The economics of Spring mod users

[Gota]

Yeah were the next Napstar and pirate bay...
Den of pirates...

[Pressure Line]

So... Can i make money out of Supreme Annihilation?

No, you can't... because the License of the engine does not allow you to.

Wrong (kinda) He cant make money out of Supreme Annihilation because the license of the CONTENT doesn't allow him to (TA content plz?)

So what you are doing isn't legal Argh? I'm just going to assume you meant to say what I said, and that your fingers just typed the wrong thing...

[Argh]

@Lurker: Supreme Annihilation uses OTA code. It would violate the GPL to redistribute it and sell it. Moreover, the OTA IP isn't Gota's to redistribute or sell.

Forb's game, on the other hand? Yes. S'44? Yes. E&E? Yes. Heck, I could even sell NanoBlobs. All of these projects own their content, and can fully comply with the GPL as it applies to the engine.


@Gota: What I'm saying is... don't do something that would create that impression.

I can't write a grant proposal, show grantors the system, and have them go, "hey, isn't that OTA on that neato tracking system? How did you guys ever get the license for that?" Little awkward

I guess what I'm hearing here is that either you guys are completely ignorant, or you really think nobody cares.

Shall I write to Infogrames about this, and find out what they think? We've talked about it, but nobody's really done anything about it since Tobi's attempt to get them to acknowledge their ownership of the OTA IP, which they brushed off. Maybe that's what we need to do... get this settled, once and for all.

Like contacting the FSF, it might be helpful, and finally end this dispute, by giving us facts, instead of "maybe". I'm just afraid that if I do so, they'll freak out.

[Pressure Line]

@Argh: should we warm the old girl up?

[Argh]

Exactly my fear. Which is why nobody does it.

[Neddie]

Besides, the FSF are not in a position to tell you anything valid about GPL v2. They have an agenda, they advance that agenda through their present licenses and all communique.

[Gota]

So we are at the threatening stage?
I guess you could go and remind/tell them about this..That would be shitty of you.

[lurker]

@Lurker: Supreme Annihilation uses OTA code. It would violate the GPL to redistribute it and sell it.

I'm going to need you to explain your logic here.

Pressureline, stay out of the topic if you're going to delete posts.

[Argh]

I'm going to need you to explain your logic here.

It uses COBs, many of which were not even compiled from decompiled source. Go check any *A mod, most of them have files 10 years old or COBs without a BOS. And it's obvious which BOS scripts are wholly derivative work, anyhow- Cavedog had a fairly distinctive style.



And I'm not threatening at all. I'll do absolutely nothing without something like majority consent. But the only way to truly resolve this debate is to discuss it with the license-holder.

Maybe we could get an exemption where they won't sue so long as nobody starts abusing their trademarks or corporate IP.

Or maybe they freak out, and try to shut everything down. It's the scope of the issue that's so scary, frankly.

Come to think of it... since I'm now a (runt) member of Stardock's "family" of developers, I could maybe talk to GPG's leader about this stuff, see what he thinks. Yes, I'm insane, but I've talked to people higher in the global food-chain before and survived to tell about it. That's safe- he can't sue us, personally. Maybe that for a start, ask him if he still has friends over there, or would know how to approach this issue?

[lurker]

Of course it uses TA scripts.
Yes, it uses scripts derived from TA code.
Yes, it's illegal.
I want you to explain how the GPL gets involved.

[Argh]

I want you to explain how the GPL gets involved.

Because it's code that interacts with the engine, according to the agreement we arrived at, that makes it GPL when used as bytecode on a Spring virtual machine, just like Lua is. It becomes, in a very real sense, part of the program, and therefore part of the "work".

[lurker]

That post is oversimplified. Code made with linkages to a non-spring engine isn't linked to spring, and is clean. It uses the word 'many' instead of 'all' for a reason.

[Argh]

Perhaps, but the FSF's lawyer did not agree with that idea, and I've chosen to adhere to the most safe interpretation, myself. There is no case law either way.

Anyhow... try and contact Chris T? Maybe somebody safer, like my hero in the indie game movement, who I occasionally write back and forth to?

I'm open to ideas here. But I think we need to get some seriously considered opinions about how to proceed, if we're going to do anything to resolve this.

Going straight to Infogrames is far too risky, basically- I don't have any relationships with anybody there, and I wouldn't have any idea of whom I'm talking to, their rank and ability to make decisions, etc. If we're going to do anything, we probably need to consult with whomever we can that is an expert and might be willing to see our somewhat-tortured situation with some sympathy. If they say, "never bring it up, CYA" then we at least know where we stand.

[smoth]

/me sighs...

not this shit again....


so why does spring need nat traversal?

[lurker]

Other games (that have a player host) don't?

[smoth]

not that I recall

[el_matarife]

Just to make it clear Argh, you're freaking out over OTAContent.sdz which is just a hair over 7 megabytes, and maybe another few megabytes worth of data in each of the OTA based mods themselves. This data is texture and models files, not a full executable and certainly not the full game, which by the way hasn't been sold in a serious fashion in almost 10 years and definitely isn't easily available for purchase.

Atari hasn't shown much interest in the TA at all in the last several years, other than a few failed licensed sequel projects. I'm willing to be that if they actually did show up to care we could reach some sort of arrangement with them the same way most mods / games that are non-commercial and based on someone's IP tend to reach an arrangement with the rights holder. Worst case scenario, they ask us to remodel and retexture all the units which is something the OTA mods are already looking at doing anyway for appearance reason.

If we implemented this proposed SpringDownloader system, not everyone on it would be distributing the OTA content, only the people who run OTA mods. The tracker host may be in some sort of legal quagmire but as long as it isn't run by the Spring project itself we're fine.

Personally, I wish we could just buy a non-commercial redistribution license for the content from Atari for some nominal fee of like $10,000 which we could easily raise.

I absolutely 100% HATE writing these huge wall of text posts and I'd like to apologize to everyone who has to read this but I think I had to do it.

[el_matarife]

Other games (that have a player host) don't?

Warcraft 3, Supreme Commander, and a few other titles all require forwarded ports to host games. In fact, go look at all the trouble Demigod is having with people trying to join games without forwarded ports. I'm thinking we should make a separate thread for technical solutions to ease of use of hosting in the development forum.

[imbaczek]

other games are either using their own servers or have a similar set of problems. they may try to not provide the option to do hole punching by autodetecting (upnp, etc) if it's needed, but it will fail on some routers.

[TheFatController]

I'm open to ideas here. But I think we need to get some seriously considered opinions about how to proceed, if we're going to do anything to resolve this.

Firstly 'we'? I can't see how this concerns you and why you'd feel the need to intervene at all, I don't already doubt that several other people have already desperately tried to report BA but the fact that you also feel the need to shout about it is not appreciated.

If you have concerns about the BA installer send me a PM.

Personally, I wish we could just buy a non-commercial redistribution license for the content from Atari for some nominal fee of like $10,000 which we could easily raise.

No