A Message From Valve's Gabe Newell

[Ancurio]

Actually, my personal theory so far is that Valve was really annoyed back then
when Michael played up all the facts and made a huge deal about it,
requiring them to put an end to it all themselves.
So, when thinking up what they'd be up to this years 1st of April,
they remembered that story and thought this was the ideal chance to
pay back big time. I believe, in fact, that this will turn out to be the biggest
trolling of the linux community, and especially Micheal, in years.

So far we've got:
(things that "kind of" suggest it's the real deal
- A few emails (which I'll just assume to be genuine) that don't really say anything straight
- Possibly some more email material that Michael can't tell us about yet

(things that support the "it's a joke"-view
- this
- and this
- lastly, the simple fact that all these mails came in shortly before April 1st

[entropy]

Everyone who still doesn't believe. Be polite, be nice, don't be stupid and write a mail to Gabe.

It is a fucking sunday and he actually answered me with details.

You're free to share the details with us if being polite is the only requirement to get them...

[RussianNeuroMancer]

I believe, in fact, that this will turn out to be the biggest trolling of the linux community, and especially Micheal, in years.

I believe it's just another example of Valve Time. Not so big like "Team Fortress 2 soon", sure.

[KameZero]

I'm not the one making the claim. Its common practice for those making claims to back them up. An in-passing "I has email" is not proof, it is a statement

email sent to [email protected]:

You may have heard of an article on Phoronix claiming you contacted
them about a Linux developer. Is it true that you contact them?

And does this mean you are considering a linux port of Steam/source?

email received back:

Yes, we are talking to Phoronix.

The issue we are dealing with is speeding up the performance running on Linux.

Unfortunately Naib (do you play HoN by the way?) there's really no way to "prove" an email. Headers are child's play to fake and he didn't exactly sign it with his private key. I recommend sending an email yourself and seeing if you get a response!

[susikala]

To be honest, if Valve were really seeking Linux programmers, do you really think they'd turn to phoronix? I mean given the course of history everyone knows that phoronix would post some populistic article about it. Wouldn't a serious company just post, you know, a job offer, as everyone else does?

[Ancurio]

email received back:

Yes, we are talking to Phoronix.
The issue we are dealing with is speeding up the performance running on Linux.

You asked them if they were working on Source for Linux. They did not answer the question.
Instead, they said something which could really be interpreted as anything.

Don't you guys frickin' get it? It doesn't matter at all if the emails are genuine or not.
Just check every single correspondence which was posted in this thread.
Never, not a single time, did they actually say ANYTHING about porting
either Source or Steam. When they reveal it's all a huge joke,
they'll still be able to say "y u mad bro? did we ever say anything about bringing
our games to your platform?". And you're all gonna look really stupid then.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Never, not a single time, did they actually say ANYTHING about porting either Source or Steam.

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?69925-A-Message-From-Valve-s-Gabe-Newell&p=256813#post256813

http://steamforlinux.com/?q=node/23

[Larian]

You asked them if they were working on Source for Linux. They did not answer the question.
Instead, they said something which could really be interpreted as anything.

Don't you guys frickin' get it? It doesn't matter at all if the emails are genuine or not.
Just check every single correspondence which was posted in this thread.
Never, not a single time, did they actually say ANYTHING about porting
either Source or Steam. When they reveal it's all a huge joke,
they'll still be able to say "y u mad bro? did we ever say anything about bringing
our games to your platform?". And you're all gonna look really stupid then.

If Valve are the kinds of asses that would do something designed to be obviously hurtful and insulting to the Linux community, I, for one, would be done with them. A move like the one you're suggesting would be incredibly bad PR for the company, as well as a mightily un-funny joke. I'm reserving judgement on the announcement until tomorrow, but until then Ancurio, I don't think there's any reason to be a dick.

[d2kx]

FWIW, this is the mail I just got back from Gabe:

The short term goal we are working on is getting L4D2 to run as well on Linux as Windows. Some of the problems are ours (threading) and some require work by others (non-performant driver paths).

We've asked people to help us find driver and graphics experts to work at Valve on this.

[ChrisXY]

To be honest, if Valve were really seeking Linux programmers, do you really think they'd turn to phoronix? I mean given the course of history everyone knows that phoronix would post some populistic article about it. Wouldn't a serious company just post, you know, a job offer, as everyone else does?

Well, on the one hand the trolling factor here is quite high, on the other hand, there are some amazing people roaming this forum...