Unix and Linux → Re: Steam Client hits the Ubuntu repos

There was an Arch package in the official repos over a week ago so they are. I just hope their focus on Ubuntu doesn't lead to poor interoperability with other distros in the long run due to Ubuntu's many little rarely shared behind the scenes modifications.

That's great new. Thanks for sharing.Always shared. Sometimes not accepted by upstream.

Doesn't the gpl make them share the modifications?

No. It merely obligates them to make the source available. They're not required to work with upstream to make their changes fit into upstream which is what I was referring to with their lack of sharing.

Like I said earlier I hope this doesn't introduce incomparability with other distros if steam ever takes advantage of one of these special Ubuntu modifications.

Oh, well thats disturbing news. However, knowing valve unless there is no other practical way for them they wont use that. Heck I expect mint and debian at least to get official support, maybe even arch and more.

It's also one-sided news. Canonical has been very aggressive about working with their upstreams to have a collaborative relationship.
At the end of the day, if you need feature X, and upstream doesn't want it, then you've got to do your thing.
It is a real pain for the Ubuntu devs to keep a bunch of patches around that have to be merged in every time a new version of upstream code is brought down.
There is no incentive for them to keep their patches to themself.