OK.... I have a desktop with an nVidia GeForce FX 5200. And I have a laptop with an i945GM chipset. The laptop has a *much* beefier CPU, but I can't even come close to the 3D graphics performance of the GeForce. Neverball gives me about 20 frames per second. Vegastrike only gives me about 15 frames per second if I'm close to any ship.
Beryl runs quite nicely on the laptop, but I can't find a 3D game that runs decently at all.
Personally, if you want to do *any* 3D gaming at all, the 9XX doesn't seem to be up to the task. It's fine for me, since I barely ever play games. But if it's important, I think Intel is out of the running (unless I've got something set up wrong...)
Heh heh... Thanks. But in retrospect calling people who were short selling "morons" is kinda flamebait... I'll accept 20% flaimbait for that;-) In reality it was an unconscious dig at people who try to "play" the stock market and end up losing their shirts. But as unconscious as it was, it was uncalled for...
All of the money made by the insiders is public knowledge. I quickly looked through the records last week (you can just do a google search for "insider trades SCO" and you will find a service that will list them all). From what I can tell, Baystar dumped about a million shares or so at between $3.50 and $4.00 at the end of 2004 (They were making 5 or 6 sell trades a day for months). I'm not sure if this ended up being a profit or a loss though (I forget the details... and the whole Bank of Montreal involvement made everything kind of complicated anyway).
The executives exercised stock options all the way up until the end of 2004. It seems they were mostly granted at between $1 and $2 and excercised for between $10 and $20, but there are some exceptions. I didn't add up all the money, but it was definitely in the multi-millions of dollars.
There are huge stock grants to a law firm (about 10 million shares), which I think is the law firm representing them (I assume for services rendered). So the absolute big winners seem to be the lawers, but the executives and Baystar seem to have made millions as well. The losers are the people who invested at anything over $4 (or the morons who sold short, not understanding that it takes *time* for a stock to fall).
As a disclaimer, I only quickly reviewed this material, so there may be errors in my summary. If you care about this stuff, I suggest you compile it properly yourself.
Basic research often has no short term value that we can see. A hundred years ago a couple of guys tried to measure our speed through the "ether". They found that there was no ether. This lead to the idea that light must travel at the same speed no matter what reference frame you're in. This (and a few other things) lead to the ideas of quantum physics. This ultimately lead to several inventions already with many more on the way.
But a hundred years ago, did anyone see the point in measuring our speed through the ether (which pretty much everyone accepted had to exist)? What would be the point? Just a waste of money.
Astronomical measurements are used to test basic theories of physics. The basic theories of physics are then used to create new and wonderful things. These things save lives and make us more comfortable. Just because we don't know what we'll end up using the information for doesn't mean we should stop searching for it.
Unfortunately the lawyers have already been paid. I seem to remember a $32 million cap. From what I can tell, they seem to have been paid with about 10 million shares of stock (yay! shareholder pays!).
And, if my intuition is correct, they intend to run themselves into insolvency in order to avoid being sued by their shareholders.
The insiders in the company have already made millions in either stock options, or (in the case of Baystar) selling long stock at a profit.
Everyone is happy in SCO land. The only people hurt are the morons who invested in them (or the even stupider morons who sold them short on the way up). Oh... and the employees:-(
The *only* justice that we can expect is an SEC investigation. But even if there is one, I expect nothing other than a slap on the wrist (the investigation is probably unlikely too).
Even if you don't have another API to use, you always have the option of rolling your own. Even now Windows developers have to make these choices. Do we stick with the unbelievably stupid grid controls and look like a "Windows App", or do we make our own? The problem with making your own is that Microsoft keeps threatening to change the look and feel of everything meaning that you either play catch up with them, or use their API. Personally, I'd rather play catchup. But edicts tend to be handed down from management telling you that you *must* use the Windows API (because they've been scared by Microsoft)..Net is a huge improvement in the situation. But you've got to wonder... Office is Microsoft's flagship product and I *still* have to jump through hoops to make my app look and work like that. I think this is a challenge that Mac programmers, for instance, don't have to deal with as much.
> I'm sure the recipe for the cure is on a 3x5 card stored right next to the Ark of the Covenant in that warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones. I believe Elvis is the warehouse guard, too.
Cool...
I was just thinking of taking my team of ninjas to steal the card (I'll leave the Ark for the Nazis -- no way I'm melting my face off!!!). But then I thought... We're going to have to get past Elvis. There's *no way* you can kill Elvis...
As the other responder said, I don't think that levels used by the engine would be a derived work. But it's not necessarily so cut and dried. I can see why you would not want people altering your in-game advertising. Definitely contact id to see what they say. I suspect they don't mind. But to be safe, I would also package the engine and the artwork/levels separately. If you write the code so that it can load any kind of levels (don't laugh, but I've never played Quake, so maybe it's already like this) and then distribute your data completely separately under a different license. I'm pretty sure (remember IANAL) that it will be fine. Just don't use *any* of their artwork/levels (be meticulous about this). It is possible that their artwork is under the GPL, and extending it *might* be considered a derived work.
What questions do you want answered? The FSF is the best place to get general answers about the GPL. If it is not listed there and it isn't obvious from the license itself, then you probably *do* need a lawyer to give you advice.
I have had several friends ask me about the use of GPL code, so I'll guess what your question was. I'm not a lawyer, though, and this is not legal advice.
I'm assuming that you want to write non-Free software and use GPL code with it (it might be a good idea to refrain from using the term "commercial" when you mean non-Free, because it is misleading -- many, many people make money writing Free software in a commercial sense. Yes... the word "Free" is also confusing, but that's a different story).
The short story is that if you are making a derived work of the original, you must license your code under the GPL as well. This is copyright law, so the definition of "derived" work is a bit nebulous. But basing a new game on the Quake 3 engine would be a derived work in the same way that including large parts of the latest Harry Potter book in your "new" novel would be a derived work.
Are there technical ways you can "get around" the "derived work" thing? Maybe. But that's what you would need a lawyer for. On the other hand, doing so would engender a fair amount of hatered towards you even if you succeeded.
The absolute easiest and best way to determine what you should or shouldn't do, is simply to contact the author. Say, "I'm planning to do X with your engine. I've read the GPL and I'm not sure if it is intended to cover this possibility. What do you think?". If they think that you shouldn't do it... Well, why be an asshole? Just do what they want. It's their code. They are doing you a favour by allowing you to use it. Play nicely.
Sigh... That's my point. It doesn't. Yet. The point behind fighting DRM is to make sure that doesn't happen. I could care less whether or not *any particular device* has DRM. What I care about is making sure the public doesn't accept DRM as "the cost of doing business". Because once all the popular media falls under DRM, it will be a short technological tweak to ensuring that only certain groups get a voice in the media.
Again, look at the gaming industry. Try to release anything to the general public on one of the current generation machines without somebody else's permission. In the US, and very rapidly many other countries, it is not possible without breaking the law (and actually extremely difficult even if you don't care about the law). This is the case because people don't care. I hope they don't care because they don't understand the possible implications to their lives.
Why is this important? Because the cost of freedom is continuous vigilance. However, if the popular media controls our access to information, then we can not longer be vigilant. A relatively small number of people will control the way we are able to see the world. And they can shape it into anything they want.
> DRM restricts what you can do with media. That's it. It isn't good, but it isn't really very important.
I would say this is a short-sighted version of not very important.
DRM doesn't stop what you can do with media, it controls *what* you can watch, and *who* you can get it from. Yes, most people don't notice because they are used to having little choice. In the US, how many people watch news from a news station that *isn't* associated with a few big companies? That's because it has historically been too expensive to broadcast to a large number of people unless you *were* a big company.
Now, let's say all video equipment starts to play only content that is encoded with special keys. Even though I can easily distribute my video for a small cost, I can't find any way to get people to watch it unless I get one of those keys. And those keys are expensive (priced in a range so that only certain players can get one), or not available at all unless you are approved.
Just look at video game systems to see what I'm talking about. How likely is it that I can write a game for the XBox that parodies Microsoft? Even if I have enough money to get the keys and make disks, they *don't have to sell them to me if they don't want*!
Once we start putting this kind of DRM on all our media products, we will no longer have any means to communicate to large numbers of people in a free (as in freedom) way. Perhaps we never really have in the past, but it was at least something that we pretended to care about in this part of the world.
Many people have died to protect this idea of freedom, and now that we are so close to actually being able to realize it, people like you are willing to throw it away to a group of mega corporations because "it really isn't very important".
I'm sorry that you can't see the forest for the trees. Maybe what I've said doesn't make it any clearer. But I hope for at least somebody they realize where this is going. We don't *have* to live unconsciously enslaved by the status quo. Even though inequities have existed in the past, today we have the choice to accept freedom if we want it.
This is a reasonable observation, but I might characterize it a little bit differently.
*If* we got the requirements right up front and *if* the market hasn't changed since we started and *if* nobody has gotten a better idea since when we started, then there aren't going to be any serious delays (baring really bad estimation). Of course that's a lot of "if"s and basically it never works out that way in practice.
Generally, there's a well used trick to divert blame from the requirements end of the thing into the development end of the thing: under specify the requirements, change your mind and then blame the development guys for getting it wrong. (Actually this is usually done unconsciously -- Have some really vague idea in your head what you want but be too stupid to realize that you didn't think of anything at all. Ignore complaints from development that they don't understand what you want and that it could be anything. Push them to deliver your "great" idea, not realizing that you've really just specified that it be "great" and nothing else. Complain when it turns out to be a hodgepodge of unrelated half thought up crap that nobody can use -- also known as the "Magic Pixie Dust" feature.)
The way out of this trap is not to blame marketing/program management/"designers"/whoever for bad requirements in the first place. That way they don't have a reason to shift the blame somewhere else. Acknowledge that requirements gathering is basically impossible to do up front and encourage requirements to change all along the development path.
Normally you can't do that because you plan the "release" up front and then get the developers to make it. If you move the release planning to the back end, then the release guys are only allowed the release what they have (not what they think their going to get 18 months from now). If they think they can sell it, then they release it. If not, they wait. They get to make the call when the software is "ready".
But what if they "need" a requirement before they can sell it? They can put it in the queue just like all the other requests. FLOSS people (usually working part time) can manage stable releases every month or so. In my experience a decent team can turn out stable releases in a full time environment every 2 weeks (I'm trying to find a way to get that to 1 week, but I'm having difficulty -- others claim to have done it, though). Thus the average amount of time you have to wait before the feature gets started is 1 week.
But (and this is the important point) if the release team decides that it should release without the "needed" new feature, they can. It's a business decision. Nothing more.
I've been thinking about this for a while and I don't think you're right.
The delay in Vista seems to have been caused by the desire to release (even internally) a single "OS product". But the fact of the matter is that an OS is composed of hundreds (thousands even) of small parts. MS is trying to release "the latest and greatest" of each part simultaneously. The inevitable ping-pong between departments trying to get it all to work with one another causes massive delays.
FLOSS usually avoids this problem because each project is developed completely independently. Most projects do not use the bleeding edge GTK library for instance. They use the latest "released" and "stable" library. Even though GTK development continues, projects usually don't care. They tie themselves to a stable rather than moving target.
It is generally the job of the distro to make it all work together. But again, they are working against stable targets for the most part. Nobody says, "Hey it's a week before release and the GTK guys released a new version of the library. Let's delay and make everything use it." (Generally speaking that is -- I'm sure there have been exceptions).
Of course there are some problems. Sometimes you just *have* to release 2 versions of GTK in the distro. But who cares (Yay for ld.so! Why the Windows people can't see the benefit of dealing with shared libraries like this in completely beyond me...) Of course worse is moving between versions of something like perl.
It's strange... I've tried to convince several of the companies I've worked for to operate in this manner, but I can't get anyone to try it. Have 2 different groups: Development - that works on a backlog of tasks and incrementally improves various pieces of the product; and Release - that takes versions of the development pieces, matches them with marketing requirements, makes a cohesive product and releases when the marketing requirements are met.
I keep trying to tell people that there is no need to freeze development just because you are doing a release. In some shops I've worked in I've literally sat on my ass for months waiting for the release to go out (while some other poor schmuck is camping in his cubicle trying to finish some last minute requirements).
It's been eating up huge amounts of my time. While it's a bit confusing to learn and there is *a lot* of work to be done to the game balance, it's unbelievably fun still (and quite pretty).
If you like 3d space action/trading games, this one is great!
Man... I just went to the Tesla motors site and they claim an efficiency of 110 Wh/km. That means only 11 kWh/100 km. In my neck of the woods that's just about $1.10 Cdn / 100 km (heh heh... in the summer I guess;-) ).
But that completely *buries* my VW diesel Golf which clocks in at nearly $5 / 100 km....
I had absolutely *no* idea how cheaply you could potentially run an electric vehicle... Now to wait until they cost less than $100,000 USD...
VW will no longer be selling diesel cars in Canada next year because they don't meet Canada's new emission standards. However, it was my understanding that Canada has moved all it's diesel to low sulphur (should be in effect now according to a plan I saw 4 years ago...).
Does anyone know if the diesel *is* low sulphur in Canada? Right now I'm spending about 90 cents a liter, so I can't see why it would be so expensive if not...
Also, are there any other diesel cars that *do* meet the emissions standards (the only other diesel car I know of is the Smart Car, but I don't know if they will be offering another model next year...)?
Oh well, doesn't matter to me anyway. As of March my lease on my VW Diesel Golf runs out and I'm going to opt for the lowest mileage option I know about -- I'm going to be carless (first time in 13 years). I'm a bit apprehensive, but I've been cutting down on the car usage for the las year and I'm confident that I can kick the habit.
It's just a fact, if we have six months to do a job, we'll finish in exactly six months. If we're given 12 months to do the same job, we'll finish in exactly 12 months.
Perhaps this is the case with your team, but I have to say that I have not observed this on the programming teams I work in. In fact, I have *often* heard managers say this. But actually, it seems not to be the case.
I have observed two things. If the imposed deadline is shorter than the time actually needed to do the job, then the job will appear to be finished (i.e., people will say they are done), but there will be many things missing. Later, people will say "Oh, we were all under a tight deadline, so I guess we must have forgotten to do that".
More interestingly, if the deadline is longer than the time actually needed to do the job, I have observed that the job is done early. But (and this is an important but), all of the functionality is actually there.
To perform this experiment for yourself, I suggest that you take several small problems (small bugs are good for this). Try to find problems that will take from 1/2 a day to a day. Assign deadlines ranging from 2 hours to 3 days. Record the amount of time it actually takes to do the work. Then do code reviews of all the work.
I think you will find the experiment very instructive.
I have found that when there is always work in the queue, there is no point to setting deadlines. Instead it is better merely to estimate the work (so that you can make predictions). It is also counter productive to measure the amount of time each task takes (otherwise people will cut corners in order to meet some kind of unreasonable expectation, sometimes self imposed). Instead, just keep a rolling average of how close your estimates are to reality (i.e., we've gone 10 days and we've finished 11 days of estimated work, therefore we are going at 1.1x our estimated rate). This gives you predictability without the negative side effects of measuring too closely. IMPORTANT: Don't complain or cheer if the work rate is different than the estimated rate. This is to be expected. The information is only to allow you to communicate progress with management.
In every case that I have implemented this (and obviously this isn't my idea -- it's standard practice in many shops), productivity, quality and predictability have all improved. It's worth a try (But don't take my word for it -- do the test...)
I have my books And my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island.
You insensitive clod!
Oh wait...
And a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries.
> Can complex software really be done in your spare time?
Yes.
The fact that many people *also* get paid to work on Free software is beside the point. You can write complex software in your spare time.
The interesting question is: how do we scale up development so that we can have large numbers of people working on the same code base, while they each only put in an hour or so a day? In the Free software world there are many examples of fantastically large teams that seem to create content without the problems you see in the average proprietary shop.
Some of these things have to do with the nature of Free software. For example: the ability to fork development any time that you want; the lack of need to get approval for work to begin; the ability to use evolutionary rather than planned process (i.e., any crackpot can implement a feature and the choice of whether or not to add it to the mainline can be made after the fact *without significant cost to the project*).
Yes, having a team of full time developers has some advantages. But it is far from impossible to write code with volunteers. And there are definite advantages to working in such an environment (I have done both in my career).
Having said all that, my preference is for Free software that is supported by full time programmers and for which I can buy a support contract. If it's mission critical software, I want a support contract and I want it to specify that the supporter will fix bugs that are stopping me from achieving my work (something which I've found difficult to find in the proprietary software world).
Failing that, I'll definitely take source code over vague promises that my problem might get fixed in a subsequent release if several other people seem to be having similar problems and the vendor is still in business...
There are a few MMORPG engines in development that are FLOSS. Aside from the fact that this one is functional at the moment as a game, what distinguishes it against these other engines? Would a similar amount of money aimed at getting these other engines in a releasable state be better than buying code that is essentially sight unseen (I've seen some impressive looking apps that had a completely dead end code base more than once)?
Maybe this is obvious to people and maybe this isn't, but I thought I'd just clarify this in more standard lingo.
The sample size you need to take for doing the study is dependent upon the probability that you expect the event to occur. So for example, out of 1000 random purchases, how many do you expect to be iTunes purchases? Most people buy a lot of things on their credit cards. So my guess is that only maybe 5 out of 1000 purchases would be iTunes purchases. The rest would be clothes, gas, groceries, restaurants meals, movies, gifts, etc, etc, etc.
Let's say I'm right. If the expected value is 5 out of 1000, what are the odds that I might find 6 or 4 purchases in that sample? Well, depending on the distribution, it's not going to be that unusual. Remember, the *average* number you find will probably be about 5. If you actually look at 1000 random purchases, the actual amount you find will vary.
So you might find 4 or even 3 with a pretty high probability (don't know off the top of my head what that probability is -- especially since I don't know the distribution of the data). So you have a pretty high probability of reporting something like 0.3% of purchases are iTunes purchases, when the real value is 0.5%. That's a *huge* error.
But as others have said, the guys that do these studies know their stats. They don't put out crap reports by accident. They are intentionally misleading. Any reputable report that is based on statistical analysis will give you the error bars (i.e. + or - 5% 9 times out of 10). If this report had done this it would have said something like 65% reduction in sales +- 10% 1 time out of 10 (i.e. they aren't confident about their interval) or 65% reduction in sales +- 150% 9 times out of 10 (i.e. the error bars are totally crazy). And then it would be obvious the study was totally bogus.
Note: All numbers I've used are fictional. I took stats 20 years ago and I *really* don't remember any of the actual numbers...
I think you're liable to get a lot of really good advice here. But I'll throw in my 2 cents for what it's worth.
I've been programming for almost 30 years now - nearly 20 of that professionally. There are a lot of things I don't know about programming. In fact, every day that goes by I learn about something else I don't know. As you move higher, you can see more of the horizon. Similarly, as you learn more, you will discover more and more that you don't know.
Programming is not Computer Science. Programming *uses* computer science (and several other disciplines as well). Programming has more in common with writing than it does with math. As a software *author* you should endeavor to spend as much time reading and writing as you can. Free and Open Source software are excellent avenues for pursuing that. You should also take time out of your day to *practice* programming. If you see a nice method for expressing something, make an effort to copy the technique on your own. I use toy problems, sometimes referred to as "programming katas", to practice different techniques.
Finally, you should realize that just as there is a difference between "Computer Science" and "Programming", there is also a big difference between "Programming" and "Technology". "Technology" (as I'm using the term) refers to the *details* of some computer program, or genre of computer programs.
Often people choose to spend their time learning specific technologies. This might be the Windows API, Network protocols, 3D graphics programming, etc. There is some overlap with learning programming in that certain programming techniques are more or less useful in the technological domain. But learning specific technologies will *not* make you a better programmer. Learning *programming* is the *only* way to make yourself a better programmer.
Unfortunately there is much confusion between the two ideas. I know many programmers who are experts in a particular technology, but have no idea about programming. And even the best programmers have certain technologies which they know nothing about. Be conscious of the difference and it will help you in your career.
This idea that every programmer that does something way cool somehow owes the community his source code is just silly.
I can't speak for everybody, but I feel that this is a mis-characterization of those that prefer Free software. For me each software package is a value proposition. Well functioning software that runs quickly and has a small footprint has value to me. Software that gives me the 4 basic freedoms also has value to me. For me, the 4 freedoms usually carry more value than a small footprint.
So I don't think it's unreasonable for me to say, "Does it come with source code?" and to be disappointed if the answer is "No". I don't think it's unreasonable for me to explain to people why I value these freedoms more than specific features of a piece of software. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for what I value.
It's also not unreasonable for the author to say no. But it's unfortunate when that happens.
Just my two cents -- I hope that doesn't seem silly.
I gave this a try, thinking "This might be useful for me to keep up with my anime". However, it's still got a way to go before I will use this app. Here's what's stopping me.
1) My Content: You can select a directory that contains video content that you already have on your machine during configuration. But you only get to select one directory. After you select that directory, you don't seem to be able to change it.
2)I added animesuki to the "channels". This downloaded the RSS feed and set up roughly 1600 "programs". However it is set by default to start downloading *all* of them. After scrambling around I stopped them. This is a BAD default.
3)As far as I can tell, I can't specify which "programs" on a "channel" I want to download. It's all or nothing. I want to input a regexp here (seems like an unlikely feature for this app, though...)
4)I tried to play 2 files that I already had downloaded (REC and Touch). REC crashed the Democracy player. Touch played audio for about 3 seconds before hanging. Both of these are AVI packages with Mpeg4 codecs...
So, while interesting, I think I'll wait until it's a bit more mature...
They don't need to dump their stock at this point in time. They never paid for it in the first place, so there isn't any loss.
Remember that the principles involved are mostly trading "stock options". They are granted the right to buy stock at a certain price, and can then sell it for whatever the market will bear. They don't, however, *have* to pay for it at all if the stock isn't "in the money" (i.e., selling for more than the option strike price).
No, the time to dump the stock was at 14 or 15 dollars (and there was *plenty* of dumping going on). At $2, it's hang on until the inevitable crash.
Slashdot Mirror
OK.... I have a desktop with an nVidia GeForce FX 5200. And I have a laptop with an i945GM chipset. The laptop has a *much* beefier CPU, but I can't even come close to the 3D graphics performance of the GeForce. Neverball gives me about 20 frames per second. Vegastrike only gives me about 15 frames per second if I'm close to any ship.
Beryl runs quite nicely on the laptop, but I can't find a 3D game that runs decently at all.
Personally, if you want to do *any* 3D gaming at all, the 9XX doesn't seem to be up to the task. It's fine for me, since I barely ever play games. But if it's important, I think Intel is out of the running (unless I've got something set up wrong...)
Heh heh... Thanks. But in retrospect calling people who were short selling "morons" is kinda flamebait... I'll accept 20% flaimbait for that ;-) In reality it was an unconscious dig at people who try to "play" the stock market and end up losing their shirts. But as unconscious as it was, it was uncalled for...
All of the money made by the insiders is public knowledge. I quickly looked through the records last week (you can just do a google search for "insider trades SCO" and you will find a service that will list them all). From what I can tell, Baystar dumped about a million shares or so at between $3.50 and $4.00 at the end of 2004 (They were making 5 or 6 sell trades a day for months). I'm not sure if this ended up being a profit or a loss though (I forget the details... and the whole Bank of Montreal involvement made everything kind of complicated anyway).
The executives exercised stock options all the way up until the end of 2004. It seems they were mostly granted at between $1 and $2 and excercised for between $10 and $20, but there are some exceptions. I didn't add up all the money, but it was definitely in the multi-millions of dollars.
There are huge stock grants to a law firm (about 10 million shares), which I think is the law firm representing them (I assume for services rendered). So the absolute big winners seem to be the lawers, but the executives and Baystar seem to have made millions as well. The losers are the people who invested at anything over $4 (or the morons who sold short, not understanding that it takes *time* for a stock to fall).
As a disclaimer, I only quickly reviewed this material, so there may be errors in my summary. If you care about this stuff, I suggest you compile it properly yourself.
Basic research often has no short term value that we can see. A hundred years ago a couple of guys tried to measure our speed through the "ether". They found that there was no ether. This lead to the idea that light must travel at the same speed no matter what reference frame you're in. This (and a few other things) lead to the ideas of quantum physics. This ultimately lead to several inventions already with many more on the way.
But a hundred years ago, did anyone see the point in measuring our speed through the ether (which pretty much everyone accepted had to exist)? What would be the point? Just a waste of money.
Astronomical measurements are used to test basic theories of physics. The basic theories of physics are then used to create new and wonderful things. These things save lives and make us more comfortable. Just because we don't know what we'll end up using the information for doesn't mean we should stop searching for it.
Unfortunately the lawyers have already been paid. I seem to remember a $32 million cap. From what I can tell, they seem to have been paid with about 10 million shares of stock (yay! shareholder pays!).
:-(
And, if my intuition is correct, they intend to run themselves into insolvency in order to avoid being sued by their shareholders.
The insiders in the company have already made millions in either stock options, or (in the case of Baystar) selling long stock at a profit.
Everyone is happy in SCO land. The only people hurt are the morons who invested in them (or the even stupider morons who sold them short on the way up). Oh... and the employees
The *only* justice that we can expect is an SEC investigation. But even if there is one, I expect nothing other than a slap on the wrist (the investigation is probably unlikely too).
Even if you don't have another API to use, you always have the option of rolling your own. Even now Windows developers have to make these choices. Do we stick with the unbelievably stupid grid controls and look like a "Windows App", or do we make our own? The problem with making your own is that Microsoft keeps threatening to change the look and feel of everything meaning that you either play catch up with them, or use their API. Personally, I'd rather play catchup. But edicts tend to be handed down from management telling you that you *must* use the Windows API (because they've been scared by Microsoft). .Net is a huge improvement in the situation. But you've got to wonder... Office is Microsoft's flagship product and I *still* have to jump through hoops to make my app look and work like that. I think this is a challenge that Mac programmers, for instance, don't have to deal with as much.
> I'm sure the recipe for the cure is on a 3x5 card stored right next to the Ark of the Covenant in that warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones. I believe Elvis is the warehouse guard, too.
Cool...
I was just thinking of taking my team of ninjas to steal the card (I'll leave the Ark for the Nazis -- no way I'm melting my face off!!!). But then I thought... We're going to have to get past Elvis. There's *no way* you can kill Elvis...
Damn... No wonder we can't get a cure for cancer.
As the other responder said, I don't think that levels used by the engine would be a derived work. But it's not necessarily so cut and dried. I can see why you would not want people altering your in-game advertising. Definitely contact id to see what they say. I suspect they don't mind. But to be safe, I would also package the engine and the artwork/levels separately. If you write the code so that it can load any kind of levels (don't laugh, but I've never played Quake, so maybe it's already like this) and then distribute your data completely separately under a different license. I'm pretty sure (remember IANAL) that it will be fine. Just don't use *any* of their artwork/levels (be meticulous about this). It is possible that their artwork is under the GPL, and extending it *might* be considered a derived work.
What questions do you want answered? The FSF is the best place to get general answers about the GPL. If it is not listed there and it isn't obvious from the license itself, then you probably *do* need a lawyer to give you advice.
I have had several friends ask me about the use of GPL code, so I'll guess what your question was. I'm not a lawyer, though, and this is not legal advice.
I'm assuming that you want to write non-Free software and use GPL code with it (it might be a good idea to refrain from using the term "commercial" when you mean non-Free, because it is misleading -- many, many people make money writing Free software in a commercial sense. Yes... the word "Free" is also confusing, but that's a different story).
The short story is that if you are making a derived work of the original, you must license your code under the GPL as well. This is copyright law, so the definition of "derived" work is a bit nebulous. But basing a new game on the Quake 3 engine would be a derived work in the same way that including large parts of the latest Harry Potter book in your "new" novel would be a derived work.
Are there technical ways you can "get around" the "derived work" thing? Maybe. But that's what you would need a lawyer for. On the other hand, doing so would engender a fair amount of hatered towards you even if you succeeded.
The absolute easiest and best way to determine what you should or shouldn't do, is simply to contact the author. Say, "I'm planning to do X with your engine. I've read the GPL and I'm not sure if it is intended to cover this possibility. What do you think?". If they think that you shouldn't do it... Well, why be an asshole? Just do what they want. It's their code. They are doing you a favour by allowing you to use it. Play nicely.
Sigh... That's my point. It doesn't. Yet. The point behind fighting DRM is to make sure that doesn't happen. I could care less whether or not *any particular device* has DRM. What I care about is making sure the public doesn't accept DRM as "the cost of doing business". Because once all the popular media falls under DRM, it will be a short technological tweak to ensuring that only certain groups get a voice in the media.
Again, look at the gaming industry. Try to release anything to the general public on one of the current generation machines without somebody else's permission. In the US, and very rapidly many other countries, it is not possible without breaking the law (and actually extremely difficult even if you don't care about the law). This is the case because people don't care. I hope they don't care because they don't understand the possible implications to their lives.
Why is this important? Because the cost of freedom is continuous vigilance. However, if the popular media controls our access to information, then we can not longer be vigilant. A relatively small number of people will control the way we are able to see the world. And they can shape it into anything they want.
> DRM restricts what you can do with media. That's it. It isn't good, but it isn't really very important.
I would say this is a short-sighted version of not very important.
DRM doesn't stop what you can do with media, it controls *what* you can watch, and *who* you can get it from. Yes, most people don't notice because they are used to having little choice. In the US, how many people watch news from a news station that *isn't* associated with a few big companies? That's because it has historically been too expensive to broadcast to a large number of people unless you *were* a big company.
Now, let's say all video equipment starts to play only content that is encoded with special keys. Even though I can easily distribute my video for a small cost, I can't find any way to get people to watch it unless I get one of those keys. And those keys are expensive (priced in a range so that only certain players can get one), or not available at all unless you are approved.
Just look at video game systems to see what I'm talking about. How likely is it that I can write a game for the XBox that parodies Microsoft? Even if I have enough money to get the keys and make disks, they *don't have to sell them to me if they don't want*!
Once we start putting this kind of DRM on all our media products, we will no longer have any means to communicate to large numbers of people in a free (as in freedom) way. Perhaps we never really have in the past, but it was at least something that we pretended to care about in this part of the world.
Many people have died to protect this idea of freedom, and now that we are so close to actually being able to realize it, people like you are willing to throw it away to a group of mega corporations because "it really isn't very important".
I'm sorry that you can't see the forest for the trees. Maybe what I've said doesn't make it any clearer. But I hope for at least somebody they realize where this is going. We don't *have* to live unconsciously enslaved by the status quo. Even though inequities have existed in the past, today we have the choice to accept freedom if we want it.
This is a reasonable observation, but I might characterize it a little bit differently.
*If* we got the requirements right up front and *if* the market hasn't changed since we started and *if* nobody has gotten a better idea since when we started, then there aren't going to be any serious delays (baring really bad estimation). Of course that's a lot of "if"s and basically it never works out that way in practice.
Generally, there's a well used trick to divert blame from the requirements end of the thing into the development end of the thing: under specify the requirements, change your mind and then blame the development guys for getting it wrong. (Actually this is usually done unconsciously -- Have some really vague idea in your head what you want but be too stupid to realize that you didn't think of anything at all. Ignore complaints from development that they don't understand what you want and that it could be anything. Push them to deliver your "great" idea, not realizing that you've really just specified that it be "great" and nothing else. Complain when it turns out to be a hodgepodge of unrelated half thought up crap that nobody can use -- also known as the "Magic Pixie Dust" feature.)
The way out of this trap is not to blame marketing/program management/"designers"/whoever for bad requirements in the first place. That way they don't have a reason to shift the blame somewhere else. Acknowledge that requirements gathering is basically impossible to do up front and encourage requirements to change all along the development path.
Normally you can't do that because you plan the "release" up front and then get the developers to make it. If you move the release planning to the back end, then the release guys are only allowed the release what they have (not what they think their going to get 18 months from now). If they think they can sell it, then they release it. If not, they wait. They get to make the call when the software is "ready".
But what if they "need" a requirement before they can sell it? They can put it in the queue just like all the other requests. FLOSS people (usually working part time) can manage stable releases every month or so. In my experience a decent team can turn out stable releases in a full time environment every 2 weeks (I'm trying to find a way to get that to 1 week, but I'm having difficulty -- others claim to have done it, though). Thus the average amount of time you have to wait before the feature gets started is 1 week.
But (and this is the important point) if the release team decides that it should release without the "needed" new feature, they can. It's a business decision. Nothing more.
I've been thinking about this for a while and I don't think you're right.
The delay in Vista seems to have been caused by the desire to release (even internally) a single "OS product". But the fact of the matter is that an OS is composed of hundreds (thousands even) of small parts. MS is trying to release "the latest and greatest" of each part simultaneously. The inevitable ping-pong between departments trying to get it all to work with one another causes massive delays.
FLOSS usually avoids this problem because each project is developed completely independently. Most projects do not use the bleeding edge GTK library for instance. They use the latest "released" and "stable" library. Even though GTK development continues, projects usually don't care. They tie themselves to a stable rather than moving target.
It is generally the job of the distro to make it all work together. But again, they are working against stable targets for the most part. Nobody says, "Hey it's a week before release and the GTK guys released a new version of the library. Let's delay and make everything use it." (Generally speaking that is -- I'm sure there have been exceptions).
Of course there are some problems. Sometimes you just *have* to release 2 versions of GTK in the distro. But who cares (Yay for ld.so! Why the Windows people can't see the benefit of dealing with shared libraries like this in completely beyond me...) Of course worse is moving between versions of something like perl.
It's strange... I've tried to convince several of the companies I've worked for to operate in this manner, but I can't get anyone to try it. Have 2 different groups: Development - that works on a backlog of tasks and incrementally improves various pieces of the product; and Release - that takes versions of the development pieces, matches them with marketing requirements, makes a cohesive product and releases when the marketing requirements are met.
I keep trying to tell people that there is no need to freeze development just because you are doing a release. In some shops I've worked in I've literally sat on my ass for months waiting for the release to go out (while some other poor schmuck is camping in his cubicle trying to finish some last minute requirements).
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
It's been eating up huge amounts of my time. While it's a bit confusing to learn and there is *a lot* of work to be done to the game balance, it's unbelievably fun still (and quite pretty).
If you like 3d space action/trading games, this one is great!
Man... I just went to the Tesla motors site and they claim an efficiency of 110 Wh/km. That means only 11 kWh/100 km. In my neck of the woods that's just about $1.10 Cdn / 100 km (heh heh... in the summer I guess ;-) ).
But that completely *buries* my VW diesel Golf which clocks in at nearly $5 / 100 km....
I had absolutely *no* idea how cheaply you could potentially run an electric vehicle... Now to wait until they cost less than $100,000 USD...
VW will no longer be selling diesel cars in Canada next year because they don't meet Canada's new emission standards. However, it was my understanding that Canada has moved all it's diesel to low sulphur (should be in effect now according to a plan I saw 4 years ago...).
Does anyone know if the diesel *is* low sulphur in Canada? Right now I'm spending about 90 cents a liter, so I can't see why it would be so expensive if not...
Also, are there any other diesel cars that *do* meet the emissions standards (the only other diesel car I know of is the Smart Car, but I don't know if they will be offering another model next year...)?
Oh well, doesn't matter to me anyway. As of March my lease on my VW Diesel Golf runs out and I'm going to opt for the lowest mileage option I know about -- I'm going to be carless (first time in 13 years). I'm a bit apprehensive, but I've been cutting down on the car usage for the las year and I'm confident that I can kick the habit.
Perhaps this is the case with your team, but I have to say that I have not observed this on the programming teams I work in. In fact, I have *often* heard managers say this. But actually, it seems not to be the case.
I have observed two things. If the imposed deadline is shorter than the time actually needed to do the job, then the job will appear to be finished (i.e., people will say they are done), but there will be many things missing. Later, people will say "Oh, we were all under a tight deadline, so I guess we must have forgotten to do that".
More interestingly, if the deadline is longer than the time actually needed to do the job, I have observed that the job is done early. But (and this is an important but), all of the functionality is actually there.
To perform this experiment for yourself, I suggest that you take several small problems (small bugs are good for this). Try to find problems that will take from 1/2 a day to a day. Assign deadlines ranging from 2 hours to 3 days. Record the amount of time it actually takes to do the work. Then do code reviews of all the work.
I think you will find the experiment very instructive.
I have found that when there is always work in the queue, there is no point to setting deadlines. Instead it is better merely to estimate the work (so that you can make predictions). It is also counter productive to measure the amount of time each task takes (otherwise people will cut corners in order to meet some kind of unreasonable expectation, sometimes self imposed). Instead, just keep a rolling average of how close your estimates are to reality (i.e., we've gone 10 days and we've finished 11 days of estimated work, therefore we are going at 1.1x our estimated rate). This gives you predictability without the negative side effects of measuring too closely. IMPORTANT: Don't complain or cheer if the work rate is different than the estimated rate. This is to be expected. The information is only to allow you to communicate progress with management.
In every case that I have implemented this (and obviously this isn't my idea -- it's standard practice in many shops), productivity, quality and predictability have all improved. It's worth a try (But don't take my word for it -- do the test...)
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
You insensitive clod!
Oh wait...
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.
I guess I don't need rights afterall...
> Can complex software really be done in your spare time?
Yes.
The fact that many people *also* get paid to work on Free software is beside the point. You can write complex software in your spare time.
The interesting question is: how do we scale up development so that we can have large numbers of people working on the same code base, while they each only put in an hour or so a day? In the Free software world there are many examples of fantastically large teams that seem to create content without the problems you see in the average proprietary shop.
Some of these things have to do with the nature of Free software. For example: the ability to fork development any time that you want; the lack of need to get approval for work to begin; the ability to use evolutionary rather than planned process (i.e., any crackpot can implement a feature and the choice of whether or not to add it to the mainline can be made after the fact *without significant cost to the project*).
Yes, having a team of full time developers has some advantages. But it is far from impossible to write code with volunteers. And there are definite advantages to working in such an environment (I have done both in my career).
Having said all that, my preference is for Free software that is supported by full time programmers and for which I can buy a support contract. If it's mission critical software, I want a support contract and I want it to specify that the supporter will fix bugs that are stopping me from achieving my work (something which I've found difficult to find in the proprietary software world).
Failing that, I'll definitely take source code over vague promises that my problem might get fixed in a subsequent release if several other people seem to be having similar problems and the vendor is still in business...
There are a few MMORPG engines in development that are FLOSS. Aside from the fact that this one is functional at the moment as a game, what distinguishes it against these other engines? Would a similar amount of money aimed at getting these other engines in a releasable state be better than buying code that is essentially sight unseen (I've seen some impressive looking apps that had a completely dead end code base more than once)?
Maybe this is obvious to people and maybe this isn't, but I thought I'd just clarify this in more standard lingo.
The sample size you need to take for doing the study is dependent upon the probability that you expect the event to occur. So for example, out of 1000 random purchases, how many do you expect to be iTunes purchases? Most people buy a lot of things on their credit cards. So my guess is that only maybe 5 out of 1000 purchases would be iTunes purchases. The rest would be clothes, gas, groceries, restaurants meals, movies, gifts, etc, etc, etc.
Let's say I'm right. If the expected value is 5 out of 1000, what are the odds that I might find 6 or 4 purchases in that sample? Well, depending on the distribution, it's not going to be that unusual. Remember, the *average* number you find will probably be about 5. If you actually look at 1000 random purchases, the actual amount you find will vary.
So you might find 4 or even 3 with a pretty high probability (don't know off the top of my head what that probability is -- especially since I don't know the distribution of the data). So you have a pretty high probability of reporting something like 0.3% of purchases are iTunes purchases, when the real value is 0.5%. That's a *huge* error.
But as others have said, the guys that do these studies know their stats. They don't put out crap reports by accident. They are intentionally misleading. Any reputable report that is based on statistical analysis will give you the error bars (i.e. + or - 5% 9 times out of 10). If this report had done this it would have said something like 65% reduction in sales +- 10% 1 time out of 10 (i.e. they aren't confident about their interval) or 65% reduction in sales +- 150% 9 times out of 10 (i.e. the error bars are totally crazy). And then it would be obvious the study was totally bogus.
Note: All numbers I've used are fictional. I took stats 20 years ago and I *really* don't remember any of the actual numbers...
I think you're liable to get a lot of really good advice here. But I'll throw in my 2 cents for what it's worth.
I've been programming for almost 30 years now - nearly 20 of that professionally. There are a lot of things I don't know about programming. In fact, every day that goes by I learn about something else I don't know. As you move higher, you can see more of the horizon. Similarly, as you learn more, you will discover more and more that you don't know.
Programming is not Computer Science. Programming *uses* computer science (and several other disciplines as well). Programming has more in common with writing than it does with math. As a software *author* you should endeavor to spend as much time reading and writing as you can. Free and Open Source software are excellent avenues for pursuing that. You should also take time out of your day to *practice* programming. If you see a nice method for expressing something, make an effort to copy the technique on your own. I use toy problems, sometimes referred to as "programming katas", to practice different techniques.
Finally, you should realize that just as there is a difference between "Computer Science" and "Programming", there is also a big difference between "Programming" and "Technology". "Technology" (as I'm using the term) refers to the *details* of some computer program, or genre of computer programs.
Often people choose to spend their time learning specific technologies. This might be the Windows API, Network protocols, 3D graphics programming, etc. There is some overlap with learning programming in that certain programming techniques are more or less useful in the technological domain. But learning specific technologies will *not* make you a better programmer. Learning *programming* is the *only* way to make yourself a better programmer.
Unfortunately there is much confusion between the two ideas. I know many programmers who are experts in a particular technology, but have no idea about programming. And even the best programmers have certain technologies which they know nothing about. Be conscious of the difference and it will help you in your career.
This idea that every programmer that does something way cool somehow owes the community his source code is just silly.
I can't speak for everybody, but I feel that this is a mis-characterization of those that prefer Free software. For me each software package is a value proposition. Well functioning software that runs quickly and has a small footprint has value to me. Software that gives me the 4 basic freedoms also has value to me. For me, the 4 freedoms usually carry more value than a small footprint.
So I don't think it's unreasonable for me to say, "Does it come with source code?" and to be disappointed if the answer is "No". I don't think it's unreasonable for me to explain to people why I value these freedoms more than specific features of a piece of software. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for what I value.
It's also not unreasonable for the author to say no. But it's unfortunate when that happens.
Just my two cents -- I hope that doesn't seem silly.
I gave this a try, thinking "This might be useful for me to keep up with my anime". However, it's still got a way to go before I will use this app. Here's what's stopping me.
1) My Content: You can select a directory that contains video content that you already have on your machine during configuration. But you only get to select one directory. After you select that directory, you don't seem to be able to change it.
2)I added animesuki to the "channels". This downloaded the RSS feed and set up roughly 1600 "programs". However it is set by default to start downloading *all* of them. After scrambling around I stopped them. This is a BAD default.
3)As far as I can tell, I can't specify which "programs" on a "channel" I want to download. It's all or nothing. I want to input a regexp here (seems like an unlikely feature for this app, though...)
4)I tried to play 2 files that I already had downloaded (REC and Touch). REC crashed the Democracy player. Touch played audio for about 3 seconds before hanging. Both of these are AVI packages with Mpeg4 codecs...
So, while interesting, I think I'll wait until it's a bit more mature...
They don't need to dump their stock at this point in time. They never paid for it in the first place, so there isn't any loss.
Remember that the principles involved are mostly trading "stock options". They are granted the right to buy stock at a certain price, and can then sell it for whatever the market will bear. They don't, however, *have* to pay for it at all if the stock isn't "in the money" (i.e., selling for more than the option strike price).
No, the time to dump the stock was at 14 or 15 dollars (and there was *plenty* of dumping going on). At $2, it's hang on until the inevitable crash.