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Correct. SteamOS is a passion project by Gabe because of a grudge with Microsoft, and it's basically all contractors. Nobody at Valve internal gives a shit, in

Correct. SteamOS is a passion project by Gabe because of a grudge with Microsoft, and it's basically all contractors. Nobody at Valve internal gives a shit, in fact they're more worried about Epic Games than MS.

tachyonbeam 6y ago
It could also be because it makes economic sense for Valve to make their software portable. Being tied to Direct3D, which only runs on Windows, is not in any way futureproof. I'm not following Valve closely, but they used to be working on the Steam Machine, and they have VR aspirations. I don't think they'd want to have to buy Windows licenses for their custom gaming hardware. I'm not sure how active those projects are right now, but regardless, if your game engines are tied to Windows, it locks down your future options, Microsoft has you by the balls. To maximize profits and future opportunities, you'd want to be able to write once and port easily to Mac, Linux, cellphones, consoles, VR headsets, etc.
asddubs 6y ago
contractors who are already experienced/motivated to work on linux probably make more sense for that kind of thing anyway
Qwertious 6y ago
More likely, it was an attempt for Steam to compete with consoles - Steam can run on HTPCs with Big Picture, but consoles are (or at least were) all about the OOTB experience. It makes a lot of sense to simply ship a pre-configured OS when pushing HTPCs. You could say that making it Linux-based shows that SteamOS is all about Windows, but if anything that logic suggests it's all about the Xbox. If it were competing with Windows it'd be a KB+M-based distro. If you say "but they didn't need a separate Linux distro, they were already focusing on Ubuntu", that just proves that SteamOS wasn't about Windows.
account42 6y ago
At the very least Plagman seems to still be working on Linux stuff inside Valve. There have been lots of other too (may or may not have changed) so it's definitely not just "a passion project by Gabe".

tachyonbeam 6y ago

It could also be because it makes economic sense for Valve to make their software portable. Being tied to Direct3D, which only runs on Windows, is not in any way futureproof. I'm not following Valve closely, but they used to be working on the Steam Machine, and they have VR aspirations. I don't think they'd want to have to buy Windows licenses for their custom gaming hardware. I'm not sure how active those projects are right now, but regardless, if your game engines are tied to Windows, it locks down your future options, Microsoft has you by the balls. To maximize profits and future opportunities, you'd want to be able to write once and port easily to Mac, Linux, cellphones, consoles, VR headsets, etc.

asddubs 6y ago

contractors who are already experienced/motivated to work on linux probably make more sense for that kind of thing anyway

Qwertious 6y ago

More likely, it was an attempt for Steam to compete with consoles - Steam can run on HTPCs with Big Picture, but consoles are (or at least were) all about the OOTB experience. It makes a lot of sense to simply ship a pre-configured OS when pushing HTPCs. You could say that making it Linux-based shows that SteamOS is all about Windows, but if anything that logic suggests it's all about the Xbox. If it were competing with Windows it'd be a KB+M-based distro. If you say "but they didn't need a separate Linux distro, they were already focusing on Ubuntu", that just proves that SteamOS wasn't about Windows.

account42 6y ago

At the very least Plagman seems to still be working on Linux stuff inside Valve. There have been lots of other too (may or may not have changed) so it's definitely not just "a passion project by Gabe".