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LakiSoft

Source port idea!

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fraggle said:

If I'm hacking on stuff and releasing it on the Internet for free, I don't see it as unreasonable to expect others to behave by the same code of conduct when they make use my work. Call that "viral", "poison", "brainwashing" or "extremism" if you want. I call it fair.


That part is not what I call 'posionous'. That's precisely the good thing about the GPL. The bad thing about it is that it goes out of its way to prevent GPL code from coexisting in the same program as code under a different license. For example, why is it so bad to use GPL in a program with code that prohibits commercial use? That particular restriction makes no sense. It would be good enough to add provisions to allow linking with non-GPL compatible code as long as it's ensured that the program still continues to work with that code removed.

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Quasar said:

This started out as a discussion about abuse of this license soup to stop the rest of us from implementing features that are in ZDoom, simply because it has proven easier for ZDoom to frankenstein itself with software that ought not to even be available since looking at it taints anyone who sees it with materials that they cannot use in their personal and professional lives, instead of doing the work to come to a rigorous understanding of said features and then implement them from scratch.

This entertains me, since the point of open code sharing is so that you *don't* need to write it from scratch. Unfortunately, if someone releases code I wish to use under the GPL, I cannot use it in my BSD licensed software. So then I'm back to having to write it from scratch. Except again, I can't learn from it, because then I'd potentially be violating a license by subconsciously writing code I might have remembered as the "most efficient method I can think of."

Graf Zahl said:

For example, why is it so bad to use GPL in a program with code that prohibits commercial use? That particular restriction makes no sense. It would be good enough to add provisions to allow linking with non-GPL compatible code as long as it's ensured that the program still continues to work with that code removed.

Because then the code wouldn't be 100% owned by the license. "He who owns the license, owns the code." Forget where I heard that. Might've been during some discussion about GPL and why Linux wasn't adopting the 'future version' clause of which the FSF is very fond.

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Silverman isn't sharing his code so much as putting it up on a pedestal for people to worship his genius publicly. Name me one BUILD-engine game developed commercially in the past 10 years. Name me one BUILD-engine-based game built before that which has even been successfully commercially exploited (ie. electronically released with updated content or ported to a new system) in the past 10 years.

There are none. The restrictions he puts on his code are based on nothing other than hubris.

ZDoom may be "sharing" it by using it, but none of the rest of us - the entire rest of the community - can share it in any way.

You sound very bitter to me. You do not recognize the great success that this community as a whole has had working under the GPL license, whereas some of the largest fuck-ups and shitstorms in DOOM history have been enabled if not directly caused by ZDoom's alleged ability to be close-sourced (and I am talking about Skulltag, ZDaemon, and other such offshoots in case that isn't obvious).

I say, in terms of results, the GPL has proven itself a winner in this community. If your best attack against it is that the v3 adds restrictions you don't personally like (I on the other hand would not suffer to have any code I write applied to tivoization schemes, which are anti-consumer and anti-freedom), when only one port in the entire community has even converted to v3 in the first place, then I am far from convinced.

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Graf Zahl said:

That part is not what I call 'posionous'. That's precisely the good thing about the GPL. The bad thing about it is that it goes out of its way to prevent GPL code from coexisting in the same program as code under a different license. For example, why is it so bad to use GPL in a program with code that prohibits commercial use?

The answer appears when you ask the question, "what if it was permitted to do that?". If you could link GPL and non-free code by placing the latter in a library, then it would expose a loophole in the license: if someone wanted to circumvent the "tit for tat" rule, they could simply bundle their enhancements up into a proprietary library, and add some stub parts to the open part of the code to link it in.

You can probably argue that such a scenario isn't very common, or that the fallout from closing this loophole causes worse problems than the loophole itself - the LGPL exists precisely to allow this kind of use-case. But there have been instances where people have done things like this. I remember reading that when NeXT developed their Objective C compiler, they based it on gcc, and wanted to write their frontend as a proprietary extension to get around the GPL. If the GPL had that vulnerability, gcc wouldn't have an Objective C frontend now.

Closer to home, it was recently proposed that a closed-source extension for Chocolate Doom be developed for Compet-N secure demos. So I'm personally glad that loophole is covered as well.

I don't think it's really designed to target the FMod use-case in particular. It's just an unfortunate fall-out of the fact that you can't really allow too many exceptions if you want to ensure the tit-for-tat fairness aspect is preserved. Overall, I think the benefits probably outweigh the drawbacks.

Quasar said:

Silverman isn't sharing his code so much as putting it up on a pedestal for people to worship his genius publicly. Name me one BUILD-engine game developed commercially in the past 10 years. Name me one BUILD-engine-based game built before that which has even been successfully commercially exploited (ie. electronically released with updated content or ported to a new system) in the past 10 years.

There are none. The restrictions he puts on his code are based on nothing other than hubris.

Agreed - there's no real reason for him not to just do the right thing and just release it under a standard license at this stage. It's really frustrating when people do this sort of thing. A friend of mine recently had to deal with a similar situation caused by a developer using a modified MIT license with a "cute" extra clause that they added themselves. These sort of things cause real problems for no benefit or purpose except for stroking the developer's ego.

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Quasar said:

Silverman isn't sharing his code so much as putting it up on a pedestal for people to worship his genius publicly.



I'm sorry but that's silly. The whole matter goes both ways and no side has any more right to complain than the other.

As much as you need to comply with the GPL there are also cases where projects that can't be GPL for very solid reasons are hurt by code that is carelessly put under the GPL by its developers.

And in both cases it's the 'it's either my way or the Highway' attitude of the GPL, making absolutely no provisions. It wants to enforce all of its terms across all the code that comes in touch with it - and that's simply too broad.

Its makers did not want to make any differentiation - they wanted to force everybody working with them to bow down to their demands - and look what we got. Both sides get screwed.

Fraggle's link is just another example of this ridiculousness.

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@Quasar:
You're right. I'm bitter. You sound it too, in regards to ZDoom abusing the availability of the BUILD code. My bitterness goes down a bit further, and I don't consider the community on the whole successful at anything, 'cept bickering. Maybe that's just the front everyone presents when interacting with something they don't like, such as anti-GPL people.
Plus the community didn't begin with GPL code and still made strides before the GPL code was available. A few hot (and not) projects jumped on it, with the crazy mentalities that the GPL is good, and all of a suddenly you're attributing the success of the community to a not-universally-adopted LICENSE!

How can a community which doesn't universally adopt a license be successful because of it? Perhaps it's successful instead because of the people who work on this, that and the other thing? (Yes, your work too.) Along with people who are passionate enough about their own work to ignore the stupidity of the argument between us all I'm helping to continue instigating. Lets give credit where it's due. It has nothing to do with a license, and everything to do with passion. Mine might have been killed off by mounds of bullshit, including what this thread has touched on, but obviously it hasn't killed it off for everyone.

@Fraggle:
So, the fact that Compet-N cannot use Chocolate Doom demos is a success? Thanks for clearing that up. I was confused about what success is like.</sarcasm>

Entertaining side story. I do like the idea. Sounds like something out of Google. Definitely more entertaining than the PHP5 license tweak.

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fraggle said:

Agreed - there's no real reason for him not to just do the right thing and just release it under a standard license at this stage. It's really frustrating when people do this sort of thing. A friend of mine recently had to deal with a similar situation caused by a developer using a modified MIT license with a "cute" extra clause that they added themselves. These sort of things cause real problems for no benefit or purpose except for stroking the developer's ego.

In the "cute" licenses category, I like DUMB's.

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Just one thing. Would you say John Carmack was careless to release DOOM under the GPL? How about Quake 1-3, or id Tech 4?

Lyfe said:

@Quasar:
You're right. I'm bitter. You sound it too, in regards to ZDoom abusing the availability of the BUILD code.

A bit, sure, considering I had a significant feature stolen and locked away from me because of it. Until and unless someone does something to rectify this, I will continue to bring it up as a point against this kind of arrangement. Whereas on the other end I have expressed willingness to compromise with my own code when it looked like it could be useful to ZDoom, I have not been offered any assistance in reconciling voxel support with my license. It is inexcusable.

Consider what would happen to Eternity if Chocolate Doom was closed. There goes ENDOOM support, SDL app state tracking, PC speaker emulation. Never mind that Chocolate Strife wouldn't exist either. Imagine if prboom-plus were closed. There goes the shitload of work on demo compatibility and overflow emulation, and there goes EE's OpenGL 2D-in-3D backend.

The mutual support between our ports is insured by use of a license that does not allow closed-source development.

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Quasar said:

Just one thing. Would you say John Carmack was careless to release DOOM under the GPL? How about Quake 1-3, or id Tech 4?

I'd say he was careful to make sure that the monetary interests of id Software are properly watched.

Since it's no longer fiscally possible to try and sell the engine, you might as well pretend to be community-friendly in releasing it publicly. If they chose anything *other* than GPL, they would then be competing with themselves. Just look at all the changes people have done to the q2 & q3 engines. They certainly added some very advanced features. Can you imagine the pollution to the game engine pool if they weren't GPL?

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Lyfe said:

I'd say he was careful to make sure that the monetary interests of id Software are properly watched.

Since it's no longer fiscally possible to try and sell the engine, you might as well pretend to be community-friendly in releasing it publicly. If they chose anything *other* than GPL, they would then be competing with themselves. Just look at all the changes people have done to the q2 & q3 engines. They certainly added some very advanced features. Can you imagine the pollution to the game engine pool if they weren't GPL?


Except I could take any of those advanced derivatives and commercialize them easily, by providing with them a commercially distributed pool of content. I believe the age where games rely on engine technology alone to sell is well past, and it ended with Quake 3 really. Now everything on the market is on a more or less even playing field. "I have streamed resource loading!" Well so does every other fucking game engine. "I have skeletal rag doll animations." Wow that's like so 5 years ago. Up until we have some kind of fundamental paradigm shift in computing, everything in game engines now will be incremental improvements that take advantage of additional speed or new API extensions in OpenGL/Direct3D and that's it.

In fact, I know of at least one GPL-licensed free software game engine which has commercial games based on it. The name of the engine escapes me at the moment. But the fact is, they exist.

I cannot sell anything based on ZDoom, on the other hand, or BUILD itself.

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re: id software releasing code as GPL to protect their interests.

You literally just stated that the code couldn't be monetized because its out of date so what exactly are they protecting?

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fraggle said:

I remember reading that when NeXT developed their Objective C compiler, they based it on gcc, and wanted to write their frontend as a proprietary extension to get around the GPL. If the GPL had that vulnerability, gcc wouldn't have an Objective C frontend now.

And now instead of contributing to GCC, Apple is working on the more liberally licensed Clang/LLVM.

Quasar said:

Just one thing. Would you say John Carmack was careless to release DOOM under the GPL? How about Quake 1-3, or id Tech 4?

Not entirely no. I would say they could have been more liberal with the license, but I'll take what I can get.

Regarding the voxel support. Short of removing the build code, what would it take to rectify the situation? Furthermore, the feature wasn't exactly taken from you. Randy talked about using build code for voxel support years before the mention of voxels in eternity.

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Quasar said:

Except I could take any of those advanced derivatives and commercialize them easily, by providing with them a commercially distributed pool of content.

Sorry, please go back, and re-read my comment. I'm not talking about selling a game. I'm talking about selling a game engine. You think Epic makes Unreal tournament to sell a game? They make Unreal Tournament to sell their engine.

Same reason id made quake 3.

There's no serious monetary value anymore in trying to sell the quake 2/3 engine. So, why not release it under GPL? Obviously, you don't want someone making money off your code as another competing engine in the market if someone does update it - so release it as GPL, let the community muck with it, let any game companies do what you described, and leave engine development to the big players.

As much as indy games are becoming popular, the triple-A titles still all lease their engines.

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Blzut3 said:

And now instead of contributing to GCC, Apple is working on the more liberally licensed Clang/LLVM.

There's some interesting stuff on the Internet about the whole gcc thing, dated from back when Apple started throwing manpower at the clang/llvm code.

http://lwn.net/Articles/343608/ was an interesting skim.

There's a legal ambiguity regarding licenses about using gcc as a compiler, and what you can and cannot compile with it. Course, if RMS had his way, everything you compiled with gcc would have to be GPL. But then gcc is his baby, and what a monstrosity it is.

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Quasar said:

You sound very bitter to me. You do not recognize the great success that this community as a whole has had working under the GPL license, whereas some of the largest fuck-ups and shitstorms in DOOM history have been enabled if not directly caused by ZDoom's alleged ability to be close-sourced (and I am talking about Skulltag, ZDaemon, and other such offshoots in case that isn't obvious).

Sorry, I got a bit of a laugh at the irony :) (he's not the only one - I'm just saying...)

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DaniJ said:

Well, whats the point? Unless I'm missing something we already concluded that several pages ago. Also this does kinda sound like "I don't want to think about the actual issues at play - I just want my awesome free audio damnit!".

I apologize. I've personally seen this conflict play out lots of different times, and to me it's quite tired. I was also under the impression that perhaps there were other things to talk about in terms of sound libraries, but apparently there aren't. I certainly didn't expect the magic sound library fairy to poof into existence. :)

I guess my problem with this whole back and forth is that ultimately, we're dealing with a 20 year old game, and what might make sense for a graphics card vendor or a technology company worth billions may not really apply to the reality of Doom in 2012. I feel like it's simply too easy to jump to a conclusion of "Oh, well nVidia has this, that and the other need to address, therefore the usage of this BUILD-licensed source is totally awesome, fuck the GPL ports!".

Blzut3 said:

And now instead of contributing to GCC, Apple is working on the more liberally licensed Clang/LLVM.

I would think twice before making that argument. All sorts of free software (proprietary software too) can claim to have major backers and code contributions from huge companies. I'm not sure what makes Apple's approach any more or less right than say...Intel or IBM, who have both made significant contributions to the Linux kernel.

kb1 said:

Sorry, I got a bit of a laugh at the irony :) (he's not the only one - I'm just saying...)


If you're talking about the author of a GPL port being ironic, he has claimed to have offered his code to ZDoom in the past, and I know for a fact that fraggle donated Fragglescript.

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AlexMax said:

I would think twice before making that argument. All sorts of free software (proprietary software too) can claim to have major backers and code contributions from huge companies. I'm not sure what makes Apple's approach any more or less right than say...Intel or IBM, who have both made significant contributions to the Linux kernel.

It's about vested interest, just like Intel & IBM with the Linux kernel. Apple had a lot of reasons to jump to using clang/llvm. Just to name a few:

- better code production;
- code production on the Apple iPod/iPhone/iPad;
- static analysis;
- unified (& up-to-date) parser for C/C++/Obj-c; and
- fantastic integration with X-Code.

Granted, they could have done it with gcc, and largely they did for a while. But they have done a fantastic job of dropping gcc & switching to clang/llvm. FreeBSD has also done similar, for many similar reasons.

With something as major of a project as switching out the primary compiler in an OS, there must be substantial technical reasons. Licensing can be a factor, but won't be a primary motivator.

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Blzut3 said:

Regarding the voxel support. Short of removing the build code, what would it take to rectify the situation?

Someone with a good understanding of it could Chinese firewall it.

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Blzut3:

1. I'm not as well versed in GPLv3 as I am GPLv2. Reading over the license and the FSF's explanation of the GPLv3 though, I don't have any complaints. Software patents are evil, GPLv3 extends an explicit patent license. DRM is evil, GPLv3 says if someone breaks DRM implemented in GPLv3 software they're not liable under the DMCA and other stupid laws. Tivoization is bad; I actually don't know why you think it's good. You say, "at some point you have to draw the line where your property ends", and I would reply, "when I buy something, I get to do whatever I want to it, without the manufacturer putting in a self-destruct switch".

2. Yeah looking over the API it doesn't look like it provides any mixing. That's too bad. I wonder how hard it is to do.

3. Quasar isn't saying voxel support was taken from EE. He's saying that while EE is extremely willing to relicense its code to ZDoom so it can be used under The Tarpit License, ZDoom can't reciprocate regarding voxel support because it's based on BUILD code, and that this arrangement is frustratingly unfair. If it were me, it would make me question the whole arrangement, but Quasar is more benevolent, intelligent, and in charge than I, so I defer to him.

Myk:

That's a pretty bold prediction, but an interesting idea. We're a long way away from it I think, though.

Graf:

I think we've established that code reuse is hampered in both GPL and non-GPL situations. The question is which approach will lead us towards more and easier code reuse. Even though I strongly believe the GPL is the best approach, I think there's no convincing either side that they're wrong. So instead, I've been arguing that the negative effects of non-GPL and closed source software on users and communities outweigh the short-term benefits (features, basically). I really haven't seen that addressed yet.

Regarding "my way or the highway" attitudes, the same can be said of ZDoom developers. You guys refuse to compromise on features in order to advance the cause of free software. I want to be clear and say that I'm not saying that you're bad guys or anything like that (I actually think you're pretty great), but I think the characterization applies to both parties.

Lyfe:

1. GPL has obviously not lost its relevance. ID still releases software under it. Linux is GPL. Etc. Etc. Etc.

2. One of the main reasons to avoid loaded language (like "bigot" or "extremist") is that it sensationalizes the argument. We use "bigot" to refer to racists, we use "extremist" to refer to, for example, religious extremists who think killing in the name of God is OK. It's kind of tough to have a civil conversation when the participants are actively trying to tie those who don't agree with them to racists and terrorists.

3. I don't get what your goal is. You say that you "believe that the code belongs to the people who write it". Why shouldn't they be able to license it however they like? How does the GPL diminish a developer's ownership of their code, especially since a developer can relicense their code at any time? You say that you support code sharing and code reuse, but you support PHP's extra BSD clause (which I was not aware of and am taking your word on) barring inclusion in GPL projects? Isn't that contradictory?

4. The same way that you can apply your values of "success" to Chocolate Doom (features, in this case Compet-N acceptability), Fraggle can apply his values of "success" and say that the GPL successfully kept Chocolate Doom open source. I think the petulant way you put forth your opinion implied that you think features are more important than open source, but so far I haven't heard a fact-based or logical argument for it.

5. By "compile with it" ("it" meaning GCC), you mean "link to it", right? There's obviously no licensing issue regarding what you can and can't compile with GCC.

6. Apple's only reason for working on LLVM was incorporation into XCode. It was solely a licensing issue. They couldn't achieve proper integration with XCode and still maintain it as a closed source application, let alone get their features accepted upstream. It's not a better compiler, it generates bigger and slower binaries. You use the example of an up-to-date parser, but specifically the C++ parser isn't even C++0x ready yet.

7. It's worth saying that huge software companies make serious technical decisions for non-technical reasons all the time. Microsoft is a great example of this.

8. My bad buddy, I didn't mean to fuckin bore you. Rofl.

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Ladna said:

3. Quasar isn't saying voxel support was taken from EE. He's saying that while EE is extremely willing to relicense its code to ZDoom so it can be used under The Tarpit License, ZDoom can't reciprocate regarding voxel support because it's based on BUILD code, and that this arrangement is frustratingly unfair.

Quasar is generously willing to allow the code he writes to be used under the terms of the LGPL instead of that of the GPL. But this permission only covers his own original code. For instance, he cannot relicense under the LGPL the libconfuse or JavaScript VM code that he has integrated into EE.

If Quasar had found somewhere some GPL voxel code, ZDoom couldn't use it; just like EE cannot use the Build-licensed voxel code.

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Gez said:

Quasar is generously willing to allow the code he writes to be used under the terms of the LGPL instead of that of the GPL. But this permission only covers his own original code. For instance, he cannot relicense under the LGPL the libconfuse or JavaScript VM code that he has integrated into EE.

If Quasar had found somewhere some GPL voxel code, ZDoom couldn't use it; just like EE cannot use the Build-licensed voxel code.

I get your point, although your examples are flawed ;) The newest most up-to-date version of libConfuse appears to have been relicensed BSD, and SpiderMonkey is tri-licensed MPL/LGPL/GPL so there could be ways even it could be used in a project like ZDoom.

Consider this - I can use GPL libraries like SpiderMonkey and mcpp at my work, because all of the software we develop is strictly for in-house use - it will never be distributed outside of the organization. Not that we really have a requirement to be closed source anyways - we just always have been because nobody's gotten explicit approval to release the code otherwise (also a lot of it would be very useless, such as stuff that depends on the commercial QuickReport library for BCB).

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Ladna said:

Blzut3:

1. I'm not as well versed in GPLv3 as I am GPLv2. Reading over the license and the FSF's explanation of the GPLv3 though, I don't have any complaints. Software patents are evil, GPLv3 extends an explicit patent license. DRM is evil, GPLv3 says if someone breaks DRM implemented in GPLv3 software they're not liable under the DMCA and other stupid laws. Tivoization is bad; I actually don't know why you think it's good. You say, "at some point you have to draw the line where your property ends", and I would reply, "when I buy something, I get to do whatever I want to it, without the manufacturer putting in a self-destruct switch".

What about hardware that is normally rented/leased? Or hardware that is heavily subsidized by another company (cell phones sold under two year contracts)? Not everything is sold to a consumer and thus isn't theirs to freely use.

Honestly though, I think it's more important to educate consumers on demanding unlocked hardware. If the license requires the manufacture to share modifications to the software upstream then they can use it on hardware I disagree with for all I care. It's not my job to protect customers from their stupidity.

Oh and just to throw one more disagreeable point about the GPL out there. Technically the GPL doesn't allow distribution through closed channels like the iOS App store. Regardless, we allow id to market Doom classic, along with all the Freedoom releases, Hacx classic, etc. Technically someone could complain to Apple and get all of them removed from the store.

Ladna said:

2. Yeah looking over the API it doesn't look like it provides any mixing. That's too bad. I wonder how hard it is to do.

I think what we're looking at here is the "do one thing and do it well" philosophy in free software. Not that I think that it's a bad idea, but what it's coming down to here is making unix platforms the only one with a sensible enough dependencies system to work with it.

There are plenty of ways to get access to hardware, a few ways to do mixing, and plenty of decoders. The problem is getting it all to work together. Fmod does all of this in a single package and is a lot easier to maintain on the platforms that ultimately matter.

Ladna said:

3. Quasar isn't saying voxel support was taken from EE. He's saying that while EE is extremely willing to relicense its code to ZDoom so it can be used under The Tarpit License, ZDoom can't reciprocate regarding voxel support because it's based on BUILD code, and that this arrangement is frustratingly unfair. If it were me, it would make me question the whole arrangement, but Quasar is more benevolent, intelligent, and in charge than I, so I defer to him.

As Gez points out this does go both ways. There is likely components in Eternity that we simply can't use either. For example I highly doubt cardboard would be relicensed to us. There is a vast amount of code in ZDoom which was created by us and is available under the BSD or some morphing license that turns into the GPL when used outside of ZDoom. I already know that EE has used some code from ZDoom, so it would be difficult to argue that there's a one way street here.

Also for clarification, by "taken from EE" I was referring to Quasar feeling like ZDoom getting voxel support may have discouraged a third party effort to get voxels in EE. Although I can't say for sure, it doesn't look like Randy frequents here, so it would seem the timing is mostly a coincidence helped by the revival of the Doom voxel project. As I have already pointed out Randy has said that voxels were a possibility using build code since 2003.

@Quasar: I make no promises (especially on time frame) but I might end up being able to provide that firewall when I try to implement voxels in ECWolf. I can't use build or GPL code there since it's dual licensed.

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Ladna said:
Regarding "my way or the highway" attitudes, the same can be said of ZDoom developers. You guys refuse to compromise on features in order to advance the cause of free software.
[/B]


It's their project, they do what they want to. You can make suggestions, offer advice, but you can't claim they're bad guys for not spending their free time doing things for some cause that you believe in passionately.

And from a practical POV, it doesn't matter in the end. So what if I can't run ZDoom on OpenBSD (or other OS that FMOD doesn't support)? And so what if FMOD sometime in the future ceases to exist? It just means I use another DOOM port. BFD.

Hell, if id software never released the source code, there's a damn good chance that someone would have written a DOOM-compatible engine by now (or more likely, several using completely different approaches) just like other games have modorn "remakes" that utilize the original game data. In fact, one such engine existed even before doomsrc release:
http://www.samba.org/dumb/
This one is GPL (probably because developer was a Linux user) but others may have been closed-source (common for Windows devs), or BSD, or whatever.

I've seen threads where people berate devs like Matt Dillon for working on DragonflyBSD or other project instead of making Linux more powerful. They're not his boss, giving him a paycheck, or anything like that, but in their minds they think he's the bad guy because he's not bending to their ideology. And when I say "berate", it's not simply a one-off comment, but threads full of crap denigrating his character, stuff like "he works on DFBSD because he can't get play well with others" and shit like that. Well those people are totally brainwashed by this GPL-everything mentality, it's a real mental disease.

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@Ladna:
1: Losing relevance and losing support are different. I still believe that the GPL no longer has a purpose.

5: RMS has stated before that in his opinion, all code which links to the GCC std-lib (libc, which is all code compiled with gcc) should be GPL. Yes, you can find this online. Just because the FSF says it isn't the (current) case doesn't mean the intention wasn't there in the GPL originally.

2: You brought the terrorist concept into it. Extremist & bigot have nothing to do with terrorism. Hell, I even gave you the description of why extremist is a good word, and you still brought the "terrorist" concept into it.

3: Example: I create project X. I release project X to the world as GPL. You submit me code for project X under the assumption (since I failed to say otherwise) that the code you submitted is GPL. I then wish to re-used project X in project Y under a different license (say because my employer likes the library, and we can seriously utilize it). I cannot do so, because project X contains code from someone else, who's intention is that it's completely GPL. Thus, the code is now owned by the license, not by the user. True, I can ask you to allow me to utilize your code in a different license, but lets be honest, you wouldn't. You're a GPL purist. Thus, "my" library is no longer mine, but now held largely by the GPL.

4: Sure, but the example is poor in that the example (to me) is suggesting a failure for Chocolate Doom's usage with Compet-N. A win for open source, a failure for usability.
Additionally, from a user standpoint, it has little to do with license (and more to do with pricetag):
GIMP vs Photoshop. Photoshop, hands-down. More features, better performance, better interface, better support.
Perhaps more controversially: Libre Office, vs MS Office. Libre office has made great advances at what they do. They still have a boatload of issues, a smaller support base, and the accepted "standard" in business is still the MS doc format.

I suppose I'm arguing that open source doesn't inherently make a product better.
I'll concede only in saying that it doesn't make a product bad. OpenSSH is a fantastic example of a great open-source product. However, it's adoption on the user-side has nothing to do with it being open-source, and everything to do with server administrators. Server administrator's adoption of it has to do with a level of trust of the product, which does come from it's many-eyes open-source approach. Microsoft RDP has wide adoption as well, though, regardless of that it has been the target of attacks.

6: Integration into X-Code was not a licensing issue with gcc. They released X-Code for years while utilizing gcc. The further integration of extra features including static analysis, real-time inspection of debug-compiled apps, etc. Plus, gcc produces really REALLY ugly binaries. If Clang/LLVM is slower at some construct, it is marginally slower. If you want to argue this point, I'm going to tell you to search google for current statistics (as opposed to old statistics from what Clang/LLVM was new). After that, I'll point out that they're both terrible compilers compared to msvc++.

7: Just because it's true doesn't make it apply to all cases. Additionally, not all cases are about licensing. Most are probably marketing.

8: You have a habit of including examples which correlate on 1 small detail (but vary on all others), take 4 paragraphs to explain, and then complain about people skimming/ignoring your commentary (which they have to do in order to stay awake). I'm hoping to avoid that.


Slight aside: you made this comment to Blzut3, and I'd like to comment on it a bit:

Ladna said:
You say, "at some point you have to draw the line where your property ends", and I would reply, "when I buy something, I get to do whatever I want to it, without the manufacturer putting in a self-destruct switch"

I know the Tivo scenario is different, but ignore that for this discussion.

You released your code to the world. You "give" me your code. I can see it. I can read it. I can understand it. If I print it out, I can even touch it. You gave it willingly, and without payment. Then I read that it came with baggage. You didn't give it to me. You licensed it to me for a payment of $0. The license came with restrictions. I cannot do what I want with it. This SUCKS.

Hardware is a little different. There's a physical cost involved. Obviously, that's the part that goes to court. I'm not qualified to have a discussion on the hardware portion, plus it's inconsequential to the part about software licensing I'm trying to have a discussion about.

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Lyfe said:

You released your code to the world. You "give" me your code. I can see it. I can read it. I can understand it. If I print it out, I can even touch it. You gave it willingly, and without payment. Then I read that it came with baggage. You didn't give it to me. You licensed it to me for a payment of $0. The license came with restrictions. I cannot do what I want with it. This SUCKS.

I'm not trying to cherry pick but I do feel I have to say something about this particular part of your post.

This is always the case, no matter what license is used. BSD places some (very weak) restrictions on what you can do: You cannot claim you wrote the original software (there are a whole lot of Mike Hardies out there doing just this and acting like it's their god-given right to do so), and you have to maintain my copyright notice and disclaimer, and distribute it with both your source AND your binaries (how many companies violate THAT I wonder, considering I constantly find for example zlib linked into commercial game ROMS...).

It sounds like you'd prefer everything to be public domain. Honestly, at heart, I would too. Copyright is mostly bullshit. However, very few things do get released this way ultimately.

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Lyfe said:

5: RMS has stated before that in his opinion, all code which links to the GCC std-lib (libc, which is all code compiled with gcc) should be GPL. Yes, you can find this online. Just because the FSF says it isn't the (current) case doesn't mean the intention wasn't there in the GPL originally.

[citation needed]

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Ladna said:
1. GPL has obviously not lost its relevance. ID still releases software under it. Linux is GPL. Etc. Etc. Etc.

If anything it's growing with the awareness of the importance of access to information, which is increasingly being pointed out as a key aspect of freedom of information, an established human right. Government and institution administrations are increasingly using it to throw corporate dependence off their back, for one, for political reasons, and not just because it may save some money.

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Quasar said:

Just one thing. Would you say John Carmack was careless to release DOOM under the GPL? How about Quake 1-3, or id Tech 4?

I personally believe he was. Were I in his place, I would have released them under a license that required the source be open but prevented commercial exploitation. A better written Doom source license, I guess. I think it's sad that you can't incorporate Build voxel code in Eternity, but some nobody that's contributed absolutely nothing to this community can grab a GPL engine, bundle it with Freedoom, and throw it up on a digital distribution service. That code is Carmack's, or more specifically id's, and everyone in this community who has contributed to it's, and no one deserves to profit from their work.

The others have already covered the poisonous aspect of the GPL, much better than I could've, but this is another another aspect of the license that gets to me. It makes sense for certain software in certain cases, but I don't believe Doom, or any of id's engines, are one of those. You can say not allowing it would prevent people from making new games using the engines, but has that really happened? Every game I can think of released since the engines' sources have been released has been free anyway. The only people profiting off GPL Doom engines are the guys selling Freedoom on the App store.

(I know a few for-profit projects in development, but the thing is, if your project is actually good enough to sell, you can always license the engine from id and still profit in the long run.)

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So, he should have made some custom license to accommodate the Build license, instead of using an widely used license backed by foundations established by a wider community?

Carmack's choice was also a statement of approval of the GPL and what it was creating on a larger level, I'd say. Using a custom license would have left him without such a contribution.

The only people profiting off GPL Doom engines are the guys selling Freedoom on the App store.

It also goes into OS distributions, so it's not just about someone profiting from the source, but the source spreading because it gets placed in projects that have a larger distribution base that's linked to commercial activity.

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Dragonsbrethren said:

The only people profiting off GPL Doom engines are the guys selling Freedoom on the App store.



I'd say that Freedoom is more to blame here. Making such a project free for commercial use is an open invitation to those rip-off artists running rampant on the app store.

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