There Is No Doubt, Steam Is Coming To Linux!

[eXlin]

Y

I am completely fine with what you have done and i think it's not harmfull. Actually quite opposite, it is indicating that there are linux users interested of gaming.

And now if some1 think's valve is believing that we think we can get games free raise your hands. Or this is chase off game publishers?
There is long history of making game cracks, but if i have understood correctly in steam games pirating % is lot lower than average without being crappy unusable drm (like ubisoft's recent ones).

[eXlin]

And after all it is yet again one prove about interest of gaming in linux platform.

[dopehouse]

There are many other ways to get Steam Games and bypass Steam. Just look at your favorite filesharing site for some Valve games. As far as I know, they don't crack steam, they just replace it with some apps to bypass Steam and tell the game that it's authenticated and logged into Steam.

[AHSauge]

Okeay, then all, what you say, means that we can share patched version of steamui.so, right?

No. I guess this would be very dependent on the country you're in and it's laws, but here in Norway it would be crystal clear violation of the Norwegian ??ndsverksloven?, which is much the same as a copyright law. By redistributing a patched or even unpatched software, I would be taking a piece of software that I don't have any ownership of and doing something I don't have any right to do (actually just the patch part of it, i.e. change the software it self, would also be a violation of the same law). I don't know how this works in other countries, but I suspect there is similar laws in action preventing redistributing. You can't just redistribute things or do anything to it without any consent from the owner or any person with the rights to grant you permission to do it.

[Remco]

There is long history of making game cracks, but if i have understood correctly in steam games pirating % is lot lower than average without being crappy unusable drm (like ubisoft's recent ones).

Not only that, but Linux piracy percentage is also lower than Windows piracy percentage, if we go by World of Goo numbers. Publishers should feel pretty comfortable about Linux.

[eXlin]

e

And we are not posting steamui.so file but patch only what will fix some bugs.

Remco: need to google that i quess
I tried demo of that game and liked it a lot, quess i would buy that attleast when steam comes :P

[Dragonlord]

Look into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I cite:

It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.

With other words patches are as well illegit as sharing the modified files as they are a way to modify the files.

[Remco]

Look into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I cite:


With other words patches are as well illegit as sharing the modified files as they are a way to modify the files.

This is only if the patches are circumventing copy protection. Compatibility patches are exempt from the DMCA.

[d2kx]

There is long history of making game cracks, but if i have understood correctly in steam games pirating % is lot lower than average without being crappy unusable drm (like ubisoft's recent ones).

Yes, this is correct. Steam is probably the only platform (call it DRM if you want) that not only works reliable, but also offers advantages and not disadvantages like that Ubisoft crap and Steam only games like the ones from Valve get pirated less. Also, the weekend deals on Steam are highly successful, like with Codemasters selling 5 (five) AAA-Titles for 16? this weekend.

[eXlin]

This is only if the patches are circumventing copy protection. Compatibility patches are exempt from the DMCA.

Here in Finland if i remember correctly only cracking "strong" encryption is illegal. Can't call that encrypted, not to mention "strong".