> ** well, let's see how many flames I can generate with this.. **
I'll see if I can generate more.
>One point that I think has been missed is that while Open Source in
>general (and Linux, in particular) improves a lot user and developer
>experience, the binaries get even less value than in Windows.
>
>The reason is that when I get binary-only game in Windows, I can at least
>play it (and reasonably hope that it will still play in future releases).
>
>With linux, it will say something along the lines of "works with Redhat
>6.2". (take a look at many CAD packages, for example - they are _not_ very
>graphics intensive). Games are even trickier. I have not bought a single
>Loki game for this reason: once I upgrade to new libraries or X it will be
>dead weight. And if it crashes because of incompatibility there is little
>I can do to fix it. (And no, I am not going to waddle thru machine code to
>fix something I paid money for).
I tend to agree with this. I think a major problem for Linux is forward and
backward compatibility issues and compatibility issues between
distributions. To be perfectly honest, I think if Linux is to have a future
as a 'desktop' or 'gaming' OS a lot of these issues need to be cleaned up.
I have written a Linux USB driver that got broken somewhere between kernel
2.4.0 and kernel 2.4.5. How as a driver developer can I ensure that my
driver will work on future, supposedly stable, kernel releases? How can the
customers of this product get that assurance? Sure, you can say 'release
the source and have open source developers maintain it' but to be honest if
you want the best support it has to come from the hardware manufacturers.
Hardware manufacturers want to (if economically feasible) to maintain the
code themselves, release driver updates on their own schedule (not Linus's
or Redhat's) and offer support to their own customers. With the highly
competitive 3D industry and the need to protect intellectual property I
think the future is in binary drivers (like NVIDIA). I feel you are only
going to get quality drivers at hardware release time (i.e. support equal to
Windows or Mac) if they come directly from the hardware manufacturer. Linux
needs to make it simple for the hardware manufactuers to develop and release
drivers and for their customers to easily install/upgrade them preferably in
a point and click manner. When that happens Linux will be on its way to
becomimg a real desktop/gaming platform.
Take a look at NVIDIA's linux driver website.
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux Is that confusing to a
non-technical user or what? Is the average user going to know the
difference between "Redhat 7.1 SMP Kernel" vs "RedHat 7.1, one CPU,
uniprocessor kernel" vs "RedHat 7.1, enterprise kernel"? Sorry, but that is
rediculous.
If you guys really want to see Linux become a gaming platform go out and
solve these issues. Develop the driver infrastructure so that the kinds of
things above don't happen. Develop the driver infrastructure that makes it
easy for the hardware manufacturers to develop drivers and support their
users. That is how you will take Linux to the next level and make Linux a
viable desktop/gaming platform.
David
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