Quotes of the week
Quotes of the week
Posted Mar 25, 2012 1:20 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304)In reply to: Quotes of the week by khim
Parent article: Quotes of the week
Remember the times when Linux seen AAA game titles (well, they usually were ported years later, but they were ported)? These times are gone.I'm not getting into the general argument here, but the AAA game title ports were largely crap, and thanks largely to the Humble Indie Bundles and Ryan C. Gordon there've been more games ported to Linux in the last three or so years than ever before. (It probably helps that the developers have to make the games portable these days anyway, so they can run them on the iPad and on Android boxes.)
Posted Mar 25, 2012 8:30 UTC (Sun)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (5 responses)
And how many of these games are capable of creating buzz? Where are things like Call of Duty, GTA, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Rage, or StarCraft? We are talking about Joe Average here, right? Sure, MacOS also suffers from the same effect (and for the same reason), but at least they get something (from the list above: Left 4 Dead, Rage and StarCraft support MacOS). What do Linux users have? World of Goo? Is it enough for social creature (and we are talking about social-oriented users here: why else will they need all these social features)? Humble Indie Bundles and Ryan C. Gordon are trying to replicate the same failed model distributions are using: some games were ported by developers but significant part was ported by a small group of people. This model does not scale. But it also shows (once again) that Linux users don't shun games - the game developers shun Linux. And they obviously do that because ROI is poor. Instead of trying to improve ROI for the developers (by reducing investment because it's hard to increase sales too much when you have so few users) linux people talk about how that's “as much developer's as the distribution loss” and about how “it's really the third-party desktop app developers who should be pushing for a change”. But it's cheaper for any third-party developer to just create half-dozen packages for popular distributions rather then try to create the whole Linux app store! And another note: if “community” want any control over said store it must do it itself. If some vendor will decide to build it and succeed then it'll be this vendor's game, not community's game. See Android or Steam.
Posted Mar 25, 2012 11:05 UTC (Sun)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (4 responses)
The obvious way of tackling this as far as the games are concerned would not be to try the Sisyphean task of establishing a distribution-independent third-party application deployment infrastructure, but to come up with a way to run Android games on generic Linux desktops. This takes the application developers out of the loop entirely, instead of having to convince them to support one more platform (even if it is just one), and is a more feasible project by orders of magnitude, mostly because it is basically technical rather than political in nature.
The distributions really don't have much incentive to bend over backwards in this case. If anything it should be the smaller distribution projects rather than the big community-type distributions which should support an »app store« because it means that they can save manpower by not having to maintain a package for everything. On the other hand, most of the smaller distributions are really spin-offs of large distributions that can ride piggy-back on those distributions' repositories, and these already tend to have everything that is of interest in the first place (the FLOSS stuff, anyway).
The Linux community is notoriously bad at coming up with standardised solutions (it has brought us a dozen main-stream Linux distributions, four desktop environments, and so on), and it would be folly to rely on the community to come up with »the Linux app store« because it will never happen – at best it will be »LSB all over again« with the predictable result. Especially since you'd need buy-in from the main Linux distributions, because otherwise any effort towards an app-store-based Linux will just be seen as »yet another distribution« and not change anything at all.
It may be uncomfortable to you but if you want an environment for third-party Linux desktop apps you will have to go to the developers of those apps to figure out what they need, and it will have to be those developers who will have to see about making it actually happen. (If they're clever they'll band together to do it, and talk to the distributions, too.) This is the FLOSS tradition of »scratching one's own itch«. If the third-party developers don't feel the need to scratch then maybe they're not itching enough (yet?).
Posted Mar 25, 2012 13:07 UTC (Sun)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (3 responses)
In other word: the obvious way is to follow OS/2, FreeBSD and other such platforms on the road to the irrelevancy. Besides a lot of popular Android games use binary ARM libraries and/or fancy on-phone controls thus it's not easy to bring them to Linux desktop. How will you emulate phone tilt? If they don't want to see more non-technical users, then no, they don't need that. If they are happy to slowly lose the existing users then they can continue as before. You don't need app-store-based Linux. App store itself can easily be installable package for the mainstream Linux distribution or a few of them. We are doing this, yes. Well, they are doing this to some degree. Why will they want that? Distributions are obstacles, you don't talk with obstacles, you sidestep and/or remove them. Oh, they feel the need all right. The only problem: it's even harder to convince them to do anything together. The most realistic outcome is that someone will just take Linux, remove useless components (such as GNOME, KDE, X Windows System, etc) and create app-store for that. If it'll be Google then most probably it'll be Android-based or ChromeOS-based desktop, if it'll be someone else they may pick something else. But I doubt they will spent a lot of time trying to keep the system usable in parallel with traditional Linux desktop. I'm not sure I'd like such outcome, but looks like there are no choice. The community have spoken: refusal to make a choice is by itself a choice. I just hope it'll not regret it later.
Posted Mar 26, 2012 11:37 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (2 responses)
This would be a very stupid approach since you need the distributions to convince their users that the »app store« is a good idea. Remember that most existing Linux users are generally happy with what the distributions give them (or else they wouldn't be Linux users in the first place).
Your only hope to get people to accept the »Linux app store« is by convincing distributions to stop including stuff that users can get from the app store, and to tell their users to get that stuff from the app store instead. There is no incentive for users of a distribution to get something from the app store if the distribution already comes with the same something but well-integrated into the rest of the distribution and with the distribution's own »seal of approval«.
So you need to get distributions to buy the idea that by packaging stuff for the »app store« rather than just their own ecosystem they will save work (presumably because their users get to use stuff, that other people than them are packaging for the »app store«, that the distribution would otherwise have to package for their own users). This is going to appeal more to the smaller distributions with less manpower than the Debians and openSUSEs of the world. For these distributions, since they basically include every interesting FLOSS package already and have enough volunteers to package stuff, the selling point would probably be the convenient availability of non-FLOS software.
In any case, not working with the distributions would be quite misguided, simply because approximately every single Linux user will be using one distribution or another just to get at the app store. That distribution may well be a basic get-at-the-app-store one (Chrome OS comes to mind) but the existence of such a distribution will not make Debian or Red Hat go away. The old saw, »If you can't beat'em, join'em« applies here as well.
Posted Mar 26, 2012 14:36 UTC (Mon)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (1 responses)
Bingo! The problem: more and more of them are stopping being Linux users. Nope. Much simpler and easier way is to convince third-party developers to release goodies for your app store and not for general-purpose Linux. If you can not convince them then the whole thing will be a bust (Linux has huge problems with commercial software while FOSS is supported adequately by existing distributions). If you can then people will use your app store for the lack of choice. Yup. If you'll convince enough third-party non-FOSS developers to participate in project then people will start using app store to get these apps. If some FOSS developers will start releasing their goodies via this scheme it'll be added bonus. Why are you so sure? You can just provide package for a few major distributions. You don't need to cooperate with distribution makers and play their politics for that. Right. It's not our goal to kill Debian or Red Hat. But since cooperation with them does not make our life easier…
Posted Mar 29, 2012 20:01 UTC (Thu)
by oak (guest, #2786)
[Link]
Linux distros are too small fish to have the cash or connections for last, they would need to partner with manufacturers for the HW side and normal Linux users don't like DRM or not having full control of their OS at all.
So, I see iOS / Android style "app store" as highly unlikely for normal Linux desktop.
How well the Ubuntu app store is fairing?
Quotes of the week
Quotes of the week
And they obviously do that because ROI is poor. Instead of trying to improve ROI for the developers (by reducing investment because it's hard to increase sales too much when you have so few users)
linux people talk about how that's “as much developer's as the distribution loss” and about how “it's really the third-party desktop app developers who should be pushing for a change”.
But it's cheaper for any third-party developer to just create half-dozen packages for popular distributions rather then try to create the whole Linux app store!
Quotes of the week
The obvious way of tackling this as far as the games are concerned would not be to try the Sisyphean task of establishing a distribution-independent third-party application deployment infrastructure, but to come up with a way to run Android games on generic Linux desktops.
The distributions really don't have much incentive to bend over backwards in this case.
Especially since you'd need buy-in from the main Linux distributions, because otherwise any effort towards an app-store-based Linux will just be seen as »yet another distribution« and not change anything at all.
It may be uncomfortable to you but if you want an environment for third-party Linux desktop apps you will have to go to the developers of those apps to figure out what they need
If they're clever they'll band together to do it,
and talk to the distributions, too.
If the third-party developers don't feel the need to scratch then maybe they're not itching enough.
Quotes of the week
Distributions are obstacles, you don't talk with obstacles, you sidestep and/or remove them.
Quotes of the week
Remember that most existing Linux users are generally happy with what the distributions give them (or else they wouldn't be Linux users in the first place).
Your only hope to get people to accept the »Linux app store« is by convincing distributions to stop including stuff that users can get from the app store, and to tell their users to get that stuff from the app store instead.
For these distributions, since they basically include every interesting FLOSS package already and have enough volunteers to package stuff, the selling point would probably be the convenient availability of non-FLOS software.
In any case, not working with the distributions would be quite misguided, simply because approximately every single Linux user will be using one distribution or another just to get at the app store.
That distribution may well be a basic get-at-the-app-store one (Chrome OS comes to mind) but the existence of such a distribution will not make Debian or Red Hat go away.
Quotes of the week
* DRM so that users cannot copy the proprietary apps
* Secured devices so that DRM cannot be broken i.e. users don't get "root"
* HW support for security and keys for signed content
* Few millions (or at least hundreds of thousands) in cash to pay games houses etc put enough initial content to app store to bootstart it