4 or 5 years ago a company called Virtual Vision had sunglass based consumer displays. They nearly went under when they found there was no market for them.
They are still around and they do mostly vertical market stuff now and they've become a subsidiary of eMagin which makes super small LCD displys (like 1280x1024 in less than 1 inch)
Since the sunglass thing they also make Borg like half sunglass attachements. The uses I've heard of are for example, a surgeon can wear one and have all your vital signs in his view (or just at a glance to the side of his forward view) at all times so instead of having to look up at all those machines hanging over the operating table he can concentrate on the surgery.
Another I've heard of is supposedly it takes a truckload of manuals to cover maintainence on commerical airliners. Well, they made a belt worn wireless networked computer connected to one of their displays with voice input so instead of having to bring the truck over and search through the paper manuals while trying to fix something the mechanic could just call it up on the display he's wearing and glance at it while he works on the problem area.
It is only federal law for HOURLY EMPLOYEES. Almost no tech workers are employed hourly they are employed as salaried workers.
Hourly employees get paid by the hour. By federal law, if they work more than 40 hours a week they must get paid overtime at 1.5 * their normal rate. If they are late or leave early they of course don't get paid for that time. Note: In California is also for any time over 8 hours a day.
Salaried employees (also called professionals by the federal labor law) get paid a yearly salary. By law, while they can be docked pay for missing a day they cannot be docked pay for being late or leaving early. If they only come in for 5 minutes a day and the company doesn't like it the company can fire them but they cannot dock them pay. If the company does dock them pay, then legally the company has changed them to an hourly employee and owes them for any overtime that they put in in the past. How far in the past in unclear and generally, salaried employees don't punch a time card or keep track of their time so they'd have no legal record of how much time they put in.
Conversely they are expected to put in whatever is asked of them, the company can ask 80 hours a week if it wants to and the salaried employee can either do it, quit or get fired but there is no law saying he must get paid more or get time off.
What is the point of WAP?
on
WAP Bashing
·
· Score: 1
Why do we need WAP? Why not just use HTML or a subset there of? My NTT Docomo Cell phone by NEC works just fine as is. So did my J-Phone cell phone by Sharp. I can read Slashdot from the PDA section. I can read my own webpage. I can use the Yahoo PDA section, the Amazon PDA interface, the Google PDA interface. The ZDNET Japan iMode interface etc. The standard already exists. I'm sorry if I'm ignorant of what WAP is trying to solve.
Cell phone e-mail was in the form phone#@docomo.ne.jp as in 09012345678@docomo.ne.jp That was exploited by the junk e-mailers as they could just write software that emailed every email address from 09000000000 to 09099999999 (090 is the prefix for cell phones).
The solution that the various cellphone companies provided is to allow you to choose and or change your cell phone e-mail address to anything you want (that's not already used) so for example. jowbloe@docomo.ne.jp
As an example when I got my cell phone, I wasn't allowed to register a new e-mail address until whatever info han propogated through their system. Specifically the next morning 9am. Within those first 20 hours of owning my cell phone with a phone#@ e-mail address I got 6 junk e-mails (and on a cell phone EACH E-MAIL COSTS MONEY)
Really? One of us has really bad taste. Please post some links to some good music on MP3.com. I usually use MP3.com as my example as to why "free music" doesn't work. Everytime I check out the top 10 or top 20 it's all complete and utter crap.
This HAS been discusssed before BY Richard Stallman. He has specifically called for a Software Tax and to BAN proprietary software.
Here are the relavent parts from HIS writings on the FSF webpage. http://www.gnu.org/manual/emacs-20.3/html_chapter/ emacs_40.html
From the GNU Manifesto [gnu.org]
---------------
All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.
But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to the project of his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes to use the results when it is done. He can take a credit for any amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay.
The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the tax, weighted according to the amount they will be taxed on.
The consequences:
The computer-using community supports software development. This community decides what level of support is needed. Users who care which projects their share is spent on can choose this for themselves
-----------------and------
What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.
From the GNU Manifesto
---------------
All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.
But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to the project of his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes to use the results when it is done. He can take a credit for any amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay.
The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the tax, weighted according to the amount they will be taxed on.
The consequences:
The computer-using community supports software development.
This community decides what level of support is needed.
Users who care which projects their share is spent on can choose this for themselves
-----------------and------
What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.
The GPL allows me to make private modifications without having to distribute the source but what does that mean?
I saw the "Website loophole" but is that only private websites run by one person. What if two people are involved in running the website?
Basically I see a bigger loophole. I seems to me that his idea of *private* is meant for companies. In other words if I work at IBM, I can make a mod to some GPL source and give it out to other IBM employees without giving them the source but if it goes outside of IBM then I have to distribute the source.
The loophole then is that if I wanted to use GPL code as proprietary software, All I have to do is get each person that buys my software to sign an agreement making them my employee / contractor. I'll pay them $0.01 salary (which I get from the $95 they paid for the software) at which point I can give my new employee this software without supplying the source.
If this is NOT the case then this idea of *private modifications* has no meaning.
USB doesn't count because it would have died if it had not been used on Windows. That Apple was the first to use it ignores that it was planned for PCs. Apple was just smart to recognize that it was "the future" and that since it was going to used by most PC gadgets it was in their best interest to support it so those same gadgets could be used on the mac with by supplying mac drivers.
This is almost the same reason they switched from NewBUS to PCI and the same reason they switched from SCSI to IDE except in those cases it was hindsight not foward thinking.
Same with FireWire, while Apple should be credited for putting it in Mac first, it was not their *innovation*. It is a standard developed by the camcorder companies.
One argument I want to anticipate is the idea that the original author can license the code in multiple ways so for example I could GPL an engine but still give licenses to friends so they can put it in their non GPLed games.
I find this argument to be disingenuous. The reason is simple. One of the biggest arguments to open source is that lots of people can contribute. Lots of people contrubuting makes the code more useful, new features, bugs fixed, etc. This new useful version of the code, as soon as it has more that just a few contributors, would be nearly impossible to license since you'd have to contact all the authors who's contributions will each need a separate license and who's email address may no longer be valid etc, etc, etc..
In other words, once the reason for GPLing in the first place has taken hold the idea that the code can be re-licensed effectively disappears.
I read your explaination of why the author chose questions that would show GPL as better. You've probably heard these arguments before but I thought I'd provide a personal example of why I think there might be better questions.
I'm a video game programmer. I think video game programmers are generally at the opposite extreme in terms of whether open source code is useful for game code development or not. Meaning for example it's clearly worked for OSes and for Web servers but it gets arguably gets less useful for apps and maybe even more for games. (I could explain this but I'm trying to keep this short)
Anyway, the point is, if you make the assumption that basically game companies will probably never GPL their game code for an inproduction game (vs tool code) then GPL code is NOT generally useful to commerical game programmers. So, in my personal example, if I wrote some cool 3D engine or quaterion code or collision code or physics engine and I GPLed it, most likely, none of my friends in the industry who are also commerical game developers could use my code to help their jobs, make their lives easier etc. If I BSDed it they can. AND most likely they can also contribute (most companies are not completely stupid) to BSD style but not to GPL.
So, although the author suggested the question "Can redistribute proprietary version" where *proprietary* is arguably the word GPL advocates see as bad, I would suggest one which I think they might find more palettable. "Is useful to ALL my programming friends" vs "Is useful only to friends that can GPL their code" or maybe even simpler, "can be used by ALL programmers" vs GPL which is "can only be used by programmers that can GPL their code". Since sharing code seems to be a major reason to open source code and since in my person situation, BSDing allows me to share with more people than GPL. I choose BSD style.
It's in this sense of wanting to help people, most of whom are not in a position to use GPL that I find BSD style more useful because it helps MORE people.
To get off that issue and directly into "anti" GPL stuff. I see GPL as kind of like volunteering to help the poor only if they promise to help you back where as BSD is just like real volunteering. You don't expect anything back except karma and good will. But, I also see that by real world example, people have contributed just fine to BSD style licensed projects (FreeBSD, Apache) so the arguement that you need to GPL your code to make sure you get other peoples contributions seems not really to hold up where as the arguement that GPLed code is useful to less people than FreeBSD code is arguably provable.
1) Have you noticed that all those $20 Warner DVDs are pushed over to the side, almost like Bargin DVDs. I wonder if it's the retailers dictating the price. Ie, the also make more money selling a $50 DVD vs a $25 DVD. Or, it's the Japanese believe that price = quality. If it's only $20 and all the other DVDs are $50 then they must be bad movies.
2) A Movie ticket costs $18 in Japan. That makes a DVD approximate double the cost of seeing the movie in the theatre. About the same ratio as the U.S.
3) I know this is not true for DVDs since I've seen fluctating prices (ie, Kiki's Delivery Service [Majo no Takubin] is $42 at Sakuraya and $47 at Tsutaya) but, has was reported here on Slashdot, Books are not allowed to be sold at a discount in Japan by law. Maybe there is a similar law for DVDs?
Did I read that correctly? If someone steals open source code and puts it in a closed source project, the most they can be fined is $150,000 plus lost profits
Since there are no profits in open source software that limits the liability to $150,000 which is less than the cost of 2 programmer's yearly salaries.
Sounds pretty low risk to me. Of course there's the popular opinion issue but otherwise what would really the problem for any mid sized company and larger.
I think part of the problem is I'm a game programmer and I see games (right or wrong) as part of the entertainment industry. In this light, blocking out the team is like blocking out the actors, directors, etc from some movie production interview or not showing the band in a music interview. If that happened they'd all walk. As it's entertainment, many game creators, want exposure, press, etc. It's one of the reasons making games is a more exciting type of programming than other types for some people.
So, not getting credit for your work (and I'm not just talking about credit at the end of the game) is a huge issue for alot of people.
I was at a company where the lead artist on a game had been working his ass off for a year making all the game art. 2 months before shipping another artist made the opening movie. When the press came, marketing showed off the movie and only interviewed the movie artist. The other artist quit. From his point of view his game, the game he'd sweat for, was getting credited to a different artist.
There are plenty of other examples. So, when I saw KOEI masking the team's faces part of my reaction was taking that idea into account.
Also, I've worked at a large Japanese video game company and I can tell you they look at the team members as only slighty higher than copy machine operator. Ie, easily replaceable (or if they don't then they are hoping the employees don't realize it) The average artist salary is less than 60% the U.S. counter part as are the programmer salaries. I don't know if that's because there is too much talent here or if it's because people don't leave because of the previous culture of working at the same place for life. My department all worked 10am to 11:30pm nearly year round. It was clear that several of them had been there 6 to 10 year under those conditions basically giving their lives to the company. Of course it's their own fault. They could leave anytime if they wanted. My impression is they are just not aware about how much they are really giving up and when the company folds, or lets them go, or they just raise their heads an notice their life passing by they will see they gave it all up for nothing.
So, upon seeing the KOEI interview I felt like KOEI was trying to continue the deception, intentional or not, that keeps all these people under these kinds of conditions.
The last company I worked at, an American company, did a very good job of crediting people for their individual contributions whenever the press came by. Note, I only said American company because the previous paragraph was about Japan. I'm not trying to suggest that there's anything special about an American company but more something special about that particular company.
1) Last week usen started offering 100mbit service for $50 a month. Yes, that's not a mis-print. 100megabits. That's 66 T1 lines for $50 a month. It's not available everywhere but they do have a roll out plan. It's supposed to be available in all cities in Tokyo (including mine) by October this year. Just FYI this is fiber optic service. They've been laying the cables for a while.
2) NTT (Japan's version of AT&T and still a virtual monopoly) is offering 1.5mbit DSL for $60 a month throughout the country. They have some competition from 2 or 3 other DSL providers but the other providers have to work through them.
3)The power companies were recently deregulated allowing them to sell more than just power. Their first product is 3mbit service through your powerline. Maybe California power companies should offer this service to help their financial problems.
Japan *was* behind the U.S. but it looks like they are quickly going to pass the U.S. in terms of being *wired*
Just FYI but MDs now hold 5 hours and 20 minutes of music on the SAME $2 MDs. Internal Battery life is up to around 25 hours. Add an single external AA battery and get upto 100 hours.
They are called MDLP and are available from all the major manufactures (Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, JVC). No idea when they will be available in the states.
These MDLPs are currently arguably better than any portable MP3 player currently out. I know at some point MP3s will pass them but as it is now I can carry basically 50 to 60 CD of music for $20 ($2 per blank MD, 10 MDs). In the portable MP3 world that would cost me, assuming $50 per 64 meg memory card and I can put what, 2 CD in that space?, that would be 25 cards or $1250.
On top of which I don't think there's a single portable MP3 player with a battery life over 10 hours. I'm sure that will change. It seems strange to me that a music device with no moving parts (MP3 player) would use more energy than a device with moving parts (MD player)
As a game programmer I would never sign something like this. I'd just find a different job. As for my own code that I might possibly use at a company, I've released it as code, BSD style. (if I'd GPLed it then I couldn't use it in most commerical games). And don't think by GPLing your code you'd force your company to make all their code GPLed. Most contracts I've seen hold you reasponsible for inserting code that you have no right to insert. As you don't have the right to insert GPLed code into non-GPLed code you'd be held liable for the problems it caused getting the GPLed code out.
On the otherhand, I have a friend who is a game designer. He gets paid $100k a year to think up game ideas. For some reason he feels that
(a) if he comes up with a game idea outside of work then it's his
(b) if he comes up with an idea inside of work and they don't decide to implement it he should get the rights too it.
Both are pure bullshit. The whole point is he's getting paid $100k a year for his ideas. That they came up outside of work is irrelavent. I'm hoping this is clear to most of you in this case. Otherwise I think you could see he'd really be short changing his employer.
Think of it this way, if you had a tough programming problem at work and you thought of the solution in the shower at home, following his logic you could charge the company extra money since that idea is "yours". Or, you'd have to come up with a new solution that wasn't related to the solution you thought of on your own time. I think you can all see that would be rediculous.
The question is where to you draw the line. For example another friend started making a website with games on it. He works for a game company. Under California law is that a related field and therefore would belong to the company? I suppose the courts would decide. Fortunately the company he works for is cool and was happy to sign a letter that said he could do this game website and the company would not claim ownership. To bad all companies aren't so reasonable.
Microsoft is NOT backward. Look at it this way. Take Photoshop for example (I know that's Adobe, not Microsoft).
example (1) One company/person that really really needs to digitally edit photos puts up the $2 million or more that it would take to make photoshop. That's 20 programmers at $50k a year for 2 years. Which is probably ALOT cheaper than it actually cost.
example (2) Adobe, instead of searching for one person/company that can pay their development staff the $2 million it would take to develop photoshop puts the money up themselves and instead charge as many people as they can get $200 to $600 for a copy trying to make back that $2 million (+ interest plus enough to fund other development + enough to cover failures)
I would suggest that version (2) is the far far easier path to lots of innovative software than (1). This is especially true because it is unlikely any one company could be convinced to spend the $2 million since they would have no proof that they product would meet there needs. How many people from say 1975, having only a description of a word processor and no experience do you think would see the future and put up the money? How may people do you think that use photoshop today would have 20 years ago thought they would ever be able to do what they do now. In other words, they would think they way they were already doing it was fine. Adobe on the other hand believed otherwise and was willing to risk the money upfront on their own and charge each person some very small percentage of the total devlopment cost.
The other method is of course open source where people can be a variation of (1) or could start much smaller as practically a hobby. BUT, and I know you won't agree, Open Source has not proven that it can compete. If it can, where's all the software. People can name about 10 *big* titles for open source. Linux, Apache, Perl, Emacs, Gimp, Star Office... I know you could probably rattle off a couple of 100 BUT, with the exception of a few, Linux+Apache+Perl, they are not nearly as diverse or as well done as the ones developed by style (2) above. The Gimp is not as good as Photoshop or Painter. Star Office is not as good as the competition, none of the open source e-mail clients are as full featured as any of the popular commerical e-mail clients, none of the open source financial software is as good as the commerical open source software. None of the open source games are as good as the commerical games, none of the open source 3d software is as good as the commerical 3d software. I could list almost every catagory. With the exception of servers functions and webservers open source as yet to prove it works. You may believe it will eventually. I'm not yet convinced.
NTT DoCoMo's phones are (a) Color, (b) networked, (c) programmable, (d) play pacman, space invaders, tetris, chu-chu rocket and many other games. See here for screenshots and movies.
On top of that there is already a wireless game machine in Japan. It's called the Color Wonderswan and it connects to your cell phone for networked games. For example Gumpey Ex and Digimon
It's also got a way cool programmable robot (Note: this page is in English;-)
I wish the lamer moderators would post my damn article submissions. I've been submitting this stuff for months but it never gets posted. Instead this crappy stuff from Motorola with short battery life (compared to the Japanese phones), black and white lo-res displays, and very arguably not 1/10th as cool as what is CURRENTLY available else where. You guys should be demanding better than that crap.
On top of NTT having broadcast net TV over their cell system AND broadcast audio channels they are releasing a new i-Mode standard in a few days with downloadable apps including for example Space Invaders, Pacman, Chu Chu Rocket, Tetris and others. There are pictures and quicktime movies here
I don't know about Linux but wireless webpads did come out at least in Japan
Here's Sony's Airboard. Walk anywhere in the house, no keyboard, no wires, browse the web, watch TV, watch a video. Prop it up in the kitchen to view a recipe. Read slashdot on the toilet. It's out!
The point is to play hantasy Star Online which if you've bothered to download the movies at dailyradar.com or if like me you live in Japan and can see the real thing, KICKS ASS!!! Imagine Everquest but with kick ass graphics running at 60hz, Zelda like bosses. All Real time. It's truely cool. To bad it's only on Dreamcast but still.
-g
It's really cool that you all are jumping on the MP3 band wagon but it's still not ready for prime time IMHO
All the audio manufactures have release MDLP (at least here in Japan) Here's Sony's Models MDLP uses the same MD discs ($2 each) but stores 320 minutes of music per disc (5 hours 20 minutes). That beats the crap out of most MP3 players. On top if which the players run for 100 HOURS!!!!!! on 2 batteries.
Sony also has 2 MP3 Cell phones. The c404s and the SO505iWM I was thinking of getting one until I realized that (a) they are $400 (b) they only store 64meg of data on a $160 memory stick. That's maybe 2 hours of music on $150 media where as for $20 I can carry around 53 hours of music on 10 MDs.
Why would any one choose MP3 today? Maybe next year there will be some descent players with descent battery life. Then we need to get memory cards to be $2 each. Until then, what's the point except that it "seems" cool. IF you really think about it, if your point is to listen to music while you are away from your computer then it's clear that MP3 is not the way to go yet.
Slashdot Mirror
4 or 5 years ago a company called Virtual Vision had sunglass based consumer displays. They nearly went under when they found there was no market for them.
They are still around and they do mostly vertical market stuff now and they've become a subsidiary of eMagin which makes super small LCD displys (like 1280x1024 in less than 1 inch)
Since the sunglass thing they also make Borg like half sunglass attachements. The uses I've heard of are for example, a surgeon can wear one and have all your vital signs in his view (or just at a glance to the side of his forward view) at all times so instead of having to look up at all those machines hanging over the operating table he can concentrate on the surgery.
Another I've heard of is supposedly it takes a truckload of manuals to cover maintainence on commerical airliners. Well, they made a belt worn wireless networked computer connected to one of their displays with voice input so instead of having to bring the truck over and search through the paper manuals while trying to fix something the mechanic could just call it up on the display he's wearing and glance at it while he works on the problem area.
PS: My Father works for that company.
IANAL but my understanding is...
It is only federal law for HOURLY EMPLOYEES. Almost no tech workers are employed hourly they are employed as salaried workers.
Hourly employees get paid by the hour. By federal law, if they work more than 40 hours a week they must get paid overtime at 1.5 * their normal rate. If they are late or leave early they of course don't get paid for that time. Note: In California is also for any time over 8 hours a day.
Salaried employees (also called professionals by the federal labor law) get paid a yearly salary. By law, while they can be docked pay for missing a day they cannot be docked pay for being late or leaving early. If they only come in for 5 minutes a day and the company doesn't like it the company can fire them but they cannot dock them pay. If the company does dock them pay, then legally the company has changed them to an hourly employee and owes them for any overtime that they put in in the past. How far in the past in unclear and generally, salaried employees don't punch a time card or keep track of their time so they'd have no legal record of how much time they put in.
Conversely they are expected to put in whatever is asked of them, the company can ask 80 hours a week if it wants to and the salaried employee can either do it, quit or get fired but there is no law saying he must get paid more or get time off.
Why do we need WAP? Why not just use HTML or a subset there of? My NTT Docomo Cell phone by NEC works just fine as is. So did my J-Phone cell phone by Sharp. I can read Slashdot from the PDA section. I can read my own webpage. I can use the Yahoo PDA section, the Amazon PDA interface, the Google PDA interface. The ZDNET Japan iMode interface etc. The standard already exists. I'm sorry if I'm ignorant of what WAP is trying to solve.
Cell phone e-mail was in the form phone#@docomo.ne.jp as in 09012345678@docomo.ne.jp That was exploited by the junk e-mailers as they could just write software that emailed every email address from 09000000000 to 09099999999 (090 is the prefix for cell phones).
The solution that the various cellphone companies provided is to allow you to choose and or change your cell phone e-mail address to anything you want (that's not already used) so for example. jowbloe@docomo.ne.jp
As an example when I got my cell phone, I wasn't allowed to register a new e-mail address until whatever info han propogated through their system. Specifically the next morning 9am. Within those first 20 hours of owning my cell phone with a phone#@ e-mail address I got 6 junk e-mails (and on a cell phone EACH E-MAIL COSTS MONEY)
Really? One of us has really bad taste. Please post some links to some good music on MP3.com. I usually use MP3.com as my example as to why "free music" doesn't work. Everytime I check out the top 10 or top 20 it's all complete and utter crap.
I'd be happy to be wrong.
This HAS been discusssed before BY Richard Stallman. He has specifically called for a Software Tax and to BAN proprietary software.
/ emacs_40.html
Here are the relavent parts from HIS writings on the FSF webpage. http://www.gnu.org/manual/emacs-20.3/html_chapter
From the GNU Manifesto [gnu.org]
---------------
All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.
But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to the project of his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes to use the results when it is done. He can take a credit for any amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay.
The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the tax, weighted according to the amount they will be taxed on.
The consequences:
The computer-using community supports software development. This community decides what level of support is needed. Users who care which projects their share is spent on can choose this for themselves
-----------------and------
What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.
From the GNU Manifesto
---------------
All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.
But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to the project of his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes to use the results when it is done. He can take a credit for any amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay.
The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the tax, weighted according to the amount they will be taxed on.
The consequences:
The computer-using community supports software development. This community decides what level of support is needed. Users who care which projects their share is spent on can choose this for themselves
-----------------and------
What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.
-I added the bold-
The GPL allows me to make private modifications without having to distribute the source but what does that mean?
I saw the "Website loophole" but is that only private websites run by one person. What if two people are involved in running the website?
Basically I see a bigger loophole. I seems to me that his idea of *private* is meant for companies. In other words if I work at IBM, I can make a mod to some GPL source and give it out to other IBM employees without giving them the source but if it goes outside of IBM then I have to distribute the source.
The loophole then is that if I wanted to use GPL code as proprietary software, All I have to do is get each person that buys my software to sign an agreement making them my employee / contractor. I'll pay them $0.01 salary (which I get from the $95 they paid for the software) at which point I can give my new employee this software without supplying the source.
If this is NOT the case then this idea of *private modifications* has no meaning.
Has this issue been covered already?
USB doesn't count because it would have died if it had not been used on Windows. That Apple was the first to use it ignores that it was planned for PCs. Apple was just smart to recognize that it was "the future" and that since it was going to used by most PC gadgets it was in their best interest to support it so those same gadgets could be used on the mac with by supplying mac drivers.
This is almost the same reason they switched from NewBUS to PCI and the same reason they switched from SCSI to IDE except in those cases it was hindsight not foward thinking.
Same with FireWire, while Apple should be credited for putting it in Mac first, it was not their *innovation*. It is a standard developed by the camcorder companies.
One argument I want to anticipate is the idea that the original author can license the code in multiple ways so for example I could GPL an engine but still give licenses to friends so they can put it in their non GPLed games.
I find this argument to be disingenuous. The reason is simple. One of the biggest arguments to open source is that lots of people can contribute. Lots of people contrubuting makes the code more useful, new features, bugs fixed, etc. This new useful version of the code, as soon as it has more that just a few contributors, would be nearly impossible to license since you'd have to contact all the authors who's contributions will each need a separate license and who's email address may no longer be valid etc, etc, etc..
In other words, once the reason for GPLing in the first place has taken hold the idea that the code can be re-licensed effectively disappears.
BSD style doesn't have this problem.
I read your explaination of why the author chose questions that would show GPL as better. You've probably heard these arguments before but I thought I'd provide a personal example of why I think there might be better questions.
I'm a video game programmer. I think video game programmers are generally at the opposite extreme in terms of whether open source code is useful for game code development or not. Meaning for example it's clearly worked for OSes and for Web servers but it gets arguably gets less useful for apps and maybe even more for games. (I could explain this but I'm trying to keep this short)
Anyway, the point is, if you make the assumption that basically game companies will probably never GPL their game code for an inproduction game (vs tool code) then GPL code is NOT generally useful to commerical game programmers. So, in my personal example, if I wrote some cool 3D engine or quaterion code or collision code or physics engine and I GPLed it, most likely, none of my friends in the industry who are also commerical game developers could use my code to help their jobs, make their lives easier etc. If I BSDed it they can. AND most likely they can also contribute (most companies are not completely stupid) to BSD style but not to GPL.
So, although the author suggested the question "Can redistribute proprietary version" where *proprietary* is arguably the word GPL advocates see as bad, I would suggest one which I think they might find more palettable. "Is useful to ALL my programming friends" vs "Is useful only to friends that can GPL their code" or maybe even simpler, "can be used by ALL programmers" vs GPL which is "can only be used by programmers that can GPL their code". Since sharing code seems to be a major reason to open source code and since in my person situation, BSDing allows me to share with more people than GPL. I choose BSD style.
It's in this sense of wanting to help people, most of whom are not in a position to use GPL that I find BSD style more useful because it helps MORE people.
To get off that issue and directly into "anti" GPL stuff. I see GPL as kind of like volunteering to help the poor only if they promise to help you back where as BSD is just like real volunteering. You don't expect anything back except karma and good will. But, I also see that by real world example, people have contributed just fine to BSD style licensed projects (FreeBSD, Apache) so the arguement that you need to GPL your code to make sure you get other peoples contributions seems not really to hold up where as the arguement that GPLed code is useful to less people than FreeBSD code is arguably provable.
There are a couple of issues here.
1) Have you noticed that all those $20 Warner DVDs are pushed over to the side, almost like Bargin DVDs. I wonder if it's the retailers dictating the price. Ie, the also make more money selling a $50 DVD vs a $25 DVD. Or, it's the Japanese believe that price = quality. If it's only $20 and all the other DVDs are $50 then they must be bad movies.
2) A Movie ticket costs $18 in Japan. That makes a DVD approximate double the cost of seeing the movie in the theatre. About the same ratio as the U.S.
3) I know this is not true for DVDs since I've seen fluctating prices (ie, Kiki's Delivery Service [Majo no Takubin] is $42 at Sakuraya and $47 at Tsutaya) but, has was reported here on Slashdot, Books are not allowed to be sold at a discount in Japan by law. Maybe there is a similar law for DVDs?
Did I read that correctly? If someone steals open source code and puts it in a closed source project, the most they can be fined is $150,000 plus lost profits
Since there are no profits in open source software that limits the liability to $150,000 which is less than the cost of 2 programmer's yearly salaries.
Sounds pretty low risk to me. Of course there's the popular opinion issue but otherwise what would really the problem for any mid sized company and larger.
I think part of the problem is I'm a game programmer and I see games (right or wrong) as part of the entertainment industry. In this light, blocking out the team is like blocking out the actors, directors, etc from some movie production interview or not showing the band in a music interview. If that happened they'd all walk. As it's entertainment, many game creators, want exposure, press, etc. It's one of the reasons making games is a more exciting type of programming than other types for some people.
So, not getting credit for your work (and I'm not just talking about credit at the end of the game) is a huge issue for alot of people.
I was at a company where the lead artist on a game had been working his ass off for a year making all the game art. 2 months before shipping another artist made the opening movie. When the press came, marketing showed off the movie and only interviewed the movie artist. The other artist quit. From his point of view his game, the game he'd sweat for, was getting credited to a different artist.
There are plenty of other examples. So, when I saw KOEI masking the team's faces part of my reaction was taking that idea into account.
Also, I've worked at a large Japanese video game company and I can tell you they look at the team members as only slighty higher than copy machine operator. Ie, easily replaceable (or if they don't then they are hoping the employees don't realize it) The average artist salary is less than 60% the U.S. counter part as are the programmer salaries. I don't know if that's because there is too much talent here or if it's because people don't leave because of the previous culture of working at the same place for life. My department all worked 10am to 11:30pm nearly year round. It was clear that several of them had been there 6 to 10 year under those conditions basically giving their lives to the company. Of course it's their own fault. They could leave anytime if they wanted. My impression is they are just not aware about how much they are really giving up and when the company folds, or lets them go, or they just raise their heads an notice their life passing by they will see they gave it all up for nothing.
So, upon seeing the KOEI interview I felt like KOEI was trying to continue the deception, intentional or not, that keeps all these people under these kinds of conditions.
The last company I worked at, an American company, did a very good job of crediting people for their individual contributions whenever the press came by. Note, I only said American company because the previous paragraph was about Japan. I'm not trying to suggest that there's anything special about an American company but more something special about that particular company.
1) Last week usen started offering 100mbit service for $50 a month. Yes, that's not a mis-print. 100megabits. That's 66 T1 lines for $50 a month. It's not available everywhere but they do have a roll out plan. It's supposed to be available in all cities in Tokyo (including mine) by October this year. Just FYI this is fiber optic service. They've been laying the cables for a while.
2) NTT (Japan's version of AT&T and still a virtual monopoly) is offering 1.5mbit DSL for $60 a month throughout the country. They have some competition from 2 or 3 other DSL providers but the other providers have to work through them.
3)The power companies were recently deregulated allowing them to sell more than just power. Their first product is 3mbit service through your powerline. Maybe California power companies should offer this service to help their financial problems.
Japan *was* behind the U.S. but it looks like they are quickly going to pass the U.S. in terms of being *wired*
Just FYI but MDs now hold 5 hours and 20 minutes of music on the SAME $2 MDs. Internal Battery life is up to around 25 hours. Add an single external AA battery and get upto 100 hours.
They are called MDLP and are available from all the major manufactures (Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, JVC). No idea when they will be available in the states.
There a review here and some other info here
These MDLPs are currently arguably better than any portable MP3 player currently out. I know at some point MP3s will pass them but as it is now I can carry basically 50 to 60 CD of music for $20 ($2 per blank MD, 10 MDs). In the portable MP3 world that would cost me, assuming $50 per 64 meg memory card and I can put what, 2 CD in that space?, that would be 25 cards or $1250.
On top of which I don't think there's a single portable MP3 player with a battery life over 10 hours. I'm sure that will change. It seems strange to me that a music device with no moving parts (MP3 player) would use more energy than a device with moving parts (MD player)
I've seen this from both sides.
As a game programmer I would never sign something like this. I'd just find a different job. As for my own code that I might possibly use at a company, I've released it as code, BSD style. (if I'd GPLed it then I couldn't use it in most commerical games). And don't think by GPLing your code you'd force your company to make all their code GPLed. Most contracts I've seen hold you reasponsible for inserting code that you have no right to insert. As you don't have the right to insert GPLed code into non-GPLed code you'd be held liable for the problems it caused getting the GPLed code out.
On the otherhand, I have a friend who is a game designer. He gets paid $100k a year to think up game ideas. For some reason he feels that
(a) if he comes up with a game idea outside of work then it's his
(b) if he comes up with an idea inside of work and they don't decide to implement it he should get the rights too it.
Both are pure bullshit. The whole point is he's getting paid $100k a year for his ideas. That they came up outside of work is irrelavent. I'm hoping this is clear to most of you in this case. Otherwise I think you could see he'd really be short changing his employer.
Think of it this way, if you had a tough programming problem at work and you thought of the solution in the shower at home, following his logic you could charge the company extra money since that idea is "yours". Or, you'd have to come up with a new solution that wasn't related to the solution you thought of on your own time. I think you can all see that would be rediculous.
The question is where to you draw the line. For example another friend started making a website with games on it. He works for a game company. Under California law is that a related field and therefore would belong to the company? I suppose the courts would decide. Fortunately the company he works for is cool and was happy to sign a letter that said he could do this game website and the company would not claim ownership. To bad all companies aren't so reasonable.
-g
Microsoft is NOT backward. Look at it this way. Take Photoshop for example (I know that's Adobe, not Microsoft).
example (1) One company/person that really really needs to digitally edit photos puts up the $2 million or more that it would take to make photoshop. That's 20 programmers at $50k a year for 2 years. Which is probably ALOT cheaper than it actually cost.
example (2) Adobe, instead of searching for one person/company that can pay their development staff the $2 million it would take to develop photoshop puts the money up themselves and instead charge as many people as they can get $200 to $600 for a copy trying to make back that $2 million (+ interest plus enough to fund other development + enough to cover failures)
I would suggest that version (2) is the far far easier path to lots of innovative software than (1). This is especially true because it is unlikely any one company could be convinced to spend the $2 million since they would have no proof that they product would meet there needs. How many people from say 1975, having only a description of a word processor and no experience do you think would see the future and put up the money? How may people do you think that use photoshop today would have 20 years ago thought they would ever be able to do what they do now. In other words, they would think they way they were already doing it was fine. Adobe on the other hand believed otherwise and was willing to risk the money upfront on their own and charge each person some very small percentage of the total devlopment cost.
The other method is of course open source where people can be a variation of (1) or could start much smaller as practically a hobby. BUT, and I know you won't agree, Open Source has not proven that it can compete. If it can, where's all the software. People can name about 10 *big* titles for open source. Linux, Apache, Perl, Emacs, Gimp, Star Office... I know you could probably rattle off a couple of 100 BUT, with the exception of a few, Linux+Apache+Perl, they are not nearly as diverse or as well done as the ones developed by style (2) above. The Gimp is not as good as Photoshop or Painter. Star Office is not as good as the competition, none of the open source e-mail clients are as full featured as any of the popular commerical e-mail clients, none of the open source financial software is as good as the commerical open source software. None of the open source games are as good as the commerical games, none of the open source 3d software is as good as the commerical 3d software. I could list almost every catagory. With the exception of servers functions and webservers open source as yet to prove it works. You may believe it will eventually. I'm not yet convinced.
-g
If you don't like their terms. Don't use there service. End of story.
In Japan you can already play games on your mobile phone
And you can plug both your Gameboy Color and the Color Wonderswan into your cell phone for net gaming.
NTT DoCoMo's phones are (a) Color, (b) networked, (c) programmable, (d) play pacman, space invaders, tetris, chu-chu rocket and many other games. See here for screenshots and movies.
;-)
On top of that there is already a wireless game machine in Japan. It's called the Color Wonderswan and it connects to your cell phone for networked games. For example Gumpey Ex and Digimon
It's also got a way cool programmable robot (Note: this page is in English
I wish the lamer moderators would post my damn article submissions. I've been submitting this stuff for months but it never gets posted. Instead this crappy stuff from Motorola with short battery life (compared to the Japanese phones), black and white lo-res displays, and very arguably not 1/10th as cool as what is CURRENTLY available else where. You guys should be demanding better than that crap.
On top of NTT having broadcast net TV over their cell system AND broadcast audio channels they are releasing a new i-Mode standard in a few days with downloadable apps including for example Space Invaders, Pacman, Chu Chu Rocket, Tetris and others. There are pictures and quicktime movies here
I don't know about Linux but wireless webpads did come out at least in Japan
Here's Sony's Airboard. Walk anywhere in the house, no keyboard, no wires, browse the web, watch TV, watch a video. Prop it up in the kitchen to view a recipe. Read slashdot on the toilet. It's out!
Need to type? I touch screen keyboard appears. -g
The point is to play hantasy Star Online which if you've bothered to download the movies at dailyradar.com or if like me you live in Japan and can see the real thing, KICKS ASS!!! Imagine Everquest but with kick ass graphics running at 60hz, Zelda like bosses. All Real time. It's truely cool. To bad it's only on Dreamcast but still. -g
It's really cool that you all are jumping on the MP3 band wagon but it's still not ready for prime time IMHO
All the audio manufactures have release MDLP (at least here in Japan) Here's Sony's Models MDLP uses the same MD discs ($2 each) but stores 320 minutes of music per disc (5 hours 20 minutes). That beats the crap out of most MP3 players. On top if which the players run for 100 HOURS!!!!!! on 2 batteries.
Sony also has 2 MP3 Cell phones. The c404s and the SO505iWM I was thinking of getting one until I realized that (a) they are $400 (b) they only store 64meg of data on a $160 memory stick. That's maybe 2 hours of music on $150 media where as for $20 I can carry around 53 hours of music on 10 MDs.
Why would any one choose MP3 today? Maybe next year there will be some descent players with descent battery life. Then we need to get memory cards to be $2 each. Until then, what's the point except that it "seems" cool. IF you really think about it, if your point is to listen to music while you are away from your computer then it's clear that MP3 is not the way to go yet.