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Nominations for 2003 Vaporware Awards
spin2cool writes "Wired News is now accepting submissions for its fifth annual Vaporware Awards. These awards "celebrate all those eagerly anticipated gizmos that were put off, put away or quietly put down. And, of course, those that existed merely as a figment of someone's imagination."
nt
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
This is obviously a clear winner...
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
I'm STILL waiting for one of these wonder computers Alan Alda told me about!
and spell checker on Slashdot
Biggest piece of vaporware of all time. However, I'll still put some faith in it on the slim chance that it really has needed and benefitted from being in development for ~20 years. Seriously though, can you think of any other piece of software that's been in development that long and is still largely incomplete?
i vote for infringing code by SCOG
2009 is listed as "an outside chance" from some Gartner analyst. 50% 2006, 40% 2007 and an outside chance of 08-09. Not to defend M$, but Gartner Group doesn't make their release schedule.
At this point it's less vaporware and more religion, since it is largely sustained by faith.
So, after three years, only one of the top 10 vaporware products from 2000 failed to materialize. In fact, most of them went on to become successes as well.
Ironically, the GNU/HURD may well be more friendly to proprietary software and drivers than Linux ever will be! Being a microkernel OS, drivers would have a far cleaner separation from the GPLed HURD kernel than the current loadable module system in Linux does. Though I wouldn't bet on it, we may actually get a stable, usable Hurd kernel before Linux fixes the binary modules issue that was the topic of a recent story. At least the Hurd team IS moving towards making a stable release, but it does not seem to be a high priority at the moment in Linux dev to make even something like the Windows DDK for kernel modules.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I nominate SCO Linux binary-only lisenced code. The only product supposedly on the market that no one has bought, no one knows what's in it, or why they should even purchase it.
TT
It's entirely possible that DNF does not even exist as a real project at 3D Realms anymore. Consider that the vaporware state of the game generates a tremendous amount of buzz for the DN brand and for the company. Consider also the grandious vision that is always laid out for the game.
Now, why would 3D Realms go and kill all of this excitement and attention by trying to release a game that could never live up to the hype? It would be very anti-climactic and could even kill the franchise. They certainly don't want to release the next Daikatana.
Also, investors generally don't have bottomless pockets filled with cash. How long can they pour money into a game development team before they start demanding results? Two years? Three years? Five years?
In the meantime, 3D Realms has released a slew of other DN games, when they should have been working on DNF. Though it may have been a priority at one time, DNF is obviously not a priority right now. Or maybe what started out as DNF was cleverly reworked and released under another title, thinking that it wouldn't live up to the hype (DN: Manhattan Project? Max Payne?).
Here's my prediction: 3D Realms will continue to be evasive on the subject, and will continue to release DN games... and when one comes along that they feel is worthy of the honor, they will rechristen it as Duke Nukem Forever. But only after they've almost completely exhausted the hype surrounding DNF.
that has been "six months away" for the last three years.
Said to be coming for decades, haven't seen it yet.
We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.
- Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
- Dick Cheney August 26, 2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
- George W. Bush September 12, 2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
- Ari Fleischer December 2, 2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
- Ari Fleischer January 9, 2003
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
- George W. Bush January 28, 2003
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
- Colin Powell February 5, 2003
We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
- George Bush February 8, 2003
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
- George Bush March 18, 2003
We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.
- Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
- Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark March 22, 2003
Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.
- Tony Blair 28 April, 2003
We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so.
- George Bush May 3, 2003
I am confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction.
- Colin Powell May 4, 2003
I never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.
- Donald Rumsfeld May 4, 2003
I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program.
- George W. Bush May 6, 2003
U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction.
- Condoleeza Rice May 12, 2003
They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.
- Donald Rumsfeld May 27, 2003
Link to source
There is a very simple explanation of why Saddam Hussein would have played the games he did with the UN weapon's inspectors and allowed the world to continue to think that he had developed WMD, when in fact he may have had none in any militarily significant quantities.
Any poker player could recognize the situation he was in. Saddam played what he thought was a very strong hand 12 years previously, anted up in a big way, and was called by US-led coalition forces. Now, he's stuck in the same game, with a much weaker hand, facing a very strong one, and he can't just fold. What would a poker player do? Bluff, of course!
The most reasonable explanation I have been able to develop was that Saddam was trying to bluff his way out of a untenable situation. He cared not one whit about "bloodying America's nose", or being "seen as a martyr". He only cared about surviving an invasion by the US and maintaining his hold on power, in that order. The best way to survive an invasion is to prevent it from occurring in the first place.
If I were Saddam in 2001, I too would have postured that I had WMD, and the wherewithal to use them (established many years previously when he gassed his own population and the Iranians), in the hopes that that would change the equation for the US strategic planners. (For recent evidence of the effectiveness of this strategy, I give you North Korea.)
The facts that
(1) the Bush administration put our troops on the ground and went ahead with it's plans for invasion and
(2) Saddam did *not* use WMD in a last ditch defense even when he showed no restraint in the past
indicates to me that the simplest and most likely explanation is that not only did Iraq NOT have WMD in any militarily significant quantities, but our government knew that to be true, even when they were positing the opposite.
I have heard every whacked out theory on Saddam and the WMD, and some well thought out, but very convoluted ones, but surprisingly, never ONCE have I heard this very simple bluffing explanation put forth in the media. How can it be that no official "analyst" has thought of it?
---anactofgod---
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."