We are excited to announce that Arch Linux is entering into a direct collaboration with Valve. Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers.
This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed-up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors. We are incredibly grateful for Valve to make this possible and for their explicit commitment to help and support Arch Linux.
These projects will follow our usual development and consensus-building workflows. [RFCs] will be created for any wide-ranging changes. Discussions on this mailing list as well as issue, milestone and epic planning in our GitLab will provide transparency and insight into the work. We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on this mailing list as work progresses.
Are you saying that creating literally all the code that make those usability improvements possible is not worthy of praise?
No, but Microsoft and IBM didn’t create that code.
Do you only praise the window washer and not the architect or construction worker who built the building?
That’s not a good analogy. The above-ground building is userspace, the foundation and the window washer are the kernel.
UX is important but so is the literal foundation it’s built on.
I’m not dissenting against that. However, the Linux kernel’s foundation has been built to a point where recent contributions to userspace dwarf that to the kernel. Remember, we’re thanking valve for the modern Linux desktop gaming experience. Next thing I know you’re going to go on a diatribe against System76 as well. When I buy a bauble, you’re going to chastise me for praising the designer instead of the plastic worker.
And again, Valve also contributes to the kernel, so they’re definitely much more worthy of praise, especially without doing Microsoft’s shady stuff.
This has become boring, and I’m not going to reply further unless you come up with an argument worthy enough for a high school debate club, especially since you’ve recently been following Fann Tzu’s “just downvote and don’t reply”.
