The problem with those 20-30$ NES ports is that cartridges are very expensive to manufacture. I bet they don't make that much of a profit on those titles. What they should've done is either bundling more than one on one cartridge, or use some other storage media (like they did for some time with the eReader).
Yes, console games are more expensive. I don't see what's so unusual about it. Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft get their share of the profits too. Computer games OTOH are a completely free platform, with no one to control it..
What about licensed patents and third-party code? Do you really think video card manufacturers own all the code contained in their drivers? What makes you think they are legally capable of opening up their drivers?
As for wireless, the FCC requires that 802.11g wireless drivers can't be modified. It's not the manufacturers' fault they can't open them. Yes, Broadcom sucks for not providing any support at all, but that's another issue. OTOH Intel does provide closed Linux drivers for their wireless hardware. If that makes you unhappy, complain to the FCC.
Welcome to reality. Not everything can be open source. It's as simple as that.
The legality of closed kernel modules depends on whether or not you consider modules as part of the GPL's fucked up definition of "derivative works". The more sane kernel devs like Linus don't like closed modules but nevertheless don't consider them in violation of the GPL.
And for the "business-friendly" thing, the GPL really is the best suited business-oriented open source license, because if you don't force modifications to be made public like most other licenses, companies will use this as a chance to get a free ride on the open source train by not giving back anything to the community.
Anyway, what people must understand is some drivers simply cannot be open source, notably video and wireless drivers. Look at Mac OS X: all hardware drivers are open source, save for... yep, video and wireless drivers. Think about it.
Legal downloads of NES/SNES/N64/Genesis/TG16 games (and for a decent price, let's hope) is going to be cool and all but am I the only one who thinks there won't be much third-party games? Of all the really good games on the Nintendo and Sega systems, most of them are are first-party, but the rest (about half or them) are third-party. Do they have sufficient rights for those games too? I doubt it. Chances are they'll only get contracts from a few third-parties. I can imagine their catalog looking quite crippled without, say, Capcom or SquareEnix, or any other major third-party developper, which is probably going to happen. Especially SquareEnix, who has released a few titles for Nintendo systems lately but still keeps very close ties with Sony.
Oh and what about all those Rare games? Now that Rare is owned by Microsoft, does Nintendo actually owns the rights to Nintendo/Rare franchises like Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, etc? Okay DKC is very likely, but Perfect Dark isn't, considering the latest title was on the XBox 360...
Anyway, this sounds like a complete legal minefield.
Not to worry, I'm pretty sure the third party hardware manufacturers will see the great market potential for classic-looking controllers to play old games on the Revolution. Oh, and controller adapters too...
C'mon now, nVidia is not that bad. Their drivers are actually quite good considering all the hoops they must get over to get their drivers to run on most configurations out there. If anything the kernel devs are to blame for not providing a standard and stable kernel driver interface. But of course nVidia are evil and deserve to get those problems because they don't exist in some magical utopian universe where everything is open source, or so the kernel devs seem to imply.
Second, I'm no more trusting of the MP3 coalition than I was of the JPG owners, whereas I can't picture apple ever seeking royalty backpayments from podcasters using the AAC format.
Whoa, careful there, the AAC format does not belong to Apple, they are just licensing it. The truth is AAC is just as patent-encumbered and non-free as MP3.
Might as well say "The AlphaGrip may be a worthless geek-toy that is not superior in any way to a plain keyboard. The company has not conducted the requisite studies to make that determination."
Are you saying there are parents out there who can't afford to get their family a computer (a useful tool in today's world) but can afford to get their kids an iPod (an expensive luxury item that can potentionaly cost more than an entry-level computer)?? I'm sorry but those parents completely lack any sense of priority or responsability. They're the ones who created this stupid "problem" in the first place.
...and exactly which flavor of Linux do you run iTunes one? 'thought so.
The iPod uses a proprietary database format but it communicates through plain USB mass storage protocol. There are plenty of third-party iPod management software out there (the latest amaroK kicks ass!)
Most available devices don't integrate well with [amaroK]
You might want to reconsider that. 1.4 beta1 features completely redesigned iPod integration, and it's truly awesome. I'm still trying to find something it doesn't support compared to iTunes. Oh, and there's now on-the-fly transcoding, which is a godsend to me, my iPod nano and my FLAC-encoded ripped music collection.
Oh, and the final nail in the RIAA's coffin? Any band [tunecore.com] can get an album up on iTMS for about 20 bucks. Bands no longer have to give up their copyrights. They no longer have to sign terrible contracts or pay off million dollar loans. They no longer have to give up creative control and push to put out mediocre music to make quarterly numbers for some corporation. [...]
What about the DRM? Are independent artists on iTMS forced to use Apple's DRM? Can you tell Apple you don't want your own music to be crippled?
amaroK is really a clone of iTunes. IMHO amaroK is now superior to iTunes though. (I'm thinking about buying a Mac and moving out of Linux, and if there's one app I'm going to miss, it's definitely amaroK.)
Why? Two different licences with entirely different goals. They both happen to use open source models to acheive their goals. One isn't any better than the other, they're suited to different purposes.
I couldn't agree with you more, in fact I have said almost the same thing a few weeks ago. What makes me laugh is that there are certain kinds of people (usually BSD zealots) who believe one is "better" than the other, as if that made any sense.
Anyway, the first paragraph of my post wasn't meant to be taken seriously. I definitely don't deserve the "insightful" mod point someone gave me.
It was in context with the post he replied to. Re-read the thread correctly, starting from the original post. Anyway, this is pointless. Enjoy your pretend victory in a pointless slashdot debacle. I guess you need that to feel good about yourself.
Yes, it does matter. When the guy said "you can't buy OS X for Intel", it was implied that he meant "you can't buy OS X for Intel standalone so you can have a license you can use on any computer". Hence why you can't legally install OS X on any computer, regardless of Apple's "Apple hardware only" clause in the OS X EULA.
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Hear hear!
I don't really understand why people are whining about prices right now. Back in the SNES days, the good games were like 90 CAD.
The problem with those 20-30$ NES ports is that cartridges are very expensive to manufacture. I bet they don't make that much of a profit on those titles. What they should've done is either bundling more than one on one cartridge, or use some other storage media (like they did for some time with the eReader).
I completely disagree. Google a bit and you'll notice that there's a very lively Doom community out there.
Yes, console games are more expensive. I don't see what's so unusual about it. Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft get their share of the profits too. Computer games OTOH are a completely free platform, with no one to control it..
I have an iPod nano and the maximum volume level is unlistenable because there is way too much distortion.
What about licensed patents and third-party code? Do you really think video card manufacturers own all the code contained in their drivers? What makes you think they are legally capable of opening up their drivers?
As for wireless, the FCC requires that 802.11g wireless drivers can't be modified. It's not the manufacturers' fault they can't open them. Yes, Broadcom sucks for not providing any support at all, but that's another issue. OTOH Intel does provide closed Linux drivers for their wireless hardware. If that makes you unhappy, complain to the FCC.
Welcome to reality. Not everything can be open source. It's as simple as that.
The legality of closed kernel modules depends on whether or not you consider modules as part of the GPL's fucked up definition of "derivative works". The more sane kernel devs like Linus don't like closed modules but nevertheless don't consider them in violation of the GPL.
And for the "business-friendly" thing, the GPL really is the best suited business-oriented open source license, because if you don't force modifications to be made public like most other licenses, companies will use this as a chance to get a free ride on the open source train by not giving back anything to the community.
Anyway, what people must understand is some drivers simply cannot be open source, notably video and wireless drivers. Look at Mac OS X: all hardware drivers are open source, save for... yep, video and wireless drivers. Think about it.
Legal downloads of NES/SNES/N64/Genesis/TG16 games (and for a decent price, let's hope) is going to be cool and all but am I the only one who thinks there won't be much third-party games? Of all the really good games on the Nintendo and Sega systems, most of them are are first-party, but the rest (about half or them) are third-party. Do they have sufficient rights for those games too? I doubt it. Chances are they'll only get contracts from a few third-parties. I can imagine their catalog looking quite crippled without, say, Capcom or SquareEnix, or any other major third-party developper, which is probably going to happen. Especially SquareEnix, who has released a few titles for Nintendo systems lately but still keeps very close ties with Sony.
Oh and what about all those Rare games? Now that Rare is owned by Microsoft, does Nintendo actually owns the rights to Nintendo/Rare franchises like Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, etc? Okay DKC is very likely, but Perfect Dark isn't, considering the latest title was on the XBox 360...
Anyway, this sounds like a complete legal minefield.
Not to worry, I'm pretty sure the third party hardware manufacturers will see the great market potential for classic-looking controllers to play old games on the Revolution. Oh, and controller adapters too...
C'mon now, nVidia is not that bad. Their drivers are actually quite good considering all the hoops they must get over to get their drivers to run on most configurations out there. If anything the kernel devs are to blame for not providing a standard and stable kernel driver interface. But of course nVidia are evil and deserve to get those problems because they don't exist in some magical utopian universe where everything is open source, or so the kernel devs seem to imply.
That may be true, but the reality is the recording industry always makes sure the artists you hear the most are those who are drinking their kool-aid.
Second, I'm no more trusting of the MP3 coalition than I was of the JPG owners, whereas I can't picture apple ever seeking royalty backpayments from podcasters using the AAC format.
Whoa, careful there, the AAC format does not belong to Apple, they are just licensing it. The truth is AAC is just as patent-encumbered and non-free as MP3.
You're better off using amaroK anyway.
Hypertext links to related content while you're listening to it? Why am I suddenly reminded of Babylon 5?
The fact that amaroK does not support DRM makes it superior to iTunes.
Might as well say "The AlphaGrip may be a worthless geek-toy that is not superior in any way to a plain keyboard. The company has not conducted the requisite studies to make that determination."
Are you saying there are parents out there who can't afford to get their family a computer (a useful tool in today's world) but can afford to get their kids an iPod (an expensive luxury item that can potentionaly cost more than an entry-level computer)?? I'm sorry but those parents completely lack any sense of priority or responsability. They're the ones who created this stupid "problem" in the first place.
...and exactly which flavor of Linux do you run iTunes one?
'thought so.
The iPod uses a proprietary database format but it communicates through plain USB mass storage protocol. There are plenty of third-party iPod management software out there (the latest amaroK kicks ass!)
Apple uses MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), an open, international standard.
Wrong. AAC is NOT an open standard. It is patent-encumbered. Just like everything that comes out of MPEG, including mp3.
Most available devices don't integrate well with [amaroK]
You might want to reconsider that. 1.4 beta1 features completely redesigned iPod integration, and it's truly awesome. I'm still trying to find something it doesn't support compared to iTunes. Oh, and there's now on-the-fly transcoding, which is a godsend to me, my iPod nano and my FLAC-encoded ripped music collection.
Oh, and the final nail in the RIAA's coffin? Any band [tunecore.com] can get an album up on iTMS for about 20 bucks. Bands no longer have to give up their copyrights. They no longer have to sign terrible contracts or pay off million dollar loans. They no longer have to give up creative control and push to put out mediocre music to make quarterly numbers for some corporation. [...]
What about the DRM? Are independent artists on iTMS forced to use Apple's DRM? Can you tell Apple you don't want your own music to be crippled?
amaroK is really a clone of iTunes. IMHO amaroK is now superior to iTunes though. (I'm thinking about buying a Mac and moving out of Linux, and if there's one app I'm going to miss, it's definitely amaroK.)
Why? Two different licences with entirely different goals. They both happen to use open source models to acheive their goals. One isn't any better than the other, they're suited to different purposes.
I couldn't agree with you more, in fact I have said almost the same thing a few weeks ago. What makes me laugh is that there are certain kinds of people (usually BSD zealots) who believe one is "better" than the other, as if that made any sense.
Anyway, the first paragraph of my post wasn't meant to be taken seriously. I definitely don't deserve the "insightful" mod point someone gave me.
It was in context with the post he replied to. Re-read the thread correctly, starting from the original post. Anyway, this is pointless. Enjoy your pretend victory in a pointless slashdot debacle. I guess you need that to feel good about yourself.
Yes, it does matter. When the guy said "you can't buy OS X for Intel", it was implied that he meant "you can't buy OS X for Intel standalone so you can have a license you can use on any computer". Hence why you can't legally install OS X on any computer, regardless of Apple's "Apple hardware only" clause in the OS X EULA.