Where have we heard this before? [LWN.net]

Where have we heard this before?

Posted Aug 19, 2006 5:44 UTC (Sat) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026)
In reply to: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules by piman
Parent article: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

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.

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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.