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An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

openttd.org

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Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#191

Post by TheCycoONE »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #102
JoshTriplett wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thing is, they own it. No, they don't. They own the game data, and the original game engine. They don't own the reimplemented Open Source game engine. OpenTTD did not have to do anything here. It sounds like they had a very positive interaction with Atari, in which Atari is providing them with some support and collaboration, and in exchange for that, OpenTTD agreed to formalize the requirement for "you need to own…

Though it's no longer a clone, it literally was a clone when it first started (you were even supposed to supply your own totally legitimately acquired asset packs). So it'd be pretty much impossible to claim the engine came about as a clean room implementation. And of course, even if maybe they could win a court case (honestly don't think they could) the mere threat of one would likely make openttd quit.

CorsixTH requires Theme Hospital assets but we didn't clone or otherwise steal anything that we ship, we require you to supply the assets precisely because we aren't. I presume that's true of OpenTTD as well. In the United States copyright protection for games covers the art and text but not the rules and Oracle vs. Google established reimplentations being fair even when exposing the same api. Truely novel game rules can be protected by patents per Nintendo.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#192

Post by ThunderSizzle »

AuthAuth wrote: post #139
superxpro12 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about as much as you can hope for tbh. More than a fair compromise. Society has become quite 'entitled' to 'free' things. As popular as they are, torrents and free streams and emulation and clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something. I know thats an unpopular thing to say but it a fact. Now, those rights violations viewed in a larger context may change one's opinion on the whole, and I'm…

Are they really stealing it though? They only brought the IP 30 years later they didnt make it or put any work towards it. The openTTD community has easily done 100x the work to extend the game.

This makes me wonder why squatter's rights are not a thing here...but I don't know much about the current and previous legal status of the open genres like OpenTTD.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#193

Post by Rapzid »

lstodd wrote: post #27
legitster wrote: post #15

As a sidenote, this whole situation implies just how important platforms are. Nothing about OpenTTD has changed. You can literally just go download it off their website for free - same as it was 20 years ago. And you can add it to your Steam library just fine. It's only been on the Steam store for 5 of those years. But the open internet is dead now and just being "de-merchandised" from a platform feels like being rel…

Open internet is dead only to those that don't take the effort to discover. Otherwise it's still as open as it always was. Since there was an internet to speak of, there always were and still are vast amounts of people unaware of stuff that exists, limited by no "platforms" but only by their own lack of desire.

I played quite a bit of OpenTTD a year or so ago and I'm pretty sure I downloaded it straight from their site.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#194

Post by altairprime »

legitster wrote: post #22
paxys wrote: post #4

I'm sure I'm missing some context but what is Atari's role here exactly? Isn't OpenTTD an independent and fully legal project? What is Atari's basis for asking for a "compromise"? Or is it just the case that the project maintainers got paid off?

These are not people ripping off TTD to make a buck. If you absolutely love the game so much that you spent 20 years modding it, you're going to have some respect for the original and the publisher and are probably glad they are interested again. I get that it's not the same Atari as it was 30 years ago. But I liken it to you being a Beatles cover band and the estate of John Lennon reaches out to you, you're going to…

See also what happened with Tron 2.0, where Disney unexpectedly published a software patch 20 years later that obsoleted the community work necessary to get it running on modern Windows 10+. The community was ecstatic, not offended, that the IP owner had randomly decided to contribute. Sure, a lot of their work was either disrupted or nullified, but that's not someone 'ripping off' the community's investment — that's someone validating the community's investment. Given how other companies act, 'validation and cooperation' after a long drought of inattention is perhaps the least likely outcome here. It's so nice to see it.

(Of course, in an ideal world, companies would not be wholly inattentive to older properties — but that's basically unsolvable without economic-level solutions for the problems of capitalism, so I don't have any ideas specific to video games to offer.)

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#195

Post by Macha »

mghackerlady wrote: post #57
Macha wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two issues: 1. OpenTTD is not a clean room rewrite. It started by disassembling the original game and manually converting to C++ on a piecemeal basis. 2. As the game was updated, sure lots of this code has been rewritten. Almost certainly the majority. But has all of it been legally rewritten? Ehh... much less clear. This sort of process has generally been held to produce a derived work of whatever you're clo…

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't BSD in a similar legal limbo for a while? In that case wouldn't there be precedent for such projects to be legally fine so long as they've existed long enough and been heavily modified?

BSD was resolved by a settlement of BSD dropping a handful of disputed files and mutual copyright acknowledgement after it was determined that the company suing them also infringed in BSD’s copyright, so as precedent it’s pretty inconclusive

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#196

Post by itsdesmond »

Barrin92 wrote: post #146
itsdesmond wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is as good an argument as saying that Americans with unhealthy diets bear sole responsibility, ignoring the massive corporate efforts to convince them of the healthfulness of highly processed foods. While, obviously, individuals have ultimate responsibility for their actions, ignoring the concerted efforts to influence those actions through psychology, marketing/ads, paid “experts”, paid influencers and celebrit…

>ignoring the concerted efforts to influence those actions Ignorance isn't the point. The issue is that it's your responsibility to stop them. the buck always stops at "I". Are they just going to stop themselves? Is your neighbor going to stop them for you? If so, why should she if you don't? As Kant said, enlightenment is getting out of your self inflicted tutelage. When is it self inflicted? When you have the reaso…

People who are not aware of a topic are not lacking courage for not engaging in it. Being damned without awareness of salvation is more of a St. Augustine thing. And Kant said my ancestors were less than human, so fuck him.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#197

Post by 2postsperday »

dang wrote: post #157

Recent and related. Others? Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47381746 - March 2026 (131 comments)

I don't really get why you put 'Others?'

What kind of question is 'Others?' is doesn't even make any sense. It just pisses me off.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#198

Post by matheusmoreira »

aeturnum wrote: post #70

I don't have much to add except to say that I think this is a stand-out example of how companies and preservationists should work together and not against each other. The childish folks who are upset about this aren't familiar with the realties of either open source games perseveration nor the realities of being an IP holder. This is as close as we have gotten to the Good Place. I wish Atari luck on the re-release an…

Completely agree. They didn't go after the developers. They didn't shut people down. They didn't threaten legal action. Looks like they just reached out to the people involved in the project and peacefully worked with them instead, even helped with the server costs. Looks like everybody is winning here. Everything is at peace.

I've gained huge respect for Atari. It's a breath of fresh air compared to the likes of EA, Nintendo, Square Enix.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#199

Post by Barrin92 »

itsdesmond wrote: post #196
Barrin92 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ignoring the concerted efforts to influence those actions Ignorance isn't the point. The issue is that it's your responsibility to stop them. the buck always stops at "I". Are they just going to stop themselves? Is your neighbor going to stop them for you? If so, why should she if you don't? As Kant said, enlightenment is getting out of your self inflicted tutelage. When is it self inflicted? When you have the reaso…

People who are not aware of a topic are not lacking courage for not engaging in it. Being damned without awareness of salvation is more of a St. Augustine thing. And Kant said my ancestors were less than human, so fuck him.

>People who are not aware

who isn't aware? If we were in the 80s and you lived in a village without an internet connection, sure but today everyone is aware of the means to liberate their computing environment or whatever else is bugging them. That's not an excuse any more for virtually anyone. The average American spends, not metaphorically 'literally', actually literally five hours per day on their smartphone. If you can doom scroll for five hours you can learn how to use linux, or get on a treadmill to lose some pounds.

the reality is people have the option to choose between comfort and autonomy and they voluntarily choose the former and call people annoying who preach about internet freedom and privacy. Which they might very well be but it also makes it clear they know and don't care.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#200

Post by matheusmoreira »

superxpro12 wrote: post #106
aeturnum wrote: post #70

I don't have much to add except to say that I think this is a stand-out example of how companies and preservationists should work together and not against each other. The childish folks who are upset about this aren't familiar with the realties of either open source games perseveration nor the realities of being an IP holder. This is as close as we have gotten to the Good Place. I wish Atari luck on the re-release an…

This is about as much as you can hope for tbh. More than a fair compromise. Society has become quite 'entitled' to 'free' things. As popular as they are, torrents and free streams and emulation and clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something. I know thats an unpopular thing to say but it a fact. Now, those rights violations viewed in a larger context may change one's opinion on the whole, and I'm…

> clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something

It's not illegal to create a compatible game engine. The functional ideas inside the games are not protected by copyright. So long as games are clean room reverse engineered there should be no problem.

Actually, even if the reverse engineering was not clean room, it might not be a problem.

Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corp.

> The object code of a program may be copyrighted as expression, 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), but it also contains ideas and performs functions that are not entitled to copyright protection. See 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).

> Object code cannot, however, be read by humans.

> The unprotected ideas and functions of the code therefore are frequently undiscoverable in the absence of investigation and translation that may require copying the copyrighted material.

> We conclude that, under the facts of this case and our precedent, Connectix's intermediate copying and use of Sony's copyrighted BIOS was a fair use for the purpose of gaining access to the unprotected elements of Sony's software.

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