Google Fiber - <AUTHOR> http://fiber.google.com/ <comment><USER3> This move might be good for Google, but I find it somewhat alarming as a consumer. Those who control or curate content (Google, NBC/Comcast, Facebook) should not control infrastructure. This was less of a concern when Google was acting as a _conduit_ of information, but as Google moves to treat personal (if aggregate) data as property and profits from user-generated data like YouTube or Google+, the lines become significantly blurred.

There may be nothing wrong intrinsically with controlling content and infrastructure, but it seems to be bad for consumers generally, as exhibited by Comcast[0]. And while a high-speed competitor to local cable monopolies is exciting, I worry about trading one dictator for another just because there's some competition in the transition period from the old guard to the new.

Is there some safeguard in place Kansas City and other fiber recipients have arranged to prevent Google from having the power to exert cable-esque control? Not rhetorical, genuinely curious.

EDIT: I'd like to make it clear that I'm not anti-Google, I don't think they're evil, or abuse consumer data, or are actively trying to become the next Comcast. I am, however, expressing concern over the position of power they will find themselves in if Fiber takes off. So far I've seen a lot of comments suggesting Google is not evil, to which I agree, but I haven't seen any indicating that there are adequate checks in place to (relatively easily) prevent the abuse of power.

[0][http://scrawford.net/blog/comcastnbcu-will-raise-costs- for-c...](http://scrawford.net/blog/comcastnbcu-will-raise-costs-for- consumers/1414/)

<comment><USER4> > This move might be good for Google, but I find it somewhat alarming as a > consumer. Those who control or curate content (Google, NBC/Comcast, > Facebook) should not control infrastructure.

I don't know about you, but I'll take Google over Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc. any day of the week, regardless of their conflicts of interest. Google has a proven track record of doing things in my favor.

<comment><USER5> > Google has a proven track record of doing things in my favor.

The current, publicly acknowledged level of intercourse between Google and the U.S. Federal Government is already worrisome. Perhaps your data has been a part of those exchanges, perhaps it hasn't. _You and I don't know_.

Now, imagine that Google begins relaying traffic unrelated to their services on behalf of internet users. It isn't hard to fathom that Google will come under the same pressures to give the U.S. government access to user traffic as have Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and others.

That could just be the tip of the iceberg though. How long before the company caves in and decides to start including user internet traffic analysis into the search engine's signaling and ranking? Would it still be doing you a favor?

Edit: typo

<comment><USER6> Yes, Google hands over some of your data to the government. But as far as I am aware, Google tells you when requests have been made for your email account, and when search results have been censored. If your account is accessed by anyone but you, Google will notify you that you have been hacked.

Do I believe Google tells the _whole_ truth? I'm not 100% convinced, but I can't know that. What I _do_ know is that even if they tell 5% of the truth about government interaction with your data, this is several times more information than AT&T, Comcast, or Verizon tell you. Most of the time your data is simply handed over on a simple request. At least Google attempts/pretends to put up a fight.

Is it worrisome that I would accept 5% of the truth? Yes. But that goes to show how shady everyone else is. While immoral cooperation has no excuse, I would still point more blame to the government that makes the requests in the first place. Always assume your security is lost the minute the data touches a public pipe unless you take deliberate attempts to secure it.

<comment><USER7> > But as far as I am aware, Google tells you when requests have been made for > your email account

I could be mistaken, but I think the PATRIOT act permits the US government to obtain your personal information without you being informed.

<comment><USER8> Does that mean they CANNOT notify you or its up to the discretion of the entity handing over the data? If the latter it still makes a strong case that a notification system would be used for such things if one exists for similar circumstances.

<comment><USER9> If the government issues an NSL then you are prohibited from notifying anyone of its existence, and they are not subject to judicial oversight. They are issued solely at the discretion of the government, and if you receive one you cannot talk about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We have google fiber at home - Stanford faculty homes have had it the past year, like Kansas City.

It's pretty cool. My record so far is to consume 400Mbps, using 4 computers downloading from about 10 places, all wired through gigabit switches.

In practice, though, it doesn't make much difference compared to a 30Mbps cable modem for most consumers:

most streaming video is < 10 Mbps;

large file downloads are generally limited by a server (or somewhere else in the network?), so it's hard to exceed 30-40Mbps download speed;

web browsing feels about the same, because it's limited by round trips of DNS and http requests, not by bandwidth (spdy will help here?);

many consumer-grade NAT boxes (linksys and friends) are capable of only 100-200 Mbps

The one place it's made a big difference so far is uploads. For example, backup to a cloud backup service (backblaze) often goes 50Mbps or higher. But I did have to try several backup services because some were limited on the server side to a few Mbps.

Running services from home could be a use case too, but then you get into reliability of power/etc, and the fact that so far you can't get a static IP address through google fiber.

So for now google fiber is mostly a fast cable modem from a "don't be evil" provider. I think the real disruption will come with new services that don't really exist yet. What kind of new things can be built if there's enough audience?

<comment><USER11> What cloud backup provider did you settle on? Dropbox has very slow uploads for me, so I'm curious what else is out there that works.

<comment><USER12> I'm finding spideroak superior to backblaze - it actually backs up my entire system rather than skipping /Library & /opt and allows me to backup external drives without needing to have them constantly plugged in. I think the pay- for-what-you-use model allows them to be a lot more flexible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is not much difference in perception to a normal customer between 50Mbit and 1Gb - the former manages two 1080p YouTube streams perfectly well with quite some headroom for extra misc traffic. Torrenters will always crave more bandwidth, but even there its going to be tough to fill 1Gb downstream.

But all of that is missing the point. The internet is not just a better TV with cats - it has true full duplex communication!

It's hard to believe because the monopolies in control of the last mile will generally offer you tons of downstream with little to no upstream. In some cases, the upstream is merely enough to send TCP ACKs for when you use all of your downstream. Its a natural move for these big old companies because upstream traffic from customers is more expensive for them and they are still stuck in the mindset of the "media consumption machine".

Google, of course, realizes that 1Mb of upstream is bad news for Google Hangouts and terrible for uploading 1080p video to YouTube. And all kind of distributed systems benefit tremendously from matching upload and download bandwidth.

<comment><USER14> For cable systems there have historically been some good technical reasons why upstream speeds are much lower. DOCSIS3 solves most of those problems. If there is a demand for it cable upload speeds can jump to 10-15Mbit/sec in the near future without much trouble.

<comment><USER15> These speeds are already available. I've had 50Mbps/15Mbps from Comcast for over a year, for about $100/month -- and I _actually_ get those speeds so long as the server with the content is willing. Dual-stack support is soon as well, so I'll have an IPv6 address.

In the next week or so, my downstream will be increasing to 105Mbps at no additional charge[1]. In some markets (mine included) Comcast will be offering 305Mbps downstream service (granted at $300/mo), which is 90% of the bandwidth the DOCSIS 3.0 specification would allow over 8 channels.

Granted, on the opposite end we have Verizon now trying to slowly kill their DSL service and replace it with LTE. [2]

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/comcas...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/comcast-internet-to-hit-305mbps-5-megabits-faster-than- verizon-fios/)

[2] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/op-ed-verizon- wil...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/op-ed-verizon-willfully- driving-dsl-users-into-the-arms-of-cable/)

<comment><USER16> Does that include cable? I pay 105$ a month for 75/35 + cable w/HD DVR from Verizon FIOS which might make Comcast better after that upgrade.

Or, if it's just internet then 150/75 is 99$ and 300/65 Mbps is 200$/month from FIOS which would make Comcast a little behind but still reasonable alternative. Which is a lot better than the last time I compared them.

<comment><USER15> With the most basic of TV service, taxes, fees, etc. my total bill comes to about $116.81/mo. If I punted the TV service, my savings would be about $4/mo. I don't bother with TV service because to get the one channel I want, the required pre-reqs and equipment would double my bill.

Regarding Verizon, I'd love to have FiOS, but they won't deploy in Boston without major tax breaks, which Boston refuses to offer. FiOS is great if it's available, but it's not in most markets. There aren't many other options in the continental US where you can get 100Mbps service for ~$100/mo if FiOS is unavailable (and for most of the US, that's the case).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Going to the 404 page reveals a menu which hints (well, it says that there's going to be some plural number of cities, not too much else) at what is being announced tomorrow: <http://fiber.google.com/savethedate/404>

The main menu has links to "About", "How to get it", "Plans & Pricing", "Cities", "Help" and a button "Pre-Register"

Also, since that page doesn't seem to indicate the time, the Google fiber blog (<http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/>) says it's at 11AM CDT. Also an impressive stat is that they've apparently laid down over a hundred miles of fiber.

<comment><USER18> If this is in my city, I will be so upset. I just signed up for a year of comcast :(

<comment> Tuna-Fish Even if it is in your city, getting new fiber laid to you in a year is optimistic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> ...until Google algos shut down your account; now you loose gmail, docs, drive, etc., etc., etc., and fiber.

OK, I am kidding to some extent. Maybe not. I'd sure like to see them move in a direction that assures users that all services will not be cutoff without recourse for unknown algo violations.

<comment><USER20> I don't know why this was modded down. Google Fiber customers will certainly be required to use their Google Account to sign up.

<comment><USER21> And that part scares me. That is a whole lot of my personal info to provide to a company that is _really_ good at processing it.

Of course, I'm probably being stupid about that. My network data was probably sold a long time ago. And they have also probably already correlated it with my google account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Background for those who aren't following this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber>

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the context, the page itself was quite devoid of information.

I would love to see how this service compares to the roll out of fibre we are seeing in Australia at the moment. There is a lot of resistance from the opposition as the government is largely funding our new network.

In particular, many commentators claim that rolling out wireless technology is more financially viable then fibre to the home. In Australia we do have a sparse consumer distribution, so the context is a little different, however if google's model is viable (as you would assume) it might make a strong case study for our situation.

Looking forward to seeing how it all progresses.

EDIT: spelling

<comment><USER24> > In Australia we do have a sparse consumer distribution

Nonsense, Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on Earth. We are _less_ dispersed than the USA.

> There is a lot of resistance from the opposition as the government is > largely funding our new network.

The government is right that FTTP _is_ the most future-proof technology choice. But the _way_ the project is being run is shameful -- they're carefully hiding the costs and debts behind "commercial-in-confidence" for a company wholly owned by the government.

And the dealing with Telstra, and creation of a new monopoly ... there's lots not to like.

<comment><USER23> EDIT: clarified in response to your edits :)

> Nonsense, Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on Earth. We are > less dispersed than the USA.

That is a good point. To be fair, I am not fully aware of what our distribution looks like.

Perhaps I should clarify the point I was trying to make.

Whilst it is true that a large proportion of our population reside in urban environments, one of the aims of the fibre roll out here is to reach almost all of the population with fibre to the home.

For those not in urban environments (which is still significant), the geographic spacing is quite large, and I would imagine in that context we _are_ sparsely distributed. Is running fibre to the home in that context a viable option? Hard to say, and perhaps even the google roll out will not give us much more information or real world example then we currently have.

> ... the way the project is being run is shameful

The thing I hope most to see out of the google roll out is how they handle it. I don't know of many data points regarding nation-wide roll out of fibre technology, or any similar infrastructure, in recent times, so the potential to 'see it done right' is an exciting one.

<comment><USER25> We have to define dispersion I guess.

Australia is a bit odd. It is among the lower ones in terms of average density but among the higher in median density. We're very clumped; 89% percent of the population is in urban areas. Compare with densely populated Netherlands, with only 61% percent in urban areas.

Sources: wikipedia, nationmaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Snooping through the css I found this cute hyper-rabbit <http://fiber.google.com/static/img/cities/rabbit.png>

Edit:

Other interesting sprites:

* <http://fiber.google.com/static/img/sprite-devices.png>

* <http://fiber.google.com/static/img/sprite-networks.png>

also, tooltip:

[http://fiber.google.com/static/img/cities/business_address_e...](http://fiber.google.com/static/img/cities/business_address_explanation_tooltip.png)

Last edit : curl > grep > sed > jsfiddle:

<http://jsfiddle.net/LyHbH/embedded/result/>

<comment><USER27> Did you save the rabbit? It's a 404 now.

<comment><USER26> Found it:

<http://i.imgur.com/eXGWz.jpg>

Edit: This looks ominous:

        .fooled-image{position:absolute;top:55px;right:-30px;width:160px;height:243px;background:url(/static/img/you_have_been_fooled.png) no-repeat;}

<comment><USER28> Where is that quoted css ("fooled...") from?

<comment><USER26> The current css which is up on the fiber.google.com site:

        http://fiber.google.com/static/css/rel/portal.css?v=18c3b45c08597bad573f68d9f62a28cb

<comment><USER29> Maybe it has to do with their previous April Fool's joke? (you can see it on the Google Fiber blog)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I am absolutely ecstatic that Google is attempting to build the next generation wired network.

Why does this matter? Well owning the pipe is always a good move especially in the face of net neutrality. But there are all sorts of other tie ins. For one, payments.

Our current payment infrastructure is based around private leased lines. If you really wanted to take on the payments industry you have to start with the infrastructure. Otherwise you are always at the mercy of a credit card processor just shutting you off. When you own the network where the transactions actually flow it is a different story.

<comment><USER31> > owning the pipe is always a good move especially in the face of net > neutrality

... so that Google can achieve further market domination in the search and search advertising space?

<comment><USER32> Not sure how owning the pipe would help them there. Google's search domination is (arguably) a result of them having a superior product, with advertising being completely coupled to that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Unlikely to be any news about service beyond their long-planned Kansas City project. The skyline in the teaser is a dead ringer for the Kansas City skyline (for example, [http://4photos.net/blog/wp- content/uploads/Kansas_City_Skyli...](http://4photos.net/blog/wp- content/uploads/Kansas_City_Skyline-855x300.jpg))

<comment><USER34> Great detective work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Honestly, the more network is out there, the better.

There is probably an upper limit on the number of networks any given city can support, so it's going to be natural for some combination of content sources to be partnered with fiber distribution networks to revenue share.

It's enormously costly to deliver "wireline" fiber to the home service. Most of this is labor cost, but you also can't discount the impact of property taxes and upkeep on infrastructure that is supposed to weather the elements and wildlife (including human) for upwards of 30 years.

Fiber is a great solution but wireless is still the most economical way to deliver access for the "last-mile". If we ever find a way to provide low-cost, high bandwidth wireless service within a one mile radius that doesn't make the NIMBY types have an aneurism, then fiber-to-the-home will seem as quaint as an individual copper pair to every residence.

disclaimer: In 1997-1998 I worked at a municipally owned city utility that was able to deliver 10mbps symmetric Internet access to a development of homes in FL. Bellsouth subsequently had laws passed to prohibit political subdivisions from engaging in the provisioning of telecommunication services.

<comment><USER36> Fiber is fundamentally no different than wireless. It's just at a high enough frequency the light is visible. That means you get much higher bandwidth. There's just no way around that.

If you could rig up visible-light laser communications, you wouldn't need the fiber. Fiber's just a convenient container.

<comment><USER23> Fundamentally, the two are very different.

Whilst the information carrier, photons, is identical in both cases, the medium is extremely different.

In the case of fibre we have a highly controlled, flexible medium with extremely good quality of service and very little attenuation. This comes at the price of requiring relatively expensive infrastructure between network nodes.

Wireless technology on the other hand travels through air as a medium. You remove the end-to-end infrastructure requirement, but the trade off is much higher attenuation and lower quality of service. Additionally, you require some amount of 'direct line of sight' depending on frequency. Lower (and hence slower) frequencies are able to refract around mountains and even off the outer atmosphere, providing quite good coverage, but visible light has no such capability. Repeater satellites or LOS base stations would be required to effectively use such a frequency.

This is why HAM radios are great for talking to people kilometres away, but can't be used for effective wireless internet, and why hotspots don't cover more than a few hundred metres at most.

<comment><USER35> Fiber is just a convenient waveguide for certain electromagnetic frequencies. Bad for others.

That said, your understanding is a bit "off."

Amateur Radio (HAM) has microwave frequencies available for use that would be VERY effective for point-to-point wireless internet. We even have frequencies that are very close to the existing bands and there would be no problem running LTE over those frequencies. The problems with amateur radio are regulatory, not technical.

Generally speaking, the higher the frequency, the higher the attenuation. Of course, the higher frequencies are better suited for the kinds of modulation rates necessary for high bitrate communications. So there's that.

But all of this is besides the point. No technology exists in a vacuum and must compete against others for particular applications and for particular cost models. That's why telecommunications engineers have no hair and bad tempers. This stuff is hard.

For "lower" bitrate communications, wireless is the hands-down winner. The cost to deploy a network for a given level of service to a range of end- stations is just so much easier and cheaper that lots of other nations skipped over building a wireline network and just went straight to wireless. Mobility of the stations is almost a secondary concern.

Once you get to the point where your communications are less intermittent and higher bitrate, it's really a question of how far you need to go and how much/how often you need to communicate.

Lots of LTE stations are connected to a central office (router) via fiber (gigabit ethernet mostly). Lots more are connected via point to point microwave. Backhaul of bandwidth is something you dont hear talked about a lot but it's a big part of why it can be hard to get LTE/4G/WiMax into a particular location. Economics are a big part of that equation.

SO, I wish the Google Fiber guys well and I hope they succeed, but the telecommunications market is so broad and complicated that it would be foolish to look at one company's efforts to shake up a single market and equate that with a sea-change in how the broadband market works.

edit: I met Milo Medin (who is now running Google Fiber) and he offered me a chance to work at @Home way back when. In retrospect, I probably should have pursued it.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the in-depth reply. The example of HAM radio was a poor one, I was associating it with Low Frequency [1] radio when it in fact covers a much larger spectrum.

I agree that telecommunications is a hard subject, and even more so that different technologies are useful for different purposes. That is why I think the original comment was off:

> If you could rig up visible-light laser communications, you wouldn't need > the fiber. Fiber's just a convenient container.

Something we haven't really talked about, and I'm not sure how relevant it is, is the saturation of the wireless spectrum. Point to Point wireless is obviously a different beast, but for broadcast wireless is there a saturation point where we can't safely send more data over the airwaves?

I like that fibre is by construction point to point, not restricted by line of sight, capable of very high bit-rates with relatively low energy (correct me here if this is wrong), and excellent quality of service.

Wireless has a lot less infrastructure, particularly when used for the last mile, and is definitely extremely convenient in many situations. I don't think it is the solution for general purpose network infrastructure, though that may change in the future (and is clearly the choice for some countries already).

I wonder what the replacement for fibre will be in 20-30 years time - <USER2> wireless the only frontier at the moment?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_frequency#Propagation_of_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_frequency#Propagation_of_LF_signals)

<comment><USER35> Well, at microwave frequencies (think anything at 10Ghz and up, really) you're already talking about directional antennas. The RF engineers will call anything above 1Ghz microwave, but that's really splitting hairs.

Fiber is a waveguide and not much different in that respect from coaxial cable (or for that matter twister pair). What matters is what kinds of frequencies the waveguide will accomodate and what kind of attenuation those frequencies will experience. This matters for lots of important reasons.

As an example, take RG-6 coaxial cable (the kind you probably have in your home):

At 100Mhz (VHF) the attenuation is about 2.0 dB/100ft.

At 700Mhz (UHF) the attenuation is about 6.0 dB/100ft.

Now, take a look at Corning SMF-28 singlemode fiber:

At 1310nm (229.644 THz) the attenuation is 0.35dB/kilometer.

At 1550nm (192.4 THz) the attenuation is 0.22dB/kilometer.

So, fiber is an exceptional waveguide at very high frequencies, which makes it uniquely suitable for high-bandwidth communications. Compared to all of the other waveguides, it's the most durable, most compact, and most future-proof solution.

Except when you can't use it.

SO, what's left? Wireless probably. Well, there is free-space optical which uses the same 1550nm frequency but has the problem of aligning the transmitter and receiver to have a completely free line-of-sight. Then there is the fact that attenuation through free space isn't the same as within a fiber. Attenuation at 1550nm ranges from 0.2dB/km (clear) to 100dB/KM (foggy). So, the atmosphere is a shitty waveguide for optical frequencies.

But there is still a chance with wireless, since we aren't restricted to the propagation characteristics of optical frequencies or the directionality. With advanced modulation techniques (CDMA/OFDM), it's actually pretty easy to fit many more bits/hertz than you could with fiber transmission systems. It's just that that sort of heroics is not needed for fiber systems since it's easy to get extra bandwidth with another fiber.

Now, when you are talking about "last-mile" types of solutions, it really depends on what the alternatives are and what the "load-factor" is for that method. There is a big difference between phone calls and streaming audio for example when it comes to wireless systems. All of those things need to be taken into account.

IMHO, the end-game is probably going to be coax to a smaller set of homes using whatever flavor of DOCSIS is available at that moment. Most CableCo networks are mostly fiber anyhow. Once you get to a certain "cluster size" the choice of fiber to the home versus fiber to the local node and then coax to the house becomes an engineering question. For lower bandwidth or other services, you'll see wireless broadband displace some take-up of coax-base services. The only reason I think this will happen is because the coax is already deployed (and so it will be used). If we didn't have almost universal penetration of coax into the average home, there would be no question that most broadband would be wireless to the home.

The FTTH systems now being deployed have lots more in common with cable systems than is commonly understood. Your fiber doesn't actually go ALL the way to the central office. Your fiber is split at some point in the neighborhood (from 4-64 homes) and then is carried to the central office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Honest question: what sort of support can you expect when something goes wrong? Fiber attracts backhoes (buried routes) and bored hunters with shotguns (aerial ones). It's a fact of life. Who's going to do customer service, Google, or some other agency? What's their track record like?

(As the old gag goes, this is why you should carry a short piece with you, in case you are stranded on a desert island. Bury it and when the backhoe shows up, get a ride back to land with the driver).

<comment><USER36> Knowing google, they're just going to run 8 different routes to any given place and leave cut cable in the ground, then replace the whole network in 10 years or so.

<comment><USER38> Right. Embrace failure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> So I'm all for getting better broadband in this country, and good on Google for trying to make it happen. But allow me to place devil's advocate for a minute. This is like AOL 2.0 right? Isn't it a really bad idea to have one of the largest sites on the internet also be your ISP?

<comment><USER40> There is something that I call the paradox of Google. The only real content which Google makes that I can think of is their front page doodles. They are an entirely service focused company. For the most part google products fall into two categories: Services which serve advertisements, or services which feed into category one. Their entire strategy is to use content created by other people (websites in search, videos in youtube, etc.) to give a reason to provide content people pay them for you to see (ads.) Therefor the paradox lies in this: In order to grow and thrive as a company they must keep the internet free. If the web is monopolized by a small number of large corporations, the need for Google to facilitate access to a large number of small websites diminishes. Youtube is their most resilient platform to this notion, and even it requires companies to remain small enough where using Youtube's service still makes sense. Also, this is why I think their products are so good: Every last little bit of quality in a product allows that much larger of a company to still find it more useful to use Google as their gateway to the web. So all in all, having a major website be an isp may be dangerous, but powers which guide Google guide it to be an open portal to a free web, instead of being the one stop content shop. In fact, I think this is possibly their biggest driver for doing fiber: to ensure the later doesn't happen.

<comment><USER41> This was true until Google started making phones and tablets and opened the Google Play store and Google Apps for business and ...

Actually wait.... Google has been "making [and selling] content] for a while. Their main business might still be search advertising, but that doesn't mean that rerouting the pipes won't benefit them and absolutely destroy others.

<comment><USER36> What about a phone is content? Content is something you spend time watching, or playing - nothing google sells is content, it's all service. All of their content is derived from other people, and they enable content creation on a grand scale. With the exception of a few google blogs and videos, it's all a way to get where you're going, not a thing in itself.

The day there's a google studios, or google game production, or google music labels, they'll be creating content.

<comment><USER41> A phone is not a service, it's a good and a platform for serving more goods/content in the form of the Google Play store.

What about YouTube or Maps or Apps? YouTube produces it's own content, as does Google Maps.

Again, Google today is not Google c. 2002. They produce massive amounts of content and goods, and being able to control the full distribution pipeline for said content and goods could end up being a significant anti-trust issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> As a Kansas City resident, this is going to be inexplicably interesting. We have a pretty decent tech scene here. I'm just wondering how this will impact it, if it will at all.

</comment><comment><USER43> What does Google hopes to accomplish with making fiber available?

They want to enable entirely new applications.

For example, online video was an application enabled by the widespread availability of broadband Internet. Before broadband, _downloading_ videos was possible, but _streaming_ was not. Simply put, the (average) rate at which you download frames of video has to be greater than the rate at which frames are displayed for streaming to work.

The most interesting changes were not quantitative, but qualitative.

Google -- and most HN readers -- probably believe that higher broadband speeds are an inevitability, although the process has been going much slower in the US than most of us would like. And new ways of using the Internet will be enabled as speeds get faster. And, if it offers fiber, Google will be at the forefront of that wave, which will help Google by:

(1) Accelerating the change, pushing those new markets to be created sooner than they would have been created without Google Fiber (2) Putting it in a good position to capture the new markets -- i.e. if Application X is eating a lot of bandwidth on Google Fiber, that might be an early signal that the Application X space is a growth market and Google should find a way to get involved.

</comment><comment><USER44> Any chance that in the future, this project will drive ISP prices down? Internet in the US is ridiculously expensive compared to, say, Eastern Europe.

<comment><USER45> That is the goal of the project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> In Turkey at the moment.

Just got a fibre plan 20mbps for $30 US per month, no contract, they also give the router and modem. Although had to pay $70 or so upfront for the no contract option.

They also have a 1000mbps plan. First world countries really dragging there feet on fibre networks.

</comment><comment><USER47> Google will have to offer cable TV for this to work. I really hope they do. The MSOs deserve some competition.

<comment><USER48> _"Google will have to offer cable TV for this to work."_

It isn't necessary to have separate bandwidth for TV. And any kind of bundling with Google Play would make the product a lot less attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> 1gbps is not as impressive 2 years later... 100mbps broadband is already becoming affordable here in Brazil, it's a given that 1gbps will be available in large scale in 2-3 years.

<comment><USER50> Internet speeds may improve by 10x every 2-3 years in Brazil, but that isn't how it's been going in the USA.

If it was, the USA would already have 10Gbps for bargain-basement prices.

<comment><USER49> Ha, that's funny now. You're almost there :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Man, was I pissed when Austin lost out to Kansas City for the Google Fiber for Communities pilot project. The lack of FIOS in a city like Austin is painful. Austin is "AT&T territory" and AT&T's UVerse service isn't even worth talking about.

I sure hope this announcement is, "Fiber is coming, and Austin's in the first wave!"

<comment><USER52> I've got Fiber through Time Warner Austin (Wideband) and it pulls at like 50Mbit down and 5Mb/sec up. Not too shabby.

<comment><USER53> Isn't that $350/mo.? I'm hoping Google's fiber will be a little cheaper.

<comment><USER54> No, it's not. TWC's TV/Phone/50Mbps Internet plan costs me $170 a month. (I think I have HBO in there too.)

Now incidentally, a firmware update bricked my cable box and I haven't had the desire to talk to anyone at Time Warner about it, but $170 is a fine price for 50Mbps Internet. (I don't use the phone either. Again, not wanting to talk to anyone in a call center, this is the best I could do.)

Their DNS does lie about NXDOMAIN responses, however. If you try to resolve a nonexistent domain name, it returns NOERROR and an A record pointing to their servers. I run my own DNS server fed from the root servers, so I don't really care, but I thought I'd mention it. The technician that did the install was also not happy that I didn't have a Windows or Mac computer for him to insert a shady-looking CD in. "What kind of router do you have." "It's an OpenBSD box." "..."

(I had Speakeasy before and kind of miss them. 24 hour phone support, and they were always extremely knowledgeable. Someone I talked to once also used OpenBSD at home.)

<comment><USER55> I use 30Mbps cable internet and pay $12/mo (Eastern Europe).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The announcement is now streaming live at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZVqPuq81c&feature=play...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZVqPuq81c&feature=player_embedded)

</comment><comment><USER57> ! Gbps upload and download speed. Wonderful. Unless you can give me an static IP address and let me serve whatever I want from that IP than I'm not failling out of my chair over this.

<comment><USER58> If you're just looking to run a server, a VPN service like Linode or bulk hosting like S3 will be more effective and less expensive than residential hosting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I work for a GIS Services company and I know one of the major issues from us not going full cloud is that we deal with really large data-sets. If we had access to a large fiber pipe we could easily dump all our servers. I would imagine any engineering, graphics or video production office runs across the same problem. I see this as completing the cloud story and alleviating business of having to run there own data centers.

</comment><comment><USER60> As google gets larger and larger the slower and less nimble it becomes.

But given the other competitors in this market, I'm glad google is making their move, US is falling behind other countries when it comes to broadband access and this will only open up so many new business opportunities in US. However, as others said I'll be curious about neutrality of Google when it comes to content. Will they block vimeo in favor of youtube?

</comment><comment><USER61> If Google doesn't do it who will? Who else has the vision? As long as they keep not doing evil everything is cool. If they do start doing evil we are screwed but we will have high bandwidth to get on the Internet and read about how messed up we are.

</comment><comment><USER62> What happens when a large company that Google deems a competitor tries to buy bulk use of the fiber? I could see Facebook lobbying for government regulation of Google's fiber in an attempt to secure competitive pricing.

</comment><comment><USER63> > hose who control or curate content (Google, NBC/Comcast, Facebook) should > not control infrastructure.

And those who were granted a monopoly in order to build the infrastructure should not control the content.

</comment><comment><USER64> This is pretty amazing. It's a transformative move if Google can pull it off. Google might be best served by being the wholesale pipe provider rather than customer facing ISP.

</comment><comment><USER65> How does Google fiber compare to other countries around the world like S. Korea and Japan where their bandwidth is much higher. We're #1? USA?! USA?! err Kansas City?!

</comment><comment><USER66> This confirms Google can't win the TV race without owning internet access

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm so dumb I thought for a moment that Google would announcing some kind of new clothes fabric.

</comment><comment><USER68> please santa, please oh please oh please.

</comment><comment><USER69> For about 3 seconds I thought maybe this was about yarn.

</comment><comment><USER70> Google is coming out with a breakfast cereal?

</comment><comment><USER71> how is it going to be useful for everyday developer?

<comment><USER45> Once internet of this speed is ubiquitous, bandwidth is no longer a concern. Imagine what you can do when bandwidth is out of the picture.

<comment><USER50> You are far more optimistic than I. I expect developers will quickly find ways to write software which consumes an entire 1Gbps link.

<comment><USER72> I expect that Google already has plenty of ways to consume an entire gigabit link; eg, Google Play music/movies/tv, Google Drive, etc. I'm sure they'd be more than happy for all of your data to be stored in the cloud, and have all of your access streamed to you in realtime over that gigabit link.

Come to think of it, I would be more than happy for all of my data to be held securely in the cloud so that I would never need to worry about backups or syncing my data between multiple machines. Assuming reasonable privacy and security practices, of course.

<comment><USER73> _Assuming reasonable privacy and security practices, of course._

How about an in-kernel or FUSE Tarsnap driver? Are you reading this, cpercival?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google keeps ex-Googlers close by investing in their startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.recode.net/2016/8/22/12587644/google-investing-startups-orkut <comment><USER2> I think this kind of thing is good for the industry. It may be a good way to avoid the innovator's dilemma.

Big companies often can't take risks developing a new business or product line internally. These startups take on the risk, and get the reward if they succeed -- just like any other startups. The acquiring company gets to innovate without taking risk, which the board of directors might be leery of taking on. It's a win-win for everyone. More innovation happens than would have happened otherwise.

Cisco and Adobe have been known for doing this.

I'm not sure why anyone would object to this. Even if one wants the tech industry to be a perfect meritocracy, one must recognize that even in a meritocracy, people make use of personal connections to get ahead, because connections can be earned through merit. Not all connections are just accidents of birth or other circumstances. If someone gets a job at Google through merit, and succeeds through merit, it is entirely reasonable and just for Google to enter into a spin-in arrangement with him or her.

<comment><USER3> >These startups take on the risk, and get the reward if they succeed

i see a reward, yet i don't see a risk in such situation.

>I'm not sure why anyone would object to this.

may be because of such a tilted board? why for example some people object when somebody is cheating on an exam?

<comment><USER2> The risk is the risk of failure. They won't get spun back in if they fail. They will go out of business, like any other startup.

I don't see how this is anything like cheating on an exam. The founders of spin-in startups are good at what they do -- if they weren't, they wouldn't get such an arrangement in the first place, and even if they did, they wouldn't be acquired if they failed.

Meritocracy is not undermined when people with merit are identified and elevated -- in fact, that's the raison d'etre of meritocracy.

<comment><USER3> it would be in the black and white world. In the real world an additional easy financing and/or acquihire later makes a failure less so.

again, you describe an ideal world where abuse of any situation by the meritocratic ideal people taking ideal decisions just don't happen, the world where conflict of interest policies, etc... just wouldn't be necessary. In that world i would wanted to live and would agree with you 110%.

<comment><USER2> So what? Lots of startups that deserve to fail and don't have this kind of arrangement also manage to get more financing, or get acquired or acquihired. That kind of thing is not unique to spin-ins.

I also never claimed the world was a perfect meritocracy. I was saying that if it was, this kind of thing would not undermine it. It seems that we agree on that point. I brought it up in anticipation of counter-arguments that spin-ins subvert meritocracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cisco's former CEO John Chambers, made famous a concept called the "spin-in".

The concept is similar to employee's leaving to start their own company but their former employer funds the endeavor and often has a right of first refusal for a sale.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/why-cisco-showered-three- men-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-cisco-showered-three-men-with- billions-2014-9)

This acquisition driven R&D worked well for Cisco, it doesn't always, see former Canadian company Nortel for the down side of acquisition driven growth.

As a side note, check out John Chambers some time. Common wisdom is that the CEO of a tech company should be a technologist. He is the exception to this rule. He was an amazing CEO who didn't have a strong technical background. In my opinion, one of the more impressive tech CEO's of the 90's and 2000's.

[http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our- insights/ci...](http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our- insights/ciscos-john-chambers-on-the-digital-era)

<comment><USER5> Jack Ma from Alibaba is another great. example of a successful CEO without a technical background. An early exec there wrote a book profiling the company's early growth, great anecdotes on Ma in there: [https://www.amazon.com/Alibabas-World-Remarkable-Changing- Bu...](https://www.amazon.com/Alibabas-World-Remarkable-Changing- Business/dp/1250069874).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems a really smart move to me. At the stage they are investing, the quality of the people and their reputation is more important than the idea itself as a success predictor. Ex-Googlers have on average a good reputation and they know how they were performing. So it makes a lot of sense to put a small amount in convertible notes early on that could easily result in a lot of money down the road.

And if the idea doesn't work out, well, they are closer to them than any other company, much more easy to hire them with all the economical advantages of re- hiring someone you like and trust. I think that, from an economical point of view, there are few downsides and a lot of upsides...

</comment><comment><USER7> Larry Ellison does this too. Netsuite (Nelson) and Salesforce (Benioff) are seen as two major cloud computing titans.

Both were Ellison proteges who were given enough money to safely work on growing the new generation of the same business.

</comment><comment><USER8> Heaven forbid?

Many other VC firms want to invest in ex-Googlers and their startups, especially one with previous success. It seems reasonable that they'd continue to invest in people they have high confidence in.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

</comment><comment><USER10> > _It's unlikely Google is deploying these funds to dig back into social media > or generate massive returns. Instead, these deals seem mostly about Google's > ongoing attempt to keep familiar engineers close to the company fold._

It kind of looks like an expensive way to keep the expertise of these employees available and friendly to Google.</comment>


Apple releases study defending App Store's 30% cut ahead of testimony - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/apple-defends-app-stores-30percent-cut-ahead-of-tim-cook-testimony.html <comment><USER3> The four major findings of the study can be condensed down to two:

1) Our competitors do it too (Google, Amazon)

2) It's cheaper than brick and mortal distribution

Notably absent: How the high fees, and payment restrictions benefit consumers and developers. I guess they couldn't find any solid consumer/developer benefits that would stand up to scrutiny? Not a good look.

<comment><USER4> This one made me laugh.

> The Apple-backed study has four major findings:

> * Most app stores charge the same 30% cut on digital goods.

Fairly certain that if another company tires to create an "app store" they get sued by Apple. i.e. why Google is called the "Play Store". So when they say "Most app stores", are they are talking about the only "app store"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Most app stores charge the same 30% cut on digital goods. Retailers, travel booking services and other marketplaces can charge more than 30% for their services.

Distributing software through an app store is less expensive than distributing through brick-and-mortar retailers.

Other app stores and digital marketplaces often require users to use their in- app payment mechanism and forbid sellers from redirecting buyers to finish the transaction in another venue."

\-- Apple's main findings.

The test should be whether Apple is charging a rate that is higher than it would charge under perfect competition. Not whether it's higher than traditional brick and mortar stores that obviously have higher distribution costs.

Indeed, the fact that both Apple and Google charge 30% could suggest collusion.

<comment><USER6> I don't think the rates are based on competition. If I make an app, I can publish it on:

\- App Store, and get 70% cut of X users

\- Play Store, and get 70% cut of Y users

\- Both, and get 70% cut of (X+Y) users

So as long as I can cover my development costs for both platforms, it makes sense to publish to both stores.

Let's say Google charged only 10%. Would that change which platforms I publish to? I would say no: I would still want to get 0.7X + 0.9Y.

<comment><USER7> If your company had decided it wasn't worth the extra effort to port to Google, that extra 20% might potentially cover the cost of the extra employees and overhead, or at least lessen the sting.

<comment><USER8> But most relevantly, it doesn't impact the decision of whether to port to iOS at all. If iOS was profitable before it still is, if it wasn't it still isn't. You can't use the Play Store _instead of_ the App Store because the customer sets are completely disjoint.

<comment><USER7> > if it wasn't it still isn't

[citation needed]

A 10% change is not a 10% increase in profits, it's a 10% increase in margins. I could be going from 20% to 30%. I'd be making 50% more by porting my code to iOS than we previously forecast. Which also means I might invest more resources in doing it _well_ which will also increase my profits. Because there is less risk involved with starting the project.

When you're trying to get a company to change directions, you need one really great reason or a lot of pretty good reasons. Sometimes one more reason is all you need.

<comment><USER8> You don't get _any_ increase in margins for porting to iOS if the percentage changes for the Play Store because you can't sell to iOS customers via the Play Store.

<comment><USER7> You started with "most relevantly" and my initial reaction to this follow up is "how is that relevant at all"?

The costs of porting are relevant to value of the new audience. The value to the old audience is negative (what are we losing while they are focused in something else). The value to the team is complicated, has to be weighed, and big changes like new APIs or new revenue structures tip that balance.

<comment><USER8> > You started with "most relevantly" and my initial reaction to this follow up > is "how is that relevant at all"?

It's relevant to whether the rates are based on competition, or to put it the other way, whether competition affects the rate they can charge.

If Google charged a lower rate, would it change the calculation for porting to iOS, so that Apple might have to lower their rate too? No, because you can't reach iOS customers via Google Play, so if you want to sell to them you still have to pay whatever Apple demands:

> If iOS was profitable before it still is, if it wasn't it still isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The "everyone does it too" argument quickly breaks down if there's no alternative for you platform. On Android, you can easily sideload others stores, on PC you can use Epic Store or one of many others, but iOS has no other options.

<comment><USER10> How about Xbox or PlayStation? Those have both virtual as well as physical app stores in the form of game disks. There's no way to avoid the lic fees in these platforms either.

<comment><USER9> The "everyone does it" is true in console gaming though, so the argument actually could apply them. Apple is the only mobile platform that it doesn't do the same as others (Android)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not just the 30% cut, it's the "loan" that stores get by withholding payments to developers for arbitrary amounts of time.

If you have a poorly-performing app, it may take _months_ for a few "purchases" to even reach you! Meanwhile, all expenses (web hosting, $99/year developer fees, etc.) don't stop, and any downsides (e.g. supporting "customers", or reviews from "customers") still affect you.

Apple loves to boast about its thousands of "developers" but imagine the size of the slush fund Apple can maintain if there are tons of poorly-selling apps not being paid out for awhile? It's a large, interest-free loan to Apple. Meanwhile, discoverability and other features that could actually improve sales are entirely up to Apple (and most of these suck).

So if you devote most of your time to a poorly-discovered app that no one buys, you can't make money. Thus, it isn't surprising at all that lots of apps start to be "shoveled" into the store, in the hopes that the poor sales of all of them combined will be sustainable. Rinse and repeat.

Apple is directly responsible for huge problems with the app economy, and there is really no defense of their tactics at this point.

</comment><comment><USER7> As I said in an earlier thread:

Apple pioneered the 30% cut, and it was a massive improvement over the status quo. But they haven't ramped down at all since and that's why these conversations and cases are happening.

Also for game theoretic reasons, they should charge a higher % for in-game purchases and lower their cut for outright purchases.

<comment><USER12> > Apple pioneered the 30% cut

How so? Wasn't it the standard brick-and-mortar rate, and Steam had already been taking 30% for a few years at that point.

<comment><USER7> Before you had to sell your mobile applications through the carriers, who would take up to 70%. When I heard this at a mobile meetup I asked them to repeat it because I was sure I hadn't heard it right. I mean I knew the carriers were insane but that was just beyond the pale. They had a habit of charging extra for featured content, so I suspect that 70% was for content that you actually wanted to advertise.

The mobile app community was all aflutter when Apple Store debuted - <USER2> more than doubled? Popular apps get placements for no additional charges? Yes please. The hype about mobile apps at that time wasn't just about the iPhone, or the app store. Steve Jobs somehow convinced the carriers to let him break the walled garden. Loosen their tight-fisted monopoly. That was a huge watershed moment.

But you can only sit on those laurels so long and I agree that the time has passed. What have you done for us lately?

ETA:

I suspect that 'somehow' was the long exclusivity deal with AT&T. I think people were still wiping away the saliva from the unreasonably popular RAZR phone and getting the next RAZR locked in made them consider things they might not have otherwise. He also got Intel to sell him a bin of mobile CPUs for the original Intel Macbook Pro that was not (yet) available to anyone else. Which makes a weird sense because volume was low, and you can't sell a rare bin to IBM or Dell, but still pissed a lot of people off.

But it seems like that gambit is spent. I haven't heard of anyone recently using these sorts of tricks outside of manufacturing (does Apple still pay for factories to upgrade but then they have to give Apple a permanent discount and right of first refusal?)

<comment><USER8> The obvious fallacy in the comparison to carriers is that they were extracting monopoly rents too, and (counter-intuitively) they charged more because they had _less_ of a monopoly than Apple does.

A monopolist wants to maximize profits, so they choose the maximal trade off between margins and volumes. If they charged 100%, nobody would make apps and they would get 100% of nothing. For the carriers, if they charged 30%, more people would make apps than if they charged 70%, but then the competing carriers would benefit from that as much as they do even if they're still charging 70% (which they still can because they each have a monopoly over their own users), so they all charge 70%. Apple gets 100% of the increase in app production rather than ~25%, so their profit-maximizing monopoly rent is a lower percentage (but a much larger absolute dollar amount).

But that 30% is still dramatically more than the ~5% it would take to cover their costs and provide a reasonable profit in a competitive distribution market. Which is what Microsoft now charges in their store, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Everyone else does it" is an interesting defense.

Personally I don't think they charge too much, but i still dream of a world where you can sideload apps on iOS with 0 fuss.

I think the bigger argument against the App Store isn't about the cut Apple takes but the process. The human review process is nice because it helps control the amount of abject garbage on the App Store compared to the Play Store but Apple plays fast and loose with letting certain apps/companies use Private APIs that they're not supposed to.

Unequal enforcement of their policies is a bigger argument for abuse of their monopoly position than that it's too expensive.

I assume that they know very little of the arguments against it is centered around the 30% cut but this is a bit strange to see.

</comment><comment><USER3> @dang can we possibly merge this thread with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23919089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23919089) please?

</comment><comment><USER14> The big controversy about this disappeared because of WWDC. Has it picked up again, or were devs mollified by the new APIs and improvements?

</comment><comment><USER15> One can have a range of perspectives on this.

30% of nothing is nothing. Seriously, for a large number of developers the App Store is a big pile of nothingness.

Apple accelerated a race to the unprofitable bottom rather than to create a bottom that could actually deliver a financial return for developers. I mean, they could have established a $1 minimum price for apps, rather than $0. They could have created minimum business models that would deliver benefits to both developers and users. They chose to got to zero because a bunch of developers killing themselves to fill the app store with apps is good for Apple and users and developers are a dime a dozen (or at least that's the level of importance Apple seems to assign to them).

App discovery has sucked for years, which means that having an app found and noticed requires either luck, a tremendous amount of external marketing, a very large pile of cash or all of the above.

We've had apps on the App Store, about a dozen of them, it was a big waste of time and resources. Still, I am not holding that against Apple, they provided everyone with opportunities and many benefited from this greatly.

That said, I think they could have done a far better job of preventing the ecosystem from becoming a race to the bottom. This is where the optimization of the hardware sales vs. number of apps for free curve likely drove a decision that was not favorable for developers and entrepreneurs.

Early in the day we worked on an app for a client. Before they came to use they had already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on the app. They needed a large rewrite due to Apple forcing code updates on everyone. This cost them a pile of cash. They made nothing with the app before engaging with us and still made nothing after we got done. They were in a segment dominated by the likes of Disney, who put millions of dollars into apps, gave them away for market share and, if that wasn't enough, poured real money into marketing.

This is where app discovery challenges and the race to the bottom truly hurt a lot of entrepreneurs. We abandoned all of our apps eventually. It just didn't make any sense to expend resources update code for zero return on investment.

I do think that 30% is high, yet that never really bothered me. I'd be glad to pay 30% if there was a real shot at app discovery and the entire ecosystem wasn't --using the term for dramatic emphasis-- tantamount to voluntary slavery for the benefit of Apple hardware sales. Sorry to be so negative, I imagine a wide deep path of entrepreneurial destruction created by Apple as a result of what the App Store devolved into. Apple sure made billions of dollars and lots of entrepreneurs did well. However, nobody ever gets a peek at what lies beneath the portion of the iceberg that protrudes through the surface. That portion, I am certain, is deep, wide and full of sad stories.

Put a different way: You can go sell products on Amazon for about the same 30% cut and have a FAR better chance of your products being found and making a profit.

<comment><USER16> There is a very interesting article on how App stores lead to the prostitution of developers

I can't find it at the moment. If you can then do read it

He speaks to points very similar to what you are saying

Every free market with infinite/near infinite competition goes the same way

It's happening in games and books also

<comment><USER15> That should be an interesting article.

One of the things that happens is that a lot of these ecosystems attract young entrepreneurs who, devoid of business experience, jump in head first and give it all they got. They see accidental success stories like Flappy Bird and think "If I can do 1/10 of that I'm set". Three years later they are alive to regret the opportunity cost they wasted on that decision.

I am going to say that in business you have to be quite sanguine. Not always, of course, but the world and your competitors want to eat you alive, and if you walk into one of these arenas unprepared you are going to get used, abused and tossed out.

I don't want to be negative on Apple but I would sure like to know the numbers on the millions of developers who contributed massive amounts of time to the growth of this platform with free apps of all kinds that didn't even buy a daily loaf of bread for them. While developers were enjoying their get-rich- quick scheme, Apple piled billions of dollars (I lost track, $100 BN, $200 BN, more?) by selling hardware on the strength of a platform made useful by millions of free apps that nobody made any money on.

In a nutshell, I don't really like it when folks get used and discarded --which is precisely how I see what Apple did. They controlled the platform. They could have setup a win-win. They did not.</comment></comment></comment>


What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic - <AUTHOR> http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html

<comment><USER2> Very long article, but if you dont know the many pitfalls of using floating point, you should read it.</comment>


Metaclasses in Python - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/a/6581949 <comment><USER2> Previously: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2860031>

</comment><comment><USER3> I find metaclasses philosophically unsound. If one introduces metaclasses, what about meta-metaclasses, meta-meta-metaclasses. In this regard Self's prototypical oop seems more coherent - there are only objects. Even object/class duality looks philosophically more attractive than object/class/metaclass trio.

<comment><USER4> _meta_ is all relative and means 'beyond'. A metaclass being a class, it can itself have a metaclass, and so on, and they are all only objects, where the author's following excerpt embodies:

        MyClass = MetaClass()
        MyObject = MyClass()

Those two code blocks are effectively equivalent:

        class Quux(type):
            #__metaclass__ = type is implicit
            pass

        class Qux(object):
            __metaclass__ = Quux
            pass

and:

        Quux = type('Quux', (type,), {})
        Qux = Quux('Qux', (object,), {})

the ___metaclass___ attribute merely puts in words what's the callable being called when the keyword _class_ gets parsed and subsequently handled in the current namespace.

This class/object unification is one of a bunch of unifications I find extremely satisfying when thinking about how Python ticks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it me or the first metaclass example doesn't work.

I'm using Python 2.7.2+ on Debian and I can't get __metaclass__ force upper case attributes inside of a 'module'

</comment><comment><USER6> tl;dr don't use metaclasses

<comment><USER7> Slightly longer version: don't use metaclasses unless you really know what you're doing.

<comment><USER8> Slightly shorter longer version: classes are objects, see 'type()'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If I'm not mistaken the authors of Smalltalk realized that metaclasses were a mistake long before they appeared in Python. Yet they were added to Python anyway.

</comment><comment><USER9> Python is a very cool language. I wonder if using __metaclass__ in some fashion would allow for javascript-like prototyping.

<comment><USER10> What prototyping stuff is missing in Python?

<comment><USER9> Well in JS you could do String.prototype.fnName = function(){}; to add fnName as a method to all strings even if they are already instantiated, is that possible with Python?

<comment><USER11> Of course.

<http://codepad.org/3fWweqje>

<comment><USER9> Can it be done for built-in types?

<comment><USER12> No, unfortunately. That's one thing both Ruby and JS have over Python.

<comment><USER13> Some Python programmers might argue that's one thing Python has over Ruby and JS.

<comment><USER14> Yup (see my response)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you find yourself doing things like this in Python you should probably switch to Ruby.</comment>


Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) - <AUTHOR> http://releases.ubuntu.com/xenial/ <comment><USER2> PSA: If you're running a HTTP/2 server like NGINX on the 14.04 LTS you'll want to upgrade to this release.

Google Chrome will no longer support HTTP/2 on vanilla 14.04 after May 15th [0], even if you're using the latest official upstream NGINX packages. This is because 14.04 ships with a version of OpenSSL that does not support the ALPN extension (prior to OpenSSL 1.0.2 you're limited to NPN, now deprecated). There was a bit of back-and-forth about the exact date, as the change was originally scheduled for earlier. However, Chrome decided to specifically push back the date so that there would be an Ubuntu LTS release available with the required support [1]. If you're still stuck on SPDY, that's going to be dropped too, so there's really no good reason not to simply use HTTP/2 at this point.

[0] [http://blog.chromium.org/2016/02/transitioning-from-spdy- to-...](http://blog.chromium.org/2016/02/transitioning-from-spdy-to- http2.html)

[1] [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=557197](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=557197)

<comment><USER3> It looks like Ubuntu 16.04 comes with Nginx 1.9.15, which is both not the latest stable release (it's a development, aka MAINLINE, release, although Nginx development branch is pretty stable) and it's one minor version ahead of Nginx's own development PPA, which is at 1.9.14.

The ppa[1] notes there's a newer version[2] also

[1] [https://launchpad.net/~nginx/+archive/ubuntu/development](https://launchpad.net/~nginx/+archive/ubuntu/development) [2] [https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nginx/1.9.15-0ubuntu1](https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nginx/1.9.15-0ubuntu1)

<comment><USER4> No, many people get this wrong. Mainline is stable, and [http://hg.nginx.org/nginx/](http://hg.nginx.org/nginx/) is dev. The labeled stable version is for distros that have strict upgrade policies.

nginx recommends using mainline over stable: "We recommend that in general you deploy the NGINX mainline branch at all times." [1]

[1]: [https://www.nginx.com/blog/nginx-1-6-1-7-released/](https://www.nginx.com/blog/nginx-1-6-1-7-released/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Notes from my 15.10 -> 16.04 upgrade:

1) If you use the nvidia drivers from the graphics-drivers PPA, starting the default non-root X server will hang with no graphics output. Installing xserver-xorg-legacy fixes this.

2) LXC+Linux 4.4 seems to be very broken: [https://github.com/lxc/lxd/issues/1666#issuecomment-21290311...](https://github.com/lxc/lxd/issues/1666#issuecomment-212903111)

3) Pulseaudio now uses shared memory and playing audio inside a firejail will break the pulseaudio server: [https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/issues/69#issuecomment...](https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/issues/69#issuecomment-212694241)

<comment><USER6> > LXC+Linux 4.4 seems to be very broken

Seeing as my main use for my current 14.04 install is LXC containers, I think I will hold off a little then.

Thanks for the warning :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone packaging software on Linux, this now means every major distro - Debian, RHEL/CentOS, Arch and now Ubuntu - supports .service files.

No need for bash scripts, custom watchdog and daemonise tools, etc.

<comment><USER8> > No need for bash scripts

Friends don't let friends write shell scripts targeting bash.

For context: Bash is not available|installed everywhere, and has some inter- version weirdness.

Write clean, posix-compliant shell scripts (i.e. target /bin/sh commonly referred to as bourne shell) and you're in a much better position.

On Debian your script will be run by Dash, on OS X it will be run by Bash, on Ubuntu or RedHat it could be different again, but the point is, they are specifically running in POSIX mode, so that you get reliable, reproducible results across systems and even across Bash versions.

<comment><USER9> You're getting downvoted to oblivion, but I'm old enough to remember not being able to take bash for granted. The default shell on some modern systems (OpenBSD for example) comes to mind as well. I feel this battle has mostly been lost, however.

<comment><USER8> HN coolkids downvoting advice that makes software more portable and reliable. What a fucking shock.

<comment><USER10> Unless you've actually tested it with a shell other than bash, you should be marking it as bash. Otherwise it's likely it will not actually be portable between shells, and you will have made your software less reliable.

I've encountered many scripts written by developers on Fedora that totally fail over when run on Ubuntu specifically due to using #!/bin/sh when they really required #!/bin/bash.

<comment><USER8> Unless you've tested it as a shell script you should be marking it as a recipe for a banana cream pie.

I specifically said "Write clean, posix-compliant shell scripts"

Do the same developers write Java code in a .cpp file and wonder why it doesn't work? Or put <?php tags in a .erb template?

Yes, you need to test to make sure that you wrote the correct things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Say what you will about Canonical, their whimsical naming scheme has helped expand my vocabulary of both obscure African mammals and little-used adjectives.

<comment><USER12> 17.10 might switch to flowers and "Apologetic Anemone" is a proposed name :-)

<comment><USER13> Abused Albatross? ;[

Afflicted Ass?

<comment><USER14> those are the best suggestions yet, they should put that to a vote

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mozilla will release Firefox directly via snaps

[https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2016/04/21/firefox-d...](https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2016/04/21/firefox- default-browser-for-linux-users-ubuntu-new-snap-format-coming-soon/)

<comment><USER16> What is the significance of this? Doesn't Canonical already update the package (lagging a day or two behind the official release) for the lifetime of the Ubuntu version?

<comment><USER17> I'd guess that Firefox is a fairly good candidate for this kind of packaging just because it has relatively few external dependencies, and lots of Mozilla- specific dependencies which are rarely used by other software

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Notably, Xenial is also the first release to bring support for s390x architecture (ie mainframes).

[0]: [https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/08/17/ibm-and-canonical- pla...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/08/17/ibm-and-canonical-plan-ubuntu- support-on-ibm-z-systems-mainframe/)

[1]: [https://help.ubuntu.com/16.04/installation- guide/s390x/](https://help.ubuntu.com/16.04/installation-guide/s390x/)

</comment><comment><USER19> > Online searches in the dash are now disabled by default [1]

A welcome and saner default. I'm thinking of moving back to Ubuntu from LinuxMint (I was thinking of Arch as well but not too confident of being on the bleeding edge).

[1]: [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes)

<comment><USER17> I never moved to mint, but I did recommend trying it to some people who really didn't like unity. I pretty much stopped doing that when they had the security issues last year. Is that what is prompting you to look at switching back, or are you just more reconciled to unity in general now?

<comment><USER19> That is one and I read online (can't find the source now) that Mint development doesn't respect compatibility/play well with other open source developers. I don't know how much of it is true but for me, compatibility is important. For almost 5-6 years, I have never formatted my home directory. So if my distribution is, for example, creating config in a non-compatible fashion, I won't be able to move to another distro. I know that typically distros don't modify individual program's dotfile/config etc but I guess I'm a bit paranoid about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Release notes: [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes)

Always worth a read before you fire up the installer...

</comment><comment><USER21> I gotta say, Canonical/Ubuntu has a lot of respect in my book for how dependable the distro has been over the years. I've been through my fair share of distros, and one of my employees goes through a new Linux install at least once a week. Ubuntu is one of the few distros that almost always works. Other distros will have one problem or another with this machine or that, but put Ubuntu on there and everything is fine (well, as fine as Linux gets).

A few weeks ago I had to dig up an old 12.04 machine and bring it back to the modern age. Much to my surprise, I was able to upgrade it all the way to 15.10 with minimal hassle. While the normal apt repos were dead for 12.04, Canonical keeps around an archived mirror. So you just edit the sources file to point at the archive, and then you can upgrade from there. Impressive.

Not that Canonical/Ubuntu don't have their warts. The Amazon fiasco, Unity, their cloud services, etc. And at the end of the day it's still Linux, with all the problems that brings. But, all things considered, I rate Ubuntu as the best of the bunch and feel grateful for the gift they give to the community.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, take Ubuntu and their repos, throw out Unity, find a way to get a Java release from the last few years, do the graphics drivers dance, and you have a very solid, reasonably compatible development environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Been using 16.04 on my XPS 13 for a week or so now, it finally supports nearly everything (bluetooth is a couple of extra commands) out of the box, and I've not had any issues so far.

<comment><USER24> Are you happy with battery life? For laptops, I've always stuck with Apple machines but in my experience even Windows uses less power than Linux.

<comment><USER25> I've been using an XPS 13 for 8 months as my main development machine and battery life hasn't been an issue. I regularly go out for a (e.g. coffee shop) working day and I don't have to charge.

There were some issues with earlier Ubuntu/Linux/BIOS versions, but most have disappeared with new releases. The last one is a palm detection issue with the touchpad, but it should to be fixed in 16.04. And if you can't wait, at least you can fix things yourself if you want.

<comment><USER26> Are you using the sputnik "developer edition" or the standard retail version of the XPS 13?

<comment><USER25> The Sputnik version. That indeed reminds me I swapped the wifi card for an Intel one. Because they are better supported and it was cheap.

The original one was definitely working though.

<comment><USER27> Ooh, can you do that? Broadcom driver drives me up the wall every time I tweak something...

(Apart from that and the HiDPI, the latter of which is the DE devs' fault, the laptop is awesome.)

<comment><USER25> This fantastic iFixit (Step 10) has all the details you need:

[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157#s...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157#s81006)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Vagrant box for 16.04: [https://atlas.hashicorp.com/ubuntu/boxes/xenial64](https://atlas.hashicorp.com/ubuntu/boxes/xenial64)

<comment><USER28> Does it work for you? For me VirtualBox gets stuck into the 'gurumeditation' state when booting.

<comment><USER29> Same Problem. Newest VirtualBox newest vagtant 1.8.1

<comment><USER3> Also same, but have heard better reports from those on Virtuabox 4 instead of latest Virtuabox 5 :(

I had better luck with [https://atlas.hashicorp.com/gbarbieru/boxes/xenial](https://atlas.hashicorp.com/gbarbieru/boxes/xenial) which just got updated a few hours ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I love the part about simplifying packaging via 'snap'.

Now, I would love to know, if I'm a maintainer of Foo (and you can get it today via `apt-get install foo`), how will I be able to start packaging using snap rather than relying on deb packages that come from debian? I'd love any feedback, cheers!

<comment><USER31> > I love the part about simplifying packaging via 'snap'.

Bleargh. More container bullshit, now with even less control over it by end users. Now each tiny library update (think OpenSSL security fixes) will pull hundreds of "snaps" instead of a single package… assuming the developers even realize they have to rebuild their snaps.

<comment><USER24> > Now each tiny library update (think OpenSSL security fixes) will pull > hundreds of "snaps"

Do you think that's worse than the alternative where each tiny (shared) library update potentially _breaks_ hundreds of programs?

<comment><USER31> ABI breaks from security patches for stable releases, especially of Linux distributions, happen how often?

In comparison, outdated npm/gem/pip/hipster-package-manager-of-the-week or docker installations happen how often?

With the former, the burden of updating and testing lies with a small handful of distribution maintainers. With the latter, every single developer has to worry about deployment and maintenance.

<comment> cat-dev-null Distros shouldn't waste time and effort on supporting and packaging language- specific, high-churn code packages except in very limited circumstances. Let the language specific-tools do those. Upstream is best, local fragmentation is wasteful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For anyone like myself who isn't a big fan of the Unity interface, check out Ubuntu MATE[0]. The MATE desktop environment is very similar to pre-Unity Ubuntu. It seems like the final 16.04 release hasn't landed yet but I'm sure it will later today. Ubuntu MATE is also one of the derivative distros that has been granted LTS status by Canonical.

[0] [https://ubuntu-mate.org/](https://ubuntu-mate.org/)

<comment><USER33> I'll second that. Mate is amazing.

I can also recommend Cinnamon.

<comment><USER34> Both are great, Xubuntu is excellent and still my goto since it has pretty much exactly the features I want from a DE.

It's nice to have good choices that use the old paradigms.

XFCE 4.12 pretty much feels exactly like Gnome 2 towards the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've been on 16.04 for a few days now, and while I did have to work through some bugs (such as sddm and lightdm fighting each other) I've been impressed so far with the improvements.

Inused to hate on Ubuntu, but on my 2014 Macbook Pro, it was the one distro that "just worked", and since I mostly run debian servers, I figure Sticking to the similar ecosystem reduces mental load of switching.

I still have my issues with Shuttleworth and Canonical, but hey, it's linux, so I can remove the crap I dont like (unlike some things, staring at you windows 10).

<comment><USER36> Curious what you want to remove in Windows 10. Not an evangelist, just set it up on a dual-boot refurb for a friend and thought the initial experience wasn't bad.

<comment><USER37> My experience of Windows 10 is limited to having a look at it in local computer shops (I've been trying to find a decent cheap laptop to stick Linux on for a friend).

I clicked the Start Menu. Fully half of it was made up of flashing animated crap - things moving about, very colourful adverts, the actual things I wanted to do were obscured by it.

I tried a few machines. They did the same thing. Maybe it's a manufacturer default.

Hey, maybe it's customizable. I don't know. It just struck me as being so far from what I think of a computer as being - not a tool to be used, but a flashy, childish entertainment box, like a children's rainbow cake.

My ego betrays me at this point, I suppose. I don't understand how the engineers at Microsoft got to this point.

It reminds me a lot of the Xbox 360 dashboard. That was the point I left 'mainstream' video gaming - it felt like my hackery, fun world had turned into a world of consuming advertising, of subscribing, of being someone else's plaything. Perhaps it was always like that, and I was too young to see?

<comment><USER38> Right click, turn live tile off. I don't know why you even bother with Linux if you didn't even try the first logical graphical gesture that one can reasonably expect to lead to fixing this problem. You can even remove most/all default tiles, like any sane poweruser would do. The same as in Windows 8. On live tiles - Apple has dashboard that has seen more success than widgets on Vista+, Microsoft decided to push some of this functionality on live tiles, so that you can have an app launcher that doubles as a widget when you want to display information on it, but that functionality is optional. If it was off on all default tiles then nobody would know about it, so it'd be a bad default.

What I'd want to know about Windows 10 though, and Google seems not to deliver anything beyond bullshit articles on how to disable it or useless scaremongering blogspam - clearly enumerated and sourced list of information telemetry subsystem captures and sends back to mothership and what parts can be reliably disabled without resorting to shady third-party apps.

<comment><USER37> I think you missed the part of my comment that mentioned me being in a computer store - I just played with it for ten seconds to check out the keyboard and touchpad of the machines, I have no plans to use Windows 10 thus no need to try to disable it. Useful to hear that it is possible though! :)

WRT disabling telemetry - probably the best way to go about it would be to set up a firewall or similar and try to kill all outgoing to microsoft.com. Turn it back on for updates and hope that they don't just send everything then, I guess. Disabling individual parts sounds like a losing game - you're running an MS kernel, if they want to do it they'll just do it.

<comment><USER38> > I think you missed the part of my comment that mentioned me being in a > computer store

Not really. You mentioned Linux, you should be able to right click.

> probably the best way to go about it would be to set up a firewall or > similar and try to kill all outgoing to microsoft.com

It wouldn't be.

1\. I don't want to kill updates. 2\. I'm more interested in whether I should trust Microsoft. If the telemetry sends how many times I opened built-in whether app and such then I suppose I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with online searches in start menu if they can be turned off, as well as services related to Cortana if they can be turned off. I wouldn't be okay with Windows scanning my computer and sending telemetry on what third-party software I use or documents I view. There were articles on the internet that were later debunked, but I can't seem to find something well sourced on what exactly is going on beyond tutorials on how to turn various knobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Small warning: Ubuntu's "do you want to upgrade" popup window defaults to "yes". Had to find that out the hard way when a user hit Enter the wrong moment and was suddenly sitting in front of a bricked system.

<comment><USER39> Is upgrade failing in general or in this specific case only?

<comment><USER31> I've no idea. `apt install -f` fixed everything and I didn't bother probing into it further.

(We only have Ubuntu on two machines, everything else is Arch or Debian.)

<comment><USER40> I had a similar experience upgrading my laptop(though I initiated the upgrade on purpose). Just crapped out, but an apt install -f followed by a dist- upgrade fixed it all and it seems to have worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> PowerPC/ppc64el, System z and ARM/Raspberry Pi server images available at: [http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/16.04/release/](http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/16.04/release/)

<comment><USER42> Where are the rest of the releases?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> After 3 or so hours ubuntu 16.04 finally installed & what lovely surprise,no launcher a big black cross instead of mouse cursor & slower than a bowl of soup warming up in the freezer, can someone please advise me how to get this running properly. Many thanks.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is an update from 14.04 painless or would you recommend reinstalling? I'd like some newer packages but don't really feel like setting up the whole system again with a reinstall.

<comment><USER45> If you don't feel a particular urge to upgrade right now, it's probably not a bad idea to wait for the first service pack (16.04.1), which usually comes a few months later. Most kinks should be ironed out by then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> They should just stop publishing MD5SUMS for new releases. By now, everybody should have gotten the word that MD5 has been broken.

The security of the MD5 has been severely compromised, with its weaknesses having been exploited in the field, most infamously by the Flame malware in 2012. The CMU Software Engineering Institute considers MD5 essentially "cryptographically broken and unsuitable for further use". [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5)

<comment><USER47> I've always wondered this but felt too embarrassed to ask, screw it. Let's say the ubuntu 16 iso is infected with some kind of malware by a 3rd party. If they have control of the file, would they not have control of the checksum displayed on the site? I can understand if the checksum is spread to other sites for cross-reference but I'm having trouble seeing why a checksum from the same location as the file you're downloading is worth anything.

Any insight?

<comment><USER48> If you have an existing Ubuntu system you trust, you can verify the authenticity of this release via:

      $ gpg --no-default-keyring --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg --verify SHA256SUMS{.gpg,}
      gpg: Signature made Thu 21 Apr 2016 10:40:38 UTC using DSA key ID FBB75451
      gpg: Good signature from "Ubuntu CD Image Automatic Signing Key <firstname.lastname@example.com>"
      gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
      gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
      Primary key fingerprint: C598 6B4F 1257 FFA8 6632  CBA7 4618 1433 FBB7 5451
      gpg: Signature made Thu 21 Apr 2016 10:40:38 UTC using RSA key ID EFE21092
      gpg: Good signature from "Ubuntu CD Image Automatic Signing Key (2012) <firstname.lastname@example.com>"
      gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
      gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
      Primary key fingerprint: 8439 38DF 228D 22F7 B374  2BC0 D94A A3F0 EFE2 1092

      $ sha256sum --ignore-missing -c SHA256SUMS
      ubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso: OK

(You can ignore the `WARNING`s above, since you're explicitly telling `gpg` to use a keyring you trust)

<comment><USER47> I see. I'll do that from now on, that's pretty reassuring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Another interesting tidbit, this version comes with

Cephfs v10.2.0 Jewel: "This major release of Ceph will be the foundation for the next long-term stable release. (...) This is the first release in which CephFS is declared stable and production ready!"

[http://docs.ceph.com/docs/master/release- notes/](http://docs.ceph.com/docs/master/release-notes/)

</comment><comment><USER50> I wonder why Canonical don't have an HTTPS version for this page.

</comment><comment><USER51> From some sources, I've heard that it appears that those with AMD graphics will suffer a downgrade in performance until the point release in June. I think by June, the open source AMD drivers should be up to speed or have the same features as the previous flgrx ones. From what I gather it's more like a downgrade in supported features.

I think this is just an issue if you are doing 3D graphics work or gaming.

<comment><USER52> Most people with AMD graphics have been using the open source drivers and will just see all around improvements.

edit: Also, you can get Vulkan with the new drivers.

<comment><USER53> This very much depends upon whether you want the latest OpenGL 4.x features or not. Compute shaders, etc. Most people won't notice, but if you want to develop or use applications using these features, the open drivers aren't yet up to par, so for these cases it is indeed a major downgrade.

<comment><USER54> Only temporarily. The closed source ones are legacy now, afaik. I believe AMD has said they want to only use open source drivers with closed source plugins; i.e. hybrid drivers.

Anyone know if it's going to be the same on Windows? Open source with proprietary plugins?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> If somebody needs a Vagrantfile for testing: [https://gist.github.com/therealmarv/555f7efc1c55ffa288bca091...](https://gist.github.com/therealmarv/555f7efc1c55ffa288bca09191e4e705)

but it seems even Ubuntus Server are not speedy today (Atlas server are also slow)

(Update) it seems I'm getting an error with it :/

      The guest machine entered an invalid state while waiting for it
      to boot. Valid states are 'starting, running'. The machine is in the
      'gurumeditation' state. Please verify everything is configured
      properly and try again.

      If the provider you're using has a GUI that comes with it,
      it is often helpful to open that and watch the machine, since the
      GUI often has more helpful error messages than Vagrant can retrieve.
      For example, if you're using VirtualBox, run `vagrant up` while the
      VirtualBox GUI is open.

      The primary issue for this error is that the provider you're using
      is not properly configured. This is very rarely a Vagrant issue.

<comment><USER56> If you've recently upgraded to VirtualBox 5.0.18 you might try downgrading to 5.0.16 as I had a similar issue earlier this week.

<comment><USER55> I've updated to the VirtualBox 5.0.19 test build which also fixes that. Bad timing for Ubuntu: [https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Hope DigitalOcean and Linode will support 16.04 quickly. Can't wait.

<comment><USER58> 16.04 is available on DO now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> In case anyone's looking here first, ISOs are available here:

[http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04/](http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04/)

For some reason these are not linked yet from the 'Downloads' page at ubuntu.com.

<comment><USER60> ... but not here: [https://cloud- images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/](https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/)

<comment><USER61> I want this so bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> So we finally got Native ZFS with 16.04? :-)

<comment><USER63> ZFS is only enabled for their new containers (X<something I can't remember>) for now.

<comment><USER64> I haven't tried it but I think if you do a manual install and format disks as zfs you could have a zfs root filesystem with 16.04.

<comment><USER65> There was an issue in the beta where the installer would not recognize ZFS volumes for the boot installer. Will be verifying if still an issue as soon as I can.

<comment><USER65> [https://github.com/zfsonlinux/pkg-zfs/wiki/HOWTO-install- Ubu...](https://github.com/zfsonlinux/pkg-zfs/wiki/HOWTO-install- Ubuntu-16.04-to-a-Native-ZFS-Root-Filesystem)

[https://github.com/zfsonlinux/pkg- zfs/issues/188](https://github.com/zfsonlinux/pkg-zfs/issues/188)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> what are they going to do when they run out of letters in the alphabet?

<comment><USER67> Go back round again with new animal names.

<comment><USER59> This appears to be the correct answer. Backed up here:

[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames)

<comment><USER68> Would Ubuntu 20.04 Fiery Fox be considered copyright infringement?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Does anybody know what packages are going to be bundled as Snaps, and what packages will still be debs? Firefox? Libreoffice?

<comment><USER15> User apps

[https://paste.sh/zaodLcyn#uLrtH- WS00hxtIJTYVEgE9zS](https://paste.sh/zaodLcyn#uLrtH-WS00hxtIJTYVEgE9zS) #horrible hn text editor

<comment><USER70> That's a completely different list than the (shorter) one I get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Great! Finally php7 support out of the box

<comment><USER72> Indeed! And the release notes linked to a good resource on configuration changes requires for Nginx + PHP7.0:

[http://dark-net.net/?p=125](http://dark-net.net/?p=125)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> It will be interesting to see how long it takes, and indeed whether it happens at all, for UbuntuBSD and Ubuntu on Windows NT's Linux subsystem (which currently defaults to Ubuntu 14.04, although people have already installed things like Fedora on it) to catch up.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11326457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11326457)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11542089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11542089)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11415985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11415985)

</comment><comment><USER74> >Support for scaling cursors in HiDPI environments

So 4k resolution support is becoming recognized here?

<comment><USER36> This reminds me, I'd really like to know what to expect with a 4K monitor in 16.04.

<comment><USER75> I've been running 16.04 beta for the past month on a Thinkpad P70 with a 4k display, and scaling has been great. The OS UI elements (like menu bars) can be scaled to any size.

Most applications seem to work out of the box. The ones that have given me the most problems are a handful of desktop apps implemented in an embedded browser (like Spotify) where I have to set an extra command flag to properly scale.

<comment><USER36> That's great to hear, thanks. I'm using Xubuntu most of the time but I'll probably give it a shot and upgrade myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> So when will I be able to `sudo do-release-upgrade`? Does not seem to be working on my end. I'm using Xubuntu.

<comment><USER77> Are you on 15.10 or 14.04 LTS? For the latter, I think not until 16.04.1 is released. Otherwise, probably soon.

<comment><USER76> I'm on xubuntu 15.10.

<comment><USER77> You can always do `sudo do-release-upgrade -d` (for development version), but it should work in the next 24 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Unfortunately, the EC2 images [0] are not available yet!

[0]: [https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/](https://cloud- images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/)

</comment><comment><USER78> If I have a software RAID that I created under MINT using `mdadm`. will the partition work the same after installing Ubuntu 16.04 or will I have to re- synch the volumes?

<comment><USER49> AFAIK mdadm has been stable for years (one of the reasons why I prefer software raid to hardware raid). As long as you boot into anything resembling a recent Linux kernel along with a userspace with mdadm support, you should be fine.

If in doubt, boot from a live-cd/usb and see if you can mount your drives ok.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been using Beta 2 on my laptop. Seems to be a solid release.

</comment><comment> iris-digital Looking forward to trying Python 3.5, it's in the repo.

</comment><comment><USER79> Yay, "apt install". At last!

<comment><USER80> "apt" has been available since 14.04 (trusty).

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Is there any way I can download Ubuntu securely? They don't seem to have an HTTPS link to the .iso file

<comment><USER82> You can verify the integrity of your download with the SHA256SUMS file. You can verify _that_ with the SHA256SUMS.gpg file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Anyone using Kubuntu 16.04? I am thinking about moving to Fedora.

<comment><USER84> If you're interested in KDE on Fedora 23, I haven't tried it but I've seen this [1] which may persuade you to find another distro for KDE.

[1] [https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/kde/2015-October/0...](https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/kde/2015-October/016315.html)</comment></comment>


Home Offices Rated - <AUTHOR> https://officerater.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I made a thing. It's called OfficeRater:

The best home offices added by work from home professionals. Rated.

Find the best home office inspiration.

Filter by style, colour, profession and more.

Work form home? Add your workspace now!

Cheers, Tom</comment>