Re: Quake 2 sources GPL'd

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> writes:

> The purpose of the sources released is a gaming engine. They did not
> release "quale2 the game", which is what the data files consist of.
> Notice that lots of games from Id are based on the quake3 engine. They
> aren't quake3, but they use the same engine, and different data files.
> 
> Do not confuse a game engine (the source released) with the game itself
> (the data files that they didn't release).

So there are two things that bug me here.

First, a user who sees "quake" listed in main should reasonably expect
to get Quake, and they don't, they get an engine which is essentially
useless to them, and which is extremely likely to *remain* useless to
them *forever* unless they go out and purchase the proprietary data
files.

Second, your example seems totally fabricated.  If there were a
plausible enterprise--ANYONE--who was seriously planning on using this
engine to make free levels that don't depend on id's nonfree stuff,
then I'd buy your argument.  But there really is no credible effort
out there to do this; not because there is no package in Debian, but
because it's a considerable venture and hasn't garnered interest.

I'm entirely happy with putting it in contrib, but I'm entirely
baffled by your position: what exactly do you think would be gained by
putting it in main?

Thomas