But what the states are asking for is lame. Come-on, I'm from Utah, Utah is only thinking of Novell and WordPerfect, Cali is only worried about Sun, and Oracle. I think the states have the right intentions, but they are asking for the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
First off Java for Windows? I've never had so much fun watching the windows sun fight over the last few years. First Sun makes Java, then Windows supports it, then MS extends it in a stupid way to support COM, then Sun bitches and says its platform dependant and take away their logo (Its just the logo Sun can bitch about, I mean anyone can make a piece of windows software that can do anything, but if you want the Windows logo on your box you have to do it MS's way, same thing with Java). So MS says they will take the logo off the box. Sun still bitches, so MS stops making Java. Then Sun starts making stupid platform dependant API's for Java themselves (same thing they got upset at MS for doing. The API I'm talking about there is the first gen of the 3d api). So let me get this straight, if MS makes a new Java API, they are just trying to ruin it, but if Sun does the same thing they are just adding features? Then Sun says they don't want MS to do any Java. MS says fine and sticks to just supporting one old version. Then Sun says then need an updated SDK. MS finally says, you know what we just will not even include Java period, too much hassle. Now Sun is bitching because Java is not included in Windows. Man this shit is funny. Now 9 States want to force the government to include Java. Guys its just a stupid download, my hell. MS may be likened to an greedy, sneaky asshole, but Sun is like a 4 year old kid who doesn't know what he wants.
Lets talk about the donation to the schools. I can see how Apple wants to bitch about it come on, half of their money comes from Schools, so if MS gives stuff to them for free, then why would then spend money on Apple? Apple will lose a nice percentage in sales.
Now lets talk about a stripped down version of Windows. This is lame too. I've hated all of the strong arm crap MS did (and still does), but I've always supported their rights to includes features they wanted. Does anyone remember the lantastic days? MS had windows 3.0 and DOS out, no networking support. Lantastic finds a nice niche market selling networking addons. Then MS includes it in windows for workgroups. Now Lantastic wonders who the hell is going to buy their product if its build into windows. Good question, but networking should be in the OS. Now days we have the same damn thing going on, every feature MS puts in will question some 3rd party product. That's not going to change. Should a basic explorer come with the OS? I think so? Hell every Linux distro I've ever installed has included at least on browser, sometimes even more than one.
As far as I can tell, all of these deal issues are meant to benefit other companies in other states. Nothing here is meant for the consumer. You can't tell me that the anti trust vision of everyone having to go to the store and buy 10 different products just to run a basic computer is in the consumers best interest. You can't tell me that schools getting free hardware and software is not in the consumers best interest. This case is no longer about consumers, it's about other businesses and their own self-interests. Could you image the press MS would get if it spent time trying to convince the government to make changes to Java? Or to Linux? Just so MS could be benefited.
Korea will be further than any other country as far as multipler games go in the next couple of years. Why? Its becoming part of thier society. Many people make freak when they read some of those tails. But are they any differnt than how football is treated in the US? I've been fans beat the crap out of each other for just saying some team sucks. Organized crime has a history of buying players and point shaving. Fans have a history of spending a lot of money for simple signatures. If you step back and look at it, sports has more problems than gaming ever has. But the only differnce is we accept those problems with sports. Sports have been around for thousands of years, no one can image problems ever existing without them. But when you slightly change this with video gaming, where everyone is a player most people start having concerns.
anways watch what happens, Korea will be further along in gameing the rest of us. Everytime something goes wrong and its even partly attached to gaming and its in the US its big news, everyone gets involved, politicans start talking about it, and so on. Society will be much slower to change than technolgy.
Something I've never understood is to many people think that just by playing video games and having ideas would mean they would be a great game designer. I'm not a total expert on how to get a gamming career, but I have turned down job offers from gamming companies (development jobs, not designing), and my current job involves designing software (non game related), at the same time I know several people who do work for gaming companies and I've talked with them about their career path and what it takes. So here is what I know.
I believe several players think they could be a great game designer because they think of features or ideas that are not in their current game, and then poof 6 months later they see the same feature idea in a different game and they think "hey I thought of that first". Somehow gamers think this will also make them a great game designer. First, most game designers will also be the project manager. The reason for this is the game designer has to weigh the feature idea, to how much effort it will require to implement the feature, along with issues such as staff, figuring out how much art work is required, how much development work would be required, etc. A project manager has to put a dollar value on a feature, and has to weigh it constraints. Designing games or any software for that matter is not just sitting down and thinking up cool features. Anyone can do that. So back to the original question, what does it take to become a game designer? Well given a feature idea, you have to have a good idea on what it takes to make that feature a reality. This means you need to either know how to program the feature yourself, or you've been involved with enough projects first hand that you can make a really good guess. This is why the majority of great game designers are also programmers themselves. But even being a programmer it isn't enough, you just have to have enough projects under your belt that you can run a project with your eyes closed. So if you can do that, you are ready to be a game designer. How do you get enough projects under your belt? Well you get a job working for a game company, and you either write software, create levels, or do art work. I'm not talking about some little mod, but you work as part of team. Do that for several years, get promoted and then one day your name will be on a cover of the next greatest game. You also have to realize, that making games is a businesses. As cool as making games is, it has to turn a profit. So in order to be a game designer, you also have to be in a position where you can be trusted. Some biz guy is going to give you several million dollars, and say ok go make a game that can make me even more money. How is someone like this going to trust you? The only way is if you've done 5 other projects that where all successes.
The route takes a lot of time, but there is one other way you can do this, start your own game company. The guys at Blizzard where just a couple of guys in college who wanted to do games. Day 1 they where game designers. You can do that to, just be expected to use a lot of your own money, and make sure that if you start you will never give up. You can succeed. I belivie this route may be difficult, because you will be competing with real game companies, but its possible. Now days you see lots of game companies going out of biz because it's a difficult market.
That way MS will open thier eyes when they see that people actually use stuff that they dont make!! Serious this should be an eye opener for them. I use to argue that MS shouldn't be broken up, but when they do stuff like that, it says they are a monopoly. I mean it would be like Chevon trying to go to all gas stations and ask for a list of people who dont use Chevon
So we have a component library that is wanting to become a complete RAD tool. Well good for QT, interesting thing is, everyone of those features have been in Delphi, and Delphi has been around for 5 years. For Linux, we now have Kylix. Creating your own components, database access, and localization is exactly what made Delphi great. Kylix ueses QT so makes ya wonder if Kylix is the reason why they are doing these features. I say that becuase its one thing to make a component library, its something completly differnt to make a full RAD tool. Why the change for QT? If they do these features, I sure hope they do them right.
Well all I can recommend is for you to try and see if from the other point of view. You have some ISP here who is barely making money. They are probably understaffed, and now they are being asked to provide security. Providing good security is a very difficult process. It involved weekly or even daily checking for new holes, fixing old holes, testing for weaknesses, logging everything, searching the logs for the unknown, etc, etc. This isn't Disney land we live in. This work takes people and time, and if you are dealing with a company, and if that company cares about staying alive, they will charge you for their service. Its one matter to loan someone a piece of hardware that just takes power and bandwidth, its something completely different to have someone proactively working on security issues for you. Also any company who takes on the role of security also has to assume the risk of if that security is breached. For example, lets say your site does get hacked and big time. If a company promises security, they may be opened to be sued by yourself. Also why wasn't these issues figured out when you first set up the server? Why is this other company to blame when you guys probably never even talked about the issue until after the site was live?
Well if you want top speed you can only get that from a compiled development platform. Most web environments have grown up as an interpreted solution in order to make changes easier (good old internet time). So if you care most about speed you want to look at a couple options, first is creating your own ISAPI if you're looking at NT, or your own DSO if your looking at apache. You can code either of these in C, if your also looking at using a traditional database behind the scenes then take a good look at Delphi / Kylix. Delphi creates the fastest web apps while still allowing applications to be developed quickly. There are tradeoffs if you look at a compiled approach. (Like you have to restart the web server if you make a code change). There are many inbetweener type solutions you may want to look at like ASP, or FastCGI.
Im a developer for a company that creates software for retail companies. Although I dont have a whole lot of info on where you can find your vendors, I can suggest you go take a look at www.nrf.com Its the nation retail federations website. You can order books on vendors that work well with small companies. You should find a lot of other info at nrf handy. You did mention about not wanting to go to conferances, you still may want to go to some (if you can find a conferance where vendors for your market will show up). The reason is its always in your best interest to find the best price or the best companies to work with, it can mean the differnce from making money to losing your shirt.
Well unless we are all hypocrites, if we think its ok to do this to Microsoft, then it should be ok for the government to do this to any technology company who adds features to their own products that in turn make other products unsellable. I have split feelings on Microsoft. I think their tactics of trying to tell IBM they cant market OS2, or their office products if they want to buy Win95 at the same price as everyone else, is bullshit. But on the other hand, I believe in Microsofts right to include features in their OS, I believe its ok for them to create a web browser and give it away for free, and to include it in their OS. I'm not sure if anyone remembers the Lantasitc days. Lantastic sold a networking adon for Win 3.1. Well Lantastic got mad at Microsoft when MS came out with Windows for Workgroups. Lantastic, figured no one would buy their product is MS did that (and they where right) so they sued and lost. I do understand where Lantastic was coming from, but I believe in Microsofts right to include networking in their OS (could you image Linux without networking support simply because someone wanted to sell a networking addon?). I think the same goes for web browsers. Static HTML files are replacing everything from readme files, to help files. Is it fair for the government to tell us "No sorry, a web browser can not be included with the OS, you must purchase it separately if you want to read your help files"
I'm excited about open source just as much as the next slashdot reader. I am amazed at what open source has is capable of, and I'm sure open source will continue to amaze me as time goes on. I know this sounds closed minded of me, but open source is not for everything. Let me give two other examples of software development of trusted systems: life support systems, and missile guidance systems.
What makes open source successful is the community. One strength of the community is a very large group of talented QA. If something does not work as it's suppose to, someone WILL catch it. (Who knows maybe even fix it). Now lets try this with life support systems, First you down load the latest code and put it on your life support system. You know there can be issues with it, but hey its free and lots of people worked on it, more so than any other life support system to date. But damn it doesn't work as its suppose to. Well just fix the code and check it back in.
What about missile guidance systems. I know of a software house in Ogden, Utah that writes such systems for the air force. From what I know, they have one hell of a development process that results in less than one bug in a million lines of code. I assume I don't have to explain why this is important to the air force. (Talk about mission critical software). From what I've heard about this development process is that it works, and works well.
The two examples I've given are of critical systems that have to be trusted by their nature. I'm not saying that trusted systems can't benefit from open source, they can. The way I see it, open source works best on high profile, very horizontal market (commodity) projects that don't expect the highest level of trust.
I think its arrogance to think that software development is only OS's, Web browsers and web servers; There's a lot more types of software written every day out there. Its also foolishness to think open source can solve all development problems. Yes tt's obvious that the two types of systems I named above would never be open source, all I'm doing is explaining some of the reasons why. Natak
I think its great that this has been put in news (well slashdot and other such sites), people should know what Intel is up to. However I think too many people out there are "monopoly" or "strong arm" sensitive. I don't believe Harvard giving in to Intel had anything to do with Intel's position in the market place. Here is the last paragraph of the article "For better or worse, the MS-DOJ proceedings have put discussion of the proper (and improper) use of such power on the front burner. If it wants to avoid taking the same sort of heat, Intel should take every step necessary to ensure that such a clear abuse of its economic clout isn't repeated. " I believe the same thing could of happened at Harvard if the company in question made toasters. The article talks about how Harvard gave in because they didn't want to lose the sponsorship. It was the sponsorship money and nothing to do with what Intel market is why Harvard folded. I don't agree with what Intel did, i hope they get some really bad PR because of it. But blaming everything around the "Microsoft / Intel monopoly" doesn't make it true. Yes some of these folks at Intel need a good ass kicking. Who knows what they where thinking, the benefit of covering up iMacs is not worth the cost of pissing off a university. The real problem with companies like this is just plain arrogance, and managers who like flexing their muscles. But you know what, most large companies have these issues, not just ones related to computers. Do you think companies like GM Moters, or Sears has never done anything like this? Why do we have to make such a big deal of it because it involves technology?
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But what the states are asking for is lame. Come-on, I'm from Utah, Utah is only thinking of Novell and WordPerfect, Cali is only worried about Sun, and Oracle. I think the states have the right intentions, but they are asking for the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
First off Java for Windows? I've never had so much fun watching the windows sun fight over the last few years. First Sun makes Java, then Windows supports it, then MS extends it in a stupid way to support COM, then Sun bitches and says its platform dependant and take away their logo (Its just the logo Sun can bitch about, I mean anyone can make a piece of windows software that can do anything, but if you want the Windows logo on your box you have to do it MS's way, same thing with Java). So MS says they will take the logo off the box. Sun still bitches, so MS stops making Java. Then Sun starts making stupid platform dependant API's for Java themselves (same thing they got upset at MS for doing. The API I'm talking about there is the first gen of the 3d api). So let me get this straight, if MS makes a new Java API, they are just trying to ruin it, but if Sun does the same thing they are just adding features? Then Sun says they don't want MS to do any Java. MS says fine and sticks to just supporting one old version. Then Sun says then need an updated SDK. MS finally says, you know what we just will not even include Java period, too much hassle. Now Sun is bitching because Java is not included in Windows. Man this shit is funny. Now 9 States want to force the government to include Java. Guys its just a stupid download, my hell. MS may be likened to an greedy, sneaky asshole, but Sun is like a 4 year old kid who doesn't know what he wants.
Lets talk about the donation to the schools. I can see how Apple wants to bitch about it come on, half of their money comes from Schools, so if MS gives stuff to them for free, then why would then spend money on Apple? Apple will lose a nice percentage in sales.
Now lets talk about a stripped down version of Windows. This is lame too. I've hated all of the strong arm crap MS did (and still does), but I've always supported their rights to includes features they wanted. Does anyone remember the lantastic days? MS had windows 3.0 and DOS out, no networking support. Lantastic finds a nice niche market selling networking addons. Then MS includes it in windows for workgroups. Now Lantastic wonders who the hell is going to buy their product if its build into windows. Good question, but networking should be in the OS. Now days we have the same damn thing going on, every feature MS puts in will question some 3rd party product. That's not going to change. Should a basic explorer come with the OS? I think so? Hell every Linux distro I've ever installed has included at least on browser, sometimes even more than one.
As far as I can tell, all of these deal issues are meant to benefit other companies in other states. Nothing here is meant for the consumer. You can't tell me that the anti trust vision of everyone having to go to the store and buy 10 different products just to run a basic computer is in the consumers best interest. You can't tell me that schools getting free hardware and software is not in the consumers best interest. This case is no longer about consumers, it's about other businesses and their own self-interests. Could you image the press MS would get if it spent time trying to convince the government to make changes to Java? Or to Linux? Just so MS could be benefited.
anways watch what happens, Korea will be further along in gameing the rest of us. Everytime something goes wrong and its even partly attached to gaming and its in the US its big news, everyone gets involved, politicans start talking about it, and so on. Society will be much slower to change than technolgy.
I believe several players think they could be a great game designer because they think of features or ideas that are not in their current game, and then poof 6 months later they see the same feature idea in a different game and they think "hey I thought of that first". Somehow gamers think this will also make them a great game designer. First, most game designers will also be the project manager. The reason for this is the game designer has to weigh the feature idea, to how much effort it will require to implement the feature, along with issues such as staff, figuring out how much art work is required, how much development work would be required, etc. A project manager has to put a dollar value on a feature, and has to weigh it constraints. Designing games or any software for that matter is not just sitting down and thinking up cool features. Anyone can do that. So back to the original question, what does it take to become a game designer? Well given a feature idea, you have to have a good idea on what it takes to make that feature a reality. This means you need to either know how to program the feature yourself, or you've been involved with enough projects first hand that you can make a really good guess. This is why the majority of great game designers are also programmers themselves. But even being a programmer it isn't enough, you just have to have enough projects under your belt that you can run a project with your eyes closed. So if you can do that, you are ready to be a game designer. How do you get enough projects under your belt? Well you get a job working for a game company, and you either write software, create levels, or do art work. I'm not talking about some little mod, but you work as part of team. Do that for several years, get promoted and then one day your name will be on a cover of the next greatest game. You also have to realize, that making games is a businesses. As cool as making games is, it has to turn a profit. So in order to be a game designer, you also have to be in a position where you can be trusted. Some biz guy is going to give you several million dollars, and say ok go make a game that can make me even more money. How is someone like this going to trust you? The only way is if you've done 5 other projects that where all successes.
The route takes a lot of time, but there is one other way you can do this, start your own game company. The guys at Blizzard where just a couple of guys in college who wanted to do games. Day 1 they where game designers. You can do that to, just be expected to use a lot of your own money, and make sure that if you start you will never give up. You can succeed. I belivie this route may be difficult, because you will be competing with real game companies, but its possible. Now days you see lots of game companies going out of biz because it's a difficult market.
That way MS will open thier eyes when they see that people actually use stuff that they dont make!! Serious this should be an eye opener for them. I use to argue that MS shouldn't be broken up, but when they do stuff like that, it says they are a monopoly. I mean it would be like Chevon trying to go to all gas stations and ask for a list of people who dont use Chevon
So we have a component library that is wanting to become a complete RAD tool. Well good for QT, interesting thing is, everyone of those features have been in Delphi, and Delphi has been around for 5 years. For Linux, we now have Kylix. Creating your own components, database access, and localization is exactly what made Delphi great. Kylix ueses QT so makes ya wonder if Kylix is the reason why they are doing these features. I say that becuase its one thing to make a component library, its something completly differnt to make a full RAD tool. Why the change for QT? If they do these features, I sure hope they do them right.
Well all I can recommend is for you to try and see if from the other point of view. You have some ISP here who is barely making money. They are probably understaffed, and now they are being asked to provide security. Providing good security is a very difficult process. It involved weekly or even daily checking for new holes, fixing old holes, testing for weaknesses, logging everything, searching the logs for the unknown, etc, etc. This isn't Disney land we live in. This work takes people and time, and if you are dealing with a company, and if that company cares about staying alive, they will charge you for their service. Its one matter to loan someone a piece of hardware that just takes power and bandwidth, its something completely different to have someone proactively working on security issues for you. Also any company who takes on the role of security also has to assume the risk of if that security is breached. For example, lets say your site does get hacked and big time. If a company promises security, they may be opened to be sued by yourself. Also why wasn't these issues figured out when you first set up the server? Why is this other company to blame when you guys probably never even talked about the issue until after the site was live?
Well if you want top speed you can only get that from a compiled development platform. Most web environments have grown up as an interpreted solution in order to make changes easier (good old internet time). So if you care most about speed you want to look at a couple options, first is creating your own ISAPI if you're looking at NT, or your own DSO if your looking at apache. You can code either of these in C, if your also looking at using a traditional database behind the scenes then take a good look at Delphi / Kylix. Delphi creates the fastest web apps while still allowing applications to be developed quickly. There are tradeoffs if you look at a compiled approach. (Like you have to restart the web server if you make a code change). There are many inbetweener type solutions you may want to look at like ASP, or FastCGI.
Im a developer for a company that creates software for retail companies. Although I dont have a whole lot of info on where you can find your vendors, I can suggest you go take a look at www.nrf.com Its the nation retail federations website. You can order books on vendors that work well with small companies. You should find a lot of other info at nrf handy. You did mention about not wanting to go to conferances, you still may want to go to some (if you can find a conferance where vendors for your market will show up). The reason is its always in your best interest to find the best price or the best companies to work with, it can mean the differnce from making money to losing your shirt.
Well unless we are all hypocrites, if we think its ok to do this to Microsoft, then it should be ok for the government to do this to any technology company who adds features to their own products that in turn make other products unsellable. I have split feelings on Microsoft. I think their tactics of trying to tell IBM they cant market OS2, or their office products if they want to buy Win95 at the same price as everyone else, is bullshit. But on the other hand, I believe in Microsofts right to include features in their OS, I believe its ok for them to create a web browser and give it away for free, and to include it in their OS. I'm not sure if anyone remembers the Lantasitc days. Lantastic sold a networking adon for Win 3.1. Well Lantastic got mad at Microsoft when MS came out with Windows for Workgroups. Lantastic, figured no one would buy their product is MS did that (and they where right) so they sued and lost. I do understand where Lantastic was coming from, but I believe in Microsofts right to include networking in their OS (could you image Linux without networking support simply because someone wanted to sell a networking addon?). I think the same goes for web browsers. Static HTML files are replacing everything from readme files, to help files. Is it fair for the government to tell us "No sorry, a web browser can not be included with the OS, you must purchase it separately if you want to read your help files"
What makes open source successful is the community. One strength of the community is a very large group of talented QA. If something does not work as it's suppose to, someone WILL catch it. (Who knows maybe even fix it). Now lets try this with life support systems, First you down load the latest code and put it on your life support system. You know there can be issues with it, but hey its free and lots of people worked on it, more so than any other life support system to date. But damn it doesn't work as its suppose to. Well just fix the code and check it back in.
What about missile guidance systems. I know of a software house in Ogden, Utah that writes such systems for the air force. From what I know, they have one hell of a development process that results in less than one bug in a million lines of code. I assume I don't have to explain why this is important to the air force. (Talk about mission critical software). From what I've heard about this development process is that it works, and works well.
The two examples I've given are of critical systems that have to be trusted by their nature. I'm not saying that trusted systems can't benefit from open source, they can. The way I see it, open source works best on high profile, very horizontal market (commodity) projects that don't expect the highest level of trust.
I think its arrogance to think that software development is only OS's, Web browsers and web servers; There's a lot more types of software written every day out there. Its also foolishness to think open source can solve all development problems. Yes tt's obvious that the two types of systems I named above would never be open source, all I'm doing is explaining some of the reasons why. Natak
I think its great that this has been put in news (well slashdot and other such sites), people should know what Intel is up to. However I think too many people out there are "monopoly" or "strong arm" sensitive. I don't believe Harvard giving in to Intel had anything to do with Intel's position in the market place. Here is the last paragraph of the article "For better or worse, the MS-DOJ proceedings have put discussion of the proper (and improper) use of such power on the front burner. If it wants to avoid taking the same sort of heat, Intel should take every step necessary to ensure that such a clear abuse of its economic clout isn't repeated. " I believe the same thing could of happened at Harvard if the company in question made toasters. The article talks about how Harvard gave in because they didn't want to lose the sponsorship. It was the sponsorship money and nothing to do with what Intel market is why Harvard folded. I don't agree with what Intel did, i hope they get some really bad PR because of it. But blaming everything around the "Microsoft / Intel monopoly" doesn't make it true. Yes some of these folks at Intel need a good ass kicking. Who knows what they where thinking, the benefit of covering up iMacs is not worth the cost of pissing off a university. The real problem with companies like this is just plain arrogance, and managers who like flexing their muscles. But you know what, most large companies have these issues, not just ones related to computers. Do you think companies like GM Moters, or Sears has never done anything like this? Why do we have to make such a big deal of it because it involves technology?