One of the best reasons for porting to alternate platforms I've ever heard. More Linux ports == Fewer bugs
I do lots of Mac game ports, and the largest issue I face is not the API differences, but the endian issues.
For most people, Linux == Linux x86, so from my standpoint, if you port your game from Win32 to Linux, it will not have nearly as big a positive effect as porting from Win32 to MacOS X (or for that matter Linux PPC). If you really want to use porting to another platform as a means to work the bugs out of your app, OSX will give you the biggest bang for your buck, and make any resulting port from OSX to Linux of any flavor nearly trivial.
Re:The Kaillera.com official response.
on
MAME To Become GPL?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
MAME users, whatever the operating system, usually realize that even though MAME itself is an open source project, not everything is.
Apparently they do not, judging by how frequently and how stridently you have to make this clarification about the Kaillera library. It's even an entry in your FAQ, which says something right there.
There are hundreds of pieces of software that are open source that DO NOT have a Mac port.
This implies that these hundreds of pieces of software are somehow equivalent to Kaillera and/or applicable to MAME. They are not.
Perhaps instead of trying to persuade us to open-souce Kaillera, you could put that energy into porting more of the readily available software that is out there.
Oddly enough, porting commercial software to the Mac (games, specifically) is my day job. Porting non-commercial software is what I do in the evenings and on weekends.:-)
The path of least resistance to a Mac version of Kaillera would be if someone who was interested could download the source and do a port, e.g. open-source. There are other options as well: the Kaillera programmer could do it, or he could hand the code over to a Mac programmer to do. The last option does not imply open-source.
I do Mac ports for a living; this year alone I've personally done Civ3, Jedi Knight 2 and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegronds, all closed source. Clearly these large companies with lots of trade secrets don't have any hesitation over Mac versions of their very proprietary bits of software, so there's no reason at all why Kaillera couldn't be ported to the Mac even if it stayed closed source and you guys didn't have the time or desire to do it.
While you're certainly not the only software developers to avoid a Mac version, that does not invalidate any criticism of your decision. Frankly I don't see what the big deal is - the Kaillera faq mentions that you're flirting with open-sourcing it anyway. Given how uptight and defensive this topic makes you, I'd say it's good that you're considering that.
Shame you had to put down Mac users in order to get your point across. If not seeing a download for Mac on the download page confused a Mac user, perhaps they should switch to Windows.;)
On the contrary, if you re-read my post, the put-down was directed squarely at Kaillera. It's not that Mac users are confused because they can't find a Mac version, it's that they're confused why one isn't offered, given the open-source nature of MAME.
It's a subtle - but important - difference that would not exist if the Kaillera library were also open-source. That's the real shame here.
This took downloads away from the core MAME project and brought them to our derivitive, MAME32K.
Yeah, imagine all the puzzled, jealous and confused Mac users who discovered that they couldn't use Kaillera. Shame it's not open-source so that problem could be fixed.;)
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What if your address is in a high-rise? Is it accurate to a cube meter? :-)
I do lots of Mac game ports, and the largest issue I face is not the API differences, but the endian issues.
For most people, Linux == Linux x86, so from my standpoint, if you port your game from Win32 to Linux, it will not have nearly as big a positive effect as porting from Win32 to MacOS X (or for that matter Linux PPC). If you really want to use porting to another platform as a means to work the bugs out of your app, OSX will give you the biggest bang for your buck, and make any resulting port from OSX to Linux of any flavor nearly trivial.
Apparently they do not, judging by how frequently and how stridently you have to make this clarification about the Kaillera library. It's even an entry in your FAQ, which says something right there.
There are hundreds of pieces of software that are open source that DO NOT have a Mac port.
This implies that these hundreds of pieces of software are somehow equivalent to Kaillera and/or applicable to MAME. They are not.
Perhaps instead of trying to persuade us to open-souce Kaillera, you could put that energy into porting more of the readily available software that is out there.
Oddly enough, porting commercial software to the Mac (games, specifically) is my day job. Porting non-commercial software is what I do in the evenings and on weekends. :-)
The path of least resistance to a Mac version of Kaillera would be if someone who was interested could download the source and do a port, e.g. open-source. There are other options as well: the Kaillera programmer could do it, or he could hand the code over to a Mac programmer to do. The last option does not imply open-source.
I do Mac ports for a living; this year alone I've personally done Civ3, Jedi Knight 2 and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegronds, all closed source. Clearly these large companies with lots of trade secrets don't have any hesitation over Mac versions of their very proprietary bits of software, so there's no reason at all why Kaillera couldn't be ported to the Mac even if it stayed closed source and you guys didn't have the time or desire to do it.
While you're certainly not the only software developers to avoid a Mac version, that does not invalidate any criticism of your decision. Frankly I don't see what the big deal is - the Kaillera faq mentions that you're flirting with open-sourcing it anyway. Given how uptight and defensive this topic makes you, I'd say it's good that you're considering that.
On the contrary, if you re-read my post, the put-down was directed squarely at Kaillera. It's not that Mac users are confused because they can't find a Mac version, it's that they're confused why one isn't offered, given the open-source nature of MAME.
It's a subtle - but important - difference that would not exist if the Kaillera library were also open-source. That's the real shame here.
This took downloads away from the core MAME project and brought them to our derivitive, MAME32K. Yeah, imagine all the puzzled, jealous and confused Mac users who discovered that they couldn't use Kaillera. Shame it's not open-source so that problem could be fixed. ;)