

Valve open sources Mesa fork from SteamOS - tbrock
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamos_mesa

======
wtracy
Anyone have a summary of how this fork differs from upstream? Is it mostly
performance improvements? Bug fixes?

~~~
throwaway2048
[https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamos_mesa/compare/klusar...](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamos_mesa/compare/klusark:mesa10.1...ValveSoftware:alchemist-10.1)

the only changes are to revert DRI XCB bindings back to a custom handler,
likely for preformance or bug fix reasons.

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webkike
I'm glad at the very least Valve is adopting not only Linux programming
practices, but Linux culture practices as well. Why are they doing this? I
haven't the foggiest, but I like this!

~~~
stormbrew
Practically speaking maintaining their own private fork of Mesa is probably
more work than it's worth. They really don't have all that much vested
interest in stopping people from using this at all, and not releasing it might
mean that people using steam on linux (without steamos) may get a bad
experience that's not good for their brand.

~~~
malandrew
Why? Maintaining a fork is pretty trivial so long as you don't deviate so far
from upstream that it's hard to pull in upstream changes.

Every time I use a library and need to make changes that are unlikely to be
accepted upstream, I just fork it and update it as necessary. If upstream
adopts features that solve my original need, I kill the fork and use the
original project.

~~~
stormbrew
Obviously there are scales at which this makes sense, but all situations are
not equal. Mesa is not a small project and in the long run it will probably
change a lot and in unpredictable ways.

Even then, though, sometimes even a small effort is not worth it.

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slashcom
What is Mesa here? There's no readme on the github.

~~~
kzrdude
An implementation of OpenGL, very important for the open source graphics
drivers. [http://mesa3d.org/intro.html](http://mesa3d.org/intro.html)

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csense
Presumably they're planning to redistribute this Mesa fork to SteamOS users.
Since Mesa's LGPL, wouldn't they be required to open-source this fork at that
point anyway?

EDIT: Not actually LGPL. My mistake (see reply to reply below).

~~~
cwyers
Mesa is MIT, mostly:

[http://mesa3d.org/license.html](http://mesa3d.org/license.html)

So this isn't required of Valve, as I understand it.

~~~
csense
Grandparent here. I got fooled by going to the Github repo someone else linked
in this thread. There were no licensy-looking files in the root, so the first
place I checked was in docs/, and the first file I saw was COPYING.

So I just assumed the project was LGPL.

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ris
I know it's not a good idea to bring up the license debate, but the fact that
we seem to should be grateful for this is what scares me about the use of non-
copyleft licenses.

~~~
protomyth
The thought you a brining up a license debate instead of being grateful to
Valve and their developers for their hard work is what scares me about
copyleft licenses.

~~~
pjc50
One should be proportionally _more_ grateful to the original Mesa developers,
surely?

~~~
protomyth
I guess if we are counting karma as points or lines of code, but not showing
some gratitude from those you meet along the way or demanding things others is
just impolite. The original Mesa developers gave their code freely and so did
Valve. Bringing up copyleft every time someone contributes like forcing
developers is a better way is a pain. It is much like all the "Why would I use
X when I have Y" comments that float to the top.

A second point on the "more grateful" as the GPL values 1 line over 1,000s of
lines of MIT, so I don't see how that can be an argument.

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jimmcslim
Valve open sources Mesa... Black Mesa... Half-Life... HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED!

~~~
aspensmonster
Please. Let's not give Gaben any more distractions from Left for Dead 3.

EDIT: Yes... Yes... Let the butthurt FLOW through you! Hacker News is MUCH
more professional and serious than those filthy casual peasants over at
reddit!

~~~
aspensmonster
Wow! I've managed to infuriate someone enough to downvote my OTHER comments
too! That seems strangely reminiscent of behaviour I see on those other,
filthy casual websites.

Fuck all y'all. I consider this mission an 11/10 success.

~~~
aspensmonster
C'mon. I want you to do it. C'mon hit me. Hit me. HIT ME!

~~~
anon4
I want to downvote you, but I don't have enough karma. Upvote my other
comments and once I have enough karma, I promise to come and downvote yours.

~~~
aspensmonster
I'm pretty sure HN keeps an eye out for upvote and downvote behaviour like
that. We don't know for sure, of course, because moderation is a complete
black box and I don't believe there is any surefire way to guarantee just what
code is actually getting executed server side. And of course there are the
design choices to consider, like

"only those with X karma get to downvote,"

and

"everyone with less than X karma gets their comments pended first,"

and

"anyone above the pending threshold that is too liberal with their approval of
pending comments will have their approval privileges revoked,"

and

"only those with X karma get to flag,"

and

"anyone above the flagging threshold that uses the function 'incorrectly' will
lose the privilege,"

etc etc ad nauseam.

And we think ourselves so superior to other internet cultures.

Still, enjoy the handful of upvotes you got from me :D And feel free to
downvote my comments once you hit the threshold (last I checked, it was 500
karma). I'm actually curious to see how long it would take to fall back down
to 0. Mentioning reddit is a good way to get downvotes (as you can see)
especially if you highlight this community's insistence on just how much
better it is than reddit. Using "low/no-content" comments is another good way.
That's how we distinguish our memes from everyone else's: everyone else's
"don't contribute to the discussion." As if our own memes were somehow high
art and reddit's the lowest of brows.

Of course, my account is more than a year old. So, according to The Rules, it
seems I can "submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit," but
certainly cannot submit comments stating otherwise.

But do feel free to downvote this as well. I am, after all, "[baiting] other
users by inviting them to downmod [me]" and "complaining about being
downmodded."

