Hmm, according to the book "Game Over" (yes, Brits, I did get it off the cover of Arcade mag...) Nintendo's pre-NES machines had keyboards and such.... commercial disaster.
When you free a program, yes, you're absolving yourself of the right to prevent anyone using it for whatever purpose they so desire.
If someone uses Mutt to distribute kiddie porn, that's none of the Mutt team's business. It's the police's business, of course...
Now, consider if the mutt team decided to forbid mutt's use for child pornography. By omitting to forbid its use in drug dealing, couldn't they be accused of supporting drug dealing?
Best to remain neutral, and leave those issues to the people it concerns.
I'd suggest that what makes the PS popular is not the *quantity* of games, but the *variety*. Sure, it's mostly same-old driving/fighting/shooting, but compared to N64, you get a whole lot more choice.
Of course quantity breeds variety, so you had a good point. --
This ought to be a reply, rather than at the base of this tree, but it replies to so many posts, I decided to put it here...
Most of you Linux users, please consider, what is it you love about Linux? I like:
The most usable CLI I've ever seen (bash)
A huge pallette of UNIX tools (grep, date, tr, sed, awk, etc) -- and they're *better* than the versions I find on Solaris, AIX, etc
Like many of you, I got into Linux because I wanted my PC to behave like the UNIX (Solaris in my case) boxes at university. I even ran ovwm for a while!
It wasn't long, though, until I wanted to make my university environment more like my home machine. I moved/usr/local/gnu/bin to the front of my Solaris path. I installed fvwm and bash in my user space.
Guess what - run GNU software on Solaris, and it's as good as Linux. Run *enough* GNU software on the Solaris kernel (like, replace init), and it's damn near indistinguishable to all but the most observant (those who go looking at the boot messages, and look for/proc ).
If Linux (the kernel) were to disappear tomorrow, I could live with other kernels. But I couldn't do without GNU software. --
I want a refund for being forced to call it GNU/Linux when all I wanted was Linux.
No probs. Delete all the GNU stuff, and let's see how usable your system is.
Hint - likely most of your standard UNIX utils (ls, grep, sed, awk, tr etc) are GNU flavoured, and lots of basic system functionality (like the scripts in rc.d) need these, so you'll need to install the BSD equivalents, or write your own. Then you'll need to work through your system and find all the calls to these programs which use GNU extensions, and rewrite them.
Then you'll have to stop calling it "Linux" or "GNU/Linux", and take to calling it "BSD/Linux". And I'm sure you'll be much happier for it.
Me, I'll call it "Linux", but if anyone asks, I'll be sure and tell 'em it's shorthand for "GNU over Linux".
"vaguely cool at the time", huh? There's a 5 game NeoGeo cabinet in one of our local pubs, and I just had to drag my gf out to see it...
The thing about the home Neo Geo was that it was *exactly* the same hardware as was in the coin ops. And the coin ops were pretty powerful for the time. Because all the operators had to do to change games was swap a cart around, they were very popular.
SNK beat 'em ups are well thought of by the 2D beat 'em up crowd -- games like Samurai Showdown, World Heroes, King of Fighters all compare very well with the likes of Street Fighter II.
Now that most gaming hardware is built pretty much exclusively for 3D performance, the NeoGeo *still* does a sterling job with 2D sprites (thanks to those big carts with their stupidly large memory capacity, plus sprite-centric video hardware). NeoGeo games are still being made.
... and let's face it, sometimes (not always) 3D gets in the way of gameplay... (tetrisphere, anyone)
That said, the NeoGeo 64 exists, and is built for 3D (Samurai Spirit 64 runs on it). And the NeoGeo pocket (which started this off) shares nothing but a name with the original NeoGeo.
I dunno how you go about copying the ROMs onto your computer... although chances are someone's already done it for you. Of course, you only download rom images of games you already own... Of course... of course... --
Fishtanks are cool, but I'd really like to see a Mac Lavalamp. I was going to hoard this idea for myself, so I could be the first, but here I am outing it, cos I'll never get around to it.
Not really, since I never had any trouble learning vi.
Of course I know this is purely personal, and I know that many people *do* have trouble learning vi. I just found it very logical and consistent straight away. --
My problem with emacs is that I've tried to learn it three times (using the built in tutorial), and each time I've given up, frustrated, and gone back to vi/elvis/vim/vile
I don't *think* I'm stupid, but emacs makes me feel inadequate... while vi makes me feel powerful... --
The problems with lpr - (1) no feedback -- you send the job, it might work, it might not. (2) you send raw printer data, so something on your side of the network needs to know how to drive the printer (3) lpr is all about printing, nothing about print administration.
Now, I couldn't care less about printing across the internet (as opposed to the IP LAN) (mail it, and the person who'll use the hardcopy can print it if they so wish), but I know sysadmins who'd love to be able to do (more) maintenance remotely. --
What about changing a theme?
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 1
Uh, you change your template, then rerun the script which renders your content into the themed output.
You *did* write the content in a nice portable manner, didn't you? --
I gather they sold a lot of books - it would have been a great example of how you can make money with free (gratis) software.
OTOH, maybe Blender's gratis nature was holding up those who would write a libre 3D package... we live in hope. --
(!wysiwyg) != "by hand"
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 2
Everyone seems to assume that if you don't use a WYSIWYG HTML editor, you necessarily "do it by hand".
The *smart* way to produce pretty web pages that remain consistent across a site is to write plain HTML (or LaTeX or whatever) and use scripts to index/prettify/add sidebars/etc
If you don't want to roll your own, there are plenty of such tools on freshmeat.
Oh, and what's more, GUI != WYSIWYG -- with the number of browsers out there, all on different platforms, different screen sizes, different colour depths, different fonts installed, Lynx, IE, Navigator, Mozilla, Arachne, Arena, you'll never be able to do WYSIWYG HTML.
That said, something like Netscape Composer is a useful part of your toolkit for producing templates for the aforementioned scripts to work with (then edit it, then test it in Lynx, then WebLint it!) --
I'm normally *very* pro software freedom, so it's a little difficult to explain why I don't think games "count".
I *think* the key point is that although you're partly buying a piece of software engineering, you're *mostly* buying graphic design, level design, gameplay, music, voice actors etc etc
A good modern game is closer to a movie than it is to (say) Apache. Anyone want to suggest that movies should be GPLd?
I'd agree that there's a case for freeing the source for the game engine, but that's such a tiny part of the game as a whole, that it scarcely matters. --
If *I'd* made those comments, I'd want to take credit for them:)
--
What is source code, in 3 sentences?
on
Linux on CNN
·
· Score: 1
One good core point he made (after missing the point of "free"; "my plumber is a free man, yet I have to pay him -- how odd") was that the media has not found a quick way to tell the reader what source code *is*.
"Blueprint" is the closest they've come, which just doesn't make the point well enough.
So; who can summarise what source code is in the fewest words, without making it unclear? --
You're comments aren't free?
on
Linux on CNN
·
· Score: 1
Uh, free software is copyrighted.
If it wasn't copyrighted, it'd be public domain, which would allow anyone to take the source, make proprietary changes, and sell it 100% closed.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, according to the book "Game Over" (yes, Brits, I did get it off the cover of Arcade mag...) Nintendo's pre-NES machines had keyboards and such.... commercial disaster.
Who knows, though, maybe the market's changed...
--
Free is free.
When you free a program, yes, you're absolving yourself of the right to prevent anyone using it for whatever purpose they so desire.
If someone uses Mutt to distribute kiddie porn, that's none of the Mutt team's business. It's the police's business, of course...
Now, consider if the mutt team decided to forbid mutt's use for child pornography. By omitting to forbid its use in drug dealing, couldn't they be accused of supporting drug dealing?
Best to remain neutral, and leave those issues to the people it concerns.
--
Raul's looks a wee bit like the Dreamcast logo.
I heard Sega were already having to make the spiral blue, not orange, in Europe, to avoid similarity to some European company's logo.
--
You can add Dave's Videogame Classics to that list of casualties.
I dunno if that's an April Fool too/either
--
I'd suggest that what makes the PS popular is not
the *quantity* of games, but the *variety*.
Sure, it's mostly same-old driving/fighting/shooting, but
compared to N64, you get a whole lot more choice.
Of course quantity breeds variety, so you had a
good point.
--
Depends what you mean by "published" - UK Official Playstation Magazine
has put a yaroze game on every cover disk for a while now.
I think a few people have been headhunted by
codeshops as a result of their amateur yaroze output.
--
Who's gonna sue MS for claiming that Linux has no
Someone. Please?
--
Most of you Linux users, please consider, what is it you love about Linux? I like:
Like many of you, I got into Linux because I wanted my PC to behave like the UNIX (Solaris in my case) boxes at university. I even ran ovwm for a while!
It wasn't long, though, until I wanted to make my university environment more like my home machine. I moved
Guess what - run GNU software on Solaris, and it's as good as Linux. Run *enough* GNU software on the Solaris kernel (like, replace init), and it's damn near indistinguishable to all but the most observant (those who go looking at the boot messages, and look for
If Linux (the kernel) were to disappear tomorrow, I could live with other kernels. But I couldn't do without GNU software.
--
No probs. Delete all the GNU stuff, and let's see how usable your system is.
Hint - likely most of your standard UNIX utils (ls, grep, sed, awk, tr etc) are GNU flavoured, and lots of basic system functionality (like the scripts in rc.d) need these, so you'll need to install the BSD equivalents, or write your own.
Then you'll need to work through your system and find all the calls to these programs which use GNU extensions, and rewrite them.
Then you'll have to stop calling it "Linux" or "GNU/Linux", and take to calling it "BSD/Linux". And I'm sure you'll be much happier for it.
Me, I'll call it "Linux", but if anyone asks, I'll be sure and tell 'em it's shorthand for "GNU over Linux".
--
"vaguely cool at the time", huh? There's a 5 game NeoGeo cabinet in one of our local pubs, and I just had to drag my gf out to see it...
... (tetrisphere, anyone)
The thing about the home Neo Geo was that it was *exactly* the same hardware as was in the coin ops. And the coin ops were pretty powerful for the time. Because all the operators had to do to change games was swap a cart around, they were very popular.
SNK beat 'em ups are well thought of by the 2D beat 'em up crowd -- games like Samurai Showdown, World Heroes, King of Fighters all compare very well with the likes of Street Fighter II.
Now that most gaming hardware is built pretty much exclusively for 3D performance, the NeoGeo *still* does a sterling job with 2D sprites (thanks to those big carts with their stupidly large memory capacity, plus sprite-centric video hardware).
NeoGeo games are still being made.
... and let's face it, sometimes (not always) 3D gets in the way of gameplay
That said, the NeoGeo 64 exists, and is built for 3D (Samurai Spirit 64 runs on it). And the NeoGeo pocket (which started this off) shares nothing but a name with the original NeoGeo.
--
There's countless Gameboy emulators. See Dave's Videogame Classics for downloadables.
I dunno how you go about copying the ROMs onto your computer... although chances are someone's already done it for you. Of course, you only download rom images of games you already own... Of course... of course...
--
Fishtanks are cool, but I'd really like to see a Mac Lavalamp. I was going to hoard this idea for myself, so I could be the first, but here I am outing it, cos I'll never get around to it.
Or - has anyone done this already?
--
Not really, since I never had any trouble learning vi.
Of course I know this is purely personal, and I know that many people *do* have trouble learning vi. I just found it very logical and consistent straight away.
--
My problem with emacs is that I've tried to learn it three times (using the built in tutorial), and each time I've given up, frustrated, and gone back to vi/elvis/vim/vile
I don't *think* I'm stupid, but emacs makes me feel inadequate... while vi makes me feel powerful...
--
Linus has said on many occasions that his has no problems with Microsoft as a company.
He objects to the quality of MS operating systems, but that's it. He's even complimented MS application software.
--
Y'know, "Gay" used to mean "happy".
"Hacker" used to mean "coder/computer nerd/whatever", but since most people understand "hacker" to mean "cracker", then that's its meaning.
Language evolves. Live with it.
--
The problems with lpr - (1) no feedback -- you send the job, it might work, it might not. (2) you send raw printer data, so something on your side of the network needs to know how to drive the printer (3) lpr is all about printing, nothing about print administration.
Now, I couldn't care less about printing across the internet (as opposed to the IP LAN) (mail it, and the person who'll use the hardcopy can print it if they so wish), but I know sysadmins who'd love to be able to do (more) maintenance remotely.
--
Uh, you change your template, then rerun the script which renders your content into the themed output.
You *did* write the content in a nice portable manner, didn't you?
--
I gather they sold a lot of books - it would have been a great example of how you can make money with free (gratis) software.
OTOH, maybe Blender's gratis nature was holding up those who would write a libre 3D package... we live in hope.
--
Everyone seems to assume that if you don't use a WYSIWYG HTML editor, you necessarily "do it by hand".
The *smart* way to produce pretty web pages that remain consistent across a site is to write plain HTML (or LaTeX or whatever) and use scripts to index/prettify/add sidebars/etc
If you don't want to roll your own, there are plenty of such tools on freshmeat.
Oh, and what's more, GUI != WYSIWYG -- with the number of browsers out there, all on different platforms, different screen sizes, different colour depths, different fonts installed, Lynx, IE, Navigator, Mozilla, Arachne, Arena, you'll never be able to do WYSIWYG HTML.
That said, something like Netscape Composer is a useful part of your toolkit for producing templates for the aforementioned scripts to work with (then edit it, then test it in Lynx, then WebLint it!)
--
- Tux Quake II skins
- OpenGL rotating 3D Tux Screensaver
- a 3D Tux tamagochi-type desktop toy
- etcetera
So free those files, and let the community get on with it!--
I'm normally *very* pro software freedom, so it's a little difficult to explain why I don't think games "count".
I *think* the key point is that although you're partly buying a piece of software engineering, you're *mostly* buying graphic design, level design, gameplay, music, voice actors etc etc
A good modern game is closer to a movie than it is to (say) Apache. Anyone want to suggest that movies should be GPLd?
I'd agree that there's a case for freeing the source for the game engine, but that's such a tiny part of the game as a whole, that it scarcely matters.
--
Spot on. Nicely put.
:)
If *I'd* made those comments, I'd want to take credit for them
--
One good core point he made (after missing the point of "free"; "my plumber is a free man, yet I have to pay him -- how odd") was that the media has not found a quick way to tell the reader what source code *is*.
"Blueprint" is the closest they've come, which just doesn't make the point well enough.
So; who can summarise what source code is in the fewest words, without making it unclear?
--
Uh, free software is copyrighted.
If it wasn't copyrighted, it'd be public domain, which would allow anyone to take the source, make proprietary changes, and sell it 100% closed.
Read the GPL, and see for yourself.
--