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Free 3D MMORPG Planeshift Ported To Mac OS X

Posted by timothy on from the imaginary-creatures-dying-in-droves dept.

superfebs writes "While Planeshift, the free (yes, as in Freedom, who cares otherwise) 3D MMORPG, is moving towards the 0.3 version, which will provide combat (read: flows of fresh blood), the current release has been ported to Mac OS X. Now more people can enjoy going around in a fantasy world chatting with others and collecting crystals. Oh, beta testers are needed."

6 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Planeshift is not free as in Freedom by maxgilead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Planeshift as a project has three licenses - code is under GPL (free), art (music, sound, maps, models, textures) are under Planeshift license (non-free), I'm not sure about the third one.

    Quoting from Planeshift license:

    "You may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, sell, participate in the transfer or sale or reproduce, create Derivative Works from, distribute, perform, display or in any way exploit any of the Material released under this License unless expressly permitted by the PlaneShift Team."

    That's free as in Freedom?! Free as in beer sure, but not as in Freedom, not even close. I wish all the best to Planeshift team, just let's not pretend its Free as in Freedom project when it's not.

    1. Re:Planeshift is not free as in Freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Planeshift Engine is Free as in Freedom, the Planeshift game world / art / etc. is "only" free as in beer. Mostly this is to prevent fracturing/fragmenting of the game world over small disagreements, should they *ever* occur

    2. Re:Planeshift is not free as in Freedom by maxgilead · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In todays games code is only small part of a game, nobody can claim (story submitter in our case) that the whole project is free software when only some part of it is. Of course it's project authors' sole decision and nobody's saying they did something wrong, let's just be precise how things are.

      Of course having restrictive license to prevent forks is disputable practice at best, but consinuing it would be good start for a flamewar so let's skip it ;-)

    3. Re:Planeshift is not free as in Freedom by petteri_666 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is understandable: most visual art is unique and based on your own talent, where programming is more about efficiency and the end result.

      I don't want to troll but it is really sad to see that people treat programming still this way. Programmers are artist just like "real" artist and in the end they both contribute their own time and talent to the project so they should at least be treated equally.

    4. Re:Planeshift is not free as in Freedom by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Programmers are artist just like "real" artist and in the end they both contribute their own time and talent to the project so they should at least be treated equally.

      Ideally, this would be true. However, in the real world, nobody knows/cares who wrote this patch or who designed this library, as long as it works with your code - and most likely, nobody will care that you wrote this code, as long as it works with theirs. The best analogue would be commercial artists/graphic designers, such as people who create the art for advertisements, product covers, etc. These are rarely signed by the artist, since they focus more on getting an idea across visually than demonstrating the artist's abilities

      If Planeshift wanted a generic dragon and a generic mage, they could've found one publicly on Internet stock sites, from clipart, from copyright-expired sources from last century, etc. I think they wanted unique and styled art, which is incompatible with the Free mindset.

      Programmers who do write amazing, involved, or unique software are indeed identified. Richard Stallman comes to mind as the author of GCC and Emacs. John Carmack is another example. The guy who wrote my mouse's driver or some random Flash game isn't quite as memorable.

  2. Re:Meh. by Solder+Fumes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nice.

    Guess what, I don't have the time or skill to do so. However, I do give back to the Open Source community by donating to some of my favorite useful projects, and promoting Open Source projects to many, many people, making sure to explain the principle of Open Source. The only thing as important as programmers and users, to an Open Source project, is attention. With attention, you attract more users and testers and programmers.

    That being said, I don't feel Planeshift is at the point where it should be advertised on Slashdot as a game. It isn't yet. As you said yourself a few comments below here, it is a tech demo. As a user, I feel that drawing people into it now will have a negative effect. "Beta" implied a game that was nearly working. You will get people who try it, are disappointed, and then tune out from that point on.

    And given your attitude as a member of the Planeshift team, I will probably stay tuned out. Without users, any Open Source project is worthless crap. Copping an attitude with users makes people feel reluctant to invest any time into something run by easily pissed-off developers.