[mdlug] Job posting for game porting to Linux

[Aaron Kulkis]

Ingles, Raymond wrote:
>> From: Robert Adkins
>>     
>
>   
>> 	If MS continues to push Vista and its annoying bits that are getting
>> in the way of people doing what they want/need to do, Linux (Apple probably
>> first) really would have a very strong opportunity to see some growth.
>>     
>
>  How many people remember when IBM was pushing their PS/2 systems, with
> "Micro Channel" that was going to take over everything? It was better than
> ISA, self-configuring, etc. - but totally controlled by IBM. People had
> started buying a lot more clones and not "genuine IBM" PCs. IBM wanted to
> wrest control of the PC market back from the cloners.
>
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Channel_architecture
>
>  So they fenced in Micro Channel with all kinds of licenses and patents
> and expected PC manufacturers to beat a path to their door. They didn't.
> They worked with EISA and VLB and such until PCI came around, and by then
> IBM was very much an also-ran in the PC market.
>
>  I have to say... Vista brings up strong echoes in my mind. It's not an
> exact parallel but there are a lot of similarities. I think MS's reach is
> exceeding its grasp here. It happened to IBM (which *owned* computing) and
> it's starting to happen to MS. Not just the DRM stuff (which is bad enough)
> but their fixation on (harmful) backward compatibility and their development
> model being simply not sufficient for managing a codebase of 50+ million
> lines (they had to throw out features and start over to get Vista shipped
> at all - years late).

With the PC clones, pointy haired bosses finally figured out
what insiders in the industry had known for years -- that
IBM, while the industry leader, also provided the industry's
WORST price/performance ratio -- typically 2x to 5x the cost
of a competing products, while offering 1/2 to 1/3 the
throughput. This basically made IBM an order of magnitude
more expensive than other manufacturers. What kept IBM's
machines ubiquitous for all of those years was the truism,
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

Sadly, the same mentality never went away, it just switched
Microsoft for IBM.

However, as a lot of European government entities and various
business interests are switching to Linux, the excuse "the
applications I need don't exist on Linux" are beginning to
ring hollow, and pretty soon, just like with the PC-clone
market, people finally WILL start getting fired for choosing
the Microsoft platform.

The PC clone market made it obvious to even the pointiest of
the PHB's that IBM was overcharging for their products --
which soon trickled up all the way to their high end machines.
These days, one needs an EXTREMELY strong case to justify
buying an AS/400 from IBM compared the myriad Unix servers
(even from IBM) that are much more competitively priced.
>
>  Sincerely,
>
>  Ray Ingles                                              (313) 227-2317
>
>    "America is ushering in a new responsibility era where each of us
>    understands we're responsible for the decisions we make in life."
>                          - George W. Bush
>   

Not if Hillary or Obama gets elected. Each of them seek to remove
practically all responsibility for one's actions :-P