I like this. Anyone has a complete list of compatible games?

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Quoting: Quote from Sslaxx

Quoting: Quote from berarmaThe SteamOS scares me, it reminds me about the Ubuntu meltdown and the Steam-PITA client. Wait, that's what it'll be made of.

There may be some positive things about it, better graphic drivers and probably more non-Steam games but we'll have to stand the negatives. It's worth reminding how Android hasn't helped GNU/Linux at all, has it?

Here is a recent article to back the anon comment on the 25th: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google-and-samsung-soar-into-list-of-top-10-linux-contributors/ [External Link]

That article just reasserts what I said. Some excerpts:

"Google contributions were not Android-related, given there really wasn't much Android code in the first place (7,000 lines of code, much smaller than your serial port driver), and it was all merged a while ago," Greg Kroah-Hartman, who co-authored the report and is the maintainer of the Linux kernel's stable branch, told Ars. "Google's been doing work all over the kernel (networking, security, scheduler, cgroups), all good stuff."

More good news is that the "longstanding squabble over Android-specific kernel features has faded completely into the background," the report said. "The much discussed 'wakelocks [External Link]' [power management] feature has been quietly replaced by a different mainline solution which is used in the latest Android devices."

Most Google contributions come from their data center server's software. Indeed, most Android kernel code customizations were refused because they weren't good enough for general use.

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The SteamOS scares me, it reminds me about the Ubuntu meltdown and the Steam-PITA client. Wait, that's what it'll be made of.

There may be some positive things about it, better graphic drivers and probably more non-Steam games but we'll have to stand the negatives. It's worth reminding how Android hasn't helped GNU/Linux at all, has it?

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Quoting: scaineRead the slides there on AutoPackage - by far the biggest problem was that distros didn't care. In fact, I remember Autopackage when it was being touted in 2005/2006 - it wasn't that distros didn't care. In fact, the distros (or at least the communities around the distros) actively lambasted the Autopackage idea. Loudly resisted getting the equivalent of InstallShield for their platform. This wasn't apathy, it was outright denial and bluntly worded hatred of the idea.

So there's absolutely nothing "easy" about packaging.

Now I don't know if you guys have tried installing your Humble games through the Ubuntu Software Centre, but after you've added enough, having it trying to update 20+ PPAs is a pain, and meanwhile full updates for patches is also hellish. Not to mention the timeout issues during download over WIFI which seem to plague my laptop (but not Steam).

So what are GoG's options then? Plenty, I'm sure, but instead of a standardised installer for all linux distros, they have to spend days/weeks with experienced linux sysadmins to investigate the possibility of how they achieve this.

So call bullshit all you want, but it SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD. But as helsinki points out, elitism is rampant and here we are.

I've read them and that's why I say the idea is flawed. This project can't/shouldn't be forced on distros. It doesn't matter how much user communities want it, it has to be done out of the distro for obvious reasons. It doesn't solve a problem distros have but it would create a lot, don't you see why distro developers don't like the idea?

Bundling your libraries with your game isn't hard, it's a lot easier than anything you've proposed, no need for a new packaging system, no need for a new executable file format. All games distributed for any system already do that to a certain extent, so what's the problem? None, now bundle your games with the libraries they need.

They don't do it because they don't care, it's not because it's hard or impossible. It's the easiest, most feasible and standard solution.

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Quoting: helsinki_harbour

Quoting: Quote from Kristian

Quoting: Quote from Quote from berarmaThere's a solution and it's given in link #3, solution #3. Any developer that doesn't want to open source their project must ship their game with all libraries needed. Not doing so is a call for problems. Open sourced games have the benefit that they may get into the distribution packaging system and thus have the problem solved.

This is exactly what modern games do on Windows anyway as far as shipping with DirectX, the Visual C++ Runtime, .Net, etc goes. Every single GOG game that uses Dosbox ships with it separately as well.

Bundeling was the approach of Autopackage [External Link], worked not robust enough (you can't bundle everything) as nobody was cooperating with autopackage and therefore this crap [External Link] wasn't fixed (and is still not). As the distros refused to support this idea (because of conservatism and elitism) the project died [External Link]. Other technologies who aimed also on making binary software deployment easier like FatELF [External Link] by Ryan Gordon faced the same fate.

It's a lot more easier than that, the solutions you propose are flawed IMHO. You can't force distributions to participate in solving a problem they don't have. Distributions don't have to support nor develop this solution, that idea is utterly wrong, it's commercial developers because it's their problem, and one that can be solved as easily as creating a pool of libraries they can ship with their software.

Maybe it's a problem that should be solved by the development tools, in any case, it's not distributions nor users that have to come up with the solution.

If some day there's big profits to make in the GNU/Linux market it won't matter there's 1000 distributions to support, they will come up with a solution, hopefully the one I'm advocating for or something even better. They don't see enough benefit compared to other markets, so they make up an excuse and say it's our fault.

Steam won't do it because they're just trying to pressure Microsoft and maybe use us as beta users for some upcoming gaming console.

It makes me sick this non-issue is talked about so much, let's kick the developers butt for giving stupid excuses. No system has zero porting cost and zero support cost, GNU/Linux is easy in that aspect. There's indie developers doing it, GoG might be small but no smaller than does indies, sometimes one-man teams. How are they not ashamed for making excuses up?

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: Quote from Silviu

Quoting: Quote from Quote from helsinki_harbour

Quoting: Quote from Quote from Quote from KristianSteam does bundling just fine.

If you call nearly 1000 open issues [External Link] "fine" for just the support of only "Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or 12.10 with the Unity" [External Link], yeah, it is doing bundling fine.

Have you bothered to see what those issues are? Only 2 are marked as runtime. Most are issues with the Steam client itself (over 300). Check all the labels on the left side. So yes, the bundling of runtimes aka libs is just fine.

And a huge number of those open issues are incredibly esoteric - ZFS for example. Or PuppyLinux, or whatever. They only "officially" support Ubuntu, but the GitHub is flooded with distro-specific issues.

I'm sure Windows would have the same kind of esoteric requests in biggest numbers. That has nothing to do with distros but with personal customizations that can be done on Windows too.

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Quoting: helsinki_harbour

Quoting: Quote from KristianSeveral highly technically informed people(Here, on the GOG forums and elsewhere) have provided bunches and bunches of solutions to supposed issues surrounding fragmentation.

Indeed, there are approaches (not solutions [[1]](http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/02/08/our-new-way-to-meet-the-lgpl/ [External Link]) [[2]](http://www.sandroid.org/imcross/ [External Link]) [[3]](http://web.archive.org/web/20071013034536/http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/linuxprogramming2/page2.asp [External Link]) [[4]](http://listaller.tenstral.net/ [External Link])), which are sadly not as comprehensive, simple and robust as developers/publishers would need them. Not on quality level which can be expected from a platform in the 21th century.

Looking back in history, it would have been helpful if Autopackage [External Link] would have been welcomed by community. Or FatELF. Or if the Loki packages would have not been broken without reason. Or if the LSB under Ian Murdock would have not been ignored when he was arguing for backward compatibility [External Link] and a ISV infrastructure [External Link]... missed opportunities.

There's a solution and it's given in link #3, solution #3. Any developer that doesn't want to open source their project must ship their game with all libraries needed. Not doing so is a call for problems. Open sourced games have the benefit that they may get into the distribution packaging system and thus have the problem solved.

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Quoting: helsiniki_harbour

Quoting: Quote from AnonymousIndeed. I liked GOG.com, but they are talking bullshit. It is dishonest and dumb excuses. I would respect them if they would say "Linux has too small market share and we are not interested". Instead they just make it like there are 9000 distros and it is impossible to handle. They say it to generally well-versed technically users, really?

It's a combination of both.
The small market share that the combined linux distros hold together should be at least easily addressable.
But infact, the smallest audience is the most fragmented and therefore hardest (and most expensive) to support.
If the support would as simple as for the other two platforms, even the current 1 digit market shares could be enough for GOG making a business case. I would guess because of the philosophical nearness of the free community to GOG's community focus and DRM-freeness ideals, they would start even earlier. ;)  But as it is so unreasonable hard... they have to step back to not threating the complete GOG business by taking a bite which is to big for a small company.

From linux side, this missing addessability needs to be fixed in the linux distro landscape, fast. But not by steam, hopefully. :(

At most it's as hard as supporting Windows or Mac. There are already games portes, it's being already done and it's not rocket science. They just need to learn, and they're not interested enough.

I'm sure supporting Windows is a lot harder, but they already know how to deal with that nightmare and maybe it pays off because there's more buyers. They're just talking bullshit.

We're talking they just have to return the money for users that don't get the game working. They could earn money from sales that work.

This trolling/FUD should be put to an end.

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I'm in late, and wow, so many posts... I haven't read all of them.

Their argument is so dumb... I'm tired of hearing that excuse, and I'm even more tired of people buying that excuse and trying to make a serious claim.

They don't need to support distributions, they just have to ship all libraries needed by the game and all they will have to care for are drivers (provided by kernel and 3rd parties) and possibly libc. The kernel and libc are the most solid, standard and backwards compatible pieces of software even compared with Windows and Mac counterparts. Any developer complaining should be ashamed, you don't need to rely on any particular distro libraries, ship your own!!!!

The best ports are those that aren't aimed to any particular distribution, those that try to go for one particular distribution usually have more bugs and may even fail on that distro when upgrading it.

See, they can support all versions of Windows, with all possible combinations of patches, services packs, libraries installed by apps, user customizations, but they can't offer support for a kernel + libc? What about the games that run on scummvm or dosbox? They're already multiplatform!!!

Most GNU/Linux users don't even need support unless the game is seriously fucked up. If they can't make their games work on any distro it's their fault and they don't want to admit it.

This site shouldn't buy that crap, we're about choice and telling us that choice isn't good is like telling us you don't like us. We should make them blush when using these excuses. Please, please, please, let's stop it.

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After some reading it seems the game stays just the same it was. The engine is free, the assets are freely distributable, at least for GNU/Linux. Debian already has packaged version 1.3.1, muntdefems, your Ubuntu is a bit old. So nothing new for us, except that we may soon be able to support the developers thru Desura. The last sentence in the article is completely misleading since it states they changed the license to keep development alive but they didn't.

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