Going forward, I simply will not be purchasing any game that does not work on Linux. I realize that I'll be missing out on some titles, but Windows simply isn't worth the headache. CachyOS has been working great for me. Proton has been amazing. I have had zero problems with the games I typically play -- some of which are multiplayer. Luckily, I have not run into anti-cheat issues yet.
There are obviously few or no hard technical blockers preventing Valve and the Linux community from supporting any game that runs on Windows, unless it's been specifically engineered to block Linux, and publishers of those games will simply not be getting my money anymore. If Windows was still as pleasant and non-invasive as eg KDE Plasma on Cachy, it would be a different story, but I haven't used it in months (previously I did my desktop gaming in a windows VM) and the feeling of relief is almost tangible. Windows 11 is _so fucking bad_.
I understand that there may be some semi-legitimate arguments around anticheat, but a) not my problem, and b) back in the day we dealt with cheaters by having a persistent dedicated server community with admins ready to kick or ban. The publishers took that away from us.
> There are obviously few or no hard technical blockers preventing Valve and the Linux community from supporting any game that runs on Windows
The announcement is a proof that your statement here is incorrect. Ubisoft is not banning Linux because they hate you and your money, but because there's a hard technical blocker to implementing an efficient anti-cheat system on Linux and the cost of overcoming this technical blocker is presumed to be higher than the loss of revenue they're incurring from losing your business.
So your claim is that it's actually impossible to implement "efficient" anticheat on Linux? That's interesting. But it's not the same thing as "the cost of overcoming this technical blocker is presumed to be higher than the loss of revenue they're incurring from losing your business", so I am not quite sure what point your comment is supposed to be making.
If your point is simply that the publishers think this is a good business decision for them, that's obvious, because they're a business and they aren't going to make decisions they think are bad. But I am not sure how your muddled logic about feasibility feeds into that point.
> So your claim is that it's actually impossible to implement "efficient" anticheat on Linux? That's interesting.
This is absolutely not my claim and it's a pretty absurd interpretation of what I wrote.
My claim is that there's ample evidence that anti-cheat on Linux happens to be a pretty hard technical blocker and multiple companies at this point have chosen to ban the platform outright and take a revenue loss over trying to overcome this blocker. This directly contradicts your claim of "obviously few or no hard technical blockers" existing.
This does not imply it's impossible to implement. It implies that at this point implementing it would not justify the cost. This pretty much 100% matches the any reasonable interpretation of the term "technical blocker"
You seem to be fixated on picking apart the wording of my original comment, so let me help you understand it:
> There are obviously few or no hard technical blockers preventing Valve and the Linux community from supporting any game that runs on Windows
'Few' there is doing a fair amount of work: it allows that some significant (or "hard" if you prefer) blockers may still exist (this is consistent with my own observations of game compatibility in aggregate). So your (implicit) insistence that I claimed there are no blockers is obviously nonsensical already. But, furthermore, I went on to say this:
> unless it's been specifically engineered to block Linux
Which precisely describes a game that previously worked on Linux, with anticheat even, but now has been updated to remove that compatibility! It also describes a game whose anticheat has been configured that way since launch.
Also, your implication that "hard technical blocker" and "not worth it to implement" are interchangeable is ridiculous in any scope, whether you're Valve deciding whether to commit tens or hundreds of man-years to Proton development or a one man shop considering a hacky workaround in a client's dated web framework.
You are just barking at the mailman. I'm done here unless you can respond to the actual substance and nuance of my comments rather than a strawman.
Except we already know the anti-cheat system they use works on Linux, because other products use it. Therefore we have no evidence that the blocker here is technical: it could be political, process-driven, simple incompetence, or anything else. In any of the latter cases, there can be no conclusion of correctness of the parent comment's claim.
I don't play For Honour, but I'm monitoring Apex Legends pro scene and I know that Respawn has banned Linux because none of the existing anti-cheat solutions were good enough and the cost of maintaining their own solution was not worth the revenue Linux support was bringing.
Before the ban the cheater population was disproportionally high on Linux.
I'm pulling for Microsoft to create an XboxOS for PC you can just freely install on any machine, as that's about the only thing I care about regarding Windows. Then I could see myself dualbooting that when I want to play my Xbox collection. And it'd be nice to build a beefy machine to max them out on, once the PC component prices settle a bit.
They're playing with that with the Xbox Full Screen Experience on ROG Xbox Ally, but it's still running Windows 11 underneath. I just want the Xbox.
We should invest in solutions outside of Microsoft for games. Even if Microsoft comes out with XboxOS, and even if somehow it isn't terrible, it will eventually be terrible and will enable companies to continue to do anti-consumer B.S. like what Ubisoft is doing here.
Given how dogshit Windows 11 is, and how dogshit the Xbox-branded apps have consistently been in the last 10 years or so (it's genuinely impressive how bad they are), it's hard to see why a new Microsoft thing wouldn't have all the same problems. They just don't make software to serve the user anymore.
I like the software side on my Series X, so if they can bring that over to PC as an OS, that'd be great. I agree the Xbox on PC experience hasn't been stellar so far and I hope they ditch that app with the next generation, for the sake of current userbase. It was serviceable at best in my Windows 10 days.
For anything not gaming related, I have Linux or MacOS.
Like many other critiques along this line, I think the answer is: Yes, for now. For example, in my own code base, I have an agent dedicated to maintaining a sane data model. This agent reviews the plan in advance and again during code review. And then I review the code myself. This seems to be sufficient for my work, at least. YMMV. It was a good post though. I enjoyed the take and the writing.
Nothing in this article made me think they even understand the problem. I don't know what I expecting, though. I mean, the first thing they mention is the ability to move the taskbar around? Oh wow. Yeah, they have no idea what's wrong.
If I do something faster by pairing with AI, why should my employer reap the benefit? Why would I pass the savings on to my employer?
Could it be that employers are not seeing the difference because most employees are doing something else with the time they've saved by using AI?
There's been massive wage stagnation, benefits are crap, they play games with PTO. Most people I talk to who use AI as a part of their workflow are taking advantage of something nice that has come their way for a change.
Not realizing the implications of an oligarch who bought his way into the federal government with apparent conflicts of interest is equally reaching and dogmatic. This article asks the right questions. We should be concerned about this and keep a watchful eye on it.
Aside from the debate, 600k seems insanely high for this intersection. No wonder this country's infrastructure is crumbling when it takes over half a million dollars to put in a few lights.
You've got the capital costs of having the several lights, built for 24/7 operation, plus the traffic controller. Then you've got to wire that up, and get an electrical connection for the controller box. Plus all the cuts in the pavement for vehicle detectors. Additionally the pedestrian intend to cross buttons and accessibility indicators for pedestrians. And you may need to resurface before or after, and redraw the lines. Likely you'll need signs. Possibly any other curb work that had been neglected, but needs to be done on a new project.
Plus it costs money to do the traffic survey and analysis to decide if you wanted to build the thing in the first place, and to determine the cycle timings. If you need to run an environmental impact report, that's more money on analysis.
Minimum wage in California seems to be $16 an hour. I doubt this intersection took 37 500 man-hours to finish, so I don't think the cost is explained by wages. Also, $200K would still seem like a gigantic amount of money for adding stop lights to a single intersection.
You probably need an engineer. A couple. They might have to run traffic studies beforehand to estimate the design requirements and light timing. They might have to consider other network nodes beyond this in their modeling. They might have to also run studies afterward to retime the lights to meet realized demand.
It's a nice playground design for sure, but it's kind of amazing to consider what could be built privately for the same amount. You could literally build a palace on a giant estate with fancy landscaping, a swimming pool, tennis courts, movie theater, etc.
Of course there are reasons why public projects are more expensive, but it does seem pretty crazy on the surface.
Fortunately for the workers, paying below minimum wage is illegal. (And for what it’s worth, it’s really hard to hire even at minimum wage these days. McDonald’s pays well above $15 in most metro areas - including in states which use the federal minimum.)
The actual scenario at hand is paying 3x wages "just because".
You said 1/3 minimum wage as a strawman. Not to mention minimum wages aren't necessary anyway - like you said "it’s really hard to hire even at minimum wage these days".
Pay market wages, without external forces driving wages higher. Because, higher wages means higher costs, and if you are government that's essentially theft from your taxpayers.
NY Times also reports that the driver's BAC was below the legal limit, but does not give a figure.
I feel it is also significant that the vehicle suddenly swerved off the road for no apparent reason. As far as I know, this is not the sort of thing that usually happens when drunk drivers cause crashes, at least unless they are completely shitfaced. More typically they create dangerous situations through poor judgement and/or fail to react to a situation requiring action.
> NY Times also reports that the driver's BAC was below the legal limit, but does not give a figure.
Many US jurisdictions you can still be charged for DUI/DD while being under the legal limit if you're judged to be impaired, which I don't think nearly enough people realize.
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