My complaint is this: Why aren't distro's packaging ximian gnome as the default gnome distro? We all know Redhat kind of ignores the linux desktop, concentrating on the server stuff. If I was them, I'd package ximian and have an instant polished gnome desktop. Redhat employs enough gnome hackers, that in a sense, they're already subsidizing the cost of Ximian gnome anyway.
Not to take anything away from the RH gnome install, but why reinvent the wheel, Ximian has done most of the work already.
Ximian is a company with a product, that product being Ximian Gnome. It's not freely available to be packaged without the consent of Ximian. If RedHat agreed to this they would then become Ximian's whipping boy. What would be smart of Redhat to do is acquire Ximian and make it it's desktop division if they think the desktop is going to go somewhere; then we can yell and scream about how RedHat is like Microsoft. Anyway the whole acquistion process would have to take place now as Redhat risk losing market and mind share to Ximian. Ximian would gain a foothold if they decided to do their own Linux Distribution just to make things easier for themselves and not having to support all the other distro's out there (this would also mean they would have to grow and likely lose focus on what they are good at). The primary people who use Ximian are also the primary people that would switch. So to make a long story short if Linux on the Desktop is coming then Ximian will have everyone by the balls in a corporate sense; but for right now you just play your position and you play it well and that is what RedHat and Ximian are doing. Obviously people will still be able to choose KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment 17 whatever else there is and for the people that don't use DE's then Window Managers etc or just the command line.
I was.. I had some serious issues with at&t security which eventually landed me into the military on a plea bargain. AT&T Security is good but not all that good; the only reason I got caught was because of someone elses stupidity. The problem with at&t is that they leave alot of test exchanges open, alot of equipment unguarded and a while ago didn't even shred alot of their stuff. The dumpster diving days turned up alot of good shit. Infact social engineering at&t is probably still easy, but I'm sure they've beefed up security in places. Nowadays you could probably still "phreak" it's just alot more complicated with landlines and you'd probably have a lot more luck with cell phones.
Needless to say I don't do this stuff anymore but people can really get into some serious trouble with at&t.. Ask anyone else who was in groups like MOD, LSD, etc.
You could always use other hardware and another OS.
I could; I know enough about computers to do so. John Doe i'm not so sure about.
Nobody is forcing you to use MS, they just might offer the only practical solution.
Sure, any major OEM usually tells you; "You can get it with Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Windows". So nobody has a gun to my head, and surely they aren't forcing me to use Windows but again "You can get Windows or Windows" are my choices.
There is nothing wrong with being a far better supplier then everyone else, and MS has done an excellent job of providing a solution people want to buy.
I don't want to buy windows but should I purchase a new machine instead of building my own and it happens to be x86 arch I most likely will have to buy windows. Even though I might not want to it's included in the cost of the PC. So I'm buying it anyway. That's an excellent job at locking the market in by locking OEM's in and not giving people choice. There isn't one solution I can think of that Microsoft has provided without it's quirks or that was stolen from someone else.
Microsoft is just a bunch of lawyers/criminals and mediocre products. They don't give a shit about security or quality or any of that. It's about how they can get any warm body hooked on their IV system. So far, they are doing quite well.
Just like anything else give it a simple cleaning. I'm sure every now and then you take a simple duster to some of your stuff. It's very easy to buy a can of compressed air and then use the compressed air to clean out the dust bunnies. Once every 6 months or so and you should be fine. There are also cases that prevent this very thing, as it's too hot for me to be on my computer right now I'll just explain the case I have. I have a Lian Li that I bought from thinkgeek it has a filter system in the front. A filter is placed above two high speed fans (who's speed can be set) that catch dust and that is removeable and cleaneable. Dust still gets in the case but it's alot less and my cleaning time is really only annual if I want. Even if you don't have fans in your case electricity can attract those dust balls at the foot of your box very easily so it's not just a matter of fans or moving parts it's really just a matter of cleanliness.. Smoking, dustballs, dirt, etc can all cause problems.. but a regular dusting helps.
Yeah.. exactly like that except using your OWN search pattern or algorithim not googles. In essence you'd be creating your own search engine using googles stuff..
Here's a question I wanted to know, I must of been sleeping or something during the original questions.. Why isn't it that someone hasn't written an API or something of the sort based on an algo for whatever specific program to get relevant information for whatever in that specific program using google? Well lemme not say API lets say using existing command line utilities maybe. I've never seen that done, it's kinda of using Google as a large database (the whole data mining thing). maybe it's been done somewhere... ahh whatever I'm gonna run over the brooklyn bridge thinking about this.. maybe I'll come up with something.
... but also with any other corporatized industry. Radio stations was a very good example. Here in Brooklyn I could decide I wanted to listen to classical, jazz, hiphop, r&b or whatever. Now all the stations sound exactly the same; exactly. Same music, same shit. Hiphop once was a voice for poor blacks (public enemey, tribe called quest, pharcyde, the roots) now it's nothing but beat samples and someone talking about their 22's and watches and shit. There is a new radio station that tries to address the hiphop nonsense in nyc; 105.1 but we'll see how long that'll last. Jazz used to be about Birdland and John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, Kenny G shit like that. Now it's about bland elevator music; etc etc etc.
The problem isn't with the corporations doing this the problem is that people here just don't give a shit about their rights or anything else except having that new house and new car.. The American dream. A friend of mine is so apprehensive about everything, oh I shouldn't do that it might affect a,b,c. "Oh you shouldn't tell that person to fuck off their the manager or ceo or whatever of blah blah blah and if you don't conform to mental death you'll be ostracized from society." It's so obvious people don't give a shit when they let corporations have more rights than them. Infact as we've seen lately corporations can rob the public blind and no one does any time at all, no punishments not even punitive damages that mean anything; who loses? the public, Who gains? The Corporation of course and when will it stop? Never, because the people that steal the money get hired at Corporation B and they steal money from the public there as well. Business as usual.
You have people on Slashdot talking out of two sides of their faces.. Ohh I hate Blizzard, Vivendi but I can't wait for WarCraft.. I'm gonna go out and get that game. Hell they didn't trample on my rights just some other guy who has nothing to do with bnetd except for hosting it. Infact the bnetd developers didn't even have anything to do with it but hell whatever.I hate the MPAA but I'm gonna buy some dvd's because I need them. Fuck the RIAA but I have to have that new Britney Spears, NSYNC pop jawlock shit they put out.
Anyway I'm fucking rambling but it's time people stand for something. If you don't like it actively protest it, don't buy it, don't listen to it, don't deal with it. Stand for something or fall for anything.. as for news if you want some good investigative journalism on stuff thats news worthy check out Dateline NBC. Thats the only show I can really think of that tells the current system that people are still watching. If anyone else has anything they think is news worthy feel free to add on.
People keep counting nintendo out and it's really the only console maker that I can think of that has games that are worth making multiplayer versions of. When I think playstation 2 I think violence adult mature games, kickboxing and shit nothing really multiplayer. When I think Xbox I don't think about much because there are no games but when I think Nintendo I think of all sorts of multiplayer games, they don't necessarily have the best graphics or any of that but they are really fun. Could you imagine multiplayer mario kart?!?! An online tournament of mario kart (time to email nintendo).. if the next big thing is multiplaying consoles. It'll definitely be ps2 , xbox VS nintendo. This is gonna be good.
Heh, umm I'm not gonna address the above because I said what I had to already and as I can see from your response you seem to think the person reporting this is a journalist when they are actually a producer (ie: probably someone that shouldn't be posting to begin with). Should they have reported I don't know but your comments were just outta context, anyone can see that. Even though this person was a producer or whatever they did a very good job with this, also most people who read the article thought so at least from what I can see in comments. To your last question;
I run kernelcode.com, I've run linux since kernel 0.99.6. Infact I can remember the first stable version being 1.2.13 before that I ran OS/2 2.11 -> Warp, before that I fooled around from highschool on vax machines at hofstra university. I have an ibook with mac osx and have for quite sometime.. I also have a sun netra and pc's.. plus various sorts of other equipment.
I use linux on my desktop pc and on my ibook osx obviously and have been fooling around with darwin even though I don't find myself interested so much (they screwed some 15 yr old kid over). I also have been hacking on the freebsd kernel for quite sometime, I don't really mess with the linux kernel anymore.
Slashdot isn't a professional jounalism site and I never said that. I recall saying something like "instead of becoming an industry leader" etc; Not only that but all that hobby site bullshit is out the door. Slashdot is owned by a company; period. It doesn't mean they need to be professional, it doesn't mean much really except for the fact that there are certain things they can no longer do; like slander. The headline is simply wrong and if this was another story and slashdot got sued; I'd bet it'd be changed very quickly. When you are big and owned by a company there are certain things you do not do no matter what it is you provide. You are a very easy target, thats just business though. No matter what hobby shit you talk of when there is money involved and it's not yours you play by the rules.. got it?
If I wanna recommend something professional I wouldn't recommend slashdot. If I wanna recommend something TO professionals I recommend slashdot because it's fun and it allows for bullshit time but it has to have substance and be factual so that the forums can be populated with good debate. Without that slashdot is nothing, just a big site with alot of people who are wasting time commenting on things they don't know about and it'll turn into AOL for "techies". Infact at this rate AOL might even end up buying out slashdot, hell its hard finding insightful stuff anymore it's all +5 Funny.
Heh revenue doesn't make the company larger silly anonymous coward and if you were gonna say anything at least be close and say Wal-Mart..(WMT) on yahoo..
"Small software makers like Lindows are trying to help desktop users bridge that divide." Small? Relative to what? MS? GM and CocaCola are small compared to MS!
Ummmm any company in the world is small relative to MS. You aren't making a point.
"A Linux-based open-source program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop." What on earth does Evolution have to do with the desktop? Other than being made by the folks at GNOME?
Looks much like outlook to me.. See most people that read that viewed it in its appropriate context. You are nitpicking
"WalMart recently began selling a house brand PC at rock bottom prices -- available with Linux for the thriftiest PC buyers." Read Cheap. It's an old FUD, that linux users are cheap, and wont spend money. If that's true go talk to the folks at Ximian who get monthly subscriptions, just for better connection speeds (and of corse StarOffice!). Or about SlashDot subscribers. Truth is that Linux users (curently) arent' cheap, they are just very educated, and know what not to waste their money on. Give them a product worth paying for and they WILL pay for it.
Read most people are usually cheap in markets like this. This isn't FUD, if you read the article in it's context it's referred to several other times. As for subscriptions models to "services". They don't keep any of the companies you spoke of afloat.
"The Linux operating system, and other "open source" alternatives written by devoted bands of volunteer programmers, would be available to anyone for the cost of a download. But today, Windows is still running on the vast majority of PCs. So what happened?"
So what is OS X?
I don't even know what this is? What does OS X have to do with the above? Windows is still running on the vast majority of PCs. OS X runs on MACs what exactly is the correlation; people switched from PCs to OS X? If people switched from PC's to MACs what exactly does that have to do with linux? Where is the fucking correlation?!
I hate comments like these because you nitpick and disect and take things outta the context that they were meant in then your own comments don't even make sense or seem to correlate with the discussion at all. Things like this should not get moderated up. Seriously.. re-read the article and post something that makes sense.
Re:Did anybody actually READ the article?
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Is Linux Dead?
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Ummm if people actually read the article this thread would have more insightful comments maybe.. I think moderators need to get to work.. but they gotta read the article too.. Thats probably asking too much
Listen I hate windows, I loathe Microsoft but I just can't stand these story headlines on Slashdot lately. It really makes this place look bad, when I saw the headline I thought well MSNBC is obviously trolling because of the crunch economy wise, a few higher ups must think it's time to rag on something to keep the money rolling or something; I dunno. Then I read the article; it's probably one of the more insightful articles I have read in a while and this headline does not do it justice. Points of pro's adn cons just as anyone would want with any other product, you can only expect the writer to know so much without becoming an expert; this is also a very unbiased piece. If this was a piece to bash Linux then it didn't say anything that wasn't true, infact it's more praise than not. Not only that but MSNBC does make a point to say that it's a Microsoft-NBC joint venture for what reason I don't know but then again some people have been living under rocks.
This whole headline thing makes slashdot look bad, it makes the people that recommend slashdot look bad. Instead of trying to become professional and taking an industry lead I still can't view slashdot than anything more than a hobby site and the bad thing is that I guess the editors think this will last forever. It won't; it just won't.
I understand journalism, sensationalism, I understand the readers of the site are the ones that submit the stories. I understand this; what I don't understand is how this blatant bashing of Microsoft helps anyone. It's as if we've started to play their game of blatant outright lying. I hate Microsoft and if it was up to me I'd probably throw each and every single employee into some type of chinese water torcher camp but this is just stupid. Please; stop it.
Lets continue to play with facts and not play their game of cat and mouse. We won't gain anything the way they play and it will only make us look like hypocrites.
The ad banners were for companies long since bankrupt during the DOT-bomb phase of the internet; but the banner ad's don't belong to you, you were redistributing them on your website. Maybe with the permission of the advertiser including a small fee they might of paid you, i bet if you ask them, they won't complain about these same banner ad's still promoting whatever product. But hey, I could be wrong there are some advertisers who only want people who saw the website in June of 98 to buy their stuff.
Cable TV is a protocol? I can broadcast my own tv shows without FCC permits?! Wow, AC's sure do know alot of stuff it seems. If you could forward that information to me. Or read the rules of public access.
If the creator wants people to see his/her creation, but not give them the right archive and retransmit the works just like always they can put a (C) at the bottom of their webpage expressing that redistribution of the work without express permission of blah is prohibited. Obviously that would bring the question about how many people the creator would want to see his/her work in the first place. If they want to be selective then be selective, write a webapp that only allows registered users who have agreed to a non-disclose or redistribute license etc etc. There are many ways to go about it so long as the creator understands "When you publish something on the web, it is publicly available via HTTP".
Comparing a library of books or whatever you are thinking about and the HTTP protocol doesn't work.
You go to the Library, borrow a book which has a value and has to be returned; If you keep it then you must pay the value of the book. You could also take the book and make a copy wherever you are and redistribute and most likely pay heavy fines when caught.
The HTTP protocol, information is put on a public network that operates on the basis that information exchange should be free (this is why there is an httpS://). The information, files, etc you receive have value except they don't have to be returned. You could also take those files etc and make a copy where ever you are and redistribute and most likely pay heavy fines when caught. HOWEVER if you archive those files, images etc that you receive it's not a big issue. Just like you read a book and it has value, you archive as much as possible in your brain for a test, or you pull pieces of it out or whatever. Except in those cases you DO redistribute on paper or into a report or whereever else.
If you go your route then eventually teachers wouldn't be able to teach, you kill off the internets original purpose and you usher in a 1984 like society; in general this is a very bad idea.
I'm going overboard right? If I'm not mistaken your email address says you go to cornell, look around campus and tell me if I'm going overboard.
I'll rephrase. "There has been alot of smoke and mirrors, but what we need is actually a public utility that is well managed in the public interest FOR the public." This is what I think was meant.
.mil is a public utility that is well managed in the public (hell you can even call the guys that run.mil) for the military; not for the public.
I agree with the parent. Just being vocal about it =)
Re:Perhaps OSS Zealots shouldn't piss off Blizzard
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Warcraft III Gone Gold
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I know exactly what I'm talking about. There IS right and there is wrong. And wrong is adapting someone else's work for your personal use, even if you're not making cash from it.
I just adapted your comment for my personal use (notice the italics?) and I'm not making cash from it. Send the boogymen in black to come catch me. I would actually respond but I did already in the previous post.
Blizzard's games are given value from THEIR online service, not bnetd. Also, Blizzard has to defend any infraction of their copyrights or intellectual property--however vague they may be to you.
Bnetd has been around for about 5 yrs, Once this is proven hopefully anyone with half a brain will see that Blizzard had plenty of time to protect their copyright or intellectual property. 5 Yrs is a long time.
I didn't say anything about being quiet when protesting. I meant that you don't need to be complete l33t booger-eating, I'll-steal-this-shit-because-I-won't-get-caught, rage-against-everything, under-30, experienced ASSHOLE.
Of course not, I never said that either.
NO ONE likes an asshole, and companies like Blizzard may just throw a big middle finger to any asinine protest, as opposed to one that's assertive and not aggressive.
Blizzard will give the middle finger to ANY protest, so long as they aren't gonna get their way easy and it attracts attention. Usually when a large enough group starts protesting or boycotting then it becomes a problem. Assertive, aggressive, peaceful whatever other adjectives you wanna throw in.
Why in fuck does everyone on Slashdot want to get into a fistfight situation? Well, I guess I show my age.
Fistfight? who said anything about a fistfight.. You are showing your age and you seem pretty young to me. Only children allow their rights to be trampled because they don't know any better. You say you want to fight the DMCA heh really by helping Vivendi a company that has used it repeatedly? Explain, because obviously your funds are going to a good cause right now. Helping to fight the DMCA.
Neither protesting or praising should compromise principles. If you think otherwise, you didn't read my post.
Good so then don't buy any of Blizzards games. If you don't want to compromise the priciples of RIGHT that is. RIGHT being Blizzard is wrongfully suing a person who has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand and because of that I will not buy any of their games until they go after the appropriate parties involved and not some group of programmers who try to make the blizzard gaming experience smoother for people who would like to run their own game servers. A host of other companies seem to have gotten this. Now I wouldn't mind playing on battle.net at all so long as I was provided with good game play.. If I buy a game to primarily play online and I can't because of rampant cheating and other hacks how useful is the game to me? If it lags how useful is it to me? If I have a choice of playing elsewhere where I know there will be no cheating.. I WILL. Especially if I bought this game expecting otherwise. Maybe a group of customers should get together and SUE Blizzard for false advertising. There's an idea!
Blizzard? Doing something wrong? The courts don't think so yet. Their fans don't seem to think so. Maybe we should convince the lawmakers that DMCA is wrong, rather than beating up on a business that can give a rat's ass about how YOU feel.
Yes Blizzard, doing something wrong. The case isn't even being deliberated yet silly. I beg to differ I know about 3 people who aren't buying anymore Blizzard games till this pans out. I know one other person who is doing a paper on this and is actively and excitedly waiting for the first wc3 hack and cheat to come out. Since when did I not become a lawmaker? I seem to remember being a citizen of the united states of america. I've been trying to convince people who PASS laws (that citizens elect mind you) that the DMCA was the wrong law to pass and oddly enough I think with this economic downturn people are starting to see that hey, maybe the dmca is a bad idea.
Guess what, I don't care if Blizzard goes out of business tomorrow. Another guess what, Blizzard would have to care about how I feel if I decide to buy me some stock. They'll care how I feel realllllly quick. However since they aren't publicly traded at least that I'm aware of I can't do anything about it.. or I would; they better stay private.
How can I take it out of context when that's the only thing you said about it? Just "divx is lossy." As if it were an argument in and of itself on why you think divx sucks.
To people reading this dialogue; friends and others that happen to stumble upon this. Throughout my post I never once said divx sucked; it's a lossy format. Thats what it is a lossy format.
I like this internet.. Except for the minor security problems with tcp/ip and the general disdain for security. I can do whatever I like, say whatever I want, with no or very little reprecussions of any kind.
That's exactly what you said you disliked about the internet in your previous post. That's fairly heavy contradiction in my book.
Ummm I never said I disliked the internet once. Again my post never said I dislike the internet. Again for my fellow friends who are undoubtedly gonna read this you can see the demensia this person actually seems to live in.
But you did address it. I remember quite clearly. You said that you disliked the internet because it allows people (even weird or unpopular people) to speak their minds on whatever topic they like. Emotional? In comparison to your devout hatred of both the divx and Xbox, I hardly think so.
You remember? Don't remember actually go back to the parent post. I never said I disliked the internet because it allows people (even weird or unpopular people) to speak their minds on whatever topic they like. This is extremely laughable it's as if you can't even research your own answers to make sure what you are saying holds any water. Anyone that has been reading this thread or the people that I will invite to read it will see what an absolute imbicile you are.
I didn't get lost, I was pointing out the fact that your opinion != the world's opinion, something a lot of slashbots tend to forget after a few years of posting.
I know this; my opinion doesn't equal the world's opinion or bandwidth would be the cheapest commodity on the planet and Operating systems and the like would be free. However I never said my opinion equals anything except that if I don't care your avg person who's not into this stuff isn't gonna care and those are the people buying these consoles. It's not your type of person buying consoles it's the 10-30 yr old group who play video games devoutly and don't read websites like this at all, they rarely even use computers. As you said you don't even own a console except for playstation you haven't played in a year; get it?
More contradiction. Thoughout this whole exchange you've been condemning those who want to mod their Xbox for any reason at all and then have the audacity to state the sentence I've highlighted in bold? The only thing I can make out from your side of the debate is that hacking is cool and okay as long as it's not to watch divx movies on an xbox.
HAHA condeming? Listen; read my post and select things that I have said that condemn people from modding their xbox for any reason at all. Go ahead.. Find any?? Has anyone else found any?? heh. Personally, I don't like the xbox and it's not for technical reasons as I said before it's because it doesn't have any cool games. What exactly is your problem with me not liking the Xbox? Not everyone is gonna like what you like and because of that it doesn't make them wrong. I DO NOT LIKE THE XBOX and it's because IT HAS SHITTY GAMES. GET IT?! If you wanna mod your xbox then so be it, have fun. Enjoy yourself as I've said two times before.
First, what constitues a good game is a matter of opinion. It would be appropriate to say you believe there are no good Xbox games, but again you assume that you speak for everyone. I don't know of any good Xbox games only because I have not yet played a single Xbox game. But the system is selling in the stores, the games get decent reviews in video game rags (to my knowledge) and I know of several people who are thrilled with theirs. You said yourself that you have friends who enjoy their Xbox, so I'm inferring that they think there are good games for it. (Unless maybe they bought the system anyway knowing there were no good games for it nor any on the horizon... hardly a wise purchasing decision. Stupid, I would even admit, if this happens to be the case.)
Ummm I'll ask them if they wish to respond, I mean from what I know they have an Xbox they like it but they don't rave and rant about it so I'm not sure. You'd have to ask them, they are reading. They are Xbox fans and think that you are a lunatic, heh. As I've said before slashdot has the cream of the crop when it comes to zealotry and as people who read this thread and people I invite to read this thread can see. You have either totally lost it or just trolling. No one is sure yet but bets are being taken, "50 bucks on him going ballistic next post".
Yet again you assume that you speak for everyone. Does your average consumer hack the Linux kernel? No. Does your average consumer hack their Tivo? No. But you do. Funny how you try to form an argument that because you have no desire to hack the Xbox then no one wants to or that it's a stupid thing to do. Average consumers have nothing at all to do with any of this.
The avg consumer does not hack the linux kernel and you inferring I hack the linux kernel is funny because I've never said that. I fool around with the linux kernel but I don't spend time with that. Assumptions tend to make an ass out of U and ME as they say; I primarily hack on the freebsd kernel now and primarily always have messed with bsd in one form or fashion kernel wise. I like linux though and it drives my desktop but this is another discussion. The avg consumer also does not hack the tivo they own. I do all that type of stuff; correct. I never formed any argument that NO ONE wants to do it and I never called it stupid, Like I said before if it something you wanna do then do so, feel free, have fun. I'm saying it again, have fun, feel free, do whatever.
Average consumers are the ones purchasing the consoles, not people like me because I'm on the fence, not people like you because you have a playstation "they grey one" that you haven't played in a year. It's the people who don't read slashdot but read gaming magazines and game constantly. How do I know this? Well my friends have been reading this thread because they know that I used to be the biggest nintendo gamer. I've won several compos including the last one that was held at Jacob Javits (mario kart). That was like one of nintendo's last conferences but I stopped gaming after it and that was that. That was wow.. probably when I was like 11 or 12. Probably even 9 or 10 or something.. For the record I'm 22 now, so it was at least a decade and at most 12 yrs ago. In any event when I decided to purchase a new console this year I didn't just assume nintendo I'm looking for the best gaming experience, the most fun and all that.. I was gonna go with PS2 because they do have some fun games but not the genre that I like to play. I might still buy one because the games are more adult but I like a game I can have a good compo in and that is really all about skill. Not about divx or any of that; I don't care, thats not what I want a console for and when I was gaming I didn't care back then when they were doing all that stuff with super nes and famicom hd's and all that shit in Japan. I cared about it as much as I care about what you have to say on this topic. IE: heh I don't give a shit, so take it from me. If I don't care, 9 times outta 10 at least on this topic the avg consumer doesn't.
With this, I'm gonna have to apologize, I'm done responding. Friends, other people who come across this thread, feel free to respond; Thank you.
It's like leaving a gun in a park and being shocked that someone took it and used it to kill someone.
I didn't know it was like that. If thats the case you know what.. lets ban guns so that someone doesn't leave it in a park accidentally or otherwise. That seems like a logical solution doesn't it?
As for your "war", Blizzard makes their games, and yes Blizzard has every right to decide what you can do with them. This is exactly why they do their best to crack down on cheats and other hacks and in the end bnetd has turned out to be about that much, a hack.
Do you know how many people disagree with you? Mostly everyone I know that used to play starcraft with battle.net no longer does because of all the hacks and cheaters. They used Bnetd and it works great according to them.. I played starcraft and enjoyed it never bought it do to it not being supported on Linux but I can attest to the rampant cheating and this is not too long after it came out, I was playing over a friends house bitching about the cheating wondering why he purchased the game. He said he wouldn't but another blizzard game because the games are fun it's just that everyone cheats. All I wanted to do was play the game without people cheating.
Blizzard's games are made to only connect to battle.net, not another server nor software. Letting it do otherwise only accomplishes getting to circumvent piracy.
Right and my operating system is made to only run certified approved programs by the manufacturer. Otherwise I'm breaking the law and need to be thrown in jail.
This is a capitalistic country, money is what counts, not absoloute freedom to do whatever you want. Your war is only to interphere with a company trying to make money.
Interfere, and no thats not what i'm trying to do. If Blizzard saw this to be a problem then they would of stopped Bnetd years ago. They didn't stop it then and it never hurt the sales of there games before so the only thing different I see now is that a group of pirates took bnetd and used it to play the beta. Would it have hurt sales in the long run; I'd say no as the people who weren't gonna buy it still haven't bought it and the people that were gonna purchase, purchased. Some people even purchased in advance.
Samba only exists to let other clients connect with windows clients. You're comparing an open protocol, to cracking a company's hard work and making it so that you don't have to buy their games thus in the end harming their sales. Bullshit.
Ummm, samba did the same thing bnetd did. They reversed engineer windows structures. There is no open protocol what are you talking about? Windows doesn't have any open protocol; if they gave the samba team the structures for their file format they wouldn't need to reverse engineer them. Bnetd did the same exact thing to the battle.net server. So what you are saying is that it's ok for the samba team but not for the bnetd team?? Don't you understand that Bnetd and Samba are 100% alike?? Do you know how much of an ass you look like right now??
For the ignorant such as yourself who don't know that your rights are being taken away. I will refer you to here; http://www.bnetd.org
Then I will tell you that the bnetd project wasn't the ones that supported WC3 or even condone pirating. After that I will tell you that I proudly server in the US Army Reserves. Lastly I will let you know that if you think people taking away your rights is cool then so be it. I for one don't, also you should become a little bit more informed before you talk the way you do. It makes you sound really stupid.
Tell me, what do you do, for your country, for a cause or anything else for that matter? You want to make money too? Good, get a fucking job like all the rest of us. You think Vivendi universal or Blizzard programmers are starving because an alternative to their server was provided and some band of pirates took that open code and provided access to wc3 beta? You really think they are starving now that wc3 went gold? Do you think that the lawsuit against bnetd helped them go gold? Or would they have gone gold regardless? Don't you think the pirates who actually did this should be the ones punished and not the bnetd project?
Sadly this is a fucking war, a war for my freedom to write a program that interoperates with something else. A war for my right to create independent works period. If a case like this is lost.. Say goodbye to Samba and all the other things that allow you to interoperate with other works. So goodbye to any dynamic enviroments and say hello to a Apple/Microsoft/Sun Microsystems world. Idiot.
Slashdot Mirror
My complaint is this: Why aren't distro's packaging ximian gnome as the default gnome distro? We all know Redhat kind of ignores the linux desktop, concentrating on the server stuff. If I was them, I'd package ximian and have an instant polished gnome desktop. Redhat employs enough gnome hackers, that in a sense, they're already subsidizing the cost of Ximian gnome anyway.
Not to take anything away from the RH gnome install, but why reinvent the wheel, Ximian has done most of the work already.
Ximian is a company with a product, that product being Ximian Gnome. It's not freely available to be packaged without the consent of Ximian. If RedHat agreed to this they would then become Ximian's whipping boy. What would be smart of Redhat to do is acquire Ximian and make it it's desktop division if they think the desktop is going to go somewhere; then we can yell and scream about how RedHat is like Microsoft. Anyway the whole acquistion process would have to take place now as Redhat risk losing market and mind share to Ximian. Ximian would gain a foothold if they decided to do their own Linux Distribution just to make things easier for themselves and not having to support all the other distro's out there (this would also mean they would have to grow and likely lose focus on what they are good at). The primary people who use Ximian are also the primary people that would switch. So to make a long story short if Linux on the Desktop is coming then Ximian will have everyone by the balls in a corporate sense; but for right now you just play your position and you play it well and that is what RedHat and Ximian are doing. Obviously people will still be able to choose KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment 17 whatever else there is and for the people that don't use DE's then Window Managers etc or just the command line.
I was.. I had some serious issues with at&t security which eventually landed me into the military on a plea bargain. AT&T Security is good but not all that good; the only reason I got caught was because of someone elses stupidity. The problem with at&t is that they leave alot of test exchanges open, alot of equipment unguarded and a while ago didn't even shred alot of their stuff. The dumpster diving days turned up alot of good shit. Infact social engineering at&t is probably still easy, but I'm sure they've beefed up security in places. Nowadays you could probably still "phreak" it's just alot more complicated with landlines and you'd probably have a lot more luck with cell phones.
Needless to say I don't do this stuff anymore but people can really get into some serious trouble with at&t.. Ask anyone else who was in groups like MOD, LSD, etc.
You could always use other hardware and another OS.
I could; I know enough about computers to do so. John Doe i'm not so sure about.
Nobody is forcing you to use MS, they just might offer the only practical solution.
Sure, any major OEM usually tells you; "You can get it with Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Windows". So nobody has a gun to my head, and surely they aren't forcing me to use Windows but again "You can get Windows or Windows" are my choices.
There is nothing wrong with being a far better supplier then everyone else, and MS has done an excellent job of providing a solution people want to buy.
I don't want to buy windows but should I purchase a new machine instead of building my own and it happens to be x86 arch I most likely will have to buy windows. Even though I might not want to it's included in the cost of the PC. So I'm buying it anyway. That's an excellent job at locking the market in by locking OEM's in and not giving people choice. There isn't one solution I can think of that Microsoft has provided without it's quirks or that was stolen from someone else.
Microsoft is just a bunch of lawyers/criminals and mediocre products. They don't give a shit about security or quality or any of that. It's about how they can get any warm body hooked on their IV system. So far, they are doing quite well.
Just like anything else give it a simple cleaning. I'm sure every now and then you take a simple duster to some of your stuff. It's very easy to buy a can of compressed air and then use the compressed air to clean out the dust bunnies. Once every 6 months or so and you should be fine. There are also cases that prevent this very thing, as it's too hot for me to be on my computer right now I'll just explain the case I have. I have a Lian Li that I bought from thinkgeek it has a filter system in the front. A filter is placed above two high speed fans (who's speed can be set) that catch dust and that is removeable and cleaneable. Dust still gets in the case but it's alot less and my cleaning time is really only annual if I want. Even if you don't have fans in your case electricity can attract those dust balls at the foot of your box very easily so it's not just a matter of fans or moving parts it's really just a matter of cleanliness.. Smoking, dustballs, dirt, etc can all cause problems.. but a regular dusting helps.
Yeah.. exactly like that except using your OWN search pattern or algorithim not googles. In essence you'd be creating your own search engine using googles stuff..
Here's a question I wanted to know, I must of been sleeping or something during the original questions.. Why isn't it that someone hasn't written an API or something of the sort based on an algo for whatever specific program to get relevant information for whatever in that specific program using google? Well lemme not say API lets say using existing command line utilities maybe. I've never seen that done, it's kinda of using Google as a large database (the whole data mining thing). maybe it's been done somewhere... ahh whatever I'm gonna run over the brooklyn bridge thinking about this.. maybe I'll come up with something.
... but also with any other corporatized industry. Radio stations was a very good example. Here in Brooklyn I could decide I wanted to listen to classical, jazz, hiphop, r&b or whatever. Now all the stations sound exactly the same; exactly. Same music, same shit. Hiphop once was a voice for poor blacks (public enemey, tribe called quest, pharcyde, the roots) now it's nothing but beat samples and someone talking about their 22's and watches and shit. There is a new radio station that tries to address the hiphop nonsense in nyc; 105.1 but we'll see how long that'll last. Jazz used to be about Birdland and John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, Kenny G shit like that. Now it's about bland elevator music; etc etc etc.
The problem isn't with the corporations doing this the problem is that people here just don't give a shit about their rights or anything else except having that new house and new car.. The American dream. A friend of mine is so apprehensive about everything, oh I shouldn't do that it might affect a,b,c. "Oh you shouldn't tell that person to fuck off their the manager or ceo or whatever of blah blah blah and if you don't conform to mental death you'll be ostracized from society." It's so obvious people don't give a shit when they let corporations have more rights than them. Infact as we've seen lately corporations can rob the public blind and no one does any time at all, no punishments not even punitive damages that mean anything; who loses? the public, Who gains? The Corporation of course and when will it stop? Never, because the people that steal the money get hired at Corporation B and they steal money from the public there as well. Business as usual.
You have people on Slashdot talking out of two sides of their faces.. Ohh I hate Blizzard, Vivendi but I can't wait for WarCraft.. I'm gonna go out and get that game. Hell they didn't trample on my rights just some other guy who has nothing to do with bnetd except for hosting it. Infact the bnetd developers didn't even have anything to do with it but hell whatever.I hate the MPAA but I'm gonna buy some dvd's because I need them. Fuck the RIAA but I have to have that new Britney Spears, NSYNC pop jawlock shit they put out.
Anyway I'm fucking rambling but it's time people stand for something. If you don't like it actively protest it, don't buy it, don't listen to it, don't deal with it. Stand for something or fall for anything.. as for news if you want some good investigative journalism on stuff thats news worthy check out Dateline NBC. Thats the only show I can really think of that tells the current system that people are still watching. If anyone else has anything they think is news worthy feel free to add on.
People keep counting nintendo out and it's really the only console maker that I can think of that has games that are worth making multiplayer versions of. When I think playstation 2 I think violence adult mature games, kickboxing and shit nothing really multiplayer. When I think Xbox I don't think about much because there are no games but when I think Nintendo I think of all sorts of multiplayer games, they don't necessarily have the best graphics or any of that but they are really fun. Could you imagine multiplayer mario kart?!?! An online tournament of mario kart (time to email nintendo).. if the next big thing is multiplaying consoles. It'll definitely be ps2 , xbox VS nintendo. This is gonna be good.
Heh, umm I'm not gonna address the above because I said what I had to already and as I can see from your response you seem to think the person reporting this is a journalist when they are actually a producer (ie: probably someone that shouldn't be posting to begin with). Should they have reported I don't know but your comments were just outta context, anyone can see that. Even though this person was a producer or whatever they did a very good job with this, also most people who read the article thought so at least from what I can see in comments. To your last question;
I run kernelcode.com, I've run linux since kernel 0.99.6. Infact I can remember the first stable version being 1.2.13 before that I ran OS/2 2.11 -> Warp, before that I fooled around from highschool on vax machines at hofstra university. I have an ibook with mac osx and have for quite sometime.. I also have a sun netra and pc's.. plus various sorts of other equipment.
I use linux on my desktop pc and on my ibook osx obviously and have been fooling around with darwin even though I don't find myself interested so much (they screwed some 15 yr old kid over). I also have been hacking on the freebsd kernel for quite sometime, I don't really mess with the linux kernel anymore.
So to answer your question; yes.
Slashdot isn't a professional jounalism site and I never said that. I recall saying something like "instead of becoming an industry leader" etc; Not only that but all that hobby site bullshit is out the door. Slashdot is owned by a company; period. It doesn't mean they need to be professional, it doesn't mean much really except for the fact that there are certain things they can no longer do; like slander. The headline is simply wrong and if this was another story and slashdot got sued; I'd bet it'd be changed very quickly. When you are big and owned by a company there are certain things you do not do no matter what it is you provide. You are a very easy target, thats just business though. No matter what hobby shit you talk of when there is money involved and it's not yours you play by the rules.. got it?
If I wanna recommend something professional I wouldn't recommend slashdot. If I wanna recommend something TO professionals I recommend slashdot because it's fun and it allows for bullshit time but it has to have substance and be factual so that the forums can be populated with good debate. Without that slashdot is nothing, just a big site with alot of people who are wasting time commenting on things they don't know about and it'll turn into AOL for "techies". Infact at this rate AOL might even end up buying out slashdot, hell its hard finding insightful stuff anymore it's all +5 Funny.
Heh revenue doesn't make the company larger silly anonymous coward and if you were gonna say anything at least be close and say Wal-Mart..(WMT) on yahoo..
You need to get your facts straight ac.
"Small software makers like Lindows are trying to help desktop users bridge that divide."
Small? Relative to what? MS? GM and CocaCola are small compared to MS!
Ummmm any company in the world is small relative to MS. You aren't making a point.
"A Linux-based open-source program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop."
What on earth does Evolution have to do with the desktop? Other than being made by the folks at GNOME?
Looks much like outlook to me.. See most people that read that viewed it in its appropriate context. You are nitpicking
"WalMart recently began selling a house brand PC at rock bottom prices -- available with Linux for the thriftiest PC buyers."
Read Cheap. It's an old FUD, that linux users are cheap, and wont spend money. If that's true go talk to the folks at Ximian who get monthly subscriptions, just for better connection speeds (and of corse StarOffice!). Or about SlashDot subscribers. Truth is that Linux users (curently) arent' cheap, they are just very educated, and know what not to waste their money on. Give them a product worth paying for and they WILL pay for it.
Read most people are usually cheap in markets like this. This isn't FUD, if you read the article in it's context it's referred to several other times. As for subscriptions models to "services". They don't keep any of the companies you spoke of afloat.
"The Linux operating system, and other "open source" alternatives written by devoted bands of volunteer programmers, would be available to anyone for the cost of a download. But today, Windows is still running on the vast majority of PCs. So what happened?"
So what is OS X?
I don't even know what this is? What does OS X have to do with the above? Windows is still running on the vast majority of PCs. OS X runs on MACs what exactly is the correlation; people switched from PCs to OS X? If people switched from PC's to MACs what exactly does that have to do with linux? Where is the fucking correlation?!
I hate comments like these because you nitpick and disect and take things outta the context that they were meant in then your own comments don't even make sense or seem to correlate with the discussion at all. Things like this should not get moderated up. Seriously.. re-read the article and post something that makes sense.
Ummm if people actually read the article this thread would have more insightful comments maybe.. I think moderators need to get to work.. but they gotta read the article too.. Thats probably asking too much
Listen I hate windows, I loathe Microsoft but I just can't stand these story headlines on Slashdot lately. It really makes this place look bad, when I saw the headline I thought well MSNBC is obviously trolling because of the crunch economy wise, a few higher ups must think it's time to rag on something to keep the money rolling or something; I dunno. Then I read the article; it's probably one of the more insightful articles I have read in a while and this headline does not do it justice. Points of pro's adn cons just as anyone would want with any other product, you can only expect the writer to know so much without becoming an expert; this is also a very unbiased piece. If this was a piece to bash Linux then it didn't say anything that wasn't true, infact it's more praise than not. Not only that but MSNBC does make a point to say that it's a Microsoft-NBC joint venture for what reason I don't know but then again some people have been living under rocks.
This whole headline thing makes slashdot look bad, it makes the people that recommend slashdot look bad. Instead of trying to become professional and taking an industry lead I still can't view slashdot than anything more than a hobby site and the bad thing is that I guess the editors think this will last forever. It won't; it just won't.
I understand journalism, sensationalism, I understand the readers of the site are the ones that submit the stories. I understand this; what I don't understand is how this blatant bashing of Microsoft helps anyone. It's as if we've started to play their game of blatant outright lying. I hate Microsoft and if it was up to me I'd probably throw each and every single employee into some type of chinese water torcher camp but this is just stupid. Please; stop it.
Lets continue to play with facts and not play their game of cat and mouse. We won't gain anything the way they play and it will only make us look like hypocrites.
The ad banners were for companies long since bankrupt during the DOT-bomb phase of the internet; but the banner ad's don't belong to you, you were redistributing them on your website. Maybe with the permission of the advertiser including a small fee they might of paid you, i bet if you ask them, they won't complain about these same banner ad's still promoting whatever product. But hey, I could be wrong there are some advertisers who only want people who saw the website in June of 98 to buy their stuff.
Cable TV is a protocol? I can broadcast my own tv shows without FCC permits?! Wow, AC's sure do know alot of stuff it seems. If you could forward that information to me. Or read the rules of public access.
If the creator wants people to see his/her creation, but not give them the right archive and retransmit the works just like always they can put a (C) at the bottom of their webpage expressing that redistribution of the work without express permission of blah is prohibited. Obviously that would bring the question about how many people the creator would want to see his/her work in the first place. If they want to be selective then be selective, write a webapp that only allows registered users who have agreed to a non-disclose or redistribute license etc etc. There are many ways to go about it so long as the creator understands "When you publish something on the web, it is publicly available via HTTP".
Comparing a library of books or whatever you are thinking about and the HTTP protocol doesn't work.
You go to the Library, borrow a book which has a value and has to be returned; If you keep it then you must pay the value of the book. You could also take the book and make a copy wherever you are and redistribute and most likely pay heavy fines when caught.
The HTTP protocol, information is put on a public network that operates on the basis that information exchange should be free (this is why there is an httpS://). The information, files, etc you receive have value except they don't have to be returned. You could also take those files etc and make a copy where ever you are and redistribute and most likely pay heavy fines when caught. HOWEVER if you archive those files, images etc that you receive it's not a big issue. Just like you read a book and it has value, you archive as much as possible in your brain for a test, or you pull pieces of it out or whatever. Except in those cases you DO redistribute on paper or into a report or whereever else.
If you go your route then eventually teachers wouldn't be able to teach, you kill off the internets original purpose and you usher in a 1984 like society; in general this is a very bad idea.
I'm going overboard right? If I'm not mistaken your email address says you go to cornell, look around campus and tell me if I'm going overboard.
amen.
I'll rephrase. "There has been alot of smoke and mirrors, but what we need is actually a public utility that is well managed in the public interest FOR the public." This is what I think was meant.
.mil) for the military; not for the public.
.mil is a public utility that is well managed in the public (hell you can even call the guys that run
I agree with the parent. Just being vocal about it =)
I know exactly what I'm talking about. There IS right and there is wrong. And wrong is adapting someone else's work for your personal use, even if you're not making cash from it.
I just adapted your comment for my personal use (notice the italics?) and I'm not making cash from it. Send the boogymen in black to come catch me. I would actually respond but I did already in the previous post.
Blizzard's games are given value from THEIR online service, not bnetd. Also, Blizzard has to defend any infraction of their copyrights or intellectual property--however vague they may be to you.
Bnetd has been around for about 5 yrs, Once this is proven hopefully anyone with half a brain will see that Blizzard had plenty of time to protect their copyright or intellectual property. 5 Yrs is a long time.
I didn't say anything about being quiet when protesting. I meant that you don't need to be complete l33t booger-eating, I'll-steal-this-shit-because-I-won't-get-caught, rage-against-everything, under-30, experienced ASSHOLE.
Of course not, I never said that either.
NO ONE likes an asshole, and companies like Blizzard may just throw a big middle finger to any asinine protest, as opposed to one that's assertive and not aggressive.
Blizzard will give the middle finger to ANY protest, so long as they aren't gonna get their way easy and it attracts attention. Usually when a large enough group starts protesting or boycotting then it becomes a problem. Assertive, aggressive, peaceful whatever other adjectives you wanna throw in.
Why in fuck does everyone on Slashdot want to get into a fistfight situation? Well, I guess I show my age.
Fistfight? who said anything about a fistfight.. You are showing your age and you seem pretty young to me. Only children allow their rights to be trampled because they don't know any better. You say you want to fight the DMCA heh really by helping Vivendi a company that has used it repeatedly? Explain, because obviously your funds are going to a good cause right now. Helping to fight the DMCA.
Neither protesting or praising should compromise principles. If you think otherwise, you didn't read my post.
Good so then don't buy any of Blizzards games. If you don't want to compromise the priciples of RIGHT that is. RIGHT being Blizzard is wrongfully suing a person who has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand and because of that I will not buy any of their games until they go after the appropriate parties involved and not some group of programmers who try to make the blizzard gaming experience smoother for people who would like to run their own game servers. A host of other companies seem to have gotten this. Now I wouldn't mind playing on battle.net at all so long as I was provided with good game play.. If I buy a game to primarily play online and I can't because of rampant cheating and other hacks how useful is the game to me? If it lags how useful is it to me? If I have a choice of playing elsewhere where I know there will be no cheating.. I WILL. Especially if I bought this game expecting otherwise. Maybe a group of customers should get together and SUE Blizzard for false advertising. There's an idea!
Blizzard? Doing something wrong? The courts don't think so yet. Their fans don't seem to think so. Maybe we should convince the lawmakers that DMCA is wrong, rather than beating up on a business that can give a rat's ass about how YOU feel.
Yes Blizzard, doing something wrong. The case isn't even being deliberated yet silly. I beg to differ I know about 3 people who aren't buying anymore Blizzard games till this pans out. I know one other person who is doing a paper on this and is actively and excitedly waiting for the first wc3 hack and cheat to come out. Since when did I not become a lawmaker? I seem to remember being a citizen of the united states of america. I've been trying to convince people who PASS laws (that citizens elect mind you) that the DMCA was the wrong law to pass and oddly enough I think with this economic downturn people are starting to see that hey, maybe the dmca is a bad idea.
Guess what, I don't care if Blizzard goes out of business tomorrow. Another guess what, Blizzard would have to care about how I feel if I decide to buy me some stock. They'll care how I feel realllllly quick. However since they aren't publicly traded at least that I'm aware of I can't do anything about it.. or I would; they better stay private.
How can I take it out of context when that's the only thing you said about it? Just "divx is lossy." As if it were an argument in and of itself on why you think divx sucks.
To people reading this dialogue; friends and others that happen to stumble upon this. Throughout my post I never once said divx sucked; it's a lossy format. Thats what it is a lossy format.
I like this internet.. Except for the minor security problems with tcp/ip and the general disdain for security. I can do whatever I like, say whatever I want, with no or very little reprecussions of any kind.
That's exactly what you said you disliked about the internet in your previous post. That's fairly heavy contradiction in my book.
Ummm I never said I disliked the internet once. Again my post never said I dislike the internet. Again for my fellow friends who are undoubtedly gonna read this you can see the demensia this person actually seems to live in.
But you did address it. I remember quite clearly. You said that you disliked the internet because it allows people (even weird or unpopular people) to speak their minds on whatever topic they like. Emotional? In comparison to your devout hatred of both the divx and Xbox, I hardly think so.
You remember? Don't remember actually go back to the parent post. I never said I disliked the internet because it allows people (even weird or unpopular people) to speak their minds on whatever topic they like. This is extremely laughable it's as if you can't even research your own answers to make sure what you are saying holds any water. Anyone that has been reading this thread or the people that I will invite to read it will see what an absolute imbicile you are.
I didn't get lost, I was pointing out the fact that your opinion != the world's opinion, something a lot of slashbots tend to forget after a few years of posting.
I know this; my opinion doesn't equal the world's opinion or bandwidth would be the cheapest commodity on the planet and Operating systems and the like would be free. However I never said my opinion equals anything except that if I don't care your avg person who's not into this stuff isn't gonna care and those are the people buying these consoles. It's not your type of person buying consoles it's the 10-30 yr old group who play video games devoutly and don't read websites like this at all, they rarely even use computers. As you said you don't even own a console except for playstation you haven't played in a year; get it?
More contradiction. Thoughout this whole exchange you've been condemning those who want to mod their Xbox for any reason at all and then have the audacity to state the sentence I've highlighted in bold? The only thing I can make out from your side of the debate is that hacking is cool and okay as long as it's not to watch divx movies on an xbox.
HAHA condeming? Listen; read my post and select things that I have said that condemn people from modding their xbox for any reason at all. Go ahead.. Find any?? Has anyone else found any?? heh. Personally, I don't like the xbox and it's not for technical reasons as I said before it's because it doesn't have any cool games. What exactly is your problem with me not liking the Xbox? Not everyone is gonna like what you like and because of that it doesn't make them wrong. I DO NOT LIKE THE XBOX and it's because IT HAS SHITTY GAMES. GET IT?! If you wanna mod your xbox then so be it, have fun. Enjoy yourself as I've said two times before.
First, what constitues a good game is a matter of opinion. It would be appropriate to say you believe there are no good Xbox games, but again you assume that you speak for everyone. I don't know of any good Xbox games only because I have not yet played a single Xbox game. But the system is selling in the stores, the games get decent reviews in video game rags (to my knowledge) and I know of several people who are thrilled with theirs. You said yourself that you have friends who enjoy their Xbox, so I'm inferring that they think there are good games for it. (Unless maybe they bought the system anyway knowing there were no good games for it nor any on the horizon... hardly a wise purchasing decision. Stupid, I would even admit, if this happens to be the case.)
Ummm I'll ask them if they wish to respond, I mean from what I know they have an Xbox they like it but they don't rave and rant about it so I'm not sure. You'd have to ask them, they are reading. They are Xbox fans and think that you are a lunatic, heh. As I've said before slashdot has the cream of the crop when it comes to zealotry and as people who read this thread and people I invite to read this thread can see. You have either totally lost it or just trolling. No one is sure yet but bets are being taken, "50 bucks on him going ballistic next post".
Yet again you assume that you speak for everyone. Does your average consumer hack the Linux kernel? No. Does your average consumer hack their Tivo? No. But you do. Funny how you try to form an argument that because you have no desire to hack the Xbox then no one wants to or that it's a stupid thing to do. Average consumers have nothing at all to do with any of this.
The avg consumer does not hack the linux kernel and you inferring I hack the linux kernel is funny because I've never said that. I fool around with the linux kernel but I don't spend time with that. Assumptions tend to make an ass out of U and ME as they say; I primarily hack on the freebsd kernel now and primarily always have messed with bsd in one form or fashion kernel wise. I like linux though and it drives my desktop but this is another discussion. The avg consumer also does not hack the tivo they own. I do all that type of stuff; correct. I never formed any argument that NO ONE wants to do it and I never called it stupid, Like I said before if it something you wanna do then do so, feel free, have fun. I'm saying it again, have fun, feel free, do whatever.
Average consumers are the ones purchasing the consoles, not people like me because I'm on the fence, not people like you because you have a playstation "they grey one" that you haven't played in a year. It's the people who don't read slashdot but read gaming magazines and game constantly. How do I know this? Well my friends have been reading this thread because they know that I used to be the biggest nintendo gamer. I've won several compos including the last one that was held at Jacob Javits (mario kart). That was like one of nintendo's last conferences but I stopped gaming after it and that was that. That was wow.. probably when I was like 11 or 12. Probably even 9 or 10 or something.. For the record I'm 22 now, so it was at least a decade and at most 12 yrs ago. In any event when I decided to purchase a new console this year I didn't just assume nintendo I'm looking for the best gaming experience, the most fun and all that.. I was gonna go with PS2 because they do have some fun games but not the genre that I like to play. I might still buy one because the games are more adult but I like a game I can have a good compo in and that is really all about skill. Not about divx or any of that; I don't care, thats not what I want a console for and when I was gaming I didn't care back then when they were doing all that stuff with super nes and famicom hd's and all that shit in Japan. I cared about it as much as I care about what you have to say on this topic. IE: heh I don't give a shit, so take it from me. If I don't care, 9 times outta 10 at least on this topic the avg consumer doesn't.
With this, I'm gonna have to apologize, I'm done responding. Friends, other people who come across this thread, feel free to respond; Thank you.
It's like leaving a gun in a park and being shocked that someone took it and used it to kill someone.
I didn't know it was like that. If thats the case you know what.. lets ban guns so that someone doesn't leave it in a park accidentally or otherwise. That seems like a logical solution doesn't it?
As for your "war", Blizzard makes their games, and yes Blizzard has every right to decide what you can do with them. This is exactly why they do their best to crack down on cheats and other hacks and in the end bnetd has turned out to be about that much, a hack.
Do you know how many people disagree with you? Mostly everyone I know that used to play starcraft with battle.net no longer does because of all the hacks and cheaters. They used Bnetd and it works great according to them.. I played starcraft and enjoyed it never bought it do to it not being supported on Linux but I can attest to the rampant cheating and this is not too long after it came out, I was playing over a friends house bitching about the cheating wondering why he purchased the game. He said he wouldn't but another blizzard game because the games are fun it's just that everyone cheats. All I wanted to do was play the game without people cheating.
Blizzard's games are made to only connect to battle.net, not another server nor software. Letting it do otherwise only accomplishes getting to circumvent piracy.
Right and my operating system is made to only run certified approved programs by the manufacturer. Otherwise I'm breaking the law and need to be thrown in jail.
This is a capitalistic country, money is what counts, not absoloute freedom to do whatever you want. Your war is only to interphere with a company trying to make money.
Interfere, and no thats not what i'm trying to do. If Blizzard saw this to be a problem then they would of stopped Bnetd years ago. They didn't stop it then and it never hurt the sales of there games before so the only thing different I see now is that a group of pirates took bnetd and used it to play the beta. Would it have hurt sales in the long run; I'd say no as the people who weren't gonna buy it still haven't bought it and the people that were gonna purchase, purchased. Some people even purchased in advance.
Samba only exists to let other clients connect with windows clients. You're comparing an open protocol, to cracking a company's hard work and making it so that you don't have to buy their games thus in the end harming their sales. Bullshit.
Ummm, samba did the same thing bnetd did. They reversed engineer windows structures. There is no open protocol what are you talking about? Windows doesn't have any open protocol; if they gave the samba team the structures for their file format they wouldn't need to reverse engineer them. Bnetd did the same exact thing to the battle.net server. So what you are saying is that it's ok for the samba team but not for the bnetd team?? Don't you understand that Bnetd and Samba are 100% alike?? Do you know how much of an ass you look like right now??
For the ignorant such as yourself who don't know that your rights are being taken away. I will refer you to here; http://www.bnetd.org
Then I will tell you that the bnetd project wasn't the ones that supported WC3 or even condone pirating. After that I will tell you that I proudly server in the US Army Reserves. Lastly I will let you know that if you think people taking away your rights is cool then so be it. I for one don't, also you should become a little bit more informed before you talk the way you do. It makes you sound really stupid.
Tell me, what do you do, for your country, for a cause or anything else for that matter? You want to make money too? Good, get a fucking job like all the rest of us. You think Vivendi universal or Blizzard programmers are starving because an alternative to their server was provided and some band of pirates took that open code and provided access to wc3 beta? You really think they are starving now that wc3 went gold? Do you think that the lawsuit against bnetd helped them go gold? Or would they have gone gold regardless? Don't you think the pirates who actually did this should be the ones punished and not the bnetd project?
Sadly this is a fucking war, a war for my freedom to write a program that interoperates with something else. A war for my right to create independent works period. If a case like this is lost.. Say goodbye to Samba and all the other things that allow you to interoperate with other works. So goodbye to any dynamic enviroments and say hello to a Apple/Microsoft/Sun Microsystems world. Idiot.