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Anonymous Will Award $200,000 for Xbox Linux
An anonymous reader writes: "The X-box Linux Project at Sourceforge reports today that an anonymous donor will award nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the individuals responsible for the completion of a two-phased effort to run Linux on the Xbox. One can't help but wonder if this will help or hurt the community. On one hand, it is likely to generate additional interest in the project, on the other, some people may be less inclinded to share their discoveries with money on the line.
Then again, getting both Money and Glory sounds pretty good."
I pay you $50 to get Linux running on my TRS-80
Two hundred g's??? if only i could afford the 200 hundred bucks for an xbox.....damn college. :)
Second, assuming someone succeeds, a large cash infusion has proved to be the downfall of many Linux companies. Roger Stallman was right, money is the "root" (ha!) of all evil, just look at companies like RedHat and VA Linux Something.
Third, even if they succeed and no one is killed in the process, what possible use could Linux be on an XBox? I heard they use some kind of proprietary game format that Linux won't be able to read anyway. "DVD" or something.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
And someone wanted to convince me that there is no money to be made with free software.
Yes this is true. My first Meta bet will be that the Linux hackers beat the MS people. Any takers?
But then my buddy Steve put in another 100k.
Good luck,
Larry E.
I still think that =\
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
This person hasn't heard of RentACoder.com. Ex silicon valley
hackers have relocated to Bangalore India and are now taking massive devlopment projects for 65 cents.
I have been monitoring the site for quite a while, I want someone to port my
classic DOOMs to the PDA and no one showed up to take the job except for some
newbie called jcarmack. I will probably pay him the 70 cents he is asking for
just to give him a shot, no one else shows up.
And yes, my fur carpet is 100% coder skin, we hunted that from Java-ONE.
YEah, they should've just said:
Whew, fourteen seventieths, that's SOME SERIOUS DOSH! Personally, I'd settle for a mere three twenty-sevenths.
"if it wasn't anonymous, we'd know who it was"
hmm, are you 100% positive about that?
Turning Microsoft's business against them - Priceless
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
I reckon it's Bill. He's actually a bit of a liberal at heart (look at Slate and all the money he donates to UN health programs), and now he's horrified by what Microsoft has become. Having lost control of the company to the brutal apelike Steve Ballmer, he's looking for ways to subvert it.
Bill is trapped, a prisoner in his own machine. His best chance for freedom is to destroy it. Won't you help Bill? Won't somebody think of Bill?
Perfect, I can see the headlines now:
1. Open Source community ports Linux to Xbox
2. Gartner reports that actually over 10% of Xboxen sold are used by individuals and companies who install and run linux on them.
3. Microsoft cries foul play, DMCA is brought down upon the porting team.
4. The "Anonymous Donor" of the prize money is rumoured to be some terrorist organization......
5. Microsoft then touts the importance of "Paladium" to root out all evil in the world.....
We are doomed.....
Real men don't need signitures!!!
If they lose $200 and they sell it for $199 dollars, it costs them 199 +200 = $499 to build it.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
Here's the real story...
In the year 2003, the Microsoft empire begins its downfall. Amongst the world
begins a separatist action that forms an alliance in an attempt to destroy
the Microsoft world once and for all. Headed by the leaders of open source
community, the alliance begins to lure the povs into using free software.
Companies begin to get tempted into the idea and sign off contracts with
Microsoft.
The ruthless Lord Gates has foreseen these events. Being the student of the
evil Senator Pulpentine, Lord Gates creates a dark force across the alliance.
In 2002, he anonymously puts out a $200,000 reward for anyone who completes
the quest to run Linux on his empire's Xbox. The alliance named this generous
rewarder of money Sir BiG. It was through a secret company
that Sir BiG had established to create Open Source software. A company that directly
competed with Microsoft. A company that supported the initiatives of Mozilla
and OpenOffice. It was one hell of a company, yet was so quiet amongst the
alliance. Its purpose was to wreek havoc amongst the alliance and bring back the
Microsoft order that once was.
With the lack of understanding of the trap, the alliance's strongest
programmers enter the quest. Slowly they managed to crack open the doors of
this Xbox machine.
Knowing what is about to come, Lord Gates orders Senator Balmer to begin
creating an army of clones for Microsoft. The army was a new strand of the
Xbox, but seemed like an exact replica of the original machine. It was named
the Xbox v1.0001.fucklinux internally at Microsoft. The machine was capable
of detecting unsigned MS operating systems and M-O-D (modification of darth-X)
on it. When this happened, the Xbox v1.0001.fucklinux would signal to
MS coporation through its embedded encrypted wireless adapter - hidden so
deep that no alliance member knew about.
The alliance members finally finished hacking the Xbox and posted their results.Sir BiG generously pays the reward to the great hacker that is, Jedi Fuxnix.
Seeing Fuxnix as a potential threat, Lord Gates tempts him to become a Council
member of the order with the other great Jedis who sit there. Fuxnix finally
agreed after seeing all the money that Lord Gates was raking in.
After this time, the alliance runs in to chaos. They had all by now seen an
Xbox running Linux and began buying themselves their own Xboxes just to run
Linux. Little did they know that these were fucklinux models. Sir BiG's company
finally reveals itself, but is sued by Microsft for MegaMillions. The alliance
members began to get sued one by one by the evil Microsoft Empire. Members
began fearing the dark force, not knowing what to do they discarded their
greatest weapon of all time - their PC - and ran out to buy Xbox games just
to avoid legal action.
Lord Gates looked upon the world and laughed and laughed, . He had brought
back the power of Microsoft and forced all geeks to use Xboxes with legit
Xbox games. Microsoft finally is able to reap profit from the Xbox and bring
itself back to forefront of the commercial enterprise. Sir BiG was never to be
heard of from that day, but Lord Gates wasn't upset at losing that position.
It was well worth the effort. He looks at his minions and says, "we shall
continue the order with Xbox fucklinux 2"...
Recently, Richard snuck an exemption into version 3.0a of the GPL which allows Roger to continue using GPL'ed code as if it were a BSD license. The caused quite a stirr amongst the insiders in the Free Software GNUvement and Richard nearly lost not only the FSF position but maintainership of EMACS.
And, most recently, Roger has again slapped Richard in the face with his friendship with Eric Raymond, which blossomed as the pair worked on CLM2 in preparation for final submission to Linus.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Two different brain processes decide they want to solve the problem. One decides to round 199 up to 200, add the two numbers, then subtract 1. the other recognizes that the 100's position is the only position that need any work done... They get in a fight and hillarity ensues.
I love that idea. Just like a lot of farmers are paid to not grow corn, we can be paid to not write software! I can just picture it now...
(picks up phone and hits speedial #3)
Hello, Bill? Yeah, I was thinking since I'm low on cash and not a lot of good games are out right now, perhaps I might do some work. Like maybe I'll try to get Linux running on the XBox or something. Folks would like that.
What? Well, yeah I guess I could use $400,000. Oh, a copy of Warcraft III is on the way too? Why, thank you, but you really don't have...oh? A prerelease for Age of Mythology too? Well, that's most generous of you. No, I don't suppose I will have time to code anything after all. It was a pleasure talking to you too...
10 print "booting leuk_he/linux ont trs80 Model A"
20 print "No HD detected"
30 print "No FD detected"
40 print "entering runlevel 0"
50 print "starting lsh"
60 print #
70 read b
80 goto 60
I donate this program to open source.