Connectix Considering Open Sourcing VGS? 92
Araquel writes, "MacOS Rumors is reporting that Connectix is considering releasing an Open Source Linux version of its Virtual Game Station product (VGS is a PlayStation emulator for Macs). MacOS Rumors is calling for people to e-mail Connectix, requesting that they actually release the source code."
well..... (Score:1)
The Killer App? (Score:1)
And on top of that, it would make an entirely free way to play playstation games. You would not have to purchase a piece of software like "bleem" to play your playstation games.
In fact, if it were bundled with a distribution of RedHat or similar, you would have a linux computer with thousands of available games!!!
This is sounding better and better the more I think about it.
Agh! rumors. (Score:1)
I think it's a leak, and shame on you Rob for posting something from MacOS rumors - their reputation is... questionable..
Email? (Score:2)
I'm all for this but didn't we go though something like this with Loki and Blizzard and the fact that emailing is interperted as spam? How about snail-mailing them?
What's their motivation. (Score:1)
It's bullcrap. (Score:4)
What good is it? (Score:1)
What I'm praying now is for Micro$oft to release DirectX source under the GPL...
There are already several open-source PSX emus (Score:1)
-Corey O'Connor
Sad... (Score:3)
I'll be really sad if connectix does this. They spent quite a long time developing this peice of software, withstood the first of two lawsuits standing, and are basically about to throw the money they could have earned to the wind...
Of course the 2nd lawsuit is a patent case, so maybe they know they've violated some patents... In which case, again, OSS seems to be the savior for projects which are dependant on other companies patents.
If their product is legit, they should keep it for themselves and make some money. If it's not, then it certainly shouldn't be open sourced. It'll just tarnish the whole OSS movements repuatation.
And don't anyone tell me they can earn money from it after open sourcing it... Maybe they can, but not enough to offset their costs... Open source software sells (when it does) for multitudes of times cheaper than commercial software. It's all fine and dandy for programmers with day jobs, but i don't think it meshes well with a company's economics, bills, and shareholders.
Re:mosr (Score:1)
some integrity
I had to respond.
Yes MOSR is a _RUMORS_ site. Sometimes they print the truth, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it is
painfully obvious that they don't understand what their sources are saying.
However, I think it is very disingenious to claim that they make stuff up with out proof. Say what you want if you have some proof to back it up, but they are pretty accurate about somethings (earnings reports, they hit some of the recent consumer stuff right on the head and so on).
About this specific rumor:With the recent accounement about VPC, I wouldn't be suprised if you saw a binary-only distibution with in the next year. However, i doubt that connectix is truely cool enough to open source it, especially with all the $$$ they invested to fight of the Empire err... I mean Sony.
Re:haha (Score:1)
Maybe now you'll listen when all your geek friends tell you not to buy something.
CSG_SurferDude
Wasting time at work again!
Re:What's their motivation. (Score:1)
Like DVD encryption? Interesting thought.
Yes, DVD-encryption is money-making. It makes money for the manufacturers. Don't flame me for being on 'their' side, or an enemy of open-source, but I thought I'd point out the parallel.
-Ravagin
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
Oh my God, it's meta-misinformation! (Score:5)
This is absolutely 100% not true in any way, shape, or form. MacOSRumors is well-known among people with functioning neurons for outright fabrication of information; in this case, the 'kernel of truth' they built this story around is the erroneous 'Connectix is bundling VGS with Red Hat' story posted here on
Connectix is not on record as stating a Linux port, open or otherwise, is in the cards; as of now, the only non-Mac port is slated to be to Win9x.
C'mon! After having already had one bogus Connectix/VGS story in a week, you'd think a little bit of verification work would have been done! This is a new low... Slashdot's gone and trollerized itself!
I doubt it (Score:3)
Also, look at the "international" section of the FAQ (right below the "legal" section), which talks about the geographic-region encoding.
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Nothing but Rumors (Score:1)
I'm not sure who starts these rumors, but that is exactly what they are, just rumors.
I wonder if they are somehow related to the recent DDOS attacks??
I think we're on to something here...
Ok, enough BSing. My point is that Slashdot should try to post slightly more credible stories and news. In other words research it a little before posting every little comment from some loony that comes along on the grape vine or is deposited in their "make a comment" bin. When we post this kind of garbage it only serves to weaken our credibility.
Just my two cents...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
If Anyone Will Do This Killer App... (Score:2)
it will be Sony. Software will be nice, but Sony makes the hardware. They've been bringing the cost down for years now - they can spit out those chips like popcorn.
Furthermore, the PS2 development box runs Linux on the Emotion Engine. Consider a Linux box running an Emotion Engine (and yes, that port is long since completed and works just fine), with a complete set of PS/PS2 graphics and sound chips, and the drivers to go with them. If that doesn't make you drool, it should. With a top-flight, pre-configured (i.e., easy to use) desktop, that would be the Linux box for the masses.
This might even address Judge Jackson's "application barrier to entry," at least somewhat. Out of the box there'd be the thousands of PS and PS2 titles, and all the Linux ones too. Zoomba.
Of course, the PS2 development box also writes DVDs - so much for DeCSS :-)
Macintouch NOT involved (Score:1)
BTW, MacOS Rumors hasn't had a good rumor since the pre-Jobs-returns days. I do know BlackLightMedia (one of the several companies MOSR has created) used to handle the ads for Slashdot. Maybe Rob likes sending much needed traffic to an old friend?
Emailing Probably not a good idea. (Score:1)
Here's another one... (Score:3)
Someone has created a Dreamcast VMU (Visual Memory Unit) emulator [tidalwave.net]. I believe that he has even been able to get a program he made with it to download to the VMU and play a mini-game he made himself. It may not be a Dreamcast emulator, but it's a start.
Also, there's a few pages geared toward accelerating Dreamcast emulator development here [consoledev.com] and here [mangakai.org].
What is with all the rumors? (Score:2)
I realize slashdot and Macosrumors used to be (or still are?) affiliated with each other, but the slogan says News for Nerds not fun possible stories that might be coming in the tech industry...
Please moderate me down (Score:1)
Wow! (Score:1)
In reality... this is so stupid. Wasn't there a story earlier today about how Microsoft is considering releasing the source for Windows? So what? And there was a story yesterday about a new dev kernel being release? Who cares? These stories are so pointless. Where exactally is the "stuff that matters" A company considering releasing the source for a product isn't really news, and it certainly isn't stuff that matters. Get over it.
Re:Sure it's VGS? (Score:1)
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How hard would it be to RE playstation? (Score:1)
Wrong again... (Score:2)
No, MOSR isn't very accurate. But they don't claim to be. Look at the name, for crying out loud.
Re:Agh! rumors. (Score:2)
If an infinite number of monkeys typed at an infinte number of
I'll say it again also... (Score:1)
emulator legal limitations. (Score:1)
LW
Re:What good is it? (Score:1)
The chances of that are about the same as God on High coming down and coding it for you Himself. So I guess praying is the appropriate action to take...
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Rumor Mill running in circles? (Score:1)
If this is the case, and it keeps up, you realize what we get next? Mac OS X is running Linux for the backend, not BSD, but the Linux core is actually running under VPC, on OS 9... yeah... that's it... and of course it'll get worse, but I'll be really frightened when that happens.
Christopher Kalos
Don't forget to moderate me down (Score:1)
well, duh (Score:2)
Being surprised at this would be like being surprised at a roguelike being open-sourced.
The emulation community is a good example of what *REALLY* happens with open source stuff. Linux is really a big freak in the open source world, 99% of other open source projects release their code to no avail and are never improved upon and their code is never used to create variant software. One emulator, SNES9x, was railed against for having closed source. Everyone shouted that as soon as the source was released, the pieces of the SNES that were not emulated yet would be within days. The source code has been released for around 2 years now and no one has modified it save the 2 original authors. It's a perfect example of what happens in most open source projects, there is an element of risk thrown in with open sourcing your software. Sure, all bugs are shallow with enough eyes, but wheres the guarantee those eyes will show up or that people more competent in the subject than the original authors won't want to start over from scratch and do it themselves? More often the latter happens than anything else. They see someone did something cool and decides to do it themselves in a different way and they improve on it in that way... same thing that happens in the closed source world.
Esperandi
MacOS Rumors Knows Nothing (Score:1)
Its a legal thing (Score:1)
Just because they're not complete dirtbags hell-bent on letting people play burned PSX CDs doesn't mean they won't release it open source. Not everyone gets into open source so that they can get software for free.
Esperandi
Re:The Killer App? (Score:2)
Even if the idea of pirating every PSX game you can imagine makes you jiggle like Captain Kirk with a tribble down his pants, you should keep that private, it makes you look like a bottom feeder.
Esperandi
Absurd (Score:1)
Why on earth would Connectix open source a profitable application when they've never shown any interest in doing so before? What would be the point?
About the only possible kernel of truth I could see in this would be if they lose the law suit, and "accidentally" released the source so as to spit in Sony's eye.
This is NOT TRUE!! (Score:1)
Re:mosr (Score:1)
I highly doubt there was any evidence for this what-so-ever, besides anonymous coward e-mails pulling their chain.
Furthermore, they seem totally unaware that:
A) Windows 98 has enough x86 assembly that it's pretty much non-portable as it stands.
B) Microsoft had already ported Windows NT to PowerPC -- the lack of Mac support was purely a political issue.
These guys are total clowns -- Note how they post a story, Slashdot links to it, and then they post the Slashdot link as "confirmation" of their story. WTF?
If anything, their site is a good way to check what misinformation Apple is spreading (Settop box prototypes right before the iMac launch, for example. Whoops -- if they had acutally be reading their own rumors, they would realize that the settop box was the well known and cancelled Pippen project.) What reliable information they do print, they get from other sites such as www.appleinsider.com.
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MOSR submits these stories... (Score:2)
Also, I remember there used to be some kind of partnership between BLM and Slashdot, several years ago. Can anybody provide more info? What was lowly Ryan Meader's role in the creation of Slashdot? This is going back at least 2 years.
The only proof I can find (other than my memory of a mention of BLM on Slashdot a couple of years ago) is this page [8m.com], which has a capture of a MOSR page from December, 1998. Look down at the bottom, it says "For those who don't follow the development of Linux (for those interested, Slashdot is an excellent place for all manner of geek news -- not that we're exactly totally unbiased, as Slashdot is a BLM partner)".
Anybody know anything about this? Maybe this has something to do with the recent stories from MOSR being posted lately... maybe Rob feels bad for Meader, whose site does nowhere near this much traffic. But then again... [lowendmac.net] (funny).
_________________
Re:Oh my God, it's meta-misinformation! (Score:1)
So MacOS Rumors is basically playing the Telephone Game with itself?
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Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA [opendvd.org]
Virtual PC + RedHat (Score:1)
Connectix Press Release [connectix.com]
Re:The Killer App? (Score:1)
and his "This is sounding better and better the more I think about it" comment was just that
and i'm gonna apologize for my poor grammar/caps/run-on sentences, because i write how i talk, and i don't capitalize in speech, and people speak in run-on's (even phd english doctors, in my experience)
Re:The Killer App? (Score:1)
treke
Oh for god's sake stop FUDDING already (Score:1)
I'm sick and tired of this software is hard crap. No Barbie software is easy.
Plus given the fact they didn't have the Sony owned libraries to work with in the first place, they didn't have to reinvent the whole damn thing probably not even half of it. There's plenty of replacement libraries all over the net.
How do you people fall for all this hype?
It's not rocket science. It took no more than a couple of weeks to Port Linux and BSD to the DreamCast not that's to port a whole kernel to a an rchitecture not just interface the architecture which uis all you really have to do to emulatre an asrch. I mean let's suppose a library that does the same work as the the hardware beats the fuck out of the Sony hardware when it's designed for the PC? Why the fuck would anyone do a true blue emulation if there's better ways. And it's not hard to get things to work perfectly. Take up some coding classes before you go paranoid like that.
Finally,
Open source software sells (when it does) It sells period.
for multitudes of times cheaper than commercial software
Bull fucking shit.
The Plot Thickens (Score:2)
"Alternative Web site." Boy, if Meader hadn't lost Slashdot he'd be a happy man now...
Anyway, this seems to answer my question.
_________________
Re:The Killer App? (Score:1)
and not redundant, because we posted on the same minute (yes i noticed that, so i'm not criticizing you at all, either)
ps (Score:1)
And I quote... (Score:1)
You gotta wonder about MacOS Rumors when they don't even understand what 'Open Source' means. If it was truly an Open Source product, we wouldn't be sitting around here talking about it...we'd have it.
not just win98 (Score:2)
Connectix will be shipping a version with RedHat preinstalled soon. Someone below linked to the press release.
_________________
Re:Macintouch NOT involved (Score:5)
As a former BLM "employee" (read: Ryan's bitch for nine months), I had the wonderful joy of watching him work. He greatly overstates the amount of email he receives. He makes stuff up out of whole cloth. I HAVE SEEN HIM DO THIS. I once said "Wouldn't it be neat if Apple did x?" About an hour or so later, I read on Rumors that "reliable sources" had informed him that Apple was indeed planning to do x.
I was also around during the time when /. and BLM parted ways. It was a Very Big Deal, and not amicable for either party. (Hint: It was near mid-April 1999. What happens in the middle of April? Bingo. Ryan lost all of BLM's financial data in his Hard Drive Crash of December 1998. He kept no backups. Smart guy.)
Additonally, BLM's "business model" changed no less than four times during the nine months I was there, and has changed a couple of times since. I came to the office for "strategy sessions" which consisted of him rambling about wanting to finance research to facilitate leisure space travel for about five minutes before retiring to his desk to smoke a bowl and play Quake. Working for a company that would rather buy illicit substances than pay its employees instills such a wonderful sense of morale.
Indeed, Ryan Meader's sole skill appears to be getting people to do work for him for free until they finally realize what he's doing to them. There are no less than five people (which basically comprises most of BLM's non-Ryan and non-Sarah entire core workforce throughout its existence) that have been burned by him within the past eighteen months.
This is being posted non-anonymously for two reasons. Firstly, I hope it lends some sort of credibility to my statements, as it is indeed all true. Secondly, I don't really give a flying fuck what Ryan has to say or do about it.
Re:The Plot Thickens (Score:2)
Yes. Read this [slashdot.org] for more info surrounding the circumstances of the parting of BLM and /.
ahahahaha! (Score:2)
last week at macworld tokyo, connectix announced that they would start selling virtualpc (_not_ virtual game station, this is a product that emulates intel on a mac) that bundled redhat for linux. i'm not sure why they're bothering with this, as linuxppc works just dandy and uses a redhat base, and connectix is charging the same $ for it as they're charging for the dos version, but anyway....
a couple days later, someone at
that day, macosrumors saw the
now
therefore, i would now like to present both slashdot and macosrumors both the pulitzer prize and the newberry award for fictitious journalism.
Re:The Plot Thickens (Score:2)
_________________
A Theory? (Score:2)
Slashdot posted an article that mixed up Connectix's plan to bundle Redhat with their emulator Virtual PC [connectix.com] (VPC) with Connectix's Macintosh-only Virtual Game Station [virtualgamestation.com] (VGS). Before an update could be posted to explain the confusion, MOSR's [macosrumors.com] prestigious Ryan Meader saw the post. Using his common tactics for obtaining information for MOSR, he stole the incorrect information and embellished it with his own lies. (If anyone is feeling like I personally don't believe anything MOSR says, you're right. Please check the archives at http://www.mosr.net/ [mosr.net] (the site is now defunct, but as I said, check the archives) if you want to see some very good rebuttals of pure crap/stolen news Ryan has posted.) Anyway, a Slashdot reader who read MOSR saw the story, which corroborated the incorrect story he saw earlier (perhaps he had not reloaded Slashdot to see the update yet) and so he submitted it. It was picked up as a story again at Slashdot because it appeared to lend credence to that same story that was (mistakenly) posted the day before.
Sadly people have submitted MOSR topics before to Slashdot. I would recommend that people don't submit MOSR topics, as well as advising Slashdot that they shouldn't pick up stories like that.
Oh yeah, remember that this is merely a theory, although from my point of view it does seem very likely.
Re:The Plot Thickens (Score:2)
Mid-April 1999. Fun month. Ryan sent the /. guys a 13.3"/233 PowerBook G3 (the one he got in July '98 to take to MWNY that year) to try to stop the partnership's hemorrhaging, but they didn't buy it and sent it back, so, in lieu of yet more payment, he gave the fucker to me. It's currently sitting on my desk with a half-broken LCD, broken headphone jack, and a left media bay that won't take a battery to save its life.
If Rob knows what's good for himself... (Score:1)
There's next to no discussion of open-source software, emulators, Bleem, or anything that this article was supposed to start discussion of. Instead, the crowd is getting hostile at Rob and Ryan, proposing conspiracy theories. If Rob knows what's good for himself at this point, he'll back away from mosr.com and stay away.
Not only is Ryan Meader getting a few thousand additional hits, there are a few thousand people more who know he's a lying bastard. He'll be run out of his job.
In the meantime, the small industry of parodying him is doing great...
Where is my mind?
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
Sony Games vs Productivy apps (Score:1)
Re:Gee, what a surprise, people bashing MOSR.... (Score:2)
No. I refer you here [slashdot.org] for a straightforward rundown of Ryan's reliability.
Not exactly true. Ryan was pretty friendly with Jason Haas of LinuxPPC, Inc. for a while and tried to bamboozle him into some strategic partnership. Then there's the fact that Ryan thought that Linux was Hot Shit until he caught wind that Mac OS X had a BSD layer that was derived from FreeBSD 3.2, at which point he, without consulting his then-sysadmin/bitchslave (me), DECREED that BLM's LIVE PRODUCTION SERVERS (oh wait, there was only one left by then--the power supply in the other exploded and he didn't feel like paying to get the computer fixed) would be switched over to FreeBSD early one Sunday Morning, despite the fact that I had informed him beforehand that I had absolutely no FreeBSD experience, and neither did anybody on his pay^H^H^Hwork-for-free-roll. What a fucking genious.
Please see above.
Re:What is with all the rumors? (Score:2)
That's news to me.
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
mosr is clueless - the register got it right (Score:1)
Re:The Killer App? (Score:2)
"And on top of that, it would make an entirely free way to play playstation games. "
I didn't parse that as "And on top of that, it would make an entirely free way to spend $60 on playstation games and then play them!"
Esperandi
But I'm certain he will claim that he would never think of pirating PSX games.
Re:Its a legal thing (Score:2)
Think back to the Rio case, this issue is similar. the *ONLY* reason that the Rio is legal is because it "couldn't" be used to distribute MP3s (the software has since been hacked and now it can, but this is not Diamond's fault or legal responsibility). This is kinda the same thing. You can compete with Sony, but only if you're going to compete with them fairly. Offer a similar product that doesn't infringe on other peoples rights and such. being able to play copied games (and there are thousands flying around the net) would make this like another mod chip lawsuit. One side claims that its for playing japanese games, Sony claims its to play copied games (it is). I don't know who won that one, but the courts are almost never on the side of emulators so I wouldn't tempt them.
Esperandi
Re:Reverse Engineering. (Score:2)
Esperandi
You can't patent ideas or concepts, only very very specific designs... being as the Connectix product is software and everything in the PSX is hard ware I don't see how patent law would apply, but I guess the courts will show.
Re:What is with all the rumors? (Score:1)
Re:On a new tangent (Score:1)
Re:mosr (Score:1)
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Re:Oh for god's sake stop FUDDING already (Score:1)
Re:Macintouch NOT involved (Score:1)
'nuff said
Re:Oh for god's sake stop FUDDING already (Score:1)