Yes, at least the original three weren't drivel written for little kids.
Have you watched the first three recently? I like the new movies, and I remember seeing the first ones as a kid, then again as an adult. I also realized upon re-seeing them as an adult that the dialogue and acting and the story in the first three weren't so hot, either. But they were fun movies.
I like the new movies because I try to watch them as a child would, before I grew up and became cynical and bitter, and I really enjoy them. I didn't realize when I was watching the movies as a child that it was really Anakin's story, and I think the new movies are doing a good job of telling the earlier story of Anakin, even if I would change some things in some places.
I especially enjoy the "Palpatine's rise to power pretending to be nice while he's really a mean nasty Sith Lord" plot, and how he manipulates everyone into doing what he wants. And how the Jedi can't tell he's a Sith lord. In fact, this plot point is apparently subtle enough that I remember going onto theforce.net after TPM came out and reading the boards where people were discussing whether or not Palpy==Sidious or not, and to this day, if you google "palpatine sidious" you will see lots of discussions on this issue. If people miss this point from the movies, then it's not surprising that so many people think the new movies are crap. (It's also interesting to me that without the existence of movies 4, 5, and 6 there actually could be a question about their relationship because you wouldn't know where the story is going...but that's clearly not the case here.)
Oh well, but the movie industry still sucks so I won't be able to see the third till it comes out on TV.:(
Lately, some companies have risen to provide asset control specifically for game projects. These tools are still far from ideal, but we have reason to hope that they will improve.
I think he means the thousands of models, animations, textures, cinematics, and sounds and so forth you have in games. Most other apps don't have this many "non-software" files floating around.
Most people interpret "story" to mean "plot", but the two are not the same. A story, broadly speaking, is "setup, conflict, development, resolution", but writing a plot line, with set characters and dialog is only one way to get a "story".
I define "story" as the meaning you give to events. I believe we are trained to give meaning to events as stories so we can tell other people about them, and so we can understand them when other people tell us about them.
SCO Group of Linden, Utah announced the first end-user lawsuit designed to further their SCOSource program to get people to properly license SCO IP currently being distributed in Linux. SCO has filed suit against the owners of insecure.org who, according to Netcraft, are running Apache/Linux.
Asked for comment, SCO Group CEO Darl McBride responded: "It is a terrible day when IP owners have to resort to a lawsuit to protect their valuable IP interests. insecure.org had months to do the right thing and respect SCO IP by signing up for our SCOSource program, but they blatantly ignored our generous offer. It appears that the only option left open to us is to take our case to the courts where we will ultimately prevail. So, it is with great sadness and regret that the SCO Group announces this lawsuit, because we don't do business this way. It just goes to show you how far these IP terrorists will go to destroy the valuable creations of hard-working Americans. Nobody likes a lawsuit, but we have a right and a duty to protect ourselves and the Constitution of the United States from the evil axis of IP destruction that is the Open Source community."
Harmonization is bad. It means "take the union of all of the restrictions and laws that are found in any country and apply them all to every country." One problem with this is that the laws are never completely equal, so, there will be places with slight differences, and these differences will then become the foundation for the next round of "harmonization". That means that things keep getting worse. It's also bad because the countries have "lawmakers" whose job it is to make laws. And they're very prodigious. They can take the status quo and be told by their contributors that things need to be change, and the lawmakers will mount their high horses and propose new laws and restrictions so they can be seen to be doing something and there can be many buzzwords they use to justify this: "doing it for the children", or "harmonization" or "globalization" or "the war on terror" or "being tough on " or "free trade" or "fucking poor defenseless sheep" or "liberty and justice for all". And they will use these words as a smokescreen to cover up the powergrab that's basically being done in the name of the people who give them money. (And btw, I slipped a little joke fake reason into that list of reasons. Did you catch it? You did? Cool, I knew you would pick up on the fact that things aren't really done for liberty and justice for all.)
Ok, end of rant. But, I do think harmonization is dangerous for the reasons stated at the beginning of the post, and I don't even know if people realize that's what happens. Oh well.
I like the idea of a software patent mutually assured destruction clause: If you ever use software patents to sue anyone over any software covered by a license containing this clause, you lose the right to use and distribute all software covered by this license.
But what if GTA had several gangs in the world and those gangs had certain kinds of goals and such and carried out various activities (like RTS kingdoms/cities)? What if they had certain feelings towards you based on what you did or did not do (that they found out about) and over time they would hire you or try to kill you and such and maybe if you're really good you could take over the city. No story, just a big simulation you can influence and interact with to make YOUR story of how you took over the city rather than having the same damn linear story in the game. (NB: I liked the game, but I would have liked it more had it been done the way I'm describing here. Much more replay value, too as you could start over and decide to do things totally differently.)
Ok, you don't want to rant, so I'll rant. Kohan and Kohan: Ahriman's Gift are now my favorite RTSes. Timegate did an amazing job turning the clickfest/mircomanagement RTS into a real strategy game. Here are some of the features I like:
You buy units in companies and those companies have great AI and fight well together. If they've lost units in combat and can escape to near a friendly city, they will eventually regenerate all of their units.
Cities don't consist of 50 little buildings on the screen. Cities are atomic and can be upgraded to produce new kinds of units and resources and they have automatic garrisons that can defend them.
Mines and resources don't require dozens little peons/villagers running around collecting stuff. The resource system is such that cities and mines increase resource numbers like stone, wood, ore, and mana crystals. Each unit uses some of the resources as upkeep (constant upkeep since remember they can auto-regenerate) and if you don't have enough resource of a certain type, you lose gold and running out of gold makes causes your units to lose health and so forth.
It just takes a lot of the crappy horrible micromanaging clickfestish crap out of the RTS and lets you focus more on planning bigger things, and the fastest player or the fastest rusher won't necessarily be the best player. It's a lot of fun and I recommend it if you want a very different RTS.
So, my point is : why patent should not describe a "digital process" to handle immaterial data ?
A song is recorded as a string of bits and those bits are used as instructions by a CD player to carry out the process of making the sounds in the song. You could make a hardware machine to play just this one song, but generally people use software implementations of the instructions on CDs. Should you be able to patent a song? A movie? A picture? A book? A poem? These are all strings of bits that get used as instructions by machines. Should all of this be patentable?
Hey, go ahead and patent inventions all you want. Just don't patent writings. Software is not an invention. It's an expression of mathematical thought. It's like a proof. Just becuase the numbers in your proof are given real-world value like in a word problem, it doesn't stop being a math problem and it doesn't stop being an expression of thought.
If you think some thoughts and use a machine to record your thoughts as a string of bits and those bits are used to give instructions to the machine, you don't get an invention. And if you think that you do you do, then why not patent books and movies and songs and poems and so forth? They're all expressions of thought that are recorded as strings of bits that give instructions to machines.
Wow, you all thought this was serious? I'll give you a hint. The "Every time you DO_BAD_THING, God kills CUTE_LITTLE_THING" is supposed to be sarcastic. I guess all that's left to say is "Every time you post subtle sarcasm on Slashdot, clueless idiots kill your karma." And I expect this will get modded offtopic, as well.
I'd love to see a widespread organized boycott of RIAA-represented artists but haven't really heard anything
I'm sure there are lots of people on/. who boycott quietly. You don't need to do it loudly. Just be quiet about it and when people ask why you won't go to the movies or buy this new CD, explain it to them calmly and quietly and let them decide what they want to do.
The source looks more like a Weekly World News affiliate, so I wouldn't put too much credence into this story. And I didn't catch this story on CNN or any other news source.
Umm..but why would the CNN subsidiary of AOLTW report on some activities that the recording subsidiary of AOLTW would support? This is the problem with media mergers. The few giant media companies that control most of the media have no reason to let their news divisions report on unpopulat things that their other content divisions do. (Or that their other divisions will support.)
They haven't proved that the versions you mention do contain such code and until they have, any such speculation remains just that.
Yeah but isn't this the stuff they said Linus copied from the standards into the header files? AFAIR they're cleaming copyright over things that Linus said were in version 0.01 so they've pretty much decided that all of Linux is now an illegal derivative of UNIX.
I might be able to post this without getting modded down..
Ok, I know the technical legal term "copyright infringement" has a different definition than the technical legal term "theft", but downloading music illegally is still stealing since in both cases you're getting to use something without paying for it when you're required to pay for it. So stop stealing music and movies before the a-holes cripple computers and you're left with pretty "content appliances" instead of computers.
There seem to be two issues here. One of them is the copyright violations for your software. It's ok to complain about that and take steps to remedy it. The article, however, reads like a general complaint that companies use FLOSS legally, but don't contribute anything back because they don't have to. IMO complaining about that is always counterproductive. It makes us look like whiners who pretend that we're letting people use all of this wonderful stuff under very permissive terms, but then turn around and start expecting more.
Slashdot Mirror
You sue SCO!
Yes, at least the original three weren't drivel written for little kids.
:(
Have you watched the first three recently? I like the new movies, and I remember seeing the first ones as a kid, then again as an adult. I also realized upon re-seeing them as an adult that the dialogue and acting and the story in the first three weren't so hot, either. But they were fun movies.
I like the new movies because I try to watch them as a child would, before I grew up and became cynical and bitter, and I really enjoy them. I didn't realize when I was watching the movies as a child that it was really Anakin's story, and I think the new movies are doing a good job of telling the earlier story of Anakin, even if I would change some things in some places.
I especially enjoy the "Palpatine's rise to power pretending to be nice while he's really a mean nasty Sith Lord" plot, and how he manipulates everyone into doing what he wants. And how the Jedi can't tell he's a Sith lord. In fact, this plot point is apparently subtle enough that I remember going onto theforce.net after TPM came out and reading the boards where people were discussing whether or not Palpy==Sidious or not, and to this day, if you google "palpatine sidious" you will see lots of discussions on this issue. If people miss this point from the movies, then it's not surprising that so many people think the new movies are crap. (It's also interesting to me that without the existence of movies 4, 5, and 6 there actually could be a question about their relationship because you wouldn't know where the story is going...but that's clearly not the case here.)
Oh well, but the movie industry still sucks so I won't be able to see the third till it comes out on TV.
Lately, some companies have risen to provide asset control specifically for game projects. These tools are still far from ideal, but we have reason to hope that they will improve.
I think he means the thousands of models, animations, textures, cinematics, and sounds and so forth you have in games. Most other apps don't have this many "non-software" files floating around.
Most people interpret "story" to mean "plot", but the two are not the same. A story, broadly speaking, is "setup, conflict, development, resolution", but writing a plot line, with set characters and dialog is only one way to get a "story".
I define "story" as the meaning you give to events. I believe we are trained to give meaning to events as stories so we can tell other people about them, and so we can understand them when other people tell us about them.
HOLY CRAP! From the SCO Website!
Feb 27, 2004
For immediate release:
SCO Group of Linden, Utah announced the first end-user lawsuit designed to further their SCOSource program to get people to properly license SCO IP currently being distributed in Linux. SCO has filed suit against the owners of insecure.org who, according to Netcraft, are running Apache/Linux.
Asked for comment, SCO Group CEO Darl McBride responded: "It is a terrible day when IP owners have to resort to a lawsuit to protect their valuable IP interests. insecure.org had months to do the right thing and respect SCO IP by signing up for our SCOSource program, but they blatantly ignored our generous offer. It appears that the only option left open to us is to take our case to the courts where we will ultimately prevail. So, it is with great sadness and regret that the SCO Group announces this lawsuit, because we don't do business this way. It just goes to show you how far these IP terrorists will go to destroy the valuable creations of hard-working Americans. Nobody likes a lawsuit, but we have a right and a duty to protect ourselves and the Constitution of the United States from the evil axis of IP destruction that is the Open Source community."
Harmonization is bad. It means "take the union of all of the restrictions and laws that are found in any country and apply them all to every country." One problem with this is that the laws are never completely equal, so, there will be places with slight differences, and these differences will then become the foundation for the next round of "harmonization". That means that things keep getting worse. It's also bad because the countries have "lawmakers" whose job it is to make laws. And they're very prodigious. They can take the status quo and be told by their contributors that things need to be change, and the lawmakers will mount their high horses and propose new laws and restrictions so they can be seen to be doing something and there can be many buzzwords they use to justify this: "doing it for the children", or "harmonization" or "globalization" or "the war on terror" or "being tough on " or "free trade" or "fucking poor defenseless sheep" or "liberty and justice for all". And they will use these words as a smokescreen to cover up the powergrab that's basically being done in the name of the people who give them money. (And btw, I slipped a little joke fake reason into that list of reasons. Did you catch it? You did? Cool, I knew you would pick up on the fact that things aren't really done for liberty and justice for all.)
Ok, end of rant. But, I do think harmonization is dangerous for the reasons stated at the beginning of the post, and I don't even know if people realize that's what happens. Oh well.
I like the idea of a software patent mutually assured destruction clause: If you ever use software patents to sue anyone over any software covered by a license containing this clause, you lose the right to use and distribute all software covered by this license.
here Does lying make you waste brainpower that would otherwise be spent doing something useful?
But what if GTA had several gangs in the world and those gangs had certain kinds of goals and such and carried out various activities (like RTS kingdoms/cities)? What if they had certain feelings towards you based on what you did or did not do (that they found out about) and over time they would hire you or try to kill you and such and maybe if you're really good you could take over the city. No story, just a big simulation you can influence and interact with to make YOUR story of how you took over the city rather than having the same damn linear story in the game. (NB: I liked the game, but I would have liked it more had it been done the way I'm describing here. Much more replay value, too as you could start over and decide to do things totally differently.)
I don't really have reasons. It's just an anti-SCO troll. Google "we have our suspicions" and SCO and you'll see why I put this .sig here. :)
Nope, the problem is when the "wall" is really one part of one blade of a giant fan and the owner finally decides to turn it on.
It just takes a lot of the crappy horrible micromanaging clickfestish crap out of the RTS and lets you focus more on planning bigger things, and the fastest player or the fastest rusher won't necessarily be the best player. It's a lot of fun and I recommend it if you want a very different RTS.
So, my point is : why patent should not describe a "digital process" to handle immaterial data ?
A song is recorded as a string of bits and those bits are used as instructions by a CD player to carry out the process of making the sounds in the song. You could make a hardware machine to play just this one song, but generally people use software implementations of the instructions on CDs. Should you be able to patent a song? A movie? A picture? A book? A poem? These are all strings of bits that get used as instructions by machines. Should all of this be patentable?
Hey, go ahead and patent inventions all you want. Just don't patent writings. Software is not an invention. It's an expression of mathematical thought. It's like a proof. Just becuase the numbers in your proof are given real-world value like in a word problem, it doesn't stop being a math problem and it doesn't stop being an expression of thought.
If you think some thoughts and use a machine to record your thoughts as a string of bits and those bits are used to give instructions to the machine, you don't get an invention. And if you think that you do you do, then why not patent books and movies and songs and poems and so forth? They're all expressions of thought that are recorded as strings of bits that give instructions to machines.
Wow, you all thought this was serious? I'll give you a hint. The "Every time you DO_BAD_THING, God kills CUTE_LITTLE_THING" is supposed to be sarcastic. I guess all that's left to say is "Every time you post subtle sarcasm on Slashdot, clueless idiots kill your karma." And I expect this will get modded offtopic, as well.
Leave SCO alone you commies.
Tuxracer!
That's GNU/Tuxracer, bud.
you owe us a Darl McBridely sum of $699.
You SCO bastards, you killed my son. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!
It's one of the more frustrating aspects of our legal system (to me, anyway) -- the inability to pre-emptively decide issues.
Just say that they have weapons of mass destruction, whether they actually do or not, and the government will take pre-emptive action against them.
I'd love to see a widespread organized boycott of RIAA-represented artists but haven't really heard anything
/. who boycott quietly. You don't need to do it loudly. Just be quiet about it and when people ask why you won't go to the movies or buy this new CD, explain it to them calmly and quietly and let them decide what they want to do.
I'm sure there are lots of people on
The source looks more like a Weekly World News affiliate, so I wouldn't put too much credence into this story. And I didn't catch this story on CNN or any other news source.
Umm..but why would the CNN subsidiary of AOLTW report on some activities that the recording subsidiary of AOLTW would support? This is the problem with media mergers. The few giant media companies that control most of the media have no reason to let their news divisions report on unpopulat things that their other content divisions do. (Or that their other divisions will support.)
They haven't proved that the versions you mention do contain such code and until they have, any such speculation remains just that.
Yeah but isn't this the stuff they said Linus copied from the standards into the header files? AFAIR they're cleaming copyright over things that Linus said were in version 0.01 so they've pretty much decided that all of Linux is now an illegal derivative of UNIX.
I might be able to post this without getting modded down..
Ok, I know the technical legal term "copyright infringement" has a different definition than the technical legal term "theft", but downloading music illegally is still stealing since in both cases you're getting to use something without paying for it when you're required to pay for it. So stop stealing music and movies before the a-holes cripple computers and you're left with pretty "content appliances" instead of computers.
Upgrade?
Double-minus downgrade, actually.
There seem to be two issues here. One of them is the copyright violations for your software. It's ok to complain about that and take steps to remedy it. The article, however, reads like a general complaint that companies use FLOSS legally, but don't contribute anything back because they don't have to. IMO complaining about that is always counterproductive. It makes us look like whiners who pretend that we're letting people use all of this wonderful stuff under very permissive terms, but then turn around and start expecting more.