Licensing: putting Steam in other Linux distro repositories

[slix]

It seems that some distributions, including Arch Linux, are hesitant to put Steam in their repositories because it is unclear whether they have legal permission to.

Is Valve going to do anything about this in the near future like create distribution agreements or create a general license?

[draeath]

A simple fix is for them (distro maintainers) to package a downloader, similar to how Adobe Flash is typically handled.

[katanacrimson]

If that's the solution, then I don't see steam making it out of the AUR and into [community]; no point in it.

Would be best if VALVe granted special permission to specific distributions on request, allowing redistribution, tbh.

I honestly don't think that it would be a huge issue as far as licensing goes because the bulk of steam is not actually packaged. Most of steam is stored in the user's home directory; the steam executable is just a bash script which downloads and runs the actual steam binary with a few extra bells and whistles.

I could be wrong, but this is what it seems to me.

[sochotnicky]

Most free distributions (Fedora, Debian at least) would not accept software in official repositories without source code being available. Packaging just the downloader is maybe ok. But VALVE would need to explicitly license that with free software license (BSD/ASL/GPL/whatever) and allow redistribution

@damianb If redistribution was allowed only on request then most distributions would not be able to have steam installed in repositories. Free redistribution is the minimum requirement that has to be allowed even for firmwares that are to be included in repositories. Otherwise mirrors would need permissions as well and it's just a road to hell

[katanacrimson]

@sochotnicky that is the current status quo - go read the steam license, redistribution is only allowed with prior written approval.

@Undeterminant regardless of how it is packaged, that is the current license for steam, and it applies no matter what the packaging is. An exception or a change to the license has to be made in order for the distributions to distribute it in their repositories.

@damianb That was what I meant for the most part: it wouldn't be too much of a problem for Valve to allow redistribution of the downloader in their license because it's just a downloader without having to allow redistribution for the entire client.

[sjuxax]

Most distros will include non-free software in tertiary, opt-in repositories, so it is still helpful for the aggregate community if Valve sets up a standardized licensing/redistribution process.

[scottlu]

We're working on getting the redistribution issues solved. More news soon!

[Freso]

@draeath The Flash installer also needs some sort of per-distribution license/agreement for the distributions to be allowed to package it, per https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2012-November/024046.html

[Mailaender]

Same problem for SUSE now http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-buildservice/2013-01/msg00023.html

[Mailaender]

Hmm, I am no lawyer, but the Limited Installation License is not very permissible. You are not allowed to modify or create derivative works to the program. The question is if this applies to the steam client that is downloaded afterwards or to the whole Debian package which is mostly shell scripts, .desktop file and auto-updater.

[gtmanfred]

I have been in contact with the steam engineers and lawyers ever since I originally put steam in the repositories for Arch Linux.

The license allow packages to re distribute should be finished in the next week or too.