SteamOS Didn't Use Ubuntu Over Legal Issues

[Malizor]

Problem probably with Mir.

Why would they use it if they don't want it?
X will be supported by canonical for at least the next 5 years and, in the "worst" case, it will just be synced from Debian after.
Really, some here should understand that Ubuntu is not just the default Unity desktop.

You can't just fork it.

Of course you can. Just get the code and accept external contributions without requiring any CLA.

[GreatEmerald]

Good news for you: you can use whatever desktop you want on Ubuntu. Unity is just one of them.
And if you want to carefully select each package you install on your system, you can also do a net install as you would do on Debian.

Hence why I said "And then decided that instead of having to rely on a non-default configuration, it's just easier to use the upstream Debian". Of course you can use something else than Unity, but it's non-standard and thus not as well supported.

So no, this is not a logical explanation.
Perhaps Valve engineers just prefer Debian (good for them in this case), but I can't imagine that there would be a legal issue by forking Ubuntu that would not also apply with Debian and any other distro.

He said it was a legally questionable situation, not that it was related to technical aspects.

Problem probably with Mir.
Has has license that makes modifications of it's code property of Ubuntu and not compatible with GPL2. You can't just fork it.

Ubuntu doesn't use Mir, and SteamOS would never use anything other than X for the forseeable future, anyway, so that can't be the issue.

[benalib]

i think the reason is Mir
with Mir under the GPLv3 they can't include patented technologies, the GPLv3 does not allow that
but they can do so with X11 or wayland
i think there is no other reason !

[Malizor]

Hence why I said "And then decided that instead of having to rely on a non-default configuration, it's just easier to use the upstream Debian". Of course you can use something else than Unity, but it's non-standard and thus not as well supported.

Fair enough. Even if I personally doubt that alternative desktops are actually more supported on Debian than on Ubuntu :-)

[mrugiero]

i think the reason is Mir
with Mir under the GPLv3 they can't include patented technologies, the GPLv3 does not allow that
but they can do so with X11 or wayland
i think there is no other reason !

You got it all wrong, it seems. They can not put restrictions on use for their patents, if those are relevant to any GPLv3 software they do distribute, but GPLv3 doesn't say "you can't include patented technologies". But they are already not imposing restrictions on use of SteamOS. Also, it's been already said that A) Debian comes with some GPLv3 software itself and B) they don't really have any reason to use Mir, even if relying on Ubuntu as their base. Even whenever/if it gets unsupported by Ubuntu, they will get the exact same version of X.org imported from Debian.

[Andrecorreia]

who cares?

i don t. liberty of choice. only thing matters is if work well, nothing more.

[mrugiero]

i don t. liberty of choice. only thing matters is if work well, nothing more.

Aren't we allowed to some curiosity?

[felipe]

this post make me so happy

[brosis]

i think the reason is Mir
with Mir under the GPLv3 they can't include patented technologies, the GPLv3 does not allow that
but they can do so with X11 or wayland
i think there is no other reason !

GPLv3 allows to include patented technologies. What it does not allow is to sue somebody, who uses the *unmodified* codebase. GPL3 preamble and 11 paragraph summarize it. Without this protection, the code is in itself useless, because you can't run it. Read the license before posting FUD.

[Bathroom Humor]

I don't think it could have anything to do with the big-name components that are present in the default Ubuntu install. They wouldn't be running Unity, they wouldn't even need to have it installed. They could use any other desktop, like XFCE if they wanted. And I doubt it has anything to do with Mir by itself, since they are relying on a different graphics stack and wouldn't need to ship Mir at all.
To me it seems like it's was more to do with all the changes going into future Ubuntu versions that aren't really necessary for a gaming console, and they'd rather take the easy road and use a vanilla distro. That may not be the case, but I can't see what legal issues they could be having, considering they could remove and replace anything that's iffy. It might be a mix of the two; not wanting to deal with legal gray areas, so they use a more basic system to bypass it.

Still, it is a shame that steam OS won't be able to use PPA's. :/ too bad.