I think how one interprets the usage of “square pixels” here is highly dependent on what that person is most familiar with. When I saw the title, even without reading the article, I immediately knew it’s talking about PAR, since I’m already familiar with video encoding standards. It didn’t even occur to me that it could be talking about the shape of physical elements on various display technologies.
Well technically it's like a "subscription with indeterminate renewal cycle". Every few years they release a new major version and sometimes you have to pay to upgrade.
Of course you can choose to not upgrade... but then you don't get the new features, and it's unclear if the old version will support all newer macOS releases.
> Then every 3 years or so you spent $300 again to get the updated version. It was a much better system!
By your math it was. 10x12x3=360 > 300. Subscriptions cost more than buying the actual software. Why do you think most companies switched to a subscription model?
It was a better system, because if I didn't need the new features, I could keep using the version of Microsoft Word that I bought 15 years prior. That's why they stopped selling it that way.
Even if the price is the same, "old" distribution models have benefits. If you're satisfied with your current version and it still works, no need to continue paying. If you maintain older systems, your software still works without continuing to pay in perpetuity.
I much prefer buying software licenses outright than renting them forever.
Apples and ladybugs are both red but (I imagine) they taste quite differently. Which one you should use probably depends on whether you’re baking a pie or dealing with pests in your garden.
Declaring them equal based on a single metric like color would be as silly as suggesting subscriptions and purchases are the same because their costs over an arbitrary period of time are roughly similar.
You’re not wrong, with a lot of Mac apps (this one included) you need the latest version to use it with the latest macOS release.
When there’s a new mandatory paid upgrade every couple years then it’s not far from a subscription service.
The situation seems worse on Mac where software has much shorter lifespans without new releases. On Windows I’m still using some engineering software I bought over a decade ago and it’s like nothing ever changed.
There have been roughly 18 major macOS releases since Little Snitch was released.
In that time, there have been 6 major versions of Little Snitch.
macOS has undergone pretty major architectural changes during that time, necessitating mandatory upgrades under some circumstances, but an OS update does not always force a LS upgrade.
> When there’s a new mandatory paid upgrade every couple years then it’s not far from a subscription service.
I disagree and don’t think people should mentally model subscriptions this way.
Subscriptions almost universally cost more on average than standalone purchases did, and there are still situations where it’s possible to remain on old versions in perpetuity, e.g. and old Mac that is kept around for a specific purpose but no longer receives major OS updates.
I think both models fall under a larger overarching umbrella of “software maintenance costs”, but those costs have always existed and standalone purchases vs. subscriptions are two fairly different ways of covering those costs.
Agree that this all feels worse on macOS due to the regular updates, but unlike Windows, I actually feel better over time about privacy/security and this naturally forces more app updates across the board. Microsoft’s commitment to backward compatibility is both convenient and increasingly a liability.
> Laws. Existing laws prevent developers from doing that.
Laws mean nothing to scammy developers trying to make a quick buck. Would you hire a lawyer to sue for a $4.99 refund? And even if you’re willing to spend that money, are you sure you can figure out who to sue? The scammy developer is likely using some shell company registered in some dodgy jurisdiction. Sure, what they’re doing is illegal, but the average consumer has no real recourse.
My bank gave me a $10 refund, no questions asked, for a service that wouldn't answer cancellation requests. I don't think they even dinged the service, since they tried to bill me again the next month.
How do you "untrust" a single person's key under this scheme? You would have to visit all of the machines and remove them from the authorized keys file.
Not really, with an SSH CA you’re trusting the CA and not installing individual keys into authorized_keys files.
Anything signed by the SSH CA will work for logins.
To deal with the “untrust” issue it’s normal for operations with an SSH CA to rely on (very) short-lived certificates, meaning often issued and valid for < 24 hours (it’s configurable, I’ve seen this be as short as 30 minutes).
Smallstep wrote a summary here which is pretty good —
> To deal with the “untrust” issue it’s normal for operations with an SSH CA to rely on (very) short-lived certificates, meaning often issued and valid for < 24 hours (it’s configurable, I’ve seen this be as short as 30 minutes).
So you want a way to get rid of long-lived SSH certificates, instead authenticating users with your corporate single-sign-on system then issuing them a temporary credential?
And presumably you've got some audit logs, so you know who connected to what, when and why. Perhaps a familiar command line tool, that makes temporary credential rotation easy for users? Perhaps some paperwork to hand to your SOC2 compliance auditors?
I mean, this is sounding a lot like tailscale ssh, teleport, and suchlike...
Do you really want 998 goats though? It must cost a fortune to transport them home from the studio, finding a space for them to live in, and feed them, etc.
> loser must disclose the ultimate name of the beneficial owners (or material, if public) of the loser. EINs not allowed. The "trolls" are thus, branded.
So TrollCo will just pay a different homeless person $100 to be the owner on paper for each of their patents?
Sure. Let them deal with getting the homeless persons to sign up. Open a bank account, pay taxes, get credit cards, run payroll, process permits, etc.
I don't think you fully appreciate how tough is to run a business with someone's name on top of every document. Not to say its not possible for a determined actor, but its going to eliminate a lot of options from the get go.
Not having a patent doesn’t _prevent_ you from bringing your invention to market, it just accelerates _someone_ bringing it to market, and that’s a net good for society if the invention is useful, no?
Patents are vital to bringing things to market. It lessens the risk associated with investors getting returns, which allows funding for development.
I get that people don't like patents because they sometimes get abused, but on the whole I think we wouldn't have a lot of the things we take for granted if they didn't exist.
Let me add a personal anecdote: my uncle has developed a better sprinkler head. Think of bearded inventor tinkering in his garage for a decade. This was late 80s /early 90s so not much CAD was involved.
This is where the patent system shines. Because he got a patent he could shop around, sell it to a company which made a tidy profit on it. He didn't need to raise capital to establish a factory and all that to bring it to market and the company buying it seriously got ahead without spending an inordinate amount of money and time inventing the thing.
