Re: scummvm dependent games: non-free?
Branden Robinson wrote: On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 07:40:44AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: This is basically a trick of wording. If the license lets you ship it with the one-character shell script containing the letter 'w' and charge for that, then that's good enough. I continue to assert that this exception is moronic. Well, yeah. :-) It makes a mockery of our defense of software freedom. I have not yet heard of an application of this loophole that wasn't motivated my malevolent intent (We want to fuck over competitor Q who otherwise would be able to easily distribute our software.). Incompetent malevolent intent, perhaps? The exception is only acceptable to Debian if it doesn't work, basically! -- There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Re: scummvm dependent games: non-free?
On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 07:40:44AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: This is basically a trick of wording. If the license lets you ship it with the one-character shell script containing the letter 'w' and charge for that, then that's good enough. I continue to assert that this exception is moronic. It makes a mockery of our defense of software freedom. I have not yet heard of an application of this loophole that wasn't motivated my malevolent intent (We want to fuck over competitor Q who otherwise would be able to easily distribute our software.). -- G. Branden Robinson| Suffer before God and ye shall be Debian GNU/Linux | redeemed. God loves us, so He [EMAIL PROTECTED] | makes us suffer Christianity. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Aaron Dunsmore signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: scummvm dependent games: non-free?
Joachim Breitner wrote: Hi, Am Fr, den 25.06.2004 schrieb Gerfried Fuchs um 12:11: 3) You may not charge a fee for the game itself. This includes reselling the game as an individual item. Doesn't this violate point 1 of the DFSG? AFAIK it is ok, as long as it is allowed to distribute it as part of something (like Debian). Similar situation as with Bitstream's Vera font: (quote from doc/copyright): The Font Software may be sold as part of a larger software package but no copy of one or more of the Font Software typefaces may be sold by itself. Basically the same it, and seems to be free. This is basically a trick of wording. If the license lets you ship it with the one-character shell script containing the letter 'w' and charge for that, then that's good enough. At least the splash screen of Flight of the Amazon Queen when you start it is misleading at large, too: Unauthorized copying, reproduction, adoption, rental, public performance, broadcast or other exploitation of this product is strictly prohibited and constitutes a violation of applicable laws which may give rise to both civil liability and criminal penalties. (hand typed and thus typos might be in it) Should be fixed, but it's not RC. Feel free to file a bug. Technically, it's true; it's just there's a *lot* of authorized uses! -- There are none so blind as those who will not see.
scummvm dependent games: non-free?
Hi! [Please Cc: me on replies, I'm not subscribed to this list -- OTOH I'll watch the archive for answers anyway] I wonder why the games Beneath a Steel Sky and Flight of the Amazon Queen are in main. To me the license is quite clearly non-free, because its for non-commercial use only: 3) You may not charge a fee for the game itself. This includes reselling the game as an individual item. Doesn't this violate point 1 of the DFSG? Don't get me wrong, I would be the last who wouldn't be happy to see these games in main, but from my understanding they must be moved to non-free. I wonder if I have an interpration problem and the ftp-masters have a different opinion on that, or if they just have missed it. At least the splash screen of Flight of the Amazon Queen when you start it is misleading at large, too: Unauthorized copying, reproduction, adoption, rental, public performance, broadcast or other exploitation of this product is strictly prohibited and constitutes a violation of applicable laws which may give rise to both civil liability and criminal penalties. (hand typed and thus typos might be in it) This doesn't align with the copyright file at all. If people agree I can file two release critical bugreports against the games, how unfortunate that might be. So long, Alfie -- Unfortunately, an exponential reaches zero only at infinity. It's only infinite if you're using non-integral numbers, which we are not. -- Herbert Xu, [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: scummvm dependent games: non-free?
Hi, Am Fr, den 25.06.2004 schrieb Gerfried Fuchs um 12:11: 3) You may not charge a fee for the game itself. This includes reselling the game as an individual item. Doesn't this violate point 1 of the DFSG? AFAIK it is ok, as long as it is allowed to distribute it as part of something (like Debian). Similar situation as with Bitstream's Vera font: (quote from doc/copyright): The Font Software may be sold as part of a larger software package but no copy of one or more of the Font Software typefaces may be sold by itself. Basically the same it, and seems to be free. At least the splash screen of Flight of the Amazon Queen when you start it is misleading at large, too: Unauthorized copying, reproduction, adoption, rental, public performance, broadcast or other exploitation of this product is strictly prohibited and constitutes a violation of applicable laws which may give rise to both civil liability and criminal penalties. (hand typed and thus typos might be in it) Should be fixed, but it's not RC. Feel free to file a bug. nomeata -- Joachim nomeata Breitner Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] | ICQ# 74513189 | GPG-Keyid: 4743206C JID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://people.debian.org/~nomeata signature.asc Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil
Re: scummvm dependent games: non-free?
On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 01:13:10PM +0200, Joachim Breitner wrote: At least the splash screen of Flight of the Amazon Queen when you start it is misleading at large, too: Unauthorized copying, reproduction, adoption, rental, public performance, broadcast or other exploitation of this product is strictly prohibited and constitutes a violation of applicable laws which may give rise to both civil liability and criminal penalties. (hand typed and thus typos might be in it) Should be fixed, but it's not RC. Feel free to file a bug. Hello, What I found strange and RC, (but haven't acted upon yet) is that I could not find any source. the upstream package just contains binary file (queen.1c for Flight of the Amazon Queen) that is copied into the package. I haven't looked into scummvm if there is a tool to decompile the game into something more sutable for change. Best /jp -- #8) Use common sense in routing cable. Avoid # wrapping coax around sources of strong jens persson # electric or magnetic fields. Do not wrap the [EMAIL PROTECTED]# cable around flourescent light ballasts or Mäster Olofsväg 24 # cyclotrons, for example. S-224 66 LUND;SWEDEN # - Ethernet Headstart Product, #Information and Installation Guide, # Bell Technologies, pg. 11
Re: scummvm dependent games: non-free?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 jens persson wrote: Hello, What I found strange and RC, (but haven't acted upon yet) is that I could not find any source. the upstream package just contains binary file (queen.1c for Flight of the Amazon Queen) that is copied into the package. I haven't looked into scummvm if there is a tool to decompile the game into something more sutable for change. I asked the ScummVM developers via IRC about the source of the two freeware games (for my own curiosity; IANADD), and they provided much useful information: * The sources for the original game programs are not going to be released, but the original game programs are not needed to run the games with ScummVM. * The sources for the game scripts are no longer available, even to the original game developers. However, the format of these scripts are specified by the ScummVM source. Based on this, they could be decompiled, changed, and recompiled, by writing tools to do so. * The other resources are already in a suitable format for modification, except for being part of a disk image. There are tools to extract the resources from the image, such as queenrebuild. The formats of the resources are specified by the ScummVM source. For more information, see the #scummvm IRC log at: http://logs.scummvm.org/scummvm.log.25Jun2004 Grep for JoshTriplett to find the relevant discussion. Based on this information, I would say that other than being packed into a game image, the data is already in a format usable for modification; this format is well-specified by the Free code in ScummVM that uses it. The game data could be extracted, modified, and recompiled, if someone wanted to modify it. That's not exactly ideal, but many other old emulated programs are in the same situation: no source is available anymore, and there are enough people around that don't need source to modify them, so what's available should be considered the source. I believe that there was previous discussion debian-legal about this issue, and the conclusion was that if a given format is the _only_ format available, even to the original developers, then it must be the preferred form for modification. - - Josh Triplett -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Debian - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFA3HAQGJuZRtD+evsRAjr/AJ0QxdzpE1ou5WModqlhs61aEIse6ACgmr6I k39orRb+ZvuaLtoFiNwmGk4= =vvN1 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
