Chojun wrote:
Buginator wrote:This is *very* bad news, I don't know why everyone is happy about this.
It depends on your point of view. The Free Software modus is a philosophy -- a movement, or, a set of opinions regarding software. Because of this fact, I respectfully submit that Buginator's post is his
opinion and is purely subjective.
Um, yes, it is my opinion, and it is also subjective. As is what everyone else is stating.
That doesn't mean what I speculated will *never* happen though.
The important thing to remember, as has been pointed out by Cybersphinx, DevUrandom, and Rman Virgil, the source will henceforth and forever be open-source. No matter who does what to Warzone's core source code, it will always be open source (have a little faith in the GPL..
). I think some of the concerns stem from the notion that everything won't be available to be contributed to the one monolithic "Warzone 2100." Pray tell, which is this version? As I've pointed out before, no-one owns
THE Warzone 2100. Tomorrow a private group could take any version of the source and use it to open up a wormhole to the Delta Quadrant (and bring down an alien invasion because of how badly-written the netcode is), or cure every disease on earth, and never release the sourcecode and binaries to the public.
While the original code will always be out there, that wasn't the point I was trying to make.
As stated in the license readme, the primary intent of the licensor in providing the source code is for "educational and entertainment purposes." This purpose has been served.
Ah yes, for educational use.
I rather that primary intent, and the spirit of the initial release keep on educating, and entertaining people.
However, if you have anything that is closed source, then it slams the door shut on the educational aspect of it, and instead, you stick up a big
in its place.
Sure, it still can be entertaining for non coders, but that goes against what I think was the original release, intended for other coders/developers.
DevUrandom wrote:Theoretically you could this way close-source (nearly) the whole game, by rewriting it piece by piece and putting the new code into closed-source libraries. You would only leave as much code in WZ so you could continue to use the name "Warzone 2100". Though: Will this ever happen?
Theoretically it is possible, but the more and more Warzone's core components are replaced by new/other libraries (closed or open-source), the more and more Warzone is Warzone in name only.
[
Looks like Devurandom got the gist of what I was talking about...
I understand your point that as you move away from the open source, and start closing everything off, you would just be using Warzone's name only.
However, as I talked about before, this doesn't help out the community of developers/coders, it only sticks blockades in their way, and then they must reinvent the wheel by rewriting what was closed source. And if the original authors of the closed source portion(s) got sick/POed/other of the project, and they don't want to open their once closed source,then congratulation, you just killed off warzone, and the only way they can save warzone again, is to start from scratch.
I rather have everything open, and people can continue to build upon this game for decades/centuries to come, which isn't a problem with 100% GPL code.
I guess you can call it the linux kernel model versus the microsoft kernel model.
This is true. Fortunately for everyone here, this affects only us. This brings me to another point. The phrase comes to mind: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." The fact of the matter, that I'm not afraid to admit, is that Warzone, no matter which project is developing it, is an open-source project. A development model that keeps things as open as possible is clearly superior to any other, for open source projects. Recognizing that fact, it has always been our goal to be as open as possible (in our case only members have direct access to the source and all others have access to source snapshots). So back to that old addage, we, being in OSS-land, will do as OSS does (although clearly we will appear as tourists
xD ). All we wanted was to be able to legally distribute binaries linked with closed-source libraries so we can entertain the possibility of bringing certain technologies to Warzone. There is nothing more or less to what we want.
Just think, though, the new exception would allow someone to link and release Warzone to the Crytek engine O_O
Hmm, are you also wearing rosey colored glasses?
Yes, I *am* thinking of that, and while the Crytek engine won't fit in a RTS game, you have just made my point again.
If whoever makes a (in this case) a gfx engine that is vastly improved, and uses it for warzone, but it is closed source, they go against the spirit of the original intent '"educational and entertainment purposes."' And if said party then leaves the project for whatever reason, then nobody can pick up from where they left off.
To make it a bit clearer,
the exception should have only allowed the dlls that were needed to view the rpls. That is it. You don't leave the barn yard door wide open to allow what I speculated to happen.
This would have made much more sense, and would still allow (in your case) wz22k the needed dlls to distribute, and would have allowed everyone (coders & players alike) to enjoy the game forever. Nothing to hide, all out in the open for anyone to do with as they please, and will meet the original intentions of the source code release of
"educational and entertainment purposes.".
Of course, if anyone has a pet project that involves a closed-source library that they'd like to "plug-in" to Warzone, they're free to use our version as a test-bed...
Does Kamaze get a cut from all the advertising you guys do? xD