If anyone's curious, here's a response from the school about this matter:
It is a shame that those who have contacted us have decided to voice their opinion based on only those facts that have been presented. And unfortunately, we cannot provide any information on this situation because it is a private discipline matter and not public information.
Diana Gulotta,
MISD
For an independant developer, the cost for making this game should be fairly low - some PC's for coding on, a CD-Burner (assuming that they don't make the black or blue or weird ass colors on the back), and a Tux Box. To develop a game for the Dreamcast, for example, is the developing kit, then the special burner (unless you contract that out), then the licensing fees (unless you go "unofficial", which means your games won't sell).
Depending on what happens here, this could be a game wanna-be developers dream - cheap, open source (so they can really look at how it works), and something they can show their friends. And, like other systems, it only takes that one "killer app" by some kid in their garage to do what nobody else thought off.
Possible? Like I said earlier, probably not. But the possibilities are interesting. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Probably not - the whole set of things needed to make this system run, and run by Fall (!) is probably an impossible task.
But... they have the potential to truly create something new and interesting - I thought the part about "He sees developing a freeware game for TuxBox as good resume fodder for those who want to work in the industry; developers will pay just a small certification fee as insurance that the games work properly with TuxBox." an interesting idea. I mean, how many wanna-be developers can get their hands on development kits for a Playstation 2, just to kick it around and see if they can get it to work? But if this Tux Box is truly open, anyone can tinker around and figure it out. It might - just might - lead to an interesting wave of independant console developers. Imagine having your cheap-ass game out for the Tux Box (you meaning your garage game making friends) that sells for around $10 - the "fame factor" alone might make it workwhile. And you wouldn't have the whole DirectX/weird graphic card drivers crap to worry about.
If nothing else, it could be an exercise in how Open Source development can actually make a better product, and I wish them the best. Heck, if it does everything they hope it will (without the MPAA and RIAA breathing down their necks...) I might even buy one.
Of course, I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Recently I've been struggling to figure out the answer to this question on my site - just when we started to make some money, almost enough to break even, the banner ad money dropped through the floor.
One possible service has been in Flashlink (http://www.flashlink.com), a system which has a series of member web sites (focused on computer/console gaming) that offer news, reviews, walkthroughs, etc. The catch? You have to pay $3.50 a month to access the web sites. That's not the amazing thing - the amazing thing is that its starting to make money.
I'm sure the fellow who runs Flashlink won't mind me quoting from his email to me:
There are of course a handful that are
upset and saying they wont pay for anything, but when we are getting a new signup every 3.72 minutes, the positive responses are well outbalancing the negative ones
The point? While free services in some way will always be around (search engines, some major news sites that can operate the web site as a loss to advertise their TV/Cable operations (like CNN)), it appears that people are beginning to recognize that there are things they have to pay for.
Pornography, for all the jokes we like to make about it, has been profitable on the Internet. Do they charge you money? Sure - but you pay because you can't get the information they have anywhere else. They provide a service some people want, and someone is always willing to pay, because they already know that porn isn't free - the second a site gets too popular, and hits skyrocket, and the bandwidth costs are too much for most ISP's to handle without asking for more money to operate.
Other sites that have been free for years will have to start charging for their services. Will people complain? Yeah - I mean, why pay Flashlink $3.50 a month for information they can get for free other places. But if the information is of a high enough quality (like exclusive game walkthroughs you can't find anywhere else, and excuse me for focusing on the game industry because that's what I'm into), people will pay. Would people pay for Tom's Hardware of Anandtech? Most would bitch and moan - but I'm willing to bed that for the quality of reviews/in depth information sites like that provide, there's enough people that would pay that would make it profitible.
Here's one last thought then I'll shut up. Linux is free - I like it, I use it. But for support, I either have to figure it out for myself or pay someone else to help me - and that's how the Linux industry proposes to make money. Web sites are going through the same evolution. Some things will be free, others you'll pay for. People have mentioned the need for "big advertising" (Coke/Pepsi, Levi) to get into Net ads - but I'd rather make money the "old fashioned way" - by selling something people want to pay for rather than having to prostitute myself. "I love playing Serious Sam - and speaking of serious, I love Coke!"
I'm curious to see how it goes. Things are going to start to get interesting as we figure out how to make it all work.
Of course, I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Don't forget that the X-Box is suppose to come with a hard drive - not that it will boot to it, but that's the idea.
It should be interesting to see someone come up with an X-Box for Linux that:
Boots from a CD/DVD only (like just Lilo on the CD that points to the hard drive.
Stores kernel/Apache/etc on the hard drive.
Can use aptget or rpm to update itself.
With those, X-Box could be a cheap, powerful PC system. Will Microsoft let it happen? Maybe...maybe not. They would stand to lose if it could, because it would remove the $$$ they make from game licenses. Though they could justify it by hoping that with high sales, game developers would see the demand for X-Box "computers", and develop more games for that platform.
Of course, I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I have to laugh whenever I get it. It and the "Get out of debt" and the "Swedish schoolgirls with giant hairy eyebrows want to lick your nostrils". But I'll give spammers this much: they're getting a little smarter with their fake subject lines to get me to at least open the mail before it gets dumped to my trash bin. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
But part of the idea behind commercials is to bring people who were either a) not aware of your product, or b) using a competing product into your space. So if I just Dodge trucks, odds are I would never go to Ford's web site voluntarily. So Ford has to grab my attention some other way.
But you are right - if companies want to increase their web prescense, they need to have a good one. And as much as I dislike banner and pop-up ads, for a 5 second commercial, I could probably live with it, as long as it wasn't every other page. It would have to be between say, every 4 or 5 pages. Or each page would have to be sufficiently long enough to make it worth my while.
Of course, I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I'm using an ATI TV-Wonder - I like the ability (in the software) to save sequencial (I'm sure that's misspelled) files (like image000.jpg, image001.jpg...).
I'll look up XawTV and the Hauppage item - sounds very interesting. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Dang, I hope this works. I have two computers in my house - a Pentium 450, running GNU/Linux, and a Pentium-800 running Windows 98 - and the only reason why the Win98 box is in my house is for my game reviews/walkthroughs.
Naturally, there's some hurdles to overcome, like speed optimizations, working through the entire DirectX system and making sure things work the same without Microsoft getting pissed off and trying to sue people for some sort of copyright violation (which is a good reason for these folks to work with the Wine project).
I know some folks are skeptical, but I honestly believe that games are a major issue (not the biggest - user friendly-ness for Bob User and software compatibility, the reason why Macs don't sell as well as Windows, IMHO) for Linux, or any operating systems acceptance, on the desktop.
With great game support (and when when I see some easy-to-use TV-card support for Linux so I can do my console walkthrough stuff), I won't ever have to run Windows again. (And, at the rate that Windows ME and Windows XP are becoming game unfriendly, at least in performance compared to Win98, I can't wait to ditch them).
Of course, I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I know, I know, semantics. But still, it would be nice if the word at least reflected what people are really doing: cracking into other people's systems to make their voices heard. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Someone comes over to my house and sees that I can actually store MP3's on my old, clunky, ATA hard drive.
When they ask "How did you do that?" when I'm watching a DVD movie on my computer, and fast forwarding past the opening trailers.
When I simply refuse to buy a proprietary device, and build a few for my friends for a price using "old fashioned" computer parts?
When the entertainment industry finds that I'm not buying everything they make just because they tell me to.
When people start to think for themselves, instead of buying everything that's told to them by industry.
When a group of people simply don't buy, and other people see profit in providing them with what they want: storage devices that they can use in whatever they see fit.
When people realize that just because there's other people with a lot of money out there who can purchase control of many things, sooner or later, freedom always wins out in the end. Not because it is right, but because its the only answer that makes sense in the long run. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Recently someone sent me an invitation to join their "payment based" web page group - basically a group of web popular gaming web pages would be accessable only by "paying customers" (folks paying $3-$5 a month for access), then share the profits according to who was the most popular.
I'm still keeping my eye on that one (because you never know), but for now I'm rejecting the idea. Mainly because the Internet has fostered an attitude that "Information wants to be free" - an idea that I support. (That's why all of the info on my site is free - you can contribute if you wish, but you don't have to).
But because "Information wants to be free", the other idea is "So why should I pay for information?" Micropayments will help a little, but I'm guessing that a majority (over 90%) won't ever pay. It's just the way it is (as Napster recently proved - how many people were downloaders as opposed to uploaders?).
Micropayments and subscriptions probably won't work with the massive amounts of people willing to volunteer information (look at the number of computer gaming fan sites). I'm not saying its a bad thing - it makes us all compete that much harder. And I imagine that web-based advertising will come back in force - it will just take it a few years for people to a) grow used to the idea and b) businesses to get that you can't advertise Jock Itch Cream on Womengamers.com.
Of course, I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I run two machines at home - the primary machine being my Mandrake 7.1 box that I do 99% of everything (graphics editing, document writing, file sharing) on. The other machine, the P-800 "big boy", is Windows 98, and serves one purpose and one purpose alone:
It runs games.
Now granted, I'm a very serious gamer, writing walkthroughs, trying out the latest software, etc, etc, etc. And I don't claim to be any Linux guru at all - I just like the stability of the operating system (when editing 500+ 1 MB JPEG files, it comes in handy, even on a system with half the power of the Windows box).
Recently, I was working on a Linux based review, where I wanted to get Quake 3 running on a Voodoo 5500 card, and review the various distributions on how long it took me.
Long story short: never happened. I couldn't even get the game to run. My fault? Probably - I admit that. I'm not experienced enough in Linux to understand what went wrong.
But games are an important test of an operating systems capabilities - both for how "user friendly" the operating system is, and on how "powerful" the same system is. If the "ordinary user" can't install a game on their box without having to mess with xfree86 configuration files - forget it. With a Windows box, you throw in the Voodoo 5500, slap in the CD-ROM for drivers, and you're done. Quake 3 running in a few minutes in glorious 1024x768 death.
And I'd say we need those ordinary users to make Linux a hit on the desktop. Just because people can run games won't sully the server end of Linux. If anything, if suits who pick up Reader Rabbit for Linux for their kids can see how well it runs (especially when the kids can log into their own sessions so the suit's porn collection doesn't get messed with), it makes it that much more likely to get installed into the workplace. All of the neato configuration files can lurk beneath the surface for us "power users" to tweak if we want, but if somebody wants to change their resolution in X-Windows without going through a gigantic hassle, then let them.
My personal dream is to have every machine in the building I work in, every desktop, server, or otherwise, running Linux to I can fix them remotely if I need to, or just rely on a stable operating system. But do to that, I have to win over the "normal" users - and to do that, they need their games.
Just my opinion. I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
That's how I feel today about all these news reports - the Feds teaming up against alt2600 in the DCCS case, Napster all but gone, and now these proposals to prevent our own information from being traded about.
Yes, I understand the need for copy protection - I hate it when folks sell pirated copies of games because I know that's money that should have gone to a hard working developer. But it seems that corporate interests have gone out on such an insane bend to make certain that the people who might rip them off don't - even at the expense of the privacy and freedoms of law abiding citizens.
Probably the worst part is the possibility of what might follow. There was a joke made that the RIAA will sue people who sing copyrighted songs in the showers. On Ubersoft they have a joke about a gigantic company's word processing software preventing the federal government from prosecuting them for illegal actions by detecting what words are typed and changing them.
And that's what makes me so depressed about these articles. It always starts off for "the good" reasons - copy protection good, so copy protection technology has to be good too. The problem is that we all know we can't trust other people to make our own decisions for us, and the second that the power is taken out of our hands, the possibility for corruption is there. What happens when the "copy protection" technology is modified to not allowed "unsupported" or "illegal" software (ie: "dangerous" GPL software that doesn't make the corporations any money).
That's the problem with the copy control schemes. I don't fear people taking my words and claiming them for their own. I fear the people who might prevent my words from being seen at all in the name of "the good of the business" interests.
As I was ready the comments made by Mr. Yamauchi (someone who's been in the game industry longer than some of you have been alive), I realized in a lot of ways, he's very right in some of his views. I disagree slightly with the "multiple porting" thing, but his point about games and technology was dead on.
I'm not one of those "the old days were the best", but there's something to be said when the Gameboy sells about 50% of all console products, even though their graphics are hardly state of the art. Too many developers seem to feel the need to include "super-cool anti-aliasing triple buffered coolness", then come up with a game like Oni, which had some cool ideas, but obviously fell short in the gameplay area. (Hello? Keyboard map and mouse control?)
You can tell which games are the best, because their not just made to make money (I'm not so naive to believe that game developers don't want to make money), but you can sense they're a labor of love as well. No One Lives Forever doesn't have an "advanced" of a game engine compared to Quake 3, but for the story and humor it crushes the other FPS in the competition. Thief and Thief II, a pair of the best games developed for the FPS market, were hacked on for not having a highly developed graphical engine, though the gameplay (especially with Thief II, when it reached near perfect status) couldn't be faulted.
The most recent example is in Final Fantasy IX. Now, I know some people have heralded it as the second coming in console games. Yes, the graphics were pretty (Princess Garnett - oh, yes.) Yes, the music was nice. But the story got lost by the second disk, the random battles became so tedius that I just about pulled my hair out, and the final end battle was as exciting as the Richard Simmon's Chest Shaving Competition.
As for his other comments - will the gaming industry slow down? Well, with the rest of the economy, I'm sure. Then again, after the mistakes already made *cough*Daikatana investors*cough* in giving funds to new gaming startups, we'll to see if investors will be so willing to part with their cash in the future.
In the meantime, I'll just keep my eyes open, and play the games that I think are fun. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
As I'm looking over the comments, I'm beginning to understand why he's talking this way. Here's my own personal theories, so it has no effect on what may be really happening.
1. Smoke screen/reasons why. MS, as mentioned in the article, is being investigated for their investment in Corel back in October, and Corel's recent decision to drop its Linux brand last month (though, as the article again mentions, it will keep on making Linux apps). From this point of view, Mr. Allchin might just be trying to make smoke with "Linux bad!" to spin attention away from "MS made investment in competitor that later stopped developing for Linux!".
2. Can't purchase Linux. I was talking to one of our company VP's who wanted to understand the Linux thing. Their question involved whether I worried that MS might buy Linux - something that seems obviously impossible to those who read/., but something most "non-tech" users still don't get. They think there's a company called Linux out there selling a rival product. Once I explained Open Source to him and why no company could ever own or sell Linux itself, I saw the lights dawn.
"So Microsoft or any other company just can't buy Linux." He said. He must have sat there for almost 10 seconds before saying, "Wow. Microsoft must hate that."
And that's part of what I think Mr. Allchin is after. MS can't use "embrace, extend, exterminate" on Linux. There's nobody to "partner with", then steal the code (aka Symantec, Citrix, etc). If they did that with Linux, there'd be the potential problem of being under GPL violation, and even the MS lawyers might have a hard time with that one (especially in the public's view). They can't extend Linux to do what they want to do - the second they do so, the Linux community (*a-hem*) uses its own innovation to get around their blocks. Unlike JAVA, where they simply put in code to make certain things run under Windows, the open source version of Linux (and other type OS's) gives programmers the edge.
So that leaves them with their final standby, Exterminate. Exterminate who? Debian? They can't - nobody to buy, and even if they did hire enough programmers away from the Debian project, there would be many who wouldn't do it for their own ethics, and too many to fill the gap. So the only way left now is through the government - a move that will be self defeating as well. Buy out every government? Around the world? Even if they made roads in the US (through a DCMA style piece that made Open Source software uncopyrightable, for example, or even by passing laws saying that schools couldn't use Open Source for some silly reason), there would be too many countries outside that wouldn't take part.
Granted, I use Windows for things (just for games, anymore, and my ATI-TV card). But Mr. Allchin sees the writing on the wall, and sees competition for the first time. And I think it scares him.
Obviously, it scares him stupid. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Would you do it again? With the success of/., to the point that even other sites (like cnet, zdnet, msnbc, etc) look to this page to see what the "programming community" is talking about, would you have made Slashdot the same way, or is there a different path you would have taken?
That, or who'd win in a mud-wrestling fight: Linus or RMS? John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
As much as I love games, and while I think that kudos go to the technical team for having achieved this result, I believe that the results from this demonstration may be some time in coming.
When I can play a game like Quake online over a wireless connection with the iPaq - with the same (or as close as you can get in the palm of my hand), then I'll be really impressed.
Until then, good job - and let me know when you've got something more useful. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Lately, especially when I run my own site, I've started clicking on the ads on purpose, since some sites (aka mine) only get paid not by what you see, but by what you click.
So I'll do the old right-click, open in a new window, then close it as soon as something comes up - I don't even bother to read it. That way the sites I like get supported by the advertisers seeing folks clicking on ads(at least until micropayments become a reality).
In my mind, spending 5 seconds of my life by clicking the ad as a way of saying "Thank you" to someone who has provided me with entertainment/information isn't going to kill me. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I haven't checked out the auction, but my primary fear is whether this auction is legitimate.
Assuming it is, this is the kind of stuff that belongs in a real museam. I'd hope that whoever wins will set up some sort of public display. That way everyone can enjoy it. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Oh, to be certain he's got nearly impossible obstacles in front of him. But as I've been watching the market, there's a chance that Indrema might - might, the operative word here - might just pull off the impossible.
Here's the reason why:
Once upon a time, Nintendo was king of the world. Then they made some mistakes: they kept with their cartridge technology while Sony moved to CD's, they kept their price for licensing high while Sony made it cheaper (and therefore more profitable for developers), and their hardware while in some ways was superior to the Playstation couldn't compare to how easy it was to make a game for.
Then Sony makes the Playstation 2, a system that is a) hard to program for, b) expensive to develop for and c) has some hardware limitations (low video ram, etc). Now developers (Oddworld, Konami, Square) are developing for X-Box, a system that is easy to develop for and has sexy hardware.
The point? Each console generation somebody takes it away from the established line - Atari had it stolen by Nintendo, Nintendo by Sony, and now I see Sony about to get bitch-slapped for not learning from their competitors mistakes. Combine a lower-than-expected count of PS2's worldwide, and the fact that Indrema is so easy to program for, there's the off chance that maybe some developer will say "Hey, this looks easy to develop for. Let's let those guys in the wacky division make a game for it" - and all it takes it that one killer app.
Likely? Probably not. But don't count them out yet - its another year until we see X-Box, GameCube, and yes, even the PS2 in the market (I'm prediciting most will have to wait until March for their PS2 games). If Indrema plays their cards right, doesn't make any mistakes, and capitlizes if any of the other console developers screw up, we could see the next upset.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
The Net is certainly transforming the political structure. When I hear my wife, - a woman I love dearly but her belief that good technology ended with Tetris is a thorn in my side - state after the debates that she wants to "look up the candidates web page to see what the details of their plans are", I see how things are changing.
The problem is, its going to take a generation. Napster is a hot topic on the net - while the "average citizen" knows or cares little about it. So is the issue with my.mp3.com, online privacy, copyright, and so on - things the average (read: not heavily online) citizen) usually doesn't regard as important.
Over 2/3's of the voters are over the age of 40 (simply by the fact that if the average life-span is 100, then we have more people over 40 than anything else). I think this is an important thing to take in. If you look back at every major political movement - civil rights, women's vote, opinions regarding gays and lesbians, new technology - it takes about 20 years for the next generation to fully understand it. By the time that we're in our 40's and 50's (which I imagine is still 20 years out for the majority of slashdot readers) there will be a majority of people interested in issues like online copyright and privacy, or the detail that we can gather on our political candidates.
For those fighting, keep it up - it will take time to build. For those voting, keep informed and inform your friends as well - if you don't tell them, they won't know. And for candidates looking for my vote - be afraid. I'm watching you closely, and those coming after me will watch even closer. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Sorry, that's part of what I meant as well. I'm afraid I didn't insert the words.
Of course local people should be able to edit the lists - probably arranged much like bind or the MAPS - you can agree with them, or not. But the list is there. Odds are different communities could make up their own lists and make them public, and you could pick and choose which to use, or just use your own. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Here's what I'd like to see if this law is to become real.
I don't like censorware - not because I want to surf porn, or because I want my daughter checking out "Naughty schoolboys from lab D" - I don't like censorware for the reason that it contains a list of sites that are "bad for me", but I can't find out what sites are "bad for me" so I can argue the sites that are "good for me" - take the black-listing of the National Organization for Women for having the word breast in it, or sites banned that talk about AIDS prevention because they might say "penis". (Great - I just got Slashdot on the banned list...)
As part of a greater endeavor, I'd support a blocking/censorware project if it contained these pieces:
The program is open-source to save libraries and citizens $$$.
The list is published with a list of the site, and why the site is blocked.
The reasons why to publish the list: This way both the public and the maintainers of the list can debate what sites are blocked and why. (Most of us can agree we wouldn't want Hentai Lovin' as an approved site, but some might argue about The Misanthropic Bitch - and that debate would be healthy for both us and our children.
And having the project be Open Source would mean that Joe Public could use it at home (yes, give them binaries) and know that little Johnny wasn't going where he wasn't - without fearing that little Jenny is being denied information that they need.
As always, I'm John "Dark Paladin" Hummel. And that's my opinion.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Slashdot Mirror
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
The big difference here: cost of development.
For an independant developer, the cost for making this game should be fairly low - some PC's for coding on, a CD-Burner (assuming that they don't make the black or blue or weird ass colors on the back), and a Tux Box. To develop a game for the Dreamcast, for example, is the developing kit, then the special burner (unless you contract that out), then the licensing fees (unless you go "unofficial", which means your games won't sell).
Depending on what happens here, this could be a game wanna-be developers dream - cheap, open source (so they can really look at how it works), and something they can show their friends. And, like other systems, it only takes that one "killer app" by some kid in their garage to do what nobody else thought off.
Possible? Like I said earlier, probably not. But the possibilities are interesting.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Probably not - the whole set of things needed to make this system run, and run by Fall (!) is probably an impossible task.
But... they have the potential to truly create something new and interesting - I thought the part about "He sees developing a freeware game for TuxBox as good resume fodder for those who want to work in the industry; developers will pay just a small certification fee as insurance that the games work properly with TuxBox." an interesting idea. I mean, how many wanna-be developers can get their hands on development kits for a Playstation 2, just to kick it around and see if they can get it to work? But if this Tux Box is truly open, anyone can tinker around and figure it out. It might - just might - lead to an interesting wave of independant console developers. Imagine having your cheap-ass game out for the Tux Box (you meaning your garage game making friends) that sells for around $10 - the "fame factor" alone might make it workwhile. And you wouldn't have the whole DirectX/weird graphic card drivers crap to worry about.
If nothing else, it could be an exercise in how Open Source development can actually make a better product, and I wish them the best. Heck, if it does everything they hope it will (without the MPAA and RIAA breathing down their necks...) I might even buy one.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Recently I've been struggling to figure out the answer to this question on my site - just when we started to make some money, almost enough to break even, the banner ad money dropped through the floor.
One possible service has been in Flashlink (http://www.flashlink.com), a system which has a series of member web sites (focused on computer/console gaming) that offer news, reviews, walkthroughs, etc. The catch? You have to pay $3.50 a month to access the web sites. That's not the amazing thing - the amazing thing is that its starting to make money.
I'm sure the fellow who runs Flashlink won't mind me quoting from his email to me:
The point? While free services in some way will always be around (search engines, some major news sites that can operate the web site as a loss to advertise their TV/Cable operations (like CNN)), it appears that people are beginning to recognize that there are things they have to pay for.
Pornography, for all the jokes we like to make about it, has been profitable on the Internet. Do they charge you money? Sure - but you pay because you can't get the information they have anywhere else. They provide a service some people want, and someone is always willing to pay, because they already know that porn isn't free - the second a site gets too popular, and hits skyrocket, and the bandwidth costs are too much for most ISP's to handle without asking for more money to operate.
Other sites that have been free for years will have to start charging for their services. Will people complain? Yeah - I mean, why pay Flashlink $3.50 a month for information they can get for free other places. But if the information is of a high enough quality (like exclusive game walkthroughs you can't find anywhere else, and excuse me for focusing on the game industry because that's what I'm into), people will pay. Would people pay for Tom's Hardware of Anandtech? Most would bitch and moan - but I'm willing to bed that for the quality of reviews/in depth information sites like that provide, there's enough people that would pay that would make it profitible.
Here's one last thought then I'll shut up. Linux is free - I like it, I use it. But for support, I either have to figure it out for myself or pay someone else to help me - and that's how the Linux industry proposes to make money. Web sites are going through the same evolution. Some things will be free, others you'll pay for. People have mentioned the need for "big advertising" (Coke/Pepsi, Levi) to get into Net ads - but I'd rather make money the "old fashioned way" - by selling something people want to pay for rather than having to prostitute myself. "I love playing Serious Sam - and speaking of serious, I love Coke!"
I'm curious to see how it goes. Things are going to start to get interesting as we figure out how to make it all work.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Don't forget that the X-Box is suppose to come with a hard drive - not that it will boot to it, but that's the idea.
It should be interesting to see someone come up with an X-Box for Linux that:
With those, X-Box could be a cheap, powerful PC system. Will Microsoft let it happen? Maybe...maybe not. They would stand to lose if it could, because it would remove the $$$ they make from game licenses. Though they could justify it by hoping that with high sales, game developers would see the demand for X-Box "computers", and develop more games for that platform.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I have to laugh whenever I get it. It and the "Get out of debt" and the "Swedish schoolgirls with giant hairy eyebrows want to lick your nostrils". But I'll give spammers this much: they're getting a little smarter with their fake subject lines to get me to at least open the mail before it gets dumped to my trash bin.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I agree with about 80% with what you say.
But part of the idea behind commercials is to bring people who were either a) not aware of your product, or b) using a competing product into your space. So if I just Dodge trucks, odds are I would never go to Ford's web site voluntarily. So Ford has to grab my attention some other way.
But you are right - if companies want to increase their web prescense, they need to have a good one. And as much as I dislike banner and pop-up ads, for a 5 second commercial, I could probably live with it, as long as it wasn't every other page. It would have to be between say, every 4 or 5 pages. Or each page would have to be sufficiently long enough to make it worth my while.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I'm using an ATI TV-Wonder - I like the ability (in the software) to save sequencial (I'm sure that's misspelled) files (like image000.jpg, image001.jpg...). I'll look up XawTV and the Hauppage item - sounds very interesting.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Dang, I hope this works. I have two computers in my house - a Pentium 450, running GNU/Linux, and a Pentium-800 running Windows 98 - and the only reason why the Win98 box is in my house is for my game reviews/walkthroughs.
Naturally, there's some hurdles to overcome, like speed optimizations, working through the entire DirectX system and making sure things work the same without Microsoft getting pissed off and trying to sue people for some sort of copyright violation (which is a good reason for these folks to work with the Wine project).
I know some folks are skeptical, but I honestly believe that games are a major issue (not the biggest - user friendly-ness for Bob User and software compatibility, the reason why Macs don't sell as well as Windows, IMHO) for Linux, or any operating systems acceptance, on the desktop.
With great game support (and when when I see some easy-to-use TV-card support for Linux so I can do my console walkthrough stuff), I won't ever have to run Windows again. (And, at the rate that Windows ME and Windows XP are becoming game unfriendly, at least in performance compared to Win98, I can't wait to ditch them).
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I know, I know, semantics. But still, it would be nice if the word at least reflected what people are really doing: cracking into other people's systems to make their voices heard.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Someone comes over to my house and sees that I can actually store MP3's on my old, clunky, ATA hard drive.
When they ask "How did you do that?" when I'm watching a DVD movie on my computer, and fast forwarding past the opening trailers.
When I simply refuse to buy a proprietary device, and build a few for my friends for a price using "old fashioned" computer parts?
When the entertainment industry finds that I'm not buying everything they make just because they tell me to.
When people start to think for themselves, instead of buying everything that's told to them by industry.
When a group of people simply don't buy, and other people see profit in providing them with what they want: storage devices that they can use in whatever they see fit.
When people realize that just because there's other people with a lot of money out there who can purchase control of many things, sooner or later, freedom always wins out in the end. Not because it is right, but because its the only answer that makes sense in the long run.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
...if micropayments will take off.
Recently someone sent me an invitation to join their "payment based" web page group - basically a group of web popular gaming web pages would be accessable only by "paying customers" (folks paying $3-$5 a month for access), then share the profits according to who was the most popular.
I'm still keeping my eye on that one (because you never know), but for now I'm rejecting the idea. Mainly because the Internet has fostered an attitude that "Information wants to be free" - an idea that I support. (That's why all of the info on my site is free - you can contribute if you wish, but you don't have to).
But because "Information wants to be free", the other idea is "So why should I pay for information?" Micropayments will help a little, but I'm guessing that a majority (over 90%) won't ever pay. It's just the way it is (as Napster recently proved - how many people were downloaders as opposed to uploaders?).
Micropayments and subscriptions probably won't work with the massive amounts of people willing to volunteer information (look at the number of computer gaming fan sites). I'm not saying its a bad thing - it makes us all compete that much harder. And I imagine that web-based advertising will come back in force - it will just take it a few years for people to a) grow used to the idea and b) businesses to get that you can't advertise Jock Itch Cream on Womengamers.com.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Nothing personal, but I cannot disagree more.
I run two machines at home - the primary machine being my Mandrake 7.1 box that I do 99% of everything (graphics editing, document writing, file sharing) on. The other machine, the P-800 "big boy", is Windows 98, and serves one purpose and one purpose alone:
It runs games.
Now granted, I'm a very serious gamer, writing walkthroughs, trying out the latest software, etc, etc, etc. And I don't claim to be any Linux guru at all - I just like the stability of the operating system (when editing 500+ 1 MB JPEG files, it comes in handy, even on a system with half the power of the Windows box).
Recently, I was working on a Linux based review, where I wanted to get Quake 3 running on a Voodoo 5500 card, and review the various distributions on how long it took me.
Long story short: never happened. I couldn't even get the game to run. My fault? Probably - I admit that. I'm not experienced enough in Linux to understand what went wrong.
But games are an important test of an operating systems capabilities - both for how "user friendly" the operating system is, and on how "powerful" the same system is. If the "ordinary user" can't install a game on their box without having to mess with xfree86 configuration files - forget it. With a Windows box, you throw in the Voodoo 5500, slap in the CD-ROM for drivers, and you're done. Quake 3 running in a few minutes in glorious 1024x768 death.
And I'd say we need those ordinary users to make Linux a hit on the desktop. Just because people can run games won't sully the server end of Linux. If anything, if suits who pick up Reader Rabbit for Linux for their kids can see how well it runs (especially when the kids can log into their own sessions so the suit's porn collection doesn't get messed with), it makes it that much more likely to get installed into the workplace. All of the neato configuration files can lurk beneath the surface for us "power users" to tweak if we want, but if somebody wants to change their resolution in X-Windows without going through a gigantic hassle, then let them.
My personal dream is to have every machine in the building I work in, every desktop, server, or otherwise, running Linux to I can fix them remotely if I need to, or just rely on a stable operating system. But do to that, I have to win over the "normal" users - and to do that, they need their games.
Just my opinion. I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
You're right - copy prevention would have been a better term.
My bad.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
That's how I feel today about all these news reports - the Feds teaming up against alt2600 in the DCCS case, Napster all but gone, and now these proposals to prevent our own information from being traded about.
Yes, I understand the need for copy protection - I hate it when folks sell pirated copies of games because I know that's money that should have gone to a hard working developer. But it seems that corporate interests have gone out on such an insane bend to make certain that the people who might rip them off don't - even at the expense of the privacy and freedoms of law abiding citizens.
Probably the worst part is the possibility of what might follow. There was a joke made that the RIAA will sue people who sing copyrighted songs in the showers. On Ubersoft they have a joke about a gigantic company's word processing software preventing the federal government from prosecuting them for illegal actions by detecting what words are typed and changing them.
And that's what makes me so depressed about these articles. It always starts off for "the good" reasons - copy protection good, so copy protection technology has to be good too. The problem is that we all know we can't trust other people to make our own decisions for us, and the second that the power is taken out of our hands, the possibility for corruption is there. What happens when the "copy protection" technology is modified to not allowed "unsupported" or "illegal" software (ie: "dangerous" GPL software that doesn't make the corporations any money).
That's the problem with the copy control schemes. I don't fear people taking my words and claiming them for their own. I fear the people who might prevent my words from being seen at all in the name of "the good of the business" interests.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
As I was ready the comments made by Mr. Yamauchi (someone who's been in the game industry longer than some of you have been alive), I realized in a lot of ways, he's very right in some of his views. I disagree slightly with the "multiple porting" thing, but his point about games and technology was dead on.
I'm not one of those "the old days were the best", but there's something to be said when the Gameboy sells about 50% of all console products, even though their graphics are hardly state of the art. Too many developers seem to feel the need to include "super-cool anti-aliasing triple buffered coolness", then come up with a game like Oni, which had some cool ideas, but obviously fell short in the gameplay area. (Hello? Keyboard map and mouse control?)
You can tell which games are the best, because their not just made to make money (I'm not so naive to believe that game developers don't want to make money), but you can sense they're a labor of love as well. No One Lives Forever doesn't have an "advanced" of a game engine compared to Quake 3, but for the story and humor it crushes the other FPS in the competition. Thief and Thief II, a pair of the best games developed for the FPS market, were hacked on for not having a highly developed graphical engine, though the gameplay (especially with Thief II, when it reached near perfect status) couldn't be faulted.
The most recent example is in Final Fantasy IX. Now, I know some people have heralded it as the second coming in console games. Yes, the graphics were pretty (Princess Garnett - oh, yes.) Yes, the music was nice. But the story got lost by the second disk, the random battles became so tedius that I just about pulled my hair out, and the final end battle was as exciting as the Richard Simmon's Chest Shaving Competition.
As for his other comments - will the gaming industry slow down? Well, with the rest of the economy, I'm sure. Then again, after the mistakes already made *cough*Daikatana investors*cough* in giving funds to new gaming startups, we'll to see if investors will be so willing to part with their cash in the future.
In the meantime, I'll just keep my eyes open, and play the games that I think are fun.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
1. Smoke screen/reasons why. MS, as mentioned in the article, is being investigated for their investment in Corel back in October, and Corel's recent decision to drop its Linux brand last month (though, as the article again mentions, it will keep on making Linux apps). From this point of view, Mr. Allchin might just be trying to make smoke with "Linux bad!" to spin attention away from "MS made investment in competitor that later stopped developing for Linux!".
2. Can't purchase Linux. I was talking to one of our company VP's who wanted to understand the Linux thing. Their question involved whether I worried that MS might buy Linux - something that seems obviously impossible to those who read /., but something most "non-tech" users still don't get. They think there's a company called Linux out there selling a rival product. Once I explained Open Source to him and why no company could ever own or sell Linux itself, I saw the lights dawn.
"So Microsoft or any other company just can't buy Linux." He said. He must have sat there for almost 10 seconds before saying, "Wow. Microsoft must hate that."
And that's part of what I think Mr. Allchin is after. MS can't use "embrace, extend, exterminate" on Linux. There's nobody to "partner with", then steal the code (aka Symantec, Citrix, etc). If they did that with Linux, there'd be the potential problem of being under GPL violation, and even the MS lawyers might have a hard time with that one (especially in the public's view). They can't extend Linux to do what they want to do - the second they do so, the Linux community (*a-hem*) uses its own innovation to get around their blocks. Unlike JAVA, where they simply put in code to make certain things run under Windows, the open source version of Linux (and other type OS's) gives programmers the edge.
So that leaves them with their final standby, Exterminate. Exterminate who? Debian? They can't - nobody to buy, and even if they did hire enough programmers away from the Debian project, there would be many who wouldn't do it for their own ethics, and too many to fill the gap. So the only way left now is through the government - a move that will be self defeating as well. Buy out every government? Around the world? Even if they made roads in the US (through a DCMA style piece that made Open Source software uncopyrightable, for example, or even by passing laws saying that schools couldn't use Open Source for some silly reason), there would be too many countries outside that wouldn't take part.
Granted, I use Windows for things (just for games, anymore, and my ATI-TV card). But Mr. Allchin sees the writing on the wall, and sees competition for the first time. And I think it scares him.
Obviously, it scares him stupid.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Would you do it again? With the success of /., to the point that even other sites (like cnet, zdnet, msnbc, etc) look to this page to see what the "programming community" is talking about, would you have made Slashdot the same way, or is there a different path you would have taken?
That, or who'd win in a mud-wrestling fight: Linus or RMS?
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
As much as I love games, and while I think that kudos go to the technical team for having achieved this result, I believe that the results from this demonstration may be some time in coming.
When I can play a game like Quake online over a wireless connection with the iPaq - with the same (or as close as you can get in the palm of my hand), then I'll be really impressed.
Until then, good job - and let me know when you've got something more useful.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Lately, especially when I run my own site, I've started clicking on the ads on purpose, since some sites (aka mine) only get paid not by what you see, but by what you click.
So I'll do the old right-click, open in a new window, then close it as soon as something comes up - I don't even bother to read it. That way the sites I like get supported by the advertisers seeing folks clicking on ads(at least until micropayments become a reality).
In my mind, spending 5 seconds of my life by clicking the ad as a way of saying "Thank you" to someone who has provided me with entertainment/information isn't going to kill me.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I haven't checked out the auction, but my primary fear is whether this auction is legitimate.
Assuming it is, this is the kind of stuff that belongs in a real museam. I'd hope that whoever wins will set up some sort of public display. That way everyone can enjoy it.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
I'm not so convinced that he's dead in the water.
Oh, to be certain he's got nearly impossible obstacles in front of him. But as I've been watching the market, there's a chance that Indrema might - might, the operative word here - might just pull off the impossible.
Here's the reason why:
The point? Each console generation somebody takes it away from the established line - Atari had it stolen by Nintendo, Nintendo by Sony, and now I see Sony about to get bitch-slapped for not learning from their competitors mistakes. Combine a lower-than-expected count of PS2's worldwide, and the fact that Indrema is so easy to program for, there's the off chance that maybe some developer will say "Hey, this looks easy to develop for. Let's let those guys in the wacky division make a game for it" - and all it takes it that one killer app.
Likely? Probably not. But don't count them out yet - its another year until we see X-Box, GameCube, and yes, even the PS2 in the market (I'm prediciting most will have to wait until March for their PS2 games). If Indrema plays their cards right, doesn't make any mistakes, and capitlizes if any of the other console developers screw up, we could see the next upset.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
The Net is certainly transforming the political structure. When I hear my wife, - a woman I love dearly but her belief that good technology ended with Tetris is a thorn in my side - state after the debates that she wants to "look up the candidates web page to see what the details of their plans are", I see how things are changing.
The problem is, its going to take a generation. Napster is a hot topic on the net - while the "average citizen" knows or cares little about it. So is the issue with my.mp3.com, online privacy, copyright, and so on - things the average (read: not heavily online) citizen) usually doesn't regard as important.
Over 2/3's of the voters are over the age of 40 (simply by the fact that if the average life-span is 100, then we have more people over 40 than anything else). I think this is an important thing to take in. If you look back at every major political movement - civil rights, women's vote, opinions regarding gays and lesbians, new technology - it takes about 20 years for the next generation to fully understand it. By the time that we're in our 40's and 50's (which I imagine is still 20 years out for the majority of slashdot readers) there will be a majority of people interested in issues like online copyright and privacy, or the detail that we can gather on our political candidates.
For those fighting, keep it up - it will take time to build. For those voting, keep informed and inform your friends as well - if you don't tell them, they won't know. And for candidates looking for my vote - be afraid. I'm watching you closely, and those coming after me will watch even closer.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Sorry, that's part of what I meant as well. I'm afraid I didn't insert the words.
Of course local people should be able to edit the lists - probably arranged much like bind or the MAPS - you can agree with them, or not. But the list is there. Odds are different communities could make up their own lists and make them public, and you could pick and choose which to use, or just use your own.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Here's what I'd like to see if this law is to become real.
I don't like censorware - not because I want to surf porn, or because I want my daughter checking out "Naughty schoolboys from lab D" - I don't like censorware for the reason that it contains a list of sites that are "bad for me", but I can't find out what sites are "bad for me" so I can argue the sites that are "good for me" - take the black-listing of the National Organization for Women for having the word breast in it, or sites banned that talk about AIDS prevention because they might say "penis". (Great - I just got Slashdot on the banned list...)
As part of a greater endeavor, I'd support a blocking/censorware project if it contained these pieces:
The reasons why to publish the list: This way both the public and the maintainers of the list can debate what sites are blocked and why. (Most of us can agree we wouldn't want Hentai Lovin' as an approved site, but some might argue about The Misanthropic Bitch - and that debate would be healthy for both us and our children.
And having the project be Open Source would mean that Joe Public could use it at home (yes, give them binaries) and know that little Johnny wasn't going where he wasn't - without fearing that little Jenny is being denied information that they need.
As always, I'm John "Dark Paladin" Hummel. And that's my opinion.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel