I don't think we're "just" complaining about the DRM, but it's something worth talking about. Do you suggest we all placate Valve, write them great big love letters, and ignore all their faults? It's worth exploring the full range of consequences, positive and negative.
I think it's established that gamers will be appreciative to have Steam running on Linux officially. Do you think we owe Valve something more than that, like pretending like potential downsides don't exist and that everyone's problems will be solved permanently by drooling at the Steam/Linux window for ten hours a day?
I suppose there's a risk that Steam becomes the defacto way to ship software for Linux which would in effect just assimilate it into being a closed platform.
OTOH that seems unlikely, hopefully it will be more like OSX with a healthy commercial ecosystem and an open source system living side by side on the same OS.
The problem is, that if it aspires to be a generic channel for distributing software besides games, the DRM side if it is bad enough to be concerned, even if it won't replace other open channels.
I'm not sure if it is bad in and of itself. As long as you are free to not install it and stick with your normal apt repos to get your DRM free open source stuff.
I guess it could become a disadvantage if an influx of good commercial software means that effort on open source stuff is diminished because there is less perceived need.
While that may be true, the focus here is different. Whether the game is closed or open source is developers' decision, while using or not using DRM is the distributor's decision. So in this case the complaint is addressed to Valve as a distributor who promotes DRM. In contrast GOG as a distributor is against any DRM.
DRM in general is terrible, though. It adds no value at all for legitimate consumers, and in fact makes their experience far worse than it is for those that pirate your games (seriously mis-aligned incentives there!)
Steam is DRM, of course, and it definitely causes hassle for some users. Where Steam is different however is that it does actually add value, and for many users (myself included) the trade-off is worth it. I wouldn't dismiss software out of hand because "it's DRM" - there's a whole spectrum of good and bad software within that definition.
I'm not sure what you mean. How does DRM add any value to Steam? I.e. what would be worse there if it could drop DRM?
The way I see it - DRM never adds any value, and it's a two fold problem. The practical aspect of it - it degrades usability for legitimate users as you pointed out. And the ethical aspect of it - it's a preemptive policing technology that treats users as potential criminals by default. In my opinion it doesn't have any reason to exist at all. And actually you can dismiss it just for the fact of promoting DRM, since DRM means disrespect to users by default.
Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that the DRM in Steam adds value - but taking Steam as a whole, Steam itself is viewable as a DRM system that adds value (in all the ways that make Steam awesome).
The core DRM in Steam (if we ignore the flakiness of offline mode at least) is clever, consumer-friendly, and unbeatable: You simply do not deliver the executable to users until the game is out (but they can pre-load assets, which can optionally be encrypted to stop any pre-release leaks from them).
That's not to say Steam might be marginally improved without that, but in my day to day it has never caused any problems that wouldn't exist without it - in contrast, CD ROM based DRM such as Securom has caused me several headaches.
It's also worth mentioning that the DRM on Steam is opt-in: While the big publishers see fit to ship extra DRM on top of Steam, many of the games I have installed through Steam will actually run fine if I launch the executable directly, without starting Steam.
