Why no Steam, Notch? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#111

Post by shin_lao » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 8:23 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #99

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has worked hard to torch the bridges between Mojang and the open-source communities surrounding Minecraft. He doesn't like people hacking his code, or creating tools which interoperate with his releases. You might have noticed that some mods have been pulled into the main Minecraft tree; the person doing that pulling is always jeb, another Mojang employee. Notch himself isn't very happy about it. Projects like Bra…

I would really like to see Notch release the whole thing under a non-commercial license. They should set up a bug tracker, develop in public, etc., and otherwise run as a normal OSS project, with the caveat that it is not full Free Software because of the clause preventing commercial activity. I appreciate RMS and the Four Freedoms and what it's done for software, but I think we'd see a lot more code and a lot more r…

You don't need the source code to extend a game (mod), you need a documented API.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#112

Post by kaffiene » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 9:55 AM UTC

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #53

mcantor wrote: post #4

I really admire how much Notch seems to understand opposing viewpoints that most people would simply make inflammatory posts about. His diplomacy here, as well as with Bethesda, has been stellar: Not "Steam is a DRM-ridden mess that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, bwa ha ha!", but instead, "I understand why they'd want to control their platform." Not "Bethesda are an Orwellian corporate giant trying to crush t…

He has worked hard to torch the bridges between Mojang and the open-source communities surrounding Minecraft. He doesn't like people hacking his code, or creating tools which interoperate with his releases. You might have noticed that some mods have been pulled into the main Minecraft tree; the person doing that pulling is always jeb, another Mojang employee. Notch himself isn't very happy about it. Projects like Bra…

What exactly is it that you think Notch owes you here? Did he ask you to hack on his code?

You're acting like your rights are infringed here in some way but I'm unsure where this sense of entitlement comes from?

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#113

Post by atomicdog » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 10:53 AM UTC

0x0x0x wrote: post #103

grey wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notch has a similar attitude, as expressed at http://www.minecraft.net/about.jsp , specifically "once sales start dying and a minimum time has passed, I will release the game source code as some kind of open source."

The difference of course is that id has a track record .

The difference is id's sources aren't shitty Java applets that noone wants to look through ;)

I kid, I kid...

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#114

Post by piaskal » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 11:11 AM UTC

0x0x0x wrote: post #103

grey wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notch has a similar attitude, as expressed at http://www.minecraft.net/about.jsp , specifically "once sales start dying and a minimum time has passed, I will release the game source code as some kind of open source."

The difference of course is that id has a track record .

Id games have lot's of artwork, levels, etc. that is not released under GPL. In minecraft it's users that create the content. Id can release their engines under GPL without harming their sales.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#115

Post by atomicdog » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 11:15 AM UTC

bugsy wrote: post #17

streptomycin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.minecraft.net/about.jsp > I'm not very happy with the draconian nature of (L)GPL

He's right that GPL is draconian and limits freedom. But I am not sure your point because you didn't state it. You have a drive by post where you post some cryptic excerpt that seems unrelated to the topic with no commentary. Are you a posting bot, or are you a person with a point? Speak clearly. Explain yourself. If the intent is to be critical of notch, I can't see any fault in his saying he hopes to release source…

>GPL is draconian and limits freedom.

How? Isn't the basis of GPL simply "Use this code however you want providing you make the source code you derive from it freely availble, too"?

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#116

Post by leon_ » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 11:26 AM UTC

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #53

mcantor wrote: post #4

I really admire how much Notch seems to understand opposing viewpoints that most people would simply make inflammatory posts about. His diplomacy here, as well as with Bethesda, has been stellar: Not "Steam is a DRM-ridden mess that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, bwa ha ha!", but instead, "I understand why they'd want to control their platform." Not "Bethesda are an Orwellian corporate giant trying to crush t…

He has worked hard to torch the bridges between Mojang and the open-source communities surrounding Minecraft. He doesn't like people hacking his code, or creating tools which interoperate with his releases. You might have noticed that some mods have been pulled into the main Minecraft tree; the person doing that pulling is always jeb, another Mojang employee. Notch himself isn't very happy about it. Projects like Bra…

Probably rather offtopic but: I've never understood the motivation behind "modding". Why put so much work into someone other's project instead of starting something own?

I understand modifying/augmenting open source - because it's a community effort and the result belongs to all of us. But creating modifications for commercial products you will never have any real rights on and then being angry with the owner when he tries to protect his baby/vision - that's just behind my horizon.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#117

Post by leon_ » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 11:33 AM UTC

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #108

sliverstorm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how you can publicly release the source and expect a license header to prevent people from compiling it at home, and jilting you of a sale. You can't have an activation function either- your customers have the source! Of course, he could just give up on the revenue, but I am sure like any real human being, he has probably grown fond of his new cash cow, and I don't blame him. Especially as this is his fi…

Colloquy for iOS does exactly this. Then again, you can't install a binary on your iOS device without a developer license, so I guess this model can't be replicated outside of iOS.

I do this too with some of my iOS apps. I put them GPL licensed onto github and anyone with the knowledge (and dev license from Apple) can get the apps practically for free.

But I'm not really vocal about that. If someone finds the source: great for them. If not great for my wallet ;)

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#118

Post by leon_ » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 11:44 AM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #30

dkersten wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything you said, except for the following: release as public domain, which means completely unencumbered and free In general, this is true, but some countries do not have a concept of public domain and so releasing it into the public domain would make it completely unusable to people in those countries. Personally, I would prefer either the BSD or MIT license or something like the WTFPL[1]. [1] http:…

Re: people in countries without public domain... is that a real actual problem that actually impacts people? I mean, suppose a user in Nopublicdomainistan uses some software that is released in the public domain... clearly the author is never going to come after them for a copyright violation, even if their local government doesn't recognize public domain as a concept, so what is the actual real world problem they fa…

> Nopublicdomainistan

Anyone said Germany? The concept of the "Urheberrecht" which many people falsly translate to copyright (it's more of a creator-right) is that you can not relinquish it in Germany. It's kinda like your mother can not "un-mother" herself from you ;)

That's why there's no real Public Domain in its purest form possible in Germany.

> clearly the author is never going to come after them. so what is the actual real world problem they face in this situation

The real problem is: A lack of legal certainty. You can not use PD in any bigger project if it is _possible_ that the original author might come after you.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#119

Post by codabrink » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 12:05 PM UTC

leon_ wrote: post #116

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has worked hard to torch the bridges between Mojang and the open-source communities surrounding Minecraft. He doesn't like people hacking his code, or creating tools which interoperate with his releases. You might have noticed that some mods have been pulled into the main Minecraft tree; the person doing that pulling is always jeb, another Mojang employee. Notch himself isn't very happy about it. Projects like Bra…

Probably rather offtopic but: I've never understood the motivation behind "modding". Why put so much work into someone other's project instead of starting something own? I understand modifying/augmenting open source - because it's a community effort and the result belongs to all of us. But creating modifications for commercial products you will never have any real rights on and then being angry with the owner when he…

My thoughts on why I would want to mod something very popular is because I would almost immediately have a following if my product is good. Also, I'd be able to create a mod that has functionality that I desire, and I'd get the satisfaction out of using it. And lastly, I don't know if this is always true, but it certainly makes you feel more elite changing the behavior of someone else's code rather than my own. There may be other reasons I haven't mentioned.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#120

Post by Goronmon » Tue, Aug 30, 2011, 12:48 PM UTC

leon_ wrote: post #116

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has worked hard to torch the bridges between Mojang and the open-source communities surrounding Minecraft. He doesn't like people hacking his code, or creating tools which interoperate with his releases. You might have noticed that some mods have been pulled into the main Minecraft tree; the person doing that pulling is always jeb, another Mojang employee. Notch himself isn't very happy about it. Projects like Bra…

Probably rather offtopic but: I've never understood the motivation behind "modding". Why put so much work into someone other's project instead of starting something own? I understand modifying/augmenting open source - because it's a community effort and the result belongs to all of us. But creating modifications for commercial products you will never have any real rights on and then being angry with the owner when he…

Probably rather offtopic but: I've never understood the motivation behind "modding". Why put so much work into someone other's project instead of starting something own?

For the same reason people use and license game engines made by other people instead of developing everything from scratch. A large chunk of some difficult work has been done for them.