SteamOS
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Does anyone have any information on just how free SteamOS is going to be?
I hear rumors that it's going to be based on Ubuntu, which isn't a great start. However, they have stated that it will be fully "open", whatever that means, so maybe there's a potential to trisquelise it?
Of course, some may see this as pointless as very few (if any) of the games themselves will be free/libre, but I still think there's value in a totally libre games-based platform, even if it is used to play non-free games. It's a step in the right direction.
Valve are in a unique position to be able to go to hardware manufacturers (Nvidia, AMD) and push for better Linux support in their drivers. Maybe as a community we should see if there's any way we can apply pressure to Valve to ask Nvidia and AMD to free their GPU drivers for SteamOS. Is there any indication that this is something they'd be interested in? I don't know much about Valve.
I'm kind-of excited about this development because I think it will mean much much more effort is put into making mainstream games compatible with GNU/Linux systems, which is often cited as one of the main reasons that people choose to stay with Windows. I know games won't be freed - they'd loose too much money - but there's a real chance here to pull millions of users away from Windows for good. That HAS to be a good thing!
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If it's designed to play nonfree games, removing nonfree firmware and drivers is not that huge of a difference.
I don't really think SteamOS is going to have a positive impact. I suspect is will include a lot of nonfree software and eventually become a whole new proprietary OS that happens to have some free components and is marketed as "open" because of those components. Kind of like the Ouya, but more likely to be successful. Of course, "Linux" supporters and "open source" proponents will cheer Valve on regardless of how much users are locked down and how much proprietary software is in this OS, because they don't care about values, only popularity and practical benefits.
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Games will always be proprietary. That's an unfortunate fact that I think we must come to terms with. The industry is just too large, the profits too great, for it to ever be free.
And no, I'm not confusing gratis and libre here. Just imagine if Valve released a popular game under the GPL. "Piracy", or sharing, would actually be allowed under the terms of the license, so gamers would pass the game on to each other rather than buy it from Steam. And this would be perfectly legal. Valve would make no money, because when something is libre, it means that it's all to easy to get a copy gratis.
Knowing this, I think that a platform that is totally free (libre), but that can run non-free games, is a good thing. We know that the games themselves will never be free, but the system they run on can be. I think we should encourage that. I also think that this could be a great thing for free software, as games will bring many more people over to free GNU/Linux systems. If we can make sure those systems are completely free, then there will be more freedom.
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> Games will always be proprietary. That's an unfortunate fact that I think we
> must come to terms with. The industry is just too large, the profits too
> great, for it to ever be free.
Sorry, I completely disagree with this.
First of all, the elephant in the room: just because the engine (the software) is free doesn't mean the rest of the game (art assets, levels, etc) are free. There are examples of games which run on free engines, but whose art assets and scenario are proprietary. Gish, for example. All that is lost by this deal is the ability to have DRM.
But I don't think it's true that the only way to make money from creative works is by having a monopoly on their distribution. It would be perfectly possible to use crowdfunding. In fact, this approach would be much less of a risk to authors of works; if you don't raise enough money, you can move on to something else. This method needs testing, but it's certainly a possibility.
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Separation of game content from the engine is, indeed, a potential solution that I'd overlooked. It would be fantastic if developers would release their game engines as free software and only charge for (and restrict distribution of) the artwork, levels etc.
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Why not have the software for the game (engine) licensed under a copyleft license like the LGPL or Mozilla Public License 2.0 where the core code remains open and independent of any game specific code, artwork or media? You could make commercial games to your heart's desire without worrying about a license like the GPL affecting everything.
" It would be perfectly possible to use crowdfunding."
You mean like 0 AD, one of the most promising free software games does it?
I'll be glad if they receive a fifth of what they aimed at.
Crowdfunding is very limited, we have to face the truth.
"if you don't raise enough money, you can move on to something else."
Maybe great success stories are exceptions; so perhaps many developers will move on and move on and move on;
I don't want to deny that crowdfunding is a promising chance, but I'm also sceptical about it.
Crowdfunding is not a problem; outreach is. To prove this point I am going to compare two recent campaigns: Ubuntu Edge and 0 AD.
Ubuntu Edge managed to receive $5 million in merely *2 days* while 0 AD is stuck at less than $20k after more than 20 days. What went wrong? You may think that people were more willing to paying for real hardware rather than free software; however that does not seem to be the case: *Edge got more money from people that were not paying for the phone than 0 AD aims to raise!* Reason for this is obvious: Edge was featured on a web site visited by thousands of Ubuntu enthusiasts all eager to support their beloved operating system.
0 AD campaign was not featured on that website (altho they wrote about the game in the past), but instead they wrote about Steam: every. single. day.
hint, hint...
What's the point of a free system with proprietary games on it? It's no longer free and thus is defeated.
The sort of people who would put proprietary games on it don't care about other non-free bits. This is what has led to all those distros 'out there' that bundle non-free extras "for your convenience".
Games will always be proprietary. That's an unfortunate fact that I think we must come to terms with.
Why must they? People used to say that 3d graphics drivers would always be closed source, but relentless pressure eventually made a breakthrough. We're still not all the way there, but a great closer than 5 years ago.
The only way to get things made open source is to refuse to give in to things that are closed source.
I speak as one who has a large carrier bag of closed source games I have chosen to give up, for this exact reason. There really is no argument for proprietary software that doesn't boil down to "I don't care about freedom", or perhaps "my entertainment is more important than my own, or anyone else's, freedom".
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Graphics drivers are able to be libre because they have always been gratis. It's not possible to make money selling graphics drivers.
Games can never be libre because there is too much money to be made keeping them proprietary. This is bad, but I don't see a solution.
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I just read another of onpon's posts, above, and that does actually seem like a potential solution for the future. Make game engines free, and charge for game content.
Does anyone know of an example where a game licensed in this way has become very popular?
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The focus is all wrong at the moment - though it's an ideal and a tall one at that, personally I long for the day when the lot of our fellows trumps mere money. If the only reason a man gets out of bed is to get more money then he's lost as a human being.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like I say, it's an ideal and a tall one at that.
If we don't dream of better things, how will we ever improve?
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lloyd, with respect, I think you're missing the point.
Steam, as in the program itself, is proprietary, and I doubt will ever be liberated.
Steam also comes with DRM, called steamworks. The unfortunate thing with Steam is that they've managed to normalize DRM to the point where people don't even question it, because it "just werks". While Steam's DRM is much better "managed" than say, Origins DRM, it's still DRM.
The scary thing about all this is that in some respect, the consoles, especially the PS4, are looking ethically superior than steam. Most importantly, with PS4 games, for instance, you actually own a physical copy of the game that doesn't require always online connectivity. But with steam, you need a connection, and you still need steam to even play. If you want to play a game, but don't want to install steam, well, that's too bad, Valve wants control over your gaming library.
And I think this is such a shame, because I used to play countless hours of TF2 and counter-strike, and Half-Life 2 is still one of my favorite games.
So what's more ethical: say, the PS4, in which you actually own a physical copy of the game, and doesn't require an internet connection, or steam, with its prevalent DRM, always-online requirement, but on the other hand is able to run on a GNU/Linux system?
I really don't know
The "NextGen" consoles like PS4 are ethically more flawed than, for instance, good old snes, but I still consider many of them as acceptable.
Why?
The main point is that most of them are pcs from a technical point of view, but you don't use them like that. You don't do any work with them; insert the dvd, play the game, nothing more.
Just like a microwave oven;
Of course allowing the users to change the code and using free software on the machines would be more user-respecting but I don't think that "free video consoles" are a requierement for a good digital society.
An important question is: can the ps4 contain malicious feature?
Perhaps if it comes with a camera and a microphone. I wouldn't use this.
Or if it is requiered to identify myself in order to use the console. I wouldn't do it either. Those are _real_ problems.
Now, I think if you use a whole pc just for running steam os, the only difference between this and the ps4 is the requiered online connectivity and DRM.
I doubt if *this* is acceptable for a digital society. Everyone has to decide for himself; for me, I would not accept it.
Though it is much better creating a kind of "steam console" with his pc than running steam on your workstation; you deserve control over this one.
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Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Corporations
Or take arms against a sea of patents and by opposing, help to end them
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I think we can all agree that DRM is unacceptable. This isn't in question.
I was unaware that Steam was so heavily laden with DRM.
Still, I think that SteamOS can be a step in the right direction if we can ensure that the OS itself contains only free software. Free graphics drivers, Linux-libre, etc. Then the only non-free parts will be the Steam application, and the games themselves.
Such a platform could serve as a good starting point in an effort to obtain or develop a free drop-in replacement for Steam, or even to get Valve to agree to free Steam and remove the DRM. (Of course, games will still insist on DRM for a while, unless we can apply sufficient pressure).
Once we have a free OS and a free Steam, we can move on to pressuring the developers of the most popular game engines to free their software.
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> Free graphics drivers, Linux-libre, etc.
That definitely isn't going to happen. With Valve's audience, they need SteamOS to work with AMD and (current) Nvidia cards. Virtually nobody in this audience would ever consider Intel integrated graphics or Nouveau-supported Nvidia cards to be acceptable.
There is no doubt in my mind that SteamOS is going to include every proprietary driver and firmware it can. And frankly, given the purpose of the system (to run Steam, a proprietary program, and use it to download games powered by other proprietary software), this won't make SteamOS any worse than it already is.
I suspect SteamOS will also include Adobe's Flash player (probably via Google Chrome, because it's the only way to get the latest Flash from Adobe on GNU/Linux now), because after all, there are a lot of Flash games, and that boosts the appeal to Valve's audience of the system. Probably Adobe Reader if they can, because they don't want confused customers asking why they can't open a DRM-encumbered PDF. Gotta play encrypted DVDs without getting into trouble, so expect to see proprietary DVD-playing software, too. In fact, better include every proprietary program available for GNU/Linux in the repos, because that broadens the potential audience.
In short, what drugs are you on, expecting SteamOS to be free except for games? They don't appeal to an audience that cares in the first place at all, and they have all sorts of reasons to include every proprietary program they legally can.
The sole purpose of Steam is DRM; nothing else. Quoting wikipedia:
"Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform"
There already exists a free Steam replacement (free and no DRM). It is called Desura.
This is the biggest BS I ever heared.
The main purpose of Steam is to provide
- a digital distribution platform
- enable multiplayer communication
- enable match making
and *drumroll please*
- provide DRM (= binding games to a Steam account) to those companies who use it !
Not all but unfortunately the majority of games available at steam feature DRM.
But there are games such as Dungeons of Dredmore which work without Steam, where you can simply copy the game somewhere and play it.
Desura could never keep up with Steam. They rarely have "big titles" and are often way behind Steam in providing / distributing games.
Everything else is just hear-say
Do you really believe that Steam would have even a small fraction of its popularity if it werent for DRM? Guess why Steam has big titles and Desura doesnt.
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I'm not sure that's the entire reason. After all, games could implement their own DRM without the help of an application like Steam, if they wanted to.
I don't know much about Desura, but if it's a viable free alternative to Steam then it sounds like it deserves our support.
Only the client of Desura is publicly available (the server software is not shared), and the Desura server doesn't have any way of filtering out proprietary software. If they were to make that kind of filtering possible on the server side, it would be possible to have a client that only shows you free software, but they have said at one point that they aren't interested in doing this.
Thing is that Steam is only *working* DRM out there. Anything else can be "cracked" by a moderately skilled programmer with a debugger (Guess what is the most popular use of OllyDbg?)
In the end IMO this discussion is somewhat useless. SteamOS and Steam itself as well as the majority of games distributed via it will never be free as defined per FSF.
You either deal with it or simply ignore Steam / SteamOS. I have accepted that fact since I like to play Games in my spare time. A PC with Windows 7 and Steam or possibly SteamOS is identical to me with an XBox 360 or any other console.
It follows a certain purpose and I do not need it to be free. I also do not have a "free" TV or a "free" satellite PVR.
All in all a PC with SteamOS is, similar to a HTPC / PVR with XBMC, not fully free but still a better, more open option than an XBox 360 or PS3. So for me SteamOS is not a good thing but not really that bad as well.
Just my two cents,
Holger
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I suppose you could build a box dedicated just to steam with libre hardware. I know the new intel HD 4600 graphics are really quite good for mainstream gaming at modest resolutions. You could have libre graphics, libre wireless and a libre OS. Which would make it an ethical step-up from a locked down console.
But in no way am I endorsing Trisquel for such an application. It's just a perplexing proposition that even rms seems rather more softer than usual about the issue:
"However, if you're going to use these games, you're better off using them on GNU/Linux rather than on Microsoft Windows. At least you avoid the harm to your freedom that Windows would do.
Thus, in direct practical terms, this development can do both harm and good. It might encourage GNU/Linux users to install these games, and it might encourage users of the games to replace Windows with GNU/Linux. My guess is that the direct good effect will be bigger than the direct harm. But there is also an indirect effect: what does the use of these games teach people in our community?"
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