Does anyone know the cost of this EOS system? I am not one of those to rant on system costs and how NASA is sucking up cash for whatever liberal cause is in the popular press. I was just wondering if this is a BIG budget kick or another small one?
I work at TRW (the company that produced this spacecraft, and some of the other recent NASA successes (e.g. Chandra)) and am privvy to the actual production costs. Obviously, I cannot give out figures, but we got good money's worth on this one.
NASA was particularly smart on this one, in that it is making two. EOS Chemistry is a follow-on, that reuses much of the existing spacecraft design (new payload, though) so we were able to realize a lot of savings by just referencing the original paperwork for many of the components (such as the propulsion system, which I got to work on briefly.)
Definitely agreed. Linux (or rather, the open source development model in general), can have a profound and beneficial effect on the quality and innovativeness of games. Games on Linux are great and welcome, but if we're still not able to mold and shape them into new forms, we're losing out on a lot of potential.
So in addition to supporting GUI development, web development, driver development, et al., don't forget about FreeCiv, WorldForge, CrystalSpace, and the like.:-)
What I wanted was some kind of simple scripting language where I could write a few simple rules for my vehicles and stations, rather than having to point and click for absolutely everything. Are there any games like this? (And don't say Core Wars:)
While it's still deep in development, WorldForge has exactly this plan in mind.
In parallel with our C++ server development effort, we are also developing a powerful scripted AI tool called Cyphesis which allows players to create customized scripts in Python. Cyphesis is a complete server in and of itself - you can run a game completely independent of any other server or client, although since it's in Python you're limited to a rather small number of entities.
Cyphesis bases its scripting on 'goals'. Rather than specify, "Move north, south, south, east, up", you will specify, "go to smithy and buy an axe" and the character uses internal AI logic to determine its path and what to do when it gets there. Cyphesis' author, Aloril, has plans for building in a wide wealth of artificial intelligence building blocks. If you're interested in helping develop AI stuff, drop him a line.
We intend to make very good use of Cyphesis in the WorldForge game system. In addition to being useful to players in running their own scripts, it can run goal-based monster AI's, ALife sims, and so forth.
While Cyphesis is still in alpha testing, you're encouraged to download it and check it out. And if you'd like to help developing it, or any other part of the WorldForge gaming system, hop on by our joining page for a todo list to get involved. It's a big system, as you can imagine, and we'd love to have more programmer and scripting help!:-)
I really like the fact that more 'strategy' type games are coming for linux. I really like that genre, but I think more are needed. Sure, there are myth and quake3, but I'd like to see something other than shooters and strategy.
How about an open source game that doesn't just emulate windoze games, but does something new and better.
Check out WorldForge then. We're building a game system for building massively multiplayer online roleplaying and strategy games (as opposed to the traditional twitch games). We're designing it to allow others to be able to reuse the bulk of it but change the game rules logic to be able to mold it into new and interesting forms.
If you'd like to join the team and help build this game system, we'd love to have you. Hop on over to the WorldForge join page. Then come on by our irc server: irc.worldforge.org / #forge.
I work at an aerospace company that in the past has developed some of the most exciting new technologies in rocketry, lasers, etc. Neat cutting edge kinds of things any geek would find fascinating. And the people that work there are uniformly extremely well educated and knowledgeable.
Yet over the past two years (in particular the early part of 1999) the brain drain set in. It seems that nearly everyone under 30 quit the company and changed careers, usually going to some random dotcom or another, in the hopes of using their brainpower to make quick cash through stock options and 80 hour weeks.
At the same time, the high value of the economy, lead to massive waves of retirements. People who had participated in Apollo, with a weath of know-how disappeared in incredible numbers.
Today the people who remain are those who cannot easily pick up and move (due to children, mortgages, etc.) or who fall into the "old dog" category - unwilling or unable to learn the skills like Perl, C++, UML needed to succeed in the internet market. Needless to say, these are not the aggressive, single-focus dedicated people that would be needed to make the space industry leap to new challenges.
And that is the other problem: No challenges. The attention that used to be fostered on the space industry by the government for Mars missions vs. Lunar bases vs. Spacestation vs. etc. now appears to be reserved for domain name control legislation, promoting internet morality, and helping or fighting companies exploiting the new internet industry.
Money that could be spent on developing tech for solar power satellites, or on global telecommunications systems, or on interstellar propulsion, is instead being focused into building Y2K bureacracies, setting up elaborate citizen tracking systems for the FBI (to make it easier to save us from those evil people), or exposing fellow politician's ineptitudes.
Of course, to do anything _really_ cool in space - going back to the Moon or Mars, or sending probes to other solar systems, for instance - would require a lot more money than we can handle right now. So I try to look at the current Internet boom as a massive project in increasing our communication and work efficiency, and in raising the standard of living high enough that our children can choose careers based on their interests, and not on the market's needs. And *then* maybe they can dust off the old space exploration books and have another go at it.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I totally agree with Roblimo's concerns, he's brought up an issue that's troubled me quite a bit.
This brings up an interesting chain of thought in my mind : could a game like EverQuest (a Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Game) be developed by the OpenSource community, without people trying to take advantage of the fact that they could hack the rules of the game?
In fact, I just so happen to be working on exactly this. The WorldForge Project is developing a sophisticated client/server gaming system with ambitions to one day overtake games like Ultima Online and EverQuest. All code is GPL'd, all art, music, documentation, and world design is under the Open Content Public License.
If you're looking for a game to hack on, we're it. Come on by our website or pop into our irc channel: irc.worldforge.org / #forge .
So, the next question is : is that a bad thing? I suppose that it is, under many circumstances, but I can imagine a game where part of the fun is to see how far you can hack the rules - within certain limits.
Yup, our intent is to produce not a _game_ but a game "system" - a complete game designed to be easily molded into other kinds of games. Or that you can just hack on to add a few new features.
As our population and technology has grown (and by all counts, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future), our electricity needs will continue to skyrocket. Upcoming electric cars, higher power computers, smart appliances, industrialization of the third world... yup, gonna need more power, Scotty.
Unfortunately, while all these needs grow, the available power generation capacity is not. True, new petrochemical sources are found every year, but there is obviously a limit to how much can be done there. Nuke plants are just not going to happen (popular opinion aside, the expense of maintaining safety and etc. is high and only going to grow after this disaster.) Hydroelectric and wind are only useful in a few discrete (and often scenic) areas of the world. Coal is a good long-term solution, although dirty and environmentally unsound. Coal, too, will run out, but not for a very long time.
The only truly scalable solution is the sun. Eventually we will have no choice but to go off-planet and build massive solar collector farms on the moon (and later, in space) to get this power and beam it (via microwaves) down to Earth.
I suppose one could use scare-tactics to drive investment into space exploration for the eventual goal of building these things, but there's really no need. As the petrochemicals get used up, and as nuke plants become less and less tolerated, the cost of energy will (slowly) rise. Eventually it will get to the point where it'll be profitable to invest in space. (I hope it's sooner rather than later, 'cause it'd be cool to see in my lifetime.)
Conservation of energy will really just delay the inevitable. Just like the squeaky wheel getting the grease, the space solution will only come about when the cost of developing the answer is less than the expected costs of terrestrial energy consumption. So use up that energy! Save the world by using up all the kilowatts you can!
Seriously, though, the practical answer is to support space development. Go see www.artemis.org and vote for congresscritters that support space.;-)
If I had to pick three limiting factors, here's what I'd point to:
Lack of Volume & Scale - Spacecraft today are mostly made in ones and twos. Everyone in the industry knows that the key to reducing costs is through Henry Ford-style Economy of Scale. I've sat through dozens of "cheap spacecraft" seminars that each boiled down to, "...and by doing this umpteen zillion times we'll reduce cost to X".
Unfortunately, the sticking point is not that we need to figure out a clever way of engineering an assembly line (which we pretty much already know really well through the automotive industry) but in figuring out how to greatly increase the demand. Some people speculate that as costs lower, demand will naturally pick up. Maybe, but then you're stuck with the chicken and egg situation of needing to increase demand before the cost savings kick in.
Another problem is that it really isn't possible to design a Model T of spacecraft - each one is slightly different, and has slightly different needs. And with launch costs as high as they are, you really try to maximize the functionality you get from the mass you are allowed. This is the failing of _many_ spacecraft mass production schemes.
Risk Adversity (or, Politics & Regulations) - An incredible amount of money goes into making sure that a satellite will not fail. Most of this is plain old paperwork - tons of it. _Especially_ with expensive spacecraft. The cynic in me observes that this fear is driven less by the desire to avoid astronaut deaths or loss of expensive equipment, than the fear of having your career destroyed when something you're involved in fails - there is an incredible amount of shame associated with being involved in a failed spacecraft (or even a failed _test_!!). And this drives up costs a LOT. Build two, and if the first fails, fix the second and launch it.
Aerospace companies are so frightened about investing in a new piece of hardware, it makes me laugh that Golden expects them to invest in risky new space ventures! He's right, that NASA ain't the one to do it, but neither are the big massive aerospace companies. Way too much adversity to risk. $1B is a lot of money to be risking to a stray meteorite, when you could be putting it into internet IPO's.;-)
Customization - Unlike cars, one satellite is not just like any other. Each one is custom tailored to meet particular needs.
Surprisingly, software is a major expense of satellite systems. It's very hand crafted. I would hope that some day someone abstracts the software for a spacecraft such that customization could be done via something like a config file, instead of custom low level hand coding.
Now, it seems to me that this need to customize each spacecraft could be addressed by making engineering software that is more dynamic and capable of doing most of the design customization automatically. But development of such software is beyond the ken of most aerospacers. The aerospace industry is still very much in the horse and buggy days when it comes to its design and analysis software. Most of it is in FORTRAN. That which is not, is often in Excel. But programming is considered to be monkey work, and is either given low priority, or inadequately funded (or both.) Smart, computer-literate kids like us end up quitting the aerospace industry and joining a dotcom.
Usually when I bring up the point that computers have gotten very powerful and can do a lot of the work that is currently done by hand, I usually get nothing more helpful than a "When I was your age, we used punch cards! And we liked it." 8-\ *Sigh* _ONE_ day someone will write a powerful, generalized and unified satellite engineering and design program and really clean up in the satellite business.
Anyway, I don't see these problems disappearing any time soon, and no matter how much NASA may wish for commercial companies to forge ahead in space exploration, it ain't gonna happen that easily. My personal opinion is that until a few more markets open up in space, commercial industry ain't going to be pushing us very far.
The next question is: How to build some new markets in space? That's the biggie that everyone is trying to answer. If you're curious of some of the many ideas people have thought of for getting started, check out www.asi.org, an organization founded on the very principles of furthering exploration through commercial means.
The game project I'm working on uses XML for its network protocol, its database stuff, and (some) configuration scripts. We've explored a lot of the available parsers and run into some issues but no major sticking points. The two key issues:
Streaming - To use XML across the web it is nice to be able to stream XML packets (e.g., object definitions) and collect them client side and make use of them in real time. None of the current parsers provide this adequately, although several are working on it. We had to develop our own library for streaming this stuff (libAtlasWF). It's focused mostly on real time 3D information transferral, customizable by receiver to filter out unneeded information. It's generic enough to be useful for a wide range of applications, though we're using it for game systems.
Binary - A major requirement for games (and other applications) is binary formats for performance reasons. This was a major argument against XML until we realized that the XML tags (and lots of the data) could be rendered in binary simply by replacing tags with particular bytecodes and such. Probably not as compactly efficient as a custom binary code, but extraordinarily flexible (e.g., develop in ASCII XML, then just flip a switch to go to performance-oriented binary, and redefine binary tags as needed).
We're calling this real-time, 3D, binary-ready protocol "Atlas". We'd love your input (and help) in bringing it to any application that could use it. We invision client applications that understand XML-Atlas and can communicate with any server talking in this language, and a variety of specialized servers doing the same.
As others are pointing out, copyrighting of databases presents some very troubling issues for the public. But what good would such a protection scheme do for the public good?
All freely concede that their goal is to preserve their private interests - the profitability of the databases they collect. And they see the potential threat as grave. Some even paint a database doomsday scenario, in which whole databases are secretly spirited away to the Internet, with no accountability for their accuracy.
This is clearly nothing more than FUD, drawing on emotions to make their case. The underlying assumption here is that commercial databases all have the desireable trait of being more reliable, whereas "secret Internet" databases are unreliable because there is "no one you can sue".
First, the number of times companies have gotten wrong addresses in their databases makes me doubt this. (Genealogy databases, for instance.) Second, check open databases like the Internet Movie Database or the CDDB, which tend to accumulate corrections from peer review, making the database better than it'd have been if kept closed.
But for the sake of the argument, consider if it is true that a "pirated" database is less reliable and thus harms the community - in this case, those who are most sensitive to the damage will prefer paying for the integrety and security (i.e., "brand") they'd get from the original producer.
The fear is that the work of assembling the database is subverted by the ease of copying of the data. Actually, databases on the internet make a lot more sense than traditional printed ones - they're easy to protect through electronic means, via paid accounts or whatnot.
But for sake of argument, let's say there are ways around it, due to the nature of the internet. But the "nature of the internet" probably makes it easier to collect and distribute the information, and provides a larger customer base than you'd normally have. This is like a farmer complaining about getting sunburn when out tending his crops.
Representative Frank says: "I think there is a value to society of people compiling databases. But if you get zero protection, why would you do it? Data compilation is not fun. It's not something people do for the sheer creative joy of it."
People compile data into databases because it is useful or profitable, rarely ever because it is "fun". People who enjoy compiling databases for fun - e.g., genealogists, fans, research scientists, etc. aren't likely to be charging money for use of the database, and thus won't be harmed (other than their dignity) if someone copies and re-releases the data, even at a charge. A law such as described would thus probably provide little benefit to these desirable free databases. On the other hand, those laws could be used as weapons against these free database producers. Thus, this law might actually _hinder_ the "fun" of creating databases.
Also note that one of the features of copyright is that the work eventually enter the public domain. Unless there is a mechanism to force the database manufacturer to reveal the complete contents of their database for others to take advantage of when the copyright expires, then the benefit to society is *greatly* lessened.
A parent browsing the Internet for poison remedies would have no legal recourse if the pirated version of the index, published without updates, revisions or accurate instructions, gave outdated medical advice...
Most likely, a non-pirated version of the index would have some sort of "no warranty" disclaimer to avoid subjecting the database provider from being subject to legal recourse. Also, if the parent can't find the information because its locked away in proprietary, commercial databases, does _that_ help things?
Not to say that database piracy is _good_ for society, but the argument that providing legal protection to commercial databases benefits society is unfounded. Indeed, one could make a pretty compelling argument that the reverse would occur instead.
The GPL may help here. If a database is copyrightable.. wouldn't that consitute a derived work, and as such falls under the terms of the GPL?
Now there's an idea... copylefting data to be collected into databases. If this database law passes, it can be used to combat itself:
"The information in this database may be redistributed and modified freely, and may be incorporated in part or in whole into other collections of data, provided that the resultant larger work also abide by the terms of this license."
Then, take a bunch of addresses (or whatever), put them in a database under this license and make it widely available. Anyone who produces a database including these items now must follow your licensing scheme.;-)
A lot of people have noted that the patent system appears to be broken, with respect to software (or algorithms, processes, orbits, et al.)
Some have suggested tossing out the whole system and not permitting software patents at all. But I'm wondering if there might be some good to patents after all, and that this would throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ignoring how patents are used _now_ and whether they are operating according to plan or not, here is what it seems like the intent behind them is:
Allow someone a limited monopoly for doing the hard work of developing the concept, making development work profitable in the face of aggressive competitors. It allows the developer to take legal action against those who copy the idea exactly.
Assure that the work of the developer eventually be released in detail to allow everyone else the freedom to use the invention, exactly as developed, and with no further restrictions. After the expiration of the patent, the developer can no longer use legal action against others.
The patent office serves as a watchdog organization principly to assure that the item is not something that has already been done. It also registers the method of creating the invention so that others can save the work of recreating it later.
I think that the problems that we're having with software patents are not so much that software patents are wrong, but that they aren't properly following the patent system's intent. Here is I think it could be corrected to work as it was intended (with a couple additions for added safety, just 'cause we can):
Rather than registering a "concept" for a piece of software, you register the implementation of the software itself. I.e., the source code. For a period of time you are permitted exclusive use of that particular implementation of the concepts in the code, and can take legal action against those who copy it, with the full backing of the government. However, at the expiration of your patent, the source code becomes public domain (or perhaps GPL?) I suspect the life of the patent should be reduced to, say, 3 years - enough time to allow you to implement and market your idea, and build a brand name, but short enough so that the public can make use of your ideas themselves, later.
The current difficulty for the patent office to verify that the patent application is new art is greatly simplified; they can "diff" the code (figuratively, if not literally) against existing code. Checking for infringement is also much simplified - one need only compare the patented code against that of the accused infringer - if the patent office's computers determine a sufficiently high level of correlation between the software, it infringes, else it's kicked out.
One of the reasons I think the above process is better than the current patent process is that the whole procedure can be computerized and automated. You'd only need humans to take care of appeals and cases that the computer can't figure out.
I think this might result in *more* software patent grants than currently, but the breadth of those patents would be less; someone might get a patent for a program that uses a particular kind of genetic algorithm to create machine code for teaching Furbies to wash dishes, but not on "use of algorithms to create source code for embedded applications". The use of the same process for making Furbies read books to children would be a different patent.
An individual inventor could then come up with a unique new idea and have it protected while he builds a company around it and IPO's. A large company with deep pockets would have to do a lot of software development in order to get really broad patents (and then give all that code away to the software community after a few years).
Anyway, assuming that software patents are indeed necessary, I wonder if the above concept would be a lot better than the current one.
INWO never really appealed to me, but me and my buddies used to play game after game of the original game, so I for one am happy to see it back. Ah, the backstabbing, second-guessing, and downright dirty dealing of that game!
Now what I'd like to see is an online version! :-)
1. Make moderation points last longer, or maybe not even expire.
I'd like to see them last a few days longer, but I see the wisdom in the current system. If your points never expire, you might not use them for "unimportant" threads, instead waiting for a thread you really care about. If you know you only have a few days to use them, you may end up doing (desired) moderation sooner rather than later.
I see things that deserve to be moderated up or down and I can't.
I imagine we all do. It'd be nice to have a way to show support for a post we really like, but I think we can rely on later moderators to apply points appropriately.
#2. Someone else mentioned... divide the score of a post into each category... it seems like a good idea to me.
Agreed. This is a *really* good idea.
#4. Dynamically generate the moderators. I'm not sure how it's done now, but as slashdot grows the number of moderators it will need grows too.
Essentially, Slash creates a number of moderators semi-proportional to the number of comments posted. It's explained more further here.
One other comment regarding IP Banning... Instead of a simple ban, I think it would be more in keeping with the way Slash is going with all other filtering stuff and make it toggleable. That is, the user can choose to filter out all posts from any IP that has posted more than X items to a given thread that day. I suspect this would be pretty heavy on the server, but maybe there's a clever and efficient way to implement it.
2) Eliminate Anonymous Cowardice... This sounds extreme..
Agreed. Since AC is used for a few different purposes, might it make sense to somehow provide a few additional tagnames people could choose from? There are *tons* of AC posts, it'd be nice to at least attempt to differentiate a bit...
3) Combat moderator overload by making more moderators The problem here is that average posts may get marked higher than they should.
I think we're a tad on the lean side for moderators. Allowing a few more may help. One of the point of points I think is to put some gradiation into the posts, so that the reader is able to match the number of posts to how much time he has. So even if some average posts get marked a tad higher than others, this may be okay. This way maybe instead of having 200 +1 comments, 10 +2 comments, and 1 +3 comment, we'd have 150 +1, 50 +2, and 11 +3.
1) Make the score system secondary to classification system.
I *love* this idea! Definitely gets my vote! Extending your idea... Posters could choose to give an initial label their post themselves if they wish - "off topic", "joke", etc. Moderators might change it later, but it'd help key the filters a bit (and might help posters avoid getting moderated down for something that was intentially off topic or a joke.)
2) Personalize the scoring system for each reader.
Some have said this would be too complicated, but as long as there are reasonable defaults in the user settings, I think this could be good. Although I'm not sure I would bother with setting points for particular authors, and the point subtraction for AC's is built in (or do you mean to provide an override?) But being able to add/subtract from certain types of posts is very good.
Hmm... Some people might actually want to see the flame bait and trolls preferentially over the "normal" posts... I guess this could turn Slashdot into one of those old two-sided books that had one story when read one way, but turned upside down there's another story in it. That'd be... odd. Interesting and cool, but odd... -1 Interesting, -1 Insightful, +1 troll, +1 off topic... Probably it'd just encourage bad behavior.
In addition, I added a much requested feature to allow posters to optionally pass on the +1 bonus when they post.
Be aware of a potential loophole here. If one wishes to up their karma, they could write a reply that they know will be good, and artifically de-flate it by passing on the +1 - thus being more assured of getting moderated up.
Now, I'm not sure if this is abusive, or if it is a "payment mechanism" to lure would-be abusers into writing good comments.;-) I *think* that it is only abusive if there is a scarcity of moderator points... I think that simply increasing the pool of available moderator points would compensate for this behavior.
Yes, I'm probably stuck in game designer mode, and this may not even matter since all you get out of more points is this +1 anyway, but hey, points is points. (Btw, I think this new system could *really* make things a lot better. Good work!)
I did a job a while back for Inmarsat. Inmarsat are lucky - they have geostationary satellites, which are a patently good idea because they stay where you put them, so to speak. Of course there is almost no room for geostatic satellites left but hey...
GEO sats have drawbacks too. Most importantly, it takes a fsck-load of propellant to get out there.
So, you have hundreds of high speed satellites wizzing around requiring a load of fuel to keep on track. (And when the fuel runs out, the satellite is dead and needs replacing)
A GEO satellite requires an order of magnitude or two more propellant than a Low Earth Orbit Sat. Frequency of replacement of the satellite is driven less by running out of fuel than by the life of the electronics. Also, GEO satellites do _not_ just "stay put". The amount of fuel needed to keep a GEO sat from drifting across the sky is incredibly higher than that needed by a LEO sat to stay on track.
Another point - GEO satellites require the largest launch vehicles to get up there. LEO sats can be launched on just about anything, and in a constellation like this one, several sats can be launched by a single launch vehicle.
And if a single one goes wrong, the chances of it colliding with another are remarkably high, thus wiping out the whole lot in that orbit. (Well, risiking doing so...)
Hmm... FUD. While it is within the realm of possibility, and certainly taken into account during the design, these things are spaced so far apart that collision just isn't going to be that much of a danger.
Some issues you didn't mention that I find to be much bigger... Unlike GEO, these sats are up near the radiation belts (which is why electronics life is the limiting factor for the system.) And simply _producing_ the quantity of satellites these constellations need is a logistical trick that aerospace companies are not used to. And a constellation of hundreds of satellites are really, really expensive.
Like anything else in life, there's trades. GEO sats are good for some applications, LEO constellations good for others. Personally, I wonder if constellation systems can provide all that much more than ground based systems. That said, I do think things like Iridium are cool, and I hope some of the follow-on systems have a chance to get off the ground. I'm sure there's a niche to be found someplace, and the idea of being telecommute from anywhere in the world (i.e., travel the globe without ever taking a day off work) is just too cool.;-)
What happens after that? Do they burn up or something? An occasional Iridium flare is neat, but I don't want to live in a world where the night sky is littered with @#$*! Iridium satellites.
End of life for this class of satellite is not when it re-enters, but when the expected reliability of the electronics, battery, and solar array fall below a certain desired level. Typically, some amount of propellant is reserved to do a deorbit burn to take the satellite out of its position, and cause it to fall back into the atmosphere and burn up over a long (25 years?) period.
If you find this commercial Neverwinter Nights game interesting, you will probably find the WorldForge project (www.worldforge.org) interesting. If you are a good artist, musician, or programmer, and have time to dedicate to helping, we'd love to have you. And we're of course always open to positive encouragement!
The WorldForge Project is building systems for massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, to be released freely under the GPL and OpenContent Public License.
WorldForge's approach is not to create a single game but instead a flexible framework that can support a variety of different kinds of servers, clients, rule sets, worlds, and so forth. We are developing a standardized protocol called Atlas to permit a "common language" between the various programs.
The screenshots and music are definitely worth checking out. We've also got a prototype demo client/server put together, which you can snag from our CVS archive if you're interested. We'll release distros and such in a week or so if there's interest.
Also, slightly off topic, but I worry that Open Source development will slow down drastically if there is a lot of Open Source projects. Actually, I suspect the more there are the better, for two reasons: First, because more projects will draw in more people (and get them indoctrinated/educated). Second, because open source projects, by definition, can share code between themselves. For example, I worked briefly on mozilla last year, and while my code never made it in (it was for Windows FE toolbar stuff that got completely chucked), I learned a lot of stuff that I've been able to apply in other net projects. The more projects there are, and the more code sharing, then the more eyeballs there will be on the internal libraries and the OS itelf, which means better performance, fewer bugs, more features...:-)
You may also be interested in looking at WorldForge, Cyphesis and Lycadican, as some other Linux game development projects in need of developers. These are more fantasy roleplaying oriented. -- Bryce
Slashdot Mirror
I work at TRW (the company that produced this spacecraft, and some of the other recent NASA successes (e.g. Chandra)) and am privvy to the actual production costs. Obviously, I cannot give out figures, but we got good money's worth on this one.
NASA was particularly smart on this one, in that it is making two. EOS Chemistry is a follow-on, that reuses much of the existing spacecraft design (new payload, though) so we were able to realize a lot of savings by just referencing the original paperwork for many of the components (such as the propulsion system, which I got to work on briefly.)
Definitely agreed. Linux (or rather, the open source development model in general), can have a profound and beneficial effect on the quality and innovativeness of games. Games on Linux are great and welcome, but if we're still not able to mold and shape them into new forms, we're losing out on a lot of potential.
So in addition to supporting GUI development, web development, driver development, et al., don't forget about FreeCiv, WorldForge, CrystalSpace, and the like. :-)
What I wanted was some kind of simple scripting language where I could write a few simple rules for my vehicles and stations, rather than having to point and click for absolutely everything. Are there any games like this? (And don't say Core Wars :)
While it's still deep in development, WorldForge has exactly this plan in mind.
In parallel with our C++ server development effort, we are also developing a powerful scripted AI tool called Cyphesis which allows players to create customized scripts in Python. Cyphesis is a complete server in and of itself - you can run a game completely independent of any other server or client, although since it's in Python you're limited to a rather small number of entities.
Cyphesis bases its scripting on 'goals'. Rather than specify, "Move north, south, south, east, up", you will specify, "go to smithy and buy an axe" and the character uses internal AI logic to determine its path and what to do when it gets there. Cyphesis' author, Aloril, has plans for building in a wide wealth of artificial intelligence building blocks. If you're interested in helping develop AI stuff, drop him a line.
We intend to make very good use of Cyphesis in the WorldForge game system. In addition to being useful to players in running their own scripts, it can run goal-based monster AI's, ALife sims, and so forth.
While Cyphesis is still in alpha testing, you're encouraged to download it and check it out. And if you'd like to help developing it, or any other part of the WorldForge gaming system, hop on by our joining page for a todo list to get involved. It's a big system, as you can imagine, and we'd love to have more programmer and scripting help! :-)
How about an open source game that doesn't just emulate windoze games, but does something new and better.
Check out WorldForge then. We're building a game system for building massively multiplayer online roleplaying and strategy games (as opposed to the traditional twitch games). We're designing it to allow others to be able to reuse the bulk of it but change the game rules logic to be able to mold it into new and interesting forms.
You'll probably want to check out our FAQ first.
If you'd like to join the team and help build this game system, we'd love to have you. Hop on over to the WorldForge join page. Then come on by our irc server: irc.worldforge.org / #forge.
Roblimo is exactly right.
I work at an aerospace company that in the past has developed some of the most exciting new technologies in rocketry, lasers, etc. Neat cutting edge kinds of things any geek would find fascinating. And the people that work there are uniformly extremely well educated and knowledgeable.
Yet over the past two years (in particular the early part of 1999) the brain drain set in. It seems that nearly everyone under 30 quit the company and changed careers, usually going to some random dotcom or another, in the hopes of using their brainpower to make quick cash through stock options and 80 hour weeks.
At the same time, the high value of the economy, lead to massive waves of retirements. People who had participated in Apollo, with a weath of know-how disappeared in incredible numbers.
Today the people who remain are those who cannot easily pick up and move (due to children, mortgages, etc.) or who fall into the "old dog" category - unwilling or unable to learn the skills like Perl, C++, UML needed to succeed in the internet market. Needless to say, these are not the aggressive, single-focus dedicated people that would be needed to make the space industry leap to new challenges.
And that is the other problem: No challenges. The attention that used to be fostered on the space industry by the government for Mars missions vs. Lunar bases vs. Spacestation vs. etc. now appears to be reserved for domain name control legislation, promoting internet morality, and helping or fighting companies exploiting the new internet industry.
Money that could be spent on developing tech for solar power satellites, or on global telecommunications systems, or on interstellar propulsion, is instead being focused into building Y2K bureacracies, setting up elaborate citizen tracking systems for the FBI (to make it easier to save us from those evil people), or exposing fellow politician's ineptitudes.
Of course, to do anything _really_ cool in space - going back to the Moon or Mars, or sending probes to other solar systems, for instance - would require a lot more money than we can handle right now. So I try to look at the current Internet boom as a massive project in increasing our communication and work efficiency, and in raising the standard of living high enough that our children can choose careers based on their interests, and not on the market's needs. And *then* maybe they can dust off the old space exploration books and have another go at it.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I totally agree with Roblimo's concerns, he's brought up an issue that's troubled me quite a bit.
And feel free to come by our irc channel too: irc.worldforge.org / #forge
If you'd like to join in, here's a "HOWTO": http://www.worldforge.org/website/ about/jointeam
This brings up an interesting chain of thought in my mind : could a game like EverQuest (a Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Game) be developed by the OpenSource community, without people trying to take advantage of the fact that they could hack the rules of the game?
In fact, I just so happen to be working on exactly this. The WorldForge Project is developing a sophisticated client/server gaming system with ambitions to one day overtake games like Ultima Online and EverQuest. All code is GPL'd, all art, music, documentation, and world design is under the Open Content Public License.
If you're looking for a game to hack on, we're it. Come on by our website or pop into our irc channel: irc.worldforge.org / #forge .
So, the next question is : is that a bad thing? I suppose that it is, under many circumstances, but I can imagine a game where part of the fun is to see how far you can hack the rules - within certain limits.
Yup, our intent is to produce not a _game_ but a game "system" - a complete game designed to be easily molded into other kinds of games. Or that you can just hack on to add a few new features.
As our population and technology has grown (and by all counts, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future), our electricity needs will continue to skyrocket. Upcoming electric cars, higher power computers, smart appliances, industrialization of the third world... yup, gonna need more power, Scotty.
Unfortunately, while all these needs grow, the available power generation capacity is not. True, new petrochemical sources are found every year, but there is obviously a limit to how much can be done there. Nuke plants are just not going to happen (popular opinion aside, the expense of maintaining safety and etc. is high and only going to grow after this disaster.) Hydroelectric and wind are only useful in a few discrete (and often scenic) areas of the world. Coal is a good long-term solution, although dirty and environmentally unsound. Coal, too, will run out, but not for a very long time.
The only truly scalable solution is the sun. Eventually we will have no choice but to go off-planet and build massive solar collector farms on the moon (and later, in space) to get this power and beam it (via microwaves) down to Earth.
I suppose one could use scare-tactics to drive investment into space exploration for the eventual goal of building these things, but there's really no need. As the petrochemicals get used up, and as nuke plants become less and less tolerated, the cost of energy will (slowly) rise. Eventually it will get to the point where it'll be profitable to invest in space. (I hope it's sooner rather than later, 'cause it'd be cool to see in my lifetime.)
Conservation of energy will really just delay the inevitable. Just like the squeaky wheel getting the grease, the space solution will only come about when the cost of developing the answer is less than the expected costs of terrestrial energy consumption. So use up that energy! Save the world by using up all the kilowatts you can!
Seriously, though, the practical answer is to support space development. Go see www.artemis.org and vote for congresscritters that support space. ;-)
Lack of Volume & Scale - Spacecraft today are mostly made in ones and twos. Everyone in the industry knows that the key to reducing costs is through Henry Ford-style Economy of Scale. I've sat through dozens of "cheap spacecraft" seminars that each boiled down to, "...and by doing this umpteen zillion times we'll reduce cost to X".
Unfortunately, the sticking point is not that we need to figure out a clever way of engineering an assembly line (which we pretty much already know really well through the automotive industry) but in figuring out how to greatly increase the demand. Some people speculate that as costs lower, demand will naturally pick up. Maybe, but then you're stuck with the chicken and egg situation of needing to increase demand before the cost savings kick in.
Another problem is that it really isn't possible to design a Model T of spacecraft - each one is slightly different, and has slightly different needs. And with launch costs as high as they are, you really try to maximize the functionality you get from the mass you are allowed. This is the failing of _many_ spacecraft mass production schemes.
Risk Adversity (or, Politics & Regulations) - An incredible amount of money goes into making sure that a satellite will not fail. Most of this is plain old paperwork - tons of it. _Especially_ with expensive spacecraft. The cynic in me observes that this fear is driven less by the desire to avoid astronaut deaths or loss of expensive equipment, than the fear of having your career destroyed when something you're involved in fails - there is an incredible amount of shame associated with being involved in a failed spacecraft (or even a failed _test_!!). And this drives up costs a LOT. Build two, and if the first fails, fix the second and launch it.
Aerospace companies are so frightened about investing in a new piece of hardware, it makes me laugh that Golden expects them to invest in risky new space ventures! He's right, that NASA ain't the one to do it, but neither are the big massive aerospace companies. Way too much adversity to risk. $1B is a lot of money to be risking to a stray meteorite, when you could be putting it into internet IPO's. ;-)
Customization - Unlike cars, one satellite is not just like any other. Each one is custom tailored to meet particular needs.
Surprisingly, software is a major expense of satellite systems. It's very hand crafted. I would hope that some day someone abstracts the software for a spacecraft such that customization could be done via something like a config file, instead of custom low level hand coding.
Now, it seems to me that this need to customize each spacecraft could be addressed by making engineering software that is more dynamic and capable of doing most of the design customization automatically. But development of such software is beyond the ken of most aerospacers. The aerospace industry is still very much in the horse and buggy days when it comes to its design and analysis software. Most of it is in FORTRAN. That which is not, is often in Excel. But programming is considered to be monkey work, and is either given low priority, or inadequately funded (or both.) Smart, computer-literate kids like us end up quitting the aerospace industry and joining a dotcom.
Usually when I bring up the point that computers have gotten very powerful and can do a lot of the work that is currently done by hand, I usually get nothing more helpful than a "When I was your age, we used punch cards! And we liked it." 8-\ *Sigh* _ONE_ day someone will write a powerful, generalized and unified satellite engineering and design program and really clean up in the satellite business.
Anyway, I don't see these problems disappearing any time soon, and no matter how much NASA may wish for commercial companies to forge ahead in space exploration, it ain't gonna happen that easily. My personal opinion is that until a few more markets open up in space, commercial industry ain't going to be pushing us very far.
The next question is: How to build some new markets in space? That's the biggie that everyone is trying to answer. If you're curious of some of the many ideas people have thought of for getting started, check out www.asi.org, an organization founded on the very principles of furthering exploration through commercial means.
Bryce
The game project I'm working on uses XML for its network protocol, its database stuff, and (some) configuration scripts. We've explored a lot of the available parsers and run into some issues but no major sticking points. The two key issues:
Streaming - To use XML across the web it is nice to be able to stream XML packets (e.g., object definitions) and collect them client side and make use of them in real time. None of the current parsers provide this adequately, although several are working on it. We had to develop our own library for streaming this stuff (libAtlasWF). It's focused mostly on real time 3D information transferral, customizable by receiver to filter out unneeded information. It's generic enough to be useful for a wide range of applications, though we're using it for game systems.
Binary - A major requirement for games (and other applications) is binary formats for performance reasons. This was a major argument against XML until we realized that the XML tags (and lots of the data) could be rendered in binary simply by replacing tags with particular bytecodes and such. Probably not as compactly efficient as a custom binary code, but extraordinarily flexible (e.g., develop in ASCII XML, then just flip a switch to go to performance-oriented binary, and redefine binary tags as needed).
We're calling this real-time, 3D, binary-ready protocol "Atlas". We'd love your input (and help) in bringing it to any application that could use it. We invision client applications that understand XML-Atlas and can communicate with any server talking in this language, and a variety of specialized servers doing the same.
Here's some links to information about Atlas: Atlas Version 1.0, and WF Protocols
Bryce
As others are pointing out, copyrighting of databases presents some very troubling issues for the public. But what good would such a protection scheme do for the public good?
All freely concede that their goal is to preserve their private interests - the profitability of the databases they collect. And they see the potential threat as grave. Some even paint a database doomsday scenario, in which whole databases are secretly spirited away to the Internet, with no accountability for their accuracy.
This is clearly nothing more than FUD, drawing on emotions to make their case. The underlying assumption here is that commercial databases all have the desireable trait of being more reliable, whereas "secret Internet" databases are unreliable because there is "no one you can sue".
First, the number of times companies have gotten wrong addresses in their databases makes me doubt this. (Genealogy databases, for instance.) Second, check open databases like the Internet Movie Database or the CDDB, which tend to accumulate corrections from peer review, making the database better than it'd have been if kept closed.
But for the sake of the argument, consider if it is true that a "pirated" database is less reliable and thus harms the community - in this case, those who are most sensitive to the damage will prefer paying for the integrety and security (i.e., "brand") they'd get from the original producer.
The fear is that the work of assembling the database is subverted by the ease of copying of the data. Actually, databases on the internet make a lot more sense than traditional printed ones - they're easy to protect through electronic means, via paid accounts or whatnot.
But for sake of argument, let's say there are ways around it, due to the nature of the internet. But the "nature of the internet" probably makes it easier to collect and distribute the information, and provides a larger customer base than you'd normally have. This is like a farmer complaining about getting sunburn when out tending his crops.
Representative Frank says: "I think there is a value to society of people compiling databases. But if you get zero protection, why would you do it? Data compilation is not fun. It's not something people do for the sheer creative joy of it."
People compile data into databases because it is useful or profitable, rarely ever because it is "fun". People who enjoy compiling databases for fun - e.g., genealogists, fans, research scientists, etc. aren't likely to be charging money for use of the database, and thus won't be harmed (other than their dignity) if someone copies and re-releases the data, even at a charge. A law such as described would thus probably provide little benefit to these desirable free databases. On the other hand, those laws could be used as weapons against these free database producers. Thus, this law might actually _hinder_ the "fun" of creating databases.
Also note that one of the features of copyright is that the work eventually enter the public domain. Unless there is a mechanism to force the database manufacturer to reveal the complete contents of their database for others to take advantage of when the copyright expires, then the benefit to society is *greatly* lessened.
A parent browsing the Internet for poison remedies would have no legal recourse if the pirated version of the index, published without updates, revisions or accurate instructions, gave outdated medical advice...
Most likely, a non-pirated version of the index would have some sort of "no warranty" disclaimer to avoid subjecting the database provider from being subject to legal recourse. Also, if the parent can't find the information because its locked away in proprietary, commercial databases, does _that_ help things?
Not to say that database piracy is _good_ for society, but the argument that providing legal protection to commercial databases benefits society is unfounded. Indeed, one could make a pretty compelling argument that the reverse would occur instead.
Now there's an idea... copylefting data to be collected into databases. If this database law passes, it can be used to combat itself:
"The information in this database may be redistributed and modified freely, and may be incorporated in part or in whole into other collections of data, provided that the resultant larger work also abide by the terms of this license."
Then, take a bunch of addresses (or whatever), put them in a database under this license and make it widely available. Anyone who produces a database including these items now must follow your licensing scheme. ;-)
A lot of people have noted that the patent system appears to be broken, with respect to software (or algorithms, processes, orbits, et al.)
Some have suggested tossing out the whole system and not permitting software patents at all. But I'm wondering if there might be some good to patents after all, and that this would throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ignoring how patents are used _now_ and whether they are operating according to plan or not, here is what it seems like the intent behind them is:
The patent office serves as a watchdog organization principly to assure that the item is not something that has already been done. It also registers the method of creating the invention so that others can save the work of recreating it later.
I think that the problems that we're having with software patents are not so much that software patents are wrong, but that they aren't properly following the patent system's intent. Here is I think it could be corrected to work as it was intended (with a couple additions for added safety, just 'cause we can):
Rather than registering a "concept" for a piece of software, you register the implementation of the software itself. I.e., the source code. For a period of time you are permitted exclusive use of that particular implementation of the concepts in the code, and can take legal action against those who copy it, with the full backing of the government. However, at the expiration of your patent, the source code becomes public domain (or perhaps GPL?) I suspect the life of the patent should be reduced to, say, 3 years - enough time to allow you to implement and market your idea, and build a brand name, but short enough so that the public can make use of your ideas themselves, later.
The current difficulty for the patent office to verify that the patent application is new art is greatly simplified; they can "diff" the code (figuratively, if not literally) against existing code. Checking for infringement is also much simplified - one need only compare the patented code against that of the accused infringer - if the patent office's computers determine a sufficiently high level of correlation between the software, it infringes, else it's kicked out.
One of the reasons I think the above process is better than the current patent process is that the whole procedure can be computerized and automated. You'd only need humans to take care of appeals and cases that the computer can't figure out.
I think this might result in *more* software patent grants than currently, but the breadth of those patents would be less; someone might get a patent for a program that uses a particular kind of genetic algorithm to create machine code for teaching Furbies to wash dishes, but not on "use of algorithms to create source code for embedded applications". The use of the same process for making Furbies read books to children would be a different patent.
An individual inventor could then come up with a unique new idea and have it protected while he builds a company around it and IPO's. A large company with deep pockets would have to do a lot of software development in order to get really broad patents (and then give all that code away to the software community after a few years).
Anyway, assuming that software patents are indeed necessary, I wonder if the above concept would be a lot better than the current one.
Bryce
INWO never really appealed to me, but me and my
buddies used to play game after game of the
original game, so I for one am happy to see it
back. Ah, the backstabbing, second-guessing,
and downright dirty dealing of that game!
Now what I'd like to see is an online version!
:-)
Bryce
1. Make moderation points last longer, or maybe not even expire.
I'd like to see them last a few days longer, but I see the wisdom in the current system. If your points never expire, you might not use them for "unimportant" threads, instead waiting for a thread you really care about. If you know you only have a few days to use them, you may end up doing (desired) moderation sooner rather than later.
I see things that deserve to be moderated up or down and I can't.
I imagine we all do. It'd be nice to have a way to show support for a post we really like, but I think we can rely on later moderators to apply points appropriately.
#2. Someone else mentioned... divide the score of a post into each category... it seems like a good idea to me.
Agreed. This is a *really* good idea.
#4. Dynamically generate the moderators. I'm not sure how it's done now, but as slashdot grows the number of moderators it will need grows too.
Essentially, Slash creates a number of moderators semi-proportional to the number of comments posted. It's explained more further here.
One other comment regarding IP Banning... Instead of a simple ban, I think it would be more in keeping with the way Slash is going with all other filtering stuff and make it toggleable. That is, the user can choose to filter out all posts from any IP that has posted more than X items to a given thread that day. I suspect this would be pretty heavy on the server, but maybe there's a clever and efficient way to implement it.
2) Eliminate Anonymous Cowardice... This sounds extreme..
Agreed. Since AC is used for a few different purposes, might it make sense to somehow provide a few additional tagnames people could choose from? There are *tons* of AC posts, it'd be nice to at least attempt to differentiate a bit...
3) Combat moderator overload by making more moderators
The problem here is that average posts may get marked higher than they should.
I think we're a tad on the lean side for moderators. Allowing a few more may help. One of the point of points I think is to put some gradiation into the posts, so that the reader is able to match the number of posts to how much time he has. So even if some average posts get marked a tad higher than others, this may be okay. This way maybe instead of having 200 +1 comments, 10 +2 comments, and 1 +3 comment, we'd have 150 +1, 50 +2, and 11 +3.
1) Make the score system secondary to classification system.
I *love* this idea! Definitely gets my vote! Extending your idea... Posters could choose to give an initial label their post themselves if they wish - "off topic", "joke", etc. Moderators might change it later, but it'd help key the filters a bit (and might help posters avoid getting moderated down for something that was intentially off topic or a joke.)
2) Personalize the scoring system for each reader.
Some have said this would be too complicated, but as long as there are reasonable defaults in the user settings, I think this could be good. Although I'm not sure I would bother with setting points for particular authors, and the point subtraction for AC's is built in (or do you mean to provide an override?) But being able to add/subtract from certain types of posts is very good.
Hmm... Some people might actually want to see the flame bait and trolls preferentially over the "normal" posts... I guess this could turn Slashdot into one of those old two-sided books that had one story when read one way, but turned upside down there's another story in it. That'd be... odd. Interesting and cool, but odd... -1 Interesting, -1 Insightful, +1 troll, +1 off topic... Probably it'd just encourage bad behavior.
In addition, I added a much requested feature to allow posters to optionally pass on the +1 bonus when they post.
Be aware of a potential loophole here. If one wishes to up their karma, they could write a reply that they know will be good, and artifically de-flate it by passing on the +1 - thus being more assured of getting moderated up.
Now, I'm not sure if this is abusive, or if it is a "payment mechanism" to lure would-be abusers into writing good comments. ;-) I *think* that it is only abusive if there is a scarcity of moderator points... I think that simply increasing the pool of available moderator points would compensate for this behavior.
Yes, I'm probably stuck in game designer mode, and this may not even matter since all you get out of more points is this +1 anyway, but hey, points is points. (Btw, I think this new system could *really* make things a lot better. Good work!)
GEO sats have drawbacks too. Most importantly, it takes a fsck-load of propellant to get out there.
So, you have hundreds of high speed satellites wizzing around requiring a load of fuel to keep on track. (And when the fuel runs out, the satellite is dead and needs replacing)
A GEO satellite requires an order of magnitude or two more propellant than a Low Earth Orbit Sat. Frequency of replacement of the satellite is driven less by running out of fuel than by the life of the electronics. Also, GEO satellites do _not_ just "stay put". The amount of fuel needed to keep a GEO sat from drifting across the sky is incredibly higher than that needed by a LEO sat to stay on track.
Another point - GEO satellites require the largest launch vehicles to get up there. LEO sats can be launched on just about anything, and in a constellation like this one, several sats can be launched by a single launch vehicle.
And if a single one goes wrong, the chances of it colliding with another are remarkably high, thus wiping out the whole lot in that orbit. (Well, risiking doing so...)
Hmm... FUD. While it is within the realm of possibility, and certainly taken into account during the design, these things are spaced so far apart that collision just isn't going to be that much of a danger.
Some issues you didn't mention that I find to be much bigger... Unlike GEO, these sats are up near the radiation belts (which is why electronics life is the limiting factor for the system.) And simply _producing_ the quantity of satellites these constellations need is a logistical trick that aerospace companies are not used to. And a constellation of hundreds of satellites are really, really expensive.
Like anything else in life, there's trades. GEO sats are good for some applications, LEO constellations good for others. Personally, I wonder if constellation systems can provide all that much more than ground based systems. That said, I do think things like Iridium are cool, and I hope some of the follow-on systems have a chance to get off the ground. I'm sure there's a niche to be found someplace, and the idea of being telecommute from anywhere in the world (i.e., travel the globe without ever taking a day off work) is just too cool. ;-)
End of life for this class of satellite is not when it re-enters, but when the expected reliability of the electronics, battery, and solar array fall below a certain desired level. Typically, some amount of propellant is reserved to do a deorbit burn to take the satellite out of its position, and cause it to fall back into the atmosphere and burn up over a long (25 years?) period.
If you find this commercial Neverwinter Nights game interesting, you will probably find the WorldForge project (www.worldforge.org) interesting. If you are a good artist, musician, or programmer, and have time to dedicate to helping, we'd love to have you. And we're of course always open to positive encouragement!
The WorldForge Project is building systems for massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, to be released freely under the GPL and OpenContent Public License.
WorldForge's approach is not to create a single game but instead a flexible framework that can support a variety of different kinds of servers, clients, rule sets, worlds, and so forth. We are developing a standardized protocol called Atlas to permit a "common language" between the various programs.
The screenshots and music are definitely worth checking out. We've also got a prototype demo client/server put together, which you can snag from our CVS archive if you're interested. We'll release distros and such in a week or so if there's interest.
-- Bryce
Also, slightly off topic, but I worry that Open Source development will slow down drastically if there is a lot of Open Source projects. Actually, I suspect the more there are the better, for two reasons: First, because more projects will draw in more people (and get them indoctrinated/educated). Second, because open source projects, by definition, can share code between themselves. For example, I worked briefly on mozilla last year, and while my code never made it in (it was for Windows FE toolbar stuff that got completely chucked), I learned a lot of stuff that I've been able to apply in other net projects. The more projects there are, and the more code sharing, then the more eyeballs there will be on the internal libraries and the OS itelf, which means better performance, fewer bugs, more features... :-)
Swallowed?? :-)
;-)
When it was listed on Slashdot, one "Piece of advice" given by the Slashdot crowd was, "Bah, the name sucks, change it."
We did.
-- Bryce
You may also be interested in looking at WorldForge, Cyphesis and Lycadican, as some other Linux game development projects in need of developers. These are more fantasy roleplaying oriented. -- Bryce
There are some very interesting parallels
between the rise of the scientific community
back in the 17th century.
I expect we'll see more and more of these sorts
of lists populated by people of the Free Software
Movement. Yay!
---
Join The Altima Project: The free multiplayer online RPG development team.