No allowance for copyright text in I7
John W. Kennedy
headline and the Release line, both at the top of the game and in the
response to "Version". I6 supports that by a multiline headline, but I7
doesn't make any provision for it. One of my current projects is set in
a universe that I have permission to play in, but which is not my own,
so I /must/ have a full copyright statement. I can, no doubt, hack it
somehow or other, but it would be better if I7 could just add a "Story
Copyright is..." feature. (It would probably be good to copy the text
into a COPY chunk in the generated blorb file, too.)
--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"
Andrew Plotkin
> Infocom used to put a copyright notice between what Inform calls the
> headline and the Release line, both at the top of the game and in the
> response to "Version". I6 supports that by a multiline headline, but I7
> doesn't make any provision for it.
"Printing the banner text" is an activity, and you can add rules
before or after it. Is that what you're looking for?
Or are you asking to put text in the *middle* of it? That seems like a
reasonable request (the rulebook could have the printing the title
rule, the printing the byline rule, and the printing the release
information rule -- then you could stick it more stuff wherever).
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a warrant,
it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're an American.
Graham Nelson
help.
I am nervous of using the COPY chunk in blorbs, though. For one thing,
many blorbs exist for which this chunk is unfilled, and that doesn't
mean they aren't copyright. For another thing, blorb is a wrapper,
which means it's easy for it to be unwrapped and/or rewrapped. But my
third concern is for the longer term. I think it quite plausible that
the MPAA, RIAA, etc., will succeed in buying an extension to the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which will then be enforced elsewhere
in the world via the GATT process - just as the original DMCA seems now
to have been incorporated in British law almost without comment. My
fear is that such a law might eventually prohibit the hosting of any
file whose format contains copyright information. Such a law would make
it impossible to archive games past, whose original writers are long
gone.
Copyright can be an extremely destructive thing for cultures outside
the mainstream (actually, I'm not even convinced it does much good
inside the mainstream), and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next
half-century sees considerable prohibitions on many forms of computing
practiced now. Or at any rate, for many existing legal torts (where one
essentially has to do monetary harm to offend) to be converted into
criminal offences (where the fact of the act itself is sufficient). I'm
therefore wary of allowing any copyright or license information to be a
machine-readable part of file formats. We may well see a time when it
is illegal to email a file without machine-verifiable proof of
permission so to do. The current line that all analogue tape recorders,
sound cards, etc., represent an "analogue gap" - because they are not
covered by the DRM which is supposedly normative - may well become an
"email gap" ten years from now, when a 350GB file can be emailed in a
few seconds: and there may well be renewed attempts to force disc drive
manufacturers to build DRM into drive firmware.
Perhaps this is paranoia. But we ought to think about 2030, not 1970,
when designing file formats nowadays. In 1976, the pioneers of Unix
appear not to have realised that the Berne copyright convention,
re-interpreting the lack of copyright declarations in Unix utility
source code, would eventually lead to the current - admittedly
questionable - SCO lawsuits. Present events would have seemed surreal
back then. We should expect 2030 to be equally surreal to us now. So
let's not build "broadcast bits" into our file formats.
Rioshin an'Harthen
> headline and the Release line, both at the top of the game and in the
> response to "Version". I6 supports that by a multiline headline, but I7
> doesn't make any provision for it. One of my current projects is set in a
> universe that I have permission to play in, but which is not my own, so I
> /must/ have a full copyright statement. I can, no doubt, hack it somehow
> or other, but it would be better if I7 could just add a "Story Copyright
> is..." feature. (It would probably be good to copy the text into a COPY
> chunk in the generated blorb file, too.)
Hmm... after delving into the Natural library shipped with I7, and
appropriating Banner from it into I7 (as follows):
"Banner Test"
Include (-
[ NewBanner i;
#ifdef NI_BUILD_COUNT;
new_line;
BeginActivity(BANNER_ACT);
if (ForActivity(BANNER_ACT) == false) {
style bold; print (string) Story, "^";
style roman; print (string) Headline;
#ifdef Story_Author;
print " by ", (string) Story_Author;
#endif;
print "^";
! This is the new line below
print "Copyright 2006 by Original Authors^";
#ifnot;
if (Story ~= 0)
{
#IFV5; style bold; #ENDIF;
print (string) Story;
#IFV5; style roman; #ENDIF;
}
if (Headline ~= 0)
print (string) Headline;
#endif;
print "Release ", (0-->1) & $03ff, " / Serial number ";
for (i=18:i<24:i++) print (char) 0->i;
#ifdef NI_BUILD_COUNT;
print " / Inform 7 build ", (string) NI_BUILD_COUNT, " ";
print "(I6/v"; inversion;
print " lib ", (string) LibRelease, ") ";
#ifnot;
print " / Inform v"; inversion;
print " Library ", (string) LibRelease, " ";
#endif;
#ifdef STRICT_MODE;
print "S";
#endif;
#ifdef INFIX;
print "X";
#ifnot;
#ifdef DEBUG;
print "D";
#endif;
#endif;
new_line;
#ifdef NI_BUILD_COUNT;
}
EndActivity(BANNER_ACT);
#endif;
];
-).
To say the new banner text: (- NewBanner(); -).
Rule for printing the banner text: instead say the new banner text.
A testing place is a room.
The banner prints correctly with the copyright clause in it. However, for
some reason, I get a run-time problem P7 (too many rulebooks in simultaneous
use) with it, at least in the Windows version of the I7 suite's built-in
interpreter.
José Manuel García-Patos
> Copyright can be an extremely destructive thing for cultures outside
> the mainstream (actually, I'm not even convinced it does much good
> inside the mainstream), and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next
> half-century sees considerable prohibitions on many forms of computing
> practiced now.
Just curious: If you have such a negative opinion about copyright, why is
Inform 7 copyrighted?
"The underlying command-line tools share the traditional Inform license:
they are free, and impose no significant restrictions on even commercial
use, but are not open source in the sense of the GPL (even though source
code is likely to be published in due course): in particular, those
wishing to develop variant forms must apply for copyright permission."
I'm aware that this is not copyright as the RIAA would like it to be, but,
still. Also, if you're so paranoid about certain forms of computing being
prohibited (my guess is that you're talking about free software. If not,
just ignore the following questions), wouldn't it be more coherent of you
to practice those forms of computing? Because if you don't, what do you
care (more precisely, how will legislators know that you care) if they're
banned or not? As we say in Spanish, "obras son amores, y no buenas
razones." Again, just curious.
All The Best.
José Manuel García-Patos
Madrid
ps. Oh. Now that I have you here. In the Spanish IF community there's more
or less twice a year a discussion about updating InformATE. And it always
ends with the same conclusion: Their fear of breaking inform's copyright
by creating a derivative work without your permission. Do they need your
permission for translating Inform to Spanish (again)? Do they have it?
Free of charge? Thank you.
John W. Kennedy
> Here, John W. Kennedy <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>> Infocom used to put a copyright notice between what Inform calls the
>> headline and the Release line, both at the top of the game and in the
>> response to "Version". I6 supports that by a multiline headline, but I7
>> doesn't make any provision for it.
>
> "Printing the banner text" is an activity, and you can add rules
> before or after it. Is that what you're looking for?
>
> Or are you asking to put text in the *middle* of it? That seems like a
> reasonable request (the rulebook could have the printing the title
> rule, the printing the byline rule, and the printing the release
> information rule -- then you could stick it more stuff wherever).
The traditional Infocom layout was, e.g.,
ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire
Infocom interactive fiction - a fantasy story
Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 Infocom, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ZORK is a registered trademark of Infocom, Inc.
Release 52 / Serial number 871125 / Interpreter 4 Version F
but I don't know that that detail has to be preserved. The copyright can
just as logically go after the release. So that solves my immediate problem.
On the other hand, dividing the activity into its three parts would
probably be useful for somebody, someday.
Graham Nelson
arise from excessive and mindless enforcement, the increasing and
inappropriate use of criminal statute, and the very worrying trend
towards ignoring or abolishing all forms of fair use. Events such as
the appalling decision of the British Library to enforce DRM on its
digital holdings do not encourage.
But I do believe in the moral right of the author. I think anybody
ought to be free to duplicate and publish pictures of a modern
painting, for instance. I don't think they ought to be free to alter
it, or say that somebody else painted it. This is a difference in
outlook between that taken in art, and in computing, I guess - which
makes it a conflict especially likely to arise in a medium which
combines the two.
I have always given permission for translations of I6, and am happy to
repeat that here. I would not wish to see a system with significant
differences in behaviour from Inform being called Inform, that's all;
that's the kind of moral right I mean. I've only really exerted that
right once over Inform 6, which was to prevent a fully HTML-based
Inform being developed, because I felt that would destabilise the
Z-machine standard, which it is very much in the community's interest
to remain standard.
On this point of derivative works, I appreciate that I am at odds with
the ideological position taken by much of the open source movement, but
I do give my works away free of charge, allow their distribution on
sites and archives other than my own, and allow their use even for
commercial purposes without notice or permission. So I don't think I'm
quite in the RIAA camp just yet.
José Manuel García-Patos
> I have always given permission for translations of I6, and am happy to
> repeat that here. I would not wish to see a system with significant
> differences in behaviour from Inform being called Inform, that's all;
> that's the kind of moral right I mean.
In the name of those who bore me to death twice a year with the same
pointless discussion, I humbly thank you.
> I've only really exerted that right once over Inform 6, which was to
> prevent a fully HTML-based Inform being developed, because I felt that
> would destabilise the Z-machine standard, which it is very much in the
> community's interest to remain standard.
Now that I'm at it, I always had another doubt about Inform and I think
this is the right moment to ask: You're a knuthian like me, why didn't you
enforce the output of all Z-machine games to be the same in all platforms,
just like TeX does? Don't you feel it's sad and bad (for players and
authors alike) to play a virtually different game depending on the
interpreter you're using? Especially taking into account that most of them
are typographically crappy.
Rioshin an'Harthen
> "John W. Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> Infocom used to put a copyright notice between what Inform calls the
>> headline and the Release line, both at the top of the game and in the
>> response to "Version". I6 supports that by a multiline headline, but I7
>> doesn't make any provision for it. One of my current projects is set in a
>> universe that I have permission to play in, but which is not my own, so I
>> /must/ have a full copyright statement. I can, no doubt, hack it somehow
>> or other, but it would be better if I7 could just add a "Story Copyright
>> is..." feature. (It would probably be good to copy the text into a COPY
>> chunk in the generated blorb file, too.)
>
> Hmm... after delving into the Natural library shipped with I7, and
> appropriating Banner from it into I7 (as follows):
>
> "Banner Test"
>
> Include (-
> [ NewBanner i;
> #ifdef NI_BUILD_COUNT;
> new_line;
> BeginActivity(BANNER_ACT);
> if (ForActivity(BANNER_ACT) == false) {
[snip code]
> #ifdef NI_BUILD_COUNT;
> }
> EndActivity(BANNER_ACT);
> #endif;
> ];
> -).
Hmm, naturally it errored out in this function... since the function is
checking for a rule for printing the banner text, and we came to it from
one. Simple enough to change, just remove the unnecessary parts from it,
since we're compiling with I7 and the I6 used internally by it:
[ NewBanner i;
new_line;
style bold; print (string) Story, "^";
style roman; print (string) Headline;
#ifdef Story_Author;
print " by ", (string) Story_Author;
#endif;
print "^";
print "Copyright 2006 by Original Authors^";
print "Release ", (0-->1) & $03ff, " / Serial number ";
for (i=18:i<24:i++) print (char) 0->i;
print " / Inform 7 build ", (string) NI_BUILD_COUNT, " ";
print "(I6/v"; inversion;
print " lib ", (string) LibRelease, ") ";
#ifdef STRICT_MODE;
print "S";
#endif;
#ifdef INFIX;
print "X";
#ifnot;
#ifdef DEBUG;
print "D";
#endif;
new_line;
];
This gives a clean banner with the copyright clause in it - feel free to use
combined with the necessary
To say the new banner text: (- NewBanner(); -).
Rule for printing the banner text: instead say the new banner text.
rules. :)
John W. Kennedy
> On the whole, I believe that copyright is a sad necessity.
One certainly wishes never to see writers again reduced to penning
fawning panegyrics of some Bush, Murdoch, Gates, or Lay in the hopes of
being tossed a few pennies, as non-dramatic writers generally had to do
to support themselves before Queen Anne's Act. (See
<URL:http://pws.prserv.net/jwkennedy/Double%20Falshood/Double%20Falshood.html#dedication-head>
for an example of that sort of thing.)
Speaking of Shakespeare, however, perhaps there is hope in the fact that
the ridiculous Tonson monopoly eventually faded away.
--
John W. Kennedy
"...make yourselves friends by means of the riches of iniquity,
for the wealth of the self is the health of the self exchanged.
...
Money is a medium of exchange."
-- Charles Williams. "Bors to Elayne: On the King's Coins"
unla...@gmail.com
in particular whether Inform should be free. Free software has many
advantages that even gratis software with source provided doesn't.
For one, Linux distributions can't include the software, or need to put
it in a non-free jail, because they can't modify and redistribute the
source to patch it for their system, build appropriate platform
packages, and so on. In particular, the Debian Free Software Guidelines
don't allow non-free software to be distributed with Debian, and
distributions like Gentoo are build on redistributing and patching the
source. I feel like people in the free software community are more
likely than most people to be interested in interactive fiction, and
making Inform easily available via Linux distributions would help
increase the prominence of interactive fiction.
I am a programmer, and will occasionally delve into the source of a
program I'm using, fix a bug or add a feature, and submit it back to
the maintainer. In this way, I contribute back to the large volume of
free software that I take advantage of. If the code is not free,
however, I am much less likely to contribute to it; my patches could be
used for propriety purposes, or completely ignored with no way for me
to fork the project if I really need those patches. This disincentive
to help out hacking on Inform can actually be a serious problem, if for
some reason you were to stop maintaining Inform. First of all, if you
stopped maintaining it and disappeared, no one else could legally take
over maintaining it. To lose such access wonderful tool as Inform would
be huge blow to the interactive fiction community (it wouldn't happen
immediately, but without updates, bug fixes, and forward porting to new
platforms, it would probably eventually die of bit-rot).
Ideologically, I am finding the idea of a fully free operating system
and all free software more and more necessary. Now, I am a Mac user,
and so I haven't actually committed to such an environment yet, but I
find more and more reasons every day, and am strongly considering
switching to Linux when I buy my next computer. On the Mac, I have lost
years of email archives because I used Cyberdog, and couldn't export my
messages from it when it was discontinued; had it been open source, I
could have at least built an export filter, or more likely, someone
else already would have. Apple is increasingly adding more and more DRM
to its system, and has stopped releasing the Darwin kernel as open
source, which means that they can add more DRM in the future. I believe
that in the end, the best way to fight against the copyright cartels
that are trying to control everyone's access to their own computer is
to have a complete free software system that can do everything you
need, so no one is beholden to proprietary software vendors that can be
threatened or bribed into co-opting your computer.
Now, you cite control over the development of Inform as your main
reason for not making it free software. There are plenty of ways to
maintain control of the system while still allowing it to be open
source, however. The best analogy would be to existing programming
languages and interpreters. I have yet to hear Guido van Rossum, Larry
Wall, or Matz complaining about losing control of Python, Perl, or
Ruby, even though they are all released open source. For one thing, if
someone makes changes, it's just far more practical to get them
integrated into the upstream sources, rather than trying to maintain a
fork. Also, you can control the "Inform standard", and not allow people
to call any forked versions "Inform". For an example in the IF
community, look at the Glk standard. Zarf has released the code as free
software, but asserts control of the standard, though as he said, it's
not particularly legally binding. As far as I know, though, no one has
tried to fork Glk, because a large part of it's value is in
standardization. Likewise, I don't anticipate anyone trying to fork
Inform, as long as you're reasonably responsive at accepting patches.
I must, of course, disclaim this by saying that I am completely new to
the interactive fiction community, and haven't yet contributed anything
to it, while you have probably contributed more than anyone else, so
you have every right to do as you see fit with Inform. I just think
that there are considerable advantages to releasing it under a free
license, and the problems have easy solutions.
Also, I would like to say that so far I am amazed by I7, and
congratulate you on taking interactive fiction development so far
forward in a single step. As a student of linguistics, and a
programming language geek, I find it a fascinating system. I would love
to hear more about the details of your parser and semantic model; are
you using a Montague grammer, or some other semantic theory? I have
glanced at your paper, but it didn't go into very much detail on the
linguistics, and I haven't looked up your references yet.
Cheers,
Brian Campbell
James Cunningham
> [...] I feel like people in the free software community are more
> likely than most people to be interested in interactive fiction, and
> making Inform easily available via Linux distributions would help
> increase the prominence of interactive fiction[. ...]
Well: it may help, somewhat, but anyone sufficiently motivated to
*write* text adventures will probably be willing to go a little bit out
of his way to find and download a binary. And besides - whether it's a
good thing or not, a very high number of people have non-free
repositories on their sources.list (or equivalent). Many - most? - use
non-free programs on Linux where the free alternatives are seriously
lacking, be them Java or Flash or ATi/nVidia drivers. I don't see the
impetus towards such things disappearing anytime soon.
> [...] Apple is increasingly adding more and more DRM
> to its system, and has stopped releasing the Darwin kernel as open
> source, which means that they can add more DRM in the future[. ...]
Happily, I suppose, this is not the case; the lack of x86 sources was
an oversight on Apple's part, and the problem has been (mostly?)
corrected. See here:
http://www.opendarwin.org/~bbraun/darwin_lessons.html
, where the OpenDarwin developer who complained in the first place
describes that the sources have been released. He goes into other
problems with Apple's view towards open source, however, which may go
some distance towards validating the views you express. (I tend to
disagree, but practically; I have never had very good luck with
open-source software; the quality of inexpensive shareware software is
often yards above open alternatives. And every time I look up the sky
is in the same place.)
Best,
James
unla...@gmail.com
> On 2006-05-09 15:49:17 -0400, "unla...@gmail.com" <unla...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > [...] I feel like people in the free software community are more
> > likely than most people to be interested in interactive fiction, and
> > making Inform easily available via Linux distributions would help
> > increase the prominence of interactive fiction[. ...]
>
> Well: it may help, somewhat, but anyone sufficiently motivated to
> *write* text adventures will probably be willing to go a little bit out
> of his way to find and download a binary. And besides - whether it's a
> good thing or not, a very high number of people have non-free
> repositories on their sources.list (or equivalent). Many - most? - use
> non-free programs on Linux where the free alternatives are seriously
> lacking, be them Java or Flash or ATi/nVidia drivers. I don't see the
> impetus towards such things disappearing anytime soon.
This is true, but it's something that leaves a dirty taste in the
mouth. And in many cases, there are considerable efforts to
re-implement the closed source software, which could be avoided if it
were released open source to begin with. As of now, I know several
people that I wanted to show I7 to, but they can't run it because it's
not ported to Linux. I'm not particularly motivated to port it to Linux
since it's not open source, and I'm not sure how many other people
would be, so even getting it there to begin with will be more
difficult, and even once it is, they have to go to a non-free
repository to get it.
> > [...] Apple is increasingly adding more and more DRM
> > to its system, and has stopped releasing the Darwin kernel as open
> > source, which means that they can add more DRM in the future[. ...]
>
> Happily, I suppose, this is not the case; the lack of x86 sources was
> an oversight on Apple's part, and the problem has been (mostly?)
> corrected. See here:
>
> http://www.opendarwin.org/~bbraun/darwin_lessons.html
>
> , where the OpenDarwin developer who complained in the first place
> describes that the sources have been released. He goes into other
> problems with Apple's view towards open source, however, which may go
> some distance towards validating the views you express.
They released everything but the kernel. Some of that they had to
release, and some doesn't affect DRM/TPM. The lack of the kernel,
though, means they can continue to tie the OS to their hardware and
increase DRM protection.
> (I tend to
> disagree, but practically; I have never had very good luck with
> open-source software; the quality of inexpensive shareware software is
> often yards above open alternatives. And every time I look up the sky
> is in the same place.)
I find this to vary wildly on a case-by-case basis, but I think that
the quality of open source software has been increasing a good deal
recently. Recent versions of Gnome and KDE are at least as usable as
Windows, Firefox is a great browser, on the Mac the best IM client is
Adium which is open source, and the best IRC client on the Mac is
Colloquy, pretty much all decent compilers and programming languages
are open source, there are some great open source revision control
systems, decent open source email clients, most blogging software is
open source, open source web servers are the best, and so on. There are
certainly places where open source software is lacking--the Gimp sucks,
and I haven't seen any good replacements--but on the whole, there is
plenty of good open source software, and any time there is choice
between open source and closed source software of approximately equal
functionality and good design, I'll choose the open source software,
since I know that it'll never disappear trapping my data in an old
format, I can fix bugs if I find them, and it will never deliberately
impose restriction on what I can do on my own computer.
Anyhow, we're getting a bit off-topic here, but I think that there are
good reasons, both practical and ideological, for making software open
source. In the case of Inform, most of the business reasons (not being
tied to a single vendor, etc) don't apply, since almost no one makes a
business out of interactive fiction, but issues of cultural
preservation do apply, as well as practical issues like more people
likely to hack on Inform, more people willing to do porting and
translating, and so on.
And of course, as I said, all I offer is suggestions, since Inform is
Graham's work, and I certainly haven't done anything of significance in
the IF community at this point. I basically want two things; I want to
be able to hack on Inform, since it's a cool system but I think it
could be enhanced in a lot of ways, and I want the option of switching
to an entirely free software system at some point, if the DRM/TPM
issues get too bad. I also just don't want to commit to writing in a
language that may be abandoned and bit rot at some point.
Cheers,
Brian Campbell
Adam Thornton
unla...@gmail.com <unla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Also, you can control the "Inform standard", and not allow people
>to call any forked versions "Inform".
Indeed, that's precisely what Bacula--which Debian seems to have no
problem allowing--does. It's under the GPL with the additional
restriction that, if you want to call the derivative work you release
"Bacula," it must comply with the Bacula specification document. Kern
Sibbald has done this in order to ensure that anything called Bacula is
interoperable with anything else called Bacula.
Adam
John DeBerry
>
> Indeed, that's precisely what Bacula--which Debian seems to have no
> problem allowing--does. It's under the GPL with the additional
> restriction that, if you want to call the derivative work you release
> "Bacula," it must comply with the Bacula specification document. Kern
> Sibbald has done this in order to ensure that anything called Bacula is
> interoperable with anything else called Bacula.
Scott Bakula is free to innovate, though.
Joe Mason
Hell, Firefox does this, and they've even got a switch in the source
code which automatically controls the inclusion of the Firefox name and
artwork (which I believe are trademarked, not just copyrighted). The
license is pretty restrictive - IIRC, it says you're free to make alterations
and such, but you're only allowed to use the Firefox trademarks if you
include Mozilla-approved patches. The source code switch provides an
easy way to make sure you're in compliance.
Joe
Victor Gijsbers
> On this point of derivative works, I appreciate that I am at odds with
> the ideological position taken by much of the open source movement, but
> I do give my works away free of charge, allow their distribution on
> sites and archives other than my own, and allow their use even for
> commercial purposes without notice or permission. So I don't think I'm
> quite in the RIAA camp just yet.
I had been thinking about the copyright of Inform, and whether or not it
is a bad thing that Inform is not entirely free. (In the sense used by
the free software movement, ie "free as in freedom".) I am a big
proponent of free software; I run Linux, released my first (and
currently only) work of IF under the GPL, am an associate member of the
Free Software Foundation, and have even sent some emails on this topic
to politicians who are supposed to represent me.
All that being said, I reached the conclusion that with the IF community
being like it is, there is nothing wrong with the current Inform
license. Here is why. One of the reasons to insist on free software is
that you can use it without becoming dependent on one business or
another: you don't have to ask permission to make modifications you need
and send those to your friends, you are not in trouble when the business
decides to stop support for the software, and so forth.
In a sense, we cannot use Inform without becoming dependent on Graham
Nelson. But this is not the same as becoming dependent on a business,
because Graham Nelson is a person, a moral agent, while a business is
neither. Between persons, there is a thing called 'trust', and if we
trust someone, we don't mind being dependent on that person. Now, if
anyone has earned our trust as someone who wishes his work to benefit
the IF community, it is surely Graham Nelson.
Asking him to release Inform as free software could, therefore, be read
as saying: "I don't trust you, I regard you in the same way as I regard
software companies, and I want you to make sure I no longer need to
trust you." Although there is nothing wrong in principle with that
stance, I don't think it is necessary in a community as small, friendly
and unfettered by commercial interests as the current IF community. We
don't really need the legal protections offered by free licenses,
because we can still rely on trust. (Conceivably, this could change in
the future.)
I would still prefer Inform to be licensed under a free license, but I
do not think it is very important that it is. :)
Graham, given your concerns about DRM and such, you might want to keep
an eye on the development of the GPL3. (The current draft is here:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft ; it is only a draft, so I advise against
using parts of it until the full version is released.) It will contain
some clauses on DRM which you might want to (adapt and) put in the
Inform license.
Regards,
Victor
Joe Mason
> were released open source to begin with. As of now, I know several
> people that I wanted to show I7 to, but they can't run it because it's
> not ported to Linux. I'm not particularly motivated to port it to Linux
> since it's not open source, and I'm not sure how many other people
> would be, so even getting it there to begin with will be more
> difficult, and even once it is, they have to go to a non-free
> repository to get it.
The GUI part of it IS open source - both the Mac and Windows versions
are GPL'd. The Inform 6 underlayer already runs on Linux - it's "source
available", although you're not allowed to change the source and
redistribute. The only problem is the Natural Inform compiler that
generates the Inform 6 code. (Which I'd imagine will be released under
a similar license to Inform 6 once the bugs found in this first beta
settle down.)
I'd also prefer the tools to be open sourced, using an established
Mozilla-like license which allows changes but requires the "Inform"
branding to be changed if the sources aren't pristine. But it's not a
deal-breaker as far as porting to Linux goes.
Joe
Matthew Russotto
Graham Nelson <gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>to have been incorporated in British law almost without comment. My
>fear is that such a law might eventually prohibit the hosting of any
>file whose format contains copyright information. Such a law would make
>it impossible to archive games past, whose original writers are long
>gone.
It's more likely to go the other way -- they'll prohibit the hosting
of any file whose format does not contain copyright information and a
statement allowing hosting of the file. The default will be
prohibition. As, in fact, it is now; that's simply not enforced in
many cases.
>Copyright can be an extremely destructive thing for cultures outside
>the mainstream
Copyright sucks full stop. In this case I'm more than willing to
throw out the baby with the bathwater, because the baby drowned years
ago.
--
There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can
result in a fully-depreciated one.