Hacker News Reader

MeVfmon The Sports Bubble Is About to Pop

ESPN is a big company.

MeVfmon Ask HN: Should I open-source my code?

> releasing work under the BSD, Apache or a copyleft license that you created on your free time is like playing charity for large corporations.

I agree with you, but "copyleft" is the concept that keeps software from becoming proprietary. Apache-style licenses are permissive, GPL-style licenses are copyleft.

MeVfmon Starbucks to Revise Policies to End Irregular Schedules for Its 130,000 Baristas

> Companies are not inherently evil

You're right, companies are inherently amoral. If their pursuit of profit happens to be moral, all the better, but don't expect them to rescind immoral policies if it means it'll hurt profit and nobody with any power is around to put on pressure to make them stop.

When they do awful things, those poor persecuted businessmen can always count on apologists like you to come to their defence though.

MeVfmon Open Source Game Clones

I know the Debian project only officially supports art assets that are in the public domain or licensed under a Creative Commons style license, but I can't imagine they actually consider these things software. Can you show me where they call these things software? Because if that's true, I find that use of terminology to be quite ridiculous.

Stallman thinks all users should be able to share and remix artwork freely, btw.

MeVfmon Open Source Game Clones

> It's not truly open source because it requires the original files,

Art assets are not software, if that's what you're talking about. Character design, dialogue, plotlines, etc. will remain under copyright even if you do go in and replace every image and sound with freely licensed art.

MeVfmon Open Source Game Clones

That doesn't really make a difference though, does it? The community has shown at every opportunity that it loves being able to hack with game software. A small group of volunteers has even completely rebuilt Morrowind from SCRATCH! Even if the original code sucks, I think people would love to be able to hack it, port it, and play with it. This sort of activity can only lead to increased sales for original publisher, who otherwise would never get anything after their game falls into obscurity.

MeVfmon Open Source Game Clones

I understand why publishers don't freely license their game engines (e.g., under the GPL): if users and the gaming community had the ability to modify the games they purchased and create their own content, companies wouldn't be able to get away with selling horse armor DLC, releasing yearly rehashes of the same game, locking purchasers out of their own games with DRM, or sabotaging their own games ( http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6450/ubisoft-gimping-watch... ). I don't see any merit in the "stopping piracy" routine you might hear; DRM has never done anything to prevent unauthorized sharing on PC, and art assets aren't any easier or harder to share if the engines are free software. Proprietary software is purely an instrument of control by the publishers over the users in order to keep short-term profits high, even if it means mistreating the customer.

But why don't we see more companies following in id's footsteps and re-licensing old engines as free software? It keeps interest high and people coming back to purchase the art assets needed to run the games. There are several games on Steam that continue to sell well under this model (e.g., Duke Nukem 3D, Doom 3)

MeVfmon Mark Zuckerberg on a Future Where the Internet Is Available to All

But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought.

Just like how tobacco companies have never psychologically manipulated people to start smoking, right? They're just giving them what they want!

MeVfmon Ask HN: Which RSS reader do you use a year after Google Reader's death?

Liferea