Hi Jim,
I take an answer from you (as an ex-Sierra/Papy employee if I recall
correctly ;-) for as good as an official statement itself, so thanks for
sharing your thoughts on this.
>> Well said, John. My main gripe with GPL is that there isn't a
>> Linux version available yet forcing me into rebooting to that
> ^^^
>You inserted an extra word by mistake. :-)
Not really, no. I think that native linux games are becoming more and more
of a possibility seeing how use of Linux has spread during the last couple
of years.
Well, how do you explain that five or six years ago an installed base of
only five to six million was looked at as a viable platform to publish for
or port to? I don't see why the current no. of ms installations (which
admittedly dwarfs everything else in sight ;-) should pose as an argument
against porting to other platforms. Hell, people used to make money on
Amiga/Atari whatever software, why should that stop all of a sudden,
especially on a platform which is the *only one left* actually gaining
market share next to MS in this day and age?
I would not exactly go as far as calling getting an early
foothold in a growing market as "intellectual ***", but
that's freedom of speech for you. ;-)
If DOS is so good at supporting games, how do you explain the conspicuous
lack of new DOS games? ;-) Time moves on, and so do software publishers.
If dos isn't dead, it already smells funny. Just look at the sheer amount of
problems that creep up with DOS/windows installations, 640kb limit, XMS/EMS
conflicts, hardware/driver issues and the like, software publishers blaming
MS, MS blaming hw manufacturers for crappy drivers, a ridiculous merry go
round IMHO, and you call Linux a tough platform to port to? Look at the
great job id software has done with quake & quake II, look at the network
and fps performance under Linux, and think again. There are loads of Linux
users out there with a much higher ethical standard (a significant number
are programmers themselves) when it comes to buying software instead of
pirating it than you would ever find in the Windows world, I believe.
Yep, I have no doubt of that. ;-)
I think you're approaching the problem from the wrong angle here. HW
manufacturers will soon start delivering Linux drivers with their products,
but until then it is a bit unfair blaming lack of drivers on Linux itself.
It's a bit like blaming Windows for lack of support or drivers for a certain
product, don't you think? Unlikely scenario, I admit, but I just wanted to
get this clear. If Creative f*cks their customers on other OS'es f*ck them
and go looking for other options.
What I really cannot understand is this: How come today everyone takes for
granted the fact that after buying a $50 windows game he/she is usually
required to spend hours on end downloading the latest DX, gfx/voodoo/glide
sound whatever drivers to make the product work reliably? Look at products
like F1RS which took up to version 1.09 to work ok for most people, look at
Cart frustration racing, (ok Papy games have a reasonably good record apart
from N2 by what I've heard ;-)? Why does everybody take for granted spending
hours debugging hw configurations, re-calibrating wheels, pedals, sound in
order to get a decent performance and usability? Whatever happened to the
concept of "Quality"?
I understand that in a market literally filled to the brim with software
publishers it is vital for any company to reduce costs and Time to market in
order to remain profitable, and this is why I tell them: "Relax. Take a
breath and publish for Linux. Port and they will come (and even better, pay
;-)".
Again, this won't hold on for very long. For the last several years Oracle
has claimed ardently they won't port and have no interest in Linux, and look
at what they announced last month. Go figure. BTW, Redhat 5.1 comes with a
very nice thing called "sndconfig" in case you haven't tried that one yet. I
installed a redhat box yesterday and had it on the net with KDE and a
working quake (yep, registered and everything ;-) in less than 40 minutes.
;-) Yep, absolutely right. The good side of that is that more and more
people are dissatisfied with what they have paid good money for to MS (some
may claim they "got the os with their pc'ees", being ignorant of the fact
that their reseller charged them for it without stating it on the invoice
;-) and thus get interested in alternatives. World domination isn't too far
away. ;-)
I offer you a bet: in two years from now, we will have seen a major sim
publisher offering a racing sim for Linux. Ok, let's say Xmas 2001. ;-)
Take it?
Cheers for now & happy racing,
Uwe
[posted and mailed]
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