You're stuck in assuming that because Microsoft is a large part of the software world now, that it must always be so.
Not only were standards developed before MS was around, but most of the important standards we use today still predate MS. MS in fact has a habit for trying to stifle the development of standards.
As for the development of large software - consider the BSD system, and the Linux system. Both contain large parts (kernels, filesystems) which took a lot of development and didn't provide functionality until done. Then there's Gnome, KDE, PERL, PYTHON, RUBY, and so on. The free software world has created huge projects, on its own, with no direct profit motive. KDE provides a ton more functionality than early MS desktops. (IMHO it's between 95 and 2k, with less OLE, but much better usability.) Either way, it's an example of a project that took probably millions of dollars of time, were it billed, to create and yet was written by hobbyists, for free. And they all realized that to do their favorite part (the itch) they had to help get the rest working, so they cooperated to write the less-fun bits.
GNOME may be hard to install by hand, but there are RPMs (free software created with a profit motive) and DEBs and likely other smaller package systems.
Free software is raising the bar on paid software. Much the way that home repairs with help from Home Depot are raising the bar on professional carpenters and plumbers. Why don't you feel that this is a trajedy? Are there going to be no standards for nail or lumber size, just because most of the work is done by individuals?
I think that individuals benefit the most from standards... They're the ones who would take a large hit from having to code up a ton of file-translation code. Or, in a home-repair metaphor, have all lumber custom-cut to their specified sizes. Experience bears this out. Microsoft is the creator of weird new formats. Free software tends to use either standard formats, documents it, or at least provides the source code for reading it.
I highly doubt my salary will get cut in half. I'm already in what you for some reason call the service industry (most of my work is writing new custom programs, not providing troubleshooting or help). Really, it's the same thing I did while employed to work on a large software project, except that I work much more closely with the end users. (You don't understand the power of custom software until a user asks for a feature on Monday and you can demo it on Wednesday and merge it into stable code by the end of the week. They love this.)
RMS doesn't say all software MUST be free. He says he believes it should, but he's also said he's not willing to force people. The choice to use GPLed software (and thus release their own) is theirs to make.
Microsoft on the other hand appears to be trying to force people to not use free software. Normally a company doesn't speak out against their competitors, essentially calling them communists and hinting that they destroy the economy by reducing tax, etc, etc. It appears they're lobbying for legal protection. Only time will tell though.
And as for MS being more than Bill Gates... Who cares? Even though he's not the CEO anymore he still appears to be the driving force. A lot of people might have tied their money to him, but that doesn't change how you should see his actions. It's basically him saying he wants more money and control and he's continuing his policy of crushing others (through illegal or quasi-legal means) to get it. It's been a long time since MS has just released a competing product and let the market choose. You may see him as a model capitalist. Whatever. I see him as a threat to the livelihoods of everyone, including myself.
It's just a real chuckle how you think that MS promotes standards. Haven't you paid any attention to how MS perverts existing standards, ignores them to make their own formats, and tries to disrupt anyone who uses their standards? (SAMBA, File converters from MS-Word, etc.)
Once again, you're saying things that make me think you must either be getting paid, or perhaps are trying to defend MS because you've got stock and don't want the price to drop.
You know, your cut and paste arguments would be better if you tailored them to the people you were arguing with. I didn't talk about capitalism or communism. Where do you come up with it?
I make money, in a capitalist system, by programming.
I just don't want Microsoft getting that declared to be illegal just because I work with open source software.
Let's use this capitalist thing that you keep going on about. How is Bill buying laws against open source (which he's trying to do, having Mundy say it destroys economies) a capitalist act? Shouldn't MS be competing? Releasing a better product?
There are many do-it-yourself markets in the world. Nobody bitches on Slashdot that handy homeowners are putting plumbers out of business by unclogging their own toilets and fixing their own broken pipes.
That's because people have had time to realize that this isn't bad in any way. Money saved on plumbers gets spent elsewhere, to raise the standard of living. Plumbers can find another line of work, or get good enough to compete in a smaller field.
You're the one proposing a corporate welfare state. Let's pass laws making it illegal for people to do their own programming, just to keep Microsoft making their money.
And then with the 401k plans. Wah! If you invest in a volatile market you expect risk. I don't see anybody crying over my retirement fund, so why should I go out of business over theirs?
Truly, the open source programmers and I are arguing for the only true capitalist point of view here. If a big company can't compete with us, let them go the way of the dinosaur.
Don't forget, I'm perfectly willing to compete. If Microsoft can fill the niche I do, without simply making it illegal for me to do it, then I will move on to another job. Either I'll find a new niche, or a new career. Unlike the world's richest man, I don't expect everyone to take care of me.
Why do we have this idea that capitalism excuses all actions? A capitalism should say "Welcome to our market", and then try to make sure that their products are better and cheaper. Microsoft has continually used illegal product linking and direct sabotage to destroy the markets of their competitors. ("DOS ain't done till Lotus don't run.")
The sticky spot is that payment does imply a warranty of general fitness, or create an expectation of the advertised service. That's part of the implied contracts of sale (Fitness for advertsied use, etc).
Gifts do not have warranties. Promises don't constitute contracts until there is consideration for both parties.
Companies go into mind-numbing detail in disclaiming warranties because it discourages many uneducated consumers from suing when they have the legal right. The act of sale provides fairly comprehensive warranties in fact, most of which can't be disclaimed.
However, if I give you a hard drive, for instance, and claim it's a 160GB drive, you can't sue me later if it turns out to be a 2GB drive. Sure, I promised that it was 160, but didn't enter into a contract based on that claim (such as a purchase contract) so you have no right to expect anything.
Companies can try to claim that they receive no consideration for the use of a product, yet if money traded hands, that's going to be awfully hard to make a judge believe even if an elaborate series of cut-outs are used to shield the maker from actually directly collecting the payment. The only way they'd be likely to convince a judge would be if you could go onto the net, download the software for free, and have it work unencumbered without an activation code or linked activation software.
Yawn. It's an old story. "If you bash Microsoft, you're jealous."
I bash Microsoft because that would desperately love to make open source software illegal.
Despite all their claims, open source software is a viable commercial alternative. I'm proof of that. I've used open source software for my clients, and written new software for organizations that are largely using open source.
Microsoft wants to force people to buy software from a large company. They don't want people to realize that software can be produced by a single coder in a reasonable ammount of time.
They lie to accomplish this goal. Microsoft's history has been one long lie. They lied in court, they faked evidence, they lie about open source, etc, etc. Then they have the gall to use open source software after saying it'll destroy the economy.
I want to know why they can get away with this shit. It seems to be just because they're rich. If anyone else lied to a judge like that they'd be spending a month or two in jail for contempt, at a minimum.
No, I don't dislike Bill because he's rich. I dislike Bill because he's doing his upmost to make sure that I'll never be rich, by destroying the business oportunities of anyone who isn't Microsoft.
RMS is irrelevant to this discussion. What is relevant is that Microsoft is afraid of the possibility for people to make their own software. With large projects taking many man-years, open source is the only way large projects could happen.
I don't forget that it takes incentive to create software. I have worked for many companies with the incentive to create software. I've had contracts rangding from $2k to $30k for developing a custom DB interface, or customizing existing software. They obviously feel that new software would save them money in the long run and are willing to spend on this. These companies weren't even billion-dollar multinationals.
I think this disproves the idea that programmers would starve in an open source world. No project is going to perfectly suit all users, and not all users needs are going to "scratch the developers itch" so much software that industry wants won't just happen for free. They can either adjust to fit the software, or have the software adjusted to fit them.
As to the issue of scarcity... Software *is* an artificial scarcity. Once you have one, you can make a million copies for near zero cost. There's no financial incentive for a company to do so, but the facts remain that all the costs are up-front.
Anyways, the long and short of it is that Microsoft blatantly and deliberately attacks open source. Then they go and use open source, while saying terrible things about it. This is totally dishonest. If open source software is bad, don't use it. If you use it, admit that it's not bad.
I want Microsoft to be honest. To give up the FUD, and argue the issue openly.
If they say open source is so bad (regardless of if it is) then they shouldn't use it. If they use it, it's because it helps them. If it helps them, it's not so bad now, is it?
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A world with open source will still require people to code new things, and to customize current things. There'll always be new things.
If you can only make your living from re-inventing the wheel, then perhaps you do deserve to starve. But frankly, if you depend on artificial scarcity you're taking advantage of others to make a buck. Not really anyone I care about anyways. So, go ahead and starve, or get some skills of use in a different economy.
Times move on. People made obsolete by the change will always bitch, but that doesn't mean we should stop. Or do you think people are obligated to buy your buggy whips?
Microsoft may dislike the GPL more, but they are down on all open source, publicly. Their comments about how it costs the government money, doesn't put it in the hands of the programmers, etc... That wasn't about GPLed code, just all open source code.
So, let's see them put their money where their mouthpieces are. If they say open source is bad, they should never, never, use it. If they do, we have no choice but to assume that they lied.
Well, I think you would pester Parker Brothers to change the rules. For instance, the optional rule that landing on "Free Parking" gives you all the fines paid by other players. Everyone I know who plays monopoly (admittedly few people now that I'm older) plays that way, yet it wasn't a rule in the beginning (if it is official, even if still optional, now even. I'm not sure.) Anyways, if you thought the inclusion of a new rule would help, why wouldn't you mention it to PB?
If Chess always ended with White winning, or if the first person to move their knights won, people would change the rules. In fact, if you look at the historical roots of games you can see that they change over time, often drastically.
Perhaps D&D was only rigid because of the day, and GG was acting appropriately for the times, but that doesn't change the fact that the times have changed. You wouldn't drive a seatbelt-less vehicle now, just because it was old. Why play a game that has been surpassed? (Except perhaps for novelty, the way old cars are collected and driven in rallies.)
How does the bank know which money it is allowed to loan based on?
I mean, if A and C deposit $100 each, the bank has $200 with which to loan $2000...
So how does the bank distinguish A and C both having money from the following scenario? A deposits $100, B borrows $100, pays C, and C deposits it? Giving the bank $200 in assets, and $100 paid out...
How do they determine that when A gives them $100 that this is "tangible assets" and when C gives them $100, that this is really their own money, despite being an anonymous $100 bill?
What if A loans a bank $5, giving them $50 to loan. So they loan $50 to B, who pays C, who deposits with the bank. So the bank now has $55, allowing them to loan $550, which they give to D, who pays E, who deposits it, giving the bank the ability to load $6050, etc...
I use "loans to B, who pays C, who deposits" only because I don't know if this would apply if B simply kept the money in their account...
It seems that it would let a bank (and perhaps a few helpers) create a nearly infinite supply of money which is legal tender, despite how it came to exist. The person at the end of this chain hops to another country and the bank defaults on all their loans.
The issue, imho, isn't that MS uses open-source. That's what it's for after all. The issue is that MS uses open-source for its own advantage, while seeking to hurt the open-source movement whenever they do something that's not to MS's liking.
Basically, while we shouldn't believe what they say, we should force them to act as if they do.
Their PR flack recently said that OS software costs society by not hiring programmers or contributing to tax money. So they should immediately rip out all the open source software they use and hire programmers to recreate it.
If they don't, can they really expect to have any credibility left?
The whole point of discussing rules with users is to get ideas for expanding. Or, perhaps, to give them advice in expanding. If you don't want to listen to input, don't write a comments column in a magazine. When GG was rude and tried to imply that for someone to want to change the magic system was power gaming it made me think that he didn't care what anyone's experience was like, as long as they got there his way.
You mention GURPS, which is what I play when I GM. I like the basic rules more, but more than that, I like the attitudes of SJ and the authors. They explain why they do things and how they came to those final rules, then they explain the gotchas they discovered in changing things. This very easily allows people to tweak the rules (which are nice to have, if you or your group aren't all ready for story-teller) to better suit your style of play. Not only do they accept that people will want to customize, but they seem to expect it and support it.
AD&D really feels like a wargaming system. You don't want to worry about a ton of details for a hero, you want their level to indicate a few easily used stats. Level 17? That hits on a 5 or higher. Many of the kludged things about it seem like they were tacked on to make the earlier stuff work, without considering that it should all be reworked so the kludges weren't needed.
Why do humans dual-class and demi-humans multi-class? Why are there level limits? Why can't a mage train to use a shield for when they use all their spells? Or wear armor when not casting? Why do characters stay at one ability level until they hit an arbitrary limit, at which they increase to the next level, instead of improving slowly? Why can't you have an Elven Paladin? Why do you roll for stats and psionics instead of letting everyone start equal?
Really, it comes down to keeping them all in balance. Demi-humans are made better than regular, so you can't let them play the classes that you made better, or get as high in other classes. And mages would be too powerful if they could wear armor, so break with reality and forbid it, instead of toning their power down a bit.
It's an ugly hack and 3rd edition, while much more playable, is still suffering because of the bad historical legacy.
Gifts don't come with the same implied warranty that purchases do.
I'd even take this a bit further and say that you shouldn't be liable even if you take money, unless you understood the intended use and agreed with it. If you sell embedded code that runs a hand-held game you design it to different standards than if you were writing code intended for a life-support machine
The only exception I'd see to this would be in you intended to hurt someone. At this point I think you could be charged with fraud. You desired an outcome and deceived someone to those ends. Cash doesn't necessarily have to change hands for this charge to stick.
I really don't see why this doesn't make sense... To believe otherwise seems similar to supporting the family who sued the volunteer search & rescue team who failed to find their son. The volunteers offered to help, they didn't guarantee results. If their help is useless, it's worth what you paid. I don't see that they agreed to anything that would make them liable if they didn't do it properly. (Yet, US law supports this shit, so likely your interpretation would pass, especially since the big companies love it.)
I used to explain how region controls were a slimy way of price fixing, how they enabled the studios control of who could see what, when, etc...
Nobody cared. I mean, who cares if people in Europia, or Asica, or whatever those furign places are called, can watch? They don't speak English and can't watch "our" movies anyways.
So I started explaining that overseas you can buy all of Friends on DVD, by season. Where here you can only get select episodes. But you can't simply order those DVDs from overseas, because players here are crippled to not play them. All because the studios want to sell the shows in syndication and as long as they can make money from that, they'll never be conveniently released.
Now *that* got people bloody pissed off. They didn't care about anyone else's access to information. But they got fighting mad when someone would prevent them from watching Friends. Sheesh.
But, it served the same purpose in the end. It got the "Average people" pissed off about it. Hopefully they'll pass that sense of outrage along.
The lesson? Everyone cares about different things. Find someone's concerns and address those. They might not care about the "right" issues, but there's always a way to freak them out about it.
My annoyance with his "purity of the rules" stance was that 1) he came across as rude, and 2) they hurt the system, a lot.
Two questions I remember were about alignment and spells.
Someone asked if alignment was really needed, or at least, for non-priest characters. (Really, why does a barbarian need to pre-declare their personality? And why do they get penalized for changing their worldview?)
I don't remember the response to this, except that it was "Leave it - smarter people than you decided on this" essentially.
The other question was about using mana for spells. To somehow get rid of the requirement for mages to memorize spells. Specifically, the asker mentioned that this didn't fit with any of the heroic fantasy and always felt wrong to his group.
The answer here was a rant about power gamers, and the "Leave it - it's a delicate balance you can't be expected to understand."
Grrr.
Tinkering with the magic system deserves a warning that the classes are somewhat balanced, and to be careful, but I thought the answer as given was very overboard.
Anyways, I gave up on D&D soon after. Classes, Levels, Memorizing spells, Alignments. It was really a hack, and not a terribly good one. Made much worse by an unwillingness to change, or allow change.
Yes, I think you should be able to sue the seller, and they to sue their suppliers, etc.
And yes, I think this should stop as soon as a checkbook isn't involved.
Really though, I don't think a judge would allow a company to sue their employee for incompotence because the job of a boss is to watch what their employees produce and make sure it gets tested.
And as for not being able to sue just because you didn't pay... Why should you be able to sue if you got something for free? If I give you a stereo and it breaks, should you be able to sue me for a working stereo?
If I give you network code and it's not terribly secure, should you be able to sue? However, if I sold you network code, I think you could expect that the code was at least of a certain level, depending on the price and the advertisement.
Anyways, I would put a hard line on suing people for something you got for free. That's the difference between a sale and a gift. Seems like a very intuitive place to draw a line.
Find a copy of it, and an emulator to run it in. Look at all the stats that you can, and try to reverse engineer the mechanics. Once you've got that, it would be trivial. In fact, it's probably easy enough to do in javascript or something.
The "you buy a license to use it" idea has never been tested and seems to fly in the face of all existing contract law. In fact, the only people pushing this idea are the software companies.
I'd say that if I give you a copy of MS Windows, and a copy of GCC, you have the same legal rights with both - before you consider the GPL. Without considering the license, your rights are the same. Allowed to use, and to sell/give away, but not to duplicate or use as the basis for a new program.
The GPL simply grants you additional rights. And then there's the issue of warranty of sale - rarely does someone simply give you MS Windows for free.
If the local gas station gives away a car wash with a fill, the wash isn't free. You bought it with the fill-up. If it was truly free, and they didn't have reason to suspect the machine would cause damage, I don't think they'd be liable. (Except perhaps in the US.)
If they knew about the potential damage it would depend on how much damage. If it could (with time) cause paint to flake off, that's probably an expected risk of high-pressure washing. If they knew the machine was faulty and scraping cars, they might be liable.
This is where a judge would decide.
If you release an OS and it sucks it's a lot different than releasing an game that's really a drive-erasing trojan. In one the damage is unintentional, in the other, you intended to cause harm.
It's funny that you mention Final Fantasy as an example of an in-depth plot, without mentioning that it's one of the most rigid, linear games in existance.
Anyways, there's no comparing systems to computer games.
btw, if you find keeping track of numbers to be annoying, give FUDGE or FUSION a try. They're both the sort of game that you can play with little into into the rules, yet that expand to allow just about as much detail as you'd like in any given area.
He always came across as a jerk in the articles he wrote in Dragon Magazine. And unwilling to accept the idea that anyone would want the use house rules, or add races/classes, etc.
It seemed that he very much had the idea that he created the game, the players should shutup and play it without questioning him.
After he was gone AD&D seemed to get a lot friendlier. The books talked about how to create new classes and races, some gotchas, and guidelines. They expected that people would have house rules...
I don't play D&D in any form anymore, because there are better systems out there (levels, and classes, ugh...) but I still read the books to keep up with recent developments.
Sure. Open source software that is sold should be usable for the purposes it was marketed.
If it was given away for free - too bad, there was no sale and no implied warranty.
Ditto with closed source. If someone wants to give away their closed-source app, they should be liable for its bugs. (Unless they sell it, by other means, such as giving the software away and charging for the CD Key.)
Those products were sold, before you got to see the EULA. Thus what the EULA says is irrelevant.
The only software that is licensed is that which is agreed to before any money is paid. If you call up Microsoft and ask for a site license, they can hand you a list of restrictions. If you walk into CompUSA and buy the software, you've bought it free and clear.
(And are only bound by existing law. You can't copy it, but you also can't use it to bludgeon someone with, and not because of any restriction from the vendor.)
I don't see what the problem is. You write the program such that it calls DisplayLicense() to display the appropriate license. Then when they use it, they patch it to remove this call.
Your software protect the author (you) from any liability. Their software is their business and their (potential) liability.
Even if the SSSCA is implemented, it won't be retroactively employed, so don't worry about it now. (Well, from a personal liability point of view. Worry about it from a stupid politicians ruining the world point of view.)
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You're stuck in assuming that because Microsoft is a large part of the software world now, that it must always be so.
Not only were standards developed before MS was around, but most of the important standards we use today still predate MS. MS in fact has a habit for trying to stifle the development of standards.
As for the development of large software - consider the BSD system, and the Linux system. Both contain large parts (kernels, filesystems) which took a lot of development and didn't provide functionality until done. Then there's Gnome, KDE, PERL, PYTHON, RUBY, and so on. The free software world has created huge projects, on its own, with no direct profit motive. KDE provides a ton more functionality than early MS desktops. (IMHO it's between 95 and 2k, with less OLE, but much better usability.) Either way, it's an example of a project that took probably millions of dollars of time, were it billed, to create and yet was written by hobbyists, for free. And they all realized that to do their favorite part (the itch) they had to help get the rest working, so they cooperated to write the less-fun bits.
GNOME may be hard to install by hand, but there are RPMs (free software created with a profit motive) and DEBs and likely other smaller package systems.
Free software is raising the bar on paid software. Much the way that home repairs with help from Home Depot are raising the bar on professional carpenters and plumbers. Why don't you feel that this is a trajedy? Are there going to be no standards for nail or lumber size, just because most of the work is done by individuals?
I think that individuals benefit the most from standards... They're the ones who would take a large hit from having to code up a ton of file-translation code. Or, in a home-repair metaphor, have all lumber custom-cut to their specified sizes. Experience bears this out. Microsoft is the creator of weird new formats. Free software tends to use either standard formats, documents it, or at least provides the source code for reading it.
I highly doubt my salary will get cut in half. I'm already in what you for some reason call the service industry (most of my work is writing new custom programs, not providing troubleshooting or help). Really, it's the same thing I did while employed to work on a large software project, except that I work much more closely with the end users. (You don't understand the power of custom software until a user asks for a feature on Monday and you can demo it on Wednesday and merge it into stable code by the end of the week. They love this.)
RMS doesn't say all software MUST be free. He says he believes it should, but he's also said he's not willing to force people. The choice to use GPLed software (and thus release their own) is theirs to make.
Microsoft on the other hand appears to be trying to force people to not use free software. Normally a company doesn't speak out against their competitors, essentially calling them communists and hinting that they destroy the economy by reducing tax, etc, etc. It appears they're lobbying for legal protection. Only time will tell though.
And as for MS being more than Bill Gates... Who cares? Even though he's not the CEO anymore he still appears to be the driving force. A lot of people might have tied their money to him, but that doesn't change how you should see his actions. It's basically him saying he wants more money and control and he's continuing his policy of crushing others (through illegal or quasi-legal means) to get it. It's been a long time since MS has just released a competing product and let the market choose. You may see him as a model capitalist. Whatever. I see him as a threat to the livelihoods of everyone, including myself.
It's just a real chuckle how you think that MS promotes standards. Haven't you paid any attention to how MS perverts existing standards, ignores them to make their own formats, and tries to disrupt anyone who uses their standards? (SAMBA, File converters from MS-Word, etc.)
Once again, you're saying things that make me think you must either be getting paid, or perhaps are trying to defend MS because you've got stock and don't want the price to drop.
You know, your cut and paste arguments would be better if you tailored them to the people you were arguing with. I didn't talk about capitalism or communism. Where do you come up with it?
I make money, in a capitalist system, by programming.
I just don't want Microsoft getting that declared to be illegal just because I work with open source software.
Let's use this capitalist thing that you keep going on about. How is Bill buying laws against open source (which he's trying to do, having Mundy say it destroys economies) a capitalist act? Shouldn't MS be competing? Releasing a better product?
There are many do-it-yourself markets in the world. Nobody bitches on Slashdot that handy homeowners are putting plumbers out of business by unclogging their own toilets and fixing their own broken pipes.
That's because people have had time to realize that this isn't bad in any way. Money saved on plumbers gets spent elsewhere, to raise the standard of living. Plumbers can find another line of work, or get good enough to compete in a smaller field.
You're the one proposing a corporate welfare state. Let's pass laws making it illegal for people to do their own programming, just to keep Microsoft making their money.
And then with the 401k plans. Wah! If you invest in a volatile market you expect risk. I don't see anybody crying over my retirement fund, so why should I go out of business over theirs?
Truly, the open source programmers and I are arguing for the only true capitalist point of view here. If a big company can't compete with us, let them go the way of the dinosaur.
Don't forget, I'm perfectly willing to compete. If Microsoft can fill the niche I do, without simply making it illegal for me to do it, then I will move on to another job. Either I'll find a new niche, or a new career. Unlike the world's richest man, I don't expect everyone to take care of me.
Why do we have this idea that capitalism excuses all actions? A capitalism should say "Welcome to our market", and then try to make sure that their products are better and cheaper. Microsoft has continually used illegal product linking and direct sabotage to destroy the markets of their competitors. ("DOS ain't done till Lotus don't run.")
The sticky spot is that payment does imply a warranty of general fitness, or create an expectation of the advertised service. That's part of the implied contracts of sale (Fitness for advertsied use, etc).
Gifts do not have warranties. Promises don't constitute contracts until there is consideration for both parties.
Companies go into mind-numbing detail in disclaiming warranties because it discourages many uneducated consumers from suing when they have the legal right. The act of sale provides fairly comprehensive warranties in fact, most of which can't be disclaimed.
However, if I give you a hard drive, for instance, and claim it's a 160GB drive, you can't sue me later if it turns out to be a 2GB drive. Sure, I promised that it was 160, but didn't enter into a contract based on that claim (such as a purchase contract) so you have no right to expect anything.
Companies can try to claim that they receive no consideration for the use of a product, yet if money traded hands, that's going to be awfully hard to make a judge believe even if an elaborate series of cut-outs are used to shield the maker from actually directly collecting the payment. The only way they'd be likely to convince a judge would be if you could go onto the net, download the software for free, and have it work unencumbered without an activation code or linked activation software.
Yawn. It's an old story. "If you bash Microsoft, you're jealous."
I bash Microsoft because that would desperately love to make open source software illegal.
Despite all their claims, open source software is a viable commercial alternative. I'm proof of that. I've used open source software for my clients, and written new software for organizations that are largely using open source.
Microsoft wants to force people to buy software from a large company. They don't want people to realize that software can be produced by a single coder in a reasonable ammount of time.
They lie to accomplish this goal. Microsoft's history has been one long lie. They lied in court, they faked evidence, they lie about open source, etc, etc. Then they have the gall to use open source software after saying it'll destroy the economy.
I want to know why they can get away with this shit. It seems to be just because they're rich. If anyone else lied to a judge like that they'd be spending a month or two in jail for contempt, at a minimum.
No, I don't dislike Bill because he's rich. I dislike Bill because he's doing his upmost to make sure that I'll never be rich, by destroying the business oportunities of anyone who isn't Microsoft.
How much does MS pay you to astro-turf for them?
RMS is irrelevant to this discussion. What is relevant is that Microsoft is afraid of the possibility for people to make their own software. With large projects taking many man-years, open source is the only way large projects could happen.
I don't forget that it takes incentive to create software. I have worked for many companies with the incentive to create software. I've had contracts rangding from $2k to $30k for developing a custom DB interface, or customizing existing software. They obviously feel that new software would save them money in the long run and are willing to spend on this. These companies weren't even billion-dollar multinationals.
I think this disproves the idea that programmers would starve in an open source world. No project is going to perfectly suit all users, and not all users needs are going to "scratch the developers itch" so much software that industry wants won't just happen for free. They can either adjust to fit the software, or have the software adjusted to fit them.
As to the issue of scarcity... Software *is* an artificial scarcity. Once you have one, you can make a million copies for near zero cost. There's no financial incentive for a company to do so, but the facts remain that all the costs are up-front.
Anyways, the long and short of it is that Microsoft blatantly and deliberately attacks open source. Then they go and use open source, while saying terrible things about it. This is totally dishonest. If open source software is bad, don't use it. If you use it, admit that it's not bad.
I want Microsoft to be honest. To give up the FUD, and argue the issue openly.
If they say open source is so bad (regardless of if it is) then they shouldn't use it. If they use it, it's because it helps them. If it helps them, it's not so bad now, is it?
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A world with open source will still require people to code new things, and to customize current things. There'll always be new things.
If you can only make your living from re-inventing the wheel, then perhaps you do deserve to starve. But frankly, if you depend on artificial scarcity you're taking advantage of others to make a buck. Not really anyone I care about anyways. So, go ahead and starve, or get some skills of use in a different economy.
Times move on. People made obsolete by the change will always bitch, but that doesn't mean we should stop. Or do you think people are obligated to buy your buggy whips?
Microsoft may dislike the GPL more, but they are down on all open source, publicly. Their comments about how it costs the government money, doesn't put it in the hands of the programmers, etc... That wasn't about GPLed code, just all open source code.
So, let's see them put their money where their mouthpieces are. If they say open source is bad, they should never, never, use it. If they do, we have no choice but to assume that they lied.
Well, I think you would pester Parker Brothers to change the rules. For instance, the optional rule that landing on "Free Parking" gives you all the fines paid by other players. Everyone I know who plays monopoly (admittedly few people now that I'm older) plays that way, yet it wasn't a rule in the beginning (if it is official, even if still optional, now even. I'm not sure.) Anyways, if you thought the inclusion of a new rule would help, why wouldn't you mention it to PB?
If Chess always ended with White winning, or if the first person to move their knights won, people would change the rules. In fact, if you look at the historical roots of games you can see that they change over time, often drastically.
Perhaps D&D was only rigid because of the day, and GG was acting appropriately for the times, but that doesn't change the fact that the times have changed. You wouldn't drive a seatbelt-less vehicle now, just because it was old. Why play a game that has been surpassed? (Except perhaps for novelty, the way old cars are collected and driven in rallies.)
How does the bank know which money it is allowed to loan based on?
I mean, if A and C deposit $100 each, the bank has $200 with which to loan $2000...
So how does the bank distinguish A and C both having money from the following scenario? A deposits $100, B borrows $100, pays C, and C deposits it? Giving the bank $200 in assets, and $100 paid out...
How do they determine that when A gives them $100 that this is "tangible assets" and when C gives them $100, that this is really their own money, despite being an anonymous $100 bill?
What if A loans a bank $5, giving them $50 to loan. So they loan $50 to B, who pays C, who deposits with the bank. So the bank now has $55, allowing them to loan $550, which they give to D, who pays E, who deposits it, giving the bank the ability to load $6050, etc...
I use "loans to B, who pays C, who deposits" only because I don't know if this would apply if B simply kept the money in their account...
It seems that it would let a bank (and perhaps a few helpers) create a nearly infinite supply of money which is legal tender, despite how it came to exist. The person at the end of this chain hops to another country and the bank defaults on all their loans.
What prevents this from happening?
The issue, imho, isn't that MS uses open-source. That's what it's for after all. The issue is that MS uses open-source for its own advantage, while seeking to hurt the open-source movement whenever they do something that's not to MS's liking.
Basically, while we shouldn't believe what they say, we should force them to act as if they do.
Their PR flack recently said that OS software costs society by not hiring programmers or contributing to tax money. So they should immediately rip out all the open source software they use and hire programmers to recreate it.
If they don't, can they really expect to have any credibility left?
The whole point of discussing rules with users is to get ideas for expanding. Or, perhaps, to give them advice in expanding. If you don't want to listen to input, don't write a comments column in a magazine. When GG was rude and tried to imply that for someone to want to change the magic system was power gaming it made me think that he didn't care what anyone's experience was like, as long as they got there his way.
You mention GURPS, which is what I play when I GM. I like the basic rules more, but more than that, I like the attitudes of SJ and the authors. They explain why they do things and how they came to those final rules, then they explain the gotchas they discovered in changing things. This very easily allows people to tweak the rules (which are nice to have, if you or your group aren't all ready for story-teller) to better suit your style of play. Not only do they accept that people will want to customize, but they seem to expect it and support it.
AD&D really feels like a wargaming system. You don't want to worry about a ton of details for a hero, you want their level to indicate a few easily used stats. Level 17? That hits on a 5 or higher. Many of the kludged things about it seem like they were tacked on to make the earlier stuff work, without considering that it should all be reworked so the kludges weren't needed.
Why do humans dual-class and demi-humans multi-class? Why are there level limits? Why can't a mage train to use a shield for when they use all their spells? Or wear armor when not casting? Why do characters stay at one ability level until they hit an arbitrary limit, at which they increase to the next level, instead of improving slowly? Why can't you have an Elven Paladin? Why do you roll for stats and psionics instead of letting everyone start equal?
Really, it comes down to keeping them all in balance. Demi-humans are made better than regular, so you can't let them play the classes that you made better, or get as high in other classes. And mages would be too powerful if they could wear armor, so break with reality and forbid it, instead of toning their power down a bit.
It's an ugly hack and 3rd edition, while much more playable, is still suffering because of the bad historical legacy.
They should be liable.
Gifts don't come with the same implied warranty that purchases do.
I'd even take this a bit further and say that you shouldn't be liable even if you take money, unless you understood the intended use and agreed with it. If you sell embedded code that runs a hand-held game you design it to different standards than if you were writing code intended for a life-support machine
The only exception I'd see to this would be in you intended to hurt someone. At this point I think you could be charged with fraud. You desired an outcome and deceived someone to those ends. Cash doesn't necessarily have to change hands for this charge to stick.
I really don't see why this doesn't make sense... To believe otherwise seems similar to supporting the family who sued the volunteer search & rescue team who failed to find their son. The volunteers offered to help, they didn't guarantee results. If their help is useless, it's worth what you paid. I don't see that they agreed to anything that would make them liable if they didn't do it properly. (Yet, US law supports this shit, so likely your interpretation would pass, especially since the big companies love it.)
I used to explain how region controls were a slimy way of price fixing, how they enabled the studios control of who could see what, when, etc...
Nobody cared. I mean, who cares if people in Europia, or Asica, or whatever those furign places are called, can watch? They don't speak English and can't watch "our" movies anyways.
So I started explaining that overseas you can buy all of Friends on DVD, by season. Where here you can only get select episodes. But you can't simply order those DVDs from overseas, because players here are crippled to not play them. All because the studios want to sell the shows in syndication and as long as they can make money from that, they'll never be conveniently released.
Now *that* got people bloody pissed off. They didn't care about anyone else's access to information. But they got fighting mad when someone would prevent them from watching Friends. Sheesh.
But, it served the same purpose in the end. It got the "Average people" pissed off about it. Hopefully they'll pass that sense of outrage along.
The lesson? Everyone cares about different things. Find someone's concerns and address those. They might not care about the "right" issues, but there's always a way to freak them out about it.
My annoyance with his "purity of the rules" stance was that 1) he came across as rude, and 2) they hurt the system, a lot.
Two questions I remember were about alignment and spells.
Someone asked if alignment was really needed, or at least, for non-priest characters. (Really, why does a barbarian need to pre-declare their personality? And why do they get penalized for changing their worldview?)
I don't remember the response to this, except that it was "Leave it - smarter people than you decided on this" essentially.
The other question was about using mana for spells. To somehow get rid of the requirement for mages to memorize spells. Specifically, the asker mentioned that this didn't fit with any of the heroic fantasy and always felt wrong to his group.
The answer here was a rant about power gamers, and the "Leave it - it's a delicate balance you can't be expected to understand."
Grrr.
Tinkering with the magic system deserves a warning that the classes are somewhat balanced, and to be careful, but I thought the answer as given was very overboard.
Anyways, I gave up on D&D soon after. Classes, Levels, Memorizing spells, Alignments. It was really a hack, and not a terribly good one. Made much worse by an unwillingness to change, or allow change.
Yes, I think you should be able to sue the seller, and they to sue their suppliers, etc.
And yes, I think this should stop as soon as a checkbook isn't involved.
Really though, I don't think a judge would allow a company to sue their employee for incompotence because the job of a boss is to watch what their employees produce and make sure it gets tested.
And as for not being able to sue just because you didn't pay... Why should you be able to sue if you got something for free? If I give you a stereo and it breaks, should you be able to sue me for a working stereo?
If I give you network code and it's not terribly secure, should you be able to sue? However, if I sold you network code, I think you could expect that the code was at least of a certain level, depending on the price and the advertisement.
Anyways, I would put a hard line on suing people for something you got for free. That's the difference between a sale and a gift. Seems like a very intuitive place to draw a line.
Find a copy of it, and an emulator to run it in. Look at all the stats that you can, and try to reverse engineer the mechanics. Once you've got that, it would be trivial. In fact, it's probably easy enough to do in javascript or something.
The "you buy a license to use it" idea has never been tested and seems to fly in the face of all existing contract law. In fact, the only people pushing this idea are the software companies.
I'd say that if I give you a copy of MS Windows, and a copy of GCC, you have the same legal rights with both - before you consider the GPL. Without considering the license, your rights are the same. Allowed to use, and to sell/give away, but not to duplicate or use as the basis for a new program.
The GPL simply grants you additional rights. And then there's the issue of warranty of sale - rarely does someone simply give you MS Windows for free.
If the local gas station gives away a car wash with a fill, the wash isn't free. You bought it with the fill-up. If it was truly free, and they didn't have reason to suspect the machine would cause damage, I don't think they'd be liable. (Except perhaps in the US.)
If they knew about the potential damage it would depend on how much damage. If it could (with time) cause paint to flake off, that's probably an expected risk of high-pressure washing. If they knew the machine was faulty and scraping cars, they might be liable.
This is where a judge would decide.
If you release an OS and it sucks it's a lot different than releasing an game that's really a drive-erasing trojan. In one the damage is unintentional, in the other, you intended to cause harm.
It's funny that you mention Final Fantasy as an example of an in-depth plot, without mentioning that it's one of the most rigid, linear games in existance.
Anyways, there's no comparing systems to computer games.
btw, if you find keeping track of numbers to be annoying, give FUDGE or FUSION a try. They're both the sort of game that you can play with little into into the rules, yet that expand to allow just about as much detail as you'd like in any given area.
That's different.
He always came across as a jerk in the articles he wrote in Dragon Magazine. And unwilling to accept the idea that anyone would want the use house rules, or add races/classes, etc.
It seemed that he very much had the idea that he created the game, the players should shutup and play it without questioning him.
After he was gone AD&D seemed to get a lot friendlier. The books talked about how to create new classes and races, some gotchas, and guidelines. They expected that people would have house rules...
I don't play D&D in any form anymore, because there are better systems out there (levels, and classes, ugh...) but I still read the books to keep up with recent developments.
Sure. Open source software that is sold should be usable for the purposes it was marketed.
If it was given away for free - too bad, there was no sale and no implied warranty.
Ditto with closed source. If someone wants to give away their closed-source app, they should be liable for its bugs. (Unless they sell it, by other means, such as giving the software away and charging for the CD Key.)
Those products were sold, before you got to see the EULA. Thus what the EULA says is irrelevant.
The only software that is licensed is that which is agreed to before any money is paid. If you call up Microsoft and ask for a site license, they can hand you a list of restrictions. If you walk into CompUSA and buy the software, you've bought it free and clear.
(And are only bound by existing law. You can't copy it, but you also can't use it to bludgeon someone with, and not because of any restriction from the vendor.)
The person you paid for it.
If they paid someone else for a component which is shown to be defective, then they sue that person/company themselves.
If you didn't pay for it, you don't get to sue.
I don't see what the problem is. You write the program such that it calls DisplayLicense() to display the appropriate license. Then when they use it, they patch it to remove this call.
Your software protect the author (you) from any liability. Their software is their business and their (potential) liability.
Even if the SSSCA is implemented, it won't be retroactively employed, so don't worry about it now. (Well, from a personal liability point of view. Worry about it from a stupid politicians ruining the world point of view.)
If you give the software away and someone else sells it, they're liable. Seems fairly obvious.