DirectX is probably the single best thing about Windows, and it's actually one damned good game developement API.
Funny, John Carmack's logic behind *not* developing QuakeII and up in Direct3D has always been that OpenGL was much easier, and much saner than anything Microsoft could deliver at the time. Maybe things have changed, I dunno. But I can say that the D3D games that I've played generally run okay.
You have a valid point. However, as a/.er, you seem to have taken things to an incredible extreme.
There are three other points that I'd like to bring up that support my belief that running Windows apps in a Linux environment is overall a good thing.
1) From the users' point of view, the benefit of backward-compatibility (yes, windows is backward.:P) gives them more options in the long run. How many times have we all heard a random Linux newbie claim that he tried it, liked it, but couldn't do without some critical piece of software that was tied to the Windows platform? All too often, it is often this minor detail that holds people back from becoming Linux converts. This is the entire motivation behind WINE.
2) From the developer's point of view, this means that they can herald their Windows software as being able to run perfectly fine in Windows as well as Linux. This provides a really good stepping stone for Windows software houses to easily switch over to Linux if they decide they're ready.
One particular thing that makes it even easier is the development of winelib. winelib lets developers simply recompile their existing Win32 code (perhaps with a few minor modifications) so that it can run *natively* on Linux. If ever they decide to toss out Win32 support completely, it would take some major rewriting of the program, but with winelib, this step isn't really neccessary. By the time they get around to their next major software product, it might be programmed to run in *NIX environments from the ground up.
3) What do you think would be the result if the core of the Linux community decided to lock themselves into only running native applications as you suggest? I think at least one of the results would be that the Linux community as a whole would eventually have the stereotype of being a closed group of zealous stalwarts. (Think of the current Mac user stereotype, or those who still use OS/2, or who haven't yet replaced their Amigas.) I mean, we have those already (as your post proves) but the thing that makes Linux, nay, the entire Unix philosophy so powerful is its flexibility. Once in awhile, curious people ask me what Linux can do [as opposed to Windows] and I always answer them, telling them nothing less than what I firmly believe: "Anything you want it to."
Without that flexibility, Linux would simply be replaced by something else and be written into the history books as some Fin's college project that happened to have a small cult following.
So you see, non-native application support is not about always trying to keep up with Microsoft so that we can run the latest Windows apps too, it's much more for the benefit of the software developers and users; to provide them with a very realistic stepping stone while they make the transition from Windows to Linux, should they want to do so.
By the way, I'm curious whether or not you have an opinion on the Linux binary compatability feature in FreeBSD.
Let's not forget the fact that all services have strict rules on what you can/cannot do with government property that you have access to.
For example, I am an avionics technician in the Air Force. We aren't allowed to perform *any* procedure that isn't listed in the technical orders. Technical orders tells us when and how we are allowed to repair something. Disregarding them or not using them while making a repair is the same as disobeying a direct order from the Secretary of Defense. Therefore, it would not be possible to simply start hacking on these gadgets even if there were the capability to do so. (And there isn't.)
It is also some kind of criminal offense, I'm sure, to use a radio modified to other than the official military specs during a mission. It could be a safety risk as well as a huge security risk, possibly putting lives on the line other than one's own.
Now, say if I were to aquire one of these radios with my own money and decided to hack on it in my own time, that would be perfectly fine. But this would depend on whether or not I could actually get one (legally) because there may or may not be licensed technology or software in it that *isn't* GPL.
Thank you, I meant to add that but my lunch break was running out.:P
On a side note, I'd really like to see more people supporting TRG if for no other reason than so that they can continue a line of handhelds that don't suffer from braindead marketing... like a few others out there do.
Umm... well, so far I don't see anything innovative about either of these. The only new features seem to be:
1. PalmOS 4.0 - Okay, I wouldn't mind playing with it maybe, but it looks to perform exactly the same as 3.x.x.
2. MultiMediaCard Expansion Card Slot - Yay, just what we need, more proprietary expansion ports! Palm made a mistake by not supporting an expansion slot in their ealier models but do they really have to screw consumers like this?
The one true PalmOS device, in my opinion, is the TRGpro. I own one and I have to say that for the price, it beats the pants off any monochome Palm or Visor to date. It's basically a PalmIIIx, except it's got an industry standard Compact Flash slot. You can plug in modems, serial cards, barcodes, anything! It uses the same memory cards (up to 1GB with the IBM Microdrive) as a lot of digital cameras.
If you want to make the analogy more accurate, you would say that a digital 3D model of the design of your car could be converted into a number. But don't be surprised when the data that the number represents, when properly decoded, certainly does belong to some corporation.
Don't believe me? Go out and make a nearly perfect clone of a 2001 Camero and start selling them for $1000 a pop. See who comes knocking at your door. When your only legal defense is that you used a number to design your car, you will be laughed at and then thrown in jail.
Your point might be accurate. Your example is not.
Hmm.. what was that Ayn Rand book called again? Anthem? I used to think the idea was preposterous.
(Of course, you'd have to exchange the goverment for the corporations and workers for consumers, but the idea is very much the same, if taken to an extreme.)
Actually, the earth has been scientifically dated at around 4.5 billion years. I don't know how old Hawaii is, but the ocean's seafloor and many of it's islands are absolutely no more than 200 million years. However, the oldest continental crust (dry land) is dated at around 3.8 billion years.
I do tend to agree with you on this point... The main reason most packages are i386 is because the developers want their binaries to be in the format that the most people can use.
I think, however, it would be wisest for developers to choose whichever architecture would be the bare minimum... For example, you would have ssh and wget almost *always* come in an i386 package, gnome and most other GUI apps compiled for i486, and huge & slow things like mozilla will usually be built for i586.
(Note to GCC developers: I'm still waiting for that i786 option for my Athlon!)
It shouldn't? My friend, this is what makes GPL software possible. When you release a product under the GPL and then give up ownership, you essentially wind up putting it in the public domain.
After all, if Linus did not own Linux, who would there be to enforce his ownership and the kernel's GPL license if Microsoft decided to secretly integrate some of the kernel code into Windows 2001? (But were sloppy about it?)
Well, the term "real time" is fairly broad and relative. It is meant to describe actions that happen with little or no time in between. Your use of the word just happens to be dealing with operating systems that control some other kind of hardware. Does that mean that there are no other definitions of "real time"?
As an example of the above general definition, IRC certainly can be considered a real time application. AFAIK, Prior to it, there was no way having a more-or-less instantaneous conversation with someone on the internet. You could send mail or post a news article, but that could those would take up to hours to travel or propagate. In direct relation to those methods, chatting with someone on IRC is most definitely a real time activity.
This generality is part of the reason many people have problems with the word "free" in relation to software and source code. We can't even precisely define what a computer is. Or a programming language, for that matter. Such anomalies are a part of the way our minds think, our english language, and even of our jargon. Might be wise to just get used to it.
I think (but am not sure) that GtkHTML is mostly for standalone applications that want to do slightly fancy things with text. I don't think it's suitable for web browsing at this point.
You have a good point, and it's not one that I'm willing to completely neglect. Your are correct in that they do seem to fall back on technobabble more than they should. Maybe it's just because that kind of stuff is easier to write, I dunno. But it is my opinion that most of the time, the writers are creative enough to make the story and plot actually revolve around the characters and their choices rather than the fictional technology.
Well, okay, you have a point. But I never said the technology or its use in ST was perfect. Maybe some people can go about not needing an explanation for why all the aliens can speak english, but ST has traditionally been a geek show. That's changed (somewhat) in recent times, but I think part of the reason for the existance of things such as a universal translator is that geeks need an explanation. If you have an underlying theory behind warp drive, transporters, and replicators, then you're going to need a reason why the aliens speak english too. (Ironically, many people STILL don't know...)
Another example: Warp drive. Currently, it is widely accepted that there is no way to travel faster than light, yet in Star Trek, it is routine. Geeks like me would quickly lose interest if the space ships flew around in every episode, without so much as telling us how they did so. Which is not to say they should spend an entire episode going into great detail about the inner workings of the Warp core... just give us enough information that we can grasp it and let our interpretations of it run away with the details.
In many ways, Star Trek is a unique show *because* it highlights the use of technology that doesn't exist yet. To my knowledge, no scifi television show or movie has come right out and *tried* to provide a *brief* explanation for their technology before Star Trek did. Perhaps in TOS, a large quantity of it was completely unbelievable, because at the time not a single viewer believed that things like transporters would even be possible in the future.
But when TNG came around, a large part of the show was set up around the technology of the Enterprise. The Engineering room, for example. I don't think you can get away with just showing the audience a picture of Engineering and the people working in it and say, "This is Engineering." The show would quickly turn into Yet Another Space Flick.
However, I do agree with you that sometimes they go too far. The one Voyager episode about the Omega molecule was rather neat. But when it comes to dreaming up yet another outlandish reason why they can't beam an away team out of some dangerous location is going too far.
But from my point of view, the clever uses of Star Trek technology seem to greatly outweigh the stupid ones, insofar as plot goes.
Well, strictly speaking, TOS lasted 3 seasons AND six blockbuster motion pictures. (Seven, if you count Generations, in which Kirk dies.)
Eh, when did I say different? I didn't meantion the movies, but I was talking about seasons. Anyway, I'm not familar with TOS at all. Yes, it set the stage for all Star Trek to come, and yes, it did some groundbreaking stuff for television in the 60's, but on the whole I just thought it was corny and predictable. From my perspective, Trek didn't begin until 1988.
When I saw the Voyager pilot, and I realized that it was a *woman* commanding the ship, adding to the fact that the whole "starship thrown out into the far reaches of space and trying to get home" premise sounded dumb, I didn't think I'd like the series very much. But thankfully, I was wrong.
I do kinda like the idea of following Harry Kim's POV of the action as the theme for the show, but let's face it, that would get boring as hell after awhile.
Janeway is pretty much the icon of everything that's supposed to be "right" in the universe. But what exactly else would you have the captain of a federation starship be? You just can't have manic, evil, depressed, selfish, or stupid captains running around the universe. Not only does it run perpedicular to what the Federation and Starfleet stand for, but that would get old after awhile, too. Along the same lines, I think the whole story behind Sikso being an unwilling emissary for a group of religious fanatics was brilliant.
All of the characters you mentioned above as hating were actually some of my favourites. I don't see how you can say The Doctor is a carbon copy of Data... Physical structure aside, The Doctor serves an entirely different purpose on the ship, has emotions, feels pain, is arrogant but autoritative, likes art for its beauty, and is just plain eccentric. Those are his main qualities, and Data is none of those.
Neelix was an inventive character, I think. Aside from Quark, Star Trek has never really had any comedic characters in it before. Again, we're talking eccentricity here. But what makes Neelix a nice addition to the show is the way he interacts with the rest of the cast. He sucks up to Janeway, and Tuvok, a Vulcan who ought to have no emotion, obviously LOATHES him. That's funny in itself.
Face it, Voyager is a stupid show, and it's death is welcome news to most Star Trek fans.
Err, uhh, if these hypothetical "fans" hate the show, then couldn't very well be fans, could they? Anyway, like I mentioned before, seven seasons is par for the course on a Star Trek series. Not much of a "death" if that's what they planned all along, eh? This fan is sorry to see it end already.
Heh, you are correct. I tried it for the first time on Mozilla after I posted the above, and it doesn't seem to work with Mozilla. Not sure what the deal is, but I know it works with NS4.7x and IE5.x.
I don't agree with you, but I am compelled to point out that seven seasons is the typical length of a Star Trek series. (Minus TOS, which only had three because no one liked it until the 70's.)
But... for some reason, everyone (including myself) just *knows* that the final episode will feature Voyager getting home. It is practically written into the laws of the universe that the first episode had them flung into the depths of space, and the very last episode will have them finally getting back home.
I do like your friend's idea. It would certainly require Paramount to have some balls and do what everyone least expects them to do. And to have Picard and his crew, Sisko and his buddies, and Reg Barclay and everyone else that makes Star Trek matter appear in the film would be a delight for me.
There is at least one more TNG movie in the works, and I would definitely like to see a Voyager movie sometime in the future. I was watching Insurrection again today and was amazed at what a good show it really is, in comparison to the other two movies. No Borg, no time-travel, no Kirk, no Nexus... just good clean TNG fun.
Earth is of course a Roddenberry creation (and I admit to not having seen it), but I saw some B5 and it just seemed too wacky for me yet far too similar to DS9. I have heard, however, that Babalon 5 was originally a script for the pilot of DS9, but was refused by Paramount for one reason or another. But whoever wrote it (I honestly don't know the name), took it to another network and with some cosmetic changes, aired it as Babalon 5.
Slashdot Mirror
DirectX is probably the single best thing about Windows, and it's actually one damned good game developement API.
Funny, John Carmack's logic behind *not* developing QuakeII and up in Direct3D has always been that OpenGL was much easier, and much saner than anything Microsoft could deliver at the time. Maybe things have changed, I dunno. But I can say that the D3D games that I've played generally run okay.
You have a valid point. However, as a
There are three other points that I'd like to bring up that support my belief that running Windows apps in a Linux environment is overall a good thing.
1) From the users' point of view, the benefit of backward-compatibility (yes, windows is backward.
2) From the developer's point of view, this means that they can herald their Windows software as being able to run perfectly fine in Windows as well as Linux. This provides a really good stepping stone for Windows software houses to easily switch over to Linux if they decide they're ready.
One particular thing that makes it even easier is the development of winelib. winelib lets developers simply recompile their existing Win32 code (perhaps with a few minor modifications) so that it can run *natively* on Linux. If ever they decide to toss out Win32 support completely, it would take some major rewriting of the program, but with winelib, this step isn't really neccessary. By the time they get around to their next major software product, it might be programmed to run in *NIX environments from the ground up.
3) What do you think would be the result if the core of the Linux community decided to lock themselves into only running native applications as you suggest? I think at least one of the results would be that the Linux community as a whole would eventually have the stereotype of being a closed group of zealous stalwarts. (Think of the current Mac user stereotype, or those who still use OS/2, or who haven't yet replaced their Amigas.) I mean, we have those already (as your post proves) but the thing that makes Linux, nay, the entire Unix philosophy so powerful is its flexibility. Once in awhile, curious people ask me what Linux can do [as opposed to Windows] and I always answer them, telling them nothing less than what I firmly believe: "Anything you want it to."
Without that flexibility, Linux would simply be replaced by something else and be written into the history books as some Fin's college project that happened to have a small cult following.
So you see, non-native application support is not about always trying to keep up with Microsoft so that we can run the latest Windows apps too, it's much more for the benefit of the software developers and users; to provide them with a very realistic stepping stone while they make the transition from Windows to Linux, should they want to do so.
By the way, I'm curious whether or not you have an opinion on the Linux binary compatability feature in FreeBSD.
Then am I correct in assuming that GAIM still works properly, despite what was mentioned in the
(Note: I just looged onto aolim using GAIM and it seems to work fine. Yay TOC!)
Let's not forget the fact that all services have strict rules on what you can/cannot do with government property that you have access to.
For example, I am an avionics technician in the Air Force. We aren't allowed to perform *any* procedure that isn't listed in the technical orders. Technical orders tells us when and how we are allowed to repair something. Disregarding them or not using them while making a repair is the same as disobeying a direct order from the Secretary of Defense. Therefore, it would not be possible to simply start hacking on these gadgets even if there were the capability to do so. (And there isn't.)
It is also some kind of criminal offense, I'm sure, to use a radio modified to other than the official military specs during a mission. It could be a safety risk as well as a huge security risk, possibly putting lives on the line other than one's own.
Now, say if I were to aquire one of these radios with my own money and decided to hack on it in my own time, that would be perfectly fine. But this would depend on whether or not I could actually get one (legally) because there may or may not be licensed technology or software in it that *isn't* GPL.
Thank you, I meant to add that but my lunch break was running out. :P
On a side note, I'd really like to see more people supporting TRG if for no other reason than so that they can continue a line of handhelds that don't suffer from braindead marketing... like a few others out there do.
Umm... well, so far I don't see anything innovative about either of these. The only new features seem to be:
1. PalmOS 4.0 - Okay, I wouldn't mind playing with it maybe, but it looks to perform exactly the same as 3.x.x.
2. MultiMediaCard Expansion Card Slot - Yay, just what we need, more proprietary expansion ports! Palm made a mistake by not supporting an expansion slot in their ealier models but do they really have to screw consumers like this?
The one true PalmOS device, in my opinion, is the TRGpro. I own one and I have to say that for the price, it beats the pants off any monochome Palm or Visor to date. It's basically a PalmIIIx, except it's got an industry standard Compact Flash slot. You can plug in modems, serial cards, barcodes, anything! It uses the same memory cards (up to 1GB with the IBM Microdrive) as a lot of digital cameras.
I remember when Palm used to innovate.
Your car is not your intellectual property.
If you want to make the analogy more accurate, you would say that a digital 3D model of the design of your car could be converted into a number. But don't be surprised when the data that the number represents, when properly decoded, certainly does belong to some corporation.
Don't believe me? Go out and make a nearly perfect clone of a 2001 Camero and start selling them for $1000 a pop. See who comes knocking at your door. When your only legal defense is that you used a number to design your car, you will be laughed at and then thrown in jail.
Your point might be accurate. Your example is not.
Hmm.. what was that Ayn Rand book called again? Anthem? I used to think the idea was preposterous.
(Of course, you'd have to exchange the goverment for the corporations and workers for consumers, but the idea is very much the same, if taken to an extreme.)
Actually, the earth has been scientifically dated at around 4.5 billion years. I don't know how old Hawaii is, but the ocean's seafloor and many of it's islands are absolutely no more than 200 million years. However, the oldest continental crust (dry land) is dated at around 3.8 billion years.
I do tend to agree with you on this point... The main reason most packages are i386 is because the developers want their binaries to be in the format that the most people can use.
I think, however, it would be wisest for developers to choose whichever architecture would be the bare minimum... For example, you would have ssh and wget almost *always* come in an i386 package, gnome and most other GUI apps compiled for i486, and huge & slow things like mozilla will usually be built for i586.
(Note to GCC developers: I'm still waiting for that i786 option for my Athlon!)
Software should not have owners.
It shouldn't? My friend, this is what makes GPL software possible. When you release a product under the GPL and then give up ownership, you essentially wind up putting it in the public domain.
After all, if Linus did not own Linux, who would there be to enforce his ownership and the kernel's GPL license if Microsoft decided to secretly integrate some of the kernel code into Windows 2001? (But were sloppy about it?)
Well, the term "real time" is fairly broad and relative. It is meant to describe actions that happen with little or no time in between. Your use of the word just happens to be dealing with operating systems that control some other kind of hardware. Does that mean that there are no other definitions of "real time"?
As an example of the above general definition, IRC certainly can be considered a real time application. AFAIK, Prior to it, there was no way having a more-or-less instantaneous conversation with someone on the internet. You could send mail or post a news article, but that could those would take up to hours to travel or propagate. In direct relation to those methods, chatting with someone on IRC is most definitely a real time activity.
This generality is part of the reason many people have problems with the word "free" in relation to software and source code. We can't even precisely define what a computer is. Or a programming language, for that matter. Such anomalies are a part of the way our minds think, our english language, and even of our jargon. Might be wise to just get used to it.
Better ask and be ignorant no more, than keep quiet and remain as one.
Heh, that reminds me of a quote I used to use all the time...
Better to remain silent and be presumed a fool than to open your mouth and erase all doubt.
Erm, no, I tend to believe that if it ever came down to the best products, I would be running Linux 2.4.1 on an inexpensive Athlon.
Oh, whoops, I already do...
The features of Red Carpet seem to be highlighted as thus: 1) Graphical interface 2) Easy to use 3) Works with all [popular] packaging systems.
AFAIK, agt is only one of those. (#2 for those who couldn't guess...)
I think (but am not sure) that GtkHTML is mostly for standalone applications that want to do slightly fancy things with text. I don't think it's suitable for web browsing at this point.
Though I could be wrong, and often am.
Has nothing to do with what's in the file name of the package, you could name that same package blah.rpm and it'd still throw back the same error.
Update to a newer version of RPM. (You'll probably have to build from sources, of course...)
Hmm, well I think this should be modded up.
You have a good point, and it's not one that I'm willing to completely neglect. Your are correct in that they do seem to fall back on technobabble more than they should. Maybe it's just because that kind of stuff is easier to write, I dunno. But it is my opinion that most of the time, the writers are creative enough to make the story and plot actually revolve around the characters and their choices rather than the fictional technology.
Well, okay, you have a point. But I never said the technology or its use in ST was perfect. Maybe some people can go about not needing an explanation for why all the aliens can speak english, but ST has traditionally been a geek show. That's changed (somewhat) in recent times, but I think part of the reason for the existance of things such as a universal translator is that geeks need an explanation. If you have an underlying theory behind warp drive, transporters, and replicators, then you're going to need a reason why the aliens speak english too. (Ironically, many people STILL don't know...)
Another example: Warp drive. Currently, it is widely accepted that there is no way to travel faster than light, yet in Star Trek, it is routine. Geeks like me would quickly lose interest if the space ships flew around in every episode, without so much as telling us how they did so. Which is not to say they should spend an entire episode going into great detail about the inner workings of the Warp core... just give us enough information that we can grasp it and let our interpretations of it run away with the details.
In many ways, Star Trek is a unique show *because* it highlights the use of technology that doesn't exist yet. To my knowledge, no scifi television show or movie has come right out and *tried* to provide a *brief* explanation for their technology before Star Trek did. Perhaps in TOS, a large quantity of it was completely unbelievable, because at the time not a single viewer believed that things like transporters would even be possible in the future.
But when TNG came around, a large part of the show was set up around the technology of the Enterprise. The Engineering room, for example. I don't think you can get away with just showing the audience a picture of Engineering and the people working in it and say, "This is Engineering." The show would quickly turn into Yet Another Space Flick.
However, I do agree with you that sometimes they go too far. The one Voyager episode about the Omega molecule was rather neat. But when it comes to dreaming up yet another outlandish reason why they can't beam an away team out of some dangerous location is going too far.
But from my point of view, the clever uses of Star Trek technology seem to greatly outweigh the stupid ones, insofar as plot goes.
Well, strictly speaking, TOS lasted 3 seasons AND six blockbuster motion pictures. (Seven, if you count Generations, in which Kirk dies.)
Eh, when did I say different? I didn't meantion the movies, but I was talking about seasons. Anyway, I'm not familar with TOS at all. Yes, it set the stage for all Star Trek to come, and yes, it did some groundbreaking stuff for television in the 60's, but on the whole I just thought it was corny and predictable. From my perspective, Trek didn't begin until 1988.
When I saw the Voyager pilot, and I realized that it was a *woman* commanding the ship, adding to the fact that the whole "starship thrown out into the far reaches of space and trying to get home" premise sounded dumb, I didn't think I'd like the series very much. But thankfully, I was wrong.
I do kinda like the idea of following Harry Kim's POV of the action as the theme for the show, but let's face it, that would get boring as hell after awhile.
Janeway is pretty much the icon of everything that's supposed to be "right" in the universe. But what exactly else would you have the captain of a federation starship be? You just can't have manic, evil, depressed, selfish, or stupid captains running around the universe. Not only does it run perpedicular to what the Federation and Starfleet stand for, but that would get old after awhile, too. Along the same lines, I think the whole story behind Sikso being an unwilling emissary for a group of religious fanatics was brilliant.
All of the characters you mentioned above as hating were actually some of my favourites. I don't see how you can say The Doctor is a carbon copy of Data... Physical structure aside, The Doctor serves an entirely different purpose on the ship, has emotions, feels pain, is arrogant but autoritative, likes art for its beauty, and is just plain eccentric. Those are his main qualities, and Data is none of those.
Neelix was an inventive character, I think. Aside from Quark, Star Trek has never really had any comedic characters in it before. Again, we're talking eccentricity here. But what makes Neelix a nice addition to the show is the way he interacts with the rest of the cast. He sucks up to Janeway, and Tuvok, a Vulcan who ought to have no emotion, obviously LOATHES him. That's funny in itself.
Face it, Voyager is a stupid show, and it's death is welcome news to most Star Trek fans.
Err, uhh, if these hypothetical "fans" hate the show, then couldn't very well be fans, could they? Anyway, like I mentioned before, seven seasons is par for the course on a Star Trek series. Not much of a "death" if that's what they planned all along, eh? This fan is sorry to see it end already.
Well, to be honest, no, I'm not sure. Hence the disclaimer, "I have heard..." But it sounds plausible enough to me, given the similarities of the two.
Heh, you are correct. I tried it for the first time on Mozilla after I posted the above, and it doesn't seem to work with Mozilla. Not sure what the deal is, but I know it works with NS4.7x and IE5.x.
I don't agree with you, but I am compelled to point out that seven seasons is the typical length of a Star Trek series. (Minus TOS, which only had three because no one liked it until the 70's.)
Hmm, I actually rather like that idea.
But... for some reason, everyone (including myself) just *knows* that the final episode will feature Voyager getting home. It is practically written into the laws of the universe that the first episode had them flung into the depths of space, and the very last episode will have them finally getting back home.
I do like your friend's idea. It would certainly require Paramount to have some balls and do what everyone least expects them to do. And to have Picard and his crew, Sisko and his buddies, and Reg Barclay and everyone else that makes Star Trek matter appear in the film would be a delight for me.
There is at least one more TNG movie in the works, and I would definitely like to see a Voyager movie sometime in the future. I was watching Insurrection again today and was amazed at what a good show it really is, in comparison to the other two movies. No Borg, no time-travel, no Kirk, no Nexus... just good clean TNG fun.
* Earth: Final Conflict
* Babalon 5
* Farscape
* Lexx
Earth is of course a Roddenberry creation (and I admit to not having seen it), but I saw some B5 and it just seemed too wacky for me yet far too similar to DS9. I have heard, however, that Babalon 5 was originally a script for the pilot of DS9, but was refused by Paramount for one reason or another. But whoever wrote it (I honestly don't know the name), took it to another network and with some cosmetic changes, aired it as Babalon 5.