Just to tear apart your argument: there will always be what's already been done to pirate. The Beatles work will not cease to exist because of piracy (in fact, quite the opposite), but it will simply cease being profitable.
Furthermore: I don't actually care about whether there's something available to pirate or not. For a while, I insisted on buying CDs because I believed in artist compensation and making sure that they'd continue making the music that they did. I like music, I like movies, and with the money I payed for music, the RIAA took it and lobbied to make me into an assumed criminal. They've lobbied and and lawyered themselves more money, as evidenced by this attached story.
That was never part of the deal I thought I was getting into. I thought I was paying solely for artist compensation, distribution, advertising, and concert subsidizing, profit and growth. Boy was I wrong.
Problem is, I still like music.
So what do you choose? Do you choose to just let things get worse and worse, while funding people who lobby to make you a criminal? Is that some sort of rush?
Or do you fight back?
I'm sorry to have to say it, but I don't care anymore if artists don't get compensated like they do now, if they insist on either making millions of dollars off me or just not making music. Music didn't used to make you a millionaire, but the RIAA made it work through distribution, which has spawned a whole new breed of musicians who think it's their RIGHT to make millions, and not just a hope.
I don't care about them. I care about me. And I have to make the most correct decisions for me. So I'm willing to let the artists whither, let their sponsor corporations whither. They're complicit in making society view me as a criminal first. I think that's wrong and unacceptable. So, to make the tune change, I'll hit them where it counts.
1) Get their address. Their real address, so that the money actually gets to them. Good luck!
2) Send them money through the mail. No, really, send money, since a cheque is traceable directly to you.
3) Send an explanation? Should you? "Yeah, I stole your album from the net so I could circumvent the RIAA and make sure it goes right to you."
If this all works somehow, even then I'd like to find out the artist's reaction. "They're stealing my music like the RIAA said they would! I could lose tons of cash!" Yes, even the artists can be complicit with the RIAA - they don't hate the RIAA the way we do, since the RIAA is helping them make money by protecting their interests.
I'll tell you what I think: I think we should steal everything from the RIAA. Refuse to buy CDs anymore, and just pirate pirate pirate.
I see this as a 2-fold effect:
(1) You deny them money to lobby and litigate, and...
(2) You destroy the hope of artists who want to make tons and tons of cash (maybe) off being signed to a music company who is aligned with the RIAA.
I think the artists are just as complicit in this as the RIAA - they create the demand for a corp. like the RIAA to exist, and they're on the front lines helping us sign our innocence away to corps. that treat us as guilty first. Yes, I feel sorry that some bands will be hurt by this action, but making a transition to a new model of music distribution and moneymaking is gonna hurt somewhere, and I believe it's going to have to hurt the artists first since any other solution seems to be a pipe-dream and blocked by greed and lobbying/litigation.
Yes, lots of people keep buying CDs. Everyone here who hates the RIAA and wants to see its end will have to do their best to steal CDs and music for all their friends and family. Be the first one to say "Hey, never mind buying the CD, I'll download you a copy and make you the CD for free."
Hell, we're being treated like criminals already. Might as well start acting like it and REALLY show them who we are.
Something geeks tend to do when they find out about some kind of new high-tech gadget that improves performance, they say "wow, imagine what we could do with that!"
Something suits tend to do when they find out about some kind of new high-tech gadget that improves performance, they say "wow, imagine what we could save with that!"
After reading several posts, I know this is probably not the panacea that we all expect. Still, taking the article at face value for a moment and assuming it would amount to 6000x... would it be possible for ISPs to say "hey, we could just throttle down the bandwidth on our lines with this new protocol and save mad cash!" ?
Remember, geeks won't get this tech first. Suits will.
You get the CE source, fill in the holes, and then sell it.
Thing is, the holes are the ones that don't belong to CE in the first place. Therefore, any "holes" that you "fill in" are still yours, and not changes that are made to CE itself, therefore removing your obligation to send this source back to MS. However, if you take their code and CHANGE it, then you have to return that code to them.
There's a reason the music biz won't do what you suggest though, and it's such a simple and rational reason that you and the rest of/. will bow your heads with a collective "Oh.":
Distribution control.
A CD/DVD is something physical to which they control the production of, and can therefore control the sale of, but most imporantly: they have the resources that allow them to create and maintain the production of CDs/DVDs, in massive quantities. If you want worldwide distribution, you go to "The Industry" because they have the best resources.
Now: take away the need for said resources in order to get your music heard. Charge by the song rather than disc, and remove the need for discs to be manufactured and distributed. Make up a site, advertise on the web, and buy the bandwidth you'll need to serve the song for a limited amount of time (because you will run into diminishing returns as time goes on and the song gets pirated into oblivion soon after).
Plain and simple: that will get you money still, just lots LESS of it. Also, it will lose you control because now that the cost of production is gone, anyone can do it.
This is why the industry will never (1) go along with the net for distribution and (2) why they will use their resources now to STIFLE this technology - they won't be the first to jump off the cliff, and if anyone else jumps, they're the 800lb gorilla holding the rope around their necks.
I'm rather surprised by this knowledgeable crowd - everyone started jumping on the "How can.NET be standards compliant, it exposes MS proprietary API's" bandwagon.
Well, if you jumped on that bandwagon, you're right, but you all get a -1: Offtopic for it. This story post is about C# getting standards certification - not the.NET environment. C# is a language in & of itself, and it's the language that was used in the beginning to create.NET (so that chicken & egg story is cleared up for y'all, too).
Again, it's not.NET that's getting certification here - it's just C#, the language.
There's a mistake in that arguement, though: you're confusing.NET with C#. C# was used to build.NET in the first place, but it is not.NET in itself. C# came first, and as a language, C# is what is being awarded standards certification, NOT.NET .
Even if they're being political about not being able to do this for technological reasons, this still makes sense (even though it DOES suck for businesses STILL using NT4). MS sells product, not service - you don't support a product beyond its profitability or your willingness to do so. That's not mean, dirty, nasty - that's business.
That said, I wonder if it would make sense for them to SELL a patch for older software like that. Just a small fee that effectively says "Oh, ALL RIGHT, if you insist, here. Pay up, you're wasting our time." Maybe something they should try?
I have an interesting twist on the infamous "Power Cord" tech support story - you know the one, where the person has forgotton to turn the device on or plug it in.
My sister called me up at work one day complaining that the VCR didn't work. I knew what the problem was instantly - I had unplugged it from the wall socket (which has 2 outlets, natch, with one being used by the TV) so that I could plug my old NES in.
I told her: "Oh, yeah, that's because I unplugged it so I could plug in the Nintendo. Just unplug the Nintendo and plug in the VCR."
That should have been plainly straightforward.
Her: "Plug it in. OK. How do I do that?"
I found myself a bit off-kilter, trying to convince myself that she was just tech-illiterate and didn't realize I meant the power cord.
Me: "Plug it in. You know. Like you plug in a curling iron, or a hairdryer, or a toaster. Just unplug the Nintendo, and *PLUG IN* the VCR."
Her: "I don't understand what you mean. Plug it in? Plug WHAT in?"
Me: "The power cord. Plug it in."
Her: *getting irritated* "THIS IS TOO COMPLICATED. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, PLUG IT IN?"
Me: *getting irritated* "PLUG IT IN! UNPLUG THE POWER CORD FOR THE NINTENDO, AND PLUG IN THE VCR."
Her: *rummage* "OK, wait, I'm looking at the back of the VCR now, and I see 6 plugs."
Me: "PLUG IT INTO THE WALL."
This seemed to do it. All of a sudden:
Her: "OH!@# Plug it in TO THE WALL! You know, you could have been more specific, all you had to say was-"
I just hung up on her.
After dealing with her, I gained a newfound respect for people working in tech support. You couldn't pay me to take that sort of stupidity daily.
See, the problem here is I doubt they really KNOW this. It's certainly possible, feasible, and plausible, but I don't think they know what they're talking about in this case.
Upon thought & inspection, this sounds more like they're throwing more fodder on the fire which is quickly razing the USA's foreign policy & relations.
I wonder if michael is testing us for stupidity, literacy, and actual technical knowledge of the issues.
1) Take MS, make a report that says they did something bad, watch how many people flock to bash them DESPITE THE FACTS PRESENTED IN THE ARTICLE, which leads me to:
2) How many people read the article? And of those people who DID,:
3) How many of them know that XML is supposed to be a divorce of data from presentation? Why this comes as a shock to people is obvious - they didn't know that.
The poster above who said "style sheets" - bravo. You couldn't have made a better point with two words.
You bring up a few points that made me think about OO databases. After thinking about it to myself, it seems that object-oriented databases are a bad way to go.
Object-oriented programming was a good idea, because of the nature of programming. Programming is a very thought-intensive process, and the idea of being able to create an object with certain functionality is very good.
However, a database is set up to house data. Stored procedures/functions/triggers are all fine & dandy, but when it comes down to it, the nature of databases are to store data, not to function on data. The tools used to make databases more functional are nice, and data integrity routines are excellent features that are on the right track of thinking in terms of a database's nature.
I believe in the idea of seperating data from functionality & metadata as much as possible, since the inputs & outputs are easier to define that way, and help to black-box functional units. OO databases seem to go against that grain.
This isn't insightful. This is ignorant, and I feel dumber for having read it.
There is no onus to clone the Windows interface. The interface has been cloned not because it's so good, or because it's better than the original XWindows interface. It's cloned because OSS GUI developers are quite simply unable to create anything better. This is not a chide against their skill - they actually don't have the time & money to spend researching how to make the most effective user interface. (That, and they can't emulate Apple's Aqua interface because Apple would just sue their pants off.)
However, if you're content to sit there and wait for MS' desktop dominance to subside, you're going to wait for the rest of your life. MS' desktop dominance has less to do with "superior UI design" and more to do with marketing.
OSS should stop trying to chase Windows' features - it's not just the product that you have to emulate to defeat Windows on the desktop. Emulate service, support, consultancy, and business partnering. THAT will make a dent. If you're selling people the idea of "Almost-But-Not-Quite-Windows", you'll "Almost-But-Not-Quite-Sell-Them".
To expand on that: I have found that a lot of people fail to realize that you should first identify a PROBLEM that a static computer program can solve repeatedly. If a process is temporary and won't be used several times yet still requires a lot of processing for the whole 1 time it'll be run, then perhaps a simple script will do.
Where I worked before, the order of the day was ad-hoc reporting. Management failed to understand that a static processing unit cannot produce very different sets of output - it can handle a lot of different branches of execution, but only those that are explicitly defined. Whereas some simple scripts to get the job done for a short while would have sufficed, they demanded that all output be generated by static compiled binary programs that they could run locally on their computers (no, they wouldn't shell out for a webserver or database server until much, much later, when they hired a new project manager with clue).
Yes, it was maddening. No, I will never return to work for them under any circumstances (save a large 6-figure salary). And no, they never learned their lesson - they're busy making a giant funding model in a binary program, where the model's implementation is CONSTANTLY changing & being tweaked, having modules added & removed. The program will never get off the ground, but for the past 2 years they've been plugging away at it, desperate to come up with that holy grail of "Static process Ad-Hoc Reporting."
Part of the problem is that to get financing, you must look like you already have money.
Wrongo. To get financing, you have to act & sound like you know how to make money. Mostly act. Salon apparantly has neither skill - you can tell because they're begging for subscriptions as alms, not as trade. You want to make money? You don't beg for it, you TRADE for it. Be a business, don't pretend.
Secondly, seeing how they operated their "business" should bring shame to them. They didn't do what it took to be profitable, they depended on hand-outs to keep living beyond their means. That's not a way to run a business. If their online mag meant anything to them and had any value to them, they would have changed their ways a long time ago.
I had to inform the crowd about this one. I still have a working NES, complete with 2 controllers and the light-gun. I have all the Marios, both the Zeldas, Hogan's Alley to go with the light-gun, and 2 working controllers. All my games still work (although I have to blow dust off the cartridge connectors from time to time).
I would NEVER, EVER mod it to do this. The NES as it is STILL provides me with hours of entertainment, something most PC games these days can't do. Turning it into something like a webserver would totally ruin it for me.
Currently, I'm running an ancient 1GHz Thunderbird Athlon, with 768MB of PC-133 SDRAM, a GeForce4 TI4200, and 2 HDDs - 27GB Maxtor and 80GB Maxtor, 2MB cache. I've been running this rig for almost 2 years now, and it still runs strong & stable. Only upgrades I did were the 80GB HDD after a 20GB Maxtor that died a horrid, clicking & spinning death during an FDISK (after having it cause countless crashes & ATA failures), and the GeForce4 (which offered me a surprising performance increase in games over the GeForce2 GTS 32MB it replaced).
This rig still runs all my favorites plus some of the newer games (UT2K3 runs fine at my LCD flat panel's native res (1280x1024) with normal options turned on). The upgrade guide on Ace's (which I haven't read) simply wouldn't offer me any compelling reason to upgrade for today's games.
Doom 3, OTOH, would probably provide my system a major challenge (according to reports on its functionality, anyway). When Doom 3 comes out, that'll be my new benchmark & prompt me to upgrade. Not sooner.
After looking at Stallman's comments on the license, I would assume that it's true - Plan 9 is not free.
In fact, my interpretation of the motive behind the license is most certainly profit, but intellectual rather than monetary. The point about requiring any source changes to be sent back to Bell Labs seems to be saying "here's our product - if you change how things work, tell us what you did." Strange way to profit (in respect to the normal method of profit, $$$), but certainly an interesting way to profit and (IMO) a more valuable profit overall.
This doesn't make me think any less of the project or DMR (for what little role he played in this project anyway) - I respect profit. I think what trips most people up is that it's not an advertised cost of the product the same way as a sticker price is on a box in a retail shop.
Slashdot Mirror
Furthermore: I don't actually care about whether there's something available to pirate or not. For a while, I insisted on buying CDs because I believed in artist compensation and making sure that they'd continue making the music that they did. I like music, I like movies, and with the money I payed for music, the RIAA took it and lobbied to make me into an assumed criminal. They've lobbied and and lawyered themselves more money, as evidenced by this attached story.
That was never part of the deal I thought I was getting into. I thought I was paying solely for artist compensation, distribution, advertising, and concert subsidizing, profit and growth. Boy was I wrong.
Problem is, I still like music.
So what do you choose? Do you choose to just let things get worse and worse, while funding people who lobby to make you a criminal? Is that some sort of rush?
Or do you fight back?
I'm sorry to have to say it, but I don't care anymore if artists don't get compensated like they do now, if they insist on either making millions of dollars off me or just not making music. Music didn't used to make you a millionaire, but the RIAA made it work through distribution, which has spawned a whole new breed of musicians who think it's their RIGHT to make millions, and not just a hope.
I don't care about them. I care about me. And I have to make the most correct decisions for me. So I'm willing to let the artists whither, let their sponsor corporations whither. They're complicit in making society view me as a criminal first. I think that's wrong and unacceptable. So, to make the tune change, I'll hit them where it counts.
Pirate, Pirate, Pirate.
1) Get their address. Their real address, so that the money actually gets to them. Good luck!
2) Send them money through the mail. No, really, send money, since a cheque is traceable directly to you.
3) Send an explanation? Should you? "Yeah, I stole your album from the net so I could circumvent the RIAA and make sure it goes right to you."
If this all works somehow, even then I'd like to find out the artist's reaction. "They're stealing my music like the RIAA said they would! I could lose tons of cash!" Yes, even the artists can be complicit with the RIAA - they don't hate the RIAA the way we do, since the RIAA is helping them make money by protecting their interests.
I see this as a 2-fold effect:
(1) You deny them money to lobby and litigate, and...
(2) You destroy the hope of artists who want to make tons and tons of cash (maybe) off being signed to a music company who is aligned with the RIAA.
I think the artists are just as complicit in this as the RIAA - they create the demand for a corp. like the RIAA to exist, and they're on the front lines helping us sign our innocence away to corps. that treat us as guilty first. Yes, I feel sorry that some bands will be hurt by this action, but making a transition to a new model of music distribution and moneymaking is gonna hurt somewhere, and I believe it's going to have to hurt the artists first since any other solution seems to be a pipe-dream and blocked by greed and lobbying/litigation.
Yes, lots of people keep buying CDs. Everyone here who hates the RIAA and wants to see its end will have to do their best to steal CDs and music for all their friends and family. Be the first one to say "Hey, never mind buying the CD, I'll download you a copy and make you the CD for free."
Hell, we're being treated like criminals already. Might as well start acting like it and REALLY show them who we are.
Something suits tend to do when they find out about some kind of new high-tech gadget that improves performance, they say "wow, imagine what we could save with that!"
After reading several posts, I know this is probably not the panacea that we all expect. Still, taking the article at face value for a moment and assuming it would amount to 6000x... would it be possible for ISPs to say "hey, we could just throttle down the bandwidth on our lines with this new protocol and save mad cash!" ?
Remember, geeks won't get this tech first. Suits will.
"If shoe fits, wear it."
Windows: None
RedHat: It's Linux, damn it. RTFM
You've obviously never heard of the MSDN or the TechNet (both available for free on the web at http://mdsn.microsoft.com and http://www.microsoft.com/technet ).
But what can I expect... you're as clueless about Windows and Windows software as I am about Linux and Linux software.
You get the CE source, fill in the holes, and then sell it.
Thing is, the holes are the ones that don't belong to CE in the first place. Therefore, any "holes" that you "fill in" are still yours, and not changes that are made to CE itself, therefore removing your obligation to send this source back to MS. However, if you take their code and CHANGE it, then you have to return that code to them.
Distribution control.
A CD/DVD is something physical to which they control the production of, and can therefore control the sale of, but most imporantly: they have the resources that allow them to create and maintain the production of CDs/DVDs, in massive quantities. If you want worldwide distribution, you go to "The Industry" because they have the best resources.
Now: take away the need for said resources in order to get your music heard. Charge by the song rather than disc, and remove the need for discs to be manufactured and distributed. Make up a site, advertise on the web, and buy the bandwidth you'll need to serve the song for a limited amount of time (because you will run into diminishing returns as time goes on and the song gets pirated into oblivion soon after).
Plain and simple: that will get you money still, just lots LESS of it. Also, it will lose you control because now that the cost of production is gone, anyone can do it.
This is why the industry will never (1) go along with the net for distribution and (2) why they will use their resources now to STIFLE this technology - they won't be the first to jump off the cliff, and if anyone else jumps, they're the 800lb gorilla holding the rope around their necks.
Well, if you jumped on that bandwagon, you're right, but you all get a -1: Offtopic for it. This story post is about C# getting standards certification - not the .NET environment. C# is a language in & of itself, and it's the language that was used in the beginning to create .NET (so that chicken & egg story is cleared up for y'all, too).
Again, it's not .NET that's getting certification here - it's just C#, the language.
There's a mistake in that arguement, though: you're confusing .NET with C#. C# was used to build .NET in the first place, but it is not .NET in itself. C# came first, and as a language, C# is what is being awarded standards certification, NOT .NET .
That said, I wonder if it would make sense for them to SELL a patch for older software like that. Just a small fee that effectively says "Oh, ALL RIGHT, if you insist, here. Pay up, you're wasting our time." Maybe something they should try?
My sister called me up at work one day complaining that the VCR didn't work. I knew what the problem was instantly - I had unplugged it from the wall socket (which has 2 outlets, natch, with one being used by the TV) so that I could plug my old NES in.
I told her: "Oh, yeah, that's because I unplugged it so I could plug in the Nintendo. Just unplug the Nintendo and plug in the VCR."
That should have been plainly straightforward.
Her: "Plug it in. OK. How do I do that?"
I found myself a bit off-kilter, trying to convince myself that she was just tech-illiterate and didn't realize I meant the power cord.
Me: "Plug it in. You know. Like you plug in a curling iron, or a hairdryer, or a toaster. Just unplug the Nintendo, and *PLUG IN* the VCR."
Her: "I don't understand what you mean. Plug it in? Plug WHAT in?"
Me: "The power cord. Plug it in."
Her: *getting irritated* "THIS IS TOO COMPLICATED. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, PLUG IT IN?"
Me: *getting irritated* "PLUG IT IN! UNPLUG THE POWER CORD FOR THE NINTENDO, AND PLUG IN THE VCR."
Her: *rummage* "OK, wait, I'm looking at the back of the VCR now, and I see 6 plugs."
Me: "PLUG IT INTO THE WALL."
This seemed to do it. All of a sudden: Her: "OH!@# Plug it in TO THE WALL! You know, you could have been more specific, all you had to say was-"
I just hung up on her.
After dealing with her, I gained a newfound respect for people working in tech support. You couldn't pay me to take that sort of stupidity daily.
Upon thought & inspection, this sounds more like they're throwing more fodder on the fire which is quickly razing the USA's foreign policy & relations.
1) Take MS, make a report that says they did something bad, watch how many people flock to bash them DESPITE THE FACTS PRESENTED IN THE ARTICLE, which leads me to:
2) How many people read the article? And of those people who DID, :
3) How many of them know that XML is supposed to be a divorce of data from presentation? Why this comes as a shock to people is obvious - they didn't know that.
The poster above who said "style sheets" - bravo. You couldn't have made a better point with two words.
Wow... I think I can see my house from here...
I propose "The New Profiteering", A'la Haxor Economist style: (http://www.rdwarf.com/~kioh/)
while ECONOMY_GOOD_FLAG
{
do_Bitches();
smoke_Blunts();
spend_Gs();
}
flee_country(*ill_gotten_gains);
Object-oriented programming was a good idea, because of the nature of programming. Programming is a very thought-intensive process, and the idea of being able to create an object with certain functionality is very good.
However, a database is set up to house data. Stored procedures/functions/triggers are all fine & dandy, but when it comes down to it, the nature of databases are to store data, not to function on data. The tools used to make databases more functional are nice, and data integrity routines are excellent features that are on the right track of thinking in terms of a database's nature.
I believe in the idea of seperating data from functionality & metadata as much as possible, since the inputs & outputs are easier to define that way, and help to black-box functional units. OO databases seem to go against that grain.
I think you could make the same argument about the Linux kernel.
There is no onus to clone the Windows interface. The interface has been cloned not because it's so good, or because it's better than the original XWindows interface. It's cloned because OSS GUI developers are quite simply unable to create anything better. This is not a chide against their skill - they actually don't have the time & money to spend researching how to make the most effective user interface. (That, and they can't emulate Apple's Aqua interface because Apple would just sue their pants off.)
However, if you're content to sit there and wait for MS' desktop dominance to subside, you're going to wait for the rest of your life. MS' desktop dominance has less to do with "superior UI design" and more to do with marketing.
OSS should stop trying to chase Windows' features - it's not just the product that you have to emulate to defeat Windows on the desktop. Emulate service, support, consultancy, and business partnering. THAT will make a dent. If you're selling people the idea of "Almost-But-Not-Quite-Windows", you'll "Almost-But-Not-Quite-Sell-Them".
To expand on that: I have found that a lot of people fail to realize that you should first identify a PROBLEM that a static computer program can solve repeatedly. If a process is temporary and won't be used several times yet still requires a lot of processing for the whole 1 time it'll be run, then perhaps a simple script will do.
Where I worked before, the order of the day was ad-hoc reporting. Management failed to understand that a static processing unit cannot produce very different sets of output - it can handle a lot of different branches of execution, but only those that are explicitly defined. Whereas some simple scripts to get the job done for a short while would have sufficed, they demanded that all output be generated by static compiled binary programs that they could run locally on their computers (no, they wouldn't shell out for a webserver or database server until much, much later, when they hired a new project manager with clue).
Yes, it was maddening. No, I will never return to work for them under any circumstances (save a large 6-figure salary). And no, they never learned their lesson - they're busy making a giant funding model in a binary program, where the model's implementation is CONSTANTLY changing & being tweaked, having modules added & removed. The program will never get off the ground, but for the past 2 years they've been plugging away at it, desperate to come up with that holy grail of "Static process Ad-Hoc Reporting."
May God have mercy on their souls.
Secondly, seeing how they operated their "business" should bring shame to them. They didn't do what it took to be profitable, they depended on hand-outs to keep living beyond their means. That's not a way to run a business. If their online mag meant anything to them and had any value to them, they would have changed their ways a long time ago.
Salon gets no pity from me.
I would NEVER, EVER mod it to do this. The NES as it is STILL provides me with hours of entertainment, something most PC games these days can't do. Turning it into something like a webserver would totally ruin it for me.
Currently, I'm running an ancient 1GHz Thunderbird Athlon, with 768MB of PC-133 SDRAM, a GeForce4 TI4200, and 2 HDDs - 27GB Maxtor and 80GB Maxtor, 2MB cache. I've been running this rig for almost 2 years now, and it still runs strong & stable. Only upgrades I did were the 80GB HDD after a 20GB Maxtor that died a horrid, clicking & spinning death during an FDISK (after having it cause countless crashes & ATA failures), and the GeForce4 (which offered me a surprising performance increase in games over the GeForce2 GTS 32MB it replaced).
This rig still runs all my favorites plus some of the newer games (UT2K3 runs fine at my LCD flat panel's native res (1280x1024) with normal options turned on). The upgrade guide on Ace's (which I haven't read) simply wouldn't offer me any compelling reason to upgrade for today's games.
Doom 3, OTOH, would probably provide my system a major challenge (according to reports on its functionality, anyway). When Doom 3 comes out, that'll be my new benchmark & prompt me to upgrade. Not sooner.
In fact, my interpretation of the motive behind the license is most certainly profit, but intellectual rather than monetary. The point about requiring any source changes to be sent back to Bell Labs seems to be saying "here's our product - if you change how things work, tell us what you did." Strange way to profit (in respect to the normal method of profit, $$$), but certainly an interesting way to profit and (IMO) a more valuable profit overall.
This doesn't make me think any less of the project or DMR (for what little role he played in this project anyway) - I respect profit. I think what trips most people up is that it's not an advertised cost of the product the same way as a sticker price is on a box in a retail shop.