Many motherboard manufacturers still go through the PCI bus for onboard ethernet, some do not but, these are in the minority. You should be able to find out if you have a specific board in mind by asking the manufacturer, although unless you are talking about a fiber connection, you will lose more speed due to attenuation than to the PCI bus (using 64-bit PCI pretty much eliminates this problem anyway.)
Packet sniffing on your own network is illegal if it is part of a process to circumvent encryption protecting a product (per the DMCA, which I may not agree with, but is still law.) You did not specify that it was your own network in the above post though, there are many cases where it is not legal if it is not your network. The grounds to stand on for a legal suit short of this are the contract they agreed to when they signed up for eq. You may argue the validity of this but, the fact remains that EULAs in general are not well tested in court. The fact remains that there is absolutely no way to determine which way a judge would rule in this case, which would mean a suit would at least proceed, as there is no reason a judge would be likely to dismiss it without a trial. The laywer I consulted was indeed an expert in this field and, was not one of my parents. What he told me seems consistent with what I know about the legal system which, while it may not be as much as most lawyers, is still signifigant. Furthermore if the breech of contract suit fails, there is always the DMCA. A suit under the DMCA would not be against the ShowEQ developers (since they wisely do not include the stream decryption in ShowEQ) but instead against the developers of the component which decrypts EQ traffic. In this case, an injuntion barring ShowEQ from including the ability to use this component is extremely likely (almost certain.) You are also forgetting that all Sony has to do to get the names of developers is bring a suit, as long as it goes to trial they will get the names of developers, they can then cancel any account they wish, and further access would be a criminal offense (unauthorized use of a computer system) once their accounts have been canceled. Sony simply has too many options on how to deal with ShowEQ for it to be likely to survive a concerted effort on their part to do away with it. Whether Sony will go the legal route is a much better question than if they could, which is why it would be wise not to irritate them too much (which a Windows port of ShowEQ would likely do.)
The teachings may not be bad (that is personal opionion) but, the affect on the world has been. For a nonbiased result, you must include both the good and bad, as long as they are affects stemming from this. I would say it is bad overall, and by quite a bit.
I am unsure if a click through EULA will hold up in court, as there is not much case law on this but, it has not been struck down either. I am referring to the agreement when they sign up for an account. Congress did pass a bill a while ago to allow this type of agreement and, if I remember correctly providing a valid credit card number was a legal way to agree (this was primarily for adult services but, the law should apply here as well.) Damages come in the form of loss of sales due to ShowEQ (if Sony can give numbers that sound plausible to a judge), they are definitely in breach of contract if the judge upholds this agreement, which has a MUCH better chance than a normal EULA. I am not a lawyer, but I did consult one on this very issue (actually about everquest and, the creation of a program to do just this and, this lawyer was a specialist in this area who came very highly recommended). They might win, they might lose but, it really could go either way. At the very least Sony can ask a judge to order that the names of developers be turned over so that there can be a case (which he would be extremely likely to grant), at which point Sony can simply cancel the accounts, stopping further development (rinse and repeat if it happens again.) Using a different account is then VERY clearly outside the law and, they will almost certainly lose that case (that is also a criminal case, as at that point they knowingly accessed a computer system without authorization.) If this fails, the people who wrote the decryption part (and this covers reading out of that memory address as well) are in violation of the DMCA. ShowEQ would be effectively useless without this component. And by the way, I did grow up with two lawyer parents, so this was dinner table discussion for the first 18 years of my life. I would like to think I have a pretty good grasp on United States law and, more importantly, when to seek professional advice. The point here is not that they will certainly lose, they may win, but Sony can almost certainly shut them down and, can probably make their lives miserable in the process. And to answer your packet sniffing question, there are cases in which using a packet sniffer is not legal, just FYI.
Re:What desktop users want to know..
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just fyi from windows xp task manager, notepad.exe, immediately after opening takes 2,832k... kind of puts things into perspective.
Actually current AMD processors have fewer errata than Intel ones, which is kind of ironic. The problems with peripherals are generally caused by the motherboard chipset, not the processor. Most compatibility problems are a result of VIA chipsets parking the PCI bus on the last device used, which is different than the way Intel chipsets do this (but is still perfectly valid.) Any device which does not operate correctly with this is actually in violation of the PCI spec, as it is perfectly legal to park it wherever they want. I would not trust a raid controller that does not even get this right... Some motherboards have an option to park the bus in an Intel compatible way, which would clear up that issue.
Re:Just to remind people why more bits is good..
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Miraculously, someone at Intel stowed the x86 crackpipe, preventing some sort of segmented/overlay nightmare like the one you describe.
no, the guys doing IA64 stole it, rest assured, it is still being used.
Re:32-bit compatible = a temporary half-solution
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C++ and C especially are far more portable than ASM. If you are targeting multiple architectures, ASM would require multiple versions. Newer programmers also usually are not very good even when the claim to know ASM (you would not believe the number of times I have had to yell at people about assigning zero to a register), and usually people who are decent at ASM are far more expensive than their counterparts doing C, C does a fairly good job of optimizing despite the skill level of the programmer. That being said, yes, real men do use ASM. (-:
Re:32-bit compatible = a temporary half-solution
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Actually there are valid reasons to rely on the byte order in the machine word. Alignment of stack veriables also has valid reasons (though not as frequently). The fact it is relied upon in cases it should not be does not affect the fact that there are some instances for which it is a good idea to. For an example, a library I wrote recently (dealing with graphics) relies upon the byte ordering quite heavily, although a define controls which byte ordering is assumed. Without assuming byte ordering, the speed of the library would decrease by about 50%, which is unacceptable as it is designed for use in real time. This falls into the same category as goto statements, most of the time they are used in situations where they should not be but, there are times when using them produces cleaner code and speeds up the program. Keep in mind that C is a fairly low level language and, there are cases in which you can use it instead of asm to gain some portablility and for some of those uses, some of these things really matter. Exceptionally hacky programmers may do these things frequently but, some very good programmers do some of them occasionally for good reason.
multitasking is the ability to run more than one task simultaneously, Microsoft actually provides specific ways to disable alt-tab, which is simply switching between the tasks, on XP ctrl-alt-del cannot be disabled but, EQ closes if you hit it.
And just imagine how popular the ShowEQ guys will be when Sony announces another fee increase to support the costs of moving more of the game to the servers, which people will pay of course, since they enjoy playing the game.
Because the copy of the client and, the online service are two completely different contracts. Yes, you have a somewhat useless item if you do not sign up for the service but, nobody is forcing you to do this (they are actually two different companies as well, one is Verant, the other is Sony Station, both owned by Sony.) I also believe they will refund the purchase price if you do not agree and, do not play even a single time. I am not sure about that though. And one more thing, if sony bans the accounts of the people who do this (which they can do), and those people simply get another account OR, use someone elses account, they have now commited a criminal offense (unauthorized use of a computer system), it would be up to sony to decide if they want to go after them. If they do not, new developers will have to do each version, since the old ones will no longer be legally allowed to use everquest. Sony will win this.
They can and do enforce this. The monthly contract is seperate from the purchase. It is not an "after-sale restriction" since you still have what you purchased, namely a box and a silver coaster, and can even get this price refunded if you are not willing to agree to their terms. You licenced the software and, they can revoke this, in addition, to connect to their servers you have to agree to another contract (which you explicitly do every time you sign on) telling you what you can and cannot do. If you modify something on your client or, view anything they send to you outside the client, you are in violation of this contract, they can and will cancel your account and, are perfectly within their rights to do so. If you send packets to them that are not from the client they additionally have the option of pressing charges against you, as this is unautorized use of a computer system. You may think this sucks but, in order for them to survive they have to take as tough a stance on this as they can. Keep in mind that if Sony wanted to really press the issue, they could probably sue the developers of ShowEQ, on the basis that they violated the contract they agreed to when they opened an account and, there are real damages to award. If they do not have an account (which is unlkely) then whomever allowed them use of their account is in violation (as is clearly specified in the agreement.) It would be wise for ShowEQ to keep off Windows, as it is probably not worth the effort to go after them as long as they do. Otherwise, I hope they have decent lawyers. I checked into all of this (and actually got legal advice) a while ago while I was thinking about writing something similar to ShowEQ. Believe me guys, you really want to think about this one before you do it, Sony is a large corporation with a lot of money, and Everquest is very profitable. If you interfere with this, they will not be happy. Even if you do not think you can be found, remember that if they choose to sue, sourceforge will be required to give any information they have about you, and I seriously doubt they would violate a court order.
Actually this is very common... I can speak from both sides of the issue as my previous position was with a large company where I outsourced much of the work and, I currently own a small software company. This is generally just to protect the company should you go bankrupt. Just have your lawyer (if you do not have one, you need to find one, as having a good lawyer is essential to any company, large or small) draft a contract including exactly what they can and cannot do. Usually ours state that they can use the source internally however, they may not resell it and, they may not include it in a product they sell. Depending upon the circumstances (you were too vague in your submission to give you a clearer answer) you may want to make exceptions for certain uses. I do hope, however, that you are doing this before you signed a contract to provide the product, otherwise it may be too late.
The Windows fonts are far better. Even using FreeType 2 with the bytecode hinter enabled. When you spend all day looking at them, this is a major issue. Games are of course another issue. I am currently running Windows XP and FreeBSD. The nicer machine gets Windows. I tend to code everything in windows (using Borland C++ Builder, very nice IDE) and debug it there. Things only get sent to the FreeBSD machine for final verification before I install them on our server (FreeBSD of course.) For a desktop OS, Windows is simply better. For a server, FreeBSD is better. If Linux becomes the better option at some point, I will switch however, I do not see this happening in the near future, as it would take a lot of work in areas linux developers tend not to think are important.
The fact that corporate america relies heavily upon internal software development, which this would hinder. So they will not do it or, they will either have a way to sign them easily (which will be quickly distributed) or a version that does not enforce this for corporate use (which would also be quickly distributed). There is no way they would risk only allowing signed items to run with no exceptions.
That was my post actually. It would not be a third world country for long if there was enough brain drain to that country. This would probably work with most third world countries however, the government there looks like it would be friendly (the current laws are very lax and, there seems not to be much civil unrest). If we truly wish to organize this, we could probably bargain with the government ahead of time, as something like this would be a wet dream for most third world countries.
If anybody is interested, please post comments or, e-mail me at the mailbox culsu with the domain culsu.net
With copyright, if you mail yourself, via Registered Mail, an envelope-sealed (can't use tape - what if it's an old envelope and a new text?) master copy, you can establish a date of existance and then be able to sue those that violate your copyright without having to do anything else.
Actually, this only establishes that you were the original creator. You do not however, have a copyright and, therefore cannot sue. You can get someone elses copyright invalidated though. To put it simply, you will not win a lawsuit against somebody else with this, but you will not lose one against you either.
I have never had a problem not having a degree. I have held several jobs as CTO / Vice President (with a quite technical background in C and x86 ASM) and I did not even graduate from high school. I have tried for a CS degree several times but, could never balance it with work (I missed too many classes for meetings, etc.) I currently own 50% of my company and, have no plans to go back to school. Besides, in my experience, people with only a degree generally have to spend quite a bit of time learning how things work in the real world and, have generally never worked on anything large enough to force good coding habits.
I think the original poster was referring to the fact that programmers who graduate without work experience tend not to know very much that is usefull. Personally, I will not hire somebody without any actual work experience, except as an intern. Conversely, it is quite rare to actually require a degree, usually a couple of years of actual work is acceptable in its stead.
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Many motherboard manufacturers still go through the PCI bus for onboard ethernet, some do not but, these are in the minority. You should be able to find out if you have a specific board in mind by asking the manufacturer, although unless you are talking about a fiber connection, you will lose more speed due to attenuation than to the PCI bus (using 64-bit PCI pretty much eliminates this problem anyway.)
Packet sniffing on your own network is illegal if it is part of a process to circumvent encryption protecting a product (per the DMCA, which I may not agree with, but is still law.) You did not specify that it was your own network in the above post though, there are many cases where it is not legal if it is not your network. The grounds to stand on for a legal suit short of this are the contract they agreed to when they signed up for eq. You may argue the validity of this but, the fact remains that EULAs in general are not well tested in court. The fact remains that there is absolutely no way to determine which way a judge would rule in this case, which would mean a suit would at least proceed, as there is no reason a judge would be likely to dismiss it without a trial. The laywer I consulted was indeed an expert in this field and, was not one of my parents. What he told me seems consistent with what I know about the legal system which, while it may not be as much as most lawyers, is still signifigant. Furthermore if the breech of contract suit fails, there is always the DMCA. A suit under the DMCA would not be against the ShowEQ developers (since they wisely do not include the stream decryption in ShowEQ) but instead against the developers of the component which decrypts EQ traffic. In this case, an injuntion barring ShowEQ from including the ability to use this component is extremely likely (almost certain.) You are also forgetting that all Sony has to do to get the names of developers is bring a suit, as long as it goes to trial they will get the names of developers, they can then cancel any account they wish, and further access would be a criminal offense (unauthorized use of a computer system) once their accounts have been canceled. Sony simply has too many options on how to deal with ShowEQ for it to be likely to survive a concerted effort on their part to do away with it. Whether Sony will go the legal route is a much better question than if they could, which is why it would be wise not to irritate them too much (which a Windows port of ShowEQ would likely do.)
The teachings may not be bad (that is personal opionion) but, the affect on the world has been. For a nonbiased result, you must include both the good and bad, as long as they are affects stemming from this. I would say it is bad overall, and by quite a bit.
That was my first guess but, he said for the better, which discounts that one.
I am unsure if a click through EULA will hold up in court, as there is not much case law on this but, it has not been struck down either. I am referring to the agreement when they sign up for an account. Congress did pass a bill a while ago to allow this type of agreement and, if I remember correctly providing a valid credit card number was a legal way to agree (this was primarily for adult services but, the law should apply here as well.) Damages come in the form of loss of sales due to ShowEQ (if Sony can give numbers that sound plausible to a judge), they are definitely in breach of contract if the judge upholds this agreement, which has a MUCH better chance than a normal EULA. I am not a lawyer, but I did consult one on this very issue (actually about everquest and, the creation of a program to do just this and, this lawyer was a specialist in this area who came very highly recommended). They might win, they might lose but, it really could go either way. At the very least Sony can ask a judge to order that the names of developers be turned over so that there can be a case (which he would be extremely likely to grant), at which point Sony can simply cancel the accounts, stopping further development (rinse and repeat if it happens again.) Using a different account is then VERY clearly outside the law and, they will almost certainly lose that case (that is also a criminal case, as at that point they knowingly accessed a computer system without authorization.) If this fails, the people who wrote the decryption part (and this covers reading out of that memory address as well) are in violation of the DMCA. ShowEQ would be effectively useless without this component. And by the way, I did grow up with two lawyer parents, so this was dinner table discussion for the first 18 years of my life. I would like to think I have a pretty good grasp on United States law and, more importantly, when to seek professional advice. The point here is not that they will certainly lose, they may win, but Sony can almost certainly shut them down and, can probably make their lives miserable in the process. And to answer your packet sniffing question, there are cases in which using a packet sniffer is not legal, just FYI.
just fyi from windows xp task manager, notepad.exe, immediately after opening takes 2,832k... kind of puts things into perspective.
Actually current AMD processors have fewer errata than Intel ones, which is kind of ironic. The problems with peripherals are generally caused by the motherboard chipset, not the processor. Most compatibility problems are a result of VIA chipsets parking the PCI bus on the last device used, which is different than the way Intel chipsets do this (but is still perfectly valid.) Any device which does not operate correctly with this is actually in violation of the PCI spec, as it is perfectly legal to park it wherever they want. I would not trust a raid controller that does not even get this right... Some motherboards have an option to park the bus in an Intel compatible way, which would clear up that issue.
Miraculously, someone at Intel stowed the x86 crackpipe, preventing some sort of segmented/overlay nightmare like the one you describe.
no, the guys doing IA64 stole it, rest assured, it is still being used.
C++ and C especially are far more portable than ASM. If you are targeting multiple architectures, ASM would require multiple versions. Newer programmers also usually are not very good even when the claim to know ASM (you would not believe the number of times I have had to yell at people about assigning zero to a register), and usually people who are decent at ASM are far more expensive than their counterparts doing C, C does a fairly good job of optimizing despite the skill level of the programmer. That being said, yes, real men do use ASM. (-:
Actually there are valid reasons to rely on the byte order in the machine word. Alignment of stack veriables also has valid reasons (though not as frequently). The fact it is relied upon in cases it should not be does not affect the fact that there are some instances for which it is a good idea to. For an example, a library I wrote recently (dealing with graphics) relies upon the byte ordering quite heavily, although a define controls which byte ordering is assumed. Without assuming byte ordering, the speed of the library would decrease by about 50%, which is unacceptable as it is designed for use in real time. This falls into the same category as goto statements, most of the time they are used in situations where they should not be but, there are times when using them produces cleaner code and speeds up the program. Keep in mind that C is a fairly low level language and, there are cases in which you can use it instead of asm to gain some portablility and for some of those uses, some of these things really matter. Exceptionally hacky programmers may do these things frequently but, some very good programmers do some of them occasionally for good reason.
Suppose you believe a 1Ghz G4 outdoes a pentium IV 4Ghz too?
That depends upon what it is doing, in some cases, yes, yes it does.
multitasking is the ability to run more than one task simultaneously, Microsoft actually provides specific ways to disable alt-tab, which is simply switching between the tasks, on XP ctrl-alt-del cannot be disabled but, EQ closes if you hit it.
And just imagine how popular the ShowEQ guys will be when Sony announces another fee increase to support the costs of moving more of the game to the servers, which people will pay of course, since they enjoy playing the game.
Because the copy of the client and, the online service are two completely different contracts. Yes, you have a somewhat useless item if you do not sign up for the service but, nobody is forcing you to do this (they are actually two different companies as well, one is Verant, the other is Sony Station, both owned by Sony.) I also believe they will refund the purchase price if you do not agree and, do not play even a single time. I am not sure about that though. And one more thing, if sony bans the accounts of the people who do this (which they can do), and those people simply get another account OR, use someone elses account, they have now commited a criminal offense (unauthorized use of a computer system), it would be up to sony to decide if they want to go after them. If they do not, new developers will have to do each version, since the old ones will no longer be legally allowed to use everquest. Sony will win this.
They can and do enforce this. The monthly contract is seperate from the purchase. It is not an "after-sale restriction" since you still have what you purchased, namely a box and a silver coaster, and can even get this price refunded if you are not willing to agree to their terms. You licenced the software and, they can revoke this, in addition, to connect to their servers you have to agree to another contract (which you explicitly do every time you sign on) telling you what you can and cannot do. If you modify something on your client or, view anything they send to you outside the client, you are in violation of this contract, they can and will cancel your account and, are perfectly within their rights to do so. If you send packets to them that are not from the client they additionally have the option of pressing charges against you, as this is unautorized use of a computer system. You may think this sucks but, in order for them to survive they have to take as tough a stance on this as they can. Keep in mind that if Sony wanted to really press the issue, they could probably sue the developers of ShowEQ, on the basis that they violated the contract they agreed to when they opened an account and, there are real damages to award. If they do not have an account (which is unlkely) then whomever allowed them use of their account is in violation (as is clearly specified in the agreement.) It would be wise for ShowEQ to keep off Windows, as it is probably not worth the effort to go after them as long as they do. Otherwise, I hope they have decent lawyers. I checked into all of this (and actually got legal advice) a while ago while I was thinking about writing something similar to ShowEQ. Believe me guys, you really want to think about this one before you do it, Sony is a large corporation with a lot of money, and Everquest is very profitable. If you interfere with this, they will not be happy. Even if you do not think you can be found, remember that if they choose to sue, sourceforge will be required to give any information they have about you, and I seriously doubt they would violate a court order.
Don't worry, you will pass it eventually. (.01 = 1%)
Actually this is very common... I can speak from both sides of the issue as my previous position was with a large company where I outsourced much of the work and, I currently own a small software company. This is generally just to protect the company should you go bankrupt. Just have your lawyer (if you do not have one, you need to find one, as having a good lawyer is essential to any company, large or small) draft a contract including exactly what they can and cannot do. Usually ours state that they can use the source internally however, they may not resell it and, they may not include it in a product they sell. Depending upon the circumstances (you were too vague in your submission to give you a clearer answer) you may want to make exceptions for certain uses. I do hope, however, that you are doing this before you signed a contract to provide the product, otherwise it may be too late.
The Windows fonts are far better. Even using FreeType 2 with the bytecode hinter enabled. When you spend all day looking at them, this is a major issue. Games are of course another issue. I am currently running Windows XP and FreeBSD. The nicer machine gets Windows. I tend to code everything in windows (using Borland C++ Builder, very nice IDE) and debug it there. Things only get sent to the FreeBSD machine for final verification before I install them on our server (FreeBSD of course.) For a desktop OS, Windows is simply better. For a server, FreeBSD is better. If Linux becomes the better option at some point, I will switch however, I do not see this happening in the near future, as it would take a lot of work in areas linux developers tend not to think are important.
Actually, there is a Darwin Award given because of some Cesium (same effect as Sodium but more so).
The fact that corporate america relies heavily upon internal software development, which this would hinder. So they will not do it or, they will either have a way to sign them easily (which will be quickly distributed) or a version that does not enforce this for corporate use (which would also be quickly distributed). There is no way they would risk only allowing signed items to run with no exceptions.
That was my post actually. It would not be a third world country for long if there was enough brain drain to that country. This would probably work with most third world countries however, the government there looks like it would be friendly (the current laws are very lax and, there seems not to be much civil unrest). If we truly wish to organize this, we could probably bargain with the government ahead of time, as something like this would be a wet dream for most third world countries.
If anybody is interested, please post comments or, e-mail me at the mailbox culsu with the domain culsu.net
With copyright, if you mail yourself, via Registered Mail, an envelope-sealed (can't use tape - what if it's an old envelope and a new text?) master copy, you can establish a date of existance and then be able to sue those that violate your copyright without having to do anything else.
Actually, this only establishes that you were the original creator. You do not however, have a copyright and, therefore cannot sue. You can get someone elses copyright invalidated though. To put it simply, you will not win a lawsuit against somebody else with this, but you will not lose one against you either.
I have never had a problem not having a degree. I have held several jobs as CTO / Vice President (with a quite technical background in C and x86 ASM) and I did not even graduate from high school. I have tried for a CS degree several times but, could never balance it with work (I missed too many classes for meetings, etc.) I currently own 50% of my company and, have no plans to go back to school. Besides, in my experience, people with only a degree generally have to spend quite a bit of time learning how things work in the real world and, have generally never worked on anything large enough to force good coding habits.
I think the original poster was referring to the fact that programmers who graduate without work experience tend not to know very much that is usefull. Personally, I will not hire somebody without any actual work experience, except as an intern. Conversely, it is quite rare to actually require a degree, usually a couple of years of actual work is acceptable in its stead.
can be found here