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id and Valve May Be Violating GPL
frooge writes "With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release."
I can get a copy of the source for Half-Life 2?
What, me worry?
But I don't see what the big deal is here.
The game.
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.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
Valve/iD already updated the games with the required files. Old, incorrect news.
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
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).
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.
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
Yes. It's not like iD has released anything GLP before.
Oh, wait...
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The only time you'd need to contact the developers is if you want to get an alternative license. Quite often people will release code under GPL and also be prepared to release it under alternative licenses, perhaps for a fee.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The third option, which isn't usually available when you screw up with non-free software, is to apologise really fast and comply with the GPL*. Although there are no guarantees free software developers are usually nice folks who can overlook a mistake.
It is one reason why all the 'viral' fud about the GPL is so annoying (not that it applies to this case, as there is no derivative product, but it usually rears it's ugly head in these threads). All the GPL does is give you an Option Three which isn't usually available - you would be in court for damages instead of sitting across a table from a bunch of altrustic techies seeking a negotiated solution.
*Historically stopping distribution and rewriting the offending module usually is an option too, depending on how antagonistic you were before admitting your mistake.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
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.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
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.
-- lol pwned
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.
...and right on time, from Carmack's keynote at qcon:t ory=14979
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?s
- 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."
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.
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Good argument, very coherent in defense of your cause. I can see why the world lines up behind you guys.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
sorry, looks like I misread your original post...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
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)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
demands a coherent defense.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Global Partners LP?
OpenGL to PostScript?
Global Land Project?
I'm confused about what GLP has to do with this.
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.
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.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
They could have complied with the GPL easily, by bundling the DOSBox sources (or a notice saying that they would be supplied on request for a reasonable fee). Or, they could have developed their own DOS emulator.
This is not a GPL violation, it's a copyright law violation. They distributed a product that they did not have the right to distribute. I wonder how well they would take it if the DOSBox team decided to distribute Half Life 2 to a few thousand people - probably not very well. The fact that there was a non-discriminatory license available for free is irrelevant. A proprietary software company decided not to respect the copyrights of a piece of software, and distributed it without a license. Considering Valve's fondness for DRM, I wonder if they subscribe to the 'if it's not bolted down' philosophy...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
Rabble rabble rabble rabble.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Only modifications they might have made to DOSbox will have to be made public.
Please let's get away from this thinking that you can automatically patch up a GPL violation by releasing your modified source code later.
When you violate the GPL, you immediately lose your license to the GPL'ed code and you are liable for your past and future license violations. You cannot make up for that past violation by coming into compliance, and you cannot restore your license to use the code under the GPL license by coming into compliance.
What that liability entails is something that you can negotiate with the authors about, and if you don't reach an agreement, it's for the courts to decide. Theoretically, if the GPL violation is egregious enough, a court might well hand control over other corporate assets, including unrelated software, to the author of the GPL'ed software.
Many GPL authors will be nice and permit you to remedy past GPL violations by coming into compliance, and they may also grant you permission to use the software under the GPL. But all of that is at their sole discretion.
Your mistaken too.
1. executables/binaries/object code distributed must have an offer to have a verbatim copy of the source code used to build that object code. this offer must be made available for at least 3 years.
2. the source you make available must include a copy of the GPL
Common misconceptions:
1. people assume GPL forces you to put anything you link to it into GPL as well. This is not the case, it just means you cannot distribute your changes. If you do, then you can be taken to court, but you can never be forced to license your changes as GPL. just forced to cease distributing
2. gpl covered application must include source. not exactly correct, the source just needs to be offered to be available to those you have distributed the binaries too. and at no charge.
The solution - make DOSbox source available on the company website with modification (if any). If it's as I assume and they just deleted a bunch of files and dropped in a custom configuration then there is nothing special that needs to be done. as long as individual binaries are built from that source that is all you have to do. GPL does not cover configuration files because they are already in a "source" form.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
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?
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.
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.
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
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
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).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
Yes, let's be legalistic jerks about the whole thing instead of forgive and forgetting. It works for the RIAA.
Not a typewriter
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.
It was there, at the bottom of the label after "monosodium glutimate".
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
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' ???
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
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?).
It does if you want to be listened to. Talking bollocks because everyone else is talking bollocks only ensures that they'll treat you like they do everyone else.
Talking sense when everyone else around you has none is more likely to get you somewhere.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
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.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
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.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
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...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Just downloaded the pack. It's using a modified, binary-only dosbox. They have added the license and thanks.txt back, however, it still is infringing.
I copied dosbox.exe to a seperate directory, and it complained about missing SDL dlls. Using stock SDL dlls, it says "Failed to find steam". As such, they are distributing a modified binary-only version of a GPL application. Given the distribution has already happened, they are legally obligated to distribute the source code to the steam "stub" present in their dosbox application. Failing that, they are guilty of some serious copyright infringment, and statutory damages can be huge.
I suspect it wouldn't look good in court having a very large, well-known software company stealing code from little guys, and using it as the foundation for a significant commercial project. This also makes it look willfull, as opposed to accidental infringement. Furthermore, given iD's technology licensing platform, which includes significant GPL distribution, they would have a hard time claiming ignorance.
All Valve needs to do is fix the problem. In most cases, if a company distributes software without the owners permission, there would be a lawsuit, followed by money changing hands. In this case, all we have so far is a few forum posts.
All Valve needs to do do to fix the problem (like so many other companies have done before) is to obey the GPL requirements, nothing else. I don't see how this can be worse than the threat of lawsuits and other stuff that normally happens. So please chill!
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi
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?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This sentiment obviously matters to the FSF. In GPLv3, they include an explicit 30 day cure period for first time offenders.
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?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
But it does mean they've cost the dosbox IP holders BILLIONS of dollars in lost imaginary revenue!
-
Slightly better than integrating spell checking into all web browsers, it would seem...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I have a GNU gpl license that came with commander keen. COPYING.txt
Which is just slightly less egregious than the pedant who doesn't know how to punctuate a sentence that ends with an ellipsis.
Vox et praetera nihil
They sell the executables to Valve for a cut of the results. Unless they sold DOSbox they had nothing to do with it.
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.
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.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
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.
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.
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 (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.
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.
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).
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
I had wondered about this. This warrants further investigation.
:).
Steam applications all include some copy protection code that involves communicating with the main Steam.exe program: this is most visible in games that weren't designed for Steam, such as Defcon or one of the Popcap games. Like them, Dosbox must have been modified to include this copy protection code.
This is right at the heart of this licence discussion and I am very glad someone has spotted it. Will Valve licence Dosbox under a non-free licence? Or will they release some of the source for Steam? Or will they ignore the issue and be sued by http://gpl-violations.org/ ? How wonderfully ironic that copy protection code should actually cause a copyright problem
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Nothing there prohibits them from obtaining another, identical license.
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.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
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
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
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:
& postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=16285
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.
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
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.
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.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
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.
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).
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
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.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
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?
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.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
... 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.
Unless both the defendant and plaintiff are Danish. Otherwise it will be heard in another jurisdiction.
But it still started out free and open, and available to everyone.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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:
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.)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
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.
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?
"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".
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.
And most get a headache trying to read the lamer langauge in that gpl whatever license.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
To anyone but the Danes. Since I'm not Danish, I certainly can say "No loss -> no compensation".
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.
No, actually, it demands no response at all.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.