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Latest Comments by dibz
PlayStation 1 emulator DuckStation changes license for no commercial use and no derivatives
16 Sep 2024 at 3:27 pm UTC Likes: 2

This seems key "Packagers being collateral damage was a beneficial side-effect, considering they don't clearly mark their versions as modified (also a GPL requirement), break functionality, and expect upstream to provide support."

Which is extremely fair, IMHO. A lot of entitled people out there love to bark up the wrong tree.

Could be drama like Stenzik has had with Retroarch in the past (which is not surprising, can't speak for all contributors of that project but some of them are extremely entitled people), could just be mounting frustration over time with distro packaging and entitled users, who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all of the above.

EmuDeck 2.3 Beta brings a new unified UI and multi language support
9 Sep 2024 at 5:00 pm UTC Likes: 6

Definitely read the manual before playing with this one. It does warn you that it moves roms and such to the folder you select, and I'm not sure if a github readme / somewhere other then the interface warns you, but personally I did not realize it was going to detect my already installed emulators and folders through them and consolidate those to it's folder too.

It's currently rsyncing my RPCS3 dev_hdd0 folder, which is decently large and a ton of inodes.

Frankly while I see the convenience I definitely wouldn't have tested EmuDeck on my desktop if I'd have realized it was going to auto-detect things I didn't enter into the interface somehow.

Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team
27 Aug 2024 at 8:34 pm UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: Mountain ManSo Microsoft is 100% open sourcing the code with no strings attached? No "Gotcha!" waiting to be unleashed at some point in the future? I'm naturally suspicious of anything coming out of Redmond. It's not in their nature to be altruistic.
From my reading of the statement, they're not being entirely good natured here. This part being key:

Microsoft maintains a modern fork of Mono runtime in the dotnet/runtime repo and has been progressively moving workloads to that fork. That work is now complete, and we recommend that active Mono users and maintainers of Mono-based app frameworks migrate to .NET which includes work from this fork.
Which sounds an awful lot like "use the MS fork and not this one", remembering that Microsoft has kind of a terrible Linux history on the .Net front. IMHO this all could be alright-to-good news, but I wouldn't assume it is either.

Open Source implementation of GOG Galaxy's Communication Service, Comet sees a first release
13 Jul 2024 at 9:15 pm UTC

Quoting: tpau
Quoting: dibzHonestly the Galaxy Client itself, ignoring Linux for a moment, feels mostly abandoned as it is. I believe the single person they had maintaining the integrations quit quite some time ago, and was never replaced.
The broken ones are community integrations which you can hardly blame the company for :)
They had a paid staff member that managed "Awesome-GOG-Galaxy". Once that stopped, so did any updates via the "Search for integrations" in Galaxy. People can still do it on their own, but the jank from doing it that way pretty much killed that portion of the client.

Open Source implementation of GOG Galaxy's Communication Service, Comet sees a first release
12 Jul 2024 at 2:56 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: dibz
Quoting: CatKillerGOG's Linux-hostility means that I last gave them money in... 2017, and I have no intention of giving them more in the future. It's good to have tools to stop people's GOG libraries keeping them locked into Windows, though.
What do you mean by hostility? To me it's felt a lot more like they probably had one or two people wanting to support linux and they were cool with it, then it faded for whatever reason -- like the same people moved on from the company or something.

Honestly the Galaxy Client itself, ignoring Linux for a moment, feels mostly abandoned as it is. I believe the single person they had maintaining the integrations quit quite some time ago, and was never replaced. While they did promise Linux support, it's always felt like you often see with .Net apps -- especially around the time Galaxy was being made -- where MS loosely promised Linux support in .Net, then the next version of .Net, then just Nah but you can use 3rd party to implement the GUI, and naive promises were getting made by people/devs that didn't do their *homework. The client just isn't great; Heck, if you use "Surprise me" to have it "reveal" random games -- they're always the same games, chosen in the same order, every time you restart the client.

My point is Galaxy itself feels low priority, and very loosely managed. Very much feels like people "feeling like doing this or that", and the someone that felt like doing linux things is... probably not even there anymore?

*: You'd see the same exact thing with stretch goals in KS projects promising Linux support, because their game engine claimed to support it; And again, failed to do their homework only to find out later they actually had to put effort in, and likely plan and develop from day one so they make good choices. Then you'd see "Blah blah not worth the effort (we made bad decisions but this is a popular excuse right?)" and they just don't do it.
I take your point and think that was generally well put . . . but at the same time I think making a comparison with Microsoft in your argument that (thing) is not hostile to Linux is fundamentally unpersuasive. :grin:
Hah true, I didn't mean the comparison in that way but rather that particular example. MS is obviously pretty hostile towards desktop Linux.

Open Source implementation of GOG Galaxy's Communication Service, Comet sees a first release
12 Jul 2024 at 2:10 pm UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: CatKillerGOG's Linux-hostility means that I last gave them money in... 2017, and I have no intention of giving them more in the future. It's good to have tools to stop people's GOG libraries keeping them locked into Windows, though.
What do you mean by hostility? To me it's felt a lot more like they probably had one or two people wanting to support linux and they were cool with it, then it faded for whatever reason -- like the same people moved on from the company or something.

Honestly the Galaxy Client itself, ignoring Linux for a moment, feels mostly abandoned as it is. I believe the single person they had maintaining the integrations quit quite some time ago, and was never replaced. While they did promise Linux support, it's always felt like you often see with .Net apps -- especially around the time Galaxy was being made -- where MS loosely promised Linux support in .Net, then the next version of .Net, then just Nah but you can use 3rd party to implement the GUI, and naive promises were getting made by people/devs that didn't do their *homework. The client just isn't great; Heck, if you use "Surprise me" to have it "reveal" random games -- they're always the same games, chosen in the same order, every time you restart the client.

My point is Galaxy itself feels low priority, and very loosely managed. Very much feels like people "feeling like doing this or that", and the someone that felt like doing linux things is... probably not even there anymore?

*: You'd see the same exact thing with stretch goals in KS projects promising Linux support, because their game engine claimed to support it; And again, failed to do their homework only to find out later they actually had to put effort in, and likely plan and develop from day one so they make good choices. Then you'd see "Blah blah not worth the effort (we made bad decisions but this is a popular excuse right?)" and they just don't do it.

Flathub continues growing with over 2 billion downloads recorded
25 Jun 2024 at 3:32 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: amataiI have a mixed feeling about Flatpack. I have the impression it tries to replace package repositery whereas the problem is that distribution repository should be extended.
We don't need flatpack or snap or whatever for Mozzila, Gnome or KDE softwares. The FOSS software from highly trusted source are the easiest things to maintain on distribution repo. Flathub should be mostly commercial or more obscure FOSS project and software store app should be able to mix distro software when it makes the most sense and packaged software.
Agreed, and maybe I'm just old and bitter about things changing, but I strongly blame the popularity of rolling distributions (Looking at you, Arch). Not that rolling distributions are a new concept or anything, but they didn't used to be so mainstream/popular. Frankly, most people never needed the latest and greatest packages/ABIs at all times, and repositories were awesome -- and used to be a hugely touted benefit over the competition (Windows).

Frankly, with snaps, flats, and appimages I dare say Linux has become kind of a pain in the ass lately. Even debs/rpms are rarely distributed via repository anymore, often just being resources alongside things like appimages in github releases. The only things that aren't annoying these days are base system packages, because they're updated and distributed via repositories.

Flathub continues growing with over 2 billion downloads recorded
24 Jun 2024 at 4:22 pm UTC Likes: 3

I just wish software managers would be more transparent about who packages various flats. I've seen a lot of talk when people tell others to just install flats, and they think they're official and that's just the way to do it. Sometimes it's even true.

Obsidian gave Pillars of Eternity a big patch - Linux and macOS updates being investigated
7 Jun 2024 at 2:30 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: eldakingThis kind of thing pisses me off immensely for a few reasons.

1) This is the big one: when they made the game, Obsidian was an indie studio with limited resources, that had a very successful crowdfunding campaign but still a lot of risk. But they have since been bought by Microsoft, one of the biggest companies on the world. There is absolutely no excuse to not give proper support to some people, it is all greed and dishonesty. "Oh but it is not profitable" - yeah after-release support often is, you still have to do it. Didn't want to pay for Linux support, should not have bought a company with Linux games
2) Making the entire game work on Linux in the first place is a (potentially) huge task, and adding Linux as a new platform implies taking on a new responsibility, so sure if you want to focus on the main release and leave it as an extra it is understandable. But "porting" the updates is the opposite - it is something you already committed to.
3) They picked an engine with Linux support. Sure they built a lot on top of it (I think they did some pretty big extensions to the engine iirc), but it is not like they would have to port the entire engine again just for a few fixes. Sure it is still not trivial, but it is one less thing for them to blame.
4) I don't care if Linux players are few, every single player has a very reasonably expectation of good support. Even if a problem only affects one person, as a "paying customer" that person should be able to reach customer support and get it sorted out (if at all possible). "Sorry we won't fix our fabrication defect because there aren't enough people affected, so you'll have to cope with your defective product" is not acceptable. It is a Linux game, they need to support their Linux customers.
Agreed, this has Microsoft stink all over it. Probably can't get project management approval, or worse, the talent that did the linux portion no longer works for the company or something. Doesn't really matter if Obsidian wants to do it, that's not how big corpos work.

Garry Newman of Facepunch comments on the Nintendo takedown of Garry's Mod content
30 May 2024 at 6:45 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: JordanPlayz158
Quoting: kerossinWell, I think why people get angry is because most mods aren't done for profit but out of love for the characters and stories, and just to have fun. Same for users of mods, they like the characters and want to have fun but then when Nintendo or whoever comes in and says "you'll enjoy Mario when I'll allow you to" it sounds like a big "F you" to the fans.
Yeah I'd say this hits the nail on the head, whether a company is legally in the right is not what the people who complain care about, it is more-so ethically and the intent and time people spent on those addons, I guess people go to legal as you can't really argue about ethics as ethics are opinionated and you can't disprove/argue with an opinion (you can argue with one but it'd be pointless).
I think Garry Newman was addressing that perspective specifically, honestly. Or rather, he's commenting on the different perspectives and that "back when" it was a different time and people wouldn't be upset (generally speaking, anyway) since they knew they were in a grey area to begin with.

Some companies are obviously cool with it, but that's the trick isn't it? It's their choice to be cool with it, it's also their choice not to be. Point being, it's their choice to make and that's fair.