. . . except for the bit about it fitting quite well into Microsoft's current 'sales' strategies.
Point one -- the BSA scares buisnesses. When Microsoft and cronies have the ability to demand an audit of your computers for 'license compliance' and the ability to levy huge (to the point of unreasonable) fines when the inenvitable noncompliance is found, buisnesses get the mental image of writing large checks -- not a good thing.
Point two -- Microsoft already
provides some limited facilities for atomatic tracking of licenses. As I understand these facilities, however, their liability is in that everything has to be mannually entered.
Point three -- Microsoft is probably going to tout Palladium on the point of security. I speculate that it will not only be marketed as security from the Evil Hackers (tm, c, patent pennding) [and security from fair use of purchased media] but it will also be marketed as security from piracy. As part of this initiative, which Microsoft (rationally, as the one selling the software) hopes will take hold like wildfire, I speculate that Microsoft will add automatic license tracking -- when an OEM corporate system is first turned on, it will register itself [more specificially its license and machine hash] with a server on the corporation's network. Then, periodicially, the corporate people can do a license audit at the click of a button, asking all machines on the network to verify that the machine-hash for the system has the proper license installed for the system that the machine is currently running.
As if that weren't enough of a boost to phone-home capabilities, which can be surrepeitiously included in the LAN-activation, Microsoft can rent out its services as a license-management entity for those corps that don't want to run their own server for it. Furthermore, it's only a small step from the above pagagraph to one where the license-server becomes authoritative (and thus a valid defense) in the case of a BSA audit -- completely disable manual addition and removal of licenses, and have the entire process automated and encrypted. Of course, these systems will have to phone-home to Microsoft for the key-of-the-day.
When it first started WPA in Windows XP, Microsoft made the mistake of not doing anything for the the corporations that it was trying to sell XP to; Product activation was billed entirely as something for Microsoft, and (so far as I know), offers no protection in the case of a BSA audit, so corporate types were not given a large enough bribe for the breach in their privacy and network integrity. You can bet that Microsoft doesn't like that, and is going to try to find a way to slap the big-ticket corporate purchases with the same kind of restrictions they're getting away with for home users.
With respect to the first one, a Neverwinter module doesn't contain what can reasonably be considered Bioware's copyrighted material. Any textures that are included in the module will be the ones that aren't included in the game. Environment, monster, item, and character models are also part of the game rather than the mod. Any text in the mod was entered by the author - it may be copyrighted by someone else, nut it doesn't have to be.
Er, what are you smoking, and where can I get some? A neverwinter module is distinct from a mod in the traditional sense, in that it is created with tools supplied with the game using the game's supplied artwork, etc. Any module, as such, will be using Bioware's copyrighted material; even under the most restrictive interpretation of the legal scope of EULA's, their restrictions are okay, if not necessarialaly nice -- if you don't agree, you can't use their copyrighted textures, sounds, etc, and thus have no legal standing to distribute your module.
More interesting than Red Hat's patent policy is that I can't seem to find any patents owned by them. A search at uspto.gov for "red hat" (it's case insensitive) returns 20 patents, none of which are assigned to Red Hat Inc., according to the "Assigned Name" field.
Either I'm missing some patents assigned to them, this policy is completely vacuous, or Red Hat intends to buy/patent many things starting soon.
Well, if they get their traffic shaping right of course. The problem is that the greedy client in the restaurant generally takes all the shortcuts necessary to get more food, including
* cajoling the waiter
* pretending to be someone else
* going to the kitchen direct
* saying his plate is really someone else's plate
* running plates out of the restaurant to his friends and coming back with an empty plate much faster than the others who are eating at their normal pace
Cajoling the waiter -- the proper Customer Support response to this is "I'm sorry, sir, but while we allow people to use the entirety of our unused bandwidth we reduce this excess use as needed to gurantee quality service for all users."
Pretending to be someone else -- on Cable, where it's all one big fat pipe with packets being sent into the ether[net], I can see this as being a problem. On DSL, however, each client has his own loop, so these things can be more controlled. Even then, the proportion of bandwidth hogs who will resort to outright fraud (and probably criminal computer tresspass to get username/passwd) is quite small.
Going to the kitchen direct -- then the resturaunt isn't actually serving his food, and he's getting his food the same place they are [I.E. the upstream provider] -- no problem for the resturaunt.
Saying his plate is really someone else's plate -- since there's no provision for "getting packets for someone else" in any of the RFC's I've read, this is the same as the fraud mentioned above.
Running plates out of the resturaunt -- Still no QoS problem, because he's the same person still -- the waiter will give him a guranteed service level of the same rate as other customers, and if he's less busy he'll stop by more often in his downtime.
Getting the traffic shaping correct isn't a piece of cake, for example, but I think you're underestimating the utility of a simple Guranteed (pipewidth/max#ofusers) burstable to the full pipe bandwidth. If you really want to get fancy about it, give a minimum (pipe/max#user) gurantee and twice that as a "second tier" gurantee -- all users with enough traffic (to generate that much bandwidth) will have the second gurantee filled before anyone can burst beyond it.
In the States, where 1Mbps+ connections are relatively common for broadband, your first-tier guranteed bandwidtgh might only be 128kpbs or so -- but this represents the worst possible case over _everyone_ on the loop online at the same time fully utilizing their connections at the same time. In the average case of you going online with a few 31337 gnutella users at the same time, you'd meet however many levels of quotas there are directly out of the gnutella guys' burst, and then compete with them for the burst-level bandwidth +(say)700kpbs.
Blocking ports, although effective in reducing the total amount of bandwidth you'll have to deliver, is most definitely _not_ the most effective means of fairly allocating the bandwidth you have. It's possible, with a given amount of bandwidth, for there to be "enough for everybody" while still allowing a few people to have "as much as they want" when no one else is using it.
Re:Not slashdotted yet, but getting there....
on
Gentoo 1.0 Released
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· Score: 2
The ISO is only 103 MB. Tres coolito.
That's only the Phase 3 ISO file. The Phase 1, which is the minimum needed for the system (phases 2 and 3 come partially compiled) is under 20MB -- it gets damn near everything from the 'net.
But MS can and will go after corporations (using the BSA, etc). So basically it means that where this plugin would be most useful - allowing corporations to painlessly migrate to Linux on the desktop - it can't be used.
I'm not so sure about this... so long as the antitrust trial is running, MS should be extremely wary of pulling this kind of trick. After all, if news of this reached the lawyers, it's a simple matter to say "Look! MS is directly using its dominance in the Office market to restrict people from using other operating systems!"
With mandatory ports of Office to other operating systems already possible term of settlement, MS trying something like this would virtually assure mandatory porting and/or license restrictions in the final judgement.
copy con ez-crack.bat
echo 127.0.0.1 my.ambrosia.authserver.com >> C:\windows\hosts
^Z
That didn't take long. And now anyone can run it!
You know that, and I know that, but I'm willing to bet that the average user doesn't know that it's that easy. Trying a "public" regcode is a simple idea that Joe Public can grasp his head around -- you tell the software you're someone else, and it works fine.
Any kind of crack, even one as simple as the above, has the disadvantage that users are scared of downloading strange things off of the internet. Even the instructions on how to do it yourself would scare off most people, as it involves mucking around in the windows directory, and WinXX itself tries to scare you away from there.
A regcode-verification system doesn't have to be technicially perfect; a perfect system would require a "trusted client" ala DRM, and without that I don't think it's technicially possible. What a good regcode system will do make it difficult/scary enough for the nieve user attempting to install a crack that it's easier (at least mentally) to actually go out and spend the $20 for it.
By the way, your system won't protect against a hard-coded IP backup. Less stable, as the servers might change, but for a one-step immunity to/etc/hosts solutions while your site stays up, half a dozen packets isn't that expensive.
When I purchase software, I own the product. The problem with expiring registration codes is that you only own the software as long as the company is in business.
If done right, this isn't strictly true. A registration system only needs to rely on central servers if data used for the authentication process changes, such as a System ID or a timestamp, the latter being used in Ambrosia's system.
A simple authentication system would take the registree's name, address, and perhaps a keycode given at regtime to create a hash for the authentication server. If that hash is valid (meaning the registration actually happened), the authentication server will respond with a countercode that the program uses to unlock itself. If this countercode is not time-limited in any way, there's nothing logisticially preventing it from beging shown to the user, and thus permanently recorded; it will still be valid so long as the user remembers his name/address/etc.
If changing data is used for the hash, however, then there's a trickier situation if the authentication servers go permanently down. Most schemes would have the server respond with a sepereate countercode, and thus an old one would not work to unlock the program.
One solution to this problem is a master-key; a nonchanging constant that could be released if the company goes out of buisness. This creates security flaws, however, if the key is found out before the company goes out of buisness. Also, having a master key for the product out there would significantly reduce the possible value of the software "asset" in bankruptcy proceedings, so the courts might not allow the key to be made public.
A possibly better alternative would be to have the company release a patch that turned off the date-checking code in the program. Although this doesn't create any security holes in the product while the company's still alive, it does require that the company know it's irrevocably going bankrupt, and the programmers must have enough knowledge about the banakrputcy and power to release the patch -- neither of which are particularly likely in large corporations... after all, management can spin off the now-crippled masses as a "customer base" for future revisions to be sold at auction.
What's really needed is some sort of "dead-man's switch" so that if the company suddenly drops off of the face of the earth, the software will still work. To do this, the software should become non-functional if it receives a negative response from the auth server, instead of becoming non-functional if it fails to receive a positive response. The reg-server hostname should be hardcoded into the software somewhere (binary data file or program executable -- NOT a plaintext file), and the software (given use of an expired regcode) will try authenticating with the server on run and every hour or so until it receives a positive or negative response, in which case it will update its datafile and not try again (with that regcode).
"But Wait!" you say, "Isn't that system inherently insecure, as malpeople can crack the software or selectively block access to the auth servers?"
This is true, but, as the Ambrosia article says, the vast majority of people will do very little beyond trying a cracked regcode -- even installing a crack is beyond the vast majority of people who would typicially use the software; configuring special firewall rules is probably out of the question. (This is also why I said "put the server info in a binary file", as instructions to remove the data from a textfile is easy enough for most users.) Software registration is a game of 90%'s, so eliminating 90% of potential copyright infringers is about as good as you can get for reasonable effort. For people who _do_ tell Zonealarm to not allow the program to connect, a nag screen on startup to the effect of "This software has not verified its registration, click OK to continue" will get another fraction or two to register -- admittedly, it would be a pain if the company went out of buisness, but it doesn't have any bearing on the functionality of the software, especially for something noncritical like a game.
Running the software on a computer without internet access at all is another possibility of getting aroud the auth scheme, but that's becoming increasingly less likely as time goes on -- more and more computers are getting connected in some way, shape, or form, and shareware is largely distributed over the Internet now anyway.
Admittedly, this isn't a 100% perfect solution to the tradeoff between infringement-possibilities and functionality in the face of bankruptcy, but I'd guess that it's 80% of the way there, and it would require no changes to the keygen routines themselves.
--
The ideas expressed in this writeup are expressly placed into the public domain.
Screenshots are derived works (they contain copyrighted bitmaps). Under the GPL you cannot copy derived works without distributing the source code to those derived works.
(Score: -1, incorrect, troll, flamebait.)
A) Screenshots are products of the program. They are "derived works" in the sense of Copyright law, but they are only derived in the sense that the.bmp files you produce from are derived works -- they are yours to do with as you please unless you were specificially forbidden from doing it by the license of the creator. Which doesn't apply here -- quoth the GPL:
and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Since the screenshot isn't of the GNOME source, it's not covered by the GPL.
B) Even if the GPL did cover the output of the program, which it doesn't, use of VNC still wouldn't be prohibited. The GPL only mandates that you release source to people whom you have given binaries, and that only if they requested it -- if you're using VNC for personal use or internal to your company, no one will be requesting the source so you're fine. If you're allowing complete strangers VNC access, then you have greater problems than possible GPL violations.
The summary failed to mention that there's a 10/100 ethernet card built into the board, and a PCI slot to boot, making the board useful for things beyond simple embedded systems.
Although I wouldn't use it as a desktop system (although perhaps for non-techies...), something like this might be perfect for small network-access terminals of the kind used in stores and universities. Even in the home, something like this might be good as a stereo-system replacement (using the PCI slot for a decent soundcard, vs. integrated sound).
Are there any cases that would work decently with this design, though, or would something have to be custom-built?
This mobo is just begging for a beowulf cluster mention, but I suspect that the release price will make conventional solutions less expensive for quite some time.
Taking another product and re-labeling it is cheap and wrong. They could have taken the time to actually make their own product (i.e. change the UI perhaps).
I'm not sure whether they had much of a choice in the matter. Everything I've read seems to indicate that Morpheus users were suddenly locked out of the FastTrack network without warning either to them or to MusicCity. In order to keep their client base, they had to put something out now.
It's unfair to blame MusicCity for putting out a Gnucleus client that doesn't have any new features -- they had a grand total of a week to figure out what the hell the problem was, realize that they couldn't fix it, and put out a stopgap solution.
I'm sure that, over the next month, MusicCity will be putting out a client that has some actual programming work put into it, but for now the most important thing is that it works.
However, for the life of me I can't find the link to the source code that people are saying was on the front page (and I thought it was too). Has it been removed or am I merely blind?
It's at the bottom of the blue sidebar/frame on the left, just above the green "Return to Home." As of now, it appears -- if it's not working for you check that you're not using a cached version of the page, and that your browser likes frames (probably a given).
Admittedly the zip file then contains a folder called gnucleus1 so it may be the original, unmodified code rather than the morpheus code. Anyone else see this link or have the ability to analyse the code?
A cursory check of the source reveals files modified as little as 24 hours ago -- one contains the comment at the beginning "Modified for StreamCast Networks by Rob Adamson 3/2/2002".
Grepping the source tree for "orpheus" reveals several mentions, including in what appear to be product name strings.
Looks like the real deal, folks, and someone just jumped the lawsuit-happy gun.
MusicCity actually _does_ have a source code download link, on the main page even -- check the left toolbar, at the bottom.
A quick download and scan of the readme.txt file shows that it is indeed Gnucleus source. The GPL violation here is merely in the advertizement -- the source is quite throughly public; I'm sure the flaw will be corrected soon.
That reminds me, I still have one unwatched episode of Crusade left on my Tivo, from sometime last year, that I still haven't watched. I saw it the first time around, but for as amazing as (the first four seasons of) B5 was, Crusade mostly sucked.
The B5-fan in me makes me write this reply:
Crusade sucked because it was _not_ JMS's show. TNT, which had picked up B5 after the dissolution of PTEN (which was responsible for B5 in syndication), also picked up Crusade. Unfortunately, it occured around the same time that TNT decided to "refocus" on its core demographic of 19-23 yo males -- via the ever-popular venue of pro wrestling.
A high science fiction show, like Crusade, doesn't exactly fit terribly well with that target audience. To correct that fatal flaw, the TNT execs began pushing JMS to add features into the series, and they exercised much more creative control than was appropriate for even network executives.
All of the Crusade episodes before "Racing the Night" were specificially ordered by TNT to "introduce" viewers to the series -- JMS's plan was to begin the series in media res. The SciFi channel is airing the episodes in a "mostly correct" order, as sanctioned by JMS, but the TNT-ordered episodes are still lin there.
The uniform switching, by the way, was also a result of the TNT meddling -- any episodes that have the cast wearing uniforms seen in Racing the Night would be JMS-originals.
As related to Jerimiah, JMS has said that he will never, ever do a series again when he does not have near absolute creative control. When announcing the project, he said that he was happy to work with Showtime because they don't have the limits that network TV imposes on him (so this might be bad news for anyone relying on scifi/network syndication). So far as I've seen him write, he's had no creative issues, and it's his series.
What good is a backup of the server logs if I can't prove it wasn't tampered by myself? I know my boss will believe me if I used it as proof to protect my ass, but would a jury? Am I just wasting trees?
So far as I understand these expiring-email systems, the presence of a message will still show up in the server logs, at least for a while. That "presence of a message" log will be pretty convincing to a jury, as it at least proves that you didn't make the message up yourself.
On backups of server logs, the only thing I could recommend would be to have both yourself and a cow-orker PGP sign the logs at the same time -- then they have to prove a consipiracy between the two of you to alter the logs, which will probably harder than throwing just your credibility into question.
If you have shell access to the server in question (I.E. are high-enough up that you can do most anything to the server), try writing something that would take a hash (md5sum or so) of the logs in question (while they're still on the server, and thus unalterable to you) and mail the sum (along with a timestamp, a sum of the program itself, and a sum of something that proves it's not in a chroot jail -- all to prove that the program hasn't been tampered with) to both yourself and a trusted external data repository that you can't alter [Again, a friend comes in handy here].
>"Intellectual "property" isn't scarce, so the same rules CANNOT apply exactly."
It is not scarce? So you're telling me that everyone thinks and creates on the same level of intelligence.
You're using the wrong definition of scarce. Each "new" IP created by someone is just that, a new property. This is much like a new model of car, a new type of CPU, or green orange-juice.
"Scarce," in economics terminology, means limited. If some X number of people have this, then the X+1'th person is going to get stiffed. This applies quite well to physical properties, because there are only so many, and that number is usually quite small compared to the number of people on the planet.
Oxygen, however, is not scarce. Nitrogen is not scarce. (Both if these come with caevats that it's breathable, but not pure.) Intellectual property is not scarce. I can breathe as much as I want and not affect the breating of anyone else on the planet. Likewise, I can copy the Linux Kernel (insert favorite rev. here) as many times as I want, and everybody else on the planet will still be able to get theirs.
Your argument (which seems to be that the market created/allowed by IP laws encourages the development of new IP) is possibly a valid one, but it is not based on the principle of scarcity. Don't get me wrong here -- I'm not an "abolish copyright/patents" type of guy: I think that you should be allowed to release your software on whatever terms you want, although any protections in excess of copyright law should be signed before purchase. I also happen to think that copyright is too long-term and the patent office is quickly becoming incompetent, but both of these are largely irrelevant to the fundamental discussion of Intellectual Property.
a common code that can run on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems
Last time they did this we got Java. And look what it has done for our web browsing experience! Oh wait, you don't like lag?
This is really an unfair comparison -- you're comparing oranges and apple pie.
From a compatibility perspective, Java is all about cross-platform-binary-compatibility. To do that, it essentially needs to emulate a consistent set of machine-interfaces -- that's where the Virtual Machine comes in. Beyond that, Java is also supposed to be a "next generation" "idiot-proof" language, and to that end it sacrificed speed for safety (of code).
Carmack's code is about source compatibility. So far as I know, the primary language for ID Software's 1st-person shooters is C/C++. That language, to the bane of novice programmers everywhere, has a tendency to make absolutely no assumptions for you, and as a result well-written code can be highly efficent [gaining an immediate speed advantage over comparably well-written Java code]. Of course, it does mandate some level of system-speficic code somewhere in there, but a good programmer (like, for example, Carkack) will encapsulate it behind an #IFDEF or two.
The only thing that really stops people from writing cross-platform code is system-specific libraries (Like DirectX). Once your code is built around something that tends to be as fundamental as DirectX, a transplant to another library for a different platform is no easy task.
Carmack's "common code," is therefore merely smart design. As the article says, he shies away from the system-specific libraries, so porting becomes a much easier task.
Money not a major motivator? I wonder how honest that statement is. More importantly, where can Id be going with Carmack's other "attitudes?"
You may be missing the bit that says "Mr. Carmack, a multimillionaire."
Once you're able to buy just about anything you want, the ability to buy more stuff isn't that attractive. Beyond that, "more money" would come with an inevitable loss of control -- to take ID Software to a large company would mean hiring legions of programmers and managers.
At that point, it becomes what most large buisnesses become -- merely brand names. When that happens, it's no longer Carmack's baby, and it probably wouldn't be something he enjoys.
If this site gets slashdotted, here's the article text. Note, please do try the official link first -- if the site can handle the traffic it's polite to actually see (or block) their ads.
Lord Of the Games
John Carmack, game-creator extraordinaire, runs a very small company that is an enormous success.
By Dean Takahashi
February 1, 2002
When Microsoft tried to launch a graphics standard for PC hardware in the early '90s, John Carmack, the ace programmer behind some of the hottest games ever created for the PC, stayed away from it. Eight years later, Mr. Carmack is still steering clear of Microsoft's standard as he cranks out the next version of Id Software's Doom.
"It's almost like a religious thing for him," grumbles Otto Berkes, a Microsoft program manager who until recently oversaw the company's DirectX graphics technology division. Unlike Mr. Carmack, many other game developers have adopted the technology.
Mr. Carmack, cofounder and lead programmer at Id Software, is sticking to his own graphics technology. He is an absolute techno-purist who seeks to produce a common code that can run on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems--something he can't do with Microsoft's technology. And by being such a purist, he delights hard-core gamers and graphics experts. Among programmers, he is lionized for his advocacy of openness, particularly for allowing Id Software's game engines to be used to create an infinite number of customized versions of its games. And among gamers, he is praised for unapologetically making the highly realistic and ultraviolent shooting games that delight young males and horrify parents and politicians.
Mr. Carmack is unique in another way. His success demonstrates an alternative path for entrepreneurs. Id Software, in Mesquite, Texas, started small and self-funded, and is staying small even as it rakes in tens of millions of dollars from its games and game-technology licensing fees. "All we could get out of growth is more money," says Mr. Carmack, a multimillionaire. "More money is not a major motivator for me."
This self-imposed restraint is rare in a world that believes, in the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, "business is business and business must grow." Id defies conventional business logic by maintaining a staff of only 17 employees, even though the company generates annual revenue of $20 million--more than $1 million per employee.
GRAPHICS PROCESSOR
Mr. Carmack is something of a hermit--at least he was until he met his wife, Katherine Anna Kang, at Id. "I begged him to be more social," she says. "I would say Mr. Spock is a good description."
He speaks with a nervous tick that makes him say "ahoom" in between breaths. A coworker was once astounded when the ultra-reserved Mr. Carmack said goodbye to him on his way out of the office. He doesn't talk much to other programmers, his wife says, because he figures they are like him and just want to be left alone.
Mr. Carmack works a highly organized day, targeting specific goals that usually involve rooting out nasty bugs in his software code. In years past, he would code 80 hours a week; now he is so on top of his game that he works regular hours and spends another 30 hours a week figuring out how to make rockets take off and land vertically. He is even delegating some programming work to others for the first time in years.
"I have no doubt John is wired differently from the rest of us," says American McGee, a game designer who worked at Id and is now the chief creative officer of his own company, Carbon6 Entertainment, in Los Angeles. "John is a perfectionist in everything he does," adds Dennis Fong, who made his name as the best tournament player of Mr. Carmack's games. "He picks the areas where he wants to concentrate his attention and then he goes at it hard-core."
Mr. Carmack also plays computer games in the office with his coworkers, but he frequently isn't the best player in the house. When fans ask if they can dedicate Web sites to him, he replies, "Please don't, please don't."
"I am proud that I can be a role model for young programmers," he says. "But I don't believe in the extremes of hero worship or cult of personality. I don't enjoy being a famous person."
Instead, he is bent on creating solid graphics code, which he then hands over to Id's artists and designers so they can create the best possible game with it. "People are surprised at how disengaged I can be from the affairs of the company and the games industry," says Mr. Carmack.
DOOM RAIDER
When Mr. Carmack steps into the spotlight, it's because of his purist ideas about technology. A few years ago, he publicly criticized Steve Jobs and Apple Computer in an Internet posting for failing to keep up with 3D hardware technology. That led to a tense meeting with Mr. Jobs and, ultimately, an attitude shift at Apple. More recently, Mr. Carmack tangled with Mr. Jobs's handlers, who wanted to censor his Doom demo for the Macworld trade show in January 2001. He kindly avoided showing any killing or blood, but insisted on keeping the ghoulish images of demons. The demo eventually won approval from Mr. Jobs.
Because his games spur PC sales and, consequently, operating system software sales, he commands the attention of Microsoft's Bill Gates. When Mr. Carmack complained that PC hardware and software people never met, Mr. Gates held a Windows Graphics Summit. When Mr. Carmack was named to the hall of fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences last year--an honor bestowed on only three other individuals from the game industry so far--Mr. Gates sent a video with congratulations that teased, "I just want you to know that I can write slicker and tighter code than John."
In the world of gaming, Mr. Carmack's influence has been enormous. His team created the original first-person shooter game, Wolfenstein 3-D, in 1992. It legitimized the shareware movement, starting in 1993 with progressive releases of the Doom franchise, which generated more than $100 million in revenue (even though roughly 15 million copies of the original were downloaded for free). Presaging Internet business models, Id gave away a lot of stuff for free, hooking game addicts and then selling them upgrades. In 1996, Id created the first true 3D game, Quake, and since then the company has played a key role in the development of multiplayer Internet games. Having infiltrated everything from movies to art, such games have become a part of pop culture.
GOD OF SMALL THINGS
Instead of using this success as a springboard for growth, Mr. Carmack and his co-workers have adopted a conservative business philosophy, eschewing the "expand at all costs" attitude. Mr. Carmack notes that the art and programming tasks for today's games have become so overwhelming that he can never tell when his company will finish developing a game.
Nonetheless, the company is famous for rewarding employees for their Sisyphean labors. Thanks to profit sharing, some employees make $450,000 to $600,000 in a good year. With such pay, the company expects employees to put in long, hard hours, says Todd Hollenshead, Id's CEO. Even with demanding schedules, employees still have fun. Every day, there is a one-hour Quake death match in which even Mr. Hollenshead participates.
Id stays small because "company building" isn't part of its ".plan file"--Id parlance for a log on the Internet that fans can read to keep track of daily activities, says Kevin Cloud, an Id co-owner and artist. Creating more game titles would require more employees and would dilute the talents of Mr. Carmack and his brethren.
"We don't have to have big [development] teams," Mr. Carmack says. "We don't have to be like [major game publisher] Electronic Arts." Id simply does what it's good at. The development team is now headfirst into the new Doom, which will take computer games one step closer to perfectly lifelike animation--as long as antiviolence censors don't stop it along the way.
Mr. Carmack demonstrated the new Doom at the recent QuakeCon event in Mesquite, a Dallas suburb best known for its rodeo. He told a faithful crowd that the new Doom will have images comprised of 250,000 polygons, compared with only 10,000 or so in Quake III. That's not far away from the 1.5 million- polygon characters in the animated film Shrek, which set a new standard for realism for computer-animated cartoon characters.
Much to the audience's delight, the new game looks like a horror movie. Demons jump through glass windows, baring their hideous fangs. Zombies leap from shadows. It looks like the type of game that is so thrilling to play that gamers will do so over and over again, even though it lacks a narrative plot.
Yet even with a track record of multimillion game sales from Doom and Quake, Mr. Carmack can't do everything he wants. While he owns about 40 percent of Id, fellow artists Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack (no relation to John) hold more than 50 percent. Id launches new projects only by consensus. When the team was debating which project to pursue in 2000, Mr. Carmack and fellow artist Paul Steed wanted to remake Doom. Mr. Cloud and Adrian Carmack were against it. Mr. Steed organized a rebellion and threatened that, even if ordered not to, the employees would simply start work on the new Doom. Mr. Cloud and Adrian Carmack relented, but then, Mr. Carmack wrote on.plan, "the other shoe dropped."
Mr. Steed had been fired, "in retaliation, over my opposition," Mr. Carmack wrote in a June 2000 entry on the company's.plan file. Mr. Cloud then posted a response online, writing that it seemed every Id game involved some "great conflict." It was a rare glimpse of the inner workings at one of the most admired companies in gaming as it prepared to rework one of the most admired games of all time.
The firing of Mr. Steed points to the limits of Mr. Carmack's power and the often-heard charge from industry executives that Id sometimes lacks adult supervision. Mr. Hollenshead handles business decisions, like publisher relations and licensing. But he stays out of the creative work and disputes among programmers, designers, and artists. The lack of a referee here and among the company's owners inevitably leads to clashes. "The ownership is a fairly fundamental problem at Id," Mr. Carmack admits. "There is not clear leadership on everything we do."
The owners have since made peace, and development continues apace. For the first time, Mr. Carmack says, it seems that nobody on the development team hates anybody else.
MARKET QUAKER
Mr. Carmack matters because no other game developer is pushing graphics technology the way he is--developing games that require not only the best graphics performance on today's machines but that will tax tomorrow's hardware as well. The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3. This puts him at the top of those who influence the technical specifications for the multibillion-dollar graphics-chip industry. The code that powers his games creates employment for generations of game artists. And many former Id employees have gone on to form a dozen companies in nearby Dallas, making that city the capital of some of the most violent and entertaining games on Earth.
But Mr. Carmack and his company have their critics. Their games are bloody and repetitive. Many former Id employees moved on because they tired of making the same game where players shoot anything that moves. Sales of each game usually top 1 million units, but they don't reach the lofty heights of less violent and more mainstream video games like Final Fantasy or Pokémon. Mr. Carmack may never be mainstream in the McDonald's sense of the word.
That's just fine with Mr. Carmack. He prefers to work in peace on the new Doom and is mum about its release date. He keeps toiling because he foresees a "golden age of graphics programming." He expects that game technology will be used to animate films in the near future.
But while he hopes such films will be a "little more stylistic than Friday the 13th," the wildly successful horror film, he cautions against classifying games as an art form. "That's not what we're doing," Mr. Carmack says. "We're doing entertainment. Saying it's art is a kind of sophistry from people who want to aggrandize our industry."
The latency is still going to be high and it will remain constant for the forseable future. Round trip time is about 250ms for statellite communications and until we can increase c or make our atmosphere smaller, there isn't a technolgical solution that will make the latency problem go away.
You seem to be missing the point that this is not a satellite system. Although it does use a dish, this system points it at a local cell tower or skyscraper. Even in the worst case the signal is not going to travel more than 20 miles at the outside, and that's insignificant compared to orbit-and-back times.
There's no technical reason there should be bad latency with this system, and if there is Earthlink's got something screwed up on their end.
I'd have to agree with a lot of people here and recommend either JCreator or JBuilder.
JCreator is a text editor plus; it supports project groupings quite nicely, and its interface is lightweight so you can get access to your code.
Borland's JBuilder, on the other hand, is an IDE in the fullest sense of the word. I've had very limited experience with it, but it looks quite suitable. I don't particularly like its heavier interface, but it's a matter of personal preference.
Take my advice with a grain of salt, however -- I'm using JCreater for CompSci programming assignments, and these so far have been pretty lightweight.
Slashdot Mirror
. . . except for the bit about it fitting quite well into Microsoft's current 'sales' strategies.
Point one -- the BSA scares buisnesses. When Microsoft and cronies have the ability to demand an audit of your computers for 'license compliance' and the ability to levy huge (to the point of unreasonable) fines when the inenvitable noncompliance is found, buisnesses get the mental image of writing large checks -- not a good thing.
Point two -- Microsoft already provides some limited facilities for atomatic tracking of licenses. As I understand these facilities, however, their liability is in that everything has to be mannually entered.
Point three -- Microsoft is probably going to tout Palladium on the point of security. I speculate that it will not only be marketed as security from the Evil Hackers (tm, c, patent pennding) [and security from fair use of purchased media] but it will also be marketed as security from piracy. As part of this initiative, which Microsoft (rationally, as the one selling the software) hopes will take hold like wildfire, I speculate that Microsoft will add automatic license tracking -- when an OEM corporate system is first turned on, it will register itself [more specificially its license and machine hash] with a server on the corporation's network. Then, periodicially, the corporate people can do a license audit at the click of a button, asking all machines on the network to verify that the machine-hash for the system has the proper license installed for the system that the machine is currently running.
As if that weren't enough of a boost to phone-home capabilities, which can be surrepeitiously included in the LAN-activation, Microsoft can rent out its services as a license-management entity for those corps that don't want to run their own server for it. Furthermore, it's only a small step from the above pagagraph to one where the license-server becomes authoritative (and thus a valid defense) in the case of a BSA audit -- completely disable manual addition and removal of licenses, and have the entire process automated and encrypted. Of course, these systems will have to phone-home to Microsoft for the key-of-the-day.
When it first started WPA in Windows XP, Microsoft made the mistake of not doing anything for the the corporations that it was trying to sell XP to; Product activation was billed entirely as something for Microsoft, and (so far as I know), offers no protection in the case of a BSA audit, so corporate types were not given a large enough bribe for the breach in their privacy and network integrity. You can bet that Microsoft doesn't like that, and is going to try to find a way to slap the big-ticket corporate purchases with the same kind of restrictions they're getting away with for home users.
Er, what are you smoking, and where can I get some? A neverwinter module is distinct from a mod in the traditional sense, in that it is created with tools supplied with the game using the game's supplied artwork, etc. Any module, as such, will be using Bioware's copyrighted material; even under the most restrictive interpretation of the legal scope of EULA's, their restrictions are okay, if not necessarialaly nice -- if you don't agree, you can't use their copyrighted textures, sounds, etc, and thus have no legal standing to distribute your module.
Either I'm missing some patents assigned to them, this policy is completely vacuous, or Red Hat intends to buy/patent many things starting soon.
* cajoling the waiter
* pretending to be someone else
* going to the kitchen direct
* saying his plate is really someone else's plate
* running plates out of the restaurant to his friends and coming back with an empty plate much faster than the others who are eating at their normal pace
Cajoling the waiter -- the proper Customer Support response to this is "I'm sorry, sir, but while we allow people to use the entirety of our unused bandwidth we reduce this excess use as needed to gurantee quality service for all users."
Pretending to be someone else -- on Cable, where it's all one big fat pipe with packets being sent into the ether[net], I can see this as being a problem. On DSL, however, each client has his own loop, so these things can be more controlled. Even then, the proportion of bandwidth hogs who will resort to outright fraud (and probably criminal computer tresspass to get username/passwd) is quite small.
Going to the kitchen direct -- then the resturaunt isn't actually serving his food, and he's getting his food the same place they are [I.E. the upstream provider] -- no problem for the resturaunt.
Saying his plate is really someone else's plate -- since there's no provision for "getting packets for someone else" in any of the RFC's I've read, this is the same as the fraud mentioned above.
Running plates out of the resturaunt -- Still no QoS problem, because he's the same person still -- the waiter will give him a guranteed service level of the same rate as other customers, and if he's less busy he'll stop by more often in his downtime.
Getting the traffic shaping correct isn't a piece of cake, for example, but I think you're underestimating the utility of a simple Guranteed (pipewidth/max#ofusers) burstable to the full pipe bandwidth. If you really want to get fancy about it, give a minimum (pipe/max#user) gurantee and twice that as a "second tier" gurantee -- all users with enough traffic (to generate that much bandwidth) will have the second gurantee filled before anyone can burst beyond it.
In the States, where 1Mbps+ connections are relatively common for broadband, your first-tier guranteed bandwidtgh might only be 128kpbs or so -- but this represents the worst possible case over _everyone_ on the loop online at the same time fully utilizing their connections at the same time. In the average case of you going online with a few 31337 gnutella users at the same time, you'd meet however many levels of quotas there are directly out of the gnutella guys' burst, and then compete with them for the burst-level bandwidth +(say)700kpbs.
Blocking ports, although effective in reducing the total amount of bandwidth you'll have to deliver, is most definitely _not_ the most effective means of fairly allocating the bandwidth you have. It's possible, with a given amount of bandwidth, for there to be "enough for everybody" while still allowing a few people to have "as much as they want" when no one else is using it.
That's only the Phase 3 ISO file. The Phase 1, which is the minimum needed for the system (phases 2 and 3 come partially compiled) is under 20MB -- it gets damn near everything from the 'net.
I'm not so sure about this... so long as the antitrust trial is running, MS should be extremely wary of pulling this kind of trick. After all, if news of this reached the lawyers, it's a simple matter to say "Look! MS is directly using its dominance in the Office market to restrict people from using other operating systems!"
With mandatory ports of Office to other operating systems already possible term of settlement, MS trying something like this would virtually assure mandatory porting and/or license restrictions in the final judgement.
echo 127.0.0.1 my.ambrosia.authserver.com >> C:\windows\hosts
^Z
That didn't take long. And now anyone can run it!
You know that, and I know that, but I'm willing to bet that the average user doesn't know that it's that easy. Trying a "public" regcode is a simple idea that Joe Public can grasp his head around -- you tell the software you're someone else, and it works fine.
Any kind of crack, even one as simple as the above, has the disadvantage that users are scared of downloading strange things off of the internet. Even the instructions on how to do it yourself would scare off most people, as it involves mucking around in the windows directory, and WinXX itself tries to scare you away from there.
A regcode-verification system doesn't have to be technicially perfect; a perfect system would require a "trusted client" ala DRM, and without that I don't think it's technicially possible. What a good regcode system will do make it difficult/scary enough for the nieve user attempting to install a crack that it's easier (at least mentally) to actually go out and spend the $20 for it.
By the way, your system won't protect against a hard-coded IP backup. Less stable, as the servers might change, but for a one-step immunity to /etc/hosts solutions while your site stays up, half a dozen packets isn't that expensive.
If done right, this isn't strictly true. A registration system only needs to rely on central servers if data used for the authentication process changes, such as a System ID or a timestamp, the latter being used in Ambrosia's system.
A simple authentication system would take the registree's name, address, and perhaps a keycode given at regtime to create a hash for the authentication server. If that hash is valid (meaning the registration actually happened), the authentication server will respond with a countercode that the program uses to unlock itself. If this countercode is not time-limited in any way, there's nothing logisticially preventing it from beging shown to the user, and thus permanently recorded; it will still be valid so long as the user remembers his name/address/etc.
If changing data is used for the hash, however, then there's a trickier situation if the authentication servers go permanently down. Most schemes would have the server respond with a sepereate countercode, and thus an old one would not work to unlock the program.
One solution to this problem is a master-key; a nonchanging constant that could be released if the company goes out of buisness. This creates security flaws, however, if the key is found out before the company goes out of buisness. Also, having a master key for the product out there would significantly reduce the possible value of the software "asset" in bankruptcy proceedings, so the courts might not allow the key to be made public.
A possibly better alternative would be to have the company release a patch that turned off the date-checking code in the program. Although this doesn't create any security holes in the product while the company's still alive, it does require that the company know it's irrevocably going bankrupt, and the programmers must have enough knowledge about the banakrputcy and power to release the patch -- neither of which are particularly likely in large corporations... after all, management can spin off the now-crippled masses as a "customer base" for future revisions to be sold at auction.
What's really needed is some sort of "dead-man's switch" so that if the company suddenly drops off of the face of the earth, the software will still work. To do this, the software should become non-functional if it receives a negative response from the auth server, instead of becoming non-functional if it fails to receive a positive response. The reg-server hostname should be hardcoded into the software somewhere (binary data file or program executable -- NOT a plaintext file), and the software (given use of an expired regcode) will try authenticating with the server on run and every hour or so until it receives a positive or negative response, in which case it will update its datafile and not try again (with that regcode).
"But Wait!" you say, "Isn't that system inherently insecure, as malpeople can crack the software or selectively block access to the auth servers?"
This is true, but, as the Ambrosia article says, the vast majority of people will do very little beyond trying a cracked regcode -- even installing a crack is beyond the vast majority of people who would typicially use the software; configuring special firewall rules is probably out of the question. (This is also why I said "put the server info in a binary file", as instructions to remove the data from a textfile is easy enough for most users.) Software registration is a game of 90%'s, so eliminating 90% of potential copyright infringers is about as good as you can get for reasonable effort. For people who _do_ tell Zonealarm to not allow the program to connect, a nag screen on startup to the effect of "This software has not verified its registration, click OK to continue" will get another fraction or two to register -- admittedly, it would be a pain if the company went out of buisness, but it doesn't have any bearing on the functionality of the software, especially for something noncritical like a game.
Running the software on a computer without internet access at all is another possibility of getting aroud the auth scheme, but that's becoming increasingly less likely as time goes on -- more and more computers are getting connected in some way, shape, or form, and shareware is largely distributed over the Internet now anyway.
Admittedly, this isn't a 100% perfect solution to the tradeoff between infringement-possibilities and functionality in the face of bankruptcy, but I'd guess that it's 80% of the way there, and it would require no changes to the keygen routines themselves.
--
The ideas expressed in this writeup are expressly placed into the public domain.
(Score: -1, incorrect, troll, flamebait.)
A) Screenshots are products of the program. They are "derived works" in the sense of Copyright law, but they are only derived in the sense that the .bmp files you produce from are derived works -- they are yours to do with as you please unless you were specificially forbidden from doing it by the license of the creator. Which doesn't apply here -- quoth the GPL:
and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Since the screenshot isn't of the GNOME source, it's not covered by the GPL.
B) Even if the GPL did cover the output of the program, which it doesn't, use of VNC still wouldn't be prohibited. The GPL only mandates that you release source to people whom you have given binaries, and that only if they requested it -- if you're using VNC for personal use or internal to your company, no one will be requesting the source so you're fine. If you're allowing complete strangers VNC access, then you have greater problems than possible GPL violations.
Although I wouldn't use it as a desktop system (although perhaps for non-techies...), something like this might be perfect for small network-access terminals of the kind used in stores and universities. Even in the home, something like this might be good as a stereo-system replacement (using the PCI slot for a decent soundcard, vs. integrated sound).
Are there any cases that would work decently with this design, though, or would something have to be custom-built?
This mobo is just begging for a beowulf cluster mention, but I suspect that the release price will make conventional solutions less expensive for quite some time.
I'm not sure whether they had much of a choice in the matter. Everything I've read seems to indicate that Morpheus users were suddenly locked out of the FastTrack network without warning either to them or to MusicCity. In order to keep their client base, they had to put something out now.
It's unfair to blame MusicCity for putting out a Gnucleus client that doesn't have any new features -- they had a grand total of a week to figure out what the hell the problem was, realize that they couldn't fix it, and put out a stopgap solution.
I'm sure that, over the next month, MusicCity will be putting out a client that has some actual programming work put into it, but for now the most important thing is that it works.
It's at the bottom of the blue sidebar/frame on the left, just above the green "Return to Home." As of now, it appears -- if it's not working for you check that you're not using a cached version of the page, and that your browser likes frames (probably a given).
If you're still not getting it, here's a link straight to the source.
A cursory check of the source reveals files modified as little as 24 hours ago -- one contains the comment at the beginning "Modified for StreamCast Networks by Rob Adamson 3/2/2002".
Grepping the source tree for "orpheus" reveals several mentions, including in what appear to be product name strings.
Looks like the real deal, folks, and someone just jumped the lawsuit-happy gun.
A quick download and scan of the readme.txt file shows that it is indeed Gnucleus source. The GPL violation here is merely in the advertizement -- the source is quite throughly public; I'm sure the flaw will be corrected soon.
The B5-fan in me makes me write this reply:
Crusade sucked because it was _not_ JMS's show. TNT, which had picked up B5 after the dissolution of PTEN (which was responsible for B5 in syndication), also picked up Crusade. Unfortunately, it occured around the same time that TNT decided to "refocus" on its core demographic of 19-23 yo males -- via the ever-popular venue of pro wrestling.
A high science fiction show, like Crusade, doesn't exactly fit terribly well with that target audience. To correct that fatal flaw, the TNT execs began pushing JMS to add features into the series, and they exercised much more creative control than was appropriate for even network executives.
All of the Crusade episodes before "Racing the Night" were specificially ordered by TNT to "introduce" viewers to the series -- JMS's plan was to begin the series in media res. The SciFi channel is airing the episodes in a "mostly correct" order, as sanctioned by JMS, but the TNT-ordered episodes are still lin there.
The uniform switching, by the way, was also a result of the TNT meddling -- any episodes that have the cast wearing uniforms seen in Racing the Night would be JMS-originals.
As related to Jerimiah, JMS has said that he will never, ever do a series again when he does not have near absolute creative control. When announcing the project, he said that he was happy to work with Showtime because they don't have the limits that network TV imposes on him (so this might be bad news for anyone relying on scifi/network syndication). So far as I've seen him write, he's had no creative issues, and it's his series.
So far as I understand these expiring-email systems, the presence of a message will still show up in the server logs, at least for a while. That "presence of a message" log will be pretty convincing to a jury, as it at least proves that you didn't make the message up yourself.
On backups of server logs, the only thing I could recommend would be to have both yourself and a cow-orker PGP sign the logs at the same time -- then they have to prove a consipiracy between the two of you to alter the logs, which will probably harder than throwing just your credibility into question.
If you have shell access to the server in question (I.E. are high-enough up that you can do most anything to the server), try writing something that would take a hash (md5sum or so) of the logs in question (while they're still on the server, and thus unalterable to you) and mail the sum (along with a timestamp, a sum of the program itself, and a sum of something that proves it's not in a chroot jail -- all to prove that the program hasn't been tampered with) to both yourself and a trusted external data repository that you can't alter [Again, a friend comes in handy here].
Didn't the lost city of Atlanta sink into the sea over a thousand years ago?
It is not scarce? So you're telling me that everyone thinks and creates on the same level of intelligence.
You're using the wrong definition of scarce. Each "new" IP created by someone is just that, a new property. This is much like a new model of car, a new type of CPU, or green orange-juice.
"Scarce," in economics terminology, means limited. If some X number of people have this, then the X+1'th person is going to get stiffed. This applies quite well to physical properties, because there are only so many, and that number is usually quite small compared to the number of people on the planet.
Oxygen, however, is not scarce. Nitrogen is not scarce. (Both if these come with caevats that it's breathable, but not pure.) Intellectual property is not scarce. I can breathe as much as I want and not affect the breating of anyone else on the planet. Likewise, I can copy the Linux Kernel (insert favorite rev. here) as many times as I want, and everybody else on the planet will still be able to get theirs.
Your argument (which seems to be that the market created/allowed by IP laws encourages the development of new IP) is possibly a valid one, but it is not based on the principle of scarcity. Don't get me wrong here -- I'm not an "abolish copyright/patents" type of guy: I think that you should be allowed to release your software on whatever terms you want, although any protections in excess of copyright law should be signed before purchase. I also happen to think that copyright is too long-term and the patent office is quickly becoming incompetent, but both of these are largely irrelevant to the fundamental discussion of Intellectual Property.
This is really an unfair comparison -- you're comparing oranges and apple pie.
From a compatibility perspective, Java is all about cross-platform-binary-compatibility. To do that, it essentially needs to emulate a consistent set of machine-interfaces -- that's where the Virtual Machine comes in. Beyond that, Java is also supposed to be a "next generation" "idiot-proof" language, and to that end it sacrificed speed for safety (of code).
Carmack's code is about source compatibility. So far as I know, the primary language for ID Software's 1st-person shooters is C/C++. That language, to the bane of novice programmers everywhere, has a tendency to make absolutely no assumptions for you, and as a result well-written code can be highly efficent [gaining an immediate speed advantage over comparably well-written Java code]. Of course, it does mandate some level of system-speficic code somewhere in there, but a good programmer (like, for example, Carkack) will encapsulate it behind an #IFDEF or two.
The only thing that really stops people from writing cross-platform code is system-specific libraries (Like DirectX). Once your code is built around something that tends to be as fundamental as DirectX, a transplant to another library for a different platform is no easy task.
Carmack's "common code," is therefore merely smart design. As the article says, he shies away from the system-specific libraries, so porting becomes a much easier task.
You may be missing the bit that says "Mr. Carmack, a multimillionaire."
Once you're able to buy just about anything you want, the ability to buy more stuff isn't that attractive. Beyond that, "more money" would come with an inevitable loss of control -- to take ID Software to a large company would mean hiring legions of programmers and managers.
At that point, it becomes what most large buisnesses become -- merely brand names. When that happens, it's no longer Carmack's baby, and it probably wouldn't be something he enjoys.
Ergo, ID Software stays small.
If this site gets slashdotted, here's the article text. Note, please do try the official link first -- if the site can handle the traffic it's polite to actually see (or block) their ads.
.plan, "the other shoe dropped."
.plan file. Mr. Cloud then posted a response online, writing that it seemed every Id game involved some "great conflict." It was a rare glimpse of the inner workings at one of the most admired companies in gaming as it prepared to rework one of the most admired games of all time.
Lord Of the Games
John Carmack, game-creator extraordinaire, runs a very small company that is an enormous success.
By Dean Takahashi
February 1, 2002
When Microsoft tried to launch a graphics standard for PC hardware in the early '90s, John Carmack, the ace programmer behind some of the hottest games ever created for the PC, stayed away from it. Eight years later, Mr. Carmack is still steering clear of Microsoft's standard as he cranks out the next version of Id Software's Doom.
"It's almost like a religious thing for him," grumbles Otto Berkes, a Microsoft program manager who until recently oversaw the company's DirectX graphics technology division. Unlike Mr. Carmack, many other game developers have adopted the technology.
Mr. Carmack, cofounder and lead programmer at Id Software, is sticking to his own graphics technology. He is an absolute techno-purist who seeks to produce a common code that can run on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems--something he can't do with Microsoft's technology. And by being such a purist, he delights hard-core gamers and graphics experts. Among programmers, he is lionized for his advocacy of openness, particularly for allowing Id Software's game engines to be used to create an infinite number of customized versions of its games. And among gamers, he is praised for unapologetically making the highly realistic and ultraviolent shooting games that delight young males and horrify parents and politicians.
Mr. Carmack is unique in another way. His success demonstrates an alternative path for entrepreneurs. Id Software, in Mesquite, Texas, started small and self-funded, and is staying small even as it rakes in tens of millions of dollars from its games and game-technology licensing fees. "All we could get out of growth is more money," says Mr. Carmack, a multimillionaire. "More money is not a major motivator for me."
This self-imposed restraint is rare in a world that believes, in the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, "business is business and business must grow." Id defies conventional business logic by maintaining a staff of only 17 employees, even though the company generates annual revenue of $20 million--more than $1 million per employee.
GRAPHICS PROCESSOR
Mr. Carmack is something of a hermit--at least he was until he met his wife, Katherine Anna Kang, at Id. "I begged him to be more social," she says. "I would say Mr. Spock is a good description."
He speaks with a nervous tick that makes him say "ahoom" in between breaths. A coworker was once astounded when the ultra-reserved Mr. Carmack said goodbye to him on his way out of the office. He doesn't talk much to other programmers, his wife says, because he figures they are like him and just want to be left alone.
Mr. Carmack works a highly organized day, targeting specific goals that usually involve rooting out nasty bugs in his software code. In years past, he would code 80 hours a week; now he is so on top of his game that he works regular hours and spends another 30 hours a week figuring out how to make rockets take off and land vertically. He is even delegating some programming work to others for the first time in years.
"I have no doubt John is wired differently from the rest of us," says American McGee, a game designer who worked at Id and is now the chief creative officer of his own company, Carbon6 Entertainment, in Los Angeles. "John is a perfectionist in everything he does," adds Dennis Fong, who made his name as the best tournament player of Mr. Carmack's games. "He picks the areas where he wants to concentrate his attention and then he goes at it hard-core."
Mr. Carmack also plays computer games in the office with his coworkers, but he frequently isn't the best player in the house. When fans ask if they can dedicate Web sites to him, he replies, "Please don't, please don't."
"I am proud that I can be a role model for young programmers," he says. "But I don't believe in the extremes of hero worship or cult of personality. I don't enjoy being a famous person."
Instead, he is bent on creating solid graphics code, which he then hands over to Id's artists and designers so they can create the best possible game with it. "People are surprised at how disengaged I can be from the affairs of the company and the games industry," says Mr. Carmack.
DOOM RAIDER
When Mr. Carmack steps into the spotlight, it's because of his purist ideas about technology. A few years ago, he publicly criticized Steve Jobs and Apple Computer in an Internet posting for failing to keep up with 3D hardware technology. That led to a tense meeting with Mr. Jobs and, ultimately, an attitude shift at Apple. More recently, Mr. Carmack tangled with Mr. Jobs's handlers, who wanted to censor his Doom demo for the Macworld trade show in January 2001. He kindly avoided showing any killing or blood, but insisted on keeping the ghoulish images of demons. The demo eventually won approval from Mr. Jobs.
Because his games spur PC sales and, consequently, operating system software sales, he commands the attention of Microsoft's Bill Gates. When Mr. Carmack complained that PC hardware and software people never met, Mr. Gates held a Windows Graphics Summit. When Mr. Carmack was named to the hall of fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences last year--an honor bestowed on only three other individuals from the game industry so far--Mr. Gates sent a video with congratulations that teased, "I just want you to know that I can write slicker and tighter code than John."
In the world of gaming, Mr. Carmack's influence has been enormous. His team created the original first-person shooter game, Wolfenstein 3-D, in 1992. It legitimized the shareware movement, starting in 1993 with progressive releases of the Doom franchise, which generated more than $100 million in revenue (even though roughly 15 million copies of the original were downloaded for free). Presaging Internet business models, Id gave away a lot of stuff for free, hooking game addicts and then selling them upgrades. In 1996, Id created the first true 3D game, Quake, and since then the company has played a key role in the development of multiplayer Internet games. Having infiltrated everything from movies to art, such games have become a part of pop culture.
GOD OF SMALL THINGS
Instead of using this success as a springboard for growth, Mr. Carmack and his co-workers have adopted a conservative business philosophy, eschewing the "expand at all costs" attitude. Mr. Carmack notes that the art and programming tasks for today's games have become so overwhelming that he can never tell when his company will finish developing a game.
Nonetheless, the company is famous for rewarding employees for their Sisyphean labors. Thanks to profit sharing, some employees make $450,000 to $600,000 in a good year. With such pay, the company expects employees to put in long, hard hours, says Todd Hollenshead, Id's CEO. Even with demanding schedules, employees still have fun. Every day, there is a one-hour Quake death match in which even Mr. Hollenshead participates.
Id stays small because "company building" isn't part of its ".plan file"--Id parlance for a log on the Internet that fans can read to keep track of daily activities, says Kevin Cloud, an Id co-owner and artist. Creating more game titles would require more employees and would dilute the talents of Mr. Carmack and his brethren.
"We don't have to have big [development] teams," Mr. Carmack says. "We don't have to be like [major game publisher] Electronic Arts." Id simply does what it's good at. The development team is now headfirst into the new Doom, which will take computer games one step closer to perfectly lifelike animation--as long as antiviolence censors don't stop it along the way.
Mr. Carmack demonstrated the new Doom at the recent QuakeCon event in Mesquite, a Dallas suburb best known for its rodeo. He told a faithful crowd that the new Doom will have images comprised of 250,000 polygons, compared with only 10,000 or so in Quake III. That's not far away from the 1.5 million- polygon characters in the animated film Shrek, which set a new standard for realism for computer-animated cartoon characters.
Much to the audience's delight, the new game looks like a horror movie. Demons jump through glass windows, baring their hideous fangs. Zombies leap from shadows. It looks like the type of game that is so thrilling to play that gamers will do so over and over again, even though it lacks a narrative plot.
Yet even with a track record of multimillion game sales from Doom and Quake, Mr. Carmack can't do everything he wants. While he owns about 40 percent of Id, fellow artists Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack (no relation to John) hold more than 50 percent. Id launches new projects only by consensus. When the team was debating which project to pursue in 2000, Mr. Carmack and fellow artist Paul Steed wanted to remake Doom. Mr. Cloud and Adrian Carmack were against it. Mr. Steed organized a rebellion and threatened that, even if ordered not to, the employees would simply start work on the new Doom. Mr. Cloud and Adrian Carmack relented, but then, Mr. Carmack wrote on
Mr. Steed had been fired, "in retaliation, over my opposition," Mr. Carmack wrote in a June 2000 entry on the company's
The firing of Mr. Steed points to the limits of Mr. Carmack's power and the often-heard charge from industry executives that Id sometimes lacks adult supervision. Mr. Hollenshead handles business decisions, like publisher relations and licensing. But he stays out of the creative work and disputes among programmers, designers, and artists. The lack of a referee here and among the company's owners inevitably leads to clashes. "The ownership is a fairly fundamental problem at Id," Mr. Carmack admits. "There is not clear leadership on everything we do."
The owners have since made peace, and development continues apace. For the first time, Mr. Carmack says, it seems that nobody on the development team hates anybody else.
MARKET QUAKER
Mr. Carmack matters because no other game developer is pushing graphics technology the way he is--developing games that require not only the best graphics performance on today's machines but that will tax tomorrow's hardware as well. The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3. This puts him at the top of those who influence the technical specifications for the multibillion-dollar graphics-chip industry. The code that powers his games creates employment for generations of game artists. And many former Id employees have gone on to form a dozen companies in nearby Dallas, making that city the capital of some of the most violent and entertaining games on Earth.
But Mr. Carmack and his company have their critics. Their games are bloody and repetitive. Many former Id employees moved on because they tired of making the same game where players shoot anything that moves. Sales of each game usually top 1 million units, but they don't reach the lofty heights of less violent and more mainstream video games like Final Fantasy or Pokémon. Mr. Carmack may never be mainstream in the McDonald's sense of the word.
That's just fine with Mr. Carmack. He prefers to work in peace on the new Doom and is mum about its release date. He keeps toiling because he foresees a "golden age of graphics programming." He expects that game technology will be used to animate films in the near future.
But while he hopes such films will be a "little more stylistic than Friday the 13th," the wildly successful horror film, he cautions against classifying games as an art form. "That's not what we're doing," Mr. Carmack says. "We're doing entertainment. Saying it's art is a kind of sophistry from people who want to aggrandize our industry."
Write to Dean Takahashi.
You seem to be missing the point that this is not a satellite system. Although it does use a dish, this system points it at a local cell tower or skyscraper. Even in the worst case the signal is not going to travel more than 20 miles at the outside, and that's insignificant compared to orbit-and-back times.
There's no technical reason there should be bad latency with this system, and if there is Earthlink's got something screwed up on their end.
They're at MIT, of all places. Of course these people have not heard of sex, at least in a non-fictitious sense.
In a post by "Vision" to 3dfx.products.voodoobanshee on Dec. 11, 1999.
JCreator is a text editor plus; it supports project groupings quite nicely, and its interface is lightweight so you can get access to your code.
Borland's JBuilder, on the other hand, is an IDE in the fullest sense of the word. I've had very limited experience with it, but it looks quite suitable. I don't particularly like its heavier interface, but it's a matter of personal preference.
Take my advice with a grain of salt, however -- I'm using JCreater for CompSci programming assignments, and these so far have been pretty lightweight.