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The developers of Game Dev Tycoon have finally detailed the actual reason on why the Linux version isn't yet on Steam and isn't as up to date as the Windows and Mac versions.
You may remember we spoke to them about why Linux has fallen behind and they couldn't actually tell us why, now we know then!
The basics of it are that they use glibc that is under the Lesser General Public License (L-GPL) that can be used in commercial applications, but they didn't note that down anywhere and didn't include the license file along with it. It seems like an easy mistake as they say they use the node-webkit package which itself uses glibc on Linux, but the node-webkit package apparently doesn't note down it uses it (so it's not directly their fault they claim).
Sad when things like this happen it's not just the developer suffers, but so do we. Thankfully it seems like it can be easily resolved with their blog post by noting it's used on their website and including the license with the games files.
Although their blog post says they will offer the license on their credits page, if you read the credits page the license text states it should be included with the software, I hope they don't miss that out and have problems again so I have made sure to point this out to them.
I hope the FSF re-instates their rights to use it soon so we can get an updated version and have it on Steam.
Trailer
I will most likely pick myself up a copy once this is all resolved as I love this type of sim game.
How do you feel about this folks? Could things like this catch out more developers? Is there something we can do to help them?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
You may remember we spoke to them about why Linux has fallen behind and they couldn't actually tell us why, now we know then!
The basics of it are that they use glibc that is under the Lesser General Public License (L-GPL) that can be used in commercial applications, but they didn't note that down anywhere and didn't include the license file along with it. It seems like an easy mistake as they say they use the node-webkit package which itself uses glibc on Linux, but the node-webkit package apparently doesn't note down it uses it (so it's not directly their fault they claim).
Sad when things like this happen it's not just the developer suffers, but so do we. Thankfully it seems like it can be easily resolved with their blog post by noting it's used on their website and including the license with the games files.
Although their blog post says they will offer the license on their credits page, if you read the credits page the license text states it should be included with the software, I hope they don't miss that out and have problems again so I have made sure to point this out to them.
I hope the FSF re-instates their rights to use it soon so we can get an updated version and have it on Steam.
Trailer
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I will most likely pick myself up a copy once this is all resolved as I love this type of sim game.
How do you feel about this folks? Could things like this catch out more developers? Is there something we can do to help them?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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It is the price for doing things in a professional manner. While trying to be supportive to developers is often the right thing to do, they are trying to make money off a game title, and if they are hoping to seek financial gain from a free software project they have to do things properly otherwise they are abusing other people's work for their own gain. So I really do not see why I should be terribly sympathetic in this case. It is a not a huge faux pas on their part, and I am not angry at them for their mistake, but I am not terribly sympathetic to them simply because they were affected by their error.
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I don't get it. So they violated the license by not including the license text. FSF cannot revoke or reinstate the LGPL. You either comply or you cannot use the software. Simple as that. Unless Steam somehow prevents you from including a license file/text in you product, I really cannot see the point here.
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commodore256 Sep 7, 2013
You can still sell closes source software without paying FSF and comply with the license of of the (L)GPL.
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Well, not like the FSF is known for being particularly rational or non-douchy when it comes to these things. Those people would much rather just see all "non-free" software dead and gone.
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Am I just getting paranoid or have they completely removed all mention of the linux version from the front page of their website?
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Well, not like the FSF is known for being particularly rational or non-douchy when it comes to these things. Those people would much rather just see all "non-free" software dead and gone.
How is the FSF defending the rights of those who use their license make them acting like a douche? The Game Dev Tycoon developers made a mistake and violated the license; actions have consequences.
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I sure hope it is resolved, and hope it doesn't happen to any other dev.
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I disagree. The license violation was so minimal it's unreal. The GOL article actually makes the facts less clear, which you can see for yourself at this post on the game's forum by our very own Liam Dawe.Well, not like the FSF is known for being particularly rational or non-douchy when it comes to these things. Those people would much rather just see all "non-free" software dead and gone.
How is the FSF defending the rights of those who use their license make them acting like a douche? The Game Dev Tycoon developers made a mistake and violated the license; actions have consequences.
They left a mention. All they did was just not include the license! Absolutely ridiculous. Personally I disagree with the FSF and while I prefer open source software in most cases, I believe it can and should coexist with proprietary software. I didn't realise that the fact the entire codebase is copyrighted to the FSF could have such an impact.
I'm surprised in general to have seen the FSF getting its panties in a bunch over this when I've seen much more serious breaches of this type from proprietary and open source software alike.
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I'm surprised in general to have seen the FSF getting its panties in a bunch over this when I've seen much more serious breaches of this type from proprietary and open source software alike.
Yes, but because it was an FSF project they were actually able to become aware of it. Most breaches happen because they go unreported.
And ideology has nothing to do with this case, it is purely a legal matter.
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How does my article make the facts less clear, I very clearly laid out exactly what happened. Also my post on their forum to them was to point out a flaw in what they said they will do to clear it up (when the license text states it should be with the software, they should do that not tell people to go to the credits page).I disagree. The license violation was so minimal it's unreal. The GOL article actually makes the facts less clear, which you can see for yourself at this post on the game's forum by our very own Liam Dawe.Well, not like the FSF is known for being particularly rational or non-douchy when it comes to these things. Those people would much rather just see all "non-free" software dead and gone.
How is the FSF defending the rights of those who use their license make them acting like a douche? The Game Dev Tycoon developers made a mistake and violated the license; actions have consequences.
Yo quote myself:
The basics of it are that they use glibc that is under the Lesser General Public License (L-GPL) that can be used in commercial applications, but they didn't note that down anywhere and didn't include the license file along with it. It seems like an easy mistake as they say they use the node-webkit package which itself uses glibc on Linux, but the node-webkit package apparently doesn't note down it uses it (so it's not directly their fault they claim).That is exactly what happened.
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Well, not like the FSF is known for being particularly rational or non-douchy when it comes to these things. Those people would much rather just see all "non-free" software dead and gone.Yeah... they are excessive dogmatic, unflexible and non-pragmatic. Recently they revoked the possiblity that two GPL licensed CAD programs can use a GPL software libary. Both projects are in trouble now... FSF don't care.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI4Mjc
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/libredwg-drama-the-end-or-the-new-beginning
(Underlying reason was that the FSF made the GPL3 knowingly incompatible to the GPL2 in 2007, which was potentially a community splitting move.)
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"UPDATE: The FSF has reinstated our rights to use glibc."
I hope that the Linux version will come soon.
I hope that the Linux version will come soon.
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Well, not like the FSF is known for being particularly rational or non-douchy when it comes to these things. Those people would much rather just see all "non-free" software dead and gone.
How is the FSF defending the rights of those who use their license make them acting like a douche? The Game Dev Tycoon developers made a mistake and violated the license; actions have consequences.
They're keeping to the letter of their law, and that's perfectly okay, of course. I have no issue with that, it's more how they handled it. The FSF has no right to "revoke" or "reinstante" anything, and long as the devs here (or the project they used that was actually at fault) comply with the terms of the LGPL dealing at all with the FSF cronies shouldn't be necessary.
However, we both know that the FSF hates so-called "non-free" software in any form and actively campaigns to kill it off, and they always take the heavy-handed douchy approach when it comes right down to it. Remember the iOS port of VLC and what an unneccesary stink they raised about it?
So I would disagree, based on how this got handled, it's not just a legal thing, this is an old bureaucracy with a black and white political bug up it's ass.
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Of course the FSF campaigns in favor of free software. That is not the point of this; they restored their license after the developers made it fit the legal terms, despite the fact that it is being used for a proprietary game. Despite the fact that they do "hate" proprietary software, they willingly work with proprietary developers as long as they fit their licensing terms. And yes, the FSF has the full right to revoke their license when people who use it break the license terms. In fact, they are obligated to, because if they don't followup on even the smallest infractions the license becomes useless, because without enforcement the law becomes useless.
As someone who has released free software applications, I am glad that the license I use does get enforced when violations are shown. You say they are not being pragmatic, but if they do not follow up on these problems they are being impractical, and hurt the license and damage everyone who tries to use it for legal purposes. And from what I see here, it seems the people complaining seem to have a "black and white political bug" up their own asses, simply because they disagree with the advocacy part of the organization. That is not the problem here. This is a legal matter.
As someone who has released free software applications, I am glad that the license I use does get enforced when violations are shown. You say they are not being pragmatic, but if they do not follow up on these problems they are being impractical, and hurt the license and damage everyone who tries to use it for legal purposes. And from what I see here, it seems the people complaining seem to have a "black and white political bug" up their own asses, simply because they disagree with the advocacy part of the organization. That is not the problem here. This is a legal matter.
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They made it knowingly incompatible because they considered some incompatible changes important. GPLv2 is typically GPLv2+ so these devs who have a GPLv2-only library have made the effort to remove that way out of this situation.Well, not like the FSF is known for being particularly rational or non-douchy when it comes to these things. Those people would much rather just see all "non-free" software dead and gone.Yeah... they are excessive dogmatic, unflexible and non-pragmatic. Recently they revoked the possiblity that two GPL licensed CAD programs can use a GPL software libary. Both projects are in trouble now... FSF don't care.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI4Mjc
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/libredwg-drama-the-end-or-the-new-beginning
(Underlying reason was that the FSF made the GPL3 knowingly incompatible to the GPL2 in 2007, which was potentially a community splitting move.)
Also sounds a overly dramatic to say "both projects are in trouble" over not being able to use a library for supporting a file format...
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Also sounds a overly dramatic to say "both projects are in trouble" over not being able to use a library for supporting a file format...
It is not just some file format, it is THE CAD format.... also, it is surreal that a copyleft license which should encourage the sharing of code and should keep it available...prevents sharing between to valid licensed projects. And it is also surreal that the FSF refused to re-license the lib to gplv2 as all other possiblities seems impossible.
PS: the most prominent & important GPLv2 ONLY project is the kernel. Can't exchange code with no GPLv3 project. surreal.
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I pretty much completely agree with Hamish about this issue with this game and library.
I just wanted to clarify, in case someone doesn't realize it, that the FSF or (or whoever else licenses their code under the LGPL) does have the right to revoke for non-compliance (and only for non-compliance) the license from a particular person or legal entity. Once the license has been revoked, they are under no legal obligation to reinstate it under any circumstances (even if the person or entity comes back into compliance). However, they always do reinstate it after requiring only the effort to come back into compliance, regardless of whether the company involved sells proprietary software or not.
I just wanted to clarify, in case someone doesn't realize it, that the FSF or (or whoever else licenses their code under the LGPL) does have the right to revoke for non-compliance (and only for non-compliance) the license from a particular person or legal entity. Once the license has been revoked, they are under no legal obligation to reinstate it under any circumstances (even if the person or entity comes back into compliance). However, they always do reinstate it after requiring only the effort to come back into compliance, regardless of whether the company involved sells proprietary software or not.
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I have absolutely no sympathy for the game developers. The FSF is protecting their property. They allow the use of their products and the payment is to follow the licensing terms. If you don't want to follow the terms, don't use the product.... it is as simple as that. I'm sure the game developers would be the first to sue if someone stole their code and packaged it into another product.
Many people volunteer and contribute to the open source community. They work long hours to create code and allow others to use it under the GPL. I'm one of them. My payment is that I require anyone who wants to use my code to follow the terms of the GPL. If you don't like the GPL, don't use my code. The whole idea is sharing. The problem is there are a bunch of greedy people who just want to steal and make $$$ off of other peoples work.
It's not hard to understand people.
Many people volunteer and contribute to the open source community. They work long hours to create code and allow others to use it under the GPL. I'm one of them. My payment is that I require anyone who wants to use my code to follow the terms of the GPL. If you don't like the GPL, don't use my code. The whole idea is sharing. The problem is there are a bunch of greedy people who just want to steal and make $$$ off of other peoples work.
It's not hard to understand people.
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The FSF is wrong.
note-webkit is merely using glibc as a dynamic linked library, therefore no license it required.
Greenheart Games is and never was violating the LGPL license, nor is their work covered by the LGPL of glibc.
note-webkit is merely using glibc as a dynamic linked library, therefore no license it required.
Greenheart Games is and never was violating the LGPL license, nor is their work covered by the LGPL of glibc.
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This is absolutely absurd. Virtually every program links against the C standard library, and on Linux, that means glibc. A lot of them probably even rely on glibc specific features not found in other libc implementations (unknowingly or otherwise). Yet, I don't see every piece of software on my Linux distribution acknowledging that they use glibc and shipping a copy of the LGPL with it. It's a standard system library.
I suppose their usage of glibc must have differed in some way from most programs, but I'm not clear on how.
If this was an issue of GPL compliance - a proprietary program incorporating GPL software and refusing to obey the derivative works clause - then I would absolutely be in favor of the FSF's actions. But we're talking about the LGPL here. The whole point of the LGPL is to make the project itself always remain Free Software while allowing it to be used as widely as possible.
We must be missing some information here.
I suppose their usage of glibc must have differed in some way from most programs, but I'm not clear on how.
If this was an issue of GPL compliance - a proprietary program incorporating GPL software and refusing to obey the derivative works clause - then I would absolutely be in favor of the FSF's actions. But we're talking about the LGPL here. The whole point of the LGPL is to make the project itself always remain Free Software while allowing it to be used as widely as possible.
We must be missing some information here.
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