Is Valve's Steam Client Bad & Damaging For Linux?

[homerhomer]

No but....

Valve using Linux is the best thing that could have happened to Linux. The only damage is if Valve pulls the plug. If that happens then I think Linux's reputation would take a pretty bad hit. I honestly think it was a good decision. Microsoft has been trying to get gamers off Windows and onto there Xbox platforms and also have been planning on having there own software store in the future. Mac is not to much different. Linux lets Valve worry about the games ( mostly ) and not which direction the OS is going.

[leech]

Buy Roccat instead. All their drivers are open source.

I just ordered a Ryos MK Pro and Tyon mouse due to this post. Hopefully I don't regret it, but after trying out a few mechanical keyboards, I decided I wanted one, and well the Tyon has a bilion mouse buttons which is nice.

[FutureSuture]

It's good for Linux and hopefully draws attention from Logitech and alike which are still to lazy or ignore open source at all.

Buy Roccat instead. All their drivers are open source.

[jayrulez]

2) There isn't this vocal minority advocating so intensely against even basic competition. Look through this thread: Valve loyalists everywhere. I support Valve having the right to compete, but I'd like to see some viable alternatives.

I am certainly not a Valve loyalist. I haven't even used Steam beyond initial tests when it was just released for Linux. Do you call people Valve loyalists simply because they do not share your point of view? It is not Valve's fault that there are no viable alternatives.

Well, I'm suggesting that alternatives to Steam need more advocacy and publicity. Quietly not using Steam myself doesn't really achieve that goal.

Where are these notable alternatives? Suggest them!

[ninez]

It's one thing to argue the main point of whether Steam and a Steam near-monopoly is good/bad for Linux...

It's another to argue that this site is not advocating for Steam whether that is right or not. You are disagreeing with me but really aren't making a case here. I don't think there is one. Michael Larabel *is* advocating for Steam.

Again, coverage doesn't equal advocacy, neither does recognizing benefits of someone like Valve moving to the platform. I hate to have to repeat myself, but if you think adding "*is*" to a sentence somehow has made your 'case' validated, you would be wrong. and while you say i haven't made a case - most of your comments are based on your own bias and interpretation, nothing more...

The most reasonable argument that I can think of defending Steam and their presumed monopoly is this: how is Steam's ownership of the game DRM marketplace different from Amazon or Apple having dominant positions over DRM download marketplaces in e-books and music songs?

To counter my own argument:

1) Amazon/Apple did more for books/music. Amazon had arguably the best and cheapest mainstream e-ink reading devices that sold tons. And it had the best physical book store. It's Kindle software is everywhere: PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and of course Kindle e-ink readers. Sony/Google/Apple don't have that matched. Apple had the overwhelmingly popular iPod for a while. And there are still, pretty good alternatives with Amazon, Google, etc. Users and music publishers really have choice.

2) There isn't this vocal minority advocating so intensely against even basic competition. Look through this thread: Valve loyalists everywhere. I support Valve having the right to compete, but I'd like to see some viable alternatives.

Well, I'm suggesting that alternatives to Steam need more advocacy and publicity. Quietly not using Steam myself doesn't really achieve that goal.

Name one viable alternative, at this point. ~ there isn't one for linux, so what the hell are you even trying to advocate exactly???

it's also funny how you claim everyone is "Valve loyalists" simply for not agreeing with your points of view ~ while you haven't even considered an "alternative" here ~ maybe they aren't loyalists, but instead maybe your reasoning (or lack thereof) just isn't as convincing as you think.

[ssam]

Agreed.
The reason why Android is so successful*, is because it is free/open without the "big scary enforcement" part. They accomplish this by using APL rather than GPL (which only applies to the kernel).

* more than 75% of mobile smart device shipments run Android currently, Android total device shipments *currently* exceed the total operating system shipments by MS (mobile+phone, desktop, and server), and forecasts show that the majority of ALL devices (more than 50%) with operating systems (including "dumbphones") will be Android devices by 2017. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...phones-tablets

If anybody is looking for a successful model for open source software, they really need to look straight at Google, since to date, they are the ONLY really and truly (and MASSIVELY) successful open source software vendor.

I dont think you can attribute all of androids success to the licence. would it have been even bigger if they had used a BSD kernel? I'd suspect that the success of android is far more to do with having a giant like google behind it.

[droidhacker]

As a Fedora user, I can assure you're guess is very wrong. It took me a great deal of time to get the steam client to work. It also took a a lot of effort to get some of my games to work. Some of my games I still haven't gotten to work. There is a distro neutral approach. They could have a separate Steam install directory. Sometimes this would mean duplicate installations, but it would take most of the headache out. I promise you that no one without extensive knowledge of Linux will get steam running on anything other than a debian based distro.

All the major distros are effectively the same. I can assure you that if you have all the required libs installed and take your time, you can definitely get *anything* made specifically for Ubuntu, to work on Fedora. I say this as a Fedora user myself. Maybe you just don't know how?

[droidhacker]

If we start enforcing an open source only policy on linux, we'll be scaring away the very people we are trying to recruit to ourside. Valve is doing the right thing and not all Linux software has to be open source. Just as not all Linux software has to be free. It's an operating system and we should treat it like we would Windows, Mac, DOS, whatever. Developers are free to choose what their software's license is.

Agreed.
The reason why Android is so successful*, is because it is free/open without the "big scary enforcement" part. They accomplish this by using APL rather than GPL (which only applies to the kernel).

* more than 75% of mobile smart device shipments run Android currently, Android total device shipments *currently* exceed the total operating system shipments by MS (mobile+phone, desktop, and server), and forecasts show that the majority of ALL devices (more than 50%) with operating systems (including "dumbphones") will be Android devices by 2017. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...phones-tablets

If anybody is looking for a successful model for open source software, they really need to look straight at Google, since to date, they are the ONLY really and truly (and MASSIVELY) successful open source software vendor.

[droidhacker]

Steam is optional. If you don't like proprietary software, than don't use it. Case closed. Go play console tic-tac-toe instead and stay in your mom's basement.

Proprietary software is what GNU/Linux needs right now. We need professional a-grade games, video editors etc. Not to mention software companies like Valve are contributing a lot to drivers, tools etc... things that we would not have otherwise. Linux needs a good push in right direction, we wan't it to be 'better', don't we?

I just don't see how can a hippie in his basement develop a $1,000,000 software project by himself. Unfortunately, some software has to be proprietary to exist. It is fundamentally impossible for it to be free as freedom or even free as free beer.

Now, from perspective of end user - I want to play PROPRIETARY game, I have these options:
- Boot into Windows and suffer
- Run VM and suffer
- Go with Wine and hope it works semi-decently and suffer
- Double click in Steam and play and have good time

I think the latter option is best for everyone. Thank you Valve for your effort to make it possible.

As someone who doesn't play games, and hates DRM as well as all things microsnot, I pretty well agree with this statement.
Specifically, what I regard as the defining characteristic of free computing isn't that all the software is free, but that the critical and unavoidable components of it **ARE**. In other words, proprietary software is fine, and it is your freedom to chose to use it or not. The operating system and all interfaces (drivers) for various components should be free and open, because you depend on it in order to use any other software, free or not free.

There are also certain pieces of software that I believe should be free and open as well, because the use of that software isn't the objective, rather the software is an interface for other things. Take web browsers as an example, like your operating system that provides the interface between you and the bare metal, a web browser provides the interface between you and the internet. And of course, word processors and other standard productivity tools, though these may be more borderline.

[ArchLinux]

My dear, I want you to answer me:

So your main problem with Steam is that it takes rights away from open source games, but then you also complain that Steam shouldn't exist on Linux at _all_?

Try some Source games through Wine and then come back to tell me what a pleasant experience it was. Now that we finally have these things natively on Linux (and there's even more to come) where the _hell_ would you suddenly get it in your head that that's somehow a bad thing?

And about the whole "Steam takes away our rights" argument; if you don't want to do that, then bloody don't do it. Most "decent" games on Linux are freely available in the repos anyway. If you _gotta_ have a client, use Desura.