A proper punitive measure would be for Microsoft to have to stop shipping their incompatible VM (which they have done), and a cash settlement of some sort (maybe a lump sum, plus a percentage of Visual J++ profits?).
Bundling a competitor's product forceably provides an unfair advantage for that competitor (Sun in this case). What if there was another company that made a Java Virtual Machine that was also harmed by Microsoft's acts? (Okay, there isn't, but let's suppose their was.) Shouldn't we include their VM as well, or give them some compensation?
Typically in criminal offences (which is your example), people are jailed because there's no real way that they can provide restitution. There's also no real competitor of the criminal, in the sense that nobody else directly benefits (well, okay, maybe the extra crowbar clockers find more victims because one of their cohorts is off the street, but that's not really the point).
IBM has a choice. They could ship Windows with their systems, or something else (like OS/2, back in the days when they were really hyping it).
IBM was not *forced* to ship Windows, they chose to do it because there wasn't enough market demand for OS/2 (or Linux, or whatever) at that point. They *could* have shipped both operating systems, except that then Microsoft wouldn't let them get the same deal that other OEM's got, which would mean that IBM would have to increase the prices for their machines.
This is not force, people, this is a choice. Granted, IBM didn't have as many choices as they would have preferred, and Microsoft did in a sense lowball them, but they did have a choice - be able to compete with everybody else, or not. Companies are not entitled to a profit, and they're also not required to provide hand-outs.
Good to know that I'm not the only person who had problems with WindRiver support from time to time.
One thing to keep in mind though (and many of my colleagues share this view) is that the actual RTOS is very good, but the other things aren't. Unfortunately (for the company I worked for), WindRiver bundled things in such a way that it was seen to be more convenient to use their built-in IP stack (for example) than buying a third-party one. Some developers spent months trying to debug WindRiver's routing stack, versus buying a working solution, since it "just made sense to be a complete WindRiver shop". Let's just say that management's decisions have almost driven the company out of business (parts of it are being acquired, what's left is expected to be around for no more than two months).
Yes, their BSP support is somewhat lacking, but, at least for us, they were one of the few companies that could get us a BSP that supported the Broadcom 3350 CPU (MIPS3K based).
When I talked to a QNX tech at the Embedded Systems Conference, he explained their support for the Broadcom 1250 (the core we were using at the time), it made WindRiver's RTOS seem absolutely laughable.
Agreed, widening existing roads is not a solution, but building some more strategically planned routes would at least help. Eventually, you get to the point where more lanes cause more problems (accidents with people moving from lane 10 to the exit lane).
Problem is that there isn't much land left to build roads on (at least not in the San Francisco Bay Area), and there's no guarantee that the road would even be built.
California's freeway system is a complete mess. There were plenty of routes that were supposed to be constructed, but they were quashed due to protests back in the 50's and 60's (primarily about environmental effects, some were political, some were, "not through my back yard").
My favorite highway is Highway 401 in Ontario, Canada. They have two sets of roads in each direction, the Express and Commuter. If you're going a long distance, you stay in the Express lane (four lanes each way, last time I checked). Then, every few kilometers, there's a ramp to/from the Commuter lane (another four lanes each way, I believe), where you can actually exit the freeway.
While carpooling is a nice idea, try actually making it work in the Bay Area.
A lot of different companies have different work schedules for employees. Even though my ex-roommate and I worked within a few miles of each other, carpooling was impractical.
It seemed that on the days that I got to leave early, I had to leave late. On the days that he got to leave early, I had to leave late. And part of being friends with a person means that you don't subject them to that kind of crap ("Hey dude, I have to work late tonight, can you get somebody else to drive you home? You can't? Sorry, I have to stay another three hours, keep yourself busy.")
As for people that I worked with (to try to keep the same hours), well, I was the only person that lived in San Jose. Every one of my co-workers who was remotely close to me was easily 15 miles out of the way. That defeats the purpose, since I'm expelling more emissions just to drive the extra milage to pick him up, than driving directly to work.
Call this a flame if you will, but I'm sure that there are many people who feel the same way.
Interestingly enough, the DMV of California has a little hidden clause (advertised on some freeways) that DMV approved cars (i.e. low-emissions) with stickers can use the carpool lane with only one occupant. Unfortunately, the only cars that qualify are full electric cars, the hybrids apparently don't quality, from what I've heard.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I made a visit to Los Angeles about a year ago to see some friends. The traffic in Los Angeles is so bad that the carpool lanes on 101 are even open on Saturday (in the Bay Area, they're Monday to Friday only). Heck, I wasn't even expecting metering on a Saturday afternoon, entering onto 101.
Something needs to be done about the carpool lane. My biggest peeve is six-lane roads where there's a carpool lane on each side, thus leaving only two lanes of traffic open, clogging things up.
One of the following (or more) needs to be done: 1. Abolish the HOV lane. 2. Actually have the police enforce the restriction (it seems that many of the CHP officers in the Bay Area oppose the carpool lane, so they won't ticket offenders driving in it) 3. Give people for whom it's impractical to use the HOV lane a chance to use it - this eBay auction is a good idea.
Not much... Just declare it when you cross the border. Same thing that I do whenever I head home for Christmas (from California) to see my family.
Depending on how much you buy, and how long you stay, (and depending on how you go and how busy the border crossing is) you may not have to pay any duty at all.
And, as an added bonus, you can even apply for a rebate on the GST, since you're not a Canadian resident. Of course, I've never bothered to do this, since the 7% wasn't that much, given the conversion rate I was getting, and it's like a mail-in rebate.:)
When an application wants a web browser, it should run "web-browser [url]". That's a symlink in ~/bin to the user's current favorite web browser, or a symlink in/usr/bin to the system's favorite (or only) web browser.
Actually, looking under the hood of a Red Hat 8.0 system that I have installed here at work, that's how they try to do it (to some extent). There's a set of scripts that, based on some environment variables, decide which web-browser, etc. to run. That makes things nice and easy for setting up defaults, however, then you have to run your own forks of applications to support this.
It is a great way to do things, and I'd love to see more applications support something like this in the future.
I'm a software developer by trade (in embedded systems), and I cut my teeth on Linux back in the Red Hat 4.2 days). Typically, I use Slackware on my system at home, and it works great, once I have it configured properly (i.e. for my old AIW Radeon, install GATOS, or before that, the BT848 drivers, etc.).
My whole aim in wanting to build this distro is to take away the need to do all of this extra configuration after the install.:)
However, yes, I've heard great things about Knoppix, and I plan to get it (especially now that I have a much better internet connection in my new place), for use as a rescue disc mainly.
As an update to my previous comment - I think that the biggest thing preventing a lot of people from making their own distros is the time it takes to do the initial setup (being able to build your own packages at will, maintaining them, that stuff). Once that is finished, it's fairly easy (I would think).
First of all, I would like to say that I have no objections on multiple pieces of software that do the same thing, after all, variety is good. Whether they should be included in a distro, well, that's up to the distro.
There's different Linux distributions out there that have different purposes. RedHat seems to be going after the office market, Mandrake, the home user, Debian, the person who wants complete freedom (as in speech), Slackware, the tinkerer, etc.
I've actually had visions of making my own distro, similar to the article author - I've gotten so far as to building my own program (on Freshmeat) that parses the Linux From Scratch XML file, to generate scripts to do an (fairly) automated build. From there, I would then decide on which packages I'd like to standardize on (KDE probably), and build them, make a nice installer, and there's my homebrew Linux.
Personally, I don't care if Linux ever gets complete mainstream acceptance, and I get the feeling that many of the core developers of the kernel and other bug projects feel the same way. However, I would love to see a good distro that: 1. Does not use RPM for package management (I've had RPM screw up way too many times in the past). 2. Has a decent GUI installer 3. Can configure all of my hardware without me tewaking it (I'll understand for some of the latest/greatest hardware, like my AIW 9700 Pro, but for instance, getting wireless setup on my laptop with both RedHat 8.0 and Slackware 9.0-pre was a pain) 4. Very configurable
The biggest obstacle to a lot of this is that writing programs (or frontends) that are easy to use is a pain. It takes a lot of work to design a GUI, and a lot of programming, and sanity checking, and for most of these developers who are working for free, it's just not worth the time (unless the program absolutely requires a GUI).
Until then, I keep dreaming of my magical Linux distro... What keeps me from doing it is my full-time job as a programmer, which gives me little incentive to code at night.
Actually, the experience that I recall from Sega is: 1. You're hired full-time, but you're not on salary, you're hourly (I didn't work as a tester, but I believe that was the case). 2. Yep, it's pretty much like that. 3. Not necessarily so. It's in the company's best interest to keep the good testers on-board, since they don't have to retrain new people to watch for the little things. On the other hand, people tend to leave due to burn-out, and possible career advancement. 4. Not really, I usually worked longer hours than the game testers, and I was supporting game developers. Unless it's a rush deadline, you're usually in at 9, out at 6. Heck, they locked the doors on the testing room at 6PM on normal nights. Of course, this varies from company to company.
Definitely not fun work, but not that bad. Salary is your only problem if you live in a high-cost area (i.e. the Bay Area).
I didn't work as a game tester at Sega (I was in third-party developer support), but I knew a bunch of the game testers. Their job was anything but fun.
Yes, you get to play games... But it's very tedious, like as in, play the game, notice a fault. You have to be able to document EXACTLY what you did to cause the camera angle to go all funky, or cause that lockup, and be able to do it consistently.
I walked in on a testing session of a racing game. There was a team of five or six testers (can't remember how many) playing the game for 8-9 hours per day, on a five day (sometimes three day) testing cycle. One person was driving the entire track completely backwards. Another person was crashing into every object, mobile and immobile. Others were constantly ripping the controllers and memory cards out and putting them back in.
This isn't as fun as you think it is - it's real work.
And to top it off, that $40,000 that the game tester makes doesn't get you that far in San Francisco where Sega is.
Yes, now that you mention that, it does jog back memories.
I believe Sega's reasoning was that using copyright law was ineffective world-wide, especially the places where the cartidges were being illegally mass-produced. Hence, apparently, according to the legal begals, trademark infringement would be easier to prove.
The Dreamcast actually stores a complete bitmap (the startup bitmap) in the bootloader (on the disc), and the BootROM checks it, byte for byte. This is what I was referring to in my earlier post concerning the legality of distribution of home-made binaries. Nearly everybody that distributes a disc that can boot on a Dreamcast without Sega's permission can be sued for copyright, and trademark infringement.
The very important item is that they use their own development kits. Many people out there released software for the Dreamcast based on the official Sega or Microsoft SDK's, and Sega legally could have sued them into oblivion.
As for requiring approval for distributing their own 100% original software (again, using thier own SDK), that's a legal issue that I'm not 100% familar with (I have read Sega v. Accolade, but don't remember a lot of the specifics). I do know that in the case of the Dreamcast however, there is copyrighted code that MUST be present in the boot block of the disc, or the BootROM won't accept it. The legal standing of making your own bootblocks, I'm not sure about, but this was one of the things that Sega learned from the Sega v. Accolade case.
The issue in this case though, is that the Linux XBox team can't crack the digital signature that Microsoft uses (AFAIK), so they have to ask Microsoft, or waste time in trying to crack it.
So, while I agree with your view, please note that it can take up to several years for this to happen. By the time the Dreamcast was hacked, it was already dying, and were it not for the Mill CD backdoor in the BootROM, the Dreamcast most likely would not have been hacked (the requirement for the media being GD-ROM's, which are higher capacity than CD-R's was strictly enforced, except for when a particular signature was on the disc). Oh, and since I don't think that Sega has anymore profit coming in off Dreamcast games, I guess I can safely say that there are some titles that had checks for whether or not they were on real discs or not (and did some pretty cool stuff if they weren't) - but I won't say more than that, nor will I name titles.
I think that the key point here is that the Linux XBox team would actually like to release Linux for the XBox sometime this year, rather than five years from now (pulling numbers out of my butt).
Oh, and one final thought... they can release unlicensed software should they want, provided they wrote all code themselves and got all hardware programming information by reverse-engineering rather than stealing NDA'ed documents
Sure, but only if they're not bankrupted in court by a company with bigger pockets than them tying things up (i.e. Microsoft) while trying to prove it.
Well, I can't speak specifically how it works for Microsoft, but this is how it worked for Sega (and Microsoft copied some of Sega's technique for this): 1. Developer approaches Sega with an idea. Typically they do this through a publisher, however, or Sega would at least suggest they get a publisher 2. If Sega likes the idea (established ideas are more likely to get the okay, as in a port of an existing title), then the developer is given a contract to sign. 3. The developer/publisher ponies up a lot of money for the SDK/development hardware. 4. The developer must meet with Sega on a regular schedule to demonstrate their progress. If Sega isn't happy with the direction things are going, they can terminate the agreement. 5. Once the title is finished, Sega burns it. 6. I'm not clear how it worked here, I don't remember if Sega distributed the discs, or if the publisher did.
Of course, there's also other aspects, like jewel case artwork, documentation, etc., that has to be approved by Sega.
The SDK/equipment is typically done up-front, and the rights to use it can typically be revoked at any time during the contract.
I'd mod you up, but I don't participate in moderation. Nothing against the principle of it, just I don't have time for it.
I have to agree, this ruling is complete and utter bullshit.
Microsoft had an agreement with Sun to ship a Java implementation (AFAIK), and they broke this agreement by shipping an incompatibile implementation.
The worst that should have happened is that Microsoft be forced to pay Sun money in damages and possibly have to update the old JVM via Windows Update or something, to make it compatable with the Sun specs.
I disagree with what Microsoft did, but they should not be forced to include Java in new Windows releases if they choose not to.
Linus does have control over the kernel but I don't think he is as dogmatic about binary only drivers as are other people.
Yes, ultimately this will probably be Linus' decision. However, he must take into account the people who contribute code to the kernel.
Honestly, I don't care which way or other this works, because I make sure that I buy hardware that works with drivers that have source published. And, this doesn't necessarily mean, "staying behind the times", I got my All In Wonder 9700 working under XFree86 in 2D mode with the CVS tree. Next step is the TV tuner, as that's all I really use under Linux, and if the GATOS team doesn't make much progress on it by the time I get back from Christmas holidays, then I'll probably drop them a line and contribute.
For those who really care about binary modules, then perhaps you should voice your opinion to both Linus and the makers of the modules.
As I pointed out to Reality Master 101, this is about choice. Linus and the people who write code for the kernel have their choice of what to do with it. If they want a BSD license, it's their choice. GPL license? Their choice. Only born-again Christians can use it? Their choice. If you don't like their choices, then you can use alternate code, or because of the nature of the GPL, you can fix it and distribute your own version of the code.
This I don't agree with. It would be a blatant abuse of their monopoly power and therefore illegal.
I don't necessarily agree with it either, but like I said, they wrote it, it's their choice. It's then up to them to deal with the reprecussions that their choice has (be it angry end-users, or government reprisal).
But that doesn't make the decision less idiotic and wrong.
But it's their decision to make, and not yours (unless you contributed to the kernel). You don't have to agree with it, heck you don't even have to respect it, but it's their decision.
The way I see it, the people who wrote the kernel have the control. If they choose to say that you can't run non-GPL'd drivers/modules with the kernel this way, it's their choice. They wrote the code, they have the power to make people conform. Any module/driver developers who don't agree with the kernel team can distribute their code seperately.
Also, by the same token, Microsoft is well within their rights to say, "We will only allow you to run Microsoft sanctioned software under Windows". If you don't like it, you can either (1) stop using Windows, or (2) hope that the government strikes them down through the monopoly rules.
If you don't like the terms, then don't use the software, or find a way to make it work yourself. Nothing says that I must allow your software to interoperate with mine.
I worked at IBM Canada (Markham) as a co-op student back in the 1997-1998 time frame, just when they were starting to roll out Windows to their employees.
Before that, they were using OS/2 on almost all of their internal computers, using Windows required special management approval (I had a Windows NT 4 machine because I needed to be able to open MS Word documents). As well, they were also using Lotus SmartSuite under WinOS/2.
Ironically enough, IBM Canada's reason for switching to a Windows environment was because IBM Global Services in the U.S. was switching to Windows, and we couldn't read the MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents that were being sent to us from the U.S.. In fact, it was one of my jobs to either print these documents out to paper (I went through a forest or two in my time there, I got to know the guys in the printer room up in G7 - or was it G5? - really well), or convert them to Lotus formats.
Hell, the fact of the matter is, any environment would have worked for most of them. Up until early '98, they were using 3270 emulators to access the mainframes for everything - e-mail, calendars, newsgroups, the works. It wasn't until '98 that they switched over to Lotus Notes for everything. It was chaos at that point, most of them had been using mainframes for so long that they had no idea how to really use a GUI (to them, it was just for running multiple 3270 emulator sessions in one screen).
All of the concepts that you and your parent poster touched on are actually touched upon in any decent Computer Science curriculum at one point or another.
Here's what I'm afraid of - you'll get people who have their BSc. degrees in "games programming", however, it's really a "BS" degree, in that they don't know their stuff. I honestly find that people who have an interest in the field and persue the specifics of it outside of their regular curriculum are more likely to have knowledge that they can apply to more than one specific situation.
But hey, then again, I'm not the person hiring, but I'd really hate to have to work with one of those people.
Most of the game developers that I met are actually people who took the normal Computer Science curriculum, and gained their real skills for the industry outside of school, working on their Commodore 64's for example.
Heck, it's how I got into the industry (been out of it for almost two years though) - some of my work on the C64 was spotted by my then-to-be co-workers and it made a good impression on them, and their bosses.
I prefer that the schools offer a balanced curriculum, and encourage those who want to focus on specific disciplines to do so on their own time. Or, alternatively, they can try to go to a school that focuses on said discipline, but I feel that narrowing your options isn't such a good thing. Not everybody can be a games developer, but if you have the "generic" skills, you can work in other areas, like applications, or embedded devices (which I work in now).
Remember, this isn't the "olden days", where school was used as a training ground for preparing you for that job in the factory assembly line... Well, then again, seeing some people that I've had to work with, maybe it is.:)
Scary thing is that I was in a similar situation, and the same thing worked.
I had AT&T for cable TV at my residence, and I was constantly getting phone calls from AT&T to switch over to their new digital phone service. Every time I told them that I wasn't interested, but they kept on calling.
Eventually one time that they called, I said, "I am not interested in whatever products that AT&T is offering. The only reason that I have AT&T as my cable TV provider is because they're the local cable monopoly, and I can't get it from anybody else. If you continue to harass me with your telemarketing calls, I will cancel my cable TV service, and let them know why."
Never got any more telemarketing calls from AT&T for anything after that.
(Yes, I know, I could have gotten satellite or something else other than cable, but it was convenient).
The Dreamcast is not inherently tied to Windows CE in anyway.
I can't really comment on the non-Sega projects for the Dreamcast, since I honestly haven't really followed them, but there are three official IP stacks for the Dreamcast.
1. Windows CE - This one isn't really used that much. Windows CE was meant mainly as a quick port of existing Windows games. From what I recall hearing, there was a plan to have Windows CE exclusively as the Dreamcast OS (much like the original Dreamcast was supposed to use 3dfx chips, instead of PowerVR), but I think the execs at SOJ (Sega of Japsn) didn't like that idea, hence the SegaOS was made.
2. PlanetWeb - The web browser that shipped with every Dreamcast, and was available in magazines, was called PlanetWeb, and I believe the company that made it was also known as PlanetWeb. They had the "official" Dreamcast IP stack if you were using the SegaOS - Windows CE was not required for IP connectivity.
3. I can't remember the name of the third stack, but it was used mainly for broadband related titles. It was developed by a third party, and paid for by Sega of America and Sega of Europe, as an alternative to the PlanetWeb stack (because we wanted source code, and an optimized stack, and PlanetWeb didn't seem to care about that).
Note that Windows CE, last time I checked (well, while I was working at Sega anyway, and I don't think that they released a new toolkit since then) NEVER supported the broadband adapter, they supported the modem only.
Chances are, you're getting called from Canada. I used to have it as a summer job before I got my big break in the United States. I hated it, and I was miserable pitching credit cards with a 29% APR to young 20-somethings and seniors, and cable packages from TCI/Qwest.
I'd say that kidlinux has it nailed. Cheaper labor (although the one that I worked at paid $8.00 per hour, which for Ontario was actually pretty good three years ago) is the main reason - you get a lot of university/college kids who are desparate for summer jobs, and they hope that you'll continue doing it when the summer is over. However, the U.S. law DOES apply, furthermore, if I remember correctly, the company that we were doing the telemarketing for could be held liable if we screwed up. Interestingly enough, the place that I was working for, we observed American holidays. We didn't get July 1st (Canada Day) off, we got July 4th off instead. The company took some heat from the Ontario Department of Labor for that.
Remember, when dealing with a telemarketer, be calm and collected. You yelling at us doesn't do you any good (I'll explain in a bit). The best way to get them to stop calling you is to explicitly ask, "Put me on your Do Not Call list". Saying, "Don't ever call here again" is NOT the same. You must explicitly say, "Put me on your Do Not Call list".
There was one guy I was working with at that call center, and he used to LOVE it when the people he was calling got angry at him. Unless they said, "Put me on your Do Not Call list", he wouldn't (which he didn't have to do - I on the other hand was a bit more generous and would do so, even if they just asked me not to call them again). Since the dialing was done by computers, you could specify exact times that they called. The promotion that we were working on had very few callers (home mortgages, they wanted the "best sellers" on that one), so if you put up a fuss, he'd schedule a call back for 15 minutes later, and chances are, he'd get you again.
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I'm sorry, but I must disagree.
A proper punitive measure would be for Microsoft to have to stop shipping their incompatible VM (which they have done), and a cash settlement of some sort (maybe a lump sum, plus a percentage of Visual J++ profits?).
Bundling a competitor's product forceably provides an unfair advantage for that competitor (Sun in this case). What if there was another company that made a Java Virtual Machine that was also harmed by Microsoft's acts? (Okay, there isn't, but let's suppose their was.) Shouldn't we include their VM as well, or give them some compensation?
Typically in criminal offences (which is your example), people are jailed because there's no real way that they can provide restitution. There's also no real competitor of the criminal, in the sense that nobody else directly benefits (well, okay, maybe the extra crowbar clockers find more victims because one of their cohorts is off the street, but that's not really the point).
-- Joe
IBM has a choice. They could ship Windows with their systems, or something else (like OS/2, back in the days when they were really hyping it).
IBM was not *forced* to ship Windows, they chose to do it because there wasn't enough market demand for OS/2 (or Linux, or whatever) at that point. They *could* have shipped both operating systems, except that then Microsoft wouldn't let them get the same deal that other OEM's got, which would mean that IBM would have to increase the prices for their machines.
This is not force, people, this is a choice. Granted, IBM didn't have as many choices as they would have preferred, and Microsoft did in a sense lowball them, but they did have a choice - be able to compete with everybody else, or not. Companies are not entitled to a profit, and they're also not required to provide hand-outs.
-- Joe
Good to know that I'm not the only person who had problems with WindRiver support from time to time.
One thing to keep in mind though (and many of my colleagues share this view) is that the actual RTOS is very good, but the other things aren't. Unfortunately (for the company I worked for), WindRiver bundled things in such a way that it was seen to be more convenient to use their built-in IP stack (for example) than buying a third-party one. Some developers spent months trying to debug WindRiver's routing stack, versus buying a working solution, since it "just made sense to be a complete WindRiver shop". Let's just say that management's decisions have almost driven the company out of business (parts of it are being acquired, what's left is expected to be around for no more than two months).
Yes, their BSP support is somewhat lacking, but, at least for us, they were one of the few companies that could get us a BSP that supported the Broadcom 3350 CPU (MIPS3K based).
When I talked to a QNX tech at the Embedded Systems Conference, he explained their support for the Broadcom 1250 (the core we were using at the time), it made WindRiver's RTOS seem absolutely laughable.
-- Joe
Agreed, widening existing roads is not a solution, but building some more strategically planned routes would at least help. Eventually, you get to the point where more lanes cause more problems (accidents with people moving from lane 10 to the exit lane).
Problem is that there isn't much land left to build roads on (at least not in the San Francisco Bay Area), and there's no guarantee that the road would even be built.
California's freeway system is a complete mess. There were plenty of routes that were supposed to be constructed, but they were quashed due to protests back in the 50's and 60's (primarily about environmental effects, some were political, some were, "not through my back yard").
My favorite highway is Highway 401 in Ontario, Canada. They have two sets of roads in each direction, the Express and Commuter. If you're going a long distance, you stay in the Express lane (four lanes each way, last time I checked). Then, every few kilometers, there's a ramp to/from the Commuter lane (another four lanes each way, I believe), where you can actually exit the freeway.
-- Joe
While carpooling is a nice idea, try actually making it work in the Bay Area.
A lot of different companies have different work schedules for employees. Even though my ex-roommate and I worked within a few miles of each other, carpooling was impractical.
It seemed that on the days that I got to leave early, I had to leave late. On the days that he got to leave early, I had to leave late. And part of being friends with a person means that you don't subject them to that kind of crap ("Hey dude, I have to work late tonight, can you get somebody else to drive you home? You can't? Sorry, I have to stay another three hours, keep yourself busy.")
As for people that I worked with (to try to keep the same hours), well, I was the only person that lived in San Jose. Every one of my co-workers who was remotely close to me was easily 15 miles out of the way. That defeats the purpose, since I'm expelling more emissions just to drive the extra milage to pick him up, than driving directly to work.
Call this a flame if you will, but I'm sure that there are many people who feel the same way.
Interestingly enough, the DMV of California has a little hidden clause (advertised on some freeways) that DMV approved cars (i.e. low-emissions) with stickers can use the carpool lane with only one occupant. Unfortunately, the only cars that qualify are full electric cars, the hybrids apparently don't quality, from what I've heard.
-- Joe
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I made a visit to Los Angeles about a year ago to see some friends. The traffic in Los Angeles is so bad that the carpool lanes on 101 are even open on Saturday (in the Bay Area, they're Monday to Friday only). Heck, I wasn't even expecting metering on a Saturday afternoon, entering onto 101.
Something needs to be done about the carpool lane. My biggest peeve is six-lane roads where there's a carpool lane on each side, thus leaving only two lanes of traffic open, clogging things up.
One of the following (or more) needs to be done:
1. Abolish the HOV lane.
2. Actually have the police enforce the restriction (it seems that many of the CHP officers in the Bay Area oppose the carpool lane, so they won't ticket offenders driving in it)
3. Give people for whom it's impractical to use the HOV lane a chance to use it - this eBay auction is a good idea.
-- Joe
Not much... Just declare it when you cross the border. Same thing that I do whenever I head home for Christmas (from California) to see my family.
:)
Depending on how much you buy, and how long you stay, (and depending on how you go and how busy the border crossing is) you may not have to pay any duty at all.
And, as an added bonus, you can even apply for a rebate on the GST, since you're not a Canadian resident. Of course, I've never bothered to do this, since the 7% wasn't that much, given the conversion rate I was getting, and it's like a mail-in rebate.
-- Joe
When an application wants a web browser, it should run "web-browser [url]". That's a symlink in ~/bin to the user's current favorite web browser, or a symlink in /usr/bin to the system's favorite (or only) web browser.
Actually, looking under the hood of a Red Hat 8.0 system that I have installed here at work, that's how they try to do it (to some extent). There's a set of scripts that, based on some environment variables, decide which web-browser, etc. to run. That makes things nice and easy for setting up defaults, however, then you have to run your own forks of applications to support this.
It is a great way to do things, and I'd love to see more applications support something like this in the future.
-- JoeOops, noticed the spelling error in "tweaked". :)
:)
I'm a software developer by trade (in embedded systems), and I cut my teeth on Linux back in the Red Hat 4.2 days). Typically, I use Slackware on my system at home, and it works great, once I have it configured properly (i.e. for my old AIW Radeon, install GATOS, or before that, the BT848 drivers, etc.).
My whole aim in wanting to build this distro is to take away the need to do all of this extra configuration after the install.
However, yes, I've heard great things about Knoppix, and I plan to get it (especially now that I have a much better internet connection in my new place), for use as a rescue disc mainly.
As an update to my previous comment - I think that the biggest thing preventing a lot of people from making their own distros is the time it takes to do the initial setup (being able to build your own packages at will, maintaining them, that stuff). Once that is finished, it's fairly easy (I would think).
-- Joe
I have to agree and disagree with you on this.
First of all, I would like to say that I have no objections on multiple pieces of software that do the same thing, after all, variety is good. Whether they should be included in a distro, well, that's up to the distro.
There's different Linux distributions out there that have different purposes. RedHat seems to be going after the office market, Mandrake, the home user, Debian, the person who wants complete freedom (as in speech), Slackware, the tinkerer, etc.
I've actually had visions of making my own distro, similar to the article author - I've gotten so far as to building my own program (on Freshmeat) that parses the Linux From Scratch XML file, to generate scripts to do an (fairly) automated build. From there, I would then decide on which packages I'd like to standardize on (KDE probably), and build them, make a nice installer, and there's my homebrew Linux.
Personally, I don't care if Linux ever gets complete mainstream acceptance, and I get the feeling that many of the core developers of the kernel and other bug projects feel the same way. However, I would love to see a good distro that:
1. Does not use RPM for package management (I've had RPM screw up way too many times in the past).
2. Has a decent GUI installer
3. Can configure all of my hardware without me tewaking it (I'll understand for some of the latest/greatest hardware, like my AIW 9700 Pro, but for instance, getting wireless setup on my laptop with both RedHat 8.0 and Slackware 9.0-pre was a pain)
4. Very configurable
The biggest obstacle to a lot of this is that writing programs (or frontends) that are easy to use is a pain. It takes a lot of work to design a GUI, and a lot of programming, and sanity checking, and for most of these developers who are working for free, it's just not worth the time (unless the program absolutely requires a GUI).
Until then, I keep dreaming of my magical Linux distro... What keeps me from doing it is my full-time job as a programmer, which gives me little incentive to code at night.
-- Joe
Actually, the experience that I recall from Sega is:
1. You're hired full-time, but you're not on salary, you're hourly (I didn't work as a tester, but I believe that was the case).
2. Yep, it's pretty much like that.
3. Not necessarily so. It's in the company's best interest to keep the good testers on-board, since they don't have to retrain new people to watch for the little things. On the other hand, people tend to leave due to burn-out, and possible career advancement.
4. Not really, I usually worked longer hours than the game testers, and I was supporting game developers. Unless it's a rush deadline, you're usually in at 9, out at 6. Heck, they locked the doors on the testing room at 6PM on normal nights. Of course, this varies from company to company.
Definitely not fun work, but not that bad. Salary is your only problem if you live in a high-cost area (i.e. the Bay Area).
-- Joe
I didn't work as a game tester at Sega (I was in third-party developer support), but I knew a bunch of the game testers. Their job was anything but fun.
Yes, you get to play games... But it's very tedious, like as in, play the game, notice a fault. You have to be able to document EXACTLY what you did to cause the camera angle to go all funky, or cause that lockup, and be able to do it consistently.
I walked in on a testing session of a racing game. There was a team of five or six testers (can't remember how many) playing the game for 8-9 hours per day, on a five day (sometimes three day) testing cycle. One person was driving the entire track completely backwards. Another person was crashing into every object, mobile and immobile. Others were constantly ripping the controllers and memory cards out and putting them back in.
This isn't as fun as you think it is - it's real work.
And to top it off, that $40,000 that the game tester makes doesn't get you that far in San Francisco where Sega is.
-- Joe
Yes, now that you mention that, it does jog back memories.
I believe Sega's reasoning was that using copyright law was ineffective world-wide, especially the places where the cartidges were being illegally mass-produced. Hence, apparently, according to the legal begals, trademark infringement would be easier to prove.
The Dreamcast actually stores a complete bitmap (the startup bitmap) in the bootloader (on the disc), and the BootROM checks it, byte for byte. This is what I was referring to in my earlier post concerning the legality of distribution of home-made binaries. Nearly everybody that distributes a disc that can boot on a Dreamcast without Sega's permission can be sued for copyright, and trademark infringement.
-- Joe
The very important item is that they use their own development kits. Many people out there released software for the Dreamcast based on the official Sega or Microsoft SDK's, and Sega legally could have sued them into oblivion.
As for requiring approval for distributing their own 100% original software (again, using thier own SDK), that's a legal issue that I'm not 100% familar with (I have read Sega v. Accolade, but don't remember a lot of the specifics). I do know that in the case of the Dreamcast however, there is copyrighted code that MUST be present in the boot block of the disc, or the BootROM won't accept it. The legal standing of making your own bootblocks, I'm not sure about, but this was one of the things that Sega learned from the Sega v. Accolade case.
The issue in this case though, is that the Linux XBox team can't crack the digital signature that Microsoft uses (AFAIK), so they have to ask Microsoft, or waste time in trying to crack it.
So, while I agree with your view, please note that it can take up to several years for this to happen. By the time the Dreamcast was hacked, it was already dying, and were it not for the Mill CD backdoor in the BootROM, the Dreamcast most likely would not have been hacked (the requirement for the media being GD-ROM's, which are higher capacity than CD-R's was strictly enforced, except for when a particular signature was on the disc). Oh, and since I don't think that Sega has anymore profit coming in off Dreamcast games, I guess I can safely say that there are some titles that had checks for whether or not they were on real discs or not (and did some pretty cool stuff if they weren't) - but I won't say more than that, nor will I name titles.
I think that the key point here is that the Linux XBox team would actually like to release Linux for the XBox sometime this year, rather than five years from now (pulling numbers out of my butt).
Oh, and one final thought...
they can release unlicensed software should they want, provided they wrote all code themselves and got all hardware programming information by reverse-engineering rather than stealing NDA'ed documents
Sure, but only if they're not bankrupted in court by a company with bigger pockets than them tying things up (i.e. Microsoft) while trying to prove it.
-- Joe
Well, I can't speak specifically how it works for Microsoft, but this is how it worked for Sega (and Microsoft copied some of Sega's technique for this):
1. Developer approaches Sega with an idea. Typically they do this through a publisher, however, or Sega would at least suggest they get a publisher
2. If Sega likes the idea (established ideas are more likely to get the okay, as in a port of an existing title), then the developer is given a contract to sign.
3. The developer/publisher ponies up a lot of money for the SDK/development hardware.
4. The developer must meet with Sega on a regular schedule to demonstrate their progress. If Sega isn't happy with the direction things are going, they can terminate the agreement.
5. Once the title is finished, Sega burns it.
6. I'm not clear how it worked here, I don't remember if Sega distributed the discs, or if the publisher did.
Of course, there's also other aspects, like jewel case artwork, documentation, etc., that has to be approved by Sega.
The SDK/equipment is typically done up-front, and the rights to use it can typically be revoked at any time during the contract.
-- Joe
I'd mod you up, but I don't participate in moderation. Nothing against the principle of it, just I don't have time for it.
I have to agree, this ruling is complete and utter bullshit.
Microsoft had an agreement with Sun to ship a Java implementation (AFAIK), and they broke this agreement by shipping an incompatibile implementation.
The worst that should have happened is that Microsoft be forced to pay Sun money in damages and possibly have to update the old JVM via Windows Update or something, to make it compatable with the Sun specs.
I disagree with what Microsoft did, but they should not be forced to include Java in new Windows releases if they choose not to.
Linus does have control over the kernel but I don't think he is as dogmatic about binary only drivers as are other people.
Yes, ultimately this will probably be Linus' decision. However, he must take into account the people who contribute code to the kernel.
Honestly, I don't care which way or other this works, because I make sure that I buy hardware that works with drivers that have source published. And, this doesn't necessarily mean, "staying behind the times", I got my All In Wonder 9700 working under XFree86 in 2D mode with the CVS tree. Next step is the TV tuner, as that's all I really use under Linux, and if the GATOS team doesn't make much progress on it by the time I get back from Christmas holidays, then I'll probably drop them a line and contribute.
For those who really care about binary modules, then perhaps you should voice your opinion to both Linus and the makers of the modules.
As I pointed out to Reality Master 101, this is about choice. Linus and the people who write code for the kernel have their choice of what to do with it. If they want a BSD license, it's their choice. GPL license? Their choice. Only born-again Christians can use it? Their choice. If you don't like their choices, then you can use alternate code, or because of the nature of the GPL, you can fix it and distribute your own version of the code.
This I don't agree with. It would be a blatant abuse of their monopoly power and therefore illegal.
I don't necessarily agree with it either, but like I said, they wrote it, it's their choice. It's then up to them to deal with the reprecussions that their choice has (be it angry end-users, or government reprisal).
-- JoeBut that doesn't make the decision less idiotic and wrong.
But it's their decision to make, and not yours (unless you contributed to the kernel). You don't have to agree with it, heck you don't even have to respect it, but it's their decision.
That is the point that I am trying to make.
-- JoeThe way I see it, the people who wrote the kernel have the control. If they choose to say that you can't run non-GPL'd drivers/modules with the kernel this way, it's their choice. They wrote the code, they have the power to make people conform. Any module/driver developers who don't agree with the kernel team can distribute their code seperately.
Also, by the same token, Microsoft is well within their rights to say, "We will only allow you to run Microsoft sanctioned software under Windows". If you don't like it, you can either (1) stop using Windows, or (2) hope that the government strikes them down through the monopoly rules.
If you don't like the terms, then don't use the software, or find a way to make it work yourself. Nothing says that I must allow your software to interoperate with mine.
-- Joe
I worked at IBM Canada (Markham) as a co-op student back in the 1997-1998 time frame, just when they were starting to roll out Windows to their employees.
Before that, they were using OS/2 on almost all of their internal computers, using Windows required special management approval (I had a Windows NT 4 machine because I needed to be able to open MS Word documents). As well, they were also using Lotus SmartSuite under WinOS/2.
Ironically enough, IBM Canada's reason for switching to a Windows environment was because IBM Global Services in the U.S. was switching to Windows, and we couldn't read the MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents that were being sent to us from the U.S.. In fact, it was one of my jobs to either print these documents out to paper (I went through a forest or two in my time there, I got to know the guys in the printer room up in G7 - or was it G5? - really well), or convert them to Lotus formats.
Hell, the fact of the matter is, any environment would have worked for most of them. Up until early '98, they were using 3270 emulators to access the mainframes for everything - e-mail, calendars, newsgroups, the works. It wasn't until '98 that they switched over to Lotus Notes for everything. It was chaos at that point, most of them had been using mainframes for so long that they had no idea how to really use a GUI (to them, it was just for running multiple 3270 emulator sessions in one screen).
-- Joe
All of the concepts that you and your parent poster touched on are actually touched upon in any decent Computer Science curriculum at one point or another.
Here's what I'm afraid of - you'll get people who have their BSc. degrees in "games programming", however, it's really a "BS" degree, in that they don't know their stuff. I honestly find that people who have an interest in the field and persue the specifics of it outside of their regular curriculum are more likely to have knowledge that they can apply to more than one specific situation.
But hey, then again, I'm not the person hiring, but I'd really hate to have to work with one of those people.
-- Joe
I'd have to agree here.
:)
Most of the game developers that I met are actually people who took the normal Computer Science curriculum, and gained their real skills for the industry outside of school, working on their Commodore 64's for example.
Heck, it's how I got into the industry (been out of it for almost two years though) - some of my work on the C64 was spotted by my then-to-be co-workers and it made a good impression on them, and their bosses.
I prefer that the schools offer a balanced curriculum, and encourage those who want to focus on specific disciplines to do so on their own time. Or, alternatively, they can try to go to a school that focuses on said discipline, but I feel that narrowing your options isn't such a good thing. Not everybody can be a games developer, but if you have the "generic" skills, you can work in other areas, like applications, or embedded devices (which I work in now).
Remember, this isn't the "olden days", where school was used as a training ground for preparing you for that job in the factory assembly line... Well, then again, seeing some people that I've had to work with, maybe it is.
-- Joe
Scary thing is that I was in a similar situation, and the same thing worked.
I had AT&T for cable TV at my residence, and I was constantly getting phone calls from AT&T to switch over to their new digital phone service. Every time I told them that I wasn't interested, but they kept on calling.
Eventually one time that they called, I said, "I am not interested in whatever products that AT&T is offering. The only reason that I have AT&T as my cable TV provider is because they're the local cable monopoly, and I can't get it from anybody else. If you continue to harass me with your telemarketing calls, I will cancel my cable TV service, and let them know why."
Never got any more telemarketing calls from AT&T for anything after that.
(Yes, I know, I could have gotten satellite or something else other than cable, but it was convenient).
-- Joe
Nope.
The Dreamcast is not inherently tied to Windows CE in anyway.
I can't really comment on the non-Sega projects for the Dreamcast, since I honestly haven't really followed them, but there are three official IP stacks for the Dreamcast.
1. Windows CE - This one isn't really used that much. Windows CE was meant mainly as a quick port of existing Windows games. From what I recall hearing, there was a plan to have Windows CE exclusively as the Dreamcast OS (much like the original Dreamcast was supposed to use 3dfx chips, instead of PowerVR), but I think the execs at SOJ (Sega of Japsn) didn't like that idea, hence the SegaOS was made.
2. PlanetWeb - The web browser that shipped with every Dreamcast, and was available in magazines, was called PlanetWeb, and I believe the company that made it was also known as PlanetWeb. They had the "official" Dreamcast IP stack if you were using the SegaOS - Windows CE was not required for IP connectivity.
3. I can't remember the name of the third stack, but it was used mainly for broadband related titles. It was developed by a third party, and paid for by Sega of America and Sega of Europe, as an alternative to the PlanetWeb stack (because we wanted source code, and an optimized stack, and PlanetWeb didn't seem to care about that).
Note that Windows CE, last time I checked (well, while I was working at Sega anyway, and I don't think that they released a new toolkit since then) NEVER supported the broadband adapter, they supported the modem only.
-- Joe
Yep.
Chances are, you're getting called from Canada. I used to have it as a summer job before I got my big break in the United States. I hated it, and I was miserable pitching credit cards with a 29% APR to young 20-somethings and seniors, and cable packages from TCI/Qwest.
I'd say that kidlinux has it nailed. Cheaper labor (although the one that I worked at paid $8.00 per hour, which for Ontario was actually pretty good three years ago) is the main reason - you get a lot of university/college kids who are desparate for summer jobs, and they hope that you'll continue doing it when the summer is over. However, the U.S. law DOES apply, furthermore, if I remember correctly, the company that we were doing the telemarketing for could be held liable if we screwed up. Interestingly enough, the place that I was working for, we observed American holidays. We didn't get July 1st (Canada Day) off, we got July 4th off instead. The company took some heat from the Ontario Department of Labor for that.
Remember, when dealing with a telemarketer, be calm and collected. You yelling at us doesn't do you any good (I'll explain in a bit). The best way to get them to stop calling you is to explicitly ask, "Put me on your Do Not Call list". Saying, "Don't ever call here again" is NOT the same. You must explicitly say, "Put me on your Do Not Call list".
There was one guy I was working with at that call center, and he used to LOVE it when the people he was calling got angry at him. Unless they said, "Put me on your Do Not Call list", he wouldn't (which he didn't have to do - I on the other hand was a bit more generous and would do so, even if they just asked me not to call them again). Since the dialing was done by computers, you could specify exact times that they called. The promotion that we were working on had very few callers (home mortgages, they wanted the "best sellers" on that one), so if you put up a fuss, he'd schedule a call back for 15 minutes later, and chances are, he'd get you again.
-- Joe