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PlayStation 2 Game ICO Violates the GPL
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the video game ICO for the Playstation 2 is using GPL-licensed code from libarc. Sony could end up having to release the source code for the entire game!"
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The key word in there is "could". I doubt anything will actually happen. Never underestimate the power of bureaucracy.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Isn't reverse engineering with the tools used in this article disallowed by the license agreement for the game? I know little about law, so who has the trump card here?
Now, the FSF, often acting on behalf of the copyright holders, have often allowed infringers to comply by releasing the source under the GPL. But I recall reading here at Slashdot recently that they are starting to play hardball with violators, and not allowing them to comply simply by shipping source. The copyright holder would be fully within his rights to get a permanent injunction against the sale of the game.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
As numerous other posters have pointed out, this will not result in Sony having to release the source code for their game. The myth of the 'viral GPL' is already going strong enough without /. fuelling it by posting articles like this.
Oh well, time to sit back and watch the trolls have a field day...
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Other code is covered by other licences. These licences most likely explicitely restrict them from releasing the code. The GPL doesn't superscede these other licences.
This is a simple case of copyright infringement. Sony will be obliged to pay damages, and possibly withdraw the game from sale.
I've always thought that knowing the origin of all code is standard procedure. Where I've worked, hiding such a thing is reason enough to fire someone.
Didn't they check? Or they knew perfectly well what they were doing but didn't care. I suppose it's the second.
They didn't care because they are incompetent? Or simply their lawyers told them it didn't matter. I suppose it's the second.
You are not missing something. Sony does not have to release the source code unless someone who owns a copy of the game ICO asks for that code. If Sony is infringing then that would need to be the scenario. If they do not want to do so then it would lead to a court case the results of which anyone would be guessing at this stage. And unless they do lose such a court case then no code gets released.
Of course the big question in my mind is are they infringing? In order for them to be infringing they need to have compiled into their game some source code that is licensed under the GPL. It is not totally clear from the article that this is the case it just appears to be so at the moment.
I think you are confusing the GPL with the LGPL. If a library is licensed under the GPL, the program that uses it is GPLed too. You have to link a library licensed under LGPL if you want to keep your software proprietary. That's exactly what the LGPL has been made for.
1) release the code for ICO under a GPL compatible license (and thereby conforming to the GPL)
2) license the library under different terms (might be difficult depending on the fact if all copyright holders agree to do this)
3) violate copyright (and thereby enter the usual legal road for copyright violations)
They don't have to release the code if they don't want to.
Arm chair lawyer alert! Slashdot, where programmers become legal vigilantes.
Looking at libarc website http://libarc.sourceforge.net/: the license indicated here isn't the GPL..
So either it's not the same libarc or its license has changed or the website is incorrect or the issue happen in some other file but not in libarc..
If I were starting a business, I'd just go on and bright-line and outright abuse the GPL. I would go into business (such as PS2 games or whatever) where any "outrage" by the OSS community would go unnoticed and would simply ignore the empty threats of lawsuits and what-have-you. Heck, many companies are doing this already. it's a very legitimate and none too risky business strategy. For all its good philosophical points that would encourage good hearted individuals to contribute to my bottom line, I would benefit from the fact that enforcement of the GPL is ultimately toothless.
Please, do go on and tell me how, exactly, I'm wrong in this.
The game is an excellent (but now dated) adventure/puzzle game (with minor action elements), that was something of a sleeper hit in the early-ish days of the PS2, before its software library became the unstoppable juggernaut it eventually turned into.
The basic concept of the game is that the player, who takes the role of a boy with horns, left in a mysterious castle as a sacrifice, must guide a mute girl around and eventually out of said castle, fighting against shadowy enemies and solving increasingly complicated puzzles. The game was notable for a number of reasons.
First, it had a striking visual and aural style. Unlike many early PS2 games, it turned away from bright colours and fancy coloured lighting effects, adopting a colour scheme that verged on monochrome at times, with a heavy emphasis on contrasting light and dark areas. The music was distinctly minimalist, but fitted the game well enough that the soundtrack went on to sell well in its own right.
The game-play was also notable. By contrast with the excess of button-mashing titles that dominated the PS2 scene at the time, Ico had a slower, more thoughtful pace. Combat elements were largely perfunctory - the real challenge was in defeating the puzzles posed by the game environment. In some respects, the gameplay had many parallels to that of the 3d Zelda games, although Ico placed higher degree of emphasis upon artistry than almost anything else around at the time on any platform. There was no enthusiastic voice-over urging you on to rack up big combo attacks, or to rush to the next objective before the bomb went off. Instead, the player experienced a mix of trepidation and a genuine sense of exploration as he made his way through the game world.
Ico never became a huge seller and never got a huge mainstream following. Nevertheless, it's an important part of gaming history. It was the first game to really use the power of its console generation to deliver something other than fancy special effects. It set new standards for story-telling, that remain influential even today. It spawned a "spiritual successor", in the form of "Shadow of the Colossus" (released relatively late in the PS2's life-cycle), which took many of Ico's concepts and developed them further, with greater technical expertise, to deliver an experience which was simultanously substantially flawed and deeply engaging.
So yes, we should care about Ico.
No it would not have to be so discreet it can be hidden away in the menu. It just has to be there. I use many GPLed apps and none of them display any such message at startup, it is always in the help or manual e.g. in Knode Help->About Knode->License Agreement(tab)
d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so. From GPL 3I also note that many others have pointed out that stopping distribution of the code stops the GPL enforcement clauses. And this game is no longer sold by Sony, so they have to disclose zip :)
why do I want the source code for a game I have never heard of?
:p
Because you're tired of playing Tux Racer and the other two GPLed games?
The World's Worst Webcomic!
The CEOs for all the create IT companies are in a room. A big room.
Suddenly someone screams "Hey, look at the news, it says here that PlayStation 2 Game ICO Violates the GPL!"
And then everyone laughs and cries out "who doesn't?"
It's already beyond common practice.
Onda Technology Institute
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The GPL is indeed viral and does require the full release
of any source dependent or otherwise that is coupled with GPL code.
That said finding the definition of derivative and derivative works on the FSF's GPL FAQ page is quiet
interesting - they've gone to a lot of trouble hiding it towards the end, one would think such an
important FAQ would be say the 1st or 2nd listing.
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
I'm 15 and I know exactly what the difference between GPL and LGPL is (not word for word of course, but in general what can be done with them), if you need a lawyer to make sense of it then I'd advise you to just stay clear of it altogether
Aside from that, non-free software libraries also have legal issues, and if you wanted to be safe, you would have to hire a lawyer in every case, because you have to deal with redistribution issues, plus in some cases EULAs.
In the case of the GPL you could hire a lawyer once (provided you don't understand the terms after actually reading them) and then reuse that knowledge forever. Also, there are lots of texts explaining the GPL available everywhere.
For other licenses, such as MIT or BSD, the Free Software Foundation can provide you with some pointers. The are biased toward the GPL, and they say so, but they provide all the information you actually need, and do a good job explaining the other licenses implications.
If you compare that situation with alternatives such as buying the distribution of non-free libraries, free software has fewer legal costs. Licenses have legal ramifications. Just because you pay the guy, it doesn't mean he will let you do whatever you want. And if you can't read a free software license alone, of course you will need a lawyer, but then you will need a lawyer to read your EULAs for you.
At no point can they be forced to release the sourcecode. The legal system just doesnt work that way.
Assuming it is a GPL(not LGPL) library then yes, to legally distribute the game they have to release the source to all of it. But that doesnt mean that they have to retroactively comply to the license after they broke it, it just means that continuing to distribute it is illegal, and the software authors could sue for financial compensation.
Whether or not its easier to just release the sourcecode (which they may or may not even legally be able to do -- What if it contains restrictively licensed code that conflicts with the GPL?
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Hey hey, Tux Racer, Battle for Wesnoth, Super Tux, Secret Maryo Chronicles and that game with the bouncing balls, that's at least FIVE GPL games right there, more than enough for any serious gamer, now stop spreading FUD because I set RMS on you.
If you intend to distribute your program to others, then yes, though you might want to investigate some other options first.
If there's particular GPL code you want to use, you could consider contacting the author directly (assuming you can establish a particular copyright holder) and explain what you want to do and see if they're willing to grant you use of their code under a different license. This can be a bit thorny: if they've accepted contributions from other people who haven't explicitly signed their copyright over to them, then the author does not have a legal right to re-license other people's work.
First though, I'd urge you to reconsider your aversion to the GPL. Chances are whatever you're doing isn't particularly unique and masterful, and you'll lose less than you'd think by making the code available.
Another "sneaky" tactic would be to consider who you're distributing the binaries to. You don't have to provide the source with them, only an offer (good for 3 years) to do so. So, if the people you're giving your small project to aren't likely to be interested in the source, you could take that gamble. You don't have to provide the source to anyone you didn't distribute your software to (but be aware that if you put it on a public web site, anybody can download it, and that's distribution). Just be prepared for the possibility that someone will ask for it, and be prepared to hand it over with a smile.
(IANAL, and this is not legal advice.)
The link was
http://www.google.com/search?xQ=Sony+GPL&q=slashdot&btnI
Yeah, xQ is ignored, q is a search string and btnI is the same as clicking "I'm feeling lucky", i.e. go to the first hit.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The company I work for has *ALL* licenses checked by lawyers. Open, closed, it doesn't matter. That cost is amortized across all purchased/obtained libraries.
It strikes me as a game that doesn't appeal to action gamers because of a lack of action (and puzzles that are too hard), and doesn't appeal to puzzle gamers because of too much action. It hits a "sweet spot" that appeals to virtually no one.
I found it perfect for me. I'm not a hardcore gamer, and I'm certainly not a fan of twitchy shooters (getting my ass handed to me in FEAR Combat for an hour or so a month does me fine). I loved the slow, deliberate pace of the puzzles in Ico. I didn't find any of them incredibly difficult, and I'm not sure what you meant about having to practice implementing your solution--when I figured out what needed to be done I pretty much went and did it (fighting off the smoke guys in a few places made this a little difficult). Ico was one of the first games I picked up for my PS2, and I still feel it was the best one I played on that system (I thought Shadow was so-so).
This guy's the limit!
According to the few info available in english on the page, this libarc is used to open quite a lot of different archive format (could some Japanese-speaking
Whereas, the sourceforge one, is mainly designed for a GZIPed ARC file used on the internet archive.
And whereas the libarc you point out is licensed under some sort of permissive license,
the Japanese libarc used by ICO is licensed under GPL. The file "inflate.c" is mentioned in TFA, and the following license/comments are cited
TFA's author then point out a couple of subtle difference all showing that it's this libarc's specific file which is used. (You can find similar "inflate.c" in a lot of decompression libraries. But libarc's has some specific memory subroutines, which can be traced in the disassembled code flow of the US version, or in the list of symbol names in the debug info included with the EU version).
:
/. has already been done. This game isn't produced anymore. /. er, only to the specific executable which contains the GPL code ("SCUS_971.13" according to TFA. The other few GB of data that are on the DVD are safe). /.ers (and which would require a little bit more work) would be to separate the functionality into a
---
Now to go back to the possible outcomes
- The most easy is to stop distributing the infringing piece of work.
Which as pointed out by the
- An alternative is to publish the code, *NOT* of the whole game, as said by some
- The third solution, which wasn't mentioned yet by
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That game was so atmospheric it was actually scary - that was the main point of the combat, in fact - leave the girl alone to long and shadows attack her, which added a sense of urgency to the puzzle-solving. When I first got a few friends and I sat down to play it, and we would manage about 30mins of ICO before switching over to GTA to de-stress with some car chases and random murder. Then it was back to ICO for another 30mins :)
Both I and the IEEE beg to differ. You might want to read this link.
http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/positions/reverse.html
and
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_17/Chapter_9/Sections_906_and_907
about reverse engineering , you will find it is indeed legal to reverse anything in the USA as long as its done for education and is not to be done for profit as well as to make a profit.
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
In my opinion, Ico is the single best game for the PS2 and in the running for the best games of all time. Although never a great commercial success for Sony, it has a strong following. I just bought a copy (used, Sony is no longer selling it) to give as a gift. I was surprised how much I had to pay for it. With many other PS2 games of similar vintage going for $10 or so, used copies of Ico are selling just a bit below new game prices, and new copies are selling for more than new PS3 games.
Technically a puzzle/platform game, I think that it achieves the perfect combination of story, art, drama, technical execution, and intellectual and skill challenge.
libarc borrows heavily from zlib, which is .. surprise ! .. BSD licensed. There is however no mention of BSD in libarc, which effectively means that it is in violation of BSD license.
Gotta love the ethics of the freedom fighters.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Funny because ICO is one of my favourite games ever. I found it kept the old puzzle game style (Easy puzzles with non-obvious solutions that you can do in a heart beat one you realise them) and a HUGE world to explore, where everything is polished and impressive.
ICO's "greatness" comes in that it just tries to be ICO, it's not some uber deep beat em up and it's not some impossible to finish puzzle game. It's just a sleepy little world where you explore and make your way out of the castle at your own pace. Some puzzles are damn hard, some puzzles are damn easy, but the point is that if you wanted you could easily just run around a room admiring the world as easy as you could play it like a speed run.
Maybe it doesn't appeal to the mainstream, but most my friends consider ICO to be a classic because it feels and plays like nothing else. The "vibe" the game gives off is easily one of the deepest and most impressive of all the games I've played in my 15 years of gaming.
I like muppets.