I don't hate Bill, I don't think MS sucks (maybe their business practices), and no one ever "forced" anyone to use MS. You are always free to find another profession not "infused" with MS applications. I hear Burger King is hiring.
So, by RedHat and IBM hiring Linux hackers, is that something to aspire to?
Is OpenSource really just a misguided "ROCK STAR" syndrome? If you're really really really good at coding OS applications, then maybe, just maybe, some major label, erm, software company will pick you up, sign you on and allow you to code on other Open Source projects 14 hours a day, just so you can eat?
I dunno.
300 days a year in the back of a van touring across the US in shitty venues, meeting new and interesting women, sleeping on various people's couches, all on the road to potential RockStardom.. or... Sitting in your bedroom, alone, programming, never seeing the sun...
Might as well just be a damn rockstar, at least you'll get laid. Probably. Mabye not, but nothing a shower or drugs won't fix.:)
BTW, My point is that the hiring of one or two "superstar" hackers isn't exactly a stellar contribution to "Open Source".
Well, you can still be "microsoft" centric and not cheerlead, you know? I think it's mostly a matter of semantics at this point. "Pro-Microsoft" and "Microsoft-centric" aren't the same thing and it's possible to write an article that "Microsoft-centric" and be very very very critical of them.:)
Honestly, I'm not really sure even MS knows what.NET truly is (or if they do, they were confused as to how to market it, resulting in consumer confusion and the subsequent renaming of.NET server). Is it a framework? A language? A methodology? An idealogy? Can you buy.NET in a box? Can you eat with spam? I do not like it, Sam I Am!
I read the fucking article. Go read it again, yourself. It mentioned the Japanese government was looking at Linux for digital consumer electronics, but the point I was referring to was the feasability study of switching the GOVERNMENT to an "Open source operating system".
Why is it always "Screwing you" when someone decides to charge for something? Is the farmer "screwing you" because he wants something for his labor? Is the musician "screwing you" because he wants to do it for a living and requests that you buy his CD or pay to let you see him perform (I know folks who rip the music off from Kazaa and then bitch about having to pay $5 to see them live). $20 is a fucking STEAL for this kind of software, it helps pay those engineers so they don't have to worry about rent. You Free people need to go get a real fucking job and move out of your parent's basements and see what the rest of the world is doing.
Seriously, though, have they tried the hair salons? Seems to be plethora of blondes that I distinctly recall being brunettes last year running around...
The biggest problem with this kind of analysis is that you're an outsider looking IN. At what point do YOU dictate what another person can and will do a job for?
Think, techies: Your IT/Programming clueless boss comes in and demands something TOMORROW that you know will take 5 months to do properly (or some other number > tomorrow, mkay?) Doesn't it PISS YOU the fuck off that this guy is going to make demands just because "Joe down the Hall" said it's not a big deal and now expects YOU to deliver? If a studio engineer/producer sets his prices at $250k, then I can shop around. If *everyone* is charging that amount, then I suppose it's a fair price. The same goes for ANY profession. With IT, you can go with some IT monkeys who have a decent (or maybe not) understanding and pay them $7/hour (or out-source it overseas for even less), or you can get a bona-fide EXPERT at something (which you may or may not need) for whatever they go for these days (I have friends that billed out for $125+ hour during the.com rush and they could still ask for more). Yeah, you can go down to your local studio and record for $15/hour for some guy to do some basic knob twiddling (that's the "friend" rate I get), but you can bet your ass that Butch Vig wants $50k minimum, plus points, or it's not even worth his time to get out of bed.
We can rapidly deplete our ozone layer so that harmful radiation from the sun makes living on the surface of our planet untenable!
Then, we can dump millions of tons of toxic waste into our fresh water supply!
During this process, we can over-extend our natural resource consumption to levels that nature cannot replenish (in the case of renewables), or exhaust viable sources completely.
On top of that, we can pass regulations that discourage the research of alternative fuels, materials, and erect a global bueracracy so inept at doing anything more than verbally chastizing it's children that the people get so mother-fucking SICK of this fucking planet that they realize that SPACE may hold the solutions to their problems.
And people wonder why the.com era bombed so badly.
Yeah yeah, all you fucking techie whiners whine and whine about the military spending without realizing that all that will be made back and MORE once we get our hands on Iraqi oil. Think about it as an investment in the future!...Goddamn, did I just say that? I really need to stop reading indy-media.
Ladies, Gentlemen of the United States! It has come to our attention that the EU has surpassed the United States in population and therefore has more mindshare than the One True Free country in the world!
It is for this that we MUST institute mandatory breeding programs, to ensure that we are not outnumbered by the unwashed masses of Europe!
A Call To Action! Leave your computers and fornicate with the nearest member of the Opposite Sex now! (starting with me, presumably). Go forth and MULTIPLY!
Well, last I checked, Nintendo makes money on the GameCube.. And I'm sure volume and manufacturing advances have reduced the loss (if any) on the PS2.
Re:Is that what you *really* want, though?
on
Infinite Games?
·
· Score: 1
Well, to further your examples, you could say that modern RPG's have maybe not the degree of "open-ness".. Let's just call it "non-linear" with side-activities.
Take Tales of Destiny by Namco for the PSX (originally developed for SFAM). You could just do the game and be satisfied, but you'd miss out on tons of side games/quests like the Tower of Druaga clone, etc. Final Fantasy VII has the Weapons to go find and beat, not to mention the whole Knights of the Round quest. Not necessary to the game, but there nonetheless. In Everquest, you could certainly just play the same level treadmill everyone else seems to play. I'm actually working a few quests (not to get the item, but to see what happens!). I suppose different strokes for different folks. I'm sure that I'd love Morrowind if I played it (but I think in the end I'd rather have Neverwinter Nights..)
Is that what you *really* want, though?
on
Infinite Games?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I dunno about you, but I get a sense of satisfaction when I finally BEAT a game. You know, complete all the missions, quests, whatever, resolve the story. I want there to be an end boss. I want to kill that boss, save the princess, save the world, whatever. I want to soak up the story that went along with it and remember it fondly, like a good movie. And then I want to get another game and experience the same. For me, gaming is like playing a good novel. Just because it's "open ended" doesn't mean it'll be good. Part of the fun (and frustration) in many games is the limitations and learning to work around them.
Sounds like one of those late-night conversations I've had many a time with my friends. I only wish we could replicate some more of those great buds we were smokin'.
I dunno about that "every windows media player" being skinned... I know the new Mplayer is, but I still use the default one that comes with Win2k, it's a perfectly reasonable/usable player with no fluff, no glitz, no fuss.
Mplayer was odd to get used to, Xine crashed quite a bit for me. Not to mention that I had to compile Mplayer and jump what felt like a few dozen hoops to get it working, it DID eventually work. I'm with this guy, though: My time is better spent doing something else and I don't derive any pleasure fucking around with shit I don't think I should have to fuck around with. That seems to be Linux in a nutshell. "Oh, but you really know your system when you use Linux!" If I really wanted to "know" something that well, I'd get another girlfriend. The last thing I want is an intimate, deep relationship with a computer.
I know I'm probably missing his, but here's how I view his decision to go with.Net/C#:
MS made the "important stuff" standardized and "open." It still leaves MS in the position to close off the rest of the "non-important" stuff and that could break compatability. If you're looking for "cross-platform" advantages,.NET and it's VM are dependent upon MS's decision to release a VM. Yeah, you could write your own, but what if MS invokes the DMCA and prevents you from implementing a "full" VM due to patents and the like? Then you're screwed, writing applications that run on a perceived "broken" VM that lacks those things that MS has deemed fit enough to lock in. "Yeah, great, OpenSource to the rescue, we'll port our VM to every platform!" Sure, and getting people to use it? Good luck. Tell Joe IT Manager that he can use a "free, OpenSource VM" from a bunch of anonymous guys on the internet or the "official VM" from MS, what's he gonna pick?
And that leads us to: The key is to ultimately remove the dependence upon MS products. We've all stated that time and time again. People run MS for Outlook. For Exchange. For a relatively easy sytem to administrate and patch. For Support. There's a million and one papers, editorials,/. comments, etc that do a good job of explaining all of that, but imagine this:
What if Evolution had been written in Java? OpenOffice, if I'm not mistaken, is written in Java and if I must say so myself, it runs VERY nicely on my machine and does everything I need it to do as an Office Productivity Suite. With OpenOffice, you see lots of people switching from MS Office, avoiding the licensing fees and troubles, and generally LIKING it (there are exceptions.. there needs to be a nice Access competitor or at least a great frontend for something like PostGRE or the like). That's one less reason to use MS, right? Great! OpenOffice runs on Windows, Sun, Linux, OS X (with X11 installed). Most importantly, see Windows? Millions of people can now look forward to using that $500 they'd spend on Office to doing SOMETHING ELSE with their money. Millions of companies can still do business without outlaying a chunk of cash for Office. There's the example.
Now, back to Evolution. If Evolution had been written in Java, like OpenOffice, you wouldn't just have people on *NIX platforms using it. No, you'd be able to use it on Windows, the biggest, most important, and most influential marketplace in the computer industry. What would that mean? Let's say you're Joe IT Manager. You've already switched your desktops to OpenOffice. Now, you could replace Outlook with Evolution, on your Windows systems at work (and saving on the licensing, to boot!). See, it's hard to convince upper management to switch to Linux whole-hogged. But if you do it, one app at a time, eventually you run OUT Of reasons to continue to pay the exorbitant licensing fees to support an Operating System that you no longer need to run the apps you run. Dig it? Dig it! Your users use the new apps, already acclimated to them. Change comes slowly, and for the better. And all that time Ximian spent on working on MONO could have been spent tweaking the interface, developing advanced calendaring functions, developing server-side calendaring/schedule making software, etc. And then Linux slips in quietly through the back door and MS is left to send armies of marketdroids to help woo the companies back, losing their marketshare inch by inch.
I may have Ximian's and Miguel's intentions completely wrong. Linux "desktop" penetration may not be his ultimate goal, although as a Linux vendor it might behoove him to think this way. Linux is inching it's way into the server rooms of corporate America (and the world), and the desktops will be a hard fought battle. Java is the kind of technology that allows you to provide the replacements that will make the transition EASIER.
To conclude, I applaud Miguel for his hard work on MONO (and Evolution, it does fucking kick-ass). Unfortunately, I think it's misguided and ultimately futile.
I find it amusing that considering 99% of the games industry is based upon copying, stealing, and jumping on bandwagons that the "GuildHall" , lead by these same industry "leaders", would ape the goddamn Diablo II "gothic" style font.
Slashdot Mirror
Nonono! That would be GREAT!
TOns of little squawking penguins.. Big snowboard with Windows Logo.. Slalom over the penguins, nice big blood splatters...
Hrm.
I don't hate Bill, I don't think MS sucks (maybe their business practices), and no one ever "forced" anyone to use MS. You are always free to find another profession not "infused" with MS applications. I hear Burger King is hiring.
So, by RedHat and IBM hiring Linux hackers, is that something to aspire to?
:)
Is OpenSource really just a misguided "ROCK STAR" syndrome? If you're really really really good at coding OS applications, then maybe, just maybe, some major label, erm, software company will pick you up, sign you on and allow you to code on other Open Source projects 14 hours a day, just so you can eat?
I dunno.
300 days a year in the back of a van touring across the US in shitty venues, meeting new and interesting women, sleeping on various people's couches, all on the road to potential RockStardom..
or...
Sitting in your bedroom, alone, programming, never seeing the sun...
Might as well just be a damn rockstar, at least you'll get laid.
Probably.
Mabye not, but nothing a shower or drugs won't fix.
BTW, My point is that the hiring of one or two "superstar" hackers isn't exactly a stellar contribution to "Open Source".
Well, you can still be "microsoft" centric and not cheerlead, you know? I think it's mostly a matter of semantics at this point. "Pro-Microsoft" and "Microsoft-centric" aren't the same thing and it's possible to write an article that "Microsoft-centric" and be very very very critical of them. :)
Honestly, I'm not really sure even MS knows what .NET truly is (or if they do, they were confused as to how to market it, resulting in consumer confusion and the subsequent renaming of .NET server). Is it a framework? A language? A methodology? An idealogy? Can you buy .NET in a box? Can you eat with spam? I do not like it, Sam I Am!
"less-Microsoft oriented.."
.NET implementation, this book is about .NET...
Hrm. MS invented the technology, there's no complete "alternative"
I'm just not sure how this couldn't help but be "Microsoft" oriented.
"Hey Jim, looks like you had too much coffee, might want to put that down.."
"Aw heck, Joe, it's just the damn suit again..."
"Oh.. Don't let Sally see that.."
WTF? Look, bitch boy. Read here:
this fucking article
Read it closely and you'll answer your own fucking question.
Give me your paypal and I might send you a nickel so you can buy yourself a fucking clue.
I read the fucking article. Go read it again, yourself. It mentioned the Japanese government was looking at Linux for digital consumer electronics, but the point I was referring to was the feasability study of switching the GOVERNMENT to an "Open source operating system".
Go fuck yourself.
That doesn't mean "linux". Open Source Operating System != Linux, folks. IT could be one of the various BSD's or even something like Plan 9.
Of course, I'm putting my money on "linux", too, but you can never just assume things...
Why is it always "Screwing you" when someone decides to charge for something? Is the farmer "screwing you" because he wants something for his labor? Is the musician "screwing you" because he wants to do it for a living and requests that you buy his CD or pay to let you see him perform (I know folks who rip the music off from Kazaa and then bitch about having to pay $5 to see them live). $20 is a fucking STEAL for this kind of software, it helps pay those engineers so they don't have to worry about rent. You Free people need to go get a real fucking job and move out of your parent's basements and see what the rest of the world is doing.
I'd be more concerned about scratches -- how do I touchup a film?
I dunno, but Ted Turner might know a thing or two about it..
If they'd just use Methane, I'd be set... ;)
:)
Seriously, though, have they tried the hair salons? Seems to be plethora of blondes that I distinctly recall being brunettes last year running around...
Yeah yeah.
Har har.
Yeah yeah yeah.
.com rush and they could still ask for more). Yeah, you can go down to your local studio and record for $15/hour for some guy to do some basic knob twiddling (that's the "friend" rate I get), but you can bet your ass that Butch Vig wants $50k minimum, plus points, or it's not even worth his time to get out of bed.
The biggest problem with this kind of analysis is that you're an outsider looking IN. At what point do YOU dictate what another person can and will do a job for?
Think, techies: Your IT/Programming clueless boss comes in and demands something TOMORROW that you know will take 5 months to do properly (or some other number > tomorrow, mkay?) Doesn't it PISS YOU the fuck off that this guy is going to make demands just because "Joe down the Hall" said it's not a big deal and now expects YOU to deliver? If a studio engineer/producer sets his prices at $250k, then I can shop around. If *everyone* is charging that amount, then I suppose it's a fair price. The same goes for ANY profession. With IT, you can go with some IT monkeys who have a decent (or maybe not) understanding and pay them $7/hour (or out-source it overseas for even less), or you can get a bona-fide EXPERT at something (which you may or may not need) for whatever they go for these days (I have friends that billed out for $125+ hour during the
It's called OS X.
Something to get behind..
Let me think..
I got it!
We can rapidly deplete our ozone layer so that harmful radiation from the sun makes living on the surface of our planet untenable!
Then, we can dump millions of tons of toxic waste into our fresh water supply!
During this process, we can over-extend our natural resource consumption to levels that nature cannot replenish (in the case of renewables), or exhaust viable sources completely.
On top of that, we can pass regulations that discourage the research of alternative fuels, materials, and erect a global bueracracy so inept at doing anything more than verbally chastizing it's children that the people get so mother-fucking SICK of this fucking planet that they realize that SPACE may hold the solutions to their problems.
Hrm.
BAH!
.com era bombed so badly.
...Goddamn, did I just say that? I really need to stop reading indy-media.
And people wonder why the
Yeah yeah, all you fucking techie whiners whine and whine about the military spending without realizing that all that will be made back and MORE once we get our hands on Iraqi oil. Think about it as an investment in the future!
Well, then.
Here's a Call To Action!
Ladies, Gentlemen of the United States! It has come to our attention that the EU has surpassed the United States in population and therefore has more mindshare than the One True Free country in the world!
It is for this that we MUST institute mandatory breeding programs, to ensure that we are not outnumbered by the unwashed masses of Europe!
A Call To Action! Leave your computers and fornicate with the nearest member of the Opposite Sex now! (starting with me, presumably). Go forth and MULTIPLY!
Well, last I checked, Nintendo makes money on the GameCube.. And I'm sure volume and manufacturing advances have reduced the loss (if any) on the PS2.
Well, to further your examples, you could say that modern RPG's have maybe not the degree of "open-ness".. Let's just call it "non-linear" with side-activities.
Take Tales of Destiny by Namco for the PSX (originally developed for SFAM). You could just do the game and be satisfied, but you'd miss out on tons of side games/quests like the Tower of Druaga clone, etc. Final Fantasy VII has the Weapons to go find and beat, not to mention the whole Knights of the Round quest. Not necessary to the game, but there nonetheless. In Everquest, you could certainly just play the same level treadmill everyone else seems to play. I'm actually working a few quests (not to get the item, but to see what happens!). I suppose different strokes for different folks. I'm sure that I'd love Morrowind if I played it (but I think in the end I'd rather have Neverwinter Nights..)
I dunno about you, but I get a sense of satisfaction when I finally BEAT a game. You know, complete all the missions, quests, whatever, resolve the story. I want there to be an end boss. I want to kill that boss, save the princess, save the world, whatever. I want to soak up the story that went along with it and remember it fondly, like a good movie. And then I want to get another game and experience the same. For me, gaming is like playing a good novel. Just because it's "open ended" doesn't mean it'll be good. Part of the fun (and frustration) in many games is the limitations and learning to work around them.
Sounds like one of those late-night conversations I've had many a time with my friends. I only wish we could replicate some more of those great buds we were smokin'.
Anyone else hungry?
I dunno about that "every windows media player" being skinned... I know the new Mplayer is, but I still use the default one that comes with Win2k, it's a perfectly reasonable/usable player with no fluff, no glitz, no fuss.
Mplayer was odd to get used to, Xine crashed quite a bit for me. Not to mention that I had to compile Mplayer and jump what felt like a few dozen hoops to get it working, it DID eventually work. I'm with this guy, though: My time is better spent doing something else and I don't derive any pleasure fucking around with shit I don't think I should have to fuck around with. That seems to be Linux in a nutshell.
"Oh, but you really know your system when you use Linux!"
If I really wanted to "know" something that well, I'd get another girlfriend. The last thing I want is an intimate, deep relationship with a computer.
I know I'm probably missing his, but here's how I view his decision to go with .Net/C#:
.NET and it's VM are dependent upon MS's decision to release a VM. Yeah, you could write your own, but what if MS invokes the DMCA and prevents you from implementing a "full" VM due to patents and the like? Then you're screwed, writing applications that run on a perceived "broken" VM that lacks those things that MS has deemed fit enough to lock in. "Yeah, great, OpenSource to the rescue, we'll port our VM to every platform!" Sure, and getting people to use it? Good luck. Tell Joe IT Manager that he can use a "free, OpenSource VM" from a bunch of anonymous guys on the internet or the "official VM" from MS, what's he gonna pick?
/. comments, etc that do a good job of explaining all of that, but imagine this:
MS made the "important stuff" standardized and "open." It still leaves MS in the position to close off the rest of the "non-important" stuff and that could break compatability. If you're looking for "cross-platform" advantages,
And that leads us to:
The key is to ultimately remove the dependence upon MS products. We've all stated that time and time again. People run MS for Outlook. For Exchange. For a relatively easy sytem to administrate and patch. For Support. There's a million and one papers, editorials,
What if Evolution had been written in Java? OpenOffice, if I'm not mistaken, is written in Java and if I must say so myself, it runs VERY nicely on my machine and does everything I need it to do as an Office Productivity Suite. With OpenOffice, you see lots of people switching from MS Office, avoiding the licensing fees and troubles, and generally LIKING it (there are exceptions.. there needs to be a nice Access competitor or at least a great frontend for something like PostGRE or the like). That's one less reason to use MS, right? Great! OpenOffice runs on Windows, Sun, Linux, OS X (with X11 installed). Most importantly, see Windows? Millions of people can now look forward to using that $500 they'd spend on Office to doing SOMETHING ELSE with their money. Millions of companies can still do business without outlaying a chunk of cash for Office. There's the example.
Now, back to Evolution. If Evolution had been written in Java, like OpenOffice, you wouldn't just have people on *NIX platforms using it. No, you'd be able to use it on Windows, the biggest, most important, and most influential marketplace in the computer industry. What would that mean? Let's say you're Joe IT Manager. You've already switched your desktops to OpenOffice. Now, you could replace Outlook with Evolution, on your Windows systems at work (and saving on the licensing, to boot!). See, it's hard to convince upper management to switch to Linux whole-hogged. But if you do it, one app at a time, eventually you run OUT Of reasons to continue to pay the exorbitant licensing fees to support an Operating System that you no longer need to run the apps you run. Dig it? Dig it! Your users use the new apps, already acclimated to them. Change comes slowly, and for the better. And all that time Ximian spent on working on MONO could have been spent tweaking the interface, developing advanced calendaring functions, developing server-side calendaring/schedule making software, etc. And then Linux slips in quietly through the back door and MS is left to send armies of marketdroids to help woo the companies back, losing their marketshare inch by inch.
I may have Ximian's and Miguel's intentions completely wrong. Linux "desktop" penetration may not be his ultimate goal, although as a Linux vendor it might behoove him to think this way. Linux is inching it's way into the server rooms of corporate America (and the world), and the desktops will be a hard fought battle. Java is the kind of technology that allows you to provide the replacements that will make the transition EASIER.
To conclude, I applaud Miguel for his hard work on MONO (and Evolution, it does fucking kick-ass). Unfortunately, I think it's misguided and ultimately futile.
I find it amusing that considering 99% of the games industry is based upon copying, stealing, and jumping on bandwagons that the "GuildHall" , lead by these same industry "leaders", would ape the goddamn Diablo II "gothic" style font.