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Comment by ThePhysicist | Hacker News Reader

Just wait 5-10 years and it will probably be the same way on Windows and MacOS. They will argue that installing arbitrary, unvetted software through the web is dangerous, so it's only reasonable for Microsoft and Apple to make this very difficult and instead promote installing all software through their app stores (which they already start doing). Once software is primarily distributed via these stores they will also start asking for a cut of any revenue that is made through that software. The reason it's not like that already isn't that they're very nice, it's just that historically computers were open platforms and it will take longer to convert them to the walled gardens that smartphones have been from the very beginning of their existence.

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The possibility of OS vendors forcing users to only install software from their walled gardens is the reason Valve started to support Linux, created their own Linux distro (Steam OS, now based on Arch Linux) and ultimately why Steam Deck was built.

IIRC the main trigger was Windows 8 that back then had a strong push to only use Windows Store to install software.

Valve could not conceivably continue doing business if OS vendors took a cut of all purchases via their walled garden store, not to mention having the OS vendor limit what games they can distribute and how.

Yeah-- I thought SteamOS was mostly dead, sitting on a shelf "just in case". I was wrong, and it now appears that Valve is sending the message "we're ready to do this thing at any time".

Steam has something like 100 million+ active monthly users. Certainly some are casual and wouldn't make the switch, but that's a lot of home desktop market share to lose even if only half made the switch initially, and there'd be a halo effect on it too, along with a much more motivated & active community dedicated to cross platform compatibility.

We'd probably see a lot of "linux first" applications (not just games) as well.

That's why Microsoft won't do this. Steam users have a big investment in games on Steam, and are quite likely to switch to SteamOS, even if not every game works perfectly, rather than buying all those games again. And that would create a big Linux customer base that game studios and hardware makers would develop for, threatening Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop.

More likely if Microsoft did it, they would integrate Steam into the store, or allow Steam to be installed via the store

They have already signaled their willingness to add 3rd party stores with their partnership with Amazon for Android Apps.

That would still be problematic since Valve would be at the mercy of MS, hoping they didn't change their policies after a while the way other app stores have done. Steam could still roll out SteamOS then, but it would take time. Meanwhile games might start developing integrations (and DRM) in the combined MS/Steam platform in a way that made disentangling for Valve to go their own way much more difficult.

Even if MS didn't demand a cut of the revenue, it would also probably mean Valve could no longer add whatever they wanted to Steam. If MS didn't impose some restrictions then Steam could completely allow circumvention of the MS store. Steam does sell some desktop products besides games, and presumably would want to keep that option open.

I could be wrong, but tying themselves so closely to MS would impose too many potential problems down the road and limit their ability to change or expand business models, too much risk to put their fate almost completely in Microsoft's hands.

Now, if MS purchased Valve, that might be different.

Amazing that Steam, so controversial for pushing it’s locked ecosystem at the time, is now the one pushing Linux gaming forward and a driving force _away_ from windows.

Yes, I remember the debates about truly owning a game when you bought a physical copy vs buying it on Steam. I avoided Steam for that exact reason, but then the market for games that never had a physical distro exploded, and even many/most physical games moved to a physical disk but one-time activation codes.

Once I realized there was little benefit to physical purchases anymore and the hassle of reinstalling games when I got a new machine I made the switch. But with GOG around I at least still get to mostly own the games available through them.

Anecdotally, but my windows machine's sole purpose is to run steam games (and associated utilities around it like discord that all seem to either be web apps, wrapped in electron or chrome). The only thing keeping me from installing Linux for everything is poor proton support on a handful of games.

The only thing that keeps me on Windows is that because CheatEngine doesn't work on Linux. I like playing around with it to enhance my gaming experience (usually to boost enemies in late stages of CK2 / EU4).

You can have any Steam game that supports Windows run through Proton, and then install and run Cheat Engine within that game's Proton/Wine prefix.

Definitely not as user friendly, but it does work. Alternatively you can use Game Conqueror, but it very basic compared to Cheat Engine.

Cheat engine has one thing going for it: ready made scripts for many games that automatically show many important values for you. Conqueror doesn't have that.

(But I'll try your recipe, thanks!)

I wish I could take full credit for this, but I'm paraphrasing Andrew Plotkin (developer for the Inform text-adventure programming language):

Steam machines failed because they tried to replace Windows with a worse user experience. In 2015, there were fewer native games and worse compatibility; nobody is going to just rise up and displace Microsoft from their entrenched throne as THE Desktop PC Gaming platform. Alternately, the Steam Deck is essentially inventing a whole new market; if players want a mobile, AAA game platform the only contender right now is a Nintendo Switch (which has an entirely different games library, with limited overlap mostly in "indie" game titles). So now instead of fighting Microsoft where they're strongest, they're fighting a console manufacturer in one place they can expect to be weaker.

Then once the Steam Deck is a widespread commercial success -- and from pre-orders, it looks like that's guaranteed -- Valve will have the foothold to push SteamOS as an equal games development space as Windows desktop. Coupled with the reports that Proton currently runs over 90% of the popular games which don't have a native client, this very well could introduce Linux (albeit indirectly) to the wider market in a way that could eventually challenge Microsoft's comfortable monopoly position.

I'm happy with what Valve is doing now, but as a whole, the fact that Steam OS is a Linux distro doesn't necessarily mean that Steam OS / Steam Deck won't become locked down in the same manner in the future. Android itself is open source and Linux-based.

One overlooked aspect of why Steam Desk is quite a game changer is the fat that it's the first actually open handheld gaming platforms.

All the predecessors (Nintendo DS, Playstation Vita, Nintendo Switch, etc.) have been regular consoles with heavy weight locked down walled garden, where all content had to pass a lot of byzantine review and respect least common denominator content rules and censorship.

With Steam deck there is finally a handheld platform where a much wider selection of games can be installed from itself that has much less insane content rules or totally separately directly from developers to users. Another community that has been mostly banned from consoles is moders - there are basically no games that support modding on consoles, yet its very popular in many games on PC. And finally, we have a handheld that can run games with mods!

So I would hope that this will turn out to be a big selling point of Steam Deck & that affected communities (independent content creators & modding community) would make sure they are not cut off again like they were on consoles.

They have no reason to lock it down.

While competition focuses on locking down, DRM, anti-piracy, etc, Valve just focuses on selling in-game hats.

In more seriousness: They also have good synergy with the Linux ecosystem, and locking out kind ends up working both ways.

Valve have been pretty good about sticking to their "hackable" guns so far. With exception to the Link, everything of theirs is abnormally tweakable. Newell also seems to understand how tenuous PC gamer loyalty can be (hell, it could be argued that he sowed the seeds of that mentality).

Valve can keep quiet about this until they're ready, too... because the steam store is essentially the de-facto online game store to the extent they could let their game studio heritage exist almost entirely on mythology (half life, portal, left 4 dead)

dude im totes happy when i found out i can do dev work on linux and play valve games on same device!

windows is shit these days oh god.

> Just wait 5-10 years and it will probably be the same way on Windows and MacOS. They will argue that installing arbitrary, unvetted software through the web is dangerous, so it's only reasonable for Microsoft and Apple to make this very difficult and instead promote installing all software through their app stores

Apple already does this on macOS. macOS treats all un-Notarized apps as if they're radioactive, and leads users to believe the un-Notarized apps they choose to run are either broken or malicious. If you want to run them, you need to know how to perform a magic ritual with the UI and adjust arcane settings. Every Mac based on the M1 chipset and above will not run unsigned binaries, either.

With both Apple's Gatekeeper and Microsoft's Defender, developers must regularly buy certificates to sign their apps, and they must remain in good standing with each company if they want their apps to run without problems on macOS or Windows. Apple and Microsoft can revoke certificates whenever they want, for any reason they want, and macOS and Windows won't allow apps signed with the revoked certificates to run. Apple goes one step further and forces app developers to Notarize their apps, which involves uploading the app to Apple's servers so they can scan and approve of it. Un-Notarized apps are, again, treated as if they're radioactive.

If you use the Mac App Store or the Microsoft Store, your operating system won't trick you into believing that the apps you downloaded with them are malicious or broken. It's no coincidence that the happy path for app distribution on either system is the same one that generates the most revenue for either company and hands them the most control.

> Every Mac based on the M1 chipset and above will not run unsigned binaries, either.

So this is different to Intel macs? You can’t just go to security and privacy and “allow”?

Yes, it's different. You can read more about it here[1]. There's no option to run unsigned binaries on M1 Macs on macOS.

[1] http://www.rahulgaitonde.org/blog/2020/11/12/apple-m1-and-th...

They will run self-signed binaries, the signature doesn't have to be valid, it just has to exist.

Microsoft are already inferring that arbitrary software is dangerous - SmartScreen's behaviour for unsigned code works against FOSS because a project (or person) has to pony up money to pay for a certificate.

maybe this is something that can be part of a give/take relationship. allow for FOSS to be part of the signing/notrization software as long as the FOSS is truly not-for-profit (no free software for install, but doesn't work without lots of in-app purchases, ads, etc). At least offer FOSS software devs a lower cost entry for dev accounts??

FOSS doesn’t imply no-for-profit.

You can use my code however you like, but I still need money to pay rent.

Right, so you gets to pay the dev fees to have your code signed. That's why I specifically stated not-for-profit could use "free" code signing. If you're making money off of the software, pay the fees required as part of the business.

This “fee” is just a vendor abusing their position of power,

If you pay me to write code, and you want to run it on your PC, there’s no reason we should be having to pay a third party to allow this.

Even though most users aren't developers, the "Freedom" in Free Software is about user freedom not developer freedom (which is also a point that trips some developers who claim that licenses like MIT, zlib, etc are more free - they see it from the developer's side instead of the user's side).

You shouldn't need permission from a 3rd party to run any software on your own devices and especially you shouldn't need permission from a 3rd party to run software you or your friend made modifications to.

Yes, but it's Apple we're talking about, so I'm moving past this part of the conversation. As a dev, you should want the least resistance to getting users running your code. If that means playing by the OS vendor's rules to get something signed that says "I'm not a crook", then that's what it takes. Should it? That's valid but beyond the scope of my comment and thought exercise.

As a dev, I also want to avoid supporting practices that I believe are harmful to my customers.

I applaud your stance. So now it comes down to knowing what your software is intended to do, and who is trying to use it. If your target audience doesn't line up with your stance on an open OS, then you have to make that decision of staying true to your position, or meeting your users where they operate. As they say "a leader with no followers is just a person taking a walk".

Google Chrome does too, as anyone who has ever seen the "This file is not commonly downloaded and may be dangerous" message can attest.

Both Microsoft and Google will outright claim that files are Malware and even make up names for some trojan or whatever that the file supposedly contains based on nothing more than machine learning algorithms an heuristics. They will then drag their feet in removing the false positives, deny the review without any reason or simply automatically flag the same file again and again and again. All while Microsoft and Google are not letting users download the files without navigating through intentionally misnamed menu options or just straight up delete the legitimate software without any user promt. At this point I can only assume that this behavior is has malicious intent.

I could see that on Windows Home Edition, but I don't know how they would make that work for Enterprise Edition. I don't see companies like SAS or Oracle and many others being willing to pay a Microsoft tax to distribute client software or desktop apps for their products. Or IBM for applications like SPSS. SaaS may end up eating a lot of that sort of thing, and web clients would help mitigate the requirements, but I think there would just be too many that weren't.

If there was one thing that would push desktop linux into everyone's desktop in enterprise environments, it would be a move like this. And once that happens, similar to the initial home computing revolution, workers would bring it into their homes too.

As another comment mentioned, they'd almost certainly lose the desktop market among PC gamers when Valve & others refused to go along, and Valve's linux distro would be a very popular alternative.

If you had any idea of the amount of money companies are already spending on Microsoft licenses.. the cost of a signing certificate really is just a drop in the bucket.

The only issue companies have with getting their apps signed is managing the certificates.

The issue is the revenue cut MS wants for sales through their app store and companies losing near total control over the distribution of their software.

Yes, getting their software into the MS store would be easy. Revenue and control aren't things they'd want to give up. Even if they simply raised their prices, at some point they'd say, "Hey, we can distribute this on Linux instead and keep the 5/10/30% cut MS is taking." (See Fortnite as an early example)

Even if they gave up no revenue, what company would say "Sure!" to MS saying, "Would you mind giving us tons of control over your software distribution?" I don't see what the companies would have to gain on that.

It's ironic that Apple asks developers to pay 30% which is effectively 30% tax on developer revenue, while at the same time they dodge taxes like there is no tomorrow...

We need to legislate requiring web installs of software for all computer and smartphone operating systems. Any device owner should be allowed to run their own software on their computer.

This bullshit has to stop.

IMO it should be illegal for a company to make hardware, software, AND online services. Any two yes, but not all three. It should also be illegal to make any public keys and server hostnames unchangeable by the end user.

Can one just make an app that doesn't show those links if the viewer is coming from a Google corporate IP?

You can try, but if they find out then good luck ever releasing anything on a Google platform again.

Desktop OSes can't be fully locked down for the simple reason that people use them for programming and thus need to run unsigned arbitrary code.

Now introducing Windows 12 Developer edition. Dark mode is enabled by default, Visual Studio comes preinstalled and it is $5000 a year. Cheap to a professional developer and keeps the masses from running their own code.

Coming to a torrent tracker near you for free an hour after release.

This is not to stop the people who can download from a torrent (without getting sued into oblivion for copyright violations) and know how to install an OS. It's to stop the other 99%. In some sense having an option for that 1% is a good idea, because it reduced their interest to break the "protections" in the Home edition that the majority uses.

Okay, let's see. All desktop web browsers come with developer tools, but most people have no idea. Many Android phones have unlockable bootloaders, and even fewer people know about this one. It's this difference between "can be done if you need and know how" and "burned into silicon so you're out of luck" that's very important. The latter is extremely dangerous as it completely strips the user of agency.

Well, they can just say that "Development" on desktops is dangerous for the user and allows malicious actors to create malware. As such, desktop OS will block running of any unsigned binary. For developing your Microsoft© Authorised Application®, please sign up to CodeSpaces™ subscription at just $99 per month!

There is already a version of Windows 10 that works this way.

Well, have you remembered what it is called?

10 years sounds like a stretch.

Windows recently started blocking torrenting software due to being “malware”. Coincidence that it’s the main distribution mechanism for Linux distribution’s installation media?

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