Here is a great description of what PortMyApps is about: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/comments-1271.html
Yeah, I searched and couldn't find one. So I used Google translate instead. It did a good enough job for me to understand it. Not sure why they don't have an English version?
They posted the english version today. I still don't know what's the main goal of PortMyApps. It just went talking about the past and how long it's been since the first release of PoL. I still have yet to see what's the point of PortMyApps, or at the very least, what is it trying to achieve. It feels so unclear since its first appearance.
It is mainly because PortMyApps is aimed at a different audience, as I have explained it in the news. You are more concerned by PlayOnLinux because PlayOnLinux is made for users.
It sounds very experimental, but the main purpose is for games that no longer have source code accessible. It will use Wine to make the game playable in Linux with a wrapper. I guess its all automated. That's my take at least. I can definitely see the benefits with games like System Shock 2. I'm sure there are hundreds of other games that will never see Linux ports and this could be an option for publishers and developers if they don't have the source code.
Yea, I guess you kinda confirmed what's been bothering me. It just feels like they are planning to put a paywall behind, maybe I'm mistaken? It's not that they can't monetize off open source projects. A lot of people/software companies do that. It just that well, I've been seeing developers releasing games on steam with WINE wrapped around. And I think GOG will be bringing their old games to linux through WINE, which is good news. Maybe it's just me.
To me it really comes down to: Will the game play smoothly in Linux? Most Mac/Win gamers just want it to work. So if the game runs on lots of different hardware (laptops, desktops, i86, Arm) then its a success. But when we hear about games like The Witcher 2 with a Wine wrapper and people are complaining that it won't run, then its not a success. I admit, a few of my guides have games that run with some bugs and frame rate issues. It usually comes down to drivers, Wine and the video card. I only have control over one of those: The video card So I hope these efforts from PlayOnLinux, Wine, Valve and developers can get games running with success.
Thanks for clarifying Tinou. So PortMyApps is really for developers. If it grows and gets a lot of attention, do you think it could be an option for small one-man/two-man studios to make a Linux compatible version of their game?
I'm not really a PlayOnLinux user though , no offense! (although I do help anyone I can with WINE issues ) I thought that maybe it was becoming a software development company that would help others companies wanting to extend their support to GNU/Linux natively.
To be very clear, PortMyApps is not supported by PlayOnLinux at all. It's just that some member of POL team are working in the same time on this project. POL developement won't be affected. The fact is that, in some cases, apps are not comaptible with wine, but with a very small effort from the developer, it could be a lot better. We have noticed that POL is very close to user, but totally unknown by game publisher. If we find ways to get closer to them, we could bring a better for users. This is why PMA website might look "commercial"
Thats great! I absolutely agree about developers. The more developers know how to port games to Linux the more Linux games we'll have. Unfortunately I know its not all about quality right now. I'm sure most developers just want their game ported the easiest way possible. Just so they can say "it runs in Linux" I'm sure it was exactly the same with Mac when they struggled to become prominent in the game industry
That's really a myth. When you sell a product, you want it to work as best as possible. Valve has proven it. It will a lot of money to support a product that does not work great, and it will give a very bad image of the company.
I would hope that is the goal of developers and publishers. If it was my game, I would want to make sure it was fully compatible before releasing it. So maybe the "myth" develops from the community whining about the game not running as well as they would like. Not realizing the amount of hardware, engines, libraries and distros developers have to deal with? I read a lot of complaining and trolling, but at the same time most games seems to run really well with Wine. The Native games I have tested run perfectly so far!
Also, and I'm quite in a good position to see that: the main part of problems with wine is in fact not caused by wine. In general, reported bugs come from missing 32 bits drivers ; bad drivers ; sometimes missing system librairies (This is an example of tricky thing that can be handled with a system like POL)
Good point. A lot of posts on PlayOnLinux.com forums end up being AMD drivers, 32-bit libraries, old hardware, missing windows components (libraries) or underpowered hardware.
