Does this slashdot even warrant a reply? Apparently, it does, since it was brought up and a few people even seem to agree with it. Let's just hit a couple big points.
Search for 'indie game' on Google. 19 million hits. Now search for free game. 96 million hits. How much spare time do you have to play these games? Hello Mr Supply and Demand.
I don't have a clever search term for this one, but I can count on two hands every game in the last 10 years that has held my attention for more than 30 minutes. I'm including big studios here. If you'd like to earn money, earn it. If not, here's a styrofoam cup. There's the street corner.
Now, let's compare one entertainment medium to another. You can read short stories for free online or you can pay for print magazines or anthologies of known good authors. You can read comics online for free or you can pay for prints or anthologies of known good authors. You can view photos online for free or you can pay for collections from known good photographers. Sense a theme? Indie developers are, by their nature, relatively unknown. If they can peddle their wares for any amount I'd call that a winning situation.
However, the blogger is right. This is no way to maintain a healthy industry. What we don't need right now is more of these healthy industries. Not every single source of income needs to be neatly packaged and protected as an industry from now until the end of time. It's bad enough we've got ISP monopolies gouging customers, investment companies begging for CEO bonuses, an auto manufacturing industry threatening to blow itself up if it doesn't get bailed out for its screw-ups (so it can screw up some more!), and an airline industry that's beyond reproach. The industrial revolution is over. Let's come up with something better.
Isn't anyone else curious to see what happens next?! I can just imagine millions of computer users starting their computers Monday morning and seeing their new goatse-themed desktop. Oh the lols...
Necessity is the mother of invention. There'd be no changing a broken system if crises like this didn't come up and stress it. I'm curious to see how much further this can go (in general, not just regarding AP) before some really big shit hits the fan.
The REAL Will Wright is a one hit wonder who has ridden on the coattails of SimCity for 20 years because nobody else in the industry has the brains or the balls to come up with something better. What non-SimCity spin-off of his has been successful?
Companies don't pay for 40 hours of your work, they pay for 40 hours of your presence. Your boss can easily measure how long you've been at work, but not how productive you've been, so that's the metric used.
I doubt it would work like that. Protests in the streets? I don't hear about a single street protest anytime a big tracker gets taken down, a **AA lobbies for some ridiculous new regulation, or ISPs voluntarily do something obviously unreasonable and unfair to their customers. We're going to bend over and we're going to take it. If we'd been fighting against regulation like this before, it wouldn't have gotten this far.
You can mod it to 5 and mod this to -1 as a troll post, but the fact remains that all the/. posts in the world won't change a damn bit of this broken system.
I'm in the same situation as I'd imagine most of us are. None of the cable ISPs have any reason to listen to customer complaints as long as they have a monopoly in their service regions. The only surprise here is that they've waited so long to start squeezing.
Take all that gamer angst and use the energy to find legally free alternatives for games you like. In the many cases where alternative don't exist or just suck, help the developers make them suck less. It's the only long-term solution.
I don't know if it's appropriate to tag this article as such. Jack Thompson is a known nutcase and I'm sure that game lobbyists hold some sway since gaming hasn't suffered as much as other industries in this recession. The governor's decision is at least as much politics as it is personal feeling.
That's not just his problem. It's his employees' problem too. If he can't make seven or eight figures a year selling the stuff he can't pay his underlings five figures a year to put food on their tables and then they starve and can't do any more work.
Even if you love developing for Linux in your spare time you still need a full time job that, somewhere along the line, sells a service or a product. If that sale isn't made, you won't have a job and you'll have to look for one instead of working on FOSS. No matter how you slice it, FOSS depends directly on the traditional for-profit market to stay alive.
Have you ever noticed how there's always a shortage of X profession, no jobs in X profession, and poor quality goods coming from X profession? Software development, especially niche software development, is notorious for buggy programs with terrible interfaces. Find a need and fill it. If you do this well your name will get around a certain field and if you're still interested in being hired by someone at that point you'll probably have several job offers to choose from. Nice thing about software development is you only need to give up your time to get into it. At least you're not trying to break into aircraft design.
You forgot the most important aspect of doing science in the 21st century: it gets the students to figure out what paperwork needs to be done and who needs to get copies of it before you do anything.
Whether it's bad or good depends on your target audience. If your software is intended for geeks interested in giving feedback or directly helping with project development it's good to get that feedback early and often. If your software is intended for Average Joe User who just wants it to work with little or no hassle so he can do what he needs to do and get on with his day, then you're better off waiting until you have a pretty clean product.
Slashdot Mirror
Does this slashdot even warrant a reply? Apparently, it does, since it was brought up and a few people even seem to agree with it. Let's just hit a couple big points.
Search for 'indie game' on Google. 19 million hits. Now search for free game. 96 million hits. How much spare time do you have to play these games? Hello Mr Supply and Demand.
I don't have a clever search term for this one, but I can count on two hands every game in the last 10 years that has held my attention for more than 30 minutes. I'm including big studios here. If you'd like to earn money, earn it. If not, here's a styrofoam cup. There's the street corner.
Now, let's compare one entertainment medium to another. You can read short stories for free online or you can pay for print magazines or anthologies of known good authors. You can read comics online for free or you can pay for prints or anthologies of known good authors. You can view photos online for free or you can pay for collections from known good photographers. Sense a theme? Indie developers are, by their nature, relatively unknown. If they can peddle their wares for any amount I'd call that a winning situation.
However, the blogger is right. This is no way to maintain a healthy industry. What we don't need right now is more of these healthy industries. Not every single source of income needs to be neatly packaged and protected as an industry from now until the end of time. It's bad enough we've got ISP monopolies gouging customers, investment companies begging for CEO bonuses, an auto manufacturing industry threatening to blow itself up if it doesn't get bailed out for its screw-ups (so it can screw up some more!), and an airline industry that's beyond reproach. The industrial revolution is over. Let's come up with something better.
Sign the petition.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Isn't anyone else curious to see what happens next?! I can just imagine millions of computer users starting their computers Monday morning and seeing their new goatse-themed desktop. Oh the lols...
Necessity is the mother of invention. There'd be no changing a broken system if crises like this didn't come up and stress it. I'm curious to see how much further this can go (in general, not just regarding AP) before some really big shit hits the fan.
The REAL Will Wright is a one hit wonder who has ridden on the coattails of SimCity for 20 years because nobody else in the industry has the brains or the balls to come up with something better. What non-SimCity spin-off of his has been successful?
Where do I sign up for a pair of speaker pants?
Companies don't pay for 40 hours of your work, they pay for 40 hours of your presence. Your boss can easily measure how long you've been at work, but not how productive you've been, so that's the metric used.
I doubt it would work like that. Protests in the streets? I don't hear about a single street protest anytime a big tracker gets taken down, a **AA lobbies for some ridiculous new regulation, or ISPs voluntarily do something obviously unreasonable and unfair to their customers. We're going to bend over and we're going to take it. If we'd been fighting against regulation like this before, it wouldn't have gotten this far.
...when Google starts charging for it.
You can mod it to 5 and mod this to -1 as a troll post, but the fact remains that all the /. posts in the world won't change a damn bit of this broken system.
I'm in the same situation as I'd imagine most of us are. None of the cable ISPs have any reason to listen to customer complaints as long as they have a monopoly in their service regions. The only surprise here is that they've waited so long to start squeezing.
An infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. We're getting there.
Are there really not enough issues in the world to get worked up about that people are arguing over a freakin' gift exchange?
What are they saying? That we should have to be more open to funding shite we don't actually want?
Well, yeah, actually. Isn't this what the **AA, car manufacturers, and every other maker of obsolete trash is saying?
Take all that gamer angst and use the energy to find legally free alternatives for games you like. In the many cases where alternative don't exist or just suck, help the developers make them suck less. It's the only long-term solution.
I don't know if it's appropriate to tag this article as such. Jack Thompson is a known nutcase and I'm sure that game lobbyists hold some sway since gaming hasn't suffered as much as other industries in this recession. The governor's decision is at least as much politics as it is personal feeling.
That's not just his problem. It's his employees' problem too. If he can't make seven or eight figures a year selling the stuff he can't pay his underlings five figures a year to put food on their tables and then they starve and can't do any more work.
Even if you love developing for Linux in your spare time you still need a full time job that, somewhere along the line, sells a service or a product. If that sale isn't made, you won't have a job and you'll have to look for one instead of working on FOSS. No matter how you slice it, FOSS depends directly on the traditional for-profit market to stay alive.
And no recourse.
Well... A libel suit against the RIAA for telling your ISP that you are a pirate. Expensive unless someone makes it a business model.
Or a class action suit... can you have a class action libel case?
I for one welcome our new aquatic overlords.
C'mon, now. Revolt? Public outrage? That's so last century. America's too fat and happy to get off its lazy ass and do anything about this.
Have you ever noticed how there's always a shortage of X profession, no jobs in X profession, and poor quality goods coming from X profession? Software development, especially niche software development, is notorious for buggy programs with terrible interfaces. Find a need and fill it. If you do this well your name will get around a certain field and if you're still interested in being hired by someone at that point you'll probably have several job offers to choose from. Nice thing about software development is you only need to give up your time to get into it. At least you're not trying to break into aircraft design.
You forgot the most important aspect of doing science in the 21st century: it gets the students to figure out what paperwork needs to be done and who needs to get copies of it before you do anything.
Whether it's bad or good depends on your target audience. If your software is intended for geeks interested in giving feedback or directly helping with project development it's good to get that feedback early and often. If your software is intended for Average Joe User who just wants it to work with little or no hassle so he can do what he needs to do and get on with his day, then you're better off waiting until you have a pretty clean product.
Can't RTFA because the link is down, but 'We're Linux' ought to be a school cafeteria with all the distros having a food fight.