rdri

rdri , vor einem Monat

Yeah, screw CEF, Electron, and webdevs who can't live without those.

rdri , vor einem Monat

That's 2x2=4 level of stupid.

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

I found no joke in your comment and I'm disappointed.

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

SteamOS is only bad when you expect it to support a variety of hardware. They promised to release it as a standalone and it's still not there yet, too bad.

You are correct about Steam client though. Even if they keep the internals closed, the GUI part alone would be worth forking. I wish a chrome-less version would exist.

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

Can you explain what parts of SteamOS are not controllable in a way that makes it more restricted than Arch, which it is based on?

with DRM for example

[If the account owns the game - allow user to download and run the game] is a DRM sure... But it's kind of fair, no?

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

Valve won't release the source code

That doesn't mean you can't control how it works. Most people don't need sources of their Linux distros to use them as they want. It would be cool to have the source, but you wouldn't expect them to have an official maintained repo since they spend much more resources on actual hardware that needs this distro.

Steam client for sure is proprietary and it comes with the OS

Yeah it seems to also be the only thing that is proprietary in SteamOS too.

To play any game you have to install and run the proprietary Steam client and be logged in to an account.

Are you clueless or what? There are too many ways to do what you want with SteamOS. You can use offline mode, desktop mode, play pirated games in any mode, install any controller software you like. Finally, install another Linux distro on it, or Windows. But people buy Deck because of SteamOS mostly since it creates the intended (and expected) experience.

Wanna know why we aren't seeing many enthusiasts creating more handheld frontends for platforms like Deck? Yeah, not at all because the platform is locked behind DRM or other bs. But because the best experience most people expect is already available and it becomes better with updates.

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

They are not DRM free. They verify your ownership before letting you download games.

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

By that definition Steam is DRM free too. I can download tons of my games, pack and send them to you and they'll work. My rough estimate is that about half of all games are like that. Half of the remaining games rely on Steam environment for community or multiplayer functionality.

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

You can't easily make changes to a program

99% users won't ever need that. For cases when they do, they can find guides, modify settings or install software that does what they want.

This is not an excuse. What they are doing is unethical.

People don't need an excuse. They play their games and that's it.

it contains binary blobs without the source code

Any distro you download can do this exact thing and you wouldn't know for a long period, unless you spend enough time to compile the whole thing yourself, compare and research.

I was explaining to you how DRM works and why it's wrong

I consider myself knowledgeable but you surely chose a wrong example to teach people about DRM. Try some denuvo or eac maybe.

If you buy a Windows laptop, you can install any operating system on it too. That doesn't make Windows ethical.

Whatever that means, users don't care about it. Compared to others, Valve provides a lot more value in most of their solutions. They are hackable just enough to satisfy most enthusiasts.

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

but you still need the proprietary Steam client to download them

You do. But hey you end up with DRM free games you like so much. By the way why so you even want games? Aren't most of them unethical?

gog.com and itch.io prove that this can be done better.

Gog offline installers are also unethical, no?

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

You don't have to compile to know this. You can find the list of fully free distros here: https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

The distros being removed from this list mostly by requests from maintainers means it's not actively monitored or researched at all. So by not verifying it you put yourself on a mercy of other people. It will fail, if not already.

Console games on the other hand usually don't have DRM when you buy a physical copy.

That's because you have to use consoles to even read them. They contain hardware DRM and are far from being ethical.

But this doesn't stop us from trying to build a better world for ourselves and to try to convince others to care.

Am I missing something or you're thinking that starting with least offenders is a good idea?

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

What was removed?

Check the Historical section.

I don't know what hardware DRM means

It means hardware modules like chips containing the code that you'll have to do a lot of work to even dump, before trying to interpret and make use of it.
Physical games also mostly use storage that degrades over time and I consider it another form of DRM.

I don't know what you mean.

Why do you bash Valve but not any other company like Apple, Nvidia etc?

rdri , vor 2 Monaten

But to get there I have to use unethical proprietary software that I hate so much.

Have to use that to get more unethical software. I see no problem.

Who said I do?

Games don't come with the source code. It's unethical software by your definition.

This is why itch.io is better than gog.

Do they provide ethical installers?

rdri , vor 4 Monaten

due to the steam deck

You sure? Not proton?