[Plib-devel] OT: why no programmers for OpenSource games

[Dave M. <Dav...@dy...>]

In O'Reilly's "OpenSources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution", Brian
Behlendorf of Apache says:

p. 159
"""
Open-source software has tended to be slanted towards the
infrastructual/back-end side of the software spectrum represented here.
There are several reasons for this:

- End-user applications are hard to write, not only because a programmer has
to deal with a graphical, windowed environment which is constantly changing,
nonstandard, and buggy simply because of its complexity, but also because
most programmers are not good graphical interface designers, with notable
exceptions

- culturally, open-source software has been conducted in the networking code
and operating system space for years.

- open-source tends to thrive where incremental change is rewarded, and
historically that has meant back-end systems more than front-ends

- much open-source software was written by engineers to solve a task they
had to do while developing commercial software or services; so the primary
audience was, early on, other engineers.

This is why we see solid open-source offerings in the the operating system
and network services space, but very few offerings in the desktop
application space.
"""

For more info, buy the book, you'll enjoy it.  Especially, Larry Wall's
"free assocation" essay. :)

As a commercial game developer myself, I see plib and other open-source as a
better (more portable) alternative to DirectX for creating games.  I think
it is a win-win for everyone to help improve plib while competing at the
application level.

-- Dave McClurg
mailto:dav...@dy...         http://www.dynamix.com
mailto:da...@po... (home)            http://www.pond.net/~davem