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Valve Offers Free Subscription To Debian Developers: Paying It Forward

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-little-something-for-you dept.

sfcrazy writes "Valve Software, the makers of Steam OS, is already winning praise from the larger free and open source community – mainly because of their pro-community approach. Now the company is 'giving back' to Debian by offering free subscription to Debian developers. This subscription will offer full access to current and future games produced by Valve. Since Steam OS is based on Debian GNU/Linux it's a nice way for Valve to say 'thank you' to Debian developers."

17 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    and now nothing will get done.
    This is obviously effort to thwart Debian.

    1. Re:OK... by bug1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Games are one of the oldest and most powerful learning systems we have. Computer games obviously lose the physical benefit of RL game,s but they still have mental benefits.

      They can teach Logic, promote social skills (as compared to TV), and can be good emotionally just ot blow of some steam.

      I understand the drama with debian and non-free games, but surely you can seperate the two concepts.

    2. Re:OK... by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is something that personally bugs the shit out of me.....tell me EXACTLY how YOUR freedom is being blocked by having CHOICE in the matter? Nobody is holding a gun to your head, nobody is making you use non free anything, so why should those that want it have to jump through flaming fucking hoops just because it doesn't follow YOUR personal feelings on the subject?

      Why is those that are supposedly "for" freedom damned near ALWAYS translate to "free to be like me and do what I like?".

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    3. Re:OK... by Pav · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are plenty of non-free choices... not so many free. I'd like to keep my little free sandbox thanks. Why do you want to take it from me? Obviously many feel the same way or else Debian wouldn't have such a vital community, and perhaps it follows that one of the historical reasons for this vital community is its philosophy and relatively uncompromising attitude (though too compromising for RMS apparently). I have contributed to Debian, though granted in very small ways, and frankly I'd be less motivated with the community soured and schitzophrenic with concerns completely unrelated to the Debian core mission. I have a friend who has abandoned desktop BSD because the community around it as collapsed after Apples involvement... I really don't want to see RMS being right AGAIN, this time about Debian not being strict enough.

    4. Re:OK... by Sun · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'll just add that Debian split the non-free stuff into a separate repository, not enabled by default. Not only are you free not to install non-free software, you get an easy way of making sure that non-free doesn't creep in by mistake.

      Shachar

  2. This is a Triumph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS

    1. Re: This is a Triumph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      instead of free games, THEy should offer free food, something like CAKE. this IS A great way to attract linux coders, not gonna LIE.

  3. 5 years later ... by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 5, Funny

    Q: Why did Debian development stop?
    A: The entire development team was given dozens of free video games.

    --
    Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
  4. Re:Now all we need is rolling release by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

    Debian unstable is the rolling release. Debian testing is a slightly more conservative rolling release, with updates screened mostly automatically. Stable is for people who want a manually "release-managed" approach with multi-year support lifetime.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  5. Typo in list.debian.org link by Oliver_Etchebarne · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is a extra 'v' in the link. The real link is https://lists.debian.org/debia...

    --
    drmad
  6. A wise move.... by Dega704 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not just because this builds rapport with the community, but also because debian developers playing lots of Valve games will be debian developers with lots of firsthand exposure to any bugs or areas that could be improved; and the best work often comes from someone scratching a personal itch. Valve plays the game well (no pun intended).

  7. Developer approval by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But Debian's approval process for developers might get swamped by people trying to gain Debian Developer status just for the free games.

    1. Re:Developer approval by petermgreen · · Score: 5, Informative

      which begs the question: Who is considered a developer?

      Debian Developer is a well defined status with full upload rights and voting rights. The application process is also documented but well basically it consists of

      1: get your key signed by a couple of existing debian developers (in a pinch one debian developer and one
      2: find an existing dd to advocate for you
      3: make your application
      4: wait to be assigned an application manager
      5: go through a questioning/testing process with the application manager
      6: wait for final approval, account creations etc from front desk, DAM and keyring maint

      Nowadays it's generally reccomended to go for the lower status of "Debian Maintainer" (restricted upload rights, no voting rights) first and then move on to applying for Debian Developer (I went straight to DD myself so it IS still possible to go directly in the right circumstances but it's not considered the normal route anymore).

      The process of becoming a Debian Developer can take quite some time both in terms of overall process length and the ammount you will have to learn about debian and the contributions you will have to demonstrate you have made to pass it. If you are serious about contributing to Debian then it's worth it, if you are just doing it for the handful of goodies (the ones i'm aware of are lwn subscription, ghandi.net hosting discount, and now valve games) that are given out debian developers then you are wasting your time.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  8. Re:So only a small subset of people get this by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WHINE WHINE WHINE I DIDN'T GET ANY WHINE WHINE WHINE

    This is news because it is someone giving free stuff to open source developers!

    Solely as a thank you for being developers that helped them succeed.

    --
    Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
    The purpose of that site was not known.
  9. Re:"Rewarding" free software with non-free softwar by Thantik · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cough cough: http://linux.slashdot.org/stor...

  10. Re:The FOSS community is praising this move? by Microlith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    why the hell should the open source community praise Valve for bringing proprietrary software to its most famous platform?

    Because if anything is going to bring users to Linux it'll be games. Games are what tie me to Windows, and I'd be more interested in testing Wine on my existing library if I can get my newest games out of the (proverbial) box on Linux.

    The fact is that an addition of proprietary software to a largely open ecosystem is not a benefit, but a threat.

    Not as much of a threat as Microsoft's exclusive ownership of the PC gaming world.

    This statement that the FOSS is praising Valve sends out the message that the FOSS community wants another Windows or Mac OS, i.e. another operating system with a great amount of support by proprietary software vendors. That is not what the FOSS community is about.

    Please stop talking as if the "FOSS community" was a unified front. I would love to move to a FOSS operating system if I could still play my proprietary games on it. Valve may actually give me a chance.

  11. Thanks! unit tests, naming standards, documentatio by raymorris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thanks for contributing! I've contributed very little code directly to Debian, but it may well be like some open source projects where developers are expected to spend ten times as much time on a feature than it takes to submit a patch.

    In Moodle, for example, I added a feature that took about two hours to develop a working patch. Just before submitting the patch, I became an official developer. Seven MONTHS later I was done with that two hour patch. First, I needed to document the proposal for the new feature, then get (documented) community feedback. I had to apply a huge list of style rules to the patch, covering things like variable naming standards, whitespace, etc. Then I needed the component owner to review it. He pointed out that while it complied with the CURRENT standards, it didn't use the newly developed APIs that were chosen for the upcoming release. I recoded it to use the upcoming standards, and some design changes the component owner wanted. This process involved rebasing against master at several times - any time someone else needed to look at it. The new feature required very minor tweaks to some existing classes. Since I had touched those classes, I needed to update those old classes to the new coding standards as well. Then the integrator pointed out I was missing the suites of unit tests, etc.

    In all, a two hour patch submission turns out to be 80 hours when you do all of the "official developer" stuff like unit tests and all. So that's one distinction between a developer, who is on the hook for all of that stuff vs. a contributor who graciously submits code.

    Please understand I'm in no way devaluing any contributions. For most open source projects, I contribute patches only. I now have a new appreciation for the committed developers who do the grinding work required to have my code integrated into a high quality project.

    Ps - a LOT of what I mentioned above are tasks a non-programmer or newbie programmer can help with, if anyone is looking for ways to contribute to projects you enjoy or are interested in.