I just have to wonder... is the same question asked of Microsoft.. why do you close your source?
That's an easy one..to make money. How much money would Microsoft make as an Open Source-based company? Almost none. Sure, its nice that Red Hat is more or less showing a profit these days, buts its tiny compared to the kind of bank Microsoft is pulling down quarter to quarter.
I'm not bashing Microsoft here...I like money too. I use it to buy clothes and books and food and shelter and more computer equipment and such.
Honestly, Linux users have nothing to brag about in the stability department since the release of Windows 2000. My primary workstation and my personal webserver (both Win2k) have been running for almost a full-year non-stop. Only time they've come down is for hardware upgrade and, on the workstation, due to a single blue-screen caused by a faulty beta driver (not Microsoft certified) which was then promptly removed resulting in smooth sailing once again.
Then who cares how far it can push into the corporate world? Really. If the developers are willing to do this work for free, why would they worry about taking away marketshare from MS?
Well, Sun's reason for continuning to develop StarOffice is primarily to get people less dependent on Windows in general. If StarOffice were to become a valid competitor to Office it would allow people to install other operating systems, like Solaris, and get the same work done, since it is cross-platform.
Of course, anyone with any sense can see that in reality they are just pissing money away -- they'd need their application to be far and away better than MS Office to ever be a real threat -- the free price-tag isn't enough -- everyone knows the drill, IT managers are willing to pay for the hope of support & to avoid retraining costs & just general friction against change at this point.
China is a potentially large market that has become accustomed to getting software for free and won't pay for applications. Just like Linux users, really.
Every time Mir is mentioned on Slashdot there's approximately 1 gajillion posts that attempt humor by mentioning the problems Mir had later in life.
These jokes might be funny but for the fact that, as you mentioned, Mir outlived its original time of service by about a decade and in that time became one of the most highly successful space projects of all time.
So many Slashdotters brag about how they save money by running a network of old 386s and 486s for distributed computing, etc.
When you consider the electricity cost over time it almost always makes sense to trash those systems and just buy a new high-end athlon or P3/P4 to replace all of the existing systems.
Such networks are nice if you live in geek-centric neighborhoods...The big problem is that if they ever got the mainstream exposure to become really useful to a large number of folks, much of their utility would be lost as the wireless networks would wind up getting bogged down, both at the wireless access points themselves and especially at bridges used to let people out into the general internet (generally participator's cable modems or DSL lines).
Somewhat like gnutella in that it would be very hard to find a balance between enough users to be useful and not so many users that everyone gets saturated.
Actually, in my experience (YMMV) even early versions of WinNT 4.0 didn't need a reboot when you changed the static IP. Win NT *thought* it needed to reboot, and it would inform you thus, but if you chose not to reboot when prompted the changes still took effect and the new IP was usable. Just a bit of stupidity in the configuration management UI.
Its really not all that funny, but I'm guessing the guy who asked why it was funny actually didn't realize the XML tag had to be specifically closed if it wasn't a tag that encloses something else. Otherwise he wouldn't have asked "Why is this funny?" he would have just said "That's a dumb geek joke that was moderated way too high. Get lives people." or something similiar.
Re:Retro gaming takes off
on
MAME on X-Box
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· Score: 2
This could be interesting, because if the XBox boot sequence is reverse engineered or bypassed, it would be perfectly legal to sell non-licenced software for the thing in the US. (see Activision/Atari and Accolade+EA?/Sega)
I think the DMCA would supercede that ruling. When those cases were originally decided, it didn't exist..But now, breaking the crypto or otherwise circumventing it would be a clear violation of the DMCA..So unless the DMCA is eliminated, it would be illegal to do this.
In any case, recent history has shown that the more impossible a company thinks it is to bypass their security, the more likely it will be found to be a fairly simple procedure once the technology is out in the wild. If Microsoft really dared people to hack the XBox, they are silly.
Re:Retro gaming takes off
on
MAME on X-Box
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· Score: 2
Even if the XBOX doesn't support standard CDRs out of the gate, its a pretty sure bet someone will figure out a way to distribute unautorized software for it, be it via a mod that enables standard CDRs, using the network capability, or some other mechanism.
Essentially every console that has come out has had a small underground of hackers that figure out ways to creating unauthorized content/demos/emulator ports for the system, and the XBOX is a far easier target than most because it is relatively very similar to the PC architecture.
Re:Hmmm... This could really piss Bill off.
on
MAME on X-Box
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· Score: 2
I'll focus mainly on Capcom since you mentioned them by name, but it applies to Square as well (though they would mainly have issues with NES/SNES or PSX emulators).
Capcom and other such companies are smart enough to realize that there's really nothing Bill can do to stop this. MAME has already been ported to many consoles (including the PSX, N64, PS2) and it has never hurt Capcom's relationship with any
of the companies involved.
And...Capcom, in fact, is one of the cooler companies when it comes to retro gaming. They have an authorized set of legal ROMs of their classic games that is packed in when you buy the HotRod arcade-style controller. Not the same as being pro-ROMs-all-over-the-net, but a hell of a lot better than the attitude of most companies who won't sell a game anymore but still go overboard in protecting their copyright of it.
You are correct. The offset into PI will be larger than the data segment you are trying to find in it in all but the most trivial cases. Simple information theory dictates this.
If it weren't the case, people would already be using PI as a compressions scheme on not-so-large data -- sure it might take days/weeks/months to find the encoding of a specific piece of data in PI, but considering how fast it would uncompress (if they offset were really significantly smaller than the data it was compressing, which wouldn't be often) it would be worth it for some uses.
Its ridiculous that someone who argues that people should be able to do anything they want with their software would try to restrict people's freedom to call software whatever they want.
So many people are advocating buying out Loki games to help them out...Don't do it!
Yes, it would be nice to have decent games under Linux, but Loki is a terrible company. The creditor that sued Loki and caused this whole situation with them filing for bankruptcy was a former employee whom Loki (Scott Draeker, specifically) robbed blind! He's just trying to get some of the money he invested in the company (while working there for 19 months and not being paid) back.
Support Loki's former employees (hint: all the good employees left the company already), but don't support the company or Scott Draeker.
Slashdot Mirror
Mars is soiled with life, we cannot infect it with out own, for that would be interstellar ecocide.
Someone has been watching too many Star Trek episodes.
I just have to wonder... is the same question asked of Microsoft.. why do you close your source?
That's an easy one..to make money. How much money would Microsoft make as an Open Source-based company? Almost none. Sure, its nice that Red Hat is more or less showing a profit these days, buts its tiny compared to the kind of bank Microsoft is pulling down quarter to quarter.
I'm not bashing Microsoft here...I like money too. I use it to buy clothes and books and food and shelter and more computer equipment and such.
Offtopic? +5 Funny/Genius.
I honestly haven't used a floppy in more than 2 years. None of my 3 current systems that are in daily use even have floppy drives installed.
You homies be east side or west side hackaz?
Represent!
How about Real Time Stability?
They already did that, its called Windows 2000.
Honestly, Linux users have nothing to brag about in the stability department since the release of Windows 2000. My primary workstation and my personal webserver (both Win2k) have been running for almost a full-year non-stop. Only time they've come down is for hardware upgrade and, on the workstation, due to a single blue-screen caused by a faulty beta driver (not Microsoft certified) which was then promptly removed resulting in smooth sailing once again.
Then who cares how far it can push into the corporate world? Really. If the developers are willing to do this work for free, why would they worry about taking away marketshare from MS?
Well, Sun's reason for continuning to develop StarOffice is primarily to get people less dependent on Windows in general. If StarOffice were to become a valid competitor to Office it would allow people to install other operating systems, like Solaris, and get the same work done, since it is cross-platform.
Of course, anyone with any sense can see that in reality they are just pissing money away -- they'd need their application to be far and away better than MS Office to ever be a real threat -- the free price-tag isn't enough -- everyone knows the drill, IT managers are willing to pay for the hope of support & to avoid retraining costs & just general friction against change at this point.
China is a potentially large market that has become accustomed to getting software for free and won't pay for applications. Just like Linux users, really.
Its not just Microsoft, the whole of computer science has hit a point where everything is now pretty evolutionary with no big major breakthroughs.
Every time Mir is mentioned on Slashdot there's approximately 1 gajillion posts that attempt humor by mentioning the problems Mir had later in life.
These jokes might be funny but for the fact that, as you mentioned, Mir outlived its original time of service by about a decade and in that time became one of the most highly successful space projects of all time.
But next time Taco Bell should use a 400x400 MILE target instead of 40x40 foot.
It would also be cool if the target were housing as many Chihuahuas as they could fit on it.
So many Slashdotters brag about how they save money by running a network of old 386s and 486s for distributed computing, etc.
When you consider the electricity cost over time it almost always makes sense to trash those systems and just buy a new high-end athlon or P3/P4 to replace all of the existing systems.
$700 million in internet-bubble-economy "funny dollars", which in today's exchange rate is worth about 50 cents.
Somewhat like gnutella in that it would be very hard to find a balance between enough users to be useful and not so many users that everyone gets saturated.
Actually, in my experience (YMMV) even early versions of WinNT 4.0 didn't need a reboot when you changed the static IP. Win NT *thought* it needed to reboot, and it would inform you thus, but if you chose not to reboot when prompted the changes still took effect and the new IP was usable. Just a bit of stupidity in the configuration management UI.
I'm not much of a Van Halen fan, but it would be pretty funny to see an IBM 5150 case modified with the Van Halen logo.
After all only criminals have something to hide!!
Its really not all that funny, but I'm guessing the guy who asked why it was funny actually didn't realize the XML tag had to be specifically closed if it wasn't a tag that encloses something else. Otherwise he wouldn't have asked "Why is this funny?" he would have just said "That's a dumb geek joke that was moderated way too high. Get lives people." or something similiar.
I think the DMCA would supercede that ruling. When those cases were originally decided, it didn't exist..But now, breaking the crypto or otherwise circumventing it would be a clear violation of the DMCA..So unless the DMCA is eliminated, it would be illegal to do this.
In any case, recent history has shown that the more impossible a company thinks it is to bypass their security, the more likely it will be found to be a fairly simple procedure once the technology is out in the wild. If Microsoft really dared people to hack the XBox, they are silly.
Essentially every console that has come out has had a small underground of hackers that figure out ways to creating unauthorized content/demos/emulator ports for the system, and the XBOX is a far easier target than most because it is relatively very similar to the PC architecture.
Capcom and other such companies are smart enough to realize that there's really nothing Bill can do to stop this. MAME has already been ported to many consoles (including the PSX, N64, PS2) and it has never hurt Capcom's relationship with any
of the companies involved.
And...Capcom, in fact, is one of the cooler companies when it comes to retro gaming. They have an authorized set of legal ROMs of their classic games that is packed in when you buy the HotRod arcade-style controller. Not the same as being pro-ROMs-all-over-the-net, but a hell of a lot better than the attitude of most companies who won't sell a game anymore but still go overboard in protecting their copyright of it.
If it weren't the case, people would already be using PI as a compressions scheme on not-so-large data -- sure it might take days/weeks/months to find the encoding of a specific piece of data in PI, but considering how fast it would uncompress (if they offset were really significantly smaller than the data it was compressing, which wouldn't be often) it would be worth it for some uses.
Richard Stallman is a kook.
Yes, it would be nice to have decent games under Linux, but Loki is a terrible company. The creditor that sued Loki and caused this whole situation with them filing for bankruptcy was a former employee whom Loki (Scott Draeker, specifically) robbed blind! He's just trying to get some of the money he invested in the company (while working there for 19 months and not being paid) back.
Support Loki's former employees (hint: all the good employees left the company already), but don't support the company or Scott Draeker.
The only difference is whether or not you want to wait 1 year or so for the port, or 8 years.