[MUD-Dev] Re: java clients

[Travis Casey]

Tuesday, August 13, 2002, 12:17:52 PM, David Love wrote:
> justice at softhome.net wrote:

>> As much as I hate to admit it, the vast majority of computer
>> "users" use Microsoft so it's a requirement.  The idea of
>> "cross-platform" is to allow those who use other operating
>> systems such as Mac (god why?) and *nix.

> Though there are some benefits in targetting a generic *nix
> platform (less so for the client side than the server side, but
> still a valid point).  With darwin's bsd core (Mac OS X) and the
> availability of cygwin for Windows, it allows for a far greater
> level of source compatibility across platforms.

> Granted, there are still some significant issues that arise when
> considering things like graphics libraries / toolkits, audio
> libraries, etc.  While the majority of users are likely to be
> running under a microsoft os, this does not mean you have to focus
> primarily on this platform (you just need to be compatible with
> it).  The idea of actively excluding *nix users grates on me.

Something that should be noted is that supporting *nix can be as
simple as not *not allowing* people to build compatible *nix
clients.  For any game of reasonable popularity, there's probably
going to be a contingent of *nix users willing to create their own
client for it, if you don't go out of your way to give them great
legal and/or technical hassles in doing so.

Releasing documentation about your file formats, communication
protocol, etc. can go a long way towards allowing someone else to
build a compatible client.

(This does, of course, lead to other problems:

 - You can't be as sure that you can trust the client.  (Of course,
   from a strict point of view, you shouldn't trust the client
   anyways...)

 - Having published protocol, file formats, etc. requires a certain
   amount of discipline -- you can't change things between versions
   so much.

 - You can't count on revenue from selling copies of the client as
   much as you can with a fully proprietary client.

There are almost certainly others I'm overlooking.)

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev