I believe there is a place for open source and commercial software in schools. I better since I work for a commercial Educational software publisher.
I'd love to have our stuff run on Open Source platforms, but we currently only release for Windows/OSX. We don't produce for OS platforms for the simple reason that nobody asks for it. Ever. I talk to our sales guys from time to time. I ask them if people ask for Linux versions. The answer is always no.
So Educators, administrators, curriculum people, make sure to ask your software vendors for versions that run on open platforms. You'll probably get a "no". But keep asking. It's not that they can't, they just don't know you want it.
We do contribute modifications back. Even if we only reported bugs, that could easily amount to hundreds of hours of QA time. Most open source projects don't have QA teams.
Most projects out there that I'd hope to use aren't big stand alone end-user applications. Most are either small utilities or software libraries.
In my experience, commercial projects that use open source software are rarely trying to replicate what's out there. After all, making something for cost out of something for free is a hard business case to make. Instead, they often want some functionality other projects have in their own. Often times the open source project has nothing to do with the target audience or primary functionality of the commercial software.
Section 6 >> As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.
The "sections above" are stating you must distribute under the LGPL, so this clause is what gives the LPGL the ability to work with commercial software.
Does your boss know that he must distribute the resulting executable under a license that allows the end-user to modify it?
Not many people realize this. But if you use a LPGL licensed library, you don't have to release your product under the LGPL, but you do have to release it with a license that allows modification.
I, like many other people, develop commercial software. I can't use anything with a GPL license in our projects. That means my employer devotes $0 towards GPL projects.
On the other hand, we do occasionally use MIT or BSD licensed projects. When working with those we put in a lot of QA time (something most open source projects are severely lacking in!) and we put in some engineering time as well to fix problems we find or extend the project to do things it currently doesn't. That means my employer devotes manpower (and hence $$$) towards these projects.
It's not good, it's not bad, but it's something you should consider when choosing a license, especially software libraries.
Earning real money for selling in-game stuff. Taxable. Generally everyone agrees.
Devil's advocate time...
a) Real money is taxable. b) You can sell virtual gold for real money. c) Virtual gold therefore has value. d) Receiving something of value is taxable as income. Example, if you win a car worth $20k, you have to pay income tax on that $20k. Or if you win a trip to outer space worth $200k, you have to pay taxes on that $200k. e) Therefore, receiving gold in game is taxable.
For second life, it's almost obvious. Since you can transfer dollars to lindens easily and legally those lindens obviously have value. For WoW, it's not as obvious, but the same argument holds.
Luckily... if I earn 2000 gold in WoW, then spend that 2000 gold on repairs, consumables, gear, etc, I should be able to write the value of that gold off making it a wash. (2000 gold earned, but 2000 gold spent) Or even better, if I start the year at 2000 gold, and end the year at 500 gold, can I claim a loss?
Ad's aren't annoying in themselves, ad's you don't care about are annoying.
If you happen to see an ad that tells you about something you're interested in, that's a good thing for you and for the marketer and things like this just make that more likely.
We used Qt for several rounds of development and it was always great to work with. In fact, I prefer their utility classes to the STL. Even if I was writing a single-platform project in c++ these days, I think I'd go for Qt.
Nowadays we're using Flash for the win/osx cross platform development. Big things are starting to come in that front.
Oh.. and Qt does use native (not emulated) widgets for win/osx.
Howard Stern = Sirius satellite radio, not XM. It's odd the summary above mentions content on one network, but the name of the other network.
The FCC was originally designed to regulate the radio waves... the transmission powers, the location of transmitters, ensuring different users didn't interfere with each other. That's the bulk of the complaints mentioned in the article.
The FCC has evolved into the decency police regulating what content can and can not be heard on free mediums. Those aren't the type of complaints currently being investigated because they have no authority over the satellite for-pay content.
The terrestrial radio business wants the FCC to regulate content on pay radio because pay-radio is currently better than free radio. They know that. They don't want to have to compete with the satellite guys who aren't under the same content restrictions as they are. So they're doing everything in their power to convince the FCC to try and regulate satellite content.
Things they're saying to achieve that: 1) Sirius gave a 2-day free preview over the internet. Therefore they're free and should be regulated! Obvious BS since the FCC doesn't regulate content on the internet. 2) The FM transmitters in cars that receive the radio signal and broadcast it to the car's radio are too powerful and other people can hear those transmissions.... Maybe BS, maybe not. It's probably more of a case that some of the transmitters are more powerful than licensed and should be fixed.
I've had both. Sirius rocks. XM is decent. They're both better than normal radio.
I control my external cablebox with an IR emitter I bought for something around $8. Essentially, the myth box pretends it's a remote control for the cable box.
Re:Flash as an application development platform
on
The Future of Flash
·
· Score: 1
/sigh
I've been caught by a troll and didn't realize till now. My hat is off to you.
I learned to program on a dos version of TurboC... To this day I still prefer the yellow on blue text:)
Re:Flash as an application development platform
on
The Future of Flash
·
· Score: 1
Ask the developers. I believe their reasoning is that native backend code could be alot faster in C and the front-end would be more easily handled in Java. At least this is what I heard when last this conversation was had.
Um... The native stuff in eclipse is the front end UI widgets. That's where java fails. That's where flash excels. That's what I've been talking about all along. For just about everything except Swing and to a lesser degree AWT, java runs at adequate speed for nearly any purpose.
Most decent developers realize that no one tool is good for everything. A hammer isn't also a wrench and a screw driver. Hence, different languages do some things better than others.
Um... I've been advocating mixed environments all along. You're the one pushing java on the backend and java on the frontend.
This is why no applications are being built in flash. It does not meet the needs of serious development.
I could just as easily say no desktop apps are being developed as pure-java apps. The difference is Adobe is pushing full-steam into the desktop market.
Re:Flash as an application development platform
on
The Future of Flash
·
· Score: 1
I don't know about Oxygen but Eclipse is not pure Java. Which would sort of explain that problem now wouldn't it. For someone who claims to be a Java developer, you'd think you;d have realized that.
And why aren't they pure java apps? Maybe because a desktop pure java application sucks to develop and delivers an inferior user experience?
Re:Flash as an application development platform
on
The Future of Flash
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I know java. I was a java developer long before I took Flash seriously.
Ever try making a commercial frontend app with it? Write once, debug everwhere. As an example the two java apps I use on a daily basis, Oxygen and Eclipse both didn't work with the intel macs when they were released.
Java is wonderful for certain applications. The app I'm currently working on uses a java backend with a flash frontend. We certainly could have made it a java frontend as well, but doing that would have cost a lot more for no real world benefit and would have most likely provided an inferior user experience.
It's all about picking the most appropriate tool for the job.
Re:Flash as an application development platform
on
The Future of Flash
·
· Score: 1
Such an idealist attitude. It would be wonderful if you could write an app that works for 99% of all users, wouldn't it? Most people choose to target specific platforms to keep down complexity and costs.
But regardless, Flash 9 will be available for linux in the upcomming months. Start developing an app now, and it'll most likely be ready to run on linux by the time you hit beta.
We're talking about the future of flash, not the past.
Re:Flash as an application development platform
on
The Future of Flash
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Every single thing you just complained about has been fixed in version 9.
An Apollo app will be the same as downloading a native application, with all the risks and benefits it gives. In fact you may not even realize it's an apollo app built on flash technology.
The flash player will continue to not have access to most system resources.
Seen a bunch more misconceptions in posts all over the site, so here's an addendum to my list:
- Full accessibility, including screenreader support, is built into Flash. To utilize that is about as difficult as implementing that support for a traditional desktop application. There is no need to have weird hacks.
- Actionscript is the language the flash player is the environment it runs in (the VM?) and it provides an API that is fully accessible from actionscript without touching adobe design tools.
- Flash has it's own control panel for privacy concerns that rivals most browser controls (not counting addons) for html content.
- Just because there are crappy flash things out there (animated ads, stupid games, etc.) doesn't mean real applications can't be built. You don't blame C for the latest internet worm, why blame flash for the latest annoyance.
- It can be indexed by search engines.
- The new target is at full blown applications. Think of something like iTunes. An application running on your computer that communicates extensively with online services. With an added bonus it can be delivered on-demand over the internet in addition to a traditional download/install or cd/install.
- Macromedia dropped the ball on linux flash player. Adobe's picking it back up.
Slashdot Mirror
Zero. I ask the sales guys several times a year.
We're a (small) division of the largest educational publisher in the world.
I believe there is a place for open source and commercial software in schools. I better since I work for a commercial Educational software publisher.
I'd love to have our stuff run on Open Source platforms, but we currently only release for Windows/OSX. We don't produce for OS platforms for the simple reason that nobody asks for it. Ever. I talk to our sales guys from time to time. I ask them if people ask for Linux versions. The answer is always no.
So Educators, administrators, curriculum people, make sure to ask your software vendors for versions that run on open platforms. You'll probably get a "no". But keep asking. It's not that they can't, they just don't know you want it.
It's funny when people advocating free software focus on the cost.
His post summed up the effect of GPL in the real world nicely.
When writing a piece of open source software you need to decide what's more important to you.
If you want as many people using it, contributing to it, etc. Choose BSD, MIT, etc.
If you want to make sure nobody ever profits off of your work, choose GPL.
MillionthMonkey, I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to reproduce your post in my blog. Please let me know if you'd rather not.
http://www.rogue-development.com/blog/index.html
We do contribute modifications back. Even if we only reported bugs, that could easily amount to hundreds of hours of QA time. Most open source projects don't have QA teams.
Most projects out there that I'd hope to use aren't big stand alone end-user applications. Most are either small utilities or software libraries.
In my experience, commercial projects that use open source software are rarely trying to replicate what's out there. After all, making something for cost out of something for free is a hard business case to make. Instead, they often want some functionality other projects have in their own. Often times the open source project has nothing to do with the target audience or primary functionality of the commercial software.
Section 6
>>
As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.
The "sections above" are stating you must distribute under the LGPL, so this clause is what gives the LPGL the ability to work with commercial software.
Does your boss know that he must distribute the resulting executable under a license that allows the end-user to modify it?
Not many people realize this. But if you use a LPGL licensed library, you don't have to release your product under the LGPL, but you do have to release it with a license that allows modification.
I, like many other people, develop commercial software. I can't use anything with a GPL license in our projects. That means my employer devotes $0 towards GPL projects.
On the other hand, we do occasionally use MIT or BSD licensed projects. When working with those we put in a lot of QA time (something most open source projects are severely lacking in!) and we put in some engineering time as well to fix problems we find or extend the project to do things it currently doesn't. That means my employer devotes manpower (and hence $$$) towards these projects.
It's not good, it's not bad, but it's something you should consider when choosing a license, especially software libraries.
Earning real money for selling in-game stuff. Taxable. Generally everyone agrees.
Devil's advocate time...
a) Real money is taxable.
b) You can sell virtual gold for real money.
c) Virtual gold therefore has value.
d) Receiving something of value is taxable as income. Example, if you win a car worth $20k, you have to pay income tax on that $20k. Or if you win a trip to outer space worth $200k, you have to pay taxes on that $200k.
e) Therefore, receiving gold in game is taxable.
For second life, it's almost obvious. Since you can transfer dollars to lindens easily and legally those lindens obviously have value.
For WoW, it's not as obvious, but the same argument holds.
Luckily... if I earn 2000 gold in WoW, then spend that 2000 gold on repairs, consumables, gear, etc, I should be able to write the value of that gold off making it a wash. (2000 gold earned, but 2000 gold spent) Or even better, if I start the year at 2000 gold, and end the year at 500 gold, can I claim a loss?
If you've licensed your IP to someone else (ie, you sold a virtual item to them), it persists.
If you haven't, it will go away eventually or you can ask for it to be removed.
Ad's aren't annoying in themselves, ad's you don't care about are annoying.
If you happen to see an ad that tells you about something you're interested in, that's a good thing for you and for the marketer and things like this just make that more likely.
By not relying on security through obscurity.
If 1000 people say they'll buy the Linux version, whoopeee. How many of them will buy the windows version if there isn't a linux one?
How many won't buy the game when it does come out for whatever reason?
You're 1000 people might turn into 100 sales.
We used Qt for several rounds of development and it was always great to work with. In fact, I prefer their utility classes to the STL. Even if I was writing a single-platform project in c++ these days, I think I'd go for Qt.
Nowadays we're using Flash for the win/osx cross platform development. Big things are starting to come in that front.
Oh.. and Qt does use native (not emulated) widgets for win/osx.
And with those higher wages come higher costs to the US companies doing the outsourcing, and less of an incentive to outsource. Yay.
Howard Stern = Sirius satellite radio, not XM. It's odd the summary above mentions content on one network, but the name of the other network.
... Maybe BS, maybe not. It's probably more of a case that some of the transmitters are more powerful than licensed and should be fixed.
The FCC was originally designed to regulate the radio waves... the transmission powers, the location of transmitters, ensuring different users didn't interfere with each other. That's the bulk of the complaints mentioned in the article.
The FCC has evolved into the decency police regulating what content can and can not be heard on free mediums. Those aren't the type of complaints currently being investigated because they have no authority over the satellite for-pay content.
The terrestrial radio business wants the FCC to regulate content on pay radio because pay-radio is currently better than free radio. They know that. They don't want to have to compete with the satellite guys who aren't under the same content restrictions as they are. So they're doing everything in their power to convince the FCC to try and regulate satellite content.
Things they're saying to achieve that:
1) Sirius gave a 2-day free preview over the internet. Therefore they're free and should be regulated! Obvious BS since the FCC doesn't regulate content on the internet.
2) The FM transmitters in cars that receive the radio signal and broadcast it to the car's radio are too powerful and other people can hear those transmissions.
I've had both. Sirius rocks. XM is decent. They're both better than normal radio.
I control my external cablebox with an IR emitter I bought for something around $8. Essentially, the myth box pretends it's a remote control for the cable box.
/sigh
I've been caught by a troll and didn't realize till now. My hat is off to you.
I learned to program on a dos version of TurboC ... To this day I still prefer the yellow on blue text :)
Um... The native stuff in eclipse is the front end UI widgets. That's where java fails. That's where flash excels. That's what I've been talking about all along. For just about everything except Swing and to a lesser degree AWT, java runs at adequate speed for nearly any purpose.
Um... I've been advocating mixed environments all along. You're the one pushing java on the backend and java on the frontend.
I could just as easily say no desktop apps are being developed as pure-java apps. The difference is Adobe is pushing full-steam into the desktop market.
And why aren't they pure java apps? Maybe because a desktop pure java application sucks to develop and delivers an inferior user experience?
I know java. I was a java developer long before I took Flash seriously.
Ever try making a commercial frontend app with it? Write once, debug everwhere. As an example the two java apps I use on a daily basis, Oxygen and Eclipse both didn't work with the intel macs when they were released.
Java is wonderful for certain applications. The app I'm currently working on uses a java backend with a flash frontend. We certainly could have made it a java frontend as well, but doing that would have cost a lot more for no real world benefit and would have most likely provided an inferior user experience.
It's all about picking the most appropriate tool for the job.
Such an idealist attitude. It would be wonderful if you could write an app that works for 99% of all users, wouldn't it? Most people choose to target specific platforms to keep down complexity and costs.
But regardless, Flash 9 will be available for linux in the upcomming months. Start developing an app now, and it'll most likely be ready to run on linux by the time you hit beta.
We're talking about the future of flash, not the past.
Every single thing you just complained about has been fixed in version 9.
Most of it was fixed in version 7.
An Apollo app will be the same as downloading a native application, with all the risks and benefits it gives. In fact you may not even realize it's an apollo app built on flash technology.
The flash player will continue to not have access to most system resources.
Seen a bunch more misconceptions in posts all over the site, so here's an addendum to my list:
- Full accessibility, including screenreader support, is built into Flash. To utilize that is about as difficult as implementing that support for a traditional desktop application. There is no need to have weird hacks.
- Actionscript is the language the flash player is the environment it runs in (the VM?) and it provides an API that is fully accessible from actionscript without touching adobe design tools.
- Flash has it's own control panel for privacy concerns that rivals most browser controls (not counting addons) for html content.
- Just because there are crappy flash things out there (animated ads, stupid games, etc.) doesn't mean real applications can't be built. You don't blame C for the latest internet worm, why blame flash for the latest annoyance.
- It can be indexed by search engines.
- The new target is at full blown applications. Think of something like iTunes. An application running on your computer that communicates extensively with online services. With an added bonus it can be delivered on-demand over the internet in addition to a traditional download/install or cd/install.
- Macromedia dropped the ball on linux flash player. Adobe's picking it back up.