Tim Sweeney, co-founder Epic Games and architect of the Unreal engine, isn’t happy with Microsoft’s new Universal Windows Platform:
With its new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) initiative, Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10, as the first apparent step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem and monopolising app distribution and commerce.
[…]
This isn’t like that. Here, Microsoft is moving against the entire PC industry – including consumers (and gamers in particular), software developers such as Epic Games, publishers like EA and Activision, and distributors like Valve and Good Old Games.
Microsoft has launched new PC Windows features exclusively in UWP, and is effectively telling developers you can use these Windows features only if you submit to the control of our locked-down UWP ecosystem. They’re curtailing users’ freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers.
Microsoft was given the opportunity to respond in another The Guardian article, stating:
In response to Sweeney’s allegations, Kevin Gallo, corporate vice president of Windows at Microsoft, told the Guardian: “The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store. We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX required.”
We’ll see how this plays out, but Microsoft has a horrible history when it comes to these things.
…people should invest a little effort to make a true Windows alternative viable, live and kicking. It’s “only” a matter of a few months to make, say, desktop Linux a reality. It “only” requires a little plan, expectation, definition, coding. With millions of angry coders out there, the “revolution” is near.
It’s partly a case of “80% of people only trip 20% of the bugs, but no two people trip the same 20%”…
http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.deskt…
…and partly that some of the most pressing problems are only quick and easy to solve if you have access to the source for the AMD and nVidia binary drivers. Otherwise, be prepared to bring Mesa up to parity.
(But, mostly, it’s about quality control. There are a ton of little papercut issues, most projects don’t have a regression suite of sufficient comprehensiveness in place, and Linux has a LOT of exchangeable pieces, so you’re basically fighting a rearguard action against integration bugs.)
…and, geeks being skilled, independent-minded problem-solvers, we’re far more vulnerable to having bike-shedding grind progress to a crawl or even a halt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikeshedding
(Essentially, open-source development has the same strengths and weaknesses as the scientific method… we just also have a viable competitor to deal with.)
Edited 2016-03-04 22:14 UTC
Like the reference to scientific method.
I suppose – while natural biological evolution has done wonderous things “accidentally” in responding to natural selective force, it’s generally glacially slow unless a dormant advantageous mutation exists within a population already..
Whereas even the slow (highly overlapping,, many small increments,, building on the often narrow shoulders of almost innumerable small giants) progress of the scientific method (in bulk), and similarly by extension that of open source development is nevetheless highly speedy – progress within single lifetimes even!!
I suppose in this kind of thought context/comparison Microsoft, Apple and the rest of closed source are basically “Gods” with will, intent, design even! And with enough money and power to do the whole complete in 7 days thing! 😉
No doubt about the force that money has to ‘make things happen’. In a way that a ‘confluence of wills’ would not.
Problem with this concept is that ‘Money Wishes’ are quite often… Unwise.
It has “always” been mostly about pre-installations. The alternative OS being the best OS ever doesn’t help anything when 99% of new PCs comes with Windows pre-installed. The OS revolution would need significant actions from PC manufacturers. One “developer edition” Dell laptop with Ubuntu is obviously not enough.
Even super-limited Chromebooks sell relatively well nowadays. Why? Because you can actually buy them and play with them in a computer store.
And don’t forget about all the… games and/or professional software “only” available on Windows. If one want to switch to another platform, one loose the acquired for the unknown with average quality, unmaintened applications, etc.
Hi,
Actually; it’s not that hard to install 2 or more OSs on the same computer (e.g. and dual boot between Windows and Linux).
For normal applications this is a pain in the neck because you can’t do things like (e.g.) cut & paste from one application (that runs on Windows) into another application (that happens to be running on Linux). However, games are different – the user is rarely using multiple applications while playing games (and simple things like web browsers work fine on Linux).
Mostly; I think the 2 biggest problems with Linux is that Vulkan isn’t quite there yet (and OpenGL doesn’t compete well with DirectX12); and what I’ll call the “flock of headless chickens syndrome” (where nobody is managing the project and everyone does whatever they feel like and the end result is “lacking consistency”).
– Brendan
Used this feature many years. Since UEFI you boot actually from Microsoft code. Even if booting into Linux.
Good will -and only that- has prevented alternative [‘compatible’? -what a euphemism!-] OS from catastrophe.
About how Competence and Anti Monopoly Law Enforcers stood aside and watched this fought and lost miserable war.
In memoriam of Ian.
JLF65,
Back when all the Secure Boot fury was happening, MS saved the day and required manufacturers to offer a way to turn it off. Now that the uproar has faded, MS silently reversed it’s position so that manufacturers no longer need to support or allow non-MS keys. I think MS would love to require manufacturers to do this, but I don’t see how MS could get away with that without committing major antitrust violations.
I’m not at all happy with this situation. More and more linux installs will be dependent upon booting underneath an MS bootloader just because that’s how new computers are shipping. Some computers need windows just to get into the bios
Edited 2016-03-06 22:37 UTC
UEFI is not Microsoft code, it’s Intel and BIOS-vendor code. But the widely distributed certificate authority (for the signed code that the BIOS will run without asking) is from Microsoft.
?>BiosV>Intel|Amd>Microsoft|Apple>Linux ???
[Just putting my aluminum hat, Lenny]
😉
…>Dell|HP|IBM|Lenovo ???
Not intending to minimize your contribution.
…|Lenovo>Linux ?????
🙂
Also missing here are Motherboard manufacturer’s ‘optimizations’…
But you are correct, the Linux vendors currently depend on Microsoft to make it easier for users to install Linux. Because new PCs come with UEFI ‘safe boot’ enabled.
While this is an issue, there are a significant majority of ‘Windows only’ games and software that work almost perfectly under Wine. The issue is that too many developers don’t see any value there because they either
* View people who use Linux as cheap (which is funny, because I see more Linux users with high end hardware than I do Windows users, even among gamers).
* Think they need a different version for each desktop environment (pick a GUI toolkit, stick to the XDG specs for interacting with the desktop, and things will work 99% of the time).
* Think they need to worry more about dependencies (spec for a minimum kernel version, and then take the same approach as Steam or Chrome and install your own dependencies independent of the rest of the system).
They come up with excuses that have obvious answers if you actually pay attention. In fact, the only excuse I’ve heard from any game developer that is actually valid is that OpenGL performance is horrible on Linux (Mesa is only 3.2 compliant, and the NVIDIA and AMD drivers often get worse performance than software rendering), and even that is a bit of a cop out, because truly good games shouldn’t need amazing graphics.
Have inverted their whole working life along with Microsoft, Kochise.
Would prefer MS Corp. to near and truly hear them. The last remains of confidence they have on the parent company are -indeed- the ultimate treasure.
Please consider the following : Microsoft if full of great people, impressive profiles, die-hard fans of excellence. The problem remains the top leading staff that jeopardize their future on stockholders’ wishes.
On their top leaders. Still the best theory on the demise of Mayan Civilization.
I had my mother in law run Ubuntu for years. She love it. But then she ran into trouble with graphic drivers being pulled (only to have them redistributed later without necessary graphic acceleration) and Unity killed it all – that thing is seriously horrible.
It’s possible to live life without Windows. I’m on OSX these days, but used to run Linux exclusively – until I got tired of not playing games or running Photoshop. These days you can run many games on Linux or OSX (through Steam) and there are decent Photoshop alternatives.
Well, it takes ages to get decent alternatives.
As for graphic drivers, it is sad there are only a few makers. Why not an open hardware based model created and crafted by the community ? Much like the 3D printers being sold even though their schematics are available for free ?
People have actually tried this before. The Open Graphics Project is severely behind design wise (if they’re even active still, their main site appears to be gone). Nyuzi is the only other general purpose design I’ve seen (most of the open source hardware GPU designs are highly domain specific, such as the 2D rendering accelerator on the Milkymist One video synthesizer), and that appears to be intended as a workstation/HPC GPU (in other words, it appears to be targeted for OpenCL, not OpenGL).
The general problem with this though is that efficient hardware for such a specific purpose is hard. Even looking at CPU’s, which are generally simpler to design because they are by definition general purpose hardware, there are exponentially fewer open source designs than there are proprietary ones (regardless of whether you are considering ISA or individual physical designs).
Now, with that said, the bigger issue is not that there are so few manufacturers, it’s that they all have significant issues they refuse to address:
* NVidia: Horrible OpenGL and 2D acceleration performance (every system I’ve run Linux on with an NVIDIA GPU has gotten better performance for almost everything by disabling all hardware acceleration and using the GPU as a simple frame buffer).
* AMD: Same issue as above, as well as lagging severely behind kernel development, although they appear to be trying to move to in-tree driver development, which should help some.
* Intel: Depends on Mesa for OpenGL (which means they only have OpenGL 3.2), but refuses to support the new driver architecture in Mesa (which means they’re eventually going to be stuck on OpenGL 3.2).
* Matrox: essentially irrelevant for gaming as they target integrated GPU’s on server systems and therefore have generally bad 3D performance.
That covers all the big ones for x86 who are still in business. On embedded systems though, there are as many GPU manufacturers as there are SoC manufacturers (short list: NVidia, Intel, Allwimmer, TI, Broadcom, ARM holdings, Rensas, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, there are dozens more), and they generally do better on average than any of the desktop hardware manufacturers (except that they lag even further on average than AMD does).
You got that backwards. General purpose CPUs are harder to design and test than application specific co-processors.
If this didn’t happen in the last 25 years, the chance for it to happen in the next months is zero. As a Linux desktop user myself, I do not expect *ever* for a Linux distro to emerge as a mainstream Windows desktop replacement.
Very likely SteamOS will become a Windows gaming alternative, but it won’t be a *general purpose* desktop OS (can you imagine a company running it?). Also, there will be various distros running the Steam client, but they will remain niche.
Indeed. Windows won the desktop battle, it has a near monopoly of it. Trying to win that space, right now, would be a massive waste of time and effort. Like someone trying to “win” the minicomputer market in 1980 as the IBM PC was rolling out. That being said, linux desktops make great workstations.
The big growth areas, in computing, are elsewhere. And microsoft is either irrelevant there, or reduced to a secondary status.
Were not that many years, after all. But all that MS learning feels unreal. In a way I don’t feel for what I have learned about Linux.
are… are you a bot?
Funny thing is, many here don’t remember a point in time when companies used to use unix workstations all the time. The only reason that stopped is the cost was horrendous and so MS swooped in and provided a workable solution at a huge difference in price.
I disagree: the main reason was the applications: on Windows were a lot more applications, they were easier to develop (including by internal teams), more user friendly and cheaper. Even to this day, people do not run Windows because they like Windows (by the contrary), but because Windows runs the apps they need/want.
Something they should be really proud of.
And because Windows is cheaper than Apple OSX.
If Google can work the right mix of Chrome and Android they have a shot. Users want a recognizable brand, and an app ecosystem. Google can provide both.
Linux desktop is already a reality. Please install one.
Which all explains valve’s steam box.
Explains why game developers should prioritise developing for it and gamers should use it.
I would use the Steambox except for two problems:
1. I’m much more willing to fight with desktop glitches than to get a whole second machine or dual-boot.
(Fixing or working around a desktop bug inconveniences me once. Switching to another machine/partition inconveniences me every time I want to game… that’s one reason why I bought a Retrode2 and play my cartridges and PSX CDs on an emulator… another being using save states to skip the unskippable vanity logos on games.)
2. Despite owning over 600 CD-ROMs and over 2500 digital downloads (~100 game overlap), I’d sooner quit gaming cold-turkey than use a DRM platform like Steam. I insist on OWNING my games and being used to playing the same builds I can archive.
…and that’s no idle threat. Despite having amassed roughly 550 CD-ROM games by 2005, I still quit gaming cold-turkey when I got fed up with Windows XP and switched to Linux.
Part of the reason my walls are so coated in used novels is that it took the first Humble Indie bundle followed by a GOG sale on Psychonauts (which runs perfectly in Wine) in February of 2011 to lure me back into gaming.
1. Doesn’t make any sense. You can install a version of Linux with a full desktop and then run Steam on that. You don’t have to use Steam’s OS to run Steam on Linux… though on SteamOS there is a setting to enable the Linux Desktop, so also, I’m not sure what you are getting at.
2. Steam is DRM sure, and it comes with the risk of shutting down at some point, but it’s very permissive DRM, and I’ll bet they stick around for a while. Personally, I’m glad to be free of the physical clutter, and be able to install and play my games on any machine on which Steam will run in the house (and then stream it!) – or log on quick at a friend’s house or wherever and play. You can even lend games now. It’s all very convenient.
1. You’re talking to someone who has been running some version of desktop Linux exclusively since 2005 (first Mandrake, then Gentoo, then Lubuntu when I was forced to reinstall while low on time).
I was specifically addressing the “SteamOS” part. (And, from what I remember reading, the SteamOS repos contain basically the preinstalled loadout of packages and nothing more, with adding a normal Debian repository loadout being a bit of a bumpy process.)
2. If there’s one thing I value over anything else, it’s control over my own life. Steam is inherently stressful because of that.
As for being free of the physical clutter, why do you think I own over 2500 digital download games via vendors like GOG, Humble, and so on?
The only reason I still collect CD-ROMs and cartridges is for things that are either too mired in rights SNAFUs to release digitally (eg. No One Lives Forever 1 & 2) or they’re only available on DRM-encumbered digital platforms like Steam (eg. Homeworld 1/2/Catalysm, Sonic Adventure DX Director’s Cut, Oblivion, etc.) or the Wii U eShop (eg. various SNES/Gameboy/etc. cartridges I make legal backups of using my Retrode2.)
(eg. I don’t need any of the games in the Sega Genesis Classics Collection because I was lucky enough to snag them on sale at DotEmu before their license to sell new copies, Steam-free, expired. …and there’s a QuickBMS script which will convert the data files into ordinary, mednafen-compatible Genesis ROMs.)
Edited 2016-03-05 06:58 UTC
It’s ironic then that I just posted this about how on the desktop, software distribution is more competitive that mobile.
http://www.osnews.com/thread?625783
I don’t have a problem with an MS software store, as long as their strategy for success is based on working hard to offer better services. But I do have a big problem when MS resorts to coercion and inconveniencing users of competing stores. If they can’t succeed on merit, then they don’t deserve to succeed at all.
The openness of PC computing has been under numerous attacks in recent years, I just hope the PC market has enough resilience to fight these trends and not become closed like mobile devices. If that ever happens, it will be a great loss.
Edited 2016-03-04 22:47 UTC
Even if MS did go down the route of making certain features available only to people that sell via the MS store, there will always be alternatives to the MS APIs.
e.g. Vulkan can exist on Windows and Linux, and would prove attractive to developers anyway wanting to target both Windows and SteamOS.
Given how long it takes to get people to upgrade Windows anyway (still people stuck on XP), that even if it became a problem (it won’t) in a future Windows, users can just hold out until either MS backtrack, or for an alternative like SteamOS to mature.
No they aren’t. I think those are just abandoned pcs still hooked up to the internet that have long since been made parts of various botnets.
I don’t think those are real people.
Even if they are, I don’t think this is the prime market for PC games. Most people are at least windows 7, and many of them have upgraded to 10, since its free. I think you’ll see adoption of new MS versions accelerate if they are free.
Can someone parse Microsoft’s answer? Does this count as one of MS’s “evasive, ambiguous and sneaky answers”? Parsing this is above my pay grade, but I’m curious.
“The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store. We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX required. We want to make Windows the best development platform regardless of technologies used, and offer tools to help developers with existing code bases of HTML/JavaScript, .NET and Win32, C+ + and Objective-C bring their code to Windows, and integrate UWP capabilities. With Xamarin, UWP developers can not only reach all Windows 10 devices, but they can now use a large percentage of their C# code to deliver a fully native mobile app experiences for iOS and Android. We also posted a blog on our development tools recently.â€
“Please develop apps for our platform. We don’t care what they’re made with as long as we can extract a profit somehow.”
Edited 2016-03-04 23:59 UTC
Thanks. They’re claim that it’s “open” left me wondering exactly how. Open source but only if used according to MS’s terms? And though it might be supported in any store, it’s still only usable on an MS platform?
I think they mean ‘open’ as in ‘The API’s are clearly documented and said documentation is freely available’. In other words, anyone can write stuff that targets it. Essentially in the same sense that ACPI or UEFI are open platforms, but not (technically) open source.
Microsoft’s definitions of Open Source are inconsistent with a significant majority of other people’s unless they get forced into it (they actually have a rather large amount of code under the GPL, because they are a significant contributor to the Linux Kernel, but this started as a result of legal fallout).
Buy a PS4 or a Steam Machine and problem solved.
People rant about Windows and Microsoft all the time but they keep using their products. It’s insane.
Buying a new machine when you already have one is a poor solution, and with the PS4 you’d have to abandon your whole collection of games, too. Steam Machines, on other hand, have all the same issues as any Linux – distro, including missing software, many peripherals don’t work or don’t work right, you’d still be abandoning any Windows-only games you may have and so on.
You play games to a separate PC, at least if you have the luxury and time to do gaming, you may have a spare cash to unbox a separate PC for gaming.
Multiply this to a number of people who have the cash and SteamBox will become more popular and gets noticed so more developers.
Until then, this is all but a dream.
It’s a pipe-dream anyways. As much as devs and the likes decry the situation they won’t abandon Windows, they’ll just make a big fuss about stuff like this, but still end up going with it in the long run. SteamOS/Steam Boxes will most likely always remain more of a curiosity in the gaming-scene that is dominated by Windows on PCs and Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo on the consoles.
Missing software is entirely subjective (by my standards for example, Windows is missing important software). As far as peripherals not working right, I’m assuming your referring to stuff like gaming mice or keyboards, and that is the fault of the manufacturers for being narrow minded about supported platforms, not of Linux itself (there is nothing to prevent such devices from working on Linux, the manufacturers just refuse to make configuration software for it). Even ‘abandoning Windows only games’ isn’t entirely accurate, as most ‘Windows only’ games that have been around for more than a year or so run just fine under Wine (Steam for Windows works almost perfectly under Wine itself).
To change your Windows 10 search engine, web browser, or movie player, or to turn off their invasive new lock-screen ads, Windows search bar Bing spam, and invasive “analyticsâ€, you know what I’m talking about.”
This is not your average ‘dionicio’ user trying to change those settings… Is Tim Sweeney.
Apple and google have lead the way into proving their app store model means they get a cut of everything. This is simply microsoft following the crowd. I also see very little conceptual difference between steam store and the microsoft one. You gain convenience, they get a cut. Or, distribute yourself and it’ll likely cost your business more
The difference is MS are the O/S vendor, and have a few APIs that are only available to Store apps.
Then use vulkan or one of the multitude of other APIs. They don’t force you to use it. You have to use Steams API to put an app on their store and use their achievements system fir example.
Just to add to my previousl comment as I left it to long to edit and add a link
https://partner.steamgames.com/?goto=%2Fdocumentation%2Fugs
As you can see, their Store also needs usage of their specific API in order to make a submission. This is why I make the comparison between the two.
My old classic Amiga’s are getting more and more use, as is my old BeOS machine, and I have been using Linux for the past few week, I haven’t booted in-to Windows in over a month. Wine has ran several old Windows games I have been playing lately.
I still have a Windows 7 installation if I need to use it for any reason, that is as far as my Windows version will ever go, unless MS backtracks on its current quest.
I also still have several older PC’s around the house running Windows XP, they are doing fine at the moment but will most likely receive Linux on them some time in the future.
I don’t have any UEFI hardware, and don’t intend on getting any! If I can’t get a motherboard without it the next time I want one, I will either go without or get a used one that is pre UEFI.
My current main PC is a i7 920 and socket PGA 1366, so is no slouch and will last a few year yet.
Yep, Microsoft has made themselves dead to me!
As for motherboards, I’ve gone the Jetway way…
Kochise,
I had major overheating issues with a jetway minipc. Any time graphics were running the tiny fan would go crazy and the system would crash anyways. I modded the case to fit a 5″ fan. The thing looked hilariously oversized bolted to the the minipc, but it helped cool it considerably and the noisy minifan didn’t peak anymore.
The Jetway died a year later anyways and I replaced it with a much more powerful HP SFF PC.
Edited 2016-03-05 14:02 UTC
Thanks for the feedback, I own a http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/J7F2.html (Via C7@2GHz) since 2007 and a http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/NC92.html (Atom [email protected]) since 2009 or so, but both not for horsepower things.
My main rig is the C7 one, yet I use a GeForce 5200FX on PCI to offload video, because the on-board S3 Chrome video driver sucks ass for that matter. But again, my main usage is embedded development, not HTPC.
For that, I have a http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4264 (AMD [email protected]). I’m not looking for power hungry beasts, the mini-itx form-factor is cool.
Motherboards predating UEFI. And downloading their latest firmware updates. Before they go off.
This course of events start to look more Rumsfield-ian than Orwellian
Stop supporting Microsoft. Problem solved.
Edited 2016-03-05 14:01 UTC
Still waiting for it…
Nope, GNU/Hurd
So Apple does it with iOS and MacOS dev ramming publishing through the app store and their draconian system.
That’s okay apparently.
MS does it .. and it’s time for smacking?
Some animals are more equal than others.
No, we insist on MS because we believe they can. MS had, and should able to re-create a real ecosystem.
Google is unable, at this time. Apple is unwilling.
Could be wrong, and ‘corrales’ are the way of the future. But not my way. If so is believed, then bye-bye, to the 3.
Slight correction: iOS only. I’m sure they’d love to do the same to Mac, but I’d say they’ve sure failed at that so far. The Mac App Store is a joke, and every app worth having is distributed separately anyway because of Apple’s idiotic rules. You can’t even find comon apps like Skype and Microsoft Office in that so-called store.
Then Epic Games should push for more Linux gaming. It’s the only thing that will keep MS in check.
To their credit, Unreal Engine supports Linux.
Edited 2016-03-06 07:18 UTC
The environment is a lot more stable. Mood is not such an issue. But, -by its fragmented nature- is very open to take-over attacks. Stack selection would need to be very careful. Forked of preference, as soon as one prospective take-over is suspected.
That would carry the financial responsibilities of the forked layers to the Game developers. This could be best carried if Game industry consolidate their interests. And if that supporting stack is as slim as possible.
Did I sound a lot Android-al?
Has left a very desertic landscape. Speciation has left only two hardware video contenders on the Desktop zone, as an example. This is an extremely fragile ecosystem.
States are monopolies by their same definition, tend to favor growth of their kind. They understand each other. Where build the same way.
Point is: States are build by individuals, an their very purpose is to oversee and control the abuse of the other monopolies.
States represent their individuals. And forgetting that is their capital sin. An often cause of dismissal.
As long as the video support sucks, you can push for more Linux gaming all you want and that brick wall isn’t going to move. Until the user can go out and buy any hardware they want and have it either work straight away, or else have a simple driver install (something Linux isn’t equipped to handle at all) then you can forget mainstream Linux games on generic hardware.
What do you call “video support”? Hardware potential is even better on Linux than on any bloated Windows system.
Stop thinking in 15 year old outdated notions.
Edited 2016-03-07 16:59 UTC
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Correction: Microsoft wants to monopolise game dev on Windows.
Yeah I know that there are 90 comments debating the pros and cons of Linux, OS X and Steam, but still, all they can touch is Windows.
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