveals the point somewhere minutes into reading it long after my eyes have glazed over.

<comment><USER7> Yes, assume your reader has just woken up and has 20+ tabs open they're trying to speed-read through before they finish their bagel and coffee and rush off to work. They want the firehose, not Dostoyevsky.

Good rule of thumb for this kind of audience - invert your essay structure. Put the concluding paragraph first, then work backwards through the supporting paragraphs till you get to the original question.

That style is much more engaging than traditional, overused, boring form of "Intro para -> 3x supporting para -> conclusion". Instead make a strong/counterintuitive/nonobvious/etc _unsupported_ assertion right off the bat, then work backwards to support it.

That initial assertion captures peoples attention much more effectively than a slow build up, b/c they then want to read on to find out if the author can actually support it, and are gratified when you do.

<comment><USER8> > Good rule of thumb for this kind of audience - invert your essay structure. > Put the concluding paragraph first, then work backwards through the > supporting paragraphs till you get to the original question.

> That style is much more engaging than traditional, overused, boring form of > "Intro para -> 3x supporting para -> conclusion".

No, its not "more engaging" than the traditional 5 paragraph essay, because in the traditional 5-paragraph essay format, the _first sentence_ (the thesis statement) is the unsupported (to that point!) position which the rest of the essay supports. You aren't arguing for "inverting" the "traditional, overused, boring" 5 paragraph essay format, you are arguing for _using_ the "traditional, overused, boring" 5 paragraph essay format in exactly the manner it is traditionally taught.

<comment><USER7> Haha, fine, then I'm arguing for inverting whatever the current standard seems to be, or perhaps more accurately, _reverting_ it to the original.

Either way, for blog posts, let's dispense with the long-winded intro.

<comment><USER8> > Haha, fine, then I'm arguing for inverting whatever the current standard > seems to be

Insofar as long, rambling intros that don't get quickly to a point are the norm, that's a standard only insofar as "people don't bother to apply any writing advice anyone has ever given" is a standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting...there was an article on HN recently that posited a major reason for the 'failure' of the Facebook Platform was an over-engineered attempt to mitigate spam and promote quality control through automation...instead of curating apps by hand, a la the iOS App Store.

(The article in question: [http://pandodaily.com/2013/07/23/move-fast-break- things-the-...](http://pandodaily.com/2013/07/23/move-fast-break-things-the- sad-story-of-platform-facebooks-gigantic-missed-opportunity/))

</comment><comment><USER10> pg's original article was great, and it's nice that 37signals are along for the ride - but let's be clear, Jason's article is about "artisanal high- touch", not the real deal.

The real-deal looks like email lists, cron jobs, Google Docs, throwaway Ruby scripts, Access databases. It's operational and technical debt that's the least worst option. Artisanal high-touch has a bevelled drop-shadowed button saying "They paid us! Enter the transaction manually..." and full Campfire integration.

<comment><USER11> Well, pg gave several examples of "things that don't scale" in his article, and I believe Jason is referring to focusing on individual users, not doing tasks manually. He mentions eschewing automation but he's talking about automation of client interations, not automation of all the software processes.

In terms of software I agree though, clicking pretty boxes is just a different type of automation. I am co-opting the phrase "artisanal high-touch."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > human-assisted onboarding

Otherwise known as professional services. I think that's what some folks miss when they think about SAAS - it's going to be about service more than anything else despite the network delivery.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've got two nitpicks.

1\. Know Your Company is, at minimum, a $2500 service. The amount of time you can spend with a given customer is huge, in that respect, because the customer support you're doing for that one customer is proportionally much more valuable. If I have a SaaS offering billing out at $20/mo., how much time can I feasibly spend with a customer (of which there are multitudes) before I have to think of ways to avoid timesinks?

2\. The "manually adding people to a database" thing seems contrived. It's valuable because you learn the departments and the employees: so what's wrong with automating the excel/email uploads and having the script spit out an org chart and dossier to the printer? (That isn't a rhetorical question -- wouldn't a birds-eye view of an organization be more helpful?)

(Overall, I absolutely agree with Jason's point! But I think the argument is a bit more nuanced than the way he presents it.)

<comment><USER4> 1\. This is part of the point. Maybe $20/month isn't the right model. Maybe there's a different model you can consider where you'd have fewer customers, but those customers would be at a much higher price point. Who knows. Point is, it's your call and it's all possible depending on how you approach it.

2\. Importing the spreadsheet of customer names will likely be one of the first things we automate. It's less insightful than the other things on the list, but I still believe doing it manually is teaching us something right now.

<comment><USER14> "Maybe $20/month isn't the right model. Maybe there's a different model you can consider where you'd have fewer customers, but those customers would be at a much higher price point."

Another model to consider would be to have different private label companies (that you control) serving up essentially the same product, priced differently, and offered through a different company name.

For example you have basecamp where you can manage unlimited projects at $3000 per year.

But it's possible that Boeing might pay $50,000 per year if they got even a higher level of service and a personal account manager. [1]

Now you could do this by adding a tier to basecamp but you could also be your own competition with basecamp just for the bespoke offering.

Figures arbitrary to make a point.

[1] Sold by a professional sales force or some other higher cost method than adwords.

For example I'm helping to investigate, as a favor, solutions for Physician scheduling. I'm amazed at how cheap the service is. I know that the group that wants this would easily pay much more to solve the problem in a turnkey fashion. But the current offerings are being sold on price only as a way to get attention. (And not doing a good job at it for that matter.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know the article is referring to b2b SaaS products, but we employed a version of this idea on Http://storifi.it

We already knew that people wouldn't know what the game was about, so we sat with each user individually and talked them through the onboard process. We learned alot of things we would not have otherwise spotted and then capitalised on that learning. The web app was just an mvp, but we incorporated all the learning into our mobile app which resulted in a 100% activation rate.

Next step for us is now to finish off the app and concentrate on user engagement for which we'll be following a similar philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice long form sales letter on the KYC page. David Ogilvy would be proud!</comment>


"Mandatory" Spam Emails by Digg - <AUTHOR>

Subject: New Digg Profiles and Updated Site Policies
End Text: This is a system message from Digg.com, which we are required to send to all account holders. Control what other emails you receive from Digg.
<comment>----
They claim to be required to spam me. What crap. I don't want to hear about their updates, and it's completely unreasonable not to allow that. I get similar spam from some other places with no unsubscribe option because it's "mandatory". I don't think I've even logged in to Digg for months, and they send this anyway. Ugh. </comment><comment><USER2> "We are required" by what? Mandatory notices in workplaces cite statute. Mandatory spam emails ought to do the same (statute, or TrustE requriements, or whatever it is).</comment>


AGPL License - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License <comment><USER2> I've always wondered about whether the AGPL is a good fit for software that isn't accessed over the network. At first glance this would appear to offer the exact same rights as the GPL in this scenario, however you then have the protection of the AGPL if the software was ever incorporated into a networked program.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Are there pitfalls to using the AGPL for a regular program that I'm not thinking of?

<comment><AUTHOR> I recently used the iText Library for PDF parsing in java. Everything was alright until I discovered their AGPL license.

[https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy/agpl-license](https://itextpdf.com/en/how- buy/agpl-license)

Since our product was proprietary, we had to remove the library since our product would also come under the AGPL license or we would have to buy their commercial version, for which we can get a "quote"([https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy](https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy))

<comment><USER3> What did you replace it with?

Why wouldn't iText deserve your money if you were using it in your commercial product?

<comment><USER4> > Why wouldn't iText deserve your money if you were using it in your > commercial product?

Because they're not even saying _how much_ money. "Call us for a quote" usually means "Let's start the sales dance in which we try to gauge how much we can fleece you for", which also means it's not going to be a quick answer.

For me it means the software is immediately categorized as "to be considered only once all other options have been exhausted".

<comment><USER5> I agree with your feelings on this last point. I wonder how it's working out for them as I imagine it's a turn off for corporate buyers as well as lone devs and small shops.

<comment><USER6> I doubt it's a turn-off for corporate buyers in the large, but it's _absolutely_ a turn-off for dev teams within corporations. Especially nowadays in an increasingly Agile world where everything is due 2 weeks from when you start work on it.

A developer might be quite willing to go to their manager with, "Hey, can we buy X? It will cost $Y, and save us $Z worth of time." But "Call for a quote" is a quagmire: They can't (and don't want to) negotiate prices themselves, and they also don't want to annoy their boss by causing them to spend the next 3 months being hounded by sales people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Google does not allow usage of AGPL code.

[https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl- policy/](https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/)

<comment><USER7> If you work in a startup, it will bite you during due diligence when a potential acquirer is evaluating your intellectual property. I would give the AGPL a wide berth.

<comment><USER8> This is why I avoid AGPL projects for potential ideas / side projects that could potentially turn useful.

<comment><USER9> You avoid _using_ it, or avoid using third party code that uses it?

The latter makes sense. The former does not, as you can relicense any time you want.

<comment><USER10> Only if you are the sole copyright holder, i.e. no (nontrivial) external contributions.

<comment><USER8> Which is why I avoid it directly, unless I'm not touching the code at all. If I'm just using it as-is, then I don't care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was thinking that ALGPL is a worthy addition. We need a licence that still applies to use in microservices and other code that is not shared with the user but still shows consideration for investment into proprietary code and only limits its provisions to the code under the given license. I would gladly license my work under ALGPL if it existed.

<comment><USER12> These references also argue for ALGPL:

[https://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2012/09/07/opening-the- infrast...](https://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2012/09/07/opening-the- infrastructure-stack-why-we-need-an-affero-lgpl/)

[https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/5803...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/58033/is- there-any-copyleft-gpl-like-license-with-both-the-affero-and-lesser-modific)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have some questions about AGPL if anyone has answers:

1\. If you have code, let's say FooProject, that's AGPL. In which of these scenarios is someone in the wrong for using it?

1a. Google uses FooProject in delivering one GoogleApi, but does not opensource GoogleApi with AGPL.

1b. Facebook uses FooProject in an internal project, FacebookInternal, that's not exposed to the internet, but does not open source FacebookInternal with AGPL.

1c. Microsoft uses FooProject in a special version of Office, which is only distributed via BluRay and does not open source Office under AGPL.

1d. Netflix uses FooProject in AlienNetflixViewer, which is used over the internet, and makes some modifications to FooProject as its used in AlienNetflixViewer. They open source ModifiedFooProject under AGPL, but not AlienNetflixViewer

2\. If you have FooProject, and you have 3 libarires, LibraryOne, LibraryTwo, and LibraryThree included in FooProject that are under the MIT license, can someone take Library[Number] and use it under the MIT license? Let's assume these are not actually separate projects, and for all intents and purposes it's the same project as FooProject, but for whatever reason the folders associated with each library has its own license.

3\. Assuming someone uses an AGPL project and does not follow the license, what's the penalty? What if its so incorporated into its project its effectively impossible to remove?

4\. How do you enforce someone using the AGPL?

5\. If you go to a public facing site and suspect that they're using an AGPL project (perhaps because of the nature of the API calls or the client facing JavaScript) can you demand to see the full source?

<comment><USER14> IANAL (ofcourse) but in my limited experience:

1a: Not allowed provided because of AGPL (though would be allowed if it is GPL)

1b: Allowed, provided it is purely internal (as described here: [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#InternalDistributi...](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#InternalDistribution) )

1c: Not allowed (this is a distribution, and actually is also in violation of general GPL)

1d: Not allowed, linking against the library means using it, which means GPL violation.

2: If (x) is licenses as MIT and does not contain AGPL underneath (it shouldn't, they are not compatible), you can take X under that MIT license. Regardless of actual repository layout.

3: Penalty is a pretty grey area, and this is a civil suite, not a criminal suite. As a result it goes into damages etc

4: I reckon EFF etc. Look for "GPL enforcement" (AGPL is not very different)

5: You can try.. but I reckon only in the discovery etc for a lawsuit a judge can force them to give access to the source-code to verify your claim.

For all intents and purposes, AGPLv3 is GPLv3 with the addendum that distribution also covers "As a Service". Also.. at our company we completely banned AGPL because we simply don't want to deal with any potential violations. So I reckon 1b in your example would also not happen in a place like Facebook (I reckon all 4 companies have an AGPL ban in place :) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Copyleft, and AGPL specifically, seems like a good fit for large applications, whereas more permissive licenses work well for smaller libraries.

<comment><USER16> I specifically use it because while I'm committed to writing free (as in freedom software), my downstream users may not be. I'd rather they didn't have more options than I do if they decide to compete against me. Free software empowers the downstream user, so I kind of think of it a bit like surfing. You potentially have all this extra energy, but that energy can crush you if you don't walk a very tight line. As the upstream author you have a bit of an advantage, but it's easy to squander it if you don't think carefully about what you are doing. I'm always a bit perplexed when people write free software but intentionally avoid copyleft. There are lots of places where permissive licenses are the right way to go, but also a lot of places where your are just creating an uneven playing field with yourself in the worst position.

<comment><USER17> For a lot of people, free software is about collaboration, not competition.

<comment><USER18> Enforcing and incentivizing collaboration also seems like a good argument for licensing open source projects with the AGPL. It prevents people who are not willing to contribute things made using your software back to open source from using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We considered AGPL but recently adopted the BSL:

[https://www.zerotier.com/on-the-gpl-to-bsl- transition/](https://www.zerotier.com/on-the-gpl-to-bsl-transition/)

Lots of open source people don't like it as it is not technically an OSI open source license. I'm not in love with it either, but it was the best solution available _for now_. We are exploring other alternatives.

The problem with the AGPL is unfortunately that it has the letters G, P, and L in it.

You'd be shocked to learn just how many potential customers have no-GPL policies or are otherwise just allergic to the GPL. There is a lot of FUD and misconceptions out there. Lots of companies won't allow anything GPL to be used internally in connection with any code or product. (Linux seems to get grandfathered in, but they don't like GPL for anything new.)

Most of this is fallout from Microsoft's 1990s - early 2000s anti-GPL FUD campaign, and the memes from that are still circulating. Lots of people think GPL code is "viral" in the sense that if it touches your code in any way whatsoever it somehow magically GPLs it. MS spent millions to muddy the waters around the GPL.

Yes it's FUD and it's typically rooted in misconceptions, but it's very common and from a sales point of view it's a waste of time to try to fight it. It's hard enough to educate customers about your product without also having to educate them about the license.

If it weren't for this issue we'd consider AGPL, but it's really not perfect.

What we really need is a modern license that addresses the "SaaSification" phenomenon, which AGPL does partly but not fully, while at the same time being simple to understand and compatible with as much of the rest of the OSS ecosystem as possible. AGPL is more complicated than I would prefer while also not being quite the right thing.

I'm starting to think we'll have to make one. If we do we will open source it for others to use.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you're considering adopting AGPL and the reason is to prevent commercial abuse of your work:

Please consider adding a non-commercial use exemption, for charities and academic research. These organisations can't afford the cost of open-sourcing their entire project.

<comment><USER21> Why would charities and academic institutions be writing anything _but_ free software?

<comment> ben-schaaf I never understand this. I get not wanting to build a community around a project, handling contributions, etc. But why not just dump the source code somewhere?

<comment><USER22> Because it's huge (perceived) risk for (often) little gain. These projects (I'm especially familiar with research) aren't known for code quality and following best practices regarding security etc. So you open yourself for shaming and casual hacking for some unquantifiable benefit of open-source contributions.

<comment><USER23> > and following best practices regarding security

Who cares, as long as you make it clear that it's a pure research project?

The problem with Actix was that they marketed it as production-ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My questions are:

\- if I allow users to use an AGPL product on my server and that AGPL licensed product connect to a commercially licensed application server or database on my intranet, will that be a problem?

\- will it be a problem if the commercial application server connects to the AGPL licensed product to fetch data?

Except for these two points I now feel I'm starting to understand the AGPL, kind of.

<comment><USER20> My understanding is you can simplify it into roughly three tiers of "connection":

1\. Same application, dll linked

2\. Same computer, IPC linked

3\. Different computer, HTTP/etc linked

Companies that use AGPL will tell you that _all three_ are covered by AGPL.

More reasonable people will tell you that _1_ is definitely covered, and _2_ is a grey area.

<comment><USER24> I've recently read someone who I think is affiliated with FSF say that MongoDB(?)and others have misinterpreted the AGPL intentionally to create necessary FUD to sell commercial licenses, so this is my opinion as well but when I tried to find out on the FSF page earlier this week the was still not a word in the FAQ about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I license all my software under the AGPL. Best license IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not common that you see a philosophy more radical than Stallman's.

As I understand Stallman's free software philosophy -- the GPL -- the idea is that code must respect the person running it / using it.

Under this philosophy, if I am communicating with you, it's not up to me what tools you use in formulating your responses. And whether those tools respect your freedom or not. So GPL only applies to those directly using the code, not others they interact with using the outputs of that code.

I'm wondering if the AGPL is supposed to come from a different philosophical foundation, or if it would be better understood as an economic / power- structure tool?

<comment><USER27> SaaS is a workaround for GPL, and AGPL is a bugfix for that.

Nowadays people run code remotely, and GPL didn't take that into account. AGPL is still about giving users freedom to control the code they use, and works regardless whether the code is run on a local machine or a remote server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't think that copyright enforcement should be used against me based on whether or not I run a webserver alongside a modified application or not.

I'm all on board with copyleft in general, but the "service provider loophole" just seems like anti-business sentiment. People using modified free software to provide services useful enough to pay for is a _good thing_.

Forcing someone to publish their own changes simply because they run a business always seems to me like violent coercion, using copyright as a stick; much moreso than forcing someone to release source for object code they are already releasing.

Free software is a tool. Using that tool to create a successful business isn't cheating anyone out of anything.

The software is absolutely not free as in freedom if I have one set of rights with the ethernet cable unplugged and a different set of rights with the ethernet cable connected.

Stop the service provider hate and avoid the AGPL and AGPL software.</comment>