On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 09:37 +1100, Janeene Beeforth wrote: > While the debates about advertising/docos/etc have been interesting, > there's one critical thing that I've always felt is being missed when > discussing the potential migration of people from Windows to Linux - and > that is whether the system is actually capable of running the particular > software that the end user actually wants to run. > > At this stage, there's alternatives (and in many cases *very* good ones) > for general run-of-the-mill tasks such as web, email, work processing, > etc. > > A lot of people however don't get a computer *just* for general > run-of-the-mill stuff - they get it 'cause they want to be able to do > something more specific with it. A classic area in point would be computer > gaming. > > This is where (through no fault of it's own) Linux falls down. In the > majority of cases, games are produced for Windows only. > > Look further into the games development, and you find that the *tools* > used to produce the games (stuff like havok, gamebryo, etc) will only > produce games for Windows or Windows consoles. This means that the > developers of the game get tied to a specific OS by the tools that they > feel are required to be able to develop the game. > > While we've got things such as Wine to try and get this stuff working > under linux it's still very hit and miss (again, through no fault of the > wine guys). The perception amongst the users however is that 'linux is not > able to run direct X' and therefore inferior (somehow the fact that direct > X is owned, designed and undocumented by MS never seems to occur to them). > > If a person knows, or even *suspects* that by choosing Linux they will not > be able to run the programs that they want to run - they're not going to > seriously consider it as a choice. For most people, dual-booting is simply > too complex. > > If we want people to feel that linux *is* a viable choice, we need the > upstream software providers to seriously consider it a choice. They need > the tools to produce the software, and to *know* that those tools are > available, of production quality, and at least as easy to use as what they > currently use. > > Getting together information about the tools that *can* be used to produce > cross-platform (Linux/MAC/Win) games *of at least* the same standard as > recent releases (shaders, physics, etc). For example, if you were to > produce a game like Oblivion as a cross-platform game rather then > Windows-only, what tools are available to duplicate this development? Are > there any tools that are currently missing? > > Educating the development companies in the use and potential benefits of > these cross-platform tools - getting them to move *away* from lock-in > libraries such as direct X - can flow the benefits down the chain to give > end users a *real* choice. > > Cheers, > Janeene. Hi Janeene, The problem we have is pretty chicken and eggish. The Games companies won't produce for Linux (with the odd exception like ID and Epic) until they see a market, and a market won't develop until the Games companies start to build for linux. There is however a growing community of games developers within the FOSS community itself. <Blatant Plug Warning> I'll be looking at that this week with the Gaming Round Table on Open Source On The Air. </Blatant Plug Warning> -- James Purser Producer/Presenter Open Source On The Air http://www.localfoss.org
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