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From: jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Look, please leave ID alone! [Was: DOOM for *BSD?]
Date: 21 Sep 1994 10:33:51 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <35p26f$8d9@agate.berkeley.edu>
References: <3595ak$l2i@jetsam.ee.pdx.edu> <35hgjs$t2n@fw.novatel.ca> <MICHAELV.94Sep18152042@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> <35jao8$5ae@jetsam.ee.pdx.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.berkeley.edu
Geeze, it's almost enough to make a guy hang it up and swear off anything
but pinball! :)
I've talked with ID and with Dave Taylor and the bottom line is this:
1. There is no Linux snobbery going on - the Linux port happened because
of a factor of *circumstance*, not because ANYONE at ID expected Linux
to be significant in any way! Dave Taylor runs Linux at home, likes
Linux, and he did this on his own hook. As far as ID's concerned, he
probably pretty much wasted his time with all the far more lucrative
platforms out there (OS/2? Amiga?). This was a free-time project and
does not constitute a committment by ID to support UN*X as a big target
platform. Quite frankly, with all the money to be made in DOS, they'd
be wasting their time. They should be all off writing QUAKE and not
even MESSING with DOOM anymore, if you want my NSHO!
2. The time during which such a port might have occurred (a brief lull in
ID's activity) has essentially past, and unless we get lucky we're simply
not going to see a *BSD port of DOOM. They don't want my hardware or
anyone else's at this point since they would have no way of promising
to actually use it for the intended purpose. Consider the "Hardware for
DOOM" drive officially cancelled from my perspective at least. Thank god
nobody sent me any hardware.
3. If the *BSD weenies (and I'm one if them so I can call us that :-) REALLY
want to have what Linux has, then they're going about it the WRONG WAY.
The Right Way is to simply work on a Linux ABI - for the less technical
among you, this means the ability to run Linux binaries. It's not as
arduous a task as it may seem, and both *BSD camps offer or will be
offering a number of building-blocks well suited to such a project.
Several people in both camps have already used them to good effect in
creating the beginnings of SCO binary emulation.
So rather than yell, go look at Linux and see what you can do to make that
nifty DOOM port run under *BSD. If we can't bring Mohammed to the mountain,
then it's time to bring the mountain to Mohammed.
Jordan