No, it's a fair call, and something people should be concerned about.
But, I don't think Google's exhibited any inclination to be that way so far. Wikipedia's pretty self-editing, and chances are any sort of misleading/false information would be removed before anything could happen.
And, if google keeps this up, I don't think anyone is ever going to have anything bad to write about them. (Except for random dickwad bloggers.)
Not quite. That doesn't mention anything about the copyright owner, only the person who distributes the work. The gist of it is that the work may fall under the "commercial" category, even if the person distributing it isn't doing it for any personal financial gain.
For someone to be sued, there still has to be an original copyright owner to file an actual claim; Copyleft and Creative Commons are still safe.
That may be the case; but how many small companies do you know of that can actually afford to pay for, and subsequently HAVE patents on their software?
If you want to run KDE, Fedora. If you want a shitload of software immediately available without having to install much else, Fedora.
If you just want a small, simple GNOME distro, go ubuntu.
I've used them both, and while I really liked Fedora, Ubuntu was a much faster install (plus it has a live CD which you can use to get an idea, although they're both pretty similar).
However, after I installed Ubuntu, I couldn't boot into Windows. Not having the time to fix it, I don't know why that is. YMMV, of course, mine could've been an isolated case.
Yes, but for those of us without ready-made ext3 partitions, it's a problem. Can't install linux straight into empty space.
And using Knoppix/similar and QTParted (which i've not had any troubles with) is rather backwards. If people want linux to be taken seriously, they need to make it play nicely with the big boys until people are ready (or able -- until there's native GTK or QT versions of Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator, I can't switch to it full-time, and I refuse to use WINE and/or the Gimp) to switch to it permanantly.
You make a great point, one which I think some companies are realising. Doom 3 binaries for GNU/Linux? QED.
What we really need is support from ATI and nVidia to get drivers out there that are as good as the ones available for Windows/OS X.
The unfortunate catch-22 is that they're not going to play nice until there's a market... and there's not much of a market because there's no good, up-to-date drivers.
Nobody's willing to take the gamble just yet, because it looks like alternative operating systems aren't going anywhere.
But the thing to remember is that GNU/Linux _is_ growing. The problem is that in today's society, if we don't see a quick turnaround, something is immediately dismissed as a failure. If we keep evangelising, working, submitting patches, talking about it, using it, etc etc etc, GNU/Linux WILL become a viable alternative to Windows.
DirectX: It depends on how much of the API they're using. If they're using DX purely as a rendering pipeline (ie: using their own types, math functions, etc), it wouldn't be as huge a task re-coding for OpenGL. (That said, it would still be pretty huge. It's definitely an argument for using OpenGL in the first place.).NET: There's no way you'd use.NET framework objects in a DirectX game. It's waaaaay too fucking slow.
Win32 API: It would be no more difficult to convert Win32 API code to Carbon than it would be to use Qt as a bridging solution. Using Carbon would also be a hell of a lot faster.
The only sane reason I can come up with for google hiring browser people is this:
They want an integrated desktop application, based on a web browser, that acts as your email client, search engine, local hard drive search and who knows what else.
It will, of course, be entirely free, but funded by ads.
And it will work, because of the google-worshipping nature of the masses.
Google hires semi-random people. None of whom seem to be kernel people. (Maybe they're going to be using linux! MAYBE GOOGLEOS WILL BE GPL'ED!) Sky starts falling. News at 11.
Just because google releases NewProductFoo, you don't have to use it.
Honestly, amount of screaming and flapping that goes on around here whenever someone mentions google is starting to resemble the same amounts of over-googling (ha) in order to try to find the latest rumour about the 3TB Darwin-based iPod with the neural interface.
1. Yes. There's no way id would've used DirectX for Doom3, considering they've been using OpenGL since Quake 2 (if not 1) 2. If this is any indication, pretty damn soon.
Yeah, it'd be nice if they weren't still officially in point releases, but at least they're being honest and making sure that when they finally hit 1.0 Final, it won't be full of show-stopping bugs.
I'd rather them hold off and release a product that I can give to clients knowing that it's not going to crash and take their bookmarks with them.
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No, it's a fair call, and something people should be concerned about.
But, I don't think Google's exhibited any inclination to be that way so far. Wikipedia's pretty self-editing, and chances are any sort of misleading/false information would be removed before anything could happen.
And, if google keeps this up, I don't think anyone is ever going to have anything bad to write about them. (Except for random dickwad bloggers.)
Inherent flaw in your logic:
The police didn't stop me, it must be ok, right?
The police WILL stop and punish you. Just like the syadmins punish dickheads causing problems on shared machines.
Sorry, what the fuck are you on about?
Also, having read this bill, I'd wager that Magnatune.com is still perfectly safe, being a perfectly legal, licenced enterprise.
The sky isn't falling. It's just going to start getting harder to share copyrighted material that you don't own the copyright on.
Not quite. That doesn't mention anything about the copyright owner, only the person who distributes the work. The gist of it is that the work may fall under the "commercial" category, even if the person distributing it isn't doing it for any personal financial gain.
For someone to be sued, there still has to be an original copyright owner to file an actual claim; Copyleft and Creative Commons are still safe.
Comparing Visual C++ to bcc is like comparing Kazaa to ftp.exe. It's more than just a compiler/linker - it's an entire IDE.
Microsoft does have a free C++ linker/compiler sans-IDE. You can get it here.
Visual Studio .NET 2003 has a Windows Forms (.NET only) editor, exactly the same as VB and C#.
That may be the case; but how many small companies do you know of that can actually afford to pay for, and subsequently HAVE patents on their software?
If you want to run KDE, Fedora.
If you want a shitload of software immediately available without having to install much else, Fedora.
If you just want a small, simple GNOME distro, go ubuntu.
I've used them both, and while I really liked Fedora, Ubuntu was a much faster install (plus it has a live CD which you can use to get an idea, although they're both pretty similar).
However, after I installed Ubuntu, I couldn't boot into Windows. Not having the time to fix it, I don't know why that is. YMMV, of course, mine could've been an isolated case.
Yes, but for those of us without ready-made ext3 partitions, it's a problem. Can't install linux straight into empty space.
And using Knoppix/similar and QTParted (which i've not had any troubles with) is rather backwards. If people want linux to be taken seriously, they need to make it play nicely with the big boys until people are ready (or able -- until there's native GTK or QT versions of Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator, I can't switch to it full-time, and I refuse to use WINE and/or the Gimp) to switch to it permanantly.
Did they fix that little problem of the install process hosing drive geometry tables so that Windows won't load anymore?
You make a great point, one which I think some companies are realising. Doom 3 binaries for GNU/Linux? QED.
What we really need is support from ATI and nVidia to get drivers out there that are as good as the ones available for Windows/OS X.
The unfortunate catch-22 is that they're not going to play nice until there's a market... and there's not much of a market because there's no good, up-to-date drivers.
Nobody's willing to take the gamble just yet, because it looks like alternative operating systems aren't going anywhere.
But the thing to remember is that GNU/Linux _is_ growing. The problem is that in today's society, if we don't see a quick turnaround, something is immediately dismissed as a failure. If we keep evangelising, working, submitting patches, talking about it, using it, etc etc etc, GNU/Linux WILL become a viable alternative to Windows.
Salient points. But, there's a couple of gotchas.
.NET: There's no way you'd use .NET framework objects in a DirectX game. It's waaaaay too fucking slow.
DirectX: It depends on how much of the API they're using. If they're using DX purely as a rendering pipeline (ie: using their own types, math functions, etc), it wouldn't be as huge a task re-coding for OpenGL. (That said, it would still be pretty huge. It's definitely an argument for using OpenGL in the first place.)
Win32 API: It would be no more difficult to convert Win32 API code to Carbon than it would be to use Qt as a bridging solution. Using Carbon would also be a hell of a lot faster.
/.
The site's HTML is horribe, and doesn't validate worth shit.
... will it run PearPC fast enough?
If they wanted H2G2 to be a money making movie instead of a good movie, they wouldn't have given it to Hammer and Tongs to do.
The only sane reason I can come up with for google hiring browser people is this:
They want an integrated desktop application, based on a web browser, that acts as your email client, search engine, local hard drive search and who knows what else.
It will, of course, be entirely free, but funded by ads.
And it will work, because of the google-worshipping nature of the masses.
Google hires semi-random people.
None of whom seem to be kernel people.
(Maybe they're going to be using linux! MAYBE GOOGLEOS WILL BE GPL'ED!)
Sky starts falling.
News at 11.
Sheesh.
Just because google releases NewProductFoo, you don't have to use it.
Honestly, amount of screaming and flapping that goes on around here whenever someone mentions google is starting to resemble the same amounts of over-googling (ha) in order to try to find the latest rumour about the 3TB Darwin-based iPod with the neural interface.
It's a freaking search engine.
You are over-reacting.
Where on earth did you get the notion that google are developing their own freaking operating system??
1. Yes. There's no way id would've used DirectX for Doom3, considering they've been using OpenGL since Quake 2 (if not 1)
2. If this is any indication, pretty damn soon.
Microsoft don't want to sell hardware. They want to sell licences to WMA decoders.
And they're doing a decent enough job with that as it is.
Yeah, it'd be nice if they weren't still officially in point releases, but at least they're being honest and making sure that when they finally hit 1.0 Final, it won't be full of show-stopping bugs.
I'd rather them hold off and release a product that I can give to clients knowing that it's not going to crash and take their bookmarks with them.
Aha. Bollocks. I feel stupid. Cheers, man.
*tries to discretely hide the packaging he recently arrived in*
This is why I love Slashdot.
The people we talk about actually talk back.