Ever heard of macrame? There are all kinds of ways to encode data on a string, and no need to limit yourself to binary.
For example, who can tell me the best mix for bronze? Not many now.
Not many then, either. The Hittites managed to keep that a secret for quite some time (at least decades), and later they did the same with iron. Of course, not everyone had access to tin, so how to make bronze wasn't even necessarily relevant or useful information. That they kept iron a secret for so long is impressive, since iron is so common. Even when that was "common" knowledge, though, it wasn't all that common. It might have been common knowledge among smiths, depending on the specific time period we're talking about, but the average man-on-the-street wouldn't have a clue any more than the average-man-on-the-street today would if asked "emacs or vi?"
To answer your question directly though, here is how they made it back in the day, and you can find here[1] information that will help you find the best bronze for your specific purpose (since, as with all things, it depends on what you want to do with it). Of course, I could also go to the library and check out a book or two on the subject, or if I were really serious I could call up my best friend, who's a materials engineer, or another guy I know who made his own bronze dagger recently.
My point is, that information is readily available if I care to look for it. That wasn't the case back then, when such things as how to make a particular alloy were closely guarded secrets. That's the fundamental difference that makes our society so much more advanced than theirs. For that reason, I think I'll stay comfortably on my high horse, although I'll agree that we've always been ingenious.
As for the 7-bit thing, ASCII is 7-bit, and the Intel 4004 was 4-bit. Why? Sometimes there are reasons for doing things other than the number of digits on your hand. Sometimes it just makes sense to use a different base. Hell, why use binary at all? There are such things as analog computers. It probably just made sense to use 7-bit encoding for the data they were trying to record. 5 probably wasn't enough, and 10 would have left the upper 3 places empty, why waste them? If we figure out what it was they were actually recording, it would likely be quite clear why they used 7.
[1] Sorry I can't provide a direct link, scroll down to Raw Materials and Springs, click on Metals, and choose Bronze from the list. If you then click on Catalog Pages you'll get actual recipes.
First, there are no lawyers allowed in California Small Claims Court (no representation anyway, either the plaintiff or defendant can be a lawyer).
Second, "you may only sue us in our home state/county/whatever" clauses get beaten in court regularly. Specifically, there is precedent for this WRT internet companies, since even though they have no physical presence they can still be said to be doing business in another state.
Third, according to the T&C they can only recover costs up to $1000, not all their costs as you say, so just add $1000 to your claim to cover that (max $5000 in CASCC).
Finally, there are other avenues. If you don't live in CA, for example, the FTC might be very interested in what Paypal is doing with your money. CA is also one of those states where the Better Business Beurau is actually effective, and you can easily lodge a complaint with them online. I've personally seen some truely amazing results from BBB complaints.
Charles Barkley had some insight into this recently. He said something to the effect of "When I was poor I couldn't get anything, but now that I'm rich people are giving me free stuff all the time." It was his opinion that this is how rich people stay rich; they never have to buy anything. I wonder, though, if that has more to do with his fame than with his wealth.
I have to wonder what this guy was doing about his cashflow problem. My own method would be to try and leverage what fame and contacts I gained from the project to try and hook myself up with a good, hopefully Linux friendly, job. But then again I wouldn't expect to make anything off of a GPL project. What about putting a Paypal donation link up? Those 2 Perl guys seem to be doing alright with that. Did he ever actually ask people to help him out? What about speaking at events, people often get paid for that. What about selling preconfigured floppies to people who don't have the expertise or time to get something like VPN working, as was suggested by another post in this thread?
Unfortunately I can't get to the page, but it sounds like this guy just expected everyone to know that he had no other source of income without him having to say anything. I'll bet if he'd actually put a little effort into it and maybe let that be known or actually asked for cash donations, people would have ponied up. Did this guy ever try to actually do anything about his problem? Or did he just suffer silently until he blew up in everyone's face?
If it's the later, well, I have no simpathy for whiney bitches.
I'd say that's a fair assesment. Everyone seems to be so excited about voice control, but I'm not. I don't particularly like talking to people, I certainly don't want to talk to a machine. Never mind the associated loss of privacy, and the increase of noise pollution, especially in modern office environments (open or cube-farm).
What's to stop the court from saying "This is a contract dispute, not a copyright dispute, because the contract didn't specify that all rights stay with the author until final payment. The contract issues have already been litigated and resolved, so I'll dismiss this, clear my calendar and look efficient"?
Because by default the copyright belongs to the person who actually wrote the code. The only way that can be changed is through a contract, and if the customer hasn't fulfilled their part of the bargain, the contract doesn't mean jack. Quid Pro Quo is the basis of all contract law, and it means they can't ask you to give something up without giving you something in return.
The contract issues have been litigated, but they haven't been resolved, and that's exactly the reason it would be going back to court.
Really, having the Sherrif go in and seize some of their stuff for sale at auction is the best way to go, since that's already specifically allowed for in the ruling. If he wants to really shaft them he can try to have the contract declared null and void due to their non-payment and go after them for copyright violation, but that's more hassle than I think I would want to deal with, and definately requires a lawyer. Another option is to go with a collection agency, but I think I would go back to court first in order to have the cost of using a collection agency added to the damages, although I expect that would have a good chance of being dismissed.
Then again, I would have asked for more than $1400 in the first place, at the very least adding the court costs (small claims is cheap, not free) and billing for the time spent persuing payment at the contractual rate, including an estimate of the time spent in the court room. After all, they've made that a cost of developing for them, and they should pay for that. I'm betting that would have just about doubled the damages, which would have basically payed for the collection agency.
Then again, I have the benefit of seeing my dad deal with these kind of things, so I've learned to anticipate these kinds of issues.
Other options for going back to court are to attach their income (probably called something else in this case, basically having the money taken directly out of their account and they don't have a say in it) or freeze their bank accounts or put a lein on the business. There are all kinds of fun things you can do.
Non-court options are the Better Business Bureau, which someone else mentioned. I like this one personally, my wife complained to the BBB about the dealer we bought our first car from, who kept jerking us around and trying to change the contract, and the next day the manager was calling up ready to clean the soles of her shoes with his tongue in order to resolve the problem. But then I live in a state where the BBB is actually effective, so YMMV.
I also like the idea of putting a black mark on their credit report, and I'd probably do that regardless of whatever else happened. That can be death for a company that small, as often the only way they can grow or even survive through slow periods is by having the ability to borrow money.
Their treatment of bnetd was the first of my 2 reasons for never buying another Blizzard game (and it's the reason I will stick to that decision, regardless of how they solve the second).
The second reason is that they just keep making the same game without any real improvemnts. Darkstone[1] for example had changable POV, you could rotate around to view the action from any angle and you could zoom in or out, and it had an excellent programmable hot-key implementation. Diablo2 had neither of these, even though it was released way later, so you still had to thrash around blindly behind walls to find that stupid hidden barrel because their wall transparency was a cheap hack and didn't work right.
Don't even get me started on their *Craft games. Blizzard is the AC/DC of game companies.
Even if they did actually create a NEW game, though, I probably wouldn't buy it until they had proven that they are no longer a bunch of litigious assholes, and that would take years.
Your "untold number of eyes" is nearly indistinguishable from "0" unless your open source project is widely used.... That may be true in theory, but it doesn't pan out in practice. In practice, most open source projects will only be seen (code-wise) by the author(s). If you're lucky, you might have two or three active users that will submit bugs or patches, but often that's not the case.
I think you've missed the crucial point there.
While it may be true that in reality nobody is looking at the code, there's always the potential for millions of people to be looking at it, and there's certainly no way to tell that when you're writing it. Even if nobody cares about your little project today, that could totally change tomorrow. I very much doubt that anyone writes OS code under the assumption that no one is ever going to look at it. It doesn't matter if anyone ever actually looks at it, you still write it as if they will.
If they haven't paid you then they haven't fulfilled their side of the contract, and they don't own (or otherwise have rights to) the code you wrote. If they're selling/distributing the code that could be a big problem for them as that would be a violation of your copyright, and damages for that are up to $150k per violation. Wouldn't they feel stupid for not paying you that $1400?
I think I would just talk to the Sheriff, though. I very much doubt that you have to know ahead of time what equipment they own or lease. That's the sort of thing that can be sorted out after it's seized.
You might also want to contact a credit reporting agency to see how you can put a black mark on their credit report.
It comes down to this: why do we still use a keyboard today? It's not like keyboards are going away, far from it; they're actually getting bigger. Well, more buttons anyway, if not actually increasing in dimension.
I don't think the human interface part of the computer as it is today is going to go away, or even get much smaller, anytime soon, there just won't be so much space devoted to everything else.
Although I don't have access to a forge at the moment.
Also martial arts, pen & paper RPGs, and I play a few instruments. I have a wife and a 3 year old daughter, too, but in the interests of self-preservation I'm not going to refer to them as hobbies. They do take up plenty of what would otherwise be hobby time, but I'm not complaining.
I figure I'll need win4lin so my wife can do office docs and we can continue to use Quicken and some other apps for a while.
Use OpenOffice for office docs. I've never had any problems, though I've heard of people having some, so YMMV. You can use wine, or maybe CrossoverOffice, to run MSO if she absolutely has to have it.
Gnucash imports Quicken files just fine. I don't know if Quicken runs under wine, but I'd expect it to be the second priority for Codeweavers after MSO.
The problem with win4lin is that you still have to have a copy of windows. Wine doesn't need that, which is why I recommend going that route wherever possible.
Anyway, good luck. I finally ditched Windows completely back in December and I've had no regrets.
... if you don't have anything better to do than spend a week configuring the damn thing to even run at all. And going through the usual Linux routine of "the app wants version 42.5.1 of some library, but everything else on the system was compiled with the incompatible 43.18.9 version, while the video card drivers can't possibly be installed without the 41.2.6 version, and is incompatible with the beta AGP drivers. And oh, each of them wants a completely different and incompatible version of 42 other libraries." So you spend a month just tracking the dependencies and downloading and compiling everything, just to play a game. No, thanks.
I don't know what version of Linux you're using, but I've NEVER had to go through that in over 3 years of running Linux, the last 7 months using it exclusively. I know it's popular to say that Linux has this problem, just like it's popular to say that Windows blue-screens every time you move the mouse. Both statements are equally false.
But then, I've been running SuSE the whole time, so what do I know? Maybe you've been running Rock, but then compiling everything from scratch is the entire point of running Rock. My point is, there's no reason for anyone to HAVE to go through that to get things running on Linux, provided they're willing to support a distro that takes care of that for them.
Isn't that exactly what you're really paying for with Windows? My own experience has been that SuSE has MS beat (and not by a small margin) on ease of installation, updating, and maintainance, and I mean for the whole system, not just the OS. The ONLY count on which MS wins is 3rd party vendor support, and even that is either slipping away or simply not an issue due to Linux having equivalent apps, and games is one of those areas that's slipping away.
As for current game selection, most FPS's have been ported. Id actually developes on *nix, so ALL of their games have native support. Tribes2, UT, ut2k3, and Allied Assault all have native support (the new AA is being ported currently IIRC). Half-life/Counter-strike run great under wine, no need to pay for the winex extensions.
There are plenty of other ported games and games that run great under wine/winex, I just happen to play mostly FPS, so I don't know them off-hand. You can check out tuxgames.com for a fairly complete list, I think you'll be suprised.
I feel I must be the only person who is actually repulsed by Pamela Anderson. I find she is too plastic looking. Plus whenever she opens her mouth and talks it gets worse.
No, you're not the only person who feels that way.
I very much doubt that Atari is the problem here, since Atari and Epic have managed to release ut2k3 for Linux with basically no issues other than the minor one of there being nothing on the box to indicate that Linux support was included. There have been very few subsequent problems with patches and expansions on Linux (I've had no problems, but I've heard of some people having some, and even those were less serious than the issues with Tribes2 on Windows in the few months after it was released).
No, the problems still rest squarely on Bioware, since they started developement with Bink, Borland, and InstallShield before Atari was even involved, and those companies are at the root of their porting problems.
And the toolset hasn't been ported to Linux, mostly because Borland supposedly didn't come through with a compiler. And the Linux Client doesn't have movies becaue Bink's a little licensing bitch. And there's not an installer since they signed a bad contract with InstallSheild, who doesn't have a Linux version.
Let that be a lesson to other developers thinking of using products from these companies.
BUT, Bioware made promises it wasn't able to fulfill. It's perfectly valid for us to complain about that. Just because Borland or Bink or InstallShield is at the root of the problem doesn't make Bioware any less at fault. Bioware shouldn't have signed contracts that allowed third parties to be show-stoppers for them.
They should have made sure that, for example, they would be able to use other codecs on platforms Bink didn't support. And saving Linux install scripts as DOS text files? That's just plain stupid, and shows a total disregard for the people they are allegedly supporting, since even a single test of the script would have shown that error. Any company that would release totally untested code deserves a few flames.
Don't make promises you can't keep, and don't sell code that's untested. It's great that Bioware is putting forth the effort to support Linux, and I'll probably buy NWN now that it's officially released for Linux, but they've done a half-assed job of it, and anyone who does a half-assed job deserves the kind of treatment they're getting.
Why go to all that trouble? If SCO wants to claim infringement it is up to them to prove that a) there is duplicate code and b) that the flow of code was from SCO into Linux and not vice versa (or from some pre-existing code base into both SCO code and Linux).
Because this is a civil matter, which means SCO doesn't have the burden of proving it beyond a reasonable doubt, preponderance of evidence may be enough. Regardless, it is still on us to counter whatever "proof" they might offer. If they offer up "proof" that is fraudulent, and it goes uncontested, it will still stand as "proof" in a court of law.
I wonder if the results would have been the same after the students had been staring at a terminal for 20 hours. That is the example given Linux Coding Style Standards, and one of the main justifications for Linus using the 8-char indent.
I don't sponsor anything but common sense and equality.
I notice this list does not include "the facts". But hey, who needs those when you have common sense? And we all know the facts only get in the way of equality...
For the bajillionth time, SCO's lawyer is working on contingency.
That means he doesn't get to bill by the hour, he just gets a percentage of the winnings (if there are any). There is absolutely no incentive for him to make this thing drag out, as that just increases the amount of work he has to do for the same amount of money, as well as the time before he sees any of it. All the stupidity is therefor placed squarely on the executives of SCO, who are the only ones spewing crap.
Personally, if I were their lawyer, I'd be looking for my clueX4, and I would NOT be happy.
It is not unconstitutional. The 4th Amendment does not say that searches can only be conducted with a warrant, it just sets the conditions under which a warrant can be issued. In certain situations, as long as Probable Cause is met, no warrant is necessary, and the Supreme Court has ruled that to be constitutional in several cases.
Slashdot Mirror
Think: how else to you code data on a string?
Ever heard of macrame? There are all kinds of ways to encode data on a string, and no need to limit yourself to binary.
For example, who can tell me the best mix for bronze? Not many now.
Not many then, either. The Hittites managed to keep that a secret for quite some time (at least decades), and later they did the same with iron. Of course, not everyone had access to tin, so how to make bronze wasn't even necessarily relevant or useful information. That they kept iron a secret for so long is impressive, since iron is so common. Even when that was "common" knowledge, though, it wasn't all that common. It might have been common knowledge among smiths, depending on the specific time period we're talking about, but the average man-on-the-street wouldn't have a clue any more than the average-man-on-the-street today would if asked "emacs or vi?"
To answer your question directly though, here is how they made it back in the day, and you can find here[1] information that will help you find the best bronze for your specific purpose (since, as with all things, it depends on what you want to do with it). Of course, I could also go to the library and check out a book or two on the subject, or if I were really serious I could call up my best friend, who's a materials engineer, or another guy I know who made his own bronze dagger recently.
My point is, that information is readily available if I care to look for it. That wasn't the case back then, when such things as how to make a particular alloy were closely guarded secrets. That's the fundamental difference that makes our society so much more advanced than theirs. For that reason, I think I'll stay comfortably on my high horse, although I'll agree that we've always been ingenious.
As for the 7-bit thing, ASCII is 7-bit, and the Intel 4004 was 4-bit. Why? Sometimes there are reasons for doing things other than the number of digits on your hand. Sometimes it just makes sense to use a different base. Hell, why use binary at all? There are such things as analog computers. It probably just made sense to use 7-bit encoding for the data they were trying to record. 5 probably wasn't enough, and 10 would have left the upper 3 places empty, why waste them? If we figure out what it was they were actually recording, it would likely be quite clear why they used 7.
[1] Sorry I can't provide a direct link, scroll down to Raw Materials and Springs, click on Metals, and choose Bronze from the list. If you then click on Catalog Pages you'll get actual recipes.
I don't know if you'd call it DN3, but they did actually have people kill each other for entertainment.
First, there are no lawyers allowed in California Small Claims Court (no representation anyway, either the plaintiff or defendant can be a lawyer).
Second, "you may only sue us in our home state/county/whatever" clauses get beaten in court regularly. Specifically, there is precedent for this WRT internet companies, since even though they have no physical presence they can still be said to be doing business in another state.
Third, according to the T&C they can only recover costs up to $1000, not all their costs as you say, so just add $1000 to your claim to cover that (max $5000 in CASCC).
Finally, there are other avenues. If you don't live in CA, for example, the FTC might be very interested in what Paypal is doing with your money. CA is also one of those states where the Better Business Beurau is actually effective, and you can easily lodge a complaint with them online. I've personally seen some truely amazing results from BBB complaints.
Charles Barkley had some insight into this recently. He said something to the effect of "When I was poor I couldn't get anything, but now that I'm rich people are giving me free stuff all the time." It was his opinion that this is how rich people stay rich; they never have to buy anything. I wonder, though, if that has more to do with his fame than with his wealth.
I have to wonder what this guy was doing about his cashflow problem. My own method would be to try and leverage what fame and contacts I gained from the project to try and hook myself up with a good, hopefully Linux friendly, job. But then again I wouldn't expect to make anything off of a GPL project. What about putting a Paypal donation link up? Those 2 Perl guys seem to be doing alright with that. Did he ever actually ask people to help him out? What about speaking at events, people often get paid for that. What about selling preconfigured floppies to people who don't have the expertise or time to get something like VPN working, as was suggested by another post in this thread?
Unfortunately I can't get to the page, but it sounds like this guy just expected everyone to know that he had no other source of income without him having to say anything. I'll bet if he'd actually put a little effort into it and maybe let that be known or actually asked for cash donations, people would have ponied up. Did this guy ever try to actually do anything about his problem? Or did he just suffer silently until he blew up in everyone's face?
If it's the later, well, I have no simpathy for whiney bitches.
I'd say that's a fair assesment. Everyone seems to be so excited about voice control, but I'm not. I don't particularly like talking to people, I certainly don't want to talk to a machine. Never mind the associated loss of privacy, and the increase of noise pollution, especially in modern office environments (open or cube-farm).
Maybe you should get a clue about learning grammar as much as you should get a clue about how THE Mac is not dying.
Anyone that would post a sentence like that one should NOT be lecturing others about grammar.
What's to stop the court from saying "This is a contract dispute, not a copyright dispute, because the contract didn't specify that all rights stay with the author until final payment. The contract issues have already been litigated and resolved, so I'll dismiss this, clear my calendar and look efficient"?
Because by default the copyright belongs to the person who actually wrote the code. The only way that can be changed is through a contract, and if the customer hasn't fulfilled their part of the bargain, the contract doesn't mean jack. Quid Pro Quo is the basis of all contract law, and it means they can't ask you to give something up without giving you something in return.
The contract issues have been litigated, but they haven't been resolved, and that's exactly the reason it would be going back to court.
Really, having the Sherrif go in and seize some of their stuff for sale at auction is the best way to go, since that's already specifically allowed for in the ruling. If he wants to really shaft them he can try to have the contract declared null and void due to their non-payment and go after them for copyright violation, but that's more hassle than I think I would want to deal with, and definately requires a lawyer. Another option is to go with a collection agency, but I think I would go back to court first in order to have the cost of using a collection agency added to the damages, although I expect that would have a good chance of being dismissed.
Then again, I would have asked for more than $1400 in the first place, at the very least adding the court costs (small claims is cheap, not free) and billing for the time spent persuing payment at the contractual rate, including an estimate of the time spent in the court room. After all, they've made that a cost of developing for them, and they should pay for that. I'm betting that would have just about doubled the damages, which would have basically payed for the collection agency.
Then again, I have the benefit of seeing my dad deal with these kind of things, so I've learned to anticipate these kinds of issues.
Other options for going back to court are to attach their income (probably called something else in this case, basically having the money taken directly out of their account and they don't have a say in it) or freeze their bank accounts or put a lein on the business. There are all kinds of fun things you can do.
Non-court options are the Better Business Bureau, which someone else mentioned. I like this one personally, my wife complained to the BBB about the dealer we bought our first car from, who kept jerking us around and trying to change the contract, and the next day the manager was calling up ready to clean the soles of her shoes with his tongue in order to resolve the problem. But then I live in a state where the BBB is actually effective, so YMMV.
I also like the idea of putting a black mark on their credit report, and I'd probably do that regardless of whatever else happened. That can be death for a company that small, as often the only way they can grow or even survive through slow periods is by having the ability to borrow money.
Their treatment of bnetd was the first of my 2 reasons for never buying another Blizzard game (and it's the reason I will stick to that decision, regardless of how they solve the second).
The second reason is that they just keep making the same game without any real improvemnts. Darkstone[1] for example had changable POV, you could rotate around to view the action from any angle and you could zoom in or out, and it had an excellent programmable hot-key implementation. Diablo2 had neither of these, even though it was released way later, so you still had to thrash around blindly behind walls to find that stupid hidden barrel because their wall transparency was a cheap hack and didn't work right.
Don't even get me started on their *Craft games. Blizzard is the AC/DC of game companies.
Even if they did actually create a NEW game, though, I probably wouldn't buy it until they had proven that they are no longer a bunch of litigious assholes, and that would take years.
Your "untold number of eyes" is nearly indistinguishable from "0" unless your open source project is widely used. ...
That may be true in theory, but it doesn't pan out in practice. In practice, most open source projects will only be seen (code-wise) by the author(s). If you're lucky, you might have two or three active users that will submit bugs or patches, but often that's not the case.
I think you've missed the crucial point there.
While it may be true that in reality nobody is looking at the code, there's always the potential for millions of people to be looking at it, and there's certainly no way to tell that when you're writing it. Even if nobody cares about your little project today, that could totally change tomorrow. I very much doubt that anyone writes OS code under the assumption that no one is ever going to look at it. It doesn't matter if anyone ever actually looks at it, you still write it as if they will.
If they haven't paid you then they haven't fulfilled their side of the contract, and they don't own (or otherwise have rights to) the code you wrote. If they're selling/distributing the code that could be a big problem for them as that would be a violation of your copyright, and damages for that are up to $150k per violation. Wouldn't they feel stupid for not paying you that $1400?
I think I would just talk to the Sheriff, though. I very much doubt that you have to know ahead of time what equipment they own or lease. That's the sort of thing that can be sorted out after it's seized.
You might also want to contact a credit reporting agency to see how you can put a black mark on their credit report.
I was thinking along those lines, too.
It comes down to this: why do we still use a keyboard today? It's not like keyboards are going away, far from it; they're actually getting bigger. Well, more buttons anyway, if not actually increasing in dimension.
I don't think the human interface part of the computer as it is today is going to go away, or even get much smaller, anytime soon, there just won't be so much space devoted to everything else.
Although I don't have access to a forge at the moment.
Also martial arts, pen & paper RPGs, and I play a few instruments. I have a wife and a 3 year old daughter, too, but in the interests of self-preservation I'm not going to refer to them as hobbies. They do take up plenty of what would otherwise be hobby time, but I'm not complaining.
I figure I'll need win4lin so my wife can do office docs and we can continue to use Quicken and some other apps for a while.
Use OpenOffice for office docs. I've never had any problems, though I've heard of people having some, so YMMV. You can use wine, or maybe CrossoverOffice, to run MSO if she absolutely has to have it.
Gnucash imports Quicken files just fine. I don't know if Quicken runs under wine, but I'd expect it to be the second priority for Codeweavers after MSO.
The problem with win4lin is that you still have to have a copy of windows. Wine doesn't need that, which is why I recommend going that route wherever possible.
Anyway, good luck. I finally ditched Windows completely back in December and I've had no regrets.
... if you don't have anything better to do than spend a week configuring the damn thing to even run at all. And going through the usual Linux routine of "the app wants version 42.5.1 of some library, but everything else on the system was compiled with the incompatible 43.18.9 version, while the video card drivers can't possibly be installed without the 41.2.6 version, and is incompatible with the beta AGP drivers. And oh, each of them wants a completely different and incompatible version of 42 other libraries." So you spend a month just tracking the dependencies and downloading and compiling everything, just to play a game. No, thanks.
I don't know what version of Linux you're using, but I've NEVER had to go through that in over 3 years of running Linux, the last 7 months using it exclusively. I know it's popular to say that Linux has this problem, just like it's popular to say that Windows blue-screens every time you move the mouse. Both statements are equally false.
But then, I've been running SuSE the whole time, so what do I know? Maybe you've been running Rock, but then compiling everything from scratch is the entire point of running Rock. My point is, there's no reason for anyone to HAVE to go through that to get things running on Linux, provided they're willing to support a distro that takes care of that for them.
Isn't that exactly what you're really paying for with Windows? My own experience has been that SuSE has MS beat (and not by a small margin) on ease of installation, updating, and maintainance, and I mean for the whole system, not just the OS. The ONLY count on which MS wins is 3rd party vendor support, and even that is either slipping away or simply not an issue due to Linux having equivalent apps, and games is one of those areas that's slipping away.
As for current game selection, most FPS's have been ported. Id actually developes on *nix, so ALL of their games have native support. Tribes2, UT, ut2k3, and Allied Assault all have native support (the new AA is being ported currently IIRC). Half-life/Counter-strike run great under wine, no need to pay for the winex extensions.
There are plenty of other ported games and games that run great under wine/winex, I just happen to play mostly FPS, so I don't know them off-hand. You can check out tuxgames.com for a fairly complete list, I think you'll be suprised.
That's what it CAN run on, not what it would be PLEASANT to run on. That's why it's called a MINIMUM requirement.
Every game I've bought in the last 2 years has also had a RECOMMENDED system, which is what you seem to be asking for.
I feel I must be the only person who is actually repulsed by Pamela Anderson. I find she is too plastic looking. Plus whenever she opens her mouth and talks it gets worse.
No, you're not the only person who feels that way.
I very much doubt that Atari is the problem here, since Atari and Epic have managed to release ut2k3 for Linux with basically no issues other than the minor one of there being nothing on the box to indicate that Linux support was included. There have been very few subsequent problems with patches and expansions on Linux (I've had no problems, but I've heard of some people having some, and even those were less serious than the issues with Tribes2 on Windows in the few months after it was released).
No, the problems still rest squarely on Bioware, since they started developement with Bink, Borland, and InstallShield before Atari was even involved, and those companies are at the root of their porting problems.
And the toolset hasn't been ported to Linux, mostly because Borland supposedly didn't come through with a compiler. And the Linux Client doesn't have movies becaue Bink's a little licensing bitch. And there's not an installer since they signed a bad contract with InstallSheild, who doesn't have a Linux version.
Let that be a lesson to other developers thinking of using products from these companies.
BUT, Bioware made promises it wasn't able to fulfill. It's perfectly valid for us to complain about that. Just because Borland or Bink or InstallShield is at the root of the problem doesn't make Bioware any less at fault. Bioware shouldn't have signed contracts that allowed third parties to be show-stoppers for them.
They should have made sure that, for example, they would be able to use other codecs on platforms Bink didn't support. And saving Linux install scripts as DOS text files? That's just plain stupid, and shows a total disregard for the people they are allegedly supporting, since even a single test of the script would have shown that error. Any company that would release totally untested code deserves a few flames.
Don't make promises you can't keep, and don't sell code that's untested. It's great that Bioware is putting forth the effort to support Linux, and I'll probably buy NWN now that it's officially released for Linux, but they've done a half-assed job of it, and anyone who does a half-assed job deserves the kind of treatment they're getting.
Why go to all that trouble? If SCO wants to claim infringement it is up to them to prove that a) there is duplicate code and b) that the flow of code was from SCO into Linux and not vice versa (or from some pre-existing code base into both SCO code and Linux).
Because this is a civil matter, which means SCO doesn't have the burden of proving it beyond a reasonable doubt, preponderance of evidence may be enough. Regardless, it is still on us to counter whatever "proof" they might offer. If they offer up "proof" that is fraudulent, and it goes uncontested, it will still stand as "proof" in a court of law.
I wonder if the results would have been the same after the students had been staring at a terminal for 20 hours. That is the example given Linux Coding Style Standards, and one of the main justifications for Linus using the 8-char indent.
You don't have to be a lawyer to understant that SOME of the claims made by SCO are outright lies.
You might have to NOT be a lawyer to understand that, though.
How about Cuba?
The US doesn't support Castro and never has.
I don't sponsor anything but common sense and equality.
I notice this list does not include "the facts". But hey, who needs those when you have common sense? And we all know the facts only get in the way of equality...
For the bajillionth time, SCO's lawyer is working on contingency.
That means he doesn't get to bill by the hour, he just gets a percentage of the winnings (if there are any). There is absolutely no incentive for him to make this thing drag out, as that just increases the amount of work he has to do for the same amount of money, as well as the time before he sees any of it. All the stupidity is therefor placed squarely on the executives of SCO, who are the only ones spewing crap.
Personally, if I were their lawyer, I'd be looking for my clueX4, and I would NOT be happy.
Every day they delay is another couple hundred thousand dollars drained out of SCO's war chest by expensive lawyers.
Nope. SCO's lawyers are working on contingency.
It is not unconstitutional. The 4th Amendment does not say that searches can only be conducted with a warrant, it just sets the conditions under which a warrant can be issued. In certain situations, as long as Probable Cause is met, no warrant is necessary, and the Supreme Court has ruled that to be constitutional in several cases.
This page should clear things up for you.