I used to play some MUD's online, but i got bored with all of them after 2-3 weeks of playing. Only bash-for-the-exp games i have ever liked is Nethack and Adom.
Except for our very own MUD, it was run from my computer on school network. There rule of the game was: Do not kill the MUD. =)
Every single player had ability to do anything in the MUD, that means everyone could code whatever they wanted. It was really hilarious. People greated short text-adventure houses for others to play. We had Chess etc. in it for small gaming. And the hilarious part: Custom made animals and weapons...giant human-dragons who are drunk on the streets.. lightsabers.. anything! We were all Neo's on this game =)
Not really traditional MUD, and propably would not work on a public server. But when everyone knew each other we could amuse ourselves for a very long time. Too bad i don't have any of that stuff on my HD anymore..
At the office:
Worker turns computer on. And picks up the newest memo. It turns out that the network is down for the morning. "Well, i can work without the internet." says the unknowing worker. But the computer doesn't agree, and launches NUCLEAR STRIKE!.. or just wipes the harddrive.
How is this system going to proceed if the network is down. If it does nothing, what is stopping thief's from using the computer without the internet?
And this: "We'll erase your precious information that can't leak ANYWHERE.. you have backups don't you?"... "Well, if you don't have backups just use our FirstWare Recover Pro, an application built into BIOS and the hard drive that lets users restore the machine's drive image without requiring a boot disk or recovery CD." (the program is announced at the bottom of one of the articles)
I have done quite a lot of reverse-engineering stuff. Assembler really isn't that hard, nor is reading disassembled programs. Just use a debugger or string-search in the disassembled code to find the place you want to modify. Study the piece a bit and change it. What makes it _really_ easy is library calls, that will show in the code as "call printf". With this technique i have added, removed and patched a lot of features in different programs (removed splash-screens(yes, some legal apps use this annoying feature), removing ugly skinning of programs windows etc.).
Yes, when i last checked this was all legal in Finland.
For bigger patching this could be really useful.. but for that purpose there are open source programs;)
There you go, http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~quintela/supermoun t/ -- just add that patch to your kernel. Or use Mandrake kernel (or Mandrake itself if you want "easy to use" -distro). It's all free and happy pappy, so nobody is pissing against the wind.
We have Linux Standards Base -project, maybe we should also have Linux Developers Standards Base -project which defines how you should use/develop libraries and plugins in your projects so you can interoperate with multiple standards.
So if you develop a Mail User Agent it could read all of the mailbox-standards by using the default libraries for these. (technically possible? definitely. hard? harder..)
Ofcourse it should define other standards too: configuration files, commandline parameter styles.. everything that is common with software. But there should be some freedoms due to the nature of OSS-development like freedom to use any GUI-library etc.
There would be a lot of fights over the standards, yes. But it might be worth it in some cases. I can see a few problem cases with this, but it could be useful in many common situations.
The twisted part:
OSS-developers usually wants to code everything by themselves, even if there is a library that does something for you.. they still tend to code one by themselves because the library misses one feature or something. Just add the feature to the library, don't create your own! (From this we will come by the problem of library developer not accepting your addition to the library... try to discuss about it.. why it is useful addition etc.)
OSS-users usually wants to use software that doesn't have a lot of libraries. Have you ever begun to install some software and noticed that it is going to install 20 libraries in addition? Scary huh? We should change our mindsets, repeat with me: "Libraries are good, libraries will liberate us."
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I used to play some MUD's online, but i got bored with all of them after 2-3 weeks of playing. Only bash-for-the-exp games i have ever liked is Nethack and Adom.
..giant human-dragons who are drunk on the streets.. lightsabers.. anything! We were all Neo's on this game =)
Except for our very own MUD, it was run from my computer on school network. There rule of the game was: Do not kill the MUD. =)
Every single player had ability to do anything in the MUD, that means everyone could code whatever they wanted. It was really hilarious. People greated short text-adventure houses for others to play. We had Chess etc. in it for small gaming. And the hilarious part: Custom made animals and weapons.
Not really traditional MUD, and propably would not work on a public server. But when everyone knew each other we could amuse ourselves for a very long time. Too bad i don't have any of that stuff on my HD anymore..
Anyone else had something like this?
At the office: Worker turns computer on. And picks up the newest memo. It turns out that the network is down for the morning. "Well, i can work without the internet." says the unknowing worker. But the computer doesn't agree, and launches NUCLEAR STRIKE!.. or just wipes the harddrive.
... "Well, if you don't have backups just use our FirstWare Recover Pro, an application built into BIOS and the hard drive that lets users restore the machine's drive image without requiring a boot disk or recovery CD." (the program is announced at the bottom of one of the articles)
How is this system going to proceed if the network is down. If it does nothing, what is stopping thief's from using the computer without the internet?
And this: "We'll erase your precious information that can't leak ANYWHERE.. you have backups don't you?"
That's some heavy-weight security for sure!
I have done quite a lot of reverse-engineering stuff. Assembler really isn't that hard, nor is reading disassembled programs. Just use a debugger or string-search in the disassembled code to find the place you want to modify. Study the piece a bit and change it. What makes it _really_ easy is library calls, that will show in the code as "call printf". With this technique i have added, removed and patched a lot of features in different programs (removed splash-screens(yes, some legal apps use this annoying feature), removing ugly skinning of programs windows etc.).
;)
Yes, when i last checked this was all legal in Finland.
For bigger patching this could be really useful.. but for that purpose there are open source programs
There you go, http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~quintela/supermoun t/ -- just add that patch to your kernel. Or use Mandrake kernel (or Mandrake itself if you want "easy to use" -distro). It's all free and happy pappy, so nobody is pissing against the wind.
We have Linux Standards Base -project, maybe we should also have Linux Developers Standards Base -project which defines how you should use/develop libraries and plugins in your projects so you can interoperate with multiple standards.
So if you develop a Mail User Agent it could read all of the mailbox-standards by using the default libraries for these. (technically possible? definitely. hard? harder..)
Ofcourse it should define other standards too: configuration files, commandline parameter styles.. everything that is common with software. But there should be some freedoms due to the nature of OSS-development like freedom to use any GUI-library etc.
There would be a lot of fights over the standards, yes. But it might be worth it in some cases. I can see a few problem cases with this, but it could be useful in many common situations.
The twisted part:
OSS-developers usually wants to code everything by themselves, even if there is a library that does something for you.. they still tend to code one by themselves because the library misses one feature or something. Just add the feature to the library, don't create your own! (From this we will come by the problem of library developer not accepting your addition to the library... try to discuss about it.. why it is useful addition etc.)
OSS-users usually wants to use software that doesn't have a lot of libraries. Have you ever begun to install some software and noticed that it is going to install 20 libraries in addition? Scary huh? We should change our mindsets, repeat with me: "Libraries are good, libraries will liberate us."