I've been following Blender for a while. I'm no 3D designing people but I found it interresting and I tested about every release since 1.54.
What was said from the beginning is that the new features would need the C-Key to be used but also that these feature would go free after some time...
Indeed, Plugins and other features went free as new features appear, needing the C-Key.
At first, the MS Windows version of Blender needed a B-Key to be really used (in order to allow saving). Then, the MS Windows version came to the same status that the Unix one... You only needed to pay for the bleeding edge functionnalities.
The features made free in 1.8 have been worked on for a long time and IMHO, it's about the time they would have been freed anyway. So, let's see if in the future there will be new feature you'll have to pay for (whatever thay'll be)
But Blender being available for free is a smart move. When it started to be available, it was said to be the in-house 3D tool of NeoGeo. So, making it free allows people to learn how to use it, to make feedback,...
And this is great for NeoGeo... Now, if they need 3D graphist for their game development, thay may really ask them to be able to use Blender (when the program was not distributed, these people needed to be teached how to do it... and that is a costly process).
This is also good as it provides them a great feedback from users, allowing to find bugs easier, to have information about what would be useful (not wasting time to implement unneeded stuff),...
It's also some kind of advertizing for themself... How many people did come to their WWW site for blender then follow the link to NeoGeo ?
And it made a little profit by itself, thank to the buying of B and C-keys and of manuals.
So, if you think of Blender as a 3D tool, it may seems not rentable, if you think of blender as the in-house tool of NeoGeo, the point of view may change...
If that system entraps the user by saying it provides some files but use that to log the user who attemped to download it, it may NOT have any legal value... To go further, the problem of the people to be sued will also arise... Is it the one who download the file (you may not know exactly what it does contain before having downloaded it) or the one offering it (in that case, providing trap files is legally of no help as those trapped are not the one to be sued). But, from what I read on the page of the incriminated program, it looks like it's more a Gnutella/Napster client doing the searches and logging who provides such files. If it is indeed a napster/Gnutella search-client, there is still something that could help showing to RIAA and other it's vain to try to find people to sue. Think of the guy thas has written a DeCSS program that... removes CSS tags from HTML pages... just to fool MPAA and DVDCCA into finding site providing the DeCSS DVD reading utility. The same thing may be done for MP3. There are many free MP3 (and you may make some by MP3Encoding free songs (.MOD/.XM/...)). The Demo Makers provide us with many songs that are frequently freely downloadable. So, take a few MP3's (or some dummy files with 3Mb of "RIAA_KEEP_OUT_RIAA_KEEP_OUT...") with filenames including great band names... that would drive RIAA and such crazy... and they couldn't even sue you as you were doing NOTHING illegal... after all, you may name your files as you want !!! If enough people act like that, RIAA and Co will eventually understant that it's useless to track people on Gnutella/Napster/... And that method will be fine for many other files (text, programs,...) that could be distributed by such media. If we want to make these system really a media of free speech with no censor possible, we can't do it by legal actions. These systems may be used as well for legal purpose that for illegal one so the law will probably never protect them. So we are only left with the possibility of showing that it's useless to try to restrict it. It may be done by technical ways (hiding the IP using crypto & relays) and psychological ways (as the filename trick above). ------------------ If privacy is outlawed, only outlaw will have privacy.
Programs sending data during the registration process (along with you real identity)...
URL poisonning and other user-tracking techniques (among them, cookies attached to ad banners)
Unique processor ID
...
Sadly, many of them are not only stories but also reality. But if you've the knowledge needed, you can bypass most of them... under Linux (or other unices) How?
By running a Squid cache which use an ad-zapper (so no ad cookies), an unpoisonning script and anonymizing some of your informations.
By using Netscape (or other cookiefile-editing friendly browser) and going through your cookie file to remove the unwanted one
By having several E-Mails, one of them on a free-mail system used only for potentially privacy-invading E-mail asking site
By using Netscape+Fortify or Lynx+SSL to have high grade encryption for https
By having firewalling rules that block all unwanted connexions (unlikely if you're under Linux/FreeBSD/... but may be useful if the Unix bos is masquerading connexions from MS Windows boxes)
By making your E-Mail unfriendly to dumb E-mail grabbing program when you post on Usenet/forums
...
If you're careful enough, you may partially control what information you're giving away and limit the spreading of private information... but only limiting. People are making files about you even from he information in the PhoneBook (sorry, I don't know the exact wording in English) : from your first name, they can predict what age you're (i's not perfect but it's at least partially-working... There are modes even for the choice of children first-name !), from the place you live, they may try to determine how wealthy you're,... And, about the control you've on the databases, it's more theorical than effective... you're in so many databases that some databases that it's nearly impossible to track them all... You commanded on-line ? by mail ? you gave your address at some shop ? you filled a fom for some registration ? How many time did you give away some information about you KNOWINGLY ? add to this the many pieces of information grabbed by other means ? And what about the protection of the law ? How can you attack some database maker you're not aware of ? So, the system is biased toward the one who make databases without telling you about it ! I don't know if Europe does really beter protect the privacy... But what I've seen too many times is (bad) things apearing first in US then coming, a few years later, to Europe... Sometimes, we (Europeans) look to US to see what future is awaiting us...
Linux BIOS : no, Linux based BIOS : yes
on
Linux BIOS
·
· Score: 3
I think many people are missing a point here : what made the PC a wonderful system was it's customizing ability :
You may put in whatever soundcard you want, from the cheapest to the most expensive
You may use whatever Network Interface Card you want, BNC/RJ45/Tokenring/Fiber/...
You may put in as many HD as you want (Hmmm usually at most 4)
You may use IDE or SCSI for your CD-ROM, CD-R,...
...
But also, you may put on it any OS you want, MS Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, BeOS,... And the piece of software that allows that is the BIOS.
So I don't think that putting Linux directly in the BIOS is a good thing. It's only limiting the machine.
But using a linux variant that fulfit all previous BIOSes functions and adds some things like NFS boot, multitask for 16bit OSes (DOS, whatever version it is), PnP, drivers for WinModems making them usable under any OS not disabling the BIOS, FB drivers,... That would be great. And many of these functions are already implemented in Linux (sometimes partially or with extra-patches).
The linux kernel on BIOS can still be used as fallback, if there are no OS present, like the BASIC ROM was in earlier PC. Maybe there can even be reusable parts between these two. That would allows for that cluster system to be built.
I should however recognize that this project has to be started somewhere... And making the BIOS being the Linux kernel is a begin to it... But I think that it should not be the ultimate goal... I don't think it's a good idea to have to reflash the BIOS for every kernel update, without forgetting that a bad flashing may make the PC useless.
There, an innocent is tracked down by the police because of a computer error : a bug falling in the printer changing the name on a list of wanted criminals.
It is one of the risks of mass data computing : the computer don't think I've perhaps made an error, let's double check this
We, humans, have sometimes the feeling that we have done a typo, that something is wrong about the results we get,... That never happens with computers. And that is one of the things that make us superior to the machine.
We can see many SF tales becoming true... Think about the trip to the moon described by Jules Verne... since that, men walked on the moon. And they went underwater too (but still haven't travelled to the center of Earth).
And other stories become reality... That is a little bit scary... Think of the Cyberpunk theme... Mega corporation are nearly (nearly ?) reality... with information becoming valuable goods (think of the whole CSS mess). Think of all these post-apocaliptic stories (Ravage from Barjavel, where electricity disappears)... Men are more and more relying on machines...
So, I think it's time to put the machines and all around them to the place they really merit : tools.
Everyone knows how a screwer is made... and how many people have found a way to screw/unscrew with other things (from a keyring to a piece of metalic junk). But noone has ever imagined to "pattent" such remplacements. Same thing for hammer and many other tools.
Pythagore never wanted his theorem to be protected so everybody using it should be paying licenses right to him. Neither did Euler for his many formulae. But now, we want to pattent every single idea... Welcome to the world where knowledge is a good you sell... You want to use Pythagore Theorem ? pay 1 cent for each use to XYZ who has gotten all rights on it. Sounds silly ? We nearly got there ! Welcome to cyberpunk world...
Perhaps there are too few SF fans in our government ?
Slashdot Mirror
I've been following Blender for a while. I'm no 3D designing people but I found it interresting and I tested about every release since 1.54.
What was said from the beginning is that the new features would need the C-Key to be used but also that these feature would go free after some time...
Indeed, Plugins and other features went free as new features appear, needing the C-Key.
At first, the MS Windows version of Blender needed a B-Key to be really used (in order to allow saving). Then, the MS Windows version came to the same status that the Unix one... You only needed to pay for the bleeding edge functionnalities.
The features made free in 1.8 have been worked on for a long time and IMHO, it's about the time they would have been freed anyway. So, let's see if in the future there will be new feature you'll have to pay for (whatever thay'll be)
But Blender being available for free is a smart move. When it started to be available, it was said to be the in-house 3D tool of NeoGeo. So, making it free allows people to learn how to use it, to make feedback,...
And this is great for NeoGeo... Now, if they need 3D graphist for their game development, thay may really ask them to be able to use Blender (when the program was not distributed, these people needed to be teached how to do it... and that is a costly process).
This is also good as it provides them a great feedback from users, allowing to find bugs easier, to have information about what would be useful (not wasting time to implement unneeded stuff),...
It's also some kind of advertizing for themself... How many people did come to their WWW site for blender then follow the link to NeoGeo ?
And it made a little profit by itself, thank to the buying of B and C-keys and of manuals.
So, if you think of Blender as a 3D tool, it may seems not rentable, if you think of blender as the in-house tool of NeoGeo, the point of view may change...
If that system entraps the user by saying it provides some files but use that to log the user who attemped to download it, it may NOT have any legal value... To go further, the problem of the people to be sued will also arise... Is it the one who download the file (you may not know exactly what it does contain before having downloaded it) or the one offering it (in that case, providing trap files is legally of no help as those trapped are not the one to be sued). But, from what I read on the page of the incriminated program, it looks like it's more a Gnutella/Napster client doing the searches and logging who provides such files. If it is indeed a napster/Gnutella search-client, there is still something that could help showing to RIAA and other it's vain to try to find people to sue. Think of the guy thas has written a DeCSS program that... removes CSS tags from HTML pages... just to fool MPAA and DVDCCA into finding site providing the DeCSS DVD reading utility. The same thing may be done for MP3. There are many free MP3 (and you may make some by MP3Encoding free songs (.MOD/.XM/...)). The Demo Makers provide us with many songs that are frequently freely downloadable. So, take a few MP3's (or some dummy files with 3Mb of "RIAA_KEEP_OUT_RIAA_KEEP_OUT...") with filenames including great band names... that would drive RIAA and such crazy... and they couldn't even sue you as you were doing NOTHING illegal... after all, you may name your files as you want !!! If enough people act like that, RIAA and Co will eventually understant that it's useless to track people on Gnutella/Napster/... And that method will be fine for many other files (text, programs,...) that could be distributed by such media. If we want to make these system really a media of free speech with no censor possible, we can't do it by legal actions. These systems may be used as well for legal purpose that for illegal one so the law will probably never protect them. So we are only left with the possibility of showing that it's useless to try to restrict it. It may be done by technical ways (hiding the IP using crypto & relays) and psychological ways (as the filename trick above). ------------------ If privacy is outlawed, only outlaw will have privacy.
- Programs sending data during the registration process (along with you real identity)...
- URL poisonning and other user-tracking techniques (among them, cookies attached to ad banners)
- Unique processor ID
- ...
Sadly, many of them are not only stories but also reality. But if you've the knowledge needed, you can bypass most of them... under Linux (or other unices) How?- By running a Squid cache which use an ad-zapper (so no ad cookies), an unpoisonning script and anonymizing some of your informations.
- By using Netscape (or other cookiefile-editing friendly browser) and going through your cookie file to remove the unwanted one
- By having several E-Mails, one of them on a free-mail system used only for potentially privacy-invading E-mail asking site
- By using Netscape+Fortify or Lynx+SSL to have high grade encryption for https
- By having firewalling rules that block all unwanted connexions (unlikely if you're under Linux/FreeBSD/... but may be useful if the Unix bos is masquerading connexions from MS Windows boxes)
- By making your E-Mail unfriendly to dumb E-mail grabbing program when you post on Usenet/forums
- ...
If you're careful enough, you may partially control what information you're giving away and limit the spreading of private information... but only limiting. People are making files about you even from he information in the PhoneBook (sorry, I don't know the exact wording in English) : from your first name, they can predict what age you're (i's not perfect but it's at least partially-working... There are modes even for the choice of children first-name !), from the place you live, they may try to determine how wealthy you're,- You may put in whatever soundcard you want, from the cheapest to the most expensive
- You may use whatever Network Interface Card you want, BNC/RJ45/Tokenring/Fiber/...
- You may put in as many HD as you want (Hmmm usually at most 4)
- You may use IDE or SCSI for your CD-ROM, CD-R,...
- ...
But also, you may put on it any OS you want, MS Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, BeOS,... And the piece of software that allows that is the BIOS.So I don't think that putting Linux directly in the BIOS is a good thing. It's only limiting the machine.
But using a linux variant that fulfit all previous BIOSes functions and adds some things like NFS boot, multitask for 16bit OSes (DOS, whatever version it is), PnP, drivers for WinModems making them usable under any OS not disabling the BIOS, FB drivers,... That would be great. And many of these functions are already implemented in Linux (sometimes partially or with extra-patches).
The linux kernel on BIOS can still be used as fallback, if there are no OS present, like the BASIC ROM was in earlier PC. Maybe there can even be reusable parts between these two. That would allows for that cluster system to be built.
I should however recognize that this project has to be started somewhere... And making the BIOS being the Linux kernel is a begin to it... But I think that it should not be the ultimate goal...
I don't think it's a good idea to have to reflash the BIOS for every kernel update, without forgetting that a bad flashing may make the PC useless.
There, an innocent is tracked down by the police because of a computer error : a bug falling in the printer changing the name on a list of wanted criminals.
It is one of the risks of mass data computing : the computer don't think I've perhaps made an error, let's double check this
We, humans, have sometimes the feeling that we have done a typo, that something is wrong about the results we get,... That never happens with computers. And that is one of the things that make us superior to the machine.
We can see many SF tales becoming true... Think about the trip to the moon described by Jules Verne... since that, men walked on the moon. And they went underwater too (but still haven't travelled to the center of Earth).
And other stories become reality... That is a little bit scary... Think of the Cyberpunk theme... Mega corporation are nearly (nearly ?) reality... with information becoming valuable goods (think of the whole CSS mess). Think of all these post-apocaliptic stories (Ravage from Barjavel, where electricity disappears)... Men are more and more relying on machines...
So, I think it's time to put the machines and all around them to the place they really merit : tools.
Everyone knows how a screwer is made... and how many people have found a way to screw/unscrew with other things (from a keyring to a piece of metalic junk). But noone has ever imagined to "pattent" such remplacements. Same thing for hammer and many other tools.
Pythagore never wanted his theorem to be protected so everybody using it should be paying licenses right to him. Neither did Euler for his many formulae. But now, we want to pattent every single idea... Welcome to the world where knowledge is a good you sell... You want to use Pythagore Theorem ? pay 1 cent for each use to XYZ who has gotten all rights on it. Sounds silly ? We nearly got there ! Welcome to cyberpunk world...
Perhaps there are too few SF fans in our government ?