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Planeshift Enters Open Testing
josePhoenix writes "You may have heard about Planeshift in this article, but now they have finished their period of closed testing and everyone can play/test features! This version of the open source (except the art license) mmorpg includes combat, a much bigger world than the previous version, and many other features that bring it closer to the level of commercial games. The project leader, Luca 'Talad' Pancallo has posted some interesting statistics on the making of Planeshift Crystal Blue on their main page, including that they have 'a virtual team made of about 40 people distributed in 25 countries.' Read the good news and other info about the project, and download the client from this page."
Putting a 217 meg file on Slashdot is just cruel. Anyone got a torrent?
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
Well, that there is the reason that Planeshift's art resources are under a spearate license. A lot of people gripe about this however its is the only way to satisfy the concerns of artists and attract them to the project.
josePhoenix
A Planeshift (http://www.planeshift.it/main_01.html) Fanatic! Known as Tavaris in-game
MMOs are one of the few genres I could see open source taking hold in.
The term MMO is silly; the genre didn't begin with 3D implementation. It was even commercialized well before the Internet was. Point being, the best MUDs have always been open source and so your comment is jaw-droppingly ill-informed. DIKU code is 15 years old now, older than any commercial MMOs except for maybe Habitat and Shadows of Yserbius, and pay-MUDs. [And there was even some controversy over whether Everquest (what 99% of other MMOs are derived from) was built on DIKU.]
Authors of art work, music, etc are required to assign copyright and are prohibited from using their own work (except as a portfolio to show employers) as a condition of being a full contributor to the project! The Joint Copyright isn't enough to be a full contributor. Would it have been too much to give the author an unlimited license to THEIR OWN WORK. Slashdot people get mad at employers who put these restrictions on people's own work, they should also do so regarding volunteer projects.
So if I had something non-code related to contribute, I have to agree to not distribute my own work, even for free, in order to contribute to a project for which I wouldn't even be paid?
Are they crazy?
They are locking themselves out from even using free content. I would not suggest author's sell their soul (and the right to distribute THEIR OWN WORK) to this project.
If I create something, unless I'm doing it for a paying job, I damn well want the right to do with it as I wish, and not be told I can't be a full contributor to a volunteer project unless I agree to being shackled and enslaved and prohibited from free use of my own work!
If I give a gift of content (I will not say "intellectual property", there is no such thing, just a legal interest in gov't enforced monopolies, which isn't actually property in any non-legalistic sense) I shouldn't be punished for my generousity by being told what I can't do with my own work.
That isn't in the Christmas spirit, or in any spirit of giving.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I really don't understand what's up with you artsy types. Coders spend a zillion hours of their free time to make a free open source game just so others can enjoy it but you can't do the same for a bunch of notes? Sure, dream on that one day you'll be famous and you can sell the rights for some disgustingly large sum of money.
If you want to get into a project like this you have to get into the spirit of it and that means doing the work for the fun of it and let the entire world enoy it. It also means that YOU gotta show that you're a worthwhile addition to the team so that means making something you think could be used in the game. It also means being prepared to be shot down because your work doesn't fit their ideas (yet). This doesn't mean you should give up but instead that you should try again, talk with more people, get a feel for what they are trying to do.
And complaining about the lack of organisation in an open source project is silly. That's oly to be expected. If you want more organisation you'll have to prove that you would be a worthwhile addition to the team and do it yourself.
You see, THEY have already spent an insane amount of time on the project, you on the other hand haven't done anything yet so you haven't earned any "rights" yet. If you want them to notice you, to listen to you to even, you've gotta be prepared to do some hard work. (no promising to do hard work in the future if only they would listen to you first is not enough)
Coders spend a zillion hours of their free time to make a free open source game just so others can enjoy it but you can't do the same for a bunch of notes?
One major difference between a computer program and a musical work is that it's possible to consciously avoid copying a computer program. Under copyright law, "copying" a work into one's own work is defined as having ever had "access" even once to a given work and then producing a work that's "substantially similar". The desirable qualities of a computer program are behaviors, which are uncopyrightable, whereas the desirable qualities of a musical work are expressions, which are copyrightable. Thus, unlike a performance of a computer program, a performance of a musical work taints the listener with "access" to the work. Courts have ruled ( Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, 420 F. Supp. 177 (S.D.N.Y. 1976)) that a songwriter who writes and publishes a song that turns out to be similar to something he happened to have heard ten years ago on the radio or in a grocery store is just as liable of copyright infringement as "your friendly neighborhood pirate" who sells obviously copied CDs on a street corner.
Given precedent, how do songwriters avoid lawsuits from big publishers in practice? Computer programmers have the dirty/clean room method; what analogous method do songwriters have?
not to mention mozilla, etc. plenty of designers are very into the open source way.
tasty electronic music vittles
Yo. Original AC here.
I completely support ya, man. I took a look at Planeshift about a year ago in order to find another coding project to work on. Their concept seems good, although their execution upon close examination is downright shoddy. Their licensing arrangements and justifications for such are simply bullshit.
There is no reason why ownership rights of the artwork should be assigned to the project management - especially since this is supposed to be a free project. If they're so worried about artists leaving and screwing them, they should just do a contract for nonexclusive distribution rights.
'Ell, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to simply document the license of each piece of contributed art. Public Domain and Creative Commons work could be used by anyone, exclusive content could be licensed specifically for the project, etc. This approach would not only be fork-friendly, it would also help to prevent any legal fuckups.
Although securing ownership rights allows for the added benefit of (unlikely) legal defense of the artwork, it has the more nefarious use as leverage to prevent forks. Even though the code is GPL, any forks are forced to use completely new artwork. Lacking ownership rights, even the original artists cannot permit their own works to be used in a fork. Not cool.
As you noted, there is an air of pretension that comes off this project. Although I chose to have no interaction with the group, I reached the same conclusion when I evaluated their stuff. At the time, they did not even wish to release the server source, saying that non-official servers would dilute the quality of their work. WTF?
All things considered, their actions do not technically violate the GPL - but their attitude towards forks and their licensing schemes simply fly in the face of the spirit of open source.
I really don't understand what's up with you artsy types. Coders spend a zillion hours of their free time to make a free open source game just so others can enjoy it but you can't do the same for a bunch of notes? Sure, dream on that one day you'll be famous and you can sell the rights for some disgustingly large sum of money.
You missed the parent's point completely.
Coders give PlaneShift their work under the GPL. "Artsy types" give their work under PSL (the PlaneShift Lisence). From that link:
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.
This is what the parent referred to as "relicensing". Also, since they are donating their work (as in not being paid for it), AFAIK, it's actually impossible for them to give up copyright under US Law... In other words, the PSL would never stand up in court, so stop pretending to be lawyers (people go to school for a long time for that), shove your PSL up your ass, and publish the stuff under some sort of CCL.