Skip to content

Blog

Interview with Jon Lech Johansen

Slyck.com Interviews Jon Lech Johansen, famous (or infamous if you work for Big Media) of DeCSS fame, and *Musique fame. Interesting follow-up to last week’s post about Digital Music on Linux.

Miguel de Icaza, of Gnome & Mono fame, recently reached out to Jon to create a pyMusique port to GTK# resulting in SharpeMusique.

It’s on my t0do list to download and try out. I’d give Apple’s iTMS a shot if it works. I’m hoping it shows up soon in the Ubuntu universe (I haven’t checked yet). I have Mono running, with a few apps (I love Muine) and I miss Tomboy (Tomboy isn’t working in Hoary for me, no idea why, it was fine in Warty).

24 – Day 4 – 10:00 – 11:00 PM

This week’s episode, in Season 4 (Day 4, 10:00 – 11:00 p.m.) might just be the best episode of 24 ever.

It’s definitely tied in my mind right now with the season finale from Day 1. I’m not going to spoil anything, but it’s an interesting twist to what has come before.

Well done.

Game over for WoW?

Slashdot linked to a story on Grimwell.com discussing WoW & MMO subscriber rates during launch and post-launch. It takes a look at where WoW falls post-launch within the MMO genre, and speculates about WoW’s longevity.

It’s a good article, but could have been harder hitting. I agree with the premise: WoW’s future is in question. When you consider WoW’s issues with new content, fast levelling to 60, catered to “casual” play, and lack of social interaction, how long will players stick with it?

Here’s a snippet:

Based on past trends of similar styled games, World of Warcraft will not retain players the same way that Everquest and Final Fantasy XI have. I expect it will fall to somewhere between a half to a quarter of its current subscribers. This is ratio greater than that lost in Planetside and City of Heroes because I believe the “core following” is far less than the runaway success World of Warcraft has been would indicate.

  • in Humor
  • 1 min read

Ah, April Fool's Day

And so it begins. It took me 5 minutes to figure out why Planet Gnome was showing Planet KDE this morning, until I visited the Planet KDE site and it hit me that it was April Fool’s Day.

Davyd Madeley, a Gnome Developer has one of the funnier ones up that I’ve seen yet over the years. What if you had to continue to donate to use your desktop? Gives open source development a new lens.

I’m sure we’ll see the usual silly game press releases and what not. I’ll post any good ones I see.

Supreme Court Asking the Right Questions

MGM vs. Grokster hit the Supreme Court Tuesday, and the Justices’ we’re asking the right questions:

MGM and nearly a dozen other entertainment companies argued that peer-to-peer software manufacturers Grokster and StreamCast had built their businesses by distributing “infringing machines.” But counsel for the entertainment industry, Donald B. Verrilli Jr. of the law firm Jenner & Block, scarcely finished his opening statements before the Justices interrupted with pointed questions about how his arguments would impact technological innovation. Justice Antonin Scalia asked how the industry would protect nascent technologies from “out-of-the-box lawsuits,” and Justice Stephen Breyer pushed him to explain why MGM’s argument wouldn’t also apply to the iPod, Xerox machines, and even Gutenberg’s printing press.

(I’m finding myself agreeing with Justice Scalia?? First time for everything).

Lots of folk’s turned out to wait in line to get tickets in to the Supreme Court Monday night. Luis Villa’s blog (a Gnome Developer) has some great pictures up, including demonstrators and waiting in line.

Digital Music on Linux

So Apple has been in the news all week, as their DRM has been stripped – but what hasn’t necessarily been said is that is hasn’t been stripped, as as much as the Apple iTunes solution implemented on Linux doesn’t apply the DRM. Technically, it’s almost impossible to apply the DRM at the server level, and when pyMusique downloads a song on a Linux box, the DRM isn’t applied as it’s not a native iTMS client like on Windows or Mac.

I whole heartedly agree with this interview with Cody Brocious, one of the 3 developers of pyMusique (along with DVD Jon) on Linux. It’s not the DRM issue – it’s the fact, as a Linux user, I don’t have any options today to buy digital music on the platform I choose to use.

I’d accept their DRM if they supported Linux. No question.

I’ve used Napster and MusicNow – I’ve bought over 20 albums in the last 6 months online. We need a commerical Linux solution for digital music.

Flickr! Acquired! By! Yahoo!

My favorite photo-sharing site, Flickr was acquired by Yahoo this week.

The link to the Flickr Blog has some interesting Q&As about what it means.

While I’m nervous about it, I’m not worried. I hope what they’re saying is true that Flickr will influence Yahoo more than Yahoo influencing Flickr.

Flickr is great for a few reasons:

It’s completely built on Open Source software.

Flickr’s use of Creative Commons

Flickr’s use of social networking to tag photos. (Search for “Packers” some time – you see some great shot of Lambeau during a game).

Flickr’s tools for integrating photos into blogs.

I’m very happy for Ludicorp. Good for them for building a site that works, people like, and being able to make some money for it.

CNet’s News.com did a great story on Flickr, tagging, and it’s acquisition.

Rarity or Scarcity?

The age old question: Does rarity or scarcity make something better or more valuable?

Put in context, an amusing look at the question from the view of Brodie in Mallrats, one of my favorite Kevin Smith movies. Should he play Sega NHL hockey or have breakfast with his girlfriend and his mom? (“But Hartford beats Vancouver only once or twice in a lifetime! Yet Rene has never met Brodie’s mom.

Read the dissertation here.