3 ms·

The "potential progress" was already there. It's just been held up by proprietary companies every step of the way. In the case of games, nearly every single gam

The "potential progress" was already there. It's just been held up by proprietary companies every step of the way. In the case of games, nearly every single game company refuses to provide their games as free (libre) game software. In the case of GPU drivers, the two big players still refuse to provide free drivers. There are plenty in the free software community willing to contribute to graphics drivers and to porting games to GNU/Linux, but these companies won't let them because it conflicts with their goals of exerting strict control over their own users. I haven't seen any evidence that this situation will let up any time soon because it seems that people have fallen for their PR tricks and so don't seem to mind whether or not most drivers and game software are proprietary. And so the cycle of abuse continues. The whole reason why we use free software like GNU/Linux to begin with is because it doesn't make us subservient to one vendor like nonfree software does. It disturbs me that I see people making statements implying that "we need this particular proprietary company to come along and save us" or "we only need to be patient, slowly but surely they will port their games to GNU/Linux" because this is exactly the kind of thinking that free software discourages. As long as these companies are in the business of publishing nonfree software, you can be guaranteed they will drag their feet every step of the way. People need to stop buying into their lame excuses about why they can't publish free software ("We can't make money that way" is probably the oldest and stupidest one), excusing their abusive behavior and then begging them to do things only makes the situation worse.

Havoc 13y ago
>It's just been held up by proprietary companies every step of the way. With that kind of angle the FOSS movement might as well fall on its own sword. Profit driven companies have zero incentive to bother with FOSS & thus they don't bother. One can whine about how unfair that is (see Torvalds vs Nvidia). Write epic arguments about it even...but ultimately that achieves exactly nothing. Steambox changes the game fundamentally though. There is now a real economic incentive here for nvidia etc to commit real resources...and that has the side effect of benefiting pure FOSS too. Yes RMS, FOSS, half a percent gain in nix usage, the year of the linux desktop and all that crap...the real world does not care. nix has to take some real world risks to get anywhere...and no moving from gnome 2 to gnome 3 is not a risk...despite all the drama it caused. >In the case of games, nearly every single game company refuses to provide their games as free (libre) game software. Obviously. Sinking a couple of million into a game and providing it for free is not exactly a winning strategy. Or worse, devs do so and then introduce microtransactions and similar evils. The current model suits me perfectly (aside from the DLC bullsht). Once off payment for indefinite access (well until obsolescence anyway).
- spacelizard 13y ago
  They don't bother because all their users have been convinced not to care, perhaps by proprietary software marketing efforts. The free software movement seeks to educate people on why they should care, and why it's valuable for companies to give users freedom instead of trying to lure them into proprietary licensing traps. I don't know what you gain from viewing GNU/Linux as a product that is supposed to compete with proprietary software on the same level, because it's not that at all. As we've seen from countless failed companies trying to pitch GNU/Linux on the desktop, traditional marketing strategies for proprietary software do not carry over to free software. This is the true misallocation of resources and it's the only thing causing the "wheel-spinning" you're referring to. >Sinking a couple of million into a game and providing it for free is not exactly a winning strategy. It's free as in freedom, not free as in price. Most if not all games sell based on content anyway, which doesn't need to be free (as in freedom or as in price) to resolve the problem of the users being treated like garbage and being forced into a subservient relationship.
thelukester 13y ago
>In the case of games, nearly every single game company refuses to provide their games as free (libre) game software. Rockstar spent $266 million to develop Grand Theft Auto V. How do you expect them to recoup this cost if they gave it away as free software? What communist fairly land do you come from?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- arjie 13y ago
  If GP is from the RMS school of thought, then only the code needs to be free. The assets aren't. The code, with no assets, is practically worthless to the end-consumer.
  - lazylizard 13y ago
    until the Darkmod Standalone was released...

Havoc 13y ago

>It's just been held up by proprietary companies every step of the way. With that kind of angle the FOSS movement might as well fall on its own sword. Profit driven companies have zero incentive to bother with FOSS & thus they don't bother. One can whine about how unfair that is (see Torvalds vs Nvidia). Write epic arguments about it even...but ultimately that achieves exactly nothing. Steambox changes the game fundamentally though. There is now a real economic incentive here for nvidia etc to commit real resources...and that has the side effect of benefiting pure FOSS too. Yes RMS, FOSS, half a percent gain in nix usage, the year of the linux desktop and all that crap...the real world does not care. nix has to take some real world risks to get anywhere...and no moving from gnome 2 to gnome 3 is not a risk...despite all the drama it caused. >In the case of games, nearly every single game company refuses to provide their games as free (libre) game software. Obviously. Sinking a couple of million into a game and providing it for free is not exactly a winning strategy. Or worse, devs do so and then introduce microtransactions and similar evils. The current model suits me perfectly (aside from the DLC bullsht). Once off payment for indefinite access (well until obsolescence anyway).

spacelizard 13y ago
They don't bother because all their users have been convinced not to care, perhaps by proprietary software marketing efforts. The free software movement seeks to educate people on why they should care, and why it's valuable for companies to give users freedom instead of trying to lure them into proprietary licensing traps. I don't know what you gain from viewing GNU/Linux as a product that is supposed to compete with proprietary software on the same level, because it's not that at all. As we've seen from countless failed companies trying to pitch GNU/Linux on the desktop, traditional marketing strategies for proprietary software do not carry over to free software. This is the true misallocation of resources and it's the only thing causing the "wheel-spinning" you're referring to. >Sinking a couple of million into a game and providing it for free is not exactly a winning strategy. It's free as in freedom, not free as in price. Most if not all games sell based on content anyway, which doesn't need to be free (as in freedom or as in price) to resolve the problem of the users being treated like garbage and being forced into a subservient relationship.

thelukester 13y ago

>In the case of games, nearly every single game company refuses to provide their games as free (libre) game software. Rockstar spent $266 million to develop Grand Theft Auto V. How do you expect them to recoup this cost if they gave it away as free software? What communist fairly land do you come from?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
arjie 13y ago
If GP is from the RMS school of thought, then only the code needs to be free. The assets aren't. The code, with no assets, is practically worthless to the end-consumer.
- lazylizard 13y ago
  until the Darkmod Standalone was released...