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Arch Linux and Valve Collaboration (lists.archlinux.org)

submitted 2 months ago by Aatube@kbin.melroy.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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We are excited to announce that Arch Linux is entering into a direct collaboration with Valve. Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers.

This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed-up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors. We are incredibly grateful for Valve to make this possible and for their explicit commitment to help and support Arch Linux.

These projects will follow our usual development and consensus-building workflows. [RFCs] will be created for any wide-ranging changes. Discussions on this mailing list as well as issue, milestone and epic planning in our GitLab will provide transparency and insight into the work. We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on this mailing list as work progresses.

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[+] masterspace@lemmy.ca -11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (76 children)

I'd like to see a Sankey graph of where Valve's money goes before I praise them that much for helping out a Linux distribution a bit.

Lots of major companies like Microsoft and IBM also contribute to Linux, it doesn't make them saints nor even necessarily compare to what they get for using the volunteer dev work inside Linux.

Gabe Newell is a billionaire, Steam is a defacto monopoly that objectively charges more than they have to, and literally everyone who works at Valve is in the 1%. Let's not fall over ourselves dick-riding them.

[–] Giooschi@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Lots of major companies like Microsoft and IBM also contribute to Linux, it doesn't make them saints nor even necessarily compare to what they get for using the volunteer dev work inside Linux.

Most of those companies actually contribute to the kernel or to foundational software used on servers, but few contribute to the userspace for desktop consumers on the level that Valve does.

[+] masterspace@lemmy.ca -6 points 2 months ago (9 children)

So?

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

People more readily appreciate things that obviously directly affect them.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And the Linux Kernel which powers the whole thing directly effects them, so we should all praise Microsoft and IBM like we praise Valve right?

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Userspace affects users much more. I value getting Wayland color management support much more than the following kernel gobblygook lifted straight from https://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges:

Summary: This release includes suppor for x86 FRED, which is a new way of transitioning between CPU ring privileves; it also includes support for creating pidfds for threads; support for BPF arenas, which is a sparse shared memory region between the BPF programs and user space; and BPF tokens, which allow delegating functionality to less privileged programs; host support for AMD Secure Nested Paging; support for weighted interleaveing memory policies; support for a FUSE passthrough mode that makes regular file I/O faster; and a new device mapper VDO deduplication target.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

So?

Just because you don't understand electrical engineering doesn't make it less valuable then paint. If Valve is a saint for contributing to Linux then so is Microsoft and IBM and we should all dick ride Microsoft and IBM like the Valve dick riders in this thread.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The point was "People more readily appreciate things that obviously directly affect them." The only ways that directly affects users are improved execution times and footprints that users won't notice. So no, we should not all praise MS and IBM like we praise Valve, especially when Valve also contributes to the Linux kernel.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So basically "we should all be little dumb dumbs who praise the shiny bauble in front of us, not the actual work and effort that goes into creating something".

Interesting point.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Are you saying that creating drastic usability improvements don't involve work or effort? You'd rather get a CPU 2 generations newer instead of a federated social media platform?

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Are you saying that creating literally all the code that make those usability improvements possible is not worthy of praise?

Do you only praise the window washer and not the architect or construction worker who built the building? Are you really sitting here trying to praise surface level sheen over the actual infratstructure and bones?

UX is important but so is the literal foundation it's built on. If Valve deserves praise as a saint for their Linux contributions, then so does Microsoft and IBM. If that makes you uncomfortable, the lesson to learn is to stop dick riding Valve, not that you need to praise IBM.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 0 points 2 months ago

Are you saying that creating literally all the code that make those usability improvements possible is not worthy of praise?

No, but Microsoft and IBM didn't create that code.

Do you only praise the window washer and not the architect or construction worker who built the building?

That's not a good analogy. The above-ground building is userspace, the foundation and the window washer are the kernel.

UX is important but so is the literal foundation it's built on.

I'm not dissenting against that. However, the Linux kernel's foundation has been built to a point where recent contributions to userspace dwarf that to the kernel. Remember, we're thanking valve for the modern Linux desktop gaming experience. Next thing I know you're going to go on a diatribe against System76 as well. When I buy a bauble, you're going to chastise me for praising the designer instead of the plastic worker.

And again, Valve also contributes to the kernel, so they're definitely much more worthy of praise, especially without doing Microsoft's shady stuff.

This has become boring, and I'm not going to reply further unless you come up with an argument worthy enough for a high school debate club, especially since you've recently been following Fann Tzu's "just downvote and don't reply".

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