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.

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

[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.

*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.

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.

"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).