Eg. my future (I'm currently on oral contract, as the writing is in the works and will have to pass the layer-test, too) contract will have IP rights for my works created at work assigned to the employer, meaning that if I want to work on OSS at work, I have to get permission for that. Not a problem in a small company, though. Especially as I'm basically responsible for our R&D, so the CEO will likely tell me to do what's best for the company.. Which sometimes is writing OSS during office hours, and sometimes not.
OTOH, most programmers are on much less explicit contracts. While that doesn't mean that they're free to work on OSS, at least mostly the contract doesn's include statements like "All IP rights are assigned to the employer". Of course they should ask for permission when writing OSS at work, but if it's not related to the employer's field, it shouldn't pose a problem.
And admins may have contracts that don't require any specific permission for working on OSS. They're usually expected to keep the company servers (and workstations, networks, whatever) up and running. If they do this by writing OSS, then so be it.
So, if the admins create an OSS program to get work done, and their contracts don't have IP rights automatically assigned to the employer, and a third party takes that program and starts marketing it (with value added services), it all depends on the employer. If the company is in IT business, the admins probably have a clause about works created while employed by the company, and if the company is not in IT, they wouldn't take the software and start marketing it anyway, so there's no business lost.
Of course whatever the real situation, a PHB can be a PITA whatever the contract or company lawyer says. So better always check Your contract before spending any signficant hours at work on OSS. If in doubt, ask Your supervisor or company general office. And if still in doubt, ask for permission (or general office interpretation of Your contract) in writing.
At ~8 months You're at the stage where You think You know it all. In a few years You'll understand how little You know then (when You know a lot more than now). And when You're finally proficient, You're called a dinosaur and made fun of. Then You're forced to management. Unless You're lucky and work well with people who make fun of You being twice their age. Of course You have to understand that those kids know about as much as You did when You wrote a slashdot comment about how You felt You're relatively proficient.
Luckily You said "relatively" not "absolutely" proficient.
Now, about learning from OSS.. You can learn many things about that, but You'll still have to learn about the algorithms from other sources (Uni, books, separate courses, whatever) so that You know why those decisions were made (if the decisions were made on technical merits, that is). And You have to learn about formal processes (so You can avoid them while the management thinks You're abiding by them;) [note: that was just half jokingly made comment]). And so on.
I learnt my C from hack. You know, the game "hack". Of course I later learnt C by reading books and articles and practicing, but hack was where I started: "I think I should learn C.. Let's see, I have the sources for hack, I could try reading that." I learnt my kernel stuff when I had hardware that wasn't supported in Linux. And so on. While on the meantime, I did go to Uni (never graduated), and have later gotten certificates in UML and RUP and PPS and whatnots..
While part of the 19% might be doing just that, some of them (mainly admins) might be working on something the company needs (meaning: the admins need) which is available as F/OS software or which they make available as such. Their supervisor knows only that they're keeping the servers up and runnning, not that the code they create to do their job is released as F/OS software.
On the other hand, where I work (a small company doing mostly embedded software contracting for telecoms) one person wanted to try get a pro-audio sound system working in Linux, and our CEO actually signed a corporate NDA with the hardware shop so that all developers we have would be free to participate. Of course only when there's nothing pressing in the project they're in.
What do we get for it? More experience for junior developers, a rare piece of code we can show to potential customers (mostly we're working under NDA and can't tell our prospects but names of some clients and general things like "we're familiar with Motorola embedded communications processors"), and something to keep the developers working on software even when they're not tied in some specific project;)
When I used my line heavily, 90% of the traffic was to my ISPs servers. So I didn't use their external bandwidth much. And 90% of external bandwidth use was to NORDUNET (ftp.funet.fi, ftp.sunet.se) with which they probably had a reasonable peering agreement with. It still wasn't real external bandwidth.
I don't use P2P music/video sharing/warez. I don't have www/ftp servers. I get occasional spammers thinking they've found an open relay (because my externally visible mailserver doesn't check anything - it's some 500 lines of C and it's secure - the mail gets rejected by the internal mailserver that does full checking and definitely doesn't relay). I'm probably quite lucky to get just about 20 probes a day from script kiddiez, so that doesn't cost my ISP much, either.
Now, I want my bandwidth. And I actually get it, too. I know that external bandwidth is pretty much limited so that I get at best about 1Mbps from extremely well connected US sites (I have 10Mbps to ISP backbone). And that doesn't bother me. My external bandwidth use is email, web and ftp (ximian/redhat/montevista - and I use mostly local mirrors when available).
I know that my usage pattern isn't exactly "residential use standard". But it's nowhere near that napstering-crowd.
So what do I want? I want static IP. I want the right to keep servers - rate capped and even voluntary rate capping using local shaping at my own firewall at that. I want an SLA with QoS. I want a guarantee of service.
I don't need much bandwidth or many bytes of external traffic, but I want local bandwidth to my ISP and their immediate peers.
And I'm ready to pay twice or more the standard residential rate.
In Finland capitol area providers are plentiful - for private persons there's one cable, one or two telcos, one or two internet infra providers with their own fiber and copper, and at least half a dozen other service operators on those lines.
The cheapest always-on connection is about 45€ (40 USD) / month. And the agreement basically denies all use of internet for that price.. OK, You can surf the net (but their transparent proxies suck, giving old pages all the time), and read email (pop without security to the provider's mail server). Transparent DNS caches are always out of date, giving out duly expired entries for a couple of days.. And it's not very fast - 256kbps nominal rate I think.
So, get a faster connection. Depending on where You live, it might not cost more (I have 10Mbps ethernet to Elisa (telco) backbone for some 45€ / month - because all 62 apartments in the house are connected). And yes, it's very fast. It works. I don't remember any clauses about usage limits (like the 5GB/month kind of soft limit that's not strictly enforced by the cable co).
But, I'm lucky to live in a very new house that's been wired and connected when it was built. In my earlier apartment I paid about 140€ / month for 2Mbps/512kbps ADSL - with similar "no server" clauses. However - it really was that fast. No usage limits.
Cable? I had cable with 10Mbps ethernet connector. The modem was 34Mbps/768kbps (I think, not sure), where the downlink was shared (don't know about uplink). When I got it, no-one else in the area had one, so it was fast. However, soon, when others in the cable co's substation area got one, too, it slowed down quite a lot.. In the end, I usually got some 1-2Mbps down from local area (well connected capitol area web/ftp sites). It was never fast on connections abroad - think analog modem.. ADSL was better in that. And the service agreement was painfully stupid. I never actually abided by that, if read by the letter.
However, I don't hold a grudge to those who have 45€ / month connection and are happy with it. I'm ready to pay twice that for the same speed if I get rid of those stupid "no servers" clauses in the agreement. But, the fact is that only business lines (cost prohibitive ones) have sane agreements. So, I'll just have to keep paying for two operators (telco and cable) because telco provides good connectivity while cable sells me a static IP address for 8€/month extra while the telco only has dynamic addresses (static IP "may be a future value-added service").
When DSL and cable weren't available, I racked up at worst about 300 USD / month bills for ISDN and even earlier analog modem use. Because just getting the RH one-cd install image downloaded from local Finnish ftp site using 56kbps analog modem took about a day and a half straight.
I'd say that the current 45€ / month is acceptable for always-on connectivity. I'd even say that more bandwidth may cost more, and it's OK. I'd still pay that 80-100€ / month for decent speed. It's not all that much, when You need it. I'd even pay 150€/month if I got a sane service agreement and static IP.
So, what's the case if You live in Finland but not in the capitol area? The big cities have one or two providers - twice the price, half the service. And, when You move 10km out from the city area, You're out of luck. ISDN? Maybe. Analog modem most likely. Pay by the minute and suffer. Of course in some areas there are smaller ISPs that actually provide bandwidth and service for a decent fee, but it seems that the telco-owned ISPs have bought most of those and are now providing the well known "twice the price, half the service" -service.
So, some smaller towns have banded up and started scetching their own broadband networks. I haven't read enough about those to know what they mean with "broad", but it seems they'll go for fiber backbones from town to town, then mostly wireless for last miles. They plan to build that themselves and get a connection from some telco or ISP (and when they buy OC3 or more they get it for decent price). Apparently even in the first year of operation they should be able to provide connection for some 40€/month or so for private persons, and they plan to lower the price when more people join in - probably adding some higher priced pro-service for those who want more bandwidth.
I agree that Eva takes off again after the silly Asuka. It's definitely good, no argument with that. But, I still don't think it's good enough overall to get into the excellent masterpieces -category.
And I agree that CB is fun. Good, too. Again, not the best series.
Why can't I rate Eva to the highest category? It made me think about many things, shallow and deep. But it didn't manage to trigger my emotions deep enough. It's not supposed to make You laugh, but the failing was that it didn't make me feel heavy at heart and cry. It kept me at a distance, didn't involve me, surround me, and take me in. I couldn't relate to the characters or moments well enough. I agree that it tried to evoke emotional response, but for me it failed in that.
Even CB made me come to tears. And Sabre Marionette J. And Nadesico. Watching those, I did laugh, too, and the tears were for happiness mostly.
Mononoke Hime entered my heart. As did Area 88. They made me feel sad. And many, many more.
Those that make me think are usually good. As are those that make me laugh. But the best ones make me cry, too. The best ones involve me, surround me, take me in completely. They make me relate deeply to some characters or moments.
BG I and II were good games, but Torment was the best CRPG ever made. Torment had an interesting plot, lots of dialogue, many ways to work through the game, interesting characters.. It had everything. Well, mostly everything.. Only a human GM can handle players who want to do something that hasn't been prepared for.
Fallout II was great, too. And I was looking forward to Torn until it was cancelled (and tried to be hopeful even after that), as the SPECIAL system of Fallout was IMHO very good.
Slayers is great. Slayers the Movie is great. Slayers the Book of Spells (OVAs on DVD) is great. Slayers Next is good. Slayers Try isn't very good.
If there's a single word that sums up what's best in Slayers, it is.. Koala. After seeing that one scene, I dropped ROTFL every time I heard the word for a while, and still it makes me smile;)
I'd rate the CB:KoHD about the same as a good episode in the series, but not on par with the best episodes. A little bit of a disappointment, as I had high hopes for the movie after the series. And it was "only" good, not excellent.
There are lots of excellent anime movies, including Ghost in the Shell, Mononoke Hime, Laputa, Porco Rosso, Totoro (now THAT's an excellent one, for whole family, young and old)..
On the series & OVA side, my list of favs starts usually with Area 88 and Gundam 0080 War in th Pocket, but there are so many that a comprehensive list is impossible to write from memory, and would take too much space anyway.
Of course taste is subjective, and differs from person to person. I'd guess from Your mention of Eva and Lain that ours might differ a little, as I'd say both Eva and Lain are good, but not very early on my list.
Eva starts well, then falls a little (some say a lot), and the end is anybody's guess (pick Your ending - I'm not sure which I like best).
Lain has EXCELLENT use of sound, but otherwise it's not all that special.
Key the Metal Idol is sometimes compared to Lain, and there are similarities. I'd say Key had more potential, but felt like after halfway suddenly the crew noticed that they have to bring it to end at once while they had planned for twice the length it ended as.
However, with those preferences You might want to check Gasaraki. I'm still waiting for my last disc, but up to that I'd say it's been very good.
Removable hard drives have lots more uses than just mobility or off-site storage.
Eg. I have IDE RAID system. I know that the disks are going to crash - disks always do, sooner or later. Now, when (not if, when) a disk crashes, I just bring the system offline, take the disk out, and bring the system back online. I know - with hotswap SCSI I wouldn't need off/online cycling, but that costs a lot more.
Without removable bays I would have to open the case, open some 20 or so screws to get the media bay off, disconnect cables that are in VERY tight space, and so on.
Operation time reduced from at least half an hour to five seconds. Add off/online cycle of about five minutes.
Now, I have a laptop for work. I work at home, at two offices, and at customers' sites. Laptop is good for that. But, if I could get three tiny light computers and a KVM-switch into same space as one laptop, that'd be great. If it were a single package with shared redundant power supplies and two power jacks, single keyboard, video and mouse jacks, separate network jacks and so on, it'd really be great.
I'd still have the laptop (for working in train - I rather use train than car for moving between cities as that allows me to work, sleep, or read while traveling). But, I'd be able to get several setups (development system, Linux server and multiboot WinXP/2k/NT4/ME/98SE/98/95) whereever I need those. Eg. for client-server software with Linux server that has to be tested against every damn Windows ever made (ok, Win95 and newer only) clients.
Anyway, VMWare is OK, but laptops still don't have enough diskspace for me to set up a gazillion client systems (read the Windows list above). There's just enough space for separate trashable Linux test environment and "stable" Win2k (customer requirements mean I need MS software, too) on top of working, stable Linux host.
Also, VMWare provides only virtual hardware. What if I need to connect different systems to external devices for development and test? Say, I need to have development system connected to a box so I can tweak it, bring software in and out, and see the logs, while at the same time I need a real client connected to the same box? VMWare works only if the connections are using different hardware (eg. serial console, ethernet NFS for development filesystem, and USB client).
Actually Gandalf was pretty close to an angel. Saruman would be one, too. Sauron again would be a fallen angel.
Silmarillion contains much of the mythology, including creation and so on. The creation story implies one God, then a small number of major angels of which one later fell from grace, and a larger number of minor angels that were basically assisting the 13 or so major ones while God no longer did anything about the Creation.
I currently have ~80GB of which 72GB is a single filesystem. I also have ~240GB in a new case and should start moving the rest of the computer into the new home.. Those 80GB will go to one workstation that currently has way too much software (and data) installed on network disks - software that is not needed on other computers.
The diskspaces mentioned are visible amounts. Current setup is system on mirrored 9GB disk and data on 5*18 RAID5. New setup is mirrored stripe of 3*80GB. Hot spare in both configurations.
On the new system I'll probably have some filesystems (total of about 110GB) for specific uses, but most of the data area will be on one filesystem. That is, there will probably be a ~100GB filesystem for data.
Total visible space for my home network is currently about 200GB and will thus be over 400 when I get the server moved to it's new case - however, at that point I'll be back to some 60% utilization from the current "very close to 100%".
I do have a DDS4 DAT drive. Native capacity of a tape should be about 20GB, but seems more like 18GB (when backing up data that will not compress any further). For me this means that a weekly backup doesn't fit on a single tape. And full backup takes pretty long to take, and I'd really like to have full backup at least every now and then.
Additional drives aren't a solution - I don't trust non-redundant drive setups (I've had more than my share of disk crashes already). Reasonable redundant diskspace costs money, and more importantly, a cheap solution is very limited in physical space requirements. IDE won't work because of cable lengths, which means that I'd need a separate ~100GB SCSI RAID setup for backups and still would need to have mostly static data backed up separately.
For some uses I think DVD-R(W) would fit well:
- readable by mostly any computer nowadays (DVD-ROMs are cheap)
- reasonable space (4.7GB) for most single datasets, and with three or four any single dataset I have
- expected lifespan of a DVD-RW is over 10 years
For some other uses I still need tape:
- nightly incremental backup won't fit on a single DVD-RW but will on the DDS4 tape
- DVD-RW media is more expensive than DAT DDS4 tapes
- weekly specific subsystem full backups can, when well planned, be fit on a single tape per subsystem, and it's reasonably fast so I need to change tapes and push buttons only in the morning and again in the evening
Oh yes, that 72GB filesystem was a pain to fsck. However, journaling fs takes THAT pain away.
Nordunet 1 and 2 PoPs were listed on the right side of the weathermap. Nordunet is connected to GEANT at Sweden, and the Nordunet nodes aren't considered GEANT nodes.
SVideo and RCA that are good for long hauls are pretty expensive. Cat5 is cheap. Fiber isn't very expensive, but equipment for fiber is.
However, I agree that running at least three times the drops that I believe I'd ever want is the way to go. That way when (soon) I notice I want more than I had believed, it's there. Note that twice the cable is not enough, three times has been enough every time.
As I'm just moving to a new apartment that was built with Gigaspeed(R) cabling (for phones, too..) I noticed that it's still built for the average family: 1+1 jacks in every room (2+2 in living room), with one in every plate connected together in the matrix ("pre-connected for phone") and the other not connected, two uplinks (one for phone, one for 'net), one patch cord to wire the 'net uplink to one room..
Have to see how much these Gigaspeed(R) whatever connectors cost (no, it's not RJ45 in the matrix), go buy some, and some patch cables, run a few extra wires, and see if it'll work out.
(picked up the papers.. It's Systimax(R) SCS GigaSPEED(R) cabling, with 110-wiring matrix, and the apartment cabling box has "space for active devices" (read: not enough for but one very small slimline hub/switch))
I understand that. My code isn't all too good, either, but it works (after debuging). And in the end, passes all the tests. That's what matters. Passing the tests. And adhering to the design specs. Even if I know that the spec I wrote has flaws in that it forces some parts of the implementation to be less than optimal, once the spec is approved, the implementation must follow it. When there are minor deviations from the spec, the spec must be updated, but major deviations shouldn't be allowed except in spec phase of iterations. If You know that a change in spec is needed, note it, but follow the spec. When next spec phase comes, take the notes and change the spec.
However, there are always some design and coding guidelines that should help make the code readable. Sometimes the guidelines don't fit the situation, in which case exceptions should be documented.
The problem with releasing code is that without the spec, the code may well look like sphagetti. With the spec, it makes a lot more sense. Still, the code should have enough comments that it can be read and understood even without the spec, although then the big picture and many of the reasons for why the code looks like it does are lost. And, releasing the spec tells more about the company and it's software development than the code itself, so even if the code is released, the spec might not be released.
I'm not sure though what would the IP protection be should the spec be released.. Remember that the spec itself is protected by copyright, and as the spec describes the software, software written from the spec can be considered an implementation of the spec, and thus a work derived from the spec. If the spec is copyrighted and restrictively licensed (or not licensed for commercial implementation at all outside the owning company), could it be that by releasing the spec the company would gain better protection for the software, even in cases where the implementation is covered by an open license like the GPL? Could it mean that only the codebase released under GPL is open, and any implementation of the spec other than the GPL'd release is protected by the copyright?
IANAL. But that would be an interesting question to present to one..
That's not a good solution. Linus chose GPL, so GPL it is.
There are a couple of choices:
1) Write Your driver as a module. Then You can release binary only.
2) Release the driver code. You're selling a box with software preloaded, not software. If competitors can whip up the same piece of hardware cheaper than You, then You have a problem, but that's not a problem with the software licensing.
I don't really believe that an embedded linux solution would really depend on the development of kernel code - or at least not the kernel code that can't be written as a module.
Now, I assure You that I do respect IP. I'm working on embedded solutions, too, and the customers have their rights regarding the IP. However, if they choose Linux and want to modify the kernel, they can either write a module or release the code. And they know it. They also know that they depend actually on selling the boxes and not the software - the software enables the box to function. The kernel mods are released - as are new kernel APIs and so on. Then, using those APIs proprietary software can be written.
Haven't tried the new Pool, but Baldur's Gate was IMHO better than the old SSI games.
However, the best CRPGs to date have been Planescape: Torment and Fallout 2. Both allow for different activities in a level that makes You forget that it's still linear. Note that the old (A)D&D modules were linear, too, so CRPGs being linear is just natural progression. It'd be too hard to write it otherwise.
Just means that Interplay is not the only company to hold license for AD&D computer games.
Pool of Radiance is a kind of a sequel to the old SSI gold box series (Pool of Radiance, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness) which was set in Phlan, then the surroundings, in the end covering the Moonsea area with visits to Myth Drannor, outer planes, thwarting plots to revive a god and so on. The whole SSI series, including other AD&D licensed games like the Eye of Beholder series, are available as "The Forgotten Realms Archive", in three boxes. The games look pretty awful by current standards, but were important milestones on the CRPG timeline.
I would say that AD&D refers to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, both first and second edition. Remember that Dungeons and Dragons usually refers to the D&D boxed sets edition, while theoretically some oldskoolers may use it to refer to the earlier pamphlets (I wouldn't call them "books" as such).
I haven't actually played AD&D 2nd ed but a few times, but have spent a lot of time using D&D boxed set / AD&D 1st ed hybrids.. I'm not oldskool enough to have played D&D original - I started with the boxed set edition (red box: Basic Set (levels 1-3, dungeons only); blue box: Expert Set (levels 4-14, outdoors); cyan box: Companion Set (levels 15-25, castles and stuff); black box: Master Set (levels 26-36, kingdoms and stuff); and was it gold box: Immortal Set?).
I have heard that the AD&D 3rd ed is pretty different from 2nd ed, though. But, AD&D 2nd ed definitely was not D&D second edition, as it's so that D&D still had Dave Arneson listed as authors, while AD&D first ed dropped him and had just Gygax. AD&D 2nd ed is considered by TSR (does the name still exist, or are they now WotC?) "a different game from the first edition" which allowed them to drop Gygax from the list of authors and, more importantly, stop paying royalties to Gygax as well as stop having to listen his whining. The same Gygax did to Arneson with AD&D originally..
Again, who would put money up? Why would they do such a thing??? There would be no game shops and no pretty boxes, because the product is in the public domain.
The gamers would pay. Because otherwise there would be very few games.
And there would still be pretty boxes and shiny things. Do You know the size of gaming related material today? Who do You think buys the posters, the strategy guides, the insider reviews, and so on?
While I don't buy much gaming related stuff (why would I buy strategy guide when I can play the game and discuss strategies with my friends who also play it?), there are people who do.
And, I like to have the booklet describing the game, it's fictional history and whatnots, as well as having nice printed maps and posters and so on. I don't have an A2 color printer at home, You know.. And the quality of those prints included in the box is something You won't get with Your $99 color ink printer.
- Developers are not motivated by self-interest.
They are, of course. And this point is irrelevant to the discussion. Unless You believe that a significant fraction of the developers are motivated by the idea that they own significant part of a company that might make it big and make the millionaires. Trust me, I know some developers, and they work because they love the games, and they get paid decent salary. Only very few make it big if the game makes it big.
- Organizations that produce software are happy with a small, fixed amount of compensation for their services (assuming anyone would pay) versus virtually unlimited compensation today.
There would be enough organizations for that.
There is no "virtually unlimited" compensation today. Game development companies take risks, and must break even with the few hits they make. Most of the games never make enough to cover the costs.
So, if the company knew beforehand that the game's going to break even, it's excellent news! They'd definitely make the game. And then they'd hope they make decent profit with the shiny things, too.
And there would be funding, too. Why do You think anyone invests in stable, low return papers? Because they know that while it's not going to make big return, it's going to make better than inflation rate. Like getting 6% yearly average on the investment.
- Developers are willing to provide a warranty for software that they do not own; guaranteing that it will perform as specified, since the escrow system will withhold payment until everyone is happy.
Like You have a warranty nowadays with software?
Actually, the developers would have to meet the beforehand agreed target. The program would be tested against the requirements and if it passes, the developer gets the money.
Also, trust me that the escrow system wouldn't be like described by an earlier post.. The contracts would not be "payment 100% on delivery", but more like "30% up front, 30% on [some milestone about 60-70% on the schedule], 40% on acceptance".
There wouldn't be "payment when everyone is happy" because it's sure that not everyone would be happy. It'd be "payment upon meeting the acceptance criteria as defined in the [exhibit #]".
- Consumers plan software purchases well in advance.
They would learn to. Also remember that the contract would have a schedule. Game development wouldn't drag forever, but would aim to complete something that has been agreed upon. Like, you know, contracted software development.
Don't You know anyone who's pre-ordered knowing fully that it'll be 4-6 months before the game is released?
- Consumers are willing to sponsor developers for the "public good"
Some would do that, but others would just look at it like they do at buying a game. If they sign the contract, they will get the game on schedule, or get part of the money back if it's late, or get their money (less some expenses like the game shop markup) back if the company won't get enough pre orders.
Also, this would mean that the development team reputation could make or break game proposals. Like, if Bioware proposed a cool new CRPG, I'd definitely pay as they've created some pretty good games before, and that's my favourite genre. However, if some company I know nothing about had a proposal that looked nice but not excellent, I might skip it - unless it'd be cheap. Now, can You guess if I read reviews before I buy (or pre-order) CRPGs by Bioware? And can You guess if I bother walking around the game stores looking for games I know nothing about anyway.
Because if You wouldn't pay, the developer would look at the sum and decide that he won't do it for the money offered.
The developers would be pre-paid, or there would be contractual obligations. Like: when I release the code, You pay me the agreed upon amount.
How would this change things? Don't know, but it would change a lot. Eg. now there are corps that pay the developers while they create the game, and then charge each buyer. These corps take the risk, and decide whether to start the project or not.
Probably the corps would stay, but they'd know the total amount they're getting beforehand. The gamers would enter contracts (not shrink wrap EULAs, but real, signed contracts) where they state how much they'd pay for the game the corp is proposing. The contracts would have the game proposal attached, and there would be verifiers that would see that the released game meets the contractual obligations. And the gamers would then pay the agreed upon amount.
Of course it might be that the gamers would have to pre-pay something when entering the contract (30% up front, 70% on delivery). And the contracts would soon become standardized. So, in the usual game shop, there would be a list of "upcoming games" (game proposals) with detailed descriptions and contract forms. From the "upcoming releases" the gamers would choose games that are all so cool, and would then enter contract with those development corps (ref. pre-order a product that has only been sketched). The game shops get their points and forward the rest of the money, as well as the signed contracts, to the game development companies.
The game shops would still have nice, colorful packages for sale. Probably a lot cheaper than now, because each of the games would be available for free, there would be no copying restrictions, and so on. And the developers were paid on completion. But people would still buy those colorful packages that would probably contain booklets and stuff.
What'd change in my work? Nothing. I get paid, I so my work, the customer owns the code and the documents. They do whatever they want, and I'm already bound by contractual obligations to not keep even a single copy of the work and so on.
Threatens to invade Taiwan, yes, but I'd guess that those threats are more of international politics than real. They'd definitely go to Taiwan if nobody tried to forcibly stop them, but as long as it'd mean real military campaign, not just shending troops in ships over they're very unlikely to do that.
Militaristic? Definitely. They are close to Pakistan and India - countries that are in eachother's throats and have nuclear weapons. Oh yes, there are some other countries pretty close, too, like Afganistan..
Also, USA is pretty militaristic, too. As is Russia. See: big country, big army, need to prove that they're big - hit in all three cases. India would also be covered by this.
Now, if China tries to put a big starwars lasergun on the orbit, I bet that USA will do the same instantly, except with hundred cannons. Russia would want to, but currently can't afford.
I don't fear China any more than I fear USA. Actually I fear Russia a lot more than China. I don't think these three countries however are a big problem. I fear Pakistan a lot more (India less so). I fear Iraq and Israel more. And, so does Bush.
The missile defense plan is not against China or Russia (which both have enough nukes to make the world glow - US missile defense or no), but against countries that might have one or two strategic nukes. I'd guess it's ten to a hundred defense missiles to get a single nuke down, so if China decides to shoot a hundred of them on ballistic trajectory, USA wouldn't have enough defense missiles to take out but a few.
I applaud China on their hard work on the space program, and wish them safe manned missions. We do need more competition on the manned space mission front, and China is just the country that can truly make it.
I already pay some USD 200-300 for my web content. I subscribe to services that are good, and that usually means that I get content not available for free as well as getting the content that would be available for free without banners.
I would definitely hate automatic micropayments. I don't want to pay microsoft additional whatever it'd come to for getting upgrades from their website.
Or consider how many small apps nowadays use http to fetch data from the net.
I don't have any idea about how much I surf. Because I'm always connected - at home, at work - and mostly have some browser windows open, and so I may just check a page or two when waiting for a compile to complete or whatever.
Consider this: how much is slashdot worth to You? I'd pay eg. USD 20 / year for slashdot subscription. That's less than a penny a page, and about 1/10th of what I pay for my newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat). But I wouldn't pay more for probably ANY website than that 1/10th of the newspaper, because no website, however good it is, will provide me 1/10th of the RELIABLE content. How about TV? I think I pay some USD 40 or so a year for TV - I don't have pay channels. Would I pay more for a single website than for the 10-20 TV channels that are in the basic bundle I get? Nope. No way.
If I get real, archive copies of material, then I'll pay more for USEFUL sites. But, the reality is different: I subscribe to a magazine and get their subscriber web service as an extra. I get archivable content (paper, some CD-ROMs), and I get dynamic content not likely to be referable five years from now. Of course I could say that I subscribe to their web service and get the magazine (and CD-ROMs and stuff) as an extra. If good informational websites want to go that way ("Subscribe to the website, subscription includes bimonthly paper copy of the feature articles AND CD-ROM archive every year!") then they'd be treated as magazins with the web service as an extra.
If I only maintained things I personally made the decision to purchase at my job, I would be a lot happier. Unfortunately the management ranks are filled with people who think like you (well, about the depending on external companies thing, not the specing stuff out thing), and these type of boxes just tend to show up on my desk.
OK, so You have to, in Your job, maintain stuff that You haven't spec'd nor participated in the purchase decision (or Your contributions to the purchase decisions have been overruled).
I understand that that definitely isn't the way things should be. Managers should ask admins for the technical requirements when considering a purchase. However, they aren't bound only by those techincal requirements, but should at least be able to explain what the other, more important reasons for the decisions are. I do remember, when I was working as an admin, that I did present reason, spec, and cost estimates for purchases to the management. Sometimes they said yes, sometimes no (and in those cases told me why not).
And, I believe that a clear, written requirements spec delivered voluntarily to the manager should help. Otherwise the manager is definitely more braindead than he was for not asking that req spec in the first place.
With any luck, a positive effect of this little recession will be to put a stop to the "brain drain" effect that led managers in certain areas to believe that rented brains were superior to hired brains in the first place. Such a viewpoint has always had negative effects on department morale.
So basically Your beef is with braindead managers and only secondarily with the crappy appliances?
While apparently your experiences with appliances have been very bad, have You ever seen an appliance perform as promised? Do You have advice against (or for) specific brands or types of appliances (as in "firwall might be ok but cd jukeboxes are all crap" or " has delivered better crap than ")?
However, why are You specing ssh? You don't need ssh, You need an interface for configuring and maintaining the system from remote workstation using secure protocol.
An interface that doesn't piss me off. Why should I have to test out the functionality of all the pieces of a new black box for every single thing I have to implement when I know of a system that will work? Why should I have to load yet another crappy management tool onto a Windows desktop or put up with yet another clunky web management interface that doesn't do what I want? Why should I have to tell management that this one machine can't alert me when something non-fatal happens to it, like a fan or disk dying?
OK, can You imagine all the possible conditions You're really watching for? If You can, You can write them down. Require the system to provide information about hardware (and I think disk or fan dying is fatal in that it reduces redundance by one level or makes the system potentially unstable).
If You know what the management interface needs to not piss You off, then write that down. And if Your workstation is Linux or BSD or Solaris or anything else not Windows, just spec the admin tool to be available on the workstation/OS that administrators use. Of course this is assuming that administrators use the same hw/sw combination.. Or at least each admin team responsible for certain service group uses the same tools.
Your assertion that it takes a well-manned IT department to set up a server using normal hardware and install proxy serving software (or whatever) on it is amusing.
I still maintain that opinion, although still in more general sense than just pertaining to web cache. It may also be that we have different assumptions regarding "well manned", perhaps because I've seen IT depts that are far from well manned. And I believe that ultimately any catasrophe possible will happen one day. In addition, it's not about just setting it up, but also maintaining it, and I think an appliance with good service contract is easier to handle in an emergency than a general purpose server with a service contract.
Of course I know how to throw together a Linux system running squid. I have one (although not on redundant hardware - I'm a software developer, not admin, so the one I run is at home, where redundant hardware is afforded only for business critical servers and web proxy is not business critical at home). But, I've seen the todo-lists of many an admin. And I've heard "I'll do that next week" often enough.
So why am I so insistent that You (and any other admin) should try to think outside their comfortable "I'm used to this" space? Because even if people don't change the configurations, just writing down a requirements specification detailing the wants and want nots will help. It will give a new perspective: what's important and what's not important. If three admins on the same dept write their own req specs regarding the same service, comparing those specs would be very interesting. And will help the manager to understand the needs of different admins.
Although I'd still say that after writing the specs, send them to vendors and see what they offer.
Why are You assuming that any appliance would provide just crappy tools that run or crash in an environment You don't use? And that the hardware is crappy and crashes and is unmaintainable and the service contract won't be fullfilled? Aren't these all just the reasons You should write a req spec and not just order some crappy piece of shit from Joes Garage (which is assumed to go under in three months so You'll have to support the hardware Yourself even if You don't know what it is)?
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That depends on the employment agreement.
Eg. my future (I'm currently on oral contract, as the writing is in the works and will have to pass the layer-test, too) contract will have IP rights for my works created at work assigned to the employer, meaning that if I want to work on OSS at work, I have to get permission for that. Not a problem in a small company, though. Especially as I'm basically responsible for our R&D, so the CEO will likely tell me to do what's best for the company.. Which sometimes is writing OSS during office hours, and sometimes not.
OTOH, most programmers are on much less explicit contracts. While that doesn't mean that they're free to work on OSS, at least mostly the contract doesn's include statements like "All IP rights are assigned to the employer". Of course they should ask for permission when writing OSS at work, but if it's not related to the employer's field, it shouldn't pose a problem.
And admins may have contracts that don't require any specific permission for working on OSS. They're usually expected to keep the company servers (and workstations, networks, whatever) up and running. If they do this by writing OSS, then so be it.
So, if the admins create an OSS program to get work done, and their contracts don't have IP rights automatically assigned to the employer, and a third party takes that program and starts marketing it (with value added services), it all depends on the employer. If the company is in IT business, the admins probably have a clause about works created while employed by the company, and if the company is not in IT, they wouldn't take the software and start marketing it anyway, so there's no business lost.
Of course whatever the real situation, a PHB can be a PITA whatever the contract or company lawyer says. So better always check Your contract before spending any signficant hours at work on OSS. If in doubt, ask Your supervisor or company general office. And if still in doubt, ask for permission (or general office interpretation of Your contract) in writing.
At ~8 months You're at the stage where You think You know it all. In a few years You'll understand how little You know then (when You know a lot more than now). And when You're finally proficient, You're called a dinosaur and made fun of. Then You're forced to management. Unless You're lucky and work well with people who make fun of You being twice their age. Of course You have to understand that those kids know about as much as You did when You wrote a slashdot comment about how You felt You're relatively proficient.
;) [note: that was just half jokingly made comment]). And so on.
Luckily You said "relatively" not "absolutely" proficient.
Now, about learning from OSS.. You can learn many things about that, but You'll still have to learn about the algorithms from other sources (Uni, books, separate courses, whatever) so that You know why those decisions were made (if the decisions were made on technical merits, that is). And You have to learn about formal processes (so You can avoid them while the management thinks You're abiding by them
I learnt my C from hack. You know, the game "hack". Of course I later learnt C by reading books and articles and practicing, but hack was where I started: "I think I should learn C.. Let's see, I have the sources for hack, I could try reading that." I learnt my kernel stuff when I had hardware that wasn't supported in Linux. And so on. While on the meantime, I did go to Uni (never graduated), and have later gotten certificates in UML and RUP and PPS and whatnots..
While part of the 19% might be doing just that, some of them (mainly admins) might be working on something the company needs (meaning: the admins need) which is available as F/OS software or which they make available as such. Their supervisor knows only that they're keeping the servers up and runnning, not that the code they create to do their job is released as F/OS software.
;)
On the other hand, where I work (a small company doing mostly embedded software contracting for telecoms) one person wanted to try get a pro-audio sound system working in Linux, and our CEO actually signed a corporate NDA with the hardware shop so that all developers we have would be free to participate. Of course only when there's nothing pressing in the project they're in.
What do we get for it? More experience for junior developers, a rare piece of code we can show to potential customers (mostly we're working under NDA and can't tell our prospects but names of some clients and general things like "we're familiar with Motorola embedded communications processors"), and something to keep the developers working on software even when they're not tied in some specific project
When I used my line heavily, 90% of the traffic was to my ISPs servers. So I didn't use their external bandwidth much. And 90% of external bandwidth use was to NORDUNET (ftp.funet.fi, ftp.sunet.se) with which they probably had a reasonable peering agreement with. It still wasn't real external bandwidth.
I don't use P2P music/video sharing/warez. I don't have www/ftp servers. I get occasional spammers thinking they've found an open relay (because my externally visible mailserver doesn't check anything - it's some 500 lines of C and it's secure - the mail gets rejected by the internal mailserver that does full checking and definitely doesn't relay). I'm probably quite lucky to get just about 20 probes a day from script kiddiez, so that doesn't cost my ISP much, either.
Now, I want my bandwidth. And I actually get it, too. I know that external bandwidth is pretty much limited so that I get at best about 1Mbps from extremely well connected US sites (I have 10Mbps to ISP backbone). And that doesn't bother me. My external bandwidth use is email, web and ftp (ximian/redhat/montevista - and I use mostly local mirrors when available).
I know that my usage pattern isn't exactly "residential use standard". But it's nowhere near that napstering-crowd.
So what do I want? I want static IP. I want the right to keep servers - rate capped and even voluntary rate capping using local shaping at my own firewall at that. I want an SLA with QoS. I want a guarantee of service.
I don't need much bandwidth or many bytes of external traffic, but I want local bandwidth to my ISP and their immediate peers.
And I'm ready to pay twice or more the standard residential rate.
Tell me, is that acceptable?
In Finland capitol area providers are plentiful - for private persons there's one cable, one or two telcos, one or two internet infra providers with their own fiber and copper, and at least half a dozen other service operators on those lines.
The cheapest always-on connection is about 45€ (40 USD) / month. And the agreement basically denies all use of internet for that price.. OK, You can surf the net (but their transparent proxies suck, giving old pages all the time), and read email (pop without security to the provider's mail server). Transparent DNS caches are always out of date, giving out duly expired entries for a couple of days.. And it's not very fast - 256kbps nominal rate I think.
So, get a faster connection. Depending on where You live, it might not cost more (I have 10Mbps ethernet to Elisa (telco) backbone for some 45€ / month - because all 62 apartments in the house are connected). And yes, it's very fast. It works. I don't remember any clauses about usage limits (like the 5GB/month kind of soft limit that's not strictly enforced by the cable co).
But, I'm lucky to live in a very new house that's been wired and connected when it was built. In my earlier apartment I paid about 140€ / month for 2Mbps/512kbps ADSL - with similar "no server" clauses. However - it really was that fast. No usage limits.
Cable? I had cable with 10Mbps ethernet connector. The modem was 34Mbps/768kbps (I think, not sure), where the downlink was shared (don't know about uplink). When I got it, no-one else in the area had one, so it was fast. However, soon, when others in the cable co's substation area got one, too, it slowed down quite a lot.. In the end, I usually got some 1-2Mbps down from local area (well connected capitol area web/ftp sites). It was never fast on connections abroad - think analog modem.. ADSL was better in that. And the service agreement was painfully stupid. I never actually abided by that, if read by the letter.
However, I don't hold a grudge to those who have 45€ / month connection and are happy with it. I'm ready to pay twice that for the same speed if I get rid of those stupid "no servers" clauses in the agreement. But, the fact is that only business lines (cost prohibitive ones) have sane agreements. So, I'll just have to keep paying for two operators (telco and cable) because telco provides good connectivity while cable sells me a static IP address for 8€/month extra while the telco only has dynamic addresses (static IP "may be a future value-added service").
When DSL and cable weren't available, I racked up at worst about 300 USD / month bills for ISDN and even earlier analog modem use. Because just getting the RH one-cd install image downloaded from local Finnish ftp site using 56kbps analog modem took about a day and a half straight.
I'd say that the current 45€ / month is acceptable for always-on connectivity. I'd even say that more bandwidth may cost more, and it's OK. I'd still pay that 80-100€ / month for decent speed. It's not all that much, when You need it. I'd even pay 150€/month if I got a sane service agreement and static IP.
So, what's the case if You live in Finland but not in the capitol area? The big cities have one or two providers - twice the price, half the service. And, when You move 10km out from the city area, You're out of luck. ISDN? Maybe. Analog modem most likely. Pay by the minute and suffer. Of course in some areas there are smaller ISPs that actually provide bandwidth and service for a decent fee, but it seems that the telco-owned ISPs have bought most of those and are now providing the well known "twice the price, half the service" -service.
So, some smaller towns have banded up and started scetching their own broadband networks. I haven't read enough about those to know what they mean with "broad", but it seems they'll go for fiber backbones from town to town, then mostly wireless for last miles. They plan to build that themselves and get a connection from some telco or ISP (and when they buy OC3 or more they get it for decent price). Apparently even in the first year of operation they should be able to provide connection for some 40€/month or so for private persons, and they plan to lower the price when more people join in - probably adding some higher priced pro-service for those who want more bandwidth.
I agree that Eva takes off again after the silly Asuka. It's definitely good, no argument with that. But, I still don't think it's good enough overall to get into the excellent masterpieces -category.
And I agree that CB is fun. Good, too. Again, not the best series.
Why can't I rate Eva to the highest category? It made me think about many things, shallow and deep. But it didn't manage to trigger my emotions deep enough. It's not supposed to make You laugh, but the failing was that it didn't make me feel heavy at heart and cry. It kept me at a distance, didn't involve me, surround me, and take me in. I couldn't relate to the characters or moments well enough. I agree that it tried to evoke emotional response, but for me it failed in that.
Even CB made me come to tears. And Sabre Marionette J. And Nadesico. Watching those, I did laugh, too, and the tears were for happiness mostly.
Mononoke Hime entered my heart. As did Area 88. They made me feel sad. And many, many more.
Those that make me think are usually good. As are those that make me laugh. But the best ones make me cry, too. The best ones involve me, surround me, take me in completely. They make me relate deeply to some characters or moments.
BG I and II were good games, but Torment was the best CRPG ever made. Torment had an interesting plot, lots of dialogue, many ways to work through the game, interesting characters.. It had everything. Well, mostly everything.. Only a human GM can handle players who want to do something that hasn't been prepared for.
Fallout II was great, too. And I was looking forward to Torn until it was cancelled (and tried to be hopeful even after that), as the SPECIAL system of Fallout was IMHO very good.
Slayers is great. Slayers the Movie is great. Slayers the Book of Spells (OVAs on DVD) is great. Slayers Next is good. Slayers Try isn't very good.
.. Koala. After seeing that one scene, I dropped ROTFL every time I heard the word for a while, and still it makes me smile ;)
If there's a single word that sums up what's best in Slayers, it is
I'd rate the CB:KoHD about the same as a good episode in the series, but not on par with the best episodes. A little bit of a disappointment, as I had high hopes for the movie after the series. And it was "only" good, not excellent.
There are lots of excellent anime movies, including Ghost in the Shell, Mononoke Hime, Laputa, Porco Rosso, Totoro (now THAT's an excellent one, for whole family, young and old)..
On the series & OVA side, my list of favs starts usually with Area 88 and Gundam 0080 War in th Pocket, but there are so many that a comprehensive list is impossible to write from memory, and would take too much space anyway.
Of course taste is subjective, and differs from person to person. I'd guess from Your mention of Eva and Lain that ours might differ a little, as I'd say both Eva and Lain are good, but not very early on my list.
Eva starts well, then falls a little (some say a lot), and the end is anybody's guess (pick Your ending - I'm not sure which I like best).
Lain has EXCELLENT use of sound, but otherwise it's not all that special.
Key the Metal Idol is sometimes compared to Lain, and there are similarities. I'd say Key had more potential, but felt like after halfway suddenly the crew noticed that they have to bring it to end at once while they had planned for twice the length it ended as.
However, with those preferences You might want to check Gasaraki. I'm still waiting for my last disc, but up to that I'd say it's been very good.
Removable hard drives have lots more uses than just mobility or off-site storage.
Eg. I have IDE RAID system. I know that the disks are going to crash - disks always do, sooner or later. Now, when (not if, when) a disk crashes, I just bring the system offline, take the disk out, and bring the system back online. I know - with hotswap SCSI I wouldn't need off/online cycling, but that costs a lot more.
Without removable bays I would have to open the case, open some 20 or so screws to get the media bay off, disconnect cables that are in VERY tight space, and so on.
Operation time reduced from at least half an hour to five seconds. Add off/online cycle of about five minutes.
Now, I have a laptop for work. I work at home, at two offices, and at customers' sites. Laptop is good for that. But, if I could get three tiny light computers and a KVM-switch into same space as one laptop, that'd be great. If it were a single package with shared redundant power supplies and two power jacks, single keyboard, video and mouse jacks, separate network jacks and so on, it'd really be great.
I'd still have the laptop (for working in train - I rather use train than car for moving between cities as that allows me to work, sleep, or read while traveling). But, I'd be able to get several setups (development system, Linux server and multiboot WinXP/2k/NT4/ME/98SE/98/95) whereever I need those. Eg. for client-server software with Linux server that has to be tested against every damn Windows ever made (ok, Win95 and newer only) clients.
Anyway, VMWare is OK, but laptops still don't have enough diskspace for me to set up a gazillion client systems (read the Windows list above). There's just enough space for separate trashable Linux test environment and "stable" Win2k (customer requirements mean I need MS software, too) on top of working, stable Linux host.
Also, VMWare provides only virtual hardware. What if I need to connect different systems to external devices for development and test? Say, I need to have development system connected to a box so I can tweak it, bring software in and out, and see the logs, while at the same time I need a real client connected to the same box? VMWare works only if the connections are using different hardware (eg. serial console, ethernet NFS for development filesystem, and USB client).
Actually Gandalf was pretty close to an angel. Saruman would be one, too. Sauron again would be a fallen angel.
Silmarillion contains much of the mythology, including creation and so on. The creation story implies one God, then a small number of major angels of which one later fell from grace, and a larger number of minor angels that were basically assisting the 13 or so major ones while God no longer did anything about the Creation.
I liked Silmarillion even more than LotR.
I currently have ~80GB of which 72GB is a single filesystem. I also have ~240GB in a new case and should start moving the rest of the computer into the new home.. Those 80GB will go to one workstation that currently has way too much software (and data) installed on network disks - software that is not needed on other computers.
The diskspaces mentioned are visible amounts. Current setup is system on mirrored 9GB disk and data on 5*18 RAID5. New setup is mirrored stripe of 3*80GB. Hot spare in both configurations.
On the new system I'll probably have some filesystems (total of about 110GB) for specific uses, but most of the data area will be on one filesystem. That is, there will probably be a ~100GB filesystem for data.
Total visible space for my home network is currently about 200GB and will thus be over 400 when I get the server moved to it's new case - however, at that point I'll be back to some 60% utilization from the current "very close to 100%".
I do have a DDS4 DAT drive. Native capacity of a tape should be about 20GB, but seems more like 18GB (when backing up data that will not compress any further). For me this means that a weekly backup doesn't fit on a single tape. And full backup takes pretty long to take, and I'd really like to have full backup at least every now and then.
Additional drives aren't a solution - I don't trust non-redundant drive setups (I've had more than my share of disk crashes already). Reasonable redundant diskspace costs money, and more importantly, a cheap solution is very limited in physical space requirements. IDE won't work because of cable lengths, which means that I'd need a separate ~100GB SCSI RAID setup for backups and still would need to have mostly static data backed up separately.
For some uses I think DVD-R(W) would fit well:
- readable by mostly any computer nowadays (DVD-ROMs are cheap)
- reasonable space (4.7GB) for most single datasets, and with three or four any single dataset I have
- expected lifespan of a DVD-RW is over 10 years
For some other uses I still need tape:
- nightly incremental backup won't fit on a single DVD-RW but will on the DDS4 tape
- DVD-RW media is more expensive than DAT DDS4 tapes
- weekly specific subsystem full backups can, when well planned, be fit on a single tape per subsystem, and it's reasonably fast so I need to change tapes and push buttons only in the morning and again in the evening
Oh yes, that 72GB filesystem was a pain to fsck. However, journaling fs takes THAT pain away.
Nordunet 1 and 2 PoPs were listed on the right side of the weathermap. Nordunet is connected to GEANT at Sweden, and the Nordunet nodes aren't considered GEANT nodes.
See Nordunet's Connectivity Map for information about links. Yes, they have traffic maps, too.
SVideo and RCA that are good for long hauls are pretty expensive. Cat5 is cheap. Fiber isn't very expensive, but equipment for fiber is.
However, I agree that running at least three times the drops that I believe I'd ever want is the way to go. That way when (soon) I notice I want more than I had believed, it's there. Note that twice the cable is not enough, three times has been enough every time.
As I'm just moving to a new apartment that was built with Gigaspeed(R) cabling (for phones, too..) I noticed that it's still built for the average family: 1+1 jacks in every room (2+2 in living room), with one in every plate connected together in the matrix ("pre-connected for phone") and the other not connected, two uplinks (one for phone, one for 'net), one patch cord to wire the 'net uplink to one room..
Have to see how much these Gigaspeed(R) whatever connectors cost (no, it's not RJ45 in the matrix), go buy some, and some patch cables, run a few extra wires, and see if it'll work out.
(picked up the papers.. It's Systimax(R) SCS GigaSPEED(R) cabling, with 110-wiring matrix, and the apartment cabling box has "space for active devices" (read: not enough for but one very small slimline hub/switch))
I understand that. My code isn't all too good, either, but it works (after debuging). And in the end, passes all the tests. That's what matters. Passing the tests. And adhering to the design specs. Even if I know that the spec I wrote has flaws in that it forces some parts of the implementation to be less than optimal, once the spec is approved, the implementation must follow it. When there are minor deviations from the spec, the spec must be updated, but major deviations shouldn't be allowed except in spec phase of iterations. If You know that a change in spec is needed, note it, but follow the spec. When next spec phase comes, take the notes and change the spec.
However, there are always some design and coding guidelines that should help make the code readable. Sometimes the guidelines don't fit the situation, in which case exceptions should be documented.
The problem with releasing code is that without the spec, the code may well look like sphagetti. With the spec, it makes a lot more sense. Still, the code should have enough comments that it can be read and understood even without the spec, although then the big picture and many of the reasons for why the code looks like it does are lost. And, releasing the spec tells more about the company and it's software development than the code itself, so even if the code is released, the spec might not be released.
I'm not sure though what would the IP protection be should the spec be released.. Remember that the spec itself is protected by copyright, and as the spec describes the software, software written from the spec can be considered an implementation of the spec, and thus a work derived from the spec. If the spec is copyrighted and restrictively licensed (or not licensed for commercial implementation at all outside the owning company), could it be that by releasing the spec the company would gain better protection for the software, even in cases where the implementation is covered by an open license like the GPL? Could it mean that only the codebase released under GPL is open, and any implementation of the spec other than the GPL'd release is protected by the copyright?
IANAL. But that would be an interesting question to present to one..
That's not a good solution. Linus chose GPL, so GPL it is.
There are a couple of choices:
1) Write Your driver as a module. Then You can release binary only.
2) Release the driver code. You're selling a box with software preloaded, not software. If competitors can whip up the same piece of hardware cheaper than You, then You have a problem, but that's not a problem with the software licensing.
I don't really believe that an embedded linux solution would really depend on the development of kernel code - or at least not the kernel code that can't be written as a module.
Now, I assure You that I do respect IP. I'm working on embedded solutions, too, and the customers have their rights regarding the IP. However, if they choose Linux and want to modify the kernel, they can either write a module or release the code. And they know it. They also know that they depend actually on selling the boxes and not the software - the software enables the box to function. The kernel mods are released - as are new kernel APIs and so on. Then, using those APIs proprietary software can be written.
Haven't tried the new Pool, but Baldur's Gate was IMHO better than the old SSI games.
However, the best CRPGs to date have been Planescape: Torment and Fallout 2. Both allow for different activities in a level that makes You forget that it's still linear. Note that the old (A)D&D modules were linear, too, so CRPGs being linear is just natural progression. It'd be too hard to write it otherwise.
Just means that Interplay is not the only company to hold license for AD&D computer games.
Pool of Radiance is a kind of a sequel to the old SSI gold box series (Pool of Radiance, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness) which was set in Phlan, then the surroundings, in the end covering the Moonsea area with visits to Myth Drannor, outer planes, thwarting plots to revive a god and so on. The whole SSI series, including other AD&D licensed games like the Eye of Beholder series, are available as "The Forgotten Realms Archive", in three boxes. The games look pretty awful by current standards, but were important milestones on the CRPG timeline.
I would say that AD&D refers to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, both first and second edition. Remember that Dungeons and Dragons usually refers to the D&D boxed sets edition, while theoretically some oldskoolers may use it to refer to the earlier pamphlets (I wouldn't call them "books" as such).
I haven't actually played AD&D 2nd ed but a few times, but have spent a lot of time using D&D boxed set / AD&D 1st ed hybrids.. I'm not oldskool enough to have played D&D original - I started with the boxed set edition (red box: Basic Set (levels 1-3, dungeons only); blue box: Expert Set (levels 4-14, outdoors); cyan box: Companion Set (levels 15-25, castles and stuff); black box: Master Set (levels 26-36, kingdoms and stuff); and was it gold box: Immortal Set?).
I have heard that the AD&D 3rd ed is pretty different from 2nd ed, though. But, AD&D 2nd ed definitely was not D&D second edition, as it's so that D&D still had Dave Arneson listed as authors, while AD&D first ed dropped him and had just Gygax. AD&D 2nd ed is considered by TSR (does the name still exist, or are they now WotC?) "a different game from the first edition" which allowed them to drop Gygax from the list of authors and, more importantly, stop paying royalties to Gygax as well as stop having to listen his whining. The same Gygax did to Arneson with AD&D originally..
The gamers would pay. Because otherwise there would be very few games.
And there would still be pretty boxes and shiny things. Do You know the size of gaming related material today? Who do You think buys the posters, the strategy guides, the insider reviews, and so on?
While I don't buy much gaming related stuff (why would I buy strategy guide when I can play the game and discuss strategies with my friends who also play it?), there are people who do.
And, I like to have the booklet describing the game, it's fictional history and whatnots, as well as having nice printed maps and posters and so on. I don't have an A2 color printer at home, You know.. And the quality of those prints included in the box is something You won't get with Your $99 color ink printer.
They are, of course. And this point is irrelevant to the discussion. Unless You believe that a significant fraction of the developers are motivated by the idea that they own significant part of a company that might make it big and make the millionaires. Trust me, I know some developers, and they work because they love the games, and they get paid decent salary. Only very few make it big if the game makes it big.
There would be enough organizations for that.
There is no "virtually unlimited" compensation today. Game development companies take risks, and must break even with the few hits they make. Most of the games never make enough to cover the costs.
So, if the company knew beforehand that the game's going to break even, it's excellent news! They'd definitely make the game. And then they'd hope they make decent profit with the shiny things, too.
And there would be funding, too. Why do You think anyone invests in stable, low return papers? Because they know that while it's not going to make big return, it's going to make better than inflation rate. Like getting 6% yearly average on the investment.
Like You have a warranty nowadays with software?
Actually, the developers would have to meet the beforehand agreed target. The program would be tested against the requirements and if it passes, the developer gets the money.
Also, trust me that the escrow system wouldn't be like described by an earlier post.. The contracts would not be "payment 100% on delivery", but more like "30% up front, 30% on [some milestone about 60-70% on the schedule], 40% on acceptance".
There wouldn't be "payment when everyone is happy" because it's sure that not everyone would be happy. It'd be "payment upon meeting the acceptance criteria as defined in the [exhibit #]".
They would learn to. Also remember that the contract would have a schedule. Game development wouldn't drag forever, but would aim to complete something that has been agreed upon. Like, you know, contracted software development.
Don't You know anyone who's pre-ordered knowing fully that it'll be 4-6 months before the game is released?
Some would do that, but others would just look at it like they do at buying a game. If they sign the contract, they will get the game on schedule, or get part of the money back if it's late, or get their money (less some expenses like the game shop markup) back if the company won't get enough pre orders.
Also, this would mean that the development team reputation could make or break game proposals. Like, if Bioware proposed a cool new CRPG, I'd definitely pay as they've created some pretty good games before, and that's my favourite genre. However, if some company I know nothing about had a proposal that looked nice but not excellent, I might skip it - unless it'd be cheap. Now, can You guess if I read reviews before I buy (or pre-order) CRPGs by Bioware? And can You guess if I bother walking around the game stores looking for games I know nothing about anyway.
Because if You wouldn't pay, the developer would look at the sum and decide that he won't do it for the money offered.
The developers would be pre-paid, or there would be contractual obligations. Like: when I release the code, You pay me the agreed upon amount.
How would this change things? Don't know, but it would change a lot. Eg. now there are corps that pay the developers while they create the game, and then charge each buyer. These corps take the risk, and decide whether to start the project or not.
Probably the corps would stay, but they'd know the total amount they're getting beforehand. The gamers would enter contracts (not shrink wrap EULAs, but real, signed contracts) where they state how much they'd pay for the game the corp is proposing. The contracts would have the game proposal attached, and there would be verifiers that would see that the released game meets the contractual obligations. And the gamers would then pay the agreed upon amount.
Of course it might be that the gamers would have to pre-pay something when entering the contract (30% up front, 70% on delivery). And the contracts would soon become standardized. So, in the usual game shop, there would be a list of "upcoming games" (game proposals) with detailed descriptions and contract forms. From the "upcoming releases" the gamers would choose games that are all so cool, and would then enter contract with those development corps (ref. pre-order a product that has only been sketched). The game shops get their points and forward the rest of the money, as well as the signed contracts, to the game development companies.
The game shops would still have nice, colorful packages for sale. Probably a lot cheaper than now, because each of the games would be available for free, there would be no copying restrictions, and so on. And the developers were paid on completion. But people would still buy those colorful packages that would probably contain booklets and stuff.
What'd change in my work? Nothing. I get paid, I so my work, the customer owns the code and the documents. They do whatever they want, and I'm already bound by contractual obligations to not keep even a single copy of the work and so on.
Threatens to invade Taiwan, yes, but I'd guess that those threats are more of international politics than real. They'd definitely go to Taiwan if nobody tried to forcibly stop them, but as long as it'd mean real military campaign, not just shending troops in ships over they're very unlikely to do that.
Militaristic? Definitely. They are close to Pakistan and India - countries that are in eachother's throats and have nuclear weapons. Oh yes, there are some other countries pretty close, too, like Afganistan..
Also, USA is pretty militaristic, too. As is Russia. See: big country, big army, need to prove that they're big - hit in all three cases. India would also be covered by this.
Now, if China tries to put a big starwars lasergun on the orbit, I bet that USA will do the same instantly, except with hundred cannons. Russia would want to, but currently can't afford.
I don't fear China any more than I fear USA. Actually I fear Russia a lot more than China. I don't think these three countries however are a big problem. I fear Pakistan a lot more (India less so). I fear Iraq and Israel more. And, so does Bush.
The missile defense plan is not against China or Russia (which both have enough nukes to make the world glow - US missile defense or no), but against countries that might have one or two strategic nukes. I'd guess it's ten to a hundred defense missiles to get a single nuke down, so if China decides to shoot a hundred of them on ballistic trajectory, USA wouldn't have enough defense missiles to take out but a few.
I applaud China on their hard work on the space program, and wish them safe manned missions. We do need more competition on the manned space mission front, and China is just the country that can truly make it.
I already pay some USD 200-300 for my web content. I subscribe to services that are good, and that usually means that I get content not available for free as well as getting the content that would be available for free without banners.
I would definitely hate automatic micropayments. I don't want to pay microsoft additional whatever it'd come to for getting upgrades from their website.
Or consider how many small apps nowadays use http to fetch data from the net.
I don't have any idea about how much I surf. Because I'm always connected - at home, at work - and mostly have some browser windows open, and so I may just check a page or two when waiting for a compile to complete or whatever.
Consider this: how much is slashdot worth to You? I'd pay eg. USD 20 / year for slashdot subscription. That's less than a penny a page, and about 1/10th of what I pay for my newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat). But I wouldn't pay more for probably ANY website than that 1/10th of the newspaper, because no website, however good it is, will provide me 1/10th of the RELIABLE content. How about TV? I think I pay some USD 40 or so a year for TV - I don't have pay channels. Would I pay more for a single website than for the 10-20 TV channels that are in the basic bundle I get? Nope. No way.
If I get real, archive copies of material, then I'll pay more for USEFUL sites. But, the reality is different: I subscribe to a magazine and get their subscriber web service as an extra. I get archivable content (paper, some CD-ROMs), and I get dynamic content not likely to be referable five years from now. Of course I could say that I subscribe to their web service and get the magazine (and CD-ROMs and stuff) as an extra. If good informational websites want to go that way ("Subscribe to the website, subscription includes bimonthly paper copy of the feature articles AND CD-ROM archive every year!") then they'd be treated as magazins with the web service as an extra.
OK, so You have to, in Your job, maintain stuff that You haven't spec'd nor participated in the purchase decision (or Your contributions to the purchase decisions have been overruled).
I understand that that definitely isn't the way things should be. Managers should ask admins for the technical requirements when considering a purchase. However, they aren't bound only by those techincal requirements, but should at least be able to explain what the other, more important reasons for the decisions are. I do remember, when I was working as an admin, that I did present reason, spec, and cost estimates for purchases to the management. Sometimes they said yes, sometimes no (and in those cases told me why not).
And, I believe that a clear, written requirements spec delivered voluntarily to the manager should help. Otherwise the manager is definitely more braindead than he was for not asking that req spec in the first place.
So basically Your beef is with braindead managers and only secondarily with the crappy appliances?
While apparently your experiences with appliances have been very bad, have You ever seen an appliance perform as promised? Do You have advice against (or for) specific brands or types of appliances (as in "firwall might be ok but cd jukeboxes are all crap" or " has delivered better crap than ")?
OK, can You imagine all the possible conditions You're really watching for? If You can, You can write them down. Require the system to provide information about hardware (and I think disk or fan dying is fatal in that it reduces redundance by one level or makes the system potentially unstable).
If You know what the management interface needs to not piss You off, then write that down. And if Your workstation is Linux or BSD or Solaris or anything else not Windows, just spec the admin tool to be available on the workstation/OS that administrators use. Of course this is assuming that administrators use the same hw/sw combination.. Or at least each admin team responsible for certain service group uses the same tools.
I still maintain that opinion, although still in more general sense than just pertaining to web cache. It may also be that we have different assumptions regarding "well manned", perhaps because I've seen IT depts that are far from well manned. And I believe that ultimately any catasrophe possible will happen one day. In addition, it's not about just setting it up, but also maintaining it, and I think an appliance with good service contract is easier to handle in an emergency than a general purpose server with a service contract.
Of course I know how to throw together a Linux system running squid. I have one (although not on redundant hardware - I'm a software developer, not admin, so the one I run is at home, where redundant hardware is afforded only for business critical servers and web proxy is not business critical at home). But, I've seen the todo-lists of many an admin. And I've heard "I'll do that next week" often enough.
So why am I so insistent that You (and any other admin) should try to think outside their comfortable "I'm used to this" space? Because even if people don't change the configurations, just writing down a requirements specification detailing the wants and want nots will help. It will give a new perspective: what's important and what's not important. If three admins on the same dept write their own req specs regarding the same service, comparing those specs would be very interesting. And will help the manager to understand the needs of different admins.
Although I'd still say that after writing the specs, send them to vendors and see what they offer.
Why are You assuming that any appliance would provide just crappy tools that run or crash in an environment You don't use? And that the hardware is crappy and crashes and is unmaintainable and the service contract won't be fullfilled? Aren't these all just the reasons You should write a req spec and not just order some crappy piece of shit from Joes Garage (which is assumed to go under in three months so You'll have to support the hardware Yourself even if You don't know what it is)?