Cricket [he/him]

?

If this Meta AI chatbot didn’t exist, this man would most likely still be alive right now.

Let’s be honest now… Zuckerberg is building a globally-distributed, industrial-scale, disaster-proof spank bank for himself.

As much as I’m pro-Linux and anti-Microsoft and anti-Apple, I have to say that I don’t think comparing desktop use to server use is appropriate when it comes to security. I don’t think server use of any OS translates to desktop use in terms of security at all. If nothing else, the end user is a major difference between the two. End users download, install, run, and interact with all kinds of random software, websites, etc. without thinking and this is the main source of desktop malware. The same is not the case for servers.

That’s definitely been a catalyzing factor for me. I had fiddled around with Linux and had been pretty ‘meh’ about Windows for years, but I was just coasting along the path of least resistance. Them telling me that I could no longer use my perfectly functional computer for Windows was the ‘last straw’ that finally what made me begin to take action and get ready to say goodbye to Windows.

If you think about it, Microsoft’s timing for this is really perfect. Wait until Linux is very viable for desktop use including gaming then tell vast numbers of your customers that they need to ditch a fully working computer in order to keep using Windows. I expect that this figure will probably double by the end of the year. There’s another article by ZDNet now that says that the share is more like 6% and rapidly accelerating. I’ll post it on the main Linux community if hasn’t already been posted there.

Thanks again. I’m not doing VR yet, but plan to eventually. I can totally see where multiplayer could be an issue too, especially if friends own the games on Steam instead.

I agree with you, but I started thinking about this not even from a game preservation perspective but from a DRM perspective. This article was a timely reminder that if I buy any media with DRM, no matter how purportedly lenient and user-friendly it is, the DRM controls when and where I’m allowed to use that media in perpetuity unless I break the DRM, which I understand is illegal in some jurisdictions. Imagine having to jump through hoops or even break the law just to keep using the media that you “bought” with your hard-earned cash.

Thanks for pointing this out about multiplayer and VR games. I had wondered about this exact thing, so I appreciate your confirming it!

This seems like the wisest option for the long term. I just recently decided that any games that are available on both and don’t make use of Steam-exclusive features I will buy from GOG instead. Up until that point I had been buying games on Steam by default when they had sales, but GOG has equivalent sales at the same time. Unless the game takes advantage of some Steam-exclusive feature, there seems to be no good reason to buy it from Steam instead of from GOG.