Quoting: lewisshaw we kickstart something about this gog linux thingy? huh?

Are you insane? Do you have battered person syndrome?
You want to throw money at them after this shameless display of bullshittery?!?

Quoting: helsinki_harbourBut please, start! Even if it is only for the buzz!

Quoting: JoeI don't need their support, but it would be nice to have them remove the artificial barriers that they've erected.

Not gonna happen. They have their heads too far up their arses.

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Quoting: darkone778Some of these developers have complained specifically about the debugging process using GDB (GNU Project Debugger)

Funny, whenever I have to use Windows, I bemoan the lack of great debugging tools like valgrind.

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Quoting: TheEnigmaticTyou are all thinking like Linux fans, not business people. You're only looking at upsides and positives, not the potential downsides and negatives

Oh, yes, the almighty business person explains the world to the proles.

Quoting: TheEnigmaticTLet's take an answer like helsinki_harbor's from right above me: these are all generally community-run projects.

You know what else are community-run projects? ScummVM. And DOSBox.

Let's suppose ScummVM pulls an FFmpeg and splits down the middle.

Hell, there have been daydreams about splitting off a ScummVM-core for use in other projects on the mailing list for years now. Are they substantive? Do I think it's likely? Do I think the project as such would not live through such a change? No³. But it's possible.

Another thing: Unfortunately, many of our awesome porters are busy with their real life (no one will fault them for that, of course). Now suppose that we suddenly can't provide Mac OS X binaries anymore. And thanks to some oversight, the codebase doesn't even compile or work on Mac OS X either. Likely? It's possible.

So when it comes to silly presupposition such as these, you are already "gambling with money".

Quoting: TheEnigmaticTIt's entirely possible that a sufficiently poorly-thought out Linux rollout could cost GOG.com millions of dollars

Any sufficiently poorly though-out decision will cost you money. The solution is to think things through, not to sit on your thumbs!
I'm sure entering this whole "old games" business in the first place was a calculated risk. Did you go "Oh, it's possible no one wants to buy those old games. Or no one would give use the rights to sell them. So let's forget about it."? No, of course not.

Quoting: TheEnigmaticTit's the same reason that many of the Linux community aren't happy with the OS anymore: there's a single point of contact (i.e, Canonical)

The issues people have with Canonical are far more complex. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Quoting: TheEnigmaticTBut I do not believe that GOG.com has gotten where we are today by aspiring to copy Steam. We want to be better than them

...So, because you don't think you can be better than Steam, you choose to be worse?

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Quoting: TheEnigmaticTI understand that you're all fans of the OS and you're part of an active community that is passionate and dedicated--all things that have gotten GOG.com where we are today--but you're also part of a *small* community.

I'm also part of the ScummVM team*, one of the legs you base your business on. And I'm telling you, you're talking bullshit.

*) Of course, I'm only talking for myself here
*) And while we're at that topic, I'm still not happy about how you handle ScummVM and DOSBox integration: I'd wish you'd advertise on the game page when you're using ScummVM or DOSBox. For both other-OS-compatibility questions and, well, "proselytising", for the lack of a better word, about FLOSS. I'm aware that legally, per the GPL, you need to do no such thing, but I do find it quite sad how well you hide that you're using FLOSS. /tangent

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You misunderstand me. I never said Descent 3 doesn't work on both system.
I said that both systems have games that don't work anymore.

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Quoting: commodore256Yeah and you can't even run Descent 3 on a modern Distro without using a Glibc compatibility

Like I said, there are game that work and games that don't work on both systems.

Quoting: commodore256Even when I replace my DLLs, it still doesn't work with DirectX 9 games

Depends on the game, I guess.
I know for a fact that the TellTale games do work with Wine using the DirectX 9 DLLs. As do NWN2 and the Dragon Age games, for example. And Giana Sisters. [...]

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Quoting: commodore256Yeah, I tried that in apt-get, it doesn't fucking work. It says you can't update while running Xorg.

Well, I admit I have no idea about that.

Quoting: commodore256but I was talking about Windows compatibility with Windows Games vs. Linux compatibility with Linux Games.

I am talking about the Linux version of Neverwinter Nights. NWN1 did get a native Linux release in 2003.

In contrast, try running Discworld Noir on your Windows 8 machine. Or Gabriel Knight 3.

Quoting: commodore256It's sad we had DirectX9.0c for 9 years and the Wine implementation still doesn't fun my favorite games that are 7 years old

Wine can use the dx3d9 DLLs though, and with those, many games do run.

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Quoting: liamdaweYour other points are valid but it doesn't change the fact that it is extra work for developer

Sure, it's extra work. It's also extra work to look into what middleware is portable, what APIs not to use, etc.. I just think that this bit of extra work is well spent. And what package format to choose is really the smallest bit of work in comparison.

Especially when we're talking about GOG. GOG that are distributing games that already have working Linux support. That they strip away. It's just so lazy; they're not even trying! It's just so damn frustrating and disappointing.

Quoting: liamdaweAs perfectly pointed out by our new member commodore256 you are a very far above average user, if you feel so strongly, why not send them your wise words yourself?

Frankly, I don't trust myself enough to not yell at them.

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Quoting: commodore256People shouldn't have to fuck with the command line to update Nvidia Drivers. (like I do because they won't update with Xorg running)

I'm pretty sure Debian can update the nVidia drivers automatically through its package system.
Very sure, because I actually had to jump through hoops to disable that (I'm a manual kind of person). Ubuntu surely does that as well.

Quoting: commodore256As much as People say ATI/AMD is shit on Linux

I for one am still bitter over them removing support for my 2005 laptop's rv350 card from their binary driver years ago. That was before the radeon project. Nowadays, the card runs very well again.
I'm also not happy about nVidia being shits with their closedness, but, well, 3D drivers is topic I'm in general pretty conflicted about.

Quoting: commodore256On Windows 8, I can install the CD Version of Half-Life (a game made in 1998) without a problem

Ah, come on, I can name you hundreds of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 games that don't even work in Windows 2000 or XP, let alone in 7 or 8.

And I can tell you that the 2002/2003 game Neverwinter Nights still works swell on Linux.

And then there's also the lot of Mac PPC games...

You really can't generalize that.

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Quoting: liamdaweam not being stupid for having a personal opinion of that I don't like the immense fragmentation we have

That dislike is unfounded. That fragmentation is a strength (choice), not a weakness.

Quoting: liamdawewhy do you think Unity and Steam (possibly our two biggest players now) only official support Ubuntu?

Because Ubuntu claims to be the "userfriendliest" of them.

Quoting: liamdaweHow can I not accept what they (gog) say? It's their choice, not mine.

But it's a choice they give a bullshit reason for and calling them out on that is well justified.

Quoting: liamdaweI hear time and time again from developers who tweet to me, email me, talk to me on IRC etc about being confused on what to do for all the distros, what package type to use (deb, rpm, tar).

And the correct answer is to educate them, not to capitulate and say "Duh, haven't thought about that, guess no Linux then".

And there is an easy answer to that big mystery:
- If you care about Ubuntu people installing your game with one click, distribute a .deb
- Additionally, a tar.gz / tar.bz2 / tar.xz is nice for people not running Ubuntu (though you can of course manually extract the .deb and resolve the library dependencies)
- If you want to be really fancy, distribute an installer (Loki did that, for example), but some people rather have a tar-ball.

Bam, that's it.

Quoting: liamdaweDistrowatch alone shows 100 different distro's

Yes, I'm aware there are a lot of distros. And no, that doesn't make your point because I never said there weren't, just that your fear of them is silly.

Quoting: liamdaweHell a developer even tweeted to me just now http://twitter.com/AeornFlippout/status/375698476199186432 [External Link]

http://twitter.com/SinedioMD/status/375699361109274624 [External Link]
Also, see above.

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