What Should Valve Do For Linux & Open-Source?

[Kano]

Well when you look back there was a hl2 source code leak. An interesting interview you find there:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article

basically hl 2 was still a success. Not sure about if they want that somebody else could modify the client to run without steam (legally). Sure basically steam is fully broken if you dont want to play online games but still i doubt that they want to show everything. it would be a nice move however. Problematic could be 3rd party code parts, which are usually no problem for id software as they write basically everything on their own.

But maybe they could give away a free game like they did when the mac client was released. And if possible support debian too not only ubuntu...

[DMJC]

This is job for GOG, not for Valve.

Except GOG don't support Linux at the moment, and GOG have not edited the sourcecode for ANY of their games. They just bundle an installer and ship it as-is. There was development work being done on Descent 3 upto 2009 according to the official website.

BTW, People talking about ATi vs Nvidia around Doom 3 era have no idea what they are talking about. The FX 5xxx Nvidia chips were the WORST cards Nvidia ever made. They had been contracted to make the Xbox 1 GPUs and they put their newly hired 3dFX developers onto making a graphics card. It was a disaster for Nvidia and is why they will not work with Microsoft on a console again. The 3dFX team delivered one of the worst GPUs nvidia has ever made. Every card since then has been a lot better and they retook the performance crown within 2 generations of GPUs around the 7xxx series cards. Wikipedia used to have a huge writeup about this in their geforce/nvidia articles. There are numerous articles on the net about it as well.

[AJSB]

The ones that consider that a windows binary wrapped around in WINE is a good idea, you are delusional .

I use WINE for many years (and contributed to bug reports) and no matter the great progresses, it will be ALWAYS a crouch.

There clearly performance issues that will NEVER be solved, compatibility issues, installation issues, audio issues, and graphical issues....

I NEVER saw a game (except maybe really old) that perform same EXACT way than in Windows.

WINE is a good option....as in :last resort to play a game in LINUX.

Any dev to go with it to make a Linux "compatible" game is doomed to fail as for sales goes.

[uid313]

Talk with your partners

Talk with AMD and Nvidia, tell them about your Linux efforts and make them ramp up their efforts.

Talk with game developers, and tell them about your Linux efforts, and have a continuous dialog with them asking them how their Linux porting is going.

Companies who make Windows-only games should get less money from Steam sales than companies who make cross-platform games. Financial incentive.

[BlueJayofEvil]

I'd love to see Valve offer support for porting games to Mac & Linux. As was suggested already, perhaps a monetary incentive to build cross-platform games would be a good idea. Tools to help cross-compilation would be a good thing, too.

[Vadi]

That's a lot to be asking for... I'd have to side with the "be profitable" point. Just keep making good stuff, show others that there's a market in Linux gaming, help grow it out of Microsoft's grasp.

[cgltower]

What Id like Valve to do with Linux technology

To answer "What do you think Valve can do to better embrace Linux and open-source?"

- Cloud gaming of course! Lead the industry with ubuntu or similar cloud game platform for users and developers, complete with an API. Would be awesome!

[jhansonxi]

Except GOG don't support Linux at the moment, and GOG have not edited the sourcecode for ANY of their games. They just bundle an installer and ship it as-is.

Probably because they're not GOG's games. They don't own the codebases. Some codebases have been released open-source by the owners (idtech engines, Duke Nukem 3D) and some have third-party clones (like the GemRB clone of the Bioware Infinity engine).

[Hamish Wilson]

The ones that consider that a windows binary wrapped around in WINE is a good idea, you are delusional .

I use WINE for many years (and contributed to bug reports) and no matter the great progresses, it will be ALWAYS a crouch.

There clearly performance issues that will NEVER be solved, compatibility issues, installation issues, audio issues, and graphical issues....

I NEVER saw a game (except maybe really old) that perform same EXACT way than in Windows.

WINE is a good option....as in :last resort to play a game in LINUX.

Any dev to go with it to make a Linux "compatible" game is doomed to fail as for sales goes.

All I have to say is this +1. Well put.

[Prince781]

Nothing more than they promised....

I think it would be the most prudent for Valve to simply adhere to their original promises of sucessful, functional, and native ports of their client and games to Linux. For the time being, that should be the main focus before worrying about open-sourcing their older games.

However, I worry over the implications in the wording of this thread's title. The open-source fanatics need to remember that Valve never mentioned anything about contributing to open-source development beyond their original intentions to simply provide native Linux functionality. Once they've given the Linux support they've promised and the userbase everything they've asked for, I'd hope not to see them meet the same harsh criticism for unpromised things that perhaps another company (*cough* NVidia) has already experienced from the "open source or gtfo" guys.