[jandrese]

On the other hand building Linux binaries and keeping them running for years without maintenance has proven far more difficult than emulating Windows.

For an example track down the ports Loki games did many years ago and try to get them running on a modern machine. The most reliable way for me has been to install a very old version of Linux (Redhat 8, note: Not RHEL 8) on a VM and run them in there.

[pjmlp]

Naturally it means GNU/Linux will never improve until being forced upon.

[jandrese]

It just means Microsoft has put more emphasis on ABI compatibility. This makes sense. In the open source world ABI compatibility is less of an issue because you can just recompile if there are breaking changes. ABI compatibility is far more important in a commercial closed source context where the source may be lost forever when a company shuts down or discontinues a product line.

[BlueTemplar]

It would be really nice to see open source being more widespread in games, though of course it's harder because they are more art than software.

Splitting code and audiovisual assets might work ?

[jandrese]

Even then the rights get dicey when they include third party libraries and development systems. Doom famously had issues with the sound library they used.

Plus, with commercial software it often happens that the code only builds cleanly on one specific ancient version of a closed source compiler in a specifically tweaked build environment that has been lost to the ages. Having the source helps a lot, but it is not a panacea.

[BlueTemplar]

Yet both of these issues seem to plague closed source software more than open source ?

Doom wasn't developed with open source in mind, was it ?

What open source software "only builds cleanly on one specific ancient version of a closed source compiler in a specifically tweaked build environment that has been lost to the ages" ?

[jandrese]

On opens source projects the build system needs to be reasonable enough that anybody can set it up. There are lots of conventions and even tools to help people. On closed source projects it is just Joe the sysadmin who sets up the machines for everybody working on it. Also, open source projects rarely include requirements like "buy a license of this specific version of this proprietary library and install it on your machine".

Doom had the advantage that it was written by a really excellent team with some standout programmers, and it has had plenty of people maintaining the codebase over the years.

[jamesfinlayson]

> Doom wasn't developed with open source in mind, was it ?

Not sure - Wolfenstein 3D was open sourced in 1995 (two years after Doom was released).

[wqaatwt]

It didn’t for decades (in this specific regard) why does you think it could change?

People running Linux hate software shipped as binaries due to various technical and ideological reasons. Why would this change?