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Submission + - "Indiana Jone 4" coming in 2008

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: George Lucas said Friday that filming of the long-awaited "Indiana Jones 4" movie will begin next year. Harrison Ford, who appeared in the three earlier flicks, the last one coming in 1989, is set to star again. Lucas said he and Steven Spielberg recently finalized the script for the film. "It's going to be fantastic. It's going to be the best one yet," the 62-year-old filmmaker said during a break from preparing for his duties as grand marshal of Monday's Rose Parade. Exact film locations have not been decided yet, but Lucas said part of the movie will be shot in Los Angeles. The fourth chapter of the "Indiana Jones" saga, which will hit theaters in May 2008, has been in development for over a decade with several screenwriters taking a crack at the script, but it only recently gained momentum.

Software Dev Cycle As Part of CS Curriculum? 431

Posted by Cliff from the from-start-to-finish dept.
tcolvinMI wonders: "I graduated from a small private college a few years ago with a degree in Computer Science. The main focus of the program, at this particular college, was to give you the tools necessary to be able to learn any programming language based on conceptual information, while having been introduced to several popular languages such as VB, C, C++, and Java. However, there was no 'final project' course that introduced a student programmer to the process of software development as a whole. Today, I was talking with a professor and pitched the idea of introducing such a course that would allow students to essentially go through the entire process from design to deployment. Is there any need for such a course? If so, what lessons would you place an emphasis on? So far, my idea is to allow a student to design an application that can be completed within the alloted time frame, develop in an approved language (one they've had and one the professor also knows), go through the QA process and then finally deploy the app to be evaluated by the other students in the class, who have not participated in the project." If you went CS, how well did your lessons prepare you for real project work? If you had a chance to prepare other college students for a career in development, what things would you teach them, and why?
Linux Business

Submission + - Open source software wins battle to remain free

Submitted by
Salvance
Salvance writes: "Open source software providers have just won a significant legal victory allowing them to continue offering software for free. IBM, Novell, and Red Hat were sued under antitrust laws that were created to ensure that large companies could not create monopolies by offering their software at unbeatable prices (in this case, for free).

Unfortunately, the judges used the relatively low market penetration of products like OpenOffice and the GIMP to defend free software, stating that they showed free software was no threat to established players. This argument creates a predicament for the future — what happens if/when Linux and other free software becomes the leading software? Will it then be subject to antitrust laws, forcing the companies that distribute and support these products to begin charging for it?"

How Bezos Messed With Texas 87

Posted by Zonk from the have-to-stay-up-there-once-he-launches dept.
theodp writes "The WSJ has the behind-the-spaceport story on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Texas land grab for his Blue Origin space tourism venture. Bezos deputized an attorney (who once handled Amazon SEC filings) to make ranchers offers they couldn't refuse (and can't talk about), acquiring property through corporate entities with monikers including 'James Cook L.P.,' 'Jolliet Holdings,' 'Coronado Ventures,' and 'Cabot Enterprises' — all named for famous explorers and all using the same address, c/o [Star Trek-monikered] Zefram LLC. BTW, FAA temporary flight restrictions are in effect for Blue Origin until Monday ('DUE TO ROCKET LAUNCH ACTIVITY'). Let's hope it's more successful than Blue Origin's maiden flight."
Programming

Submission + - How to Price Software

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "As an after work, personal project, I've been writing some software that I believe is unique, useful, and nicely written. In other words, it has commercial potential. I'm not necessarily a believer in the Church of Stallman, with huddled masses of software yearning to be free and all that. I'm grateful for all of those who have given us the gift of free software, but I view it as just that, a gift. For a variety of reasons, I don't choose to make this particular program a gift to the world.

Since I am going to sell it, I've been struggling with the question of just how much my little program is worth. And the question really goes beyond my little program to the value of so-called "Intellectual Property" in general.

My program solves a particular niche problem in the electronics industry, and would be useful to certain hobbyists as well. A business would easily save hours of engineering time using this software for a single project, so I don't think it's at all unreasonable to charge hundreds of dollars for it.

On the other hand, a hobbyist may find the time spent doing it the hard way to be enjoyable in it's own right, and find the program almost valueless on that basis. Or maybe they just want to toy with it, but wouldn't be willing to cough up $50 to do so. But maybe they would for $5.

If my price is to high, I lose a sale. Whether I lose that sale to "piracy", or to someone just doing without a useful tool is irrelevant. If my price is too low, I'm not reasonably compensated for my work.

It comes down to the fact that the value of any sort of "IP" is just what the buyer thinks it is worth to him. My question is, how can I arrive at a fair price for each sale?

- I could have different prices for commercial versus personal use, but that isn't really fine-grained enough.
- I could charge royalties, but we all know how popular royalty based compiler licenses are.
- I could move critical functions to a server and make it pay-per-use, but what is a "use" worth?
- I could offer it as shareware, but that really doesn't solve the problem. I can't bring myself to pay $90 the author is asking for a piece of software I occasionally use, but I would have registered it long ago for $20.
- I could ask people to name their own price, but then Global Mega Electro Corp would offer me $0.50 for a site license.
- I could negotiate each purchase individually, but I get irked when companies want my name and address. I'd never put up with "So, what exactly do you intend to write with this copy of Word?"

So, Slashdotters, how should I arrive at the correct number?"

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