LAMP configuration is pretty easy usually. I assume it was the use of LVS for load balancing that made things diffuclt for you? What kind of issues did you have?
Did you try just using DNS for load balancing? That's proven easy and reliable for me.
Did you support users website's too? How did you distribute their files among the different servers?
MySQL and some other db servers can handle load balancing across multiple machines using their own methods. You're probably right that the db is often a weak point (which is one reason I don't like cramming unneeded logic into the db and forcing the db to do extra work) but every part of a web server farm should be able to use load balancing in some way or another if you write your web apps right.
I use a cluster for front-end logic (templating) and another for back-end logic. When I need to I'll do likewise with my db needs. Most of my load balancing is through DNS which seems to work well for me with appropiate proxy servers on the front instead of LVS.
Really though, the design is pretty interesting. Also I did say IF what they were trying to do works for them.. that is always a big IF. Sony has a pretty strong history of success though.
Being followed up by the article on IBM's efforts to create an open platform based on the PowerPC and Cell processors would seem to back up my guesses. And they sold off the last of their old PC company ownings a while back. To me it looks like they're trying to create a new PC reference platform with IBM, Toshiba, and Sony making some big bucks from it. x86 has been painfully dated for years and IBM seems to understand why they lost their way with their last IBM PC platform. Think they can reboot the industry? I'd not bet against them. They're playing a smart game so far.
Being able to access the EyeToy would be cool. I wonder if they'll provide some sort of interface to calculating screen to movement relations. It'd be fun to make the mentioned Minority Report style interface into X.
To clarify, I think they'll profit off the hardware but not from the hardware sold as PS3's. They'll profit from licensing the same technology to other companies.
Sony is going after the PC and server markets. They are selling the PS3 at a loss as if it were a game console and positioning it to grab the game console market at the same time but really what they want is the computer market. If (magic word there) they do this the way I think they are trying for they'll be able to create the entertainment center meets PC meets thin client that has long been discussed and never delivered and not only will they deliver it but they'll also put it in millions of living rooms. The PS3 sounds as if it can compete with top of the line PCs at a better price point and still offer everything and more a PC can offer. On top of that the PS3 has been designed from the ground up to take advantage of clustering and the network. Stick another PS3, or Cell enabled device, into your house and the CPU power scales. All the machines talk to each other to share CPU power as well as to provide networked resources. Look at the friggin number of network ports (and Wifi!) the PS3 has. That should definately tell you about their plans. The PS3 has a realistic chance of shattering the PC market.
He even mentioned the PS3 Server. THAT sounds interesting. Especially since IBM was showing off Cell-based rack mounted systems.
Counting on all this Sony, Toshiba, and IBM are planning on making some big change off selling the Cell to other companies such that they can intergrate the Cell into their own PC and entertainment electronics. Everything from your TV to your desktop PC could be running a Cell processor. The money they lose from selling the PS3 will easily be made back from this market. Also I imagine that they'll still be licensing all the usual goodies. Yes, you might be able to run your own apps on the PS3 and use any joystick you want with it but to get a Sony certified game or joystick the maker will still have to hand over the bucks. Without doing so Sony might not let them use their trademarks such as 'Made for the PS3.'
The printer/scanner/fax/whatever small office gadget I recently bought at random from a company I hadn't tried before worked out of the box in Linux for me. The HP models I usually opt for work too. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the printer support although I admit that cheap crappy printers might be less likely to work because A) they cost virtually nothing to replace B) they need replaced frequently anyway and C) because they have no documentation available as to how to create drivers for them.
Hardware support in general has gotten pretty good. The main complaints I have in Linux hardware support these days are not in real hardware but in third-party devices that can connect to a computer such as digital cameras and MP3 players. Again a lot of the reason why those don't work is that they simply are not documented and that they are designed to make third-party interfaces difficult. It's like trying to put a stereo from a Honda Accord into a tank. It's possible but probably more effort than it's worth.
The easiest solution is to buy one that isn't a cheapy unit that supports external CF, SD, XD, or whatever memory and then just pull the cards and use a normal reader in Linux. (The above mentioned office gadgets even support accessing those cards under Linux.)
My one real complaint as to hardware support in Linux is wireless cards. Most work but the distros don't include the drivers and tools needed by default. This is a major flaw on the part of the distros. Even this is getting better in my experience though. Stuff that wasn't supported a few months ago is supported now.
Of course my wireless experience with Windows is one of those painful things I mentioned before.. yes it works.. kind of.. except that it gets disconnected constantly.. or just chooses not to work at all sometimes. I'm pretty sure it has to do with Windows bizzare way of managing it's use of AP's. The wireless cards I have that do work in Linux just work all the time.
Most hardware I just assume will be supported but I tend to check if it's a planned purchase and not just an impulse buy.
It only works because everyone else makes an effort to work with Windows. It's not anything technical as to how Windows functions.
X could be easier to configure but usually you can change the resolution by going into Config, Screen, and changing the resolution. About the same as Windows. More likely than it actually being harder it's just that you're not as familiar with it.
*shrugs* I've installed both OS's on hundreds of systems, taught many newbies to use both, dealt with man hardware and software issues on both. Unless you're a complete newbie that isn't doing anything but turning the system on playing Minesweeper then Linux is easier. For that matter Minesweeper is just about as easy to find on my Linux box and it has nicer graphics. (My only bitch is that distros insist on making the default taskbar menus offer to many options.)
Of course most Windows users are so used to suffering that they no longer realize that they are suffering.;)
Have you tried Windows? It sucks. Maybe your new poorly supported printer worked on Windows easier but overall installing hardware on Windows is a pain. I added a supported video card to Windows and it took more than an hour, several downloads, and many reboots to install. Linux on the other hand simply detected it at boot and adjusted. As long as you verify support before buying your newest gadget then it'll almost always be easier to install in Linux.
And then it doesn't constantly crash and it's security isn't totally laughable. Oh.. and with Linux there is no company hell bent on profiting at your expense. Wait until Microsoft totally screws you and then try to figure out why so many people hate them. I've certainly seen more than one person reduced to tears after trying to talk to their customer or tech support.
Linux certainly has it's problems but it's really a whole different universe than Windows for putting users through torment. Linux is usually a case of you don't know how. Windows is a case of no you can't do that or you can (maybe) but you'll suffer for trying. The only really good thing about Windows is that nearly all hardware and software works with it (supposedly.. often they claim to work but don't).. which has nothing to do with the OS itself.
For the most part OSS software is platform neutral so OSS will work as well on OS X as any other platform. Apple doesn't make it any easier for themselves though which is a mistake on their part. Instead of randomly changing established Unix and OSS standards with no real reason they should embrace them. If they have a valid reason to change them then return the changes to the community and explain why their changes are better.
I think most OSS developers will continue to use a fully OSS platform though. Not having access to all the code involved just isn't what most OSS developers want.
I think the real problem is that developers seem unable to make such games independant of their rendering model. Why not also have a 2D client or even a text client? It shouldn't be that hard to make different clients for the same server. Personally I think different clients could be a lot of fun. Maybe have one photorealistic client and one that draws everything in a cartoonish style.
Having users need to position elements precisely themselves indicates a lack of refinement IMO. User's should be able to create without mucking around with internal details.
At least Second Life is a bit interesting though. Games like Everquest that don't allow users to create content are sleepers IMO. So repetitive that I dunno how anyone stands to play them.
Giving the money back is a bad idea. It was donated for a purpose and it should be used for that purpose. It should fund development of opensource.
I wish I could take over. I've been following LinuxFund since it started and have been a Linux user and free software coder for more than a decade. I have lots of ideas for how to raise more money and how to distribute that money to help opensource. I think myself, or someone similar, should be put in charge of managing the project while the funds should be put in combined trust between that manager and something like the FSF (so that the manager can use the money towards it's stated goal but only with approval from the FSF).
One of the ideas I tried to push with Jerrit in the past was the idea of starting state license plates for support LinuxFund. Have plates available with pictures of Tux and other opensource icons and catch phrases and donate the money earned from users that purchase those plates to LinuxFund.
I also wanted tighter intergration with Freshmeat so that voting wasn't needed. Donate money to the best, non-funded (no Linux, Apache, OpenOffice, etc), projects listed. You can get some useful stats as to how interesting the project is to other users from Freshmeat whereas LF's voting has always been a poor process that gave the prizes to the people who stuffed the ballot boxes.
I'd also like to fund non-coding projects such as creating documentation, artwork for use by OSS projects, etc. There is no reason to wait for people to seek out the money.. just go out and hire people to create what is needed. I've done that with artwork for some of my OSS projects in the past. I'm not an artist so I just paid someone to do the work for me.
Could we change the name though? I'd rather call it the Free Software Fund or the Open Content Fund or something like that.
Maybe Google would be interested in working with LF to co-sponsor projects?
I assume this is a way for Google to scout out talent they might have otherwise missed? The money would be nice but what I'd really love is a job offer from Google. I haven't a PhD but I can still crank out some cool code and I have lots of experience. Will someone that can hire be looking at these projects? I've been trying to get their attention for a long time.
I'm 27 and have been easing into going back to school to finally get my degree. I wonder if that qualifies me. Was there an age limit? Did it say what level of student you should be? Highschool? Post-graduate?
I've thought about commercializing my project of keeping a cd full of free Windows tools. I thought about selling both a cheapy version for around $5 and a nicely boxed version with manuals for around $50.
I was thinking of boxing a similar set of tools for Mac OS. The money collected from the sales could pay for my time mantaining the collection and writing manuals. Anyone know anyone that works for a retail store that'd be interested?:)
Do you think that matters? When my cute neighbor walks naked through her apartment I don't mind starring despite the fact that the view is shitty thanks to the blinds being half closed.;)
Wouldn't this increase the speed of things such as encryption?
Also I'd be curious as how well this could handle lots of small simple problems. A good bit of program logic is working through the same little loops doing simple mathematical operations. Is there any reason that these kinds of processes couldn't be farmed out to the SPE's?
The truth though is that most servers aren't lacking in power. My experience is that a single server can handle the web serving, dns serving, and email for dozens or hundreds of small to midsize companies. For tasks such as fileserving I think fast, hardware-based, network cards and responsive disks make more of a difference than the CPU speed. Just serving files doesn't take much in the way of CPU resources.
Of course I have other apps that are so resource hungry that the single app spreads across many powerful servers. I'm interested to see what the Cell can do for those problems. If the cell has built-in clustering does that mean that we can upgrade our computers just by tossing more CPUs into the box or even by chaining multiple boxes together?
If so I foresee some really cool PC/servers. They could embed a Cell into a lego-like interface that lets them literally just be snapped together. Whenever you need more power just plug new bricks on. The design could literally be as easy as playing with a childs toy if it was designed right. That'd just be staggering if it could be made to work.
If you were creating games like the ones that already exist. Why not innovate new types of games that take less time to develop? The complexity and man hours behind a game doesn't define how fun it is or isn't. Or create a technology demo and see if you can make something fun enough and cool enough to get others to help out or sponsor you.
Why should a game take $8 million dollars to make? Invent some cool generator that can generate models, textures, music, etc. Or maybe be like that Virus game of a few years back where it collects such things from other data sources - such as off other computers on your network or even from the Internet. You could have some interesting effects by using media files collected to generate game art.
I've seen some very good indi-games and game mods. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to make easy-to-use dev tools and stock art (pics, sounds, music, etc) available for the console so that people can experiment without having to start from scratch. I've thought of writing such a toolset for PC and never gotten around to it. It'd be a lot easier for someone like sony that has all this stuff already and just needs to build a nice dev package for it.
Open the systems to anyone and everyone to develop new programs and make it easy to share those programs with other users. With the power these boxes have there are a lot of possibilities but as always the mainstream is going to play it safe and try to deliver only what they have experience with.
Let some small companies and opensource projects have a real go at the possibilities and see if they can't crank out something innovative. It could be the next killer app.
I think the PS3 is going to be significantly more powerful than the 360 and the instant-clustering ability they are rumored to support could be killer. If Sony makes them friendly enough to non-licensed developers then the PS3 could really do some new stuff. I think Sony is more likely than Microsoft to do so.
Since when has anything McVoy made been innovative? He really thinks opensource lacks innovation? Has he never waded through the mass of projects in Freshmeat or Sourceforge? Do all of these make it to be real products? Of course not. Like their closed source siblings most OSS innovations die and get folded back into other projects. The only difference is that with OSS there is a much better chance of those dead projects being recycled because a much wider group has access to the parts, notes, discussions, etc. Innovation is not tied to rich companies and never has been. That's why big companies need start-ups and OSS projects. They can buy the innovation they lack.
If he thinks Bitkeeper is innovative then he really is a moron. It's not a bad product but it certainly isn't a great product and it didn't break any major new ground. I doubt many people will miss it when his company goes out of business and all it's products die due to the closed source.
Seems if they were smart they'd find the most intelligent complaints about Windows and sit Bill down to talk to the people making them. It might not work as well as a PR release but it'd be very valuable as market research.
As an engineer I find that if you can't sit down and really criticize your own work that you'll never create something that is really good. It's one thing not to put that stuff in your marketing but it's quite another to not do it at all. You should always be your own biggest critic.
Why don't we just use a single password entered by the user (once per session or once per browser..depending how it's saved) to generate tokens unique to each site a user browses to. Pass those tokens to the site automaticlly as part of the http headers. No need to ever send any login data through a third-party. No need for any complexity on the part of the end-user or website designers. Just a small bit of extra code added to the browser and webserver (optionally). Firefox and Apache could do this easily enough.
Heck you could have the browser send these unique user and password tokens automaticlly whenever the website asks for http auth. Nothing would even need to change on the server side. Just a small change to the browser. The chances of two users both having the same username and password aren't that high unless they pick something really easy to guess anyway like a name and password they see in a movie.
We should just give Hollywood the finger and start cranking out our own open content movies. No DRM, CSS, region codes, etc required. There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't make community-built movies. Do movies need big name actors in order to be good?
Give the consumer some options and let them choose. It'd be healthy for the movie industry the same way that opensource has been healthy for the software industry. Don't let them sit on their ass, with ever shittier products, collecting ever increasing amounts of money..
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LAMP configuration is pretty easy usually. I assume it was the use of LVS for load balancing that made things diffuclt for you? What kind of issues did you have?
Did you try just using DNS for load balancing? That's proven easy and reliable for me.
Did you support users website's too? How did you distribute their files among the different servers?
MySQL and some other db servers can handle load balancing across multiple machines using their own methods. You're probably right that the db is often a weak point (which is one reason I don't like cramming unneeded logic into the db and forcing the db to do extra work) but every part of a web server farm should be able to use load balancing in some way or another if you write your web apps right.
I use a cluster for front-end logic (templating) and another for back-end logic. When I need to I'll do likewise with my db needs. Most of my load balancing is through DNS which seems to work well for me with appropiate proxy servers on the front instead of LVS.
Sorry. Kool-Aid is my fav stuff. ;)
Really though, the design is pretty interesting. Also I did say IF what they were trying to do works for them.. that is always a big IF. Sony has a pretty strong history of success though.
Being followed up by the article on IBM's efforts to create an open platform based on the PowerPC and Cell processors would seem to back up my guesses. And they sold off the last of their old PC company ownings a while back. To me it looks like they're trying to create a new PC reference platform with IBM, Toshiba, and Sony making some big bucks from it. x86 has been painfully dated for years and IBM seems to understand why they lost their way with their last IBM PC platform. Think they can reboot the industry? I'd not bet against them. They're playing a smart game so far.
Being able to access the EyeToy would be cool. I wonder if they'll provide some sort of interface to calculating screen to movement relations. It'd be fun to make the mentioned Minority Report style interface into X.
To clarify, I think they'll profit off the hardware but not from the hardware sold as PS3's. They'll profit from licensing the same technology to other companies.
Sony is going after the PC and server markets. They are selling the PS3 at a loss as if it were a game console and positioning it to grab the game console market at the same time but really what they want is the computer market. If (magic word there) they do this the way I think they are trying for they'll be able to create the entertainment center meets PC meets thin client that has long been discussed and never delivered and not only will they deliver it but they'll also put it in millions of living rooms. The PS3 sounds as if it can compete with top of the line PCs at a better price point and still offer everything and more a PC can offer. On top of that the PS3 has been designed from the ground up to take advantage of clustering and the network. Stick another PS3, or Cell enabled device, into your house and the CPU power scales. All the machines talk to each other to share CPU power as well as to provide networked resources. Look at the friggin number of network ports (and Wifi!) the PS3 has. That should definately tell you about their plans. The PS3 has a realistic chance of shattering the PC market.
He even mentioned the PS3 Server. THAT sounds interesting. Especially since IBM was showing off Cell-based rack mounted systems.
Counting on all this Sony, Toshiba, and IBM are planning on making some big change off selling the Cell to other companies such that they can intergrate the Cell into their own PC and entertainment electronics. Everything from your TV to your desktop PC could be running a Cell processor. The money they lose from selling the PS3 will easily be made back from this market. Also I imagine that they'll still be licensing all the usual goodies. Yes, you might be able to run your own apps on the PS3 and use any joystick you want with it but to get a Sony certified game or joystick the maker will still have to hand over the bucks. Without doing so Sony might not let them use their trademarks such as 'Made for the PS3.'
The printer/scanner/fax/whatever small office gadget I recently bought at random from a company I hadn't tried before worked out of the box in Linux for me. The HP models I usually opt for work too. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the printer support although I admit that cheap crappy printers might be less likely to work because A) they cost virtually nothing to replace B) they need replaced frequently anyway and C) because they have no documentation available as to how to create drivers for them.
Hardware support in general has gotten pretty good. The main complaints I have in Linux hardware support these days are not in real hardware but in third-party devices that can connect to a computer such as digital cameras and MP3 players. Again a lot of the reason why those don't work is that they simply are not documented and that they are designed to make third-party interfaces difficult. It's like trying to put a stereo from a Honda Accord into a tank. It's possible but probably more effort than it's worth.
The easiest solution is to buy one that isn't a cheapy unit that supports external CF, SD, XD, or whatever memory and then just pull the cards and use a normal reader in Linux. (The above mentioned office gadgets even support accessing those cards under Linux.)
My one real complaint as to hardware support in Linux is wireless cards. Most work but the distros don't include the drivers and tools needed by default. This is a major flaw on the part of the distros. Even this is getting better in my experience though. Stuff that wasn't supported a few months ago is supported now.
Of course my wireless experience with Windows is one of those painful things I mentioned before.. yes it works.. kind of.. except that it gets disconnected constantly.. or just chooses not to work at all sometimes. I'm pretty sure it has to do with Windows bizzare way of managing it's use of AP's. The wireless cards I have that do work in Linux just work all the time.
Most hardware I just assume will be supported but I tend to check if it's a planned purchase and not just an impulse buy.
It only works because everyone else makes an effort to work with Windows. It's not anything technical as to how Windows functions.
X could be easier to configure but usually you can change the resolution by going into Config, Screen, and changing the resolution. About the same as Windows. More likely than it actually being harder it's just that you're not as familiar with it.
*shrugs* I've installed both OS's on hundreds of systems, taught many newbies to use both, dealt with man hardware and software issues on both. Unless you're a complete newbie that isn't doing anything but turning the system on playing Minesweeper then Linux is easier. For that matter Minesweeper is just about as easy to find on my Linux box and it has nicer graphics. (My only bitch is that distros insist on making the default taskbar menus offer to many options.)
;)
Of course most Windows users are so used to suffering that they no longer realize that they are suffering.
Have you tried Windows? It sucks. Maybe your new poorly supported printer worked on Windows easier but overall installing hardware on Windows is a pain. I added a supported video card to Windows and it took more than an hour, several downloads, and many reboots to install. Linux on the other hand simply detected it at boot and adjusted. As long as you verify support before buying your newest gadget then it'll almost always be easier to install in Linux.
And then it doesn't constantly crash and it's security isn't totally laughable. Oh.. and with Linux there is no company hell bent on profiting at your expense. Wait until Microsoft totally screws you and then try to figure out why so many people hate them. I've certainly seen more than one person reduced to tears after trying to talk to their customer or tech support.
Linux certainly has it's problems but it's really a whole different universe than Windows for putting users through torment. Linux is usually a case of you don't know how. Windows is a case of no you can't do that or you can (maybe) but you'll suffer for trying. The only really good thing about Windows is that nearly all hardware and software works with it (supposedly.. often they claim to work but don't).. which has nothing to do with the OS itself.
For the most part OSS software is platform neutral so OSS will work as well on OS X as any other platform. Apple doesn't make it any easier for themselves though which is a mistake on their part. Instead of randomly changing established Unix and OSS standards with no real reason they should embrace them. If they have a valid reason to change them then return the changes to the community and explain why their changes are better.
I think most OSS developers will continue to use a fully OSS platform though. Not having access to all the code involved just isn't what most OSS developers want.
I think the real problem is that developers seem unable to make such games independant of their rendering model. Why not also have a 2D client or even a text client? It shouldn't be that hard to make different clients for the same server. Personally I think different clients could be a lot of fun. Maybe have one photorealistic client and one that draws everything in a cartoonish style.
Having users need to position elements precisely themselves indicates a lack of refinement IMO. User's should be able to create without mucking around with internal details.
At least Second Life is a bit interesting though. Games like Everquest that don't allow users to create content are sleepers IMO. So repetitive that I dunno how anyone stands to play them.
Giving the money back is a bad idea. It was donated for a purpose and it should be used for that purpose. It should fund development of opensource.
I wish I could take over. I've been following LinuxFund since it started and have been a Linux user and free software coder for more than a decade. I have lots of ideas for how to raise more money and how to distribute that money to help opensource. I think myself, or someone similar, should be put in charge of managing the project while the funds should be put in combined trust between that manager and something like the FSF (so that the manager can use the money towards it's stated goal but only with approval from the FSF).
One of the ideas I tried to push with Jerrit in the past was the idea of starting state license plates for support LinuxFund. Have plates available with pictures of Tux and other opensource icons and catch phrases and donate the money earned from users that purchase those plates to LinuxFund.
I also wanted tighter intergration with Freshmeat so that voting wasn't needed. Donate money to the best, non-funded (no Linux, Apache, OpenOffice, etc), projects listed. You can get some useful stats as to how interesting the project is to other users from Freshmeat whereas LF's voting has always been a poor process that gave the prizes to the people who stuffed the ballot boxes.
I'd also like to fund non-coding projects such as creating documentation, artwork for use by OSS projects, etc. There is no reason to wait for people to seek out the money.. just go out and hire people to create what is needed. I've done that with artwork for some of my OSS projects in the past. I'm not an artist so I just paid someone to do the work for me.
Could we change the name though? I'd rather call it the Free Software Fund or the Open Content Fund or something like that.
Maybe Google would be interested in working with LF to co-sponsor projects?
I assume this is a way for Google to scout out talent they might have otherwise missed? The money would be nice but what I'd really love is a job offer from Google. I haven't a PhD but I can still crank out some cool code and I have lots of experience. Will someone that can hire be looking at these projects? I've been trying to get their attention for a long time.
I'm 27 and have been easing into going back to school to finally get my degree. I wonder if that qualifies me. Was there an age limit? Did it say what level of student you should be? Highschool? Post-graduate?
I've thought about commercializing my project of keeping a cd full of free Windows tools. I thought about selling both a cheapy version for around $5 and a nicely boxed version with manuals for around $50.
:)
I was thinking of boxing a similar set of tools for Mac OS. The money collected from the sales could pay for my time mantaining the collection and writing manuals. Anyone know anyone that works for a retail store that'd be interested?
Do you think that matters? When my cute neighbor walks naked through her apartment I don't mind starring despite the fact that the view is shitty thanks to the blinds being half closed. ;)
Wouldn't this increase the speed of things such as encryption?
Also I'd be curious as how well this could handle lots of small simple problems. A good bit of program logic is working through the same little loops doing simple mathematical operations. Is there any reason that these kinds of processes couldn't be farmed out to the SPE's?
The truth though is that most servers aren't lacking in power. My experience is that a single server can handle the web serving, dns serving, and email for dozens or hundreds of small to midsize companies. For tasks such as fileserving I think fast, hardware-based, network cards and responsive disks make more of a difference than the CPU speed. Just serving files doesn't take much in the way of CPU resources.
Of course I have other apps that are so resource hungry that the single app spreads across many powerful servers. I'm interested to see what the Cell can do for those problems. If the cell has built-in clustering does that mean that we can upgrade our computers just by tossing more CPUs into the box or even by chaining multiple boxes together?
If so I foresee some really cool PC/servers. They could embed a Cell into a lego-like interface that lets them literally just be snapped together. Whenever you need more power just plug new bricks on. The design could literally be as easy as playing with a childs toy if it was designed right. That'd just be staggering if it could be made to work.
If you were creating games like the ones that already exist. Why not innovate new types of games that take less time to develop? The complexity and man hours behind a game doesn't define how fun it is or isn't. Or create a technology demo and see if you can make something fun enough and cool enough to get others to help out or sponsor you.
Why should a game take $8 million dollars to make? Invent some cool generator that can generate models, textures, music, etc. Or maybe be like that Virus game of a few years back where it collects such things from other data sources - such as off other computers on your network or even from the Internet. You could have some interesting effects by using media files collected to generate game art.
I've seen some very good indi-games and game mods. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to make easy-to-use dev tools and stock art (pics, sounds, music, etc) available for the console so that people can experiment without having to start from scratch. I've thought of writing such a toolset for PC and never gotten around to it. It'd be a lot easier for someone like sony that has all this stuff already and just needs to build a nice dev package for it.
Open the systems to anyone and everyone to develop new programs and make it easy to share those programs with other users. With the power these boxes have there are a lot of possibilities but as always the mainstream is going to play it safe and try to deliver only what they have experience with.
Let some small companies and opensource projects have a real go at the possibilities and see if they can't crank out something innovative. It could be the next killer app.
I think the PS3 is going to be significantly more powerful than the 360 and the instant-clustering ability they are rumored to support could be killer. If Sony makes them friendly enough to non-licensed developers then the PS3 could really do some new stuff. I think Sony is more likely than Microsoft to do so.
Since when has anything McVoy made been innovative? He really thinks opensource lacks innovation? Has he never waded through the mass of projects in Freshmeat or Sourceforge? Do all of these make it to be real products? Of course not. Like their closed source siblings most OSS innovations die and get folded back into other projects. The only difference is that with OSS there is a much better chance of those dead projects being recycled because a much wider group has access to the parts, notes, discussions, etc. Innovation is not tied to rich companies and never has been. That's why big companies need start-ups and OSS projects. They can buy the innovation they lack.
If he thinks Bitkeeper is innovative then he really is a moron. It's not a bad product but it certainly isn't a great product and it didn't break any major new ground. I doubt many people will miss it when his company goes out of business and all it's products die due to the closed source.
Seems if they were smart they'd find the most intelligent complaints about Windows and sit Bill down to talk to the people making them. It might not work as well as a PR release but it'd be very valuable as market research.
As an engineer I find that if you can't sit down and really criticize your own work that you'll never create something that is really good. It's one thing not to put that stuff in your marketing but it's quite another to not do it at all. You should always be your own biggest critic.
Pretty similar. Just needs to be built in so that it's transparent to users.
Why don't we just use a single password entered by the user (once per session or once per browser..depending how it's saved) to generate tokens unique to each site a user browses to. Pass those tokens to the site automaticlly as part of the http headers. No need to ever send any login data through a third-party. No need for any complexity on the part of the end-user or website designers. Just a small bit of extra code added to the browser and webserver (optionally). Firefox and Apache could do this easily enough.
Heck you could have the browser send these unique user and password tokens automaticlly whenever the website asks for http auth. Nothing would even need to change on the server side. Just a small change to the browser. The chances of two users both having the same username and password aren't that high unless they pick something really easy to guess anyway like a name and password they see in a movie.
We should just give Hollywood the finger and start cranking out our own open content movies. No DRM, CSS, region codes, etc required. There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't make community-built movies. Do movies need big name actors in order to be good?
Give the consumer some options and let them choose. It'd be healthy for the movie industry the same way that opensource has been healthy for the software industry. Don't let them sit on their ass, with ever shittier products, collecting ever increasing amounts of money..