Valve Picks Up Another Key Linux Developer

[Wilfred]

Does anyone notice that Michael Larabel is cultivating a mythology where every day he is a little more responsible for Steam on Linux? -- Ryan C. Gordon (@icculus on twitter)

Linux gaming news - www.gamingonlinux.com

Come on. He is more a fanboy. Which is okay in my book.

[entropy]

I guess Michael sees big business potential in Phoronix/Michael
being somehow associated with Steam/Source on Linux (Btw, I like the short term SoL).
Ryan is certainly not that wrong. Anyway, the day SoL is here and I can play Half-Life 3 natively on Linux,
I will forgive any "It's official" news Michael came up for years.

[Wilfred]

[...] I can play Half-Life 3 natively on Linux,
I will forgive any "It's official" news Michael came up for years.

Haha, yes.

[Michael]

I guess Michael sees big business potential in Phoronix/Michael
being somehow associated with Steam/Source on Linux (Btw, I like the short term SoL).
Ryan is certainly not that wrong. Anyway, the day SoL is here and I can play Half-Life 3 natively on Linux,
I will forgive any "It's official" news Michael came up for years.

Anyone with even a remote stake in seeing the success of the Linux desktop in general should be interested in Valve accomplishing their Linux ambitions and supporting their efforts where possible. I firmly believe this will be a "last stand" for the real mainstream success of the Linux desktop... If Valve executes on their plans, I truly believe it's the best chance ever for the Linux desktop to significantly increase its market-share and fundamentally alter the situation.

Even Canonical sees this as huge: they are even considering doing Ubuntu OEM preloads with Steam pre-installed... (How do I know this? Well they contacted me about it...)

[Xilanaz]

still if it really is so far along then why is there not a single official valve stand on this.... all I can think of is that there is a lot of linux in the world and not all of it is a desktop machine.........

Icculus is right though, the title of this article for once is a good one, valve get another linux developer, but then the 1st part is all about Michael and the people "he" already recruited for Valve before saying this one is also thanks to him. the next article will then of course refer to this and the previous. That is what annoyes me about these articles... the blowing your own trumpet again and again again.....

[Michael]

Icculus is right though, the title of this article for once is a good one, valve get another linux developer, but then the 1st part is all about Michael and the people "he" already recruited for Valve before saying this one is also thanks to him.

Well, I was the one that approached David White via referral to see if he would be interested in talking with Valve for employment... he was interested. I then contacted Valve and let them know I had another potential person. They continue requesting more recommendations from me.

the next article will then of course refer to this and the previous. That is what annoyes me about these articles... the blowing your own trumpet again and again again.....

Yes I will link to it surely again, but it's not about blowing a trumpet, it's about linking to other Phoronix articles... Any regular should know that by now it's all about maximizing page views by linking to related articles...

[sirdilznik]

Between this and all the great Kickstarter games coming to Linux (Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Leisure Suit Larry, Moebius, SpaceVenture, Carmageddon, etc...), it does look like Linux gaming is picking up some steam (pun intended). I don't expect this to magically turn Linux into a lead gaming platform overnight, but it's definitely momentum in the right direction, especially in lieu of LGP seemingly fading out of existence (until I see an actual new game surface from them I'm going to assume they're dead in the water).

Now for the record I was one of the doubters of the Steam for Linux stories on here. I would like to say that I never went so far as call Michael a liar, I simply expressed skepticism. After the "It's Official, Steam is coming to Linux" story, then nothing solid to back it up for a year plus, I was firmly in the "I'll believe it when I hear it out of Gabe Newell's mouth" camp. I'm happy to eat my words.

[Larian]

still if it really is so far along then why is there not a single official valve stand on this....

I'd say that's just Valve being Valve. Look at how long they kept the Mac client under their hats before going public with an ad campaign. But more than that, we've got code in our Steam directories specifically looking for a $uname "Linux", we've got screenshots of an in-house client running L4D2, we've got the way early alpha build of a steam client found on Valve's servers, and we've got Gabe Newell himself answering e-mails saying we should expect something by year's end. All this amounts to an incredibly convincing pile of circumstantial evidence. They've definitely left us a trail of breadcrumbs.

[GreatEmerald]

Yes I will link to it surely again, but it's not about blowing a trumpet, it's about linking to other Phoronix articles... Any regular should know that by now it's all about maximizing page views by linking to related articles...

Personally I don't mind and even like it a bit, as it allows to quickly browse related stories. Searching for them would be a lot more difficult than it should. Though it would be nice if it was in a separate "related articles" section, but oh well, this works as well.

[meklu]

All I've seen thus far is people whining about the titles of certain articles, and those may indeed mislead a bit. A further investigation into what the posts actually say reveals largely just a high confidence in Valve by Michael.

Linking to your own articles is indeed something I don't mind. I'd like to have some visual indication as to where the links point since you keep mixing external and internal links quite excessively.

They've definitely left us a trail of breadcrumbs.

If those breadcrumbs are entire loaves of bread, then I agree with you.