Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Good luck making an open source Pokemon game clone and see how it goes
Tuxemon. And before that, several more a few decades ago.
An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
221–230 of 265 posts
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
- OpenArena - Chip's Challange and custom levels pack - Freedoom+Blasmepher for Doom/Heretic - LibreQuake - Supertux2 - Oolite - Kgoldminner/XScavenger with level sets - Frozen Bubble - Any X11/console/9front sokoban clone. Everyone reuses the same level set over and over.
This list might just be survivor bias though - it only includes the projects where they didn’t get sued and taken down (either because the developer was ok with them, or because they strayed far enough into fair use). There are clear counter examples - see Tengen vs Nintendo, Nintendo vs Palworld, Microsoft vs halo inspired games, Microsoft vs Minecraft clones. Most are settled out court. Examples that go to court te…
The actual list at https://osgameclones.com it's so huge that literally invalidates any point stated by HN commenters ignoring that, yes, Giana Sisters for the C64 was taken down but after that several Mario shareware clones existed for PC and a few years later we even got Supertux and, in the 2000's, Secret Maryo Chronicles which got renamed in order to avoid any issues with "Mario" as a TM, but the gameplay was 99% the same of Super Mario World.
On software recreating something propietary:
- FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD... vs AT&T Unix.
- GNU+Linux or GNU+Hurd against propietary Unix kernels.
- Coreutils+Findutils+Sharutils... every tool reimplemented being propietary.
- Bash, GAWK, GCC, binutils, Clisp, SBCL, GNU GCJ+Classpath, Red, FreePascal+Lazarus, GNUStep+WMaker, LessTif, EMWM+Motif vs Irix' Maxx Desktop (still propietary, and from the 90's) Gaim, AMSN, 7zip, Haxima+Nahzgul (and Ultima it's still being sold at GOG), Supertux2, Supertuxkart, ReTux (very Wario like), Hexoshi (Metroid), SMC (Super Mario World), Pingus (Lemmings), XMMS/Xine cloning WinAmp and maybe PowerDVD (Xine with skins), WordTsar for Wordstar, Nano for propietary Pico (and Alpine for propietary Pine), BSD vi and Amiga vim for maybe propietary vi under AT&T/commercial Unix, Lincity and Lincity-NG for Simcity, FreeCiv against Civilization (it can use both the OG Civ rules and their custom ones), Frozen Bubble (I think the level set it's from the Neo Geo release), KGoldrunner and such for Lode Runner, Kapman for Pacman, every BSD shipping Tetris and Boggle, GNU Octave for Matlab....
The list example for both software and games being just reimplementation/clones of propietary tools goes on an on. Even DOS had propietary clones which had to reimplement the same interface as MSDOS because if not the tools written for it would just crash. Same commands, same output, same formating tools, same memory layout, they ran the same DOS binaries and drivers...
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Sony vs Bleem (or the IBM BIOS reimplementation) already set a precedent so that doesn't really matter anymore. Look at Wine. Or Exegutor. Or DOSBox. All of them totally legal reimplementing either prior look and feel and functionality.
> The code of computer programs are excluded from design protection, but visual aspects of software are very commonly protectable as long as they are ‘new’ (i.e. not a direct copy of anything that has come before) and possess ‘individual character’ (i.e. that the design produces a different ‘overall impression’ than anything that has come before) I'm no expect, but Chris Sawyer style games certainly provided a unique…
Wine literally copies both the Win32 UI -needed to respect that for interop- , some of the kernel functions and Win32 which is just an API implementation and not copyrighteable per se. If not, we woudn't have GNU. Or Microsoft services for Unix.
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sony vs Bleem. They already lost this case in court.
That was a very different case. Out of the two claims, the only one that made it to appeals court was about whether it was fair use for Bleem to use screenshots of PS1 games to advertise its emulator (which was compatible with those games). The Ninth Circuit decided it was. But that's not relevant here. The other claim was more relevant, as it was an unfair competition claim that apparently had something to do with B…
FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD at first when every BSD OS was just part of 386BSD it used to have AT&T code. That code was rewritten replacing every propietary part and after that (and noticing BSD 4.4 was incomplete) we got clean FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD from a NetBSD fork.
Another similar case with exact grounds was GNU which with Linux it completed an OS albeit in a hacky way, because the original OS would have been GNU+Hurd, but both are reimplementing Unix. Same SH derived shell, but extended. Kinda like OpenTTD. We have GNU Coreutils, Findutils, GNU AWK reimplementing and extending AWK (even when AWK was propietary), GNU Zip, Tar... the list goes on and on.
Oh, another one: Lesstif vs Motif. Same UI, if not very, very close to Motif 1.2 in order to be interoperable. Today it doesn't matter because nearly a decade a go Motif was relicensed into the GPL, but tons of libre software depending on propietary Motif was just seamlessly running with LessTIF libraries except for some rough edges/bugs. One of the most known example was DDD, a GUI for GDB.
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#225Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#226As 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.
Although I agree on the general point, it's technically not true that the internet is "still at open as it always was". Nation states are increasingly putting up barriers and filters, and (pushed by commercial interests) forcing people to identify themselves.
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can literally just go download it off their website for free That's cumbersome. The main benefit of platforms is comfort. Steam takes care of installation and updating, while often also offers some access with the community. Open internet has more choice and liberty, but for the price of more work and annoyance. That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too…
OpenTTD has an automatic update mechanism already and its installation is as simple as could be. Steam succeeded because of its store, which still has the best prices on the market. That’s their original moat. Their current moat is sunk costs. People have thousands of dollars in their Steam Library. At this point Steam’s advantages as software are negligible, especially considering its poor performance.
>Steam succeeded because of its store, which still has the best prices on the market. That’s their original moat. Their current moat is sunk cost.
Then how come epic games store is not able to get a foothold for years despite offering literally free games? Not even children which are most likely to use it because of Fortnite use it for anything but that. Steam is objectively the better store and game launcher regardless or price or "sunk cost".
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#228Now with AI I wonder if it’s possible to just let agents build a perfect emulation of the game. It reminds me of fuzzers. You let the agent go loose on the game and it brute forces every possible state. Then recreates the code. It’s very inefficient- but it probably works.
So https://malus.sh/ Good luck with all that
Is this service a joke? I'm not even sure after reading the reviews at the bottom there.
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#229Steam version of OpenTTD didn't make much sense to me, since I'm running JGRPP fork (https://github.com/JGRennison/OpenTTD-patches).
I wonder how many players won't be affected by its Steam disappearance.
Similar issue with other heavy modded games, such as Kerbal Space Program. The best way to handle multiple saves with different modpacks is multiple game installations, which is against the grain for the Steam version.
Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD
#230I 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…
Stealing what? I own my legal copy of Ars Fatalis which came as a free with a PC gaming magazine from Spain. Now I just use the game data with Arx Libertatis. No one was ripped.
If Ars Libertatis was complete they should have to create their own complete underground story replacing every asset and lore by hand, kinda like FreeDoom/Blasphemer and so on.
An actual libre engine reusing propietary data in a illegal way would be uMario, as it has literal ripped off BMP images pixel per pixel depicting SMB for the NES. And yet the game engine being GPL or MIT would be legal but the bundled game data is not; the creator would just have to use (and state the clear CC licenses) the copyleft artwork from Secret Maryo Chronicles or whatever it's being called today and everything would work as is.
Instead of Mario you would reuse SMC sprites being adapted for the contraints (pixel perfect for feet for instance) and so and the only issue would be that the levels themselves would be copyrighted.
A single level as Supertux2 does is not a copyright issue because well, it's just a single one and a clear homage to the first level of SMB and even the level is named like that. It might fall under fair use, if I were Nintendo I woudn't sue them because unlike uMario, Supertux2 did things in a respectful manner.
Bear in mind that OpenTTD never did what uMario it's doing. When it had no open content you had to point to the copyrighted data yourself, be from the demo, be from the full game. Later OpenGFX and OpenSFX were created to replace every commercial asset and now OpenTTD has a downloader to get all the CC assets yourself without needing no commercial data at all.
The open content doesn't even have the original levels from TTD as uMario does.