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.
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.
"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.
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.
I've been using comcast since around 2001 (roughly 6 years) and never really had too much of a problem with them. Sure they have the same problems any other cable internet service has with peak time and such, but they've always offered me a fairly adequate service for home use. I've never had to register their modems (I've been through quite a few over the years), nor have I ever had to install any software. I never use their website, so I could really care less about it supporting Firefox (other than my occasional open source zealotry). I'm not really a fan of their business practices, but they're really no more evil than any of the other big corporations (which is to say they pull some dirty, underhanded sh*t occationally, and try to influence the gov't way more than they have any business doing)...but once again, I'm sure they're no worse than the likes of AT&T (formerly BellSouth), which is the only other decent ISP in my area.
I do have to say though, that as soon as I can switch off copper to fiber, I'll drop Comcast in a heartbeat;)
I honestly don't see how you can argue that read-only and hard-coded paths are analogous. Whether your code says "/usr/lib/something" vs. "././something" or "$library_path/something" doesn't determine this. Plus proper permissions seem to be what you're really talking about, which can be set per file, not just by directory;)...by modern application, I mean something that's not low-level, like a library or compiler, and written within the last few years
Honestly, using hard-coded paths for "security" reasons is about as valid as the argument for security through obscurity. There's no excuse for ever using hard coded paths in a modern application these days. All it really accomplishes is making your software harder to administrate.
How many times does it need to be said... SDL and similar open-source cross-platform libraries cover the rest of Direct X that OpenGL does not already cover.
If everyone took the time to actually read everything this article said and then looked at the comments found here (including the tags), all you people have done is prove him right.
As while I don't agree with everything he has to say, I do agree with his number one point. If every time someone asks tough questions about Linux and Open Source people just call them idiots without actually arguing their specific points it makes our community look stupid to anyone not part of it already. One of the main arguments for Linux against Windows use is that a monoculture is a bad thing. But doesn't group think have the exact same problems?
I applaud this man and whoever on Slashdot approved this article's posting for questioning the state of things. You can not have a free and open culture if you do not look at all sides of the argument and instantly agree with your friends/peers without critical thought behind it.
I'm a huge supporter/fan of open source, but I have found myself in similar circumstances when asking unpopular questions. This is probably one of the biggest problems holding up our community as a whole. And with that said, I'll be thoroughly surprised if this post is not moderated down...great way to prove your alledged enemy's point guys.
Obviously you know nothing about the real differences between PC and console development. When game developers code their games for PCs, they have to code it so that it will run on thousands of different hardware configurations and multiple operating systems. That kind of generic coding may be great for applications, but for real-time games that need every last ounce of power they can get, it makes it orders of magnitude harder.
You also can't optimize your game nearly as much for PCs as you can with a particular console. There's a reason that a game that was developed for the Xbox (which is basically a 700mhz Celeron with 64MB of RAM and GeForce 3), requires you to have up to three or four times as powerful a PC to play the same game.
Plus, console gamers also enjoy the ease of use that console gaming presents. Even though a hard core PC gamer may enjoy the thrill of installing their games before they play them, and spending an hour finding just the right settings to optimally run on their machine...99% of gamers just want to pop a disc in and start playing.
Exactly. The movie and television industries have all stated that they think having multiple formats for video discs is bad for everyone, so why can't the game industry see the same goes for them? The big three all talk about expanding the game industry to a wider audience, but requiring new gamers to buy 3 different systems to be able to play all the games they want puts far too large an overhead for those not already into gaming.
Yes, we would. The console portion of the Wii is anything but innovative, it's the controller that makes the difference. Obviously Nintendo could have just simply released the "wii-mote" as an optional peripheral, and have their games require you to have it. If the Wii-mote style controller proved itself over time to be the new benchmark in controllers, then the next itteration of the standard could have it become the default. An open standard would not stifle innovation at all, and it's complete FUD for anyone to try to say so.
The OGCC, which is already working on a standard much like the article describes, has already considered these issues thoroughly over the last year or so, since it's inception.
Don't get me wrong, I love pretty graphics and everything. I'm a self admitted graphics whore, but I also know that there are more important aspects to a game. I'd love some graphical updates to some of the old classic games, but I'd rather them be called "remakes" rather than people trying to pass them off as new products.
Ahhh.... and now you've hit one of the root problems with almost all the businesses in today's world: short-sightedness. To a share holder or CEO, all you're worried about is how much money you can make in the next year, if not just the next quarter even....but making crappy products that you know will make you a quick buck right now, yet will quickly fizzle out soon after is just about the worst thing you can do for your company, if you want it to last for an extended period of time. In a world where business leaders don't look at things in the long term and only focus on this fiscal year's bottom line, these trends will most certainly continue.
My Opinion: Publicly traded companies will eventually learn from these mistakes or most likely will just implode upon themselves, but by the time they do, they might bring down the rest of their industry with them. depending on how big and powerful they became during their peak (talking about business in general, not just gaming). For example, look at Microsoft, if the many predictions are right, they're not only about to severely wound themselves with the release of Vista, but also all the thousands of companies that let themselves get locked into a Windows only development model...
I'm a huge fan of all thing open source/free software...but I also remember that it's the developer's choice if they want to go open or not. I don't personally understand what "trade secrets" nVidia has to hide by keeping their drivers closed off from the public, but it's still their choice. Unfortunately the open source alternative "nv" driver that comes with X is pretty much worthless if you want to do anything involving 3D. The best situation for those who don't want to use proprietary drivers is to go out and find a company with open drivers and stop using nVidia products if it matters that much to you.
I'm sure endless flame wars will follow below...so you guys have fun with that;)
There are two main problems in the game industry right now (and yes both have to do with managment in one way or another)...
1. Game developers and publishers focus too much on flash. When you're only worried about how good your game will look in screenshots, videos and ads, gameplay suffers. A game should be just as fun to play with primatives and stickmen as it is once you add your pretty coatings on top, if your game isn't as fun or "cool" without out all the flash, you have a crappy game on your hands. The same goes for story and cinematics. Yes, story can be very important, but your gameplay should always come first (unless in perhaps the case of an RPG).
2. The industry is stagnating. 99% of games released these days are rehashes of old games that don't even bother to try and add a new twist or anything. Why would any gamer want to buy the same game they already own but with a different title? Hopefully advancements in physics processing and controllers like the "Wii-mote" will help get the creative juices flowing again in the industry, but I fear most of the problem comes from investors and publishers not wanting to risk any money on anything even remotely original. It's the same exact problem we're seeing in the movie, TV, and music industries as well...
The problem here is that Walmart is THE largest retailer, so if they don't carry something, there's almost half as much chance for it to be sold. Walmart generally doesn't carry anything rated over Teen, BUT it carries all the R rated, if not even Unrated DVDs for some reason..... So this makes publishers/investors less likely to put their money behind M rated games, and does affect the industry in the long run...
However, last time I checked Bully was probably only gonna get a Teen rating, but with Rockstar's past, the ESRB may just give it an R out of spite. This whole situation sickens me:(
No, I didn't mean by law.... which I figured could be inferred from the next sentence: "What I'm particularly worried about is this government agency "over seeing" the ratings..."
"Yeah, I can't wait until GTA 4 gets played through and released..... IN 2099!
While that is an exageration, it could take many months to do all the testing they require(making sure no hidden naughty stuff, doing all the side missions, doing all possible in game outcomes/endings/etc, lots and lots of leveling, finding all kinds of violence the player can engage in/create....)."
this is why cheat codes were invented.... you throw on God mode or something, and I'm sure GTA will fly by;)
Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
"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.
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.
I've been using comcast since around 2001 (roughly 6 years) and never really had too much of a problem with them. Sure they have the same problems any other cable internet service has with peak time and such, but they've always offered me a fairly adequate service for home use. I've never had to register their modems (I've been through quite a few over the years), nor have I ever had to install any software. I never use their website, so I could really care less about it supporting Firefox (other than my occasional open source zealotry). I'm not really a fan of their business practices, but they're really no more evil than any of the other big corporations (which is to say they pull some dirty, underhanded sh*t occationally, and try to influence the gov't way more than they have any business doing)...but once again, I'm sure they're no worse than the likes of AT&T (formerly BellSouth), which is the only other decent ISP in my area.
;)
I do have to say though, that as soon as I can switch off copper to fiber, I'll drop Comcast in a heartbeat
I honestly don't see how you can argue that read-only and hard-coded paths are analogous. Whether your code says "/usr/lib/something" vs. "././something" or "$library_path/something" doesn't determine this. Plus proper permissions seem to be what you're really talking about, which can be set per file, not just by directory ;) ...by modern application, I mean something that's not low-level, like a library or compiler, and written within the last few years
Hard-coded paths....
"It's not a flaw, it's a feature!"
Honestly, using hard-coded paths for "security" reasons is about as valid as the argument for security through obscurity. There's no excuse for ever using hard coded paths in a modern application these days. All it really accomplishes is making your software harder to administrate.
How many times does it need to be said... SDL and similar open-source cross-platform libraries cover the rest of Direct X that OpenGL does not already cover.
If everyone took the time to actually read everything this article said and then looked at the comments found here (including the tags), all you people have done is prove him right.
As while I don't agree with everything he has to say, I do agree with his number one point. If every time someone asks tough questions about Linux and Open Source people just call them idiots without actually arguing their specific points it makes our community look stupid to anyone not part of it already. One of the main arguments for Linux against Windows use is that a monoculture is a bad thing. But doesn't group think have the exact same problems?
I applaud this man and whoever on Slashdot approved this article's posting for questioning the state of things. You can not have a free and open culture if you do not look at all sides of the argument and instantly agree with your friends/peers without critical thought behind it.
I'm a huge supporter/fan of open source, but I have found myself in similar circumstances when asking unpopular questions. This is probably one of the biggest problems holding up our community as a whole. And with that said, I'll be thoroughly surprised if this post is not moderated down...great way to prove your alledged enemy's point guys.
"Is there a possibility of running this XP clone on non x86 hardware?"
maybe if you were running it through an emulator...
Obviously you know nothing about the real differences between PC and console development. When game developers code their games for PCs, they have to code it so that it will run on thousands of different hardware configurations and multiple operating systems. That kind of generic coding may be great for applications, but for real-time games that need every last ounce of power they can get, it makes it orders of magnitude harder.
You also can't optimize your game nearly as much for PCs as you can with a particular console. There's a reason that a game that was developed for the Xbox (which is basically a 700mhz Celeron with 64MB of RAM and GeForce 3), requires you to have up to three or four times as powerful a PC to play the same game.
Plus, console gamers also enjoy the ease of use that console gaming presents. Even though a hard core PC gamer may enjoy the thrill of installing their games before they play them, and spending an hour finding just the right settings to optimally run on their machine...99% of gamers just want to pop a disc in and start playing.
Exactly. The movie and television industries have all stated that they think having multiple formats for video discs is bad for everyone, so why can't the game industry see the same goes for them? The big three all talk about expanding the game industry to a wider audience, but requiring new gamers to buy 3 different systems to be able to play all the games they want puts far too large an overhead for those not already into gaming.
Yes, we would. The console portion of the Wii is anything but innovative, it's the controller that makes the difference. Obviously Nintendo could have just simply released the "wii-mote" as an optional peripheral, and have their games require you to have it. If the Wii-mote style controller proved itself over time to be the new benchmark in controllers, then the next itteration of the standard could have it become the default. An open standard would not stifle innovation at all, and it's complete FUD for anyone to try to say so.
The OGCC, which is already working on a standard much like the article describes, has already considered these issues thoroughly over the last year or so, since it's inception.
Agreed.
God forbid fair competition where the actual hardware's merit has to stand on it's own ;)
Don't get me wrong, I love pretty graphics and everything. I'm a self admitted graphics whore, but I also know that there are more important aspects to a game. I'd love some graphical updates to some of the old classic games, but I'd rather them be called "remakes" rather than people trying to pass them off as new products.
Ahhh.... and now you've hit one of the root problems with almost all the businesses in today's world: short-sightedness. To a share holder or CEO, all you're worried about is how much money you can make in the next year, if not just the next quarter even....but making crappy products that you know will make you a quick buck right now, yet will quickly fizzle out soon after is just about the worst thing you can do for your company, if you want it to last for an extended period of time. In a world where business leaders don't look at things in the long term and only focus on this fiscal year's bottom line, these trends will most certainly continue.
My Opinion: Publicly traded companies will eventually learn from these mistakes or most likely will just implode upon themselves, but by the time they do, they might bring down the rest of their industry with them. depending on how big and powerful they became during their peak (talking about business in general, not just gaming). For example, look at Microsoft, if the many predictions are right, they're not only about to severely wound themselves with the release of Vista, but also all the thousands of companies that let themselves get locked into a Windows only development model...
I'm a huge fan of all thing open source/free software...but I also remember that it's the developer's choice if they want to go open or not. I don't personally understand what "trade secrets" nVidia has to hide by keeping their drivers closed off from the public, but it's still their choice. Unfortunately the open source alternative "nv" driver that comes with X is pretty much worthless if you want to do anything involving 3D. The best situation for those who don't want to use proprietary drivers is to go out and find a company with open drivers and stop using nVidia products if it matters that much to you.
;)
I'm sure endless flame wars will follow below...so you guys have fun with that
There are two main problems in the game industry right now (and yes both have to do with managment in one way or another)...
1. Game developers and publishers focus too much on flash. When you're only worried about how good your game will look in screenshots, videos and ads, gameplay suffers. A game should be just as fun to play with primatives and stickmen as it is once you add your pretty coatings on top, if your game isn't as fun or "cool" without out all the flash, you have a crappy game on your hands. The same goes for story and cinematics. Yes, story can be very important, but your gameplay should always come first (unless in perhaps the case of an RPG).
2. The industry is stagnating. 99% of games released these days are rehashes of old games that don't even bother to try and add a new twist or anything. Why would any gamer want to buy the same game they already own but with a different title? Hopefully advancements in physics processing and controllers like the "Wii-mote" will help get the creative juices flowing again in the industry, but I fear most of the problem comes from investors and publishers not wanting to risk any money on anything even remotely original. It's the same exact problem we're seeing in the movie, TV, and music industries as well...
This why we are working to create an open standard for game console compatability: http://ogcs.forumer.com/
The problem here is that Walmart is THE largest retailer, so if they don't carry something, there's almost half as much chance for it to be sold. Walmart generally doesn't carry anything rated over Teen, BUT it carries all the R rated, if not even Unrated DVDs for some reason..... So this makes publishers/investors less likely to put their money behind M rated games, and does affect the industry in the long run...
:(
However, last time I checked Bully was probably only gonna get a Teen rating, but with Rockstar's past, the ESRB may just give it an R out of spite. This whole situation sickens me
Yes, but it could cause a few distros not to even officially support it anymore. I could easily see Ubuntu dropping it b/c of this...
Plus it's really gonna screw over guys like this.
I'm more concerned about what this means for projects like MythTV...
No, I didn't mean by law.... which I figured could be inferred from the next sentence: "What I'm particularly worried about is this government agency "over seeing" the ratings..."
"Yeah, I can't wait until GTA 4 gets played through and released..... IN 2099! While that is an exageration, it could take many months to do all the testing they require(making sure no hidden naughty stuff, doing all the side missions, doing all possible in game outcomes/endings/etc, lots and lots of leveling, finding all kinds of violence the player can engage in/create....)."
;)
this is why cheat codes were invented.... you throw on God mode or something, and I'm sure GTA will fly by