Is Valve's Steam antithetical to Linux and the very core of the open source spirit?

[Gps4l]

This is an awesome Linux coverage site, and the main writer has personal relations with Valve and is a big fan, but I don't seen any positives out of this for Linux.

How about better graphics drivers for Linux ?

Which is already happening, but certainly on the amd side moving slow.

[brosis]

iOS openly admits to being a walled garden. Linux does not.

So, you confirmed that iOS is opensource enemy. Linux does not admit being walled garden, because its not walled garden. If you have proof otherwise, be my guest to post.

The issues of signal:noise ratio and malware/adware affect all app stores and repos. The Linux repos have tons of garbage, have had a great record for preventing malware, and are widely appreciated.

Debian is malware free.

This is true, but Steam is coercive. The contracts developers must sign are legally hidden, and that by itself suggests coercion.

Just another proprietary distribution platform, NDAs are usually always required when working for closed source. The difference to others is that it does not require exclusivity (like W8 marketplace or other garbage), and is not GPL-enemy. It also started to actively help Linux and opensource. If you don?t want it, don?t use. If you are developer, publish also standalone version.

The way you say "option", you suggest minimal coercion. I would claim that Steam on Windows is coercive, Steam is inherently coercive, and Steam wouldn't be successful without coercion.

Just another proprietary content distribution platform with relaxed conditions and good customer support...
Steam drove a lot of gaming industry attention to Linux.
For that alone, it gets standing ovations from me. I personally don?t care about windows *anything.

Ofc, its not "Opensource Gaming Platform", with all games Opensource, open communication framework, active community to create new opensource games kick-start-like way. But even these two could co-exist just fine...

They say that the enemy of an enemy is our friend. Who is your friend, friend? Windows or steam?

[DanLamb]

It is legally prohibited to publish any GPL application in Apple market.

iOS openly admits to being a walled garden. Linux does not.

Android market has a lot of apps that are literally garbage or malware

The issues of signal:noise ratio and malware/adware affect all app stores and repos. The Linux repos have tons of garbage, have had a great record for preventing malware, and are widely appreciated.

And Steam does not hinder you to publish your application standalone! You can publish with Steam, without Steam or parallel to Steam.

This is true, but Steam is coercive. The contracts developers must sign are legally hidden, and that by itself suggests coercion.

As long as Steam is an "option" and seriously supports the OS (which it does), its always welcome.

The way you say "option", you suggest minimal coercion. I would claim that Steam on Windows is coercive, Steam is inherently coercive, and Steam wouldn't be successful without coercion.

[DanLamb]

Yes, to OP's headline. It's also malware and DRM.

But I don't see why we should try to hinder its adoption any. It will bring users, money, and indirectly, advancements to common components, which will benefit us all.

It may have downsides from a business sense, if you're a game developer.

You have a good point in that there are some real positives, but there are valid reasons to oppose it's adoption. Specifically, I suspect both users and developers will be coerced to use it. And secondly, Valve as a proprietary privately held company would have various undisclosed legal rights over games involved and their pricing and revenue streams.

If Steam operates as this completely optional, opt-in only service, and developers and customers aren't overtly pressured to use it, and we can see the terms of the contracts, ok, that's fine. But I don't think that would ever survive. Many Steam users argue that it only makes sense when you can consume *all* of your games through Steam, thus justifying coercion.

But you're not forced to distribute via Steam in that case, on any platform. In contrast, you are forced to distribute via Apple on iOS, or via Google on Android, if you want to reach non-unlocked devices*

There is complete coercion of Apple with iOS, heavy coercion to use Google Play within Android, and lighter, but significant coercion of Steam on Windows. Many prominent Windows games developed completely outside of Valve have been Steam only, which is obvious coercion of users. Secondly, many Windows gaming sites and communities have organized to coerce Windows developers to support Steam.

It is a gray area, but I would argue that Valve doesn't deserve a toll collecting ownership position over Windows/Linux like Apple/Google have with iOS/Android.

iOS openly admits that it is a more controlled walled garden. Linux makes strong claims to both user/developer choice and a lack of coercion and the community should support those principles and minimize coercion with services like Steam.

[brosis]

@OP

It is legally prohibited to publish any GPL application in Apple market.

Android market has a lot of apps that are literally garbage or malware and for example only now "ODF" reader surfaced (where .docx editors were long available).
Talks miles about opensource spirit support on android.

And Steam does not hinder you to publish your application standalone! You can publish with Steam, without Steam or parallel to Steam.
Steam brought a lot of titles to Linux and resulted in much better graphical drivers.
As long as Steam is an "option" and seriously supports the OS (which it does), its always welcome.

[curaga]

Yes, to OP's headline. It's also malware and DRM.

But I don't see why we should try to hinder its adoption any. It will bring users, money, and indirectly, advancements to common components, which will benefit us all.


It may have downsides from a business sense, if you're a game developer. But you're not forced to distribute via Steam in that case, on any platform. In contrast, you are forced to distribute via Apple on iOS, or via Google on Android, if you want to reach non-unlocked devices*, or 99.9% of the market in either case.


* Yes, many Android devices allow third-party stores without unlocking. It's a question of "installed by default" on those devices.

[DanLamb]

Yeah, the anonymous hero to the rescue. Really? Corporations (like, well, Microsoft) invest hundreds of millions of dollars to make that stuff happen. And they know that they can do it since they have full control over their own platform.

So yeah, find someone to pay this kind of money for the development costs. And when it's done, watch kernel and X.Org upstream reject the patches because Linus' analysis showed that they don't scale well to machines with two billion CPU cores and are slowing down PostgreSQL by half a pico second, and Keith wants to implement his own, better solution that will work perfectly in 40 years, since this one is "not modular enough" and "increases maintenance cost."

Yes, Linux is like that. So, good luck to you, sir.

You mention real roadblocks, but come on: those are roadblocks to absolutely anything in Linux and great enhancements still happen anyway.

I've heard Linux's OpenGL doesn't have parity with competing APIs in terms of speed/feature/simplicity. I don't think that issue is insurmountable and may not need full upstream patch acceptance.

I think Ubuntu and many others could make a competitive storefront, DRM system, auto patch repo, and remote save game system.

[RealNC]

If Linux wants good games

Linux is not in a position to want anything. It's just a bunch of vaguely related companies and individuals all scratching their own itch.

someone fix the issues

Yeah, the anonymous hero to the rescue. Really? Corporations (like, well, Microsoft) invest hundreds of millions of dollars to make that stuff happen. And they know that they can do it since they have full control over their own platform.

So yeah, find someone to pay this kind of money for the development costs. And when it's done, watch kernel and X.Org upstream reject the patches because Linus' analysis showed that they don't scale well to machines with two billion CPU cores and are slowing down PostgreSQL by half a pico second, and Keith wants to implement his own, better solution that will work perfectly in 40 years, since this one is "not modular enough" and "increases maintenance cost."

Yes, Linux is like that. So, good luck to you, sir.

[DanLamb]

For some businesses NDA's aren't because they're trying to keep dark secrets, but because that's what they've always done and they've yet to see any benefit to doing things differently. Please understand: I don't like them, but I don't think much can be read into their use.

maybe there is some innocuous reason for the NDAs, but these are major important details of who owns what and who can do what. It's ridiculous to keep these details secret and require NDAs to see them and even pretend to be a part of the Linux community which is based on sharing your source, free software infrastructure, and this open collaborative community.

Respectfully, and subjectively, I would say that it provides me with the value of not having to worry about running the update function of every game I run: everything is kept fully-patched and providing it's now downloading *right now*, I can launch any game and not worry about whether I'm running the right version.

ok, this is awesome functionality over manually maintaining separate installs, but this is standard package manager functionality. There are many well established package management systems that are widely used and provide this service free to consumers and developers and generally license free and NDA free and completely open source.

[archibald]

Possibly. I don't have solid proof, but the very fact that they force all developers to sign an NDA and keep these contract details secret is a big, big warning.

For some businesses NDA's aren't because they're trying to keep dark secrets, but because that's what they've always done and they've yet to see any benefit to doing things differently. Please understand: I don't like them, but I don't think much can be read into their use.

subjectively, I would say that this provides extremely little value and that it's dramatically smaller investment than what Apple/Google makes into iOS/Android.

Respectfully, and subjectively, I would say that it provides me with the value of not having to worry about running the update function of every game I run: everything is kept fully-patched and providing it's now downloading *right now*, I can launch any game and not worry about whether I'm running the right version.

It's certainly not as large an investment as iOS/Android, but it was nonetheless an investment that is capable of providing significant benefits (the more games you own the greater the benefit of it managing their updates).