Bjorn Stabell, the developer in question, has duplicated most of his arguments in this thread, at http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1322797&cid=28911143 .
Bjorn was in fact quite right about the source being out-of-date, and his pointing it out helped us track down a pretty boneheaded technical glitch on our side (we were missing a post-update hook). We hadn't noticed it as it only shows up for http access, and we use ssh to access the same repository. It's fixed now, and should remain up-to-date in the future. Apologies to Bjorn and anybody else who accessed the source -- please do a pull to get the latest.
Please moderate up the parent. I very much appreciate Bjorn chiming in on this with his side of the story -- and again, I can't emphasize enough just how much we respect his contribution; without Bjorn, there would have been no XPilot to begin with.
I'd like to clarify a few points.
The source is current. The git repository available on the page is exactly the source that we've built each release from, and is in fact the only way the two of use share code with each other; when it's not updated, it's because we haven't changed anything that day.
The message you're referring to where we "went ballistic" was very much an over simplification. If anybody is interested in the actual email he's talking about, I'll be happy to provide it, but this is a mischaracterization. In particular, Bjorn responded to our extending an olive branch by providing a deadline for us to make the game free, and yes, that rubbed me the wrong way; and Bjorn, I apologize for letting my frustration become so evident.
Your points about whether this was fair or not, and the issues of selling OSS, are perfectly valid -- and in fact trying to determine which of our views reflected the majority perspective of expectations when contributing to GPLed software was, in fact, the reason we wished to have this open discussion.
> Eventually Open Source it... sure, why not? But not as long as you do have the > competitive advantage....
That's probably a realistic tactic, and I never meant that everybody should necessarily open source stuff as soon as one writes it. PRMan's over a decade and a half old, for instance;-) There's a point at which the benefits of open source outweigh those of the competitive advantage you get from having stuff that nobody else does. Whether that point's in three months or a year doesn't matter; I'm merely suggesting that such a point does exist.
I agree, actually -- it'd be nice if the studios released their software, and we should encourage them to do so *for real business reasons*, but that doesn't mean they will -- and that doesn't mean we should wait for them to do so, either. I concentrated more on 'studios releaseing code' in the article, but my point was that open source has value here, regardless of the path we take to get to where the studios are using open source software.
In fact, it's often easier to innovate in the direction you discuss, because one doesn't have a quickly looming deadline and a very specific end product one must produce.
> it's not that easy, bub. I've worked in the industry for over a decade and > these things can't just be whipped up. It takes years to perfect systems like > hair, crowds, water, or fire -- even a basic lighting pipeline and tool can years to get > working nicely.
I don't mean to say that this stuff is easy -- it's not. If it was easy, sharing it wouldn't be such a big deal. But let me suggest that your arguments impact cost and more than revenue: if you've bid (and won) a contract that requires and effect, you're going to implement the software to do it. I see little to suggest that the opposite ever happens ("our hair pipeline isn't as smooth as ILMs, so maybe we better not bid on that project that'll require hair effects"). Hence, once you win, you have to implement the software -- and once you win the contact, competitive advantages cease to be a factor (until the next contract, at which point the game resets).
> Why do you think R+H has gotten EVERY talking animal job since "Babe"?
I'd suggest that this has more to with reputation and schmoozing between non-tech folks than anything directly related to existing code.
> One of your artists, who you've trained on the toolset, could easily start a new company > and take away your bread and butter.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that it'll be similarly easier to find an artist who doesn't <b>need</b> training on your custom tools, since they've already used 'em. And in this industry, the ability to ramp up quickly is, I'd suggest, actually more important than retaining existing employees.
> Finally, let me just say that the Linux transition has not been easy.
And yet, the industry has done it. It <b>wasn't</b> easy, but Linux -- because of the power of open source -- was worth the pain of switching. I think that actually supports my point pretty nicely;-)
> If every business gave away everything they built, that would be called communism. > That just ain't hollywood's bag, baby.
But that's not what Hollywood builds: Hollywood builds movies. Custom software is a necessary evil. If open source reduces that evil and lets them produce slightly more lucrative movies, that's profit. <b>That's</b> Hollywood's bag.
> there are so many things wrong with this I don't even know where to start.
Please try.
> Um - no. PIXAR killed ExLuna. They sued them into the ground.
As others have mentioned, that was my point. I'm at fault for constructing a terribly poor sentence ("they" was meant to refer to Pixar). I don't see how their actions helped themselves directly or indirectly, and the entire industry got to see them being -- as you said -- nasty and selfish. That doesn't inspire confidence in the future of company's products.
> FYI - ILM considers OpenEXR to be a big failure.
Some in ILM do, others don't (nor does much of the industry); perhaps those that were disappointed had unreasonable expectations, because the response has been incredible, really: OpenEXR went from Zero to Standard. And they <b>have</b> recieved contributions, as I described.
> I'm not even going to refute the rest of your points because it's a waste of time. You don't get it.
That's insulting, and I believe both your examples were erroneous -- but please continue, as discussion was part of the point of this piece.
> Pixar has made a pretty good amount of money off > the sale of Renderman. Why give up that revenue > stream?
Because that's not their core business; taking a risk with 5% of your revenue stream that could pay off against the 95% is a gamble worth considering.
And open sourcing part of their technology (e.g. PRMan) doesn't mean they'd have to give up the entire revenue stream, not by a long shot: those that now pay for PRMan would likely continue to pay for development, bug fixes, and other support -- not to mention secondary software like MTOR and Alfred. But this is the OSS argument in whole cloth, and too big to argue here -- many others have written eloquently on the subject.
Yes, the panel was fascinating, and dealt the more concretely with these topics than anything else at SIGGraph. I don't agree that the panelists believed wholeheartedly in the viewpoint you suggest; in fact, it seemed to me that most felt that open source would be the ideal thing to do, but that the problems I mentioned in the article -- and those you discuss -- are the stumbling blocks that need to be overcome. But you're quite right in pointing out the, uh, counterpoint: it's not clear-cut, or it would be moot.
Yes, it's mostly an opinion piece; but it's also an attempt to transcribe the type of news that doesn't make it into press releases: social trends in the industry. It's not speculation, it's suggestion -- but if you're interested only in hard-fact news, the first paragraph should fill the quota.
Latino Review is a quite reputable source of film info (as reliable as online sources get, at least). They have a brief interview with Brett Ratner and Anthony Hopkins (both much more probably attached than Keanu, as of yesterday), and in the course of it deny the Keanu rumour.
A story at Teletext a month ago claims that a source at Buena Vista actually suggested that they were indeed planning to create their own crop circles, and even inform the public (subtly) which ones were their creations.
-spc
Re:Faster than light communication
on
Quantum Holography
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I don't have a reference for you, but I can say that no, quantum entanglement does not allow FTL communication. To do anything interesting, you need to communicate information about the observation you made on one of the particles. Imagine twins -- one male, one female. They go to the two poles; at the North pole, somebody looks at one, and *boom*, she's female and the other one is male -- instantly. The people at the South pole look a microsecond later, and see that their twin is male. Okay... so? The people at the North pole haven't transmitted any information, even if the action occurred *instantly*.
The article doesn't make it clear, but the measurement taken in the chamber must, I have to assume, be transmitted and used in constructing that second image (it doesn't just *happen*; you can't shine a beam of light, even entangled photons, and expect them to magically scatter off nothing. When the first entangled beam is measured, quantities of the second half are determined, but that doesn't make them scattered, since it was *possible* they were in that state already... it has to be possible, that's how quantum physics works). It sounds like the information would be used in a second beam interfering with the intangled beam, but I'm not certain from the article... but I can guarantee that information has to be used.
The gaming community has been drooling over this title for weeks, or months. Many think it'll be the Xbox's killer app. It's visually stunning, and apparently the graphics and, more importantly, gameplay -- both single player and the innovative multiplayer modes -- are a step beyond any FPS currently out there.
MS has spent a ton sending playable demos of the XBox -- usually showcasing this, the new Oddworld, and a few other first-party titles -- to many game retailers around the country. Stop by an Electronics Boutique, Babbage's, etc and if they have a demo console, try this game out. It's for real, and I for one am planning on buying an XBox, in large part for this game.
There are other reviews on the web; check out GameSpot (who also has many movies), TeamXBox, etc.
Lens flare these days looks like, well, lens flare. It's easy to do in realtime; not rocket science. It's been done on a number of games.
Head on down to your local Electronics Boutique or Babbages; you can see for yourself. This game is visually beautiful, and it's not just the lens flare. These shots are all real -- or at least, I can't detect any differences between these and the actual game running in realtime (except perhaps resolution, as I've only seen it on NTSC).
The article referred to DPI (Dots per Inch), which isn't the same as PPI (Pixels Per Inch), where dot = there or not there, pixel = shades of grey/colour. The article didn't say one way or the other, but in the absence of other evidence, I'd have to assume that we're talking about 1-bit dots here (anybody know otherwise?). You'd have combine a couple dozen dots to form intermediate tones (halftoning). So it's almost comperable to a CRT *if* all you want to do is 8-colour (3 bit) non-antialiased text.
Underworld, one of the most well-known House/Techno/Electronica groups, is often considered to be one of the best performers in the genre because of their concerts are such intense, high-energy multimedia experiences. They recently released a highly interactive DVD entitled "Everything, Everything" to coincide with their incredible live CD of the same name, intended to recapture the concert experience. Not only does it manage to bring the essence of their shows to a new medium, but it's also an impressive interactive multimedia experiment on its own.
I find it interesting that the engineers who designed the system referred to the Matrix technology as using still cameras. The technical (as opposed to artistic) breakthrough of those effects in The Matrix was that they used actual movie cameras, so action could continue during the rotation. The Gap ads (and others) preceding the Matrix used still cameras for that effect; that wasn't new.
An error I could overlook, but the fact that the creators of CBS's version themselves didn't know this basic fact tends to suggest they didn't bother to do their homework...
This gaming model is beautiful, but it's also the optimal model to encourage cheating; small enough for cheaters to be relatively anonymous, but still a real incentive for unscrupulous cheating -- and many players won't even know they were robbed. So, I wonder what safegaurds they'll put in place? Nothing is provably perfect, of course, but if they're careful, smart, and very diligent, it's possible to make it arbitrarily difficult for cheaters (e.g., requiring positive identification at registration, an auto-updating client that incorporates a challenge/response system that changes daily, etc)... I wonder if they'll expend the effort neccessary to do this right?
-spc
Science vs. technology
on
What is 'IT'?
·
· Score: 1
You're making a simple but understandable mistake. This is not science, this is technology. Science is the search for truth by formulating theories and comparing them to evidence; the success of a theory is the degree to which it approximates truth, and as such requires peer review. Technology is the process of creating useful devices (both physical and information-based); the success of a piece of technology is the degree to which it is employed (or arguably the degree to which it improves some process), and as such does not require peer review.
Slashdot Mirror
Bjorn Stabell, the developer in question, has duplicated most of his arguments in this thread, at http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1322797&cid=28911143 .
Bjorn was in fact quite right about the source being out-of-date, and his pointing it out helped us track down a pretty boneheaded technical glitch on our side (we were missing a post-update hook). We hadn't noticed it as it only shows up for http access, and we use ssh to access the same repository. It's fixed now, and should remain up-to-date in the future. Apologies to Bjorn and anybody else who accessed the source -- please do a pull to get the latest.
Please moderate up the parent. I very much appreciate Bjorn chiming in on this with his side of the story -- and again, I can't emphasize enough just how much we respect his contribution; without Bjorn, there would have been no XPilot to begin with.
I'd like to clarify a few points.
The source is current. The git repository available on the page is exactly the source that we've built each release from, and is in fact the only way the two of use share code with each other; when it's not updated, it's because we haven't changed anything that day.
The message you're referring to where we "went ballistic" was very much an over simplification. If anybody is interested in the actual email he's talking about, I'll be happy to provide it, but this is a mischaracterization. In particular, Bjorn responded to our extending an olive branch by providing a deadline for us to make the game free, and yes, that rubbed me the wrong way; and Bjorn, I apologize for letting my frustration become so evident.
Your points about whether this was fair or not, and the issues of selling OSS, are perfectly valid -- and in fact trying to determine which of our views reflected the majority perspective of expectations when contributing to GPLed software was, in fact, the reason we wished to have this open discussion.
Sorry, even open software projects don't get to redefine English pronunciation by fiat.
> Eventually Open Source it... sure, why not? But not as long as you do have the
;-) There's a point at which the benefits of open source outweigh those of the competitive advantage you get from having stuff that nobody else does. Whether that point's in three months or a year doesn't matter; I'm merely suggesting that such a point does exist.
> competitive advantage....
That's probably a realistic tactic, and I never meant that everybody should necessarily open source stuff as soon as one writes it. PRMan's over a decade and a half old, for instance
-spc
I agree, actually -- it'd be nice if the studios released their software, and we should encourage them to do so *for real business reasons*, but that doesn't mean they will -- and that doesn't mean we should wait for them to do so, either. I concentrated more on 'studios releaseing code' in the article, but my point was that open source has value here, regardless of the path we take to get to where the studios are using open source software.
;-)
In fact, it's often easier to innovate in the direction you discuss, because one doesn't have a quickly looming deadline and a very specific end product one must produce.
So yeah -- what he said
-spc
> it's not that easy, bub. I've worked in the industry for over a decade and
;-)
> these things can't just be whipped up. It takes years to perfect systems like
> hair, crowds, water, or fire -- even a basic lighting pipeline and tool can years to get
> working nicely.
I don't mean to say that this stuff is easy -- it's not. If it was easy, sharing it wouldn't be such a big deal. But let me suggest that your arguments impact cost and more than revenue: if you've bid (and won) a contract that requires and effect, you're going to implement the software to do it. I see little to suggest that the opposite ever happens ("our hair pipeline isn't as smooth as ILMs, so maybe we better not bid on that project that'll require hair effects"). Hence, once you win, you have to implement the software -- and once you win the contact, competitive advantages cease to be a factor (until the next contract, at which point the game resets).
> Why do you think R+H has gotten EVERY talking animal job since "Babe"?
I'd suggest that this has more to with reputation and schmoozing between non-tech folks than anything directly related to existing code.
> One of your artists, who you've trained on the toolset, could easily start a new company
> and take away your bread and butter.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that it'll be similarly easier to find an artist who doesn't <b>need</b> training on your custom tools, since they've already used 'em. And in this industry, the ability to ramp up quickly is, I'd suggest, actually more important than retaining existing employees.
> Finally, let me just say that the Linux transition has not been easy.
And yet, the industry has done it. It <b>wasn't</b> easy, but Linux -- because of the power of open source -- was worth the pain of switching. I think that actually supports my point pretty nicely
> If every business gave away everything they built, that would be called communism.
> That just ain't hollywood's bag, baby.
But that's not what Hollywood builds: Hollywood builds movies. Custom software is a necessary evil. If open source reduces that evil and lets them produce slightly more lucrative movies, that's profit. <b>That's</b> Hollywood's bag.
-spc
> As somebody who works in 3D graphics
As do I.
> there are so many things wrong with this I don't even know where to start.
Please try.
> Um - no. PIXAR killed ExLuna. They sued them into the ground.
As others have mentioned, that was my point. I'm at fault for constructing a terribly poor sentence ("they" was meant to refer to Pixar). I don't see how their actions helped themselves directly or indirectly, and the entire industry got to see them being -- as you said -- nasty and selfish. That doesn't inspire confidence in the future of company's products.
> FYI - ILM considers OpenEXR to be a big failure.
Some in ILM do, others don't (nor does much of the industry); perhaps those that were disappointed had unreasonable expectations, because the response has been incredible, really: OpenEXR went from Zero to Standard. And they <b>have</b> recieved contributions, as I described.
> I'm not even going to refute the rest of your points because it's a waste of time. You don't get it.
That's insulting, and I believe both your examples were erroneous -- but please continue, as discussion was part of the point of this piece.
-spc
> Pixar has made a pretty good amount of money off
> the sale of Renderman. Why give up that revenue
> stream?
Because that's not their core business; taking a risk with 5% of your revenue stream that could pay off against the 95% is a gamble worth considering.
And open sourcing part of their technology (e.g. PRMan) doesn't mean they'd have to give up the entire revenue stream, not by a long shot: those that now pay for PRMan would likely continue to pay for development, bug fixes, and other support -- not to mention secondary software like MTOR and Alfred. But this is the OSS argument in whole cloth, and too big to argue here -- many others have written eloquently on the subject.
Yes, the panel was fascinating, and dealt the more concretely with these topics than anything else at SIGGraph. I don't agree that the panelists believed wholeheartedly in the viewpoint you suggest; in fact, it seemed to me that most felt that open source would be the ideal thing to do, but that the problems I mentioned in the article -- and those you discuss -- are the stumbling blocks that need to be overcome. But you're quite right in pointing out the, uh, counterpoint: it's not clear-cut, or it would be moot.
-spc
> This is just an opinion piece, not news.
Yes, it's mostly an opinion piece; but it's also an attempt to transcribe the type of news that doesn't make it into press releases: social trends in the industry. It's not speculation, it's suggestion -- but if you're interested only in hard-fact news, the first paragraph should fill the quota.
-spc
Those tinfoil hats aren't looking quite so silly now, are they?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the universe isn't really out to get you...
-spc
http://www.latinoreview.com/moviereviews/2002/redd ragon/brettratner.html
Latino Review is a quite reputable source of film info (as reliable as online sources get, at least). They have a brief interview with Brett Ratner and Anthony Hopkins (both much more probably attached than Keanu, as of yesterday), and in the course of it deny the Keanu rumour.
-spc
A story at Teletext a month ago claims that a source at Buena Vista actually suggested that they were indeed planning to create their own crop circles, and even inform the public (subtly) which ones were their creations.
-spc
I don't have a reference for you, but I can say that no, quantum entanglement does not allow FTL communication. To do anything interesting, you need to communicate information about the observation you made on one of the particles. Imagine twins -- one male, one female. They go to the two poles; at the North pole, somebody looks at one, and *boom*, she's female and the other one is male -- instantly. The people at the South pole look a microsecond later, and see that their twin is male. Okay... so? The people at the North pole haven't transmitted any information, even if the action occurred *instantly*.
The article doesn't make it clear, but the measurement taken in the chamber must, I have to assume, be transmitted and used in constructing that second image (it doesn't just *happen*; you can't shine a beam of light, even entangled photons, and expect them to magically scatter off nothing. When the first entangled beam is measured, quantities of the second half are determined, but that doesn't make them scattered, since it was *possible* they were in that state already... it has to be possible, that's how quantum physics works). It sounds like the information would be used in a second beam interfering with the intangled beam, but I'm not certain from the article... but I can guarantee that information has to be used.
The gaming community has been drooling over this title for weeks, or months. Many think it'll be the Xbox's killer app. It's visually stunning, and apparently the graphics and, more importantly, gameplay -- both single player and the innovative multiplayer modes -- are a step beyond any FPS currently out there.
MS has spent a ton sending playable demos of the XBox -- usually showcasing this, the new Oddworld, and a few other first-party titles -- to many game retailers around the country. Stop by an Electronics Boutique, Babbage's, etc and if they have a demo console, try this game out. It's for real, and I for one am planning on buying an XBox, in large part for this game.
There are other reviews on the web; check out GameSpot (who also has many movies), TeamXBox, etc.
Lens flare these days looks like, well, lens flare. It's easy to do in realtime; not rocket science. It's been done on a number of games.
Head on down to your local Electronics Boutique or Babbages; you can see for yourself. This game is visually beautiful, and it's not just the lens flare. These shots are all real -- or at least, I can't detect any differences between these and the actual game running in realtime (except perhaps resolution, as I've only seen it on NTSC).
-spc
The article referred to DPI (Dots per Inch), which isn't the same as PPI (Pixels Per Inch), where dot = there or not there, pixel = shades of grey/colour. The article didn't say one way or the other, but in the absence of other evidence, I'd have to assume that we're talking about 1-bit dots here (anybody know otherwise?). You'd have combine a couple dozen dots to form intermediate tones (halftoning). So it's almost comperable to a CRT *if* all you want to do is 8-colour (3 bit) non-antialiased text.
-spc
Underworld, one of the most well-known House/Techno/Electronica groups, is often considered to be one of the best performers in the genre because of their concerts are such intense, high-energy multimedia experiences. They recently released a highly interactive DVD entitled "Everything, Everything" to coincide with their incredible live CD of the same name, intended to recapture the concert experience. Not only does it manage to bring the essence of their shows to a new medium, but it's also an impressive interactive multimedia experiment on its own.
-spc
I stand corrected. Apparently the information source I'd seen was incorrect -- and I *didn't* do my homework to confirm.
-spc
I find it interesting that the engineers who designed the system referred to the Matrix technology as using still cameras. The technical (as opposed to artistic) breakthrough of those effects in The Matrix was that they used actual movie cameras, so action could continue during the rotation. The Gap ads (and others) preceding the Matrix used still cameras for that effect; that wasn't new.
An error I could overlook, but the fact that the creators of CBS's version themselves didn't know this basic fact tends to suggest they didn't bother to do their homework...
-spc
http://www.parabon.comThis gaming model is beautiful, but it's also the optimal model to encourage cheating; small enough for cheaters to be relatively anonymous, but still a real incentive for unscrupulous cheating -- and many players won't even know they were robbed. So, I wonder what safegaurds they'll put in place? Nothing is provably perfect, of course, but if they're careful, smart, and very diligent, it's possible to make it arbitrarily difficult for cheaters (e.g., requiring positive identification at registration, an auto-updating client that incorporates a challenge/response system that changes daily, etc)... I wonder if they'll expend the effort neccessary to do this right?
-spcYou're making a simple but understandable mistake. This is not science, this is technology. Science is the search for truth by formulating theories and comparing them to evidence; the success of a theory is the degree to which it approximates truth, and as such requires peer review. Technology is the process of creating useful devices (both physical and information-based); the success of a piece of technology is the degree to which it is employed (or arguably the degree to which it improves some process), and as such does not require peer review.
-spc
Well, Parabon Computation is doing cancer research, in addition to other bioinformatics applications such as gene sequencing, for instance.
-spcOthers are doing new projects: for instance, Parabon (disclaimer: my employer) is doing cancer research, 3d rendering, bioinformatics (e.g. gene sequencing), et cetera (and anything you code up and run: our SDK is available).
-spc