Re: Packaging Games with In-App Purchases
>>>>> "Ben" == Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> writes:
Ben> On Sun, 2019-07-14 at 12:37 +0700, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Let's imagine that I will package a city-building game titled
>> makecity. The game is licensed under GPL(v3), but it has virtual
>> currency which can be purchased by real money, that is the
>> currency is "premium currency" (which is hard or impossible to
>> get freely except by purchasing). However, premium currency and
>> in-app purchases (IAP) is integral in the game, because some
>> features and items can only be bought by premium currency.
Ben> How does that work, in a game that can easily be modified?
Ben> Does it depend on a server that keeps track of currency and
Ben> items, and is the server free software? If there's a
Ben> dependency on a non-free server, I think the game would belong
Ben> in contrib (though I'm not sure).
The game would not belong in contrib just because it uses a non-free
server.
We have this discussion on -project every few years and it becomes
painfully clear within the first 20 messages or so that if depending on
a non-free server was enough to get your software into contrib, huge
sections of the archive would end up in contrib, and both our users and
the free software community would be harmed.
Users would be harmed because things like free software libraries that
can talk to both openstack and AWS would have a hard decision to make.
They would either end up dropping the AWS dependency or moving to
contrib. Enough would choose not to drop the AWS dependency that even
users who wanted to access entirely free services would end up often
needing contrib.
The free software community would be harmed because contrib would become
needed enough that even people who valued free software would end up
using it.
I'm massively overly simplifying here. But we do have this conversation
periodically, and it's no fun, and we end up back at the current status
quo.
--Sam
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