The Linux Grumpy thread

[Olby]

Making the editor open-source would definitely be a self destructive path. Especially for a small company like Leadwerks. This will lead to multiple incarnations of the same source base with many forks, patches and what not. Josh will loose control over it instantly. Then you will end up in worse situation because people will use non-official editions and complain that all the bugs are related to the engine. It would be a mess. Plus it would shine a bad light on the whole product. Matter of fact I know another small developer (PureBasic) who tried a similar approach and failed miserably due to already stated reasons - they backtracked and closed sourced the editor once it got out of control.

 

I think if Josh is serious about maintaining Linux edition he needs to hire a dedicated developer or a build tester. Delegating all of the bug hunting to your customers is not a nice way of handling this.

[Guppy]

Making the editor open-source would definitely be a self destructive path. Especially for a small company like Leadwerks. This will lead to multiple incarnations of the same source base with many forks, patches and what not. Josh will loose control over it instantly.

 

Not really no - you have an official upstream, if you fix something you must make a pull request that patches cleanly against upstream.

 

Almost all opensource development works like this - if the your patch doesn't work it wont get mergede, heck if the upstream maintainer doesn't like the feature he is free to reject it as well.

 

I'm not saying that opensource is the way to go (in fact I'm almost certain that that will fail - primarily due to it apparently being in "blitz basic" and not c/c++ ), I just like to point out a common misconception.

 

Then you will end up in worse situation because people will use non-official editions and complain that all the bugs are related to the engine.

 

While this happens from time to time in the opensource environment, it's very easy to simply say "your using an un-official branch, please direct your inquiry to the maintainer of said branch - alternatively use the official stable release you can find here"

 

I think the only time I've seen it get ugly is gnome3 vs mate - but then that whole thing is part religion anyway

[tournamentdan]

Just a few reasons I grabbed of the world wide interweb of why I do not use linux.

 

 

 

 

 

Poor interoperability between the kernel and user space applications. E.g. many kernel features get a decent userspace implementation years after introduction.! Linux security/permissions management is a bloody mess: PAM, SeLinux, Udev, HAL (replaced with udisk/upower/libudev), PolicyKit, ConsoleKit and usual Unix permissions (/etc/passwd, /etc/group) all have their separate incompatible permissions management systems spread all over the file system. Quite often people cannot use their digital devices unless they switch to a super user.No (easy to use) application level sandbox (like e.g. SandBoxie) - Fedora is working hard on it.(This needs to be thoroughly rechecked): observed general slowness: just compare start up times between e.g. OpenOffice and Microsoft Office. If you don't like this example, try launching OpenOffice in Windows and in Linux. In the latter case it will take more time to launch it.! CLI (command line interface) errors for user applications. All GUI applications should have a visible errors representation.! Very poor documentation and absence of good manuals/help system.Questionable services for Desktop installations (Fedora, Suse, Mandriva, Ubuntu) - not really important with the advent of systemd.! No unified widely used system for packages signing and verification (thus it becomes increasingly problematic to verify packages which are not included by your distro). No central body to issue certificates and to sign packages.(Not that serious considering that 4GB of RAM cost $20 nowadays) As of recently Linux distros and desktop environments have become a resource hog, e.g. in Ubuntu KDE 4.8.5 consumes whopping 1390MB of RAM.There are no antiviruses or similar software for Linux. Say, you want to install new software which is not included by your distro - currently there's no way to check if it's malicious or not.!! Linux distributions do not audit included packages which means a rogue evil application or a rogue evil patch can easily make into most distros thus endangering the end user.! A very bad backwards and forward compatibility! Due to unstable and constantly changing kernel APIs/ABIs Linux is a hell for companies which cannot push their drivers upstream into the kernel for various reasons like their closeness (NVIDIA, ATI, Broadcom, etc.), or inability to control development or co-develop (VirtualBox/Oracle, VMWare/Workstation, etc.), or licensing issues (4Front Technologies/OSS).Old applications rarely work in new Linux distros (glibc incompatibilities (double-free errors, memory corruption, etc.), missing libraries, wrong/new libraries versions). Abandoned Linux GUI software generally doesn't work in newer Linux distros. Most well written GUI applications for Windows 95 will work in Windows 7 (15 years of compatibility on binary level).New applications linked only against lib C will refuse to work in old distros. (Even though they are 100% source compatible with old distros).New libraries versions bugs, regressions and incompatibilitiesDistro upgrade can render your system unusable (kernel might not boot, some features may stop working).There's a myth that backwards compatibility is a non-issue in Linux because all the software has sources. However a lot of software just cannot be compiled on newer Linux distros due to 1) outdated, conflicting, no longer available libraries and dependencies 2) every GCC release becoming much stricter about C/C++ syntax 3) Users just won't bother compiling old software because they don't know how to 'compile', nor they should know how to do that.DE developers (KDE/Gnome) routinely cardinally change UI elements, configuration, behaviour, etc.Open Source developers usually don't care about applications behaviour beyond their own usagescenarios. I.e. coreutils developers for no good reasons have broken head/tails functionality which is used by the Loki installer.Quite often you cannot run new applications in LTS distros. Recent examples: GTK3 based software (there's no official way to use it in RHEL6), and Google Chrome (Google decided to abandon LTS ditros).stem will (re)boot successfully after GRUB (bootloader) orkernel updates - sometimes even minor kernel updates break the boot process. For instance Microsoft and Apple regularly update ntoskrnl.exe and mach_kernel respectively for security fixes, but it's unheard of that these updates ever compromised the boot process. GRUB updates have broken the boot process on the PCs around me for at least ten times. (Also see compatibility issues below!! LTS distros are unusable on the desktop because they poorly support or don't support new hardware, specifically GPUs (as well as Wi-Fi adapters, NICs, sound cards, hardware sensors, etc.). Oftentimes you cannot use new software in LTS distros (normally without miscellaneous hacks like backports, PPAs, chroots, etc.), due to outdated libraries. A recent example is Google Chrome on RHEL 6/CentOS 6.!! Linux developers have a tendency to a) suppress news of security holes B) not notify the public when said hole have been fixed c) miscategorize arbitrary code execution bugs as "possible denial of service" (thanks toGullible Jones for reminding me of this practice - I wanted to mention it aeons ago, but I kept forgetting about that).

 

Here's a full quote by Torvalds himself: "So I personally consider security bugs to be just "normal bugs". I don't cover them up, but I also don't have any reason what-so-ever to think it's a good idea to track them and announce them as something special."

[YouGroove]

I'm not a Linux user so i won' t say more on it, and as Windows users we can't say it's not a problem when we use only a more stable Windows version and while we don't encounter same bugs.

 

Making the editor open-source would definitely be a self destructive path. Especially for a small company like Leadwerks

I don't ask open source, i just say it works, take a look at UE4, they test and decide what users contributions will be included in the official version. Unity has open UI as open soruce and they will bring some other parts while keeping closed the core , that's also a solution.

i only see the benefits :

- Editor bug fixes

- Editor improvments

- Time saved to work on Core features instead of editor bugs for Windows and Linux.

 

But perhaps you are right and it would not work on other engines.

 

 

Well the thread is turning on Windows Vs Linux.

We really don't need old school OS battle wars, saying Linux is bad and should not be in LE3.

So drop it, Josh is the boss

[tournamentdan]

I dont have any problems with linux or linux users. (Except for the whole me against the world complex) Good things come out of diversity.

 

But to try and compare different distros to different windows versions is streching it a lot. Windows is a heck of alot backwards compatable than most disros. Which makes it a nightmare to support when the flavor of the month distro changes a library and the others do not.

[DerRidda]

Without having read all of this:

 

My gripe with Leadwerks on Linux is the editor, which sadly also was the big pitch for the Kickstarter. I also think it's quite sub-optimal on Windows btw and it's the one thing holding up the Mac version afaik, Josh could crank out the engine for OSX any time he wanted.

 

Let's see:

-Missing tool bars compared to the Windows version

-disabled mouse scroll

-no drag and drop in many places

-occasional corruption to the point of functionally breaking in the scene tab area

-corrupted model viewer

-no Unicode support (That's a windows issue too and really embarrassing, this isn't 1995 anymore)

-And the utter refusal to use XDG specs (browser is hard-coded to be Firefox, project folder defaults to ~/Documents in any language)

 

I really like the API but the editor is a dead end in my opinion, as BlitzMax is essentially dead and it's only a matter of time till it bit-rots away on Windows as well.

 

A replacement is desperately needed, there's so much cool stuff happening around Leadwerks these days.

 

That being said I fully understand that rewriting a new editor isn't something that would be in any way reasonable to do for Josh as Leadwerks is a one man shop so far. Employees are needed.

 

If there was a Kickstarter to hire somebody for an editor rewrite in-engine I'd fund that for sure but if that doesn't happen I expect significant improvements be made on their own and I won't wait forever. I might have already paid for Leadwerks but I simply won't indulge in any spending on content DLC or paid workshop items if improvements don't happen.

[BES]

I am not a linux user ...but I have decided to not make any Leadwerks 3 related games a priority atm ...until it has been updated more.

 

Right now I am just using it to fart around...it may end up being a major project later..

 

I just dont think its ready yet(for a major project)...just my 2 cents... its missing too much stuff that other engines have..

 

With my limited time another engine like Unity is easier to work with at this time..

 

While everyone is complaining ...just keep in mind Josh is a 1 man show atm and cant do everything right away....he will have to prioritize ...even if you DID back the linux kickstarter..eventually the engine will be up to our expectations (hopefully)..

[Ronald Buanno]

Josh has made to much money for what he is providing. Its cool to blindly support stuff that has quite obviously ****ed many people over... Windows in particular. Just because you do not understand Linux and call our installation processes "hacks" does not mean your the only one. Many people use Linux and many more are using it per day. I myself have converted over 100 people in 4 states, both in persona and over the web, and their response is always the same " I really don't know why I kept windows." This engine has had lots of funding, he needs to follow through with his promises and claims. Currently this engine is garbage in Linux. The bugs I reported have not been fixed, and even more crashes happen since I last tried. I use the supported distro for this software. My desktop preference of Gnome has no relation to the issues, as I have tried leadwerks in both unity and gnome. Olby, again I personally think a windows user... that clearly has a severe lack of Linux knowledge, should just stay out of this thread. Josh can defend and in my opinion make himself look like he's a jerk quite fine, he doesn't need your help. For instance, he shouldn't be advertising that you can make a game in Linux without leaving, if he does not support Linux in various ways... He does not use it in his videos, features he claims are in it are not, and he openly admits he's against free softwares because of how "Pushy" we are. Markus, my bugs and complains have not been fixed with updating Ubuntu or josh's updates. I can't imagine how much funding Josh has received so far, but he needs to hire more people to fit his claims on steam store page. God forbid we point anything out to Josh to distract him from focusing on stuff that is really important.... Like the Game player... Because you know we bought this game engine to play other peoples games.. Oh wait... I didn't. Don't even get me started on his adventurous Model Packs...

[Josh]

I started the Game Player Greenlight campaign now because I know those things can take months to be approved. I don't expect to do work on it any time soon.

[Ronald Buanno]

Also the fact he has disabled my buddies account for having a video of unreal... which there were around 10 pages of discussion, not advertisement is appalling. While people post BLATANT advertisements for modeling softwares. "You agree not to post advertisements for products or services not directly related to game development with our software, or to engage in promotional efforts or marketing campaigns for any competing products." These softwares in my opinion do not directly related to game development with his software. Who would you feel telling a fellow dev to buy software, then have him ask you why he had his account disabled by Josh. I would feel like an asshole for recommending software, what about you?

[Ronald Buanno]

Thanks for you input BES. I think many people are on the same page as you currently. Many people have said similar things in the past... Well for about 2 - 3 years at least according to my google searches. I honestly am interested to see who here is going to make a game they they intend to sell for more than 1.50 in any market.

 

Josh, as you can see, You should probably be working on your game engine, not posting in threads that are OFF TOPIC and do not contain any suggestions for you or bugs. You should get to work as far as I'm concerned as a livid customer. I'm glad you came to talk about your Game player, but as stated I do not support it since many thing you told me worked BEFORE I BOUGHT THIS, well... don't work.

 

You lied to my face sir and Momma told me to be wary of liars.

[Ronald Buanno]

DerRidda the first and only thing I really asked Josh before I purchased this was "Do all the features that currently work on windows work on Linux?" He responded without hesitation, "Yes".

 

What I should have heard is "Yes, buy your copy so I can continue working on making that.." Josh that simply was despicable or maybe your cowboy hat is cutting off circulation to your brain and you just didn't realize your false claims.

[YouGroove]

I just dont think its ready yet(for a major project)...just my 2 cents... its missing too much stuff that other engines have..

Many indie game uses proprietary engines also, some uses small 3D engines and they make and sell games, LE3 with last improvements is ready for game making today ( if you are not requiring vegetation or BSP tools ). You have encryption when you publish and Aggror cheap FlowGUI for the GUI.

I mean medium/small games, don't expect to make Skyrim with LE3.

 

@Ronald :

I understand that having broken stuff in Linux and having good on Windows is frustrating, while Windows users are at lest happy with LE3.

 

What i don't understand is if bugs was so old , why are you the only one that pointed that loudly ?

Why other Linux people don't come on forums and react like you did ? Are they shy ? Or are they happy as it is ?

It's also users responsability to shout loud when minimal requirements are not working, like any product if people don't move their *** to say something is wrong , you won't get lot of attention from developpers (specially when they are focused on other things, they can quickly forget about your issues)

[Ronald Buanno]

According to the community main page. There are :

11,431 Members.

That means 1,143,100 USD has been given to this man minus some stuff to whoever he owes royalties or whatever (such as steam) This figure of course is just for people that spent 100USD, if you purchased the C++ edition for 100USD more, the figure obviously goes higher. How does this sound for a one man teams pay? Too much pay for what we have. He could hire a bunch of people over seas easily, or Americans that what ridiculous pay and he still could afford it, provided he has not wasted all this money. Am I the only one concerned without much money we have given for what little we have received?

 

Correct me if I did some match wrong, I'm not the best mathematician.

 

Also, according to Josh, anyone can register here and post, so who knows how many paid members there really are..

[Ronald Buanno]

YouGroove, as a long time member here and someone that has made similar claims in the past, I appreciate you posting in the thread.

I personally have not been here long, I honestly do not know how any Linux users could not notice these differences, perhaps they did not test it with windows such as I have. Guppy said he has pointed out various issues. I do not know many other Linux users, I currently have my doubts as to Josh's primary OS. If Josh needs a fire under him to do work, I have matches.

[Josh]

It's time for a time-out. This is well past the point of being constructive.