I once heard the quote that a million monkeys on a million typewriters would eventually produce Shakespeare. Well, thanks to the World Wide Web, I know this isn't true.
Why not see what others who are facing the same issue have done? In particular, I'm thinking of mozilla, which is another C++ application which has builds for Linux x86, Windows, OS X, OS/2, HPUX, AIX and Solaris.
Yeah, they had to make their own toolkit (XUL), but I don't know if you need one (it wasn't totally clear from the question).
In particular, check out this helpful document the mozilla team made about writing portable C++ code.
This is true, and is a very good point that you make. But still, it's a good start. And like the article said, there is already work being done to make a GPLed Renderman. So the hopes is that this will add developers to that effort. And if that comes to fruition, then we'll have the hose and Ferrari.
I'm thinking of buying a PVR soon, but I'm still undecided as to which. ReplayTV seems to have more features than Tivo (ethernet, commercial skip), but I'm interested in hearing from the Slashdot folk which they prefer. Thanks for your answers!
You should use Pan. (Check it out here.) Pan is easily the best newsreader I've ever used, on any platform. Plus, the newer versions have been ported to G2D, which means it gets the accessibility for free (in theory, I haven't used a11y features in G2D).
Emeralds are actually more rare than diamonds, and so are worth more.
Rarity has nothing to do with value. Indeed, diamonds are only about as rare as quartz. The reason why diamonds are so expensive is because DeBeers has a monopoly over them.
In terms of utility, diamonds are valuable. They're definitely pretty, and their incredible hardness makes them extremely useful.
However, neither rarity nor utility is the reason they're so damn expensive. An item is worth what people will pay for it, and since most people don't mind forking over a ludacrious amount of money for the rock, DeBeers will gladly continue charging that much for them.
I have to agree with this. I bought a subscription for WineX just to play Diablo II. I have a SCSI DVD-ROM and a SCSI CD-RW. Neither drive worked. I filed bug reports, but no luck.
Then WineX 2.0 came out, and they said try again. Didn't work. Filed bug reports again.
Then WineX 2.01 came out, and they said try again. Still didn't work. Filed more bug reports. Last time I checked they were still open.
Now I'm debating whether to get 2.1. Don't get me wrong, I think WineX is a good product, and if it works for me, I'll gladly pay. But I think the choice has already been made for me, since I don't really play Diablo II anymore.:o)
I'll support CodeWeavers but I won't support TransGaming.
I really don't understand this reasoning. Simply put, you can get source for WineX, but you can't get the source for any of the CrossOver product. So tell me again why TransGaming is bad CodeWeavers is good?
Transgaming has done a lot for Wine, and there is no better way to run new games on Linux than through WineX. Period.
If you want to help development by voting on issues and get binary releases, you pay $5. If not, you can still get CVS access to all of Transgaming source code (aside from copy protection related modules).
On the other hand, you can say Codeweavers changed the Wine license to LGPL so they can take whatever patches are submitted to the X11 tree - which Transgaming has contributed a lot to.
There is no argument behind the "abuse that BSD-like licenses allow" because it's simply not abuse. That's the nature of the BSD license. If you don't like it, don't use it for your code!
No, what's really cool about OSS is that you can name your program "BitchX". Do you think Adobe would market a product called "Gimp"? Or Microsoft would make their office product called "Gnome"?
I've always wondered, how do they get pictures millions of light years away from the Milky Way? Or even pictures of the Milky Way, for that matter? Obviously no terran space vessel could have taken it...
"Sounds like a pretty dirty move by Transgaming, if you ask me."
Why is this so dirty? Why can't a company change the license to its own code? Besides, in Gav's email he states that he can't stop Debian from packaging WineX and that the license allows it. All they did was politely ask Debian to not do it.
I've thought about the Wine situation a bit, and although I don't know all the information, I can't paint Transgaming as the bad guy they've been made out to be.
Transgaming has done a lot for Wine, and there is no better way to run new games on Linux than through WineX. Period.
If you want to help development by voting on issues and get binary releases, you pay $5. If not, you can still get CVS access to all of Transgaming source code (aside from copy protection related modules).
Finally, this was all done in accordance to Wine's original license. Transgaming did nothing to break its terms. In my opinion, those who have beef with Transgaming have no grounds to argue. If you didn't want a company to "leech" off of your code, you shouldn't have licensed your code with the X11 license.
Although I certainly don't think so, you can make a better argument that Codeweavers is more of a leech. Codeweavers changed the Wine license to LGPL so they can take whatever patches are submitted to the X11 tree. And unlike Transgaming, I can't get source code access to Codeweaver's products, the CrossOver Quicktime plugin and CrossOver Office.
There's a funny bit on Hawking's site where he describes his speech synthesizer.
He says, "One's voice is very important. If you have a slurred voice, people are likely to treat you as mentally deficient: Does he take sugar? This synthesiser is by far the best I have heard, because it varies the intonation, and doesn't speak like a Dalek. The only trouble is that it gives me an American accent."
The number of mpeg-4 implementations out there is pretty frightening, and so I wrote up a quick write-up of the most popular. Please let me know if you spot anything incorrect.
The ASF file format is based on Microsoft's MPEG-4 V2 codec.
The "DivX;-)" codec is based off of Microsoft's MPEG-4 V3 codec. This is
sometimes referred to as the 3.x codec. This is the format that requires
Win32 DLLs. This is the format most people are talking about when they say
"DivX". Most movies floating around the internet are encoded in this format.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage
http://divx.euro.ru
Project Mayo is developing an implementation called OpenDivX, which is GPL.
This is a rewrite (to lose the dependency on the Win32 DLLs, trying to make it
100% legal) and is sometimes referred to as the 4.x codec. This version is
backward-compatible with 3.x, but 3.x is not forward-compatible with 4.x
OpenDivX is under development, and still has quality and performance issues.
http://www.projectmayo.com
DivX Advanced Research Centre (DARC) has an implentation called DivX4. DARC and
Project Mayo are both part of a companly called DivXNetworks. Apparently,
OpenDivX was a sort of sandbox where DARC figured out what worked and what
didn't, and used that to create DivX4 from scratch. It is closed source, but
freely downloadable. DivX4 is reported to have very high image quality.
http://www.divxnetworks.com
3ivx has a self-named MPEG-4 implementation. They also refer to it as DivX 2.0.
Their implementation is closed source, and only the decoder is freely available
(in Windows, as a Windows Media Player or QuickTime plug-in; in Linux, as an
XAnim plug-in). You cannot play a DivX movie with the 3ivx codec.
http://www.3ivx.com
Nandub in an encoder which sports the Smart Bitrate Control (SBC) method of
encoding DivX. Nandub is a modified version of the VirtualDub program (which is
a general AVI editing and capture tool). Both Nandub and VirtualDub are
released under the GPL. SBC is not a codec, it's an encoding method based from
DivX 3.x which generally yields higher quality than normal.
http://www.nandub.org
http://www.virtualdub.org
The FFmpeg project has another rewritten from scratch MPEG-4 codec. They are
striving for real time encoding, and their code (GPLed) is written in ANSI C for
portability.
http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net
Metal Gear Solid 2 (which I finished this weekend and highly recommend)
I'm sorry, but I could not disagree more. Perhaps because I had the highest expectations for MGS2, but the original Playstation MGS was much better.
The standard gameplay is still good - sneaking around and stealthily taking out the guards. But then, so many things go wrong.
Firstly, you don't play as Snake after the first 20 minutes or so. I'd say half of Metal Gear is the character you play, and to not be Snake is simply lame. Worse, he's replaced with this whiny teenager with girl problems.
Secondly, the scope of Playstation version was much larger with several distinctly different levels. Most of the game is relegated to a montonous environment called "The Shell".
Finally, while the story of the Playstation version was um... ambitious, this game's story simply got out of hand. Through the window, utterly ridiculous. Making the problem worse was the fact that there were copious cutscenes. Don't get me wrong, I love cutscenes in games, but MGS2 wins the award of managing to turn me off. There would seriously be 5 minutes of gameplay and then 20 minutes of watching drivel.
If you do play the game, stick with that - playing. Just skip all the cutscenes and trust that you're not missing out. Then, you'll simply be dissappointed that the game's short and your character is annoying. But hey, the gameplay's good.
Slashdot Mirror
Good, now the three people using the Firebird database should be satisfied.
I once heard the quote that a million monkeys on a million typewriters would eventually produce Shakespeare. Well, thanks to the World Wide Web, I know this isn't true.
... there is only war.
'nuff said.
Why not see what others who are facing the same issue have done? In particular, I'm thinking of mozilla, which is another C++ application which has builds for Linux x86, Windows, OS X, OS/2, HPUX, AIX and Solaris.
Yeah, they had to make their own toolkit (XUL), but I don't know if you need one (it wasn't totally clear from the question).
In particular, check out this helpful document the mozilla team made about writing portable C++ code.
This is true, and is a very good point that you make. But still, it's a good start. And like the article said, there is already work being done to make a GPLed Renderman. So the hopes is that this will add developers to that effort. And if that comes to fruition, then we'll have the hose and Ferrari.
I'm thinking of buying a PVR soon, but I'm still undecided as to which. ReplayTV seems to have more features than Tivo (ethernet, commercial skip), but I'm interested in hearing from the Slashdot folk which they prefer. Thanks for your answers!
You should use Pan. (Check it out here.) Pan is easily the best newsreader I've ever used, on any platform. Plus, the newer versions have been ported to G2D, which means it gets the accessibility for free (in theory, I haven't used a11y features in G2D).
Rarity has nothing to do with value. Indeed, diamonds are only about as rare as quartz. The reason why diamonds are so expensive is because DeBeers has a monopoly over them.
In terms of utility, diamonds are valuable. They're definitely pretty, and their incredible hardness makes them extremely useful.
However, neither rarity nor utility is the reason they're so damn expensive. An item is worth what people will pay for it, and since most people don't mind forking over a ludacrious amount of money for the rock, DeBeers will gladly continue charging that much for them.
I just checked, and my bug reports are still open (from March 27!)
"Copy Protection still doesn't work" and "Fresh install, CD protection problem".
Anyway, my drives are:
TOSHIBA Model: DVD-ROM SD-M1401
YAMAHA Model: CRW4416S
I have to agree with this. I bought a subscription for WineX just to play Diablo II. I have a SCSI DVD-ROM and a SCSI CD-RW. Neither drive worked. I filed bug reports, but no luck.
:o)
Then WineX 2.0 came out, and they said try again. Didn't work. Filed bug reports again.
Then WineX 2.01 came out, and they said try again.
Still didn't work. Filed more bug reports. Last time I checked they were still open.
Now I'm debating whether to get 2.1. Don't get me wrong, I think WineX is a good product, and if it works for me, I'll gladly pay. But I think the choice has already been made for me, since I don't really play Diablo II anymore.
Transgaming has done a lot for Wine, and there is no better way to run new games on Linux than through WineX. Period.
If you want to help development by voting on issues and get binary releases, you pay $5. If not, you can still get CVS access to all of Transgaming source code (aside from copy protection related modules).
On the other hand, you can say Codeweavers changed the Wine license to LGPL so they can take whatever patches are submitted to the X11 tree - which Transgaming has contributed a lot to.
There is no argument behind the "abuse that BSD-like licenses allow" because it's simply not abuse. That's the nature of the BSD license. If you don't like it, don't use it for your code!
To quote Larry Wall (inventor of Perl), "The three great virtues of a programmer are laziness, impatience, and hubris."
No, what's really cool about OSS is that you can name your program "BitchX". Do you think Adobe would market a product called "Gimp"? Or Microsoft would make their office product called "Gnome"?
I've always wondered, how do they get pictures millions of light years away from the Milky Way? Or even pictures of the Milky Way, for that matter? Obviously no terran space vessel could have taken it...
"Sounds like a pretty dirty move by Transgaming, if you ask me."
Why is this so dirty? Why can't a company change the license to its own code? Besides, in Gav's email he states that he can't stop Debian from packaging WineX and that the license allows it. All they did was politely ask Debian to not do it.
I've thought about the Wine situation a bit, and although I don't know all the information, I can't paint Transgaming as the bad guy they've been made out to be.
Transgaming has done a lot for Wine, and there is no better way to run new games on Linux than through WineX. Period.
If you want to help development by voting on issues and get binary releases, you pay $5. If not, you can still get CVS access to all of Transgaming source code (aside from copy protection related modules).
Finally, this was all done in accordance to Wine's original license. Transgaming did nothing to break its terms. In my opinion, those who have beef with Transgaming have no grounds to argue. If you didn't want a company to "leech" off of your code, you shouldn't have licensed your code with the X11 license.
Although I certainly don't think so, you can make a better argument that Codeweavers is more of a leech. Codeweavers changed the Wine license to LGPL so they can take whatever patches are submitted to the X11 tree. And unlike Transgaming, I can't get source code access to Codeweaver's products, the CrossOver Quicktime plugin and CrossOver Office.
Although it's a cam from E3, watching the Doom III engine in action just made my jaw drop. Can't wait!
Check out the video here.
Mirrors here
bnetd is also sitting on Debian's servers, here is bnetd's package, and here is the source package.
Just when I got the Tivo 'Nimbus 2001', they release a new version!
There's a funny bit on Hawking's site where he describes his speech synthesizer.
He says, "One's voice is very important. If you have a slurred voice, people are likely to treat you as mentally deficient: Does he take sugar? This synthesiser is by far the best I have heard, because it varies the intonation, and doesn't speak like a Dalek. The only trouble is that it gives me an American accent."
Why is Stallman interesting? That's easy - he's done a lot to change the world.
Before you begin to criticise RMS, think about yourself honestly and what you've done to change the world.
Interesting or not, more likely than not I have more of a reason to listen to him than to you.
Apparently, either subscriptions or big ads. =)
Gnome's gnotices also has an article about designing and debugging corba application, using the great application ethereal as an example.
Did you see this article?
The title basically sums it up, "Sonic the Hedgehog Reports for his First Day of Work at Nintendo".
Sniff!
The number of mpeg-4 implementations out there is pretty frightening, and so I wrote up a quick write-up of the most popular. Please let me know if you spot anything incorrect.
;-)" codec is based off of Microsoft's MPEG-4 V3 codec. This is
The ASF file format is based on Microsoft's MPEG-4 V2 codec.
The "DivX
sometimes referred to as the 3.x codec. This is the format that requires
Win32 DLLs. This is the format most people are talking about when they say
"DivX". Most movies floating around the internet are encoded in this format.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage
http://divx.euro.ru
Project Mayo is developing an implementation called OpenDivX, which is GPL.
This is a rewrite (to lose the dependency on the Win32 DLLs, trying to make it
100% legal) and is sometimes referred to as the 4.x codec. This version is
backward-compatible with 3.x, but 3.x is not forward-compatible with 4.x
OpenDivX is under development, and still has quality and performance issues.
http://www.projectmayo.com
DivX Advanced Research Centre (DARC) has an implentation called DivX4. DARC and
Project Mayo are both part of a companly called DivXNetworks. Apparently,
OpenDivX was a sort of sandbox where DARC figured out what worked and what
didn't, and used that to create DivX4 from scratch. It is closed source, but
freely downloadable. DivX4 is reported to have very high image quality.
http://www.divxnetworks.com
3ivx has a self-named MPEG-4 implementation. They also refer to it as DivX 2.0.
Their implementation is closed source, and only the decoder is freely available
(in Windows, as a Windows Media Player or QuickTime plug-in; in Linux, as an
XAnim plug-in). You cannot play a DivX movie with the 3ivx codec.
http://www.3ivx.com
Nandub in an encoder which sports the Smart Bitrate Control (SBC) method of
encoding DivX. Nandub is a modified version of the VirtualDub program (which is
a general AVI editing and capture tool). Both Nandub and VirtualDub are
released under the GPL. SBC is not a codec, it's an encoding method based from
DivX 3.x which generally yields higher quality than normal.
http://www.nandub.org
http://www.virtualdub.org
The FFmpeg project has another rewritten from scratch MPEG-4 codec. They are
striving for real time encoding, and their code (GPLed) is written in ANSI C for
portability.
http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net
Metal Gear Solid 2 (which I finished this weekend and highly recommend)
I'm sorry, but I could not disagree more. Perhaps because I had the highest expectations for MGS2, but the original Playstation MGS was much better.
The standard gameplay is still good - sneaking around and stealthily taking out the guards. But then, so many things go wrong.
Firstly, you don't play as Snake after the first 20 minutes or so. I'd say half of Metal Gear is the character you play, and to not be Snake is simply lame. Worse, he's replaced with this whiny teenager with girl problems.
Secondly, the scope of Playstation version was much larger with several distinctly different levels. Most of the game is relegated to a montonous environment called "The Shell".
Finally, while the story of the Playstation version was um... ambitious, this game's story simply got out of hand. Through the window, utterly ridiculous. Making the problem worse was the fact that there were copious cutscenes. Don't get me wrong, I love cutscenes in games, but MGS2 wins the award of managing to turn me off. There would seriously be 5 minutes of gameplay and then 20 minutes of watching drivel.
If you do play the game, stick with that - playing. Just skip all the cutscenes and trust that you're not missing out. Then, you'll simply be dissappointed that the game's short and your character is annoying. But hey, the gameplay's good.