Blue team Wesnoth campaign review

With a Syncro SVN client I downloaded the source of the campaign and added under the ...\data\campaigns respiratory.

While loading the campaign it gave error on maps and game closed. Later end the problem seemed to be that I tried it on The Battle of Wesnoth 1.6.5 of Mac but they had made it for the non stable version 1.7.15.

After installing the latest development version I could load the Blue teams "Icky ja Scrappy biznis" campaign.

In the first scenario Icky and Scrappy had to move to the North to kill Krusty(or actually one of his clones) and his solders. I did not find the real path to the end of the scenario and where killed in the end plenty of times and that where my gave experience ended.

What I noticed that even though in the Blue team story description they have mentioned to use strip mines, rivers and islands with oil-rigs on it they didn't had it.

Overall the Blue team has come up with a nice and gripping story which has been written in detailed. The overall idea has very good point and the reward make you eager to victory.

This whole course made kind of a flashback to childhood when playing games and having heroes against the bad guys. I wish I where just more into strategy games.

The case of Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow has build his business model on online media. He has found his niche among the online users which is a market for 1,7 billion users. That way his novels and short stories can be read by more readers. Free online version of the book makes it easy to review it. If a book is good lot of fuzz will be made around it and if it attracts the reader on could buy the paper version for more convenient reading. Seeing the list of his gained awards makes no hesitations that he has done great job on writing and distributing his work.

Doctorow has explained in the summery of Litter brother that he give away free ebooks because he prefers to have more audience in the tent than to know that everyone bought a ticket for it. Doctorow added: "By making my books available free pass-along, I make it easy for people who love them to help other people to love them."

This kind of promotion as shown that screens are not good for paper books. They make good enticement for the book.

Doctorow earns lot of credit from his readers wanting to make donations so he has set ways to allow this.

He has made most of his work available online for free usage as long as it's not being used for commercial purposes. Cory Doctorow's most novels have been released under Creative Commons license which allows free sharing and derivative works.

Strong, weak or no Copyleft

Copyleft comes from copyright which different types describe the distribution and modification of works like computer software, document, music, art.

According to GNU official webpage Copyleft is a general method for making a program(or other work) free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free.

Simplest way to make program free is to name it uncopyrighted. It allows users of the program to share it, make improvements and by making changes distribute as proprietary software. People who receive the program have the freedom what the last developer has made. E.g Ogg Vorbis open source audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression. Other non-copyleft license users are Apache, BSD licenses.

Weak copyleft refers to license where not all derived work inherit the copyleft license. Its inherit depends on how it was derived.Weak copyleft licenses are mostly used for software libraries by allowing links to other libraries. For example Mozilla Public License uses weak software license.

Strong copyleft provisions can be imposed to all derived works which means that the first creator of the works has the most rights. One of the free software licenses that use strong copyleft is the GNU General Public License. Other strong license is Design Science License that can apply to art, music, sports photography and video.

Open source as part of business strategy

For some companies open source platforms have become the key to their business success.

Pipforg is an Estonian brand for company whose business models is made on using the Magento platform. Magento is a open-source ecommerce web application launched under the Open Software License. version 3.0.

On Pipfrog webpage the e-commerce solutions is described as a tool for small and middle size entrepreneurship companies to easily and cost-effectively create and maintain e-shops. To use the e-commerce advantages Pipfrog has different payment options ,built in connections with logistic companies and integration ability with accounting software.

From their list of clients can be found biggest computer store chain in Estonia Klick, Team75plus, Fazer, Massuno.

Their bate for the new users is the option to try the e-commerce tool for free and with some limitations have the possibility create own e-shop. If one would like advanced e-shop then further expenses need to be made. Pipfrog incomes come from hosting the websites or selling extra modules like multiple language stores, power marketing, Import/Export, multi currency, uncial design etc.

For creating a dynamic websites there is available platform called Joomla! It's an open source content management system for developing dynamic websites that stores data in MySQL database and includes feature like page caching, RSS feed, printable pages, news flashers, polls, blogs, search, language options. It's published under GNU General Public License. Joomla has emerged from Mambo CMS whose first developers where actually pay. Large amount of their income from donations and advertisements on their web.

Company called Confirmo uses Joomla platform for its business. On most of the websites they have made design on Joomla content management system.

One open source template engine is called Smarty. It uses LGPL license which places restrictions only to program itself but does not apply to software that link with the program. Smarty generates web content by the placement of special Smarty tags within a document. It provides a separate application logic for content development and design presentations. Smarty basically separates PHP from HTML being between application programmer and template designer. It allows to make manageable changes without interrupting the system logic.

Wesnoth game review

It's a bit difficult to review the game when u have no option for comparison.

On one other course we where suggested to try out Second Life build. We built our own citizen with character who started to live their life in virtual world. Even though Second Life does not look like real globe it has real interactivity, improved design, live communication. Besides the entertainment it is also a great way to make publicity like Estonian foreign affairs embassy did with its building to present our country.

Shouldn't the game make you feel more alive or even below the reality? One has said that the difference between a man and boy is the cost of their toys. Shouldn't I be then excited of the toys that are surrounding me? With Wesnoth it felt that the creators could have done better job with the design. Still there seemed to be a nice story behind curtains. It just needed to be explored. Maybe it was the lack of skills on make the play more attractive.

In computer games I prefere the ones that cause short adrenaline impulses like rally games and football or something with external remote that would make the real life feeling when playing e.g tennis.

A true review of the Wesnoth game will be made after we have built a new campaign on Wesnoth open-source strategy game. Most probably we will go wild on creating the character and scenarios in our wonderland.

Comparison between FSF and OSI

This summary is going to compare differences between FSF and OSI wrote in articles "Free software for freedom" and Goodbye, "free software"; hello, "open source".

According to "Free software" supporters "open source" software does not solve any problems but creates ones. In open source glorification article Eric Raymond explains that after the Netscape there where big arguments about confusing "free" software. Does free mean "no money charged?" or does it mean "free to be modified by everyone?" So did the other article explained the ambiguity problem. It also points out that "open source software" provides chance to "look at the source code" which is much weaker than the "free software." Term "free" has given certain advantage over open source. By leaving aside ethics and freedom it is much easier to "sell" the software to certain users, especially businesses.

Like mentioned in our first OSM lectures: "Free and open-source software is actually about development and distribution mechanisms."

To sum up these two movements have just his own rights on their corners. They are not an enemy to each other than proprietary software is.

Podcast on how to make money in internet by tafkin

Podcast on how to make money in internet by tafkin

All the files of the podcast and advertisement can be uploaded from the following link:

www.police.ee/Podcast_project.zip