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Microsoft being Microsoft, its such a shame so many video games still only support MS. Over the years MS has become really user hostile (well may be not as much

Microsoft being Microsoft, its such a shame so many video games still only support MS. Over the years MS has become really user hostile (well may be not as much as my samsung android phone I guess) with constant forced updates, forced adverts for their products. And now a DMCA for a project trying to help folks customize windows? Sigh! Few days ago there was an update on Windows10 and my computer was restarted forcefully, upon booting back up I was greeted by a massive "in your face" type of advert for their Edge browser, couldn't quit it and had to see a big advert from MS about their stupid Edge browser. After I managed to close it, it decided to pin the browser to my task bar without asking me if it should.

deleted 6y ago
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gbear605 6y ago
This is pretty different from that. It’s not just that they modified Windows, it’s that they provided a cracked version of the iso. If they just provided the tools to do it, it’d be one thing (and that probably wouldn’t have been attached by Microsoft). But given the evidence, this is perfectly reasonable for Microsoft.
- smolder 6y ago
  Why are others saying it wasn't cracked and didn't disable activation? Cracked implies copy protection or licensing measures were circumvented.
  - wvenable 6y ago
    Why does it matter? No company is going to do nothing if someone else distributes a modified versions of their software -- regardless of the modification. The fact that it's cracked or not is inconsequential to the discussion.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      You still have a point, but isn't what you declaim precisely what companies like RedHat, Canonical, etc., do. Mozilla, and Google too, to some extent.
      - wvenable 6y ago
        Free software licenses are specifically designed to allow distribution -- the exception that proves the rule. But even so, none of the companies listed will allow you to distribute modified binaries under their exact product names. Hence CentOS, Iceweasle, etc. Despite being open source and free software, these companies still want to define for themselves what "Firefox" and "Redhat" actually are.
loufe 6y ago
I wish it was just the game makers needing to build for another platform which is the problem. Unfortunately a large problem is also graphics drivers. NVidia and AMD don't do much to help the open source community / linux with the development of their drivers, meaning they don't harness the power of the cards often times by significant margins comparing with Windows. There are other technical hiccups which make a difference as well.
- nvarsj 6y ago
  AMD has excellent open source support. They embraced the Linux community a few years ago, and we now have a high quality AMD driver mainlined in the Linux kernel. Games run very well on AMD/Linux, including Steam/Proton. It's NVIDIA that is completely Linux/OSS hostile, and still follows the broken proprietary driver approach they have been doing for years. On top of that they actively ignore the agreed community standards and build proprietary/inferior APIs because it's less work for them (like EGL). I'm completely baffled by NVIDIA's approach to be honest. Especially with scientific workloads on Linux. It seems like investing in a small team to build high quality mainlined Linux drivers would be a net win for them for little cost.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    Nvidia has always had super high quality Linux drivers. It’s their lack of desire to open source pieces of them to make them work better with desktop Linux that is the issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of Nvidia GPUs used on Linux don’t have a screen connected to them, so supporting wayland isn’t really a priority.
    - Elinvynia 6y ago
      It's really hard to consider these drivers "high quality" if they don't even work with Wayland properly.
      - BoysenberryPi 6y ago
        Why would Nvidia care about supporting Wayland at this point in time? Steam itself doesn't even work properly with Wayland. 9 of 10 people are going to be using X right now and within the near future.
markussss 6y ago
> its such a shame so many video games still only support MS This is very true. It's a shame, but the only way to help this change is to create the market for video games that support other platforms, for example Linux, as well. Help make it profitable to develop games for Linux There are already quite a lot of games on Steam that support Linux, especially if you add Wine/Proton [1] to the mix, where 78% of the top 100 games have a score of "Gold" (runs perfectly after tweaks), "Platinum" (runs perfectly out of the box), or is running natively on Linux. This means that you are no longer missing out on the huge library of games you were missing out on just a few years ago. [1] https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/
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jfkebwjsbx 6y ago
Video games only support Windows because the market share is what it is. Normal apps are usually easy to port. Native video games, not so much, since they tenf to be quite low-level.

deleted 6y ago

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gbear605 6y ago

This is pretty different from that. It’s not just that they modified Windows, it’s that they provided a cracked version of the iso. If they just provided the tools to do it, it’d be one thing (and that probably wouldn’t have been attached by Microsoft). But given the evidence, this is perfectly reasonable for Microsoft.

smolder 6y ago
Why are others saying it wasn't cracked and didn't disable activation? Cracked implies copy protection or licensing measures were circumvented.
- wvenable 6y ago
  Why does it matter? No company is going to do nothing if someone else distributes a modified versions of their software -- regardless of the modification. The fact that it's cracked or not is inconsequential to the discussion.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    You still have a point, but isn't what you declaim precisely what companies like RedHat, Canonical, etc., do. Mozilla, and Google too, to some extent.
    - wvenable 6y ago
      Free software licenses are specifically designed to allow distribution -- the exception that proves the rule. But even so, none of the companies listed will allow you to distribute modified binaries under their exact product names. Hence CentOS, Iceweasle, etc. Despite being open source and free software, these companies still want to define for themselves what "Firefox" and "Redhat" actually are.

loufe 6y ago

I wish it was just the game makers needing to build for another platform which is the problem. Unfortunately a large problem is also graphics drivers. NVidia and AMD don't do much to help the open source community / linux with the development of their drivers, meaning they don't harness the power of the cards often times by significant margins comparing with Windows. There are other technical hiccups which make a difference as well.

nvarsj 6y ago
AMD has excellent open source support. They embraced the Linux community a few years ago, and we now have a high quality AMD driver mainlined in the Linux kernel. Games run very well on AMD/Linux, including Steam/Proton. It's NVIDIA that is completely Linux/OSS hostile, and still follows the broken proprietary driver approach they have been doing for years. On top of that they actively ignore the agreed community standards and build proprietary/inferior APIs because it's less work for them (like EGL). I'm completely baffled by NVIDIA's approach to be honest. Especially with scientific workloads on Linux. It seems like investing in a small team to build high quality mainlined Linux drivers would be a net win for them for little cost.
- selectodude 6y ago
  Nvidia has always had super high quality Linux drivers. It’s their lack of desire to open source pieces of them to make them work better with desktop Linux that is the issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of Nvidia GPUs used on Linux don’t have a screen connected to them, so supporting wayland isn’t really a priority.
  - Elinvynia 6y ago
    It's really hard to consider these drivers "high quality" if they don't even work with Wayland properly.
    - BoysenberryPi 6y ago
      Why would Nvidia care about supporting Wayland at this point in time? Steam itself doesn't even work properly with Wayland. 9 of 10 people are going to be using X right now and within the near future.

markussss 6y ago

> its such a shame so many video games still only support MS This is very true. It's a shame, but the only way to help this change is to create the market for video games that support other platforms, for example Linux, as well. Help make it profitable to develop games for Linux There are already quite a lot of games on Steam that support Linux, especially if you add Wine/Proton [1] to the mix, where 78% of the top 100 games have a score of "Gold" (runs perfectly after tweaks), "Platinum" (runs perfectly out of the box), or is running natively on Linux. This means that you are no longer missing out on the huge library of games you were missing out on just a few years ago. [1] https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/

deleted 6y ago

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jfkebwjsbx 6y ago

Video games only support Windows because the market share is what it is. Normal apps are usually easy to port. Native video games, not so much, since they tenf to be quite low-level.