Comment by emsign

> I am still surprised most Linux Distros haven't changed their package managers to allow for selling of proprietary solutions directly, fully opt-in by default of course.

Why would a bunch of volunteers put a ton of effort to create infrastructure so people (corporations, really) can make money?

Flathub is making inroads into having paid apps but they’re explicitly not a distribution really

> I am still surprised most Linux Distros haven't changed their package managers to allow for selling of proprietary solutions directly

I think you're alone in this.

> I am still surprised most Linux Distros haven't changed their package managers to allow for selling of proprietary solutions directly, fully opt-in by default of course.

One of the advantages of open source software is the ability to distribute said software with relatively few restrictions. It simplifies life for the maintainers of Linux distributions, those who manage Linux systems, the end user, and software developers. Making a package manager a retail product store would complicate things for everyone.

That said, the only thing preventing the distribution of proprietary software by most Linux distributions is policy. If a distribution wanted to do so, and the vendor's license allowed for permissive software distribution, they could do so. The vendor could implement their own mechanism for selling and distributing license keys. The advantage to them would be using a common software distribution method without having a middleman taking a cut. (Think shareware, or even physical software that included a license key.)

> I am still surprised most Linux Distros haven't changed their package managers to allow for selling of proprietary solutions directly, fully opt-in by default of course.

That's essentially being done with Flatpak.

Linux is largely still built on the old (and indeed, outdated) Unix trust model. The system itself is assumed to be trusted, and the primary security boundaries on the system are drawn between users. Since Linux package managers actually install and manage the base system as well as end-user software, anything the package manager installs is treated as part of "the distribution", and thus trusted. It's not a good idea to use such a thing to install proprietary, third-party software. The curation and vetting of the distro maintainers is actually vital here, and when you add a third party repo, you're giving it a lot of trust. At the same time, why would distro maintainers give free labor to integrate proprietary software? Most are not super interested in that, and even if they are, they don't generally have the rights necessary to redistribute, let alone modify, proprietary software. On the other hand, those third-party developers and publishers don't want to master and manage a half-dozen different packaging formats, and various other packaging ecosystem differences that vary across distros.

Flatpak is positioned to solve all of these problems, and it's no secret that enabling (relatively) responsible use of proprietary software is one of the goals. It enabled distributing a small number of large, common runtimes of which different versions can safely coexist on the same system, addressing fragmentation. To reduce the amount of trust given to installed apps, it separates what it installs from the base system, and offers sandboxing to help limit the permissions granted to an app that still runs under the OS user of the person using it. And it supports third-party repos that publishers can run themselves.

I'm not currently a daily Flatpak user, so idk how much the current reality lines up with that goal, but that's where the movement towards this is on the Linux desktop today.

It makes zero sense for traditional distros to have payments. They exclusively repackage software. You want direct to customer platforms (Snap, Flathub, etc).

> I am still surprised most Linux Distros haven't changed their package managers to allow for selling of proprietary solutions directly, fully opt-in by default of course.

It's not "zero cost" but plenty of proprietary software with native linux clients will do things like set up Ubuntu package repos. You're pasting a handful of lines in the command line (or for the fancier stuff downloading the isntaller that does that for you) and you're off to the races

There might be a boutique business that could help with installer/package repo mgmt for people wanting to ship linux clients and take advantage of the auto-updaters and the like. Maybe.

Is there a need for selling of solutions via the package manager? Most of the software that I install that's paid asks for a license key or asks you to sign into your already paid for account.

Elementary has paid software.

The package manager can't help with subscription schemes based on short lived licenses.

> I would absolutely pay good money for high quality Linux compatible software, after all, its not free as in free beer.

What software are you looking for?

About the only thing seriously lacking is a proper competitor for Photoshop and Illustrator, really.

proprietary != commercial

You can have free commercial software, and proprietary shareware, the opposites are oxymorons.

Steam with Proton is simply incredible.

And now it doesn't even split games in "Linux" vs "Windows"; it simply assumes all games run on Linux. And they mostly do! Though to be fair I had to tweak a couple to make them run, and Space Marine II absolutely refuses to play past the cutscene, but most other games "just work".

WINE crawled so that Proton could run.

Like even in 2014 WINE worked well enough for most games for me. Proton just made it utterly effortless, and lets me run AAA games like RDR2 and CP2077.

I'm still wondering why Apple hasn't taken a few billion of their trillions and just built/bought a Proton style layer for macOS.

The computing power is there, we just need the ability to run Windows-only games on Macs with a single click.

Im not super familiar with the space.

Is the only reason for needing Proton is to do direct x api translations?

> Most gamers don't give a shit about openness

I don't think this is a given. I think most gamers so far haven't cared about openness because pragmatically, it didn't matter for them.

Now they're seeing the long-term effect of not caring about that though, which is why we're suddenly seeing a movement of gamers moving to Linux, and trying to get others to move with them, because they realize the importance now, as their desktops are slowly collapsing over Microsoft's decision to let AI do all the programming, and having zero QA before releasing stuff to the public.

> Most gamers don't give a shit about openness.

With the Windows 11 debacle, many are learning first hand about what closed ecosystems force on you. It seems every feed I have that has gaming as an interest has an article about Linux as the future. Clearly someone is reading these articles.

Of course they don’t care about F/OSS — the vast majority of games are closed proprietary software. The small minority of Linux gamers are there for anti-Windows reasons rather than pro-Linux or F/OSS reasons. Which given Microsoft is now signaling a pull back on AI and a gear to improved performance/quality in Windows, if those anti-reasons evaporate, you’ll have the more frustrated Linux gamers potentially move back.

Linux needs a positive reason for Linux rather than relying on anti-Windows reasons (and there are, but I see those reasons outside of the gaming space).

There are 1B Windows 11 devices. Granted not all are for games, but it is not an unpopular OS by the numbers alone.

If we care about the future of computing, the future of consumer rights, we need to MAKE THEM GIVE A SHIT.

Cory Doctorow is doing a very good job of that, but there is only one Cory Doctorow.

The pretense is security, PC software attestation is already in the workings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572

Until it fully supports multiplayer which doesn't seem to be a thing for any major game or studio, it's a nothingburger for the majority of people.

> Most gamers don't give a shit about openness.

Most gamers are idiots. They are okay paying exorbitant sums for broken games and most have no problem with forced rootkits.

I don't think gaming is or should be driving people to Linux.

Microslop turning their OS into a data mining and ad platform should and is pushing normal, rational people to Linux. But, most gamers don't care about such things as long as they are getting their sweet, sweet dopamine hit.

Ironically, lower framerates(even though they are higher than the human eye and nervous system can perceive) on Windows 11 might push gamers onto Linux.They still want their rootkits, though.

It is always the dumbest reasons that get gamers upset.

but they do care about AI slop and owning their own system.

a lot of FOSS is an abstraction but even the rubes can realize that they're being spied on, that Big Tech wants to be Big Brother, and is enshittifying their experience to that end.

Gamers generally game on PC because they like building their system. Otherwise they would use a PS5 Pro or whatever.

The PC is an “open” platform in that you can buy and choose your own hardware. Intel vs AMD vs Nvidia, Seagate vs Western Digital, etc….

Using open software isn’t really more than a few steps from that. Being able to pick how your system works and customizing it to your liking is basically the software version of picking your PC parts. Gamers also like to run all sorts of software to rice there Windows desktops and will install all sorts of abominations tha mess with the Windows desktop shell. Much easier and fun to rice a Linux desktop.

Linux enthusiasts need to just learn how to appeal to their sensibilities. Valve knows, and they are very effective at getting people excited for a Linux based gaming platform. They’ve also proven they can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Sure, they won’t give a crap about the source code but there is more to libre software than just being able to change the source code if you want.

We’re also at an inflection point where people are getting really really really annoyed with companies like Microsoft treating them like lab rats and shoving Copilot down their throat when they don’t want it. There is a chink in the armor; people are opening up to the idea of alternative platforms where you don’t have to worry about any of that garbage.

> making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic

This will never happen because projects will just be forked.

The most stable Linux API is Wine/Win32.

There are many older games I can't install on Linux anymore, because they used an older SDL1 or some particular X11 version or some GPU driver that's no longer available for the current kernel.

The exact same game, Windows version, can be installed and runs flawlessly on both Linux and Windows.

So, native Vulkan executables? Sure, if they can continue to run in 20 years.

Targeting DirectX and Win32 has become targeting Linux with how good Wine/Proton have gotten. I am able to play brand new games with no Linux support absolutely perfectly through proton. These games run better than games that had linux support actually ran on linux.

UE can be crosscompiled on a windows host to linux and then it's a few checkboxes to enable the vulkan RHI.

Clang can target windows just fine afaik, although I'm sure the whole process could be improved.

That said, as long as windows is the bigger more profitable market I wouldnt expect a switch, unless the dev tooling situation becomes dramatically better on linux

The only thing that will make native executables attractive is users. A lot of users. Much more than Macos, seeings as few bother with Mac clients either and there's not even a Wine equivalent.

nothing stopping them from developing on Linux workstations, cross-compiling to Windows, and testing with Wine/Proton. saves them Windows license fees too.

The top played games are not the ones made this year

I don't see what the problem is with game studios buying Windows licenses.

Sure, the platform is enshittified spyware, but that only impacts the game devs on their work machines (which are probably locked down to protect secret IP anyway). Microsoft has basically lost control over their own platform at this point. The game studios have been refusing to migrate to new APIs until after they're working well in Wine.

If the rest of us can run something decent at home, that's a > 99% solution to the problem.

Put another way, for a long time, you needed to buy an SGI workstation or whatever to make assets for PC games. That didn't hold the DOS ecosystem back.

As for the ABI:

The Linux kernel has started adding syscalls to enable native-like execution of Windows binaries, and game devs are testing with Linux at launch. In the worst case, these are only used by Wine. In the best case, some good ideas from the Windows kernel will be exposed to regular Linux user-land.

I don't see how it really matters if the binaries are targeting libc, musl, or an opensource win32 / win64 layer. It's free software regardless. End-users are getting better backward compatibility under Linux than Microsoft is supporting under Windows. That one victory goes a long way towards winning the entire war.

On top of that, Linux is starting to show better framerates than Windows in the same hardware. It's not 100% of the time, but it's enough that you should run the game in both places if you really care to get that extra few percent out of the hardware.

Frankly, WINE/Proton are likely more consistent targets for game dev/testing... I wish they'd at least do that much more often than not. At least smooth out any rough edges.

I would say it's a lot different, since it's an API implementation, not hardware emulation.

Things have become crazy, indeed. I still kick myself for not buying the SSD I was eyeing in December, which has now went form 250 € to almost 400. I'm already maxed on RAM since a year ago, bought 64 GB for a fraction of today's cost.

But I still feel like we're still in the eye of the storm, and things will improve. Remember late 2020 when every useless GPU would command a fortune? I remember buying a used RX 5600 XT with a warranty somewhere around October for 300 €. A month later, it would cost at least twice as much, if you could even find one in stock. Last December I looked a bit at prices, and the current equivalent model (9060xt 16 GB) was roughly around 300 again, and I don't think it has gone up since. I understand there may be a shortage of equivalent Nvidia GPUs from a thread the other day, so this may change soon, again. I have no use for top-of-the-line models, so I'm not familiar with their prices and availability.

My next GPU will be from AMD, not just because I'm in the process of switching to Linux but I have a gut feeling that Nvidia doesn't see desktop GPUs as their priority anymore and support might diminish faster.

Thing is, you don't need a GPU.

One of the major x86 manufacturers makes CPUs with integrated graphics that is good enough for gaming. It's in "Steam's hardware line" btw.

Oh yes, AAAs maybe won't run on that. But they're boring af anyway. And predatory. So not much loss.

On the one hand, hardware prices went up.

On the other hand, they didn't go up as much as our grocery bill and other bills. So, they're not keeping up with inflation, at least around here.