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."

Comments

lawls

[Anonymous Coward]

prist post

Re:lawls

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't know how I feel, other than really, really sad. Is it pathetic that I was truly attached to this series and these characters? I mean, I thought for a long time that in the end, Bree would die. She would sacrifice herself for the others. But the problem is that this wasn't the end. I don't understand how I can go on watching this show the way I have. The Season 1 Recap really set the record straight for me: All along, everything we've put into this show, every string of hope we've held onto.... it's all been about Bree. I know there are those of you that say you didn't like her. That you watched it for the others. But, how could you watch for the others and be on their side, when all along they were driven by one thing: Bree. Saving her. I've been around a long time on these forums. Maybe I don't have the most posts on the forums, but I post when I have something to say. Maybe I've never received any direct acknowledgement from the Creators or the characters. I'm not in anyone's top 8, nor have I been thanked in a video for my solutions for a puzzle. But I've been there for every puzzle, trying to figure it out. I've analyzed and ripped apart every video, trying to find hints and themes. I've racked my brain out over the meaning of water, immortality, purity, feet, hair, and more for hours on end. I've sat in front of the computer and joked with my fellow fans. I've fought with people and been thoroughly annoyed by people on here. I've complained with people about boredom or disappointment. I've even shared my feelings with some of you regarding my family or friends. When I didn't know if my cousin was dead or alive, this is where I sat, and this is the screen at which I stared. And now I truly feel like I've lost someone important to me. I know it's just a show. I know it isn't real, and I can see Jess again in Greek on Monday. But I can't see Bree again. Never. I feel like Bree never truly opened up to us. Like I've spent the past year trying to understand her, and gain her trust so we could feel what she felt, and understand what she thought. I feel like she contained all these secrets in her heart that are now lost forever. I feel like I'll never truly understand. I suppose that's partly how the Creators wanted it. Perhaps because Jonas and Daniel will never be able to truly understand. Perhaps this "key to everything" is meant to suffice for our lack of understanding. But I doubt it will. She didn't even know that she had the option of being trait negative. Why couldn't they bust that door open? Why couldn't they use the same knife Daniel stabbed the shadow with to threaten Lucy until she gave some answers? WHY COULDN'T BREE LIVE? I just feel like she should have been able to live. I don't see how there can be a season 2 now. And of course, I'll keep watching. I kept watching through everything before. CiW was more compelling than LG15 in the beginning, but I kept watching without her. When Bree and Daniel were just on the run and homeless, everyone was bored and a lot of fans were lost, but I kept watching. When I was strongly opposed to Jonas entering the series, and he did, I kept watching. When I fell in love with the OpAphid ARG, and became truly attached to the people involved with it, and then it was lost over something seemingly meaningless, I kept watching. And that was really the worst blow of them all, thus far. But this? The death of Bree? I mean, the Bree I truly loved was lost months ago. After her dad died, we never saw her, truly, again. But there were short glimpses, here and there. And there was hope. There was faith. Now it's gone. She's really, really done. I'm still in denial. I still think there will be a big twist, and she'll be alive. But even I know that this is really the end of the lonelygirl15. After an entire year of laughing and talking to these characters as if they were real, of connecting to a community of fans of all ages, of seeing the community change and fans come and go while I remained, all driven towards the rescue of Bree, she is gone. It's like we failed. It's like we were going to fail all along but we blindly hoped to win. I've been a faithful lonelycracker for a year now, and I'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms worse than any crackpot I've ever known.

Does this mean

[BiggestPOS]

I can get a copy of the source for Half-Life 2?

Re:Does this mean

[El_Muerte_TDS]

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.

Re:Does this mean

[Goldberg's Pants]

Probably. It was leaked, remember. I still have it on disk here:)

Seriously though, I love open source, but it seems more and more of these GPL violations are occuring. Why is nobody in a position to do anything about actually DOING anything about this? I mean they can write what they want in the GPL. If nobody actually enforces it and goes after folks violating it, it's worthless, as is reporting about it. When I first read about the use of DOSBox for this yesterday my spider sense started tingling.

The GPL is a great license, but the EFF or whoever needs to start spanking people who violate it. I mean for christs sake the DMCA is used for so much evil. It's about time it was used for good, and this would be a violation of it, wouldn't it?

Re:Does this mean

[ZephyrXero]

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.

Re:Does this mean

[porkThreeWays]

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.

Re:Does this mean

[ZephyrXero]

This is untrue. It is a common misconception that you only have to release the changes to the code you have changed, but according the the GPL/LGPL you are supposed to re-release the entirety of the code as a redistributing party.

Also, since it appears DOSBox is under the GPL and not the LGPL, this WOULD require the source code of these games (as well as graphics, audio and any other components distributed along with DOSBox) to be publicly released. (That whole "viral" thing people talk about)

However, ID/Valve could easily get away with this just fine if DOSBox and the games were distributed as separate downloads and installations...much in the same way many Linux distros get around shipping proprietary drivers/codecs/programs/etc for their operating systems.

Re:Does this mean

[Daniel Phillips]

This sort of thing isn't always on purpose. Some people think "open source" means they can use the code however they please. John Carmack understands perfectly what the GPL is all about, and surely nobody needs to be reminded what a huge contributer he is to open source and open standards. Certainly an oversight and public humiliation is not in order.

Re:Does this mean

[mfnickster]

Also, since it appears DOSBox is under the GPL and not the LGPL, this WOULD require the source code of these games (as well as graphics, audio and any other components distributed along with DOSBox) to be publicly released. (That whole "viral" thing people talk about)

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

Re:Does this mean

[julesh]

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.

Not even that. The GPL isn't a contract that must be followed: it's a license grant. You can choose not to accept it, and pay the original authors compensation for your use, if you'd rather not follow the terms.

Re:Does this mean

[bluephone]

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.

Re:Does this mean

[Moniker42]

Well I guess we'll find out if they make any attempts to make amends for their error or not. If they don't and just ignore the GPL well... I'm sure they'll get a big Internet-media headache :)

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

John Carmack understands perfectly what the GPL is all about, and surely nobody needs to be reminded what a huge contributer he is to open source and open standards. Certainly an oversight and public humiliation is not in order. I agree, especially as he apparently just confirmed at QuakeCon that also Doom III engine (aka id Tech 4) will be made Open Source at some point in the future, and eventually also the new engine they are working on right now - id Tech 5. We wouldn't want to piss him off so that he won't Open Source them after all, would we? ;)

Anyway, I don't think he personally had anything to do with this incident.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people think "open source" means they can use the code however they please.

I fail to see how. The term "open source" doesn't imply it. The documentation says otherwise. Any and all discussion on the Internet says otherwise. Where are these mythical people who have missed a world full of evidence to the contrary, while assuming something that isn't readily apparent?

Re:Does this mean

[Tuna_Shooter]

Agreed...... the original post is irrelevant.....

Re:Does this mean

[aichpvee]

Probably working at Valve. You know, the guys who got their source code stolen by running a beta copy of Outlook? Or at least that's what they claimed and you've got to have done something REALLY stupid if that's the best cover story you can come up with.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

This sort of thing isn't always on purpose. Some people think "open source" means they can use the code however they please

It does. Perhaps you're referring to the GPL instead?

Re:Does this mean

[networkBoy]

"You can choose not to accept it, and pay the original authors compensation for your use, if you'd rather not follow the terms."

If they'll accept your money.

In this case I bet the answer would be "yes" but I can think of others where the answer most certainly would be "we don't want your money, use our software under the terms of the GPL or don't use it alt all".
-nB

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence,"

Which is why the OP said:

Certainly an oversight and public humiliation is not in order.

Luckily I don't ascibe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence, otherwise I'd say are a total shunt.

Re:Does this mean

[644bd346996]

Well that's misleading. If you don't accept the terms of the GPL, you have to acquire a separate license from the authors on their terms (if they are even willing to license it under non-GPL terms). It isn't like you can just choose to throw money at the problem to make it go away. If the authors aren't willing to grant you a non-GPL license, then any use in violation of the GPL is piracy.

Re:Does this mean

[TheRaven64]

Considering the number of copies they've distributed, and the statutory damages that people like the RIAA have managed to get put in place, it looks like DOSBox development is going to be very well funded for the next few years...

Re:Does this mean

[larry bagina]

I can get a copy of the source for Half-Life 2?

check your favorite torrent tracker.

Re:Does this mean

[Hadlock]

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.
 

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, since it appears DOSBox is under the GPL and not the LGPL, this WOULD require the source code of these games (as well as graphics, audio and any other components distributed along with DOSBox) to be publicly released. (That whole "viral" thing people talk about)

You have been listening to too much Microsoft propaganda. That whole viral nonsense was and is just FUD against open source in general and Linux in particular.

You can distribute separate programs together, each with their own license. Merely putting a single GPL'd program on a disk with other software does not make all the software on the disk GPL'd. Only if code that is under the GPL was put into the games would they be required to be GPL'd as well.

To use code under the GPL in your own project you must put all the code combined with the GPL'd code under the GPL. That is the way you pay the author for the right to use the code. Alternately you can contact the author and negotiate a different license for your use, likely he will want a different form of payment if he is willing to make the deal.

Re:Does this mean

[wayward_bruce]

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.

So I can say that copyright infringement isn't always on purpose, some people think that "sharing" means they can download music however they please, and people aren't always reading the fine print. It seems so simple to us because we're around those terms on Slashdot constantly, but there have been times when I might have downloaded a movie or two without knowing for certain that I have the right to do so. I'm not defending P2Pers, but not everyone understands that "available" isn't the same as public domain.

This sort of argument fares poorly in court, it seems. :)

Re:Does this mean

[Dhalka226]

It seems so simple to us because we are around these terms on slashdot constantly

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.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

> To use code under the GPL in your own project you must put all the code combined with the GPL'd code under the GPL.

Eh - no. Only if you want to distribute your project to other people/companies/clients. It is perfectly okay to use GPL'ed software for some company-internal project, but if you want to distribute it to someone else, then the GPL kicks in.

--
MiniMax

Re:Does this mean

[untouchableForce]

Actually if you were to take a look on the dark side of the web you can get the source code for an alpha release of HL2. You should recall this from this story.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

True, the GPL only kicks in once you distribute. As someone who received the code and who does not distribute it things are different.

I was thinking in terms of the current issue.

Re:Does this mean

[gormanly]

ofc, in at least one of these cases we're talking about using a Free program (DOSBox) to execute a Free program (Quake) which operates on proprietary data (id's PAK file) ...

Re:Does this mean

[Crayon Kid]

[...]public humiliation is not in order.

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.

Re:Does this mean

[GalionTheElf]

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.

Re:Does this mean

[GPL Apostate]

The only thing people here are 'experts' on is flaming each other.

Re:Does this mean

[lupis42]

In fairness, experts are usually more likely to quibble over fine details, because they care about precision. Everyone who wasn't an expert thought of Pluto as a planet. (Ok, I thought of Pluto as a Romanized Greek deity, but I'm special). The gist here is, only those people who are passionate about something, and know enough to spot the implications of fine details care about those details.

Re:Does this mean

[cheater512]

Well the source for ID's older games is released anyway.

I personally would prefer if lawsuits and stuff didnt come out.
ID has been one of the first to port their games to Linux.

Re:Does this mean

[CastrTroy]

I can't believe I had to read down this far for this issue to come up. I wouldn't expect that a project done at a company the size of ID would let something like this slip by without anyone saying anything. Then again, maybe some of the developers did say something, and their managers just told them to shut up or find another job. Maybe this really was just some small project, that only a few people worked on. If they had all the source code for the games, and are just running everything on DOSBox, then it wouldn't be unbelievable that there was only 5 or 6 people who only knew how the thing technically worked. Maybe they were given an impossible deadline, and this was the only way they could meet it.

Re:Does this mean

[cduffy]

As far as DOSbox is concerned, Quake is data.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, you can post any question just about anywhere and it will devolve into a 20 post long thread with people going back and forth about who's right and who's wrong. Humans are a highly fucking disagreeable lot.

Re:Does this mean

[SpectreHiro]

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'd hardly call id or Valve pretty big companies. Valve currently lists 104 employees, and id only 34.

Re:Does this mean

[Charles W Griswold]

The only thing people here are 'experts' on is flaming each other.

No we're not, you stupid git.

Wait a minute . . . D'oh!

Re:Does this mean

[Charles W Griswold]

To be fair, you can post any question just about anywhere and it will devolve into a 20 post long thread with people going back and forth about who's right and who's wrong. Humans are a highly fucking disagreeable lot.

No we're not, and furthermore I strongly resent that accusation.

Besides, I'm right and you're wrong. So there.

Re:Does this mean

[mrchaotica]

Bullshit!

"Open Source" can mean one of two things:

• That you can see the source code. Nothing more, nothing less. This is the literal definition, and the one most normal people (as well as MS) subscribe to.
• That it means the same thing as "Free Software" -- i.e., licensed in such a way to preserve freedom -- except that it may or may not be copyleft. This is the OSI definition.

In neither case does it mean "public domain," which is what you're thinking of.

Re:Does this mean

[karmatic]

This sort of thing isn't always on purpose

That may be true; however, it's harder to claim innocense when you Modify a GPL app, link in propreitary code you would _never_ open-source (steam), run a packer on it, and distribute to millions for commercial gain.

Re:Does this mean

[Lord Kano]

As long as this gets resolved quickly, I don't think that there will be much of a problem.

Hopefully this will make more people realize that GPL doesn't mean "Do whatever you want".

LK

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

"Open Source" can mean one of two things:

• That you can see the source code. Nothing more, nothing less. This is the literal definition, and the one most normal people (as well as MS) subscribe to.
• That it means the same thing as "Free Software" -- i.e., licensed in such a way to preserve freedom -- except that it may or may not be copyleft. This is the OSI definition.

I wasn't aware that the BSD-style license went the way of the dinosaur.

Re:Does this mean

[crazybasenji]

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence," and Occam's razor. Unfortunately, copyright infringement is often strict liability; in other words, no finding of intent is required.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, copyright infringement is often strict liability; in other words, no finding of intent is required.

Yeah. Somebody should sue and collect damages.... like $0.00. And they've already fixed the issue in that they are now meeting the terms of the license. So why don't you put up some cash to fund the lawsuit. It'll be great. You can just burn some dollars and at least in some miniscule way solve some of the inflation problem by throwing away your cash.

Re:Does this mean

[mrchaotica]

What part of "except it may or may not be copyleft" did you not understand?

Re:Does this mean

[SmackedFly]

Well actually, from the POV of copyright law this is even more simple. There are only two situations that can occur when you're using a software license, either you conform or you don't. You cannot partly conform or conform "if you release something". So what is happening here is that id and valve are breaking the GPL license, that makes them copyright violators and enables the offended party to sue for copyright violation. This enables them to do the following: - Ask for restitution. (eg. money or something else of value, to make up for the costs the violation may have incured.) - Force the violator into compliance. The last can include many things, but it'll never force the party to release something, at worst it may force them to stop using the software. But they don't need to release the modifications, if they don't want to use the software.

Re:Does this mean

[Lehk228]

also spiders

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

The part where you said:

In neither case does it mean "public domain," which is what you're thinking of.

And BSD-style licenses are pretty damn close to public domain, wouldn't you say?
Not to mention:

"Free Software" -- i.e., licensed in such a way to preserve freedom -- except that it may or may not be copyleft.

There's no "may or may not be copyleft" about it, that's the definition of copyleft. The BSD-style licenses are not copyleft(*), they're "copycenter". So unless you meant e.g. rather than i.e. I'm going to have to disagree with categorization of open source.

(*)So where are copyup and copydown?

Re:Does this mean

[mrchaotica]

And BSD-style licenses are pretty damn close to public domain, wouldn't you say?

Public domain is public domain. Open source is open source. They are not equivalent. BSD-style licenses just happen to fall close to the intersection of open source and public domain.

Think of it this way: imagine you have some public domain software. If you have the source code, then it's also open source. But if you only have the binary, it's not open source even though it's public domain. Or, imagine you have some "open source" software. It could be public domain, it could be GPL, or it could even be Microsoft "shared source" (which is about as far from public domain as you could get!).

So unless you meant e.g. rather than i.e. I'm going to have to disagree with categorization of open source.

Hey, don't blame me; I prefer to avoid that term (in favor of "Free Software") anyway. Take it up with OSI.

Re:Does this mean

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, that's been available for ages. Check out the articles on the theft of hte Half-Life 2 source code, and how playable versions were available in Russia long before it was actually published in the US.

Re:Does this mean

[Antique Geekmeister]

No, *that* is misleading. A lot of the GPL code I personally write is often based on older GPL code: unweaving those licenses back to the original authors is difficult if not impossible, since GPL does not insist on preserving the author's name in the license or the changelogs.

Finding the original authors of the particular package is not enough if they've lifted code heavily from other projects: not having to sort out such software genealogies is part of the whole point of GPL, and why many of the BSD style licenses foundre in actual use as too complex or too burdened by attributions.

Re:Does this mean

[julesh]

If they'll accept your money.

They don't get a choice. They accept your money, or they sue you, at which point the court will order you to pay them some money. In the end, it all comes down to money...

Re:Does this mean

[julesh]

If the authors aren't willing to grant you a non-GPL license, then any use in violation of the GPL is piracy.

So? It still doesn't mean they can order you to release your source code. They can sue you, at which point you'll be ordered to pay them compensation, which is what I was trying to say in my original post. No court is going to order a source code release, because *there isn't a contract which would require one*.

Re:Does this mean

[Curien]

And BSD-style licenses are pretty damn close to public domain, wouldn't you say?

No, I wouldn't. BSD license is as close to public domain as it is (in the opposite direction) to GPL.

There's no "may or may not be copyleft" about [Free Software], that's the definition of copyleft.

The people who invented the term "Free Software" disagree with you.

Re:Does this mean

[Curien]

I don't particularly want to give anyone a hard time over an easily-fixable problem, but this is how I see it. What would Valve and id do if the Steam version of Commander Keen was included with the DOSBox download from Sourceforge?

These are corporations *not people*. They show no mercy, and they deserve none.

Re:Does this mean

[Curien]

Who the hell is that guy, and why should I believe him? He registered his account on that site apparently just to make that post. Until I get confirmation from a reputable source, I'm going to consider that a troll.

Re:Does this mean

[Curien]

There are tons of other options. The judge could order the company to release Steam's source code. The judge could issue an injunction forcing Steam to cease operations. The judge could issue an injunction forbidding Valve or id from engaging in commercial exchanges. The judge could put a freeze on Valve's or id's assets. Et cetera et cetera.

Re:Does this mean

[ajs318]

That sort of depends on whether or not Intellectual Property is subject to expropriation.

If so, and someone misuses your GPL'ed IP, then you might be able to order some their IP seized and handed over to you by way of compensation (and then you would be within your rights to release the source code, since it would now be yours to release). This, however, has not been tested in any court as far as I know.

Re:Does this mean

[karmatic]

Who is that guy? Me.

Don't believe me? Try it yourself. Grab the dosbox.exe, and copy it to another folder. Put stock SDL dlls in it, and when you run it, it will whine about being unable to find steam. I'm not the only user in the forums who posted it, but hey, they may have gotten the information from me. If length of time on the site is indication of authority, my Old slashdot account has been around for a while, too.

Re:Does this mean

[Curien]

Length of time on the site only matters to me when its obvious the account was *created* just for one post. But anyway...

I can't see for myself: I don't have Windows or Steam. But this makes your claims a little more likely. I'll wait until a debug analysis becomes available before I pass final judgement (not that my judgement really matters).

Re:Does this mean

[awehttam]

That's weird, because Doom is already on Steam.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Egads! If programmers aren't licensing experts, then how do they get through the day remembering to breath? The license is strapped to the top of the code they copied and pasted, how can they miss it? There's even books explaining the minutea of the license. Hell - 12 seconds on Google and I found one _specifically_ for game developers.

Re:Does this mean

[micpp]

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.

Re:Does this mean

[mpe]

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.

Actually the power to delegate copyright enforcement does exist. Otherwise the likes of the Business Software Alliance couldn't exist.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

That's weird, because Doom is already on Steam. Duh, that was the point. This thread has gone

• id doesn't understand the GPL
• but JC definitely understands the GPL!
• but maybe JC wasn't involved directly with this
• look! JC didn't actually know

Re:Does this mean

[Ricin]

(*)So where are copyup and copydown? Flirting with copystrange.

Re:Does this mean

[Ricin]

Please people, get this straight:

You must abide to the *terms* of the GPL. That does not imply that your own work should be GPL licensed also. Suggestive FAQs (hello TrollTech and MySQL) do not change the text of the license. In fact, if they were to put the requirement 'you must GPL your own work too' in the license they wouldn't be allowed to call the license GPL anymore because (a) the license is copyrighted as-is, and (b) it would add an extra restriction which is explicitly disallowed in the GPL test.

Talk about FUD.

Re:Does this mean

[djdavetrouble]

Bullshit!

have you been staying up late watching Penn and Teller reruns AGAIN ?

Re:Does this mean

[Oktober Sunset]

That wasn't a very expert flame. You should have called him a dog bothering bucket of lard with a face like a crash-test chimpanzee, less brains than a road killed possum and smelling about as bad as one too. Also he loves Hitler.

That's a proper flame.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, I've worked at a company over twice the size of iD. They didn't have a lawyer in-house, and I can guarantee you that something this size (tiny) would never have been sent to their outside counsel.

Maybe you should double-check exactly how large the companies involved are? See your sibling post.

Re:Does this mean

[vertinox]

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence," and Occam's razor.

Occam's razor never accounts for sociopaths, intelligent evil, or incompetent evil (see SCO). ;)

That said... I would really doubt that an evil genius violated the GPL on purpose since it isn't that hard or costly just to release the credit or link the source on the Steam download.

At worst case it was "lazy evil" in which someone wanted to go home early instead of crediting the original authors.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet eventually the 'copyright' runs out. The teeth as it were for GPL. What is it 70 years after death of all the authors and 95 from a corp? At *THAT* point it is public domain.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect.

If they distribute an unmodified binary, they have to provide source, or say where the source can be found. You can use GPL stuff however you want. However, Distribution does NOT fall under use.

Re:Does this mean

[Intron]

Has anybody asked the Dosbox folks whether they licensed the software?

Re:Does this mean

[Randle_Revar]

dog bothering

Vetinari?

Re:Does this mean

[Raenex]

That you can see the source code. Nothing more, nothing less. This is the literal definition, and the one most normal people (as well as MS) subscribe to. Microsoft makes it a point to use the term "Shared Source". There is no "literal definition" for such an ill-defined term. You can accept OSI's definition, since they have done all the marketing of that term and it has a lot of mindshare, or you can accept that people interpret it differently, in which case nearly anything goes, including public domain.

That it means the same thing as "Free Software" -- i.e., licensed in such a way to preserve freedom -- except that it may or may not be copyleft. This is the OSI definition. Now that is complete bullshit. The OSI definition of open source does not "preserve freedom". It fully supports licenses that let derived versions become closed source -- like the BSD license.

In neither case does it mean "public domain," Your 0/3. Public domain qualifies as "open source" as defined by the OSI. The OSI meaning of open source is an umbrella one, that includes the GPL, BSD, public domain, etc.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

I shouldn't need to hire a legal department just to use a piece of software. GNU should add that to their list of Freedoms.

Re:Does this mean

[nuzak]

> Certainly an oversight and public humiliation is not in order.

And it's not how the FSF works these days, either. This is just the work of some random screaming smacktard. I suppose we need such RSS's (er, I guess that acronym is taken) to catch the more egregious violators, but I don't guess he wrote to license-violation@fsf.org or anything (first thing you see when you google for "gpl violations")

Re:Does this mean

[russotto]

Statutory damages are per work, not per act of infringement. So they get a minimum of $750 (to a maximum of $100,000, but only the RIAA's attack lawyers get that). Woo-hoo. And that's if they registered their copyright; if they didn't, they get actual damages only.

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that isn't true, Doom and Quake were reverse engineered by the community before any port was considered by iD and before any source was released.

Re:Does this mean

[nuzak]

> These are corporations *not people*. They show no mercy, and they deserve none.

"They" at Id are less than three dozen people in a privately held company. They seem to be pretty business-savvy, but even so it won't take a really big campaign of unpleasantness to convince them to never do another Linux port again if it means having to deal with a community that gives them that much grief.

Re:Does this mean

[gnuman99]

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.

It is like saying GW doesn't know the consequences of a nuclear war because he is not a scientist. GPL/BSD/LGPL are 3 licenses that ALL programmers should know about. And I'd argue most that enjoy what they do, understand these licenses and the differences between them.

There may be some confusion re: GPL v2 vs v3 or 3-clause BSD vs. 4-clause BSD, but the one line summaries of the requirements of these licenses are very simple.

GPL -> use API/code of GPL stuff and you have to release your stuff/modification under GPL compatible license.

LGPL -> use API/code of LGPL stuff, and you have to release your apps such a way that LGPL stuff can be swapped out for compatible version. Also changes to LGPL stuff must be released under LGPL compatible license.

BSD -> Use the code and release under any license you want. Would be nice to have an acknoledgment of usage of the API/code (4-clause BSD req. it, 3-clause (new) does not)

Is this so complicated? There should be no excuse for trying to pull a fast one. Not after 10 years. This is not some weird corporate EULA. And these are not EULAs, these are code licenses. You do not understand them, do NOT use the darn code.

Re:Does this mean

[mrchaotica]

...in which case nearly anything goes, including public domain.

Imagine you have some software that is public domain, but only the binary exists. Is it still open source? No!

Open source is orthogonal to public domain. QED.

Re:Does this mean

[Raenex]

Open source is orthogonal to public domain. QED. Nonsense. Imagine there's some public domain source code. Is it not open source? Just because a public domain binary can exist doesn't exclude public domain source from being open source. BSD-licensed source code is open source, is it not? You can also compile BSD-licensed source into binary too. Now do you claim that the BSD-license is orthogonal to open source?

Re:Does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

What's incorrect? I believe I said the same thing, except I didn't point out that you can include an offer for users to obtain the source rather than distributing it along with the binary. - Nick

Re:Does this mean

[Charles W Griswold]

That wasn't a very expert flame. You should have called him a dog bothering bucket of lard with a face like a crash-test chimpanzee, less brains than a road killed possum and smelling about as bad as one too. Also he loves Hitler.

That's a proper flame.

My hat's off to you. That was indeed a proper flame.

I should probably stick to sarcasm; it comes more naturally to me than flaming does.

Re:Does this mean

[julesh]

There are tons of other options. The judge could order the company to release Steam's source code.

There's no legal basis to do so. If Valve had entered into a contract whereby they had promised to do so, a judge could order a specific performance, but as (to the best of our knowledge) no such contract exists (the GPL isn't such a contract, and we are unaware of any other contracts between the parties), such an outcome would not be plausible.

(Yes, I'm aware that a judge can order whatever they want, really, but they do tend to confine themselves to established law, which is quite clear in this case)

The judge could issue an injunction forcing Steam to cease operations.

The judge would be reasonably likely to issue an injunction to force Valve or id to refrain from distributing the software that is alleged to be infringing. This is quite possible, but would not force Steam to cease operation. Any other such injunction would have no legal basis, so would be a very unlikely outcome.

The judge could issue an injunction forbidding Valve or id from engaging in commercial exchanges.

Such injunctions are very rarely used, and would be highly unlikely in this kind of case.

The judge could put a freeze on Valve's or id's assets.

Yes, but the only legal basis for doing this is that the judge believes (a) a monetary award is likely to be made in favour of the copyright holders and (b) Valve and/or id are likely to transfer their assets away to prevent this occurring. As there are (to the best of our knowledge) no grounds to believe the latter, such an outcome would have no legal basis and be quite unlikely.

Et cetera et cetera.

Do you actually know what you're talking about?

Re:Does this mean

[julesh]

That sort of depends on whether or not Intellectual Property is subject to expropriation.

If so, and someone misuses your GPL'ed IP, then you might be able to order some their IP seized and handed over to you by way of compensation (and then you would be within your rights to release the source code, since it would now be yours to release). This, however, has not been tested in any court as far as I know.

I think it's highly unlikely that a court would order this. The compensation due would have to be determined in terms of monetary value, and before such an order was made an assessment of the value of the IP would have to be made. Such an assessment would be extremely difficult. The value would have to be similar to or less than the value of the compensation due (which is unlikely, unless your infringed IP is significantly more valuable than theirs).

In the mean time, the infringing party would have been given a compensation order, which they could settle at any time by paying in full. Doing so would prevent any order to hand over their IP.

Even if they don't, in order to simplify matters, a court would likely prefer either (a) an order to seize tangible assets or (b) if the tangible assets were not adequate to cover the compensation award a liquidation order -- in this case, the IP would have to be sold to the highest bidder in order to pay the monetary compensation owed.

Re:Does this mean

[Snaller]

It's almost mostly irrelevant. 99.9999999999999999% of those buying it couldn't care less about who may have made what bit of code.

Only copying bits

[Anonymous Coward]

They are only copying information, nothing is taken from anyone.

Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Two more companies learn to avoid the viral GPL software in the future.

One more tiny step to a world with truly free software.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Nicholas Evans]

Bad troll is baaaaad.

PROTIP: There's nothing 'viral' in this instance. iD included the dosBox binary in their distribution sans the terms of the GPL and the authors file.

Go back to hiding under your bridge, mister troll.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[MBCook]

Yes. It's not like iD has released anything GLP before.

Oh, wait...

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking piece of shit bearded GNU freak. As more and more of these GPL fiasco stories come up the more companies are learning to avoid the GPL quagmire.

Viral licenses that promote kooky ideologies have no place in the commercial world.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[SanityInAnarchy]

Why do we even bother?

This is not a "GPL fiasco" any more than pirating a movie is a "DVD fiasco".

And who's to say our ideology is the one that's kooky? You do realize that the "commercial world" is an ideology itself, and...

Never mind, it's over your head. Fucking troll.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[heinousjay]

Good argument, very coherent in defense of your cause. I can see why the world lines up behind you guys.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[RobertLTux]

in this case what the problem is is the GPL requires you to do 2 things if you are just doing a pass along distribution

1 distribute the COMPLETE COPY (with the readmes and credits.txt)
2 also distribute the source code (for something like dosbox you might need an extra disc cluster)

its also custom to like maybe oh pay the author something when you are raking in Mega$ because of the code in question (but thats ethics)

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[poopdeville]

Yes, because

You fucking piece of shit bearded GNU freak. As more and more of these GPL fiasco stories come up the more companies are learning to avoid the GPL quagmire.

Viral licenses that promote kooky ideologies have no place in the commercial world.

demands a coherent defense.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Partners LP?

OpenGL to PostScript?

Global Land Project?

I'm confused about what GLP has to do with this.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[TheRaven64]

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...

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Frosty Piss]

Yes. It's not like iD has released anything GLP before.

Because they have in the past released lots of cool stuff under GPL does not absolve them of the need to follow the GPL in the future. And, the are in the software business. They know where they got their code, they know what its licensing terms are.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Viral licenses that promote kooky ideologies have no place in the commercial world.

Quite right, which is why the GPL is so popular. Think about that for a bit.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[MBCook]

Agreed (although I'm guessing this one is Valve's fault). I wrote that because the troll I responded to was doing a "iD gets trapped by viral GPL" thing. I just thought I would point those three things out for anyone who didn't know beforehand (although I'm sure that troll either did or didn't care).

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[GPL Apostate]

You do realize that the "commercial world" is an ideology itself, and...

Wow. Next you're going to tell us that the whole 'commercial world' got together in 1848 or so and published 'The Commercial World Manifesto' ???

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

gb2/v/

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Macthorpe]

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.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[BitZtream]

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.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereas with the expensive commercial software, they have to pay money and follow the terms of the license, with the free GPL software they only have to follow the terms of the license. And you think the commercial software is better? Dumb.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[stony3k]

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!

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[karmatic]

And this sort of thing is the reason companies are afraid of GPL.

So they take a GPL app, modify it, link in closed-source propreitary code forcing it to only work with another closed-source propreitary app (Steam), charge money for the resulting product, and remove the copyright notice and license. Furthermore, they deliberately obscure the origins of the product, remove much of the products functionality causing problems with the software, and badwill from people who do know the name of the program. Why on earth wouldn't these people be upset.

As for "fixing the problem", dosbox has been linked against steam libraries to make it only work with steam. Depending on what mood the court was in as to the interpration of what constitutes a derivitive work, fixing it would require at the very least open-source the steam client library or potentially all of steam. The GPL is a license designed to ensure that all recipients have the same freedom to modify the work. Valve has taken a GPL app, combined it with a DRM-laden application designed specifically to prevent users from modifying the application, and flat-out refused to abide by the letter, nevermind the letter of the GPL. Tivo technically complies, then breaks when you modify things. Valve didn't even go that far.

See here for more info.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[mrchaotica]

No kidding. To use a meme from another site, the real WTF here is that Valve apparently used the old commercial id binaries along with DOSBox instead of just grabbing updated native Windows versions of the games made from the GPL'd source. Valve could still "sell" the games; it's just that the value would be in the (still proprietary) data files.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

Whatever id/Valve might feel about that, I guarantee that slashdotters wouldn't give a damn. In fact, slashdotters would applaud such an action as "freeing information from bondage". Slashdotters make such a big deal about minor GPL violations, but openly condone *major* copyright violations of others.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Cadallin]

Depending on what mood the court was in as to the interpration of what constitutes a derivitive work, fixing it would require at the very least open-source the steam client library or potentially all of steam.

Unbloody Likely! Not in any court in the USA or Europe! Now this is an example of Anti-GPL fearmongering. In the very worst case, doomsday scenario a judge might rule that: They had to stop distributing the software, immediately, and that they had to pay some quantity in damages to DOSBox developers.

That is all. The only way I can even imagine a judge threatening to order such a thing as the forced open sourcing of a piece of software, is if the offending company continued to distribute the software in direct violation of a Court Order. Even then I think it's about 100 times more likely for additional damages to be awarded.

There is no way that any corporation will ever be forced to open source their software in todays Corp-friendly world. Huge amounts of stuff would have to change before that would ever even be possible. It's just flat-out off the table.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[karmatic]

Unbloody Likely! Not in any court in the USA or Europe! Now this is an example of Anti-GPL fearmongering. In the very worst case, doomsday scenario a judge might rule that: They had to stop distributing the software, immediately, and that they had to pay some quantity in damages to DOSBox developers.

You misread what I wrote. The steam client library is linked in the DosBox address space, combined into one program. Even the most strict intrepretation would require open-sourcing that to "fix" the current issues and bring the current distribution into line with the GPL. Potentially, it could be determined that the library is in fact part of one work (Steam), and as such DosBox is also part of steam by extension.

Note, in either case, this isn't likely to actually result in open-sourcing of the client library, or Steam itself. I never said it was. I simply stated what the possible rulings are based on a strict or liberal reading of the GPL. In either case, the judge is far more likely to say "here's an injunction - go work it out", [potentially] assign some damages, or some combination of the two. It would still be copyright infringement, but I suspect even the $150,000 statutory damages for copyright infringement beat open sourcing steam.

What I indicated before was what it would take to _fix_ the problem under the GPL. I never said that Valve had even the slightest chance of doing it, nor did I indicate that a court would make them. No license simply means it's copyright infringement, nothing more.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

We are Slashdot. We are all of one mind. We have only one opinion.

Copyright is irrelevant, except in the case of free software, where it is good.

But you are not one of us. Your groupthink is malfunctioning. Your postings are crimespeak.

Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[sesshomaru]

And this sort of thing is the reason companies are afraid of GPL.

Well, yeah, it's a legal document. People who plan on violating it are supposed to be afraid of it. If they aren't, then it might as well have no license at all.

Will that slow adoption of GPL software by large corporations? I'm sure it will, much like large corporations don't install free copies of Adobe Photoshop on all their workstations, thus "slowing adoption" of Photoshop.

Of course, some of what will slow adoption is FUD, but there's no cure for FUD, it's black propaganda based on lies. Rolling over for license violators won't eliminate FUD.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[FooBarWidget]

That's no excuse. It's even cheaper to spent 10 minutes reading the GPL FAQ than to fork over X thousand dollars for comparable software.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[madcow_bg]

Depending on what mood the court was in as to the interpration of what constitutes a derivitive work, fixing it would require at the very least open-source the steam client library or potentially all of steam.

Unbloody Likely! Not in any court in the USA or Europe! Now this is an example of Anti-GPL fearmongering. In the very worst case, doomsday scenario a judge might rule that: They had to stop distributing the software, immediately, and that they had to pay some quantity in damages to DOSBox developers.

That is all. The only way I can even imagine a judge threatening to order such a thing as the forced open sourcing of a piece of software, is if the offending company continued to distribute the software in direct violation of a Court Order. Even then I think it's about 100 times more likely for additional damages to be awarded.

There is no way that any corporation will ever be forced to open source their software in todays Corp-friendly world. Huge amounts of stuff would have to change before that would ever even be possible. It's just flat-out off the table.

I have to agree with you.
One of the first things I knew about law is that every contract has to be measurable in money. In this civil cases it is a similar thing. I you don't want to cooperate with the court, they cannot make you give the source code. But they can award damages to the offended party in the amounts written in the laws and in the contracts. So ... yes, they can pry the code from your cold dead fingers, but the money they can take now.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking sense when everyone else around you has none is more likely to get you somewhere.

Burned as a witch?

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

How about 1776, "Wealth of Nations"?

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'd much rather waste my time on Slashdot talking sense in the threads where others are at least trying to talk sense.

Besides, I actually did think this bit was enough:

This is not a "GPL fiasco" any more than pirating a movie is a "DVD fiasco".

Which is pretty much exactly true. The only difference is, it's actually conceivable that id is violating the GPL by accident, whereas it's much harder to say that you copied that DVD by accident.

But in either case, it's pretty clearly a violation of copyright.

It's not a huge fiasco that proves anything about the GPL, any more than my ripping a DVD proves anything about how evil DVDs are.

And it's likely not even that big a screw-up -- let's see how quickly they fix it. (If they're smart, they'll start distributing one of the open source native Windows/GL ports of Doom.)

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[lattyware]

Ever heard the phrase 'Never Reason With A Fool'?
Because your arguments frankly deserve a response like 'Penis, Penis, Penis'.
If the people don't understand reason, then reason will get you nowhere.

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[russotto]

Wow. Next you're going to tell us that the whole 'commercial world' got together in 1848 or so and published 'The Commercial World Manifesto' ???

More like 1776 -- in England, not the rebelling colonies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

Re:Avoiding The Viral GPL

[heinousjay]

No, actually, it demands no response at all.

Doesn't this go to show

[tadauphoenix]

copyright protection is a bit out of hand?

Not meaning TFA, but why do we care? Isn't it a bit ludicrous to be caught in this situation?

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[ZephyrXero]

Umm....what does your comment have to do with the article? Likening the GPL with copy protection is like comparing apples and elephants...two completely unrelated topics.

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[tadauphoenix]

...and right on time, from Carmack's keynote at qcon:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=14979

- Software patents. An audience member asked him about his thoughts. John Carmack does not like them. He calls the idea of software patent infringement a "sham." He tries not to think about -- or concern himself much with -- this controversial issue, because doing so just "depresses him."

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[fastest fascist]

copyRIGHT protection, not copy protection. The only way the GPL is enforceable is to apply copyright laws, since they grant the original creator of a work the right to license the work in the first place.

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm except they haven't offered the source code or supplied it which means they have violated the GPL and still are.

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a massive difference between software patents and copyright. You will find many people who do not like software patents and yet who support copyrights.

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[ZephyrXero]

sorry, looks like I misread your original post...

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[nurb432]

No, its more ludicrous that its a big deal.

They used free stuff that anyone can download in their product and didnt mention it, so must burn them at the stake. Geesh.

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[Anonymous Coward]

And they modified that free stuff to include their DRM software, then kept the changes secret. Don't forget that!

Re:Doesn't this go to show

[nurb432]

But it still started out free and open, and available to everyone.

call me a noob...

[thatskinnyguy]

But I don't see what the big deal is here.

Re:call me a noob...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I just warez them all. What's the big deal?

Re:call me a noob...

[ZephyrXero]

"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.

Re:call me a noob...

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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

Re:call me a noob...

[belmolis]

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.

Re:call me a noob...

[Anonymous Coward]

would mean that both DOSBox and the game shipping along with it would be required to release source code to the general public

iD are not modifying DOSBox or linking to any of its components. Under the GPL 'mere aggregation' does not require that you change the licence for your software. Don't spread misinformation.

Re:call me a noob...

[watchingeyes]

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.

Re:call me a noob...

[shark72]

"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."

Yes, but why is it a big deal?

The entire library of iD and Valve titles is freely available via BitTorrent. Their copyrights are violated countless times daily. Yet that's certainly not news around here.

Methinks it's a case of all copyright holders being equal, only some are more equal than others.

Seriously: somebody please explain why I should care about the DOSBox folks' rights more than than anybody else's.

Re:call me a noob...

[innocent_white_lamb]

Apparently, they actually are modifying DOSBox. http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?p=114267

Re:call me a noob...

[crazybasenji]

It's not a big deal to you. It's a big deal to those making a living distributing/selling software. Copyright holders are entitled to treble damages for infringement.

Re:call me a noob...

[shark72]

"It's not a big deal to you. It's a big deal to those making a living distributing/selling software. Copyright holders are entitled to treble damages for infringement."

I do indeed make my living through my IP. I fully support the copyright of those who develop software, but here's the thing -- I support everybody's rights equally.

Perhaps I wasn't clear: all of the Valve and ID titles are available for free on the file-sharing networks. I daresay that many if not most folks reading this enjoy using BitTorrent to procure free software, in violation of copyright. When the BSA takes action against pirates, they are typically seen as the bad guy around these parts. And we all scramble all over ourselves to point out how our actions are justified.

So why the sympathy for the DOSBox folks?

I suspect it's because they give the software away for free. Mean old nasty Microsoft, Adobe, ID, Valve, etc. sell their software, and are thus greedy, and do not deserve our sympathy. I think that's the elephant in the room that nobody's pointing out. If I am incorrect, please let me know.

Re:call me a noob...

[Babbster]

I think the issue is that this is a case where the "bad guys" can be hoist on their own petard. Personally, I don't care that much how it ends up since I figure Valve and Id will try to do the right thing (and that's more than one can expect from most corporations). Still, I understand the desire of some to rub their noses in it. Not only do folks think it would be poetic justice, but it can be fun, too.

Re:call me a noob...

[X0563511]

In which they only need to offer the source of DOSBox including their modifications to it. Unless they copied the GPL code from dosbox into the games and recompiled, which is extremely unlikely, this still has no bearing on anything except including (or otherwise providing) the code for DOSBox.

Re:call me a noob...

[ZephyrXero]

Of course it's not required for game running on DOSBox...the thing in question here is that if they are distributing DOSBox and these games in a singular package, then the terms are different than if they were distributed seperately.

Re:call me a noob...

[watchingeyes]

How so?

Can you point to a specific section of the license that supports your claim?

About the only section I'm aware of that addresses components being distributed in a single package but that AREN'T linked together (or combined into one executable) is the mere aggregation clause, which says exactly the opposite of what you're saying.

Furthermore, your claim is rather dubious considering what could be defined as a "package" (which is something that isn't defined in the GPL, or your comment AFAIK). If I make a ZIP file (or RPM, DEB, MSI, DMG, etc etc) that contains a copy of FreeDOS and a proprietary DOS application, are you claiming that automatically places the entire contents of that package under the terms of the GPL? How exactly is that any different than burning both components onto a CD or DVD? Both are formats for archiving and distributing multiple files in a single "package", with the only difference being that CDs and DVDs are physical objects whereas the others listed are not.

Assuming for the moment that you actually understand how FreeDOS works (which from the grandparent comment doesn't seem to be a safe assumption, but I digress), you would realize that it would be ludicrous to state that these 2 components (the game and FreeDOS) are combined in any way other than merely being distributed together, which again, is specifically exempted by the GPL itself.

FreeDOS is merely a platform upon which applications can be run, such as the games in question. Just because it isn't an entire operating system like Linux doesn't change the way the license is applied to components or applications that run on top of it (which is that it isn't applied unless there is linking, plain and simple). Linux distributors such as Novell and Linspire regularly combine proprietary components in a single "package", with those bits running on Linux and GNU, which is also included in said "package", with no objection from the FSF or any copyright holder whatsoever.

About the only thing I'm uncertain of is why I'm wasting time arguing about this. Unless the FreeDOS creators, who are the only ones with grounds to complain in the first place, file any form of complaint against ID, this argument is pretty pointless. It's no one's job but their's to enforce the license covering their copyrighted works. No one else even has a say in the matter.

And if they do that, it is up to a Judge to interpret the license, not random Slashdot posters.

Re:call me a noob...

[watchingeyes]

Whoops....replace FreeDOS with Dosbox in my parent post. Apparently it is time for bed....

Re:call me a noob...

[watchingeyes]

Are you incapable of reading English or are you just blissfully ignorant of the points other people are making?

He never asked why he should care about copyright. He asked why he should care about Dosbox's copyrights MORE than anyone else's. In fact, he made that clear more than once, so I find it odd you somehow managed to miss it. Can we all start calling you Alberto from now on?

Of course, I don't agree with tit for tat reasoning, and don't think the fact that ID's games are pirated by other people (who aren't the creators of Dosbox) gives ID the right to violate Dosbox's copyrights, but you should still at least attempt to answer the question he actually posed....

Re:call me a noob...

[watchingeyes]

OK? So they need to provide their modified source for Dosbox then. What does this have to do with them needing to offer source for the source code making up their games?

Re:call me a noob...

[innocent_white_lamb]

Nothing at all. They do need to offer the source code for their modified version of DOSBox, including anything that is linked to it directly (this Steam thing, apparently, whatever it is). The source code for the actual games is probably not required unless they are actually linked to to the DOSBox source in some way.

Re:call me a noob...

[Curien]

If they linked DOSBox with one of their libraries and distributed this re-linked DOSBox (which is what seems to have happened), the terms of the GPL require them to release that library under the GPL as well as the modified DOSBox.

Re:call me a noob...

[X0563511]

My question is why would you link part of a program intended to be run under a DOS emulator... to the DOS emulator? Especially when said program runs fine in said emulator unmodified?

It doesn't make any sense, I can't see why the programmers would do such a thing - sounds like a waste of manpower and time.

Re:call me a noob...

[Ash-Fox]

When the BSA takes action against pirates, they are typically seen as the bad guy around these parts.

Usually I hear of people going to give anonymous tips to the BSA on certain companies on Slashdot.

However, the articles we hear about are usually about the BSA forcing schools/universities to buy yet another license for their already OEM licensed hardware, forcing them to use a entirely different licensing system like per seat licensing and so on when they are already licensed. That isn't action against piracy and yes, that makes them a bad guy.

Outdated Article

[TychoCelchuuu]

Valve/iD already updated the games with the required files. Old, incorrect news.

Re:Outdated Article

[r3f4rd30n]

Heh, kinda shows the big advantage of Steam: They can correct oversights like this almost instantly, and most of the users never know, since most updates are downloaded in the background.

Re:Outdated Article

[RDW]

Yes, here's the link:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1 28297&page=5

Looks more like an oversight than a deliberate violation.

Re:Outdated Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are the links:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1 28297&page=5

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showpost.php?p=233 2925&postcount=61

Re:Outdated Article

[Hsien-Ko]

But where's the source? The diff? Reminds me of the "from scratch" Source engine which is still Quake derived and had removed id software acknowledgments (as required by the commercial Quake engine license)

Re:Outdated Article

[Cannelbrae]

Thats what happens when one company signs a deal with another - they get to set up their own licensing rules. Valve probably paid id a whole bunch of money back when they started re-licensing HalfLife tech. At that point, they probably removed the license notices as if they were reselling it, they must have had rights to do so.

Re:Outdated Article

[cronot]

I can't see how it could be an oversight. The license files are distributed along with the DOSBox binaries / sources, so they should have deliberately deleted the license text files at some point before publishing them.

Re:Outdated Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like an honest mistake anyway. iD have released their old games under the GPL. I have no doubt that they know the license inside out and care about it themselves.

Re:Outdated Article

[poopdeville]

Sure, but that doesn't mean it wasn't innocently deliberate. They probably got a copy of the DOSBox source and started deleteing what the developers thought were irrelevant files in order to make their jobs customizing the software easier. Not a big deal. As mentioned elsewhere, this has already been fixed.

Re:Outdated Article

[RDW]

I'd guess the license files (and other text files distributed with dosbox) were never copied to the final location in the first place. They probably just unpacked/installed dosbox once, then copied the minimum number of files required to get their own software to run to the relevant location. I've certainly done this sort of thing with GPL'd binaries and libraries (like gzip or the cygwin dll), but not for re-distribution - publishers need to be more careful! From other posts in the forums, it looks like they didn't even expend much effort in getting the games to run optimally under dosbox (players are likely to get better and more configurable results with their own dosbox installations), which also suggests not much thought went into this. And it's not as if the publishers have anything to gain by not including the license - the GPL allows them to use dosbox in exactly the way they need.

Re:Outdated Article

[cycoj]

But it looks like they actually modified the dosbox code(it's mentioned on one of the forum threads, the md5 sum does no match the dosbox release), so they are still in violation, as they now have to supply the source code. Also a public apology would be appropriate IMO.

Re:Outdated Article

[bladesjester]

They don't have to have the code posted anywhere or bundle it with their release. They just have to make it so that, if anyone actually requests it, it is provided to that person. For what it's worth, they could say that they will provide it to the people who request on cd media and charge a nominal fee for the media, shipping, and handling (though that would be sort of silly for something as small as an altered copy of dosbox).

Re:Outdated Article

[LWATCDR]

"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.

Re:Outdated Article

[Khaed]

Could they be bastards, and send you 5.25" floppies of the source diffs?

That's what I'd do if I was an Evil Overlord.

Re:Outdated Article

[shutdown -p now]

What more, there has been quite a few demands to "release the modified sources" here already. There's nothing to release there - the only thing Valve didn't put in (forgot, maliciously planend - take your pick) is the COPYING file with the text of GPL. That's the sole violation of the license by them.

Re:Outdated Article

[bladesjester]

I believe that the basic wording is that they can provide it in any format that would reasonably be used to distribute the software.

I remember when Linux was distributed on floppies. Imagine if it still was. The bloody things would fill a whole room.

Re:Outdated Article

[Anonymous Coward]

No surprise why many companies are afraid of working with GPLed stuff.

Re:Outdated Article

[mlk]

(to be a pain in the arse) Depends on the distribution. Some will fit happily on a single floppy.

I remember many moons back (1999 I think) when Slackware was the last distribution I could find to still have a floppy option. I had ten disks and a 100+ disk distribution to copy. Copying ten a time from University, install, then head back to uni and grab the next ten. Wow I was a sad fucker then.

Re:Outdated Article

[mlk]

But where's the source? Have you asked Value or ID for the source?

The source does not have to included, just made available (even for a nominal fee) to anyone who asks.

Re:Outdated Article

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't mean they modified the code, it just means they compiled it themselves. There are about ten billion variables in the build process and getting exactly same binary even from unmodified source code is vanishingly unlikely.

Re:Outdated Article

[Rogerborg]

Sure, they could. The point is that they haven't.

Re:Outdated Article

[allometry]

Truly a breath of fresh air!

Re:Outdated Article

[Ginger Unicorn]

why? because they might get flamed on slashdot? woooooooo..... scary shit....

Re:Outdated Article

[Chandon Seldon]

Not quite. If the source isn't included, there needs to be a written offer that *says* the source code is available. For GPLv2, that written offer must be for a mail order version of the source rather than a network delivered version.

How do they know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Appears to be? been told? How do they know its running dosbox? Wasn't there some previous comment on another article that says its running things that someone couldn't run in dosbox?

as far as I can tell, the whole of the accusation is that they are doing things that can be done with DOSbox, so they must be using DOSbox. Come on folks you can do better

Aren't they being lazy?

[Das Modell]

Why is DOSBox needed? They have the source codes for all their games, so why can't they make the games compatible with modern systems? The community did that for Doom and Quake (and not just once, because there are many, many different clients available for both games).

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

That requires effort. Now they get a lot more profit, no need to invest time.

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they know? Because each f.cking game comes with a dosbox.exe (with the real DOSBox icon) and with a stripped dosbox.conf file.

--
MiniMax

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[brouski]

Isn't that supposed to be one of the benefits of open source software? Not having to reinvent the wheel? Assuming one plays by the rules, of course.

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[TheRaven64]

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.

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[Ant P.]

They're already using GPLed code so why not skip the DOSBox part altogether and use one of the community ports? It's not like they have cross-platform compatibility as an excuse.

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[91degrees]

Assembly language still works under Windows. The low level system calls are generally going to be a very small part the code. It wouldn't take that long to port it. It would just take longer than using a lazy half-assed solution like Dosbox.

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they don't want to rewrite it, let someone else do it. Maybe... by putting it under an open source license in the first place.

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[k8to]

In the dos game programming era, it was typical that the video control code was a majority of the program.

Re:Aren't they being lazy?

[HTH NE1]

Why is DOSBox needed? They have the source codes for all their games, so why can't they make the games compatible with modern systems? Maybe they don't want to endure the hassle and expense of resubmitting modern rebuilds of these old games to the ESRB.

Or you can take John Carmak's official response:

It all comes down to resources -- re-qualifying a release of anything takes a lot of time, money, and support, while just shipping the exact same executables was fairly straightforward. While Doom and Quake might be able to justify the work, there is no way a lot of the titles could, so the decision was pretty obvious.

I strongly urge people with a little initiative to go look at the various high quality source ports, because they are better in essentially every aspect than the original sources, but we aren't going to make any of them official.

Developers not notified... so what!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

GPL violations aside, there is no need to notify the developers if you intend to use code under GPL.

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.

Re:Developers not notified... so what!

[LainTouko]

It is the courteous thing to do though. So if people are interested in whether or not a company behaves in a courteous manner, it's still worth mentioning.

Re:Developers not notified... so what!

[Jare]

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.

Re:Developers not notified... so what!

[babbling]

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.

Re:Developers not notified... so what!

[Warbothong]

You can't say 'GPL violations aside' and then attack the other half of the dual argument. The point is that the GPL's terms were not being followed, but this would be fine if Valve had licensed it from the developers under different terms. Since the developers were not contacted then they couldn't have done that, thus they must have been using it under the GPL, and therefore they were in the wrong.

Re:Developers not notified... so what!

[Brandybuck]

Putting a notice of the GPL in the distribution isn't good enough! I think it'd be more appropriate if the box bore a great red label: "WARNING: LARK'S VOMIT!!!"

Re:Developers not notified... so what!

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be false advertising as it in fact contains no Larks Vomit.

Just to be clear

[also-rr]

Before anyone jumps on the summary for being incorrect - there is no need to notify a developer when you use or distribute GPL software. However if you want to distribute in violation of the license then there are only two ways:

1. Get the developer to waive the license (hasn't happened according to summary, which was worth mentioning as it means the only option is (2))
2. Pile a huge stack of cash in a vault to pay off copyright violation damages

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.

Re:Just to be clear

[Aladrin]

'Option 3' has nothing to do with the GPL and everything to do with the typical attitude of open source programmers. You'll find the same attitude in programmers under BSD, MPL, and probably just about any other Open Source (officially sanctioned or not) license.

The 'viral FUD' about the GPL isn't FUD simply because there ARE nice programmers, but because there are those who AREN'T. GPL is viral whether you like it or not. The ability to work out another arrangement does -not- change this in the slightest.

Re:Just to be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

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 -

The "viral" comparison is about what you have to do to avoid violating the license. Most commercial licenses don't require you to share your work with others, only that you pay for the right to use it. The GPL hides behind "it's free!" and then jumps out and bludgeons you if you're not paying attention. In many cases it's impossible to purchase the rights you want because the copyright is held by so many people.

you would be in court for damages instead of sitting across a table from a bunch of altrustic techies seeking a negotiated solution.

<asbestos pants>If they were really altruistic, they'd use MIT or BSD licensing and you would be out having lunch.</asbestos pants>

Doesn't this depend?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no problem if the DosBox creators are rich and/or assholes.

As I don't know them and haven't read anything about them, I can't say whether iD should be allowed to do this. Anyone got any info on them?

Could you vultures wait?

[Time Doctor]

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.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[TheRaven64]

I don't really know why ID are being blamed for this, since Valve is the distributor. Unlike ID, who gave us GPL'd Doom, Quake, etc, Valve gave us DRM'd Half Life, and deserve no sympathy when they get caught infringing copyright.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[tuffy]

If any of us started distributing Id's copyrighted materials in violation of their license, I'm sure it'd take less than a week for their legal team to put an end to it.

And I'm sure they wouldn't be very nice about it, either.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, couldn't get a hacked copy of Half-Life 2, so you feel the need to bitch about 'DRM' even when it's nothing of the sort. You don't have a right to give your copy of a game to someone else and deny the people who spend months developing a fantastic game any reward.

Fucking thief.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[EvanED]

I don't really know why ID are being blamed for this, since Valve is the distributor.

I would suspect ID packaged it, or at least provided the materials to be packaged, and along with it a statement that they had rights to distribute it. That seems much less likely than Valve removing the files.

What, should Valve now go and verify everything on Steam doesn't include GPL'd programs and not include the license, an impossible task in general?

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's liberalism for you.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[karmatic]

Well, dosbox is linked with the closed-source steam client library in it, with obfuscation/packing. So, either

1) The steam lib was linked directly into the dosbox source, or
2) A steam exe wrapper was applied to the dosbox .exe

In either case, Valve should have been paying attention. It's their IP in dosbox, not iD software's.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[Creepy Crawler]

And guess what: Quake 3 Arena could be played with:

1. NO cd key. Just click "ok" with it blank
2. From the CD directly. It just doesnt save player name and settings
3. No onerous anti-user technology, no cd-lockout programs
4. CAN run a lan server with NO cdkey AND from directly CD

The only other game to actually beat that was Total Annihilation. That game had NO cdkey, and 1 legit player could host 3 real players. Kickass for legit lan playing.

Q3 was soo good, we bought 2 Win versions and 1 Lin version.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[AaronLawrence]

Just because their legal team might be assholes (by design), doesn't mean we have to lower ourselves to their level.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[micpp]

While I don't necessarily agree with the idea of selling used games to be stealing, I will say that I don't understand why anyone would want to give away their copy of Half-Life 2. Yep, I'm something of a pathetic fanboy. It should be noted that if you buy the retail version of Half-Life 2 and want to sell it on, Valve will switch the games over to the buyer's steam account if you send scans of the CD and the CD key.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[TheRaven64]

Aw, couldn't get a hacked copy of Half-Life 2 Really? They were floating around everywhere. I didn't have a Windows PC by the time Half Life 2 was released (and I stopped playing my legally bought copy of Half Life after Steam made it too much hassle). A couple of people in the lab where I work bought it on pre-order - and then had to wait several days for Steam to let them play it. Good thing one of them downloaded the pirate copy; that worked as soon as it was downloaded.

so you feel the need to bitch about 'DRM' even when it's nothing of the sort Restricts me from using something I bought? Sounds like DRM. Needing to validate my CD key when I played online with Half Life was bad enough, but at least when I was playing online I definitely had an Internet connection. Needing to validate it online for single player is just taking the piss.

You don't have a right to give your copy of a game to someone else and deny the people who spend months developing a fantastic game any reward.
Fucking thief. Are you talking about me or Valve? I paid for Half Life, and then found that the only way I could run the latest bug-fix was to install a buggy, bloated, piece of DRM-infested crapware. Valve took code that was several years of work for a group of people, stripped the copyright notice, linked it to their proprietary DRM system, and distributed it to thousands of people.

Sounds like you must be talking about Valve.

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[sidething]

apart from the wolfenstein source code, the doom source code, the quake 1/2/3 source code, the informative .plan files, the real interest in the community, the modifiable games etc etc. what has john carmack ever done for us ?

Re:Could you vultures wait?

[Dwonis]

Actually, Slade (of the infamous QuakeLives project) did that, and it took a few months of being really nice about it before John Carmack finally threatened legal action.

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how people think the GPL matters, what a fucking joke!

Valve thanks Steam once again

[tehwebguy]

Since Valve has a pretty intense lockdown on their games with Steam (a lockdown that I'm not entirely opposed to, since it is so good), they can lock access to any affected games until users update.

Said update should include a copy of the GPL.

Re:Valve thanks Steam once again

[Anonymous Coward]

The missing files have been added now.

--
MiniMax

Why is Hexen A doom engine game useing dosbox?

[Joe The Dragon]

There is much better windows doom ports that can fully run that game and ID even has there own win32 port of doom. Also the low screen res of that game will look real bad on new big screen LCD or CRT. Even the old win32 doom port at a max of 640x480 will look better.

Re:Why is Hexen A doom engine game useing dosbox?

[FreonTrip]

It would be too time-consuming to evaluate the third-party Doom / Hexen ports to determine which would work best for the overwhelming number of system configurations on which Steam will run, and most users would want as authentic an experience as possible. Evaluating newer ports for security problems, flaws in feature implementation, or bugs that only appear on some hardware configuration would also be time-consuming and expensive for a QA department. It would be simplest to make DOSbox cooperate with Steam and run the latest official DOS executable, and that's clearly the decision that id and Valve chose. I'd have done the same in their position. As for the old Win32 port, Carmack himself once said that was Microsoft's baby (or possibly Monolith's...), and that he had no idea where the source code to it went.

Re:Why is Hexen A doom engine game useing dosbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

WinDoom was actually the first DirectX game. I can't find the link but I think it was a slashdot story... basically the DirectX guys, to get people interested in making games for Windows, said "trust us with your code and we'll port your games to Windows under DirectX for free", and id was the first to take them up on the offer. IIRC.

Yeah right

[Anonymous Coward]

how is the snowball in hell project comming along?

Re:Yeah right

[PitaBred]

Slightly better than integrating spell checking into all web browsers, it would seem...

Re:Yeah right

[djimi]

Which is just slightly less egregious than the pedant who doesn't know how to punctuate a sentence that ends with an ellipsis.

Mad outrage NOT in order

[Anonymous Coward]

iD have been an amazing help to the free software community (do you really think OpenGL would have survived without them at the height of the Microsoft-mole-destroying-SGI fiasco?). Most likely this is just some underling's oversight. Don't panic or blow this out of all proportion folks, give them an honest chance to correct the issue.

Very seldom happens

[EmbeddedJanitor]

How many people contact Linus and the other thousand or so Linux contibutors when they load up Linux?

I release some kernel code under GPL. This is used in many Linux-based products (cell phones etc). I probably only get to hear from 5% or so of the people that actually use it.

Re:Very seldom happens

[hardburn]

Linus already knows Linux is big, though. For a (relatively) small project like dosbox, being told that a big publisher like iD is using your software would be a big ego boost (and incentive to keep working on the project).

MOD PARENT DOWN FOR WRONGNESS

[HaloMan]

You're wrong. Tell me where they've offered to let me download the source of the build they're using.

You can't? That's because they're still violating the GPL.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN FOR WRONGNESS

[nschubach]

Um... I think you may be mistaking the GPL for something it's not. The GPL does not state that you must make your program open source. It only states that if you modify anything protected under said license, you have to publish those changes. This does not include your own privately protected source.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN FOR WRONGNESS

[OrangeTide]

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.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN FOR WRONGNESS

[HaloMan]

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.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN FOR WRONGNESS

[nschubach]

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.

This is what I was getting at. They don't have to release the source of the game, but if they modified the DOSBox program they ran it under, they must publish that change.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN FOR WRONGNESS

[Khaed]

You left off two parts of section 3., (b and c), which state:

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
  c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

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?).

Bah GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL is stupid and probably doesn't hold up in a real court.

Re:Bah GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Your FUD is stale. At this stage the GPLv2 has been tested and upheld in several jurisdictions.

Intentional?

[The MAZZTer]

DOSBox's download contains the GPL in COPYING.txt. So it was intentionally stripped out by iD...?

DOSBox should have used the BSD license

[larry bagina]

this wouldn't be a problem if they used the BSD license.

Re:DOSBox should have used the BSD license

[Anonymous Coward]

this wouldn't be a problem if they used the BSD license. No, it would still be a problem. And it's not like they foresaw people abusing their work anyways.

Re:DOSBox should have used the BSD license

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and you wouldn't be here if your mom would have aborted you.

Transparently divisive rubbish.

[Ed Black]

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.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[oohshiny]

Small oversight by (on id's part) a hugely prolific developer of GPL'd software. Easily corrected and pushed out to clients straight away.

id is a nice company, but the license is the license. You can't "easily correct" GPL violations: once you screw up, the GPL doesn't apply to you anymore, no matter what you do. The only way to fix that is to get permission from each and every copyright holder. Pointing that out isn't "divisive trolling", it's simply the facts about the GPL.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... says a lot about the GPL then. This isn't a licence for using... this is a licence for lying down and avoiding. But of course all you militant uberdorks out there think it's the freakin' second coming... on your knees sucking like it's got the antidote. Pathetic.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[grumbel]

### You can't "easily correct" GPL violations: once you screw up, the GPL doesn't apply to you anymore, no matter what you do.

Where the heck did you get that from?

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[Medgur]

Rather than derision id should be given thanks for further showing the usefulness of GPL'd software!

Previously id has shown how to encourage the longevity of your brand by releasing the code under a permissive license, and now id is providing an example of how to effectively utilize other's GPL'd software.

And, as noted by other posters, this is old news. The oversight has already been corrected.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[MikeBabcock]

The GPL isn't signed off on -- if you don't use it, you've broken Copyright law by distributing the software. You have no right to DOS Box, nor does ID software unless they abide by the GPL. They don't forfeit any rights -- they had none to begin with, that's the whole point of the GPL.

Now will anyone sue them for it? That's the key. In this case if ID Software says "oops" and corrects the mistake, I seriously doubt the Copyright holder will get very upset with them, but the GP is right in that you have no rights to GPL software unless you abide the GPL at all times.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[cdrguru]

Evidently for most intents and purposes copyright is a meaningless concept today. Piracy is a non-issue until someone sues and even then it isn't very meaningful.

Not that I wish it to be this way, but reality is after all reality.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[fm6]

Piracy is a non-issue until someone sues and even then it isn't very meaningful.

Huh?

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[Creepy Crawler]

Judge asks: Whats the damages?

What do you answer?

A: Make up a number. Bad idea
B: Its free under GPL.

Ok, you take B. Did they do it willingly? If so, they be naughty. If not, mens rea and all that. And they DID make it good.

At most, you have 0$ of DAMAGE. Whoop-te-shit.

Simply, this software, by definition, is worthless. Now, if there was a dual license that was made for commercial entities... thats a different question.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[ShinmaWa]

You are correct, but that's a whole different point than the GPs. The GP said that if you violate the GPL, your bridges are burned forever and ever, amen. You can't make it right, you can't fix it. One simple mistake and you are done forever.

However, there's absolutely NOTHING the GPL that says that at all. The GPL is pretty straightforward, really: If you abide by our terms, you can distribute. If you don't abide, you have no right to distribute. Valve/ID are now abiding by the terms**, so they can distribute. Case closed.

Because of their Steam technology, they were even able to retroactively distribute the copy of the GPL to everyone they had already distributed the software to. That makes them fully compliant with every distribution they've done. Case beaten like a dead horse.

** (This is assuming that Valve/ID will honor requests for the source code, of which I've not heard a yea or nay on.)

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[oohshiny]

It says so right in the license:

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[Ash-Fox]

Judge asks: Whats the damages?

What do you answer?

A: Make up a number. Bad idea
B: Its free under GPL.

C: Failure to discuss licensing terms so you could license them the ability to use a closed source version for a huge sum.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[Dwonis]

If not, mens rea and all that.

Mens rea is usually irrelevant in civil lawsuits.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[Creepy Crawler]

Bullshit.

If you can show a judge that you honestly messed up and tried to fix it the best one can, the judge will probably NOT do treble damages.

Re:Transparently divisive rubbish.

[MikeBabcock]

You do realize Copyright violation is illegal. Its not just a civil issue, its a criminal one. You can be charged by the police whether or not there are damages.

WTF?

[msimm]

Vultures? Most of the comments are either wrong (like yours) or pointing out that the article is out-dated and id/Valve already corrected the issue. What vultures? Unless you mean the editors, but your number is low enough you should know they troll articles like the anyone else.

Now there's a reason to port Steam to Linux

[FliesLikeABrick]

Steam now has a reason to be ported to Linux. A lot of the new id games added to Steam play natively on Linux, there are others that use DOSbox, which conveniently works on Linux as well. If Valve ports Steam to Linux... it'd open the door for Linux users to easily buy and play these games, and I'm sure enough people would such that it makes business sense for them to do it.

Re:Now there's a reason to port Steam to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, if they port Steam to Linux it'd get rid one of the reasons for (me) keeping Windows.

Re:Now there's a reason to port Steam to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

> and I'm sure enough people would such
> that it makes business sense for them to do it.

Hehe... I think you overestimate the number of desktop Linux users.

Re:Now there's a reason to port Steam to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Also he says "it'd open the door for Linux users to easily buy and play these games..." Since when do Linux users buy anything?

Re:Now there's a reason to port Steam to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

you're a troll or just dumb either way I've a bit time on my hand...

sure coz' all users of your 95%-market-share-OS buy their game right ?

maybe you know linux user may be more grateful than you're average Joe Windows Gamers, and will _actually_ pay for the game.

Re:Now there's a reason to port Steam to Linux

[jb.hl.com]

maybe you know linux user may be more grateful than you're average Joe Windows Gamers, and will _actually_ pay for the game.

Yeah, that's why Loki went bust.

Violating The GPL!?!

[icedcool]

Rabble rabble rabble rabble.

This is awesome viral marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, under normal circumstances, the release of ten year old games on Steam wouldn't have garnered a nod from places like Slashdot. So what do they do? Spark a rumor that they're violating the GPL and suddenly all the Slashdotties are crying and stamping their feet.... and giving them lots of publicity.

Personally, I'm just glad I found out, so I could go and buy all those great games to play on my modern system. Thanks slashdot!

I'm also sure that if there is any "gpl violation" involved, that a steam game update will simply drop a .zip of source code in the directory with the game in a couple of days. I doubt there is though. If there is, it certainly won't be Valve's fault since id are the ones who pack up the games for them to distribute.

you're wrong, too

[oohshiny]

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.

Re:you're wrong, too

[Ohreally_factor]

Interesting! I'd like to think that this particular case was an inadvertent error that can and will be quickly remedied. There doesn't seem to be any indication that copy.txt and author.txt were omitted in an act of bad faith, although we'll find out soon enough.

So, in a worst case scenario, if non-compliance were due to a technical glitch (say, copy.txt was corrupted), what are the legal ramifications? What if the technical glitch was corrected in a day? In an hour?

Of course, much of this depends on the reaction of the authors/licensors and whatever temporary grace they will extend towards the licensee.

Re:you're wrong, too

[tftp]

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.

I think the GP post is unusually bloodthirsty. If what he says (and I quoted) is true, then if an intern at IBM accidentally omits the COPYING file from a minor patch then IBM better be closing its illegal GPL enterprise, quickly! Or maybe it can weasel out of that for a million billion dollars per developer wronged. I think that is a very bad FUD to spread. If managers hear that they won't permit GPL code anywhere in the company, just to be on the safe side.

In case of commercial licenses, they rarely if ever say that you lose certain rights forever. You always can pay and restore the rights; business-wise commercial licenses are safer than GPL, again if we believe the GP poster.

Re:you're wrong, too

[mrchaotica]

I think the GP post is unusually bloodthirsty. If what he says (and I quoted) is true, then if an intern at IBM accidentally omits the COPYING file from a minor patch then IBM better be closing its illegal GPL enterprise, quickly! Or maybe it can weasel out of that for a million billion dollars per developer wronged. I think that is a very bad FUD to spread. If managers hear that they won't permit GPL code anywhere in the company, just to be on the safe side.

First of all, the GP (or rather, GGP now) is exactly right. Second, this kind of thing is specified by copyright law itself, not the GPL. It would apply to any license violation, whether it's the GPL or Microsoft's EULA or whatever.

Anyway, remember exactly what the GGP said: if the parties can't come to an agreement, then the courts will determine one. In the situation you gave, with an accidental violation, obviously even if the copyright owner was unreasonable the courts wouldn't make the penalty too harsh.

Re:you're wrong, too

[Vintermann]

"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."

Right. Which is why companies caught by projects like gplviolations usually give a "voluntary donation" to a free software project in addition to moving into compliance.

Re:you're wrong, too

[oohshiny]

So, in a worst case scenario, if non-compliance were due to a technical glitch (say, copy.txt was corrupted), what are the legal ramifications? What if the technical glitch was corrected in a day? In an hour?

It doesn't matter; once the license is terminated, you can't get it back except if the authors explicitly grant it back to you.

Of course, much of this depends on the reaction of the authors/licensors and whatever temporary grace they will extend towards the licensee.

It would be foolish for a business to operate under such uncertainty. If you run a business and you violate the GPL on a piece of software, you have to assume that you have lost your rights under the GPL. If the authors remain silent, that doesn't mean that they "extended grace", it means that you continue to operate without a license and can be sued. The only way to remedy that situation is when you go to the authors, explain the situation, and ask them to give you explicit permission to redistribute the software under the GPL again.

Re:you're wrong, too

[oohshiny]

You always can pay and restore the rights

Wrong; it's entirely up to the copyright holder whether to grant you a license, and you may be liable for damages and penalties even if you do not get a license to the software. GPL'ed software is no different than commercial software in this regard, other than that GPL developers usually are nicer about it and less likely to sue you than a commercial vendor.

if an intern at IBM accidentally omits the COPYING file from a minor patch then IBM better be closing its illegal GPL enterprise, quickly!

First of all, you only lose the license to the specific piece of software in question, not all GPL licensed software. Second, IBM has gotten sued over this sort of thing and it has cost them a lot of money, which is why they are careful that this sort of thing isn't happening again. You should be too.

I think that is a very bad FUD to spread.

The only "FUD" is the FUD you're spreading, by falsely claiming that commercial software is any different in this regard.

Re:you're wrong, too

[Ohreally_factor]

If the authors remain silent, that doesn't mean that they "extended grace", it means that you continue to operate without a license and can be sued. I didn't mean to imply anything of the sort. Thanks for the clarification, just the same. Hopefully in this case, Valve or iD will approach the DOSbox guys with appropriate contrition and also sweeten the deal for them as a peace making gesture. I don't think any of the DOSbox guys work at it full time nor realize any profit beyond satisfaction at creating cool software. From reading the DOSbox forum, it's clear that Valve or iD did a lousy job. Seems it would be to everyone's benefit if Valve or iD paid the developers for consulting or proper implementation.

But you're right. It's no way to run a business. DOSbox should have been consulted with from the outset. It's not a legal requirement, but it's both courteous and smart to do so.

Re:you're wrong, too

[Curien]

When you violate the GPL, you immediately lose your license to the GPL'ed code

No, you don't. "[A]ctivities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by [the GPL] License". Any time they distribute the software in compliance with the terms of the GPL, it is valid, regardless of past infractions. Violating the GPL does not revoke your license to USE the code, and it does not taint FUTURE uses of the license (provided they are done in compliance).

Re:you're wrong, too

[oohshiny]

and it does not taint FUTURE uses of the license (provided they are done in compliance).

Wrong. The GPLv2 explicitly terminates all your rights under the GPL immediately and permanently. That has a number of problems, which is why GPLv3 modified the language somewhat. If you don't believe me, read the discussions leading to the new GPLv3 language.

Re:you're wrong, too

[afidel]

It doesn't matter; once the license is terminated, you can't get it back except if the authors explicitly grant it back to you.

Hehe, actually the way the GPL works they just have to download another copy of the program in question. You get a new license to the code in question each time you receive a copy of the code, if you didn't then the GPL wouldn't work. In case you haven't actually READ the GPL it is all about empowering the receiver of code, not the author.

Re:you're wrong, too

[Curien]

You receive a new license every time you download the software. GPLv2 can say that if it wants, but it's not enforceable.

Re:you're wrong, too

[oohshiny]

You receive a new license every time you download the software. GPLv2 can say that if it wants, but it's not enforceable.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Re:you're wrong, too

[russotto]

If what he says (and I quoted) is true, then if an intern at IBM accidentally omits the COPYING file from a minor patch then IBM better be closing its illegal GPL enterprise, quickly!

Look up "de minimis non curat lex". Even if the copyright holder were to press a case based on an inadvertant and easily curable violation, it's extremely likely he'd obtain the injunction he sought.

Re:you're wrong, too

[russotto]

You receive a new license every time you download the software. GPLv2 can say that if it wants, but it's not enforceable.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Section 4 provides that attempting to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the work in violation of the license terminates the license. Section 6 says that whenever the program is redistributed, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor. So, the GP is technically right; if you lose your license due to violating the GPL, you can be relicensed by getting another copy from a licensed distributor.

Re:you're wrong, too

[nuzak]

> When you violate the GPL, you immediately lose your license to the GPL'ed code

This is slashdot, son. It's spelled "loose".

Re:you're wrong, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Section 6 says that whenever the program is redistributed, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor.

Section 4 doesn't literally say that "the license" terminates, it says that "your rights under this license" terminate, so whether you have a license or not doesn't matter--you have no rights under the license if you meet the termination conditions.

Furthermore, if you trigger Section 4 and then relicense, you still trigger Section 4 because your act of relicensing the program doesn't change the fact that you have violated the distribution terms for "the Program"; the fact that you did so on a separately licensed copy doesn't make a difference. In different words, the license effectively says that if you violate the terms on one instance of the program, you lose the rights for all licensed copies, not just that one copy.

Re:you're wrong, too

[russotto]

Triggering section 4 is a one time activity; if you get a new license you don't trigger its section 4 merely because you violated the old one, only if you do it again. GPLv3 plugs this loophole.

Re:you're wrong, too

[Anonymous Coward]

if you get a new license you don't trigger its section 4 merely because you violated the old one only if you do it again

That's not what it says, and that's clearly not the intent either.

GPLv3 plugs this loophole.

There is nothing to "plug"; it GPLv3 merely clarifies this further.

Huh?

[oohshiny]

These game companies produce proprietary software and take strong measures against copying and copyright infringement. Why do you think it is unreasonable to expect them to comply with other people's software licenses?

that may not be sufficient

[oohshiny]

The GPL does not allow you to fix problems retroactively: when you violate the license, you lose all rights to using the software. There is no way you can fix it. That's to prevent companies from "forgetting" to acknowledge the software based on the assumption that the worst that can happen to them is to be found out and forced to comply.

So, if Valve/ID violated the GPL, providing the required files at this point is sufficient only if the authors of DOSbox are satisfied with it and grant Valve/ID permission to distribute the software under the GPL again.

Re:that may not be sufficient

[hardburn]

Yes, let's be legalistic jerks about the whole thing instead of forgive and forgetting. It works for the RIAA.

Re:that may not be sufficient

[SEE]

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.

Re:that may not be sufficient

[Pharmboy]

There is no basis for what you are claiming and I think you are missing the point. First, you can never lose the rights to use the software. Read it yourself. By design, steam can fix an oversight by simply uploading the license to you when you log in. This isn't the same as a proprietary license, so they can distribute as long as they comply, as there is no court order forcing them to stop. You NEVER need to ask permission to distribute GPL software, outside of a court order banning you.

Most important: it was a simple oversight, ID is very pro GPL, and everyone who is making a big deal out of this, accusing them of "theft" has not a single clue. It is good that it was found and fixed, and that maybe someone can learn a little about the GPL, but they god damn sure aren't going to learn about the GPL from reading slashot and the linked blog. jeez...

Re:that may not be sufficient

[oohshiny]

You're shooting the messenger; I'm simply pointing out the way the GPL (and most commercial licenses) work.

It's also not wise for a company like id/Valve to simply ignore the issue; unless every contributor to DOSbox explicitly reinstates their license, id/Valve always runs the risk that they'll get sued later. id/Valve is free to interpret silence on the part of the copyright holders as "forgiveness", but that's legally unwise.

well, let me try to be even clearer

[oohshiny]

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.

So, just to be clear: you do need to notify the developer once you have failed to comply with the GPL and then want to fix your mistake; by default, you simply lose all rights to the GPL'ed software if you fail to comply with the license, and only the copyright holder can fix that.

Re:well, let me try to be even clearer

[PhilHibbs]

The GPL specifically states that each time you distribute GPL software, the recipient gains a new licence. If that recipient (id and Valve) violated the GPb in redistributing it without the licence file, they can download it again and get a new licence. Sure you can still be sued for the copyright violation but you can fix the error and carry on.

A copy of the License is NOT enough

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:A copy of the License is NOT enough

[mfnickster]

> 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
---------^^^

Gonna have to ask you to be more specific here. If you're not linking, it's not a problem.

- Nick

Re:A copy of the License is NOT enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Um no.

If you modified the GPL'd code this might apply, but seeing as they're using a standard distribution of DOSbox, it doesn't apply. If they either rewrote DOSbox or integrated the code from DOSbox into the original source code for these games, then yes. But as long as they are using a normal distribution you can download from the developers of DOSbox, nothing special is needed.

Re:A copy of the License is NOT enough

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Sir. As others have stated, this is FUD.

If you *link* to the DOS box yes, the complete thing is Derived work.
If the DOS box is just the "underlying operating system" -- no way.

Please, stop that (intentional or unintentional) fudslinging

Re:A copy of the License is NOT enough

[LinuxEagle]

I'm confused, is this or is this not a derivative work. Several people above seem to have mentioned that it is a derivative work... Clarification would be great, and probably very useful.

Re:A copy of the License is NOT enough

[BrianGKUAC]

It is not a derivative work, because the source code for DOSBox is not in any part of the source code for the games that are being released to run with it.

The way it's being described by the OP would make it so that every bit of software that ever ran on Linux would have to be open sourced and GPLed. This is not the case.

Any other Steam games using DOSBox?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if anyone has been buying/using old games on Steam, but I would have thought that X-Com: Terror From The Deep would have used DOSBox as well. This game has been on Steam for quite a while now - can anyone confirm this?

Just got the id Super Pak as well... does this mean I'm gonna lose Commander Keen? :(

GPL isn't the only attribution license

[tepples]

You fucking piece of shit bearded GNU freak. As more and more of these GPL fiasco stories come up the more companies are learning to avoid the GPL quagmire. Many other licenses for Free works, including the BSD license, the X11 license, and the Creative Commons licenses, require that the text of the license and the list of authors be included in binary distributions.

Bought it last night... or this morning...

[DimGeo]

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.

Re:Bought it last night... or this morning...

[DimGeo]

Hate to reply my own comments, but I forgot something. Check out the weird way TNT and Plutonia are handled in the package. The original DOS exe picks up Plutonia as the main IWAD and since the publishers chose for some reason to put both IWAD-s in the same directory, TNT is launched with -file tnt.wad. Anybody who's done some development in the area will tell you that's not a great idea, passing an IWAD as -file to another IWAD. Anyway, it works, that used to be the way sprite-containing PWADs worked - deutex added all the sprites from the IWAD and then the DOS exe was able to handle the stuff. Still weird to see -file plutonia.wad when the IWAD already *is* plutonia. I guess this just shows that id probably had little to do with the release, moreover the tech support is forwarded to Activision.

Re:Bought it last night... or this morning...

[Joe The Dragon]

and why is not at least win95 doom with a max of 640X480 screen res.

Re:Bought it last night... or this morning...

[Sigma 7]

DosBox is not configured well, it runs 320x200 games in a kind of widescreen. That's cause it's a form of widescreen.
- 640x480 has a 4:3 aspect ratio.
- 320x200 has a 16:10 (or 8:5) aspect ratio.

If you play it on LCDs, you are usually playing the game at a non-native resolution. This isn't a problem itself, but as it's a matter of personal preference on how to handle the aspect ratio, it will be difficult to find the "best" solution.

Re:Bought it last night... or this morning...

[DimGeo]

True about the 320x200, but back in the days, when the tube monitors had 4:3 aspect ratio, 320x200 was stretched to 4:3, and we liked it :) . So did 640x400. And 1280x1024 (for those lucky enough to have a big one).

Actually, you're wrong

[Rix]

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.

Re:Actually, you're wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL may not have provisions to deny license to violators, but, like it says in the GPL, nothing else gives you the right to redistribute copies. In absence of the GPL, redistribution is punishable by law as a copyright violation, which may include a per-copy fine plus jail time, probably in addition to an injunction.

Re:Actually, you're wrong

[Vintermann]

A GPL violator can be forced to compensate, just like with any other copyright infringement. That it hasn't happened yet just shows that copyright holders aren't very interested in pursuing that avenue. However, if you look at gplviolations.org, you'll see that most companies make a donation in addition to moving into compliance, as part of the agreement to drop charges.

Re:Actually, you're wrong

[oohshiny]

Which part of this do you fail to understand?

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.

There is no provision to reinstate the license once it's been terminated.

Re:Actually, you're wrong

[abb3w]

A GPL violator can be forced to compensate, just like with any other copyright infringement.

There's also the chance for a judgment awarding legal expenses, which is probably the main reason for the donation.

Actually...

[XanC]

It was there, at the bottom of the label after "monosodium glutimate".

because, of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

... if Microsoft did the same thing all of the above posters would be expressing the same opinion.

modifications

[timmarhy]

Correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't the GPL stipulate that you only need to give away source code when you MODIFY the original, there by copying left? merely distributing the original unmodified achieves nothing.

Re:modifications

[keeboo]

No, GPL requires that if you _distribute_ the binary (no matter whether modified or not) you must provide the source code.
Now if you modify the code then you distribute the resulting software, what happens is that the changes you made are also under the GPL.

Re:modifications

[Anonymous Coward]

No, GPL requires that if you _distribute_ the binary (no matter whether modified or not) you must provide the source code.

Well, that used to be true, but the GPL v3 now allows you to distribute the binary as long as the source is available via "reasonable" channels. This allows things like distributing a GPLed program via Bittorrent, where most of the people "distributing" the program don't even have the full binary, let alone the source. Under v2, this technically violated the license.

The major problem in this case, though, is that the GPLed program is being distributed without a GPL license document, which isn't kosher under any GPL license. But it seems from another post that this has since been remedied.

Re:modifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't the GPL stipulate that you only need to give away source code when you MODIFY the original They did modify the original. The modified version requires that Steam is running. Whether this is done in a way that would require also Steam to be GPL, I don't know. But yes, they modified it. See the dosbox forum thread linked in the description for ongoing discussion about the subject.

Offtopic, rant about license whores

[Anonymous Coward]

You want another reason why linux isn't taking off, cause people jump all over something like this.

Way to go, make it known that GPL is associated with people who will attack you the first sign something may not be 100 percent perfect with the way you're using GPL'd software. You look at the people involved and you'd be silly to think any of the big players are doing this to intentionally avoid distributing the license...

Do you see Microsoft attacking stupid little lapses in following the license when no harm is done? Most of the time you don't.

Great name to make for GPL, really. The guys who will give you bad press the instant you use any of thier code in a way they don't entirely approve of. Remind me again why we would consider using GPL software and putting ourselves at risk of the same thing?

Re:Offtopic, rant about license whores

[innocent_white_lamb]

Do you see Microsoft attacking stupid little lapses in following the license when no harm is done? Most of the time you don't.
 
  Pardon me?

Re:Offtopic, rant about license whores

[Ash-Fox]

Do you see Microsoft attacking stupid little lapses in following the license when no harm is done?

Yes.

I 3 Closed Source

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a perfect example of why open source is teh suck.

Not Fixed, more serious GPL violation

[karmatic]

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.

Re:Not Fixed, more serious GPL violation

[Magnus Reftel]

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.

*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.

Re:Not Fixed, more serious GPL violation

[mlk]

Have you asked either Value of iD for the source? As I understand it you are not required to distributed the source with the binary, just distribute it on request.

Re:Not Fixed, more serious GPL violation

[Anonymous Coward]

The offer to distribute the source has to be in writing - somewhere in the already distributed stuff.
--
MiniMax

Re:Not Fixed, more serious GPL violation

[Anonymous Coward]

...

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; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

...

(attributes mine)

In short, no, they're not doing enough.

Re:Not Fixed, more serious GPL violation

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be that the version of the Dosbox binary was compiled for a specific version of SDL that doesn't look for a system wide SDL installation?

Does he still make that weird sound when he talks?

[Anonymous Coward]

When he ends each sentence?

If they're happy with the GPL...

[serviscope_minor]

Then why not use one of the GPL'd, but heavily modified Doom engines. Some of the versions out there preserve the game play very well, but enhance it with fewer bugs, better resolution, optional accelerated resolution (for 1600x1200 DOOM goodness!), and hey even dehacked support.

And I forgot to mention, TCP/IP network play.

Is there any good reason to use the original doom engine?

Cure period

[crazybasenji]

This sentiment obviously matters to the FSF. In GPLv3, they include an explicit 30 day cure period for first time offenders.

No, but it does mean...

[MikShapi]

But it does mean they've cost the dosbox IP holders BILLIONS of dollars in lost imaginary revenue!

"...does not contain a copy of the GPL license"

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFG!!!!

The slashtards are revolting!!!

I have a GNU gpl license

[raventh1]

I have a GNU gpl license that came with commander keen. COPYING.txt

Re:I have a GNU gpl license

[raventh1]

All the games that use dosbox have COPYING.txt. Whoever submitted the story, next time please research before starting riots.

How is id involved?

[feepness]

They sell the executables to Valve for a cut of the results. Unless they sold DOSbox they had nothing to do with it.

Nice going of the dosbox retards

[imsabbel]

Reading their forum thread about this yesterday, the very first reaction was a developer ranting foam-in-mouth about the evils of corporation and that steam sucks your soul ect.

Come on. Last time i used dosbox (or tried to), it was sch a piece of shit that i didnt find a single game of my old early 90 collection that i could run on my Athlon without crashing/going down to 4fps or something. I wold have never touched this crap again.

The fact that steam uses it now to emulate those titles seems to indicate that its now reliable and fast enough to actually do that. This could boost dosbox popularity by orders of magnitude and really bring the project into the limelight, if developers would actually care. Now the message is: stay away from this stuff, all you get is a nasty slashdot article.

slightly o/t: the lockdown is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you haven't encountered what probably is the biggest problem with the lockdown; at least in some cases it won't let you run any of the mods. www.ttlg.com and is a very active community and many still make fan missions and mod the Thief games that are almost 8 years old but not even simple fan missions can be run with the steam versions. At least one new member signs up every week and asks why they can't run any of the missions only to get some condoleances for money wasted. I suspect, though, that there is a sufficient business incentive to make sure that mods can be run to make Valve do something about it. A number of people there are working on a Thief-like mod of Doom 3 and many aren't interested at all in Doom 3 so they won't buy it unless they can run the mod and any used copy sold is one copy less through Steam.

Re:slightly o/t: the lockdown is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. The Dark Mod (for Doom 3) is nice, but they're only remaking Thief 1. What about Thief 2? What about Calendra's Cistern? What about T2X? They'll never get remade.

  Let's hope some more good programmers show up to help out the two guys currently working on the OpenDarkEngine. It looks like the best way out for Thief (and System Shock 2) fans -- an open source Ogre-based engine that can run all the original levels, and the fan missions, eventually with shaders and dynamic lighting and improved physics, on any operating system.
  Oh yeah, link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/opde
  It says they're in "planning" stages, but really it's more like early alpha. The code's able to load levels and display them, but that's about all.

Not really

[Rix]

I'm reasonably certain that's never happened. It would be quite the uphill battle to demonstrate damages from violating the GPL. Someone like Trolltech or MySQL might be able to do so (because they offer commercial licenses as well), but pretty much anyone else is SOL.

The GPL is not legislation nor magic pixie dust.

Re:Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm reasonably certain that's never happened.

I know of at least one out of court settlement for around a million bucks, so the threat of substantial damage and penalty awards from GPL violations seems to be real.

Re:Not really

[isorox]

The GPL is not legislation nor magic pixie dust.

If you don't like or obey the GPL, then it's as if you've never seen it. Copyright legislation applies, and you don't have to show loss to be in breach of the law. In the UK it's upto 10 years in jail.

Re:Not really

[Gnavpot]

It would be quite the uphill battle to demonstrate damages from violating the GPL. Someone like Trolltech or MySQL might be able to do so (because they offer commercial licenses as well), but pretty much anyone else is SOL.

I don't know about US law, but in some other jurisdictions you do not need to demonstrate a loss in cases of copyright infringement. The court can simply order the infringer to pay for the use, sometimes even more than the market price for similar material.

Example, Danish law:
You put a photo on your website with no intention of selling the photo to anyone. A newspaper uses the photo and thus infringes your copyright. Even though you cannot demonstrate a loss, you are entitled to payment for the photo. I have been told that the courts in this type of cases typically accept the normal market price for a press photo + 100% on top for not asking first.

Re:Not really

[Rix]

You most certainly do have to show loss in civil court, and jail does not apply to corporations.

Not clear how easy compliance is

[Sits]

I gather that a copyright notice has no been added to the Steam DosBox distribution but all the interest has now led people to carefully check how DosBox is being distributed. Currently it looks like someone went and modified DosBox.exe to make it check in with Steam (I can't verify this myself though). If this is true (it's not clear what has happened to this exe) a can of worms has been opened (and the half-chance "easy" way out might have been closed).

The licence oversight was just that and needed fixing but if the modified exe business is true then someone made one small problem and another larger problem with this particular distribution.

Sierra at least got it right...

[soilheart]

Sierra (or Vivendi really) released their old "Quest"es some while ago and they at least got that with dosbox and source right if I remember right (even though they never asked for permission or told the creators of dosbox either...)

The dosbox copyright notice on the backside makes me smile, mostly because how a open source program helps a commercial company, a success if you ask me.

Still two minor violations

[Bacon Bits]

I bought the super id pack, and I've looked in the directories of the old DOS games that use DOSBox. Valve and id have two outstanding issues with their DOSBox distribution.

They include COPYING.txt, AUTHORS.txt, and THANKS.txt, which is correct. They do not distribute the whole of DOSBox, just some of the binary executables. That, too, is fine AFAIK.

What they have not done is this:
(1) Present the GPL license to the user so that they know their rights to their GPL software. This should be done at time of purchase, and the Value EULA doesn't state anything at all about your free software rights that the GPL code allows you.

(2) Valve/id is required to include a written offer to distribute the source code for DOSBox, or else include the source code in the distribution. There is no such written offer that I can find.

IANAL, but that is my reading of it. Including COPYING.txt (the GPL license itself) may very well satisfy (1), but they must do something about (2).

Well spotted!

[Cheesey]

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 :).

Re:Well spotted!

[Ash-Fox]

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.

What if the resulting binary is just produced from another binary. Such as those done by exe compressors, anti-reverse engineering protectors etc?

Re:Well spotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting point.

But it may not matter, as the evidence strongly suggests that the Dosbox code has been recompiled with some Steam API calls. Why would Valve make a binary modifier to install Steam code in a game, when they can just recompile it? It would be nice to hear from a Steam developer, either Valve or 3rd party, but I imagine this stuff is under NDA.

Re:Well spotted!

[micpp]

Why would Valve make a binary modifier to install Steam code in a game, when they can just recompile it? If they wanted to avoid modifying the source code, for this very reason.

Re:Well spotted!

[Ash-Fox]

But it may not matter, as the evidence strongly suggests that the Dosbox code has been recompiled with some Steam API calls.

Has it? Where is this evidence that it isn't just a binary produced from a exe wrapper utility to integrate it into Steam etc?

Why would Valve make a binary modifier to install Steam code in a game, when they can just recompile it?

I think may Valve have made various options for developers and publishers to use to integrate games into Steam. I was theorizing on the concept if it was a exe compressor/protector and so on then there isn't any new sourcecode to publish.

It would be nice to hear from a Steam developer, either Valve or 3rd party, but I imagine this stuff is under NDA.

Agreed.

Re:Well spotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains.... However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything ... normally distributed ... with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

EXE compressors include a module for decompression, so would reasonably qualify. I assume any sort of binary injection of Steam-related code would qualify as well. Now, assuming Steam isn't included with DOSBox, they might be able to claim the special exception (Steam's an OS, right? (*wink wink*)) and not have to release Stream's source itself. I don't think they can claim their modified DOSBox is stand-alone outside of the "Steam OS", which does mean they've probably legally coupled DOSBox and Steam. So, it should be interesting how things turn out.

Re:Well spotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Has it? Where is this evidence that it isn't just a binary produced from a exe wrapper utility to integrate it into Steam etc?

Well, this *is* just speculation, but my evidence is that other changes appear to have been made to Dosbox. It doesn't run in it's standard configuration, with (for example) a central repository for shared data. Rather, there is one Dosbox per Steam game. That suggests a source code change to me. The Dosbox people also seem to think it has been modified here.

Valve might have anticipated this GPL issue, and used a binary modifier to get round it. But if they did anticipate the issue, why didn't they package the LICENSE.txt file?

Re:Well spotted!

[Ash-Fox]

Well, this *is* just speculation, but my evidence is that other changes appear to have been made to Dosbox. It doesn't run in it's standard configuration, with (for example) a central repository for shared data. Rather, there is one Dosbox per Steam game. That suggests a source code change to me. The Dosbox people also seem to think it has been modified here.

Excellent points. I wasn't aware of that.

Re:Well spotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is this evidence that it isn't just a binary produced from a exe wrapper utility to integrate it into Steam etc?

I don't think it really matters. Imagine, for instance, if one were to create a tool to generate compilers out of GPLed software binaries. Each one of the generated compilers would take a single byte of human-readable input and return a compiler-specific binary blob. Now, do you think it'd suffice to provide that single byte as source for the binary blob? The simple answer would be, no, because you can't use such trickery to avoid copyright. A binary wrapper is just a special type of compiler, and the terms of the GPL require non-indigenous compilers to be made available with the source (and this goes back to Valve needing to release the source, or provide a written offer for the source, even if they made no modifications). Of course, that leaves to question how legal Visual C++ GPL binaries are...but that's another discussion.

Yes, there is

[Rix]

Nothing there prohibits them from obtaining another, identical license.

Re:Yes, there is

[Anonymous Coward]

The license is for the program, not a particular copy of it. Therefore, once it's terminated, it's terminated.

Re:Yes, there is

[PhilHibbs]

So Mr. Valve just gets his brother to make a 1-line cosmetic change to to Dosbox, gets a copy of that with the GPL attached, and then has a licence for a different program that he can redistribute with all his steamy software. Permanent, non-fixable revocations of rights are really hard to make compatible with free software.

Re:Yes, there is

[oohshiny]

So Mr. Valve just gets his brother to make a 1-line cosmetic change to to Dosbox, gets a copy of that with the GPL attached, and then has a licence for a different program that he can redistribute with all his steamy software.

No, it doesn't work that way. You need a license from every copyright holder to copy the software. If any one of them has terminated your license, you can't copy the software anymore; it doesn't matter what else you do.

Re:Yes, there is

[Slithe]

No, if the license has been terminated, the offender can still use the GPL software, but if he copies, redistributes, or modifies the software any further, he is guilty of additional copyright violations. That one-line change would be a copyright violation.

Re:Yes, there is

[PhilHibbs]

You need a license from every copyright holder to copy the software. If any one of them has terminated your license, you can't copy the software anymore;

Really? Where does it say that?

Re:Yes, there is

[Anonymous Coward]

It says that in copyright law.

It's GPLv2 versus DRM

[Cheesey]

Yes, this type of modification appears to be required for Steam applications. It is something to do with copy protection. (It is surprising that more people haven't spotted this problem, especially as it goes right into two familiar Slashdot territories by pitting a DRM scheme against the legal strength of GPLv2.)

I am not going to buy the old id games (I have them on the original floppy disks!) but I have bought other little games from Steam and all of them have been modified to check in with Steam.exe to make sure you are authorised to play. That modification is also in Dosbox, and it's a GPL violation. It puts the Dosbox people in a very strong position, as I am sure that Valve do not want to release their copy protection code under the GPLv2. The Dosbox people can sue or ask for $$$ to release a non-free Dosbox. It is a good day to be a part of Dosbox.

Why do people spell it "iD"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please stop perpetuating that id Software spells their name lowercase "i," uppercase "d"? A long time ago they spelled it in all caps, now they spell it all lowercase, or for legal reasons, uppercase "i," lowercase "d." They have never spelled it "iD." Where does this even come from? I guess the same place that pronouncing "gibs" with a hard "g" comes from, or pronouncing them "eye-dee."

Re:Why do people spell it "iD"?

[Steauengeglase]

The hard "g" in gibs is a matter of preference (often like the "g" in .gif, though I've always found calling them "jiffs" to be a little weird). When the term was coined there are id employees who used the soft "g" instead (as the word's root is giblets).

Re:Why do people spell it "iD"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was spelled iD on the Wolfenstein 3D splash screen, but then again it might have been a Commander Keen game. But it wasn't spelled like that in Doom or any subsequent game. Calling them "iD" has been wrong since at least 1992.

Re:Why do people spell it "iD"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Keen games and Wolf 3D did not spell it "iD;" they spelled it "ID."

The Wolf 3D splash screen.

And one of the Keen logos. But there were, what, six Keen games? If one of them used "iD" I'd be interested to know/see.

I think people remember that logo as "iD" because of the way the non-serif font has the "I" much thinner than the "D," so they mistakenly remember it as a lower case "I." I just figured by now that people would have moved on to the way id Software has spelled their name since the original DOOM, but stories/threads like these just go on to perpetuate it.

Re:Why do people spell it "iD"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's a matter of preference; I'm just pointing out that it's wrong. I would have thought people would want to spell/pronounce words that are a company's name or terms they've coined the way the company itself does.

When [gib] was coined there are id employees who used the soft "g" instead

No, not "instead," always. The guy who coined the term (Adrian Carmack) coined it to be short for "giblets" as you point out, and he and all the guys there at the time pronounced it with a soft "g" (and why would they do otherwise while the guy who coined it is pronouncing it a certain way, and where pronouncing it with a hard "g" would make no sense regarding what it was meant to mean?).

And since you mention .gif, Steve Wilhite, the creator, has pronounced it with a soft "g" since its inception. Seems to me you'd want to pronounce something the way it was originally intended.

Usage ultimately determines that pronunciations can be correct either way, or course, but the capitalizatoin of a company name in a weird way that they themselves have never done is another matter. It's also terribly anal and silly to be bothered by it, I understand, but I always like to point it out because 1.) lots of people just plain don't seem to know, and 2.) I love hearing people try to justify incorrect usage.

I'm no expert....

[crhylove]

But I have tried a few of the doom open source updates, and most of them make me motion sick. If you have a version that runs well in Gutsy that won't make me motion sick, I'll give it a shot!

rhY

They modified DOSBox... it is a derivative work

[gamorck]

This isn't just about copyright notifications. The version of DOSBox being used in this distribution is a modification of 0.70. It was clearly modified on a source level as the exe is now dependent upon the existence of certain Steam libraries. This has been confirmed here:

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=16285& postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60

Running the modded DOSBox.exe in it's own directory first complains about missing SDL libraries. After adding those, it will them complain about missing Steam libraries. This is clearly a derivative work under the terms of the GPL and the source code has not been made available.

So Valve/Id have to go down one of two roads now:

1) Release the derivative source and give us valuable insight into how their DRM Steam engine works.

2) Pull the release and piss off a ton of people on Steam.

Either way - Valve is in trouble here. What kills me is that instead of protecting the game executables, they protected the GPLed Emulator they use to run them. What a bunch of idiots. If you ever needed a reason to hate Valve and Steam, they've just handed it to you on a silver platter. I mean isn't it ironic that for all the DRM in Steam designed to protect their own copyrights, that they manage to trample on the copyright of several people in the process and they just don't seem to care?

Ironic.

Re:Does he still make that weird sound when he tal

[Anonymous Coward]

Does he still make that weird sound when he talks?
When he ends each sentence? Just watched some presentations he made about id Tech 5 and apparently he does. Now I don't want to be rude or disrespectful or anything, just curious - what would that "weird sound" be?

pointless

[voraistos]

I dont see any point in this discussion.

First of all, Id is GPL firendly. They probably contributed more to the GPL'ed world than the DOSbox guys.
I respect the Dosbox guy's work, however, i also understand that programmers and human-ran corporations make mistakes, forget to do stuff, etc..
The licenses stuff going on is pissing me off more than ever, a normal human being (lawyers are not normal human beings) in front of the GPL and its friends would shoot themselves if they had a gun.
So far, it seems that they complied with the missing license, and we do not know whether they changed the code of the software or perhaps removed or not compiled parts of it they didnt need. We dont know either which compiler they used with it, meaning that comparing a gcc output with whatever they used is pointless. A simple request of releasing the code themselves for comparison would sort things out in a quick non-violent, friendly way. ID is probably the most unlikely to be GPL-friendly company out there -in the gaming world- yet they are so let's not piss them off by giving them a bad name.

who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

man, someone can steal tons of ip from any given number of musicians and people around here treat it like it's their birthright but a copy of the gpl isn't included with software that no one pays for in the first place and suddenly it's a crime? get your heads out of your ass. this just shows how much a bunch of losers you guys are.

Finally, an intelligent post in this thread

[paladinwannabe2]

You're absolutely correct. The GPL prevents them from distributing the DOSBox program without the GPL license but all they need to do is start distributing it with the GPL license to be compliant again. Technically they could still be sued for their brief license violation, but I imagine no one smart enough to work on DOSBox is that stupid.

something for something seems fair

[verrol]

Didn't ID software release some of their code as OSS? They didn't have to do that. Now that they may have turned around and used some GPL software, they aren't even given a break. Things like this would make a company just stay close instead of having to deal with the overly zealous OSS nuts who can't seem to understand give and take. Isn't that the point of OSS anyway?

Plovers and lampreys

[huckamania]

It is one thing to not get credit, however, that's something that is easily remedied. Violating copyrights is a whole other matter. The DosBox guys are getting credit right now. Good job guys, haven't personally used you, but still kudos. Id and Valve should start complying with the terms of the GPLv3 or whatever. And it should end there.

The DosBox guys should realize that the DosBox is a utility to run old dos software (guessing, not a user, see above). They should be going out and celebrating that Id and Valve are pushing their software. After all, the GPL is a service model, right?

It's almost like the hostility between the driver writers and the hardware manufacturers. The driver writers don't want the hardware guys to steal their code and the hardware guys don't want to reveal too much about their hardware. With 95% of the market closed source, it's hard for them to justify releasing an open source driver just to satisfy a beligerent minority. 99% of that remaining 5% just want their video cards to work right.

Re:Plovers and lampreys

[FishWithAHammer]

The thing now is this.

The version of DOSBox packaged with the iD games is modified. It is linked to steam.dll.

Since DOSBox is GPL, Valve is required to release the steam.dll code under the GPL.

Re:Plovers and lampreys

[nuzak]

> Since DOSBox is GPL, Valve is required to release the steam.dll code under the GPL.

Or stop distributing dosbox. You can stop rubbing your hands together with gleeful anticipation now. Licenses have never worked that way.

Why are Slashdotters such hypocrites?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Every day, we get "lol RIAA" articles that blast them for going after pirates. Yet you expect everyone else to follow the copyrights and licensing terms of the GPL. Why the huge freakin' double-standard?

Re:Why are Slashdotters such hypocrites?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, maybe because the RIAA is suing for damages and threatening criminal prosecution, but the FOSSies are just asking for the situation to be made compliant?

Correction...

[Cheesey]

According to "wd" on the Dosbox forum (link):

Binary file comparison shows that they are using the 0.70 release executable and added a wrapper. Means they did not modify the sources, just for clarification.

Sounds like Valve are in the clear on that one.

Re:Correction...

[russotto]

Doing the modification on the binary doesn't put them in the clear. They've still created a derivative work, and are subject to paragraph 2 of the GPL.

My FOSS longs to be Free!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never understood why FOSSies spend so much time and energy going nuts about whether so-and-so is violating some kind of free software agreement. They give it away, supposedly free, but won't let go of it. Seems sort of intellectually dishonest.

If it's free... let it go.

Nevermind, I do understand

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason FOSSies won't let go is because they are pushing a hidden agenda (but not all that hidden, if you read Slashdot). FOSSies are trying to lock everyone in to FOSS: operating system, word processing and spreadsheets, web servers, etc.

Getting people to start using Lunix is really the beginning of the end for consumer choice: once you are on teh Lunix, you have no alternatives except to use FOSS: the GPL's open hostility to commercial software assures them of THAT. And then... once a company foolishly decides to go with teh Lunix, then the consultants can REALLY sink their sharp little teeth in, and drink you dry supporting your reportedly free software.

EVERYTHING in life has costs. About the most valid way of looking at it is whether your costs are front-loaded or back-loaded. A good example of a front-loaded cost would be a car: you pay the major expenses up-front, and the longer you use it the less money it works out to. But then there are other expenses which are back-loaded, like rent-to-own furniture or electronics. Yeah, it's great, you can walk out of a store with a huge plasma HDTV for no money down... but you are going to end up paying three times what that TV costs.

Teh Lunix (and teh FOSS in general) is exactly like that sucker deal on the HDTV.

And the scary thing is, the FOSSies are trying to force everyone into making that EXACT SAME sucker deal. Their goal is to destroy ALL commercial software which charges money up-front with the understanding they will support the software for free (and in many cases will even add more features and improvements, also for free). Commercial software is a great deal... but like most great deals, the numbers only work out in the long term.

Fortunately, FOSS can't really make much headway in the real world. Since they don't have an incentive to innovate and improve, they rarely do (and when they DO, it's only because they are chasing somebody's tail lights). And since a majority of enterprise businesses understand front-loaded and back-loaded expenses, they are unwilling to abide the lower quality software coupled with it's higher TCO: FOSS promises an eternity of less for more.

Re:Nevermind, I do understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Rofl, FOSSies. Best post on slashdot.

Copying.txt/Author.txt

[Anonymous Coward]

Copying.txt and author.txt were added to all relevant steam folders via a steam update on Saturday 4th August 2007. (1 day before this Slashdot article)

Since they are already involved with the GPL...

[DimGeo]

... they could simply use GZDoom unmodified and write a small launcher that goes through Steam. Heck, they could even include the latest version of Yadex complete with the cygwin & Xorg required to run it on Windows. But looks like licensing was not the only thing the packagers were ignorant about.

Not really relevant

[Rix]

Unless both the defendant and plaintiff are Danish. Otherwise it will be heard in another jurisdiction.

Re:Not really relevant

[Gnavpot]

Unless both the defendant and plaintiff are Danish. Otherwise it will be heard in another jurisdiction.

It was relevant as an example of how the law is in some jurisdictions. And it was clearly stated that it was such an example.

The point is that you can't just say "No loss -> no compensation" as the GP did. You will have to check if the law in that jurisdiction requires a loss.

OSI != Open Source != GPL != BSD

[gnuman99]

Who cares what OSI defines Open Source as? Their definition is NOT a license. It is just some hacked up definition. Like me trying to define,

    Shared Source - software where you can share source code if you want to.

Now, Microsoft may disagree. But screw them eh? I made up some definition and copyright holder is irrelevent?

The *exact* same thing is with Open Source and OSI. OSI does NOT define what GPL mean or what GNU mean when they say open source GPL license.

Re:OSI != Open Source != GPL != BSD

[Raenex]

Who cares what OSI defines Open Source as? A lot of people do because the OSI pushed and marketed a definition for it, and many go by that definition. You are right that the term "open source" can be misused, but if you do so you stand a good chance of being publically called out on it. That's why Microsoft and other companies look to get their licenses officially approved by the OSI.

OSI does NOT define what GPL mean or what GNU mean when they say open source GPL license. You are really confused. Who said OSI defines what GPL means? And the GNU folks would never call their software open source. They use the term "free" or "freedom" software. "open source" was a term pushed by people who wanted to disassociate themselves from Stallman's rigid politics. The "open source" crowd believed that closed and open software could co-exist, where as Stallman thinks closed software is evil.

Bad Comparison

[Petersko]

"Do you see Microsoft attacking stupid little lapses in following the license when no harm is done? Most of the time you don't."

The BSA doesn't care about "stupid little lapses". They aren't likely to investigate one-off piracy, either. Hell, Microsoft continued to allow security patches to known pirated Windows keys, and to my knowledge they didn't knock on any users doors over the matter.

Now commercial piracy or site license violations are a different animal. They aren't "stupid little lapses".

An Addendum for Clarity

[Petersko]

If, as a vendor of software, you made a mistake that brought you into conflict with a Microsoft licensing policy regarding distribution that was easily corrected, I'm sure that if you (a) distributed a patch, and (b) corrected your undistributed source files, you and Microsoft would have no further problems. And that's all that happened with ID/Valve in this case.

Of course nobody gives a damn

[Snaller]

And most get a headache trying to read the lamer langauge in that gpl whatever license.

And it's still irrelevant

[Rix]

To anyone but the Danes. Since I'm not Danish, I certainly can say "No loss -> no compensation".

Re:And it's still irrelevant

[Gnavpot]

To anyone but the Danes. Since I'm not Danish, I certainly can say "No loss -> no compensation".

Please go and take a logic course or something. The above statement only holds water if Denmark is the only place in the world where you don't need a loss before you demand compensation.

Re:And it's still irrelevant

[Rix]

I've taken quite a few, and done quite well in them. Your post indicates you have not.

I'll let you stew on why.

Fixed DosBox configuration

[DimGeo]

Here's my fix for DosBox's configuration for the mega pack. It works if there are no other .conf files in the directory of Steam but the .conf files for the various instances of DosBox, or else. Use at your own risk, it might bring a meltdown on your PC. SteamIDDosBoxFix.zip . What it fixes: better screen configuration for 1280x1024 TFT displays, mouse sensitivity set to 500, sound tearing problems somewhat mitigated by slightly bigger sound buffers, that's it. The good part is that you can configure it yourself, have a look at dosbox.conf inside the package. Use the original dosbox.conf as reference. Please, excuse my code, but it's 2 am and strstream on a clean install of VS2003 sucks, so please don't look at the code, you've been warned.