>>>> (Actually, at the time I tried out klogic, we *did* have an Internet
>>>> connection, but I didn't even bother to *attempt* to make it work
>>>> under Linux. Making the "simple" stuff work was hard enough...)
>>> Well, then, there's really no excuse for not submitting bugs, is there?
>>> ;-)
>> How do you figure that?
> 
> Because you're on the 'net now?

And I don't use klogic any more?

>>> Tux Racer has been around for dog's ages (the last *update* is 7 years
>>> ago, in fact).  "Not much" isn't a good assessment unless you've bought
>>> into the FUD.
>> I guess for a suitable definition of "not much" you could argue it
>> doesn't apply. After all, 3 is greater than 4 for sufficiently large 3.
>> :-P
> 
> It's not 6, let's put it that way.  It's a number significantly larger 
> than 6.  Go up to freshmeat.net and do a search on "games" and see how 
> many hits you get.  That's a *start*.  Go look at the online repositories 
> for OSS games for openSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.  That's a start.
> 
> The way you write, you make it sound like there's maybe 1 or 2 or maybe 
> even *gasp* as many as 10 whole games for Linux.  There are probably 
> thousands that run natively, and hundreds to thousands more that will run 
> under something like WINE or reasonably within a current release of 
> VMware.

I guess it depends on whether you consider XTetris to be a "game".

Sure, there are about 25,000 Mahjong clones for Linux. But how many 
large-scale games are there?

(If I'm not mistaken, there's one newish FPS that works on Linux - I 
think it might be a member of the Unreal series. Doom has been ported, 
but that's pretty tame by now. And there's Tux Racer...)

>> I'm not saying it's impossible to make cross-platform games. But when
>> you have a huge codebase invested in DirectX, it would be tantamount to
>> a complete rewrite to move to OpenGL. (Plus Valve games make use of lots
>> of advanted stuff like DirectX 10. Guess where that's supported...)
> 
> If you want broader platform support, then it becomes an investment to 
> look into.

Sure. And some day, there will probably be a lot more stuff for Linux 
than there currently is. All I said was that today there isn't a vast 
amount of stuff yet.

> And companies are doing it, as you said, Valve releases games 
> that are native on Linux now.  There must be money in it or they wouldn't 
> invest.

Valve don't release games for Linux. They make the game *servers* 
available for Linux. As far as anyone knows, there are no plans to ever 
make the games themselves available for Linux, or any other platform 
that isn't Microsoft.

Other developers, though, may have other plans...

>> Of course, why would complexity be any obsticle to comprehending
>> something?
> 
> It shouldn't be an obstacle to trying to comprehend it.
> 
> If you start with "this is so incredibly complex I'll never understand it 
> so why even bother starting to look at it", then sure, it's going to look 
> damned impossible.  You won't understand it overnight, but you can learn 
> about it over time.

Sure. A system designed by several thousand designers and programmers 
over the course of decades. A system that is *purposely designed* to be 
difficult to understand. Sounds simple to me. :-P

>>> Reverse-engineering is not generally illegal.
>> Sure. The fact that the EULA says "you may not reverse engineer this"
>> doesn't make it illegal at all. No sir.
> 
> EULAs are AFAIK not court-tested.

OK, fair enough...

>> Given how painfully difficult it is just working out how to *use* the
>> Win32 API, the chances of somebody correctly implementing a clone of it
>> seem vanishingly small.
> 
> Difficult for you != difficult for everyone on the planet.  'nuff said.

Alright, whatever...

> <sigh>  Again, it's not the specifics, it's the concepts.  A more complex 
> OS just takes more time and manpower.  That doesn't make it impossible.  
> If it wasn't impossible, WINE woudn't exist.  WINE exists.  Therefore, 
> it's possible.

And exactly how many thousand people are working on WINE?

>> I don't see anything in the FAQ about legallity.
> 
> I was sure there was something in there.  No matter, look at Mono - it 
> also addresses the patent issue.  Mono is a reimplementation of the .NET 
> framework - incidentally, done (I believe) through clean-room reverse-
> engineering.

Interesting - I was under the impression that it was an ISO "standard" now.

> So please stop saying "it's impossible!" when clearly it isn't because 
> it's being done.

Well if you want to be *technical* about it, what I *actually* said was 
"it's impressive because it should be impossible".

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