That is what is really the reason, in my opinion. They made enough off of their BJ work that they could afford to take high level risks without losing their house (literally) and they didn't need investors so they would own all of the rights to their products.
There are tons of people who are great programmers or have good ideas that don't bother because they need to work day-to-day to pay their bills and make sure their family has food on the table.
I saw this and the only thing I could think was, maybe we will see some Space Quest again in the style of Space Quest IV or II – funny, and not just playing with technology. Or King's Quest in the style of IV or V, and not the bastardization of VII.
Or hell, a remake of Alien Legacy.... That I would pay be bucks for.
I know that large game development firms simply cannot bother with these projects because the demand and return is too low, but if there is enough devoted fans, maybe, just maybe, my son will be able to play and enjoy the awesomeness of games that have a clear and exciting story that doesn't revolve around shooting people.
It gets especially silly when you are a co-op student working for a company for only 4 months specifically to gain the experience needed in the industry.
so that works out to 150,000/5 years/12 months = 2500 per square mile per month.
Which means that if you have 100 users in a square mile, which is far more than reasonable, you will be getting equivalent costs to benefits.
Let's say I misunderstood it, and it was 150,000 per square mile per year over 5 years. So then it would be 150,000/12 = 12500 ~ 500 users would be needed, again, really small number for a large city.
Finally, let's say I'm completely wrong and that 150,000 is per month. Then it would require 6000 users for there to be benefit. Which in a city like New York or San Francisco, is far more than reasonable.
Unless, of course, Jupiter is stating something way off, their math makes no sense at all. The cost they are giving is way more than reasonable for the benefits to the general population.
I know what you are getting at, but try to have a secretary use a linux machine when she is used to printer interfaces that allow her to do some really fancy stuff with her printer and without a different printing interface at every computer.
Almost everything else is working quite nicely now, but there are still some pretty stupid restrictions and problems regarding sound. Especially the problem of having 2 different sounds play at the same time, which really should never be a problem and should have been the first thing bloody fixed years ago when sound was implemented in linux.
Sure, the graphics look good now, and people can generally use it for the WED style computing (Web, E-mail, Documents). But as soon as someone wants to have 2 sounds play at the same time, the system does not let them, in fact in many cases it gives them obscure errors that make Linux look that much more unstable.
As soon as this issue is resolved, I can tell you an entirely new market may open up to Linux.
Now, I'm not a Open Source freak at all, but I know that by looking at the trends in Open Source software. Aside from really powerful speciality stuff, the Open Source movement is very quickly catching up on all fronts.
Mostly due to two factors. 1. Last programmer base. Lots and lots of people are coding open source software, and it seems the more people who code it, the more people who want to code it. So slowly, the curve grows more and more vertical with development. As well, more and more companies are actively supporting Open Source and adding a lot of umph to the movement.
2. Open Source code that is being used never goes stagnant. If people are using it, it's getting updated and modified and cleaned up. Unlike Windows XP, which has not significantly changed since it's release, there have been many significant good and useful improvements to a variety of good Open Source projects, and if the project does the job you need for free already, you may as well use it. Case in point: CuteFTP Filezilla. I used to use CuteFTP until Filezilla became significantly more stable and had better features.
You cannot beat Open Source using any corporate strategy, unless you are willing to put as much money as they have people. The best strategy right now, from what I can tell, is to do something similar to Net Integration, or other companies like that. Take an existing open source project, and make the saleable feature something truly new and revolutionary. Competing against open source is truly an uphill battle. Especially when you can just use the open sourced code, and make it work well for yourself.
Okay, they are basically saying. We won't sell you the product and make money off of you because you won't do what we tell you to.
So, instead, we are going to earn less money, and accept the fact that even through those channels if something is good that the public wants, the public will find some way to view it, and we will get no money at all.
If that's how they do business, then let it be. But with a business strategy that consists of "You are not going to get our product unless you do this weird dance." Will just lead to more piracy, and even more black market behaviour, and in the end they'll burn themselves more than help themselves.
But is this really news? Like, did you actually expect anyone from Microsoft to say that Firefox is a threat, or that Firefox is dangerous to their economic model? It's not in their best interest to do so.
Nobody will ever outright say that something else is better than what they are selling... I call that the sleazy used car salesman principle.
I think those people have more serious issues than not being able to access the Internet. Sure, they cannot afford to view the internet, but the bigger question, is can they even afford to clothe themselves, eat, and have proper housing? When those three issues are resolved, then we should worry about the cost of internet cafes there.
if we throw ninjas and monkeys into this. This could get exciting.
Nothings more fun than Pirates, Ninjas, Monkeys and Night Vision Goggles! Heck, and the MPAA could record it and sell it as a movie. It'll probably be better than 99% of the crap they've released over the last 5 years.
No one will use it if their customers are not using Opera or Mozilla. And since the majority of standards that are eventually decided on are decided by the fact that majority of people use one browser over another. This is a meaningless move which will just complicate things more, and not really help anyone at all.
Okay, why the heck are we wasting so much processing power on something that will likely never yield anything useful for the human race. It's like a processing power lottery, where the probabilities of anything are so remote that the expected payoff is nil in the long run.
Now, there are distributed computing programs that have actually brought results and helped humanity. For example: http://folding.stanford.edu . IF these 5 million users all installed folding at home, could you imagine the advancements and help to medical science we'd see in the next 5 years. As opposed to absolutely nothing gained whatsoever by SETI@home? (Other than the fact that they were the first people to do distributed computing. afaik.)
And if folding doesn't work for you, there are dozens of other much more useful distributed computing projects which have given results and are more or less guaranteed to give more results than this complete and total waste of money, time and processing power.
Let's try to help the human race instead of wasting our time looking for someone else.
Any GPS transmitter that small that implants something without you knowing will have so little energy in it, that unless oyu have sensors everywhere, there is no way whatsoever to track it. Especially track a person from satellite.
Unless there is some miraculous battery I don't know of, this is an obvious fake.
You haven't been to France very much. You often hear "le weekend" instead of "fin-de-semaine", "le parking" instead of "stationnement", and "fax" instead of "telecopieur". The business card of a friend of mine (for a large company) says "Directeur du Marketing"
France often incorporate english words even though there are french equivalents.
Actually, where this is noticeable most is in places in Quebec in North America. There is a heavy emphasis on using french for most words. (fin-de-semaine and stationnement.) But then again, Quebec has been fighting to maintain it's language and national identity for a very long time now.
...and I thought they were talking about the drink! I was thinking "wine hackers"? Shouldn't that be "sommeliers"? Man, it's still way too early in the day...
Nah, Sommeliers are closer to quality assurance workers, than wine hackers. Wine hackers would be more like people who make their own wine at home, and try to get the alcohol content as high as possible.
What is the switching time for these "electricty/light" switches? It's very cool that you can "switch light like you switch electricity", but for this to be especially useful will require a switching time/frequency that is very very fast. So, naturally I'm curious about this time/frequency.
Most suggestions thus far are very cool suggestions... from the point of a techie, but to a management user or a user who is not as technically inclined. Seeing one thing (such as downloading a DVD) and not having anything significant to compare it against is really bad.
A good idea would be to have the fastest connection these guys already have compete against this connection for uploading/downloading something (backups, movie, etc.) and have the status display behind you show just how amazingly fast this new line is. Since they already know that the "old" line is really fast, this should really blow them away because then they'll have something to compare your new line to, and thus they can really see what this new line can do for them.
Management usually aren't techies and don't understand how much bandwidth a movie takes up, but they do know how to compare things, that's their job. So, if you do a comparison presentation, I can bet it will go over really really well.:-)
Saying forking is a bad thing for open source is equivalent to saying random mutations are a bad thing for evolution. Forking causes essentially evolution in an otherwise non evolutionary area of development.
Sure, lots of work is wasted by forks that no one but a select few use, but the real thing is that forks that no one uses will die off, forks that people use become better, but only when these projects fork and these radical concepts get implemented can the software evolve.
You see, by forking from where you left off before, the end users have the option to use the original fork, or use the new "mutation" of the software. Thus, allowing for a form of evolution. Whatever is best for the end user will get used, and whatever is useless will die. Sure sometimes good things die by "accident", but that as well is true of the natural world. Unlike corporate development "vats", where the code has to be one fork only, and the company decides which "fork" and which "changes" are best. Open source allows the end user to decide which things are most important, and thus is far far far more useful for consumers, and individuals than corporate devlopment is.
Slashdot Mirror
That is awesome to see.
I didn't even know.
What about Alien Legacy?
That is what is really the reason, in my opinion. They made enough off of their BJ work that they could afford to take high level risks without losing their house (literally) and they didn't need investors so they would own all of the rights to their products.
There are tons of people who are great programmers or have good ideas that don't bother because they need to work day-to-day to pay their bills and make sure their family has food on the table.
I saw this and the only thing I could think was, maybe we will see some Space Quest again in the style of Space Quest IV or II – funny, and not just playing with technology. Or King's Quest in the style of IV or V, and not the bastardization of VII.
Or hell, a remake of Alien Legacy.... That I would pay be bucks for.
I know that large game development firms simply cannot bother with these projects because the demand and return is too low, but if there is enough devoted fans, maybe, just maybe, my son will be able to play and enjoy the awesomeness of games that have a clear and exciting story that doesn't revolve around shooting people.
It gets especially silly when you are a co-op student working for a company for only 4 months specifically to gain the experience needed in the industry.
150,000 per square mile over 5 years.
so that works out to 150,000/5 years/12 months = 2500 per square mile per month.
Which means that if you have 100 users in a square mile, which is far more than reasonable, you will be getting equivalent costs to benefits.
Let's say I misunderstood it, and it was 150,000 per square mile per year over 5 years. So then it would be 150,000/12 = 12500 ~ 500 users would be needed, again, really small number for a large city.
Finally, let's say I'm completely wrong and that 150,000 is per month. Then it would require 6000 users for there to be benefit. Which in a city like New York or San Francisco, is far more than reasonable.
Unless, of course, Jupiter is stating something way off, their math makes no sense at all. The cost they are giving is way more than reasonable for the benefits to the general population.
I know what you are getting at, but try to have a secretary use a linux machine when she is used to printer interfaces that allow her to do some really fancy stuff with her printer and without a different printing interface at every computer.
it's not the drivers, it's the UI that sucks.
Well, that's a start. It's only 4 years late.
That should at least resolve one good subsection of the market.
Now the next big problem that needs resolution. A reasonable way to handle printers.
is Sound.
Almost everything else is working quite nicely now, but there are still some pretty stupid restrictions and problems regarding sound. Especially the problem of having 2 different sounds play at the same time, which really should never be a problem and should have been the first thing bloody fixed years ago when sound was implemented in linux.
Sure, the graphics look good now, and people can generally use it for the WED style computing (Web, E-mail, Documents). But as soon as someone wants to have 2 sounds play at the same time, the system does not let them, in fact in many cases it gives them obscure errors that make Linux look that much more unstable.
As soon as this issue is resolved, I can tell you an entirely new market may open up to Linux.
Now, I'm not a Open Source freak at all, but I know that by looking at the trends in Open Source software. Aside from really powerful speciality stuff, the Open Source movement is very quickly catching up on all fronts.
Mostly due to two factors.
1. Last programmer base. Lots and lots of people are coding open source software, and it seems the more people who code it, the more people who want to code it. So slowly, the curve grows more and more vertical with development. As well, more and more companies are actively supporting Open Source and adding a lot of umph to the movement.
2. Open Source code that is being used never goes stagnant. If people are using it, it's getting updated and modified and cleaned up. Unlike Windows XP, which has not significantly changed since it's release, there have been many significant good and useful improvements to a variety of good Open Source projects, and if the project does the job you need for free already, you may as well use it. Case in point: CuteFTP Filezilla. I used to use CuteFTP until Filezilla became significantly more stable and had better features.
You cannot beat Open Source using any corporate strategy, unless you are willing to put as much money as they have people. The best strategy right now, from what I can tell, is to do something similar to Net Integration, or other companies like that. Take an existing open source project, and make the saleable feature something truly new and revolutionary. Competing against open source is truly an uphill battle. Especially when you can just use the open sourced code, and make it work well for yourself.
Just my thoughts.
Okay, they are basically saying. We won't sell you the product and make money off of you because you won't do what we tell you to.
So, instead, we are going to earn less money, and accept the fact that even through those channels if something is good that the public wants, the public will find some way to view it, and we will get no money at all.
If that's how they do business, then let it be. But with a business strategy that consists of "You are not going to get our product unless you do this weird dance." Will just lead to more piracy, and even more black market behaviour, and in the end they'll burn themselves more than help themselves.
Horse... Beat... Dead... Don't...
Hopefully George Lucas will be able to put this one together this time.
Actually, Net Integration makes a server OS. I used to work for them. http://www.nitix.com is their home page if you are interested.
They claim it's autonomic Linux.
But is this really news? Like, did you actually expect anyone from Microsoft to say that Firefox is a threat, or that Firefox is dangerous to their economic model? It's not in their best interest to do so.
Nobody will ever outright say that something else is better than what they are selling... I call that the sleazy used car salesman principle.
I think those people have more serious issues than not being able to access the Internet. Sure, they cannot afford to view the internet, but the bigger question, is can they even afford to clothe themselves, eat, and have proper housing? When those three issues are resolved, then we should worry about the cost of internet cafes there.
if we throw ninjas and monkeys into this. This could get exciting.
Nothings more fun than Pirates, Ninjas, Monkeys and Night Vision Goggles! Heck, and the MPAA could record it and sell it as a movie. It'll probably be better than 99% of the crap they've released over the last 5 years.
No one will use it if their customers are not using Opera or Mozilla. And since the majority of standards that are eventually decided on are decided by the fact that majority of people use one browser over another. This is a meaningless move which will just complicate things more, and not really help anyone at all.
well, at least that is mho.
NYT reports Water is wet..
National Post reports Fire is hot...
and The Globe and Mail reports government is corrupt.
Okay, why the heck are we wasting so much processing power on something that will likely never yield anything useful for the human race. It's like a processing power lottery, where the probabilities of anything are so remote that the expected payoff is nil in the long run.
Now, there are distributed computing programs that have actually brought results and helped humanity. For example: http://folding.stanford.edu . IF these 5 million users all installed folding at home, could you imagine the advancements and help to medical science we'd see in the next 5 years. As opposed to absolutely nothing gained whatsoever by SETI@home? (Other than the fact that they were the first people to do distributed computing. afaik.)
And if folding doesn't work for you, there are dozens of other much more useful distributed computing projects which have given results and are more or less guaranteed to give more results than this complete and total waste of money, time and processing power.
Let's try to help the human race instead of wasting our time looking for someone else.
geez.
Thank God, I live in a country where the DMCA does not apply. ;-)
Any GPS transmitter that small that implants something without you knowing will have so little energy in it, that unless oyu have sensors everywhere, there is no way whatsoever to track it. Especially track a person from satellite.
Unless there is some miraculous battery I don't know of, this is an obvious fake.
You haven't been to France very much. You often hear "le weekend" instead of "fin-de-semaine", "le parking" instead of "stationnement", and "fax" instead of "telecopieur". The business card of a friend of mine (for a large company) says "Directeur du Marketing"
France often incorporate english words even though there are french equivalents.
Actually, where this is noticeable most is in places in Quebec in North America. There is a heavy emphasis on using french for most words. (fin-de-semaine and stationnement.) But then again, Quebec has been fighting to maintain it's language and national identity for a very long time now.
...and I thought they were talking about the drink! I was thinking "wine hackers"? Shouldn't that be "sommeliers"? Man, it's still way too early in the day...
Nah, Sommeliers are closer to quality assurance workers, than wine hackers. Wine hackers would be more like people who make their own wine at home, and try to get the alcohol content as high as possible.
What is the switching time for these "electricty/light" switches? It's very cool that you can "switch light like you switch electricity", but for this to be especially useful will require a switching time/frequency that is very very fast. So, naturally I'm curious about this time/frequency.
Most suggestions thus far are very cool suggestions... from the point of a techie, but to a management user or a user who is not as technically inclined. Seeing one thing (such as downloading a DVD) and not having anything significant to compare it against is really bad.
:-)
A good idea would be to have the fastest connection these guys already have compete against this connection for uploading/downloading something (backups, movie, etc.) and have the status display behind you show just how amazingly fast this new line is. Since they already know that the "old" line is really fast, this should really blow them away because then they'll have something to compare your new line to, and thus they can really see what this new line can do for them.
Management usually aren't techies and don't understand how much bandwidth a movie takes up, but they do know how to compare things, that's their job. So, if you do a comparison presentation, I can bet it will go over really really well.
Saying forking is a bad thing for open source is equivalent to saying random mutations are a bad thing for evolution. Forking causes essentially evolution in an otherwise non evolutionary area of development.
Sure, lots of work is wasted by forks that no one but a select few use, but the real thing is that forks that no one uses will die off, forks that people use become better, but only when these projects fork and these radical concepts get implemented can the software evolve.
You see, by forking from where you left off before, the end users have the option to use the original fork, or use the new "mutation" of the software. Thus, allowing for a form of evolution. Whatever is best for the end user will get used, and whatever is useless will die. Sure sometimes good things die by "accident", but that as well is true of the natural world. Unlike corporate development "vats", where the code has to be one fork only, and the company decides which "fork" and which "changes" are best. Open source allows the end user to decide which things are most important, and thus is far far far more useful for consumers, and individuals than corporate devlopment is.