Basically, it's a loud message to Microsoft: Don't innovate, we can't appreciate it. You're right, I don't appreciate it. I don't appreciate the six year, multi-billion investment wasted on a product with fewer improvements than a point release that Apple seems to hit every two years or so. I don't appreciate Microsoft flexing its muscles to force companies like Dell and HP to carry their new over-priced products so that they can make back this wasted investment and look good in front of shareholders.
Next article on Slashdot, people with average IQ have more sex than people with non-average IQ. Researchers believe this will cause average IQ to stay average.
While I can't say "anything in VB6" will work; our company's largest application tests out ok on Vista with "minor" non-VB6 issues:
1. The application requires a Cancel / Allow on load
I know, shame on us for writing to the hard drive outside our little "Documents and Settings" sandbox. Unfortunately, the type of multi-user support our customers want requires it.
2. A few labels are unreadable
The background was originally set to a system-defined gray (under Vista's default theme gray is black).
Note: This is not an endorsement of Vista, nor does Vista provide any benefits to our application. Unless you consider requiring a significant hardware upgrade to run almost as fast as it did on XP. "Almost as fast" is defined as the same speed while the application is idle, and 1.5-3x slower during cpu-intensive tasks (like loading or sorting a batch) But at least it works when the serial connection doesn't randomly fail!
The grandparent was refering to porting to a third platform, as World of Warcraft was developed on multiple operatings systems. (Windows and Mac). Considering the relative similarities between Mac and *nix, would a port be that monumental of an effort?
Eve Online has been a real quiet success story since their launch on May 6, 2003, starting out small and slowly building more and more subscribers, with almost no competition in the market for its particular brand of sci-fi space simulation. As of June 2006, Eve has 125,625 subscribers.
This game would likely be a break even operation on 30,000 subscribers. While it's not the license to print money the way World of Warcraft is, it started on a much smaller budget and doesn't have to pay off Vivendi's massive debts.
Our company was still building DOS applications when Windows 2000 was released. Computers running our programs got Windows 98 installed on them to run it. Customers complaining about the reinstalling allowed us to build a VB6 version. (It was decided that C\Win32 would require too much programming time, even though the DOS apps were C and we need the performance) Now, we've spent 2.5 years trying to convince upper management to allow us to work on a.NET version, as some of our custom controls will break with Vista. They're not listening (again).
How can you be so sure that this is the reason for keeping NTFS private? Were you in the meeting room when this was decided? Have you considered the more practical reason that a public spec must be supported, it costs a lot of resources to support a public spec and Microsoft did see enough business benefits of doing so.
No, but I have read the memo.
World of Warcraft's OpenGL version sucks. Mac users, Linux users (WINE not Cedega) and Windows users who use the -opengl switch all suffer. Blizzard talked about "Conditional support for future OpenGL performance enhancements" but I've yet to see the improvement.
WoW runs nicely on any Mac, better on the high-end stuff but it all runs pretty decently. The Macintosh operating system has a bit more overhead than Linux but it is pretty on-par with Windows. You'll get a bit more bang for your buck running Linux on the Mac hardware but then again you'll lose some of the nice GUI features of the Mac.
From the page you linked:
Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?
Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.
Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.
As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs.
Afaik, the BSDs largely have their own set of utilies, so it should be possible to run the Linux kernel + BSD programs. The greatest (and hardest to replace) contribution of the GNU programs is GCC. Currently, Theo da Raadt (of OpenBSD) has proposed writing a faster (in compile-time not run-time), more secure/strict compiler.
Buying the outcome is more cost-effective.
Next article on Slashdot, people with average IQ have more sex than people with non-average IQ. Researchers believe this will cause average IQ to stay average.
Pull data from lolcats and autotrader?
link
Google video for "the phone company" (with quotes).
Please mod up the "hacker-truth, moderator-bashing" post!
While I can't say "anything in VB6" will work; our company's largest application tests out ok on Vista with "minor" non-VB6 issues:
1. The application requires a Cancel / Allow on load
I know, shame on us for writing to the hard drive outside our little "Documents and Settings" sandbox. Unfortunately, the type of multi-user support our customers want requires it.
2. A few labels are unreadable
The background was originally set to a system-defined gray (under Vista's default theme gray is black).
Note: This is not an endorsement of Vista, nor does Vista provide any benefits to our application. Unless you consider requiring a significant hardware upgrade to run almost as fast as it did on XP. "Almost as fast" is defined as the same speed while the application is idle, and 1.5-3x slower during cpu-intensive tasks (like loading or sorting a batch) But at least it works when the serial connection doesn't randomly fail!
WINE strives for "bug-for-bug" compatibility with Windows. Are you really safe?
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&wo rd1=al+gore&word2=khan
KAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHN!
They beg/lobby the government to prop them up with tax money.
Nope, Windows marketshare didn't change. Maybe if 50% of the new games only ran Linux.
The grandparent was refering to porting to a third platform, as World of Warcraft was developed on multiple operatings systems. (Windows and Mac). Considering the relative similarities between Mac and *nix, would a port be that monumental of an effort?
Our company was still building DOS applications when Windows 2000 was released. Computers running our programs got Windows 98 installed on them to run it. Customers complaining about the reinstalling allowed us to build a VB6 version. (It was decided that C\Win32 would require too much programming time, even though the DOS apps were C and we need the performance) Now, we've spent 2.5 years trying to convince upper management to allow us to work on a .NET version, as some of our custom controls will break with Vista. They're not listening (again).
How can you be so sure that this is the reason for keeping NTFS private? Were you in the meeting room when this was decided? Have you considered the more practical reason that a public spec must be supported, it costs a lot of resources to support a public spec and Microsoft did see enough business benefits of doing so. No, but I have read the memo.
World of Warcraft's OpenGL version sucks. Mac users, Linux users (WINE not Cedega) and Windows users who use the -opengl switch all suffer. Blizzard talked about "Conditional support for future OpenGL performance enhancements" but I've yet to see the improvement.
"When the USA sneezes the rest of the world catches pneumonia."
Compare your mac WoW fps with windows WoW fps...
From the page you linked: Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them? Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code. Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input. As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs.
Afaik, the BSDs largely have their own set of utilies, so it should be possible to run the Linux kernel + BSD programs. The greatest (and hardest to replace) contribution of the GNU programs is GCC. Currently, Theo da Raadt (of OpenBSD) has proposed writing a faster (in compile-time not run-time), more secure/strict compiler.
The CVS Transgaming offers is outdated and in no way representative of Cedega's current software. You'd have better luck with free software like Wine.
No system is ever secure unless it is throughly tested by people who completely understand it.