Game data may always be functional data.
Seeing you may not be able to use a game without it's data,
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/superfluous-returnz#comment-172834
seeing a user called andyprough typed
I don't see the problem - just don't download the non-functional data and play the game without any graphics, dialogue, music, sounds, sprites, etc. It will be awesome.
I think as a joke,
should all game data be considered functional data and need to be licensed under a free software license? Or will those games need to replace all the data to freely licensed data like mineclone2 may be doing.
https://git.minetest.land/MineClone2/MineClone2/pulls/1973
Though that than may need a clean room design.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
So games with non-free data may be more hard to edit or play unless the non-floss data is licensed under a "free as in freedom" license or replaced with a clean room design.
Unless a clean room design does not work with copyrighted things and only game machanics.
I found that link at
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?p=431893#p431893
after asking a question about any ZSTD patent grant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zstd#License
and how best to comply with GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL).
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=30112
Also I think that a user call throgh at
https://forums.hyperbola.info/viewtopic.php?pid=7366#p7366
may be correct in typing something like
Especially games need this data
Although I do not know about the grammar. I also think I have made mistakes in typing before in posts, or saving those posts at web.archive.org
I see at least 3 people may think games may be hard to play, or not possible to play without game data.
I do not know of any games that can be played on a computer without game data, unless it is something like chess in a terminal.
Also without any pointer icon and other things I will have to learn more terminal commands, with a data of a free typeface or something, so I can see what I'm typing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursor_(user_interface)#Pointer
So maybe most or all data is functional data.
Most game data are image and sound files. Those are clearly not functional data.
I sometimes play Capture the flag in minetest and I see other player characters because of the image on the model and hear the sound of digging nodes to help me know if players are digging near me.
Data that isn't functional, that doesn't do a practical job, is more of an adornment to the system's software than a part of it. Thus, we don't insist on the free license criteria for non-functional data. It can be included in a free system distribution as long as its license gives you permission to copy and redistribute, both for commercial and non-commercial purposes. For example, some game engines released under the GNU GPL have accompanying game information—a fictional world map, game graphics, and so on—released under such a verbatim-distribution license. This kind of data can be part of a free system distribution, even though its license does not qualify as free, because it is non-functional.
https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.en.html
The images and sound on the minetest game do the "practical job", I think, of letting me see other player characters and hear them. The game map lets me play.
Also there is a game letting me turn nodes into 3d prints. Though I did not test this yet.
https://content.minetest.net/packages/Warr1024/fdmcube/
It is under the the MIT license, I think.
So map data can be used for the practical job of making 3d prints, seeing that without it the fdmcube game can not do anything, I think.
What are examples of "Data that isn't functional, that doesn't do a practical job" or is non-functional data?
This looks like a good case to clarify what "accompanying game information" means: https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game.
Flare comes in two parts: flare-engine and flare-game.
"The Flare Engine is released under GPL version 3 or later."
"All of Flare's art and data files are released under CC-BY-SA 3.0. Later versions are permitted."
If I read the FSDG correctly, flare-game could be under a restrictive license that does not allow modified versions to be distributed. That would not prevent the whole game (flare-engine + flare-game) to be distributed as long as the unmodified version of flare-game can be distributed for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
The FSDG would not allow the game engine to be distributed if all four freedoms were not provided, but is less strict on game assets, which are not code. "Not doing a practical job" or "non-functional" should be interpreted in the narrow sense of not being code, even if the game would not be playable without. Flare makes it quite clear what is part of the code and what is part of the assets by shipping them in separate packages.
The interpretation of that paragraph is not clear to me either.
It first defines non-functional data as data that "doesn't do a practical job". However, "game information—a fictional world map, game graphics, and so on" clearly includes data that are doing such a job, which is a bit confusing since it would seemingly contradict the first sentence. A wallpaper image, for instance, would most certainly be covered by the exception as "adornment". Used as a background image in a point-and-click game, possibly not, even though in both cases it falls into the "game graphics" category. The first sentence seems to define "non-functional" more strictly, although a broader definition seems to be implicitly accepted.
Other possible examples of clearly non-functional data in a stricter sense would be a logo, a themed cursor, or the license itself. It is not clear to me how data are not doing a practical job if the software is not usable for its intended purpose without them. Maybe the wording should emphasize accompanying in "accompanying game information" to make things clearer: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/accompany.
>"seeing a user called andyprough typed..."
Good to see that this is all my fault as usual.