They'll have problems getting back in, but the market is ready for them.
nVidia is the only 3D company selling chips to the board companies (Asus, Guilemot, Creative, etc) and they don't like having no other option.
nVidia are almost getting contracts with the board manufacturer by default at the moment. Creative (for example) must have a graphics board product so they have to go for nVidia, regardless of the terms that nVidia impose on them. As soon as 3Dfx come back, then Creative can say F*** O** to nVidia if the deal is not to their liking.
Remember, it's not just the quality of the products that gets the contracts, it's a whole load of other things including politics.
I think that the 'Information wants to be free' slogan is getting hold of the wrong stick.
Information tends to be a book, a song, a program, the product of somebodies labours. Because of this I'm quite happy to abide by the restrictions that the author puts on it. If I want to benifit from that work, I should respect thier wishes. If their wishes are unacceptable to me, I don't benefit.
The issue for me is that the Knowledge that allowed the author to create that work should be freely available. It's the knowledge of the subject and the ability of people to build on that that keeps everything moving forward.
Of course if Knowledge should be free then patents should not exist. The problem is that I think patents were concieved for the right reasons, but are now being abused. I think it's good that a small time inventor who comes up with something ingenious is given goverment protection to commercially exploit his work, but unfortunatley they are just being abused these days as just another weapon in the corporate wars.
My solution would run along the lines of not allowing corporations to hold patents, only individuals, but it's a nasty area at best.
There's a balance to be struck somewhere. Unfortunatley the US appears to be a long way off to one side at the moment.
This was the reason that Id tried to release the Linux and Windows version of Q3 at the same time. An attempt was made to get some figures on what the size of the Linux market really was.
Did anybody ever hear about what the ratios of WinQ3 Vs LinQ3 was?
Red Hat has the strict policy not to put anything that is not free on the main CD
Really! I thought RedHat shipped things like Pine, XV, povray and multiple programs which will write GIF files.
All of these come under Debian non-free. It's not that you can't get source (ala Netscape), but it's that usage is limited (e.g. not for commercial use or Shareware). You're not 'free' to do whatever you like with them.
And then there's things like KDE. RedHat just seems to be ignoring the licencing issues with that and shipping anyway.
Paul
P.S. You could also argue that you're not 'free' to do whatever you like to GPL software and BSD is 'free-er',
There are two issues here when comparing with Windows.
1) Getting the system configured so that it will use it's hardware properly. 2) Installing the game easily without tripping over Linux's superior security.
No. 1 is a problem for the community, and one which is slowly getting solved.
No. 2 is one for the games manufacturers. I bought Q3, but I have to say I'm not too keen on Loki's packaging of it. ID saw fit to distribute all of the demos as a a simple gziped-tar which could be installed anywhere./usr/local/games, a home directory, anywhere. Loki's installation scripts assume you will be as root, and assume where you want to put it.
Once No. 1 has been solved there will be no reason to install games as root. Once that happens things will be a lot easier.
Slashdot Mirror
They'll have problems getting back in, but the market is ready for them.
nVidia is the only 3D company selling chips to the board companies (Asus, Guilemot, Creative, etc) and they don't like having no other option.
nVidia are almost getting contracts with the board manufacturer by default at the moment. Creative (for example) must have a graphics board product so they have to go for nVidia, regardless of the terms that nVidia impose on them. As soon as 3Dfx come back, then Creative can say F*** O** to nVidia if the deal is not to their liking.
Remember, it's not just the quality of the products that gets the contracts, it's a whole load of other things including politics.
I think that the 'Information wants to be free' slogan is getting hold of the wrong stick.
Information tends to be a book, a song, a program, the product of somebodies labours. Because of this I'm quite happy to abide by the restrictions that the author puts on it. If I want to benifit from that work, I should respect thier wishes. If their wishes are unacceptable to me, I don't benefit.
The issue for me is that the Knowledge that allowed the author to create that work should be freely available. It's the knowledge of the subject and the ability of people to build on that that keeps everything moving forward.
Of course if Knowledge should be free then patents should not exist. The problem is that I think patents were concieved for the right reasons, but are now being abused. I think it's good that a small time inventor who comes up with something ingenious is given goverment protection to commercially exploit his work, but unfortunatley they are just being abused these days as just another weapon in the corporate wars.
My solution would run along the lines of not allowing corporations to hold patents, only individuals, but it's a nasty area at best.
There's a balance to be struck somewhere. Unfortunatley the US appears to be a long way off to one side at the moment.
You know you've been in this buisness too long when you read the above line filling in all the anacronyms as you go.
I didn't even glitch as I read it. Time for a new Job :-)
Did anybody ever hear about what the ratios of WinQ3 Vs LinQ3 was?
You've been able to do that on Solaris for quite a while now. Not sure why you can't under Linux.
Paul
Fair enough. I stand/sit corrected. I haven't used RH since 5.2.
Really! I thought RedHat shipped things like Pine, XV, povray and multiple programs which will write GIF files.
All of these come under Debian non-free. It's not that you can't get source (ala Netscape), but it's that usage is limited (e.g. not for commercial use or Shareware). You're not 'free' to do whatever you like with them.
And then there's things like KDE. RedHat just seems to be ignoring the licencing issues with that and shipping anyway.
Paul
P.S. You could also argue that you're not 'free' to do whatever you like to GPL software and BSD is 'free-er',
There are two issues here when comparing with Windows.
/usr/local/games, a home directory, anywhere. Loki's installation scripts assume you will be as root, and assume where you want to put it.
1) Getting the system configured so that it will use it's hardware properly.
2) Installing the game easily without tripping over Linux's superior security.
No. 1 is a problem for the community, and one which is slowly getting solved.
No. 2 is one for the games manufacturers. I bought Q3, but I have to say I'm not too keen on Loki's packaging of it. ID saw fit to distribute all of the demos as a a simple gziped-tar which could be installed anywhere.
Once No. 1 has been solved there will be no reason to install games as root. Once that happens things will be a lot easier.
Paul