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Re: bsdgames: alternative to non-free rogue



On Mon, 9 Jun 2008, Aaron M. Ucko wrote:

> Anyway, I recently caught wind of a free (3-clause BSD) release of
> classic rogue at http://rogue.rogueforge.net/ , which would seem to
> obviate the need for what remains of bsdgames-non-free.  What's your
> take on the matter?

There are lots of different versions of rogue at that site and elsewhere, 
some derived from others and some reimplementations.  I don't know how big 
the gameplay differences are in general, but when dealing with games it's 
not necessarily the case that one version obsoletes another if there are 
gameplay differences, even if the two are successive versions of the same 
source code base.

It's highly likely that the version in bsdgames-non-free was actually 
intended to be free, and when the Regents of the University of California 
licensed it under the BSD license they simply forgot to remove an older 
license notice that had been inserted by its author before assigning it.  
But I never managed to get any answers to license questions from the 
Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing (whose director signed the notice 
removing the advertising clause).

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm@polyomino.org.uk


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