Go for it - my original idea was for something that would unify all resources - web pages, local documents, music and videos, etc
Browsers really do suck for lots of things.
It's one reason why Linus did his "you should do everyone a favour and just kill yourselves" rant against opensuse - the resources that *could* be used to develop something that works properly are spread among far to many distros and projects, and none of them is in a position to spend what it takes to fix the problems, because they won't get a ROI on it - everyone else will just appropriate it.
It's funny how Apple was able to create their original box - hardware and software - for less than has been wasted so far, despite hardware now being cheaper, and we have far better software tools now than we did 30 years ago.
Or how they were able to shift to x86 and improve things, and here I am stuck with a linux desktop that can't talk to my camcorder, scanner (though the linux-compatible printer now *finally* works), etc. and that even after adding the fusion repos, still some formats re not supported
I'm beginning to think I'm sticking with linux out of sheer stubbornness
Right now, there's this terrible tendency to fork, fork, fork - and every fork is competing for eyeballs, mindshare in the noosphere, or whatevr you call it. And they're all mostly starving for revenue, because there are just too many choices, and the quality is pretty much the same among all of them.
So, you created a game as open surce, someone else forks it, now you're both competing for code contributions (after all, there's no guarantee the fork will stay code-compatible as time goes on), so the fork eventually results in the pool of contribs you can use going down, nt up.
Also, your user base goes down, since it's now split with the fork(s).
So, you take and make a closed version, fix all the bugs in the closed version while improving the code, and release it as closed-source. You weren't getting the relevant code contributions anyway, so you don't really care. You'll continue to benefit from artwork and plugins (you've maintained binary compatibility), so now you can compete again.
More importantly, you can now sell the program on a per-copy basis, generating the revenues to continue development if the game is any good.
Both your old code base and the open forks can continue to exist, and you can even maintain the open version of your code if you so choose - that's your choice.
The problem is that open source isn't competitive for most projects when it comes to the financial side. Which is why there are so many bugs out there - nobody is being paid to do the dirty work of fixing them. In terms of percentages, open source is actually losing ground - compare the explosive growth in paid closed-source apps in the mobile field. Why? Follow the money
It's either adapt or die. I don't see any other way if improving the quality of the stuff out there, or of reducing the insane number of forks (how many linux distros are there out there now? Over 1,000?)
I'm hoping it does too
That many bookmarks? That's a LOT. How do you find time to do anything else?
... and I found out two things:
1. It's still a pain in the eyeballs, but it's now somewhat manageable
2. I have zero interest in wasting another minute of my life with crap languages in crap environments - in other words, no javascript, no php, no dom, no browser. I'd rather hand-code assembler than use a brain-dead language in a brain-dead environment. Heck, I'd even rather use java (though I obviously still prefer c/c++).
And they're certainly not listed in the drug insert that accompanies the medication.
No - this is a 2 billion a year drug that has now had two studies that, for example, show a 3x to 5x higher incidence of stroke leading to death than a placebo
You don't have to claim it when in many cases it's not all that hard to do. One of the side benefits is that you can clean it up, make it run faster, and have fewer bugs - all selling points.
I think it's time for projects that are GPL to consider doing this themselves - create a for-profit derivative (not all derivative works infringe copyright) and use that to subsidize the open version.
It would reduce the insane number of forks we have, as well as improve quality overall.
Look at the current situation - how many forks of forks of forks are there out there? Nobody has a financial incentive to actually come to a concensus and fix the problems - they just make a fork and "scratch their own itch." Over the long haul, this is simply unsustainable from a financial point of view.
Under this scenario, who cares about the 95% that won't pay - they get the buggy original that is too busy adding new features to fix the existing bugs, because they're competing for "mind share" and not revenue. The 5% that would pay get the stability they want. It's what RedHat does, and it works. How much is CentoOS pulling in, by comparison?
Also, when you can offer a 30% speedup, there are lots of scenarios where this would be incentive enough, just in hardware and energy savings when it's time to scale up.
Now let's take another scenario - a simple game. The open version is dependent on charityware
If the only way to advance a product is to close it off, it is what it is. This provides a way for developers to take their own product closed as a "pre-emptive strike", so that they can maintain both a closed and an open version. If they'd rather wait until someone else eats their lunch, that's their decision.
There are plenty of scenarios where a decent improvement in performance or a reduction in bugs would justify purchasing a closed-source version over an open one.
The FSF is at it again - claiming that usage of the GPL is on the rise, when its' share of the market is declining, both in F/LOSS, and in the larger software ecosystem.
So, time to let everyone in on a little secret - any gpl'd project can be taken closed-source by anyone willing to go through the exercise.
Summary
I'm wondering if some of the problems I've been experiencing with my vision - or rather, inability to compensate for it any more - are related to the blood pressure medication I was taking. It certainly negatively impacted me in many other ways, and there are still, a few weeks later, some lingering side effects (still overly-tired, for example)
No - they use a wireless pen with a pressure sensor probe to determine intra-ocular pressure. This is different.
The lens on the eyeball is a contact lens, along with a cap so that it keeps the eye fully open, and it presses up against the receiver in the slit lamp. This way they get a really magnified, detailed view of the retina - it's pretty much the same setup as when they want to laser the retina, lubricating goop and all, just not as long or occasionally painful, and with a different lens and holder to accommodate the
Kind of gross, but you get used to anything after a few dozen times, I guess.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- Albert Einstein