Valve has been quietly funding an Arm emulation project for seven years now. Pierre-Loup Griffais, who helped build SteamOS and the Steam Deck, told The Verge (paywalled) about it recently.
While most of us already knew of their work on Proton, the popular compatibility layer for running Windows games on Linux, their behind-the-scenes support for FEX-Emu, an x86-to-ARM64 emulator, has come as a surprise.
Valve's Approach to Open Source
The company began recruiting developers for Arm compatibility back in 2016 and 2017 with a focus on bringing Windows games to the platform. Ryan Houdek, who leads FEX-Emu development, made the first prototype in 2018 after interactions with Pierre around that time.
Valve has funded all of FEX-Emu's core developers since then. Ryan told The Verge that Valve pays enough to make FEX his full-time job. Marking the project's seven-year anniversary, Ryan thanked Valve for trusting him to design the project for long-term use, and not just for them, but as an open project anyone can adapt.
Pierre adds that they don't want game developers wasting time porting games to different architectures and that they want them improving games or working on their next game. He called porting work "essentially wasted work".
When asked about Arm-powered SteamOS devices, he didn't limit his answer to what Valve could do. He mentioned ultraportables, laptops, handhelds, and even desktop chips as potential Arm platforms.
Plus, Pierre also shared that Valve doesn't have a specific plan for attracting manufacturers yet and that they will ship their hardware first and see what happens.
Closing Thoughts
I like how Valve approached this. Instead of building proprietary in-house tools, they found the right developers and funded them to work openly.
This benefits everyone, not just Valve. If more companies took this route, open source developers wouldn't be so exhausted, underpaid, and constantly on the verge of quitting.
Sourav Rudra
💬 Do you like Valve's strategies when it comes to open source? Got your own suggestions? Add them below!
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