Well, if you download the source code of a program and modify it to satisfy your needs, you have an advantage over "freeloaders" who only use the software but contribute nothing. These guys "punish" freeloaders because they scratch their own itches but freeloaders have no power over new features.
On the other hand, very few people customize their OS software and it's more and more uncommon when we get to very complex software like Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
The true freeloaders, however, are those who get the sources, modify the software to serve their purposes but don't give the modifications back to the community. I don't necessarily mean selling the software here (which is IMHO OK), or releasing a closed-source version (which is semi-OK). Lack of contribution from people who get a customization or financial advantage is the worst form of freeloading.
A punishment that seem to work to some degree is using a license that require contributing the changes. Some OS licenses don't require it (BSD), some do but allow not contributing modifications if the modified (binary) version is never released in public (GPL).
The only missing glue is the input API. Perasonally, I wouldn't mind it if SDL became standard. It works on almost everything now.
I agree that SDL would be a nice solution to the common API problem. Why? IMHO because it is and it aims to be be cross-platform. I think that Linux (and other unices) need to have some common API with Windows to ease the development of games to many platform at once. We can't (yet) even dream of a situation where leading-edge games were developed primarily on Linux - now it helps to have some common API with Windows.
There are alternatives, too. I can recall Allegro and Clanlib right now.
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Well, if you download the source code of a program and modify it to satisfy your needs, you have an advantage over "freeloaders" who only use the software but contribute nothing. These guys "punish" freeloaders because they scratch their own itches but freeloaders have no power over new features.
On the other hand, very few people customize their OS software and it's more and more uncommon when we get to very complex software like Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
The true freeloaders, however, are those who get the sources, modify the software to serve their purposes but don't give the modifications back to the community. I don't necessarily mean selling the software here (which is IMHO OK), or releasing a closed-source version (which is semi-OK). Lack of contribution from people who get a customization or financial advantage is the worst form of freeloading.
A punishment that seem to work to some degree is using a license that require contributing the changes. Some OS licenses don't require it (BSD), some do but allow not contributing modifications if the modified (binary) version is never released in public (GPL).
I agree that SDL would be a nice solution to the common API problem. Why? IMHO because it is and it aims to be be cross-platform. I think that Linux (and other unices) need to have some common API with Windows to ease the development of games to many platform at once. We can't (yet) even dream of a situation where leading-edge games were developed primarily on Linux - now it helps to have some common API with Windows.
There are alternatives, too. I can recall Allegro and Clanlib right now.