X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules [LWN.net]

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 4:20 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules by elanthis
Parent article: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

""You may think that "best tool for the job" people are sacrificing their ideals, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather that the scientists and doctors who are using high-end hardware requiring proprietary drivers be able to do their work than allow people to die in order to hold up their ideals over something and completely irrelevant to peoples' lives as software.""

How many Linux users using Nvidia binary drivers are doing it because they are doctors and require high end 3d graphics?

How many people need these graphics? How many people are going to loose their jobs or loved ones or anything like that becuase they suddenly uninstall flglx or they sudden go a buy a ralink card and get rid of their atheros one?

Probably the answer is: 'not very many at all'.

Think about it. How many of us NEED nvidia.ko on our machines? I know I am better off once I got rid of that crap.

But going around and saying "oh I wish I don't need binary drivers" is something else entirely. The answer is _You_probably_don't_.

"Average users aren't in much better of a position in many cases, either. The vast majority of my friends don't use any software other than games (and the OS the games run on). Proprietary, closed-source games. For these people, the whole reason for owning a computer is to play these games. They don't need or want the source."

Then why on earth would they ever want to run Linux?!

Windows provides better performance. Better compatability and probably better stability. It's simply a much much better tool for playing propriatory video games. There is no contest.

It's never going to happen that propriatory game companies will ever support Linux properly. Becuase if Free software becomes popular it will probably put them out of business.

I am not saying that it's morally superior to be pro-free software or anti-free software. I am saying there is a pratical choice.

What we have now is this sort of bizzare middle ground that doesn't realy work. A bog with unsteady footing.

Every distro supports closed source drivers. Even Debian. I can install module-assistant and go m-a a-i nvidia && apt-get install nvidia-glx and it will probably work. But they don't 'officially' support it. So it leaves users in Limbo. They get broken kernels with broken drivers and nothing ever works out of the box and nothing ever is effortless. Hear about a security update? You can't use it because now you can't play Doom3. If those drivers are officially supported they you would be able to get the latest kernel update and still be able to play Doom3.

If the drivers are denied completely by Ubuntu/Debian/FC/et al then people who want Free software drivers will be able to easily find out what is supported and will get the best quality free software drivers they can get.

Right now we have a huge number of people with half-working hardware bitching about FLGX drivers and NDISWrapper BS and how the kernel needs a stable ABI and this and that when perfectly good drivers for their hardware exist for their R200/R300/R400 ATI video cards and their Broadcom wifi and their TI wifi and they don't know it because the Ubuntu forums are full of howtos on getting craptastic ndis stuff running and how ATI sucks.

Anyways. For games there are lots of nice Free ones.

If your friends like going out and spending 400 dollars on a PC + 200 dollars on a video card + 100 dollars on Windows + 100 dollars on assorted windows BS in order to get it usable + 70 dollars for a video game worth about 4 hours of gameplay only to find out that previously installed game broke their dvd drivers with it's copy protection then that's their problem.

They'll learn that fancy != good, eventually. :-)

And I sincerly doubt that FSF is going to be any good at game making. Other people are working on that.

For instance Tremulous. It's a great game, but it doesn't have any players because everybody is busy with struggling to get Cedega or Wine to barely work.

to post comments

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 4:24 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (14 responses)

http://debianlinux.net/games.html

There is a fairly up to date list of fancier open source games.

How many people know gamers and they had long conversations about what they'd like to change aobut this or that game or how they'd like to make a model or their own character and stuff like that?

With open source games they can actually DO that. Making video games or contributing with testing and such would be a fun hobby for a lot of people, but I bet that didn't know most of the stuff in the above link existed.

mmorpg, racing games, flight simulations, lots of FPS, stragety games, etc etc.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 9:37 UTC (Tue) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (7 responses)

"With open source games they can actually DO that."

No, no they cannot. Entire teams of artists, musicians, and veteran game coders take many months or years to push out even mediocre games these days.

Even given that I know how to code, which I do, I still completely lack the time or resources to make my ideal game, and there certainly isn't an OSS game I could springboard off of. I'd have to do everything from the ground up.

The only games that OSS is even close to catching up on is FPS games and "classic" games. Modern action games, modern platformers, modern adventure games, and modern RPGs are all far beyond anything any OSS offering has even come close to producing.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 16, 2006 5:57 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (6 responses)

"Even given that I know how to code, which I do, I still completely lack the time or resources to make my ideal game, and there certainly isn't an OSS game I could springboard off of. I'd have to do everything from the ground up."

What do you mean there is no OSS game for you to use?

GPL'd Quake3 not good enough for you?

Ogre3d gaming engine not good enough for you? Crystal Space not up to scratch?

This is the shit I am talking about. You're so convinced that only closed source companies are capable of making good video games that you don't even pay attention to what is happenning around you.

And you not alone. Most people don't even know this stuff exists. All the focus is on getting stupid Wine to work.

Have you ever seen the game mod community?

People take gaming engines based on Quake3, Enemy Territory, Quake2, UT2004, Halflife2.

COUNTERSTRIKE was one of the most popular game of all times and it was a MOD that was made at no cost and freely downloaded!

They don't charge money for any of it. But they all come from a Windows culture were closed source is natural and you should restrict access just because it's how it's done.

Linux needs to cultivate a culture of making games and making 3d stuff easy and 'just work'. Wings3d and Blender should be made aviable right beside Gimp. GTKRadient should be a standard feature.

How many hundreds of games have hobbiests produced? I remember back when Quake2 was popular it was easy to make models for it. People made litterally THOUSANDS of models. Out of those there were at least nearly a hundred that were as good or better then the ones that Quake2 actually came with.

A lot of these things come realy damn close to the quality that top commercial games offer.

Ogr3d and CrystalSpace as well as a couple other game engines are Linux centric and completely open source with support for a veriaty of scripting languages. These things can be used to produce graphics and such that are as high quality as anything else out there. Exceptionally fast, flexible, and Free software. Most of the end users are Windows folk though.

All you need is something fun you want to do. Lots of people do it all time. Lots of programmers would love to make decent games. In fact the majority of programmers seemed to want to become programmers because of games they played.

You need to make it easy for artists and sound people who want to play around to make stuff and they will. It happens all the time.

The stuff is starting to pick up more and more. It's slow, but open source stuff is gaining momentium.

Even it's just as the basis for indie game makers, I can live with that. Python for instance is probably one if not the most popular scripting languages in games, commercial or not. LibSDL is a very popular API used by many indie gamers. Runs on directx in windows, opengl in Linux. Much easier to use then either and games are much easier to port.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 16, 2006 20:34 UTC (Wed) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (5 responses)

> GPL'd Quake3 not good enough for you?

No, it's not. Quake 3 is seven years old. The proprietary gaming industry has surpassed almost every bit of technology in it, from AI to graphics to networking.

> I remember back when Quake2 was popular it was easy to make models for it.

A model is not a game.

> Ogr3d and CrystalSpace as well as a couple other game engines..

A 3D engine is not a game.

> Lots of programmers would love to make decent games.

But they can't. From the software end alone: We have reasonably good 3D engines, and now we're getting okay modelling tools (but most game development studios have customized tools). Where's the generic AI libraries, or network prediction? Things like MMOs, with gigabytes of data and beefy server requirements, are totally beyond us right now. Things like Xbox Live are years away (if anyone's even working on them).

Writing games is hard. It requires a unified vision between everyone involved, it requires varied skill sets in writing, programming, and art, and then also game design is a field on its own. Free games are lagging behind proprietary games by years. And as long as we're basing new games on the Doom (1!) engine, or even the Quake 3 engine, they're going to remain laughably behind. Look at the press around Wesnoth; it's a best-of-breed free game, and it really is amazing what they've achieved. It's also not going to impress gamers unless they've been asleep for a decade.

> You need to make it easy for artists and sound people who want to play around to make stuff and they will. It happens all the time.

This might be the biggest misconception around free gaming. If you have enough programmers pounding out code for what they need, yes, you'll get lots of useful things. But if you want something cohesive, like a game, you can't rely on that. You need programmers talking to artists talking to designers, and you need to keep this up for the whole project. You won't get an excellent game by throwing random art, music, and code into a blender and looking at what comes out.

Besides that, unlike a word processor, where you're trying to accomplish a task and can use different software to get there, a game is a world unto itself. If your friends are playing Doom 3, and you want to play with them, it doesn't matter how good your free game is.

Quality free games aren't impossible. But they're very, very hard, and they need to develop their own communities.

(Or maybe you're speaking from experience, and I'm just ignorant of some segment of free software gaming. What have you worked on?)

Where have we heard this before?

Posted Aug 19, 2006 5:44 UTC (Sat) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (4 responses)

We're lucky compilers and kernels don't need a unified vision and various skill sets. Such things are easy to make compared to proprietary games that never crash, scale from wrist watches to supercomputers and protect sensitive data from determined attackers. Word processors and web browsers are never at disadvantage when most peole are using a different product since proprietary formats and incomplete support for standards is impossible. Programmers working in their spare time could never be motivated to make games, which most of us find boring. Plus games need artwork and music which no one would create without compensation. We all know how easy it is for talented artists and musicians to find work.

Where have we heard this before?

Back in the early 1990's the conventional wisdom said the Linux kernel was a pale, puny toy compared to giants like AIX, HPUX and Solaris. Maybe it was a fun hobby, but it could never catch up to legions of professional developers since no one could ever get paid to work on free software. Several giant corpses later, the last proprietary Unix standing has itself turned to free software to compete for developers. Usable desktop environments were supposed to be beyond us too, until we made some. For a while pundits couldn't stop talking about how we could never catch up to proprietary desktops, but they've stopped now. We have working demonstrations of impressive three dimensional features proprietary systems can't yet match.

And so on and so forth. Be patient. We'll get around to remaking the game industry in due time.

Where have we heard this before?

Posted Aug 19, 2006 6:15 UTC (Sat) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (3 responses)

> We're lucky compilers and kernels don't need a unified vision and various skill sets.

Compared to games, they do not. A mediocre C compiler is suitable for a year-long project in a university CS program, for one or two students. A mediocre game is a year-long project for one or two programmers, one or two artists, a composer, and a game designer (who may or may not be one of the programmers). A professional game is the product of 20-50 people working full-time for 1-2 years.

The rest of your first paragraph is a strawman. It's not hard to find half a dozen artists who want to work on a game. It is hard to find half a dozen artists who want to work on the same game, and to enforce a consistent style between them when it's all volunteer work. (Try enforcing a consistent coding style, then consider if you had a team of programmers whose entire task was to work on coding style.) You'll see this problem across most free games.

> We have working demonstrations of impressive three dimensional features proprietary systems can't yet match.

To be really blunt, no. We have working demonstrations of impresive 3D features that are *on par* with proprietary systems. And we only get them on most systems by running proprietary drivers.

> Be patient. We'll get around to remaking the game industry in due time.

I didn't say it was impossible. I said you're not going to get there using a seven year old engine, or by ignoring the most popular kinds of games.

Moping Doesn't Lead to Games

Posted Aug 19, 2006 17:12 UTC (Sat) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (2 responses)

Comparing a C compiler developed by university undergraduates in a year to a mediocre professional game is like claiming game development is easy because one person can write a graphical chess game in six months while making a C compiler that can translate five programming languages, target a three platforms and optimize half as well as GCC takes more time. Efforts to build games and compilers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, so considering what it takes to be competitive is the only way to do an apples to apples comparison.

A competitive game might require two years of work from fifty people, but a competitive compiler or kernel is a ten year effort requiring hundreds of experts in dozens of specialized domains. No game ever created has enjoyed as much effort from such diverse contributors as Linux, GCC and other large free software projects. Do you suppose it's easy to reach consensus among even half a dozen brilliant egomaniacs working on a web browser, or to attract talent and enforce a consistent visual style in a desktop environment? Think again.

Proprietary games achieve what they do because an industry has formed around effective economic and social models. We in the free software community have found similar models compatible with our values for kernels, web servers, databases, browsers, desktop environments and more. We'll do the same for games. That's why engaging free software games that not as good as the best proprietary games are nothing to worry about. Like C compilers created in university courses, these projects are opportunities to learn the craft as well as find better ways to organize effort.

> We have working demonstrations of impresive 3D
> features that are *on par* with proprietary systems.

Which proprietary systems are on par? I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree on that, but five years ago you would have been moaning about how far behind free desktop systems are. I'm glad the developers who actually caught up ignored you.

> And we only get them on most systems by running proprietary drivers.

So? Graphics chip sets from Intel (which is committed to free software drivers) are readily available, as are R200 ATI cards for which free drivers work well. Reverse engineering efforts for R300 and NVIDIA cards are underway and future generations of CPUs for which specifications have always been available seem likely to have superiour graphics processing built in. Proprietary drivers are a serious problem but this is one battle among many that the free software community is winning.

Are you going to pretend that reverse engineering graphics card interfaces is easier than making games too?

> I said you're not going to get there using a seven year old engine, or
> by ignoring the most popular kinds of games.

Accusing me of attacking straw man arguments works better when you don't indulge yourself. I don't see anyone arguing that we should ignore proprietary games or that at the moment the best of them are not more technically advanced and polished than the best free software games. But we have to start somewhere. Moping and exaggerating the difficulty of making games won't get us there either.

Moping Doesn't Lead to Games

Posted Aug 20, 2006 7:00 UTC (Sun) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (1 responses)

> five years ago you would have been moaning about how far behind free desktop systems are.

I've been running exclusively free desktops for the past five years (and I mean exclusively -- only recently did I install non-free firmware, still no Flash, Java, Real, etc). Guess what? I still moan. They're usable; that doesn't mean they're not behind, and certainly they were five years ago.

> Graphics chip sets from Intel (which is committed to free software drivers) are readily available

And useless for modern 3D games.

> But we have to start somewhere. Moping and exaggerating the difficulty of making games won't get us there either.

If you think I'm just moping, or I'm exaggerating, I'd suggest you take a look at http://pydance.org and http://www.sacredchao.net/~piman/angrydd. Now put your money where your mouth is: What experience do you have that justifies your opinion that free games are going to just magically get written without serious changes to how we approach the problem?

If you notice, I keep stating: Professional-quality free games are not impossible. However, they do not exist yet, and no one has any idea how to make them. The games industry has a decade head start on free gaming, and unlike Microsoft in 1995, they're not going to sit still for another decade.

Moping + Boasting != Argument

Posted Aug 25, 2006 4:39 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]

> [Free desktops are] usable; that doesn't mean they're not behind, and
> certainly they were five years ago.

Be specific. What can proprietary desktops do that free software desktops can't? Don't point to a lack of proprietary content or drivers. Those are social and poltical problems, not technical ones.

> [Graphics chip sets from Intel are] useless for modern 3D games.

I mentioned this in the context of advanced three dimensional desktop features, for which such chip sets are effective. You have also failed to address the availability of free software drivers for R200 cards which will support many but not all modern games, the promise of more competitive products of this kind from Intel in the near future and the likely convergence of CPU and GPU hardware.

> If you think I'm just moping, or I'm exaggerating, I'd suggest you take a
> look at http://pydance.org and http://www.sacredchao.net/~piman/angrydd.

Proving that game development is hard takes more than pointing to the inadequacy of your own efforts. Since we are discussing the relative difficulty of kernel, compiler and game development you would at least need to point to both games and kernel or compiler features you've implemented to make this relevant. Even if you could do so, that would not excuse dismissing the points I've made without an argument, as you have done.

Argue on the merits and spare me the boasting.

> What experience do you have that justifies your opinion that free games
> are going to just magically get written without serious changes to how we
> approach the problem?

Free software games do get written and some are quite good. I assume you intended to refer to free software games that can compete with the best proprietary games on their own terms. In that case, I never claimed that will happen without changes to how we approach the problem. Read the post you responded to and you'll discover that I said exactly the opposite. Approaching problems in a variety of ways is something the free software community is especially good at.

As for experience that justifies my opinion, I've done elementary graphic design, written OpenGL applications and worked on Linux kernel network card drivers. The first requires pointing, clicking and patience. The second requires a reference book and a reasonable grasp of simple math. The third requires mastery of concurrency, data structures, detailed hardware architecture and then some. A game is more than the first two but a kernel is much more than the third.

> The games industry has a decade head start on free gaming, and unlike
> Microsoft in 1995, they're not going to sit still for another decade.

They're not? That seems to be at odds with prevailing wisdom around the game industry these days. All the serious gamers I talk to say things like: "I think the industry is stuck in a loop. The same old crap keeps coming out." There are exceptions and interesting arguments against this as well, but it's far from clear that the proprietary games industry will be difficult to catch.

We don't disagree about whether current free software games can compete with the best proprietary games on their own terms today: they can't. Our difference seems to be in how we interpret that. Where you see overwhelming obstacles I see opportunity.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 14:18 UTC (Tue) by wilck (guest, #29844) [Link] (5 responses)

mmorpg, racing games, flight simulations, lots of FPS, stragety games, etc etc.

Show that list to a 16-year-old gamer from your neighborhood. I am sure she'll be excited about it... for about 10 minutes.

People want to play the games that are hyped in the press, they want first-class graphics, sound, and gameplay. Kids want the same games that their friends play. TuxRacer et al., nice as they may be, don't qualify.

TransGaming is bringing part of that universe to to the Linux world. But of course, you get the necessary FPS only with NVidia or ATI hardware. Sigh.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 20:17 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Like I said before,

If your looking for commercial games support to drive Linux adoption rates your going to be sadly dissapointed.

It WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

You know why? Becuase Linux is Free software.
Who are the big game developers nowadays?
EA? Microsoft? Valve?

I mean seriously. These guys hate linux. They are so pro-closed source, pro-propriatory that's it's not even funny. They will never volentarially support Linux. Not even if Linux had 10 percent of the game market. Not even if there was a demand for it.

If Linux succeeds they loose a lot. They like the status quo, they like the control they have over the market, over the platform, over the hardware. They don't want it to change. They are making money hand over fist and they don't want to risk it.

Would you?

If even partially the goal of people like FSF or GNU are relalised they they would probably face huge financial losses. You'd have better luck trying to get SCO to open source OpenUnix.

Beleive it or not the #1 or #2 people own computers at home is to play video games.

Sure young people with free time are targetted by big game makers, but only becuase young people are easy to manipulate. Easy to sell to.

However the vast majority of people who own a computer don't look at computer gaming magazines. They don't go out and by a fancy gaming video card. They just want to have fun after work for a hour or so, that's all.

Games never support Linux?

Posted Aug 16, 2006 1:54 UTC (Wed) by nicku (subscriber, #777) [Link] (1 responses)

It WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

You know why? Becuase Linux is Free software. Who are the big game developers nowadays? EA? Microsoft? Valve?

I mean seriously. These guys hate linux. They are so pro-closed source, pro-propriatory that's it's not even funny. They will never volentarially support Linux. Not even if Linux had 10 percent of the game market. Not even if there was a demand for it.

These companies are less driven by ideology than by the prospect of making money. Ideology affects some of their managers, but the managers who can demonstrate profit will tend to win out.

Games never support Linux?

Posted Aug 16, 2006 5:32 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Their 'idealogy' is "I make a game, I restrict access, I sell access, I make lots of money'. That's pretty much oppisite of the entire Linux ethos.

How are you going to restrict access to a game? How are you going to impliment DRM and cdrom checks when the owner of the computer controls all of it down to the kernel?

You think the kernel developers are going to help StarForce (http://www.star-force.com/)impliment it's "Advanced anti-piracy solutions for software distributed on CD/DVD-ROM and CD-R, as well as via the Internet; license management and DRM technologies."

THAT'S their Idealogy. They are pro-propriatory, drm restrictions, right managements, anti-piracy. That sort of thing isn't going to realy work out well on Linux. However if we begin to support binary only drivers and support DRM for Linux then they will probably start to seriously considure support Linux.

Otherwise for somebody like EA or Microsoft to start distributing software and games and such for Linux it would require somebody to start a gaming company that leverages the Linux platform so successfully that it starts to threaten their business model. Then we will start to see some action.

Just like in everything else Linux has been successfull with.

Get back to me in about 20 years or so.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 17, 2006 18:12 UTC (Thu) by grahammm (guest, #773) [Link] (1 responses)

Yet these games have much more 'lasting' appeal than the modern 3d-graphic, surround sound games. How many of the "current" games will still be available and being played in 30 years time? Most of the text-only games I encountered at university 30 years ago are still available and being played now.

FPS Games in the Future

Posted Aug 17, 2006 22:13 UTC (Thu) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link]

People still play Doom and Quake. when those games were released, they were the ultimate in 3D FPS graphics. It doesn't hurt them that id Software released them to open source.

It was just a year or two ago that some friends and I set up a Quakeworld LAN game. That was barrels of fun. With monkeys.

I have no doubt that today's FPS games will still be played by someone in the future.

Game incompatibility myth

Posted Aug 15, 2006 14:47 UTC (Tue) by broom (guest, #2914) [Link]

I bought a number of Loki games several years ago, when I had a much earlier incarnation of my home PC. I can't even remember exactly what the PC was back then (32 bit, x86 of one kind or another).

Since then, I've changed motherboards, CPU (to Athlon 64 in 64-bit mode), memory, graphics card, linux distribution, hard drives, cdrom drives, and even the case. It does, however, still have the original floppy drive, bought in 1995!

The Loki games I have all still work at least as well as they did back then!

Linux is a fine platform for proprietary games. To a large extent, this was due to Loki creating and releasing a lot of open source support, while keeping only the games themselves proprietary.

Proprietary software & vital work

Posted Aug 15, 2006 18:36 UTC (Tue) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]

[...] I'd rather that the scientists and doctors who are using high-end hardware requiring proprietary drivers be able to do their work than allow people to die [....]

A couple of lessons on the hazards of proprietary software [LWN subscriber-only content] See paragraph 5.