Re: Quake 2 sources GPL'd
On Sat, Dec 22, 2001 at 11:06:11AM -0500, Ben Collins wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 11:57:21PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> >
> > Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> writes:
> >
> > > That's not true. If it is possible to create game levels for it that are
> > > free, than it is considered free. It's not like you can't get anything
> > > but id's game data.
> >
> > I think it depends on whether there are any actual game levels around
> > which are free.
> >
> > The distinction between contrib and main is not whether it is
> > *possible* to create something free which the contrib software would
> > be useful for; it's really whether there *is* such a thing.
> >
> > If the only practical use of the engine is to run non-free levels from
> > id, then it belongs in contrib. If someone has levels (that at are
> > all fun--that is, which are real games) which the engine works with,
> > then it belongs (along with those levels) in main.
>
> So if I create a game with _no_ levels, but the tools to create them,
> then is it none-free? Just because the only ones available are non-free,
> doesn't preclude that it is possible to create your own. The engine has
> much more uses than just to play games (as the README in the source
> says, also for educational purposes).
But the binary doesn't have educational purposes.
The binary simply won't run, without some data files. I don't know if
there's a freely downloadable shareware one like there was with
quake1.
Certainly I don't see how we can, in main, distribute a binary that
does nothing but give an error message and exit.
I could see it as a source-only package, though.
Jules
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