4 ms·

What negative effects are you afraid of? I really can not see any downsides to this partnership.

guerrilla 2y ago
In the long-run, a project can become dependent on such donations and this can give donors power over the project and those donors may want to steer the project in ways that we don't want to see it go. That may not happen and may even be unlikely but it's important to be prepared for that possibility and have contingencies available. There is already a comment here which discusses one such scenario: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fid%3D41694283%2341695062 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fi...
- wao0uuno 2y ago
  Maybe I’m being naive but I trust Valve to not fuck this up. They already make their money selling games so they will not try to turn Linux into a product. What they actually want is to make Linux better for everyone so they can reduce their dependency on Microsoft. I guess we’ll see what happens next.
ribcage 2y ago
Steam sells software and prevents you from copying it and using it easily. Not something you want to happen to a Linux distribution.
- tambre 2y ago
  Usage of Steam's DRM is actually optional. There are plenty of games that you can copy the files of and run on another system without Steam present. [0] [0] https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g...
  - immibis 2y ago
    Optional for the developer. Mandatory for the player. Although I heard rumours it's easy enough to install alternate Steam DLLs that always return "yes" to "is this game licensed?"
    - Sakos 2y ago
      It's trivial. You replace a dll and the Steam API check is circumvented.
      - ruthmarx 2y ago
        Piracy often is trivial.
- exitb 2y ago
  Do they prevent you from using it easily? Yes, they sell software on a platform, but so does Nintendo. Yet Nintendo hardware is completely locked down and the software they sold you works only on said locked down hardware. Meanwhile, I can run anything on SteamDeck, and I can run SteamDeck software and/or their games on any reasonable gaming PC, in any form factor. In practice, over the years that I've had a gaming collection with them, they've only ENABLED me to run the games easily.

In the long-run, a project can become dependent on such donations and this can give donors power over the project and those donors may want to steer the project in ways that we don't want to see it go. That may not happen and may even be unlikely but it's important to be prepared for that possibility and have contingencies available. There is already a comment here which discusses one such scenario: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fid%3D41694283%2341695062 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fi...

wao0uuno 2y ago
Maybe I’m being naive but I trust Valve to not fuck this up. They already make their money selling games so they will not try to turn Linux into a product. What they actually want is to make Linux better for everyone so they can reduce their dependency on Microsoft. I guess we’ll see what happens next.

ribcage 2y ago

Steam sells software and prevents you from copying it and using it easily. Not something you want to happen to a Linux distribution.

tambre 2y ago
Usage of Steam's DRM is actually optional. There are plenty of games that you can copy the files of and run on another system without Steam present. [0] [0] https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g...
- immibis 2y ago
  Optional for the developer. Mandatory for the player. Although I heard rumours it's easy enough to install alternate Steam DLLs that always return "yes" to "is this game licensed?"
  - Sakos 2y ago
    It's trivial. You replace a dll and the Steam API check is circumvented.
    - ruthmarx 2y ago
      Piracy often is trivial.
exitb 2y ago
Do they prevent you from using it easily? Yes, they sell software on a platform, but so does Nintendo. Yet Nintendo hardware is completely locked down and the software they sold you works only on said locked down hardware. Meanwhile, I can run anything on SteamDeck, and I can run SteamDeck software and/or their games on any reasonable gaming PC, in any form factor. In practice, over the years that I've had a gaming collection with them, they've only ENABLED me to run the games easily.