I'm really wondering what the sales stats are looking like these days.

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It seems a whole lot like "Surviving Mars" only on a simple-graphics little square grid. I hope it has some gameplay that sets it apart.

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Quoting: fireplacebtw, it was right here all along. everything's back in order now :)

https://steamdeck-packages.steamos.cloud/archlinux-mirror/ [External Link]

So . . . you were completely wrong, there was no basis for what you said, I was completely right in assuming you had no such basis, and yet to the end of your comments you were still coming off all arrogant at me?

That's impressive, in a perverse way.

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Quoting: fireplaceWhy do you keep bringing the FSF up? How are they relevant here? If I own the copyright

Try reading for comprehension, like the bit where I explained how they hold some of the copyrights involved.

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Quoting: fireplace

Quoting: Purple Library GuyYeah, you're asserting that. But it doesn't jibe with anything else I've ever heard about the current SteamOS. So I'm asking you to provide a bit of chapter and verse about, in what sense, in what way, is Valve "keeping most of the distro closed source"? What is it you claim they are doing?

I seriously don’t know what that means. The opposite of providing source code, I guess? It’s not that hard. There is either source code or not. It doesn’t have to “jibe” with anything.

Valve uses their own packages and repo for Steam OS. And besides the very few packages that they rarely update in public, everything else is not to be found, but there are definitely plenty of other GPL programs. Maybe you know where they are :)

Quoting: Purple Library GuyDo you claim that they have made changes to Arch files they downloaded, but kept the nature of the changes secret? Do you claim they have re-licensed GPL Linux code they are using to some closed license? Do you claim they have bribed the FSF not to sue them for any of this? What exactly are you saying?

That’s literally… none sense. Only the copyright owner can do that, so they’re just violating it. They can only keep this up till one of them threatens vlave. See Trump’s Mastodon clone.

Gee. Three paragraphs without really saying anything. It would appear you don't actually know anything about whether your claim is true or what it would mean if it was.

So. The FSF, the Free Software Foundation, holds the copyrights for important chunks of Linux. You know how some people like to call Linux Gnu/Linux? So yeah, the FSF holds the copyright to the GNU part, and a few other things, and have I believe also been asked by some other copyright holders to help them out with copyright enforcement in the event of infringement. So if someone began to distribute a version of Linux in a way that violated the GPL, that would be General Public License, a copyright license used by Linux which does not allow non-free releases of it, it is very likely that lawyers from the FSF would be in touch with them. Initially to explain to them how the license worked and why their actions put them in violation and how they could go about complying with the license, but if that failed things would get sticky. They have done this before; it is one of the key functions of the Free Software Foundation.

For the non-GNU portions of Linux, or for KDE, there are other foundations, in the case of Linux with fairly deep pockets, which would be likely to take similar action. Then there's Linus himself, who wouldn't be amused, takes no shit, and who may be personally only moderately prosperous but if he felt the need to crowdfund some lawyer's fees to defend the GPL he would suddenly have many, many dollars. So, nobody can really release a non-free Linux distribution without getting in a heap of legal trouble (and having it hit industry headlines pretty damn fast).

Valve certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to try it. So in the absence of some fairly serious and specific information I am concluding you are mistaken.

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Quoting: fireplaceAside from the obvious fact that the main interface, the Steam client, is non-free that always runs in the background, Valve keeps most of the distro closed source unlike the previous Steam OS versions.

Yeah, you're asserting that. But it doesn't jibe with anything else I've ever heard about the current SteamOS. So I'm asking you to provide a bit of chapter and verse about, in what sense, in what way, is Valve "keeping most of the distro closed source"? What is it you claim they are doing?

Do you claim that they have made changes to Arch files they downloaded, but kept the nature of the changes secret? Do you claim they have re-licensed GPL Linux code they are using to some closed license? Do you claim they have bribed the FSF not to sue them for any of this? What exactly are you saying?

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Quoting: fireplaceI can see why they’d want to do that. I wouldn’t touch Valve’s non-free OS either. But I bet their’s won’t be free as well…

One funny thing is, the Ayaneo thing will probably have a Free OS (because it's way easier), which will be different from Valve's Free OS, and which might include bits of secret sauce (unlike Valve's Free OS as far as I can tell), but which probably will ship with Valve's non-free platform because they'd be fools not to make it easy to play most of the games on a game machine. So most likely they will skip Valve's free offering but use Valve's non-free thing.

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Quoting: fireplace

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: fireplaceI can see why they’d want to do that. I wouldn’t touch Valve’s non-free OS either. But I bet their’s won’t be free as well…

I'll bite. So, "non-free OS" in what sense?

Huh? What else could it mean in a GNU/Linux website? I commend you for being so dedicated to free software that you forgot all about proprietary software. But just to refresh, non-free software is software that’s not freedom respecting as in proprietary software as in software that does not grant you your four essential freedoms [External Link].

Yes. I'm saying, in what sense is SteamOS that?
The Steam platform itself, for buying and managing games from Valve, is non-free. But your comment is the first time I've ever seen anyone claim that the OS is non-free, so I was wondering if you had some particular basis for saying it. As far as I understand, SteamOS is a perfectly normal Linux distro, based on snapshots of Arch and using KDE as the desktop environment. I haven't heard anyone say that the source code is unavailable or that they've tried to re-license anything.

The platform and the OS are different. Technically, you could buy a Steam Deck, rip out Steam but leave SteamOS in, and play everything except Steam games on it.

So. In what sense is the OS non-free?

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Quoting: fireplaceI can see why they’d want to do that. I wouldn’t touch Valve’s non-free OS either. But I bet their’s won’t be free as well…

I'll bite. So, "non-free OS" in what sense?

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Quoting: udekmp69Heroic :heart:

Although I want to experiment with Vanilla OS now from my friend Mirko from the Bottles team.

Highly recommend giving this a try if you feel like distro hopping again. It's very much the 'out of the box' distribution IMO.

Mint is the 'out of the box' distribution IMO.

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