Will SteamOS ever become generally available straight from Valve, instead of the community builds you can try out right now?
“We’re hoping soon, though, it is very high on our list, and we want to make SteamOS more widely available. We’ll probably start with making it more available to other handhelds with a similar gamepad style controller. And then further beyond that, to more arbitrary devices. I think that the biggest thing is just, you know, driver support and making sure that it can work on whatever PC it happens to land on. Because right now, it’s very, very tuned for Steam Deck.”
Valve also just unveiled a new and updated Steam Deck, with an OLED display, more efficient processor, and a few other nips and tucks, including making the devices easier to repair, not harder – made available for the same price as the previous model it replaces.
So, the best chance Desktop Linux has to win big on the desktop is a DRM platform (yes, that’s what Steam is), put that in Richard Stallman’s pipe and smoke it!
The good news is that you don’t have to use the bundled DRM platform to run apps on SteamOS (like you have on iOS for example). But I guess this highlights how wrong the “my way or the highway” approach to DRM by other Desktop Linux distros is. Sometimes, DRM is a necessary evil you have to deal with to get access to certain valuable content.
I’m no fan of DRM either, but what some people don’t realize about steam is that valve themselves aren’t the ones making the decision to add DRM to the titles on steam. It’s the developers themselves who are choosing to do that. It is their prerogative to choose no DRM, 3rd party DRM, or valve DRM. DRM is not a consequence of publishing on steam.
So in the context or your criticism, it might make sense to blame valve for making their own DRM available to game developers, but realistically many of those developers electing to use DRM would probably just use another DRM.
Well, it’s no surprise that many view DRM as being anti-user, but you make a valid point that many publishers only care to target platforms that allow DRM, for better or for worse.
Steam is still a DRM platform in the sense that it can install DRM, either first- or third-party. Most Desktop Linux distros simply don’t allow something like that to be pre-installed (software that either is DRM or can install DRM).
kurkosdr,
Sure, but that’s an extremely tame criticism, all things considered. The vast majority of stores that have ever sold software, both brick and motor or online, have no policy against software DRM. DRM-free stores are the exception and not the norm. So although I concede steam has loads of DRM titles for sale, most other stores do as well.
I’m not sure if that’s 100% accurate. I’m not sure how to go about tracking these down, but ubuntu looks like it may qualify as a counterexample for including steam in the official repos.
https://fostips.com/3-ways-install-steam-ubuntu-linux/
This is flatly incorrect. Every modern web browser — including Firefox and derivatives like Pale Moon — allows DRM to be used for e.g. Netflix playback (although Pale Moon uses the Silverlight plugin instead of EME). There are distributions like Trisquel that are “free” as in “free from supporting DRM technologies” but they are hardly in the majority.
While I am all for free software I think it’s silly to oppose DRM in principle. To the extent you want to have a professional class of e.g. programmers and developers who are paid to produce software an electronically-distributed music, video, and art, some form of DRM is necessary to ensure that they are paid for their work. The nature of electronic media otherwise makes it trivial for an offshore bookseller to sell Stephen King’s books to readers in the US without him receiving royalties for it, and for him to have no practical legal recourse when this happens. That’s no good.
I think it is totally reasonable to oppose poorly-implemented DRM, and to hold companies liable when (for instance) their DRM mechanisms make it impossible for users to continue to access the books, games, etc. that they have paid for (for instance: Steam should have some mechanism for allowing users to play their Steam games on platforms that the Steam client no longer supports, just as Amazon should allow people to read the books they purchased on otherwise obsoleted Kindles).
But as far as DRM goes, Steam is quite a bit better than what came before (e.g. single use activation codes, pop quizzes about content from the game manual, etc.).
Brainworm,
I agree. Steam was a breath of fresh air for the PC gaming community. Before that I would immediately download “cracked .EXEs” for my otherwise legitimate purchases. I would not want to deprive them from an honest income, but did not want to infect my computer with whatever broken DRM they implemented back in the day.
Steam used to have a clause (in their customer support(?) site) that basically told in the event that Steam goes permanently offline, they would have released a DRM-free patch for all the games sold. The original source is no longer there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18mzcn/i_asked_steam_support_what_happens_to_my_games_if/
https://imgur.com/4sa1Ln6
So, even Steam is not perfect, and we should be ready to look after our own interests.
Brainworm,
Well, you may make the case that not all software can be free software, Still I think it’s fair to recognize that these two principals directly conflict with each other. With DRM you loose the “free as in freedom”. Honestly it kind of sucks that software is encumbered even after you’ve legally paid for it.
In my mind this justification is always tricky. There could be some truth to it, but at the same time I’m not really sure how much evidence there is for it. When the studios finally embraced DRM free music and provided easy legal access to music online, it opened up the market to tons of users who wanted legal music but were avoiding DRM formats. So, at least theoretically, we have some examples of how making things easier and removing DRM can encourage more legitimate consumers. And not for nothing, but I have avoided DRM software in the past when possible and given the choice I personally would buy DRM free software over DRM. It’s a subject with a lot of nuance.
When it comes to music, both Amazon and iTunes will sell you a DRM-free song in an industry-standard format (MP3 and M4A respectively), and yet, the music industry is still alive. Also, GOG will sell you DRM-free games, even new releases, and the publishers allowing this are not going bankrupt. This tells you everything you need to know about DRM’s usefulness. Still, despite its total lack of usefulness, DRM is still a necessary evil if you want to access some content that isn’t available for sale in DRM-free form. Unless you pirate it obv, but not everyone has the patience for that, and for executables there is the risk of malware too. But still, it’s not DRM thwarting those would-be pirates (if anything, DRM punishes the purchaser more than it does the pirate).
kurkosdr,
It is true that Amazon releasing DRM-free mp3 store was a “big thing” back then:
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/amazon-launches-drm-free-music-store/
I used to buy a lot from them, and moved most of my music consumption there. However, today, like most consumers, I use streaming services (which obviously has DRM), because convenience > ownership.
Being able to ask a smart speaker: “hey Google, play “, is preferred over downloading and managing my own music collection.
The exception is that the stuff I want to keep long term. I won’t trade-in my Metallica CDs, or Lord of the Rings discs (except that I swapped the BluRay for the the UHD ones). Many of my “classic” games are securely downloaded from GOG, and I do keep several backups of these things.
(Side note: Checked one of the older collection organizers, they still seem to be around: https://www.collectorz.com/)
For those streaming services that don’t sell content (but only rent it or lease it instead), the concept of owning the content in physical or file form doesn’t apply. In other words, if no purchase is made and no perpetual license is granted, you aren’t entitled to a “download” button anyway. So unless those streaming services require HDCP (and related Protected Media Path in the OS), they cannot be accused of having DRM.
Also, to nobody’s surprise, music streaming doesn’t require HDCP but video streaming does. And yet, this doesn’t prevent “WEB-DL” releases of that video content from showing up on torrents (because guess what, there are stream-sniffer utilities and third-party clients that allow downloading and don’t care about HDCP), which again makes DRM a pain for the paying customer only. This is why Widevine is a pain for Desktop Linux users btw: what looks like an ordinary browser plugin requires certain things from the OS (Protected Media Path) in order to grant access to resolutions above 720p. It’s also a pain for Windows and macOS users with vintage YPbPr projectors and DisplayPort displays without HDCP support. Well, paying users, that is.
Of course, a deeper question is whether the concept of owning content and software is going away, but this is unrelated to DRM. You can have a completely DRM-less app (like YouTube which doesn’t require HDCP) but still no legal right to own the content.
DRM-less app = DRM-less app and website (YouTube website doesn’t require Widevine)
kurkosdr,
To add to your point, this is also a pain for Windows and MacOS user as well. Almost all streaming sites will be capped at 720p, or worse 480p on a web browser, except for Netflix which can do 1080p (with some hacks):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/s00l6n/are_streaming_services_still_capped_to_480p_in/
https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox
As far as I know, it is only possible to consistently stream the 4K content you paid for at full resolution is using a streaming dongle. Which pretty much kills all custom setups, including open and closed sourced software.
(
Ironically, 4K on YouTube still works, even on yt-dlp:
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/supportedsites.md
)
I already mentioned it in passing: you don’t just need Windows or macOS, you also need HDCP support (graphics card and monitor). It’s also worth mentioning that DRMed 4K content requires a newer version of HDCP (HDCP 2.2) that some 4K monitors don’t support, so if you are using those monitors you won’t get DRMed 4K content. Also, your browser obviously needs to support the “Protected Video Path” of your OS, and I am not sure if there is a new version of that for 4K (but that’s not a hard blocker because you can always use the browser that came with the OS which most likely does support it, aka Edge for Windows or Safari for macOS). Widevine abstracts all this and gives you the highest resolution allowed for your given setup.
Nope, if you plug a streaming dongle into a 4K monitor that doesn’t do HDCP 2.2, you won’t get 4K, so even that is not consistent, not any more consistent than using Edge or Safari (note: most modern graphics cards support HDCP2.2, it’s the monitor that’s usually the issue).
YouTube isn’t DRMed, so as long as your computer can play 4K in VP9 format, it will work.
But here is the funny thing: HDCP doesn’t protect against third-party clients anyway (that’s what the software you’ve linked to is). In case you are wondering, AnyStream Plus and StreamFab are such third-party clients for the popular DRMed video services. Basically, HDCP relies on the idea that the original compressed stream will be oh-so-well-protected that nobody will be able to copy it, and they will try to connect the HDMI output to an HDMI capture card instead. That’s not what happens in reality. Every self-respecting pirate can copy the original compressed stream and get a perfect copy. This is true even for some UHD Blu-Rays btw.
BTW here are the GPUs that support HDCP 2.2:
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23931
(note that iGPUs are referred by the CPU generation they shipped in)
Any fairly recent PC should have these GPUs, so it’s not the big blocker (only really old computers are affected).
Also, it appears AnyStream Plus and StreamFab don’t actually do 4k, but release groups use other third-party clients to get those 4K WEB-DLs, so HDCP is still pretty useless as DRM.
kurkosdr,
Minor addition.
https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonprime/comments/mop1d9/primevideo_on_safari_browser_not_streaming_4k/
Most steaming services will not play 4K on any browser. Some will play 4K in native apps (like Apple TV, or Microsoft Videos).
Of course there might be exceptions, but I have not seen any so far.
I did not want to name them here, but yes they are “open secrets”. Along with PlayOn before them (which betrayed their lifetime customers). However, I believe their not pushing for recording 4K might a bit on purpose, so that not to bring too much attention. (Again it would require more than what they do, which seems to be browser emulation).
Yes, I checked, and it appears you are correct.
kurkosdr,
SteamOS is essentially Arch Linux with flatpacks on top. The device they sold was pretty open (easy to install Windows or another operating system), and the Steam UI has a “shut down to desktop” option, which gives you a very functional KDE setup. Especially more so, if you were to attach this to a docking station (keyboard + mouse + larger screen).
Overall, it is better than say Android, which has locked bootloaders, no option to sideload on some models (if the carrier deemed so), and overall more restrictions for the end user.
I doubt that Stallman/GNUanon really care. To quote the website: “Nonfree software puts its users under the power of the software’s developer”. They have always sounded more political than technical to me, but this sounds like identity politics or developer phobia. I didn’t realize there was a target on my back. I’m glad I retired.
If you think it’s “identity politics or developer phobia”, try buying a copy of Adobe Photoshop that doesn’t require paying a monthly subscription. Yes, that’s right, a mandatory monthly subscription for a piece of software that runs locally on your computer and doesn’t require an ongoing expense from the side of the vendor (no, I won’t pretend the cloud storage they give you justifies the price of the subscription when S3 storage is so cheap). And since used copies of CS6 have become impossible to find for some years now, Adobe is slowly but steadily jacking up the subscription price.
You see, Adobe has a near-monopoly on workflows that require CMYK and Pantone support (GIMP only does RGB), so they feel they can do that. Oh, and you have to pay extra for Pantone support now.
Instead, Microsoft Office feels the pressure of the open-source LibreOffice (OOXML support in the latest version of LibreOffice is very good btw), so Microsoft will still sell you a perpetual copy of Office that you can keep forever and save money over the subscription.
So, the question here is: How easy it is to terminate your relationship with a proprietary software vendor if you have to? That’s what the “puts its users under the power of the software’s developer” bit means.
It’s also why Windows users (and Windows-centric media such as Linus Media Group) are keeping an eye on the Steam Deck and the status of its win32 support, especially now that Windows is starting to smell somewhat unpleasant.
In fact, when it comes to Pantone support, Adobe has a total monopoly.