It seems my recent article about Valve removing the link to the Steam Machines page caused quite a stir, so Valve have now confirmed their continued support for Linux gaming.
Truthfully, I wasn't expecting my article to do anything, however I seem to have vastly underestimated just how many eyes there are on us now. Many larger tech and gaming sites picked it up from us like PC Gamer, Ars Technica (who amusingly called us a "fan site"), VG247 and so on. Many more sites then picked up the news from them (some claiming it was originally reported by others—oh well, can't win them all) and so it ended up as a much bigger story.
We've had quite a lot of emails and notifications about this, including a Valve rep emailing us directly to link us to this post by Pierre-Loup Griffais, where they state that the removal of the Steam Machines link was part of a "routine cleanup" where it was removed based on "user traffic".
They go on to state rather clearly, that their plans haven't really changed. They're still committed to making Linux a great place for games and applications, including those not using Steam. The most important part of their post, to me at least, is this:
At the same time, we're continuing to invest significant resources in supporting the Vulkan ecosystem, tooling and driver efforts. We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large.
It's going to be very interesting to find out what these initiatives are that they're not currently ready to talk about, quite exciting.
It's really good to see a public comment from Valve on this, as I said constantly in the past that SteamOS and Steam Machines would never be an overnight success. Valve is clearly in it for the long game and so are we.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: jensPeople running a FOSS exclusive system should be able to do so. Using non-FOSS software, like me using NVidia drivers and Steam, should also be "just OK" and accepted.
Extreme views "this and that should not be accepted" usually serves no one in the long term but only feeds useless religious discussions.
The discussion was not about what users are installing, but what is acceptable or not for developers to push on users. Something like CUDA from Nvidia should not be acceptable for example. Same goes for any other type of lock-in or exclusivity, which are simply anti-competitive practices. Trying to whitewash such kind of practice serves no good purpose.
It would be nice of you if you would state your personal opinion as such. I respect that you are highly offended by any kind of exclusivity.
Last edited by jens on 4 April 2018 at 10:08 pm UTC
Quoting: Luke_NukemPeople need to stop viewing FOSS as alien to big money. It ain't. When it comes to platforms and middleware, FOSS is commercially dominant across most computing domains, from supercomputing to servers/cloud to embedded and the "internet of things". It's just, the money doesn't mostly get hoarded by some entity controlling the platform. Google would have been hobbled trying to build their empire on Windows servers.Quoting: BrisseQuoting: elbuglione"some trying to justify exclusives and lock-in as a valid methodology"
Sadly... is valid, because is working!
It has no place in FOSS-philosophy, even when there's a proprietary store front in middle.
People need to stop viewing Linux as FOSS-exclusive. It ain't, and it won't build the momentum required unless big-money gets behind it (as evidenced by Valve pushing it).
The desktop computer OS is actually a weird outlier where no big money entity or group of entities have yet seen a way to make dough replacing proprietary with FOSS, whether because there's something unusual about that particular market space or because MS is unusually good at ensuring nobody sees a chance to pull anything off. Doesn't mean it will never happen.
Although, one blind spot of our current age is that it tends not to occur to us that there are entities other than megacorporations which have a lot of money. States as significant economic actors in their own right have been out of fashion for a while now. But I would not be surprised if the era of the hyperglobalized economy is easing to a close and geopolitics is going to once more, for some countries at least, have a significant impact on their economic policies rather than it being all the other way around as it has tended to be. So like for instance, it seems clear that the US, no matter who is in government, is firmly committed to Cold War with Russia and, increasingly, China (and Iran and whoever they alienate next). Thus far this has had little impact on trade between the US and China, and until recently it seemed almost senseless that it could. And yet things seem to be drifting that way. My point is, there have been a number of false starts in the past, but it's not implausible that at some point some sizable countries may just say once and for all, for realz this time, they don't want to be sending their money to Redmond and they don't want the NSA's back doors and they will now be making a transition to Red Flag Linux or Great Bear Linux or whatever and the patriotic citizens will be welcoming this if they know what is good for them (and if things were tense enough with the US and it was sold right, the patriotic citizens might not actually mind). It would be a weird and somewhat uncomfortable way of having a major increase in desktop Linux, but it could happen at the rate things are going.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 5 April 2018 at 3:32 am UTC
Quoting: MohandevirPersonnaly, what I would like to see is
As for DRM... I don't know why you are talking about that. I have no opinion on the subject and I highly respect Valves' work for the Linux ecosystem.
God, I hate that TLA, but here it is good, it means Direct Rendering Manager.
Last edited by lucinos on 5 April 2018 at 7:05 am UTC
Quoting: skinnyrafAnd yet another discussion hijacked into a GNU/Linux, Free Software, purists vs pragmatists, DRM, GOG vs Steam flamewar...
We should open a thread per topic in the forum (each of which can be derailed to any or all of the other ones), so we could keep the news section (more or less) free of it...
Quoting: GuestWell, flamewars aside, Valve _do_ have some influence on GNU/Linux graphics, if for no other reason than financial support. So how that effects an open system is not entirely off topic. So long as it's kept civil.
And they do, by paying people to work on Mesa. But discussions about ethics of CUDA or Apple's walled garden are definitely off-topic in the context of "Valve's continued support for Linux gaming".
BlackBloodRum Apr 5, 2018
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