Do you play games with a libre engine but proprietary data? Any advice? What are some of the ethical pitfall?
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So I have been running free software GNU/Linux operating system for a few years now. And like some of you, one of the more disappointing things to give up were proprietary video games. It's one thing to give up a buggy, spyware-ridden operating system, another thing to give up fun and often times artistic video games that I had been playing since I was a child. But, like most of us, I just took that as something that was necessary in order to truly use my computer freely and securely. I have learned to love many of the extremely fun libre games that are available. Those talented game developers deserve a lot of kudos. (And support when possible)
That's why it was a little bit of a shock for me to find out that there are many cases where people have recreated video game engines, either from available source code (Like Doom or OpenJK which uses the source code release of Star Wars: Jedi Knight Outcast/Academy) or via reverse engineering (OpenMW for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or GemRB for old Infinity Engine games like Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment). I never thought it would be possible to play games like Marrowind on GNU/Linux with libre software. (Just shows how out of touch I really am with the modern modding community)
I should take a moment to state that I do know there is a disagreement between those who just favor libre works, software and data, and those that are okay with non-free art, music, etc. (The latter camp is obviously where the FSF falls) Personally, while I prefer those works that are open to modification, there is too much culture that is non-libre that it is important not to lock yourself out completely. I would be happy to hear others thoughts.
To bring this to a technical question, for those of you that do play proprietary games with libre engines, how do you do it? I know you are supposed to copy the libre engine to the data files of the game. But isn't the very act of installing a proprietary game (like Morrowind for example) put your device at some jeopardy, because you are exposing it to non-free software? (Please correct me if that isn't how it goes, like I said this is all new to me)
I also would like to point out onpon's great essay on The Gaming Trap, which shows some of the pitfalls of just assuming a free engine means a free software game. https://onpon4.github.io/other/gaming-trap/ We should continue building that list if possible and try and make it clear which games can be played in software freedom, and which can't.
Finally, do you think it is justified to pay money for a proprietary game, like Planescape: Torment even if you can play it with free software. You are still rewarding the developer for making a proprietary game. Yes of course games like that are very old now and aren't making much money. But wouldn't that money be better spent paying for true libre games that could use our support? Or is the fact that we can play the game in software freedom give us the right to be able to enjoy the epic story that is Planescape: Torment?
Thanks for your patience reading though all this. I hope it wasn't too off topic. I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on this incredibly trivially topic! :)
It all depends on which position you will take. Remember to
differentiate "free/libre software" movement from "free/libre culture"
movement.
After being a free/libre culture activist/enjoyer/supporter for two
years, I decided to go back to being a free/libre software
activist. However, my position is the same as the one from the Parabola
project's regarding free/libre culture support (if they didn't change
it, of course): That is, while I'm not a free/libre culture activist, I
do try to make *my own works* under free/libre culture, and this
involves using the Free Art License instead of CC BY-SA (both of these
are free/libre culture licenses, but only the first has legal measures
to guarantee that the end-user can request the source files, as defined
by the Definition of Free Cultural Works).
All you have to remember is: free/libre culture extends the requirements
from the free/libre software to non-functional data. Now, this *doesn't*
mean that the free/libre software movement has no requirement for
these. In fact, it does have: These must be at least unlimitedly
shareable (*non-commercial redistribution*) (e.g.: any variation of
Creative Commons licenses do that). One down-side of being a free/libre
software activist is that, at least if you are a project freedom
evaluator, you will sometimes find yourself puzzled when trying to
determine whether some data is functional or not (e.g.: character models
or maps can be functional or non-functional, it depends on their
content).
For free/libre culture activists, however, the above mess about
non-functional and functional data doesn't really matter, as they apply
the same requirements for both cases. However, applying this
generalization makes content even more scarce, because according to the
*current/stable* Definition of Free Cultural Works: the source files
must be provided, and must be provided in a format friendly to
free/libre software. (read the definition again in order to understand
this in more detail).
And by "source files", for non-functional data, it means: if we are
talking about music, the source files are the audio project, or the
sheet. An audio is only its own source if it was a result of
improvisation (e.g.: a music improvisaiton session) or is easier to
reproduce by someone else or to get by other means (e.g.: phones' short
ring, whistles, sounds related to animals, short sound effects).
I appreciate your detailed response. Particularly mentioning the Free Art License which I had never heard of. And also for describing in details how libre culture demands all of the source files material.
However, I am not sure what you mean by saying that free software activist demand that all non-functional data has to be "unlimitedly shareable (*non-commercial redistribution*)". While I agree that would be nice, I didn't know it was a requirement for free software. For example, OpenMW is listed under the Free Software Directory (http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/OpenMW). However, OpenMW can only be used with a video game that has nonfree artwork. Yes, theoretically it can be used to make new games, but that hasn't happened yet. Should OpenMW not be listed as free software by your definition?
The minimum requirement for non-functional data is described at
[[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/google-engineering-talk.html#copyright-art-vs-software]]
and also at [[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#OtherWorks]],
more precisely, the reasoning behind such requirement is better
explained at
[[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/google-engineering-talk.html#freedom-2-moral-dilemma]]
and also at the section following the previous reference (section
8).
About OpenMW: When I started out as free/libre software activist, I also
thought out that things like OpenMW, Wine, QEMU, Mednafen, and so on
would be useful *only* for using already-existing non-free
software. However, they can also be used to develop other things. I
don't have concrete examples, but you *are indeed* right in the regards
that we mustn't lock ourselves into using these free/libre software in
order to use other non-free software or (as I'm a free/libre software
activist) to make use of non-shareable non-functional data.
But if I'm not misreading what you quoted, the FSF states: "We don't take the position that artistic or entertainment works must be free, but if you want to make one free, we recommend the Free Art License." http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#OtherWorks
So doesn't that mean that the FSF would not be opposed to using OpenMW to play Marrowind using the nonfree artwork and data?
The other references I made specify the minimum requirement for
non-functional data, try understanding them first.
Answering your question, and also making an addendum to my previous
message: When OpenMW get's listed in Free Software Directory ("FSD" for
now on, for short), it means that *at least* the source files of the
functional data and the licenses of these were reviewed and considered
free/libre (as for non-functional data, the FSD has a page inside it
listing the requirements, which are similar to those mentioned in the
references I made so far). So there is rarely an evaluation of how
ethical the project itself is in respect to how well they actually
protect society's essential freedoms (e.g.: Actor is listed in the FSD,
but the project doesn't care to make sure that the user of their
web-client receives software that correctly tells him about his
essential freedoms, however nothing stops someone else from obtaining
the complete and corresponding source files of Actor and fixing this
problem, at which point he can choose between contributing back or
making an entirely new project based on the fixes).
So, although OpenMW is used by average users mostly to run non-free
games, the understanding so far is that OpenMW is still free/libre
software, and being able to be built/compiled and used in free/libre
system distributions.
What free/libre software users do personally/particularly/privately is
for themselves for the taking. However free/libre software activists
will try to convince users not to
use/install/recommend/share/sell/teach-usage-of non-(free/libre)
software. Please note the change of terms, between "users" and "activists".
Hi
This is tricky part.For example Frogatto game is actually an engine itself(Anura).So engine is Libre and if you use their engine you wrap and ship the game with the engine itself,but their license do provide you freedom to make separate license (may be proprietary)for images and audio files which is case in the Frogatto game.
I would recommend you to go to every dev framework and game engine website and join their communities as there are many developers that releases their games Libre together with its resources(CC licenses ,GPL licenses etc).
Now overall its hard to find them if you would just use search on github,many use personal sources and/or dev environment (which is usually Libre)is available to be installed and game to be run upon the dev environment install.
There are many games to play to,and once i finally create my own website i am gonna list them since LGDB don't really do the best job and its hard to get around.And most importantly ,collect the actual data and share just in case it get lost in the dark.
Regards
"Do you play games with a libre engine but proprietary data?"
No.
"Any advice? What are some of the ethical pitfall?"
Creative works are published for the benefit of -- and rightfully belong to -- everyone in the world. In order to help make progress in the War On Sharing it is useful to counter the propaganda that people have heard all their lives that this is not so: https://jxself.org/will-it-ever-end.shtml
Anything less than a free license is claiming a monopoly on knowledge, information, etc. It is saying "I am better than you because I can still do things with this but you cannot do those same things." It is being anti-social. Anti-sharing. Anti-friend. Anti-human.
I truly respect that position. However, doesn't that mean if for example you buy a book that doesn't allow sharing or remixing you are supporting nonfree works? Even visiting most websites is supporting material that is copyrighted in an unfree way. The vast majority of the material published is of this sort. Should we reject all of that? And if not, what makes video games with libre engines but unfree art any different?
notice *must* appear inside the first pages of the book, and if it isn't
there, then it's non-shareable. That's what I do: I don't buy the books
unless I'm sure that their license is a common one for shareable works,
not some self-made piece of vague "legaleze" headache, and not something
in the public domain either (unless it's clearly marked as CC0 1.0 in
the same place as license notice).
Also, there are lots of works that are at least shareable, but I do
agree that we lack movies mostly. But for everything else we have a
plethora of audio, text, images, and models (maps, characters, and
decorative-only objects).
About what makes using free/libre game engines with non-(free/libre)
non-functional data different than the worst variant: Since you're
talking about free/libre culture, I'll leave you to decide, as I can't
answer for the free/libre culture activists. Also, read the references I
made so far, because you seem to be missing what
"functional"/"practical" means for the free/libre software movement.
"doesn't that mean if for example you buy a book that doesn't allow sharing or remixing you are supporting nonfree works?"
Yes it does.
"what makes video games with libre engines but unfree art any different?"
I've never said it was any different. All creative works everywhere should be free. It doesn't matter if it's a video game or a book.
NO! We SHOULD NOT use any non-free data.
Reverse engineered non-free software source code isn't free or even illegal.
Reverse engineered software, for which the result of the effort is
free/libre is free/libre software, Nouveau started this way.
Also, the legality of it depends on jurisdiction.
Original source code is non-free.
I do. I have a few old consoles I play with.
I don't worry about privacy with these.
On my libre PC, I try to avoid them, but still play two of these : OpenRA, and OpenXCom.
I think most recent consoles/games (say, past the Wii) bring not much new things (gameplay, creativity, often the same old licenses) besides great graphics. There's probably some good stuff in there, but I'm just a casual player, so I don't know really.
I do use ROM emulators as well, though I have yet to try successfully on Trisquel. Old ROMs are sure compiled, but I doubt there's much space in there for privacy concerns.
Last but not least, let's say I REALLY have to play that game that only runs on Windose (highly unlikely), well I still have a non-free PC around, with zero personal data in there. So it acts like a console, in a way.
Personally I don't care that much about the ethics part on non-free data (at least the way it was stated above, like anything you do belongs to all) which sounds very communist (whereas free-software's political spectrum is much wider), I'm here because of basic privacy concerns I never was aware of until recently.
I can partly support free/libre culture, as long as it's not detrimental to the possibility of making money off of one's work. We don't live in an ideal Star trek-like world, we still have to make some money.
From there, there are much worse ways to earn a living.
But of course free data is awesome, long live the truly free data around the web that can give some chances to anyone with access to the www (which is more and more people, though many use this chance for stupid shit).
EDIT : I don't mind about non-free data AS LONG AS it's freely shareable.
I am a translator!
I used to play the nonfree ROMS with snes. I quit months ago. I will try to resist the urge of replaying those few games I love in the future. A man has to be firm, at least he has to try. An incoherent free software enthusiast is a weak enthusiast. I'm trying to get radical. :)
I think knowledge MUST be free (both in freedom and beer).
And I also sometimes can not clearly understand the dividing line between knowledge and art. But, as far as "art" is concerned my stance is rather weak.
I mean, I think copyright should be illegal. It's total nonsense and capitalistic bullshit. Yet, no ideology, no principle, no "place X here" in the world would make me lock my self out of something like this, just an example:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=l7MY_cdUL1E
So, in order to regain coherence, I keep repeating to myself: software is one thing, data is another one.
Here, a good read on copyright ->
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-versus-community.html
Really beautiful music :)
Personally I don't mind because I only (rarely) play old stuff.
So if it's safe enough, and cheap enough, I'm OK with it.
A ROM can always be modified to contain malware, so it's still a risk.
So sandboxing is the only way to go.
Using old consoles is one way (or a BBB with emulators and ROMS),
using ROMs in a virtual machine is another, but not as safe.
That means I would refrain from using newer consoles or Windows games because
it's a lot of money that can be spent on better causes/things,
and also I'm lucky to not care so much for newer games (often the same old with better graphics).
Also it's a lot more intrusive hardware and software.
I don't defend copyright in every way, it's often abusive,
but I think it can be OK in a limited way, like a non-commercial use of some work
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license).
Of course, every situation is different.
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