RFS: steam-powered

Dear mentors and games team,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package
"steam-powered".

* Package name    : steam-powered
  Version         : 5
  Upstream Author : Michael Gilbert
* URL             : no website
* License         : gpl
  Section         : contrib/games

It builds these binary packages:
counter-strike - Valve's counter-strike video game
counter-strike-source - Valve's counter-strike-source video
game
day-of-defeat - Valve's day-of-defeat video game
day-of-defeat-source - Valve's day-of-defeat-source video
game
half-life  - Valve's half-life video game
half-life2 - Valve's half-life2 video game
steam-powered - Valve's steam game content delivery system

The package appears to be lintian clean.

The package can be found on mentors.debian.net:
- URL: http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/contrib/s/ste
am-powered
- Source repository: deb-src http://mentors.debia
n.net/debian unstable
main contrib non-free
- dget http://mentors.debian.net/debia
n/pool/contrib/s/steam-powered/steam-powered_5.dsc

I would be glad if someone would be kind enough to uploaded
this package for me.

Regards,
Michael Gilbert


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On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 09:53:07PM -0400, Michael Gilbert
wrote:
> Dear mentors and games team,
> 
> I am looking for a sponsor for my package
"steam-powered".
> 
> * URL             : no website

 So you think having it debian native is a good thing?

> It builds these binary packages:
> counter-strike - Valve's counter-strike video game
> counter-strike-source - Valve's counter-strike-source
video game
> day-of-defeat - Valve's day-of-defeat video game
> day-of-defeat-source - Valve's day-of-defeat-source
video game
> half-life  - Valve's half-life video game
> half-life2 - Valve's half-life2 video game
> steam-powered - Valve's steam game content delivery
system

 Won't these package names get us into trademark issues? 
I'm unsure if
this is a too good idea - and it would require someone
having the
original games, otherwise they won't be able to sponsor it.

 So long,
Rhonda


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> So you think having it debian native is a good thing?

sure, why not?  the guts of the program are so simple that i
don't
think it would really be that useful to set up a website or
svn.  in a
sense www.steampowered.com perhaps should be considered the
upsteam?
this package is just a wrapper to make steam install and
work on
debian rather than windows.

>  Won't these package names get us into trademark
issues?

the term counter-strike refers to Valve's actual
counter-strike game,
so there is no misrepresentation, which is what trademark
law is meant
to protect.  besides there are things like the doom, quake2,
etc
packages that illustrate that this is ok.  iceweasel came
about
because the firefox package was a misrepresentation of
firefox
according the mozilla people because parts of the code were
changed
that they didn't want.  with this package, the game itself
is in no
way modified.

> I'm unsure if this is a too good idea - and it would
require someone having the
> original games, otherwise they won't be able to sponsor
it.

steam is downloadable for free, and as long as steam works,
the games
will work.  the games are launched using command-line
arguments to the
steam.exe executable.  for example, counter-strike is
launched via
"wine steam.exe -applaunch 10", where 10 is the
app number for
counter-strike.  if the user doesn't own the game when it is
launched
like this, steam will bring up the page for the user to
purchase it.
take a look at the scripts, they're very simple and
straightforward
wrappers.

mike


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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi,

I build your packages and installed steam-powered and
counter-strike
steam-powered downloaded
http://www.steampowered.com/download/SteamInstall.msi
but it seems that
it was not installed

when I run /usr/games/steam-powered or
/usr/games/counter-strike wine
fails with:

wine: cannot find
'/home/jesusch/.config/steam-powered/steam.exe'


Also while building your packages it got the following build
errors:

docbook2x-man debian/steam-powered.manpage.xml
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

docbook2x-man debian/counter-strike.manpage.xml
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

docbook2x-man debian/counter-strike-source.manpage.xml
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

docbook2x-man debian/day-of-defeat.manpage.xml
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

docbook2x-man debian/day-of-defeat-source.manpage.xml
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

docbook2x-man debian/half-life.manpage.xml
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

docbook2x-man debian/half-life2.manpage.xml
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd



Bjoern
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org


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On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 10:51:11PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> Bjoern Boschman <bjoernboschman.de> writes:
> > I build your packages and installed steam-powered
and counter-strike
> > steam-powered downloaded
> > http://www.steampowered.com/download/SteamInstall.msi
but it seems
> > that it was not installed
> 
> This is a mailing list for assisting people who build
packages for
> inclusion in Debian.

 ... and steam-powered is such a package.  Given an insight
that there
might still be problems with such a package IMNSHO belongs
to "this"
list -- which makes me think of, which list do you call
"this"?  Because
it was sent to two.

> If you have issue with a particular package distributed
by the Debian
> project, please construct a specific bug report and
file it with the
> bug tracking system:
> 
>     <URL:http://www.d
ebian.org/Bugs/Reporting>

 That won't help for not-yet-uploaded packages, so please be
a bit
patient. 

 So long,
Rhonda


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Bjoern Boschman wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi,
>
> I build your packages and installed steam-powered and
counter-strike
> steam-powered downloaded
> http://www.steampowered.com/download/SteamInstall.msi
but it seems that
> it was not installed
>
> when I run /usr/games/steam-powered or
/usr/games/counter-strike wine
> fails with:
>
> wine: cannot find
'/home/jesusch/.config/steam-powered/steam.exe'
>
>
> Also while building your packages it got the following
build errors:
>
> docbook2x-man debian/steam-powered.manpage.xml
> I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

> docbook2x-man debian/counter-strike.manpage.xml
> I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

> docbook2x-man debian/counter-strike-source.manpage.xml
> I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

> docbook2x-man debian/day-of-defeat.manpage.xml
> I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

> docbook2x-man debian/day-of-defeat-source.manpage.xml
> I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

> docbook2x-man debian/half-life.manpage.xml
> I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd

> docbook2x-man debian/half-life2.manpage.xml
> I/O error : Attempt to load network entity
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd


you're probably using an older version of docbook2x, which
doesn't yet
support docbook 4.5.  i've added a versioned build depends
on
docbook2x (>=0.8.8) and uploaded the new version 6 of the
package to
mentors.  please try it out.

http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/contrib/s/ste
am-powered

mike


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> Are there "free" games available on the steam
plattform?

sadly there are no steam games that are free of cost. 
however, it is
free of cost to run the steam application itself, to use it
to browse
their pages, to use their communicator to chat with friends,
and to
play no-cost game demos.

> I ask because the vast majority (if not all) of the
software we have
> in contrib and non-free (or we have installers for in
> contrib/non-free) is at least free as in beer, i.e. it
does not cost
> anything at least for some usage (e.g.
non-commercial).

there are debian packages for wine, zsnes, dosbox, doom,
quake2,
msttcorefonts, etc that make it possible/easy to install
commercial/non-free software on debian.  this steam-powered
package is
very much the same.

> I don't think we want a package that has the sole
purpose of making it
> easier for some company to earn money.

providing this package isn't about making it easier for a
company to
make money (they are already making lots of money on windows
users --
and linux users who run windows to play steam games).  it is
about
making it easy for gamers use the os of their choice rather
than the
one chosen for them by the game developer.  it is the
classic catch
22.  to get more adoption, you need more software to meet
diversified
needs, but to get more software, you need more adoption
first. this
package will help to increase adoption by providing easy
access a
highly popular and desirable piece of software.  it is
important to
make it easy for the user to install the last pieces of
commercial
software that are forcing them to use windows.

gamers are a tough crowd to please, but they represent a
huge part of
the market (something like 90% of users play computer
games).  if
commercial games were abundantly available, linux would
finally be
able to support all of the needs of those 90% of users
(versus less
than 5% of users whose needs are fully met today).  hence,
debian
should make it possible and easy for users install and use
commercial
games as well as free games.  remember that clause 4 of the
Debian
Social Contract (http://www.debi
an.org/social_contract) states that

  Our priorities are our users and free software

  We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free
software
community. We will
  place their interests first in our priorities. We will
support the
needs of our users for
  operation in many different kinds of computing
environments. We will
not object to
  non-free works that are intended to be used on Debian
systems, or
attempt to charge a
  fee to people who create or use such works.

the key point is that debian shall not object to non-free
works.  in
fact, the contrib and non-free archives were set up because
of this
clause.

> BTW, I belive the privacy policy of steam is not what
would appeal to
> the average user of free software. I own Half Life 2
(came with my
> graphics card) but decided not to install it because of
their privacy
> policy (though that was 2 years ago and might have
changed).

the steam-powered installer displays the terms of the steam
license
agreement and requires the user to either agree or decline
(if
declined, the package will not be installed).   free
software purists
should and will decline (but they will probably not be using
the
contrib archive anyway).  users should not be forced to
adopt only
free software.  they should be free to choose whether they
wish to
take the pragmatic or idealogical road for all of their
software.
most would agree that the core os should be free, but there
will
always be a certain subset of needs not met by free
software.  debian
should fully enable the user to fill that gap with non-free
software
if they so choose (as required by the Social Contract).

mike


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> The users *are* free to choose the software that's out
there. The
> Debian project is also free to refuse to choose what
software it
> distributes.

the key word is "distribution."  the question is
whether the part of
the software to be added to the archive is distributable. 
for
steam-powered, all of the software in the package is fully
GPL'd, and
thus freely redistributable under the terms of the GPL.  the
non-free
component is retrieved from the developer's site at runtime.
 the user
is made fully aware of the actions taking place.  this type
of
behavior is exactly what the contrib archive (which contains
packages
that are actually not considered part of the debian system)
was set up
to support.  in fact section 5 of the debian social contract
makes
this very clear.

  5.  Works that do not meet our free software standards

  We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of
works
  that do not conform the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
We have
  created contrib and non-free areas in our archive for
these works.
  The packages in these areas are not part of the Debian
system,
  although they have been configured for use with Debian.
We
  encourage CD manufacturers to read the licenses of the
packages
  in these areas and determine if they can distribute the
packages on
  their CDs. Thus, although non-free works are not a part of
Debian,
  we support their use and provide infrastructure for
non-free packages
  (such as our bug tracking system and mailing lists).

> Issuing a proper ITP would be the best way to probe the
communauty,
> since it is CCed to -devel.

ok, i will file an ITP.


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On Monday 03 September 2007 11:29:17 Miriam Ruiz wrote:
> I for one would prefer not to concentrate too much in
adding that kind of
> software to Debian, and even less in trying to promote
it if there's no
> real demand for it beforehand.

Very well said, Miriam. There are similar issues with other
applications which 
rely on non-free services to work correctly. GmailFS is a
prime example for 
this. Instead of promoting clients for provider-specific
services, Debian 
should promote standard interfaces to services and free
implementations 
thereof, and free clients to access them. This gives users
more choice, and 
as business people would say, provide a safer investment for
the future.

We already have free multiplayer frameworks in Debian. Let's
promote those as 
they in turn promote running free games on them.

Another issue with Steam specifically is that it doesn't
allow users to be 
located in countries which were erased from the USA
proprietary variant of 
the world map (http://www.va
lvesoftware.com/terms.html). I would say that 
this renders even the downloader non-DFSG-free, but that's
probably 
for -legal to decide.

Josef


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