I believe he mentions it in response to the common belief that OSS is *inherently* more secure than closed source. We use tons of open-source software at CERIAS, so it's not the case that Spaf has a dislike for open source.
The only companies who will release Linux games are those that really really rely on geek support (like Id)
I don't think id relies on "geek support." I think some of the main people there feel strongly about supporting OSes other than Windows, and release Linux versions essentially as a charitable work.
Linux game servers are another story, though. Releasing a linux version of your server definitely widens your market (server market, that is). Makes sense, since Linux is far more popular in the server arena.
Knowing how cavalier many companies still are about ignoring good security practices, I wonder if it might be better for them to be paranoid than blissfully ignorant.
-Ed
That's cool, but if the apps aren't there...
on
DeMuDi Linux
·
· Score: 2
(Note that since the site is EXTREMELY slow I can't browse the list of packages, so maybe I'm missing something).
This reminds me a lot of BeOS. Be is very, very well suited for music and other media production. But the hardware and major software support never materialized, so it didn't catch on. Unless companies like Cakewalk, Steinberg, and Logic start porting their apps to this new distro, it really won't matter how kickass the OS is. Maybe if VST or DXi support was available in the OS, things might be a little more attractive to potential developers.
I suppose that you *could* see some pickup in use if tools in the same league as those released by the companies above is developed for this distro. On the other hand, the Gimp is available for Linux, and I still don't run into many serious graphic designers who use it instead of Photoshop. Most folks are gonna stick with what they know unless there is a compelling reason for them to switch.
I'm also a little worried about the issues of useability that normally pop up with Linux distros. Musicians are very, very rarely computer jockeys, and being weaned on the MacOS and Win32, most of them will shit a brick when if they have to deal with the CLI or edit a.conf file.
It is the most extreme irony to see a manager complaining about how engineers can have negative productivity. Good lord. Managers founded the very institution of negative productivity.
*snore*
Yeah, duh, bad managers cause problems, and so do bad engineers. I do both, and know that very well. Just leave it at that and move on... this petty us-vs-them bullshit is a big part of the problem.
Aren't ring tones sort of like a reinterpretation of a song? IANAL, but is this a legally valid claim?
You still pay royalties on a "reinterpretation" of a song. I've performed a cover on each of my last two albums, and in both cases my record label paid about 7 cents per CD manufactured in royalties to the publisher of the song.
The law establishes what's called a "compulsory mechanical license", essentially saying to the owner of publishing rights on the song "yes, you own the rights, but if someone wants to cover your song, you MUST grant them that right so long as they pay the current per-use royalty rate."
The novel stuff comes from those PC developers and from the Arcade game developers
Well... I would say that PC game publishers (note I say *publishers*, not developers) also suffer from a lack of creative thinking. Especially in a PC market where sales have been going downhill for the past couple years, the publishers are going to be less and less willing to take a risk on a game that doesn't seem like a "sure bet"... read: a knockoff of Quake or Command and Conquer or Diablo.
The arcades are actually worse than either the console or PC market. If you're been in one in the past several years, you'll find that almost everything is either a driving game, a fighting game, or a big-ass "simulator" game. Arcades have been sucking wind creatively *and* commercially for the past 5 years.
... at least to some extent. The label I'm on, Flaming Fish Music, features a lot of clips in its on-line catalog. And I just uploaded every song off my first album to my project's web site.
BUT... I was reluctant to do that for a good year after it was released. It's psychologically difficult to give away something that you've always viewed as a commodity for free, hoping that the person you're giving it to will be honest and pay for it -- especially when there's clearly a huge group of people who *don't* pay for the music they download and listen to repeatedly.
Frankly, all of the arguments that I've heard about people buying CDs based on free mp3 versions of songs they download have been based on anecdotal evidence. I have no doubt that there are some people whose behaviour is consistent with this, but whether these folks actually make up a significant portion of the music-downloading public remains to be seen.
Actually, we have DVD production equipment at work. I'm not intimately familiar with it, but I believe it includes:
1) a Windows NT machine
2) a DVD-R drive
3) a DLT tape drive (evidently a lot of DVD manufacturing joints use DLTs as the "master")
4) Some kinda pricey software
I think the whole joint cost us about $20,000. A *big* portion of that was software, and we didn't buy the bare bones/cheapest setup we could. So I bet you could squeak by with something quite a bit cheaper.
It uses an all-new engine developed by Volition. One of the major new features of this engine is what they're calling "real-time, arbitrary geometry modification" -- essentially being able to blow anything up. This allows you to do things like bring down a ceiling on your enemies, pop a hole in a wall when the door is locked, etc.
I realize it's incredibly difficult for most folks here to be anything but objective about a Microsoft product/project (and for good reason), but it's important to address the issues at hand with some objectivity and knowledge of the console market. That being said...
1) Will X-Box compete with PCs? Nope. Consoles in the US basically have a price ceiling of $300 to stay competitive, and X-Box will be hitting the market at a time when you'll be able to get a Dreamcast for at most $125, and a PS2 for $200. The unit will be priced to move at $250 tops. Right now no one seems to be able to sell a functional PC for under $500, mainly due to the issues of manufacturing costs.
2) Looking at these specs... this is just a dumbed-down PC??? why would I want this??? Yeah, err... what exactly do you think a console is? 8) It's a personal computer, streamlined and stripped down to be cheap to make and play games well. In fact, that's the key to one of a consoles major strengths: the hardware is *always* the same. The primary technical gripe of PC developers is the huge hassle of making games work on a wide variety of hardware. The X-Box in particular will look interesting to PC developers because it's an architecture they're already intimately familiar with, but without the compatibility headaches of the standard Intel architecture.
Back in the day, Tom was the only game in town, and I picked up a ton of knowledge from his site. Unfortunately, with the influx of a lot of competition in the hardware site game, it seems the Tom resorts to smack talking and rumor mongering to stand out from the crowd. Evidently he can't cut it as a straightforward reviewer/journalist, so he has to start some shit to get people to his site.
I'm very pleased with my Dish Network subscription. I don't care about sports, so paying extra with DirecTV for that premium isn't something I'm too into. Overall, I kinda have the feel that DTV is a bit classier than Dish Network, but I'm cool with it all the same.
Slashdot Mirror
FYI, My day job is CERIAS webmaster.
I believe he mentions it in response to the common belief that OSS is *inherently* more secure than closed source. We use tons of open-source software at CERIAS, so it's not the case that Spaf has a dislike for open source.
-Ed
I don't think id relies on "geek support." I think some of the main people there feel strongly about supporting OSes other than Windows, and release Linux versions essentially as a charitable work.
Linux game servers are another story, though. Releasing a linux version of your server definitely widens your market (server market, that is). Makes sense, since Linux is far more popular in the server arena.
-Ed
-Ed
(Note that since the site is EXTREMELY slow I can't browse the list of packages, so maybe I'm missing something).
.conf file.
This reminds me a lot of BeOS. Be is very, very well suited for music and other media production. But the hardware and major software support never materialized, so it didn't catch on. Unless companies like Cakewalk, Steinberg, and Logic start porting their apps to this new distro, it really won't matter how kickass the OS is. Maybe if VST or DXi support was available in the OS, things might be a little more attractive to potential developers.
I suppose that you *could* see some pickup in use if tools in the same league as those released by the companies above is developed for this distro. On the other hand, the Gimp is available for Linux, and I still don't run into many serious graphic designers who use it instead of Photoshop. Most folks are gonna stick with what they know unless there is a compelling reason for them to switch.
I'm also a little worried about the issues of useability that normally pop up with Linux distros. Musicians are very, very rarely computer jockeys, and being weaned on the MacOS and Win32, most of them will shit a brick when if they have to deal with the CLI or edit a
-Ed
www.funkatron.com
*snore*
Yeah, duh, bad managers cause problems, and so do bad engineers. I do both, and know that very well. Just leave it at that and move on... this petty us-vs-them bullshit is a big part of the problem.
-Ed
You still pay royalties on a "reinterpretation" of a song. I've performed a cover on each of my last two albums, and in both cases my record label paid about 7 cents per CD manufactured in royalties to the publisher of the song.
The law establishes what's called a "compulsory mechanical license", essentially saying to the owner of publishing rights on the song "yes, you own the rights, but if someone wants to cover your song, you MUST grant them that right so long as they pay the current per-use royalty rate."
You can check out more info at:
- http://www.nmpa.org/hfa/mechanical.html
-Ed http://www.funkatron.comWell... I would say that PC game publishers (note I say *publishers*, not developers) also suffer from a lack of creative thinking. Especially in a PC market where sales have been going downhill for the past couple years, the publishers are going to be less and less willing to take a risk on a game that doesn't seem like a "sure bet" ... read: a knockoff of Quake or Command and Conquer or Diablo.
The arcades are actually worse than either the console or PC market. If you're been in one in the past several years, you'll find that almost everything is either a driving game, a fighting game, or a big-ass "simulator" game. Arcades have been sucking wind creatively *and* commercially for the past 5 years.
-Ed
BUT... I was reluctant to do that for a good year after it was released. It's psychologically difficult to give away something that you've always viewed as a commodity for free, hoping that the person you're giving it to will be honest and pay for it -- especially when there's clearly a huge group of people who *don't* pay for the music they download and listen to repeatedly.
Frankly, all of the arguments that I've heard about people buying CDs based on free mp3 versions of songs they download have been based on anecdotal evidence. I have no doubt that there are some people whose behaviour is consistent with this, but whether these folks actually make up a significant portion of the music-downloading public remains to be seen.
-Ed
COJ
www.funkatron.com
That's unpossible!
Actually, we have DVD production equipment at work. I'm not intimately familiar with it, but I believe it includes:
1) a Windows NT machine
2) a DVD-R drive
3) a DLT tape drive (evidently a lot of DVD manufacturing joints use DLTs as the "master")
4) Some kinda pricey software
I think the whole joint cost us about $20,000. A *big* portion of that was software, and we didn't buy the bare bones/cheapest setup we could. So I bet you could squeak by with something quite a bit cheaper.
-Ed
It uses an all-new engine developed by Volition. One of the major new features of this engine is what they're calling "real-time, arbitrary geometry modification" -- essentially being able to blow anything up. This allows you to do things like bring down a ceiling on your enemies, pop a hole in a wall when the door is locked, etc.
You can get more info on Red Faction here:
http://www.redfaction.com/
-Ed
"Note to Kevin and Adrian: Firing developers out of spite ain't cool. "
Assuming that one person's comments sum up the objective truth of a matter also ain't cool. 9)
-Ed
I realize it's incredibly difficult for most folks here to be anything but objective about a Microsoft product/project (and for good reason), but it's important to address the issues at hand with some objectivity and knowledge of the console market. That being said...
1) Will X-Box compete with PCs?
Nope. Consoles in the US basically have a price ceiling of $300 to stay competitive, and X-Box will be hitting the market at a time when you'll be able to get a Dreamcast for at most $125, and a PS2 for $200. The unit will be priced to move at $250 tops. Right now no one seems to be able to sell a functional PC for under $500, mainly due to the issues of manufacturing costs.
2) Looking at these specs... this is just a dumbed-down PC??? why would I want this???
Yeah, err... what exactly do you think a console is? 8) It's a personal computer, streamlined and stripped down to be cheap to make and play games well. In fact, that's the key to one of a consoles major strengths: the hardware is *always* the same. The primary technical gripe of PC developers is the huge hassle of making games work on a wide variety of hardware. The X-Box in particular will look interesting to PC developers because it's an architecture they're already intimately familiar with, but without the compatibility headaches of the standard Intel architecture.
-Ed
http://www.arstechnica.com
-Ed
Sad, sad little man.
I'm very pleased with my Dish Network subscription. I don't care about sports, so paying extra with DirecTV for that premium isn't something I'm too into. Overall, I kinda have the feel that DTV is a bit classier than Dish Network, but I'm cool with it all the same.