Richard Stallman Says Steam will Destroy the Freedom of Linux

[Shawn Zipay]

Richard Stallman is the GNU Project founder and quite possibly one of the reasons why adoption of Linux will never take off with a larger audience. He voiced his concerns over Steam coming to the free and open world of Linux.

"I suppose that availability of popular non-free programs on GNU/Linux can boost adoption of the system. However, our goal goes beyond making this system a 'success'; its purpose is to bring freedom to the users. Thus, the question is how this development affects users' freedom."

So you want everything for free and for nothing to ever change on the platform? Or wait, is it freedom of choice that you want? Because if you take it that you want everything for free, that just paints you in a horrible light, perhaps even making some think that you just pirate everything. If it's freedom of choice that you want, then how is bringing more choice to Linux users a bad thing? Either way, this statement comes off as a touch absurd, and from what I gather from remarks made about Stallman, he isn't exactly regarded as the most "all there in the head" person.

This sort of thinking is why developers tend not to give a crap about developing for Linux and is probably not an ideology that gamers on Linux share. It's almost as if you can hear him screaming in his head, "get off my lawn," while waving a cane in the air.

(via Gamasutra)

[Stev0esque]

Re: Richard Stallman Says Steam will Destroy the Freedom of Linux

Wow, feels like a callback to Newells comments on windows 8...

[CptainCrunch]

Re: Richard Stallman Says Steam will Destroy the Freedom of Linux

"Freedom" :wee:

[nemes1s3000]

The time and effort that Valve is spending to develop games for Linux has been for nothing.

[Vreki]

Re: Richard Stallman Says Steam will Destroy the Freedom of Linux

The major free software packages are available for Windows too, and also a large number of nerd-tools.
And likewise, dear old Oracle will be happy to charge you a Gazillion dollars regardless of you running their products on a "free" platform.

[ChrisRiv91]

From my understanding, his idea of free is that all software should be open source and the user has the ability to change the code as they see fit. I think he sees Steams developments on the Linux platform as an encroachment of what his life's work has been, get developers to develop programs with open source. With Steam coming to Linux, there are going to be issues of software that the public isn't allowed to modify as they see fit.