Some people seem to fail to understand that Steam is yet another package manager, but this time filled with only non-free stuff, in a way that has so much DRM it's unusable in any ways but the intended one.
Steam on linux is, I think, a big problem for us. There will be dpkg (or whatever your distro chose). This one will install apps in a way that is consistent with the system, and with POSIX. Then, there will be steam. Steam is used because it is the only way to get apps people want. I do not own a game I paid for on Steam. Not even in the way I own non-free apps like Alfred or Ableton Live. I don't have a right to use them, I am merely allowed to do so.
I understand that it is in Valves interest to lock us down like this. But in this case, their interest is against ours, the users.
Steam shouldn't be a problem for people who use free software: just don't buy software from Steam, same as always.
If Steam convinces more people to install GNU/Linux I'd say that's a net win. People are going to be using nonfree software anyway, so they might as well do it on a free operating system.
That's just a side effect of their business model - it's fairly evident that it's a higher priority for them to provide a great user experience than to lock them down.
Just yesterday I was reminded of this, when reformatting my computer and reinstalling everything. I forgot to deactivate keys on some of my work software before doing so, and spent hours emailing to get them back. Meanwhile, the whole license/ownership concept of all my games on Steam was completely abstracted away through their install-anywhere-as-many-times policy and Steam Cloud.
One day I hope that I will be able to link all my DvDs and music and films into a steam style library, and stop caring about backing them up, and keeping the sodding disks.
Regardless of horror stories about banned accounts, the steam model is one I find infinitely more attractive than even itunes.
Someone else could do this right now. That could be a reasonable startup idea. I’m not experienced enough to know but this seems like it could be in the ballpark of sounding like a bad idea but not being (akin to what PG describes in his black swan essay).
I just had to register to point out that your statement about the " install-anywhere-as-many-times" blanket policy is incorrect. It's true that all of Valve's games do this and it also might be true that all the new software (not games) being added will need to follow this policy (I'm not sure). It certainly isn't true for large amounts of AAA games already on Steam though.
Developers and publishers are allowed to add any DRM they want on top of Steam, and frequently do. So you can purchase something through Steam, which can have Securom, Tages, Windows LIVE or any other DRM scheme. This includes limited machine installations which sometimes offer deactivation, but only if you specifically uninstall and deactivate them. So in your reformatting use-case, depending on what games you have purchased, you may end up in the same situation.
Basically, you incorrectly assumed Steam is an alternative to other DRM measures, when in fact it's quite often[1] used on top of other DRM schemes. If you don't believe me, simply check the store pages of most major Ubisoft[2] titles. I just picked Anno 2070 (because I know it has it) and in the infobox on the right hand side:
3rd-party DRM: Solidshield Tages SAS
3 machine activation limit
[1]Among AAA titles that is, I have yet to see it in any indie titles.
[2]Pretty much the worst player in the industry when it comes to DRM.
I have for a long time avoided steam because of this perception of it being an DRM loaded bunch of crap. Then I had actually done some analysis on steam and found out, that the whole thing does not do anything that can be called DRM, it is in fact really an package manager and framework for network/social functionality. As mostly fulltime linux user and developer I´d rather see software from steam than software using flex-lm (which is the case for most commercial software for linux now and great pain in the ass).
Unless the steam process shuts down unexpectedly, or you suddenly lose internet connection, or your computer reboots too quickly for Steam to keep up. Then Steam will decide it needs to ... validate something ... with the online servers before allowing offline mode. Far from idea.
That is up to the games - they can choose to hook into Steam's API for that DRM, or roll their own DRM (or both, thank you Ubisoft), or they can ship without any protection.
To be fair, Steam doesn't install apps the proper way on Windows either. Start menu shortcuts actually open Steam and then launch the game. Uninstallers? Launch Steam.
It varies from package to package. Many Steam games are installed with a normal Windows MSI that just targets your `$STEAM/steamapps/common` folder instead of `/Program Files (x86)`, and these packages can be removed using the Control Panel or CCleaner.
There are plenty of Steam packages that use the Steam infrastructure in a much more integral manner, however. These packages (like TF2 or Half-Life 2) are stored in compressed and encrypted cache files, and install only some components into a directory like `$STEAM/steamapps/$USERNAME/`. These packages can only be removed using the Steam application. While package stubs may be placed for the Control Panel to manage, the "uninstall" action will just call the Steam "Delete Local Content" action.
Devil's advocate: DRM and a convenient buying experience mean a lower barrier to creating a business model and getting a paycheck, meaning more software gets written, which is good for users.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like cloud licensing or DRM either, and I won't be using Steam for anything but games. But there is a place for such "software vending machines" as Steam and the Mac App Store, particularly at the low end of the market.
In the article, OP explains that they (there should be a gender neutral singular pronoun in english) are in middle of analyzing data from a certain income group who are used to getting around the web, who handle both desktops and phones. It's in the first or second paragraph!
(there should be a gender neutral singular pronoun in english)
There are a number of attempts at this but I've found Spivak pronouns (specifically the Elverson set) to be a particularly elegant solution. The easiest description is "the 'they'-form pronouns without the 'th'". Thus, your first sentence would become "In the article, OP explains that ey ([...]) are in middle of analyzing data from a certain income group who are used to getting around the web, who handle both desktops and phones."
Anecdotally, I've found most people seem to understand what I'm saying online and offline people either understand me or think I'm saying "they" and understand my point anyway. Plus, this pronoun set sounds more natural than other constructions and is easy to remember since it's keyed to a set you already know.
I used to resist using the singular "they" for one person (preferring Spivak pronouns) until someone pointed out to me that documented use of singular they for someone of unknown gender dates back to the 1600s.
And, perhaps most importantly, people will understand you when you say or write it.
This is without doubt terrible, we all know that. But it is not uncommon that web services leak passwords, so common that we are quite accustomed to it and expect it to happen from time to time.
This is not the right way to deal with the problem.
Authentication security for cloud services should be something that sits in the browser, not (only) on the server. This is done by 2factor auth, but that too relies too much on the server admin being good with security.
Maybe one solution would be that the router everyone has at home doubles as file server, and that all webapps files are stored there instead on the remote server? That would move the responsibility away from web devs (who often behave irresponsibly) to the ones writing the os for the router.
There are of course many ideas that are better than mine, but to let web devs have control of this is evidently not a good one. Something needs to change.
Seeing this made me really realize that Google is huge. Huger than I could imagine.
I remember vividly when I first saw Google.com. I think it was at the end of the millennia. They got bigger in small increments, but now they are enormous.
It would be far easier if they simply sold the new version.
Relying on the good graces of the user population hasn't prevented them from integrating Amazon advertisements, and won't likely prevent other bad decisions in the future.
Without the Banshee developers, Ubuntu wouldn't have Banshee to ship, so it's not particularly debatable who deserves the lion's share. Especially considering Ubuntu's incredibly weak contributions to open source in general. What Ubuntu did there was tacky. If they had handled it better (discussing it with upstream and working out a profit sharing scheme), at least it would've been slightly less disgusting.
The music lens searches thru your music library. When the files containing the music are outside of the library, they are treated as files, not as songs. Is it really so strange?
How do you define "Music library"? Is it a set of all files imported to rhythmbox? But what if I use Banshee? Or, as I've been doing for the past few months, I use cvlc with files and folders typed on the commamd line? What would you consider my music library then? The whole concept of a music library seems passing strange in a world where files are everything.
Yes, it is really so strange. Or actually, it is really so brain-dead.
I am working on a search utility at this moment.
The first thing you want to do is figure what you're doing and adjust to your user's style rather than forcing them to adjust to your application's ideas. That is one key to a "it just works" application. Anything else is more-or-less stuck in the nineties.
Why would Canonical do that? This is one of the streams that help pay designers and developers. When I bought my phone I did not complain about not giving the money to EFF or GNU. When I bought my car I did not wish for a slider about donating some to Audi OR Costco OR give it to the gov. It's just, well, not something a bussiness would do.
Because Canonical has repeatedly screwed this up. Remember when they "took money away" from some music player. Now this. Canonical is basically at odds with the providers of software for its platform (eg browsers, music players).
So either they can be an adversary, or they can work with them. It is a far better story that Google kickbacks for the Firefox usage on Ubuntu go to more than just Canonical.
You didn't buy a phone or a car (both of which are hardware and have large per unit BOM and manufacturing costs) from a company that is community oriented and where the vast majority of the components were provided for free by others in the spirit of openness, freedom and community.
Now Canonical can (and has the legal right to) take every cent and modify everything so they are the only ones to gain. And in a short term oriented business sense that is the right thing to do. But it doesn't help in the long term. Canonical depends heavily on its users and its suppliers.
If you're referring to the price, well, that was covered by another comment.
Ubuntu's full of non-free software and binary blobs. This is why it pretty much works out of the box. There's little fucking around with drivers, non-free codecs, etc.
In any event, adding non-free "premium" features doesn't make the operating system itself any less free.
Is this in any way different than having Google as default search engine, taking a share of music sold via the music library or taking a share of what software is sold via the in-os-app-store?
Nothing shitty, I bet many (not you guys who read HN, but non-power users) will like this feature. I don't think I'll disable it.
Steam on linux is, I think, a big problem for us. There will be dpkg (or whatever your distro chose). This one will install apps in a way that is consistent with the system, and with POSIX. Then, there will be steam. Steam is used because it is the only way to get apps people want. I do not own a game I paid for on Steam. Not even in the way I own non-free apps like Alfred or Ableton Live. I don't have a right to use them, I am merely allowed to do so.
I understand that it is in Valves interest to lock us down like this. But in this case, their interest is against ours, the users.