Richard Stallman Comments On Valve For Linux

[kazetsukai]

The point I disagree with is this:

If you want to promote freedom, please take care not to talk about the availability of these games on GNU/Linux as support for our cause.

Why would we not talk about this? We, the users really should talk about what we, the users want from our platform and to most of us, this is incredibly exciting news. If a publisher wants to come out and release open source games that's great, but they have to target what gamers want for it to be successful, and this is where many projects just have fallen short. To alot of people, open source means jack if the game isn't fun or hasn't passed the amateur-pet-project phase. My basic point comes down to: We're going to talk about what we want and the Valve stuff _truly_ is exciting.

Stallman seems to have ignored the fact that Valve is contributing to (in its own ways, of course) open source driver development and optimization. They're in Linux not JUST to release games. They've already committed at very least USD $1M toward their Linux efforts and the response they have from the community is nothing short of fantastic. No matter how you look at it, this is great PR for them and I doubt anyone here wishes anything but success in their efforts.

[RealNC]

The point I disagree with is this:

If you want to promote freedom, please take care not to talk about the availability of these games on GNU/Linux as support for our cause.

Why would we not talk about this?

Let's also censor any mention of it, and block access to websites who do. Hmm, remind me which countries do stuff like that in an attempt to secure "freedom"...

[directhex]

The problem with Stallman is he simply doesn't understand why people would want to play, say, L4D2 instead of GNU Go.

This commentary is pretty moderate for him - acknowledging that some good may come is more than I expect of him.

[curaga]

Michael, this post is weeks old. Apologies if this was already said, I'll go read the 8 pages now

[kpedersen]

Charming,

I prefer the term passionate

And you forget that Valve has been helping with the improvement of open-source video drivers.

I certainly didn't forget this. However, I didn't mention it because it means nothing. No-one even uses Intel drivers for anything other than simple casual games. Casual games that are currently free and open-source on Linux until Steam comes to our platform and strangles the life out of them with Zynga and their sweatshop of low paid minions.

I don't think I am the only one with this view and I would love to see a patch written into the Linux kernel which prevents Steam (or any other DRM platform) to run. (Unfortunately this is also very much against the software freedom stance which makes Linux so attractive in the first place).

My words obviously cannot change anything. It is extremely hard to stop bad solutions from running their course. When Steam packs it's bags and people are left with nothing but games that cannot even start, they will just re-purchase them all again on the next Steam replacement

[rustybroomhandle]

I certainly didn't forget this. However, I didn't mention it because it means nothing. No-one even uses Intel drivers for anything other than simple casual games. Casual games that are currently free and open-source on Linux until Steam comes to our platform and strangles the life out of them with Zynga and their sweatshop of low paid minions.

Valve's most recent hardware study actually showed that a growing amount of their users' hardware is embedded Intel chipsets. And you'd be surprised what you can run on those chipsets these days. ( http://www.pcgamesn.com/article/stea...lightly-slower )

It's not meaningless though since better drivers is good for everyone, not just gamers.

Also - Zynga - puke.

[kpedersen]

Admittedly I am always on a Intel gfx powered thinkpad for 3D game development at work but I thought I was just the wierd one.

So I guess that Intel cards are becoming a lot more competitive in terms of power. (either that or it is because more users / games are stuck on average laptops).

Oh well, I guess I will just wait and see how this plays out. Although looking at how the typical consumer is happy on Android and iPhone being completely locked down and ripped off, this surely can only end in a bad way.

[madjr]

Wow Stallman is actually Ok with this !

His zealotry has gone down at least 50%.

I think he's good where he is , becuase if it keeps going down, we are not even going to recognize the dude (and of course we need people like him that are always looking out for our freedom).

I think am becoming a fan of the improved Stallman !!

[kpedersen]

Admittedly I am always on a Intel gfx powered thinkpad for 3D game development at work but I thought I was just the wierd one.

So I guess that Intel cards are becoming a lot more competitive in terms of power. (either that or it is because more users / games are stuck on average laptops).

Oh well, I guess I will just wait and see how this plays out. Although looking at how the typical consumer is happy on Android and iPhone being completely locked down and ripped off, this surely can only end in a bad way.

[blackiwid]

[B] becuase if it keeps going down

He is gone down? Do you mean that he is visiting southern countries mostly with spansih languages? yes thats true but what does that have to do with anything ^^