Steam Deck Platform Driver In No Apparent Rush For Upstreaming Into The Linux Kernel

[darkbasic]

there isn't anything wrong with this mentality as long as they eventually do upstream their stuff.

Wrong, most people would like to use this stuff *while* the hardware is still relevant, not years later.

[smitty3268]

Wrong, most people would like to use this stuff *while* the hardware is still relevant, not years later.

I don't think linux/foss users are really Valve's target demographic for the steam deck. They're targeting windows gamers, where the primary criteria is just whether or not it works well.

[darkbasic]

I don't think linux/foss users are really Valve's target demographic for the steam deck. They're targeting windows gamers, where the primary criteria is just whether or not it works well.

Never said they were their target, just that timing matters whenever you talk about upstreaming things.

[Venemo]

I'm not the typical user, but not upstreaming changes drives me away from it. They released the hardware in 2022 and not yet into upstream? I'm sorry, that's a no go to me.

As the article said, the driver was already sent upstream in early 2022. It is unclear why upstream didn't accept it then, or since then.

[Weasel]

I'm not the typical user, but not upstreaming changes drives me away from it. They released the hardware in 2022 and not yet into upstream? I'm sorry, that's a no go to me.

I'm sure Valve care a ton about you throwing fits. Thanks for letting us all know.

[Tobu]

As the article said, the driver was already sent upstream in early 2022. It is unclear why upstream didn't accept it then, or since then.

Here is the conversation on lore again. Apparently they submitted it, got a bunch of review comments (useful and constructive), responded in the same manner, and then forgot about it entirely (no further posts to the same platform-driver-x86 mailing list at least).

[smitty3268]

Never said they were their target, just that timing matters whenever you talk about upstreaming things.

I was responding to the bit where you said "most people". Sorry if it was unclear, but what I meant was that I don't think most people care about that, which was meant to be implied by stating that Valve wasn't targeting that group.

[darkbasic]

I was responding to the bit where you said "most people". Sorry if it was unclear, but what I meant was that I don't think most people care about that, which was meant to be implied by stating that Valve wasn't targeting that group.

Most people simply meant "most people who care about the upstreaming efforts".

[mdedetrich]

Wrong, most people would like to use this stuff *while* the hardware is still relevant, not years later.

Which really isn't really possible while Valve is still iterating on the device + difficulty of getting it upstreamed.

What people really like is irrelevant, its what is practical/feasible for Valve which is a concept you seem to have trouble understanding. As I said before, Valve is actually one of the top contributors for Linux (and its ecosystem) in general, even getting to the point of working on NVidia OS drivers which has no benefit to Valve at all.

There many come a point where Valve can just dump everything upstream months before a device is released, but that clearly wasn't going to work with Steam Deck, they needed to release steam deck when it was released (first mover market advantage) and because its a gaming console it needed features which Linux + its graphics stack were lacking. Along with that, a lot of the stuff that Valve is working on is bleeding edge functionality (i.e. HDR, gamescope etc etc) and upstreaming that kind of stuff takes ages (for obvious reasons)

[darkbasic]

Which really isn't really possible while Valve is still iterating on the device + difficulty of getting it upstreamed.

That's not really true: I've seen many experimental drivers in the kernel before. More difficult? Sure.