Exactly, this is just a way to generate some 'heat' (interest) in their company...

They failed to gain market share by being 'open source' so now they want some free press on going 'closed source because AI'...

Yes, someone should definitely clone their product, keep their clone 'open source' and convince people to use the 'open source version' by creating enhanced features and providing free support, because they have nothing better to do than to go after a company that no one has ever heard of that is taking a product no one uses and making it closed source.

I don't think this was a community-built open source project, like, say, the Linux kernel, it was a proprietary product developed by paid developers who (for some reason) wanted to share their code base to please people like RMS...

I think you mean 'disassembler' - an assembler is used to create a binary executable, a disassembler turns a binary executable into a form of source code.

Perhaps this "dramatic shift to closed source" is more of a marketing move, to get their company name 'out there'?

I thought the argument was that Open Source was more secure because everyone can find and fix vulnerabilities?

I bet the real issue is that with their actual source code in the public domain, someone could 'vibe code' a competing product with the same features...

Sure, but for two weeks you're speeding through residential neighborhoods, school zones, etc. stopping the driver at the time of speeding has an immediate impact on how they drive, not an eventual impact in a few months...

The original CNN report said it took 6 months to extract all that data, no word on where it is stored - maybe they squirreled it away in one of those "unlimited" Gmail accounts - I remember there was a utility to treat a Gmail account as a form of file system 'back in the day'...

"A few backpacks full of drives"? Really? it would take 10,000 terabyte drives...

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tapes...

eBay? That's your go-to for new product research?

I can walk over to Microcenter with $600 and walk out with a spiffy laptop with an 8 core snapdragon CPU, 16 gig of RAM and 1TB of storage - running Win 11, the same OS most companies & schools run. (Acer Aspire 14 and 16 laptops in specific)

The people excited about a $600 iPad are looking for a laptop to take the place of an iPad, and they have to be casual users that don't have specific software requirements/needs - nothing beyond a browser or office suite.

There are a lot of them, but not enough to scare or "terrify" a company like Acer in any meaningful way.

5-6 million pieces is a far cry from 'limited edition' in my opinion...

No PC vendor is seriously worried about a $600 Mac iPad w/ keyboard attached - they mostly all offer a lower price model Windows laptop.

It's an interesting product, it's targeted at the lower-end of the market, but it's not going put a serious crimp in any Win laptop Mfg sales.

He gave cash to name the building, if they strip off the name, it is conceivable he is entitled to consideration - otherwise, the school could continually resell naming rights anytime it wanted, tanking the value of naming the building and eliminating an easy source of income/donations.

What's wrong with that? He wanted Detroit to have a zoo and golf course, and structured his donation to enable/enforce that.

If you accepted cash to name the building after Gates, will you give back the cash if you rename the building?

Things named after Chavez were named as an honor to him.

Things named after Gates, et al, were bought and paid for with (presumably) very, very large cash donations from Gates.

Would schools give back the money 'evil' Bill Gates gave to name facilities after him? I doubt it.

What has *actually* been proven about Bill Gates and Epstein? AFAIK the issue is they were buddies, and his wife left him because of his association with Epstein - I'm not aware of anyone claiming Gates personally took advantage of anyone, etc.

Lots of politicians took donations from Epstein, are they "tarred with the same brush" as Epstein?