Comment Re:convenience over quality (Score 1) 360
Of course, I have to wonder, if they've got all these other vectors covered, they clearly have a development process that supports multiple platforms. Would it be that hard to also have a linux client?
I can't imagine so. Doesn't anyone know why else they would be forgoing a linux client?
I would assume that it has something to do with satisfying the MPAA requirements for DRM. But that's just a guess.
I suspect there is a part of satisfying MPAA requirements that comes into play, but I'd wager the decision is much more based on the heterogeneity of the Linux ecosystem. With Windows and MacOS (or any of the other platforms listed), you're developing to a fairly standard API with a fairly well-known set of associated dependencies. One can predict, with a high degree of accuracy, what libraries will be available on the target system.
Developing "for Linux" has none of this. Sure, one could specify the versions of various libraries that are required but when you start to discover that you're alienating the majority of the installed base with your reqs, and that trying to develop an app such that it includes the majority of said installed base is both time-consuming and cost prohibitive, the economics just don't add up. I see an installed base quoted at roughly 3% farther down, so you're talking about only being able to reach a subset of that base for roughly the same cost as developing to other platforms that enjoy 20% or 30% market share. From a business perspective, the economics just don't make sense.
I see a lot of this MPAA-boogeyman-won't-let-them talk in Slashdot comments and it's a little tiring. Generally speaking, the free market tends to iron out such inefficiencies, given enough time, and the lack of a Linux client for so many apps, across so many companies, should be a big clue to anyone that there are some real economic reasons why this isn't happening. Mind, and I say all of this as a guy who runs Linux as his primary desktop and is also a developer of Linux apps, so I've encountered the exact same issues I'm talking about in dealing with the randomness of available functionality in the installed Linux base.
Parent poster, I apologize if this comes across as being a rant directed at you - that certainly is not my intent here. I'm just a little frustrated by having seen years of the same "MPAA won't let them" comments in various threads any time talk of a Linux client for just about anything comes up. There is, in my mind, a pretty obvious explanation for this and it boggles me that we have to rehash this subject Every Frickin' Time.
But then again, I must be new here...