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The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

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Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#121

Post by zucker42 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Part of me wants to express the irritation that people being neurotic about the GPL could cost us access to old games like this. I worry that someone overzealous would take down source for an 18 year old PS1 game over it.

People aren't going to take down the source for a GPL violation. If anything, this will cause the source to be released under the GPL, so it's not illegal to use/host the source code.

Surely the idea of checking other games for GPL violations has the potential to open more codebases, lest the offenders risk financial penalties.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#122

Post by mewse »

zaarn wrote: post #98
dijit wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always surprised when I see you here but I’m not sure why. Anyway. I can corroborate this. Debug code is /really/ harming performance in AAA games. Also, you want to remove your “cheats” that QC use to skip chunks of the game.

Older games are known for still containing various cheats to skip chunks of the game or make them easier. I'd guess a PS1 game might still have debug left in along with cheats simply either due to time pressure or someone forgot.

In my experience, we would leave the cheats in retail builds of those old games mostly because leaving them in was less risky than removing them. They had been there during all of development and testing, and we were reasonably certain of the build’s stability, but.. pull them out and your compiled code layout changes, data layout potentially changes, and who knows whether it’ll expose a new misbehaviour we’ve never seen before or know to regression test.

It’s just much much much safer to leave the debugging assistants (level skip, etc) in place. Especially back in the days when we couldn’t issue patches after release!

(Also, depending on era, you could feed a cheat code or two to magazines/websites/etc to get another article written about your game.. doubt that trick works any more, though!)

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#123

Post by CodeArtisan »

Endy wrote: post #99
haecceity wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it common to leave debug code in production software?

If one checks on TCRF, it's a lot more common than developers would like us to believe.

Games with debugging functions: https://tcrf.net/Category:Games_with_debugging_functions

Games with hidden development-related text: https://tcrf.net/Category:Games_with_hidden_development-rela...

Games with uncompiled source code: https://tcrf.net/Category:Games_with_uncompiled_source_code

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#124

Post by louthy »

davb wrote: post #114

I'm less interested in the GPL violation aspect, and mot excited to get an insight into what it was like to work on that team, 20 years ago. Minutiae like how to burn a build to CD https://twitter.com/0xGradius/status/1137123492329951232?s=1... feels like a window into the past.

Burning a build CD wasn’t anything special, the PS1 dev kits read normal CDs (didn’t have the copy protection). Burning of any CD was flaky back in the day (lack of decent buffering)

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#125

Post by lmm »

zucker42 wrote: post #117
lmm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two wrongs don't make a right. The way the GPL works is: you are given permission to redistribute someone's copyrighted work provided you comply with particular conditions (such as providing similar permission to your end users). If you don't stay within those conditions, then you're violating that person's copyright (you're redistributing their work without permission) and they can sue you. But that doesn't mean tha…

As a note, the FSF says on their website that their primary goal in any GPL litigation is to get the company to release the source under the GPL.

True, and in practice most copyright holders who release their work under the GPL feel similarly. However, in general a copyright holder is under no obligation to accept such a settlement, and in principle if you distribute GPLed work without conforming to the GPL terms then you are liable for statutory damages (in the US, $50k for accidental infringement and $150k for wilful infringement, per act of infringement) just like for any other act of copyright infringement.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#126

Post by nfriedly »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #68
nfriedly wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. When I was at IBM, part of releasing something was a review every of dependency and it's license. The stuff I worked on wasn't allowed to include any GPL code. (Or WTFPL, for that matter, but I think that had more to do with curse words than actual license issues.)

Couldn't you just "relicense" WTFPL code as MIT code (or proprietary code, for that matter) and call it a day?

Haha, probably, but it wasn't a big deal to replace it with something else.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#127

Post by HenryBemis »

isostatic wrote: post #106
tylersmith wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The violation is in the distribution. If the current copyright holder distributed copies then he violated the license but more than likely they simply own the copyright to the code and other IP but haven't distributed anything.

So form a company Profit from blatant copyright infringement When the court case eventually comes, wind up the company, move the assets to another company, and you’re quids in

Exactly how @teddyh wrote. Make sure you don't tell anyone, don't write it on emails, don't even sleeptalk about this. A judge will get to decide if you were geniunly unknowngly broke some rules, or you are messing with him/her. I will assume that judges don't appreciate being messed around with :)

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#128

Post by eru »

lmm wrote: post #125
zucker42 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a note, the FSF says on their website that their primary goal in any GPL litigation is to get the company to release the source under the GPL.

True, and in practice most copyright holders who release their work under the GPL feel similarly. However, in general a copyright holder is under no obligation to accept such a settlement, and in principle if you distribute GPLed work without conforming to the GPL terms then you are liable for statutory damages (in the US, $50k for accidental infringement and $150k for wilful infringement, per act of infringement) ju…

Is that any copy sold, or eg any release of your software?

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#129

Post by eru »

peatmoss wrote: post #35

I wonder if there’s an ML approach that could be used to fingerprint binaries compiled from GPL code. Then I wonder if that could be used to justify discovery / win a suit. I have no idea how this would work, but it strikes me as plausible?

You could use it for discovery. To win a suit you still need to get someone with standing to sue in the first place. That's often harder.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#130

Post by icebraining »

vageli wrote: post #86
tzs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because ip cameras are shipped with binary Linux kernel images they should also provide either the exact source used or an offer of how to get the source. These kind of devices can lead to an interesting situation. Let's say you make Linux-based IP cameras. You accompany every single one you ship with a CD-ROM containing the complete source code. This completely satisfies your GPL obligation with regard to that uni…

> > Because ip cameras are shipped with binary Linux kernel images they should also provide either the exact source used or an offer of how to get the source. > These kind of devices can lead to an interesting situation. > Let's say you make Linux-based IP cameras. You accompany every single one you ship with a CD-ROM containing the complete source code. This completely satisfies your GPL obligation with regard to th…

No, you either have to distribute the source with the binary, or provide an offer to ship the source upon request. You don't have to do both. (See section 3)
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