I find this article interesting, as I've watched the attention paid to embedded linux grow since the summer, a time when it was a far less mature market. The splitting off of Lineo from Caldera was one of the more interesting developments that I've seen, although the purchase of cygnus by Redhat also added to the legitimacy of the market. With the recent CPU announcement by the Silicon Valley 'wunderkind' Transmeta, embedded linux has really entered a more mainstream commercial phase.
The article on ZDNet helped to point out some of the majors issues in the industry. Who wants to pay for the 250 licenses needed for even a smallscale embedded application. It may mean less to the typical consumer who might pay $90 for a copy of windows, but I really think the cost issue associated with embedded linux applications is way more relevant than in the server or desktop market. It doesn't make a big difference if you pay $250 for software on a $16,000 server compared to buying a Software license for say $30-40 on a $200 portable web device.
Another good point they brought up is ease of use. It doesn't matter to the endconsumer what OS the product uses, as long as it performs as expected, and without high incidence of failure (high being relative) Many of the companies in the embedded linux software side of the market provide technical support as a primary source of income (linuxcare, montavista, etc) Although some companies such as Lineo appear to be pursuing a more license based approach (although still providing plenty of technical support) Hopefully the end result will still be a savings of cost, but the high amount of technical support provided by these companies should help to offset any difficulty in actually using linux as the core of these applications.
Other benefits not explored in the article include portability, the 'open source' ability to take an already extant solution and modify to suit your individual projects, as well as the ability to advance or modify a project that may have been discontinued, or to correct bugs without waiting for the original programmers to take action.
Embedded projects are often so unique that a non-custom solution is often useless. The ability to customize linux combined with its low cost of use really makes this appropriate for this industry. I don't think the ZDNet article was worthless, and it in fact brought to light some points that people might not realize about embedded applications. It may seem like its just repeating stuff that people have always been talking about, but I think it was worth repeating and highlighting for this specific market. I see the success of embedded linux continuing to grow, and perhaps to exceed the growth that linux is seeing in other markets.
If you would like to learn more about embedded linux and whats going on in the industry, please check out Linuxdevices.com
Like john said in his.plan, there have always been ways to cheat. Transparent maps that are not detected despite server-side mapchecking, proxies that allow (albeit very poorly implemented) auto-aiming, glowskins that let people seen through shadows easily, "spikes" that are built into the player model to let people know you are coming because they go through walls, and even proxies that allow a completely hacked up map.. there are numerous other cheats and hacks that are all possible with the original quake. Many of which are undetectable. The source code release lets people to much more obvious forms of cheating such as floating in the air, or zooming through the level like a cheetah on crack. But cheating has always been around.
what is really different now? The real problem is that a) more people have been exposed to the possibility of cheating, and b) it is far more fun to cheat. In my 3 years of playing quake up till now, I haven't used a cheat for more than 2 minutes, and then only to test it out. I believe in keeping the game pure and skilled. But with the release of the sourcecode, coders can play with a game they love. They can add special features, optimize code, and really just mess around. Its fun. It makes cheating a game all to itself, what cool feature can YOU code in? Its not the same type of cheating that plagued competitive and non-competitive gaming in the past. This cheating isn't being used to win at all costs, but to mess around. each successive build of quake becomes 'your' build, full of your customizations and features, not just something you download to get an edge.
The important question, is where will things go from here? In all reality, the ability to cheat has not suddenly appeared, it has always been here. The knowledge required to cheat has become mainstream, and has "come out of the closet" as it were. Will this rash of cheating continue, or is it merely a phase? Will it kill competitive match-play, or will the same people that cheated in competitions still do so, and everyone else will play by the rules.. Only time will tell
releasing source code isn't always a GOOD THING
on
Quake 1 GPL'ed
·
· Score: 1
know why seti@home and distributed.net don't release their source code? It is because the chance of people hacking the code and wrecking the system outway the benefits of letting people have access to the code. If people had the source code to a game currently played such as Q3, they could hack server source and allow hacked clients to connect. you would never know whether the server is legit or hacked. This could allow any number of cheats such as hacked maps, increased health, free powerups, etc. Lots of people LOVE to cheat at quake, and this would increase their ability to do so. The same issues hold true with the Q1 sourcecode, but at least the amount of people still playing that is lower, but do not fool yourself, there are still many people playing quake1, and this will adversely affect them. so like chill n' stuff;)
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I find this article interesting, as I've watched the attention paid to embedded linux grow since the summer, a time when it was a far less mature market. The splitting off of Lineo from Caldera was one of the more interesting developments that I've seen, although the purchase of cygnus by Redhat also added to the legitimacy of the market. With the recent CPU announcement by the Silicon Valley 'wunderkind' Transmeta, embedded linux has really entered a more mainstream commercial phase.
The article on ZDNet helped to point out some of the majors issues in the industry. Who wants to pay for the 250 licenses needed for even a smallscale embedded application. It may mean less to the typical consumer who might pay $90 for a copy of windows, but I really think the cost issue associated with embedded linux applications is way more relevant than in the server or desktop market. It doesn't make a big difference if you pay $250 for software on a $16,000 server compared to buying a Software license for say $30-40 on a $200 portable web device.
Another good point they brought up is ease of use. It doesn't matter to the endconsumer what OS the product uses, as long as it performs as expected, and without high incidence of failure (high being relative) Many of the companies in the embedded linux software side of the market provide technical support as a primary source of income (linuxcare, montavista, etc) Although some companies such as Lineo appear to be pursuing a more license based approach (although still providing plenty of technical support) Hopefully the end result will still be a savings of cost, but the high amount of technical support provided by these companies should help to offset any difficulty in actually using linux as the core of these applications.
Other benefits not explored in the article include portability, the 'open source' ability to take an already extant solution and modify to suit your individual projects, as well as the ability to advance or modify a project that may have been discontinued, or to correct bugs without waiting for the original programmers to take action.
Embedded projects are often so unique that a non-custom solution is often useless. The ability to customize linux combined with its low cost of use really makes this appropriate for this industry. I don't think the ZDNet article was worthless, and it in fact brought to light some points that people might not realize about embedded applications. It may seem like its just repeating stuff that people have always been talking about, but I think it was worth repeating and highlighting for this specific market. I see the success of embedded linux continuing to grow, and perhaps to exceed the growth that linux is seeing in other markets.
If you would like to learn more about embedded linux and whats going on in the industry, please check out Linuxdevices.com
Like john said in his .plan, there have always been ways to cheat. Transparent maps that are not detected despite server-side mapchecking, proxies that allow (albeit very poorly implemented) auto-aiming, glowskins that let people seen through shadows easily, "spikes" that are built into the player model to let people know you are coming because they go through walls, and even proxies that allow a completely hacked up map.. there are numerous other cheats and hacks that are all possible with the original quake. Many of which are undetectable. The source code release lets people to much more obvious forms of cheating such as floating in the air, or zooming through the level like a cheetah on crack. But cheating has always been around.
what is really different now? The real problem is
that a) more people have been exposed to the possibility of cheating, and b) it is far more fun to cheat.
In my 3 years of playing quake up till now, I haven't used a cheat for more than 2 minutes, and then only to test it out. I believe in keeping the game pure and skilled. But with the release of the sourcecode, coders can play with a game they love. They can add special features, optimize code, and really just mess around. Its fun. It makes cheating a game all to itself, what cool feature can YOU code in? Its not the same type of cheating that plagued competitive and non-competitive gaming in the past. This cheating isn't being used to win at all costs, but to mess around. each successive build of quake becomes 'your' build, full of your customizations and features, not just something you download to get an edge.
The important question, is where will things go from here? In all reality, the ability to cheat has not suddenly appeared, it has always been here. The knowledge required to cheat has become mainstream, and has "come out of the closet" as it were. Will this rash of cheating continue, or is it merely a phase? Will it kill competitive match-play, or will the same people that cheated in competitions still do so, and everyone else will play by the rules.. Only time will tell
know why seti@home and distributed.net don't release their source code? It is because the chance of people hacking the code and wrecking the system outway the benefits of letting people have access to the code. If people had the source code to a game currently played such as Q3, they could hack server source and allow hacked clients to connect. you would never know whether the server is legit or hacked. This could allow any number of cheats such as hacked maps, increased health, free powerups, etc. Lots of people LOVE to cheat at quake, and this would increase their ability to do so. The same issues hold true with the Q1 sourcecode, but at least the amount of people still playing that is lower, but do not fool yourself, there are still many people playing quake1, and this will adversely affect them. so like chill n' stuff ;)