SideQuest

MacUrT

Woekele from SNT approached me yesterday if I knew how to build a launcher for Urban Terror, my at-one-time favourite game. I remembered I had once written a quick mock-up application called MacUrT that did just that. I never really took it upon me to finish that, since I had a lot of other work todo.

However once woekele talked to me, I felt I had to finish this app. I mean, it's just a little thing. So I spend an evening coding, and here it is the new and probably last version of MacUrT, for all you Urban Terror fans on Mac OS X out there.

MacUrT 2.0 (with sourcecode)

They still don't get it.

Jim Kartes responded to Drunkenblog's accusations in a Publish.com article. Man these Maui X-Stream people must be so hugely dense. Of course drunkenbatman was quick to respond. The more attention these folks get the better. Idiots that they are.

Drunks won't keep quiet

Finally. Someone is daring to take on Maui X-Stream. drunkenbatman is going after them with a HUGE article. Many GPL and LPGL applications are used in their VX30 Suite and he brings it all together for us to read. Luckily he is backed up legally by a IP laywer firm.
Go get them boys !!!!!

VLC and people who don't quite seem to get how Open Source works

So several things came to my and other developers attention recently. For instance the company Broadcast Avenue. They install VoD, TV and radio systems in businesses and hotels and stuff. Software, servers, cabling, plasma TVs, everything. Now several things indicate that this company uses VLC for large parts of this.

1: 2 VLC developers, titer and fen used to work for them for a short period of time. Both developers said that the experience was less than satisfying. They were promised a lot, but didn't get very much at the end.
2: The capabilties specification clearly shows that the decoders are likely using ffmpeg.
3: This posting indicates they implemented a VIA hardware decoding module for VLC, but they never contributed it back to the project. When one of the VLC developers informed about this, he was flatout ignored.
4: This posting again indicates that they are using VLC and that they have implemented private modules, but no one from this company ever contributed anything back.
5: Their OD-player is flash based and uses a mozilla module for displaying the video. It also works on OSX. The only Open Source player that has a mozilla module for OSX is VLC (though it is in a dorment state atm.)

This all reeks like GPL violations, but we cannot be sure untill WE buy their hardware and ask for a copy of the GPL'ed source.
Still, the least they could have done for US, is to give an acknowledgment on the website that they are using VideoLAN code. It's not a requirement, but it would have shown they are of good will and at least recognize the VideoLAN project to be very important to their bussiness. It would have shown that they understand the meaning of Open Source. You get something, you give something back and together we go on to create better and cooler software.

Someone else that is doing weird stuff is VIA Arena. They fork linux players so they can run in combination with their closed source X11 drivers for hardware decoding. They have already released fork'ed versions of Xine and mplayer and are looking into a VLC fork as well.
A bit of a shame truly. There is no need for that at all.

The blatent ripoff that is CherryOS

As if software patents in europe aren't bad enough, this week Cherry OS went to the market with their blatent rip from the PearPC project (among others). You can read about it here.
It's a shame that relatively small companies try to get away with making money over the backs of volunteers and hobbyists.

Yet Another Failure

IDIOTS. The reps really fell for the excuse? Come on. 4 countries tell their EU reps to vote NO, and they still vote YES. This is redicilous. I'm not gonna start on wether patents and shit are good or wrong, but what has just happened in the European Council defies all my ideas of a democratic and unified Europe.

FFII pressrelease
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