4 ms·

I haven't, and I reject that premise---it is not a win-win, because I don't believe they should be playing it (and other proprietary games) to begin with, and I

I haven't, and I reject that premise---it is not a win-win, because I don't believe they should be playing it (and other proprietary games) to begin with, and I certainly don't want them to use it as an educational platform upon which they'll build their foundation. That doesn't mean I'm opposed to kids learning something when playing games. I'm proud that my kids play and learn from free games---an walk around the house repeating things from, say, gcompris. They're young (two and four), and I'll be challenging myself to keep up with their need for learning as they age and require more sophisticated games and learning tools.

hacker_9 11y ago
People need money to live, people make money from proprietary games. People also invest that money and make even better games. It's not practical to only limit yourself to OSS. When I went to school years ago they used to have us do computer assessments using custom built software that emulated excel, word etc. The result? All my class mates knew how to use this internal software that no company actually used. So they couldn't even say they knew how to use MS Office, and they really couldn't because the layout of the program was completely different. You are mixing your OSS ideals with the reality of life. Your kids don't care that Minecraft is proprietary or not. Instead they care that they play the same games as their social circle, and can impress others by building things in those games.
- mikegerwitz 11y ago
  > People need money to live, people make money from proprietary games. People also invest that money and make even better games. It's not practical to only limit yourself to OSS. Of course it is. The whole point of the free software movement is to demand freedom for all users. If you are implying it is not possible to go through life without using exclusively free software for your personal computing, then that's simply false---many, including myself, reject proprietary software entirely. Using proprietary software on behalf of your employer is different. You're not being robbed of your freedoms because you're not doing your own computing---your employer is being robbed of those freedoms. The argument that it's not possible to make money developing free software is an often used one and is simply false: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-sourc... (I don't endorse a number of the methods on that page.)
  - vvanders 11y ago
    You show an awfully naive view of the games industry if you think that giving away games for free is going to generate enough income to feed yourself and your family. I learned to program on "proprietary" software(quake, half-life) among other things while I was growing up and it didn't hamper my ability to be an effective software developer.
    - mikegerwitz 11y ago
      "Free" refers to freedom, not price. There's nothing wrong with selling free software. In fact, most people get their games today from online "marketplaces", and getting other games on consoles is incredibly difficult; that's a separate issue. With PCs, those games are often downloaded illegally. I understand how the game industry operates today; an ex-co-worker of mine used to work as a manager in the field.
      - vvanders 11y ago
        Good luck getting a publisher or platform holder on board with that. Seriously, there's enough barriers to being successful in gamedev as it is, I don't see any reason to add another one on top of that.
        mikegerwitz 11y ago
        > Good luck getting a publisher or platform holder on board with that. Yes, this is the long-standing problem with software freedom in general; not specific to game publishers. And I don't expect that to change any time soon; I'm hopeful for the indie developers. But a recognized problem in our community is the inability to compete with games with multi-million dollar budgets; it's simply not possible at this point.
        vvanders 11y ago
        If you ask indie developers you'll find they're more concerned with paying their bills and building enjoyable games than opening up their software(and 90% of them use GameMaker, Unity or other platforms). Like I said, you don't really have a good grasp of the industry. 9/10 indies don't make it, and none of them make it to the level of Notch. I'm talking about people who know what they're doing, burned all their savings from BigCo so they could work for ~1.5 years and still didn't make it. Open source software is so at the bottom end of the scale, and you already have a bunch of frameworks out there if you want to know how the nuts & bolts work.
Toenex 11y ago
What about once they are older and want to play online games with their friends? Whilst you may be able to suggest open alternatives - I know my kids still enjoy the odd game of Open Arena with dad - it's not necessarily the best decision to exclude kids from what can be a significant social interaction.
- mikegerwitz 11y ago
  > it's not necessarily the best decision to exclude kids from what can be a significant social interaction. And I struggle with this. Ultimately, I do not force my philosophy on others. I will do my best to raise my kids to value their freedoms, but I'm not going to go out of my way to prohibit them from playing those games, because that would be detrimental to their social development. But those social pressures are a huge perpetrator of proprietary software. They need to be addressed, but forcing a single member of the social circle to invoke those beliefs is not an effective strategy. I have long made the point that some have priorities that are higher than software freedom. The happiness and social well being (to a degree that I find reasonable, as any parent must balance) is higher on that list for me, because the well being of my sons are more important to me than my ideals. My wife uses proprietary software. I'm the sole earner right now in my household; we share money. She uses that money to buy proprietary software/devices. I'm not going to prohibit her from doing that, because that would be forcing my ideals. But when it comes to me, I would sooner sacrifice my social well-being than use proprietary software.
gnaritas 11y ago
> because I don't believe they should be playing it (and other proprietary games) to begin with, and I certainly don't want them to use it as an educational platform upon which they'll build their foundation. Well that's just silly.
dave2000 11y ago
"I reject that premise---it is not a win-win, because I don't believe they should be playing it" You're missing the point. Your opinion doesn't matter. They are playing it. Write a better game that's open source or whatever turns you on, and then, when millions of kids are playing it, use it to teach them.
deleted 11y ago
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wintermute306 11y ago
Get your kids to use a free version of it then. The rest of us will fork out the small price to use the software.

hacker_9 11y ago

People need money to live, people make money from proprietary games. People also invest that money and make even better games. It's not practical to only limit yourself to OSS. When I went to school years ago they used to have us do computer assessments using custom built software that emulated excel, word etc. The result? All my class mates knew how to use this internal software that no company actually used. So they couldn't even say they knew how to use MS Office, and they really couldn't because the layout of the program was completely different. You are mixing your OSS ideals with the reality of life. Your kids don't care that Minecraft is proprietary or not. Instead they care that they play the same games as their social circle, and can impress others by building things in those games.

mikegerwitz 11y ago
> People need money to live, people make money from proprietary games. People also invest that money and make even better games. It's not practical to only limit yourself to OSS. Of course it is. The whole point of the free software movement is to demand freedom for all users. If you are implying it is not possible to go through life without using exclusively free software for your personal computing, then that's simply false---many, including myself, reject proprietary software entirely. Using proprietary software on behalf of your employer is different. You're not being robbed of your freedoms because you're not doing your own computing---your employer is being robbed of those freedoms. The argument that it's not possible to make money developing free software is an often used one and is simply false: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-sourc... (I don't endorse a number of the methods on that page.)
- vvanders 11y ago
  You show an awfully naive view of the games industry if you think that giving away games for free is going to generate enough income to feed yourself and your family. I learned to program on "proprietary" software(quake, half-life) among other things while I was growing up and it didn't hamper my ability to be an effective software developer.
  - mikegerwitz 11y ago
    "Free" refers to freedom, not price. There's nothing wrong with selling free software. In fact, most people get their games today from online "marketplaces", and getting other games on consoles is incredibly difficult; that's a separate issue. With PCs, those games are often downloaded illegally. I understand how the game industry operates today; an ex-co-worker of mine used to work as a manager in the field.
    - vvanders 11y ago
      Good luck getting a publisher or platform holder on board with that. Seriously, there's enough barriers to being successful in gamedev as it is, I don't see any reason to add another one on top of that.
      - mikegerwitz 11y ago
        > Good luck getting a publisher or platform holder on board with that. Yes, this is the long-standing problem with software freedom in general; not specific to game publishers. And I don't expect that to change any time soon; I'm hopeful for the indie developers. But a recognized problem in our community is the inability to compete with games with multi-million dollar budgets; it's simply not possible at this point.
        vvanders 11y ago
        If you ask indie developers you'll find they're more concerned with paying their bills and building enjoyable games than opening up their software(and 90% of them use GameMaker, Unity or other platforms). Like I said, you don't really have a good grasp of the industry. 9/10 indies don't make it, and none of them make it to the level of Notch. I'm talking about people who know what they're doing, burned all their savings from BigCo so they could work for ~1.5 years and still didn't make it. Open source software is so at the bottom end of the scale, and you already have a bunch of frameworks out there if you want to know how the nuts & bolts work.

Toenex 11y ago

What about once they are older and want to play online games with their friends? Whilst you may be able to suggest open alternatives - I know my kids still enjoy the odd game of Open Arena with dad - it's not necessarily the best decision to exclude kids from what can be a significant social interaction.

mikegerwitz 11y ago
> it's not necessarily the best decision to exclude kids from what can be a significant social interaction. And I struggle with this. Ultimately, I do not force my philosophy on others. I will do my best to raise my kids to value their freedoms, but I'm not going to go out of my way to prohibit them from playing those games, because that would be detrimental to their social development. But those social pressures are a huge perpetrator of proprietary software. They need to be addressed, but forcing a single member of the social circle to invoke those beliefs is not an effective strategy. I have long made the point that some have priorities that are higher than software freedom. The happiness and social well being (to a degree that I find reasonable, as any parent must balance) is higher on that list for me, because the well being of my sons are more important to me than my ideals. My wife uses proprietary software. I'm the sole earner right now in my household; we share money. She uses that money to buy proprietary software/devices. I'm not going to prohibit her from doing that, because that would be forcing my ideals. But when it comes to me, I would sooner sacrifice my social well-being than use proprietary software.

gnaritas 11y ago

> because I don't believe they should be playing it (and other proprietary games) to begin with, and I certainly don't want them to use it as an educational platform upon which they'll build their foundation. Well that's just silly.

dave2000 11y ago

"I reject that premise---it is not a win-win, because I don't believe they should be playing it" You're missing the point. Your opinion doesn't matter. They are playing it. Write a better game that's open source or whatever turns you on, and then, when millions of kids are playing it, use it to teach them.

deleted 11y ago

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deleted 11y ago

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wintermute306 11y ago

Get your kids to use a free version of it then. The rest of us will fork out the small price to use the software.