D20 taking over?

[Corinth]

Although I would not mind one whit for dual-statted Shadow World books.

 

[maddman75]

That will never happen. Until something that is so easy and revolutionary that it makes Windows look like DOS we are pretty much stuck with Windows. Linux already is a lot more stable and quick than Windows, but since most commercial apps are devolped much later than the Windows versions, if at all, it will never reach critical mass. I hope we never see the day when WOTC is the Microsoft of RPG's, ie 95% of games are d20 rather than systems matched to a specific genre or setting.

WINE will change that. By the time it hits 1.0 you will be able to run 85% of all windows software on Linux by using WINE (a Free windows emulation layer) Already you can run Internet Explorer, some games, and with an extension from CodeWeavers, Office.

Office is the real issue - companies can't really switch because so much data is in MS proprietary format and you need WIndows to run office. If businesses can switch,, people at home will switch so they can use what they are used to from work. Then the games will come.

Actually I consider d20 to be more anagolous to Linux - letting people get to the core mechanics and adapt, create, extend. A RPG version of MS would be like GURPS if they were evil - start giving away knockoffs of popular games as free downloads, buying up competeing companies, getting retailers into exclusive agreements (if you don't want to pay full retail, you must carry only GURPS in a given store), and releasing a new version every other year with the sole purpose of milking their customers for all they can.

 

[Corinth]

Word. WINE has the potential to be the killer application that brings Linux up to that critical mass of users, and it's getting to that point because Linux is Open Source software.

D20, by comparison, is what Windows could've been if it was an Open Source system. This is where we are now, and the forces that allowed Linux to reach a point where it can challenge the Windows hegemony are the same forces that now reinforce and strength the D20 hegemony.