Adventures in Linux gaming

Posted May 13, 2010 7:52 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
Parent article: Adventures in Linux gaming

Lugaru is not fully free software, the game data is not commercially redistributable and they only included enough for a demo. From the announcement:

We have included enough of the game data to run the demo version. Please note that the game data is not under the GPL, and forbids commercial redistribution.

The full license is here.

Adventures in Linux gaming

Posted May 13, 2010 10:09 UTC (Thu) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link] (1 responses)

I think that could be a good model for Linux gaming: you release the engine under a free license, so you can have a platform for games, and then you sell content on that platform. I don't think a whole lot of people would mind paying for content while the technology is free. Books and music also work this way.

rms is happy too

Posted May 13, 2010 13:11 UTC (Thu) by alex (subscriber, #1355) [Link]

IIRC from a talk he gave in Manchester his main concern is the code was free, he's happy for non-code assets not to be. I did wonder if he would be quite so relaxed about scripted events, after all that's code.

Adventures in Linux gaming

Posted May 13, 2010 10:09 UTC (Thu) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link] (1 responses)

I think that's a very reasonable model for games, and one I'd be happy to see more of. It brings most of the practical advantages of having the code free (ability to re-use, study, port to new platforms etc.), and it provides a reasonable mechanism for the creators to get paid in a market where selling support contracts is unlikely to be a good fit.

There also seems to me to be a fundamental difference between games and game data and other kinds of software - a Firefox with KDE integration patches is still essentially Firefox, but World of Goo with different physics parameters is something else. Patching a feature into a browser or editor or whatnot on the basis that it's really useful seems reasonable, patching a couple of extra knights into chess on the same basis does not.

Adventures in Linux gaming

Posted May 13, 2010 14:31 UTC (Thu) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

It's fair enough not to release the game data for the reasons you mention, but releasing the game data as well would help unleash creativity there as well, e.g. for older games. The phenomenon of game modding means that there is a huge pool of people creating their own game data though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_%28computer_gaming%29