Sure, we've got DSL and Cable Modem and what-have-you, but not everybody does. There are still places where these things are a rarity, or too pricey to afford. (Or, in some areas, where Linux users can't actually USE the local DSL provider's system because the proprietary logon software is Windows only...)
Think, for instance, third-world countries. No way will broadband connections be affordable. I believe that it's even pretty bad in some parts of Europe.
The complaints about "too little, too late" just go to show that most/. readers come from the States and Canada.:-)
One of the more interesting things just about how this press release is worded is that they're saying how this processor, the P4 (although I'm going to call it the PIV), is:
"... based on revolutionary technology designed to maximize performance today and in the future, keeping consumers on the cutting edge of the Internet."
Interesting that their marketing division has decided to push THAT angle of the processor, instead of its speed. (Yes, I've seen a Williamette in motion; yes, they rock. Since I'm a graphics programmer, the best example for me is saying that the Intel engineer threw a 3D landscape at it which did all the transform and lighting stuff on the CPU, and it would have made a GeForce choke up). I wonder if this means that the clueless marketroids are going to start pushing for "Internet-specific optimizations" on the processor itself, as opposed to just better functions. We're already seeing a lot of extra stuff bundled into things in order to try and make them "better for the net".
An interesting example is the Linux development series kernel, which has some code in it specifically designed to make your system faster if you are dishing out webpages, just by building that into the kernel. I think it makes anything using the HTTP protocol faster, and that newer releases of Apache will sit on top of it, if that's built into the kernel. I don't remember the specifics.
Now, I am of two minds as to whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it does give something for the suits from Red Hat et al. to put in their advertising. It is what some would call unneccessary clutter in the kernel, (but yes, of course, you can just compile it out!)
It'll be interesting to see just how much further this trend goes.
There seems to be some confusion about just what OpenGL is, and what it can and cannot do. So, let's clarify.
-- 3dfx vs. OpenGL. This is like comparing apples to pigs. OpenGL is a crossplatform 3D API for a variety of cards and systems. 3dfx is a card manufacturer. Possibly what the individual who wrote this post was thinking about is Glide, which is 3dfx's own semi-proprietary (now open, actually, if memory serves) API for programming their video cards. The Linux XFree86 3.3.x OpenGL drivers nestle on top of Glide. So do the XFree86 4.0 ones, although to a far lesser degree.
-- OpenGL HAS been changing since 1995. It is an "open" format, ergo the name "OpenGL". Anybody who has an OpenGL implementation can write extensions to it. Examples of these include some of the proprietary extensions developed by NVidia for their cards, like GL_REGISTER_COMBINE_NV. While the base implementation of OpenGL hasn't changed much, the extensions have. A variety of the more "popular extensions", such as the compiled vertex arrays extension, have made it into most OpenGL compliant libraries.
A body exists known as the OpenGL Architectural Review Board who approves these extensions and gives them an ARB approval rating, thereby formalising them as extensions which people should support. An example of which is the GL_MULTITEXTURE_ARB extension.
The primary difference to a hardware vendor between OpenGL and Direct3D is that Direct3D is controlled solely by Microsoft. (What a surprise). Therefore, if a company like NVidia, Matrox, 3Dfx, or ATI wants to develop some nifty new function on their cards, like... hardware mesh deformation, for instance... they would want to support both OpenGL and Direct3D. Now, with Direct3D, they need to pester Microsoft to add it to the official implementation, and that could take forever, and cost them lots of money. For OpenGL, since they write the OpenGL compliant libraries themselves (although often based on code by and licensed by SGI), they can do it immediately.
That's why OpenGL is IMO better: it's an Open API that can expand a lot quicker, and which better reflects the "I want it, I'll add it" philosophy which lets good stuff grow quickly. A company can add whatever they want to their OpenGL compliant libraries without having to suck up to SGI, whereas they DO have to suck up a lot to Microsoft to get anything done.
As part of a paper that I put together a while back as a rebuttal to the "Linux Myths" thing by Microsoft (which, unfortunately, I never got around to releasing...), I seem to recall that one of the complaints was that Linux didn't comply to any formal security standards. The rebuttal that I used at the time was that is was solely through lack of money, and not through quality.
An approach that we could look at would be to have a free, (as in beer, as in speech), funded by donation, organization to test and issue security compliancy licenses in a well thought out, academically proven manner to open source software. While it would mean that the closed source world might not acknowledge it immediately as a standard, it would mean that we could then say "Hey, we're using academically developed processes, just under a different name, and ours might even be better than yours."
The real challenge would be figuring out if we can conduct an academic review under an open development model. That would be cool.
One of the more interesting ramifications of this and the sugar article is that it shows just how much we can learn about space without ever actually going there ourselves.
The water was discovered by an orbiting satellite, and the sugar was discovered by analysing radio emissions, of all things. So we can prove that it's there without actually looking at them ourselves.
Moral of the story: It's very possible that funding Space Exploration with people isn't as important as funding cosmological research, which seems to get results far beyond anything we could imagine. The fact that we can discern that there's sugar in the center of the galaxy and water on Mars when we can't even travel there is really impressive.
Besides which, if we sent an astronaut to Mars they'd probably get his height wrong.:)
Nicholas
Why open source is nice, part LXXVIII
on
Mattel Spyware
·
· Score: 5
In this age where even the average e-shopper is so worried about "electronic privacy", where Microsoft Internet Explorer warns you constantly not to install untrusted plugins, and where the ILOVEYOU e-mail worm did six billion dollars worth of damage, it constantly amazes me that consumers in general still run software which hasn't been inspected by a reliable and unbiased third party. Perhaps people's trust of the Big Corporations have grown to such a point that we automatically assume that "they wouldn't be spying on us, they're our friends"; or perhaps it's because the 92% of the population that uses Windows 95 fails to see the risk.
Hopefully people will eventually learn that you shouldn't trust any software that you can't inspect, or that somebody else can't inspect for you. Would you buy a car if you weren't allowed to look under the hood, take it for a test drive, or even open the door before you signed the purchase agreement?
I must say this is just entirely too funny. And a sad commentary on how little most people understand law.
I will say that anyone who thinks we are trying to control reviews and such are jumping on a bandwagon without really giving it proper consideration. Legally, that's entirely impossible -- but then, most people know less about law than they do making ice.;-)
This policy/agreement simply allows fan sites to use our trademarks and copyright character art, etc. Most developers/publishers do not allow this at all. End of story. We are providing a way for them to do so, though. Lay people, of course, read this policy and become panic mongers. This policy is only for owners of web sites who wish to use our trademarks and copyrights, like www.3dportal.com. Somehow, someone found a link to it and of course jumps to the wrong conclusion, because...hey...it then can become a hot topic. Yippee. Don't we live in a fun society?
We might need to make it more clear that reviews are--of course!--not what concern us (nor could we legally prevent negative reviews--that's patently absurd). It's a web site using our logos next to overly foul, abusive, racist, etc. language or art. For example, we would not allow our logos to be used on a porn site.
Back to important work... --------- Typical. People, please CHECK these stories before posting them!
Turbo Pascal, the language that I started with (5.5 on a 286dx/12!) has been released as freeware (versions 1.0, 3.0 and 5.5 if memory serves) at the Borland webpage.
... then glop some ads up, with the artists receiving a portion, if not all, of the revenues. You could even cut out the recording agencies here, so your profit margin couldn't hurt much.
Welcome to one of the founding principles of "making money off of the Internet": Free services with advertising.
If you'd care to read the release announcement, it says that it is a beta release, which may well imply that it isn't stable. Bugs should be reported with http://fenris.lokigames.com.
-- web pads are bulky. Condoms fit easily in your wallet. -- Condoms are plug and play. -- Portable web pads probably would use infrared technology for data transmission, requiring extra expense. Condoms use older parallel port technology: just need a female port and a male adaptor. -- If you're running anything crucial on a web pad, you'll want a firewall. Condoms have their OWN protection. -- Condoms come lubricated for better access.
and, of course, something that most of us will never really come to terms with:
-- Sex is better than Slashdot. Sorry, but it's true.
In order to provide some contrast on this whole Killcreek thing, this month's Penthouse allegedly (though I haven't bought one) has pictures of Paul McCartney's one-legged amputee girlfriend naked inside. Plastic boobs or skin grafts, I guess.
Of course, us/.ers really don't care. We're still all lusting after Natalie Portman.:)
I can think of two ways of lessening damage due to gesture-borging.
The first would be to send the actual gesture data to the trusted server/other clients for verification that they weren't simply repeating the genuine pattern over and over again. This way, you at least wouldn't get 100% accuracy; you'd have to come up with a good way of fudging it.
The second would be to put limitations into the game mechanics itself to fix this -- i.e. it doesn't matter how good you are at using the gesture, it takes five minutes to recharge before you can do another one.
Both of these are workable solutions IMO, and I'm sure another approach could be developed. It's not like there aren't going to be security problems anyways; people will crack games and develop cheats regardless of whether or not they are closed/open source. You could also do gesture-borging with a souped up version of GPM, for instance.
I've spent a good while over the past five months working on an open source MMORPG, and one of the issues that constantly shows up is client-server security. Anybody who has the source code can modify it, and can run their own hacked client. And there's nothing that you can do about it, apart from closing certain portions of the source code, which is a Bad Thing. (One possibility would be a closed source validator which checks to make sure that the binary is "Acceptable")
That said, what you need to do in any sort of open-source project with a multiplayer function is to develop a system where you trust nobody. In other words, should player X suddenly get a +5 sword of flame and there's no way that he could have gotten it on this level other than cheating, the other clients ignore it/notify the other users/kick him out. I don't know enough about Black and White to go into more detail in terms of how you'd compensate for its actual style of gameplay, but that's one approach.
Another approach would be to maintain a list of "untrustworthy" players based, possibly, off of their IP addresses. Then, if a player is determined to be cheating, he can be blacklisted.
You CAN have secure open-source projects; this is clearly proved by Linux itself. You just need to keep this in mind when you design the game -- and you want a fairly secure multiplayer model anyways, as people will find ways to cheat no matter what. (Played Diablo lately?)
Myself, I'd love an open-source Black & White, just so I could port it to Linux and further disrupt my productivity.
A thought. You may wish to get in touch with the American Civil Liberties Union, if you haven't already; also, possibly the EFF. Both are excellent organizations who spend a lot of time dealing with this sort of stuff, and can also probably recommend additional routes and options (while you're thinking)
True -- if I run a web site providing a free service, I need to support it. This is especially important with free software sites; advertising may well be a good way for Open Source projects with a high number of hits on their web page/day to make some money to further development.
That said, what's wrong with using less offensive, textual adds without graphics?
Just something along the lines of, (and I'll use my project at this point:)
Kosmos Online is sponsored by pfui.net (now featuring fascinating hunks of gorp for $14.99/mo. -- rich and creamy!)
and maybe a little further down:
Please visit our sponsors, as they provide money to keep Kosmos Online going.
An effective compromise, IMHO.
Nothing is more annoying than watching as the banner downloads first, it's big, loud, animated, and annoying, and you can't actually read anything on the page which you want to. And text is faster to transmit, thereby solving the problem that somebody mentioned of ads sucking up bandwidth.
Hmm... with John Cash leaving now, and Dave "Zoid" Kirsch leaving before that, is iD software now going to be looking to hire a couple of replacements?
What they might do is license it under something like the LGPL, which looks fairly respectable. It's what some "open source competitive software" uses, right?
That way they can opensource very small parts of whatever libraries or whathaveyous that they feel like (Freecell, the Paperclip, Microsoft Briefcase, the Channels thing, etc.), then keep the rest linked to it as binaries while distributing the source for these few components, and then they're (quote)"GNU Open Source Software,... really!"
And if they follow my idea, I guess they'll just be innovating.
This is why smart companies release the source, and let the Linux programming/hacking community do the dirty work of ensuring that it works across distros.
This works best for hardware companies, of course, since you still have to buy their product in order to use it (3D accelerators spring instantly to mind).. however, you can have variations on the theme. For instance, all of Loki Entertainment's tools are available, and people hack on them and deal with issues like cross-distro support, working with both XFree86 3.whatever and X 4.0, etc., which is why Loki games work out of the box for me.:-)
Opensourcing is good, folks, and it helps to deal with these wierd distro problems. And if your company doesn't go that far, consider allowing select individuals access to the source under NDA.
Personal computers will always have a good market share in the gaming industry so long as console developers persist in charging massive licensing fees for their development platforms. The situation that you describe would be possible only if that playing field evens; otherwise, it's very cost effective for companies to market games for the PC. And with 3D hardware in the computer looking to catch up to 3D hardware on platforms like the PS2, (which you can't upgrade, I might add), I think PC hardware will be in use as a gaming platform for a while yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, we've got DSL and Cable Modem and what-have-you, but not everybody does. There are still places where these things are a rarity, or too pricey to afford. (Or, in some areas, where Linux users can't actually USE the local DSL provider's system because the proprietary logon software is Windows only...)
/. readers come from the States and Canada. :-)
Think, for instance, third-world countries. No way will broadband connections be affordable. I believe that it's even pretty bad in some parts of Europe.
The complaints about "too little, too late" just go to show that most
Nicholas
One of the more interesting things just about how this press release is worded is that they're saying how this processor, the P4 (although I'm going to call it the PIV), is:
"... based on revolutionary technology designed to maximize performance today and in the future, keeping consumers on the cutting edge of the Internet."
Interesting that their marketing division has decided to push THAT angle of the processor, instead of its speed. (Yes, I've seen a Williamette in motion; yes, they rock. Since I'm a graphics programmer, the best example for me is saying that the Intel engineer threw a 3D landscape at it which did all the transform and lighting stuff on the CPU, and it would have made a GeForce choke up). I wonder if this means that the clueless marketroids are going to start pushing for "Internet-specific optimizations" on the processor itself, as opposed to just better functions. We're already seeing a lot of extra stuff bundled into things in order to try and make them "better for the net".
An interesting example is the Linux development series kernel, which has some code in it specifically designed to make your system faster if you are dishing out webpages, just by building that into the kernel. I think it makes anything using the HTTP protocol faster, and that newer releases of Apache will sit on top of it, if that's built into the kernel. I don't remember the specifics.
Now, I am of two minds as to whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it does give something for the suits from Red Hat et al. to put in their advertising. It is what some would call unneccessary clutter in the kernel, (but yes, of course, you can just compile it out!)
It'll be interesting to see just how much further this trend goes.
Nicholas
There seems to be some confusion about just what OpenGL is, and what it can and cannot do. So, let's clarify.
-- 3dfx vs. OpenGL. This is like comparing apples to pigs. OpenGL is a crossplatform 3D API for a variety of cards and systems. 3dfx is a card manufacturer. Possibly what the individual who wrote this post was thinking about is Glide, which is 3dfx's own semi-proprietary (now open, actually, if memory serves) API for programming their video cards. The Linux XFree86 3.3.x OpenGL drivers nestle on top of Glide. So do the XFree86 4.0 ones, although to a far lesser degree.
-- OpenGL HAS been changing since 1995. It is an "open" format, ergo the name "OpenGL". Anybody who has an OpenGL implementation can write extensions to it. Examples of these include some of the proprietary extensions developed by NVidia for their cards, like GL_REGISTER_COMBINE_NV. While the base implementation of OpenGL hasn't changed much, the extensions have. A variety of the more "popular extensions", such as the compiled vertex arrays extension, have made it into most OpenGL compliant libraries.
A body exists known as the OpenGL Architectural Review Board who approves these extensions and gives them an ARB approval rating, thereby formalising them as extensions which people should support. An example of which is the GL_MULTITEXTURE_ARB extension.
The primary difference to a hardware vendor between OpenGL and Direct3D is that Direct3D is controlled solely by Microsoft. (What a surprise). Therefore, if a company like NVidia, Matrox, 3Dfx, or ATI wants to develop some nifty new function on their cards, like... hardware mesh deformation, for instance... they would want to support both OpenGL and Direct3D. Now, with Direct3D, they need to pester Microsoft to add it to the official implementation, and that could take forever, and cost them lots of money. For OpenGL, since they write the OpenGL compliant libraries themselves (although often based on code by and licensed by SGI), they can do it immediately.
That's why OpenGL is IMO better: it's an Open API that can expand a lot quicker, and which better reflects the "I want it, I'll add it" philosophy which lets good stuff grow quickly. A company can add whatever they want to their OpenGL compliant libraries without having to suck up to SGI, whereas they DO have to suck up a lot to Microsoft to get anything done.
Nicholas
As part of a paper that I put together a while back as a rebuttal to the "Linux Myths" thing by Microsoft (which, unfortunately, I never got around to releasing...), I seem to recall that one of the complaints was that Linux didn't comply to any formal security standards. The rebuttal that I used at the time was that is was solely through lack of money, and not through quality.
An approach that we could look at would be to have a free, (as in beer, as in speech), funded by donation, organization to test and issue security compliancy licenses in a well thought out, academically proven manner to open source software. While it would mean that the closed source world might not acknowledge it immediately as a standard, it would mean that we could then say "Hey, we're using academically developed processes, just under a different name, and ours might even be better than yours."
The real challenge would be figuring out if we can conduct an academic review under an open development model. That would be cool.
Nicholas
One of the more interesting ramifications of this and the sugar article is that it shows just how much we can learn about space without ever actually going there ourselves.
:)
The water was discovered by an orbiting satellite, and the sugar was discovered by analysing radio emissions, of all things. So we can prove that it's there without actually looking at them ourselves.
Moral of the story: It's very possible that funding Space Exploration with people isn't as important as funding cosmological research, which seems to get results far beyond anything we could imagine. The fact that we can discern that there's sugar in the center of the galaxy and water on Mars when we can't even travel there is really impressive.
Besides which, if we sent an astronaut to Mars they'd probably get his height wrong.
Nicholas
In this age where even the average e-shopper is so worried about "electronic privacy", where Microsoft Internet Explorer warns you constantly not to install untrusted plugins, and where the ILOVEYOU e-mail worm did six billion dollars worth of damage, it constantly amazes me that consumers in general still run software which hasn't been inspected by a reliable and unbiased third party. Perhaps people's trust of the Big Corporations have grown to such a point that we automatically assume that "they wouldn't be spying on us, they're our friends"; or perhaps it's because the 92% of the population that uses Windows 95 fails to see the risk.
Hopefully people will eventually learn that you shouldn't trust any software that you can't inspect, or that somebody else can't inspect for you. Would you buy a car if you weren't allowed to look under the hood, take it for a test drive, or even open the door before you signed the purchase agreement?
Isn't it an odd world we live in?
Nicholas
... just as long as you stab Jon Katz with it :)
(joking, joking...)
Nicholas
I'd better mention who wrote this and where.
The writer is Apogee President Scott Miller.
The place was "Blues' News" -- http://www.bluesnews.com.
I don't work for 3DRealms, much as I'd like to.
Nicholas
A standard response to the madness! :-)
;-)
I must say this is just entirely too funny. And a sad commentary on how little most people understand law.
I will say that anyone who thinks we are trying to control reviews and such are jumping on a bandwagon without really giving it proper consideration. Legally, that's entirely impossible -- but then, most people know less about law than they do making ice.
This policy/agreement simply allows fan sites to use our trademarks and copyright character art, etc. Most developers/publishers do not allow this at all. End of story. We are providing a way for them to do so, though. Lay people, of course, read this policy and become panic mongers. This policy is only for owners of web sites who wish to use our trademarks and copyrights, like www.3dportal.com. Somehow, someone found a link to it and of course jumps to the wrong conclusion, because...hey...it then can become a hot topic. Yippee. Don't we live in a fun society?
We might need to make it more clear that reviews are--of course!--not what concern us (nor could we legally prevent negative reviews--that's patently absurd). It's a web site using our logos next to overly foul, abusive, racist, etc. language or art. For example, we would not allow our logos to be used on a porn site.
Back to important work...
---------
Typical. People, please CHECK these stories before posting them!
Nicholas
Turbo Pascal, the language that I started with (5.5 on a 286dx/12!) has been released as freeware (versions 1.0, 3.0 and 5.5 if memory serves) at the Borland webpage.
Does it get cooler?
Nicholas
... then glop some ads up, with the artists receiving a portion, if not all, of the revenues. You could even cut out the recording agencies here, so your profit margin couldn't hurt much.
Welcome to one of the founding principles of "making money off of the Internet": Free services with advertising.
Nicholas Vining
If you'd care to read the release announcement, it says that it is a beta release, which may well imply that it isn't stable. Bugs should be reported with http://fenris.lokigames.com.
Nicholas
can be found here. Funny that the article didn't mention this, but on the other hand it HAS stopped them from being slashdotted.
Nicholas
It's true. Here's why!
-- web pads are bulky. Condoms fit easily in your wallet.
-- Condoms are plug and play.
-- Portable web pads probably would use infrared technology for data transmission, requiring extra expense. Condoms use older parallel port technology: just need a female port and a male adaptor.
-- If you're running anything crucial on a web pad, you'll want a firewall. Condoms have their OWN protection.
-- Condoms come lubricated for better access.
and, of course, something that most of us will never really come to terms with:
-- Sex is better than Slashdot. Sorry, but it's true.
Nicholas
Having seen these, I'd say it's bad lighting on the part of the photographers.
She looked damn hot when she posed as a schoolteacher for PC Accelerator.
Nicholas
In order to provide some contrast on this whole Killcreek thing, this month's Penthouse allegedly (though I haven't bought one) has pictures of Paul McCartney's one-legged amputee girlfriend naked inside. Plastic boobs or skin grafts, I guess.
/.ers really don't care. We're still all lusting after Natalie Portman. :)
Of course, us
Nicholas
I can think of two ways of lessening damage due to gesture-borging.
The first would be to send the actual gesture data to the trusted server/other clients for verification that they weren't simply repeating the genuine pattern over and over again. This way, you at least wouldn't get 100% accuracy; you'd have to come up with a good way of fudging it.
The second would be to put limitations into the game mechanics itself to fix this -- i.e. it doesn't matter how good you are at using the gesture, it takes five minutes to recharge before you can do another one.
Both of these are workable solutions IMO, and I'm sure another approach could be developed. It's not like there aren't going to be security problems anyways; people will crack games and develop cheats regardless of whether or not they are closed/open source. You could also do gesture-borging with a souped up version of GPM, for instance.
Nicholas
> welp there goes the multiplayer =(
Finally, something I can lecture about.
I've spent a good while over the past five months working on an open source MMORPG, and one of the issues that constantly shows up is client-server security. Anybody who has the source code can modify it, and can run their own hacked client. And there's nothing that you can do about it, apart from closing certain portions of the source code, which is a Bad Thing. (One possibility would be a closed source validator which checks to make sure that the binary is "Acceptable")
That said, what you need to do in any sort of open-source project with a multiplayer function is to develop a system where you trust nobody. In other words, should player X suddenly get a +5 sword of flame and there's no way that he could have gotten it on this level other than cheating, the other clients ignore it/notify the other users/kick him out. I don't know enough about Black and White to go into more detail in terms of how you'd compensate for its actual style of gameplay, but that's one approach.
Another approach would be to maintain a list of "untrustworthy" players based, possibly, off of their IP addresses. Then, if a player is determined to be cheating, he can be blacklisted.
You CAN have secure open-source projects; this is clearly proved by Linux itself. You just need to keep this in mind when you design the game -- and you want a fairly secure multiplayer model anyways, as people will find ways to cheat no matter what. (Played Diablo lately?)
Myself, I'd love an open-source Black & White, just so I could port it to Linux and further disrupt my productivity.
Nicholas
A thought. You may wish to get in touch with the American Civil Liberties Union, if you haven't already; also, possibly the EFF. Both are excellent organizations who spend a lot of time dealing with this sort of stuff, and can also probably recommend additional routes and options (while you're thinking)
We're all behind you, guys. Keep us posted.
Nicholas
True -- if I run a web site providing a free service, I need to support it. This is especially important with free software sites; advertising may well be a good way for Open Source projects with a high number of hits on their web page/day to make some money to further development.
That said, what's wrong with using less offensive, textual adds without graphics?
Just something along the lines of, (and I'll use my project at this point:)
Kosmos Online is sponsored by pfui.net (now featuring fascinating hunks of gorp for $14.99/mo. -- rich and creamy!)
and maybe a little further down:
Please visit our sponsors, as they provide money to keep Kosmos Online going.
An effective compromise, IMHO.
Nothing is more annoying than watching as the banner downloads first, it's big, loud, animated, and annoying, and you can't actually read anything on the page which you want to. And text is faster to transmit, thereby solving the problem that somebody mentioned of ads sucking up bandwidth.
Just a thought...
Nicholas
Mea culpa, accidentally pounded the shift.
But the point still remains...
Nicholas
Hmm... with John Cash leaving now, and Dave "Zoid" Kirsch leaving before that, is iD software now going to be looking to hire a couple of replacements?
Nicholas
What they might do is license it under something like the LGPL, which looks fairly respectable. It's what some "open source competitive software" uses, right?
That way they can opensource very small parts of whatever libraries or whathaveyous that they feel like (Freecell, the Paperclip, Microsoft Briefcase, the Channels thing, etc.), then keep the rest linked to it as binaries while distributing the source for these few components, and then they're (quote)"GNU Open Source Software,... really!"
And if they follow my idea, I guess they'll just be innovating.
Nicholas
This is why smart companies release the source, and let the Linux programming/hacking community do the dirty work of ensuring that it works across distros.
:-)
This works best for hardware companies, of course, since you still have to buy their product in order to use it (3D accelerators spring instantly to mind).. however, you can have variations on the theme. For instance, all of Loki Entertainment's tools are available, and people hack on them and deal with issues like cross-distro support, working with both XFree86 3.whatever and X 4.0, etc., which is why Loki games work out of the box for me.
Opensourcing is good, folks, and it helps to deal with these wierd distro problems. And if your company doesn't go that far, consider allowing select individuals access to the source under NDA.
Use the source, Luke!
Nicholas
Personal computers will always have a good market share in the gaming industry so long as console developers persist in charging massive licensing fees for their development platforms. The situation that you describe would be possible only if that playing field evens; otherwise, it's very cost effective for companies to market games for the PC. And with 3D hardware in the computer looking to catch up to 3D hardware on platforms like the PS2, (which you can't upgrade, I might add), I think PC hardware will be in use as a gaming platform for a while yet.
Nicholas