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ProtonDB alternatives (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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Since ProtonDB is proprietary and also directly linked with Steam games instead of any game possible, I was looking around for open source alternatives to it. I found Are we anti cheat yet which is pretty cool but it's limited just to the anti cheat working or not, and also PC Gaming wiki which is for all games but no longer for Linux compatibility in specific, so the answers are also much more vague.

Is there anything I haven't discovered? It seems like there's no good alternative to it currently, not even one that just lacks user input.

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[–] 7 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I think OP means that the community feeds a database using a platform they have no real control over, as the source code of the website/WebApp is not public.

However it is good to remind people that ProtonDB database is published under the Open Database License ODbL at this GitHub repo. To me having the db under an open license is more important than a WebApp (especially now that anyone can build such a website in a probably insecure way, using a 20$ monthly LLM subscription).

I haven't digged into the db myself, maybe it does not come with the comments and so and only the borked, silver, gold, platinum labels.

So yes the website doesn't seems to be open source but the database is. So anyone could rebuild an alternative from its database (which is probably the most precious part of ProtonDB). If nobody already did it yet, it's probably because no one felt the need for, as ProtonDB already offer a valid, great and free user experience with currently no reasons to distrust the project.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 months ago* (2 children)

    The data being publicized isn't enough to call it open source, if someone decided to create a foss app that copies over new records from the ProtonDB database every night for example, you would still have a diverging dataset if you allow people to insert new records in the new app, and the ProtonDB owners could just decide to not export that data any longer whenever they want.

    That could also be true if it were open source, but I'd say it's much more likely to happen when the main parts of it are proprietary.

    You also can't change the data being Steam specific when the app is closed source and not accepting contributions, a foss app could become as broad or as specific as the community needs it to be.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago*

    It is certainly not open source, but it is a copy left license.

    You could make the exact same argument for literally any open source project where someone forks it.

    The "power" of open source is that in theory if the creator went rogue that the public can switch to the fork as the main app used.

    I really fail to see if the dataset is open, how the data itself (of course not the web domain or front end) would be any different in a fully open source project. Maybe the transfer to a new app in the last case would be quicker, but that is about it. The dataset is the gold here.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    isn't enough to call it open source

    I never said that ProtonDB was open source.

    you would still have a diverging dataset if you allow people to insert new records in the new app

    An Open source WebApp would not prevent this from happenning either. A community-led fork is nothing if "new entries" are all going through the main open source tool extending the "old" database.

    It would only benefits from having the same code base. Same problem, doesn't solve it.

    The ProtonDB owners could just decide to not export that data any longer whenever they want.

    I haven't read the whole license myself so I don't know all the legal aspect if they were going to do this.

    But if they chose to close the database future entries, I'm pretty confident that the Linux Gaming community will organize themselves to quickly get another app, forking the open database previous from the closing decision. Allowing them to quickly move to a new common place. ProtonDB will probably lost reputation and usage as time goes but this is not a prediction scenario.

    You also can't change the data being Steam specific when the app is closed source and not accepting contributions

    That's another (valid) point. But nothing prevent you to build a webapp that periodacly imports from ProtonDB database to show Steam games data while also lists other titles that are not available through Steam creating a new database with your users entries for other platforms.

    Open Source is a way to organize people around a project. ProtonDB author doesn't seems to want their code to be publicly available for consulting nor for improving or modifying by external people. And that's their rights to do so. For now, it seems that their projects is benefiting the Linux gaming community and the open license of the database is appreciated. If the project goes in an unexpected direction, people can fork the database which is the most valuable data, more than the code of the webapp.

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