There Is No Doubt, Steam Is Coming To Linux!

[Svartalf]

Again, the ball is and will remain in Valve's hands. Even if this was an announced and public beta test, people would tinker around with it.

Indeed, it's in their court. However, I don't think they'd mind it as much if it were a public beta (though they WOULD mind... )- this is just pushing our luck to no real advantage on things.

[d2kx]

Just like any company there are manager-types, people who won't understand why you are tinkering with an unreleased product. Those people will automatically jump to whatever their worst case scenario is. So, I would imagine that they will likely believe that you are trying to figure out how the client works in order to get games for free. All of this talk about the DMCA is not going to help. If they start to believe that making a Linux client makes the reverse engineering task easier (even though it doesn't, the same tools exist for Windows and Mac) then those people might panic and pull the plug, no matter how much their engineers try to reassure them.

This is correct and applies to pretty much every (game) company.

But not for Valve. I see you haven't been following what they did, what they said and how they work over the years.

[Setlec]

Just like any company there are manager-types, people who won't understand why you are tinkering with an unreleased product. Those people will automatically jump to whatever their worst case scenario is. So, I would imagine that they will likely believe that you are trying to figure out how the client works in order to get games for free. All of this talk about the DMCA is not going to help. If they start to believe that making a Linux client makes the reverse engineering task easier (even though it doesn't, the same tools exist for Windows and Mac) then those people might panic and pull the plug, no matter how much their engineers try to reassure them.

If my memory serves me right, Valve already had such situation when Hackers stole HL2 source back in 2k3... They Might not have turned the page yet... I think that if they did release those files as Beta, I don't think that they would pull the plug. But as there is no official announcement for those files, it's in their right to pull the plug once and for all! And that will make me very angry, specially because some were having FUN and that can cost us (Linux users/players) the privilege of having a better gaming source (as in location to grab new games and stuff). steam is closed source and proprietary, Valve can do anything they want, I'm sure that you those guys who were having FUN creates a game or whatever piece of software, they won't be glad if people started to to do the very for FUN. Will they be happy? I guess not.

[Koorac]

Emailing him questions is useless. He's not gonna reply.

I emailed him useful files, the patches. Also, he probably won't read anything till tomorrow. And even still, I don't think he would be allowed to email me back about it as that could violate whatever NDAs he could be under.

Rest assured, I'll be monitoring my server logs for hits from Valve IPs to the patch files though.

Seriously, why should they even look at binary patches. They are of absolutely no use to a developer unless you tell him where the problem is in the source code.

[KameZero]

Seriously, why should they even look at binary patches. They are of absolutely no use to a developer unless you tell him where the problem is in the source code.

If they can't figure out where they need to look for a problem in their source from a fix in the asm code, then it seems unlikely they could manager to get even one client running.

[Midler]

Oh...and even if it's just a "trivial" patch and you're not committing an infringement... You're taking the control away from Valve in a way that they're very likely not going to like. The likely reason these files are in a place we can find them (Repeat to yourselves, "this isn't public access...just because I can download them doesn't make them 'public'...") is that they're in a closed beta test on the full, live production system in preparation for release.

What good is it going to DO you if you've no games to play on it? You'll have to jump through hoops with WINE anyhow without native titles- and Steam, while it's less effective, does work within WINE right now.

What end are you guys thinking you're accomplishing by this?

They KNOW that we want games- they wouldn't be doing this in the first place if they didn't know that. Hacking on this this way isn't going to tell them something they didn't already know, save that they can't control the situation in a manner they'd like for it to be.

http://store.steampowered.com/public...m_client_linux

Notice -> public <- in that url?

And lost control of situation...i dont think so. Its their client, and they can still remove it whenever they want to.

"
You: Hello, we are interesting customers. Actually, we are so interested we can't even wait. So, where can we start?

Valve: [Kick in face]
"

As valve hasnt said anything about Linux client, ppl try to find their own proofs =) Its only their bad if they close Linux client down because of a mather like this...

[mastertheknife]

As valve hasnt said anything about Linux client, ppl try to find their own proofs =) Its only their bad if they close Linux client down because of a mather like this...

Tinkering with unreleased stuff happens on every platform, not just linux.
Plus, it seems Valve's doesn't care, all it takes is a single update to steamui.so to prevent the patch from applying.

[Sir_Brizz]

Nerds have been hijacking the OSX client for two weeks and that project is still continuing!

[mastertheknife]

Nerds have been hijacking the OSX client for two weeks and that project is still continuing!

True and even worse, some of them found out how to login without the need for a beta account.

[birdie]

I'm a 100% sure Valve doesn't care that we are tinkering around with publicly available files.

Read again, they are publicly available.

Also I'm quite sure they've already noticed that we are actively downloading those files and since they keep silent, that means they are content with this situation.

I believe there's nothing to discuss here, let's just wait till the Linux client becomes more mature and I do want to believe Source engine is being ported in order to run on Linux.

That will means there are two large game developers which believe in the Linux desktop. Sigh.

Linux is almost a 20 y.o. OS and there are two commercial game publishers ... it's really pathetic.