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Still no plans for Linux editor support?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Sam_Pr, Feb 12, 2014.

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  1. Ryiah

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    Speculation is worthless. Linux is known to have only a very small portion of the OS pie. Windows and OS X are where the majority of developers, at least game developers, will be found. Especially as Unity requires specific platforms to publish to them. Developing solely on Linux limits you severely.
     
  2. Tomnnn

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    Considering the history of this species, disappointment is the least of my concern, haha.

    It would be nice for steam to help since since unity is responsible for a lot of linux compatible games which is the only hope for SteamOS to become more than a popular article from a year ago. The controller was hyped up like crazy, then over time evolved into an xbox controller. It has nothing going for it right now lol

    I mentioned steam over Suse because while gaming is suddenly the most important thing in our lives and our watches and phones can't function without them, Suse may have a large enough industry elsewhere. Steam on the other hand (ignoring the somewhat recent integration of random software) is the known giant for digital distribution for pc games.
     
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  3. Ryiah

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    Right. My point is simply that the developers aren't going to be on SteamOS, but a full-fledged Linux OS.
     
  4. Tomnnn

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    I can understand that. I wonder if Valve can understand that :p It's a shame they didn't do more than have a less than successful attempt to produce an operating system that treats the machine like a console.
     
  5. Graham-Dunnett

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    Indeed, and we regularly talk with our large customers and ask their views. In fact one of the companies you mentioned in your post already have hundreds of Unity licenses and are not planning on chucking out all their machines and replacing them with Linux boxes.
     
  6. puzzud

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    Nothing really stopping me from installing and using SteamOS as my primary OS. Now whether someone would buy an officially branded Steam machine to do their development on is yet to be seen--I'm not discounting the idea just yet.
     
  7. Ryiah

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    Nothing really stopping me from installing and using Android as my primary OS either. It doesn't make it a good idea though nor will it run the applications I depend on. Linux may someday become my OS of choice again (I was a Linux user at one time), but until it supports everything I need it is a second class citizen at best.
     
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  8. goat

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    Yes, all speculators like David Helgason agree with you there. Speculation is worthless.
     
  9. puzzud

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    I also get the sense that while there other things to be done at UT, a Linux port is shelved until they get some "free time". Resource management in a professional environment is never ideal.
     
  10. puzzud

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    I'm speculating different scenarios based on a limited amount of information. UT has more viable info on the matter. And I know it's pointless to ask for specifics because I'm fairly certain I wouldn't get them in return.
     
  11. Ryiah

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    Which is precisely the key difference. David Helgason, being the executive vice president, has access to far more statistics than any of us do. Speculation is defined as forming a theory or conjecture without firm evidence. I don't consider David's statements concerning Unity to be speculative.
     
  12. Tomnnn

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    You can do that on a desktop!? If unity had an Android editor, I would do it.

    They're bluffing! Unity Technologies' new years resolution and plan for 2015 should be to develop for and support linux exclusively!

    I wonder how fast that would tank your business :3
     
  13. goat

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    Well speculation is what this entire thread is about except for Dunnett clearing things up - they talk with big businesses that use Unity and those businesses aren't interested in a Unity Editor for Linux. Don't forget the art is overwhelmingly created on Windows for a long time now.
     
  14. Ryiah

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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android-x86
     
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  15. goat

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    You think the effort David & his team 15 some odd years ago wasn't far reaching speculation? Actually, it was much more speculative then a Unity user enquiring whether the Unity editor might have a port coming to Linux knowing all the big businesses and governments that use both the Unity Editor and Linux.
     
  16. Ryiah

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    What are you talking about? David Helgason and his team attempted to go into game development. They produced a game and it failed. It was at that point when they decided to instead commercialize their Unity game engine. At the time a quality engine was expensive, so Unity releasing at an affordable price had little to no meaningful competition.
     
  17. superpig

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    FWIW, that's true of a lot of projects, not just a Linux Editor. We are not short on "things it would be cool to do," just on time.

    (And on people, though many of these are not projects that we could just 'throw people at', as they have an impact across the whole codebase and so coordinating them is often more difficult than writing the code itself).
     
  18. puzzud

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    I'm not trying to imply it'd be trivial. I'm just coming from many years where even Mac support was much rarer. It was always Windows API this, DirectX that. And the occasional instance where Mac was supported as well as Windows, I knew the product was mature--cross platform. And excuses to not port to Linux seemed to me as shallow.

    My humble projections of assigning to or hiring a few developers for this endeavor was also in the span of a year. It's plenty of time, given the already cross platform nature of the product.
     
  19. Graham-Dunnett

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    Um, not sure I understand what's toxic about that. It's a joke, and I regularly use car analogies. I didn't email Lamborghini. Asking them to give away products for free is of course unlikely to get the result I want.

    But anyway, the two people who've provided toxic replies are two people who are explaining that a Linux version of Unity will cost money to create/test/maintain, so some revenue is going to be needed for that.
     
  20. goat

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    Uh, so attempting to publishing a profitable game isn't wildly speculative venture likely to fail for lack of data of what would make the game successful?

    OK. If you must be right.
     
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  21. Ryiah

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    You're neglecting to take into consideration the middle-ware. Unity is very heavily dependent on middle-ware. Stripping it away may produce a very easily ported engine, but you would be stripping away what makes Unity valuable.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2015
  22. puzzud

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    I know. I've experienced this phenomena for years. There is likely at least one UT developer who would love to port it to Linux.
     
  23. puzzud

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    Yea, I meant to mention your point. If the middle ware used doesn't support Linux in all the necessary ways, it could be an obstacle for porting the Editor to Linux. A shim would need to be acquired or implemented to some degree.
     
  24. Graham-Dunnett

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    Which will cost money. :-(
     
  25. Ryiah

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    Epic's solution was to strip out the middle-ware from the core engine but still allow it to be potentially used through a plug-in system. It required a complete rewrite of their engine from the ground up though so I don't expect Unity to do this.
     
  26. puzzud

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    In all politeness, the free car analogy doesn't hold up. Purchased and licensed software is not really comparable to the purchase of tangible products--now if Lamborghini made only 3 cars which we all could drive in at the same time; it'd work.

    Anyhow, I know it's probably not as trivial as this sounds, but if income from Linux customers is only 5% of all revenue, I'd expect 5% of maintenance and support efforts and no more. For instance, perhaps a Linux build isn't available until months after the initial release. I'd be fine with that.

    And I know how QA and PR works--no one wants 5% of a customer base's poorer experience to spread and tarnish the reputation of the product as a whole. I can take a screenshot of how the Editor looks on my Linux machine--it looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.

    A little support is better than no support. Give us a chance by putting us on the map. If we fall off; that would be our fault.
     
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  27. Graham-Dunnett

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    People can of course ask for a zero cost version of a product that doesn't exist. But by asking that doesn't mean it's going to get made.
     
  28. Graham-Dunnett

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    I'm certain when 5% of our income comes from (or is promised by) Linux customers we'll have a Linux editor.
     
  29. Cogent

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    Sometimes seems more like a demand by Linux users than a request, perhaps it's just my perception.

    I personally enjoyed the free car analogy. ;)
     
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  30. ShilohGames

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    That is quite the chicken and the egg scenario, though. You won't get 5% of your income from Linux based users until AFTER you deploy a Linux based editor.

    And in many cases, the Linux based Unity editor will be used in addition to (not instead of) the Windows based (or Mac based) Unity editor. When developing a game for multiple platforms, it is handy to be able to build/edit/test all within the same environment. I'd love to have the Unity editor on both Windows and Linux for this reason.
     
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  31. Ryiah

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    Or if the large customers mentioned by Graham utilizing Unity wish to switch to Linux as their development platform of choice. This depends on more than Unity though as you still need asset creation tools and large companies are not going to want to depend on Blender and GIMP for those purposes.

    I haven't really looked over Adobe and Autodesk's offerings, to name just two companies, to see if their products are available for Linux.

    If only Visual Studio were on OS X and Linux.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2015
  32. puzzud

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    There is also money made from the asset store. I don't know how much money is made from it. I assume people without Pro licenses submit and purchase content with the asset store.
     
  33. Ryiah

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    You'd have to dig around for the exact statement, but essentially the Asset Store makes much less than licensing. It was created more as a way to attract developers, both for Free and Pro, to Unity. That it pays for itself is a bonus.

    There are products on it that are designed for both Free and Pro, but there are also some that will not function in Free at all.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2015
  34. goat

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    Were it not for the asset store I likely would be using UE4 now.
     
  35. 0tacun

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  36. Eric5h5

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  37. Tomnnn

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    If not for their taking-longer-than-3-months-now to get back to me on that free source via github, I would have tried it out this winter break.
     
  38. darkhog

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    Unless you say to devs who actually want to port it that they can take code home, port it after hours but they'll do it in their spare time and won't get money for it. If puzzud is right and
    then some would agree for such deal. It won't cost UT money as they'll do it in their free time and out of their pockets if they agree.
     
  39. darkhog

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    How about people who already are using Unity on Linux, via Wine? Have you tried to put some Wine tracking code? There are quite few ways to check if your software is running on Wine, you know.
     
  40. angrypenguin

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    Except that it will, indirectly, because there's more to project management than just the budget. Free labour is of no use if it screws up your schedule.
     
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  41. darkhog

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    Even if, and that's a big IF, as it would take place after working hours (i.e. not at UT office, but in interested developers' homes), it still would be less than if it would be 'official' project. Progress may be slower on it, but I can live with that as long as any progress is being made.
     
  42. 0tacun

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    I think it isn't UT's style to adapt or implement stuff the people created in their free time. Look at Tim C and his visual shader editor.
     
  43. darkhog

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    And that, my friend, should change. Otherwise Unity, instead of innovating, will lag behind.
     
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  44. Dantus

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    I am almost sure if they wanted to take the code home, they could already do that. Besides that they have Ninja Camps where they can work on whatever they want, just like every Friday. That's where a lot of innovation comes from.
    A company that wants to get innovation from its employees, doesn't ask them to work in their spare time.
     
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  45. Andy-Touch

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    I don't see how there is a correlation between a company innovating and a company's employees working on projects in their spare time; innovation can of course happen in the work place, during work hours, too. ;)
     
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  46. superpig

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    Many of us work from home a lot of the time, so our jobs would be pretty difficult if we couldn't :)
     
  47. puzzud

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    The hope that a Linux version would come from employee "spare time" is far fetched. I am sure the Unity roadmap stretches for at least 3 years. If UT had spare time, a Linux Editor would have already happened. It's all about when they decide to follow through with the endeavor.

    I wish all software companies had Google's old 20% policy (including Google). I would innovate the crap out of the software at my work because of it.

    Now if a developer had the gumption to make most or all of this endeavor on their own; I'd hope they'd be compensated with a bonus.

    My research indicates that Unity targeting Linux more or less came from a Kickstarter (Shadowrun) and likely third party development. I think we could vote with our dollars if we had a Kickstarter.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2015
  48. Ryiah

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    What happens if you don't meet your goal though? At this point it is practically guaranteed it won't be. Proving that an editor on Linux is not viable is a worse loss than simply speculating that it might not be.

    Not to mention Kickstarter has lost favor with a lot of people because of those who meet their goal but are failing to deliver an actual product. It is happening even with those who are known to have been successful in the past.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2015
  49. Graham-Dunnett

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    Um, I don't remember the Linux player being created for ShadowGun. We made the Linux player so we could measure how many customers want to target Linux as a platform.
     
  50. Andy-Touch

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    You have just reminded me to check up on the status of that awesome SCALE game I backed a while ago, thank you! :)
     
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