Torinir's Journal: Well... it's almost New Year's Day...

And with it, we bid farewell to a VERY boisterous 2005. Man, it's been hard to keep up with some of the craziness that happened over the last year. And in no particular order, here are some of the items I've watched over the past year.

SCO vs IBM heating up, and IBM backing SCO into a major corner. This lawsuit is pretty much guaranteed to end in IBM's favor early in 2006. SCO submitted their evidence quietly, but given that they've not found any infringing code, it's likely to be nothing. And Novell and Red Hat cases are still waiting in the wings...

Microsoft was placed under some heavy fire, and took a couple of major hits. With judgements against them from South Korea and the EU, MS is starting to look a little battle weary. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come for the software giant.

Epic Games made a coup d'etat with their Unreal 3 engine when Webzen purchased rights to the engine for their upcoming MMORPG, Huxley. I don't know about the rest of you, but this is the game I'm waiting for. This will be one of the first new MMO's to use a FPS graphics engine, and it's a major score for Epic, who are reeling a little from the problems in their previous three engine releases. (Unreal 1 [UT99], 2 [UT2003] and 2.5 [UT2004])

RIAA came out swinging against piracy and was promptly served a stunning uppercut by three states. New York, Texas and California have all launched class action suits against Sony for the DRM fiasco. As well, Warner Music is under assault for alleged price fixing. And no one can forget all of the John Doe lawsuits. It's definitely not going to be a Happy New Year if you're part of RIAA.

George Bush was getting slammed for the Iraq war. Yes, the end may have justified the means to a degree, but a little more honesty goes a lot further in the peoples' minds. Smoke and mirrors can get you what you want in the short term, but the long term damage may hurt the Republicans when the next Presidential election comes around.

There's plenty of other major happenings, but time and space are not infinite. Here's to what will likely be a very interesting 2006.