Gabe Newell's 2017 Reddit AMA: VR, Source 2 Engine, No Linux Answers

[starshipeleven]

It goes so bad with ms that now win10 is free for all. I had win10 3 months and then I sold that computer. My customer has not claimed in 6 months.

That may just mean that they cracked it themsekves. It's not like it is hard, or as if it was different from cracking windows 8.

[mmstick]

There is no termination with Windows 10. The only thing which happens is that you get a non-changeable desktop background with an activation message. Otherwise, it will continue to work normally.

For people who install Windows to only play games, and don't care that this is illegal, this may be acceptable.

It's not illegal to continue using it past that point. It is only illegal if you circumvent the activation by activating it through illegal means.

If you want to activate it, you can enroll into development updates so you will have your copy activated so long as you remain on development releases. Perfectly legal.

As far as games, all they need but do is configure Steam to start with Big Picture Mode, and no one will ever notice the difference.

[humbug]

The gaming ecosystem of Linux is healthy now. Note- by healthy I don't mean equivalent to windows.

but to make a market share jump what we need is the desktop distros like Ubuntu, mint etc to increase their adoption. There has to be a synergy between that and the continued efforts of various parties on the gaming front. Only then can we grow together and you will see things like steam survey percentages go up appreciably. Cause gaming is just one function of a pc. As mentioned in this thread it seems like the non-availability of just a few key applications is hurting us.

[Geopirate]

He did give a fairly substantial answer about their investment in increasing their support team 5x.

This is important because people have already purchased steam boxes. I'm fairly certain most of them aren't used to dropping to the command line to get 2/3 games working. The support will have to be there once regular people start using SteamOS and by extension Linux.

[kayosiii]

The problem Linux has though is still the lack of tools. 3D Studio Max still has massive market share, there needs to be a Linux equivalent (UI wise, Blender can't cut it).

I use Blender at home and Blender and 3DS Max at work.
There are ways that Blender doesn't cut it in some professional settings. UI isn't one of them. Especially not when comparing with Max.
You don't like the Way Blender does things that's fine - that is taste, it doesn't apply to all professionals.

Furthermore:
Maya,
Houdini,
Modo,
Pick one.
All 3 are well considered by their respective industries.

Where's the Linux ZBrush?

Mudbox,
3DCoat,
Blender,
Pick one, these are all good applications... or run ZBrush using Wine.

and if its more the paint side of things you want then take a look at MARI or Substance Painter

Still tons of tools missing from the platform.One of the biggest gaming problems is still the lack of modding tools. E.g Freespace 2 got ported 10 years ago, but FRED2 is still Windows only. No mission editor, (wXFred2 is an attempt to rewrite it but is still years away from being useful). Look at all the Total War games, tons of games got ported but no editing tools. Attila Assembly kit is Windows only. This is where the community needs to step in and start making tools. The platform of open sourcecode for everyone is still the platform where there's no editing tools for anyone outside of GCC/Programming editors.

These are quite niche and specific.
Currently there are 3 major game engines with Editors that run on Linux and likely a fourth in the near future, you should be able to do mods for games based on these engines. It used to be standard to see such editors written with windows specifc code I have seen that default shift towards Qt.
But there are definately situations where these sorts of tools are going to run on Windows but not Linux and that will make Windows the better choice for those tasks.

[dimko]

two episodes of hl3 were released long ago, how did you miss them?

I did not.
It's IMPOSSIBLE to miss news about it
Moment something like this would be released, Internetz would explode, and we would have anomalies everywhere.

Also, I would have a pet Vertigon.

[pal666]

I did not.
It's IMPOSSIBLE to miss news about it

somehow you managed the impossible

Moment something like this would be released, Internetz would explode, and we would have anomalies everywhere.

Also, I would have a pet Vertigon.

they were released long ago. they are called hl2 episode 1 and 2. now you are going to bikeshed about naming convention or play?

[chithanh]

It's not illegal to continue using it past that point. It is only illegal if you circumvent the activation by activating it through illegal means.

If you want to activate it, you can enroll into development updates so you will have your copy activated so long as you remain on development releases. Perfectly legal.

Possible, yes. But legal, no.

You need to have a license to use copyrighted software, and if you do not have one, using Windows is illegal (in most countries at least), no matter whether you circumvent activation or not.
Microsoft clarified that while it was possible to get activation on insider builds with the generic key, it is necessary to have a valid Windows 7,8 or 10 license to be able to use Windows insider builds legally.