Linked by boldingd on Tue 29th Jan 2013 23:12 UTC
It seems to have so far escaped OSNews' notice (if the top few hits for a site-search for 'Steam' is any indication) that Steam for Linux is now in Open Beta; you can get the Linux steam client from steampowered.com. So far, they appear to only be making an Ubuntu .deb available, and the client will require closed-source GPU drivers in order to work.
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RE[3]: Comment by Wafflez
by lucas_maximus on Wed 30th Jan 2013 08:03
in reply to "RE[2]: Comment by Wafflez"
Member since:2009-08-18
The problem is with games is that while there are large amounts of people involved, the collaborative model doesn't really work with something that is at it very core creative and more like art than something technical.
The games the are open source, while some of them are very good are usually knock-offs of popular 90s games (Nexuiz/Xonotic - Q3/UT) being a good examples.
Indie games are quite popular these days because they were given an audience through things like the humble bundle, steam and whatever they call Xbox Live Arcade.
Edited 2013-01-30 08:07 UTC
RE[4]: Comment by Wafflez
by Soulbender on Thu 31st Jan 2013 02:07
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by Wafflez"
Member since:2005-08-18
The games the are open source, while some of them are very good are usually knock-offs of popular 90s games (Nexuiz/Xonotic - Q3/UT) being a good examples
Sad but true. I'm constantly disappointing by the number of FPS clones the OSS community manage to create. Sometime it seems that like every new OSS game is yet another stale FPS clone.
It's doubly sad because the there's no inherent reason why the open source model (and perhaps combined with creative commons) shouldn't work for creating new and innovative games.
RE[3]: Comment by Wafflez
by drcouzelis on Wed 30th Jan 2013 14:52
in reply to "RE[2]: Comment by Wafflez"
Member since:2010-01-11
I feel almost as strongly about keeping an open-source system as Stallman
Just a quick correction: Richard Stallman does not feel strongly about open source software. Instead, Stallman feels strongly about free software.
Also, a person who feels (almost) as strongly about free software as Stallman would not be interested in making a compromise for non-free software, because it goes against the principles of the Free Software foundation.
In that sense, it kind of sounds like you are more of a proponent of open source software, and not free software.
I realize this may seem like a nitpick, but one Stallman's primary points is to emphasize the difference between the Free Software movement and the Open Source initiative.
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2010-01-21
Which begs the question... how does the FOSS crowd suppose that game developers can be profitable releasing source code for their games? Well, if the games are as much of a pain in the ass to get running under Linux as it sounds, I guess they could charge for support
I'm feel almost as strongly about keeping an open-source system as Stallman but I'm also pragmatic enough to make an exception for games because I recognize that games fall squarely in the area current open-source development models and communities are weakest at.
(There's still a lot of work to be done to enable and encourage participants who artistic without also being technically-skilled, Game engines are significantly harder to architect such that you can incrementally improve them over the course of a decade, etc.)