I'm guessing you're right... EA has never given a poo (for the kids out there) about non-DirectX based platforms. In a strange bit of coincidence, I haven't purchased an EA title since 1998 and I can guarantee that that will not change until they're have a change of heart. It would take a gun to my head and a few broken appendages... or barring that, an insane amount of money... to get me to run Windows ever again.
I don't recall ever seing a game for Linux is CompUSA/Best Buy/Frye's as long as I can remember.
Well... I bought Quake4, Doom3, UT2004, and NWN at BestBuy and I only run Linux... granted, I had to download the binary for most of those, but I do run them on Linux only. That said, I only play Enemy Territory regularly, don't think I've run D3, UT2004 or NWN in well over a year. However, I put my money where my mouth is. If Bioware puts out a Linux game, I will buy it. It's not a huge financial strain to purchase all Linux games right now since they're pretty few and far between.
picked up a 60" LCD TV for a mere $2800. Note that this wasn't a low-end one - this was the high-end Sony XBR2 SXRD model.
That's not really comparable to a plasma TV since you're talking about an LCD projection TV, not an LCD flat panel. A fair comparison is that a 60" plasma is about $7K while a 65" flat panel LCD (couldn't find any 60") is about $8.5K. Back on the greater topic, personally, I prefer the image of plasma's to LCDs right now simply because of the image blurring. I watch mostly hockey and the bright colors on a white background makes for a lot of blur on the LCDs I've watched games on. On that note, I think LCDs will win out over plasma's if they get ghosting issues figured out -or- if they present such a price advantage that ghosting becomes tolerable.
Interesting... I really dislike chocolate. I've disliked it since I was very young. The best I can tell people is that it has a medicine-ish taste to me that is really unenjoyable. Restaurant desert menus really suck if you don't like chocolate, although apparently I'm in a small minority of the population. Your post got me thinking and apparently there's a genetic basis for this with regards to being able to pickup the taste of a normally tasteless chemical (couldn't pin down the name) found in chocolate. Anyhow, all that to say that I can pickup the (nasty) taste of chocolate at trace level quantities, so I'm not surprised if it affects some people in a negative way!
No to be jerk, but "games support" has to come from the game makers, not the os makers. Linux has very good gaming infrastructure with OpenGL, SDL, and OpenAL... it's just that most game makers don't bother to write games based on those components. Actually, the game engine makers are probably more to blame, but that's a whole other topic.
Problem is that Linux server market is growing on shrinking of Unix server base.
That's no longer true, I've seen a lot of "new" Linux based deployments that weren't simply based on UNIX displacements. Conversely, the new Windows deployments I've seen are those where 3rd party support for Linux is still lacking. In the market I deal in, telecom/isp, Linux currently has a numerical lead over Windows in new deployments. For the distro watchers, it's still RHEL by a wide margin, with the occasional SLES but SLES still has some ground to make up on 3rd party certifications.
even as a US citizen you can't just move to Canada to get a better deal on employment
That's not really true. Under the Canada/US FTA, all you need is a job offer to move and work between the countries if you're a citizen of either Canada or the US. Mind you, that only applies for "skilled" job categories last I heard.
I don't know if YOU'RE trolling, but wtf does "Linux doesn't seem set up to save power" mean? Novell's SuSE Linux comes will CPU frequency scaling and suspend to RAM enabled. My laptop battery consistently lasts LONGER on flights than my co-workers who use Windows. Besides all that, Linux is just the kernel, it has facilities for throttling CPU and disks sleeping, it's up to the packager to use them.
All my customers use Microsoft because the software is easy to use and is stable enough for their purposes. In fact, we haven't had one service call for thousands of desktops for a Microsoft add-on application in about 2 years, other than installation. We have repeated calls for OpenOffice mostly because of memory problems and a reboot is enough to cure it
That's not exactly true, the BIOS also provides all your I/O services. So you may want to have more granular control of that I/O for example. You may also want to provide features that don't exist in OEM firmware such as remote BIOS management for headless servers. There are several potential benefits on the server, but you're right in that 99% of desktop users wouldn't have much interest in this beyond potential performance gains.
Being a monopoly is not unethical or immoral. The Sherman Act was not enacted to prevent or dismantle monopolies that are good corporate citizens. There are plenty of examples of regional monopolies that never have any consumer issues. The problem is monopolies who *abuse* their position to *stiffle* the free market. The free market is about providing consumers with the most valuable product, not working against your competition to prevent them from even having a chance to get their product to market. If you want to live in Soviet Russia where there's 1 kind of toilet paper, and 1 kinda of coffee, knock yourself out, I like the free market
Except that RedHat's market cap is $3.4B, so they can't sell the company for $500M. Even if they didn't sell the company but sold the product off, their revenue is $280M/yr, all derived from Linux. Assuming a quick 5 year turnaround to jump onto BSD and return to similar revenue numbers, they'd need $1.5B to simply break even. $500M is just not enough for a company the size of RH to change course like that. Now with a smaller distro like Ubuntu or Linspire, that's probably a compelling offer.
I have to agree with you there... heck... the Hitachi Gigabeat (essentially the Zune minus the decal) has been out for a while and it's certainly no iPod killer. The Zune will have the same margin of success as the Mercury Mountaineer has compared to the Ford Explorer. Note to MS marketing, the next killer gadget will never be a rebranded existing gadget, early adopters simply don't work that way.
BSD license == zarro protection against MS taking the Java sources and releasing an MS only version of Java again, the GPL will prevent this since it's so against their DNA to truly release code.
BG was one of 3 contributors to the Altair BASIC code base, he did not write it by himself. Paul Allen was the one with the intrinsic knowledge of the Altair platform, having already written an emulator for it. You're right about why Windows became popular though. Ironically, the fact that it turned its back on developers by shutting out the hobbyist segment is what will eventually lead to their downfall.
That's why the numbers are almost always presented as "lost revenue", "lost sales", or "lost margins". The real fiscal loss is very close to zero, if not zero. There is no accepted accounting methodology I know of to report a lost sale that wouldn't sound the 5 alarm bell at any governmental financial auditing body, so they push their garbage accounting out over PR wires instead. I don't think piracy is right, but imaginary "lost sale" accounting is just as bad since it deceives share holders.
Granted... but you're neglecting the fact that if XP was not "piratable", most people would have likely stuck with their prior version of Windows, not ran out and bought an upgrade.
... and therein lies the problem. The Windows(blank) code base is simply too widespread for a specialized application like this. If they used a stripped down Linux kernel with only the bare essentials for the system in question, no IE, Notepad, or Minesweeper, then it's well within the realm of capability for a small team to review every single line of code. It may have made sense in the Win on DOS days, but the current MS arch is far over engineered for these types of applications.
Granted, but the key is getting one's source code INTO the kernel tree. So who writes the software is indeed irrelevant, but who has the social network / committer privs / respect to get Oracle's source code put into the kernel is highly relevant.
Yes it does... at least until hypothermia sets in and you die... then you burn far less calories then after swimming in warm water. Joking aside, I'm pretty sure that our metabolisms slow down when the body is exposed to cold, so the questions do the extra calories burned via shivering offset the metbolic slowdown? Be pretty tough to measure I'd imagine!
Despite Slashdot folklore, the whole "secret APIs make Microsoft software work better with Windows" has never been more than an urban legend.
As a former Windows programmer, I can assure you that there were many undocumented, aka. secret, aka. internal, API calls which provided functionality not available in any of the documented Windows APIs. I'm speaking from a W2K perspective, which I assume also carried forward to XP. This may have changed in Vista, but I'd be very surprised if there were no undocumented APIs, especially since in the McAf/Sym case there are now documenting a previously undocumented API. Now, as for making MS software work *better* than 3rd party software... that's an urban legend... it may have more *functionality*, but certainly not work *better*.
Income Tax. For US citizens, the government has a tax for your worldwide income.
True enough, however, that means players can now deduct ISP costs, game purchase prices, monthly access fees, computer equipment depreciation, etc from their income tax since these are all required to make money in an online world. The gov is salivating all over the income potential without thinking about the THEN fully deductible costs associated with earning said income!
Slashdot Mirror
I'm guessing you're right ... EA has never given a poo (for the kids out there) about non-DirectX based platforms. In a strange bit of coincidence, I haven't purchased an EA title since 1998 and I can guarantee that that will not change until they're have a change of heart. It would take a gun to my head and a few broken appendages ... or barring that, an insane amount of money ... to get me to run Windows ever again.
I don't recall ever seing a game for Linux is CompUSA/Best Buy/Frye's as long as I can remember.
... I bought Quake4, Doom3, UT2004, and NWN at BestBuy and I only run Linux ... granted, I had to download the binary for most of those, but I do run them on Linux only. That said, I only play Enemy Territory regularly, don't think I've run D3, UT2004 or NWN in well over a year. However, I put my money where my mouth is. If Bioware puts out a Linux game, I will buy it. It's not a huge financial strain to purchase all Linux games right now since they're pretty few and far between.
Well
picked up a 60" LCD TV for a mere $2800. Note that this wasn't a low-end one - this was the high-end Sony XBR2 SXRD model.
That's not really comparable to a plasma TV since you're talking about an LCD projection TV, not an LCD flat panel. A fair comparison is that a 60" plasma is about $7K while a 65" flat panel LCD (couldn't find any 60") is about $8.5K. Back on the greater topic, personally, I prefer the image of plasma's to LCDs right now simply because of the image blurring. I watch mostly hockey and the bright colors on a white background makes for a lot of blur on the LCDs I've watched games on. On that note, I think LCDs will win out over plasma's if they get ghosting issues figured out -or- if they present such a price advantage that ghosting becomes tolerable.
Interesting ... I really dislike chocolate. I've disliked it since I was very young. The best I can tell people is that it has a medicine-ish taste to me that is really unenjoyable. Restaurant desert menus really suck if you don't like chocolate, although apparently I'm in a small minority of the population. Your post got me thinking and apparently there's a genetic basis for this with regards to being able to pickup the taste of a normally tasteless chemical (couldn't pin down the name) found in chocolate. Anyhow, all that to say that I can pickup the (nasty) taste of chocolate at trace level quantities, so I'm not surprised if it affects some people in a negative way!
No to be jerk, but "games support" has to come from the game makers, not the os makers. Linux has very good gaming infrastructure with OpenGL, SDL, and OpenAL ... it's just that most game makers don't bother to write games based on those components. Actually, the game engine makers are probably more to blame, but that's a whole other topic.
Problem is that Linux server market is growing on shrinking of Unix server base.
That's no longer true, I've seen a lot of "new" Linux based deployments that weren't simply based on UNIX displacements. Conversely, the new Windows deployments I've seen are those where 3rd party support for Linux is still lacking. In the market I deal in, telecom/isp, Linux currently has a numerical lead over Windows in new deployments. For the distro watchers, it's still RHEL by a wide margin, with the occasional SLES but SLES still has some ground to make up on 3rd party certifications.
It will only take a small number of stories like this before IT managers around the world take the decision not to look at Linux at all.
... believe me ... on the server side, Linux is on every IT manager's mind, at least in the isp/telecom market.
That's only on the desktop
even as a US citizen you can't just move to Canada to get a better deal on employment
That's not really true. Under the Canada/US FTA, all you need is a job offer to move and work between the countries if you're a citizen of either Canada or the US. Mind you, that only applies for "skilled" job categories last I heard.
I don't know if YOU'RE trolling, but wtf does "Linux doesn't seem set up to save power" mean? Novell's SuSE Linux comes will CPU frequency scaling and suspend to RAM enabled. My laptop battery consistently lasts LONGER on flights than my co-workers who use Windows. Besides all that, Linux is just the kernel, it has facilities for throttling CPU and disks sleeping, it's up to the packager to use them.
All my customers use Microsoft because the software is easy to use and is stable enough for their purposes. In fact, we haven't had one service call for thousands of desktops for a Microsoft add-on application in about 2 years, other than installation. We have repeated calls for OpenOffice mostly because of memory problems and a reboot is enough to cure it
Busted!!! Lie much?
That's not exactly true, the BIOS also provides all your I/O services. So you may want to have more granular control of that I/O for example. You may also want to provide features that don't exist in OEM firmware such as remote BIOS management for headless servers. There are several potential benefits on the server, but you're right in that 99% of desktop users wouldn't have much interest in this beyond potential performance gains.
Being a monopoly is not unethical or immoral. The Sherman Act was not enacted to prevent or dismantle monopolies that are good corporate citizens. There are plenty of examples of regional monopolies that never have any consumer issues. The problem is monopolies who *abuse* their position to *stiffle* the free market. The free market is about providing consumers with the most valuable product, not working against your competition to prevent them from even having a chance to get their product to market. If you want to live in Soviet Russia where there's 1 kind of toilet paper, and 1 kinda of coffee, knock yourself out, I like the free market
Except that RedHat's market cap is $3.4B, so they can't sell the company for $500M. Even if they didn't sell the company but sold the product off, their revenue is $280M/yr, all derived from Linux. Assuming a quick 5 year turnaround to jump onto BSD and return to similar revenue numbers, they'd need $1.5B to simply break even. $500M is just not enough for a company the size of RH to change course like that. Now with a smaller distro like Ubuntu or Linspire, that's probably a compelling offer.
I have to agree with you there ... heck ... the Hitachi Gigabeat (essentially the Zune minus the decal) has been out for a while and it's certainly no iPod killer. The Zune will have the same margin of success as the Mercury Mountaineer has compared to the Ford Explorer. Note to MS marketing, the next killer gadget will never be a rebranded existing gadget, early adopters simply don't work that way.
BSD license == zarro protection against MS taking the Java sources and releasing an MS only version of Java again, the GPL will prevent this since it's so against their DNA to truly release code.
BG was one of 3 contributors to the Altair BASIC code base, he did not write it by himself. Paul Allen was the one with the intrinsic knowledge of the Altair platform, having already written an emulator for it. You're right about why Windows became popular though. Ironically, the fact that it turned its back on developers by shutting out the hobbyist segment is what will eventually lead to their downfall.
Wow, that's so 2005, IE now has under 75% market share and falling. MSIE market share is even lower in Europe.
That's why the numbers are almost always presented as "lost revenue", "lost sales", or "lost margins". The real fiscal loss is very close to zero, if not zero. There is no accepted accounting methodology I know of to report a lost sale that wouldn't sound the 5 alarm bell at any governmental financial auditing body, so they push their garbage accounting out over PR wires instead. I don't think piracy is right, but imaginary "lost sale" accounting is just as bad since it deceives share holders.
Granted ... but you're neglecting the fact that if XP was not "piratable", most people would have likely stuck with their prior version of Windows, not ran out and bought an upgrade.
Floppies!!! Pffffft, I remember when viruses were spread via punch cards. The nasty HangingChad2000.pdp8 virus immediately springs to mind!!!
... and therein lies the problem. The Windows(blank) code base is simply too widespread for a specialized application like this. If they used a stripped down Linux kernel with only the bare essentials for the system in question, no IE, Notepad, or Minesweeper, then it's well within the realm of capability for a small team to review every single line of code. It may have made sense in the Win on DOS days, but the current MS arch is far over engineered for these types of applications.
Granted, but the key is getting one's source code INTO the kernel tree. So who writes the software is indeed irrelevant, but who has the social network / committer privs / respect to get Oracle's source code put into the kernel is highly relevant.
Yes it does ... at least until hypothermia sets in and you die ... then you burn far less calories then after swimming in warm water. Joking aside, I'm pretty sure that our metabolisms slow down when the body is exposed to cold, so the questions do the extra calories burned via shivering offset the metbolic slowdown? Be pretty tough to measure I'd imagine!
Despite Slashdot folklore, the whole "secret APIs make Microsoft software work better with Windows" has never been more than an urban legend.
... that's an urban legend ... it may have more *functionality*, but certainly not work *better*.
As a former Windows programmer, I can assure you that there were many undocumented, aka. secret, aka. internal, API calls which provided functionality not available in any of the documented Windows APIs. I'm speaking from a W2K perspective, which I assume also carried forward to XP. This may have changed in Vista, but I'd be very surprised if there were no undocumented APIs, especially since in the McAf/Sym case there are now documenting a previously undocumented API. Now, as for making MS software work *better* than 3rd party software
Income Tax. For US citizens, the government has a tax for your worldwide income.
True enough, however, that means players can now deduct ISP costs, game purchase prices, monthly access fees, computer equipment depreciation, etc from their income tax since these are all required to make money in an online world. The gov is salivating all over the income potential without thinking about the THEN fully deductible costs associated with earning said income!