Trisquel 6 will include nonfree games... courtesy of Rubén
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Well, yesterday I created a thread talking about some digital game distributors that offers games without any form of DRM, but they are not open source.
In my opinion, a game it cannot be treated like a application, also Scummvm.
It's like "hey, don't put VLC on repositories, it can read non-free video codecs!". But then, VLC it's an awesome video player, just as Scummvm is an awesome oldgame simulator.
A game is not something that you are gonna work with, it's entertainment, there is no need, apart from modding it (a huge list of PC games have modding tools), to change anything on the original source. That is my opinion, at least.
Mr. Boat, I think there are many kinds of games, not just for entertainment but for "edutainment" as well. A person who loves games may at some point want to learn how those games were made. A game developer who releases the code of her games under libre licenses is supporting the learning process of people who want to create games. Making small changes in the source code of an already functional and useful application or game can be very constructive.
As for the graphics and other assets that are consider non-functional, and for that reason not necessary to be free, I don't agree with the FSF. Those "non-functional" components are part of the cognitive ergonomics of the software which help optimize human interaction with the system. As such, these "non-functional" components should be libre as well so that the community in general can share them and build upon them.
In games, these non-functional components are specially important. Remove these from a great game, remove its graphics, music and story, and to an end-user the game may seem like a piece of crap, even if the source code is beautiful.
Non-functional Data
[i]"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."[/i]
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html
AFAIK the license of flight of the amazon queen gives you right to distribute it for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
[i]"2) You may charge a reasonable copying fee for this archive, and may
distribute it in aggregate as part of a larger and possibly commercial
software distribution (such as a Linux distribution or magazine
coverdisk). You must provide proper attribution and ensure that this
Readme and all associated copyright notices and disclaimers are left
intact."[/i]
On the other hand:
[i]"3) You may not charge a fee for the game itself. This includes
reselling the game as an individual item."[/i]
You can't sell the game alone. You can sell the game if you bundle it with software.
[i]"You can include it in a software collection, like a Linux distribution
or coverdisk (which may be sold), but using it in things like commercial
adventure game collections without asking is just playing dirty."[/i]
Bundling only adventure games and selling them "without asking" would be "dirty", not illegal.
What is "dirty" is (most of the time) a matter of irrelevant subjectivity. For example some argue anal sex is dirty or homosexuality is dirty. A young woman liking sex can be dirty according to some opinion.
--------------
From guidelines to free software distributions defined by FSF:
[i]"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."[/i]
----------------------
Kinda interesting borderline situation here.
The data does not have to be free as in freedom. It must be free to distribute and profit. FotAQ data is free to distribute and profit, though *the spirit* of the license seems to want to restrict a bit distribution for profit.
My understanding is that Trisquel GNU/Linux can be bundled with FotAQ data because Trisquel would honour both FSF guidelines and the spirit of the license of FotAQ data.
The FSF recommends a license with a similar restriction for fonts,
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SILOFL, it's not a problem
when distributing a distro containing other packages. (Fonts are
clearly "works for practical use" which they consider equivalent to
software for freedom issues.)
A collection of games which contain free software and freely licensed media* is at
*A free media license allows distribution (including commercial use) and manipulation of media. Releasing derivate works under the same license (copyleft) and attribution to the original author(s) can be enforced by such a license. (Libregamewiki definition)
Complaining about ScummVM only being useful for "nonfree games" (though Flight of the Amazon Queen and Beneath a Steel Sky are not "nonfree", from my understanding, I'll ignore this for now) is a bit absurd. ScummVM's code (i.e. the game engine) is all free; the only parts that are ever nonfree are game data, i.e. the scenario, art, voices, and sounds, which are non-functional.
Compare this to emulators of video game consoles, which are only useful for playing nonfree games using the exact same nonfree software they use on the original consoles. Or DOSBox, which is only useful for running nonfree DOS programs (such as the original nonfree engine to run an old adventure game).
Kicking ScummVM because its main purpose is to be used with nonfree non-functional game data is like kicking PrBoom because its main purpose is to play the original Doom, which is nonfree.
As an aside, I see SirGrant suggesting in that bug report removing ScummVM but keeping Flight of the Amazon Queen, but that's absurd; Flight of the Amazon Queen needs ScummVM, or the original proprietary game engine, to function.
There was one legitimate concern: the description of ScummVM shouldn't suggest the nonfree game data options, only the free game data options (Flight of the Amazon Queen and Beneath a Steel Sky). This has been fixed, however, so there is no problem now.
ZSNES is free software (GPL) but its sole purpose is to play ROMs of the Super Nintendo. It can play free games in addition to proprietary games so its more of a user choice in the type of game you use.
You can use free ROMs only with ZSNES if you want and stay away from the commercial ones. But let's be honest... who uses a SNES emulator and doesn't play the classics?
I started this, and maybe wrongly 'cause english isn't my native language, but this is how i understood it:
"You may not charge a fee for the game itself" but "You may charge a reasonable copying fee for this archive"
You can only sell this game independently of its value, as a basic copying service you provide, so "a reasonable" copying fee" is what is expected.
In other words, you can't sell these two games for whatever price you feel like. The "reasonable" makes these two games
nonfree.
I hadn't thought of the free engine + nonfree Non-functional Data issue. But you know, this sounds absurd to me because... WITHOUT "NON-FUNCTIONAL" DATA THERE IS NO GAME!
The graphics and sounds are also what make the game what it is. You cannot compare them with say... desktop wallpapers and sounds!
> You can only sell this game independently of its value, as a basic copying
> service you provide, so "a reasonable" copying fee" is what is expected.
>
> In other words, you can't sell these two games for whatever price you feel
> like. The "reasonable" makes these two games
> nonfree.
What you missed is the part where you can cheat this by simply bundling it with something else. The SIL Open Font License has something vaguely similar: you're required to redistribute fonts licensed in such a manner with a program. See: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SILOFL
> I hadn't thought of the free engine + nonfree Non-functional Data issue. But
> you know, this sounds absurd to me because... WITHOUT "NON-FUNCTIONAL" DATA
> THERE IS NO GAME!
> The graphics and sounds are also what make the game what it is. You cannot
> compare them with say... desktop wallpapers and sounds!
Similarly, without the movie there is no movie.
When I say "non-functional", I mean that these parts of the game don't do anything. The game engine (i.e. the program that allows you to play the game) does do a practical job. The game data, on the other hand, is artistic, so we don't need to treat it the same as a computer program.
In particular, though it isn't likely due to the way ScummVM is written (apparently a lot of hacks for individual games; I haven't looked at the source code myself), it is perfectly possible to use ScummVM as a base to create a new game. Similarly, the Freedoom project was made possible by the Doom engine being free, even though the Doom non-functional data remains nonfree.
As I explained in https://trisquel.info/en/issues/2063 (and others in this thread) the fact that you cannot charge for for a copy of the game alone does not limit you to charge for a copy of the game in aggregation to whatever you want, like a copy of emacs. It may sound silly, and it certainly is a legal workaround for a way of licensing that we don't recommend at all, but it is still technically free software, as you can exercise all the four freedoms.
That being said, try this tone again and you are out of here.
My understanding is that ScummVM is free software, like Abrowser. But sadly many users might _consider_ both useless without some form of proprietary software (in the case of browsers, many JS and SWF programs are proprietary).
Yet, using either without running proprietary software is still possible.
Someone said an excellent VLC analogy which can be extended to browsers. Most of the people use browsers to use non-free media.
Why game engines can't be used to watch non-free media?
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