Posted on Wednesday, August 01 2012 @ 9:53 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
GNU founder and PC-rights activist Richard Stallman stated that Valve's decision to add Ubuntu support for its Steam service might encourage Linux adoption, but he believes that selling DRM-based games on Linux is unethical and that it limits freedom to its users.
The move has been seen much more positively from the Linux community, which is mostly ignored by major commercial software developers. Most people see the move as a turning point toward making Linux more popular, but Stallman disagrees and says that closed source games are "unethical because they deny freedom to its users". Stallman added:
Any GNU/Linux distro that comes with software to offer these games will teach users that the point is not freedom. Nonfree software in GNU/Linux distros already works against the goal of freedom. Adding these games to a distro would augment that effect.
Stallman does agree that efforts by companies such as Valve could boost the adoption numbers of Linux, saying:
It might encourage GNU/Linux users to install these games, and it might encourage users of the games to replace Windows with GNU/Linux. My guess is that the direct good effect will be bigger than the direct harm.
Source: TweakTown
