Open Source 3D Games

[D. Hageman]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005, Justin Dugger wrote:

>> I am curious about what ideas of open source that software like punkbuster
>> could be considered to be actively fighting against.
>
> The GNU software sets forth a couple of simple rights of what I like
> to call Liberated Software (avoids that whole free beer concept).  You
> should be free to use the software for any purpose. You should be free
> to modify code.  There's more, but those are the two might become
> sticklers.

Well, you are still "at liberty" to modify the game code all you want. 
You are still "at liberty" to use the software for any purpose.  The issue at 
hand is whether the license guarantees that you should be able to play nice 
with other people after you modify the code.  If you are working on a word 
processor and you discover a bug in a certain file format and choose to 
"fix" the bug in your software - in no way are other word editors obliged 
to fix the same bug if they want to be compatible with each other.  If you 
want to write a plug-in for X program and refuse to follow the standards 
set forth to write the said plug-in ... should the developers of X program 
guarantee that your plug-in will work?

I could come up with more examples if you would like, but I think you 
probably see where I am going with this ...

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||  D. Hageman                    <dhageman at dracken.com>  ||
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