[Dev] Confusion about game data

[Nicolás Reynolds]

Fabio Pesari <fabio at pesari.eu> writes:

> On 03/07/2015 03:41 PM, Nicolás Reynolds wrote:
>> i thought the wiki said it (or we lost it on one of the many
>> migrations...) but parabola is also commited to free culture, 
>
> That's good to know, as I too support it.
>
> But I looked around and I could not find it in the Wiki, I only found
> the rule in
> https://wiki.parabola.nu/Package_freedom_verification_problems but if
> Parabola is explicitly committed to Free Culture, I think it should be
> in the homepage or in the social contract.

i thought it was on the social contract...

>> and that's why we don't include artwork with non-commercial (also
>> disallowed by the fsdg) or non-derivative (allowed by the fsdg)
>> terms.
>
> That's fine, but I never proposed that...I was talking about binaries
> only, not data. Most distros already do it, to some extent - for
> example, all those games which require proprietary assets (such as
> Chocolate Doom and CorsixTH) are always distributed without any data.

so you would distribute a binary package that's only useful with artwork
not available on repos?  that's like a *nudge nudge* to go use unfree
stuff outside them :P

>> in cases like these, and it's always about game data, the solution is
>>to approach the developers and ask them for relicensing.  we've barely
>>done that in five years.  blacklisting is the only method we have so
>>far... it sounds awful but i'd better not make it a newspeak term.
>>blacklisting is freedom! :P
>
> Over the years, I asked the developers of many such projects to liberate
> their assets.
>
> The most common answers I've received are:
>
> 1. If they did that, the mobile market would be flooded with poor
> versions of their games and their brand would be tarnished

if they'd use a copyleft license at least the artwork must be attributed
to the game developers and re-distributed under the same license.
freerider game developers would use any artwork available independently
of the license i'd assume, while everyone else gets equally fucked by
the nonfree terms.

> 2. They would like to sell the game, and they don't like the idea that
> somebody else could be their competitor

same as before... here's a nice article on non-commercial terms and free
culture.

http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC

> 3. Their game is a clone of a commercial game and they need to keep the
> assets NC to avoid lawsuits (UQM falls under this category)

i've heard of many lawsuits were there wasn't any commercial
interest... maybe the gamer community is more forgiving, which i doubt
:P

> 4. They don't have the authority to do so

?

> Now, we can contact the developers, but it's very unlikely they will
> change their minds.
>
> My hope is that some people will make free assets from scratch for those
> games, but for games like UQM I'm afraid it will just not happen. People
> are still selling Zork, a game written in 1977, in 2015; people get very
> upset when you try to profit off their IP but can be kinder toward
> non-commercial efforts.

-- 
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