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Microsoft Unhappy With Bungie's Use Of Linux
Noctavis writes: "According to this article at Inside Mac Games, 'Mat Soell [of Bungie] indicated in a forum post several days ago that some Microsoft employees they have spoken with were unhappy that the Myth servers ran on Linux, as of course Windows NT is the platform of choice at the Redmond campus.' For those who may not know: Bungie Software, now Bungie Studios, was acquired by Microsoft earlier this year and its upcoming title Halo will apparently be the flagship game on the X-Box in a year from now; some say its "killer-app." It has since been reconfirmed for the Mac & PC, but the timetable for such a release has not yet been revealed. (Anyone think we can realistically expect it sooner than 3-6 months after the X-Box release?)"
Hello-
:-)
Matt (two t's, IMG) Soell here to hopefully clear the waters that people have thoughtfully muddied in my name.
There is NO ugly corporate pressure from MS demanding that we change our servers. None, zilch, zero, null.
There have been a few scattered individuals who've made comments to the effect that we might want to consider an MS server solution. This has never come from anyone in a position of authority and has never been more than a passing suggestion of that individual's own opinion. They are as entitled to their opinions as we are to ours. The decision is still ours to make. In other words, it was no big deal, and that's all I've ever said about it.
It's like me sending a letter to Inside Mac Games suggesting they fact-check their articles so they can avoid presenting biased inference as fact or at the very least spell people's names properly. They might feel a wee bit of annoyance at my suggestion but they'd still be free to ignore it completely. Know what I'm saying?
No doubt some of the conspiracy theorists already think I'm typing this with a gun to my head, so there's probably no point in dragging this out because people are going to believe whatever they want to believe. But I'll say it again in a way that hopefully no one can misinterpret:
There is no interference from Microsoft in our choice of servers or anything else.
-Matt
I would wager that OpenGL works better in HalfLife due to the fact that Halflife is based on the QuakeII engine, which was OpenGL-only. Direct3D support is more of a hack.
There's another instance this applies to also.. Unreal Tournament. Direct3D performance in this game is quite superior to OpenGL. In fact, the Unreal engine was originally worked only in software and Glide, but for reasons obvious, the developers decided to port to Direct3D as the main rendering engine.
Of course, OGL vs. D3D performance is somewhat dependent on your video card drivers, but with good drivers for each, you can see the differences between different game engines.
It's fine to advocate linux as much as we can, but it's also important to avoid hypocrisy
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Well, realistically, why wouldn't they be upset? It's equivalent to, say, Ford Motor company reacquiring Hertz, and finding out that all their executives drive Cadies...
It doesn't really mean anything tho... People aren't buying and playing Myth because of what server it runs on...
NecroPuppy
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Microsoft meddling in the affairs of one of its vassal companies? This came as no surprise to me either.
But I bet it came as a surprise to Bungie, judging by their letter to their fans. To quote:
What drove us then drives us now: to make the games we want to make, on our own terms, and in our own way.
Holding true to this vision allowed us to create the Marathon and Myth series, and has now led us to Redmond to work closely with the Xbox development team.
Here's how I figure the deal went down:
1. Bungie develops game for several platforms and makes a name for themselves. (I think the history here speaks for itself.)
2. Bungie would like to develop for the Xbox as well, and tries to get the SDKs for it. (It fits their pattern; if they have the patience to develop for Mac, PC, AND PS2, why not a fourth one?)
3. Microsoft offers to not just send over SDKs, but buy out Bungie. Part of this was probably the assurance that Bungie staff would have an opportunity to influence the design of the Xbox. (Bungie's Acquisition FAQ bears this out -- see "Why is this happening")
4. Bungie sells out to Microsoft in a fit of naivete and/or stupidity. If you haven't called up that FAQ already, do so -- read the Q&As starting with "Why do you believe Microsoft will leave you alone when there are so many documented examples of Microsoft doing shady things?" and try to hold down the bile.
What it looks like to me is that Microsoft drew Bungie into its blob-like folds on the promise of listening to them and benefitting from their talent, and proceeded to ream them.
Like this laughable line:
The existing bungie.net servers will continue to exist for the indefinite future. We are bringing the current head of the bungie.net admins along to ensure that bungie.net is maintained to our standards, and he will act as a full member of an online community team to ensure that future iterations of bungie.net are designed with the players in mind.
They probably seriously believed that when they signed over their good name. Pity them. And pity the forseeable future, which ended even before the ink was dry. And as for other promises, well, another thing they said in their FAQ was:
Will Microsoft control the content or direction of Bungie games?
No. The plan is that they'll leave us more or less alone to do what we do, and trust that the results will be worth it. They will be involved on some level at every step of the process, including conceptualization, but they will not shape the development of the games or censor content. Their interactions with us will mostly be on a business level.
In the current light, make of that what you will. To me, it looked like a cloudy day way back when they signed the contract, and now it looks like it's going to hail.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
I'm not sure you're a developer, but it doesn't sound like it :-( Apologies if you are. ;-)
;-)
> It is getting harder all the time to port a game from Windows due to what is occuring in the Direct3D vs. OpenGL wars
That depends. If you code is using an middle layer then it's not a problem at all. You just have to re-write the middle layer.
Big game developers like EA have been porting [ PC ] games to console for ages. If it was really a big deal, don't you think we would see less ports?
> OpenGL which hides certain critical info (like texture memory issues.)
You must be refering to the huge thread that Tim Sweeny posted to the "OpenGL Game Developers List."
I believe there was no acceptable solution, due to an app could switch away from having focus at any time, and the OS would have to keep track of what app had what texture handle.
> The OpenGL ARB has its head stuck in (the sand)
There is something to be said for doing "The Right Thing" instead of throwing a spec together then 6 months down the road realizing, "Oh crap, we need to fundamentally change it."
That's why OpenGL extensions are such a great compromise. They let video card manufactors come up with their own spec, and if it is a good solution, it becomes part of the official spec.
(In contrast where the next revision of D3D uses it, no matter if it is a good or bad idea. Remember Execute Buffers? It was a stupid idea that was part of the spec, no-where to be seen now.)
Yes, OpenGL has a lack of "leadership." There was an article on Game Developer just a short while ago discussing this. Fortunately nVidia has taken the lead.
Yeah, I know most game developers don't care about porting, but some of us ARE trying. Mac first, then Linux.
Where's Jon Leech for his insight when you need him
3D Game Programmer
Cheers
I'm tired of little digs at Microsoft masquarading as news around here. I use Unix and I don't like Microsoft very much. But I don't want to whine like a spoiled puppy about it either. Can we stick to the real stuff the matters, like new products, on-line rights and privacy, and science?
I just had to do this. I needed to vent about this whole Bungie situation. Here, we have one of the oldest and, bar-none, coolest software companies known to man.
I don't know how many hours I lost to Marathon, its sequels, WW, Myth, Myth II.. I planned to lose massive amounts of time to Oni and Halo. But since the announcement..
Well, I haven't seen Oni (still). That game just looked so damn cool. Anime brought to life. What's worse, Halo. That game literally put my jaw on the floor. And that was before seeing the game in motion on the trailers.
What was even better was that it was Bungie, a company that was committed to being cross platform and even committed to Linux. And here we see that being tread on. Bungie is being tread on. The thought honestly fills me with anger. Here is one of the brightest groups of people making games. Here is a group of people who gets as much respect from the Macheads as id software does from PC enthusiasts.
And they're being tread on.
*sigh* I was looking forward to Halo too.. And on Linux no less. Not some console game. No, I'm not slamming consoles. I just like having a keyboard and a mouse for shooter games. Excuse me, I'm gonna go cry now.
Unfortunately in the future I predict that enough people interested in gaming and MS will apply at and transfer into Bungie, such that the pressure from within the organization of Bungie itself will force a large degree of MS conformity.
-Daniel
I mean, that's what you guys do, right? I mean, go in, muck around with the definition of an "OS" and an "Application" and then get sued by the government, right?
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If halo is delayed until 3-6 mo. after the xbox release (currently slated for October 12, 2001), its tech will be extremely dated. As PC Games go, it'll be left in the dust if MS doesn't release by April. Unless they've got one hell of a surprise up their sleeves, they've got to make a Q1 ship date.
I don't think anyone was bitching that they weren't using their own server OS, we thought it was humorous that they tried to move it to NT and failed, leaving it running whatever open source OS it started with (FreeBSD? IIRC)
You would think that they would learn from their own mistakes, and admit that NT is not the answer for EVERYTHING and let well enough alone, but they will probably attempt another conversion and cause plenty of outages in the process.
Finkployd
Bill: ...and of course they use NT so they're a perfect acquisition ...er... some free operating system
Ballmer: No, my leige, they use
Bill: What?
Ballmer (perspiring): Uh... It's not one of ours...
Bill: OF COURSE IT'S NOT ONE OF OURS! NONE OF OURS ARE FREE!
Ballmer (wetting pants): It's Linux, my lord...
Bill: Well fix that, you imbecile! What's the point of being a Mighty Evil Master if I can't have my whims!
Ballmer: Yes, my liege! Your lordship!
2 years later
Ballmer: News, my liege!
Bill: It better not be another one of those damnable snipes about the International Space Station plummeting in flames into Lake Erie after Win2002 hung the piloting systems. I'm sooo tired of that.
Ballmer: No, my liege, we have converted the Myth servers to our own O/S.
Bill: Ah, good, how's that going?
Ballmer: Err.. Well it's funny you mention 'plummeting in flames'...
It's all true! ±5%
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Quote from the linked article. :
"We are an organized resistance to the subjugation of the Myth The Fallen Lords and Myth SoulBlighter game servers by Microsoft. We don't mind Microsoft running them as long as they don't attempt to make any stupid changes to their mode of operation, performance, free status, or existence
Ummm.... Microsoft purchased the whole company, servers and all. That kinda gives them the right to do whatever they want. If Bungi was smart, they would have put a clause in the sale contract providing for the maintinance and status of these games in their curent configuration. If they didn't, I can't blame Microsoft for wanting to make a profit off this some day. Why else would they buy the company???
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Mr. Coward, obviously you're befuddled by too much Solitaire - how can you say that W2K DC performs better than Sun, when performance is a hardware issue, and when you compare SPARC to x86, it's an apples and oranges game?
What performs better? ten intel boxes to one sparc box? $50000 worth of intel equipment for $50000 worth of Sun equipment (which presumably includes OS and service, which the intel box would not, because the OS is licensed free from MS - to MS).
How does it compare price/performance when you include what a REAL customer pays for Win2K Data Center - which is exhorbitant considering it's almost identical to Win2k professional, code-wise, with a few registry bits flipped?
Reliability is also a relative term, because in the Windows world, you have less uptime, but you CALL that reliability because the downtime is planned for, not unexpected downtime. But can you hot-swap CPU's and motherboards in your Intel boxes? How many more Win2k boxes are required simply to maintain the CaptiveDirectory services?
How many MAN-HOURS were invested in this project, start to finish? (including the prior attempts at migration that FAILED). Do you REALLY expect a customer to undertake such a foolish venture, and eat those costs? How do you explain the increase in customer complaints? Is this Microsoft's grand vision of the future? The promise of "New Technology"? Will HotMail be better off at the end of this migration, or will your marketing people finally get to brag, and forget about the big black-eye they got when they picked a fight with big-bad Unix. That makes it worth it, eh? But it's all about serving your customers, isn't it?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Yes, but apparently Win2k is less crap, because Microsoft has finally successfully migrated Hotmail from FreeBSD to Win2k. So while NT4 can't handle it, 2k probably could. Of course, you'd probably need more powerful machines, and more of them, to do the same job, but that's fine; this is Microsoft.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
btw, What is the plural of OS?
If it's Microsoft operating systems, the plural is SOS.
Fross.
"Mat Soell indicated in a forum post several days ago that some Microsoft employees they have spoken with were unhappy that the Myth servers ran on Linux..."
Hmm... I'll bet some Microsoft employees don't like kung pao chicken. Does that warrant a headline like "Microsoft Unhappy With Chinese Government"?
The assumption that Microsoft speaks for every employee and that every employee speaks for the company is utterly ridiculous. Does every Slashdotter agree with every other Slashdotter? Would you be willing to adopt the views of "some Slashdot viewers" when talking about the views of "the open-source community"?
The comments about the usage of Linux for the server has very little to do with the entire article. As a matter of fact, what you see quoted in summary is the whole discussion of the OS issue from the article. I was hoping for information on the topic.
I went there expecting to read about the OS server war, and was greated by text about the Mac gamers not wanting the software messed with. I have nothing against Mac gamers, I was one once myself. Frankly, I don't give a rats ass about 99% of what this article was really about, and would have appreciated a more balanced summary.
Slashdot should have done a better job with the commentary on this one, or at least added more about the "meat" of the article.
I think this qualifies as news for a gaming site...this is not really late breaking Linux, or techie news. The geeks at the compund may have forgotten the second part of their slogan on this one. (Stuff that matters.)
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I think a lot of people, including IMG are over-reacting to Mr. Soell's comments. His original forum post at Rampancy.net only indicated that a few people made some "snarfy comments." It is not like Microsoft in general is in a state of discontent because Bungie Studios is using Linux to power their Bungie.net servers.
Honestly, I doubt Microsoft in general really cares, as long as the product works and makes them money. Granted they don't make much if anything off of Bungie.net, but the people who use it are the same people who are going to buy Halo when it is released.
So, I guess the point is: there is no need to over-react because a couple of OS fanatics made a few remarks...people here do it all of the time...
In fact, OS X RULES AND ALL OTHER OSs STINK!!
btw, that was sarcasm.
out.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
"We've spoken to a couple people here who've made snarfy comments about us not using an MS server for b.net and we've ignored them."
Sounds a fair bit different than what Inside Mac Games reported, doesn't it? Sure, you can translate that to mean "M$ is unhappy", but he never actually SAID that. It's just people falling prey to a media organization (insidemacgames in this case) who are buttering up their stories with scandal and comments that scare people.
It increases page views (heck, how many of you visited the url given in the story?), and that's all they're trying to do.
As far as I can tell, Bungie was a privately held company, with 20% held by TakeTwo. MS bought TakeTwo's ownership, TakeTwo got ownership of programs, including Myth & Oni, as well access to current and future technologies.
So blame Oni's absence on TakeTwo.
If I'm correct, and Bungie is a private company, then they weren't bought unless they (the owners) wanted to be bought. By all accounts, this was not a corporate raid, or hostile takeover. MS made an offer that Bungie liked, and they went with it.
So blame Bungie if Bungie is screwed by MS. If they made a pact with the devil, it's their own doing.
Another perspective comes from their CEO. They saw the writing on the wall (and to infer), didn't want to go the way of Looking Glass Studios. So they got a big company with deep pockets to give them access to what they would need to stay in business for a good while longer.
Here's the full quote:
Why is this happening?
For two reasons:
A. Microsoft is offering us the opportunity to lead the way on a next-generation console system. We will not only be one of the premier developers for the platform, but we'll be working directly with the Xbox team, helping to optimize the hardware and software for each other. We'll influence the design of the system; we'll help to ensure that the Xbox is the best platform to code for, and the most impressive console on the block. Such an opportunity does not come often. Bungie has always tried to keep abreast of the industry, if not ahead of it, and next-gen consoles seem like the place to be if you develop games. This deal allows us to get into that market in a big way.
B. The business of publishing entertainment software independently has changed enormously since Bungie started. Bungie was not in immediate danger of going under, but we realized that within a few years we'd need a strong partner if we wanted to keep making games the way we always have. We opted to make what we saw as an inevitable move while we were still in a position of strength, rather than wait for circumstances to force our hand. The ultimate goal is to ensure Bungie continues to exist and continues to produce the high-caliber games for which it is known.
Here are locations of info:
MacCentral report on acquisition
Bungie Corporate Info
NDB.com
Bungie Acquisition FAQ
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com