https://piped.video/watch?v=KW6E51xXcWc for Valveās contributions, by a KDE dev. According to a 2022 interview they pay over 100 open source developers working full-time on various important open source projects, from Mesa to Vulkan to AMD GPU drivers to KDE Plasma to gamescope to Wine to DXVK and VKD3D to you name it. The whole desktop ecosystem is benefitting from this, not just the Steam Deck, and not just gaming.
I get that proprietary software and DRM is a general problem, and Steam is part of that problem, but completely getting rid of that is simply a battle for another time, further in the future. The first battle is to get Windows users abandon their Microsoft/Apple cages, and thatās a win thatās actually within reach now. Windows also becomes worse by itself, further accelerating the change. Thatās important, because running a proprietary OS is still much worse than running some proprietary applications or games on a free OS. A closed OS completely shifts control away from the user, leaving only what the developer allows you to do, and it allows the dev to always push his or her agenda by favoring applications from the same developer, and allowing the developer to establish proprietary APIs and libraries like DirectX which was problematic for the competition for quite some time. Establishing Linux as a neutral, user-controlled, non-proprietary, much more trustworthy OS is the first step away from that. And to reach that, users will have to be able to run at least some of their usual applications or games on Linux as well. Otherwise they simply wouldnāt switch in the first place. For a regular user, using Linux cannot feel like being a downgrade. A regular user does not understand the ethics behind closed and open source and will never choose a worse free option over a better proprietary one. That either means the free options must become true rivals, or - which is the easier goal for now - the proprietary apps have to run on Linux just as well as people are used to.
A āwarā isnāt being won all at once instantly, but by winning several smaller battles after one another. Which takes time.
Itās not about giving up. Itās about continuing the fight while also making sure that people have real, tangible alternatives in the meantime. Look at GNU/Hurd - it might just as well never grow into something useful or competitive. Donāt put all your eggs in one basket. The first āgoalā is to get rid of Windows, and Windows is for the first time in like 30 years losing one of its pillars (gaming) to Linux (and by extension also MacOS, because every non-Windows OS profits from the developments). It doesnāt matter if the overall situation isnāt perfect. Itās still real, tangible progress. Also the market share jump from < 1% (since pretty much forever) to 4% recently.
Not by itself maybe, but in combination with Linux becoming more mainstream-viable for sure. Iāve heard from so many long-time Windows users lately that theyāre considering switching to Linux in the near future. I donāt think Windows is in it for long, except on business desktops because theyāre usually vendor-locked-in with special applications. Maybe a generation after that, when home users arenāt all guaranteed familiar with Windows anymore as they are today. I also donāt think people will take much more abuse, the EU is also pushing back hard against abusive US companies. Also, if the AI copilot stuff blows up or doesnāt become popular enough, Microsoft will have put all their eggs in one basket in vain. Currently it seems more like a very expensive gimmick - who needs an AI admin copilot to clean up the trash bin, change font size or toggle dark mode? Sure, youāll be able to talk to your bot, but everything you do will be harvested and the gain you get from it is almost irrelevant. Maybe if you have a disability or so it could be cool.
I donāt think it would. It would be a mixture of libre software and propirietary software, which is better than 100% proprietary software still. The most important component is the OS itself.
Yes, we must continue advocating for libre software. However, itās still time to celebrate the beginning of the end of Windows.
We will keep enough freedom. Itās a gradient. The world isnāt black and white. Playing a proprietary game or playing back a BluRay on an otherwise fully free system is still much more progress than running 100% proprietary sofware. Change also wonāt come in a perfect way. First, desktop Linux needs to fight back on equal footing against Windows, and that (unfortunately) means it needs to be able to run whatever proprietary apps or games the users still need. Because otherwise they wouldnāt switch and your utopia would remain an utopia without any measurable progress towards it.