No offense, but you seem to be taking the viewpoint that games are immature. This is a problem with many people nowadays, not only with gaming but with other just as legitimate hobbies.
The need to play so much indicates(to me) that they don't have enough interesting, more important things to think about.
Why can't playing a video game be that "interesting, more important" thing that you say they don't have? Just as people still believe that Comic books are just for kids, people still have that stigma attached to video games. I can name many main stream comic books that are not for children even if many people think they are. Playing video games is just as legitimate of a hobby as woodworking, fishing, or reading a book, yet because of the idea it is "immature" gaming is frowned upon.
For me, gaming led to a general interesting in all things computing and thus to a successful career as a software engineer. I still play video games on my free time because it is a hobby I enjoy. There are video games which are every bit as interesting and works of art as a movie, a book, or a painting.
Technically you must only provide clear directions on where to obtain the source from and take steps to ensure that the source is available for as long as you continue to distribute the ISOs. You do not actually have to supply the code yourself, as long as you can provide a way to obtain it in whatever way is requested.
A financial software and services provider. Why does it matter? Apparently there was some ActiveX module that management wanted them to take advantage of which required an IE only solution. Since nearly all of our clients (which are financial companies) use IE they of course, do not mind.
Hopefully the Nero Lawsuit against MPEG-LA will either invalidate a bunch of patents or break up the patent pool enough to allow Theora and WebM to survive.
Though, I wouldn't count either out until MPEG-LA actually states what patents they are infringing on. Until they actually state which Patents are being infringed this is still in FUD territory.
Uhm, Android browser has "windows" which is pretty much the same as tabs.
Also, the addition of Flash WOULD have Hulu support, if there weren't Legal licensing issues preventing them from allowing it on mobile devices. There's no technical reason preventing it.
Unfortunately due to licensing issues, Hulu has stated it will not deliver content on mobile devices via the website.
Most likely there will be a native app soon, but for the time being the damn TV Companies won't let it show on mobile devices.
Do some research. Flash isn't going to be built into the OS so you'd be free to not download it, or if you get a new phone that comes packaged with it, you'd be free to uninstall it.
History is about facts, and getting as close to the truth as possible. To pretend the Founders were not Christians is anti-truth and makes you no better than the Texan book-writers.
The writings of George Washington contain frequent references to "God" and "our Creator"
Referring to "God" and "our Creator" does not, by definition, mean he's talking about Christianity. In fact, since he was a Deist. Deism believes that there is a Creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans either by scripture or revelation. The "God" they speak about is more akin to a "Mother Nature" or "God Of Nature" than that of the Bible. This isn't to say that there weren't any Christian men among the founders, but the vast majority were Deists not Christian. In several documents it is specifically said that the US is not found on Christianity.
"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it." - Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816
I believe that is quite concrete that Jefferson was not a Christian. See the link I provided earlier for many quotes. This is obviously not the only site with these facts, google around and you'll see. There is absolutely no basis in fact for claiming the founders were Christian. They were Deists.
History is about facts, and getting as close to the truth as possible.
I agree wholeheartedly, but make sure you have the facts before criticizing others.
To pretend the Founders were not Christians is anti-truth and makes you no better than the Texan book-writers.
To pretend they were Christians just means you're falling for their message instead of thinking for yourself.
I don't know 5 developers who each earned over $140k in around a week by re-releasing games that had already been released and made money before. I would call that pretty damn profitable.
There is value in IP. Money is usually exchanged for that value. The fact that people who pirated it would not have paid is irrelevant. Again, even if pirates decided to pay it was at the expense of profits.
There is value in IP. This value is determined by those who would like to trade for it (such as paying money). The fact that most who pirated it would not have paid is very relevant. There's no sale lost, there's no profit that was not had in those downloads. Nothing that could have been done would have changed anything there and therefore this isn't your target market. You don't release a product expecting every one to buy it, you only expect the target market to pay for it (and consider it a bonus when others you didn't expect to do). So why focus on stopping a segment of the market that is not profitable at the expense of shrinking your target market (thus reducing profitability) by way of DRM or other things.
Consider the fact that even the developers stated that they believe there is no acceptable inconvenience for paying customers that is worth attempting to stop piracy. It would seem the developers have the same attitude that the piracy is irrelevant other than a curiosity.
I know I'm just feeding the troll. I really don't want to do this.
Om nom nom. Thanks for the meal...but I'm not a troll. Thanks for labeling someone who simply disagrees with you and is trying to have a discussion as just a troll.:)
Seems like you haven't done much research. There's two types of cross-platform tools. There's one like what Adobe created that cross-compiles to native code that will run on an iPhone, and there's the other type which is middle-ware.
Currently, there does not exist a "fancy cross-platform tool" that will port it to Android. (That I know of). The two parts of the Apple license that have pissed off developers are the thing that defined you can only use certain languages (which screws over Adobe's tool) and the part that bans all abstraction layers (this screws over middle-ware).
Lesson in developing software, most cross-platform applications use an abstraction layer of some type which allows the developer to make minor changes and recompile the application for a separate platform.
Therefore by both requiring specific languages and banning abstraction layers. They have effectively forced any developer who wants to cross develop for more than just the iPhone to still code an iPhone specific version. This alone forces the problem of development costs precluding cross-platform development.
What do you think Apple's motivation is for blocking flash? They still make all their money on hardware sales. The app store only exists to encourage people to develop for their products. The only reason that makes any sense is that Apple wants a higher quality product.
The point of blocking flash is to encourage people to ONLY develop for the iPhone. Development costs generally prohibit most apps from getting cross developed for multiple platforms. Sometimes things like Flash facilitate cross-platform development. If they get developers to only create apps for the iPhone instead of cross-platform, then people have more reasons to buy the iPhone hardware as the apps they want would only exist on the iPhone.
Great business plan, horrible for consumers.
According to that article, Android, on all devices, is barely beating out iPhone OS on one device. iPhone OS is sold on three distinct devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad), of which the latter two were not included in the numbers. Android has a long way to go.
Actually, the study involved smartphone market share in the US. The iPod touch and iPad are not smart phones, which explains why they weren't included. As far as Android having a long time to go, quadrupling market share in only 6 months is a damn long way it's already come. =)
First paragraph is completely irrelevant. Would you rather we call them copyright infringers?
It seems that you need some reading comprehension. The first paragraph had absolutely nothing to do with what you call them. The entire point was that people should stop lumping all "pirates" or "copyright infringers" into one group and assuming they are some organized coalition of people that all have the same reasons.
It proves that even though pirates claim they pirate because of DRM, low quality, or low value products, they will still pirate even when those needs are met. It also proves that pirates are so petty that even 1 cent is too much for them. Even when that money would go to charity.
See, since the piracy rate was so low with the bundle, and there were still valid reasons for not paying (such as not being able to use any of the payment methods, to name one) it doesn't prove anything of the sort that you claim. Some pirates join in the DRM and low value arguments just to justify and then still pirated sure. However, a hell of a lot of people actually believe in those arguments and PAID for the bundle. You can't claim that this proves anything about ALL pirates. Then you say that "pirates are so petty that even 1 cent is too much for them." Again, maybe some pirates were that petty, but you don't know how many people who DO pirate games ended up giving money to these developers to support what they were doing.
Call them whatever you want, but stop trying to assume that everyone has the same reasons. Stop trying to assume that if a couple of people are petty pirates with no morals that every single person who pirates is the same way.
Second paragraph doesn't say anything about why piracy shouldn't be worried about.
Piracy will happen no matter what, this proved it. However, this also proved that there are ways to reduce the piracy rate, none of which involved directly combating piracy. Considering the low rate of piracy here compared to other games, it shows that not worrying about piracy is BENEFICIAL. If you can't see this, then you're completely closed minded and assume that every one who pirates something, only does so because they want something for free and would definitely buy things they couldn't pirate. Perhaps you're a fan of 1 download = 1 lost sale? Try again.
And the last paragraph fails to show that charities and developers couldn't have used that money
What money? For all you know, every person who pirated it would not have paid thus the developers and charities would have made no extra money. Again, you're lumping every pirate together in as one group.
It's all well and good that you can find justification for pirating but it still doesn't make it OK.
Who said anything about me finding justification for pirating? I just have a pet peeve when people label an entire large group of individuals as something when it's very clear that not a single generalization about the group is correct for anything even close to a majority. If you want to comment about how you believe piracy is wrong, about why you think it's bad, go for it. Just don't try to use this to "prove" that the justifications and arguments that some pirates use are all BS when, it's a fact, that many many people who do pirate things, actually DID give money to the developers and charities to support this. Therefore it doesn't prove anything.
People keep saying "pirates" this and "pirates" that, is there some central conglomeration of pirates that I don't know about? Do they have meetings with eye patches and parrots, organizing their stories about the reasons they will give for why they pirate?
No?
Oh yea, "pirates" are an amorphous group of millions of individuals that all have their own reasons for what they do.
Is it possible there are a number of pirates that fit your description of being "so petty that even 1 cent is too much"? Absolutely. Does this in anyway invalidate the idea of pirating "because of DRM, low quality, or low value products"? Absolutely not. Some people have convictions and would normally pirate things but in this instance paid. Others have no care for anything and just want stuff for free. It's very disingenuous to try to lump every single person who pirates into one category of "pirates" when they all have different reasons. As others have said, maybe they were in an area of the world where they had no access to any of the payment methods and thereby could not get the games legally by any means.
I don't see how this proves that piracy isn't worth worrying about.
This bundle has had a piracy rate WELL below the average piracy rate of PC games, even if you raise the estimate by claiming it's a lower bound (which really based on the facts, the actual rate could be higher OR lower than the 25%). This alone proves that something about this resulted in much more people paying for their own copies. Whether it was the charities, supporting the idea of pay what you want, or merely being happy for no DRM, it just proves that piracy will happen no matter what. Therefore don't worry bout piracy, worry about appealing to your customers enough so that they will want to give you money for the product.
I'm sure that those developers and/or charities could have used that money.
Everyone could use some money, but can you say how many of the people who pirated it would have otherwise given any money at all? No, you can't.
He got the military Brass to go before a group of senators to have them repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and a bunch of conservatives decided they wouldn't do it. So if you want to blame someone about it, blame the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
Slashdot Mirror
clearly reading slashdot is much more useful than playing video games... /sarcasm
The need to play so much indicates(to me) that they don't have enough interesting, more important things to think about.
Why can't playing a video game be that "interesting, more important" thing that you say they don't have? Just as people still believe that Comic books are just for kids, people still have that stigma attached to video games. I can name many main stream comic books that are not for children even if many people think they are. Playing video games is just as legitimate of a hobby as woodworking, fishing, or reading a book, yet because of the idea it is "immature" gaming is frowned upon. For me, gaming led to a general interesting in all things computing and thus to a successful career as a software engineer. I still play video games on my free time because it is a hobby I enjoy. There are video games which are every bit as interesting and works of art as a movie, a book, or a painting.
Technically you must only provide clear directions on where to obtain the source from and take steps to ensure that the source is available for as long as you continue to distribute the ISOs. You do not actually have to supply the code yourself, as long as you can provide a way to obtain it in whatever way is requested.
A financial software and services provider. Why does it matter? Apparently there was some ActiveX module that management wanted them to take advantage of which required an IE only solution. Since nearly all of our clients (which are financial companies) use IE they of course, do not mind.
Actually there are a couple client-facing projects that only work in IE unfortunately. I do not work in the web development departments though.
Hopefully the Nero Lawsuit against MPEG-LA will either invalidate a bunch of patents or break up the patent pool enough to allow Theora and WebM to survive. Though, I wouldn't count either out until MPEG-LA actually states what patents they are infringing on. Until they actually state which Patents are being infringed this is still in FUD territory.
There's about a half dozen internally used applications where I work that were designed for IE and ONLY work in IE. IE Tab has saved me so much.
A lot of businesses are like that.
Uhm, Android browser has "windows" which is pretty much the same as tabs. Also, the addition of Flash WOULD have Hulu support, if there weren't Legal licensing issues preventing them from allowing it on mobile devices. There's no technical reason preventing it.
Not to mention that 'rooting' your android is just a geeky way of saying 'jailbreak'
Only rooting an android phone isn't illegal. Jailbreaking an iPhone is. :) Just ask Apple.
People should think twice (at least!) before relying on any vague promises
Yet they trust the MPEG-LA promise that after 2015, they'll continue to allow H.264 for non-commercial use for free. Suuuuuuuuuure.
Unfortunately due to licensing issues, Hulu has stated it will not deliver content on mobile devices via the website. Most likely there will be a native app soon, but for the time being the damn TV Companies won't let it show on mobile devices.
Do some research. Flash isn't going to be built into the OS so you'd be free to not download it, or if you get a new phone that comes packaged with it, you'd be free to uninstall it.
History is about facts, and getting as close to the truth as possible. To pretend the Founders were not Christians is anti-truth and makes you no better than the Texan book-writers.
To deny the founder fathers were deists means you haven't done your research.
The writings of George Washington contain frequent references to "God" and "our Creator"
Referring to "God" and "our Creator" does not, by definition, mean he's talking about Christianity. In fact, since he was a Deist. Deism believes that there is a Creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans either by scripture or revelation. The "God" they speak about is more akin to a "Mother Nature" or "God Of Nature" than that of the Bible. This isn't to say that there weren't any Christian men among the founders, but the vast majority were Deists not Christian. In several documents it is specifically said that the US is not found on Christianity. "It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it." - Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816 I believe that is quite concrete that Jefferson was not a Christian. See the link I provided earlier for many quotes. This is obviously not the only site with these facts, google around and you'll see. There is absolutely no basis in fact for claiming the founders were Christian. They were Deists.
History is about facts, and getting as close to the truth as possible.
I agree wholeheartedly, but make sure you have the facts before criticizing others.
To pretend the Founders were not Christians is anti-truth and makes you no better than the Texan book-writers.
To pretend they were Christians just means you're falling for their message instead of thinking for yourself.
throwing profitability out the window
I don't know 5 developers who each earned over $140k in around a week by re-releasing games that had already been released and made money before. I would call that pretty damn profitable.
There is value in IP. Money is usually exchanged for that value. The fact that people who pirated it would not have paid is irrelevant. Again, even if pirates decided to pay it was at the expense of profits.
There is value in IP. This value is determined by those who would like to trade for it (such as paying money). The fact that most who pirated it would not have paid is very relevant. There's no sale lost, there's no profit that was not had in those downloads. Nothing that could have been done would have changed anything there and therefore this isn't your target market. You don't release a product expecting every one to buy it, you only expect the target market to pay for it (and consider it a bonus when others you didn't expect to do). So why focus on stopping a segment of the market that is not profitable at the expense of shrinking your target market (thus reducing profitability) by way of DRM or other things.
Consider the fact that even the developers stated that they believe there is no acceptable inconvenience for paying customers that is worth attempting to stop piracy. It would seem the developers have the same attitude that the piracy is irrelevant other than a curiosity.
I know I'm just feeding the troll. I really don't want to do this.
Om nom nom. Thanks for the meal...but I'm not a troll. Thanks for labeling someone who simply disagrees with you and is trying to have a discussion as just a troll. :)
Seems like you haven't done much research. There's two types of cross-platform tools. There's one like what Adobe created that cross-compiles to native code that will run on an iPhone, and there's the other type which is middle-ware. Currently, there does not exist a "fancy cross-platform tool" that will port it to Android. (That I know of). The two parts of the Apple license that have pissed off developers are the thing that defined you can only use certain languages (which screws over Adobe's tool) and the part that bans all abstraction layers (this screws over middle-ware). Lesson in developing software, most cross-platform applications use an abstraction layer of some type which allows the developer to make minor changes and recompile the application for a separate platform. Therefore by both requiring specific languages and banning abstraction layers. They have effectively forced any developer who wants to cross develop for more than just the iPhone to still code an iPhone specific version. This alone forces the problem of development costs precluding cross-platform development.
What do you think Apple's motivation is for blocking flash? They still make all their money on hardware sales. The app store only exists to encourage people to develop for their products. The only reason that makes any sense is that Apple wants a higher quality product.
The point of blocking flash is to encourage people to ONLY develop for the iPhone. Development costs generally prohibit most apps from getting cross developed for multiple platforms. Sometimes things like Flash facilitate cross-platform development. If they get developers to only create apps for the iPhone instead of cross-platform, then people have more reasons to buy the iPhone hardware as the apps they want would only exist on the iPhone. Great business plan, horrible for consumers.
According to that article, Android, on all devices, is barely beating out iPhone OS on one device. iPhone OS is sold on three distinct devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad), of which the latter two were not included in the numbers. Android has a long way to go.
Actually, the study involved smartphone market share in the US. The iPod touch and iPad are not smart phones, which explains why they weren't included. As far as Android having a long time to go, quadrupling market share in only 6 months is a damn long way it's already come. =)
why use an abacus when you have a calculator
What do you do when your battery dies?
First paragraph is completely irrelevant. Would you rather we call them copyright infringers?
It seems that you need some reading comprehension. The first paragraph had absolutely nothing to do with what you call them. The entire point was that people should stop lumping all "pirates" or "copyright infringers" into one group and assuming they are some organized coalition of people that all have the same reasons.
It proves that even though pirates claim they pirate because of DRM, low quality, or low value products, they will still pirate even when those needs are met. It also proves that pirates are so petty that even 1 cent is too much for them. Even when that money would go to charity.
See, since the piracy rate was so low with the bundle, and there were still valid reasons for not paying (such as not being able to use any of the payment methods, to name one) it doesn't prove anything of the sort that you claim. Some pirates join in the DRM and low value arguments just to justify and then still pirated sure. However, a hell of a lot of people actually believe in those arguments and PAID for the bundle. You can't claim that this proves anything about ALL pirates. Then you say that "pirates are so petty that even 1 cent is too much for them." Again, maybe some pirates were that petty, but you don't know how many people who DO pirate games ended up giving money to these developers to support what they were doing. Call them whatever you want, but stop trying to assume that everyone has the same reasons. Stop trying to assume that if a couple of people are petty pirates with no morals that every single person who pirates is the same way.
Second paragraph doesn't say anything about why piracy shouldn't be worried about.
Piracy will happen no matter what, this proved it. However, this also proved that there are ways to reduce the piracy rate, none of which involved directly combating piracy. Considering the low rate of piracy here compared to other games, it shows that not worrying about piracy is BENEFICIAL. If you can't see this, then you're completely closed minded and assume that every one who pirates something, only does so because they want something for free and would definitely buy things they couldn't pirate. Perhaps you're a fan of 1 download = 1 lost sale? Try again.
And the last paragraph fails to show that charities and developers couldn't have used that money
What money? For all you know, every person who pirated it would not have paid thus the developers and charities would have made no extra money. Again, you're lumping every pirate together in as one group.
It's all well and good that you can find justification for pirating but it still doesn't make it OK.
Who said anything about me finding justification for pirating? I just have a pet peeve when people label an entire large group of individuals as something when it's very clear that not a single generalization about the group is correct for anything even close to a majority. If you want to comment about how you believe piracy is wrong, about why you think it's bad, go for it. Just don't try to use this to "prove" that the justifications and arguments that some pirates use are all BS when, it's a fact, that many many people who do pirate things, actually DID give money to the developers and charities to support this. Therefore it doesn't prove anything.
I don't see how this proves that piracy isn't worth worrying about.
This bundle has had a piracy rate WELL below the average piracy rate of PC games, even if you raise the estimate by claiming it's a lower bound (which really based on the facts, the actual rate could be higher OR lower than the 25%). This alone proves that something about this resulted in much more people paying for their own copies. Whether it was the charities, supporting the idea of pay what you want, or merely being happy for no DRM, it just proves that piracy will happen no matter what. Therefore don't worry bout piracy, worry about appealing to your customers enough so that they will want to give you money for the product.
I'm sure that those developers and/or charities could have used that money.
Everyone could use some money, but can you say how many of the people who pirated it would have otherwise given any money at all? No, you can't.
once we combine that cookie with the next rom image ripped from a related newer phone.
You should come up with a catchy name for this process, like "jailbreaking". :)
And contrary to jailbreaking, rooting an Android phone is not illegal. =)
It's like someone who can't read thinking that people who buy books do so because the covers are colourful.
*sniff sniff* But that cover was really colorful. It made me happy.
He got the military Brass to go before a group of senators to have them repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and a bunch of conservatives decided they wouldn't do it. So if you want to blame someone about it, blame the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
...after Mohammed's (ptooie) death...
Move along everyone, no bias to see here. Nope. not at all.
It's an empirically proven fact.
Don't be so restrained, you know it's a fudamental truth.
I am. Every download is a lost sale. About everything else, I doubt.
Come on, you know it's the ONLY truth. Everything else in the universe can be derived simply from this truth via complex equations and miracles.