I find its usually the way that Linux advocates make these requests. Invariably, they call into question the programmer's coding expertise ("Well if you coded it right then it shouldn't be a problem"), and often demand rather than ask. When given a response they're usually belligerent about it or try to start arguments.
During the IRC chat, there was a mortitorium on Linux questions. Obviously, the chat moderators and developers didn't want to get in to some pissing contest with a beligerant Linux "advocate". However, I managed to get my comment in due to it being the end of the session and, I believe, because I wasn't beligerant. My comment was to thank Bioware for NWN despite the problems and a hope that Bioware hasn't abandoned the platform.
It probably fell on deaf ears.
Bioware demonstrated that they didn't have the expertise to pull off a proper release of NWN. Criticism of that expertise were appropriate. I would hope Bioware has a thick enough skin to take the criticism. They are in the gaming industry - a place where snarky criticism isn't just a niche but a part of the culture.
Incidently, let me stress something I touched on. The zealotry isn't unique to Linux users. I was rather amused at the last petition to Blizzard for a World of Warcraft Linux client. Apparent Linux users were rather calm and polite. The rest was Windows zealots spewing for the kind of abuse that is always attributed to Linux zealotry. Zealotry knows no bounds it would seem.
Don't get me wrong - there's no advantage to being beligerant when requesting support for one's favorite platform. Linux advocates should remain polite. But at the same time, I doubt zealotry is really any reason to avoid any given platform. It hasn't been in the past.
My only point is that people love to blame corporations for DRM and other piracy countermeasures, and then defend the pirates at every turn when they get caught.
I haven't seen Slashdot (as if there's one voice - but I digress) get up in arms at the announcement of busted counterfeit rings. What does tend to draw ire is selling out public rights to corporate interests (extending copyright, DRM, DMCA, etc) and draconian attempts to curb "piracy" by going after small-time amateurs who aren't in the business of selling counterfeits.
And getting all riled up about GPLed software? Its a response to the system. If we're expected to honor the Copyright system... so should others.
While you may not agree with these views (not everyone on Slashdot does), it doesn't seem to be as hypocrytical as you would imply.
...and the EFF pretends that piracy isn't going to happen under the systems that they promote.
The EFF is not pretending that Copyright infringement isn't going to happen. I certainly haven't heard them make the claim (unlike the RIAA claiming to be protecting artists). Rather, it's an issue of what degree of actions are appropriate to pursue infringement. And, more to the point, how much of the public's rights are eroded in that pursuit.
Why would they care about bnetd, since they provide the same service for free, except for piracy abuse?
Again - bnetd has legitimate use. That's the issue. If bnetd was a key generator, I would be more inclined to agree with the point. But that's not the case.
Let's ignore the point about competition. Even if Blizzards entire intent is to impact the functionality of illegal copies of their games, it doesn't matter. Just because something has an illegal use is not enough to warrent making the device itself illegal.
Companies don't spend money on legal action unless its hurting their bottom line.
Companies spend money for all manner of reasons. Sometimes there's good numbers behind it. Sometimes it's only on perception. The fact that they're spending money on this case proves nothing.
Bioware's not totally shitty about Linux; after all, there's a Linux Neverwinter Nights port.
I was in a IRC chat with Bioware developers discussing NWN 2. At that time, there were no plans for a Linux client. And they were rather... chilly when asked about it. That's the only reason I even mentioned them.:)
Just FYI, Blizzard games run nearly flawlessly in Cedega.
Not exactly flawlessly. But interesting point otherwise.
As an aside - one of the best ways to get Blizzard (and Bioware come to think of it) all spikey is to mention Linux. To be fair - its probably got to do with Linux zealotry... although if you want to really get the Windows zealots going, put up a petition for a Linux client in the WoW forum.
With the bnetd case, there was disassembly and examination of code going on in order to get things working, specifically getting bnet compatability for games.
What's your reference to this disassembly and examination of code? Blizzard has claimed this due to some of the oddities of bnetd's behavior (replicating bugs in how it behaves). However, others claim otherwise. From Lawmeme's writeup:
In order to create a Battle.net emulator, the bnetd developers engaged in a combination of reverse and value engineering. Their method of reverse engineering did not require any decompiling or disassembly of the code of the client (again, they could not have deassembled or decompiled the Battle.net code since they did not have access to it). It is decompiling of code that frequently gets reverse engineers in copyright trouble that is not a problem for bnetd since it was not required. Bnetd was able to reverse engineer by simply looking at the traffic between server (Battle.net) and client (game player). For example, a player would start a game as one type of character on Battle.net in Diablo II (e.g., a Necromancer) capture the packets, then start a game as a different character (e.g., a Barbarian) and capture the packets. By comparing the two packet dumps, one of the bnetd developers would be able to determine which packets identified specific elements of the game. The developer would then make changes to the bnetd server and check his work by performing the same test with client on the bnetd server. Through trial and error, the bnetd server improved.
Keep in mind that decompiling and disassembling itself is not illegal. However, it is a dangerous thing to do since it opens the reverse engineer to claims of copyright infringement if the outcome is too close to the origional. This is why most reverse engineering activities involve two different teams - one that picks apart the item and documents how it behaves and nother who implements the specification as outlined by the first team.
By the way... data doesn't have to be text to be recordable and replicatable - "raw data" or not.
Trying to crack down on piracy in this manner ignores the legitimate use of bnetd. That's the problem. They're not going after piracy - they're going after legitimate applications that they don't like.
Now, on to the "making some money" part... IF (by some cosmic accident) it suddendly becomes LEGAL to share with the world everything you ever bought (or worse, everything you ever downloaded)... imagine how the number of sales would plummet. And I'm not talking "music", I'm talking about everything that's storable on digital media.
Sharing illicit data, and specifically illegal copies of music, has been ongoing for years. But it had mostly been limited to a small set of technical users. Then came Napster. Napster opened up ability to share illegal copies of music to the masses. And what's more, it would seem that many were completely unaware that it was illegal to do so. At the least, few were concerned about being caught so the legality of their actions wasn't really a factor. What was going on with music sales during that time period? Record highs.
The genie is out of the bottle. The very demographics that the music industry targets with gusto continue to trade in illicit data. Yet they continue to buy - abliet not at the record levels enjoyed during Napster's hay-day.
It might be worth noting that this is all old hat. In past decades, Industry representatives anguished over other emerging technology. Each device was a doomsday - the radio, the cassette tape, the CD Writer.... Napster. Yet the music industry still stands.
Granted... times are changing.
Music has always been data. It's just that our technology caused us to focus rather heavily on the media that data came on. Which makes sense since it's a rather advanced concept to pay for something you can't touch. But things have changed. The music Industry needs to change too.
How do you compete with the illegal copies that don't have the same costs? The Music Industry knows how to do it - they've done it successfully in countries that do not recognize copyright. The answer is quality.
Napster and other fileshare systems have a major problem. Quality. Many rips are junk - bad copies riped by inexperienced amatures. Furthermore, you have no guarantee you'll be getting the file you wanted since the bandwidth involved is provided at the kindness of strangers. Imagine if you could go to a source and pay a nominal fee for guaranteed quality and bandwidth.
Sounds like iTunes.
Apple has done far more towards keeping music fans in the fold than RIAA's lawyers will ever manage. Now there's good business sense.
How do you suppose Macromedia manages to license software right now? Are there no "service providers" who offer services to desktop users? Having said that... imagine how well it'll go over if, say, DoCoMo rolled out a glitzy service depending on Flash... but requested that you take your brand new device and go install some additional software before it works. If the licensing for Flash is so onerous that service providers aren't willing to do business with Macromedia now, this isn't going to change anything for the better.
Not that I don't see the logic in what you're saying. It's just that you have to have a pretty screwed perception for it to seem sane. Someone at Macromedia needs to take a vacation.
The point is that if someone chooses a clsoed source license it should be respected, and if someone chooses an open source license it should be respected. Neither should be stolen.
At first I was confused by this statement. When did the conversation turn to stealing? Then I remembered one of your other posts in this thread. It would seem that its not really Open Source licensing NOR the philosphy behind it that you have an issue with. What you meant was you have an issue with reforming copyright law (even though its been under constant change). Although related, they're somewhat different issues.
It is hypocritical to enjoy the fruits of someone's capitalist labor and then attempt to take those fruits (a form of looting) and claim some philosophical justification.
What an interesting thing to claim. What you would call "hypocritical", others refer to as "business." Capitalism is presented as much as a philosophy as an economic structure. And it is full of examples of those who take the fruits of other's capitalistic labor and profit from them, even outright looting them.
Don't mislead yourself in to thinking that this is something specific to Free Software / OSS. Remember QDOS.
"Follow the money" is not proof. Although, it does give you a place to start looking. But then you've got to actually look and uncover evidence.
I agree that Microsoft is a prime suspect. They certainly have the history and savvy to pull something like that off. But it doesn't make them guilty. Again - where's the proof?
Paul Graham wrote an interesting piece that's appeared on Slashdot before. In it, he describes the rather simple method to uncovering the source of planted trend stories - "press hits":
The secret to finding other press hits from a given pitch is to realize that they all started from the same document back at the PR firm. Search for a few key phrases and the names of the clients and the experts, and you'll turn up other variants of this story.
That might be a bit simplistic for our purposes here. The "anti-Google" sentiment isn't a single concept or story. But it could still be possible to go over the various stories, look for the quoted experts, and then track back to see if there's any links. Whether they lead to Microsoft or not.
Googletalk - if microsoft released this app they would have been shredded to pieces
It's a little early to be likening Google to Doubleclick, isn't it? I agree the potential may be there. And articles that point out the potential for abuse are well deserved. But Google has, up to this point, behaved rather differently than Doubleclick.
What???? The general sentiment is NOT that Google=good. You've been listening to too much propaganda and paid Slashvertisements.
I suppose it's an issue of perception. In my neck of the woods, the general sentiment IS that "Google=good". What background makes your "general sentiment" different than mine might make for an interesting comparison.
It might also be noted that the parent post was questioning the source of this "growing feeling" you're describing. Is it genuine or planted? Trying to figure that out might have a lot to do with that comparison I mentioned.
Incidently, I agree that it's unrealistic to think that everyone would like Google. But I find it rather amusing that while criticizing this mistake, you attribute such a belief to arrogance and brainwashing.
Neither Ctrl+Alt+arrow to switch to another workspace nor copy/paste work in NWN Linux client.
I'm positive I was able to switch virtual desktops with the NWN client. Unfortunately, I don't have the client available right now since I've swapped out that drive - I'll have to try it once I've got it back.
Also, Radeon binary drivers won't let me run 2 X sessions at once, unfortunately (and I can't use the open ones with 9600XT); and even if they did, copy/paste wouldn't work between X sessions anyway, I think.
I wasn't aware that the Radeon server doesn't allow multiple sessions. I'm glad I've got an nVidia card.:) In any case - you're right. I don't think it would solve your copy-and-paste issue.
Use your virtual desktops or run NWN in its own X session. It's been... well... almost a year since I last played NWN, so I can't remember how copy-and-paste worked. But I ran my session in a virtual window and just ctrl-alt-arrow'd to another desktop. I do the same with WoW (and I know I can copy-and-paste there).
Those who didn't miss the irony in my post may appreciate the fact that the laptops in question were manufactored by Apple. And Apple is a company founded by individuals who partook in simular activities as those that the parent poster claims would be the downfall of our society. It might be noted that these types of people are not unique in the Valley or the IT industry in general.
These kids aren't angels...and whoops - there was consequences for their illegal actions..oh and to make sure everyone here gets that. These kids committed a crime.
You're right. Hardened felons, all of them. Criminals. Malcontents. Society can't possbily function with these kinds of challenges to authority... much less the status quo. Fly out the window, indeed! Thankfully, this kind of spirit has been identified early and, we can only hope, properly quashed. The last thing we need is any of the kind of insanity that lead to the shennanigans in Silicon Valley.
Slashdot Mirror
During the IRC chat, there was a mortitorium on Linux questions. Obviously, the chat moderators and developers didn't want to get in to some pissing contest with a beligerant Linux "advocate". However, I managed to get my comment in due to it being the end of the session and, I believe, because I wasn't beligerant. My comment was to thank Bioware for NWN despite the problems and a hope that Bioware hasn't abandoned the platform.
It probably fell on deaf ears.
Bioware demonstrated that they didn't have the expertise to pull off a proper release of NWN. Criticism of that expertise were appropriate. I would hope Bioware has a thick enough skin to take the criticism. They are in the gaming industry - a place where snarky criticism isn't just a niche but a part of the culture.
Incidently, let me stress something I touched on. The zealotry isn't unique to Linux users. I was rather amused at the last petition to Blizzard for a World of Warcraft Linux client. Apparent Linux users were rather calm and polite. The rest was Windows zealots spewing for the kind of abuse that is always attributed to Linux zealotry. Zealotry knows no bounds it would seem.
Don't get me wrong - there's no advantage to being beligerant when requesting support for one's favorite platform. Linux advocates should remain polite. But at the same time, I doubt zealotry is really any reason to avoid any given platform. It hasn't been in the past.
True. But again... use of the application in an illegal act does not negate the legitimate use of the application.
Let me stress this. Just because you can use something to commit a crime does not mean we should ignore the legitimate use of it and make it illegal.
I haven't seen Slashdot (as if there's one voice - but I digress) get up in arms at the announcement of busted counterfeit rings. What does tend to draw ire is selling out public rights to corporate interests (extending copyright, DRM, DMCA, etc) and draconian attempts to curb "piracy" by going after small-time amateurs who aren't in the business of selling counterfeits.
And getting all riled up about GPLed software? Its a response to the system. If we're expected to honor the Copyright system... so should others.
While you may not agree with these views (not everyone on Slashdot does), it doesn't seem to be as hypocrytical as you would imply.
The EFF is not pretending that Copyright infringement isn't going to happen. I certainly haven't heard them make the claim (unlike the RIAA claiming to be protecting artists). Rather, it's an issue of what degree of actions are appropriate to pursue infringement. And, more to the point, how much of the public's rights are eroded in that pursuit.
Again - bnetd has legitimate use. That's the issue. If bnetd was a key generator, I would be more inclined to agree with the point. But that's not the case.
Let's ignore the point about competition. Even if Blizzards entire intent is to impact the functionality of illegal copies of their games, it doesn't matter. Just because something has an illegal use is not enough to warrent making the device itself illegal.
Companies spend money for all manner of reasons. Sometimes there's good numbers behind it. Sometimes it's only on perception. The fact that they're spending money on this case proves nothing.
I was in a IRC chat with Bioware developers discussing NWN 2. At that time, there were no plans for a Linux client. And they were rather... chilly when asked about it. That's the only reason I even mentioned them.
Buy two copies of your favorite Blizzard tittle that uses BattleNet. Fire up bnetd. Connect two copies to bnetd. Voila. Legitimate use.
Not exactly flawlessly. But interesting point otherwise.
As an aside - one of the best ways to get Blizzard (and Bioware come to think of it) all spikey is to mention Linux. To be fair - its probably got to do with Linux zealotry... although if you want to really get the Windows zealots going, put up a petition for a Linux client in the WoW forum.
What's your reference to this disassembly and examination of code? Blizzard has claimed this due to some of the oddities of bnetd's behavior (replicating bugs in how it behaves). However, others claim otherwise. From Lawmeme's writeup:
Keep in mind that decompiling and disassembling itself is not illegal. However, it is a dangerous thing to do since it opens the reverse engineer to claims of copyright infringement if the outcome is too close to the origional. This is why most reverse engineering activities involve two different teams - one that picks apart the item and documents how it behaves and nother who implements the specification as outlined by the first team.
By the way... data doesn't have to be text to be recordable and replicatable - "raw data" or not.
Trying to crack down on piracy in this manner ignores the legitimate use of bnetd. That's the problem. They're not going after piracy - they're going after legitimate applications that they don't like.
Sharing illicit data, and specifically illegal copies of music, has been ongoing for years. But it had mostly been limited to a small set of technical users. Then came Napster. Napster opened up ability to share illegal copies of music to the masses. And what's more, it would seem that many were completely unaware that it was illegal to do so. At the least, few were concerned about being caught so the legality of their actions wasn't really a factor. What was going on with music sales during that time period? Record highs.
The genie is out of the bottle. The very demographics that the music industry targets with gusto continue to trade in illicit data. Yet they continue to buy - abliet not at the record levels enjoyed during Napster's hay-day.
It might be worth noting that this is all old hat. In past decades, Industry representatives anguished over other emerging technology. Each device was a doomsday - the radio, the cassette tape, the CD Writer.... Napster. Yet the music industry still stands.
Granted... times are changing.
Music has always been data. It's just that our technology caused us to focus rather heavily on the media that data came on. Which makes sense since it's a rather advanced concept to pay for something you can't touch. But things have changed. The music Industry needs to change too.
How do you compete with the illegal copies that don't have the same costs? The Music Industry knows how to do it - they've done it successfully in countries that do not recognize copyright. The answer is quality.
Napster and other fileshare systems have a major problem. Quality. Many rips are junk - bad copies riped by inexperienced amatures. Furthermore, you have no guarantee you'll be getting the file you wanted since the bandwidth involved is provided at the kindness of strangers. Imagine if you could go to a source and pay a nominal fee for guaranteed quality and bandwidth.
Sounds like iTunes.
Apple has done far more towards keeping music fans in the fold than RIAA's lawyers will ever manage. Now there's good business sense.
How do you suppose Macromedia manages to license software right now? Are there no "service providers" who offer services to desktop users? Having said that... imagine how well it'll go over if, say, DoCoMo rolled out a glitzy service depending on Flash... but requested that you take your brand new device and go install some additional software before it works. If the licensing for Flash is so onerous that service providers aren't willing to do business with Macromedia now, this isn't going to change anything for the better.
Not that I don't see the logic in what you're saying. It's just that you have to have a pretty screwed perception for it to seem sane. Someone at Macromedia needs to take a vacation.
At first I was confused by this statement. When did the conversation turn to stealing? Then I remembered one of your other posts in this thread. It would seem that its not really Open Source licensing NOR the philosphy behind it that you have an issue with. What you meant was you have an issue with reforming copyright law (even though its been under constant change). Although related, they're somewhat different issues.
...and nobody is forced to license code under an Open Source (GPL or otherwise) license. Sounds like the same game to me.
What an interesting thing to claim. What you would call "hypocritical", others refer to as "business." Capitalism is presented as much as a philosophy as an economic structure. And it is full of examples of those who take the fruits of other's capitalistic labor and profit from them, even outright looting them.
Don't mislead yourself in to thinking that this is something specific to Free Software / OSS. Remember QDOS.
Now THAT's funny. ;)
Good point. However, Google also sells a search appliance w/ maintenance service.
I agree that Microsoft is a prime suspect. They certainly have the history and savvy to pull something like that off. But it doesn't make them guilty. Again - where's the proof?
Paul Graham wrote an interesting piece that's appeared on Slashdot before. In it, he describes the rather simple method to uncovering the source of planted trend stories - "press hits":
That might be a bit simplistic for our purposes here. The "anti-Google" sentiment isn't a single concept or story. But it could still be possible to go over the various stories, look for the quoted experts, and then track back to see if there's any links. Whether they lead to Microsoft or not.
It's a little early to be likening Google to Doubleclick, isn't it? I agree the potential may be there. And articles that point out the potential for abuse are well deserved. But Google has, up to this point, behaved rather differently than Doubleclick.
I suppose it's an issue of perception. In my neck of the woods, the general sentiment IS that "Google=good". What background makes your "general sentiment" different than mine might make for an interesting comparison.
It might also be noted that the parent post was questioning the source of this "growing feeling" you're describing. Is it genuine or planted? Trying to figure that out might have a lot to do with that comparison I mentioned.
Incidently, I agree that it's unrealistic to think that everyone would like Google. But I find it rather amusing that while criticizing this mistake, you attribute such a belief to arrogance and brainwashing.
Linux desktops can do the same thing with SuperKaramba. And, of course, OSX desktops had Konfabulator before any of this.
I'm positive I was able to switch virtual desktops with the NWN client. Unfortunately, I don't have the client available right now since I've swapped out that drive - I'll have to try it once I've got it back.
I wasn't aware that the Radeon server doesn't allow multiple sessions. I'm glad I've got an nVidia card.
Use your virtual desktops or run NWN in its own X session. It's been... well... almost a year since I last played NWN, so I can't remember how copy-and-paste worked. But I ran my session in a virtual window and just ctrl-alt-arrow'd to another desktop. I do the same with WoW (and I know I can copy-and-paste there).
Those who didn't miss the irony in my post may appreciate the fact that the laptops in question were manufactored by Apple. And Apple is a company founded by individuals who partook in simular activities as those that the parent poster claims would be the downfall of our society. It might be noted that these types of people are not unique in the Valley or the IT industry in general.
You're right. Hardened felons, all of them. Criminals. Malcontents. Society can't possbily function with these kinds of challenges to authority... much less the status quo. Fly out the window, indeed! Thankfully, this kind of spirit has been identified early and, we can only hope, properly quashed. The last thing we need is any of the kind of insanity that lead to the shennanigans in Silicon Valley.