I can see where you're coming from. A lot of what open source produces seems to be stuff that the developers need to use themselves. Operating systems, databases, web servers, compilers, source control, desktop environments. If you look at the projects that seem to have the biggest problems, word processors, spreadsheets, email, groupware, calendars, etc., it seems like open source programmers just ignore stuff that isn't fun to program, while ignoring that there is an actual need for this type of software.
I don't use outlook and exchange much, but are they really that complicated that open source can't provide an alternative that works just as well? We have Linux which is a better OS. We have PostgreSQL which is a good DB. So why can't we provide a mail/groupware server and client application. It doesn't seem all that hard compared to all the other stuff that open source produces, why is this field so hard?
Your heart rate gets as high as you want it to. I see lots of people going for leisurely bike rides where they don't even break a sweat. Now that's better than nothing at all, but I myself wouldn't consider it exercise. Also, try to bike on areas where there's hills. This works very well at increasing your heart rate. If you really try to push yourself, and actually do it as exercise, it can be a great workout, even if you can't find good hills.
I'm happy just using the Composite out on my cable box to record all my channels on my Hauppauge PVR 150. I don't care if it's not high-def. I can record whatever I want, whenever I want. It will be a long time before they have digital cable boxes without composite connections.
I see most people at the gym as being very solitary too. Many people will look at you weird if you go up to them and start talking to them at the gym. Especially if it's someone of the opposite sex. I say that as long as you get exercise, it really shouldn't matter what you're doing. Myself, I like to bike ride, but even riding with someone else tends to be very solitary. You don't go for a nice leisurely ride and spend the whole time talking to the other person. Usually you just ride, and then talk when you are taking breaks.
That didn't stop Napster et al from being sued. If they don't take actions to ensure that copyrighted material isn't uploaded, then they can be sued for negligence. This is a civil suit. Therefore, they only have to show that Google is negligent.
This leads to the question. Is there any lag when things travel over HDMI due to the encryption? If there is, it would be a serious problem if you were trying to play video games, and there was a difference between what you saw on the screen, and the controls the computer was responding to. I've seen this problem with a lot of emulators, where there's lag between what the computer and the screen, causing gameplay to really suck. Although I think PS3 and XBox 360 use HDMI, so I don't think there would be any problem.
Yes, but not per unit area. If you have a 50 inch screen at 640x480, and a 6 inch screen at the same resolution, the 6 inch screen is going to look a lot better. The fact that his monitor is 4:3 aspect ratio makes a huge difference in the actual resolution which he is seeing. Most TVs don't do 1080p, just 1080i. That's only 540 actual lines. Which is way worse then what you get on even old computer hardware.
Although I think 1 Billion is a little steep, I think you are right. I don't think that a TV network would last 2 minutes if they just decided to play content that they hadn't paid for. I don't see why Google should be treated any differently. Just because they're on the internet, doesn't give them the right to just broadcast whatever they want.
Like I said, the traffic could be minimal. They could even charge for the cost of the bandwidth. I'm sure they could support the traffic they'd generate on at $7.95 a month dreamhost account. The expense would be minimal.
I don't see how it's far from the truth. Even if you disregard piracy. MS offers many of it's products for free or really cheap to most students and educational institutes, assuming they will get hooked on it, and eventually pay full price for the product. Granted, a lot of companies do this, not just MS. It's not like you actually get addicted to the software though. Sure you know how to use it, and continuing to use the product is a lot easier than learning to use the alternative.
First they could just include the source on the hard drive. Or even better, they could just put up an FTP site where the source is available. It wouldn't even have to be high traffic. I seriously doubt more than 1% of people who buy Dell computers are going to want to download the source for OpenOffice. Nowhere in the GPL does it say you have to include the source with the product, just that you have to make it available. You can even make someone send you an email/snailmail, and charge them for a CD and shipping.
There's no reason for those of use who are capable of programming a linked list to bother programming one either. We aren't going to make a better implementation anyway. It's a solved problem. There's already a big enough shortage of people who are actually qualified. We shouldn't be spending time programming things like linked lists, or even more complex things like b-trees. We need the people who are qualified to be solving the problems that are actually hard. Not doing highschool or first year university assignments.
I took software engineering. At the time I started there was only 3 or 4 schools in my province that even had this as an option. I started in 1999. I think it's becoming more popular now. While I think CompSci is still important, I think that what a lot of people are actually looking for when they go into comp sci is something a little closer to software engineering. The world needs more people who know about how to develop quality software. There's too many people out there with 1 year career college diplomas programming systems that they don't even understand. I really think that the world of software is being greatly underserved by having unqualified people work on projects that they can't handle. I'm not even sure if there should be people with 1 year diplomas (and no other credentials) working on software projects.
I've also read somewhere that 95% of software was written for internal use, and that it will never see anything outside the company. I tend to believe that. Many times it's easier and less expensive to get 2 or 3 people to work on something for a couple months then it is to buy the commercial solution. And often the commercial solution requires just as much work, because it's so generic, you have to spend just as much time getting it to work with your system. Just look at database solutions. They have to be the be all and end all of data storage, because you never know what people will need to do with them. Most people, even the big guys, probably only use 5% of the features available. And there's probably quite a few features they wish they had, but that aren't implemented. If you do enough work with databases, you could develop your own, save on the licensing costs, and get a product that does exactly what you need it to do. I'm not saying this is the best solution for everyone, but sometimes it's better to build your own product than to buy an off the shelf solution.
I find it the other way around. While most of the cube owners I know have a big diversity in their games, most of the xbox owners I know have a much larger number of games. I know one guy who has at least 10 FPS games. He has games he hasn't even opened yet. While i'm sure he's an exception, I don't think he's that far off from the norm. With most of the games from Nintendo, you only need 1 or 2 from each genre, while with some of the junk they put out on xbox, you need 4 or 5 just to equal 1 gamecube game. Cue the fanboy comments.
I'm not really saying Nintendo lost, as they made a ton of cash. XBox actually lost a bunch of money for MS. It's yet to be seen whether the 360 will make them any cash. But GC was the third place machine, no matter how you cut it.
Simcity, and moreso, Simcity 2000 was awesome. I never really got into Simcity 3000, because I found that you had a little too much to manage, there was too much to control, and you couldn't keep it all in your head. I wasted many days on my simcity (2000). I never got to the point where the Arcologies would launch into space, although that may have been a myth, like the ability to pick up and throw the puck in fight mode in blades of steel.
According to the source I could find, Metroid Prime only sold 1.5 Million units in the US. Even the most popular game on GC only sold 6 million copies. I agree that there really shouldn't be any reason for limiting yourself to 1 console, because you can make more money by putting your game out for all 3 systems, but there's no reason why making games has to be expensive.
Games don't have to be expensive to produce. Look at some of the more popular games for GC. Animal Crossing, Metroid, Zelda WW, Smash Bros. Mario Kart, . All great games, All did well enough, even exclusively on the third place console. They didn't sell a ton of games, yet I'm sure they made enough money. These games probably didn't cost that much to make.
I agree. This is the reason you see more people buying console games. Resale value. You can't resell PC games, so people tend to buy less of them. If you could just bring in your old PC games to the store, and trade them in for new ones, I think a lot more people would be buying them. I also buy a lot of console games used. $10-$20 is a much better price as far as i'm concerned. Sure I don't get bleeding edge games, but I still have fun.
It isn't that nobody pirates games, it's just that there's less people pirating games. When pirating requires that I solder some chip into my system, there's a good bet that I won't be doing it, especially with the more expensive systems. Playing pirated games was easiest with the PS1/Dreamcast where you could pirate games without modifying the hardware (PS1 required external dongle). Most systems now require that you physically alter the machine, which most people aren't willing to do. Also, players of PC games tend to be much more savvy, and therefore know where to go to get the pirated games. There's a lot of people on consoles who wouldn't know the first thing about where to get pirated games.
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I can see where you're coming from. A lot of what open source produces seems to be stuff that the developers need to use themselves. Operating systems, databases, web servers, compilers, source control, desktop environments. If you look at the projects that seem to have the biggest problems, word processors, spreadsheets, email, groupware, calendars, etc., it seems like open source programmers just ignore stuff that isn't fun to program, while ignoring that there is an actual need for this type of software.
Looks like it's still very early in development. Do you know of anything that's actually useful in a production environment?
I don't use outlook and exchange much, but are they really that complicated that open source can't provide an alternative that works just as well? We have Linux which is a better OS. We have PostgreSQL which is a good DB. So why can't we provide a mail/groupware server and client application. It doesn't seem all that hard compared to all the other stuff that open source produces, why is this field so hard?
Your heart rate gets as high as you want it to. I see lots of people going for leisurely bike rides where they don't even break a sweat. Now that's better than nothing at all, but I myself wouldn't consider it exercise. Also, try to bike on areas where there's hills. This works very well at increasing your heart rate. If you really try to push yourself, and actually do it as exercise, it can be a great workout, even if you can't find good hills.
I'm happy just using the Composite out on my cable box to record all my channels on my Hauppauge PVR 150. I don't care if it's not high-def. I can record whatever I want, whenever I want. It will be a long time before they have digital cable boxes without composite connections.
I see most people at the gym as being very solitary too. Many people will look at you weird if you go up to them and start talking to them at the gym. Especially if it's someone of the opposite sex. I say that as long as you get exercise, it really shouldn't matter what you're doing. Myself, I like to bike ride, but even riding with someone else tends to be very solitary. You don't go for a nice leisurely ride and spend the whole time talking to the other person. Usually you just ride, and then talk when you are taking breaks.
That didn't stop Napster et al from being sued. If they don't take actions to ensure that copyrighted material isn't uploaded, then they can be sued for negligence. This is a civil suit. Therefore, they only have to show that Google is negligent.
This leads to the question. Is there any lag when things travel over HDMI due to the encryption? If there is, it would be a serious problem if you were trying to play video games, and there was a difference between what you saw on the screen, and the controls the computer was responding to. I've seen this problem with a lot of emulators, where there's lag between what the computer and the screen, causing gameplay to really suck. Although I think PS3 and XBox 360 use HDMI, so I don't think there would be any problem.
Yes, but not per unit area. If you have a 50 inch screen at 640x480, and a 6 inch screen at the same resolution, the 6 inch screen is going to look a lot better. The fact that his monitor is 4:3 aspect ratio makes a huge difference in the actual resolution which he is seeing. Most TVs don't do 1080p, just 1080i. That's only 540 actual lines. Which is way worse then what you get on even old computer hardware.
Although I think 1 Billion is a little steep, I think you are right. I don't think that a TV network would last 2 minutes if they just decided to play content that they hadn't paid for. I don't see why Google should be treated any differently. Just because they're on the internet, doesn't give them the right to just broadcast whatever they want.
Like I said, the traffic could be minimal. They could even charge for the cost of the bandwidth. I'm sure they could support the traffic they'd generate on at $7.95 a month dreamhost account. The expense would be minimal.
Included in price does not mean free. If they had a free alternative, how much would they charge for MS works?
I don't see how it's far from the truth. Even if you disregard piracy. MS offers many of it's products for free or really cheap to most students and educational institutes, assuming they will get hooked on it, and eventually pay full price for the product. Granted, a lot of companies do this, not just MS. It's not like you actually get addicted to the software though. Sure you know how to use it, and continuing to use the product is a lot easier than learning to use the alternative.
First they could just include the source on the hard drive. Or even better, they could just put up an FTP site where the source is available. It wouldn't even have to be high traffic. I seriously doubt more than 1% of people who buy Dell computers are going to want to download the source for OpenOffice. Nowhere in the GPL does it say you have to include the source with the product, just that you have to make it available. You can even make someone send you an email/snailmail, and charge them for a CD and shipping.
There's no reason for those of use who are capable of programming a linked list to bother programming one either. We aren't going to make a better implementation anyway. It's a solved problem. There's already a big enough shortage of people who are actually qualified. We shouldn't be spending time programming things like linked lists, or even more complex things like b-trees. We need the people who are qualified to be solving the problems that are actually hard. Not doing highschool or first year university assignments.
I took software engineering. At the time I started there was only 3 or 4 schools in my province that even had this as an option. I started in 1999. I think it's becoming more popular now. While I think CompSci is still important, I think that what a lot of people are actually looking for when they go into comp sci is something a little closer to software engineering. The world needs more people who know about how to develop quality software. There's too many people out there with 1 year career college diplomas programming systems that they don't even understand. I really think that the world of software is being greatly underserved by having unqualified people work on projects that they can't handle. I'm not even sure if there should be people with 1 year diplomas (and no other credentials) working on software projects.
I've also read somewhere that 95% of software was written for internal use, and that it will never see anything outside the company. I tend to believe that. Many times it's easier and less expensive to get 2 or 3 people to work on something for a couple months then it is to buy the commercial solution. And often the commercial solution requires just as much work, because it's so generic, you have to spend just as much time getting it to work with your system. Just look at database solutions. They have to be the be all and end all of data storage, because you never know what people will need to do with them. Most people, even the big guys, probably only use 5% of the features available. And there's probably quite a few features they wish they had, but that aren't implemented. If you do enough work with databases, you could develop your own, save on the licensing costs, and get a product that does exactly what you need it to do. I'm not saying this is the best solution for everyone, but sometimes it's better to build your own product than to buy an off the shelf solution.
I find it the other way around. While most of the cube owners I know have a big diversity in their games, most of the xbox owners I know have a much larger number of games. I know one guy who has at least 10 FPS games. He has games he hasn't even opened yet. While i'm sure he's an exception, I don't think he's that far off from the norm. With most of the games from Nintendo, you only need 1 or 2 from each genre, while with some of the junk they put out on xbox, you need 4 or 5 just to equal 1 gamecube game. Cue the fanboy comments.
I'm not really saying Nintendo lost, as they made a ton of cash. XBox actually lost a bunch of money for MS. It's yet to be seen whether the 360 will make them any cash. But GC was the third place machine, no matter how you cut it.
Simcity, and moreso, Simcity 2000 was awesome. I never really got into Simcity 3000, because I found that you had a little too much to manage, there was too much to control, and you couldn't keep it all in your head. I wasted many days on my simcity (2000). I never got to the point where the Arcologies would launch into space, although that may have been a myth, like the ability to pick up and throw the puck in fight mode in blades of steel.
According to the source I could find, Metroid Prime only sold 1.5 Million units in the US. Even the most popular game on GC only sold 6 million copies. I agree that there really shouldn't be any reason for limiting yourself to 1 console, because you can make more money by putting your game out for all 3 systems, but there's no reason why making games has to be expensive.
Games don't have to be expensive to produce. Look at some of the more popular games for GC. Animal Crossing, Metroid, Zelda WW, Smash Bros. Mario Kart, . All great games, All did well enough, even exclusively on the third place console. They didn't sell a ton of games, yet I'm sure they made enough money. These games probably didn't cost that much to make.
Those authors and publishers must really hate the library then.
I agree. This is the reason you see more people buying console games. Resale value. You can't resell PC games, so people tend to buy less of them. If you could just bring in your old PC games to the store, and trade them in for new ones, I think a lot more people would be buying them. I also buy a lot of console games used. $10-$20 is a much better price as far as i'm concerned. Sure I don't get bleeding edge games, but I still have fun.
It isn't that nobody pirates games, it's just that there's less people pirating games. When pirating requires that I solder some chip into my system, there's a good bet that I won't be doing it, especially with the more expensive systems. Playing pirated games was easiest with the PS1/Dreamcast where you could pirate games without modifying the hardware (PS1 required external dongle). Most systems now require that you physically alter the machine, which most people aren't willing to do. Also, players of PC games tend to be much more savvy, and therefore know where to go to get the pirated games. There's a lot of people on consoles who wouldn't know the first thing about where to get pirated games.