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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

#251

Post by tomik0091 »

Closi wrote: post #30
jorl17 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that, while it is a rewrite, it was done so through disassembling the original game, not via a clean room implementation. I find this particularly relevant given that the original was written (mostly) in assembly too.

Also even if it is a ground up rewrite, the look and feel still matters. Try creating a 1:1 dupe of a Hermes bag or a Rolex and see how their legal team reacts (even if you call it an OpenBirk)

The maker movement died partly because the gap between "cool prototype" and "actual product people use" was too big. Vibe coding has the same risk but the gap is smaller. The biggest friction point right now isnt building, its deployment. Thats why I built vibmy.com where you paste code and its live in 5 seconds. If we can keep shrinking that gap between idea and live product, vibe coding has a real shot at sticking around unlike 3d printing did

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#252

Post by anthk »

Closi wrote: post #250
anthk wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your example can't stand out a simple analysis since both GNU and BSD reimplemented propietary UNIX without the original code, as the OpenTTD rewrite is. How come OpenTTD works on a G4 PowerPC arch if the original code was written in x86 assembly? GNU AWK it's literally copycat of Unix AWK having all of the functionality of the original AWK without being bound to the original source. So is GCC vs any vendored Uni…

GNU != Transport Tycoon Different types of media get treated differently by courts. If you repaint a painting 1:1 then you are liable to copyright. If you make a song that is too substantially similar you are liable to penalties. If your branding is too similar to the Oscar’s or Starbucks you are liable for infringement. On the other hand if you reimplement Java the courts have decided that’s OK. Different media are…

Both OpenTTD and FreeDoom have identical gameplay to the originals but different assets. Also, the level layouts are different in both games as the scenarios are copyrighted, not the concept of the game themselves.

If anyone wrote custom cities, textures, scripts and so on with the OpenMW engine you are totally free to do so even if the result looks eerily similar to Morrowing but not being the same game at all, if any sharing a fantasy RPG setting and that's it.

Ditto with OpenArena being a total clone of the Quake3 Arena concept but with different levels and assets, and virtually it's the same game at a 99%. You can totally sell OpenArena or any new game reusing these assets if you comply with both the GPL and the CC license from the media.

Dave Gnukem it's an obvious Duke Nukem (pre-3D) clone and even if it can't play the original game, it can be trivially adapted to reuse the original textures and level sets in order to get a very close gameplay to the original. And yet no one sued them.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#253

Post by lstodd »

toyg wrote: post #226
lstodd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All things considered it's still much easier to get to the open internet through those laughable barriers than in say 1995 over 14400 modem tied to a landline of quite horrible quality. And I actually worked at dialup ISP in 1996-1998.

Push to identify is tied to platforms again, which aren't quite what I'd consider open. Filters are meh, minimal technical competence, much less than was required in 1990s and you get through no problem. Until the moment the government idiots panic and cut off connectivity entirely it's fine. And if it came to that, you'd better be fleeing the country because the next steps are death squads knocking at your door and cruise missiles/drones raining.

Many people here are very worried about discoverability. I find this baffling tbh. It's as if "internet" is the top 10 google results and no more.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#254

Post by anthk »

ikiris wrote: post #208
20k wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean room reimplementations of software projects have been tested in court and are legally fine

Software projects that do things like edit spreadsheets, transform data, do calculations, yes. Software projects that are themselves a type of art that is itself copyrighted, lol no.

Eh, that's a bit of bullshit; I've seen floss Mario/Puzzle Bubble/Pang and such since forever and no one was sued.

Heck, back in the day Rogue was propietary and commercial (and thanks to that we got both the roguelike genre and the Curses library) and yet Hack was born as a libre clone and from Hack we got the now uber known Nethack and forks like Slashem.

Cloning commercial games it's older than Windows 95 itself and probably as old as the NES.

The https://osgameclones.com has so many examples that you whole point gets invalidated since the first Hack release for Unix. And Tetris for Terminals, MSDOS and the like.

Hell, in the 90's everyone in Europe (children of blue collar workers) got a Russian Tetris clone -oh the irony- called Brick Game with often several micro low-res commercial game clones such as for Frogger and Battle Tank. No one sued that company ever, even if the Tetris concept itself was for sure patented and copyrighted. And that game was probably sold by millions, maybe even more than the Game Boy if we count every clone sold with different plastic cases, because you could get one for the price of a book and today for less than a fast food ration.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#255

Post by freehorse »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #160
freehorse wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hire the guy behind OpenTTD > commercial version > monetized expansion It is not clear to me whether turning (future evolutions of) OpenTTD commercial and monetising it is a preferable scenario for its community.

I think it could be beneficial for players, if having a passionate developer able to spend more time working on it allows them to make future evolutions significantly better than they could be in a world where the developer only has time to work on it passively. That said, I am generally a proponent of indie game developers being paid for their work, as an indie game developer myself, so my personal bias may certainl…

Not all people want to be paid for a hobby project, and not all game communities prefer having more "game features" with corpo backing. I am not saying one is better or worse, more moral or less, nor what is the case here, but it is not clear to me why this is a scenario that either the devs or the community prefer, as it was presented as "what atari should have done". I understand why many indie devs want to be paid for their indie games, but I don't want to assume that is the case for everybody with a hobby project.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#256

Post by freehorse »

philistine wrote: post #190
freehorse wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> open source is getting screwed over It may have been "screwed over" if there was no access to the oss game. But you can still download the game from their website. They just do not want that these appear as competitors in steam/gog platforms, so they bundled the oss version. Both sides thought this was a reasonable resolution. Thus I don't see "screwing over" here.

Open source is a culture that includes its users. Open source is getting screwed over because at the first whiff of a capitalist losing a buck open source retreated and hid.

The game is still distributed freely through the internet, only restricted within the main commercial platforms. I think that commercial platforms and "open source culture" will sometimes inevitably clash. Open source culture requires de fact non-reliance on such platforms anyway.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#257

Post by aeturnum »

Suppafly wrote: post #243
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…

What a weird bootlicking POV. Atari has no real standing to even ask for this to happen and I suspect if they hadn't agreed to donate to OpenTTD, the OpenTTD folks would be singing a different tune.

wow - bootlicking! What boot am I licking? Atari has the rights to the original TTD and they could be so, so much less friendly to the OpenTTD project under our current legal system. That system sucks - I hate it and think we should dismantle it and build a better social / legal system for IP management, but it's what we are dealing with right now and we have to make the best of it.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#258

Post by Closi »

anthk wrote: post #252
Closi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNU != Transport Tycoon Different types of media get treated differently by courts. If you repaint a painting 1:1 then you are liable to copyright. If you make a song that is too substantially similar you are liable to penalties. If your branding is too similar to the Oscar’s or Starbucks you are liable for infringement. On the other hand if you reimplement Java the courts have decided that’s OK. Different media are…

Both OpenTTD and FreeDoom have identical gameplay to the originals but different assets. Also, the level layouts are different in both games as the scenarios are copyrighted, not the concept of the game themselves. If anyone wrote custom cities, textures, scripts and so on with the OpenMW engine you are totally free to do so even if the result looks eerily similar to Morrowing but not being the same game at all, if a…

We are going around in circles. Of all the examples, Dave Gnukem quite obviously infringes the trademark. Again, just because no one sued them doesn't mean it's not succeptible to a trademark infringement claim if the IP owners wanted to sue.

While I am aware they claim parody law exempts them, see the enforcement of other brands (e.g. Starbucks) and see how far that goes once it gets to court.

But I don't think I'm going to convince you, and I don't think you are going to convince me, so I'll just disagree agreeably and this will be my last message.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#259

Post by Suppafly »

aeturnum wrote: post #257
Suppafly wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird bootlicking POV. Atari has no real standing to even ask for this to happen and I suspect if they hadn't agreed to donate to OpenTTD, the OpenTTD folks would be singing a different tune.

wow - bootlicking! What boot am I licking? Atari has the rights to the original TTD and they could be so, so much less friendly to the OpenTTD project under our current legal system. That system sucks - I hate it and think we should dismantle it and build a better social / legal system for IP management, but it's what we are dealing with right now and we have to make the best of it.

>and they could be so, so much less friendly to the OpenTTD project under our current legal system

Explain how? Beyond the idea that anyone can sue anyone else for anything and cause some minor trouble, what actual cause of action do you think Atari has against the OpenTTD project?

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#260

Post by applfanboysbgon »

freehorse wrote: post #255
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it could be beneficial for players, if having a passionate developer able to spend more time working on it allows them to make future evolutions significantly better than they could be in a world where the developer only has time to work on it passively. That said, I am generally a proponent of indie game developers being paid for their work, as an indie game developer myself, so my personal bias may certainl…

Not all people want to be paid for a hobby project, and not all game communities prefer having more "game features" with corpo backing. I am not saying one is better or worse, more moral or less, nor what is the case here, but it is not clear to me why this is a scenario that either the devs or the community prefer, as it was presented as "what atari should have done". I understand why many indie devs want to be paid…

Well, yes. My main point was still about what Atari should have done. Atari buying rights to TTD is not guaranteed to be good for dev or community. But nonetheless, Atari should be trying to be doing something good for the community, good enough that they will pay it money so it can earn back its investment. That's how business should work, in a reasonable world: you create value for other people so they give you money.
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