You can go get a copy of Visual Studio.NET (That's its name, not Visual Studio XP) right now. Its in Beta 1. Not sure of the exact size in megabytes as I don't have it installed on this machine at home, but it is not significantly larger than Visual Studio 6.0 and may even be a bit smaller.
Alice is based on the Quake III engine, meaning it uses OpenGL for the graphics API, not Direct3D. It does use some of DirectX (DirectSound, DirectInput), but I'm fairly sure even these parts can fall back to waveOut and standard Windows input routines..which Wine probably already covers out of the box...So, while I don't think this thing is completely vapor, seeing Alice running on it may not be the greatest test of its ability to provide DirectX compatability on Linux...
As others have pointed out, NVidia is exposing the functionality of the GF3 through OpenGL extentions.
Its somewhat wrongheaded to bash NVidia for having good DirectX support as they more than any other card manufacturer has pushed OpenGL as a viable API to use for gaming under Windows. A lot of current NVidia staff are old SGI employees that helped develop OpenGL and related libs (GLUT, etc).
And while I have no first hand knowledge of such things, from all outward reports its more the other way around. Microsoft checks up on the big manufacturers of videocards (hint: there's not many left in the high-end consumer 3D space) to see what features they are looking to implement, and works those into DirectX..So if anything, DX8 is optimized for GF3 as opposed to the other way around...
In any case this makes good business sense for Microsoft and NVidia because of the XBox..both stand to make a lot of money if it is as successful as they hope, and the chipset is essentially a 'better GF3' (primarily due to being able to throw off some of the shackles of standard PC architecture and backwards compatibility).
It's well-established that employees have a fiduciary duty to their employers which is not discharged by termination.
While that might have been true at one time, this is changing quite rapidly. Its clear to anyone that follows business news these days that we're shifting to a completely "at will" employment arrangement. There's virtually no loyalty left on either side of the fence -- employees will jump from job to job and employers will layoff thousands just to get a couple percent boost in their market cap. As this becomes more and more than norm, old ideas about non-compete are going to have to change...
Clearly it is still wrong to take non-vague IP (source code, specific documents, etc) from one job to the next, but the idea that you can't work for a competitor for X number of years is just not going to cut it these days, especially considering how loosely 'competitor' is often defined as post-dot-com.
Though its rare, I agree with Taco on this one -- its getting to be yet another example of how tech companies are trying to stay afloat by using the legal system rather than by having any sort of sane business plan. Since it doesn't apply to me personally (right now) I must say I find all of this dot com implosion and the legal aftermath pretty amusing...Its just too bad its going to help drag the US economy into the shitter.
Sorry to be negative in a public forum, but Richard Garriot WAS one of the best game designers of all time. He's been coasting on fumes & past glory for almost a decade now.
The one error in your analogies is that Ultima Online is subscription-based. id loses nothing if people who bought Quake stop playing it years after it had stopped selling in significant numbers, ditto Ford...But Origin has a steady income stream from UO players...The vast majority of which would certinly jump to UO2, forgetting about UO, once it was released.
Of course, despite all that, there has to be more to it than they announced...They've sunk a lot of resources in the game thus far..they must have hit some technical or creative (or, most likely, monetary) brick wall to halt development now.
Fired? For Ultima 9? He should have been drawn and quartered...
Oh well, I get as nostalgic as anyone else when it comes to Ultima 1-3...But the series lost its spark years ago. Maybe killing it off completely is the best thing they could do.
Face it, the indrema is never going to be a mass-market console. There's no easy way for them to get out of the chicken and egg problem of developers vs number of installed users. Developers aren't beating down the door to get at the technology because its pretty much just PC tech (as is XBox..but indrema doesn't have Microsoft's marketing power, or hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on launch). And since the only games available for it will be PC ports (the best of which will also be ported to the XBox), the users arent going to bite.
Indrema's only real hope, IMO, is to position itself not as yet another console, but as a cool TV-capable programmable device for hobbyist programmers and the tech savvy. (TiVO-ish functionality, which they seem to be doing to some degree, is good as well). While there is hobbyist development (both via pure reverse engineering and illegally obtaining developer software) for other consoles, having one where it is fully encouraged would be pretty cool. With such a system, there's sure to be ports of cool emulators and small but perhaps creative indie games.
In short, Indrema should position itself more as Yaroze and less as Playstaton. Of course, this may be a losing battle too, as it would require selling the hardware for a profit most likely (since there won't be many distribution royalties to be had)... But at least they would have some glimmer of hope. A pure console play is doomed, whether the thing runs linux or not (hint: 99.99% of console buyers don't know anything about linux other than the human interest stories they read on some tech news sites).
I agree. I won't rant (too much) here, as I've said much the same in previous Slashdot forums.
My pet peeve with regards to all of this is all of the gurus who promise programming nirvana by following their easy software methods and procedures...Invariably their 'test cases' are very simple systems. Can somebody please point me to some software engineering methodolgy that has scads of successful test cases in real world situations? And very few to no failures? Please? Please?
Software is complex. The fact that software is built on other software (APIs, OSes, etc) because handling everything is too complex for one team makes things even worse. Other people's bugs become your bugs. Other people's future bugs (at the OS or driver level) become your bugs after your software is written. There are no guarantees. There is no silver bullet to fix this.
Personally, given the complexity of modern software (and the hardware underneath it, for that matter), I'm surprised anything ever works to the degree it does manage to work at. This goes for Windows as well as UNIX based systems.
Hey man, I agree. In fact this is a duplicate of the post I made on this very subject.
Is this a new type of troll? The 'hope the moderators read the newest first and stupidly mark the original post as redundant' troll? Or a Slashdot bug? Hmm!
It is kind of annoying me that sites like Slashdot are continually equating DivX (open source project) as MPEG4. I must reiterate that the Open Source DIVX/Project Mayo stuff is nothing more than an implementation of MPEG-4, the DivX people didn't invent it..their code was even based on an existing project.
Now, don't get me wrong, the actual coding work the DivX people are overseeing is great for open source causes, but they are using some subversive self-promotion as of late to make it seem like they invented all of this stuff, and pushing the 'Divx' brand-name (which is actually quite a stupid name since it causes much confusion with the failed Circuit City format), as the be-all end-all of MPEG-4, which is just not true.
Also, supporting DIVX/MPEG4 because there is a good open source implementation is short sighted. Please do some research into MPEG4 and realize what a patent nightmare it is. Just because the source is open doesn't mean you can use it without violating patents.
It is common practice to produce 'estimated-will-look-like' graphics for games as the first stage of greasing the media hype machine. This is not X-Box specific, or console specific, or Microsoft specific. If this were any other company than Microsoft, this story would not have been posted to Slashdot.
Also, its a fucking silly thing anyway. Does anyone out there really think that of all the things the X-Box can't do, real-time lens flares are one of them? Heh heh. How silly is this shit?
I really should stop reading Slashdot, as all it ever does is piss me off these days..unfortunately as it slides into uselessness at the speed of VA Linux's stock decline, I can't help but look..kind of like a car wreck.
Please note: Microsoft is not suing anybody over this patent. It would have been nice if the article had made this more clear. The article is totally speculative (What if Microsoft decided to sue us?)...Must be a slow news day.
In any case, Microsoft does plenty of things that are shady, but ridiculous over-the-top enforcement of overly broad patents (ala Rambus, NCR, Amazon, etc) is not one of them.
Whatever the particulars, this hole is still an old problems, though one not taken serious enough by people who should know better.
I remember talking to Term-X^H^H^H^H^H|||^H^H^Hal^H^H Tim Newsham about the problems of properly seeding PRNGS for security while on IRC (#hack on efnet...cut me a break, I was young and stupid) years and years ago.
For the record, I dislike Ayn Rand (on an intellectual, not personal level..alas I did not know her).
While the responses are somewhat cold, they do carry a valid message. Despite the ominous headlines here and on Salon's original article, the people they are talking about (if you read the article very carefully) aren't hardcore programmers, they are more like sysadmins with some level of web-ish scripting skills.
Now... while it sucks that people are losing their jobs, I think the point other people are trying to make is that for 'real' programmers (I'm sure to get flamed for this, but oh well) -- those who know (or can easily learn) many different languages (including at least a few that would be considered 'system' level and not all high level scripting) -- things are still peachy. There's not nearly the gloom and doom hanging over us that these articles suggest.
I get cold called by recruiters who somehow have seen my resume from 1+ years ago multiple times a week, and I'm not even looking for a job (and I'm not bragging, I'm sure this is par for the course for all similiar experienced programmer types).
Though I dislike Sony (but generally like IBM)...cut them a break.
I realize the post was trying to be funny, but the root of this posting was just some obscure press release on IBM's corporate site.
It's not like they are running TV ads for this thing...And I'm fairly sure they really are working on this stuff...And, lastly, their timetable for completion seems reasonable at this time.
The definition of 'vaporware' has gotten way too lax -- especially here on Slashdot.
The next wave in media will most likely be based not on size but on durability. This is the one area where all current forms of storage are severly lacking.
Coincidence? No.
Don't hold your breath waiting for truly durable media -- just think of all the lost resales the music industry would 'suffer' if Joe/Jane Average never scratched a CD without having a backup...I know I've myself rebought at least 5 CDs in my lifetime due to lost or badly handled media. The cynic in me is screaming that the size reduction here is largely for the purpose of boosting incidence of lost mini-CDs...but alas.
While Sony may indeed be testing such a system, there will be absolutely no major developer support for this type of setup for the PS2. The real danger is something like this becoming a fixture in the PS3 or future gaming consoles.
The reason why it wont fly with the PS2 is simple -- the PS2 doesn't ship with any network options. Sure, Sony is going to add a HD and network adapter in the future, but historically such add-ons are purchased by a VAST MINORITY of total console owners. If its not supported in the base config, developers are not going to make it a requirement for using their software because that will drastically reduce their total potential market.
There may be some exceptions..PS2 equiv games of Phantasy Star Online (can you say Everquest: Console Edition?) may adopt the system..but the vast majority of games will not.
They wouldn't need to create a plug-in for Linux. Linux users would, generally, be fine with just editing their resolv.conf so that it points to a public DNS server that was in the 'new.net' DNS system.
The beauty part is that the technical infrastructure for this type of change is already available, you just need to get users to point to the 'right' DNS servers...
The whole plugin thing would generally be for the Windows and Mac users who have never heard of 'DNS' and are too frightened to go play around with their network settings.
Frankly, I don't see an issue with this. I could have started archiving Usenet news way back in the day and sold it today. So could you. So could have anyone. However, it was Deja who actually did it, and now they've made some money
Actually they lost quite a bit of money which is why they had to try to get into other businesses (the ratings stuff) and eventually sell off to google.
That's actually kind of the core issue -- collecting, archiving and maintaining such a large volume of data and the bandwidth to serve it is a rather expensive undertaking..
What to do if Google can't make it work? Should the government step in? Should academia step in, by way of government funds? It would be a shame for it to all disappear.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you talking about? Windows XP includes several "skins" and is as fully skinnable by third parties as most modern X window managers are.
Alice is based on the Quake III engine, meaning it uses OpenGL for the graphics API, not Direct3D. It does use some of DirectX (DirectSound, DirectInput), but I'm fairly sure even these parts can fall back to waveOut and standard Windows input routines..which Wine probably already covers out of the box...So, while I don't think this thing is completely vapor, seeing Alice running on it may not be the greatest test of its ability to provide DirectX compatability on Linux...
Its somewhat wrongheaded to bash NVidia for having good DirectX support as they more than any other card manufacturer has pushed OpenGL as a viable API to use for gaming under Windows. A lot of current NVidia staff are old SGI employees that helped develop OpenGL and related libs (GLUT, etc).
And while I have no first hand knowledge of such things, from all outward reports its more the other way around. Microsoft checks up on the big manufacturers of videocards (hint: there's not many left in the high-end consumer 3D space) to see what features they are looking to implement, and works those into DirectX..So if anything, DX8 is optimized for GF3 as opposed to the other way around...
In any case this makes good business sense for Microsoft and NVidia because of the XBox..both stand to make a lot of money if it is as successful as they hope, and the chipset is essentially a 'better GF3' (primarily due to being able to throw off some of the shackles of standard PC architecture and backwards compatibility).
A hands-on Direct3D book from someone directly responsible for turning D3D into something great from the shitheap that was D3D 3 would be cool though.
Why would I want to run a closed source worm on my system???
While that might have been true at one time, this is changing quite rapidly. Its clear to anyone that follows business news these days that we're shifting to a completely "at will" employment arrangement. There's virtually no loyalty left on either side of the fence -- employees will jump from job to job and employers will layoff thousands just to get a couple percent boost in their market cap. As this becomes more and more than norm, old ideas about non-compete are going to have to change...
Clearly it is still wrong to take non-vague IP (source code, specific documents, etc) from one job to the next, but the idea that you can't work for a competitor for X number of years is just not going to cut it these days, especially considering how loosely 'competitor' is often defined as post-dot-com.
Though its rare, I agree with Taco on this one -- its getting to be yet another example of how tech companies are trying to stay afloat by using the legal system rather than by having any sort of sane business plan. Since it doesn't apply to me personally (right now) I must say I find all of this dot com implosion and the legal aftermath pretty amusing...Its just too bad its going to help drag the US economy into the shitter.
Sorry to be negative in a public forum, but Richard Garriot WAS one of the best game designers of all time. He's been coasting on fumes & past glory for almost a decade now.
Of course, despite all that, there has to be more to it than they announced...They've sunk a lot of resources in the game thus far..they must have hit some technical or creative (or, most likely, monetary) brick wall to halt development now.
Oh well, I get as nostalgic as anyone else when it comes to Ultima 1-3...But the series lost its spark years ago. Maybe killing it off completely is the best thing they could do.
Indrema's only real hope, IMO, is to position itself not as yet another console, but as a cool TV-capable programmable device for hobbyist programmers and the tech savvy. (TiVO-ish functionality, which they seem to be doing to some degree, is good as well). While there is hobbyist development (both via pure reverse engineering and illegally obtaining developer software) for other consoles, having one where it is fully encouraged would be pretty cool. With such a system, there's sure to be ports of cool emulators and small but perhaps creative indie games.
In short, Indrema should position itself more as Yaroze and less as Playstaton. Of course, this may be a losing battle too, as it would require selling the hardware for a profit most likely (since there won't be many distribution royalties to be had)... But at least they would have some glimmer of hope. A pure console play is doomed, whether the thing runs linux or not (hint: 99.99% of console buyers don't know anything about linux other than the human interest stories they read on some tech news sites).
Where do I get a beowulf cluster of moon rocks?
Man on the moon, naked and petrified!
Hot moon rocks down my pants
All your moon rocks are belong to us!!
Moon rocks suck, just like Open Source software.
Moon rocks suck, just like Microsoft.
Wait, I have a patent on moon rocks, they better pay up!
The Moon Rock Association of America is trying to limit our fair use of Moon Rocks!
Peer to peer is a much better model for distributing moon dust.
My pet peeve with regards to all of this is all of the gurus who promise programming nirvana by following their easy software methods and procedures...Invariably their 'test cases' are very simple systems. Can somebody please point me to some software engineering methodolgy that has scads of successful test cases in real world situations? And very few to no failures? Please? Please?
Software is complex. The fact that software is built on other software (APIs, OSes, etc) because handling everything is too complex for one team makes things even worse. Other people's bugs become your bugs. Other people's future bugs (at the OS or driver level) become your bugs after your software is written. There are no guarantees. There is no silver bullet to fix this.
Personally, given the complexity of modern software (and the hardware underneath it, for that matter), I'm surprised anything ever works to the degree it does manage to work at. This goes for Windows as well as UNIX based systems.
Is this a new type of troll? The 'hope the moderators read the newest first and stupidly mark the original post as redundant' troll? Or a Slashdot bug? Hmm!
Interesting!
Now, don't get me wrong, the actual coding work the DivX people are overseeing is great for open source causes, but they are using some subversive self-promotion as of late to make it seem like they invented all of this stuff, and pushing the 'Divx' brand-name (which is actually quite a stupid name since it causes much confusion with the failed Circuit City format), as the be-all end-all of MPEG-4, which is just not true.
Also, supporting DIVX/MPEG4 because there is a good open source implementation is short sighted. Please do some research into MPEG4 and realize what a patent nightmare it is. Just because the source is open doesn't mean you can use it without violating patents.
Also, its a fucking silly thing anyway. Does anyone out there really think that of all the things the X-Box can't do, real-time lens flares are one of them? Heh heh. How silly is this shit?
I really should stop reading Slashdot, as all it ever does is piss me off these days..unfortunately as it slides into uselessness at the speed of VA Linux's stock decline, I can't help but look..kind of like a car wreck.
In any case, Microsoft does plenty of things that are shady, but ridiculous over-the-top enforcement of overly broad patents (ala Rambus, NCR, Amazon, etc) is not one of them.
I remember talking to Term-X^H^H^H^H^H|||^H^H^Hal^H^H Tim Newsham about the problems of properly seeding PRNGS for security while on IRC (#hack on efnet...cut me a break, I was young and stupid) years and years ago.
While the responses are somewhat cold, they do carry a valid message. Despite the ominous headlines here and on Salon's original article, the people they are talking about (if you read the article very carefully) aren't hardcore programmers, they are more like sysadmins with some level of web-ish scripting skills.
Now... while it sucks that people are losing their jobs, I think the point other people are trying to make is that for 'real' programmers (I'm sure to get flamed for this, but oh well) -- those who know (or can easily learn) many different languages (including at least a few that would be considered 'system' level and not all high level scripting) -- things are still peachy. There's not nearly the gloom and doom hanging over us that these articles suggest.
I get cold called by recruiters who somehow have seen my resume from 1+ years ago multiple times a week, and I'm not even looking for a job (and I'm not bragging, I'm sure this is par for the course for all similiar experienced programmer types).
I realize the post was trying to be funny, but the root of this posting was just some obscure press release on IBM's corporate site.
It's not like they are running TV ads for this thing...And I'm fairly sure they really are working on this stuff...And, lastly, their timetable for completion seems reasonable at this time.
The definition of 'vaporware' has gotten way too lax -- especially here on Slashdot.
Coincidence? No.
Don't hold your breath waiting for truly durable media -- just think of all the lost resales the music industry would 'suffer' if Joe/Jane Average never scratched a CD without having a backup...I know I've myself rebought at least 5 CDs in my lifetime due to lost or badly handled media. The cynic in me is screaming that the size reduction here is largely for the purpose of boosting incidence of lost mini-CDs...but alas.
The reason why it wont fly with the PS2 is simple -- the PS2 doesn't ship with any network options. Sure, Sony is going to add a HD and network adapter in the future, but historically such add-ons are purchased by a VAST MINORITY of total console owners. If its not supported in the base config, developers are not going to make it a requirement for using their software because that will drastically reduce their total potential market.
There may be some exceptions..PS2 equiv games of Phantasy Star Online (can you say Everquest: Console Edition?) may adopt the system..but the vast majority of games will not.
Microsoft has never denied this and always respected the licencing terms of BSD software.
The beauty part is that the technical infrastructure for this type of change is already available, you just need to get users to point to the 'right' DNS servers...
The whole plugin thing would generally be for the Windows and Mac users who have never heard of 'DNS' and are too frightened to go play around with their network settings.
Actually they lost quite a bit of money which is why they had to try to get into other businesses (the ratings stuff) and eventually sell off to google.
That's actually kind of the core issue -- collecting, archiving and maintaining such a large volume of data and the bandwidth to serve it is a rather expensive undertaking..
What to do if Google can't make it work? Should the government step in? Should academia step in, by way of government funds? It would be a shame for it to all disappear.