Blizzard is owned by Cendant (SP?). They are a publicly traded company, which like most others cares most of profits =)
All PC Game companies care about making money (Everyone has to eat), but they also do it because it is their personal love.
Take John Carmack for example. Before the release of Q3Arena, when asked of the viability of a game that is deathmatch only, he said he'd be glad if he just broke even. He knowingly took a risk and did so because of his love for making PC Games.
When he released free binary ports for Quake1 for Linux, he didn't do so to make money -- they were free and the market was so small back then, his port made no money. Nor did he expect it to make money.
Why did he do it? Why waste hours of coding time making a port?
Because he loved making games =)
Ask ANY PC game developer how much money they make compared to console developers. Console games are *MUCH* bigger money makers. Many (but not all) PC game developers do it because they love making games.
What we really want is versions of Blizard's games for Linux, of course =)
Unfortunately Blizard is a very profit driven company and they said it was unlikely any games would be ported unless it becomes more commercially viable. But to be commercially viable for games, you need to have many of the most popular ones, so it's a bit of a cycle =/
Thankfully there's companys out there now that care more about building Linux as a gaming platform for possible long-term profits, rather than making a quick buck by selling only windows products.
Since the main objective will be already completed (observing Jupiter), the probe served it's usefulness already. They have nothing to lose if they do crash it, but a very very slim chance that Europa is contaminated if they don't. If by some chance it does crash on Europa, when a future mission explorers the moon for life, it would be difficult to say with scientific certainty what was observed did not come from this probe. If it doesn't crash, it will just continue on into blackness as other NASA probes have in the past. Nothing is going to be wasted.
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard is owned by Cendant (SP?). They are a publicly traded company, which like most others cares most of profits =)
All PC Game companies care about making money (Everyone has to eat), but they also do it because it is their personal love.
Take John Carmack for example. Before the release of Q3Arena, when asked of the viability of a game that is deathmatch only, he said he'd be glad if he just broke even. He knowingly took a risk and did so because of his love for making PC Games.
When he released free binary ports for Quake1 for Linux, he didn't do so to make money -- they were free and the market was so small back then, his port made no money. Nor did he expect it to make money.
Why did he do it? Why waste hours of coding time making a port?
Because he loved making games =)
Ask ANY PC game developer how much money they make compared to console developers. Console games are *MUCH* bigger money makers. Many (but not all) PC game developers do it because they love making games.
What we really want is versions of Blizard's games for Linux, of course =)
Unfortunately Blizard is a very profit driven company and they said it was unlikely any games would be ported unless it becomes more commercially viable. But to be commercially viable for games, you need to have many of the most popular ones, so it's a bit of a cycle =/
Thankfully there's companys out there now that care more about building Linux as a gaming platform for possible long-term profits, rather than making a quick buck by selling only windows products.
Motorola doesn't run HA-Linux :(
They should, considering their website is currently experiencing the slashdot effect.
Given Loki's experience in porting applications, have you considered, or been offered to, port programs other than games to Linux?
Since the main objective will be already completed (observing Jupiter), the probe served it's usefulness already. They have nothing to lose if they do crash it, but a very very slim chance that Europa is contaminated if they don't. If by some chance it does crash on Europa, when a future mission explorers the moon for life, it would be difficult to say with scientific certainty what was observed did not come from this probe. If it doesn't crash, it will just continue on into blackness as other NASA probes have in the past. Nothing is going to be wasted.