Re: Quake 2 sources GPL'd
On Sat, Dec 22, 2001 at 12:40:06PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
>
> Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> writes:
>
> > 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).
>
> Yeah, but that's a smokescreen I think. It seems like an excellent
> candidate for contrib.
>
> The argument you give could be applied to *any* package in contrib:
> they all have *some* potential educational value, they all *might* be
> useful if somebody went and wrote free analags to the nonfree things
> they depend on, etc.
I think that's rediculous. Education is not a smokescreen, and you can't
argue that there will never be free data available for quake2 (or know
for sure that there isn't already).
The quake2 engine is a gaming engine. Lots of libraries in our current
source are the same sort of things, and at one time did not have a game
based on them. Did they go into contrib? No. If they had a game based on
them that was non-free, would we put them in contrib? Probably not,
because they are libraries as opposed to binaries.
Not so with the quake2 engine. However, just because it is a binary
executable engine does not make it any different than a development
library in terms of game development. Advertise the thing as a gaming
engine, not as a game. Call the package "quake2-engine", and then once
we get some, we will have "cool-game" Depend: quake2-engine. The fact
is, that the quake2-engine does not depend on anything to perform what
it was made for, and that is to be a gaming engine. The data is the
game, and requires the engine.
Makes sense to me.
--
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/ Ben Collins -- Debian GNU/Linux \
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