Yes, More Steam & Source Engine Linux Details

[BlueKoala]

There is a myth that all the best IT people are in the Linux camp. From what I've seen this looks like it's true. Steam is the newest and shiniest gadget coming to Linux and people are curious. I'm sure that "suits" at Valve are familiar enough with Linux to know we're not all crackers. In fact, I'm inclined to think that some the upper ups at Valve may be fond of Linux; hence the client exists. There's a big positive that you may have missed by this early curiosity; bug reports and fixes can be provided by the community. It's not even released or even announced yet and I've already seen someone "fix" a couple of bugs on phoronix. I doubt Valve would see a problem with this.

[j883376]

You guys are all so ignorant it hurts. Of course I know what Linux is and Linux people are but these are business-suits! They think different. For them Linux is "unsafe" and a "cracker-paradise". Now imagine what happens if you have some test-software which is not released for the public use yet and Linux people start to hack it straight away without your consent? It tells them that their view of us being game-crackers is true. The result can be a drop of the entire project since an unsafe client equals to lost money and that's the last thing business-suits want to happen.

But yeah, some people simply lack far-sight.

Clearly you're a moron and that can't be fixed, but I'll attempt anyway.

Hacking the client and fixing COMPATIBILITY BUGS has absolutely nothing to do with trying to crack the DRM on the games. If Valve doesn't know that the Linux community will tinker, then they have no idea what they're getting themselves into. Having said that, it's quite obvious that they know exactly what is going on.

They took down the files. They could have left them down or locked them down with a password. Did they do this? No. They put them back on a PUBLIC webserver with an easily guessable URL. They clearly figured it out some time after they took it down and probably realized that keeping it up for people to tinker with is nothing but good publicity because people will be buzzing about it.

Anyway, I know that you're most likely too dense to understand what I've just said or unwilling to try, but maybe some other people with a bit more common sense can take something away from this post.

[Dragonlord]

You guys are all so ignorant it hurts. Of course I know what Linux is and Linux people are but these are business-suits! They think different. For them Linux is "unsafe" and a "cracker-paradise". Now imagine what happens if you have some test-software which is not released for the public use yet and Linux people start to hack it straight away without your consent? It tells them that their view of us being game-crackers is true. The result can be a drop of the entire project since an unsafe client equals to lost money and that's the last thing business-suits want to happen.

But yeah, some people simply lack far-sight.

[mastertheknife]

You are wrong. A bunch of hacker-kiddies does not signal interest in games on linux... it signals interest in linux hacking games (hacking inthe sense of cracking).

Are you aware that many people use linux because they think its better, and not because its free? Linux users are usually intelligent, wise thinking people and for the money they saved on not buying windows, they can buy many steam games.

[BlueKoala]

Please reformat your computer and install Windows Me.

I would have suggested an iPad; you sir win +2

[j883376]

You are wrong. A bunch of hacker-kiddies does not signal interest in games on linux... it signals interest in linux hacking games (hacking inthe sense of cracking).

Please reformat your computer and install Windows Me.

[Dragonlord]

Isn't this pretty much business as usual for Valve? I think you're vastly underestimating how much of this stuff already goes on in Windows, they aren't some small outfit just dabbling around in Linux. I'd be very surprised if a few enthusiasts hacking around surprised them at all. If anything, they may take it as a sign that lots of linux users want to run Steam and take it more seriously.

You are wrong. A bunch of hacker-kiddies does not signal interest in games on linux... it signals interest in linux hacking games (hacking inthe sense of cracking).

[smitty3268]

Also, creating patches is NOT copyright infringement. If I buy a book, and then cut out a few pages and rewrite a few others, that's not copyright infringment. Passing the changes I've done around to others also isn't infringment. Passing the whole book around would be, but people aren't copying the actual Steam binaries here.

What I suspect you mean is that typical EULA's ban the modification of software. Whether an EULA like that is even legal depends on where you live, but I guess you think it's the idea that matters and not the actual law. Because again, it's NOT INFRINGING.

[smitty3268]

Isn't this pretty much business as usual for Valve? I think you're vastly underestimating how much of this stuff already goes on in Windows, they aren't some small outfit just dabbling around in Linux. I'd be very surprised if a few enthusiasts hacking around surprised them at all. If anything, they may take it as a sign that lots of linux users want to run Steam and take it more seriously.

[Svartalf]

Than they could to something like user authentication on the linux directory or even IP access rules. Every webserver supports at least one of these technics.

Just because you think that they should do that sort of thing doesn't change the fact that they're probably doing some of that and the public stuff is the testing part (It can't be restricted at some point... And you've got to test it "live" at some point; there's reasons why I've got a 20Mbit feed into my house...)- and it doesn't change that it's an ill idea to be risking them getting sick and tired of us screwing with their stuff that's not been published/announced yet.

Seriously. I wouldn't be going on like this about this if it wasn't that serious a thing we're doing here.

It's not not like hacking ExpressGate where the GPL actually allows this sort of thing. Everyone tinkering with this openly like this and passing patches, etc. around are committing acts of infringement- and at some threshold (and I fear we're getting close here...) they're going to say "screw this" and drop the whole Idea on us.

LEAVE THIS BE PEOPLE. I can't keep stressing this strongly enough