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Either support Linux/BSD or don't.

17 points by mortdeus ↗ HN
There are three types of software that is irritating me beyond belief coming from major tech companies. Ill address the offenders.

1. partial support

OFFENDER: Netflix.

ChromeOS support but no other linux support?

ORLY?

2. opensource software abuse

OFFENDER: Sony, (via playstation mobile SDK.)

Aka, building tech that uses mono vm, and monodevelop to make a windows only SDK.

Are you kidding me? Sony has become a damn software molester. Is a disgusting abuse of other people's work. I dont want to use Windows, I want to use the open source software on the operating systems they were created to run on in the first place....

3. Last week's promised "Linux support coming next week." bullshit

OFFENDER: Google.

Are we getting google drive anytime soon? Like this decade perhaps?

My concluding words is this. As somebody who writes open source software for the benefit of all my fellow programmers. I give you all the choice to use my code however you like. However, there are principles called respect and ethics.

Much like when you go to a party and you see the chips and dips are free. That doesnt mean you can respectfully bring a plastic baggy and Tupperware so you can take a bit of the party home with you for the rest of the week. You cant ethically bring empty gallon jugs for some free punch either....

I am tired of seeing a complete ignorant lack of support for linux/bsd when the extra effort is TRIVIAL, despite the fact that these companies are benefiting from open source at a huge profit. It's really shameful in my honest opinion to neglect these operating systems.

If valve can port their Window's games over to Linux in a considerably short amount of time, these offenders can take the time necessary to make sure there is windows, bsd/MacOS, and linux support. (plan9 too? :D....keep dreamin)

Either support Linux/BSD or dont even attempt to. This isnt about "market share". Market share could change tomorrow and the biggest supporters of these operating systems today, will remember who gave us the shaft tomorrow. Just saying, can we be just a bit more ethical. Im not asking for a world of just open source free software, just asking for your software to work on the operating system many developers like to use in the first place. Especially if you choose to use software written under the principle of freedom...

8 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 37.2 ms ] thread
yen223
"Aka, building tech that uses mono vm, and monodevelop to make a windows only SDK."

Off-topic, but this is interesting. Why the heck would Sony develop Windows-only SDKs on Mono, instead of native .Net??

srir
Licensing issues, maybe?
Kaworu
He's referring to the Playstation Mobile SDK, which targets Sony mobile devices (PSP, PS Vita, etc.). They've ported mono to run on them and adopted a mono toolchain.
tapan_pandita
The problem is that the industry has become used to the small set of Linux users as people who are willing to go into conf files, system settings and tweaks to make software work. That is the reason I appreciate canonical and Ubuntu for all the work they have done to ensure a linux experience that just works. Canonical is also closely working with Valve to make sure that their games work well with Ubuntu.
bagosm
I don't quite get the plastic bag analogy. If you fork/use a piece of software you don't deprive others (not even the creators) of anything.

Other than that, I do aggree that support for linux/bsd is very problematic on many levels, but fragmentation doesn't help with that either. Especially in BSD

simonster
Properly supporting Windows and Mac OS X requires testing on the 3, maybe 4 latest OS releases. Properly supporting Linux requires testing on the last 3 or 4 versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Mint, Arch, Gentoo, and who knows what else. Furthermore, while code that works on Windows XP is almost guaranteed to work on Windows 7, and code that works on OS X 10.6 is almost guaranteed to work on 10.8, there's no such guarantee on Linux.

All we build is a browser extension, and we've seen issues on Linux that depend on the version of gcc used to build Firefox, the version of d-bus, the window manager, and the desktop environment. I can't imagine what it would be like to support a real app.

cowsaysoink
The only cross-compatible apps (other than things like browsers) I've worked with are matlab and mathematica and although they had some differences between windows they both performed well on any linux version I was on from Slackware to Ubuntu provided underlying libraries (libc) existed in the right place.
lumberjack
While I agree with the sentiment I can't but ask, "Why?". Companies care about profit, not appeasing fans of free software. It's somewhat futile to expect anything else. The only rational thing to do, is to boycott these companies if you think that would be personally feasible. Also, Valve is yet to deliver and when they do I don't believe that it will be completely free software so let's not rush to conclusions.