Humble Indie Bundle V ha generado un gran revuelo entre los jugadores de Mac y GNU/Linux. La razón: anuncian que uno de los juegos incluidos en su paquete (estilo "paga lo que quieras pero, si pagas más de la media, te damos más juegos"), LIMBO, es un port cuando en realidad se trata del binario de windows junto empaquetado con wine.
No entraré a valorar la inmoralidad de engañar a los usuarios, que han pagado una variable cantidad de dinero, dándoles gato por liebre: Al fin y al cabo siempre se puede pedir la devolución del dinero. Se trata simplemente del mal cuerpo que se me queda al pensar que, una vez más, somos usuarios de quinta categoría, o peor aún, que esta sucia chapuza acabe convirtiéndose en tendencia por ahorrarse dinero.
Iluso de mí, se me ocurre preguntar por twitter
Primer twit, 2 de junio de 2012.
@humble You guys really should advertise Limbo is NOT Linux or Mac native, a lot of people are feeling in some way cheated, you know?
Segundo twit, 2 de junio de 2012, pero más tarde, porque de lo contrario no sería el segundo, obviamente.
And you cannot, @humble guys, ship a game, as you do with Limbo, with a reimplementation of other OS's libraries and call et native.
...no hay respuesta...
Tercer twit, 3 de junio de 2012.
Once again, Humble Indie Bundle @bundle 's Limbo is NOT linux native: it uses Wine. They're cheating linux users.
...y no se dan por aludidos. Y ahora me acabo de dar cuenta que escribí @bundle en lugar de @humble, torpe de mí.
Cuarto twit, 7 de junio de 2012.
I've got a question for @humble related to the recently added games to the bundle: There are some games that use wine other than Limbo?
No responden, miro sus tweets, se ve no hablan con nadie.
Iluso de mí, supuse que me responderían, pero seguramente es su política el no contestar a preguntas por twitter.
Por cierto, la pregunta es sólo para asegurarme, viendo los requisitos mínimos en la web se ve claramente los son nativos (requieren la misma RAM) y los que no es decir, LIMBO, que gasta el doble.
Opto por preguntar en el chat de su web (lo habría hecho antes pero no había reparado en su existencia).
Yo
As I asked on twitter: I've got a question for @humble related to the recently added games to the bundle: There are some games that use wine other than Limbo?
...espero unos diez minutos, me empiezo a impacientar...
hi?
I've seen you guys are trying to silent all this wine flame
but I am a customer (this should be my second bundle) and I should be able to know what the hell I going to buy
...nada, a lo mejor me ignoran, saco toda la artillería...
And you do not advertise anywere you simply taken the Limbo windows executable, packaged along with wine, and you're selling as it were native when obiously it isn't.
...y recuerdo el acojone que tienen los americanos con ser demandados. Hora de marcarse el farol del siglo...
I'm sure that this circumstance was against USA commercial laws.
¡Tachán!
Matthew
LIMBO contains some audio middleware that was not easily supported on Linux so the developer decided to go with CodeWeavers to create and support a custom-tailored Wine wrapper for it instead. A lot of time was spent on tweaking and optimizing the build and it passed both our and their QA with better performance than many native ports we've seen. We do the best QA we can, but it's a wide-wide world of Linux out there, so it has been really hard to squash all the bugs before they're encountered in the wild. Please know we'll make sure CodeWeavers hears about any LIMBO bugs that need fixing and will work with them to ensure that they're addressed. Using Wine is not an excuse for a poor Linux experience and we will make sure that it continues to be improved.
...cantinela, de hecho ya lo había leído en otro lado, se ve tienen preparado este texto para copiar y pegar...
Yo
I already know that, but you're saying everywhere on this website how native LIMBO was, which is a lie, the question is: why?
Matthew
Which part of the website?
...vale, busco en la web, no encuentro nada, sólo leo que "funcionan en linux", si en algún momento lo leí soy tonto por no haber hecho captura de pantalla, y si no lo leí me lo imaginé y soy simplemente gilipollas...
I apologize for the misunderstanding
¡Qué educado! Podría haberme dicho directamente que estoy loco y me imagino cosas, y tendría razón, lo hubiera aceptado, hubiera encajado el golpe como un hombre, pero no, se ha ganado un punto. Balance: Matthew 1; idiota que se imagina las cosas, 0
Yo
Sorry, I think I've read somewhere, but I cannot find it right now, It seems my fault
Matthew
We understand your feelings
However, we think that the game runs great on our test machines
and are working to improve it even more
...es decir, que no me fustigue, y que me comprende, y la cantinela de que trabajan para arreglar bugs...
Yo
The linux users love the job you do making game ports possible, but we're seriously scared about new games taking this shortcut instead being correctly ported to linux
..y aquí es donde le hago un poco la pelota, y le explico que nos acojona que usen Wine hasta para cepillarse los dientes en próximos "bundles"...
Matthew
Well
Limbo itself was ported for linux
it's just the audio middleware
and I'm sure that for their next project
they'll be able to put that into consideration
...y me dice que LIMBO es nativo para linux y que sólo el sistema de audio... ¡Eh! ¡Un momento! ¡Parad las rotativas!
Yo
Do you say that LIMBO have been compiled against the Linux library, excluding the audio stuff?
Matthew
I believe that is the case
Although I might have to doublecheck on that one
...vale, dice que no está seguro. Si está en lo cierto soy aún más idiota, y la que se ha armado en la red ha sido una tontería máxima, pero si está equivocado...
Yo
how can I confirm that?
Matthew
You might want to mail in to contact@humblebundle.com
...vale, toca enviar correo, no sin antes disculparme por ser un tocapelotas de libro (no es redundancia, es poesía).
Yo
I'm sorry for being so annoying, thanks for your tolerance, I apologize for my misspellings, bye.
Sí, tengo el inglés más oxidado que el sobaco de Optimus Prime, pero uno hace lo que puede. Así que raudo y veloz acudo a redactar un correo electrónico, lo más formal posible, a estos señores a ver si me aclaran algo. Tardo un día, y he tenido ayuda.
Dear Sir or Ma’am
I should be grateful if you would explain some circumstances regarding Humble Indie Bundle V. I promise to publish your answer for another folks.
I've been talking with Matthew, using your website’s commercial support chat, about LIMBO Mac and GNU/Linux ports implementation. He tried to explain me LIMBO was compiled against native libraries but the audio middleware, but he didn’t feel confident. As he later suggested, I'm contacting you in order to bear out this affirmation or you’re actually shipping the Windows binary along with Wine configured, and hopefully patched, by CodeWeavers.
I also take this opportunity to encourage you advise clearly on your website about LIMBO being Mac/Linux native or not, as the current situation angers a lot of people as you can see in
Indie Game Magazine,
Ubuntu forums along with
this ipetition,
Codeweaver blog's comments,
Phoronix forums,
Twitter and
your own blog’s comments.
On the other hand, you could be against the US commercial laws as your attitude would be misinterpreted as
false advertising, as Wikipedia says: "means of advertisement other than labeling, which is misleading in a material respect; and in determining whether an advertisement is misleading, there shall be taken into account (among other things) not only representations made or suggested by statement, word, design, device, sound, or any combination thereof, but also the extent to which the advertisement fails to reveal facts material in the light of such representations or material with respect to consequences which may result from the use of the commodity to which the advertisement relates under the conditions prescribed in said advertisement, or under such conditions as are customary or usual.".
This liability is in fact unrelated with any software responsibility (which is limited by the end user license agreement). The problem is the confusing information provided by your company if LIMBO for Mac or GNU/Linux would be finally using wine, as you might be shipping a non-native stuff without advice along with a bunch of native software.
Note that non-native software could be considered very different than native one, due its characteristics (unnecessary duplicated libraries and wrappers, and its huge memory footprint) and oddities (unexpected bugs and very limited support in the near future).
In short: distributing a game within an emulator, a virtual machine, or a re-implementation of other OS's libraries will never result on an optimal user experience, as this kind of workarounds wastes computer resources and adds some useless complexity layers which come along with unfixable bugs. Do not warning or advertising this circumstance could be considered false advertising.
Your Mac and GNU/Linux customers deserve your public clarification about this situation.
Yours faithfully,
Felipe A. Hernandez
Ahora toca esperar...
Aprovecho para buscar más material de discusión (aparte del enlazado en el email), y me encuentro con la batalla campal (por poner un ejemplo) en un hilo iniciado por los desarrolladores del Humble Indie Bundle en reddit.
A decir verdad, visto lo visto en reddit, creo que es muy improbable que me respondan al correo.
Os mantendré informados (ah, es verdad, que ya no me lee nadie).
Edito 2012.06.09 Recibo respuesta de copia y pega.
Hi Felipe, the Linux build of LIMBO was packaged professionally by CodeWeavers and does indeed use a tailored version of Wine. If you heard anything else from us, I sincerely apologize and would like to get some more information so that I can correct this immediately.
CodeWeavers has shipped a few updates resolving a number of issues that our customers have identified. If there are any outstanding issues that you are worried about specifically, please let me know and I can make sure that CodeWeavers is tracking them.
I don’t want people to think that the Linux version of LIMBO is “simply” shipped with Wine and thus unfixable bugs are inevitable — if there is anything wrong with the build, they should, and can, be fixed.
For technical questions about LIMBO’s Mac and Windows tech, I would encourage you to ask Playdead directly to avoid any miscommunication.
Jeffrey Rosen
Co-Founder
Humble Bundle
Tócate los huevos, ni siquiera se han molestado en leerse el correo entero. Se ve que uno no puede ser sutil, toca responder con algo más directo a ver si se dejan de estupideces y responden a lo que se les pregunta.
Hi Jeffrey,
Thanks for reply, but it seems you did not entirely read my previous email.
I'm not complaining about your customer support which was, indeed, excellent, I'm just trying to encourage you to advise to your customer what the hell are they buying, as you're hiding, deliberately or not, LIMBO comes with a huge amount of windows-like libraries due the fact LIMBO is NOT a real Mac or Linux port.
I just want you to answer why don't you advise this situation to your customers.
Y vuelta a esperar.
Edito 2012.06.10, recibo respuesta pero, a este ritmo, terminaremos el año que viene.
Sorry for misunderstanding. In the future, if we continue to work with CodeWeavers, we will probably add an explanation of what Wine is and how CodeWeavers operates. By the way, where did you see that LIMBO for Mac is not native?
Jeffrey Rosen
Co-Founder
Humble Bundle
Muy políticamente correcto eso de que probablemente añadan una explicación en el futuro si siguen trabajando con CodeWeavers, es decir, si siguen tomándonos el pelo con Wine. Muy político todo. Réplica:
Estoy perdiendo la esperanza de que se den por aludidos por el cabreo generalizado entre sus clientes linuxeros.
Edito 2012.06.10, vaya, dos respuestas en un día, deben de estar verdaderamente hartos de mí.
To clarify, I am aware that the Linux version was created by CodeWeavers, but I am asking where you heard that the Mac version was not native
Jeffrey Rosen
Co-Founder
Humble Bundle
Me ha pillado. Conscientemente había dejado entreveer que era un usuario de Mac, al fin y al cabo la comunidad de linux ya les está tocando las narices y podrían haber optado por no respoderme. Pero no he mentido, simplemente he sido muy diplomático y he hablando continuamente de Mac y de GNU/Linux.
El problema esque, como en realidad la versión de Mac me la trae flojísima, no me había documentado bien y, efectivamente, la versión de Mac es nativa. Esto significa que la excusa del sistema de audio es simplemente mentira, ya ha sido portado antes, de modo se trata simplemente de falta de vergüenza por parte de Playdead.
Contesto:
Hi Jeffrey,
My apologies, I supposed Mac version was, like Linux, using Wine; I googled for a while and I've found it's already available at Mac App Store, which doesn't allow non-native software. In short, I was wrong about LIMBO for Mac.
But note this kind of misconceptions could be avoided with the appropriate information regarding Wine usage being available at the Humble Indie Bumble website, as the Linux community demands.
On the technical side, a native version for MacOS reveals that the excuse of audio midleware, used to justify the wine usage, has no sense, because they've already ported it, but I know this only regards to Playdead.
Thanks for understanding my worries.
Creo que estoy resultando muy cansino ya, tendré suerte si en el siguiente email no me adjunta un poco de ánthrax para que deje de molestar.
2012.06.12: Bueno, no hay respuesta, doy por cerrado el asunto. Conclusiones:
- El servicio de atención a los consumidores de Humble Indie Bundle es muy bueno, siempre que obviemos que no saben lo que venden.
- A los señores de Humble Indie Bundle se las trae muy floja todo el revuelo montado, que ha impresionado bastante a los desarrolladores de los otros juegos.
- A los señores de Playdead debería caérseles la cara de vergüenza por mentir y estafar. Habiendo ya portado su juego para Mac, les costaría bastante poco portar LIMBO a GNU/Linux, pero preferieron usar Wine y tomar a la comunidad entera de GNU/Linux por gilipollas. Bravo.
- A los señores de Humble Indie Bundle les da igual confundir, o engañar, al 10% de sus clientes, no incluyendo información muy relevante sobre lo que están vendiendo en su página.
- Y, por último, los señores de Humble Indie Bundle no descartan volver a usar Wine, ole tus huevos.
Arrieros somos y en el camino nos encontraremos.
(proverbio español)
twitter
