Re: [Trisquel-users] Proposed Project: GOLD - Gaming on Linux Distribution

[strypey]

The reason is that I think there's a much greater chance of convincing  
commercial game studios to release their source code if they can keep their  
artwork under an ARR license, or an NC. NC artwork allows a game to be  
legally distributed gratis as part of fully libre distros/ repos, increasing  
their appeal to end users. ARR licensed artwork doesn't help us right away,  
but it does allow a modding community to create their own artwork files for a  
clone, and it allows new libre games to be built on the engine. Ideally, a  
number of commercial game studios can be convinced to experiment with  
developing game engines in the open, rather than chucking the code from  
obsolete ones over the wall, which will also benefit downstream libre game  
development.

My hope is that if we make some progress with getting code released, and the  
companies see the benefits of making their code available for review, outside  
contributions, and organised cross-company collaboration, then this will  
encourage them to take more steps. The companies that are using ARR copyright  
might be convinced to switch to NC, and the ones using NC clauses might be  
convinced to switch to a free culture license. The hardest rock can be  
dissolved by the softest drops of water, if they are persistent enough.