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SpecOps Labs offers $10,000 to Emulator Developers
mparaz writes "SpecOps Labs, the makers of the "David" Windows emulator previously accused of ripping off WINE, are offering $10,000 to a team who can build a Windows XP emulator in 15 days. " This whole thing reads really strangely to me.
Judging by the quality of XP, it was written in 15 days too.
must be able to run David in it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Microsoft dev time making Windows: 10 years.
Linux dev time making Windows: 15 days.
..it'll run on this optical laptop.
SpecOps Labs insists that this has nothing to do with the fact that they have told their investors that the company will have a completed Windows emulator product fifteen days from now...
I'll give $5 to the first team to write an X-Box 360 emulator for Windows, but you have to have it finished in 3 days.
Any takers?
$10K for 15 days work? I dunno, that seems rather good for one person, but one person couldn't pull it off. Water it down over a dev team and it certainly looks less attactive, but it would probably look pretty good on a resume.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
That's because the story poster needs to read a litte more carefully:
As
proof or our sincerity, we are offering US$10,000.00* to the first
Consultant or Consulting Team who can take our challenge and prove their
capabilities. Our challenge requires the delivery of a solution that
will allow an MS-XP compatible application to install and run under
Linux using x.org and open source WINE by October 5, 2005.
In other words, if you can upgrade WINE to handle a new application in 15 days, they'll give you a $10,000 hiring bonus. At least, that's my interpretation.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
from TFI: 4. System becomes the property of SpecOpS Laboratories.
I doubt many people will be willing to build their product for them, for just $10,000 anyway
Do I win?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
That's totally impossible. Even if you had a trillion dollars it'd be impossible.
Whoever made that offer doesn't understand software or, more likely, is trying to encourage someone to spend 15 days obfuscating WINE to deliver it to him so he can start selling and then plausibly deny it when it comes up.
At the end of their 15 day time allotment, Apache will have finished compiling for you. All clear now?
So if I compile Bochs in less than 15 days I win?
From the requirements:
1. System has no proprietary software imbedded / required.
Loading a copy of Windows XP would be considered "proprietary software".
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This is *RIDICULOUS*. Assumming the Wine team only worked 2 hour per day, they've been at least 5 years working on it, which means 3650 hours.
Working 24 hours-a-day, 15 days would only mean 360 hours. Assumming they're not the EA-slavery kind of guys and give decent schedules (12 hours a day), that'd be 180 hours.
It's impossible, period. I say we bring the whole GNU community and investigate them.
I wonder if:
- the management already sold "their" windows emulator to somebody,
- has finally figured out that "their" windows emulator is a thinly-disguised, nearly verbatim copy of wine, in violation of the license terms,
- they need to deliver Real Soon Now,
- have very little money, and
- are trying very hard to bail themselves out before the delivery date.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Because windows costs $200 and linux does not.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Geordi: We can do it! Picard: Good! Geordi: It'll take 15 years, and an engineering team of 100, but we can do it. Picard: ....
Sony ha
They are just trying to get something for nothing, and they have a deadline. They obviously need to get this done quickly, and cannot afford to pay a developer team to write it.
Do they really think anyone in the open source community will be their personal slave for a few thousand dollars? Nice try, but anyone talented and fast enough to write this thing in 15 days doesn't need their money.
-- www.punkmusic.com
See Bruce Schneiers article on The Fallacy of Cracking Contests
does that mean _any_ ms xp compatible application?
"perfect wine for us in 15 days and we'll give you ten grand".
************
Criteria to Award and Conditions:
1. System has no proprietary software imbedded / required.
2. System is stable.
3. MS-XP compatible modules / functions are working as expected.
4. System becomes the property of SpecOpS Laboratories.
************
extremely vague. you can run some games and applications as expected right now so that can't possibly be what they're after, nor can they be looking for an app that was thought to previously not work but would work now(too easy to find some obscure app).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This reads (or skims, the way I read it) more like they want an intaller than an emulator. Doesn't it say needs to run on WINE?
This offer is so ridiculous, why even give them publicity???
The posting makes it sound like they have a specific app in mind. You email them indicating that you're interested and they email back a challenge registration form along with further instructions (I take this to be the "details" part).
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
The game support (and isn't Games why most people running Linux maintain a Windows partition) in XP was better than in 2000, which was supposed to be more of a work OS. And, as useless as they usually are, the "compatibility mode" option for running programs occasionally comes in very handy.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
If you can do this in 15 days working 8 hours a day, I'll guarantee you can demand more then $83/hour in the open market.
1. System has no proprietary software imbedded / required.
This is important to the contest, because WINE *can* use Windows DLLs. If you patch in a Windows DLL to get the code working, then that's considered cheating.
2. System is stable.
Whatever.
3. MS-XP compatible modules / functions are working as expected.
i.e. The program doesn't have oddities like unimplemented dialog boxes, or images that don't get loaded. The complete API used by the program must function.
4. System becomes the property of SpecOpS Laboratories.
They will take your changes and make them their own, but you get the $10,000. Whatever.
extremely vague.
I agree. Anyone looking to take up this challenge should contact SpecOps Labs and first verify the details of the contest. It would suck to pick something like Microsoft Calculator to implement only to have SpecOps say that it doesn't count. Of course, maybe nothing counts. Maybe they'll reject all entries on some technicality expecting to pick up the code when the developers give up and give their changes to the WINE project. *shrug*
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I made another copy of the text:
SpecOpS Laboratories
$10,000 Open Challenge
SpecOpS Laboratories (SpecOpS Labs) invites the Philippine ICT Community to participate in the DAVID Project. We are seeking a highly talented Consultant or Consulting Team that can contribute to the DAVID Project.
SpecOpS Labs is searching the Philippines for Systems-Level Hacker/s to serve as Development Consultant to the DAVID Project. As proof or our sincerity, we are offering US$10,000.00* to the first Consultant or Consulting Team who can take our challenge and prove their capabilities. Our challenge requires the delivery of a solution that will allow an MS-XP compatible application to install and run under Linux using x.org and open source WINE by October 5, 2005.
So, take the challenge now!
Criteria to Award and Conditions:
1. System has no proprietary software imbedded / required.
2. System is stable.
3. MS-XP compatible modules / functions are working as expected.
4. System becomes the property of SpecOpS Laboratories.
Registration Procedure:
1. Send us an Email indicating your intent to take up the challenge at ablang@specoplabs.com. Attach your CV(s) or company profile (if applicable).
2. SpecOpS will Email you the Challenge Registration Form and further instructions.
Challenge Activities:
1. Present the running solution at SpecOpS Labs office before October 5, 2005.
2. Validation of solution using SpecOpS Labs's criteria.
3. Award immediately.
* All monies in this challenge are subject to tax. The decision of SpecOpS Labs for the award is final.
I put the windows xp emulator here.
Now show me the money!
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
They earlier claimed that they will come out with project David which is supposedly NOT WINE -- now they can't deliver, and they want someone else to do a proof of concept for them. Pathetic. They want to hire the best people in the Philippines but they can't even deliver even with the original team which claimed that they can do it. Now they will pay someone who thinks can come up with something which is *almost exactly* what they promise. Pathetic indeed.
SpecOps Labs are offering $10,000 to a team who can build a Windows XP emulator in 15 days.
And what are our assets?
Your brains, his beowulf cluster, and my codebase.
That's it? Impossible. If I had a month to plan, maybe I could come up with something, but this?
.. so you have to actually go to the Phillipines on spec, in the hope they'll accept it and pay you?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
So what does an "Windows XP emulator" do? If it's supposed to be a full implementation of the functionality in Windows XP, their "offer" is probably best classified as a publicity stunt. If they mean an emulator that can run Windows XP (you know, like Dosemu is (not) a DOS emulator), then it's probably just about doable.
Of course, knowing the recent quality of Slashdot summaries and headlines, it's probably something completely different; probably "extend WINE (or the company's fork) to be fully Windows XP compatible".
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Yeah, yeah- I know it looks like I just installed Windows XP on a cheap PC. That's the beauty of it. It's *perfect* emulation. You simply cannot tell it's an emulator. Even the install disk looks *exactly* like a Windows install disc. Gimme money!
DAVID is Windows compatibility middleware, which enables all major Microsoft Windows applications to run on the free and open source Linux OS.
Except, David (what they're promoting above) doesn't exist. Never has. Never will.
OK, fine. Here's your app. It's notepad.exe, and you can find it on your Win95 CD. Extract it from the cabfile and rename it. Throw dat sucker onto a FAT16 formatted floppy.
Stick the floppy in your XP box. a:\notepad.exe. Did it run? Awesome. First criterion settled. an MS-XP compatible application
Now, boot knoppix. Stick the floppy in your (currently) linux box. mount -t vfat
ALT-F2, konsole, (so we can watch), cd
Where's my ten grand?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I strongly doubt it'll be finished in 15 days.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It's a lot of money here in the Philippines.
Funny they get back to us, the local developers, when their president declared there's no talent here and wanted to move on to India and Vietnam for his requirements.
I forgot the big one for those single geeks out there.
To watch pirated porn that's in WMV format.
That's a lot easier if you just run Windows Media Player under Linux.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
As I read it, it sounds like they are looking for a cutout.
This bit in the contest terms caught my attention:
So why would you set up a contest that you know nobody could win by following the rules?
Let's say that you represent an organization whose Windows emulation solution was to rip off someone else's solution (in this case, Crossover Office).
The owners of that original solution find out and you're busted. So now you're back to square one.
You could, of course, try to roll your own Windows emulator. But as others have pointed out, that's way more than fifteen days of work.
You could also license Crossover Office from Codeweavers. But for purposes of our discussion let's assume that you're a cheap SOB and won't do that.
So what you might do is decide to continue using ripped-off software, but this time, to do so using a cutout -- a third party standing between you and the code. In this case the cutout is the person who submitted the entry that won.
That way, when Codeweavers (or whoever) comes calling, you can say "But we're victims too! We were assured that the product didn't contain any proprietary IP! Look, it's right in the rules for submission!" And so the liability shifts from you to whover "fooled" you by submitting the ripped off software.
(Of course, if I were Codeweavers in that situation I'd argue that you should have inspected the software to ensure it met your rules before paying out the $10K. But maybe these guys haven't thought that far...)
By setting a ridiculously short deadline, you can be sure that any takers are going to be giving you exactly what you want -- someone else's ripped-off IP -- instead of trying to actually solve the problem from scratch.
Now you've got what you wanted without getting your hands dirty -- you have a fall guy to pass the buck to.
That's the only reasonable explanation I can come up with for why you would construct such a ridiculous contest, anyway...
Read my blog.
Well, that's ONE way to hit your deadlines before you meet a VC rep...
2. System is stable.
I thought this was supposed to be an XP emulator.
SpecOpS Labs slaims in 1 year time-lapse...
The VC's who put their money into SpecOpS Labs are probably itching to get their ROI by now. They probably burned through their capital funding and now the VC's want some returns, or at least a product that can be marketed. These guys are desperate now. $10,000 is probably the only money they have left and the VC's won't give them anything more unless they come up with something.
I always thought these people were just VC fishers.
See also their previous page with buzz-word laden spiels, and outlandish claims.
The summary of this story is a misunderstanding or fabrication. The offer appears to be for an XP application installer solution for Wine, not for an XP emulator. Then again, maybe the Full Text post and mirror are fabrications, but from what I read, they just want the installer, not a full XP emulator.
end of line
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$10,000 for a finished project, eh? This doesn't strike anybody as a "complete ripoff" rather than a competition.
If, in 15 days, I write such an emulator, I will be selling it, rather than giving it away for $10,000.