Quoting: Whitewolfe80Just go to any reddit forum that mentions the words Bethesda and linux. They are not going to remove DRM if anything I forsee companies spending more and more on it.

Then they shouldn't complain about piracy, since they are shooting themselves in the foot.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: manus76It doesn't work like that: if Metal and DX bring Apple and MS money (and they do) then that's all that counts.

For crooks yes, goals always justify the means. Wasn't that the whole point of the discussion above (in the context of lock-in)? We aren't arguing really.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: manus76Not a personal attack, more an admission of my own failing (and probably dementia): even though I studied English and thought I was pretty competent at it, I haven't understood anything above.

I think @Purple Library Guy is saying, that monopoly and monopolistic (anti-competitive) practices are reasonably considered harmful to the free market, and normally are supposed to be prevented by anti-trust law and etc. But if the law fails to prevent it (because of political dysfunction, corruption, and so on), it doesn't make those practices any less damaging and crooked, and neither is whitewashing them a good thing.

You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: manus76So should Apple (and Microsoft) just say: 'Listen guys, we abandon Metal (or DX11/12 in the case of MS) and support Vulkan.

Yes, same as Adobe recently did with Flash, saying they will abandon it, and will support HTML (common open standard). MS kind of officially didn't do it with ActiveX and Silverlight, but de-facto did by supporting modern HTML in IE / Edge. I don't see why graphics need to be any worse in this sense. That would be competing on merit (let them make their systems better than the rest, instead of forcing lock-in through tools).

Admittedly, all that happened because HTML won, and balkanized lock-in lost in the browser wars. In graphics situation is far from healthy, with lock-in being very dominant, like early days of the Web with "best viewed in IE" and the like.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Whitewolfe80I have seen it justified plenty of times on Reddit

Any examples? Linux users are generally supportive of developers who release for Linux. Anyway, as I said, instead of focusing on piracy itself (which probably will always exist in some form), developers can focus on positive stuff that can reduce it - removing DRM, being more open in their communication to have more direct relationship with the community, and so on. All that builds respect. I.e. it's the opposite of what legacy publishers are normally doing (DRM, complete distancing from the community and etc.). On average, I'd say Linux developers are doing a better job than usual in that. Good examples are companies like inXile, Obsidian and the like.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: JanApple is not a monopolist in any market, unlike Microsoft and Google.

That doesn't justify anti-competitive behavior in any way. Such examples as ban to competing browsers on iOS are simply disgusting. I agree with others that it's better to focus on positive stuff instead of bashing Apple the the like, but I don't agree with whitewashing of crooked behavior.

Quoting: JanIt's Apple's core concept to control everything within their ecosystem (or walled garden, if you prefer that term) to deliver a smooth user experience and sell them more devices and services tied to their Apple IDs. Amazon is another company like them, Sony and Nintendo are comparable in certain areas.

Those are all counter examples. I.e. they just highlight how bad lock-in is. Out of those, Nintendo notably started using Vulkan, but overall they have a very bad reputation when it comes to how they use DRM and treat their own users.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: manus76I guess that's where we disagree on a deeper level: Apple (and other companies) don't have the luxury linux has. Linux doesn't have shareholders and doesn't have to produce quarterly figures, Apple does. From their perspective they are doing everything right, and whether we like it or not it is all driven by profit and greed.

Yes, we disagree. Lock-in is not right, and what Apple is doing is crooked. Lock-in means they don't compete on merit, but use anti-competitive methods to advance their interests. It's one of the monopolistic practices (among many others). I don't think we need to spend time here explaining why monopolies are bad from a lot of different perspectives. If anyone, Linux users should know better.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: manus76Imagine the following for the sake of argument: Apple supports Vulkan and all of MacOS games suddenly appear on linux. How many games would that be? 100? 1000? 2000? What kind of impact would it have on linux gaming?

Positive, instead of negative.

Quoting: manus76That is my question: does this warrant all of this bashing and bitching about a company driven by profit?

Profit is no justification for crooked behavior like lock-in.

Quoting: manus76I realise from linux gamers' perspective lock-in is not a great idea,

It's not limited to affecting Linux specifically. Lock-in is bad in general. It's an anti-competitive / monopolistic practice, which harms progress.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Mac hardware is clearly inferior for high end gaming. Not surprisingly, Apple will try to push gamers to use external GPUs to skirt this problem. So I'm also surprised, that some demanding games get more sales on MacOS than on Linux.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Grim85Politics - there are microsoft published titles using UE4 (and probably DX12) - by all means they'll make vulkan a windows option, but I'd bet these politics will keep it not the default

Doesn't Tim Sweeney like to complain about MS? Going all way Vulkan sounds like an easy way to undermine some of MS hegemony.

View this comment - View article - View full comments