Licensing scheme needs to go, let's open up
on
Razor Blade Games?
·
· Score: 1
I think what's killing the small developer, more than anything, is not competition from large scale developers. Bob knows, people plays tons of "frozen bubble", "solitaire", "puzzle", and so on. Yea, maybe you don't see people play this on your LAN, but small games are big time popular.
On a PC we have a somewhat thriving shareware and small time game developer scene because you don't need to be checked out by Big Brother Sony/Microsoft prior to being allowed to distribute your game.
If Sony and Microsoft would simply drop their inane restrictions, all will be well for small time developers.
Now if we're talking about a medium size developer, they shouldn't try to compete on the basis of the best 3-D graphics or the largest quantity of art. They should innovate and not all is lost for those guys! Just take a look at how boring and cookie cutter Final Fantasy is, and learn. For example, Shadow Hearts turned out to be a great game because it's more mature, darker, and just "different" in a good way. Shadow Hearts beats Final Fantasy in my book.
Displaimer: I'm not a small time developer, this is just my opinion, that's all.
Instead of taking the full weight of the decision, why don't you tell your manager that clients want A, but you already have B, C, D in the queue, and ask the manager to prioritize these items for you. Something will have to be delayed, maybe it will be client's current request, or maybe one of the things that were previously in the queue, but you won't be the one deciding what gets delayed.
If you are in the position of power, then you should have enough power to make a decision without fear. If you are shaking in your boots, then shift the burden to the client by letting the client prioritize things for you. Obviously this is complicated if you have more than one client. Then you'd have to get them all in a room and have them talk it out.
The rule of thumb for power is that power should match your responsibility. That means, if you are, say, responsible for cleaning the floor, then you must be empowered to move things off the floor, to access cleaning supplies and so on. If you are a manager and it is your job to prioritize items and yet you are not empowered to say "NO", then something is terribly wrong, and perhaps, your project is going down the tubes anyway, and you should look for another job. Alternatively, you can just shut up and sort of roll with the punches and hope that clients will drown in the endless bureaucracy (let the thing that's holding you down hold your clients down as well) and eventually run out of steam. It really depends on the environment you work in..02c.
I place Hulk squarely into fantasy category, same as Spawn, X-men, etc.
But even if it was sci-fi, it is fiction.
And finally, I moan every time I read these blurbs by uptight, anal retentive "scientists", the same ones who often present themselves as the so-called "skeptics". What joyless, imagination deprived critters they are. They are no better than Linux, Microsoft, Emacs, Vi, Apple, Christian, Muslim and every other kind of zealot. They just can't relax and enjoy what is. Nope. They need to argue pedanticts and dogmas and obscure bullet points until death.
Because it takes too much risk! Game companies would rather go with the majority and with opinions of pseudo-intellectual "gurus" because it is a low risk, low reward approach.
Game companies are simply terrified to take risks. So how can they ever let the market decide when they refuse to innovate and take risks? Part of letting the market to decide is having a large number of innovative and failed games.
Sorry, but I don't feel a sense of injustice when a piece of software gets illegally copied. Yea, I know it's illegal, and I might even agree on some intellectual level that it's wrong, but my heart does not ache and I feel no sympathy for the so-called "injured".
Perhaps it is this that's getting under your skin? While the situation is legally clear, ethically, copying situation is a gray area. Most importantly, a human being will not do harm (most of the time), and copying software doesn't bring an experience of harming and thus guilt. How can this be right you say?
Oh wait, Copyright law is the only thing that restricts copying and it's a relatively new law. Being able to freely copy things is encoded in our genes. Learning is copying. Observing, in itself, is a form of copying. We've been copying everything ever since many thousands years ago and it was always OK, nay, essential and good to copy things to stay alive!
But now, in the last couple hundred years or so, a fairly arbitrary law gets passed that simply does not resonate with people's hearts (and/or genes, take your pick), and now you act all indignant when you notice that people have no respect for this law? Wake up.
If you want laws to be respected, they have to be aligned with nature, with how things are. In fact, that's why free market is successful, because it is an expression of nature. But when you praise free market in the same post as a monopoly-granting Copyright law you sound like a confused idiot. It is a shame you got modded up.
I think a very easy solution for Red Hat would be to offer a per-incident enterprise support. That way, it's still "enterprise" enough for people like Oracle, and also affordable (and stable and slowly released) enough for business.
I don't understand why Red Hat doesn't do it. You and other business owners should band together (if possible) and ask Red Hat for per-incident enterprise package. If enough people ask for it, I think they will fill the need rather than losing customers.
I seriously dislike CNN because I think they brainwash people with their heavy commercial biases (especially during certain events, like war coverage, or anything related to powerful monopolies or otherwise powerful corps), but...
They did show a few segments with happy, calm people. One was with a man carying a radio and another was with a party of people holding beers, all cheering, eating some treats and having a good time. They also mentioned that everyone was very calm numerous times. Even now they're interviewing a guy who played a game on his cell phone (who sounds calm, btw).
So, while I appreciate your rant, let's not misfire now.
My gut feeling is that you have an overinflated ego. I really doubt you could do better. It's one thing to toss around ideas and it's entirely a different thing to actually implement a thing that works.
I think that there are some brilliant virus writers out there who are in fact much better than you are. Maybe you're right about the majority of virus writers, but isn't it common knowledge the the majority of _____ (fill in the blank) sucks?
I've studied a book on viruses in the MS-DOS days (around 1990-1991, long time ago). It had virus source code in assembly and it literally tought you how to write a virus, and it had many, many very clever ideas how to avoid detection, how to spread more effectively, etc. The impression I got was the virus writers were quite ingenious and I don't have any evidence to believe that suddenly they are much dumber than back in 1991 and are much less inspired than long time ago.
The most rich is not necessarily the most productive. I think most riches are the result of speculation at the initial stage and inheritance down the line. None of these result in production or value to society of any kind.
I'm an individualist who believes that if you work hard you deserve rewards. But I find it strongly dubious that any one human being is worth hundred million more times than another. I just don't think that any human is capable of working hundred million times harder than even the most disabled and dim witted human being (or even a dog!). The rewards of the most rich are not commensurate with the effort, in my opinion.
Notice I didn't even mention ethics and that doesn't mean I don't believe in ethics...I just think some of the riches are so ridiculous that one doesn't need to consider ethics in order to see this point.
Separate service providers from copper/fiber medium owners!
There may be a state monopoly on copper/fiber ownership, but copper/fiber corp should be strictly prohibited from offering any kind of service on top of the medium. They should only be allowed to sell access to it.
This would create a fair playing field where all service providers stand equal. Also, the copper/fiber company will be interested to sell to as many service providers as possible.
State monopoly on copper/fiber owners is not even necessary, but they should strictly prohibit copper/fiber owners from offering service and strictly prohibit service companies from laying their own copper/fiber, and all will be fine.
Copper/fiber lines should be like our public highway system, imo, where service providers are like competing trucking companies.
Sir, your words are foul indeed. You're acting like a spoiled king. You spew venom about people you don't know anything about. You employ generalization in a dangerous way. You should reflect on this for a moment.
First, thanks for the good NYT link. I actually read the link thanks to that. Now for the comment.
It's easier just to churn out the proven formulas and franchises, dumb and dumberer with each installment. Hence "The Matrix," that rare, unexpected burst of big-studio originality, begets "The Matrix Reloaded," its faded carbon.
Doesn't the author know that Matrix was planned from day one as a trilogy? This attack against popular, and IMHO, quality movie is in bad style. Matrix is just like Potter. It's the fifth Potter book, and yet he calls it "artistic growth", but only a second Matrix is "faded carbon". Lamer.
We are entitled to ask why limited police resources were used in this way.
I'm sure you know the answer, but I'll go ahead and state the obvious.
Nobody is paying for increased police involvement in your area, but on the other hand, someone is paying lots of money for the police involvement in the "IP theft" area. You get what you pay for.
Re:Sad (Score:1) by kahei (466208) on Saturday June 28, @02:44PM (#6320392) (http://www.jbrowse.com/)
Not that I'm in favor of the IP clampdown we're seeing in this era... but a teensy little connection with reality would probably help some people.
Look at other examples:
okay.
DMCA - control of your sewing patterns you dig out of the trash; control of the xbox that you purchased.
Sewing patterns that belonged to someone else.
The author of complaint is asking us not to take this matter of "ownership" for granted. We should examine it critically. Since this matter is being examined, your statement is trash. Sorry. Now, if you explained why those patterns should belong to someone else, it would be a different story.
Palladium - control of the computer that you purchased
The fact that you purchased a computer does not affect your rights (or lack of them) vis a vis software. For instance, it does not confer on you the right to run any software you want.
By your own words in the previous sentence, it doesn't take away your rights either (that "or lack of them" part). So, basically first you make a non-statement, not really asserting anything, and then you use it to justify something.
DRM - control of the information that you purchased
You did not purchase it. When you buy a Smurfs CD, you don't start owning the Smurfs theme song. You purchased the right to make certain uses of the information, not the information itself.
First, the question is, should anyone be owning information? Since that's a central theme of the post you are replying to, you are not allowed to take this for granted. The poster you are replying to is a little sloppy with his/her language. If you'd argue that, I'd agree with you. But instead you give no charitable interpretation to the parent argument, so your own argument becomes trash. You must address the spirit of the argument and not the words.
EULAs - not only control of the software you bought (lawyers like to call it 'the license you bought' which of course, can be revoked at any time),
And they're right. You bought a license. Depending on what the license happens to say, it may be that it can be revoked at any time.
Again, this matter of buying and selling licenses is under the microscope. You may not simply reiterate it as if it was a self-evident truth.
Just FYI.
You may now resume your regular complaining:)
Just FYI. Your argument is utter trash. In fact I'm being nice by calling it an "argument" because you actually don't listen to the parent post and because of that, you are unable to intelligently respond. You simply fire off some very canned 2-second sound bites and hope that people take your bait. If you're not willing to address the spirit of complaint, and all you can do is play word games, why do you waste your time?
That's irrelevant. The proper way to square off chips is based on money. In other words a $200 dollar chip should go head to head with another $200 dollar chip, and an $800 chip goes against another $800 chip.
That's the only way to get fair results that are independant of implementation details. Clock rate the chip runs at is an implementation detail. It's not important. What's important is WORK per DOLLAR. That's the only thing that matters. Period.
Solaris, and it's hardware IS good for massive multi-proc applications.
Linux is steadily adnvancing in this area. It does not stand still. So at some point it will be as good as Solaris in that regard. Look at 2.6 kernel. Try to imagine where 2.8 or 3.0 will go. Now tell me how should Sun change direction?
Good laws are evident to all people and they respect such laws because they know it's for the greater good. For example, traffic laws are so obviously for the good of the drivers that I've yet to hear one person complain about them.
On the other hand, what kind of law is one that is feared? If the only enforcement mechanism for such law is fear, then how well respected is it going to be? If most people believe MP3 and digital material should be legally shareable, then how would a law based on fear of retribution and not based on mutual understanding of what's good, be a workable law?
Slashdot Mirror
I think what's killing the small developer, more than anything, is not competition from large scale developers. Bob knows, people plays tons of "frozen bubble", "solitaire", "puzzle", and so on. Yea, maybe you don't see people play this on your LAN, but small games are big time popular.
On a PC we have a somewhat thriving shareware and small time game developer scene because you don't need to be checked out by Big Brother Sony/Microsoft prior to being allowed to distribute your game.
If Sony and Microsoft would simply drop their inane restrictions, all will be well for small time developers.
Now if we're talking about a medium size developer, they shouldn't try to compete on the basis of the best 3-D graphics or the largest quantity of art. They should innovate and not all is lost for those guys! Just take a look at how boring and cookie cutter Final Fantasy is, and learn. For example, Shadow Hearts turned out to be a great game because it's more mature, darker, and just "different" in a good way. Shadow Hearts beats Final Fantasy in my book.
Displaimer: I'm not a small time developer, this is just my opinion, that's all.
Instead of taking the full weight of the decision, why don't you tell your manager that clients want A, but you already have B, C, D in the queue, and ask the manager to prioritize these items for you. Something will have to be delayed, maybe it will be client's current request, or maybe one of the things that were previously in the queue, but you won't be the one deciding what gets delayed.
.02c.
If you are in the position of power, then you should have enough power to make a decision without fear. If you are shaking in your boots, then shift the burden to the client by letting the client prioritize things for you. Obviously this is complicated if you have more than one client. Then you'd have to get them all in a room and have them talk it out.
The rule of thumb for power is that power should match your responsibility. That means, if you are, say, responsible for cleaning the floor, then you must be empowered to move things off the floor, to access cleaning supplies and so on. If you are a manager and it is your job to prioritize items and yet you are not empowered to say "NO", then something is terribly wrong, and perhaps, your project is going down the tubes anyway, and you should look for another job. Alternatively, you can just shut up and sort of roll with the punches and hope that clients will drown in the endless bureaucracy (let the thing that's holding you down hold your clients down as well) and eventually run out of steam. It really depends on the environment you work in.
Yes. Postfix should be a lot more popular than it is now, and so it could use more advertising.
I place Hulk squarely into fantasy category, same as Spawn, X-men, etc.
But even if it was sci-fi, it is fiction.
And finally, I moan every time I read these blurbs by uptight, anal retentive "scientists", the same ones who often present themselves as the so-called "skeptics". What joyless, imagination deprived critters they are. They are no better than Linux, Microsoft, Emacs, Vi, Apple, Christian, Muslim and every other kind of zealot. They just can't relax and enjoy what is. Nope. They need to argue pedanticts and dogmas and obscure bullet points until death.
... 2
-2
Look above...in my mind, that translates to (-2)^2. So the paper version would evaluate to 4 and not -4.
Because it takes too much risk! Game companies would rather go with the majority and with opinions of pseudo-intellectual "gurus" because it is a low risk, low reward approach.
Game companies are simply terrified to take risks. So how can they ever let the market decide when they refuse to innovate and take risks? Part of letting the market to decide is having a large number of innovative and failed games.
"Yes, Hollywood DOES have the right to make money."
.
Ah, yes... Sure thing. Please explain to me (and to a homeless guy on the street) how making money is a right
Sorry, but I don't feel a sense of injustice when a piece of software gets illegally copied. Yea, I know it's illegal, and I might even agree on some intellectual level that it's wrong, but my heart does not ache and I feel no sympathy for the so-called "injured".
Perhaps it is this that's getting under your skin? While the situation is legally clear, ethically, copying situation is a gray area. Most importantly, a human being will not do harm (most of the time), and copying software doesn't bring an experience of harming and thus guilt. How can this be right you say?
Oh wait, Copyright law is the only thing that restricts copying and it's a relatively new law. Being able to freely copy things is encoded in our genes. Learning is copying. Observing, in itself, is a form of copying. We've been copying everything ever since many thousands years ago and it was always OK, nay, essential and good to copy things to stay alive!
But now, in the last couple hundred years or so, a fairly arbitrary law gets passed that simply does not resonate with people's hearts (and/or genes, take your pick), and now you act all indignant when you notice that people have no respect for this law? Wake up.
If you want laws to be respected, they have to be aligned with nature, with how things are. In fact, that's why free market is successful, because it is an expression of nature. But when you praise free market in the same post as a monopoly-granting Copyright law you sound like a confused idiot. It is a shame you got modded up.
I got the same result as you. The google advice was stupid and the grandparent should be modded down.
I think a very easy solution for Red Hat would be to offer a per-incident enterprise support. That way, it's still "enterprise" enough for people like Oracle, and also affordable (and stable and slowly released) enough for business.
I don't understand why Red Hat doesn't do it. You and other business owners should band together (if possible) and ask Red Hat for per-incident enterprise package. If enough people ask for it, I think they will fill the need rather than losing customers.
I seriously dislike CNN because I think they brainwash people with their heavy commercial biases (especially during certain events, like war coverage, or anything related to powerful monopolies or otherwise powerful corps), but...
They did show a few segments with happy, calm people. One was with a man carying a radio and another was with a party of people holding beers, all cheering, eating some treats and having a good time. They also mentioned that everyone was very calm numerous times. Even now they're interviewing a guy who played a game on his cell phone (who sounds calm, btw).
So, while I appreciate your rant, let's not misfire now.
My gut feeling is that you have an overinflated ego. I really doubt you could do better. It's one thing to toss around ideas and it's entirely a different thing to actually implement a thing that works.
I think that there are some brilliant virus writers out there who are in fact much better than you are. Maybe you're right about the majority of virus writers, but isn't it common knowledge the the majority of _____ (fill in the blank) sucks?
I've studied a book on viruses in the MS-DOS days (around 1990-1991, long time ago). It had virus source code in assembly and it literally tought you how to write a virus, and it had many, many very clever ideas how to avoid detection, how to spread more effectively, etc. The impression I got was the virus writers were quite ingenious and I don't have any evidence to believe that suddenly they are much dumber than back in 1991 and are much less inspired than long time ago.
The most rich is not necessarily the most productive. I think most riches are the result of speculation at the initial stage and inheritance down the line. None of these result in production or value to society of any kind.
I'm an individualist who believes that if you work hard you deserve rewards. But I find it strongly dubious that any one human being is worth hundred million more times than another. I just don't think that any human is capable of working hundred million times harder than even the most disabled and dim witted human being (or even a dog!). The rewards of the most rich are not commensurate with the effort, in my opinion.
Notice I didn't even mention ethics and that doesn't mean I don't believe in ethics...I just think some of the riches are so ridiculous that one doesn't need to consider ethics in order to see this point.
No, you're not the only one. Breaking compatibility caused me do stop using Gentoo, along with other issues.
Separate service providers from copper/fiber medium owners!
There may be a state monopoly on copper/fiber ownership, but copper/fiber corp should be strictly prohibited from offering any kind of service on top of the medium. They should only be allowed to sell access to it.
This would create a fair playing field where all service providers stand equal. Also, the copper/fiber company will be interested to sell to as many service providers as possible.
State monopoly on copper/fiber owners is not even necessary, but they should strictly prohibit copper/fiber owners from offering service and strictly prohibit service companies from laying their own copper/fiber, and all will be fine.
Copper/fiber lines should be like our public highway system, imo, where service providers are like competing trucking companies.
Sir, your words are foul indeed. You're acting like a spoiled king. You spew venom about people you don't know anything about. You employ generalization in a dangerous way. You should reflect on this for a moment.
Simple. People are affraid to end it. And those who are not affraid often do not know how (a common mistake is to kill the body).
It is sad to read your comment. I'm not sad because what you say is true. I'm sad for you.
It's easier just to churn out the proven formulas and franchises, dumb and dumberer with each installment. Hence "The Matrix," that rare, unexpected burst of big-studio originality, begets "The Matrix Reloaded," its faded carbon.
Doesn't the author know that Matrix was planned from day one as a trilogy? This attack against popular, and IMHO, quality movie is in bad style. Matrix is just like Potter. It's the fifth Potter book, and yet he calls it "artistic growth", but only a second Matrix is "faded carbon". Lamer.
I'm sure you know the answer, but I'll go ahead and state the obvious.
Nobody is paying for increased police involvement in your area, but on the other hand, someone is paying lots of money for the police involvement in the "IP theft" area. You get what you pay for.
The author of complaint is asking us not to take this matter of "ownership" for granted. We should examine it critically. Since this matter is being examined, your statement is trash. Sorry. Now, if you explained why those patterns should belong to someone else, it would be a different story.
By your own words in the previous sentence, it doesn't take away your rights either (that "or lack of them" part). So, basically first you make a non-statement, not really asserting anything, and then you use it to justify something.
First, the question is, should anyone be owning information? Since that's a central theme of the post you are replying to, you are not allowed to take this for granted. The poster you are replying to is a little sloppy with his/her language. If you'd argue that, I'd agree with you. But instead you give no charitable interpretation to the parent argument, so your own argument becomes trash. You must address the spirit of the argument and not the words.
Again, this matter of buying and selling licenses is under the microscope. You may not simply reiterate it as if it was a self-evident truth.
Just FYI. Your argument is utter trash. In fact I'm being nice by calling it an "argument" because you actually don't listen to the parent post and because of that, you are unable to intelligently respond. You simply fire off some very canned 2-second sound bites and hope that people take your bait. If you're not willing to address the spirit of complaint, and all you can do is play word games, why do you waste your time?
Where is the 1.6 ghz P4 in this?
That's irrelevant. The proper way to square off chips is based on money. In other words a $200 dollar chip should go head to head with another $200 dollar chip, and an $800 chip goes against another $800 chip.
That's the only way to get fair results that are independant of implementation details. Clock rate the chip runs at is an implementation detail. It's not important. What's important is WORK per DOLLAR. That's the only thing that matters. Period.
Good laws are evident to all people and they respect such laws because they know it's for the greater good. For example, traffic laws are so obviously for the good of the drivers that I've yet to hear one person complain about them.
On the other hand, what kind of law is one that is feared? If the only enforcement mechanism for such law is fear, then how well respected is it going to be? If most people believe MP3 and digital material should be legally shareable, then how would a law based on fear of retribution and not based on mutual understanding of what's good, be a workable law?
Free/OSS programmers are less talented than the ones working on proprietary software? Why would you make such a claim?
And how is it that Win2K AS is better than Linux? Can you list some competitive benefits that it has?