I think you only need a license if you intend to distribute software, not if you just plan to use it. The act of buying a copy of a piece of software gives me all the rights I need to use it.
However when you choose to buy a product that DOES come with a license, you choose to abide by that contract as well. There are plenty of products sold with stipulations to them and they are upheld all the time. For example, before Polar will sell you watches for resale, you must agree not to sell them below a particular price.
In this case, the contract is with the end user. Just because you don't like it doesn't give you any legal basis to ignore it. Nor do you have any moral ground to dictate to someone else how they should sell their product.
Copyright largely governs what you can and cannot do with software; clickwrap extensions trying to enforce post-sale contractual obligations are much less certain.
They seem pretty certain to me, being as no one has ever challenged one. You'd think by now some company would take it all the way, get the legality of them thrown out and now be able to use as many copies of the software they choose.
Nevermind that the box does state that there are terms inside to which you must agree to use the product, and you can return the item for a refund. In other words, you know there's a license when you buy it, and you are given an oppurtunity to review the licnese before you use the software. Pretty clear cut to me.
The GPL doesnt extend beyond copyright law, the GPL grants rights the user does not _have_ under copyright law. It's a copyright license, falling back on copyright law. Without the GPL the distributor has no rights to distribute at all.
Being subject to copyright does not exclude the licensing of software. The GPL does go beyond copyright through, because even a substansial rewrite or addition of functionality to code ends up being covered by the license. I could modify GPL code substantally (enough that copyright would protect my work) and yet still be under the licnese of the GPL.
Software clickwrap licenses restrict the user beyond what copyright law does, and try to take away rights the user normally has. Such licenses fall back on contract law, and are in their nature vastly different in their enforcability (the contract has to be found valid at all, the clauses have to be deemed acceptable, etc), and if it isnt found enforcable then the user has all the rights copyright grants them (ie, to use the product any way they deem fit).
Yes, because its valid to license software. Again, if its so shakely legally, why has not a single company attempted to invalidate them? Whether or not something is copyrightable has nothing to do with whether it can also be licensed or not, and we're not talking about copyright, we're talking about licenes (which the GPL is).
Microsoft's licenses try to restrict you from doing things you would otherwise have the right to do. The GPL gives you rights to do things that you would not otherwise have.
What the license grants you is irrelevent. Either you respect other's licenses, or do not request that anyone request yours. To do otherwise is to be hippicritical.
If you don't want to respect the GPL, that's fine, but you'd essentially be a software pirate if you distribute GPL software in violation of its terms. On the flip side, if you violate some of Microsoft's license terms, you might not have done anything illegal at all (running Vista in a VM, for instance).
No, both are the same. The law backs both licenses. If you violate them, you can be sued. Its really that simple, because a license is a contract. You can choose to accept it or not.
So I really do see a huge difference between the two licensing models, and therefore a difference between the nature of respect for them.
So basically your argument its ok to license software when you like the license, but when you don't like the license then its not ok. To me, that is a pretty unreasonable stance to take.
You know before you buy it though that its only expected to work with Vista. Why would you purchase something you think might not work and then complain when it doesn't?
Nothing violates the doctrine of first sale; you are the original purchaser. Whether you like it or not, software is a product that is licensed (just like other products are). If you don't like the license, don't buy the game. Software should be different because there's high cost to create it, and it can easily be copied and thus needs to be protected.
So what? They have not been found to have a monopoly making PC games. They are not using the OS to force people to buy the game... they are attempting to use the game to get people to buy the OS. There's nothing questionable about the legality of this.
I'm sure it can't. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X are completely different architectures, much like the difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.
Yet oddly WinXP can run programs designed for Win98.
That depends on your viewpoint, I guess. No, it's not a human right, but if there's no technical limitation of why an application or game can't run on a given operating system, then the only reason to put an artificial limitation in there is to sell new software.
So what exactly is wrong with the artificial limiation? If they don't want to target WinXP they have no obligation to do so, just as they are not obligated to target Linux or Mac. There's no monopoly issue here either, since MS doesn't have a monopoly on PC games.
Unfortunately, people cannot effectively 'don't buy it' when it comes to Windows. For many, there is no other alternative, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product.
You're full of it. Even Dell will sell you a box without Windows. The don't buy it argument is for the game, in case you're not thinking straight. No one is forced to buy Halo 2 or the other game.
If you don't like the limits of the games' licenses, then don't buy the games.
Software, whether you like it or not, is licensed, unlike a ruler. Stop with stupid analogies, and discuss the topic.
If you don't want to respect their license, that's fine, but then you shouldn't expect them to respect the GPL either.
No where did anyone mention patents in this discussion either. Again, argue the topic at hand, and stop setting up stupid, inacurate strawman arguments.
Is the only way to defend this position with bad analogies or something? If they want to limit themselves to a smaller market, how exactly does that hurt you?
I'm not sure what your point is. In this case, the item in question that the OP suggests you not buy is a game, not an OS. Cry all you want, but you can't claim MS is using its monopoly in games to further leverage its monopoly on OSes, because MS doesn't have a monopoly on games.
No one 'fucked up' their software; they designed a system and a new game chose to use said system. Nothing that worked on XP now breaks on XP because of Vista or the game.
I don't live in a bubble, and you have never met me. And who is "we"? I thought it was just "you"?
Well you certainly come off that way with useless predictions. You also claim to speak for everyone ("nobody except MS is excited about Silverlight"). We would be the developers that don't mindless bash technology that we don't use.
"mindless Linux fanboyism" - I do think a bit and I am a grown up adult, not a "boy".
Again, that's not how you're coming across.
In all honesty, we shall have to wait until silverlight can prove itself, I don't want try detailed predictions. But, I am expecting it to be a flop. As many others have said so here.
Many others here also expected XP to flop,.Net to flop, IIS to flow, Sql Server to flop. You've already tried detailed predictions.. you claimed Silverlight was already dead, without even realizing it wasn't even finished yet.
I don't think many web developers really trust Microsoft, they have played too many tricks with the Internet over the years. MS basically have a bad reputation, and that is the biggest problem for Silverlight adoption amongst web developers.
Yet there are a flood of web developers which develop exclusively on the Microsoft platform. The web developers at the BBC, CBS and MLB all seem to be excited about Silverlight as well, since they are helping MS define the technology.
It's almost as if the word "Microsoft" == "Proprietary".
Again, I have to say your biases are showing through. There are PLENTY of properietary software houses out there; SUN, Oracle, Adobe to name a few, yet no one is screeming how proprietary PDFs are, for example.
They have a huge challenge on their hands to win hearts and minds, if they expect people to come and embrace their technologies, when they are not "forced" to do so.
And they are doing so, and seemlying doing a great job at it. I was won over with.Net. Vista is pretty impressive (and contrary to populare opinion here, its not just a pretty makeover). They chose to focus on security, and they've done a great job of it. Server 2003 has been very secure, as has Vista.
WPF is a huge change on how to build Windows applications, and its very exciting to see that a subset of that is now going to be available for me on the web, without having to learn everything all over again.
You may be right about the release dates, but I have not seen any Silverlight alphas or betas about on the web. I also haven't seen anyone except MS getting excited about it.
Many MS developers are very excited. We can now target, cross browser and cross platform the web with a very rich UI framework. Yes, that may have been done, but the really exciting part is that its built off of WPF, so we can target the web with the same technology that we are going to use to target the Windows desktop. No need to learn everything over again, and we can use code that is already in place as is.
If Silverlight was going to be big, it would be out and about in beta form and used by many websites by now.
Its out in beta now, and there are some big names working with it. Would you release a production site built on beta technology though? I wouldn't.
I'm absolutely sure Silverlight it nothing to worry about. Just let it pass and die out. Or just let MS flog it like at a dead horse.
I advise not to get involved with developing it. If you do, MS will only release a newer and updated version for you to "hack". Such a waste of time!
Keep living in your bubble then, we won't miss you. I build on the MS platform anyway, so I'm not worried about a third party trying to keep up. Perhaps this part of your post is why it was modded a troll. There's not a lot of thought put into it, its more mindless Linux fanboyism.
Why would this be antitrust fodder? Competitors are free to charge what they want; indeed, it gives the competitors an advantage to those people who can't justify paying a premium price for an ipod.
I believe it may run up against some law though.. that's very similar to what Nintendo did back in the day (forcing stores to not lower prices for games). They weren't a monopoly, but still got smacked down.
Its a very reduced version of the.Net framework meant to run in a sandbox but still includes WPF. Its going to be very cool, and very easy to target. If you know.Net you can start using Silverlight (unlike Flash, which is something else you have to learn / buy new IDE for).
Huh? Perl may have been displaced by Java, but I doubt Python. It hardly seems like Java is going anywhere because of Python either. Sorry, I think you're letting your rosy glasses cloud your vision.
1. Yes, parents are responsible for their kids (I'm a parent myself). However, even the best and the best raised boy in the world *will*, from time to time, come to completely and utterly idiotic ideas, especially if there are some girls standing around, watching and cheering. You can't just blame it ALL to the parents, you know. Being a parent is challanging enough even without having companies like - in this case - Take Two making it even harder by raising car theft to the "cool" level.
Studies have continually showed that parents wield more influence in thier kids lives than any other person. So yes, you can blame the parents.
2. If I were the owner of a stolen car, I wouldn't CARE who is to blame - parents of the thief or the company that brought the thief to the idea. You can't just throw away all moral responsibility under the cover of "freedom of speach" (let's be honest here: it's not the freedom of speech Take Two is trying to excercise here, it's the money they are after).
Right. No one ever stole cars before GTA made it "cool." People have been stealing for a long time, for the same reasons. Just because someone is trying to make money doesn't mean their rights aren't bein violated either.
3. "iraq roadside bomb in the news" is such an inappropriate example that I am wondering how in the world can it be that you found somebody to mod you UP for that! If Take Two made a game where the main objective of the game was to place a roadside bomb in order to kill some marines, THAT would be a good example (although in a direction you wouldn't like). And I can very well imagine the (rightfull!) outcry on the/. against such a "game"!
How is that different from TT making a game about going and killing some terrorists or drug dealers? Are you going to argue that such a game would suddenly have kids trying to blow up drug dealers? What about a movie that made it look cool to blow up marines with roadside bombs? Did you happen to catch the VA Tech news stories? You don't think they made him look 'cool' to some people?
There were some kids that stole cars after playing GTA because they thought it was cool. What kind of things could we expect those kids to do after playing this game?
What about the millions and millions of kids that DIDN'T steal cars after playing GTA? Shoudl we now limit ourselves based on the actions of a minority that wasn't raised properly or have mental defects? Accomdate idiots, and we'll have a nation of idiots.
I'm not saying I think this game itself should be banned from the open market and country. THAT would be an issue of freedom of speech. But I understand that certain stores choose not to carry adult titles. That is their decision.
That's certainly the stores right I think as well. But when politics and some flawed logic come into play, I think its fair to call it censorship. Also don't forget that we as indivuduals are expected to make decisions for what our family can or cannot see.. it is not societies place to do so.
If Take-Two makes the smart choice, it will be to sell the game themselves. Otherwise their only option is to tone it down to meet the ratings standards for their larger distributors. Who knows how much change that will take the to 'artwork' of the game? Probably a significant amount.
It seems like they shouldn't be in this situation at all, if everyone in the US really valued freedom of speech.
Sorry, not everything that invalidates your point is a strawman. I was questioning whether or not such age based laws (or ratings) make sense at all. Obviously you agree there isn't much difference physically or emotionally between a 17 and 18 year old. It follows that the law doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
You agree that there is not much diffence, yet feel that an MA rating is still targeting kids. So when then is someone not considered a child? Legally its 18, but we already established that the law is pretty arbitrary... much like the rating system for movies for video games.
Yes, but there are at least a dozen different J2EE servers available, free and commercial. You can run them on Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, whatever. I've run Tomcat on Windows with no problems, in fact I did that for years before switching to Linux.
So having dozens means its better? I'm suprised you bring up Tomcat; my experience was it was slow and very buggy.
True, but their MFC framework is perhaps the worse I've seen from a developer's perspective. Both SWT and Swing have vastly improved the Java desktop experience, I've seen people using Java programs without even knowing they were Java. Swing can be tough to grasp if you're coming from a VB background, but once you get a handle on it you can make some extremely nice interfaces.
You leave out AWT though, why is that? As far as comparing developer frameworks, compare apples to apples..Net is the replacement for MFC, and it very impressive from a developer's perspective. I've not seen anyone using Java programs that didn't know they were using Java.. "why is it slow and ugly and not fit in" is tyically the clue. But lets leave the anecote behind shall we? You can make very nice UIs with MFC, Windows Forms, and now WPF, which makes creating slick UIs exteremely easy. Its a shame I'm not an artist.
I actually only ever used Visual Studio while I was in school (7 years ago), because I had to buy it and because it was discounted with the text book. After I graduated, I used a series of different IDEs and editors which were free or very low cost. Now I work for a company that has VS 8 installed on every workstation and I still use Eclipse.
Doesn't sound extensive then.. if you've used something alot, I'd think you'd remember the name. It makes sense to use Eclipse, you're not targeting.Net. I don't see what your point is there.
Even with the huge number of free/open source frameworks and libraries available for Java, it is consistently one of, if not the most demanded skill on job listings. Obviously those frameworks aren't keeping Java developers from making money. They just make money writing software that achieves a business objective instead of rewriting frameworks and libraries that thousands of other developers have done before. It's the difference between building a car, and machining the screws.
As far as job market goes, there seem to be just as many.Net positions as Java. Its funny you mention writing software to achive business objectives, because that's typically associated with MS developers. The open source movement is the one that seems to want continualy build the same frameworks over and over.
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I think you only need a license if you intend to distribute software, not if you just plan to use it. The act of buying a copy of a piece of software gives me all the rights I need to use it.
However when you choose to buy a product that DOES come with a license, you choose to abide by that contract as well. There are plenty of products sold with stipulations to them and they are upheld all the time. For example, before Polar will sell you watches for resale, you must agree not to sell them below a particular price.
In this case, the contract is with the end user. Just because you don't like it doesn't give you any legal basis to ignore it. Nor do you have any moral ground to dictate to someone else how they should sell their product.
The license which is advertised on the box you mean? Please let me know what country you are in so I know not to sell software there.
Copyright largely governs what you can and cannot do with software; clickwrap extensions trying to enforce post-sale contractual obligations are much less certain.
They seem pretty certain to me, being as no one has ever challenged one. You'd think by now some company would take it all the way, get the legality of them thrown out and now be able to use as many copies of the software they choose.
Nevermind that the box does state that there are terms inside to which you must agree to use the product, and you can return the item for a refund. In other words, you know there's a license when you buy it, and you are given an oppurtunity to review the licnese before you use the software. Pretty clear cut to me.
The GPL doesnt extend beyond copyright law, the GPL grants rights the user does not _have_ under copyright law. It's a copyright license, falling back on copyright law. Without the GPL the distributor has no rights to distribute at all.
Being subject to copyright does not exclude the licensing of software. The GPL does go beyond copyright through, because even a substansial rewrite or addition of functionality to code ends up being covered by the license. I could modify GPL code substantally (enough that copyright would protect my work) and yet still be under the licnese of the GPL.
Software clickwrap licenses restrict the user beyond what copyright law does, and try to take away rights the user normally has. Such licenses fall back on contract law, and are in their nature vastly different in their enforcability (the contract has to be found valid at all, the clauses have to be deemed acceptable, etc), and if it isnt found enforcable then the user has all the rights copyright grants them (ie, to use the product any way they deem fit).
Yes, because its valid to license software. Again, if its so shakely legally, why has not a single company attempted to invalidate them? Whether or not something is copyrightable has nothing to do with whether it can also be licensed or not, and we're not talking about copyright, we're talking about licenes (which the GPL is).
Microsoft's licenses try to restrict you from doing things you would otherwise have the right to do. The GPL gives you rights to do things that you would not otherwise have.
What the license grants you is irrelevent. Either you respect other's licenses, or do not request that anyone request yours. To do otherwise is to be hippicritical.
If you don't want to respect the GPL, that's fine, but you'd essentially be a software pirate if you distribute GPL software in violation of its terms. On the flip side, if you violate some of Microsoft's license terms, you might not have done anything illegal at all (running Vista in a VM, for instance).
No, both are the same. The law backs both licenses. If you violate them, you can be sued. Its really that simple, because a license is a contract. You can choose to accept it or not.
So I really do see a huge difference between the two licensing models, and therefore a difference between the nature of respect for them.
So basically your argument its ok to license software when you like the license, but when you don't like the license then its not ok. To me, that is a pretty unreasonable stance to take.
You know before you buy it though that its only expected to work with Vista. Why would you purchase something you think might not work and then complain when it doesn't?
Nothing violates the doctrine of first sale; you are the original purchaser. Whether you like it or not, software is a product that is licensed (just like other products are). If you don't like the license, don't buy the game. Software should be different because there's high cost to create it, and it can easily be copied and thus needs to be protected.
So what? They have not been found to have a monopoly making PC games. They are not using the OS to force people to buy the game... they are attempting to use the game to get people to buy the OS. There's nothing questionable about the legality of this.
I'm sure it can't. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X are completely different architectures, much like the difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.
Yet oddly WinXP can run programs designed for Win98.
That depends on your viewpoint, I guess. No, it's not a human right, but if there's no technical limitation of why an application or game can't run on a given operating system, then the only reason to put an artificial limitation in there is to sell new software.
So what exactly is wrong with the artificial limiation? If they don't want to target WinXP they have no obligation to do so, just as they are not obligated to target Linux or Mac. There's no monopoly issue here either, since MS doesn't have a monopoly on PC games.
Unfortunately, people cannot effectively 'don't buy it' when it comes to Windows. For many, there is no other alternative, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product.
You're full of it. Even Dell will sell you a box without Windows. The don't buy it argument is for the game, in case you're not thinking straight. No one is forced to buy Halo 2 or the other game.
If you don't like the limits of the games' licenses, then don't buy the games.
Software, whether you like it or not, is licensed, unlike a ruler. Stop with stupid analogies, and discuss the topic.
If you don't want to respect their license, that's fine, but then you shouldn't expect them to respect the GPL either.
No where did anyone mention patents in this discussion either. Again, argue the topic at hand, and stop setting up stupid, inacurate strawman arguments.
Is the only way to defend this position with bad analogies or something? If they want to limit themselves to a smaller market, how exactly does that hurt you?
I'm not sure what your point is. In this case, the item in question that the OP suggests you not buy is a game, not an OS. Cry all you want, but you can't claim MS is using its monopoly in games to further leverage its monopoly on OSes, because MS doesn't have a monopoly on games.
No one 'fucked up' their software; they designed a system and a new game chose to use said system. Nothing that worked on XP now breaks on XP because of Vista or the game.
So I guess software vendors don't have the right to sell their product the way they choose to, huh?
I'm saying that culture and improvements are irrelevant. The universe does not care that we do things. The only ones who do care is... us.
Well if that's so then please give me all your assets and kill yourself. The universe won't care.
There's a degree to which the psychoacoustic models that schemes like mp3 use actually clean up the noisy mess that all or most all CDs present.
As opposed to the noise that is present on every vinyl record? I had a record player, I always hated the static it put out.
I don't live in a bubble, and you have never met me. And who is "we"? I thought it was just "you"?
.Net to flop, IIS to flow, Sql Server to flop. You've already tried detailed predictions.. you claimed Silverlight was already dead, without even realizing it wasn't even finished yet.
.Net. Vista is pretty impressive (and contrary to populare opinion here, its not just a pretty makeover). They chose to focus on security, and they've done a great job of it. Server 2003 has been very secure, as has Vista.
Well you certainly come off that way with useless predictions. You also claim to speak for everyone ("nobody except MS is excited about Silverlight"). We would be the developers that don't mindless bash technology that we don't use.
"mindless Linux fanboyism" - I do think a bit and I am a grown up adult, not a "boy".
Again, that's not how you're coming across.
In all honesty, we shall have to wait until silverlight can prove itself, I don't want try detailed predictions. But, I am expecting it to be a flop. As many others have said so here.
Many others here also expected XP to flop,
I don't think many web developers really trust Microsoft, they have played too many tricks with the Internet over the years. MS basically have a bad reputation, and that is the biggest problem for Silverlight adoption amongst web developers.
Yet there are a flood of web developers which develop exclusively on the Microsoft platform. The web developers at the BBC, CBS and MLB all seem to be excited about Silverlight as well, since they are helping MS define the technology.
It's almost as if the word "Microsoft" == "Proprietary".
Again, I have to say your biases are showing through. There are PLENTY of properietary software houses out there; SUN, Oracle, Adobe to name a few, yet no one is screeming how proprietary PDFs are, for example.
They have a huge challenge on their hands to win hearts and minds, if they expect people to come and embrace their technologies, when they are not "forced" to do so.
And they are doing so, and seemlying doing a great job at it. I was won over with
WPF is a huge change on how to build Windows applications, and its very exciting to see that a subset of that is now going to be available for me on the web, without having to learn everything all over again.
You may be right about the release dates, but I have not seen any Silverlight alphas or betas about on the web. I also haven't seen anyone except MS getting excited about it.
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Did you even attempt to look? http://silverlight.net/ Download the beta (or Alpha, they still have that) http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/silverlight/defa
Many MS developers are very excited. We can now target, cross browser and cross platform the web with a very rich UI framework. Yes, that may have been done, but the really exciting part is that its built off of WPF, so we can target the web with the same technology that we are going to use to target the Windows desktop. No need to learn everything over again, and we can use code that is already in place as is.
If Silverlight was going to be big, it would be out and about in beta form and used by many websites by now.
Its out in beta now, and there are some big names working with it. Would you release a production site built on beta technology though? I wouldn't.
I'm absolutely sure Silverlight it nothing to worry about. Just let it pass and die out. Or just let MS flog it like at a dead horse.
I advise not to get involved with developing it. If you do, MS will only release a newer and updated version for you to "hack". Such a waste of time!
Keep living in your bubble then, we won't miss you. I build on the MS platform anyway, so I'm not worried about a third party trying to keep up. Perhaps this part of your post is why it was modded a troll. There's not a lot of thought put into it, its more mindless Linux fanboyism.
While interesting, one animation studio does not prove a trend. The article wouldn't prove your point by itself.
Why would this be antitrust fodder? Competitors are free to charge what they want; indeed, it gives the competitors an advantage to those people who can't justify paying a premium price for an ipod.
I believe it may run up against some law though.. that's very similar to what Nintendo did back in the day (forcing stores to not lower prices for games). They weren't a monopoly, but still got smacked down.
So its dead before because you haven't seen sites using it before its even RTM? Interesting thought process.
Its a very reduced version of the .Net framework meant to run in a sandbox but still includes WPF. Its going to be very cool, and very easy to target. If you know .Net you can start using Silverlight (unlike Flash, which is something else you have to learn / buy new IDE for).
Huh? Perl may have been displaced by Java, but I doubt Python. It hardly seems like Java is going anywhere because of Python either. Sorry, I think you're letting your rosy glasses cloud your vision.
1. Yes, parents are responsible for their kids (I'm a parent myself). However, even the best and the best raised boy in the world *will*, from time to time, come to completely and utterly idiotic ideas, especially if there are some girls standing around, watching and cheering. You can't just blame it ALL to the parents, you know. Being a parent is challanging enough even without having companies like - in this case - Take Two making it even harder by raising car theft to the "cool" level.
/. against such a "game"!
Studies have continually showed that parents wield more influence in thier kids lives than any other person. So yes, you can blame the parents.
2. If I were the owner of a stolen car, I wouldn't CARE who is to blame - parents of the thief or the company that brought the thief to the idea. You can't just throw away all moral responsibility under the cover of "freedom of speach" (let's be honest here: it's not the freedom of speech Take Two is trying to excercise here, it's the money they are after).
Right. No one ever stole cars before GTA made it "cool." People have been stealing for a long time, for the same reasons. Just because someone is trying to make money doesn't mean their rights aren't bein violated either.
3. "iraq roadside bomb in the news" is such an inappropriate example that I am wondering how in the world can it be that you found somebody to mod you UP for that! If Take Two made a game where the main objective of the game was to place a roadside bomb in order to kill some marines, THAT would be a good example (although in a direction you wouldn't like). And I can very well imagine the (rightfull!) outcry on the
How is that different from TT making a game about going and killing some terrorists or drug dealers? Are you going to argue that such a game would suddenly have kids trying to blow up drug dealers? What about a movie that made it look cool to blow up marines with roadside bombs? Did you happen to catch the VA Tech news stories? You don't think they made him look 'cool' to some people?
IIRC, Tengen won that lawsuit.
There were some kids that stole cars after playing GTA because they thought it was cool. What kind of things could we expect those kids to do after playing this game?
What about the millions and millions of kids that DIDN'T steal cars after playing GTA? Shoudl we now limit ourselves based on the actions of a minority that wasn't raised properly or have mental defects? Accomdate idiots, and we'll have a nation of idiots.
I'm not saying I think this game itself should be banned from the open market and country. THAT would be an issue of freedom of speech. But I understand that certain stores choose not to carry adult titles. That is their decision.
That's certainly the stores right I think as well. But when politics and some flawed logic come into play, I think its fair to call it censorship. Also don't forget that we as indivuduals are expected to make decisions for what our family can or cannot see.. it is not societies place to do so.
If Take-Two makes the smart choice, it will be to sell the game themselves. Otherwise their only option is to tone it down to meet the ratings standards for their larger distributors. Who knows how much change that will take the to 'artwork' of the game? Probably a significant amount.
It seems like they shouldn't be in this situation at all, if everyone in the US really valued freedom of speech.
Sorry, not everything that invalidates your point is a strawman. I was questioning whether or not such age based laws (or ratings) make sense at all. Obviously you agree there isn't much difference physically or emotionally between a 17 and 18 year old. It follows that the law doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
You agree that there is not much diffence, yet feel that an MA rating is still targeting kids. So when then is someone not considered a child? Legally its 18, but we already established that the law is pretty arbitrary... much like the rating system for movies for video games.
Yes, but there are at least a dozen different J2EE servers available, free and commercial. You can run them on Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, whatever. I've run Tomcat on Windows with no problems, in fact I did that for years before switching to Linux.
.Net is the replacement for MFC, and it very impressive from a developer's perspective. I've not seen anyone using Java programs that didn't know they were using Java.. "why is it slow and ugly and not fit in" is tyically the clue. But lets leave the anecote behind shall we? You can make very nice UIs with MFC, Windows Forms, and now WPF, which makes creating slick UIs exteremely easy. Its a shame I'm not an artist.
.Net. I don't see what your point is there.
.Net positions as Java. Its funny you mention writing software to achive business objectives, because that's typically associated with MS developers. The open source movement is the one that seems to want continualy build the same frameworks over and over.
So having dozens means its better? I'm suprised you bring up Tomcat; my experience was it was slow and very buggy.
True, but their MFC framework is perhaps the worse I've seen from a developer's perspective. Both SWT and Swing have vastly improved the Java desktop experience, I've seen people using Java programs without even knowing they were Java. Swing can be tough to grasp if you're coming from a VB background, but once you get a handle on it you can make some extremely nice interfaces.
You leave out AWT though, why is that? As far as comparing developer frameworks, compare apples to apples.
I actually only ever used Visual Studio while I was in school (7 years ago), because I had to buy it and because it was discounted with the text book. After I graduated, I used a series of different IDEs and editors which were free or very low cost. Now I work for a company that has VS 8 installed on every workstation and I still use Eclipse.
Doesn't sound extensive then.. if you've used something alot, I'd think you'd remember the name. It makes sense to use Eclipse, you're not targeting
Even with the huge number of free/open source frameworks and libraries available for Java, it is consistently one of, if not the most demanded skill on job listings. Obviously those frameworks aren't keeping Java developers from making money. They just make money writing software that achieves a business objective instead of rewriting frameworks and libraries that thousands of other developers have done before. It's the difference between building a car, and machining the screws.
As far as job market goes, there seem to be just as many