- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
We are excited to announce that Arch Linux is entering into a direct collaboration with Valve. Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers.
This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed-up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors. We are incredibly grateful for Valve to make this possible and for their explicit commitment to help and support Arch Linux.
These projects will follow our usual development and consensus-building workflows. [RFCs] will be created for any wide-ranging changes. Discussions on this mailing list as well as issue, milestone and epic planning in our GitLab will provide transparency and insight into the work. We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on this mailing list as work progresses.
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Some extra fun details from the staff discussions around this: Valve is not interested in control of the distro, but are mainly interested in funding work on projects that are chosen by Arch staff, and are already things that Arch staff wants to implement. The projects chosen are indeed things that Valve also want to be part of the distro’s infrastructure, but the process has been totally in the hands of Arch staff.
I gotta say, it’s been really cool to see Valve go through the process of considering OSS as not just a useful tool or worthwhile target, but as a robust collaborator.
First, they build and maintain their client on Linux, and build their games to run natively on Linux, learning that things aren’t actually as difficult as it’s commonly made out to be, and the things that are more difficult than they need to be can be fixed by working with and contributing to the existing community.
Then they consider building their own hardware, but try the half-way approach of building SteamOS on top of Debian, and depending on existing hardware vendors to build machines with SteamOS in mind, learning that there’s a lot of unnecessary complexity around both of those approaches to that goal.
Then they learn how to develop and build 1st party hardware with the SteamLink and Steam Controller.
Then they put the lessons from the Steam Machine project into practice by dumping loads of time and effort into Proton, knowing that they won’t have the market unless they can get Windows games to run on Linux in a reliable and seamless way.
Then they put all that knowledge and effort together to do the impossible: unite PC gamers of both Windows and Linux flavors under the banner of the SteamDeck, a fully gaming-focused, high-quality, and owner-friendly piece of kit that kicks so much ass that it single-handedly pulls a whole category of PC hardware out of obsurity and into the mainstream.
And what do they do with that success? Literally pay it forward by funding work on the free software that forms the plinth that their success stands upon.
Good on Valve.
I’m just waiting for some FOSS purist to find fault in this.
As per Arch wiki
Arch is a pragmatic distribution rather than an ideological one.
If you’re a FOSS purist, you shouldn’t run Arch ethier way, because providing proprietary software for those who want it is one of the core principles of Arch.
You can use Parabola instead, which is basically FOSS-only Arch. This funding would likely also benefit Parabola indirectly.
FOSS purists are too busy malding over systemd, and Steam being proprietary DRM, and games being closed-source.
I use OpenRC, and play OpenTTD, OpenRA and Tux Racer.
OpenTTD is on Steam, btw
Leaving the others aside, the last one is quite unsurprising considering the meaning of the acronym…
Using OSS in your product and giving the OSS devs resources to improve their software, instead of trying to take over their project? Did Valve not get the memo that big tech companies are supposed to be evil?? Oh right, they have a monopoly on video game distribution and all of their products rely on DRM.
they have a monopoly on video game distribution
People who claim that Valve has a monopoly on PC games are already wrong but you claim that they have a monopoly on video game distribution in general is outrageously false. The 2022 overall video game revenue was a bit over US$180Bn. The PC game revenue was US$45Bn. In 2023, all of Steam was responsible for US$8.6Bn in revenue. The biggest PC games (Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox) aren’t even on Steam and neither are any console or phone games.
Criticize Valve for actual things to criticize them for. Don’t spread misinformation.
Valve is a Titan doing incredible work for the open source community and making money while doing so.
Successful open source software business model at work. Way to go.
Successful open source software business model at work. Way to go.
I don’t think FOSS represents a lot of how they make money, the money making is probably all closed source, so I don’t think it’s a good example. It’s more like a for-profit company also doing so good quality charity work on the side. It’s mostly good for their image and a way to tell Windows that they could go without them if they don’t collaborate.
I fully enjoy what they have been doing as a Linux only patient gamer for the past years, but I am realistic.
