I received e-mail from a customer that runs [link=http://rcflightsim.com]ClearView[/link] on his new dual boot mac using product called parallels. Here is what he explained to me:

- Apple has had for some time a free program named Bootcamp. Using this program the Intel Mac owner can boot into either (Windows XP or Windows Vista) or OSX, but not both OS's at the same time. I tried a number of Windows games including Quake 4 and they run without problems. I have a 24 inch iMac and playing Quake is neat on the very clear 24 inch screen. So, ClearView will run without problems with Boot Camp. Problems is you have to reboot to get to OSX. Also when you are running Windows you are open to all the problems Windows has, viruses, etc. I program in Windows because I have to. I will not go on line in Windows mode because my contract states that I will ensure that the program I wrote is free of anything. The only way that I can ensure that is to never go on line with a clean Windows install. I
program using Borland C++ with Windows XP with the internet disabled. This has worked will for me for a number of years.


Using Parallels the user actually has both OSX and Windows running at the same time. Now that version 3.0 has come out yesterday we can run graphic programs like ClearView, Quake 4, etc under XP or Vista. There is even a mode that completely hides the Windows window. This might sound weird but what we end up with is OSX with ClearView running in a window just as it were running under OSX. Neat stuff!

Parallels also allows running Linux in the same manner as Windows. I have Windows XP running with OSX in the background with Thunderbird running. In this way I can use ClearView while XP has NO internet access. However OSX and Thunderbird are active and will let me know if I have new email.

Here is a picture:

as far as I can tell parallels is only for mac....this does nothing to help linux users (unless I am missing something). I sent an email a long time ago to clearview asking to let me help them port the java code for linux. Being a programmer, and good with java and linux I can't imagine it being that hard to do for me. But the company unprofessionally never replied....Maybe one day they will learn to embrace community support so that we can all benefit, themselves included.

Parallels works on Linux as well. See http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/ . However the Linux version does not yet support accelerated graphics, so ClearView won't work. However VMware for Linux does support some accelerated graphics, so you might get the 15 day VMware Linux demo and see what you can get working under that.

Before singling out ClearView, why not try an experiment? Email 10 other vendors of non-open-source software that you'd like to see Linux ports of, and ask them to send you their source code so you can try porting it to Linux, and report back here on how many of them agree, or even respond to you.

The reason I singled clearView out is because it is built on java. I am not in the position to offer help to other software because I do not feel I am qualified to help for the other simulators. I would be willing to sign a NDA or what ever they would require. But the least they could have done is send a reply. A no-reply IMO is very unprofessional. I am quite surprised to be honest, someone willing to work for free, and basically give your company a whole new product you can distribute....yet you can't even reply and say no? I can understand the hesitation of giving away your IP, I work for a company that produces java software and understand the implications. But these things can be solved with NDA's and other forms of legal basis.

Hmmm...
... bad mouthing a company that has done nothing wrong to you on a public forum...

>I work for a company that produces java software
So, you where looking to moonlight and they did not give you the source code they spend many years to develop? How bad of them.

> and understand the implications. But these things can be solved with NDA's and other forms of legal basis.
Are you a lawer to know?

If you are soliciting business from them, they may not reply because you are not their customer. It is as simple as that.

Stefan

i am not soliciting business to them....I am trying to volunteer. I just want to help out my fellow linux users, and this simulator seems to be the one that would be the easiest to port.

Your desire seems reasonable enough, but it seems a bit unreasonable to criticize ClearView publicly for not acceding to your request. It's their choice whether to give their IP away or grant NDAs or not. I doubt you'd have gotten much more of a response from any other commercial software maker, including any of the other commercial RC sim makers.

If you want to work on a Linux sim, crrcsim is an open source RC flight sim that already works well on Linux, and Mac for that matter, though it could use plenty of improvement. It would be a good opportunity to expand your programming skills to C programming, and contribute to an open source project. See http://crrcsim.sourceforge.net/

Nothing is easy when we discuss "On the shelf" software. Even if the product is "ported" (very painfull and boring process), making sure it runs on variety computers on the platform supported and actually supporting users on platform like Linux will be very expencive. If you think there is such great opportunity in making Linux software and actually selling it, I suggest just try for yourself.

Stefan
http://rcflightsim.com

how much of a market share does linux have to take over before it gets ported? being a linux user i am seeing that it would have to be 98 percent before software makers start porting to it. which makes for difficult position on linux gaining popularity if there is no one willing to port software to it. not to mention that linux is gaining market share close to mac however mac has software ported to it. I personally have stopped buying software if they cant get it ported to linux because i refuse to keep a dual boot maintained. plus that there are more users of linux than what is available in statistics because linux isnt purchased in a normal fashion. those who cant get software to linux i just wont buy from any longer.

Why would you say that? The statistics I've seen say Linux is on around 2.5% of desktop computers, with Windows on over 90%. So I don't see any evidence that desktop software vendors are being irrational by focusing on the Windows market, or that they would have any bias against developing for Linux if they thought there was money to be made there. I do agree that companies could help increase Linux's usage if they wanted by making lots of apps for Linux, which would make using Linux more attractive for ordinary users. However only big companies with deep pockets can really afford long-term strategies like that, since even if more companies port their software to Linux, it would take many years for this to have the effect of increasing Linux's market share significantly. It's just not reasonable to expect small software makers to be able to do that.

And in any case what would be their motivation to do that? Unless a company is in direct competition with Microsoft, or they have some personal mission to unseat Microsoft, there's really no incentive for a company to go out of its way to try to increase Linux usage.

Mac is only at about 3.8 to 4 percent how is it that there is a port to it over Linux? the statistics i have seen were listing Linux at 3.4 to 3.6 area. But isn't it not about unseating Microsoft but in giving its customers what they want? my point wasn't that you need to port to make Linux grow but to maybe give those customers who choose not to use windows the opportunity to buy the software for their chosen platform. like i stated i choose Linux over windows, mainly because i like how its designed and functions over windows, and I will not use anything else. when do I get the software that windows users get the pleasure of using? Frankly i don't expect anything, but I am a consumer and someone you are targeting. even the big software companies are refusing to sink their deep pockets on Linux and I don't even expect them to port an open source version just something that works. Aero Fly is the only one that i know of that you can get a Linux port of. It does seem odd that clear view if its written in Java couldnt have been ported to Linux.

Neither, it's about making money. Obviously it's true that if you give customers what they want, they'll give you some of their money. But there is a much bigger pool of customers who want a Windows simulator than of those who want a Mac or Linux simulator. So most companies choose to target the much larger pool. Sure they'd make the small pool of Linux and Mac using RC enthusiasts happy if they ported their software to Linux, but would it actually increase their sales enough to pay for the port? Even if I use your numbers of 3.6% of the desktop market, it still looks to me like the intersection of the set of Linux users and flight sim users has to be a pretty small niche market.

Here are my 2 cents. The competitive pressure requires most of the effort to be targeted in improving the product on the mainstay platform. If a company with limited resources (which all of the RC sim companies are) assigns developing time in porting the product to another platform, the mainline product will not be updated/improved because developers have been re-assigned. Product that are not constantly improved fall behind and the sales will drop and dry out. The company will be left with obsolete product and two code bases to support or modernize with no revenue stream.

Stefan
http://rcflightsim.com

here are the numbers i refer to http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Well it seems to me that if i am too small a fry to do for then you will just miss out on me buying from you simple as that. its a two way street.

still havent gotten two questions answered;
1 since Mac and Linux are in the same numbers why do companies even small ones make ports to Mac but not Linux? I do see that some people fear supporting multiple distros however there are plenty of commercial software that manage to limit it down to three or four.

2. how much of a percentage does Linux have to take up in the OS market before its conceivable to port software to it? 10 30 60 or 90?

There are a lot more variables that need to be taken into consideration than your table shows.

What percentage of the computer owning public is interested in buying an RC flight sim? For example let's say 0.5% of people would be interested. That would mean 0.5% of 3.6% of Linux users comprise the potential Linux sim market. That would mean 0.01% of the computer market would be potential customers for a Linux sim, as opposed to 0.43% for Windows. RC sims are already a small niche product even for Windows, so a Linux RC sim is a very small niche.

How much will it initially cost to port to Linux?

How much will it cost to maintain a Linux port, on all the various distributions of Linux?

How much will the ongoing improvement of the Windows version of the sim suffer as a result of resources being diverted to supporting the Linux version? Assuming you lose some Windows sales to the competition as a result of spending time on a Linux port, how likely would it be for Linux sales to outweigh the loss of Windows sales?

Are Linux users less likely on average to be willing to pay for software than Windows or Mac users? I know you said you buy software, but are you the typical Linux user?

My point in asking all these questions isn't to say it would be impossible to make a Linux sim financially successful, just to point out that at this time it's a much riskier venture than writing Windows software, so it doesn't make sense to me to blame small software makers for not making Linux ports of their software. I've been a Linux user since about '94, and own a Mac now, and I'd certainly buy a Linux or Mac sim.

my next question is what language is clear flight written in? if it is indeed java with OpenGL and OpenAL according to what i understand of java its not too big a venture. As long as you insure that there are certain package dependencies that are met most modern distros will meet that. Fedora Ubuntu Suse etc now granted you probably would try to avoid working to ensure slackware users are happy because there is just no way with the way it functions.

the growing typical user of linux these days would atleast buy software they cant get otherwise as long as its not from the evil microsoft that was a joke about the former user base. Linux users vary accross the board to the mainstream to the extreme. there are users today that are becoming less involved with the command line.

how much research has been done into what it would take to complete a linux port?

I have been a linux user since about 1998 and i have bought copies of different distros. I currently use Ubuntu but Slackware was what i started on. i dont disagree with you about the blame game either. I am just trying to say that small software companies are in the same boat as big software companies in stating that there isnt enough interest when there most certainly is interest. i have stated before its a catch 22 because software companies state they wont port because of the low amount of users but then the user base wont grow because there isn't enough of software that certain users use. i stopped using my real flight G2 because i dropped dual booting and started using Ubuntu exclusively. and it wont work with wine either because of the crappy inter-controller or what ever that thing is called. it runs but doesnt detect the usb controller that comes with the software.

They're not really in the same boat though. A big company like Adobe could probably afford to assign a team of people to port Photoshop to Linux, try to market it, discover that it's not profitable at this time, and just swallow the loss and carry on with their business. Or they could even keep supporting it at a loss for a few years until Linux usage picks up enough that it actually becomes profitable. A small business on the other hand could very easily bankrupt themselves if they did the same thing and it didn't turn out to be profitable in the short term. So I think if you're looking for companies to pressure into getting the Linux ball rolling, it makes more sense to focus on bigger companies that can afford to experiment more.

Have you tried Crossover from codeweavers.com? It's a commercial version of Wine which works a lot better. They've made it mostly painless to install Windows apps, and greatly improved USB and graphics support. I use it to run MS Office under Linux, and believe it or not, MS Word actually starts up faster than the native Linux version of OpenOffice Writer. I know they've also done work to make USB support better, so it might allow you use if it otherwise runs. codeweavers has a fully functional demo.