On Sat, 2003-03-15 at 01:44, joe wrote: > Mike A. Harris wrote: > > > > >5 years from now, in 2008, there is likely to be a viable gaming > >market on the Linux OS platform. Likely before that. But it is > >not here right now, no matter how much people fantasize about it. > >It will happen eventually if and when it happens, and it will be > >driven by the proper forces. That means the people who stand to > >make the most money from lighting the torch and holding it to the > >firepit are the ones who will be the catalysts to start the fire. > >That fire will spread until eventually it hits all necessary > >players that are required in order to make it happen. > > > (sigh) I think maybe we're just in violent agreement. > > I've never said RH should focus on gaming - I'm just saying > that linux _is_ technically a viable gaming platform, as anyone > who has played Q3A or RtCW on linux can attest. >
True, there is no real need for Red Hat specifically concentrate on gaming. The basic native support and lib framework for game development is already in 8.0 and will be greatly enhanced in the upcoming consumer Red Hat release. > With the coming 2.6 kernel it gets even sweeter - and there's > no technical reason that linux can't become a more popular > platform for all kinds of multimedia activities. > > I also think think that, as more people make linux their > primary or only computing platform, the linux multimedia > scene in general will gain support and momentum. > Chicken and egg situation. People won't make the whole move to Linux because not enough games etc. and not enough gamers on Linux to make development commercially viable. > It would help if linux users would speak up and request > linux versions of their favorite apps, rather than keeping > a windoze peecee around to do all the cool or interesting > stuff. > > >/me goes to play RTCW on Linux, just because. > > > > > Cool, so you know about idsoftware - their linux ports are > not done for profit, but because there are techies inside > who dig linux enough to make it happen. > The exception, not the rule. Though I will say id's continued support of the Linux platform is very much appreciated. One big problem with any attempt to develop a commercial game for Linux is the scope of support considerations. If our game supported Red Hat 8.x alone that would be fine, as it would leave us to do testing on that one distro and post release support would be highly concentrated. However, with all the distros out in Linux land (many with their own little problems) and so many different versions of this/that and the other within them, the frequency of distro releases and a never ending supply of people running public beta's and RC's, who seem to expect stuff to run. :/ The task of support would be gigantic and oh so costly both pre and post release. It is this that makes many shy away from the platform at this point in time. It's all a bit of a no win situation at present in many respects. Support one or a few distro's and have users of other distro's complaining. Hope for a much wider standards which would aid game development and have the distro's themselves not happy because their choices are being drastically cut back and possible competitive advantage taken away. Though personally I would opt for the supporting a few specific distros and saying "If it runs on your non supported distro - fine. If it doesn't - Sorry, please install Red Hat or one of the other supported Linux distributions.". :) Regards Phil -- ICQ: 135463069 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Public key: http://www.philipwyett.dsl.pipex.com/gpg/public_key.txt --
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