I dig most of this article, and I do applaud the work Valve is doing for the Linux gaming ecosystem, but I draw a line at supporting kernel level anti-cheat drivers. That trend in gaming bothers me to no end, and I refuse to knowingly install a game that features one.

The presence of 15 year old script kiddies using aimbots does NOT IN ANY WAY justify having kernel level control over my machine, Linux or otherwise. Valve, and every other company that contributes to gaming in general, kindly stay the fuck out of our kernels.

EDIT: I feel a few folks in the comments are getting mixed up between the concepts of DRM and kernel-level anti-cheat drivers. DRM is what keeps folks from pirating software, as well as diminishing the freedom of where and how you can install the software. It sucks, but I understand why it exists, and that isn’t what I’m talking about here

Kernel-level drivers, on the other hand, are drivers that run outside your sphere of influence (so-called user-space) and exist outside the checks and balances of your operating system that keep programs from doing whatever the hell they please.

Add on the fact that these programs are black boxes by design, and all of the sudden a company essentially has free reign to do whatever they want with your machine under your nose. This is dangerous and unacceptable.