As ridiculous as this may sound, epsecially to the nerdier crowd, a project's image has alot to do with its popularity and success.
Sure, inside the OSS community, any project that's good is instantly recognized and widely used. But outside of the nerd crowd, people are not impressed by the things they have no idea about.
A logo, a website, and what is probably most important a GOOD NAME, go a long way towards promoting a project and creating a sort of brand name to associate with the software.
Look at Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Evolution. Then look at the Gimp, k3b, and rest of the amazing, but poorly named and buried in boring text pages covered with build numbers and READMEs, projects.
It goes back to the RTFM mentality hurting the popularity of open source software.
These games are made for kids, whether 13 or 30 year old kids, it matters not. They are all part of the same consumer circus that hollywood movies and cheap books are part of. Why do you look for something meaningful in this? There are plenty of culturally and intelectually stimluating things out there. Turn off your computer screen and you might see them.
I am personally more worried about the recent surge of war-themed (as if all the others didnt have to do with killing, but i mean real wars) games.
There are plenty of WW2-themed games and, frankly, I enjoyed playing most of them immensely. But recently more and more games have been created based on wars still fresh in some people's memory. Vietnam, first Iraq war, current Iraq war.
I, personally, have trouble being strongly anti-war and playing a game in which i run around killing vaguely masked people in arabic-themed cities.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's alot more disturbing when we make violent games to purposely glorify the massacres we commit in life, than when we make violent games out of childish glee for bloody gibs. You don't see parents suing companies because their children played a video game and then joined the army.
The thing that makes GIMP unusable for me is the fact that the tool windows even if set as utility windows, in Gtk, have to be focused separately, and even with focus follows mouse, the GIMP shortcuts ARE NOT ACTIVE when the canvas is not highlighted. So you have to click or hover over the project window and then use the shortcut. That is incredibly unusable for me.
If we could read the information from molecules or even atoms about the molecules or atoms that are directly next to them and from that, read the same information for the molecules next to those, thus creating a chain, I've always wondered if it would be possible to create a 3d model of the universe, reading it molecule by molecule.
What do you see in the far future of operating systems, now that great advances in the way we think about computers, such as quantum computing, have been made.
I think that the efforts of many big companies to introduce Linux into the corporate world in the past couple of years and the years to come, are, while greatly appreciated by most OSS developers, could be harmful in the long run to OSS in general. It's no question that every OSS fanatic wants nothing more than to see OSS on everyone's server and home computer, and lately a lot of companies have expressed similar interests. I think, however, that the motives should be questioned here. The motives of OSS developers are quite clear to most, and the motives of large corporations are clear to most as well. And anyone can see that, though joined by the desire to have more secure and publicly avialable software, the two ideological motives are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. The corporate interests are always clearly monetary, and that has always proved to harm anything it comes in contact with. While the GPL, and a slew of other licenses and agreements is there to protect open source, there will be many more cases like SCO if open source fully enters the corporate playground. Let's hope at least that the people at IBM, Novell and Sun understand what "the spirit" of Open Source is about and act with respect.
Slashdot Mirror
What's OS/2? Like, half an operating system or something? :P
Do people here just type really fast or do they have witty comment templates?
As ridiculous as this may sound, epsecially to the nerdier crowd, a project's image has alot to do with its popularity and success. Sure, inside the OSS community, any project that's good is instantly recognized and widely used. But outside of the nerd crowd, people are not impressed by the things they have no idea about. A logo, a website, and what is probably most important a GOOD NAME, go a long way towards promoting a project and creating a sort of brand name to associate with the software. Look at Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Evolution. Then look at the Gimp, k3b, and rest of the amazing, but poorly named and buried in boring text pages covered with build numbers and READMEs, projects. It goes back to the RTFM mentality hurting the popularity of open source software.
These are getting truly tasteless. I'm starting to think that nerds don't have a sense of humor after all.
These games are made for kids, whether 13 or 30 year old kids, it matters not. They are all part of the same consumer circus that hollywood movies and cheap books are part of. Why do you look for something meaningful in this? There are plenty of culturally and intelectually stimluating things out there. Turn off your computer screen and you might see them.
Gmail!
Look at the monkey, look at the silly monkey!
Oh my god, Netscape started writing spyware!!!
Haha, did you actually expect a tasteful Soviet Russia joke?
In Soviet Russia, the kiddie porn fines you!
And let's not forget Phantom! :P
I am personally more worried about the recent surge of war-themed (as if all the others didnt have to do with killing, but i mean real wars) games. There are plenty of WW2-themed games and, frankly, I enjoyed playing most of them immensely. But recently more and more games have been created based on wars still fresh in some people's memory. Vietnam, first Iraq war, current Iraq war. I, personally, have trouble being strongly anti-war and playing a game in which i run around killing vaguely masked people in arabic-themed cities. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's alot more disturbing when we make violent games to purposely glorify the massacres we commit in life, than when we make violent games out of childish glee for bloody gibs. You don't see parents suing companies because their children played a video game and then joined the army.
The thing that makes GIMP unusable for me is the fact that the tool windows even if set as utility windows, in Gtk, have to be focused separately, and even with focus follows mouse, the GIMP shortcuts ARE NOT ACTIVE when the canvas is not highlighted. So you have to click or hover over the project window and then use the shortcut. That is incredibly unusable for me.
I, for one, welcome our new american overlords!
If we could read the information from molecules or even atoms about the molecules or atoms that are directly next to them and from that, read the same information for the molecules next to those, thus creating a chain, I've always wondered if it would be possible to create a 3d model of the universe, reading it molecule by molecule.
What do you see in the far future of operating systems, now that great advances in the way we think about computers, such as quantum computing, have been made.
Does that mean it will have Mark Hamill as Cock-Knocker?
As long as it's better than Starballs.
Corporation creates useless file format standard. Everyone grumbles, but switches over.
They also supplied counting machines to the Nazis to help keep track of the Jews during the holocaust. :(
I think that the efforts of many big companies to introduce Linux into the corporate world in the past couple of years and the years to come, are, while greatly appreciated by most OSS developers, could be harmful in the long run to OSS in general. It's no question that every OSS fanatic wants nothing more than to see OSS on everyone's server and home computer, and lately a lot of companies have expressed similar interests. I think, however, that the motives should be questioned here. The motives of OSS developers are quite clear to most, and the motives of large corporations are clear to most as well. And anyone can see that, though joined by the desire to have more secure and publicly avialable software, the two ideological motives are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. The corporate interests are always clearly monetary, and that has always proved to harm anything it comes in contact with. While the GPL, and a slew of other licenses and agreements is there to protect open source, there will be many more cases like SCO if open source fully enters the corporate playground. Let's hope at least that the people at IBM, Novell and Sun understand what "the spirit" of Open Source is about and act with respect.
We better get started on that AIMEE robot then. Oh and keep Carrie Ann-Moss in the freezer for 30 years so she can be our mothership voice.
..They'll post anything on /. these days :)
I think a 3-way debate with Ralph Nader would bring a very sobering realization to alot of people watching it. Too bad it would never happen.
NYC protest radio http://radio.socialtechnology.net/listen.html