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Very true. I've worked on (non-techie) friends PCs... installing drives, upgrading RAM, that sort of thing. Even after showing them the greater capacity, better performance, all they cared about was AOL. If AOL does redo a users PC into a Linux-based information appliance, this could do great things for the Linux Game industry ( Lokisoft ) as well. Users do care about games.

Porting this to linux seems to be a good idea, but the inherent problem is your business model. Who is your target audience? Are you targeting corporations such as lokisoft who will use your compiler to port/create games for linux?
(side note- the lokisoft page is down, i dunno if that is a fluke, if i have the wrong URL, or if they've packed up and left)

The problem is that if you target corp.'s like loki, you may not be able to sell enough units, or whatever, to justify the cost of porting. These linux gaming companies seem to fold faster than omlettes at waffle house.

If on the other hand, you just ported it and released it at random into the linux/OSS community, you would be doing the community a favor, and independant cells of programmers could attempt to port/write games for linux.

The problem with this solution is also the cost: If you release it open source for linux, you would be somewhat of a hero, or philanthropist, to the OSS community; however, you may not be able to justify the cost of porting it, if your idea is to make money by porting to linux.

I guess it depends on what time frame you think you can port it to linux in - if it would take you and your team an extra two days of programming, it may be worth it, as both a PR move and a gift to the OSS community. However, if it will take extra months of coding, just bear in mind that philanthropy doesn't pay bills.

Don't mean to be cynical, but you have to consider each decision as it relates to the almighty dollar.

It sounds as if you're doing fantastic work, though, keep it up.

• New, cheap computers with Linux installed. Setting up X is horrible, and that's just the way it is. Setting up Windows isn't that easy either. So we'll avoid it just like Windows does. The great thing is that Linux computers could be really cheap. We need an eMachine, not a VA Linux.
• Printing needs to be fixed. Printing under Un*x just isn't very good. Ideally, a whole new system could be set up, complete with nice libraries. Maybe CUPS would be a good alternative. I don't see any real salvation for lprd.
• Applications aren't that important. Lots of people never need anything more than the MS Works that comes with their computers -- StarOffice clearly matches that, and hopefully with a little polish the Free alternatives (KOffice, AbiWord, the GNOME efforts, etc.) will be there soon too. Polish is more important than features at this point.
• Mindshare (uck... I feel dirty for using that word). Anyway, people have friends who know Windows, and that provides an important support structure for people. This makes for a chicken and egg problem, but the Internet has already shown us the solution. Linux has a great Internet support structure, but for Internet newbies this can seem a little intimidating. Making something a little more friendly would be helpful.
• Games. Linux doesn't have lots of good games. People like games, parents buy computers with the notion that while the computer might not be for games, the kids would really like to play them. And some people just buy a computer to get games. LokiSoft is really the best short-term model for this. Commercial companies will dominate this for a long time, and that's just fine IMHO.
• A few things need to be hidden. Like all those libraries. Debian's Apt provides a good start for this. People shouldn't need to think about what libraries they have to have installed, it should just happen.

There is commercial software. Commercial software operates on standard capitalism principles -- there's a demand, you create a supply, you profit off meeting the need. This system is self-sustaining because the profits of one product can keep a group solvent enough to go on to create another (or to improve further on their original design).

There's free software. This is given out for free, for whatever purpose -- bragging rights, ulterior motives (like locking people into your platform or software model), or just because you're a really nice person who wants to share with the world.

Then there's open software. This is often done for bragging rights, for philanthropic reasons, and one major added bonus -- it allows other people to help you get around the platform issue that a single person in a garage might not be able to handle (I don't have an SGI Irix machine around, but if I release something open source, I'm sure someone could pick it up and make sure it works on their Indy).

Lately, commercial software has gotten a bad rap, and open source is in the limelight. The problem is that I personally don't see open source being self-sustaining. Look at this original message -- people writing the best open source code have lucrative day jobs. What happens if open source hits the marketplace in such a fashion that software companies can't compete aside from releasing free products (cf. DoJ vs. Microsoft)? There are quite a few major software development firms out there, sustained by a commercial market. If open source is reliant on people who have lucrative jobs (and thus, the outside money to support the open source development), what happens when those jobs slim down? Are we all going to become graduate students looking for grant money for the rest of our lives?

This is not to say that I disapprove of the free software initiative, or the open source efforts. However, I do not see either of these forms of software development becoming more prevalent (Drat, I can never remember how to spell that word) than commercial software.

Worse yet, I see people's hangups on the whole free software thing has being detrimental to what they often support. Linux is a free OS. Great. How do you expect to get very high-quality applications for it if you're unwilling to shell out the money to support people doing concentrated software development for that platform? I put down $50 for LokiSoft's port of "Civilization: Call To Power" and I fully plan to purchase Railroad Tycoon II as soon as I see it. These are quality software products that deserve my money, and I want to communicate to LokiSoft (and the rest of the industry) that I, for one, want to pay for high quality software.

You can't live on high praise. For all those people giving their work out the public, THANK YOU sincerely and truly. But for everyone else, realize that free software is a privilege, not a right.

--
If it's not important, you can probably find it in...

lokisoft just leads to a teaser page, with a broken link on it (connection refused), but www.lokigames.com seems to be working now.

Will you be offering support for PPC and Alpha platforms?

The release CD contains i386 binaries and data files. In the next few weeks we will post PPC and Alpha binaries for download from our website. Those binaries will work with the data files on the release CD.

The PPC version will remain 'beta' and unsupported until LinuxPPC reaches version 5.0, as 5.0 is required for thread support. To play Civ:CTP on a Mac, you'll need to buy the Linux version of the game, download the PPC binary (about 8MB right now) and install LinuxPPC 5.0 beta.


cristiana

Several people have been asking where to find the game. It's available in several places online, but I plan to buy it from a real store. (A "brick and mortar store", as Loki puts it.) My decision was made because I think it better shows a market for Linux games that way. Not only does the company see that people buy the games, so do retailers. Anyway, according to Lokisoft's web page, CTP will be carried by Fry's, Micro Center, Best Buy, and CompUSA. CTP should be shipping to the stores this week, so they should have it on the shelves by next week at the latest. The Linux version has its own box, which looks mostly like the windows version, but has Tux in the lower left-hand corner.


--Phil (I, too, think it's a great game, and recomment it highly.)

Hey, Check out Lokisoft. They're writing a version of Civ for Sparc Linux, as well as Alpha. Not sure about ppc, though...

Civ: CtP is out for Linux on April 26. I already preordered mine :)

You can order it from LokiSoft.

- Blaine

It's pretty good. I've been playing the beta whenever I have a chance. There's a few seg-faults left to sort out, and getting the last ounces of performace out of it. (still a bit sluggish on my K6-2 300) The developers at Loki Entertainment Software have been real helpful throughout the process.

--

I submitted this. It did cross my mind but it's better to show support than play for selfish ends. I'm sure highlander@lokisoft.com will be reading email for a week or so. But we'll also probably get great stories like, "lots of people sign up for beta test, many more ports planned."


I'm sure I'll be picked anyway, so I'm not worried.