I can foresee the network being bought by someone with short-term revenue farming in mind... who decides that Steam accounts shouldn't be free and starts charging a monthly fee using access to your games as leverage.
Yeah, there'd be a class action, but given an appropriate corporate structure (and bonuses/options to the leadership), I'd imagine that the ones driving the decision would come out far ahead even if thier "restructured company" came out far behind due to the resolution of the lawsuit.
My point is that while yes, there are scenarios where things stay good for the consumer, there are scenarios where things go bad for reasons outside of the consumers control.
With my old games, it's up to me if they still work or not. If I still have the installation media (and maybe the manual), I'm good. If I lost them, I'm hosed.
If the 3rd party escrow goes under, then Valve gets another. It's not a single point of failure; currently Valve is.
As for simultaniously playing one game on two machines... I have no sympathy with you being upset about not being able to do so. If you want to play with your kids, buy them thier own copy.
What you're saying that you're willing to take them at thier word and believe that you are thus purchasing a product (albiet one where doctrine of first-sale does not apply...)
You're also saying that my position is equally as valid. That you can choose to distrust the fulfillment of thier promise, and not purchase based upon that distrust.
What the poster that I was replying to was saying is that I and the OP should be willing to buy the product because of an unsubstantiated promise, and that our position is one without merit.
You're saying something quite different:)
And to elaborate on my position, I feel that the people who made the promise have every intention of keeping it. However, what if the company is sold? What if it goes to bankruptcy and the creditors (and judge) rule that developing and/or releasing such a patch is a misuse of funds and not allowable? There's a lot of situations where such a patch is never released regardless of intentions. I'd like a guarantee. (such as a patch that's maintained in escrow)
And when Steam places an access-control removal patch under 3rd party escrow to be released upon loss of the servers due to whatever reason, or to be released upon a significant change in terms of access (such as going to a pay-per-month for Steam access scheme), then I would believe them.
Until then?
It's simply feel-good words with nothing to back them.
Since when did the driving test push students to the limit of their traction?!
Since we started talking about the finland test?
It is a serious test that ensures you know how to control your car. As already mentioned, it includes all sorts of stuff that you'd only find in a performance driving school in the states. Ability to recover from spins, saloms on water covered asphalt, etc, etc... I fully agree with thier philosophy; a car is a dangerous weapon, and you should damn well know how to control it before you're allowed on public roads.
"carefully-controlled conditions will not fully prepare anybody for the stress of a likely imminent crash."
Why not?
When you're at the limits of your traction, you can *easily* spin a front wheel drive car by simply letting off the gas. It doesn't matter if you're out in traffic or practicing in a parking lot, if it happens, you're going to have that panicky butterfly feeling. In the latter case though, you don't risk killing anyone, and you get to learn what to do, and more importantly, make it your instinctual reaction.
Or are you going to fall back on your word "fully"? Personally I'd much rather drivers be much better prepared than not prepared at all. But hey, if they aren't "fully" prepared, it isn't worth anything, right?
Except for me it isn't concern of something "going wrong". It's a concern of an unscrupulous distributor disabling older games to push sales of thier newer ones. It's a concern of companies going bankrupt or getting bought out or or or... there's a lot of reasons why the distribution/activation servers can go away.
With games that I own a physical copy of (and that don't have nasty DRM requiring online activation), well, so-long as I can scroung appropriate hardware and an OS, I can play it. I still play MOO1 and MOO2... and those are quite old now with the publisher long gone.
Basically, with most forms of digital distribution out there you're not buying. You're renting for an unknown period of time.
Do you require a law telling you that it's ok to take a piss? No. You have laws saying where and how you can't. Such as no pissing in the middle of a public resturant.
Considering that we've been able to artificially make sapphires for over 100 years now... and that things like the glass on your grocery-store's barcode scanner is probably made from sapphire glass (a thin wafer of cut sapphire)...
Well, I'm thinking that it's not that large of a problem.
The idea that a parent can really control what their children are doing when in their teens is pure fantasy.
And the idea that the government is going to do any better isn't pure fantasy either?
As for parenting... lets just say that I have some strong opinions on what good parenting is, that it doesn't involve knowing what they're doing all the time, that it doesn't involve being a tyrant, and that it doesn't involve treating them like a prisoner. It involves trust, respect, and guidance. (Hint, the fact that, as a kid, most of my friends were amazed that my parents would talk to them like they were actual people with real opinions that were worth something says a lot about wtf is wrong with most parents today... and why so many kids get into trouble) But that's a whole different discussion.
If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
My reading of that is that if I were to write an entire online game, integrate a GPLed IRC client into it for use as a chat mechanism, and then release it... is that my entire game would then be GPLed as I have "[distributed] the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program"
If I were to instead, write an entire online game, integrate a blank spot for chat, setup an interface satisfiable by several plugins, allow the user to dynamically specify which plugin they would want to use, and then distribute the GPLed IRC plugin as a seperate entity from the rest of my work... that then I would be ok, I'd only need to release the source for the GPLed plugin.
However, as the GPL is worded, it causes me and my company a lot of worry. Hence why I've gone to lengths to dynamically specify and dynamically load GPLed code as a plugin when I've had to use it. That allowed us to, if we ever needed to distribute, distribute as seperate works; and maintain complete independence from the GPLed code.
I still don't understand how this prevents me from distributing proprietary, closed source software linking against unmodified GPL libraries.
I'd suggest contrasting the LGPL with the GPL, there's some significant differences in the licenses.
On a side note on my hypothetical, if I simply had to release the code for the GPLed IRC client along with any modifications I made to get it to work as I wanted, then fine and dandy. I'd be just fine with that, and I'd even venture that my company would as well (well, if they were involved with games at all...:P). However, that isn't how the license reads; so I get to go through a lot of hoops.
I'm guessing that you're unaware that the bills that Raul654 is referring to attempted to do... the exact same thing? Bills attempting to do exactly this have been struck down multiple times now, with court costs awarded. Why do you feel that this situation is any different?
Are you also in favor of making the sale of R-rated movies to minors illegal? How about books that deal with violence? Batman comics?
Parents can already control what thier kids play, it's called be a parent.
I'd love to be able to utilize GPLed code, provide the code, credit the author(s), and create a work that utilized that functionality, intact, as an accoutrement to the rest of the application.
Unfortunantly, a strict reading of the GPL leads me (and my companies OSS group) to believe that this would mean that my entire application is a derivative work that would fall under the GPL. I've gotten around this in the past by having the GPLed code in a plugin form that is dynamically specified and then dynamically loaded so that the application is significantly distanced from the GPLed code.
Perhaps that's not how the GPL is intended to work, but there's enough leeway in interpreting it, that you have to be really careful.
I'm not sure how you got to understanding her completely backwards, but now instead we'll have a president and congress very much interested in imposing standards upon all of us. Think on that over the next four years and perhaps next time you'll pay closer attention to what candidates ACTUALLY think before you pull the lever.
I researched her positions quite throughly before I decided not to vote for McCain as I really liked McCain and I wanted to be sure. She was only superficially for states to make decisions. Sorry to say, but you got suckered.
For example, she supports a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage. When asked if she supported such a ban she answered: "I wish on a federal level that that's where we would go because I don't support gay marriage... so I do support [the ban]."
Contrast that with McCain in 2004: "The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans... It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them." That was the same stance that he was running on in the election. The stance that Palin said she disagreed with. The stance that Palin said she would disregard if the unthinkable happened and she became president.
I also think you're confused about who I voted for. I voted for the party that embraced the conservative philosophy. Which strangely was the libertarians party... they were running on a conservative, not a libertarian, platform. (i.e., the federal govenrment should be small with power delegated to the states)
As to who let Obama win, I'd say it was the Republican party for moving away from their roots. They're desperately embracing right-wing liberals like Palin at the expense of conservatives. In my opinion it cost them the presidency. Hopefully they'll learn.
"What would you say if a Muslim ran for President, and publicly said that he wanted to pass a law requiring all non-Muslims to pay "tribute", and he wanted to make Sharia Law the national law? Would you say "his religion shouldn't matter?""
I would say his religion didn't matter. I would also say that his political stance that his personal beliefs (regardless of what they are) should be imposed on others does.
This is the reason that I didn't vote for McCain. Palin believes that her personal beliefs should be imposed on others.
Erm, you're confused. A live rear axel doesn't refer to the power being directed to the rear wheels... it... well, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_axle
Contrast that with an independent rear suspension (IRS) setup. The IRS will corner drastically better. A live rear axle is really meant for one thing... laying down power on the drag strip.
Front wheel drive only offers the advantage in slippery conditions because the front of the car will lose traction before the rear.
Only some of the time. It's not hard to throw a FWD car into a rear wheel drift via weight shifting. Simply accelerate hard into a corner then, as you near the limits of your traction, quit accelerating (but don't engine brake... although that makes it simple easy); let the rear springs unload and you'll shift the weight to the front. Your rear wheels will then come free, you'll still have traction on the front, and you get to have fun. (just don't overcompensate and start fishtailing)
It's a shame that you never did one of those egg-drop competitions as a kid...:/
Put an egg in a steel box and drop it. Put one in a box made of something nice and squishy with a small, strong frame around the egg. In the first one, the box will be essentially untouched... well, untouched if you don't count the gooey mess on the inside. In the second, you'll have a beat up contraption, and, if designed well, an untouched egg.
Personally, as I'm not a car, I'd rather the car be beat up and I not.
Seriously, go spend $20, but some eggs and some random crap, and have a blast. And maybe you'll learn a thing or two about physics while you're at it. (like instant decelerations bad; decelerations spread out over time good)
If he'd had another '74 charger hit him, he'd be going home with a neck brace and bruised to heck and beyond. The cars would likely still be mostly ok, but he wouldn't want to be moving for a few days.
Her car absorbed the impact, yours didn't. If you'd been hit by another SL-1 you'd both have ended up with injuries as neither car would have absorbed the impact. Hint, being in a rigid steel box that doesn't absorb impact is a bad thing. Without the car absorbing anything, you get hit by your car as hard as it was hit... which leads to things like hospital trips.
As it was, she subsidized you, and you walked away unhurt. Be glad.
And why in the heck did you pick the Mustang for your example? You do realize that it is, in no way, a cornering machine? It's made to go (kinda) fast in a straight line and that's it. Hell, it has a live rear axel!
Free will is inviolable. I don't know what meaning our life here has, but I fully believe that it would be completely without meaning if we lacked free will.
I find it crazy that people praise God for good things happening, or lament him not preventing bad things. Him not intervening in free will kinda means that no, he won't stop bad things happening, and no, he won't make good things happen. He lets things happen as they will, and we're here to learn something from it all. What that is... well... I'm not God, I dunno:P
(on a side note, looking at the story of the garden of eden from a perspective of the inviolability of free will is rather interesting)
Slashdot Mirror
I can foresee the network being bought by someone with short-term revenue farming in mind... who decides that Steam accounts shouldn't be free and starts charging a monthly fee using access to your games as leverage.
Yeah, there'd be a class action, but given an appropriate corporate structure (and bonuses/options to the leadership), I'd imagine that the ones driving the decision would come out far ahead even if thier "restructured company" came out far behind due to the resolution of the lawsuit.
My point is that while yes, there are scenarios where things stay good for the consumer, there are scenarios where things go bad for reasons outside of the consumers control.
With my old games, it's up to me if they still work or not. If I still have the installation media (and maybe the manual), I'm good. If I lost them, I'm hosed.
If the 3rd party escrow goes under, then Valve gets another. It's not a single point of failure; currently Valve is.
As for simultaniously playing one game on two machines... I have no sympathy with you being upset about not being able to do so. If you want to play with your kids, buy them thier own copy.
And that's just as illegal as pirating them in the first place...
I'd agree with you about offline mode if it served as a way to install. Most of my points would be moot. However it doesn't.
And when you get a new computer next year and Valve is no longer around?
mmm... good luck with that.
You're backing up the reason for my post... :)
What you're saying that you're willing to take them at thier word and believe that you are thus purchasing a product (albiet one where doctrine of first-sale does not apply...)
You're also saying that my position is equally as valid. That you can choose to distrust the fulfillment of thier promise, and not purchase based upon that distrust.
What the poster that I was replying to was saying is that I and the OP should be willing to buy the product because of an unsubstantiated promise, and that our position is one without merit.
You're saying something quite different :)
And to elaborate on my position, I feel that the people who made the promise have every intention of keeping it. However, what if the company is sold? What if it goes to bankruptcy and the creditors (and judge) rule that developing and/or releasing such a patch is a misuse of funds and not allowable? There's a lot of situations where such a patch is never released regardless of intentions. I'd like a guarantee. (such as a patch that's maintained in escrow)
http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/SteamWorksBrochure2009.pdf
"Instead, CEG works in tandem with Steam authentication, enabling content access based on user accounts"
In other words, it still requires the server to be there.
And when Steam places an access-control removal patch under 3rd party escrow to be released upon loss of the servers due to whatever reason, or to be released upon a significant change in terms of access (such as going to a pay-per-month for Steam access scheme), then I would believe them.
Until then?
It's simply feel-good words with nothing to back them.
Since when did the driving test push students to the limit of their traction?!
Since we started talking about the finland test?
It is a serious test that ensures you know how to control your car. As already mentioned, it includes all sorts of stuff that you'd only find in a performance driving school in the states. Ability to recover from spins, saloms on water covered asphalt, etc, etc... I fully agree with thier philosophy; a car is a dangerous weapon, and you should damn well know how to control it before you're allowed on public roads.
"carefully-controlled conditions will not fully prepare anybody for the stress of a likely imminent crash."
Why not?
When you're at the limits of your traction, you can *easily* spin a front wheel drive car by simply letting off the gas. It doesn't matter if you're out in traffic or practicing in a parking lot, if it happens, you're going to have that panicky butterfly feeling. In the latter case though, you don't risk killing anyone, and you get to learn what to do, and more importantly, make it your instinctual reaction.
Or are you going to fall back on your word "fully"? Personally I'd much rather drivers be much better prepared than not prepared at all. But hey, if they aren't "fully" prepared, it isn't worth anything, right?
Indeed.
Except for me it isn't concern of something "going wrong". It's a concern of an unscrupulous distributor disabling older games to push sales of thier newer ones. It's a concern of companies going bankrupt or getting bought out or or or... there's a lot of reasons why the distribution/activation servers can go away.
With games that I own a physical copy of (and that don't have nasty DRM requiring online activation), well, so-long as I can scroung appropriate hardware and an OS, I can play it. I still play MOO1 and MOO2... and those are quite old now with the publisher long gone.
Basically, with most forms of digital distribution out there you're not buying. You're renting for an unknown period of time.
I am not aware of a law that DISALLOWS it.
Do you require a law telling you that it's ok to take a piss? No. You have laws saying where and how you can't. Such as no pissing in the middle of a public resturant.
Considering that we've been able to artificially make sapphires for over 100 years now... and that things like the glass on your grocery-store's barcode scanner is probably made from sapphire glass (a thin wafer of cut sapphire)...
Well, I'm thinking that it's not that large of a problem.
Just have to market it to wives...
The idea that a parent can really control what their children are doing when in their teens is pure fantasy.
And the idea that the government is going to do any better isn't pure fantasy either?
As for parenting... lets just say that I have some strong opinions on what good parenting is, that it doesn't involve knowing what they're doing all the time, that it doesn't involve being a tyrant, and that it doesn't involve treating them like a prisoner. It involves trust, respect, and guidance. (Hint, the fact that, as a kid, most of my friends were amazed that my parents would talk to them like they were actual people with real opinions that were worth something says a lot about wtf is wrong with most parents today... and why so many kids get into trouble) But that's a whole different discussion.
If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
My reading of that is that if I were to write an entire online game, integrate a GPLed IRC client into it for use as a chat mechanism, and then release it... is that my entire game would then be GPLed as I have "[distributed] the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program"
If I were to instead, write an entire online game, integrate a blank spot for chat, setup an interface satisfiable by several plugins, allow the user to dynamically specify which plugin they would want to use, and then distribute the GPLed IRC plugin as a seperate entity from the rest of my work... that then I would be ok, I'd only need to release the source for the GPLed plugin.
However, as the GPL is worded, it causes me and my company a lot of worry. Hence why I've gone to lengths to dynamically specify and dynamically load GPLed code as a plugin when I've had to use it. That allowed us to, if we ever needed to distribute, distribute as seperate works; and maintain complete independence from the GPLed code.
I still don't understand how this prevents me from distributing proprietary, closed source software linking against unmodified GPL libraries.
I'd suggest contrasting the LGPL with the GPL, there's some significant differences in the licenses.
On a side note on my hypothetical, if I simply had to release the code for the GPLed IRC client along with any modifications I made to get it to work as I wanted, then fine and dandy. I'd be just fine with that, and I'd even venture that my company would as well (well, if they were involved with games at all... :P). However, that isn't how the license reads; so I get to go through a lot of hoops.
I'm guessing that you're unaware that the bills that Raul654 is referring to attempted to do... the exact same thing? Bills attempting to do exactly this have been struck down multiple times now, with court costs awarded. Why do you feel that this situation is any different?
Are you also in favor of making the sale of R-rated movies to minors illegal? How about books that deal with violence? Batman comics?
Parents can already control what thier kids play, it's called be a parent.
The definition of derivative work is the issue.
I'd love to be able to utilize GPLed code, provide the code, credit the author(s), and create a work that utilized that functionality, intact, as an accoutrement to the rest of the application.
Unfortunantly, a strict reading of the GPL leads me (and my companies OSS group) to believe that this would mean that my entire application is a derivative work that would fall under the GPL. I've gotten around this in the past by having the GPLed code in a plugin form that is dynamically specified and then dynamically loaded so that the application is significantly distanced from the GPLed code.
Perhaps that's not how the GPL is intended to work, but there's enough leeway in interpreting it, that you have to be really careful.
I'm not sure how you got to understanding her completely backwards, but now instead we'll have a president and congress very much interested in imposing standards upon all of us. Think on that over the next four years and perhaps next time you'll pay closer attention to what candidates ACTUALLY think before you pull the lever.
I researched her positions quite throughly before I decided not to vote for McCain as I really liked McCain and I wanted to be sure. She was only superficially for states to make decisions. Sorry to say, but you got suckered.
For example, she supports a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage. When asked if she supported such a ban she answered: "I wish on a federal level that that's where we would go because I don't support gay marriage ... so I do support [the ban]."
Contrast that with McCain in 2004: "The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans ... It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them." That was the same stance that he was running on in the election. The stance that Palin said she disagreed with. The stance that Palin said she would disregard if the unthinkable happened and she became president.
I also think you're confused about who I voted for. I voted for the party that embraced the conservative philosophy. Which strangely was the libertarians party... they were running on a conservative, not a libertarian, platform. (i.e., the federal govenrment should be small with power delegated to the states)
As to who let Obama win, I'd say it was the Republican party for moving away from their roots. They're desperately embracing right-wing liberals like Palin at the expense of conservatives. In my opinion it cost them the presidency. Hopefully they'll learn.
"What would you say if a Muslim ran for President, and publicly said that he wanted to pass a law requiring all non-Muslims to pay "tribute", and he wanted to make Sharia Law the national law? Would you say "his religion shouldn't matter?""
I would say his religion didn't matter.
I would also say that his political stance that his personal beliefs (regardless of what they are) should be imposed on others does.
This is the reason that I didn't vote for McCain. Palin believes that her personal beliefs should be imposed on others.
Erm, you're confused. A live rear axel doesn't refer to the power being directed to the rear wheels... it... well, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_axle
Contrast that with an independent rear suspension (IRS) setup. The IRS will corner drastically better. A live rear axle is really meant for one thing... laying down power on the drag strip.
Front wheel drive only offers the advantage in slippery conditions because the front of the car will lose traction before the rear.
Only some of the time. It's not hard to throw a FWD car into a rear wheel drift via weight shifting. Simply accelerate hard into a corner then, as you near the limits of your traction, quit accelerating (but don't engine brake... although that makes it simple easy); let the rear springs unload and you'll shift the weight to the front. Your rear wheels will then come free, you'll still have traction on the front, and you get to have fun. (just don't overcompensate and start fishtailing)
It's a shame that you never did one of those egg-drop competitions as a kid... :/
Put an egg in a steel box and drop it. Put one in a box made of something nice and squishy with a small, strong frame around the egg. In the first one, the box will be essentially untouched... well, untouched if you don't count the gooey mess on the inside. In the second, you'll have a beat up contraption, and, if designed well, an untouched egg.
Personally, as I'm not a car, I'd rather the car be beat up and I not.
Seriously, go spend $20, but some eggs and some random crap, and have a blast. And maybe you'll learn a thing or two about physics while you're at it. (like instant decelerations bad; decelerations spread out over time good)
Exactly!
If he'd had another '74 charger hit him, he'd be going home with a neck brace and bruised to heck and beyond. The cars would likely still be mostly ok, but he wouldn't want to be moving for a few days.
It's called impact absorbtion.
Her car absorbed the impact, yours didn't. If you'd been hit by another SL-1 you'd both have ended up with injuries as neither car would have absorbed the impact. Hint, being in a rigid steel box that doesn't absorb impact is a bad thing. Without the car absorbing anything, you get hit by your car as hard as it was hit... which leads to things like hospital trips.
As it was, she subsidized you, and you walked away unhurt. Be glad.
And why in the heck did you pick the Mustang for your example? You do realize that it is, in no way, a cornering machine? It's made to go (kinda) fast in a straight line and that's it. Hell, it has a live rear axel!
Physics. It's a wonderful thing.
Yes!
Free will is inviolable. I don't know what meaning our life here has, but I fully believe that it would be completely without meaning if we lacked free will.
I find it crazy that people praise God for good things happening, or lament him not preventing bad things. Him not intervening in free will kinda means that no, he won't stop bad things happening, and no, he won't make good things happen. He lets things happen as they will, and we're here to learn something from it all. What that is... well... I'm not God, I dunno :P
(on a side note, looking at the story of the garden of eden from a perspective of the inviolability of free will is rather interesting)