No singleplayer in my game (for reasons I will not go into here, but multiplayer is far better for *simulation* purposes while singleplayer is convenient for *gaming* - and I'm working to fill the niche for the former; if you've ever seen the DCS:Ka-50 or DCS:A-10 then that is the level I'd like to get to, but multiplatform). Incidentally, I intend the multiplayer portion of the game will be more like VAT-Sim for FSX where everyone flies and fights in a single 'living' world. Actually, I'd love to release my game under GPL but as we agree, only a very few honest souls would part with cash for it if both the client and server is open. However, I can make the client almost fully open (hopefully this helps modders), apart from a few binary blobs required by the licensing terms of some proprietary models I purchased from Turbosquid (if you think software devs are harsh at least we have a culture of giving thousands of hours of work away for free, for the common benefit - very few of the competent 3D modellers and artists give their stuff away, and the licensing terms of purchasing models [as I did] are fairly restrictive).
Actually, Linux generally does really good support of middle-aged gear. Better than Windows and better than Apple. Unfortuntately what gets most of the press is when Linux doesn't support brand new stuff for months (since it takes a while for the contributors to figure out how to wrangle new devices).
Truly Powerful Users have the Terminal, BASH and Apple scripting, C/C++ and Java compilers, etc etc. I often rename files in my ever-open iTerm, since it is often much faster than using a GUI - the real beauty of a 17" MacBook Pro is the resolution (and multi-monitors) allow you to have so many xterms open at once:)
The Mac is at least as good as Linux for almost all of this (I say this after starting to use Linux a little in 1992 onward and heavily in 1996 to present). Hence, our office of Java developers have mostly migrated from Ubuntu (after the loss of focus on workstation practicalities to chase tablet dreams) to Mac.
Apart from removing the OpenGL pbuffer (which some libraries require) Mountain Lion has been a noticeable improvement over Lion for the guys at our development office.
I'm currently working on a homebrew modern jet combat flight simulator. For this I'm using JoGL+JOAL+JInput+JOCL. These contain embedded native libraries that work on lots of platforms (including, but not limited to Microsoft's platforms). The tools are all free/Free which means you can share everything with collaborators and clients without them having to get additional licenses. I use these technologies at the moment and apart from small variations between AMD and NVidia drivers on different platforms (which affects you no matter what technology you use) the code just works. I can move the same binary between Linux, Mac and Windows and it runs sweetly (and with very high performance since you can use the GPU as well as if you used C/C++).
For this particular genre (combat flight *simulation*) neither consoles nor phones have enough power to be viable targets. PCs (Windows and Linux) and Macs have sufficient hardware to be useful. Perhaps the next generation Playstation may have enough Video RAM to make it worthwhile as a target, but the expensive development kit, system limitations, and (most importantly) different target market (twitch gamers who don't really have an interest in simulations) make it more than 'low hanging fruit' (unlike Windows/Mac/Linux).
So, homebrew gaming is alive and well for myself and others. It's just not on consoles. Consoles are out of my field-of-view to the same extent that PCs&Macs are similarly out of the field-of-view of console/phone/tablet gamers (and the publications that serve them). I do have a PS3 but the games don't appeal to me (the PC versions of the same games are vastly superior, thanks to the vastly superior resources of a decent PC).
Actually it can work. The clients get the source code for the client part of the system but the server part remains closed. The "Affero" GPL license would prevent this but it is entirely possible under the GPL v3 to make money using this model. Now the reason this is necessary is that most people expect systems to be provided to them for free so the vendor has to find a way to strongarm the clients into paying.
Access to the source is not the real issue, getting paid for the vendor's work is. Unfortunately everyone on the Net is dishonest - we have all heard music we haven't paid for (and no station has licensed on our behalf) and seen clips that were in all likelyhood copyrighted or derived from copyright work. So yeah, the vendors do feel it necessary to withhold the source, but it is payment (recuperation of development effort) that is really at issue.
By "proprietary software" you mean closed software that the user cannot modify. Note (and this is really, really important) that this does not mean that Richard Stallman (RMS) and the GNU movement are against commercial software. They believe that if you can make money for software you should (Stallman himself used to support himself by selling tapes of Emacs software and code, back in the day). Many people confuse "proprietary" software with "commercial" software. They are not the same. As long as you get code and the right to fix it yourself then RMS is pretty happy, even if you paid for the software.
"Failed on the desktop"? This is not the same as "not popular for average users on the desktop". Arguably Linux has succeeded on the desktop, but in a particular niche (developers and power users who like freedom and control over their own computers). Note, if we move away from the desktop (since it turns out that there is a huge expanse of computing, of which the desktop is just the first thing most new users see) then you'll see that Linux has been wildly successful in the guise of Android (which is Google's marketing term for their Java-esque environment running on Linux). Figures are there are currently between one and two million activations of Linux *per day* as Android devices. This is making a lot of companies a fair chunk of money, not just the operating system vendor. On that basis one could argue that Linux is very successful and possibly offers more opportunities for more businesses than say Windows does at the moment (with relatively static rates of growth and generally declining developer interest for Windows-only solutions).
Note that a Free Software advocate does "believe in copyright". This is the legal basis for enforcement of the GNU GPL. Copyright does have a purpose, and that purpose is not so bad. What is bad is unreasonable extension of the copyright term - but that is another issue.
I just upgraded my MacBook Pro from OS X 10.7.4 Lion to 10.8 Mountain Lion. Unfortunately this change brought a new version of OpenGL (great!) but Apple removed the PBuffers they had deprecated some time back. That broke the software I've been working (using th JoGL OpenGL bindings). While on one hand you can argue that Apple deprecated PBuffers on their platform so tough luck to me. On the other hand both AMD on Windows and Ubuntu Linux still have working PBuffer implementations and my software still works on those platforms.
As a developer it makes me a bit unhappy Apple brought in a lot of Cloud stuff (that I personally have zero interest in) while removing small but useful features that are actually widely used. Backwards compatibility matters a lot, which is one of the great strengths of Windows but Apple are less keen on it. As a developer (the point of this article) it now means that until the JoGL library catches up OS X has moved from a first-class target for my game to second class behind Linux and Windows (where I know the development effort won't be slowed by fairly needless breaking changes). This is because I can't guarantee that the effort I make to get things going again on OS X won't be nullified with further (IMHO unnecessarily strict) changes as new OS X versions are released on their yearly cycle. Sure, I have the technical chops to patch JoGL myself, but it is something I don't have to do for Windows and Linux, and is a diversion of effort for me actually *getting the important stuff done*.
nb: I must be a luddite. I'd much rather get my software directly from the vendor rather than the straightjacket of the App Store. I just know getting stuf through the App Store will be problematic whenever Apple decides that it is in their interest (not mine) to replace the App Store with something else. All technology changes, eventually, but Apple's timescale for change is probably much faster than mine since I just want to get stuff done => future trouble, so I avoid using App Store where I have alternatives.
I had that problem. Forcing DHCP renewal helped. Please see the following articles for more information (I hope this helps you and other Mac-using Slashdotters!):
Yeah, VRML was much ballyhooed. I think the situation may have changed somewhat these days though. For one, consumer devices almost always have devices capable of supporting OpenGL/OpenGL ES (all computers do, even those with integrated graphics; all smartphones do since OpenGL ES is the graphics library for those devices; even the PS/3 can. The exception is the Xbox 360 that has the hardware, but I'm not sure about libraries [someone might be able to confirm whether there is an OpenGL ES library for the Xbox 360]). The other thing is that bandwidth is much higher these days. So sending the mesh, shaders and textures for a scene is much easier. Complex 3D (eg big games and flight simulators) probably will always be run outside web browsers though.
You mean WebGL that has been stable for a year and a half? Turn in your geek badge please!:) OpenGL r0x0r!
A trivial Google search would have found the information before you posted (sorry to point this out, but damn, I had to revert mod points to make this post).
> So when Apple does it, it's awesome, but when Microsoft does it, they're trawling for suckers ?
IMHO it is bad no matter who does it. I didn't make this judgement in my post, only stating that Apple do lock you in (well, the developers really, which means you indirectly) - which I personally feel is a very bad thing. Equivalently, Microsoft also want to adopt these same measures, controlling distribution of software "for your own good". There are some upsides to these kinds of app stores but there are also a lot of downsides (eg. Apple's abuse of licensing which has lead to censorship about things they don't like, eg legitimate apps that compete with their strategy). I think it would be better to have a certification program (test programs for malware) rather than a 'fascist' rigidly controlled and unquestionable app store system.
Note that Thunderbolt (which Macs have and are possible to get on PCs - I have one an an ASUS motherboard I purchased recently) has a peak speed of 10 Gb/s compared to the 4.8 Gb/s of USB 3.0. Either way, Intel wins (it is backing both horses here).
That's my guess too. They probably had some bad news somewhere and it was a good time to jettison the liability so further quarters look much better. Hopefully they don't get pinged by the EU for $7 billion, or they will really hurt (this is unlikely though).
Many companies exceed earnings expectations if you decide to discount losses - but you have to squint your eyes just like you did to see that. Microsoft made a loss, it is very unlikely to be a permanent state of affairs (unless Europe charges them a possible $US 7 billion penalty for breaching their anti-monopoly conditions), but it is still a loss when you get to the bottom line. Losing $6.2 billion of shareholder value on a bad acquisition must be among the most colossal poor managemnuent decisions ever made. Will any of the management bonuses be affected? probably not. Yet another example of management shafting shareholders - which is not peculiar to Microsoft in any way.
> SQL Server on Linux boxes.
Yuck. SQL Server is technically inferior to Postgresl (eg. in true multi-byte UTF and internationalization support, not just double-byte) in some ways, harder to administer than MySQL, and less powerful than Oracle or DB2 in the very large. SQL Server on Linux would have an uphill battle when competing against databases that have been stable on that platform for a long time.
> Imagine a version of Office for Mac with a comparable version of Excel and Access.
I run Excel on the Mac using Office 2011 for Mac, so I'm not quite sure what your point is? Access is awful for anything bigger than tiny problems, I'd much rather use Postgresql thank you very much.
That is probably opportunistic investors selling before the stocks go down too much further. Would you put your life savings into Microsoft stocks at the moment given no share-price growth, small dividends and the relentless growth of competitors like Apple and Google? I thought not.
If they get pinged $US 7 billion by the EU for violating antitrust terms on top of this $US 6.2 billion write-down then I'm pretty sure Microsoft will itself feel violated.
Actually not redundant at all. It could have been $AU 3.5 million, or $NZ 3.5 million, or $HK 3.5 million, or $CAN 3.5 million. All of which are different amounts. It is a share that US folks are only dimly aware about the Rest of the World outside their borders. The reason I wrote $US 3.5 million dollars is because $3.5 million is different amounts depending on whose currency it is in. So next time, no need to be snarky just because you have a significant gap in knowledge requiring international currency (which international Slashdot readers are aware of, and are sure to specify precisely what they mean).
So I hope we can have a good laugh that the joke is actually on you and your fellow posters who were not aware there are several dollar currencies besides the US one - which necessitates specifying the particular currency if you want to give an accurate figure:)
> OpenGL is just a library. DirectX is an engine.
You don't program to these do you? [hint, I do] what a load of bollox. Your statement is so misguided as to be laughable.
> If you redo the whole XP driver model (for free)
Huh? another misconception that is so bad it nearly makes me dispair for your ignorance. The drivers do not need to be touched. The functionality needed is already in DirectX 9. It might take a particularly slow developer a week to add anti-aliasing support for graphics using a DX9 shader. It might take them another week or two to get hinting going and tested for text. Hell, the Free Software guys did nice font rendering for FreeType in their spare time without a (70 billion profit per year) big company backing them. Sun did this for three platforms and two graphics APIs (OpenGL and DirectX), although Adobe did help out to get the design and requirements right.
> Let it go and tell your boss to upgrade.
Apart from my multiple game servers (on Win7) I did upgrade: to Ubuntu and now to MacOSX - where even the Rotten Apple would never try and trick you to upgrade with bullshit about their office suite needing 'DirectX11' capabilities (when OpenGL/DirectX 9 is perfectly adequate for accelerating 2D). The reason for Microsoft dropping support is not technical - unfortunately it seems you have very little technical knowledge about modern graphics APIs (not 'engines', that statement was so ridiculous it became sublime).
Slashdot Mirror
No singleplayer in my game (for reasons I will not go into here, but multiplayer is far better for *simulation* purposes while singleplayer is convenient for *gaming* - and I'm working to fill the niche for the former; if you've ever seen the DCS:Ka-50 or DCS:A-10 then that is the level I'd like to get to, but multiplatform). Incidentally, I intend the multiplayer portion of the game will be more like VAT-Sim for FSX where everyone flies and fights in a single 'living' world. Actually, I'd love to release my game under GPL but as we agree, only a very few honest souls would part with cash for it if both the client and server is open. However, I can make the client almost fully open (hopefully this helps modders), apart from a few binary blobs required by the licensing terms of some proprietary models I purchased from Turbosquid (if you think software devs are harsh at least we have a culture of giving thousands of hours of work away for free, for the common benefit - very few of the competent 3D modellers and artists give their stuff away, and the licensing terms of purchasing models [as I did] are fairly restrictive).
Actually, Linux generally does really good support of middle-aged gear. Better than Windows and better than Apple. Unfortuntately what gets most of the press is when Linux doesn't support brand new stuff for months (since it takes a while for the contributors to figure out how to wrangle new devices).
Stink that Airplay won't work. If you can cope with a cable then screen extension will work fine to huge TV (I use this will a late 2009 MacBook Pro).
Truly Powerful Users have the Terminal, BASH and Apple scripting, C/C++ and Java compilers, etc etc. I often rename files in my ever-open iTerm, since it is often much faster than using a GUI - the real beauty of a 17" MacBook Pro is the resolution (and multi-monitors) allow you to have so many xterms open at once :)
The Mac is at least as good as Linux for almost all of this (I say this after starting to use Linux a little in 1992 onward and heavily in 1996 to present). Hence, our office of Java developers have mostly migrated from Ubuntu (after the loss of focus on workstation practicalities to chase tablet dreams) to Mac.
Apart from removing the OpenGL pbuffer (which some libraries require) Mountain Lion has been a noticeable improvement over Lion for the guys at our development office.
I'm currently working on a homebrew modern jet combat flight simulator. For this I'm using JoGL+JOAL+JInput+JOCL. These contain embedded native libraries that work on lots of platforms (including, but not limited to Microsoft's platforms). The tools are all free/Free which means you can share everything with collaborators and clients without them having to get additional licenses. I use these technologies at the moment and apart from small variations between AMD and NVidia drivers on different platforms (which affects you no matter what technology you use) the code just works. I can move the same binary between Linux, Mac and Windows and it runs sweetly (and with very high performance since you can use the GPU as well as if you used C/C++).
For this particular genre (combat flight *simulation*) neither consoles nor phones have enough power to be viable targets. PCs (Windows and Linux) and Macs have sufficient hardware to be useful. Perhaps the next generation Playstation may have enough Video RAM to make it worthwhile as a target, but the expensive development kit, system limitations, and (most importantly) different target market (twitch gamers who don't really have an interest in simulations) make it more than 'low hanging fruit' (unlike Windows/Mac/Linux).
So, homebrew gaming is alive and well for myself and others. It's just not on consoles. Consoles are out of my field-of-view to the same extent that PCs&Macs are similarly out of the field-of-view of console/phone/tablet gamers (and the publications that serve them). I do have a PS3 but the games don't appeal to me (the PC versions of the same games are vastly superior, thanks to the vastly superior resources of a decent PC).
Actually it can work. The clients get the source code for the client part of the system but the server part remains closed. The "Affero" GPL license would prevent this but it is entirely possible under the GPL v3 to make money using this model. Now the reason this is necessary is that most people expect systems to be provided to them for free so the vendor has to find a way to strongarm the clients into paying.
Access to the source is not the real issue, getting paid for the vendor's work is. Unfortunately everyone on the Net is dishonest - we have all heard music we haven't paid for (and no station has licensed on our behalf) and seen clips that were in all likelyhood copyrighted or derived from copyright work. So yeah, the vendors do feel it necessary to withhold the source, but it is payment (recuperation of development effort) that is really at issue.
By "proprietary software" you mean closed software that the user cannot modify. Note (and this is really, really important) that this does not mean that Richard Stallman (RMS) and the GNU movement are against commercial software. They believe that if you can make money for software you should (Stallman himself used to support himself by selling tapes of Emacs software and code, back in the day). Many people confuse "proprietary" software with "commercial" software. They are not the same. As long as you get code and the right to fix it yourself then RMS is pretty happy, even if you paid for the software.
"Failed on the desktop"? This is not the same as "not popular for average users on the desktop". Arguably Linux has succeeded on the desktop, but in a particular niche (developers and power users who like freedom and control over their own computers). Note, if we move away from the desktop (since it turns out that there is a huge expanse of computing, of which the desktop is just the first thing most new users see) then you'll see that Linux has been wildly successful in the guise of Android (which is Google's marketing term for their Java-esque environment running on Linux). Figures are there are currently between one and two million activations of Linux *per day* as Android devices. This is making a lot of companies a fair chunk of money, not just the operating system vendor. On that basis one could argue that Linux is very successful and possibly offers more opportunities for more businesses than say Windows does at the moment (with relatively static rates of growth and generally declining developer interest for Windows-only solutions).
Note that a Free Software advocate does "believe in copyright". This is the legal basis for enforcement of the GNU GPL. Copyright does have a purpose, and that purpose is not so bad. What is bad is unreasonable extension of the copyright term - but that is another issue.
I just upgraded my MacBook Pro from OS X 10.7.4 Lion to 10.8 Mountain Lion. Unfortunately this change brought a new version of OpenGL (great!) but Apple removed the PBuffers they had deprecated some time back. That broke the software I've been working (using th JoGL OpenGL bindings). While on one hand you can argue that Apple deprecated PBuffers on their platform so tough luck to me. On the other hand both AMD on Windows and Ubuntu Linux still have working PBuffer implementations and my software still works on those platforms.
As a developer it makes me a bit unhappy Apple brought in a lot of Cloud stuff (that I personally have zero interest in) while removing small but useful features that are actually widely used. Backwards compatibility matters a lot, which is one of the great strengths of Windows but Apple are less keen on it. As a developer (the point of this article) it now means that until the JoGL library catches up OS X has moved from a first-class target for my game to second class behind Linux and Windows (where I know the development effort won't be slowed by fairly needless breaking changes). This is because I can't guarantee that the effort I make to get things going again on OS X won't be nullified with further (IMHO unnecessarily strict) changes as new OS X versions are released on their yearly cycle. Sure, I have the technical chops to patch JoGL myself, but it is something I don't have to do for Windows and Linux, and is a diversion of effort for me actually *getting the important stuff done*.
nb: I must be a luddite. I'd much rather get my software directly from the vendor rather than the straightjacket of the App Store. I just know getting stuf through the App Store will be problematic whenever Apple decides that it is in their interest (not mine) to replace the App Store with something else. All technology changes, eventually, but Apple's timescale for change is probably much faster than mine since I just want to get stuff done => future trouble, so I avoid using App Store where I have alternatives.
Yeah, VRML was much ballyhooed. I think the situation may have changed somewhat these days though. For one, consumer devices almost always have devices capable of supporting OpenGL/OpenGL ES (all computers do, even those with integrated graphics; all smartphones do since OpenGL ES is the graphics library for those devices; even the PS/3 can. The exception is the Xbox 360 that has the hardware, but I'm not sure about libraries [someone might be able to confirm whether there is an OpenGL ES library for the Xbox 360]). The other thing is that bandwidth is much higher these days. So sending the mesh, shaders and textures for a scene is much easier. Complex 3D (eg big games and flight simulators) probably will always be run outside web browsers though.
Have a look at WebGL. 3D on the web using OpenGL has been possible for a year and a half.
You mean WebGL that has been stable for a year and a half? Turn in your geek badge please! :) OpenGL r0x0r!
A trivial Google search would have found the information before you posted (sorry to point this out, but damn, I had to revert mod points to make this post).
> So when Apple does it, it's awesome, but when Microsoft does it, they're trawling for suckers ?
IMHO it is bad no matter who does it. I didn't make this judgement in my post, only stating that Apple do lock you in (well, the developers really, which means you indirectly) - which I personally feel is a very bad thing. Equivalently, Microsoft also want to adopt these same measures, controlling distribution of software "for your own good". There are some upsides to these kinds of app stores but there are also a lot of downsides (eg. Apple's abuse of licensing which has lead to censorship about things they don't like, eg legitimate apps that compete with their strategy). I think it would be better to have a certification program (test programs for malware) rather than a 'fascist' rigidly controlled and unquestionable app store system.
Note that Thunderbolt (which Macs have and are possible to get on PCs - I have one an an ASUS motherboard I purchased recently) has a peak speed of 10 Gb/s compared to the 4.8 Gb/s of USB 3.0. Either way, Intel wins (it is backing both horses here).
True. Thanks for having the courage to correct yourself - that is the mark of a reasonable fellow. Bravo!
That's my guess too. They probably had some bad news somewhere and it was a good time to jettison the liability so further quarters look much better. Hopefully they don't get pinged by the EU for $7 billion, or they will really hurt (this is unlikely though).
Well, it will probably mean Red Hat was more profitable than Microsoft for the quarter (although clearly revenues were not equal). Strange times.
Many companies exceed earnings expectations if you decide to discount losses - but you have to squint your eyes just like you did to see that. Microsoft made a loss, it is very unlikely to be a permanent state of affairs (unless Europe charges them a possible $US 7 billion penalty for breaching their anti-monopoly conditions), but it is still a loss when you get to the bottom line. Losing $6.2 billion of shareholder value on a bad acquisition must be among the most colossal poor managemnuent decisions ever made. Will any of the management bonuses be affected? probably not. Yet another example of management shafting shareholders - which is not peculiar to Microsoft in any way.
> SQL Server on Linux boxes.
Yuck. SQL Server is technically inferior to Postgresl (eg. in true multi-byte UTF and internationalization support, not just double-byte) in some ways, harder to administer than MySQL, and less powerful than Oracle or DB2 in the very large. SQL Server on Linux would have an uphill battle when competing against databases that have been stable on that platform for a long time.
> Imagine a version of Office for Mac with a comparable version of Excel and Access.
I run Excel on the Mac using Office 2011 for Mac, so I'm not quite sure what your point is? Access is awful for anything bigger than tiny problems, I'd much rather use Postgresql thank you very much.
That is probably opportunistic investors selling before the stocks go down too much further. Would you put your life savings into Microsoft stocks at the moment given no share-price growth, small dividends and the relentless growth of competitors like Apple and Google? I thought not.
If they get pinged $US 7 billion by the EU for violating antitrust terms on top of this $US 6.2 billion write-down then I'm pretty sure Microsoft will itself feel violated.
Actually not redundant at all. It could have been $AU 3.5 million, or $NZ 3.5 million, or $HK 3.5 million, or $CAN 3.5 million. All of which are different amounts. It is a share that US folks are only dimly aware about the Rest of the World outside their borders. The reason I wrote $US 3.5 million dollars is because $3.5 million is different amounts depending on whose currency it is in. So next time, no need to be snarky just because you have a significant gap in knowledge requiring international currency (which international Slashdot readers are aware of, and are sure to specify precisely what they mean).
So I hope we can have a good laugh that the joke is actually on you and your fellow posters who were not aware there are several dollar currencies besides the US one - which necessitates specifying the particular currency if you want to give an accurate figure :)
> OpenGL is just a library. DirectX is an engine.
You don't program to these do you? [hint, I do] what a load of bollox. Your statement is so misguided as to be laughable.
> If you redo the whole XP driver model (for free)
Huh? another misconception that is so bad it nearly makes me dispair for your ignorance. The drivers do not need to be touched. The functionality needed is already in DirectX 9. It might take a particularly slow developer a week to add anti-aliasing support for graphics using a DX9 shader. It might take them another week or two to get hinting going and tested for text. Hell, the Free Software guys did nice font rendering for FreeType in their spare time without a (70 billion profit per year) big company backing them. Sun did this for three platforms and two graphics APIs (OpenGL and DirectX), although Adobe did help out to get the design and requirements right.
> Let it go and tell your boss to upgrade. Apart from my multiple game servers (on Win7) I did upgrade: to Ubuntu and now to MacOSX - where even the Rotten Apple would never try and trick you to upgrade with bullshit about their office suite needing 'DirectX11' capabilities (when OpenGL/DirectX 9 is perfectly adequate for accelerating 2D). The reason for Microsoft dropping support is not technical - unfortunately it seems you have very little technical knowledge about modern graphics APIs (not 'engines', that statement was so ridiculous it became sublime).