The PHG will be a hardcover book, full-color artwork on every page, on non-cheap paper. It'll be printed in huge quantities, and will be able to get printing costs as low as possible. They're also selling it at a lower margin, because they expect to sell lots.
Your CHB couldn't be printed, in small lots, for as cheap as they could. It'll be considerably more expensive, if the production quality is as good.
So, first thing to go is the full-color artwork. You simply won't be able to make it cheap enough. Grayscaling the artwork is still probably out of the question, because it probably won't look good, and you'll want to go with as cheap a printing process as you can get. So you want line art... but you'll have to come up with all that on your own. Yuck. Ok, no art in the CHB. Suddenly, you've got a smaller potential market.
The hardcover may have to go, too, because they're pretty expensive.
You also can't do a simple search-and-replace on the text to get rid of the trademarks, because it's not in the computer, it's on paper. Scanning and OCRing all that will take a lot of time, or a fair bit of money. Sure you want to do that?
Ok, even assuming you get this far before you give up, you need to be able to sell it. You don't have a vast distributer's network like WOTC does. You aren't owned by Hasbro, which has an even _larger_ one. So, you have to try to find a distributer who will sell your short-run CHB, which looks like junk, next to the PHB (less than $20).
Sure, maybe you'll be able to do it. You won't be able to compete enough to make a ding in WOTC's sales. And why would you want to? Sell D20 modules, make much more profit!
Read the license, please. It's at the OGF website and looks quite modelled after the GPL. In particular, it allows you to reproduce, verbatim, the rules (subject to trademark restraints).
The D20 game system will be under the OGL, but if you want to use the D20 trademarks, you'll need to follow the D20 license. It offers some restrictions, like not giving the rules for character creation (they want you to buy the PHB).
So, as an example, you could take the rules, change them, and release them as a different system (also under the OGL, kind of like the GPL). But you couldn't say it was compatible with the D20 system, and I don't think you could mention the D20 system at all.
Or, you could write supplements, new characters, modules, etc. and say it was compatible with the D20 system. The impression I've gotten is that the D20 license will not restrict things like that.
If you want to say "Compatible with D&D", you have to enter into a separate license for that trademark.
I'm not certain, offhand, what that would mean if say, you wanted to write a character generator. It seems to me that that wouldn't be allowed under the D20 license, but I'd have to ask for a ruling.
The bitstream font server gives access to font outlines and additional metrics, which WPO2k needs. (As do other WPs... I hear that Applix is using it too?)
It's not going away until X gives access to much more font info than it does now.
What am I supposed to do? Boot into my ABIT distribution when I want UDMA, boot into my Creative Labs distro when I want my sound to work, boot into my ATI distro for graphics?
Why have a distribution when 99% of the stuff hasn't been modified?
The reason people push for open source when a company releases no-cost software is often simply for their own protection.
There are a bunch of examples in the past where companies released a no-cost piece of software to get people to use it. Once it's popular, they started charging. "Oh, you want a version which works with Windows X? You have to pay for that." Or they start restricting the license more and more each version, so that fewer people actually get it for free.
If it's open source, you can depend on it. If you pay for it, the company has at least some economic reason to listen to your complaints. If you got it for free, you're completely at their mercy.
Are you sure it was a 509b, or did you mistype and mean a 905? I've never had any problems with 509b (once pnp was disabled), and I've known dozens of Linux boxes with them. (Including two in my home firewall.) I can't imagine that anyone would be badmouthing them on Usenet, because they've been stable and recommended since I started using Linux in 1994.
How many laptops have you installed Linux on? I've done a bunch. There's always something which requires voodoo to get working, whether it's hacking out your own modelines (for the LCD screen!) because nothing else gets it right, starting in framebuffer mode because that's the only way to get X to work, hacking the install disks to move the location of th TCIC controller, or trying valiently (and eventually giving up) to get sound to work. Many laptops I've worked on have had built-in but unusable hardware in one way or another.
Maybe preinstalled desktops aren't very cool, but preinstalled laptops mean that you don't have to go scouring web sites and ftp sites for clues on how to get everything to work. It means that odds are, all the hardware will work! This _is_ a leap ahead.
One thing I've been trying to wrap my head around lately is, why do people believe they have the right to decompile and start distributing someone else's hard work?
US Law gives us that right.
The law differentiates certain protections. Copyright protects an expression of an idea. But the ideas in a work are unprotected, and reverse engineering is allowed as a way to retrieve those unprotected ideas, so long as you don't infringe on their copyright by copying the expression.
This isn't a new concept. Society doesn't recognize a permanent right of creators to keep their ideas secret. You have a right to try to keep it secret (trade secret, aka don't tell anyone without contracts), or you can release it fully in exchange for temporary protection (patents).
I want things like Grim Fandango, Monkey Island or Indy and the Infernal Machine. I mean, we already have umpteen billion first-person shooters, how about a little variety?
I can't imagine anyone feeling exploited by DVDs. Here's why:
* Nobody's forcing you to buy them. I don't know of many movies these days being released on DVD only. They're all DVD and VHS. (Excluding a few old ones like Cannibal Women and the Avocado Jungle of Death, which you would be hard pressed to find at all, if not for DVD.) VHS will be around for a long time, and if it's all you want, stick with it.
* The image and sound difference is amazing. Watch the same movie in VHS and then DVD. You'll be shocked at what came out of your TV.
* DVDs have lots of cool things you don't find on VHS tapes, and they're still pretty cheap. (I've been buying them for ~$20, and I haven't been scouting for deals.)
As it is, if I'm being exploited, EXPLOIT ME MORE!!!
Infocom used essentially the same game engine for most of their titles. But the games were sufficiently different and entertaining that this wasn't a problem but a benefit.
Perhaps game engines these days aren't sufficiently general to allow for different games, just different graphics?
Corel produces lots of applications to produce printed output. However, the printing support in WP8 is essentially unchanged from WP6 for Unix, and is extremely limited. For instance, printing to "Passthru Postscript" printers is limited to 300 DPI, black and white.
What efforts are Corel taking to improve printing in their products? Will you be accepting whatever print capabilities WINE gives you, and letting WP (not scheduled to be ported to WINE by WPO2k/Linux) languish, or are you working to improve printing and support of new printers in some way?
you wouldn't have learned without the help of someone along the way.
You'd be surprised. A lot of us _did_ learn Linux via available documentation at the time. When I was setting things up, I scanned the newsgroups and read all the howtos. It was rare I had to ask a question, because I could usually find where someone had asked it before, and find the answer they'd recieved.
This is not an impossible thing. Maybe it's impractical for many people, maybe it's undesirable, but it's definately possible.
Not every Linux user has time to help every newbie who asks a question. Some Linux users don't have time for any questions.
Me, I have time for a small set of questions, those which deal with software I use on a daily basis and can answer with minimal research. Ask me an Emacs question, and I can and will help you. Ask me how to set up PPP or your sound card, and I won't help you, because while I've done it (and do it on a semiregular basis) I don't remember enough to give someone step-by-step instructions that will always work. I don't have time to work with someone to get all the information needed to set things up.
I doubt RMS wants to destroy Java compatibility. He understands standards, he's been using them for quite some time.
His point, I think, is that companies _will_ market systems which are incompatible, or contain extensions. It's going to happen, because there are companies who can afford to do so, and for whom there would be a benefit. The SCSL is not going to prevent this.
What opening up the Java source would do would be to enable users to make core java compatible with the inevitable incompatibilies. This wouldn't destroy the presence of standards, or even Sun's control over the Java name using conformance tests. But it would help the users work with proprietary extensions _and_ enable useful work to be done.
Look at TeX. The code is open. But to be called TeX, it needs to pass the trip test. As a result of this, we've had substantial third-party (commercial and non-commercial) development done: PDF generation, incremental display, built-in PS interpreters. Would these things have happenned if TeX were as tightly controlled as Java? And have users been hurt? Hardly.
Much as I abhor major version inflation (seems to be a way to get a cheesy lead over others), it does have one _long_ overdue feature, the choosable security levels. Here's hoping it spreads into all the distributions!
A number of posts here suggest that adding color will reduce battery life to that of WinCE machines. Unlikely, now that reflective color LCDs are available (and in more than the color gameboy). I know it's already in use in digital cameras, with tons of help on battery life because you don't backlight unless you're in the dark.
Palm's going to use them... I can't see them using anything else.
Nope. It's the same screen (same video card, same video memory, etc). No way to split it so that you get different things to the monitor and LCD. You'd need a second video card for that.
You can use the algorithms in anything you like. You probably won't be using the source directly, but if you are (making a derivative of the tex program), you can make changes via change files.
Take a look at ctan for more details (http://www.ctan.org).
It looks to me like Sun is looking for a standards body who will put their name behind Java, while letting Sun handle the actual "standardization" process. Unsuprisingly, they're not finding a body to do this.
So, who's left? I seem to recall they've already tried ISO, they've tried ECMA, and they're sure to get the same reception with the IETF.
Slashdot Mirror
The PHG will be a hardcover book, full-color artwork on every page, on non-cheap paper. It'll be printed in huge quantities, and will be able to get printing costs as low as possible. They're also selling it at a lower margin, because they expect to sell lots.
Your CHB couldn't be printed, in small lots, for as cheap as they could. It'll be considerably more expensive, if the production quality is as good.
So, first thing to go is the full-color artwork. You simply won't be able to make it cheap enough. Grayscaling the artwork is still probably out of the question, because it probably won't look good, and you'll want to go with as cheap a printing process as you can get. So you want line art... but you'll have to come up with all that on your own. Yuck. Ok, no art in the CHB. Suddenly, you've got a smaller potential market.
The hardcover may have to go, too, because they're pretty expensive.
You also can't do a simple search-and-replace on the text to get rid of the trademarks, because it's not in the computer, it's on paper. Scanning and OCRing all that will take a lot of time, or a fair bit of money. Sure you want to do that?
Ok, even assuming you get this far before you give up, you need to be able to sell it. You don't have a vast distributer's network like WOTC does. You aren't owned by Hasbro, which has an even _larger_ one. So, you have to try to find a distributer who will sell your short-run CHB, which looks like junk, next to the PHB (less than $20).
Sure, maybe you'll be able to do it. You won't be able to compete enough to make a ding in WOTC's sales. And why would you want to? Sell D20 modules, make much more profit!
Read the license, please. It's at the OGF website and looks quite modelled after the GPL. In particular, it allows you to reproduce, verbatim, the rules (subject to trademark restraints).
Go to the the "TSR" website. Notice anything?
No, just political pr crap about not including angels in it. 8^) (Somewhere around Dragon 39, I think.)
The D20 game system will be under the OGL, but if you want to use the D20 trademarks, you'll need to follow the D20 license. It offers some restrictions, like not giving the rules for character creation (they want you to buy the PHB).
So, as an example, you could take the rules, change them, and release them as a different system (also under the OGL, kind of like the GPL). But you couldn't say it was compatible with the D20 system, and I don't think you could mention the D20 system at all.
Or, you could write supplements, new characters, modules, etc. and say it was compatible with the D20 system. The impression I've gotten is that the D20 license will not restrict things like that.
If you want to say "Compatible with D&D", you have to enter into a separate license for that trademark.
I'm not certain, offhand, what that would mean if say, you wanted to write a character generator. It seems to me that that wouldn't be allowed under the D20 license, but I'd have to ask for a ruling.
The bitstream font server gives access to font outlines and additional metrics, which WPO2k needs. (As do other WPs... I hear that Applix is using it too?)
It's not going away until X gives access to much more font info than it does now.
What am I supposed to do? Boot into my ABIT distribution when I want UDMA, boot into my Creative Labs distro when I want my sound to work, boot into my ATI distro for graphics?
Why have a distribution when 99% of the stuff hasn't been modified?
The reason people push for open source when a company releases no-cost software is often simply for their own protection.
There are a bunch of examples in the past where companies released a no-cost piece of software to get people to use it. Once it's popular, they started charging. "Oh, you want a version which works with Windows X? You have to pay for that." Or they start restricting the license more and more each version, so that fewer people actually get it for free.
If it's open source, you can depend on it. If you pay for it, the company has at least some economic reason to listen to your complaints. If you got it for free, you're completely at their mercy.
Are you sure it was a 509b, or did you mistype and mean a 905? I've never had any problems with 509b (once pnp was disabled), and I've known dozens of Linux boxes with them. (Including two in my home firewall.) I can't imagine that anyone would be badmouthing them on Usenet, because they've been stable and recommended since I started using Linux in 1994.
Turn off the theme and GTK will be a lot faster.
How many laptops have you installed Linux on? I've done a bunch. There's always something which requires voodoo to get working, whether it's hacking out your own modelines (for the LCD screen!) because nothing else gets it right, starting in framebuffer mode because that's the only way to get X to work, hacking the install disks to move the location of th TCIC controller, or trying valiently (and eventually giving up) to get sound to work. Many laptops I've worked on have had built-in but unusable hardware in one way or another.
Maybe preinstalled desktops aren't very cool, but preinstalled laptops mean that you don't have to go scouring web sites and ftp sites for clues on how to get everything to work. It means that odds are, all the hardware will work! This _is_ a leap ahead.
US Law gives us that right.
The law differentiates certain protections. Copyright protects an expression of an idea. But the ideas in a work are unprotected, and reverse engineering is allowed as a way to retrieve those unprotected ideas, so long as you don't infringe on their copyright by copying the expression.
This isn't a new concept. Society doesn't recognize a permanent right of creators to keep their ideas secret. You have a right to try to keep it secret (trade secret, aka don't tell anyone without contracts), or you can release it fully in exchange for temporary protection (patents).
I want things like Grim Fandango, Monkey Island or Indy and the Infernal Machine. I mean, we already have umpteen billion first-person shooters, how about a little variety?
slsia
I can't imagine anyone feeling exploited by DVDs. Here's why:
* Nobody's forcing you to buy them. I don't know of many movies these days being released on DVD only. They're all DVD and VHS. (Excluding a few old ones like Cannibal Women and the Avocado Jungle of Death, which you would be hard pressed to find at all, if not for DVD.) VHS will be around for a long time, and if it's all you want, stick with it.
* The image and sound difference is amazing. Watch the same movie in VHS and then DVD. You'll be shocked at what came out of your TV.
* DVDs have lots of cool things you don't find on VHS tapes, and they're still pretty cheap. (I've been buying them for ~$20, and I haven't been scouting for deals.)
As it is, if I'm being exploited, EXPLOIT ME MORE!!!
Infocom used essentially the same game engine for most of their titles. But the games were sufficiently different and entertaining that this wasn't a problem but a benefit.
Perhaps game engines these days aren't sufficiently general to allow for different games, just different graphics?
Corel produces lots of applications to produce printed output. However, the printing support in WP8 is essentially unchanged from WP6 for Unix, and is extremely limited. For instance, printing to "Passthru Postscript" printers is limited to 300 DPI, black and white.
What efforts are Corel taking to improve printing in their products? Will you be accepting whatever print capabilities WINE gives you, and letting WP (not scheduled to be ported to WINE by WPO2k/Linux) languish, or are you working to improve printing and support of new printers in some way?
You'd be surprised. A lot of us _did_ learn Linux via available documentation at the time. When I was setting things up, I scanned the newsgroups and read all the howtos. It was rare I had to ask a question, because I could usually find where someone had asked it before, and find the answer they'd recieved.
This is not an impossible thing. Maybe it's impractical for many people, maybe it's undesirable, but it's definately possible.
Not every Linux user has time to help every newbie who asks a question. Some Linux users don't have time for any questions.
Me, I have time for a small set of questions, those which deal with software I use on a daily basis and can answer with minimal research. Ask me an Emacs question, and I can and will help you. Ask me how to set up PPP or your sound card, and I won't help you, because while I've done it (and do it on a semiregular basis) I don't remember enough to give someone step-by-step instructions that will always work. I don't have time to work with someone to get all the information needed to set things up.
I doubt RMS wants to destroy Java compatibility. He understands standards, he's been using them for quite some time.
His point, I think, is that companies _will_ market systems which are incompatible, or contain extensions. It's going to happen, because there are companies who can afford to do so, and for whom there would be a benefit. The SCSL is not going to prevent this.
What opening up the Java source would do would be to enable users to make core java compatible with the inevitable incompatibilies. This wouldn't destroy the presence of standards, or even Sun's control over the Java name using conformance tests. But it would help the users work with proprietary extensions _and_ enable useful work to be done.
Look at TeX. The code is open. But to be called TeX, it needs to pass the trip test. As a result of this, we've had substantial third-party (commercial and non-commercial) development done: PDF generation, incremental display, built-in PS interpreters. Would these things have happenned if TeX were as tightly controlled as Java? And have users been hurt? Hardly.
Much as I abhor major version inflation (seems to be a way to get a cheesy lead over others), it does have one _long_ overdue feature, the choosable security levels. Here's hoping it spreads into all the distributions!
A number of posts here suggest that adding color will reduce battery life to that of WinCE machines. Unlikely, now that reflective color LCDs are available (and in more than the color gameboy). I know it's already in use in digital cameras, with tons of help on battery life because you don't backlight unless you're in the dark.
Palm's going to use them... I can't see them using anything else.
Nope. It's the same screen (same video card, same video memory, etc). No way to split it so that you get different things to the monitor and LCD. You'd need a second video card for that.
You can use the algorithms in anything you like. You probably won't be using the source directly, but if you are (making a derivative of the tex program), you can make changes via change files.
Take a look at ctan for more details (http://www.ctan.org).
It looks to me like Sun is looking for a standards body who will put their name behind Java, while letting Sun handle the actual "standardization" process. Unsuprisingly, they're not finding a body to do this.
So, who's left? I seem to recall they've already tried ISO, they've tried ECMA, and they're sure to get the same reception with the IETF.