he Apple Public Source License version 1 is an example of an OSI-approved license which is not a free software license
Then let me rectify: there is no software license in real use today that fulfills one but not the other.
What scares me most, however, is that my messages were modded down flamebait and pure misinformation or bullshit spread by gparent was modded up insightful. It appears slashdotters really have a problem with open-source and free software. But then, you can't expect them to actually read the definitions of those things.
Open source means the code is available. Nothing else.
Unfortunately, that is a very common misconception.
In practice, open-source and free software are interchangeable terms, since albeit their definition is slightly different, there is no software license that fulfills one but not the other.
Strictly speaking, however, and again contrary to popular belief, free software is *less* restrictive than open source. For example, see points 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 of the open source definition which are restrictions not made by the free software one.
The real confusion people make is associating free software with copyleft due to the GNU GPL (which is a copyleft license) being the most popular license from the free software foundation.
It's not because the code was available and IBM agreed to include the fixes people made that is is open source. To be open source, people should have been allowed to distribute their own modified version and sell it, for example, which wasn't the case.
Also, open source is unrelated to the development model, it's only about what licenses for the consumers allow.
So, in other words, your twitch skills suck and you want a game that favors (what you believe) are your strong points.
RPGs should be about playing a role, be it that of a generic adventurer that hunts random wild animals for money, not a micro-management fuckfest with macros and UI you need to configure optimally to be competitive. Be careful of your ping, too, and make sure your FPS doesn't ever get below 60; otherwise, you're at a disadvantage.
Magic is a completely different genre. Cards are not made to be balanced. They are made to get you to buy more packs in hope of getting the best cards. There is LESS strategy involved since not everyone has access to every card. But, if every one had access to every card, that would be equivalent to having classes being balanced in an MMO.
That's being naive. The hard part is constructing an optimized deck and understanding how to play it, not acquiring the cards. In the most popular form of tournaments, people are even given random packs to build their deck, so it's more of an exercise in combining what you've got to build a competitive strategy than a collectible game.
It is still strategy, but it is in real time.
MMORPGs aren't real-time strategy. They're not even tactics. You just have a lonely warrior who is hard to control and order around effectively for fighting.
You have to find, download, install and configure the server yourself. If you want the server to be accessible from outside your inner network you have to configure your routers as well, but that's basic networking.
Having the server installed is not enough, you also need to configure the game so that it connects to the server you want it to. This sometimes requires extra software.
There are written instructions to do that on the Internet (with screenshots, even). Anyone with an IQ of 80 and basic understanding of English can do this.
If classes aren't balanced, then one class will almost always beat another in a fight, no matter how good or bad the classes are. Differences in skill determining outcomes is a sign that the game is balanced.
And that's just boring. I don't want my micro-management skill to determine the outcome of a fight, I want my strategic skill to do so. That means I want the skill I put into building and setting up the character determine the outcome.
If you want to see a metagame that can be completely broken, look at a collectible card game like Magic. Once the cards are out, you can't change them, and so some horribly broken decks can dominate the metagame.
MTG is arguably the only game with an interesting metagame. Yes, there is a lot of creativity and players come up with smart combinations that are very effective against certain other decks, but that's kind of the point. If you're a serious player, you're supposed to keep yourself updated about that and construct your deck to face known strong decks accordingly. That's what makes the whole thing so interesting. The thing is, there are so many cards, effects, and ways of playing that there is never a single deck at the top. At worse, all major decks contain the overpowered card, but that's not a problem.
Choose a theme (a book or film series, a part of history, whatever), then name all the workstations that are close (work together or in the same room or whatever) after this theme.
One shouldn't have to connect to the internet in order to play
What part of "Just set up your own personal Battle.net server" don't you understand? You don't need an internet connection at all. Actually, this is much more practical and powerful than the old LAN support.
...but software takes more than 5 years to write. Same for fiction. Does the author just keep it under EULA until "complete"? If such a law exists to protect an author from having his work stolen before it is "published", what encouragement is there to actually "publish" it and not just keep it under perpectual EULA as a "work in progress"?
Copyright works with by granting licenses to users. You don't grant licenses before you distribute the work, and if you're smart enough, you will wait until it is complete to do so.
At a more fundamental level, a lot of the power in generic programming comes from the specializations that are possible when you meet type requirements. Right now, there is no way, outside the documentation, to state requirements and possible specializations.
Sure there is. I do it just fine. See Boost.ConceptCheck for example (for now, the quality of the error messages is not very good, but I'll improve that whenever I have the time to do so). Instead of writing "requires SomeConcept<T, U...>" you write "BOOST_CONCEPT_REQUIRES(SomeConcept<T, U...>)" or "BOOST_CONCEPT_ASSERT(SomeConcept<T, U...>)" (depending on whether you want it in the signature or not). This is not fundamentally different and it does extensive type checking that is quite useful to find errors in generic programs.
I've seen a lot of people dramatize about concepts being removed from C++0x.
Really, it's no big deal. There are alternative solutions, like some based on SFINAE -- that has now been extended to arbitrary expressions --, that provide almost the same feature set, the same quality in error messages, and are not much harder or more verbose to write or use.
Actually, getting rid of concepts was probably the best solution for C++0x, since they were a lot of work to implement on top of not being that well polished, not integrating that well with the rest (concepts are not types, nor are they templates, they're a whole new category of things) which would probably have led to different categories of compliance to the new standard. This even gives a new chance to more vital features, such as polymorphic lambdas (understand lambdas were the types of the arguments is not given and which thus exhibit parametric polymorphism), to now being reconsidered.
PulseAudio is a good idea for some (very few) specific situations, but it doesn't belong as the fixture it has been made by several of the common distributions.
Sorry, but to me, controlling and/or muting the sound on a per-application, and even per-stream basis is a must-have, not an extra. And i'm just your average (power) user.
They're already losing sales because of a bad market of bad competitiveness, and their answer to that is to lose even more sales by reducing the free advertisement piracy provides and make their users angry, thus committing suicide? Are they out of their minds?
I don't think it's a problem of not "understanding" computers. Rather that the language used in a lot of cases for the certificates is so verbose, that it confuses people. Remember that when you deal with the average member of the population you're dealing with someone who reads and writes somewhere between a grade 7-10 level. That means that their grasp of language is lower, their understanding is lower, and their frustration level is lower.
If you want to get through to people, you make warnings simpler. Make things simpler, people understand them better, and everyone is happy. Those of us who are in, have been in, the IT field(or associated areas), have a grasp of the English language somewhere around grade 12 to early college, or higher. In other words, this stuff is way beyond what most people can understand.
Talking about grasp of the English language as a high school grade level, or worse college level, is nonsense to me, albeit I admit I don't know the American system. In my country, senior high school English classes (or equivalent) are only about studying literature, and while they make you read, they certainly are not a stronger contribution to a better understanding of the language than your own personal readings. Grammar and the like is the job of early junior high and everyone that passed should have acquired it.
The prices for UK and the rest of Europe are different since UK has its own currency. Indeed, that means UK gets ripped-off way less, especially given the current low value of the british pound.
I said commonplace. I didn't say they were the majority.
Honestly though, I don't know anyone who bought a computer for less than 600 EUR (853 USD), and the ones I know that are serious about computers spend way more (and no, they're not gamers -- they don't even run windows).
Netbooks are just ultraportable toys; people who own one usually also have a real computer as well.
In Europe, 1,000 EUR (1,422 USD) and more computers are commonplace, and Apple is not any more expensive than the other computer manufacturers (on the contrary, for laptops, they probably offer the best deals at the moment). Yes, we are being exploited.
C++0x adds syntactic sugar, no more. I'm actually relieved to see concepts dropped, that was probably the biggest useless sugar ever (axioms were not just sugar, but they were the part less ready for inclusion anyway). Everything concepts can do can already be done in C++03 with SFINAE with expressions (which, thankfully, was required explicitly in C++0x unlike C++03 which is quite vague on that topic).
Lambdas are monomorphic, thus useless. Even a DSEL can do better. Worse, even MACROS can do better (since there is no stupid limit on templates being declared at file scope anymore). Rvalue references is just broken magic; relying on NRVO works just fine to implement move semantics and is not as senseless.
The only real update that comes with C++0x is fixing the standard library so that it doesn't require stuff it doesn't need. Nothing developers haven't already solved by implementing their alternative to the standard library.
Yet, C++ remains the most awesome language ever. Too bad the committee isn't working on actually useful additions, such as virtual templates, which would allow it to compete with dynamic typed languages such as Python.
Slashdot Mirror
Then let me rectify: there is no software license in real use today that fulfills one but not the other.
What scares me most, however, is that my messages were modded down flamebait and pure misinformation or bullshit spread by gparent was modded up insightful.
It appears slashdotters really have a problem with open-source and free software. But then, you can't expect them to actually read the definitions of those things.
Unfortunately, that is a very common misconception.
In practice, open-source and free software are interchangeable terms, since albeit their definition is slightly different, there is no software license that fulfills one but not the other.
Strictly speaking, however, and again contrary to popular belief, free software is *less* restrictive than open source. For example, see points 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 of the open source definition which are restrictions not made by the free software one.
The real confusion people make is associating free software with copyleft due to the GNU GPL (which is a copyleft license) being the most popular license from the free software foundation.
It's not because the code was available and IBM agreed to include the fixes people made that is is open source.
To be open source, people should have been allowed to distribute their own modified version and sell it, for example, which wasn't the case.
Also, open source is unrelated to the development model, it's only about what licenses for the consumers allow.
RPGs should be about playing a role, be it that of a generic adventurer that hunts random wild animals for money, not a micro-management fuckfest with macros and UI you need to configure optimally to be competitive.
Be careful of your ping, too, and make sure your FPS doesn't ever get below 60; otherwise, you're at a disadvantage.
That's being naive. The hard part is constructing an optimized deck and understanding how to play it, not acquiring the cards.
In the most popular form of tournaments, people are even given random packs to build their deck, so it's more of an exercise in combining what you've got to build a competitive strategy than a collectible game.
MMORPGs aren't real-time strategy. They're not even tactics. You just have a lonely warrior who is hard to control and order around effectively for fighting.
No, it's not built-in. At least that's unlikely.
You have to find, download, install and configure the server yourself.
If you want the server to be accessible from outside your inner network you have to configure your routers as well, but that's basic networking.
Having the server installed is not enough, you also need to configure the game so that it connects to the server you want it to. This sometimes requires extra software.
There are written instructions to do that on the Internet (with screenshots, even).
Anyone with an IQ of 80 and basic understanding of English can do this.
And that's just boring. I don't want my micro-management skill to determine the outcome of a fight, I want my strategic skill to do so.
That means I want the skill I put into building and setting up the character determine the outcome.
MTG is arguably the only game with an interesting metagame.
Yes, there is a lot of creativity and players come up with smart combinations that are very effective against certain other decks, but that's kind of the point. If you're a serious player, you're supposed to keep yourself updated about that and construct your deck to face known strong decks accordingly. That's what makes the whole thing so interesting.
The thing is, there are so many cards, effects, and ways of playing that there is never a single deck at the top. At worse, all major decks contain the overpowered card, but that's not a problem.
Choose a theme (a book or film series, a part of history, whatever), then name all the workstations that are close (work together or in the same room or whatever) after this theme.
What part of "Just set up your own personal Battle.net server" don't you understand?
You don't need an internet connection at all.
Actually, this is much more practical and powerful than the old LAN support.
There is no need to.
Just set up your own personal Battle.net server.
Copyright works with by granting licenses to users. You don't grant licenses before you distribute the work, and if you're smart enough, you will wait until it is complete to do so.
Sure there is. I do it just fine.
See Boost.ConceptCheck for example (for now, the quality of the error messages is not very good, but I'll improve that whenever I have the time to do so). Instead of writing "requires SomeConcept<T, U...>" you write "BOOST_CONCEPT_REQUIRES(SomeConcept<T, U...>)" or "BOOST_CONCEPT_ASSERT(SomeConcept<T, U...>)" (depending on whether you want it in the signature or not).
This is not fundamentally different and it does extensive type checking that is quite useful to find errors in generic programs.
No, I mean like in ML or Haskell.
JavaScript does runtime duck typing, so that kind of thing is irrelevant.
I've seen a lot of people dramatize about concepts being removed from C++0x.
Really, it's no big deal. There are alternative solutions, like some based on SFINAE -- that has now been extended to arbitrary expressions --, that provide almost the same feature set, the same quality in error messages, and are not much harder or more verbose to write or use.
Actually, getting rid of concepts was probably the best solution for C++0x, since they were a lot of work to implement on top of not being that well polished, not integrating that well with the rest (concepts are not types, nor are they templates, they're a whole new category of things) which would probably have led to different categories of compliance to the new standard.
This even gives a new chance to more vital features, such as polymorphic lambdas (understand lambdas were the types of the arguments is not given and which thus exhibit parametric polymorphism), to now being reconsidered.
Sorry, but to me, controlling and/or muting the sound on a per-application, and even per-stream basis is a must-have, not an extra. And i'm just your average (power) user.
As in Human immunodeficiency virus virus?
Results guaranteed!
They're already losing sales because of a bad market of bad competitiveness, and their answer to that is to lose even more sales by reducing the free advertisement piracy provides and make their users angry, thus committing suicide?
Are they out of their minds?
Stealing a car is illegal, reading a game from an SD card is not.
Talking about grasp of the English language as a high school grade level, or worse college level, is nonsense to me, albeit I admit I don't know the American system.
In my country, senior high school English classes (or equivalent) are only about studying literature, and while they make you read, they certainly are not a stronger contribution to a better understanding of the language than your own personal readings.
Grammar and the like is the job of early junior high and everyone that passed should have acquired it.
The prices for UK and the rest of Europe are different since UK has its own currency.
Indeed, that means UK gets ripped-off way less, especially given the current low value of the british pound.
I said commonplace. I didn't say they were the majority.
Honestly though, I don't know anyone who bought a computer for less than 600 EUR (853 USD), and the ones I know that are serious about computers spend way more (and no, they're not gamers -- they don't even run windows).
Netbooks are just ultraportable toys; people who own one usually also have a real computer as well.
As usual, this is a US-only thing.
In Europe, 1,000 EUR (1,422 USD) and more computers are commonplace, and Apple is not any more expensive than the other computer manufacturers (on the contrary, for laptops, they probably offer the best deals at the moment).
Yes, we are being exploited.
C++0x adds syntactic sugar, no more.
I'm actually relieved to see concepts dropped, that was probably the biggest useless sugar ever (axioms were not just sugar, but they were the part less ready for inclusion anyway). Everything concepts can do can already be done in C++03 with SFINAE with expressions (which, thankfully, was required explicitly in C++0x unlike C++03 which is quite vague on that topic).
Lambdas are monomorphic, thus useless. Even a DSEL can do better. Worse, even MACROS can do better (since there is no stupid limit on templates being declared at file scope anymore).
Rvalue references is just broken magic; relying on NRVO works just fine to implement move semantics and is not as senseless.
The only real update that comes with C++0x is fixing the standard library so that it doesn't require stuff it doesn't need. Nothing developers haven't already solved by implementing their alternative to the standard library.
Yet, C++ remains the most awesome language ever.
Too bad the committee isn't working on actually useful additions, such as virtual templates, which would allow it to compete with dynamic typed languages such as Python.
Not necessarily, some plumbers make a ridiculous amount of money.