Join the club... however, it's still being negotiated so I think every bit of support will help in the long run provided it is done in a professional manner.
I just don't understand how you can have OpenSource but be forced to sign an NDA for technical data. How are you supposed to legally distribute source code that contains information covered by an NDA? After reading the responses to the article it seems this is not over yet.
I don't think I can count the number of companies that have made this mistake before. I remember way back when Creative Labs wouldn't release information for direct programming of their SoundBlaster cards; just a cruddy SDK/library you could call from C/Pascal. Well, what happened? Some enterprising hacker just reverse engineered it, wrote his own sound driver in ASM, and released the source. Similar things have happened with so many products. If people are using it and someone wants to write a driver badly enough, there are ways of obtaining the information.
If these companies really believe that their competitors can't do the same thing a 12 year old kid did to get the info, then they deserve whatever they get. I wish they could just see how stupid they are being and save the rest of us some time!
I had Verizon DSL for about a year before I switched to another provider. The only reason I switched was because I wanted a faster upstream speed. The honest truth is that the service was quite good. Speeds were up to par and I can only remember 1 or 2 short outtages for the year.
It seems common place these days (at least here in NY) to blame Verizon for everything. Every DSL provider has to go through Verizon's equipment at some point, so why is it that some have much more trouble than others? As much as I dislike the monopoly that Verizon is trying SO HARD to hang on to, I still find it quite unfair of a company such as Covad to slander them with lies and fake reports. That rates pretty low in my book.
x86 not a substitute for MIPS
on
Linux and Shrek
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· Score: 2
I don't see any mention in the article about the use of x86 based machines. It would seem that many people here are making the assumption that all of these companies are dumping their high-end workstations in favor of an Intel or AMD based machine/farm/cluster or whatever. Don't kid yourself. The big issue here is software licensing. The folks who are buying these $20,000 machines don't want to shell out another couple of grand for software. That's perfectly understandable and actually a pretty good idea. Take advantage of the fact that the open-source community has already done a lot of your work.
The Linux version of Netscape is miserable. It has messed up my X desktop more times than I care to comment on. I'm glad to see a large entity like RedHat move in and support Mozilla. With MS and Netscape continually in standards wars, maybe now we'll have a common point to focus upon.
I don't know if games are really the main attraction to PCs. If they are, well then I know a lot of people who would like to know about it. I personally think that a lot of what makes games good in Windows is also what makes it slow for the rest of us "non-gamers"... all those damn APIs, DLLs, etc. just sucking up memory and hard drive space. I guess we are getting into that classic battle of mainstream vs. power users vs. everyone else who uses a computer.
I'm not so sure that even if Linux ran their games the gamers would come along. I think there are a lot more issues that need to be addressed. In fact, can Linux ever really be 100% mainstream while still maintaining it's ideals?
but what game company these days really has the time to sit there and port to everyone's favorite operating system? When I wanted to play Mario 64 what did I do? I went out and bought an N64. When I wanted to play Oddworld I bought a Playstation. I didn't want to wait around for ports.
The game companies were benefiting as well as the console manufacturers. When it comes to Linux, who is going to benefit? If a game comes out and only supports Linux do you think everyone is going to switch to Linux just to play it? Maybe the diehard geeks but nobody else will.
WineX is probably the best solution for the time being. It saves companies valuable time/money and throws Linux gamers a bone at the same time.
Even though I'm as big a Linux geek as the next guy on Slashdot, I can't help but wonder why people are still pushing the issue of porting games to Linux. As Linux users we must face the fact that we are STILL in the minority. Computers are so cheap these days that it's probably a lot easier to go buy a cheap PC, slap Windows on it, and run your games. Porting software is just too costly and time consuming... and more often than not the ports turn out to be total crap in comparison to the original item. I honestly don't see the need to run games on Linux. I'd love to kick Bill Gates in the arse and send him cyring to his mommy, but right now if I were developing games again (fat chance) I'd probably just stick to Windows. I can understand that there are probably many purists out there who will flame the hell out of me for saying it, but just play your games in Windows already! Or maybe go get yourself a Playstation or something.
are pretty routine in the computer industry. I think Slashdot taking a poll is probably much more biased toward longer hours. Take a poll of say your average construction worker, mailman, or car salesman and you might find they go to work every day at 9AM, have lunch at 12PM, take a crap at 4PM, and go home by 4:59PM. I'd say the statistics are probably fairly correct in saying a good number of people work longer hours, but does that really mean most people do?
I bet there are plenty of people out there who would enjoy such a thing:)
Maybe if we created some sort of BioSphere like thing and put all of the AOL users in there... they could all just spam each other.
By constantly pissing on developers or anyone else who tries to do something innovative with their computers, Apple is just making it harder for themselves in the hostile tech market. This kind of mentality is what made me sell my Apple IIGS and forget it.
Slashdot Mirror
Join the club... however, it's still being negotiated so I think every bit of support will help in the long run provided it is done in a professional manner.
I just don't understand how you can have OpenSource but be forced to sign an NDA for technical data. How are you supposed to legally distribute source code that contains information covered by an NDA? After reading the responses to the article it seems this is not over yet.
Hehe yeah that was great stuff. I bet if you tried anything like that today someone would probably sue you.
If these companies really believe that their competitors can't do the same thing a 12 year old kid did to get the info, then they deserve whatever they get. I wish they could just see how stupid they are being and save the rest of us some time!
It seems common place these days (at least here in NY) to blame Verizon for everything. Every DSL provider has to go through Verizon's equipment at some point, so why is it that some have much more trouble than others? As much as I dislike the monopoly that Verizon is trying SO HARD to hang on to, I still find it quite unfair of a company such as Covad to slander them with lies and fake reports. That rates pretty low in my book.
I don't see any mention in the article about the use of x86 based machines. It would seem that many people here are making the assumption that all of these companies are dumping their high-end workstations in favor of an Intel or AMD based machine/farm/cluster or whatever. Don't kid yourself. The big issue here is software licensing. The folks who are buying these $20,000 machines don't want to shell out another couple of grand for software. That's perfectly understandable and actually a pretty good idea. Take advantage of the fact that the open-source community has already done a lot of your work.
Hey foolio... why don't you read my post instead of flaming me? I'll spell it out: N-E-T-S-C-A-P-E crashes.
The Linux version of Netscape is miserable. It has messed up my X desktop more times than I care to comment on. I'm glad to see a large entity like RedHat move in and support Mozilla. With MS and Netscape continually in standards wars, maybe now we'll have a common point to focus upon.
I'm not so sure that even if Linux ran their games the gamers would come along. I think there are a lot more issues that need to be addressed. In fact, can Linux ever really be 100% mainstream while still maintaining it's ideals?
The game companies were benefiting as well as the console manufacturers. When it comes to Linux, who is going to benefit? If a game comes out and only supports Linux do you think everyone is going to switch to Linux just to play it? Maybe the diehard geeks but nobody else will.
WineX is probably the best solution for the time being. It saves companies valuable time/money and throws Linux gamers a bone at the same time.
Even though I'm as big a Linux geek as the next guy on Slashdot, I can't help but wonder why people are still pushing the issue of porting games to Linux. As Linux users we must face the fact that we are STILL in the minority. Computers are so cheap these days that it's probably a lot easier to go buy a cheap PC, slap Windows on it, and run your games. Porting software is just too costly and time consuming... and more often than not the ports turn out to be total crap in comparison to the original item. I honestly don't see the need to run games on Linux. I'd love to kick Bill Gates in the arse and send him cyring to his mommy, but right now if I were developing games again (fat chance) I'd probably just stick to Windows. I can understand that there are probably many purists out there who will flame the hell out of me for saying it, but just play your games in Windows already! Or maybe go get yourself a Playstation or something.
are pretty routine in the computer industry. I think Slashdot taking a poll is probably much more biased toward longer hours. Take a poll of say your average construction worker, mailman, or car salesman and you might find they go to work every day at 9AM, have lunch at 12PM, take a crap at 4PM, and go home by 4:59PM. I'd say the statistics are probably fairly correct in saying a good number of people work longer hours, but does that really mean most people do?
I bet there are plenty of people out there who would enjoy such a thing :)
Maybe if we created some sort of BioSphere like thing and put all of the AOL users in there... they could all just spam each other.
I like the comments about scanning your competitors job listings hehe... very clever. Don't get frightened by the Oracle guys bwahahah
By constantly pissing on developers or anyone else who tries to do something innovative with their computers, Apple is just making it harder for themselves in the hostile tech market. This kind of mentality is what made me sell my Apple IIGS and forget it.