Valve Making Big Push Towards Linux Support

@predator said:

As I said in the earlier forum thread, RMS explains the good and bad effects of Steam on GNU/Linux well.

""Nonfree games (like other nonfree programs) are unethical because they deny freedom to their users. If you want freedom, one requisite for it is not having these games on your computer. That much is clear.""

I stopped reading there and came to the conclusion that whomever wrote that is brain dead and should be put down.

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@peterh: I get what it means, but I've never seen it put that way. "Free as in beer" seems like a silly way to put it for anyone who doesn't already understand it...

@Insectecutor said:

Looks to me like this severs Valve's dependence on Microsoft and opens the door to Steam everywhere and, along with the 10' interface, is grist to the Steam console rumour-mill.

I don't think so. I think Valve is mighty happy with being on Windows and the rest is just to please their consumers, to keep them loyal. Valve doesn't hate Windows, or Microsoft. They aren't trying to escape them.

I know this reply is super late, but I figured this might be of interest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377

Here's the full interview. In a sentence, "It's a hedging strategy". Newell just knows that closing the platform and turning an open PC into a closed tablet is just a bad idea and bad for his business. That's the only reason he's doing this. I never thought I would see the day that a tech personality with as much clout as Newell trumpeting Linux in multiple interviews like this. http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/25/valves-gabe-newell-talks/

I wonder why Steam works on Macs. Seems hypocritical.

@WilliamRLBaker said:

@predator said:

As I said in the earlier forum thread, RMS explains the good and bad effects of Steam on GNU/Linux well.

""Nonfree games (like other nonfree programs) are unethical because they deny freedom to their users. If you want freedom, one requisite for it is not having these games on your computer. That much is clear.""

I stopped reading there and came to the conclusion that whomever wrote that is brain dead and should be put down.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" - Thoma Jefferson. I guess he was also brain dead as far as you're concerned.

@Brodehouse said:

I wonder why Steam works on Macs. Seems hypocritical.

Two things:-

OS X is BSD based, not Linux. BSD and Linux certainly share similarities but they have some marked differences too.

The Macintosh is a fixed platform. Steam only needs to support one renderer (QuartzGL via OpenGL) and one sound manager (AudioUnits) on OS X whereas on Linux it needs to support a few different renders (because Linux distros have three major Window Managers) and a few different sound managers (for the same reason as the renderer). And this is just the audio visual aspects of Steam; there's also networking, stability and licensing to consider too.

Sure, at the core of things Steam on OS X should be very similar to Steam on Linux because they are both monolithic OSes which use OpenGL as the primary 3D provider but other stuff muddies the water.

This is great, even if it is a little late. But I guess better late than never.