[HN Gopher] I open-sourced Even the Ocean
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I open-sourced Even the Ocean
Author : generichuman
Score : 69 points
Date : 2023-09-23 18:34 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (melodicambient.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (melodicambient.substack.com)
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'm curious as to whether the creator here is purposefully being
| disingenous, or simply deeply misunderstands what "open source"
| means?
| Tao3300 wrote:
| The intention and explanation is all right there in TFA.
| otachack wrote:
| Seeing as the license is derived from VVVVV's I was interested in
| comparing comments so far to a similar one there:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22011655
|
| I very much enjoy Melos and Marina's games. "Anodyne 2" is a must
| play to anyone who loved the Zelda series as it's a mishmash of
| 3D N64 gameplay with over the head 2D dungeoning. It has such
| uniqueness and strangeness that I still remember it years later.
|
| "Even the Ocean" was also memorable to me. It is not the
| masterpiece A2 was IMO but the issues held weight. And having an
| unconventional protagonist in terms of body type, ethnicity, and
| sexual orientation was so novel at the time to me.
|
| Thanks for opening the source code! I know HN members will be
| super critical as to "Oh this isn't Open Source" but you have the
| licenses available for review and that's where it really matters.
| The fact that the code is out there for review is a huge step and
| I hope more devs do it as it's a form of historical preservation
| in my eyes.
| Pannoniae wrote:
| >"I know HN members will be super critical as to "Oh this isn't
| Open Source" but you have the licenses available for review and
| that's where it really matters. The fact that the code is out
| there for review is a huge step and I hope more devs do it as
| it's a form of historical preservation in my eyes."
|
| Exactly, and every time something like this happens, the
| inevitable "this is not really open" comes up, often in a quite
| hostile way. That's an absolutely destructive approach (because
| if it was fully open source, and some large studio just stole
| the game and re-released it, the same crowd would say they knew
| the consequences of open sourcing)
|
| The "open code but not under an OSI licence" approach is I
| think the most beneficial for everyone (if we are talking about
| commercial software): users can inspect their copies,
| developers can learn from it and modify it, and the developers
| can live safely knowing that no one will steal their work or
| threaten to fork it.
| kiba wrote:
| Nobody is demanding that you should open source it. Just
| don't call it open source if you are not going to make it
| open source.
| Pannoniae wrote:
| Well the source is open for everyone to see..... it's just
| not capital Open Source as defined by the OSI. My personal
| opinion is that OSI shouldn't have a faux-trademark over
| that word, and people should be able to use that expression
| freely even if it doesn't conform to that definition, if
| the code is available.
| kiba wrote:
| My personal opinion is that by misusing the term open
| source, you're causing confusion. Open source is the term
| that I understood to be OSI definition since childhood.
|
| It would be like someone changing the term 'anime' to
| also include western cartoons. There would be no shortage
| of confusion. It doesn't matter how the Japanese use the
| term anime. For western audience, it has a different
| connotation.
| Pannoniae wrote:
| Language is not prescriptive but descriptive. No one can
| say (except for trademarks) that X is the only correct
| usage of a word and it shall remain that way for a
| millenia. Words regularly modify, change or adapt
| meanings - with your example, it's not unconceivable that
| 20 years later, anime would be used in the west as well
| to describe all sorts of cartoons due to japanese
| cultural influence.
|
| As Alice in Wonderland says: "When I use a word,' Humpty
| Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just
| what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
|
| 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make
| words mean so many different things.'
|
| 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be
| master -- that's all."
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Is there a problem with the term "source-available"?
| reedciccio wrote:
| That will lead to even more confusion in the minds of the
| hundreds of policy makers and courts worldwide, who
| already have plenty of opportunities to be confused.
| More: https://blog.opensource.org/court-affirms-its-
| false-advertis... Use other terms, there are plenty of
| other options
| Pannoniae wrote:
| I agree with what you say, but the blog post you linked
| is _hugely_ misleading. (remember, it 's the OSI blog, of
| course they are going to twist it for their goals) The
| court did not affirm that "calling your non-OSI-approved
| licence open source is false advertising".
|
| As in the judgement: "It is undisputed that Defendants
| made the statements at issue to convince customers to
| adopt ONgDB over Neo4j EE. Because Defendants
| misrepresented ONgDB as a free version of Neo4j EE
| licensed under the APGL, there is no doubt that this
| price differential (free versus paid) was likely to
| influence customers purchasing decisions. See Hinojos v.
| Kohl's Corp., 718 F.3d 1098, 1106-1107 (9th Cir. 2013),
| as amended on denial of reh'g and reh'g en banc (July 8,
| 2013) (recognizing under the UCL that price is material
| to purchasing decisions). Thus, the Court finds that
| Defendants' statements suggesting that customers could
| obtain a "free and open source drop in replacement" for
| Neo4j EE were material."
|
| What the court _did_ affirm is that the upstream licence
| was a modified AGPL with additional restrictions. The
| defendant has stripped those restrictions (claiming the
| AGPL "you may remove" clause allowed them to) and
| distributed the product as "free and open source". This
| was false advertising as they were not capable of
| stripping the Commons Clause and the copyright
| identification.
|
| Notably, this does not mean that it's false advertising
| to claim your software is "open source" when it is not
| OSI-approved, it means that if you offer a modified
| version of a piece of software, you can't advertise it as
| "free and open source" when the forked version is still
| bound by the Commons Clause prohibiting selling it in any
| way.
| seanclayton wrote:
| It's certainly better than "you can't look at the source code."
|
| I encourage the developer to not call it open source and use
| other terms such as "source available" or say the the source is
| public, etc. Open Source is an ecosystem that this project
| admits it does not support (meaning, open source projects is
| not what this aims to be "compatible" with) or is a part of.
| When projects misuse the term "open source," it can dilute the
| meaning and value of the open source model and ecosystem,
| making it harder for users and developers to understand and
| trust open source initiatives.
| seanclayton wrote:
| From the repo's License [0]:
|
| > This is NOT an Open Source license
|
| I think it's fair to say this is not an open source project, but
| instead has the source available for viewing and restricts who
| can compile and distribute it or not.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/analgesicproductions/Even-The-Ocean-
| Open-...
| zem wrote:
| honestly, i wish the spirit behind that license were easier to
| formalise and publish - it roughly says "look, this is a game i
| made and am selling, and i don't want people taking this repo
| and just cloning the game for free. but we are a community of
| people making games, and i would love to provide the code and
| other assets as building blocks that will let other people make
| their own games more easily."
| [deleted]
| weaksauce wrote:
| > and i don't want people taking this repo and just cloning
| the game for free.
|
| they don't mind that actually... they just want you to not
| sell it or anything too close to the original game. if you
| want to figure out how to compile it and play it they are
| fine with it. it seems to be the don't screw me over license.
| zem wrote:
| right, i should have made that distinction!
| warkdarrior wrote:
| So... not open source, but pretending to be.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| They didn't say "Open Source", they said "open-source".
| amelius wrote:
| Open source, in the literal sense of the word.
| seanclayton wrote:
| I honestly believe AGPLv3 for the software and CC BY-SA 4.0
| for the non-software assets would absolutely be everything
| one would need for this project. Is there an example of a
| commercial AGPLv3 (or even any other copyleft license) game
| being cloned and sold without modification? I feel like this
| extra effort towards restrictions is rather unnecessary and
| putting the cart before the horse.
| zem wrote:
| AGPL3 doesn't cut it if you want to allow "take literally
| every piece of this code and remix it into your own
| possibly closed-source game, just don't try to appropriate
| _my_ game ". it's sad that such a common-sense intent is so
| hard to work into a legally sound license.
| gaganyaan wrote:
| Isn't that covered by trademark? Or what do you mean by
| appropriate?
| zem wrote:
| they spell it out in the license - don't essentially
| republish "even the ocean" with a few tweaks and the
| serial numbers filed off. use their code (and maybe even
| assets? that wasn't entirely clear) for your own work,
| not their game-as-a-whole.
| weaksauce wrote:
| the source is open and fairly unrestricted. the assets and game
| itself are not though.
|
| > Non-legal summary of license: Anyone can use or compile the
| code EVEN WITHOUT OWNING THE GAME. The code is open to
| everyone. If you're doing noncommercial or commercial things
| with a low budget ( < $50k/year), you can do anything, so long
| as you credit us. Don't sell anything unaltered (don't sell our
| sprites or music unaltered, or compile and try to sell the game
| unaltered.)
| [deleted]
| facorreia wrote:
| Indeed, the title needs to be edited. It clearly states:
|
| > This is NOT an Open Source license
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I think the biggest culture shock to me that occurred while
| getting into game development for the first time was seeing how
| vastly opposite the embrace of open source is versus the web
| world. I mean I get it, games are often based on some "secret
| sauce" that developers don't want to give up or something, or
| maybe it's the licensing deals from publishers that cause this.
| But up until the ubiquity of Unreal/Unity in the last few years,
| game dev has been an almost strictly closed source affair it
| seemed. Every single third party tool or library seems to have
| some kind of licensing fee involved.
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(page generated 2023-09-23 23:01 UTC)