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Publishing free software video games

writefreesoftware.org

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Re: Publishing free software video games

#91

Post by feoren »

User23 wrote: post #85
feoren wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suppose you're not a big fan of puppies then? > right to repair This has absolutely nothing to do with copyright except that you lump them both together under "freedom". That's your arbitrary grouping, not mine. You're free to use tape to fix your copy of Harry Potter if it rips. Nobody has ever disputed that. You're not free to mass produce copies of it and sell it for profit. I am arguing that it's okay that an…

> Computer programs are radically different from literary and artistic works. It’s unsurprising that laws that were designed for paper books are less than a great fit for software. Indeed, software probably shouldn’t be eligible for copyright protection at all. Recipes which are another species of algorithm aren’t accorded copyright protection because they are simply a set of instructions. > Perhaps we should all wor…

> Recipes which are another species of algorithm aren’t accorded copyright protection because they are simply a set of instructions.

Yet Recipe Books (particular curated collections of recipes) are afforded copyright protection. If your argument is that copyright should not be given to general algorithms like the FFT, new methods of fast matrix multiplication, the Carmack Hack, etc., then I actually completely agree with you. In all art, there is a level too granular to be copyrightable. In music, it's chord progressions and simple, obvious melodies. In books, it's common idioms and simple sentences like "Terrified, he ran." In programming, it's basic/common algorithms, design patterns, and commonly used control flow. None of that should be afforded copyright protection, and I hate seeing the frivolous lawsuits that come up in all those fields based on these trivial similarities.

Besides, modern Haskell or C# or TypeScript or Rust code is not simply a set of instructions. You could argue that assembly language is. But the vastly different ways to express the same logical things in different languages, including comments, naming conventions, clever tricks, etc. all together comprise a body of artwork (yes, artwork) that is clearly copyrightable.

For what it's worth: IMO code should not be eligible for patent protection. It's actually possible for someone to dislike software patents, support right to repair, and also support copyright protection for programmers.

> you should be paying the users of your proprietary software because you are observably reducing the value of their computer compared to a free alternative

It's hard to argue I'm straw-manning you when you make such obviously outrageous statements. This statement is like a caricature of everything I'm claiming the FSF is.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#92

Post by mrguyorama »

qwery wrote: post #31
DeathArrow wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A friend explained to me that the real benefit of foss is the community building huge things together, faster and better than any individual. Any example of a highly successful video game developed from start as open source by the community as opposed to a company releasing their source code for free after launching a game?

Not sure what qualifies as 'highly successful', 'from the start', etc. but Mindustry[0] is GPL, is actively updated, accepts and includes contributions from third parties and is available commercially. [0] https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry

Also it's fun, addicting, and pretty polished.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#93

Post by mrguyorama »

OldHunter69X wrote: post #47
hu3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rabbit hole warning! The video "The History of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead" (35 minutes) desmonstrates how an open source community can make great games! In this case, a post-apocalyptic roguelike game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nHtcmnQQvU For an, exoctic, 11 minute review of the game watch "Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead Review | Don't Drink Toilet Water" by SsethTzeentach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyoj4-niE…

Sseth turned me onto this game, as he has turned me onto many. His content isn't for everybody, but for it's target demographic, it is top of the line. I look forward to checking out the first video link.

I would describe his style as "4chan chique".

Re: Publishing free software video games

#94

Post by mrguyorama »

mid-kid wrote: post #44
KronisLV wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm 100% certain your code is better than a switch statement with over 4000 cases. Then there's cases like that Yandere Simulator game, the source code of which got released/leaked and apparently it was so bad that people were making videos taking it apart, but also possibly because they disliked how the developer was leading the project: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=yandere+simulat... But also appa…

Yandere Simulator's case was unique. You're right that people were angry at the guy in general, and he was also quite the internet clown. But it was the first time I've seen so many people who don't program suddently have an oppinion on what good code is or isn't. When asked, they couldn't even explain why. I assure you, half of those videos are filled to the brim with milquetoast examples that I really don't feel co…

The reason Yandere dev got so much vitriol (besides generally being a gross human being) is that he loudly proclaimed that his code was great, and he was the best programmer, while doing things like making trivial O(n^2) loops in a game that ran terribly precisely due to those things. He also constantly sought free work from fans that he could profit off of, and even when people offered to help him make his code not atrocious, he pushed them away and was a toxic dick about everything.

He's the exact kind of "I'm the best" that every professional has run into before and cleaned up after.

This wasn't some amateur doing his best with limited resources to give a fun experience to the world, this was a hateful, angry person earning $3500 a month in patreon subscriptions begging for free 3D models from his fans, berating them for giving him free 3D models that "weren't good enough", and refusing to spend a single dime of that revenue on fixing, finishing, polishing, improving etc his abortion of a video game.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#95

Post by mrguyorama »

noduerme wrote: post #35

>> But my code is embarrassing! This has always been the first reason I haven't open-sourced some of my code. The second being that it's also totally useless, and lots of people could write it better.

The most embarrassing code I have ever written is the only thing on my public github. Everyone writes shit code at one point or another. Most people even have that fun experience where you openly mock some terrible code only to git-blame and see your own name.

If you have never been embarrassed by your code, you probably haven't stuck around at a single job long enough to see it cause problems.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#96

Post by mrguyorama »

hospitalJail wrote: post #54
Zambyte wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely do not understand this mindset. How will you get better at writing code if you never get feedback about how your code would be better?

Experience. You run the code and its (mostly) obvious if it works or not. For the first 9 years of programming I never shared my code publicly. My code wasnt useful to other people, so it wasnt a big deal. Then I finally decided to become a professional programmer, I decided to post my best code. No one ever cared. Today, 13 years of programming experience, I have no problem posting my code. I have written helper fun…

One of the worst little utilities I have ever written was the SOP for managing user permissions for 4 years after I puked it onto our internal bitbucket as a personal toy that might be helpful. This despite being awful, ugly, unfriendly, literally broken in some normal use cases, fundamentally flawed, and extremely irregular in it's usage.

It was never fixed. I don't think I even got any grief for it. At the end of the day, I had built a utility that went some of the way towards fixing a problem that nobody else was tackling. Shitty code running and working will always beat perfect code nobody ever writes. The most important lesson I have learned to be a better software developer is that if you don't write SOMETHING, no matter how awful it is, you will never get anything done, and you can always make it better.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#97

Post by User23 »

feoren wrote: post #91
User23 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Computer programs are radically different from literary and artistic works. It’s unsurprising that laws that were designed for paper books are less than a great fit for software. Indeed, software probably shouldn’t be eligible for copyright protection at all. Recipes which are another species of algorithm aren’t accorded copyright protection because they are simply a set of instructions. > Perhaps we should all wor…

> Recipes which are another species of algorithm aren’t accorded copyright protection because they are simply a set of instructions. Yet Recipe Books (particular curated collections of recipes) are afforded copyright protection. If your argument is that copyright should not be given to general algorithms like the FFT, new methods of fast matrix multiplication, the Carmack Hack, etc., then I actually completely agree…

> Besides, modern Haskell or C# or TypeScript or Rust code is not simply a set of instructions. You could argue that assembly language is. But the vastly different ways to express the same logical things in different languages, including comments, naming conventions, clever tricks, etc. all together comprise a body of artwork (yes, artwork) that is clearly copyrightable.

Mathematical and logical formulas also aren't subject to copyright, so your Haskell argument doesn't hold water even if we do allow that functional code somehow isn't clearly reducible to a set of instructions.

The correct solution is to come up with some kind of legal regime that's actually designed for software rather than trying to torture a law for printing presses into saying something meaningful and equitable about software.

> It's hard to argue I'm straw-manning you when you make such obviously outrageous statements. This statement is like a caricature of everything I'm claiming the FSF is.

What's outrageous about the statement that software that I am free to modify has greater value than software that performs the same function but that I am not free to modify?

Re: Publishing free software video games

#98

Post by ZeWaka »

cmdrk wrote: post #51
Kinrany wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space station 13 is the best example. It technically started closed source, but has been open source with countless forks existing in parallel for at least 90% of its lifetime.

AFAIK, SS13 had a number of source code leaks that resulted in popular forks as well. Not exactly the spirit of FOSS.

Not really. No servers based off of leaked source code have really lasted - they get nuked by the larger community.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#99

Post by feoren »

User23 wrote: post #97
feoren wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recipes which are another species of algorithm aren’t accorded copyright protection because they are simply a set of instructions. Yet Recipe Books (particular curated collections of recipes) are afforded copyright protection. If your argument is that copyright should not be given to general algorithms like the FFT, new methods of fast matrix multiplication, the Carmack Hack, etc., then I actually completely agree…

> Besides, modern Haskell or C# or TypeScript or Rust code is not simply a set of instructions. You could argue that assembly language is. But the vastly different ways to express the same logical things in different languages, including comments, naming conventions, clever tricks, etc. all together comprise a body of artwork (yes, artwork) that is clearly copyrightable. Mathematical and logical formulas also aren't…

> The correct solution is to come up with some kind of legal regime that's actually designed for software

Sure, I agree with that. You told me to revise my expectations for something much less unrealistic than that, though. But let's work toward it anyway. In the meantime, let's extend copyright protection to programmers and stop shaming them for accepting it.

> Mathematical and logical formulas also aren't subject to copyright

But mathematical journal paper submissions are! This is not a counter-argument. My point is that code is more than just its function. Code is written for humans, not for computers. Let me ask you this: if your code doesn't compile, is it really a sequence of instructions? No, it's not! It's still copyrightable, though.

> {Outrageous statement} ... "that's outrageous!" ... what's outrageous about {entirely different, much softer statement}!?

This is boring.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#100

Post by User23 »

feoren wrote: post #99
User23 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Besides, modern Haskell or C# or TypeScript or Rust code is not simply a set of instructions. You could argue that assembly language is. But the vastly different ways to express the same logical things in different languages, including comments, naming conventions, clever tricks, etc. all together comprise a body of artwork (yes, artwork) that is clearly copyrightable. Mathematical and logical formulas also aren't…

> The correct solution is to come up with some kind of legal regime that's actually designed for software Sure, I agree with that. You told me to revise my expectations for something much less unrealistic than that, though. But let's work toward it anyway. In the meantime, let's extend copyright protection to programmers and stop shaming them for accepting it. > Mathematical and logical formulas also aren't subject t…

> In the meantime, let's extend copyright protection to programmers and stop shaming them for accepting it.

Who is shaming programmers for accepting copyright protection? The entire free software copyleft concept, while admittedly a kludge, rests on programmers having copyright protection. However, I and many others can and will continue to shame anyone who violates user freedom because violating the rights of others is shameful behavior.

> This is boring.

Lots of things are boring when you willfully misinterpret them.

Don’t you agree that you’re providing more value by offering software that respects user freedoms than by not?

The problem is you’re relying on copyright to create economic opportunity at the cost of user freedom. A better approach for everyone involved would to be a system that rewards respect for user freedom since that’s providing more value than not. Unfortunately trying to pound the square copyright peg into that round hole just doesn’t work very well so it’s strange that an idealist like you is advocating it so strongly.

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