Quoting: PeciskMust be spring or something, you are way too optimistic for Linux gamer.

It's the summer of Linux!

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Quoting: lucifertdarkMicrosoft can't be trusted to do what's best for anyone but themselves, if they get their claws into Linux/Ubuntu, it's only a matter of time before it's dead & buried.

I don't know anything about the MIT license. Is it possible for someone to withdraw the license at a later date? If so, that could be Microsoft's end-game: get Mono code into competitors' products, withdraw the license, and suddenly everybody but Microsoft is screwed.

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Quoting: GuestThink you could provide the number of games for OS X and Windows in your article as well so I can link to it on Wikipedia? Their sentence there is fucking stupid [External Link]:

As of February 2016, over 7,500 games are available through Steam, including over 2,300 for OS X and 1,500 for Linux.[4]

Notice the use of the term "over" before the number of games for Windows and for OS X, but not for Linux. Weasel words.

I read that is saying that there are over 1,500 Linux games, but the way it's written reads better than "...including over 2,300 for OS X and over 1,500 for Linux."

But I suppose it could be read the other way as well.

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Quoting: Grimfist2.000 games, this is amazing. And yes, we need more day-1 releases, this is true.
And yes, I am also missing WoW (although working mostly good with Wine) and Blizzard games in general on Linux. But this won't change in the future sadly.

I would love to see another major developer like Blizzard start supporting Linux. They already support Mac, so the cost of entry would be quite low for them.

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I think the more troubling fact is that Unity phones home without the user's knowledge.

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I like how you skipped right over the quote from FindLaw.com which proved you wrong. :D

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"Yes, we definitely plan on releasing on Mac and Linux, however the initial launch will be on PC and depending on the amount of money we raise the Mac and Linux port will come sooner or later."

Sorry, but statements like this seem very weaselly to me.

Also, any developer who states that they plan to develop for Windows first, then Linux and Mac later is telling you right up front where their priorities lie.

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Quoting: wintermute

Quoting: Mountain ManNo, the contract lasts for the length of time agreed to by both parties.

And in an employment contract that length of time is the same as the period of employment. The contract and the employment cease at the same time. After the employment is over the contract is over.

You're really quite ignorant about these things, aren't you?

"NONCOMPETITION AGREEMENT. In the noncompetition clause, the employee agrees that for a certain amount of time after he or she stops working for the employer, the employee will not become employed by a rival company or any company engaged in a similar type of business, and the employee will not set up a company that will compete with the employer's business (or solicit the employer's customers). Usually the noncompetition clause is limited to a particular geographic area."
http://employment.findlaw.com/hiring-process/employment-contracts-and-compensation-agreements.html [External Link]

So like I said, the contract lasts for the length of time agreed to by both parties. If your employer could nullify your contract simply by firing you then what's the point of having a contract?

"Yes, I know your contract says we'll give you $1,000,000 compensation if you're ever fired, but since you no longer work for us, that contract is no longer binding. Better luck next time."

Yeah, it doesn't work like that.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Nel

Quoting: Mountain Man"Personally, I think these sorts of contracts do no good, and I am not a fan of them. I am surprised such a contract is even legal!"

Why should they be illegal? If an employer says, "Here are the terms you must agree to before we'll hire you," and the employee signs on the dotted line anyway then that's on them. Trendy Entertainment is perfectly within its right to enforce a contract that both parties willingly agreed to.

ROFL

Just one sentence from Noam Chomsky:
The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.

Unless someone is holding a gun to his head, a prospective employee is under no compulsion to sign a contract he doesn't agree with.

That seems almost the exact inverse of what, when TheBoss said it, your rejoinder was "You're right, that is a stupid example". This is a ludicrous claim, why do I see it so often? Of course it's not the case that there is no such thing as compulsion that doesn't consist of holding a gun to the head. There are many kinds and degrees of compulsion. And it's certainly the case that overall, in gaming companies, people tend to need jobs much more than companies need any given employee, and this differential in power is often used to insist on crap working conditions and nasty contracts. If the power dynamic were different, so would the contracts be. And indeed, every so often you get a superstar programmer who is in great demand, and is well enough off not to really need a job at all, and whose contracts, surprise surprise, are very different. The notion that contracts are, ever really, something happening in some hypothetical magical neutral space where everyone is freed of all coercion is laughable.
This is one reason why it's important for there to be some kind of outside social arbiter (such as, although not necessarily limited to, the state) imposing some limits on how unfair contracts are allowed to be, how much power imbalance is allowed to be brought to bear.

As to this particular case, I think I dislike everyone involved. Stieglitz sounds like a jerk, given the way he seems to have treated people he bossed. Trendy sound like creeps who were probably just fine with Stieglitz's management style until it blew up on them and they had to shuffle things around to save face, and their contract is BS. Even some of the employees . . . even if Stieglitz was treating them like crap, was whining to the media the best action to take? I have my doubts. But dislike Stieglitz personally though I may (given current information at hand--maybe he's a great guy and the people who worked under him were indulging in horrible calumnies), I'd rather see this blow up in Trendy's face because abusing vicious contracts is a broader problem whereas Stieglitz is just one particular dude.

"Holding a gun to his head" is a euphemism. I didn't mean it literally.

My point is that at least here in America, it is extremely rare for someone seeking employment to be in a do-or-die situation where they literally have no choice but to accept an unfair contract. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between not being able to find work in your chosen field versus not being able to find work at all. Just because an aspiring game designer can't find work with a developer doesn't mean that his only other choice is to starve, so Chomsky's rather extreme analogy doesn't fit this scenario.

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Quoting: EagleDeltaSay what you want, a Non-Compete cannot Legally prevent you from earning a living in your profession. That info comes directly from a lawyer. The ONLY way Trendy's Non-compete clause can prevent someone from working in gaming is if that Non-Compete states that they can't work in gaming within 200 miles (or someother limited distance) of Trendy. ANY Non-Compete that prevents an employee from working in their profession and earning a living at all is considered "unenforceable". Basically a Non-Compete that prevents you from working in your chosen profession/specialty would be akin to signing yourself into servitude as no one would ever be able to leave their company without leaving their career, giving many companies absolutely no reason to treat their employees well.

I don't know the exact terms of the contract, so it's rather hard to say one way or another. My only point is that on general principle, there's nothing inherently wrong with a non-compete contract, although like anything in business -- or life -- it can be stretched beyond the bound of what's reasonable.

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