The Microsoft Teams client is the first Office app that is coming to Linux desktops, and will support all of Teams’ core capabilities.

This is the part that interested me. I didn't even know about this "Teams" software. But Microsoft Office is still a big limiting factor for Linux. Word, Power Point and Excel on Linux would be huge.

Of course, what I really want is for Office to stop shitting all over standards and making their files incompatible with every other software.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: SalvatosThe CYOA company is probably just angry because unlike Kleenex and others, a lot of people don’t even realize that it’s a brand and not a generic term, so they don’t get as much promotional value from other companies keeping the term alive.

The fact that people don't even realize it refers to your brand is probably the best possible argument for something not being a trademark.

Quoting: CFWhitmanI wanted to point out that trademark law is probably the most supportable form of so-called "intellectual property." Trademark law is a consumer protection law. The purpose of trademark is to prevent dishonesty in the marketplace. Trademark is a way of making sure that you are dealing with the company that you think you are. Without it, anyone could pretend to be representing a company that they have nothing to do with. With trademark you know that the mayonnaise that you bought is Hellman's or Cain's, the car you bought is a Toyota or a Chevrolet, etc. Without it you can't be sure of any of these things.

Does this mean that trademark is never abused? Of course not. I pointed out things that I thought were abuses in a previous post. That doesn't mean that trademark is a bad thing overall.

The best argument against this trademark is that protection for it wasn't pursued diligently enough in the years between when the books were popular and just recently. The phrase may seem generic now, but it was quite original back when the books were first introduced.

Except it fails spectacularly at any of this. It is never a case of consumers suing, it is the company. It works to stop what should be legitimate uses of descriptive phrases, fair use of character names, and the use of symbols and terms that are useful to the public. It is like a soft copyright more than anything.

And it doesn't even get close to preventing consumer confusion. That one would take much more burdensome regulation on what forms of marketing, brands, slogans and packaging are acceptable. If you want people to know what they are buying, having several brands with the same owner is a no-go. Full disclosure of production chains and affiliations should be strictly required. Changes to products and packaging should be even more heavily regulated.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: PangaeaSome nice rebates, but with GOG not bothering to release the Stardew Valley update for days on end, I refuse to spend a single cent there.

Stardew Valley was one game I bought on GOG and that I regret not getting on Steam instead.

I quite like a lot about GOG, but Linux support has fallen behind a lot, which makes the comparison to Steam even more one-sided. Steam got us Proton, GOG doesn't bother to get incremental updates, betas, or even their multiplayer system into Linux. For now, I'm taking the stance that GOG is good only for the really old games.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I would say this story is a good example of the benefits we could have from games being FOSS. The game has a longstanding bug that should be fixed on the game code (rather than worked around in drivers), but the developer has no Linux developers left to fix it and not really any interest in the Linux copy. However, technical savvy users have found the bug and identified what fix would be needed, and are even willing to do onerous stuff like recompiling the entire graphics driver to solve it. But they have no access to the game source code and no way to distribute the fix if they had (yes, it would be necessary; we couldn't rely on the developers maintaining the game, after all).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: EikeEveryone's their own of course, but I'm surprised how many people state no interest at all in Red Dead Redemption 2.

The big AAA games (which are all action games, shooters, or action RPGs) get disproportionate media attention. Sure, they are big, but if we add together all the small niches that are ignored it also becomes huge. Or in other words, a lot of people are interested in that but not the actual majority.

Also, we have a biased sample here. People that are super interested in running such games are, on average, less likely to play games on Linux.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Absolutely nothing I might be remotely interested in. As expected.

More interesting: what games on that list do not have working Linux ports yet? This could help answer the first of the two big questions - are games getting ports because of Stadia. The second question will have to wait a little more - whether those games release for Linux desktops or not.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

If it doesn't interfere with the traditional model - and I can't imagine Valve would risk that - I'm not against it. Might even perhaps use it one day, for the rare exceptional game, if my internet ever becomes good enough.

The ideal would be for them to just provide a server and you install your game there and everything is the same as if you were running the game itself - even install folders, mods, etc.

But even in that best of cases, I'm a bit afraid of games coming to rely on that kind of thing. Games should be made with PC specs in mind. Preferrably cheap PC specs. I already find it outrageous the kind of system requirements new games require.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I personally wouldn't use either a chromium derivative or a Microsoft browser instead of Firefox, but still... better than the alternative.

If they were rebuilding Edge based on chromium, and they removed the Linux compatibility that was already there, it would be bad. And it is what Apple would do, or what Microsoft did several times in the past. So, yay, they didn't ruin things even more this time. (Ironically, Google is the one that is adopting the traditional Microsoft strategy of incorrectly implementing standards because as market leader this punishes small competitors that do things right).

Now, if they ported Microsoft Office to Linux, that I would be interested in. Not that I want to use it (for my limited use, Libre Office is more than good enough), but it might be necessary for collaboration, and it would make transitioning to Linux a lot smoother.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: KimyrielleHonestly, if there is a sound technical reason to run some games in the cloud that's not just a DRM measure, be my guest. At least that wouldn't be "we're exclusive because we love to have a monopoly". At the same time I expect 90+% of all games to still run just fine on a local PC in the future. Not all games are like MS Flight Simulator. The visuals contemporary games can achieve even without the cloud is already amazing, and Moore's Law dying or not, local PCs will still get more powerful over time. I am really curious if Google will make JUST the games cloud-dependent that REALLY need it. Let's just say I believe it when I see it. Google has said goodbye to "Don't be evil!" years ago, so...

I am too cynical to accept "sound technical reasons" in this kind of stuff. Even if there is a real demand that can be solved that way, when the person in charge has a vested interest in pushing that particular "solution" it becomes just an excuse. They end up creating problems just so they can sell the answer, and often killing other alternatives.

In this case they aren't talking about one thing they always wanted to do but it is only possible with this technology. They are specifically looking for anything that is only possible with this technology so they can justify their draconian DRM and "you don't own games" system.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: TazzaNone of this will do *anything* for Linux gaming.

Depends on your point of view, it's yet another way to play games without needing Windows. Regardless of how certain people feel about the nature of cloud gaming, it's an option.

On my point of view, it might not require Windows but it is not playing on Linux either.

Not that you shouldn't cover it on the site, I like knowing about it and here is one of the best sources.

But as far as being an alternative, if I wanted to play games that don't run on my Linux system I'd just dual boot Windows. Having a Linux server somewhere that gives me even less freedom than Windows is not an advantage, especially if the game is exclusive to this model and it doesn't even result in a port I could use.

View this comment - View article - View full comments