Image Source : Friprog
Soon, Valve will launch its famous gaming platform in Linux. Many people are waiting for this moment. One major disadvantage Linux have over Windows is games. Linux doesn’t have a lot of big games. But the arrival of Steam will change everything and make Linux more popular. But Richard Stallman thinks from a different corner.
If you don’t know who Richard Stallman is, think of him like this… If he wasn’t there, we won’t have Linux! Linux means only the kernel which help the OS with contacting the hardware. GNU is the OS. Richard Stallman is the man who built GNU and the concept of free and open source software. He is the founder of the free software foundation.
According to him, most games doesn’t respect the user’s freedom. The code is closed and its even hard to crack. He thinks, having these nonfree games on Linux will harm the main theme of GNU Linux!
Nonfree game programs (like other nonfree programs) are unethical because they deny freedom to their users.
Thus, in direct practical terms, this development can do both harm and good. It might encourage GNU/Linux users to install these games, and it might encourage users of the games to replace Windows with GNU/Linux. My guess is that the direct good effect will be bigger than the direct harm. But there is also an indirect effect: what does the use of these games teach people in our community?
Any GNU/Linux distro that comes with software to offer these games will teach users that the point is not freedom. Nonfree software in GNU/Linux distros already works against the goal of freedom. Adding these games to a distro would augment that effect.
In a way he is right. But saying no to non-free programs on Linux is not a good idea. Both of them should exist. But he is right, Games violates the freedom too much. Not only that… Linux is for smart programmers… What if these programmers become hard time wasting Gamers? That’s not good at all!
-Source : Softpedia
