C4 drops support for linux

[frostbyte]

developer had a hard time installing ubuntu and decided to ditch linux...
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... rops-Linux

maybe instead of openGEX we should support this guy...http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82801
i must admit that i like his ideas much more than another soon to be declared "not good enough" boring exchange format "standard"..aka openGEX buyC4GEX...

[c6burns]

If you've ever had to actually support linux, especially with commercial software, then what he says is exactly on the money. "... disproportionate cost, both in terms of time and money, that we incur to support Linux relative to a very small return on our investment". I don't really care what his particular problems with linux are, or whether he is using distro X Y or Z, or if he's a linux newb. He's still right.

I've been using linux as my primary OS for 15 years now. I use it every day, and part of my day job is sysadmin of almost 40 servers. I'm a long time gcc dev and have spent most of my adult life coding and supporting backend linux services (from custom apache modules, to backoffice integrations, to voice services like freeswitch). Linux support is seriously fucking painful especially if we are talking about end-user hand holding. Most people have no idea what they are doing. They put the Distro X cd in the drive and now they are a linux user and often expect your stuff to "just work" on any arbitrary setup. The reality is Distro X might completely break your software or build process by packaging a different version of any of your dependencies. I have seen more than a few projects counter this by building almost all of their dependencies static within a monster of a build process (eg freeswitch). Ubuntu (and any distro that tries to stay bleeding edge) is notorious for breaking your shit ... that's why it's nicknamed screwbuntu. You find out quickly that it's YOUR blood that makes that edge bleeding when you spend countless hours fixing issues for 1 version of 1 distro of 1 platform.

And at a whopping 1% of desktop market share, linux is deep in the illustrious category of "who gives a shit about this platform?".

[frostbyte]

ok, i guess you have honstly earned your ranting priviliges...
i'm using linux now since fedora 6(2007)...not an expert or even avid user...but linux for end-user has come a long way since...
for all you say, "i know this much is true", still i'm fascinated by the added-value ideas that this project has brought to the world...
not gonna start a linux vs windows technical debate here...( not interesting and fruitless )

anyway i don't see why ogre should go openC4/DotC4 when nobody else except this frustrated unpopular commercial engine developer supports it
idea of an extendable format,build for real-time data exchange between different apps,combined with hassle free integration is far more exciting

And at a whopping 0.1% of game engine market share, C4 is deep in the illustrious category of "who gives a shit about this engine?".

[Kojack]

Lots of dropping going around. C4 dropping linux, Ogre and Oculus dropping DX9, OpenMW dropping Ogre.

Hehe, Eric doesn't hold back his opinion on it, you can imagine the comments he's getting on Phoronix.

It's a commercial engine, if the linux side is costing more to maintain than it's earning from sales (whether it's his fault or linux's) then dropping it makes sense.

[c6burns]

By the way about 5 days after that article I'm pretty sure Lengyel said he was gonna add linux support again for the next version. He prob just need a few days of deep breathing to calm down

For developers I think linux support is really really really great by the way. Even though I may not release my project on linux, it builds and runs there ... and I can use valgrind and any of the other tools I have come to know and love on that platform. Just ... end users, man ...

[frostbyte]

Just ... end users, man ...

some notorious linux lies
1) "this would'nt have happened on linux"
2) "it never crashes"
3) "linux is almost as easy as windows"
4) performance is better than windows
5) "even my mom uses linux..."

He prob just need a few days of deep breathing to calm down

he already erased all related messeges from his forum...( if you can't stand the hit...don't be a troll )
on his twitter page he seems to be happy again after successfuly installing ubuntu
he already said he has plan to support linux based steam os( who doesn't? )

Hehe, Eric doesn't hold back his opinion on it, you can imagine the comments he's getting on Phoronix.

i've read some of them...disturbing i must say...

[c6burns]

"My 13 year old installed ubuntu one time and so did my grandma, thus you should be able to package your commercial software to work on every version of every distro without complaining about the cost-benefit-ratio"

- or -

"Oh you use Distro X ... see that's your problem ... you should try amazing and perfect Distro Y where problems don't exist EVER"

That's what Lengyel's twitter looks like (slightly paraphrased) for the past week

[Herb]

Well, I'm not sure why you'd drop Linux from a native code render engine if you already had it working... I could see you dropping your tools support, but it should be able to run the final application on Linux. Half my Steam library games run on Linux now, and (fingers crossed) that should keep growing.

@c6burns - I only run Ubuntu machines at my house. My kids don't even know how to use Windows.

[Thyrion]

maybe instead of openGEX we should support this guy...http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82801
i must admit that i like his ideas much more than another soon to be declared "not good enough" boring exchange format "standard"..aka openGEX buyC4GEX...

what's the problem with fbx?
every 3D prog. can it.
Even Epic funds blender's fbx export: http://www.cgchannel.com/2014/07/epic-g ... velopment/

A nice converter exists, too: https://bitbucket.org/oc3/fxogrefbx/overview

[c6burns]

another soon to be declared "not good enough" boring exchange format "standard"..aka openGEX buyC4GEX...

he already erased all related messeges from his forum...( if you can't stand the hit...don't be a troll )

frustrated unpopular commercial engine

C4 is deep in the illustrious category of "who gives a shit about this engine?".

Why are you being such a dick about this? You act like C4 pooped in a paper bag, lit it on fire, and put it on your porch. Except it didn't. I bet my life savings you don't have and never had a C4 license. So because the guy gets frustrated at linux being a frankenstein OS (which it is) you decide to take a meritless dump on OpenGEX ...

[cybereality]

I saw this on Twitter (last week) and Eric started an absolute "sand"-storm.

Never worked with C4 very much (aside playing the demos) but I have read a few of his books and I trust that he had his reasons for dropping Linux.

[Kojack]

what's the problem with fbx?
every 3D prog. can it.
Even Epic funds blender's fbx export: http://www.cgchannel.com/2014/07/epic-g ... velopment/

The FBX license is unfriendly to open source. I believe there are redistribution issues too.
Blender fbx support is entirely reverse engineered, the official sdk is incompatible with blender so they can't even read it, it has to be clean room reversed. That is problematic because there may be mistakes. Autodesk may also change fbx at any time, it's a closed proprietary format.

[jacmoe]

developer had a hard time installing ubuntu and decided to ditch linux...
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... rops-Linux

It is his engine, his decisions.

maybe instead of openGEX we should support this guy...http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82801
i must admit that i like his ideas much more than another soon to be declared "not good enough" boring exchange format "standard"..aka openGEX buyC4GEX...

Totally horrible idea. The guy carries absolutely zero weight and has decided - like countless people before him - to reinvent rather than join forces.
I can't really spot any compelling reasons why one should listen to that bloke.

Eric Lengyel on the other hand is a , if not legendary, then at least pretty weighty figure in the 3d graphics/games landscape.
And he already has made sure that OpenGEX has a lot of traction.

[frostbyte]

c6burns wrote

Why are you being such a dick about this?

c6burn, i expect you to watch your lang!!! maybe where you come from its common to speak like this...where i come from ....
i have my opinions which i like sharing and sometimes protecting but i dont downgrade to using faul langauge
if you want to insult me at least try to be a bit more creative...
the truth is i don't realy care about what he said , i just responded to your post, trying to pass some time with a nice friendly conversation
all that i wrote is being humoristic( reversing your quotes ) and a bit cynical, i guess you have troubles with that style of communication...
however, since your a good guy i will overlook and move on...

back to the topic...
linux by all standards is a remarkable effor of people around the globe to create somthing great, i would'nt expect anyone to try reducing that..
creator of C4 is by all standarts very smart and hardworking man and i have no intention to try reducing that...
C4 inspite not being too popular( and yes, i've tried it... ), is by all standarts a remarkable effort by one person and i have no intention to try reducing that...
however i don't see how supporting a new untested, commercialy driven format of an unsuccessful company can benefit Ogre...thats all
be better if ogre supported FBX at core...

[jacmoe]

What have you been drinking/smoking Frostbyte?

So, FBX is not a commercially driven, proprietary format?
And OpenGEX is?

I am not sure what I am going to say.
This conversation is obviously deranged.

[syedhs]

I believe his reply on supporting linux is the code will be there (as opposed to original plan of stripping linux specific code from c4), but there will be other users who will patch it (if necessary) and maintain it.
As for linux desktop, I agree it is just not ready for mainstream, or will never ready which is more like it.. Therefore, I agree for his stance to remove support for Linux - it just too much work for too little money.

[frostbyte]

What have you been drinking/smoking Frostbyte?

thats the problem...nothing...
yeah ok. i'm not making sense with the support FBX thing...it was just a passing thought...gone now...
thing is that it looks like every couple of years comes a new format/standart that promise to save the SCENE and fail doing that...
its kind of repeating itself, i dont have any better advice...openGEX it is then...whatever...really could'nt care less...

[c6burns]

No disrespect intended, I think we just see things very different in terms of commercial application and viability. To me it can be a huge bonus when a commercial entity "picks up the tab", so to speak, for a bunch of contributions to an open source project. I don't know of any project I've been involved in where it tainted and ruined the project to have a company using the code to make money, or even steering the direction of the development with bounties, etc. We all have to eat, which means we have to get money somehow (or move to a farm and program directly for food?)

Also keep in mind when someone is critical of linux there is the kernel and there is everything else. I don't have any problems with kernel since 2.6 ... in fact I have a bit of background in driver development in linux. I live for big monolithic C projects and anyone who sees my C++ code can tell I don't think Lengyel has anything critical to say about the kernel either ... his issue is with the ecosystem (Distro X which chooses to package Library Y and Library Z). Honestly I assume he just wanted to vent some frustration on twitter and was expecting people to be sympathetic ... except he forgot that the fervor and zeal of linux fanboys make apple fanboys seem like disinterested emos. Keep in mind he hasn't actually dropped linux support AFAIK ... he just got pissed and said he might drop support and then dared to blaspheme the church of linux.

PS - I guess I should admit my bias since I own Lengyel's Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics aaaaaand also loved Quest for Glory

[Kojack]

FBX is a proprietary format intended to support the Autodesk empire. It's not really intended for realtime engines (although it's still better than collada).
Unity doesn't actually support FBX directly, it converts to it's own custom format in the background. Every FBX I've tried to load into UE4 has resulted in a crash or lockup (even something simple like a cube).
Plus there's the fact that if Ogre used the FBX sdk then not only would every user need to download the sdk (we can't redistribute parts of it, so it can't go in the dependencies repo) but the license states we agree to allowing Autodesk to perform an in-person audit of all of our hardware and facilities with 15 days notice.

OpenGEX is independent of C4. Eric isn't charging for it, the full specification is public. Anybody can implement importers and exporters. The FBX format is not documented.

There's also no mobile versions of the FBX sdk, it's for windows/mac/linux only.

I have some issues with OpenGEX, but it's better than FBX.

[frostbyte]

No disrespect intended

thats good, coming from diferent cultures can create miscommunications, and anyway no need to get personal, as opinions an trends keep changing and thats the reason people communicate here, in order to learn and be influenced by each other

to me it can be a huge bonus when a commercial entity "picks up the tab"

yeah, when i first thought this over ii actualy had the same feeling regarding this...but then again he is not some big company force that can asure you with 100% everlasting support...i don't know much about openGEX and how is it better than other formats that made the same promises...
at the end of the day, you still have to maintain importers with your engine...so its only halfway...
with the demo and format suggested by the guy mentioned above, you dont need to write importers, and you get the benefits of working in realtime with middle-ware( blender->jme demo ) , thats what i like about it...its a new approach to the same problem...and can solve problem with ogre lack of tools...
true however that he is a one 'anonymous' guy and only at "proof of conecpt" stage...

he just got pissed and said he might drop support and then dared to blaspheme the church of linux.

poor guy, can't imagine the hell he goes through...
they'll probably force him to repent his sins
thats the price of being a one man company...everything becomes personal...

just to make things clear:
i'm not a FOSS fanatic, i have deep respect for apple and windows and its undeniable contribution to the computers world
i know non of this tech achievment( linux included ) would have been possible without commercial bodys pushing...
and i know linux is not good for none tech person...

[frostbyte]

thanks kojack for the explanation, i now have a better understanding...and i see now that exporters are free and open-source...
its good to have a teacher around