Sg3 on 27/7/2012 at 07:01

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Uhhh, no. No, Valve, it isn't. That isn't at all what open source is all about. Open source is more about giving the user as much liberty as possible, instead of making him a thrall to a wealthy monopoly with tightly-controlled systems. (Both Microsoft and Valve fall into the latter category.)

demagogue on 27/7/2012 at 09:36

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There's not even a "debate" here, since both things are on the same side ... Open source usually means both things... You have a core team that keeps making updates indefinitely to a thing, and you have individuals or offshoots playing around with their own branch projects. Some of the value is just practical... It's easier to build a team and bring new people in and maintain the documentation when everything is public. And then, yes, there's the ethos part where it's not under the thumb of some corporation that could close it on a whim or exploit it so just some asshole can install a jacuzzi on his deck, nevermind if it's actually a good development for the users.

I guess on the commercial side, it could mean a company could put a thing out and leave it to the users to develop it & document it from there; free labor & advertising and all that.

lost_soul on 27/7/2012 at 14:02

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Valve is already helping Intel improve performance in their drivers, so thanks for that.

Also, imagine what kinds of things MS can do if their integrated store becomes as big as Steam. Look to the past. Remember Halo 2, where they tried to get folks on Vista so they could play an (at the time) 3 year old game for an (at the time) >5 year old console that was already obsolete.

Renzatic on 27/7/2012 at 15:26

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Eh. Just think of it like this: if they get too crazy and stupid, they'll probably end up getting sued by the government again. I doubt MS would want that, considering all the harm it's caused them over the last 10 years. They're more likely to toe the line these days.

Sg3 on 28/7/2012 at 08:47

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"A is not the primary function of B" does not equal "A and B are mutually exclusive." Nice reading comprehension failure.

To explain further (which is surely a waste of time, because you evidently take pleasure from arguing on the Internet--just for the sake of arguing, I think): lots of people working together on something can be nice, but it isn't the main reason for open source. "Lots of people working together on something" also happens in closed source. Open source is primarily about not giving control to an individual or an exclusive group of people, but instead giving everyone the freedom to use and modify the software for themselves and for others. If open source coincidentally causes people to work together on something good, then all the better.

So, you see, your accusation that I arbitrarily disapprove of people working together on something is entirely baseless, and you were unreasonable to read that into what I said, because it was neither written, nor implied, nor believed.