From xardox@mindspring.com Thu Nov 1 21:23:25 2001 Return-Path: Received: from falcon.prod.itd.earthlink.net (falcon.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.74]) by datapex1.datapex.com (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id VAA28860 for ; Thu, 1 Nov 2001 21:23:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from user-vcaum4q.dsl.mindspring.com ([216.175.88.154] helo=brickshithouse) by falcon.prod.itd.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 15zTzN-0000cJ-00; Thu, 01 Nov 2001 18:23:21 -0800 Message-ID: <013601c16345$257e1e00$6501a8c0@brickshithouse> From: "Don Hopkins" To: , , , , Cc: <@.com>, <@.org>, <@.org>, <@.com>, <@.org>, <@.com>, <@.COM>, <@.com>, <@.org> Subject: Libelous "Time Doctor" postings on slashdot Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 18:21:28 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0131_01C16302.06336340" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 X-Evolution-Source: pop://zakk@mail.firebutton.org/inbox X-Evolution: 00000900-0010 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0131_01C16302.06336340 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello. My name is Don Hopkins, and I am trying to contact a person who goes by the handle of "Time Doctor" on slashdot, and claims in the profile to be zakk@firebutton.org, but who otherwise gives no information about who he really is. He has knowingly and repeatedly made viscous and untrue accusations against me in public. His behavior clearly fits the definition of libel. I am asking the host administrators of the sites where he has email accounts to please assist me in identifying who this person really is, in case he refuses to identify himself. Mister "Time Doctor", I ask that you please carefully read the definition of "libel": Main Entry: 1libel Pronunciation: 'lI-b&l Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, written declaration, from Middle French, from Latin libellus, diminutive of liber book Date: 14th century 1 a : a written statement in which a plaintiff in certain courts sets forth the cause of action or the relief sought b archaic : a handbill especially attacking or defaming someone 2 a : a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression b (1) : a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt (2) : defamation of a person by written or representational means (3) : the publication of blasphemous, treasonable, seditious, or obscene writings or pictures (4) : the act, tort, or crime of publishing such a libel Below I have included your messages, as well as an encyclopedia article about libel and slander, so you can better understand what you have done. Clearly I am not a public figure, so that doesn't protect you from the charge of libel, nor does it make it difficult for me to win a lawsuit against you. You have repeatedly conveyed many false accusations against me in public, which fits the definition of libel to a tee. You should have known the misinformation you were spreading about me was not true, had you read the entire articles I posted, which you were replying to. Instead, you probably just skimmed over what I wrote looking for keywords that you could post an inflamatory response to. I asked you this in public, and now I'm asking you again: please respond directly to the following points. My decision whether or not to take legal action against you depends on your timely response. The fact remains that you've visciously attacked me, and gotten all of your facts wrong. I believe I have a very strong case of libel against you. So I think you owe me an explanation or an apology. You said: "Of course you don't seem to understand that loki is still releasing games, and Don Hopkins is still charging 80 dollars for a networkable version of sim city (the original) in tcl/tk. I've heard that the networking doesn't work, and 80 dollars is a bit steep for any game. Especially when you can get Sim City 3000 from Loki which isn't using tcl/tk for less. Don Hopkins seems to enjoy lining his pockets and repeating the market speak of native ports being bad so he can draw attention to this fantastic non-native port which is ruining future ports which are actually native, and not emulating a closed source API." -Time Doctor The facts you got wrong: The price wasn't $80, it was $49. I'm not "still charging" anything, because I haven't sold it for years before Loki ever existed. At the time (1993), $49 was dirt cheap for a Unix workstation game, compared to $150 for Aviator. Single player SimCity was $49 in 1993 dollars, while Loki's SimCity currently costs $49.95 in 2001 dollars. So Loki's SimCity is actually $.95 more expensive, so you're wrong about it costing less than mine. And you can't buy Multi Player SimCity from Loki for any price, while I was asking only $89 in 1993, which certainly didn't cover my time and effort. Lining my pockets??! I haven't seen a royalty check in many years, and the few I got were quite small. And I just don't understand the rest of your criticisms. -Don ======== Re:Well... (Score:1) by Time Doctor (zakk@firebutton.org) on Tuesday October 30, @02:31PM (#2499475) (User #79352 Info | http://www.firebutton.org/) Of course you don't seem to understand that loki is still releasing games, and Don Hopkins is still charging 80 dollars for a networkable version of sim city (the original) in tcl/tk. I've heard that the networking doesn't work, and 80 dollars is a bit steep for any game. Especially when you can get Sim City 3000 from Loki which isn't using tcl/tk for less. Don Hopkins seems to enjoy lining his pockets and repeating the market speak of native ports being bad so he can draw attention to this fantastic non-native port which is ruining future ports which are actually native, and not emulating a closed source API. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Well... by Time Doctor (Score:1) Where do you get all your incorrect information? (Score:1) by SimHacker on Tuesday October 30, @10:15PM (#2501371) (User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) I don't know where you get all your incorrect information. First of all, I started porting SimCity to Unix in back in 1991, and DUX published multi player X11 SimCity for Unix 1993, which is reviewed here [catalog.com]. Before that, I released HyperLook SimCity [catalog.com] for NeWS in 1992, which was awarded "Product of the year 1992" from Unix World magazine (in the Jan 1993 issue). Secondly, you have the price wrong -- it wasn't $80. Single Player Node Locked License: $49. Multi Player Node Locked License: $89. Single Player Floating License: $129. Multi Player Floating License: $149. Such prices for Unix workstation software were unheard of at the time, and there were hardly any other commercial games available for Unix. (Despite their bluster, Loki wasn't the first Unix game company.) For comparison: In May 1991, Curtis Priem's and Bruce Factor's "Aviator" flight simulator for the Sun workstation from Artificial Horisons sold for $150. The authors worked for Sun designing the GX graphics accelerator board, wrote Aviator in their spare time to demonstrate the hardware, and published one of the first commercially available real time 3D games for the Sun. Good thing they had a day job. Because right after they published it, some butt-head Sun employee posted a crack to defeat the licensing scheme to the tstech alias at Sun. They had to send around a message begging people to please delete the crack and pay for it. I haven't made a penny off of Unix SimCity for years, because you can't buy it any more. Loki didn't exist for years after I saw my last penny from porting SimCity to Unix. I don't know where you got your unattributed misinformation that the networking in Multi Player SimCity Classic didn't work. I first demonstrated it at the Interactive Experience [catalog.com] of the 1993 InterCHI conference in Amsterdam. It worked just fine then, and even better now that computers and networks are faster. Just recently in May 2001 I showed it to the MIT Media Lab sponsors and researchers, at the Digital Life [mit.edu] confence. I demonstrated the colaborative multi player game user interface and voting dialogs, running over the network between two linux laptops, and it worked just fine. It's just not available as a product any more, and hasn't been for a long time. I am not "repeating the market speak of native ports being bad". I am making a point, based on my own experience as well as talking with other people who I trust, like Will Wright and John Gilmore. My point is that Wine solves many more problems than it causes, and that native ports to Linux aren't worth it, unless you put a lot of time, energy and creativity into improving the game so it substantially takes advantage of the platform. Even then, there's no guarantee that it'll be worthwhile. There are many more important economic issues that totally override trivial technical implementation details like porting versus emulation. On the other hand, I think that any effort put into improving Wine is well spent, that will truly benefit many people over the long term. If it can run games, then it can do a lot more. Double duh. It's much more productive to practically solve real problems right now, than to argue over how you would solve imaginary political problems in the ideal world, if only the Supreme Court appointed you Dictator and Congress burned the Constitution in your honor. That job's already taken. -Don Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com] [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:2, Insightful) by Time Doctor (zakk@firebutton.org) on Tuesday October 30, @10:47PM (#2501456) (User #79352 Info | http://www.firebutton.org/) "Multi Player Node Locked License: $89." ^^^ What I was talking about, you charge even more than I was aware of. I believe it was in the LinuxGames.com comments that someone complained the networking wasn't working (Note that you can't have networking without the working bit). Then you proceed to charge even more outrageous sums of money, still for the simple original Sim City. Congratulations Don, you could have been an innovator in these times of bad sales for Linux ports, and yet you choose to be hurting the market with allowing non-native ports under your nose. Thanks for nothing. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:0, Troll) by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @12:37AM (#2501633) (User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) Time Doctor, you are obviously replying to articles after only having read a few words of them, totally out of context. Please go back and read the entire message. You will realize that you have made a fool of yourself in front of anyone who bothered reading the whole message. The price for a single player license is $49. There's nothing wrong with charging more for the multi player version of SimCity game, especially after I put literally years of my own original work into designing and implementing it, using my own equipment. I was not paid for my time, and the only way to recoup my investment of time and effort was through royalties on sales, which didn't come close, believe me. Remember that this was 1993, and the market for games on Unix workstations was extremely small at the time. The price of Aviator, the only other commercial Unix game I knew of, was $150. Aviator was a multi player game that you could run over the network, and I charged a lot less than Aviator cost for the multi player version of SimCity. Time Doctor, please realise that the extremely foolish religious fanaticism of people like YOU is the reason that there will never be any successful commercial games developed for Linux. -Don PS: Oh, and Time Doctor: for someone who obviously doesn't read messages before he replies to them, you shouldn't go around telling other people to do what you won't bother to [slashdot.org]: "Except if you'd bothered to read the parent instead of trolling, you'd see that the poster was previously unaware that such an independent library exists for multi-platform gaming from the start of development." -Time Doctor That is what I call pure unbridled hypocrisy. Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com] [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:2, Insightful) by Time Doctor (zakk@firebutton.org) on Wednesday October 31, @01:07AM (#2501675) (User #79352 Info | http://www.firebutton.org/) No, Don. Hypocrisy is knowing native ports are good, and letting non-native go by as if they're fantastic gifts to our operating system. Anyone who's used one of Corel's wine based 'ports' is aware of the shoddy API emulation going on there. You sir, clearly enjoy arguing about a different subject than the issue at hand: Native ports are good, non-native ones are bad in any situation. TG must be paying you well for supporting them, I know every man has his price. If they aren't paying you, yours seems pretty low. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:1) by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @06:09AM (#2502072) (User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) What do you mean by "letting non-native go by"? You are totally off base. Please explain how you could possibly characterize the fact that I did a native port of The Sims to Linux, as "letting non-native go by"? I did everything within my power to help Loki get a native port of The Sims for Linux to market as soon as possible. They're the ones who dragged their feet, left me hanging, and failed to take advantage of the situation. I still don't understand what it is that I did, that makes you so mad. It's more like you're mad at me for something I didn't do, or allowed to happen by my inaction. The fact remains that you've visciously attacked me, and gotten all of your facts wrong. So I think you owe me an explanation or an apology. -Don PS: You said: "Of course you don't seem to understand that loki is still releasing games, and Don Hopkins is still charging 80 dollars for a networkable version of sim city (the original) in tcl/tk. I've heard that the networking doesn't work, and 80 dollars is a bit steep for any game. Especially when you can get Sim City 3000 from Loki which isn't using tcl/tk for less. Don Hopkins seems to enjoy lining his pockets and repeating the market speak of native ports being bad so he can draw attention to this fantastic non-native port which is ruining future ports which are actually native, and not emulating a closed source API." -Time Doctor The facts you got wrong: The price wasn't $80, it was $49. I'm not "still charging" anything, because I haven't sold it for years before Loki ever existed. At the time (1993), $49 was dirt cheap for a Unix workstation game, compared to $150 for Aviator. Single player SimCity was $49 in 1993 dollars, while Loki's SimCity currently costs $49.95 in 2001 dollars. So Loki's SimCity is actually $.95 more expensive, so you're wrong about it costing less than mine. And you can't buy Multi Player SimCity from Loki for any price, while I was asking only $89 in 1993, which certainly didn't cover my time and effort. Lining my pockets??! I haven't seen a royalty check in many years, and the few I got were quite small. And I just don't understand the rest of your criticisms. -Don Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com] [ Reply to This | Parent ] Why I ported SimCity to Unix (Score:1) by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @06:36AM (#2502138) (User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) My previous message begs the question: Why did I port SimCity to Unix, if it was obviously not profitable? Two reasons: I didn't know that at the time, and I wanted to. When I first saw SimCity, I was an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, working on user interface research and development for Ben Shneiderman at the Human Computer Interaction Lab. As a programmer and user interface designer, I dreamed of understanding how SimCity worked, and having a chance to redesign its user interface (optimize it to run fast, enable scripting, use pie menus, display multiple views, support multi player colaboration, etc). I was quite interested in cellular automata and visual programming and user interface design (which I still am). So I naturally saw SimCity as a complex colorful organic CA; with easy-to-use built-in real-time painting, zoning and bulldozer tools; like a beautiful abstract visual data flow programming language, with its own grammar of roads, parks and buildings; that just happened to look and behave like a city. And I posted the following review of SimCity to comp.theory.cellular-automata: >From mimsy!brillig.umd.edu!don Fri Dec 29 13:03:18 EST 1989 Article 292 of comp.theory.cell-automata: Path: mimsy!brillig.umd.edu!don From: don@brillig.umd.edu (Don Hopkins) Newsgroups: comp.theory.cell-automata Subject: SimCity Summary: Urban development simulation where it belongs: in a video game! Message-ID: <21436@mimsy.umd.edu> Date: 26 Dec 89 13:37:09 GMT Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu Reply-To: don@brillig.umd.edu (Don Hopkins) Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction Lab, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 28 I just got a chance to play SimCity! It's like a drawing program that lets you build cities, by zoning districts, putting down power plants and football stadiums, wiring up the power grid, laying down roads and railroads. The simulation is actually running *while* you're constructing it! It acts like cellular automita with very high level rules -- it keeps track of each cell's population, land value, pollution, and many other factors, and the rules that govern how the zones develop are based on the state of neighboring zones, and other global factors (tax rate, etc). Districts that you've zoned don't come online and start developing until they're hooked into the power grid, by being connected through power line cells or adjacent buildings. Buildings seem to "feed" off of people brought in by roads and railroads. Residential zones in busy districts grow into high-rise apartment buildings. Traffic patterns develop on the roads, and you can see little cars zooming around based on the population of the area, and the flow of the roads! Once you build an airport, a helicoptor flies around the city and reports on heavy traffic, encouraging you to redesign the roads in that area! You may wonder what traffic copters have to do with cellular automita. You just have to play it yourself to understand. SimCity is absolutely the most amazing game I've seen on the Macintosh to date! (It's available on other computers like the Amiga, as well.) The graphics and animation are beautiful. I'll leave it at that -- mere text cannot do it justice. -Don Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com] [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:0, Troll) by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @01:01AM (#2501670) (User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) Excuse me but I can't let this slide: "Congratulations Don, you could have been an innovator in these times of bad sales for Linux ports, and yet you choose to be hurting the market with allowing non-native ports under your nose. Thanks for nothing." -Time Doctor Imagine John Candy, making the funny "quotation marks" in the air with his finger as he rants and raves: Thank you for "analysing" my "problem", mister "Time Doctor," sir. Oh, so I "choose" to be "hurting" the market? Just what am I "doing" that's "causing" so much "damage"? So I'm "allowing" these "non-native" ports, huh? Oh, really? "Allowing"? That's not very "active". Maybe I should get off my "passive" ass and do something more? Would you rather I "prohibit" instead of "allowing"? How do you suggest I go about "prohibiting" other people from running "The Sims" on "Wine"? Should I have somehow "prohibited" Loki from doing a "native" port, instead of trying to "cooperate" with them? Or am I the one "responsible" for "allowing" Loki to "fail"? How could I have "prohibited" Transgaming from getting away with improving Wine? By visciously "attacking" them in public, in spite of all the wonderfully useful work they've done? Is that what you mean? So "get" to the "point": what exactly have I done to "allow" this "hurting" of the market? Was it by "porting" The Sims to run "native" on Linux myself? How did that "allow" Loki to fail? Or "allow" Transgaming to succeed? Is it all really my "fault"? To cop an attitude from Scott Draeker, "go away kid, you're bothering me". -Don Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com] [ Reply to This | Parent ] ======== http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/07430.html libel and slander, in law, types of defamation. In common law, written defamation was libel and spoken defamation was slander. Today, however, there are no such clear definitions. Permanent forms of defamation, such as the written or pictorial, are usually called libel, while the spoken or gestured forms are called slander. The term libel is also often used if a wide audience for the defamation is possible. Courts have split over which category radio and television are in; today's statutes generally categorize defamation occurring in those media as slander. The offenses are alike in several respects. The defamation-essentially exposure to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or pecuniary loss-must directly affect the reputation of a living person. It must be published, i.e., revealed to someone besides the subject of the attack. It is no defense that the defendant merely repeated but did not originate the defamation. The plaintiff is required to prove the colloquium (circumstances of utterance showing that the statement was directed against him or her specifically) and, when necessary, the innuendo (the factors making an apparently innocent statement defamatory). Generally, truth is an absolute defense in a suit for defamation. A false defamatory statement may be privileged if the actor was a legislator, executive officer, or speaking in a court proceeding. The requirement of colloquium makes unactionable defamation of a large group, e.g., a racial or professional group. Whether the charge is libel or slander is important. Most libels are deemed injurious and give immediate ground for suit. However, only certain types of statements are slanderous per se and do not require proof of pecuniary damages; these include imputation of crime, of loathsome disease, or of professional or occupational incapacity. In other cases, there may not be any recovery unless the pecuniary loss caused by the injury is proved. The award to the successful plaintiff in a suit for defamation will usually include punitive, as well as compensatory, damages if the defendant willfully lied or published the defamation repeatedly. In New York Times Company v. Sullivan (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court provided a significant expansion of the protection of the press from libel actions. Stemming from a case in which an elected official in Montgomery, Ala., complained of defamation by civil-rights activists, the court ruled that to protect the free flow of speech and opinions, public officials could only collect damages for libel if falsehoods were made with "reckless disregard for the truth. This ruling has since been extended to any celebrity before the public. The Sullivan ruling shifted the burden of proof in many libel cases from the defendant to the plaintiff, who must now prove the falsehood was issued with actual malice, that is, with deliberate knowledge that the statement was both incorrect and defamatory. The ruling was a victory for the media, but left the plaintiff with the difficult task of obtaining the sources for the allegedly libelous information-sources that reporters often hold confidential. In most cases, the court requires the plaintiff to show that a reasonable effort has been made to obtain the information elsewhere before it requires the reporter to divulge any sources. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed that only factual misrepresentation is to be considered libel or slander, not expression of opinion. It has also ruled that libel suits may be filed across state lines, not only in the state where the plaintiff lives. Libel suits apply not only to the media and public personalities but also to businesses, which account for approximately 70% of all suits. In recent years, producers of foods and other goods have succeeded in urging more than a dozen states to pass laws allowing them to sue critics of the safety or other aspects of their products; experts predict such laws will be overturned, but they have in the meantime had a "chilling effect on public discussion in some cases. For criminal, or seditious, libel, see press, freedom of the. ------=_NextPart_000_0131_01C16302.06336340 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Hello. My name is Don Hopkins, and I am trying to contact a person who goes by the handle of "Time Doctor" on slashdot, and claims in the profile to be zakk@firebutton.org, but who otherwise gives no information about who he really is.
 
He has knowingly and repeatedly made viscous and untrue accusations against me in public.
His behavior clearly fits the definition of libel.
 
I am asking the host administrators of the sites where he has email accounts to please assist me in identifying who this person really is, in case he refuses to identify himself.
 
Mister "Time Doctor", I ask that you please carefully read the definition of "libel":
 
Main Entry: 1libel
Pronunciation: 'lI-b&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, written declaration, from Middle French, from Latin libellus, diminutive of liber book
Date: 14th century
1 a : a written statement in which a plaintiff in certain courts sets forth the cause of action or the relief sought b archaic : a handbill especially attacking or defaming someone
2 a : a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression b (1) : a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt (2) : defamation of a person by written or representational means (3) : the publication of blasphemous, treasonable, seditious, or obscene writings or pictures (4) : the act, tort, or crime of publishing such a libel
 
Below I have included your messages, as well as an encyclopedia article about libel and slander, so you can better understand what you have done.
 
Clearly I am not a public figure, so that doesn't protect you from the charge of libel, nor does it make it difficult for me to win a lawsuit against you.
You have repeatedly conveyed many false accusations against me in public, which fits the definition of libel to a tee.
You should have known the misinformation you were spreading about me was not true, had you read the entire articles I posted, which you were replying to.
Instead, you probably just skimmed over what I wrote looking for keywords that you could post an inflamatory response to.
 
I asked you this in public, and now I'm asking you again: please respond directly to the following points.
My decision whether or not to take legal action against you depends on your timely response.
 
The fact remains that you've visciously attacked me, and gotten all of your facts wrong.
I believe I have a very strong case of libel against you.
So I think you owe me an explanation or an apology.
 
You said:

"Of course you don't seem to understand that loki is still releasing games, and Don Hopkins is still charging 80 dollars for a networkable version of sim city (the original) in tcl/tk. I've heard that the networking doesn't work, and 80 dollars is a bit steep for any game. Especially when you can get Sim City 3000 from Loki which isn't using tcl/tk for less. Don Hopkins seems to enjoy lining his pockets and repeating the market speak of native ports being bad so he can draw attention to this fantastic non-native port which is ruining future ports which are actually native, and not emulating a closed source API." -Time Doctor
The facts you got wrong: The price wasn't $80, it was $49. I'm not "still charging" anything, because I haven't sold it for years before Loki ever existed. At the time (1993), $49 was dirt cheap for a Unix workstation game, compared to $150 for Aviator. Single player SimCity was $49 in 1993 dollars, while Loki's SimCity currently costs $49.95 in 2001 dollars. So Loki's SimCity is actually $.95 more expensive, so you're wrong about it costing less than mine. And you can't buy Multi Player SimCity from Loki for any price, while I was asking only $89 in 1993, which certainly didn't cover my time and effort. Lining my pockets??! I haven't seen a royalty check in many years, and the few I got were quite small. And I just don't understand the rest of your criticisms.
 
    -Don
 
 
========
 
 
Re:Well... (Score:1)
by Time Doctor (zakk@firebutton.org) on Tuesday October 30, @02:31PM (#2499475)
(User #79352 Info | http://www.firebutton.org/) 
Of course you don't seem to understand that loki is still releasing games, and Don Hopkins is still charging 80 dollars for a networkable version of sim city (the original) in tcl/tk. I've heard that the networking doesn't work, and 80 dollars is a bit steep for any game. Especially when you can get Sim City 3000 from Loki which isn't using tcl/tk for less. Don Hopkins seems to enjoy lining his pockets and repeating the market speak of native ports being bad so he can draw attention to this fantastic non-native port which is ruining future ports which are actually native, and not emulating a closed source API.
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
Re:Well... by Time Doctor (Score:1) 
 
Where do you get all your incorrect information? (Score:1)
by SimHacker on Tuesday October 30, @10:15PM (#2501371)
(User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) 
I don't know where you get all your incorrect information.
First of all, I started porting SimCity to Unix in back in 1991, and DUX published multi player X11 SimCity for Unix 1993, which is reviewed here [catalog.com]. Before that, I released HyperLook SimCity [catalog.com] for NeWS in 1992, which was awarded "Product of the year 1992" from Unix World magazine (in the Jan 1993 issue).
 
Secondly, you have the price wrong -- it wasn't $80. Single Player Node Locked License: $49. Multi Player Node Locked License: $89. Single Player Floating License: $129. Multi Player Floating License: $149. Such prices for Unix workstation software were unheard of at the time, and there were hardly any other commercial games available for Unix. (Despite their bluster, Loki wasn't the first Unix game company.)
 
For comparison: In May 1991, Curtis Priem's and Bruce Factor's "Aviator" flight simulator for the Sun workstation from Artificial Horisons sold for $150.
 
The authors worked for Sun designing the GX graphics accelerator board, wrote Aviator in their spare time to demonstrate the hardware, and published one of the first commercially available real time 3D games for the Sun. Good thing they had a day job.
 
Because right after they published it, some butt-head Sun employee posted a crack to defeat the licensing scheme to the tstech alias at Sun. They had to send around a message begging people to please delete the crack and pay for it.
 
I haven't made a penny off of Unix SimCity for years, because you can't buy it any more. Loki didn't exist for years after I saw my last penny from porting SimCity to Unix.
 

I don't know where you got your unattributed misinformation that the networking in Multi Player SimCity Classic didn't work. I first demonstrated it at the Interactive Experience [catalog.com] of the 1993 InterCHI conference in Amsterdam. It worked just fine then, and even better now that computers and networks are faster.
 
Just recently in May 2001 I showed it to the MIT Media Lab sponsors and researchers, at the Digital Life [mit.edu] confence. I demonstrated the colaborative multi player game user interface and voting dialogs, running over the network between two linux laptops, and it worked just fine. It's just not available as a product any more, and hasn't been for a long time.
 
I am not "repeating the market speak of native ports being bad". I am making a point, based on my own experience as well as talking with other people who I trust, like Will Wright and John Gilmore.
 
My point is that Wine solves many more problems than it causes, and that native ports to Linux aren't worth it, unless you put a lot of time, energy and creativity into improving the game so it substantially takes advantage of the platform.
 

Even then, there's no guarantee that it'll be worthwhile. There are many more important economic issues that totally override trivial technical implementation details like porting versus emulation.
 
On the other hand, I think that any effort put into improving Wine is well spent, that will truly benefit many people over the long term. If it can run games, then it can do a lot more. Double duh.
 
It's much more productive to practically solve real problems right now, than to argue over how you would solve imaginary political problems in the ideal world, if only the Supreme Court appointed you Dictator and Congress burned the Constitution in your honor. That job's already taken.
 
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com]
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:2, Insightful)
by Time Doctor (zakk@firebutton.org) on Tuesday October 30, @10:47PM (#2501456)
(User #79352 Info | http://www.firebutton.org/) 

"Multi Player Node Locked License: $89."
^^^ What I was talking about, you charge even more than I was aware of.
I believe it was in the LinuxGames.com comments that someone complained the networking wasn't working (Note that you can't have networking without the working bit).
Then you proceed to charge even more outrageous sums of money, still for the simple original Sim City.
Congratulations Don, you could have been an innovator in these times of bad sales for Linux ports, and yet you choose to be hurting the market with allowing non-native ports under your nose. Thanks for nothing.
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
 
Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:0, Troll)
by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @12:37AM (#2501633)
(User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) 

Time Doctor, you are obviously replying to articles after only having read a few words of them, totally out of context. Please go back and read the entire message. You will realize that you have made a fool of yourself in front of anyone who bothered reading the whole message.
The price for a single player license is $49. There's nothing wrong with charging more for the multi player version of SimCity game, especially after I put literally years of my own original work into designing and implementing it, using my own equipment.
 
I was not paid for my time, and the only way to recoup my investment of time and effort was through royalties on sales, which didn't come close, believe me.
 
Remember that this was 1993, and the market for games on Unix workstations was extremely small at the time. The price of Aviator, the only other commercial Unix game I knew of, was $150. Aviator was a multi player game that you could run over the network, and I charged a lot less than Aviator cost for the multi player version of SimCity.
 
Time Doctor, please realise that the extremely foolish religious fanaticism of people like YOU is the reason that there will never be any successful commercial games developed for Linux.
 
-Don
 
PS: Oh, and Time Doctor: for someone who obviously doesn't read messages before he replies to them, you shouldn't go around telling other people to do what you won't bother to [slashdot.org]:
 

"Except if you'd bothered to read the parent instead of trolling, you'd see that the poster was previously unaware that such an independent library exists for multi-platform gaming from the start of development." -Time Doctor
That is what I call pure unbridled hypocrisy.
 

Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com]
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
 
Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:2, Insightful)
by Time Doctor (zakk@firebutton.org) on Wednesday October 31, @01:07AM (#2501675)
(User #79352 Info | http://www.firebutton.org/) 

No, Don. Hypocrisy is knowing native ports are good, and letting non-native go by as if they're fantastic gifts to our operating system. Anyone who's used one of Corel's wine based 'ports' is aware of the shoddy API emulation going on there. You sir, clearly enjoy arguing about a different subject than the issue at hand: Native ports are good, non-native ones are bad in any situation. TG must be paying you well for supporting them, I know every man has his price. If they aren't paying you, yours seems pretty low.
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
 
Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:1)
by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @06:09AM (#2502072)
(User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) 
What do you mean by "letting non-native go by"? You are totally off base. Please explain how you could possibly characterize the fact that I did a native port of The Sims to Linux, as "letting non-native go by"?
I did everything within my power to help Loki get a native port of The Sims for Linux to market as soon as possible. They're the ones who dragged their feet, left me hanging, and failed to take advantage of the situation.
 
I still don't understand what it is that I did, that makes you so mad. It's more like you're mad at me for something I didn't do, or allowed to happen by my inaction.
 
The fact remains that you've visciously attacked me, and gotten all of your facts wrong. So I think you owe me an explanation or an apology.
 
-Don
 
PS: You said:
 

"Of course you don't seem to understand that loki is still releasing games, and Don Hopkins is still charging 80 dollars for a networkable version of sim city (the original) in tcl/tk. I've heard that the networking doesn't work, and 80 dollars is a bit steep for any game. Especially when you can get Sim City 3000 from Loki which isn't using tcl/tk for less. Don Hopkins seems to enjoy lining his pockets and repeating the market speak of native ports being bad so he can draw attention to this fantastic non-native port which is ruining future ports which are actually native, and not emulating a closed source API." -Time Doctor
The facts you got wrong: The price wasn't $80, it was $49. I'm not "still charging" anything, because I haven't sold it for years before Loki ever existed. At the time (1993), $49 was dirt cheap for a Unix workstation game, compared to $150 for Aviator. Single player SimCity was $49 in 1993 dollars, while Loki's SimCity currently costs $49.95 in 2001 dollars. So Loki's SimCity is actually $.95 more expensive, so you're wrong about it costing less than mine. And you can't buy Multi Player SimCity from Loki for any price, while I was asking only $89 in 1993, which certainly didn't cover my time and effort. Lining my pockets??! I haven't seen a royalty check in many years, and the few I got were quite small. And I just don't understand the rest of your criticisms.
 
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com]
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
 
Why I ported SimCity to Unix (Score:1)
by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @06:36AM (#2502138)
(User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) 
My previous message begs the question: Why did I port SimCity to Unix, if it was obviously not profitable? Two reasons: I didn't know that at the time, and I wanted to.
When I first saw SimCity, I was an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, working on user interface research and development for Ben Shneiderman at the Human Computer Interaction Lab.
 
As a programmer and user interface designer, I dreamed of understanding how SimCity worked, and having a chance to redesign its user interface (optimize it to run fast, enable scripting, use pie menus, display multiple views, support multi player colaboration, etc).
 
I was quite interested in cellular automata and visual programming and user interface design (which I still am). So I naturally saw SimCity as a complex colorful organic CA; with easy-to-use built-in real-time painting, zoning and bulldozer tools; like a beautiful abstract visual data flow programming language, with its own grammar of roads, parks and buildings; that just happened to look and behave like a city.
 
And I posted the following review of SimCity to comp.theory.cellular-automata:
 
From mimsy!brillig.umd.edu!don Fri Dec 29 13:03:18 EST 1989
Article 292 of comp.theory.cell-automata:
Path: mimsy!brillig.umd.edu!don
From: don@brillig.umd.edu (Don Hopkins)
Newsgroups: comp.theory.cell-automata
Subject: SimCity
Summary: Urban development simulation where it belongs: in a video game!
Message-ID: <21436@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 26 Dec 89 13:37:09 GMT
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Reply-To: don@brillig.umd.edu (Don Hopkins)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction Lab, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 28
 
I just got a chance to play SimCity! It's like a drawing program that lets you build cities, by zoning districts, putting down power plants and football stadiums, wiring up the power grid, laying down roads and railroads. The simulation is actually running *while* you're constructing it! It acts like cellular automita with very high level rules -- it keeps track of each cell's population, land value, pollution, and many other factors, and the rules that govern how the zones develop are based on the state of neighboring zones, and other global factors (tax rate, etc). Districts that you've zoned don't come online and start developing until they're hooked into the power grid, by being connected through power line cells or adjacent buildings. Buildings seem to "feed" off of people brought in by roads and railroads. Residential zones in busy districts grow into high-rise apartment buildings. Traffic patterns develop on the roads, and you can see little cars zooming around based on the population of the area, and the flow of the roads! Once you build an airport, a helicoptor flies around the city and reports on heavy traffic, encouraging you to redesign the roads in that area!
 
You may wonder what traffic copters have to do with cellular automita. You just have to play it yourself to understand.
 
SimCity is absolutely the most amazing game I've seen on the Macintosh to date! (It's available on other computers like the Amiga, as well.) The graphics and animation are beautiful. I'll leave it at that -- mere text cannot do it justice.
 
-Don
 

Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com]
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
 
Re:Where do you get all your incorrect information (Score:0, Troll)
by SimHacker on Wednesday October 31, @01:01AM (#2501670)
(User #180785 Info | http://www.donhopkins.com/) 
Excuse me but I can't let this slide:
"Congratulations Don, you could have been an innovator in these times of bad sales for Linux ports, and yet you choose to be hurting the market with allowing non-native ports under your nose. Thanks for nothing." -Time Doctor
 
Imagine John Candy, making the funny "quotation marks" in the air with his finger as he rants and raves:
 
Thank you for "analysing" my "problem", mister "Time Doctor," sir.
 
Oh, so I "choose" to be "hurting" the market? Just what am I "doing" that's "causing" so much "damage"?
 
So I'm "allowing" these "non-native" ports, huh? Oh, really?
 
"Allowing"? That's not very "active". Maybe I should get off my "passive" ass and do something more?
 
Would you rather I "prohibit" instead of "allowing"? How do you suggest I go about "prohibiting" other people from running "The Sims" on "Wine"?
 
Should I have somehow "prohibited" Loki from doing a "native" port, instead of trying to "cooperate" with them?
 
Or am I the one "responsible" for "allowing" Loki to "fail"?
 
How could I have "prohibited" Transgaming from getting away with improving Wine? By visciously "attacking" them in public, in spite of all the wonderfully useful work they've done? Is that what you mean?
 
So "get" to the "point": what exactly have I done to "allow" this "hurting" of the market?
 
Was it by "porting" The Sims to run "native" on Linux myself?
 
How did that "allow" Loki to fail? Or "allow" Transgaming to succeed? Is it all really my "fault"?
 
To cop an attitude from Scott Draeker, "go away kid, you're bothering me".
 
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com [piemenu.com]
 
[ Reply to This | Parent ] 
 
========
 
 
libel and slander,
in law, types of defamation. In common law, written defamation was libel and spoken defamation was slander. Today, however, there are no such clear definitions. Permanent forms of defamation, such as the written or pictorial, are usually called libel, while the spoken or gestured forms are called slander.
The term libel is also often used if a wide audience for the defamation is possible. Courts have split over which category radio and television are in; today's statutes generally categorize defamation occurring in those media as slander. The offenses are alike in several respects. The defamation-essentially exposure to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or pecuniary loss-must directly affect the reputation of a living person. It must be published, i.e., revealed to someone besides the subject of the attack. It is no defense that the defendant merely repeated but did not originate the defamation.
 
The plaintiff is required to prove the colloquium (circumstances of utterance showing that the statement was directed against him or her specifically) and, when necessary, the innuendo (the factors making an apparently innocent statement defamatory). Generally, truth is an absolute defense in a suit for defamation. A false defamatory statement may be privileged if the actor was a legislator, executive officer, or speaking in a court proceeding. The requirement of colloquium makes unactionable defamation of a large group, e.g., a racial or professional group.
 
Whether the charge is libel or slander is important. Most libels are deemed injurious and give immediate ground for suit. However, only certain types of statements are slanderous per se and do not require proof of pecuniary damages; these include imputation of crime, of loathsome disease, or of professional or occupational incapacity. In other cases, there may not be any recovery unless the pecuniary loss caused by the injury is proved. The award to the successful plaintiff in a suit for defamation will usually include punitive, as well as compensatory, damages if the defendant willfully lied or published the defamation repeatedly.
 
In New York Times Company v. Sullivan (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court provided a significant expansion of the protection of the press from libel actions. Stemming from a case in which an elected official in Montgomery, Ala., complained of defamation by civil-rights activists, the court ruled that to protect the free flow of speech and opinions, public officials could only collect damages for libel if falsehoods were made with "reckless disregard for the truth. This ruling has since been extended to any celebrity before the public.
 
The Sullivan ruling shifted the burden of proof in many libel cases from the defendant to the plaintiff, who must now prove the falsehood was issued with actual malice, that is, with deliberate knowledge that the statement was both incorrect and defamatory. The ruling was a victory for the media, but left the plaintiff with the difficult task of obtaining the sources for the allegedly libelous information-sources that reporters often hold confidential. In most cases, the court requires the plaintiff to show that a reasonable effort has been made to obtain the information elsewhere before it requires the reporter to divulge any sources.
 
In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed that only factual misrepresentation is to be considered libel or slander, not expression of opinion. It has also ruled that libel suits may be filed across state lines, not only in the state where the plaintiff lives. Libel suits apply not only to the media and public personalities but also to businesses, which account for approximately 70% of all suits. In recent years, producers of foods and other goods have succeeded in urging more than a dozen states to pass laws allowing them to sue critics of the safety or other aspects of their products; experts predict such laws will be overturned, but they have in the meantime had a "chilling effect on public discussion in some cases.
 
For criminal, or seditious, libel, see press, freedom of the.
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