Jet Set Radio, Virtua Tennis, Crazy Taxi, Phantasy Star Online, Sonic, Samba de Amigo, F355 Challenge, Virtual On, Eternal Arcadia, House Of The Dead 2, Shen Mue. Each of these is original, fresh, polished and a lot of fun.
That's the output of a single company in a single year.
So here's my question: Are you *completely mental*? The market has completely failed to go where the games are. The public at large is currently showing a distressing prediliction for third-rate driving games and clones of clones of clones.
IMHO RMS' position on libc is that attracting proprietary users has value (probably because they'll report bugs and maybe even offer fixes), while rejecting them wouldn't hinder them at all and won't persuade anyone to free their work.
What part of that doesn't apply to Crystalspace? It's a very nice piece of software, but just as there are lots of libcs out there, there's no shortage of 3D engines.
I'm not suggesting that Stallman's right or wrong, just that he judges Jorrit's choices a bit more harshly than he does his own.
In the case of glibc, a free implementation of some insignificant but essential code assists in the creation of many large, non-free projects. This is directly at odds with RMS's preaching that pandering to users should be secondary to moral considerations. I call it insignificant because there are lots of libc's out there and they all do exactly the same thing.
In the case of PS2 Crystalspace, a non-free implementation of some insignificant but essential code assists in the creation and promotion of a large, free project.
RMS's position is that it's ok for his glibc to be non-free because no-one would use a totally free version. Jorrit's position is that it's ok for PS2 CS to have a small non-free component because noone could use an entirely free version (Sony would sue him). Please explain how RMS's position is moral and Jorrit's isn't.
This is why we used the Library GPL for the GNU C library. After all, there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software developers to use another--no problem for them, only for us.
If it's ok for RMS to facilitate closed-source code in the name of gaining users, WTF is wrong with Jorrit writing a bit of closed-source code in order to help promote his otherwise free software?
In what respect do you consider the universe to be "amoral". You may perceive the universe as amoral but then there are two (actually three) things, the universe, your perception of it and your concepts about what is and is not "moral".
Ho hum.
As an atheist, I believe morality to be a totally human construct. Since I don't believe humanity to be at the center of the universe, I don't believe that human constructs like morality or justice have much to do with the universe at large. We try to superimpose them over our little corner of the cosmos and act baffled when the universe doesn't play ball and makes things like train wrecks, famines and Barry Manilow.
Actually, Sony doesn't seem too bothered about people creating public APIs for PS2. There's an OpenGL implementation and also a middleware cross-platform library (Renderware).
Incidentally, the reason Sony probably don't want the PS2 APIs to go public is that the they don't strictly exist; the native API is mainly a bunch of #defines for addresses of memory-mapped DMAs and suchlike. Nice!
I think that Linux needs a good competitor to DirectX though. OpenGL just doesn't cut it, it hasn't kept up with any of the other APIs
You've been FUDded. nVidia has exposed all their hardware-specific functionality through OpenGL extensions. Likewise ATI. Likewise 3Dfx. Exactly what D3D features are you talking about?
I'd like a new holiday called 'Rampant Commercialism day' that doesn't have that half-assed celebration of Christ's birth attatched. Possible alternative names for the holiday include 'Shiny Plastic Crap Day' and 'CONSUME!'.
It might be doing great as a DVD player but as a console it's on very shaky ground - few games, few developers.
What self-respecting geek wants to write games for a DVD player? (no offence to Jeff Minter)
Nintendo, Microsft and Sega have all made ease of development a clear priority and that's the bottom line as far as most developers are concerned. Who cares if the box has a celebrity kernel?
1) They're competition is Microsoft (great hardware and a collosal marketing spend), Sony (good hardware and a gigantic installed base) and Nintendo (great hardware and great games). What have they got going for them? 'The awesome power of Linux' is not a valid answer unless qualified by some concrete examples.
2) The approach of sneaking a console into homes under the guise of being something else has been tried before (Nuon aka Project X) and it didn't work. The website is quite ambivalent about what Indrema *is*, whereas the major players all very clearly market their consoles as games machines first and foremost.
3) Linux seems to be a bit of a red-herring here. A modern console OS needs the standard C libs optionally with threading, and specialised APIs for 3D, audio, input, networking etc. It's not like Linux is going to deliver that stuff any better than a custom OS.
Of course not. By the way, you do know that your nick is the French word for 'cold', right? I mention it on the off-chance that you were trying to spell Sigmund Freud's surname.
The site was very obviously NOT there to help people make legitimate backups. Why would anyone need backup copies of instruction booklets?
I have an inalienable right to back up my own software
Something has been bugging me since I first heard the term 'fair use'. If you have a legally guaranteed right to make backups, isn't Sega denying you that right simply by selling copy-protected software? Isn't the entire console games industry? How about DVDs? So why doesn't the EFF take them all to court and force them to sell their products on unprotected media?
So now, instead of improving their products or trying to sell more, they're picking on the little guy.
1) Sega is demonstrably putting a *lot* of effort into improving their products - their catalogue of Dreamcast games is massively superior to the PSX2 launch lineup, their platform is much easier to develop for and their internal development is second to none. Until recently, the prevailing opinion in the industry was that a library of killer games would guarantee a platform's success. Sega had to try it out to discover that it's not true.
2) You imply that being the 'little guy' somehow gives these guys a moral high ground. It's not like Sega is trying to stifle legitimate competition, they're stopping the 'little guys' from hijacking their product.
And incidentally, Famicom is short for 'Family Computer'. Famicon is short for nothing.
I thought the guy complaining that Sega is attacking free-speech grated a little. Sega does seem to have gotten this site on a bit of a technicality but does anyone actually think they were unjustified?
Hands up everyone who believes they have an inalienable moral right to make warez.
Vendors should stop waiting and start coding their games in OpenGL/Glide/SDL for Linux
That made pretty good sense, right up until the word 'Glide'. OpenGL's extension mechanism allows vendors to expose groovy new features without having to wait for Microsoft to rev the API. In fact, nVidia is already doing this.
But Glide? It provides no functionality that isn't already available through DX5-7 and it only runs on Voodoo hardware. And Linux? As a replacement for a gaming console? [makes indignant sputtering noises] I think you should have stopped typing after the word 'OpenGL'.
People aspire to owning Sony products. Sony products are desirable. Microsoft products are things people have to use at work. Sony products work as advertised, first time, reliably. Microsoft products do not. Most tellingly, non-gamers use the word 'Playstation' to refer to console gaming in general, the same way I call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover. If that's not good brand recognition I don't know what is.
Oh, I just followed the link. I see that Gilette is a more valuable brand than Sony. Which is somehow an advantage when it comes to selling consoles, right?
Microsoft's also the world's second largest game publisher
Good grief, that can't be right can it? Bigger than EA, Eidos, Infogrames, Sega, Sony, Nintendo? I accuse you of totally making that up.
If John Carmack isn't the founder of modern gaming, I don't know who is.
Well lets see. How about Nolan Bushnell? Ken Kutaragi? Shigeru Miyamoto? Get some perspective, iD has invented a single genre of game. A very cool genre to be sure, but not the only one and not the most popular one either.
I don't mean to be all negative, it's a nice demo an all, but there are more OpenGL particle-systems demos out there than there are particles in this one.
Totally. This way, Amazon has a chance to recoup some of the enormous costs of developing their one-click technology.
It's also good to see Apple refusing to compromise on quality and insist on the most advanced available technology. They're really going to make two-click and three-click shopping sites look stupid.
There's also a point where the number of polys would make the sorting algorithm used by tiling slower than the Z-Buffer renderer.
Tile architectures aren't a replacement for hidden surface removal, they're a complementary technique. A tile accelerator doesn't have to use wacky O(nlog(n)) sorting algos to sort polys, it can just do regular zbuffering. The speed boost comes from (1) rendering each tile into fast on-chip memory, and (2) deferred texturing, where the accelerator doesn't bother fetching texels for occluded pixels, further saving on bandwidth. This second feature is particularly applicable to the coming age of per-pixel lighting and shaders, since the idea can be extended to avoid evaluating pixel shaders on occluded pixels.
Maybe if it had even a hundredth of the functionality of a PC it would be worth it, but on a PS2? What's the point?
I couldn't agree more. I still get annoyed when I see people using Sony CD players to listen to audio CDs. They don't have one millionth the power of a PC with a DVD-ROM drive, I mean what's the point?
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Jet Set Radio, Virtua Tennis, Crazy Taxi, Phantasy Star Online, Sonic, Samba de Amigo, F355 Challenge, Virtual On, Eternal Arcadia, House Of The Dead 2, Shen Mue. Each of these is original, fresh, polished and a lot of fun. That's the output of a single company in a single year. So here's my question: Are you *completely mental*? The market has completely failed to go where the games are. The public at large is currently showing a distressing prediliction for third-rate driving games and clones of clones of clones.
What part of that doesn't apply to Crystalspace? It's a very nice piece of software, but just as there are lots of libcs out there, there's no shortage of 3D engines.
I'm not suggesting that Stallman's right or wrong, just that he judges Jorrit's choices a bit more harshly than he does his own.
In the case of glibc, a free implementation of some insignificant but essential code assists in the creation of many large, non-free projects. This is directly at odds with RMS's preaching that pandering to users should be secondary to moral considerations. I call it insignificant because there are lots of libc's out there and they all do exactly the same thing.
In the case of PS2 Crystalspace, a non-free implementation of some insignificant but essential code assists in the creation and promotion of a large, free project.
RMS's position is that it's ok for his glibc to be non-free because no-one would use a totally free version. Jorrit's position is that it's ok for PS2 CS to have a small non-free component because noone could use an entirely free version (Sony would sue him). Please explain how RMS's position is moral and Jorrit's isn't.
This is why we used the Library GPL for the GNU C library. After all, there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software developers to use another--no problem for them, only for us.
If it's ok for RMS to facilitate closed-source code in the name of gaining users, WTF is wrong with Jorrit writing a bit of closed-source code in order to help promote his otherwise free software?
Ho hum.
As an atheist, I believe morality to be a totally human construct. Since I don't believe humanity to be at the center of the universe, I don't believe that human constructs like morality or justice have much to do with the universe at large. We try to superimpose them over our little corner of the cosmos and act baffled when the universe doesn't play ball and makes things like train wrecks, famines and Barry Manilow.
Incidentally, the reason Sony probably don't want the PS2 APIs to go public is that the they don't strictly exist; the native API is mainly a bunch of #defines for addresses of memory-mapped DMAs and suchlike. Nice!
Hmm. We all face the question of how to live morally in an essentially amoral universe. The RMS solution is analogous to living in a monastery.
You've been FUDded. nVidia has exposed all their hardware-specific functionality through OpenGL extensions. Likewise ATI. Likewise 3Dfx. Exactly what D3D features are you talking about?
I'd like a new holiday called 'Rampant Commercialism day' that doesn't have that half-assed celebration of Christ's birth attatched. Possible alternative names for the holiday include 'Shiny Plastic Crap Day' and 'CONSUME!'.
It might be doing great as a DVD player but as a console it's on very shaky ground - few games, few developers. What self-respecting geek wants to write games for a DVD player? (no offence to Jeff Minter)
Nintendo, Microsft and Sega have all made ease of development a clear priority and that's the bottom line as far as most developers are concerned. Who cares if the box has a celebrity kernel?
1) They're competition is Microsoft (great hardware and a collosal marketing spend), Sony (good hardware and a gigantic installed base) and Nintendo (great hardware and great games). What have they got going for them? 'The awesome power of Linux' is not a valid answer unless qualified by some concrete examples.
2) The approach of sneaking a console into homes under the guise of being something else has been tried before (Nuon aka Project X) and it didn't work. The website is quite ambivalent about what Indrema *is*, whereas the major players all very clearly market their consoles as games machines first and foremost.
3) Linux seems to be a bit of a red-herring here. A modern console OS needs the standard C libs optionally with threading, and specialised APIs for 3D, audio, input, networking etc. It's not like Linux is going to deliver that stuff any better than a custom OS.
Of course not. By the way, you do know that your nick is the French word for 'cold', right? I mention it on the off-chance that you were trying to spell Sigmund Freud's surname.
I have an inalienable right to back up my own software
Something has been bugging me since I first heard the term 'fair use'. If you have a legally guaranteed right to make backups, isn't Sega denying you that right simply by selling copy-protected software? Isn't the entire console games industry? How about DVDs? So why doesn't the EFF take them all to court and force them to sell their products on unprotected media?
1) Sega is demonstrably putting a *lot* of effort into improving their products - their catalogue of Dreamcast games is massively superior to the PSX2 launch lineup, their platform is much easier to develop for and their internal development is second to none. Until recently, the prevailing opinion in the industry was that a library of killer games would guarantee a platform's success. Sega had to try it out to discover that it's not true.
2) You imply that being the 'little guy' somehow gives these guys a moral high ground. It's not like Sega is trying to stifle legitimate competition, they're stopping the 'little guys' from hijacking their product.
And incidentally, Famicom is short for 'Family Computer'. Famicon is short for nothing.
Hands up everyone who believes they have an inalienable moral right to make warez.
That made pretty good sense, right up until the word 'Glide'. OpenGL's extension mechanism allows vendors to expose groovy new features without having to wait for Microsoft to rev the API. In fact, nVidia is already doing this.
But Glide? It provides no functionality that isn't already available through DX5-7 and it only runs on Voodoo hardware. And Linux? As a replacement for a gaming console? [makes indignant sputtering noises] I think you should have stopped typing after the word 'OpenGL'.
Oh, I just followed the link. I see that Gilette is a more valuable brand than Sony. Which is somehow an advantage when it comes to selling consoles, right?
Microsoft's also the world's second largest game publisher
Good grief, that can't be right can it? Bigger than EA, Eidos, Infogrames, Sega, Sony, Nintendo? I accuse you of totally making that up.
Informative my arse.
Well lets see. How about Nolan Bushnell? Ken Kutaragi? Shigeru Miyamoto? Get some perspective, iD has invented a single genre of game. A very cool genre to be sure, but not the only one and not the most popular one either.
// Clear the background to black to simulate the emptiness of space
glClearColor( 0, 0, 0, 0 );
glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT );
// This accurately models the black-hole not emitting any light
glColor3f( 0, 0, 0 );
// Draws the boundary of the black hole
glutSolidSphere( 1, 10, 10 );
I don't mean to be all negative, it's a nice demo an all, but there are more OpenGL particle-systems demos out there than there are particles in this one.
It's also good to see Apple refusing to compromise on quality and insist on the most advanced available technology. They're really going to make two-click and three-click shopping sites look stupid.
Tile architectures aren't a replacement for hidden surface removal, they're a complementary technique. A tile accelerator doesn't have to use wacky O(nlog(n)) sorting algos to sort polys, it can just do regular zbuffering. The speed boost comes from (1) rendering each tile into fast on-chip memory, and (2) deferred texturing, where the accelerator doesn't bother fetching texels for occluded pixels, further saving on bandwidth. This second feature is particularly applicable to the coming age of per-pixel lighting and shaders, since the idea can be extended to avoid evaluating pixel shaders on occluded pixels.
Draw 100 fullscreen textured quads on top of each other on a Dreamcast and then on a GeForce. Watch the Dreamcast spank the GeForce.
And cost is always an issue - the Voodoo5-6000 solution to the bandwidth problem works great, but who can afford a $600 video-card?
I couldn't agree more. I still get annoyed when I see people using Sony CD players to listen to audio CDs. They don't have one millionth the power of a PC with a DVD-ROM drive, I mean what's the point?