"Have you purchased any WMA files? That's exactly how it works. "
Um right. That's not how it works. The license isn't tied to the computer. You do, however, have to make a copy of the license to work in another computer.
What he described was how the Windows OS license works. "You can only use it on this computer", which really only refers to the copies of the OS that come with pre-built machines like Dell or Gateway.
I agree MS's licensing is shitty, that doesn't mean that the original poster's imaginitive work of fiction was even close to acccurate.
" If MS ruled the music biz, you'd have to buy one CD for each CD player you had. And if you CD player broke, you'd need to buy a new one since your CD's license is attached to your now defunct CD player. "
That's interesting?
That's how the Windows license works, however that's not how content from Microsoft works. One only need to look at games published by MS (like anything for the XBOX, or Age of Empires, etc) to know that's not at all how they'd handle it.
This comment is about as '+1, Interesting' as saying "If Linux ruled the music industry, they'd give away sheet music. The customers would have to play the music on their own instruments. But, for a nominal fee, they can buy a CD with the music already produced on it. However, the ISO could be downloaded free from the web. The entire time, the whole music industry would be running PBS style pledge drives to keep it funded."
I don't know which is stupider, the moderation that comment got (+1 Funny would have been fine, but not +1 Interesting) or that somebody with a mod point read that nodding his head saying to himself "yep yep, that's right!"
"The correct answer for "How would you move mount Fuju?" is "I wouldn't - it's fine right where it is."
My answer was sort of along the same lines. I was thinking along the lines of moving the mountain just by bending light or transmitting an image of it. In other words "Why move the mountain when we can simply satisfy the basic need to see it."
"Three of these things belong together Three of these things are kind of the same Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here? Now it's time to play our game!
At Napster's peak, the RIAA's sales were at their peak. There's no hard data that any amount of money was lost as a result of Napster.
So, in order to make the case work, they'll claim that they'd have made some imaginary number of money more (96 billion dollars?) because millions of people downloaded MP3s, therefore didn't buy albums as a result of it. So even though that money didn't materialize, they'll magically make money on it by claiming damages as a result of Napster.
That's pretty messed up. I worked for a company that made a product and sold a whopping $5,000 worth of it. (Gross, not net even.) A larger company came along and claimed we infringed on a patent. We didn't, but how do you convince a jury that? They used lawyer math to claim this company did one million dollars in damages. Uh right. Their revenue was consistent with both their predictions and on previous experience, and the company I worked for only made 5k.
Like I said, free money. I wish I had a suggestion as to how this whole system could be fixed to prevent this type of fraud.
"Incompatibility is about the only thing MS knows how to do -- I guess I have to disagree and say (just as always in the past) that it's just a matter of time."
Gimme an example or two so I can understand your point pls?
No, I'm not setting you up for a troll or debate, Im genuinely curious. I don't think we're using the same definition of 'compatible'. (Give me credit, at least I'm trying to understand what you mean instead of just blindly debating with ya!)
"And how exactly is making native ports less likely to happen a 'step in the right direction'?"
I don't think there's any reason here to think that this would make direct ports less likely to happen. If anything, it'd make them more likely to happen. It shows that Linux users really want to play games, no matter what hoops they have to jump through (short of dual booting into Windows like any sane person would do) they still want to play games. That's good news because nothing sucks worse than having your customer say "aww I have to install it? What a gip!"
"A step in the right direction would be to email, or better yet, write to the game developers staing that you'd like them to release the game for linux. Most importantly of all if you ask for a game to be released natively be damned sure to go out and buy it if it is released!"
I completely agree with you here. The Linux Community needs to be noisy about it.
However, realism needs to be part of the game. If memory serves, Loki's idea of a successful game was like 10,000 copies. Granted, that might be a couple of hundred grand of profit (under idea situations...) but unless the game is developed right initially, it could cost more than that to port it.
At least you could get the ball rolling, though. The game you like may not make it, but the next game the company makes might be made in a more portable way. I mean, if you think about it, a lot of the hard work is already done. Level design, artwork, voice talent, etc.
So yes, I agree. I just wanted to nit your first point a little bit.:)
Um, what's wrong with XP Home for gaming? I've been using it for months and it's fine.
"There are those that don't want Windoze because of the privacy concerns, the security concerns, etc."
If you're just booting into it to play games, what's the BFD? It's not like XP can read the Linux file system.
"For what I'd have to pay in Windoze software to help guard my system, plus the cost of the licence (which if I don't upgrade when MS wants, I pay for dearly) I can get a hell of a lot more hardware!"
Bullshit. I've been running XP naked (firewall's been down a while) and except for that stupid message that came through until I stopped the messenger service, nothing's happened to it. All ya gotta do is update your patches etc once in a while, and XP does the hard work for you. You just have it hit 'ok'. You don't need other software etc. You'd be smart, though, to not use Outlook Express as your mail client. I won't defend it.
The only piece of hardware I'd recommend is a firewall. You should have one of those anyway even if you're running Linux.
You'd only be out $200, the cost of a game console. Then you'd have access to thousands of games. Yeah, that'd be a real rip-off. *eyeroll*
I can't help but think you were deliberately trying to gain a +1 Insightful here.
" Games are the only thing keeping home M$ Windows sales up."
That's not really true. Though I agree games are an extremely attractive feature of Windows, the fact is that it's a decent OS. Lots of apps, easy to use, easy to install, lots of places to get help with it, etc. (Note: I only speak of Windows 2k and even XP, Windows 95, 98, ME, and related are complete garbage. I will not defend those flavors.)
Linux has arguably gained ground in most of those areas, but it's still got its rough areas. It's strength in the home market is not it's CLI or it's automation or remote administration capabilities. Frankly, nobody gives a rat's ass about that. What they do care about is beinng able to do lots of stuff with their computer. They want to go to the store and buy a new game or an app. They want to buy a new doohickey like an MP3 player and connect it all up and make it work. The problem is if you go to CompUSA, there's virtually no mention of Linux.
Linux may be superior in nearly every aspect compared to Windows, but not necessarily in the areas that are important to mass-market audiences. Frankly, I think just getting a few apps on store shelves that are just for Linux would go a long way. You'd be surprised how much perception plays a role in all this. It's not that surprising, though. For people to climb any learning curve, they need to be interested in it.
"Linux on the Play Station, which is already available, is one step of something many predict will only become bigger."
Hardly. You can't even burn a disc and play it on the PS2. The only way you can get a game to somebody else is if they have the $200 Linux kit for PS2. Sorry, Linux on the PS2 gets you nowhere into making games a bigger market for Linux.
Linux gaming could happen, but it takes a great deal of effort to make it interesting. The first step would be to make a dev enviornment interesting to gamers. Something like Director for Linux would go a long way. Make it easy for somebody to pick it up and make their own games. Then, get a few games passed around via shareware. Be persistent, and suddenly it becomes interesting to people to have Linux available to play with these games. Imagine going to Ham fests handing out free CD's with a Linux gaming distro on them.
The problem is that we're talking years of development here. Frankly, though, until Linux appears on millions of desktops, it ain't gonna happen.
"You don't think so? I guess we'll find out, won't we? They broke DOS, and they'll break everything else eventually"
They didn't break DOS, they phased out of it.
That was probably the worst example you could have used to prove your point, heh.
MS isn't going to mess with WineX. There's no benefit to it. MS does, however, have every interest in making sure that game developers have a good development to work in. Linux developers would be wise to cater to the gaming Community in a similar way.
Make Windows jokes if you like, but I've had 4 Windows 2000 machines and one XP machine over the last 3 years. All of them played games just fine. The most 'painful' thing I've ever had to do was install an updated Direct X. The only thing painful about that was having to reboot. Bummer.
"How come people always want things for free? What's the deal? Sometimes I think that people's adversion to capitalism hurts companies worse then Microsoft's anti-trust violations."
Don'tcha think you jumped the gun a bit?
He didn't say free. He offered to pay a subscription. He wanted a little discount for being a loyal customer. It's a common thing these days.
" I'm waiting for the Matrix where you can't tell the difference b/w real Neo and computer generated Neo. "
That won't be Reloaded. Though they did a decent job, it's still pretty obvious.
I studied the imagery in the scene where Neo gets attacked by a bunch of Agent Smiths. One of the problems with it was that they didn't make the suites black like the live-action characters wear. Instead, they were a dark shade of gray. As a result, it not only looked visually different, but you could also see the distinctive look of CG-shaders.
I ran that scene through After Effects and color corrected the suits down to black, and it looked MUCH more convincing. At that point, it looked more like a blue/greenscreen gag. Unfortunately, it still didn't quite grab me as 'convincing'.
Here's the problem: if they're using CG to do something actors can't do (well it'd be virtuallypointless to use it otherwise!) we're instinctively going to know that. It'll look wrong no matter how convincing it is. Hmm. I dunno. I'm a big fan of the subtle stuff. Going over the top in a scene like that is just begging for criticism, and the Hulk is probably going to go through the same trouble. He is a little on the improbable side.
.. on Slashdot. I made a throw-away address and set it to my profile here. Then, I disabled the 'Spam Armor Plating'. Sure enough, within a couple of posts I had unsolicited mail coming in.
The bizarre thing was that one of the messages I got was for a volunteer FireFighter meeting in California. I'm in Oregon. Heh.
I want email to work like ICQ. I want to have an authorization list. When somebody contacts me, they have to request permission first. Right now, I'm manually doing that.
"What happened to the days of using a VCR? Yes its not cool or geeky or even the best quality but it certainly suffices for tape delaying a show. Plus a good VCR costs like $60 nowadays with tapes to be had for under a buck. Cheap and a tried a true technology(plus no monthly fee!)."
Hi! New here? Just transferred from the "Doesn't Get It" department?
"So then... what exactly is the editors job? Drink coffee and click "submit"? "
If you created a job out of a website that earns revenue simply by people visiting it, isn't that all you would do? I certainly would! Man I envy Taco.
Slashdot Mirror
"Have you purchased any WMA files? That's exactly how it works. "
Um right. That's not how it works. The license isn't tied to the computer. You do, however, have to make a copy of the license to work in another computer.
What he described was how the Windows OS license works. "You can only use it on this computer", which really only refers to the copies of the OS that come with pre-built machines like Dell or Gateway.
I agree MS's licensing is shitty, that doesn't mean that the original poster's imaginitive work of fiction was even close to acccurate.
" If MS ruled the music biz, you'd have to buy one CD for each CD player you had. And if you CD player broke, you'd need to buy a new one since your CD's license is attached to your now defunct CD player. "
That's interesting?
That's how the Windows license works, however that's not how content from Microsoft works. One only need to look at games published by MS (like anything for the XBOX, or Age of Empires, etc) to know that's not at all how they'd handle it.
This comment is about as '+1, Interesting' as saying "If Linux ruled the music industry, they'd give away sheet music. The customers would have to play the music on their own instruments. But, for a nominal fee, they can buy a CD with the music already produced on it. However, the ISO could be downloaded free from the web. The entire time, the whole music industry would be running PBS style pledge drives to keep it funded."
I don't know which is stupider, the moderation that comment got (+1 Funny would have been fine, but not +1 Interesting) or that somebody with a mod point read that nodding his head saying to himself "yep yep, that's right!"
"Is how they're going to sort out whom has a legal copy of a song, and whom has an illegal copy of a song."
Does it matter? It's not like they're doing that today where the exact same problem exists.
If I have a CD-R copy of a music CD, how are they to know that I'm using it because my original was lost in the move?
I don't think you show up on their radar until you start giving the files to other people. Then they can bust you on a fresh charge.
"The correct answer for "How would you move mount Fuju?" is "I wouldn't - it's fine right where it is."
My answer was sort of along the same lines. I was thinking along the lines of moving the mountain just by bending light or transmitting an image of it. In other words "Why move the mountain when we can simply satisfy the basic need to see it."
"Three of these things belong together
Three of these things are kind of the same
Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here?
Now it's time to play our game!
Now let's play our game!
"Half Life 2"
"Doom 3"
"Midnight Racer"
"GTA3 Vice City"
"Forget targeting MacOS and Linux, and let's assume doing either or both is viable. But AmigaOS ?"
It's a brilliant business plan. Mentioning AmigaOS is a surefire way to get free advertising on Slashdot.
Here are a few other phrases that'll earn you Slashvertisements:
- "...battle with Microsoft.."
- "...support for Ogg Vorbis..."
- "...AMD...
- "...ported to Linux..."
- "...Mozilla..."
All you have to do is work any of these phrases into the marketing literature for your product, and BOOM your site gets ground to a halt.
At Napster's peak, the RIAA's sales were at their peak. There's no hard data that any amount of money was lost as a result of Napster.
So, in order to make the case work, they'll claim that they'd have made some imaginary number of money more (96 billion dollars?) because millions of people downloaded MP3s, therefore didn't buy albums as a result of it. So even though that money didn't materialize, they'll magically make money on it by claiming damages as a result of Napster.
That's pretty messed up. I worked for a company that made a product and sold a whopping $5,000 worth of it. (Gross, not net even.) A larger company came along and claimed we infringed on a patent. We didn't, but how do you convince a jury that? They used lawyer math to claim this company did one million dollars in damages. Uh right. Their revenue was consistent with both their predictions and on previous experience, and the company I worked for only made 5k.
Like I said, free money. I wish I had a suggestion as to how this whole system could be fixed to prevent this type of fraud.
"C'mon, "Firebird"? Come up with something better, all of you! "
Sting!
"Incompatibility is about the only thing MS knows how to do -- I guess I have to disagree and say (just as always in the past) that it's just a matter of time."
Gimme an example or two so I can understand your point pls?
No, I'm not setting you up for a troll or debate, Im genuinely curious. I don't think we're using the same definition of 'compatible'. (Give me credit, at least I'm trying to understand what you mean instead of just blindly debating with ya!)
"And how exactly is making native ports less likely to happen a 'step in the right direction'?"
:)
I don't think there's any reason here to think that this would make direct ports less likely to happen. If anything, it'd make them more likely to happen. It shows that Linux users really want to play games, no matter what hoops they have to jump through (short of dual booting into Windows like any sane person would do) they still want to play games. That's good news because nothing sucks worse than having your customer say "aww I have to install it? What a gip!"
"A step in the right direction would be to email, or better yet, write to the game developers staing that you'd like them to release the game for linux. Most importantly of all if you ask for a game to be released natively be damned sure to go out and buy it if it is released!"
I completely agree with you here. The Linux Community needs to be noisy about it.
However, realism needs to be part of the game. If memory serves, Loki's idea of a successful game was like 10,000 copies. Granted, that might be a couple of hundred grand of profit (under idea situations...) but unless the game is developed right initially, it could cost more than that to port it.
At least you could get the ball rolling, though. The game you like may not make it, but the next game the company makes might be made in a more portable way. I mean, if you think about it, a lot of the hard work is already done. Level design, artwork, voice talent, etc.
So yes, I agree. I just wanted to nit your first point a little bit.
" XP Home just doesn't cut it."
Um, what's wrong with XP Home for gaming? I've been using it for months and it's fine.
"There are those that don't want Windoze because of the privacy concerns, the security concerns, etc."
If you're just booting into it to play games, what's the BFD? It's not like XP can read the Linux file system.
"For what I'd have to pay in Windoze software to help guard my system, plus the cost of the licence (which if I don't upgrade when MS wants, I pay for dearly) I can get a hell of a lot more hardware!"
Bullshit. I've been running XP naked (firewall's been down a while) and except for that stupid message that came through until I stopped the messenger service, nothing's happened to it. All ya gotta do is update your patches etc once in a while, and XP does the hard work for you. You just have it hit 'ok'. You don't need other software etc. You'd be smart, though, to not use Outlook Express as your mail client. I won't defend it.
The only piece of hardware I'd recommend is a firewall. You should have one of those anyway even if you're running Linux.
You'd only be out $200, the cost of a game console. Then you'd have access to thousands of games. Yeah, that'd be a real rip-off. *eyeroll*
I can't help but think you were deliberately trying to gain a +1 Insightful here.
" Games are the only thing keeping home M$ Windows sales up."
That's not really true. Though I agree games are an extremely attractive feature of Windows, the fact is that it's a decent OS. Lots of apps, easy to use, easy to install, lots of places to get help with it, etc. (Note: I only speak of Windows 2k and even XP, Windows 95, 98, ME, and related are complete garbage. I will not defend those flavors.)
Linux has arguably gained ground in most of those areas, but it's still got its rough areas. It's strength in the home market is not it's CLI or it's automation or remote administration capabilities. Frankly, nobody gives a rat's ass about that. What they do care about is beinng able to do lots of stuff with their computer. They want to go to the store and buy a new game or an app. They want to buy a new doohickey like an MP3 player and connect it all up and make it work. The problem is if you go to CompUSA, there's virtually no mention of Linux.
Linux may be superior in nearly every aspect compared to Windows, but not necessarily in the areas that are important to mass-market audiences. Frankly, I think just getting a few apps on store shelves that are just for Linux would go a long way. You'd be surprised how much perception plays a role in all this. It's not that surprising, though. For people to climb any learning curve, they need to be interested in it.
"Linux on the Play Station, which is already available, is one step of something many predict will only become bigger."
Hardly. You can't even burn a disc and play it on the PS2. The only way you can get a game to somebody else is if they have the $200 Linux kit for PS2. Sorry, Linux on the PS2 gets you nowhere into making games a bigger market for Linux.
Linux gaming could happen, but it takes a great deal of effort to make it interesting. The first step would be to make a dev enviornment interesting to gamers. Something like Director for Linux would go a long way. Make it easy for somebody to pick it up and make their own games. Then, get a few games passed around via shareware. Be persistent, and suddenly it becomes interesting to people to have Linux available to play with these games. Imagine going to Ham fests handing out free CD's with a Linux gaming distro on them.
The problem is that we're talking years of development here. Frankly, though, until Linux appears on millions of desktops, it ain't gonna happen.
"You don't think so? I guess we'll find out, won't we? They broke DOS, and they'll break everything else eventually"
They didn't break DOS, they phased out of it.
That was probably the worst example you could have used to prove your point, heh.
MS isn't going to mess with WineX. There's no benefit to it. MS does, however, have every interest in making sure that game developers have a good development to work in. Linux developers would be wise to cater to the gaming Community in a similar way.
Thank you for playing! [transgaming.com] "
A step in the right direction, but not perfect.
a.) Doesn't work with all games.
b.) Lots of complaints about stability.
Make Windows jokes if you like, but I've had 4 Windows 2000 machines and one XP machine over the last 3 years. All of them played games just fine. The most 'painful' thing I've ever had to do was install an updated Direct X. The only thing painful about that was having to reboot. Bummer.
Is it really that hard to dual boot with Windows?
"I've been doing this for 10 years!!!? Excuse me, I have to go outside and stretch my legs. A bathroom break would be a nice change of pace too. "
What's it like serving aboard the Enterprise?
"what a bloated piece of crap webpages would have become, they might have abandoned the idea... :) "
Ever notice how bloated Slashdot is? FP tags, Ogg tags, Beowulf tags, MSSUX tags... Slashdot could do with a good spring cleanin!
"How come people always want things for free? What's the deal? Sometimes I think that people's adversion to capitalism hurts companies worse then Microsoft's anti-trust violations."
Don'tcha think you jumped the gun a bit?
He didn't say free. He offered to pay a subscription. He wanted a little discount for being a loyal customer. It's a common thing these days.
" I'm waiting for the Matrix where you can't tell the difference b/w real Neo and computer generated Neo. "
That won't be Reloaded. Though they did a decent job, it's still pretty obvious.
I studied the imagery in the scene where Neo gets attacked by a bunch of Agent Smiths. One of the problems with it was that they didn't make the suites black like the live-action characters wear. Instead, they were a dark shade of gray. As a result, it not only looked visually different, but you could also see the distinctive look of CG-shaders.
I ran that scene through After Effects and color corrected the suits down to black, and it looked MUCH more convincing. At that point, it looked more like a blue/greenscreen gag. Unfortunately, it still didn't quite grab me as 'convincing'.
Here's the problem: if they're using CG to do something actors can't do (well it'd be virtuallypointless to use it otherwise!) we're instinctively going to know that. It'll look wrong no matter how convincing it is.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm a big fan of the subtle stuff. Going over the top in a scene like that is just begging for criticism, and the Hulk is probably going to go through the same trouble. He is a little on the improbable side.
.. on Slashdot. I made a throw-away address and set it to my profile here. Then, I disabled the 'Spam Armor Plating'. Sure enough, within a couple of posts I had unsolicited mail coming in.
The bizarre thing was that one of the messages I got was for a volunteer FireFighter meeting in California. I'm in Oregon. Heh.
I want email to work like ICQ. I want to have an authorization list. When somebody contacts me, they have to request permission first. Right now, I'm manually doing that.
"Slashdot needs a new story topic: Dupes! Suggestions for an icon, anyone? "
Mini Me. It's a perfect clone, but only 1/8th as interesting.
"Oh fuck off, you smarmy jackass. People like you are why I support 30th trimester abortions. "
Ewwwwwww you slept with Cartman's mom?
"What happened to the days of using a VCR? Yes its not cool or geeky or even the best quality but it certainly suffices for tape delaying a show. Plus a good VCR costs like $60 nowadays with tapes to be had for under a buck. Cheap and a tried a true technology(plus no monthly fee!)."
Hi! New here? Just transferred from the "Doesn't Get It" department?
"So then... what exactly is the editors job? Drink coffee and click "submit"? "
If you created a job out of a website that earns revenue simply by people visiting it, isn't that all you would do? I certainly would! Man I envy Taco.
"For this kind of readership, you may just have spawned a whole new inaccurate generalization about women."
Have you seen the dudes that visit Slashdot? Trust me when I say this generalization is safely contained.