This becomes a hard guarantee to make. As a poster above stated, it can take millions to produce a relatively small amount of bug-free code. Not that it is impossible. It is costly and time-consuming, but certainly possible. Doing an analysis between the costs of bug fixes and shipping a bug-free product might provide more insight, but then again, there's the issue of what caused the bug. Was it a platform issue? Was an interaction with other software? Was it an untested configuration? We might begin to see shorter lists of supported platforms, and hear more responses stating that software is not supported on that configuration, so there is no guarantee. I do not think someone should knowingly ship flawed software, but I do think that some bugs will always be found after the software has been "in the wild".
While a number of coders could be responsible for a software defect, it would be the responsibility of a given software project to correct that defect in a timely and effective manner. The reliance on an open source application can be guaranteed in part through support contracts, but simple ethics would dictate that the developers should hold themselves accountable for the final product. I wrote an essay (Liability, Reliability, and Safety) that briefly touches on this topic back in 2007.
One point that I argue is "[c]ompanies must constantly look at their level of liability and manage the reliability and safety of their systems. Spinello discusses some issues of reliability such as software 'bugs' which are an inherent problem with any piece of software and are to be expected, within reason. However, the programmers of the software are expected to assume the responsibility for providing fixes for the bugs and improving upon the existing code."
The problem lies in defining what "knowingly" means. After all, "software vendors know that the nature of software guarantees a certain amount of bugs thereby raises the risk to the vendor. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that any crippling system bugs would be removed from the final release product. Asking software vendors to assume some liability would help to drive the quality of the software upward."
Ironically enough, I ask the question at the close of my arguments: "From a legal perspective, the United States has some way to go to resolve the problem of liability, especially in the software industry. Software products and systems are not only used to process secure transactions and enable consumers to manipulate data, but they are also used in environments where human lives are at stake and sensitive private data is handled by many different people at all hours of the day. Negative feedback has been proven to work less effectively than positive feedback when dealing with the human psyche, but should software vendors be offered incentives to provide better offerings and assume more liability, or should they be forced to accept a minimum level of responsibility by law and an increasing amount of accountability based upon the industry and the application of the product?"
So, in the case of open source software, should an application targeted at the medical industry be more liable than an application that serves personal media on the Internet? While I would like to see more open source software used in more organizations, I believe that as things stand now, service level agreements and quality of support on standard platforms play a large role in determining whether or not to use an open source application.
As for the risk of litigation,where does the onus of responsibility fall when there is no corporate entity? Does the owner of the individual project become the liable one?
It won't be long before Microsoft changes the Word UI to using a main toolbox and multiple customizable, tear-able, collapsible palettes similar to the Adobe Photoshop or GIMP interfaces. After all, when so much functionality is packed into an application, there are only so many functions you can show on the screen at once. Ever try turning on all the toolbars in Word 2003 or older? Was similar to the ribbon UI, but took up far more vertical screen real estate. The ribbon is bound to grow, too, or will just turn into a nicely skinned, context sensitive, menu bar, which is what it appears to be in Office 2010.
As a former subscriber to Asheron's Call 2, I was disappointed to see that game go for a particular social aspect that goes unrecognized and unimplemented in other MMOGs - the music system.
As a beta tester, you can imagine my delight at finding out that Turbine had added a similar system to LoTRO. I am now a paying subscriber based upon this one feature that I feel adds depth to the world and serves as a great community building tool.
Could you expound upon the music system and its implementation as well as future plans for the system?
Along with the speculation in the article, I have to simply speculate that the contract is for phones to be sold in another market, such as Europe. Or it could be a minor revision boost to coincide with new iPod revisions or some other flash-based announcement that Apple may make. From a business perspective, I have to think it is the former. I'm still interested to see the first revision of the iPhone on store shelves before I start worrying about a second revision.
But since Exchange only recently exceeded Notes, wouldn't it be fair to say that Ray Ozzie can bring his expertise to the table and make Exchange that much better? I think that's one of the improvements we'll see.
But if I were to take the book and reprint it under another name and ad a few chapters of my own and then proceed to sell it? Does open source not advocate this sort of use of source code? Are we speaking specifically of GNU or are we talking true open-source? I appreciate the replies and I understand those aspects, but while you can reference another's material in the book world, you can never legally profit from it. Also, open source licensing is ripe to turn into a quagmire of different types and freedom's of use. Is this better or worse? Does it cause more or less litigation? As was stated, this has been discussed many times. Just some more thoughts on the matter. "Open source" as it is touted is not the utopian answer to our problems. It has a bundle of problems on its own.
"If you play more than one SOE game, or you want to try the other great SOE games available, SOE All Access opens the SOE game catalog to you.
SOE All Access grants access to all current games published by SOE*, which includes:
EverQuest®
EverQuest® Macintosh Edition
PlanetSide
EverQuest® Online Adventures
Station Pass access, which includes the popular games Infantry Online, Cosmic Rift and Tanarus
Full access to these games for the low monthly subscription price of $21.99 is a potential savings of more than $18.00 every month over the total cost of the individual subscriptions!"
PlayNC (NCSoft) does not offer such a deal but is a central site for managing your online game subscriptions and I imagine once Guild Wars, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault and others are released, we may start to see some special offers from them as well.
Skotos has been offering this type of service for a long time. For one monthly fee you can access and play all 11 of the games that they offer. Only 2 are graphical MMOGs (Meridian 59 and Underlight), but the other games are very good as well.
The largest factor in offering multiple "A list" titles for one monthly fee is offsetting development (and in the case of MMOGs, maintenance) costs and bringing in enough revenue to show a good profit. The bottom line is always a driving factor in any business. However, there is hope. As technology moves forward, we will start to see more and more rapid development of MMOGs of higher quality and consequently we should start to see a wider array of offerings and price points.
I also agree that some sports games should start to appear on the scene. XBox Live will probably be a driving factor to this more than anything. Playing football online against other players is quite fun and should prove to be very popular considering the amount of sports console games sold. Now, as to whether that genre will move to PC is yet to be seen, but as I mentioned before, in SOE's All Access Pass, they combine online console and PC subscriptions into one package. A diverse product line benefits them in this case. More comapnies need to grow in the genre and diversify at the same time, but that takes time and money. Soon though... very soon.
To some, micromanagement in a RTS game is tedium. I am one of those people. Consequently, I don't bother playing the game at all. But those who may automate the task do so to alleviate that bit of tedium so they can concentrate on the fun portions (or so that they can win, although using an external tool to alleviate tedium is actually just cheating to increase the odds of winning, but I digress).
A fun game lacks tedium. I do not automate my moves in a chess match because I am having fun when I play. Mind you, this is just in comparing a game (chess) to a game (a computer-based RTS), and I understand that it's apples to oranges if we start to involve elements of each game. But in a RTS computer game, shouldn't the gameplay be fun and engaging enough that the player will want or need to be involved in every aspect? Does chess not involve strategy? Just some thoughts on that.
As to the lack of solutions in that rebuttal, I can probably guess why that is the case. Raph Koster is the CCO (Chief Creative Officer) of SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) these days. He's making plenty of money and he busted his ass to earn that position. In terms of creativity though,some people are hesitant to share their ideas for solutions not because they may come under equal criticism, but because there is money to be made from good ideas. Koster did not share his money-making ideas until after he had earned his money from them. I wouldn't expect free solutions from anyone, especially not in the capitalist societies of today. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
With the announcement of IBM's new per user subscription model web applications (last week, was it?), I can see how this is a certain possibility. What better way to promote platform independence than to market an alternate operating system AND show off your new web apps in use on it? Intelligent marketing for Big Blue.
Spice? Several Dune MUDs are in existence and the whole of that world revolves around an addictive substance. Why should gleam be viewed as any different than melange? Certainly introducing an addictive substance that has benefits into a society is going to cause changes to that society, but it will make for an interesting experiement. I think I need to start playing Achaea again just to see what happens.
Yahoo! has owned Inktomi since March of 2003 so the name change is cosmetic issue. As to dropping Google, it was only a matter of time. I'm thinking Yahoo!'s Paid Inclusion Services to their search engine technology is making a tidy profit. The problem? Their search technology still doesn't appear to be as reliable, accurate or quick as Google.
keyboards are the next bit of technology that need to be brought into the 21st century. While they have come a long way, you'd think we'd have some more intuitive device to use by now. I think the concentration isn't in the right area with respect to keyboards. I'm thinking light sensor keyboard that could project on any smooth surface.
So now that the "dot bomb" is well behind us and the last trailing viscera are being mopped up, can we expect to see corporations returning to the pampered employees routine that helps build health clubs, airlines and spas? Fascinating, but... I'm not sold just yet.
If Mozilla surpasses IE in the next couple years, do you think AOL will try to bail on Microsoft? This could get interesting. The litigation is over for now so the browser wars must begin again... as if they ever ended.
You may want to check out The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It's a cross of sci-fi, sociology and anthropology all wrapped up in a neat little fiction-style novel. Quite an interesting read and as some parts can be quite disturbing at times, you might put it down more than once and come back to it later. It should certainly fill your summer and is worth reading. It will spark alot of thought for you.
everything be a conspiracy to people? It's a legal contract for goodness sake. A long one albeit, but identical to almost every other EULA out there. Hell, it's a combination of all EULA's!
Slashdot Mirror
This becomes a hard guarantee to make. As a poster above stated, it can take millions to produce a relatively small amount of bug-free code. Not that it is impossible. It is costly and time-consuming, but certainly possible. Doing an analysis between the costs of bug fixes and shipping a bug-free product might provide more insight, but then again, there's the issue of what caused the bug. Was it a platform issue? Was an interaction with other software? Was it an untested configuration? We might begin to see shorter lists of supported platforms, and hear more responses stating that software is not supported on that configuration, so there is no guarantee. I do not think someone should knowingly ship flawed software, but I do think that some bugs will always be found after the software has been "in the wild".
While a number of coders could be responsible for a software defect, it would be the responsibility of a given software project to correct that defect in a timely and effective manner. The reliance on an open source application can be guaranteed in part through support contracts, but simple ethics would dictate that the developers should hold themselves accountable for the final product. I wrote an essay (Liability, Reliability, and Safety) that briefly touches on this topic back in 2007.
One point that I argue is "[c]ompanies must constantly look at their level of liability and manage the reliability and safety of their systems. Spinello discusses some issues of reliability such as software 'bugs' which are an inherent problem with any piece of software and are to be expected, within reason. However, the programmers of the software are expected to assume the responsibility for providing fixes for the bugs and improving upon the existing code."
The problem lies in defining what "knowingly" means. After all, "software vendors know that the nature of software guarantees a certain amount of bugs thereby raises the risk to the vendor. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that any crippling system bugs would be removed from the final release product. Asking software vendors to assume some liability would help to drive the quality of the software upward."
Ironically enough, I ask the question at the close of my arguments: "From a legal perspective, the United States has some way to go to resolve the problem of liability, especially in the software industry. Software products and systems are not only used to process secure transactions and enable consumers to manipulate data, but they are also used in environments where human lives are at stake and sensitive private data is handled by many different people at all hours of the day. Negative feedback has been proven to work less effectively than positive feedback when dealing with the human psyche, but should software vendors be offered incentives to provide better offerings and assume more liability, or should they be forced to accept a minimum level of responsibility by law and an increasing amount of accountability based upon the industry and the application of the product?"
So, in the case of open source software, should an application targeted at the medical industry be more liable than an application that serves personal media on the Internet? While I would like to see more open source software used in more organizations, I believe that as things stand now, service level agreements and quality of support on standard platforms play a large role in determining whether or not to use an open source application.
As for the risk of litigation,where does the onus of responsibility fall when there is no corporate entity? Does the owner of the individual project become the liable one?
It won't be long before Microsoft changes the Word UI to using a main toolbox and multiple customizable, tear-able, collapsible palettes similar to the Adobe Photoshop or GIMP interfaces. After all, when so much functionality is packed into an application, there are only so many functions you can show on the screen at once. Ever try turning on all the toolbars in Word 2003 or older? Was similar to the ribbon UI, but took up far more vertical screen real estate. The ribbon is bound to grow, too, or will just turn into a nicely skinned, context sensitive, menu bar, which is what it appears to be in Office 2010.
As a former subscriber to Asheron's Call 2, I was disappointed to see that game go for a particular social aspect that goes unrecognized and unimplemented in other MMOGs - the music system. As a beta tester, you can imagine my delight at finding out that Turbine had added a similar system to LoTRO. I am now a paying subscriber based upon this one feature that I feel adds depth to the world and serves as a great community building tool. Could you expound upon the music system and its implementation as well as future plans for the system?
Along with the speculation in the article, I have to simply speculate that the contract is for phones to be sold in another market, such as Europe. Or it could be a minor revision boost to coincide with new iPod revisions or some other flash-based announcement that Apple may make. From a business perspective, I have to think it is the former. I'm still interested to see the first revision of the iPhone on store shelves before I start worrying about a second revision.
Good point. The Tigers are from Detroit, no?
But since Exchange only recently exceeded Notes, wouldn't it be fair to say that Ray Ozzie can bring his expertise to the table and make Exchange that much better? I think that's one of the improvements we'll see.
How many people run Red Hat Enterprise 3 at home? Did you bother to read the article?
But if I were to take the book and reprint it under another name and ad a few chapters of my own and then proceed to sell it? Does open source not advocate this sort of use of source code? Are we speaking specifically of GNU or are we talking true open-source? I appreciate the replies and I understand those aspects, but while you can reference another's material in the book world, you can never legally profit from it. Also, open source licensing is ripe to turn into a quagmire of different types and freedom's of use. Is this better or worse? Does it cause more or less litigation? As was stated, this has been discussed many times. Just some more thoughts on the matter. "Open source" as it is touted is not the utopian answer to our problems. It has a bundle of problems on its own.
An open source advocate won't just give away the book for free. So why again should source code be made free? Just a thought.
SOE currently offers their All Access Pass :
"If you play more than one SOE game, or you want to try the other great SOE games available, SOE All Access opens the SOE game catalog to you.
SOE All Access grants access to all current games published by SOE*, which includes: EverQuest® EverQuest® Macintosh Edition PlanetSide EverQuest® Online Adventures Station Pass access, which includes the popular games Infantry Online, Cosmic Rift and Tanarus
Full access to these games for the low monthly subscription price of $21.99 is a potential savings of more than $18.00 every month over the total cost of the individual subscriptions!"
PlayNC (NCSoft) does not offer such a deal but is a central site for managing your online game subscriptions and I imagine once Guild Wars, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault and others are released, we may start to see some special offers from them as well.
Skotos has been offering this type of service for a long time. For one monthly fee you can access and play all 11 of the games that they offer. Only 2 are graphical MMOGs (Meridian 59 and Underlight), but the other games are very good as well.
The largest factor in offering multiple "A list" titles for one monthly fee is offsetting development (and in the case of MMOGs, maintenance) costs and bringing in enough revenue to show a good profit. The bottom line is always a driving factor in any business. However, there is hope. As technology moves forward, we will start to see more and more rapid development of MMOGs of higher quality and consequently we should start to see a wider array of offerings and price points.
I also agree that some sports games should start to appear on the scene. XBox Live will probably be a driving factor to this more than anything. Playing football online against other players is quite fun and should prove to be very popular considering the amount of sports console games sold. Now, as to whether that genre will move to PC is yet to be seen, but as I mentioned before, in SOE's All Access Pass, they combine online console and PC subscriptions into one package. A diverse product line benefits them in this case. More comapnies need to grow in the genre and diversify at the same time, but that takes time and money. Soon though... very soon.
To some, micromanagement in a RTS game is tedium. I am one of those people. Consequently, I don't bother playing the game at all. But those who may automate the task do so to alleviate that bit of tedium so they can concentrate on the fun portions (or so that they can win, although using an external tool to alleviate tedium is actually just cheating to increase the odds of winning, but I digress).
A fun game lacks tedium. I do not automate my moves in a chess match because I am having fun when I play. Mind you, this is just in comparing a game (chess) to a game (a computer-based RTS), and I understand that it's apples to oranges if we start to involve elements of each game. But in a RTS computer game, shouldn't the gameplay be fun and engaging enough that the player will want or need to be involved in every aspect? Does chess not involve strategy? Just some thoughts on that.
As to the lack of solutions in that rebuttal, I can probably guess why that is the case. Raph Koster is the CCO (Chief Creative Officer) of SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) these days. He's making plenty of money and he busted his ass to earn that position. In terms of creativity though,some people are hesitant to share their ideas for solutions not because they may come under equal criticism, but because there is money to be made from good ideas. Koster did not share his money-making ideas until after he had earned his money from them. I wouldn't expect free solutions from anyone, especially not in the capitalist societies of today. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
With the announcement of IBM's new per user subscription model web applications (last week, was it?), I can see how this is a certain possibility. What better way to promote platform independence than to market an alternate operating system AND show off your new web apps in use on it? Intelligent marketing for Big Blue.
Spice? Several Dune MUDs are in existence and the whole of that world revolves around an addictive substance. Why should gleam be viewed as any different than melange? Certainly introducing an addictive substance that has benefits into a society is going to cause changes to that society, but it will make for an interesting experiement. I think I need to start playing Achaea again just to see what happens.
Yahoo! has owned Inktomi since March of 2003 so the name change is cosmetic issue. As to dropping Google, it was only a matter of time. I'm thinking Yahoo!'s Paid Inclusion Services to their search engine technology is making a tidy profit. The problem? Their search technology still doesn't appear to be as reliable, accurate or quick as Google.
I guess that's one way to dash Microsoft's evil plan.
I have games installed on my PC for just such occasions. The only problem: I'm a technical support rep. :\
Excellent. That's exactly what I was thinking of, but perhaps still a bit large in terms of the hardware involved.
keyboards are the next bit of technology that need to be brought into the 21st century. While they have come a long way, you'd think we'd have some more intuitive device to use by now. I think the concentration isn't in the right area with respect to keyboards. I'm thinking light sensor keyboard that could project on any smooth surface.
So now that the "dot bomb" is well behind us and the last trailing viscera are being mopped up, can we expect to see corporations returning to the pampered employees routine that helps build health clubs, airlines and spas? Fascinating, but... I'm not sold just yet.
Aha! So /. pulls a Microsoft. Subscribe for the win!
If Mozilla surpasses IE in the next couple years, do you think AOL will try to bail on Microsoft? This could get interesting. The litigation is over for now so the browser wars must begin again... as if they ever ended.
Quality, free 3D FPS games. What is the world coming... I smell armageddon.
You may want to check out The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It's a cross of sci-fi, sociology and anthropology all wrapped up in a neat little fiction-style novel. Quite an interesting read and as some parts can be quite disturbing at times, you might put it down more than once and come back to it later. It should certainly fill your summer and is worth reading. It will spark alot of thought for you.
everything be a conspiracy to people? It's a legal contract for goodness sake. A long one albeit, but identical to almost every other EULA out there. Hell, it's a combination of all EULA's!