It'd seem to me that the biggest problem with Wine and its derivatives is that they're constantly chasing a moving target.
Since MSFT is, to some degree, held hostage by a need to ensure compatibility back to Win 98 (or perhaps, Win2k), why not create an independent standard for ISVs industry wide? Freeze a Win32 API set that meets the needs of most ISVs, call it something like OpenWin32, and get the word out that if writing to this API will ensure that software works on BOTH Windows and Wine-like constructs.
Creating such a thing would be expensive - there'd have to be developer tools and compatibility suites created - but it'd not only help crack MSFT's lock on the industry, but it'd be a potential revenue source for Crossover (who better to create such resources?), and help popularize Windows software on non-Win platforms.
I actually use it; and while it is a big improvement over regular old VNC, it is substantially less stable. The display driver thingy isn't compatible with all video cards, either - I have an older machine with an old S3 Virge display card, and no go.
I've found that VNC, at least the "official" release, can have major performance issues on the server machine. It eats CPU like crazy, and besides that performance hit, it actually slows down certain GUI bound programs.
I had one niche industry program run more than 50% slower - not doubt it was badly or something, but a KVM wouldn't cause such foolishness.
I live in Brooklyn, NY, one block away from a design and architecture college. This would seem to be a pretty target-rich environment for the yellow caps.
Guess what? I've seen THREE, and that was for a week about a month ago. I drink a whole lot of Diet Pepsi, too.
I'm guessing that either Pepsi totally botched the distribution, OR the local bottling companies didn't play ball, OR they simply didn't distribute anything like 100 million songs.
I tried Gentoo on my notebook, and it seemed that support for PCMCIA and wireless just wasn't all that great. Documentation for such issues was pretty much non-existant at the time.
Has this improved? Any Gentoo want to point me towards portable nirvana?
1. None of the above claims that you make on the part of the publishers/distributors of the game would hold up in US courts.
2. Unless the numbers of buyers (the potential class) is at least several hundred thousand in the US, no American lawyer would touch it. Class action lawsuits are a very American thing:)
I'd strongly suggest that you find a non-litigous solution to your dilemma. Or just wait for the new release and deal.
Look, it is an EXCELLENT example since 5 lawfirms have found enough to file suits. Don't shoot the messenger - read the headlines - IANAL, and I didn't file the suits, nor did I suggest that anyone should.
The original poster obviously doesn't know much about class-action lawsuits. IANAL, but I do know a thing or two.
No law firm will pursue such a thing unless the following criteria are met:
* There has to be a very large class, at least when consumer products issues are concerned, so that any remedy has substantial monetary value. How many people bought this product? Like, 50? I've never even heard of it.
* There has to be a remedy that easy translates into dollars that makes sense in the case. How do you put a value on providing missing functionality? The only remedy is for a refund... which is problematic, because...
* There has to be an affirmative representation that justifies the remedy. In this case, it is arguable that there was no such affirmative representation. The packaging of the box DOES NOT mention multi-player, right? And you'd better believe that any judge will agree that it is fair for the specs of a product to change right up until shipping time.
Class-action lawyers typically do not get paid by a client(and it is possible that they CANNOT get paid by a client - again, IANAL). They make all of their money on a percentage of the value of the remedy, and on recovering their costs.
The iPod suits that were recently filed fit the bill - millions of members of a potential class, obvious remedy (provide a battery that has the advertised life), and obvious return - millions of users X the cost of the hypothetical battery.
Bottom line: unless millions of people, literally, bought this game, there isn't a chance in hell of a normal class-action lawsuit. Even if that many people did buy it, it still doesn't look too good.
After a long makeout session, a man and his girlfriend are about to have sex for the first time. Dude starts undressing, shoes and socks come off first, and the girl asks: "What happened to your feet? They're all messed up!"
Guy says, "As a kid, I had tolio".
She shrugs it off, but when the pants come off, well, there's something odd there, too. The guy notices the look on her face, and says, "As a kid, I had the kneesles".
The rest of the clothes come off. When the girl sees his package, she gets exasperated and says, "Let me guess, smallcocks, right?"
Justify? How about I've done a side-by-side comparison, and the DVI connected model was visibly superior - to me, and others in the household? Same video card, same monitor (I have two), DVI better.
It isn't a status thing - it is a quality thing. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
As many posts have covered, it costs more for a manufacturer to offer DVI. So as a result, VGA continues to be the default offering, despite the fact that it sucks.
Even 10 years ago higher ended monitors and cards came with BNC connectors. Why? Because the VGA connector isn't meant to deal with high res graphics - you start getting crosstalk between pins, and that shows up as visual artifacts. IBM designed the standard for 640x480x256 colors. It wasn't meant to scale to high-res 32 bit.
Consumers, however, won't spend an extra $50-$100 to get the better visuals. I'm all DVI, and the quality difference is substantial. Sharper text, no ghosting, more vivid colors. Generally easier installs, too.
At any rate, you're dealing with a consumer base that choose VHS, wouldn't spend for SCSI, and won't spring for a Mac. They don't know the difference, and they don't _want_ to know about the difference. And the marketplace has responded.
All I know is that my friends and I, all legal purchasers of StarCraft, really liked having our own private server. Fuck Blizzard for killing the project, bnetd was cool and legitimate.
You seem pretty smart. Let me walk you through it:
* 2/3 of the economy comes from consumer spending, * Growth last quarter was 8.25%, but, * Consumer prices went down at the same time.
Well, that certainly defies supply and demand. How can high growth in a consumer-driven economy lead to lower prices?
Answer: it can't, knucklehead. I don't care what about 8.25% - if it was all in Rolls Royces and Tiffany (which it more or less was), than it didn't do the economy a whole shitload of good. Please stop being so simplistic.
Oh wait, now you're going to say: but the unemployment rate went down! Ah, no, only those _reporting_ as unemployed went down. If you look at the REAL unemployment rate, and include those that gave up, and those that took part time jobs, it'd be over 13% nationwide. 20% in NYC.
If you can find a real Bush achievement, I'd love to hear about it. And no, Saddam doesn't count.
1989: President (George H.) Bush announces that we're going to Mars by 2020.
2004: President (George W.) Bush announces that we're going to the Moon by 2020. Then to Mars.
2013: President (Jeb) Bush announces that the Chinese have agreed to allow us to send an American astronaut to their new moonbase, but only if we abandon all remaining manufacturing efforts.
2022: President (Jenna) Bush sadly informs the country that the Moon has come to us - the Chinese are dropping asteroid sized chunks of lunar debris on us, a new weapon that even our not-yet-deployed Star Wars program can defend against.
2034: An American finally lands on Mars, although only symbolically. A statue of the last President of the United States, Jenna Bush, is erected in the new Martian People's Republic History Museum.
Let us not forget that the first President Bush suggested much the same thing: let's go back to the Moon, let's get ourselves to Mars, etc. He did it in the waning days of his presidency, to help boost his decreasing popularity, and to take attention away from the declining state of the economy.
Now, Bush II does the same thing. First, he tried the immigration proposal, and that went over like a lead balloon. Now, he's throwing the next shiny toy in front of us, hoping that we'll forget the issues that his administration are glossing over.
This is not a Kennedy-type announcement. We are not going back to the Moon, we will not be going to Mars, and more than likely, we will not be replacing the space shuttles.
Headline from 2012: President Jeb Bush announces that we're going back to Moon, and then on to Mars...
I needed a "new" notebook, so I bought an eBay'd Compaq Armada M300 - under 3 pounds, under $400. Great stuff, runs any operating system like charm, has 2-hourish battery life. It has a slow proc and only 800x600 graphics, but it is cheap, disposable, light, etc.
Then I dropped it, and it landed on the inserted wireless card. The machine seemed fine, but the PCMCIA guts inside got sheared off the daughterboard. Compaq's durability was not at fault, IMO, just my stooopidity.
I went to the HP partsfinder, and _every_ little piece was available, most of them at good prices. The daughtercard was $35, and the instructions to replace it were online. Strangely, the only expensive things were the commodity parts - memory, cpu, hard drive, etc. And the LCD, of course - they always are.
However, not satisified with that, I went to ebay and searched for the part number - and got a new daughercard for $15.
Moral: stick to models that the big corps are buying, if possible. Their IT shops don't suffer the higher prices and foolishness that consumers buying consumer models do. Corollary: see if there's a corporate version of your consumer notebook, and then look for parts again - Compaq/HP use the same guts in their presarios as they do in their corporate line, for example.
Slashdot Mirror
It'd seem to me that the biggest problem with Wine and its derivatives is that they're constantly chasing a moving target.
Since MSFT is, to some degree, held hostage by a need to ensure compatibility back to Win 98 (or perhaps, Win2k), why not create an independent standard for ISVs industry wide? Freeze a Win32 API set that meets the needs of most ISVs, call it something like OpenWin32, and get the word out that if writing to this API will ensure that software works on BOTH Windows and Wine-like constructs.
Creating such a thing would be expensive - there'd have to be developer tools and compatibility suites created - but it'd not only help crack MSFT's lock on the industry, but it'd be a potential revenue source for Crossover (who better to create such resources?), and help popularize Windows software on non-Win platforms.
My likely misinformed $.02
Jonathan
I actually use it; and while it is a big improvement over regular old VNC, it is substantially less stable. The display driver thingy isn't compatible with all video cards, either - I have an older machine with an old S3 Virge display card, and no go.
But thanks.
Jonathan
I've found that VNC, at least the "official" release, can have major performance issues on the server machine. It eats CPU like crazy, and besides that performance hit, it actually slows down certain GUI bound programs.
I had one niche industry program run more than 50% slower - not doubt it was badly or something, but a KVM wouldn't cause such foolishness.
Jonathan
I live in Brooklyn, NY, one block away from a design and architecture college. This would seem to be a pretty target-rich environment for the yellow caps.
Guess what? I've seen THREE, and that was for a week about a month ago. I drink a whole lot of Diet Pepsi, too.
I'm guessing that either Pepsi totally botched the distribution, OR the local bottling companies didn't play ball, OR they simply didn't distribute anything like 100 million songs.
Jonathan
How can I buy their product? Who sells it? What does it cost?
I'd love to get started with a supported AFS... is this something that only corps can buy?
Jonathan
How about a look at how and why offshoring fails. There was an article about it just today at MSNBC.
Many thanks for providing the info. Request sent in!
Sorry, email to that address bounces back. How about checking your incorrect facts before you post?
Jonathan
I tried Gentoo on my notebook, and it seemed that support for PCMCIA and wireless just wasn't all that great. Documentation for such issues was pretty much non-existant at the time.
Has this improved? Any Gentoo want to point me towards portable nirvana?
Jonathan
Where can I find this NTswitcher that you speak of?
Agram,
:)
1. None of the above claims that you make on the part of the publishers/distributors of the game would hold up in US courts.
2. Unless the numbers of buyers (the potential class) is at least several hundred thousand in the US, no American lawyer would touch it. Class action lawsuits are a very American thing
I'd strongly suggest that you find a non-litigous solution to your dilemma. Or just wait for the new release and deal.
Jonathan
Look, it is an EXCELLENT example since 5 lawfirms have found enough to file suits. Don't shoot the messenger - read the headlines - IANAL, and I didn't file the suits, nor did I suggest that anyone should.
:)
Get off my case
Jonathan
The original poster obviously doesn't know much about class-action lawsuits. IANAL, but I do know a thing or two.
No law firm will pursue such a thing unless the following criteria are met:
* There has to be a very large class, at least when consumer products issues are concerned, so that any remedy has substantial monetary value. How many people bought this product? Like, 50? I've never even heard of it.
* There has to be a remedy that easy translates into dollars that makes sense in the case. How do you put a value on providing missing functionality? The only remedy is for a refund... which is problematic, because...
* There has to be an affirmative representation that justifies the remedy. In this case, it is arguable that there was no such affirmative representation. The packaging of the box DOES NOT mention multi-player, right? And you'd better believe that any judge will agree that it is fair for the specs of a product to change right up until shipping time.
Class-action lawyers typically do not get paid by a client(and it is possible that they CANNOT get paid by a client - again, IANAL). They make all of their money on a percentage of the value of the remedy, and on recovering their costs.
The iPod suits that were recently filed fit the bill - millions of members of a potential class, obvious remedy (provide a battery that has the advertised life), and obvious return - millions of users X the cost of the hypothetical battery.
Bottom line: unless millions of people, literally, bought this game, there isn't a chance in hell of a normal class-action lawsuit. Even if that many people did buy it, it still doesn't look too good.
An oldie, but goody:
After a long makeout session, a man and his girlfriend are about to have sex for the first time. Dude starts undressing, shoes and socks come off first, and the girl asks: "What happened to your feet? They're all messed up!"
Guy says, "As a kid, I had tolio".
She shrugs it off, but when the pants come off, well, there's something odd there, too. The guy notices the look on her face, and says, "As a kid, I had the kneesles".
The rest of the clothes come off. When the girl sees his package, she gets exasperated and says, "Let me guess, smallcocks, right?"
Sorry, but I've found faxing to be difficult to impossible on both Vonage and Voicepulse.
This is a major issue to me, and likely, to many.
Jonathan
Dominic was a dumb ass
Who played too long with numb ass
Thank you.
Justify? How about I've done a side-by-side comparison, and the DVI connected model was visibly superior - to me, and others in the household? Same video card, same monitor (I have two), DVI better.
It isn't a status thing - it is a quality thing. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
Jonathan
As many posts have covered, it costs more for a manufacturer to offer DVI. So as a result, VGA continues to be the default offering, despite the fact that it sucks.
Even 10 years ago higher ended monitors and cards came with BNC connectors. Why? Because the VGA connector isn't meant to deal with high res graphics - you start getting crosstalk between pins, and that shows up as visual artifacts. IBM designed the standard for 640x480x256 colors. It wasn't meant to scale to high-res 32 bit.
Consumers, however, won't spend an extra $50-$100 to get the better visuals. I'm all DVI, and the quality difference is substantial. Sharper text, no ghosting, more vivid colors. Generally easier installs, too.
At any rate, you're dealing with a consumer base that choose VHS, wouldn't spend for SCSI, and won't spring for a Mac. They don't know the difference, and they don't _want_ to know about the difference. And the marketplace has responded.
Jonathan
All I know is that my friends and I, all legal purchasers of StarCraft, really liked having our own private server. Fuck Blizzard for killing the project, bnetd was cool and legitimate.
Dustin,
You seem pretty smart. Let me walk you through it:
* 2/3 of the economy comes from consumer spending,
* Growth last quarter was 8.25%, but,
* Consumer prices went down at the same time.
Well, that certainly defies supply and demand. How can high growth in a consumer-driven economy lead to lower prices?
Answer: it can't, knucklehead. I don't care what about 8.25% - if it was all in Rolls Royces and Tiffany (which it more or less was), than it didn't do the economy a whole shitload of good. Please stop being so simplistic.
Oh wait, now you're going to say: but the unemployment rate went down! Ah, no, only those _reporting_ as unemployed went down. If you look at the REAL unemployment rate, and include those that gave up, and those that took part time jobs, it'd be over 13% nationwide. 20% in NYC.
If you can find a real Bush achievement, I'd love to hear about it. And no, Saddam doesn't count.
Jonathan
1989: President (George H.) Bush announces that we're going to Mars by 2020.
2004: President (George W.) Bush announces that we're going to the Moon by 2020. Then to Mars.
2013: President (Jeb) Bush announces that the Chinese have agreed to allow us to send an American astronaut to their new moonbase, but only if we abandon all remaining manufacturing efforts.
2022: President (Jenna) Bush sadly informs the country that the Moon has come to us - the Chinese are dropping asteroid sized chunks of lunar debris on us, a new weapon that even our not-yet-deployed Star Wars program can defend against.
2034: An American finally lands on Mars, although only symbolically. A statue of the last President of the United States, Jenna Bush, is erected in the new Martian People's Republic History Museum.
Let us not forget that the first President Bush suggested much the same thing: let's go back to the Moon, let's get ourselves to Mars, etc. He did it in the waning days of his presidency, to help boost his decreasing popularity, and to take attention away from the declining state of the economy.
Now, Bush II does the same thing. First, he tried the immigration proposal, and that went over like a lead balloon. Now, he's throwing the next shiny toy in front of us, hoping that we'll forget the issues that his administration are glossing over.
This is not a Kennedy-type announcement. We are not going back to the Moon, we will not be going to Mars, and more than likely, we will not be replacing the space shuttles.
Headline from 2012: President Jeb Bush announces that we're going back to Moon, and then on to Mars...
Free SFU will likely cause some folks to do the following:
* Stop booting to Linux on their dual boot box,
* Stop buying VMware (for desktop use),
* Stop using that little OSS box on the floor.
Instead, they'll just SFU - it costs nothing, and it lets me run Apache/PHP/MySql, or whatever.
After enough of this behavior modification, they'll lower the boom.
And then SFU will stand for: So, Fuck You.
Jonathan
I needed a "new" notebook, so I bought an eBay'd Compaq Armada M300 - under 3 pounds, under $400. Great stuff, runs any operating system like charm, has 2-hourish battery life. It has a slow proc and only 800x600 graphics, but it is cheap, disposable, light, etc.
Then I dropped it, and it landed on the inserted wireless card. The machine seemed fine, but the PCMCIA guts inside got sheared off the daughterboard. Compaq's durability was not at fault, IMO, just my stooopidity.
I went to the HP partsfinder, and _every_ little piece was available, most of them at good prices. The daughtercard was $35, and the instructions to replace it were online. Strangely, the only expensive things were the commodity parts - memory, cpu, hard drive, etc. And the LCD, of course - they always are.
However, not satisified with that, I went to ebay and searched for the part number - and got a new daughercard for $15.
Moral: stick to models that the big corps are buying, if possible. Their IT shops don't suffer the higher prices and foolishness that consumers buying consumer models do. Corollary: see if there's a corporate version of your consumer notebook, and then look for parts again - Compaq/HP use the same guts in their presarios as they do in their corporate line, for example.
Jonathan