Is it going to be checksum like? If so, what makes them think it can't be cracked? I mean, how long did it take to figure out the checksum for dreamcast, n64, psx? what if the code modifies itself? say for example, shareware programmers? what if my program has it's own checksum, and whistler is using another checksum, how will they both co exist? will this only be limited to dll, exe? what if an authorized signed code tries to run an unsigned code or depends on one? Is the opensource community going to sign their codes? Mmm, many questions...
I am sorry but you are very wrong, misinformed and totally clueless. As an avid PS1 Console hacker, I can tell you that this language will do useful things. You will get 2D and 3D libraries written in C/asm/microcodes, so all you need to do is write your game logic in basic, create textures and you are ready to go! Of all the Console makers out there, Sony is actually the most open! If you call Sony secretive, what will you call Nintendo or Microsoft? I don't know much how Sega is, they might be open as Sony, obtaining the saturn devkit was an ease, tho sonydevkits was much easier (underground wise). Anyway, when I was mucking with psx around 2 years ago, I got to talk to some sony developers in.jp, who even ported the devkit then to FreeBSD and shared it!
"By buying a Sony product which has semiconductors in it, you are supporting their crusade to proprietarize the world and become a tech monopoly.",
Ya, what computer did you use to post this crap, I am sure it has no semiconductors in it! You must be using those build a computer kit from matchbox and wire hangers kit from the early 50's.
You are very wrong. This is not for the programmers who code PS2, but for the home cosumer. Sony did this with PS1, they released Yaroze which was a C dev kit, the learning curve was a little bit higher, so they learned from it and made it basic. YES, it will be USEFUL, It is not QBASIC, it will support 2D and 3D libraries, so you can actually make real game! The great thing is that these libraries are done in C/Asm/microcodes, so it will be very fast, all you will worry about mostly is the logic code which is not CPU intensive.
obfuscation by eliminiating white spaces is not obfuscation, i will like the competitions to allow all entries to support white spaces, but the white spaces will not be counted, thus for a 512 byte compo, your actually code might be 800 bytes formatted like a real code, but when all the white spaces are removed, it willhave to be equal or less than 512 to qualify. That is when I truely adore obfuscated code, basically, code that looks like code, yet for the love of your life, you can't figure it out. just my opinion.:> btw, i can't wait for someone to take some perl code, encoded it in perl bytecode, and some how have perl jump to that code;)
can you imagine true geeks ditching mir? i mean think of geeks destroying their computers. they don't just throw it in a thrash can. they wack it with axe, shoot and pound some bullets into it, set it into fire etc. why can't they find a more geeky creative way? crash it to the moon, or before it reaches the ocean, fire a missle on it? how about a missle fest, have every country fire a missle on it as it crashes into the oceans, those who hit it are delcared superior. creative destruction is an art.;)
Do you recycle your dr pepper cans? I definitely do especially after accumlating a thousand at the end of each month. Why do I recycle? Not because I really really care about the environment, but because I had to pay extra for each can, and upon recycle I got them back. I think the same should be done for computer parts and batteries. Get charged extra, but you will be refunded upon return for recycle when you are done using it irrelevant of it is working or not. I throw away batteries pretty much every two weeks, and computer parts every month, if I could definitely get back any money, I do go the extra step to recycle.
I think he is a lying schmuck, many people have replied to his post requesting for the URL, and he hasn't responded. I checked google's cache and it returned nothing. he is just on a karma rampage.
Since you bring this up, you seem to bring it up as if you would like to use it. Open and free software come as a result of programmers wanting to scratch their itch, if you have this itch, why don't you start the project? What are you waiting for? You can do it, even if you are not a great coder, start something, look at slashdot, look at where it is, it didn't come from a great codebase, but it is here because it was started. Scratch that itch!:)
Actually, you are quite wrong. PostgreSQL has more documentation, I know this cuz I have combed every possible link on both site. Go back to PostgreSQL page, there is a full book free on PostgreSQL on their documentation page. Also, PostgreSQL has bindings for a zillion languages as well, what do you want? Perl? C? Python? C++? more? Before you post, please update yourself before you post your misinformations. I like both database, and I use both.:)
I looked at the sorce code these guys wrote in PL/1 in the 70's and early 80's and to my surprise, they docuemented clear, I expected there code to be massive pile of shit with no comments but I was already, I am also very impressed that they wrote 3000 pages of specs before starting the implementation.
Checkout for some source. http://www.multicians.org/multics-source.html
If it was broken, AND there system could not detect ie the watermark, do they consider not cracked if THEY determine that the sound quality is not good enough? good enough for who? for them? for the people who will be glad to pirate it?
this is not just plain old apple basic, this guy i know ported basic to PSX, and he provided a 3D library, and with basic you can throw up little cute games fast, I am sure PS2 will do the same, you will get a nice simple 2D and 3D library. This rocks, THis is why I like Sony, they did it with PSX(1) Yaroze, and now they do it again, let the people who play there games get into programming!
It depends on what is being worked on. Take example of a code for a complex database system, cryptography, tcp/ip stack or some complex program. Even when implemented in a simple clear elegant solution, the average program will be lost, simply because he does not have the right background, so he will spend time catching up. But I still agree with you that something is wrong with Greenspun's hypoehetical workplace. In a good project, programmer's don't need to be reading each other's code, except during code review and when hunting for bugs. That is why we have modules, The very good programmers work on important part of the program, the average programmers work on the other parts, the newbies, work on perhaps the installation and simple parts.
Nevertheless, the article is a good article.
VICE PRESIDENT GORE:
I fight for the chickens and I am fighting for the chickens right now.
I will not give up on the chickens crossing the road! I will fight for
the chickens and I will not disappoint them.
GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH:
I don't believe we need to get the chickens across the road. I say give
the road to the chickens and let them decide. The government needs to
let go of strangling the chickens so they can get across the road.
SENATOR LIEBERMAN;
I believe that every chicken has the right to worship his or her God in
his or her own way. Crossing the road is a spiritual journey and no
chicken should be denied the right to cross the road in his or her own way.
SECRETARY CHENEY:
Chickens are big-time because they have wings. They could fly if they
wanted to. Chickens don't want to cross the road. They don't need help
crossing the road. In fact, I'm not interested in crossing the roadmyself.
RALPH NADER:Chickens are misled into believing there is a road by the evil tire
makers. Chickens aren't ignorant, but our society pays tire makers to
create the need for these roads and then lures chickens into believing
there is an advantage to crossing them. Down with the roads, up withchickens.
PAT BUCHANAN:To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American.JERRY
FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people seethe
plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other
side." That's what "they" call it-the "other side." Yes, my friends,
that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay
too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side." That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It's as plain and simple as that.
DR. SEUSS:
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes! The
chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I've not been told!
RONALD REAGAN:What chicken?
CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK:To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
FOX MULDER:
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens
have to cross before you believe it?
BILL CLINTON:I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by
"chicken"?Could you define "chicken" please?
GEORGE BUSH:
I don't think I should have to answer that question.
LOUIS FARRAKHAN:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed
the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.
If you have ever read about OS, this article is a waste of your time. To summarize this article, it simple states that Linux is a monolithic kernel and the Hurd is a microkernel. Then it proceeds to spiel on what monolithic and microkernel are, as if it came out of any OS book. It doesn't really tell you what Hurd is meant to do! It tells you about the functioanlity of a microkernel. Worst of all, it doesn't tell you what Hurd is now doing and not doing yet. I am not impressed. RIP Hurd.
bullshit man, you are just a fraud. Just another of those people who never want to pay shit. With the typical argument, I download games and warez for free to test them before I buy them, etc. Why is it that people no longer want to pay for anything today? If Napster does form a partnership, that will change it from been illegal to legal, so why will you not pay for it? If Napster is about sampling CDs, then why can't people just put up only samples, 30 seconds of tracks instead of full tracks?
Pardon me fellow slashdotters. But I have a problem with this article. My problem is that instead of jamie pointing us to the story and letting us judge for our self. He simply states that the Report is greatly Exaggerated. If there is anything Exaggerated here, it is this story. If anyone takes out the time and does read the article, You will see that it works as the guys pulling this prank "INTENDED". Basically when you search for "Celebrity Nude", you get a page, and if you go that page, all the URL in that page point to their homepage, this is what they intended to do, and they did accomplish that. A lot of people are posting articles about how google's page ranking algorithm can't be defeated. But how many of you read the white paper on google and on its search engine?
Bleh, all search engines are doing this, so don't even say that. Wooo, checking duplicated keywords, repeated patterns, who doesn't do that today? Also snooping on what people are searching with your search engine, isn't that an ethical question? I know that I don't want everyone knowing what I am searching about, a data analysis on every keyword I have searched for can tell you a lot about me. Do you inform people that you look at what they search at? Anyway,I am into information retrieval and data mining of unstructed data, and I can tell you that stopping spam is pretty hard, thus it is a very bold and exagerrated clam to say your search site cannot be spammed. If you want to convince us otherwise, write a white paper like google and describe how. The only reason no one has bothered to spam it is because it is not popular yet.
I am very sorry but you are wrong. Have you ever written game for consoles? Then don't speak for console game developers. Sony didn't fuck up by makin PS2 radically different. Consoles have always been different from PCs and will always be or else why get a Console? My first inital shock when I got into gameboy and NES programming was that there is no concept of a pixel. You had to work in tiles. I went nuts! Oh shit, I can't port my graphics library from PC which all boiled down to my put_pixel() routine. Was I mad, or what! I said that consoles sucked! PC rocks, but then as I learned more, I began loving the concept of working with tiles instead of pixels, as it allowed me to think in a totally different way and do things I couldn't do easily on the PC.
Now, gameboy, NES, SNES, gensis were all coded for in assembly. It is with the arrival of 32bit consoles that we saw move to C, and yet you do think developers will like to develop portable code, right? Wrong. The top priority for any develop is not portability but speed! If you develop a portable tekken than can run on a watch but which runs at 8fps, who cares? You rather have that tekken on one system and have it running at real 60fps. Metal Gear Solid, Dead or Alive, are all games I heard which were done in 100% asm. Console developers are hardcore, you do be surprise how easy it is for them to port asm code. Even asm code can be ported, it all depends on how you code your routines.
Stop blaming the USPTO for everything. It is our problem, we are the cause, yes you and me. Listen very carefully, USPTO doesn't just provide patent for computer technology. The provide patents for every subject you can possible think of in this world. Awarding a patent to anything requires intimate knowledge with that field which enables you to know if the patent is legitimate or not. Therefore as you can see, for the patent office to honor only real and non stupid patents in the computer field. They need real computer professionals, people who intimately understand computers, follow the field, and keep in touch with it. Now back in the days, It was fun working in the patent office because you get to see so much "new?" things and such. But today, it all boils down to money. Will you give up your $90k job for $35k to work for USPTO? And how many slashdotters will do so? Thus as you can see, the problem is me and you. We are greedy, and this is just part of the things we get in return for our "greed."
Did you read the article slashdot posted? If you did, You would have read that MIPS did such a thing in 1989 and is now suing another company for cloning their chips under such patents. Thus it is irrelevant if they are patenting the opcodes, internal logic or whatever. The bottom line is they can take advantage of those patent to sue anyone who clones their chips.
You quoted Mark Poster's essay "Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere", Is your
article opinions formulated upon reading his essay? I will like to know so that I can read
the essay and seperate his thoughts from yours. Anyway, like you said, "Cyberdemorcracy
could, theoretically,..." Note the word "theoretically", but what about pratical?
Pratically will anything change? Take a look at slashdot for instance, when there is
something that requires an action such as going out in the real world, contacting a senator,
How many of us actually take the effort in engaging in such actions? You also mentioned
that the nature of authority will change. but how will it change? I have only seen it
get worst, as authority tries to gain more control. I hope for the best tho, and will do
my part.
You are absolutely correct in stating that Sony doesn't make money selling hardware. Even for the psx (playstation 1), Sony still losses money on that, A lot of people do not understand that hardware is expensive, especially when you are trying to be innovatie and pushing cutting edge technology. But bear in mind that the real money Sony makes is also not from the devkit, It is from the actually royalities of every game sold.
Now to correct you, Please don't describe PS2 as a little more than a Linux box with funky things thrown in. PS2 devkit is also expensive, first of all, PS2 is so powerful that using your normal PC to dev for it is powerful enough. The PS2 devkit is actually a souped up PS2 that runs linux as well just like the PSX(PS1) devkit was a souped PSX with 8mb of ram instead of just 2. My friend has had access to PS2 and PS2Devkit since it was released in Japan, so I have heard alot. I did some PSX programming and I can tell you that Sony makes superb quality hardware.
First of all, you are attacking Sony because they charge royalty for every game published. Reality check for you, if Sony only relied on the actually consoles, do you think they will make a profit? Hell no, development cost is very very high, Sony doesn't just come up with all these things by themselves, they have to buy technologies from other companies as well. They will be losing money. So cut Sony a slack. As far as licensing goes, it is not evil. Imagine this, if you are a software company, you pay Sony $20k for a devkit/license, you write your good games, and your game sells. Even after paying Sony you will come out making millions! Is that bad? Nope
First of all, Console makers have a reason for licensing devkits, the more devkits out there, the more crappy games you see. Take the case of PC, imagine if everything called a game was shelved. Imagine how annoying that would be, with consoles, after paying that much money, you really want to make good games to get your money back. Sony is not as anal as Nintendo, if you look at N64 and PSX, PSX has tons of more games, many quality ones, as well as many more horrible ones. But on N64, sure it doesn't have many games like PSX, but it has a lot of quality titles. Nintendo will not give you the devkit just cuz you have $$$, Try it. They want to know that you can make good game for their systems.
Another reason why Console makers restrict the license is because of piracy. Imagine if consoles were open like PC, Then anyone and everyone will know how to make a copy of the games easily, Piracy will tremendously increase.
Btw, I don't know if you are a hardcore gamer, but if you are, I suggest you go research on Why EA is mad at Sega and is not supporting Dreamcast. EA and many companies lost money because of weak Saturn, when you have your trust betrayed, especially your company but in danger of losing it's business by another company, you gotta be careful next time they come out with another technology which can potentially be hype.
Therefore, I ask you to cut the console makers some slack, if you were them, you will not do anything differently, and if you did, you will not survive.
Anyway, My friend who is playing with PS2 and PS2 devkit is not very impressed. He thinks it might face the same problem Saturn did, hard to program. PS2's problem is that it is a very complex beast, Saturn on the other hand had many hardware flaws. Let's hope that it does as well as PSX tho. I will be getting one as soon as there is a "modchip";)
Slashdot Mirror
Is it going to be checksum like? If so, what makes them think it can't be cracked? I mean, how long did it take to figure out the checksum for dreamcast, n64, psx? what if the code modifies itself? say for example, shareware programmers? what if my program has it's own checksum, and whistler is using another checksum, how will they both co exist? will this only be limited to dll, exe? what if an authorized signed code tries to run an unsigned code or depends on one? Is the opensource community going to sign their codes? Mmm, many questions...
I am sorry but you are very wrong, misinformed and totally clueless. As an avid PS1 Console hacker, I can tell you that this language will do useful things. You will get 2D and 3D libraries written in C/asm/microcodes, so all you need to do is write your game logic in basic, create textures and you are ready to go! Of all the Console makers out there, Sony is actually the most open! If you call Sony secretive, what will you call Nintendo or Microsoft? I don't know much how Sega is, they might be open as Sony, obtaining the saturn devkit was an ease, tho sonydevkits was much easier (underground wise). Anyway, when I was mucking with psx around 2 years ago, I got to talk to some sony developers in .jp, who even ported the devkit then to FreeBSD and shared it!
"By buying a Sony product which has semiconductors in it, you are supporting their crusade to proprietarize the world and become a tech monopoly.",
Ya, what computer did you use to post this crap, I am sure it has no semiconductors in it! You must be using those build a computer kit from matchbox and wire hangers kit from the early 50's.
You are very wrong. This is not for the programmers who code PS2, but for the home cosumer. Sony did this with PS1, they released Yaroze which was a C dev kit, the learning curve was a little bit higher, so they learned from it and made it basic. YES, it will be USEFUL, It is not QBASIC, it will support 2D and 3D libraries, so you can actually make real game! The great thing is that these libraries are done in C/Asm/microcodes, so it will be very fast, all you will worry about mostly is the logic code which is not CPU intensive.
obfuscation by eliminiating white spaces is not obfuscation, i will like the competitions to allow all entries to support white spaces, but the white spaces will not be counted, thus for a 512 byte compo, your actually code might be 800 bytes formatted like a real code, but when all the white spaces are removed, it willhave to be equal or less than 512 to qualify. That is when I truely adore obfuscated code, basically, code that looks like code, yet for the love of your life, you can't figure it out. just my opinion. :> btw, i can't wait for someone to take some perl code, encoded it in perl bytecode, and some how have perl jump to that code ;)
can you imagine true geeks ditching mir? i mean think of geeks destroying their computers. they don't just throw it in a thrash can. they wack it with axe, shoot and pound some bullets into it, set it into fire etc. why can't they find a more geeky creative way? crash it to the moon, or before it reaches the ocean, fire a missle on it? how about a missle fest, have every country fire a missle on it as it crashes into the oceans, those who hit it are delcared superior. creative destruction is an art. ;)
Do you recycle your dr pepper cans? I definitely do especially after accumlating a thousand at the end of each month. Why do I recycle? Not because I really really care about the environment, but because I had to pay extra for each can, and upon recycle I got them back. I think the same should be done for computer parts and batteries. Get charged extra, but you will be refunded upon return for recycle when you are done using it irrelevant of it is working or not. I throw away batteries pretty much every two weeks, and computer parts every month, if I could definitely get back any money, I do go the extra step to recycle.
I think he is a lying schmuck, many people have replied to his post requesting for the URL, and he hasn't responded. I checked google's cache and it returned nothing. he is just on a karma rampage.
Since you bring this up, you seem to bring it up as if you would like to use it. Open and free software come as a result of programmers wanting to scratch their itch, if you have this itch, why don't you start the project? What are you waiting for? You can do it, even if you are not a great coder, start something, look at slashdot, look at where it is, it didn't come from a great codebase, but it is here because it was started. Scratch that itch! :)
Actually, you are quite wrong. PostgreSQL has more documentation, I know this cuz I have combed every possible link on both site. Go back to PostgreSQL page, there is a full book free on PostgreSQL on their documentation page. Also, PostgreSQL has bindings for a zillion languages as well, what do you want? Perl? C? Python? C++? more? Before you post, please update yourself before you post your misinformations. I like both database, and I use both. :)
the url you posted is wrong, please post the correct URL, I do like to read IBM's report.
thank you.
I looked at the sorce code these guys wrote in PL/1 in the 70's and early 80's and to my surprise, they docuemented clear, I expected there code to be massive pile of shit with no comments but I was already, I am also very impressed that they wrote 3000 pages of specs before starting the implementation.
Checkout for some source. http://www.multicians.org/multics-source.html
If it was broken, AND there system could not detect ie the watermark, do they consider not cracked if THEY determine that the sound quality is not good enough? good enough for who? for them? for the people who will be glad to pirate it?
this is not just plain old apple basic, this guy i know ported basic to PSX, and he provided a 3D library, and with basic you can throw up little cute games fast, I am sure PS2 will do the same, you will get a nice simple 2D and 3D library. This rocks, THis is why I like Sony, they did it with PSX(1) Yaroze, and now they do it again, let the people who play there games get into programming!
It depends on what is being worked on. Take example of a code for a complex database system, cryptography, tcp/ip stack or some complex program. Even when implemented in a simple clear elegant solution, the average program will be lost, simply because he does not have the right background, so he will spend time catching up. But I still agree with you that something is wrong with Greenspun's hypoehetical workplace. In a good project, programmer's don't need to be reading each other's code, except during code review and when hunting for bugs. That is why we have modules, The very good programmers work on important part of the program, the average programmers work on the other parts, the newbies, work on perhaps the installation and simple parts.
Nevertheless, the article is a good article.
VICE PRESIDENT GORE:
I fight for the chickens and I am fighting for the chickens right now.
I will not give up on the chickens crossing the road! I will fight for
the chickens and I will not disappoint them.
GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH:
I don't believe we need to get the chickens across the road. I say give
the road to the chickens and let them decide. The government needs to
let go of strangling the chickens so they can get across the road.
SENATOR LIEBERMAN;
I believe that every chicken has the right to worship his or her God in
his or her own way. Crossing the road is a spiritual journey and no
chicken should be denied the right to cross the road in his or her own way.
SECRETARY CHENEY:
Chickens are big-time because they have wings. They could fly if they
wanted to. Chickens don't want to cross the road. They don't need help
crossing the road. In fact, I'm not interested in crossing the roadmyself.
RALPH NADER:Chickens are misled into believing there is a road by the evil tire
makers. Chickens aren't ignorant, but our society pays tire makers to
create the need for these roads and then lures chickens into believing
there is an advantage to crossing them. Down with the roads, up withchickens.
PAT BUCHANAN:To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American.JERRY
FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people seethe
plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other
side." That's what "they" call it-the "other side." Yes, my friends,
that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay
too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side." That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It's as plain and simple as that.
DR. SEUSS:
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes! The
chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I've not been told!
RONALD REAGAN:What chicken?
CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK:To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
FOX MULDER:
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens
have to cross before you believe it?
BILL CLINTON:I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by
"chicken"?Could you define "chicken" please?
GEORGE BUSH:
I don't think I should have to answer that question.
LOUIS FARRAKHAN:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed
the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.
If you have ever read about OS, this article is a waste of your time. To summarize this article, it simple states that Linux is a monolithic kernel and the Hurd is a microkernel. Then it proceeds to spiel on what monolithic and microkernel are, as if it came out of any OS book. It doesn't really tell you what Hurd is meant to do! It tells you about the functioanlity of a microkernel. Worst of all, it doesn't tell you what Hurd is now doing and not doing yet. I am not impressed. RIP Hurd.
bullshit man, you are just a fraud. Just another of those people who never want to pay shit. With the typical argument, I download games and warez for free to test them before I buy them, etc. Why is it that people no longer want to pay for anything today? If Napster does form a partnership, that will change it from been illegal to legal, so why will you not pay for it? If Napster is about sampling CDs, then why can't people just put up only samples, 30 seconds of tracks instead of full tracks?
Pardon me fellow slashdotters. But I have a problem with this article. My problem is that instead of jamie pointing us to the story and letting us judge for our self. He simply states that the Report is greatly Exaggerated. If there is anything Exaggerated here, it is this story. If anyone takes out the time and does read the article, You will see that it works as the guys pulling this prank "INTENDED". Basically when you search for "Celebrity Nude", you get a page, and if you go that page, all the URL in that page point to their homepage, this is what they intended to do, and they did accomplish that. A lot of people are posting articles about how google's page ranking algorithm can't be defeated. But how many of you read the white paper on google and on its search engine?
Bleh, all search engines are doing this, so don't even say that. Wooo, checking duplicated keywords, repeated patterns, who doesn't do that today? Also snooping on what people are searching with your search engine, isn't that an ethical question? I know that I don't want everyone knowing what I am searching about, a data analysis on every keyword I have searched for can tell you a lot about me. Do you inform people that you look at what they search at? Anyway,I am into information retrieval and data mining of unstructed data, and I can tell you that stopping spam is pretty hard, thus it is a very bold and exagerrated clam to say your search site cannot be spammed. If you want to convince us otherwise, write a white paper like google and describe how. The only reason no one has bothered to spam it is because it is not popular yet.
Mr Mcbay,
I am very sorry but you are wrong. Have you ever written game for consoles? Then don't speak for console game developers. Sony didn't fuck up by makin PS2 radically different. Consoles have always been different from PCs and will always be or else why get a Console? My first inital shock when I got into gameboy and NES programming was that there is no concept of a pixel. You had to work in tiles. I went nuts! Oh shit, I can't port my graphics library from PC which all boiled down to my put_pixel() routine. Was I mad, or what! I said that consoles sucked! PC rocks, but then as I learned more, I began loving the concept of working with tiles instead of pixels, as it allowed me to think in a totally different way and do things I couldn't do easily on the PC.
Now, gameboy, NES, SNES, gensis were all coded for in assembly. It is with the arrival of 32bit consoles that we saw move to C, and yet you do think developers will like to develop portable code, right? Wrong. The top priority for any develop is not portability but speed! If you develop a portable tekken than can run on a watch but which runs at 8fps, who cares? You rather have that tekken on one system and have it running at real 60fps. Metal Gear Solid, Dead or Alive, are all games I heard which were done in 100% asm. Console developers are hardcore, you do be surprise how easy it is for them to port asm code. Even asm code can be ported, it all depends on how you code your routines.
Stop blaming the USPTO for everything. It is our problem, we are the cause, yes you and me. Listen very carefully, USPTO doesn't just provide patent for computer technology. The provide patents for every subject you can possible think of in this world. Awarding a patent to anything requires intimate knowledge with that field which enables you to know if the patent is legitimate or not. Therefore as you can see, for the patent office to honor only real and non stupid patents in the computer field. They need real computer professionals, people who intimately understand computers, follow the field, and keep in touch with it. Now back in the days, It was fun working in the patent office because you get to see so much "new?" things and such. But today, it all boils down to money. Will you give up your $90k job for $35k to work for USPTO? And how many slashdotters will do so? Thus as you can see, the problem is me and you. We are greedy, and this is just part of the things we get in return for our "greed."
Did you read the article slashdot posted? If you did, You would have read that MIPS did such a thing in 1989 and is now suing another company for cloning their chips under such patents. Thus it is irrelevant if they are patenting the opcodes, internal logic or whatever. The bottom line is they can take advantage of those patent to sue anyone who clones their chips.
You quoted Mark Poster's essay "Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere", Is your
article opinions formulated upon reading his essay? I will like to know so that I can read
the essay and seperate his thoughts from yours. Anyway, like you said, "Cyberdemorcracy
could, theoretically,
Pratically will anything change? Take a look at slashdot for instance, when there is
something that requires an action such as going out in the real world, contacting a senator,
How many of us actually take the effort in engaging in such actions? You also mentioned
that the nature of authority will change. but how will it change? I have only seen it
get worst, as authority tries to gain more control. I hope for the best tho, and will do
my part.
You are absolutely correct in stating that Sony doesn't make money selling hardware. Even for the psx (playstation 1), Sony still losses money on that, A lot of people do not understand that hardware is expensive, especially when you are trying to be innovatie and pushing cutting edge technology. But bear in mind that the real money Sony makes is also not from the devkit, It is from the actually royalities of every game sold.
;)
Now to correct you, Please don't describe PS2 as a little more than a Linux box with funky things thrown in. PS2 devkit is also expensive, first of all, PS2 is so powerful that using your normal PC to dev for it is powerful enough. The PS2 devkit is actually a souped up PS2 that runs linux as well just like the PSX(PS1) devkit was a souped PSX with 8mb of ram instead of just 2. My friend has had access to PS2 and PS2Devkit since it was released in Japan, so I have heard alot. I did some PSX programming and I can tell you that Sony makes superb quality hardware.
First of all, you are attacking Sony because they charge royalty for every game published. Reality check for you, if Sony only relied on the actually consoles, do you think they will make a profit? Hell no, development cost is very very high, Sony doesn't just come up with all these things by themselves, they have to buy technologies from other companies as well. They will be losing money. So cut Sony a slack. As far as licensing goes, it is not evil. Imagine this, if you are a software company, you pay Sony $20k for a devkit/license, you write your good games, and your game sells. Even after paying Sony you will come out making millions! Is that bad? Nope
First of all, Console makers have a reason for licensing devkits, the more devkits out there, the more crappy games you see. Take the case of PC, imagine if everything called a game was shelved. Imagine how annoying that would be, with consoles, after paying that much money, you really want to make good games to get your money back. Sony is not as anal as Nintendo, if you look at N64 and PSX, PSX has tons of more games, many quality ones, as well as many more horrible ones. But on N64, sure it doesn't have many games like PSX, but it has a lot of quality titles. Nintendo will not give you the devkit just cuz you have $$$, Try it. They want to know that you can make good game for their systems.
Another reason why Console makers restrict the license is because of piracy. Imagine if consoles were open like PC, Then anyone and everyone will know how to make a copy of the games easily, Piracy will tremendously increase.
Btw, I don't know if you are a hardcore gamer, but if you are, I suggest you go research on Why EA is mad at Sega and is not supporting Dreamcast. EA and many companies lost money because of weak Saturn, when you have your trust betrayed, especially your company but in danger of losing it's business by another company, you gotta be careful next time they come out with another technology which can potentially be hype.
Therefore, I ask you to cut the console makers some slack, if you were them, you will not do anything differently, and if you did, you will not survive.
Anyway, My friend who is playing with PS2 and PS2 devkit is not very impressed. He thinks it might face the same problem Saturn did, hard to program. PS2's problem is that it is a very complex beast, Saturn on the other hand had many hardware flaws. Let's hope that it does as well as PSX tho. I will be getting one as soon as there is a "modchip"