How Will Steam on GNU/Linux Affect Software Freedom?

rms has published his thoughts on Steam coming to GNU/Linux. He notes that the availability of proprietary games may very well help spread GNU/Linux (but the FSF prioritizes spreading software freedom). And, you're better off at least having a Free operating system instead of Windows: "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? Any GNU/Linux distro that comes with software to offer these games will teach users that the point is not freedom. Nonfree software in GNU/Linux distros already works against the goal of freedom. Adding these games to a distro would augment that effect." Or: How will the FOSS community affect Valve? Already they've contributed a bit to the graphics stack, hired a few folks from inside the community, etc. But Steam also makes use of DRM and distributes software in ways that are opposed to the ideals of many in the FOSS community (and even the wider Free Culture community). Given Gabe Newell's professed love for openness, might we see their company culture infiltrated?

Comments

God I hate that use of "free"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about missing the point of software completely.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only freedom the GPL takes away is the freedom to take the other freedoms away. If you value other people's freedom as much as your own, the GPL takes nothing from you. If you on the other hand are someone who takes without giving, then the GPL is still the right license, to protect against you.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[ozmanjusri]

Ok, so BSD protects software authors from lawyers while GPL protects software users from exploiters?

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[Coeurderoy]

The GPL gives lots of freedom to the peole using it, it only remove the "freedom" to remove somebody else's freedom.
There are many reasons that can justify BSD type licences over GPL, but they all boil down to:
"I would like to use this software in something proprietary..."
And it would be much better to state this clearly rather than vaguely allude to the GPL "being not what I think others should want.."

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[hairyfeet]

The "problem" is that the FOSS community is split right down the middle. On the one hand you have those that want things to "just work" and to have a true "third way" instead of only Windows and OSX, and then you have the "free as in freedom above all!" types that frankly don't give a shit how big a royal PITA the OS or software is as long as they get the source, your RMS faction.

Personally I predict that unless steam or somebody high up, say Canonical, simply forks things away from the devs you simply won't have Steam functional for very long because there are too many "source above all!" types in the kernel team. look up the ONLY major argument you get from a member of the kernel team about hardware ABIs and you'll see its a religious argument, with him going so far as to say "I hope everyone who uses binary blobs have their drivers break often!" which if that isn't religious dogma I don't know what is.

In the end as one of the Red hat devs points out the current system is completely broken and will only get worse because the current Linux philosophy simply doesn't scale, why? Because a handful of devs simply can't provide QA or QC for tens of billions of lines of code, tens of thousands of drivers, and thousands of programs in the repos, that's why. That is why you get half baked software in the repos, drivers that work in foo but not in foo+1, its not because the devs want to break shit its that there is no way in hell to test everything before release.

I just hope things like Steam on Linux will bring about real conversation and change, because I too would like a third way but at least for me and my customers Linux just isn't there yet. But if things don't change I have a feeling Valve is gonna find they need a huge dev team just to keep Steam running, much less add any new features, because it is simply too easy for someone upstream to make a change and break everything downstream.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[multicoregeneral]

The question is, how much do you really care about software freedom? If you care you use the bsd and mit licenses. GPL is too restrictive.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[Bengie]

The only freedom the GPL takes away is the freedom to take the other freedoms away

Please explain how someone can take away your "Freedom" if you don't use GPL?

GPL has a requirement. All requirements remove freedom.

I am not saying GPL is "Bad", but one cannot say that it is 100% free.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[exomondo]

Ok, so BSD protects software authors from lawyers while GPL protects software users from exploiters?

By 'exploiters' you just mean people who don't share your world view.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[SuperAlgae]

GPL has a requirement. All requirements remove freedom.

I suppose that's a possible interpretation of freedom, but in a more practical sense I think your confusing freedom with anarchy. Anarchy says "do what you want, no matter what harm it causes others." Freedom means "your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins." In a world of shared resources, freedom is a balance, not an extreme. GPL and BSD just take different stances on that balance. BSD gives those that extend the code more freedom to limit their users. GPL limits the extender's freedom and instead gives more freedom to users down the line.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[drjones78]

It's only "too restrictive" if you accept the BSD concept of "software freedom". If you accept the GNU concept of "software freedom", the BSD licenses are "too restrictive" (ie. ultimately more freedom limiting). In other words, the term "software freedom" has a completely different meaning for a GNU-ist than it does for a BSD-ist.

As to which license is ultimately more beneficial, I think it depends on the software project (and the stakeholder one is talking about). Neither are one-size-fits-all. I'm glad the linux kernel is GPL. I'm glad things like Django are BSD licensed. I think it depends on the project and situation.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[ozmanjusri]

So it clearly is just people who have a different world view to yours.

That's an interesting way of saying "people who would take my work and disregard my goals while distributing it". I choose GPL for a reason...

Wrong, the ability to close it and make it unavailable is absolutely not a characteristic of permissive OSS licenses, that's just disingenuous fear-mongering,

BSD freedoms ARE lossy. There is BSD code in use by Microsoft and Apple that has been extended, closed and made unavailable to the community. That sort of makes BSD code long-term unsustainable.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[ozmanjusri]

Both act as if copying is stealing, both come up with these giant FUD scenarios of doom

The FUD's on the other foot.

GPL is called Copyleft for a reason, and that's because its explicit purpose is to encourage copying and sharing. It was made necessary by efforts from others, such as the RIAA etc to lock up the creative commons and reduce the right of end-users to own and copy their own digital data and tools.

All of this effort to conflate the GPL with restriction is propaganda and doublespeak of the highest order.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[Urkki]

I'm sure you're just trolling, but there's no single definition of "software freedom".

When developing proprietary software for a client, I've often wished some software had BSD style license, so I could just take the code and use it in a proprietary solution, even if that kinda feels like stealing, just taking somebody's work, even when they explicitly grant permission to do so. BSD license is for just letting others use your code, with almost no restrictions, also allowing what some would call exploiting your code.

For my own code, I always choose either GPL for LGPL, simply because my gut feeling is, that the "price" GPL/LGPL puts on code is fair, and anybody who thinks it's not can damn well not use the code then. Just as I have not used GPL code of others as part of my work, when my client has felt the "price" is unacceptable (though often it would have been very much ok or even benefical for the use case of my client).

But GPL is very much about the whole GPL ecosystem. Pieces of BSD-style licensed software work pretty well as part of GPL ecosystem, as can be seen by the multitude of such software, but a fully BSD-based ecosystem would simply not work. If it did, then Linux would not have pushed *BSD operating systems to the side lines, where hardly anybody cares about them.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[Belial6]

BSD uses the "I am not truly free if I am not free to own a slave" argument of freedom while the GPL folks use the "I am not truly free if I am not free to bang your wife" argument of freedom. They are even right. The problem is that everyone cannot be truly 100% free at the same time. It just can't be done. So, one has to decide what is more important to them, societal freedom (everyone gets equal access) or personal freedom (I get to do what I want). The best version of freedom is no always clear and it is probably best that we don't have to pick one and apply it universally.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[Urkki]

GPL is too restrictive.

I'll never understand this argument. You want people to write code that anyone can use and strip away the users rights (that is, take the code, change it, and make it proprietary, so people can't even see the new code, let alone make modifications to it, yet you don't want people to write code that people who modify it and redistribute it have to give back.

If it helps, why not use GPLed code the same way you'd use proprietary software. That is, download it, use it, and pretend that you don't have the right to distribute it at all.

My point is this: If you're okay with a license that's permissive enough to allow people to use it to make proprietary software, then you're probably also fine with proprietary software. If that's the case, what's your problem with a license that gives you more rights than proprietary software? It doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't help, when people pretend they don't understand the issue. Let's say there's a piece of GPL code you'd want to use, instead of rolling your own. Now only way to use that piece is to make your entire software GPL, usually there's no other way to do it if the piece of GPL software has more than one copyright holder, and even if there's just one copyright holder, getting a permission to use it with different license would be hours and hours of hassle, especially if copyright holder lives in a different country. Generally this makes the GPL code unusable, unless you can make your own code GPL too, and that's it. Now it's of course 100% fine, if the developer of the GPL code really wants this, if he really wants to make his code unusable unless the user is willing and able to make their code GPL too. But saying this is not restrictive is just patently false.

BSD-style license avoids this restrictiveness of GPL. The price for original coder is, that their code can be just taken and closed away, with just a trace of BSD copyright notice left visible. The reward for the the original coder is, their code might gain users which would have rejected it if it was GPL, and some of those users will give back, even if all don't.

And then LGPL offers a nice middle ground, it's a license I personally like a lot, for library-type code.

Re:God I hate that use of "free"...

[Urkki]

So it clearly is just people who have a different world view to yours.

That's an interesting way of saying "people who would take my work and disregard my goals while distributing it". I choose GPL for a reason...

Not that I question your choice of license, it's my preferred choice too, but it's important to realize, that when using GPL license, you're also denying use of your source code to those, who would gladly give back, but are unable to make their own code GPL.

Using GPL code of others is a bit of a hassle if everything you do is not GPL. Also the value of releasing GPL version of proprietary software is questionable, as you don't then automatically (without a copyright assignment mechanism, which is also a big hassle for everybody) get access to GPL improvements made by others for your proprietary version, ie. you gave them your software, but they might not be willing to give back to your proprietary version, which is what enables you to develop the GPL version in the first place.

This all makes BSD style license much more practical than GPL. It just avoids a lot of hassle for everybody, on the premise that defending against "exploiters" is not worth making extra trouble for anybody else.

Cue the trolls...

[Ynot_82]

...who intentionally confuse the freedoms of the user with the freedoms of the proprietary software developer.

Re:Cue the trolls...

[Crash24]

In the case of games, the user is free to not play the game and thus not subject themselves to the developer's terms.

Re:Cue the trolls...

[bjwest]

Just how do App stores pose any danger to Linux? Linux is GPL, and will always be GPL. There is no way anyone will be forced to use an App store ONLY enabled distro in the near or distant future.

If you or RMS even think Steam on Linux will magically turn Linux into a proprietary locked down operating system, or even has the capability to do so, you have no idea at all how the system works. There is nothing short of outlawing Linux that will do that, and even then it'll be an underground OS, so that really won't work.

Don't like what Steam is doing to Linux? Don't install it, and guess what? You're running the same damn thing I am, just without Steam installed. Or run a distro that doesn't support Steam, or build your own from scratch. THAT is the power of Linux. CHOICE.

Ideology in Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

frankly, i don't see the point why some of us should be ideologues in the community. it's divisive and it may not allow for greater efficiency. I'd go with what Linus said "whatever works best"

Re:Ideology in Technology

[RudyHartmann]

There are people replying about how freedom will be affected negatively as if true freedom were some academic absolute. If you have absolute freedom, then you have anarchy. In an anarchial system, nobody is then free. The OS and source code should be free in Linux. The choice of the user to decide what he chooses to pay for or not should also be free. But this means relative freedom. Why are people even asking this question? Geez.

Who gives a shit?

[MrEricSir]

I say this as a free software developer: At some point, you just want software and don't care about the politics. Not everything has to be political -- just look at Chick-Fil-A as an example of how this way of thinking can backfire.

I play games for entertainment, not to make a political statement. Let's keep the two worlds separate.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[Gaygirlie]

This is more-or-less what I was thinking: it's perfectly fine and reasonable to push for 'Free' as long as it doesn't take anything away from you, but if you lose something -- access to software you've paid for, the ability to do things you want to do, etc. -- then what's the point? Many F/OSS - supporters hold the idea that 'freedom' must be pushed on to people, even if it means losing actual freedoms! That is inherently illogical.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[binarylarry]

I totally agree.

Games are at the far fringes of a software stack. As you get further from the core (kernel / critical userland) free/open source software becomes less important.

Games are also different from most open source software, as they aren't a tool to do something. They're an artistic expression as well as a software program.

Re:And you are why...

[SwedishPenguin]

Why has it automatically "failed" simply because it's not on every Tom, Dick and Harry's desktop? GNU/Linux (aside from the GNU arguments for saying GNU/Linux, the presence of Dalvik/Linux (Android) makes it necessary to distinguish between the variants) has been my primary desktop for ten years and my only desktop for six years, for me it has been very successful.

I think Steam on Linux could be a good thing, but it's certainly worth taking rms's warnings to heart: GNU/Linux being popular is certainly a good thing, but not at the price of destroying the Free Software movement.

Re:And you are why...

[darkfeline]

...porn? Just saying, all media adoption depends on porn.

is it possible to be pragmatic???

[FranTaylor]

Free software is most certainly an admirable goal.

But if market forces and existing conditions mean that proprietary software is the most expedient way to get the software delivered to the customer, then that's what will happen.

Valve gets Linux bugs fixed, and they can make legitimate and credible arguments for things that should be changed about Linux. There is no doubt that they are contributing to the long term health and stability of linux.

If the vendor has proprietary software and the customer finds it to be the best solution, the job of the operating system is to get out of the way and allow the customer to do what he wants.

Re:is it possible to be pragmatic???

[Anrego]

Do you also believe the ACLU, EFF, and the like are extremists?

Yes.

Is everyone who holds people to higher standards than you do an "extremist?"

When those standards are extreme, yes. Thus extremist.

I never said this was a bad thing. The world needs extremists tugging on both ends. My point was that one doesn't look to an extremist for a pragmatic opinion. Doing so is contradictory.

Lets have a word list!

Pragmatic: Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.
Extremist: A person who holds extreme or fanatical political or religious views, esp. one who resorts to or advocates extreme action.

Pseudo-pedantic flame bait

[msobkow]

The goal of GNU and the FSF was never to lock out commercial providers, but to provide a free core system. Nothing is being broken, stolen, taken away, or rescinded.

The whole article is nothing but pseudo-pedantic flame bait.

Re:And you are why...

[FranTaylor]

the point is that "respectable" industries rely on unrespectable markets

if you care too much about who your customers are, you won't have any customers to worry about

A paradox?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't follow the politics of Linux so please bear with me. Couldn't this be a paradox because Steam coming to Linux could be a game changer, pardon the pun, for mainstream adoption but could it not open up patent claims against it? While Microsoft, for instance, is currently having a benign attitude towards Linux with their Hyper-V support in the Kernel, couldn't they go into attack mode and wheel out patent claims if they feel their MS Windows Gaming/XBox platforms threatened by Steam on Linux?

What GNU/Linux has "failed" to do

[tepples]

Why has it automatically "failed" simply because it's not on every Tom, Dick and Harry's desktop?

So far, GNU/Linux on the desktop has "failed" to become widespread enough that users expect to have local support options of the "carry in your PC and we'll fix it" sort. And until Valve's recent announcement, it has "failed" to attract developers of major killer apps.

The last straw

[JustNiz]

I see this as a great thing because games is pretty much the last reason I have for a dual boot system. Anything serious I do under Linux as its a far better tool, but some of my favorite games are windows-only so I still need a windows partition around. Assuming they start to port most windows games to Linux too, I can finally dump my windows partition.

I know gaming won't change any minds in corporate IT depts, but at least it may encourage non-technical users to try Linux at home. It seems that a large reason corporates have for justifying continuing to force their employees onto Windows is that "everyone is more familiar with Windows than Linux". Lets hope steam on Linux can help to change that too.

Not much

[humanrev]

In terms of software freedom, Steam won't affect much itself. The client is proprietary and as far as I know, every single game featured on Steam is proprietary (although stuff like the iD games can be run using replacement open source engines), but basically it's all one big closed-source pot. It will bring more attention to Linux and maybe some more commercial games, but that's about all.

Now, the only problem I can see is that bringing Steam into Linux will mean another selection of users will becomes used to the idea of DRM (Steam) and having games tied to a single point of failure (Steam), whereas before they were used to having installers that you could backup and install without requiring verification from a third-party. But anyone who's read my posts know I'm beating a dead horse here - I've said it all before about the dangers of keeping all your eggs in one basket, but from what I can tell, games are a special class of software in which this isn't really a concern. It's not crucial or necessary software, so a hypothetical scenario in which you can't play anything due to issues with Steam verification in a longer term scenario don't phase people much.

TL;DR : Steam on Linux will increase Linux's perception in the gaming world, increase its usage base for a bit (at least until some people go back to Windows because it runs some particular tool they didn't realize they needed before throwing away Windows after being swept away in the hype), but it won't do shit for software freedom.

Re:It's ok

[Bert64]

You could also consider, that basic software features like an OS, a web browser etc are something that everyone requires these days and should very much be free.
On the other hand games are purely for entertainment, noone *needs* games. Them being non free isn't significantly harming anyone.

And instead of games being free and open up front, perhaps the ID approach would be acceptable for all concerned. Let them make their money from the game up front (its hard to argue that ID games haven't been successful), and then release the source later so that everyone can benefit from it. This was also the original spirit of copyright, give the author time to make money from his work and then release it so everyone can benefit later.

I love quake as a game, i bought a copy when it came out and thanks to the source being open i can still play it today without resorting to emulation. As an added bonus, the graphics look much better than they did originally.

It's not a zero sum system

[sirwired]

If a developer chooses to restrict the choices of his/her users, the user is more than welcome to find another solution to his/her problem, leaving the user in the exact same position as if the software was never developed. The users have had nothing taken from them. (We'll leave software patents out of it, which are separate from copyright; you'll get no argument from me that software patents are a good idea. Most developers of proprietary software hate them just as much as RMS.)

I have no issues whatsoever with the GPL itself. I have no issues with the obligations it puts on distributors and re developers of the software. I DO have issues with the idea that developers should feel morally obligated to use it, or something like it. The developers should be free to choose whatever license he/she wishes, as long as the terms are disclosed to the user prior to purchase.

Re:It's not a zero sum system

[bky1701]

"If a developer chooses to restrict the choices of his/her users, the user is more than welcome to find another solution to his/her problem, leaving the user in the exact same position as if the software was never developed."

This is a fine sentiment, if interoperability and standardization did not exist. You are free not to use Windows - right? No, actually, for many purposes, you are not. Where you have that freedom, you still only have the choice to use another proprietary OS (Apple's - arguably worse) or wine. That's not really that much in the way of freedom.

That is exactly why many open source advocates do not trust any proprietary software. We've been on the side of being locked out for decades. Damned if I am going to just nod as people try to Appleify Linux (Google included) by slamming proprietary app stores on top. That's not what Linux stands for, that's not why Linux exists. If you want that, you already have two options. You do not want those options for the exact same reason we are suspicious. You just do not have the foresight to see the possible side effects.

"I DO have issues with the idea that developers should feel morally obligated to use it, or something like it."

I do not believe in copyright, selling of software, or control of data by third parties. That makes me a zealot by neo-slashdot reasoning, but that doesn't make me wrong. There are many pragmatic reasons to want people to use the GPL and a support/modification business model over proprietary EULAs and sales.

The big concern, though, is the one I already stated. No one wants a giant software company to come into Linux and hijack it to their own purposes. Things like getting new video drivers... but making them only work on the Vavle-blessed distro. Let us also not forget that secure boot is bouncing around out there.

Free software advocates are neither zealots nor hippies. We simply see the pattern that proprietary software is always eventually a power grab. Power over a system, user, or data is far too profitable to turn down. Any software company would be insane to not seize control of something they can. We would be insane to expect them not to.

Re:It's not a zero sum system

[Ash Vince]

You are free not to use Windows - right? No, actually, for many purposes, you are not.

Yes, actually you are always free not to use windows now thanks to Wine. It might be a million times harder to get a piece of software working under the Wine than under Windows but in most cases it can be done.

I do not believe in copyright, selling of software, or control of data by third parties. That makes me a zealot by neo-slashdot reasoning, but that doesn't make me wrong.

You are aware that without copyright Valve would be free to sell their own distribution of Linux and do exactly what you object to? The GPL is based on copyright. Without copyright you could take a GPL package and use it to build a proprietary piece of software, making a few changes so that it became incompatible with the original package so people had to buy your software. In the case of Valve they could make a few changes to the ELF format so their system ran all ELF binaries but only their system could run their binaries.

Free software advocates are neither zealots nor hippies. We simply see the pattern that proprietary software is always eventually a power grab.

No. Many of us write closed source software simply because we need money to feed our families and the particular niche we serve is one where the supported model is not likely to be successful. In the case of writing games they are so damn easy to use in most cases that you have to be able to charge people to access them in some way, either by having everything online and under your control or by restricting distribution of the software itself.

There is simply no other way to support the games that the market now demands. Other methods of distribution like freeware or shareware have been tried, but in the end every game company that has enjoyed a modicum of success has come back to the proprietary model in order to pay for the huge investment needed to produce the level of polished product that games have become.

The ridiculous amount of artwork, story and actors needed for most modern games makes GPL distribution very tricky. The people who do all this need paying and the people who play games like to see this crap. I bet that actually programming does not even make up a majority of the effort put in to modern game production.

If you can name a single decent game that is open source I bet I can name a better, similar one that is proprietary. Open source has its uses, but games are not ever going to work due to their target market and amount of supporting artwork needed.

Producing decent quality games is not a power grab, it is simply the only model that works to support something so damn easy to use.

Infiltrated? I think not.

[Rolman]

I've worked for both TI and the games industry all my professional life. With very limited exceptions I'd say Free Software and video games are not really compatible with each other. In fact, most of the time game companies are allergic to openness out of necessity.

The video game industry is tough and fierce. Much of the competitive advantages of any large studio come directly from the propietary technology they develop for their own games or the engines they license to other studios. Unreal Engine is a very good example of this.

Game companies, from the biggest manufacturer to the smallest studio, are plagued with trade secrets, patents, copyrighted code and tools that can't just be combined easily with their open counterparts. I don't see Valve's culture 'infiltrated' anytime soon because of this.

I think it's great for Linux users to be able to play games without having to boot Windows. But that comes with a compromise: not many advanced users install Ubuntu for their primary computer and I really doubt the software components and drivers needed to run Steam will be well supported in any other distro. Fedora, RHEL and Debian, for instance, have a policy of not including proprietary drivers or patent-encumbered software in the installation disc/image. It may be harder for the users of those distros to make it work.

In conclusion, it's a big win for the Linux user community but not so for the Free Software community.

Why should I feel obligated to give my stuff away?

[sirwired]

I don't see how you, user, can claim any sort of moral authority to do whatever you like with my hard-earned time and effort. (Assuming, of course, my time and effort isn't based on Free software.) You want to write your own software and give it away for free to all and sundry, be my guest. But do not presume that I am under an obligation of any sort to give my product away. If that's a problem for you, you are certainly Free to not use anything I (or other developer of non-Free software) have created.

You can not trust proprietary software all you like and refuse to use it; that's fine by me. Nobody's forcing software on you. Now certainly interop and standards are a big deal, but if a standard requires interop with non-Free products... well, develop your own standard. Linus wanted a UNIX kernel that was Free, so instead of whining about how mean AT&T was, he wrote one.

There are indeed many pragmatic reasons to use the GPL, and as I stated earlier, I have absolutely no issues with it. None. I can see why a developer would choose it, and I think that it's a great tool. I applaud the efforts of those who want to make sure there are viable Linux distributions free of proprietary encumbrances.

Linux "stands for" a Free OS. Nothing more. I don't recall Linus ever stating he didn't want proprietary software to run on top of it.