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!
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.
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.
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.
> Why are they doing this? I haven't the foggiest, but I like this!
They've been hiring people from the Linux community, they can't expect to have hired them without discussing the matter of licenses of their work. Most GNU Linux programmers are very much license conscious.
Not every Linux developer is a for hard fsf person. I'm a card carrying open source developer (see a few of the projects I help maintain in my free time, saltstack salt and graphite) which both have thousands of users. I also write code for Linux fullye as part of $dayjob.
It's in Valve's interest to see gaming on Linux succeed so more developers can support their Steambox platform. Nice move on their part to give back to the community.
