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Humble Team Responds to The Petition Filed by Linux Users


Few days back we reported that a new online petition has been launched requesting only native Linux games in Humble Bundle.

In Humble Indie Bundle 5, LIMBO was not supported on Linux as a native game and instead used a Wine/CodeWeaver wrapper. Some Linux users were concerned that if this trend continues, more such games can be introduced in future the bundles which would not be good for Linux community.

The petition was started by Hamish Paul Wilson and over 500 Linux users have signed it. Now he sent a message to the Humble Bundle upon the closure of HIB 5.

Dear Humble Indie Bundle,

As an owner of five of your bundles (and as someone who would have happily supported more if circumstances would have allowed it), including the Humble Indie Bundle V, I ask of you not to think of this as an attack on the Humble Indie Bundle nor, as some have suggested, an action that ignores the positive changes you have done for the Linux game industry. Rather, this is merely a means to try and ensure that these positive changes can continue. We also hope that through this we can help to ensure that both the Linux community and the Humble Indie Bundle can continue to have a positive and meaningful relationship.

Linux users have been supporting the Humble Indie Bundle from the beginning and a relation of mutual trust has grown between the people behind the Bundle and the Linux community. Unfortunately, we feel this trust has been violated by the inclusion of a non-native Linux game in the latest Bundle. This is not merely a complaint about one game included in one Bundle, in this case LIMBO. It sets a horrible precedent for the future, encouraging other developers to merely put out unoptimized Windows binaries of their games running through a WINE or similar layer merely to con Linux users out of their money. We can not allow this to happen, not to the Humble Indie Bundle.

Considering this, and not wanting to boycott the Bundle as many of the developers that were involved were very much deserving of our money as were many of the charities, I tried to think of a constructive way to demonstrate our concerns in an organized and collected manner. A petition was the best means I could find to accomplish this. Over the past few weeks I have collected a total of 543 signatures as of the time of this writing. Each of these signatories had their own views and many added their own commentary alongside their signatures. But we are all agreed that the Bundle went down the wrong path with the inclusion of a non native version of LIMBO.

I have received a variety of responses from the community due to my actions, including praise and support but also criticism and attacks, some of which were very personal. I took these as a demonstration of the amount of feeling people have invested in these Bundles, and with that in mind, analyzed my own feelings on the matter. I came out of it that much surer of why this protest was necessary and why the Humble Indie Bundles must continue to give everyone the most value for their money. There is too much good will invested in it, and Linux users contributed to this in the knowledge that it would help promote the Linux gaming. That is why we did this; we want the Bundle to continue in this purpose.

I have also noticed that you have recently posted that you want to hire more Linux game developers. We appreciate this and hope it will continue to lead everyone in the right direction. A link to the petition is included bellow. Please go through it and read people's comments, and I would appreciate any feedback you could give me on the matter.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hib-native/

Thank you,
Hamish Paul Wilson

Jeffrey Rosen (co-founder of the Humble Bundle) replied to the message:

Thanks Hamish, we are very aware of the petition. We will definitely be thinking about it.

In the meantime, if you guys have any specific concerns about the LIMBO builds, please send them our way as well, as while I know that the CodeWeavers builds are not ideal, I would definitely like to make sure they are as good as possible.

Jeffrey Rosen 
Co-Founder
Humble Bundle 

Now that Humble team is aware of this petition and they do admit that CodeWeavers builds are not apt for Linux platform, what your expectations? Would do you like to see a bad native port than a game better supported with Wine?
Thanks to Hamish

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