The difference between Redhat's bugs and Windows 2000 bugs, apart from the difference of a factor of about 250, is that Redhat's bugs are bugs reported by USERS, AFTER it was released. Windows 2000s 63000 bugs, are bugs KNOWN by the DEVELOPERS, BEFORE it was released.
So the difference is also a matter of conscience and time. Again the classic Slashdot Microsoft Astroturf cry is the NON-EXISTENT "hypocrite", and ignoring that fact that TWO wrongs do NOT make a right.
If this were true, then as the day progresses from Noon to Sunset, you should see a steady spectrum of colours appear in the sky, going from Blue to Red, as the atmosphere for the light to travel through gets densers, and only light of particular wavelength can get through.
"It needs to be able to run the latest apps, those apps that you can actually buy off the shelf."
This is circular argument. Why does PCs need so much resources, because it needs to run the latest apps. What do you need to run the latest apps, the latest, massively resourced PCs.
"it sometimes seems that technology progresses for no reason other than to encourage consumption, the efficiency and kewlness factor of PCs now is far greater than that of PCs 5 years ago, 10, 15"
Efficiency is being able to do the same thing with LESS resources. For example, the shareware version of DOOM on PCs was about 4 Meg. The Amiga version of the same could be fitted on a 1.44M floppy.
Another example, 5 years ago PCs were running DOOM with 66MHz. Now they run Quake III with 660 Mhz (sure it can run on slow systems). So is Quake III 10 times better than DOOM? Has not the memory requirements also increased, network bandwidth too? Has not the number of characters in the arena, and the number of platforms supported DECREASED? How do you quantify better?
Remember if you cannot quantify it, then you cannot say it is efficient.
Whats the distinction between NEED and WANT? Who here can say, with their hand on their heart, that the first time they played doom on 66 Mhz machine, they immediately thought that this is crap, and they NEEDED a 666 Mhz machine?
How can it be rigging the poll? You assume that LinuxToday's readers are MORE likely to bother to go and vote because the editors asked them to, than the regular readers who can just vote at the bottom of the article?
You suppose that: Its OK to ask people to vote on their favourite OS, without the poll to truely reflect the WIDER opinion of MSNBC readers and non-MSNBC, but the NARROWER opinion of regular readers?
So the LESS people that participate in a poll the more valid it is? Do you think MORE or LESS of the regular readership of MSNBC are Linux users, considering the fact that the page was difficult to read with Netscape?
(1) if you read the LinuxToday responses carefully you will find that no more than 2 or 3 respondents said they voted twice. And you do not know how much their votes swayed the results, so stop the false accusations. You do not have any evidence.
(2) LinuxToday did not ask the readers to rig the poll, just to go and vote.
(3) if you read the story carefully again, you will find that Linux actually LOST votes during the poll.
(4) one person rigging polls after another person rigs polls does not make it right. Two wrongs do not make a right. Another example of MS apologist hysteria on Slashdot was the article about MS using Solaris/FreeBSD to run hotmail. Immedialty, we had screams from the MS Zealots that SUN no doubt use Windows PCs in their office. So what? No body was touting Sun as the next "unix-killer". Sun definately use Solaris (and other UNIXs to run their web-site) so why all the hysteria? Even if they did not, again one person being a hypocrite, and another person being a hypocrite does not make a right.
In FPS, the game development is done by a Cathedral, made up of an exclusive bunch of high-tech priests, and professional wizards who are treated almost as Gods (e.g. John Carmack). Tha game advances through their implementation of ideas, and releases of games are few and far between. Especially innovative ideas.
In Text-based MUDs, the game is developed by a Bazaar of developers (called Wizards, Imps(?), Admins(?), Gods(?)) and players. In a genre like LPmuds, players suggest ideas all the times as they progress up levels. When they reach the top level, they are given a wizard/development character where they can implement their own ideas into the game, based on their experience. The game evolves through the rapid development of small ideas from players suggestion, or from wizards implementing ideas on-line. Releases of these ideas happen early and often. There are a lot of bugs using this method, but once all these are ironed out, you have a game with much more depth, and breadth to its gameplay than the equivalent PC/console FPS. The development model is also a lot faster because there is no need for artist to render each new object which you want to place into the game. The MUD libraries (i.e. code) are often made available as Open Source and can be used to develop other games based on the same theme.
As a result, there are 1000s of different games out there. On the one extreme are the hack-n-slash MUDs including ones like DOOM (called PKmuds), which PRE-DATE DOOM. And the other extreme are games which require loads of puzzles, and quest to solve. In the MUD world, multi-user interaction is the NORM, not something tacked on add at the end to take advantage of the Internet hype.
The lowest from of these type of games (interactive wise) i.e. PKmuds, has much more greater depth than the highest form of the FPS equivalent. There is TEAM-work in PKmuds. This naturally follows on from the fact there is TEAM-work in ALL MUDs. The depth of TEAM-work far exceeds anything on DOOM-look-alikes (which, as already has been mentioned, is a late comer to this field).
"The height of cultivation tends towards simplicity. Half-way cultivation tends towards ornamentation" - Bruce Lee.
FPS are half-way cultivation. They spend more times on getting polygons into their scenes than on things which make a difference to GAMEPLAY. What is gameplay?
As a game player matures, he will instinctively recognise what this is. Ask yourself this, why is a game like Chess so enduring although it is so simple?
The MINIMUM characteristics which define a game, thats it gameplay. It does not matter how many polygons you have in your explosion. So long as someone can tell the difference between an explosion and a puff of smoke. This is why a mature player will recognise that a game like Nethack or AngBand is head and shoulders above Tomb Raider.
Yes! The new comers to the field wont recognise the subtle differences. But they wont remain new comers for long if they keep playing. And if they do not, who cares what they think.
Note that one use of the word 'Free' is capitalised and the other 'free' is not. This indicates that a desire to compare the notion of free software as described by the GPL (i.e. Free speech) in contrast to software which is totally free (i.e. Free beer) and you never have to pay for, nor can you charge for it.
There are a group of Open source software developers who choose to use the GPL, which allows money to come into the equation. There is another group which develops software which precludes any charge whatsoever. This post is PERHAPS meant to encourage a discussion about whether the GPL group may be better off following the second group, without any financial interest which can corrupt their principles.
The Commercial software industries, NO DOUBT, began with a hope that money would not corrupt their vision and their products. But look at them now!
Well, either way, thank God that the GPL ethic has not been corrupted to date. And may it long continue to be so.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference between Redhat's bugs and Windows 2000 bugs, apart from the difference of a factor of about 250, is that Redhat's bugs are bugs reported by USERS, AFTER it was released. Windows 2000s 63000 bugs, are bugs KNOWN by the DEVELOPERS, BEFORE it was released.
So the difference is also a matter of conscience and time. Again the classic Slashdot Microsoft Astroturf cry is the NON-EXISTENT "hypocrite", and ignoring that fact that TWO wrongs do NOT make a right.
If this were true, then as the day progresses from Noon to Sunset, you should see a steady spectrum of colours appear in the sky, going from Blue to Red, as the atmosphere for the light to travel through gets densers, and only light of particular wavelength can get through.
"It needs to be able to run the latest apps, those apps that you can actually buy off the shelf."
This is circular argument. Why does PCs need so much resources, because it needs to run the latest apps. What do you need to run the latest apps, the latest, massively resourced PCs.
"it sometimes seems that technology progresses for no reason other than to encourage consumption, the efficiency and kewlness factor of PCs now is far greater than that of PCs 5 years ago, 10, 15"
Efficiency is being able to do the same thing with LESS resources. For example, the shareware version of DOOM on PCs was about 4 Meg. The Amiga version of the same could be fitted on a 1.44M floppy.
Another example, 5 years ago PCs were running DOOM with 66MHz. Now they run Quake III with 660 Mhz (sure it can run on slow systems). So is Quake III 10 times better than DOOM? Has not the memory requirements also increased, network bandwidth too? Has not the number of characters in the arena, and the number of platforms supported DECREASED? How do you quantify better?
Remember if you cannot quantify it, then you cannot say it is efficient.
Whats the distinction between NEED and WANT? Who here can say, with their hand on their heart, that the first time they played doom on 66 Mhz machine, they immediately thought that this is crap, and they NEEDED a 666 Mhz machine?
How can it be rigging the poll? You assume that LinuxToday's readers are MORE likely to bother to go and vote because the editors asked them to, than the regular readers who can just vote at the bottom of the article?
You suppose that: Its OK to ask people to vote on their favourite OS, without the poll to truely reflect the WIDER opinion of MSNBC readers and non-MSNBC, but the NARROWER opinion of regular readers?
So the LESS people that participate in a poll the more valid it is? Do you think MORE or LESS of the regular readership of MSNBC are Linux users, considering the fact that the page was difficult to read with Netscape?
The facts:
(1) if you read the LinuxToday responses carefully you will find that no more than 2 or 3 respondents said they voted twice. And you do not know how much their votes swayed the results, so stop the false accusations. You do not have any evidence.
(2) LinuxToday did not ask the readers to rig the poll, just to go and vote.
(3) if you read the story carefully again, you will find that Linux actually LOST votes during the poll.
(4) one person rigging polls after another person rigs polls does not make it right. Two wrongs do not make a right. Another example of MS apologist hysteria on Slashdot was the article about MS using Solaris/FreeBSD to run hotmail. Immedialty, we had screams from the MS Zealots that SUN no doubt use Windows PCs in their office. So what? No body was touting Sun as the next "unix-killer". Sun definately use Solaris (and other UNIXs to run their web-site) so why all the hysteria? Even if they did not, again one person being a hypocrite, and another person being a hypocrite does not make a right.
In FPS, the game development is done by a Cathedral, made up of an exclusive bunch of high-tech priests, and professional wizards who are treated almost as Gods (e.g. John Carmack). Tha game advances through their implementation of ideas, and releases of games are few and far between. Especially innovative ideas.
In Text-based MUDs, the game is developed by a Bazaar of developers (called Wizards, Imps(?), Admins(?), Gods(?)) and players. In a genre like LPmuds, players suggest ideas all the times as they progress up levels. When they reach the top level, they are given a wizard/development character where they can implement their own ideas into the game, based on their experience. The game evolves through the rapid development of small ideas from players suggestion, or from wizards implementing ideas on-line. Releases of these ideas happen early and often. There are a lot of bugs using this method, but once all these are ironed out, you have a game with much more depth, and breadth to its gameplay than the equivalent PC/console FPS. The development model is also a lot faster because there is no need for artist to render each new object which you want to place into the game. The MUD libraries (i.e. code) are often made available as Open Source and can be used to develop other games based on the same theme.
As a result, there are 1000s of different games out there. On the one extreme are the hack-n-slash MUDs including ones like DOOM (called PKmuds), which PRE-DATE DOOM. And the other extreme are games which require loads of puzzles, and quest to solve. In the MUD world, multi-user interaction is the NORM, not something tacked on add at the end to take advantage of the Internet hype.
The lowest from of these type of games (interactive wise) i.e. PKmuds, has much more greater depth than the highest form of the FPS equivalent. There is TEAM-work in PKmuds. This naturally follows on from the fact there is TEAM-work in ALL MUDs. The depth of TEAM-work far exceeds anything on DOOM-look-alikes (which, as already has been mentioned, is a late comer to this field).
"The height of cultivation tends towards simplicity. Half-way cultivation tends towards ornamentation" - Bruce Lee.
FPS are half-way cultivation. They spend more times on getting polygons into their scenes than on things which make a difference to GAMEPLAY. What is gameplay?
As a game player matures, he will instinctively recognise what this is. Ask yourself this, why is a game like Chess so enduring although it is so simple?
The MINIMUM characteristics which define a game, thats it gameplay. It does not matter how many polygons you have in your explosion. So long as someone can tell the difference between an explosion and a puff of smoke. This is why a mature player will recognise that a game like Nethack or AngBand is head and shoulders above Tomb Raider.
Yes! The new comers to the field wont recognise the subtle differences. But they wont remain new comers for long if they keep playing. And if they do not, who cares what they think.
Note that one use of the word 'Free' is capitalised and the other 'free' is not. This indicates that a desire to compare the notion of free software as described by the GPL (i.e. Free speech) in contrast to software which is totally free (i.e. Free beer) and you never have to pay for, nor can you charge for it.
There are a group of Open source software developers who choose to use the GPL, which allows money to come into the equation. There is another group which develops software which precludes any charge whatsoever. This post is PERHAPS meant to encourage a discussion about whether the GPL group may be better off following the second group, without any financial interest which can corrupt their principles.
The Commercial software industries, NO DOUBT, began with a hope that money would not corrupt their vision and their products. But look at them now!
Well, either way, thank God that the GPL ethic has not been corrupted to date. And may it long continue to be so.
Narrow is the path that leads to righteousness, and broad is the path that leads to destruction. ID seems to have chosen the latter of the two.