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id and Valve May Be Violating GPL
frooge writes "With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release."
No. It means that they violate copyright law because they didn't conform to the GPL terms. If it's true, they are illegally distributing the software called: DOSbox.
It doesn't mean any code of the old DOS iD games has to be released. Only modifications they might have made to DOSbox will have to be made public.
It's due to the work of the DOSbox creators that VALVe and iD can sell their old software and people can enjoy it. Yet the DOSbox creators don't get any credit for their work. And that is a major shame.
Valve/iD already updated the games with the required files. Old, incorrect news.
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
Yes. It's not like iD has released anything GLP before.
Oh, wait...
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The only time you'd need to contact the developers is if you want to get an alternative license. Quite often people will release code under GPL and also be prepared to release it under alternative licenses, perhaps for a fee.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"call me a noob... But I don't see what the big deal is here."
The problem is that DOSBox is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (aka GPL). This license is the foundation for the vast majority of open source software, and explicitly states that if you distribute software under it, you must also redistribute the souce code. Furthermore, as DOSBox appears to be under the GPL and not the LGPL (GNU Lesser/Library General Public License) it would mean that both DOSBox and the game shipping along with it would be required to release source code to the general public. Now I may be wrong on which license DB uses, as I just took a real quick look at their sourceforge page, but this means that either ID & Valve would need to find a new avenue for emulating these old games, release the code for the games along with a re-release of the dosbox code they used (including not only programming source code, but also graphics, audio, levels, etc), stop distributing them all together, or (the most logical version) treat the DOSBox component as a seperate distribution, requiring user specific request of it, just as Linux distributions like Ubuntu handle proprietary components like the NVidia drivers or a proprietary multimedia codec.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
The third option, which isn't usually available when you screw up with non-free software, is to apologise really fast and comply with the GPL*. Although there are no guarantees free software developers are usually nice folks who can overlook a mistake.
It is one reason why all the 'viral' fud about the GPL is so annoying (not that it applies to this case, as there is no derivative product, but it usually rears it's ugly head in these threads). All the GPL does is give you an Option Three which isn't usually available - you would be in court for damages instead of sitting across a table from a bunch of altrustic techies seeking a negotiated solution.
*Historically stopping distribution and rewriting the offending module usually is an option too, depending on how antagonistic you were before admitting your mistake.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
No, it would only require them to provide the source for their modified DOSBox.
The GPL is clear that using a Free program to execute or operate on proprietary data leaves the data under its original ownership and licensing.
- Nick
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Since they distribute DOSBox in binary form they are obligated under the GPL to make the source to DOSBox available. They are not obligated to provide source for the games since DOSBox is an emulator, which is to say, a kind of interpreter, not a library with which the games are linked. The distribution of both the games and DOSBox on the same medium does not bring the games under the GPL. This is made explicit in the "aggregation" clause of the GPL. See also the GPL FAQ.
They could have complied with the GPL easily, by bundling the DOSBox sources (or a notice saying that they would be supplied on request for a reasonable fee). Or, they could have developed their own DOS emulator.
This is not a GPL violation, it's a copyright law violation. They distributed a product that they did not have the right to distribute. I wonder how well they would take it if the DOSBox team decided to distribute Half Life 2 to a few thousand people - probably not very well. The fact that there was a non-discriminatory license available for free is irrelevant. A proprietary software company decided not to respect the copyrights of a piece of software, and distributed it without a license. Considering Valve's fondness for DRM, I wonder if they subscribe to the 'if it's not bolted down' philosophy...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yeah, I went to his keynote Friday night; there were a lot of technical questions, and at the same time a lot of questions about steam, etc. At one point someone asked him about porting Doom to Steam and he flat out said "wow, that's pretty cool, I hadn't heard about that yet, but it seems neat".... He's very much on the research side of things and made it very clear that while he's still the posterboy for iD, he has very little control or even desire to muck about with marketing and corperate politics, though at the same time he also said that they were very proud of their decision to ultimately open source everything, and have made many design decisions in the past that have limited them because they wouldn't then be able to open source fully at a later point (he also pointed out that at some point in the future, iD tech 5 would become open source, too).
+5, informative.
moox. for a new generation.
The old games are largely written in x86 assembly language. They do not use libraries for interacting with the machine, they issue DOS system calls and [video] BIOS calls directly. Porting them to other platforms would effectively mean re-writing them. You could add an abstraction layer, replacing the low-level calls with library calls, and then write a library that would translate these into something higher-level. Or you could use a generic version of this; a DOS emulator. Doom and Quake were written in a mixture of C and assembly, and the assembly often had fall-back routines. Quake had an abstraction layer long before the open source release, with VESA, DirectDraw, X11 and OpenGL versions.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Only modifications they might have made to DOSbox will have to be made public.
Please let's get away from this thinking that you can automatically patch up a GPL violation by releasing your modified source code later.
When you violate the GPL, you immediately lose your license to the GPL'ed code and you are liable for your past and future license violations. You cannot make up for that past violation by coming into compliance, and you cannot restore your license to use the code under the GPL license by coming into compliance.
What that liability entails is something that you can negotiate with the authors about, and if you don't reach an agreement, it's for the courts to decide. Theoretically, if the GPL violation is egregious enough, a court might well hand control over other corporate assets, including unrelated software, to the author of the GPL'ed software.
Many GPL authors will be nice and permit you to remedy past GPL violations by coming into compliance, and they may also grant you permission to use the software under the GPL. But all of that is at their sole discretion.
Your mistaken too.
1. executables/binaries/object code distributed must have an offer to have a verbatim copy of the source code used to build that object code. this offer must be made available for at least 3 years.
2. the source you make available must include a copy of the GPL
Common misconceptions:
1. people assume GPL forces you to put anything you link to it into GPL as well. This is not the case, it just means you cannot distribute your changes. If you do, then you can be taken to court, but you can never be forced to license your changes as GPL. just forced to cease distributing
2. gpl covered application must include source. not exactly correct, the source just needs to be offered to be available to those you have distributed the binaries too. and at no charge.
The solution - make DOSbox source available on the company website with modification (if any). If it's as I assume and they just deleted a bunch of files and dropped in a custom configuration then there is nothing special that needs to be done. as long as individual binaries are built from that source that is all you have to do. GPL does not cover configuration files because they are already in a "source" form.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What? The GPL states you need to provide the source to code you're distributing, otherwise they have no right. They haven't done that.
See: "For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
rights."
and "3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange"
Please go read and understand the licence and the FAQ before correcting people on what it says.
You're completely and utterly wrong on games running on DOSBox requiring release under the GPL. That would be like saying that just because a program runs on Linux or runs inside of an open source virtual machine, its source code needs to be released. DOSBox doesn't require you to link to it when programming. This would be mere aggregation, and the GPL, even if it said that the release was required, couldn't be enforced that way due to the limitations of copyright law.
I can take any old DOS application and run it in DOSBox without looking at a line of code. That's the....ummm....whole entire point of DOSBox.
http://watching-eyes.blogspot.com/
So i thought there where some experts on slashdot ? guess not..
What all you people fail to realize is - that a copy of the GPL is NOT enough - if you use GPL code together with your code you have to release the source code of your binaries too along with a GPL - thats what the GPL is all about !!
However, this does not apply for LGPL code - so always look out in your projects to never use GPL code - never - you have to release your source code under GPL too
DosBox is not configured well, it runs 320x200 games in a kind of widescreen. I've been able to use DosBox to run DOS 320x200 games (some of them in the package) with the correct aspect ratio. Anyway. The real problem is that the DOS games come without their setup.exe files and are configured not to use wave blaster/general midi. Whatever, just grab gzdoom or something and everything's well again :). Anyway, The package's great, it has Hexen II and Quake 1,2,3 including the mission packs (Win32 versions all of them). Also, the Master Levels. Good stuff.
The worst judgement that can be brought against a GPL violator is an injunction preventing further distribution. The GPL does not have any provisions to deny the license to those who have violated it, and so any violators can simply rectify their procedures and continue.
Thus, the GPL *does* allow you to fix problems retroactively.
They're not required to do subsection a), which you quoted, just one of the three. But since they may just be including as opposed to selling Dosbox, subsection c) may well be acceptable. A lot of GPL'd software comes without the source -- many Linux distros don't include the source, either, but you can still get it. I'm pretty sure my copy of Ubuntu didn't come with source code, and I don't recall seeing an offer to get the source code during the install (but then who pays attention to license terms during an OS install?).
I'd hardly call id or Valve pretty big companies. Valve currently lists 104 employees, and id only 34.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Bullshit!
"Open Source" can mean one of two things:
In neither case does it mean "public domain," which is what you're thinking of.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Just downloaded the pack. It's using a modified, binary-only dosbox. They have added the license and thanks.txt back, however, it still is infringing.
I copied dosbox.exe to a seperate directory, and it complained about missing SDL dlls. Using stock SDL dlls, it says "Failed to find steam". As such, they are distributing a modified binary-only version of a GPL application. Given the distribution has already happened, they are legally obligated to distribute the source code to the steam "stub" present in their dosbox application. Failing that, they are guilty of some serious copyright infringment, and statutory damages can be huge.
I suspect it wouldn't look good in court having a very large, well-known software company stealing code from little guys, and using it as the foundation for a significant commercial project. This also makes it look willfull, as opposed to accidental infringement. Furthermore, given iD's technology licensing platform, which includes significant GPL distribution, they would have a hard time claiming ignorance.
All Valve needs to do is fix the problem. In most cases, if a company distributes software without the owners permission, there would be a lawsuit, followed by money changing hands. In this case, all we have so far is a few forum posts.
All Valve needs to do do to fix the problem (like so many other companies have done before) is to obey the GPL requirements, nothing else. I don't see how this can be worse than the threat of lawsuits and other stuff that normally happens. So please chill!
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi