Valve's Steam License Causes Linux Packaging Concerns

New submitter skade88 writes "With the Linux Steam beta giving Ubuntu and its large userbase all the love, other Linux gamers understandably want to be let in on the fun. For the beta, Valve has provided Steam as a Debian package. Many hungry Linux gamers have reported that they have Steam running on their favorite distro, but that still leaves the legal debate. What is the legal threshold needed to get Steam in the repos of your preferred flavor of Linux? Will Valve's one-size-fits-every-OS license be flexible to work on Linux or will it delay the dream of a viable gaming world for Linux? We are so close to bridging the last major hurdle in finally realizing the year of the Linux desktop: Gaming. Lets hope the FOSS community and Valve can play together so we all win."

Comments

Not required to use every package manager

[icebike]

The packaging is not the issue here.

Any competent distro can install Debian packages via various foreign package tools.

The issue is that some of these Distros are going out of their way to accommodate a non GPL package, and a beta one at that.

Its a binary blob.

Any time a Distro starts messing with those, its on very thin ice. Most don't. They just write scripts that will fetch the original and
do what ever is necessary to install it if the user chooses. Or they seek official permission to re-package. This is very common with Video drivers, etc.

The proper way is to fetch the binary from what ever legal source Valve provides, and install it using what ever foreign package utilities they have.
That way they live within valve's license. Its the only reasonable way. Why take on a packaging headache for a binary blob?

Part of what was troubling from Valve's Steam license comes down to "You may not, in whole or in part: copy, hotocopy, reproduce, translate, reverse engineer (with the exception of specific circumstances where such act is permitted by law), derive source code, modify, disassemble, decompile, or create derivative works based on the Program; remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Program; or attempt in any manner to circumvent any security measures designed to control access to the Program."

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this exactly what stuff like Debian's 'non-free' repo are for? If each distro has an equivalent (like for binary blob video drivers), it goes there, prompt the user to agree to the non-free license, and then fetch as normal.

Question is, does 'may not copy the Program' mean you can't mirror their packages for them with your own distro mirrors, untouched?

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[X0563511]

Think 'debian-multimedia' or Adobe's yum repo for flash. Total non-issue.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing they are packaging is just a script that downloads the real steam binary. You know, exactly like with flashplugin-installer, which has a similar license. This is a non-issue. Put it in non-free.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[h4rr4r]

Why is why you do not distribute it, you do like flashplugin-installer. Your package just goes and fetches the actual software and runs the install.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[EvanED]

Well shucks. So much for my plans.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[marcosdumay]

Well, non-free and all that... Or maybe, the best way for Debian to handle it is to put a package at non-free that adds Valve's repository into apt.conf.d. That way they avoid any problem that may appear by redistributing Valve's software when their license changes, as it keeps doing. (Maybe Debian could create a few of those packages, including the keyring and sources.list of other repository - multimedia and backports, for example, could use that.)

Anyway, the main reason I cared to replay was to say: PLEASE STOP SAYING "BINARY BLOB". A BLOB IS BINARY, IF IT WERE TEXT IT WOULD BE A CLOB.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[EvanED]

Why would they limit themselves to the crapbuntu is unknown to me, but my guess to spare time on user support. Oh well.

From what Valve has said, that's not intended as a long-term thing. They are going with Ubuntu first because ... surprise surprise ... that's what the vast majority of their survey respondents said.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[Charliemopps]

The questions you're asking are really for a corporate entity. Ok, I cant install steam at work... I wasn't going to anyway. But do we really give a shit about this at home? I certainly don't.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly. Debian packages stuff like this as a wrapper. Examples are the Microsoft fonts and Flash. The wrapper knows where to download the actual package from, and may perform some extra work after extraction to make the installation more compatible with Debian, but the package itself does not contain the proprietary files.

It would be a little different here, given that the proprietary data is already packaged, but in principle it's the same.

Re:Not required to use every package manager

[greenfruitsalad]

It is a sin to say "debian-multimedia" and Stefano Zacchiroli will come and strangle your children if you do it again. http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2012-May/thread.html#26678

a non-issue

[X0563511]

Seriously, this is not an issue.

Valve wants to make it easy? Run a repo, and provide instructions for using it.

Valve wants to make it only moderately difficult for newbies? Provide package files and leave it at that.

Re:a non-issue

[Hatta]

Valve wants to make it easy? Run a repo, and provide instructions for using it.

Repos only work for one distro. Or a closely related family (e.g. debian/ubuntu/mint) at best. The right thing to do is provide a tarball under as permissive a license as possible, and let the distros do their own packaging.

Re:a non-issue

[LoRdTAW]

This.

I don't see Microsoft or Apple worrying how they will distribute Steam, because they don't*. I don't see why browsing to steampowered.com and downloading the client for your OS of choice should be any different than on Windows or Mac OS. The belief that everything should be in the repos is silly.

*Even if they were to make Steam available through their app stores its still the publishers responsibility to submit the app for distribution.

Re:a non-issue

[jedidiah]

This is the situation on ANY OS.

When you let game installers run willy nilly through the system files, every single PC can have it's own unique configuration. Windows solves this through brute force but it's still the same problem.

Linux is far from unique here.

Re:a non-issue

[gbjbaanb]

the reason for this is Windows - because these programs need to roll their own updaters, they tend to write the code to be as cross-platform as the program is. So there's no incentive for them to scrap code they know and replace it with a different updater.

It might make sense for the end-user, and I'd hope the manufacturers of these programs would start to support more default package managers now they're getting more into Linux, but they're still really Windows programs for the most part.

Re:a non-issue

[devman]

Not everything in a linux distro needs to be installed with a package repo. I mean you could just download the tarball from their website and run it. For what its worth, the update method is similar to how Half-Life Dedicated Server and Source Dedicated Server are updated and it works well.

Re:a non-issue

[Rich0]

You left out another step - buy utility after utility to de-cruft your system, and do a complete reinstall every year or two to get it to work right again.

Oh, and don't forget about having 47 processes running night and day, each of which only exists to update some particular program.

When the package manager does all the work, then getting rid of cruft is just a matter of asking it to remove it for you. No collision problems, no orphan files, and so on.

Some package managers do make it easier to package up the output of manual installers, but this usually requires at least somewhat cooperative installers to begin with.

A tempest in a teapot ..

[dgharmon]

Nothing to see here , moving on ...

*in* distri: OSI approved. Else: Any licence

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is easy, and I think it applies to all distributions:

To be in the distribution, the licence of your project must fit the , currently version 1.9 or later. This means that the licence most likely also has OSI approval and can be found on the SPDX list. Beyond that, you also need to make sure that your package is compatible licence wide with the licences of all your dependencies.

To be available for a distribution, you only need to take care of the latter bit, and you can choose any licence, including non-FLOSS commercial ones. I, however, will not look at, review, debug or build that package without being paid for it outside of the scope of my work on the distribution.

I am a packager for a major GNU/Linux distribution.

Re:*in* distri: OSI approved. Else: Any licence

[unixisc]

Not a bad suggestion, but really, I wouldn't blame Valve for packaging Steam only in Debian. Indeed, the bulk of distros out there are now based on Ubuntu or Debian, and only some are based on Fedora, Arch, Gentoo and Slackware. There is no reason to support that many packages. Sure, in Linux, the idea is open source and open choices, but a point comes where you want a standard way of packaging software. Given how good apt is, there is hardly a good reason why they should support yum/rpm, pac, txz or whatever else is out there. If the other distros want to be a part of the action, .deb is open - they can easily support that, in addition to their pet packaging schemes.

Only thing - the BSDs are being left out here, but unless and until PC-BSD becomes more mainstream, there ain't a strong reason to support pbi, which is the only other package IMO that they should consider.

Does it really need to be packaged at all?

[Tr3vin]

The Steam client auto-updates on Windows. I would imagine it would do the same on Linux. Now, I understand that Windows doesn't have a packaging system like Linux but I really don't see why Valve would need to use one. There are several pieces of software that I use that I get from a tar.gz over a rpm or a deb. Why wouldn't Steam do the same?

Re:Does it really need to be packaged at all?

[mic0e]

Counterhint: Steam circumvents this by providing only a tiny 'seed' package, which will then download the whole steam application and all games to the user's home folder. I also heard chrome does the same (on windows as well). However, the seed coul probably easily be re-written as or published as free software (e.g. a 100-line bash script) to circumvent all packaging license issues.

Re:Does it really need to be packaged at all?

[Paradigm_Complex]

It auto-updates on Linux as well, however it does it in an interesting fashion. Essentially, the .deb package Valve put out (and distros are considering throwing in their repos) simply installs an installer. When one runs "steam" for the first time, it downloads and installs steam locally in his or her home folder. It can thus update as non-root.

Re:Does it really need to be packaged at all?

[Paradigm_Complex]

Steam automatically installs itself into $HOME so it can self-update.

Re:Does it really need to be packaged at all?

[jedidiah]

Unix users have been able to install stuff to their own $HOME directory since before there was a Linux or a Windows.

Re:"Gaming" is not the answer for Linux desktops.

[0123456]

Games and video editing are the only reasons I keep a Windows PC around. And a lot of my Steam games already run under Wine.

Re:You don't need it in your repo.

[0123456]

Yeah, because I definitely want to be giving every random software company root access to my system.

Re:No it isn't a dead dream, wrong target audience

[h4rr4r]

She was not getting any updates either. Which I bet is the problem he was trying to solve.

"the year of the Linux desktop"? Make them stop!

[mfearby]

It happens every so often around here that someone will claim X as the final hurdle to "finally realizing the year of the Linux desktop", and if you think that packaging Steam is that last cab off the rank, you are sorely mistaken. What about the ruination of a good desktop environment (GNOME), and the torture that getting a video card properly working can be? Or the cacophony of sound libraries that mean I can't get Skype to pick up my microphone? Or the many mail programs that *should* be able to import/export each other's databases yet, to this day, still manage to be a PITA (Kontact!).

I've been using Linux full time for 5 years (since the Windows Vista calamity) and it wasn't until Ubuntu ruined their distro with Unity that I had to hop to another one (Debian Squeeze and now openSUSE due to a new mobo install, and to get support for the LAN on same I wasn't prepared to upgrade to Sid). openSUSE 12.2 hasn't turned out to be as stable as I had hoped, so my Mac Mini should be delivered on Monday (TNT tracking currently has it in transit from Hong Kong :-) And installing and configuring Oracle Java is a nightmare. Just when you think you've found the right HOWTO to get it installed, you find that there's another way, and the way you were using was perhaps ill-advised. Yes, this isn't Linux's fault but Java is a necessity for some people, and the free Java doesn't quite cut it for some apps (CrashPlan, for example). It used to be that there were non-free repos in Ubuntu that added all these things nicely, but these seem to be a thing of the past nowadays for most distros.

Until Linux learns to cope with the installation/addition of other software that doesn't live up to its high and mighty standards, and stops fragmenting its core GUIs and programs, the much prophesied "year of Linux on the desktop" is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN! And if you think that people are going to accept a totally stripped-bare 100% pure distro the likes of which Richard Stallman would use, then it's game over (though it's probably been game over for years, now).

Re:Why just one

[EvanED]

Because multiple repositories just multiplies the work Valve has to do supporting Linux. Simply packaging things isn't a lot of work, but checking to see if the packages work is. Better to have one canonical archive and let the distros do their own packaging and testing.

I can flip that argument around though: if you're Valve and thus concerned about the quality of your product, why would you turn over control of said quality to a third party?

(I'm not sure to what extent I buy these two arguments; I'm just putting it out there as sort of a "devil's advocate" perspective.)

Re:You don't need it in your repo.

[marcosdumay]

Ok, you prefer that the spyware comes in an unverifiable binary proxied by your distro's servers. I just don't understand what is the difference (except for who pays the bandwidth bill).

If you don't want Valve to have access to your system, don't install Steam. Or that is too simple?

Re:"Gaming" is not the answer for Linux desktops.

[Sir_Sri]

Steam isn't gaming anyway. Steam is a game distribution service, in linux world it's basically a gaming specialized repository, that takes money. Every developer under the sun still needs to package their games, although the point of steam is probably that valve will handle that for you I imagine a lot of teething pains.

Valve is only going this route to hedge their bets against windows 8, justifiably so, and that's the big opportunity for linux and always has been: waiting for a serious break in microsofts armour. If windows 8 is the trainwreck it seems like it could be, well we might have 2013 as the actual year of the linux desktop and game companies coming along for the ride.

The Source engine from steam, which is used for some games, being on linux matters a bit, but one game engine does not an industry make. I'll be very interested to see if the big guys in the business add in linux support while they're at it (PS4, Xbox3, Windows PC already, why not add Mac and Linux for the same reason valve is?). With kickstarter funding a few engines in the direction of linux there might be some future hope for games, rather than just a store that can be run as a webpage.

Re:"the year of the Linux desktop"? Make them stop

[6031769]

OK, here's the news:

1. Nobody really uses SUSE anymore. Even Slackware beats the pants off it for usability. Give SUSE the heave-ho and you're halfway to paradise. *

2. Java is 100% unnecessary for most of the productive tasks for which you will use a computer. Just bin it. If anything you think you want to run requires java, bin that too and just use a non-java equivalent. Java is very useful for mobile phones and old-style web apps, but nothing on the desktop since 2004.

3. This is the choir here. Nobody in this audience really cares whether 2012 is the year of the Linux desktop or not. The linux desktop is great: we know that and we use it. Whether everybody else uses it or not is largely irrelevant to us.

4. GNOME 3 sucks - this is widely established. The good news is that you run Linux, so you have your choice of XFCE, LXDE, Enlightenment, AfterStep, Ratpoison, Fluxbox, etc. Just run whichever window manager you want.

5. If your MUA won't export to mbox and/or maildir, why are you using it? Question 1 for any data-critical apps is always "How do I get my data out of it?". If an app cannot answer that, don't use it.

*OK, that one may be slightly contentious, but TBH, I've never (and I mean in since kernel 1.0) heard any convincing argument regarding why anyone should run SUSE over another distro. Counter-arguments happily invited.

Re:"the year of the Linux desktop"? Make them stop

[mfearby]

You managed to summarise his points quite well... Not too sure about the last one, though... but it was a funny read :-)

Re:"the year of the Linux desktop"? Make them stop

[Gaygirlie]

I don't generally like to comment in threads like this, but I have to hand it to you for translating the previous commentator's comments to what he actually means.