I predict that the average IQ will go up somewhere in 2012...
Can only say one thing to this: http://www.dataliberation.org/
Apple never signed a contract saying they agreed not to do that. Palm in this case did and violated this contract AND a standard by doing so.
The Tricks of Warsow
Beside classic tricks from the Quake scene (strafe jumping, double jumping and bunny
hopping) Warsow features its own set of Special Moves:
Strange thing is, that while he was at the job, - and if the license was GPL - it would have allowed him to copy and distribute this modified code, since he was effectively using it there...
Good luck if you're planning a crusade against the trends in modern society. All it's about these days is looks and image...
The major problem here is that "the author" of that library might be hundreds of authors which all have to give you their "go". Also, the original library might be a fork of another GPL'd library, which brings you in even messier waters...
VMWare a memory hog? What? Running a blank winxp with only helper drivers installed in vmware vs virtualbox, both configured with 512mb ram: vmware: 80mb (all processes including DHCP etc counted), VirtualBox: 230mb
VirtualBox still has a long way to go... Totally unreliable in production or even development environments. It corrupts images on regular bases, crashes without any indication why, and on windows, the drivers are a total mess, bluescreening the entire os on regular bases (yes - also the latest versions). Not to mention the horror a version upgrade is, chances are that you have to uninstall everything again, reboot a few times, manually remove some files and re-install the latest version. WIth some luck, it then works. I gave up on it, and just installed VMWare server - which can be downloaded free of charge to use in the development environment. Is rocksolid and runs without a glitch...
And while it's true that Photoshop has no competition in most area's, Gimp does have a few area's where it can seriously compete with it, after all - most users only use 20% of Photoshop... Too bad Gimp decided to be a Photoshop competitor on "bad user-interface"-level too...
Tbh, I prefer to have both. A GUI for quick & easy configuration, and if needed some manual config-file tweaking for more flexibility, but both can be usefull, and both can be terribly designed.
Sam Raimi doesn't exactly have a better record than Michael Bay tbh... I think they're both B- class directors... Both spiderman movies might have been a huge success - but the movies basically sucked big time. I never understood why so many people think they're good... Same goes for transformers...
The only good 'comic book' movies I've seen were Sin City and X-Men 1&2. Ironman also surprised me. The others? Mediocre at most. I've seen them all in the theaters, but a lot of them don't deserve to spend any money on.
Anyway - both Sam Raimi's movies and WoW don't interest me - so I don't really care he would make a WoW movie
Selling those chinese or whatever products in the US however would not be allowed unless they pay their license fees...
Would you invest millions with your company in a new technology - which will take 2 or 3 generations of your product to cover the research costs, if you know that by the second generation - your competitors will have 'copied' your product and got those millions worth of research for free? Why not wait for someone else to do the research and 'copy' it from them? That's why patents were invented in the first place. It's all about money, not control. It's encouraging companies to invest in long-term and/or expensive research and assuring them they won't lose money on it, because companies are NOT about control. Claiming that is just spreading FUD. Money is their primary concern, and if they use it to control things, the reason is easily traceable back to money.
Patents work as long as what they stand for cannot be applied without a cost for each resulting product. This means the final product cannot be given away for free, which means you will make money by selling it somehow. If a company applies for a patent, they are also forced to reveal the general idea, concept or basics of the technology - which means the information is out-there and free. Applying the information however would cost you money if the patent is not expired.
Now the problem is that software doesn't cost a thing to reproduce. Anyone can write a piece of software with very limited cost. Reproducing software doesn't cost a thing, which means you are able to offer and spread it for free. I personally think the 'software patent' is seriously tricky. Without research from labs like Fraunhofer - you would not have an MPEG standard, and audio and video compression codecs would not be where they are now.
I think the licensing of the patents is the most important part of the patent-system that has to be reformed. Having ridiculous licensing conditions or disallowing competitors using the patented technology should be forbidden. The application of a technology in a product that guaranteed to be available at no cost other than the distribution cost should not be required to get a license. Charging for a bundle which includes free products that use patented technology should be allowed without licensing costs when the bundled software van be used independantly from the bundle. Offcourse this is not the only thing that should be changed, ridiculous patents should still be forbidden offcourse. Now this idea is far from perfect, but I think this would pretty much solve most gripes the 'free software movement' has with pattents:
- competition will be there for software. Free software will be able to compete with commercial software even if there is no other commercial competitor.
- Freely available software in any form (freeware or OSS) is possible at no cost without any risk for patent violation claims.
- Companies making money by distributing OSS software are not at risk.
- Selling hardware implementing patented technology costs money.
- Selling commercial software using a patented technology costs money.
Basicly: you're making money off a patented technology - you pay. Otherwise, you don't.
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.