GPL + OpenTTD

kamatsu · Post by **kamatsu** » 14 May 2005 13:36

I make no claim to know the extreme intricacies of the GNU Public License, but is it possible that it violates it?

As far as I know, OpenTTD was a C recoding of reverse-engineered code. This is a bit of a gray area in terms of the GPL, and it is likely that the Free Software Foundation OK's it so long as it doesn't violate the license agreement under which TTD was released. Does TTD's license forbid reverse engineering? I have no idea. Does OpenTTD violate the GPL? Most probably not, but still, it's a fun topic for a forum.

GoneWacko · Post by **GoneWacko** » 14 May 2005 13:55

And a topic that has been talked about way too much already.
It's driven people mad ( s/people/SHADOW-XIII/ ), it's started flamewars, it's just bad for your health

DaleStan · Post by **DaleStan** » 14 May 2005 17:36

kamatsu wrote:it's a fun topic for a forum.

s/fun/interesting/
And that's CVOI. (Chinese values of interesting, from the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times.")

Conditional Zenith · Post by **Conditional Zenith** » 15 May 2005 05:14

GoneWacko wrote:And a topic that has been talked about way too much already.
It's driven people mad ( s/people/SHADOW-XIII/ ), it's started flamewars, it's just bad for your health

Have you got a link to that thread, it sounds interesting.

SHADOW-XIII · Post by **SHADOW-XIII** » 15 May 2005 08:06

GoneWacko wrote:It's driven people mad ( s/people/SHADOW-XIII/ ), it's started flamewars, it's just bad for your health

yeah

and it's not only my point of view, altough only me tells it loudly enough ..

Conditional Zenith in general it's something like that: an org ottd author rewritten code to C from ASM and released it to SourceForge after that he left the project (it is said that in the country of the author it's not prohibited to do so, but it's hard to belive that for me), new developers are developing it (probably thinking that's not their business since they did not release the code of OTTD) ... so until Atari (holds TTD rights, but it's quiet unlike to do so after 10 years of TTD existment) write proper letters to stop the project everyone will do whatever what they do ...

lucaspiller · Post by **lucaspiller** » 15 May 2005 13:42

SHADOW-XIII just about summed it up.

init · Post by **init** » 16 May 2005 14:00

SHADOW-XIII wrote:(it is said that in the country of the author it's not prohibited to do so, but it's hard to belive that for me)

There are countries where shrinkwrap licenses are not legally valid, or at least has not been determined to be valid in a court of law. Reverse engineering is also legal in some countries, even though it might be subject to change.

An interesting question is whether material derived from previous reverse-engineering will become illegal if reverse-engineering becomes illegal in the future.

About shrinkwrap licenses: In Sweden at least, I think that they are invalid, since they are not signed. Another problem is that they are not displayed to the user until after purchasing the product, i.e. when starting the installation process.

This is not legal advice though - IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer)

Dextro · Post by **Dextro** » 16 May 2005 16:03

init wrote:An interesting question is whether material derived from previous reverse-engineering will become illegal if reverse-engineering becomes illegal in the future.

There's no such question. Laws only affect actions taken before they where passed when specifically statted in the bills' text. I am not a laywer either but this I know for sure.

MeusH · Post by **MeusH** » 16 May 2005 20:07

Why won't you ask Chris Sawyer and Microprose about OTTD, Standalone OTTD, TTDPatch?

Pan · Post by **Pan** » 17 May 2005 04:00

I'm not sure about this, but wouldn't Atari have to specfically name TTD as one of the games they were taking over the license for? I noticed in a news article that the games they had stated were rather limited to the modern era. In addition, the line of game companies from the TTD era to now is:

Microprose
Hasbro Interactive
Infogrammes
Atari

All four of these companies probably boil down to Microprose and Atari essentially at base level. However, with all the company changing that's been going on, I wonder if they would have any rights over the game anyway. If they didn't, I would suspect that the rights would fall to the original programmers at base level if nobody else had any licenses in there.

I'm not sure about any of this, but just thought I'd float it and see what you think.

latinoloco · Post by **latinoloco** » 17 May 2005 04:24

Done anyone care if it violates? Will we stop if we find out we are?

And its not like OTTD is a brand new version. It requires the old game which means its not pirating.

And sites like this and developers advertise for the game. Type in google something todo with OTTD, TTD, or anything like that. Most likey this site will come up. Its advertising for people to go buy the game, then they can play OTTD.

I may not be entirely right. But in my opinion, thats what i think

This game is considered Abandonware, which means you can freely distribute and download, like right here in this forum, theres a ton of links for TT and TTD. But for SOME reason there are people that BUY the game when they couud have it for free... ill never understand...

And you'd think Chris Sawyer would have known its available for download and that people have an open sourced version of his game. But aslong as its his game, i dont think he minds.

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 17 May 2005 05:01

latinoloco wrote: And its not like OTTD is a brand new version. It requires the old game which means its not pirating.

not for long.

new GFX engine will make that statement false.

Alltaken

latinoloco · Post by **latinoloco** » 17 May 2005 05:34

True, but even then i wont care

hehe

But if credit is given to Chris, shouldnt be a problem. Its abandoned. With the new GFX it'll be a brand new game so then the makers have the rights... except that it is a copy of his game... but i think as long as we give credit as being Chris Sawyers game... i dunno.. theres still a long time before the new GFX engine..

while we're on that topic, anyone know the progress?

Dextro · Post by **Dextro** » 17 May 2005 11:33

latinoloco wrote:This game is considered Abandonware, which means you can freely distribute and download, like right here in this forum, theres a ton of links for TT and TTD. But for SOME reason there are people that BUY the game when they couud have it for free... ill never understand...

I bought the game because it's worth it, it's one of the best damm games ever made!

(ad it cost me about 5€ LOL

).

latinoloco · Post by **latinoloco** » 17 May 2005 11:43

If you had a choice to pay for it or download it for free, i know i would download it. And anyway, theres no shops here that sell it. Even years back, unless its new, it doesnt stay in shops over here in Australia.

Dextro · Post by **Dextro** » 17 May 2005 11:49

latinoloco wrote:If you had a choice to pay for it or download it for free, i know i would download it. And anyway, theres no shops here that sell it. Even years back, unless its new, it doesnt stay in shops over here in Australia.

It's for sale here in Portugal on those budget lines. Good I love my country LOL

And I had the choice and I downloaded it but the game rockz so much I had to buy it to express how I liked the game.

latinoloco · Post by **latinoloco** » 17 May 2005 11:51

Thats tops. In Argentina you can also get any game, new and old. Hell i got Hitman 3 from Argentina like 2 weeks ago. In Australia they dont even have a release date...

Pan · Post by **Pan** » 17 May 2005 15:14

This game is considered Abandonware, which means you can freely distribute and download, like right here in this forum, theres a ton of links for TT and TTD. But for SOME reason there are people that BUY the game when they couud have it for free... ill never understand...

As far as I know, abandonware remains technically illegal. It's a grey area in the law, and because the games are old, nobody is really pursuing it too heavily at the moment. Distribution is clearly not as clear cut as freeware or public domain software though.

In addition, if you can buy the game from somewhere, then it's not Abandonware by definition at all.

DaleStan · Post by **DaleStan** » 17 May 2005 16:05

Pan wrote:In addition, if you can buy the game from somewhere, then it's not Abandonware by definition at all.

Correction:
If you can buy the game from somewhere, *and the copyright holder receives money from the purchase*, then ...

I could burn CDs of TTDLX and sell them for $10 each, but that wouldn't change the game's abandonware status (or lack thereof).

init · Post by **init** » 19 May 2005 11:18

MeusH wrote:Why won't you ask Chris Sawyer and Microprose about OTTD, Standalone OTTD, TTDPatch?

Do you want to attract their attention to this grey area?

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