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Valve made the right decision
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Making a proprietary operating system is not the right decision. It's unethical to take away people's ability to control their own devices.
How does Valve prevent you from controlling your own device? Their version of Linux isn't locked down, you can fully customize it like any Linux afaik.
Their system (and the Steam client) is proprietary, which means you can't easily see what the software does or change it. If you can't control the software then you don't control the device. People deserve to have the 4 essential freedoms. This is why Windows is bad and it's the same with SteamOS.
SteamOS is only bad when you expect it to support a variety of hardware. They promised to release it as a standalone and it's still not there yet, too bad.
You are correct about Steam client though. Even if they keep the internals closed, the GUI part alone would be worth forking. I wish a chrome-less version would exist.
Steam Deck is a computer, so its users deserve to have full control over it just like their PC or smartphone.
If people can't easily modify it, then its developers have power over users. You have to trust that they will not abuse that power, but they already do - with DRM for example.
You have full freedom to install Windows, SteamOS, or even Temple OS on your Steam Deck if you so fancy.
That does not make SteamOS or Windows an ethical OS.
You can install whatever you want on a Steam Deck afaik, so I dont get what you are trying to say here.
That SteamOS is unethical, similar to Windows.
Then you can just install something else on it?
I get that it sucks when a device is locked, because you might need to install a different OS for a multitude of reasons, but as long as you are able to install whatever you want I dont blame the manufacturer.
You don't have to use SteamOS and you don't have to use Windows, but that doesn't change the fact that they are unethical operating systems designed to take away user's freedom. You can't easily know what it does on your device or change it. It keeps secrets from you. Steam also restricts you with DRM. So unless you are fine with Valve becoming another Microsoft, we need to criticize them for doing this.
I'm okay with valve replacing microsoft as the go-to proprietary operating system
You have to recognize that having an open source almost everything except a single program (steam) is better than what windows is doing by miles, right?
You can't win everything, steam is never going to stop being proprietary, but steam will cause open source to flourish with the caveat that it itself is not open source. The issue is not as black and white as you're making it seem.
Plus if steam wins, getting people to switch to fully open source operating systems will be a lot easier.
Then you don't care about freedom and having control over your computer. That's a shame. I think you should.
But is that actually true? There is no source code for SteamOS 3. How do you know how many packages are proprietary? Even one nonfree package is unethical. People deserve to have control over their computers, I don't care if it's currently a little better than Windows.
This is irrelevant. We should still try to make the world better and fight the injustice. If gamers realized this 10 years ago, maybe we would have this problem solved by now.
You can't have freedom when someone is actively trying to take it away from you. We have to get rid of proprietary software. If we accept the abuse from those companies, nothing will change. We've been fighting this battle for 40 years now. Those companies want to give you an illusion of freedom, so that they can pretend that they are good. They are using the work of Free Software volunteers to build a prison for you.
No, there is no Free Software alternative to Steam and there is no reason to believe that Valve will release its source code.
You are making an assumption that Valve won't make their system even more proprietary. But why wouldn't they if their fans are ok with this? They're already abusing their power with Steam. Giving them more power will only make the abuse worse.
I do care about this, I just believe your path will move nothing at all whereas valve is making linux a viable option and contributing to open source immensely, their client is built on completely free software and you can easily uninstall it, they can't fork linux and gnu or any of their drivers to make it proprietary so I don't know what you're worried about
This path has lead us to where we are today, which is why companies want to blur the line between free and nonfree software, because it's the only way they can slow down the progress of our movement. Microsoft also contributes to "Open Source" and that's great, but they also abuse their users, which wrong. It's similar with Valve. The Steam client is proprietary. Sure, you can remove it, just like you can remove Windows from a computer too, but that doesn't make Windows ethical. Linux is already proprietary by default - it contains binary blobs without source code. So Arch is already a nonfree OS, Valve is just making it even more proprietary. I see a lot of people falling for the same traps over and over again and I'm worried that the majority of us will never learn to avoid them.
Do you not understand that the GPL has made it so that valve can't do that?
To be concerned about what you're concerned about, valve would have to violate the GPL
Valve puts one piece of commercial software on a completely FOSS operating system, this is nothing like windows, and i'm sorry but you sound delusional. Why would valve make more of the OS proprietary than steam? How could they? If they wanted to, why would they not use BSD?
also you can check with pacman -Q
Since the OS comes with Steam, clearly having some GPL licensed packages doesn't prevent them from adding proprietary packages and not all software is GPL licensed. Also Android and SailfishOS exist and both are proprietary.
There is nothing wrong with commercial software. The issue is with proprietary software, because it takes away user's freedom. Free Software can be commercial too. It doesn't matter how many nonfree packages it has, because even one package makes the whole thing proprietary. Google Chrome is not Free Software just because it's based on Chromium, which is a Free Software project. Android is based on Free Software and it's also proprietary. Their goal is to blur the line and it's clearly working. I'm not denying that SteamOS is more free than Windows, but it's still bad and since they can get away with this, I suspect it will keep getting worse just like other proprietary operating systems.
This is irrelevant. They chose whatever was the most convenient and the cheapest. Companies use Free Software projects to make proprietary software all the time. Valve at least contributes to projects, but they abuse their users by denying them freedom and that's the main issue.
Just because they made steam start on boot. Doesn't mean you can't control your device...
Steam (and other parts of SteamOS) is non free software, it can do anything on your system and there is no easy way for you to change that or even know what it does. Valve developers put themselves in a position of power over you. They keep secrets from you on your own device. This in itself is unethical, but they also abuse their users with DRM. How can you say that you have control in this case?
Steam OS is easy, you can install literally any other distro. With regards to steam itself sadly we don't live in a fairytale land where everything can be FOSS, there aren't enough people motivated to work for free. Steam drm is great it makes publisher executives happy, while being extremely easy to crack.
You can say the same about Windows. You can replace it with another OS, but that doesn't make it ethical.
If everyone had this attitude, there would be no Free Software at all. It took 40 years of hard work to get to where we are right now. I don't understand why you think that anyone has to work for free. Free Software is about freedom, not price. Itch.io is a store that has a Free Software client (and it's optional - you don't even have to use it). Valve could do the same, but they don't want to.
Yes, it's great that publishers can abuse us and that you need a proprietary app on your system and be logged in to an account to play singleplayer games. Thanks Valve.
DRM is what publishers and developers want. If Valve didn't have DRM they wouldn't be anywhere near as big as they are today. The influx of developers happened when Steam released their DRM for the public.
Not other parts of steamos, just steam