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Does Linux Have Game?
kwpulliam writes "Tom's Hardware has an interesting writeup, discussing the difficulties in bringing games to Linux, and the dilemmas faced by the graphics card developers."
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Actually, what would help even more is to stop piracy in China (which includes Taiwan province and Hong Kong). Without piracy, the average cost of Windows XP in China would rise from 10 American cents to about $200. Then, there would be huge market demand for using Linux since it would be free and would not be competing with a "free" (i.e. pirated) version of Windows.
Then, the huge market in China would drive the development of games on Linux.
Of course, all this talk is sheer fancy since we can never stop piracy in China. Stealing and brutalizing are integral parts of Chinese culture, celebrated and encouraged by most Chinese.
XEvil!
DMCA
Copyright Law
Patents
Pick one, they are all the reason why Linux has poor driver support.
If ATI or NVidia would publish there specs on hardware, we wouldn't have a problem.
I for one think BOTH companies are pathetic and do more harm than good writing the crap they put out for Linux in the first place.
If they would open the hardware so we could get a register by register description of what is going on, far BETTER software engineers would be working on excellent drivers, far exceeding those WindowsXP currently enjoys.
If that would happen, then the only thing seperating the driver quality would be the OS implementation and Linux would kick Windows arse.
The biggest problem with these companies is that they are so full of themselves, they HONESTLY believe that they are THE BEST and the only people who could possible write video drivers for thier hardware.
The reality is they are probably the worst and write the software under duress of timelines and contractual intellectual property rules that prevent the highest quality drivers and people from working on the problem.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
That is one big-ass niche, Sparky.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Does it mean the destruction of Microsoft as a company, or the widespread use of Linux over Windows? And what if Microsoft then put out their own Linux distro? Would there be another war over this? When will it end?
It'll end when there's a big smoldering hole in Redmond...
Seriously, though; it's very hard to imagine a future where Linux and Windows co-exist peacefully. As a Linux user, I'd be happy if I didn't have to worry about Windows at all, and never felt coerced into using it. If I could just use whatever software I needed on my platform of choice, and almost all hardware supported Linux out of the box, I'd be happy. In addition, I'd be able to go to all but the most poorly-written website, and have no issues using it. In this fantasy future, I could go about my business on my computer(s), and think about as much about Windows as I do now about MacOS.
However, while for other industries this would be quite normal (when have you ever felt coerced into buying a Sony TV because you couldn't watch 75% of the TV shows?), it's a pipe dream for the computing world because of Microsoft's illegal and monopolistic tactics. Microsoft started this war; they want nothing less than complete control over everything in the computing landscape. They've been busy for the past 20 years stamping out every threat to their dominance that they saw. Linux and OSS is now the biggest threat they've ever seen, and they don't know how to kill it since it doesn't respond to their usual tactics (buying it out, etc.). They will not stop until it's dead, or they've killed themselves in trying to stop it. They may have some success with some of their new tactics, such as with software patents. I sure hope not.
But the only way I can imagine MS putting an end to this war is by replacing their entire management, and with the history of the company I have a hard time seeing the board of directors doing that. I'm no expert on publicly-traded companies, but I have a feeling that if and when the end finally comes for MS, it's going to be extremely swift and sudden.