Valve Is Making All Their Games Free To Debian Developers

That's a lot of non-Free software for Free Software advocates.

... and maybe the reverse; a lot of Debian developer talent handed over for free to a NON-free software company!

2c

The ability of a free operating system to run non-free software is somewhat of a killer feature.

I expect Valve to bring a whole lot to the table in terms of upstream patches to free software. We'll see how this goes.

In any event, if they abide by the license, it's all good.

Well, the Valve-developed OpenGL debugger will be fully FOSS. So already they are contributing. Debian will definitely benefit and so will Debian-derived distros.

I hear[1] that the thread about that on #debian-devel is even more heated than the systemd debate :)

[1] http://fenski.pl/2014/01/gift-for-debian-developers-from-val...

As I intimated in my Stone Soup thread, cost probably is not as big a factor as many Linux advocates believe. I know plenty of Windows users who are fanatically dedicated to that OS and never consider cost. The costly Win/tel hardware and office suite upgrades and security updates are not cheap, yet that rarely is considered in thoughts of conversion. Linux was never created to negate the profit capability to users. I won't even bring Apple into this arena! I would gladly pay for the freedom Linux provides. In fact I did. The very first 6 distros I tried were all paid for in cash from a commercial CD printer. That I now embrace only money free variants of FOSS software is more due to my being a poor old geezer on a fixed income. But, if I had to pay money (Red Hat come to mind) for a Linux distro, I would.