Re: Reasons not to fear Linux game development

[Andres Tarallo <atarallo@chasque.apc.org>]

>

            Most of the time I read the list, as I found no time to answer and
put some kind of stuff that could be valid for others.

              As I really liked this effort from rob I decide to make a
critical lecture of It, and write down some coments, please apologize me for my
english (my mother tongue is spanish)

> I* Fast growing user install base
>
> Relatively recent projects such as <KDE> and <Gnome> are bringing Linux to
> the desktop. Alhough the install base of Linux cannot be measured precisely
> because the OS is freely available, estimations vary from anywhere between 5
> and 10 million users. A growing number, only surpassed by Windows and MacOS
> in size and unmatched in growth rate. A <survey (link needs to be resolved
> at /.)> concluded that the growth of Linux in 1998 was 238% and it is
> unlikely to stop growing with all the momentum it has been getting lately.

                    This is true,  we're growing really fast. What might be of
interest of the people who're reading thisstuff if the profile of linux users,
I mean ¿Do fanatic gammers use linux? ¿Where is deployed linux? The situation
in my home town (Montevideo, Uruguay) is as follows, most local ISP have at
least one linux box, a few are 100 % based in linux. Outside there we have many
servers (mostly samba) for printer and disk shearing

> * There IS money in Linux
>
> Because most programs for Linux are available for free just like the OS
> itself, many developers conclude there is no money in the platform. However,
> there is a huge lack of quality games for Linux. It might be true that open
> source developed application can reach and surpass the quality of commercial
> ones, this has not been the case for games. There are virtually no high
> quality games for Linux at the moment and thus there is a huge opportunity
> here.
>
> It is also not true that all Linux users refuse to pay for software: many of
> them use commercial distributions. The idealism that all software should be
> bundled with its source code and should be allowed to be freely copied can
> never be forced upon a vendor and does not apply to the majority of desktop
> users: they are not fanatics refusing to run any propriairty software.

                                I really agree with this point, even thought
that there are some religious fanatics that refuse to use whatever has a line
of non-GPL code. Let's see what happend in the next months with  wordperfect
and the rest of comercial software.

> * Developing for Linux as investement
>
> By developing software for Linux one would make an investement in a fast
> growing and very popular operating system. At the end of 1999 many database
> products were said to be ported to the operating system. By doing so, the
> vendors made sure that their names were known in the Linux community inthe
> likely case that Linux would continue to grow and establish itself as viable
> alternative. It is very important to see a new market when it emerges to
> stay ahead of the competors - or not to fall behind - and to maintain a
> market share or even expand it.

                I think you mean 1998, this is an important fact, what could be
ofo interest is the availiabilty of free high quality cross platform libraries
aimed to games development such as the one developed by Sam Lantinga.

                Bye
                                        Andres Tarallo