First, it's unfortunate the example set by Microsoft is what sets the stage and expectation for anyone else. OSS is not Microsoft.
You are absolutely right. OSS developers are not like Microsoft developers. Microsoft developers work on neat features proposed by engineering, and boring features proposed by marketing based on customer demands (like useability). Far too many OSS developers work just on what they damn well want to!
Of course everyone who is volunteering their time should be able to do so as they wish, and everyone in a job should have the right to do something they enjoy, yadda yadda. But nobody's job is 100% fun all the time.
Even if it is generally untrue, the stereotypical OSS developer response is as stated by a post just a few down from yours: "Surely there are...disabled people who can write code? Get busy, and stop expecting others to take care of you." Harsh, considering many disabled would not be alive without constant care from others.
If I recall correctly, posts modded as Funny don't net the poster Karma. The idea, of course, is that you shouldn't gain Karma for cracking jokes occasionally.
However, some moderators feel that those who lighten the mood and cheer up their day deserve Karma, so they moderate funny posts as Insightful or somesuch.
I expect that, in metamoderation, Insightful moderations on posts that aren't get swatted down. Those moderators would thus end up getting mod points less often, and the effect is mitigated.
BTW, use your "conviction-and-monopoly-imposed limitations" argument while you still can, for in Nov 2007, the Microsoft/DOJ settlement teminates, at which point those limitations are lifted. That depends on what happens in the EU this year... the DoJ settlement might end, but they can have new restrictions imposed there.
It sounds like SOE will be a vehicle for distribution, and not have influence over game design or rulesets. Vanguard will not be part of the Station Exchange; Sigil has repeatedly made clear they are opposed to the buying and selling of gold/accounts.
Some quotes from Brad McQuaid on the Vanguard forums:
"SoE cannot touch the gameplay.
I don't recall the early days of EQ & 989 Studios, but I don't think EQ belonged to Sony when it started, either. Maybe someone could shed the light on that.
Regardless, Vanguard is going to have to do even more to convince me to play that it did before, and it already had a steep uphill climb. (I've quit WoW and am looking for a new game, but my wife and all my friends still play WoW. I need to like Vanguard enough to campaign on their behalf at everyone else.)
Getting me in the next beta = good way to do this, Sigil, hint hint. I need to know myself the paladin is a valid tank before I'll consider paying for the game.
Too bad for them. I have been watching Vanguard with some anticipation. Although I dislike Microsoft OS and office products, I had no qualms with their gaming division.
However, after my past experiences, I've vowed to never again play an SoE game. The fact that SoE has started to embrace real-world sales of in-game items just further cements this.
It looks like I needn't worry about Vanguard any further, as I won't touch it with a 10' pole now. It's not worth getting attached to another MMORPG that, 2-3 years down the road, will end up as bad as EQ became (or EQ II always was).
I submitted a story when GURPS fourth edition came out, in August 2004, but it was rejected. (A story on the release of the latest D&D was accepted, but the market size is of course very different.)
But yeah, even if the mainstream, Linux-n-PC gamin' Slashdot crowd doesn't invest heavily in P&P RPG, I think it definitely falls in the "Nerds' Interests" category that would make it worthy of deeper, more frequent Slashdot coverage.
>> heads over to Google and types in 'gurps "doctor who"' and wonders what stat bonuses might be conveyed by a recorder, a bag of jelly babies and / or the Key to Time, and how much one might expect to pay per month for one of those call-through-time SIM cards
>>> How do you find/download ie without the native/integrated browser?
A built-in tool based on FTP? It only has to work once, for the browser. Or, just bundle the latest version of several browsers with the OS, and let the owner choose on install.
>>> I can't think of a (modern) OS that doesn't have a bundled browser...
Yeah, but no other OS is a monopoly as defined by the US and EU, and no other company has been convicted of using their OS monopoly to prevent competition in other markets like web browsers.
If Microsoft were to split itself up into different companies, and spin off the web browser, media player, office applications, then those separate companies could do whatever the heck they wanted, without being burdened OS and its conviction-and-monopoly-imposed limitations.
>>> What grounds does this claim come from? I know they have been "convicted" in the US, but I would say it was more shady and unethical business practices vs illegal.
Go read the proceedings of the Microsoft vs DoJ case regarding their OS and web browser products. It is all defines there, and I'm sure there are web sites that can give much more detail than I could in a Slashdot post.
That's what you say now, but that isn't what the justice department said when Microsoft was convicted. Their defense was basically what you just said...
Windows operating system is a monopoly as defined by the US and EU.
In the 1990s, Microsoft made its browser the default on its OS. Customers could always change to another, but by making it the default and preinstalled, there was an extra burden on customers who chose to use any competitor's product.
Then, Microsoft bundled its media player with its browser. While the US DoJ has bent over for them on this one, the EU seems poised to punish them.
Now, Microsoft has bundled its search engine with its browser, which is still bundled with its OS monopoly, with which it has already been convicted on illegal practices and is still on probation.
It's pretty simple* > If Microsoft unbundles the internet browser from their OS, and makes folks download IE first (and the interface for downloading IE has equal weight given to Mozilla, Opera, etc.), the Microsoft can do whatever they want inside IE, because it would be unbundled from their convicted-illegal-practices-OS-monopoly. But as long as it ships with Windows, the IE7 default could be construed as illegal and Google probably has a strong case.
*Or, option B, Windows loses sufficient market share to no longer be considered a monopoly. Here's a case where Microsoft could help itself in emerging markets like internet search, media players, content delivery, by letting go of its OS monopoly. Or, it could split itself into multiple companies, thereby letting the other parts act without being shackled by the OS-is-a-monopoly-you-can't-exploit ball-and-chain.
The Japanese, on the other hand, don't have an hour drive to and from work each day - they have a train commute, where most of them can play video games, listen to music, or read.
Then they have the great divide between work time and play time. The Japanese can work hard for 10 hours a day, but then go out, shed that completely, and drink and party that night. The don't internalize the stress the same way Americans do.
At least, this is what I know from the experiences of my wife working for a Japanese company and traveling to Japan on business.
>>> Same goes for Microsoft... despite the claims of some... Microsoft has been being extra good over the last few years to keep the DoJ from going after them again (ie for breaking the original agreement)...
No they haven't; DOJ has just been willing to bend over for them. After the problems with their bundling of IE into Windows, they proceeded to bundle WMP with Windows, and have been in lots and lots of hot water over that one in Europe. DoJ is going to strain its neck trying to avoid looking at that one.
(My GP post has a typo... I said "browser monopoly" at one point when I meant "OS monopoly". No one called me on it, but please pardon the mistake.)
If I used broadband the way my ISP (AT&T) envisioned it, it would connect to my single PC. Whenever my PC was on, I would be connected. Whenever it was off, I would disconnect.
But I don't use it like that. I have a NAT router attached to the DSL modem. The router maintains my connection 24/7. The keep-alive is set as long as is allowed - 6.999999 days or something like that. And, when it renews, I'm down for less than a second.
Thus I've maintained the same IP for as long as I have checked. Of course they could always choose to swap me around - I'm not paying for a static IP to prevent this. But the fact is that they don't usually bother; the DHCP software is designed to return the same IP to the same MAC address if it hasn't been given out to someone else since it was last released.
Thus, my one IP at home represents unique visits by everyone in my house. And given that we clear cookies regularly, they probably cannot tell any of us apart.
It's not ok for Microsoft to do the exact same things that Google does.
Why not?
Microsoft has a browser monopoly, and has been convicted of using their leverage of that monopoly to hurt competition in other markets.
In other words -
IE7 can default to MSN Search and have no other options if it is downloaded separately from the OS, because Microsoft and Google would in that case be no different.
However, if IE7 is bundled with the OS, then the "MSN Search default" is bundled with the OS, and Microsoft must abide by the rules of a monopoly convicted of illegal practices. Namely, if they bundle anything at all, it needs to not drive customers to their own product to the detriment of other competitors.
>> Microsoft is certainly in their right to do this. It's no different.
Yes it is. It's completely different, because Microsoft's browser comes bundled with their operating system, and their operating system is a monopoly, with which Microsoft has already been convicted of illegally squashing competition in other markets through bundling.
In other words -
IE7 can default to MSN Search and have no other options if it is downloaded separately from the OS, because Microsoft and Google would in that case be no different.
However, if IE7 is bundled with the OS, then the "MSN Search default" is bundled with the OS, and Microsoft must abide by the rules of a monopoly convicted of illegal practices.
BistBuy.com and the like are not a parked domains, they are "commerce portals"... =p
Seriously, the fact that my main domain goes to a blank page doesn't mean its "parked", it means that I use it primarily for email, and that I don't need or want a commerce site. If I did, though, I could put up a few ads and make some money, just like anyone else.
No, the original east coast servers are/were in Blizzard's server farm in Virginia, while the original west coast servers and all other servers added since then (afaik) are in their California server farm.
I think that the killer app for HD-DVD and/or Blue-Ray has little to do with their specs, nor does it have to do with the HD content that might be sold on them.
I think it has to do with the fact that TV series in current resolutions are a poor fit for DVD technology. Almost every movie fits fine in a double-sided dual-layer disc, but TV series need 5-8 DVDs per season. Vendors could save significantly on materials and packaging costs if this could be cut to one disc per season.
I think whichever format backers buy the rights to re-release a lot of TV shows will win. If neither capture this, then yeah perhaps both will fail.
I think one of the worst parts of their design is the location of all servers post-release in California.
On release day, they had separate data centers for their east-coast and west-coast servers. (Before I quit, I played on Argent Dawn, an original server from the east coast.)
Shortly after release, they merged the server "pool" (on the page where you pick a server) so that all servers were combined into one list - even though individual servers still ran their clocks on either east or west or central or mountain time.
Then, whenever they added a new server, as far as I understand they always did so at the California facility. It didn't matter what the time zone for the server was - east coast, Australian, anything, it was put in the California rack farm.
I think part of the result is that problems have a greater chance of affecting multiple realms. Even if it caused delays in some types of data updates, distributing the servers across the country would make it more likely that some facilities, with different ISPs, different power sources, different neighboring infrastructure, would stay up regardless of disturbances that took out other facilities. Then, there would be fewer folks kicked off, and thus fewer folks hitting the shares services, such as the root authentication server.
Argent Dawn was sluggish due to the number of simultaneous players (and my poor video card), but after the first backbone improvements Feb-Mar after release, there were never any real problems. And the only time we had crashes was the night when the stupid warrior n00bs protested on our server because they weren't l33t enough or something. (Yes, I played a paladin intending to tank, as I was led to believe I could before release.)
India and China are racing ahead because they have large, skilled workforces who are nevertheless lower class economically. Thus they are willing to work longer/harder to leverage their skills to reach the middle class.
In other words, jobs - both skilled and unskilled - are being farmed around the world looking for the lowest common denominator. (Whether this should be controlled, to keep the US/West high while slowly bringing up the rest of the world, or whether the US should be allowed to crash and rise, is a different discussion.)
Eventually, when the lowliest peasant in Ghana* has a bachelor's in computer science and enough money to buy a plasma TV, then everyone around the world will want some slack in their jobs, just like Europeans and (to a lesser extent) Americans do now.
* Apologies to Ghana; just picked a country at random for the example.
Unfortunately her site has been shown to be fake. Yes, she took the pictures, but it was on the official, guided tours that are done in the area. (Note that no pictures inside the secure area include her motorcycle, and that there is clearly at least one other person along to take some of the photos.)
So enjoy the photos as undoctored, but take the entire story line with a large grain of salt.
Slashdot Mirror
First, it's unfortunate the example set by Microsoft is what sets the stage and expectation for anyone else. OSS is not Microsoft.
You are absolutely right. OSS developers are not like Microsoft developers. Microsoft developers work on neat features proposed by engineering, and boring features proposed by marketing based on customer demands (like useability). Far too many OSS developers work just on what they damn well want to!
Of course everyone who is volunteering their time should be able to do so as they wish, and everyone in a job should have the right to do something they enjoy, yadda yadda. But nobody's job is 100% fun all the time.
Even if it is generally untrue, the stereotypical OSS developer response is as stated by a post just a few down from yours: "Surely there are...disabled people who can write code? Get busy, and stop expecting others to take care of you." Harsh, considering many disabled would not be alive without constant care from others.
If I recall correctly, posts modded as Funny don't net the poster Karma. The idea, of course, is that you shouldn't gain Karma for cracking jokes occasionally.
However, some moderators feel that those who lighten the mood and cheer up their day deserve Karma, so they moderate funny posts as Insightful or somesuch.
I expect that, in metamoderation, Insightful moderations on posts that aren't get swatted down. Those moderators would thus end up getting mod points less often, and the effect is mitigated.
BTW, use your "conviction-and-monopoly-imposed limitations" argument while you still can, for in Nov 2007, the Microsoft/DOJ settlement teminates, at which point those limitations are lifted.
That depends on what happens in the EU this year... the DoJ settlement might end, but they can have new restrictions imposed there.
It sounds like SOE will be a vehicle for distribution, and not have influence over game design or rulesets. Vanguard will not be part of the Station Exchange; Sigil has repeatedly made clear they are opposed to the buying and selling of gold/accounts.
Some quotes from Brad McQuaid on the Vanguard forums:
"SoE cannot touch the gameplay.
I don't recall the early days of EQ & 989 Studios, but I don't think EQ belonged to Sony when it started, either. Maybe someone could shed the light on that.
Regardless, Vanguard is going to have to do even more to convince me to play that it did before, and it already had a steep uphill climb. (I've quit WoW and am looking for a new game, but my wife and all my friends still play WoW. I need to like Vanguard enough to campaign on their behalf at everyone else.)
Getting me in the next beta = good way to do this, Sigil, hint hint. I need to know myself the paladin is a valid tank before I'll consider paying for the game.
But that's not in an MMORPG, is it? In a regular game, I don't see "virtual items" as anything more than an expansion pack, ala The Sims.
Too bad for them. I have been watching Vanguard with some anticipation. Although I dislike Microsoft OS and office products, I had no qualms with their gaming division.
However, after my past experiences, I've vowed to never again play an SoE game. The fact that SoE has started to embrace real-world sales of in-game items just further cements this.
It looks like I needn't worry about Vanguard any further, as I won't touch it with a 10' pole now. It's not worth getting attached to another MMORPG that, 2-3 years down the road, will end up as bad as EQ became (or EQ II always was).
I submitted a story when GURPS fourth edition came out, in August 2004, but it was rejected. (A story on the release of the latest D&D was accepted, but the market size is of course very different.)
But yeah, even if the mainstream, Linux-n-PC gamin' Slashdot crowd doesn't invest heavily in P&P RPG, I think it definitely falls in the "Nerds' Interests" category that would make it worthy of deeper, more frequent Slashdot coverage.
>> heads over to Google and types in 'gurps "doctor who"' and wonders what stat bonuses might be conveyed by a recorder, a bag of jelly babies and / or the Key to Time, and how much one might expect to pay per month for one of those call-through-time SIM cards
There have been threads discussing Doctor Who in GURPS on the SJGames forum. See:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=14788
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=15351
As it first appeared in 1977, I started crying halfway through and my mom had to carry me out. Of course I was like 7 months old...
Few fans still remember a world without Star Wars. A copy of the Star Wars we grew up with is good enough.
>>> How do you find/download ie without the native/integrated browser?
A built-in tool based on FTP? It only has to work once, for the browser. Or, just bundle the latest version of several browsers with the OS, and let the owner choose on install.
>>> I can't think of a (modern) OS that doesn't have a bundled browser...
Yeah, but no other OS is a monopoly as defined by the US and EU, and no other company has been convicted of using their OS monopoly to prevent competition in other markets like web browsers.
If Microsoft were to split itself up into different companies, and spin off the web browser, media player, office applications, then those separate companies could do whatever the heck they wanted, without being burdened OS and its conviction-and-monopoly-imposed limitations.
>>> What grounds does this claim come from? I know they have been "convicted" in the US, but I would say it was more shady and unethical business practices vs illegal.
Go read the proceedings of the Microsoft vs DoJ case regarding their OS and web browser products. It is all defines there, and I'm sure there are web sites that can give much more detail than I could in a Slashdot post.
That's what you say now, but that isn't what the justice department said when Microsoft was convicted. Their defense was basically what you just said...
>> Is it really stealing if they put the electrons back when they're done with them?
Yeah but they just aren't the same after that. All their potential is gone...
Windows operating system is a monopoly as defined by the US and EU.
In the 1990s, Microsoft made its browser the default on its OS. Customers could always change to another, but by making it the default and preinstalled, there was an extra burden on customers who chose to use any competitor's product.
Then, Microsoft bundled its media player with its browser. While the US DoJ has bent over for them on this one, the EU seems poised to punish them.
Now, Microsoft has bundled its search engine with its browser, which is still bundled with its OS monopoly, with which it has already been convicted on illegal practices and is still on probation.
It's pretty simple* > If Microsoft unbundles the internet browser from their OS, and makes folks download IE first (and the interface for downloading IE has equal weight given to Mozilla, Opera, etc.), the Microsoft can do whatever they want inside IE, because it would be unbundled from their convicted-illegal-practices-OS-monopoly. But as long as it ships with Windows, the IE7 default could be construed as illegal and Google probably has a strong case.
*Or, option B, Windows loses sufficient market share to no longer be considered a monopoly. Here's a case where Microsoft could help itself in emerging markets like internet search, media players, content delivery, by letting go of its OS monopoly. Or, it could split itself into multiple companies, thereby letting the other parts act without being shackled by the OS-is-a-monopoly-you-can't-exploit ball-and-chain.
The Japanese, on the other hand, don't have an hour drive to and from work each day - they have a train commute, where most of them can play video games, listen to music, or read.
Then they have the great divide between work time and play time. The Japanese can work hard for 10 hours a day, but then go out, shed that completely, and drink and party that night. The don't internalize the stress the same way Americans do.
At least, this is what I know from the experiences of my wife working for a Japanese company and traveling to Japan on business.
>>> Same goes for Microsoft... despite the claims of some... Microsoft has been being extra good over the last few years to keep the DoJ from going after them again (ie for breaking the original agreement)...
No they haven't; DOJ has just been willing to bend over for them. After the problems with their bundling of IE into Windows, they proceeded to bundle WMP with Windows, and have been in lots and lots of hot water over that one in Europe. DoJ is going to strain its neck trying to avoid looking at that one.
(My GP post has a typo... I said "browser monopoly" at one point when I meant "OS monopoly". No one called me on it, but please pardon the mistake.)
If I used broadband the way my ISP (AT&T) envisioned it, it would connect to my single PC. Whenever my PC was on, I would be connected. Whenever it was off, I would disconnect.
But I don't use it like that. I have a NAT router attached to the DSL modem. The router maintains my connection 24/7. The keep-alive is set as long as is allowed - 6.999999 days or something like that. And, when it renews, I'm down for less than a second.
Thus I've maintained the same IP for as long as I have checked. Of course they could always choose to swap me around - I'm not paying for a static IP to prevent this. But the fact is that they don't usually bother; the DHCP software is designed to return the same IP to the same MAC address if it hasn't been given out to someone else since it was last released.
Thus, my one IP at home represents unique visits by everyone in my house. And given that we clear cookies regularly, they probably cannot tell any of us apart.
It's not ok for Microsoft to do the exact same things that Google does.
Why not?
Microsoft has a browser monopoly, and has been convicted of using their leverage of that monopoly to hurt competition in other markets.
In other words -
IE7 can default to MSN Search and have no other options if it is downloaded separately from the OS, because Microsoft and Google would in that case be no different.
However, if IE7 is bundled with the OS, then the "MSN Search default" is bundled with the OS, and Microsoft must abide by the rules of a monopoly convicted of illegal practices. Namely, if they bundle anything at all, it needs to not drive customers to their own product to the detriment of other competitors.
>> Microsoft is certainly in their right to do this. It's no different.
Yes it is. It's completely different, because Microsoft's browser comes bundled with their operating system, and their operating system is a monopoly, with which Microsoft has already been convicted of illegally squashing competition in other markets through bundling.
In other words -
IE7 can default to MSN Search and have no other options if it is downloaded separately from the OS, because Microsoft and Google would in that case be no different.
However, if IE7 is bundled with the OS, then the "MSN Search default" is bundled with the OS, and Microsoft must abide by the rules of a monopoly convicted of illegal practices.
>>> do not put adsense on parked domains..
BistBuy.com and the like are not a parked domains, they are "commerce portals"... =p
Seriously, the fact that my main domain goes to a blank page doesn't mean its "parked", it means that I use it primarily for email, and that I don't need or want a commerce site. If I did, though, I could put up a few ads and make some money, just like anyone else.
No, the original east coast servers are/were in Blizzard's server farm in Virginia, while the original west coast servers and all other servers added since then (afaik) are in their California server farm.
I think that the killer app for HD-DVD and/or Blue-Ray has little to do with their specs, nor does it have to do with the HD content that might be sold on them.
I think it has to do with the fact that TV series in current resolutions are a poor fit for DVD technology. Almost every movie fits fine in a double-sided dual-layer disc, but TV series need 5-8 DVDs per season. Vendors could save significantly on materials and packaging costs if this could be cut to one disc per season.
I think whichever format backers buy the rights to re-release a lot of TV shows will win. If neither capture this, then yeah perhaps both will fail.
I think one of the worst parts of their design is the location of all servers post-release in California.
On release day, they had separate data centers for their east-coast and west-coast servers. (Before I quit, I played on Argent Dawn, an original server from the east coast.)
Shortly after release, they merged the server "pool" (on the page where you pick a server) so that all servers were combined into one list - even though individual servers still ran their clocks on either east or west or central or mountain time.
Then, whenever they added a new server, as far as I understand they always did so at the California facility. It didn't matter what the time zone for the server was - east coast, Australian, anything, it was put in the California rack farm.
I think part of the result is that problems have a greater chance of affecting multiple realms. Even if it caused delays in some types of data updates, distributing the servers across the country would make it more likely that some facilities, with different ISPs, different power sources, different neighboring infrastructure, would stay up regardless of disturbances that took out other facilities. Then, there would be fewer folks kicked off, and thus fewer folks hitting the shares services, such as the root authentication server.
Argent Dawn was sluggish due to the number of simultaneous players (and my poor video card), but after the first backbone improvements Feb-Mar after release, there were never any real problems. And the only time we had crashes was the night when the stupid warrior n00bs protested on our server because they weren't l33t enough or something. (Yes, I played a paladin intending to tank, as I was led to believe I could before release.)
India and China are racing ahead because they have large, skilled workforces who are nevertheless lower class economically. Thus they are willing to work longer/harder to leverage their skills to reach the middle class.
In other words, jobs - both skilled and unskilled - are being farmed around the world looking for the lowest common denominator. (Whether this should be controlled, to keep the US/West high while slowly bringing up the rest of the world, or whether the US should be allowed to crash and rise, is a different discussion.)
Eventually, when the lowliest peasant in Ghana* has a bachelor's in computer science and enough money to buy a plasma TV, then everyone around the world will want some slack in their jobs, just like Europeans and (to a lesser extent) Americans do now.
* Apologies to Ghana; just picked a country at random for the example.
Unfortunately her site has been shown to be fake. Yes, she took the pictures, but it was on the official, guided tours that are done in the area. (Note that no pictures inside the secure area include her motorcycle, and that there is clearly at least one other person along to take some of the photos.)
So enjoy the photos as undoctored, but take the entire story line with a large grain of salt.