Was just trawling through the report from 'Wine Conf 2006' (Wine is a compatibility layer that allows Windows programs to run on Linux, and more recently Mac) looking for information on how they are going to handle Vista/DirectX10. What I found was actually a little more exciting:
Wine Website - WineConf Report wrote: Direct3D10, which will ship with Windows Vista in a few months, doesn't seem to be a large cause for concern. At first glance it appears to be more of an evolutionary change rather than revolutionary. New shader support will be needed, but extending ours once OpenGL supports it should be pretty easy. Stefan mentioned Microsoft is currently offering a lot of incentives for Windows developers who develop D3D10-only games since they'll only be usable on Vista - there's no plan to backport D3D10 to XP. Dan Kegel asked if that means we should port Wine's forthcoming D3D10 implementation to Windows, which would be relatively easy when we switch to WGL.
So what Microsoft are planning is to force people to upgrade to Vista so they can play their favourite games (a reason many people stay away from Linux). But what the Wine guys are proposing is to create a version for Windows, so Vista/DirectX10 only games will work fine under XP.
As many people don't seem to be that interested in upgrading, this might not bode well for Microsoft. That's if they do it of course. Generally Open Source is governed by what people are demanding, so if I may speculate: there's a good chance this will happen.
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timjpriebe posted this at 12:59—17th October 2006.
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Of course, the other factor is the general public's knowledge of Wine. If 95% of gamers who play those types of games don't know about Wine, then the overall impact it will have will not be great.
On the other hand, it will help those of us who know about it. Who cares about those other guys, anyway?
Tim
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 15:34—17th October 2006.
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Word gets around gamer communities fast. They can be very quick to pick up on smarter software, such as, for example, many did early on in using Firefox or Opera in place of IE. Should Wine turn out to be a viable option for some games, even those a little less in-demand, I'm sure they'd learn about it rapidly.
For me, it still doesn't resolve the problems that, largely, the games and the host operating system (drivers included) will be non-free, so I won't be using the new Wine -- cool as it is -- in that context.
abhishek.geek.nz
JeevesBond posted this at 15:47—18th October 2006.
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But you would use it in a different context, like running Windows programs and games under Linux? Or are you one of those Free software only types?
Personally I mix Free and non-Free, I have the Microsoft codecs installed, RealPlayer and Flash. I always find that it's the non-Free software that causes problems on my machine. If something's going to crash, it'll probably be proprietary!
Am using Wine on Linux to run one game from when I was a Windows user: Eve Online. There are plenty of great games that work under Linux natively too ( http://www.happypenguin.org ), Eternal Lands is particularly good.
Agreed with Abhi that gamers will pick up on this if it happens, especially since they can save some money by not having to buy Windows Vista. Overall it's good for the GNU+Linux community because it'll get people familiar with Wine, when they know their games work under Wine, they won't have an issue moving to a Linux distribution.
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 16:40—18th October 2006.
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The context I foresee is testing code I write, for portability to Wine-compatible platforms. Since this thread is about games, I was reminded of an idea I had for a small game that I may just get to writing by the time Wine is established (if at all) on Windows. I agree it'll be an awesome way to lengthen the reach of free software.
In any event, I won't be using Windows myself, so I won't care much for wiring XP-compatibility for DX10 games through Wine.
Ideally, I would use only free software, but I don't really. Though in its natural state my system doesn't have much non-free stuff anyway, I am working to gradually remove what I can live without.
The big non-free pieces I use are Flash and Java. The latest Flash player available for GNU/Linux is already obsolete, so it'll be totally useless soon enough. Sun's JVM is mandated by uni, but I've begun phasing in Kaffe as a replacement, partly with the aim of working on Kaffe myself.
I don't use the non-free binary driver for my graphics card. I have no use (yet) for 3D acceleration or compositing. I'm irrationally confident that a suitable free driver will be developed before I'll need it.
I have video codecs lying around somewhere too, plus some unused open-source but non-free packages. I never get around to cleaning that lot out as it isn't easy to filter files by what licence they're under.
Happypenguin is a godsend!
abhishek.geek.nz
JeevesBond posted this at 16:47—22nd October 2006.
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But Gnash is being worked on! They've got another release coming out soon and it's relatively stable from what I hear.
I thought Sun were going to 'Free' that peice of software. http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6072760.html
One thing that aggrivates me is that breaking the region encoding and CSS on a DVD is illegal. Especially since I've moved to Canada, now none of the DVD's I bought in England will work here. Ridiculous destruction of consumer rights!
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 19:54—22nd October 2006.
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True, it's a very neat project. But way behind Flash 8, 9 or whatever is current or soon will be. Often you get Flash movies that refuse to play if your player isn't appropriate, regardless of actual capability. And then there is the growing population of truly incompatible movies.
Either way, my concern for Flash is waning. Between the renewed interest in Javascript on the web, and increasing support for SVG among browsers, I suspect there is an even better alternative awaiting its time.
They've been saying so since 2004, if not earlier. Their excuse has always been that they haven't figured out "how", citing worries such as breaking compatibility as apparently "any old person can check in" code. That's indicative of either a massive misinterpretation of FLOSS methodologies, or -- call me cynical -- a flimsy apology for a marketing ploy.
(You'll notice that around May 2006, Sun made a couple of well-timed announcements regarding relicensing Java binaries for easier distribution only, and speculating about open-sourcing the VM. This gave rise to a misconception that all of Java had suddenly gone open source.)
Anyway, I like Kaffe for other reasons than freedom, too. Because it's a clean-room implementation, is easily examined, and smaller and lighter, it's just more interesting to delve into. While wholesome in compatibility up to v1.4, it's behind Sun's pace at 1.5 (soon 1.6), making it ideal for a student to use and study practically.
abhishek.geek.nz
JeevesBond posted this at 18:55—23rd October 2006.
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Good point, but there are a couple of problems holding this back:
*snigger* Good old Stallman, good book too. It really does seem like the bloke who invented Java just doesn't *get* OSS. He's complaining because projects occassionally fork?! That usually only happens due to extreme frustration (or to fulfill a need that's not within the original projects scope--in which case: who cares?!); it's not as if OpenOffice or Firefox get forked every week.
As for the: 'any old person can check in' thing, even I know that changes are merged into a projects trunk by a few maintainers, even in distributed version control systems like Bazaar, or git.
I would have expected someone who's so high profile to have a little more sense!
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JeevesBond posted this at 19:00—23rd October 2006.
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About Kaffe:
Eh? It's a just a JVM isn't it?! You throw Java at it and it does stuff? You're making it sound like it can execute your code, do a little dance then go and make you a nice cup of tea.
Another thing I'm a little confused about: do you make use of runtime debugging? Have you got it working in emacs?
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 05:06—24th October 2006.
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It's a JDK -- includes a JVM/JRE, compiler, debugger, and assorted goodies. And you're right, it's not all that interesting from a user's perspective. I'm experimenting with its internals, though, using my freedoms to modify the program and study how it works.
I sometimes use the debugger (jdb) through Eshell in Emacs. It's just like running it in a terminal. The Java mode I use does have integration with jdb, but I haven't explored that.
Frankly, I don't use Java enough to work with most of its interesting features. The main reason I'm getting into Kaffe is to survive university with a shred of sanity.
abhishek.geek.nz
JeevesBond posted this at 17:39—25th October 2006.
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Clever git.
What's it written in C/C++?
At some point I'll be doing some Java work, have been using Netbeans just for learning purposes (no hassle setup). Eventually I'll be using the only real editor (Vim), it would be good to do debugging within the editor, but I doubt it's going to be possible. Although if Emacs can do it, Vim should be able to do it better!
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Renegade posted this at 19:51—25th October 2006.
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Uh Oh, I can feel this becoming a Vim is better than Emacs debate
Cheng Eu Chew - Renegade
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JeevesBond posted this at 21:19—25th October 2006.
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Lol, am pretty sure I've tried baiting Abhi on the subject of Vim Vs. Emacs before, and he didn't respond.
I'm not actually really zealous about Vim, and have barely used Emacs so am not really in a position to comment. I do find the whole rivalry thing very funny though. They are, after all, just text editors.
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 00:27—26th October 2006.
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Mostly C, with bits of Java.
You mean an Emacs is better than Vim debate?
Really, I don't think Emacs is perfect, nor do I presume it's the best thing for everyone -- or indeed anyone other than me. An essential factor in its being powerful comes from the user's knowing how to use it, and investing time and effort for the purpose.
That applies to pretty much any program, really. So I have no doubt that many Vim users can do things more efficiently than I can with Emacs. Or that -- to state the obvious -- many Mac OS/Windows/BSD/$distro/whatever users run cleaner, faster, more stable systems than my GNU/Linux, and so on.
Though I'd used Vim for several months before learning Emacs, I hardly became expert at it, so I have no detailed knowledge of its capabilities. Not enough to enter a debate with, anyway. Plus there's a new version (7?) that I've never used.
abhishek.geek.nz