(Good grief, why do I bother responding to these posts?...)
Probably because it helps keep your fingers warm during the winter;) (if there is a winter where you're at).
I'm glad someone has a good grasp on what SCO's licensing would involve. A lot of people were under the initial impression that SCO had some kind of patent investment in the source to the Linux kernel et al. But you're exactly right, it's just the compatibility layer. So people who use SCO UNIX won't be charged (directly), but SCO wants to reap a few more benefits out of the people who are switching to Linux, but still need the ABI compatibility with SCO software.
They're a hot item in some parts... Break in somewhere, grab whatever you can (maybe one guy grabs the case, the other grabs the monitor) and high-tail it out of whereever you stole it from. Friends of ours across the street had their house broken into (sadly, they forgot to arm their house alarm).
Anyways, not only did they steal their computer, but they stole their car. Repeat offenders like this likely don't need all the hardware they've stolen, so, much like stripping a car, they would be inclined to strip the computer for the parts and just sell the parts. They obviously don't care what data is on the hard drives.
Does this call for password-protected encrypted hard drives? Maybe a loopback device in Linux? I don't know much about it, but the only post-protection you may have against theft may be to plan for the theft initially -- right on the hard drive.
OK, granted, Linux is free, but it hasn't had a lot of direct mainstream publicity. A lot of stuff that's been heard about Linux has been through the Linux community itself, and the media (notoriety et al), not through marketing. I believe that administrators who are sufficiently educated will help bring this to the market, just as OS afficionados have helped to bring Linux to the market. Alpha has a loyal following, much like Linux, and while marketing will help the Alpha, without it doesn't mean that the Alpha won't gain more foothold in the server market.
Hahaha that's awesome. It looks like they're on a turbolift or something. "Hey baby, want to touch my mobile blazing 1 million Hz minicomputer?"... "Uh, no, I get off here."
I see a lot of people linking cartridges to combat piracy. This is not at all what Nintendo has in mind. People are pirating Nintendo hardware/software because they simply don't exist on the Chinese market. So if you introduce them to the market, some of the people who are pirating Nintendo merchandise will start to purchase it, and piracy will decrease. Granted, in some cases it may be cheaper to pirate, but by giving people what they want, they may be willing to pay for it.
Cartridges are just as easy to copy as CDs with the right hardware. A friend of mine paid $300 Canadian for a blank cartridge (can hold, on average, 8 GBA games), a cartridge copier, and a GBA. He can store a bunch of games on a CD or on his hard drive, and dump them to the blank cartridge whenever he wants to play them. The games are smaller, the cartridge is rewritable (although yes, there are CR-RWs available) and hooks right up to his computer.
Introducing their products on the market won't make copying harder; if anything, it'll make it easier. It's giving people another incentive to not pirate these products that Nintendo is after.
Yeah, but have you seen PS1 games on a PS2 console?
I can sympathize with you there. I don't know about other PS2 regions, but the North American PS2 only includes two options:
1) Texture smoothing (which is somewhat negligible on 16-bit textures)
2) Fast CD-ROM (20x instead of 2x).
The reason why the PS2 is backwards compatible with the PS1 is because the I/O system on the PS2 is virtually a PS1-on-a-chip (or several chips). This system is what is used when you play PS1 games. I could see a good deal of benefit had they increased the clock speed on that chip, but then you have to weigh cost/advantage (and some games likely bet themselves on a fixed clock speed and aren't made forward-compatible with these kinds of changes).
Plus, if old PS1 games look so great on the PS2, what's the incentive to buy more PS2 games?;)
I think it makes sense to use a "proprietary" technology like RAMBUS for consoles..
The problem with that is licensing and intellectual property. Currently, the PS/2 uses various proprietary systems (such as the boot loader, the image processor, the I/O -- which is just a compressed Playstation-1). These things are unavailable directly from the PS/2 Linux kit. Instead, the software shipped with the kit includes binary-only code that either disables or hinders the usage of these locked components. It's not necessarily Sony's fault, as some of the technology doesn't belong to Sony and so disclosure is at the whim of the licensee.
That reminds me of George Carlin's take on global warming and petroleum products (plastic) -- their implications. He says, "the Earth created us so we could make plastic! It wants to keep plastic for itself!"
I'd like to get away from magnetic storage as a temporary removable storage device... The last time the floor waxer zamboni zipped past my locker I lost my college programming project... not to mention the number of VHS tapes that are useless now... am I alone in this?
There's this cool thing called demand. With the advent of media a lot of demand for entertainment is based on this media. Do you want to stop watching movies, watching TV (there are a great deal of advertisements for movies, as well as movies that make it to TV). Oh yeah, and stop listening to the radio while you're driving. Grab a good tape and... oh, wait, you bought that music legally. Stop listening to your CDs and... whoops. You get the idea. They provide a valuable service (I'm talking collectively, as you know as well as I do that the RIAA/MPAA is just a front for its respective company members).
If you boycott the MPAA/RIAA, you give up certain luxuries. It's not like boycotting Ford -- you can't just buy a car from another manufacturer (although in the entertainment media case there are independent filmmakers and artists that don't sit under the guise of the MPAA/RIAA -- I encourage people to support them).
I say we boycott their business methods. Don't buy copy-protected CDs, do the usual congress-critter writing, etc., etc.
Boycotting is mostly useful when there is a viable alternative. While some people can find completely different forms of entertainment, the entertainment industry itself encompasses a lot of what we do. I don't think it's the right way to get them to change their business practices.
Now something I'm unclear of is, for example, the nature of Sony. I own a PS2. Does that mean that I'm supporting the xAA's? My assumption is that Sony Music and Sony Electronics are almost entirely different companies, but I'd need more clarification from other slashdotters.
Now, it's valid to worry about whether I'm redidistributing software according to the license. But if I follow each individual software's license, then leave me alone.
Wow, I can't think of a better way to put it. It's interesting that the GPL tries to tell you what you can do with the software, while the people who enforce it are now telling you what you cannot do. I honestly can't see any licensing reasons why I can't take two pieces of software and run them together on my computer (as you indicate).
But then... the kernel has a table of system calls, and that table can be edited to effectively pipeline calls to the binary-only modules. So a binary-only module (with the older method) can effectively replace different kernel services (maybe?). Are there any licensing issues that occur with this?
How about you go branch your own Linux kernel tree and add code back in that better supports binary-only modules? It's their tree, they can do what they want. If Red Hat doesn't like it, they can maintain their own tree (which they do). If nVidia doesn't like it, they can do likewise.
After all the hard work of the kernel folks, you seem to expect them to be perfectly happy with having to support binary modules that they can't debug, and that fall in a grey area of the GPL.
How about you go create your own open-source project. Then I'll go create some hardware, and keep all the information proprietary. To tease you a bit, I'll keep all information about my hardware proprietary, so you have two choices:
1) Reverse engineer my hardware and write your own software. 2) Indicate to me that your software is valuable, and depends on my hardware, until you convince me to release sources so they'll work better with your software.
That's the position nVidia's in. They've got one of the most widely-used video cards on the market. And the only way to use that video card effectively under Linux is to use their binary-only drivers. Get a clue. Linux doesn't belong to commercial entities any more than it belongs to Linus. What you do with your kernel tree is your own business.
all ya need to worry about is 640*480 and identical hardware
Some TVs have 1080i (high-resolution). Others support widescreen (available on some games). Some games are available on multiple platforms. You have to get it right the first time, because you can't release patches later. If your game pushes too many polygons, you can't simply increase the minimum requirements. There is a plethora of input devices and such available on the market for each console. You can't develop games on the same hardware that they run on. There are various display formats available depending on your region (NTSC, PAL, etc).
So yeah, there's a little more to worry about than just 640x480 and assuming everyone's running an identical setup.
Slashdot Mirror
(Good grief, why do I bother responding to these posts?...)
;) (if there is a winter where you're at).
Probably because it helps keep your fingers warm during the winter
I'm glad someone has a good grasp on what SCO's licensing would involve. A lot of people were under the initial impression that SCO had some kind of patent investment in the source to the Linux kernel et al. But you're exactly right, it's just the compatibility layer. So people who use SCO UNIX won't be charged (directly), but SCO wants to reap a few more benefits out of the people who are switching to Linux, but still need the ABI compatibility with SCO software.
They're a hot item in some parts... Break in somewhere, grab whatever you can (maybe one guy grabs the case, the other grabs the monitor) and high-tail it out of whereever you stole it from. Friends of ours across the street had their house broken into (sadly, they forgot to arm their house alarm).
Anyways, not only did they steal their computer, but they stole their car. Repeat offenders like this likely don't need all the hardware they've stolen, so, much like stripping a car, they would be inclined to strip the computer for the parts and just sell the parts. They obviously don't care what data is on the hard drives.
Does this call for password-protected encrypted hard drives? Maybe a loopback device in Linux? I don't know much about it, but the only post-protection you may have against theft may be to plan for the theft initially -- right on the hard drive.
Absolutely.
I agree.
Linux Lives! But Who Will Market It?
OK, granted, Linux is free, but it hasn't had a lot of direct mainstream publicity. A lot of stuff that's been heard about Linux has been through the Linux community itself, and the media (notoriety et al), not through marketing. I believe that administrators who are sufficiently educated will help bring this to the market, just as OS afficionados have helped to bring Linux to the market. Alpha has a loyal following, much like Linux, and while marketing will help the Alpha, without it doesn't mean that the Alpha won't gain more foothold in the server market.
Hahaha that's awesome. It looks like they're on a turbolift or something. "Hey baby, want to touch my mobile blazing 1 million Hz minicomputer?" ... "Uh, no, I get off here."
"All you need is Internet Explorer," says Doug Barton, the director of technology for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, based in Gaithersburg, Md.
The "bandwidth crunch link".
Your post says it all, $300Ca for ONE cartridge
A friend of mine paid $300 Canadian for a blank cartridge (can hold, on average, 8 GBA games), a cartridge copier, and a GBA.
You should probably finish reading the entire sentence before you reply.
I see a lot of people linking cartridges to combat piracy. This is not at all what Nintendo has in mind. People are pirating Nintendo hardware/software because they simply don't exist on the Chinese market. So if you introduce them to the market, some of the people who are pirating Nintendo merchandise will start to purchase it, and piracy will decrease. Granted, in some cases it may be cheaper to pirate, but by giving people what they want, they may be willing to pay for it.
Cartridges are just as easy to copy as CDs with the right hardware. A friend of mine paid $300 Canadian for a blank cartridge (can hold, on average, 8 GBA games), a cartridge copier, and a GBA. He can store a bunch of games on a CD or on his hard drive, and dump them to the blank cartridge whenever he wants to play them. The games are smaller, the cartridge is rewritable (although yes, there are CR-RWs available) and hooks right up to his computer.
Introducing their products on the market won't make copying harder; if anything, it'll make it easier. It's giving people another incentive to not pirate these products that Nintendo is after.
Trying to remember how you became blind: Priceless
It was corrected on a slashback. The EOLs are mostly for hardcopy documentation and other bundled software, not for OS/2 itself.
Yeah, but have you seen PS1 games on a PS2 console?
;)
I can sympathize with you there. I don't know about other PS2 regions, but the North American PS2 only includes two options:
1) Texture smoothing (which is somewhat negligible on 16-bit textures)
2) Fast CD-ROM (20x instead of 2x).
The reason why the PS2 is backwards compatible with the PS1 is because the I/O system on the PS2 is virtually a PS1-on-a-chip (or several chips). This system is what is used when you play PS1 games. I could see a good deal of benefit had they increased the clock speed on that chip, but then you have to weigh cost/advantage (and some games likely bet themselves on a fixed clock speed and aren't made forward-compatible with these kinds of changes).
Plus, if old PS1 games look so great on the PS2, what's the incentive to buy more PS2 games?
I think it makes sense to use a "proprietary" technology like RAMBUS for consoles..
The problem with that is licensing and intellectual property. Currently, the PS/2 uses various proprietary systems (such as the boot loader, the image processor, the I/O -- which is just a compressed Playstation-1). These things are unavailable directly from the PS/2 Linux kit. Instead, the software shipped with the kit includes binary-only code that either disables or hinders the usage of these locked components. It's not necessarily Sony's fault, as some of the technology doesn't belong to Sony and so disclosure is at the whim of the licensee.
How about IBM? (OS/2)
they can borrow my CPU power... an Athlon 1600... that should take care of... let's see... one trillionth of a bit?
I guess they sourceforgot to check their posts before submitting them to the front page.
That reminds me of George Carlin's take on global warming and petroleum products (plastic) -- their implications. He says, "the Earth created us so we could make plastic! It wants to keep plastic for itself!"
Hahaha, melts in your PC, not in your hand...
Did you ever get your chocolate bar?
I'd like to get away from magnetic storage as a temporary removable storage device... The last time the floor waxer zamboni zipped past my locker I lost my college programming project... not to mention the number of VHS tapes that are useless now... am I alone in this?
There's this cool thing called demand. With the advent of media a lot of demand for entertainment is based on this media. Do you want to stop watching movies, watching TV (there are a great deal of advertisements for movies, as well as movies that make it to TV). Oh yeah, and stop listening to the radio while you're driving. Grab a good tape and... oh, wait, you bought that music legally. Stop listening to your CDs and... whoops. You get the idea. They provide a valuable service (I'm talking collectively, as you know as well as I do that the RIAA/MPAA is just a front for its respective company members).
If you boycott the MPAA/RIAA, you give up certain luxuries. It's not like boycotting Ford -- you can't just buy a car from another manufacturer (although in the entertainment media case there are independent filmmakers and artists that don't sit under the guise of the MPAA/RIAA -- I encourage people to support them).
I say we boycott their business methods. Don't buy copy-protected CDs, do the usual congress-critter writing, etc., etc.
Boycotting is mostly useful when there is a viable alternative. While some people can find completely different forms of entertainment, the entertainment industry itself encompasses a lot of what we do. I don't think it's the right way to get them to change their business practices.
Now something I'm unclear of is, for example, the nature of Sony. I own a PS2. Does that mean that I'm supporting the xAA's? My assumption is that Sony Music and Sony Electronics are almost entirely different companies, but I'd need more clarification from other slashdotters.
Hmmm... I'm thinking (-1, Spambait).
Now, it's valid to worry about whether I'm redidistributing software according to the license. But if I follow each individual software's license, then leave me alone.
Wow, I can't think of a better way to put it. It's interesting that the GPL tries to tell you what you can do with the software, while the people who enforce it are now telling you what you cannot do. I honestly can't see any licensing reasons why I can't take two pieces of software and run them together on my computer (as you indicate).
But then... the kernel has a table of system calls, and that table can be edited to effectively pipeline calls to the binary-only modules. So a binary-only module (with the older method) can effectively replace different kernel services (maybe?). Are there any licensing issues that occur with this?
Very cool. I am missing something. How did I reinforce your point exactly?
How about you go branch your own Linux kernel tree and add code back in that better supports binary-only modules? It's their tree, they can do what they want. If Red Hat doesn't like it, they can maintain their own tree (which they do). If nVidia doesn't like it, they can do likewise.
After all the hard work of the kernel folks, you seem to expect them to be perfectly happy with having to support binary modules that they can't debug, and that fall in a grey area of the GPL.
How about you go create your own open-source project. Then I'll go create some hardware, and keep all the information proprietary. To tease you a bit, I'll keep all information about my hardware proprietary, so you have two choices:
1) Reverse engineer my hardware and write your own software.
2) Indicate to me that your software is valuable, and depends on my hardware, until you convince me to release sources so they'll work better with your software.
That's the position nVidia's in. They've got one of the most widely-used video cards on the market. And the only way to use that video card effectively under Linux is to use their binary-only drivers. Get a clue. Linux doesn't belong to commercial entities any more than it belongs to Linus. What you do with your kernel tree is your own business.
all ya need to worry about is 640*480 and identical hardware
Some TVs have 1080i (high-resolution). Others support widescreen (available on some games). Some games are available on multiple platforms. You have to get it right the first time, because you can't release patches later. If your game pushes too many polygons, you can't simply increase the minimum requirements. There is a plethora of input devices and such available on the market for each console. You can't develop games on the same hardware that they run on. There are various display formats available depending on your region (NTSC, PAL, etc).
So yeah, there's a little more to worry about than just 640x480 and assuming everyone's running an identical setup.