GOG: Linux "the next major frontier" for gaming as it works on a native client

Go, GOG, it's so close for me to migrate.

The last obstacle will be the most working mostly effortlessly with my Nvidia on Fedora / Ubuntu.

Discussion against the prevalent groupthink sentiment are considered haram and shunned on HN.

I know it's unfair but it is what it is.

I wish there was some independent vote quality assessment process (a bot working on the HN backend) gently adjusting account standing factor based on their votes on the obviously true/false comments. After a while troll would simply see zero impact of their votes and comments assigned 0 karma at the outset. For not bringing the positive impact to the community.

I agree with your point on the difference between proprietary v. commercial, but it’s a bit hard to parse your example. “Free” is kind of an unfortunate word choice, as it obscures the gratis v. libre distinction you’re trying to point out.

Free/libre commercial software is indeed possible, and I’d love to see more products utilizing this model. We do need to keep in mind that “cracking” such software becomes legal (which is probably not a big deal because people would do that anyway).

If we didn’t have Kernel Anti Cheat in Windows, it would be a godsend for Linux gaming.

It’s literally the only issue missing (and some games not available under Xbox game app but I mean it’s Microsoft as publisher so no intention for Linux version)

> 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Linux is largely still built on the old (and indeed, outdated) Unix trust model.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.