Is KeeperRL free enough?
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The games code seems to be GPL3 but the art but audio are not (though there is a all-text mode that's free). I'm just wondering what the forum here thinks of this particular arrangement, where the code is free but not assets? To me it seems optimal for a commercial FLOSS game, but I would like to hear other opinions.
Art AND audio I mean...
That discussion comes back over and over on this forum. See https://trisquel.info/forum/rejected-games-list for instance.
See rms' opinion too: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.en.html
He basically believes that nonfunctional parts only need to be freely redistributable in a non-commercial way. The functional parts (the software) must, of course, grant the four freedoms, including the same freedom 2 (hence, the whole game should be freely redistributable in a noncommercial way). See his talk "Copyright vs. Community" for a thorough rationale: http://audio-video.gnu.org
As an addendum for those interested on discussing this further:
So far I have checked most of the text files in the KeeperRL development
repository[1], and I have to say that so far the game SEEMS to be free
to me. Because:
* IF the free software philosophy considers text fonts (the
implementation, not the design[3]) as functional data (I personally tend
to consider that, because, for me, society is "capable" of
"suggesting"/imposing text fonts upon other members for practical works,
like the college where I study, which has a guideline for academic
publications that imposes the use of Arial and Times New Roman for the
articles, and I simply tend to ignore that "recommendation" in the hopes
that my grade doesn't get lower when something "unexpected" happens,
:D), then the Lato font used, that was made by Łukasz Dziedzic
(latofonts.com), is under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1, which
seems to be OK here[4].
* Although the files in the "data_free" directory are under a copyleft
license that revokes commercial redistribution, and the software is
under a copyleft license that grants commercial distribution, and since
software (in this case, KeeperRL) is functional data (contrary to the
files in the "data_free" directory, which are non-functional data), and
since the software SEEMS to not make adaptations of the non-functional
data in the "data_free" directory, I THINK that it everything is OK here
too. :D
* Last but not least, the font Symbola is, according to THEM[2], under
the public domain. Perhaps they're referring to Symbola, an icon font
for maps?[5].
HOWEVER, I couldn't find the "data" directory referenced in the
COPYING-MEDIA.txt file[2].
BESIDES, I (repeating: I) don't know if a software could be considered
free software if it has terms of use like that grant the freedom to use
some data only with the official binary distribution of the original
software (citing "Every file located in directory 'data' is granted to
use only with the official binary distribution of KeeperRL."[2])
REFERENCES
[1] https://github.com/miki151/keeperrl
[2] https://github.com/miki151/keeperrl/blob/master/COPYING-MEDIA.txt
[3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#Fonts
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