And I don't know why you would want to 'kill' windows. What Valve is doing is great, its making more competition, that puts pressure on Microsoft to be competitive too. But killing off windows completely hurts everyone. No competition is bad.
Who the hell is competing with windows? Linux can’t meet its standards, and its main draws are being cheap and able to run popular software when macs can’t (I’m being reductive, but it doesn’t really matter much for my point). It already has no competitor. Each OS has its niches where it clearly excels, and they aren’t looking to be competing in the future.
Note, I use all three; I’m unsatisfied with all three. If this is personal, it’s not against just Microsoft.
So, Valve + literally anyone but Apple or Microsoft is amazing news in my book. GNU/Linux/whoever else benefits can use all the help they can get.
It's not cheap for personal computing, most people using linux buy windows laptops and run linux on it.
Google already has a near-monopoly in the smartphone space and it's much better than the Windows monopoly on the desktop. Android being built on tons of GPL software means they have to contribute changes back to the benefit of the FOSS ecosystem. It also means you can easily make/use a custom Android ROM without any proprietary components.
Like half the useful apps have problems running without Google Apps being installed. GCM errors, apps refusing to run if the Play Store is not installed, Google making decisions that impact ROM developers. That's what I read about it anyway and discouraged me from trying AOSP without Gapps.
> it's much better than the Windows monopoly on the desktop
Steam is DRM. Gabe bus factor: Microsoft buys Steam and renames it to GFWL Redux
Nitpick: Steam offers DRM to developers who want it, it does not force games to use DRM. Many games installed via Steam run completely without Steam. The DRM-free games are mostly indie games.
I'm not sure why you think Google is better from the proprietary surveillance point of view than Microsoft either. Being that machine is literally how Google makes money.
And what about smart phones? Android has you locked into Google surveillance and Apple is closed so we have no idea how much they know. Send a text? Your provider had to send that data and the person on the receiving end... well, you never know how secure their systems are.
Just some food for thought, would like to hear why Windows is so bad, I'm a Windows/Apple/Linux user and I don't hate on any of them.
ISP surveillance is not OK, but ISPs only know the domains I access, not what I do on them. I can prevent them from knowing even that by using a VPN, Tor, or any other kind of proxy. I believe encrypted DNS might also become a thing in the future. Also, I'm not locked-in to my ISP.
>no matter how many precautions you take, someone is watching you some how
That's what we're trying to fight.
>There's a record somewhere with all your past emails and they are making a marketing profile about you
A lot of my email accounts are fake-identity and temporary and I try to use encryption whenever I can, but I admit email encryption has a long way to go. There's no lock-in here though.
>Android has you locked into Google surveillance
It doesn't. Custom Google-free Android ROMs are a thing and work well.
>Send a text? Your provider had to send that data
Use encryption. I recommend Matrix/Riot.im for encrypted chat. There is also a program called Silence that can encrypt SMS.
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If you want to know the point of all this, there's a lot of material online, but you can start by watching the short talk "Why Privacy Matters" by Glenn Greenwald
I hope you are aware that anything Google touches is at least a hundred times worse in that regard?
> Android being built on tons of GPL software means they have to contribute changes back to the benefit of the FOSS ecosystem.
Android is built around a ton of proprietary Google technologies and services, the number of which keeps growing. Alternatives will have to be written without industry support since Google forces phone makers to only sell Android phones with full spyware suite active by default and running at 100%. Any phone maker that tries to provide an alternative to Googles services will be cut off immediately, leaving them with warehouses full of bricks. Google is the new Microsoft.
> it's much better than the Windows monopoly on the desktop
Android monopoly on the smartphone is the worst kind of monopoly. At least windows give a damn about your security patches and small things such as being able to run the latest version of the OS without invoking arcane rituals. Making a custom ROM without any proprietary components? Not a chance.
I am all for Linux dominance on the desktop but not with any Google DNA in there.
I have no love for Google. I don't even have a Google account.
>Making a custom ROM without any proprietary components? Not a chance.
Lineage, Copperhead, and Replicant exist and work well. And they are all 100% Google-free.
It's also possible to get an AOSP device de-googled, or to de-google one.
No, it’s not. There’s nothing infallible or timeless about either. Linux is already showing its age; vulkan is designed around hardware you can find today, around technologies that are already commoditized. It will also show its age soon, if it has not already.
> you can easily make/use a custom Android ROM without any proprietary components.
Uhm... easily? Most phones and tablets cannot even be unlocked / rooted.