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Comment by drivebyacct2 | Hacker News Reader

This is a really cool concept, I love that it's open source and Lua adds a fun kick. I'll be honest, I'm awful at it though. It's extremely hard for me to control mario and the portal gun. It's strange because I love classic mario and like to think I'm pretty good at solving Portal fast.

Maybe I just need to practice more? Does anyone here feel proficient? I've seen videos of people doing some crazy things with it already, I'm jealous.

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I love that it's open source

Technically not open source. It's released under a Creative Commons CC-NC-SA which is not an open source licence, and is not approved by OSI nor FSF

However, the source is available, and it's CC, which isn't exactly a propriatry programme.

It's open source, but not free software.

Not according to the OSI. So I guess you could say it's open source, but not Open Source.

I've always been fond of referring to such a thing as "source available" - and commercial software such as Radiator where you only get an un-obfuscated version of the source with a purchase as "source supplied".

"Available" just seems like a better word than "open" for this sort of case.

(the author apologises for overuse of quotes in the above but preferred to be consistent even at the potential cost of some irritation and/or incorrect usage)

The OSI tried to get a trademark on the term "open source" to prevent it being used outside what they want, but it was denied as too broad a claim IIRC.

As such there is no canonical definition of "open source", however in the context of open source software, this would not be considered an open source code.

There are very very few things that are "open source" but not "free software". The main difference is ideological and/or tribal.

I'm curios, the difinition of open source implies (demands) more than making the source code available?

Just in case I'm not talking in a broad sense, I'm asking whether just being able to see the code is enough to consider a piece of software open source.

Thabks

It depends who you ask. The OSI have a definition (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html). It isn't the only definition, but it's probably the only definition self-important enough to have its own webpage. Some people get angry if you don't agree with that definition, but there's no real reason to consider it privileged above the lay definition ("the source is available").

the difinition of open source implies (demands) more than making the source code available?

Yes.

Essentially, you have to provide the source, and also allow people to make & distribute derived works based on it. This CC-NC-BY licence does not allow you to distribute derived works for commercial purposes. Lots of companies use open source software in commercial purposes.

I get that these terms do have specific meanings, but it bothers me that those meanings are so restrictive as to be unintuitive to someone not steeped in the dogma of the community.

These people made the source openly available and, by the CC license applied, can't it be modified and redistributed? That feels like "openness" to me. Thus, this feels like "open source", but technically the open source proprietors haven't opened the term "open source", so it's not.

Or have I misunderstood the license in this case? I admit, I am posting before looking, because the time it would take to look could make my post irrelevant.

Correction: I just went and looked. The license acts as I expected and has a digestible compact form for easy consumption.

Now I've gone and looked at the OSI site, and the CC license is not one they have approved. Yet they provide the material on the OSI site as CC licensed.

This distinction suddenly just seems dumb. Can someone elucidate it, or its use, please?

The problem is the "NC" = non-commercial. It is, when you think about it, a very strong restriction on what you can do with it. I totally get that the author doesn't want somebody to come along and go make money on the back of his work.

But let's say that you download the code, enhance it and put it on your Github for the world to see. Great, you're allowed to do that[1]. But what if you're a contractor and your Github is part of your public profile, i.e. your professional marketing material? You could very well be in breach of the NC clause.

That's why FOSS enthusiast tend to be a little purist about it. OSI and FSF approved licenses contain no such ambiguity.

Also, there's the down-watering of the term itself. RMS actively opposes the term "open source" because it's less free than his "free software" definition, the success of which he considers OSI to leech on. I'm not even sure how open source is less free than free software (although I'm sure it is), but I agree with the concern that the term open source should be protected to include the concern of absolutely free usage.

1: Although you could construct the argument that since Github is a commercial entity that benefits from showcasing code on their website, it's actually a commercial usage.

Awesome! Thanks to you and icebraining for the responses. The Non-Commercial distinction makes sense.

To be clear though, would a CC BY or CC BY SA license be fine, then? It's not listed on the OSI Approved Licenses list (which is the issue others took earlier in the thread, or so I thought), but those would appear to serve the same ideals that approved licenses do. If that wouldn't be fine, I'd love to better understand why not.

I don't know what's the OSI position, but they're considered Free by the FSF/GNU, although they'd prefer if people used something else, since they're GPL-incompatible.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ccby

The rhetoric that tends to be thrown around is that CC licenses aren't specifically designed for code, and that there are other licenses that accomplish the same thing but cover your bases better.

That's not rhetoric, it's an argument. And a good one.

hmm, perhaps I should have used "language". I agree.

Is there an OS-type license that includes a NC clause?

(Yes, I understand that true OS licenses can't have that restriction by definition, but I hope the intent of my question is clear.)

As far as I know, there isn't any free licensed license¹ for software that includes that clause, but in theory nothing prevents you from taking e.g. the MIT license and adding that clause yourself. IANAL, YMMV.

¹ As written works they are, licenses are themselves subject to copyright, so you can't just copy someone else's licenses and use it yourself.

Creative Commons like this project uses?

The FSF and OSI are both clear about what liberties a licence must give to people for it to be called open source / free software, and "must allow commercial reuse" is one of them.

Software that includes a non commercial clause doesn't get built upon much and so clauses like that don't get much traction.

Just to explain it: It's the "NC" (noncommercial) part. From the OSI:

The license shall not restrict any party from selling (...) the software

And the FSF:

A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution.

The definition of open source / free software is quite short and succinct, as can be seen by the Free Software Defintion (aka "Four Freedoms") ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition ), the Debian Free Software Guidelines ( http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines ) and Open Source Definition ( http://www.opensource.org/osd.html ).

The absolute deal breaker with CC-NC-SA that would stop it dead from being "open source" is the "NC" or "non-commercial" clause.

For someone just playing around, this isn't too much of a problem. But when you start building & distributing it, you start to run into headaches. e.g. If you were to improve this lots and make it way better, and put it on your website, would you be allowed to have Google Ads on your webpage? Is that a commercial use of this? You can never sell a computer fully loaded with linux and this game, cause that's a commercial use, etc.

Imagine

Thankfully OSI was unable to get a trademark on "open source" so people are at liberty to use the term as they please. I accept the OP's use of the term. You might reject it but please say why you don't think it should be considered to be open source.

I've been playing Super Mario World for 15 years and I died a couple of times in the first level. I think running and jumping does not "feel right" as in SMW.

I've just tried to compare the controls and they seems to behave exactly the same, so I don't know what it is — probably it's because I play this kind of game better with a controller.

I thought you were able to control Mario more while he was in the air than you seem to be able to in this rendition.

Indeed you are right, in the original Mario you can change direction while jumping, in this version you can't.

No, it's not just that. I've played the NES and SNES versions of Mario on an emulator. The controls on Mari0 do feel rather clunky in comparsion. I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is though.

yup control's are one of the most important aspects in a platformer of this type. Look at a game like super meat boy, which imo has control's even better then the mario games(which is saying quite a bit.) They spent A LOT of time just experimenting and fine tuning because they completely make or break the game. Anyone that played super meat boy knows exactly what i'm talking about the, the game would just be too frustrating if the control's wheren't so tight.

As an aside i think a good setup for this type of game would be using an xbox360/ps3 controller, the directional pad to control mario, shoulder button L1 to jump and L2 to run/shoot fireballs, the right analog stick to control the portal gun and shoulder buttons R1/R2 to shoot the portal gun

I second that. Loved the concept, but the portal gun in the game is very inconvenient.

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