I haven't checked out most of what you suggested. I got SegaGT free with my XBox and I must say, I was pretty unimpressed. It didn't seem to hold a candle to Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2. Maybe I didn't give it enough chance. I might well like MechAssault, I'll have to check out your suggestions. Thanks.
I own an XBox. It is, in fact, the only console I own. I'm interested in hearing what you list as the truly attention-getting games for the XBox. Seriously, because I don't seem to be able to pick particularly good games to buy. I'm sure I should rent them before buying them, though.
So if you could list the games you think are good on the XBox, I'd appreciate it.:)
This is a serious question. I was born in England and lived the first part of my life there. Now, I live in Canada.
Here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, we consider a half hour drive to and from work to be rather long, 45 minutes would generally be considered excessive.
1.25 hours? That's two and a half hours of commute a day! Is this considered normal? Would it not be more efficient to live closer to work? I mean, you could have an extra ten hours of personal time each week... Why did you live so far away?
Counting comment lines, the app I'm currently working on contains approximately 26,000 lines of code. That's counting based on newlines. This is all written in C++ using Qt. It compiles and runs in Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (though we are not releasing the Linux version). I have approximately 20 lines of code that differ between the three platforms and that is summing up the difference. This means I have approximately six lines of code unique to the Mac, six lines unique to Linux, and seven unique to Windows.
Now, this is a non-trivial client application which uses XML, SOAP, has a functional GUI, etc. etc. It communicates with a server that happens to run on FreeBSD. I'm not counting the lines of code in the server here. The server hooks up to a database. I haven't tried porting that to Windows or Mac OS X but it works with zero changes (no lines of code different) on Linux.
So what I am saying here is that my C++ experience certainly does not match yours. I find it quite easy to develop cross-platform apps (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X) with one code base.
Aces of the Pacific, I loved that game. My friends and I used to challenge each other to land on the carriers blindfolded. One guy would control the joystick and not look at the screen. The other would be able to look at the screen and give directions. It got really sticky as you got closer to the carrier. Even at our best, we could not even make one out of every two landing attempts.
We also used to attempt a carrier landing (starting on the training mission for landings) in the fewest number of seconds possible. You'd push your throttle to full and cut it at the last possible second, hoping you could drop your speed enough to get your gear down and hit the deck without blowing up.
I played Combat Flight Simulator 2 from beginning to end just the other day and while it was a lot of fun, I still think Aces of the Pacific was better.
In all fairness, UPS does seem quite capable of dropping off packages at a work address.
However, UPS routinely ships my packages from one coast to another, then back to the first coast, all accidentally. I know this is an accident because I have talked to UPS about this.
So I would fully expect this behaviour to continue as they have done nothing to resolve this, meaning they would still have problems getting my package delivered to a UPS store on time.
I'm really excited about this. Two of my favourite games were Knights of the Sky and Red Baron. I actually preferred Knights of the Sky though this is perhaps because of my computer at the time.
I loved the way you could go from the planes at the early parts of WWI that could hardly get into the air, to the monsters in later years that could do all kinds of acrobatics. I enjoyed the personal touches, the one-on-one challenges you would get issued when you became good. They were great games and I'm hoping this new WWI air-combat game will update the genre with better graphics and even more fun. They seem to be considering the role-playing elements so I'm really looking forward to it.
Rowan software, I think, made a WWI game as well but while I really respect the flight sims Rowan made, I could never really get into them. Maybe it is time to fire that game back up and see what I missed.
You're kidding, right? UPS, in my experience, only successfully delivers a package on time to the correct address about one time in three. They'll often claim that I wasn't home to accept delivery when in fact I was home all day. Other times, they claim an invalid address when it turns out they just couldn't be bothered to drive to the address (the address was printed by computer and was totally valid).
In fact, UPS lost so many packages and were so problematic to deal with to get refunds that I do not use them any more. I even stopped dealing with one company that would only ship packages via UPS. Many of my friends are doing the same thing.
In UPS's defense, it could just be that the local outlets in my city are completely incompetant.
It is interesting to note that you cannot default on your student loans here in Alberta, Canada. Well, you can if you leave the country, I suppose, but you cannot while remaining a resident. If you declare bankruptcy, the student loan 'survives' the bankruptcy. This change happened sometime in the nineties because too many people were getting loans, getting degrees, then defaulting on the loans while keeping the degrees.
I am well aware that the RIAA is a U.S. corporation (or organisation, not sure which). However, had they issued their immunity offer in Canada, they would be breaking the law. Section 143, Advertising reward and immunity. Basically, nobody (including police officiers, though the law states 'Every one', not 'every officer') can offer a 'no questions[...] asked' advertisement whereby if you return something that has been stolen (and the RIAA would have to argue that the MP3s have been stolen, by definition), no 'interference with or inquiry about the person' (i.e. charges) will be made.
I am rather surprised that this is allowed in the U.S., assuming the RIAA really isn't committing a criminal act there.
I have my own mail server. I don't use AOL, never have. However, because AOL erroneously filters all incoming mail from my IP address (they claim I am a residential cable-modem customer, I am not), email to one of their customers is never delivered. So I'm paying more than $23 a month. I'm not an AOL customer. It is hurting me.
I know this is a joke but you bring up a good point. Generally, the gambling houses ALREADY HAVE YOUR MONEY before you place a bet. You have to transfer money from your visa account (or whatever, probably visa doesn't allow this any more) to your account with the bookie before you can even place the bet.
Now, most houses will extend a line of credit to certain trusted gamblers. And yes, sometimes those gamblers don't pay.
You now need to concern yourself with how legitimate is this gambling house? Because many of them are run by organised crime. And they can and have hired thugs to track you down and break your legs. Even if you are in New York. And they are in Costa Rica. That said, they'd probably hire thugs who lived in New York, it is cheaper that way.
Some people have asked, if I know for a fact you can regularly make money as an informed gambler, why am I still a computer programmer?
This is a very good question. mindstrm pretty much answers this here, I'm just adding a little to his comments. I am a little out of practice with how the odds are written up, it's been a couple of years so please excuse me if I get that terminology wrong. What I'm going to do is list all my odds as 100-gets-90, which means if you bet the first number as your stake and you are right, you get the second number (plus your stake). If you lose, you lose your stake. THIS MAY BE DIFFERENT FROM HOW ODDS ARE ACTUALLY LISTED, you have been warned. Also, I'm assuming that you either win or lose. And if you had bet on the other side, you'd either lose or win. So, like in a playoff hockey game, you bet Oilers to win against the Flames. EITHER the Oilers win OR the Flames win, no possibility of a tie.
Now I have all that out of the way, the ideal situation for the house is to have an equal amount of money bet on each side. They might set the odds to be 100-gets-95 for Oilers to win and 100-gets-95 for Flames to win. This would be a 5% juice. Now, what this means is that if there's $100 bet on the Oilers and $100 bet on the Flames, the house will take $5 They take in $200 and pay out $195.
If you think about it, that means that PROVIDED the house sets the odds this way and PROVIDED the gamblers bet the same amount of money on both sides of the line, the house is GUARANTEED to make a profit.
So, how can you make a profit? I'm leaping ahead a bit here. Let's say that the Oilers are favourite to win because, hey, apart from Iginla, the Flames suck. So now the gamblers have bet $200 on the Oilers and only $100 on the Flames. That's no good, they MUST have pretty much an even amount bet on either side. So they alter the odds. Now, the odds on the Oilers are 100-gets-90 and the Flames, 100-gets-100. After a while, both sides of the line are equal. $300 bet on the Oilers ($200 at 100-gets-95, $100 at 100-gets-90), $300 on the Flames ($100 at 100-gets-95, $200 at 100-gets-100).
So, the game happens and the Oilers win. The house takes $20 of the $600 initially bet. If the Flames win, the house takes only $5, but that's because my example is bad. The point, though, is that either way, the house wins. Not all gambling houses adjust their odds this way but the vast majority of the ones that will stay in business long-term do. Because it is guaranteed money.
Great, so how do you, the gambler, make money? There's two ways. Let us say that you happen to know the odds that the Oilers will win is EXACTLY 45%. The Oilers just had a big injury to one of their players and Iginla on the Flames has been doing really well recently. Well, if you know the exact odds, you just bet on the lines whenever the house provides odds in your favour. In this example, the house, after adjusting the odds, is providing 50-50 odds on the Flames. But you know the odds favour the Flames. So you bet on the Flames. Yes, you might lose money but if you get the odds correct, you won't lose in the long term.
Ha! But nobody can know the exact odds, you say. Yes, but the house does not care what the actual exact odds are, they are just trying to equalise the lines. Professional sports gamblers use all kinds of software models to estimate the true odds and then bet exactly as I've described above. They will go so far as to pay players on a given team to give them the inside track on how other players are doing at the moment. Yes, determining the exact odds is hard... but you only need to be more accurate than the house, who isn't even trying to be accurate.
Truth be told, you need to be accurate enough to cover the house juice as well, the 5% difference in odds that I listed in my first example.
Ha ha ha. Actually, the truth of the matter is that the bookies do this at least as much as the players. At least, they tend to for sports betting. The trick is to keep the amount of money bet on both sides of the line equal (so you get your juice). But because players will check odds at different gambling houses, lines can RAPIDLY get out of sync. So the bookies check as well.
We didn't have any specific code in our app to handle this but we DID put code in to handle line movers. Those are wise guys (i.e. guys assumed to know more than the house, guys who typically win) and if they place large bets, the odds AUTOMATICALLY AND WITHOUT INPUT FROM THE HOUSE change slightly. Last I heard, the houses all vigorously denied there even were a class of gamblers called wise guys but my understanding is that you cannot sell software that doesn't categorise the bettors (though the actual categorisation doesn't happen automatically) and support automatic line moving.
I'll probably post a more detailed message later as a reply to my initial post, going in to a bit more detail.
As to why accounts get closed down, that is entirely up to the specific gambling house. Our software provided them only ways to help determine if the account was a wise guy or not. The only real explanation I can come up with for a legit house to close you down is that they are finding it hard to keep both sides of the line equal. That is, they need about as much money on X-to-win as on Y-to-win. You have to remember, though, that many (most?) gambling houses are run by organised crime so sometimes they're just going to be bastards.
Gambling houses are not generally interested in the true probabilities (which is why some people can continue to make profit). So long as they can collect their juice, they are happy. That way, the house wins regardless of which side of a line wins. Now, NOT every house runs like this... some try to get closer to the true probabilities. However, this is much more risky if the house is wrong. If they instead just try to balance the money bet on each side of the line, they are guaranteed to make a profit.
You wouldn't want the code, trust me. I don't have the code any more, of course, but when I was still working for the company, we had roughly a third of a million lines of code. In Visual Basic 6. Now, I don't like VB at the best of times but I acknowledge that it has its place. Also, VB.Net is meant to be much better. But there's no way you should have that many lines of code in VB6. Maintenance was a nightmare. Although we did put an effort into using a decent design, nowhere near enough effort had gone in at the beginning. That we could maintain it at all (while continuing to add features) was impressive, to be honest.
At least we did use a bug tracking system.
That said, there are no known backdoors. I'm not saying the software was secure because I know full well that it wasn't. But there were no backdoors that we knew about and we minimised the potential security issues for the web-enabled version as much as was reasonable.
I worked for a company in 2000 and 2001 that wrote and sold the software to run these companies (well, some of these companies... BetOnSports was using our software at least for a while, several others were as well).
The software isn't particularly interesting but it means I have direct knowledge of a number of items... whether Wise Guys actually exist, how you really can regularly make money as an informed gambler (and why the gambling houses don't care), whether there's any back doors in the software, what language the software was written in, etc. etc. etc.
Ask away if you wish, I'll try to answer any question to the best of my ability. I'm well outside of the NDA now.
Ten years ago, I was on the Internet (had been for about three years). I had been on BBS's for five or six. However, if you had told me that in ten years practically everyone would be on the Internet, I would have laughed. Now, though, we see more than 50% of Canadian households have high speed Internet in their homes. I don't remember the last time someone gave me a telephone number but everyone trades email addresses. It is just what is done at least amongst people in my age bracket. I'm 29, the bracket I'm talking about here is probably anything from 14 to 45 at least.
SCO licensed me all their IPs for free. Sure, they are willing to license them to you for $699 but why not just accept their free offer? Go here and download the linux kernel and rest easy. It's not like SCO is unaware they are still willing to license the kernel under the GPL, I told them a couple of weeks back.
SCO distributed the linux kernel to me under the terms of the GPL just last week (it is still on their ftp servers). I'm quite willing to license the kernel to Redhat under the GPL as is my right. SCO can't claim copyright infringement or anything as they did not take down the kernel even after I emailed them last week pointing this out.
I'm not drawing the allusion with the database, I am complaining about the hypocrisy of Laurie Bricker's statement that students will know someone cares.
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I haven't checked out most of what you suggested. I got SegaGT free with my XBox and I must say, I was pretty unimpressed. It didn't seem to hold a candle to Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2. Maybe I didn't give it enough chance. I might well like MechAssault, I'll have to check out your suggestions. Thanks.
I own an XBox. It is, in fact, the only console I own. I'm interested in hearing what you list as the truly attention-getting games for the XBox. Seriously, because I don't seem to be able to pick particularly good games to buy. I'm sure I should rent them before buying them, though.
:)
So if you could list the games you think are good on the XBox, I'd appreciate it.
This is a serious question. I was born in England and lived the first part of my life there. Now, I live in Canada.
Here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, we consider a half hour drive to and from work to be rather long, 45 minutes would generally be considered excessive.
1.25 hours? That's two and a half hours of commute a day! Is this considered normal? Would it not be more efficient to live closer to work? I mean, you could have an extra ten hours of personal time each week... Why did you live so far away?
Counting comment lines, the app I'm currently working on contains approximately 26,000 lines of code. That's counting based on newlines. This is all written in C++ using Qt. It compiles and runs in Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (though we are not releasing the Linux version). I have approximately 20 lines of code that differ between the three platforms and that is summing up the difference. This means I have approximately six lines of code unique to the Mac, six lines unique to Linux, and seven unique to Windows.
Now, this is a non-trivial client application which uses XML, SOAP, has a functional GUI, etc. etc. It communicates with a server that happens to run on FreeBSD. I'm not counting the lines of code in the server here. The server hooks up to a database. I haven't tried porting that to Windows or Mac OS X but it works with zero changes (no lines of code different) on Linux.
So what I am saying here is that my C++ experience certainly does not match yours. I find it quite easy to develop cross-platform apps (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X) with one code base.
Aces of the Pacific, I loved that game. My friends and I used to challenge each other to land on the carriers blindfolded. One guy would control the joystick and not look at the screen. The other would be able to look at the screen and give directions. It got really sticky as you got closer to the carrier. Even at our best, we could not even make one out of every two landing attempts.
We also used to attempt a carrier landing (starting on the training mission for landings) in the fewest number of seconds possible. You'd push your throttle to full and cut it at the last possible second, hoping you could drop your speed enough to get your gear down and hit the deck without blowing up.
I played Combat Flight Simulator 2 from beginning to end just the other day and while it was a lot of fun, I still think Aces of the Pacific was better.
In all fairness, UPS does seem quite capable of dropping off packages at a work address.
However, UPS routinely ships my packages from one coast to another, then back to the first coast, all accidentally. I know this is an accident because I have talked to UPS about this.
So I would fully expect this behaviour to continue as they have done nothing to resolve this, meaning they would still have problems getting my package delivered to a UPS store on time.
I'm really excited about this. Two of my favourite games were Knights of the Sky and Red Baron. I actually preferred Knights of the Sky though this is perhaps because of my computer at the time.
I loved the way you could go from the planes at the early parts of WWI that could hardly get into the air, to the monsters in later years that could do all kinds of acrobatics. I enjoyed the personal touches, the one-on-one challenges you would get issued when you became good. They were great games and I'm hoping this new WWI air-combat game will update the genre with better graphics and even more fun. They seem to be considering the role-playing elements so I'm really looking forward to it.
Rowan software, I think, made a WWI game as well but while I really respect the flight sims Rowan made, I could never really get into them. Maybe it is time to fire that game back up and see what I missed.
You're kidding, right? UPS, in my experience, only successfully delivers a package on time to the correct address about one time in three. They'll often claim that I wasn't home to accept delivery when in fact I was home all day. Other times, they claim an invalid address when it turns out they just couldn't be bothered to drive to the address (the address was printed by computer and was totally valid).
In fact, UPS lost so many packages and were so problematic to deal with to get refunds that I do not use them any more. I even stopped dealing with one company that would only ship packages via UPS. Many of my friends are doing the same thing.
In UPS's defense, it could just be that the local outlets in my city are completely incompetant.
It is interesting to note that you cannot default on your student loans here in Alberta, Canada. Well, you can if you leave the country, I suppose, but you cannot while remaining a resident. If you declare bankruptcy, the student loan 'survives' the bankruptcy. This change happened sometime in the nineties because too many people were getting loans, getting degrees, then defaulting on the loans while keeping the degrees.
This would indeed be illegal in Canada. You almost certainly wouldn't get charged, of course, but it would be illegal.
If you want to read about stupid laws, there are plenty of websites covering that. The U.S. has some real classics.
I am well aware that the RIAA is a U.S. corporation (or organisation, not sure which). However, had they issued their immunity offer in Canada, they would be breaking the law. Section 143, Advertising reward and immunity. Basically, nobody (including police officiers, though the law states 'Every one', not 'every officer') can offer a 'no questions[...] asked' advertisement whereby if you return something that has been stolen (and the RIAA would have to argue that the MP3s have been stolen, by definition), no 'interference with or inquiry about the person' (i.e. charges) will be made.
I am rather surprised that this is allowed in the U.S., assuming the RIAA really isn't committing a criminal act there.
Is there anything similar that works in a Windows _and_ a Linux environment? Or any effort underway to port Password Safe to Linux?
You can use the outdated 2.3 non-commercial edition for Windows. Your development has to be non-commercial (not just open-source), of course.
I have my own mail server. I don't use AOL, never have. However, because AOL erroneously filters all incoming mail from my IP address (they claim I am a residential cable-modem customer, I am not), email to one of their customers is never delivered. So I'm paying more than $23 a month. I'm not an AOL customer. It is hurting me.
I know this is a joke but you bring up a good point. Generally, the gambling houses ALREADY HAVE YOUR MONEY before you place a bet. You have to transfer money from your visa account (or whatever, probably visa doesn't allow this any more) to your account with the bookie before you can even place the bet.
Now, most houses will extend a line of credit to certain trusted gamblers. And yes, sometimes those gamblers don't pay.
You now need to concern yourself with how legitimate is this gambling house? Because many of them are run by organised crime. And they can and have hired thugs to track you down and break your legs. Even if you are in New York. And they are in Costa Rica. That said, they'd probably hire thugs who lived in New York, it is cheaper that way.
Some people have asked, if I know for a fact you can regularly make money as an informed gambler, why am I still a computer programmer?
This is a very good question. mindstrm pretty much answers this here, I'm just adding a little to his comments. I am a little out of practice with how the odds are written up, it's been a couple of years so please excuse me if I get that terminology wrong. What I'm going to do is list all my odds as 100-gets-90, which means if you bet the first number as your stake and you are right, you get the second number (plus your stake). If you lose, you lose your stake. THIS MAY BE DIFFERENT FROM HOW ODDS ARE ACTUALLY LISTED, you have been warned. Also, I'm assuming that you either win or lose. And if you had bet on the other side, you'd either lose or win. So, like in a playoff hockey game, you bet Oilers to win against the Flames. EITHER the Oilers win OR the Flames win, no possibility of a tie.
Now I have all that out of the way, the ideal situation for the house is to have an equal amount of money bet on each side. They might set the odds to be 100-gets-95 for Oilers to win and 100-gets-95 for Flames to win. This would be a 5% juice. Now, what this means is that if there's $100 bet on the Oilers and $100 bet on the Flames, the house will take $5 They take in $200 and pay out $195.
If you think about it, that means that PROVIDED the house sets the odds this way and PROVIDED the gamblers bet the same amount of money on both sides of the line, the house is GUARANTEED to make a profit.
So, how can you make a profit? I'm leaping ahead a bit here. Let's say that the Oilers are favourite to win because, hey, apart from Iginla, the Flames suck. So now the gamblers have bet $200 on the Oilers and only $100 on the Flames. That's no good, they MUST have pretty much an even amount bet on either side. So they alter the odds. Now, the odds on the Oilers are 100-gets-90 and the Flames, 100-gets-100. After a while, both sides of the line are equal. $300 bet on the Oilers ($200 at 100-gets-95, $100 at 100-gets-90), $300 on the Flames ($100 at 100-gets-95, $200 at 100-gets-100).
So, the game happens and the Oilers win. The house takes $20 of the $600 initially bet. If the Flames win, the house takes only $5, but that's because my example is bad. The point, though, is that either way, the house wins. Not all gambling houses adjust their odds this way but the vast majority of the ones that will stay in business long-term do. Because it is guaranteed money.
Great, so how do you, the gambler, make money? There's two ways. Let us say that you happen to know the odds that the Oilers will win is EXACTLY 45%. The Oilers just had a big injury to one of their players and Iginla on the Flames has been doing really well recently. Well, if you know the exact odds, you just bet on the lines whenever the house provides odds in your favour. In this example, the house, after adjusting the odds, is providing 50-50 odds on the Flames. But you know the odds favour the Flames. So you bet on the Flames. Yes, you might lose money but if you get the odds correct, you won't lose in the long term.
Ha! But nobody can know the exact odds, you say. Yes, but the house does not care what the actual exact odds are, they are just trying to equalise the lines. Professional sports gamblers use all kinds of software models to estimate the true odds and then bet exactly as I've described above. They will go so far as to pay players on a given team to give them the inside track on how other players are doing at the moment. Yes, determining the exact odds is hard... but you only need to be more accurate than the house, who isn't even trying to be accurate.
Truth be told, you need to be accurate enough to cover the house juice as well, the 5% difference in odds that I listed in my first example.
So, how else can you make money? Well, you can
Ha ha ha. Actually, the truth of the matter is that the bookies do this at least as much as the players. At least, they tend to for sports betting. The trick is to keep the amount of money bet on both sides of the line equal (so you get your juice). But because players will check odds at different gambling houses, lines can RAPIDLY get out of sync. So the bookies check as well.
We didn't have any specific code in our app to handle this but we DID put code in to handle line movers. Those are wise guys (i.e. guys assumed to know more than the house, guys who typically win) and if they place large bets, the odds AUTOMATICALLY AND WITHOUT INPUT FROM THE HOUSE change slightly. Last I heard, the houses all vigorously denied there even were a class of gamblers called wise guys but my understanding is that you cannot sell software that doesn't categorise the bettors (though the actual categorisation doesn't happen automatically) and support automatic line moving.
I'll probably post a more detailed message later as a reply to my initial post, going in to a bit more detail.
As to why accounts get closed down, that is entirely up to the specific gambling house. Our software provided them only ways to help determine if the account was a wise guy or not. The only real explanation I can come up with for a legit house to close you down is that they are finding it hard to keep both sides of the line equal. That is, they need about as much money on X-to-win as on Y-to-win. You have to remember, though, that many (most?) gambling houses are run by organised crime so sometimes they're just going to be bastards.
Gambling houses are not generally interested in the true probabilities (which is why some people can continue to make profit). So long as they can collect their juice, they are happy. That way, the house wins regardless of which side of a line wins. Now, NOT every house runs like this... some try to get closer to the true probabilities. However, this is much more risky if the house is wrong. If they instead just try to balance the money bet on each side of the line, they are guaranteed to make a profit.
You wouldn't want the code, trust me. I don't have the code any more, of course, but when I was still working for the company, we had roughly a third of a million lines of code. In Visual Basic 6. Now, I don't like VB at the best of times but I acknowledge that it has its place. Also, VB.Net is meant to be much better. But there's no way you should have that many lines of code in VB6. Maintenance was a nightmare. Although we did put an effort into using a decent design, nowhere near enough effort had gone in at the beginning. That we could maintain it at all (while continuing to add features) was impressive, to be honest.
At least we did use a bug tracking system.
That said, there are no known backdoors. I'm not saying the software was secure because I know full well that it wasn't. But there were no backdoors that we knew about and we minimised the potential security issues for the web-enabled version as much as was reasonable.
I worked for a company in 2000 and 2001 that wrote and sold the software to run these companies (well, some of these companies... BetOnSports was using our software at least for a while, several others were as well).
The software isn't particularly interesting but it means I have direct knowledge of a number of items... whether Wise Guys actually exist, how you really can regularly make money as an informed gambler (and why the gambling houses don't care), whether there's any back doors in the software, what language the software was written in, etc. etc. etc.
Ask away if you wish, I'll try to answer any question to the best of my ability. I'm well outside of the NDA now.
Ten years ago, I was on the Internet (had been for about three years). I had been on BBS's for five or six. However, if you had told me that in ten years practically everyone would be on the Internet, I would have laughed. Now, though, we see more than 50% of Canadian households have high speed Internet in their homes. I don't remember the last time someone gave me a telephone number but everyone trades email addresses. It is just what is done at least amongst people in my age bracket. I'm 29, the bracket I'm talking about here is probably anything from 14 to 45 at least.
SCO licensed me all their IPs for free. Sure, they are willing to license them to you for $699 but why not just accept their free offer? Go here and download the linux kernel and rest easy. It's not like SCO is unaware they are still willing to license the kernel under the GPL, I told them a couple of weeks back.
SCO distributed the linux kernel to me under the terms of the GPL just last week (it is still on their ftp servers). I'm quite willing to license the kernel to Redhat under the GPL as is my right. SCO can't claim copyright infringement or anything as they did not take down the kernel even after I emailed them last week pointing this out.
I'm not drawing the allusion with the database, I am complaining about the hypocrisy of Laurie Bricker's statement that students will know someone cares.
Remember, children, "Big Brother loves you."
For a few weeks? SCO is still distributing the 2.4.x Linux kernel under the GPL. Now. Today.