C_Watkins

My Feedback: (10)

The sad thing is... the software companies are just as bad as the webmeisters...
They use proprietary M$ libraries and such... because they're there, and they're the de facto
standard. Now, if you're proficient with WINE, and don't have any moral issues with copying over the
needed bits from M$... you can run just about anything on Linux, right now

Microsoft doesn't want to "give" anything to the open community, and they ensure that the
"outside Windoze" licensing costs are far greater than anyone wants to risk on an unknown return.
(For those things they *will* license in the first place. There are many things they *won't*)

As such, the only way we're gonna see a lot of the popular games/programs on linux is for those
companies to start paying people to port the source code to linux. A few have tried already.

I beta-tested Tribes2 for Linux, for Loki Games, and hoped that the trend was in motion and would
continue. Instead, it turned out "not-so-hot" in the sales arena, and was never even put in stores.
Being for sale "off the website only" sure didn't help sales any. Loki ended up in Chapter 11, then Chapter 7
They did get a handful of games out over three or four years... but apparently the money just wasn't there.
There are simply not enough of us *nix geeks, just yet.

It's not really profitable, when you think about it. A porting company has to purchase the rights
from the company, spend lots of time porting, then RE-porting every time there's a bugfix in the original.
Then, they have to compete for sales with the original, on top of everything else. Sheesh.

I keep hoping it's gonna get better, but I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel yet.

It would take a miracle...
like one of the larger companies suddenly boycotting Mickey$oft, and writing/releasing exclusively on linux.
That's an option, I'm afraid, that will never make it past the bean counters of any big company.
I'm crossing my fingers, but I ain't holdin' my breath.