One of the most enjoyable 3D shooter games I've ever played was Marathon, which, as I understand it, is now in some form of open source. If anybody is interested in working on an awesome open-source game, I think Marathon is one of the ways to go!
Other relevant links (also available from Marathon):
just in case you were wondering, SoundEffects 0.9.2 lives on. Unfortunately, you now have to pay for it, but at least it's still available. You can buy it from Micromat (the same people who do TechTool Pro) at http://www.micromat.com. They call it "SoundMaker."
After reading the post about this article and the article itself, I was thoroughly relieved to see that the few posts moderated up to a good level (4+) noted the rediculousness of this article. Come on - a guy who claims to have been involved claims that Sagan, who is conveniently dead, was involved in the project, and wouldn't ever think of telling anyone about it. Please. And the website that wrote it up? "Breaking news and views for the progressive community"? Just try and tell me these people are objective.
You know, I've been talking to and dealing with tech people for a number of years now, and I've always had the impression that, for the most part, they think in very logical, rational terms (it fits in quite nicely with the line of work), Slashdot commenters included. And yet, reading the comments on this subject, I do not see the logical, rational thinking I would otherwise expect from such intelligent people: comments about the Christian Coalition wanting to publicly stone to death those with whom they disagree, or wanting to "take away everyone's social freedoms", comments about MS being the earthly embodiment of Satan, and so on. (And these are just from the comments that have been moderated up!) These do not reveal a pattern of detailed, analytical thought one would expect from the commenters on Slashdot, but instead the impassioned, factless rhetoric of zealots. Granted, there are some who have already pointed out the fallacies in these statements, but I feel this point needs to be reiterated. Accusations of being the embodiment of evil, in league with Satan, and/or condoning or supporting medieval-style torture and death are absurd. They cannot be ascribed to logically solid arguments, nor even mere opinion. These are statements which go far beyond character defamation, such as the "smear campaign" election tactics which so many claim to abhor. These comments are slander.
I am not a Christian, nor have I ever liked MS, or even their software. But quite frankly, I am bewildered and disappointed to see these horridly poor arguments posted to a website with as many educated readers as Slashdot. I know that the people who post here are certainly capable of providing more substantial arguments to support their positions than what I see here, and I know that what I see here cannot be supported by any arguments made previously by Slashdot readers against either MS or the CC. What they have done and what they believe do not explain or imply (explicitly or implicitly) what has been attributed to them here.
--- If your reply is about spelling and grammar, what you're saying is that you really have no reply at all.
Yes, but there are also others who don't do that. Just 1 example-Mac OS 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3, 7.5.5, 7.6 (I think. It came with my system, so I can't be sure), 7.6.1, 8.1, 8.5.1, and 8.6 (reportedly will be) were all bug-fix releases, and they were all free. There are others releases that were as well, but I can't remember *all* of them. However, I do agree with you that the gov't shouldn't intervene on something like this. If MS wants to charge full upgrade price for a bug fix, so what (though the current word is that they won't be)? If the upgrade doesn't justify the price, they're going to piss people off, and X% of those people are going to get sick of getting screwed. That X% will be the ones that start looking for alternatives to having to pay MS all the time, and they'll find things like Mac OS, Linux, BeOS, and the 8 billion other alternatives there are out there.
Slashdot Mirror
Other relevant links (also available from Marathon):
Bungie.org
Bungie Source Code
The Marathon Story
just in case you were wondering, SoundEffects 0.9.2 lives on. Unfortunately, you now have to pay for it, but at least it's still available. You can buy it from Micromat (the same people who do TechTool Pro) at http://www.micromat.com. They call it "SoundMaker."
After reading the post about this article and the article itself, I was thoroughly relieved to see that the few posts moderated up to a good level (4+) noted the rediculousness of this article. Come on - a guy who claims to have been involved claims that Sagan, who is conveniently dead, was involved in the project, and wouldn't ever think of telling anyone about it. Please. And the website that wrote it up? "Breaking news and views for the progressive community"? Just try and tell me these people are objective.
You know, I've been talking to and dealing with tech people for a number of years now, and I've always had the impression that, for the most part, they think in very logical, rational terms (it fits in quite nicely with the line of work), Slashdot commenters included. And yet, reading the comments on this subject, I do not see the logical, rational thinking I would otherwise expect from such intelligent people: comments about the Christian Coalition wanting to publicly stone to death those with whom they disagree, or wanting to "take away everyone's social freedoms", comments about MS being the earthly embodiment of Satan, and so on. (And these are just from the comments that have been moderated up!) These do not reveal a pattern of detailed, analytical thought one would expect from the commenters on Slashdot, but instead the impassioned, factless rhetoric of zealots. Granted, there are some who have already pointed out the fallacies in these statements, but I feel this point needs to be reiterated. Accusations of being the embodiment of evil, in league with Satan, and/or condoning or supporting medieval-style torture and death are absurd. They cannot be ascribed to logically solid arguments, nor even mere opinion. These are statements which go far beyond character defamation, such as the "smear campaign" election tactics which so many claim to abhor. These comments are slander.
I am not a Christian, nor have I ever liked MS, or even their software. But quite frankly, I am bewildered and disappointed to see these horridly poor arguments posted to a website with as many educated readers as Slashdot. I know that the people who post here are certainly capable of providing more substantial arguments to support their positions than what I see here, and I know that what I see here cannot be supported by any arguments made previously by Slashdot readers against either MS or the CC. What they have done and what they believe do not explain or imply (explicitly or implicitly) what has been attributed to them here.
---
If your reply is about spelling and grammar, what you're saying is that you really have no reply at all.
Yes, but there are also others who don't do that. Just 1 example-Mac OS 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3, 7.5.5, 7.6 (I think. It came with my system, so I can't be sure), 7.6.1, 8.1, 8.5.1, and 8.6 (reportedly will be) were all bug-fix releases, and they were all free. There are others releases that were as well, but I can't remember *all* of them. However, I do agree with you that the gov't shouldn't intervene on something like this. If MS wants to charge full upgrade price for a bug fix, so what (though the current word is that they won't be)? If the upgrade doesn't justify the price, they're going to piss people off, and X% of those people are going to get sick of getting screwed. That X% will be the ones that start looking for alternatives to having to pay MS all the time, and they'll find things like Mac OS, Linux, BeOS, and the 8 billion other alternatives there are out there.