Not at all. It's sad that ogl plays catchup to directx, but it does have feature-matching releases (they're aiming for every 6 months atm). This continual feature lag is bad for ogl, but not quite so bad if MS are kicking themselves in the side with dx10. Their inaction is set to level the playing field for a longer period than if directx was improved upon on XP.
I'm no opengl politics guy but what I really want is set for the subsequent release to opengl 3 named Mount Evans. OpenGL 3, while a great shift to a more oop-friendly container/abstraction orientated structure, is not offering the "jewels" we don't already have. Studios already have glsl packers and plugins architectures; translating them to conform to a new specification, without the benefit of extra value added features, seems like a pre-empted waste of time. Often its better to wait and code from a solid base.
Instancing, geometry shaders and fast critical paths are just some of the developments DX10 has to offer developers with an eye on better games... and we're not seeing any of them on XP. The OpenGL ARB, while faster under the purview of the Khronos group, still lags behind the direct-x pace of adoption.
Does Microsoft know they are driving developers onto the PS3 by forcing the adoption of OpenGL on XP... ultimately a lead in to OpenGL ES - the standards compliant graphics API of choice for the PS3.
OpenGL 3 will be officially granted ARB status by the Khronos group come the end of September - if Microsoft still hasn't gotten their act together, they might find the next big start-up with a game engine to offer won't be using DX, and won't be an exclusive 360 product!
What a clever move. If I had a successful software protocol up my sleeve, with strong replication authority (ie: what we do, everyone else does), that relies on other clients to maintain the network: i would seriously rethinking pushing them out.
Maybe I completely missed the point in capitalism 101, but why do you have to pay to go to the beach?
With the exception of a few private beaches attached to sea-side hotels, I don't think I've ever, or will ever, pay to go to a beach. The concept sounds ridiculous to my European brain:(
Avoid information degrees like the plague. They're half assed awards aiming at the market a poor programer will find easy - mostly web systems. I believe in a hierarchy of programming and sadly the information or enterprise courses aim to make web monkeys - web monkeys find it harder to breakout of their web niche which is quickly becoming over populated with causal programmers (who are coming more and more skilled!) such as college grads and drop outs.
I did a software engineering degree with electronics (Computer Systems)... Most of my computing modules were all Computer Science, the rest were extended project classes, instead of more pointless CS with distracting formal theory. Quite often the formal theory is there to make the theory more abstract and thus something to teach, when it shouldn't be any harder than memorising precedent and flow.
A lot of universities offering CS courses should really be rename them to Software Engineering. My best advice would be to check the course syllabus and and pick one with a strong software engineering focus, and plenty of time to do that "wow" dissertation you want.
If you can't talk about your dissertation in geek, it's probably not specialised enough. Some of my "peers" created a DVD, others a website, and one a relational back end to a portal... I'm ashamed to admit that because they used some formal theory (ie: design models) the could score highly. To date I believe none of them understand the languages they used nor the concepts they copied. The standard of code was also extremely poor.:(
1? Linis is showing his irrelevance to Open Source again. I feel betrayed. But thats too flamebait/trolly, and more feeling than substance for/.
2! Linis is opening a hole for Solaris - and I really like Solaris... Really really like it. Infact, I've compared lxr and solaris code back to back for fun! Polished, clean and functional code.
I'm not a huge Sun fan, tho I understood Sun's old issues on tethering Java for example. I am developer tho, and I like the idea of clean systems. I like the idea of sexy code - sun employed code formatters notwithstanding. If Solaris leapfrogged Linux and released a dual licensed GPL2 / GPL3 versions, it'd be a wet dream for most people.
There'd be an extensive GPL3 patchset that would slowly grow to make a very functional modern OS - academia would finally take to Linux as a teaching tool (most lecturers I've talked to regarding the kernel see it as nice. Unfinished as minix is, its the unfinished nature that makes it an effective learning tool).
One would imaging a GPL2 release would slowly mature at the pace embedded manufacturers desire (really slowly, so they dont have to allocate many developers!)...
I feel that there are a lot of software engineering areas where you don't need much in the way of maths experience - just logical thinking. Most real world math related implementations I've done haven't relied on a high level of maths... linear interpolation and solving quadratics are probably as "tricky" as math goes outside of academia... but...
That's not the end of it. I've also done a lot of image manipulation work, and you NEED a good math background when you step over simple 2d convolution filters. Knowing your physics also helps - being able to identify trends and patterns in wave forms, and then applying the necessary maths is a great help. When dging into aliasing and reconstruction now, not just filtering, a high math proficiency is a must.
I've taken to game programming recently. If you know your maths, the physics comes easily. If you know your maths, specially advance vector and matrix theory (with integration and differentiation being prerequisites), things become a breeze. I didnt know enough. And I still struggled from time to time today. Experience is helping me, but sometimes I wish I had a math background to roll on.
I guess my ramblings are leading to a poor conclusion. Without maths you're limited in what you can do - but you're only limited by lateral field... In most cases you can take an specific soft eng field and go to town without hitting maths. I'm a very good software engineering and reverser, and I gotten here without having a math background. When I wanted to expand into games programming and image processing, things became much harder without the math.
With all that said, I'm very very guilty of obscuring simple procedures with valid but pointless math - and I know for a fact there's too much pointless formal theory in computer science now. The pointless formal theory is actually what push me away from doing a masters in computer science, and find something more vocational and rewarding!
There are two aspects where the law applies directly to this... that I can think of.
First of all, is the performance. By performing a piece of work, he exposes himself to the performance side of copyright law. Thankfully, this is entirely on his side. If he performs a piece of work without modifying or changing it, and acknowledges the copyright holder, he's entirely in his own right. Public performance without modification is completely legal - hence cover bands. Once you change a part, you create a derivative or modification. At that point you're no longer under fair use -
If you change the works, then suddenly require a licence from the copyright holder.
Now, there could be another aspect. Copyrighted music also has a print form. ie: on screen display and the guys website. If he's using substantial parts but minimal from the entirety - ie: licks - one could easily argue fair use because he's promoting the actual display in an educational stance in order to substantiate something (learning!)... BoingBoing recently ran a Disney mash-up that explains copyright and fair use... using Disney exerts.
There's a clear cut grey area with sheet music. You as a person can make a performing work, and copyright it (without registry!). If you were to listen to a song, learn it by ear (knowledge is not copyrightable), and then pen that song (as completely your own work) you would be the rights holder. Should it happen to sound fairly similar to another piece of work, that's their problem. In all likelihood there will be differences in the metre, key or vibrato. The degree that your rendition of a song differs from that of another copyrighted piece, however, is a case for court...
Correct me if im wrong please. I'm supposed to be doing the law conversion course in a few months!
As far as I know, copyright law goes something like this. The rights holder is granted a limited monopoly. This right is as such that it stops entities recreating your property. Later on this incorporated the distribution of copyrighted material - ie: you must have the original covering, you must not resale, or identify as your own. Copyright became a right to distribute only the work as the work, and resell only as an item (ie: you can sell a book to a friend, but not the story or change the form of the story).
Copyright doesn't extend into the home. Private affiars, as long as non commerical, are outside the privee of most laws. And if I remember correctly the supreme court ruled (i've been reading a lot of Lessig's work!) that once the intarweb cable enters the home, it is a private affair - ie: you can connect what ever box to the end you want to receive signals.
Take that a little further. If you are positioned to simply receive copyrighted content, you are doing nothing illegal if you are not trafficking. If you use a website to receive copyrighted content, you are also not doing anything illegal. Watching TV, which comprises of 99.999% copyrighted works, is not, to my knowledge, illegal.
So how is receiving (downloading) a pirate movie illegal if it is not stolen, not a bootleg or modified work, not involved in terrorism???
On the back of recent news that less than half of Vista "issues" have been patched, yet alone publicly announced, we get another article touting the merits of two things that can't be directly compared.
Sometimes I see Open Source kicking itself in the face with all the transparency it offers, yet I'm overwhelmed with a sense of pride and happiness that communities can develop such a transparent process in the public eye.
Discovering problems and exploiting them in a closed source product is quite a daunting task - I'd say almost 4 times as much work as exploiting a system where you can compile debug symbols into the binary, and nothing short of 1000 times harder than if you had the source code. What these "reports" and discoveries show is that layers of obfuscation act to confuse people as to the actual level of vulnerability you're exposed to.
There are many vulnerability hunters out there, now, employed by governments across the world simply to "dive in" at a deepend of closed applications looking for exploitable code - closed source simply means that only wealthy, bigger teams will be successful. Open Source means that anyone can help thwart these hunters, makes vulnerability research fair game, and most importantly, accepts community involvement into the fixing and pre-emptive policy that makes OS software better software.
Is stupidity abound or something? The comment from the article about copying multi gigabyte images is ludicrous and makes one ask if the guy has ever used a VM let alone knows anything about the basics of DRM.
First things firsts. Virtualization means that the physical hardware and virtual hardware are not linked. That means, in no simpler language, if you want to use a TV, monitor recording device or whatnot to view your VM: you can, and the VM doesn't know. This is a technological threat to DRM implementations inside a VM, because they cant guarentee the path outside the VM.
Why you would copy potentially dangerous VM images from one PC to another when you could simple capture the output, i don't know.
Once upon a time NES ROM carts implemented their own I/O multiplexing - the vast majority still aren't emulated today because it's tedious work. Guest OSes inside VMs will continue to find ways of obfuscating their data (after all the guest inside a VM doesn't even have to be the same architecture as the host!)... its anybody's game once you're outside of the Guest.
MS don't want people to virtualize their software for the same reason DRM is a CEOs best friend: they can charge more for less restrictions.
If you have to pay $100 extra for the Ultimate or Pro versions of Vista to get virtualization, and people want virtualization, it can be seen as a valuable extra. Extras, not to be confused with added value, increase price premiums through added cost to the purchasing party.
However, the meat of the issue is not that people spoke out about DRM in such obvious and clear cut language, touting the anti-competitive stance MS has taken, but bloggers and writers are steering the focus to Linux which is offering a mirad of virtualizations for free. The only sensible stance is to do the same - just like MS did with VirtualPC... MS can't afford to be completely leapfrogged in any area.
The thing the irks me is that people are constantly barking up the wrong tree with regards to industry ties with companies and DRM. The "MAFIAA" (as it's been put) is convincing companies to make DRM provisions, but they can't force the implementation on to end users if companies can't/don't want to/disagree. MS allowing virtualization is nothing more than a technology response to Linux. No one is warming to DRM, DRM is not dying any time soon. This is market forces at work. Granted market forces are slow, and cause no end of problems for us now...
Open source projects that succeed usually have a single purpose, and fill a niche. Because Blender does absolutely everything I can think of (it forgets to put sugar in my tea, tho), it's become complex. Complexity often shadows functionality - as things get more complex, they must be redesigned to make them functional. (imo, Gnome got it wrong and started to remove definable functionality rather than redesign input)...
There's a reason everyone takes Human centric computing modules now - they're useful!
If some of these other products started focusing on niche markets that are useful to its users - say, for example, game developers - they'd start to make an impact.
Take http://www.zootfly.com/tect.html for instance. Zootfly seem to have encompassed everything I need right now in a design and modelling tool - because its focused directly at computer games. To non-game developers, say animation modellers, it might not offer quite what they need, but at least it will lay a foundation for them to build on, or at least the community to react and copy.
Its funny - there's a trend-
Good Open Source code gets redesigned. Good Open Source code becomes a useful product. Becomes Successful. Expands and adds features. Becomes overwhelming. Is less functional at specific tasks than before/standalone projects. Some may say the linux Kernel is taking that path - but it's a lucky project, system-nucleolus-level implementation is very specific, and one can't avoid contributing to the kernel when adding low level features.
Look at ZBrush. It costs nearly £400? That's a lot of money for essentially a glorified 3D painting package. Sharp3D, an open source ZBrush-like tool (that I've yet to make work), is similar in respect, but needs more attention. Blender has texture baking and painting functions, but I don't know how to use blender, I just want something textured now, while I prototype. Blender's complete set of functionality is scaring me away!
I'd use Rhino3D (shareware) over blender at the moment, simply because I find it's stuck to its NURBS goal, and not gone to far off the niche mark.
Unlike MMORGs which are controlled almost entirely by server side user agents, first person shooters very vulnerable to cheating.
There are, even now, dozens of "hacks" that work with counterstrike - the most inventive give on screen itinerary information about players (which you can see through translucent walls) a la Deux Ex!
Allow me to ramble...
COD similarly suffers from cheaters. A sponsored (paid!) COD2 player was recently "discovered" cheating after a commercial hack manufacturer had their website's database exposed via a phpbb (iirc?) vulnerability. The happy-hacker was an admin at a gaming forum and compared the email addresses gleened from the site to ones registered on his forum... and tada, one of the biggest names in COD2 was a known cheat user... he even PAID $200 for it. (private cheats are almost always undetected)
Anti-cheat techniques often fail. VAC (now VAC2) - the Vale AntiCheat plugin - is notorious for being easy to sidle past. Other commercial varients such as Punk Buster either no longer support the games you want to play, or offer only a small degree better detection than the game manufacturer.
I was on a COD2 server last night, and Punk Buster kicked in doing a check, and the number of players went down from 20 to 3.
I may be wrong here, but the BF2 patches, compared to the release client, have seriously stepped up the anti-cheat detection. Alt-tabbing out of the game or running background processes on a single processor machine can make BF2 unbreakable as PunkBuster threads kick in to scan the system.
Most attempts at tracking and hashing memory have failed - there's too much ram on PCs nowadays! Without OS-level write handlers its very hard to track subversive programs. And I'm not even going to mention game-based "hacks" such as enabling the alpha channel on Valve textures (vtf files have a.txt filed associated with enabling this trivial hack!)...
Then there's always the driver. Seeing as there are so many ogl implementations and extended vendor drivers (ie: NGO drivers for nvidia hardware etc) it would be impossible to market a game that requires signed drivers!
Lets talk about the UK counter-strike scene for a sec...
C4U - See For Yourself - were, by all means, a talented clan. However, they fielded two known AND CAUGHT hackers for some time, Kritical, and Willzooo (less the l33tisms in their handles). I went to the UKs biggest lan event a few weeks back, as a gamer, only to find in none other than the counter-strike tournament, Kritical and Willzooo... To make my disgust worst, they were PLAYING for the UKs formost and successful sponsored team - Team Dignitas! http://www.team-dignitas.org/ - they're sponsored by Intel and Creative, and I can assure you these guys get a monthly salary for playing computer games (not to mention the hardware)...
So there you have it. Cheating is interlaced within the gaming community, ex-cheaters who have been banned from competitions and ridiculed by the community are forgotten about in only a matter of months, and later find themselves paid to play games.
There is no incentive not to cheat. It is ludicrous to bet on something where you cannot tell if someone is cheating or not.
I've been debating for a while now whether i want to get an XBox 1 to stream videos etc off the lan at home. At it stands, neither cd changers, dvd changers or "media pcs" have really made me happier or content easier to access. We have far too many controls at home, far too many user interfaces, and stupidly crippled hardware (we've got a sony dvd/harddisc-based recorder that doesn't interface with any kind of tv catalogue - useless!)...
I've seen a modded xbox happily navigate windows' shares, ftps, even RSS feeds, and even download videos from the net on the fly. I've seen them transparently mount.isos, decompress rars and zip files. Amazing stuff. No software players I've seen yet can do this.
Here's the crux tho: the Neuros OSD is ~ $200... I can get an xbox for £50 (~notalot) with games and a controller, then softmod it to my specs in a few hours. I know what the xbox does, ive seen it do it.
If the neuros had a 1gig ethernet port (im not sure it does?), i'd almost certainly invest simply to use it as a NAS (there's a mod for this on the OSD website) as I have 3 x 300Gb USB2 hdds lying around needing a gige link to justify disconnecting them from the PC.
I've seen other gige NASes around too, but they cost far too much. The xbox 1, of course, doesnt sport gige (does it?!). I suppose I could hard mod the xbox usb and plug in a usb gige adaptor, but does the xbox support usb2??
Nonetheless,
I personally think its fantastic seeing a product that wants to utilise OSS this way! I've long wondered why the proprietary vendors try to cut out modding if they're pricing their product to make money through sales (think wifi boxen etc - not xboxes, their business model needs you to buy games). Its weird when their product lines and life expectations usually fall far short of incorporating any "user inspired" features. I've yet to see "successive" versions of products actually take features from the unsupported mod market and sell in a new product. Clearly they're just trying to thawt innovation at home, because there's a very thin line between breading up a small SoC and selling it!
From a game development point of view, there are distinct differences between OGL and DX.
DX is more than just a graphics library - its a framework for engine development. OGL is only a graphics library - and it only lets you use the hardware you have (DX has quite a few handy emulation layers).
Unfortunately, OGL doesn't have the kind of supplemental stuff you'd really expect when prototyping or developing a game from scratch - i'm taking about as native format mesh loaders and converters (everything found in d3dx). Interestingly (and frustratingly), many of the d3dx routines aren't perfect and have their odd quirks. Some are plain not reliable, and most rarely return more than a null hDC when things do go wrong (this doesnt help debugging a mesh LOD reduction!)
OGL does support integer and float based indexing, whereas, afaik, DX only supports float.
Both support a wide range of colour formats - as expected.
Personally, the OGL viewports are easier to manipulate.
I find the continual loss of device in DX (through 'apparently' random context switching) annoying. You have to have a fairly large and complex recovery structure/path to commit states back to the gfx hardware.
I would say that OGL is consistent in its API naming, but as-is DX.
OGL is consistent in its interaction with GLSL (the pixel and vertex shader lanauge). I would also say DX is consistent with vertex and pixel shader manipulation too - except considering nVidia's quirky interaction between the sheets after compile (there's some kind of intermediate language and translation going on here, DX tends to break more than OGL - not something i've experienced myself tho).
If I was to code a game now, I would be happier using DX with D3DX, STL, and maybe some boost stuff rather than OGL, because I would have to code less of the engine - less loading/common manipulation routines - thanks to greater library support in DX...... BUT if a company i worked for was to code a game, and had enough cash to create an OGL-specific framework, I would use OpenGL. Why? It's quite simple - once you've created the framework to a renderer/game, the code-readability/RAD/speed of OGL and DX are evenly matched... yet OGL is portable.
As someone who thought they'd not find a good game after C&C or RA2, Starcraft and the expansion pack, Broodwar, was amazing. I finally got around to playing them 2+ years after everyone else but still really enjoyed the content and playability.
SC reminds me of the Dig - the cut scenes were just as epic, and voice acting superb... and the story-line: wow.
Deltree's c:\progra~1\common\xerox\porn Installs Lotus Smart Suite so my family have a use for the PC. Reveals the true identity of deep throat to the CIA. Emails my girlfriend and tells her to invest in SUN - those Java terminals coming out in the new millennium look amazing. Telnets into my workplace and installs a firewall for their own good. One of these days people will listen to my security concerns! Sends a letter to Tony Blair thanking him for all the time and effort he's spend ensuring the economical success of our country, education and health services. It also warns him about radical MP plans for Private Finance Initiatives and how they might bankrupt the NHS and MOD.
Unfortunately, a lot of people dont grasp the depth of computer games nowadays. If you google for a few SIGGRAPH or computer games conference papers from recent years, you see how complex its really getting. People in the industry know this and it throughly explains their arrogance... It just sucks when you're faced with it.
I think anyone can code simple stuff, but when people say they're coding something complex, they probably havent spent enough time on the design, or, they're using a lot of simple techniques in an overwhelming package (which often tends to clouds the actual complexity).
Ultimately I see myself coding for anyone who pays. If I finally make it into the games industry, especially without any content-creation skills (tho I can photoshop, its just not CAD), I'll be counting myself lucky to be spotted.
I generally spend my time reading LWN, dabbling with gdb trying to extend programs, and coding glue backends with perl.
My C and C++ skills are great. I was the best programming I knew at my undergrad course (computer systems)... I think in terms of the bits and bytes, fastest code paths and about the underlying processor architecture. I am simply a very good programmer. (and not so arrogant)
However. I started this course so I could do a portfolio. I known for a while that I have to learn and cover pixel and vertex shaders in my own time, and implement them in my MSc project (my BSc FYP was low level image process and it was bloody brilliant... No extern APIs!)...
Nottingham hosted a "game developers" thing, where you could meet some developers. All I can say is I think it was the worst organised "thing" I have ever attended. To compound the issues, the developers were dry and the one who did take my email did not email me back.
I've asked and asked; emailed and and emailed. All I want is a game development company to sponsor my masters thesis - I want someone to set the deliverables and give me an area on which to focus; I don't need monetary support... I want an aim!
Sadly, as I said, I never get replies. The one reply I've had was for 16-yearolds introducing computer games as a very hard subject for people with real degrees (note: i just got a f*cking Computer Systems degree from a Russell group uni [think ivy league])... *sigh*. It kinda sucks when I know that I know a helluvalot about the underlying processor systems than the people that flog me off...
So yes. I'm rambling but I have no respect for the system. I have no respect for learning anything other than more math as MSc level... It's algorithms you want. Try focusing on more linear algebra and itterative work (ie: some image processing - matricies)
Maybe put the money you'd spend on that MSc into a bank account... Live at home. Study game engines yourself... Ogre? Hell start with gwin... get some books (Mathetics for 3d Game Programming & Computer Graphics by Lengvel is a must but steep!)
I hope, i really do, that come October I'll be eating my own words, playing a wonderful prototype I've created.
Matt
(nb: browsing the quake 3 src and reading LKML/lwn or eric raymond's blog is a great way to expand your understanding of theories and practice)
nb: I've used Torex software, and my distant cousin is the exCEO of iSoft... but what I'm saying isnt biased, as I've never met him, but yeh.
Having worked with Torex software, at a GP surgery, I can say that the software is effective, but very dated. It works tho. You can get pathlabs direct from the local labs direct to the patients file, however, the software is hugely short sighted in user interface issues and in administration. For example - with GPs ordering, quite often, blood chem and heam at the same time, for many different patients, it's not unlikely that a surgery will see some 200 results in their labs "inbox". Sadly, the interface "did" not allow this information to be directly attached to a patients record. I had to setup a rather unstable mouse macro to perform a task that, realistically, should have been done automatically without the need for review (the only exception being exceptional records where patients cannot be matched to a record, temp NHS registrations for example)
What can individual GPs do about? Nothing. They simply must purchase software that uses an outdated GUI interface that is less effective than the green screen VTs they used. Most of the work that needs to be done should be simple dump and store. There was no way to contact iSoft/Torex (nee Torex Systems ?, they split from Torex at the take over I believe), even tho they had a development office only 8 miles down the road, and I'm related to their CEO.
The approach taken by the NHS was disastrous - they reused a company they knew had poor and outdated software. By allowing relatively inexperienced companies to bid on such a huge rollout was short sighted. Not allowing them any cashflow and making them penalize their supplies is down right fucking stupid. Anyone who has taken basic business or even filled in a tax form knows you cant run a business on cash advances - the balance sheets will never add up. No wonder providers pulled out when the saw astronomically negative balances. Torex compounded the issue with accounting "errors" in attempt to push the financial burden to the following year, thusly avoiding immediate fallout and allowing them to renegotiate the NHS contracts.
The NHS can save face, but only if they rethink the plan.
Oracle must provide the database backend. The NHS must provide redundant datacentres in conjunction with GPs. The backend must include onsite-databases (ie: each surgery has a copy of the patients records). When a hospital requires them, they are pulled in a relatively short time (seconds or minutes) from the holding surgery (GPs hold patients here, and they always have) Nightly updates should be sent to the master datacentres. A single server OS must be agree upon - all the old SCO systems should be replaced with something a little more modern. Solaries and enterprise Linux offerings are out there... A single "office setup" must be agree upon. MS Office seems logical. A single, standalone appointments system needs to be constructed, and simply "inform" the database backend via the internet Likewise, labs must use similar standalone systems that copy the data to the backend. Fundamentally, the whole backend should be internet based, IPv4 - encrypted yes. While at the same time as rolling out the system over IPv4, the backend that the NHS and politicians desire should be constructed (so that means wires laid across the length and breadth of the country), so that in the long run, endpoints can switch to a free interconnection medium.
Most the information a GP is going to interact with is too highly specific to normalize properly. They will deal with information about a patient, blobs. Nothing expensive is require to convert blob formats because, as blob/files, they can be read by the specific packages, and on update/write of blobs, individual packages should interface with a freely available API that can be tailored to update the master database. (yes, think OSS plugins for automagical Save-As!)
I am deeply concerned that I cannot seem to have a no-FUD-views homepage:( It's articles like this, from Daniel Lyons _once again_, that make me sad. The/. crowd seem to be off on a tangent, and I can see more flamebaits than positive criticism.
Just to join the debate, I really wish people would stop using the, "I (heart) Linus" approach: stop agreeing with the GPLv3 in its entirety and then saying, "Oh but switching isnt practical".
AND, while im on it, it'd be nice seeing more people acknowledge that RMS is a bad-bad-bad debater a little more often:(
(I speak of neither RMS' or Linus' views, just, people aren't that good at debating on/. either!)
Ahem. No one needs loyalty - but we do need a direction, through informed decisions.
Slashdot Mirror
Not at all. It's sad that ogl plays catchup to directx, but it does have feature-matching releases (they're aiming for every 6 months atm). This continual feature lag is bad for ogl, but not quite so bad if MS are kicking themselves in the side with dx10. Their inaction is set to level the playing field for a longer period than if directx was improved upon on XP.
I'm no opengl politics guy but what I really want is set for the subsequent release to opengl 3 named Mount Evans. OpenGL 3, while a great shift to a more oop-friendly container/abstraction orientated structure, is not offering the "jewels" we don't already have. Studios already have glsl packers and plugins architectures; translating them to conform to a new specification, without the benefit of extra value added features, seems like a pre-empted waste of time. Often its better to wait and code from a solid base.
Instancing, geometry shaders and fast critical paths are just some of the developments DX10 has to offer developers with an eye on better games... and we're not seeing any of them on XP. The OpenGL ARB, while faster under the purview of the Khronos group, still lags behind the direct-x pace of adoption.
Does Microsoft know they are driving developers onto the PS3 by forcing the adoption of OpenGL on XP... ultimately a lead in to OpenGL ES - the standards compliant graphics API of choice for the PS3.
OpenGL 3 will be officially granted ARB status by the Khronos group come the end of September - if Microsoft still hasn't gotten their act together, they might find the next big start-up with a game engine to offer won't be using DX, and won't be an exclusive 360 product!
Matt
Most companies will release you from an unfair contract if you detail your issues in writing, otherwise just redirect them to relevant parts from the OFT - http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resourc e_base/legal/unfair-terms/guidance
Matt
What a clever move. If I had a successful software protocol up my sleeve, with strong replication authority (ie: what we do, everyone else does), that relies on other clients to maintain the network: i would seriously rethinking pushing them out.
Maybe I completely missed the point in capitalism 101, but why do you have to pay to go to the beach?
:(
With the exception of a few private beaches attached to sea-side hotels, I don't think I've ever, or will ever, pay to go to a beach. The concept sounds ridiculous to my European brain
Matt
Bump.
:(
Avoid information degrees like the plague. They're half assed awards aiming at the market a poor programer will find easy - mostly web systems. I believe in a hierarchy of programming and sadly the information or enterprise courses aim to make web monkeys - web monkeys find it harder to breakout of their web niche which is quickly becoming over populated with causal programmers (who are coming more and more skilled!) such as college grads and drop outs.
I did a software engineering degree with electronics (Computer Systems)... Most of my computing modules were all Computer Science, the rest were extended project classes, instead of more pointless CS with distracting formal theory. Quite often the formal theory is there to make the theory more abstract and thus something to teach, when it shouldn't be any harder than memorising precedent and flow.
A lot of universities offering CS courses should really be rename them to Software Engineering. My best advice would be to check the course syllabus and and pick one with a strong software engineering focus, and plenty of time to do that "wow" dissertation you want.
If you can't talk about your dissertation in geek, it's probably not specialised enough. Some of my "peers" created a DVD, others a website, and one a relational back end to a portal... I'm ashamed to admit that because they used some formal theory (ie: design models) the could score highly. To date I believe none of them understand the languages they used nor the concepts they copied. The standard of code was also extremely poor.
Hths,
Matt
Bump.
/.
I see this as two things:
1?
Linis is showing his irrelevance to Open Source again. I feel betrayed. But thats too flamebait/trolly, and more feeling than substance for
2!
Linis is opening a hole for Solaris - and I really like Solaris... Really really like it. Infact, I've compared lxr and solaris code back to back for fun! Polished, clean and functional code.
I'm not a huge Sun fan, tho I understood Sun's old issues on tethering Java for example. I am developer tho, and I like the idea of clean systems. I like the idea of sexy code - sun employed code formatters notwithstanding. If Solaris leapfrogged Linux and released a dual licensed GPL2 / GPL3 versions, it'd be a wet dream for most people.
There'd be an extensive GPL3 patchset that would slowly grow to make a very functional modern OS - academia would finally take to Linux as a teaching tool (most lecturers I've talked to regarding the kernel see it as nice. Unfinished as minix is, its the unfinished nature that makes it an effective learning tool).
One would imaging a GPL2 release would slowly mature at the pace embedded manufacturers desire (really slowly, so they dont have to allocate many developers!)...
Matt
I feel that there are a lot of software engineering areas where you don't need much in the way of maths experience - just logical thinking. Most real world math related implementations I've done haven't relied on a high level of maths... linear interpolation and solving quadratics are probably as "tricky" as math goes outside of academia... but...
That's not the end of it. I've also done a lot of image manipulation work, and you NEED a good math background when you step over simple 2d convolution filters. Knowing your physics also helps - being able to identify trends and patterns in wave forms, and then applying the necessary maths is a great help. When dging into aliasing and reconstruction now, not just filtering, a high math proficiency is a must.
I've taken to game programming recently. If you know your maths, the physics comes easily. If you know your maths, specially advance vector and matrix theory (with integration and differentiation being prerequisites), things become a breeze. I didnt know enough. And I still struggled from time to time today. Experience is helping me, but sometimes I wish I had a math background to roll on.
I guess my ramblings are leading to a poor conclusion. Without maths you're limited in what you can do - but you're only limited by lateral field... In most cases you can take an specific soft eng field and go to town without hitting maths. I'm a very good software engineering and reverser, and I gotten here without having a math background. When I wanted to expand into games programming and image processing, things became much harder without the math.
With all that said, I'm very very guilty of obscuring simple procedures with valid but pointless math - and I know for a fact there's too much pointless formal theory in computer science now. The pointless formal theory is actually what push me away from doing a masters in computer science, and find something more vocational and rewarding!
Matt
Thanks!
There are two aspects where the law applies directly to this... that I can think of.
First of all, is the performance. By performing a piece of work, he exposes himself to the performance side of copyright law. Thankfully, this is entirely on his side. If he performs a piece of work without modifying or changing it, and acknowledges the copyright holder, he's entirely in his own right. Public performance without modification is completely legal - hence cover bands. Once you change a part, you create a derivative or modification. At that point you're no longer under fair use -
If you change the works, then suddenly require a licence from the copyright holder.
Now, there could be another aspect. Copyrighted music also has a print form. ie: on screen display and the guys website. If he's using substantial parts but minimal from the entirety - ie: licks - one could easily argue fair use because he's promoting the actual display in an educational stance in order to substantiate something (learning!)... BoingBoing recently ran a Disney mash-up that explains copyright and fair use... using Disney exerts.
There's a clear cut grey area with sheet music. You as a person can make a performing work, and copyright it (without registry!). If you were to listen to a song, learn it by ear (knowledge is not copyrightable), and then pen that song (as completely your own work) you would be the rights holder. Should it happen to sound fairly similar to another piece of work, that's their problem. In all likelihood there will be differences in the metre, key or vibrato. The degree that your rendition of a song differs from that of another copyrighted piece, however, is a case for court...
Correct me if im wrong please. I'm supposed to be doing the law conversion course in a few months!
Matt
As far as I know, copyright law goes something like this. The rights holder is granted a limited monopoly. This right is as such that it stops entities recreating your property. Later on this incorporated the distribution of copyrighted material - ie: you must have the original covering, you must not resale, or identify as your own. Copyright became a right to distribute only the work as the work, and resell only as an item (ie: you can sell a book to a friend, but not the story or change the form of the story).
Copyright doesn't extend into the home. Private affiars, as long as non commerical, are outside the privee of most laws. And if I remember correctly the supreme court ruled (i've been reading a lot of Lessig's work!) that once the intarweb cable enters the home, it is a private affair - ie: you can connect what ever box to the end you want to receive signals.
Take that a little further. If you are positioned to simply receive copyrighted content, you are doing nothing illegal if you are not trafficking. If you use a website to receive copyrighted content, you are also not doing anything illegal. Watching TV, which comprises of 99.999% copyrighted works, is not, to my knowledge, illegal.
So how is receiving (downloading) a pirate movie illegal if it is not stolen, not a bootleg or modified work, not involved in terrorism???
Matt
On the back of recent news that less than half of Vista "issues" have been patched, yet alone publicly announced, we get another article touting the merits of two things that can't be directly compared.
Sometimes I see Open Source kicking itself in the face with all the transparency it offers, yet I'm overwhelmed with a sense of pride and happiness that communities can develop such a transparent process in the public eye.
Discovering problems and exploiting them in a closed source product is quite a daunting task - I'd say almost 4 times as much work as exploiting a system where you can compile debug symbols into the binary, and nothing short of 1000 times harder than if you had the source code. What these "reports" and discoveries show is that layers of obfuscation act to confuse people as to the actual level of vulnerability you're exposed to.
There are many vulnerability hunters out there, now, employed by governments across the world simply to "dive in" at a deepend of closed applications looking for exploitable code - closed source simply means that only wealthy, bigger teams will be successful. Open Source means that anyone can help thwart these hunters, makes vulnerability research fair game, and most importantly, accepts community involvement into the fixing and pre-emptive policy that makes OS software better software.
Matt
Gah.
Is stupidity abound or something? The comment from the article about copying multi gigabyte images is ludicrous and makes one ask if the guy has ever used a VM let alone knows anything about the basics of DRM.
First things firsts. Virtualization means that the physical hardware and virtual hardware are not linked. That means, in no simpler language, if you want to use a TV, monitor recording device or whatnot to view your VM: you can, and the VM doesn't know. This is a technological threat to DRM implementations inside a VM, because they cant guarentee the path outside the VM.
Why you would copy potentially dangerous VM images from one PC to another when you could simple capture the output, i don't know.
Once upon a time NES ROM carts implemented their own I/O multiplexing - the vast majority still aren't emulated today because it's tedious work. Guest OSes inside VMs will continue to find ways of obfuscating their data (after all the guest inside a VM doesn't even have to be the same architecture as the host!)... its anybody's game once you're outside of the Guest.
MS don't want people to virtualize their software for the same reason DRM is a CEOs best friend: they can charge more for less restrictions.
If you have to pay $100 extra for the Ultimate or Pro versions of Vista to get virtualization, and people want virtualization, it can be seen as a valuable extra. Extras, not to be confused with added value, increase price premiums through added cost to the purchasing party.
However, the meat of the issue is not that people spoke out about DRM in such obvious and clear cut language, touting the anti-competitive stance MS has taken, but bloggers and writers are steering the focus to Linux which is offering a mirad of virtualizations for free. The only sensible stance is to do the same - just like MS did with VirtualPC... MS can't afford to be completely leapfrogged in any area.
The thing the irks me is that people are constantly barking up the wrong tree with regards to industry ties with companies and DRM. The "MAFIAA" (as it's been put) is convincing companies to make DRM provisions, but they can't force the implementation on to end users if companies can't/don't want to/disagree. MS allowing virtualization is nothing more than a technology response to Linux. No one is warming to DRM, DRM is not dying any time soon. This is market forces at work. Granted market forces are slow, and cause no end of problems for us now...
Open source projects that succeed usually have a single purpose, and fill a niche. Because Blender does absolutely everything I can think of (it forgets to put sugar in my tea, tho), it's become complex. Complexity often shadows functionality - as things get more complex, they must be redesigned to make them functional. (imo, Gnome got it wrong and started to remove definable functionality rather than redesign input)...
There's a reason everyone takes Human centric computing modules now - they're useful!
If some of these other products started focusing on niche markets that are useful to its users - say, for example, game developers - they'd start to make an impact.
Take http://www.zootfly.com/tect.html for instance. Zootfly seem to have encompassed everything I need right now in a design and modelling tool - because its focused directly at computer games. To non-game developers, say animation modellers, it might not offer quite what they need, but at least it will lay a foundation for them to build on, or at least the community to react and copy.
Its funny - there's a trend-
Good Open Source code gets redesigned. Good Open Source code becomes a useful product. Becomes Successful. Expands and adds features. Becomes overwhelming. Is less functional at specific tasks than before/standalone projects. Some may say the linux Kernel is taking that path - but it's a lucky project, system-nucleolus-level implementation is very specific, and one can't avoid contributing to the kernel when adding low level features.
Look at ZBrush. It costs nearly £400? That's a lot of money for essentially a glorified 3D painting package. Sharp3D, an open source ZBrush-like tool (that I've yet to make work), is similar in respect, but needs more attention. Blender has texture baking and painting functions, but I don't know how to use blender, I just want something textured now, while I prototype. Blender's complete set of functionality is scaring me away!
I'd use Rhino3D (shareware) over blender at the moment, simply because I find it's stuck to its NURBS goal, and not gone to far off the niche mark.
Matt
Unlike MMORGs which are controlled almost entirely by server side user agents, first person shooters very vulnerable to cheating.
.txt filed associated with enabling this trivial hack!)...
o d=article&id=4423
There are, even now, dozens of "hacks" that work with counterstrike - the most inventive give on screen itinerary information about players (which you can see through translucent walls) a la Deux Ex!
Allow me to ramble...
COD similarly suffers from cheaters. A sponsored (paid!) COD2 player was recently "discovered" cheating after a commercial hack manufacturer had their website's database exposed via a phpbb (iirc?) vulnerability. The happy-hacker was an admin at a gaming forum and compared the email addresses gleened from the site to ones registered on his forum... and tada, one of the biggest names in COD2 was a known cheat user... he even PAID $200 for it. (private cheats are almost always undetected)
Anti-cheat techniques often fail. VAC (now VAC2) - the Vale AntiCheat plugin - is notorious for being easy to sidle past. Other commercial varients such as Punk Buster either no longer support the games you want to play, or offer only a small degree better detection than the game manufacturer.
I was on a COD2 server last night, and Punk Buster kicked in doing a check, and the number of players went down from 20 to 3.
I may be wrong here, but the BF2 patches, compared to the release client, have seriously stepped up the anti-cheat detection. Alt-tabbing out of the game or running background processes on a single processor machine can make BF2 unbreakable as PunkBuster threads kick in to scan the system.
Most attempts at tracking and hashing memory have failed - there's too much ram on PCs nowadays! Without OS-level write handlers its very hard to track subversive programs. And I'm not even going to mention game-based "hacks" such as enabling the alpha channel on Valve textures (vtf files have a
Then there's always the driver. Seeing as there are so many ogl implementations and extended vendor drivers (ie: NGO drivers for nvidia hardware etc) it would be impossible to market a game that requires signed drivers!
Lets talk about the UK counter-strike scene for a sec...
C4U - See For Yourself - were, by all means, a talented clan. However, they fielded two known AND CAUGHT hackers for some time, Kritical, and Willzooo (less the l33tisms in their handles). I went to the UKs biggest lan event a few weeks back, as a gamer, only to find in none other than the counter-strike tournament, Kritical and Willzooo... To make my disgust worst, they were PLAYING for the UKs formost and successful sponsored team - Team Dignitas! http://www.team-dignitas.org/ - they're sponsored by Intel and Creative, and I can assure you these guys get a monthly salary for playing computer games (not to mention the hardware)...
So there you have it. Cheating is interlaced within the gaming community, ex-cheaters who have been banned from competitions and ridiculed by the community are forgotten about in only a matter of months, and later find themselves paid to play games.
There is no incentive not to cheat. It is ludicrous to bet on something where you cannot tell if someone is cheating or not.
Matt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PunkBuster
http://www.ggl.com/index.php?controller=News&meth
http://www.ukterrorist.com/news/wilzooo_hax/
I've been debating for a while now whether i want to get an XBox 1 to stream videos etc off the lan at home. At it stands, neither cd changers, dvd changers or "media pcs" have really made me happier or content easier to access. We have far too many controls at home, far too many user interfaces, and stupidly crippled hardware (we've got a sony dvd/harddisc-based recorder that doesn't interface with any kind of tv catalogue - useless!)...
.isos, decompress rars and zip files. Amazing stuff. No software players I've seen yet can do this.
I've seen a modded xbox happily navigate windows' shares, ftps, even RSS feeds, and even download videos from the net on the fly. I've seen them transparently mount
Here's the crux tho: the Neuros OSD is ~ $200... I can get an xbox for £50 (~notalot) with games and a controller, then softmod it to my specs in a few hours. I know what the xbox does, ive seen it do it.
If the neuros had a 1gig ethernet port (im not sure it does?), i'd almost certainly invest simply to use it as a NAS (there's a mod for this on the OSD website) as I have 3 x 300Gb USB2 hdds lying around needing a gige link to justify disconnecting them from the PC.
I've seen other gige NASes around too, but they cost far too much. The xbox 1, of course, doesnt sport gige (does it?!). I suppose I could hard mod the xbox usb and plug in a usb gige adaptor, but does the xbox support usb2??
Nonetheless,
I personally think its fantastic seeing a product that wants to utilise OSS this way! I've long wondered why the proprietary vendors try to cut out modding if they're pricing their product to make money through sales (think wifi boxen etc - not xboxes, their business model needs you to buy games). Its weird when their product lines and life expectations usually fall far short of incorporating any "user inspired" features. I've yet to see "successive" versions of products actually take features from the unsupported mod market and sell in a new product. Clearly they're just trying to thawt innovation at home, because there's a very thin line between breading up a small SoC and selling it!
Matt
From a game development point of view, there are distinct differences between OGL and DX.
... BUT if a company i worked for was to code a game, and had enough cash to create an OGL-specific framework, I would use OpenGL. Why? It's quite simple - once you've created the framework to a renderer/game, the code-readability/RAD/speed of OGL and DX are evenly matched... yet OGL is portable.
DX is more than just a graphics library - its a framework for engine development.
OGL is only a graphics library - and it only lets you use the hardware you have (DX has quite a few handy emulation layers).
Unfortunately, OGL doesn't have the kind of supplemental stuff you'd really expect when prototyping or developing a game from scratch - i'm taking about as native format mesh loaders and converters (everything found in d3dx). Interestingly (and frustratingly), many of the d3dx routines aren't perfect and have their odd quirks. Some are plain not reliable, and most rarely return more than a null hDC when things do go wrong (this doesnt help debugging a mesh LOD reduction!)
OGL does support integer and float based indexing, whereas, afaik, DX only supports float.
Both support a wide range of colour formats - as expected.
Personally, the OGL viewports are easier to manipulate.
I find the continual loss of device in DX (through 'apparently' random context switching) annoying. You have to have a fairly large and complex recovery structure/path to commit states back to the gfx hardware.
I would say that OGL is consistent in its API naming, but as-is DX.
OGL is consistent in its interaction with GLSL (the pixel and vertex shader lanauge). I would also say DX is consistent with vertex and pixel shader manipulation too - except considering nVidia's quirky interaction between the sheets after compile (there's some kind of intermediate language and translation going on here, DX tends to break more than OGL - not something i've experienced myself tho).
If I was to code a game now, I would be happier using DX with D3DX, STL, and maybe some boost stuff rather than OGL, because I would have to code less of the engine - less loading/common manipulation routines - thanks to greater library support in DX...
Hths,
Matt
As someone who thought they'd not find a good game after C&C or RA2, Starcraft and the expansion pack, Broodwar, was amazing. I finally got around to playing them 2+ years after everyone else but still really enjoyed the content and playability.
SC reminds me of the Dig - the cut scenes were just as epic, and voice acting superb... and the story-line: wow.
I miss you Tassadar!
Matt
Troll. Mod me as troll please.
End of conversation.
Deltree's c:\progra~1\common\xerox\porn
Installs Lotus Smart Suite so my family have a use for the PC.
Reveals the true identity of deep throat to the CIA.
Emails my girlfriend and tells her to invest in SUN - those Java terminals coming out in the new millennium look amazing.
Telnets into my workplace and installs a firewall for their own good. One of these days people will listen to my security concerns!
Sends a letter to Tony Blair thanking him for all the time and effort he's spend ensuring the economical success of our country, education and health services. It also warns him about radical MP plans for Private Finance Initiatives and how they might bankrupt the NHS and MOD.
It might be a little out of date.
Matt
Unfortunately, a lot of people dont grasp the depth of computer games nowadays. If you google for a few SIGGRAPH or computer games conference papers from recent years, you see how complex its really getting. People in the industry know this and it throughly explains their arrogance... It just sucks when you're faced with it.
I think anyone can code simple stuff, but when people say they're coding something complex, they probably havent spent enough time on the design, or, they're using a lot of simple techniques in an overwhelming package (which often tends to clouds the actual complexity).
Ultimately I see myself coding for anyone who pays. If I finally make it into the games industry, especially without any content-creation skills (tho I can photoshop, its just not CAD), I'll be counting myself lucky to be spotted.
Matt
ha you're right... its so fragmented! i didnt reread it. I was writing earlier in the day, and thought i was still in the zone... :P
Matt
I've just started an MSc in Comp Games Systems...
I generally spend my time reading LWN, dabbling with gdb trying to extend programs, and coding glue backends with perl.
My C and C++ skills are great. I was the best programming I knew at my undergrad course (computer systems)... I think in terms of the bits and bytes, fastest code paths and about the underlying processor architecture. I am simply a very good programmer. (and not so arrogant)
However. I started this course so I could do a portfolio. I known for a while that I have to learn and cover pixel and vertex shaders in my own time, and implement them in my MSc project (my BSc FYP was low level image process and it was bloody brilliant... No extern APIs!)...
Nottingham hosted a "game developers" thing, where you could meet some developers. All I can say is I think it was the worst organised "thing" I have ever attended. To compound the issues, the developers were dry and the one who did take my email did not email me back.
I've asked and asked; emailed and and emailed. All I want is a game development company to sponsor my masters thesis - I want someone to set the deliverables and give me an area on which to focus; I don't need monetary support... I want an aim!
Sadly, as I said, I never get replies. The one reply I've had was for 16-yearolds introducing computer games as a very hard subject for people with real degrees (note: i just got a f*cking Computer Systems degree from a Russell group uni [think ivy league])... *sigh*. It kinda sucks when I know that I know a helluvalot about the underlying processor systems than the people that flog me off...
So yes. I'm rambling but I have no respect for the system. I have no respect for learning anything other than more math as MSc level... It's algorithms you want. Try focusing on more linear algebra and itterative work (ie: some image processing - matricies)
Maybe put the money you'd spend on that MSc into a bank account... Live at home. Study game engines yourself... Ogre? Hell start with gwin... get some books (Mathetics for 3d Game Programming & Computer Graphics by Lengvel is a must but steep!)
I hope, i really do, that come October I'll be eating my own words, playing a wonderful prototype I've created.
Matt
(nb: browsing the quake 3 src and reading LKML/lwn or eric raymond's blog is a great way to expand your understanding of theories and practice)
nb: I've used Torex software, and my distant cousin is the exCEO of iSoft... but what I'm saying isnt biased, as I've never met him, but yeh.
Having worked with Torex software, at a GP surgery, I can say that the software is effective, but very dated. It works tho. You can get pathlabs direct from the local labs direct to the patients file, however, the software is hugely short sighted in user interface issues and in administration. For example - with GPs ordering, quite often, blood chem and heam at the same time, for many different patients, it's not unlikely that a surgery will see some 200 results in their labs "inbox". Sadly, the interface "did" not allow this information to be directly attached to a patients record. I had to setup a rather unstable mouse macro to perform a task that, realistically, should have been done automatically without the need for review (the only exception being exceptional records where patients cannot be matched to a record, temp NHS registrations for example)
What can individual GPs do about? Nothing. They simply must purchase software that uses an outdated GUI interface that is less effective than the green screen VTs they used. Most of the work that needs to be done should be simple dump and store. There was no way to contact iSoft/Torex (nee Torex Systems ?, they split from Torex at the take over I believe), even tho they had a development office only 8 miles down the road, and I'm related to their CEO.
The approach taken by the NHS was disastrous - they reused a company they knew had poor and outdated software. By allowing relatively inexperienced companies to bid on such a huge rollout was short sighted. Not allowing them any cashflow and making them penalize their supplies is down right fucking stupid. Anyone who has taken basic business or even filled in a tax form knows you cant run a business on cash advances - the balance sheets will never add up. No wonder providers pulled out when the saw astronomically negative balances. Torex compounded the issue with accounting "errors" in attempt to push the financial burden to the following year, thusly avoiding immediate fallout and allowing them to renegotiate the NHS contracts.
The NHS can save face, but only if they rethink the plan.
Oracle must provide the database backend.
The NHS must provide redundant datacentres in conjunction with GPs.
The backend must include onsite-databases (ie: each surgery has a copy of the patients records). When a hospital requires them, they are pulled in a relatively short time (seconds or minutes) from the holding surgery (GPs hold patients here, and they always have)
Nightly updates should be sent to the master datacentres.
A single server OS must be agree upon - all the old SCO systems should be replaced with something a little more modern. Solaries and enterprise Linux offerings are out there...
A single "office setup" must be agree upon. MS Office seems logical.
A single, standalone appointments system needs to be constructed, and simply "inform" the database backend via the internet
Likewise, labs must use similar standalone systems that copy the data to the backend.
Fundamentally, the whole backend should be internet based, IPv4 - encrypted yes. While at the same time as rolling out the system over IPv4, the backend that the NHS and politicians desire should be constructed (so that means wires laid across the length and breadth of the country), so that in the long run, endpoints can switch to a free interconnection medium.
Most the information a GP is going to interact with is too highly specific to normalize properly. They will deal with information about a patient, blobs. Nothing expensive is require to convert blob formats because, as blob/files, they can be read by the specific packages, and on update/write of blobs, individual packages should interface with a freely available API that can be tailored to update the master database. (yes, think OSS plugins for automagical Save-As!)
I have to stop thinking about this. It'
I am deeply concerned that I cannot seem to have a no-FUD-views homepage :( It's articles like this, from Daniel Lyons _once again_, that make me sad. The /. crowd seem to be off on a tangent, and I can see more flamebaits than positive criticism.
:(
/. either!)
Just to join the debate, I really wish people would stop using the, "I (heart) Linus" approach: stop agreeing with the GPLv3 in its entirety and then saying, "Oh but switching isnt practical".
AND, while im on it, it'd be nice seeing more people acknowledge that RMS is a bad-bad-bad debater a little more often
(I speak of neither RMS' or Linus' views, just, people aren't that good at debating on
Ahem. No one needs loyalty - but we do need a direction, through informed decisions.