Do DRM free games matter even if the game is non-free?

133 réponses [Dernière contribution]
t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

You seem to have a counter argument for everything don't you? :-)

I just don't see the point in continuously having to ask money from people again and again through multiple rounds of funding. That's how you start to irritate your backers and they just want to you to release the damn thing already.

jxself
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A rejoint: 09/13/2010

"I just don't see the point in continuously having to ask money from people again and again through multiple rounds of funding. That's how you start to irritate your backers and they just want to you to release the damn thing already."

Yeah, if the people running the project are horrible and can't effectively plan and are always running out of money. "Oh, I know I said $20,000 would be enough but I was wrong and now need an additional $20,000 and then I'll be able to finish it. Oh, now I need $20,000 more but this really is the last time I promise." That shows poor planning and execution as I said.

Magic Banana

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A rejoint: 07/24/2010

If anything, getting the money upfront through a crowd-funding campaign is a safer route than the one traditionally taken by proprietary game editors. I mean what is your answer to the following question: "What happens when your sales to not compensate for the development costs?". Getting the money upfront allows to plan development expenses that will not exceed the amount that was raised.

quantumgravity
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A rejoint: 04/22/2013

You dodged my point using false logic.

"Haha, but the reverse is true and all people that make proprietary stuff are? Thanks for proving my point. :)"

The correct reverse from the sentence is that there are people out there who are assholes and want to make stuff proprietary - which is true.

With your set of arguments you _can_ justify
1. "Stop making proprietary games, it's unethical"
2. "Develop free software games in your free time"

You _can't_ justify
"Those unimaginative proprietary game developers could as well make their games free and still earn money; they're just too evil for it"

because you have no idea how this can be done.
I hear all this time this stuff about LIBRE is not gratis - well yeah, in theory maybe but there is a reason why most libre projects ARE gratis.

onpon4
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A rejoint: 05/30/2012

Just out of interest, I want to point out what the numbers are like with a 500 million dollar game. I think you might be misinterpreting the statistics (Wikipedia says that 500 million dollars was the total money earned from the initially sold copies), but let's just assume you're right: at $60 from each person (a typical cost for a copy of a game), that would take just over 8.3 million people. That's a lot, for sure. But Activision apparently managed to convince nearly twice that number of people to buy copies. (Wikipedia mentions 16 million as the number of "registered players" in January of this year.)

A publisher with a reputation for delivering high-quality games, such as Activision, Nintendo, or SEGA would probably adapt just fine to using the sort of scheme I've been trying with ReTux if they had to. It's hard to say if they would profit quite as much, but they wouldn't disintegrate.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/13/destiny-500-million/

It is the total package including the marketing in addition to the development.

If that is inaccurate, there is another list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop which has more info. Either way, most of these budgets are on the 10s of millions of dollars on the lower end.

jxself
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A rejoint: 09/13/2010
Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

I think you have to ask this question: Should we even accept copyright in the first place? It's taking away what is otherwise peoples rights to free expression. The justification for copyright was the benefit of the arts and sciences. However it was always intended to be "limited". That was originally 7 years. Now I don't see how you can argue that today those original claims hold true. It's not a "limited right" (it's an extreme length of time which means nothing you write today will likely ever be in the public domain in your lifetime- short of someone explicitly putting it there- or government works).

I think it's also utterly ridicules to try and enforce copyright in the environment that exists today. It's a fruitless battle that can only destroy the democratic institution. I don't think you can justify censorship and copyright as the cost of freedom. Yet this is what is going on.

The internet is global and the world doesn't agree on copyright no matter how much the entertainment industry wants to argue otherwise. There are international agreements on copyright, but it's far from globally enforced. There are dozens of countries which have sign none of the half dozen international agreements in the last 150 years.

Where has copyright led us? It has led to censorship, violence against the people, and unjustly benefited a small minority of absurdly rich individuals. I don't think the elimination of copyright would necessarily be a bad thing. The people doing the core work are not the ones benefiting from it, and I'm coming at this from a perspective of being one of the people who have benefits financially from my own creative works. It didn't take digital restrictions, threats, or violence to profit off my labor. All it took was merely a sane business model.

For example an author producing creative works can provide there works via subscription. Those works may get copied, but the end result is those who want those works *now* and continued access to new works from the same author need to subscribe.

There are other totally doable models as well. The news industry survived off advertising for the last 100 years. While it may be a failing industry today it's not because of copyright infringement. It's because the newspapers have failed to adapt to the ever changing environment and competition from other outlets utilizing the advertising model.

There are certainly successful news outlets now that are even specialized and successful. One need only look around. One such example is: torrentfreak.com. While small they put out a consistent 2-3 articles a day on a topic that attracts a niche readership. If they can succeed with a niche certainly others can too with a wider audience.

I think it may just be the only justifiable case for copyright today would be those distributing content under copyleft licenses. These works truly are for the benefit of all. Any enforcement would need only be very selective and mainly targeted at corporations. Thus not violating or requiring violence against the people to enforce.

jxself
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A rejoint: 09/13/2010

"I think it may just be the only justifiable case for copyright today would be those distributing content under copyleft licenses. These works truly are for the benefit of all."

Indeed, and I think that any discussion of ending copyright needs to be paired with a discussion of how copyleft would continue to function without it. Some ideas for that were discussed in an episode of Free as in Freedom, with our very own free software people Karen Sandler and Bradley Kuhn: http://faif.us/cast/2014/jun/03/0x46/

Fast forward to exactly 1 hour, zero minutes, and 30 seconds in to hear what I'm referring to.

As you can hear, it's not very easy.

Larissa

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A rejoint: 07/12/2014

I dont´t dislike copyright, but it just doesn´t work for anyone, at least for long.
A game can be copied, just like many other things. It can get incompatible, specially the DRM... (old incompatible CD-checks aren´t fun).
When Games are considered art, then they should be archived as good as possible, ohh yeah DRM...and copyright.
There are some models: subscriptions, donations, advertisements, background mining, part goes to charity, merchandise, sell support...

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

Digital restrictions make a mockery of the copyright system in denying the users access to the works after the 'limited term' for which the public was in theory suppose later benefit from as a result of more works. Obviously DRM prevents that from happening in theory if it were ever to actually become available in the public domain.

Legimet
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A rejoint: 12/10/2013

And "free trade" agreements like TPP, TISA, TTIP will extend the copyright term even further if passed :(

Larissa

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A rejoint: 07/12/2014

I personally bought many games that are closed source but have open source engines, especially, when the developer of the game also develops the engine.

I find it stupid, when games, specially the engine, are kept close source. It just hinders fans from keeping it up to date.

commodore256
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A rejoint: 01/10/2013

Most Developers go for the convenience like the "I have to use Adobe" world of Content Creators. When it comes to Games, they use middleware that have re-licensing restrictions and in a lot of cases, making non-free software free is just as hard as legally making a non-free fork of GPL Code, you need the consent of everybody that ever contributed to your source code because you didn't add a "it's not your code, it's mine and I just pay you to improve it" clause in the contract. There's no middleware for developers that's convenient, exports to evil Consoles and can be re-licensed however the license wants to. I like what Id Software used to do, they made their engines libre but if a developer wanted to make it non-free, said developer would have to pay Id Software for their branch that can be re-licensed however the licensee pleases.

I think said middleware that's like unity would be a great idea for a non-profit lobbying organization. Even RMS has likes the idea of libre software with paid exceptions better than BSD licensed software.

All that said, I am looking forward to OpenMW and I'm glad Morrowind is on gog.com . You can play one of the best games ever made using a completely free software stack. That's no more unethical than buying a non-free Flac song on Bandcamp. "Nonfree game programs (like other nonfree programs) are unethical because they deny freedom to their users. (Game art is a different issue, because it isn't software.) If you want freedom, one requisite for it is not having or running nonfree programs on your computer. That much is clear."-RMS

Now, I don't have a complete free software stack, but I would like to try it as an experiment. I want to buy that dual AMD Quad Core Opteron Motherboard, install Coreboot and get the GPU that performs the best on a free software stack and see what I can do with it. Though I do wish a newer Xeon Motherboard was Coreboot compatible, AMD CPUs aren't very good and it uses a lot of juice for the performance it has :/

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

This is the point I was trying to make in my original post. It is silly that the engine is closed source, but should be ok for the artwork to be not "gratis" if you are trying to sell an actual game.

Some games like Team Fortress 2 are free to play but the only thing you pay for is cosmetic items. You may want a hat or sunglasses to add flair to your character. These don't give you an advantage since they are cosmetic and you can playing the game without buying anything.

commodore256
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A rejoint: 01/10/2013

I don't know why there aren't any nonprofit game developers that develop games with libre engines. By "non-profit" I mean they make money, but the primary goal is their mission and it could be lobbying to make cracking DRM legal and reverse engineering game engines.

Magic Banana

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A rejoint: 07/24/2010

I do not know how many times, people told you that: free software does not mean it is gratis. Crowd-funding the development of free software basically is paying for that free software and it is perfectly fine: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

In other words, it is OK for anything "to be not gratis". What is not OK is to deny the users her fundamental freedoms.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

Now you know why people don't use "free software" and instead use "open source" because it confuses between free as in price and free as in freedom. Maybe from now on, I should just use libre so you guys can stop twisting my words. :-)

I always meant free as in "freedom" and in relation to the assets, I meant that the assets don't have to be free (once again as in freedom) and not "gratis" as in giving it away. But if these assets are free as in freedom, they will find their way to be free as in "gratis" if people want to distribute your work even if you want them to pay for it. That is why I was pondering solutions in keeping the artwork locked down so the artists and programmers behind a free (as in freedom) game can get compensated in some way for their work.

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

I'd encourage people to avoid playing, paying for, contributing to, or even discussing the games dependent on non-free code. Talking about them furthers the publicity of the game. I'm not going to suggest we *censor* users who choose to talk about them as that too would be wrong. There are lots of things to waste time on and it's fairly easy to choose to do one of the many other things.

Personally I try to focus on projects to further freedom, often ignoring those who don't agree, as it merely hinders getting stuff done. Rather than respond to those who would say things like "ARM isn't a real option for a laptop because its too slow" for instance (a real thing I've read... in the more mainstream threads when the topic is brought up) it's best to just ignore it and focus on doing. While there may be truth to this general position today we'll never get to a free solution tomorrow if all we do is respond to ignorant comments defending our position. In this case it's not even entirely true. There are plenty of ARM devices including laptops in the form of Chromebooks, tablets, and similar devices. There is no reason we couldn't have a basic *real* laptop based on ARM (ie running Trisquel, not some 'cloud' OS) that was totally free. It may not be a replacement or have the market share, but it would work for many.

* All that said I'm not perfect and do respond to people posting ignorant comments. I just try not waste too much time on it.

quantumgravity
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A rejoint: 04/22/2013

" we'll never get to a free solution tomorrow if all we do is respond to ignorant comments defending our position. In this case it's not even entirely true."

So let's shut ourself up from new impulses so that we can stick to our opinions that we currently have?
I think that's a bad way and qualifies as what you call ignorant.

Doesn't your shop also ship notebooks with stuff like linux mint?
I think it's a compromise differing from the standard hard-liner attitude in this board; i don't think that's bad or anything, but i don't really like this doubletalk here like "everything non-free is bad, let's ignore the comments that say otherwise" while even selling it, and i'm not sure if people would be so tolerant about it if think penguin wasn't one of the biggest financial supporters of trisquel.
I don't doubt that you do a lot for free software and for me personally it's perfectly fine to make some compromises, but normally people here have way stronger criteria for calling something ethical.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

One example is https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-pocket-wee-gnu-linux-desktop

"Default configuration: Ubuntu
Compatible with Microsoft Windows 7"

If Chris was 100% to free software like he preaches on here and fights with people, he wouldn't offer Ubuntu or even mention it. Same goes for Windows 7.

The reality is that he owns a business and pays his bills like the rest of us. If he just sticks with Trisquel only systems and isn't making money off of it, he goes out of business and sells tacos on the street or caves in to the demands of the market and offers Ubuntu.

I find it funny that all of you blasted me for having an alternative to the free software games problem by not requiring artwork to be libre/free culture while still keeping the engine libre, but then you have people like Chris who sell computers with Ubuntu. LOL.

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

We also default to Trisquel depending on where a users is coming from. And the compatibility information is *not* something we support, it's there for users who are transitioning. We don't ship with Microsoft Windows and never have.

It's not about the money either (not that this isn't a factor, but we could stop selling computers, and still survive). It's about reality. Sometimes to move forward you need to take baby steps. * We don't tell users what distribution to get *. We ask them what distribution would you like? And if they don't know they get a 'default'. The default is based off the assumption they don't know anything about GNU/Linux. Which is a very fair assumption. A good percentage of our customers are coming from Microsoft Windows land. You don't want people returning systems because they think "GNU/Linux" is too hard for them. It's best to get them onto something which is less likely that they'll run into a problem with and position them so they'll be able to run with a 100% free software operating system later.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

Why was this downvoted? I linked to a site and provided basic information. Whatever.

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

1. Your not following what I'm saying. If you waste time trying to get people to understand your view point who aren't listening you might as well be talking to a brick wall. It's better to spend time addressing the problems which are holding people back from being able (due to lack of competency with technology) to adopt a 100% free software operating system. There are more people who will listen and get it- but not be able to figure it out.

2. We ship with whatever operating system a user chooses. Our main goal is to get people off of hardware dependent on proprietary software. Long term I think we'll see more Trisquel users as a result. I'm pretty confident we already have more Trisquel users today than ever before because of the work we've done at making it easier to adopt/market/etc.

What you don't want to do is put non-tech savvy users in front of Trisquel as there first distribution. Particularly not without a lot of one-on-one hand-holding. It won't work to there advantage. It'll be off-putting and they will get the idea "GNU/Linux is hard" and that it's not adoptable by non-tech savvy users. If you put them in front of a distribution that isn't 100% free there is a high chance it'll work for about 50-80% of the population today. From there people will adopt Trisquel and they will have an easier time doing so because there is less to figure out compared to any 100% proprietary system. If they fail at it at this point they'll still be better off because they'll only likely be returning to something that isn't 100% proprietary (be it Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, or some other distribution which includes some proprietary components).

To get my point across how many people here went from a completely proprietary operating system to a 100% free one? I bet there isn't a single user that didn't first adopt a distribution which contained some proprietary software.

The next question I have is how many people here went from a computer with non-free BIOS to one with a free BIOS and no other non-free software? The answer to this question is likely zero.

Everything is a processes and we should focus on what can be done to move things forward. Not waste time talking to a brick wall. If your talking to people who are listening- that's not wasting time.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

I've been on these forums 4+ years and besides Ruben packaging a Trisquel ISO every few years, no one here has really contributed anything to the free software cause of any significance. People here are more concerned with pointing fingers and telling you that you are wrong without providing concrete solutions to improve the situation.

If you haven't noticed, the significant contributions to FLOSS software are handled by large corporations or organizations and not a small community like the one we have here. That's why its difficult to have even a discussion with a community like this as they are more concerned with guilt and ideology than real solutions that are sustainable and move us forward.

jxself
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A rejoint: 09/13/2010

"I've been on these forums 4+ years and besides Ruben packaging a Trisquel ISO every few years, no one here has really contributed anything to the free software cause of any significance."

Wow. Just. Wow.

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

I just want to say thank you for contributing all these years the Linux-Libre repository you maintain. It's really helped *a lot* of users get on board with newer hardware *still being sold*. Without that there would be a good chunk of people here who wouldn't be on Trisquel today.

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

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A rejoint: 07/24/2010

And I just want to thank you for making it easy to buy hardware that will work with Linux-libre, hence Trisquel. Without ThinkPenguin, running only free software would be much harder because it would be much harder to find the hardware that can be used in freedom. And thank you in particular for your work that led to the liberation of the ath9k firmware.

tomlukeywood
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A rejoint: 12/05/2014

"And I just want to thank you for making it easy to buy hardware that will work with Linux-libre"
Same here!

Larissa

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A rejoint: 07/12/2014

Thank you for your support.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

I re-read my post a few hours later and actually felt bad about what I said there. I apologize for those comments and initially meant to say "most" instead of none. I actually use your repos for the kernel and VLC and am thankful for that.

I just feel like I bang my head against the wall sometimes with die hard free software evangelists. In my computing, I don't push for non-free software and I want to support free software all I can. I just end up fighting with many of you as I am really trying to find solutions.

Whether I get into a tiff over permissive licenses or compromises with artwork in a libre game, there are always those people that simply follow an ideology and simply say "no. you can't do that. that's it" without willing to hear another person's reasoning. Sometimes it feels like I'm fighting with toddlers or grumpy old men who are so set in their ways that the world passes them by.

I honestly wish from the bottom of my heart that all games were FLOSS. Not so I could pirate them easier, but to have that piece of mind. Games that I paid for once that my child could install and run without issues.

So yeah, I'm sorry if I offended you Jason. It's just that I try to put together thoughtful discussions about these things and its frustrating when no one can respond with a solution that can fix it. It's been a problem for years and I fear its going to get worse from here.

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

Well, I get your overall sentiment, but I'm not sure I totally agree in that "nobody" has/is. There are a half dozen people here at a minimum that either do contribute something. Be it development time, work on maintaining a repository, work on maintaining a distribution (at least 3 people who occasionally post), or are working to make things easier to adopt (I get its not a direct "working on developing free software", but if its what leads us to having the sources under free software licenses from corporations that paid to write said software that's still moving things forward in my mind, and "doing something"). We've poked and prodded and that has led to sources being released for critical components.

Everything is slow going... but there is progress being made even as we lose ground on newer hardware. For instance we don't have any 802.11ac hardware. That's lost ground. But we do now have 100% free embedded distribution and a router for it to run on. That's progress, even if it's hit a brick wall. We didn't have that 3 years ago. What we had then was not readily available router that still needed a non-free bootloader (buffalo router /w librewrt). We also have some sanity over past similar situations. We have several different 802.11n wifi chips which are readily available and stocks to ensure they continue to be available for some time to come even if all other 802.11n stocks dry up (that would work with free software). If you want to enable the masses to be able to adopt (as opposed to just a handful of free software advocates) free software you need to make sure its readily available and just going to work and you don't have to *hunt for it*, get it, have it not work, etc.

Another great example. If we focused on designing a laptop chassis today that had support for a 15" screen where no other ARM laptop did- because it is assumed ARM chips aren't powerful enough- then even if the ARM board used in the first version isn't perfect (ie non-free graphics, even if you don't need support for the graphics chip to utilize the system without the 3d) when the next generation ARM tech is out that is supported by free software drivers then you can come to market with a product. You don't have to wait- or end up in a situation where "it could have happened if it only hadn't taken 2 years to design a chassis". You could end up in a situation like that. There were free ARM graphics chips (Tegra K1), but it was short run- and nobody took advantage (I don't know if it would have been possible anyway- but...) of this to come out with a 100% free system with 100% free graphics. If we had that chassis and a basic design ready to go then maybe it would have been possible to have a reasonably powerful 100% free system today. The major problem with the models that did ship with the Tegra K1 was they all had an integrated wifi chips dependent on proprietary software (other than a general lack of stock available on the market).

Not moving in a straight line doesn't mean we're not making progress at all. And there may be regression. But we can't let that stop us from moving forward.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

If I had Mark Shuttleworth money, I would put it towards building libre hardware. I want an open society so true innovation can happen without restrictions.

Unfortunately, companies with the big money are focusing on mobile and tablet devices and are locking things down more and more.

quantumgravity
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A rejoint: 04/22/2013

"I've been on these forums 4+ years and besides Ruben packaging a Trisquel ISO every few years, no one here has really contributed anything to the free software cause of any significance. People here are more concerned with pointing fingers and telling you that you are wrong without providing concrete solutions to improve the situation."

Tom lukeywood did contribute with a gui for the libreboot flashing utility, onpon4 is developing some free games afaik and i've read somewhere that magic banana releases academic code that he's writing under a free software license.
And i think jadectrl is working on an libre openBSD port.
I agree though that there are other people who prefer bitching about not 100% but only 99.99% free projects while not significantly contributing themselves.

quantumgravity
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A rejoint: 04/22/2013

You know what website people here link all the time?
http://www.gnu.org/distros/optionally-free-not-enough.html

How is your approach different from debian?
Don't get me wrong, I agree perfectly with what you're saying, but people here normally don't.
Why do they bash on debian but not on you?
You may have contributed a lot to free software and I don't know how much exactly, but chances are good that it's less than the debian project - which is neither insulting nor something to be ashamed about. I'm just saying that debian does more than a single person normally does.
Still your business seems to be ok while debian somehow has this awefull "double talk".

"To get my point across how many people here went from a completely proprietary operating system to a 100% free one? I bet there isn't a single user that didn't first adopt a distribution which contained some proprietary software. "

That's what i'm saying all the time, agreed.
What i get from your post, you're just accepting reallity and drop the extreme stance for the sake of actual success for free software.
I would do that too;
BUT in that case i think it's a bit strange to state things like

"I'd encourage people to avoid playing, paying for, contributing to, or even discussing the games dependent on non-free code. Talking about them furthers the publicity of the game."

Game = Software + Art. Art does not matter here, so you could easily replace the term "game" with "software".
Encouraging people not to even talk about this software does not coexist with your softer stance when it comes to shipping OS.
Don't you agree?

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

> How is the approach different from Debian?

It's a bit difficult to wrap my head around this. We're not a distribution and only attempting to draw people away from non-free operating systems. Including partly non-free ones.

The closest thing to a distribution we're largely responsible for is libreCMC. And it's hardly non-free in any shape or form.

> Encouraging people not to even talk about this software does not coexist
> with your softer stance when it comes to shipping OS. Don't you agree?

No.

quantumgravity
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A rejoint: 04/22/2013

You're shipping non-free software if people want so.
Debian is delivering non-free software in their repos if people want so.

It's NOTHING different and the point that you're not a distro doesn't harm my point in the slightest.

"> Encouraging people not to even talk about this software does not coexist
> with your softer stance when it comes to shipping OS. Don't you agree?

No."

Hmm, very reflected indeed; a decent stance!

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

I'm not convinced it's the same.

NYNEX
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A rejoint: 04/27/2013

> You're shipping non-free software if people want so.

Should it not be an individual's freedom of choice to choose what the fuck they run on their machine?
If people want to run non-free software, they will do so. If you start imposing YOUR will on other people
and telling them what to run, say, think or do, you DON'T seem to understand the concept of freedom or
free software.

ThinkPenguin has been active in promoting libre software, helping to free software and has made contributions
back to the community. They only provide the freedom of choice where the user is responsible for making an
informed choice about what they want to run or use. Yes, we may not like the fact that people run non-free
software or choose to do so when they are fully informed, but it is still important to give people
a choice and try to fully inform them about what they are doing and what the consequences may be.

quantumgravity
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A rejoint: 04/22/2013

"Should it not be an individual's freedom of choice to choose what the fuck they run on their machine?"

I never argued against that, you got me wrong.
I don't think that the way Chris is doing his business is wrong, and i don't think that Debian does something wrong.
I just say that it's pretty alike and I didn't like Chris's "we shall not even speak about anything proprietary" comment while making compromises themselves.
I also don't like the negative attitude in this forum towards debian while at the same time everybody is fine with chris' doing.

Chris

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A rejoint: 04/23/2011

I didn't quite say we shouldn't talk about proprietary software. That's really taking it out of context. I said we shouldn't talk about playing specific proprietary games (any specific one(s)). Particularly on a free software forum like this. It's quite hypocritical. Talking about specific proprietary games is encouraging others to play those games.

jxself does have a particularly negative opinion of Debian. I think stretching that to the rest of the people on the forums is a bit of a stretch. It's accepted Debian isn't doing everything right and it's the primarily reasons people here are using Trisquel over Debian. Debian is both better and worse compared to other distributions. Debian is better than Ubuntu or Linux Mint in that it does enable people to avoid non-free software, but it's worse than Trisquel or Parabola GNU/Linux-libre in that it does offer it as an option.

t3g
t3g
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A rejoint: 05/15/2011

People seem to have a negative opinion on Debian because they offer a "non-free" repository that you can easily not use. I guess the same goes for the "restricted" and "multiverse" repositories for Ubuntu which contain the non-free bits.

Kernel wise, Ubuntu will include the bits from upstream that the Linux Libre team does not like. Debian's kernel by default ships without the potentially non-free kernel bits, but you can add them if needed.

moxalt
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 06/19/2015

> Debian's kernel by default ships without the potentially non-free kernel bits

Does Debian actually use the Linux-libre scripts to deblob their kernel? Or do
they have their own in-house solution?

Also, is Debian's de-blobbed kernel (after Squeeze) effectively the same as
Linux-libre?

onpon4
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/30/2012

It's not the same scripts, and there's one difference in outcome: Debian just removes the proprietary firmware, leaving in error messages telling you the names of the firmware files, while Linux-libre replaces those names with some slightly stylized version of "DEBLOBBED" (I want to say either "*DEBLOBBED*" or "/* DEBLOBBED */", but I'm not sure). There's also an unfortunate side-effect of the way Linux-libre does it where it becomes impossible to install these firmware blobs without modifying the source code and recompiling.

davidnotcoulthard (non vérifié)
davidnotcoulthard

To answer OP: That's a problem the aswer for which is different for every individual. But it's still non-free software.

bluzeo
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/27/2015

for me guys - i am a gammer and i see why but i also learn since coming to GN/ linux that DRM is a breach but not as bad as Windows 10! knowing me i will install steam on this desktop like i have on my laptop and play my games! the free games in the repos are fun but bothing beats pamajas sam and DOTA

moxalt
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 06/19/2015

> DRM is a breach but not as bad as Windows 10

That doesn't excuse DRM, however.

I would argue that Stalin wasn't as bad as Hitler, but that by no means
legitimises Stalin.

Chris

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/23/2011

I think we're getting off topic for the forum... if people keep bringing up non-free games... it's contrary to being here.

Jabjabs
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/05/2014

Agreed, interesting topic but there is nothing new to be said about it.

commodore256
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 01/10/2013

How about a Free Philosophy page? You can have Games be a subpage on that and have sticky topics on "Evil Consoles", "Windows DRM Games is a lesser evil of Consoles", "DRM-Free/non-free Windows Games is a lesser evil of DRM Windows Games", "DRM-Free/non-free games on a free OS is a lesser evil of DRM-free/non-free Games on Windows" and "DRM-Free/non-free Games with a free engine is the lesser evil of DRM-free/non-free Games on a free OS" and just be done with it.