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  • #41
    Just as an extra comment: if they REALLY love open source, and it is only, as you said, because Steam wouldn't succeed being open source that it is closed, why they don't open the Gold Source engine? It is not actively being sold (as it is obsolete), the source code is obviously not lost, as they ported it to Linux just months ago, and is unrelated to Steam (as the service that gets them most of the money). They would be making a nice gift to free and open source software, and it doesn't represent any loss to them.

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    • #42
      Originally posted by GreatEmerald View Post
      And no again, games on Steam use their own DRM regardless of the layer added by Steam. Which means you get double DRM. That's not helping anyone in the slightest. And some publishers would publish their titles happily on Steam if there was no DRM just the same (if they are DRM-free, like everyone who publishes on GOG, or use their own DRM, in which case they don't need Steam's).
      Then these publishers are stupid as the Steam DRM is optional for them. Actually there are DRM free games on Steam (you can copy them out of the steam folder and they will still run without steam, even on another computer).

      Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
      why they don't open the Gold Source engine? It is not actively being sold (as it is obsolete), the source code is obviously not lost, as they ported it to Linux just months ago
      Porting it when it's no longer being sold sounds weird, but surely you know better than Valve.

      //EDIT: Also AFAIR the GoldSrc engine uses 3rd party codes, making it hard for Valve to change the license.

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      • #43
        Originally posted by TAXI View Post
        Then these publishers are stupid as the Steam DRM is optional for them. Actually there are DRM free games on Steam (you can copy them out of the steam folder and they will still run without steam, even on another computer).
        Not exactly stupid, just somewhat ignorant. Valve doesn't exactly advertise that the DRM is opt-out, you know...

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        • #44
          Originally posted by TAXI View Post
          Porting it when it's no longer being sold sounds weird, but surely you know better than Valve.

          //EDIT: Also AFAIR the GoldSrc engine uses 3rd party codes, making it hard for Valve to change the license.
          They did port it, AFAIR. Maybe I'm making it up and I do not recall correctly, but I'm almost sure CS (not the source version) and HL (same) were ported a while ago to Linux, both games using GoldSrc. About the commercial life I obviously mean as the engine itself (you know that in the industry there are two kinds of commercial lives: you can sell games using the engine, this one is still somewhat alive, and you can license the engine to other developers to create their games, and since it is pretty much an old engine, I bet they do not do it anymore; the latter, is where making it free (as in speech) makes you lose money, as your competition can just take it instead of paying for a license). I assume that if they do sell licenses of an engine they own all of the code, or at least have a license allowing redistribution.

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          • #45
            Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
            Just as an extra comment: if they REALLY love open source, and it is only, as you said, because Steam wouldn't succeed being open source that it is closed, why they don't open the Gold Source engine? It is not actively being sold (as it is obsolete), the source code is obviously not lost, as they ported it to Linux just months ago, and is unrelated to Steam (as the service that gets them most of the money). They would be making a nice gift to free and open source software, and it doesn't represent any loss to them.
            The original Half Life and Counter-Strike are still actively sold. The engine may be obsolete, but it's still making money, Counter-Strike is still one of the most actively played games on Steam since 2001, Half Life games are still entertaining, the other day even a HL1 mod got placed into Steam. If you watch steam sales, the Half Life 1 anthology sells quite a bit.

            There's not much reason to open source the GoldSrc engine when better open source engines already exists. It's just a custom old quake engine. You may not know very much about Valve, but they are very particular about the quality of anything they release. If they decided to open source the old engine it would mean they would be spending a lot of time with documentation and developing better tools for it.

            Valve's not a big public company like EA or Ubisoft. They are privately owned, they do not have a heirarchy structure in the company so there are no job positions (it's sort of like communism, everyone is their own boss and they collectively work together on whatever they want to work on), and hire the best of the best programmers and game designers. Therefore, you can't really treat Valve as a normal company, since it's largely just a group of the most elite developers in the game industry, as well as fresh developers they have personally selected out of Digipen if they see a student with ideas they like (Such is how Portal came about), and highly successful Half-Life 2 modders.

            Asking them to open source something is really silly. Instead, what they should be doing is what they are already doing: making Linux a better place for other game developers and egging on unsupportive hardware manufacturers to start supporting Linux. Let Valve do what they do best, and let the open source community do what they do best. Once Valve has successfully completed getting everyone on board and completing their existing open source projects, finish coding the new Source 2 engine, release SteamOS, and release two new games they've been working on for ages, maybe they'll have time to consider writing some open source programs for you.
            Last edited by mmstick; 06 December 2013, 04:48 PM.

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            • #46
              Originally posted by bayan.r View Post
              To the Stallman parrots:

              The free software debate is one to be had by software creators, not users. As far as users are concerned, the software's value is determined by how productive, or in the case of gaming, entertaining it is. Users don't really care about the licensing of the software or the availability of it's source, and should not have to. For most linux fans, the free as in freedom aspect of the system is not it's prime attraction, it is the flexibility of Linux distributions opposed to windows or mac, a feature that has nothing to do with software licensing.

              The fact is most free software projects advertise the fact that they're free, losing the attention of users who neither know nor care what that means. Firefox didn't spread because it is free, it spread because it is a competitive product.

              Advocacy to users does a lot more harm than good to the free software cause. Instead of being that friendly person who wants to save them from their proprietary jails, in their eyes you're that douchebag working his agenda into every conversation, because let's face it, free or not, regular users won't directly feel the effects of a world with free software. Unless you're dealing with code, software freedom is not a visible thing.

              Steam on Linux makes Linux a more attractive means that it's a step in the direction of users thinking about it as a real alternative to windows, not just that thing their nerd friends use for some reason.

              As long as free software remains inferior to proprietary software in the eyes of users, no amount of lobbying will convince them to use it, so stop treating freedom as a feature that should be present in all software users should look for. It is a fundamental property that all software should possess. We shouldn't be fighting to maximize free software users, we shoud be fighting for a world where I can use any piece of software and reasonably expect to be able to use, examine, modify and redistribute it without restriction, a world where it is a legitimate surprise if I can't. Developers, especially those building apps for the average joe, are the only ones that can make this happen and once they learn to advertise the quality of their product over licensing when going free will they realize how little the average joe cares, and how much better it is for them.
              The problem with this is the artificial division of "users" and "developers". This assumes a consumerist, top-down model, with "consumers" on one side and "producers" on the other, with content flowing from one side to the other.

              The value to users in a free software economy is that they are not forced into the role of consumers. If they're content with just passively consuming, that's one thing, but increasingly that's not the case - there's a sort of paradigm shift in the way we consume all media in general: user-created content, user participation, is an increasingly huge deal in many areas of business. That's exactly why social platforms like facebook have surged in popularity, why other sites are trying to parrot that model. Even Valve realizes this, if you listen to Gabe's speeches, he sees the culture of modding, hacking and all types of user participation, the blurring of the line between users and developers, as something crucial to PC gaming, and the main advantage of Linux.

              Sure, you might assume that most people who have grew up in a windows environment don't want to participate in development, and you'd be correct. However in many cases this is simply because of the difference in the mindset of that platform, where the role of "user" is strictly defined and limited as a passive consumer. Some of these users might get more interested in participating in development after migrating to a more open platform. And not all ways of participation need to be about coding, there's other ways to participate besides contributing code.

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              • #47
                Originally posted by mmstick View Post
                The original Half Life and Counter-Strike are still actively sold. The engine may be obsolete, but it's still making money, Counter-Strike is still one of the most actively played games on Steam since 2001, Half Life games are still entertaining, the other day even a HL1 mod got placed into Steam. If you watch steam sales, the Half Life 1 anthology sells quite a bit.
                So? Do you realize you can open source an engine don't stop you from selling the games using it, do you? id has been doing exactly that for quite a while.

                There's not much reason to open source the GoldSrc engine when better open source engines already exists. It's just a custom old quake engine. You may not know very much about Valve, but they are very particular about the quality of anything they release. If they decided to open source the old engine it would mean they would be spending a lot of time with documentation and developing better tools for it.
                Or not. They could just release it as the old engine it is, and let people judge by themselves if it's worth working on it. I am obviously not imposing they should, but it is an easy move, and if they say they like open source for open source itself, then why not?

                Valve's not a big public company like EA or Ubisoft. They are privately owned, they do not have a heirarchy structure in the company so there are no job positions (it's sort of like communism, everyone is their own boss and they collectively work together on whatever they want to work on), and hire the best of the best programmers and game designers. Therefore, you can't really treat Valve as a normal company, since it's largely just a group of the most elite developers in the game industry, as well as fresh developers they have personally selected out of Digipen if they see a student with ideas they like (Such is how Portal came about), and highly successful Half-Life 2 modders.
                All of this is completely irrelevant to the point, though good to know (I actually ignored these facts, so thanks for letting me know them).

                Asking them to open source something is really silly. Instead, what they should be doing is what they are already doing: making Linux a better place for other game developers and egging on unsupportive hardware manufacturers to start supporting Linux. Let Valve do what they do best, and let the open source community do what they do best. Once Valve has successfully completed getting everyone on board and completing their existing open source projects, finish coding the new Source 2 engine, release SteamOS, and release two new games they've been working on for ages, maybe they'll have time to consider writing some open source programs for you.
                I'm not asking for anything. I'm suggesting a consistent course of action with a given idea, and nothing else. That for a start. Then, again, I'm not suggesting they write ANYTHING, but rather to release some code they have no reason to keep private today. If they want to do it or do not, it's their own decision, and it is their code, they are in their own right. I'm just pointing out that there is no reason, at least that I know of, not to. Also, I acknowledged in several posts in this same thread all of the good work they are doing, so don't lecture me like I'm neglecting them. I was one of the first ones to point out that even for non-gamers they are being a great help.

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                • #48
                  Originally posted by dee. View Post
                  The problem with this is the artificial division of "users" and "developers". This assumes a consumerist, top-down model, with "consumers" on one side and "producers" on the other, with content flowing from one side to the other.

                  The value to users in a free software economy is that they are not forced into the role of consumers. If they're content with just passively consuming, that's one thing, but increasingly that's not the case - there's a sort of paradigm shift in the way we consume all media in general: user-created content, user participation, is an increasingly huge deal in many areas of business. That's exactly why social platforms like facebook have surged in popularity, why other sites are trying to parrot that model. Even Valve realizes this, if you listen to Gabe's speeches, he sees the culture of modding, hacking and all types of user participation, the blurring of the line between users and developers, as something crucial to PC gaming, and the main advantage of Linux.

                  Sure, you might assume that most people who have grew up in a windows environment don't want to participate in development, and you'd be correct. However in many cases this is simply because of the difference in the mindset of that platform, where the role of "user" is strictly defined and limited as a passive consumer. Some of these users might get more interested in participating in development after migrating to a more open platform. And not all ways of participation need to be about coding, there's other ways to participate besides contributing code.
                  Very true but the difference is that most of the non-code contribution you're thinking of is compatible with proprietary software. The developer can just create proprietary tools to allow modding, but you would still be limited by what they would allow you to mod. Think Sim City recently "embracing modders". Whether you can do more or less will be at the developer's discretion, which is still antithetical to the tenets of the free software movement which states that you should be able to freely modify the software without restriction. Furthermore it's the developer culture that needs to change. In my university it's sort of a given among the computer science students who know their stuff that it's taboo to put restrictions on your code; our free software club's members are mostly the talent in the department so it seems in the long run the developer culture is gravitating towards free software, and I live in a country where free software mentality is practically nonexistent among developers.

                  Unfortunately in the corporate world, the initial reaction is to share nothing and that is what needs to change, the mindset that you have to hide your code so people won't steal it. When sharing code becomes the norm again, then the users will see the benefits, that's what I meant by it's invisibility to them right now.

                  Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
                  Pretty much wrong. Users don't care, and do not have to care, about source code licensing, as this is pretty much useless if you do not read it. But the binaries comes with a license, too, and they care and should care about the conditions to use it. It is not the same to have a software you can use any way you want than a software you can only use on a given platform (even if you could run it without problems in other platforms, for example, MacOS X should be able to run on any AMD64 hardware, but the license binds you to use an Apple computer). Some Linux users might want to use MacOS X, as it is a decent OS, but don't want the hardware lock it implies, for example.
                  I see what you're saying, but then again, these restrictions don't affect most users. A very small portion of users have to actually care, and they don't until they are affected by them, such as wine users being banned on World of Warcraft. Most of the time, if there are restrictions on the binary users will get around them. If technical restrictions won't stop people from using software in ways companies don't like, then TOS certainly won't. For those reasons I think the binary license doesn't really matter. Let's take your example, even if the Mac OS were allowed to be installed on non-apple hardware would the userbase really change? I mean you still have the technical barrier to entry and Apple is not required to support it on non-Apple hardware, which means the people who are willing to go through the trouble of installing a hackintosh do so regardless of Apple's stance, and those who feel intimidated by installing an OS won't do it even if apple lets them. Same thing, people pirate even though practically all proprietary binaries do not allow redistribution. Hell Microsoft has to have it's lawyers raid companies to make sure they're not running pirated Microsoft software on their machines because that happens a lot in third world countries. Even most companies don't care. Furthermore, users are far more willing to use proprietary software for certain tasks because they're simply better than the free alternatives, and only a change in developers mentality can stop this.

                  For those reasons I think developers, especially proprietary vendors should be having this discussion. Users should not have to get involved simply because source code licensing does not matter to them.

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