Slashdot Mirror
No Love From Microsoft For Xbox Modders
RandyOo writes: "Only 4 days after news of an XBox port of MAME was posted to Slashdot, Microsoft contacted the admin of mame.net and downloads have now been removed. Knew I should have downloaded it earlier this morning ... Thank goodness for P2P!" And scubacuda writes: "According to The Register, one group of Xbox hackers have decided to halt development on its Xbox mod chip. It will be interesting to see how other developers follow suit."
.. But Microsoft's lawyers contacted me and asked me not to.
Uh... FP....
Karma: Non-Heinous
no love of microsoft from /. readers
Im suprised it didn't happen the day it was announced.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
When M$ decides to allow modders to run software/linux/pirated games on something they are losing 200 bucks each.
But then again, they can only deter the majority from following suit, they can never stop the hardcore modder from doing whatever he wants to on what he paid for.
Rapid Nirvana
I know this sucks and all but... is anyone actually surprized? I didn't think that MS would tolarate this for long.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
do you think that if they are doing this with X-Box, that they won't do something similar with Palladium?
It is all that trademark control of the user experience thing happening all over again.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Thank goodness for P2P!
You can now download Mod chips via P2P?! Sweet!
dmarien
How can porting MAME to an X-box possibly be either illegal or damaging to Microsoft?
Is it going to get to the point where we have to get their approval for doing anything in life?
Frost Pist!
That shit can eat of my belch gas!
Life is a scam. - Steve McQue
Remember; listening to microsoft too much killed Sega as a Console producer; Now they've been reduced to software. People who buy X-Boxen deserve what they get, IE a kick in the ass.
Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Microsoft? Not hacker-friendly? What is this world coming to?
Next thing you know they'll start mucking around with standards and protocols!
m00.
It looks as if it was taken down because it was using the XDK. For now they just seem to be posting the changes in the source code.
MS would never let you mod the X-box. They want to mod it. Remember the 500 dollar ultimate TV set? 300 bucks says that all they do is add a 50 dollar tv tuner card, and then port their software to the xbox's form of WinCE, or stinger or whatever they feel like using.
Home brew developers are such a threat to MS as well, ever notice how much they make off of their games? WOW, thats a lot.
(sarcasm)
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
What the hell. If we bought an xbox we should be able to do whatever we want with it. That includes modding it to do something else.
If i buy a calculator that doesn't mean i cant rip it apart and use the LCD for something else... this whole "no i dont want you ripping games thing" is getting ridiculous. So you stop me from modding my xbox... for what, 5 minutes? P2P fixes that, or i just grab the PC versions of the game... either way, i don't pay anything.
"No, Master!"
Microsoft can kick and whine and scream all they want to, but it's far, far too late. They knew that all the other consoles get chipped. They knew that their hardware was ripe for a Linux/Mame/Etc.. port. They knew that they were going to have to fight this, even if every other console maker has been doing it from the beginning of time.
Sorry, Bill. Take a good look at Sony, your main source of competition. What have they done? Released a Linux kit... and therefore eventual Mame compatibility.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It will be interesting to see how other developers follow suit.
or
It will be interesting to see how the (law) suits will follow the other developers.
The site of another modchip manufacturer at http://www.xtender.info/ is also gone.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
They're still posting source code as they update it. Of course, without the Xbox Development Kit (which they used to develop MAME-X), you can't build it, so it's kinda useless.
Precedent has already been set forth by Sega V. Accolade. One does not need permission from a platform developer to release software for that platform, given sufficient reverse engineering. However, since MAME-X, and all other Xbox software, uses Xbox's (and Windows') APIs, effectively nothing can be released without Microsoft's consent.
The EULA strikes again.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
also if it could play DVD's without the ripoff remote control attachment...and if it didn't have that fucking ugly acid green stuff. It looks like a balding 37 yr old trying to appeal to EXTREME YOUTH thought that one up.
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
(-1 AYBoxABTU)
"Ask me about Loom"
Xbox mod creators, however, claim to have the moral high ground in this discussion ... they focus their efforts on creating chips which can run homebrew software rather than pirated games, such as the Xbox version of MAME (designed to emulate old arcade machines)...
;)
The irony of that statement, told by The Register with a straight face, is delicious! "Look! We're using this to run homebrew software, like Joust, Centipede, and Wizard of Wor!"
from now on, everyone should refer to x-box mod chips as "Replacement Wheels for Chocolate Bicycles" ... this will ensure that MS prying eyes will be kept from our clandestine, x-box hacking activities. Viva La Revolucion!
-jms258
Just like Jack Valente (sp?) claiming that if VCRs were allowed to be sold that the movie industry would go out of business... Microsoft has always had a top-notch FUD machine.
Is it surprising that a company that is pulling stuff like trying to break GPLed software on their OS would go in with guns blazing against Mod chips and Xbox Hacking?
*sigh*
Predictable as it is, it's still kinda sad.
The Digital Sorceress
Honestly... this just adds to the idea: What's the point.
Microsoft's big happy campaign behind the X-Box was that it would be integrable with a lot of stuff since it was based around a standard computer...
Well, so far that's proved to be useless, considering the lack of a commercial OS to run off of it, no inter-web games available as of yet, and no use of this would-be harddrive that couldn't be achieved on a PS-2.
So now they're getting pissed off at Modders. Well what do they expect? They've given us a bunch of resources, and now they're saying "Nope, you can't use them".
Yeah, M$ doesn't really belong in the gaming industry if you ask me. Playstation seems to be doing a good job and providing the public with everything Microsoft promised.
Karma: Non-Heinous
no i will not stop hacking game consoles, linux must run on everything, got it on my pda, got it on my dreamcast, hell if would stop gaming i would have it on my toaster and water meter by now!!
it must conquer all!!!!!!
and while i am at it , thx for trying to ruin another good thing going, first halo and now this. atleast we already have acess to it this time.
What about PS2? I would love to see mame ports for PS2, or the ability to play divx movies.
We HATE Microsoft... ooooooh look at the Xbox
microsoft is an outstanding company and excellent corporate citizen.
This one time, I added real ketchup to some pringles. It was pretty good, but the that pale man wiht the moustache has been after me for a all I'm worth.
What's next? Will MSFT ask ebay to ban mod chips?
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Microsoft, like Nintendo and Sony, spends millions developing anti-piracy technology and now they're mad about the cracks - what a surprise. Remember, consoles also thrive on licensing. If anyone could develop software for a console, it would defeat the purpose of the entire business. Of course, Sony's Linux kit is a bit of an exception, but you can't distribute any software for it.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Doesn't Microsoft Realize that these hacks are improving their hardware sales. I didn't even consider buying an xbox until I heard it got cracked. Now we got MAME on there. Oh and I got to admit the hack that allows you to watch Divx movies on the machine is quite enticing.
I can't believe that companies are this stupid!
If I buy your product you're making money from the sale. If I then mod that same product in a way that's cool and I show it off to my friends, chances are they too will buy your product and again you'll make money.
If you throw walls, safeguards, and other things in my way to prevent me from modding your products, chances are I'll take my business and money elsewhere.
Get a clue folks. If you support and assist us in product mods you'll generate more sales! And you may even find new versions of your products to sell, and new innovations to improve your products.
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
It sounds as if Microsoft is pissed because their SDK was used. I don't have an Xbox SDK, but I'd imagine that there is some pretty hefty licensing requirements that disallow posting any code built with it on the net.
Now, if someone manages to build Xbox binaries with other tools (gcc) and without the libraries and headers that come with Microsofts SDKs, I don't think Microsoft will be able to do anything about that.
Take a look at the GameBoy Advance scene -- there are at least two non-Nintendo compiler chains that you can use to build GBA binaries. Plenty of people have their own sets of header files available for use (I have a heavily modified set of my own). Nintendo realises that they can't stop them. But, if any of the offical GBA SDK shows up on the net, better believe it that Nintendo's lawyers are working to quickly get it offline.
So, this doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft's poor business model and everything to do with protecting their intellectual property.
dennis
It is official; netsplit.de confirms: OPN is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered OPN community when nets
plit.de confirmed that OPN market share has dropped yet again, now down to less
than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. This news serves to reinforce what
we've known all along. OPN is collapsing in complete disarray.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict OPN's future. The hand writing is on t
he wall: OPN faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for
OPN because OPN is dying. Things are looking very bad for OPN. As many of us are
already aware, OPN continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river o
f blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
In the past month, OPN has lost 3 servers. With the current count of 29 servers,
it will logically be 9 months until there are no servers remaining at all. Obvi
ously, the network will probably survive slightly longer than this; it may even
drag on for a whole extra year, crawling along like an undead corpse.
Network operator lilo also faces a bleak future. With his rapidly deteriorating
financial situation and crucial position to the running and future of the networ
k, it is only a matter of weeks before he is forced to leave and OPN descends in
to anarchy and chaos without a leader.
Fact: OPN is dying
Why should I buy something if I can use it for something other than what it was purchased for....
I bought a car... I can do donuts in it if I want, tweak the engine and so forth.
Like I said... I WAS going to buy an XBOX, screw them, they have lost my business.
Just port Halo to the PC.
word.
Microsoft: If cars had improved the way software has we'd all be driving a million miles an hour uphill on a shot glass of fuel and the car would cost a dollar.
New response: If cars were like the xbox, we'd be sued for selling after market parts and only be able to buy gas from approved vendors at a dollar a gallon premium.
"Remember; listening to microsoft too much killed Sega as a Console producer; Now they've been reduced to software."
WTF?! Where did you hear there? I realize that MS isn't well liked, that doesn't mean that they're responsible for failures that are even semi-linked to them.
The reason that Sega failed as a console producer dates back to their flooding the market with crap. The Sega CD was was a decent add-on but didn't have very many interesting games (at least compared to the Genesis.) They released the 32x and quickly forgot about it. The Saturn spent all it's time playing catch-up to Sony and failed miserably. When the Dreamcast was released, the PS2 was hot on it's heels.
If anything, MS helped the Dreamcast by providing them with a CE-based OS for developers to port games to it. Unfortunately, though, Sega couldn't afford to keep producing Dreamcast consoles. They'z expensive. With the competition from PS2, MS, and Nintendo, there was just no way they could keep up. So they made the right decision: Make games for all the consoles, make your competitors earn you money.
This has nothing to do with Microsoft. Just because MS has their logo on the Dreamcast, doesn't mean they did anything to lead to it's demise. I realize MS is widely hated here, but if everybody on Slashdot does nothing but bash MS, then nobody'll take you seriously when you have a legit complaint about MS.
"Derp de derp."
Why do you think Microsoft included an ethernet adapter? It's because when "Xbox Live" goes live, they can see your machine. They could see your saved games, they could see how often you play, and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because the entire operating system is proprietary, and there's no way to disassemble it. You couldn't even install a piece of software on the Xbox to trap packets coming out of it, because it would have to be approved by Microsoft.
These "mod chips" are all about piracy, pure and simple. No legit user would ever want or need to open up their console to play games, just like no legit person would ever need to open up their toaster "to make sure it works." I, for one, applaud Microsoft for shutting down this modchip site, because without money rolling into game developers, the amount of good games would decline, and everybody would suffer.
Look at the music industry - Because of Napster, they've lost hundreds of millions of dollars, and it shows; The music they're putting out is crap, and it's because of music pirates.
There, I'm off my soapbox. Flame away.
TiVo (the PVR) is more friendly to hackers and actively support them, so I came to the following idea where you can piss Microsoft off a little and add to your TiVo at the same time. As Microsoft plan into making future generations of XBox a Personal Video Recorder, what about killing them stone dead by installing MAME on a TiVo?
First generation TiVOs may not have enough CPU power to simultaneously play video games and record, but the second generation ones have faster CPUs. They're probably not up to leading edge games but early arcade games should be no problem.
Demonstrate that being hostile to hackers is not a good thing.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Exactly what has Mame done than Microsoft can force them to remove binaries from their site? Are they accused of distributing copyrighted works? What?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
You've just removed my only reason for possibly wanting to buy an X-box in the future. Aside from running cool stuff on it via modchip, I would have bought plenty of games as well. But since you attack legitamate mod chip companies (who are not aiming for piracy at all but to expand the X-Box to do more for the money), you have lost my buisiness.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Here are my predictions for the most popular comments in this topic:
/.'d. Please mod me up.
:)
* MS sucks! They're only doing it because they're evil monopolists. I'm going to totally ignore the fact that nearly every other console maker feels the same way (like Sony, for example...)
* They have no right to do this because I don't like anything MS does.
* Yet more proof that MS is evil. Now I'll never buy an XBOX.
* This sucks, I want to run Linux on the XBOX, even though I'm not sure there's anythign practical I'd wanna do on it.
* How dare they prevent the XBOX from doing stuff besides playing games that people have to pay for!
* Here's a copy/paste of the article in case the site gets
* It's gonna happen anyway, now I feel even more justified in doing it because M$ is evil.
* Why are they picking on MAME? It's totally legal!
And so on...
Heh.
"Derp de derp."
Is this just good old-fashioned bullying by MS, or is there a legal construction that actually allows them to do this?
I'm speculating that the SDK is only available through some signed contract and that it gives various shutdown capabilities to Microsoft and/or spells out certain types of software that may not be developed using it -- but I'm just speculating. (It would make sense, though.) Anyone got the hard info?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Why waste effort porting or hacking a platform if the vendor tells you it will be "somewhat" open in the future?
Sony did the right thing by saying they would eventually be releasing everything needed to make your own "custom play" console. They defused the desire and efforts of many who would have done otherwise. Since this strategy of "announce and release somewhere a bazillion years from now" was pretty much created by Microsoft I'm not sure why they just didn't do this now?
--- I do not moderate.
[clear throat, sip water]
Microsoft is to Software what an Asshole is to Shit.
MICROSOFT SUCKS!
No, seriously now. Microsoft is so stupid. They are so greedy, and yet they don't see a gaping huge business opportunity when it's coming right at them. And they have NO forethought whatsoever. Here's why: First, Washington Billy decides to make an Xbox. Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you make a game console, good people are gonna hack those consoles for various purposes, including education and fun. So why does Washington Billy make an Xbox then, with this knowledge being so damn obvious? The only reason to do something like this is to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the fact that a game console serves a dual purpose (playing the damn game, and hacking), and making a shitload of money off that. Like Id does. They make Wolfenstein 3D, and folks start hacking it. Granted, Id didn't plan it that way. But they profitted BIG TIME off it. So then, they make Doom, but they release little tidbits of information every so often, to help the hackers. And what do you know? Everybody and his uncle buys DOOM, and Carmack drives a fancier car than Washington Billy. So then they release the source to Wolfenstein, and later, to DOOM, and later, they even release the source to Quake! And the d00dz who wrote it are rolling in dough. So what does that teach you? That Washington Billy might have caught on to the clue and figgered out that if they can make millions by doing that, he can make zillions. But then what does he do? He bitches and moans when someone hacks the Xbox. Well, d00d, it was obvious that it was gonna happen!
It reminds me of this stupid girl I used to know... this might have been about 8 or 9 years ago. She was hot. And she kept smiling at me and talking to me and shit. So one day, I ask for her phone number, and she gives it to me. Anyway, an hour later, I'm talking to some shmoe, and she comes up to talk to me. I say I gotta do some shit, but I'll call you later. No, don't call me, she says. I say why not. She says she has a boyfriend. So I say why did you give me your number. She says cuz you asked for it. I say, "WELL WHAT DID YOU THINK I WAS GONNA DO WITH IT?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!"
So Billy is doing the same thing. He should have used his friggin noggin first. But noooooooooo. So let me tell you something. I hope NOBODY EVER HACKS/MODS/BUYS/USES/THINKS ABOUT USING an Xbox, EVER. It's made by Micro$oft. Therefore, like Windoors, Internet Exploder, Lookout Express, and all their other defective excuses for products, the Xbox is garbage, and nobody should support it.
Here's a scary thought: What if Microsoft *was* selling Hardware Use Licenses..
"You may not use this pointing device to click on any hyperlink on a non-microsoft approved site."
As far as home brew games, just change the code a bit and release it for free or sell it or rent it or whatever for the PC. Preferably a PC running Linux, to really flip MS the bird on this one.
Ok, I'll bite. What about games that you want to play that are imported? For example, Final Fantasy X International has some cool stuff not found in the US version, and no plans exist to send the game here. I can not play an imported game as it stands on a US Playstation 2. I am not advocating piracy at all, I just want to be able to play that game. I also can not import a playstation on amazon.co.uk due to "manufacturer restrictions". What am I supposed to do?
Everytime I hear or read Microsoft, I think "Someone with intentional motives to use their power to destroy" makes me sick.
Is any of this, however, a result of license violations of Xbox MAME -- as in, it was compiled with a development kit, so the producer owes MS $5 a copy? If we paid for Xbox MAME, would it be legit? Seriously, I'd pay $50 for Xbox MAME and pay for it at Wal-Mart. Is this option closed to them?
They ( modchips ) usually allow you to play imported games from out side your region. I'm not sure if the X-Box has region encoding. (I can't remember right now so this may not apply).
Some of the mod chips for the original playstation would just let you play imported games but not play copied games.
This should be legal because a game is purchased and is not copied. The use of the mod chip is to allow you, the owner of game and system, to play the game that you rightfully own.
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--
E_NOSIG
Go away microsoft!! We don't want to play your game any more.
GNU/Linux=OpenSource=Freedom
A guy walks into a Ford dealer and buys a brand new Thunderbird. He hates the color and want a more powerful engine. He also wants it to run on water.
He changes the color, tricks it out, and adds a water chip to the catalytic converter to let him run it with water.
Henry Ford rolls over in his grave and his truck-loving-great-grandson comes to your house and blows your head off...
Do we see other companies besides Microsoft doing this?
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
No market for mod chips.
word.
Hail Microsoft!
Microsoft is hemorraging big time on these consoles under the premise that they can sell software titles to make up for that loss. Furthermore I suspect there is a secondary interest in simply trying to create a nother market they can dominate. But anyhow, the damage is simply that if I can run software that never paid a toll to Microsoft, then Microsoft will lose even more money on the boxes.
Having said that there shouldn't be any legal reason that makes a mod chip illegal. SHOULDN'T being the key word here. They can likely sue on any number of fronts just as a legal bullying tactic.
The most obvious attack would be DMCA. By providing a mod chip, then you are possibly circumventing access control measures, etc. Depends on what exactly the mod chip does really. But really it doesn't matter whether they have a solid case or not, as long as it isn't frivolous enough to get thrown out of court on day one, it's gonna cost a lot of resources to fend it off.
Strange thought: what if Sony released a mod chip for X-box? >:)
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I don't want your love, just your respect.
When will MS and Sony figure it out that people modding there stuff is GOOD! First off MS, Sony, Nintendo, and every other console maker looses money when they sell a console. They do this to drive up the number of games sold, off of wich they make a profit. So by not allowing for mods, emulators, and the likes they are killing free revenue wich they didn't have to dish out 50 - 200 in manufaturing costs!
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Almost (with you and I as the only exception, apparently) belive the quote with a straight face.
"Hey, MS shouldn't care, it isn't like we are stealing from them. We are just using their machine to play games we stole from other people. In doing so we are causing MS to loose money (on the hardware) and not buying the games they get the licensing fee from. This is totally ridiculous."
Come to think of it, if they allowed MAME, they might be susecptable to a DMCA lawsuit.
So the MAME project uses the Xbox Development Kit to develop MAME for the Xbox. What this means is one of the following:
- They bought a proper license for the XDK. The ability to buy one requires an approved title.
OR
- They illegally pirated a copy of the XDK.
Since the MAME project had a working version on a devkit box (the clear case Xboxes), I'd be willing to bet that a programmer at a games shop that has an approved Xbox title took it upon himself to port MAME.
Once MAME was developed, the only thing required to get it running on commercial Xboxes was either pressing a true DVD-9 and getting the code signed as an approved Xbox title, or using a mod-chip and burning the software onto a CD.
The first option wouldn't happen - MAME is not a title that would show the power of Xbox, nor would it be something the average consumer would want.
The legal problem with the second option is that the ported MAME software uses Microsoft's intellectual property. When building software for Xbox, your application is linked against several static libraries that provide the base software services (file systems, memory management, etc.)
Hence, Microsoft really does have the legal right to stop distribution of MAME in this case.
Don't ask me about the mod chip's legal case - I don't know about it at all.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Hey Intel and AMD sell their hardware for the right prices and then don't care WHAT THE HELL you do with it. It's all just a normal computer to me, Nvidia video, Intel chip... why can't I do what I want with it?
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Microsoft also used this tactic in the early 90s to gain market penetration with Windows 3.0, Office 4.2, etc. Everyone had Windows because everyone could have Windows. No copyright protection, nothing.
Sony console purchases increased because people could easily mod their boxes and play games. Sure it hurt the bottom line for the game companies, but did it ever increase the "potential" market.
Basically XBox just sealed its fate. Thank goodness, I was growing sick of hearing about it.
Piss off and die Microsoft.
Tournament Management Online &
I think it's mostly a move to save face... They want to keep the word from getting out that *cough* Microsoft hardware is quite hackable. Just the fact that the word is out should do some good damage to their reputation- and peoples confidence level in Palladium. X-box owners should make a big deal about this... the bad publicity for Micro$haft can be good for us. Every little bit counts.
Blender And Linux Fan
I can understand why they would be able to stop projects like mod chips (Enigmah-X), but how can they stop projects like MAME, and mod chips that increase performance, or lets us play PS2 games on the XBox? They are going to far to control the consumer. MAME should have all the right to develop their software to run on the XBox. Can someone post the legal rights why they couldn't continue the project?
When are you ignorant /. posters (I apologize to those /.ers that aren't ignorant and make good posts) going to realize that they ARE JUST REMOVING THE BINARIES CREATED WITH A MS XBOX SDK! They almost certainly don't have an actual XBox SDK (they probably have the pirated version thats been around for a couple of months on newsgroups and irc) and even if they do actually own a legit copy of the XBox SDK, then they have violated the EULA by relasing binaries without paying royalties to MS.
Thats the way things work in the console world, you want to make games for my console? You gotta pay a royalty to the manufacturer of the console.
Ugh.. just shut up, read the damn story and then post.
-- DeionXxX
Sony does the same thing with their console.
Don't think that MS is special in that regard. All the mod chips for Sony have gotten their warnings too. Though I think that you can still get them. Last I checked it only required you to solder like 26 wires to your ps2 in order to get a mod chip to work. The original ps one mod chip only needed like 3 or 4.(depending on the model)
Regardless, MS was silly in making a PC into a console because well, you know that someone, somewhere is going to try and run linux, windows, *bsd, qnx, or whatever OS they want on it. It is only a matter of time before they do it.
They did get BSD on the Dreamcast.
Instead of people just using the Mame-X binaries, now they have to pirate your Xbox-DK instead.
Who wants to bet that people who chip consoles won't feel bad about downloading a warezed copy of the Xbox-DK? I thought so...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
(Score: -1, OBVIOUS)
It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called alternative sexuality which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophiliaWhat better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linuxs most outspoken advocates Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD L clearly referring to himself by the first initial Richard M Stallman spokespervert for the Gaysexs Not Unusual movement is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves meIm sure that Eric S Raymond composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre is probably an anagram of something queer but we dont need to look that far as we know hes always shoving a gun up some poor little boys rectum Update Eric S Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer Update the Second It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for Felch Male a disgusting practise For those not in the know felching is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own postcoital ejaculate out of the others rectum In fact it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of email turning it into emaleAs far as Richard Master Stallman goes that filthy fudgepacker was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Saloncom as saying the following Ive been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance he says Its about being able to question conventional wisdom he asserts I believe in love but not monogamy he says plainlyAnd this isnt a made up troll bullshit either He actually stated this tripe which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that hes a flaming homo slutSpeaking about flaming who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdots very own selfconfessed pederast Jon Katz Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name he has already confessed nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children To quote from the article linkedIve got a rare kidney disease I told her I have to go to the bathroom a lot You can come with me if you want but it takes a while Is that okay with you Do you want a note from my doctorIs this why you were touching your penis in the cinema Jon And letting the other boys touch it tooWe should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as Slashdots resident Gasbag Is there any more doubt For those fortunate few who arent aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux Sauce Code a Gasbag is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra or to use the common parlance pisspipe then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum This is of course when hes not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agendaSick disgusting antichristian perverts the lot of themIn addition many of the Linux distributions a distribution is the most common way to spread the faggots wares are run by faggot groups The Slackware distro is named after the Slackwear fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes Furthermore Slackware is a close anagram of claw arse a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator It was also chosen because it is an anagram for dark amen and ram naked which is what they doAnother distro abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like Disco which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970s is Debian an anagram of in a bed which could be considered innocent enough after all a bed is both where we sleep and pray until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares Woody is obvious enough being a term for the erect male penis glistening with precum But far sicker is the phrase Frozen Potato that they use This filthy term again found in the secret homosexual Sauce Code refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen potato up his own rectum squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasmAnd Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpieceThe fags have even invented special tools to aid their faggotry For example the supermount tool was devised to allow deeper penetration which is good for fags because it gives more pressure on the prostate gland Automount is used on the other hand because Linux users are all fat and gay and need to mount each other automaticallyThe depths of their depravity can be seen in their use of mount points These are plainly speaking the different points of penetration The main one is obviously anus but there are others Militant fags even say there is no opt mount point because for these dirty perverts faggotry is not optional but a way of lifeMore evidence is in the fact that Linux users say how much they love man even going so far as to say that all new Linux users who are in fact just innocent heterosexuals indoctrinated by the gay propaganda should try out man In no other system do users boast of their frequent recourse to a manOther areas of the system also show Linuxs inherit gayness For example people are often told of the FAQ but how many innocent heterosexual Windows users know what this actually means The answer is shocking Faggot Anal Quest the voyage of discovery for newly converted fagsEven the title Slashdot originally referred to a homosexual practice Slashdot of course refers to the popular gay practice of bloodletting The Slashbots of course are those superzealous homosexuals who take this perversion to its extreme by ripping open their anuses as seen on the site most popular with Slashdot users the depraved work of Satan httpwwwefforgThe editors of Slashdot also have homosexual names Hemos is obvious in itself being one vowel away from Homos But even more sickening is Commander Taco which sounds a bit like Commode in Taco filthy gay slang for a pair of spreadeagled buttocks that are caked with excrement The best form of lubrication they insist Sometimes these Taco Commodes have special Salsa Sauce blood from a ruptured rectum and Cheese rancid flakes of penis discharge toppings And to make it even worse Slashdot runs on Apache The Apache server whose use among fags is as prevalent as AIDS is named after homosexual activity as everyone knows popular faggot band the Village People featured an Apache Indian and it is for him that this gay program is namedAnd thats not forgetting the use of patches in the Linux fag world patches are used to make the anus accessible for repeated anal sex even after its rupture by a session of fistingTo summarise Linux is gay Slash Dot is the graphical description of the space between a young boys scrotum and anus And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled stumpers FEEDBACK What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do Im scared I actually read this whole thing I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this And actually take the time to do it too Although I think it was satire blah its early Anonymous Coward SlashdotWell the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux Sauce code once Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer and havent you always been worried about the phrase Monolithic Kernel this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race as well as a few of the major animal species It has shocked and disturbed me to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to warn them of the impending homocalypse which threatens to engulf our planet You must work for the government Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that slashdot wont be able to continue or something due to legal woes If i ever see your ugly face im going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass after its nice and hot to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours Anonymous Coward SlashdotDoesnt it give you a hardon to imagine your thick strong poker ramming its way up my most sacred of sphincters Youre beyond help my friend as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man Are you sure youre not Eric Raymond The government being populated by limpwristed liberals could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy Hell theyve given NAMBLA free reign for years you really should post this logged in i wish i could remember jebuss password cuz id give it to you mighty jebus SlashdotThank you for your kind words of support However this document shall only ever be posted anonymously This is because the Open Sauce movement is a sham proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom I speak for the common man For any man who prefers the warm enveloping velvet folds of a womans vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child These men being common decent folk dont have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture I am the unknown liberator ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS Anonymous Coward SlashdotWe shouldnt hate them we should pity them for the misguided fools they are Fanatical Linux zealouts need to be herded into camps for reeducation and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society This reeducation shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of Baywatch until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism Actually thats not at all how scrotal inflation works I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum Ive never tried this but you can read how to do it safely in case youre interested Before you moderate this down ask yourself honestly who are the real crazies people who do scrotal inflation or people who pay 1000 for a game console doubleh SlashdotWell it just goes to show that even the holy Linux sauce code is riddled with bugs that need fixing The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this with their queer slogan Given enough arms all rectums are shallow And anyway the PS2 sucks major cock and isnt worth the money Intellivision forever dude did u used to post on msnbcs nt bulletin board now that u are doing antigay posts u also need to start in with antiblack stuff too c u in church Anonymous Coward SlashdotFor one thing whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film enjoying the restriction enforced onto them Remember a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church Clearly the only godfearing Christian operating system in existence is CPM The Christian Program Monitor All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems It is the only route to salvationSecondly this message is for every man Computers know no colour Not only that but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by a Black Man Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher And dont forget that slashdot was written in Perl which is just too close to Pearl Necklace for comfort oh wait thats something all you heterosexuals do I cant help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do FirstPosts on this site if it were redone in PHP I could handtype dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them phee SlashdotAlthough there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a womans breasts squirting ones load up towards her neck and chin area it should be noted that Perl standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally is also close to Pearl Monocle Pearl Nosering and the ubiquitous Pearl EnemaOne scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages Take the following code LWPSimple It looks innocuous enough doesnt it But look at the line closely There are two colons next to each other As Larry Balls to the Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate its programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of colon kissing whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide pressing their filthy torn sphincters together They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone This is also referred to in programming circles as Parameter PassingAnd PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration Didnt you know Thank you for your valuable input on this I am sure you will be never forgotten BTW Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars Mars rulaa Eimernase SlashdotWell I dont know about terraforming Mars but I do know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years Thats inspiring Keep up the good work AC May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community and make it pure again Yours Cerberus Anonymous Coward Slashdot sniff That brings a tear to my eye Thank you once more for your kind support I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lords work but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man hereHowever I should be cautious about revealing your name Cerberus on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot It is a well known fact that the Kerberos documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing in intimate exacting detail how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals be they domesticated wild or mythical Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide treating it as an extension to the Linux Sauce Code for the sake of interoperability The slang term they use for nonconsensual intercourse their favourite kindIn fact sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties Love of Anal Naughtiness needless to say wherein they entice a stray dog known as the Samba Mount into their homes Up to four of these filthsodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect throbbing uncircumcised members conkersdeep into the rectum mouth and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal Eventually the Samba Mount collapses due to overload and needs to be rebooted ie kicked out into the street and left to fend for itself Many Linux users boast about their uptime in such situations Inspiring stuff If only all trolls were this quality Anonymous Coward SlashdotIf only indeed You can help our brave cause by moderating this message up as often as possible I recommend 1 Underrated as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened BenderIf we can get just one of these postings up to at least 1 then it will be archived forever Others will learn of our struggle and join with us in our battle for freedom Its pathetic youve spent so much time writing this Anonymous Coward SlashdotI am compelled to document the foulness and carnal depravity that is Linux in order that we may prepare ourselves for the great holy war that is to follow It is my solemn duty to peel back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wire brush of enlightenment As with any great opensource project you need someone asking this question so Ill do it When the hell is version 20 going to be ready Anonymous Coward SlashdotI could make an arrogant childish comment along the lines of Every time someone asks for 20 I wont release it for another 24 hours but the truth of the matter is that Im quite nervous of releasing a number two as I can guarantee some filthy shitslurping Linux pervert would want to suck it straight out of my anus before Ive even had chance to wipe I desperately want to suck your monolithic kernel you sexy hunk you Anonymous Coward SlashdotI sincerely hope youre Natalie Portman Dude nothing on slashdot larger than 3 paragraphs is worth reading Try to distill the message whatever it was and maybe Ill read it As it is I have to much open source software to write to waste even 10 seconds of precious time 10 seconds is all its gonna take M to whoop Linuxs ass Vigilence is the price of Free as in libre from the fine frou frou French language Software Hack on fellow geeks and remember Friday is Bouillabaisse day except for heathens who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins Those godless oil drench bearded sexist clowns can pull grits from their pantaloons another fine fine French word and eat that Anyway try to keep your message focused and concise For concision is the soul of derision Way Anonymous Coward SlashdotWhat the fuck Ive read your gay conspiracy post version 130 and I must say Im impressed In particular I appreciate how you have managed to squeeze in a healthy dose of the latent homosexuality you gaybashing homos tend to be full of Thank you again Anonymous Coward SlashdotWell bugger me ooooh honey how insecure are you wann a little massage from deare bruci love you Anonymous Coward SlashdotFuck right offIMPORTANT This message needs to be heard Not HURD which is an acronym for Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator across the whole community so it has been released into the Public Domain You know that licence that we all had before those homoerotic cryptofascists came out with the GPL Gay Penetration License that is no more than an excuse to see whos got the biggest fecesencrusted cock I would have put this up on Freshmeat but that name is known to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boyCome to think of it the whole concept of Source Control unnerves me because it sounds a bit like Sauce Control which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receivers scrotum And Open Sauce is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later Obviously Closed Sauce is the only Christian thing to do as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about Contributors although not to the eternal game of soggy biscuit that open sauce development has become Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward phee Anonymous Coward mighty jebus Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward doubleh Anonymous Coward Eimernase Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward Anonymous Coward Further contributions are welcome Current changes This version sent to FreeWIPO by Bring BackATV as plain text Reformatted everything added all links back in that we could match from the previous version many new ones Slashbot bait links Even more spelling fixed Who wrote this thing CmdrTaco himself Previous changes Yet more changes added Spelling fixed Feedback added Explanation of distro system Mount Point syntax described More filth regarding man and Slashdot Yet more fucking spelling fixed Fetchmail uncovered further More Slashbot baiting Apache exposed Distribution licence at foot of document ANUX A full Linux distribution Up your ass Feces Thrower
-pwpbot
Here's a copy/paste of the article in case the site gets /.'d. Please mod me up
Of course, your "overview" post can't possibly be mistaken for a troll for karma, now can it?
But try doing Kevin Bacon ...
A press release from Microsoft stated that game developers were flocking to XBox. Xbox now has 3802 games.
Considering many of these consoles end up in the hands of children who generally don't follow the rules on proper CD/DVD handling, a mod chip should be at the top of the list for any parent who doesn't want to re-buy those $80 games everytime the kids step on 'em.
This is a totally legitimate use of a mod chip, and isn't piracy at all!
So short-sighted, the "anti-piracy" squad can be.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Overrated? That seems damn insightful to me.... what are the moderators smoking today?
Just keep standing your ground. The more they keep forcing things down the public's throat the more it is going to drive it home to the average user. Eventually people will wake up from their slumber and say they have had enough.
I personally don't buy any MS products nor do I recommend them to family and friends. Their products are below average in capabilities. They do not comply with standards and generally don't play well with others. Reminds me of the little snot-nosed brat who used to live on my street. He always had to be one-up with everybody, always had to have his view/opinion taken as THE view/opinion, etc. I find MS attitude (albeit business) to be aggressive, abusive, subversive and exploitive to competition. By taking down the binaries, they are refusing people's desire for inovation and just plain old fun tinkering around a piece of equipment. MS would have you keep the "blinders" on so-to-speak as they did with mules/horses in times past.
Keep smothering us, MS. You are doing exactly what some of the big guys did back years ago and you see where they are now. Apple is not as competitive as it used to be. They had the processor code locked down to a subset of vendors/developers. IBM locked individuals into long-term expensive tech support (anyone remember the poor description of errors? only their technicians new and charged outrageously).
Meanwhile, I think I will continue to tinker, play and learn. It's, after all, what I enjoy doing. I can't be forced to be a groupie or dumbed-down(out). If I am, then I turn my attention to vendors who do. I know my children play on a SONY box not that cheap retro-fitted PC wannabe. I do my coding on Linux for multiple environments using standard items. Java is doing ok and my customers aren't complaining in regards to their applications.
Obviously if a dealer cant sell them, no one can sell them on EBay, either. And they'll enforce them. XBox was a waste of time on MSFTs part.
In Win32 development?
And then you run the code in Lindows, Wine, etc....Doesn't MS own the code to MFC42.DLL, DIRECTX.DLL etc etc?
Step one: Place X-Box on secure platform.
Step two: Place drink on X-Box
Step three: Turn on Gamecube and enjoy.
Terminator: Future Shock - The game Halo was a clone of. Also a much more fun game and better atmosphere. Multiplayer, vehicals you can drive yadda yadda. Halo is teh sux for FPS gaming.. Compare it to Half-Life or Wolfenstien, and it is just a sad sad game.
But, try doing Kevin Bacon...
Cuecat scanner? Hard ware hacked to what avail? Where are they now? Cuecats, that is...
Microsoft has indeed learned from their business model. This is in effect a good reason NOT to buy an XBox, but to stick to games for your PC, preserve that market and you'll still have the option to buy games for it in 5 years. You buy games for proprietary game consoles and watch the PC market wither and you'll have been your own worst enemy (and still be pointing the finger at them to blame.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Are u sure they could do that? Because if the person bought them before MSFT made a deal of them, and when it was ok to sell them on Ebay (MSFT hasn't said anything before about this have they?), then could they go back and get people for what they did in the past?...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Do you know how much piracy took away from profits on the original PSX? Almost a billion in profits. People were sticking a chip in the PSX and renting games for 2 days only to burn their own copies. Sure companies still made money, but they coulda made a hell of a lot more.. Taking money away from developers is sad. I know this has nothing to do with the MAME stuff, but mod chips in general are created to allow games that were illegally copied to run on said system. While other uses can be mentioned, you simply cannot deny the primary reason. This is why Napster took a big dump. Sure, lots of indy people were sharing, but the majority were just ripping off everyone. And while music is a touchy subject, games really arent. It's cut and dry since you can rent games before you buy them, and with music you really cant unless you wade through hours of crap on the radio. Sigh.
Whoa! My bad -- you meant that we'd all be using secure Unix boxen, right? dude, I apologize wholeheartedly. Sometimes jokes go sailing straight over my head...
My bad...
Phil
I'm only replying because by some miraculous wonder, you did not get modded down.
There is absolutely no legal reason to own a modified console.
I'll repeat the obvious, Import games that are regionally encoded with no plans to ship to your region.
"Well, my modified Dreamcast lets me make my own games and play them!" No, it lets you play burned games that you download from the Internet.
There are people that do write their own DC games. Just because the majority of people use it to steal games that aren't being produced, or sold right now does not make everyone who modifies thier machine a pirate (and the people who do steal games are not right just because they aren't available anymore, either).
as soon as you put a burned game into that machine, you've committed a felony
This is not always true. You are allowed to make backup copies of software you legally own. I only bring copies of my music CD's to work, does that mean I'm a felon whenever I listen to "3 Doors Down"?
Why do you think Microsoft included an ethernet adapter? It's because when "Xbox Live" goes live, they can see your machine. They could see your saved games, they could see how often you play, and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because the entire operating system is proprietary, and there's no way to disassemble it. You couldn't even install a piece of software on the Xbox to trap packets coming out of it, because it would have to be approved by Microsoft.
And you AREN'T bothered by them watching what you do on your home entertainment system? Remember that they are adding a PVR to this machine, they will watch that as well. (My only hope is that they use information about what people REALLY watch on TV to keep from cancelling the good shows. Of course, I know I'm going to be sadly disappointed by finding out what people really watch). What happens if someone watches an adult movie on their X-box one night when the kids aren't home, only to have "adult entertainment" ads invade their home for the next few weeks when the kids are home. This should bother everyone.
No legit user would ever want or need to open up their console to play games
I agree and disagree with this statement. This IS why people buy console machines. You have a black box, toss in a game, flip a switch, and you're playing. That's all it's supposed to be, no more, no less.
I disagree with it because many legit users open their machines for fun. Who didn't open up their nintendo or atari at some point (usually near the end of it's life) just to see what it was like on the inside? Saying no legit user should ever have to open it up for any reason is akin to saying no driver should ever look at their engine: They don't know what is happening, and could only either break it, or be doing it for an illegal purpose.
The amount of "good" games is controlled by the console manufacturers already. Sony releases fewer games in the U.S. as it does in Japan, Nintendo is not much better. I'm sure that Microsoft will do the opposite (release more games in America than Japan), at least I hope so. Modern games being copied hurt game developers severely. Older games aren't the same way. The people who put the blood and sweat to work on them usually aren't with the same company 15 years later. There are Three different games that are freeware for MAME even.
As for your last argument, THAT should have earned you flaimbait -1 right away.
Mod chips don't make felons - copied games make felons.
TDY
Let say you have your modded Xbox, online, through whatever method you can get your Xbox online.
Then lets assume you have a game you want to play (dupe or not a dupe) online. Halo: Online edition, sports, DOA online, whatever.
What is going to stop MS from giving your Xbox an online update? In order to play online you're gonna need to connect to their servers, right? They want COMPLETE control over the online servers to prevent cheating, so that is gonna give them the ability to roll updates to the BIOS, games, etc, to make sure all of these games are "cheat" free.
A BIOS update, to the Xbox (I'm sure its possible, its a PC, right?) could effectively kill the mod chip(s) in the system. Could they also disable the Xbox until the mod chip is out of the system? Possibly.
Now, lets think about the possibility of someone hacking the game servers and running them? Someone could figure out how to run their own Xbox game servers and MS will shut down them. No on could play online, with the Xbox, without MS in the middle.
Sure, its an Xbox, its from MS, and we own the box, but they certainly could try to enfore their own rules on a system you own and operate. Enjoy the Xbox now, but you *may* not be able to enjoy the Xbox's online with the modifications.
just on loan?
since it is still, according to most of you , property of microsoft, then what the hell are you Buying it for?
My point being buy a cheap top end ps2/ps1 and use the existing *nix ports.
It is my firm belief that as long as you enter partnership with MicroSoft one would not face this dilemma (or buying the sdk) so buy it, partner up but please stop whining like the little brother that got sucker punched...
Do Something...
fyi im a bsd / wxp troll
"There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do NOT wave in a Vacuum " --Arthur C Clarke
Sure, research from Enigmah-X, based in China, has been shut down, but we can purhcase these chips. I believe Liksang.com, located in Hong Kong, still sells these chips. If you ever make a trip to the Far East, be sure to check out China and Thailand. A popular Asian philosophy that implies that "knowledge is free" is a reason why local officials drag thier feet to shut down production operations or enforce intellectual property laws. Movies, software, video games, and a long list of other items are considered "knowledge" there, which explains the existence of their large "piracy" market. Mod chip development, which involves research and development, is also considered as something needed to attain what is considered "knowledge", for example video games. (However, China has begun a recent crackdown on software-related piracy in recent months, as it tries its hardest to enter the WTO).
In Thailand, you can obtain PS2 and Xbox games from 2.50-5 bucks a pop. Ps2 and Xbox mod chips in Hong Kong cost less than 110 of US currency in the local markets and stores, last time I checked. X-box Mod chip development will likely pop up in Asian countries, so be on the lookout if your interested in this subject.
The Asian mentality which states that "knowledge is free", which is Confucian in origin, is something a so-called "Westerner" may not understand, especially when that person lives in a country full of IP laws. This explains the seemingly endless battle of American companies, such as Microsoft, against the gargantuan "piracy" markets of Asia.
Also, this quote from a paper of a student of Rutgers University titled "Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China" describes the situtation of IPR (Intellectual Protperty Rights) in China:
"Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests.[15] Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s."
As one can see, the IP battle between West and East began with ideas created in the West and East. Microsoft's successful attempt to shut down R&D on the Enigmah-X is part of it.
As one famous Chinese scholar once wrote:
"To steal a book is elegance."
More information on the reasons behind the East-West IP battle can be found in here:
"Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China", an essay written by Sheng Ding
"To Steal A Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization" by William P. Alford
Just because nobody cares, doesn't make it right. I don't care if you copy and play all those old games, maybe you are even doing them a service. Just don't go around spouting off about how it's your right to do so.
It's true that some of the games that MAME plays would not even exist anymore if it wasn't for MAME. But some of the games it plays, like the ones from the later part of the 90's, are still in arcades and still exist. It's just a 'grey' area and that's only cause nobody cares. If people cared, then it would be wrong to copy the games because you are stealing people's content.
I guess that it come down to the question if you steal something and nobody cares, did you really steal anything at all?
> and only be able to buy gas from approved vendors at a dollar a gallon premium.
better analogy:
and only buy gas from approved vendors at a dollar a gallon of rat's piss.
"Contrary to popular belief, UNIX is user friendly. It just happens to be selective on who it makes friendship with"
I dont give a damn about 'aup' or anything like it.
I *OWN* the damned thing, i didnt lease it. So im free to do what ever i want in my own home. Be it mod it, or beat it with my fist.
Same goes for the software, its mine. Period.
Now if i try to make money off it, different story..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My next computer is going to be a Mac. I want try and be as MS Free as I can be. Before long they are going to say anything built with VB or ASP is fully owned by them.
You don't like MS's policy for the X-box? Don't buy the X-box. Don't buy accessories for for your X-box if you already have one. And especially don't buy any more games. You want a console buy either a Game Cube or a PS2, and stop whining about Halo or whatever not being available for it.
People whine about Microsoft bashing and whatnot saying that "Not everything that comes out of the Evil Empire is bad". Yes, everything that does come from the Evil empire is bad. Anything that is visibly bad is simply appeasment to get people to look the other way while they keep twisting the knife. The have 40 billion in cash, (probably 45 billion by now), they only way they are going to change is by adamant refusal to buy their products, and showing that everything they do is simply to entrench their monopoly: Palladium and .NET for example. You want to fight policies, hold an X-Box party and run over the damn things with a steamroller.
How many of you MS bashers out there still have an X-box and are still buying games out there? You hippocrits know who I'm talking about. If you want to bash MS, bash your X-box and buy a PS2. Go ahead, put your money where your mouth is.
They've already announced as much...I've been saying for a while now that the X-Box is the first step towards a Microsoft-branded PC.
This is the future they want: Windows will only run on the Microsoft PC. Every X-Box sale brings us closer to even worse monomode consolidation and thinking.
So, even if MS manages to kill of all of the mod. chip makers, you can still do a homebrew mod by flashing a flashrom on your computer mobo with the hacked bios and wiring it up. This puts the power to mod. you XBox in your hands, but unfortunately it looks as if MS is targeting people illegally using their XDK. What we need is an open sdk for the XBox and/or to wait a bit longer for XBox Linux. Anyway, I'm glad I grabbed MAMEX already.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
This is a joke! The hardware does not belong to Microsoft. When you buy the hardware you should be able to do what you want with it. You are not bootlegging software, you are opening the box so that you can run open source code. there is no
way Microsoft should be able to stop users from doing what they want with the hardware.
So.. why not boycott the piece of junk and build a
true opensource product?
Hey, now wait a minute. A kick in the ass I can understand, but the X-BOX people have to get IE too? Be humane, please!
Microsoft making a big song and dance about this will surely result in more publicity for MAME. Wonder how long it'll be until there's a MAME that'll work on X-BOX without needing a mod-chip? That'll really hurt MS as lots of people get lots of great games, and MS don't make a dime out of it - heck, they actually lose money because the console itself is a loss-leader (even if they are using slave labor over in China now to make 'em)
all I can say "Holy Fucking Shit" Zach and Brian I hope Microsoft didn't bite off to much of your ass... Post the email if you can!
So, what they can do:
Use the SDK to build gcc.
Use the resulting gcc to build gcc2
gcc2 is then MS-free. Now distribute gcc2.
I hear ya there...I saw Halo at a friend's place. After all the hype and BS about this game, you can imagine my shock at seeing "yet another damned shooter, but THIS time with crappy gamepad controls!"
Seriously, there isn't a single thing about Halo that is new or great...and don't give me that "but you can drive vehicles!" crap...hell, you could drive vehicles in Tomb Raider II, and how many years old is that??
Gamepads stink in general, but for FPS games they are almost useless. And besides--what's WITH the whole gamepad thing? I'm right-handed...why am I forced to control things with my left thumb? Back in the good old days, when people knew how to make a good JOYSTICK, I drove the stick with my RIGHT hand. Damn, Wico really knew how to make a good joystick in those days...
A dollar a gallon for premium???
Geez...I pay a buck and a half a gallon for regular.
You can't distribute a Microsoft-free Xbox binary and then say to people "Just Add Microsoft from your own Xbox binary!", because the process that signs the binary is the copyrighted software that Microsoft is objecting to.
Basically, if you can write your own software to sign a binary that an Xbox will accept, then you're golden. Unfortunately that requires breaking Microsoft's encryption keys...
Why doesn't someone make a system that uses a chip that coincidentally can replace the X-Box chip...and then sell components.
One wonders when Ford Motor Company will start telling people they can't put mag wheels on their cars without voiding the warranty, or worse, having their corporate lawyers shut down the mag wheel manufacturers. Like George H W Bush, I must have been in the men's room when the congress passed a law making M$ a law unto themselves. The only people with the legal right to circulate a physical object without giving up all control over how that object is used are the federal government, and that product is the currency of the United States (or any other government/currency).
Somebody with deep pockets and an interest in the preservation of property rights in this world where the Communist Chinese butchers can be considered a valuable ally and the American president can sit down to tea with a scoundrel like Vladimir Rootin' Tootin' Putin needs to countersue the M$ cretins over loss of these constitutionally guaranteed property rights.
Funny what people think they can get away with when they've been paying off their local representatives to the government in Washington.
OT: Do you suppose the SEC is going to look at M$'s accounting practices? One wonders what are considered daily expenses and what is considered capital expense around Redmond.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
MS just shot themselves in the foot, methinks Mame had the potential to bring revenue to MS in terms of the reluctant Mame fanboys and pc emulators now without the possibility of mods and ports XBox is looking less tempting now.
ie:the Nazi occupations of Lativa/Poland
Does anyone on here really care about this?
/.ers that (gasp) actually PURCHASED an X-Box? I'm *SHOCKED*! I thought we hated Microsoft, not supported their reign of terror?
You mean to tell me that there are
Also, for syntax purposes, what is the plural of X-Box: X-Boxs or X-Boxes?
Chris
This entire thing is ridiculous. Having the chip is not morally wrong. Running Linux on your X-Box is not Morally wrong. Copying your friends game and running it on your modded xbox..now that is morally wrong. Legally they are all wrong. Quit bitching to the masses and bitch to your congressman. That is the only want this changes.
Hmm... if the final binary has to be byte-for-byte identical with that generated by the development tools, so that the signature keeps working, then it could get tricky. But still I think it is possible to 'bleep out' all portions of MS-copyright code in the binary - replace them with zeroes - and then the user at the other end can combine this censored version with a real Xbox binary to get back the original. A real PITA though.
Hang on, can you explain this stuff with the signing keys again? Wasn't the MAME port that Microsoft objected to itself a signed binary? If you have access to the development kit, which can generate signed binaries, then you already have Microsoft's encryption keys. Or am I missing something?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
People should pirate shit. It helps get the word out and sell more, becuase it helps breed enthusiasm for whatever is being pirated.
These corps should stop worring about collecting every cent, and making us all criminals in the process. They should change thier business model to allow for some piracy. Piracy is IMPOSSIBLE to prevent. So why fight it, you still get money, just not rediculous gobs of it.
Joysticks suck for platform games. You have to move the stick to far to change directions
Congratulations, you have been trolled. And someone was even dumb enough to mod you up for replying to an OBVIOUS troll.
You, sir, need to get out more. Dumbfuck.
Even Sony has admitted that sales of Playstations increased when mod-chips became available.
This M$ world domination scheme must stop.
If I were to buy an X-Box it would ONLY be after a divx mod was available. Until then, I will absolutely not give M$ even one cent.
But I can still understand why they're upset, even though they have only themselves to blame for the situation. They practically give away the box to entice people to buy the software for it, knowing that this is the best way to gain a bigger market share since so many people already have PS's Nintendo's and whatnot.
It's like when a cell phone company gives you the cell phone in return for spending money on usage. They lose money by giving you the phone, but make it back in service charges. The main difference here is that Microsoft does not require anyone to sign up for a monthly service and as such are not guaranteed any additional income. So, since they're losing money on the box itself, it doesn't make sense that no further income is guaranteed. Nobody can run a business like that.
IF they did require a monthly service one would require to sign up for, I don't think a lot of people would even consider buying the box when the competition doesn't and has a bigger selection of software available. This is exactly why the X-Box is likely not to be the success Microsoft wants it to be. Anyone who buys any type of electronic gadget has every right to do with it whatever he or she wants. They can even plug it in and drop it in their bathtub in order to kill themselves if they want to. If Microsoft relies solely on revenue from software bought AFTER the initial sale of the box, when that sale is not required, it's just a plain dumb business plan. I don't think ANY other company could suggest that kind of wishful thinking to it's shareholders. But because Microsoft has billions to spend on this endeavour they can stand to lose money longer than most companies, before seeing a profit. The question is, how long are the shareholders willing to wait? How long before the X-Box either goes up in price or off the market?
-- This sig for rent.
What Palladium is proposing is that the boot decryption keys are embedded in the CPU itself. They need AMD & Intel's cooperation for this, of course, and now they have it. This way, it's all but impossible to modify the boot code or to view the encryption keys, except perhaps by shaving the top off the CPU & examining the ROM mask directly with a (very) high-powered microscope.
Palladium may not take off (there's going to be a lot of privacy concerns, and it's going to be very difficult to secure comprehensive industry support, or it just won't fly), but they sure as hell can implement it in Xbox 2.
Even this approach can be defeated by e.g. bugs, human error, social engineering etc etc, but it makes things a lot harder to crack/reverse engineer from the hardware/software aspect. Look for Xbox 2 as a feasibility study of the Palladium concept.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
It wasn'y clear from any of those links on what gounds microsoft objected. It wasn't a port of one of their games, was it, but rather to their platform?
How is this different from apple throwing a hissy fit because I've ported galeon to run native on carbon (which I haven't, but for sake of argument)?
I truly am confused, not just shocked, shocked. Not askign you to justify M$ reasoning, just explain it.
We wouldn't be able to modify our engines in any way ... Or pc manufacturers for that matter ... those with 386's would be stuck with 386's ... This is ridiculous!!!
Hahahahha!! My post (parent) got modded down as "redundant"!
I thought my post would make other posts redundant. I guess I should have posted sooner, they must have made mine redundant.
"Derp de derp."
Since M$ has dick and shit there... China servers can host it and MS can't do diddly there.
Yah, we know you know how to link. How about a single link about the news you want to share?
Or would a more realistic question be what didn't they threaten them with?
Refillable ink cartridges are an excellent analogy to this XBOX situation - if I remember correctly, the major printer manufacturers are getting sued over the way they handle the pricing of their printer cartridges. The point is that both businesses sell the major hardware so cheap that they lose money on it, assuming that they will make the money back from sales of accessories. From a business standpoint, this approach is flawed because of the changes in the ways consumers approach intellectual property.
Let's extend your analogy a bit. I'll start a car company, and make cars that require a special type of fuel. I'll price the car competetively against others on the market. How long before someone else starts producing my fuel at a cheaper price? Not long. Who cares if it "costs the company money" when you buy from the cheaper source?
Now hackers have provided alternative "accessories" for the XBOX, and no one cares about Microsoft's business plan.
-dbc
Heh, the dollar a gallon part sounds kind of nice right now...
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Are they going to stop production of the Win32 version of Mame now too? (rhetorical question)
I would like to see on what grounds they stopped the port of Mame.
Not to inject any sort of rational thought into this, but didn't Sony go after a bunch of PS2 Mod-Chippers? I'm not sure how this is really that different.
Giving away copies of Mame is hardly making a profit, but even for those making and selling mod chips, so what? They are not doing anything illegal (afaik). They didn't steal trade secret information, they legitimately reverse engineered the console. For M$ to claim no one can do such things goes contrary to all precedent and logic. If you buy a car you can have a third party company customize it, repaint it, add spoilers, a sunroof, or more, even when the factory offers the same features. I can't think of any industry other than M$ and the console industry where such a concept of not being able to modify a product and use as you see fit is applied to a product that you buy, and that has to include being able to buy the modification parts from someone who legitimately designed and made them.
If Microsoft grew food they would claim that no one could buy that food and then open their own restaurant.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If the XMAME port isn't signed, then how can it be violating Microsoft's TOS? The mod chip required to run it is definitely a violation, but the software itself obviously is not, since it can't even run on an unmodified console. I think this is grounds for a lawsuit.
and makes the money back on the games. If you used this computer as a Linux box - Microsoft would lose money ($100 per box). I don't think they care about their SDK too much.
How many XBox owners got lots of broken arcade PCBs of games which can (thus legally) be played with MAME?
Not many I guess.
And for all the other Xbox MAME fans, I don't think the very few arcade games which have been now released as Public Domain are really worth the hassle.
UNIX boxes are not as secure as you think. I've always found them fun to hack. Whereas MSFT boxes are boring to hack and not worth the time.
And in other news today, trees are made of wood...
MS preventing MAME for XBox is like smacking your grandmother so she'll shut up about living through WWII.
Glad someone's at least TRYING to keep the old games around.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Microsoft isn't very smart in the best sense of the word. They try to act soon on these infringes, yet it only encourages people to go underground with these things, and god knows underground stuff allways runs faster, better and more secure
Seriously, the reason why the console doesn't sell as good as ps2 is simple: lack of good games, and high component cost. People trying to mod the box are undercutting the one feeble pillar xbox might rely on to survive: selling games. And these games aren't just produced by Microsoft. There are other companies involved that realy have nothing to do with MS, they simply target a dev. platform that happens to be Xbox. Whether that is a smart thing is something else, but they aren't gonna be making much more games if no one brings in some cash to compensate x years of development. MS needs those 3rd party teams to live. Interestingly, those teams do not per se need MS.
But microsoft makes other mistakes as well. Today it's far easier to get a modded xbox - or even a ps2 devkit - than an xbox development kit. It seems MS is unable to supply developpers on time, jeoppardizing milestones, release dates,
MS is in for a threat. The whole thing is costing them far more than their worst predictions, and their supply lines are drying up. They do have enough cash, but while they may live, the rest of the pack will have crossed over big time, or gone bust. And they can't possibly get the xbox thing going without that crucial 3rd party support be it games or video or IP or whatever. MS is a very very slow learner in this very hot market where the competition is neckbreaking steep, and Sony is your best bet. For now. Xbox will live, no matter what.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Yes one must wathc out for the leigons of fans which only buy from 1 company....because of the console they have. Many people will get both though one easy reason for this would be FFX and Monky Ball. & I bet you never bought a turbo grafix or Neo-Geo when tey were out either.
Quit whining!
There can't be competition if you do not support the alternate choices, I agree with that.
But that does not mean that you should by a product that will not do what you want it to.
Microsoft is not really a good choice for competition because they are showing a wilingness to use the same buisness tactics (bullieing and whatnot) in the console market as they did in the OS market. So I'm going to support a known not as evil rather than the new tasty evil just because it is different.
Jerry : So were going to make the Post Office pay for my new stereo?
Kramer : It's just a write off for them.
Jerry : How is it a write off?
Kramer : They just write it off.
Jerry : Write it off what?
Kramer : Jerry all these big companies they write off everything.
Jerry : You don't even know what a write off is.
Kramer : Do you?
Jerry : No. I don't.
Kramer : But they do and they are the ones writing it off.
Jerry : I wish I just had the last twenty seconds of my life back.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
once the xbox is purchased, wouldn't any mods done to it become your business? i wonder what would happen if the auto industry followed suit and decided that you couldn't supe up your car or add any after market items to it
I'm not completely familliar with all the weird quirks of your DMCA, but I believe that a device becomes a circumvention device when it's sole intended purpose is to circumvent DRM schemes. Now, I know that the mod chip lets us do cool things that we have the right to do on our Xboxes, but the mod chip was made for pirates.
There are too many people today, whose first question when they get internet access is "So how do I get stuff for free?"
A cease and desist order must have been sent like always...
First of all, why are we no longer allowed by law to play with, change, and generally learn from things we OWN??? And why aren't we allowed to share what we have learned with people who have the same interest?
Yes, mod chips, whether for the PSX or Xbox, are used to play illegal copies of games. Hell, most people probably buy them for that very reason. Yes, Napster and other P2P software/services provide a way for people to illegally obtain and distribute music. Most people probably use them for this too.
At the same time, both also provide a means of using the platform legally. Mod chips allow people to develop software for the console. P2P can be and is often used to distribute with the consent of the copyright holder. Must one except to only use "official" software and accessories in order to buy a gaming console? Is this clause in writing anywhere? Although I really have no idea, I think not!
Just like the above technologies, guns are often used to commit crimes. They are also used legally to hunt and for target shooting. Guns are still and will always be legal even though they are often used to END life. Have you ever heard about a modchip or P2P being used to kill someone?
My point is, each of these are nothing more than tools, and people choose how they are used. In the case of a gun, the consequence of illegal use can be much worst. Yet we still have guns because they are not always used to commit crimes. Why isn't technology viewed the same way?
Cash cows with money to burn legally threaten poor chumps over and over just only to end up fighting a baseless case when it goes to court. The chump caves much of the time in order to avoid the cost of a legal fight!
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
MS have never said Xbox would be "integrable" with "other stuff". They never pushed the fact that it was based on standard PC parts. They always pushed it as a killer game console, nothing else.
There will never be a "commercial OS" to run on the Xbox, if MS have anything to do with it. Repeat after me: It's a game console, not a PC.
The online service has not been opened yet, but even so you can still play half a dozen games, including Halo, Tony Hawk (2X & 3) and Nascar Heat, over the net. Not quite "no inter-web games available", whatever that means. When Xbox Live opens in a few weeks, there will be dozens of net-based games, as promised.
And clearly you haven't looked at what uses the hard drive HAS been getting. First off, virtually infinite save games. Second, rip your music & play it from there without the CD, or play it instead of a game's supplied soundtrack (this is really nice). Third, caching game data really does speed up game load times, especially during the game itself. Fourth, it allows you to add content to a game, as DOA3 did with their recent bonus add-on disc.
Fifth, and most important, games are starting to use the hard disk for LARGE amounts of persistent data. Morrowind is a current example of a huge, really detailed world that is simply not possible without the HD. Project Ego is an even more ambitious RPG that preserves & evolves every last detail of the world - forget doing that on a memory save card!
And of course they're pissed off at modders. They will oppose anything that gives people a reason to buy the Xbox (which they take a loss on) and not buy games from it, at least until they can break even on the sale of the box. They will (of course) also oppose anything that might promote or allow piracy of games, to protect their publisher partners.
They haven't "given us a bunch of resources", they're selling a game console, just like Sony et al. And just as with the other consoles, people are seeing the Xbox as a challenge - one with more promise than PS2, DC etc, since it has a built-in HD & ethernet, a faster CPU, more RAM, better gfx & sound and it's a largely familiar architecture.
You're complaining that the Xbox is "useless" because of its lack of non-gaming support, yet you claim MS doesn't belong in the gaming industry? Make up your mind.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You could build your own opensource box, sure. People do it every day, it's called a PC. But PCs aren't being subsidised to the tune of $150. You just can't build a better "piece of junk" for that $199.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
If you don't like their licensing terms, don't buy their product.
Try telling that to the power company. Microsoft is a monopoly.
CBDTPA (or whatever else comes out of those smoke-filled rooms in Hollywood) will require all computers to come with a digital rights management operating system. Microsoft has a patent on digital rights management operating systems. Therefore, Microsoft Palladium will be the only legal operating system for the next 20 years, and I'd bet money that when that term expires, Microsoft will lobby hard for a Cherilyn LaPierre Patent Term Extension Act.
Will I retire or break 10K?
There's an old story...a little girl finds a rattler shivering out on a cold rock. "Help me" it feebly croaks.
The little girl was a naive but nice one, and she knelt down to ask how she could help.
"Let me nestle in the warmth of your jacket...I'm cold." it whispered pitifully.
She obliged, and when she did, the snake bit her, sinking its fangs deep into her side. She instantly began to feel faint. She fell down, her head swimming as the poison spread in her body.
"Why? Why did you do this to me?" she said with her dying breath.
The rattler laughed. "You knew what I was when you picked me up." It laughed some more and slithered away.
End of story time.
Anyone who looks at X-Box with an eye towards modding or indie development or MAME or even "backups" (nudge nudge, wink wink) is kidding themselves. Microsoft put tons and tons of barriers to cracking in the X-Box, but did they realistically think that they would go unmolested? Nah. So they have their plan "B" and are using it.
Even Sega, who got out of the Dreamcast business a year ago, is still going after DC hackers. Remember what happened with the Lik-Sang programmer cable fiasco? And why was the Broadband Adapter pulled so quickly after it was released? And they are least harsh of all the console manufacturers.
Sony are bastards and so are Nintendo, but MS has made its bones by being the roughest, toughest, baddest-ass on the block. Yeah, they got medieval on the asses of people who wrote an emulator for X-Box. Did you expect anything else from them? Yeesh.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
AOL wouldn't exist (nuff said).
AOL did not start out on the Microsoft Windows platform. It was on Apple II and Macintosh computers years before the first WinAOL bisk was ever mailed.
Will I retire or break 10K?
IE
It only costs the price of the modem and a broadband access to play online (a one time purchase).
Broadband is not a one-time purchase but rather a recurring monthly expense. DSL or cable would cost $200 per month for me, because the service contracts run for at least a year, and I'm only home three months out of the year. (I'm at school for the other nine months, and they've restricted all gaming and P2P ports to 14.4.) Some of my friends don't even live in an area where cable or DSL is available; your "one-time purchase" would cost upwards of $200,000 to move house. Most gamers would not be willing to pay that much, and this is why most online games (including Q3A engine games) still support dial-up connections, to reach the largest possible market.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Would some AC be so kind as to post XBox MAME to Freenet and post the key here anonymously?
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
I don't picture myself ever being immersed in more than one MMORPG at a time
Perhaps you can only handle one game, and that's an MMORPG. But I do see many players being immersed in one MMORPG, one or two FPS games, a couple RTS games, and possibly even some non-top-three-genre games.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Once I own an X Box I should be able to do whatever the hell I want to do woth it..including installing whatever software and hardware I please....
why can't I do what I want with it?
Because it's illegal to rent PC video games in the United States (17 USC 109(b)) without the copyright holder's permission, and do you think Joe's Video Rental will have the time and money to negotiate contracts with all major PC entertainment software publishers?
Because you can't rent PC games, it becomes much harder to try them before you buy them because many of the demos distributed over the Internet are either 200 megabytes (bad for users in areas that can't receive broadband) or non-interactive FMVs.
Will I retire or break 10K?
No Love From Microsoft For Xbox Modders (Score:-1, Fucking Obvious)
Really, you don't think they put all that effort into locking down the X-box just so people could try to crack it, do you?
... well, let's just be polite and say that you
should not feed the Beast.
Prove there is a difference btw crackheads and gamerz buy not buying or using the Xbox.
Use the SDK to build gcc.
In practice, a cross-compiling port of the GNU Compiler Collection also requires a port of GNU Binutils, which is strictly not part of the GCC project, but is almost always distributed alongside GCC. Binutils contains the assembler and the linker. The Xbox SDK's linker signs the code with Microsoft's private key, and parties to whom the Xbox SDK is disclosed are contractually restricted from disclosing Microsoft's private key. The unmodded Xbox will not run unsigned software. Therefore, how will you make a linker whose output the Xbox will accept?
Will I retire or break 10K?
A dollar a gallon for premium???
This is what I immediately thought, but the confusion comes from the fact that "premium" appears in both the phrases "pay a premium" (pay more than one would normally pay) and "premium petrol" (petrol with more than 90 percent octane). Grandparent was referring to the former sense, such that if 93% octane petrol normally cost US$1.50 per gallon, Microsoft Gasoline would cost US$2.50 per gallon, a $1.00 premium over the other brands.
And with the combination of the CBDTPA mandating DRM and Microsoft's patent on DRM, Microsoft may be able to pull it off with the force of U.S. law.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Of course, every one of us would also be experiencing crashes and blue screens of death every day. And then there would be the internet email worms that would cause the million car pile-ups.
Computers have become faster and better. Software, for the most part, has just gotten bigger and more complicated.
My other first post is car post.
YOU can mod the XBOX you bought all you want. Rip the guts out and put them in a PC case. Put the guts into a child's training toilet if you so desire. Plug anything you want into the the ports if you like. Whack like hell with a soldering iron!
What you can NOT do is make mods that violate Microsoft's IP available to others. Not for sale. Not for free. Not at all.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I'm not sure, but don't all the mod chips require a hacked Microsoft BIOS ? That might make selling them quite illegal. Except for openxbox.de, who are basically selling an empty mod chip that you can flash over the parallel port, IIRC.
About boycotting, the thought of letting Microsoft spend time and money to establish this nice fixed-spec PC all over the world and then releasing a Linux distribution for it, that would be just beautiful...
Someone is wrong on the Internet!
I disagree, as well as does the company that makes mod chips. It isn't made for pirates. It was made to see if you could do it, and to make money (which is exactly why microsoft is in it), as well as for development...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Show me where the TV-Input is on a XBOX console please.
Try a TV input box connected to one of the USB-like controller jacks.
Besides, the Microsoft announcement was for the XBOX 2 console, not the current console.
Will I retire or break 10K?
However, they could add a field in all .DOC files containing a small piece of MS IP, such as a BMP of the Word logo or something, in future versions of the .DOC format.
This is exactly how the Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Advance "protection" schemes work, by including a small bitmap of the Nintendo logo in the header. But Nintendo can't enforce it in the United States because of the Sega v. Accolade precedent. In addition, the DMCA's circumvention ban makes an explicit exemption for reverse engineering aimed at interoperability 17 USC 1201(f).
Note that the Supremes are more fair than U.S. district courts.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've had lots of fun writing stuff for the GBA, but I'm ready for a more powerful platform now. I'm looking forward to writing a hobbyist game for the XBox.
Don't try developing for the Xbox. Develop for the Lbox instead. An Lbox is a standard PCI-bus PC with an NVIDIA GeForce video card installed, running Linux, X11, SDL, and OpenGL. You'll find the Lbox SDK at many fine software stores, under the name "Red Hat Linux 7.3".
Developing for the Lbox will be 100% legal unless and until the U.S. Congress passes the CBDTPA.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't understand how your nation can survive with a legal system like yours. In Australia, if somebody brings about a fesciscious court action against you, or threatens to, and is later demonstrated to have been a dickhead, then the judge will award all costs - that is yours as well as theirs - against that party. The last time a company made a stupid legal threat against me, I told them to go fuck themselves, and they did.
Not EULA, but Microsoft's property. Apparently binaries compiled with the XDK end up with some part of them still copyrighted by Microsoft, so they clearly have a case here.
If I recall, the original author of glide underground created some sort of a 'glide wrapper'...I can't remember too much as this was way back in 3dfx days.
But the point that stuck to me, is the same point you mention. 3dfx complained(with a cease and desist...if my memory is correct) to the author that the glide wrapper was created using 3dfx's proprietary SDK(using its headers and what not).
I'm still hazy on the details, but the glide wrapper author stopped development for a while. I don't want to say more, otherwise I'd be pulling arguments out of my ass. But I'll say this much, when people did reverse-engineer the API(nm'ed the glide DLLs), 3dfx couldn't say nothing. I guess the same would be for M$.
The whole point of this post is to show you that a similar incident regarding proprietary sdks already happened in the past. People learned, and moved on.
Gee, looks like the Chinese have believed it for a couple of thousand years!
Nothing new under the sun etc...
Sounds to me very ironic that the nasty Commie Chinese have a better grasp of the Internet world than The Land of the Free. They're just getting on with the world's fastest economic growth rate while the US is obsessed with making information private property. Yet another reason the USA is past its peak...
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
Anyone buying Xbox gets what they deserve, Microsoft Shit. Microsoft Shit right in your Eye!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
I don't get it. M$ is telling people that people can't modify something that they own? Christ, that would be the same logic as Chevrolet telling me that I can't put a new engine in my car or Dell telling me I can't put any aftermarket software or hardware on my system.
:)
I say to hell with them anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the x-box is a crappy knockoff of the real consoles.
Long live the Atari 2600!
My good sig is in the laundry
Would it be possible to make a program for the X-Box that could temporarily rewrite the laws inside the X-Box that decide what it can or cannot execute? Then you could burn this to CD, insert it and when it's done you take it out and run another CD with say... Linux!
Software is easier to distribute and use/install then modchips.
Don't fall for the BS. When you buy an X-Box you have BOUGHT one. When you buy HALO you also BOUGHT a copy of Halo, you did NOT license it. If there isn't a signed contract it is a SALE.
This of course does not mean you can do anything you please with that copy of Halo. Your use is governed by the copyright laws in your location. But the publisher cannot impose any additional terms and conditions on your use of the copy so long as you don't expect them to PROVIDE anything above and beyond supplying you with a working copy. I.E. support, upgrades, etc.
Democrat delenda est
Gas 'em. Gas 'em good.
Signing is only required when Xbox software is to run on the retail console. The compiler supplied with the Xbox SDK can't and doesn't "sign" code. Accordingly executables produced by the compiler will only run on XBox devkits and/or retial consoles with mod chips fitted.
The signing tool is not distributed to licensed software authors/publishers only microsoft have it.
The problem with your proposal of removing all ms copyrighted code after linking is that you'd need that a raw copy of all that removed code somewhere, (offically licensed software can't be the source as all currently released titles use a older version of the SDK/compiler). Also the said compiler is relatively smart in what it links/compiles for example orphan code isn't compiled in thus your model stub would need to require all the same libs and actually use all the same functions.
Developing a alternate compiler wouldn't help here as you'd still need the microsoft supplied libaries.
The whole XBox SDK package (libs, tools, docs) is covered by a PAPER contract signed by yourself or your employeer (if the SDK is licensed to your employeer you can still be displined by said employeer for producing home brew software using it), which has specific clauses stating you can not externally distribute (give to people who arn't your employees or who you don't have a business relationship with) binary copies "produced" using the supplied package. Produced is a interesting term as theortically it covers the documentation too, so even if you had a clean room compiler and libs you'd need clean room docs too.
Before there are any cries of MS are evil these terms are pretty well boilerplate for the console industry.
I hope MS lose 20 Billion dollars on Xbox/Xbox2/Xbox3.
I hope I can punch Billy on the face someday.
If a Xbox with a modchip runs the program, I'll call it a success.
What if Microsoft cracks down hard on Xbox modchip makers and gets USA Government to crack down on countries that don't comply with WIPO, as it has been doing lately? What if an Xbox with a modchip is no longer available, except on eBay for $3,000? Then it becomes pointless to port an app to a $3,000 modded Xbox when the Lbox is available from Wal*Mart for $500.
Fuck USA Government. Fuck PoizonBOx.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well after reading this artical I scrambled to buy myself a mod chip. The modchip companies are getting free advertising because of this to sell whatever they still have in stock.
Have USB interfaces IIRC, so you can put your favourite tool in the appropriate orifice and play to your hearts content!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Build a true open source project? Like what, Indrema? Or the TuxBox? You're kidding me, right?
Digital Millenium Copyright Act
The system has security systems built in, such as a CSS DVD player. The mod chip can be considered a circumvention device which is banned by the law.
That's how Sony was able to fight, too.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Stallman, stop posting as an AC, how many times have I told you, no flaming until after midnight!
And i refuse to follow it in *MY* home.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yeah, that's not a huge premium for Microsoft Quality.