SteamOS based on Debian a good thing for Ubuntu/Trisquel?
Version 1.0 of the SteamOS was released recently and it is based off of Debian 7.1 instead of Ubuntu as thought. Do you see this as a good thing that hopefully improvements to audio and video drivers get pushed back into Debian and then trickle down into Ubuntu and Trisquel? That is of course if Valve pushes their fixes back upstream. Thoughts?
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/648814395741989999/
sorry guys but I do use steam on tris (anyways...)
..I do think this is a sane choice for valve, deb is save, deb is stable, deb is not bunt, but.. very good I say.
ohh and hello fellows!
@t3g
You're implying that Valve might be interested in contributing to free software in some way.
Do you have a specific reason for thinking so?
Because if not, I highly doubt that they give a damn about everything related to freedom.
They will put a lot of effort in improving the proprietary drivers for gnu/linux, but nothing more.
I agree, random patches to get the 'debain base' up to 'scratch' is not freedom ideology, It might be opensource based but still based on a nonfree solution.
this planet.debian.net post might be of interest:
http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2013/12/14-SteamOS/
The Steam programs included in SteamOS are nonfree of course, but if improvements to the Debian code are for the nonfree bits to appease vendors, then it really sucks.
If Valve releases improvements upstream to the free software bits, then that would be amazing and benefit everyone.
In an ideal world, these games can run on the same level with the free drivers and firmware as the nonfree ones. The sad reality is that companies like AMD and Nvidia may want to keep that special sauce in closed source code.
I am a member!
Hmm. I seem to recall Value making some contributions to the Intel drivers during L4D2 development, so who knows.
I'm not sure if you missed this, but Valve did join the Linux Foundation: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/12/valve-joins-the-linux-foundation-ahead-of-steamos-launch/
Whether that is a good thing or not in the free software camp is debatable.
I think Valve and SteamOS is what convinced Nvidia to start helping out with Nouveau