Comment by ocdtrekkie
7 years ago
Part of me wants to express the irritation that people being neurotic about the GPL could cost us access to old games like this. I worry that someone overzealous would take down source for an 18 year old PS1 game over it.
Why would this cost access? It's leaked source code of something that we thought wasn't permitted to be released, which we've now learnt was supposed to be accessible.
The archivist in me loses this fight, I feel general adhering to software freedoms is more important and the greater good compared to a single game.
A "single game" is unlikely to be affected. Many games are likely violating the GPL, and it's likely that if there are takedowns because of it, there will be a chilling effect on future source code release.
Are you really protecting software freedoms if it ends up, in fact, discouraging the process of freeing more software?
Well, it's not freeing software unless they release the game GPL, if they don't then they're just illegally using GPL source code making the source far from anything free.
You talk about software freedom, but I think there's no greatest freedom than being able to use whatever software I want to create something humanity will enjoy.
Yes, of course. It's just that if the software you use (well, incorporate) is GPL-licensed then you also get to release the source code for something humanity will enjoy:)
GPL is harmful to software freedom.
GPL is harmful to developer freedoms but incredibly beneficial to user freedoms. Please do not conflate the two.
Your qualification of "neurotic" is entirely non-warranted IMO. As far as I can see so far all that's happened is that the source code of that game got leaked, somebody stumbled upon Linux code while perusing it and pointed it out.
Besides I think you're being ridiculously alarmist because for one thing archives of the PS1 library (including this game) are trivial to find online, so there's basically no chance for this game to disappear forever and on the other hand if this GPL infringement makes the owner release the source code under the GPL it will make the game more available than ever since it could potentially be ported to any computer you want (although you'll still have to buy the game for the assets).
Now you may argue that having potentially illegal downloads of PSX archives is not the same thing as having some legit source for getting the game, but then I think you're in a catch 22:
- If you think that the owner's IP should still be respected and enforced even though it's an almost 20 yo game, why shouldn't the GPL?
- If you think the GPL shouldn't be enforced because it's an almost 20 yo game, why do you care about the owner's IP?
I'm more of a BSD kind of guy but I really think it's unfair to blame the GPL or its defenders for what is a fuck-up by the original devs. Introducing a huge chunk of GPL code in a proprietary codebase like this is frankly a rookie mistake.
People aren't going to take down the source for a GPL violation. If anything, this will cause the source to be released under the GPL, so it's not illegal to use/host the source code.
Surely the idea of checking other games for GPL violations has the potential to open more codebases, lest the offenders risk financial penalties.