this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Why do companies make proprietary software and operating systems at all? Because they think it will make them the most money. Why is Steam proprietary? Why is Valve keeping secrets from their users? They could do the ethical thing and make it Free Software.
Making proprietary software is already unethical by itself, because users can't control it. They already do other malicious things like restrict their users with DRM. I'm glad that Valve, Microsoft and other companies contribute to Free Software. They deserve to be praised for this, but it shouldn't distract us from the evil things they do, which we should criticize. Why can't we praise Valve for the good things and criticize them for the bad things?
Steam is part of SteamOS, so I criticize both.
For me personally it doesn't matter, because I will never use such system. But I want other people to have freedom, I want to live in a free society. For that to happen we must destroy proprietary software, not include it in our distros and pretend that nothing is wrong. I don't want to see people spied on, restricted by DRM and abused in other ways. That's wrong, so we have to talk about it and show people that it doesn't have to be like this.
Steam is proprietary because they want to make money, they aren't making the operating system from scratch, their goal is to sell stuff on the steam store. Why are they using linux instead of BSD for this, if you think that they have some other scheme? I'm against proprietary software, but the fact is, this extremely optional proprietary software for exclusively gaming is the reason linux is going to get users, a shitload of work done, and will be a usable operating system for anyone. If you don't like steam, just don't install it, and no proprietary software will hurt you, and you won't ever need to install it.
Because you're criticising them for steamos, which is not proprietary, except for the steam client itself. Criticise the steam client, not steamos.
Steam is a single piece of software put upon a completely FOSS operating system, steamos is just immutable arch linux. You can even uninstall steam.
They do have freedom, they can easily uninstall steam, and steam doesn't have control over their system because the entire operating system is FOSS, they just have the steam client, which is a completely optional extension and can't be used for harm when it's closed. It being proprietary is undoubtedly a bad thing, but that doesn't make steamos bad, that just makes steam itself bad.
If your goal is to get as many people using as much FOSS software as possible, steam is your ally. It's what's getting people to switch to linux in huge numbers, it will push open source forward, not backwards. Your thinking is far too black and white. If steam didn't exist, and all these developers weren't working on linux, I wouldn't even be a linux user, and MANY MANY others would never consider using linux. Because of valves work, linux is usable for an entire massive additional group of people. The same is not even a little true for, say, microsoft, who only help linux in a way that doesn't harm windows.
My point is that Steam doesn't have to be proprietary. You can make money in an ethical way with Free Software. Itch.io does this by providing a Free Software client. There is no excuse for making nonfree software. I don't know why they didn't use BSD like Sony did, but it really doesn't matter.
If something contains proprietary software, then it's proprietary. I know that you can turn SteamOS into a Free Software system. At the very least you would have to remove Steam (this is easy), use a Linux kernel without proprietary blobs (might be harder, but Arch has the same issue) and maybe some other things (I don't know about the drivers). It's nice that this is possible, but it's still proprietary by default and that is wrong.
My priority is not for GNU/Linux (or any other particular OS) to get the most users. It's not the goal of the Free Software movement. The goal is for people to use Free Software and for proprietary software to be destroyed. Valve makes proprietary software, so they are working against us. If your goal is for people to have freedom and control over their devices, you should criticize those actions too. You can do that, while also praising Valve for the good things that they do. Maybe Valve can change and become better, but if not then at least people should be aware of the situation. If you are against proprietary software, then you should understand that Steam being proprietary is bad for us. But maybe you care about features more than freedom - then we probably won't agree on this.
I want people to eventually use fully free systems. It can be a gradual process, but this won't happen if we don't make our end goal clear to people. Companies that make nonfree software won't do this - they use the term Open Source to avoid talking about freedom and avoid mentioning that proprietary software is bad. So we have to do this ourselves. You can you Steam and SteamOS if you want and at the same time tell people that we can do better than that. That's all you have to do - just accept that they current situation isn't perfect and that we can work on improving it.
I do criticize those things, my goal is to get as many people using free software as possible, valves work with steam has enabled that, also, you say the goal is to get as many people to use free software as possible while saying the goal isn't number of users, that's a contradiction.
i don't have a problem criticizing steam for being proprietary, I just recognize that steam is massively beneficial to FOSS and from a pragmatic standpoint they are nothing like and will never become nearly as big of a problem as windows
My goal isn't to increase the number of GNU/Linux users at all cost. I see very little benefit from people using GNU/Linux if they will use proprietary software on it, unless it's only a temporary solution for them. If people stop using one proprietary platform only to be trapped in another without realizing it, then something went wrong. Some people ditch Android only to use SailfishOS. Or they ditch Twitter only to use Threads. So I hope those new GNU/Linux users who know nothing about the Free Software movement don't get trapped again.
Steam is an unethical DRM platform, so I will always criticize it regardless if it makes people switch to GNU/Linux.
You're still not listening to me, or yourself, really.
Neither is mine, the cost is extremely minor in this case, because steam is a gaming client, and the fundamental nature of a gaming client is non-essential and not integrated into the system deeply at all. What you fail to understand is people being on windows is way worse in every single way than them having one proprietary app on their computer.
There's no situation where one more person switching to steamos isn't switching from windows where they were also using steam, this means every single person that steam converts is a massive net positive. Do you see how that is not "at all costs" at all?
There is huge benefit, more people are using much more FOSS, and the fact is, if more people were on linux, there'd be more foss software, which means better alternatives and outcompeting proprietary software.
Steam ain't that. It's video games. And nothing else.
Steam isn't going to be what "traps" them or anything, especially when it's sandboxed, and when you sandbox it, it has literally no integration with the rest of your system at all. This is a massive win over using windows. Which anybody who is switching to steamos is certainly already on and wouldn't switch to linux without it under any circumstances.
You could use this excuse to justify almost any type of proprietary software. Most apps are not deeply integrated into the system. That doesn't make them ethical.
It is more free than Windows and I never said otherwise. I just said that it was still unethical.
But those people don't care about their freedom. That's the problem. They will always use proprietary software, because they only care about convenience or features. We need to change that. Only then our movement will benefit from this. We can't let them get attached to Valve as long as they make proprietary software.
Games are software. If you can't control what they do on your device, then you don't control the device.
You are assuming that a company that makes proprietary software won't try to get more power over their users. Why wouldn't they? Their users don't even care. Sandboxing improves your security (which is good), but not your freedom. You still can't see what the software does or change it, so that program is still unethical.
I'm using that excuse to justify steamos vs windows, you're assuming a vacuum, I do believe proprietary software is bad, just that you're fighting the wrong battle.
"I see very little benefit from people using GNU/Linux if they will use proprietary software on it"
"It doesn’t matter how many nonfree packages it has, because even one package makes the whole thing proprietary."
The entire time my point has been steamos isn't worth criticising because it's just archlinux with steam, criticize steam. I'm totally fine with criticising steam, i'm not fine with criticising steamos, because it is literally just linux but with steam preinstalled. All of your issues are simply issues with steam, not steamos.
That won't change, they simply do not have the same values as you, so, be pragmatic and try to make FOSS software outcompete proprietary software, in this case, we need steam, we need people to move to linux as much as possible, and only once we have everyone on FOSS operating systems, THEN we attack the clients, that should be the order of operations. Steam is absolutely still bad because it's proprietary but steamos is a good thing for the free software movement.
I'm not saying they wouldn't, i'm saying they've structured things in a way that they literally cannot, there's no path to do that for them, that's why if they wanted to do that they would've HAD to use BSD, there is no choice for them in the matter because this is based on linux.
Here is an article from the FSF explaining why we should avoid making such compromises: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html . They probably explain this a lot better than me, so if it doesn't convince you, then probably nothing will.