Valve Will Not Be Officially Supporting Ubuntu 19.10+

[the_scx]

I don't know what you are talking about. There's always problems with games that are abandoned not working on newer versions of Windows. Look at all the older TellTale games like Sam & Max's negative reviews section on steam.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/8200/negativereviews/?filterLanguage=all&p=1&browsefilter=toprated

This is a game for Windows XP, but it look me less than half a minute to find solution.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/8200/discussions/0/1489987634004112216/

To fix some Linux games I had to spend half of day.

[the_scx]

If the game isn't maintained then yes. I feel about as bad about that as I do Flash. So long goodbye. Go to the grave. *not sarcasm

Ya, we built these layers to run proprietary apps on top of other layers we knew would go away but we'll cry when the obvious happens. That's beyond stupid. But stupid is everywhere you look nowadays.

Oh well. It's just never ending excuses why app providers can't do their job properly. The writing has been on the wall for 10+ years. Only 10 years to get their shit together. Gimme a break. No sympathy.

I see extremely stupidity when I look at posts like yours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=04m43s

https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/issues/28#issue-109864970

So you actually want to just compile one binary and have it work. Preferably forever. And preferably across all Linux distributions. And I actually think distributions have done a horribly, horribly bad job. One of the things that I do on the kernel - and I have to fight this every single release and I think it's sad - we have one rule in the kernel, one rule: we don't break userspace. (...) People break userspace, I get really, really angry. (...) And then all the distributions come in and they screw it all up. Because they break binary compatibility left and right. They update glibc and everything breaks. (...) So that's my rant. And that's what I really fundamentally think needs to change for Linux to work on the desktop because you can't have applications writers to do fifteen billion different versions.

[moilami]

About Debian, i am seriously worried about their PC political turn. That kind of stuff is very off-putting to smart people and it will slowly drive them away. And Debian is all about excellence. Smarter people matter in such cases. Even when they are a minority. So i expect this distro to decline slowly. Not fast but ineluctably.

I wonder if they will settle for a Red Hat based distro. Jean Loup Griffais has said they were a bit tired of using the debian tools. Maybe they like the red hat packaging tools.

On a personnal note, i am reading the Arch wiki. Preparing slowly to migrate.

This is not good. When Valve made that Linux dip, things were simple: there was an established dominant distro on the desktop and they supported what was already popular in our desktop world. A newbie would have been told "oh just take Ubuntu or an ubuntu derivative".

Now, Valve is going to settle to distro X. But the Linux public will maybe be fragmented between other distros they already like so distro X may end up being a small part of an established fragmented market.

And that fragmented market will be a pain in the @ss of the WIN7 refugee wanting to try Linux. The unifying power of Ubuntu is over. Right at the moment Microsoft drops support for WIN7 and some of their customer base may be tempted to migrate. Canonical couldn't have choose a more effective way of harming the whole Linux ecosystem.

Even if Canonical reverts course, the trust is lost and the damage won't be forgiven.

From "linux for human being" to "We know better than you what you ought to need" HA !

Edit: And i wonder if GoG, who has much smaller means will not simply decide to stop supporting future Linux distro altogether.

A good analyze.

[moilami]

Valve is certainly still a brave, agile, and modern company because it can consider publicly to switch distro it supports with Steam. They are doing it right.

Linux scene has always been about choices and making the best choices. In the beginning the first option to chose was freedom. People chose Linux because of freedom. There was a huge sandbox where you were free to play with. That desire for freedom took us here, and Valve is using the freedom perfectly by considering what choices they should make.

(I made my choice before and chose openSUSE Leap with KDE, which I don't hesitate to install anywhere. GNOME could be argued to be experimental desktop, which is fine for many, but considering all things KDE is a better choice to draw people to Linux and openSUSE delivers a very good version of KDE.

Like someone said in this thread Debian has excelled in taking needs of users into account while making technically strong decisions, which made Debian pretty superior in the past even though it was a little bit unpolished and unfinished for average user. You could trust that Debian deliver a stable and robust base to build on. Debian has, however, abandoned the spirit of freedom and in practice contradicted its very own Debian Free Software Guidelines #5 No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups by dropping software because of a name of a software. While this can be argued to be "minor issue" it is not that, it is a direct result of the tip of the iceberg. Hence Debian lost all the very special credibility they had. The ultimate strength and heart of Debian, debian-dev mailing list, is no more.

All this said I would say Debian is still a fine choice for corporations as is Redhat or openSUSE.)

[Guest]

Are we back to virtual dick comparisons yet? Why don't you lazy person go and find out yourself? Too elitist? Well then, 12150:10832 for Tumbleweed:Arch.

No AUR, so it's WAY below the number of packages available for arch.

[F.Ultra]

Indeed, and do you see the rule I mentioned there?

Which means that if you are banned due to such behaviour then you can use that to your defence. Now that might not matter one bit here since this site is a one man operation, but it matters a whole lot more for large projects like Debian where you have councils and boards.

Holy out of context quotation, Batman! If you read what I actually wrote, it was "Now everyone is supposed to comply with the not only narrow but sometimes downright perverted framework of American behavior. I very much don't give two shits about who you are, and especially not what you do in bed, as long as your code is good, but with a CoC it's suddenly important to avoid inadvertently offending someone based on a bad faith interpretation of what you've written.".

But thanks for proving my point about bad faith interpretations I guess.

How is that out of context? I simply replied to two of your paragraphs in one go.

Also, Debian had sponsorships before the CoC so your point is null and void.

So those sponsors will remain forever due to some inherent law that says that since they became sponsors once then they cannot leave in the future if they feel that a project should implement certain things in order to protect it's brand in a professional setting? Really?

Here's the relevant quote "With a CoC you can throw out irrelevant arguments to frame whomever you want. All they need to do is address the irrelevant argument and you can turn it against them." and here is the Merriam-Webster definition of verbatim. You did absolutely not quote me verbatim.

And now you even quoted it yourself: "All they need to do is address the irrelevant argument and you can turn it against them", what exactly are you even arguing about here?

If you put forward irrelevant arguments then those arguments can be used against you at any time, no CoC needed.

You can say that all you want but at the end of the day it's a political document meant to force political correctness onto every participant in a project. We're engineers, code moneys and hobbyists trying to have fun and make the world a better place while doing it. We're not politicians and weren't scrutinized like we were politicians before the CoC happened.

What the CoC signals is that we have moved from being a fringe phenomenon where teenagers in basements code for free as a hobby into a professional project that companies wants to partner with. Aka it signals that we have grown up and with that comes a form of responsibility that we never had before, with that comes things like CoCs.

And I really don't see how it can be such a mystifying statement. Maybe an example can help:

1. Dave keeps rejecting patches from John because he doesn't like John
2. Dave gets banned for being an [insert politically incorrect insult here]
3. Dave contests the ban because calling someone an [insert politically incorrect insult here] is against the CoC
4. Dave has the ban removed because John is banned for saying [insert politically incorrect insult here]

Do you see how Dave played the CoC to get what he wanted? This is a simplified example of course, in a real situation the details would be more subtle, but the general workflow is the problem here. Rules are more often than not going to be abused at some point. It doesn't matter how good you think they are or how well intended they are, there are still entire professions dedicated to (mis)interpreting rules.

No this does not flow at all. Point #2 would not be Dave being banned due to "[insert politically incorrect insult here]" but due to not performing his work as a maintainer so that would happen with or without a CoC.

Point #3 cannot happen because you cannot be absolved by pointing out that other people are as bad or worse than you, this is how small children argue (why punish me when John also does nasty stuff?).

Point #4 cannot happen by the same logic that applies to point #3. Dave is banned due to Dave:s behaviour, so it does not matter for Daves:s ban whether or not John is also banned.

It's not a 180. You're just not following what I'm trying to tell you; these are the same set of rules applied more or less the same way from different perspectives. (Note that this is not a direct reference to the example above.)

[/QUOTE]

It's either a 180 or an admission that the CoC does not interfere with what you are claiming. Either the CoC enables people to remain (and prevents forks) which is your first claim, or it forces people out (which enables forks) which is your second claim. If both happens then a CoC is neutral when it comes to enabling or prohibiting forks.

[Djhg2000]

Which means that if you are banned due to such behaviour then you can use that to your defence. Now that might not matter one bit here since this site is a one man operation, but it matters a whole lot more for large projects like Debian where you have councils and boards.

You're missing my point, but this brings up another issue. How exactly would you intend to use the written rules as a defense against an unwritten one? It's almost as if you're implying unwritten rules cease to exist once you have written ones.

How is that out of context? I simply replied to two of your paragraphs in one go.

It's completely out of context because "perverted framework of American behavior" was referring to "I very much don't give two shits about who you are, and especially not what you do in bed, [...]". You're trying to make it seem like I said the framework of American behavior in general is perverted. In doing so you infer that Debian would lose their sponsors unless their sexual habits were taken into account in the CoC, which I'm having an extremely hard time trying to believe.

So those sponsors will remain forever due to some inherent law that says that since they became sponsors once then they cannot leave in the future if they feel that a project should implement certain things in order to protect it's brand in a professional setting? Really?

I can turn that argument around and ask you if by some inherent law they must leave unless Debian would actively seek out political correctness? There's another philosophical question here as well; are they really merely sponsors if they are allowed to dictate the politics in your project? To me that sounds more like adopting a management. I.e. a community project going corporate.

And now you even quoted it yourself: "All they need to do is address the irrelevant argument and you can turn it against them", what exactly are you even arguing about here?

If you put forward irrelevant arguments then those arguments can be used against you at any time, no CoC needed.

Again you're not following what I say:

1. Bob baits Alice into retaliation with an irrelevant argument
2. Alice replies to the irrelevant argument
3. Bob shifts the topic to bait Alice into more trouble using Alice's reply
4. Carl steps in and bans Alice
5. Bob has one less opponent

Is it more clear now?

What the CoC signals is that we have moved from being a fringe phenomenon where teenagers in basements code for free as a hobby into a professional project that companies wants to partner with. Aka it signals that we have grown up and with that comes a form of responsibility that we never had before, with that comes things like CoCs.

What do you mean "we"? You and I are clearly not the same. I, unlike you, didn't care about politics until CoCs started becoming a threat and take all the joy out of hobby software development.

Also, are you saying that Debian is now some sort of an exclusive group where teenagers in basements are no longer welcome?

No this does not flow at all. Point #2 would not be Dave being banned due to "[insert politically incorrect insult here]" but due to not performing his work as a maintainer so that would happen with or without a CoC.

Point #3 cannot happen because you cannot be absolved by pointing out that other people are as bad or worse than you, this is how small children argue (why punish me when John also does nasty stuff?).

Point #4 cannot happen by the same logic that applies to point #3. Dave is banned due to Dave:s behaviour, so it does not matter for Daves:s ban whether or not John is also banned.

You have misunderstood point #2. In this scenario the reasoning behind the ban would indeed be that he didn't do his job. The part Dave in the example is formally contesting in point #3 is the sendoff he got when the ban was delivered. As a result of this John takes the fallout in point #4 while the ban is removed because it contained [insert politically incorrect insult here]. It's far from being an implausible scenario and ill intentions do exist.

It's either a 180 or an admission that the CoC does not interfere with what you are claiming. Either the CoC enables people to remain (and prevents forks) which is your first claim, or it forces people out (which enables forks) which is your second claim. If both happens then a CoC is neutral when it comes to enabling or prohibiting forks.

I'm still not saying it's preventing or prohibiting forks. Stop trying to put words in my mouth. If you have a genuine interest in understanding my reasoning I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote, word for word, because I'm not going to type it out for you again. Otherwise you will just keep arguing a straw man.

[F.Ultra]

You're missing my point, but this brings up another issue. How exactly would you intend to use the written rules as a defense against an unwritten one? It's almost as if you're implying unwritten rules cease to exist once you have written ones.

If you have explicit written rules then yes the unwritten ones cease to exist. Or do you think that you can be brought to a criminal court in any western country for breaking an unwritten rule?

It's completely out of context because "perverted framework of American behavior" was referring to "I very much don't give two shits about who you are, and especially not what you do in bed, [...]". You're trying to make it seem like I said the framework of American behavior in general is perverted. In doing so you infer that Debian would lose their sponsors unless their sexual habits were taken into account in the CoC, which I'm having an extremely hard time trying to believe.

No I didn't claim that you said that American behaviour in general is perverted. My point was that the rules have an American slant due to Debian having to abide to American corporate policy which to many of us Europeans can sometimes be seen as somewhat "perverse" (like e.g nipplegate which would be a complete nonissue over here).

I can turn that argument around and ask you if by some inherent law they must leave unless Debian would actively seek out political correctness? There's another philosophical question here as well; are they really merely sponsors if they are allowed to dictate the politics in your project? To me that sounds more like adopting a management. I.e. a community project going corporate.

Corporations are quite quick to leave when they believe that they might be connected to projects that are not behaving to their internal policies, look at the whole adpocalypse on Youtube for a reference on how this happens.

Again you're not following what I say:

1. Bob baits Alice into retaliation with an irrelevant argument
2. Alice replies to the irrelevant argument
3. Bob shifts the topic to bait Alice into more trouble using Alice's reply
4. Carl steps in and bans Alice
5. Bob has one less opponent

Is it more clear now?

So here Alice just had to break the rules of the CoC in her reply? Why couldn't she reply to the "irrelevant argument" without breaking the CoC? That is an argument against every single rule ever invented on the planet, and yet you probably prefer to live in a country with law and order instead of in a total anarchy like Somalia?

What do you mean "we"? You and I are clearly not the same. I, unlike you, didn't care about politics until CoCs started becoming a threat and take all the joy out of hobby software development.

Also, are you saying that Debian is now some sort of an exclusive group where teenagers in basements are no longer welcome?

The "we" are the open source community. Like it or not but we are no longer a fringe movement but now deeply used by corporations and governments around the world and they expect us to behave civil and like adults.

I don't care about politics when it comes to technical matters either, the problem is not you or I, it's the ones that cannot behave civil and like adults and thus rules are put into place. If all people cared as little about race, sexual orientation etc as we both did then a CoC would never have been needed but we don't live in such a world. Instead of focusing your anger on the result (the CoC) focus on the ass-hats and bullies that created the demand for this in the first place.

You have misunderstood point #2. In this scenario the reasoning behind the ban would indeed be that he didn't do his job. The part Dave in the example is formally contesting in point #3 is the sendoff he got when the ban was delivered. As a result of this John takes the fallout in point #4 while the ban is removed because it contained [insert politically incorrect insult here]. It's far from being an implausible scenario and ill intentions do exist.

But it doesn't matter, they both broke the rules. Rules does not work like that, unless it specifically mentions that it does so in the rules.

I'm still not saying it's preventing or prohibiting forks. Stop trying to put words in my mouth. If you have a genuine interest in understanding my reasoning I suggest you go back and read what I actually wrote, word for word, because I'm not going to type it out for you again. Otherwise you will just keep arguing a straw man.

Ok so then please explain what you mean by this sentence, that is where this whole discussion on forks came from:

Just look at MPlayer; there was almost constant forking because in many respects it was a very capable player with poor management over the codebase. Eventually one of the forks gained enough traction to survive and that's why we have MPV today. Can you imagine if there was a set of rules in place to prevent them from going off at each other? We'd probably be stuck with MPlayer in all of it's single threaded glory with a few random forks for stylized subtitle formats, because nobody would've seen the frustration and subsequent anger from those trying to fix it.

The only way that I can interpret that is that if there are arguments then forks can happen, but with a CoC everybode will happily work together and forks will not happen to the same degree.

[Djhg2000]

If you have explicit written rules then yes the unwritten ones cease to exist. Or do you think that you can be brought to a criminal court in any western country for breaking an unwritten rule?

Now you're confusing formal action with informal action. Unwritten rules do not have a formal method of enforcement, but that doesn't mean they lack enforcement either. If you break an unwritten rule then it will be acted upon by the community rather than an enforcing body. If you bypass the checkout queue at a shop then nobody will call the police and press charges against you, but the clerk will most likely refuse to serve you.

No I didn't claim that you said that American behaviour in general is perverted. My point was that the rules have an American slant due to Debian having to abide to American corporate policy which to many of us Europeans can sometimes be seen as somewhat "perverse" (like e.g nipplegate which would be a complete nonissue over here).

That's not the way I read your quotation, but fair point. Nevertheless I still find some parts of the CoC touch on topics that are way too personal to be in a community project.

Corporations are quite quick to leave when they believe that they might be connected to projects that are not behaving to their internal policies, look at the whole adpocalypse on Youtube for a reference on how this happens.

That doesn't mean we should proactively cater to them. If they have any request then of course they would be points for consideration, but we're not acting as their PR department and we neither claim nor seek to do so. If they want out from an inaction in politics then maybe the sponsorship wasn't as rooted in a common philosophy as we thought and following their every whim would be a disservice to the community as a whole.

One of the latest "YouTube adpocalypses" was a highly politicized move initiated by Carlos Maza of Vox by calling the individual advertisers and pressuring them to pull their ads from the platform. This was, by his own admission, because he wanted to cut the ad revenue of Steven Crowder. From my understanding these two have been exchanging jabs for quite some time and things went overboard. Since the advertisers realized Vox is a news source with a sizable following Carlos Maza could easily publish an article implicating the advertisers, causing their legal team to pull all advertisement from Steven Crowder and by extension the entire YouTube platform. It's essentially mob tactics played on an industrial scale ("wouldn't it be a shame if your brand appeared in this smear article" and so forth).

To my knowledge, nobody has contacted the Debian sponsors and pressured them into requesting that Debian adopts a CoC.

So here Alice just had to break the rules of the CoC in her reply? Why couldn't she reply to the "irrelevant argument" without breaking the CoC? That is an argument against every single rule ever invented on the planet, and yet you probably prefer to live in a country with law and order instead of in a total anarchy like Somalia?

Because if you stir up enough emotion in people they act irrationally. There are entire professions based on doing this too, some of the more crafty ones are in things like street gambling.

The "we" are the open source community. Like it or not but we are no longer a fringe movement but now deeply used by corporations and governments around the world and they expect us to behave civil and like adults.

I don't care about politics when it comes to technical matters either, the problem is not you or I, it's the ones that cannot behave civil and like adults and thus rules are put into place. If all people cared as little about race, sexual orientation etc as we both did then a CoC would never have been needed but we don't live in such a world. Instead of focusing your anger on the result (the CoC) focus on the ass-hats and bullies that created the demand for this in the first place.

I'm pretty sure the hacker side of the open source community would smack you on the head over that first paragraph. Successful hackers are more often than not narcissists and/or anarchists. On the other hand they also write damn good code and support the projects they rely on. Alienating them should not be in the interest of any sane open source project.

The trend I'm seeing is more talk about irrelevant things like race and sexual orientation than ever as a direct result of CoCs appearing in new places. It's a clear practical example of the quasi-paradoxical Barbra Streisand effect.

But it doesn't matter, they both broke the rules. Rules does not work like that, unless it specifically mentions that it does so in the rules.

That assumes an equal playing field, which is an easy trap for the uninitiated. Some people are disproportionately skilled with speech and can effectively force the hand of an intervening party with some sly language.

Ok so then please explain what you mean by this sentence, that is where this whole discussion on forks came from:

The only way that I can interpret that is that if there are arguments then forks can happen, but with a CoC everybode will happily work together and forks will not happen to the same degree.

It means that with a CoC in place the decision to fork is slower because everyone involved wants to save face leading up to the fork. The fork will then have a more uncertain future since there aren't as many strong emotions to fuel the fork (as in "yeah we'll show those buggers how bone headed they are when our fork is twice as fast"). In some edge cases those who would otherwise move to the fork will be exhausted from the tensions between both parties and decide to take some time off instead, in turn hurting both sides.

Conflict is seldom pretty but sometimes it's a good thing when it escalates to a fork sooner rather than later. Anger is one of our strongest motivators you know, with proper direction it can move mountains. Or an example closer to our worlds, replace MINIX. If MINIX hadn't frustrated Linus all those years ago then we wouldn't have had Linux today.

[BOYSSSSS]

So here Alice just had to break the rules of the CoC in her reply? Why couldn't she reply to the "irrelevant argument" without breaking the CoC? That is an argument against every single rule ever invented on the planet, and yet you probably prefer to live in a country with law and order instead of in a total anarchy like Somalia?

That's racist, are you saying Somalians are somehow inferior to us? It's the second time you point it out.

Ok so then please explain what you mean by this sentence, that is where this whole discussion on forks came from:

I hate it when I'm talking with someone for 20 pages of comments long and suddenly the guy quotes me at page 10. So I need to go to page 10 but realize that I need to read the whole 10 pages of conversations to remember what I was talking about.