Re: RES: Where to put Open Transport Tycoon (openttd)
On 5/19/05, Raul Miller <moth.debian@gmail.com> wrote:
> It probably would be a good idea for the openttd people to
> make sure their engine can do other stuff -- maybe implement
> a ship-based game, maybe a photo organizer, whatever...
> That would certainly make their position stronger.
Not if it were an obvious fig leaf. Don't get me wrong; I think
OpenTTD is cool, and if I could afford to risk a relapse into
addiction, it might well be the simulation game that I most wanted to
play. :-) But it's very much a refinement of another copyright
holder's work, and belongs on an abandonware site with no assets to
protect instead of on Debian's mirror network.
> But I'm dubious that increased commercial success of the affected
> engine is likely to decrease the success of an infringement suit.
That's quantitatively true, both with respect to the "commercial /
non-commercial" prong of the "fair use" test (assuming that defense
was advanced) and with respect to the probable damages if the TTD
copyright holder were to sue and win.
> Could you be more specific? I've looked at the
> web site, and didn't see anything indicating that
> changes to the game would not vanish as soon
> as it is run under the original engine.
>
> This was definitely NOT the case with Microstar's
> MAP files.
Of course if you take away the bits that _didn't_ come from the
original copyright holder, you get the original game, whether those
bits are engine or scenarios. If an enhanced engine can add things
like "larger stations", "mammoth trains", "cost estimation with
Shift", and "More currencies (including Euro introduction in 2002)", I
suspect that there are non-trivial bits of mise en scene copied from
the TTD engine to the OpenTTD engine.
> As i see it, the judge was pointing out that the MAP files -- which
> represent the scenes -- had status similar to art. I don't see how
> that applies to openttd.
>
> Once again, when you use the official software, any supposed
> changes are invisible.
I will again quote: "In making this argument, Micro Star misconstrues
the protected work. The work that Micro Star infringes is the D/N-3D
story itself ..." The threshold for "story" in this context is quite
low, as may be evidenced by the protection unhesitatingly granted to a
first-person shoot-em-up that the judge himself pointed out has a long
line of antecedents back to Wolfenstein 3D. You really should read
the whole opinion; when I first ran across it in 1998 or 1999, it was
the first time I got a belly laugh out of a court decision.
> I'm not particularly concerned about my credibility. I place a
> much higher priority on getting the facts straight.
>
> [As an aside: I believe that what you perceive as me being rude
> malicious or whatever is primarily matters of focus, though of
> course other issues like amount of time spent researching the
> issues and any underlying misunderstandings have an influence
> here.]
When you talk like that, you make me worry that all of the aspersions
I have cast on your sincerity may have been unjustified. I've eaten a
certain amount of crow, and may find that I am obliged to come back
for seconds.
> Anyways, if I'm off base then people shouldn't be paying much
> attention to me -- if people believe I'm correct when I'm not,
> that serves them no good. On the other hand, if I am correct,
> I'd like to be understood -- again, people just blindly listening
> to me without thinking things through isn't going to do them
> much good. [And these same principles hold for anyone
> in any of these discussions -- people need to think things
> through for themselves even if it's not me that's saying those
> things.]
>
> In other words: credibility is somewhat (though not
> completely) overrated.
Amen, brother -- up to a point. I wouldn't want a greater reputation
for, say, drive-by flamings than I may have earned. (That's not a dig
at Raul.)
Note to Adam McKenna: at this point, I think it's fairer to say that
Raul advances theories that are consistent with the status quo with
respect to similar packages (e. g., freeciv) than to accuse him of
pro-FSF bias.
Cheers,
- Michael
Reply to: