No. The decision to GPL or not GPL a piece of publicly-funded code should not be based on an expectation of future earnings from that code.
If it is, then the code should be developed (and funded) by the private sector, not the public sector.
Sorry, I didn't mean "money" as in... money:-)
This discussion really transcends money. The fact is that Earth is already burdened enough, so why do we keep reinventing the wheel? Hidden code is code that will be rewritten by someone else (the "competition"). I fail to see where this is healthy for humanity as a whole.
It goes down to: do we opt for GPL and "fight" wheel-reinventing proactively, or we let people realize that releasing source is more often than not the right thing to do and release our work as public domain?
What is the difference, if the goverment buys 1,000,000 licenses of MS Windows and MS Office? If I happen to build commercial operating systems and office suites I will complain as much. Doesn't matter if MS Windows and MS Office are open or closed source.
You are absolutely right. But if the government can get around this with closed-source by contracting things out, you'll have to forgive me if I don't shed a tear if they do the same with open-source software.
Since I can't say any better nor moderate I'll just quote this...
But can't this be said about public domain as well? In that case businesses take GPL code that all people paid for, modify it, profit from selling the binaries of the derivative and (possibly) not disclosing their new source? If businesses don't cooperate, people and the government then lose money. GPL then would be better for government and the people.
I'll stick to the FSF on this: GPL gives better protection, unless there is a specific reason to opt for LGPL or public domain.
FUD is very effective when applied to politicians. When a politician reads the FUD, he get two things clear:
(1) I will get this huge bonu$ from the lobby, and
(2) They already have all this FUD (which LOOKS true, good enough) advertised in the media for months that I can use to defend my vote for them in commissions, etc. and prevent me from looking evil (in the worst case I can plead being "mislead" and still get re-elected).
Hmm, I tought I had replied to your post before.. must have only previewed... d'oh!
I cite the original SOLIPSIS paper a lot in FreeMMG's papers. Just downloaded the SOLIPSIS 0.2.5 alpha (much prettier interface than FreeMMG's demo game:-), but I can't seem to be able to connect to any nodes with the windows navigator. I don't know if I'm getting the interface wrong...
> Explain to me what good would P2P do for a MMOG?
For one thing, centralized MMOG developers have to face a network scalability problem. Each connected player must be updated in real time, and serving thousands (or millions?) of players can be very network intensive. Your typical, optimized 3D shooter protocol uses something like 2K bytes per second. Serving five thousand players, in this case, would require an 80 MBPS link, which I imagine is not really cheap, at least not yet.
And of course the server is also a processing bottleneck. Running the simulation in the clients saves you from buying expensive machines or having to pay for the Butterfly Grid.
FreeMMG is a mixed peer-to-peer and client-server MMOG model. It leaves the server doing "lightweight" work such as authentication, session tracking, etc. and uses a P2P protocol to run the actual game simulation. And it offers protection agains player cheating (I hope so, if not, I'm not getting my master's:-).
I'm researching into P2P MMOG networking! You can get your fix at http://freemmg.sf.net:-) It even has a small RTS demo game (warning: the game SUCKS and requires Java run-time)
> I hate to admit it, but I do think that > the RIAA will ultimately win this battle.
Suppose they win. DRM everywhere. But now we have already tasted freedom with P2P and iWhatever. We won't just go back to supporting the old model. We already know that "$30 for a CD is fair" is crap. We will refuse to pay absurd prices for music, be it on physical CDs or buying mp3 files online.
P2P's real damage to the Recording Industry Association of XXX is that it is making us aware of their big lie. We started the debate with trivia like "is P2P'ing madonna's latest album stealing"? Then we started discussing about how much it really costs to print a CD and how much of the CD's cover price goes to the actual artist. Then we started discussing about the big label's monopolies on music, about who gets radio/TV space and who doesn't, etc.
Things never go back to what they were. This is a movie cliche'.
Outgun is a 32-player CTF game, ported to linux, and will run on a K6 II 450MHz!
http://www.amok.com.br/outgun
Or get the linux package from sourceforge:
http://sf.net/projects/outgun
Slashdot Mirror
Multiplayer game, both the client and the server run on linux AND windows: Outgun
:-)
NOTE: Outgun needs servers! help linux AND windows gaming and host an Outgun server today
What is the difference, if the goverment buys 1,000,000 licenses of MS Windows and MS Office? If I happen to build commercial operating systems and office suites I will complain as much. Doesn't matter if MS Windows and MS Office are open or closed source.
But can't this be said about public domain as well? In that case businesses take GPL code that all people paid for, modify it, profit from selling the binaries of the derivative and (possibly) not disclosing their new source? If businesses don't cooperate, people and the government then lose money. GPL then would be better for government and the people. I'll stick to the FSF on this: GPL gives better protection, unless there is a specific reason to opt for LGPL or public domain.
Why?
Can we stop using "intellectual property" already? Holy St. IGNUcius already schooled us about this.
FUD is very effective when applied to politicians. When a politician reads the FUD, he get two things clear:
(1) I will get this huge bonu$ from the lobby, and
(2) They already have all this FUD (which LOOKS true, good enough) advertised in the media for months that I can use to defend my vote for them in commissions, etc. and prevent me from looking evil (in the worst case I can plead being "mislead" and still get re-elected).
I cite the original SOLIPSIS paper a lot in FreeMMG's papers. Just downloaded the SOLIPSIS 0.2.5 alpha (much prettier interface than FreeMMG's demo game :-), but I can't seem to be able to connect to any nodes with the windows navigator. I don't know if I'm getting the interface wrong...
For one thing, centralized MMOG developers have to face a network scalability problem. Each connected player must be updated in real time, and serving thousands (or millions?) of players can be very network intensive. Your typical, optimized 3D shooter protocol uses something like 2K bytes per second. Serving five thousand players, in this case, would require an 80 MBPS link, which I imagine is not really cheap, at least not yet.
And of course the server is also a processing bottleneck. Running the simulation in the clients saves you from buying expensive machines or having to pay for the Butterfly Grid.
FreeMMG is a mixed peer-to-peer and client-server MMOG model. It leaves the server doing "lightweight" work such as authentication, session tracking, etc. and uses a P2P protocol to run the actual game simulation. And it offers protection agains player cheating (I hope so, if not, I'm not getting my master's :-).
Dragon what? Anyway... so when the absence of a patent system did hinder progress? And I wasn't talking about copyrights (not yet).
> When handled properly, patents are in the best interest of everyone. Not me. I don't like patents. At all.
I'm researching into P2P MMOG networking! You can get your fix at http://freemmg.sf.net :-) It even has a small RTS demo game (warning: the game SUCKS and requires Java run-time)
Problem solved! :-P
> I hate to admit it, but I do think that
> the RIAA will ultimately win this battle.
Suppose they win. DRM everywhere. But now we have already tasted freedom with P2P and iWhatever. We won't just go back to supporting the old model. We already know that "$30 for a CD is fair" is crap. We will refuse to pay absurd prices for music, be it on physical CDs or buying mp3 files online.
P2P's real damage to the Recording Industry Association of XXX is that it is making us aware of their big lie. We started the debate with trivia like "is P2P'ing madonna's latest album stealing"? Then we started discussing about how much it really costs to print a CD and how much of the CD's cover price goes to the actual artist. Then we started discussing about the big label's monopolies on music, about who gets radio/TV space and who doesn't, etc.
Things never go back to what they were. This is a movie cliche'.
Outgun is a 32-player CTF game, ported to linux, and will run on a K6 II 450MHz! http://www.amok.com.br/outgun Or get the linux package from sourceforge: http://sf.net/projects/outgun