armalite
May 31st, 2007, 09:11 AM
Some days ago finally started the long awaited Dell-Ubuntu deal, at least on selected countries (not mine). Dell is selling pcs with Ubuntu preinstalled.
This is a great thing for our community and for Open Source spread, and everyone of us sees that deal a good thing, I hope.
I read today the interview Mark Shuttleworth gave to Phoronix on their site: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=732&num=2. The thing that took my attention on a 5 pages interview was:
Phoronix: With a majority of retail games currently using Microsoft's DirectX, the reason why many Windows users do not use Linux is simply due to the lack of available games, etc. Do you see more game studios adopting OpenGL or how do you see Linux gaming evolve in the coming years?
Mark: You've hit on a really important point there. Many of the young and adventurous types who would really like to run Linux and would quickly become familiar with it are also the heavy gamers. And so that's a reason for them not to make the move entirely but to keep Windows around to play games. I would very much like to see that changed and I would like to see gaming on Linux become of a more serious thing. It's something where we aren't devoting a tremendous amount of resources.
Now, we can play some of the Windows games by using Wine or Cedega, altough the latter isn't free (as in speech). Wine/Cedega are surely a good effort, but I (and i'm sure, everyone of us) want to run games natively on Linux.
So, what can be done to have success on this? Ubuntu/Canonical should rely on "avalanche effect" like already done with Dell: let one of the biggest computer seller start shipping PCs with Ubuntu GNU/Linux OS preinstalled and others sellers will eventually follow. Side effect: Ubuntu and Free Software will gain popularity among users.
Why shouldn't try this with games, where Linux has to fill some gap against "the" commercial OS? Let's start with a good game, that surely will have a good spread throughout the audience. Let's do it now because it is still in development (and it will take a long time to hit the shelves).
Let's make a Blizzard-Ubuntu deal to let the upcoming Starcraft 2 be Ubuntu compatible!
I don't know who could do this, the Ubuntu User Community, the Ubuntu Foundation, Canonical, maybe Mark Shuttleworth that goes to Blizzard HQ and speaks with Blizzard CEO: i don't know, but someone that has a directive position in Ubuntu Development should do this.
The deal could be simple: Blizzard lets Starcraft 2 be available natively on Ubuntu (or Linux), Ubuntu Community (and forums) help Blizzard in supporting players (installation howtos, troubleshooting, generic support) and Ubuntu Developers help Blizzard to make a good Linux installer and have some sort of cooperation with dev team at Blizzard.
About the Open Sourceness, i understand that a game like this can't be oper sourced. So maybe only the installer could be open sourced (for example as done with Quake and Return To Castle Wolfenstein installers), or even this could be closed source. IMHO this shouldn't be the main focus of the deal.
As you probably already know, to me it is safe to say that Starcraft 2 will be one of the greatest rts, mainly because the former Starcraft is still played after 9 years after the debut. Blizzard is a great game software house capable of releasing World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, every game they published had quite a good success. This software house could be a good partner to Ubuntu, and vice-versa.
So many of us still have Windows XP on their pcs just to play games, and me too. I'm a WoW player and I'm not satisfied with Wine performance (altough I do understand the really hard effort that needs a project like wine. Developers: you're great guys!) even with better-than-average hardware.
A Blizzard-Ubuntu (or if you prefer: Ubuntu-Blizzard) deal could be the first in such sense, let big games support Ubuntu. After all, there are no Directx 9 or 10 in Apple Mac Os X, and Starcraft2 is going to support Apple OS, so an opengl version of the game will work on Ubuntu and will require not too much work on Blizzard side.
EDIT: corrected some minor mispells
This is a great thing for our community and for Open Source spread, and everyone of us sees that deal a good thing, I hope.
I read today the interview Mark Shuttleworth gave to Phoronix on their site: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=732&num=2. The thing that took my attention on a 5 pages interview was:
Phoronix: With a majority of retail games currently using Microsoft's DirectX, the reason why many Windows users do not use Linux is simply due to the lack of available games, etc. Do you see more game studios adopting OpenGL or how do you see Linux gaming evolve in the coming years?
Mark: You've hit on a really important point there. Many of the young and adventurous types who would really like to run Linux and would quickly become familiar with it are also the heavy gamers. And so that's a reason for them not to make the move entirely but to keep Windows around to play games. I would very much like to see that changed and I would like to see gaming on Linux become of a more serious thing. It's something where we aren't devoting a tremendous amount of resources.
Now, we can play some of the Windows games by using Wine or Cedega, altough the latter isn't free (as in speech). Wine/Cedega are surely a good effort, but I (and i'm sure, everyone of us) want to run games natively on Linux.
So, what can be done to have success on this? Ubuntu/Canonical should rely on "avalanche effect" like already done with Dell: let one of the biggest computer seller start shipping PCs with Ubuntu GNU/Linux OS preinstalled and others sellers will eventually follow. Side effect: Ubuntu and Free Software will gain popularity among users.
Why shouldn't try this with games, where Linux has to fill some gap against "the" commercial OS? Let's start with a good game, that surely will have a good spread throughout the audience. Let's do it now because it is still in development (and it will take a long time to hit the shelves).
Let's make a Blizzard-Ubuntu deal to let the upcoming Starcraft 2 be Ubuntu compatible!
I don't know who could do this, the Ubuntu User Community, the Ubuntu Foundation, Canonical, maybe Mark Shuttleworth that goes to Blizzard HQ and speaks with Blizzard CEO: i don't know, but someone that has a directive position in Ubuntu Development should do this.
The deal could be simple: Blizzard lets Starcraft 2 be available natively on Ubuntu (or Linux), Ubuntu Community (and forums) help Blizzard in supporting players (installation howtos, troubleshooting, generic support) and Ubuntu Developers help Blizzard to make a good Linux installer and have some sort of cooperation with dev team at Blizzard.
About the Open Sourceness, i understand that a game like this can't be oper sourced. So maybe only the installer could be open sourced (for example as done with Quake and Return To Castle Wolfenstein installers), or even this could be closed source. IMHO this shouldn't be the main focus of the deal.
As you probably already know, to me it is safe to say that Starcraft 2 will be one of the greatest rts, mainly because the former Starcraft is still played after 9 years after the debut. Blizzard is a great game software house capable of releasing World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, every game they published had quite a good success. This software house could be a good partner to Ubuntu, and vice-versa.
So many of us still have Windows XP on their pcs just to play games, and me too. I'm a WoW player and I'm not satisfied with Wine performance (altough I do understand the really hard effort that needs a project like wine. Developers: you're great guys!) even with better-than-average hardware.
A Blizzard-Ubuntu (or if you prefer: Ubuntu-Blizzard) deal could be the first in such sense, let big games support Ubuntu. After all, there are no Directx 9 or 10 in Apple Mac Os X, and Starcraft2 is going to support Apple OS, so an opengl version of the game will work on Ubuntu and will require not too much work on Blizzard side.
EDIT: corrected some minor mispells