55 replies to this topic

[zedz]

One question, what are the totals? The percentage is lowering but are the numbers declining?

donno I think pc sales have been stagnant or slight growth (very low single digit) a year. Mac desktop IIRC has been growing an order of magnitude faster

heres the most recent figures I can find
http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/12/idc-and-gartner-pc-market-flattened-out-in-q2-2012/
-0.1% decline in growth, though mac numbers (which grew 12% are included in that) so PC numbers prolly shrunk by ~1% year on year, so yes windows PC numbers are shrinking

#3 well for indie game developers (like most ppl on this site), theres far more money in the android/IOS side of things than in the PC indie scene.

US numbers (in just under 4 years)
jan 2009 - windows (XP/vista/win7) 90.69%, apple (OSX,ios) 6.73%
nov 2012 - windows (XP/vista/win7) 76.87% apple (OSX,ios) 19.8% (OSX = 14.89%(*))

Yes MS (whom I think make the best desktop OS) are still king on the desk/lap/top, but the world is changing rapidly now, tablets,phones are ubiquitous. Perhaps the MS surface can change that, but I have my doubts. like the BBC website said so far reviews have been mixed the buzz so far is not there.

(*) i.e. the number of laptop/desktop mac's in the US has more than doubled in less than 4 years!

OK the numbers in china/india are like ~99% windows ~1% other, mainly due to piracy, but MS doesnt see much money from these pirated systemOS software

[sprezzatura]

Hear, hear... One of my favorite sayings is "Linux is free if your time is worth nothing" )

Now, I do respect OS X and Linux, but few people acknowledge the tremendous contribution to de facto standards that Microsoft has made over the years. The growth and proliferation of personal computing since 1983 is largely due to innovations in hardware, network speed, etc. This in turn has only been feasible because of a large market ready to pay cheaply for these innovations. The innovations are only affordable if they can be cranked out in large numbers, which requires standards.

Just like the Internet grew because of standards like TCP/IP, HTTP, etc., personal computing grew because Microsoft imposed hardware interface standards like GDI (that's Graphical Device Interface, not GUI) and many others. (Yes, I realize RFCs are democratic and developed by neutral committees, whereas Microsoft is a corporation, that's not the point.)

How many people have heard of WinHEC, much less attended one? Every year, Microsoft organizes the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, where hardware developers are thrown into an arena to test each other's products against the latest version of Windows. Microsoft engineers are on deck to answer questions, execute tests, etc. in a huge effort to get all that stuff to work right before it hits the consumer's home. Extensive technical documentation is available. This is the kind of thing that has insured that Windows works pretty good over the years, and continues to satisfy consumer and corporate needs.

I attended the 2003 WinHEC, and got within pie-throwing distance of Bill Gates. I was blown away by the scope and extent of the conference.

There's a lot to be said in favor of Apple's "black box" model, where all the hardware is produced by one single vendor. A lot of money that would have been spent on hardware compatibility testing, is instead spent on perfecting the software. Not many people seem to appreciate this enough to pay for it, however.

Edited by sprezzatura, 05 November 2012 - 07:29 AM.

[Badwolf1]

One question, what are the totals? The percentage is lowering but are the numbers declining?

One thing I dislike about this is, Linux crowd, where are your "killer aps"? Where are your "killer games"? All these years complaining and talking nonsense and yet, absolutely nothing to make me even think about trying the OS. Windows 8? I tried it as soon as I could. Linux(anything)...why bother?

Question two, Why even bother with something like Linux?

Question three, Why does it matter to game developers? I mean, Windows 8 is already a viable platform isn't it? Its almost as high as a 3DS, it just came out(!) and obviously higher than a PS Vita. Much higher than an Ouya will ever be. And in a year or two, much higher than this current gen of consoles put together. And that's just Windows 8(and its own Store).

My view is, MS is king on the PC. I have no reason to switch. I would like an ARM based fully functional Laptop tho. Not here yet. x86 Windows 8 Pro it is! =P

Question 1 (Well the second part of it): Because of the open source nature of GNU/Linux all of the good killer apps are ported to other platforms and so you really wont have a big reason in that reguard to switch to linux. Would like to know exactly what nonsense you feel like the Linux community is spreading but in the hope of preventing a war I'll leave it at that.

Question 2: For those looking for something different usually, I personally just got tired of jumping through hopes with Windows and didn't feel it worth my money to buy a new Windows licenes when I personally could accomplish anything I would want to do on Windows on GNU/Linux (and the hit in performance for running Windows games through wine was an acceptable loss for me). Also most people that actually make the switch don't do it if they are looking for it to be Windows if you love windows and it works for you then your most likely looking for a "Free" Windows which GNU/Linux is not it is its own OS and if your trying it with the attempt of it being a "Free" Windows your going to have a very hard time enjoying it.

Question 3: Windows 8's rules on the new Windows Store is where Game Development gets impacted most they have it pretty restrictive on what they allow into their store and thats were a lot of the concern for it is. Windows is also the OS of choice for low end computer manufactors so yes its going to get a lot of numbers based on that alone.

If you have no reason to switch and enjoy Microsoft congrats. I sincerely wish you the best of look in the future, but please don't think down on those that use GNU/Linux. I don't down on those that use Windows and Mac.

Edited by Badwolf1, 04 November 2012 - 04:21 PM.

[mhagain]

Question 2: For those looking for something different usually, I personally just got tired of jumping through hopes with Windows and didn't feel it worth my money to buy a new Windows licenes when I personally could accomplish anything I would want to do on Windows on GNU/Linux (and the hit in performance for running Windows games through wine was an acceptable loss for me). Also most people that actually make the switch don't do it if they are looking for it to be Windows if you love windows and it works for you then your most likely looking for a "Free" Windows which GNU/Linux is not it is its own OS and if your trying it with the attempt of it being a "Free" Windows your going to have a very hard time enjoying it.

There are two things in this part of your answer that display a quite significant cultural difference between Windows users and Linux (for the sake of brevity let's drop the "GNU/" bit -you know what I'm talking about) users.

One is that people who use Windows generally have an awful time on Linux but people who use Linux generally also have an awful time on Windows. This I believe is not reflective of either OS but actually more reflective of the people using them. Why? At a guess I'd say that it's because people don't migrate their way of working to the other OS. If you try to use Linux the same way as you try to use Windows you'll have a horrible time, and vice-versa.

Two is the "love Windows" bit. To a Windows user this is actually borderline incomprehensible; you don't love an OS, an OS is just a platform for running applications on and you love the cool things you can do with those applications.

[DavidGArce1337]

Question 1 (Well the second part of it): Because of the open source nature of GNU/Linux all of the good killer apps are ported to other platforms and so you really wont have a big reason in that reguard to switch to linux. Would like to know exactly what nonsense you feel like the Linux community is spreading but in the hope of preventing a war I'll leave it at that.

By the nonsense, I ment to the ones that say that it is better and hate on Windows. Maybe it runs "faster" or hogs less memory. But I already have a 5 year old lappy with 3GBs of RAM running Win7 and tested Win8 on and it runs just fine. But, yes. We should leave it at that.

Question 3: Windows 8's rules on the new Windows Store is where Game Development gets impacted most they have it pretty restrictive on what they allow into their store and thats were a lot of the concern for it is. Windows is also the OS of choice for low end computer manufactors so yes its going to get a lot of numbers based on that alone.

What don't they allow on the store that makes it pretty restrictive?

If you have no reason to switch and enjoy Microsoft congrats. I sincerely wish you the best of look in the future, but please don't think down on those that use GNU/Linux. I don't down on those that use Windows and Mac.

I don't think down on them. Just the fanatics. I like logic. And I don't see Linux as a viable platform to target for games. And that's the reason I run Windows, first.
I do see an Android type of PC in my future tho, and yes, I know, don't say it. But, it is different and more mainstream! jaja

[Shippou]

Interesting ... Linux is also incompatible with 99% of the software out there, with no good alternative of it's own.

Also I swear to the gods ... Linux programmers have no clue what a wizard is for, or how to implement them!

I only use Linux when it's absolutely necessary, preferring all my tools and toys that work perfectly well in Win XP.
I do admit I have a Linux emulator ... my Linux box is sitting in the garage, and hasn't been ran in almost 4 years now.

[Sik_the_hedgehog]

You're missing the core point though, which is that for the vast majority of end-users, OS is irrelevant.

Wrong, OS is very relevant, if the OS can't run the user's favorite program then expect that OS to be ditched immediately by said user - which is why Windows managed to keep its supremacy on PCs for so long, almost all PC programs are Windows-only.

It also doesn't help that Linux distros in general have completely sucky drivers - and it takes only one piece of hardware to not work properly for the user to ditch the entire OS. Video hardware? Sound hardware? Wireless network? Webcams? Etc., if it isn't hardware following some standard protocol, you're most likely going to be screwed, with some unusual exceptions (e.g. Nvidia proprietary drivers by general rule performing well).

Android is a great example of this. I see figures of something like 500 million devices, but of those, what percentage of users actually bought into it because of a Linux kernel?

Again, the kernel is not the OS, and in fact, in the case of Android it doesn't even matter because it's designed in such a way they could ditch Linux and replace it with any other kernel without any trouble. Everything is extremely sandboxed to care.

That said, using Linux did help Android at some point... I recall how there was this whole hype about Android using free software in an attempt to snatch users from iOS and J2ME phones (and it worked, look where's Android now). The problem though is that of course they never bothered to get their message right so both users and developers were given the thought that nobody should pay for anything on it - which is why even freemium struggles to make money there (at least it makes a lot less than on iOS).

That said, all this discussion aside, I think people stopped whining much about the new UI by this point. The real issue is that they're moving towards a walled garden much like Apple, and while they're leaving the desktop there for now, who knows what will happen to it in the future - especially if they get their way of replacing current PCs with the surface, at least for home use (which would make PCs spike in price if they become something considered only for work, which will only make things worse for those who don't want to be stuck to the walled garden).

It probably doesn't help that users these days think that the walled garden is the only way forwards not just for convenience but also for trust. Not like Linux distros didn't have something to fulfill said task already (repos, anyone?), but still.

Also jeez GDNet, fix your post editor, I keep getting annoyed at how it breaks newlines =/

Edited by Sik_the_hedgehog, 04 November 2012 - 06:39 PM.

[way2lazy2care]

Wrong, OS is very relevant, if the OS can't run the user's favorite program then expect that OS to be ditched immediately by said user - which is why Windows managed to keep its supremacy on PCs for so long, almost all PC programs are Windows-only.

That was his point o.O

[Badwolf1]

Interesting ... Linux is also incompatible with 99% of the software out there, with no good alternative of it's own.

Also I swear to the gods ... Linux programmers have no clue what a wizard is for, or how to implement them!

If its Windows/Mac only software then yes your going to run into a lot of incompatibility, however I do find that the community does try and do a good job of making either native solutions available (Libreoffice can open and save to just about any Windows word format I've needed) or create work arounds using CrossOver/Wine. However keep in mind looking at it from the other side you will rarely find an application in the Linux community that will not also run on Windows and in many cases Mac, just something to think about.

As for install wizards most distributions have package management systems which do a far better job of taking care of installs in my opinion however compiling from source when such a solution isn't available in the repository's does become a pain sometimes I'll admit.

[Badwolf1]

Question 1 (Well the second part of it): Because of the open source nature of GNU/Linux all of the good killer apps are ported to other platforms and so you really wont have a big reason in that reguard to switch to linux. Would like to know exactly what nonsense you feel like the Linux community is spreading but in the hope of preventing a war I'll leave it at that.

By the nonsense, I ment to the ones that say that it is better and hate on Windows. Maybe it runs "faster" or hogs less memory. But I already have a 5 year old lappy with 3GBs of RAM running Win7 and tested Win8 on and it runs just fine. But, yes. We should leave it at that.

Question 3: Windows 8's rules on the new Windows Store is where Game Development gets impacted most they have it pretty restrictive on what they allow into their store and thats were a lot of the concern for it is. Windows is also the OS of choice for low end computer manufactors so yes its going to get a lot of numbers based on that alone.

What don't they allow on the store that makes it pretty restrictive?

If you have no reason to switch and enjoy Microsoft congrats. I sincerely wish you the best of look in the future, but please don't think down on those that use GNU/Linux. I don't down on those that use Windows and Mac.

I don't think down on them. Just the fanatics. I like logic. And I don't see Linux as a viable platform to target for games. And that's the reason I run Windows, first.
I do see an Android type of PC in my future tho, and yes, I know, don't say it. But, it is different and more mainstream! jaja

The fanatics go with everything and I would agree that I'm just as tired of the whole "Mines better and greater then your's" responses as you I am sure are as well. They are unconstructive and just plain wrong in many cases. Yes you can tweak to make it boot faster and run a little faster but you usually can with any operating system if you know what your doing and in general it comes down more to the hardware then it does the operating system itself.

As for the store I'm not aware of the specifics so if someone more well informed then me would please answer this question I was just making a general statement from what I've read from others and the stores policys appear to be a hot topic.

I dont for see Linux itself become a main player without a big corporate backing however I do think operating systems based off Linux/Unix/FreeBSD will become more popular and its not that the OS itself can't be stable enough to be I just think that its more likely to be forked/split into a different project as Google did with Linux or Mac OS X did with FreeBSD.

Edited by Badwolf1, 04 November 2012 - 07:29 PM.

[TheChubu]

You're missing the core point though, which is that for the vast majority of end-users, OS is irrelevant. People don't actually care about it, they don't care about whether or not they can study and modify the source code; the one item that the open source communities value the most is something that most people don't actually give a flying one about.

Android is a great example of this. I see figures of something like 500 million devices, but of those, what percentage of users actually bought into it because of a Linux kernel? I'll give you a hint - it's less than 1. The important criteria for a smart phone are something more like: can it make calls? Can it send SMS? Can it take photos? Can I sync it with my email? Can I browse the web on it? Can I play Angry Birds on it? Answer "yes" to those and it doesn't matter if it runs on Unix, Windows or magic jellybeans - you've got a sale.

Android is not a victory for Unix; it's a victory for the applications and services provided by the platform, and if they weren't there it would have crashed and burned. None of this is about Unix versus Windows versus iOS versus whatever tomorrow's flavour of the month is; it's all about the applications and services you give to the user, and those run on the OS, they are not the OS itself.

Let me get this straight. So android isnt a "victory" for unix, everything that runs on ARM devices either, top 500 computers either, then what on Earth would you consider a "victory" for an OS? By your own terms, no OS is successful because no one cares about OSes, not Windows, nor iOS, nor anything.

A victory for an OS is to be the preferred platform to use when developing something, because that is what it is, a platform, what makes the hardware usable. And if being everywhere and used by everyone on every kind of hardware isn't a "victory", then what you would consider a victory? I just don't get it. What makes other OS for you more successful if you stated that OSes don't matter for the user?

You seem to dismiss everything on the basis that "no one cares", but that way it would be the same if we talked about Windows, Linux, Darwin, OS/2 or whatever thing out there that the end user doesn't sees directly. And if you're measuring success on a field where every single thing fails, maybe you should consider another field for comparison altogether.

Unless that is you wan't OS developers try to make the end user care about their OS that is...

Edited by TheChubu, 04 November 2012 - 09:59 PM.

[mhagain]

End-users don't care about their OS though - that is the thing. They care about what the OS lets them do, but the OS itself and as an OS - nope.

That makes Android a successful implementation of a modified Linux kernel with a decidedly non-Unixy front-end on it, but it shouldn't be read as being successful because it's Unix; it's successful because that non-Unixy front-end lets them do the smartphone-type stuff they want to do, and because Google did an awesome job of marketing it.

[SymLinked]

You're missing the core point though, which is that for the vast majority of end-users, OS is irrelevant. People don't actually care about it, they don't care about whether or not they can study and modify the source code; the one item that the open source communities value the most is something that most people don't actually give a flying one about.

Android is a great example of this. I see figures of something like 500 million devices, but of those, what percentage of users actually bought into it because of a Linux kernel? I'll give you a hint - it's less than 1. The important criteria for a smart phone are something more like: can it make calls? Can it send SMS? Can it take photos? Can I sync it with my email? Can I browse the web on it? Can I play Angry Birds on it? Answer "yes" to those and it doesn't matter if it runs on Unix, Windows or magic jellybeans - you've got a sale.

Android is not a victory for Unix; it's a victory for the applications and services provided by the platform, and if they weren't there it would have crashed and burned. None of this is about Unix versus Windows versus iOS versus whatever tomorrow's flavour of the month is; it's all about the applications and services you give to the user, and those run on the OS, they are not the OS itself.

Let me get this straight. So android isnt a "victory" for unix, everything that runs on ARM devices either, top 500 computers either, then what on Earth would you consider a "victory" for an OS? By your own terms, no OS is successful because no one cares about OSes, not Windows, nor iOS, nor anything.

Well, the kernel might be a modified version of the Linux kernel but nothing that is visible to the end user has anything to do with Linux. You got a useful UI in Android where you can do everything you need the O/S to do which is exactly the opposite of most, if not all, Linux distributions.

[TheChubu]

Well, the kernel might be a modified version of the Linux kernel but nothing that is visible to the end user has anything to do with Linux. You got a useful UI in Android where you can do everything you need the O/S to do which is exactly the opposite of most, if not all, Linux distributions.

I know, I'm not saying that the user cares or should care. All I am saying is why measure the success of something by saying "x group doesnt cares about y, thus is a fail" when the "x group" arent't the ones supposed to care?

You should measure OS success by asking about the people who actually deals with the OS. Hardware manufacturers, device designers, driver developers, etc. It shouldn't be surprising that Linux (or any other OS) "fails" to matter when its put against the end user, which is exactly the group of people who shouldn't care about that stuff.

The user doesn't cares about Linux. Yeah. So what its the point of that? Why is that considered a "fail" for Linux? The end user doesn't develops on top of Linux so why they should care anyway? It's a void statement. Like saying that cars fail because they can't fly. Well, they never were intended to fly in the first place, it may be an awful plane but it's a good car nevertheless.

Edited by TheChubu, 05 November 2012 - 06:16 PM.

[mhagain]

I think you're showing some binary thinking there - it's not a success for Linux qua Linux (by which I mean the common understanding of "GNU/Linux" the OS), but that doesn't automatically make it a fail either. What it definitely is however is a great example of one potential way forward - take the solid underpinnings and put something on top of them that actually is important and attractive to end users. So it's some kind of weird netherworld which is neither success nor failure, nor any point inbetween really - you don't see Android users going around using vi to edit .conf files, or fighting over which is better: KDE or Gnome, so they are not Linux users in the traditional sense but they are most definitely using the Linux kernel, even if they may not know it nor care about it.

It's clear that there are two different markets being discussed here; one is the Android market where we do have a successful implementation of the kernel + a new front-end, the other is the trad desktop market where by all standard criteria Linux can be said to have failed (although whether the kind of success this is measured by was ever an objective is another matter entirely).

[phantom]

These types of threads amuse me; people cheering the 'death' of microsoft and the rise of other platforms.... or as I like to think of it 'lolol fragmentation' because that's what you are looking at here.

And the amount of work and debugging which goes with it.

This is both desktop and mobile space too; Android devices of varying quality and spec seem to be vomited out at every turn and Apple seem to push hardware 'forward' at a faster rate (two iPads in a year, iPad mini and iPhone 5) with varying quality of OS updates to go with it.

At times my head hurts at the prospect of creating a renderer for 6 fixed hardware devices and iOS - god alone knows how this fragmentation is going to effect things.

I'm starting to think this is going to cause a slow down in the software industry more than anything and we'll end up replacing MS with Valve, Epic and Unity Technology being the only way independant developers can afford to push forward.

Competition might be good but mass fragmentation of the market certainly isn't...

[MA-Simon]

Steam is supposedly working on their own linux-game-platform-computer-thingy, no?

[TheChubu]

I think you're showing some binary thinking there - it's not a success for Linux qua Linux (by which I mean the common understanding of "GNU/Linux" the OS), but that doesn't automatically make it a fail either. What it definitely is however is a great example of one potential way forward - take the solid underpinnings and put something on top of them that actually is important and attractive to end users. So it's some kind of weird netherworld which is neither success nor failure, nor any point inbetween really - you don't see Android users going around using vi to edit .conf files, or fighting over which is better: KDE or Gnome, so they are not Linux users in the traditional sense but they are most definitely using the Linux kernel, even if they may not know it nor care about it.

It's clear that there are two different markets being discussed here; one is the Android market where we do have a successful implementation of the kernel + a new front-end, the other is the trad desktop market where by all standard criteria Linux can be said to have failed (although whether the kind of success this is measured by was ever an objective is another matter entirely).

Hm... Fair enough. Though in my view, the fact that Android users aren't messing around with .conf files is a good thing, since what is a Linux user shouldn't be defined by how much you have to twist the OS it to make it work (as long as you're free to do so if you want of course). Besides, while Android is pretty popular, and the PC Linux power user may be the "traditional user", there are a LOT of less popularized uses for Linux kernel, specially since its the OS of choice to run ARM stuff on (and I'm not talking about smartphones). The idea that a Linux user should be a living xorg.conf parser for him to be a "real" Linux user is pretty silly.

Steam is supposedly working on their own linux-game-platform-computer-thingy, no?

Yep. Its going to be released along Half Life 3.

Spoiler

Joke of course

Edited by TheChubu, 07 November 2012 - 09:06 PM.

[mhagain]

Well, editing .conf files was just an example off the top of my head to illustrate a point, and was not intended to be taken so literally.

I'm actually quite excited by Valve's Linux plans myself, and wish them huge luck with it all, even though it's of no personal relevance to me. Antipathy to a platform should not be confused with opposition to it, I guess.

[Sik_the_hedgehog]

Steam is supposedly working on their own linux-game-platform-computer-thingy, no?

Yep. Its going to be released along Half Life 3.

Spoiler

Joke of course

I'm going to laugh if this happens for real.