Valve Is A Wonderful Upstream Contributor To Linux & The Open-Source Community
Valve Is A Wonderful Upstream Contributor To Linux & The Open-Source Community
It's kind of weird that Gabe Newell et al shows this much support and appreciation for the long term future than most of the people from his generation, referring more to when he entered the industry than when he was born. In theory, he could profit more in the now instead of investing in a future he might not be around to enjoy, but instead chose the high road.
It's also kind of weird that a person not being scum in a position of power is weird to me. Pretty low standard we've set for humanity.
115I'm not trying to hate on Gabe Newell or Valve or anything (and not to say that it isn't a pretty objectively win-win) but I think there's some pretty easily explainable motivation behind this that isn't just "out of the kindness of their hearts"
I think the product they intend to sell is actually the software and services (there's a reason the Deck seems to be sold basically at cost), they're betting on these PC-based portable gaming devices taking off and being a viable segment of the market that other hardware companies will want to invest into, and if they do, what highly functional and easy to integrate (since it's all open source) operating system (and its subsequent game store integration) might they be more likely to use?
And why push upstream? They're by far the largest PC games provider, so more games running on more (Linux) devices can only really serve to financially benefit them
39So if Gabe suceeds, we get a gaming ecosystem with different hardware sellers, all using a platform that other software sellers are not blocked from using (Linux)? And the only reason Valve wins, is because they invested into providing the best possible distribution platform on Linux?
This does not make them evil by any standard I know. It just sounds like a solid long term business plan.
53I think one of the main reasons that was missed here is that. Once Microsoft started pushing the windows store as a way to get software on windows Valve started making these moves for Linux. If Microsoft decided one day to lock all software to the windows store this is valves backup plan / bargaining chip.
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I think Valve being a private corporation rather than publicly traded is a huge contributor to that. If they were publicly traded it wouldn't matter what Gabe thought, they'd have a legal obligation to make money for the shareholders and the way that has played out has been "legal obligation to consume the company's future for short term profit". As a private corporation they have the ability to think about the future
17That's not a requirement of publicly traded companies. Any corporation has the same obligation to put shareholder interests first, whether it's closely held (like Valve) or publicly traded but still under the founder's control (like Facebook) or publicly traded with no one owner that exercises significant control (like IBM). The court case that established that corporations have a duty to shareholders above everyone else (Dodge v. Ford Motor Company) involved a closely held corporation (not public) and also confirmed that the corporation's management can exercise its own judgment and discretion in prioritizing long term over short term gains, or vice versa.
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There was Artifact 🤦
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a good product is the best advertising. make linux usable as a daily driver, and people come flowing in from the shithole that is windows.
94Linux is a usable daily driver if you're tech savvy enough. Some distros are even kind enough to be daily driveable by non tech savvy, at least for the normal stuff.
At this point, it's possible, but no normie is ever going to know what distros are easy and won't be getting through an OS installation anyways.
41I disagree while agreeing. The biggest reason people use windows is simply because its pre-installed. That's the same reason people use Edge on Windows or Bing as their search engine. They get it preinstalled and don't know how to change it.
If you install anyone Linux and give them a simple and easy distro preinstalled they're usually fine with a few words about how to use it, update it and install stuff. Especially if they're not tech savvy because in this case they wouldn't know exactly how to use Windows either. I mean look at companies: how many employees use Windows in their daily work but still don't know how to actually usw windows? They get teached to use their software and tools but not the OS itself and have to figure things out on the OS level if they would want to change something on Windows too.
My observation was that people that are not tech savvy find it easier to understand some beginner friendly Linux distros than Windows.
If on the other hand a person is used to use Windows and knows how to actually use Windows it's harder for them to switch because things are just different on Linux. For me it's hard and annoying to use Windows which I have to do at work since February. Before that I used Linux in private my whole life, I used it in school because my school never used Windows as one of the few schools in my country and my last employer also used Linux. And from that perspective I can say that Windows is hard and not intuitive. It's just being used because it's being used. I guess you could compare it to Whatsapp vs Signal. From an objective standpoint Signal is better but most people still use WhatsApp because others use it and because it comes preinstalled on some Android phones.
20It's also really difficult to get into if you don't already have an "in". Yeah, some distros are pretty easy to use but others aren't and figuring out which is which is pretty impossible for an outsider.
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After I bought steam deck I installed linux on my desktop as a daily driver. Really happy with the results
12i currently run linux mint on an old laptop and try to use it every once in a while. it really is getting more competitive everyday. not ready to switch just yet, but i'm already mostly using open source software which could run on linux natively.
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The reverse is equally true, if not more: Linux and Free Software are Wonderful Contributors To Valve Business. You know the expression about "standing on the shoulder of giants." Anyway, kudos to Valve. Don't become evil like the other big tech co's.
59This platform is the best thing to happen in the computing landscape in a very very long time. If the Deck can become the target platform for developers due to the install base, we're going to see more legitimate gaming hardware and software come out alongside it.
There are a glut of gaming handhelds out there running android or windows but there are a few that rise to the top as the pinnacle of the platform. When a clear winner emerges, everyone else tries to be like it enough while having something new to offer.
This problem with windows (one of the many) is almost all the value ads like game hubs (i.e. ROG Armoy Crate) detract from the experience and almost provide a superficial "ooh she diff'rent" appeal.
With the contribution of their work back to the Linux community, imagine Asus deploying their own Linux OS that ran steam. They too would be inclined to contribute back to the larger ecosystem while providing actual added value of substance!
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here but I'm just so happy about the success of the steam deck that it makes me want to evangelize it in my spare time!
44Thousands of selfless individuals contribute to FOSS
Tech journos: 🥱
Some profit-driven business contributes to FOSS
Tech journos: ✊🍆💦💦💦😩21This is the best summary I could come up with:
This shouldn't come as any surprise to any longtime Phoronix readers and dedicated open-source/Linux enthusiasts, but Valve with their work on the Steam Deck and SteamOS have been lifting the open-source ecosystem as a whole.
A talk this week at the Linux Foundation Europe's Open-Source Summit highlighted some of the great and ongoing contributions by Valve and their partners.
Alberto Garcia of the open-source consulting firm Igalia, which continues to collaborate with Valve on some of these Linux ecosystem improvements, talked at length around how SteamOS is contributing to the Linux ecosystem.
SteamOS is built atop Arch Linux with a GNU user-space and systemd, the desktop mode features KDE Plasma to which Valve has funded some improvements there, Valve's Steam Play / Proton that leverages Wine has been immensely valuable to Linux gamers and enthusiasts along with related open-source projects like DXVK / VKD3D-Proton, and then there's also they work they are doing around AMD color management / HDR.
Not just to the AMD graphics drivers for benefiting the Steam Deck's hardware but also to Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan and then other common infrastructure.
There has also been other efforts Valve has been involved in such on expanding case insensitive file-system support on Linux, various other kernel features, their Gamescope Wayland compositor, immutable software updates, and Flatpak.
The original article contains 366 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 41%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
19Google, Meta and Samsung too. You can be 90% FOSS, 10% complete tracking. Thats enough
9I cant even tell Steam Deck is Linux, it actually runs really well.
2...whose product is closed source and non-free.
-11And? We can still be glad for their contribution.
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