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Valve Confirms Mac Versions of Steam, Valve Games
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra:
"Valve will release a version of its Steam digital distribution service for Mac next month, along with Mac-native versions of its own games, the company confirmed today after days of hints — and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions. The Source engine, which Valve uses to develop all its internal titles and also licenses to third-party developers, will incorporate OpenGL in addition to DirectX, to allow Mac support for all Source developers. ... 'We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform, so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360,' said Cook. 'Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates.'"
3 cheers for *native* Mac development, instead of just Cider builds!
and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions.
In an age where publishers are doing everything in their power to tie your hands when it comes to their software, this simply amazes me.
We've got publishers who user DRM that renders a game useless after a half-dozen installs... And valve is going to let you run your games on two entirely different platforms?! Not two different computers... But wholly different platforms. Amazing.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Actually there's a much bigger jump.
Windows and OSX are fairly well-regulated monocultures: you have a consistent idea about how installation is supposed to work, you know where to put your config files, you know what permissions you need and how to get them. You rarely need to worry about broken dependencies: they happen, but the platform vendors usually provide an updater you can distribute with your application.
On the other hand, Linux is an undifferentiated mass. An application developer literally cannot make any useful predictions about the end user's configuration, which means it's almost impossible to provide support. The state of Linux is fine - it's even very strong - when you're only talking about FOSS. When you start asking for money, you need to make sure that your software is Suitable for a Particular Purpose. Installation needs to be easy and it needs to work everywhere.
I'm offering 10:1 I get modded flamebait for not drinking the Linux Kool-Aid.
OS X is UNIX, Linux is Unix "like".
I love how people say this and presume they've just said something significant. Mac OS X's UNIX certification is not worth much more than the advertising bullet-point they us it for. Both Linux and Mac OS X are UNIX in every way that actually matters today, namely POSIX-compliance. It's not like UNIX certification grants Mac OS X special compatibility traits; it's still not binary compatible with any other UNIX, neither is it source compatible if you move beyond what's specified by POSIX and other common standards. So what do you think is the significance of your factually-based and pointless assertion?