Don'cha just love it when people "predict" what's already nearly available? And without even mentioning its existence in the article.
And don'cha just love it when MS "predicts" that they'll "inovate" by duplicating it under the MS banner?
Anybody care to "predict" the havoc that might insue when such OS's gain wide public use? I'd be leery of using such even in my isolated from the internet home network until it was proven to be absolutely secure, something today's less interactive computer nets can't even manage.
I'm happy that people are looking forward to, and researching, the future.
Would it hurt if a few people spent a bit more time making the present work worth a shit?
I'd say just about every one, along with all sorts of other wonderous materials to further either the plot of the "gee whiz" factor of their stories. What's more, "inventing" the idea for such materials is pretty easy. You could do it yourself all day.
"Gee, wouldn't it be great if there were something 10 times stronger than steel a 1/4" thick sheet of which could sheild a person from an atomic blast and a whole boxcar full only weighed about a pound and a half?"
By the way, *glass* is stronger than steel by a good margin.
Can Santa get through? Listen, If Santa's good, I mean really good, hell YES he can get . . .
"Bat" Guano, ( if that really is his real name), had no comment, other than to mutter something about Santa answering to the Coca-Cola company for trademark delution.
You are incorrect in your allegation that the government could not be sued for patent infringment. It actually happens now and then. Not often though, because the government purchases ip rights just like anyone else when they need to. What do you think provides the financial fuel to the military industrial complex?
Why do you think they have to purchase seat licences for Windows?
The answer is simple, because they are legally obligated to do so. If they do not the constitution itself provides for redress of grievences against the government. Trust me, MS would profer such griviences in the most strident terms. And have.
The government also collects its own patents, because if it did not it would be obligated to pay royalties to those that eventually patented the technology.
During the Manhatten project civilian workers were deemed to legally own all of their own ideas. The government thus issued a directive that all ideas, no matter how apparently trivial, were to be brought to the attention of the military command, and the federal government would pay them a dollar for each, so that IT held the ip rights.
You can find an amusing relating of how this worked in Feyman's autobiographical ramblings in " What do you Care what People Think?"
The book itself is a good read, and highly recommended even to a general audience, but the story in questiion is still highly relevant, as it relates to the ideas of obviousness of certain technological ideas. Feynman took the side that these ideas were so obvious they weren't patentable. Nonetheless, he ended up as the inventor of record of the nuclear power plant and the nuclear powered airplane. ( He also suggested the nuclear powered submarine as 'patently' obvious, but he dosn't get credit as inventor because someone else had already suggested it).
His relatings of his attempt to actually collect his dollar is extremely amusing as well. It seems the government didn't make any provision for, or believe it actually had to PAY the promised recompense. On principle Feynman wouldn't let them off the hook.
For that matter, any person who did not recieve their dollar would be fully within their rights to claim the patent as their own, as proper consideration was NOT in fact given, as required by the contract.
They could, in fact, have sued the government for patent infringment and insisted on royalties.
Henry Ford built the famous "999" to go after the land speed record with the express intent of attracting backers for a motor car company.
He succeded, and the result was the Detroit Automobile company. He was the primary founder, without him the company would never have existed, and its raison d'etre was to build cars of Ford's design. Every product, ( of which there were two, the first being an indiferent truck, produced because the backers thought it was a better commercial risk, the second, the car that was to become the first Cadillac), was the sole work of the mind of Henry Ford.
He designed everything. Excepting some fasteners and the tires. His official title was chief engineer, but he was, in reality, the ONLY engineer.
Leland was a perfect fit as a partner in the company because he already owned a business manufacturing parts for the nascent auto industry in the Detroit area.
Ford, however, although an owner, did not have a controling interest in the company. Ford, a highly driven man was never at this best in a situation where extreme political acumen was required to maintain peacful relations. What's more, some of the backers only invested because automobiles were the "dot.com" of the time, and they expected to become extremly rich overnight.
The relationship between Ford and some of his backers was acrimonious from start to finish. Nonetheless, he had his staunch supporters among them.
Although, with his supporters, Ford wielded a certain amount of political power, he couldn't force the get rich quickers to put more money into the company, which is why the firm fell on financial hard times, it was done diliberately to force Ford out, largely orchestrated by Leland, who was a man of Ford's own cut. The two NEVER could have existed for long sharing power in a single company.
It's was Ford's political power that formed the final conflict resulting in his departure in a "You're fired," "Oh yeah? Then I quit" scenario. He WON a major battle.
Did you ever wonder WHY the name was changed to Cadillac after Ford left? Detroit Automobile Company was a perfectly good name, descriptive of what the company was. Cadillac wasn't.
The answer is that Ford got the name of the company changed to Henry Ford Motor Company.
When Ford left Detroit Automobile/Henry Ford, the backers in the company who supported him went with him. They formed the "Ford Motor Company" and began producing a virtually indentical car.
There were now TWO companies producing Ford's car, each named Ford. Rather than resorting to a long legal battle Henry Ford Motor Company simply reformed as Cadillac, with Leland as its head. They resented the Ford connection at that point anyway.
Here's another irony for you. Durant made a deal to buy out Ford and bring it under the GM banner as well, but his financing didn't go through. Subsequently he was sacked by the GM board of directors, rather reminiscent of situation with Ford at Detroit Automobile. Durant was so pissed off that he "did a Ford" and founded his own company, in conjunction with his, now former, employee at Buick, the engineer/mechanic/racing driver. . . Louis Chevrolet.
Quickly losing Louis, Durant went on to make Chevy such a success that he was able to stage an overnight hostile takeover of GM, walk into corporate headquarters the morning after, and sack everyone who had voted to sack him.
The answer to the trick trivia question;"When did GM aquire Chevrolet?" is that they didn't. Chevrolet aquired GM.
As to the "problem" of Louis being an immigrant, it certainly isn't to me. I was trolling, pure and simple. I thought it was a fairly obvious chain yanking of someone who appeared to be a Chevy man.
I'm not, personally, a particular fan of EITHER, so I have no real axe to grind on the issue.
He was a rather indifferent immigrant though, never setting out to be one. He came to Canada to make his fortune, and return home with it. Once over here he felt the grass was greener in America, particularly in the racing scene. But then, as now, the racing biz is a big hole to throw money into, and even though he achieved some success he soon found himself not only not rich, but unable to afford his way back Europe. He went in with Durant on the Chevrolet company to again try to make that fortune to return to Europe with.
He never got it, and he spent his last years in Florida. He is buried in Indianapolis though. After he left Chevrolet he again founded a car company. A racing car company, and in 1920 he won the Indy 500 in a car of his own design and manufacture.
And I'm afraid, since you brought it up, it is worth mentioning that you have fallen prey to the most widespread urban legend in modern history.
No such law exists. No such law has ever existed. Such a law would, in fact, be unconstitutional and entirely unenforcable.
In fact, the scenario you posit is *exactly* what actually happens. The manufacturers first raise prices on parts for older cars to atttempt to force you to "upgrade," and then discontinue those parts entirely.
The fact of the matter is that a manufacturer never has to make so much as a single replacement part, ever.
They do because (A) They make a profit by doing so, (B) The profit margin on parts is several times the profit margin of cars, and they have to sell the cars to sell the parts, and (C) they wouldn't be able to sell the cars if people knew there were no parts.
My first job out of college was designing a car from scratch for a startup company. I spent some years as a dealer in used exotics, and my oldest friend is right now going through the process of setting up manufacturing for a line of "specials." I know whereof I speak.
Your analogy is flawed. What MS is doing is more the equivilant of not making parts to upgrade a '95 Mustang to '02 specs.
Ford makes parts for '95 Mustangs because, (A) They make a profit by selling them, and (B) The market for the parts is there because the original parts have worn out.
None of your Windows 95 code has ceased to function because of wear through use.
Now, I don't happen to like what MS is doing here, and my turn will come when they drop support for Win98, which I have no desire to upgrade, but my Win98 OS will keep operating.
Now when the PC manufacturers stop making hardware it will run on, THEN I'm screwed. I only retired my 8088 Compaq transportable running DOS 5 a couple of years ago. Not because it didn't fulfill the functions that I required of it, but because I couldn't find a replacement for a floppy drive.
I'm afraid there have been legal issues with abandonware. This is, in fact, a hot topic among those of us that enjoy older games.
Like it or not, just because a company ceases supporting software dosn't mean that they have in any way abandoned or renounced their copyrights, which still last 95 years.
Since MS, quite overtly, ceases support to force upgrades expect quite vigorous defense of their intellectual property rights.
And who's fault is that? REAL geeks surface mount wiring. You can even get hollow baseboard with a snap off face. Run anything you want, any time you want.
Go to wiremold.com and check some of this stuff out.
It's YOUR fault that you wired your house using 100 year old technology.
Now that it's the 21st century upgrade to 20th century ways of doing things.
You're just going through what I went through with a post I wrote when Tux Racer announced it was going commercial.
And as I noted a few days ago I've always been proudest of my posts that start a moderator war.It lets me know I might actually have said something important.
As per my previous post I put it a bit more, um, diplomatically, than you did, but the basic idea was the same.
I still wonder just who the *developers* believe is the intended market for this game? The Windows masses looking for yet *another* cheesy, console style racing game, only this one with a cute Linux Penguin theme? The OSS crowd, at least many of whom won't buy it because of its turning its back on its OSS roots, and who seem to have an inexhaustable fondness for FPS's?
The developers seem to be handling their own marketing and distribution at this point. Now, I'll be the first in line to poke fun at the idiotic marketing droids, but I think the developers might have been well abvised to have at least had a little *chat* with a decent marketer before taking the commercial plunge.
In my original post on this subject this point in the argument is where someone stepped in to yell, " Hey, they deserve to get payed."
Well, yes, if you are *hired* by a company to write software I assume you are going to demand financial recompense for you time and skills.
However, if you write software and release it to the public you do NOT have any "right" to much of anything. You have the RISK of being in business. You have *invested* your time and captial in a venture. You now have to *entice* me, the buyer, into exchanging MY money for YOUR product.
Now, if the game is any good it will engender a mod maker crew around the already existing OSS base. Just as such crews grow up around the best flight sims, racing sims and FPS's. This will be comparitively easy and painless given that we have the complete v0.6 code to work from.
So how do the developers sell the game?
If such a crew does NOT grow up around the game it will be because the game really isn't all that good and/or noone cares about it to that extent,
So how do the developers sell the game?
There is, as yet, no publisher, and thus the only people who have even heard of it are OSS people. If you build a better mousetrap, who cares? The MS masses being ignorant of the game arn't going to even be able to buy it.
So how do the developers sell the game?
What the hell is their business plan, other than:
1. We deserve to be paid
2. Go commercial
3. Profit!
Step two is at least a bit more sophisticated than 2. ?, but not much.
Historically there has really only been ONE model of commercial selfdistribution of independantly produced games that works. The Apogee model.
Give away feature complete, latest version copies that are *game incomplete.* If people get hooked on the game in the first 6 levels they'll buy the rest. If they don't, well, guess what Charlie, you've just writeen a lousy game. No way around that pardner. The audience for games is ALWAYS right. Go directly to new development project. Do NOT pass the publishers. Do not collect any profits. In fact, lose all your money and start over. That's the commercial world.
With head to head multiplayer they MIGHT have something here, and if were marketing this game I rather think I'd give away the first 6 levels of v1.0, feature complete, inculding multiplayer.
Then I'd set up a competition website similar to what Sierra does for N4. You want to compete and progress past the first 6 rounds? THEN you have to buy the commercial version.
If the game is *good* enough people will buy it.
If it isn't, the developers don't "deserve" to get payed squat.
Which was when the virtually the *only* uses of it were practical. Yes, even usenet was largely a practical use back then.
I have to assume, however, that you do not.
If you did you would be aware that the changes in the net that the original poster was bemoaning have nothing, I will repeat, emphatically, NOTHING, to do with technology.
They are all strictly factors orginizational, politcal and legal. They are *human* changes, and thus behavioural.
Thus, the proper tools for change and improvement are the tools of human interaction. Debate and disent being chief among these.
If I might paraphrase Linus Torvalds, if you wish to actually say something of value to the issue, show me the argument.
The family pack license is ONLY available on the full retail version of Windows XP. It cannot be purchased for the upgrade version.
Thus, to buy a family pack for two seats you must spend a minimum of $388.
Compare this to buying two over the counter upgrades for $198.
The family license itself, and the so called demand for it, is a pure marketing and PR ploy. It wasn't too hard for sales to be greater than expected, MS didn't expect too many people to actually go for this bugger at all!
Also note that demand isn't *consumer* demand, it's *retailer* demand. No telling how many of these are sitting on back room shelves, unasked for, and unloved, by actual retail customers.
As someone else has already pointed out The Reg has a good article on this.
Bearing in mind that the *bands* time in the studio is typically only about half the cost of recording an album.
Among costs typically incured are the odd session musician, outside arrangers, equipment setup and rentals, etc. and these can add up, even for what looks to be no more than a 4 piece band.
Then there are the engineering costs. Mixing and other post production jobs often take MORE time than that in actually putting down the tracks, and are billed at the studio hourly rate.
And to take an extreme example from an era well before Spinal Tap's, Crosby, Stills and Nash spent *5 years* in the *studio* to produce their first album, and this for a three piece acoustic act.
Yeah, some modern pop bands can bang out crap for the masses fairly quickly and cheaply.
Those crafting well produced works of musical art requiring the talents of many people other than themselves have a harder time of it.
Ah yes, the increadable arrogance of the Chinese, doing something that may not be in the US's best interests, and the arrogance of those here on Slashdot, many not even American, who think that countries other than the US should be able to shape a space program if they wish to. What are they, Unamerican or something?
I say China should be forced to follow America's way of going about such things.
We should take all the Chinese, and all the Americans, and make them *vote* on what China can, or cannot, do.
It is also important to realize that intelligence cannot bestow either omniscience or precognition.
Some things are just unpredictable and unavoidable.
The intelligence community is not only imperfect, it is inherently limited, no matter how much power it has. I don't think that the WTC attack was so much evidence of the flaws as it was of the limitations.
I'm curious, I have my own reasons for considering the Red Cross "miscreants," and I can't help but wonder what yours are.
Nonetheless, in this case, yes, I do support them. They were relying on the fact that the US is a signitory to the Geneva Convention, and has in the past been quite vocal in maintaining that such convention be upheld. Bombing a Red Cross facility is contrary to such convention.
As for whether they would leave the USA alone if the tables were turned, history bears proof that they would not. They have come to the aid of the USA many, many, many times, and many US soldiers owe their lives to their good auspices. Bombing them seems poor compensation and a lack of enlightened self interest.
As for the rest of your post, I would dearly love to respond to each and every point, but after reading it slowly and carefully three times now, I havn't the foggiest idea what it is you are even trying to say.
Unfortunately I too lost friends in the attack on the WTC. Some of my closest relatives who survived are now homeless. One may lose his business as well.
None of them were armed or any threat to either bin Laden or the Muslim religion.
Let me ask you this, you say that all of your friends were ministers.
As ministers, were they the sort of people who would advocate the bombing of a Red Cross station dispensing food to the starving civilian population in a war torn country, or were they, perhaps, more likely to be the sort of person manning such a station, even though it was behind enemy lines?
But I can point you to this statement at the Red Cross of Australia web site.
http://www.redcross.org.au/newsRoom/afghanistan/ IC RCStatement3.html
Note that the plane was at low altitude, low speed, dropped bombs on buildings clearly marked on their roofs as Red Cross buildings and that * The Red Cross previously contacted the US to inform them that these were legitimate Red Cross buildings and what their actual contents were.*
Slashdot Mirror
Don'cha just love it when people "predict" what's already nearly available? And without even mentioning its existence in the article.
And don'cha just love it when MS "predicts" that they'll "inovate" by duplicating it under the MS banner?
Anybody care to "predict" the havoc that might insue when such OS's gain wide public use? I'd be leery of using such even in my isolated from the internet home network until it was proven to be absolutely secure, something today's less interactive computer nets can't even manage.
I'm happy that people are looking forward to, and researching, the future.
Would it hurt if a few people spent a bit more time making the present work worth a shit?
KFG
I'd say just about every one, along with all sorts of other wonderous materials to further either the plot of the "gee whiz" factor of their stories. What's more, "inventing" the idea for such materials is pretty easy. You could do it yourself all day.
"Gee, wouldn't it be great if there were something 10 times stronger than steel a 1/4" thick sheet of which could sheild a person from an atomic blast and a whole boxcar full only weighed about a pound and a half?"
By the way, *glass* is stronger than steel by a good margin.
KFG
Here's the author's homepage:
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/
Here you'll find reference not only to Cuckoo's Egg, but also his later work Silicon Snake Oil, which I also highly recommend.
Slashdot did a story on his klein bottles a couple of years ago. I've got the coffee mug myself.
It's, like, totally cool, but a bitch to clean.
KFG
Can Santa get through? Listen, If Santa's good, I mean really good, hell YES he can get . . .
"Bat" Guano, ( if that really is his real name), had no comment, other than to mutter something about Santa answering to the Coca-Cola company for trademark delution.
KFG
TV watches you.
KFG
Must pay royalties.
You are incorrect in your allegation that the government could not be sued for patent infringment. It actually happens now and then. Not often though, because the government purchases ip rights just like anyone else when they need to. What do you think provides the financial fuel to the military industrial complex?
Why do you think they have to purchase seat licences for Windows?
The answer is simple, because they are legally obligated to do so. If they do not the constitution itself provides for redress of grievences against the government. Trust me, MS would profer such griviences in the most strident terms. And have.
The government also collects its own patents, because if it did not it would be obligated to pay royalties to those that eventually patented the technology.
During the Manhatten project civilian workers were deemed to legally own all of their own ideas. The government thus issued a directive that all ideas, no matter how apparently trivial, were to be brought to the attention of the military command, and the federal government would pay them a dollar for each, so that IT held the ip rights.
You can find an amusing relating of how this worked in Feyman's autobiographical ramblings in " What do you Care what People Think?"
The book itself is a good read, and highly recommended even to a general audience, but the story in questiion is still highly relevant, as it relates to the ideas of obviousness of certain technological ideas. Feynman took the side that these ideas were so obvious they weren't patentable. Nonetheless, he ended up as the inventor of record of the nuclear power plant and the nuclear powered airplane. ( He also suggested the nuclear powered submarine as 'patently' obvious, but he dosn't get credit as inventor because someone else had already suggested it).
His relatings of his attempt to actually collect his dollar is extremely amusing as well. It seems the government didn't make any provision for, or believe it actually had to PAY the promised recompense. On principle Feynman wouldn't let them off the hook.
For that matter, any person who did not recieve their dollar would be fully within their rights to claim the patent as their own, as proper consideration was NOT in fact given, as required by the contract.
They could, in fact, have sued the government for patent infringment and insisted on royalties.
KFG
Henry Ford built the famous "999" to go after the land speed record with the express intent of attracting backers for a motor car company.
He succeded, and the result was the Detroit Automobile company. He was the primary founder, without him the company would never have existed, and its raison d'etre was to build cars of Ford's design. Every product, ( of which there were two, the first being an indiferent truck, produced because the backers thought it was a better commercial risk, the second, the car that was to become the first Cadillac), was the sole work of the mind of Henry Ford.
He designed everything. Excepting some fasteners and the tires. His official title was chief engineer, but he was, in reality, the ONLY engineer.
Leland was a perfect fit as a partner in the company because he already owned a business manufacturing parts for the nascent auto industry in the Detroit area.
Ford, however, although an owner, did not have a controling interest in the company. Ford, a highly driven man was never at this best in a situation where extreme political acumen was required to maintain peacful relations. What's more, some of the backers only invested because automobiles were the "dot.com" of the time, and they expected to become extremly rich overnight.
The relationship between Ford and some of his backers was acrimonious from start to finish. Nonetheless, he had his staunch supporters among them.
Although, with his supporters, Ford wielded a certain amount of political power, he couldn't force the get rich quickers to put more money into the company, which is why the firm fell on financial hard times, it was done diliberately to force Ford out, largely orchestrated by Leland, who was a man of Ford's own cut. The two NEVER could have existed for long sharing power in a single company.
It's was Ford's political power that formed the final conflict resulting in his departure in a "You're fired," "Oh yeah? Then I quit" scenario. He WON a major battle.
Did you ever wonder WHY the name was changed to Cadillac after Ford left? Detroit Automobile Company was a perfectly good name, descriptive of what the company was. Cadillac wasn't.
The answer is that Ford got the name of the company changed to Henry Ford Motor Company.
When Ford left Detroit Automobile/Henry Ford, the backers in the company who supported him went with him. They formed the "Ford Motor Company" and began producing a virtually indentical car.
There were now TWO companies producing Ford's car, each named Ford. Rather than resorting to a long legal battle Henry Ford Motor Company simply reformed as Cadillac, with Leland as its head. They resented the Ford connection at that point anyway.
Here's another irony for you. Durant made a deal to buy out Ford and bring it under the GM banner as well, but his financing didn't go through. Subsequently he was sacked by the GM board of directors, rather reminiscent of situation with Ford at Detroit Automobile. Durant was so pissed off that he "did a Ford" and founded his own company, in conjunction with his, now former, employee at Buick, the engineer/mechanic/racing driver. . . Louis Chevrolet.
Quickly losing Louis, Durant went on to make Chevy such a success that he was able to stage an overnight hostile takeover of GM, walk into corporate headquarters the morning after, and sack everyone who had voted to sack him.
The answer to the trick trivia question;"When did GM aquire Chevrolet?" is that they didn't. Chevrolet aquired GM.
As to the "problem" of Louis being an immigrant, it certainly isn't to me. I was trolling, pure and simple. I thought it was a fairly obvious chain yanking of someone who appeared to be a Chevy man.
I'm not, personally, a particular fan of EITHER, so I have no real axe to grind on the issue.
He was a rather indifferent immigrant though, never setting out to be one. He came to Canada to make his fortune, and return home with it. Once over here he felt the grass was greener in America, particularly in the racing scene. But then, as now, the racing biz is a big hole to throw money into, and even though he achieved some success he soon found himself not only not rich, but unable to afford his way back Europe. He went in with Durant on the Chevrolet company to again try to make that fortune to return to Europe with.
He never got it, and he spent his last years in Florida. He is buried in Indianapolis though. After he left Chevrolet he again founded a car company. A racing car company, and in 1920 he won the Indy 500 in a car of his own design and manufacture.
KFG
Indeed, saying anything to get funding is now the most popular degree program at most universities.
It is also the job description of College president.
KFG
Ok, I'll put my own karma on the line then.
Q:How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:That's NOT funny!
Thank God for LeGuin, who transcends issues like feminism through the simple expedient of considering herself to be *human.*
KFG
when the automotive industry was only 20 years or so old combustion engines DID double in efficiency every 18 months or so. Especially Fords.
You knew that the first GM product, the Cadillac, was desinged by Henry Ford, didn't you?
And Chevrolet isn't even American. The Chevrolet Brothers were Swiss.
KFG
And I'm afraid, since you brought it up, it is worth mentioning that you have fallen prey to the most widespread urban legend in modern history.
No such law exists. No such law has ever existed. Such a law would, in fact, be unconstitutional and entirely unenforcable.
In fact, the scenario you posit is *exactly* what actually happens. The manufacturers first raise prices on parts for older cars to atttempt to force you to "upgrade," and then discontinue those parts entirely.
The fact of the matter is that a manufacturer never has to make so much as a single replacement part, ever.
They do because (A) They make a profit by doing so, (B) The profit margin on parts is several times the profit margin of cars, and they have to sell the cars to sell the parts, and (C) they wouldn't be able to sell the cars if people knew there were no parts.
My first job out of college was designing a car from scratch for a startup company. I spent some years as a dealer in used exotics, and my oldest friend is right now going through the process of setting up manufacturing for a line of "specials." I know whereof I speak.
KFG
Your analogy is flawed. What MS is doing is more the equivilant of not making parts to upgrade a '95 Mustang to '02 specs.
Ford makes parts for '95 Mustangs because, (A) They make a profit by selling them, and (B) The market for the parts is there because the original parts have worn out.
None of your Windows 95 code has ceased to function because of wear through use.
Now, I don't happen to like what MS is doing here, and my turn will come when they drop support for Win98, which I have no desire to upgrade, but my Win98 OS will keep operating.
Now when the PC manufacturers stop making hardware it will run on, THEN I'm screwed. I only retired my 8088 Compaq transportable running DOS 5 a couple of years ago. Not because it didn't fulfill the functions that I required of it, but because I couldn't find a replacement for a floppy drive.
KFG
I'm afraid there have been legal issues with abandonware. This is, in fact, a hot topic among those of us that enjoy older games.
Like it or not, just because a company ceases supporting software dosn't mean that they have in any way abandoned or renounced their copyrights, which still last 95 years.
Since MS, quite overtly, ceases support to force upgrades expect quite vigorous defense of their intellectual property rights.
KFG
Not in Mozilla you don't. You weren't listening, I was advocating using up to date technology. : )
KFG
And who's fault is that? REAL geeks surface mount wiring. You can even get hollow baseboard with a snap off face. Run anything you want, any time you want.
Go to wiremold.com and check some of this stuff out.
It's YOUR fault that you wired your house using 100 year old technology.
Now that it's the 21st century upgrade to 20th century ways of doing things.
KFG
Interesting. I've been thinking, " Well, for $5 bucks I guess I might just buy the thing."
A few other posters, completely independantly, have mentioned the same price.
It's a supply and demand world out there in the land of the commercial product.
Guess what this game seems to be worth boys and girls.
KFG
You're just going through what I went through with a post I wrote when Tux Racer announced it was going commercial.
And as I noted a few days ago I've always been proudest of my posts that start a moderator war.It lets me know I might actually have said something important.
As per my previous post I put it a bit more, um, diplomatically, than you did, but the basic idea was the same.
I still wonder just who the *developers* believe is the intended market for this game? The Windows masses looking for yet *another* cheesy, console style racing game, only this one with a cute Linux Penguin theme? The OSS crowd, at least many of whom won't buy it because of its turning its back on its OSS roots, and who seem to have an inexhaustable fondness for FPS's?
The developers seem to be handling their own marketing and distribution at this point. Now, I'll be the first in line to poke fun at the idiotic marketing droids, but I think the developers might have been well abvised to have at least had a little *chat* with a decent marketer before taking the commercial plunge.
In my original post on this subject this point in the argument is where someone stepped in to yell, " Hey, they deserve to get payed."
Well, yes, if you are *hired* by a company to write software I assume you are going to demand financial recompense for you time and skills.
However, if you write software and release it to the public you do NOT have any "right" to much of anything. You have the RISK of being in business. You have *invested* your time and captial in a venture. You now have to *entice* me, the buyer, into exchanging MY money for YOUR product.
Now, if the game is any good it will engender a mod maker crew around the already existing OSS base. Just as such crews grow up around the best flight sims, racing sims and FPS's. This will be comparitively easy and painless given that we have the complete v0.6 code to work from.
So how do the developers sell the game?
If such a crew does NOT grow up around the game it will be because the game really isn't all that good and/or noone cares about it to that extent,
So how do the developers sell the game?
There is, as yet, no publisher, and thus the only people who have even heard of it are OSS people. If you build a better mousetrap, who cares? The MS masses being ignorant of the game arn't going to even be able to buy it.
So how do the developers sell the game?
What the hell is their business plan, other than:
1. We deserve to be paid
2. Go commercial
3. Profit!
Step two is at least a bit more sophisticated than 2. ?, but not much.
Historically there has really only been ONE model of commercial selfdistribution of independantly produced games that works. The Apogee model.
Give away feature complete, latest version copies that are *game incomplete.* If people get hooked on the game in the first 6 levels they'll buy the rest. If they don't, well, guess what Charlie, you've just writeen a lousy game. No way around that pardner. The audience for games is ALWAYS right. Go directly to new development project. Do NOT pass the publishers. Do not collect any profits. In fact, lose all your money and start over. That's the commercial world.
With head to head multiplayer they MIGHT have something here, and if were marketing this game I rather think I'd give away the first 6 levels of v1.0, feature complete, inculding multiplayer.
Then I'd set up a competition website similar to what Sierra does for N4. You want to compete and progress past the first 6 rounds? THEN you have to buy the commercial version.
If the game is *good* enough people will buy it.
If it isn't, the developers don't "deserve" to get payed squat.
KFG
Which was when the virtually the *only* uses of it were practical. Yes, even usenet was largely a practical use back then.
I have to assume, however, that you do not.
If you did you would be aware that the changes in the net that the original poster was bemoaning have nothing, I will repeat, emphatically, NOTHING, to do with technology.
They are all strictly factors orginizational, politcal and legal. They are *human* changes, and thus behavioural.
Thus, the proper tools for change and improvement are the tools of human interaction. Debate and disent being chief among these.
If I might paraphrase Linus Torvalds, if you wish to actually say something of value to the issue, show me the argument.
KFG
The family pack license is ONLY available on the full retail version of Windows XP. It cannot be purchased for the upgrade version.
Thus, to buy a family pack for two seats you must spend a minimum of $388.
Compare this to buying two over the counter upgrades for $198.
The family license itself, and the so called demand for it, is a pure marketing and PR ploy. It wasn't too hard for sales to be greater than expected, MS didn't expect too many people to actually go for this bugger at all!
Also note that demand isn't *consumer* demand, it's *retailer* demand. No telling how many of these are sitting on back room shelves, unasked for, and unloved, by actual retail customers.
As someone else has already pointed out The Reg has a good article on this.
KFG
Bearing in mind that the *bands* time in the studio is typically only about half the cost of recording an album.
Among costs typically incured are the odd session musician, outside arrangers, equipment setup and rentals, etc. and these can add up, even for what looks to be no more than a 4 piece band.
Then there are the engineering costs. Mixing and other post production jobs often take MORE time than that in actually putting down the tracks, and are billed at the studio hourly rate.
And to take an extreme example from an era well before Spinal Tap's, Crosby, Stills and Nash spent *5 years* in the *studio* to produce their first album, and this for a three piece acoustic act.
Yeah, some modern pop bands can bang out crap for the masses fairly quickly and cheaply.
Those crafting well produced works of musical art requiring the talents of many people other than themselves have a harder time of it.
KFG
Ah yes, the increadable arrogance of the Chinese, doing something that may not be in the US's best interests, and the arrogance of those here on Slashdot, many not even American, who think that countries other than the US should be able to shape a space program if they wish to. What are they, Unamerican or something?
I say China should be forced to follow America's way of going about such things.
We should take all the Chinese, and all the Americans, and make them *vote* on what China can, or cannot, do.
That'll show them who's boss.
KFG
It is also important to realize that intelligence cannot bestow either omniscience or precognition.
Some things are just unpredictable and unavoidable.
The intelligence community is not only imperfect, it is inherently limited, no matter how much power it has. I don't think that the WTC attack was so much evidence of the flaws as it was of the limitations.
KFG
I'm curious, I have my own reasons for considering the Red Cross "miscreants," and I can't help but wonder what yours are.
Nonetheless, in this case, yes, I do support them. They were relying on the fact that the US is a signitory to the Geneva Convention, and has in the past been quite vocal in maintaining that such convention be upheld. Bombing a Red Cross facility is contrary to such convention.
As for whether they would leave the USA alone if the tables were turned, history bears proof that they would not. They have come to the aid of the USA many, many, many times, and many US soldiers owe their lives to their good auspices. Bombing them seems poor compensation and a lack of enlightened self interest.
As for the rest of your post, I would dearly love to respond to each and every point, but after reading it slowly and carefully three times now, I havn't the foggiest idea what it is you are even trying to say.
KFG
Unfortunately I too lost friends in the attack on the WTC. Some of my closest relatives who survived are now homeless. One may lose his business as well.
None of them were armed or any threat to either bin Laden or the Muslim religion.
Let me ask you this, you say that all of your friends were ministers.
As ministers, were they the sort of people who would advocate the bombing of a Red Cross station dispensing food to the starving civilian population in a war torn country, or were they, perhaps, more likely to be the sort of person manning such a station, even though it was behind enemy lines?
But I can point you to this statement at the Red Cross of Australia web site.
/ IC RCStatement3.html
http://www.redcross.org.au/newsRoom/afghanistan
Note that the plane was at low altitude, low speed, dropped bombs on buildings clearly marked on their roofs as Red Cross buildings and that * The Red Cross previously contacted the US to inform them that these were legitimate Red Cross buildings and what their actual contents were.*
Looks pretty damned deliberate to me.
KFG