Hmm, i didn't realise the client was written in python... Why then, did the linux/mac clients take so long to come about, and end up being wine wrapped windows binaries? Surely python code can run on linux/mac easily enough, and if that's the vast majority of the game code then porting the rest shouldn't be too difficult.
The ability to create flying penises is an intentional feature of secondlife. The whole premise of the system is that you can create all kinds of objects and automatons in game. It's like the Internet, an open flexible system, which ultimately means some people will try to abuse it.
If a company who owns the sourcecode seeds a torrent, and you download it from them. If you redistribute it yourself through that same torrent, you are technically distributing but doing so within the framework supported by the copyright holder so it wouldn't be clear cut and a good lawyer could argue it.
Because of the fast track process being misused, and then forced through by corruption. The normal process is designed to develop a reasonable standard from something that's not already suitable, hence why it takes longer.
Java on windows puts its tray icon and runs in the background so you can update it... It does this, because there is no centralised update mechanism it can plug into. Java on linux installs using the standard package manager, which checks for updates to all installed packages centrally, without needing a separate update process for each installed application. Windows is sorely lacking a centralised package repository that lets users update everything in one place, and install apps quickly and efficiently.
Applications for linux are more than capable of satisfying the needs of the vast majority of business desktops, and they can do so at much lower cost, not including the cheaper hardware which can be used to run it. The bottom line is very important to businesses, they don't care about games or development suites, and only care about drivers so far as the hardware they have or intend to get. They just want something that does the job as cheaply as possible. What stops linux is not a lack of software or drivers... It's incompatibility with proprietary apps and formats businesses have become dependent on.
In more open areas of the market, linux is doing very well (webserving, network routing etc) alongside a slew of other alternatives (competition is good for users, and requires openness).
Yes that's a common scam, you can only file one claim... So you wait until the buyer complains about not receiving their item, and you send them an empty envelope with tracking... Paypal will consider the case closed and you can't file again.
You can also do it in reverse, buy something and claim it's defective and file a claim... Paypal will ask you to send it back with tracking, send an empty envelope with tracking and get your money back while keeping the goods.
Also register your paypal account in a foreign country (you need an accomplice for this one), and sell items locally. When a victim bites, send him something worthless and heavy (eg a brick), it wont cost too much to ship locally. Obviously he will complain, and file a claim with paypal, who will make him send it back to your paypal registered address, with tracking. Now sending a brick to another country with tracking is quite expensive, you need to work out how much this is likely to cost and ensure your items sell for slightly less. The victim won't send it back, because he realises how much it will cost to send, he complains bitterly to paypal who tell him it's their policy to require return shipping to the registered address and they wont do anything. The only risk here, is that the victim will try to get you back using the other scam i detailed above, ie shipping an empty envelope with tracking.
Except that paypal is owned by ebay, they are leveraging their monopoly position in online auction listings to force people to use another part of the company, at the customer's expense. Ebay charge you to list the item, and then charge you a percentage depending what it sells for... Paypal then charge you another percentage of the money you receive, but if you receive money via other methods you don't get charged this. I always prefer to take cash on collection, because for larger items the paypal charges can be quite significant.
Having software that is unquestionably the best choice is much harder when you're at a disadvantage of having to reverse engineer proprietary protocols and formats.
Consider how many man-hours of work have gone into the current support openoffice has for ms formats. Now subtract from that the number of man-hours it would take to implement and test a fully documented format. The number left over, which will probably be quite large, is the number of man hours that could have gone into improving the functionality of the application itself. How much better would openoffice be today if they'd not spent so much effort reverse engineering ms formats?
The same applies to mozilla, how much effort went into reverse engineering and cloning non standard ie behavior for compatibility?
The purpose of the EU is not to benefit people living in Toronto, they couldn't care less about you and nor should they.
Your friend in France will benefit from the reduction or more efficient use of her taxes. As will her company, when they are no longer forced to buy microsoft products in order to deal with government.
Consultants who only understand products from one vendor are a poor investment, and deserve to lose out so they see the benefit of gaining a broader skillset. I wouldn't hire consultants who only knew one set of products, they would provide poor value for money by choosing that set in every case and resisting anything else, rather than objectively providing the best tool for the job. All i want is the best tool for the job, and the ability to quickly and easily migrate if something better comes along.
Your friend who is a carpenter possibly stands to benefit more... His use of computers will be considerably less than that of the girl working in television... He might have a small website, might communicate with his clients via email, and might submit his accounts and tax returns by computer. If he is free to use any software he wants, he will probably find that a cheaper lower spec computer running free software is more than capable of satisfying his needs and will last a lot longer. This is assuming that he can do his tax returns and accounts without being tied to a particular proprietary format.
Yes, it's quite disturbing how microsoft have managed to bribe their way into getting exceptions from the second-source requirement on government contracts. They simply wouldn't be able to sell to them at all, if the second source provision was actually followed, who else offers products 100% compatible with proprietary microsoft formats?
In the long term, open formats will be cheaper, because it will be easier for third parties to compete, and they will do so by offering cheaper and better options. That means more taxpayer money will remain for other things, like schools and healthcare etc. When the tender comes up for renewal a few years down the line, there will be a stack of companies with compatible options. And there's no reason everyone has to run the same thing, so long as they can all handle the same data.
Also using locally sourced applications instead of buying them from a foreign company means that a lot of the money can be reclaimed by the government through the taxes paid by the companies and their employees.
Yes, but without the source code the amount of tinkering would be fairly limited... And the only party that did have access to the source wouldn't be willing to help you. You'd end up running old versions, with lots of very nasty binary hacks... Remember what happened to AmigaOS after Commodore stopped updating it, but on a much larger scale.
But if Microsoft can prove that their products are objectively better for an administration, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be used. Almost none of their business is won this way, it's won through bribes, or organizations who are already locked in or have to deal with those who are. The government being disallowed from using MS products would break that lock-in cycle, and cause companies who deal with them to follow suit. MS would have to interoperate or else their customers who wanted to do business with the EU would need to migrate too - their usual tactics in reverse.
When he clearly advertises the motherboard chipset you have as compatible, and then when you claim tries to fool you into thinking your motherboard has a completely different chipset...
He also falsely claims the memory is quality branded modules, when infact its often a cheap unbranded module constructed from chips from a reputable vendor running out of spec... For example, i bought a 1GB memory module advertised as "micron", and specifically listed as being compatible with the VIA K800 chipset. The module was made of micron chips, but the chips were intended to be used on 512MB modules, and thus were being run out of spec on a 1GB module, and the module itself wasnt made by micron. I also used an MSI K8T Neo motherboard, which according to MSI has the K800 chipset, according to fastmemoryman it has a "VIA 8231" chipset, which is actually the IDE controller.
He also relabels cheap unbranded flash memory cards and usb storage devices, some of which are lower capacity than he claims, but with hacked FAT tables to make them look bigger.
Not to mention the reverse shipping scam he runs, which he uses to scam people with paypal's blessing.
Only they don't... They know their products are garbage, and always have. They rely on lock-in, users ignorance of alternatives and lack of choice in the marketplace because this is much cheaper than paying people to improve their products.
They don't go after them, because such anti-compete clauses are often illegal and unenforceable, and referred to as restriction of trade. If you are a networking specialist, and your job is to work on the TCP/IP stack for windows, and then you leave to go work at Apple, chances are you're going to be working on the TCP/IP stack for OSX, because that's where your expertise lies.
These clauses are designed to scare people out of doing it, but they don't have any real legal weight. That's why they never actually go after someone who does it.
You cant install 2008 without a GUI... The graphical layer is still running, the only difference is that it executes cmd.exe (in a window) instead of explorer.exe when you log in. It's not like the pure textmode of a unix system, and it still doesn't support serial consoles and boot without a video card installed like any serious server os.
And MS would have to improve their applications and reduce prices to retain market share... This is far more costly than having customers locked in to your products and having to buy them regardless of how badly coded and non-innovative they are.
If someone sends you a cheque, you don't send the goods until it clears. Once it's fully cleared, the bank is at fault for clearing a fraudulent cheque so you keep the money. If it bounces, you don't ship anything, you don't get charged for depositing a fraudulent cheque, you may get investigated for it but if you can prove how you got hold of it you won't have any negative effects.
To process credit card transactions you need a merchant account, it is the merchant's responsibility to verify the legitimacy of the card. If it's fraudulent and they clear the payment, it's their fault and you'l still get the funds.
You can also receive cash in person, it's your responsibility to ensure the cash isn't fake. If you accept it, it's your loss.
Basically if you buy an item from a seller, and it's wrong, defective, etc, paypal will give you a refund but only if you ship it to the seller's "registered" address, using a shipping service with online tracking. Because of this, sellers can register an address in a foreign country, sell low value goods, ship you garbage, and then it becomes uneconomical to send it back so the seller keeps your money.
Aside from the fact that that when selling something, i'd prefer *not* to use paypal, as i have to increase the cost of the item and shipping to cover paypal costs. I much prefer personal collection, i can demonstrate the item to prove it works, and i receive the full amount i sold the item for in cash.
Wine has it's problems because it's reverse engineered from a moving closed target... Porting apps from one unix to another requires significantly less effort, and achieves better results far more rapidly, so you very rapidly increase the number of users who would be willing to use it.
As for a monolithic solution, the likes of Sun, Apple and IBM already offer much better in this area - a complete stack of hardware and software, all from the same place and all centrally supported by a single entity.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, i didn't realise the client was written in python...
Why then, did the linux/mac clients take so long to come about, and end up being wine wrapped windows binaries? Surely python code can run on linux/mac easily enough, and if that's the vast majority of the game code then porting the rest shouldn't be too difficult.
The ability to create flying penises is an intentional feature of secondlife. The whole premise of the system is that you can create all kinds of objects and automatons in game. It's like the Internet, an open flexible system, which ultimately means some people will try to abuse it.
If a company who owns the sourcecode seeds a torrent, and you download it from them.
If you redistribute it yourself through that same torrent, you are technically distributing but doing so within the framework supported by the copyright holder so it wouldn't be clear cut and a good lawyer could argue it.
Because of the fast track process being misused, and then forced through by corruption.
The normal process is designed to develop a reasonable standard from something that's not already suitable, hence why it takes longer.
Java on windows puts its tray icon and runs in the background so you can update it...
It does this, because there is no centralised update mechanism it can plug into.
Java on linux installs using the standard package manager, which checks for updates to all installed packages centrally, without needing a separate update process for each installed application.
Windows is sorely lacking a centralised package repository that lets users update everything in one place, and install apps quickly and efficiently.
Or early version of enlightenment if you want eyecandy...
I used to run it on a 486dx2/66 with 16mb ram and an "Oak OTIVGA ISA" videocard.
MS-DOS was designed to run on a machine with considerably more than 8K... Even the first IBM compatibles had 640k i believe.
Applications for linux are more than capable of satisfying the needs of the vast majority of business desktops, and they can do so at much lower cost, not including the cheaper hardware which can be used to run it.
The bottom line is very important to businesses, they don't care about games or development suites, and only care about drivers so far as the hardware they have or intend to get. They just want something that does the job as cheaply as possible.
What stops linux is not a lack of software or drivers... It's incompatibility with proprietary apps and formats businesses have become dependent on.
In more open areas of the market, linux is doing very well (webserving, network routing etc) alongside a slew of other alternatives (competition is good for users, and requires openness).
Yes that's a common scam, you can only file one claim...
So you wait until the buyer complains about not receiving their item, and you send them an empty envelope with tracking... Paypal will consider the case closed and you can't file again.
You can also do it in reverse, buy something and claim it's defective and file a claim... Paypal will ask you to send it back with tracking, send an empty envelope with tracking and get your money back while keeping the goods.
Also register your paypal account in a foreign country (you need an accomplice for this one), and sell items locally. When a victim bites, send him something worthless and heavy (eg a brick), it wont cost too much to ship locally. Obviously he will complain, and file a claim with paypal, who will make him send it back to your paypal registered address, with tracking. Now sending a brick to another country with tracking is quite expensive, you need to work out how much this is likely to cost and ensure your items sell for slightly less. The victim won't send it back, because he realises how much it will cost to send, he complains bitterly to paypal who tell him it's their policy to require return shipping to the registered address and they wont do anything. The only risk here, is that the victim will try to get you back using the other scam i detailed above, ie shipping an empty envelope with tracking.
Except that paypal is owned by ebay, they are leveraging their monopoly position in online auction listings to force people to use another part of the company, at the customer's expense.
Ebay charge you to list the item, and then charge you a percentage depending what it sells for...
Paypal then charge you another percentage of the money you receive, but if you receive money via other methods you don't get charged this. I always prefer to take cash on collection, because for larger items the paypal charges can be quite significant.
Having software that is unquestionably the best choice is much harder when you're at a disadvantage of having to reverse engineer proprietary protocols and formats.
Consider how many man-hours of work have gone into the current support openoffice has for ms formats. Now subtract from that the number of man-hours it would take to implement and test a fully documented format. The number left over, which will probably be quite large, is the number of man hours that could have gone into improving the functionality of the application itself. How much better would openoffice be today if they'd not spent so much effort reverse engineering ms formats?
The same applies to mozilla, how much effort went into reverse engineering and cloning non standard ie behavior for compatibility?
And samba...
The purpose of the EU is not to benefit people living in Toronto, they couldn't care less about you and nor should they.
Your friend in France will benefit from the reduction or more efficient use of her taxes. As will her company, when they are no longer forced to buy microsoft products in order to deal with government.
Consultants who only understand products from one vendor are a poor investment, and deserve to lose out so they see the benefit of gaining a broader skillset. I wouldn't hire consultants who only knew one set of products, they would provide poor value for money by choosing that set in every case and resisting anything else, rather than objectively providing the best tool for the job. All i want is the best tool for the job, and the ability to quickly and easily migrate if something better comes along.
Your friend who is a carpenter possibly stands to benefit more... His use of computers will be considerably less than that of the girl working in television... He might have a small website, might communicate with his clients via email, and might submit his accounts and tax returns by computer. If he is free to use any software he wants, he will probably find that a cheaper lower spec computer running free software is more than capable of satisfying his needs and will last a lot longer. This is assuming that he can do his tax returns and accounts without being tied to a particular proprietary format.
Yes, it's quite disturbing how microsoft have managed to bribe their way into getting exceptions from the second-source requirement on government contracts. They simply wouldn't be able to sell to them at all, if the second source provision was actually followed, who else offers products 100% compatible with proprietary microsoft formats?
The difference is long term...
In the long term, open formats will be cheaper, because it will be easier for third parties to compete, and they will do so by offering cheaper and better options. That means more taxpayer money will remain for other things, like schools and healthcare etc. When the tender comes up for renewal a few years down the line, there will be a stack of companies with compatible options. And there's no reason everyone has to run the same thing, so long as they can all handle the same data.
Also using locally sourced applications instead of buying them from a foreign company means that a lot of the money can be reclaimed by the government through the taxes paid by the companies and their employees.
Yes, but without the source code the amount of tinkering would be fairly limited...
And the only party that did have access to the source wouldn't be willing to help you. You'd end up running old versions, with lots of very nasty binary hacks... Remember what happened to AmigaOS after Commodore stopped updating it, but on a much larger scale.
When he clearly advertises the motherboard chipset you have as compatible, and then when you claim tries to fool you into thinking your motherboard has a completely different chipset...
He also falsely claims the memory is quality branded modules, when infact its often a cheap unbranded module constructed from chips from a reputable vendor running out of spec... For example, i bought a 1GB memory module advertised as "micron", and specifically listed as being compatible with the VIA K800 chipset. The module was made of micron chips, but the chips were intended to be used on 512MB modules, and thus were being run out of spec on a 1GB module, and the module itself wasnt made by micron. I also used an MSI K8T Neo motherboard, which according to MSI has the K800 chipset, according to fastmemoryman it has a "VIA 8231" chipset, which is actually the IDE controller.
He also relabels cheap unbranded flash memory cards and usb storage devices, some of which are lower capacity than he claims, but with hacked FAT tables to make them look bigger.
Not to mention the reverse shipping scam he runs, which he uses to scam people with paypal's blessing.
Only they don't...
They know their products are garbage, and always have. They rely on lock-in, users ignorance of alternatives and lack of choice in the marketplace because this is much cheaper than paying people to improve their products.
They don't go after them, because such anti-compete clauses are often illegal and unenforceable, and referred to as restriction of trade.
If you are a networking specialist, and your job is to work on the TCP/IP stack for windows, and then you leave to go work at Apple, chances are you're going to be working on the TCP/IP stack for OSX, because that's where your expertise lies.
These clauses are designed to scare people out of doing it, but they don't have any real legal weight. That's why they never actually go after someone who does it.
You cant install 2008 without a GUI...
The graphical layer is still running, the only difference is that it executes cmd.exe (in a window) instead of explorer.exe when you log in. It's not like the pure textmode of a unix system, and it still doesn't support serial consoles and boot without a video card installed like any serious server os.
And MS would have to improve their applications and reduce prices to retain market share...
This is far more costly than having customers locked in to your products and having to buy them regardless of how badly coded and non-innovative they are.
If someone sends you a cheque, you don't send the goods until it clears. Once it's fully cleared, the bank is at fault for clearing a fraudulent cheque so you keep the money.
If it bounces, you don't ship anything, you don't get charged for depositing a fraudulent cheque, you may get investigated for it but if you can prove how you got hold of it you won't have any negative effects.
To process credit card transactions you need a merchant account, it is the merchant's responsibility to verify the legitimacy of the card. If it's fraudulent and they clear the payment, it's their fault and you'l still get the funds.
You can also receive cash in person, it's your responsibility to ensure the cash isn't fake. If you accept it, it's your loss.
Except that many of the worst sellers actively use and are supported by paypal...
See http://www.ev4.org/wordpress/category/fastmemorymanscam/
Basically if you buy an item from a seller, and it's wrong, defective, etc, paypal will give you a refund but only if you ship it to the seller's "registered" address, using a shipping service with online tracking. Because of this, sellers can register an address in a foreign country, sell low value goods, ship you garbage, and then it becomes uneconomical to send it back so the seller keeps your money.
Aside from the fact that that when selling something, i'd prefer *not* to use paypal, as i have to increase the cost of the item and shipping to cover paypal costs. I much prefer personal collection, i can demonstrate the item to prove it works, and i receive the full amount i sold the item for in cash.
Wine has it's problems because it's reverse engineered from a moving closed target...
Porting apps from one unix to another requires significantly less effort, and achieves better results far more rapidly, so you very rapidly increase the number of users who would be willing to use it.
As for a monolithic solution, the likes of Sun, Apple and IBM already offer much better in this area - a complete stack of hardware and software, all from the same place and all centrally supported by a single entity.
Wether they get it right or not, you still have to test...
Not doing so is rather irresponsible if you expect people to rely on your code.