I happen to think D3D is better than OpenGL currently, if you're doing Windows-only game programming.
However, D3D isn't 'generally Retained Mode'. D3D dropped its retained mode support (which nobody used anyway, and D3D has always had an immediate mode API) a while ago, back at DX5 or so. Of course, you're free to create your own scene-graph/retained mode API over the current immediate mode API if you like, but it no longer includes that API in the standard SDK.
D3D used to have D3DRM, OpenGL has Inventor, both are/were retained mode APIs on top of the immediate mode APIs.
Also, its extremely silly to claim that retained mode means it is better for games? How many games can you name that use a retained mode API?
Yeah but what if, due to a bug in the software, you lose data worth $50,000? Sure, you're an idiot for not keeping up-to-date backups, but if the types of liability laws being talked about here went into effect, you'd be able to sue the company for this lost data...
So, having the source is not a panacea..The damage could already be done before you have a chance to fix it, even with an OSS/FS solution.
Yes, Microsoft products have security faults, whose doesn't? Microsoft's get more notice because of the insane amount of marketshare they have, also Microsoft's software is less mature than the UNIX offerings people often compare it to in terms of tight security.
I remember back in the late 80s and early 90s how much of a joke UNIX security in general was. Back then you could pretty much root any non-.gov UNIX system on the Internet, remotely, at will.. (thanks in large part to SENDMAIL though many other pieces of software had problems as well). People who bitch and moan about how long it takes Microsoft to fix bugs compared to UNIX vendors must not have been around when you could change the IFS under SunOS and easily root the box using any SUID program that did a system() or exec() call (quite a few, at the time)...Even after Sun, etc, fixed that bug it remained unpatched in a huge number of systems for years....
Unix security is better now, but that's in large part due to maturity...Microsoft software will improve as well..Look at how much they've improved stability already when compared to Win95...It will happen...slowly, perhaps.
It is (or at least used to be) possible to get updated Microsoft OS disks. Back when I was using NT, we were shipped updated versions of NT with service pack 4 or such (latest at the time) already built-in as part of a universal MSDN subscription. Perhaps they stopped doing this? I don't know.
In any case you could also create your own custom install CDs -- not an ideal solution (would be better if you could just aquire them directly from MS, I agree...). As a last resort, you can use imaging programs like 'Ghost' to do this sort of thing.
Software liability also has has consequences for Open Source that must be explored. If Microsoft is liable for bad software, that would also open up Open Source and Free Software programmers to the same liability -- just because you give something away for free doesn't limit your liability if commercial vendors are also held liable. And what OSS/FS companies/vendors/developers can afford to worry about being hit with a liability suit, especially when they are unlikely to derive anywhere near Microsoft-scale profits on their work in the first place?
Those who yell and scream that Microsoft should be held liable should be careful what they wish for...liability laws would kill off most all of OSS/FS faster than they would kill Microsoft.
About 20% into the article I was wondering why this guy wrote something which is essentially backing up the first article, though it pretends to be refuting it.
Quake3 and UT are nearly 3 years old. RtCW is newer, but largely based on the same engine as Quake3.
None of these games take advantage of the features of a GeForce 3. You'd see very little difference between a GeForce 2 MX and a high-end GeForce 3 running these games.
The point the original poster made, though it came off sounding a little trollish, is 100% correct.
Yeah, the difference is obvious.. Clearly these people just constructed an advertisement in a way they thought it might confuse users into thinking it was a news story. This is pretty old hat, with the fake Windows-style 'dialog box' popups, etc that have been used for years...It just takes a different, text-based approach.
Yahoo clearly has it marked as an advertisement, as it done with advertisement pages that look like they could be 'real' content in magazines.
There's nothing to see here, its not sinister. Jesus, Slashdot will post anything that paints any corporation in a bad light these days, without even fact checking! I realize THIS itself isn't new news, but it does seem to be getting worse and worse..Is ANYONE home (but the trolls) @Slashdot anymore?
I'm far more interested in Java being a published, open, specification rather than Sun Open Sourcing their JRE/JDK.
If you think it doesn't make a difference, look back at history and how long it took to have fairly decent (they still aren't great) true Open alternative JRE and JDKs.. Kaffe was in development for years before it was at all useful, and it always lagged behind the current official Java implementations by a great deal.
Compare this now to C#/.Net, where you have two Open Source implementations that are in working beta form and look like they will be release-ready soon after Microsoft's own implementation is released.
See the differences?
Choice is good. Open Standards & Specifications facilitate choice.
***This ECMA effort may be primarily symbolic, however, since only a player with enormous resources and funding could possibly implement the standard. If you use.Net you can expect to be using it only on Windows for a long time to come.***
That is a load of horseshit (I know its a quote from JavaLobby, not the poster I am replying to). There are multiple non-Microsoft implementations of C# and the.Net libraries currently in mostly working beta form. Mono's C# compiler compiles itself. Real progress is being made on these implementations!
Consider that Microsoft's C# compiler and.Net SDK itself is still in beta (though later-stage than Mono/dotGNU, for sure), so the Open Source implementations are tracking pretty well here...I hate to say it, but this is in large part due to Microsoft being uncharacteristically open from the get-go. The Open Source projects have had an open specification to work from while Microsoft's own product is not fully released. I realize Microsoft could, at any time, screw with them by deviating from the standard, but so far they haven't -- we'll see what happens in the future.
Lastly, even if the quote were based in reality(which it is not); the fact that it requires a large amount of resources to implement the technology is totally seperate from the fact that they made it open in the first place. Microsoft still made the technology an open, published standard. If nobody is willing to put the time & effort into creating products based on that standard, you can't really fault Microsoft for that. At least they made an effort to open this stuff; which is a lot more than Sun has done for Java.
Getting J2EE certified is more about money than technical requirements. Isn't this obvious? Sun charges a ridiculous fee just for companies to be allowed to run their product through the test suite (which they may fail and then have to try again...)
If Sun now made an exception for JBoss, it would certainly piss off their other J2EE vendors who paid through the nose for their certification. Not everyone believes in the ideals of Open Source...given that imagine this situation: Company X spends $x amount of dollars (where x is quite large) having a closed-source J2EE implementation certified by Sun. Sun then turns around and certifies a FREE, Open Source, J2EE implementation (JBoss) at no cost, or reduced cost. Sun just implicitly stated that JBoss is just as good at the commercial implementation, which costs thousands of dollars in licenses fees (minimum! could get well into tens of thousands of dollars...). Its easy to imagine the heads of Company X being very unhappy with this situation....
Because its just a fucking web poll, and nobody takes them seriously anyway?
What they did is certainly less-than-honest, but please point me to a law that says asking your employees to vote for your product on a web poll is criminal fraud?
Roxio, or rather Adaptec EasyCD, used to be the best general-purpose burning software by a long shot, but they gave up that crown years ago.
Now its a bloated, buggy piece of crap, easily outdone by many other burning applications.
The real kicker is that when I finally realized I never used the software anymore (EasyCD 5.0), I deinstalled it and it removed a critical driver file (that it hadn't even installed itself), bringing down my Windows 2000 system hard until I could restore said driver from the install CD. Based on looking to Usenet for answers, this isn't all that uncommon of a problem when one attempts to deinstall this piece of crap under Windows 2000 or XP.
Way to go Roxio!
Re:Didn't search USENET as much before Google.
on
How Google Saved USENET
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
Deja, aka DejaNews, which is now, of course, defunct (having sold the usenet archives to Google) should also get some credit.
The Usenet archives are more useful than ever now, but they were still a really useful resource pre-Google.
Oh yes, routine development such as most of KDE, the invention of the Linux kernel and so on was done outside the US. Just routine stuff, not really creative, right
You've picked some bad examples. Neither KDE nor Linux, while both are great software, is particularly 'creative'. Both are reimplementations of existing software systems which actually were largely driven by software pioneers in the USA (though some of the programmers involved may have been of non-US origin).
I'm not saying that non-USA programmers can't be creative (look at some of the great programming and creative video game ideas out of Europe & Japan, for example), just that you should find some better examples.
Slashdot Mirror
Try updating your stats to match current reality. What you said would be true, if it were still 1999.
I happen to think D3D is better than OpenGL currently, if you're doing Windows-only game programming.
However, D3D isn't 'generally Retained Mode'. D3D dropped its retained mode support (which nobody used anyway, and D3D has always had an immediate mode API) a while ago, back at DX5 or so. Of course, you're free to create your own scene-graph/retained mode API over the current immediate mode API if you like, but it no longer includes that API in the standard SDK.
D3D used to have D3DRM, OpenGL has Inventor, both are/were retained mode APIs on top of the immediate mode APIs.
Also, its extremely silly to claim that retained mode means it is better for games? How many games can you name that use a retained mode API?
So, having the source is not a panacea..The damage could already be done before you have a chance to fix it, even with an OSS/FS solution.
Yes, Microsoft products have security faults, whose doesn't? Microsoft's get more notice because of the insane amount of marketshare they have, also Microsoft's software is less mature than the UNIX offerings people often compare it to in terms of tight security.
I remember back in the late 80s and early 90s how much of a joke UNIX security in general was. Back then you could pretty much root any non-.gov UNIX system on the Internet, remotely, at will.. (thanks in large part to SENDMAIL though many other pieces of software had problems as well). People who bitch and moan about how long it takes Microsoft to fix bugs compared to UNIX vendors must not have been around when you could change the IFS under SunOS and easily root the box using any SUID program that did a system() or exec() call (quite a few, at the time)...Even after Sun, etc, fixed that bug it remained unpatched in a huge number of systems for years....
Unix security is better now, but that's in large part due to maturity...Microsoft software will improve as well..Look at how much they've improved stability already when compared to Win95...It will happen...slowly, perhaps.
In any case you could also create your own custom install CDs -- not an ideal solution (would be better if you could just aquire them directly from MS, I agree...). As a last resort, you can use imaging programs like 'Ghost' to do this sort of thing.
Those who yell and scream that Microsoft should be held liable should be careful what they wish for...liability laws would kill off most all of OSS/FS faster than they would kill Microsoft.
I know I for one could use a Windows emulator for Windows !!!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!!
Seriously, what are you 12? 13?
Someday some hacker might figure out how to run Linux or even Win2K/WinXP on the XBOX, but even if it does happen, its a long time off..
Don't hold your breath!
Something that is completely documented via reverse engineering is NOT open...Fool!
2. Take some vague digital images of how 'cool' looking the inside of it is.
3. Post!
About 20% into the article I was wondering why this guy wrote something which is essentially backing up the first article, though it pretends to be refuting it.
Joey Fatone is the (unfortunate) name of one of the real N'Sync people.
None of these games take advantage of the features of a GeForce 3. You'd see very little difference between a GeForce 2 MX and a high-end GeForce 3 running these games.
The point the original poster made, though it came off sounding a little trollish, is 100% correct.
Yahoo clearly has it marked as an advertisement, as it done with advertisement pages that look like they could be 'real' content in magazines.
There's nothing to see here, its not sinister. Jesus, Slashdot will post anything that paints any corporation in a bad light these days, without even fact checking! I realize THIS itself isn't new news, but it does seem to be getting worse and worse..Is ANYONE home (but the trolls) @Slashdot anymore?
If you think it doesn't make a difference, look back at history and how long it took to have fairly decent (they still aren't great) true Open alternative JRE and JDKs.. Kaffe was in development for years before it was at all useful, and it always lagged behind the current official Java implementations by a great deal.
Compare this now to C#/.Net, where you have two Open Source implementations that are in working beta form and look like they will be release-ready soon after Microsoft's own implementation is released.
See the differences?
Choice is good. Open Standards & Specifications facilitate choice.
That is a load of horseshit (I know its a quote from JavaLobby, not the poster I am replying to). There are multiple non-Microsoft implementations of C# and the .Net libraries currently in mostly working beta form. Mono's C# compiler compiles itself. Real progress is being made on these implementations!
Consider that Microsoft's C# compiler and .Net SDK itself is still in beta (though later-stage than Mono/dotGNU, for sure), so the Open Source implementations are tracking pretty well here...I hate to say it, but this is in large part due to Microsoft being uncharacteristically open from the get-go. The Open Source projects have had an open specification to work from while Microsoft's own product is not fully released. I realize Microsoft could, at any time, screw with them by deviating from the standard, but so far they haven't -- we'll see what happens in the future.
Lastly, even if the quote were based in reality(which it is not); the fact that it requires a large amount of resources to implement the technology is totally seperate from the fact that they made it open in the first place. Microsoft still made the technology an open, published standard. If nobody is willing to put the time & effort into creating products based on that standard, you can't really fault Microsoft for that. At least they made an effort to open this stuff; which is a lot more than Sun has done for Java.
If Sun now made an exception for JBoss, it would certainly piss off their other J2EE vendors who paid through the nose for their certification. Not everyone believes in the ideals of Open Source...given that imagine this situation: Company X spends $x amount of dollars (where x is quite large) having a closed-source J2EE implementation certified by Sun. Sun then turns around and certifies a FREE, Open Source, J2EE implementation (JBoss) at no cost, or reduced cost. Sun just implicitly stated that JBoss is just as good at the commercial implementation, which costs thousands of dollars in licenses fees (minimum! could get well into tens of thousands of dollars...). Its easy to imagine the heads of Company X being very unhappy with this situation....
If they didn't think they could at least make a blip on the radar by now (which they haven't), why spend the time & money?
What they did is certainly less-than-honest, but please point me to a law that says asking your employees to vote for your product on a web poll is criminal fraud?
Now its a bloated, buggy piece of crap, easily outdone by many other burning applications.
The real kicker is that when I finally realized I never used the software anymore (EasyCD 5.0), I deinstalled it and it removed a critical driver file (that it hadn't even installed itself), bringing down my Windows 2000 system hard until I could restore said driver from the install CD. Based on looking to Usenet for answers, this isn't all that uncommon of a problem when one attempts to deinstall this piece of crap under Windows 2000 or XP.
Way to go Roxio!
The Usenet archives are more useful than ever now, but they were still a really useful resource pre-Google.
Well fuck you pal!
You've picked some bad examples. Neither KDE nor Linux, while both are great software, is particularly 'creative'. Both are reimplementations of existing software systems which actually were largely driven by software pioneers in the USA (though some of the programmers involved may have been of non-US origin).
I'm not saying that non-USA programmers can't be creative (look at some of the great programming and creative video game ideas out of Europe & Japan, for example), just that you should find some better examples.
Saw the movie, haven't read the book/story.
But when I saw Ehren Kruger's name listed in the screenplay I thought 'here comes Arlington Road 2079'. And I was right.
spoiler warning: A spoiler is contained above !!!