You're drawing a distinction between a WebObjects DEVELOPMENT license and a DEPLOYMENT license where there isnt any. They are one and the same.
WebObjects used to cost $699 (for one deployment, or one developer seat), but is now free. It was already free with Mac OS X Server (starting June 2002 according to the article).
I'm betting they just removed the chunk of code having to do with entering licenses.
Maybe you are right, but if your only source of info is the linked article, then you know as little as I do and perhaps you misread the article.
You should re-read the following quote from the article:
"The company released WebObjects deployment software for free with Xserves (as part of the Mac OS X Server package) in June 2002, but the move to a wider distribution is regarded as significant - not least because until May 2000 the software cost $50,000."
Personally, I am totally psyched about this. Enterprise Objects, and the whole WebObjects environment in general are so way ahead of other similar technologies out there it is actually kind of ridiculous.
1. both models of the mac mini are currently shipping without support for either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Cringely glosses over this stating that the mini will exclusively be for delivering online HD content.
2. there is no IR/remote support on the mac mini, so no remote control. this is kind of a big and small deal at the same time. it would not have cost much for them to add support for this, yet it is a feature essential to media centers.
3. the current mac mini models are simply not powerful enough to decode HD video compressed with modern MPEG-4, WMA9-level codecs.
4. no component video out on the mini. Cringely once again glosses over this, stating that DVI is sufficient. while DVI does seem to generally work on DVI/HDMI and DVI/HDCP televisions, there are cases where it does not, and it is certainly not officially supported by most vendors. remember this is Apple, they're not going to push technologies that aren't officially supported. there is no evidence of HDMI/HDCP support on the mac mini.
A lot of these could be fixed in the future, with an "upgraded" mac mini. but i just don't think it adds up. the mini doesn't even look like a home theater component. Cringely seems to be basing his entire theory on the Quicktime trailers site being down for an evening... to me this is not even close to being a sufficient foundation to support his claims.
I do hope one day Apple releases a media center solution. They are one company who could really shake things up and bring some attention to the media center concept, which I am totally into after installing Xbox Media Center (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com) on my modded Xbox. I just don't see this happening anytime soon, and in particular not with the mac mini. I sure hope I'm wrong!
when did sony ever claim that the ps2 would render toy story in real time? i'll tell you: they never did.
the one console that was overhyped with promises of prerendered, pixar-level graphics was the N64. sony never actually lied about the PS2's capabilities, and all their fancy demos actually ran on the emotion engine.
I disagree. Linux's "bottom-up" strategy has worked extremely well. When I think of where Linux was in 1996, and where it is now, I can only encourage the Linux community to continue doing whatever it has been doing. Linux or OSS don't need marketing campaigns aimed at upper management to win, although they dont hurt either (thanks, IBM). Linux is already in the vocabulary of upper management types, combine that with gung-ho Linux supporters under said management, and you have a deadly situation for Microsoft in the server department.
To survive in the server market Microsoft will have to adapt or die. I dont think marketing could save them here. Even giving away their software won't save them.
Basically I'm saying that solid technology with extensive grassroots support can and will eventually beat out any marketing campaign. You just have to give it time.
By far the most original game I've played this year was Viewtiful Joe. 2d gameplay, best 3d cell shaded graphics since JSRF, slow down/speed up/zoom in effects, amazing puzzles, amazing bosses battles. Overall great mix of old school gameplay and cutting edge gameplay/graphical innovations. Totally original, totally great. My personal favorite game of the year.
They did obviously consider unicode, perhaps you did not RTFA. However their solution uses unicode at a different layer.
I think the *real* solution here is to reimplement ALL top level DNS servers to support unicode. But the overhead in doing this, when you really think about it, seems difficult (ICANN approval, unicode related bugs, getting everyone to use new DNS server, etc). At least, since the ASCII text supported by DNS are exactly the same in Unicode, backwards compatibility should not be a problem.
This solution is a workaround that uses unicode at the client level, encodes it to "punicode" (which only contains characters supported by DNS, unlike, say, BASE-64 or Quoted-Printable), and sends the request to the DNS server. It is a quick and easy solution to a messy problem. But its hacky-ness makes me doubt it will be supported by whatever governing body influences this stuff (IETF, ICANN, etc).
This is so painful to watch. The company wants to say that anyone with a good idea cannot port that idea years later. That they own it. That even if that programmer kept a chunk of the code they once wrote, because they knew they couldn't remember it line-per-line, and copied it into a kernel module, that they own the rights to it.
That's not the issue in this case. SCO is reaching further. If I read the article correctly, SCO are claiming that code written by IBM engineers, at IBM in fact belongs to SCO, because that work done by IBM is a derivative work of Unix.
So let's say you're a software developer at IBM. You add feature X to the Unix code IBM bought from SCO. Many other developers do the same, and eventually you call this heavily modified Unix "AIX". Some years later, IBM starts working on the Linux kernel, a GPL'ed piece of software. Feature X is missing from the Linux kernel, so naturally they ask you to do the same feature for Linux. Now, what SCO is saying is that for you to add this feature to Linux is not legal. This is why SCO is suing IBM for 3 billion dollars. They believe that the AIX kernel is an entirely derivative work of Unix, and thus the rights to AIX belong to them, and to copy any features from AIX to Linux, even those features developed fully under the payroll of IBM, is copyright infringement.
Of course, this is utter nonsense. I sincerely hope IBM makes a strong legal case and gets this whole thing dismissed from the courts. No settlement, I want SCO to lose. Then we'll all munch on popcorn as we watch them crash and burn.
If SCO wins this, then any enhancement you add to a piece of software will be owned by the original author of said software, not you. The chilling effects would be immense.
This is a dupe of a recent story. At least the articles it points to are different. Same product, though.
-Mani
Current status of Transmet movie / Patrick Stewart
on
Ask Warren Ellis
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Patrick Stewart, being a vocal Transmet fan, has expressed interest in starring in a Transmet movie or TV (mini?) series. I think you too have expressed interest in this kind of venture. Basically, my questions are:
1) What is the status of a Transmet movie or TV series? Have any studios shown interest in this kind of project?
2) What kind of role would you play if such a project was green-lit? Which story arc from your comics do you think would be best suited for the big screen, or would you develop an entirely new arc?
3) Are you friends with Patrick Stewart? I honestly can't picture him either reading Transmet or portraying Spider in a movie. That being said, I would love to see how Patrick Stewart would interpret Spider Jerusalem.
I hope you continued success. To me, people like you and Garth Ennis represent the new breed of comic writers who are and will continue to expand the art just as effectively as writers such as Frank Miller and Alan Moore (who also continue to do their own thing, and are far from retirement:) ).
Microsoft fully knows and expects that the first incarnations of Palladium will be cracked. The issue is that eventually Palladium logic will move from being a seperate chip on your motherboard to being right in your CPU's die. At that point it will become extremely difficult for even very talented hackers to break. When Palladium is integrated with your CPU, you'll need some very expensive equipment to find out what's going on inside the chip let alone crack it. At that point the cost of entry for breaking Palladium will be too high for individuals or even universities, and your only hope will be on a competitor to Intel/MS or whatever breaking the DMCA to crack their hardware (I don't see this happening).
Then I submit that you shouldn't post assertions if you can't prove them. Just because you don't use Windows doesn't lend your arguments instant credibility, and this is from someone who's been using Linux since 1995.
Um, pretty much all dedicated media players have embedded hardware for decoding video. DVD players have MPEG-2 decoders. MPEG-4 hardware decoders are popping up now, and they're pretty cheap. If players are developed for this format, they will for sure have hardware decoders, so no they wont need 2.4ghz P4's in them. At most, probably a tiny little embedded CPU.
Re:Not a Big Deal. What about Theora and Vorbis???
on
HD DVD Coming Very Soon
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
As a MS employee from the WM9 team stated, MS holds many MPEG-4 patents and played a large role in developing the technology several years ago. In fact they built on the knowledge from MPEG-4 to develop this new codec. They feel this new codec is demonstrably better than MPEG-4, and encourage people to do their own tests and make qualitative and quantitative comparisons, as of course they are biased having developed the codec.
Reading AVSForum posts, some of the authorities on that site have done their own tests and seem to agree with the MS guys. Looks to me like the WM9 codec is almost a big a step over MPEG-4 as MPEG-2 was to MPEG-4.
Instead of posting assertions, why dont you do your own tests and make your own conclusion. This is Slashdot right? I'm sure you, and nearly everyone else here, have the know-how to encode video with competing codecs and make your own comparisons. Just a thought, before everyone gets on their anti-MS high horse.
It would cost MS a significant amount of money to port WM9 to Linux. Please tell me how porting a large software project for a tiny number of desktop users is going to provide them a return on their investment.
Slashdot Mirror
In the latest version of XCode, Apple introduced "Storyboard" ... which bears an uncanny resemblance to Hypercard.
Part one of a Storyboard tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGdELuDMxds
For C, learn from the best, and that would be John Carmack. :)
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_source_code_files
Ok, I just read the Apple site and realized I was completely wrong.
:)
Disregard everything I said.
You're drawing a distinction between a WebObjects DEVELOPMENT license and a DEPLOYMENT license where there isnt any. They are one and the same.
WebObjects used to cost $699 (for one deployment, or one developer seat), but is now free. It was already free with Mac OS X Server (starting June 2002 according to the article).
I'm betting they just removed the chunk of code having to do with entering licenses.
Maybe you are right, but if your only source of info is the linked article, then you know as little as I do and perhaps you misread the article.
You should re-read the following quote from the article:
"The company released WebObjects deployment software for free with Xserves (as part of the Mac OS X Server package) in June 2002, but the move to a wider distribution is regarded as significant - not least because until May 2000 the software cost $50,000."
Personally, I am totally psyched about this. Enterprise Objects, and the whole WebObjects environment in general are so way ahead of other similar technologies out there it is actually kind of ridiculous.
Reasons why Cringely is wrong:
... to me this is not even close to being a sufficient foundation to support his claims.
1. both models of the mac mini are currently shipping without support for either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Cringely glosses over this stating that the mini will exclusively be for delivering online HD content.
2. there is no IR/remote support on the mac mini, so no remote control. this is kind of a big and small deal at the same time. it would not have cost much for them to add support for this, yet it is a feature essential to media centers.
3. the current mac mini models are simply not powerful enough to decode HD video compressed with modern MPEG-4, WMA9-level codecs.
4. no component video out on the mini. Cringely once again glosses over this, stating that DVI is sufficient. while DVI does seem to generally work on DVI/HDMI and DVI/HDCP televisions, there are cases where it does not, and it is certainly not officially supported by most vendors. remember this is Apple, they're not going to push technologies that aren't officially supported. there is no evidence of HDMI/HDCP support on the mac mini.
A lot of these could be fixed in the future, with an "upgraded" mac mini. but i just don't think it adds up. the mini doesn't even look like a home theater component. Cringely seems to be basing his entire theory on the Quicktime trailers site being down for an evening
I do hope one day Apple releases a media center solution. They are one company who could really shake things up and bring some attention to the media center concept, which I am totally into after installing Xbox Media Center (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com) on my modded Xbox. I just don't see this happening anytime soon, and in particular not with the mac mini. I sure hope I'm wrong!
I think you meant to say UN*X, not U*NX.
when did sony ever claim that the ps2 would render toy story in real time? i'll tell you: they never did.
the one console that was overhyped with promises of prerendered, pixar-level graphics was the N64. sony never actually lied about the PS2's capabilities, and all their fancy demos actually ran on the emotion engine.
I disagree. Linux's "bottom-up" strategy has worked extremely well. When I think of where Linux was in 1996, and where it is now, I can only encourage the Linux community to continue doing whatever it has been doing. Linux or OSS don't need marketing campaigns aimed at upper management to win, although they dont hurt either (thanks, IBM). Linux is already in the vocabulary of upper management types, combine that with gung-ho Linux supporters under said management, and you have a deadly situation for Microsoft in the server department.
To survive in the server market Microsoft will have to adapt or die. I dont think marketing could save them here. Even giving away their software won't save them.
Basically I'm saying that solid technology with extensive grassroots support can and will eventually beat out any marketing campaign. You just have to give it time.
By far the most original game I've played this year was Viewtiful Joe. 2d gameplay, best 3d cell shaded graphics since JSRF, slow down/speed up/zoom in effects, amazing puzzles, amazing bosses battles. Overall great mix of old school gameplay and cutting edge gameplay/graphical innovations. Totally original, totally great. My personal favorite game of the year.
They did obviously consider unicode, perhaps you did not RTFA. However their solution uses unicode at a different layer.
I think the *real* solution here is to reimplement ALL top level DNS servers to support unicode. But the overhead in doing this, when you really think about it, seems difficult (ICANN approval, unicode related bugs, getting everyone to use new DNS server, etc). At least, since the ASCII text supported by DNS are exactly the same in Unicode, backwards compatibility should not be a problem.
This solution is a workaround that uses unicode at the client level, encodes it to "punicode" (which only contains characters supported by DNS, unlike, say, BASE-64 or Quoted-Printable), and sends the request to the DNS server. It is a quick and easy solution to a messy problem. But its hacky-ness makes me doubt it will be supported by whatever governing body influences this stuff (IETF, ICANN, etc).
-Mani
Well IMHO, you are being antagonistic for no good reason.
A site can be "Firebird-compliant" and be fully "standards-compliant" simultaneously. I'm pretty sure this is obvious.
Furthermore, he/she asked about testing for CSS2 compliance, which I believe implies he/she does "get it" when it comes to standards compliance.
I don't mean to sound antagonistic, but you don't get it, do you? You don't understand the ideas and concepts by "standards", do you?
I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but this makes you sound like an asshole.
-Mani
Re: Approved
Re: Wicked Screensaver
Re: That movie
Re: Details
Re: Your application
Re: Thank you!
Yikes, usually I never get spammed with these virus mails. Suddenly I have about 10 in my mailbox.
This is so painful to watch. The company wants to say that anyone with a good idea cannot port that idea years later. That they own it. That even if that programmer kept a chunk of the code they once wrote, because they knew they couldn't remember it line-per-line, and copied it into a kernel module, that they own the rights to it.
That's not the issue in this case. SCO is reaching further. If I read the article correctly, SCO are claiming that code written by IBM engineers, at IBM in fact belongs to SCO, because that work done by IBM is a derivative work of Unix.
So let's say you're a software developer at IBM. You add feature X to the Unix code IBM bought from SCO. Many other developers do the same, and eventually you call this heavily modified Unix "AIX". Some years later, IBM starts working on the Linux kernel, a GPL'ed piece of software. Feature X is missing from the Linux kernel, so naturally they ask you to do the same feature for Linux. Now, what SCO is saying is that for you to add this feature to Linux is not legal. This is why SCO is suing IBM for 3 billion dollars. They believe that the AIX kernel is an entirely derivative work of Unix, and thus the rights to AIX belong to them, and to copy any features from AIX to Linux, even those features developed fully under the payroll of IBM, is copyright infringement.
Of course, this is utter nonsense. I sincerely hope IBM makes a strong legal case and gets this whole thing dismissed from the courts. No settlement, I want SCO to lose. Then we'll all munch on popcorn as we watch them crash and burn.
If SCO wins this, then any enhancement you add to a piece of software will be owned by the original author of said software, not you. The chilling effects would be immense.
-Mani
excited to try a new shareware game, i downloaded snood and fired it up.
what the fuck man. this is just a bad puzzle bobble/bust a move ripoff. a REALLY bad one.
i don't mean this in a derogatory manner, but you are clearly not a gamer, sorry.
-Mani
The extended LoTR:FoTR plays perfectly fine on my X-Box. Has this incompatibility you speak of been documented anywhere?
-Mani
FYI, the 11 companies involved are:
u ardent
Microsoft
@stake
BindView
SCO
Foundstone
G
Internet Security Systems
Network Associates
Oracle
SGI
Symantec
-Mani
javascript != Applets, I think you're getting the two mixed up.
This is a dupe of a recent story. At least the articles it points to are different. Same product, though.
-Mani
Patrick Stewart, being a vocal Transmet fan, has expressed interest in starring in a Transmet movie or TV (mini?) series. I think you too have expressed interest in this kind of venture. Basically, my questions are:
:) ).
1) What is the status of a Transmet movie or TV series? Have any studios shown interest in this kind of project?
2) What kind of role would you play if such a project was green-lit? Which story arc from your comics do you think would be best suited for the big screen, or would you develop an entirely new arc?
3) Are you friends with Patrick Stewart? I honestly can't picture him either reading Transmet or portraying Spider in a movie. That being said, I would love to see how Patrick Stewart would interpret Spider Jerusalem.
I hope you continued success. To me, people like you and Garth Ennis represent the new breed of comic writers who are and will continue to expand the art just as effectively as writers such as Frank Miller and Alan Moore (who also continue to do their own thing, and are far from retirement
Cheers,
-Mani
Microsoft fully knows and expects that the first incarnations of Palladium will be cracked. The issue is that eventually Palladium logic will move from being a seperate chip on your motherboard to being right in your CPU's die. At that point it will become extremely difficult for even very talented hackers to break. When Palladium is integrated with your CPU, you'll need some very expensive equipment to find out what's going on inside the chip let alone crack it. At that point the cost of entry for breaking Palladium will be too high for individuals or even universities, and your only hope will be on a competitor to Intel/MS or whatever breaking the DMCA to crack their hardware (I don't see this happening).
-Mani
Then I submit that you shouldn't post assertions if you can't prove them. Just because you don't use Windows doesn't lend your arguments instant credibility, and this is from someone who's been using Linux since 1995.
-Mani
Um, pretty much all dedicated media players have embedded hardware for decoding video. DVD players have MPEG-2 decoders. MPEG-4 hardware decoders are popping up now, and they're pretty cheap. If players are developed for this format, they will for sure have hardware decoders, so no they wont need 2.4ghz P4's in them. At most, probably a tiny little embedded CPU.
As a MS employee from the WM9 team stated, MS holds many MPEG-4 patents and played a large role in developing the technology several years ago. In fact they built on the knowledge from MPEG-4 to develop this new codec. They feel this new codec is demonstrably better than MPEG-4, and encourage people to do their own tests and make qualitative and quantitative comparisons, as of course they are biased having developed the codec.
Reading AVSForum posts, some of the authorities on that site have done their own tests and seem to agree with the MS guys. Looks to me like the WM9 codec is almost a big a step over MPEG-4 as MPEG-2 was to MPEG-4.
Instead of posting assertions, why dont you do your own tests and make your own conclusion. This is Slashdot right? I'm sure you, and nearly everyone else here, have the know-how to encode video with competing codecs and make your own comparisons. Just a thought, before everyone gets on their anti-MS high horse.
No, no no.
It would cost MS a significant amount of money to port WM9 to Linux. Please tell me how porting a large software project for a tiny number of desktop users is going to provide them a return on their investment.
-Mani
the subject says it all. take it easy.
-Mani