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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."
It hasn't even been a working week even before the people who gave us great things like the GPL'd quake 1/2/3 source got jumped on for slighting you trolls.
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There already a handful of international groups that all they do is try and help with GPL enforcement. However, according to US copyright law, the actual person(s) would would need to handle the enforcement by way of trial would be the one(s) who own the copyright on DOSBox, and then licensed it via the GPL. Now of course, this could also potentially come from any of the subsequent authors or forks of the project as well, even those who redistribute it like the organizations behind various Linux distros. But, it would be probably still be much more powerful if the original or current copyright holder of the DOSBox code were to be the one to bring action against ID and Valve.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
This sort of thing isn't always on purpose. Some people think "open source" means they can use the code however they please. Programmers aren't always license experts. It seems so simple to us because we are around these terms on slashdot constantly, but there have been times where I made assumptions about close source code licenses that could have gotten me into the same trouble. The legal department doesn't review every single decision in an organization and its possible legal implications. It could have been a few guys that just didn't understand the GPL and it was missed because it wasn't the largest project in the company. Not defending them, but not everyone understands "open source" isn't the same as public domain.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
> Now I may be wrong on which license DB uses
It uses GLP v. 2.
> it would mean that both DOSBox and the game shipping along with it would be required to release source code.
No. They have not embedded DOSBox into their own code, so the GPL "virus" do not touch their code and do not apply to the games. They are however required to distribute (or offer to distribute) the source code for DOSBox.
--
MiniMax
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
That's the point - if you don't see the license files, the next step before crying foul is to ask the developers if they arranged a different license. Since the developers say they hadn't been contacted, it's safe to assume they didn't arrange a different license.
Yes, and so the fact that they hadn't contacted the developers in this case was relevant since otherwise they could've been using dosbox under another license that the developers OK'ed.
You're right, and I'm 100% certain that John did all the packaging of the old games himself, by hand, using DEBUG on an 8086 and monochrome screen.
In reality, this was a business deal between id and Valve, and id probably handed over the playable binaries, and Value handed them to a small group to prepare for distribution and installation over Steam. So rather than blaming id, or claiming Valve did this with evil intent, let us combine two very powerful pieces of wisdom, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence," and Occam's razor. It is most easily assumed that when Valve handed off the data to be packaged, the worked had the best of intentions by using DOSbox, but was inadequately informed about it's proper use and redistribution.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
Small oversight by (on id's part) a hugely prolific developer of GPL'd software. Easily corrected and pushed out to clients straight away.
Attacking John Carmack for this precipitately is basically irrational. It also stinks of divisive trolling.
The man's licensed (a great deal of) his own software under the GPL, for goodness' sake.
It's not simple at all. Start a discussion here about under what circumstances you do or do not need to distribute source and you'll still get a 20 post long thread with people going back and forth about who's right and who's wrong, debating what the words used in the license mean, etc.
And people here should be some of the "experts" on the license.
How about a slap on the wrist? Come on, given Carmack's contributions to free software, it's an even more silly blunder. Especially nowadays that everybody's wound up about the GPL. He's gotta bear at least a token chide.
How this plays out depends on id/Valve's reaction, I guess. A simple apology is all it takes for this to be forgotten in no time.
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Can't believe this hasn't been pointed out yet but neither iD nor Valve are exactly garage enterprises. These are pretty big companies and you know, I find it really hard to believe that this never went past a lawyer. Programmers don't have to know anything at all about licenses and stuff like that because that's what the rest of the company is for.
I'm going over here and I don't know why!
"I can't see how it could be an oversight. "
A better question would be why would they do it intently?
Id has often released their old game engines under the GPL.
1. They had noting to gain by not including the license files.
2. They fixed it as soon as they found they had left out the files.
3. They did no harm to anyone.
So why must you try to see evil when all the evidence points to a simple human error?
This is why GPL zealots get on my nerves. They are all for copyleft, they hate closes source licenses, they hate software patents, and they hate DRM. But if someone fails to cross every t and dot every i when distributing GPL code then they are are plotting villains.
They made a minor error and they fixed the error all before it even showed up on Slashdot.
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Okay, Valve distributes a copy of the software in violation of the license. It thus runs into: "Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License." So Valve's rights under the license are terminated.
So, how does Valve get out of this? Look at: "Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions."
So, Valve downloads a new copy of DOSBox. Upon completion of the download, under the "each time" clause, it automatically receives a new license, from the original licensor, to distribute the software under the GPL.
Now, yes, Valve can still be sued for copyright infringement on the copies it distributed in violation. And you might find a judge who won't rule "harmless oversight quickly repaired; no injury, so no damages." But further distribution is perfectly fine, since they're doing it under a new license issued by the original licensor, even though it has the same terms as the old one they breached.
It does if you want to be listened to. Talking bollocks because everyone else is talking bollocks only ensures that they'll treat you like they do everyone else.
Talking sense when everyone else around you has none is more likely to get you somewhere.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
And this sort of thing is the reason companies are afraid of GPL. Back in reality, silly things like this are ignored because someone notices the mistake, fixes the problem, the authors of the original software are fine with it because it was a silly mistake that MADE NO DIFFERENCE TO ANYONE OTHER THAN PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE LAWYERS. On the other hand, now big companies that could help make GPL'd software more common to the everyday user are now more afraid of using it. Why should they, its cheaper to pay for commercial software than to deal with all the bad press that can come from an honest mistake made by a bunch of raving GPL fanboys. Yes, I'm more than slightly annoyed with this kind of license bullshit.
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*sighs*
No, they are not obligated to distribute the source. They violated a copyright license. Now they can be sued by the copyright owners.
The owners might be content with Valve releasing the source for their modified version, and they might not. That's part of the negotiations, and neither you nor I know anything about the details of that.
print "Yet another p{erl,ython} hacker\n",
I had wondered about this. This warrants further investigation.
:).
Steam applications all include some copy protection code that involves communicating with the main Steam.exe program: this is most visible in games that weren't designed for Steam, such as Defcon or one of the Popcap games. Like them, Dosbox must have been modified to include this copy protection code.
This is right at the heart of this licence discussion and I am very glad someone has spotted it. Will Valve licence Dosbox under a non-free licence? Or will they release some of the source for Steam? Or will they ignore the issue and be sued by http://gpl-violations.org/ ? How wonderfully ironic that copy protection code should actually cause a copyright problem
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
To clarify, running a game in DOSbox doesn't violate the GPL any more than viewing a webpage in Firefox. The GPL only covers the programs, not the data that is input to them.
The source does not have to included, just made available (even for a nominal fee) to anyone who asks.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.