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"A Steam client on Linux would be &amp;quot;unethical&amp;quot;, according to GNU creator Richard Stallman. Stallman is the founder of the Free Software Foundation and initiated development of the Unix-like GNU operating system. In a blog post today, he expressed concerns over Valve bringing its Steam client to Linux and potentially other free operating systems. &amp;quot;I suppose that availability of popular non-free programs on GNU/Linux can boost adoption of the system,&amp;quot; Stallman said. &amp;quot;However, our goal goes beyond making this system a &amp;#039;success&amp;#039;; its purpose is to bring freedom to the users. Thus, the question is how this development affects users&amp;#039; freedom.&amp;quot; &amp;#039;Free&amp;#039; in this case has nothing to do with monetary cost, but instead refers to a user&amp;#039;s ability to alter and reproduce code. Steam employs digital rights management (DRM) to protect its games against piracy; however, the practice can also limit a user&amp;#039;s ability to alter, modify or reproduce code from the games. &amp;quot;Non-free game programs (like other non-free programs) are unethical because they deny freedom to their users. (Game art is a different issue, because it isn&amp;#039;t software.) If you want freedom, one requisite for it is not having nonfree programs on your computer. &amp;quot;However, if you&amp;#039;re going to use these games, you&amp;#039;re better off using them on GNU/Linux rather than on Microsoft Windows. At least you avoid the harm to your freedom that Windows would do,&amp;quot; he continues. &amp;quot;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.&amp;quot; Despite the potential positive effect Steam could have on Linux, Stallman is still cautious in his support - the primary concern being that the availability of non-free software on the operating system will alter the development community and dilute the purpose of open-source software. Stallman&amp;#039;s criticisms come a week after Valve head Gabe Newell reiterated the company&amp;#039;s plans to bring Steam to Linux, during which he calling Windows 8 a &amp;quot;catastrophe&amp;quot; in the process. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a396560/steam-on-linux-is-unethical-says-gnu-creator/>