I really have not quite gotten used to the way the filesystem is arranged. I guess I am comfortable with it not being like Windows, but I want it to be like linux. In Windows, there is no “/usr/lib/” or “/usr/local/lib/” for libraries so you put them somewhere else (like “C:\OgreSDK” or in program files or something). In OS X there is a “/usr/lib/” and “/usr/local/lib/” but it looks like the preferred place to install libraries is into “/Libraries/” which is just weird. Which should I use? Should I treat it as a unix machine, or embrace the weird OS X stuff?

The keyboard also is a little annoying. I want a “home” and an “end” key. I want a “del” key that is separate from the backspace key. I guess you can do “command-right” to get to the end of the line, but that does not seem to work consistently in all applications. I also really think only putting one mouse button on the laptops is a poor decision. And no, I don’t buy the argument that using modifier keys for things like that or to get a right-click is somehow more efficient.

I am also trying to figure out how to get dependencies for Protocce installed. Ogre was really easy since they provide a framework. If I remember correctly from his blog, Steve Streeting got a Mac recently so OS X has a higher priority on the Ogre team. The ogg and vorbis packages came with XCode projects to make frameworks, so building and installing them was really easy. I couldn’t find a binary boost distribution, so I built/installed it just like I would have in linux (“./configure && make && make install”). That is what boost recommends, but I’m not sure that is the OS X way to do things. At this point though, I don’t think there is reason to go through the trouble of making a framework (and really figuring out what frameworks are all about, how they differ from bundles, what a bundle is, etc.). Unfortunately, OS X support in CEGUI seems to be lagging behind. CEGUI seems to be kind of quiet lately anyway (Crazy Eddie appears to have left the project, hopefully it can rise from the ashes and continue strongly eventually). I am going to try building it from SVN where I hope the OS X support is a little better.

XCode seems like it will be nice. I need to try a “hello world” project in it, but it looks like CMake can generate XCode projects. That will be save a lot of work, since it will shield me from having to set up a project manually until after I see how Xcode handles projects a little. I’m sure it’ll still take some getting used to, but I’m interested to see how it compares to Eclipse with the CDT and Visual Studio.

Anyway, if you have tips on getting started with development is OS X, let me know. I found Apple’s getting started page and it seems there could be some good stuff in there., but I have a lot to learn.

Anyway, based on some of the responses in that Slashdot thread and in our blog here, I thought I should clarify what I’m trying to say. I have no problem with MySQL using the GPL to license their software. That’s their choice and if I choose to use their product I can’t really complain much about it. I may still prefer to use a database with a less restrictive license since several exist, but I have no issues with the idea of MySQL using the GPL for their database product.

I do have issues with how MySQL AB uses the GPL though. Here is my understanding of what they are doing: They have a document that describes the protocol necessary for a database access library to communicate with the MySQL database. Because the MySQL system is released under the GPL, they claim that terms of the GPL also apply to the protocol itself. As a result, they claim that if you use the document which describes the protocol to implement a library or system which communicates with a MySQL server (or emulates one, etc.), you must abide by the GPL. As far as I can tell, they are attempting to apply copyright (the GPL) to an idea (the description of the MySQL protocol in that document). Again, I’m not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that copyright applies only to manifestations of ideas, not the ideas themselves. That is, they can copyright the code which implements a protocol (which they have, it’s the MySQL database) and they can copyright the text of the document that describes the protocol, but they can’t copyright the protocol itself. If they want to protect the idea itself, they need to patent it. I believe that people who have read this generally agree with me that this is not a valid use of copyright. Am I wrong? If so, how is this valid?

I think we all can agree that this is at the very least questionable use of copyright. I am not sure why they would try to play these games other than to attempt to eliminate less restrictive 3rd party client libraries. I would think that as the company that produces MySQL itself, they should be able to legitimately keep their official client libraries ahead of any 3rd party competitors in terms of performance, reliability, and/or just their ability to offer support. Instead, they have resorted to what looks like misusing copyright. I’ll say this again: why bother with these stupid games when there are better database available like Firebird and PostgreSQL?

My other issue with MySQL AB is just that it appears they do a poor job of educating their users about what their license really means. I guess when they don’t seem to understand what their own license covers, I shouldn’t expect them to be able to explain it to their users. It seems like they are just being intentionally unclear and misleading, rather than being straightforward and honest about the licensing requirements. I admit that this is very subjective. Perhaps the people who commented here defending them disagree. I mean, MySQL AB is free to offer poor and confusing support if they want to. Thankfully, not only am I free to not use their product, but I can also attempt to explain my reasons to others (by whining about it on my blog)!

In the past, I have been a pretty dedicated NVIDIA user, I don’t think I have bought a non-NVIDIA card since the GeForce series was introduced in 1999. Their linux drivers are closed-source binary blobs and make life harder than it should be for linux distros. Once you go through the pain to get them set up, they work well and give good performance. Ultimately, as a Linux game developer, that’s what I am looking for. I’m also excited about Noveau and I’m looking forward to trying their driver when it is farther along. However, if AMD provided decent open-source drivers for the ATI cards (or if Intel gets a decent graphics chipset going), I would happily drop NVIDIA without a second thought.

PS Is it just “CDT” or is it “the CDT”? Anyone know?

There is a fairly easy workaround. You just install the CDT from inside Eclipse. That works, but it means your CDT install is outside of the standard package management. It seems like in the three months since this glaring issue was reported, they could have released an update for the CDT package. I would say incompatible package versions that result in the package not working at all should be addressed in an update. I should note that I believe is already fixed in Feisty Fawn, but that is scheduled to be released in late April.

This issue (along with the fact that the Ogre packages in Feisty are still over a year old) is an example of why Ubuntu is not the ideal platform for developers. I could start maintaining some packages myself, but I currently have enough on my plate with just Crown and Cutlass itself. Also, since at least an updated CDT package exists for Feisty, it seems like it’s not a lack of a maintainer that’s preventing an update for Edgy. I guess it could just be that Ubuntu is aimed at my grandpa (who actually did just started using Ubuntu!) not me. Maybe it’s time to go back to Fedora…

Update: Posted to gamedev.net and figured out that I just needed to put the “-lboost_serialization” at the end of the command. That’s good to know!

My main issue with Ubuntu is the age of some development packages in the repositories. For example, the Eclipse CDT is one version out of data while Eclipse itself is the most recent version. Even worse, the version of Ogre in the repository is 1.0.7 which is almost a year old! As you can imagine, a lot has changed between 1.0 and 1.4. Our Ogre test doesn’t even compile with it. As a result, I have had to compile my own version of Ogre. That’s not too bad, but it would make things a little easier if I didn’t have to. We talked about contributing a new package, but decided that since we will need to do some compiling anyway it would be better to use the CVS version of Ogre. That way when 1.4 is released we will not need to unlearn anything, and hopefully we’ll be ready to start releasing some code before any more major version changes in Ogre.

Anyway, it just doesn’t seem like developers are the target audience for Ubuntu. So far things seem to be working well enough that I don’t want to go through the trouble of returning to Fedora, but a little better developer support in Ubuntu sure would be nice.