upvote
Valve drives significant development of compatibility layers for Linux for the sake of gaming. Their customer base is anything but small. There is potential for this kernel stuff to spill into the entire Linux ecosystem. It was bad enough having to deal with nvidia. I really don't want other companies screwing up the kernel.
reply
again fighting against windmills, valve isn't even mentioned in the article. Valve's anti-cheat for CS2 is user-mode.

Do you have evidence valve is working to infect the linux kernel for everyone?

reply
Realistically I don't see how Valve can avoid this. They want all those games on Steam Deck and the new console. Game devs want KAC. Therefore Valve can either provide them with some way to implement KAC - which effectively requires a "signed kernel / drivers only", same as on Windows - or tell them to go away. Why would they do the latter?

Mind you, it doesn't mean that the Linux kernel will be "infected for everyone". It means that we'll see the desktop Linux ecosystem forking into the "secure" Linux which you don't actually have full control of but which you need to run any app that demands a "secure" environment (it'll start with KAC but inevitably progress to other kinds of DRM such as video streaming etc). Or you can run Linux that you actually control, but then you're missing on all those things. Similar to the current situation with mainline Android and its user-empowering forks.

reply
> we'll see the desktop Linux ecosystem forking into the "secure" Linux

> Or you can run Linux that you actually control, but then you're missing on all those things

We cannot allow this stuff to be normalized. We can't just sit by and allow ourselves to be discriminated against for the crime of owning our own devices. We should be able to have control and have all of those nice things.

Everything is gonna demand "secure" Linux. Banks want it because fraud. Copyright monopolists want it because copyright infringement. Messaging services want it because bots. Government wants it because encryption. At some point they might start demanding attestation to connect to the fucking internet.

If this stuff becomes normal it's over. They win. I can't be the only person who cares about this.

reply
It has already become normal on mobile, which is where most users are.

You're not wrong - this is a very bad outcome! - but I'm afraid the battle has already been lost.

reply
Streaming services already have a solution for environments where they can't run DRM - crap quality stream. My solution to their solution? torrents.

People can dual boot, what's wrong with a special gaming linux distribution?

reply
From what I've read they actually tried to push back against it. I'm just saying this stuff is coming to our systems and should be resisted.
reply