Good point but you could easily add another line to that dialogue:
Software executive 2: "... Or we can just stick a 'Optimized for Dual-Booting Macs!' sticker on the box and target that same booming crowd for the price of a sticker instead of developing a port."
... Yes, my glass is currently half empty. How did you know?
I suspect that "native" software (of all categories) will sell better than identical non-native software...
I agree. Look back at the transition from OS 9 and Classic to OS X. There was a huge uproar at the time.
The only problem is that the bean counters will have no way of determining whether the purchase of "Band of HonorFront 2k7: Brothers in F.E.A.R." for WinXP was a native purchase for a PC owner or a non-native purchase by a mac owner who couldn't bear the thought of waiting for 6 months for a port. It just gets lumped into the sales figures and the company can look and see that they only sold a gazillion copies for XP and a handful for OS X. That then leads to less titles being ported and less money being sunk into resources (undermanned staff and delays), which just compounds the problem.
In theory, if this has the unrealistically huge effect that people are predicting and sends market shares through the roof, this will eventually turn itself around as people become sick of rebooting (or even switching through some virtualization option, most likely coming in 10.5 as well). After a few years of, "Look at all these games!" the cries become, "Hey, I'm sick of having to deal with XP on my mac."
That's the theory, at least. Well... my theory, at least.
The only problem is what happens to the porting companies - and more importantly the talent behind them (yes, you, Ryan Gordon and Brad Oliver) - during this transition?
One possible benefit of the porting business going on the back burner for a few years would be a rebirth of *gasp* original mac games. If you get a large enough number of people using their macs and switching to windows for the big budget gaming titles, you'll undoubtedly have a lot of people who: a) are interested in games and b) want to be able to make and play games without the hassle of the second OS.
Particularly when you consider how much easier it has gotten to distribute games yourself (compared to the film industry a few years back, for example), the independent developers could wind up doing quite well with the most innovative and genuinely fun stuff we've seen in years. One can hope.
Of course, I imagine that poor, pathetic, insane Jack Thompson probably imagines that he's the noble martyr in some epic battle against the hordes of evildoers who want nothing more than to poison the minds of children, and will not, for a second, ponder the possibility that maybe he's wrong.
The reason they have been pushing it is exactly because they didn't own Flash. Now that they do, do you still think they're going to push it? Or are they going to push their own new proprietary format with a much larger user base for which they paid $3.4 billion?
Buy out what? SVG is a W3C standard. Can one buy out HTML and XML as well? No.
I never said anyone was going to buy out the standard. As you pointed out, that's silly.
There are plenty of standards which never took off because they didn't have support, however. If Adobe intentionally lets their SVG plugin languish in obscurity while pushing developers to support their latest and greatest flash plugin, who is going to take up the torch for SVG? The standard is still there and entirely open, but who is going to actually do the work, distribute it and flex some big company muscle to push developers to support the format? The other replies mentioning cell phones are probably pointing in the right direction.
It's not a matter of owning it. It's a matter of actively trying to get people to use it. As I said before, I really hope I'm wrong. It's just a theory.
I'm just not sure who's going to step up and get people to use it. Most people won't just use a format because it's particularly better or worse than any other - look at how long Real's been around. They need a good reason and that reason only comes with lots of solid backing from some deep pockets.
Who is it going to be now that Adobe's got Flash? I still think that SVG will be the first victim of the buyout.
Then lets make the last PPC boxes out the door at Apple really kick ass!
I'll drink to that. I'm planning on snagging one as they're on their way out the door - hoping for something equivalent to the first Sawtooth machines or my beloved old PowerTowerPro.
I'm not trying to make a wild claim of instant market saturation, merely commenting that if such a thing were to happen - even in to a small degree - it would suck enormously for everyone who has to deal with the mess and doesn't get to tell paying clients, "No."
I did not make that clear in my reactionary, bad day-induced comment, however. Hey, it's/. What did you expect?
Thank you for the reality check.
(Also, I noticed another reply which came in as I was writing mine mentioning that other file formats are just "hidden" under the Export option, making all this purely academic.)
As a production monkey at a firm which gets a lot of logos and what not from various clients, let me be the first to just say, "I'm fucked."
If anyone in a mid-level administrative position actually gets this (ie: it's bundled with their next machine), it will make my life a living hell.
Try explaining nicely to the client that their.xpr file is neither a high-res, uncompressed raster image nor a vector image, but rather an crappy, anti-aliased 72 dpi gif saved in a proprietary format (that no one using a real image editing application can open without getting sued http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/152 4203) which could potentially support the aforementioned vector/hi-res options, but isn't, so printing it will result in a page that looks roughly like output from the best printer that 1981 could buy. Now try it again but without using the term, "butt monkey."
You totally missed my point. I was making a joke, which is something that occasionally occurs on slashdot. It may well have not been funny. That's ok. That happens here on slashdot, too. Frequently, in fact. I hardly think that makes any sort of statement as to what may or may not actually be up my butt and what I may or may not actually think it is.
Besides, a feature which is obscured to the point where users don't even know of its existence is hardly a helpful one. The feature they're touting in their "It just works" campaign is that it will be easy enough to actually be used.
(Notice how that was cunningly returned to the actual topic at hand?)
What Microsoft is talking about is having 'search' folders that display a set a documents based on criteria, like the search folders introduced in Office Outlook back in 2002. (Again a Microsoft innovation)
Oh, you mean like this (scroll down to "Look Smart, Smart folders...").
Thanks for explaining that original new Microsoft innovation.
(Yes, I do realize you were referring to adding them to Outlook in 2002. It's funny. Laugh.)
[The English Language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
It was a simple typo in a casual context. As I was trying to say, it actually reinforced your point.
And... it was just plain funny.
Another thread of comments already noted the lack of context inherent in text-based communications. I think this is a perfect example of that as well. I wasn't trying to flame you at all, however tough it might be to decipher that from my reply.
I know, I know. This is a casual conversation and I agree with your point that it is a non-issue in such a context. I simply found it really amusing that you inadvertantly included the perfect example.
Exploit (the transitive verb): to make productive use of : to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage
Exploit (the noun): a notable or heroic act
It's understandable that people abuse words (as in the subject) but can't we all at least try to avoid doing so when the word as a noun already has a distinct meaning?
Slashdot Mirror
Mobbed by Stephenson fans in 3... 2... 1...
<hat class="tinFoil">Who else would possibly have given them funding to make it?</hat>
Good point but you could easily add another line to that dialogue:
... Yes, my glass is currently half empty. How did you know?
Software executive 2: "... Or we can just stick a 'Optimized for Dual-Booting Macs!' sticker on the box and target that same booming crowd for the price of a sticker instead of developing a port."
I suspect that "native" software (of all categories) will sell better than identical non-native software...
I agree. Look back at the transition from OS 9 and Classic to OS X. There was a huge uproar at the time.
The only problem is that the bean counters will have no way of determining whether the purchase of "Band of HonorFront 2k7: Brothers in F.E.A.R." for WinXP was a native purchase for a PC owner or a non-native purchase by a mac owner who couldn't bear the thought of waiting for 6 months for a port. It just gets lumped into the sales figures and the company can look and see that they only sold a gazillion copies for XP and a handful for OS X. That then leads to less titles being ported and less money being sunk into resources (undermanned staff and delays), which just compounds the problem.
In theory, if this has the unrealistically huge effect that people are predicting and sends market shares through the roof, this will eventually turn itself around as people become sick of rebooting (or even switching through some virtualization option, most likely coming in 10.5 as well). After a few years of, "Look at all these games!" the cries become, "Hey, I'm sick of having to deal with XP on my mac."
That's the theory, at least. Well... my theory, at least.
The only problem is what happens to the porting companies - and more importantly the talent behind them (yes, you, Ryan Gordon and Brad Oliver) - during this transition?
One possible benefit of the porting business going on the back burner for a few years would be a rebirth of *gasp* original mac games. If you get a large enough number of people using their macs and switching to windows for the big budget gaming titles, you'll undoubtedly have a lot of people who:
a) are interested in games and
b) want to be able to make and play games without the hassle of the second OS.
Particularly when you consider how much easier it has gotten to distribute games yourself (compared to the film industry a few years back, for example), the independent developers could wind up doing quite well with the most innovative and genuinely fun stuff we've seen in years. One can hope.
Aspyr is porting it. I just read a brief message from Brad Oliver mentioning that he'd just rolled the 1.9 (is that right?) patch code into the port.
No official word on when, yet - at least as far as I've heard.
... but I like it.
http://dofus.com/
Slick 2D art and timed, turn-based, tactical combat - vaguely reminiscent of a simplistic X-Com meets Studio Ghibli.
Of course, I imagine that poor, pathetic, insane Jack Thompson probably imagines that he's the noble martyr in some epic battle against the hordes of evildoers who want nothing more than to poison the minds of children, and will not, for a second, ponder the possibility that maybe he's wrong.
Well said. That's the part that just kills me.
The reason they have been pushing it is exactly because they didn't own Flash. Now that they do, do you still think they're going to push it? Or are they going to push their own new proprietary format with a much larger user base for which they paid $3.4 billion?
Buy out what? SVG is a W3C standard. Can one buy out HTML and XML as well? No.
I never said anyone was going to buy out the standard. As you pointed out, that's silly.
There are plenty of standards which never took off because they didn't have support, however. If Adobe intentionally lets their SVG plugin languish in obscurity while pushing developers to support their latest and greatest flash plugin, who is going to take up the torch for SVG? The standard is still there and entirely open, but who is going to actually do the work, distribute it and flex some big company muscle to push developers to support the format? The other replies mentioning cell phones are probably pointing in the right direction.
It's not a matter of owning it. It's a matter of actively trying to get people to use it. As I said before, I really hope I'm wrong. It's just a theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
I'm just not sure who's going to step up and get people to use it. Most people won't just use a format because it's particularly better or worse than any other - look at how long Real's been around. They need a good reason and that reason only comes with lots of solid backing from some deep pockets.
Who is it going to be now that Adobe's got Flash? I still think that SVG will be the first victim of the buyout.
Now that Adobe has bought out Macromedia (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/13552 33&tid=98), I'd be surprised to see them helping push SVG any more.
As much as I'd love to be proven wrong, I think SVG headed for historical footnote status in the very near future.
Then lets make the last PPC boxes out the door at Apple really kick ass!
I'll drink to that. I'm planning on snagging one as they're on their way out the door - hoping for something equivalent to the first Sawtooth machines or my beloved old PowerTowerPro.
I was indeed being a bit silly.
/. What did you expect?
I'm not trying to make a wild claim of instant market saturation, merely commenting that if such a thing were to happen - even in to a small degree - it would suck enormously for everyone who has to deal with the mess and doesn't get to tell paying clients, "No."
I did not make that clear in my reactionary, bad day-induced comment, however. Hey, it's
Thank you for the reality check.
(Also, I noticed another reply which came in as I was writing mine mentioning that other file formats are just "hidden" under the Export option, making all this purely academic.)
As a production monkey at a firm which gets a lot of logos and what not from various clients, let me be the first to just say, "I'm fucked."
.xpr file is neither a high-res, uncompressed raster image nor a vector image, but rather an crappy, anti-aliased 72 dpi gif saved in a proprietary format (that no one using a real image editing application can open without getting sued http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/152 4203) which could potentially support the aforementioned vector/hi-res options, but isn't, so printing it will result in a page that looks roughly like output from the best printer that 1981 could buy. Now try it again but without using the term, "butt monkey."
If anyone in a mid-level administrative position actually gets this (ie: it's bundled with their next machine), it will make my life a living hell.
Try explaining nicely to the client that their
Ain't that the truth...
"No read again, this time slower..."
No, read again. This time, slower...
You totally missed my point. I was making a joke, which is something that occasionally occurs on slashdot. It may well have not been funny. That's ok. That happens here on slashdot, too. Frequently, in fact. I hardly think that makes any sort of statement as to what may or may not actually be up my butt and what I may or may not actually think it is.
Besides, a feature which is obscured to the point where users don't even know of its existence is hardly a helpful one. The feature they're touting in their "It just works" campaign is that it will be easy enough to actually be used.
(Notice how that was cunningly returned to the actual topic at hand?)
What Microsoft is talking about is having 'search' folders that display a set a documents based on criteria, like the search folders introduced in Office Outlook back in 2002. (Again a Microsoft innovation)
Oh, you mean like this (scroll down to "Look Smart, Smart folders...").
Thanks for explaining that original new Microsoft innovation.
(Yes, I do realize you were referring to adding them to Outlook in 2002. It's funny. Laugh.)
Both the cutscene and the end of the level when the trow finally comes out and starts kicking your puny butt up and down the snow bank.
I think it was actually the second level on the demo, so that was before the game even came out.
Yes, it is!
I thought it was funny, at least...
Heh. You think that's bad? I helped make one of the ones that lost to these!
Our postmortem started with, "Well, we forgot to make it actually interesting but otherwise we all did great!"
- George Orwell - http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html
No need for a defense, if you ask me.
It was a simple typo in a casual context. As I was trying to say, it actually reinforced your point.
And... it was just plain funny.
Another thread of comments already noted the lack of context inherent in text-based communications. I think this is a perfect example of that as well. I wasn't trying to flame you at all, however tough it might be to decipher that from my reply.
Examples abound!
...spelling errors are unproffesional...
Made my day.
I know, I know. This is a casual conversation and I agree with your point that it is a non-issue in such a context. I simply found it really amusing that you inadvertantly included the perfect example.
Exploit (the transitive verb): to make productive use of : to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage
Exploit (the noun): a notable or heroic act
It's understandable that people abuse words (as in the subject) but can't we all at least try to avoid doing so when the word as a noun already has a distinct meaning?