I think that the issue which the states have in wishing to force M$ to open their source code is that: they are claiming that it is impossible to seperate windows from the browser, that there is some sort of scientific justifycation for what is in essence bundeling. This is, as many people have posted crap. But is also, a angle of attack that has been done to death
I was trying to propose an alternative argument that M$ should be forced to release the source code for the same reasons that other's industries have too, because government has decided it is everyone's interest to have these things open.
Now, I'm not saying that you id can't have their games engine, or Nvidna should release their drivers.
Rather, that, if you make something as important as a web server or OS, you should disclose how it works, Source code is just another form of documentation.
"This is the equivalent of demanding of Coke that they turn over the formula," Gavil said. "This is exactly what Microsoft wanted to avoid."
Coke have to turn over their formula to the government otherwise they would not be able to win approval by the Food and Drug Authority. The same as the people who make Viagra have to release the patent to that drug after it has been on the market for a number of year's in order to allow the creation of generic brands (who have to meet governmental controls for quality themselves). Or at least this is the case in the country I come from.
I think that a good arguement exists that M$ should be required to release the source for windows, that in fact full disclosure of source should be a requirement of the industry, due to the number of problems created when you have millions of people dependent on that code. For example if Cisco, made drugs with certain undocumented side effects, their would be a uproar that would stop the nation.
Just because these people run technological companies should not insulate them from the social and economical costs that their products cause. The discloser of source should be a mandatory social requirement.
Ultima Online wasn't that great a game, at least to begine with. Basically, The developers ignored a lot of the lessons learnt over the years that text based MUD's have been around, esp the question of player killing. Although they did go back and fix most of the problems with the game to make it what it is today.
I also think that the game was popular right of the bat because it was based in the Ultima Universe.
One of the sad legacies of Ultima Online is that alot of new MMORPG's follow it's production modal, namely Anarchy online or WWII Online, of releasing the game then fixing the problems only when they have enough subscribers to the service. A better modal would be just to get the thing working right in beta IMHO.
Ofcourse you could argue that the only reason that UO was released when it was, was because they wished to be the first mainstream MMORPG and had they waited they would have been scooped by Everquest or something. I hope Koster has better luck this time around at least in terms of releasing a quality product.
To be fair they did try to create their own engine, and the game that they created for it was so badly received (if someone could point out the title, please) that they licensed the engine for the new game.
Nowadays, creating game engines are so time consuming that most developers tend to license a engine which has already been used in another game, like quake3.
All in all, I think that games with the name of Star wars on them tend to be much better then games with the name star trek on them. Although Lucasarts do not seem to be creating the same quality of product that they use to.
I think that rather then the "virtual reality" which you propose you are looking at more of an extention of our own reality. Virtual reality I see as being a rather regretable buzzword from the early 90's
While alot of people spend hugh amounts of time playing things like Everquest, It is hardly like they exist in something like the Matrix, or even, That they get confused between the rules of the real world and the rules of the game world like that dude did in that Monsters and Mazes movie.
For example, one of my friend at college was hooked on MUD's, However he said that the most additive aspect of them was that he was playing with real people, He would log off sometimes a chat up the girl who use to play in another computer room on campus. The most funny thing which happened was when the DM (a real arsehole) came round because my friend was PK'ing people by luring them into the games arena.
That people are able to make a living by playing the game only demonstrates this point, People would not wish to buy characters on Ebay. If they wished to follow the rules of the gameworld 100%. Everyone who plays this game knows that "it is just a game".
Since most of these online gameworld's suffer from the same social problems present in this world then how can it be considered a alternate reality to our own? If your definition is correct (that it is another world distinct from our own) then why won't people change their behavior to reflect that.
But I away's thought that License agreements were something which were not legally binding to begin with. That they where just something that loads of people made out to be legal documents but weren't really. Like half the mall cops that make out they have a right to search you or check your id when they have none.
The rational behind this is that, if you have a contract with out any form of representation of the other end, ie hasn't been signed by your lawyer then it can not be representative of your interests. It is what is called a sublimable contract, I think that this was decided when some dude argued about a fine stating that who would bother to read the back of their bus ticket in the 19th century, a more recent example would be a group of people suing the manufactour of a car wash system, who tryed to argue that they weren't liable because of a "while all care is taken we are no responsiable for damaged incured" as being a contract. More or less open abuse like that
The have always thought that it is illegal to make a contract as a condition of use, since you have no representation, That a real contract is something which you read, send to your lawyer who circles the dodgy bits and sends back to you (like a rental agreement). Not a "you must click here to use this" type crap. Perhaps someone who is IAAAL could clear this up.
Sorry I screwed up the post, here is the correct one;
To paraphase the bard;-
Tis app or platform that is the question;
Whether tis nobler in the API to suffer;
The slings and arrows of corporate monopoly;
Or to write ones own framework and hope;
That by opposing end it, for generations -
To troll in flamefests, "browsers shouldn't have IRC";
Or either mail and newsgroup for that matter;
For post after post - tis a consummation;
Of so much wasted time, ner to return;
To defend, perchance to flame, Aye to point out;
That you try code based on communicator;
But to be held back in pause, In realization;
Of so calamity in feature creep and bloat;
For who would bear the flames and posts of trolls;
Of oppressors success in gaining market share;
The pangs of constant delay and revision;
The insolence of users and management;
That patient merit for kewl shit and bugfixing;
When he or she could make code which betters your own;
By using XUL, what could these hackers hack;
Which finally allow you to rest weary;
But for the dread of crackers and script kiddies;
With dreams of The undiscovered country;
Where anything may be simpler to make;
This makes us rather bear those ills we have;
Then fly to opera or Internet Explorier;
A conscience which makes cowards of us all;
And build another nightly to fix the last bug;
A enterprise which others call futile;
Forever resolute in ones ideals never -
To lose the name of action
Xbox hackers, found that if you booted the machine then unplugged hd and plugged it into a pc then the xbox hd mounted as a fat32 system(you need to boot it this way for the encryption to be unlocked by the bios).
Now, this would explain a lot of your fragmentation problems if true.
However, Ive been getting a lot of contridictory reports
Perhaps someone with more experience of the hardware could post.
Look, I think that the problem people have with mozilla is that it is a ongoing project to create a platform rather then a single application. This has always been the intention of Mozilla
Thus, arguments about Mozilla are just the same old arguments where one side defines it as a application while the other as a platform
To put it another way, Mozilla is just Emacs of the browser world. This guy was just mouthing the same emacs trolls that have been going on in flamefests for years but replacing emacs with moz and Ie with vi ignoring that vi is part of a platform itself
To compare mozilla with anything you have to compare it to the whole of windows or the whole of kde/gnome, not in relation to specific applications on either platform.
Mozilla is bloated if you define it as a application but lean if you consider it as a platform, end of story.
If you what oranges to be apples then get apples and quit whining that oranges ain't apples.
Could someone mod this as troll please, or at least funny
The goal of mozilla is to make a application environment based on XUL, so it makes sense that it had themes before anything else.
It is no longer slow, and hasn't been since milestone 19. At least on windows and linux.
Also your whining about pop up windows being slow, please, I normally run with java script off on my browser becasue I find this "feature" so annoying (mozilla allows to set javascript site by site).
If you don't like mozilla just use one of the other browser based on the same layout engine, as another poster has pointed out (or Ie or opera).
How a obvious troll like this got modded up, I don't know.
We already have this in Australia, The major cable provider (telsta) limits you to 3 gig a month, which makes it more then useless IMHO, the second Optius reserves the right to kick you off if you go over a limit worked out by a average of traffic, normally about 18gig, slightly better.
Personally I blame P2P and FTP, I think that there is a real argument for usenet which lessens the bandwidth at the ISP end.
There are alternatives but they are priced out of your average consumers price range
I dont mean to whine, but it tends to peeve me that you yanks and Cukics compain about blocked ports or slight price incresses not knowing the real handicaps that people in other contries have to face, man I wish I was American sometimes
Re:on the subject of the ps2 linux kit...
on
LinuxWorld Summary
·
· Score: 1
I was thinking along the lines of, "you need this to play this latest killer game" or only works if you have this upgrade, kinda like the memory expansion for N64, course we all know how well that sold.
Re:on the subject of the ps2 linux kit...
on
LinuxWorld Summary
·
· Score: 1
that would be kinda slow, better to get a firewire drive and use the ilink port
Thats a though one, the best one I can think of is BBedit for the Mac, although I think it's commerical, It is in the same league as Emacs or Vi, There are some development environments around,mostly for things like basic, but. I don't think a os could be shareware by defination, although you could argue XP being nagware, your right though.
I thought that the PS2 was multiprocessor, having two floating point units named fo1 and fo2 with a third chip to handle the other stuff, thus forming the emotion engine, with a graphic processor which most developers complained about being too underpowered (read not enough shaders, aliasing problems err jagged lines, being a right pain in the bum to get all the chips working togetherer etc). However, it does have a good io chip, and really good memory bandwith. Anyway excuse my ignoreance having never developed for it.
Also Mac would never partner with Beos, and would only take over Beos to close them down (this is due to a less then honourable history the companies share, which I wont go into) Palm not wishing to be taken over by Apple is the stongest reason i can think of for buying Beos.
I agree that specialising isn't really what linux is about, unless you count enbedded versions, Also , I recon sony have a Os in development for the PS2 or PS3, and with luck it might demonstrate the design skills that the jap's are famous for, but that is speculation
Basically the post is just wishful thinking on my part, I loved Beos (although you could argue the C++ kernel bit) and I loved the Amiga (The computer which the PS2 most closely resembles IMHO) and while I would love to see them both back (workbench on PS2 mmmm) it aint going to happen. But, dont you wish it could.
If you ignore question on whether M$ could do this, and chuck out the inner critic in all of us, that it is just marketing etc etc, Then I think that this is a good thing. Mainly, because M$ are, at least taking a step in the right direction.
What we are witnessing here (as has been posted)is one of M$'s famous turn around's and it has to be admitted that once they turn their mind on doing something then it tend's to get done, however slowly. Perhaps Bill finally got Sircum
Most of the world use's and depends on windows for better or for worst and improving security is something that will benefit the majority of people on the internet, remember in the mind of joe six-pack and the media there is no such thing as windows worms or outlook virus' but rather worms and virus' in general, and this is an accepted part of life, more then hacker meaning someone who breaks into computers not someone who writes software.
What would be ideal, is if they would come to the conclusion, which most of the security world has known for years, that security though obscurity is a myth, and that to have a completely secure system then you need to have a full disclosure of bugs and holes in your system, no matter how ugly they may appear, for example buffer overflows, or VB scripts running attachments. Perhaps if they where able to start and maintain a forum for these question's then we will start to experience some real progress. As opposed to attacking those which point out problems in their system like they did with security focus a while back
To me this represents the greatest strenght of the internet, in that. It has given voice to those that, though isolation, had none. It also demonstrates the reason why sites like slashdot were created
For me this has completely turned my mind around on the M$ question, I might even consider installing a Windows partition just to play games, if they would only do something about product activation (hint hint). Hell it isn't so bad if you remove most of the stuff they bundle and install cygwin and mozilla.
However, the keyword here is "could" and I believe I wait out the month before I rush to XP. Still everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps tim should have posted this in the Ill-believe-when-I-see-it dept?
cheers, It's nice to see a developer responding to some posts, for the record, I think snapz is a pretty good screen capture program, although I have no application for it
I think that the main reason you guys are coping flak on slashdot is due to the product activation aspect of your license, basically its seem that you are giving credit a regime that alot of people simply dislike. I mean could any company apart from M$ have implemented PA, face it, It's like asking for ID every time you make a purchase, M$ only get away with because were else are you going to go? really.
It is something that has everything to do with your interest and nothing to do with our's, classic "us and them" type thinking, like we are nothing but eyeballs to be captured or data to be mined.
The rest seem's to be the standard posts on, real software is gpl'ed, software is too expensive or arguements over what defines piracy.
Perhaps, if business would stop acting like they have a god given right to spin a buck, like Im somehow committing a crime by having my burgers at somewhere else apart from Burger King then slashdottiers and people in general wouldn't give you lot such a hard time
btw, if you can't make money with shareware just go pro and good luck to you
Slashdot Mirror
I was trying to propose an alternative argument that M$ should be forced to release the source code for the same reasons that other's industries have too, because government has decided it is everyone's interest to have these things open.
Now, I'm not saying that you id can't have their games engine, or Nvidna should release their drivers.
Rather, that, if you make something as important as a web server or OS, you should disclose how it works, Source code is just another form of documentation.
Coke have to turn over their formula to the government otherwise they would not be able to win approval by the Food and Drug Authority. The same as the people who make Viagra have to release the patent to that drug after it has been on the market for a number of year's in order to allow the creation of generic brands (who have to meet governmental controls for quality themselves). Or at least this is the case in the country I come from.
I think that a good arguement exists that M$ should be required to release the source for windows, that in fact full disclosure of source should be a requirement of the industry, due to the number of problems created when you have millions of people dependent on that code. For example if Cisco, made drugs with certain undocumented side effects, their would be a uproar that would stop the nation.
Just because these people run technological companies should not insulate them from the social and economical costs that their products cause. The discloser of source should be a mandatory social requirement.
Have you tried escape from monkey island, That carries on the lucasart tradition more or less, and it's reasonably recent aswell
At least the kid isn't in the sequel.
I also think that the game was popular right of the bat because it was based in the Ultima Universe.
One of the sad legacies of Ultima Online is that alot of new MMORPG's follow it's production modal, namely Anarchy online or WWII Online, of releasing the game then fixing the problems only when they have enough subscribers to the service. A better modal would be just to get the thing working right in beta IMHO.
Ofcourse you could argue that the only reason that UO was released when it was, was because they wished to be the first mainstream MMORPG and had they waited they would have been scooped by Everquest or something. I hope Koster has better luck this time around at least in terms of releasing a quality product.
Nowadays, creating game engines are so time consuming that most developers tend to license a engine which has already been used in another game, like quake3.
All in all, I think that games with the name of Star wars on them tend to be much better then games with the name star trek on them. Although Lucasarts do not seem to be creating the same quality of product that they use to.
While alot of people spend hugh amounts of time playing things like Everquest, It is hardly like they exist in something like the Matrix, or even, That they get confused between the rules of the real world and the rules of the game world like that dude did in that Monsters and Mazes movie.
For example, one of my friend at college was hooked on MUD's, However he said that the most additive aspect of them was that he was playing with real people, He would log off sometimes a chat up the girl who use to play in another computer room on campus. The most funny thing which happened was when the DM (a real arsehole) came round because my friend was PK'ing people by luring them into the games arena.
That people are able to make a living by playing the game only demonstrates this point, People would not wish to buy characters on Ebay. If they wished to follow the rules of the gameworld 100%. Everyone who plays this game knows that "it is just a game".
Since most of these online gameworld's suffer from the same social problems present in this world then how can it be considered a alternate reality to our own? If your definition is correct (that it is another world distinct from our own) then why won't people change their behavior to reflect that.
The rational behind this is that, if you have a contract with out any form of representation of the other end, ie hasn't been signed by your lawyer then it can not be representative of your interests. It is what is called a sublimable contract, I think that this was decided when some dude argued about a fine stating that who would bother to read the back of their bus ticket in the 19th century, a more recent example would be a group of people suing the manufactour of a car wash system, who tryed to argue that they weren't liable because of a "while all care is taken we are no responsiable for damaged incured" as being a contract. More or less open abuse like that
The have always thought that it is illegal to make a contract as a condition of use, since you have no representation, That a real contract is something which you read, send to your lawyer who circles the dodgy bits and sends back to you (like a rental agreement). Not a "you must click here to use this" type crap. Perhaps someone who is IAAAL could clear this up.
I lot of those are just playstation ports, dude.
Yeah, That sounds about right
To paraphase the bard;-
Tis app or platform that is the question;
Whether tis nobler in the API to suffer;
The slings and arrows of corporate monopoly;
Or to write ones own framework and hope;
That by opposing end it, for generations -
To troll in flamefests, "browsers shouldn't have IRC";
Or either mail and newsgroup for that matter;
For post after post - tis a consummation;
Of so much wasted time, ner to return;
To defend, perchance to flame, Aye to point out;
That you try code based on communicator;
But to be held back in pause, In realization;
Of so calamity in feature creep and bloat;
For who would bear the flames and posts of trolls;
Of oppressors success in gaining market share;
The pangs of constant delay and revision;
The insolence of users and management;
That patient merit for kewl shit and bugfixing;
When he or she could make code which betters your own;
By using XUL, what could these hackers hack;
Which finally allow you to rest weary;
But for the dread of crackers and script kiddies;
With dreams of The undiscovered country;
Where anything may be simpler to make;
This makes us rather bear those ills we have;
Then fly to opera or Internet Explorier;
A conscience which makes cowards of us all;
And build another nightly to fix the last bug;
A enterprise which others call futile;
Forever resolute in ones ideals never -
To lose the name of action
Whether tis nobler in the API to suffer;
The slings and arrows of corporate monopoly;
Or to write ones own framework and hope;
That by opposing end it, for generations -
To troll in flamefests, browsers shouldn't have IRC.
Xbox hackers, found that if you booted the machine then unplugged hd and plugged it into a pc then the xbox hd mounted as a fat32 system(you need to boot it this way for the encryption to be unlocked by the bios).
Now, this would explain a lot of your fragmentation problems if true.
However, Ive been getting a lot of contridictory reports
Perhaps someone with more experience of the hardware could post.
Thus, arguments about Mozilla are just the same old arguments where one side defines it as a application while the other as a platform
To put it another way, Mozilla is just Emacs of the browser world. This guy was just mouthing the same emacs trolls that have been going on in flamefests for years but replacing emacs with moz and Ie with vi ignoring that vi is part of a platform itself
To compare mozilla with anything you have to compare it to the whole of windows or the whole of kde/gnome, not in relation to specific applications on either platform.
Mozilla is bloated if you define it as a application but lean if you consider it as a platform, end of story.
If you what oranges to be apples then get apples and quit whining that oranges ain't apples.
The goal of mozilla is to make a application environment based on XUL, so it makes sense that it had themes before anything else.
It is no longer slow, and hasn't been since milestone 19. At least on windows and linux.
Also your whining about pop up windows being slow, please, I normally run with java script off on my browser becasue I find this "feature" so annoying (mozilla allows to set javascript site by site).
If you don't like mozilla just use one of the other browser based on the same layout engine, as another poster has pointed out (or Ie or opera).
How a obvious troll like this got modded up, I don't know.
Personally I blame P2P and FTP, I think that there is a real argument for usenet which lessens the bandwidth at the ISP end.
There are alternatives but they are priced out of your average consumers price range
I dont mean to whine, but it tends to peeve me that you yanks and Cukics compain about blocked ports or slight price incresses not knowing the real handicaps that people in other contries have to face, man I wish I was American sometimes
Hmm,,, your Amiga 500 must have come from the tardis mate, I think you mean mods:
From what I understand Mr Carmack has so much money that he only needs to worry about the amount of tax he needs to pay :-)
Yes
I was thinking along the lines of, "you need this to play this latest killer game" or only works if you have this upgrade, kinda like the memory expansion for N64, course we all know how well that sold.
that would be kinda slow, better to get a firewire drive and use the ilink port
Thats a though one, the best one I can think of is BBedit for the Mac, although I think it's commerical, It is in the same league as Emacs or Vi, There are some development environments around ,mostly for things like basic, but. I don't think a os could be shareware by defination, although you could argue XP being nagware, your right though.
Also Mac would never partner with Beos, and would only take over Beos to close them down (this is due to a less then honourable history the companies share, which I wont go into) Palm not wishing to be taken over by Apple is the stongest reason i can think of for buying Beos.
I agree that specialising isn't really what linux is about, unless you count enbedded versions, Also , I recon sony have a Os in development for the PS2 or PS3, and with luck it might demonstrate the design skills that the jap's are famous for, but that is speculation
Basically the post is just wishful thinking on my part, I loved Beos (although you could argue the C++ kernel bit) and I loved the Amiga (The computer which the PS2 most closely resembles IMHO) and while I would love to see them both back (workbench on PS2 mmmm) it aint going to happen. But, dont you wish it could.
What we are witnessing here (as has been posted)is one of M$'s famous turn around's and it has to be admitted that once they turn their mind on doing something then it tend's to get done, however slowly. Perhaps Bill finally got Sircum
Most of the world use's and depends on windows for better or for worst and improving security is something that will benefit the majority of people on the internet, remember in the mind of joe six-pack and the media there is no such thing as windows worms or outlook virus' but rather worms and virus' in general, and this is an accepted part of life, more then hacker meaning someone who breaks into computers not someone who writes software.
What would be ideal, is if they would come to the conclusion, which most of the security world has known for years, that security though obscurity is a myth, and that to have a completely secure system then you need to have a full disclosure of bugs and holes in your system, no matter how ugly they may appear, for example buffer overflows, or VB scripts running attachments. Perhaps if they where able to start and maintain a forum for these question's then we will start to experience some real progress. As opposed to attacking those which point out problems in their system like they did with security focus a while back
To me this represents the greatest strenght of the internet, in that. It has given voice to those that, though isolation, had none. It also demonstrates the reason why sites like slashdot were created
For me this has completely turned my mind around on the M$ question, I might even consider installing a Windows partition just to play games, if they would only do something about product activation (hint hint). Hell it isn't so bad if you remove most of the stuff they bundle and install cygwin and mozilla.
However, the keyword here is "could" and I believe I wait out the month before I rush to XP. Still everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps tim should have posted this in the Ill-believe-when-I-see-it dept?
I think that the main reason you guys are coping flak on slashdot is due to the product activation aspect of your license, basically its seem that you are giving credit a regime that alot of people simply dislike. I mean could any company apart from M$ have implemented PA, face it, It's like asking for ID every time you make a purchase, M$ only get away with because were else are you going to go? really.
It is something that has everything to do with your interest and nothing to do with our's, classic "us and them" type thinking, like we are nothing but eyeballs to be captured or data to be mined.
The rest seem's to be the standard posts on, real software is gpl'ed, software is too expensive or arguements over what defines piracy.
Perhaps, if business would stop acting like they have a god given right to spin a buck, like Im somehow committing a crime by having my burgers at somewhere else apart from Burger King then slashdottiers and people in general wouldn't give you lot such a hard time
btw, if you can't make money with shareware just go pro and good luck to you