Actually, as a precursor to Automatic Updates, Microsoft did put out the Critical Update Notification Tool. There are a fewreferences left on microsoft.com.
Unless you use exclusively Open Source software I don't see how you can criticize Sun's JVM. Please remember that the next time that you play a video game or use an ATM.
The JRE isn't the product the end-user actually needs to use, like a game would be. Just to run various apps - including OSS apps - you need to install a JRE of some sort, of which Sun's is the most compatible (obviously). The fact that distros can't include it by default, or make their own packages, means that there are often headaches associated with getting Java up and running for the first time. If the Java licence allowed for distros to make their own packages, a lot of issues would go away. That's the pragmatic reason to criticise Sun's licence.
Then you have the idealist viewpoint; pretty much all the open source JREs I've tried aren't as fast/feature complete as the Sun JRE. They're doing good work, but if open source software that someone wishes to use is written in Java, essentially they have to install a closed JRE to use it, thus tainting their open system. However, as the issue mentioned in the grandparent was strictly to do with the redistribution, this doesn't apply to that argument.
Now, Sun has every right to apply this licence to Java, but there are certainly very good reasons to not want to use Java apps, even for those who don't care about Free vs. closed.
Well the UK's had a mix of voluntary (currently PEGI, previously ELSPA) and law-backed (BBFC) ratings for video games for many many years (films are all BBFC-rated), and I don't see it turning into full-on control of what kids can see any time soon in the future... I doubt it would happen in the US either, but I could be wrong.
Because the point of copyright is to increase innovation, and thus material available to the general public.
I'm not arguing that I'd support, say, spreading of leaked betas, because they are currently being actively used by the company. Nor would I support spreading of material which has never been published. IP which is just sitting there unused (having previously been publicly distributed) is no good for anyone, though.
Any true abandonware collector would purchase games (or delete them until such time as they could purchase them) if they become commercially marketed by the company who owns the copyright; anyone else just wants the free games.
http://www.game.uk.com/ ? (Admittedly they have now moved to game.net. I'm pretty sure Electronics Boutique also had a uk.com before their UK licencee gave up the name and merged it into GAME.)
While they may say that, one of my RSS feeds which isn't a blog is included in Blog Search. They also don't seem to provide any way to keep it out of the index (apart from the over-general robots.txt for Googlebot).
The fact that you looked at it before seeing this story makes more sense; however, as for the Mac port, on the front page of darwinia.co.uk it says "Download Demo for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux", and I believe this has been there since each port has become available.
I'm going to assume you live in the US here (apologies if I'm wrong), in which case I imagine it's easier to miss Darwinia (if you'd seen it in a shop, you'd know about it - GREEEEEEEEEEEN), but on the demo download page (I assume this is where you got your stats from) it does state the release date of the demo: "Version 1.1 released 7th February 2005" (and I like using parens a lot in this sentence apparently).
Of course, it's easy to overlook these (which negates the potential trolling accusation - that was based on seeing the site in the context of this recent article), but they're definitely there and not hidden.
It also describes the requirements as "Windows 98". I do have a windows box set aside for games, but it runs XP. It didn't look likely enough to run nor interesting enough to play to be worth downloading teh demo.
I'm sorry, but use some common sense. A commercial game, released in 2005, and sold in high street shops (in the UK) is not going to be limited to Windows 98.
You also say that you have the Windows machine set aside for gaming; unless you have a lower-end machine for non-games, or run a platform that hardly anyone uses (Linux on PPC?), why not just use the native version?
For a start, in general, it means that you have to have steam running just to play the game. I prefer to just launch the game, and not have to fire up some 3rd party app then launch the game, having the app in the background taking up resources.
Then you have the problem that Steam is Windows-only. Darwinia is multi-platform. Linux users wouldn't exactly be a fan of this model of distribution...
Of course, one of the main points of annoyance with HL2 - that is, having to have an Internet connection to play your boxed copy - isn't applicable to Darwinia, but it is a general annoyance with Steam.
Introversion already has their own store, which sends a physical copy by post and lets you download a copy whilst you wait for it - what benefit would steam give? (Other than annoyance for the end-user.)
You can still buy Darwinia directly online from Introversion themselves, via the Intvoresion Store (and even download it whilst you wait for it in the post now), plus they have Pinnacle to do UK distribution. It's getting it into US shops that seems to be the problem.
Points 1 and 2 are already being addressed in a patch currently in beta testing, which gives you the option between two control methods.
Point #3 - I like it, if you want to inform the developers that you don't like it, post on the forums instead of on slashdot. You can also rebind the keys, IIRC, but I can't remember if the mouse is configurable.
Graphics - Introversion are a 4 man team. They tried realistic graphics, decided that they couldn't do them well enough, so instead decided to go for the retro feel. It was probably more complex to write extra code for the Darwinian sprites than it would've been to make crude models and use the existing model handling.
Story - I liked it, but a storyline isn't integral to having fun in my opinion. Sure, they can add to a game (and in Darwinia's case, I feel that it strings the game together nicely).
He pretty clearly is attempting to make money off it though, so OSS is out of the question (or, at least, with the current business model, and I don't think that games are quite the same as utilities in terms of being paid to work on them...).
There are a few counter-examples off the top of my head for that; my bank and mlb.com both support Firefox but not Safari. Pearson VUE also mention Firefox but not Safari (click on the "Sign In" link). I've also seen quite a few people still using IE on OSX (it still works). Not that I'm saying that you're wrong, it's just that it seems to me to be happening as Firefox gets bigger.
Assuming you mean the Linux kernel here, that was pretty much a given anyway. In order to relicence it (the Linux kernel uses GPLv2 with an extra clause, IIRC, and that only) they'd need to get every single contributor who still has code in the kernel to agree, as Linus doesn't require copyright assignment.
As Slashcode is just the CMS which Slashdot uses (well, created), yes, the databases are different. The Slashcode site is designed for articles about slashcode itself (and appears to be on a separate server), whilst slashdot is - well - slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
666 is Anonymous Coward (I think you may need to be logged in for this to work...)
I believe that the Linux Quake III tins were produced by Loki...who are now dead.
I'm not sure I want to try any of your cookies if they're like crumpets...
Opera has its own portal, but I'd assume they also get paid for the eBay and Amazon (and Google?) search boxes in Opera.
Actually, as a precursor to Automatic Updates, Microsoft did put out the Critical Update Notification Tool. There are a few references left on microsoft.com.
Then you have the idealist viewpoint; pretty much all the open source JREs I've tried aren't as fast/feature complete as the Sun JRE. They're doing good work, but if open source software that someone wishes to use is written in Java, essentially they have to install a closed JRE to use it, thus tainting their open system. However, as the issue mentioned in the grandparent was strictly to do with the redistribution, this doesn't apply to that argument.
Now, Sun has every right to apply this licence to Java, but there are certainly very good reasons to not want to use Java apps, even for those who don't care about Free vs. closed.
Ooh, and I forgot yesterday, another /. article reminded me of http://www.pegi.info/ for .info.
Well the UK's had a mix of voluntary (currently PEGI, previously ELSPA) and law-backed (BBFC) ratings for video games for many many years (films are all BBFC-rated), and I don't see it turning into full-on control of what kids can see any time soon in the future... I doubt it would happen in the US either, but I could be wrong.
Because the point of copyright is to increase innovation, and thus material available to the general public.
I'm not arguing that I'd support, say, spreading of leaked betas, because they are currently being actively used by the company. Nor would I support spreading of material which has never been published. IP which is just sitting there unused (having previously been publicly distributed) is no good for anyone, though.
Any true abandonware collector would purchase games (or delete them until such time as they could purchase them) if they become commercially marketed by the company who owns the copyright; anyone else just wants the free games.
You can bet that if Apple were to do that, they'd want to avoid the stigma of the name iTV.
http://www.game.uk.com/ ? (Admittedly they have now moved to game.net. I'm pretty sure Electronics Boutique also had a uk.com before their UK licencee gave up the name and merged it into GAME.)
While they may say that, one of my RSS feeds which isn't a blog is included in Blog Search. They also don't seem to provide any way to keep it out of the index (apart from the over-general robots.txt for Googlebot).
The fact that you looked at it before seeing this story makes more sense; however, as for the Mac port, on the front page of darwinia.co.uk it says "Download Demo for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux", and I believe this has been there since each port has become available.
I'm going to assume you live in the US here (apologies if I'm wrong), in which case I imagine it's easier to miss Darwinia (if you'd seen it in a shop, you'd know about it - GREEEEEEEEEEEN), but on the demo download page (I assume this is where you got your stats from) it does state the release date of the demo: "Version 1.1 released 7th February 2005" (and I like using parens a lot in this sentence apparently).
Of course, it's easy to overlook these (which negates the potential trolling accusation - that was based on seeing the site in the context of this recent article), but they're definitely there and not hidden.
I'm sorry, but use some common sense. A commercial game, released in 2005, and sold in high street shops (in the UK) is not going to be limited to Windows 98.
You also say that you have the Windows machine set aside for gaming; unless you have a lower-end machine for non-games, or run a platform that hardly anyone uses (Linux on PPC?), why not just use the native version?
For a start, in general, it means that you have to have steam running just to play the game. I prefer to just launch the game, and not have to fire up some 3rd party app then launch the game, having the app in the background taking up resources.
Then you have the problem that Steam is Windows-only. Darwinia is multi-platform. Linux users wouldn't exactly be a fan of this model of distribution...
Of course, one of the main points of annoyance with HL2 - that is, having to have an Internet connection to play your boxed copy - isn't applicable to Darwinia, but it is a general annoyance with Steam.
Introversion already has their own store, which sends a physical copy by post and lets you download a copy whilst you wait for it - what benefit would steam give? (Other than annoyance for the end-user.)
Ambrosia's basically the Mac publisher for Darwinia - you can only get the mac version from them.
You can still buy Darwinia directly online from Introversion themselves, via the Intvoresion Store (and even download it whilst you wait for it in the post now), plus they have Pinnacle to do UK distribution. It's getting it into US shops that seems to be the problem.
Points 1 and 2 are already being addressed in a patch currently in beta testing, which gives you the option between two control methods.
Point #3 - I like it, if you want to inform the developers that you don't like it, post on the forums instead of on slashdot. You can also rebind the keys, IIRC, but I can't remember if the mouse is configurable.
Graphics - Introversion are a 4 man team. They tried realistic graphics, decided that they couldn't do them well enough, so instead decided to go for the retro feel. It was probably more complex to write extra code for the Darwinian sprites than it would've been to make crude models and use the existing model handling.
Story - I liked it, but a storyline isn't integral to having fun in my opinion. Sure, they can add to a game (and in Darwinia's case, I feel that it strings the game together nicely).
As for not recommending it, well, you seem to be against the majority.
He pretty clearly is attempting to make money off it though, so OSS is out of the question (or, at least, with the current business model, and I don't think that games are quite the same as utilities in terms of being paid to work on them...).
There are a few counter-examples off the top of my head for that; my bank and mlb.com both support Firefox but not Safari. Pearson VUE also mention Firefox but not Safari (click on the "Sign In" link). I've also seen quite a few people still using IE on OSX (it still works). Not that I'm saying that you're wrong, it's just that it seems to me to be happening as Firefox gets bigger.
I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't want crude, tyre-less wheels on a racing car.
Assuming you mean the Linux kernel here, that was pretty much a given anyway. In order to relicence it (the Linux kernel uses GPLv2 with an extra clause, IIRC, and that only) they'd need to get every single contributor who still has code in the kernel to agree, as Linus doesn't require copyright assignment.
As Slashcode is just the CMS which Slashdot uses (well, created), yes, the databases are different. The Slashcode site is designed for articles about slashcode itself (and appears to be on a separate server), whilst slashdot is - well - slashdot.