Regardless of whether or not it's a positive or negative review, don't buy a game based on what other people think about it.
That's my attitude. I try out the demo first, if the demo is good, I'll buy the game.
Oh, wait, none of the mainstream United States based massively multiplayer online games offer demos. My "demo" is $50 and one month of play.
Of course, having played several such games (especially the leader, EverQuest), I think the obvious reason they don't offer demos is that the first twenty or so hours of play isn't fun. So lots of people would play the demo, then quit because the game looked like it sucked.
To hell with that. I'm done with Massive Multiplayer Anything until the genre matures. We're all paying beta testers in their minds, logging in and walking away while our characters heal, or sell goods.
I see SWG like a book, you might have to get through the first 100 pages before it starts to get interesting..
Every once in a while, I'll read a book that fails to grab me in the first fifty or so pages. In general I'll give up on it, there are lots of books to read. If the book is highly recommended (say, Jordan's Wheel of Time series), I'll give it 100 pages. But if it still isn't grabbing me, it's gone. I haven't got the time.
So why should I suffer through the not-fun parts of the game hoping (but not guaranteed) that it will get better? I play games to have fun. Within ten minutes of installing the game, I better be having fun. Otherwise, what's the point? There are lots of other games on shelves (and most of those games actually offer demos. Having been burned by a number of games, including EverQuest, I now demand a demo before I buy a game.)
Again with the inane bickering over the words "stealing" and
"theft". The word "theft" is more identifiable, more accurate in many people's
minds*, and sounds worse.
You know, "theft" is more identifiable, more accurate in my mind, and does sound worse. I shall immediately begin referring to Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act as theft from the public domain.
Hmmm, of course "murder" is more identifiable, more accurate in many
people's minds, and sounds worse, so effective immediately the United States
has murdered many Iraqi and Afghan civilians.
Using a word because people think it's more accurate, and because it sounds
worse is exactly the wrong reason to use a word. It encourages people to
manipulate language to deceive.
Of course, the RIAA's use of the word probably wouldn't be so silly if not for quotes like this (from the article):
By the way, the term "file swapping" is inaccurate. Nobody is
swapping, people are making copies.
And yet, it's more identifable, more accurate in many people's minds, and sounds better (if "sounds worse" is some sort of argument, so is "sounds better").
Of course they also regularlly trot out comparisions to stealing a CD from a
store. Your average chimpanzee can tell the difference between downloading
something off the internet and physically taking a CD. To imply that they do
identical damage (And thus should share the same term) is as silly as lumping
manslaughter and premeditated murder into the same crime. It blurs important
distinctions that most people are perfectly capable of reasoning about.
You shouldn't steal music. It's illegal.
And industries based on copyright (and their defenders) shouldn't be afraid
to use accurate words. You don't try to discourage sexual harassment by
calling it rape! Be honest, call it copyright infringement, and spend the time
to convince citizens that infringing copyright morally wrong! Unless of course
you don't think people are willing to accept your reasoned arguments. Then I
suggest continuing the campaign of lies, smears, and deception.
But you DONT buy music. You buy a license to use it.
Sweet Mary, mother of God, where do these monkeys come from? As soon as I
find out, I'm going to patent the "infinite source of energy by harnessing
infinite supply of people who don't understand copyright."
Assuming you're buying a CD (or a record or tape, assuming you can find
one), you are purchasing... a CD. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly not a license. You'll notice that if you walk into your local Music and Other Stuff Store, that a CD and speaker cable is rung up exactly the same. After the purchase, you own that one particular copy of the CD. That sales
transaction is exactly the same as, say, when you purchase a chair. You own
that CD, and you own that chair. You can sell the CD, loan it out, give it
away, play it, incorporate it into some abstract sculpture, use it as a
coaster, or microwave it. You don't get any license because you don't need any
license!
Now, that CD is marked "Copyright 2003, Some Big Company, All Rights
Reserved." What's that mean? In a technical, legal sense, it means absolutely
nothing. Thanks to the Berne Convention, in most countries (including the
United States) you don't need to put any sort of copyright label on your work.
You get copyright protection, free of charge, even if you don't label it. The
label is just a warning. That way if you make a copyright infringing copy, you
can't claim to the judge "but your honor, I didn't know it was protected by
copyright," because the Expense Music Industry Lawyer will respond, "It's
clearly labelled."
So, what does your free-of-charge, automatic copyright protection grant you?
A number of things, but most of them can be summed up in the key protection:
the copyright holder has the exclusive right to distribute copies. That's just
about it. (You're also notably forbidden from public performance. If you
squint a bit, public performance looks like distributing copies.) So, while
you own that one specific CD, copyright law specifically withholds the right to
distribute copies. This has nothing to do with a license. You don't need a license to cross the street, no, you're free to cross the street, but disallowed from jaywalking. Similarlly you're free to use and own that particular CD, but your disallowed from distributing copies.
This whole "license" concept is bullshit that the copyright based industries
are trying to confuse people with. The software industry has been
particularlly successful in convincing people that they can change a sale into
a license after the fact. That this idea does not have any sort of strong
court support yet doesn't bother them. Don't be confused by this deception!
How did this idiot get moderated up?
As I work on my reply, I'm increasingly sure he's a troll. If
he's not a troll, then he's really stupid.
This is how you can get away with releasing only the ORIGINAL
code, and not the Linksys mods.
The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work,
and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any
derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work
containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or
with modifications and/or translated into another language.
Think about it. They distributed the source for the "Program" as
outlined above. "A work based on the Program" can refer to either
the Program (the original) or the "work based on the program" -
that is, the derivative. So, if you take it to always mean "The
Program" or the ORIGINAL program - then you only must distribute
the ORIGINAL PROGRAM and not the mods! Perfectly within the GPL.
Perhaps, but changing your definition in mid-clause is likely
to get you smacked down in a court. That said, here's another
quote from the GPL:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work
based on it, under Section 2)...provided that you also do one of the following:
Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code....
The corresponding source code would be the code that
corresponds with the program you distributed. While it's not the
most clear phrasing possible, no other interpretation is
reasonable (and the court will support "reasonable"
interpretations). Changing your definition of Program midway
through would be a no-no.
The GPL doesn't say you have to release your mods, but only a
list of the changes and what dates. Have you actually read the
GPL?
Yup, several times. The GPL quite clearly says you need to
release your changes. Anyone foolish enough to try and challenge
it on these grounds will get laughed out of the courtroom for
clearly trying to play word games. Contrary to popular belief, a
contract does not need to be phrased to be resistant to
playing word games and other trickery. If the meaning is
reasonably clear to all sides involved, it will stand.
The other problem with the GPL is that there is conjecture and
opinion throughout, not fact, as there must be in an Agreement.
IANAL but I worked in the world of Contracting (as in
Construction) and you must specify everything, not give opinion.
The first time the GPL gets tried in court it will get thrown out
because it's full of opinion, and holes like I just pointed out.
At least here in the United States, the basis of any agreement
is that everyone involved agrees what it means. Your free to
sprinkle it with opinions, write it on a napkin, and generally do
what you will. If the court believes that both sides agreed on
the intent, it's legal.
All that said, it's irrelevant. "The GPL", as found, say,
here, has
three distinct parts: A Preamble, the Terms and Conditions, and
information using the GPL yourself. Only the Terms and
Conditions matter, the rest is just some documentation and
suggestions. That documentation tries to spread a message and
explain why the Terms and Conditions say what they do. But this
preamble and documentation is not the license! I think you'll
find the Terms and Conditions extremely straightforward, listing
the rules of the game, and with no significant opinions
interjected.
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the
greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this
is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and
change under these terms.
This is an OPINION that "the best way to achieve this."
I've been involved in any number of rather large software contracts and I have never known the buyer to even ask about access to source, or any other questions re: doing their own development. They're buying a tool, and if they need to do something else later on, they'll buy more tools.
I've seen similar contracts. An inevitably one of the suppliers they rely on will go under and the product disappear into limbo, leaving the company unable to get upgrades, security patches, or even more licenses as they hire more people. Or the business will need specific changes or bugfixes for their needs, but their supplier will be unwilling to make the changes and their license forbids the business from making the changes themselves. The supplier may jack up prices to an unaffordable level, or may change the license terms to something you're unwilling or unable to accept (Microsoft's new EULA's incompatibility with the new medical privacy laws comes to mind).
Software you don't have the source to is a risk. Like all risks, you need to weigh it against the benefits. For some products, it may be easy to switch to a competing product. For others, if the supplier goes under and you can't get updates and new licenses, you may end up with switching costs in excess of what the company can afford. Unfortunately most businesses purchasing software just blissfully assume that the supplier will continue to exist, continue to sell the product if you need more, continue to provide needed updates, and not jack up the prices. Most of the time this assumption is correct. Occasionally it's wrong and the business suddenly has to deal with a major, unplanned expense.
Getting free software is an insurance policy. It means that you control your own destiny. It only makes sense to consider the value of this insurance, especially for business critical systems.
Software and other ephemeral things are covered by copyright and because the idea is the posession you must obtain a liscense to own it, hence the origional author has more controll over your ownership.
I suppose that's true in for the definition of "own" as "the person with control over the copyright on the work."
However, it's entirely irrelevant for the common case of own, as in "I just
bought the latest AngryPunkBand album, and now I own it." I own that one
specific copy. I received no license for the album, but that's okay, I don't
need one. I'm free to treat that copy just like any other possession, I can
sell it, give it away, study it, disassemble it, modify it, loan it out, and
many other things. However, because it's protected by copyright, there are
specific restrictions on what I can do, most notably having to do with
distributing copies of the work. But that's a law, has nothing to do with
licensing, and doesn't influence my personal use of the item.
...any firm/soft-ware that came with the device you only have a
license to use.. at their terms.
No, no, no, no, no!
Is there some sort of infinitely renewable stream of people completely
unaware of how copyright works?
Copyright has nothing to do with a license. In the basic case,
when you buy something that is protected by copyright, you neither need nor
receive a license to use it. You are free to use it however you want. The
only restrictions are specified in copyright law, primarily limiting your
ability to distribute copies of the copyright protected work. There is no "you
have no right to use this unless you get a license" clause in copyright law.
There is no "when you buy something you get a license to use it" clause.
Unfortunately End User License Agreements have somehow tainted peoples
brains and convinced them that they need some sort of magical license to use
things they're purchased. You don't. Copyright law restricts you, yes. You
can accept a license that will grant you things you couldn't do normally under
copyright law (see the GPL, BSD, and similar licenses). But you don't need a
license to use, modify for personal use, sell, or give it away! EULAs on
software are built on a shaky legal foundation and is most certainly not a
point of established law.
When we buy music CD's, we are in fact purchasing a license to listen to the audio content, along with a fee for the media the licensed content is supplied on. What we end up owning is the media, and a perpetual license to listen to the content.
Assuming you're in the United States or a country with similar laws, this amazingly wrong. (If you're not in the US, just ignore this, your milage may vary.)
When you buy a music CD, you are purchasing that particular copy of the music. You can, in general, use that copy, that thing, just like any other thing you purchase, say, like your chair. You can loan it out, sell it, give it away, break it, use it as expected, use it in unexpected ways, and generally do what you wish.
There are a few small restrictions on what you can do, those are laws (and copyright in particular). We'll ignore most of the laws (for example, it's illegal to kill someone with a CD or a chair), and focus on copyright, since it creates the restrictions on what you can do that most of us care about. Notably, copyright laws do not say "The holder of copyright has nearly infinite control over copies and you can do almost nothing with it unless granted." It doesn't even say "You get a perpetual license to enjoy the content yourself, but no other rights." No, copyright law doesn't have anything to say about most uses, including listening to your music CD. However, copyright law does say that you can't distribute copies of the work. There are some other fiddly restrictions, but that's the key one.
Don't let the content industries control our language. You do not need any sort of license to use copyright restricted materials that you have purchased.
(As a side note, this is why the music CD publisher doesn't need to provide you with any way to back up your investment. You purchased that one copy, and if it fries, well, too bad. Of course, if you can figure out how to make a back up, it's still cool, just like you can "back up" a chair (it's a bit harder, but possible.))
So how can we know, how say, Open Office compares to MS Office? I really think we can't, and likely won't.
How can we know? In a philosophical sense, we can't. But you can
find out for practical purposes. Personally I know people who used to work for
Microsoft. I heard that the code, while not bad, wasn't that good. I learned
about the constant political infighting between groups and an irrational
refusal to use external code. This led to such silliness as no major project
in Microsoft actually using their
own source control system. This lead to the the Office project maintaining
their own forked version of the compiler. While none of this actively says
their code is bad, it does suggest problems in their system that might be
reflected in their code. Of course, while this is second hand to me, it's
third hand to you, so you might not trust it. Reasonable enough. But my point
is that one way to learn is to get the information from someone who really does know and who you trust.
Relatedly, you can make a certain level of judgement based on the software you receive and work with. If the software is buggy crap, chances are that the code isn't the Mona Lisa of the programming world.
I agree with your general message (that the GPL does in fact grant rights. Specifically, it grants you rights that under vanilla copyright law you would not have). However, you have a small, but popular, misconception:
Standard copyright law says you can't do
anything without a license or sale of rights from the copyright holder. Well, not quite nothing. Excerpts can be quoted critically and the like but standard copyright law gives no usage or distribution privileges by default.
You've got copyright slightly backward. When you purchase something protected by copyright, you outright own that one particular copy you just purchased. You are free to use it however you like. You can read it, watch it, disassemble it, sell it, loan it out, and give it away. You most certainly get usage privileges. You even get some distribution privileges, you can distribute the original copy (but not distribute additional copies).
Copyright is about restricting certain rights to the copyright holder. The key elements are the right to distribute copies and the right to publically perform the work (Squint a little and public performance looks like distribution of a copy). To practice these restricted rights, sure, you'll need some sort of license or sale of rights. But if you want to do just about anything else, well, because you purchased that one copy, you're free to do so.
You pay money for something alright, you are buying two things when
you go to the record store: 1) The physical media - the CD itself 2) The right
to listen to that physical media
Erm, I'm buying one thing. That particular copy of the music. Nothing
more, nothing less. That copy is mine to use and dispose of as I see fit. I am no more buying a right to listen to it than I buy a right to sit in a chair that I purchase. Of course I can use stuff I own.
Copyright legislation can be found at Title 17 US Code. You can read all about it, but the gist is that you don't buy the copyright, or any rights, other than those that the copyright holder is willing to give you - in the RIAA's case, they say you only have the right to listen to your CDs in private. Deal with it.
The gist is that I'm prohibited from distributing copies of a work protected
by copyright. That's it. If I legally acquire a copy I'm free to do just
about anything I want short of distributing copies. I can play them for myself
and friends, I can loan them out, give them away, sell them, rebroadcast small
portions for purposes of review or commentary, make a copy to tape for my car,
rip to MP3 for playing on my computer and my iPod, analyze the disk and music
for technical and musical qualities, or use it to line my bird cage. (Public
performance is the other big restriction. If you're geeky enough and squint
just right it's just form of distributing copies.)
In the absense of a license agreement between me and the publisher, I have
lots and lots of freedom. The only abridgement to my freedoms are those
explicitly made by Title 17. Title 17 notably lacks any "the copyright holder
can add arbitrary restrictions" terms.
You are not purchasing the music itself - your rights in terms of
how you may use that music are limited. This has a strong basis in copyright
law. Ever wonder what, "All Rights Reserved" means? The artist in question
reserves all rights to their work, their intellectual property.
Once more, this time with feeling...
I'm purchasing that particular copy of the music. It's now my
copy. I'm free use it however I want, so long as I obey the various copyright
laws. Notably, I can't distribute copies. The "All Rights Reserved," legally
speaking, is equivalent to "I'm a little teapot, short and stout." Yes, the
copyright holder has been granted some exclusive rights (notably the right to
distribute copies). But that right remains exclusive to the copyright holder
even if the copyright statement is missing (thanks to the Berne Convention)!
Including the copyright statement and the "All rights reserved" is just extra
protection. That way if they sue you for infringement, you can't argue for a
lesser penalty because "I didn't know it was protected by copyright, or I
thought I was implicitly given permission" because they'll reply "It says right
on the CD that copyright is claimed and that I'm reserving the rights so
granted."
Theft of product is an excellent way to save money. For example, shoplifting is a traditional way for kids to save money. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it doesn't save you any money. Heck, that's why you steal it.
Why is it that people don't consider pirating stealing?
Because it's not really theft. It's copyright infringement. When you infringe copyright you do not deny the original property owner access to their property. (If you steal my book, I can't read it any more. If you copy my book and return it, I can still read it.) If you get caught you'll be in civil court instead of criminal court. You'll only face fines instead of jail time.
They're very different beasts. By using language that implies that these two very different things are the same you're encouraging incorrect and silly comparisons like the RIAA's extremely silly "Downloading music off the internet is just like stealing a CD from a store."
To be fair, that's why I refuse to consider the two thing equivalent. Some people don't see an equivalence because they want to justify to themselves doing something that is illegal and widely considered immoral. Don't get me wrong, I support copyright law and am against copyright infringement. But we need to educate people on why copyright infringement is wrong, not incorrectly label it as identical to theft.
In defense of tech ageism, sortof
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm a programmer. Or a software engineer. Whatever. (I prefer hacker, but not all potential employers will appreciate what I mean by it.)
I understand one place where the ageism comes from.
The specific example cited above is just stupid, but there is a reasonable reason to prefer younger techies.
Remember Sturgen's Law, 90% of everything crap. This includes techies. Sure, you may work at some company that only hires smart techies who care about their work. But many companies (especially larger companies) are stuck with what they can get. If you need 200 programmers to write insurance and banking application, chances are that many of them are going to suck. Some are actually bad. Some want to be good, but need time to get there. Some just don't care.
As a result, you take steps to make the most use of these crappy techies. This is part of the reason that some companies have overly complex planning, design, and revision systems. Sure, it prevents a truly skilled and inspired person from being really efficient, but they can help keep those people not so blessed on track and getting work down (however slowly). (By way of an example, a friend complained that he was on a project to do some file conversions. It would take him one or two weeks to whip it up in Perl and carefully test it. Instead there were two dozen people working on it for six months. A waste of skilled, dedicated manpower, but in the absence of someone my friend, probably the only way to get it done at all.)
Now, all that said, maybe the better solution is to fire all of the not-so-good techies and invest heavily in the skilled ones. After all, the skilled ones can often replace many less skilled ones. Ultimately this is a financial decision (which is the better payoff for investment), and I don't know the answer. Personally I would go with fewer and better techies, but I don't get to make that choice.
So, some companies, especially large ones, take steps that optimize for the non-so-good techies, even if those steps harm good ones.
Ageism is just such a case. The more general case is a refusal to hire someone who doesn't have either 5+ years of experience in the technology they'll be working with, or just graduated with education focusing on the technology. The reason, many of the not-so-good techies aren't too keen on learning new things. After all, many of them just want to do their job and coast on by. Even if trained they'll take a long, long time to get up to speed. However, if a not-so-good techie already has real experience or just graduated with that experience they start up time is (in theory) much lower. Ageism just takes the reasonable fact that many techies will not learn new tech and applies it in a very conservative way to hiring. Of course, this bones the good techies who learn quickly and like learning. It leads to silly cases where a company will spend a full year failing to hire someone with experience in FooTech instead of just hiring someone and allocating time for them to learn.
Of course, all of this is just one of the reasons for ageism. There are others. I just wanted to offer up an explaination of one on the possible reasons.
Another popular reason for ageism is that fresh college grads are used to working long hours and don't expect alot of money. In this economy they're even more desperate, I know several recent grads willing to take extremely low paid jobs to gain needed experience (Which working as a waiter or a receptionist doesn't give). Unfortunately this can lead to situations where people get burned out and knowledge leaves the industry. The lack of long term stability means fewer people are willing to enter the industry. Older employees expect to be treated like the professionals that they are, they want reasonable professional salaries and reasonable working hours (you can raise the hours, but the salary better match). I think it is often a reasonable investment, but companies are often only as smart as the dumbest link in their chain of command (thus, ageism might come from the top, or from a HR person).
Have a look at the example GPL'ed program header:
"Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright..."
Erm, the hell?
That's not an example GPL'd program header. The example from the GPL begins:
one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License...
You'll notice the fairly explicit statement of copyright.
What you've quoted is a copyright disclaimer that they suggest you as a programmer get from your employer. Thus if John Hacker writes Gnomovision in his spare time, the FSF suggests that he get his employer (Yoyodyne, Inc) to sign off that they have no claim on it. It's just a cover your ass document. This doesn't actually have much to do with the GPL, it would be a reasonable defensive step to take before you claimed copyright on any software you write outside of the scope of your job, even stuff you didn't plan on applying the GPL to.
Egad, I hope you're kidding! I'm pretty sure that there is a UN resolution being debated that will specifically put Cube and Cube 2 on the list of crimes against humanity.Do not watch either Cube movie, here's why!
Cultures (At least interesting ones:-) happily steal words and phrases from other cultures and inevitably screw them up in the process. Smile and enjoy it.
If you're going to be in a business meeting with someone from Japan, perhaps it would be a good idea to steer clear of "otaku" to describe yourself. Of course, it would probably be a good idea to stear clear of any words you "just kinda picked up." Come to thinking about it, if you're in a situation where it would matter, what in the heck are you talking about your little obsession about anyway?
It's traditional to at least glance briefly at the patient before signing the death certificate.
While you're at it, do you mind if I eavesdrop on your cell phone conversations? After all, I'm using my own equipment to intercept signals passing through my property.
You're making a big assumption that I (as a person who believes that snooping broadcasts is ethical, if not legal) would be offended by this idea. I own a cell phone. And I darn well assume that it's being eavesdropped on. Sure, I'm not fond of the idea, but what can I do, my signal is wandering into other people's property. To assume that I should be able to control what someone does with perfectly legal electronics equipment in the privacy of their own home is preposterous. To "secure" my cell phone calls in this ways is just stupid. If I want security for my transmissions, I should protect myself (say, with strong public key encryption), not limit other people's options.
If you don't pay for the service, you have no right to use the service.
If you don't want me to have your stuff, don't beam it into my living room. I'm free to look at the light waves that enter my property, say, if my house's roof has a good view into a nearby for-profit football stadium. I'm sure the local football team is ticked that some people are seeing the game for free, but they're not going to try and stop me. I'm free to listen to the sound waves that enter my property, say, if a popular band plays a concert at said nearby stadium. I'm sure the band would be unhappy that some number of people enjoyed the sound of the concert without paying, but they'll cope. But suddenly radio waves are magically special and I'm not allowed to look at them?
Yeah people will really take slashdot posters seriously on other issues now...Everyone will no longer believe any excuses slashdot crowd makes, since/. make judgement 100% for selfish reasons.
Anyone who only weighs the opinions and statements of Slashdot users as a whole is an idiot. Picking one end of the spectrum of views and holding it as the beliefs of an entire large group is idiotic.
Slashdot has hundreds of thousands of readers. Despite popular troll claims, we are not a hive mind. Expecting every single reader to hold the same opinion and toe some sort of party line is stupid.
FVWM: The window manager I keep returning to
on
fvwm Turns Ten
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
My first experience with Unix-esque systems and X-Windows was in 1993 when I started college. At the time my choice was
TWM or FVWM. FVWM was clearly the more advanced option and one of the more advanced window managers at the time. (CDE looked advanced, but was more of a hassle than it was worth.)
Since then I've tended to be lazy and taken what I was given, stuck with whatever was the default. As a result I spend a long time with Enlightenment followed by SawFish/SawMill. I've dabbled with a number of other window managers.
Then last year (2002), I took a job back at my old university. The default was still FVWM! And while FVWM had matured, it remained instantly identifable. I hadn't used it in five years, but it came back instantly. It felt right. Sure, it lacks classy menus, but the configuration file was easy enough to use and let me set things up how I wanted. Most window managers are determined to stick the various window management buttons where they want them. FVWM makes it easy to stick them where I want them. It's a minimal WM, I don't run any of the modules except for the pager (to switch between virtual desktops) and the IconMan, a very minimal list of windows on each desktop. My desktop is spartan and I've discovered that I really like it.
While it's rude of BitTorrent to act so stupidly and is clearly a bug (or at least bad design), it's not entirely to blame. Software is going to occasionally act flaky and enter a state where it's not going shut down politely. Because of this the operating system must provide a way for you to terminate rogue processes. If you operating system doesn't let you do this, your operating system has a bug (or at least bad design). So, submit a bug report to Bram, sure, but also submit a bug report to your OS provider. After all, if you're going to pay for a proprietary OS, you at least deserve support to get it to behave reasonably.
As to why Python, I think it's pretty clear: it was a language that he could get BitTorrent shipped quickly with. One could point to the rapid development advantages of scripting languages and ease in handling common cases, but ultimately Bram decided it was the language he could get stuff done quickly in for whatever reason. (Similarly, I get many tasks most quickly done in Perl, even though other people might find Perl much harder to use.)
Sure, it has drawbacks, but it's a 90% solution. A 90% solution today is far better than a 100% solution next year. Ultimately worse is better. The biggest advantage is now that we see that it works pretty well and we have a good specification, people care implement Java, C++, C, Ada, or whatever versions. So enjoy what we have now and look forward to the future. If you're really inspired, help write the future!
Okay, it's a fair cop, we, as gaming consumers, get a bit of the blame. We (as a whole) reward cowardly, mindless behavior from our review sources.
However, I'm not suggesting that the game review media suddenly stop making "Best game of next year (or the year after that, or the year after that)" their hyped cover story. I'm talking small changes. Try to give at least one page (if you're, say, a magazine) to a lesser known game. While you're there, mention a few other "Worth your time to check out" games. I discovered some of my favorite small publisher games from the occasional site that would just make a thrown away comment, "I've been playing Weird-Game-X almost non stop all week, check out the demo." That's all it would take to change the direction of the industry. By and large these games are nearly instantly demoable thanks to the internet. This would encourage people to give them a look. A single paragraph mentioning how much the editor liked Such-and-Such is just a blip in the sales of a mainstream game, but would create a huge spike in the sales of a lesser known game.
Where do the new ideas go if we can't have games
like...Shenmue...?
In the case of Shenmue, hopefully into the garbage. Someone at Sega seems
to have confused "innovative" with "boring," "pointless," "repetative,"
"plot-free," and "wildly unrealistic."
Anyway... back on topic...
The editorial is off base. As any creative industry grows the core of the
industry becomes conservative, unwilling to take the risks necessary to create
truly innovative work. But just because the core does doesn't mean that
everyone will. Some companies will realize that you don't need to sell
millions of copies to be successful and will happily make modest profits with
smaller markets making truly innovative games. The original
Counterstrike was just such a case, it popularized the modern SWAT
style game and refined into the basis of many multi-player games. Pop Cap Games has done phenominally well with
their little games, most notably Bejeweled Something
genuinely original? How about surprisingly addictive game about building
bridges, Chronic Logic'sPontifex. How about a hard to
explain that can only be inaccurately described as action puzzle play matched
with turn based stategy, Moonbase Commander.
Check out the Independent Games
Festival for bunches more of genuinely new and interesting games.
Of course, certain genres are completely unreasonable for small publishers,
like massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Or are they? How about
a MMORPG without any combat? A Tale in the Desert. A
puzzle based MMORPG? Yohoho!
Puzzle Pirates.
Thanks to internet distribution, it's becoming more and more economical for
a smaller company to reach out to a global audience.
So, there is lots of great new game ideas. Sometimes they even escape from
big, conservative companies. So why don't we see them? Why aren't more people
aware of them? The problem isn't that a lack of new ideas, the problem is the
journalists themselves! By focusing on the big budget rehash games, spending
time giving us pointless "preview" coverage over and over ("We still haven't
actually played the game, but boy, it sure does look neat. We look forward to
its release in forty-eight months") instead of seeking out and publicizing
great stuff from small companies. It wouldn't take much to get the general
public looking for these games, helping to encourage further innovation.
Because the journalists hype them so, the game industry is still stuck in the
idiot "Big budget, big payoff" gamble that the movie industry is. With a few
small budge success stories we could see big companies realizing that quarter
or half million dollar risks don't have huge rewards, but they also lack the
possibility of becoming catastrophic
failures.
If you're worried about the lack of innovative games, go looking for them, they exist. Point them out to your friends. And if you're a journalist, don't just bitch, tell your readers about what gems you do find!
Did you suffer through the entirety Eva and for some reason weren't granted the same level of transcendence that most Eva-faithful appear to have gone through? Sure, parts were fun, parts were exciting, parts were a bit emotional, but you simply can't find it in yourself to declare that Eva somehow ties everything together into a logical conclusion filled with actual meaning?
Are you certain that the random Judeo-Christian imagery, surreal character development, and insane ending are actually a high school level attempt to fake depth of plot, philosophy, and maturity?
Slashdot Mirror
That's my attitude. I try out the demo first, if the demo is good, I'll buy the game.
Oh, wait, none of the mainstream United States based massively multiplayer online games offer demos. My "demo" is $50 and one month of play.
Of course, having played several such games (especially the leader, EverQuest), I think the obvious reason they don't offer demos is that the first twenty or so hours of play isn't fun. So lots of people would play the demo, then quit because the game looked like it sucked.
To hell with that. I'm done with Massive Multiplayer Anything until the genre matures. We're all paying beta testers in their minds, logging in and walking away while our characters heal, or sell goods.
Every once in a while, I'll read a book that fails to grab me in the first fifty or so pages. In general I'll give up on it, there are lots of books to read. If the book is highly recommended (say, Jordan's Wheel of Time series), I'll give it 100 pages. But if it still isn't grabbing me, it's gone. I haven't got the time.
So why should I suffer through the not-fun parts of the game hoping (but not guaranteed) that it will get better? I play games to have fun. Within ten minutes of installing the game, I better be having fun. Otherwise, what's the point? There are lots of other games on shelves (and most of those games actually offer demos. Having been burned by a number of games, including EverQuest, I now demand a demo before I buy a game.)
You know, "theft" is more identifiable, more accurate in my mind, and does sound worse. I shall immediately begin referring to Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act as theft from the public domain.
Hmmm, of course "murder" is more identifiable, more accurate in many people's minds, and sounds worse, so effective immediately the United States has murdered many Iraqi and Afghan civilians.
Using a word because people think it's more accurate, and because it sounds worse is exactly the wrong reason to use a word. It encourages people to manipulate language to deceive.
Of course, the RIAA's use of the word probably wouldn't be so silly if not for quotes like this (from the article):
And yet, it's more identifable, more accurate in many people's minds, and sounds better (if "sounds worse" is some sort of argument, so is "sounds better").
Of course they also regularlly trot out comparisions to stealing a CD from a store. Your average chimpanzee can tell the difference between downloading something off the internet and physically taking a CD. To imply that they do identical damage (And thus should share the same term) is as silly as lumping manslaughter and premeditated murder into the same crime. It blurs important distinctions that most people are perfectly capable of reasoning about.
And industries based on copyright (and their defenders) shouldn't be afraid to use accurate words. You don't try to discourage sexual harassment by calling it rape! Be honest, call it copyright infringement, and spend the time to convince citizens that infringing copyright morally wrong! Unless of course you don't think people are willing to accept your reasoned arguments. Then I suggest continuing the campaign of lies, smears, and deception.
Sweet Mary, mother of God, where do these monkeys come from? As soon as I find out, I'm going to patent the "infinite source of energy by harnessing infinite supply of people who don't understand copyright."
Assuming you're buying a CD (or a record or tape, assuming you can find one), you are purchasing... a CD. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly not a license. You'll notice that if you walk into your local Music and Other Stuff Store, that a CD and speaker cable is rung up exactly the same. After the purchase, you own that one particular copy of the CD. That sales transaction is exactly the same as, say, when you purchase a chair. You own that CD, and you own that chair. You can sell the CD, loan it out, give it away, play it, incorporate it into some abstract sculpture, use it as a coaster, or microwave it. You don't get any license because you don't need any license!
Now, that CD is marked "Copyright 2003, Some Big Company, All Rights Reserved." What's that mean? In a technical, legal sense, it means absolutely nothing. Thanks to the Berne Convention, in most countries (including the United States) you don't need to put any sort of copyright label on your work. You get copyright protection, free of charge, even if you don't label it. The label is just a warning. That way if you make a copyright infringing copy, you can't claim to the judge "but your honor, I didn't know it was protected by copyright," because the Expense Music Industry Lawyer will respond, "It's clearly labelled."
So, what does your free-of-charge, automatic copyright protection grant you? A number of things, but most of them can be summed up in the key protection: the copyright holder has the exclusive right to distribute copies. That's just about it. (You're also notably forbidden from public performance. If you squint a bit, public performance looks like distributing copies.) So, while you own that one specific CD, copyright law specifically withholds the right to distribute copies. This has nothing to do with a license. You don't need a license to cross the street, no, you're free to cross the street, but disallowed from jaywalking. Similarlly you're free to use and own that particular CD, but your disallowed from distributing copies.
This whole "license" concept is bullshit that the copyright based industries are trying to confuse people with. The software industry has been particularlly successful in convincing people that they can change a sale into a license after the fact. That this idea does not have any sort of strong court support yet doesn't bother them. Don't be confused by this deception!
How did this idiot get moderated up? As I work on my reply, I'm increasingly sure he's a troll. If he's not a troll, then he's really stupid.
Perhaps, but changing your definition in mid-clause is likely to get you smacked down in a court. That said, here's another quote from the GPL:
The corresponding source code would be the code that corresponds with the program you distributed. While it's not the most clear phrasing possible, no other interpretation is reasonable (and the court will support "reasonable" interpretations). Changing your definition of Program midway through would be a no-no.
Yup, several times. The GPL quite clearly says you need to release your changes. Anyone foolish enough to try and challenge it on these grounds will get laughed out of the courtroom for clearly trying to play word games. Contrary to popular belief, a contract does not need to be phrased to be resistant to playing word games and other trickery. If the meaning is reasonably clear to all sides involved, it will stand.
At least here in the United States, the basis of any agreement is that everyone involved agrees what it means. Your free to sprinkle it with opinions, write it on a napkin, and generally do what you will. If the court believes that both sides agreed on the intent, it's legal.
All that said, it's irrelevant. "The GPL", as found, say, here, has three distinct parts: A Preamble, the Terms and Conditions, and information using the GPL yourself. Only the Terms and Conditions matter, the rest is just some documentation and suggestions. That documentation tries to spread a message and explain why the Terms and Conditions say what they do. But this preamble and documentation is not the license! I think you'll find the Terms and Conditions extremely straightforward, listing the rules of the game, and with no significant opinions interjected.
I've seen similar contracts. An inevitably one of the suppliers they rely on will go under and the product disappear into limbo, leaving the company unable to get upgrades, security patches, or even more licenses as they hire more people. Or the business will need specific changes or bugfixes for their needs, but their supplier will be unwilling to make the changes and their license forbids the business from making the changes themselves. The supplier may jack up prices to an unaffordable level, or may change the license terms to something you're unwilling or unable to accept (Microsoft's new EULA's incompatibility with the new medical privacy laws comes to mind).
Software you don't have the source to is a risk. Like all risks, you need to weigh it against the benefits. For some products, it may be easy to switch to a competing product. For others, if the supplier goes under and you can't get updates and new licenses, you may end up with switching costs in excess of what the company can afford. Unfortunately most businesses purchasing software just blissfully assume that the supplier will continue to exist, continue to sell the product if you need more, continue to provide needed updates, and not jack up the prices. Most of the time this assumption is correct. Occasionally it's wrong and the business suddenly has to deal with a major, unplanned expense.
Getting free software is an insurance policy. It means that you control your own destiny. It only makes sense to consider the value of this insurance, especially for business critical systems.
I suppose that's true in for the definition of "own" as "the person with control over the copyright on the work."
However, it's entirely irrelevant for the common case of own, as in "I just bought the latest AngryPunkBand album, and now I own it." I own that one specific copy. I received no license for the album, but that's okay, I don't need one. I'm free to treat that copy just like any other possession, I can sell it, give it away, study it, disassemble it, modify it, loan it out, and many other things. However, because it's protected by copyright, there are specific restrictions on what I can do, most notably having to do with distributing copies of the work. But that's a law, has nothing to do with licensing, and doesn't influence my personal use of the item.
No, no, no, no, no !
Is there some sort of infinitely renewable stream of people completely unaware of how copyright works?
Copyright has nothing to do with a license. In the basic case, when you buy something that is protected by copyright, you neither need nor receive a license to use it. You are free to use it however you want. The only restrictions are specified in copyright law, primarily limiting your ability to distribute copies of the copyright protected work. There is no "you have no right to use this unless you get a license" clause in copyright law. There is no "when you buy something you get a license to use it" clause.
Unfortunately End User License Agreements have somehow tainted peoples brains and convinced them that they need some sort of magical license to use things they're purchased. You don't. Copyright law restricts you, yes. You can accept a license that will grant you things you couldn't do normally under copyright law (see the GPL, BSD, and similar licenses). But you don't need a license to use, modify for personal use, sell, or give it away! EULAs on software are built on a shaky legal foundation and is most certainly not a point of established law.
Assuming you're in the United States or a country with similar laws, this amazingly wrong. (If you're not in the US, just ignore this, your milage may vary.)
When you buy a music CD, you are purchasing that particular copy of the music. You can, in general, use that copy, that thing, just like any other thing you purchase, say, like your chair. You can loan it out, sell it, give it away, break it, use it as expected, use it in unexpected ways, and generally do what you wish.
There are a few small restrictions on what you can do, those are laws (and copyright in particular). We'll ignore most of the laws (for example, it's illegal to kill someone with a CD or a chair), and focus on copyright, since it creates the restrictions on what you can do that most of us care about. Notably, copyright laws do not say "The holder of copyright has nearly infinite control over copies and you can do almost nothing with it unless granted." It doesn't even say "You get a perpetual license to enjoy the content yourself, but no other rights." No, copyright law doesn't have anything to say about most uses, including listening to your music CD. However, copyright law does say that you can't distribute copies of the work. There are some other fiddly restrictions, but that's the key one.
Don't let the content industries control our language. You do not need any sort of license to use copyright restricted materials that you have purchased.
(As a side note, this is why the music CD publisher doesn't need to provide you with any way to back up your investment. You purchased that one copy, and if it fries, well, too bad. Of course, if you can figure out how to make a back up, it's still cool, just like you can "back up" a chair (it's a bit harder, but possible.))
How can we know? In a philosophical sense, we can't. But you can find out for practical purposes. Personally I know people who used to work for Microsoft. I heard that the code, while not bad, wasn't that good. I learned about the constant political infighting between groups and an irrational refusal to use external code. This led to such silliness as no major project in Microsoft actually using their own source control system. This lead to the the Office project maintaining their own forked version of the compiler. While none of this actively says their code is bad, it does suggest problems in their system that might be reflected in their code. Of course, while this is second hand to me, it's third hand to you, so you might not trust it. Reasonable enough. But my point is that one way to learn is to get the information from someone who really does know and who you trust.
Relatedly, you can make a certain level of judgement based on the software you receive and work with. If the software is buggy crap, chances are that the code isn't the Mona Lisa of the programming world.
I agree with your general message (that the GPL does in fact grant rights. Specifically, it grants you rights that under vanilla copyright law you would not have). However, you have a small, but popular, misconception:
You've got copyright slightly backward. When you purchase something protected by copyright, you outright own that one particular copy you just purchased. You are free to use it however you like. You can read it, watch it, disassemble it, sell it, loan it out, and give it away. You most certainly get usage privileges. You even get some distribution privileges, you can distribute the original copy (but not distribute additional copies).
Copyright is about restricting certain rights to the copyright holder. The key elements are the right to distribute copies and the right to publically perform the work (Squint a little and public performance looks like distribution of a copy). To practice these restricted rights, sure, you'll need some sort of license or sale of rights. But if you want to do just about anything else, well, because you purchased that one copy, you're free to do so.
Erm, I'm buying one thing. That particular copy of the music. Nothing more, nothing less. That copy is mine to use and dispose of as I see fit. I am no more buying a right to listen to it than I buy a right to sit in a chair that I purchase. Of course I can use stuff I own.
The gist is that I'm prohibited from distributing copies of a work protected by copyright. That's it. If I legally acquire a copy I'm free to do just about anything I want short of distributing copies. I can play them for myself and friends, I can loan them out, give them away, sell them, rebroadcast small portions for purposes of review or commentary, make a copy to tape for my car, rip to MP3 for playing on my computer and my iPod, analyze the disk and music for technical and musical qualities, or use it to line my bird cage. (Public performance is the other big restriction. If you're geeky enough and squint just right it's just form of distributing copies.)
In the absense of a license agreement between me and the publisher, I have lots and lots of freedom. The only abridgement to my freedoms are those explicitly made by Title 17. Title 17 notably lacks any "the copyright holder can add arbitrary restrictions" terms.
Once more, this time with feeling...
I'm purchasing that particular copy of the music. It's now my copy. I'm free use it however I want, so long as I obey the various copyright laws. Notably, I can't distribute copies. The "All Rights Reserved," legally speaking, is equivalent to "I'm a little teapot, short and stout." Yes, the copyright holder has been granted some exclusive rights (notably the right to distribute copies). But that right remains exclusive to the copyright holder even if the copyright statement is missing (thanks to the Berne Convention)! Including the copyright statement and the "All rights reserved" is just extra protection. That way if they sue you for infringement, you can't argue for a lesser penalty because "I didn't know it was protected by copyright, or I thought I was implicitly given permission" because they'll reply "It says right on the CD that copyright is claimed and that I'm reserving the rights so granted."
In the future, some more context would be good.
The Loving v. Virginia decision overturned a number of a laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Here is a summary of Loving v. Virginia with the Supreme Court's opinion.
Theft of product is an excellent way to save money. For example, shoplifting is a traditional way for kids to save money. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it doesn't save you any money. Heck, that's why you steal it.
Because it's not really theft. It's copyright infringement. When you infringe copyright you do not deny the original property owner access to their property. (If you steal my book, I can't read it any more. If you copy my book and return it, I can still read it.) If you get caught you'll be in civil court instead of criminal court. You'll only face fines instead of jail time. They're very different beasts. By using language that implies that these two very different things are the same you're encouraging incorrect and silly comparisons like the RIAA's extremely silly "Downloading music off the internet is just like stealing a CD from a store."
To be fair, that's why I refuse to consider the two thing equivalent. Some people don't see an equivalence because they want to justify to themselves doing something that is illegal and widely considered immoral. Don't get me wrong, I support copyright law and am against copyright infringement. But we need to educate people on why copyright infringement is wrong, not incorrectly label it as identical to theft.
I'm a programmer. Or a software engineer. Whatever. (I prefer hacker, but not all potential employers will appreciate what I mean by it.)
I understand one place where the ageism comes from.
The specific example cited above is just stupid, but there is a reasonable reason to prefer younger techies.
Remember Sturgen's Law, 90% of everything crap. This includes techies. Sure, you may work at some company that only hires smart techies who care about their work. But many companies (especially larger companies) are stuck with what they can get. If you need 200 programmers to write insurance and banking application, chances are that many of them are going to suck. Some are actually bad. Some want to be good, but need time to get there. Some just don't care.
As a result, you take steps to make the most use of these crappy techies. This is part of the reason that some companies have overly complex planning, design, and revision systems. Sure, it prevents a truly skilled and inspired person from being really efficient, but they can help keep those people not so blessed on track and getting work down (however slowly). (By way of an example, a friend complained that he was on a project to do some file conversions. It would take him one or two weeks to whip it up in Perl and carefully test it. Instead there were two dozen people working on it for six months. A waste of skilled, dedicated manpower, but in the absence of someone my friend, probably the only way to get it done at all.)
Now, all that said, maybe the better solution is to fire all of the not-so-good techies and invest heavily in the skilled ones. After all, the skilled ones can often replace many less skilled ones. Ultimately this is a financial decision (which is the better payoff for investment), and I don't know the answer. Personally I would go with fewer and better techies, but I don't get to make that choice.
So, some companies, especially large ones, take steps that optimize for the non-so-good techies, even if those steps harm good ones.
Ageism is just such a case. The more general case is a refusal to hire someone who doesn't have either 5+ years of experience in the technology they'll be working with, or just graduated with education focusing on the technology. The reason, many of the not-so-good techies aren't too keen on learning new things. After all, many of them just want to do their job and coast on by. Even if trained they'll take a long, long time to get up to speed. However, if a not-so-good techie already has real experience or just graduated with that experience they start up time is (in theory) much lower. Ageism just takes the reasonable fact that many techies will not learn new tech and applies it in a very conservative way to hiring. Of course, this bones the good techies who learn quickly and like learning. It leads to silly cases where a company will spend a full year failing to hire someone with experience in FooTech instead of just hiring someone and allocating time for them to learn.
Of course, all of this is just one of the reasons for ageism. There are others. I just wanted to offer up an explaination of one on the possible reasons.
Another popular reason for ageism is that fresh college grads are used to working long hours and don't expect alot of money. In this economy they're even more desperate, I know several recent grads willing to take extremely low paid jobs to gain needed experience (Which working as a waiter or a receptionist doesn't give). Unfortunately this can lead to situations where people get burned out and knowledge leaves the industry. The lack of long term stability means fewer people are willing to enter the industry. Older employees expect to be treated like the professionals that they are, they want reasonable professional salaries and reasonable working hours (you can raise the hours, but the salary better match). I think it is often a reasonable investment, but companies are often only as smart as the dumbest link in their chain of command (thus, ageism might come from the top, or from a HR person).
Erm, the hell?
That's not an example GPL'd program header. The example from the GPL begins:
You'll notice the fairly explicit statement of copyright.
What you've quoted is a copyright disclaimer that they suggest you as a programmer get from your employer. Thus if John Hacker writes Gnomovision in his spare time, the FSF suggests that he get his employer (Yoyodyne, Inc) to sign off that they have no claim on it. It's just a cover your ass document. This doesn't actually have much to do with the GPL, it would be a reasonable defensive step to take before you claimed copyright on any software you write outside of the scope of your job, even stuff you didn't plan on applying the GPL to.
Egad, I hope you're kidding! I'm pretty sure that there is a UN resolution being debated that will specifically put Cube and Cube 2 on the list of crimes against humanity.Do not watch either Cube movie, here's why!
I'd take the complaint about "otaku" more seriously if I believed that the Japanese were equally careful to use english correctly. But apparently they're just as clueless as we are. I mean, really.
Cultures (At least interesting ones :-) happily steal words and phrases from other cultures and inevitably screw them up in the process. Smile and enjoy it.
If you're going to be in a business meeting with someone from Japan, perhaps it would be a good idea to steer clear of "otaku" to describe yourself. Of course, it would probably be a good idea to stear clear of any words you "just kinda picked up." Come to thinking about it, if you're in a situation where it would matter, what in the heck are you talking about your little obsession about anyway?
It's traditional to at least glance briefly at the patient before signing the death certificate.
You're making a big assumption that I (as a person who believes that snooping broadcasts is ethical, if not legal) would be offended by this idea. I own a cell phone. And I darn well assume that it's being eavesdropped on. Sure, I'm not fond of the idea, but what can I do, my signal is wandering into other people's property. To assume that I should be able to control what someone does with perfectly legal electronics equipment in the privacy of their own home is preposterous. To "secure" my cell phone calls in this ways is just stupid. If I want security for my transmissions, I should protect myself (say, with strong public key encryption), not limit other people's options.
If you don't want me to have your stuff, don't beam it into my living room. I'm free to look at the light waves that enter my property, say, if my house's roof has a good view into a nearby for-profit football stadium. I'm sure the local football team is ticked that some people are seeing the game for free, but they're not going to try and stop me. I'm free to listen to the sound waves that enter my property, say, if a popular band plays a concert at said nearby stadium. I'm sure the band would be unhappy that some number of people enjoyed the sound of the concert without paying, but they'll cope. But suddenly radio waves are magically special and I'm not allowed to look at them?
Anyone who only weighs the opinions and statements of Slashdot users as a whole is an idiot. Picking one end of the spectrum of views and holding it as the beliefs of an entire large group is idiotic.
Slashdot has hundreds of thousands of readers. Despite popular troll claims, we are not a hive mind. Expecting every single reader to hold the same opinion and toe some sort of party line is stupid.
My first experience with Unix-esque systems and X-Windows was in 1993 when I started college. At the time my choice was TWM or FVWM. FVWM was clearly the more advanced option and one of the more advanced window managers at the time. (CDE looked advanced, but was more of a hassle than it was worth.)
Since then I've tended to be lazy and taken what I was given, stuck with whatever was the default. As a result I spend a long time with Enlightenment followed by SawFish/SawMill. I've dabbled with a number of other window managers.
Then last year (2002), I took a job back at my old university. The default was still FVWM! And while FVWM had matured, it remained instantly identifable. I hadn't used it in five years, but it came back instantly. It felt right. Sure, it lacks classy menus, but the configuration file was easy enough to use and let me set things up how I wanted. Most window managers are determined to stick the various window management buttons where they want them. FVWM makes it easy to stick them where I want them. It's a minimal WM, I don't run any of the modules except for the pager (to switch between virtual desktops) and the IconMan, a very minimal list of windows on each desktop. My desktop is spartan and I've discovered that I really like it.
While it's rude of BitTorrent to act so stupidly and is clearly a bug (or at least bad design), it's not entirely to blame. Software is going to occasionally act flaky and enter a state where it's not going shut down politely. Because of this the operating system must provide a way for you to terminate rogue processes. If you operating system doesn't let you do this, your operating system has a bug (or at least bad design). So, submit a bug report to Bram, sure, but also submit a bug report to your OS provider. After all, if you're going to pay for a proprietary OS, you at least deserve support to get it to behave reasonably.
As to why Python, I think it's pretty clear: it was a language that he could get BitTorrent shipped quickly with. One could point to the rapid development advantages of scripting languages and ease in handling common cases, but ultimately Bram decided it was the language he could get stuff done quickly in for whatever reason. (Similarly, I get many tasks most quickly done in Perl, even though other people might find Perl much harder to use.) Sure, it has drawbacks, but it's a 90% solution. A 90% solution today is far better than a 100% solution next year. Ultimately worse is better. The biggest advantage is now that we see that it works pretty well and we have a good specification, people care implement Java, C++, C, Ada, or whatever versions. So enjoy what we have now and look forward to the future. If you're really inspired, help write the future!
Okay, it's a fair cop, we, as gaming consumers, get a bit of the blame. We (as a whole) reward cowardly, mindless behavior from our review sources.
However, I'm not suggesting that the game review media suddenly stop making "Best game of next year (or the year after that, or the year after that)" their hyped cover story. I'm talking small changes. Try to give at least one page (if you're, say, a magazine) to a lesser known game. While you're there, mention a few other "Worth your time to check out" games. I discovered some of my favorite small publisher games from the occasional site that would just make a thrown away comment, "I've been playing Weird-Game-X almost non stop all week, check out the demo." That's all it would take to change the direction of the industry. By and large these games are nearly instantly demoable thanks to the internet. This would encourage people to give them a look. A single paragraph mentioning how much the editor liked Such-and-Such is just a blip in the sales of a mainstream game, but would create a huge spike in the sales of a lesser known game.
In the case of Shenmue, hopefully into the garbage. Someone at Sega seems to have confused "innovative" with "boring," "pointless," "repetative," "plot-free," and "wildly unrealistic."
Anyway... back on topic...
The editorial is off base. As any creative industry grows the core of the industry becomes conservative, unwilling to take the risks necessary to create truly innovative work. But just because the core does doesn't mean that everyone will. Some companies will realize that you don't need to sell millions of copies to be successful and will happily make modest profits with smaller markets making truly innovative games. The original Counterstrike was just such a case, it popularized the modern SWAT style game and refined into the basis of many multi-player games. Pop Cap Games has done phenominally well with their little games, most notably Bejeweled Something genuinely original? How about surprisingly addictive game about building bridges, Chronic Logic's Pontifex . How about a hard to explain that can only be inaccurately described as action puzzle play matched with turn based stategy, Moonbase Commander . Check out the Independent Games Festival for bunches more of genuinely new and interesting games.
Of course, certain genres are completely unreasonable for small publishers, like massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Or are they? How about a MMORPG without any combat? A Tale in the Desert . A puzzle based MMORPG? Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates .
Thanks to internet distribution, it's becoming more and more economical for a smaller company to reach out to a global audience.
So, there is lots of great new game ideas. Sometimes they even escape from big, conservative companies. So why don't we see them? Why aren't more people aware of them? The problem isn't that a lack of new ideas, the problem is the journalists themselves! By focusing on the big budget rehash games, spending time giving us pointless "preview" coverage over and over ("We still haven't actually played the game, but boy, it sure does look neat. We look forward to its release in forty-eight months") instead of seeking out and publicizing great stuff from small companies. It wouldn't take much to get the general public looking for these games, helping to encourage further innovation. Because the journalists hype them so, the game industry is still stuck in the idiot "Big budget, big payoff" gamble that the movie industry is. With a few small budge success stories we could see big companies realizing that quarter or half million dollar risks don't have huge rewards, but they also lack the possibility of becoming catastrophic failures.
If you're worried about the lack of innovative games, go looking for them, they exist. Point them out to your friends. And if you're a journalist, don't just bitch, tell your readers about what gems you do find!
Did you suffer through the entirety Eva and for some reason weren't granted the same level of transcendence that most Eva-faithful appear to have gone through? Sure, parts were fun, parts were exciting, parts were a bit emotional, but you simply can't find it in yourself to declare that Eva somehow ties everything together into a logical conclusion filled with actual meaning? Are you certain that the random Judeo-Christian imagery, surreal character development, and insane ending are actually a high school level attempt to fake depth of plot, philosophy, and maturity?
Take your suffering and at least get a good laugh out of it with Toastyfrog Jump's Neon Genesis Evangelion Thumbnail Theatre.