LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 6, 2005

The broadcast flag returns

The broadcast flag is an attempt to mandate the use of digital restrictions management (DRM) technology with U.S digital television and radio broadcasts. In short, the broadcast flag regulations, as adopted by the Federal Communications Commission, would require that reception equipment honor a "do not copy" bit in a digital signal. The end result is that, among other things, free TV and radio systems would not be allowed, since they would fail the "robustness" requirement in the regulations. Happily, a federal court threw out the broadcast regulation last May, ruling that the FCC was not authorized to regulate what a piece of equipment does with a signal after reception.

The return of the broadcast flag was inevitable; the commercial interests behind this sort of regulation never give up that easily - or at all. Even so, the return of the broadcast flag has been surprisingly quick. Twenty U.S. members of Congress are now pushing for legislation which would give the FCC the regulatory authority it currently lacks. Susan Crawford has posted the proposed language:

This language is quite broad - the FCC would be empowered to regulate "digital networks" in whatever ways it sees fit to keep the entertainment industry happy. It does not take much imagination to foresee heavy-handed rules which are not particularly friendly to free software. This legislation needs to be defeated; BoingBoing has a list of offending "congressjerks" and their contact information. We don't doubt that they would be delighted to hear from their constituents on this matter.

The broadcast flag looks like a U.S. problem, but the situation in Europe is similar. The EFF has just posted a report on the activities of the Digital Video Broadcasting project, a body which sets television standards for use in Europe, Australia, and even parts of Asia. The upcoming DVB standard contains some familiar provisions:

The CPCM includes provisions for "proximity control" and such, regulating just how far a digital signal can be propagated. It includes a revocation feature allowing existing hardware to be disabled should the industry conclude that it has been compromised. The inevitable "robustness requirement" will make it impossible to create digital television systems with free software. The CPCM, in other words, is the broadcast flag, only worse.

A broadcast flag for Europe is not inevitable. The process which CPCM will have to follow is long: it must be adopted as a European telecommunications standard, then mandated by law in each nation. There is plenty of warning, and no end of good reasons to fight back. With effort - and luck - our ability to create free television systems can be preserved on both sides of the Atlantic.

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The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0

At linux.conf.au 2005 in Canberra, kernel hacker Rusty Russell was heard to voice a complaint. It seems that he had discovered The Battle for Wesnoth, and his productivity had suffered ever since. He mentioned it again some months later in Ottawa, so one presumes that the problem had not yet gone away. Rusty is not the only developer who has been afflicted by the Wesnoth disease over the last year. If the pace of free software development appears to have slowed recently, Wesnoth may well be to blame.

Battle for Wesnoth 1.0 was released on October 2. Your editor, being a serious type, does not normally see fit to play computer games (those past episodes with DND, rogue, empire, netrek, nethack, etc. were just aberrations, honest). But a 1.0 release of a popular, GPL-licensed game calls out for investigation; journalistic ethics require it. So your editor pulled down the new release and checked it out. For a while. In fact, the LWN Weekly Edition almost did not happen this week, and it's all Wesnoth's fault.

Wesnoth is a two-dimensional swords, sorcery, and strategy game. In its most basic form, the player must lead an army of elvish fighters against the enemy (played by the computer), occupy villages, rape, pillage, and wipe out the opposing leader. There is a variety of different character types with different capabilities, and characters grow with experience. The game includes a tutorial which makes getting started easy. There is also a pleasant set of musical tracks and (sometimes less pleasant) sound effects that go with the game. Your editor did not know, previously, that ghosts would grunt when struck.

The game was designed to be extended. An editor packaged with Wesnoth (and which is fun to work with in its own right) makes it easy to design battlefields, and tools are available for the creation of complete games. Many "campaigns" designed by users are hosted on the central Wesnoth server; they are easily downloaded from within the game and played. Wesnoth also offers multi-player operation.

It has often been said that gaming is one area where free software will never come close to the proprietary competition. The high expense and hit-oriented nature of the commercial game industry simply sets the bar too high. And, in fact, Wesnoth is still a far cry from commercial battle games available for proprietary platforms. The turn-oriented play, relatively simple animation, and hexagonal-grid landscape all look primitive compared to a high-budget commercial game.

But the gap is closing. Wesnoth as a game is engaging, challenging, and visually and aurally pleasing. Wesnoth may not be able to compete with the latest commercial blockbuster, but it does demonstrate that the free software community is getting better at creating games. In this area, as with many others, our reach is increasing.

There is another important aspect to Wesnoth's success which was also pointed out by Rusty. There is plenty of good programming in Wesnoth, but it doesn't stop there. Somebody has spent quite a bit of time designing graphics and animated effects. Others have contributed music which one is tempted to leave playing even after one has been crushed by the opposition and seen one's castles go up in flames. As free software develops, there will be more need for people who can make these kinds of contributions. Wesnoth has set an example - applicable to a much wider range of development projects - on how non-code contributors can be welcomed. For that, if nothing else, the Wesnoth 1.0 release deserves hearty congratulations.

Now your editor must go off and retry The Eastern Invasion one more time...

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