Hacker News Reader

Comment by wilg | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

If this removes people’s access to products (software licenses count as products here) someone payed fir once. Then you should only be allowed to do that if you enable people to continue using the product.

Releasing the server code should be a requirement. Software updates shouldn’t be required. Unless the product has a moment where it will stop functioning on the hardware it was build for built in (such as an expiring certificate).

> I think you should be allowed to stop supporting software or shut down your servers.

That has nothing to do with Stop Killing Games.

At least the servers bit seems very related no? I’d love to know more though.

The movement explicitly DOESNT want to force companies to keep their servers running. It is singularily concerned with keeping games playable in some form after shutdown. Be it via patching out the requirement on a server, providing a way to host it yourself or any other option, really.

You should not be able to shut down the ability to play a game if it cost money to buy.

You should at least have to refund customers when you take away the ability to use a product they purchased.

This is fair for some reasonable time window after purchase. But I think it's okay for things to have a lifespan even if they cost money.

As long as the life span is clearly spelled out when you purchase, so you know that you are actually buying a 10 year subscription, and not a game.

This would be a much preferable law to the one actually proposed.

No. It's not a physical good that is subject to wear and tear. There is no excuse for a single player game to have a lifespan because it has some pointless online verification component.

I think it should be legal to sell something with a pointless online verification component.

Yes you should!

Give me one good reason why.

Because I think it's good for software developers and consumers for people to have the flexibility to sell something that depends on online services which may become unavailable at some point in the future. This is more valuable than requiring indefinite support, public pluggable backends, or required open sourcing or backend redistribution, which imposes onerous technical or business limitations for an extremely minor consumer benefit all things considered.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com